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Comment on Climate change availability cascade by Joshua

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Thanks Mark –

==> “Assuming that we agree that something should be done about it in the first place, ”

Yes, I agree that it is clearly a problematic tendency among humans, particularly in polarized contexts where people become heavily identified and locked into “positions.”

The comments from Kahneman elsewhere on the thread are relevant, IMO.

==> “Your comments are interesting and much appreciated as usual Joshua.

Thanks. Your comments are appreciated as well.


Comment on Climate change availability cascade by jim2

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Oh noes! A flip-flopper. Oh, the pain … the pain.

Comment on Criticism, tolerance and changing your mind by Planning Engineer

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Joshua – It’s a bad sort of elitism when people point to someone who grow up with privilege and suggest that someone who overcame a lot of hardship should learn from and emulate the person of privilege because the person of privilege came out better on some measure. In a given case the person of privilege might be worthy and the person from hardship might be lacking, but it’s horrible to assume that without deeper thought. It might well be that a person born of privilege can learn from a person of lesser stature who earned their way on their own against tougher challenges. I see a similar misplaced elitism granted to some parts of the world versus others.

Atlanta has a rail system, an extensive bus system, work – live – play complexes, bicycle paths, walk able areas and in fact I thought your fountain picture at first was from Atlanta. Georgia gives ridiculously high subsidies for electric vehicles. I wouldn’t presume to judge without looking beyond my impression into some more systematic comparisons whether Atlanta or Barcelona was doing the most with the resources and problems inherent to their histories or locations.

The above was my opinion. Here’s an expert. This whole Atlanta – Barcelona thing looked fishy to me so I dug into it. Alan Bertaud a scholar and urbanist did the original study discussing Atlanta and Barcelona. The picture gleaned from his publications are very different than what it is being twisted into by the environmental guilt movement. He notes how spatial structures are usually the unintended result of unforeseen consequences that they defy policies meant to shape them and that they are path dependent and change very slowly. He says you can’t define an optimum because objectives change over time. It’s clear from his writings that Atlanta can’t be Barcelona. American cities differ from European and he identifies Atlanta as unique among American cities. Here’s a quote “only after we abandon the illusion that new transit and innovative land use planning will decrease pollution and congestion, is it possible to look at more realistic solutions. We should look for solutions in areas that have a proven track record: technology and traditional economics, i.e. pricing.”

Further his work meshes with my earlier suggestion that perhaps both cities could learn from the other. He notes that in Atlanta “the average yearly level of nitrogen oxides was 47 mg/m3 compared with 55 mg/m3 in Barcelona. Air pollution due to traffic in Barcelona is higher than Atlanta, in spite of the fact that Barcelona has a density 28 times higher than Atlanta and that 30% of trips are by transit and 8% are walking trips.” Barcelona has lower standards, older cars, worse emission control and less systematic inspections.

To me it sounds like an ignorant form of elitism to say we need more Barcelonas and less Atlantas based on a cherry picked comparison without digging down into the details. Just as it would be ignorantly elitist to say we need more prep school kids and fewer working class kids because they test higher on the SAT or tend to land better jobs right out of college.

Comment on Climate change availability cascade by Jim D

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The null hypothesis is physics behaving the way it is expected to.

Comment on Week in review: policy and politics edition by Jim D

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It is fair to criticize anti-science views like those of Inhofe and co. The Republicans up for election are a special breed when it comes to en bloc thought processing.

Comment on Climate change availability cascade by Jim D

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The transient climate does not have to maintain relative humidity immediately, especially since the drier areas are the ones heating up first, as it happens.

Comment on Climate change availability cascade by Danny Thomas

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Joshua,
I’m not aware how the “hoax”, Stalin, etc. comments have cascaded. I am aware how the interesting timing of refreshing the Malia’s asthma at the same time as a climate oriented health panel is announced by the one who asked “leave my kids out of this”. And then the media opened the valve and the trickle became a cascade.
Economic suicide is a bit hyperbolic also, but equally as credible as GW/CC leading to say……….war. Economic damage as it relates to fossil fuels restriction is certainly feasible. If not, why would that argument still be in play?
So, for me in the context of the absurdities often associated with the meme, I’m good with “almost” used as a tool to emphasize how climate change has become/lead to availability cascade.
I wish the discussion came from the middle and worked towards both ends, but it doesn’t. It comes from the extremes. The tone is sent. I personally have tip toed in to attempts to modify it and have met resistance from both sides. AGW insist all comers move that way. No middle ground, no compromise. So I can understand why “availability cascades” are met by “resistance entrenchment”.

