Bishop Hill In which computer models collide with the real world
Mar 17, 2015 Climate: WG3 Energy: coal Greens Yesterday's post on the trade-off between the need to expand use of fossil fuels in Africa and the wish to restrict carbon dioxide emissions seems to have stirred up a bit of a rumpus. Most commenters from the other side of the debate apparently deemed my question over the wisdom of access restrictions as entirely illegitimate, although the reasons why are somewhat unclear to me.
Firstly, as Roger Pielke Jr pointed out, in the real world there are trade-offs that have to be made.
@ClimateOfGavin Not really-see: 1 http://t.co/oOu02cRHeD 2 http://t.co/WkxXfuwpJK Real world tradeoffs are actually being made @mattwridley
— Roger Pielke Jr. (@RogerPielkeJr) March 16, 2015
The first of the papers contains this:
...under US Senate Bill S.329 (2013) the Overseas Private Investment Corporation – a federal agency responsible for backstopping U.S. companies which invest in developing countries – is essentially prohibited from investing in energy projects that involve fossil fuels, a policy that may have profound consequences in places like sub-Saharan Africa that are seeking to develop oil and gas resources to help alleviate widespread energy poverty.
I have heard no arguments that there isn't a trade off, so this is presumably not the reason why my questions are being declared off limits.
Ken Rice, of AndThenTheresPhysics says that my framing is malign although his allegation displays his normal attention to facts. Readers may recall that in the early days of his visits here I wrote a long piece explaining why climate science could only rely on physical models because of the difficulty in choosing a statistical model. To this, Rice responded, in effect, that I was an idiot and that climate scientists should be using physical models. Something similar seems to have happened here. I carefully framed my case as how to weigh deaths in the present against deaths, albeit hypothetical ones, in the future. This is the essence of the trade-off that has to be made and which is, according to Pielke Jr's paper, being made in favour of those not yet born and at the expense of those alive today. Rice says my framing is that:
...those who might be concerned about the risks associated with climate change [are not] concerned about the fate of poor people in the developed world.
But I specifically said this was not the case. My words were:
The accusation is not...that greens are callous about deaths in Africa.
As I explained, the choice is between real deaths now or hypothetical deaths later and all points in between. It is the choice that politicians are making right now. And, advised by climatologists and economists of the Stern/Fankhauser genre of the horrors to come and the costs to be borne, they have decided to do what they can to keep fossil fuels out of the hands of Africans. Who knows, it might even be the correct decision.
This is where the computer models of climatologists and the discounting choices of economists bang right up against the real world. The projections and predictions are no longer academic playthings to be bickered over at conferences and seminars, they are the tools with which our leaders make life-or-death decisions.
I hope scientists have the right caveats in place.
Bishop Hill
In the comments to the original article, Ken Rice explained my argument as follows:
Let me try and lay this out again, as this is what I thought the point of this post was. Framing this whole discussion as "my solution is the only way to help the poor in the developing world...anyone who disagrees with this is arguing for the death of people in the developing world" is appalling.
This, he says, was his way of "paraphrasing" my argument. You know, the one that said:
The accusation is not...that greens are callous about deaths in Africa.
I don't think he can help himself.
Reader Comments (104)
Infrequent poster and confused. In this part of the Marches, we have converted from coal fire to logburner and seriously tihinking of converting from oil fired heating/cooking to woodpellet. This is, supposedly, a good thing environmentally, but bad if open fired in africa. In a Marie Antoinette way, I ask, can we not ship them cast iron cookers? Or what am I really not getting?
Nullius,
I fail to see how what Matt Ridley said was consistent with what I said, unless you think "two wrongs make a right" is somehow an appealing argument. Additionally, there is a massive difference between someone saying "I'm worried about my children" and another saying "your policies will lead to the death of people in the developing world". I realise that Matt did not specifically say the latter, but a good number of people on the comment threads here did. It's hard to believe that you are unwilling to accept that such arguments are made. For balance, I would object to it being made in reverse too. Or rather, there would be no obvious reason for you to engage with someone who was suggesting that your views will lead to the deaths of millions, just as there is no reason for me to do so. It's not conducive to a good faith exchange.
Firstly, this - in my view - is an example of a bad faith exchange. This isn't fundamentally about the question itself, but whether or not implying that another's policy preferences will lead to many unnecessary deaths is a suitable way to engage in a good faith discussion. No, is my view.
But, okay, I don't know the answer - or, rather, I don't have a good answer. Do I think that the only possible way we can provide energy to the developing world is through fossil fuels? No, I think this is much more complex than simply "fossil fuels have been fabulous, fossil fuels are cheap, rock on". Do I think fossil fuels will and should play a role? Sure, it's hard to see how we can avoid this. Do I think climate change presents a risk and that any changes will likely be irreversible on human timescales? Yes. Is there an easy way to reconcile this? No, I think it's an incredibly complex and difficult problem. Do I think it's possible to have some kind of good faith discussion about this with most who are on the other side of this debate? No, I don't, especially if they're willing to imply (sometimes not even imply) that people like me are promoting policies that will lead to many unncecessary deaths in the developing world.
Ken Rice's mode of operation is to "paraphase" others incorrectly and when called on specific points to reframe and reword or simply change subjects to something else. In otherwords the guy is dishonest. Why would anyone even consider having a conversation with Rice, let alone take his opinion seriously.
He is the type who usually gets labelled as an as*clown.
"I fail to see how what Matt Ridley said was consistent with what I said, unless you think "two wrongs make a right" is somehow an appealing argument."
What's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander...
People have been complaining about all the claims that climate scepticism threatens children and poor people for years, and people like you have airily dismissed them as insignificant. Sometimes it takes a tu quoque to make them understand. Your understanding that such arguments as directed against us are specious and unpleasant is what we're asking for.
"Additionally, there is a massive difference between someone saying "I'm worried about my children" and another saying "your policies will lead to the death of people in the developing world"."
No there isn't. It's exactly the same appeal to emotion.
*We* oppose fossil fuel cuts because we're worried about poor African children (amongst others). It's the same thing.
