Bishop Hill Tamsin on climate sensitivity, lukewarmers and what we risk
May 3, 2015 Climate: Sceptics Climate: WG3 Climate: sensitivity As a pearl in the dunghill of the Guardian's climate change coverage, Tamsin Edward's wise article today is going to take quite a lot of beating. It attempts to sideline the namecallers, pointing to the areas of agreement and sensible disagreement in the climate debate, particularly over climate sensitivity, and ends on these very pertinent questions.
But whether we are in denial, lukewarm or concerned about global warming, the question really boils down to how we view uncertainty. If you agree with mainstream scientists, what would you be willing to do to reduce the predicted risks of substantial warming? And if you’re a lukewarmer, confident the Earth is not very sensitive, what would be at risk if you were wrong?
For a mainstream scientist, are you confident enough in your computer simulations to argue that they support the need for the shifting of resources away from dealing with the problems of today - clean water and energy for developing countries are obvious candidates - and towards the problems of the next century?
Reader Comments (134)
Richard Betts
'You're confusing "climate scientists" with "greens". '
Well there's over 60 climate / environmental scientists at the links below who from their personal letters, videos and web testaments, appear to have confused themselves with greens. Scary pitches and heavy emotional expression and demands for action. Many stating with little or no caveat or qualification various disaster scenarios that are not backed by IPCC high confidence levels. Significant proportion of them are also throwing in the ‘children threatened’ (sometimes grandchildren) story. I’m sure these scientists are genuinely scared for themselves and their children, and the emotions they express are not faked. That’s exactly why their ability to stay within the bounds of proper science and high confidence regarding a wicked problem, has been severely compromised. And why they will end up scaring other folks too (including other scientists), by lending their authority and unjustified certainty to the narrative of catastrophe.
http://isthishowyoufeel.weebly.com/this-is-how-scientists-feel.html
http://morethanscientists.org/
http://scaredscientists.com/
For further information on emotional bias in science and society regarding climate change, see:
http://judithcurry.com/2015/04/24/contradiction-on-emotional-bias-in-the-climate-domain/
Richard Betts -You're confusing "climate scientists" with "greens". They are not the same, although there may be some overlap. The first group is looking at whether there is a problem, the second has political opinions on one particular response (among many which are possible). The Bish does this too, by implication, and personally I find it quite unhelpful to constructive debate.
The point which I try to put to the "I'm just a scientist trying to understand the problem" is that the problem is presupposed by environmentalism. By 'environmentalism', I don't mean the green movement, or Greenpeace protesters. I mean a particular view of the world ("is"), and how it should be organised ("ought"). I don't see that science -- especially institutional science as it is currently configured -- has a method of excluding green "ideology", or even that the delineation you propose is so straightforward as determining who is a "green" and who is a "climate scientist". You agree that there is some 'overlap'. So what is the test? Who constructs the test? Where are the results?
The real answer of course, is the 'constructive debate' you seek. But you presuppose in your response that the test exists, is available to the debate, and that constructive debate can only proceed once it is agreed that institutional science ("climate scientists") hasn't been colonised by environmentalism, and its science doesn't proceed from 'green' presuppositions.
It palpably ain't so. Science has not excluded green ideology from its observations, much less from its coridors. And it is resistant to the criticism that it has failed to exclude green ideology. And it is hostile to debate. Its most senior chairs make TV programmes about how challenges to its new-found authority in the world are 'anti-science', are 'ideologically-motivated', and refuse to engage in discussion about its perceived shortcomings, right or wrong. It fails to exclude absurd attempts to examine the psychology of people who take a different view of climate politics from the 'consensus'. It fails to challenge the view that "science says" democracy is inadequate to deal with 'the problem'. It fails to keep in check the most extravagant claims about the risks of climate change: hundreds of millions of climate refugees; droughts afflicting a billion people by 2035; 1 in 6 species in imminent danger of extinction; the imminent collapse of ice sheets... The list goes on and on, and is growing.
Of course, I understand why Civil Service protocol may prevent you from agreeing with any of this. But that should prompt an understanding of the problem of defining the problem, not pretend that the obstacle to constructive debate is the attitude of a half dozen bloggers.
For Richard Betts -- my post on green values being absorbed by climate scientists, and why it is wrong to take at face value claims that climate scientists only advocate "for science". http://www.climate-resistance.org/2015/01/advocating-the-science-cake-and-politicising-it.html
As an addendum to Ben Pile's (3.11) post, what credence are we intended to attach to the idea that, probably for the first time in his existence, man is suddenly going to become incapable of using the initiative and ingenuity that has served him well for thousands of years and enabled him to cope with anything and everything that nature has thrown at him during that time.
