“If you want to inspire confidence, give plenty of statistics,” said Lewis Carroll. “It does not matter that they should be accurate, or even intelligible, as long as there is enough of them.” Statistics can not only be used, as Carroll noted, to inspire confidence, they can be used to inspire confidence in confidence.
Consider the following statements, each consisting of two distinct, transferable clauses:
1 - (A) The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has more than 90 percent confidence that (B) carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases from human activities have been the main causes of warming in the past half century.
2 - (C) Family Research Council has more than 90 percent confidence that (D) a child will, statistically speaking, be better off if raised by a mother and a father.
3 - (E) I have more than 90 percent confidence that (B) carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases from human activities have been the main causes of warming in the past half century.
4 - (E) I have more than 90 percent confidence that (D) a child will, statistically speaking, be better off if raised by a mother and a father.
5 - (E) I have more than 90 percent confidence that (F) God exists.
Of the five statements, which is the least subjective? Answer: None, they are all equally subjective.
Our natural intuition is to disagree. After all, #1 is a matter of physical science, #2 of social science and #5 of metaphysics. They can’t all be equally subjective, can they? Also, #1-2 should be less subjective since they are institutional rather than individual beliefs.
Each of these statements, though, is derived by using a Bayesian inference. This method involves collecting evidence that is meant to be consistent or inconsistent with a given hypothesis and adjusting the degree of belief in a hypothesis accordingly.
With enough evidence, the confidence in the belief will either be very high or very low, allowing us to discriminate between conflicting hypotheses — hypotheses with a very high degree of belief should be accepted as true; those with a very low degree of belief should be rejected as false. In practice, while the general mathematical framework of Bayesian inference does hold, it necessitates the assigning of a priori probabilities to hypotheses that might be subject to arbitrary bias.
In the end, we are left with a probability distribution that is based on the confidence of the believer, whether the IPCC, FRC, or me. Whether you should agree with the “confidence” depends on the evidence that is fed into the Bayesian machine. Ideally, if you were to examine the same evidence, you would end up with the same level of confidence.
Of course this is theory, and in reality our biases often skew the result. If you are a homosexual wishing to adopt a child, you might downplay or reject the evidence that FRC used to determine (D). Similarly, an atheist would almost undoubtedly reject (F) based on a disagreement about the interpretation of the evidence I used to determine my belief. Although a heated discussion might ensue, no one is likely (I am 77.3 percent certain) to think that you are being irrational or unreasonable for holding a differing opinion about the evidence in question.
Unfortunately, the same doesn’t hold true for statements such as #1. In such cases we are expected to defer to the judgment of the “experts.” Even experts themselves are expected to kow-tow to the consensus level of confidence. The problem is further compounded for the reasons outlined by Daniel Engber in a recent article in Slate:
By tagging subjective judgments with percent values, the climatologists erode the long-standing distinction between chance [statistical frequency] and raison de croire [subjective judgment]. As we read the [IPCC] report, we're likely to assume that a number represents a degree of statistical certainty, rather than an expert's confidence in his or her opinion. We're misled by our traditional understanding of percentages and their scientific meaning.
I’ll admit that the experts’ confidence that global warming is caused by humans raises my own level of confidence that humans are to blame. Not being able to weigh the evidence myself, I will defer (to some degree) to their judgment. Still, I find the use of the 90 percent figure a bit misleading. As Egnber says, “However valid its conclusions, the report toys with our intuitions about science—that a number is more precise than a word, that a statistic is more accurate than a belief.”
There is a long-established and, it seems to me, perfectly legitimate use of fractions, decimals, percentages and the like to measure one's confidence in the probability that a thing will occur. Surely we would scoff if the scientists had said, for instance, not 90% but, say, 91.299%. That would be nonsensical. But a nice round figure like 90%? I don't see why that can't be a good measure of confidence. It seems to me entirely like "A 90% chance of rain" - a perfectly sensical and perfectly useful kind of proposition. Neither 90s toy with our intuitions about science in the way that 91.299 does.
Actually, I'm pretty sure that in the IPCC report, and perhaps even in the FRC's report, the 90% confidence is a statistical measure (relating to confidence intervals), and thus has nothing to do with Bayesian inference. It's instead a pretty straightforward deduction from the known properties of distributions.
You used Wikipedia? For shame. :)
I am 99.99% sure that if your administration or organization is aligned with or takes money from big oil interests, you will seek to supress any information about a connection between the use of fossil fuels and climate change.
Franklin It seems to me entirely like "A 90% chance of rain" - a perfectly sensical and perfectly useful kind of proposition. Neither 90s toy with our intuitions about science in the way that 91.299 does.
I think that what messes with our intuition, in this instance, is that when it comes to matters of science we are more used to seeing frequentist rather than Bayesian methods used.
Chris Actually, I'm pretty sure that in the IPCC report…has nothing to do with Bayesian inference.
I’m not clever enough to have thought up the connection myself. I’m basing in on the IPCC’s Recommendations to Lead Authors For More Consistent Assessment and Reporting.
Colin You used Wikipedia? For shame. :)
I have 90% confidence that Wikipedia is a reliable source. ; )
If you think that there's still a "controversy" surrounding the matter of global warming and climate change, that "the jury is still out," that "many scientists disagree," and that there's a possibility that everybody's wrong and just making it all up, then congratulations!
You're a wingnut.
Hey Raven, I was watching the Fox News the other day and they were pretty sure (maybe even 92% sure) that there was nothing to this whole Global Warming thing. Are you suggesting they are not fair and balanced? I was confused-on all the other networks, they seem to think there is something to it. That must be the liberal media bias, Right?
I'm very proud of you, Joe. It looks like you're taking a step in the right direction. I wondered how you would react to the latest report. Even Bush is now claiming that he thought humans were causing global warming all along. As long as he accepts it now, fine. Now if you could just get people like Senator Inhofe on board.
I'm not a statistican but I have tutored statistics for several years so I at least have a good feel for the intro stuff.
90% confidence or terms like that generally mean something along these lines:
You have a population and you want to know something about the entire population...such as its average. You don't have the time, money etc. to survey the entire population so you draw a random sample. The confidence interval tells you that there is an X% chance your sample's statistic is within the the true population statistic.
From what I imagine the scientists are doing many of their conclusions are rigerous in this manner. For example, if you are looking at the average sea temperature then yes you will be looking at samples of the sea's temperature taken over so many years and there's an X% chance that those samples represent the true average temp of the entire sea. I would imagine that many of those statements are 90% or much better.
Other conclusions are probably being stated along the 'subjective' analysis that Joe is talking/complaining about. However subjective here does not mean anything goes. We are indeed dealing with expert opinion and while expert opinion may be expressed over a range with a deviation it's clear that it is falling on the side of global warming being real, being caused by humans and being potentially very bad. It also seems pretty clear that the standard deviation of that 'average opinion' has tightened quite a bit.
It's not quite as tight as, say, the expert opinion that HIV causes AIDS (there are still a handful of 'experts' who dispute that) but it seems pretty tight to me. At this point the line about 'not every expert agrees' is getting rather tired and worn. If this was the standard anywhere else life would grind to a fast halt. If every expert was required to agree, the FDA would never approve any new drugs and the existing ones would have to be yanked from the market. No car, plane or train would ever be deemed safe enough to be produced. No criminal could ever be convicted.
Those who argue still along the lines of expert opinion being subjective or there being disagreement among experts need to explain to us what standard they feel should be applied to expert opinion and show us that they would have us consistently use that standard.
So this is what it feels like to live in an age of hysteria! No one has explained why global warming is a bad thing, or why Mars is experiencing global warming to a degree that liquid water is running on the surface again.
No one has explained why global warming is a bad thing...
Yes, many people have explained why global warming is a very bad thing. Perhaps they haven't come to your door and given you a personal PowerPoint-illustrated lecture about it, but rest assured, the effects we are due to experience in the next decade are severe. Those in the following decade will be worse, and the problems really begin to accelerate from there.
