"Faith based Science" and Global Warming.

Great Debates
61

Collounsbury, I want to compliment you on your decorum in this discussion.

If you’ve been following global warming on the net, then there’s a good chance you’ve come across John L. Daly’s “Still Waiting for Greenhouse” page. http://www.vision.net.au/~daly/. Specifically at http://www.greeningearthsociety.org/Articles/2000/surface1.htm he makes what looks to me is some pretty strong arguments that global warming isn’t nearly as well documented as your citations contend.

One of the bits you cite in your first post was:

Emphasis mine.

Where I have a problem with that is that, as I understand it, the current computer models suck. Hard. From what I’ve heard they’re not very stable and blow up very easily. And when back-checked against historical data, that none of them come anywhere close to predicting our current conditions. So they’re not reliable and they’re not accurate.

In Scientific American’s “Where Will We Be in 50 Years” issue last year they included an article by a climatologist. (I just looked for the arcticle to link to it, but I can’t find it on their web site.) He described some of the shortcomings of the current models. From memory, that it has only been the last couple of years that they’ve even started including cloud cover, I believe a fairly major contributor to the heat budget of the planet. And, that the cell size of the current models was too large, on the order of 50 kilometers sticks in my head. IOW, fairly large contributors to energy distribution, like thunderstorms, are lost in the noise and addressed only vaguely.

This author predicted that at the current rate of computer advancement it would be 20 years before before we had enough computing power to run models which were dense enough and complete enough to yield reliable and accurate results. Though, I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that they get substantially better long before that.

So getting back to the original post, it appears to me that there’s little new evidence of global warming (repeating the old evidence over and over doesn’t increase it’s validity.) And even conceding the most generous measurements, the current models are nowhere near good enough to be basing cripplingly expensive policy decisions on. And that even using the knowledge we currently have on the climate, solely addressing CO2 is unlikely to have much of an effect on man’s contributions to global warming.

I believe the latter couple of sentances are close to your position.

62

Must be losing my touch, no?

No, only through journals and as I noted, not that closely.

I’m going to have to chew over these when I get a chance.

I do believe the last part is incorrect. If you follow through, I believe that recent models have in fact made progress to matching historical data.

However, this is ** predictive ** and something of a supplementary issue. The PNAS cite, if I’m not getting confused, are in re current and historical observations.

[snipped models discussion]

A valid observation if the materials were repeating old evidence only. I ask you to review the IPCC and the PNAS materials and tell me that this is all old.

In re future effects, I absolutely agree. But I do believe I’ve said that all along, yes?

Ditto, Kyoto is a mistake.

Yes.

But in any event, I’m happy to see new data coming to the discussion. Makes things juicier.

63

Added note:
I am more than slightly uncomfortable with Daly’s polemical tone.

64

I agree. The tone is overboard, and the web site is very poorly laid out. But I find his basic facts and analysis thought-provoking.

65

I perursed the site more and my sense of discomfort has risen. On one hand he certianly is not flying by the seat of his pants, on the other hand his shrill and polemical langauge is disturbing. My experience in re genetics leads me to question folks who paint with broad brushes and use political language as he does. I understand getting pissed off at the extreme greenies. However, I have trouble swallowing his wholesale assault on the peer-reviewed literature, esp. since I can’t find peer publications by him nor can I discern what his qualifications are. I don’t want to fall into a critique by authority, at the same time when someone’s pubs and so forth all seem to be pop press or political, I have doubts.
In the final analysis, I confess to not have the time to give his critiques a full reading, and comparision with the original articles. However, with that said, I take this on advisement but remain more confident of the scientific journals. They may be wrong, of course. He certainly would be well-advised to adopt a more reasoned tone and drop the inflamatory langauge.

66

It’s important to get both sides of a debate, of course, but I’m with ** Collounsbury** on this one. Take some of the quotes from the “Greening Earth Society’s” webpage FAQ:

Creepy.

Or how about this?

