A while ago, I was sauntering along one of our local beaches with a physicist. There are three outstanding things about this guy, he is very clever, very tall, and an excellent walker with whom I’ve spent many days in the mountains, winter and summer, and in all kinds of conditions.
We were talking about climate change and he told me that he had recently read a book by Professor David McKay on the subject of alternative energy generation which, not surprisingly, had done nothing to convince him that there might be a few problems with the orthodox view of AGW. His attitude was that, as a physicist, reading a book by another physicist, he was inclined to accept what this told him rather than any of the reservations expressed by sceptics who were not physicists. To a certain extent I could see his point and was happy to treat it with respect. But what happened next did surprise me.
As he trotted out the well-tried and tested mantras of warmist dogma, I offered alternative views that raised doubts. Finally he turned to me and said, “Look, there seems to be a risk, and what I think is that if you go out for a walk and you get to the edge of a pond that might have alligators in it, then you walk round the edge of it rather than go through the middle”. He wasn’t too happy when I asked if he often got his feet wet by walking through ponds, whether there were likely to be alligators in them or not.
This supposed ‘killer argument’ involving alligators had sprung up on the net a few weeks earlier and spread rapidly. I hadn’t expected to hear it used by someone whose views are usually well informed and carefully expressed.
Although well-chosen analogies can be very helpful when trying to explain something that is complex, they seldom seem to work well in argument. It is not surprising that ‘Faulty Analogy’ has its own place in the long list of rhetorical fallacies loved by students of rhetoric and logic. Here is a definition:
This fallacy consists in assuming that because two things are alike in one or more respects, they necessarily are alike in some more important respects, while failing to recognise the insignificance of their similarities and/or the significance of their dissimilarities.
The ‘alligators in the pond’ analogy had a pretty short life – quite rightly because it was ludicrous – but warmists still seem to think that this kind of persuasion will gain converts. Perhaps it has something to do with their oft-repeated belief that the only reason that climate scepticism is growing among the public is because advocates of global warming are not explaining things properly.
Last Monday evening, a BBC Panorama report about the climate debate used an analogy that has proved far more durable than ‘alligators in the pond’, in spite of it being equally fallacious. Professor Bob Watson, one time IPCC chairman and all-round cheerleader for climate Armageddon, helped wind up the programme on a suitably evangelical note by saying:
What risks are we willing to take? The average homeowner probably has fire insurance. They don’t expect a fire in their home [but] they’re still willing to take out fire insurance because they don’t want the risk, and there’s probably a much better chance of us seeing the middle to the upper end of that temperature projection [from the IPCC] than of a single person saying they’ll have a fire in their home tomorrow morning.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00swp0k/Panorama_Whats_Up_With_the_Weather/
The expression on his face while he said this was that of a man who was generously sharing a great and irrefutable truth with the audience.
Next morning I was not surprised to find that there were references to this parable of the burning house on another thread at this blog. I therefor put up the following comment:
The fire insurance analogy, although it sounds very plausible, is in fact a very poor one.
Fire premiums are determined by actuarial analysis based on abundant historical evidence of the extent of the risk, and also cost determined by competition between insurers. This is not the case with the threat of AGW where politicians have granted the IPCC a virtual monopoly of ‘actuarial analysis’ and the same politicians are in a position to determine the supposed ‘premium’ on the basis of whichever economists they choose to listen to; a process that is also included in the IPCC’s remit. Competition, either between ‘actuaries’ or ‘insurers’, plays no part in this process.
We simply do not know the extent of the risk or the likely cost of indemnity. No reputable insurer would offer a policy on this basis and the analogy has no application to the climate debate other than to demonstrate the weakness of the arguments by which it is now being sustained.
http://ccgi.newbery1.plus.com/blog/?p=274&cp=6#comment-63328
This unleashed a barrage of questions from Harmless Sky’s star warmist contributor: would I say what degree of risk I think is posed by AGW? This was strange, because the last sentence of my comment makes it clear that I don’t think that there is an answer to that question. The inquiries about my opinion culminated in the following comment:
Your answer is nothing at all, isn’t it? You think the risk is zero (or the chances of the IPCC being essentially correct in their estimation.) Am I being unfair in suggesting that? I don’t think so.
