Until recently the most popular blog piece (measured in terms of traffic/hits) on this site was ‘What do Geologists Know about Climate?’ (posted 29th April) – the Michael Duffy interview with Bob Carter.
The most popular blog piece is now ‘Vague about Collapse’ (posted 1st June) – the piece I wrote after watching Jared Diamond (author of ‘Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Survive’) on SBS Television.
What is it about Jared Diamond that he always gets read?
I have been emailed links to two excellent reviews of ‘Collapse’.
Victor David Hanson reviews the book at the following link http://www.nationalreview.com/books/hanson200505200837.asp.
Mick Keogh has written a devastating critique of the chapter on Australia which can be downloaded at the Farm Institute website, go to http://www.farminstitute.org.au/__data/page/1/2005_NJA_May_Keogh.pdf .
In the comments following my ‘Vague about Collapse’piece I said I would write about the lecture he gave in Brisbane on the Thursday – but I still haven’t got around to transcribing my notes.
Graham Young was at the same lecture and has written a blog piece on the lecture at http://ambit-gambit.nationalforum.com.au/archives/000643.html .
How can Diamond be so revered – he spoke to 850 at the Brisbane lecture which was a full house and there was much cheering and clapping – yet he gets things so factually wrong?
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
What the …. Did any of these people actually read the book as I just did?
For people that write books often chapters are written years before the final book is released. You cannot crucify him because the latest figures are not in the book. The main facts are correct as far as I can see.
The chapter on Australia was not an attack – just a summation of very well known facts. Australia has generally poor soils and low rainfall. It was very badly managed earlier in the century however now we are doing much better. In the process of learning we have devastated large areas.
I like one fact that Japan has 74% of its forest remaining. We are in fact cutting down our forests so the Japanese can keep theirs. We get peanuts for our woodchips and buy paper and expensive items back. If you read the chapter on Japan the Shoguns legislated in the 1700s to manage and keep their forests.
Perhaps we should not be so sensitive.
Perhaps because it is the difference between religion and science.
I have Collapse but have not finished reading it.
Another factor may be the mindset which reveres Diamond.
I know of a rather left leaning med student (hence supposed to be intelligent) only reading the first 3 chapters of Lomborg’s “The Sceptical Environmentalist” and promptly ceased to read further because he considered it to be propoganda.
Diamond is thus revered because he confirms their prejudices, irrespective of how many facts are violated.
Funnily enough I would agree with you Louis. When I read Collapse, because it does resonate with what I already believe, yes I do probably pick at it less that I would with a book that disagrees.
I think it is called preaching to the converted.
It all shows that we are all, in the end, only human. We can only work to what we believe is the right thing.
Ender, We can continually put our beliefs to the test. We can seek out, rather than shut down debate. We can explore evidence and information that challenges rather than confirms our theories. Which I guess is what you are doing by participating at this site.
Speaking for myself, I’m a big fan of Diamond as he wrote the best popular science book that I have ever read. In addition to Guns, Germs and Steel, Collapse and Third Chimp are also great. I haven’t read Why is Sex Fun. Plus his peer reviewed scientific pieces put him in the same league was science gods, such as Ernst Mayr.
Diamonds big problem is that his critics tend to criticize a strawman version of his arguments, rather than the arguments themselves. Hanson’s review is so full of strawman arguments that I really don’t know where to start. Keogh’s argument, while infinitely better than Hanson’s suffers from the same problem. For example, he quotes Diamond as saying:
“Diamond states that the soils in that region are infertile as a consequence of nutrients being leached from the soil, the inference being that it is the farming practices employed there that have resulted in the soils being leached of nutrients.”
This is incorrect. As Diamond has noted elsewhere, many Australian soils are inherently infertile, even before any agricultural practices have been carried out.”
The inference is entirely in his head. Diamond doesn’t make this argument – his is a classical strawman argument.
His rebuttal of Diamond’s point about meeting Kyoto targets by eliminating cattle is poor. Contrary to his assertion that:
“Totally removing cattle from Australia (and the associated economic activity) Australia (and the associated economic activity) would make only a minor difference to total national would make only a minor difference to total national greenhouse emissions.”
