Journalists are drawn to the notion that greenhouse gas emissions increase the human toll from extreme events like Ulysses was drawn to the sirens. The connection between the two is made despite a robust scientific consensus -- and lack of evidence to the contrary -- that no signal beyond increasing societal vulnerability has been detected in increasing disaster losses, much less attributed to the effects of accumulating greenhouse gases.
A particularly egregious example of this sort of journalism comes from Time's Bryan Walsh, who writes:
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has said that warming is, on the whole, likely to increase intense rain and snowfall, leading to more catastrophic floods like the ones we're seeing in Pakistan.
But the heartbreaking Asian floods should be one more reminder of the need to put the world on a path to lower carbon emissions—before the weather reaches extremes that no one can handle.
61 comments:
Similar stuff is being said about the Russian fires.
The Australian bushfires of 2009 also elicited a similar response. You may be interested in the Bushfire Royal Comission Report that has just been published. It deals with the intersection between Science, the Environment and public policy. The URL is:
http://www.royalcommission.vic.gov.au/
Roger,
You may find something to agree with in this -- http://www.masterresource.org/2010/08/science-turns-authoritarian/
Which underscores my contention that AGW is more about apocalyptic social thinking than climate science.
From the piece on the New Republic site you cited:
"The U.N. Framework Convention, for example, refused to fund disaster preparedness efforts at its last conference in December unless states could demonstrate exactly how the disasters they feared were linked to climate change. Consider, too, the amount spent on scientific research. According to a recent rand study, U.S. funding of disaster loss-reduction research in 2003 amounted to about $127 million--only 7 percent of the amount invested in climate change research for that year. Efforts in Congress to create a coordinated research program focused on reducing disaster losses have never gained momentum. By contrast, the U.S. government has sponsored a coordinated, multi-agency framework for climate change research for more than 15 years, with total investments, by our calculations, of more than $30 billion."
I wonder if we need to start talking about the flip side of science into policy, which would be policy into science- which would include a research program with the populace weighing in on what needs to be studied.
When the needs of today's poor and suffering are overlooked or little studied, with most of our efforts spent attempting to project determine future behavior of extremely complex systems (Sisyphean), you have to wonder if the research business is fundamentally a jobs program- and, if so, needs a more broad-based transparent system of determining funding priorities. Or at least a clear place where citizens can participate in the decision.
Roger,
On the plane last night (to Colorado!), I listened to a civil exchange on The Weather channel between your father and Kevin Trenberth. The focus was on just this issue, whether or not the Moscow heat wave and Pakistani floods were somehow linked to AGW.
I can't give you exact quotes, but I walked away with the distinct impression from Trenberth was making an explicit link. So, you know, we journalists also get that catnip from some pretty solid and reputable sources, too.
--KKloor
Roger, if you had to give a probability that the increase in atmospheric GHG concentrations are exacerbating the suffering of the Russians and the Pakistanis today, what would that number be? If you had to quantify current and expected human suffering brought about by anthropogenic GHG increases, how would you do that? Would you do that? You spend a lot of time and attention criticizing the impact assessment methods of others (no proven increase in human suffering due to anthropogenic climate change seems to be your stock position), as well as criticizing their hubris at offering policy solutions alongside their research conclusions. Well, please help: provide a guess at the number of additional early human deaths over the next hundred years due to human-induced climate change. You are free to have no opinion about actions taken as a result of your analysis and leave that to the policy apparatus. As you demonstrate, your statistical methods are so skilled that if you care about the suffering of those in the path of the climate change train, you might lend a hand and your credibility towards quantifying any human impacts. Or am I to understand that there are no impacts relevant enough and demonstrable enough to deserve your time or policy-makers' consideration?
KKloor-welcome to Colorado!
Sam, if the Russians don't have the infrastructure to fight fires, does it matter what percentage might be due to climate change? Wouldn't good policies to protect from fires be a generally good idea?
Weather is climate change when the storyline can be spun into talking points to make a the AGW case.
Ergo Russian forest fires stories abound because they fit the narrative.
Weather is not climate change when the storyline cannot be spun into talking points to make the AGW case.
Ergo freezing South America, chilly San Diego and ultra low ACE numbers stories do not abound because they do not fit the current narrative.