Comment on Climate change availability cascade by Eli Rabett

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Lewandowsky wins. Thank you for playing


Comment on Are human influences on the climate really small? by b fagan

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No, Wagathon – comment threads on a newspaper article don’t disprove anything, especially when the article distorts what it reports on.

Here’s the second paragraph of the article the newspaper writer so distorted:
“The oceans are absorbing more than 80 percent of the heat from global warming,” he says. “If you aren’t measuring heat content in the upper ocean, you aren’t measuring global warming.”

The title of the NASA article, by the way, is “Correcting Ocean Cooling”.

And the measured ocean heat content is increasing. That’s why I posted a reference to one of the places that measures such things, not to some weatherman’s column in some newspaper.

And what, specifically, is Dr. Tsonis referring to? Do you have citations to anything peer-reviewed that he’s published on the topic?

Because it hasn’t been cooling. It’s been warming slower.

Comment on Climate change availability cascade by Robert Ayers

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Superb artice, Dr Curry. And I see that it is being linked-to and quoted :-)

Comment on Criticism, tolerance and changing your mind by Joshua

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PE –

So that’s the kind of discussion I was referring to…

I don’t really understand the applicability or relevance of your first paragraph, so I’ll skip past that:

==>”Atlanta has a rail system, an extensive bus system, work – live – play complexes, bicycle paths, walk able areas and in fact I thought your fountain picture at first was from Atlanta. Georgia gives ridiculously high subsidies for electric vehicles.”

You might find this interesting:

http://www.brookings.edu/~/media/Series/jobs-and-transit/AtlantaGA.PDF

As Wikipedia notes:

However, reliance on cars has resulted in heavy traffic and has helped make Atlanta one of the more polluted cities in the country.[3] The Clean Air Campaign was created in 1996 to help reduce pollution in metro Atlanta. Since 2008, Metro Atlanta has ranked at or near the top of lists of longest average commute times and worst traffic in the country.[4]

And there’s this:

http://content.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,2070992_2071127_2071091,00.html

I’m not suggesting that Atlanta is all bad. I do know some people, however, that are engaged in urban planning/built environment issues and I do know that there are some formidable issues in American cities in a general sense. One of those issues is the ongoing polarization between private automobile users and other constituencies that predominates less in European cities. Now of course, there are a lot of historical reasons why that difference exists, but does that mean that we should rule out making comparisons?

==> ” I wouldn’t presume to judge without looking beyond my impression into some more systematic comparisons whether Atlanta or Barcelona was doing the most with the resources and problems inherent to their histories or locations.”

And that’s why I like you, PE.

==> “The above was my opinion. Here’s an expert. This whole Atlanta – Barcelona thing looked fishy to me so I dug into it. Alan Bertaud a scholar and urbanist did the original study discussing Atlanta and Barcelona.”

Thanks for the resource. So Google found me this:

In Atlanta the longest possible distance between 2
points within the built-up area is 137 km, in Barcelona it is only 37 km. The short trip distance due to high density in Barcelona makes it possible for a significant number of trips to be done by foot or bicycle, within Barcelona municipality, 20% of trips are made by walking. In Atlanta, the number of walking trips is so insignificant that it is not even recorded!

So there are two ways I would look at that. One is in line with your position – that making the comparison is of limited use because it’s apples and oranges. On the other hand, the comparison may be useful if we are looking towards identifying ways to improve built environment with consideration of environmental, health, and economic outcomes.

==> “The picture gleaned from his publications are very different than what it is being twisted into by the environmental guilt movement. ”

Personally, I find it less useful to focus on what is being “twisted by the environmental movement” as there is usually, IMO, a lot of inherent subjectivity in that kind of characterization. It seems to me that it is more useful to get to the meat of the discussion.

==> ” He notes how spatial structures are usually the unintended result of unforeseen consequences that they defy policies meant to shape them and that they are path dependent and change very slowly. He says you can’t define an optimum because objectives change over time. ”

Well, I know people who are engaged in making what I consider to be significant progress in these areas. Yes, there are many, every complicated issues that have to be dealt with, but there are some good models out there for bringing about positive change. In particular, I like the kind of progress that can come about through participatory planning procedures where a variety community stakeholders are involved and gain ownership over outcomes.

==> “It’s clear from his writings that Atlanta can’t be Barcelona.”

I wouldn’t suggest that Atlanta can be Barceolona. That, again, looks a bit to me like reducing the variety of discussion points to one, absurd discussion point. What is the value in that?