If you don’t think it is zero, maybe you could tick one of the following:a) Less than 5% b) between 5% and 20% c) between 20% and 50%. d) between 50% and 90% e) greater than 90%
http://ccgi.newbery1.plus.com/blog/?p=274&cp=6#comment-63530
Now there’s something rather obvious missing from that range of options, and its omission highlights one of the great divides in the climate debate. Sceptics are often willing enough to admit that they ‘don’t know’. For warmists such an admission seems to be an impossibility, and one that is becoming increasingly damaging to their cause.
Here is what John Christy had to say when he recently appeared before the review panel that is supposedly investigating the practices of the IPCC:
A fundamental problem with the entire issue here is that climate science is not a classic, experimental science. As an emerging science of a complex, chaotic climate system, it is plagued by uncertainty and ambiguity in both observations and theory. Lacking classic, laboratory results, it easily becomes hostage to opinion, groupthink, arguments-from-authority, overstatement of confidence, and even Hollywood movies.
When climate scientists are placed in the limelight because this issue can generate compelling disaster scenarios, we simply don’t want to say, “We just don’t know.”
And
In February of this year, Nature magazine asked me for a brief discussion about the IPCC and a way forward. My main concern there was to define a process that would let the world know that our ignorance of much of the climate system is simply enormous and we have much to do. Mother Nature has a tremendous number of degrees of freedom up her sleeves, many of which we don’t even know about or account for.http://pielkeclimatesci.files.wordpress.com/2010/06/christyjr_iac_100615.pdf
Another point that I raised in my comment about the fire insurance analogy was that it exhibited weak thinking on the part of warmists. A kind of desperation seems to be driving them to ever-greater extremes in the implausible rhetoric and propaganda that they are prepared to employ. There has been a superb example this week.
The American National Academy of Sciences has published a paper in its journal that purports to analyse the ‘distribution of credibility of dissenting researchers relative to agreeing researchers’ in the climate debate. Evidently the criterion used is the publication records of the dissenters: they don’t figure nearly so prominently in the peer reviewed literature as those who cleave to the orthodoxy and, in the eyes of the authors, this proves that they are not very good scientists.
Of course silly bits of research do get published from time to time, but you don’t expect them to turn up in one of the world’s leading science journals, or to be co-authored by someone of the stature of Stephen Schneider, who has been a leading figures in climate science for over thirty years. But what is more remarkable is that neither PNAS nor Schneider seem to have anticipated the extent to which this exercise would backfire. There were immediate accusations of creating a blacklist of researchers exhibiting politically unacceptable tendencies, with all the antipathy that is likely to engender, but worse, it has drawn renewed attention to the growing controversy over the way in which peer review is applied and the problems that sceptical researchers face over funding. Far from discrediting those who appear on the list, which was the obvious object of the exercise, it has made martyrs of them, and once again spotlighted the very worrying culture within the climate science community that Climategate first laid bare.
How could Schneider and the editors at PNAS be so blind to the pitfall of publishing a crass political attack on what they clearly see as their adversaries under the guise of scientific research? They are not thinking straight any more than Watson was when he trotted out a facile and obviously fallacious analogy at the end of the Panorama programme. Such actions are the cause of scepticism, not a remedy for it.
I do not know what risk, if any, anthropogenic climate change poses. What worries me is that, so long as the task of finding out is left in the hands of the IPCC – an organisation that is obsessed with persuading the world that it knows all the answers while downplaying uncertainties – we are very unlikely to find out.
_____________________________
H/T to tempterrain who, unwittingly, provided the idea for this post.
Robin,
Referring you to a person who has spent his working life studying the problem of human induced climate change and in the process has won honours from the NAS, AAAS, the Americam Meteorological Society? Silly me to think he might ‘help my case’! James Hansen has never read out the weather on TV for example – I should look out for someone like that.
However I would say that his speciality is in Climate science rather than economics, so if he is wrong, its more likely to be in his opinions on the workings of cap and trade. I’m not sure if a tax or C&T is the better approach. Maybe both would work, but a prerequisite for any plan of action is that the threat posed by increased CO2 atmospheric concentrations is taken seriously, otherwise neither are likely to be effective.
PeterM and Robin
Just as a matter of interest, I went back to check in detail the very first opening sentences of the Hansen interview, where he states that half of the warming our planet has experienced since the beginning of the 20th century occurred after 1988 (implying an acceleration in the warming rate caused – you guessed it – by human CO2 emissions and burning coal).