Although the IPCC reports haven't said such things the panel members and lead authors say things like that all the time, so technically the reporter is correct. And it will be moot anyway because Chris Field has clearly already decided beforehand that AR5 will be riven with such stuff - all based on "consistent with models" arguments. There is of course no requirement for models to show any relationship to real life data anyway because, as the new paradigm seems to go, you'd have to be really stupid to expect such a thing. In how many ways can these people argue that up is down and black is white and how long will they be allowed to do so? Until the global temperature starts to drop perhaps?
Are the sirens really signing? That might entice the ASL-capable, I suppose. ;)
Bryan Walsh responds by email:
"I'd direct here: http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/faq-3-2.html
" Basic theory, climate model simulations and empirical evidence all confirm that warmer climates, owing to increased water vapour, lead to more intense precipitation events even when the total annual precipitation is reduced slightly, and with prospects for even stronger events when the overall precipitation amounts increase. The warmer climate therefore increases risks of both drought ? where it is not raining ? and floods ? where it is ? but at different times and/or places. For instance, the summer of 2002 in Europe brought widespread floods but was followed a year later in 2003 by record-breaking heat waves and drought."
I saw your post, and I'll update with a link to it. But I believe you misread me: you'll notice the first parts I tackle are not the less certain future risks of climate change but the very current disaster multiplier that is poverty and bad governance, the factors that make a difference today between the quakes and storms that might kill a few people and ones that kill thousands in poorer nations. Hence adaptation NOW is every bit as important as mitigation for the future, as I noted. And mitigation efforts need to be weighed against their economic effect."
-11-Bryan Walsh
Thanks for responding. I'll simply say that the IPCC information that you provide does not justify attributing any part of the Pakistan flood disaster to human-caused climate change.
-5-Keith
Thanks. If journalists decide to rely on consensus rather than outlier opinions, they have to recognize that it cuts both ways.
-6-Sam
Please have a look at my academic publications. I've written a lot on this subject. My new book has an accessible overview as well. The link to the TNR article in the article above also provides a summary.
I can engage in more depth later if you have further questions.
-11-Thanks! Fixed;-)
Meanwhile, who do we blame for temperatures 5 degrees below average in Southern California that are threaten fruits and vegetables.
Keith
No doubt it was along the lines of 'while no single event can be attributed to climate change, the number of these extreme events is predicted to rise with increasing temperature'. If I had a penny for the number of times that mantra is mindlessly repeated after every weather tragedy....And they nobody ever adds the missing end bit; 'by around 5% or so'.
And like many mantras it is a PR delight: A phrase of gross contradiction and disinformation yet still bereft of meaning and accountability; associating as it does every normal weather event to "climate change", with no proof, no data backup, not even any solid predictions to test and so weasely worded that you can always deny you said the ridiculous second part because you qualified it with the reasonable first part.
Even the phrase "climate change" has been PR crafted to officially mean only an increase in temperature while hinting strongly to be every single bit of weather under the sun, thanks to the malleability of the word 'climate'. If climate was defined strictly as a long-term avarage of weather then there is no actual climate change at all. But wih this climate conflation, the enlightened ones can happily argue that even cold weather events are expected under a warming scenario because "it's climate change you dummy"!
And the causal reason always given by Trenberth? A 4% increase in water vapour - a number which though highly plausible is hardly alarming on its face and is disputable anyway.
In relation to extreme rainfall and floods it should be noted that it is well documented in scientific literature - but most of the time overlooked - that skillful prediction of climate change on regional to local scales has yet to be proven.
A point frequently raised by Roger's dad, Roger Pielke Sr., yet too often conveniently forgotten.
http://pielkeclimatesci.wordpress.com/2007/06/18/comment-on-the-nature-weblog-by-kevin-trenberth-entitled-predictions-of-climate/
Extreme rainfall is directly related to regional or local weather patterns, and such events are even for current numerical weather prediction models hard to predict - let alone using global climate models.
The notion that a warmer climate may result in more severe precipitation comes from the very general observation that climate models tend to get more convective rainfall in a warmer climate - but only in the broadest sense applicable, i.e. globally.
By no means this notion can be applied to any particular region in the world, period, since the regional predictive skill of any climate model has yet to be proven.
And that also puts some serious question marks around the climate model results that suggest that in a warmer climate you get more severe rain. If you cannot properly model the processes directly related to severe rainfall, that how can you be sure that on a global scale you are correct?
