ONE of the persistent problems with environmentalism is its bait-and-switch character. The essentially political character of the movement cloaks itself with the seemingly objective authority of modern science, as though science were immune from politicization, or led to self-evident political or policy conclusions.
Laying aside the value-laden premises of the ways science is used and misused in environmental controversies, it is startling to discover how limited our scientific grasp of many environmental conditions really is. The worst abuse of science comes in the almost daily predictions of future environmental conditions based on sophisticated computer models that often lack a solid empirical grounding for their assumptions and are seldom validated or back-tested with any rigor…
Seymour Garte argues that excessive pessimism about the environment undermines good scientific investigation and distorts our understanding of important environmental challenges… “I have never understood why pessimism has for so long been associated with a liberal or progressive political world view” …
Experts attending a professional conference in Europe, when presented with data from a speaker showing steadily declining air pollution trends along with the claim, “everyone knows that air pollution levels are continually decreasing everywhere.” “I looked around the room” …
I was not the only non-expert there. Most of my other colleagues were also not atmospheric or air pollution scientists. Later I asked one of them, a close friend, if he had known that air pollution levels were constantly decreasing throughout Europe and the United States on a yearly basis. “I had no idea,” he said. It was certainly news to me. Even though I was a professor of environmental health and had been actively involved in many aspects of pollution research for many years, that simple fact had somehow escaped me…. I had certainly never seen it published in the media.
Extracts from ‘All the Leaves are Brown’, by Steven Hayward, The Claremont Institute.
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
Jen, that philosophy is so true that even I can understand it.
All the leaves are brown and the sky is grey,
And the glass is half empty, on this awful summer’s day.
Get a life, you foolish people!
As Steven Goddard is saying over at WUWT, if you don’t understand, you can’t model.
Yet we don’t understand but we conclude so much.
That AGW has become the pinnacle of liberal/left ideology and philosophy was inevitable; AGW is the ultimate expression of externalised self-loathing; that self-loathing should flow from the intense subjectivity of the boomers and their epigones says a lot about human nature; the boomers threw off the constraints of the conservative and repressive postwar years but replaced it with a faux and hyper individuality; but meaning for most of us doesn’t come from within the self unless we are rare genuises who can shape our understanding of reality; this must have come as quite a shock to the boomers who cultivated ego more than mind-bending drugs following the defeat of Mr Man; so, with mostly mediocrity to show from the ‘liberation’, the self-loathing grew; however, with egotism comes a restraint on self-blame; the solution is for the problem to be outside the self and for the boomers that means it lies within the evil society that they once before beat down; the concept of AGW is perfect for the perpetual disgruntlement of the boomer mentality; AGW allows its supporters to allign their sense of superiority with a sublime concept; namely the gaia, the benevolent but non-oppressive, non-societal oracle; the veneer of scientific validation is also crucial; AGW support can’t be recognised as the religious impulse it is; religion is associated with the old ways [which is why so many of the old religions are desperately trying to reinvent themselves as new-age, pro-nature spiritualisms] so it can’t be used to give meaning; science is the new religious authority; that this science should reside in computers is also essential; the computer gives meaning as a result of human control; it has become the mirror of the self and is no longer the bogey man of 2001; this is a nice irony which captures all the cognitive dissonance of the modern urban elite, be they in suits or dreadlocks; their decadence is that they wish to punish the social structure which sustains them and rely on the technological zenith of that society, the computer, to justify that impulse; the reality is though, they wish to punish themselves, but lacking the honesty to admit that the mirror intermediary of the computer both satisfies their mosochistic impulse and relieves them of personal blame.
When I was an science undergrad, some years ago, we were implored NOT to model data where data was lacking or use methods, or assume things that were poorly understood or that knowldge of was lacking, as the resulting models would be a reflection of what was unknown or not understood rather than what was known and understood. If we used/ built models we were then instructed to provide a full and complete discussion of all assumptions, parameterisations, and results. Including those areas where the model was incomplete or required additional data.
If we did not then we would be deemed to no better than economists or social scientists. Sadly it seems that those days have arrived as climate scientists now let economists speak for them, eg. Nicholas Stern, Ross Garnaut. I’m not sure that climatye science could stoop any lower than that!
Cohenite says of AGW supporters:
‘the reality is though, they wish to punish themselves, but lacking the honesty to admit that the mirror intermediary of the computer both satisfies their mosochistic impulse and relieves them of personal blame’.
I cant wait to share this with my analyst , I should get a discount – such fruits of what must have been a long lunch from the Cohenite. I just dont know whether to appeal instead to my inner moosachistic impulses or just become a sadist. But anyway Cohenite makes Hayward look lucid.
bazza has an analyst; now that’s an oxymoron.
