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)
As usual, BH has discussions that are far better than anything offered by careless CAGWarmists like Roberts and Revkin:
BH thread on Richard Betts, 2C, and "dangerous" climate change
But what if he is correct?
Surely it is time to take the brick out from under the brake pedal, and not wait to see exactly how quick we'll hit the wall?
Jun 20, 2012 at 2:54 PM | Andy Lee
You mean what if he is correct by accident and not by reference to any real science? Yeah that is entirely possible. the same for a lot of other "what ifs" though: What if all the homeopathic guys are right and yet can't prove it either using conventional science either? What if the guy who invented cold fusion is right and we miss out because no one with vision will give him a couple of billion to prove it?
All these "what ifs" are out there and I personally don't care about anyone acting on them if they don't harm anyone else. They can go ahead and lie down in their flowing robes and brand new trainers and take the kool-aid waiting for the spaceship if they believe that particular "what if".
However if anyone claims to believe in a benchmark that is informed by some quality of science, sure you can always still ignore it and go with your gut feeling, but just don't lie and pretend you are doing something based on what science tells "us all" to do.
Is it true TED stands for Typical Egghead Delusion?
@theduke
I have a hard copy of this because it was my personal tipping point.
TD, If I can't find a pdf, I will try to find and scan the original; but moving house and changing jobs may slow things down.
My personal view at the time was that it was way beyoyond outrageous; and changed my view significantly.
Best wishes,
John
@theduke
Easier to find than I feared.
Entitled "Warm Words How are we telling the climate story and can we tell it better", published by the Institute for Public Policy Research in 2006.
Pdf available at: http://www.ippr.org/ecomm/files/warm_words.pdf
Its worth a reread as it is full of gems.
From 2 degrees to 12 is a mighty big jump
And we are all go to burn Hell on Earth
However just watch this clip
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jHPOzQzk9Qo