Actually, it was reviewed. The publisher, Cambridge University Press, did get a few (2?) reviews on it. Unfortunately, perhaps because of its broad nature, they did not get reviews from people who were qualified to judge the presentation of the science. (One of the two reviewers, as I recall, was a philosopher who has written critically a lot on the environmental movement.) Many scientists have said that the publication of this book by Cambridge should be quite an embarrassment to them. (They are also the publishers of the highly-respected IPCC reports.)
Yes, well, it has gazillions of cites, some to peer-reviewed work but cited quite selectively and sometimes out of context, etc. according to the scientists in the fields.
Nice try, december, to pit Lomborg against the political leaders of the environmental movement. That’s a great strawman. However, what he needs to be compared against are the scientists in the fields. Lomborg is making claims that most well-published scientists in the fields he is talking about find to be one-sided, distorted, misleading, against the general consensus of the scientific community, etc.
He is self-proclaimed as having once been on the environmentalist side. (And, apparently, Bork was once a socialist.) However, those who are experts in the fields say that, while masquerading as just trying to set the facts straight, what Lomborg has actually done is presented a biased view of the science. His book is a polemic. If you want to read it as an antidote to a non-scientist’s presentation on the environmentalist side (say, Al Gore’s book), then fine. But, if you claim that it tells you anything about what the actual state of the science in the fields he discusses is, you are apparently out to lunch.
I used a bit of an antiquated way of referring to things. The “Working Group-I” part of the report is now referred to as “Climate Change: The Scientific Basis.” And note that “Technical Summary” is abbreviated as “TS” on the IPCC website.
Also, here is a more direct way to see the graph I am referring to. And, here is a plot perhaps answering the question about rising CO2 concentrations.
As I noted (with less certainty) in my previous post on this, your view here is basically in line with what the IPCC says on this particular subject.
Page 72 of the IPCC’s report “Climate Change: The Scientific Basis” Technical Summary (TS) contains a table which lists phenomena related to various extreme weather events and the likelihood that they have already been observed in the latter half of the 20th century and the likelihood that they will be observed in the 21st (due to anthropogenic climate change). They rate “increase in tropical cyclone peak intensities” as “Not observed in the few analyses available” so far and “Likely, over some areas” for the 21st century. They rate “increase in tropical cyclone mean and peak precipitation intensities” as “Insufficient data for assessment” so far and “Likely, over some areas” for the 21st century. They also have a footnote saying that “Past and future changes in tropical cyclone location and frequency are uncertain.” As I recall, “likely” means an estimated 67-90% chance.
As I suspected in my earlier answer, the confidence in the prediction of the effect on hurricanes is relatively low compared to many other extreme events. For example, “higher maximum temperatures and more hot days over nearly all land areas” is rated as “Likely” to have already been observed and “Extremely likely” (which I think means 90-99% chance) to be observed in the 21st century. A similar rating holds for “more intense precipitation events” although the already-observed is likely just “over many Northern Hemisphere mid- and high-latitude land areas” and the “Very likely” in the future is “over most areas”.
FWIW, I just returned from a meeting of the American Statistical Assn., whre I discussed Lomborg’s work with a Prof. from the Univ. of Washington. He had been a graduate student with my wife some 20 or 30 years ago. This prof, who is quite liberal, said that many of Lomborg’s points are correct, but many others are based on selected cites. He said many of Lomborg’s conclusions have cites to support them, but ignore other cites that point the other way. He didn’t say Lomborg was worthless, but he said a lot of it was too shallow.
However, the person I was talking to is a statistics prof who now specializes in environmental issues. He wasn’t trained in the chemistry and biology. Coincidentally, this is Lomborg’s background as well.
My point is that you believe in a duality of possibilities. To significantly reduce industrial use would destroy th world’s economy and probably result in much fo the world reverting to unfarmable waste. Your other option, according to you, is to kill off everyone via pollution.
Lets see… not seeing any good for me in either of these. Poverty stricken early death from starvation as society collapses around me versus the earth overheating. Oh well, may as well be comfortable as I die.
I was simply pointing out that even if you stopped the First World from using any power at all and turn off every factory, the Third will soon eclipse the total output of the former First. Meanwhile, industrial farming will probably grind to a halt and we all die of hunger.