One eloquent spokesman on this subject is Jim Hansen, Director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies and Adjunct Professor of Earth and Environmental Sciences at Columbia University's Earth Institute. He explains some of the negative effects of global warming in an article published in the New York Review of Books, and titled: The Threat to the Planet. You can read it online here:
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/19131
One of the key ideas you might take away from this article is the problem of species migration and extinction, and that we are observing this happening now. Not in the distant, hazy future, but now.
No one has explained why global warming is a bad thing? What you mean on this list because if you think no one has articulated why global warming would probably be bad for us then you just aren't paying attention to the issue. Also I haven't read anything about Mars experiencing global warming. I've heard that there might be some liquid water that runs on Mar's surface but I didn't hear that described as something new....just something that happens on such a small scale that we haven't been able to see it until we got probes there on a regular basis.
Joe:
I don't really have much to say about this, except that you really know how to get the moonbats stirred up. This is their religion: the League of Condescending Scientists said it, they believe it, and that's that.
Raven and Boonton,
This is what is so maddening. I know the science and have seen the studies. However no one has ever explained why the current temperatures on earth are the "right" temperatures. How many millions of species went extinct due to the ice ages? In addition to the polar ice caps on Mars melting due to increased solar activity, there is a second red spot forming on Jupiter which is beleived to be a result of more energy in Jupiter's atmosphere due to increased solar activity.
You guys' only response is to sputter "How dare you question the consensus!" No one discounts that the planet is warming over the short term. Why is there a problem with debating its cause and long term effects? It's ironic that when it comes to matters of faith you have no shortage of questions and skepticism, but in his matter the very thought of scrutinizing the predictions about global warming are anathema to you.
The real issue with so many true believers in global warming is a simple hatred of humanity.
The real problem with the 90% number that the IPCC uses is that it really doesn't give us enough information to formulate a course of action. Let's accept for the moment that the IPCC is correct and the main cause of warming is human activity. What activities contribute the most? Respiration is a human activity that generates green house gases; what percentage of the warming is caused by that? What does "the main cause" mean? Does it mean that human activities are responsible for 20%? 30%? 40%? What's their level of confidence of the consequences? What's the most plausible, as opposed to worst case, scenario? The real problem with the whole climate change debate is that the people driving the discussion are scientists and politicians, when the people that need to be driving the debate are engineers (yeah, I know, I'm a little biased). Scientists and politicians are not going to be the ones that eventually solve the problems caused by any global warming, engineers are. Engineers are going to look at the costs and benefits (yes, there will be benefits) of global warming. It may turn out that the benefits of allowing global warming outweigh the costs enough that it makes more sense to mitigate the problems by methods other than reducing energy use. It may not, but we won't know until we get the problem solvers involved.
"I don't really have much to say about this, except that you really know how to get the moonbats stirred up."
You are right on the money, as usual, jd. I don't know why all the lefties, godless and otherwise, are so stirred up about this issue, but I'm pretty sure it's because they hate America and want the terrorists to win.
"43.2% of statistics are made up on the spot" (Steven Wright)
Global climate change isn't bad if you work for a heating and air conditioning manufacturer like I do.
"I don't really have much to say about this, except that you really know how to get the moonbats stirred up."
Interesting comment.
What is it about the Evangelical mindset that forces the believer to deny global warming? Does the adherent look at the data and, part-way through it, sort of drift off, get sleepy, and pretend it was a dream? What is the alternative? That this is all a joke and next year everything settles "back to normal?"
I'm curious. Or is it affiliative? Maybe FOX news and Sean Hannity present a pooh-poohing of global warming and the adherent picks up the cue and thinks that loyalty demands a refutation of the theory. I suspect the latter.
JohnW:
I am 99.99% sure that if your administration or organization is aligned with or takes money from big oil interests, you will seek to supress any information about a connection between the use of fossil fuels and climate change.
I am 99.99% sure that if your administration or organization is aligned with or takes money from big environmental interests, you will seek to suppress any information about a lack of connection between climate models and climate change.
Sorry, couldn't resist :)
Joe,
So you need 100% indisputable fact to believe in global warming, yet no evidence, just good ole faith to believe in God? Am I missing something..?
I am 99.99% sure that if your administration or organization is aligned with or takes money from big oil interests, you will seek to supress any information about a connection between the use of fossil fuels and climate change.
Of course the reality is a lot more complicated. Any short-term transition from a fossil fuel based economy is going to rely heavily on nuclear power, something that is anethema to environmentalists. Solar and wind power will never be able to provide more than a small fraction of our energy needs. Hydrogen is at least several decades away from being a viable replacement for fossil fuels, if at all. The logistics and technical challenges are enormous and will not be easy or cheap to resolve, if they are in fact resolvable (I did a lot of research on the transition to the "hydrogen economy" for my Masters thesis, I am skeptical that the challenges are resolvable). Robert Zurbin has an interesting paper on the challenges (ht Instapundit) of transitioning to a hydrogen economy (http://www.thenewatlantis.com/archive/15/zubrin.htm). He argues that we should focus on an ethanol/methanol based economy. Of course this idea has its own technical challenges. For one, because of logisitics challenges, it doesn't make sense to run cars on pure alcohol, most advocate using an 85-15 blend of ethanol and gasoline, so of course you are still somewhat reliant on gasoline as a fuel. It also ignores the fact that the production of alcohol is a lot more energy intensive than the production of gasoline. Depending on who you talk to it costs either slightly less than 1 unit of energy or slightly more to get 1 unit of energy from alcohol. In other words, you need to put almost as much energy into the process as you get out of it. For gasoline, the ratio is something approaching 19 to 1; for each unit of energy you spend to process the oil, you get 19 units out. And all of this ignores the fact that gasoline is not the only product you get from the refining of oil. There is also propane, plastics, and lubricants to name just a few. It's not at all clear that even were we to stop using gasoline to power our cars, that we could significantly reduce our consumption of oil. Gasoline (among other things) are natural by-products of the refining process, and no matter how much you monkey with the process, they are going to be a significant part (50% or more) of the final products. So when we talk of weaning ourselves off of oil, we aren't just talking about gasoline, we are talking about computers, iv tubing, and heart stents.
In essence, gasoline and diesel would be waste products of the refining process. In the old days, before the advent of the internal combustion engine, oil refineries would dump gas in the nearest river, obviously we can't do that now, so how would we get rid of it.
ucfengr's faith in markets needs some evangelicalizing
Of course the reality is a lot more complicated. Any short-term transition from a fossil fuel based economy is going to rely heavily on nuclear power, something that is anethema to environmentalists...
I once had an argument with Peak Oil advocate. His poisition was that the economy could never adjust to a decline in oil supplies, mine was that market prices would signal people to alter their behavior accordingly.
For example, if someone lives 20 miles from their job and decides to move 10 miles to their job (or their job moves closer to them, whatever)...that is an automatic 50% reduction in fossil fuel use.
Reality is actually quite simple. Impose a carbon tax on fuels. You can use the revenue from the tax to build dikes around NY and other coastal cities if the worse case sceneros pan out or you can make the tax neutral by, say, abolishing all payroll and income taxes on the first $12,000 of income.
All of the above technical questions will be worked out by those who have a powerful financial incentive to get to the best answer. Personally I suspect the most bang for the buck is not going to come from ethanol cars or a billion dollar fuel cell R&D program but from someone who figures out how to combine Myspace and Ebay into a reliable network of carpooling & ridesharing. Think about it, if you keep driving your Hummer to work but give 3 other people ride that's like turning it into a Hybred that gets 4x as much miles to the gallon.
The Raven as usual resorts to dishonesty in his arguments. What is it about Evangelicals that casues them to deny global warming?
Nobody denies global warming, if you show me someone who does they are an idiot of the first order. We have the data that show global temperatures rising. There are two real issues that are debatable: whether man is the cause for this warming, and what the future climate will be. Now unless you are an anti-intellectual anti-science type, qustioning these two issues shouldn't be a problem. Unlss your worldview is so fragile that any questioning of it is intolerable.