Consider the changes that have taken place over the 20th century in the matter of natural disasters and their consequences. While the headline monetary figure for damage has increased considerably due to increased wealth and therefore increased value of property and possessions (and in the case of the US an increase in the number of people choosing to take the risk of living in a weather-susceptible environment like Florida — and no-one is forcing that decision on them), the number of deaths resulting from natural disasters has fallen dramatically thanks to several factors, not least improved communication and improved technology.
Ben is right that it might be necessary to abandon London in 500 years but that is a problem for our grandchildren's grandchildren's grandchildren (or possibly even further removed) who according to all the "experts" are going to be so much wealthier than we are in real terms that they will probably stay put and simply jack the whole place up like they did Chicago a hundred years ago.
Or bearing in mind that 500 years ago was barely 12 years after the death of Elizabeth I, pre-civil war, pre-industrial revolution, pre-90%+ of what we now take for granted as normal, maybe they will already have abandoned London for all sorts of possible reasons which are as unthinkable to us as electricity, the telephone and the internet would have been to James I.
Trying to second-guess future generations is a futile occupation and almost certainly counter-productive. Whatever we choose to do today in order to ease the life of our grandchildren's grandchildren is infinitely more likely to cause them to curse us than to bless us.
Ben:
I would like to be proved wrong, but Richard Betts has a history of making an early response to our host's posts and then being too busy to respond to serious criticism. Don't expect a reasoned response from him.
Ben Pile
The thing I find surprising about several of the above comments, and Bishop Hill's post, is that there is this underlying assumption that a particular scientific conclusion automatically leads to a particular policy outcome. It seems that people here don't like the particular policy outcome they think it implies, and so don't like the science.
However, this idea that "the science says we must….." is exactly what your opponents (the greens) say. Why support it?
Why is it not reasonable to say "yes there is an issue, but there's more than one way to respond"?
Many people argue that immediate and deep emissions cuts are not the way to go, and that we need to focus more on adaptation (at least in the near term) for precisely the reasons that some have raised above (eg. limiting opportunities in developing countries).
Mike Jackon: you're basically arguing for adaptation. My response above didn't exclude that. As I say, there's a whole range of options.
Richard Betts.
“The thing I find surprising about several of the above comments, and Bishop Hill's post, is that there is this underlying assumption that a particular scientific conclusion automatically leads to a particular policy outcome.”
The science and policy became wedded before most of even noticed there was an issue. In attempting to get an entry into any part of the policy or the science we are bombarded with ‘the science is settled’. Why do you not know this?
In possibly the first mention of "The Cause" in the climategate archive, we have the below.
From: Joseph Alcamo <???@usf.uni-kassel.de>
To: ???@uea.ac.uk, ???@rivm.nl
Subject: Timing, Distribution of the Statement
Date: Thu, 9 Oct 1997 18:52:33 0100
Reply-to: ???@usf.uni-kassel.de
Mike, Rob,
Sounds like you guys have been busy doing good things for the cause.
I would like to weigh in on two important questions --
Distribution for Endorsements --
I am very strongly in favor of as wide and rapid a distribution as
possible for endorsements. I think the only thing that counts is
numbers. The media is going to say "1000 scientists signed" or "1500
signed". No one is going to check if it is 600 with PhDs versus 2000
without. They will mention the prominent ones, but that is a
different story.
Conclusion -- Forget the screening, forget asking
them about their last publication (most will ignore you.) Get those
names!
Timing -- I feel strongly that the week of 24 November is too late.
1. We wanted to announce the Statement in the period when there was
a sag in related news, but in the week before Kyoto we should expect
that we will have to crowd out many other articles about climate.
2. If the Statement comes out just a few days before Kyoto I am
afraid that the delegates who we want to influence will not have any
time to pay attention to it. We should give them a few weeks to hear
about it.
3. If Greenpeace is having an event the week before, we should have
it a week before them so that they and other NGOs can further spread
the word about the Statement. On the other hand, it wouldn't be so
bad to release the Statement in the same week, but on a
diffeent day. The media might enjoy hearing the message from two
very different directions.
Conclusion -- I suggest the week of 10 November, or the week of 17
November at the latest.
Mike -- I have no organized email list that could begin to compete
with the list you can get from the Dutch. But I am still
willing to send you what I have, if you wish.
