Climate study vs. Economic study: What are the similarities and differences? Both are based on one experiment : the earth. Neither can repeat the experiment to study variations. Both use complex models to make predictions. Opinions?
Comment on Open thread by rmdobservations
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Comment on Can we trust climate models? by Tanglewood
Jim D > Some would consider that the raw data over the last half century supports the models. Others prefer not to think about what the raw data is telling them.
There’s name for them : Pause Deniers.
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Comment on Open thread by Robert I Ellison
‘In a world of limited resources, we can’t do everything, so which goals should we prioritize? The Copenhagen Consensus Center provides information on which targets will do the most social good (measured in dollars, but also incorporating e.g. welfare, health and environmental protection), relative to their costs. Some of the world’s top economists have assessed the targets from the 12th session Open Working Group document into one of five categories, based on economic evidence: Phenomenal, Good, Fair, Poor and not enough knowledge
The final decision on choosing goals will definitely rest on a number of factors, not just economics – but knowing the costs and benefits provides an important piece of information. Given the short turnaround, the results should be considered informative, but preliminary. The Copenhagen Consensus will present full, peer-reviewed economic evidence over the coming half year.
Just think: if we could prioritize a goal that saves 10 lives for every $250,000 spent, over another goal that saves 1 life for the same amount, we could do billions of dollars more good over the next 15 years!’ http://www.copenhagenconsensus.com/sites/default/files/owg12.cost-benefit-assessment_0.pdf
‘Each year, ten million people die from infectious diseases like malaria, HIV, and tuberculosis, along with pneumonia and diarrhea. Lack of water and sanitation is estimated to cause at least 300,000 deaths each year. Malnourishment claims at least 1.4 million children’s lives.
Poverty is one of the main killers. It is why children do not receive proper nutrition and live in neighborhoods with unclean water and inadequate sanitation. And it is why an entirely preventable disease like malaria kills 600,000 people each year; many are too poor to buy drugs and bed nets, while governments are often too poor to eradicate the mosquitos that carry the disease or contain and treat outbreaks when they occurs.
But some of the most lethal problems are environmental. According to the World Health Organization, about seven million deaths each year are caused by air pollution, with the majority a result of burning twigs and dung inside. Previous generations’ use of lead in paints and gasoline is estimated to cause almost 700,000 deaths annually. Ground-level ozone pollution kills more than 150,000 people per year, while global warming causes another 141,000 deaths. Naturally occurring radioactive radon that builds up inside homes kills about 100,000 people every year.
Here, too, poverty plays a disproportionate role. No one lights a fire every night inside their house for fun; they do so because they lack the electricity needed to stay warm and to cook. While outdoor air pollution is partly caused by incipient industrialization, this represents a temporary tradeoff for the poor – escaping hunger, infectious disease, and indoor air pollution to be better able to afford food, health care, and education. When countries become sufficiently rich, they can afford cleaner technology and begin to enact environmental legislation to reduce outdoor air pollution, as we now see in Mexico City and Santiago, Chile.
One of the best anti-poverty tools is trade. China has lifted 680 million people out of poverty over the past three decades through a strategy of rapid integration into the global economy. Extending free trade, especially for agriculture, throughout the developing world is likely the single most important anti-poverty measure that policymakers could implement this decade.’
The AID dollar is in short supply – far shorter than has been committed to – but not delivered on – by western governments. The objective is to do the most good through the most focused expenditure. That we can also decrease black carbon, tropospheric ozone, nitrous oxide and methane – as well as manage population, environments and agricultural land – is a bonus. This is the most effective approach to mitigation in the short to medium term.
Yet we get what as a response from progressive nutters? Iraq? Tobacco? The 1%? All very relevant and helpful I’m sure – if utterly insane.
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Comment on Can we trust climate models? by Tanglewood
“any climate model developed with public funding should be made available to anyone willing to spend the effort to examine it.”
Paraphrasing IPCC lead author Prof Phil Jones :
Why should I show you my model when I know you’ try and find something wrong with it?
