Climate science: A sensitive matter
economist.com
economist.com
That seems like a pretty flimsy argument.
1. I don't think there's strong evidence that 'global average temperatures stopped increasing.' Many of the world's largest average temperature readings have happened in the last ten years (2010, especially, but even recent reports show upward trends: http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/national/2012/13).
2. Cherry-picking a few people whose models show a lower than average range, doesn't tell me anything other than the author of this article is suffering from wishful thinking.
3. The heart of the article seems to be suggesting this: "If climate change isn't that bad, maybe we don't have to do anything about it, " but ignores the opposite proposition. Oddly, I'm not even sure why such an article is necessary since the world collectively isn't making any earnest attempts to curb carbon emissions. Any reductions have been economically based, not environmental.
No, I think this is a hit piece on the climate change movement couched as due-diligence and beneficial skepticism.
The data that the temperature for the last 10 years has remained basically flat is coming from the exact same sources that have advocated awareness of anthropogenic change, the IPCC being one of them. Unless things change a lot we're very much in danger of having the mean temperature of the planet land outside the error bars in the models.
What that means is that climate is a complicated thing (not too surprising), and that the models are missing some components.
The article wasn't about "Cherry picking" as far as I read it was more along the lines, "Well if all 21 models of the IPCC are inaccurate, what are some of the models they rejected?" That is asking the question, "If we don't have the right answer, what other answers were proposed?" Finding a model that both explains the previous temperatures with the data we have and is more accurately predicting the changes we're observing is the goal.
I took issue with picking a few individual researchers' models which have a lower range than the IPCC estimates (which are influenced by those lower estimates). The case could, and probably is, be made for higher ranged estimates. The point is, if you curate a subset of models to bolster your bias, you're not contributing any meaningful data to the discourse.
I agree with the statement "Every model is going to be inaccurate to some degree." the problem here is that when the actual temperatures start landing outside the range of even the uncertainty bars for a model it ceases to be "inaccurate" and is simply "wrong."
The political sensitivity of that possibility can not to be under estimated.
This premise, I think, has flaws:
I didn't see any citation for the "past 15 years air temperatures at the Earth’s surface have been flat" number, but I do notice that the NASA number quoted is a five year running average (over only 10 years), which would naturally flatten any trends over that time frame.
It seems like this notion that "warming is over" is pretty cyclical. Check out: http://www.skepticalscience.com/global-cooling-january-2007-...
This image in particular is interesting: http://www.skepticalscience.com/graphics/Escalator_2012_500....
From this, it is clear that life has existed on earth throughout an extreme range of atmospheric conditions. However, it is quite possible that nature's response to these conditions may be severely limited due to human intervention (clear-cutting rain forests, etc.).
I hope that in the near future it will be economically advantageous to transition away from fossil fuels. Elon Musk believes this will be the case [2], and I sincerely hope he is correct. Fossil fuels are a non-sustainable energy source which are being rapidly depleted and already cost far more in externalities than we realize (pollution, war, market instability, etc.). Climate change should not be the only impetus for a transition to a sustainable energy infrastructure.
1. http://www.biocab.org/Geological_Timescale.jpg
2. http://www.treehugger.com/cars/elon-musk-ted-talk-2013-tesla...
Nature is conditions, and man is a part of the equation.
Yes, evolution doesn't have intentions or goals, but scientists, actual zoologists and evolutionary biologists, speak of "intentions", "goals", etc when speaking of evolutionary processes (just open a Dawkins book). Anthropomorphizing a natural process is a short-hand that allows one to communicate ideas more effectively and more naturally. Everyone knows that there isn't an actual Gaia-like being pulling the strings of nature. Pointing this out is just noise in an otherwise productive conversation.
I used to make fun of people who talked about "The { biggest | smallest | hottest | coldest | whatever } <thing> in recorded history!" By drawing a bar for "History" (4.5 billion year planetary existence) and "Recorded History" nominally a 5,000 year stretch at the end there. Basically about .0001% of the length. So you draw "history" as a meter long bar on the chart and "recorded history" is a strip .1mm wide. Basically thinner than the line an ultrafine Sharpie(tm) pen draws.
