To me, this comment is a classic example of misunderstanding how science works. You say “scientists” as though there is some monolithic entity or organization that states a given fact, then “they” suddenly change their mind and say something else. In reality, there are studies that point to CO2 as causing the increased temperatures and reduced ice pack in the Arctic. Some time later, one or more studies provide a reasonable analysis that suggests that soot may have a greater influence in the reduced ice coverage. These two conclusions are not mutually exclusive, and such “differences” do not represent a shift in the broader paradigm. The soot studies add to the understanding of the entire picture. They don’t say that CO2 is irrelevant to warming, but point out that there are other factors that may have more immediate impacts. Consensus is not unanimity, and there are always unknowns. Lack of unanimity or perfect knowledge is (at best) a poor excuse to delay action.
Public Animal, thanks for your comment.
I’m sorry if my writing wasn’t clear. I am very aware that scientists are not a monolithic bloc, and that there is no one cause for Arctic warming.
However, it is simply not true that lack of unanimity or perfect knowledge is “a poor excuse to delay action”. The amount of unanimity required depends on the dangers of the situation, the costs of action, and the expected results. At some times involving lack of unanimity, doing nothing is definitely the best course, while at other times, some kind of action may be better than none.
In case of lack of unanimity, if the danger is huge, time is critical, and possible solutions are both inexpensive and without risks, sure, do something. You’d be crazy not to.
But if the danger is unknown, time is not critical, and possible solutions are both hugely expensive and full of risk … well, it might be smarter to study the situation a bit more.
It sounds to me like you are invoking some kind of “Precautionary Principle”. However, it does not apply in this situation.The Precautionary Principle is not just a restatement of “better safe than sorry”, nor is it ordinary caution. It definitely does not say we should act immediately, regardless of unanimity.
Let me start with an early and very clear statement of the “Precautionary Principle” (I’ll call it PP for short), which comes from the UN Rio Declaration on the Environment (1992). Here’s their original formulation:
This is an excellent statement of the PP, as it distinguishes it from such things as wearing condoms, denying bank loans, approving the Kyoto Protocol, invading Afghanistan, or using seat belts.
The three key parts of the PP (emphasis mine) are:
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A threat of serious or irreversible damage.
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A lack of full scientific certainty (in other words, the existence of partial but not conclusive scientific evidence).
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The availability of cost-effective measures.
Here are some examples of how these key parts of the PP work out in practice.
We have full scientific certainty that condoms and seat belts save lives. Thus, using them is not an example of the PP, it is simply acting reasonably on principles about which we are scientifically certain.
There are no scientific principles or evidence that we can apply to the question of invading Afghanistan, so we cannot apply the PP there either.
Bank loans are neither serious nor irreversible, nor is there partial scientific understanding of them, so they don’t qualify for the PP.
Finally, the Kyoto Protocol is so far from being cost-effective as to be laughable. The PP can be thought of as a kind of insurance policy. No one would pay $200,000 for an insurance policy if the payoff in case of an accident were only $20, yet this is the kind of ratio of cost to payoff that the Kyoto Protocol involves. The most optimistic estimates of the cooling from Kyoto are in the hundredths of a degree over 50 years.
On the other side of the equation, a good example of when we might use the PP involves local extinction. We have fairly good scientific understanding that removing a top predator from a local ecosystem usually screws things up. Kill the mountain lions, and the deer go wild, then the plants are overgrazed, then the ground erodes, insect populations are unbalanced, and so on down the line.
Now, if we are looking at a novel ecosystem that has not been scientifically studied, we do not have full scientific certainty that removing the top predator will actually cause serious or irreversible damage to the ecosystem. However, if there is a cost-effective method to avoid removing the top predator, the PP says that we should do so. It fulfils the three requirements of the PP – there is a threat of serious damage, we have partial scientific certainty, and a cost-effective solution exists, so we should act.
