Thank you, Harold, for a clear and de-alarming post.
Comment on The uncertainty of climate sensitivity and its implication for the Paris negotiations by Faustino aka Genghis Cunn
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Comment on The uncertainty of climate sensitivity and its implication for the Paris negotiations by Faustino aka Genghis Cunn
I’d hope that the “best and brightest” had better things to do, enough resources have been wasted in the alleged CAGW field already, let’s cut back on the waste and keep people in useful areas.
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Comment on The uncertainty of climate sensitivity and its implication for the Paris negotiations by Faustino aka Genghis Cunn
Australia did pretty well too, with six in the top 100, though we have 24 million to GA’s 10, and our highest ranked – Melbourne – was 33rd. UWA, which refused to allow Bjorn Lomborg near it’s hallowed walls, somehow jumped from 157 to 109.
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Comment on The uncertainty of climate sensitivity and its implication for the Paris negotiations by Faustino aka Genghis Cunn
Geoff, one of my letters to The Australian today:
Robert Gottliebsen sees promotion by Malcolm Turnbull and Greg Hunt of their environmental policies as an antidote to investors’ fear about Australia; I see them as a threat (“Ten reasons offshore investors are staying away,” 1/10). Australia is already committed to costly and economically damaging greenhouse-gas reduction policies which have little or no impact on climate, and any change by Turnbull and Hunt is only likely to increase the damage.
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Comment on The uncertainty of climate sensitivity and its implication for the Paris negotiations by Faustino aka Genghis Cunn
Peter, this comment only so that all “Recent comments” are by you and I! I’d better take a break now.
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Comment on The uncertainty of climate sensitivity and its implication for the Paris negotiations by Scottish Sceptic
If you’ve actually worked with feedback series in real life, like me, then its fairly obvious that in an inter-glacial, the climate has strong negative feedbacks in operation.
Therefore the sensitivity will almost certainly be less than 1C.
And if you had worked in real engineering with real systems where people use real models and you know how often people go down a blind alleyway because of some false assumption that doesn’t pan out. You wouldn’t pay much heed at all to a bunch of numpties whose sum total experience is a total failure of their models after asserting a ridiculous 95% confidence in their own abilities.
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Comment on Confluence (not conflict) of interest by Faustino aka Genghis Cunn
I disagree with the assertion that “the term conflict of interest is pejorative. It is confrontational and presumptive of inappropriate behavior.” “Pejorative” is a strong term, expressing contempt or disapproval. To me, the term recognises that human beings, with few exceptions, are driven first by their perceived own interests and those of people close to them or on whom they depend, and that while they might act altruistically, there is often a tension between pursuing the public or community good and fostering one’s own interests. That is how the world works, and in policy areas it is often evident, and often those placed in a position of trust or authority abuse that position to foster their perceived self-interest [footnote]. The term recognises reality, it is neither confrontational nor presumptive, but acknowledges that account might need to be taken of such conflicts. My experience is that human nature operates in medical fields as it does elsewhere. To me, the term “confluence of interest” obscures this reality, and would tend to leave more room for abuse than continued use of the term which clearly recognises it.
That does not mean, of course, that – as Judith appears to have experienced at GA Tech – we approach with extreme suspicion anyone involved in an activity where there might be a conflict of interest: we just have to be aware of it, and apply commonsense in our assessments – or “due diligence,” the level of diligence needed might not be high. It’s on a case-by-case basis, and one’s knowledge of the parties involved will affect one’s judgement on how much diligence might be required.
[Footnote: I think that we best serve ourselves by being unselfish and serving others, without thought of self. When this approach is followed with wisdom and understanding, then conflicts of interest will seldom arise.]
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Comment on Confluence (not conflict) of interest by Faustino aka Genghis Cunn
My first reaction to the proposed “terrain-mapping” approach is that it would be unworkable. How much time and effort would be needed? Might it foster conflict rather than “confluence”? I can often recognize potentially problematic conflicts of interest because I’ve been dealing with people all my life, although I’ve generally been naïve and trusting and assumed, too often wrongly, that others would have the same high standards that are natural to me. [Not big-noting myself, just telling it as it is.] Those less trusting than me would probably be more attuned to COI.
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Comment on Confluence (not conflict) of interest by Faustino aka Genghis Cunn
Fourth and fifth points, yes, but “repeatedly educating” people does not often bring about significant change. We what we are; change comes through self-awareness, recognition of our failings and the volition and tools to address them. We almost always resist the efforts of “those who know better” to “improve” us. Political correctness, anyone?
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Comment on RICO! by The curious case of the RICO letter to President Obama from 20 climate scientists - Watchdog.org
[…] criticized by a number of other climate scientists such as Georgia Tech’s Judith Curry and hurricane expert Peter Webster, who say invoking the RICO statute was at least partly aimed at scientists who question the data […]
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Comment on Confluence (not conflict) of interest by Faustino aka Genghis Cunn
“Confluence of interest represents a complex ecosystem that requires … while being sufficiently flexible at the individual level not to intrude on the process of innovation.” Too long away from the real world, perhaps? Whatever the system, the quality of the individuals involved will always be critical. When society holds in high regard honesty, integrity and selflessness, then many problems would evaporate. But such a change can come about only by the efforts of each individual, it can not be imposed or orchestrated by any group, however well-intentioned. Indeed, good intentions without wisdom and understanding can be very harmful. One might consider alleged CAGW as such an example (although I would not regard the intentions of some promoting it as good).