Best wishes,
Joe Alcamo
----------------------------------------------------
Prof. Dr. Joseph Alcamo, Director
Center for Environmental Systems Research
It's poor framing. If it were easy to replace fossil fuels without doing more harm than good then there would be no discord. Alarmists place themselves on the moral high ground merely because they refuse to even consider the morals of limiting fossil fuel use before it is actually possible. A real ethics debate is required that asks alarmists how many people have to die of cold, hunger or starvation prior to achieving this fantastic fossil-fuel-free nirvana, How about listening to engineers now and again. And how about reading some history too; it is cold weather that is the real danger, not the very slight warming of Siberian winters that we have experienced to date.
Richard
Of course I'm arguing for adaptation. Why would anyone argue for anything else? We already have enough evidence that the trillions of dollars planned to be spent will reduce the increased temperature by a minute fraction of a degree (assuming that the models are right and that is an increasingly big 'if').
If we adapt as and when — as we have always done — then we are ready to take whatever action is necessary and desirable at the time it becomes necessary and desirable. And that includes the possibility that "the science" is total bollocks and that the next temperature move is going to be down. Which is beginning to look quite possible.
If you're keen on mitigation I think it's time you gave us some facts and figures on the what and the how. Personally I am not convinced that attempting pro-actively to reduce the world's temperature is possible or desirable or necessary and that left to his own devices without being bullied by the current crop of control freaks mankind will cope quite well, thankyou.
I understand that the UN and the IPCC and the eco-warriors and, apparently, the Vatican don't find that an appealing prospect and that doesn't surprise me but long-term it's the only one that is going to work to the benefit of all mankind as opposed to the select bits of it.
Richard Betts:
'However, this idea that "the science says we must….." is exactly what your opponents (the greens) say. Why support it?'
So you'd claim the 60+ climate and environmental scientists at the above links, who in the strongest emotive terms are proclaiming imminent disaster, and the urgent need to address this NOW, many explicitly stating by CO2 / fossil fuel reduction, are somehow NOT meaning 'the science says we must...'? What on Earth message do you think it is that they are trumpeting here then, if not 'the science says we must...'?? There are many more than this 60+ too. These are not way-out green NGO agitators, these are scientists. As others have mentioned, climate science and strong policy demands have been closely intertwined for decades.
Almost everything was decided BC – Before Climategate.
That 20th century climate change was almost all man made.
That weather was getting rapidly worse.
That any claim that is worse than the consensus is ok but anything that is better is automatically wrong.
That the West was guilty and had to do reparation to everyone else.
That any and all renewables were a good idea and should be funded by everyone, including the poorest (if you don’t set specific protection, you are tacitly agreeing to it).
That anyone could be an expert on energy but only climate scientists can be experts on climate. Indeed, anyone who is an expert on energy is automatically discounted as a bought stooge.
That activists were an acceptable source of opinion and data but industry wasn’t.
That exaggeration was ok if it got people moving.
That making obscene wealth on stuff forced on others was also ok. This even opened up a new way for fraudsters to operate and those involved were very slow to act upon that.
That dissenting voices should be excluded and even vilified. Even peer review should be used to close ranks on unwelcome views.
That poor and shoddy work wouldn’t be questioned so long as it came under the umbrella of the consensus.
That non scientists could exaggerate or twist the science to their own ends and remain totally un-rebuked, no matter how egregious the deviation from fact so long as it pointed in the right direction of the consensus. Whereas no mistake from a ‘contrarian’ could be too small not to condemn.
And many more.
Many of these things are still ongoing but I don’t hear climate scientists objecting. To try and limit us to policy when all the doors were locked and bolted years ago is… I can’t complete that sentence without being rude. Dr Betts, you play 'heads we win tails you lose'. Not interested.
Richard Betts - The thing I find surprising about several of the above comments, and Bishop Hill's post, is that there is this underlying assumption that a particular scientific conclusion automatically leads to a particular policy outcome. It seems that people here don't like the particular policy outcome they think it implies, and so don't like the science.
My comment was about what appears to be green ideology embedded in science. I don't think that a blog post or subsequent comments compares to the machinations of all the science, scientists and institutions included in the UNFCCC/IPCCC enterprise.
I have observed for myself -- and written about it here and on my blog -- that the sceptics' preoccupation with the scientific argument in many ways presupposes what greens presuppose. "The climate debate descends to science".
You don't address the point, however, that science hasn't produced a way of excluding green ideology (in its broadest sense) much less challenging it.
Many people argue that immediate and deep emissions cuts are not the way to go, and that we need to focus more on adaptation (at least in the near term) for precisely the reasons that some have raised above (eg. limiting opportunities in developing countries).
And yet their arguments -- which I've been making for over a decade, too -- aren't effective, and haven't caused much consideration in policy-making circles. And they are the same arguments which are dismissed by institutional science as 'denial'.
Why is that, do you think?
