Bishop Hill More Singh
Feb 7, 2011 Climate: Sceptics A couple of interesting tweets from Simon Singh this morning. Taken to task by a correspondent for a lack of scepticism on AGW, Simon replies as follows:
I'm applying skepticism to the question is AGW significant or not? With my limited tools, my answers is it's happening. [Link]
...and then...
The vast majority of folk smarter & more informed than me come to same answer, which is partly how I arrive at my conclusion. [Link]
Both these points are interesting. Firstly, it's a surprise to see someone with "limited tools" describing people who arrive at a different conclusion to him as "numpties", particularly as many of those people have tools that are considerably less limited.
But secondly, it also appears to me that Singh is an "interpreter of interpretations" as regards climate change, an approach which apparently is reprehensible in the circles in which he moves. To be clear, I have no problem with interpreters of interpretations - as I've noted elsewhere, most people get their opinions like this and it is an entirely respectable way to go about forming an opinion on something. But when one's opinions are formed in this way, I would have thought a little reticence about the name-calling might not go amiss.
(Afterthough: I wonder if Dyson/Happer/the 43 rebels from the Royal Society are included among the numpties?)
Reader Comments (91)
"Feynman - "Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts". says the Bishop, Feb 7, 2011 at 2:35 PM
Nice one!
I've been wondering for some time now why it is that those who supposedly possess an inquiring mind are happy to follow the experts (or herd) in regard to AGW. (See Mr Singh's tweets above.)
Have they never be taught that the first thing to do when presented with a shiny new scientific paper is to ask oneself 'is this really so?', and try to find holes - not for reasons of puerile contrariness but out of curiosity and the desire to learn.
Agreed Caroline, blogs like this function as samizdat did for Sovied dissidents.
Has nobody suggested to Singh that he at least familiarise himself with Climate Audit?
Viv Evans
There is another point. As we are constantly told that Global Warming is “mankind’s greatest threat”, should it not then be incumbent upon those with an “enquiring mind” to at least do some work/research before passing comment on the subject?
If not, then I think we can safely assume that they do not believe that Global Warming is “mankind’s greatest threat”.
@ Nicholas Hallam
Let's hope BH isn't hauled off to the gulags.
"nothing infuriates 'believers' (of all kinds) more, than being extra polite and reasonable and asking for facts and evidence, in the face of rudenes and hysteria."
Feb 7, 2011 at 3:44 PM | Barry Woods
OK, OK.
I gotta confess - you're absolutely right. And I remember one of my bosses, in a wise moment, pointing that the moment you lose your temper you also lose the argument.
But there are times.......Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!!!
Feb 7, 2011 at 4:39 PM | Viv Evans
I've been wondering for some time now why it is that those who supposedly possess an inquiring mind are happy to follow the experts (or herd) in regard to AGW. (See Mr Singh's tweets above.)
I would suggest, Viv, it's because the acquisition of knowledge does not occur in a vacuum. Every perception you receive is filtered and colored by all of your other perceptions, including those that ostensibly have nothing to do with what you are currently perceiving. Your science is filtered by your politics, religion, social class, occupation and tastes in art and food. And vice-versa. A person espouses what makes her comfortable. When a person changes his social class he tends to change his religion as well... one better suited to the new station in life. Mr. Singh supports CAGW because it is a fit with the rest of his perceptions of the world.
O/T but I have just been e-mailed by the Wall Street Journal. I did a short interview with them a couple of weeks ago (my area is gardens). The email has all the quotes they are going to use and they are asking me if I'm happy with the quotes and the context.
In light of what happened to James Delingpole in the UK media, this seems incredibly polite and fair.
I doubt they have a strong editorial line on gardens to ram home to the supine nation
Nicholas Hallam
By the look of the forms they are standard across the company.
And don't believe all in the world of gardens is sweetness and light...oh no...you wouldn't want to know how vicious it can get amongst the petunias.
I think that it will be apparent who the numpties are when the warmists' apocalyptic predictions keep failing to happen. there have been a lot of hysterical pronouncements trying to rationalise the recent spell of cold weather. It is plausable that this is just a short lived downward blip in a general long term upward temperature trend. However, if the temperatures continue to not rise over the next decade along with the non rising sea levels I think that their position will begin to look ridiculous. Even if it does get warmer, the end of the world as we know it predictions will still be pretty far fetched.
Martin Brumby
The "war on global warming as a war on the poor" is interesting in more than just the funding of scienCe and lobbying. Taxes on energy hit the poor harder than the rich, and they are the least equipped to manage the higher costs, living in rented housing or lacking the capital to reduce their running costs.
