Saturday
Jan222011
by 
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill Conservation of worry
Jan 22, 2011 Climate: other This was sent to me by a reader. It compares discussion of climate change and nuclear war in books by date. Click here for source and a larger version of the graph.
Hattip to Luca Turin for the graph and also the basis of the headline.
Reader Comments (29)
Looks like the first wave may be peaking - presumably the second wave will be about trying to understand how such a mass delusion could rage within the sphere of so-called scientists!
I am curious about the little blip near 1800. Someone in the early part of the 19 th century was worried about atomic weapons?!?
Very informative post and, to me, surprising. It is amazing looking back that very consequential "conclusions" could have been drawn against so little data. It leaves the impression, when looked at this way, that there has always been an agenda tucked in behind the storyline.
Les Johnson, an excellent point. Sadly a more detailed search suggests that these are just date errors in the database, for example an issue of a journal has been recorded under the date of the first issue, not the issue in question.
The oblique reference to John Houghton's discussion of the World Climate Research Programme is quite eerie given that it was written 25 years ago:
“There is enormous scientific and technical challenge in a programme of research directed towards understanding the climate. Combining as it does the need for the highest performance instrumentation, for data management and organization on a very large scale, for the development of complex models which demand the largest computing capacity available, together with the glamour of a close association with space research, it is virtually unsurpassed as a field for scientific endeavor. It is also an enterprise about which all of mankind is concerned and in which the whole world can be involved. The climate problem is not one to be solved quickly or easily, but contributing to its solution is enormously worthwhile.”
The agenda seems to have been resolved upon long ago.
The climate change line looks like a hockey stick. Perhaps the someone could use it for publicity purposes?
No worries in times of world war then?
Les Johnson beat me to flagging the early nineteenth century blip. The worry was probably concentrated among the citizens of New Orleans, after Pitt the Younger's Manchester Project delivered too late to make a difference to the struggle against Napolean.
The climate change curve does pick up a slight flurry of activity around 1900, but the vertical scale even when one selects 'German' seems to be too small to show other books on climate change published before the 1940s. For instance Mathematische Klimalehre und astronomische Theorie der Klimaschwankungen by M. Milankovich, Berlin, 1930 doesn't produce the smallest blip. What criteria is your reader setting?
Marvellous tool - you can compare all sorts of stuff.
Here's an interesting variation :
Change or Warming?"
Seems to show that nearly all books on "climate change" were also about "global warming" until around 1995, when the warming trend flattened, which I guess means that many authors stopped using the phrase.
Haha, classic! I love it.
This is a brilliant tool! Adding some other 'scares' puts climate into perspective ... here' I've added 'obesity':
http://ngrams.googlelabs.com/graph?content=climate+change,nuclear+war,obesity&year_start=1800&year_end=2008&corpus=0&smoothing=3
(Now you've done it - I'm going to play around with this all afternoon ...!)
The uptick in the nuclear war stuff in the 1980s coincides with the arrival of the Thatcher and Reagan governments. Out of power, the left's war to destroy the west had to be a guerilla war waged through propaganda and attempts to manipulate public opinion through alarmist movies and fiction.
It is no surprise that these efforts went into decline just about the time the USSR collapsed and stopped funding it.
Brilliant title, as Anthony Watts has said. It reminds me of the phrase Larry Tesler came up with to explain his thoughts on graphical user interface and object-oriented programming at Apple: the Conservation of Complexity:
http://www.designingforinteraction.com/tesler.html
I first met Larry in 1983, just after he'd joined Steve Jobs, having shown Jobs and Bill Atkinson the hitherto top secret goodies at the Xerox PARC Smalltalk team. (I co-founded Objective Computer Systems the same year, largely because of what those guys were up to.)
Anyhow, I think there's a lot of scope for such 'Conservation Laws' because of some fized points in human psychology and sociology - and I think the Bish has called this exactly right.
@Les Johnson
My guess is that blip is caused by either the date a periodical was first published, but not the date the relevant article was published, or by the two words appearing in a text in a different context.
Here's another correlation
http://ngrams.googlelabs.com/graph?content=climate+change%2C+Al+Gore&year_start=1800&year_end=2008&corpus=0&smoothing=3
O M G !!!