Somehow the Left has made this into a right vs. left argument, when all of mankind shares the same planet and is effected by the climate equally. Since this is the case, do you believe that those n the right just don't care? I'll even grant that 5% of the human caused global warming skeptics are wackos who think the earth is going to destroyed by God in a few years anyway and are just waiting for the rapture. That leaves 95% of us who worry about the dire predictions of scientists regarding global warming.
I suspect that the totalitarian instincts of the left have latched onto global warming as a means to control human behavior and economic systems. The nature of hysteria is interesting to observe from an objective standpoint. Through history it has been mostly the province of the religious, but it looks the same when the victims are members of the secular left.
mine was that market prices would signal people to alter their behavior accordingly.
I really don't have any disagreement with this statement, but the problem is that very few people on the "global warming is going to end human civilization" side (a side not limited to the left) of the argument believe that we should let market forces resolve the problem. They favor massive governmemt intervention to reduce consumption of energy or develop some silver bullet, like the HFC powered vehicle.
For example, if someone lives 20 miles from their job and decides to move 10 miles to their job (or their job moves closer to them, whatever)...that is an automatic 50% reduction in fossil fuel use.
That assumes that the only place the person drives is to work. Suppose in moving 10 miles closer to work, the person moves 10 miles further away from shopping, school, etc. Then you 50% cut becomes much smaller. The person may also use the extra free time to engage in other activities which require commuting, further reducing the net reduction in fuel use or maybe even resulting in a net increase in driving.
Impose a carbon tax on fuels. You can use the revenue from the tax to build dikes around NY and other coastal cities
Maybe you are the one who needs a little evangelizing on your faith in markets. If it made market sense build dikes around the vulnerable areas, you wouldn't need to raise taxes to subsidize it.
All of the above technical questions will be worked out by those who have a powerful financial incentive to get to the best answer.
No argument here.
Personally I suspect the most bang for the buck is not going to come from ethanol cars or a billion dollar fuel cell R&D program but from someone who figures out how to combine Myspace and Ebay into a reliable network of carpooling & ridesharing.
I think the solution is going to be some Henry Ford or Thomas Edison-type tinkering in their basement and coming up with a high-capacity battery capable of near instantaneous recharge or the like. I think trying to rely on carpooling to reduce energy use is a non-starter; people like the independence of having their own vehicle and are willing to pay a lot for the luxury. I don't remember a surge in car pooling when gas prices topped $3.50/gallon.
Carpooling is often advocated by people who only wish for the rest of the fools to carpool freeing up raodspace for them to drive by themselves. We're Americans, we don't do carpooling!
I really don't have any disagreement with this statement, but the problem is that very few people on the "global warming is going to end human civilization" side (a side not limited to the left) of the argument believe that we should let market forces resolve the problem. They favor massive governmemt intervention to reduce consumption of energy or develop some silver bullet, like the HFC powered vehicle.
Sounds like you're talking about George Bush here. Have the government mandate ethanol. Throw a bunch of tax credits at favored technologies (wind solar) or those that are big political donars (coal liquidification). Even you get into the mix trying to guess which technologies will work and how expensive they will be.
The tax is the simpliest and most efficient way to do it AND I suspect you won't get many on the 'extreme environmentalist' side opposing it. The opposition will most likely come from moderates or even conservatives who seem to think we need to toss more subidies at corn farmers!
That assumes that the only place the person drives is to work. Suppose in moving 10 miles closer to work, the person moves 10 miles further away from shopping, school, etc. Then you 50% cut becomes much smaller. The person may also use the extra free time to engage in other activities which require commuting, further reducing the net reduction in fuel use or maybe even resulting in a net increase in driving.
True but it does illustrate why this is not something you can approach from a top down strategy. 'On the ground' you make dozens of minute decisions that impact your consumption. If you were motivated by price you would concentrate on finding ways to reduce your gas consumption and you would. I don't doubt that there are numerous little trips you could combine, delay, alter or whatnot to save gas. Let's not even forget that reducing CO2 also means choices in heating, cooling, and powering your home as well as in choosing which manufactured goods you purchase. Prices are wonderful signals that let you make thousands of choices to optimize without even realizing it. These choices can never be mapped out or planned from the top down...say by a government or pundit who declares the answer is nuclear combined with ethanol!
Maybe you are the one who needs a little evangelizing on your faith in markets. If it made market sense build dikes around the vulnerable areas, you wouldn't need to raise taxes to subsidize it.
Err ok you got me there. I'm not a fundamentalist. I wouldn't object to a bit of planning such as mileage standards and other tools. No doubt there's probably a case to be made that if global warming does unleash chaos the primary victims are probably entitled to some type of compensation. I think the market is a good model the same way for an engineer or architectet Ecludian geometry is very useful. In real life we know 'triangles', 'circles' and such don't really exist as they are described in the idealized form of the geometry textbook but the textbook is more useful than not. The pure free market model is more useful than not but I can't pretend I live in an idealized world when I don't.
I think the solution is going to be some Henry Ford or Thomas Edison-type tinkering in their basement and coming up with a high-capacity battery capable of near instantaneous recharge or the like. I think trying to rely on carpooling to reduce energy use is a non-starter; people like the independence of having their own vehicle and are willing to pay a lot for the luxury. I don't remember a surge in car pooling when gas prices topped $3.50/gallon.
Which is why I think most of the work (i.e. money) is to be made finding ways to give people what they want (independence to go where they want) while letting them avoid the cost of fuel as much as possible. Those I know who live in NYC mostly don't have cars. To them a car is actually more of a hassel since mass transit will get you where you want to go faster and when you do want a vehicle it makes more sense to 'rent the ride' in a taxi. I did see an increase in the number of people using New Jersey's trains and making use of my company's shuttle service when prices topped $3.50.
But here again I'm getting into speculating what the market's answers will be when the real answer lies in understanding why the market will work. For example, instead of moving 10 miles closer to work if the person is able to telecommute 1 day a week that's a 20% cut in going back and forth to work.
Sounds like you're talking about George Bush here.
Yep. I don't know why this should surprise you; many on the right have been extremely critical of Bush. This whole meme of the right being unquestioningly supportive of Bush is just bunk.
True but it does illustrate why this is not something you can approach from a top down strategy.
I don't disagree with you here.
These choices can never be mapped out or planned from the top down...say by a government or pundit who declares the answer is nuclear combined with ethanol!
I don't think either should be mandated, but I think if you are serious about reducing our dependence on fossil fuels, any solution that doesn't include nuclear energy is not a serious one.
But here again I'm getting into speculating what the market's answers will be when the real answer lies in understanding why the market will work. For example, instead of moving 10 miles closer to work if the person is able to telecommute 1 day a week that's a 20% cut in going back and forth to work.
Any solution is going to involve making technology work for us, not making technolgy the enemy. Telecommuting is an excellent example of this.
Paul
There are two real issues that are debatable: whether man is the cause for this warming, and what the future climate will be. Now unless you are an anti-intellectual anti-science type, qustioning these two issues shouldn't be a problem.
I didn't respond to your previous reply because I suspect it's pointless to reply to you.
You stated that no one has explained why global warming is bad. The Raven provided you with a good reference and I pointed out to you that there is a wealth of information on the potential negative consquences to global warming.
I pointed out to you that I had not read anything about global warming happening on Mars.
Your response:
You guys' only response is to sputter "How dare you question the consensus!"
No you opened a dialoge on the topic and we responded to you and your choice was to play the self-righteous martyr, pretending that we were persecuting you.
I'll give you a bit more though for the sake of the argument:
This is what is so maddening. I know the science and have seen the studies. However no one has ever explained why the current temperatures on earth are the "right" temperatures.
We don't but it seems like the potential negatives to warming are worse than positives. Perhaps if there was cooling the benefits would outweigh the negatives so yes we dont' know if this temperature is the 'right one' but it's kind of irrelevant. We seem to be moving to a worse one and that's not good.
