“It is a surprise to governments, experts and outside observers.
The event has a major impact.
After the first instance of the event, it is rationalized by hindsight (which also is why a Black Swan event never happens the same way twice).”
Donald Trump is a Black Swan?
Judith said
‘Thanks to Hubert Lamb and others, an evolving understanding of climate variability over the past millennia had evolved. Michael Mann arguably killed the climate pink flamingo with his hockey stick — arguing for trivial natural variability over the past millennia.’
No, the pink flamingo was merely stunned. Some of us are trying to revive her. Phil jones and the met office now believe in greater natural variability than they did just a few years ago and the met office were persuaded to remove the paragraph on their web site which cited limited natural variability.
Tonyb
Are you saying you don’t remotely believe the projections, or whether, given a 4 C warmer world, droughts, forest fires, etc., would be worse. You need to disentangle these two issues in your mind.
were not based on remotely reliable models
Who says they are not “remotely reliable models?”
What happens if things turn out bad and more in line with what most climate scientists think? Are we supposed to say “told you so?” If shifting to low carbon energy sources is too difficult at some point or the evidence for a high climate sensitivity weakens then we can always slow down. But if climate change turns out bad, we are going to be stuck with it for a long time whether we like it or not. Credit to ATTP for that last part.
“This brings to mind the attempt to usurp all of the UN millennial development goals in favor of futile attempts to change the climate by reducing global carbon emissions.”
Bingo!
A long time ago in a galaxy far removed from reality (Real Climate), I argued the opportunity lost cost when investing in climate model output. Spending money on an ephemeral future scenario now and not having the resources to provide for the cost of adapting in the future.
In this case, the UN millennium goals for developing countries regarding disease mitigation, energy development, economic development have been subserved to prevent coal fired power plants from being constructed because of the climate elites’ fright of CO2 and Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming.
So Obama along with his East & West Coast, & Venture Capitalists money have made the conscious decision to condemn 2 billion people living on <$2/day to continue to live in desperate poverty. (Recently, a little ploy was instituted to use < $1.85/day to get the number under 1 billion people. See, there is less poverty in the world today than yesteryear). Tricks of the trade I guess.
Obama can not walk in these people's shoes, nor would he want to. Community organizing is about getting others to walk in the shoes of people who are being disadvantaged; i.e., manipulating others. See how that feels.
All projections. Not a single prediction. Can a projection ever turn to be false?
“Iraq – a sovereign element in the Newtonian system.” Why read any further?
Not even the most skeptical sensitivity estimates would say that the impact of that is as small as 0.2 C.
That is because all CO2 sensitivity estimates are wrong. CO2 sensitivity is so small it cannot be measured and separated from natural variability.
Manmade CO2 did not cause the Roman or Medieval Warm Periods.
Natural Cycles have again made the Earth Warm, always limited by about the same amount, many times, in the past ten thousand years.
This is just one more Natural Warm Cycle just like the others.
The data is showing that this cycle is just like the previous cycles.
Whatever caused warm cycles in the past has not stopped.
Name one climate driver that stopped.
It is claimed that global warming is an unforseen consequence of fossil fuel use, but that the proposed remedies (solar, wind, punishing taxes, etc) will have no unforseen consequences. heh
Example of a pink flamingo: the French defenses on the lead up to WWII simply could not imagine an attack via Belgium or a rapid assault.
How do we shift to low carbon energy?
Faustino said
‘The lake in my local park remained frozen until May; and that is where the black swan was domiciled throughout this period, far from the warmth of its natural habitat.’
Far from the Warmth of their natural habitat? We have had black swans domiciled in nearby Dawlish since the early 1900’s
http://www.dawlish.gov.uk/swans.php
Spookily, that is exactly where a supposed Black Swan event occurred when the railway line was swept away in the storms a couple of years ago. However the reasons for the destruction turned out to have been much more prosaic..
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/02/09/black-swans-dispatches-from-the-front-line-of-climate-change/
tonyb
Mosh
Love it that you dismiss MIchael Mann’s work about the LIA as being a puff piece. Who Am I to disagree? Mind you I cited some 50 renowned authors in my article about it including Ladurie, Groves, Lamb. Fagan Kington, Jones. We also have multiple records of crops, famines, destruction of buildings, observations, archaeological remains.