Now Cohers – maaattteee – have you been secretly going to the Wessy Woo George school of Rhetorical Ranting? I hope Mrs Cohers doesn’t have to put up with you walking around the house going on like that. And what is a mosochistic anyway – something to do with a Bos taurus?
Look on the bright side – conspicuous consumption is still good – you can still get your hands on one of these babies – http://www.drive.com.au/Editorial/MiniSite/MiniSiteLanding.aspx?MiniSiteID=154&s_cid=xpromo:1 Wouldn’t you love a Pork-a-puccini Murcielago. And our old mate Bernanke says the party is back on in 2010. http://money.cnn.com/2009/03/15/news/economy/bernanke_60minutes/index.htm?cnn=yes You can wait to install a plasma TV in the loo till then surely?
The average punter doesn’t give a rats about AGW – they’re at the footy, having bet and a beer, or down at the shops buying everything in sight.
I wish you wouldn’t politicise it Cohenite.
I’m a greenie – I love nature, love animals, am interested in anything to do with sustainable agriculture, housing, organic food, alternative medicine and renewable power etc. I just think AGW is a load of codswallop.
Too ostentatious for my taste luke; more my style;
http://www.drive.com.au/Editorial/ArticleDetail.aspx?ArticleID=59292
And yes, there’s always a morning after; I have my base mineral shares; do you?
The average punter can become pretty alert when he flicks a switch and either nothing happens or he has to take out a second mortgage; payback is a bitch.
janama; I wish I wouldn’t politicise it either; but despite luke’s best efforts of distraction this isn’t a scientific issue; it is a media concocted brew of ideology and sensationalism which, for various reasons, all of them the ususal self-interested ones, the pollies have picked up and ran with; as luke and the others have noted, arguing on a blog is interesting but it ain’t going to affect the decision makers; anyway, congratulations on your enlightened attitude; I don’t know if you have much company on the green end of the spectrum.
I agree it’s not a scientific issue if you let Lukey distract you.
But it is, isn’t it?
Reply:
On the other hand Cohers – utter bunk – perhaps one may have noticed in 1982 that there was an explanation for that drought that had been there for 50 years or more.
One many have noticed in the 1990s a declining trend in frost frequency. Perhaps a sharp upswing in minimum temperatures.
One may have wandered over to see what the climate scientists were up to and found quite a bit.
You may have found all sorts of things changing under your feet. Nice little forecast systems stuffed up by trends in the SST data.
Does the average punter understand any of this – probably not. It’s a question of risk management for those who need to.
The ideological rant you have written above simply comes from the opposite side of climate alarmists coin. So you see – you will throw the baby out with the bathwater.
And although Bob’s on the job….. Really there is no Plan B.
cohenite ….re the boomers
🙂 Cohenite…you need to stick to law and AGW skepticism, you’re not gonna make it as a psychologist. 🙂
DISCLAIMER: I’m a hypocrite, pay no attention to what I say. Or, as Groucho might say, “I’d never have a friend who would have a friend like me”.
As I have expounded in a few bombastic oratories (transcribed to posts) I am plum confused as to the link between the left and global warming. Now you are linking it to the liberals and boomers.
Maybe you are taking your cues from the Rudd government but I can point out several discrepancies in the argument that global warming theory is the domain of the left, liberals or boomers. I don’t think it has anything to do with political persuasion or age.
The most obvious argument opposing your observations is the support of global warming theory by Schwarzeneggar in California. Arnold is about as right wing as anyone can get. That’s what made his marriage to Maria Shriver so amusing, her being a staunch Democrat.
Then there’s Al Gore. The US Democrats are a funny lot. They are called liberal, but in Canada they’d be Conservatives. The Republicans would be ultra-Conservative. Gore is no more a left-winger or a liberal than Mussolini.
In my province in Canada, the premier is as right-wing as Schwarzennegar, yet he implemented the first carbon tax in Canada. John McCain, the right-winger and the loser to Obama in the presidential race, ran on a global warming platform. The Liberal Party of Canada are more Conservative in their views than left, staunchly supporting corporate ideology. They have traditionally supported social programs introduced by the left, but their record on Kyoto, while in power, was one of not supporting Kyoto. They talked a good show but did not support it in practice.
Having read many of your posts, I know you have the intelligence to understand there is no such thing as a prototypical leftist, liberal or boomer. In fact, I doubt if you have met more than a handful of of environmental activists. Lest I come across as the pot calling the kettle black, I admit to having indulged in anti-AGW rhetoric myself, although I tend to see them as snotty-nosed, trouble-making nerds wearing short pants.