Regarding the proposal, for example, that we pump CO2 into the ocean (or take any action regarding CO2), while there is at least a theoretical threat of serious or irreversible damage, we have only the most rudimentary knowledge of the climate system, and there are no cost-effective solutions in hand, including Kyoto and pumping the oceans full of CO2.
At the moment, therefore, no action regarding CO2 is justified by the Precautionary Principle.
My best to you,
w.
PS - My apologies, but I don’t speak bureaucratese. What do you mean that different explanations for arctic warming don’t “represent a shift in the basic paradigm” … what is the “basic paradigm”? The existence of the climate? The existence of CO2? The idea that CO2 may cause an unknown amount of warming? The idea that CO2 will cause warming more dangerous than terrorism? The idea that all climate scientists agree on the causes of warming? The idea that the causes of warming are understood? The idea that we are just beginning the study of climate science?
And once we know what the “basic” paradigm is, this implies that there a more complex paradigm? What is that paradigm?
PPS - I note in passing that many people have joined in this discussion, which is wonderful. I also note, however that neither you nor anyone else has provided what the OP asked for, evidence for AGW … which should tell you something about the strength of the argument for AGW.
No, we are not having this discussion because there is a lack of evidence. We are having this discussion because there are some very powerful economic interests and strong political views that have aligned to make this a controversial topic precisely because they don’t like the policy prescriptions that the scientific evidence will inevitably lead to.
It is basically the same reason why there is a debate about evolution. It is completely bogus logic to claim that a debate wouldn’t exist if the scientific evidence were strong enough. And, in fact, it is a provably wrong claim if you accept the premise that there is lots of evidence for evolution. (Similar statements could be make regarding the history of the health dangers of smoking…Do you believe that the uncertainties were too great to take any action until all of the scientists who vehemently argued otherwise were finally ignored and sort of went into oblivion…Or, in some cases, like Steven Milloy of junkscience.com, moved on to the issue of climate change. Although using the term “scientist” to describe him might be a bit of abuse of terminology anyway.)
As for the evidence, I have pointed you to the relevant chapters of the IPCC report before and have given numerous summaries of the evidence as I see it. Like any complex field of science, there is no “smoking gun”…i.e., no one piece of evidence that is completely bulletproof. That is why you have to look at the accumlation of the evidence. And, yes, some of the evidence involves computer modeling, as it does in all fields of science these days. There is nothing unscientific about using computer modeling in science; what is unscientific is cavalierly dismissing computer modeling as having any usefulness.
Frankly, I find your whole attitude in this regard rather disingenuous. Perhaps it is you who needs to be a little more comfortable saying “I don’t know”, rather than coming to conclusions in contradiction to nearly the entire scientific community. I know that the tobacco-industry strategy of arguing for uncertainty was very successful in delaying action on smoking and that people are hoping to do the same for global warming, but the fact is that the scientific community is the group best able to judge how well they know what they think they know. And, in fact, the NAS had no trouble saying “We don’t know” when asked what the future of the climate would be back in the mid 1970s. However, now our knowledge has advanced to the point where scientists have reasonable confidence that they do in fact know (although still with reasonably large error bars).
Frankly, it is because there are not people like you around who are peddling uncertainty about the science as a way to avoid policy solutions that irk you. I have a little discomfort with the phrase, “The science is settled” myself since I think that science is never settled. As I have said before, all scientific knowledge is tentative including the theory of gravity (which we already know has to break down in the quantum realm anyway). The phrase “the science has settled” is just the phrase being used to combat those who abuse the fact that all knowledge is tentative and that some uncertainties do exist in order to exaggerate the uncertainty for their own political ends…namely, delaying action as long as possible.
Who is the “we” who has concluded that the earth has been warming 0.5°C per century for about 400 years?
I’ve already explained to you where I think that your logic is wrong here. To summarize:
(1) Your claim that the earth has been warming at the same rate for the last 400 years is unsubstantiated by any evidence that I know of.
