What if AGW is wrong?

Great Debates
1

I’m probably going to be vilified for even suggesting this but: What if the anthropogenic global warming (AGW) people are wrong? Amidst all of the studies saying that man is a prime contributor to global warming there are others that say that he isn’t, that it is part of a natural cycle of warming and cooling, that even if man is contributing to some degree that it is not as horrific as the proponents claim. People who claim skepticism and seek further proof are lambasted and compared with holocaust deniers. Reputations and careers are jeopardized.

But what if the nay-sayers are actually right and man is not to blame for global warming? What if it really is part of a natural process of inter-glacial periods or changing solar activity? If the proof comes out that the skeptics were right will the environmental groups apologize? Will they be lauded as heroes? What do think would happen to the politicians that have made AGW a major campaign point? Will voters be disillusioned and less trusting of politicians than usual?

And how will the general public, who is not too clear on science as it is, feel about scientific announcements?

Look into your crystal balls and tell me what kind of world we would see if that future came to pass. Thanks.

2

No apologies would be necessary, and none would be given. AGW is the best conclusion possible given the best data we currently have. All that can be asked of a scientist is to make a good faith effort to interpret the data the have, which they have in this case.

The public doesn’t really understand that science is a adversarial and self-correcting system, so they’d be turned off by any hint that the scientific community is wrong. Which is a shame.

3

What if we really do live in Ptolemaic solar system? Will the Copernicans ever apologize?

4

Cute. I’m just asking because current thinking is that AGW is a foregone conclusion. I’m looking at this as a thought exercise, akin to what if UFOs landed and all the debunkers were wrong or if Jesus suddenly appeared in the middle of Jerusalem and all atheists had to admit their mistake. Those events would create a major shift in global perceptions and beliefs. Remember the line from *Men in Black[/i}?

How well or badly would people take the news that AGW was wrong and that all of the hubbub was hogwash?

5

I agree that the scientific establishment would look pretty foolish if AGW were shown not to be true – but on the other hand, I’m having trouble imagining what that proof would look like. Are we suddenly going to get a whole new set of climate models, out of a suddenly emergent class of new scientists? It’s hard to think that this wouldn’t take decades to shake out, by which time the assigning of blame for being wrong will be somewhat attenuated.

It’s also the case that even if AGW turns out to be wrong, the things we’ll have done to combat it – increased energy efficiency, new approaches to electricity generation, etc. – will have turned out to be right, for a whole host of reasons that have nothing inherently to do with AGW.

6

While the AGW scientists hadn’t done anything wrong by pursuing the idea in research, the many scientists who turn to advocating political change (not to mention the politicians who capitalized on them) would have. I doubt the public would make that fine a distinction, though.

7

I guess you have to weigh the possible consequences. On the one side, if we believe the small minority of people denying global warming and it turns out they’re wrong, the consequences could be the end of all human life. On the other side, if we believe the overwhelming majority of informed scientists who say global warming exists and it turns out they’re wrong, the consequences could be Exxon’s profits declining by two or three percent.

Boy, how do you answer a moral dilemma like that?

8

Add to my list of wrongdoers the AGW propagandizers, regardless of their political stake.

9

So what if humans were not a major cause of current global climate change (which goes beyond global warming)? So what if a forest fire was set off by lightning rather than a match? Is it then no longer wise to not spill gas into the woodpile next to the house?

10

Okay, now that’s just ridiculous. And this is the kind of overheated exaggeration that makes people skeptical in the first place.

NO ONE is suggesting that the consequences could ‘end all human life’. When you make statements like that, you step way outside the bounds of current science and engage in scare mongering. Just like the people who have said that overfishing could cause a complete food chain breakdown and destroy the world, or any number of environmentalists who have proposed far-fetched doomsday scenarios.

As for the cost of eliminating carbon, the notion that it will only cost two or three percent of Exxon’s profits is equally ridiculous. There is no doubt that combating global warming in any serious way will cost us trillions of dollars. No serious analyst disputes that. Those trillions of dollars are dollars that are no longer available to fight poverty, protect the environment in other ways, spend on health care, or improving technology, or to spend on methods for reclaiming carbon or otherwise combating the effects of warming (which will still happen, albeit at a slower pace).