Maybe there's nothing we can do about it so we just have to bear it because the cost of stopping it is far above the cost of enduring it. That's possible IMO but to me it seems like it would be prudent to do some things now to hasten away from fossil fuels just in case the worse case sceneros are closer to the truth. On the other hand if it turns out warming is a net positive we can always change course and start burning up as much as we can. In fact, if you have a air tight argument that demonstrates warming is a huge positive then maybe we should subsidize fossil fuels!
addition to the polar ice caps on Mars melting due to increased solar activity, there is a second red spot forming on Jupiter which is beleived to be a result of more energy in Jupiter's atmosphere due to increased solar activity.
1. This has nothing directly to do with the greenhouse effect. If the greenhouse effect is real AND the sun is increasing its output then we could be in for a double whammy! I notice you didn't even consider that.
2. I notice when it comes to Earth's climate you are full of uncertainity but not when it comes to Mars or even Jupiter. Your local weather report in your newspaper makes more observations of Earth's climate in a year than has been made of those two planets in the entire history of space exploration yet you not only know Mar's is warming but you can pin down why!
For the record:
http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn1660 talks about Martian warming but it based on TWO observations!
I suggest you examine Wikipedia's summation of the 'global warming on mars' hypothesis:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martian_global_warming
3. I don't know what Jupiter's second red spot has to do with any of this. Are you trying to have an argument with someone who claims solar energy didn't increase over some recent time period? If you are maybe you're posting on the wrong blog because I didn't see anyone here write anything about Jupiter or solar activity.
BTW, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attribution_of_recent_climate_change does review some of the work to attribute how much warming can be atrributed to various possible causes. It seems that solar output is NOT a good explanation for warming.
I don't think either should be mandated, but I think if you are serious about reducing our dependence on fossil fuels, any solution that doesn't include nuclear energy is not a serious one.
You're probably right. Here is where the tax works wonderfully. It would make coal and gas fired planets more expensive (hitting coal harder since it's carbon heavy). Nuclear would be all the more attractive then as an option. At the moment there is already something of a boom happening in planning for new nuke plants even without any global warming based incentives.
Boonton, this is probably one of those areas where we will have to agree to largely agree;).
Boonton: it seems like the potential negatives to warming are worse than positives.
That was a good reply to Paul. Also, I'd like to add that the claims of "hysteria" and so forth are unfounded. As we conduct this nationwide discussion on the problem facing us, I note that, if anything, we're being too cautious. If Jim Hansen is even partially correct, our opportunity to take any meaningful steps is not open-ended. He says we have about 2 years and so, while hysteria is not warranted, urgency certainly is. We can't afford to be wrong.
One thing that strikes me as being salient is that ecosystems appear able to migrate at the rate of 4 kilometers a decade. Global warming as we're experiencing it is currently at 37 km per decade and increasing. Those who reference "natural cycles" of temperature fluctuation don't seem to grasp that this warming is happening faster than living species can adapt to it.
If we do, by some miracle, manage to avoid the worst of what's coming, what is the downside? I confess that I can't find one. We'll be polluting less, using energy at maximum efficiency, employing sustainable and renewable resources, and leaving less of a footprint on the planet. Why this is an "evil" in the minds of so many is beyond my comprehension.
But I listen to the blowhards - Rush, Hannity, Hewitt - who uniformly state that climate change is "a hoax," some kind of chimera that communist terrorist America-hating psychotics want to promote in order to destroy the country and when I read between the lines they appear to be saying that nothing must be allowed to change the status quo. The point is that our Way of Life must continue, exactly as it is, and even more so. We should all drive gas-guzzlers, water our lawns daily, eat massive quantities of meat and toss out ever-increasing amounts of garbage. Anybody who says otherwise is a tree-hugging eco-terrorist.
I hope we can come to a consensus and agree that we have to find a way of life that is satisfying, productive, yet non-destructive to the planet if we're to succeed in facing the challenges yet to come.
Lets hear from both sides of the story... and here
All I really need to be very suspect of the "expert" opinions is the experts' willingness to do almost anything to suppress dissent. If they are truly confident in their conclusions then have little to fear from dissenting opinions within their ranks. If, on the other hand, they aren't nearly as confident as they claim, it is quite understandable that they might be willing to suppress dissent.
Also, I'd like to add that the claims of "hysteria" and so forth are unfounded. As we conduct this nationwide discussion on the problem facing us, I note that, if anything, we're being too cautious.
Oh come on, the worst case-best guess scenario of the IPCC report calls for warming of 4.5 degrees C and sea-level rising of 17 inches over 100 years. These estimates are down from their 2001 report which estimated 5.8 degrees C of warming and sea level rising 35 inches. You are just not going to convince people that we can't manage changes of this magnitude. So instead you and Al Gore run around with the evironmental equivalent of a a sandwich board with "Repent, the end is near" on it to try to force changes that people wouldn't voluntarily accept, in essence doing what you accuse the right of doing with respect to terrorism, i.e. hyping the fear to encourage people to give up their freedoms. Heck, the report even speculates that pollutant particles in the atmosphere may contribute to cooling by reflecting sunlight back to space. So by reducing pollution, we may actually be contributing to global warming; how's that for an unintended consequence. It may turn out that the best way is mitigate global warming is to stop building clean solar and wind power plants and start building dirty coal plants. What a hoot that would be.
Of course the biggest problem with the IPCC reports is that they largely rely on computer modeling to make the predictions, and frankly the models are junk. The models they use to predict short-term, local climate conditions are only fairly reliable, but yet the models they use to predict long term global climate trends to be believed without question. I know a little about computer modeling; my undergrad degree is in computer engineering and I took several graduate level courses in modeling and simulation, so I am familiar with the tools used and how reliability degrades as systems get more complicated and unknowns increase,so don't try to tell me that you can't compare the models, I know better. The only real difference between the models used to predict short-term, local weather trends and the ones used to predict long-term global weather trends are that the global ones are larger, more complicated, and have more unknowns, just the things that should cause us to question their reliabilty.
#35, having been involved in environmental models for years myself (CERCLA cleanups and NEPA planning tools), I wouldn't characterize the models as junk. NOAA models used as part of the IPCC product are fairly robust, for instance. I agree though that many of the modelling assumptions are pretty squishy and subjective because they're based on paleoclimatology (past estimates of climate data) or other predicted behaviors based on the way our climate works today. It shuuuuuure will be great when the UN quits leaking the report, and finally issues all of the actual data and assumptions. (Wonder why they did it that way; heh.)
WRT evangelicals and global warming, Raven's attack (#18) is the typical ad hominem hot air of the uninformed. The evangelical community is nowhere near monolithic on the subject either way, a fact that NAE and other national evangelical leaders like Rich Cizik quickly found out when they tried to craft evangelical position statements on climate change.
My own highly-scientific research leads me to state that 31.293% of evangelicals believe in human-induced global warming, with an additional 28.23489% believing that global warming is occuring but is not necessarily human-induced. 0.00234% are purposely buying SUVs because they want global warming to happen so that Jesus will return, take the Church away, burn the earth up along with all those non-believers, and start from scratch. The rest are worried that all carbon-related activities will soon be taxed, with 90% of the money going to the UN.
Gotta go out and shovel the snow in my driveway now.
By the way, seems to me there about a 90% chance Saddam had WMD.
All I really need to be very suspect of the "expert" opinions is the experts' willingness to do almost anything to suppress dissent. If they are truly confident in their conclusions then have little to fear from dissenting opinions within their ranks.
Ron, who is being suppressed?
It may turn out that the best way is mitigate global warming is to stop building clean solar and wind power plants and start building dirty coal plants. What a hoot that would be.
indeed that would be a 'hoot'. Not going to happen, though.
Of course the biggest problem with the IPCC reports is that they largely rely on computer modeling to make the predictions, and frankly the models are junk.
This is a fair criticism, except we seem to have people here who are able to model Mar's climate and explain it's 'warming' with little problem. But I believe a fair criticism of your position is that you offer nothing in place. Assume for a second global warming is real and its danger is real. What evidence, models, calculations etc. would you accept today in order to do something about it?
