Climate Change & Famine
A Guardian blog called “Poverty Matters” carries a headline that I find obscene:
Is Climate Change to blame for the famine in the Horn of Africa?
I might have taken a charitable view towards this provocative headline if the actual post included discussion of Somalia, where the famine is hitting hardest. You probably have seen the wrenching pictures and stories coming out of Somalia the last few weeks. This humanitarian tragedy is not in any way attributable to global warming. It should not be considered as a rhetorical question, especially at a blog devoted to development and poverty issues. On this note, I share Edward Carr’s quiet outrage:
After reading a lot of news and blog posts on the situation in the Horn of Africa, I feel the need to make something clear: the drought in the Horn of Africa is not the cause of the famine we are seeing take shape in southern Somalia. We are being pounded by a narrative of this famine that more or less points to the failure of seasonal rains as its cause . . . which I see as a horrible abdication of responsibility for the human causes of this tragedy.
Andy Revkin echoes this sentiment here, and in a follow-up post, he explores a relevant climate change angle that one hopes will be taken up in climate modeling circles.
But let’s go back to Carr (more information on him here), who asserts that what’s happening in Somalia is
a human crisis first and foremost, whatever you think of anthropogenic climate change…We can’t blame this famine on the weather ““ we need to be looking at everything from local and national politics that shape access and entitlements to food to global food markets that have driven the price of needed staples up across the world, thus curtailing access for the poorest. The bad news: Humans caused this. The good news: If we caused it, we can prevent the next one.
In the case of Somalia, however, the situation is a great deal more complicated, as Bronwyn Bruton explains in this influential Foreign Affairs essay, and in this Q & A.
Meanwhile, no western journalist has a better feel for Somalia than Jeffrey Gettleman, an Africa correspondent for the NYT, who, two years ago, wrote in Foreign Policy:
This dysfunctional, poverty-stricken, war-ravaged country has cast a spell over me. It’s one of the most exotic, authentic, sealed-off places in the world. Its isolation isn’t surprising because the place is dangerous as hell.
Anyone who wants to invoke climate change as a contributing factor to Somalia’s latest tragedy should spend 48 hours having tea with the warlords and Islamic extremists that currently rule much of the country.
The last paragraph in the Guardian blog manages to turn all the realities of Horn of Africa upside down: Forget civil war, forget non-existent government institutions, forget the population that has doubled in the past 40 years. Cut emissions!!
Beyond helping east Africa and other vulnerable regions adapt to impending climate change, it is of course also incumbent on the rich and emerging economies to cut the greenhouse gas emissions that cause it. Fail to do that, and all attempts at adaptation are likely to offer only temporary relief.
The headline, agreed, is dreadful. This is just SOP for the press, where the headline is written by someone who doesn’t understand the article. I wish this would stop.
The article is quite reasonable, though: “First, remember that while the drought is caused by lack of rainfall, famine is man-made. As the Nobel prize-winning economist Amartya Sen famously observed, famines do not occur in functioning democracies.”
Let us begin by stipulating that the situation would not have reached famine proportions had the place been governed well enough to set aside grain reserves or to accept foreign aid.
Should we also not stipulate that the famine is also due to a severe drought?
Do things not have multiple causes? Is a failed rainy season or an excessive rainy season not a stress on everything else? Will it not fall hardest on the place with the most problems already?
So the link is reasonable and the article is reasonable. The habitual creation of terrible headlines is something I have strived to understand.
I think it has something to do with layout constraints that are no longer especially relevant. I note that the Globe and Mail uses different headlines online than in print. Maybe this would help, given that nobody consistently reads the print edition anymore.
Michael,
I might be more forgiving had this article not appeared on a blog devoted to development. The person who wrote this Guardian post should be informed enough about Somalia to know that this famine is not due to a severe drought.
I you bothered to click on any of the links I provided, you might learn a few things about Somalia.
“Do things not have multiple causes” is an interesting argument coming from you. Do you have any idea how ironic that might sound to some of the climate skeptics you often joust with?
Keith you appear to be in a pretty foul mood. I’m pretty sure Michael is in fierce agreement with you that the dominant cause of famine in Somalia is socio-economic/political in nature and not due to weather extremes. But it doesn’t necessarily follow that climate change plays no role; particularly in the future when these sorts of extreme events may become more frequent and intense.
Also could you elaborate on that last point? I don’t get it.
@2- For goodness sakes, this is not a case of bad headline writing. The headline is a direct repetition of author’s first paragraph
“So is famine in the Horn of Africa linked to climate change or not? The question arises whenever “extreme weather events” ““ hurricanes, floods, droughts ““ hit our TV screens. ”
There are a couple of things that you’re just not getting here:
The first is that the creepy eagerness to co-opt any tragedy for the greater cause of “climate change” used to be laughable – now it’s just gross. The simple fact is that the absolute last thing anyone in Somalia needs right now is thumbsucking about coal.
