This post is just going to be a few jottings of things that I’ve noticed since I got back from holiday. At the moment there seems to be so many straws in the wind that it’s difficult to focus on any particular event or trend.
All you need is whitewash
I keep on thinking that nothing I see in the climate debate will surprise me now, and every time I’m wrong.
We’ve heard a lot about whitewash recently, mostly in connection with rather strange investigations into Climategate and the IPCC, but apparently this metaphorical material can also have real practical uses in climatology. The BBC website has put up a perfectly serious report on an attempt to recreate a vanished glacier in the Peruvian Andes. Apparently all you need to do is paint the place where the glacier used to be with whitewash and, Hey Presto! the albedo effect will get your glacier back.
But wait a minute, the glacier had its own albedo effect before global warming supposedly wiped it out, and that didn’t stop it trickling away. So what possible reason could there be to suppose that creating an artificial albedo effect will produce anything at all except a lot of rather dirty grey rock?
You’ll have to ask the World Bank, who funded this fiasco about that. You might also ask the BBC why they didn’t ask a glaciologist to comment on this story, to provide some kind of balance, before they published it.
Hat tip to Alex Cull who spotted this one, and it really is worth reading the whole story here.
The man who ‘invented the internet’ wants to stake out a domain
Apparently a whole new generation of personalised domain names is about to be launched, but with a difference. If you want to be the proud owner of a web address which ends with, for instance, .cola– and I suppose there may be at least two large companies that would – then you will soon be able to do so. The same applies to almost anything you like: .airline, .scot, .gay etc. But this scheme is not aimed at people who want the domain .jim just because they think that would be cool. We’re talking about serious money here, both to be spent and to be made.
First off you will have to put up a £125,000 application fee, and then bid against all comers for the name that you want. The upside is that if you are successful then you can let other people use the magic word; at a price of course. So if you manage to resister .airlines, or .london, your stake-out could be worth a fortune.
According to the Sunday Times last week, Al Gore is bidding for .eco, and it’s worth just thinking about that for a moment. Before assuming that this is likely to be a nice little earner for Al, it is possible that he is not intending to risk more public odium by profiting personally by his acquisition. However it is certainly possible that it will leave him with the power to decide who can, and who cannot, have a .eco domain.
I wonder how organisations that are concerned about the planet, but have doubts about carbon trading, the reliability of the IPCC or wind farms, will fare?
The version of this story that I saw is only available on the net if you cross Mr Murdoch’s palm with silver, but there is a rather more thoughtful take on it at the Financial Times and it is free.
Incidentally, this blogger has no intention of paying the Murdoch press for web content now or at any time in the future.
The Astronomer Royal’s take on reality.
Before he began his final Reith lecture last Monday, Lord Rees of Ludlow, who is also the president of the Royal Society, was asked a couple of questions by the presenter, Sue Lawley.
Lawley: Martin, you’ve said before that it’s easier to understand the cosmos than the frog, and I find that counter intuitive. After all you can hold a frog in your hand, you can cut it up on the laboratory bench – and there is the cosmos. How do you explain that? Why do you say that?
Rees: Well I say that because a star is actually fairly simple. It’s so hot inside [that] there’s no complex chemistry. Everything is broken down into simple atoms, whereas a frog, or even an insect, has layer upon layer of complicated structure. So there’s far more structure in the smallest living thing than in any of the inanimate things we study.
Lawley: But I’m sure that when you were a boy you cut up frogs, and you probably played with Meccano sets and did jigsaws. How much does it worry you ….. that these days – you know – everything is controlled on the screen, every game, every plaything uses a screen and a mouse.
Rees: Well I do think that virtual reality shouldn’t take over from real reality, especially in education and it is a pity if kids don’t see frogs and bird’s nests and things. And only see things on the screen. So I think there is a loss if people are too much in [sic] virtual reality.