(2) Because of the huge amount of inertia both in the climate system and in our society, we have to detect and start to mitigate the threat in its early stages because we are already committing ourselves to considerably more problems even once we decide to act. [Another point that I didn’t even mention there but probably should not be forgotten is that one of the uncertainties that does really exist is not knowing where in the system there may be “tipping points” beyond which we will go off to a very different state. This is one of the aspects inherent in complex nonlinear systems that you seem to forget to mention in your long litany.]
(3) The treatment is not dangerous since it consists of simply beginning to work toward reducing the rate of increase of our perturbation to the climate system. What is dangerous is continuing to increase our rate of increase of our perturbation to the climate system.
(4) The things that we have to do to break our addiction to fossil fuels are things that we will have to do eventually anyway for other reasons and have other benefits.
As Public Animal No. 9 pointed out, this is not a very accurate portrayal of what those scientists pointing out the importance of soot were saying. They are not saying that soot is a problem so we can ignore CO2. What they are saying is that soot is a problem that we should also be tackling (since we can more easily in the short term) while trying to get a handle on CO2, which is the bigger long-term problem because of the way it accumulates in the atmosphere.
As always, I enjoy our discussions, intention.
As I understand it, the point that soot is an unanticipated problem means that climate scientists do not have enough understanding of the dynamics at work to make good predictions about what modifying human interaction with the climate will do.
Shall I tell the story of saving the Bald Eagles in Glacier Park to warn against being aggressive in a situation where too little knowledge is at hand?
Yes, but my point is that the lack of understanding is exaggerated. Soot is not really an unanticipated problem. People have been talking about its potential to be a positive forcing at least since they were talking about the effect of aerosols back in the 1970s. There has been some debate on how much of an effect soot is having and I believe that this latest scientific work that intention is referring to suggests it is greater than many previous estimates. (I am recalling from memory here since intention did not provide a link.)
Nobody is saying that there are not uncertainties and, in fact, the possibility of potential surprises. The question is one of degree…How well do we know what we think we know and what does that imply about the consequences of various actions that we might or might not take? I think the best people to make that determination are the scientists working in the field through the process that we have set up to do this, such as the IPCC for the specific problem at hand and the National Academy of Sciences for scientific issues in general.
By all means, if you think it is a relevant example.
Any time you attain a good understanding of a process or system, you are able to rule out some set of future scenarios with a good degree of confidence.
To me it would appear that scientific understanding of the earth’s climate system is still rather poor.
I’m lookin for cites now, but the basic story of the bald eagles is:
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bald eagles are a major reason for tourism in Glacier Park and the surrounding area
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tourism == money!
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increasing the bald eagle population will increase tourism
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bald eagle’s winter at Flathead Lake and eat the salmon there
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more salmon == more bald eagles
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salmon eat shrimp
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adding shrimp will increas the salmon population which will in turn increase the bald eagle population which will then increase tourism.
The logic seems reasonable and so the suggestion to add shrimp to the lake was followed. Turns out that while the salmon do eat the shrimp, the two creatures inhabit opposite levels of the lake. I don’t remember which way they went, but basicaly during the day one would be towards the surface and the other towards the bottom. At night they’d switch over. There was a relatively short period of time when the salmon actualy had any chance to eat the shrimp. To make matters worse, the shrimp ate the othe stuff in the water that the salmon ate. The shrimp population exploded, the salmon mostly died off, the bald eagles stopped wintering at Flathead Lake and largely left the Glacier Park area altogether.
Moral of the story: not having enough information caused exactly the opposite effect as the one predicted.
Here’s a brief bit in the New York Times regarding it, no cite for their info though. Here’s a pdf with some info on the salmon in question with a nice chart about salmon population vs. eagle population. No mention of the shrimp installation there though. Here’s a JSTOR article I can’t access but looks like it has the info if you can access it. Fairly complete story here.