Secondly, when the over-reach is pointed out, we get treated to a fundamentalist screech in defense of the mythology: “how can anyone question the need to discuss the .00000045% that is unscientifically attributed to your uncle’s car!”
Have you no grasp of the damage this does to your own cause? Couple this with the snotty claims over the frigid winter that nobody but skeptics “conflate weather and climate” and that, anyway, everybody knows global warming causes more snow. In other words- whatever is going on outside your window was caused by global warming if it’s bad and no issue can be discussed without first agreeing to a carbon tax.
“I’m pretty sure Michael is in fierce agreement with you that the dominant cause of famine in Somalia is socio-economic/political in nature and not due to weather extremes.”
I’m pretty sure that global warming isn’t the “dominant” cause of my cousin’s shin splints. I’m also pretty sure that there is no reason for me to trust the scientific judgement of those who insist on talking about climate change’s impact on her shins.
This is an important point for a cause that demands action based on appeal-to-authority and precautionary-principle arguments.
Starting 8 months after Climategate/COP15, a concerted effort started, meant to link severe weather events to climate change. From Russian heat waves on, it has been the first question asked by certain writers. Is it related to climate change?
The answer is no, and the answer has come from science. But it doesn’t stop the questions, because this is just a continuation of a rebranded climate change marketing strategy.
It would be obscene if it ever worked.
The narrative theory of climate change, backed by observations to date, strongly indicate that human contributions are not yet influential and won’t be until about 2040.
Of course, that can’t stop a media narrative. But maybe we can, by identifying it as both despicable and counter-productive.
Tom (7),
What do you mean by “media narrative”? Are you conflating what appears in blogs with what appears in newspapers and TV stories?
Marlowe (4)
You’re doing the same ironic thing as Michael when you write:
“But it doesn’t necessarily follow that climate change plays no role..”
Perhaps my point is still unclear but I’d like to see if others (especially Michael) get it. Or I might just do a fresh post to clarify…
Also, I find this line of argument of yours (“particularly in the future when these sorts of extreme events may become more frequent and intense“) so cynical when used in the same context of tragedies like the Somali famine.
If it were just blogs Keith, I wouldn’t worry. But it isn’t. It’s been in major media as well:
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2008081,00.html
http://www.reuters.com/article/2010/08/09/us-climate-extreme-idUSTRE6782DU20100809
http://www.livescience.com/13296-european-russia-heat-waves-climate-change.html
http://www.aolnews.com/2010/08/20/un-links-pakistan-floods-to-climate-change/
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-10958760
http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/04/22/in-texas-questions-of-drought-and-climate-change/
“Linked to” and “to blame” are very different matters. One is “among the causes”; the other is “the dominant cause”. Clearly there is a severe drought here in Texas and far from starving I am struggling to maintain a weight loss diet. So a drought doesn’t kill people anymore as long as civilization is working. I said so, and that’s why I said it was a terrible headline.
People who think I (or any other person aware of the science) claim that there is only one cause for climate change are obviously chasing strawmen. I would think you would know this.
Richard Alley said it very nicely in an article I discovered today:
“The climate over the last century has moved a bit like a soccer ball in a game of five-year-olds, and while CO2 has been the most forceful kicker, sun and volcanoes and particles from smokestacks and other players have also moved the ball around the field, so it has taken a while for the scientists watching to gain confidence that CO2 is the prime mover. But under business as usual, CO2 is expected to grow in strength without a coupled increase in the strength of the other players. Let one of the five-year-olds grow to become a member of the US national soccer team while the rest of the kids stay the same size and strength, and you have much more confidence which way the ball will go. Let CO2 grow unchecked into the future, without beefing up any of the other players, and the influence of the CO2 will similarly grow.”
Keith, I would presume that, this being a key interest of yours, you would understand this much about the consensus. This fits in among what I consider the relatively simple facts about climate that ought to be common knowledge.
It discourages me that you might misunderstand what I am saying to such an extent that you would take my position as stating that climate change has a single driver. That is a tired bunkosphere strawman and nothing more.
What on earth leads Alley to the unsupportable conclusion that CO2 has been the most forceful kicker? Far from scientists gaining confidence that that is the case, most scientists have been saying that the influence of CO2 is not identifiable in all the weather events that have been trotted out as ‘evidence’ of climate change–from Pakistani floods to Russian heatwaves to Texan drought.
Fuller: “The narrative theory of climate change, backed by observations to date, strongly indicate that human contributions are not yet influential and won’t be until about 2040.”
Chapter and verse please? I have no idea what this is about.
Individual weather events,as always, cannot with confidence be attributed to anthropogenic forcing. Persistent features like droughts and floods in their respective predicted zones,would seem to be more compelling. Melting ice is settled by now.