Fission power is by far the best, cleanest option. However, that has been crushed by pathetic fears of an ignorant populace and the powerful opposition of environmentalist groups. So we are stuck with polluting fossil fuels.
Fusion, when it comes on line (they have had good successes, but overly optimistic assumptions rather than failures are the cause of the “delays”), may well be a great power source and ease your concerns. However, there is very little we can do about that now.
Speaking in the future tense, who know,s we might save humanity by warming the earth. There is some concern that sooner, ratehr than later, the earth will experience a cold cycle. Wouldn’t that be ironic:
The year 2100. Everyone thanks the Lord that the 20th century polluted a lot to warm the earth, otherwise they’d all be frozen solid. Wheee!
Where exactly did you see us saying that we have to significantly reduce industrial use? What we imagining is a combination of improved efficiency, conservation, and new energy sources. You are the one who is reading in economic catastophe into this.
Well,
(1) Tell those who lived near Chernobyl and now have high rates of various cancers how pathetic their fears are. While some fears of nuclear energy may be overblown, the possibility of a serious accident (or terrorist act) and the conundrum of high-level waste are very real (as well as issues of nuclear proliferation as our current concerns about Iran’s nuclear power plants demonstrates). I am somewhat ambivalent about (fission) nuclear energy overall and bristle at the simplicity at which both sides of this debate present their arguments. You are no better or less simplistic in your analysis than the most alarmist of the anti-nuclear groups.
(2) Nuclear power has not been crushed by pathetic fears. It has been crushed by the marketplace where it has been beaten out by the other heavily subsidized energy source – fossil fuels. Some might argue that the costs were driven up by these fears but that doesn’t really wash either. In fact, I was recently at a conference where a comparison was made between nuclear energy costs in the U.S., France, and Japan. (As you may know, France produces a lot… I believe the vast majority…of its electricity via nuclear energy.) It turned out that the costs for nuclear power were about the same in all three countries. The difference is that the higher costs of fossil fuels in France and Japan made the costs of nuclear much more competitive (even advantageous) there whereas they were not so here in the U.S. Also, you will find if you go to the nuclear industry’s own website that they do not make any claims that the regulatory burden they are under is too excessive. Rather, they tout the regulations as promoting the great safety of their industry while cautioning that we must make sure that the regulations are modified to stay current with changing technology and market landscape.
On this, we don’t really disagree.
Sorry, but there is no serious scientific belief that this is the case. Any claims to that effect tend to quote concerns that were around when the climate science field was in its infancy (and when our emissions included a lot more particles, such as aerosols, that do have a known cooling effect).
The belief in the scientific community is that we are about to embark on a scientific experiment of putting unprecedented or nearly unprecedented forcings onto the earth’s climate system. While there is some debate about the magnitude of the effects of this experiment (and about the dangers of these forcing sparking abrupt climate shifts and other such emerging issues), I don’t think you will find any significant body of peer-reviewed work arguing that we are going to miraculously have a positive effect of counterbalancing natural cycles.
However, if you want to talk about unexpected benefits, I’ll give you one that is in fact much more likely: namely that the sort of measures that will be spurred by emissions reduction efforts like Kyoto will have ancillary benefits (e.g., pollution reduction, less sprawl, …) and will result in cost savings due to efficiency that will largely offset costs of compliance. In fact, the experience of BP already provides one example on a small scale where this is apparently the case!
Of course, there is no doubt that there will be economic winners and losers in all this…and that those who have the most to lose are ones that have a lot of economic and political power in our current fossil fuel economy. It is in their best interests to convince the rest of us that our economic interests align strongly with theirs and what will hurt them will hurt us all. This is the basic position of Exxon-Mobil and Western Fuels Association, but is a position that has already been largely abandoned by other companies like BP and (from what another poster noted above) Shell.
This is a key point. I suspect that many Kyoto supporter feel this way. Even if Kyoto doesn’t succeed in preventing global warming, it’s side effects will be beneficial.
Opponents of Kyoto see detrimental side effects: Big reduction in economic well-beling, which translates into less food, less housing, less medical care, etc. for all, including the most needy.
Well, it is a sad fact that the most needy tend to suffer regardless. Many of the places likely to feel the worst impacts from global warming are also the most needy places, like Bangladesh, which is why you don’t find such nations opposing Kyoto despite the fact that people like Lomborg make it sound like they will be the big losers.
