Discussion > So who's not in the 97%?
"So who's not in the 97%?"
I am not much interested about which loose linguistic pigeon-hole a sociological surveyor wishes to place me in. Call it failed “predictions”, or call it "scenarios" which did not come to pass, if the models have no predictive skill then they should not be used as the basis for policy decisions.
michael hart
Richard Betts, 10:25 AM writes
The real debate is on the level of risk posed by future climate change, and how to respond to that.
Surely we can all agree this is common ground. This morning I came across an article published in 2007 by one John Stossel, and he expresses what I take to be the same sentiment, only more vividly, in his final paragraph:
The truth is, that while everyone agrees that the earth has warmed, lots of good scientists don't agree that it's mostly our fault, and don't agree that it's going to be a catastrophe. So when Gore says, "The debate is over," I say, "Give Me a Break!"
http://abcnews.go.com/2020/Stossel/story?id=3751219&page=1#.UZdf7UpXpU0
John Shade
So who’s not in the 97%?
This Washington Times article indicates that Ding Zhongli – “China’s most prestigious geophysicist and VP of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, described as ‘the final word on climate science for the Chinese Communist Party’" – is not. Here’s an extract:
American politicians would be wise to remember that, while there may be a “robust” (but not unanimous) consensus among American scientists that human-source carbon dioxide emissions are the major cause of global warming, there is no such view in China. Indeed, so far as Mr. Ding is aware, “the idea that there is a significant correlation between temperature increases and concentrations of atmospheric carbon dioxide lacks reliable evidence in science.”
In view of his influence on the Chinese Politburo and China’s leading role in the humiliating defeat of the West at Copenhagen, Mr. Ding’s self-inclusion in the 3% is, I suggest, most significant.
Robin Guenier
Richard,
I think you forgot about the weather. Sorry, I mean the whether.
When you say:
"The real debate is on the level of risk posed by future climate change, and how to respond to that"
you should really say, IMHO:
"The real debate is on the level of risk posed by future climate change, and WHETHER or how to respond".
Otherwise, your question, as posed assumes that a response is required, regardless of the level of risk. It may seem a small point, but this is the same fallacy which was built in to the IPCC from its inception. In other words, at the same time that we were trying to figure out the science, we were also trying to figure out impacts and mitigation/adaptation. This is ludicrously cart before the horse.
Otherwise, I agree with you. :-)
AngusPangus
Richard Betts
The real debate is on the level of risk posed by future climate change, and how to respond to that.
In order to facilitate such a debate we would need a proven reliable quantitative analysis mechanism. Does such a tool exist?
The "weapons" in our present armoury - GCMs did not predict the present "hiatus" nor have they retrospectively explained the cause, although at long last, belatedly its existence has been reluctantly accepted.
Surely before there can be any serious debate about the future we must at least be able to explain the present?
So far the greatest rate of warming (30 year WMO Standard Trend) achieved is +0.20c/decade for approximately 12 months during 2003/4. Since then the rate has slowed now at +0.16c/decade and with the 10 year trend having been negative for at least the last 2 years it can only reduce further.
Why is the rate of warming slowing? Please no "natural variability". Please no it might be in the deep ocean. The rate of GAT is slowing because SSTs are cooling. Why? If we don't know about today how can we seriously debate the future?
Green Sand
"The real debate is on the level of risk posed by future climate change, and how to respond to that."
No, that is not the real debate at all. That is a typical "smoke and mirrors" trick to cajole people into accepting that humanity may have a non-zero effect on the climate, however insignificant, and then to falsely assert that some response is necessary. This simply, and disingenuously, bolsters the activities of the CAGW fraudsters who make hundreds of billions from their scams and condemns millions to starve to death.
Roger Longstaff
Just because the Met Office has been politicised over the past couple of decades, does not mean all their employees are devoid of common sense or are completely unable to think for themselves. I think the last three comments have been a bit severe on the notion that we should assess the risks presented by climate and debate how to respond to them. My own view is that the modern Met Office will actually have little to contribute to this debate, and not just because they have been tainted with their support for climate alarmism. It is because we are in such a weak position with regard to forecasting climate variation, that merely projecting recent-past variation into the future and adding a bit for safety's sake is likely to be a sensible basis for proceeding. The crucial contributions will have to come from political and social and economic insights into how much we ought to spend, if anything, to become more robust to the range of conditions we expect to be confronted with. We might well decide that no particular intervention by the state is called for.
John Shade
I'm in the bottom 2%.
Alan Reed
RB: "Personally I think there are significant risks"
And what I think is that climate science is an esoteric discipline that may one day have a wider relevance but asking those outside that discipline to vote on a hypothesis currently in vogue within it hardly moves knowledge forward.
However, I'll play. My default position is innocent until proven guilty. I await the (non circumstantial please) verdict.
ssat
But are those significant risks related to what is observably happening now and / or logical extrapolations thereof, or what the models say might happen at some point in the distant future?
