| Sunday,
January 12, 2oo2 I
have other exchanges of views on The Skeptical Environmentalist.
Many amount to discussions of the ethics or
backgrounds of the participants, without one word of the actual science;
mutual accusations; people who have not read the book, but are sure they
are promoting "debate". It seems rather odd.
Hi Jerry,
>I hadn't noticed any foam about
the lips, and the "refutations" of Lomborg seem curiously empty
of actual data.
I guess it's a matter of perception. My perception
was that there was a very emotional backlash ON BOTH SIDES and so my
natural tendency is to look at who is saying what and where they come
from. That is to say, if I can't make out who is right, I *CAN* make out
who is saying what, and ask myself, "How do they benefit?" A
cynical response, I agree, but can you suggest anything better for someone
who has a life to live and not a lot of time to research something like
this?
And what I come up with is that the people who
support Lomborg (aside from the fanatics) appear to be people allied with
the energy industry, or with some other similar fish to fry (eg. people
who are more concerned about making their money while they can, than about
the general welfare); the people who oppose him appear (again aside from
the fanatics) to be mostly scientists who (aside from having grants in the
balance, if what you say below is true) cannot benefit in any perceptible
fashion from favouring one conclusion over the other; but being the people
most intimate with their data, may be presumed to know its limitations and
be the best people to judge it.
>The facts of the matter are that
computer models predict one thing, but they haven't accounted for the
past; while actual data and trends seem somewhat different from the
picture you'd get if you read all the catastrophe alarms.
Well, as you have said, the computer models are
inadequate and do not account for actual observations. However, given that
weather is a chaotic system, I don't see how we are going to be very
successful in modeling it except in a very coarse grained fashion (ie.
long time scales and ignoring small details.) The actual data appears to
confirm global warming, though as you have said it does not confirm that
it's human caused.
The question becomes, then, is there enough
information to suggest there is a real risk? A chaotic weather system
could easily be tipped over into greenhouse runaway, or so I'm led to
believe; such a danger is one that is very much worth avoiding in my
opinion, though I'm not qualified to judge its actual numerical
likelihood.
>I presume you have read
Lomborg's book? It's curious how many denounce it without having read it.
I shamefacedly confess I have not. No time to read
it, no money to buy it; am judging it from third hand from many other
peoples' reactions to it and quotations from it. Thus, I am eminently
unqualified to denounce it, and admit as much. Sigh. My only qualification
is as someone who's read as much on both sides as he had time for.
>As to Scientific American, not
allowing Lomborg to reply in the issue which was put together to attack
him, and threatening to sue him for putting up what was said along with
his reply on his web site, do not seem to be absolute models of scientific
fairness and regard for the truth.
Yikes. This is the first I've heard of this. If
that's what happened, and your information is better than mine, I'm
**extremely** disappointed. I know you've put down S.A. many a time, but
as it is one of my few lifelines to the scientific world, I was skeptical.
If the above has occurred, I can only clasp my brow in agony and wonder
WHERE can I get real information in this world, in the little time I have
to obtain it?
>The matter of environmental
health is important; it is not served by partisan tactics of that sort.
Agreed - of any sort....
>Of course there are many grants
at stake here.
I can only say again, if your information is better
than mine...
Thanks once more for a reasoned response to a letter
I regretted sending as soon as I hit SEND!
-P.Mihok
>If you think there is less dependency on
grants by scientists than there is on energy by industrial society I have
bridge for sale.
True, but are those grants really dependent on the
existence/support of a theory of global warming that blames humans for it?
I was just thinking about it some more and my
opinion is now that the debate is the most important thing; it's essential
that the debate continue, because both sides have very valid questions to
ask.
