Bishop Hill Dave Roberts at TED
Jun 19, 2012 Climate: Models Dave Roberts is the resident upholder of the CAGW consensus at Grist. Here he is lecturing on climate change at TED, and boy is he worried about the future - "Hell on Earth" is one of his more optimistic predictions.
I was struck by Roberts' comments about climate sensitivity. It seems to me that he gets completely confused over the difference between climate sensitivity and climate impacts. Having discussed the ad-hoc nature of the 2 degree target that is often cited as the threshold above which climate change becomes dangerous he says this:
The bad news on this 2C number is twofold. First of all, all the latest science done in the last ten to fifteen years has pointed to the conclusion that those impacts we thought were going to happen around two degrees centrigrade are in fact going to happen much earlier. The climate more sensitive to this added greenhouse gases than we thought. So if those were the impacts we were worried about then the real threshold of safety ought to be something like 1.5 degrees centrigrade...it's a growing scientific consensus that 2 degrees centigrade is dangerously high.
If the climate is more sensitive to carbon dioxide then it warms more quickly for a given change in greenhouse gases. I don't think it changes the temperature at which any given impacts occur.
Reader Comments (57)
I bet he's fun at parties. A real mirth maker and rib tickler. Can clear a room in 90 seconds flat.
These people remind of the American Preachers in the more enthusiastic churches. All fire and brimstone.
"These people remind of the American Preachers in the more enthusiastic churches. All fire and brimstone."
Hmmm. Why do I suspect that you've never been inside one of America's more enthusiastic churches and have no clue what spurs their growth?
I feel very sorry for these people. Real scientists like Vahrenholt are coming to their senses after realising they have been systematically duped by the IPCC's propaganda. However, the climate kooks like this guy appears to be apparently feel that they have to get yet more extreme to make up for the loss of momentum.
The only worry I have is that the major political events we are now seeing, e.g. the perhaps very sudden change of European politics to a totalitarian state, are being accelerated in synchronism with the development of climate extremism, the justification for that totalitarian state. Watch these people carefully.
at 1:15 he complains that
"the hordes descend bearing complicated stories about the medieval ice age"
Ok, can we say he's simply another fool pursuing CAGW for "religious" reasons? He has no idea what he's talking about.....
Strange, the way he indicates .8C relative to 2C. Is that what they mean by post normal science?
If he really believed what he was saying why doesn't he give his talks in front of a blackboard with a piece of chalk, instead of using a deadly co2 producing projector.
Richard Black never did update his article which mentions in which he claims TED means Technology, Education and Design, despite my comment on the article and emailing him direct.
As Black is a erm ..."respected" BBC journalist, we must therefore conclude he was deliberately misleading his readership.
He's a Chicken Little hysteric pretending to act like a calm rational person. Beyond the usual hypocrisy questions (well.... I don't know how he lives although we certainly have some idea of the gigantic "carbon footprint" of Al Gore, Pachauri, et al), let me say this:
anyone who truly believes this kind of CAGW stuff should
(1) immediately act to live on the simplest pre-modern subsistence basis possible, utterly reducing their own emissions to the greatest extent possible (because to save the world many millions will have to sacrifice more than others since not everyone is going to reduce under any conceivable scenario),
(2) then tell us about their sincerity and commitment to averting extreme CAGW scenarios.
It's not the hypocrisy per se that's interesting, it's that on some levels people like this really DON'T believe what they are saying -- they are using it as a message tool to promote their Green Eco-religion, to try to force changes that they want anyway for other reasons.
It is strange and irrational stuff -- if the crisis were so certain and so extreme, and "they know it", then their own behaviors must change first. Not a little bit, not tossing stuff in a recycling bin or bicycling to work; they must change now, drastically, or else we have another reason to know they know they are full of it.
Every CAGWarmist should start living with the simplicity of a desert hermit if they want even to pretend they are serious about the extreme crisis they claim is impending.
The fact that almost none of them even attempt it shows they are not serious about their claims, but want to promote climate alarmism for other reasons.
Roberts is proof positive of the old axiom that "a little knowledge is a dangerous thing".