A problem for me is that the loudest calls for action seem to come from people who believe fervently (or at least claim to so believe) that truly catastrophic outcomes are just around the corner, which is not supported by even the IPCC. The fact that the actions they call for are more related to their ideology than potential effectiveness is another slight issue.
NW
From the Ecclesiastical Uncle, an old retired bureaucrat in a field only remotely related to climate with minimal qualifications and only half a mind.
IMHO, this discussion is facilitated by bad use of language. Dr Bett's point was worded "The real debate is on the level of risk posed BY future climate change, and how to respond to that." Most comments (John Shade at 5.12pm 18 May and probably others excepted) have addressed the question that would be worded "... on the level of risk OF future climate change, and how ...".
The good doc's point, as written, appears to be the larger question, encompassing, as it does, not only questions of quantification of (i) changes in climate parameters and their causes, but also (ii) the consequences to the globe and societies, assessment of costs including opportunity costs, and all sorts of rather tenuous calculations more the business of economists than the Met office or any other from the community that would normally be dubbed scientific. Is this what he intended?
I hazard the guess that the uncertainties in (ii) are as large as those in (i) and that attempts to reach a consensus on either will be fruitless, particularly among the cognoscenti, both climate and econometric, who will know that the more they know the more they know they do not know.
Recent events within government appear to demonstrate that politicians, probably aided by bureaucrats appears are becoming aware of this. Decisions, in a rational world dependent upon climatic and economic factors, are required from them before the answers emerge. So they step in and take action in the way that is routine for them - in ignorance.
Dr Betts' attempts to relieve the politicians of the burden of acting in ignorance are therefore hopelessly idealistic. But he should not fret - decisions taken in ignorance are routine in politics - and it will not be his fault if the politicians we have put in place are not good at the magic art of plucking the right decision from the available cluster.
Ecclesiastical Uncle
This could very well be the main issue of contention between us and them.
A sceptic asks the series of dependent questions:
1. Can mankind's activities change the climate? If yes...
2. Are we changing it? If yes...
3. By a measurable amount? If yes....
4. Is this amount outside natural variability? If yes...
5. Will this be dangerous? If yes...
6. What can we do about it then?
Richard Betts went straight from 1 to 6, and from then to positing solutions to 6, before any of the intervening questions have been satisfactorily answered in the affirmative.
Most sceptics are stuck on a spectrum of belief in the first 5, I would say the BH 'average' is about 3.
Personally I'm still waiting on the answer to 4 before asking any of the subsequent question.
TheBigYinJames
I like your dependent questions James, and I think this is the best post so far. I am stuck somewhere between 2 and 3.
2: Yes, but simply because there is no such thing as zero.
3: No, because there is no empirical evidence to support this
By the time we get to 4 the answer is clearly no - if you accept the evidence for the MWP and the LIA.
Just out of interest, and of no importance at all, does that put me into the 3%
Roger Longstaff
Neatly put, TBYJ.
But note the wriggle room that exists because the climate will change anyway, regardless of the relative importance of our impact on it (by which I mean even if we have a negligible impact on a global scale). Hence, it is possible to de-couple from the gross, facile, and degrading alarmism of recent decades, and still argue that it would be sensible to assess the risks we face from climate variation in order to let that assessment inform policy-making.
John Shade
Good discussion. I agree and disagree about the dependent questions approach. I think that has to do with the possibility of a fat tail, which is the reason some policy-making might legitimately come into play.
My two questions, prior to reaching TBYJ's level 6, would be:
1. If we continue with our CO2 emissions as is, what probability do you think there is of a net benefit to humanity over the next hundred years?
2. If we continue with our CO2 emissions as is, what probability do you think there is of a disastrous negative impact on humanity over the next hundred years?
I went for disastrous rather than catastrophic. Needs definition obviously. But if one (or the right experts, without 'corruption of science' or indeed economics) answers over a certain threshold percentage on the second then I think what should be done about the risk legitimately comes into play.
Another question I would ask everyone before getting into policy would be:
3. Do you agree with Lord Acton that power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely?
That should sober up any subsequent debate. Do no harm. But 1 and 2 are already extremely hard questions, quite possibly beyond any human being or the wisdom of any crowd.
Richard Drake
Put me in the 3%. The whole (climate) thing is a sham.
In the 1970s, Steve Schneider and Paul Ehrlich were concerned that waste heat from factories was going to ... wait for it ... produce catastrophic climate disruption. They knew the amounts of energy were minuscule, but they felt that various 'feedbacks' would come into play and produce climate change. The solution? Well, we know what The Ehrlich Solution is. What did Schneider want? Setting up new global, intergovernmental, 'extranational' institutions (sound familiar?). This was back in 1976:
1) Institute of Imminent Disasters
2) Institute of Resource Availability
3) Institute of Alternative Technologies
4) Institute of Policy Options
5) A fourth branch of US Government (called the Truth and Consequences Dept) (not kidding)
This is from back when 'the science' was not 'settled' (clearly!). The consequences from human industrial development were however, the same as we are told today. The solutions were lined up. They are the same as what we are saddled with today.