Jos.
Maybe journalists should just ask the fair question. "Ok can you put numbers on that please and give references for those numbers. If they were really sharp they might point out; "So you are arguing then that a colder global climate would produce fewer extreme weather events?
At some point the bunnies have to ask not if the dice are loaded, but if the 44 Magnum is. MT said this in a nicer way,
--------------------------
Are the current events in Russia "because of" "global warming"? To put the question in slightly more formal terms, are we now looking at something that is no longer a "loading the dice" situation but is a "this would, practically certainly, not have happened without human interference" situation?
Can we phrase it more formally? "Is the average time between persistent anomalies on this scale anywhere on earth in the undisturbed holocene climate much greater than a human lifetime?" In other words, is this so weird we would NEVER expect to see it at all?
-----------------
Eli knows what you’re thinking Roger, “Is climate change really having a nasty effect?” Well, to tell you the truth, in all this excitement the bunny kind of lost track himself. But being greenhouse gases are the most powerful forcing we know, and the best science predicts disaster ahead, you’ve got to ask yourself one question: Do I feel lucky? Well, do ya, Roger?
I think I am correct in saying that the IPCC projected scenario for Pakistan was more intense and longer periods of drought.
As for Russia isn't it the case they were projected to see an increase in flooding.
If Pakistan was renamed Russia, and vice-versa, perhaps the warmists would have an arguement of sorts.
How come nobody was asking Eli's question during the summer of great tornadoes in the U.S.?
Our generation is exceptional, so our weather--sorry, climate--must be, too.
Roger, what percentage of unusual weather events would you attribute to improved measuring devices? And what percentage to more measuring devices in place? And what percentage to more rapid dissemination in the media?
-22-EliRabbet
You mean this? http://initforthegold.blogspot.com/2010/08/moscow-doesnt-believe-in-this.html
I find it hard to understand except one small piece at a time. But one, probably prejudiced and possibly completely wrong way of reading it, is: "Here's an interesting hypothesis and a way of testing it. We can pretend it's been tested and verified as correct, and then we can use the rhetoric inspired by that as an argument in favor of certain climate policies."
Can someone else (Roger?) read it and see if you can make sense of it?
Another excellent comment on this topic asks, "How perverse it is that potential deaths in the future get more money than real deaths now – a sad reflection on human priorities."
"The real news, therefore, is not of climate, but of human tragedy and suffering. That we can do something about, and a fraction of the billions spent on "climate change" would go a long way to reducing the impact."
http://eureferendum.blogspot.com/2010/08/perverse-set-of-priorities.html
Well, Tom and dag certainly feel lucky? Do you Roger:)?
MT is right, this sort of question is not easily answered in a frequentist frame.
"the best science predicts disaster ahead"
Well I know it's only meant to be cutesy but suppose the best science is still pretty bad with a rather large envelope of error on either side and suppose that disaster had not been predicted at all - only a very high temperature had been projected as one possible outlier scenario and that many scientists then assumed that may be a very bad thing because 6 degrees is the difference between the ice age and the present day. Not as pithy but more reflective of the state of the mainstream scientific opinion (something entirely different from "science").
Now suppose that a 1 to 2 degree increase might be good for us. Well it sure puts more water in the air that we can catch and put on our crops. Now you can tell me; 'but it's only 4%', and then think about that a while after you say it!
-8- Sharon
Firefighting capabilities are a good thing. Having been a volunteer fire chief, I am a big fan. I am also a big fan of fire prevention, a much more successful strategy in both the short and long terms. Reducing long-term fire risk by reducing long-term drought and heat wave incidents as part of a cogent pollution control strategy seems prudent. No false either/or choice here, and a lot of avoided adaptation expense as well. Typically those who argue against responding to human-induced climate change by emissions control cite the costs of the response, but not the costs of inaction. The adaptation costs are hard to estimate and can be debated, but the claimed costs of emissions reduction are more clear. In fact, no one knows what the cost of adaptation and suffering will actually be as we pollute the atmosphere and oceans. But since the highest cost will be paid by later generations, and in poorer countries, a common human response is to put it on their tab and enjoy the day.
-14- Roger
I have read some of your academic work, and will read more. I am reading your blog. My comment started with one brief request, and I will assume that sending me to read your body of work would constitute a reply, so I will ask for guidance within that framework:
Could you provide a citation for your estimate of the percentage chance that suffering due to the Russian heat wave and Pakistan flooding events have been exacerbated by human GHG emissions? I will go look it up right away.