Is this the first time in the climate debate that a sceptic has quoted Mann and been told by a lukewarmer that his work-the basis of countless scares around the world-is a piece of puffery?
His work, like the curates egg is good in parts.
tonyb
I’m a conservative and must admit I come here mainly to kick any warmie heads that poke above the ruck. That said, I often can’t identify with right-wingers or even many libertarians. I admire Thomas Jefferson as much as anyone, but if bigger and more intrusive government could have stopped him using child slave labour for his nail factory then I’m prepared to to side with big government against Jefferson.
If you’re not prepared to get into some trouble with your own side, you’re probably too far onside. For example, I value and relish Mark Steyn’s writings on popular culture but I don’t want to have to cover for him because he’s Mark Steyn. His words are his own, and he has to answer for them. I hope he wins, but that’s another matter.
Also, I’m not convinced that it was okay to pilfer and handle the climategate emails and I’m not convinced by the attitude of we-were-misled by those who should have always been more skeptical. That’s an opinion which might get me into trouble with my own side, though the trouble amounts to very little so it would be absurd for me to talk of my “courage”. I’d likely shut up if there was a lot at stake. I’m just an internet opinionator, not Giordano Bruno risking the flames.
Sure I favour the individual over the collective, all things being equal. I like free markets that really are free, and not free to be rigged by monopolists or that leftist New Class who’ve discovered The Market the way teenage boys discover sex. Sure I’d like to see Brussels turned into a parking lot and Canberra declared a National Park…but I can live with some big government of societies which are themselves big and complex. Matter of degree.
Really, for me it’s about kicking warmies. I just like doing that, okay?
Jim,
You say the sun can affect temperatures “by plus or minus 0.1 C”. Do you have a reference for that? I’m intrigued.
Wow, is that some kind of exrta-weird sky dragon nonsense from Mike?
[…] climatologist Judith Curry: “Adjudicating the future: silencing climate dissent via the courts” […]
Jim D:
This is a statement that the less you know about something, the more cautious you need to be about it. Take tipping points. If you know you are pushing towards what may or may not be tipping points, but the harder you push, the more likely it is you tip them, you push as little as possible. I would call this a common sense approach in the face of uncertainty.
The earth’s climate is a complex system. Uncertainty about potential outcomes compels some to push for changes in another complex system — the global energy/economic system. As you must be aware, most skeptics are concerned that “tipping points” exist in the economic system and tinkering with it could trigger seriously negative consequences. Uncertainty and PP applies in both systems.
Personally, I have no great allegiance to any particular source of energy/electricity. But I do have a strong preference for affordability and widespread access. Your concern over climate uncertainty applies to the future — possibly two generations or more into the future. My concern over access to affordable energy applies to today. I am hesitant to endorse proposals to reduce the well-being of people alive today on the chance that it might improve the well-being of people to be born tomorrow.
You and your friends are trying to convince people like me. If you can ever show that you actually understand the timing and the magnitude of climate changes AND can demonstrate a convincing grasp of the global economic impact of your mitigation strategies then people like me will support your efforts.
It is not good enough just to dress up in a scary Halloween costume and yell “Boo!” No candy for you.
Did he do his due diligence?
Apparently not. The first bid I received on replacing my windows was similar to his (note to the unaware: it’s a scam) but I sought competing bids that ended up cutting the cost by more than half. If I had gone with basic vinyl windows I could have cut the price much more. Caveat emptor.
Did he even calculate a ROI for the 40k cost to reduce his monthly energy bill? In my case, the ROI did not offset the cost of window replacement in a reasonable time frame but I did it anyway.
In addition, I suspect he would have received a better ROI on attic insulation since inland southern California homes typically have higher cooling than heating costs. Basic double-pane windows help more in winter than in summer although siting and building design are important considerations.
Finally, when I was working on PACE financing proposals (years ago) an important consideration was making sure that the increase in property taxes was fully covered by the savings on annual energy expenses. That standard imposes a limit on extravagances and should reduce the typical residential PACE loan to a few thousand dollars.