I know that Lomborg, among others, is fond of comparing estimates (especially the higher end ones) of the costs of Kyoto compliance (for which the economic science, by the way, is not so hot!) with the costs to feed all the hungry in the world and some such things. However, the fact is that the problem with world hunger is not due to any lack of financial resources. We could just as easily compare the cost for solving the world hunger problem with the amount of money to be saved if we cut in half the part of the Bush tax cuts which goes to only the top 1%, so that each of them only got $20,000 in tax breaks rather than $40,000 (or some such thing…I am throwing around rough numbers from memory here).
By the way, just for amusement sake if nothing else, I highly recommend that people go to the BP web site and search on “global warming” to compare how progressive one of the largest energy (still primarily fossil fuel) companies in the world is on the subject of climate change in comparison to some of the folks in this thread. It is kind of bizarre!
Harvard astrophysicist Willie Soon believes the global warming now being observed is part of a natural climatic cycle. There was the “Medieval Warm Period” (MWP)from roughly 800 to 1300 A.D., and then there was the Little Ice Age (LIA) from 1300 to 1900, and now we’re again entering a warm period:
University of Virginia climate statistician Michael Mann and his colleagues not only deny the present global warming is a natural phenomenon, they deny the MWP or the LIA ever took place:
Gobal Warming, Global Cooling it is one or the other from one year to the next and someone will make noise in order to get Grant Money. Fact remains, present location of Missouri River was where the continental ice sheet terminated. We have, overall been in Golobal Warming since. In fact, North America was attached to Asia. Did man cause this global warming? NO. Is man causing global warming today? Don’t know, send me some grant money and I’ll study it.
So I came into this thread, posted a message, and expected december to jump right on it. Instead, he ignored completely what I said and just talked about another book entirely. How very odd. Well, okay, not odd for december, I suppose…
Couldn’t get your link to work but I am quite familiar with this paper, which has made a big splash in conservative circles, since it is one of the few papers by the contrarians to get published in a refereed journal recently. And, as the New York Times article that I linked to yesterday (and here again) pointed out, both the editor and publisher have distanced themselves from the paper:
Now, this all doesn’t necessarily mean that Soon et al. are wrong. But, it sure doesn’t look too promising. And, it is patently ridiculous to give this one paper the same weight as hundreds of papers on the “other side” unless one has a particular agenda.
I still have been unable to access that article at the Tech Central Station (TCS) website (which is acting pretty flaky right now). But, just to give you an inkling of how objective an article discussing a controversy between Soon and most of the rest of the scientific community on the libertarian Tech Central Station is likely to be, Willie Soon is listed as “Scientific Director, TCS” at the website!
I said that not all scientists believe that greenhouse gases were the cause of global warming. You gave several examples of scientists who do hold that belief. Fine. Your examples don’t contradict my point that such a belief isn’t universal among scientists. I didn’t respond because I had nothing to add.
I definitely believe that global warming is taking place, but I don’t know the cause. Of course, global warming has been going on ever since the end of the last ice age, but it seems to be accelerating. It’s certainly plausible to me that greenhouse gases might be the main cause or a partial cause. If so, we’re probably in deep trouble, because I don’t think that the world will make a big reduction in greenhouse gases or even hold them constant. That’s too bad, but it’s reality. We’d better find some less costly way to stop global warming or find some way to live with it as best we can IMHO.
I don’t have a dog in this fight (other than living near the aforementioned affected glaciers, which, being moving rivers of ice, are subject to whims of more than just temperature- snowfall has an effect on progress as well) but I’m curious:
We know, to a pretty accurate fraction, the composition of the atmosphere: X percentage nitrogen, Y percentage oxygen, Z percentage CO2, et al.
Has the level of CO2 risen, as a percentage, in the past hundred years? If so, by how much?
Doc, yes it has: about 30% over the last 300 years (directly in line with industrial activity, as this graph shows - thanks for your dedication in this thread, jshore).
Since C02 makes up only a tiny percentage of the atmosphere this only constitutes a small overall percanetage rise. The problem is that most other greenhouse gases have a balancing mechanism, whereas C02 is massively off equilibrium. We simply don’t know how far off equilibrium it would need to go before truly momentous effects are observed.
