Comments on: Nonskeptical Heretics in the NYT

By: RickD

RickD — Tue, 09 Jan 2007 16:59:36 +0000

I do wish people would stop using the word “shrill”. It is an abusive word, meant to dismiss any criticism of the status quo as being solely derived from a high-pitched, hysterical woman. (And yes, sexist politics are at work here.) People worried about being viewed as “shrill” are showing themselves to be more concerned about whether their critics will like them than with whether their arguments have any merit to them.

By: Roger Pielke, Jr.

Roger Pielke, Jr. — Mon, 08 Jan 2007 16:31:37 +0000

Today’s NYT has a bunch of letter to the editor on Revkin’s article.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/08/opinion/l08warm.htm

Every single one of them conflates a scientific debate with a policy debate. Revkin’s article clearly did not make this distinction clear enough. Breaking out of the persistent assumption that debate over science equals debate over politics is going to take some work!

By: A Moir

A Moir — Fri, 05 Jan 2007 20:09:17 +0000

I have two concerns about this whole subject. The first is that none of the predictions which I have seen indicate that the present trends can be reversed in the foreseeable future(say 50-100yrs)by changing our lifestyle.
The second is that no-one appears to be looking to see how we can exploit the climate changes for our benefit. Some areas are going to be flooded or become arid, but others will become more productive. Let us concentrate on moving populations away from threats( higher levees just ensure bigger disasters when they break) and developing the potential of other areas.

By: Roger Pielke, Jr.

Roger Pielke, Jr. — Fri, 05 Jan 2007 12:39:16 +0000

Tom- Thanks. The quote of mine was a reference to the current approach under the FCCC is neither pragmatic or practical. My views on mitigation and adaptation are best described here:

Pielke, Jr., R.A., 2006. Statement to the Committee on Government Reform of the United States House of Representatives, Hearing on Climate Change: Understanding the Degree of the Problem, 20 July.
http://sciencepolicy.colorado.edu/admin/publication_files/resource-2466-2006.09.pdf

The papers cited there will describe the arguments in greater detail. And there are some new things in the pipeline as well. Stay tuned.

Thanks!

By: TokyoTom

TokyoTom — Fri, 05 Jan 2007 05:30:54 +0000

Roger, can you clarify your own response to the question you pose: “We do have a problem, we do need to act, but what actions are practical and pragmatic?”

We can expect that wealthy societies will adapt to changes in climate, without particular governmental initiatives. Does this nevertheless remain your main focus, or do you also favor any mitigation policy – either directed towards controlling CO2 equivalents, or at some technological approaches aimed at balancing the effects of GHG levels?

Any what approaches do you advocate and consider “practical” internationally? Any mitigation policies? Funding by wealthy nations of adaptation by poorer countries?

Rgeards.

By: Patrick Tehan

Patrick Tehan — Thu, 04 Jan 2007 23:06:54 +0000

This paragraph really bothers me:

“They agree that accumulating carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping smokestack and tailpipe gases probably pose a momentous environmental challenge, but say the appropriate response is more akin to buying fire insurance and installing sprinklers and new wiring in an old, irreplaceable house (the home planet) than to fighting a fire already raging.”

The comparison to a raging fire is terrible intended to make the advocates of insuring and adapting to risks look foolish. If your house is a raging inferno, of course you don’t go running around looking to insure it.

Comparing global warming to an already raging fire dismisses preventative engineering solutions.

By: Steve Sadlov

Steve Sadlov — Wed, 03 Jan 2007 16:59:41 +0000

RE: reputed conflation of environmentalism with so called “climate science.” It has been my finding that there is a self identifying (possibly, numerical minority) subculture within the overall “climate science” group who have stepped right into that morass. Take for example some bloggers who will not be specifically named here, who essentially run a “climate science” blog which is fairly obviously positioning itself to appeal to environmentalists, the political left, Europeans who think Americans are wasteful (and the American subculture who agree with that) as well as the vast amorphous group who hate the current US adminstration.

Now, in response to that, I could be a reactionary and set up my own blog, and recruit my own cadre of “climate scientists” and appeal to Right wingers, aging excutives running long existing (and slowly dying) energy companies, American nationalists, etc.

Why must the third way stir the ire of the Greens? After all, if the goal is truly one of environmental awareness and more ecologically attuned living, why not lend support to those who simply want to use pure science to assess, rank, and allocate effort to environmental issues based on their actual risks and impacts? What could be so threatening about that? Sounds like a win – win scenario to me.

By: Benny Peiser

Benny Peiser — Wed, 03 Jan 2007 15:20:48 +0000

As an antidote to the recent feature on NSH, here are three pub quiz questions:

How many years can prophets of doom reiterate that “in 10 years time it will be too late to reverse the effects of global warming” – before they might be compared to Millerites?

In what year was this doomsday calculation first published?

What are the likely reactions to a failure of doomsday to materialise in the next decade?

10 YEARS TO SAVE PLANET
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/tm_headline=10-years-to-save-planet-&method=full&objectid=18364474&siteid=94762-name_page.html

IN 10 years time it will be too late to reverse the effects of global warming, a climate change expert warned yesterday. Scientist Jim Hansen – one of the first to start alarm bells ringing in 1988 – said that unless cuts in pollution started happening within the next decade we would reach the “tipping point” where the damage could not be undone…..

By: Roger Pielke, Jr.

Roger Pielke, Jr. — Wed, 03 Jan 2007 02:22:45 +0000

Pete- Thanks for your comment, as I replied to a similar comment earlier:

1My original formulation was “non-skeptic heretic” with “skeptic” as a noun. Revkin asked if it was OK to change to an adjective, and I said OK, but it does lose some of its subtlety, which is inevitable.

I agree, scientists are supposed to be skeptical!

By: Steve Hemphill

Steve Hemphill — Wed, 03 Jan 2007 02:15:53 +0000

Roger – you quoted, back at 7:07 this morning (great subject.): “Other experts say there is no time for nuance, given the general lack of public response to the threat posed particularly by carbon dioxide, a byproduct of burning fossil fuels and forests that persists for a century or more in the air”

This is another typical fearmonger deception of the alarmists – hard to believe it was said by real scientists. It’s been shown quite adequately that the half life of CO2 in the atmosphere is on the order of about 3 decades. Here’s the latest I could find on that:
http://www.stanford.edu/group/efmh/fossil/fossil.html

It seems that since concentration goes up by less than half of emissions, a *lot* of it is going somewhere fast, and the average lifetime is not “a century or more”.

Jacobson brings up another excellent point there (the actual subject of the piece). Reminding me of the horribly ugly black stained ice at the start of “An Inconvenient Truth”, new research showing the influence of black carbon on the Arctic is indicative of why artificially limiting CO2 emissions (and hobbling society) is possibly not anywhere near an efficient answer to the “global warming problem”.

How about if the U.S. gives scrubbers to China for their new coal plants? Does that sound maybe more cost effective? It sounds to me like it’s worth some more investigation anyway…