Seems like they’re pushing a pretty clear agenda, if you ask me. And who sponsors them? None other that the Western Fuel Association, who’s web site you can find here.

WFA is a coop of what appears to be middle-sized mid-western utilities providers, all of whom are primarily coal-based. So they accuse the IPCC of pushing a political agenda, and meanwhile try to convince people that coal-burning and increased levels of CO2 are actually beneficial to the environment. Right.
PS. Collounsbury, re the secret of cheesemaking: try goat’s milk.

67

RE CO2 levels:

Well, they have a point, but it strikes me that it is not an answer in its entirity to the question of the aggregate effects. I also had a disturbing sensation that the websites were attacking a straw man argument (in re global warming will cause the world to end) which to my knowledge is largely the argument of a small fringe. However it is being set up there as the argument.

Overall, I remain more confident of peer-reviewed literature which while imperfect, provide IMHO a better picture of developments than partisan web sites.

68

We’ve been down much of this road before recently. Check out this thread: http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=56720

There are some important points I would like to make here:

(1) The claims made here that no “consensus” has been reached in the scientific community are incorrect. The IPCC reports operate on a consensus format and thus represent the consensus that does exist. Note that consensus does not mean unanimity. On the other hand, there are PhD biologists out there that don’t believe in evolution. Getting unanimity before taking action is a prescription to never act. Admittedly, climate science is in a more uncertain state than evolutionary theory, which is why, for example, the IPCC report quotes a broad temperature range for possible warming that will occur due to human influences in the next couple of years. (I also believe their range is aiming at what they estimate to be a 3-sigma confidence level.) By the way, of the dissenters who do remain, a lot of them seem to have ties to the fossil fuels industry and far-right/ libertarian think-tanks (like the Cato Institute or the George C. Marshall Institute).

(2) I don’t know why statements are being made here, even by those arguing in favor of the consensus, that Kyoto is too extreme. Studies show that the U.S. (and the rest of the world, for that matter) can reach the Kyoto targets with little cost.* In fact, by some estimates, the costs could even be negative. (Savings due to efficiency outweigh the costs of achieving them.) If you look at all of the SUVs lumbering down the road, it doesn’t take a lot of brilliance to figure out that there is lots of room for improvement in energy efficiency. This talk that people in this debate are arguing going back to pre-industrial times is simply a bunch of B.S.

In summary, the climate science is certainly clear enough on global warming to justify taking rather modest and inexpensive steps such as Kyoto in order to get onto a better track with energy efficiency and alternative technologies. If we wait until the uncertainties of what is going to happen down the road is reduced still further before deciding what to do, the actions may need to be much more drastic and costly.

*I believe the Third Assessment Report (TAR) of the IPCC talks about costs in general international terms. Here are links to a couple of the studies specific to the U.S.: http://www.ornl.gov/ORNL/Energy_Eff/CEF.htm http://www.ucsusa.org/publications/pubs-home.html#environment (see the publication “A Small Price to Pay”). Here’s a link to another article that explains how the costs to comply with environmental regulations has historically much less than was estimated (by the government, as well as industry!): http://www.prospect.org/print/V8/35/goodstein-e.html.

69

Whoops…I compressed my time scales a bit there. I meant to say the next hundred years!

70

Very true, just as there are some who still believe in race despite the genetic evidence.

Which is unfortunately my sense in re the cited site. Certainly the polemical political language does not help his case in my POV. Vieled conspiracy theory immediately sets off alarms for me.

However, I do differ on this point and I believe that in re Kyoto targets, timeframes etc. there are real and serious issues. However, I don’t have time to argue this, so let me just observe that I believe that Kyoto structure is a point of legitimate policy and science debate in re the consensus to date.

Final comment: in re steps on Global Warming. While differing from jshore in re cost of Kyoto per se, I do believe that it is clear that insofar as many actions recommended in re global warming including steps towards higher energy efficiency/conservation are recommendable on pure economic grounds, I don’t see a reason not to take them. They should, of course, be taken in market frameworks in order to promote efficiency.