The defeaning silence from government climate scientists in response to this flagrant anti-science comment, clearly illustrating that the prevailing ethic in govenment climate science is there to find excuses for more government, not get to the truth of the matter.
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Comment on What is skepticism, anyway? by Europa Dreaming | Skeptical Swedish Scientists
[…] its dead rocky core? & “plumes” from 12 politicised 2012 pixels? Scientific skepticism is the rigorous application of science and reason to test the validity of any and all claims; […]
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Comment on Open thread by phatboy
Jim D, to the more savvy it may look like sceptic-bashing is about your level.
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Comment on Open thread by Unstoppable
Who is Steven Mosher?
http://www.populartechnology.net/2014/06/who-is-steven-mosher.html
“Steven Mosher is an English major with a long career in marketing and technology who is known for wasting everyone’s time by making indecipherable drive-by comments on skeptic websites. He is not an “aerospace engineer”, he is not an “open-source software developer” and he is certainly not a “scientist” (despite all ridiculous claims to the contrary).”
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Comment on Open thread by John Reid
Hi ClimateEtc people (and those guys down at WordPress)
Love this blog but:
Why is it that we people down in the sticks (i.e. the Greenwich plus 10 time zone) never get a fresh go at US blogs such as this one. It doesn’t matter what time of day or night a new post is posted there are always 100 plus comments already posted when we get the reminder email. What do I need to do to get to the top of the list? (other than commenting on high order comments.)
Also (you guys down at WordPress please note) the “Notify me of follow up comments” box doesn’t work properly. The commenter gets EVERY later post, even those on different threads and this flood of irrelevant emails can be difficult to switch off. (I am using Firefox under Mint 16)
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Comment on Pondering the anthropocene by Don Monfort
That will probably be what the geologists a hundred and fifty years in the future will decide on as the beginning of the Nuclearocene, Hans. Humankind will be worshiping nuclear power by that time. It’s the only viable replacement for fossil fuels.
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Comment on Pondering the anthropocene by Raving
Anthropocene
The term is mainly used so as to draw attention to evil stupid small-minded destructive humanity. It is a recent application of the classic BODY versus MIND debate. I.E. ‘Mind’ is stupid, volatile delusional undefinable etc.
Yeah well here is a clue … There are two types of people … Those who consider thoughts to be rubbish and those who find worth in thoughts.
The categorizer for ‘Mind’ versus ‘body’ is set by perception and topology
Object descriptions pertain to body. All objects are independent and isolated. Making jumps across discontinuous voids pertains to ‘mind’. The jumping is effected by a timely slur
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Comment on Open thread by Paul Vaughan
<b><a href="http://www.billhowell.ca/Paul%20L%20Vaughan/Vaughan%20140622%20Sun%20&%20SAM%20(Southern%20Annular%20Mode).pdf" rel="nofollow">Sun & SAM</a></b>
Sunspot Integral & Southern Annular Mode (SAM)
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Comment on Pondering the anthropocene by ¿Ha empezado Antropobsceno? | PlazaMoyua.com
[…] de Smithsonian magazine [1-->], Keith Kloor [2-->], y Judith Curry [3-->]. En una especie de curiosa escalera que va desde la ciencia como cuento chino (1), al cuento chino […]
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Comment on Critique of Mann’s new paper characterizing the AMO by premier hacks
I am really enjoying the theme/design of your blog.
Do you ever run into any internet browser compatibility problems?
A few of my blog audience have complained about my blog not operating
correctly in Explorer but looks great in Chrome. Do you have any
suggestions to help fix this issue?