Cattle farming produce a bit over 40 Mt CO2 eq. per year. Removing this from Australia’s total emissions (approx. 550 Mt CO2 eq. in 2003) would be more than sufficient to ensure that Kyoto targets are met. Keogh should have read past the Executive Summary.
I can’t see how Jennifer thought these reviews were excellent. One is mediocre, the other a joke.
As an aside, it is interesting that Louis mentioned Lomborg (whom I dismissed as a propagandist for the scientific ignorant after reading the whole thing), as he has stated that the book that he wishes he wrote was by Diamond.
Ken,
meeting Kyoto will not make one iota of a difference to CO2 levels.
So why the pain for no gain?
Lomborg is a statistician and his book was essentially an admission that Simon was correct.
He may have wandered into areas he was unfamiliar with, but none the less, Lomborg’s conclusions are valid.
As far as greenhouse emissions are concerned, while CO2 might well absorb a narrow spectrum of the infrared bad, it does not accumulate it. CO2 is a gas, and part of the larger gas called the atmosphere – any energy that CO2 absorbs is instantly transmitted to the rest of the gas by brownian motion, and escapes into space.
What few realise is that while CO2 is part of the atmosphere, (indeed an insignificant amount at that) the overall physical properties of the atomosphere are not necessarily the sum of its components. Physically the atmosphere must be considered as one physical phase.
When we measure the temperature of the atmosphere, we are not measuring the discrete effect of N2, O2 Co2, etc as separate phases, but as a different phase which we must define as “atmosphere”.
But I wander – I have read some of Diamond’s previous books, own one actually, and remain indifferent.
There still remain the complete misunderstanding of what a Greenhouse effect is. It is this.
Greenhouses work because the heat energy is trapped by the glass boundary forming the shell of a greenhouse. The gases in the greenhouse cannot transmit their energy to the rest of the atmosphere because they have been effectively isolated from the circulation system by the constraining effect of the glass forming the glasshouse.
Greenhouses are essentially closed systems which obtain energy but then do not transmit back because of the intervening, thin, layer of solid SiO2 separating them from the rest of the atmosphere.
Is this applicable to the earth?
NO.
While CO2 absorbs a narrow frequency of the infrared spectrum, thus raising its temperature, because it is part of an active and circulating and turbulent gas system, transmitts that energy quickly to the adjoing molecules comprising the gas called atmosphere.
CO2 does not retain the energy it receives from re-radiation from the earth, but just rechannels it onto its way into space.
Greenhouses work because the gas inside them are, for all practical purposes, quarantined from the rest of the atmosphere.
CO2 is not quarantined from the atmosphere but is part and parcel of it.
The only possible Greenhouse effect is suspended water which, as a liquid phase, overwhelms anything that a molecule of CO2 could achive surrounded by some 10,000 molecules of N2 and O2.
Go work and live in a desert and you will soon be disabused of your belief in global warming.
Loius this is just absolute b—–t. For anyone reading this, the correct scientific answers are on this site http://stephenschneider.stanford.edu/Climate/Climate_Science/CliSciFrameset.html
Read the real science not this load of crap.
The Greenhouse Effect was so named because IT SUPERFICIALLY RESEMBLES A GREENHOUSE and only because of this. Yet you still say “Greenhouses work because the heat energy is trapped by the glass boundary forming the shell of a greenhouse”.
The CO2 and other gases including water vapour intercept the long wave radiation on its way out thereby imparting energy to the atmosphere and creating the so-called greenhouse effect. This is why the Earth is 33 degress warmer than if it did not have greenhouse gases and is a very good thing.
The Enhanced greenhouse effect is a result of the increased CO2 in the atmosphere due to human activity. This alters the heat balance resulting in warming.
The physical science of this is not in doubt as quite plainly, to all but you, the Earth is quite warm, the desert does not drop to -33 degrees when the sun goes down or does it on the planet you inhabit? Where you asleep in Physics?