" For balance, I would object to it being made in reverse too."
Then please do!
Unfortunately, we only saw you attacking Ridley, not all the many people calling for drastic cuts in fosil fuel use. Let's see some more of the latter, shall we?
"This isn't fundamentally about the question itself, but whether or not implying that another's policy preferences will lead to many unnecessary deaths is a suitable way to engage in a good faith discussion."
Do you mean Albert "20-foot sea level rise" Gore? Or Jimmy "Death Trains" Hansen? Or films like 'The Age of Stupid"? That sort of good faith discussion?
"No, is my view."
Good! Then we're in agreement!
"Do I think that the only possible way we can provide energy to the developing world is through fossil fuels? No, I think this is much more complex than simply "fossil fuels have been fabulous, fossil fuels are cheap, rock on"."
Agreed!
"Do I think fossil fuels will and should play a role? Sure, it's hard to see how we can avoid this."
Agreed!
"Is there an easy way to reconcile this? No, I think it's an incredibly complex and difficult problem."
Agreed!
"Do I think it's possible to have some kind of good faith discussion about this with most who are on the other side of this debate? No, I don't, especially if they're willing to imply (sometimes not even imply) that people like me are promoting policies that will lead to many unncecessary deaths in the developing world."
We're talking about people who say they want to cut fossil fuel use. You've just said that you're not one of them. So we're "not even implying" it. End of problem, right?
Nullius,
No, one is an appeal to emotion, the other is an insult. That's the difference I'm getting at here. Someone claiming that I will be directly responsible for many unnecessary deaths is not an appeal to emotion - well, maybe some emotions, but not good ones.
I haven't attacked anyone. I've been highly criticial of what some people have said, but that's not an attack. It's remarkable how when some do this, it's speaking truth to power; when I do it, it's an attack.
If only this were true. Also, I didn't say I don't want to cut fossil fuel use. I acknowledged that they were likely to play a role.
To be fair, you are an exception on this site, in that you do appear to engage in good faith, which I appreciate. However, there appear to be many who go from "you think climate change presents a risk" to "you're going to be responsible for the unnecessary deaths of people in the developing world" in a single step.
Having read various ATTP posts, I have come to the conclusion that we should treat him as most Alarmists and Climate Psientists treat Skeptics.
Refuse to debate with him.
"No, one is an appeal to emotion, the other is an insult. That's the difference I'm getting at here."
How is the suggestion that I don't care about Hansen's grandchildren not an insult?
Our point is there's no difference.
"If only this were true. Also, I didn't say I don't want to cut fossil fuel use."
OK. So how do you reconcile cuts to fossil fuel use with the impact that has on the developing world? That it's worth it? That it's not worth it? That you want to cut it only for the politically-unfavoured few? What?
I don't have a problem with you saying 'because it's worth it' - there are *lots* of policies we support that also have that sort of effect. There is rarely a harm-free policy option available, we are always trading off one form of harm against another. When it comes to things like limiting spending on health and welfare, we argue exactly that. And it would be a logically valid counter, so long as you acknowledge we can make the same point with respect to Hansen's grandchildren.
"To be fair, you are an exception on this site, in that you do appear to engage in good faith, which I appreciate."
Thank you! And I have to say, I don't think you're as bad as some other people here think. There's a fair amount we actually agree on. (Not everything, of course.) I think the problem is that you assume a priori that we don't, and your firmly-expressed criticisms of the position you assume us to have lead *us* to assume that you're thereby taking the position we oppose. As the Bishop has noted previously, this leads to a lot of confusion where we end up in violent agreement.
But I think they are at least honest misunderstandings, unlike with some. Thanks for trying.
World Bank acknowledges coal’s potential to improve Africa
There’s never been a country that has developed with intermittent power
http://www.powerengineeringint.com/articles/2014/08/world-bank-acknowledges-coal-s-potential-to-improve-africa.html
No, that isn't my prior. I thought my prior was fairly clear, as I've said it often enough. I think the comments here are typically apalling and that there's not much point in trying to engage in discussions here - with some exceptions. That's not the same as assuming that there's nothing we agree on. In fact, my irritation is more that there probably are interesting discussions that could be had, but there is so much bad faith that it's really not worth bothering.
Actually, I find this rather irritating. What typical happens is that I get told that I agree with what's being said here. Personally, it's not up to someone else to claim that we agree. How it works is that the other person says something that I can then agree with - continuing to say things I disagree with, while claiming I don't isn't going to do it.
The example that the Bishop gives of me disagreeing with him about physical models is equally irritating. If you write a post promoting Doug Keenan's very obvious nonsense, you don't make it less nonsensical by adding some lines about needing physical models. It just means you have a post that is not only nonsense, but in which two parts of the post are entirely inconsistent. Similarly with this topic. The way you convince people that you don't use the "deaths in the developing world" gambit is but not doing so, not by telling people that you don't, while doing so.
"
I think anyone who's starts with the Africans wanting to increase fossil fuel utilization with a "um, sorry guys, it's a bit more complex than that" is so wrong, there's no arguing with them at all.
Look at it any way - total cumulative, per capita, historical, present-day ... African countries have the lowest emission rates. Even if they start today, there is so much work to be done before they can actually produce any climate impact, collectively.
timg56, you are absolutely right.
For those unwilling to endure Ken's tergiversations and ambiguities, here is a shorter version:
Summary:
" Do I think it's possible to have some kind of good faith discussion about this with most who are on the other side of this debate? No, I don't, especially if they're willing to imply (sometimes not even imply) that people like me are promoting policies that will lead to many unncecessary deaths in the developing world.
This isn't fundamentally about the question itself, but whether or not implying that another's policy preferences will lead to many unnecessary deaths is a suitable way to engage in a good faith discussion."
Doesn't it read more easily if you run it through a summarisation routine?
and Ken, as long as you are not prepared to discuss the implications for people living in poverty today of your desired policy prescriptions, you will always be considered lacking in either compassion or intellect or both, apart from by the fanboy groupies who contribute at your web-site, having beem intellectually trounced everywhere else on the internet.
"I think the comments here are typically apalling"
In what way?