My mission, therefore, is to convert you and Louis to the notion that leftists are not behind this nonsense, per se. If a socialist babe sauntered up to you, wearing a short skirt and high-heels, saying “how’s it going big boy”, would either you or Louis be as adamant? If not, are you perhaps seeing socialists through an image of Karl Marx in a miniskirt and high heels? Images can be totally misleading, as you know.
Your angst with respect to boomers belies a resentment of the same. Are all boomers raving AGW-spitting, eco-freaks, or just the minority who were hippies in the ’60s? People today seem to have the impression that the sixties were all about people having sex in the streets and causing riots over authority. The majority of us just went to work, went home, ate, played sports, listened to music, got drunk and a had a good time.
The true hippies were a minority cult. It was the hippie wannabees, needing an excuse to smoke dope and attract attractive hippie chicks in the hopes of getting some ‘free love’, that prevailed. It was a fad to most, and like all fads it passed uneventfully. To claim they are now behind the AGW movement strikes me as being rather sinister. To claim any of them were socialists is a stretch because I don’t recall any I knew who were. Politics wasn’t important then, you just wanted to meet a chick and get on with it. Life was a group thing where people from eclectic political backgrounds mingled freely.
BTW…in the ’60’s, there was no AIDS and homosexuals were still in the closet. There were no IV drug users to speak of either. Is it a coincidence that AIDS became prevalent once the drug culture got under way and homosexuality became an acceptable way of life? Just wondering.
Perhaps we can get Jen to run an article on what political motivators are behind AGW theory if any. We can begin with Maurice Strong and find out if Hansen actually is a liberal, which I doubt. We need to get to the bottom of this.
janama “I’m a greenie – I love nature, love animals, am interested in anything to do with sustainable agriculture, housing, organic food, alternative medicine and renewable power etc. I just think AGW is a load of codswallop”.
I think many of us feel that way to a degree. Even Michael Crichton, who stood staunchly against the AGW theory, confessed to being an adamant environmentalist.
I’ve been around long enough to see the hype behind a lot of organic food and alternative medicine rhetoric. I think the notions are basically sound but there is an element who promote those fields in the same way activists promote AGW. All food is organic and Linus Pauling claimed there was no difference between synthetic and real vitamins. He should know. The difference between synthetic and natural vitmain E, for example, is in the way its molecules bend light (d- versus L-). It takes a little more of the synthetic (DL-)to get the job done but it is cheaper too. As a fat-soluble anti-oxidant and anti-thrombin, either form of E works.
Much of the arguments against so-called non-organic food is the additives for preservation. Also, there are products like aspartame that people pan because it breaks down to produces formaldehyde in the body. They don’t tell you tomatoes do the same thing. Aspartame is nothing more than two common amino acids which are found in all proteins, yet it’s linked to cancer and anything convenient. It doesn’t matter if it’s AGW theory or not, there are always nut jobs ready to form a conspiracy theory.
Alternative medicine can be another racket, although the pharmaceutical companies are a racket unto themsleves. You have to be well informed with alternative medicine, then again, that applies to conventional medicine as well.
Then there’s the love of animals. I had it out with a wannabee hippie chick once who claimed that. I asked how she could eat them and love them too and thats when the doo doo hit the fan.
Gordon,
“Schwarzeneggar in California. Arnold is about as right wing as anyone can get.
Gore is no more a left-winger or a liberal than Mussolini.
John McCain, the right-winger ”
If these people are “right wingers” in your opinion, You Sir are so far to the left, that you can touch Genghis Khan.
“baby out with the bathwater’; yeah right, I’m the one who wants to dispense with tried and tested energy sources for pie in the sky ‘renewables’; talk nuclear and thorium or be branded a hypocrite.
Gordon; the left is one of those loose terms which bring to mind the futility of describing an elephant to a blind man; I personally don’t like the left/right dichotomy but lapse into the convenience of the terms; the best exposition of the state of mind I clumsily tried to decribe is contained in this book, “What’s Left: How Liberals Lost Their Way”; by Nick Cohen. The defining characteristic is a vanity or egotism married with a lack of utility; Schwarzeneggar is a boby-builder turned actor turned politician after all; there will always be mavericks like McCain and anyway I’m not so sure about his pro-AGW platform; after all, look at his running mate.
Cohers – no probs with modern nukes. Indeed we’re ahead of you http://bravenewclimate.com/2009/02/12/integral-fast-reactors-for-the-masses/
and for bedtime reading …
http://bravenewclimate.com/2009/03/10/total-energy-independence-in-12-years/
Hey hey hey – Bob’s gone – Barry has PLAN B !!