I don’t know what it is that Fuller thinks will change in 2040 or where he got such an idea. If it’s in any of the IPCC reports, or really anywhere in the primary journals, I’d be very interested in a reference. But even if it were true that someone once predicted it, actual events trump predictions; you have to examine what is going on now to determine if we are already facing consequences. The way Fuller has it, if the whole Greenland ice cap falls into the atlantic in 2039, humans will have had nothing to do with it by definition.
And the way Tobis has it, the whole Greenland ice cap might just well do that, which is just absurdist fiction lacking only the light touch of Roland Emmerich to bring it home to us all.
If Tobis can’t be bothered to read what the IPCC or even Skeptical Science writes, let alone the links Keith provides, we might as well let him stew alone in his fear. Ignorance is no crime. It is nothing to even be ashamed of. It is curable. But ya gotta want it.
Fuller: What on earth leads Alley to the unsupportable conclusion that CO2 has been the most forceful kicker?
Again, a discouraging question from someone who claims to have an interest in the matter. It is one thing to disbelieve the consensus; I suppose nobody can force you to take the side of the scientific community. It is another thing to claim an interest in the topic but have no real idea what the consensus looks like. I refer you to:
http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/faq-2-1.html
You should at least read your own links, Doctor Tobis. I did–and it wasn’t the first time.
The IPCC’s FAQ 2.1, the linked document, gives a clear and straightforward explanation of how human emission of greenhouse gases can affect the climate, and I recommend it to anyone who has not seen it.
It does not provide one example–not one–of any occurrence on this planet that matches its description.
Do you think other readers are as unwilling or unable to read linked material as you are yourself?
Dr. Tobis, you are repeating old behaviours, such as seen when you argue the ‘false balance’ flim-flam, etc.
You assert a problem exists. People (not just myself) ask for evidence. You fail to provide it. You then repeat the assertion.
You say that human-caused climate change is causing extreme weather at the present time.
Scientists have specifically said that climate change was not involved in the Pakistani floods, the Russian heatwave, etc., etc. Historians have repeatedly pointed to equivalent instances of the phenomena you label as caused by climate change.
You ignore them and repeat your assertion. You quote people speaking in general terms using silly metaphors and link to webpages that do not support your assertion.
You’ve been doing this for some time now. Please stop.
Fuller asked for evidence that CO2 was slightly larger than the other players, I provided it.
“Scientists have specifically said that climate change was not involved in the Pakistani floods, the Russian heatwave, etc., etc.”
Scientists baldly asserted “not involved”? I doubt it. Prove it.
In any case, there is a lot of discussion among scientists as to how to handle public communication in these instances. It is tricky. “Not involved” is simply wrong, even more than “because of” or as the Brits say “down to”. It’s somewhere in between, and finding the right words for it is difficult. As I understand it, some eminent scientists think that ignoring climate change in the presence of the very odd weather of the past two years would not be the right thing for the press to do. I don’t know of anyone holding the contrary opinion outside the NIPCC crowd.
Amazing how “CO2 has been the most forceful kicker” morphs magically into “CO2 was slightly larger than the other players.”
And you provided zero proof. The link had not even an example, not even a case study, not even evidence. It was just a generic explanation of how CO2 could affect the climate. Not how it has.
Necessary but insufficient seems to fit here as in many other cases.
“”A rapid transition of the ENSO phase from El Niño to La Niña between spring and summer of 2010 appears to be the key element in triggering a vigorous monsoon of 2010 over the Indian subcontinent”¦”¦.the 2010 Pakistan floods, although seemingly unprecedented, were well within natural variability of monsoonal climate over the Indian subcontinent.”
2010 Pakistan Floods: Climate Change or Natural Variability?
by Madhav L Khandekar
Canadian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society,
Geophysical Research Letters, doi:10.1029/2010GL046582, 2011http://dx.doi.org/10.1029/2010GL046582
Title: Was there a basis for anticipating the 2010 Russian heat wave?
Authors: Randall Dole and Martin Hoerling; Physical Sciences Division, Earth System Research Laboratory, NOAA, Boulder, Colorado, USA; Judith Perlwitz, Jon Eischeid, Philip Pegion, Tao Zhang, Xiao-Wei Quan, Taiyi Xu, and Donald Murray: Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences, University of Colorado at Boulder, Boulder, Colorado, USA.
“The heat wave, while largely predictable on short, weather-driven timescales, appears not to be the product of long-term climate changes. Instead, as discussed by Dole et al. (Geophys. Res. Lett., 38, L06702, doi:10.1029/2010GL046582, 2011. See Highlight 4, above), the heat wave falls within the realm of natural variability.”
The informal word I keep getting from meteorologists is that things have visibly changed over the past couple of years. I hope this is either temporary or wrong, but it doesn’t look that way.
Nevertheless, Fuller has me. He found a paper. As far as I can tell the only paper out yet on the subject. It contains this:
“With no significant long”term trend in western Russia
July surface temperatures detected over the period 1880″“
2009, mean regional temperature changes are thus very
unlikely to have contributed substantially to the magnitude
of the 2010 Russian heat wave”
I dislike this argument and think it is fundamentally incorrect. But my claim that nobody has said anything of the sort is apparently refuted and I withdraw it.