" Personally, it's not up to someone else to claim that we agree."
OK. I'll be more precise and say that our positions are logically equivalent. You apparently don't agree that they are.
<I>"If you write a post promoting Doug Keenan's very obvious nonsense, you don't make it less nonsensical by adding some lines about needing physical models."
Yes, it's the same problem that we see here. Party X presents an invalid argument. Person Y demonstrates its invalidity by presenting another argument of exactly the same form coming to the diametrically opposite conclusion. You criticise person Y for presenting an invalid argument, assuming it was meant seriously. But you don't criticise X for their argument, even though it's of the same form, regarding it as somehow "different". We agree entirely that the form of argument is invalid - that's the point. Where we seem to disagree is in the idea that you can demonstrate the flaws in one argument by presenting another of the same form, coming to conclusions with which the original arguer is bound to disagree.
It seems like a simple enough logical/rhetorical technique to me - somewhat similar to the mathematician's "Proof by Contradiction". I'm not sure what you find so difficult about it. But I've learnt over the years that different people can indeed find such things far from obvious. It's often difficult to know what to do about it, though.
I think anyone who's starts with the Africans wanting to increase fossil fuel utilization with a "um, sorry guys, it's a bit more complex than that" is so wrong, there's no arguing with them at all.
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Well said, shub.
The point that these slippery characters always carefully avoid is cost. We are talking about poor countries here, with low levels of education. What they need are the simplest, cheapest, most reliable forms of concentrated energy there are - which brings us to coal and gas powered electricity plants and petroleum products for their vehicles. Not boutique products, not hippie fantasies - but things which have been tried, tested and developed to a point where they are guaranteed to deliver with minimal need for highly skilled labour and at the lowest possible cost.
Coal and gas power plants have evolved to a point where they can practically be assembled like Lego, and run by a very small group of skilled employees. And in even the poorest Third world countries, there are bush mechanics who can keep petroleum-powered vehicles running with baling wire and amazing ingenuity.
That's what these countries need to enable them to improve their economies, health and education - not expensive, high tech (or low tech, in the case of wind power) toys.
ATTP and his pals stubbornly refuse to face this fact. Every dollar that they divert from these objectives is a dollar taken away from addressing infant and child mortality, poor nutrition, environmental degradation and the many other evils that plague subsistence economies.
@ Don Keiller
> Refuse to debate with him [aTTP]
Yes
His drollery, his moral vanity and constant shifting of goalposts rapidly becomes merely tedious
Given the name he has chosen for himself, ATTP's complaints about bad faith can hardly be sincere.
Mind you, it's a poor joke to recruit physics to the defence of climate science. As with statistics, the climate brigade treat physics as their personal smorgasbord. When real physicists or statisticians call them on it: "Well, you're not a climatologist, so what would you know?"
ATTP is evidence that eugenics may actually be required to save mankind. /sarc
Mark
Ken Rice: " Additionally, there is a massive difference between someone saying "I'm worried about my children" and another saying "your policies will lead to the death of people in the developing world". I realise that Matt did not specifically say the latter, but a good number of people on the comment threads here did."
What is this difference? I have posted to the other discussion a chart produced by the WHO, which quantifies the major risk factors to people in HMDCs. (Here is another version.) You want to talk about risk, but seem to want to distance yourself from a conversation when the risks are finally quantified, so that we can put the risks from climate change into risks which are better understood.
The arguments made in the wake of those statistics, through the 2000s and into the 2010s did not keep them in perspective. They were used by every major green NGO and climate campaign. They were used in UNFCCC talks. They were used by the climate-obsessed media. They were used by Gordon Brown in his speeches leading up to and at the COP15 meeting in Copenhagen. If it is so terrible to talk about the consequences of X on people in developing economies, it is not really this end of the debate you need to be criticising.
Perhaps it is the case that you, who stand alone, and apart from almost every other person in the green camp that has made such an argument, linking the use of CO2 to its far-off consequences. It doesn't look like it, though.
Ken Rice: But, okay, I don't know the answer - or, rather, I don't have a good answer. Do I think that the only possible way we can provide energy to the developing world is through fossil fuels? No, I think this is much more complex than simply "fossil fuels have been fabulous, fossil fuels are cheap, rock on". Do I think fossil fuels will and should play a role? Sure, it's hard to see how we can avoid this. Do I think climate change presents a risk and that any changes will likely be irreversible on human timescales? Yes. Is there an easy way to reconcile this? No, I think it's an incredibly complex and difficult problem. Do I think it's possible to have some kind of good faith discussion about this with most who are on the other side of this debate? No, I don't, especially if they're willing to imply (sometimes not even imply) that people like me are promoting policies that will lead to many unncecessary deaths in the developing world.
You admit complexity, but won't admit any counterposition to the debate. Moreover, your campaigning colleagues, whose work you do much to promulgate are famous for attempting to reduce the complexity of the debate, not by shedding light on the arguments in currency, but by diminishing the character of those who hold with the counterposition.
If it is, as you say an 'incredibly complex and difficult problem', why go to such lengths to polarise it? Why allow your colleagues to portray those who take a lukewarm position, such as Curry and Pielke to be lumped in with the unfashionable end of the debate?
It's as if you've just learned this magic expression 'bad faith', and that all you need to do to excuse yourself from having to account for your own argument and your own actions is to utter it. But faith, like 'complexity' is a two-way street -- it's not yours to hide behind.
You could start by realising that asking people to take an expression like Do I think climate change presents a risk and that any changes will likely be irreversible on human timescales? at face value is a big ask. What does it mean? What are the quantities? What is the significance of 'irreversibility'? These things seem to mean something to you, but they seem at odds even with what the rest of the climate movement seems to have a different understanding of, if they don't mean so many dead people in the developing world.
Johanna - ATTP and his pals stubbornly refuse to face this fact. Every dollar that they divert from these objectives is a dollar taken away from addressing infant and child mortality, poor nutrition, environmental degradation and the many other evils that plague subsistence economies.
