Shermer flips GW stance

[a_unique_person]

It is similar to Pascal's wager.

There are a couple of differences, though. Maybe we could have taken measures to ameliorate it 100 or even 50 years ago. It doesn't seem likely that we can do much about it now. So far, the measures that have been proposed (such as Kyoto) are almost completely ineffectual and would even have been so if a substantial number of countries had done what they said.

People will respond, of course, that Kyoto was only meant to be a first step and put in a framework and blah blah blah, but even as a first step, it's a very stupid one.

Not the fault of the scientists, the politicians.

 

[Badger]

Very, very simply.

1-10th of 1% (.1) of 1 degree hotter than it has ever been before is unprecedented but not by much.

3 degrees hotter than it has ever been before is unprecedented by a lot.

Excuse me? You are the one stating that current temperatures are unprecedented. I think it incumbent upon you to support this claim.

I honestly don't know. That is why I have been asking.

Google icecore temperature graph

First hit:

http://www.daviesand.com/Choices/Precautionary_Planning/New_Data/

Doesn't look unprecedented to me.

You got anything that can enlighten us further, CapelDodger?

 

[a_unique_person]

The point is,

a) There is a reason
b) It's going to keep going up.

 

[Badger]

The point is,

a) There is a reason
b) It's going to keep going up.

The point is....you're making a statement with no support to it. Convince me of point B.

 

[CapelDodger]

Maybe we could have taken measures to ameliorate it 100 or even 50 years ago. It doesn't seem likely that we can do much about it now.

My own take on it is the same. In the near future (20 years, say), events are going to be far more influential than policies, let alone theories. And the important events will be increasingly climate-related.

People will respond, of course, that Kyoto was only meant to be a first step and put in a framework and blah blah blah, but even as a first step, it's a very stupid one.

It had the same failing as the League of Nations, which was meant to prevent war but was so compromised away simply to establish the principle that it had no momentum. It became ammunition for those who were opposed to the principle rather than an engine of progress.

Kyoto was a triumph of diplomacy, not of science. The lowest common demoninator, loosely defined.

 

[epepke]

Not the fault of the scientists, the politicians.

I completely agree.

One of the things I don't like about this is that it is almost impossible to say something about the science, because the issue is so politicized.

If you don't actually superglue your tongue to the sphincters of the Kyoto signers, people say that you're a GW denier. And if you do admit that the world is getting warmer, people think you're a fanatic.

 

[epepke]

It had the same failing as the League of Nations, which was meant to prevent war but was so compromised away simply to establish the principle that it had no momentum. It became ammunition for those who were opposed to the principle rather than an engine of progress.

Kyoto was a triumph of diplomacy, not of science. The lowest common demoninator, loosely defined.

Good comparison; I like it.

The League of Nations was like an exellent painting of a tooth, but it had no teeth.

Nice idea. Shame about the reality.

 

[CapelDodger]

Nice idea. Shame about the reality.

I don't think humanity is socially or politically capable of coping with a problem like AGW, or war for that matter. Development has become stuck at the nation-state model, for understandable reasons. National leaders owe their status to the nation, and people don't give up status easily. (Monarchs occasionally have to lose their heads to get a point across.) Populations are taught that the nation is important to them (patriotism), and that the "national interest" as determined by their leaders is the same as their interest. So any attempt to establish a trans-national structure meets enormous resistance. The structure has to be neutered as a prerequisite to existence. It's all rather futile.

Humanity's social development has never kept pace with its technical/ economic development, and there's no reason to expect it to. Just look what the Age of Reason gave us. Social development has far more inertia than technical/economic development. The elements interact, but mostly through political systems being forced to stop impeding material progress.

So we end up in this situation, where we have the technical ability to damage the environment but not the political ability to stop it happening. All we can do is stand back and watch a long slow train-crash. But hey, waddya gonna do? It was ever thus.

 

[epepke]

I don't think humanity is socially or politically capable of coping with a problem like AGW, or war for that matter.

Possibly.

On the other hand, there were a number of ecological disasters that we handled quite nicely, even at the international level. One model is depletion of the ozone layer. It was solved quite well, some years ago, and only the most naive think that it's still a problem, and only the most idiotic claim that there is no link between Freon and the depletion of the ozone layer. Once we stopped producing Freon, it started to heal, and we're only about 15 years away from the time when it will be up to pre-CFC levels.

So obviously, the international community is at least in principle capable of doing something right. Unfortunately, the people who have seemed to glom onto AGW are more interested in doing things like Kyoto or, alternately, running around and flapping their arms like chickens with their heads cut off, which responses are unforgivably stupid.