Richard Betts, let me help you with "yes there is an issue, but there's more than one way to respond". The issue is the ridiculous CO2 scare. The only valid response is to stop wasting public money on it.
You say that you "think everyone in the world is entitled to the safety and privilege that we are lucky enough to enjoy in the UK." Let me tell you that a) not everyone in the UK has the safety and privilege that you enjoy, and b) that more and more of the world's resources being hoovered up by you and your chums means less and less available to deal with real problems.
Questions: the HELIX project is funded by the Commission. How much is provided each year? Of this, how much does the director receive?
Tamsin is a fraud denier. That's what she gets paid for.
I hope that isn't name calling. :-)
How did the car drivers and plane passengers of the Medieval warm Period adapt to climate change ? We should follow their lead.
Richard Betts, some nice jollies coming up soon in Copenhagen, Paris and then Liège.
http://helixclimate.eu/events
From the point of view of a European taxpayer in Greece or Spain, what is the point?
( Yeah, I know, "increases our understanding of climate impacts in a warming world......" )
Waste of time, as forecasted. Betts showed up stating "Does anyone really argue for "shifting of resources away from dealing with the problems of today"? I don't think so". He's been shown the absurd naive ignorant emptiness of such a statement.
So he's back arguing about something else, namely if policy is being sold as the necessary consequence of science. Such a topic has zero relationship with the original point, that's all about the economics.
In fact the closest thing to this discussion is Spinal Tap's pride on having an amp with controls going up to 11 instead of the usual 10.
Many don't get the joke...
Nigel Tufnel: The numbers all go to eleven. Look, right across the board, eleven, eleven, eleven and...
Marty DiBergi: Oh, I see. And most amps go up to ten?
Nigel Tufnel: Exactly.
Marty DiBergi: Does that mean it's louder? Is it any louder?
Nigel Tufnel: Well, it's one louder, isn't it? It's not ten. You see, most blokes, you know, will be playing at ten. You're on ten here, all the way up, all the way up, all the way up, you're on ten on your guitar. Where can you go from there? Where?
Marty DiBergi: I don't know.
Nigel Tufnel: Nowhere. Exactly. What we do is, if we need that extra push over the cliff, you know what we do?
Marty DiBergi: Put it up to eleven.
Nigel Tufnel: Eleven. Exactly. One louder.
Marty DiBergi: Why don't you just make ten louder and make ten be the top number and make that a little louder?
Nigel Tufnel: [pause] These go to eleven.
As it happens there is the perfect opportunity for all open minded climate community members to express their dismay at how asking questions has been demonised -
https://www.edx.org/course/making-sense-climate-science-denial-uqx-denial101x
Should I be holding my breath?
Contrary to Tamsin’s article I’d be willing to bet that all those she’s embracing as luke warmers are labelled as deniers on that course and the reason why neither she nor Dr Betts will say a word against it is they are scared of being savaged by the gang. Gee, great to know we’re all in this together. /sarc.
Much of the engagement of these two lately has been an attempt to pretend that almost everyone agrees that there is a problem and let’s start from that point. NO!
TinyCO2 6.35pm
Succinct and to the point and not a word in there that isn't absolutely true.
jolly farmer
HELIX receives funding of about 2.25 million Euros per year, split between 16 institutions in the UK, France, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, Italy, Spain, Sweden, Senegal, Kenya, India and Bangladesh.
The director gets his normal salary from the University of Exeter. He doesn't get anything direct from the Commission.
TinyCO2
Yes, lukewarmers like Nic Lewis (and some readers here) do get called "deniers", and I disagree with that.
Then how about a letter campaign to the University joined by all your reasonable fellows? Perhaps if the Guardian won't accept an open letter, you could write to a few Australian papers? Incidentally the least way in which that course offends is the word denier. You could point that out.
I'd do with an open letter by some Head of Climate Impacts stating unequivocally that, even if we do little or nothing about climate change, we are NOT all going to die because of...climate impacts.
Some dream.
What's denied is catastrophe, and it's high time the sensible among the AGWers start getting with the truth.
===================
'If you agree with mainstream scientists, what would you be willing to do to reduce the predicted risks of substantial warming? And if you’re a lukewarmer, confident the Earth is not very sensitive, what would be at risk if you were wrong?"
There, in two sentences, is the problem. Dr. Edwards talks about "uncertainty" but the first sentence demonstrates that she, herself, has no uncertainty about the "predicted rates of substantial warming" despite an existing mountain of evidence that the scientists have signally failed in forecasting future temperature rises.
