Do liberals burn heretics?

Ethereal · May 2, 2007

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20070514/cockburn

tripp · May 3, 2007

There's absolutely no substance to what little is available to non-subscribers. However, the dissenters have changed their position so this piece appears to be out of date. The new position is that AGW is happening but that the long term effects are unknown and potentially beneficial or, that it's too late and we might as well party like it's 1999.

MegansPrius · May 3, 2007

tripp @ May 2 2007 said: ↑

434537[/snapback]</div>

There's absolutely no substance to what little is available to non-subscribers. However, the dissenters have changed their position so this piece appears to be out of date. The new position is that AGW is happening but that the long term effects are unknown and potentially beneficial or, that it's too late and we might as well party like it's 1999.
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You can read the whole Cockburn climate column here:
http://www.counterpunch.org/cockburn04282007.html

And comments (63-65) on RealClimate on it here (reproduced below):
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=430#comment-31815

Re: #61 (Rob Brookes)

The whole story by Alexander Cockburn is, to quote Macbeth, "a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing."

1st: CO2 increase lasts a long time. So even if we completely stop emitting CO2 now, it'll take hundreds of years for what we've already put there to be removed.

2nd: He's can't even get the numbers right. Today, the CO2 emissions from the U.S. alone in only one year, is about 7 gigatonnes.

Comment by tamino â€” 29 Apr 2007] 9:27 am

Re: Cockburn's analysis.

I don't know the answer to your question, and I hope one of the RC experts will address it. One relevant fact is that accurate measurments of atmospheric CO_2 concentration weren't done until Keeling's work in the 50s. But the important thing to remember is that people who study atmospheric CO_2 are not idiots. They are not likely to have missed something like this, were it an issue. The link between the rise in atmospheric CO_2 concentration and human activities has been established beyond any doubt, by a variety of arguments. If Cockburn had been seriously concerned about the issue, he would have checked the IPCC publications to find a few Carbon budget experts and posed the question to them before trying to make a scientific argument about a subject he doesn't have the qualifications to understand.

[Response: Watch this space! We are working on a letter to the Nation regarding Cockburn's rantings. It ought to please some of our readers that we're no more tolerent of idiocy on the left than we are on the right. It does happen that the idiocy on cliamte issues has generally been fairly partisan, with the Right generally getting it more wrong! Perhaps Cockburn's intent was restoring some balance.... --eric]
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Ethereal · May 4, 2007

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(tripp @ May 3 2007, 12:33 AM) [snapback]434537[/snapback]</div>

[T]he dissenters have changed their position so this piece appears to be out of date. The new position is that AGW is happening but that the long term effects are unknown and potentially beneficial or, that it's too late and we might as well party like it's 1999.[/b]
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"The dissenters" have a common, official position? Do they keep it posted on a website somewhere? I didn't know that the dissenters (or the "affirmers," for that matter) were a homogeneous bloc with a common position statement. In fact, part of my skepticism arises from the seemingly countless proposed models/mechanisms and the immense complexity of the system being modeled (the whole planet). Can anyone show me a system with as many inputs, feedback loops, and components whose characteristics can only be approximated whose behaviour has been reliably modeled with any accuracy of prediction? (That's not a rhetorical question. I'd love to see an example, if anyone can name one.)

Why, in the face of only marginally accurate forecasts of the weather tomorrow, or the course/behaviour of a hurricane, or the Dow-Jones, are so many people so incredibly trusting of doomsday scenarios, based on countless assumptions, approximations, and best-guesses that claim to predict climate change over decades and centuries? I respect the efforts of those attempting to model and predict this behaviour, but at the same time can't understand why they alone would surpass in accuracy and reliability any of the other attempts to model and predict large, complex systems.

Beyond the technical difficulties, however, I am struck by the incredible level of hysteria and fear-mongering on the subject of GW. (Even in the "Greenland Ice..." thread, there is a remark that the far-fetched, overblown nature of the scenario is unimportant: that we need horror stories, even false ones, to "get people's attention.") The truth might come to light despite the difficulties the science presents; it wouldn't have a prayer of being heard amongst the rhetoric.

It also doesn't help the pro-GW folks that theirs is but the last in a long list of things that were going to bring the world to an end in my short life.

I grew up hearing how the world (well, life on it) would be destroyed any moment by global nuclear war. (I even remember that it was the US's fault for "provoking" the Soviets by arming ourselves, sort of like we "bring terrorism on ourselves" today. )

I remember various reasons why the American economy was going to collapse in the next ten minutes or so. I remember when "planes were going to fall out of the sky" at midnight on 31 January 1999.

I'm sure the prophets of doom have always been with us, and always will be.

MegansPrius · May 5, 2007

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Ethereal @ May 4 2007, 02:42 PM) [snapback]435617[/snapback]</div>

Can anyone show me a system with as many inputs, feedback loops, and components whose characteristics can only be approximated whose behaviour has been reliably modeled with any accuracy of prediction? (That's not a rhetorical question. I'd love to see an example, if anyone can name one.)
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Consider the human body. A complex system. And remember, smoking is good for you. We know that because we can't accurately predict the interaction of drugs in the human body. We can cure cancer in mice, but in people? Nope. Heck, they can't even tell you if any given drug will work well in you, be it an anti-depressant or chemo. You've just got to roll the dice and hope it somehow matches up. What baloney. The human body's too complex. Where's the computer model that perfectly shows the reaction of every known protein and amino acid and peptide with it? If it weren't for a conspiracy of these alarmist scientists, we'd still all be able to smoke in our cubicles at work.