Other than climate change, what is your number one reason to "put the world on a path to lower carbon emissions"?
-28-Sam
"Could you provide a citation for your estimate of the percentage chance that suffering due to the Russian heat wave and Pakistan flooding events have been exacerbated by human GHG emissions?"
Sorry, haven't gotten around to these two events yet;-) But if you search my publications for "floods" you'll find plenty. My new book has more. I haven't studied suffering due to heat waves, but others have such as Kalkstein and Changnon. Have a look.
There is no scientific basis for claiming that suffering in these events has been exacerbated by GHG emissions, other than in a general hand-waving sort of way. Let me put the point another way so as to be clear -- if the US passed climate legislation, or if the world suddenly reached an international agreement to reduce emissions, or even if we magically reduced GHG emissions to zero by tomorrow -- you wouldn't be able to identify the impacts of those actions in terms of "reduced suffering."
At the same time I think there are good reasons for reducing GHGs. And I also think we should distinguish bad arguments from good ones.
I address this to all thinking skeptics and consensus holders. When did we start talking about "Carbon" emmisions instead of CO2 emissions? It's a small thing perhaps, but given recent actions by the EPA (CO2 is a "pollutant") and the general lack of basic scientific literacy that is so prevalent these days, I worry that the message of both sides is being "polluted" even further. We are , in the words of (Star Trek reference ahead) V'ger "Carbon Units." "Life as we know it" (which some postulate may end if we keep emitting "carbon") is based on carbon chemistry. Words have meaning, and import. Careless use of language in this debate only contributes to greater noise, not resolution. Speaking of "Carbon Emissions" smacks of the change from "Global Warming" to "Climate Change." Is it merely a debating tactic, or a calculated strategy to classify almost everything that man touches, absorbs, secretes, emits or consumes
"pollution" in support of some geopolitical agenda. Yes, I know that carbon based fuels are the source of most human CO2 emissions, but Carbon by itself is no more a pollutant than chlorine when combined with sodium to make another of life's critical substances - salt. IN the one case, it's the combination that renders it harmless, in the other, it's the combination that supposedly causes the harm.
let's be precise, whatever point of view we bring to the table.
And another thing..
"Forcing" What an awkward term, especially since the accusation leveled against the consensus camp is that they are guilty of "forcing" their models to produce the results that they expect. Freudian slip? Whatever happened to "cause" as in "cause and effect?" What's wrong with "agent" or "driver" or even "variable." I guess I have a "needing" for some more 'learnings' before I am ready to participate in these "talkings" about all the "changings" that are going on around us.
-27- Sam,
I agree that preventing fire is a great thing (I grew up in Southern California, so I'm quite familiar with recurring wild fires). It seems like doing things such as preventing build up of fuel can have great impact.
So a fraction of the money could be spent doing things that have direct results in terms of fire prevention, instead of large quantities that will have an unknown effect, except for the opportunity cost.
For argument's sake, let's accept CAGW. Then we're in unprecedented tempteratures already. But there's no signal with respect to floods or hurricanes. I'm not aware of any similar signal regarding drought.
To put into Eli's terms, why worry about a gun that may or may not be loaded (and probably has blanks, anyways!) when someone else has a knife to your throat.
Am I feeling lucky? Since I realized that the "catastrophe" predicted by the IPCC is pretty far from apocalyptic, the answer is yes, pretty lucky. It's easy to miss, since many skeptics also assume that the IPCC is serving prophecies of doom.
dag, take a look at this chart (towards the bottom) from the AR4 and remember, that the IPCC is quite conservative in its estimates. Don't worry, be happy
EliRabett: ...not easily answered in a frequentist frame
Jules: In general, assessments of predictions based on today's climate models should use Bayesian methods, in which the inevitable subjective decisions are made explicit.
James: Although they now state that uniform priors are unacceptable, they don't actually go the whole hog and accept that subjective priors are unavoidable, but instead present another cook-book solution - the Jeffreys' prior!
I'll make a projection that we're being set up for a bit of appeal-to-authority dressed up as expert opinion-based priors.
Lower carbon emissions should never be made a goal for anything, as it indicates that the emissions are bad. They are plant food, do not acidify anything (chemically impossible except in distilled water), and are not air pollution.