It appears to me that Dr. Edwards,, and many others, are putting the argument that their "uncertainty" should be ignored when deciding on political action to fight climate change, and she asks doubters (for it is "doubt" not "uncertainty" that is the driver of science) "what would be at risk if you're wrong?" In the face of the mountain of "uncertainty" about this ultra-politicalised science isn't it just as pertinent to ask the "mainstream" (what does that mean? The herd?) scientists to ask themselves "what would be at risk if you're wrong?"
It is precisely this sort of assymetric polemic that tells us that Dr. Edwards is no neutral in this debate but a true believer, who wants to get political action by playing down the uncertainties and playing up the completely fictional (for what else can claiming to be able to forecast the future be?) forecasts of the future emanating from the climate models.
Richard Betts. Perhaps I've got this wrong. I began on the side of the "deniers" because the notion that we could technically, of politically reduce our CO2 output to levels that got us back to 280ppm, or more recently a maximum of 2C, is quite simply mad, or probably more appropriately naive. I haven't had to move from that position once in the last 10 years or so of IPCC scaremongering. It's really simple, if CO2 is causing the world to warm, and if that will cause disasters at some unspecified future time (I believe in logic that two "ifs" move the "uncertainties" to infinity, like, "If we had some bacon we could have some bacon and eggs, if we had some eggs." h/t H.B. Morton), then we need to switch from fossil fuels to some other form of energy production soonest, but not by putting at risk the most prosperous and fruitful period in human history. So mitigation is out of the question because ti's not going to succeed, and it's goals are to say the least, fuzzy.
What would I do? For a start the "mainstream" (what does that mean?) scientific community are telling us they know enough to forecast all manner of disasters, so their work is done. Cut their funding and put the $Bns being pissed away at innumerable global conferences and bigger and bigger computers to forecast the future into developing energy from nuclear fusion. Make it the Manhattan Project of our generation and develop energy sources that will no longer generate CO2 as a by-product.
Having said that let's be clear what we're up against in the words of a BBC producer.
"I was making a speech to nearly 200 really hard core, deep environmentalists and I played a little thought game on them. I said imagine I am the carbon fairy and I wave a magic wand. We can get rid of all the carbon in the atmosphere, take it down to two hundred fifty parts per million and I will ensure with my little magic wand that we do not go above two degrees of global warming. However, by waving my magic wand I will be interfering with the laws of physics not with people – they will be as selfish, they will be as desiring of status. The cars will get bigger, the houses will get bigger, the planes will fly all over the place but there will be no climate change. And I asked them, would you ask the fairy to wave its magic wand? And about 2 people of the 200 raised their hands."
What's affirmed is that the AnthroCO2 aliquot is far more likely to give net beneficial warming than net detrimental. The incidental greening would seem miraculous if it were not so predictable.
Affirmers. Yes.
============
Thank you for that, Richard Betts. For a mere €2.25 million per annum, we get 10 work packages that combine looking at computer models with talking to "stakeholders". Cheap at twice the price.
Questions:
1) What % of the money goes on travel expenses?
2) What % of the money goes on original research, and where is this detailed on the helixclimate.eu site?
3) How much commission funding finds its way indirectly to the director?
( Folks, if you need a good laugh*, check out the 10 "work packages" here - http://helixclimate.eu/our-research - and see if you can spot references to computer models, simulations, stakeholders etc. )
HELIX is only part of this particular boondoggle. There are 2 "sister projects":
IMPRESSIONS (Impacts and Risks from High-End Sce- narios: Strategies for Innovative Solutions) and
RISES-AM ( which also has "work packages" which are even funnier* than the HELIX ones.
(* I don't really mean that any of this is funny. I see it as criminal waste. )
Richard Betts said (5:46 pm)
Richard, who did you have in mind as the 'many people' who are arguing against immediate and deep emissions cuts? Where are they making these arguments?
Ruth, the alarmists don't understand this, but it is the BRICs; they be many and we be few.
=========
This is like a giant game of Jurassic Park. Do we bomb the dinosaurs now or build giant cages for when they eventually escape ? We know they exist because we all saw the film.
Spielberg is no denier.
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2014/07/11/article-2688463-1F8EDC7D00000578-969_634x648.jpg
jolly farmer,
I had a short twitter exchange with Richard Betts over Helix a while back when he got a long weekend in Delhi out of it. As far as I can make out, that's pretty much all they do. They organise meetings between themselves (with invites to a few of the customary “stakeholders” of course) on a very regular basis in various, very nice, venues around the world. I bet almost their entire budget goes on air fares, hotel bills and expenses. The sister organisations seem to pretty much do the same and seem to include many of the same people. I had to stop looking into them any deeper as I was finding myself getting so angry at the disgusting waste of our hard-earned money that I was in danger of giving myself a heart-attack. I'm afraid all last vestiges of any respect I once held for Richard Betts evaporated upon discovery of his active involvement in that particular shakedown.