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Comment on The uncertainty of climate sensitivity and its implication for the Paris negotiations by Peter Lang
Faustino, Perhaps you could have said (accurately):
“all valid, relevant comments are by you and I!” :)
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Comment on The uncertainty of climate sensitivity and its implication for the Paris negotiations by Fred
Is this new set of papers going to change the thinking on feedback.
http://scottishsceptic.co.uk/2015/09/30/massive-global-cooling-process-discovered-could-explain-the-recent-disagreements-between-models-and-reality/
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Comment on The uncertainty of climate sensitivity and its implication for the Paris negotiations by Faustino aka Genghis Cunn
Peter, I think that my 3.53 comment gives the lie to that!
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Comment on The uncertainty of climate sensitivity and its implication for the Paris negotiations by AK
<blockquote>If you’ve actually worked with feedback series in real life, like me, then its fairly obvious that in an inter-glacial, the climate has strong negative feedbacks in operation.</blockquote>So consider a(n old-fashioned) thermostat in a house that drives a furnace. Would you call this a “<i>negative feedback</i>”? (I wouldn't, but let's use your definition.) Now, take a window next to that thermostat and open it a crack. What does it do to the <b>average</b> temperature?
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Comment on The uncertainty of climate sensitivity and its implication for the Paris negotiations by aplanningengineer
if fun’s ok, reflecting US values I thought I’d look at who balances educational reputation with football prominence to think about an alternate top 10. Taking the top 100 and being generous with Football prominence, these stand out over time: Stanford, Berkeley, UCLA, Duke, Michigan, Northwestern, Washington, Georgia Tech, University of Texas, Wisconsin, North Carolina, Southern Cal, Penn St, Pittsburgh, Vandy (I am being kind),Ohio State and Michigan State,
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Comment on The uncertainty of climate sensitivity and its implication for the Paris negotiations by sciguy54
“This is how restrictive bureaucracies operate. It is all about control.”
AK, you are close. At best, a bureaucracy is an organism consisting of human “cells” whose ultimate goal is the sum of the individual goals of each cell, i.e. continued growth of revenue and mass in order to provide an ever more stable and comfortable environment for each cell. Bureaucracies thrive because external systems have no direct and effective means of detecting and exposing the damages caused by these organisms and controlling or removing them when needed.
Unless there is a readily available “magic bullet” to deal with each out-of-control bureaucracy, each one may be considered a potentially fatal cancerous tumor. Unfortunately we have created many without such control mechanisms, and more bureaucracies are proposed every day.
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Comment on The uncertainty of climate sensitivity and its implication for the Paris negotiations by AK
<blockquote>An intergovernmental organization seems to be an excellent vehicle to do this.</blockquote>Not to me! “<i>An intergovernmental organization</i>” <b>doesn't</b> seem to me “<i>to be an excellent vehicle to <b>do</b></i>” anything. An intergovernmental <i>framework</i> might serve effectively as a sort of "<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agora" rel="nofollow"><i>agorá</i></a>" where those who are actually doing things (about, say, fossil carbon) can interact, everything from trading carbon credits (if any) to publishing research, offering patents or other intellectual property for licensing, and theorizing about policy.
The <i>agorás</i> of typical Hellenic towns could serve as centers for a variety of communal activities because the population was usually small (Athens was an exception, of course). For some <i>framework</i> to do likewise for a modern global community, even WRT the narrow focus of fossil-neutral energy, the technology of the Internet would have to be recruited.
For such a system to work, the research and especially theorizing about policy would have to be open, available for anybody's opinion. Somehow, I don't see such a system growing out of Paris, or any organization made up of the sort of warmists found here. (Maybe a good fraction of the "<b>luke</b>"-warmists.)
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Comment on My Fox News op-ed on RICO by jhprince
Judith, count me in in the outrage…. The political/personal attacks on other thought, the forum of running to a willing ear (the current administration), is truly a low in discourse and really the utterly inconceivable part of the subject.
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Comment on The uncertainty of climate sensitivity and its implication for the Paris negotiations by AK
<blockquote>Bureaucracies thrive because external systems have no direct and effective means of detecting and exposing the damages caused by these organisms and controlling or removing them when needed.</blockquote>This is often true of <b>governmental regulatory</b> bureaucracies. But many large corporations have small (or not-so-small) bubbles of bureaucracy, where it can serve a useful purpose when subject to oversight by management and stockholders/owners. The larger system of free-market capitalism serves as a control against management and stockholders/owners, with corporations losing market share or going bankrupt when poorly managed, including failure to control corporate bureaucracy.
Unless, of course, such big corporations get far enough into bed with government cronies that they can avoid market forces.
But there <b>are</b> external systems for “<i>detecting and exposing the damages caused by these organisms and controlling or removing them when needed.</i>” The press, and political action via Congress and the courts, have the potential to provide this control, although that potential isn't really being met very well at the moment.
The growth of regulatory bureaucracy in the US, like that in Imperial Rome, requires some sort of constitutional change(s) to avoid nightmares like the Byzantine Empire or the modern European Union. (Or at least, what the latter seems to be growing into.)
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