You don't demand this degree of proof anywhere else. You wouldn't tell your doctor not to vaccinate your kids because...ohhh...30 years of data isn't really enough to establish its safety.
Here is what you do everywhere else. YOu accept that your knowledge of the future isn't perfect so you take precautions. You don't know if your house will burn down next year so you don't buy a second 'back up' house but you do buy insurance. If your house doesn't burn down you can feel you wasted your money on the premium but you only wasted a little bit in exchange for a measure of safety.
So tax fossil fuels now. If it looks like global warming will end up near the bad end of results then up the tax. If it looks like it won't be bad drop the tax. It's not like any barrel of oil we don't burn today disappears forever, we can always burn it tomorrow or 50 years from now if this all blows over. It didn't go anywhere for the last 50 million years right?
ucf:"...to try to force changes that people wouldn't voluntarily accept, in essence doing what you accuse the right of doing with respect to terrorism, i.e. hyping the fear to encourage people to give up their freedoms."
Two points on that: 1) I don't suspect the right wing of promoting a fear-based agenda - that's an administration program. 2) Ah, so the truth finally comes out.
It isn't global warming that concerns you, rather, it's the prospect that it might affect the way in which you - and we - live. Can't have that, now, can we. No, instead we'll just continue doing things "business as usual," and hope that the science boys come up with a nifty technological fix just in the nick of time.
Well, I suppose that's a kind of plan. But it's a crappy one. Like Boonton says above, if we wind up saving a barrel of oil today, we'll still have it tomorrow. But you do have me curious - what exactly are the "freedoms" you think you might "be forced" to surrender if we decide to reduce carbon emissions and greenhouse gases?
Boonton wrote:
Ron, who is being suppressed?
Where have you been, Boonton? This whole post was a response to the League of Condescending Scientists coming out and saying that they have decided definitively that their opinions are the only correct ones. They haven't jailed any dissenters yet. Is that the kind of suppression you're looking for?
Use some common sense. Accelerated global warming is caused by the extraction and burning of massive amounts of fossil fuels, which have been sequestered deep in the ground for millions of years and now introduce large amounts of new gasses like carbon dioxide and methane, which add to the existing cycle of warm gases and accelerate the warming of our planet.
Some like to pretend the warming is from the increase of cattle for food and the methane cattle produce, however, all animals that chew their cud produce methane like cattle do. These include bison, buffalo, water buffalo, deer, elk, caribou, moose, sheep, goats, camels, llamas, giraffes, wildebeest, and antelope. We have decreased far more of these animals than we have increased the number of cattle.
Accelerated global warming is coming from burning fossil fuels.
Boonton
except we seem to have people here who are able to model Mar's climate and explain it's 'warming' with little problem.
I am not familiar with the models you cite, Boonton but I suspect they don't do what you seem to claim they do, i.e. attempting to predict the Martian climate 100 years in the future with any degree of reliability. Even if they do, they models for predicting the Earth's climate would be orders of magnitude more complicated. Just for starters, there is no plant or animal life on Mars and no water. To paraphrase a former Defense Secretary, the number of known would increase, as would the number of known-unknowns, and the number of unknown-unknowns.
indeed that would be a 'hoot'. Not going to happen, though.
Of course not, just like most environmentalists object to having wind farms in their neighborhoods, let alone a coal plant within 100 miles, global climate be damned.
You don't demand this degree of proof anywhere else. You wouldn't tell your doctor not to vaccinate your kids because...ohhh...30 years of data isn't really enough to establish its safety.
Well, before I allow a doctor to give my kid a vaccination, I need to be sure the disease being vaccinated for is real, that the vaccine has a reasonable probability of protecting my child from the disease, and that the side-effects of the vaccination aren't worse than the disease. None of this is the case with respect to global climate change.
Here is what you do everywhere else. YOu accept that your knowledge of the future isn't perfect so you take precautions. You don't know if your house will burn down next year so you don't buy a second 'back up' house but you do buy insurance.
Fire insurance is a reasonable precaution, but how about insurance against a meteor strike or against an alien attack? A better analogy might be long term care insurance. At the age of 40-something, I don't buy LTC insurance, because even though there is a risk of me becoming disabled, the risk is low enough that I will assume the risk. At the age of 50-something, I may buy LTC insurance because the risk is sufficient to warrant insuring, though medical advances could push that buying decision down the road. I view "global warming insurance" the same way, the problem is far enough down the road that we can wait until we have better data to act.
Raven
It isn't global warming that concerns you, rather, it's the prospect that it might affect the way in which you - and we - live.
Yeah, I am not willing to, nor am I willing to ask my children to accept a significantly lower standard of living to address a potential problem 100 years down the road. Nor am I willing to deny the developing world the chance to improve their lives through technological advance in what I believe is a vain attempt to keep the current climate static.
Yeah, I am not willing to, nor am I willing to ask my children to accept a significantly lower standard of living
ufc: See, that's the point. You perceive this as a "lower" standard of living, I see it as a "smarter" standard. Take my neighbor. The guy's got a solar water heater system going, half-subsidized by the state on an energy initiative. He figures the thing will pay for itself in 10 years, and after that it's all good.
What "freedom" has he relinquished? How has this "lowered" his standard of living? I would contend that his life, and that of his wife, are made better by this decision and he will benefit economically as well. In your world, he's now a communist slave, hm? I swear, I do not understand people like you.
See, that's the point. You perceive this as a "lower" standard of living, I see it as a "smarter" standard. Take my neighbor. The guy's got a solar water heater system going, half-subsidized by the state on an energy initiative. He figures the thing will pay for itself in 10 years, and after that it's all good.
Raven, if solar power made economic sense you wouldn't have to subsidize it, people be lining up to do it. Even with the subsidy, I wouldn't do it. Would you invest in a stock you couldn't sell without liquidating your entire portfolio that wouldn't show a return for 10 years, even with the government subsidizing it? That's essentially what your friend has done. He has a solar system that won't show a return for 10 years that he can't sell without selling his house. Your example is really a good example of what I am talking about. You have the state forcing me to accept a lower standard of living (taking money from me through the tax system) to subsidize someone elses poor economic decisions. Would you friend have done it if he had to pay the whole thing? Probably not, most intellingent folks wouldn't make an investment that wouldn't show a profit for 20 years, let alone 10.
Where have you been, Boonton? This whole post was a response to the League of Condescending Scientists coming out and saying that they have decided definitively that their opinions are the only correct ones.
Where have they stated such a thing? Here you have a large committee of scientists who were charged with coming up with a report. The majority of scientists voted. Where's the 'suppression'?
They haven't jailed any dissenters yet. Is that the kind of suppression you're looking for?
Suppression here seems to be having a minority opinion, according to you. What is the majority supposed to do? Never issue an opinion unless they get 100% of their members to agree? What if 99% agree?
Ron, who is being suppressed?
Is this a serious question? It has only been a month or so since two Senators openly threatened researchers who express doubt that global warming is man made if it is happening at all. At this point it is almost a certainty that any climate scientist risks the loss of funding if not their job if their positions do not parrot the accepted model.
Virtually daily any scientist who opposes the party line is publicly castigated and marginalized. There is no semblance of open debate. As far as the elites are concerned this is a closed question and anyone who dissents isn't worth paying any attention to.
There is plenty of suppression going on. All you have to do is open your eyes to see it.
Is this a serious question? It has only been a month or so since two Senators openly threatened researchers who express doubt that global warming is man made if it is happening at all.
What? Under this administration? Give it a break. Show something specific or get off the victimization rap.
What? Under this administration? Give it a break. Show something specific or get off the victimization rap.
I believe the incident Ron is referring to is a letter from Senators Jay Rockefeller and Olympia Snowe to Exxon CEO Rex Tillerson exprssing concern that Exxon supports groups that oppose the global warming consensus. A copy of the letter is posted at the Wall Street Journal (http://opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110009337). While the letter doesn't make any specific threats, it does compare Exxon's efforts to those of tobacco companies and obliquely compares them to holocaust deniers, using the term "denial community" when referencing global warming skeptics.
