[LINK] the weather makers

[Richard Chirgwin]

Alan L Tyree wrote:

>> Actually, the number of available causes of a change in temperature
>> are not so great as to be completely bewildering.
>>     
>>> If they did know how to apportion this, and what caused the natural
>>> component, then they could explain the history of climate change.
>>> They can't.
>>>   
>>>       
>> That's not quite so, either. There exist quite a number of models for 
>> discussion of past events. What scientists avoid is trying to make an 
>> absolute statement about something like "what happened 100,000 years 
>> ago", because they are quite aware that anybody can claim to have 
>> "predicted the past".
>>     
>
> These models are purporting to predict 50 to 100 years ahead. It surely
> is fair to ask that they be validated with data from 1900. I don't
> think it is "dishonest" to ask this, nor do I think that it is BS
> science. Nor am in the pay of (think-tanks | big business |
> creationists | any other bogey man).
>   
Alan;

Validation is not possible. This is a genuine weak point of the science: 
the only way to validate any scientific theory is to test predictions - 
but all predictions involve the future.

In the media, calls for "validation" of climate science are part of the 
political project of delay: it is no coincidence that when I Google 
"validation of climate models", the IPA pops up in the first page of 
results. "We can't act without proof" is 1.01 of the think tank (and has 
been deployed before; fortunately, CFC observations and predictions 
happened on a political rather than generational timescale, and action 
outran the resistance movement).

It isn't dishonest to ask that the models be tested; criticised; picked 
apart and rebuilt. Where the dishonesty creeps in is where the 
mouthpiece columnists - I will nominate the Andrew Bolts, Piers 
Ackermans, Michael Duffys, and Miranda Devines - know damn well that the 
science is very, very vigorously debated and very harshly criticised by 
other scientists, but they pretend that this has not taken place; that 
there is some secret "protocols of the elders of Climate" which says 
"any old dodgy crap is good enough as long as it doesn't rock the boat".

It is apposite to remember that we aren't talking about pan-flash 
science here; climate change has been in the discussion for 20 years. So 
there's at least 20 years of examination of models. Where I call B.S. is 
where the above-mentioned list pretends this has not taken place, and 
pretends that its own pet scientists represent a repressed majority of 
people whose views are suppressed.

By-the-by. It is absolute nonsense to say that decisions should not be 
made against uncertainty. Such things happen *routinely*. Any city tower 
you enter, or any decent bridge you cross, is built with assumptions 
which would, to the everyday life, seem stupidly pessimistic. This 
happens because the engineer and architects expect their buildings to 
have a long useful life. We do not seem to have suffered either 
widespread economic catastrophe, nor a slide into socialism, because 
Australia's civil engineers make assumptions gloomier than most 
scientists would make.

And finally: there is no catastrophe as punishment for acting to improve 
the environment. What's the worst that can happen in the long term? We 
become more energy-efficient than other countries *and* get cleaner air. 
And some industries become obsolete (go on, shed some tears for coal; 
just like the nightsoil cart of a previous era).

RC

Since I mention the think tanks, I may as well quickly catalogue the PR.

1) "There is no climate change / no global warming". Even though 
debunked it is still a position of some of the TTs.
2) "There is no proof that this is a trend. It may be cyclical".
3) "There is no proof of human agency".
4) "We cannot act until climate change is proven beyond any doubt" (by 
which time it's too late).
5) "Warming is not universal or uniform. Some places seem to be getting 
cooler!" (in fact predicted by the models this piece of junk is supposed 
to debunk)
6) "Even if we act now, we cannot do enough to reverse the trend. It's 
therefore better to wait for a technological fix."
7) "If we suffer economic damage, things will get worse instead of 
better" (this needs B.S. to be called; one of the reasons renewables are 
expensive is that they need more personnel per petajoule to produce ... 
which doesn't sit well alongside the 'thousands of coal industry jobs' 
crocodile tears. But how many people say 'renewable energy would 
increase employment' in this debate?)
8) "There's no point in acting because China / India / America / 
Australia  are not acting". In the CFC debate, some countries moved 
first. The whole world followed eventually.
>
>
>   
>> What happens, however -- in a think-tank technique borrowed from 
>> creationists -- is that a general wariness about 'predicting the
>> past' is held up as "see? They admit they can't tell with certainty
>> what happened in the Little Ice Age! We can't trust what they say
>> about global warming!"
>>
>> This is deliberate and dishonest: people who know better are
>> deploying lies and misdirection to try and avoid the "man in the
>> street" forming an unfavourable opinion.
>>     
>>> 3. Just because a theory becomes fashionable, doesn't mean it is
>>> right (nor does it mean that it is wrong, either of course).  It
>>> just means that those who disagree and still want study grants,
>>> tend to keep their heads down and keep silent.  Popular science
>>> often acts as a suppresser of open inquiry.
>>>
>>> In the case of climate change, a number of scientists have kept
>>> their heads down for years -- ever since the 1962 Rio Summit made
>>> this a political and economic issue in scientific circles.
>>>
>>>
>>> 4. The secondary projections that arise from this warming --
>>> sea-level rises, ice-cap collapse, long-term droughts, starvation,
>>> extinctions of species, islands disappearing, etc. etc, -- are yet
>>> another level removed from the science, which is itself in
>>> dispute.  All this is even further abstracted from any real
>>> evidence. 
>>>       
>> Umm, I usually like to keep to "parliamentary language" in Link 
>> discussions, but Stewart, where did you start borrowing arguments
>> from the bollocks bin?
>>
>> Sea level rises are not "another level removed from the science".
>> They are empirical observation - as are the ice-cap issues. Islands 
>> disappearing is a very mundane addition to the observed sea-level
>> rises 
>> - and in fact, this has already taken place (some little island in
>> the Indian Ocean). Species extinction may be viewed as speculative,
>> except that some species are already experiencing catastrophic
>> decline (eg, small alpine marsupials); the fact of extinction is not
>> in doubt, merely the extent (about which there will be varying
>> predictions).
>>     
>>> 5. And my main point, is that computer processing of massive
>>> amounts of contemporary data is not a substitute for real evidence
>>> and logical argument arising from provable events in the past.
>>>   
>>>       
>> "Logical argument", I am sorry to say, is not science (and in fact is 
>> just as often deployed against science as for). Science is the boring 
>> stuff of observation, analysis, theory, prediction, etcetera.
>>
>> A temperature change observed in ice cores is a provable event ...
>> more so than, for example, "grapes in Vinland" which may have been
>> another slice of Erik the Red's propaganda! Just because the proof
>> lies in knowledge not available to the lay training does not
>> invalidate it as science. And ice cores aren't the only indicator of
>> very long-term climate trends.
>>
>> My final point: humanity doesn't need a "end of life on earth"
>> climate change for a crisis. We only need enough crisis to make our
>> own society non-tenable, our current practises or farming non-viable.
>> The Earth will go on quite well without us.
>>
>> There is no inherent risk involved in reducing our energy use.
>> Switching off unnecessary lights is not an act which involves
>> privation or loss of the Western lifestyle; it's just that a bunch of
>> idiots (there, I used the word!) believe that simple frugality must
>> somehow be associated with "green communism" - in other words, in the
>> strange world of the IPA, the Cato Institute, the Frazer Institute
>> and other bought lobbies, *not* being recklessly wasteful with every
>> available resource is evidence of a political state of mind which is
>> a threat to the western way of life. What's wrong with calling "B.S."
>> on such drivel?
>>
>> RC
>>     
>>>   
>>>       
>> _______________________________________________
>> Link mailing list
>> Link at mailman.anu.edu.au
>> http://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/link
>>
>>     
>
>
>