Is this the state of the science ? Silly metaphors and “informal words from weathermen” ?
Not sure whether to laugh – or cry. Or carry on munching the popcorn.
Dr. Tobis, it is nice to see that you can find a way to admit that your lack of knowledge about what is currently being published has led you to an error.
I would submit however, that you are acknowledging a minor error while letting the larger one elude your grasp.
The real point being contested is not that one scientist says something about a Russian heatwave.
The real point is that science in general cannot link the Russian heatwave, the Pakistani floods, the horrific tornado season, droughts in Africa and Texas, to climate change.
It’s a couple of years of frankly shitty weather that have made millions miserable and killed far too many people. And that is all.
Is it a preview of coming attractions? I think quite possibly so. Is it anything more? It would be foolish to think so. There hasn’t been enough of a temperature rise to link it to recent events.
Why on earth can you not just acknowledge this so we can discuss more appropriate matters?
Nobody has published anything connecting Russia to climate change, but plenty of professionals have said things about it. You can look at the coverage at Climate Central last year.
The informal opinions of scientists do not, of course, constitute science, but they do give you an idea of where the science is likely to head.
“It’s a couple of years of frankly shitty weather that have made millions miserable and killed far too many people. And that is all.”
Well, I don’t think anybody has dreamed up a proper shittiness index, so it really is hard to make judgments about this on a global scale. But. Clearly we have a flooding trend in the zone where it should be. Droughts and heatwaves are showing up where they should, too. So everything we have seen for the last couple of years looks an awful lot like it would look if impacts were to start arriving earlier than we suspected.
One group has concluded that they have a negative result on the Russian thing. I find their argument extremely dubious.
“There hasn’t been enough of a temperature rise to link it to recent events.”
In my opinion that isn’t the right way to think about it. Radiative forcing drives climate. Temperature change is just an aspect of it. But that’s sort of arcane. Let me put it this way for present purposes.
The temperature sensitivity was relatively easy to pin down. The sensitivity of weather misery to temperature is nothing the models can help with in their current state.
We may well have underestimated this.
I can acknowledge that the various bizarre persistent patterns MIGHT still be a series of glitches, although sitting in the middle of this season’s chief weirdness here in Texas makes it hard to have much faith. But with almost every season having a severe persistent outlier for a couple of years, the “new normal” prospect is hard to dismiss.
So, I am not especially interested in ordinary weird events, like a 1000 year flood in Nashville. There are many places. One of them will get a 1000 year flood. But the Russian heat of last year, despite your protestations, has no known precedent and could be a 100,000 year event by some measures.
“We have an “˜archive’ of abnormal weather situations stretching over a thousand years. It is possible to say there was nothing similar to this on the territory of Russia during the last one thousand years in regard to the heat,” Alexander Frolov said.
The month just past in Oklahoma is the hottest month ever recorded in any state. That’s a very rare kind of event by definition.
Fifteen countries set national all time heat records in 2007, and nineteen in 2010. That’s a very rare kind of event. Yet it happened twice recently.
Ancient glaciers are suddenly disintegrating. Coincidence?
At what point do we sit up and take notice? I don’t know. How to describe the connection to human interference correctly is hard. “No connection at all” is just wrong. We keep coming back to the loaded dice. The point is that the dice are already loaded.
Dr. Tobis, you claim the temperature sensitivity was relatively easy to pin down.
I have Stockholm waiting on the other line. Could you just tell us all what it is and let us know how you measured it?
The sensitivity is probably between 2 C and 4 C and surely between 1 C and 6 C. I presume you had heard this. This is better than an order of magnitude, and is good enough to base policy on.
Unfortunately there is no Nobel for meteorology. The rumor I heard was that it’s explicit in the rules for the physics prize, because Swedes did not want to give any awards to Norwegians. No idea if there is any truth to that. But I have no claim on one in any case.
Dr. Tobis, I do not consider that range anything close to ‘pinning down’ sensitivity of temperature. I don’t actually disagree with those ranges. I don’t think the ranges are narrow enough to be useful in any way at all.
The net effect is that Al Gore and James Inhofe can use the same figures to come to radically different needs assessments for policy purposes.
So Curry was right. Again.
@28
I think the sensitivity is probably between 1 C and 2 C and surely between 0 C and 10 C.
Anybody can guess.
There is another difference between Gore and Inhofe that needs to be taken into account.
Dr. Tobis, you’re kind of missing the point, in my opinion. Somebody walking in cold to the issue whose name is not Gore or Inhofe, someone who does not know who either of them are, could look at the figures, look at what Gore and Inhofe say, and conclude that either of them can be correct because the numbers support both conclusions.
That is the point. That is why we are at stalemate. That is why Curry’s uncertainty monster is the crucial piece of the puzzle. That is why the consensus is forced into non-scientific messaging, ranging from the abuse of iconic images of polar bears, glaciers and the Amazonian rainforest to non-scientific association of extreme weather to climate change.