Skiphil you are dead right. Not 'living the life' has been the downfall of many an organisation, the late-medieval catholic church being a good example. The plain man might not have understood Luther's arguments, but with his own eyes he could see churchmen living in a way hardly in concord with what they preached. And as far as Greens and virtually all Progressives are concerned, their message amounts to "Shit for you but not for us". They are puzzled, even when the message is skilfully communicated, that it does not resonate with the broad masses. So it must be the Devil, or Big Oil, who is stopping up the ears of the little people.
ted - vb teds, tedding, tedded (Agriculture) to shake out and loosen (hay), so as to dry it.
[from Old Norse tethja; related to tad dung]
A TED talk, indeed!
Yes there's an eerie parallel between the unfolding events in the EU and the climate change movement.
Both movements were created as completely artificial, highly expensive, unnecessary and politicised structures to employ thousands of self appointed experts to wrestle with non-existent problems.
Both have expanded far beyond any reasonable democratic or financial accountability, to the point where they are visibly unaffordable to all but the people who depend on them for their careers, income and self worth.
The question, now that both institutions have become completely unaffordable and hugely unpopular - is whether they will attempt to use their considerable power base to secure their survival by suspending normal democratic government.
This is already happening with the EU in Greece and Italy and being increasingly suggested by key players in the climate movement.
We live in "interesting times".
Code for: it looks like it will take a couple of centuries of CO2 emission to achieve 2C of warming so let's move the goal posts to keep up the fright [sic].
Dave's Bio:-
David Roberts, Staff Writer
David was born and raised in the South. A revelatory summer working in Yellowstone National Park convinced him that it was not the world but just the part where he lived that sucked, so he moved out West. After several wayward years spent snowboarding and getting an MA in philosophy (go griz), he woke up with nothing but a dissertation between him and an arid, cloistered life spent debating minutiae with the world’s other 12 Dewey scholars. So he bailed....
Yeah - he sounds like the sort of guy you'd go to for your radiation physics and thermodynamics.
Do they have a guy with a physics degree to write about philosophy I wonder - or meteorologist to cover the stock markets?
Why does only "climate science" have these self appointed, unqualified "preacher men".
He looks a bit like a Jehova's Witness to me - dark suit & dead eyes.
I wonder if they'll be strolling up our garden paths in pairs soon...... " Good morning sir - have you ever thought about our climate ?"
He reads my comments to his twitter timeline, but only once replied (with the usual warmist snarking). I agree he just says things without knowing much about them (a journalist, in other words). He has also never clarified why, if we should listen to the experts, we should also listen to him of all people.
As for Grist, it's the usual green porn, for example talking about CO2 making zombie weeds. Oh bother.
@Skiphil
Another interesting angle on this is the irrational hatred of "deniers". The implication is that drastic action is needed to save the world and it is the "lies" spread by these "deniers" that are preventing it from happening. The alarmists talk as though they themselves live a lifestyle that produces no CO2 whatsoever and it is only the "deniers" that are the cause of climate change.
bill, Stonyground
Yes, the cognitive incoherence is what fascinates me more than "hypocrisy" per se. I know Greens who jet off to Bali for vacation yet before and after they are railing about saving the world from "deniers"..... I guess they figure they won't worry about adjusting their own "lifestyle" so long as they can force everyone else to submit.
I sat through the whole 17 minutes. I deserve a medal.
Here's a thought: Can an equal-and-opposite to the warmists' 'tipping point' concept be argued?
(a) If it gets a little colder, the polecaps will increase, and their albedo, and it gets ever colder. (b) If it gets a little colder tundra plants will become embedded in the permafrost and fail to release methane, thus reducing this valuable greenhouse gas, and it gets ever colder.
Of course this is cobblers, but in this way their plausible 'tipping point' notion can be countered and brought into disrepute.
Fright the good fright with all thy might,
Gore is thy strength and Hansen thy right;
lay hold on truth, and it shall be
distorted and hidden eternally.
Wow! Just poor really. I guess TED must be running out of decent talkers, or is this like an "open mike" night at the comedy store?