Ethereal · May 5, 2007

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(MegansPrius @ May 5 2007, 12:57 AM) [snapback]435897[/snapback]</div>

Consider the human body. A complex system. And remember, smoking is good for you. We know that because we can't accurately predict the interaction of drugs in the human body. We can cure cancer in mice, but in people? Nope. Heck, they can't even tell you if any given drug will work well in you, be it an anti-depressant or chemo. You've just got to roll the dice and hope it somehow matches up. What baloney. The human body's too complex. Where's the computer model that perfectly shows the reaction of every known protein and amino acid and peptide with it? If it weren't for a conspiracy of these alarmist scientists, we'd still all be able to smoke in our cubicles at work.[/b]
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Thank you for making my point for me. The human body really IS beyond accurate, predictive modeling. If it wasn't, there'd be no need for FDA trials of new drugs--we'd just model their behaviour on a computer. There'd also never be such a thing as an "adverse (allergic or otherwise) drug reaction," because we'd model the effect of the drug on the patient's body and know not to ever give it to him in the first place. And, of course, we'd have simply modeled the effects of smoking, rather than observe the drastically higher incidence of lung cancer in smokers.

Almost everything we know about drug effects is by administering them and observing the effect, then attempting to identify consistent effects and assuming (sometimes incorrectly) that those effects can generally be expected in anyone receiving the drug.

Unless you plan on "recruiting" a large cohort of earth-like planets, "administering" various levels of CO2 to their atmospheres, and observing the effects, then there is absolutely no parallel between drug trials or other human pharmacologic or physiologic studies and climate modeling.

I'll return your favor by making the point for you that it's obviously not safe or feasible to "wait and see" what will happen in the case of cataclysmic climate change on "the only planet we've got." I agree that modeling is the only useful tool we have in this case, but that doesn't make it any less dauntingly complex. Climate scientists face a challenge that makes the Manhattan Project look like adding 2+2.

What dims any hope I might have of a logical answer emerging is that emotion--violent, hysterical emotion--prevails on this issue, and seems to influence even the scientists themselves in many cases. I can imagine it would be hard to remain objective in the face of being called an "alarmist" or "denier."

tripp · May 5, 2007

Why, in the face of only marginally accurate forecasts of the weather tomorrow, or the course/behaviour of a hurricane, or the Dow-Jones, are so many people so incredibly trusting of doomsday scenarios, based on countless assumptions, approximations, and best-guesses that claim to predict climate change over decades and centuries?[/b]
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Weather and climate are two different beasts. Climate modeling does not also predict short term weather phenomena. They generally model the deterministic characteristics of climate systems. So you point isn't valid because climate models aren't weather forecasters. That said, you're correct that the system is complex and the models' make many assumptions and parameterize a variety of other things. However, as Scott pointed out, just because we can't predictively model complex system's with 100% accuracy doesn't mean that we don't understand fundamentals of system in question. I've said before, not having accurate climate models only increases our risk, it doesn't mitigate it. Why? Because we can't make informed decisions. I agree that there is a lot of fear mongering and don't agree with it one bit. However, most scientists are not in that camp. The fact is, we don't really know what we're getting ourselves into, but it has become pretty clear that humans are having a noticeable effect on the composition of the atmosphere. Knowing that, we had better be careful about the way we move forward.

"The dissenters" have a common, official position?[/b]
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No they don't. However, the nature of their arguments have generally shifted from "AGW is a farce" to "AGW is not adversely affecting climate" or "warming will be a good thing".

MegansPrius · May 7, 2007

The point I was trying to make with the tobacco analogy is that even when we can't model a system with 100% accuracy (i.e., the body), we can still make informed decisions based on accumulating evidence (i.e., smoking causes cancer), and choose actions to improve our outcome (i.e., quit smoking, ban it in public spaces).

I find the analogy apt because the tobacco industry used the strategy of disputing/muddying the science so they could continue making their profits. They did this first with the dangers of smoking itself, then with the dangers of secondhand smoke.

Some of the same people who did this work for Big Tobacco have done the same for Big Oil regarding global warming.

I also find that most of the "shrill" voices in this debate are those of commentators in the media. The scientists, as usual, state their results with caution until the accumulating evidence is reasonably beyond dispute, such as the fact that humans are causing global warming.

And back to the starting point of this thread, Realclimate posted their response to Cockburn:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archi...7/05/this-week/

Do liberals burn heretics?

Ethereal New Member

tripp Which it's a 'ybrid, ain't it?

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Ethereal New Member

MegansPrius GoogleMeister, AKA bongokitty

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tripp Which it's a 'ybrid, ain't it?

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Do liberals burn heretics?

Ethereal New Member

tripp Which it's a 'ybrid, ain't it?

MegansPrius GoogleMeister, AKA bongokitty

Ethereal New Member

MegansPrius GoogleMeister, AKA bongokitty

Ethereal New Member

tripp Which it's a 'ybrid, ain't it?

MegansPrius GoogleMeister, AKA bongokitty