Because the science does not narrow the range lower than 2-6 degrees.
Curry absolutely nailed the salient point that needs to be resolved. And some called her an incompetent who didn’t understand the science because her correct conclusion did not fit their view of political necessity. This is something that I at least will not forget.
She was right then. She is right now. Those that slimed her are left searching for something–anything–that will obscure the central issue of uncertainty. My suggestion is association of climate change with deteriorating performance in the National Football League.
I commend the concept of risk weighting to those who think the uncertainty is too severe to do anything besides throw their arms up in a confused panic and run around and squawk. You simply don’t understand reasoning under uncertainty at all. If Curry does, frankly she hides it well.
The mitigation policy issue is not one of climate science anymore. The resulting advice is simple: get to near zero as soon as is practicable and stay there. It holds for any reasonably plausible sensitivity.
The policy sector should just take our word for it and leave us alone to work on “climate 2.0” in the hope that we will have better information for the adaptation side.
But if it’s a question of zeroing our budget and taking our advice (since we’re done on the mitigation side, and much help on the adaptation side is speculative and a long way in the future), or alternatively of increasing our budget and ignoring the advice, I for one would go for the former without hesitation.
by “near zero” I mean “near zero net emissions”
I think it’s pretty clear who is throwing up their arms and running around squawking in a confused panic.
I submit that it is yourself who lacks understanding of treatment of risk and taking decisions under conditions of uncertainty. Your statement about mitigation policy not being a part of climate science anymore can be taken as evidence. Whether or not I understand uncertainty, I at least have made important decisions in uncertain circumstances and advised companies on how they can do so. Maybe I’m just lucky, but my track record is good. (I’ve got a hint for you on how to approach uncertainty–don’t do it by claiming that you know the way forward and those who oppose you are Satan’s spawn. At least not if you want to see any action taken.)
Tell me why anyone should take your word for it after the serial exaggerations and slime jobs you and yours have come forward with? Do you really think you’ve earned the keys to the car?
Should we trust Rajendra Pachauri after he hid the truth about Himalayan glaciers while bidding on a study of them?
Should we trust Phil Jones after his advising colleagues to delete emails in advance of an FOIA request?
Should we trust Michael Mann after all the shenanigans regarding the Hockey Stick?
Should we trust Al Gore after his conspicuous consumption, serial exaggerations and personal misconduct?
Should we trust Michael Tobis after a concerted campaign of abuse and mischaracterization of Dr. Judith Curry?
Tom (35),
I see the bile rising up in your throat with each successive comment in the latter part of this thread. Whatever your track record may be in your professional life, your propensity for such a thing as overkill and repetition in bloggy discourse is evident.
Time to take a chill pill.
“Should we trust Michael Tobis after a concerted campaign of abuse and mischaracterization of Dr. Judith Curry? ”
Eh? I said Curry had a very disappointingly wrong posting, with confusion so elementary as to call into question her competence. Once. (Others have done so on many occasions since, but I have not.) I shut up after that, hoping to leave well enough alone. Fuller has asked me to take it back on numerous occasions. I have not done so, because I see nothing wrong with my position on the particular posting in question. There is no concerted campaign, just occasional response to Fuller’s endless whining about it.
So. Should we trust Tom Fuller after something like that?
“I think it’s pretty clear who is throwing up their arms and running around squawking in a confused panic.”
That is awfully confused. You are the one claiming there is no useful information so we have to guess, or rely on gut instinct or imagined messages from the almighty, like the previous President did so well.
@35
“I submit that it is yourself who lacks understanding of treatment of risk and taking decisions under conditions of uncertainty. Your statement about mitigation policy not being a part of climate science anymore can be taken as evidence. Whether or not I understand uncertainty, I at least have made important decisions in uncertain circumstances and advised companies on how they can do so.”
Really Tom? Is it your background in cryptology that gives you this necessary expertise? And who are the poor sods that actually paid you for advice? Inquiring minds want to know…I’m reminded of Norm and his mythical wife Vera….
@37
But Michael – you are the one saying that “the policy sector should just take our word for it”, when in fact the data do not support your word.
The data is to uncertain to base policy on.
It really does matter to policy makers whether the temperature will rise 1 C or 6 C – and there is no way to know based on the current amount of data we have, and our current models and understanding of the climate system.
Obviously, in a situation like the present one, with a lack of adequate information upon which to decide to act – we should take all measures to de-carbonize the world – that cost nothing.
Spending trillions to de-carbonize is another matter entirely.
Our decision makers will have to decide where on the sliding scale of cost and benefit we ultimately rest – but it may very well be lower on the scale than you would personally advocate.
Personally, the projections change so frequently and new items which never included in climate models are being discovered so frequently, that I would like to wait 25 years – gather more good quality worldwide data – and see if we can get a better handle on the climate models. Maybe even validate one so we know they actually produce something other than garbage.