At a country level it is the same. The transfer of wealth from rich to poor to "mitigate" global warming - expensive as it is to taxpayers in developed countries - is totally inadequate to enable the needs of the world's poorer people for efficient energy to be met. A few off-grid renewable projects do little when the need is for reliable power for the new cities at a more affordable cost. Countries harnessing their own resources will continue to turn to fossil fuels, and so we are in a real pickle if the environmental scares prove correct. Most of the evidence (including the disagreements between scientists) suggest that the risks have been overstated, so perhaps we can allow developing countries to do their best for their people, rather than condemning the poor to misery.
Nicholas - if it were the NYT I would agree with you, but from memory the Wall Street Journal was one of the very few papers which did run with climategate and side with us contrarians; e.g.
NOVEMBER 23, 2009 Climate Emails Stoke Debate
Scientists' Leaked Correspondence Illustrates Bitter Feud over Global Warming
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125883405294859215.html
DECEMBER 1, 2009, Climategate: Follow the Money
Climate change researchers must believe in the reality of global warming just as a priest must believe in the existence of God.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703939404574566124250205490.html
JULY 12, 2010 The Climategate Whitewash Continues
Global warming alarmists claim vindication after last year's data manipulation scandal. Don't believe the 'independent' reviews.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704075604575356611173414140.html
The first half of
has similarities with a snippet from Gavin Schmidt declining an invitation to Lisbon.There is still reason to be found in these minds. They should be encouraged to compare the massive expense, upheaval and loss of liberty that is being enacted with whatever actual evidence there is, not with the unvalidated projections and scaremongering.
@toad
'Could we take a moment to applaud those patriots at the DECC (Huhne's lot) who have now selflessly decided to TURN OFF THE HEATING AT NIGHTS AND WEEKENDS and thus help to reduce their 'carbon footprint' by 10%'
I wonder WTF they weren't doing this already to save the poor bloody taxpayer the heating bills anyway!
Do all 'public servants' lose their common sense when they walk through the office door? Or do they have to go on a special course to learn how to do it? Or does the original selection process weed it out before appointment?
@jheath
I wonder if you've read this article. It is about a bet that was made in 1980 and paid off in 1990 between two scholars representing two opposing schools of thoughts regarding the economic future of humanity. The Malthusians were represented by Paul Ehrlich, the highly decorated scientist and doom merchant; and the Cornucopians by Julian L. Simon, a quiet economist little known to layman.
If you haven't, it's definitely worth your time. Because,
"...so we are in a real pickle if the environmental scares prove correct"
implies that we won't be able to rise up to the challenges that's supposed to devastate the planet, the humanity or the civilisation sometime between new and the next 90 years.
Allegedly, two of the most recent signs of CAGW, the "extreme weathers" of the Northern Hemisphere winter and the flooding in SH caught many by surprise. In NH warm winters were expected but when two powerful winters struck in a row, people found themselves inconvenienced, not struck by catastrophe, except for those who lost their lives to cold. The survivors will be better prepared for the coming winters no doubt, regardless of what climate scientists predict.
In Australia, the NE region that was expected to suffer drought was hit by flooding, and two cyclones in a row. The flooding was completely unexpected since the government built desalination plants fearing water shortages. A once-in-a-century event that could have killed hundreds if not thousands of people was dealt with by human ingenuity, like better building codes, a dam, and early warning systems. The same system, had it existed in Brazil, could have saved many lives in their flooded regions, too.
In the event that CO2 emissions prove to be problematic in the future, human ingenuity will help us resolve that challenge, too.
Question: Is AGW significant?
Answer: Yes, it is happening.
One more in the vein of Trenberth, I guess.
Trenberth said:
Proposition: Abandon "There is no human influence on the climate"
Reason: Because global warming is unequivocal
I read as much 'Singh I could get my hands on yesterday. I ran across the Martin Durkin emails to him. I saw Singh's reviews of Greg Craven and Gabrielle Walker and his articles in the Guardian on climate change. I went back and dug out the old issue of Wired magazine (propaganda trash waste of newsprint).
My conclusion is that it is difficult to put a finger on why Singh, is so sure that AGW is demonstrable beyond reasonable doubt. There is not one specific aspect of AGW/CAGW that he discusses in detail, in support of his confidence. At least, it is not available in his articles available online.
Which is why it is remarkable to note that Singh was quoting skepticalscience.com articles to the Bish, something that happened beneath the Delingpole post on his blog. Singh is getting his stuff from John Cook's website? But skepticalscience is not a primary source, and it is the very anti-thesis of scientific writing. It is understandable if you read stuff from there, as a beginner, at the most.