Needless to say, it wasn't a really compelling way to make a point. :-)
The other reason to pick 5,000 rather than 150 as a starting point is that folks will argue with you about written history starting at 150 years ago but are willing to concede that beyond 5,000 years there isn't a lot of information to extract. The point to be made is that geologically speaking, 5,000 years is a trifling. Even when you consider the 65M years since the dinosaurs left us, we're looking at .008% or a mark a mere 8mm wide for 1meter at 65M years.
http://www.skepticblog.org/2013/03/27/mysteries-of-the-tar-p...
provide a rich record of a variety of mammal and bird species going through almost 30,000 years of the last glacial-interglacial cycle. What's remarkable about the fossils is the statis in the body forms of the wide variety of animals trapped in the tar pits. Significant climate change resulted in indistinguishable evolutionary change in those animals. As scientists continue to work on predicting the probable effects of future climate changes, looking back on verifiable examples like well dated fossil beds will be helpful in putting bounds on the predictions.
Wolves did evolve into dogs, but not naturally by our definition of "natural".
Therefore the the average mammalian species manages to survive mostly unchanged for about a million years or so (figure shamelessly stolen from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Background_extinction_rate - and they cite a 1993 study for it). Thus one would expect, on average, that 97% of the mammalian species that were around 30,000 years ago that to still be around and recognizably be the same kind of animal.
This is not actually so, and the main reasons are extinction events caused by people, and the effects of domestic breeding on chickens, dogs, carrots, tomatoes, and so on. But outside of types of things created by humans, there aren't a whole lot of new species running around that didn't exist in pretty close to their current form 30,000 years ago.
For example there is likely less genetic difference between you and our ancestors 30,000 years ago than there is between you and an Australian aborigine.
[1] http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/07/060714-evolu...
As to energy-balance models's they don't account for the huge difference in average temperatures between the poles and the equator, it takes far less energy to maintain a 3C increase in Alaska than Florida. As such weather patterns are really important.
Now, if the goal is to inform the public you base it on some peer reviewed research and repackage that instead of releasing original research in that fashion. All I am saying is the way the economist presented it was odd. I was assuming they where looking for something to create a little controversy to keep things interesting, but it just seemed odd to use something as a reference and then make it seem less credible at the same time.
If a report like that is well written, it will provide a decent introduction to the ideas, and also have an exhaustive list of references. In that sense it makes a better reference for a journalist or layman than the original papers, which can be hard to interpret! And you can still go and look at the original sources if you like.
Because of the wealth of evidence that tells us otherwise.
> can absorb shocks like CO2 emissions? It has supported life for millions of years.
'absorbing shocks' and 'supporting life' doesn't mean 'supporting human life comfortably'.
I don't understand the outrage about climate change, since reducing co2 emissions is mostly about being more energy efficient. How is that a terrible thing? My parents lived through 'Pea Soupers'[1] (a 4 day fog killed 4,000 people in London); we've seen the effects of gridlock and poor public transport; working on better solutions before the billions of China and India need a gas-guzzling car each doesn't feel like having any downsides.
[1] (http://www.epa.gov/aboutepa/history/topics/perspect/london.h...)
The only feasible solution to the problem is to find energy sources that produce at or above the levels the world requires today, but does so in a clean way. The only one that comes to mind for me is nuclear power.
And why do we think of ourselves as being superior to other past species? I generally don't like metaphors, but I remember reading somewhere (there were also a couple of animated representations in support) that we're more like a virus that has infected the Earth (its ecosystem etc.).
Looking at it through those lenses we have a couple of options left open until the host (Earth's ecosystem) ends up changing in such a way that will eliminate us. We can slow down the rate of infection by lowering our numbers or at least our growth rate. This has already started happening by itself in the more "advanced" countries. It will probably also happen in the rest of world at some point.
Or we can keep our numbers and numerical growth-rate but we'll need to start inflicting lesser and lesser pain on our host. Realistically, I don't see that happening anytime soon.
Or we can increase our efforts in finding a new host, or at least a "disease transmitter" (or whatever the scientific term is) that will carry and support us until we stumble upon a host similar to Earth. Let's say a space-ship or something of the sorts. I know this looks too much like science-fiction right now, but if we're serious about our long-term survival as a species we need to start looking at it that way.
On superiority: other species don't have a conceptual view of the world. Every other species can't read and understand your argument, let alone refute it. This has ramifications on a political level: In order to have individual rights, you have to be capable of understanding what individual rights are. Imagine the ridiculous spectacle of taking a bear to court for mauling another animal, or a person.
