There is no hoax, it is indeed real;-)

http://www.wmo.ch/web/arep/arep-home.html

As I understand it, the WMO has a press release written but not approved. In any case the consensus statement is written and released.

Thanks!

Being a skeptic, I note that your original article at the top says the WMO has allegedly released a statement, but you link to the home page of the Instituto Meteorologico Nacional, Costa Rica, which is in Spanish (I guess).

Additionally you say “the WMO has released a lengthy statement co-authored by the WMO Tropical Meteorology Research Programme Committee” but link to a pdf file on you web site.

I went to the WMO web page but could find no reference to this “consensus statement”.

What is going on?

I am not trying to excuse or look past exaggeration, obfuscation, demonization and manipulation, but to understand the reasons for it.

Climate change is essentially a struggle over the use of open-access resources. Effective regulation was perceived as needed over 30 years ago (take a look at Nordhaus’s papers), but policy has been held up over prisoners’ dilemma bargaining problems (the basic need for unanimity of agreement/compliance) and by rent-seeking within each country. Which group has been most effective – those favoring meaningful action, or those blocking it?

And as action is delayed and as emissions/concentrations of GHGs increase and thus the degree of inescapable warming, how do you expect those who are frustrated by lack of action to best have their voices heard? Do you really not expect more heated rhetoric? You seem worried a bout a raod to serfdom/despootism, but isn’t what we really have more like a range war?

Action to form meaningful institutions to regulate open-access resources increases as the perceived costs of inaction grow. That is precisely what is happening with respect to climate change. And instititions are constituted not merely by laws, but by social pressure and other informal measures as well. There is a very strong and informal system in place for enforcing extra-legal “rights” in the New England lobster fishery, that may very much include damage to property, physical threats and harsh words, and a similar phenomenon occurred when ranchers closed the Western ranges to newcomers.

You are right of course that adaptation makes great sense as a policy, but you forget two big aspects. First, in the developed world, by far most adaptation will occur in the private economy and will not require government action. Second, adaptation in the poor and developing parts of the world is most urgent, and these countries have the least ability to adapt. Given the institutional failures that are the cuase of these nation’s poverty, adaptation will require significant investments by the developed world. Who is going to provide that funding and how will they persuade their citizens to fund it?

The funding and coordination of that work faces the very same prisoners’ dilemma issues as does the coordination of mitigation on a worldwide level. Those who are fighting mitigation should be fighting FOR adaptation; instead, by doing their best to torpedo coordination on mitigation they are in fact also hindering the likelhood that effective programs will be established to help the developing nations adapt to climate change.

Is this what you advocate?

I whole heartily agree that no one side has a monopoly on exaggeration, obfuscation, demonization and manipulation, but that is no reason to excuse it or believe that we can look past it. The two sides do not cancel each other out.

The question really is which side has the potential to do the most harm if their tactics are affective?

Let’s take a look at the issue of tropical cyclones and climate change as an example. Suppose a certain group of individuals can convince the public (using a version of the 5 steps) that hurricanes will be much worse in the future due to global warming, and that we must reduce our emissions of CO2 immediately to prevent these costly disasters. If they are correct about hurricanes, the reduction of CO2 emissions will still have a relatively insignificant impact on overall hurricane damage.

Now suppose another group of individuals can manipulate the population (using a version of the 5 steps) that climate change will have absolutely no effect on tropical cyclones and say we should spend resources on building better buildings and smarter developments? Even if they turn out to be totally wrong about climate change, their recommendation will result in a much more efficient use of limited resources and lead to a better prepared society.

While using the 5 steps should never be tolerated, it is logical to be more vigilant with those who have the potential to do the most harm.

I think we agree on a lot, I just don’t think we can begin to address the problems of the commons effectively until we confirm that our policy development is being driven by the facts, and not a cultural movement ginned up by the same 5 steps that generally lead to despotism.

Prometheus is one of the few sources of information that I have found that is promoting effective policy by being the antithesis of the 5 steps. That doesn’t mean that I always agree with Roger, but he avoids exaggeration, demonization and myopic views of potential solutions, thus providing a good example for the rest of us.

Nowhere is this more evident than on his presentation of the tropical cyclone/global warming debate.

Sorry, for my use of “bloviating”; I just wanted to point out the parallel between your own fevered rhetoric and that you were condemning from the enviros.

The five-step analysis is very interesting, and I think increasingly relevant in today’s world, where growing complexity in the face of limited time and understanding makes us all more susceptible to manipulation – but this does not cut in only one direction. Think, for example, about how the Bush administration sold the invasion of Iraq and the Global War on Terror. Even on climate change, I think it easy to demonstrate that there has been a deliberate effort to manipulate public opinion in favor of “skepticism” and to paint enviros/leftists as the enemy of mankind or as seeking to destroy the US economy.

What I think much more useful is consideration of environmental problems as either or both problems relating to (1) open-access resources, which no one owns and so consequently near-unanimity of agreement is needed for effective policy, and which agreement has a social, peer-pressure aspect in addition to a legal aspect, and (2) resources controlled by government, which are subject to rent-seeking by interest groups, which frequently engage in PR battles/demonization of the type you describe. Both together are a recipe for inaction.

On the background of human cognition, we can understand why people frequently take sides, criticize fence-sitters and dismiss the arguments of perceived opponents. Such an easy evil, and on top of the difficulties posed by tragedy of the commons-type problems.

Roger, forgive me for being off-topic, but I felt a need to get back to Jim, and the discussion is still relevant to our broader issues.

How does this apply in the case of the WMO statements, which indicate a consensus that there will be an “increase in tropical cyclone peak wind-speed and rainfall … if the climate continues to warm” and that “some increase in tropical cyclone intensity will occur if the climate continues to warm”?

So if environmental reporters are largely conveniently ignoring the views of the majority while habitually hyping the claims of the minority, are you suggesting they will ignore the consensus outlined in the previous paragraph, while hyping those who say there are and will be no human fingerprints on hurricane intensity?

Given the uncertainties prevailing in most sciences, betting on anything that is uncertain is just an act of faith, not science. A leap into the abyss hoping we have not fogotten our parachute.

Is this statement really accurate: “there is evidence both for and against the existence of a detectable anthropogenic signal in the tropical cyclone climate record to date”?

Is absence of evidence the same as evidence of absence, or is there really evidence against the existence of a detectable anthropogenic signal in the tropical cyclone climate record?