Tag Archives: Climate Change

As Paris Meeting Approaches, Climate Change Movement Shows Its Lack of Seriousness

17 Tuesday Nov 2015

Posted by in Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

,

I am not a Climate Change denier. There is some evidence that, all else equal, human activity may contribute at the margin to a very gradual increase in the Earth’s average temperature. However, that doesn’t mean that it will cause a cataclysm, that it is the biggest problem facing the world, or that an infinite price should be paid to halt or reverse it. The inability or unwillingness to put it in proper perspective, do sensible cost/benefit analysis, and seek realistic solutions is what keeps the Climate Change Movement from being a force for good.

The fundamental fact of human existence is that our wants are infinite and our resources are limited. I believe in spending reasonable sums for research and development on solar and other technological improvements that may solve the problem or help manage the consequences at an acceptable cost to humanity.

But as this peer reviewed paper by Bjorn Lomborg shows using the standard MAGICC Climate Model, the current prescriptions of the Climate Change Movement call for the world to spend on the order of $85 TRILLION through 2100, with an effect of only 0.17 degrees Celsius. This is almost zero progress for an incredible cost, while hundreds of millions of people in the world are starving, lack basic sanitation, and don’t have access to electricity.

What a stunning thing that such a group of people with collectively high IQs can be so blinded to common sense. Something tells me that incentive-caused bias (promoting the view that will keep their research budgets well-funded) is not limited to those pushing fossil fuels. Not to mention the profiteering by Al Gore and friends which by some accounts has him approaching billionaire status.

It is the responsibility of sensible people in the scientific community to think outside the box and work to create technological solutions to the problem. Not to demand a gigantic and pointless penance from humanity which cannot even properly feed and clothe all of its members.

See also:

Gambling the World Economy on Climate

Impact of Current Climate Proposals

The Tyranny of a Big Idea: The Attraction of the Secular Mind to the Politics of Impending Apocalypse

Capitalism Makes You Cleaner

Is Climate Science Really Settled?

The Scientific Method and Climate Change

Pope Francis Is Wrong on Capitalism and the Environment

23 Tuesday Jun 2015

Posted by in Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , ,

It is understandable that Pope Francis has misgivings about market economies, given that his formative experience comes from his native Argentina, which has been governed horribly and has much widespread corruption and poverty.

It is unfortunate that he seems to have absorbed the Marxist critique of capitalism that is embedded in the Liberation Theology endemic to much of Latin America.

It is a tragedy for the poor that he apparently has never read, or does not accept, the wisdom of Peruvian economist and hero Hernando de Soto in his book The Mystery of Capital. I pray that Francis will seek de Soto’s counsel.

The Mystery of Capital

In his revelatory book, de Soto sees the primary problem for the poor throughout the developing world as the fact that most of them are excluded from the formal, legal economy and must operate in the shadows of the informal economy. Thus, the extension of property rights to the poor in the form of having title to their homes and property is seen as the beginning of the extension of capital, credit, and legitimacy that will unlock their creativity and productivity, leading to prosperity for all. This soft infrastructure of the rule of law is what the Third World lacks that developed countries do not.

Thus, capitalism is not the problem, it is the lack of a completely inclusive capitalism in the Third World that causes such widespread poverty even with supposed market economies.

The Leftist Politics of Climate Change

There is some evidence that human activity may contribute to a slight warming of the Earth’s average temperature, all else held equal. But the histrionic claims of widespread death, disease, and destruction in 100 years unless massive taxes on carbon or other means of dramatically raising the cost of energy are enacted are farcical. There is no scientific basis for such claims. And the guaranteed result would be much greater suffering for the world’s poor.

Remember that a computer model run is not a test of a scientific hypothesis. In fact, climate change seems to be an untestable and unfalsifiable hypothesis, because any predictions made now will not be tested for 100 years, conveniently after today’s climate scientists have collected their salaries and other largesse, and have passed to the great beyond. We should return to first scientific principles, and the scientific method a la Karl Popper.