It would be interesting to know Singh's sources.
jheath
You point to two essential truths:
1. In the developed world, the cost of supporting (subsidising) renewable generation technologies is invariably passed on to consumers via higher bills. In the UK the RO and FIT systems are literally stealth regressive taxation.
2. In developing countries the cheapest form of generation is the only viable choice. This of course means coal, and CO2. But coal is king. Still.
So coming down hard on CO2 means coming down on coal-fired generation. Another generation of the world's poor gets to grow up in the dark, with all that that entails.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/02/07/rcs-duplicity-prods-jeff-id-out-of-retirement/
A strong stomach required!
I wonder how Simon Singh would place events like these,...
Perhaps Singh ought to quit tweeting, as he seems incapable of developing an argument in 140 characters.
AGW 'happening' is a necessary but insufficient condition for claiming AGW 'significant'.
His appeal to authority probably evolves to a circular reference wherein being 'smarter & more informed' hinges in large part on being a warmist.
SS does not paddle beyond the mainstream. While he was undoubtedly brave in confronting the charlatans he is not an independent thinker. He hasn't yet realised that science, as a process of tests and bullet proof data ,is not the same as a body of "knowledge" ,whose gatekeepers are as selfinterested and subject to groupthink and cognitive dissonance as any nonscientists. I do wish he'd do some research before opening his mouth. I used to think he was a good guy.
Feb 7, 2011 at 7:39 PM | sHx
http://autonomousmind.wordpress.com/2011/02/07/comparing-apples-with-oranges/
A nice piece from Autonomousmind with a good link to Joe Bastardi. Joe may not be famed for Miltonic prose but he comes across as honest and sensible. Note his take on how "unexpected" the Queensland floods and cyclone were.
I'm no weather man but Joe's version sounds credible to me.
sHx
I agree that our capacity for innovation and adaptation will reduce the impact of adverse changes - assuming that the changes are anywhere near as adverse as predicted. And we can apply that thought process now. Helping developing countries to develop their agriculture will reduce pressures on forests and rural land in general as well as benefitting the people in the rural areas, while feeding the growing cities that drive prosperity - and at the same time it uses some of that "nasty" CO2. That must be better than any biofuel use of land except where the fuel is a by product such as bagasse.
Applying the same principle - and this is more for BBD - it would make more sense to exploit natural gas (especially given the shale gas technology) for fuel for now even in preference to coal, because it can supplant oil or wood/forests as fuel at a lower CO2 emission level than coal. And if the CO2 scare proves minimal then the coal is still there.
It seems to me that there is much advantage in setting policy frameworks against the background of uncertainties so that adaptation to new information and greater certainty is more easily done. Perhaps this is the sort advantage that Dr Curry is postulating in trying to factor uncertainties into the scientific debate. If we insist on establishing certainties prematurely we land up with the Yah-Boo debate of so much on climate - and we also land up with bad inflexible laws on "climate change" such as in the UK.
sHx - does this make me a Cornucopean?
Coming back to the thread (sorry if I have caused it to drift, Bishop) it seems that Mr Singh pursues much more certainty than is either present or desirable.
My word. So many skeletons in the internets cupboard. Could Durkin's flamboyance be the start of it all?
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/science/article1517515.ece
But was Singh, then, putting too much trust in his colleagues opinion, who himself seems to have relied on another who has been at fisticuffs with Svensmark?
http://www.pepke.dk/BerlingskeTidende.pdf
What a tangled web indeed.
Shub - in his April 2009 article in the Guardian - http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2009/apr/01/climate-change-sceptics - he recommended three sources to 5 sceptical physics undergraduates:
"My recommendations included The Hot Topic [http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/jan/12/climatechange.carbonemissions] by Sir David King (the former chief scientific adviser to the UK government) and Dame Gabrielle Walker [http://www.gabriellewalker.com/] (well, she should be a dame, and she is certainly a brilliant science journalist). I also pointed them towards the New Scientist's special issue 'Climate change: a guide for the perplexed'. " [http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn11462]
I read some of his blog last night and the conclusion I came to is that like Goldacre he is essentially a gullible fool. I doubt he has ever read any Spencer, Lindzen, Carter, looked at Surface Stations, the march of the thermometers, climate sensitivity, Beer-Lambert Law etc., but has instead taken the easy road and fallen for the junk science (but politically correct and personally re-assuring) in the Guardian / New Scientist / Nature. IMHO there's a kind of all pervasive culture of right-on trendy smart-arsiness in the UK middle classes, which is nurtured and perpetuated by the Emma Jays in the BBC and Monbiots in the Guardian - basically the majority of them (and I include all the professions - medical, legal), are too thick or who have lost the ability to question and think for themselves (or both) and work out what the hell is going on and how they have been deceived by the scientific and political elites. Global bollocks is just one facet, vaccine science is no better, and then there's the mysteries of WTC7 and the nano-thermitic particles in the dust. But no-one wishes to discuss these, not in the media anyway, and if they do it is just to make snide documentaries based on superficial ignorance. The world is not as it seems, and sadly the majority will always take the easy route and go long with the consensus.