@RickA
can you point me to the work that shows that the net costs of decarbonizing are on the order of trillions? what sensitivity? what discount rate etc.?
just curious…
@40
See “The Climate Fix” by Roger Pielke, Jr.
As to the USA – 300 nuclear power plants x 10B = 3T (at least).
As to the rest of the world – it is a lot more than 3T, but I don’t know how many nuclear power plants are required to replace all the coal, oil and natural gas power plants.
Keith, I thought I was being both civil and on point. Sorry you disagree strongly enough to interrupt the conversation. The fact is that Dr. Tobis and I disagree strongly about a variety of topics. We can either discuss them or not. Your blog, your rules.
Tom,
I see a rehash of all the same themes. If you want to have a discussion of climate science (which is what you were doing for the most part, until the last few comments), great. But if you want to rehash your beefs with Michael about Judy Curry, etc, etc, then that’s been done already ad nauseum.
RickA, we don’t propose to base policy on “data”, we propose to base it on knowledge. They are not the same thing. Data informs knowledge, but what we know is much more than what we measure. That is because we use an amazing collection of methods that make the most of every observation, collectively called “science”.
In these discussions, people with some idea of the content of the relevant science are up against people who have no such constraint. They think they are trying to “win” a “debate”, while we are trying to outline the truth. Of course they “win the debate” sometimes, especially with people who don’t have a clear idea of the difference between opinion and reasoned information.
What fascinates me is how people who dismiss climatology, which is based in the principles of physics and chemistry, turn around and accept broad brush economic predictions without a hint of skepticism.
Of course nuclear power plants cost money, for instance, but not building coal plants saves money, as does not using coal. But that sort of “reasoning” is habitually put up against actual physical science in these unfortunate exchanges.
If you’re going to distrust authority, you’d be better off distrusting the authorities who have steered you wrong in the recent past, wouldn’t you?
Climate change is unfolding more or less as predicted by the consensus formed by the Charney commission in 1979 that has been refined but not greatly changed since. And economists are flailing, adamantly recommending eleven contradictory things in response to the ongoing crisis that hardly any of them had any inkling was possible four years ago. Yet you base your opinions on what economists tell you?
It smacks of rationalization to me. Your mileage may vary of course.
The pyramid supposedly climbs from a base of data, which then gets turned into information, and is processed into knowledge, which occasionally proceeds through to wisdom.
We don’t have enough data. The data we have has large error bands. It really doesn’t need to go beyond that point. However, some claim that they have extracted information from this data (except when they turn the signal upside down, or something like that…). However all of what they claim is information points in a predetermined direction. And this direction is predetermined by what is a priori ‘knowledge,’ something that was taken as a given prior to even searching for the data.
Not the path to wisdom.
Sigh, yes, that’s the story the bad guys are selling but it really has very little to do with what is going on.
There are probably billions of observations that go into our understanding of fluid dynamics and of radiative transfer. The concern doesn’t come from weather observations, which indeed remain rather ambiguous, though (unsurprisingly to those who understand the underlying theory) less so with every passing year.
The concern comes from robust physics. Of course, the system is complex and there may be surprises around the edges. When you throw a plate at the floor you can be confident it will shatter but it is hard to predict where the pieces will go. Our uncertainty is about how the shattering will occur, not about whether we are on the way to it.
It’s the same sort of confidence that allowed astronauts to sit on top of a Saturn V rocket to the moon and have some expectation of coming back. The first time a vehicle was launched to lunar orbit, there were no observations of prior vehicles in lunar orbit. But there was plenty of solid reasoning, based on plenty of observations about the universe.
Science actually works, and there’s nothing about the atmosphere that would magically prevent it from working there.
@RickA
I was asking for studies that show that **net** costs are on the order of trillions. What you need to show is that the cost of mitigation exceeds the cost of business as usual plus the damages from future climate-related impacts (e.g. agricultural losses, sea level rise, etc).
But we’re not talking about a plate shattering. We’re talking about the temperature of the dishwasher.
All of your metaphors are chosen to imply an earth shattering event. What we’re talking about is something similar to the exterior set of Bladerunner. It is not an earth-ender or an earth-blender.
It’s an effort to instill panic where none is warranted. It is based on murky interpretation of dodgy data.
It is not based on the same science as sent us to the moon. It is based on serial exaggerations of what a some scientists want a chaotic system to do next. But it isn’t co-operating so you talk about moon rockets.
“It’s an effort to instill panic where none is warranted. It is based on murky interpretation of dodgy data.”
Short Tom Fuller:
We should defer to the judgement of a cryptologist? over the opinion of every major national science academy in the world.
Got it.
Actually Marlowe, you don’t need to take my word for it. try the Stern report. there are many others saying the same. Even Tobia admits when presses that we are not discussing Gotterdamerung. you certainy don’t need to accept the word of someone coming from a background in a field so arcane that you cannot spell it.