Laurie Childs, I suspect that you are right, but since I have put direct questions to RB, I think that we should wait for his answer.
Many questions and points have been put to RB on this thread. He has ignored most of them. But let us give him some time to gather his thoughts, and then come up with some real answers. Until then, we should refrain from reaching the judgement that a "head of climate impacts" for the U of E/Hadley Centre, director of HELIX etc. is a criminal waste of public resources.
Something that is totally overlooked by Tamsin Edwards others advocating cutting CO2 emissions is that we live in a world of 200 countries with differing priorities. Britain produces about 1.5% of global emissions, a share that is falling due to emissions increasing in the emerging economies. Few, if any, will want to halt emissions output knowing it is closely tied to economic growth. So for policy countries the problem is modified.
If the massive warming the mainstream consensus believes in occurs, then there is a choice between massive warming and slightly reduced warming due to some countries having constrained their emissions. The countries most likely to be better off are the non-mitigation countries.
If the lukewarmers are right, then mitigation policies are still out, but with greater justification for having no mitigation policies.
The best policy response is adaptation at the local level. The greatest contribution that climate scientists can make is to better identify the nature and timing of the harms that climate change will bring. A starting point is getting a better handle on predicting the short term signals that indicate the emerging problems. On a discussion thread, I asked for examples of predictive successes and got one back, against many failures.
You're confusing "climate scientists" with "greens" - No climate "scientists" are just Green politicians protecting their gravy train.
For example:
"The chief scientist at the Met Office, Julia Slingo, has said that the extreme weather that has hit Britain over the winter of 2013/14 is linked to climate change."
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2014-02/09/flooding
This statement is unsupported by scientific evidence particularly the SREX
I can't speak for anybody else here, but I harboured doubts about the science when I first heard about it in the 1970's.
If the reckless policies weren't promoted so strongly then I could have continued to largely ignore the science, be it good, bad, or indifferent. As it is, I have examined it further in recent years and found it wanting. The same applies to some of the practitioners.
As I understand your intellectual gurgitataions fellows, all that is needed is that you spend some more bucketfulls of money on the Africans and whoever else does not have what you fellows have. Have you not done this already for fifty years? Any improvement for the Afros? No? How can that be?
As my wife says to me when I say something childish and stupid, "you will live long". So will you fellows. Not only that but you will be able to discuss such a sensitive subject sensitively with each other ad nauseum.
Tamsin:
On the surface, your article strikes some common chords.
Then again, when I parse your words into understanding, I find myself disappointed; very disappointed.
'Complex computer models'?
'Temperature changes we've deduced'?
Deduced is a word that makes 'estimated' sound more official?
The basic truth is that all of these 'estimations' are based on the instrumental record, whether from the 150 years of recorded temperatures or derived from the paleontological proxies which are also 'estimates'.
Computer models or either absolutely dependent on the instrumental record or on 'fudged numbers' necessary to drive the right outputs.
If complex computer models or deduced temperature changes are unverified against observations then zero confidence can be reasonably attributed to the models and deductions.
Reading 'lukewarmer' assertions, lukewarmers trust the fully documented observations rather than the fully falsified complex computer models.
Computer models require proven competency against observations! Especially before anyone places any trust in them.
That statement dropped my respect for you by a huge amount.
You've eliminated the null argument and falsely substituted the opposite argument as the null. So let's rephrase your question from the basis of the existing null argument.
What is the proven evidence that requires mitigation costs? At all!? Paleontology presents us with evidence for many warmer periods that succored life; and none that harmed life, without million year episodes of volcanism that is.
Focus on the science. Once science is proven and fully explained as active constituents and atmospheric processes, then we can discuss policy. Unproven speculations are not actionable!
Oh!
But we do agree with mainstream scientists! For example, Dr. Lindzen, Dr. Christy, and many many more.
Your question should be rephrased, especially considering the documented antics and actions of the so called 'climate team'.
Do those mainstream climate team scientists accept valid criticism?
Do those mainstream climate team scientists support independent replication?
Do those mainstream climate team scientists share all data, code, logic and results?
Do those mainstream climate team scientists treat other scientists as scientists with honest respect?
Do those mainstream climate team scientists suppress inconvenient or contrary research?
Do those mainstream climate team scientists seek to hurt or impair the careers or publications of contrary researchers?
I suspect that a lot of those 'main stream climate scientists' you are intimating we should agree with, drastically fail these questions and many other aspects of professionalism.