JHeath says:
"Applying the same principle - and this is more for BBD - it would make more sense to exploit natural gas (especially given the shale gas technology) for fuel for now even in preference to coal"
Depends what you are doing with the fuel. I think one of the most stupid decisions in UK energy policy over the last 20 years was to switch to natural gas for electricity generation. This is a crazy use for gas. By all means use natural gas to heat your home (very efficient), cook, or even power vehicles in an urban/city environment (clean, low pollution), but using it generate electicity is bordering on criminal waste of a limtied resource. Using oil is almost as bad for electricity generation. To produce electricity either burn coal or go nuclear - neither fuel is portable, unless you want to go back to steam engines, or transport a massive reactor with you. Use oil and gas where you want to transport the fuel and then burn it. Anything else is a waste of the resource.
Jheath says
Agreed – but the most rapidly growing economies (China; India) are essentially dependent on coal for generation as it is (relatively) abundant and (relatively) cheap. Hydro-frakking for shale-gas is expensive to set up and questions remain over the rate of decline in yield.
Coal powers the global economy, and my guess is that it will continue to do so by default economics.
You summarise much of the problem accurately in your last sentence. And you rightly point to the superior logic of staged adaptation policy rather than guaranteed-to-fail-expensively mitigation (including ‘boosting’ renewable generation through subsidy).
A very good Bishop Hill thread indeed. Thanks to a number. Very quick reactions.
BH gave one of the best reasons for politeness on a blog: it tends to go with greater insight and intelligence. But one has to admit that sometimes the rudest answer delivers the truth the best, when it's witty enough or angry enough.
Martin Brumby gives one of the biggest reasons to be angry: the drastic impact of so-called AGW mitigation (which mostly hasn't a hope in hell of making any material difference to CO2 emissions, let alone temperature) on the poorest. We should be raging furious about that.
Another reason is the scandalous similes including likening us to holocaust deniers. Nobody has apologised for this - except MP Phil Willis to Martin Brumby this time last year. Note if Martin hadn't been angry enough to complain that would never have happened. But the letter was a model of politeness. Controlled anger. Not easy - nor should it be. The worse thing about the denier comparison is the way it cheapens the Holocaust.
Paul Ehrlich's bet with Julian Simon remains a classic. It was only because Bjorn Lomborg came across Simon's work in Wired magazine in the 90s and decided to check it out that he became the 'Skeptical Environmentalist'. As for why Ehrlich remains so revered after a lifetime of failed predictions, see Thomas Sowell's merciless analysis in Intellectuals and Society.
The worst thing Ehrlich 'achieved' was to influence elitists at the UN and NGOs from the late 60s to snuff out the use of DDT, through their power to withold grants and aid, precisely because they believed the millions of lives they knew DDT would save from malaria and other insect-borne diseases were unsupportable and thus worthless. The poorest of the world took the pain of that loss - maybe 40 million, mostly children. Think of those weeping mothers. That really is something to have on one's resume.
Which brings me back to rudeness and Jesus. Because I can't think about one without the other. The man from Galilee wasn't crucified for preaching love - but for calling his enemies, the powerful and wealthy of his day, whitened sepulchres, a brood of vipers, blind guides who strained out a gnat only to swallow a camel (the biggest unclean animal in the book!), men who happily laid massive burdens on the poor and did nothing to help them, who craftily devoured the savings of widows and orphans with their crooked religious schemes.
An example that leaves me with a problem, if I have any interest in trying to follow the guy. But 'turn the other cheek' needs a little balancing up, based on the record.
A propos of politeness and climate change, there was a very short but interesting exchange this morning on Radio 4's Start the Week.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00y5d57/Start_the_Week_07_02_2011/
Astrophysicist Professor Jocelyn Bell is apparently giving this year's Faraday lecture to the Royal Society about 'the end of the world' next year - Mayan grand cycles & that sort of stuff - in the context of the communication of science.