If gigantic costs are to be imposed on society based on a scientific hypothesis, then the burden of proof should be very high. Cost-benefit analysis and a rational search for lowest-cost solutions should be the next step, rather than attempting to lower the standard of living for all to something like that of 1850 out of a moralizing desire to impose a painful penance on humanity.

The Search for Solutions

Even if the disaster scenario is true, the way to approach the problem is as an engineering problem. Impoverishing people today for a slight postponement of disaster a century from now is a sadistic gesture, not a sensible program for change.

Much more sensible are the suggestions of Bjorn Lomborg to invest in technology (such as solar power improvements) that can solve the problem out of abundance rather than austerity and poverty. This is the way to actually help the poor.

See also:

Hernando De Soto – Saving the World’s Poor

The Power of the Poor with Hernando De Soto

Pope Blames Markets for Environment’s Ills

Encyclical Letter Laudato Si

Pope Francis’s Vow of Poverty for All

Pope Calls for ‘Revolution’ to Stop Exploitation of the Poor by the Rich

Pope Francis’ Call To Action Goes Beyond the Environment

Is Climate Science Really Settled?

The Scientific Method and Climate Change

Is Climate Science Really Settled?

21 Sunday Sep 2014

Posted by in Uncategorized

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

,

There is an interesting op-ed in the Wall Street Journal by Steven Koonin, a physicist and undersecretary for science in the Energy Department during President Obama’s first term. He is not a Climate Change denier, yet he notes that much is unknown about Climate Change and that climate models are riddled with assumptions and guesswork, and not based simply on observations and physical laws.

While some parts of the models rely on well-tested physical laws, other parts involve technically informed estimation. Computer modeling of complex systems is as much an art as a science.

For instance, the latest IPCC report uses 55 different climate models. To say they aren’t on the same page is an understatement. They have a margin of error in describing the global average surface temperature of over 3 times the warming actually observed over the last century. Similar margins of error exist in the estimation of other basic climate features such as rainfall, feedbacks, climate sensitivity, the oceans, etc.

As a result, the models give widely varying descriptions of the climate’s inner workings. Since they disagree so markedly, no more than one of them can be right.

And let’s not forget the natural variability of climate. The models and modelers aren’t even close to untangling human influence and natural variability, and human influence is much smaller than natural variability. This explains the current 16 year observed pause in warming that none of the models predicted.

The IPCC Report versus the “Summary for Policy Makers”

Yet these doubts and concerns in the IPCC report are not contained in the political document, the “Summary for Policy Makers,” which animates the press and the left in their calls for punitive carbon taxes and other austerity measures. Such austerity measures resemble a penance for humanity, rather than a reasonable and exhaustive search for a cost-effective solution.

What Should We Do Now?

Still, Koonin doesn’t believe this is an excuse for inaction.

Society’s choices in the years ahead will necessarily be based on uncertain knowledge of future climates. That uncertainty need not be an excuse for inaction. There is well-justified prudence in accelerating the development of low-emissions technologies and in cost-effective energy-efficiency measures.

But climate strategies beyond such ‘no regrets’ efforts carry costs, risks and questions of effectiveness, so nonscientific factors inevitably enter the decision. These include our tolerance for risk and the priorities that we assign to economic development, poverty reduction, environmental quality, and intergenerational and geographical equity.

This gibes with my view that we should take reasonable steps, such as investing in technology to improve the efficiency of solar power, that will be beneficial in any case. Approaching the problem by investing in a technological Manhattan Project should allow us to solve the problem out of abundance, instead of the costly and punitive prescriptions for austerity through carbon taxes and such.

Post Climategate, Let’s Have an Honest Re-Opening of the Debate

This is where cost-benefit analysis, consideration of tradeoffs, and an honest political debate should enter the picture. So much of the scientific community seems to have discredited itself through Climategate, with their admitted attempts to “hide the decline” and with claims that “the science is settled,” that it will be difficult for them to backtrack.