So how about rephrasing the question as: "...If you agree with transparent open science produced and published by respectable professional mainstream scientists?"
The slam dunk ending question?
I, as an example, do not believe any ill will come to the Earth!
Plants will grow better. Maybe I can plant orange trees!?
Rain will fall as it always has. Storms are storms and their limitations are almost all physically caused. What prevents super duper extreme dreaded monster storms will be the same things that always break up or drain storms.
I might get to wear summer clothing more often and use a little more air conditioning instead of heat.
More third world civilizations will be able to grow into 2nd or first world civilizations.
What is especially lacking in CAGW alarmism is demonstrable proof for negative impacts to Earth. Again, unproven speculation is not science. Earth has cooled and warmed repeatedly without the warming causing impairment or endangerment.
History is rife with demonstrable proof that cooling causes death; the four horsemen of the apocalypse are personified during periods of a cold Earth.
George Steiner, no, what Africa needs are consumerism and manufacturing, which are exactly what took us out of poverty and tribalism. Not democracy and not charity. Blind CO2 policy is already trying to stop them having those things. Whether their social outlook would let them is another issue but they deserve the same chance we got.
Has there been any improvement for Africa already? Yes. Poverty has fallen and health has improved in almost every country. Only warfare or ideology has interfered with that. At one point Zimbabwe could have been the poster child for burgeoning commercialism but Mugabe took the country back to the hand to mouth peasant farming that greens dream of. Now instead of being the bread basket of Africa, it's the basket case.
jolly farmer
As I've explained before on this blog, I have other things in my life so it's generally impractical for me to answer all the many questions and points put to me. My family would not be very impressed if I spent hours on a bank holiday weekend chatting with anonymous strangers on the internet….!
However I will answer your 1st two questions above - they are reasonable questions, despite the fact that I think you've asked them in an unreasonable manner. (You really don't have to be so snarky, you know…!)
1. 3.7% of the HELIX money goes on travel
2. 83% goes on original research. As far as I know this is not on the HELIX website, but I imagine it's on the European Commission website somewhere.
Re: your third question. HELIX supports 2 postdocs, a project manager and a portion of time for several academics involved in the project (including me as project director) at Exeter - in my case, it covers the 1 day a week that I am employed there. I don't feel obliged to put details of my salary on a blog though!
The purpose of HELIX is to estimate what the climate may be like at levels of global warming above 2C. BH readers may be interested to hear that this was in part inspired by my Bishop Hill post in which I said we didn't know whether 2C was "dangerous" or not. We really don't know what such a world will look like. Obviously this does rely heavily on computer modelling, as we have no actual 2C world to refer back to. This includes evaluating the performance of the impacts models against observations, eg. for how well they do in simulating impacts of extreme weather events.
Anyway, it's a bank holiday Monday and I have other things to do, so I won't be here for the rest of the day. Thanks for your interest.
There is no evidence that CO2 causes warming and there is evidence that warming causes increased CO2. So-called mainstream climate scientists will, I hope, one day be called to account for the climate change scam - amongst them the Met Office alarmists.
May 3, 2015 at 9:55 AM | Phillip Bratby
Phillip, I agree with both your observation regarding the lack of evidence that CO2 causes warming & sentiments that one day warmists are called to account. I found it irritating that Tamsin refers to individuals that recognize that global climate has never in the past been controlled by CO2 atmospheric concentrations as non-mainstream & contrarian.
It was also irksome for Tasmin to say "If you agree with mainstream scientists, what would you be willing to do to reduce the predicted risks of substantial warming?" She should not have used 'mainstream scientists' wrongfully suggesting that there is general acceptance of this radical theory outside of the small cadre of individuals in the Global Warming Industry.
Richard Betts tells us that "the director gets his normal salary from the University of Exeter. He doesn't get anything direct from the Commission.", then tells us that a proportion of his salary is paid through the HELIX project. I think that most people would see that as direct funding.
As for the original research done, the director says " As far as I know this is not on the HELIX website, but I imagine it's on the European Commission website somewhere. "
Rather than imagining that the information might be available "somewhere", perhaps the director of the project could provide the url? There must be something to show for all these millions.
Richard Betts - The purpose of HELIX is to estimate what the climate may be like at levels of global warming above 2C. BH readers may be interested to hear that this was in part inspired by my Bishop Hill post in which I said we didn't know whether 2C was "dangerous" or not. We really don't know what such a world will look like.
And yet we here so much -- especially from policy makers -- about transgressing the 2-degree boundary. And we hear so little from science about how 2C is a somewhat arbitrary limit.
