It has all along been doing the scientific method. It is only because you don’t like the results that you insinuate the scientists are wicked and you are somehow righteous.
This tactic is very easy to see through — an attempt to win the debate by sidestepping the science. It is shameful.
Tim Flannery and Christine Milne have demonstrated just how far people can go with the absolutely minimal capabilities.
They are undoubtedly inspirational to slackers everywhere.
Judith, you are making judgements — that all those who see a lot of truth in AGW science are corrupt and unethical, but you are above reproach. It will only alienate you even more from the scientific community. It is a shameless attempt to sidestep the science, because you can’t produce better science that is convincing.
So what ideology do you fall for now, Judith?
Please don’t pretend you don’t have one, that you’re somehow independent and superior to all of the other scientists out there on the side of consensus. They have their reasons for their positions, too, and implying otherwise is a huge, sleazy insult to all of them.
David Appell (@davidappell) | May 1, 2015 at 12:10 am |
It has all along been doing the scientific method. It is only because you don’t like the results that you insinuate the scientists are wicked and you are somehow righteous.
From a software engineering standpoint what has been done with the models is disgraceful and dishonest.
Any model that is not reparameterized to reproduce the “pause” should have its funding cut . Period. A legal requirement to reproduce the pause as a condition of funding would end the nonsense. The models should have been fixed a decade ago.
It is obvious to anyone with a lick of software and analog simulation experience that models that reproduce the pause will have less CO2 sensitivity and less extreme behavior in the out years.
An engineer who developed a model that didn’t reproduce the behavior of the underlying system, and refused to correct it, would be fired. There is no reason to treat scientists as “special”.
PA says “Any model that is not reparameterized to reproduce the “pause” should have its funding cut .” That is a fundamental misunderstanding of what climate models do and don’t do. They are not going to get natural variations at the correct time when they have already run for 100 years to get to the year 2000 climate. However, they do produce natural variations of the magnitude of the pause at other times just randomly, as shown by multiple papers discussed here and elsewhere even recently. Even other skeptics can probably join in on correcting you on this point, because maybe some understand (just maybe).
Peter,
You asked for it….
I have been a kind of technical Homer Simpson, stumbling upon interesting projects through no great planning on my part. I was a structural PE in the late 70s and early 80s (still have my HP41c) and gradually shifted to computer software after banging away on Corps of Engineers WES software through a 300 baud modem while designing large pile-supported foundations.
Learned UNIX and a bit of C in the early 80s, thinking I would ride that for a few years. Detoured back through Cobol long enough to help a large Baby Bell pull data from several DBs, convert and copy into what was at the time the world’s largest commercial DB. Helped put together a support team and support tools for an early large corporation IP network. Transitioned to the cable TV industry and got to play with UNIX systems and DBs… and TV. Thirty years after acceptance into a local MBA program, my employer asked me to to go back and get that degree., which I did. Hmm, maybe it would have been useful in my youth after all.
Had lots of good bosses who let me mostly sit at my desk and tinker with ways to help our business make a little more money. As long as I occasionally knocked on their door and asked “why don’t we…?” they would put up with my “personality”.
Enjoy tinkering with all things mechanical, but have shifted more to audio/electronics as it gets harder to lie on a cold concrete floor under an old Jag or antique pickup.
Retired for the last few years as I now have two young granddaughters living full time with me, but may return to a light schedule once both are in full-time school next year.
Now to your points.
I personally doubt that wind/solar/battery will ever be “best” solutions except for special off-grid situations, but some genius may prove me wrong. And research in these areas may create some useful tech transference. We do need a dose of reality, though. These technologies are not likely to save the world directly any time soon, and vast premature investments in these areas could do more harm than good.
Before mass production, research should include a large enough sample to determine practicality and a valid MTBF, but a small enough investment to allow for the risk of failure. Potential for economy of scale can usually be extrapolated fairly accurately: no need to make thousands of copies.
As an engineer, a world without lawyers and politicians would seem heavenly, but we have what we have. Research funds must first go into areas which are likely to be both technically sound and “socially” acceptable. Capitalism has an uncanny way of doing just that. Government can fund the “dark horse” research, but please don’t preordain winners and artificially roadblock private investment.