That last one reminded me of something I’d forgotten. The shrimp were a species the salmon didn’t actualy eat, so the whole idea was half-baked. On paper the idea looked good, eagles eat salmon which eat shrimp, but in reality it didn’t work out that way.
Growing up in wilderness areas, I’ve seen many times when too little information was used to make environmental decisions and bring about unpredicted responses. I’ve also seen the majority of the decisions to be based on econmics or politics and not on actual environmentalism. This probably has a lot to do with my anti-AGW bias.
For my bad spelling and grammar, I have not excuse.
It seems to me there’s another moral here: A lot of the time, understanding 95% of a complex system isn’t enough. Because something in that remaining 5% can have a huge impact on the ultimate results.
…Which is all the more reason not to be messing around with the climate system on the only planet that we have.
That’s simply a matter of costs, benefits, and risks. With 6,000,000,000 people we have no choice but to “mess around” to a certain extent.
10 years ago, Al Gore was apparently pushing for wide use of bio-fuels. Now it seems that was a mistake.
Y’all seem to be missing my point. It is not whether soot is a new forcing or not, as some seem to think. Nor is it action vs no action, as others seem to think.
If the warming of the arctic is mostly caused by CO2, then efforts aimed at reducing soot will be of little benefit.
If the warming of the arctic is mostly caused by soot, then efforts aimed at reducing CO2 will make little difference.
If the warming of the arctic is mostly just a natural swing, then reducing either one won’t do much.
THEREFORE, if we want our actions make a difference, if we don’t want to waste our precious resources fighting phantom menaces, we should first find out what is the major cause of the warming. A dollar spent fighting CO2 is a dollar which is not spent fighting soot.
I do advocate action, and have done so in the past. I advocate the most practical action in the face of uncertainty. I advocate the “No Regrets” plan. In this case, the no regrets plan is:
***Do those parts of the overall plan which will be of benefit whether or not the world is warming.
Y’all seem to be very concerned with all these forecast calamities that you think will happen in 50 years or 100 years or so. Section LXVIII or whatever of the IPCC Report (see jshore’s post above) of the IPCC report can give you the full catalogue of horrors, droughts and plagues and floods and famines and insects and lack of water and the whole biblical list.
Now me, I’m a reformed cowboy, but I’m still a practical man. So you’ll foregive me for pointing out that all of these forecast evils of the climate catastrophe, all of the scary calamities that are forecast in IPCC Chapter LVXIII are afflicting us today, and have been for centuries. Look around you.
You forecast droughts in the future? Yep, we’ve got those today, and historically there have been worse. You forecast floods and inundations? No shortage of those, that’s for sure, another ten thousand or so died last week … and historically there has been worse. You claim we’ll face sickness and epidemics? Look around you, bro’. You say some farmers will suffer in the year 2050 because of climate change? Welcome to the Dust Bowl in the 1930s, been there, seen that. You forecast water shortages in some areas? D’oh, look around the Mideast. Insect borne disease? I live in the tropical malaria zone, nothing surprises me. You claim we’ll see erosion of coastal villages? Oh, yes, erosion, that’s never happened before. You want me to be concerned because of possible famines in the year 2066? My friends, I’m more concerned about famines today. You say there’s going to be big storms causing untold damage? Yeah, that’ll be a first in history, all right …
Your claim is is that it is worthwhile spending untold billions of dollars on the chance, the unknown odds, mind you, that doing so just might maintain this exact same climate …
… are we speaking about maintaining this exact same climate that for untold centuries has brought us all of the biblical floods and plagues and famines and century-long droughts and changes in weather and precipitation patterns and frozen centuries in Europe and sea level rise and storms and farmers suffering because of the weather? That climate? Pay billions to maintain that? Doesn’t seem like much of a deal. I mean, I’d spend billions for a climate without all that sh*t, but paying just to keep all that the same?