It seems to me to be a law of the climate debate that to criticise climate policies/politics is to deny climate science (or 'basic physics' in the vernacular), and to criticise climate science is to reveal blind obedience to 'ideology'.
Environmentalism is vacillation.
Ben,
"If it is so terrible to talk about the consequences of X on people in developing economies, it is not really this end of the debate you need to be criticising."
I think he sort of is, very quietly. It's not that he doesn't get that a only-one-side-of-the-trade-off, appeal-to-emotion sort of argument is bad whoever does it - what he's not seemingly getting is that our African kids were only being presented in response to Hansen's grandchildren, not as an argument in itself. If we know this sort of argument is so bad, he's asking, how come we're using it? Two wrongs don't make a right.
I'm wondering if his misunderstanding is a more subtle one - that he doesn't get the idea of irony. It occurs to me that his misunderstanding is the same as it was in the Doug Keenan affair.
Consider the (imaginary) conversation:
Party X: 10 Nobel Prize winners have signed this letter supporting global warming action. You ought to believe because they're Nobel Prize winners.
Party Y: The Nobel Prize winner Richard Feynman said "Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts." He was a Nobel Prize winner, so we ought to believe him.
ATTP: Party Y has just used an invalid argument from authority, saying we should believe Feynman just because he's got a Nobel Prize. That's just so totally wrong, logically, and so typical of the sort of arguments I see on this site. You shouldn't believe it just because experts said so.
Audience: Well Duh. That was the point.
ATTP: Huh? What do you mean?
I think he's so tightly focussed on picking apart our arguments he's not looking at the context. He's not interested in all the Green campaigners doing it. His job is to make sure *we* don't get away with doing it. And he can't understand the idea of presenting an invalid argument solely to highlight the flaws in another invalid argument. Two wrongs don't make a right, he says.
I find the possibility hard to believe, but it would certainly explain our difficulty explaining Keenan's point to him last time around.
Geoff Chambers writes a few paragraphs with his usual eloquence and wit at The Conversation about the non-dilemma highlighted by Matt Ridley and Bish, contrasting the actions of Bill Gates and Alan Rusbridger. There are some other good comments there, and a comment from me.
Nullius,
This is all getting rather convoluted. If you think that I would regard "10 Nobel laureates have signed something, therefore it's right" is a valid argument, then you'd be wrong. Just because I happen to be here criticising some of what happens here, doesn't mean that I think others should get away with doing the same. It seems to me that you're essentially arguing that I can't criticise something here unless I actively criticise what you regard as equivalent elsewhere. Just because I may not have actively done so (that you've seen at least) does not mean that I would endorse such things elsewhere.
I can certainly understand this. My problem is believing it to be the case. Possibly I could generously accept that it was Matt Ridley's point, but that doesn't invalidate what I actually said - anyone who is going to use the "you're arguing for the death of millions" into a discussion, is not someone with whom it is worth having a discussion. You just need to read the comment threads here to see it being used. Even our host implied it with the But silence in the face of such a death toll is inexplicable.
In fact, there is an additional irony to this point, because this is a site that appears to promote that scientists should not speak outside their area of expertise and should certainly not advocate for certain policies as that would bring into question their scientific objectivity. Now, however, it's unbelievable that people can be silent in the face of a possible death toll due to poor policy options. So, which is it? Don't talk about policy, or do talk about policy? The answer, I think, is "don't talk about policy when it's something I disagree with, do talk about policy when it's something I support". I think you should be careful about suggesting I don't get irony.
Maybe you could explain this. If you're suggesting that someone promoting Doug Keenan's nonsense was some kind of subtle joke that I missed, I'd be mightily impressed. If so, however, it's incredibly subtle given that I've seen our host promote it elsewhere.
I do understand Keenan's point. It is still nonsense. Keenan really doesn't have a clue and - given that he's made claims of academic fraud against (IIRC) - 4 different academics, is clearly both incompetent and remarkably unpleasant.
Personally, I think you're trying to rewrite history by making poor arguments sound like clever subtle arguments. Furthermore, if they were really subtle clever arguments that were trying to illustrate the point I'm making, surely the logical response to my comments is "you're quite right, those are not valid arguments, and you simply misunderstand what people here are saying"? I would actually really like to believe that the latter is true.
Isabelle (Mar 17, 2015 at 8:20 PM): while others emptily argue with the vacuous Mr Rice, a.k.a. aTTP, they have ignored your genuine question. It looks as though you have been somewhat suckered – the probability is that wood pellet is actually more “damaging”, environmentally, than oil and/or logs. Consider the costs of farming and processing the wood to make the pellets, and the subsequent transportation to you. Logs may be sourced locally; hopefully, I do not have to inform you of the process to get oil to you, other than it is established, and well-proven. Wood pellets, though… well, what is the source of the wood? If, like Drax, it is from North America, then it is burning an awful lot of energy to get a not-very-energy-dense product to you; remember, it has to be chipped and “pelletized”, then thoroughly dried for safe shipment; also remember that its energy content per kilo is about one fifth that of oil, thus your own storage will either have to be enlarged, or you will need deliveries five times more often, so ramping up the oil usage for you to, er, save oil.
You make a valid point about the use of cast-iron cookers; however, such a simple solution is not in the mind-set of the protestors – for one thing, who will be making these cookers? And how? Think of the oil that is being burned to make them! Shock! Horror! The vociferous minority who have control of the information pumped at us are not interested in solutions, for them, it is only problems that should be highlighted.
(I bracketed “damaging” with quotation marks as there is the simple point of how can you damage environment? You “damage” environment, and what do you have? Environment! Albeit different from the original, but it is still environment; perhaps more conducive to different species, as all you have done is change it somewhat.)
I don't post here often, but I occasionally read, especially in cases where there are differing perspectives are represented.
Anyway, this quote is a bit baffling to me... only because, were it to be a valid and universally applied view of 'bad faith exchange', then just about all policy discussion regarding Global Warming is conducted in 'bad faith'. There's no way ATTP or anyone else can tell me that adherents to the prevailing climate understanding who also dabble in the policy arena believe that people that present alternative policy options are not contributing to unnecessary deaths. Why else would they/anyone advocate so fiercely and/or criticize so vigorously?