I am reminded of the sea captain in the Blackadder II episode “The Potato”
“Blackadder – So where is the crew?”
Captain – “I dont use a crew”
Blackadder – “Why not?”
Captain – “Well there is some disagreement about the use of crews. All the other sea captains in the world think that they need them but I don’t.
Blackadder – “Bugger”
Ken,
1. Fascinated by your comments about Lomborg wishing to have written a Diamond book. Where did you hear/read this? Having spent several days showing Lomborg about Australia in September 2003 it doesn’t sound right.
2. And I do think the above reviews are good. More importantly Diamond made error after error in his Chapter on Australia. And his basic premise is incorrect – that Australian farmers, foresters and fishers are essentially unsustainable including that we are net importers of food. He concludes the chapter by suggesting we should phase out agriculture in Australia altogether – yet the world needs to be fed and clothed and the statistics indicate our farmers are by and large the most efficient in the world.
Ender,
how much physics have you studied?
Ender,
There are no correct scientific results.
As far as I can see he did not make mistakes. Some of his facts may have been out of date however I cannot conceive of him not employing a fact checker.
The article that you mention did not disprove any facts from Collpase they quoted different ones to the points that Diamond made. Also he NEVER said that Australia should abandon agriculture he was speculating only. He did not say that we ARE net importers of food only that if we continue to farm unsustainably, our poulation keeps growing and if climate change alters our rainfall we could end up net importers of food.
Also he said nothing about the farmers other than praise. It is Australia that is the problem. We are on an old continent with uncertain rainfall and thin depleted soils. This was before us Europeans arrived and had nothing to do with us. It is a simple statement of fact.
Most areas quickly became depleted of what nutrients they had as most was in the vegetation. He said that some farmlands are like hydroponics with the soil only holding the plants in place and fertilisers applied in huge quantities so the plants can grow.
Jennifer if this is not true how many Australian agriculteral areas do you know that could function without fertiliser?
How do you think they will go when the natural gas runs out and the fertiliser cannot be made??
Have you read the book?
Ender
I just looked at your rreference here http://stephenschneider.stanford.edu/Climate/Climate_Science/CliSciFrameset.html.
Sorry, you have backed the wrong horse.
Ender,
Have read the book and the chapter on Australia several times. My review on the chapter on Australia is coming out in Energy and Environment soon – I hope. Saw page proofs last week.
As regards soils,
Diamond suggests Australian farmers have irresponsibly mined the country’s soil
resource with “soil nutrient exhaustion” identified as a type of land degradation (398).
Diamond states that Australian soils are naturally unproductive because they are “so
old” that they have become leached of nutrients (380) and are thus are more susceptible
to mining.
This argument is flawed. Any agricultural system that does not apply fertilizer or
manure at cultivation would be “mining the soil resource”. The more nutrient rich the
soil is, the more potential there is for mining to occur.
Since the time of European settlement, fertilizers have been applied to Australian
soils to raise the base level of plant nutrients in the soils, and also to replace nutrients
removed by the previous harvest. Contrary to Diamond’s assertion that Australia’s soils
are poorer now than they were at the time of European settlement, in his book Natural
Gain in the Grazing Lands of Southern Australia, agronomist David Smith documents
how European settlers broke what was previously a cycle of low fertility by adding
plant nutrients (e.g. super phosphate) and new plant species (e.g. subterranean clover) –
with the result that large amounts of atmospheric nitrogen and solar energy could be
(and were) captured by the developing grazing and broad acre cropping industries.
Smith describes this process as one of “natural gain” (2000).
YOur thoughts?
Jennifer,
I see you have not done any research on “pasture cropping”. Bandaid, baindaid, bandaid. Super phosphate is like going to the bank and withdrawing your cash to put in a poker machine.I think Ender is closer to the money!!
Louis the link is
http://stephenschneider.stanford.edu/Climate/Climate_Science/CliSciFrameset.html
note the underscore between Climate and Science.