The mantra should be to use our energy sources as appropriately and efficiently as we can, to make them last longer and do more. WInd power and solar energy are worthless in bulk (unreliable and no current useful form of energy storage), but not bad in helping take homes, individually and mostly, off the grid, freeing up 24/7 major power for industry.
Turn the focus to what is important and do not use a label which misdirects people. Decreasing carbon emissions for the sake of decreasing carbon emissions or a false global warming scam is simply wrong and wrong-minded.
Sam-
One of the ways to think about this is in terms of investment.
Do we want to invest in infrastructure that will prevent bad things from happening regardless of cause (AGW, or GW or not), and builds people's capacity to protect themselves from today's and tomorrow's problems (resilience) or do we invest in actions that decrease release of GHGs?
It would be nice to do both, but budgets are not infinite and the world is having economic problems. Then we have to consider other kinds of pollution with known current bad effects and how much funding we should put into trying to fix those causes of pollution compared to GHG's. I heard Billy Frank, Jr. of the Nisqually Tribe give a compelling speech at a meeting in Boulder (Planning for the Seventh Generation sponsored by UCAR) about how we are still polluting the waters and killing fish in Puget Sound but all researchers seem to focus on today is climate change.
Finally we have known compelling problems such as lack of access to food and water by the world's poor. For research or action, how much should we invest in each? GHG resilience vs. GHG mitigation, GHG pollution vs. other pollution, all pollution compared to ending hunger, ending hunger vs. medical care, and so on.
And should we invest in more research or more action or what percentage of each, for each of these important issues?
It's not just that something is good to fund, it has to be better than its competitors for the same funds.
My understanding is that policy should be insensitive to climate science: it should not respond to a world in which GHG accumulation cause extreme weather events such as these (or, by the same logic, make them more likely).
So why should our preferred policy response be informed by a purported *lack* of a link between these extreme weather events and GHG accumulations?
There is a awful lot of ink shed on this blog regarding matters which are presumably irrelevant.
-30- Roger
I appreciate the clarifying response - thanks much. You said:
"There is no scientific basis for claiming that suffering in these events has been exacerbated by GHG emissions, other than in a general hand-waving sort of way. Let me put the point another way so as to be clear -- if the US passed climate legislation, or if the world suddenly reached an international agreement to reduce emissions, or even if we magically reduced GHG emissions to zero by tomorrow -- you wouldn't be able to identify the impacts of those actions in terms of "reduced suffering.""
I will take the first line to mean that, as a scientist, you judge the probability that GHG emissions have exacerbated the suffering of Pakistanis and Muscovites in the current crises at nearly zero. While I do not hold a pedigree equivalent to yours as far as a graduate degree and a college professorship, in the fields of my expertise I would only judge violations of first physical laws to have probabilities that low. In other writings you give some lip service to the precautionary principles which are paramount in engineering (see design safety standards) and medicine (first, do no harm), but in defense of your position (no one can absolutely prove causality in weather events) there is no provision for uncertainty. That seems... unlikely to be accurate, or skilled.
I would estimate, in my hand-waving willingness to go out on a limb (naive prediction?), that the probability that GHG emissions exacerbated the suffering of the Pakistanis and Russians, at 15% to 25%. Not 'definitively caused', but 'exacerbated'. Even at one-tenth that, it would be time to take the problem seriously, for me. This does not even assess the increase of wheat prices due to the Russian drought, and the resulting impacts on the worlds' poor.
To give a sense of proportion: I do not think that all human suffering is related to GHG emissions. Tsunamis, earthquakes, volcanoes, asteroid strikes, food shortages, domestic violence, petty crime, and terrorist attacks all cause human suffering, and have no GHG emissions components. And weather is not climate. But to assign zero, or vanishingly small, probability to human GHG impacts on the planetary weather (aboveground and undersea) seems unlikely to withstand the unfolding events we are (and will be) witness to. And there will certainly be scientific assessments of the effects, and likely of the causes.