Hmmm,
Ron's statement was:
It has only been a month or so since two Senators openly threatened researchers who express doubt that global warming is man made if it is happening at all.
From what you've told me two Senators wrote a letter criticising these researchers and criticising Exxon for funding them (or groups that expound their work). Let's leave aside the fact that this case demonstrates if you're a scientist who is 'outside the mainstream' on global warming you can obviously get support and funding from oil companies and right wing think tanks. What exactly is the threat here?
Once again Mr. Victimization paints disagreement as 'suppression'. I'm also waiting to hear how we are supposed to 'know' global warming is happening on Mars and it is due to the sun. The only evidence thus presented are exactly two, TWO data points.
People like Ron would make a more productive contribution to this conversation if they actually engaged in it rather than making their declarations and then pouncing on those who disagree with them as agents of some type of world wide oppression.
Yes, that is precisely the letter to which I referred. It is replete with thinly veiled threats. I stand by my earlier statement
From what you've told me two Senators wrote a letter criticising these researchers and criticising Exxon for funding them (or groups that expound their work).
If you read the letter it looks like the Senators are threatening Exxon for funding "non-mainstream" science. I would have thought that would bother you; 2 powerful senators threatening a company for funding legitimate scientific inquiry, that they disagree with. I guess you were okay with that whole Galileo thing.
Using http://www.nationalcenter.org/ExxonMobilRockefellerSnowe102706.pdf (I found the letter using Google's newsearch). It is 3 pages long.
Page 1
Paragraph 1. Congrats to Tillerson on becoming CEO
Pargraph 2. "We are convinced that ExxonMibil's longstanding support of a small cadre of global climate change skeptics, and those septics access to and influence on government policymakers, have made it difficult for the United states to demonstrate the moral clarity it needs accross all facets of its diplomacy". Criticism but this is not a threat.
Pargagraph 3. More of the same, supporting "deniers" damages the stature of the US and Exxon should take a leadership role. Again criticism but there's no threats here.
Pargraph 4. Detail on how Exxon funds such groups using 'interlocking' organizations. No threats.
Pargraph 5. Detail on how Exxon is not alone. Points out that such funding creates a "pseudo-scientific, non-peer reviewed echo chamber". Criticism but not a threat.
Paragraph 5. "Climate change denial has been so effective because the "denial community" has mischaracterized the necessarily guarded language of serious scientific dialogue as vagueness and uncertainity. Mainstream media outlets, attacked for being biased, help lend credence to skeptics' views, regardless of their scientific integrity..." Again more criticism on the mechanics of denial but not a threat.
Paragraph 6. References an upcoming study showing how Exxon was funding 29 climate change denial groups in 2004. These groups shard common staff and board members. The gist of this criticism is that the groups give the appearence of numerous independent critics of climate change when they are really just one critic. Criticism but not threats.
Paragraph 7. More criticism of this tactic.
Pargraph 8. Criticism that the result of this spreading of confusion has inhibited efforts to honestly address the problem.
Pargraph 9. These are the requests made of Exxon
1. End financial funding of such groups
2. Publicaly acknowledge climate change and humans role in it.
3. Repudiate climate change denial campaign.
4. Invest "at least some" of the money used in the denial campaign to global remediation efforts.
Paragraph 10. Boilerplate promising "we are ready to work with you" to promote energy efficiency, clean fuels etc.
So what we see here is the Victimization routine yet again. There's no threats here. This is criticism that two senators have for the actions of a corporation. If these senators had written such a letter to a record company asking that they stop promoting pornographic or violent music would you react the same way?
What people like Rob and ucfengr are basically saying is because Senators are 'so powerful' they cannot criticise anything because any criticism from so powerful a person might as well be a veiled threat (to do what? Who knows?).
Notice how the right employes political correctness as aptly as the left, probably even more so. Under the guise of crying persecution for criticism they are able to turn the tables and pretent any criticism of their position is oppression or persecution!
At any point will we be given back up to support the assertion that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change treated any dissenting scientists unjustly or unfairly? Or does this supposed campaign of intimidation, terror and abuse culminate in a letter from two Senators asking Exxon to stop funding skeptical groups?
Perhaps Rob would care to address the substance of the letter? That the skeptical groups are not doing science but are attempting to confuse the issue by creating a false echo chamber where different front groups reinforce each other's work by giving it the guise of being endorsed by independent groups?
It's really an old trick. Ebay has been fighting it for years where users who are either in cohoots with each other (or are just aliases of the same person) use the positive feedback mechanism to make the seller appear legit and with a long record of honest transactions. In reality the seller is a scam artist.
You know Boonton, I doubt you would quite so sanguine if a couple of Republican senators wrote a similar letter to the president of a company funding embryonic stem cell research. But really you surprise me, I would think you would be troubled that two powerful senators (who incidentally can right legislation effecting his company for better or worse) would write an individual essentially telling him he'd better get his mind right on an issue, whatever that issue might be, or else. Of course the "or else" isn't specifically mentioned but it is surely implied. It would be like Tony Soprano telling you it would be a shame if Paulie went to jail because of your testimony, no specic threat there, but you get the message.
If these senators had written such a letter to a record company asking that they stop promoting pornographic or violent music would you react the same way?
I wouldn't, but I only oppose censoring political speech. I think restrictions on pornographic material are legitimate. Though, I seem to recall the left reacting quite strongly when Tipper Gore did exactly that.
ucfengr,
This is absurd. You are essentially saying a Senator cannot criticise political speech because like Tony Soprano they have vague powers to inflict an 'or else' on the poor victim.
First of all, Senators and Representatives are writing letters all the time applauding or criticisng corporations, parties, policies, other Senators/Representatives, judges and the President. This is hardly unusual so to treat relatively mild criticism as a threat borders on absurd given this context.
Second, a Senator has zero power unless he can get another 49 Senators and a majority of the House to go along with him (and the President, of course, if he can't then he needs even more Senators and Reps).
Third, what you are advocating would actually amount to more government 'censorship' of corporations and groups. If a Senator cannot voice criticism then his only acceptable recourse would be to push for legislation. I for one would rather Senators call Exxon out on their dishonesty than attempt to craft a law prohibiting dishonesty in corporate speech.
Finally I'll again note that the rhetoric of the Victimization-chic crowd here has failed to match the facts when they are pressed on them. For example, before I examined the letter paragraph by paragraph you wrote:
If you read the letter it looks like the Senators are threatening Exxon for funding "non-mainstream" science.
Except the letter doesn't criticise Exxon for funding 'non-mainstream' science. It criticises Exxon for setting up front groups to decieve the public on what the mainstream scientific community says. Exxon is free to do so just as they are free to say "we are funding non-mainstream science because we think it has a shot of panning out'. Most would say the latter is a more honest policy but it can choose the former but it doesn't have a right to choose the former and then exempt itself from criticism.
Ron wrote
Yes, that is precisely the letter to which I referred. It is replete with thinly veiled threats. I stand by my earlier statement
Show me one thinly veild threat. All you have is the dubious theory that any criticism by a Senator is a threat because in theory the Senator could vote for or propose legislation that may not be in your interest.
Before this Ron wrote (recall he stands by his statement)
It has only been a month or so since two Senators openly threatened researchers who express doubt that global warming is man made if it is happening at all.
Yet the letter does not cite any researchers. And even if you subscribe to the theory that Senators have no free speech rights lest they 'thinly' threaten anyone there is certainly no open threats in the letter.
In fact, look at what else Ron wrote:
At this point it is almost a certainty that any climate scientist risks the loss of funding if not their job if their positions do not parrot the accepted model.
To anyone who didn't follow this closely or look up what he was talking about one would think that these researchers were receiving government funding and these Senators threatened to cut them off because they didn't like their results. Only when pressed do we learn the facts are far from the spin. No government funding was at issue. No researchers were at issue. No research was at issue. Not even any threats! No research was being funded here but front groups.
I'll note that Ron also played games earlier on this thread...see for example how we began with his claims of global warming on Mars. At what point do we cease giving the benefit of the doubt and start to suspect there's a bit of deception going on here rather than just failing to do one's homework?