Here’s a DOE analysis of various economic projections of the cost of implementing the Kyoto treaty in the U.S. - basically, it’s going to cost hundreds of dollars per metric ton of carbon that we keep out of the atmosphere. The report is a little old, dating from 1998. But based on projections from 1998 to 2010, the report indicates that it could have cost the U.S. somewhere on the order of 50 billion dollars a year to meet the treaty requirements. That’s about double ALL of Exxon’s profit. So you were only off by a few orders of magnitude.

And of course, Kyoto is only the first step. If you want to seriously eliminate manmade carbon, Kyoto is a drop in the bucket. U.S. CO2 output in 2002 was estimated to be about 5.8 billion metric tons. Estimates for the cost of carbon reduction in the DOE report run from roughtly $50 per metric ton to over $300 (depending on assumptions about technology, the use of carbon trading credits with countries that have large carbon sinks, etc.). Bear in mind that these estimates essentially represent the cost of eliminating low-hanging fruit - Kyoto targets would have only eliminated a few hundred million metric tons per year - roughly 5% of carbon output. Not enough to make a dent in global warming.

But anyway, let’s assume $100 per metric ton, and leave it linear (it costs the same to remove the last metric ton as it did the first - not bloody likely, but whatever). In that case, if you wanted to get rid of even half of the U.S.'s CO2 output, it would cost you almost $600 billion PER YEAR. That’s basically the entire cost of the Iraq war to date, paid out every year, forever.

And of course, that doesn’t account for energy growth, population growth, or the increasing cost of eliminating carbon after the low-hanging fruit is gone. And that’s only to remove half of it. If we want to use the upper-range estimates of around $300 per metric ton, and remove all manmade CO2 output, then the U.S. would have to pay about 3.5 trillion dollars PER YEAR. That’s more than the ENTIRE U.S. government budget.

No one is served in this debate by low-balling the cost and exaggerating the risks of global warming. If it’s a serious problem, it deserves serious analysis. The IPCC report’s best estimates for global warming in the next 100 years run from 1.9 degrees C to 4.5 degrees C. Ocean rise of .1 to .2 meters. That’s where the science is at.

Of course all of this stuff is gross estimation. As climate models extend out from the near term, there is much uncertainty. As economic models extend out from the near term, there is much uncertainty. HOWEVER, if you want to do serious analysis, you use the numbers you’ve got. I’m sure someone will be along shortly to claim that we’re really smart, and we’ll actually get RICHER by eliminating carbon because we’ll be much more clever at it than we think. And someone else will come along and claim that the Earth is very resilient and will develop feedback mechanisms against the CO2 increase that we can’t predict and everything will be fine.

But that’s all unknowable. What we know is that warming is going to continue no matter what we do. The IPCC clearly says that. The question is a matter of reducing the acceleration of warming. The policy question we have to answer is how much of our wealth do we want to expend to limit warming, as compared to spending the wealth dealing with the consequences of that warming.

11

There are some bits and pieces of information (Antarctica precipitation not responding according to GW models, solar activity/cosmic rays effecting cloud production, etc) that are currently being dismissed or minimized. Add to that is the pervasive political attitude that lumps the dissenting climatologists and meteorologists in with holocaust deniers and threatens their livelihood (calls for censure, firings and removal of accreditation), it would take some scientists with major league cojones to be willing to stand up and risk it all.

I agree that if the environmental improvements could be made (lessen our dependency on oil, improved energy production via alternative sources including nuclear, etc) that it would be a major benefit to mankind. But can we really get away with an attitude of “the ends justify the means”?

And the idea that if GW was accurate that it would be the “end of all human life” is hyperbolic hysterics. I will try to find the cites for this but I remember reading about the interglacial period circa 4500 BC. Scandinavian tree lines were above 8000 feet and deciduous trees grew almost to the Arctic Circle. People forget that Greenland was named that because, when it was discovered it was not completely covered by a glacier. If the world was warm enough for humans to survive those hellish conditions, I think we can do it again.