Jennifer
He does not say they irresponsibly mined the soil. How could they, they were 18th century farmers with no knowledge of soil science. I think that you are inferring the ‘irresponsibly’. I have taken my copy back to the library so I cannot check the exact wording.
As he says in his book some soils have been recently revived by volcanic or other action. He admits that South Australia is one of the few areas with good soils. The rest of this old continent is sadly depleted. Just because one area is OK does not make the rest OK.
You have to consider where the fertiliser comes from and its effects on waterways. We have already witnessed toxic algea blooms from fertiliser run off.
Also my other point is that modern fertilser is fossil fuel based and manufactured. When the oil and natural gas runs out there will be no massive amounts of fertiliser. Modern agriculture would not be possible with manure and fallow techniques.
Also here is someone else saying basically the same thing. THis is from the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA), a $22 million, four-year global study by 1,300 experts from 95 countries. The report is here http://www.spacedaily.com/news/climate-05zzz.html
“The lesson is that increasing population pressure not accompanied by management practices compatible with the new population size, is the cause of degradation.”
As populations in drylands increase, especially in urban areas, water scarcity increases in tandem. Drylands contain 43% of the world’s cultivated lands, much of it dependent on water from sources typically located outside drylands.
The low average water availability in drylands today (1,300 cubic metres per capita per year, already below the threshold of 2,000 considered a minimum for meeting human needs), is expected to fall further due to a combination of pressures in and around the drylands including population growth, reduced freshwater availability due to global warming and drought, and economic growth.
As well, inappropriate economic policies, including agricultural subsidies totalling US$ 300 billion in 2002, can contribute to desertification.”
Perhaps Loius could give detailed reasons why the link is the wrong horse.
Specific questions for him to answer.
1. How is the Earth 33 deg warmer if there is no greenhouse effect?
2. Where is the CO2 coming from?
Ender,
about 98% of C02 is not from human effects.
Thats not answering the questions:
If it is not from humans where is it from?
How is the Earth 33 deg warmer if there is not greenhouse effect?
Jennifer, wikipedia claims that “According to an interview published in 2005 by the San Francisco Examiner, the book he would most liked to have written is Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Society, by Jared Diamond.”
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lomborg (scroll down to Miscellaneous trivia)
And here is the original article:
http://www.sfexaminer.com/articles/2005/02/04/news/20050204_ne05_lomborg.txt
Jennifer, once again I’ll assert that the reviews range from mediocre to garbage.
Hanson’s review in particular is one of the worst cases of a strawman argument that I’ve ever seen. Far from romanticising Papua New Guinea, Diamond has described ritual child abuse and incredible violence aimed at outsiders in PNG. If that’s romanticising then the word has no meaning.
His examples do nothing to harm Diamond’s thesis (that Euroasia’s geography and natural resources will ensure that technology will develop faster there).
Ender,
Where on earth do you think the rest of CO2 comes from?
Ken,
what, precisely, is the point you wish to make here?
Louis – all the top climate scientists in the world and most, if not all, the concerned scientists in the world think with a high degree of certainty that the extra CO2 that is building up comes from us burning billions of tons of fossil fuels to power this society we have built up.
Here is a copy of a response to much the same question I wrote:
forester and paul
Yes the carbon balance is natural. Nature stores and re-cycles the carbon produced by living things but here is the rub. We are emitting CO2 that has previously been stored. The balance that has grown up in nature to keep CO2 at a sort of constant level has already accounted for this CO2. When we dig it up and burn it we are adding to the CO2 that is emitted and this is not being absorbed by the carbon sinks.
At the same time we are clearing land that is reducing the amount of carbon that can be stored as growing plants are one of the biggest carbon stores. Also the oceans as they absorb more CO2 become very slightly more acid – this has also been observed. More worrying is the fact that as the oceans warm they cannot absorb as much CO2 and may in fact release some of the CO2.
This imbalance is accumulating in the atmosphere as the observable rise in CO2. It is obvious that it cannnot be buffered by nature because of the observed rise in atmospheric CO2. This is a point that no-one disputes as it is a direct measurement from calibrated instruments in different parts of the world.
Louis, try reading the thread.