-- Why else is the price of carbon being defined with a 'social cost' ..? Because of "premature" deaths; "avoidable" deaths; "unnecessary" deaths.
-- Why else would the EPA issue endangerment findings on various airborne pollutants ..? "unnecessary" deaths.
-- Why else has research been conducted / promoted about the 9 areas of Earth's bio-capacity, and how, according to these postulated limits, we've crossed at least 4 of them..? "unnecessary" deaths, perhaps even of the planet itself!
Surely you're not claiming that science-activists don't behave this way or use this appeal in policy discussions..? Heck, what point would this level of policy discussion have, were it not for avoiding unnecessary negative impacts (impacts that would by-definition occur absent the policy attempts to mitigate it)? Therefore, are you claiming that alternative policy proposals are not permitted the same intellectual space to argue the case that alternatives to their proposals also suffer from a 'preventing unnecessary death' flaw?
I doubt you purely coming from the angle that it's about "caring", because that's concern trolling. There are other important policy arenas where choices are argued regarding the balances between near-term and far-term consequences that are often asymmetric. Economics is one (where policy wonks squabble about long-term entitlement reform, debt reform, and the near-term plight of the down-trodden). Since long-term policy goals often have near-term flaws, and near-term goals have long-term flaws, what can you do?
Either you agree that policy advocates in each dimension can claim their opponents are callous to the impacts they're trying to resolve, or that no one can. There is a possibility you can make a case that one 'term' is more important than the other, but that doesn't eliminate the charge.
I guess far-term policy advocates can claim they 'care' about the negative near-term impacts of their proposals, but that it's super-wicked hard and there's no good answer... But then they also have to permit space for near-term policy advocates to say the same thing about the long-term without being uniquely charged with acting in bad faith.
What needle-threading is required for this to not make any sense?
Salamano,
Yes, this may indeed be true. I wasn't arguing otherwise.
There's a difference between believing it to be true and making an actual accusation that others are arguing for the death of millions. There is no point, IMO, in having a discussion with someone who will make the latter claim. If this is an important topic that would benefit from a free exchange of ideas, then the latter claim is sub-optimal. On the other hand, if you believe that your views are absolutely true and that those of others are not worth considering, then go ahead. There's no point in discussing things with people who you believe to be completely wrong and who believe are essentially arguing for the death of millions. Of course, that brings into question the point made in this post that there are always trade-offs.
I'm not trying to impose some rules. I'm simply suggesting that if we are to exchange views about this topic in a decent and honest way, that suggesting that one party is arguing for the death of millions is not an optimal way to interact. If your goal is not to interact, then carry on.
ATTP are you aware the number of times you end up making arguments that equally apply to your own side? If I thought you spent much time pointing your critisism at your fellows I'd take your points seriously.
and Then There's Physics has a point about me.
I have addressed his actions not his words. His actions are to campaign against the use of fossil fuels without providing an alternative way to prevent needless deaths in the third world. His actions are cruel.
He is offended at my rudeness in pointing out his callousness. But so what?
My crime is vanishingly small compared with his. No discussion in Good Faith could ignore the sacrifices he demands others to make.
This is just Charlie Hebdo writ large.
The poor in the third world want to develop using the cheapest energy. They offend his cherished belief that fossil fuels are a terrible evil that must be shunned. And so he campaigns for actions that leave millions of them dead.
Same game, just a bigger scale than the killers in Paris.
Fair enough as said, though I question as to whether it's fair enough in practice.
For, you are therefore stating that those of the prevailing climate science understanding that operate in the policy arena can have a goal of 'not interacting' and are free to interact 'not optimally', while at the same time using their position as scientists of a much-promoted consensus to effectively box out opposing policy positions from the light of day. They can even simultaneously promote their policy positions while being uniquely allowed to characterize that of their opposition without a need for first-person verification-- clearly a case of 'interaction without interacting', something majorities have often used to marginalize minorities through the years.
If this is not what you are saying, can you supply the missing dots that allow me to connect to a different picture? I'm not seeing them.
NiV - I'm wondering if his misunderstanding is a more subtle one - that he doesn't get the idea of irony.
This would suggest a deeper problem:
It suggests that he doesn't understand the abstract nature of debate at all, even when the imaginary argument is flagged up as imaginary, and asked to be considered as such.
NiV: His job is to make sure *we* don't get away with doing it.'
Indeed, he seems to be doing just that:
But the problem for him is that he would deprive the debate of every impact assessment of any kind -- including IPCC WGII and WGIII, Not to mention the WHO's work I linked to. He bars his own stated concern about 'risks' to future generations from the debate. He bars any enumeration of 'risks' from the debate at all. Nobody would be able, under the terms set by Ken, to talk about the potential impacts of climate change, ever.
Context is everything, Ken.
Let's say it again:
Ken Rice - There's a difference between believing it to be true and making an actual accusation that others are arguing for the death of millions. There is no point, IMO, in having a discussion with someone who will make the latter claim.
Do you at least agree that there is a question mark, in the discussion of relative risks (see the WHO tables I have supplied twice) over the consequences of policy vs the consequences of AGW?
Do you understand then, that if you want to make arguments about 'risk', you enter a two-way street?
He's just repeating himself. Could have saved himself the trouble if he'd explained what his objection(s) were instead of the browbeating and the fainting spells with the "appalled" and the "terrible" etc. Greens don't like a dose of their own medicine, what a surprise.
From Salomano
The modus operandi is the same: make a strong point, immediately declare the intellectual space and context in which the argument is situated out-of-bounds and ban the opposition.
ATTP loves to hear himself speak. I have a couple of children just like that. They only pretend to listen so that they can have their 'go'.
Those children make much more sense than he when it is their go ;)
Salamano,
I'm not sure why you've cast it as you have, as you've added many things that I clearly did not say or imply. However, clearly the above is possible and not illegal, therefore they can indeed do this. I was NOT arguing in favour of it, though. I was simply suggesting that if there is a goal to have a good faith, honest discussion, suggesting that the other party is arguing for the death of millions is not optimal. My own preference would be that we avoided such things.