The Earth cooled tremendously, though; so much so that Revolutionary War armament was transported across a frozen Hudson River and Niagara Falls actually froze solid. I believe it was called the Little Ice Age. People survived that, too. And now it is getting warmer. According to the Illinois State Museum

Please don’t get me wrong. I am not disputing there is some degree of GW occurring or even that mankind’s activities might be contributing to it. It just gets my hackles up when people prophesize the “end of all human life”. I heard that about SARS, Avian Flu, pollution, nuclear war, asteroids, Chernobyl, overpopulation, blah, blah, blah. Mankind is resourceful and adaptive. We are smart and inventive. A threat presents itself and we will find a way to overcome it. It is not necessary to pull out the sackcloth and scourge ourselves proclaiming, “The end is nigh!” Give us a little credit.

12

If we act on the information that shows global warming is a threat, then the air and water will be cleaner and we will develop superior pollution control systems. How can that be a bad thing. If the threat is overhyped ,it will remain that we now have cleaner air.

13

Sorry about having to tack this on, I went off on a rant.

Look at the disgust and outrage we have for our government about being lead into a war without valid or accurate information. Faulty intelligence, guesswork, suppositions and downright lies placed thousands of men and women in Iraq. Now we know we were duped and we are stuck in a mess. Sure, we got rid of Saddam who was a bully, tyrant, war-criminal, genocidal maniac and probably kicked kittens, too. But look at the cost.

If we find out that we have been spending billions on faulty intelligence, guesswork, suppositions and downright lies to overcome a climate issue that was part of a natural cycle, would we go after the politicians and scientists and bureaucrats with the same fervor and venom that we went after the current administration regarding Iraq?

14

You know, I’m getting very, very tired of the anticipatory anti-AGW martyrs. You know, the ones who believe that AGW is a global conspiracy in the scientific establishment.

The thought process behind this supposed conspiracy appears to be:

  1. Publish a paper which corroborates anthropogenic global warming
  2. ???
  3. Profit

I’m not seeing it. There’s no evil AGW cabal sinisterly twisting its mustache as it hands out buckets of cash to scientists who toe the line to their nefarious plot. They aren’t sending out hit squads to discredit scientists who disagree with them. Why would there be? What’s in it for them?

Here, try this- what if the anti-AGW people are wrong? While it may not be the end of life on Earth as we know it, it’s going to be huge, with a capital “uge”.

But if the AGW proponents are wrong, we’re out a lot of money. Well, theoretically, anyway- it seems fairly obvious to me that this’ll just open up another industry, and all that money won’t be lost. It’ll just be put into circulation by some company other than, say, Exxon.

15

It all depends on how we ‘act’ of course. Depending on what you mean exactly by that vague statement, it could be a good thing or a bad thing. Sure, cleaner air and water are good things…as long as you don’t cripple your economy to get them. We are ALREADY doing stuff that has the effect of making both the air cleaner and water cleaner and have been doing so for decades now. Anyone who has ever ventured to, say, Pittsburgh (or California), can tell you all about it.

However, when we start talking about some of the ‘solutions’ to the ‘problem’ of GW, we get into a grey area, as its been notoriously difficult to pin anyone down on what it will COST to do all those wonderfu things (assuming they even work). I’ve started at least 2 threads asking just that question and never have received anything remotely resembling a firm response…just a lot of hot air and hand waving. Sam has given some numbers in THIS thread…and those numbers SHOULD scare the hell out of people if they are close to realistic wrt actually causing an effect. If THATS what it would take to halt GW, well…is it better to fall off the cliff or put the gun to our own head?
As for the OP, I serious doubt at this point that some new startling evidence is going to come out that negates AGW to the point its completely discredited. At the maximum we may find out that the effect humans has is balanced with the effect that nature is having…i.e. the earth IS in a natural warming trend, but humans are accelerating that trend by what we are doing, thus compounding the ‘problem’.

The REAL debate is…what, if anything, can/should we do about it. THERE we are in, IMHO, a completely grey area. And its a grey area where AGW proponents are attempting to push an agenda with science that ISN’T as firm based on science that is.

If we are going to dick around with our economy (let alone the worlds economy), I think we need something better than guess work…especially if we are talking about the sums of money it LOOKS like we are talking about to actually have an effect. If someone can tell me that combatting GW will cost the US, say, $10 billion a year (maximum), then I’m all for it. If someone says it will cost the US, say $100 billion (max) then I’m not quite as gungho, but still cautiously in favor…IF they can show me some hard figures on EXACTLY what measurable effect this WILL have if we do it. If someone says it could cost a trillion US dollars (or more) then I say we need to look at other ‘solutions’…even if they can show me what effect this will have cast in stone, step by step.