==> “American cities differ from European and he identifies Atlanta as unique among American cities. Here’s a quote “only after we abandon the illusion that new transit and innovative land use planning will decrease pollution and congestion, is it possible to look at more realistic solutions.”

That seems somewhat hyperbolic to me. Perhaps he is right, but I have met many people engaged in these processes who don’t think that making progress on reducing pollution and congestion through practices such as dedicated bus lanes and the integration of various new technologies and reducing user fees and decreasing wait times, etc., is an “illusion” that “needs to be abandoned.” Yes, absolute reductions would not be possible and yes, obstacles exist. But are you saying that progress on those issues is not possible?

==> ” We should look for solutions in areas that have a proven track record: technology and traditional economics, i.e. pricing.”

Precisely.

==> “Further his work meshes with my earlier suggestion that perhaps both cities could learn from the other.”

Sure.

==> “He notes that in Atlanta “the average yearly level of nitrogen oxides was 47 mg/m3 compared with 55 mg/m3 in Barcelona. Air pollution due to traffic in Barcelona is higher than Atlanta, in spite of the fact that Barcelona has a density 28 times higher than Atlanta and that 30% of trips are by transit and 8% are walking trips.” Barcelona has lower standards, older cars, worse emission control and less systematic inspections.”

All valuable information.

==> “To me it sounds like an ignorant form of elitism to say we need more Barcelonas and less Atlantas based on a cherry picked comparison without digging down into the details”

I agree that facile and simplistic reasoning is counterproductive. These are complicated issues and they deserve sophisticated treatment.

Comment on Climate change availability cascade by wallensworth

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Dr. Curry said “While asthma rates have been climbing, the cause cannot be global warming.”

A key claim such as this could use a reference.

Comment on Climate change availability cascade by captdallas2 0.8 +/- 0.2

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Asthma treatment has an interesting history. Chicken soup and herbs containing ephedrine back in the BC days, see a shrink in the early 20th century to anti-inflammatory drugs in the late 20th century. Chicken soup and herbs containing ephedrine, caffeine and/or capsicum still have a strong following for any COPD condition. I wonder what ever became of the psychosomatic school of scientific thought?

Comment on Climate change availability cascade by Joshua

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Danny –

==>I’m not aware how the “hoax”, Stalin, etc. comments have cascaded.”

As far as I understand the term, they are, IMO, the manifestation of a cascading process. My point was that the phenomenon is rather pervasive across a variety of positions on a variety of issues.

I seem to be repeating myself there, for whatever reason, so I think that we’ve reached the point of talking past each other. I’ll catch you on another thread..

Comment on Criticism, tolerance and changing your mind by Danny Thomas

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PE,
I’d appreciate a link. I’m a land use guy as I perceive political compatibility meaning it’s an area where some agreement (less contentious) can be reached. Technology is a part of that as is urban planning. Any information is appreciated!


Comment on Criticism, tolerance and changing your mind by Joshua

Comment on Climate change availability cascade by Danny Thomas

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Joshua,
The perception I have of cascading is not one of continuation of a theme, but instead it’s one of GW leads to (fill in the blank, but thinking asthma) so from the GW to and end point (snowball effect). I differentiate that from Hoax or Stalinism (your examples) being maintained in the discussion. This is why I stated it as was done. Hope this clarifies.

Comment on Criticism, tolerance and changing your mind by Joshua

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PE –

One final point. As I mentioned, I had a hard time understanding where you were going with the discussion of elitism…but in thinking of elitism and transportation issues….

The polarization between private automobile constituencies and urban public transportation constituencies tracks quite well with the notion of elitism, IMO. Having lived and worked in a couple of cities where it was very apparent that it was the poor who relied on public transportation disproportionately, I feel that there is a lot to be gained in a broader economic, environmental, and health impacts context from examining why, in some respects Barcelona might be a better model than Atlanta to the extent that we don’t reach that apples and oranges point of diminishing returns from the usefulness of the comparison.

Comment on Week in review: policy and politics edition by Danny Thomas

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Jim D,
I’m not sure how many times I have to repeat, or how many ways. It’s fine for Steyer to use his money to his ends. It is equally acceptable to those on the other side to do the same. The issue I have is chastising one side for doing so while embracing the other. It’s a double standard.

Comment on Climate change availability cascade by You Ought to Have a Look: Curry on Worry | Drawnlines Politics

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[…] Judy’s article is one of the best pieces we have read on the web is recent weeks (and we’re not just saying that because she incorporates some of our work!). Bravo to her! Here is a longer excerpt, but you (really, really) ought to have a look at the whole thing: […]

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