I appreciate that you value scientific integrity and the scientific method - that is valuable to me. I would further appreciate if the tone of your blog writings did not seem so insistent on minimizing the potential destabilization of the life-support systems for humans and other life forms on our terrestrial home from our ongoing and growing atmospheric emissions of GHGs. That is my engineer talking (cautious standards) as well as the EMT (administer care). I read plenty about this subject from all camps, and have seen some of the sharpest science minds in the country (not the usual suspects) warn about potential impending consequences. I only bother to engage in this forum with you as you seem to be open to an exchange of ideas - otherwise I would leave you to your papers, conferences, and adherents.
-39-ryates
Even if it's irrelevant to climate policy, it's not irrelevant to climate science policy. I prefer good climate science to bad climate science no matter what its policy implication.
-40- Sam,
Except that some food shortages certainly do have a GHG component. Climate/energy policy emphasizing ethanol lead to increased corn prices, which had significant impacts in developing economies.
In any case, all you're doing is the sort of hand waving that Roger was talking about. So, again, it comes down to spending money on stuff that you know will have an impact vs spending money on something that might have an impact, but no one knows how much or when it will hit.
And references here to "spending money" mean spending other people's money, not your own.
-40-Sam
If you substitute "God" for GHG emissions in your comment you have a form of Pascal's Wager.
Those policies that will be most effective in reducing the suffering of Pakistanis are completely insensitive to probability of God's wrath (or GHG emissions) in exacerbating human suffering in Pakistan. I think it to be important for people who are studying and reporting on the issue to make scientific claims that can be supported with scientific evidence -- not faith, hand-waving, guesswork or expediency.
We can certainly agree to disagree. Thanks.
-41-Roger
God's wrath is, by definition, beyond human influence. The rate of human emission of GHG's is not. Your analogy is fatally flawed simply with that distinction. As these emissions are our collective and individual responsibilities, assessing the probability of GHG emissions having an impact on human suffering is important. Making important decisions with imperfect information often requires some level of guesswork and expediency, if not faith or hand-waving.
I do indeed disagree with you that "policies that will be most effective in reducing the suffering of Pakistanis are completely insensitive to probability" of GHG emissions. You cannot know that with the certainty that you represent, and that is what I most deeply oppose in your rhetoric. To attempt to link this somehow to an analogy with the wrath of God is wildly unscientific itself, and a shallow debate tactic. With both your inference and your analogy, I will agree to disagree.
-41- Sam,
Those who believe in God's wrath probably wouldn't consider that to be beyond human influence. But there's not really much more evidence that human GHG emissions will cause CAGW (and in turn make more or worse floods in Pakistan) than that short skirts and makeup cause earthquakes.
You're preaching to the choir to Roger about decision making with imperfect information. However, what about other factors that go into the positive column, such as improved plant growth with higher CO2 levels? Or reduced deaths due to cold?
Since Pakistani floods have been going on for a long time, I suspect the sorts of policies Roger was talking about was improved infrastructure and emergency services. Those seem pretty likely to be insensitive to anything GHG related. Do you really think there's anything more effective to reducing that suffering in some sort of "climate" policy?
Roger's point with the "shallow debate tactic" (as I read it) was that your position was just as unsupported by science as Pascal's wager. I would argue that yours is less so, since there are potential positive consequences of more CO2 and warmer temperatures on Earth in addition to potential negatives.
-42-Matt
Interesting points. Nothing I advocated was in lieu of Pakistan increasing its flood control and emergency response infrastructure. Those are arguments posited by others to knock down, not my positions. Indeed, since Pakistan's contribution to the climate issues are quite small, I would advocate that the biggest contributors (the West, China) do their part to minimize the harm to the climate that could well contribute to more frequent severe weather events. Pakistan can then use its resources for caring for its people. 'And', not 'or'.
Regarding climate change, tinkering with a system we do not fully understand via uncontrolled inputs seems foolhardy. And I am not sure how ocean acidification attacking the bottom of the maritime food chain is going to do us a lot of good going forward, regardless of other 'benefits'.
I will hang a lot more of my credibility on the measurements of atmospheric GHG concentrations, ice sheet monitoring, and ocean chemistry than idle speculation about God's wrath, so I reject the assertion that my position is unsupported by science. It is just that the debate about how to proceed based on what we know currently and expect in the future has uncertainties greater than many scientists find comfortable. So be it - the decisions have to be taken, and I argue for responsibility for our pollution and best practices towards the environment.
Sam,
If we reduced GHG emissions to zero tomorrow morning at 9 it wouldn't make any difference for 100 years if ever. If the GHG theory is true, then it is the emissions of 50 or 100 years ago that are impacting us now.