-XT

16

:stuck_out_tongue: You should look at it from the other side of the debate…especially here on this board. You start a thread questioning GW and its an immediate pile on. I can see why some folks who DO question GW (or AGW) would be a bit circumspect in starting a thread around here.

Well, your rational of what the other side is thinking is a bit weak (can you say ‘strawman’? :wink: ). How about this:

  1. Publish a paper which corroborates anthropogenic global warming.
  2. Gain a consensus with the majority of scientists wrt AGW.
  3. Get lots of press about it, sell the media on it.
  4. Use the facts about AGW to legitimize your ‘solutions’ which are based on much less solid science.
  5. Push through an environmental agenda/anti-business agenda emphasizing drastic cuts in emissions and the sacrifices ‘the people’ and ‘big business’ must make in their daily lives in order to head off this threat that COULD “end of all human life”.
  6. Gain an international forum and browbeat any nation that won’t walk in lockstep with your vision of how things SHOULD be.
  7. Having achieved your agenda…profit.
    Hows that grab you? :stuck_out_tongue:

Its obvious you aren’t seeing it. And I DON’T think its a single, unified ‘cabal’ of scientists who all have the same agenda. I DO think that some of the folks involved in the GW/AGW debate, especially those who are pushing SOLUTIONS, DO have an agenda. As for ‘what’s in it for them’…well, that question is going to vary from person to person and scientist to scientist, isn’t it?

-XT

17

I’m not claiming that in the back rooms of Greenpeace headquarters is some bald man, slowly stroking his cat, giving out his plans for global domination through AGW propaganda. I don’t think Dr. Evil is plotting the downfall of the industrialized world by making everyone switch to an Amish lifestyle.

The answer I seem to be hearing is, “If AGW is right then we saved the planet. If AGW is wrong, we still did a lot of good things that make the world a better place.” No matter what comes of the data, AGW proponents are content with any actions taken.

Suppose your doctor came to you and said you had a genetic marker for testicular (or breast) cancer and there was a chance that you might develop it. The doctor says you could wait to see if anything develops or undergo surgery now. You decide, “Cut it off, I want to live.”

Years later geneticists determine that your genetic marker was only a possible contributor that needed many other factors to make it active. In other words, there was no reason to go under the knife.

Would you say to yourself, “Well, at least I don’t have to worry about getting cancer in that body part and I still can function OK.”? Personally, I’d be pissed at the doc for pushing for what is ultimately an unnecessary operation.

If further studies, research, experiments and better computer models disprove AGW, I would be a little more reluctant to take the word of the “experts”. I definitely will not listen to some blowhard from DC who talks about the greatest peril to ever face our planet.

18

But isn’t it more likely that the “pile on”, as you call it, is simply because there are so many more people who disagree with you? Post any proposition which isn’t supported by the majority, and you’ll see the same effect.

Fine, with you so far.

Sure. If the science is good, other scientists will come to the same conclusions.

The media looks for sensational stories. Few scientists rush to the papers when they’ve corroborated experimental data. Most just publish… in, you know, scientific papers.

Solutions such as cutting down on carbon emissions?

So your objection is that averting the worst-case scenario for AGW is that it’d be an imposition?

Big Business didn’t like having to limit their mercury emissions, but that didn’t exactly drive them out of business. They didn’t like not being able to hire children. They didn’t like having to keep their workers reasonably safe. Businesses adapt or fail.

Oh, and when you talk about an agenda, surely you’re also talking about Exxon trying everything it can to discredit AGW, like bribing scientists to publish anti-AGW papers, right?

Um… why? Why do you have to ascribe personal profit to this step, when it can be easily explained by “If we don’t do something about this, we’re all screwed”?

Again, how? How does the average scientist profit from this? Large corporations, such as Exxon, I can see profiting from denying AGW… but the average researcher? There’s not a lot of money in science as it is- how do they stand to make money on corroborating other scientists’ data?

But on the other side, we’ve got large corporations which EASILY stand to profit from denying AGW. Why are they so much more believable?

19

There are several problems with the global warming debate.