And I also became skeptical about the notion that
runaway greenhouse warming might in fact occur. As I have written
elsewhere,
"And I also realized that there's one big
argument AGAINST the danger of global warming: there is no precedent for
it. The theory that we might be heading towards a runaway greenhouse
effect (becoming like Venus in the end) seems pretty specious when you
think about it. After all, even though the weather on Earth is chaotic and
can tip one way or another, a chaotic system often has one or two
"attractors" or semi stable areas where it can spend most of its
time. And based upon Earth's climate history, our "attractors"
are the current status quo and the ice age."
Now, there is ALSO no precedent for the amount of
CO2 and other greenhouse gases being dumped into the atmosphere by human
activity, along with deforestation and so on, so pursuit of the true
answer is absolutely essential...
P.Mihok
First, the CO2 levels are not likely to be as
large a driving force as was originally feared, but no one can be sure where they will drive us in any
event. Warmer climates in the higher latitudes plus more CO2 can result in
longer growing seasons and a great deal more food, as well as lower fuel
costs. Moreover, as I have noted many times, the Earth has been both
warmer and cooler than it is now, and this in historical times. Few of the
theories that predict disaster take account of this. Second, the best data
don't actually indicate warming trends of the kind postulated. They keep
looking for them and periodically "discovering" the trends, but
then the excitement dies out. The Earth is nothing like as much warmer as
the catastrophe models predict.
But mostly, spending money on the silly remedies
proposed before we understand the problem is what is really driving the
argument. The people who want to spend the money have an agenda. The real
scientists don't have one: they just want to understand.
Now I have a remedy: let us develop space
industries, including solar power satellites, and get much of the power
generation off the Earth and out of the equation. Then if it turns out
that there is a real warming trend we have ways to adjust for it, and
meanwhile we will have the energy resources to help the undeveloped lands
build an industrial civilization without burning so many fossil
fuels.
Oil is a valuable resource: too valuable just to
put a match to it. It's better used as chemical feed stock. Cheap electric
power would let us burn less oil in internal combustion engines as we
develop fuel cell powered vehicles. We'll still need fossil fuels, but not
as much.
Dear Dr. Pournelle,
I should acknowledge first that I am what most would
describe as an environmentalist. I am also someone who believes that the
most honorable (and effective) method of changing the world is by
demonstrating myself the viability of a thing. Coercion, whether by force
of arms, taxation, or by telling others they should do something I myself
do not do, does not seem like a legitimate tool to further my vision of
the world.
The storm of opinion surrounding Dr. Lomberg is
certainly hot tempered. Because I haven't seen many environmentalists say
so, I'd like to say I think Scientific American's treatment of Lomberg was
very sketchy, I might go so far as to say deplorable. Either Lomberg's
book is serious scholarship, or it isn't. The SciAm editors seem to have
decided it isn't. Thus it's pretty odd that they chose to spend so much
space attacking his book. A one page editorial I could understand.
SciAm's editors weren't just rebutting his work,
they were arguing his book was not reputable science, and thus wouldn't
meet their criteria for publishing him. It seems absurd to me that they
printed so many pages just to argue that Lomberg didn't practice good
science, it certainly damaged their credibility.
Saying that SciAm blundered does not validate
Lomberg's scholarship. It just muddies the waters. I'm not sure printing
Lomberg's response would've salvaged their credibility.
On to Lomberg's actual book. I haven't read it. My
understanding is that it aims at being three things, 1) a review of the
current scientific literature on the cost/benefit of various environmental
remedies, 2) an analysis of the coverage given to environmental issues by
activist organizations and the popular press, and 3) A comparison of 1)
and 2).
Having read the initial criticism from SciAm, and
Lomberg's response on his website, my synopsis of the main thrust is that
critics think Lomberg's literature review was poor. A literature review is
supposed to highlight the major theories that currently hold currency.
Lomberg apparently didn't do a very even handed job of this. Lomberg's
retort amounts to, "Many scientists agree with my review of the
literature". Knowing exactly who agrees with your analysis doesn't
really seem to address the point of the criticism. Accurate data is good,
but a scholarly literature review shouldn't just summarize some of the
data available then give a non-expert analysis of this data.