In the end, a power grid will be operated by a regulated monopoly, so there will be some partnering between government and private enterprise, just varying balances between the two. The same for the development of the technologies incorporated.
Nuclear would be grand as long as there are no easily “abusable” byproducts and the price is right. The idea of slowly decommissioning coal power plants and plugging in nuclear replacements seems like a no-brainer. Imagine a world with clean cheap power for everyone. Paul Ehrlich’s worst nightmare!
Dr. Appell, you are making a false argument. Judy has already taken her position and let other scientists judge as they may. She paid a price being dubbed a heretic and a denier. She always points to her own fallability. In pointing out with the paper with Nic Lewis that the models are running hot as seen in actual observation doesn’t mean she has stopped thinking that it is a wicked problem full of uncertainty. She has written that time and again. The same is true with with the Stadium Wave hypothesis. She expects temperatures to remain flat because of it until the later part of the next decade unless a solar minimum transpires and a cooler climate persists. That doesn’t mean that it is certain it’s just a hypothesis.
She stated that science institutions and individuals are not adhering to ethical principles by making alarmist statements and demanding drastic solutions. This could have drastic consequences for third world nations such as in Africa where they are rich in fossil fuels and need them to grow and curb poverty. If you think solar and wind will replace their dung burning then dream on. She is not being hypocritical in stating they should state uncertainty to their predictions to the public and the policy makers. She has done so even at the most recent committee hearing. She has also blogged here about her desire to see alternative energy replace fossil fuels but that the technology needs to catch up. She said that at the hearing and also mentioned nuclear. You have falsely acussed her of a double standard that she has gone out of her way to avoid. You probably owe her an apology. Sure she has her biased positions but has always expressed them in terms of the wickedness of the problem and uncertainty of her predictions.
Keep at it, davey. Maybe you can badger her into admitting that she has sold out to Big Oil. How is the freelance science journalism thing going, davey? Getting enough to eat?
That’s disingenuous BS, yimmy. CO2 is supposed to be the control knob. CO2 keeps increasing but the pause is steadily killing the cause. Prove that random natural variation is not responsible for at least half of the alleged warming since 1950, yimmy. Then we can talk.
Appell, Judith believes in AGW. She is not sidestepping anything. You’re point seems to be that “anyone can say that.” Well yes, but only a few have scientific credentials that give them credibility.
sciguy54,
Thank you. You’ve had a fascinating and interesting career. Project work is extraordinarily fulfilling.
Could I suggest you copy and paste (edit if you want to) your background onto the Denizens II thread (link on top right of screen). That’s where I go to look for the background I am responding to.
Bernie 1815 also doesn’t have his background on Denizens II
sciguy54
What we need is to remove the massive impediments that are increasing the cost of developing things like this:
http://www.uxc.com/smr/Library/Design%20Specific/mPower/Presentations/2012%20-%20Reactor%20Design%20Overview.pdf
@David Appell
More convincing of what?
This post seems to indicate that you are currently rather spectacularly missing the point of what Dr Curry has been discussing these last years.
Firstly, how is it that you conclude Dr Curry believes “all” who see “truth” in AGW are corrupt and unethical? That’s not at all the impression I have formed from what she is saying. You have made unjustifiable leap from Judith questioning the very demonstrable advocacy of some alarmist scientists and their abuse of their “expertise” to her belief that anyone presenting science in that direction is doing the same thing.
She most certainly isn’t, but she would be saying that scientists with opposing view points should be welcomed, and debate should be encouraged, not suppressed. Therefore, no inquisitions against “deniers” or even the perpetuation of the meme that people who disagree with you are “denying” the science.
And how is she “sidestepping” producing better science? Firstly, she has recently been involved in two peer reviewed papers, one assessing climate sensitivity in the light of recent instrumental data, and the other proposing a mechanism for how climate phenomena can be connected over decadal timescales. You may well question whether either of these papers are “better” than science you happen to agree with, but who could be said to be “judging” then?
And even if she hadn’t brought out interesting science, how does that not make the arguments regarding scientists behaving ethically not valid? We have heard the term “motivated reasoning” quite a lot on this board, but if you examine your comment, that is exactly what it looks like to me.