He was just gibbering about the threads of the invading German troops at the end.
As noted by the Bish and Skiphil the muddling of the meaning of sensitivity and creation of the medieval ice age* should be enough to get a picture of the worth of this talk.
To me the revealing thing is the stuff outside the cargo cult chitter chatter. His initial anecdote of his fellow lefty progressive bemoaning the complexity of the subject paraphrased as "it seems really complicated, I dont really have a good grasp, I dont feel qualified to assert things about it"
On hearing that I felt impressed with what an honest straight-up attitude that guy had, but then felt sad that this attitude was soon to be crapped upon by this Roberts guy with his reassuring pep talk - Roberts thinks he can massage their ego into a state of similar delusion and pompous empty headedness - and he probably can and often does . But what the hey! More inept idiots can only come out of the other end of this production line :)
Though to be fair I'd advise budding climate alarmists not to rely on the fast food version given by this guy Roberts. ;)
*I bet a medieval ice age will now be created to fit this faux pas ;)
Yes, we need a new media law - to the effect that those preaching simple living to their fellow citizens must illustrate their case with pictures of their personal yurt, goat and donkey.
Failure to do so to result in automatic disconnection of electric & gas power and confiscation of all consumer goods invented since the onset of the industrial revolution.
Handwoven clothes allowed - but no consumer technology more advanced than the cooking pot.
Just watching The Big Bang Theory on E4 +1 before the England Ukraine game starts and i just heard this
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ytWGiOuzpe4
Thought it might be relevent after watching Mr Happy Go lucky we will all burn to death by the 23 century so no Captain Kirk then
Lots of charlatans on TED, yet it continues to mystify -- and fleece -- its audience.
Evergreen State College is up here in the PNW.
It is a good school, but it is very far towards the left end of the spectrum and just the place for someone like Dave Roberts to get a receptive audiance.
I only lasted about a third of the way through. Hard to continue past the part where he said all the research is showing that diasterous impacts are certain to occur at less than 2C.
I agree with BH that he does not seem to understand the sensitivity issue. The impression I've gotten in following the debate is that sensitivity of temperature to GHG's is still uncertain, but that a growing body of research is indicating that it is more likely to be lower rather than higher to previous predictions.
{I wonder if they'll be strolling up our garden paths in pairs soon...... " Good morning sir - have you ever thought about our climate ?" Jun 19, 2012 at 6:14 PM | Foxgoose}
They already did. I enlightened them with a lengthy discourse on the climatic history of the spot we were standing on. From the Pre-Cambrian, through Palaeozoic, Mesozoic, Tertiary and Quaternary. They have not been back.
Foxgoose said:
"The question, now that both institutions have become completely unaffordable and hugely unpopular - is whether they will attempt to use their considerable power base to secure their survival by suspending normal democratic government."
My father, who passed away last year aged 80, was a very intelligent man, well educated (grammar school/fisrt class honours), aeronautical engineer, very scathing of the CAGW science. He would have been 9 when the second world war started. His father was an RAF pilot.
He said in the 1990's that within 50 years he could imagine the EU deploying Italian and German troops in London to put down the English Nationalists.
He could just be creating a futuristic and obscure version of Godwin's law. He could also have a point.
You may find the following short video put together by the boys at CFACT more amusing:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aEy6S7vfMKY
Okay. I finally decided to risk my time and started to watch the video. I got past the "Medieval Ice Age", that could have been a nervous slip. But I had to stop at 4 mins 20 secs, when he stated that for the last 10,000 years the Earth has had a very stable climate which has only varied within + or - 1 C. What an arse.
Lappi's graph of last 10 thousand years, based on GISP2 ice core data.
I am going to have a beer in the garden and enjoy the last 30 minutes of proper daylight before the gloamin takes over.
sounds a bit like Prof Kevin Anderson (Tyndalls) 1C is the new 2C and is extremely dangerous line (somethin Richard write about disagreeing with here)
The Frack OFF website have a Tyndall presentation of his, stating this.