What it comes down to is this: I want to live. Not just to metabolize and take up space like other animals do, but to live a full human life. That means having a huge impact on animals, no matter what I do (short of suicide). Even if I didn't eat meat, there are plenty of things that are crucial for human life (everything from agriculture to medical progress to displacing animals to make way for cities and factories). The choice is clear: either humans are first, or they don't live distinctly human lives at all.
I am a human being, and I take pride in that fact. Because I am a human being, I can create art, write software, further our knowledge of the world through science, enjoy literature, and a whole host of other things that no member of any other species (currently known) will ever do.
That's ridiculous. That's like saying children or people with Down syndrome have no individual rights because they don't understand them.
On the contrary, since we have a superior intellect, we are capable of making moral judgements, and since we are capable, we are morally obliged to.
> The choice is clear: either humans are first, or they don't live distinctly human lives at all.
You have the right to live your life as you choose, of course, but not at the cost of destroying everything else. At some point, we need to consider the aggregate consequences of there being 6.9+ billion people all demanding to live "distinctly human lives". Unfortunately, for coming generations this idea may be a luxury.
I agree, there is a problem with that sentence.
However, I'm not sure that it helps your argument much. People with Down syndrome are still human beings - with the ability to form concepts and speak language. Although they don't understand as much about the world as you and I do, they certainly understand a great deal more than any bear would. (Also they won't maul you.)
since we have a superior intellect, we are capable of making moral judgements, and since we are capable, we are morally obliged to
I have a different view: in order to survive and thrive, each individual has to make moral judgements. That which furthers a particular person's life is the good (and he ought to choose it, if he wants to live), and that which harms it is the evil.
At some point, we need to consider the aggregate consequences of there being 6.9+ billion people all demanding to live "distinctly human lives".
Do you realize that "aggregate consequences" include the longest lifespans in human history (in industrialized nations)? A steady decline in climate-related deaths (which have fallen 98% in the past century)? The vast quantity and variety of food available at low prices at grocery stores? The ability to go across the continent in a matter of hours, safely? Need I go on?
No, that is what I meant by aggregate consequences. What you describe is the cause, or at best merely the current situation.
My point is that 6.9+ billion all thinking selfishly about their own right to live full lives leads to the modern equivalent of the tragedy of the commons.
50-60 years ago, we could reasonably argue that the most important right for a human being was self-realization. At this point, unfortunately, a single modern life contributes so much to the very destruction of the world -- in fact, even owning a moderately-sized dog contributes to the destruction of the world -- in a way that did not apply to previous generations, and that self-realization can no longer include the level of material wealth and, frankly, consumerist squandering that the current generations are built upon.
For example, the "vast quantity" of food "at low prices" you describe exist at the detriment of someone else in the world. If everyone on the planet had access vast quantities of food at low prices, in today's market system, then the world's resources would be depleted at an unsustainable (or rather, more unsustainable that today) rate.
Your world view seems extremely simplistic and naive. I sincerely hope it's not representative of the typical HN liberartian. Libertarianism is about liberty, true, but not liberty at a cost to society.
What is your basis for determining what constitutes "squandering"? Does wearing machine-washed clothes qualify? Buying new clothes so you feel good about the way you look? How about using a dishwasher to wash dishes? What about having a pet dog? How about building new homes, spacious enough so you have room to pursue hobbies and keep rooms from being cluttered and overwhelming?
For example, the "vast quantity" of food "at low prices" you describe exist at the detriment of someone else in the world.
You have offered no evidence to support this. Ad hominems ("extremely simplistic and naive") won't cut it here.
Because I assumed it's common knowledge. Take a look at any of the countries that supply most of the world with food, natural resources, etc. Most of them are not anywhere near the first world in terms of wealth, living standards, etc. for the local population, and yet they are the major providers.
> What is your basis for determining what constitutes "squandering"?
Most of human activity could be classified as squandering. We don't need most of the stuff that we have or consume. And yet it's very hard to give it up for the benefit of everyone else.
> Ad hominems ...
Not an ad hominem considering I spent the preceding paragraphs pointing out how your opinions were simplistic and naive.
I have been reading Dawkin's "The Magic of Reality", and one chapter explains that about 140 million years ago, our common ancestor was basically shark-like fish. Everything else is related to us, and they have to survive on their own merits.