You don’t like the implication that scientists who are vocal about “consensus” science, and with whom you agree, have behaved unethically. And it’s demonstrably true, but the point she makes is that when scientists overstate their case, or (and perhaps more importantly) when society asks for judgements from them that are beyond what they can reasonably make, when it transpires they were wrong it undermines confidence in the science more generally.
I don’t see how addressing these issues will alienate her from the scientific community – that would be utterly disgraceful if it we’re true. Just the opposite – I believe most scientists, like most people, would find this would resonate with them, and welcome public discussion about how to think about this. She believes, and I think she is right, most scientists get on with their work without speaking publicly as an advocate for one position or another, and I further think probably feel very uneasy about the behaviour of some of those that do. Discussion of these issues is important when dealing with the frontiers of knowledge and deep implications for society.
iiequalsexpipi @ April 30, 2015 at 4:56 pm
Although Peter Lang makes an interesting argument below.
I’m not sure I agree with this statement:
“When you consider the possible damages and benefits from limiting c02
when you consider the possible damages and benefits from economic policies aimed at that… you look at this differently.
You look for policies that are low regrets– like advancing nuclear and getting rid of black carbon.”
The sentences you quoted were not said by me; they were said by Steven Mosher said it here: http://judithcurry.com/2015/04/28/making-nonsense-of-climate-denial/#comment-698525
However, I agree with Steven Mosher on this.
You then said:
Why not look at the entire probability distribution of net benefits and make and informed decision about what the optimal policy response is? …
But that is exactly what is done (to the extent ;possible with the poor pdfs available for the many inputs needed (see the Nordhaus DICE 2013R model for the inputs needed).
Using the default values (which are on the CAGW side of central estimates), the costs greatly exceed the benefits for all this century. The only way you can justify policies other than ‘No Regrets’ policies is to sum projected benefits and costs for hundreds of years. It’s totally ridiculous. There can be no rational justification for any policy that is not economically benefical at all time scales irrespective of any projected ‘climate damages avoided‘, that may be realised many generations nfrom now. See chart here: http://catallaxyfiles.com/2014/10/27/cross-post-peter-lang-why-the-world-will-not-agree-to-pricing-carbon-ii/
Jim D | April 29, 2015 at 12:09 am | Reply
If the skeptics think that there is a conspiracy, or self-serving, or peer pressure among climate scientists, they need to go to neutral arbiters on the science, such as NAS, RS, or APS, etc., and see how they weigh the science on its own merit. These have nothing to gain and everything to lose in going against the scientific evidence, and they are immune to the “pressures” or “incentives” of the climate scientists. Which way do they lean and why? A true conspiracy theorist would have a preconceived notion that these must be “in on it” too in some way, and probably have an explanation of exactly why.
Blatantly obvious to everyone, including the vested-interest deniers who claim to not see it. One way or another, they are all in the pocket of government, your “neutral” arbiters included. And of course government’s interests lie firmly in a public credulous about CAGW, so we know which scientists will be more in the paymasters’ good books, and which less so.
Any truebeliever who wants to believe there is any integrity and openness in government climate science, would first need to provide evidence of this alleged ‘conspiracy of honesty’ hiding out somewhere in the ranks, whose creed gives proper science priority over the naked vested intererest of their paymaster the state, quite unlike what we saw in Climategate and the ensuing and still unrepentant coverups of it. Such truebelievers are the only conspiracy theorists in the picture here- not skeptics, who merely follow the money and observe self-interest at work.
Of course were they to discover and ‘out’ any such pockets of integrity, this would be the end of them, as funds were soon diverted to more compliant scientivists. An unenviable decision to have to make.
Mosomoso, that cost figure I’m highly certain that cost figure for the desalination facility is very unlikely.
Judith,
The pressures to conform to the consensus are enormous.
Do you ever consider that this is kind of how science is meant to work. Okay, to be clear, I’m not suggesting that conforming is how it is meant to work, but that if you’re going to hold a contrary position, it’s meant to be difficult and challenging to get your work considered. In a sense, the consensus position is the position that is supported by most of the evidence. If you want to illustrate that this position is incorrect/flawed/wrong then the onus is on you to provide the convincing evidence for that alternative, and it’s not meant to be easy.