Ben Pile and MCourtney are illustrating my point beautifully. Clearly there is absolutely no point in engaging with such people given that one has actually accused of arguing for the death of millions, and both have simply made things up about what I've supposedly said and about my views.
I don't see how it is not implied... Do you not think the game changes dramatically when one side argues for the complete sidelining of policy alternatives from entry in the policy arena-- under any justification, but specifically these 'bad faith' types you declare you implore?
One thing that can NOT be said... is that the various contrarians, yahoos, or whatever you have called them, have NOT ever argued that the climate/economic policy positions of mainline climate scientists be denied access to citizen-stakeholders. From what I've seen, they have no problem cohabitating the arena of ideas.
Do you not think this pushes mere talk of bad-faith and interaction into a darker realm, and that this part of it has only been pursued one-sidedly?
Ergo, if you do not actively argue against this being a valid option, it becomes something more akin to acquiescing a segregation of ideas, where one side is clearly well into the back of the bus.
The "goal" is to "have a good faith discussion"?
Funny how that becomes the "goal" when the other person has a point one does not have a reply for.
ATTP We’ve just had a report that estimates the real annual cost of renewables as £9 billion and that annually it currently costs each household £214. Those costs are duplicated in several developed countries. Do you think those costs have NOT had an effect? Since it doesn’t seem to factor in the impact on business the costs will be even higher. Do you accept that the carbon credit schemes have cost huge amounts of money and even opened up new avenues for fraud? Do you think the money couldn’t have saved lives somewhere? That is not to say it would have, any more that the activities of sceptics are guaranteed to impact climate actions that may or may not save lives in the future. But a decision in one area means another is neglected. Basic truth.
Cheap energy has brought us prosperity, health and most significantly peace. Interfere with that and more specifically in emerging nations and you damage those prospects. Many people are alive today because of fossil fuels. Fact.
Do you at least accept these concepts?
Ken Rice: Ben Pile and MCourtney are illustrating my point beautifully. Clearly there is absolutely no point in engaging with such people given that one has actually accused of arguing for the death of millions, and both have simply made things up about what I've supposedly said and about my views.
Made things up? You admit yourself that you are motivated by the concept of risk:
Ken Rice: One problem with providing an alternative is that there are (whether you like it or not) risks associated with continuing to increase our emissions.
Ken Rice: Do I think climate change presents a risk and that any changes will likely be irreversible on human timescales? Yes.
You want, here, to make arguments about risk, but don't want those risks to be enumerated here. What is the risk? Who bears it? If neither the risks of climate change or the risks of policy interventions can be quantified, the debate goes stale.
The risk of one might be small, compared to the other. The risks of the other might be merely theoretical. Perhaps this explains your reluctance.
On a similar point. If the climate debate doesn't have real consequences in the world -- i.e. isn't about action that is intended to save millions of lives -- then why are you so angry about abstract arguments that take issue with your own position? Are you simply personally offended that other people take a different position to you in an entirely abstract debate?
Obama: "No challenge poses a greater threat to future generations than climate change... The best scientists in the world are all telling us that our activities are changing the climate, and if we do not act forcefully, we'll continue to see rising oceans, longer, hotter heat waves, dangerous droughts and floods, and massive disruptions that can trigger greater migration, conflict, and hunger around the globe."
Ken Rice, you have bigger fish to fry.
Ben Pile -
I usually stop reading when a thread turns into a food fight. In this case, although I haven't read all comments, I've kept skimming, and I want to express my appreciation for your clear comments. I expect that they will have no effect on aTTP, but it has helped me to clarify some of my objections to policy, and the appalling consequences of beliefs evinced in John Kerry's claim that climate change is "the greatest challenge of our generation."
[Edit: and your Obama quotation, which I didn't see before my post.]
Ben Pile, ATTP is strangely critical of what is essentially a grass roots group. He is blind to the planks in the eyes of authority figures and institutions. Why I cannot fathom. Certainly he seems to have spent little time considering what effects acting on CO2 might have. Even his own contribution is a mystery to him.
HaroldW - I expect that they will have no effect on aTTP,
Surely not... But let's not go where Doug and Ken end up...
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There's Physics @theresphysics 5h5 hours ago
@dougmcneall Or, alternatively, realise that you're wasting your time explaining this to them and ignore them?
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Outfits like SkS have spent a vast amount of energy attempting to differentiate one camp from another (i.e. polarising the debate). But on innuendo about funding, the influence of ideology, taking liberties with science, there is very little that can be said about the imagined sceptic camp that doesn't apply in spades to the actual greener camp. Such are the perils of polarising the debate to avoid having the debate. Hence, arguments from environmentalists invariably turn into circular cascades of special pleading, punctuated by interminable whinging self-justification.
I have seen thousands of online discussions go that way... "How dare you suggest that I mean [X] by [Y]....", as though to explain a problem with X as necessarily involving Y means to personally insult a person, rather than to question that X might mean Y, and as though X=Y was even a radical or unusual proposition. What Ken and others with similarly poorly-developed understanding of debate should do is ask more about why their arguments appear to others as '[X], therefore [Y]'. But taking offence is the easiest way to score points, as the phenomenon of Offendotronics is testimony to.
The tendency, I think, is part owed to the fact that environmentalism has not developed within a culture of debate, where its champions have access to the intellectual literature. The "science" has always stood in lieu of the ecologists' deeper argument's about how society and the natural world inter-relate. So those of a green tendency always need to defer authority, and can only ever speak about crisis, rather than necessary relationships between things in the abstract. For people who participate in the climate debate as a battle of received wisdoms, the possibility of interrogating concepts like risk is an impossibility. The a priori is nothing more sophisticated than "I'm right you're wrong", hence the phenomenon of narcissistic trolling that characterises the green argument: it's all about them, and they don't like being held to account for their arguments or their moral consequences. How dare we suggest that their arguments have moral consequences?!! Like Blair, and the deaths of hundreds of young soldiers and hundreds of thousands of foreign people, they believe they are doing the right thing. But so did any one of history's many wrong-doers, usually by excusing themselves from debate.