Me, I’d say that if you are truly concerned about people suffering from any or all of those things, the no regrets option is to go out and assist some of those people now. Because according to your plan, they’ll still be suffering in the future even if we do spend billions of dollars to implement your plan, and then assuming that your plan actually works … all you can promise is the same suffering and the same problems we face today.
The “no regrets” option, if we want to spend billions, is to spend them on mitigating those problems today. Spend money on teaching drought resistant farming techniques and developing drought resistant plants for the farmers of the Sahel. Spend money on reducing the effects of disease through hygiene and sanitation. Then, either way, the people of the world will be far better prepared for whatever tomorrow’s or next centuries weather might bring.
That’s the kind of action I have recommended on the board before, and will continue to do so. I’d spend money on that, you can raise my taxes to pay for that. But carbon trading schemes that will make Al Gore rich, and won’t make a theoretical tenth of a degree of difference? Pay billions on the off chance that it might keep the climate as nasty as always? No, thanks, I’d prefer you don’t spend my money on that.
My thanks to everyone in the discussion,
w.
PS - carbon in the air is bad because people breathe it, and our lungs don’t like it. It’s divided up into BC and OC, for black (soot, unburnt carbon) and organic (various hydrocarbons that make up smog) carbon. Neither one is good to breathe, plus they’re ugly. Soot in some cities is hideous. I advocate regulating airborne soot and hydrocarbons for that reason. It is part of the no regrets option.
Unfortunately, much of the BC and OC comes from the burning of wood, sticks, newspapers, sawdust, branches, grass, animal dung, leaves, and whatever will burn all around the planet. Biofuel is used for heating all over the world, and for cooking in much of the world. This makes BC/OC reduction a large and ongoing challenge.
CO2 in the air, on the other hand, is as vital for plant life as oxygen is for our life. It is in no sense a pollutant. You can bust it for other real or imagined crimes if you wish, but it is a vital atmospheric component, and not a pollutant in any sense.
(In fact, CO2 gets rather huffy and offended when she’s called a pollutant in the presence of the other gases, she says it is a most despicable slur on a respectable working member of the atmosphere … and don’t even get her started on why some gases are “Noble” gases and she’s just a commoner …)
So, intention, how do you feel about the following statement from a more moderate organization than those you presumably consider to be alarmist:
Which aspects of this do you agree with and which aspects are still too extreme for you?
I realize the question is not addressed to me, but I think it’s worth pointing out that this:
is too vague to evaluate. There are a lot of different policies that would “start us on a path to reduce emissions.” Some of those policies are sensible; some are dumb.
I’ve been in these global warming debates many times, and generally when I ask alarmists to suggest SPECIFIC policies, they become extremely vague and evasive.
Anyway, I think intention has a really good point. Whether CAGW is a hoax or not, we will have to deal with big storms; droughts; floods; and dangerous insects.
jshore, thanks for the quote. When I first started reading it, I thought it must be from some politician who designed it so there was nothing that might bind him after the election. The last line gave it away, though. It’s an oil industry puff piece, that was first written by the public relations guy, rewritten by his boss, and then run past the brass plus expensive legal advice. Then it went downstairs to Technical for a fact check, then to Environmental, back to the boss, and finally Legal took a last look to certify that it actually is “New! Improved! Now 100% Content Free!”. Likely one of the most intensively pre-reviewed public statements in Exxon’s history.
Now the beauty of being totally content-free is … with absolutely nothing there … what’s not to like?
So yes, I’m in favor of global participation, I want burdens to be uniform, and I like Mom. I want to minimize complexity, too. Since I live and work in the Developing World, of course I want their needs to have weight. And in any case, who would be so crude as to not like the Developing World, isn’t that where Angelina goes when she wants another baby? Plus I’m in favor of apple pie. And everyone wants to maximize transparency (unless they live in glass houses, in which case they probably want to minimize transparency so they’re not mistaken for a wall … but I digress)
That’s not an energy policy, that’s a Hallmark feel-good poster fit for a motel room wall. Look how cleverly they’ve put their words together. Do they say they will reduce emissions? Well, … no.