Presenter Andrew Marr starts JB's segment around 25 mins in. The first bit is unexceptional until about 29 mins in when she gets onto 'climate change deniers' trying to scare us all, i.e. deniers are trying to scare the public with scares built on a little bit of scientific truth. AM tries to put to her that surely it's really climate changers who appear scary; 'climate change deniers, so called' are trying to make things less so. JB dismisses this thought, mixing it up with next year's world end thesis.
They shortly move on to other topics, although 'global warming is mentioned again briefly about 33 mins during questions. It's all terribly polite and Radio 4. And the BBC presenter did appear to be trying to be balanced and accurate!
Perhaps I misinterpreted this little vignette or perhaps I've been reading this blog and WUWT too long, but if this is Royal Society reasoned thinking, give me the Mayans any day. Trust me, I'm an astrophysicist? Nullius in verba indeed.
PS This is my first comment, so I hope this makes sense and the link is ok. BBC website if not.
Why are we being polite again, he makes us wonder.
:)
I'm applying skepticism to the question is AGW significant or not? With my limited tools, my answers is it's happening.
“Never try to reason the prejudice out of a man. It was not reasoned into him, and cannot be reasoned out.” – Sydney Smith
Over ten years ago I purchased a copy of " Fermat's Last Theorem" and was so exasperated by the drizzle of smug inaccurate assertions peppered all over the place that I started making margin notes - something I *never* usually do with a paperback, ending up so annoyed that I didn't even finish it. It's still there on the shelf, tormenting me.
I note this particular leopard hasn't changed it's spots.
Your Grace
"Falsus" or "mistakenus", life's too short. Especially in the light of Tom's [9:53] comment.
jheath
Welcome back. I learned recently that the UK embassy in South Africa has a climate change officer. I wondered how such a person could possibly justify his salary. And then I realized that his role must be to try to persuade (or bribe) the SA authorities not to burn coal. Well, he won't succeed, of course. But I was struck by the absurd paternalism of the former imperial power sending a (white) emissary to tell the 'blecks' how to decide energy policy.
LATIMER ALDER.Having worked all my life in the private sector, I find it quite incomprehensible that the climate change secretary's department has taken 3 years to work out that turning the heat off at nights and weekends would produce savings of money (or 'carbon'), but even more incomprehensible that Carrington thinks that this would somehow validate the CAGW myth in the minds of sceptics.
Come back Monbiot - all is forgiven !)
It can be disheartening when someone you admire supports something which in your own opinion is unsupportable. I love Simon's books and particularly his style of writing.
I would really like to know if Simon has read all of the climategate e-mails and whether he followed the various enquiries.
Like most people, i accept that there has been some warming but the "A" in AGW suggesting that human activity is mainly resposible has yet to be demonstrated to my satisfaction. There are many obvious benefits to look forward to in a warming world but as yet, i have not seen any MSM welcoming any of these benefits.
Simon, please tell me that you do not wholly subscribe to the Precautionary principle and that have (or not) read the E-Mails.
PS i am hoping that you haven't.
Shub
If that's so, his descent from sage to snit is paved in adolescent invective.
I note a few comments on my last contribution, and I hope it is not too late to respond. Generally time constraints mean that I am not on line that frequently.
I understand the comments of ThinkingScientist and BBD on coal and gas: both have a role to play in power generation as they can take up different parts of the market, and those parts will vary on the circumstances of each market. Oil should not be used except as enmergency peaking. Jane Coles is right re South Africa (which by chance I know well): there it has to be coal - or we slow the adavnce of so many towards prosperity. The costs of adaptation must be less than those of "mitigation" in South Africa given the evidence that higher CO2 levels present a lower risk than first thought. But look how long it took to get a partial risk guarantee from the multilateral agencies.
In other countries the mix will be different. Where there is low cost gas and a high cost of capital the first path is to gas. But coal can be developed steadily as the next way of managing fuel diversity risk, and it can be pulled back if the CO2 risk is seen to be greater after all - and then nuclear comes in. But let us hope the cost of capital is lower in developing countries by then - probably the 2020s, even the late ones. My understanding is that the first modular nuclear station is due in 2025 in North America - then 90 MW modules may prove more affordable.
ThinkingScientist - much of this is about timing and capital costs (reflecting risks) rather than absolute energy preferences. A mix that can be adjusted over time makes a great deal of sense. I suspect we would be in agreement on most of this.
Toad
Desmond Carrington plays records on Radio 2. I'm not sure he's an AGW activist, even if he does work for the BBC. Perhaps you mean Damian.. :-)
jheath
Thank you for your response. Time constraints mean that I should be on line much less frequently...
I do hope you can find the time to keep commenting here - albeit sporadically - as your contributions are always interesting.