Well, even if we avoid being pedantic and don’t throw up our hands in horror when a scientist of Lord Rees’ eminence can bring himself to use a term like ‘real reality’, much of what he says is worrying, given that he is in a position to have considerable influence on scientists, politicians and the public when they consider the evidence for AGW.
Climate science is dominated by reverence for the predictions from climate models, which are, in their own way, just a kind of virtual reality. And although Rees makes a distinction between the complexity of animate and inanimate entities, where do complex chaotic systems such as Earth’s climate fit into his scale of complexity – from a star to a frog – and relative levels of scientific understanding.
This is rather important because anyone who has read the AR4 SPM is likely to have noticed that the boundary between climate model output and observations have become blurred. (More on this below.)
One wonders whether someone like our distinguished Astronomer Royal and President of the Royal Society has ever dared to think critically about the quality of the research that has been pumped out in ever-greater volumes by the climate science community over the last decade.
Fear and loathing in Australia.
Anthony Watt’s, who is on a speaking tour ‘down under’, notes that the CSIRO (Australian Commonwealth Scientific and Research Organisation) has responded to the appalling threat to climate change orthodoxy that his visit poses by organising an event of its own. According to Watts, the flyers used to publicise CSIO’s retaliation makes free use of the term ‘denialism’, although the official PR is careful not to do so. But it does contain this rather revealing statement:
REPRESENTATIVES of scientific organisations including the CSIRO and Bureau of Meteorology will meet today to discuss better communication of the science behind man-made climate change, in the wake of crumbling political and public consensus on global warming. [my emphasis]
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/06/19/csiro-has-counter-meeting-to-address-denialism/#more-20785
I don’t know many sceptics who would be prepared to make such a bold claim as that. Things really must look pretty bad from the other side of the barricades at the moment.
The Freedom of Information Act can work – sometimes
The redoubtable Bishop Hill has managed to garner this gem among documents released under the FOIA:
I take real exception to having simulation runs described as experiments (without at least the qualification of ‘computer’ experiments). It does a disservice to centuries of real experimentation and allows simulations output to be considered as real data. This last is a very serious matter, as it can lead to the idea that real ‘real data’ might be wrong simply because it disagrees with the models! That is turning centuries of science on its head. [Yes, I did notice that there is a bit of a semantic problem in the last sentence of this quote too, but it may be less serious than Rees’ solecism.]
Of course there is nothing new in what is being said here; sceptics have been making the point for ages. But what is interesting is where it comes from.
The author is Michael Kelly, Prince Philip Professor of Technology at the University of Cambridge and a member of the Oxburgh Inquiry. In fact this quote is taken from notes that he made while he was reviewing research papers for the inquiry, but of course Kelly’s concerns didn’t get mentioned in the final report. Perhaps a clue as to why it was left out can be found in another of the Bishop’s discoveries.
This is an email from Sir John Beddington, the government’s chief scientific adviser, to Lord Ron Oxburgh on the evening that his report was published:
Dear Ron
Much appreciated the hard work put into the review, general view is a blinder played. As we discussed at HoL [House of Lords], clearly the drinks are on me!
Best wishes, John
Isn’t it reassuring that the instigators of an inquiry into what has been described as the worst scientific scandal in living memory can discuss the outcome among themselves in such a detached and serious minded way?
There’s an awful lot of food for thought in Rees’s Reith lectures, particularly on the way he skirts round global warming while trying to justify his own “We’re doomed” message, which dates back to a book he published in 2003. Consider this, from the third lecture:
“Computers are already transformational – especially in fields where we can’t do real experiments. In the ‘virtual world’ inside a computer astronomers can crash another planet into the Earth to see if that’s how our Moon might have formed; meteorologists can simulate weather and climate; brain scientists can simulate how neurons interact”.
Note how climate modelling is sandwiched between two less controversial activities, and is attributed to meteorologists, rather than climate scientists.