On the other hand, if we dropped say $10 billion dollars on a 'global disaster relief' program, it would make a difference immediately.
Regardless of what mankind does, earthquakes and floods are going to continue to happen.
-44- Sam,
"I do indeed disagree with you that 'policies that will be most effective in reducing the suffering of Pakistanis are completely insensitive to probability' of GHG emissions."
Another way to look at this is through policy trade-offs. Pretend you have $100 (or $1, $1 million, or $1 billion it doesn't matter). How do you spend that money to relieve the suffering of Pakistanis due to flooding events?
Clearly, there is no "right" answer. However, I fail to see how reducing GHGs today will relieve the suffering of the 13 million people already affected by flooding in Pakistan? My 'hand-waving' analysis suggests that we if we want to reduce human suffering due to flooding events in Pakistan, we should be spending our resources/time on polices that immediately reduce the vulnerability of people to extreme flood events and creating meaningful emergency response to these disasters (e.g. medical care).
If we want to reduce suffering, let's do what actually helps people. If we want to reduce GHG emissions, let's justify it for the right reasons.
-44-Sam
Pat Robertson would disagree with you about the role of human agency in motivating God's wrath ;-)
-46-Sam
I agree with just about everything here. But surely the importance of climate change does not justify me making statements that are politically welcome but scientifically unsupportable, does it?
-46- Sam,
You said, "Nothing I advocated was in lieu of Pakistan increasing its flood control and emergency response infrastructure."
However, in -44-, you also said, "I do indeed disagree with you that 'policies that will be most effective in reducing the suffering of Pakistanis are completely insensitive to probability' of GHG emissions."
I suppose these do not technically contradict each other, but they imply that GHG reductions would be the most effective things on which to spend money. In a world of finite dollars, yuan, etc, I personally don't think that the level of certainty regarding the effect of GHG emission reductions have much of a claim on those dollars.
I am not sure that 'ocean acidification attacking the bottom of the maritime food chain' is terribly well supported, scientifically. There is evidence that shell producing critters do a lot better in a less basic environment with more carbon in the water.
The causal connection between significant temperature changes and CO2 is pretty much entirely based upon computer models that I believe have a long way to go before they can predict (or forecast, or whatever weasel word you may prefer) the effects of adding a little bit more of a trace gas to the atmosphere.
Reasonable people can disagree on this. So can people who comment on blogs. :)
-44- Sam,
You have to push your logic just a little further. If you believe that GHG is exacerbating the suffering and must be tackled, you will want to assign ressources to reduce them. But not knowing the real impact of GHG (15%-25% is just a guess), you cannot determine if other measurable actions would be better. What if investing in better fire fighting capacity today is more efficient in reducing suffering? You are pitting a hope of reduction against a measurable one.
-44- Sam,
You have to push your logic just a little further. If you believe that GHG is exacerbating the suffering and must be tackled, you will want to assign ressources to reduce them. But not knowing the real impact of GHG (15%-25% is just a guess), you cannot determine if other measurable actions would be better. What if investing in better fire fighting capacity today is more efficient in reducing suffering? You are pitting a hope of reduction against a measurable one.
Let's have some clarification. Wikipedia says: "Pascal's Wager (or Pascal's Gambit) is a suggestion posed by the French philosopher, mathematician and physicist Blaise Pascal that, even though the existence of God cannot be determined through reason, a person should wager as though God exists, because living life accordingly has everything to gain, and nothing to lose."
"God's wrath" in the this context would refer to hell, which in the relevant belief system is very much up to the individual human being. This is not science, but it's a fundamental philosophical point about uncertain knowledge. It's certainly not a "shallow debate tactic".
One of the problems with Pascal's Wager is how to decide which god(s) to follow, especially if different religions have conflicting demands on lifestyle. The analogous issue about climate change is this: If we assume that AGW is (potentially) a major threat to human well-being, how do we allocate resources between it and other such threats such as deadly pandemics and nuclear terrorism?
Minor correction: I see that according to Wikipedia, Pascal did not mention Hell. This makes no difference in principle, since Pascal was referring to an infinite gain or loss in the afterlife.
-35- EliRabett
As Roger has pointed out, those who claim that climate change will kill billions of people need to specify what those people are going to die from.