How to believe a movement that masquerades as science when its solutions came before the science?
How would a good answer to Richard (Betts)'s question be? The 'yes' and and the 'no' are answering different questions, as Paul M points out.
Please do not mistake the above as anything against climate science. That is separate from the climate change/global warming game, an arena where operators like John Cook reside.
shub
As an answer to the science-related aspect:
I tend to think in two levels, the first being, a rigorous signal detection aspect. With multidecadal and multi-centennial oscillations poorly understood, it is, to put it politely, difficult to get involved in attribution exercises. There are to be no personal biases involved here: no signal? no proof. That's all. Of course, lack of proof does not mean the the phenomenon does not exist. It just means that - lack of proof. With the hockey-stick fraud and the various temperature adjustment shenanigans (I believe the stated logic behind several adjustments is circular), I have no notion of where temperatures are relative to the past, but one thing is for sure - they are in no way exceptional, and the rate of rise is clearly not rapid or unprecedented.
The second thing, of course, is an overall understanding of the climate system. The system is a complex one which has oscillatory, and flickering properties, the 'changes' in which may be immaterial for the system as a whole, but very significant for humans. What is 'warm' and 'cold' for us, may be nothing to the system. This, has been previously discussed in a long thread in Discussions.
shub
Tinyco2: "I’m prepared to accept the lab effect of CO2 on temperature (1.2 ºC per doubling CO2)"
On what basis? Have you seen hide or hair of an actual lab experiment which shows any part of that, much less the whole shebang? When I looked into it I found no chain of causality or justification for that figure beyond a calculation. If I was a scientist, and I had worked out just such a figure, I'd be quite keen to back it up with a measurement or two. Was that bit of work done? What was the result?
rhoda
I'm sure I saw a BBC (ho ho) space scientist settle this a couple of years ago by shining a light on a Coke bottle full of CO2 in someone's kitchen. Audience of millions. Incredible.
Alan Reed
Nicely done TBYJ
"Personally I'm still waiting on the answer to 4..."
I am also at a very similar stage, hence my ongoing questions to RB about what is happening in the here and now. I can see no meaningful way to facilitate a debate about the future if we cannot yet explain the present. Surely the main focus must be on our now obvious inability to forecast the present day reduction in the rate of warming? This is needed to further our understanding of just what is in or outside "natural variability"
Green Sand
"So - is anyone here in the 3%?"
Richard Betts, you asked the question, and most here have answered (with qualifications).
Please would you now answer the questions:
1. Can mankind's activities change the climate? If yes...
2. Are we changing it? If yes...
3. By a measurable amount? If yes....
4. Is this amount outside natural variability? If yes...
5. Will this be dangerous? If yes...
6. What can we do about it then?
I am sure that we would all be interested in your answers.
Roger Longstaff
If 'no' or 'don't know' can i have my money back?
Alan Reed
Richard Betts, 10:25 AM didn't write
The real debate is on the level of risk posed by future asteroid impact, and how to respond to that.
Surely we can all agree this is common ground. This morning I came across an article published in 2007 by one John Citizen, and he expresses what I take to be the same sentiment, only more vividly, in his final paragraph:
The truth is, that while everyone agrees that the earth is getting more vulnerable, lots of good scientists don't agree that we could possibly make any difference, and don't agree that it's going to be a catastrophe. So when the Archbishop of Canterbury says, "The debate is over," I say, "Give Me a Break!"
(With apologies to John Shade, May 18 at 12:04 PM)
simon abingdon
To be fair to Richard Betts and others, there's no harm is looking at what might happen if 4, 5 and 6 were proved to be YES answers, and is probably wise to do so in advance of proving them definitively.
But unfortunately, the marketing language of this "prediction" industry stopped using IF before all their proclamations a long time ago. Now all pronouncements are given as facts. Global warming WILL happen (until it stopped) - sea level rise WILL happen (until it hadn't) - the ice caps will melt (until they didn't) - low-lying islands WILL sink (until they gained land area) - hurricanes WILL get worse (until they didn't)
We'd have a lot more time for the work being done on assessing POTENTIAL hazards from climate change if that was the way they were presented - potential and precuationary.
TheBigYinJames
And 97% of sensible people realise that impacts on human societies are incredibly difficult to assess, even ten years out, let alone a hundred. That's if we knew what the sign, let alone the magnitude, of globally averaged temperature anomaly change was going to be over such periods. Whatever our CO2 emissions.
How many sensible people are there in the world? That's for me to know and 97% of you to find out.