It's all got a bit too much for he who was 'trying to keep the conversation civil'...
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There's Physics @theresphysics
I think this has suddenly become topical again. RP Jr is a tosser http://scienceblogs.com/stoat/2013/04/01/rp-jr-is-a-tosser/#.VQma3rN_HSM.twitter … via @Scienceblogs
3:34 PM - 18 Mar 2015
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Very funny, Ben.
Being routed horse, foot and artillery will do that to you.
...and Then There's Physics, Your views are on record on the Silent Economics thread.
You have said what you have said.
You do what you do.
You have a record.
You have acknowledged that there is no other way than promoting fossil fuels in the third world unless we allow poverty to continue the massacre.
Then you say you still oppose fossil fuels because of... well, unspecified downsides.
You know what you are doing. You are on record.
In good faith, why would you expect anything but scorn? Seriously?
The same two questions:
1) Have you an alternative way to save the third world from poverty without using the cheapest form of energy?
I've repeatedly asked this. I gave you the chance to justify your cruelty to black Africans. But you haven't got a reason (That you are willing to make public).
2) If not, how can you argue for the status quo and not expect to be opposed by those who have compassion for others?
" If you think that I would regard "10 Nobel laureates have signed something, therefore it's right" is a valid argument, then you'd be wrong."
I think we may be onto something here, since you've misunderstood the argument in just the sort of way I was suggesting. As I said previously: "We agree entirely that the form of argument is invalid - that's the point." We agree that you understand that argument from authority is invalid - what you seem to be having difficulty understanding is that the second argument is being presented as a counter to the first.
"It seems to me that you're essentially arguing that I can't criticise something here unless I actively criticise what you regard as equivalent elsewhere."
No, I'm arguing that you shouldn't criticise something here without recognising that the argument is deliberately of the same invalid form as its target and is only being presented to counter what we regard as equivalent elsewhere. Your criticism should be of whether it is a valid counter to its target, not of whether it is true or valid in itself.
"anyone who is going to use the "you're arguing for the death of millions" into a discussion, is not someone with whom it is worth having a discussion."
First, you're doing it again - taking seriously a position that was only being presented as a ironic counter to an analogous statement.
Second, it wasn't us that introduced "you're arguing for the death of millions" into the discussion! That was done by all the climate campaigners for the last forty-whatever years telling everyone that we had to take action on global warming to avoid certain catastrophe, and telling everyone that sceptics were bad people for arguing in favour of that catastrophe. I gave you the examples of Gore, Hansen, and Armstrong who all make that argument, two of them long before most of us joined the fight. There are people here who could no doubt list hundreds more examples.
This is the political argument for CO2 reduction, and much of the argument for holding sceptics in contempt. "When we've finally gotten serious about global warming, when the impacts are really hitting us and we're in a full worldwide scramble to minimize the damage, we should have war crimes trials for these bastards—some sort of climate Nuremberg." Nice argument, huh? And this is what we're supposed to put up with.
"In fact, there is an additional irony to this point, because this is a site that appears to promote that scientists should not speak outside their area of expertise and should certainly not advocate for certain policies as that would bring into question their scientific objectivity."
I can't speak for the site, but I'd say that they should not do so when speaking as scientists, claiming to speak for science or to present science's position. They're welcome to do so as private citizens with no more authority than any random man on the street - we hold to freedom of belief and freedom of speech here.
"So, which is it? Don't talk about policy, or do talk about policy?"
Be clear about your status when talking about policy. If you advocate for a particular policy position, you're being a political advocate, not a scientist. Your political opinions are not the Voice of Science. They're not the unarguable Infallible Truth. They're just another political position, like everyone else's.
"Maybe you could explain this. If you're suggesting that someone promoting Doug Keenan's nonsense was some kind of subtle joke that I missed, I'd be mightily impressed."
Sure. The argument starts with the UK Meteorological Office (party X) supplying an answer to a question in Parliament about the "significance" of the observed rise in global temperatures by selecting a statistical model for the noise arbitrarily, and showing that global warming is a significantly better explanation for the observations than the noise (as it is modeled) alone. This form of argument is invalid - you can only do this with a validated model of the noise, which in the context of climate means one based on the physics. The Met Office used one that wasn't, and indeed is well-known not to fit observations.
So Doug Keenan (party Y) chooses to demonstrate the invalidity of the Met Office's argument by doing exactly the same thing! He picked a statistical model arbitrarily, like the Met Office did, and compares it against the global warming hypothesis. He finds that global warming works significantly worse than the noise model as an explanation. He comes to a diametrically opposed conclusion by exactly the same method; the same style of argument. You cannot get contradictory conclusions by following valid methods, therefore the method used by the Met Office is invalid. QED.
Then you came along and spent several days failing to understand that we all knew that Doug's alternative calculation of insignificance was invalid. That it's invalidity was the point, since its invalidity implied the invalidity of the Met Office's identical approach, demonstrating which was the entire goal and purpose of the whole exercise. That by arguing that Doug's calculation was invalid because he'd picked a statistical model arbitrarily instead of a validated one based on physics, you was actually in full agreement with us.
It's not any kind of joke - it's a logical proof technique akin to Proof by Contradiction.
Ridley uses the same method. An unnamed campaigner (party X, possibly alluding to Jim Hansen though he's far from the only one using the argument) presents an invalid argument using the "think-of-the-children" fallacy, the one-sided appeal to emotion. Ridley (party Y) uses exactly the same invalid technique to argue for the diametrically opposed conclusion (i.e. continue using fossil fuels) by using the same sort of "think-of-the-children" argument, only with African children suffering smoke inhalation rather than grandchildren being hit by extreme weather. Both arguments are invalid for the same reasons: because you have to trade off different harms against one another, not just consider the harms on one side, and because the appeal to emotion demands that the threat be treated as an absolute to be prevented at any cost if the opponent doesn't wish to appear callous. Coming to the opposite conclusion by the same method demonstrates the intellectual and moral bankruptcy of the original campaigner's 'grandchildren' argument, by forcing us to either acknowledge the invalidity of both arguments, accept both their opposing and inconsistent conclusions, or ourselves appear callous in an unpleasantly partisan way. It's a very neat check mate.