Well, do they at least say they are on the path to reducing emissions? Again, … no.
Hmmm. Are they, perchance, developing policies that might at least start them on the path to reducing emissions?
Again, nope. You see, these policies have to be developed as part of an overall strategy. So do they say they are developing a strategy?
Sadly, no … but they do say it would be prudent for us to do so.
And to answer your question … there’s not one testable, falsifiable proposition in the whole lot. It’s made out of peanut butter and marshmallow candies, all sugar with no substance, there’s nothing there to either agree or disagree with.
Which was their intention from the first.
All the best,
w.
PS - They do the same thing regarding CO2. It’s actually quite a beautiful, artful piece of writing. They just state facts right next to other facts as though they were stating some relation between them. But when you look closely, you see they say nothing of the sort, they make no assertions, draw no conclusions.
Here’s the money quote from the $600/hour lawyers and wordsmiths:
“There is increasing evidence that the earth’s climate has warmed on average about 0.7 C in the last century. Many global ecosystems, especially the polar areas, are showing signs of warming. CO2 emissions have increased during this same time period — and emissions from fossil fuels and land use changes are one source of these emissions.”
Absolutely no linkage between any of the three unrelated sentences, it’s an amazing thing, you think they’ve said CO2 causes warming, but they have not. Nor have they said it doesn’t cause warming, either.
The real double-shuffle, however, is none of those. The pea-under-the-thimble act is in the sentence:
“CO2 emissions have increased during this same time period — and emissions from fossil fuels and land use changes are one source of these emissions.”
Fossil Fuels
[INDENT]and
Land Use
are
One Source of [CO2] Emissions.[/INDENT]
One source? I can only read in awe, that’s way subtle. I guess that’s why they make $600/hour and I don’t …
And intention hits the ball right out of the park.
I have to absolutely agree with Intention. He’s said essentialy what I believe about the whole affair, but with much nicer words and clarity than I bring.
I’ll go a step further though, and advocate spending billions on getting humans into space permanantly. Consider it insurance against asteroids or what have you.
I have to agree with others that the statements seem rather vague. Are you in agreement with the statements, or do they not go far enough?
“Your 3 cent tax goes too far!”
“Your 3 cent tax doesn’t go too far enough!”
[/badly remembered futurama quote]
Well, I agree with intention, brazil84, and you that they are vague. And, no, I don’t think they go far enough. However, I do think that they go further, admittedly with lots of qualifiers and vagueness, than intention does. And, the interesting thing is, as intention caught on, this is an extended quote from the official climate change statement of ExxonMobil…which is the most recalcitrant of the major oil companies on the issue of climate change.
Note that, admittedly with qualifiers and vagueness, they do however admit that “the risks to society and ecosystems from increases in CO2 emissions could prove to be significant” and they don’t outright oppose “regulatory options to mitigate GHG emissions”. So, even ExxonMobil seems to be accepting that such policy actions are going to happen and are working to try to influence how they are applied instead of just opposing them altogether.
Well, there are some quite specific cap-and-trade bills proposed in Congress right now. I am not sure what you are looking for. The basic policy is very simple: to force the market to acknowledge there is a cost to emitting greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, so that it provides the necessary incentives to reduce (or sequester) such emissions. I don’t think it is government’s role to say how this will be done because the government tends to be very poor at choosing technology winners. In that sense, I agree with ExxonMobil that the regulations should “maximize use of markets.”
Well, he is not the only one saying this. Working Group II of the IPCC discusses “adaptation” extensively, in addition to the focus in Working Group III on “mitigation”. Clearly we are going to have to adapt because, practically speaking, we are already committed to a fair amount of climate change that we will not be able to avoid at this stage. And, of course, there are always climatic variations and storms and such to deal with even in the absence of AGW.