His baffling statement that “stars are simple” is in stark contradiction with this, from lecture 4:
“.. the very first moments [after the big bang] are a mystery. That’s because right back in the first tiny fraction of a second, conditions would have been far hotter and denser than we can simulate in the lab. So we lose any foothold in experiment ..”
I really should have admitted in the header post that I have only listened to part of two of the lectures. It would not surprise me if I have to listen to them all before the year is out.
Most of the stuff on global warming is in the second lecture. Rees’s precise position is unfortunately obscured by a transcription error in the following:
“Another firm prediction about the post-2050 world is that, as well as being more crowded, it’ll be warmer. By how much is a matter of continuing research. The greater the warming, the greater the risk of -trimming-, for instance, gradual melting of Greenland’s ice cap or the release from the Tundra of methane, which would lead to further warming. And that’s the motive for attempts to reduce global consumption of fossil fuels”.
Tony N, since you’ve listened to the lecture, do you know what “trimming” should be?
I’v posted at Climate Resistance about the Q&A session which follows the second lecture. The questioners sound like parodies of the Green and the Good. I found much of what Rees had to say, eg on population and development, very sensible. The enormous interest of these lectures lies in the fact that this eminently intelligent and humane man can impress with his good sense, while making it clear with every sentence that he believes something which you and I know to be nonsense.
TonyN,
You emphasise the words “crumbling political and public consensus on global warming” in your quote. I notice that you haven’t included the one which matters most, namely the scientific consensus which certainly isn’t crumbling..
I wouldn’t use the term “crumbling” but nevertheless it is clear that the CSIRO are referring to a sustained campaign by large sections of the Australian media to influence political and public opinion. The Australian newspaper, and other Murdoch owned city based newspapers, have had led that campaign, and undeniably its had an effect.
Thankfully we still have the ABC.
geoff:
I was actually plodding along the Cotswold Way when the second lecture was broadcast so I’m afraid that I haven’t heard it. Having transcribed Rees’ answers to Lawley’s questions (above) he does not always speak clearly or use words in quite the way one might expect.
Geoff, TonyN, Peter M, re “trimming”, I suggest this might have been “tripping”, as in to trip an alarm or a booby trap – might well be a variant of our old friend the tipping point…
Yes, the questions and responses to lecture No 2 were interesting, Nick Pidgeon’s especially so:
“Your analysis points to the inescapable fact, in my view, that combating climate change will require a revolution in technology, in politics, and in our lifestyles on a scale not seen since the Second World War. Are the public and politicians ready for the scale of change that will be required here? And, additionally, are there dangers for scientists when they act as advocates for such change?”
Lord Rees’s response was basically: first we can tackle the problem from a money-saving point of view, i.e. energy efficiency, building insulation, etc, i.e., the carrot approach. “Then we want to incentivise the development of new clean technologies and hope to end up when it is in fact no more expensive than fossil fuels. And so that will enable the transition to happen without there being any hardship involved.”
That’s actually quite a massive difference of opinion – from “Second World War” to “[no] hardship”! The difference between “turn our whole world upside down” and “seamless transition”. But you’d never guess, really, just going by the tone of the exchange.
Nick Pidgeon is a Professor of Environmental Psychology at the University of Cardiff, and appears to be one of a number of psychologists who, while the climate scientists themselves talk about uncertainties, have a very high degree of certainty themselves about the need to transform the public’s attitude in order to prevent worst-case climate change scenarios occurring.
A bit OT, but I found some information about his recent survey about the UK public and climate change (see here; “UK public still believes in climate change” but “40% said that they thought the seriousness of climate change is exaggerated”). Curious that he interprets the survey results one way (“78% is still “most of the population””) where Cambridge University’s David Reiner interprets them in another way (“less than a third think that man is primarily responsible for climate change”.) Here’s the survey document itself; probably contains much of interest, but haven’t had time to go through it properly.
TonyN #5
When I heard about these lectures and the content I settled down in expectation of a stimulating, reasoned and well thought through lecture.