This sentence (by a guy who should know his temperature numbers) is a flat out lie (or, at best, a major exaggeration).
The linear warming from 1901 to 1988 was 0.49C.
The linear warming from 1988 to 2009 was 0.37C.
Take on top of this outright lie the fact that the longer 1901-1988 period contained the early 20th century warming cycle of 0.53C plus a small piece of the late 20th century warming cycle in addition one partial plus one whole cooling cycle while the period 1988-2009 contained a major part the late 20th century warming cycle of 0.4C plus a small piece of the current cooling “blip”, and you see how Hansen has cleverly twisted the truth to sell his point of “accelerated warming”, where none exists in real fact.
But he is also shrewd enough to know that most people will not go to the trouble of checking whether he told a lie or not.
Max
Ouch!
Max
PeterM
You opined:
I think Robin and others have shown you that neither are working or will work in actual fact.
You just appear not to have grasped that, as yet.
Max
Max,
So you, too, are saying that because neither C&T nor a carbon tax will work that, therefore, the Physics behind AGW is all wrong?
Or, are you saying that, even if it is right, we are all doomed anyway?
Max,
If I were to pour boiling water on to your hand, would it matter to you if a graph of its “linear” warming showed only a temperature of 80degC?
I don’t think so! As you are fond of saying your reply would be “Ouch”! It would be the final temperature that would determine its intensity. It really wouldn’t matter if it got to that temperature in a linear fashion or not.
PeterM (#76):
Maybe you’ve forgotten but what we’re discussing at present is not the validity or otherwise of the dangerous AGW hypothesis but whether or not there is any realistic prospect of Mankind reducing his GHG emissions in any relevant timescale. I have produced evidence that there is no such prospect. You disagreed and referred me to an interview with “a person who has spent his working life studying the problem of human induced climate change and in the process has won honours from the NAS, AAAS, the American Meteorological Society”. Fair enough, I thought, let’s see what this eminent person thinks.
Yet, in the interview, he says:
(1) That “we’ve already passed the danger level” and an aim to restrict to 450ppm is “too high” and the world must “reduce rapidly” back to “less than 350ppm”. In other words, he set the bar even higher than I think you do.
(2) That Cap and Trade (your preferred solution) is useless.
(3) That, instead, we have to have a carbon tax or fee – and there must be “no exceptions”. But, as you know, that was not mentioned at Copenhagen and is not on any current international agenda. Its introduction (even with exceptions) is therefore extremely unlikely.
(4) That, re coal, “boy, we’d better have a moratorium pretty quickly and then phase out the coal emissions over the next few decades …” Yet, as I’ve shown, coal is the developing economies’ fuel of choice and, by implementing programmes to build vast new coal-fired power stations (often with World Bank support), they’re committed to its use for years to come. There will be no moratorium.
(5) That, re Copenhagen, there was “beginning to be a movement towards understanding that we need to have a carbon price … and things may change before December”. Well, as you know, they didn’t change – indeed, nothing was agreed on this at all.
(6) That “India and China are going to want to limit their requirements for fossil fuels and they can best do that by means of a price [= a tax]”. Yet they show no sign whatever of wanting that.
(7) That “I think [a carbon price] has a much better chance of being negotiated [at Copenhagen] than a Kyoto style approach”. It didn’t happen.
That’s what the expert whom you regard so highly actually said. Please explain how any of his observations support your view that there is a realistic prospect of Mankind reducing his GHG emissions adequately and in any relevant timescale.
Thanks.
Robin,
A quick check on the title of this thread does tell me that we are indeed discussing the validity of the science. That determines the risk!
You can’t seem to break the cycle of your own circular argument. AGW is false because, even if it wasn’t, we couldn’t fix it anyway!
We know that you are incapable of answering the fundamental question of the validity of AGW science for the simple reason you don’t understand it. And if you did, you don’t start with a open mind , or a clean sheet, as you persist in referring to it as “dangerous” hypothesis. Its a bit like a judge referring to the defendant as a ‘dangerous criminal’. Not words to use if you’re supposed to be impartial.