"Is 2C dangerous - or extremely dangerous
Is 1C the new 2C"
About ten slides in:
http://www.slideshare.net/DFID/professor-kevin-anderson-climate-change-going-beyond-dangerous
http://frack-off.org.uk/fracking-hell/climate-chaos/
Strictly speaking that talk is a "TEDx" talk, not a real TED talk. TEDx talks are talks "in the spirit of" TED organised by universities etc using the brand at no charge but under conditions. http://www.ted.com/tedx
Skiphil: "cognitive incoherence"? What, you mean they don't get it that they are colossal hypocrites, and truly believe they are sacrificing themselves and their families life chances for the public good.? Yes I can see that. But I am sure there is a similar sociologists phrase for people who don't have the ability to grasp how others perceive them.
God help science when guys like this can spout all those guesses when he's not qualified. It pained me to listen to his guesses etc, James Hansen the guru?
"Much earlier"....but still safely in the future that he can dodge being wrong.
that is the typical prophetic tactic to avoid accountability.
Remember that the flare was sent up on AGW in 1988. and we were prophesied to be experiencing great disruptions by now. And they are not happening.
The AGW movement is l like a dangerous zombie- devoid of real life but able to destroy life as it stumbles and lurches forward.
ted talks are the equivalent of the sunday sermon for the liberal retards.
And who ever got wiser from a sermon ??
The Medieval Ice Age?
What you see in this speech and see predominating among the proponents of AGW is what I call "pseudo-certitude." Most of them know the arguments for CAGW are not conclusive, that no one really knows what kind of warming (or indeed, cooling) we are in for, but they've learned to act like it's all a forgone conclusion.
There was a report prepared by a British public relations firm a few years back. Perhaps some of you remember it. I believe it was prepared for the City of London so that they might better communicate to their citizens the imminent danger that is climate change. (The report was on the web, but eventually disappeared.) The one recommendation by the authors that I remember clearly is that anyone in government discussing climate change in public must learn to discuss it as if it was established scientific truth, i.e. it's going to get very warm very fast, there is no room for doubt and you need to impart the irrefutablility of that regardless of your personal view.
So much for the scientific method . . .
@skiphil
I share your puzzlement about whether they really,really deep-down believe what they preach.
For example if you really did believe everything was going down the gurgler in 20 years time then why have children?
Maybe it's how they handle their own cognitive dissonance - by chanting the familiar phrases and repeating the same talking points.
I also think you're right, Bish. Also to me it seems that Roberts gets completely confused over the difference between climate sensitivity and climate impacts. As you state: If the climate is more sensitive to carbon dioxide then it warms more quickly for a given change in greenhouse gases. Neither do I think the alleged "higher sensitivity"(?) changes the temperature at which any given impacts occur.
I'm also with Tom Nelson's "Wow"! Nelson points out:
He lost me when he said as if it were uncontested fact that temps had stayed within 1C degree for the last 10,000 years.
Revkin at the NY Times DotEarth blog has a strange way of recommending this Dave Roberts video. He urges readers to view it, seems to think it's valuable and reasonable, while trying to walk back from the distinctive claims in it. Very strange, trying to use the video to spread the CAGW propaganda while knowing that the "science" claims in the video are bogus (bizarre thread of comments on the Revkin piece):
Revkin on Dave Roberts video:
"I disagree with his interpretation of the 2-degree warming threshold as scientifically — rather than politically — established and his flat assertion that there’s no path to climate stability without a peak in global emissions of greenhouse gases within the next 10 years. His reading of the reviewed climate literature is selective (but we’re all guilty of some confirmation bias or we wouldn’t be human)."
Given that all life on earth is carbon based, and every human being is approximately 18% carbon, I think the problem with this Climate Clown is that his 18% is all in his head where his brains should be, if he had any.
Even Wikipedia gives TED a pretty jaundiced write-up.
Jun 20, 2012 at 5:31 AM | Skiphil
Yeah, Revkin has this strange rep, even amongst sceptics, as being some sort of honest negotiator, facilitator, broker whatever; but as you indicate, he glibly passes this on with not a single sharp insight into its innate problems - only a half assed mild reproof at the most inconsequential aspect of its content.