It could very well be that if nature "intends" anything in evolution, it is to sort out the genetic capacity for adaption, in which case humanity has that in spades. Our main competitors are insects, molds, bacteria and viruses. As far as complex organisms (chordata) go, we top the list in success (though we are outnumbered by worms, and they represent more biomass than us in aggregate).
Secondly, regardless of what someone might think of climate change, you can't get around the fact that the Earth doesn't have infinite resources and is neither an infinite wastebasket. Something has to change about with how we do business to fix that fundamental issue.
So in the mean time, my only choice of buying my first home is some piece of shit stucko house in the suburbs.
This is a bit shortsighted, I think. It has supported life, yes, but it has not supported CIVILIZATION for millions of years.
Many hypothesize that human civilization, specifically our population size, would be completely and totally unsustainable with even a minor climate change.
Sure -- Earth would be fine! Life would be fine! Heck, we'd likely trigger what we would call an extinction event, but life would recover.
Humanity and civilization however are absolutely dependent on a narrow range of climate for our agriculture. Them's the facts.
If temperatures rise even 10° average, then about the majority of human population centers will be underwater and agriculture as we know it (the plants we're used to eating in bulk) are no longer feasible in the quantity or quality we expect. Those temperatures were seen in the Jurassic, and Earth and life were fine! But I do not think human civilization would be a fraction of what it is under those totally natural circumstances.
So sure. Life will be fine. Humanity could be on the brink, though.
of course everyone will have to move, but isn't there a huge amount of land that will become good for agriculture, e.g. siberia, northern america, maybe even some of antarctica?
The costs of being energy efficient today outweight the possible risks from having to pay for the consequences.
So you have a mismatch of effort: those who can don't have an incentive to fix the problem for those who can't.
(Or have a counter-incentive: I'm reminded of the anti-monsanto anti-gmo fad in the USA -- despite the fact that GMO foods are our best weapon in producing drought resistant crops for regions most heavily affected by those problems!)
However, if we stop the research now (by attacking the researchers through monsanto or by passing oppressive gmo regulation that forces them out of the industry), we will never develop superior drought resistant crops.
I believe that the precise modification of crops will be critical to responding to the stresses of climate. Classical breeding can only help us so much and the true impact of climate stress is still in the future.
> The costs of being energy efficient today outweight the possible risks from having to pay for the consequences.
i'm curious, is there any research to back up these claims?
In places where the ground is frozen permanently (permafrost), i.e. most places above the Arctic Circle, there is essentially no decomposition, and hence no soil production. You can often estimate the soil depth by looking at the tree height; the tundra supports no trees, and most of the rest of Alaska has pine and spruce that grow to maybe 5 meters.
The other thing to consider is the effect of heating permafrost, which is well-known. Well. To Alaskans anyway. Houses in permafrost zones are built on stilts, because anything that generates heat will turn the ground beneath it into a bog. If you heat Alaska and Siberia, they will turn into an unimaginable morass (and remain so for the indefinite future) and release gigatonnes of CO2 and CH4. That will wipe out any existing human habitation as well.
In short, I cannot imagine the confusion of ideas that would lead you to suggest such a thing.
what kind of the confusion would lead you to suggesting permafrost occupies most of the siberia and north america? however, your point is correct for antarctica i suppose.
Most likely humans will survive, but large investments in infrastructure and civilization in general made across millenia could be irreparably damaged. Shifting away from thousands of years old population centers (and the associated shifts in supporting infrastructure like farms and logistics) would not be an easy thing.
I want to see all angles here, so is there something I'm missing? Are there cases where volcanoes were spewing out CO2 at a similar rate and ocean levels did not rise by amounts that would have been bad for humans, or plant and animal species did not go extinct in a way that would have been bad for humans?
The GP seems to believe that the Earth's climate will simply revert to whatever was convenient for life while failing to understand that there's no reason to assume disruptive large-scale chemical changes in the environment can't or won't result in a new equilibrium that's inhospitable to life as it evolved for conditions present before such an event or series of events.
What do you mean? Do you mean that you think the Earth's temperature will not rise as fast as climatologist consensus? Or that the affects wouldn't be as bad as consensus predictions? If it's the latter, I'd love to know where you got the data (surveys of 'typical' climatologist community?) or if it's just a general impression of yours.