If anyone were actually serious instead of histrionic, I would recommend looking at the successes of the past and trying to learn from them. Unfortunately, nobody seems to be interested. Anyone who even catalogues those successes (such as Bjorn Lomborg) is reflexively abused, even in the pages of Scientific American (which for more than a century was a respectable publication).

Sure, AGW is a bigger problem than the thinning of the ozone layer. But if we, internationally, could change essentially all of the refrigeration systems on the planet that fast, then we could learn from that experience.

However, as I said, most of the people who have glommed onto AGW seem more interested in slinging mud than anything else.

 

[CapelDodger]

However, as I said, most of the people who have glommed onto AGW seem more interested in slinging mud than anything else.

I don't know who you're referring to. The scientific community has been very careful and conservative - partly to avoid accusations of hysteria, not that that was ever going to work. If it's mud-slinging or hysteria you want, you could do worse than check out the opposite camp, with its claims that doing anything will cost a billion gazilllion dollars and cause the collapse of civilisaton and anyway it's all a conspiracy of scientists who Hate Us For Our Freedoms.

Ozone depletion was a problem of a completely different order. The vested interests were far smaller, but it was still a struggle against their arguments that it wasn't true and anyway doing anything would cost gazilllions, fall of civilisation, etc.

Acid rain was even more difficult, since power generation is a serious vested interest. Same sort of arguments - it's not happening, sulphur scrubbers will cost gazillions and make Western industry uncompetitive, it's a conspiracy and the truth's being covered up. But it was done, I'll grant you.

When it comes to AGW, no chance. The vested interests are enormous, and life-styles are directly involved. Nobody notices that there's a different gas in the new refrigerator or sulphur scrubbers at distant power-plants. The implications of action over AGW are not welcome to the general consumer, which is why so many choose to believe the denialist/CO2-lobbyist case. Politicians certainly don't like the implications - promising significant action on AGW will lose more votes than it will gain. The balance is shifting as the visible evidence mounts, but nowhere near quickly enough.

 

[epepke]

I don't know who you're referring to.

Yeah, you probably don't. You've probably never seen anyone who was called a right-wing lackey for not thinking that Kyoto was the best thing since sliced peanut butter.

I'm talking about the politicos, man! Not the scientists. Except for the editorial board of SA, who are barely scientists.

Ozone depletion was a problem of a completely different order. The vested interests were far smaller, but it was still a struggle against their arguments that it wasn't true and anyway doing anything would cost gazilllions, fall of civilisation, etc.

Acid rain was even more difficult, since power generation is a serious vested interest. Same sort of arguments - it's not happening, sulphur scrubbers will cost gazillions and make Western industry uncompetitive, it's a conspiracy and the truth's being covered up. But it was done, I'll grant you.

When it comes to AGW, no chance. The vested interests are enormous, and life-styles are directly involved. Nobody notices that there's a different gas in the new refrigerator or sulphur scrubbers at distant power-plants. The implications of action over AGW are not welcome to the general consumer, which is why so many choose to believe the denialist/CO2-lobbyist case. Politicians certainly don't like the implications - promising significant action on AGW will lose more votes than it will gain. The balance is shifting as the visible evidence mounts, but nowhere near quickly enough.

I quite disagree. I do not see any vested interests who would not jump at the opportunity to build and control some nuclear power plants. I'm old enough to remember when those same so-called vested interests were pushing nuclear power in the 1960s and 1970s.

This is paranoid conspiracy-theory-mongering of the first order, like saying that tobacco companies are somehow afraid that marijuana will be legalized.

 

[blutoski]

I quite disagree. I do not see any vested interests who would not jump at the opportunity to build and control some nuclear power plants. I'm old enough to remember when those same so-called vested interests were pushing nuclear power in the 1960s and 1970s.

I doubt that. There are three reasons fossil-fuel interests would not be interested in nuclear without major enticements:

1. The expression is "exposure to regulation". Nuclear is not profitable for deregulated industry: for one thing, nobody will insure a nuclear power plant. They will require detailed government regulation for their daily operations.

2. Government financial dependence. The NEI is currently speculating that they will need $18/MWh subsidy to operate profitably in the US. It also is asking for grants to break ground for new projects.

3. Entire nations without a scrap of technology, but are sitting on lakes of oil, are not at the table for nuclear, but still have influence.