Just one example should suffice to show the problems here:
At 10:45 Roberts says "according to a recent paper by the International Energy Agency" and goes on to they say claim we are on track with business as usual for 6 degrees at 2100 - now this isn't new information, this is reframing existing information in the most alarmist way with the added spin that implies (lies?) it is new information.
However we know the IEA didn’t do any additional work to bolster that claim. As reported by the Bish we know this figure is just the worst case highest IPCC figure reframed for self-serving PR for the IEA:
http://www.bishop-hill.net/blog/2012/5/16/international-disinformation-agency.html
Yet Revkin is always blind to overt issues like this, and rather just aids to the ratchet effect of praising pseudo informative guff. This is a good example that shows how alarmist pseudo-information constantly passes through the membranes of alarmist pseudo-intellectual discourse without check to help the alarmists become ever more detached from reality.
I keep using the phrase “cargo cult” but it seems the definitive constant
Cargo cult journalism.
Cargo cult science.
Cargo cult honesty.
I think they genuinely believe they are doing the real thing each time, but it is not hard to step out of that circle to point out that it is in fact an enclosed fantasy world that can only suffer collapse when observed by anyone rational enough not to benefit from its circular delusion.
I think sometimes they sense their own weaknesses here and that's explains half the hate for "deniers" BTW. It is just their latent unspoken embarrassment at being caught in this circle jerk.
As I said above, this crap is just doing themselves harm, they are the only ones who will go blind ; )
When even their most "rational" reps are this dumb so let them carry on ;)
It reminded me somewhat of James Lovelock's assertion that humanity would be serially decimated and pushed to the Arctic circle in order to survive. Lovelock has now recanted this nonsense. I think he estimated the apocalypse to be circa year 2000 which came and went rather too uneventfully for some.
Wiser con-men tend to use longer dated estimates so that they will never be around when they're revealed as hucksters. "Give me your money now or your babies will fry in 50 years time"
@bill
'Narcissists' is the phrase used by psychiatrists/psychologists.
When they graduate to trying to manipulate people and events around them to conform with their own grandiose view of themselves, they are referred to as 'malignant narcissists'.
Just after saying we are going for 6 degree celcius warming, he then says that he's "worried" that there are "positive feedbacks" that will exacerbate this phenomena. This moron is utterly oblivious to the fact that his 6 degree celcius hypothesis hangs upon the huge exageration of these positive feedbacks already.
What a crackpot.
Ironically, this CACC-laden presentation by David Roberts confirms his own hypothesis that he wrote for Grist in October 2011-
"For the most part, those who strongly support climate action do not do so because they've been rationally persuaded; in fact, they tend to be quite ignorant of the scientific details. People who reject climate science tend to know the most about it, because they're motivated to learn about it in order to reject it.”
Classic own-goal.
Jun 20, 2012 at 1:30 PM | Luis Dias
Yeah good point. He introduces the concept of feedback only after discussing the scenarios without seeming to know feedbacks are included in every scenario already. Here is Stefan Rahmstorf:
http://www.pik-potsdam.de/~stefan/Publications/Book_chapters/Rahmstorf_Zedillo_2008.pdf
Roberts rhetorically introduces feedbacks into the talk (and only positive feedback too) only after talking through all the scenarios up to his favourite 6 degree one, the highest feedback scenario that the IPCC is willing to put its name to, yet the IEA, conveniently for Roberts, glibly quotes out of context.
To me it really doesn't matter where you come from: presenting information like this is a fraud through and through, and when claiming to be instructing even at the basic level of science it compounds it by being wilful.
Revkin should know this - not just witter on in a cod joshing way about his personal history with Roberts as if the science is down to a blog or twitter spat they had. But that's the trouble with these ego monsters they really think they can reduce the science to their personal feelings on any given day.
****s
"For example if you really did believe everything was going down the gurgler in 20 years time then why have children?"
Indeed - many of my generation didn't have any children until well into their 30's as during the 70's and early 80's the likelihood of nuclear Armageddon seem very high.
Do the neo-apocalypsists not really believe their own message?