First, I’m fully in agreement with the scientific consensus that A) the earth is heating up, and B) human C02 emissions are part of the reason. At this point, anyone who really disputes that is way out on a limb.

From there, we get into some awfully fuzzy areas. If you read the IPCC report, you’ll see that nothing is stated with certainty. Most of their claims are labeled “likely”, “extremely likely”, or “not as likely”. There are big error bars around all of this, because we’re still very early in the data collection phase, and we still don’t have great models of long-term atmospheric trends. It seems every week a new study is coming out which offers a new mechanism to explain certain trends that weren’t even on the radar scope five years ago. For example, there’s some good evidence that cosmic rays are a contributing factor which was totally discounted not long ago. There was also another recent study on bovine flatulence that showed it may be a significant contributor to warming. Still manmade, of course - there are huge ruminant populations on earth now to support the meat industry which didn’t exist before.

In any event, the IPCC report is also the ‘summary for policy makers’, which should be taken with a grain of salt. In my experience, the U.N. ‘summary for policy makers’ reports are often slanted when compared to the later detailed scientific report - because the Summary is prepared by U.N. bureaucrats with an agenda.

Also, the problem with the global warming debate is that too many people have attached too much ideological baggage to the issue. This often makes debate on the subject less than reasonable. For example, scientists often break with the status quo on major issues, and as long as their research is sound other scientists have no problem with it. When Louis Alvarez proposed his catastrophic extinction theory for dinosaurs, he was way out of the mainstream. But he didn’t get ostracized for it. Today, scientific debate around global warming is starting to look a bit too much like a witch hunt. Scientists who want to study opposing theories are ridiculed, marginalized, and can have a hard time getting funding. Some have even had their tenure threatened and have been accused of being similar to holocaust deniers.

This is contrary to the spirit of scientific debate. All that should matter is the quality of the science. Open debate is always good. People who study alternative models of climate change should be given every bit as much respect as those who believe the mainstream view of climate change - so long as their actual science is respectable.

But now that politicians and ideologues are in the mix, there is all kinds of pressure on one side to shut down debate and declare a ‘winner’ - a fundamentally unscientific attitude. On the other side, there are special interests willing to fund and push forward any theory which can be concocted to protect their interests.

Through it all, the actual political debate is of shockingly poor quality. On the one side we have deniers who claim that this is nothing more than the big ‘ice age’ scare in the 70’s, while refusing to admit that the ‘ice age’ debate never gained widespread consensus in the scientific community and didn’t have anywhere near the amount of real science behind it that global warming does. On the other side, we have people like Little Nemo. Claiming that A) the science is absolutely settled, B) the fix is cheap, and C) to do nothing means the end of the world. No surprise that he considers the correct action to be a no-brainer.

If we want to have a REAL debate about what to do with global warming, we can start with an honest assessment of the costs of doing various amounts to prevent it - cutting the rate of increase by 10%, cutting it by 50%, eliminating manmade carbon entirely, etc.

Then we can start talking about the costs of doing nothing. An honest assessment of real risks and approximate damages to the planet. First at the low end of current estimates, then at the high end.

Only then can we make reasonable, intelligent decisions about where to expend our resources.

Finally, the debate can enter the political realm. Is it even politically possible to take drastic action? Can we get China and India and Russia to play along? Can we craft a meaningful treaty that isn’t just a thinly veiled mechanism for giving more power to the UN and transferring wealth from rich democracies to everyone else?

I’ll bet if you asked the average supporter of Kyoto what it would cost to fully implement, they would underestimate it by an order of magnitude or more. And if you asked them what effect Kyoto will have on global warming, they’d overestimate it by an order of magnitude or more. Because they’ve been spun by people of their ideological alignment who they want to believe.

And if you do the same thing with opponents of Kyoto, you’ll probably get errors in the opposite direction.

Time to get rid of the spin, the scaremongering, and the denials, and discuss the issue rationally and scientifically. Along the way, it’s time to stop demonizing scientists who buck the conventional wisdom, or dismissing them because you don’t like where their funding comes from. Let them publish their findings in peer reviewed journals, and then let the science stand on its own.

20

If a flying saucer touched down on Washington tomorrow it wouldn’t invalidate ‘the debunkers’ unless the aliens showed us how they’ve been spying on us for the last 2000 years and giving us anal probes.