I was quite surprised how rambling and poorly structured the talk was.
I had no particular viewpoint of the guy either way before the talk, but must say I was disappointed with the lack of intellectual rigour and that he made the subjects boring.
Tonyb
Geoff
This is an interesting point you raise here. Another way of putting it is “how can someone so intelligent believe in something so obviously flawed, or be so blinded and blinkered to alternative views”
Most people believe, and why should they not, that academics experts, in what ever field are able to turn their inherent ability to any question or matter from another field. The reality is that many academics can not do this and almost slavishly rely on their fellow academic experts in other fields. They can seldom think outside the box, and any discoveries they make are often exploited by others searching for solutions to practical problems. There is nothing wrong with this, but we tend to forget this happens more often than not.
For a classic example of this you need look no further than the humble magnetron, now at the centre of every microwave, but of critical importance to the allies in WWII for Radar.
It is also a good argument for not having academics reviewing the behaviour of other academics, because as we have seen few of them understand what we in the wider world view as unacceptable behaviour.
I am sure that we have all experienced similar issues with people in our everyday lives, but for me we now give too much reverence to so called experts. They are not Gods, are not inherently any more intelligent than the rest of us Some PhDs I know play down their qualifications, preferring to be judged on their results. Others I have known have insisted on having Dr. in their title and others have used their qualification as a means to suppress decent or to avoid being challenged. Its all human nature.
The example that springs to my mind whenever I hear about experts in one field being block-headed in another is that of Prof. Roy Meadows, who famously opined that the probability of the cot deaths of two brothers was the square of the probability of one (itself a pretty spurious assertion), making it 73 million to one against.*
The fact that they were siblings and might share a genetic tendency apparently hadn’t occurred to this eminent physician!
*The fact that none of the highly educated people in court thought this worth querying is a bit worrying, too.
My last word on Sir Martin.
My fascination with him and those like him comes from having my reasoned arguments on blogs countered so often with: ”so you think you’re more intelligent than the Astronomer Royal I suppose?” You feel so daft replying, “Yes,I suppose I do”.
I know nothing about his work in astronomy, (though scientistfortruth made some very acerbic and interesting comments on a recnt Bishop Hill thread). The problem is not with him as a person, but with the peculiar status afforded to scientists in our society. You can poke fun at the ideas of an archbishop or a prime minister, but scientists are considered off-limits.
Tonyb, The point or the Reith lectures is more to do with its place in our cultural life than with learning something new. Heaven knows, we have few enough cultural rituals which appeal to the intelligence, and at least it is an attempt to bring thoughtful discussion of deep subjects to the general public.
What I found fascinating was the choice of questioners for the second lecture. They were all hothouse plants from the far end of the greenhouse, yet on their best behaviour, bowling underarm so Sir Martin could show off his strokes. Viewing the whole thing as a cultural ritual, I felt I was starting to understand how the whole global warming movement could attract and meld together so many disparate types, from tofu munchers to the summits of our intellectual establishment.
We sceptics are often accused of believing in a global warming conspiracy, but it’s so much more interesting than that, and so difficult to characterise clearly. Rees obviously represents the wise authoritative figurehead who lends intellectual respectability to the jittery green masses. To understand just how the whole thing came to pass,and how it might end, we need cultural historians and social scientists, as well as sceptics from within science
I imagine that the tofu munchers must think that all their Christmases have come at once, now that they (relatively) suddenly have scientific bigwigs like Sir Martin on their side.
Sadly, they are unaware that this is not because of a sudden conversion to tofu, but because the scientists have at last discovered a popular cause that lets them appear in the media and (gasp!) on television, while accepting ever larger government handouts to further their research.
You would need to be pretty ascetic not to let that go to your head, especially if you had spent years in obscurity, wondering what you could possibly do to make a name for yourself outside the quad and maybe get enough money to buy a new bike…