Suggesting the oil companies like Aramco would jump at the chance to walk away from a potential hundred trillion dollars of assets (reserves) in exchange for a few risky nuke plants under government oversight and handouts is unrealistic.

 

[blutoski]

I quite disagree. I do not see any vested interests who would not jump at the opportunity to build and control some nuclear power plants. I'm old enough to remember when those same so-called vested interests were pushing nuclear power in the 1960s and 1970s.

Also, I think the poster was talking about you and me. Nuclear doesn't help reduce emissions from automobiles. Ordinary people are being asked to drive less, or buy smaller cars, or by expensive hybrids.

Even if nuclear did produce a bounty of electricity to run electric cars, ordinary people do not trust nuclear, and their vested interest in personal safety will be a challenge to overcome.

 

[CapelDodger]

Yeah, you probably don't. You've probably never seen anyone who was called a right-wing lackey for not thinking that Kyoto was the best thing since sliced peanut butter.

If someone has done this to you, you have apparently chosen to regard them as characteristic of the AGW camp (so to speak).

I'm talking about the politicos, man! Not the scientists. Except for the editorial board of SA, who are barely scientists.

Which politicos are mud-slinging over AGW. Damn, you mean Al Gore, don't you? And you must have something from Hilary to come back with.

I recall SicAm's raking over of Lomberg, and the book (it's rubbish, falls apart in your hands), and Lombergs pathetic rebuttal which amounted to 30-odd pdf pages of whining about the scientific establishment.

I quite disagree.

Nothing surprises me any more.

I do not see any vested interests who would not jump at the opportunity to build and control some nuclear power plants.

WalMart. There's one. Not their line of business.

I'm old enough to remember when those same so-called vested interests were pushing nuclear power in the 1960s and 1970s.

I remember when Maggie started making an issue of AGW, not because she'd suddenly turned green but because it favoured the nuclear industry. You won't find much nuclear-industry - which is a rather abstract, potential overlap of other heavy industries - money backing the anti-AGW camp. The other camp doesn't need it.

Nuclear power failed for economic reasons; it was never as cheap to install as advertised, it was never as efficient to run as advertised, the nuclear waste issue still hasn't been resolved, and AGW is their lifeline. You will find nuclear-industry money helping to trash alternative sources, but that's just factional strife within the AGW camp.

This is paranoid conspiracy-theory-mongering of the first order, like saying that tobacco companies are somehow afraid that marijuana will be legalized.

Do what now?

 

[CapelDodger]

Very, very simply.

1-10th of 1% (.1) of 1 degree hotter than it has ever been before is unprecedented.

3 degrees hotter than it has ever been before is unprecedented but by a lot more.

"Unprecedented" cannot be qualified, any more than "unique" can.

Excuse me? You are the one stating that current temperatures are unprecedented. I think it incumbent upon you to support this claim.

Permafrost that has not melted since the Younger Dryas is now melting. That's pretty sound evidence that today's temperatures are unprecedented in this inter-glacial.

You've effectively claimed that that natural variations have occurred that mimic the current climate event. I claim different, but how do I prove a negative? You could at least provide a counter-example to put me straight.

 

[varwoche]

Permafrost that has not melted since the Younger Dryas is now melting. That's pretty sound evidence that today's temperatures are unprecedented in this inter-glacial.

And according to a new study, there is an ungodly amount of carbon locked in that permafrost.

if permafrost continues to thaw due to global warming, the process could pump huge amounts of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, stoking further temperature rises.

Zimov and his U.S. colleagues estimate that frozen soils across a large swath of Siberia and Alaska hold nearly 500 billion tons (454 billion metric tons) of carbon—or two-thirds current atmospheric levels.
...
The researchers say most of the carbon frozen beneath the 360,000 square miles (1,000,000 square kilometers) of Siberian and Alaskan permafrost they studied would enter Earth's atmosphere upon thawing.

 

[a_unique_person]

Positive feedback?

 

[CapelDodger]

And according to a new study, there is an ungodly amount of carbon locked in that permafrost.

Seriously ungodly. Especially as much of it is released as methane, a fiercer greenhouse gas than CO2 (which it decays to over a few years).

 

[CapelDodger]

Positive feedback?

Unquestionably. Tipping-point? Quite possibly.

 

[Interesting Ian]

The anti-skeptic goes in with a pre-made conclusion, and tries to find evidence to back that conclusion up.

It's what we all do. Both anti-skeptics and skeptics and indeed all human beings. It is perhaps psychologically impossible to come from a wholly unbiased position and assess all the reasons and evidence objectively. We are only human.