The latest in silly doubt proclamations. Framed for future study…
“It is not based on the same science as sent us to the moon. It is based on serial exaggerations of what a some scientists want a chaotic system to do next.”
“However all of what they claim is information points in a predetermined direction. And this direction is predetermined by what is a priori “˜knowledge,’ something that was taken as a given prior to even searching for the data.”
……
“we are not discussing Gotterdamerung.”
“What we’re talking about is something similar to the exterior set of Bladerunner. It is not an earth-ender or an earth-blender.”
Grypo, thanks for the repetition and collating services. Anything in there you care to dispute?
Not really. These types of arguments have been done to death. Usually readers pick up on the internal inconsistency of an argument that uses Dunning-Kruger type drivel to proclaim that we know nothing, but then turns around and makes well defined predictions based on movie scripts.
If you can make an argument that follows basic logic, I wouldn’t mind arguing against it. For now, future study…
Tom I’m more than a little surprised that you think that Stern supports the minimalist ‘no-regrets’ strategy that you seem to think is warranted. If anything, I’d have thought that you’d quote Nordhaus or Tol not Stern…
To whit:
“the cost of strong and urgent action is much less than the cost of delayed or timid action. Second, that policy should give priority to a time path of emissions that can lead to stabilisation of the atmospheric stock of GHGs in the range of 450 to 550 parts per million carbon dioxide equivalent (ppm CO2e), and that this requires emissions to peak within twenty years and to fall by at least 30% by 2050. Third, that market mechanisms will be a crucial element in guiding emission reductions in a costeffective way, together with appropriate regulation and standards, including for energy efficiency. Fourth, strong action on research, development and the deployment of new techniques will be required. Fifth, action on deforestation is urgent and very cost-effective. Sixth, adaptation will be of great importance for both developing and developed countries, with the former hit earliest and hardest. Seventh, any global deal should embody the above principles, be constructed in a way that takes strong account of equity between rich and poor nations, both on mitigation and adaptation, and promote an understanding of the risks to economic competitiveness and the opportunities, where early action is taken by individual states, regions and companies…
Our critics here fall short by failing to simultaneously afford the necessary importance to issues of risk and ethics. The case for strong and urgent action set out in the Review is based, first, on the severe risks that the science now identifies (together with the additional uncertainties that it points to but that are difficult to quantify) and, second, on the ethics of the responsibilities of existing generations in relation to succeeding generations. It is these two things that are crucial: risk and ethics. Different commentators may vary in their emphasis, but it is the two together that are crucial. Jettison either one and you will have a much reduced programme for action””and if you judge risks to be small and attach little significance to future generations you will not regard global warming as a problem.”
More can be found here
@ MT (46)
Our uncertainty is about how the shattering will occur, not about whether we are on the way to it.
I think this is a deliberately false analogy. There will be no shattering of anything. There will be a very slow and gradual change. We just don’t know how slow and how gradual.
It’s the same sort of confidence that allowed astronauts to sit on top of a Saturn V rocket to the moon and have some expectation of coming back.
Of course not. Rocket science is based on classic mechanics that has been confirmed by millions of observations. Climate models remain unvalidated. If NASA had a couple of dozen models for Saturn trajectory as different as climate projection there would be no man on the moon.
Well, Grypo, if you want to retire without a discussion, feel free.
Marlowe, as is so often the case, you misrepresent my position so drastically that it is obvious that you don’t read what I write. It also hints that you are not reading what anybody else writes, either. It seems more likely that you look for key words and plug in your rant of the day in response without any attempt to take other people seriously or even at their word.
To be specific Marlowe, what you characterize as ‘miminalist no-regrets options’ that I have advocated here, at Examiner.com, at Bart’s, at OIIFTG, at Judith’s, and probably elsewhere include:
Carbon tax at $12/ton revisited every 10 years
Technology transfer to developing nations using Millenium Goals as a model at roughly $100 billion / year.
Spending $700 billion over the course of the century to adapt to 1 meter of sea level rise.
Increases in CAFE standards for vehicle emissions
Increases in government support for alternative energy to match that of fossil fuels
Upgrading public transportation so that it becomes a viable alternative to individual car use
Investment in utility level energy storage, smart grids, superconductors
Retiring coal power plants and replacing them with best available alternatives in the very short term
Investing in broad based research on energy alternatives
If you think that is a minimalist, no-regrets approach, then okay–but be clear on what it is you are denigrating.
My analogy to a flung dish is indeed flawed, though Keith tells me offline he finds it interesting.
The point I was trying to make is that the confidence that things will change dramatically is not necessarily matched by a confidence in how things will change in detail. This point is easily obscured by the implication that there will be a sudden, extreme failure, which is not my point nor my belief.
On the other hand, Sashka confidently asserts the opposite, that “There will be a very slow and gradual change.” Familiarity with nonlinear systems, such as it is my understanding that Sashka actually has, reveals that this is not necessarily the case at all.