Think of this: the nuke war books of course mostly blamed the West, and America in particular, and demanded that Americans unilaterally disarm.
Today's social mania blames the West and America in particular, and demnands we unilaterally decarbonize.
AFAICS, the books on nuclear war in the 1880s are actually mis-cataloged - their typical dates are 1980s...
I suggest that this graph is of equal interest: http://ngrams.googlelabs.com/chart?content=ice%20age&corpus=0&smoothing=0&year_start=1900&year_end=2000
It shows the interest in 'Ice Age' for the period 1900-2000. You can clearly see a small scare around 1910, a bigger one in 1940, and a large one in 1970 (following the 30-year climate oscillation we know so well. These scares are all rejected by the warmists, who claim that they don't exist....
Fascinating.
Add "obesity" and then "terrorism" - they put "climate change" into perspective. Then add "economics" and they begin to seem insignificant. But then "population" and they almost disappear.
BTW (and O/T) some may be interested to follow my (continuing) exchange with Zachary Shanan here
Here is another:
http://ngrams.googlelabs.com/graph?content=climate+change%2Cfeminism&year_start=1800&year_end=2008&corpus=0&smoothing=3
A comparison of "baking, climate change" shows that the Medieval Baking Period is well preserved
http://ngrams.googlelabs.com/graph?content=baking,climate+change&year_start=1800&year_end=2008&corpus=0&smoothing=3
@Ben
Looks more as if LIA is well preserved. MWP was long before (change year start from 1800 to 1500)
It doesn’t go back any further. MWP peak was around 1000. Anyway: funny.
@All
Tried myself a little around, thanks all suggestions above. 100 years of sex and love. Love looses first but from the 80ties it wins (Hope?). In the selection line you can remove those 2 and then look what happens and furthermore removing selections. Very funny.
http://ngrams.googlelabs.com/graph?content=prostate+cancer%2Cice+age%2Cglobal+warming%2Ccar+accident%2Cinfluenza%2Cflu%2Clung+cancer%2Cmalaria%2Clove%2Csex%2Cclimate+change%2Cfeminism&year_start=1908&year_end=2008&corpus=5&smoothing=10
@Bish
This is my first comment here being a lurker for years. Your blog is my #1 on climate.
From there it happens to follow the alphabet, seriously, CA etc....
Add the categories "anarchy" and "cholera" and "communism" and we begin to approach the Law of the Conservation of Apocalypse Scares. But "climate change" isn't scary enough! Adding the categories "global warming" and "ozone" and stack them we get very close indeed to a constant OMGWAGD factor:
http://ngrams.googlelabs.com/graph?content=global+warming%2Cclimate+change%2Ccholera%2Canarchy%2Ccommunism%2Cozone&year_start=1700&year_end=2008&corpus=0&smoothing=10
As the global warming scare withers and dies, there are fortunes to be made by anticipating the next apocalypse scare.
Well Done. Now consider what the third world sees as "worry" . Dunn and Kenney in 1996 compared "worry" lists from Africa and the US. The African list included malaria, cholera, thirst, floods etc. The US list included toxic wastes, ozone layer, radiation etc. The African list consisted of fears that were lived. The American list required we be told the risk exists. Perhaps when we are as safe as we are in the developed world we need to fill the void.
Try the word ‘consensus’ on its own. It shows a steep rise throughout the second half of the twentieth century. At first I thought 'consensus' must be driven by increasing CO2 but then I couldn’t account for the decline after 1998! Any suggestions?
Hmmm! 'Ocean heat' also peaked around 1998 and has declined since. Spooky!
In all seriousness I would have called this graph ‘Conservation of Millenarianism.’ I really wonder how graphs of ‘overpopulation’ and ‘Hubbert curve’ would compare.
Speaking of fear, its a trick (neat way of doing something) comparison to see sex, fear, love, war runing almost even. Love and War are fighting for poll position.
The Scottish journalist Charles Mackay was first in this field by a long way, publishing his book "Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds" in 1841.
Look it up - it is essential reading for anyone who is interested in panics which spread around the world. They always have, and they always will......