It’s the denial that there is any problem to mitigate that is the barrier to politcal attention being focussed on the need to adapt – both at home and abroad – not the focus on mitigation itself.

I suppose that Gore feels that from many, the call for adaptation is a canard, but I personally feel that his argument would be stronger if he’d say that AGW is such a serious problem and the change takes such long lead times that a fair degree of climate change is now inevitable, so we will also start to have to adapt, even as we try to implement mitigatation policies that will shift consumption and investment policies towards carbon-lite technologies and practices.

“My point is that any person or group that can ignore enough reality to accept the largely faith based theory of AGW, can also ignore the fact that adaptation to climate change is a far superior policy to CO2 mitigation. There is little point in arguing the finer details when the real disagreement lies in the most basic assumptions of AGW theory.”

Hmm – Roger here seems to have swallowed the “largely faith based theory of AGW”, yet is still strongly in favor of adaptation. I’m not sure what policies his father favors, but he also certainly seems to have swallowed the KoolAid, as he sees a number of human forcings, including CO2.

Of course, if you’re of the view that man has no discernable impact on climate, then what adaptation policy can you possible favor, other than to have governments everywhere do nothing, and leave all “adaptations” to private economic actors? Would you still be interested in an international effort to improve governance in third world on its own merits, assuming there is no AGW to prick our consciences?

I was interested in your comments about DDT so I checked Wikipedia and I find

“DDT has never been banned for use against Malaria in the tropics.

“El Salvador actually saw its cases of malaria increase during years of high DDT usage.

“As of 2006, DDT continues to be used in other (primarily tropical) countries where mosquito-borne malaria and typhus are serious health problems. Use of DDT in public health to control mosquitoes is primarily done inside buildings and through inclusion in household products and selective spraying; this greatly reduces environmental damage compared to the earlier widespread use of DDT in agriculture.

“In September 2006, almost 30 years after it phased out widespread indoor spraying of DDT, the World Health Organization has announced that DDT will be used as one of the three main tools against malaria.”

The article is quite long and your broad brush comment about DDT glosses over the fact that EPA ban under William Ruckelhouse applied only to the US and that at first he actually rejected the order to ban DDT. One might wonder what the pressures were, but could it be the fact that DDT is in the public domain might well have had something to do with it?

Today, the same process is occurring in climate change science. The basic assumption is that CO2 is the primary driver of global temperature change. The problem is that the climate is behaving in ways that don’t exactly fit the theory. Problems like global cooling as CO2 concentrations increase faster than ever, step changes in warming and cooling instead of a steady rise, large and unpredicted changes in oceanic heat content, Antarctic cooling when it should be warming faster than anywhere and most of all, an historically variable global climate when CO2 was stable!

For every item that doesn’t fit the theory, supporters have come up with ingenious ‘epicycles’ to explain what is happening. These ‘fixes’ are so complex, that it is as difficult to argue for or against them. There simply isn’t enough data to tell one way or the other. The one exception to the ‘fix’ strategy is historical climate. To get around this, they just decided to rewrite history!

The AGW theory is a series of assumptions built specifically to maintain the validity of the initial assumption. It is ‘faith-based’.

On the other hand, a combination of solar activity (primarily, but not solely cosmic ray flux) and ocean cycles like the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, neatly explain most of the short and long term climate change that we have observed. Furthermore, these factors do a much better job at explaining the observed regional patterns as well! It is interesting that these climate regulators are virtually ignored by the IPCC!

My point is that any person or group that can ignore enough reality to accept the largely faith based theory of AGW, can also ignore the fact that adaptation to climate change is a far superior policy to CO2 mitigation. There is little point in arguing the finer details when the real disagreement lies in the most basic assumptions of AGW theory.

Re your comment “I’d be all for bringing “clean water and sanitation to the Third World” regardless of global warming, but that is beside the issue of climate change”

You don’t see how that statement is wrong? Do you think we *can* stop using fossil fuels *and* bring clean water and sanitation to the third world? Have you ever been there?

But, it was Jim who brought it up, and he’s absolutely right.

http://www.earthinstitute.columbia.edu/grocc/grocc4_statement.html

Number 5 out of 6.

Re consensus of scientists, the charge of the IPCC is to review peer reviewed literature in the area and try to come up with a consensus of what is out there. I won’t say they do a perfect job, I’m not sure any group really could. Part of the reason I visit this site is because Roger et al make some very valid points about problems with the process, and I do try to see diverse views on the issue. In terms of peer reviewed articles, my impression is that the IPCC review does not seem pretty much off the mark, and that’s where I’d place my bets.