PeterM
Not to get too far off topic here (as you appear to be trying to do): Hansen [ snip ] in his interview introduction about the relative increase in temperature from 1901 to 1988 versus 1988 to 2009.
This is true as I pointed out, whether one takes a linear warming trend or an absolute warming between two points. It was a [ snip ].
Has nothing to do with absurd analogies of pouring “boiling water on to your hand”. Duh!
But, hey, it was just a “[ snip ]” to help sell his “imminent tipping point” postulation and shut down coal mining and combustion plus the “death trains” worldwide.
Robin is correct, however, in pointing out that it is off our topic of discussion of “whether or not there is any realistic prospect of Mankind reducing his GHG emissions in any relevant timescale”.
Hansen, plus the subsequent developments in Copenhagen, etc., have pretty much confirmed that there is no such realistic prospect. He has conceded that C+T has not and will not work to reduce CO2 emissions, that it is unreasonable to attempt to force oil producers to cut back oil production, but that we should concentrate on cutting back on the use of coal, eventually eliminating it entirely by introducing a global “carbon tax” that is onerous enough to force nations to reduce energy consumption and (thereby) GDP and individual well-being of its populations. Since coal accounts for almost half of the world’ energy supply (and GDP) and since many countries contain large coal reserves (whereas only a few can cover their petroleum demands locally), it is highly unlikely that the world will undertake any suicidal measures such as those proposed by Hansen’s pipe dream.
Hansen has also confirmed his personal opinion that we have already reached a “dangerous level” of atmospheric CO2, which could lead to “irreversible tipping points” in our climate with “deleterious effects on our society” plus “extinction of species”.
In other words, Hansen has confirmed that we are doomed.
But then maybe another equally highly regarded climate scientist with at least equal credentials and awards (Richard Lindzen of MIT) might be more correct in his less hysterical scientific assessment that AGW has not been a principal cause of past warming and does not represent any serious threat. Whaddaya think, Peter?
Max
[Sorry Max, there could be other explanations and the UK has he tightest libel laws in the world apparently. TonyN]
PeterM
You asked (79) me two (partially loaded) questions, which I will answer.
You’ve got your logic backward here, Peter.
The GH theory may well be valid, along with its conclusion that a doubling of atmospheric CO2 could lead to a theoretical temperature increase of around 1C, which means we could face a theoretical warming from AGW by 2100 of around 0.6C (as we have actually seen from 1850 to today).
The “physics behind” the premise of dangerous AGW is “all wrong” because it is based on “agenda driven science”, rather than empirical data derived from actual physical observations.
As a result, neither a direct carbon tax (such as that proposed by Hansen) nor a C&T scheme (an indirect carbon tax, which Hansen believes has not worked in the past and will not work in the future) is required or even desirable.
The premise that “we are all doomed anyway” is Hansen’s personal (rather hysterical) supposition. Along with several climate scientists, I (as a rationally skeptical non climatologist) do not support this supposition, for the scientific reasons alluded to above.
Hope this has answered your question.
Max
PeterM:
This thread is about risk. For more than half of the thread, you and I have been very specifically discussing the risk that the developing economies will fail to make the GHG reductions you think necessary. You seem to think they will make those reductions. I disagree. You referred me to that Professor Hansen interview to support your view. I showed that it clearly doesn’t.
I am most certainly not arguing that “AGW is false because, even if it wasn’t, we couldn’t fix it anyway”. Once again, you are foolishly putting words in my mouth. No – my point is that, whether the dangerous AGW hypothesis is valid or not, the developing economies are clearly doing nothing about it. If that’s true (and you give the impression that you think it’s not), you would have to conclude that the world faces an enormous risk of disaster. Therefore, whether or not it’s true is a critically important question. So what do you think?
You seem to have a problem with that question – so I’ll make it easier for you.
You’re fond of asking people for a percentage-based assessment of risk. Well, I’ve got one for you.
What do you think is the percentage probability that the developing economies will reduce their GHG emissions to a level and within a timescale that will overcome what you perceive to be the dangers of AGW? Is it nearest to 5%, 25%, 45%, 65%, 85% or 100%?
OK TonyN, point well taken…
Hansen could just have made a mistake.
Max
In case anyone else might be interested in answering my question (#85), here’s a slight amendment:
What do you think is the percentage probability that the developing economies will reduce their GHG emissions to a level and within a timescale that will overcome what Hansen and PeterM perceive to be the dangers of AGW?