The criticisms of the book from SciAm certainly
don't come off as scholastic, they don't make references to papers when
rebutting Lomberg, much of the criticism amounts to argument from
authority, mixed in with personal attacks and shrill jabs about irrelevant
omissions in the book.
All in all, as social commentary, I think Lomberg's
dead on that many environmental organizations play fast and loose with the
truth, and the media tends to give coverage to sensational doom and gloom
messages. I hope environmentalists who care about science at least agree
with this part of the analysis. I certainly find ridiculous press releases
from environmental organizations to be counter-productive to most
environmental goals.
I'm not convinced that the book is much use as a
primer on current thinking in the scientific community on environmental
issues. However, I don't know that anyone is suggesting it should be used
in that fashion, so I wish scientists would spend more time engaging
Lomberg in constructive dialog. Well referenced and civil criticisms would
be a good place to start.
Sincerely, Jeffrey Harris
P.S. To SciAm's credit, they did ultimately post a
civil and better argued criticism of Lomberg's book on their website,
here
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articleID
=00040A72-A95C-1CDA-
B4A8809EC588EEDF&pageNumber=1&catID=9
Are you seriously saying that this is a civil
discussion of Lomborg's arguments?
As to his review of the literature: First, the
"environmentalists" talk out of both sides of their mouths.
Hanson goes to Congress and rolls huge red dice. The talk about ozone
holes becomes shrill. There is everywhere you look stories of how
"scientists claim" everything up to the sky is falling. When
they are charged with saying these things and the claims refuted, they say
"But we didn't really say all that! Not as scientists! We
publish science in science journals. All that shouting and hysteria was
just us being citizens, not scientists!" Although in fact they went
to Congress in hysteria mode and still do, and their grants largely depend
on public hysteria.
Not long ago the terror was THE COMING ICE AGE. I
recall that well. Leading "environmental scientists" were
talking about "The Genesis Strategy" in which we ought to be
saving food for the coming bad years, etc. It was an entirely different
disaster they wanted us to spend a lot of money on -- much of which they
would be able to control. Now it's a different kind of disaster and they
want the money quick for a new agenda. As well as for tickets to all those
international conferences in Kyoto and Rio de Janeiro.
If you think Rennie's self serving editorial is
good science I have a bridge for sale. Rennie never addresses the hysteria
that motivated Lomborg in the first place, and spends most of his time
playing with minor points such as forestation and the difference between
the way the FAO views the situation from how Rennie wants it viewed.
What is really upsetting, though, is that Rennie
pretends that there is scientific unanimity among
"environmentalists" when in fact there is not. People with every
whit as good a credential as Stephen Schneider do not agree with the
"consensus" about what is happening. The fact is that the
modelers are alarmed, because their models show coming disasters; and the
people who deal with data are not finding confirmation of those
trends.
The truth is that NO ONE CAN BE SURE what is
happening with the climate. It is certain that the rising CO2 levels will
have an effect. It is not certain whether that effect will be large in
comparison to natural trends and forces that we do not understand. We also
have no real idea of what the CO2 effect will be: there is at least as
good an argument that it will be beneficial as that it will be a disaster.
Do understand: I am not all that happy about running an uncontrolled
experiment of increasing CO2 to very high levels; but I also understand
the enormous costs of doing something about it. Before we spend that kind
of money we might want to see if it's necessary.
And I am certainly not arguing for cutting the
budgets for real environmental science. It's premature translation of
theory into policy that I deplore.
It is absolutely certain that variations in the
Solar Constant can have far far larger effects than all our industries put
together -- and we know very little about solar variability, and a lot of
the funds that ought to go to studying it have been drained off to hold
big conferences on what to do about CO2.
It is absolutely certain that people will not
voluntarily impoverish themselves in order to restore the earth to some
pristine condition arbitrarily determined as more desirable than what we
have now. If we want to "clean up the Earth" we will need lots
of cheap energy, and lots of cheap resources; we'll have to buy our way to
much of this.