This is absurd. You are essentially saying a Senator cannot criticise political speech because like Tony Soprano they have vague powers to inflict an 'or else' on the poor victim.
See, the problem here is that they didn't criticize political speech or even an industry, they sent a threatening letter to a specific individual, in essence telling him "he better get his mind right" on this issue, or else. That crosses the line between criticizing to threatening. If a Senator sends you a letter saying "hey nice little business you built there, congrats on your success. Oh by the way, you are funding some groups I don't like; I strongly encourage you to stop. Who knows, if you do, maybe we can come to an accomodation", what are you going to think? What do they have to do; wrap the letter around a dead fish? You know, Boonton, most of the time I think you are pretty reasonable, even though we largely disagree, on this one I think you have shotgunned the Kool-Aid.
It criticises Exxon for setting up front groups to decieve the public on what the mainstream scientific community says.
What front groups has Exxon set up to "deceive the public"? The letter is rather silent on that. The letter makes it sound like they are finding groups denying the holocaust, not groups engaged in legitimate scientific research. Even the IPCC (not a group noted for large numbers global warming skeptics) concedes that they are only 90% convinced that human activities cause all the global warming we've seen over the past 50 years. Sounds like the Senators are trying to force a consensus, I wonder how many other folks in the "global warming will end the world" camp are trying to do that.
See, the problem here is that they didn't criticize political speech or even an industry, they sent a threatening letter to a specific individual,...
Except you cannot identify any threat direct or indirect and this isn't just any individual but the head of a major multi-billion dollar corporation. Yes Senators and anyone for that matter can write the CEO of a corporation and tell him they disagree with him funding front groups.
Who knows, if you do, maybe we can come to an accomodation", what are you going to think? What do they have to do; wrap the letter around a dead fish?
Actually all they said in closing was your standard boilerplate. I notice that you don't seem to care to actually read or cite the letter you want to talk about, instead you want to make up dialoge that isn't there.
What front groups has Exxon set up to "deceive the public"? The letter is rather silent on that.
Really? The letter is silent?
Well there's one specific group cited, later on it says:
Care to try again? Now it didn't name the 29 groups but I'm sure they could be located without much work.
This would be laughable if this administration didn't have its own record of actually strong arming government scientists to produce the 'results' it wanted or at least underplay undesired results.
Even the IPCC (not a group noted for large numbers global warming skeptics) concedes that they are only 90% convinced that human activities cause all the global warming we've seen over the past 50 years.
BTW, are we going to hear how the IPCC supposedly abused its climate change skeptics?
You're right, Boonton. It really shouldn't bother me that 2 powerful US Senators are attempting to stop legitimate scientific research and silence debate, and yet...
If you have an example of 2 powerful US Senators attempting to stop legitimate scientific research and silence debate then please let us know. So far the only attempt to silence debate here has been on your side with false claims of victimization.
If you have an example of 2 powerful US Senators attempting to stop legitimate scientific research and silence debate then please let us know.
So which is it, are you claiming that the Senators Rockefeller and Snowe aren't powerful or that they aren't trying to silence debate on a scientific issue? If the latter, I can only assume one of two things, that you are being willfully obtuse or that you are okay with Senators trying to quash debate in the scientific community. Funny, I don't remember you being quite so sanguine when the Bush administration succeeded in limiting federal (not private) funding of embryonic stem cell research.
If you have an example of 2 powerful US Senators attempting to stop legitimate scientific research and silence debate then please let us know.
So which is it, are you claiming that the Senators Rockefeller and Snowe aren't powerful or that they aren't trying to silence debate on a scientific issue? If the latter, I can only assume one of two things, that you are being willfully obtuse or that you are okay with Senators trying to quash debate in the scientific community. Funny, I don't remember you being quite so sanguine when the Bush administration succeeded in limiting federal (not private) funding of embryonic stem cell research.
So which is it, are you claiming that the Senators Rockefeller and Snowe aren't powerful or that they aren't trying to silence debate on a scientific issue?
They have limited power as I stated and they were not silencing debate in the letter you cited. Do you have another incident to cite?
I'm pretty amazed at what you're trying to pass off as debate here. Exxon can say or do whatever it wants but if anyone with 'power' criticizes it then that is silencing debate. Who exactly is supposed to be debating the other side of the issue? I trust you're aware that when you use a word like debate you are implying that there are at least two different sides presenting an argument.
Funny, I don't remember you being quite so sanguine when the Bush administration succeeded in limiting federal (not private) funding of embryonic stem cell research.
Really? What do you remember of my position exactly and how does it relate to the Exxon-being-silenced-hoax you and Ron have tried to pass off? You seem to resort to fiction writing when your memory fails you.
Okay Boon, lets dispense with your rather slanted synopsis of the letter and look at the letter itself.
Climate change denial has been so effective because the "denial community" has mischaracterized the necessarily guarded language of serious scientific dialogue as vagueness and uncertainty. Mainstream media outlets, attacked for being biased, help lend credence to skeptics' views, regardless of their scientific integrity, by giving them relatively equal standing with legitimate scientists. ExxonMobil is responsible for much of this bogus scientific "debate" and the demand for what the deniers cynically refer to as "sound science."
Hmm, ExxonMobil is responsible for a "bogus scientific debate". Sounds like the good Senators think only one side of the debate is legitimate.
A study to be released in November by an American scientific group will expose ExxonMobil as the primary funder of no fewer than 29 climate change denial front groups in 2004 alone. Besides a shared goal, these groups often featured common staffs and board members. The study will estimate that ExxonMobil has spent more than $19 million since the late 1990s on a strategy of "information laundering," or enabling a small number of professional skeptics working through scientific-sounding organizations to funnel their viewpoints through non-peer-reviewed websites such as Tech Central Station. The Internet has provided ExxonMobil the means to wreak its havoc on U.S. credibility, while avoiding the rigors of refereed journals. While deniers can easily post something calling into question the scientific consensus on climate change, not a single refereed article in more than a decade has sought to refute it.
Let's take a look at some of the scary groups Exxon has contributed to:
1. The George C. Marshall Institute--The George C. Marshall Institute was established in 1984 as a nonprofit 501(c)(3) corporation to conduct technical assessments of scientific issues with an impact on public policy. Ooooh Scary.
2. The Heritage Foundation-- Founded in 1973, The Heritage Foundation is a research and educational institute - a think tank - whose mission is to formulate and promote conservative public policies based on the principles of free enterprise, limited government, individual freedom, traditional American values, and a strong national defense. Oh my goodness, how can organizations like this exist in a free society.
3. The Hoover Institute--The Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace, Stanford University, is a public policy research center devoted to advanced study of politics, economics, and political economy—both domestic and foreign—as well as international affairs. With its world-renowned group of scholars and ongoing programs of policy-oriented research, the Hoover Institution puts its accumulated knowledge to work as a prominent contributor to the world marketplace of ideas defining a free society.Those monsters.
4. The Mackinac Center for Public Policy--The Mackinac Center for Public Policy is a nonpartisan research and educational institute devoted to improving the quality of life for all Michigan citizens by promoting sound solutions to state and local policy questions. The Mackinac Center assists policy makers, scholars, business people, the media and the public by providing objective analysis of Michigan issues. The goal of all Center reports, commentaries and educational programs is to equip Michigan citizens and other decision makers to better evaluate policy options. I am just speechless that the government allows this kind of radical thinking.
Back to the letter:
Where most scientists dispassionate review of the facts has moved past acknowledgement to mitigation strategies, ExxonMobil's contribution the overall politicization of science has merely bolstered the views of U.S. government officials satisfied to do nothing. Rather than investing in the development of technologies that might see us through this crisis--and which may rival the computer as a wellspring of near-term economic growth around the world--ExxonMobil and its partners in denial have manufactured controversy, sown doubt, and impeded progress with strategies all-too reminiscent of those used by the tobacco industry for so many years. The net result of this unfortunate campaign has been a diminution of this nation's ability to act internationally, and not only in environmental matters.