Is it nearest to 0%, 5%, 25%, 45%, 65%, 85% or 100%?
Max and Robin,
What you say about having my logic reversed is a bit worrying. I’ve always firstly made a judgement as to whether I had a problem. If I thought I had, then I would try to fix it, if not, I wouldn’t bother.
So it looks like I’ve been doing things the wrong way around all my life!
Robin,
I would say that its impossible to answer your question in #87 unless we know the answer to the question of the general acceptance of the AGW problem.
If the vested interests in continuing a business as usual approach succeed in their campaign of disinformation then the chances of a successful program to stabilise CO2 and other GHG concentrations is pretty much 0%. However, if the advice of the scientific community is accepted then the chances are good. 85%? Maybe. Why not if the political will is there?
You won’t agree with this, because our mental thought processes obviously are quite different!
Robin,
Re: #87
0%
Pledging to do so may be a different story……verifying emissions would be left up to the individual country’s bean counters/politicians who would skew the numbers to meet the pledge…..and, of course, collect whatever payments/goodies the “world body” (dupes) would offer.
Again, a Confidence Scam of historic proportions…………
PeterM:
So you “always firstly made a judgement as to whether I had a problem”. Good thinking. Now you believe that the dangerous AGW hypothesis is valid. OK – so you must consider it of great importance to make a judgement about whether or not Mankind is reducing its GHG emissions. As the non industrialised (developing) economies are by far the greatest emitters, you must therefore consider it of great importance to make a judgement about the likelihood of their doing what you consider to be necessary. At 87 I ask you to answer a simple question about your view on that question.
I await your answer.
So much for freedom of speech/press!
I’m pleased to announce the completion of (one of my) summer projects………..relocating a derelict barn from an adjacent property to my own.
Astoundingly Peter, I managed to complete the engineering feat without government subsidy or input whatsoever.
Max:
So Spain have won the World Cup! And Switzerland beat them in the opening game.
Brute,
Good for you about the barn but what’s it got to do with the energy transfer perturbation caused by increased GHG’s?
Robin,
Yes I’ve just watched it. But that must be equally OT! New Zealand were the only undefeated team. That may be one to remember for pub quizzes in future.
To get back OT, you are saying that there is a finite risk of dangerous climate change but 0% chance of any effective action being taken against it?
Nothing really, just glad it’s done……
PeterM (95)
I assume you mean dangerous man-made climate change? I think it is virtually certain that we’ll have another ice-age, which will be a lot harder to cope with than a degree or two of warming, whether naturally occurring or not.
Other hazards that we can do little about are asteroid strikes, magnetic pole reversal and giant solar flares, all of which strike me as a lot more likely than the contribution towards runaway heating of the planet of a substance that composes less than 0.04% of the atmosphere.
Perhaps the difference is that the others can’t readily be taxed…
Robin (94)
Yes. It was a great game. The Spanish team was just a bit better at controlling the ball (and luckier) than a very scrappy Dutch team, but the big day for the Swiss came just at the beginning, when they won over Spain and the country celebrated all night.
Max
Robin
Re 87.
I’d have to agree with Brute that the “probability that the developing economies will reduce their GHG emissions to a level and within a timescale that will overcome what Hansen and PeterM perceive to be the dangers of AGW” is 0%, as the Copenhagen fiasco clearly demonstrated.
The good news is that the “probability of the dangers of AGW” actually occurring as envisioned by Hansen and PeterM are also 0%, so we have a “zero sum” probability here.
Max
PS Curious to see what Peter’s answer will be (if he actually answers your specific question).
PeterM (#89):
The developing economies are, surprise, surprise, developing: they’re not remotely interested in “a business as usual approach”.
In any case, I’ve already shown that, even if Western economies were to “stabilise” their emissions, that would not satisfy your requirement. That’s partly because – according to your hero James Hansen – reductions, not mere stabilisation, are required now, but mainly because, as I noted at item 1 of my #52, even if the entire industrialised world were to cut its emissions back to 1990 levels (most unlikely anyway), it would not make any practical difference overall. If emissions are to be reduced (or even stabilised), what matters, above all, is whether or not action is taken by the developing world. That’s why my question (#87) is worded as it is.
I await your answer to that question.