The whole article is about how different ways of estimating that feedback process leads to different estimates of how much it moves in response to force. The upper and lower estimates point to different numbers, but are in general agreement. Each produces numbers in the uncertainty range of the other, and both agree that global warming is real.
If you read any of this as evidence against global warming, you've misunderstood the article. Go back and read it again. Just because we don't know the exact response, doesn't mean that there isn't a significant one.
That global temperature is going up? I think that's pretty well-established. You can look at the graphs, you can look at the record ice melt we get each summer, and if you really want to get scary, figure out how much higher the temp increase would be if a lot of that energy wasn't captured by the phase change of the ice melts.
That the greenhouse effect exists? You can model that with 400-year-old physics.
During the last ice age, the average temperature of the Earth was only 5C cooler than today. Life survived just fine. Indeed, humans survived just fine. But that 5C difference meant Chicago was under miles of ice.
Look at what happened to Japan because of one tiny hurricane. We think of ourself as resilient because of our technology, but that comes from watching to much Sci-Fi. In reality even very small changes in the Earth's equilibrium could cause serous pain. Especially economically. Look at how painful the Great Recession has been in the U.S. That was with a financial shock that merely caused GDP to decline 4%.
That off my chest, I would also think that the global-scale political institutions are not nearly stable enough, nor will they ever be, to sustain a global effort to alter mass-behavior in such a way to consciously control the environment either for the good of all life on earth (whatever that may be), or for the "future of humanity": depending on whose book of revelations one chooses to follow for planning humanities future.
There seems to be a hierarchy of problems that the public/media keeps track of. 8 Years ago we were all talking about global warming and 3rd world debt. Then the economy crashed. Now we talk about the economy all day, with climate change relegated to occasional page 4 articles when a new study is published. Nobody even mentions 3rd world debt.
And that gives you an idea of how likely anyone is to change their behaviour based off the predictions of climate scientists (or even based off actual climate change, given that it happens so slowly).
Debt forgiveness is still default, just more socially accepted. But just like default it will still end with less trust and higher interest.
I suppose if more countries got serious about cancelling the debt, there would also start to be talk from charities/activists of guaranteeing future rates.
--- P.S I have no doubt we are screwing up our environment and need urgent change, but the psychology surrounding global warming is odd and interesting.
Yeah I'm a skeptic. Global cooling -> global warming -> global climate change. As the climate fails to heat up as predicted, the names and claims will once again shift.
Mean global temperatures will rise, and a key result of this may well be higher variability, with correspondingly more extreme weather events. There is no sense in which a freak snowfall disproves climate change: quite the reverse.
I think they key here is, people lost interest when every little thing was declared global warming and then started rolling their eyes when the switch was made to "climate change". Fanaticism has a tendency to cause people to tune out, worse is when its driven to political and financial benefit of a few.
Christ. If the subject was anything but global warming, reasonably-minded people would all come to approximately the same conclusion from the data we have. But no, tribal politics.
Climate changes naturally a whole lot more than we are comfortable with.
[1] http://www.skepticalscience.com/medieval-warm-period.htm
Richard Muller was a skeptic, then he got a lot of money from the Koch Brothers to rip apart climate science and upon closer inspection he found everything checks out.
http://www.businessinsider.com/koch-brothers-funded-study-pr...
Your justification (a simple repetition of right-wing talking points) only serves to showcase your lack of reasoning.
Muller himself stated he was never a skeptic - he just criticized the shoddy science of the global warming advocates. His BEST project confirmed to him his previous belief in anthropogenic global warming.
"I was never a skeptic -- only a scientific skeptic," he said in a recent email exchange with The Huffington Post. "Some people called me a skeptic because in my best-seller 'Physics for Future Presidents' I had drawn attention to the numerous scientific errors in the movie 'An Inconvenient Truth.' But I never felt that pointing out mistakes qualified me to be called a climate skeptic." [Huffington Post - not a scientific source, but probably reasonable to accept quoting a person about himself. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/blackberry/p.html?id=1072419]
You can read more about his recognized bias and scientific approach in a 2003 MIT technology review article: http://www.technologyreview.com/news/402357/medieval-global-...
For example, global warming could disrupt ocean currents that countries like the UK rely on for warmth. without it, UK freezes like Moscow which is on the same latitude, even if the rest of the world is warmer on average.