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Comment on Open thread by Raving
The scandal of fiddled global warming data
The US has actually been cooling since the Thirties, the hottest decade on record
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/10916086/The-scandal-of-fiddled-global-warming-data.html
Two weeks ago I would not have believed such stuff. After reading Obama’s shout down rhetoric, I feel that such fudging is plausible. Hard to ignore that many warmists behave like cultists
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Comment on Pondering the anthropocene by jknapp1949
Rather than anthropocene, I believe a better label would the Hubrisocene. Starting in the sixties or seventies, and post-modernism (whatever that is), where a few self defined “smart people”, usually some government bureaucracy, academic, or activist think that they can tell everybody how to live often based on personal beliefs and prejudices masquerading as science. Hubris.
The things that everyone “knew” to be true that turned out to be nonsense are legion. Anything Freud said, fat and eggs cause heat disease, ulcers are the result of stress, DDT should be banned, polar bears are going extinct, CO2 causes asthma and heart problems (latest EPA rules), the government should encourage high density living, mass transit, high speed rail in the California desert, welfare reduces the number of people in poverty, learning styles theory, catastrophic anthropomorphic climate change, etc… People come up with theories and insist that they are put into policy before they are actually verified as true. Hubris
The conceit of central planning by Marx leading to the new deal of Roosevelt and on to the ever expanding list of rules and regulations promulgated at all levels of government by elected officials and bureaucracies are the result of the hubris that we, mankind, are now in conscious control and that nature, randomness, organic social movements are minor factors at best. Damage due to a hurricane must be “caused” by Global warming, bad building codes, poor zoning, ineffective government response, racism (Katrina), or some other factor under our control. Hubris.
Climate change theory is just the latest chapter in the hubrisocene era.
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Comment on Pondering the anthropocene by Lord Beaverbrook
Deadparrotocene
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Comment on Open thread by Edim
Global warming (and global cooling) at all time scales is basic education. However, if you think the Orwellian Global Warming (the late 20th century rise in global warming indices, known as AGW, attributed mostly to human CO2 emissions, which seems to be shifting to cooling with the 21st century), then yes – we want to see some proper evidence. Cargo cult science is not enough.
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Comment on Pondering the anthropocene by rmdobservations
Three arguments for beginning Anthropocene, as I have seen in this blog are:
nuclear explosions, global spreading of species and transfer of buried CO2 into the ocean/atmosphere system.
The first has already been detected in sedimentary layers, I believe. And the second will show up once these creatures are deposited in the sediments far away fromtheir origin. The Co2 isotopes will provide evidence of the third.
It may be hubris, but I for one will be sad if the demise of the elephant and whale is added to the beginning of the the Antropocene.
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Comment on Pondering the anthropocene by Robert I Ellison
I knew there was a 5 somewhere.
http://www.nhm.ac.uk/nature-online/life/dinosaurs-other-extinct-creatures/mass-extinctions/
So – we are not heading for the 6th great extinction – unless we count Randy’s brain cells.
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Comment on Pondering the anthropocene by climatereason
Two thousand years ago Rome had a population of 1 million people and spread for fifty miles. It gathered the food from far and wide, including North Africa, in order to feed its population.
It brought in species hitherto unknown in the countries it ruled, for example in Britain they brought rabbits. They brought architecture, rule of law, organisation and the wholesale cutting down of forests and replacement by fields.
In their time the climate changed from warm to very warm, whereby Beech trees disappeared from the city and Nero entreated citizens to build their streets in a way to combat the heat of the city following the great fire.
Then the climate cooled considerably and some argue, was their downfall.
So can the Romans claim to be the start of the Anthropocene in as much they had a great impact on their surroundings?
If so, we can also learn that-despite mans efforts the world will continue to warm and cool. As Hubert Lamb said shortly before he died;
“The idea of climate change has at last taken on with the public after generations which assumed that climate could be taken as constant. But it is easy to notice the common assumption that mans science and modern industry and technology are now so powerful that any change of climate or the environment must be due to us. It is good for us to be more alert and responsible in our treatment of the environment, but not to have a distorted view of our own importance. Above all, we need more knowledge, education and understanding in these matters.”
Hubert Lamb DEC 1994
Anthropocene? I think we need to heed Lambs words and the examples of cities like Rome and stop imagining that we are more important than nature.
tonyb
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