For Figures, Hedegaard, Obama, Stern, Miliband, Davey, and many more besides, 2 degrees was this limit that had been detected by science. So why isn't HELIX saying to its funding body, and to all those policy-makers... "No, chaps, you've got it wrong, we don't know anything about 2C"?
In fact why aren't all scientific institutions and climate scientists saying "you all need to stop talking about 2 degrees as though it were the object of the consensus"?
If there's nothing special about 2 degrees, and probably nothing special about 4 or 6, either, wouldn't it be more interesting to discover why these putative boundaries were so important to the policy process, rather than spending so much time speculating about what might happen after then have been passed?
The invention of these boundaries -- and your subsequent investigation of them -- does much to demonstrate my point that 'green' ideology precedes climate science.
The weight of expectations that fall on Richard Betts's shoulders is immense...
Between Stern and his billionaire-funded Grantham Institute at the LSE and Richard Betts out of the MO and EU-funded HELIX, there seems to be a disagreement. On the one hand, science has identified a 'danger limit'. On the other hand, science doesn't seem to know if it is a danger limit at all.
With science in such disarray, and such a disagreement between climate research institutions, perhaps there is a different reason for the urgent political action called for by the Grantham Institute.
Why aren't HELIX and the scientists at the Met Office confronting this fundamental contradiction head-on?
After all, Paris is just months away.
Ben Pile -
"Between Stern and his billionaire-funded Grantham Institute at the LSE "
Jeremy Grantham is a British investor and co-founder and chief investment strategist of Grantham Mayo van Otterloo (GMO), a Boston-based asset management firm. GMO is one of the largest managers of such funds in the world, having more than US $112 billion in assets under management as of September 2013.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeremy_Grantham
Ben
You could well be right about the green ideology preceding the science. In fact I'm sure you are since the whole climate argument stemmed from The Club of Rome and the implications inherent in Limits to Growth which goes way back.
What is also true is that the 2° "limit" has exactly the same scientific backing as the "5 portions a day" or the "21 units a week". It was to a large extent plucked out of the air to give the politicians a log to cling to if the waters started to get a bit choppy.
"We have to do something about obesity" - get them to eat more fruit and veg.
"We have to do something about alcohol consumption" - create some arbitrary figure that shouldn't be exceeded.
"We have to do something about global warming" - well the medics managed to come up with something simple; what can you guys manage?
And since there is no scientific basis for it it was always likely to unravel sooner or later.
It should come as no surprise that it is the Grantham Institute — Stern to the fore (and you can take that as a pun if you wish!) — that is bleating that what the world is doing will not have the desired effect of keeping the temperature increase below 2° but is carefully not saying what will because the action needed, according to their own calculations, would be somewhere between physically impossible and politically unacceptable.
The scientists know all this and increasingly their observations are telling them the whole idea is irrelevant since the 2° is unlikely to be reached before most of us currently alive are long gone and quote probably not even then. And to Grantham (as he admitted years ago) it's just another money-making opportunity and to the eco-warriors the best opportunity in decades to push their anti-civilisation agenda.
Science, as we was taught it at skule, has precious little to do with any of it.
Ben
"If on the other hand you take the view that human society is (or can be) more dependent on itself than dependent on natural processes, which don't exist in quite such a perilous state as has been imagined, the perturbations caused by human society are of lesser consequence."
+1
My, no doubt simplistic, view is that the Earth's climate has been conducive to life for aeons, through large scale vulcanism, ice ages, warm periods, meteorite strikes and all manner of disruption. That strongly suggests that there is plenty of negative feedback in the loop, and that the addition of however much CO2 we produce (raising the level to the giddy height of 0.04%) is unlikely to make a difference. As, indeed, is our presence or absence.
JamesP - That strongly suggests that there is plenty of negative feedback in the loop,
I think we should be more concerned with what green presuppose about feedback loops than about counting them. There was a clear tendency, born out of many different things going on in the middle of the C20th century including the decline of the British Empire, New Age-ism, and too many people taking LSD, of people becoming preoccupied with the claims of nascent cybernetics and 'holism'. Ecology being one such application that completely failed to identify systems in the real world, but which posited that they definitely existed, should be in 'balance' could be measured, and therefore could be predicted and protected. Hence the Club of Rome's prognostications. Really, we should look at such encompassing frameworks, which appear to explain the world as it is and how it ought to be organised in the same way we now view eugenics. That's not to make moral equivalents of the systematic removal of "unhygienic" racial characteristics past and the current preoccupation with environmental 'balance', but it is to say that the desire for such frameworks is driven by a loss of and search for moral authority.
I raised your point about volcanoes, ice ages and meteorites etc. in my review of Mark Lynas's The God Species a while ago...