ExxonMobil has "manufactured controversy"? The good Senators seem to think that anybody who claims to disagree with them is just making it up for some nefarious purpose, because as we all know, all reputable people agree that man-made global warming is real and the consequences mean the end of life as we know it. There is no room for debate or scientific inquiry, the Senators know all. Anybody who disagrees with them is a paid shill of Exxon.
In light of the adverse impacts still resulting from your corporations activities, we must request that ExxonMobil end any further financial assistance or other support to groups or individuals whose public advocacy has contributed to the small, but unfortunately effective, climate change denial myth. Further, we believe ExxonMobil should take additional steps to improve the public debate, and consequently the reputation of the United States. We would recommend that ExxonMobil publicly acknowledge both the reality of climate change and the role of humans in causing or exacerbating it. Second, ExxonMobil should repudiate its climate change denial campaign and make public its funding history. Finally, we believe that there would be a benefit to the United States if one of the world's largest carbon emitters headquartered here devoted at least some of the money it has invested in climate change denial pseudo-science to global remediation efforts. We believe this would be especially important in the developing world, where the disastrous effects of global climate change are likely to have their most immediate and calamitous impacts.
Hmm, ExxonMobil has contributed to an "unfortunately effective, global change denial myth" using "pseudo-science"? Could it be that the reason the groups Exxon funds are effective is because the science backs them up or maybe they make a better case than Al Gore and his followers? No, that couldn't be it. And oh by the way, they better not only stop funding it, but they better recant and accept the facts as the Senators see them and start funding groups that the Senators agree with. Yeah, no attempt to silence dissent here, just a little friendly advice. "Nice company you got there Rex. It be a shame if anything happened to it because of this little pseudo science thing you got working. We'd be willing to forget the whole thing if you apologize and pay a little restitution, you know fund the other side for a while just to show you didn't mean no offense to da' Boss."
Boonton, your lame and dishonest attempt to paint this letter as anything less than a heavy handed attempt by 2 powerful government officials to silence debate on an issue is just sad.
Hmmmm, ok ucfengr so you disagree with the Senator's criticism of Exxon. How does that make their criticism a threat? Either an 'open threat' as was originally claimed or a 'thinly veiled threat' as was latter claimed? As opposed to, say, just the Senators being wrong?
Could it be that the reason the groups Exxon funds are effective is because the science backs them up or maybe they make a better case than Al Gore and his followers?
Perhaps, then why not publish in peer reviewed journals as opposed to say Tech Central Station or the Heritage Foundation which are more political or at best opinion journalism outfits?
You've now come full circle. Originally we heard there was a campaign of near terrorism against legitimate scientists who disagreed. Then we heard the campaign was subtle...full of implied, indirect or veiled threats. Now you're just saying you disagree with something two Senators said (stop the presses!).
At this point can I take it that no examples will be given of any unfair or unjust treatment of dissenters by the IPCC? I suppose I should just give up on Ron's claims that not only has global warming been confirmed on Mars but its cause has been determined to be the sun too. That's well and good but don't start crying next time that your objections were disregarded or ignored. When given the chance you choose to play games rather than engage. Perhaps given your weak argument that was the best move.
You've now come full circle. Originally we heard there was a campaign of near terrorism against legitimate scientists who disagreed.
Please feel free to point out were I implied that there was a "campaign of near terrorisism" against scientists who disagree with the "consensus view" on global warming. My comments were limited strictly to the letter I referenced.
Then we heard the campaign was subtle...full of implied, indirect or veiled threats. Now you're just saying you disagree with something two Senators said (stop the presses!).
Err, no. In this comment string, my posts were always strictly limited to the attempt by 2 powerful government officials to silence dissent on the global warming debate. It is you who have disingenuously attempted to stretch my comments to make them something they are not.
In the letter from Senators Rockefeller and Snowe, we have two powerful government officials writing a private individual telling him in essense that they believe that man-made global warming is a fact and that all debate had better stop, or else. Oh they aren't dumb enough to say "or else" or spell out specific consequences, which would likely trigger an ethics inquiry, but the message is clear. And just in case Rex Tillerson didn't get the message, the Senators compare them to tabacco companies ("ExxonMobil and its partners in denial have manufactured controversy, sown doubt, and impeded progress with strategies all-too reminiscent of those used by the tobacco industry for so many years."). We all remember what happened to the tobacco companies, don't we? They were sued into submission and a $250 billion settlement. The Senators also used loaded terms like "pseudo-science" and "global warming deniers" (note the resemblence to "holocaust deniers", I doubt that it is coincedental) to make sure they are understood. It's a good thing for ExxonMobil's stockholders that Rex Tillerson isn't as dense as you are trying to be. I guess I really shouldn't be surprised, the Left has gotten really comfortable since the 1960's with the idea that it is okay to shut down certain types of debate.
Err, no. In this comment string, my posts were always strictly limited to the attempt by 2 powerful government officials to silence dissent on the global warming debate. It is you who have disingenuously attempted to stretch my comments to make them something they are not.
Yes I know, disagreeing with Exxon is an attempt to silence it.
And just in case Rex Tillerson didn't get the message, the Senators compare them to tabacco companies
Errr, yes but tobacco companies also achieved a history of presenting dubious and frankly illegitimate science to try to distract from the evidence that smoking causes cancer. The tobacco companies were indeed sued but hardly into submission (if they were why can I buy Pall Malls at, say, about 50 different locations within 5 miles of my house?). They were indeed sued but not because they disagreed with science but because their product was alleged to have cost the taxpayers billions. You also claimed that the Senators compared Exxon to holocaust deniers but they have not been sued or charged with crimes in the US. (Actually that too was more fiction, such a comparision never appears you just imagined it because they called skeptics 'deniers' of climate change and...well...that's the same word as in the phrase 'holocaust deniers' therefore it must be the same thing!!!)
I notice you don't address the letter directly. Is Exxon really funding legititmate science that just happens to produce results people don't like or is Exxon behaving more like the tobacco companies that funded politicized science whose purpose was to confuse and distract? It's kind of surprising that if it is the latter you're basically saying Exxon is exempt from criticism. Well exempt from anyone with any importance least they be seen as 'threatening'... I suppose a janitor or homeless guy in the street would remain free to criticize Exxon in your world.
I'll excuse you from the claim that there has been a campaign of terror against dissenting scientists. You've just taken a rather eccentric and bizaar reading of one letter. Ron, though, has pressed on and he has claimed no one bothers to examine his claims. Well now they have been and the result is rather embrassing.
I notice you don't address the letter directly.
Well no, I didn't address it directly, I assume that the Senators aides did that before they mailed it. I did however quote and comment on entire paragraphs of the letter. Didn't you read my posts?
I really am surprised that you have decided to be so willfully obtuse about this letter. This letter goes way beyond criticism and into the area of threatening. If a similar letter were written by 2 powerful government officials to a company who was funding causes that you support, I imagine you would have burst a vessel. Yet you are willing to accept an attempt by 2 Senators to coerce a private citizen into not just changing his views, but recanting and paying restitution for his "illegitimate" views. There's something vaguely Stalinesqe about it and I am surprised that you are unwilling to see it. What's even more surprising is that you view my reading of the letter as "eccentric and bizaar(sic)" as if there was no way for a reasonable person to interpret this letter as in anyway threatening.
Ohhh, so you admit the Senators could legitimately write a letter criticizing Exxon. OK, show me what was 'way beyond' in the letter. The only thing you've done is quote the letter and explained why you thought the criticisms were stupid. Well Senators, like you, have a right to make stupid criticisms as well as brillant ones.
Your entire case is an exercise in very imaginative reading between the lines. Actually not even that. Your entire case is only that because these are two 'powerful' Senators any criticism they make of a public person (actually they were criticizing Exxon's past policies and asking the new CEO to discontinue them) is an automatic implied threat.
Why don't you be honeset and just say that Senators should never criticize anyone or anything. This would basically be the standard judges are held too. If Exxon was sued or charged with a crime I'm sure their lawyers would ask a judge who wro