I do not take Lomborg's book as gospel. It was a
pretty good effort to get scientists to stop yammering in public about
disaster and be more careful to be scientific. If the scientists didn't
mean for their public policy statements to be challenged, why did they
make them? Or is everyone going to pretend that there wasn't the hysteria
that impelled Lomborg to do his investigation in the first place?
Scientific American acted shamefully on the
question of Strategic Defense, shamefully on the question of the
environment, and this current attempt to sound a bit less shrill is not
convincing to me.
Note that Rennie denigrates an article in
Science, a far more "scientific" publication than Scientific
American ever pretended to be, as "done by the news staff".
Scientific American has not in the past hesitated to use news articles in
support of its positions, particularly regarding Strategic Defense, and
Nuclear Winter, both of those being subjects I was involved in at the
time. And in reading Rennie I am still looking for a scientific argument
about the validity of the predictions and projections he takes for
granted.
Regarding whether or not Lomborg's review of the
literature is adequate: surely the best way to argue here is to show what
significant publications he overlooked and demonstrate why they are so
significant?
But really, the discussion should not be about
Lomborg at all. It ought to be about where we should be spending our money
on environmental matters: on remedies, or on better understanding of what
it is we need to remedy? And I contend that since we aren't certain
whether we are headed for an Ice Age or a warmup with rising seas, perhaps
we ought to find that out before we spend all the money? Particularly
since the proposed remedies are extremely expensive?
And then:
Jerry P:
I found this which supports one of my contentions
that CO2 is not the major cause of a greenhouse effect, assuming that
there is one. I do not know the author or his qualifications. However, I
do know something about the topic and the tendency of government supported
scientists to make statements which support the government's current
position, whether or not the statement should be made at that time. That
is at some point, you should shut up until you can make a definite
statement, but if you do you will not get funding, so you make a statement
which does allow you to keep up your research. This is the link:
http://www.clearlight.com/~mhieb/
WVFossils/greenhouse_data.html
Charles Simkins
Yes: the site emphasizes that water vapor is more
of a greenhouse gas than CO2, which is not usually mentioned in these
discussions.
Continued next
week...
Now for another crisis:
Dear Dr. Pournelle,
Dallas/ Fort Worth had a security breach earlier
this week. A man had his hand baggage checked twice. After being cleared a
second time, he picked up the bag and left. Then the explosive detecton
alarm went off. The security guard could not locate the man, and set off
another alarm indicating an uncleared passenger had bypassed security.
The incident was in an American Airlines terminal
There are three of these at DFW, all connected by internal passageways.
Air Transport Security emptied all three while they searched for the man
with the bag. Television reporters from several local stations interviewed
anyone they could buttonhole, including the head of DFW ATS. By sheer good
luck, weather was excellent.
For about two hours all passengers were kept outside
the terminals. No aircraft could take off. Incoming aircraft lined up on
taxiways to await open gates, which were filled with aircraft that could
not depart. An airline employee told a reporter that the airplane
passengers were decidedly inconvenienced, and that water and toilets would
both be unavailable shortly.
The head of ATS finally allowed things to start up
again. They had not found the man with the bag, but did find that he was
probably unaware that he had set off an alarm. He just picked up his bag
from the detector exit shelf, then left to catch his plane before the
alarm sounded. However, there were several security cameras monitoring the
area, and the tapes would be checked to determine the identity of the man,
and what went wrong.
These are enough consequences for one mishap, but
more followed. The nest day the television news reported that the security
cameras in the area had not been loaded, and there was no camera record of
the incident available for review. ATS still wanted to interview the man
with the bag, not yet found. No mention was made of what happened, if
anything, to the guard in question or the various levels of ATS
supervisors involved.
I will not comment on passenger security. I couldn't
do better commentary than the ATS actions if I tried.
regards,
William L. Jones wljones@dallas.net
Don't we all feel safer now?
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