They have compounded that error with Stalinist smears of any scientist that deviates from the orthodoxy. Whatever your views of the Climate Change issue, such witch-hunting and smears of those who disagree are hardly indicative of a scientific cast of mind.

We need other, more honest voices in the scientific community to rise and admit what science knows and what it doesn’t know. Then it should be left to the electorate to make priorities and decide what should be done as the science hopefully advances over the next decades.

In any case, the idea of scientists as some “high, priestly caste” (in Peter Robinson’s phrase) that should rule over the rest of us is deeply flawed. They have no expertise in economics, cost/benefit analysis, or determining societal priorities. The people should be educated honestly and trusted to decide their own fate. This, after all, is the way of democracy.

Despite the statements of numerous scientific societies, the scientific community cannot claim any special expertise in addressing issues related to humanity’s deepest goals and values. The political and diplomatic spheres are best suited to debating and resolving such questions, and misrepresenting the current state of climate science does nothing to advance that effort.

See Also:

The Scientific Method and Climate Change

The Scientific Method and Climate Change

20 Sunday Oct 2013

Posted by in Uncategorized

≈ 7 Comments

Tags

,

I Believe in the Scientific Method

I believe in the scientific method a la Karl Popper.  Well-designed scientific studies that test hypotheses have advanced human knowledge and have been the light of the world over the last several hundred years in terms of improving the lot of man.  The key is that such hypotheses must be testable and falsifiable, and the scientific studies must be independently reproducible in order to form real scientific evidence.  And the more times such studies are reproduced without contradiction, the more weight they carry.

However, it has been said that 80% of observational studies are wrong, although they benefit many a scientists’s career through the publish or perish phenomenon.

All Models Are Wrong, But Some Are Useful

As statistician George Box has said, all models are wrong, but some are useful.  “Science” built on untestable and unfalsifiable computer models that predict the end of the world in 100 years unless society is upended at tremendous cost has nothing to do with the scientific method.  It has entered the realm of political advocacy.

I will have more confidence in such models when they are able to take the data from the last thousand years or so and “hindcast” the observed results accurately.  Until then, computer projections for 100 years in the future are more science fiction than science fact.  Especially given that so many of the scientific advocates of the disaster scenario have been discredited by the Climategate scandal of 2009.  Those involved are many of the powerful gatekeepers of the supposedly authoritative IPCC reports, including Phil Jones, Michael Mann, Kevin Trenberth and their fellow travelers.  Why these individuals who have been shown to have tried to “hide the decline” in global temperatures over the last 15 to 20 years should be looked at as honest purveyors of the scientific truth escapes me.  Michael Mann is a particular example of pseudo-scientific political advocacy, as he is the author of the now infamous Hockey Stick chart that has since been discredited.

Science is the Fruit of the Scientific Method

Science is the fruit of the scientific method, and not whatever a group of people with the credentials to be called scientists says it is.  An unfalsifiable and untestable hypothesis is weak evidence upon which to call for upending the economy.  Our standard of proof should be very high in such a circumstance.

Cost-Benefit Analysis and Consideration of Tradeoffs is Key

The fundamental fact of the world we live in is this: resources are limited and desires are infinite.  That is why considering the necessary tradeoffs for a desired change through cost-benefit analysis is key.  It is not enough to say that the world should be so.  You must ask if the price of the change is worth it.

Austerity as a Kind of Penance is Not the Only Answer

Even assuming that the Climate Change as disaster thesis is valid, economic austerity as a kind of penance is not the only answer.  Bjorn Lomborg has many sensible ideas along these lines.  We should be looking at investing in technologies to mitigate any potential damage, including possibilities such as geo-engineering, that may help deal with the potential problem at a lower and more acceptable societal cost.