BTW: I have also come across coherent arguments by Ph.D.s in biology pointing out gaps and weaknesses in the theory of evolution, and therefore favor teaching creationism/intelligent design. Nevertheless, I’d have to say that this is another case where my bets would be with what most scientists and literature in the area suggest with regard to that controversy.

Anyway…

Dan,

You asked for examples of self-interested individuals doing great things for society and altruistic individuals causing more harm than good. At one time, most of the people in the US fell into the former category! Perhaps they still do. Anyone who works hard to pay the bills and raise a family, falls into this category. From Bill Gates to the guy changing your oil…all form a great web of wealth creation that benefits all and even makes altruistic endeavors possible! I bet all who are reading this need look no further than your own parents or even yourselves to find individuals who have contributed to the well-being of society while pursuing their own self-interest.

Unfortunately, there is also no shortage of the second group. We will assume for this discussion that these individuals are truly as altruistic as they paint themselves to be. The classic example is Typhoid Mary, spreading the deadly disease while trying to offer aid and comfort. Even more deadly is William Ruckelhouse, who ignored all the scientific evidence and banned the use of DDT. He was not alone in this, but he is at least partially responsible for the deaths of tens of millions of people in the Third World. Then there are the men in the Johnson Era who designed the War on Poverty. Talk about mismanagement of a war! Trillions spent, no objectives achieved and the inadvertent creation of a violent under-class in US urban centers, plus the near destruction of the black family in America!

Was there ever a dumber idea than giant, concrete urban housing projects for the poor? I hope not!

Add George W. Bush to the list for his over reaction to terrorism (for all you liberals).

mb,

Adapting to climate change is much the same as adapting to extreme weather events. The uncertainties and risks of failure are negligible compared to any attempt to control climate change, which will likely be impossible for a long time to come. Even if we could keep the Earth’s temperature at some arbitrary stable number, adaptation to extreme weather events will still be required. For example, the recently adopted Florida Building Code will reduce hurricane damage in Florida far more than if we could magically return atmospheric CO2 to 280 ppm tomorrow! Bringing clean water and sanitation to the Third World would have an exponentially higher return at preventing the spread of disease than stopping the temperature from warming a degree or two!

Not only is adaptation far more likely to produce immediate and highly beneficial results, it is considerably less expensive!

While it sounds harsh, cultures that do not adapt to changing conditions, die. This is true for all cultures at all times. Cultures that refuse to or can not adapt to change, pass away. If Tuvala keeps pumping water from the ground and using beach sand for construction, the island will likely disappear regardless of sea level rise, which, by the way, has been rising since the peak of the last ice age. Stable CO2 will not stop the oceans from rising. Only the onset of the next ice age will do that!

In your response to Tim Clear you used the expression “the consensus of most scientists…”. Since most scientists have never been asked their opinion, it remains unknown what ‘most scientists’ think. It is also irrelevant, for at one time or another, ‘most scientists’ have been wrong. Many scientists currently disagree that CO2 is the primary driver of climate change and they do so for very sound, scientific reasons. I do not know the exact percentage nor do I care. I read and understand the IPCC arguments, but I do not agree with many of their conclusions. Do you read and understand the arguments of those scientists who doubt CO2 is a great threat to the planet?

Finally, any warming, regardless of the cause, would produce the effects that Arrhenius described so long ago. Since the planet is always warming or cooling, and since he made those comments at the end of an unusually cold period, it would be bizarre if the things he described did not come to pass. Whether or not increasing CO2 is responsible for most of the warming is still not certain, despite what the IPCC says.

JJWFromMe,

I am not a libertarian and I am not sure why a desire for policies that actually produce desired results would indicate that I was. I would think that all political concerns would have a similar desire, but history indicates that my assumption may be wrong.

Tim Clear,

Thanks!

(Sorry to all for the lengthy post!)

What I want to know is how the response to increasing the lapse rate (increasing ghg’s)differs from just increasing the temperature of the troposphere (cloud and other albedo changes). The lapse rate is the wet adiabat – obvously convection must adjust to maintain that. That being the case, how can there be any rational correlation drawn between past warm periods and what may be coming up? How do models treat the difference?

• It is likely that increases in greenhouse gas concentrations alone would have caused more warming than
observed because volcanic and anthropogenic aerosols have offset some warming that would otherwise have taken place.
• The observed widespread warming of the atmosphere and ocean, together with ice mass loss, support the conclusion that it is extremely unlikely that global climate change of the past fifty years can be explained without external forcing, and very likely that it is not due to known natural causes alone.

Arrhenius pointed out some of the dynamics of how GHGs might affect the planet before the beginning of the last century. The climate, glacier and sea level changes that we are seeing now certainly do not contradict his work.