Many analyses are based on presuming that the shifts will be gradual, including the very strange one about the Russian heat wave that Tom Fuller pointed us to.
If the weird events we have seen of late are any indication of what to expect in the coming decades, this isn’t true. Rather, we will see persistent new configurations of the main jet streams leading to dramatic new climate configurations that last a year or two, only to be replaced by other configurations, as the boundary conditions and the forcing keep changing with each passing year. Which is not unexpected from where I am sitting, although the models do not do that.
Tom,
I see I confused your post with that of RickA @39. While I’m in broad agreement with much of your list, I would still characterize your position as inadequate (if not minimalist) given the scale of the problem. Consider that B.C. already has a carbon tax @ $30/tCO2e. Stern, who you seem to think supports your diagnosis and prescriptions, suggests even higher carbon prices are necessary:
“it is clear that a significant carbon price will be needed to bring even the more mature technologies into use, plus a combination of a carbon price and incentives for innovation in other cases. Table 3, as an example, shows the effects on relative costs of adding a total price incentive (equal to the sum of a carbon price plus an incentive for innovation) of £250/tonC over the next 10″“15 years, and £150/tonC by around 2025. As can be seen, this would tilt the balance in favour of the deployment of a good number of low-carbon options. Some of the promising options would still be left out, which is one reason why we argued for a continuation of R&D and innovation policies in the Review….
For stabilisation at 450ppm (around 500-550ppm CO2e), most models show carbon prices start off low and rise to US$360/tCO2 +/- 150% by 2030, and are in the range US$180-900/tCO2 by 2050, as the social cost of carbon increases and more expensive mitigation options need to be encouraged on the margin in order to meet an abatement goal. ”
Incidentally, why $12 and not $5, $15, $30 etc…?
Leaving aside the numbers (in particular, the $12/ton, which I think is too small to bother with), I agree with the general thrust of Tom Fuller’s policy suggestions. This is rather surprising.
Again, it can only be surprising to those who refuse to read what is written by people considered in opposition. There is not one thing there that I have not written about in many places. Including your weblog.
@ 58
The confidence that things will change dramatically is also overstated. We know that things will change. The dramatism is in doubt (and needs to be defined, too). If you wanted a functionable analogy you’d think about something that wouldn’t become completely useless in an instant. A torn fish net is the first thing that came to my mind. You may not know until thorough examination how big the hole is but a torn fish net is still a fish net.
You are right that nonlinear systems could exhibit sharp transitions (I should have been more careful with wording) but the nonlinear (potentially chaotic) nature of the system brings the question of where is your certainty coming from?
@47:
“I was asking for studies that show that **net** costs are on the order of trillions. What you need to show is that the cost of mitigation exceeds the cost of business as usual plus the damages from future climate-related impacts (e.g. agricultural losses, sea level rise, etc). ”
In order to de-carbonize US power generation, we have to stop using all coal, natural gas and oil fired power plants and replace them with a non-carbon power source.
We have no real option for more hydro, so it has to be nuclear, solar or wind.
For simplicity I choose nuclear – which requires building 300 brand new plants – to replace the coal, natural gas and oil plants.
That is a net cost. There is no savings from turning off all the coal power plants and replacing them from new nuclear power plants.
Also, you have placed the burden of proof on the wrong party.
With the data still uncertain – you have the burden of showing that the cost of mitigation is less than the benefit obtained.
The default is do nothing. The party urging action has the burden of proof.
You are assuming the harm – when the evidence doesn’t support it.
No harm is still within the error bars.
That is because we really have no way to know whether the climate sensitivity is 1 C or 6 C or 0 C or 10 C.
The data are to uncertain to act.
Best to do nothing, rather than spend 3T for nothing, which will also incidentally cause great harm in the form of higher heating, fuel, and food costs.
We should only take action if we know there will be harm – and we just aren’t there yet.
@63
let me know if/when you come back to reality…
no one is suggesting that we instantly decarbonize our economy tomorrow. the net cost is the cost of building a nuke plant less the cost of building a new coal plant. Or are you assuming that fossil plants by some magic property are able to run forever?
every major national academy has indicated that the risks posed by climate change are sufficiently well quantified to warrant action, so the burden of proof is on deniers like you to show that the risk is non-existent (or within the error bars whatever that means).
out of curiosity, do you purchase any kind of insurance products (e.g. life, house, etc.)?
@64
So if you take no action, then global warming will be addressed.
I don’t think so.
You have the burden of proof because you have to convince lawmakers (and the public) that changes need to be made.
Absent meeting this burden – nothing will happen.
So maybe in your world I have the burden of proof – but de facto, in the real world you have the burden of proof.
Given that you are only focusing on new power plants – I wonder what the ppm for carbon is projected to be, if 1/2 of the new power plants built over the next 50 years are coal burning and 1/2 are non-carbon (nuclear or equivalent)?
Isn’t China building a new coal burning power plant every week?