And yes, the IPCC is conservative--compared to the 17 per cent of climate scientists who find the IPCC too optimistic.
And--the proper form of the question you're asking is "do you feel lucky, PUNK?" ;-)
To catch up a bit, Wheels asked why emissions were measured in carbon and why forcing was used. Interesting questions and Eli don't oft say that.
Using carbon puts emissions of CO, CO2, CH4 and VOCs on a common bases. For the other organics, pretty much within five years they oxidized to CO2 anyhow, with the exceptions of CFCs and perfluorinated molecules.
In much the same vein forcing is a useful concept because it puts solar, greenhouse gases, aerosols and what not on a common basis. The usual term is top of the atmosphere forcing, e.g. the effect as measured above the atmosphere. There was quite a lively discussion about whether this was the most useful way of stating things, ~10 years ago, and indeed Roger Sr. was a big player in that and there was a National Academy report which said a) there are problems with using TOA forcing, but b) it is the simplest, and a very useful way of comparing the effectiveness of the various influences on radiative emission from the atmosphere.
Eli (#20),
"the best science predicts disaster ahead"
That 'science' is so pathetically incompetent that it is an insult to even call it science. When scientists never check, never calibrate, never site their instruments properly, it ain't science.
When they ignore the basic principles of forecasting, it ain't science.
When they refuse to employ the essence of the scientific method, refuse to share their data or code, and fail to replicate anyone else's work, it ain't science.
When they routinely butcher their statistics, it ain't science.
When they routinely butcher their computer code and database management and are revealed to be quality control incompetents, it ain't science.
When they specifically refuse to get expert help for their stats, and software, and forecasting, but insist on continuing their incompetent ways, it ain't science.
When they lie, slander, obstruct, interfere, strong arm, obfuscate, purposely exaggerate, and deliberately mislead, it ain't science.
When they do all of the foregoing, and demand that the world undergo draconian tax and regulatory policies based on their incompetent work, it ain't even MORAL.
If that's the "best" science, science is in a world of hurt. In any event, it sure isn't of sufficient quality for anyone to use in making policy.
There has been a depressing avalanche of similar garbage on the BBC, recently . If you accept the climate models, based on the fraudulent temperature data, then virtually any research will be funded, as long as it is negative.
It is also depressing that people can't see through this.
The twisted logic in this is is truly pathetic
Climate change 'will increase heart deaths'
Many more people will die of heart problems as global warming continues, experts are warning.
Climate extremes of hot and cold will become more common and this will puts strain on people's hearts, doctors say.
A study in the British Medical Journal found that each 1C temperature drop on a single day in the UK is linked to 200 extra heart attacks.
Heatwaves, meanwhile, increase heart deaths from other causes, as shown by the events in Paris during summer 2003.
Over 11,000 people died in France's heatwave in the first half of August of that year when temperatures rose to over 40C.
Many of these were sudden cardiac deaths related to heart conditions other than heart attack.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-10917611
The four horsemen ain't a bad start. You know, disease, famine, war and denial.
Sam,
You might want to study the history of floods in the India-Pakistan region before blaming CO2.
I bet you will find the usual suspects: over building, development that compromises river basin drainage, poor quality building, etc. as far more imporant than what the ppm of CO2 is in terms of the suffering and destruction.
If a fraction of what has been spent over the last 20 years on CO2 had been spent on improving building codes and developmental best practices, this flood event, which is not an unknown level of flooding in the region, would likely not be as terrible as it is.
On talking about war: there were 12600 violent deaths in 2009 in Pakistan; 3000 in terrorist attacks alone. Similar expected this year.
Those suffering from a sudden blast of conscience could always use the well-tested ACME conscience soap and assume all these people were either terrorists, harbouring terrorists or unfortunate collateral damage.
Or you might suddenly get a road to Damascus moment and realize that the real problem is poverty so the solution is therefore poverty reduction and GDP and fossil fuel use just happen to correlate very well.
Ah the moral dilemmas abound but happily we all have the facility to believe exactly what we want to and disregard everything that doesn't fit the dogma. This is how you can have an easy life by using so much fossil fuel while other have none and yet somehow still blame nasty energy and car companies for being pushers and forcing you to do it: The number one US electoral obsession for years for the left and right has been the oil price. And of course people who don't use a different brand of conscience soap are either evil industry-fed deniers or naive, socialist control freaks.
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