But rather than recognise that the second argument is being presented as a counter to the first, you instead concentrate on the invalidity of the second argument as an appeal to emotion. You continue to miss the point that this is intentional. Its invalidity on these grounds implies the invalidity of the "grandchildren" argument, which is the goal of the exercise.
We all know you have to trade the risks on both sides: the impact on today's population of cutting fossil fuels versus the impact times the probability of dangerous climate change in the distant future. We might disagree on the probability, and even the potential impact, but we surely agree on this. You might argue that one outweighs the other, either hurting African kids today is worthwhile to prevent even greater harm later on, or that taking the risk of future catastrophes is worth it for the sake of today's poor. But that's the balance to be struck, and the argument to be made. If you're going to have an opinion on policy in this debate (and I accept that you might choose not to have one, and say "I don't know what we should do") then surely you need to take a position on this question. You can't ignore or dismiss either issue.
"Furthermore, if they were really subtle clever arguments that were trying to illustrate the point I'm making, surely the logical response to my comments is "you're quite right, those are not valid arguments, and you simply misunderstand what people here are saying"?"
Yes. As I said in my comment above: "We agree entirely that the form of argument is invalid - that's the point."
But as I also explained: "Where we seem to disagree is in the idea that you can demonstrate the flaws in one argument by presenting another of the same form, coming to conclusions with which the original arguer is bound to disagree." The argument operates at two levels - the counter-statement using the same invalid form as the original argument, and the meta-argument using the second to demonstrate the invalidity of the first. The base-level statements are invalid, the meta-argument is not. The meta-argument is implied - it's assumed that the reader will recognise the 'obvious' implication of the contradiction on their own. Most people seem to be able to.
Nullius,
I was going to give up on this, but you really seem to be arguing that I've been criticising things that I assumed were serious but that really were simply ironic counters to flawed arguments. All I can really say is WOW. If that is true, then this has been the biggest poes in the history of poes. I'm really finding it hard to believe that you're actually making this argument.
I don't really want to get back into the whole Doug Keenan argument, but this is a ludicrous thing to say,
It completely confuses the process of data analysis with data interpretation. If I have some data from which I want to gather information, then I apply various techniques, for example linear regression. I may, of course, have to have some understanding of the data in order to know if it's correlated or not so as to properly estimate errors. Once I've done my data analysis I can then use physical models to try and understand what physical processes explain my measurements/observations. This is entirely standard and Doug's Keenan attempt to show that this is wrong is entirely nonsensical. He clearly does not understand physics, data analysis, or basic science. That you would defend his position in this highly convoluted manner is very strange. That's not to say that I don't think you're engaging in good faith here, but I'm finding your argument extremely odd.
Let me be clear, I do understand what you're suggesting. I think I've always understood it roughly in the way you describe it - although you may now be introducing subtleties that I had considered. I still think it is complete nonsense.
"I was going to give up on this, but you really seem to be arguing that I've been criticising things that I assumed were serious but that really were simply ironic counters to flawed arguments."
Yes. You've got it.
"If I have some data from which I want to gather information, then I apply various techniques, for example linear regression."
The problem is that the conclusions you can draw from a linear regression are conditional on the assumptions underlying the method being valid. If they're not valid, then the output of a linear regression is meaningless and misleading. The assumptions constitute a model of the noise - if the model is not validated, e.g. by physics, then you've already strayed from the path. And there's a serious danger that any subsequent reasoning you do will simply recover the assumptions implicitly fed in to the process right at the start.
Linear regression (ordinary least-squares or OLS) is based on the assumption of the data being a linear combination of known inputs plus additive, identically-distributed, independent Gaussian errors. The probability of the actually observed output given a particular parameter set is the product (because of independence) of the probabilities of each individual error, which are exponentials of the same fixed negative constant (because the distributions are identical) times the squared error (probability proportional to exp(-e^2/v) because the errors are Gaussian). We want to find the parameter set that maximises the probability of the observed outcome, which if we assume a uniform prior on the parameter space is also thereby the most likely set of parameters. We take logarithms to turn the product into a sum, and get rid of the exponentials, and take the constant outside the summation. Maximising the probability is then equivalent to minimising the sum of squared errors. The OLS linear regression process finds the parameter set for which the sum of squared errors is a minimum.
If the assumptions are incorrect, then it is no longer true that OLS gives the most likely set of parameters. If the error distribution is not Gaussian, not additive, not independent from measurement to measurement, or not identically distributed, then the above reasoning fails. If the prior is not uniform, the reasoning fails. There's no reasoning to think OLS tells you anything about what's going on, any more than taking the cosines of all the numbers and multiplying by the birth dates of the American Presidents in reverse alphabetical sequence. It's just arbitrary number juggling.
You have to start with the physical model, and then *if* the model says its appropriate (i.e. the physics predicts additive, independent, identical Gaussian measurement errors), you can use linear regression. If the physical model says something different, then you have to modify your regression to match. And if you don't have a physical model, then you can't validly estimate *anything* yet.
And this is the problem with all attempts to prove that observed climate change is significant/insignificant, or to slap trend lines on graphs. Climate science does not yet have a validated model of the errors/noise/weather against which to compare hypotheses. Without it, all statements regarding significance, detection/attribution, and all trend lines are invalid or meaningless.
There are a lot of people - including scientists - who don't understand this. They've learnt from textbooks that teach toolbox methods like OLS using potted exercises in benign circumstances where it always works, and left students with the impression that it will always do so out in the real world too. They drop out before they get to the more advanced textbooks that tell the full story.
I'm no exception. When I left university I didn't understand it either, and only learnt it many years later. I still know less about it than I feel I ought to. But I do think that it's essential for any scientist wanting to understand the climate debate.
Nullius in Verba wrote:
'Yes. You've got it.'
So are you going to tell us that all the claims by skeptics here and elsewhere that there has been a pause in warming are also just an ironic joke based on an argument that they all understand is nonsense?
No, you've not got it.
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