Go Bazzoid !
And it is really only circumstance that AGW is a left wing thing anyway – from Kerry Emmanuel of hurricanes getting stronger fame. Read page 20 onwards Cohers …. http://e-courses.cerritos.edu/tstolze/Kerry%20Emanuel_%20Phaeton%27s%20Reins.pdf
Yes luke, you start working on the ALP’s ‘3 mines’ policy and I’ll start picking up a few cheap uranium stocks; Emanuel is at MIT too; he must have some interesting chats with Lindzen. It seems Ender is 1/2 sane now as well.
The only good thing about Jimmy Hansen is his support of nuclear over wind/solar.
Hansen has Plan B too.
“As Steven Goddard is saying over at WUWT, if you don’t understand, you can’t model.”
You and Goddard just don’t understand, so keep out of it and let the scientists just keep doing their work. Just because you have no idea doesn’t mean they don’t.
“ONE of the persistent problems with environmentalism is its bait-and-switch character. The essentially political character of the movement cloaks itself with the seemingly objective authority of modern science, as though science were immune from politicization, or led to self-evident political or policy conclusions.”
That is essentially a bald faced lie. You have just executed a bait and switch yourself. By attacking science through an attack on environmentalists.
SJT sez, ” You and Goddard just don’t understand, so keep out of it and let the scientists just keep doing their work. Just because you have no idea doesn’t mean they don’t”
At least I know when I don’t know.
The AGW modellers don’t, so their models sure don’t.
But you could only be certain they know, SJT, if you know yourself.
So please give us the benefit of this.
Cohenite,
No Ender isn’t half sane. He thinks that wind/solar/geothermal can replace a serious IFR reactor building program.
BTW the IFR program was shut down by Al Gore and Bill Clinton amongst others in about 1993 or 94. “Proliferation” was the excuse.
Australia could about halve its CO2 emissions by replacing coal plants with nukes but the barbarian looters currently in power won’t do that.
While AGW isn’t exclusively a left wing belief it seems to predominately break that way.
As for McCain and Schwarzennegger being right wing, they are RINOs and Al Gore is a Fascist.
Anyway politics doesn’t map on a line. The right wing left wing thing is almost useless. It maps on a plane. You can even take the test on line to see where you are.
cohenite…I did not take your post that literaly, I was pulling your leg more than anything.
It is curious how people use terms, however, with entirely different understandings of a meaning. To me, left and right has always been entirely political, as in socialist/capitalist. The ultimate left-winger is a communist but I omitted that because it’s not a feasible lifestyle. Socialist and capitalist democracies are in existence right now and I take my left/right from that. It comes down to how a person regards others, with lefties tending to favour public control of vital interests, to righties favouring individual and private control.
Here’s wiki’s take on both:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Left-wing_politics
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right-wing_politics
It’s interesting that wiki sees right wingers as “groups who stress tradition, fundamentalism and nationalism”. That’s about what I thought when I described Schwarzeneggar, Gore and McCain as right-wingers. It describes them perfectly.
Wiki describes the left in ways I had never considered. They describe socialists and communists as the left with ultra left wingers being Trotskyists, Maoists and Anarchists.
I wonder if you are refering to anarchists? They seem to be a mob out to rebel for the sake of rebellion.
Once you get out of the political, there is the psychological. The people you may be trying to describe as lefties are the humanists, those who think humans come before everything. That’s what the hippies were about, environmentalism being a side-issue. The buzz words were love and peace. When John Lennon lost it and married Yoko Ono, that’s what he was on about in his music. Musically, the quintessential hippies were the original Jefferson Airplane and the Greatful Dead, all from San Fransisco. Remember Haight-Ashbury?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haight-Ashbury
“At least I know when I don’t know.
The AGW modellers don’t, so their models sure don’t.”
You have no idea what they think.
“You have no idea what they think.”
The more honest among them tell us that all the time, particularly about cloud feedback.
And TSI. And GCRs. etc, etc.
So how can they possibly model correctly?
Yes we do SJT, they think they can model climate accurately despite many unknowns….you obviously think the same thing. Show us a model that has been any good and we might pay attention…but you cant ….and the reason is we do not understand enough yet. Its not difficult to grasp …why can t you?
Janama,
At last a kindred spirit!
SJT:”That is essentially a bald faced lie. You have just executed a bait and switch yourself. By attacking science through an attack on environmentalists.”
It does not appear to me that Hayward is attacking science at all. He is, however, attacking how environmentalists misuse science for purely political ends. Your protest is naught but a diversion from the point he was making. Or perhaps you simply failed to comprehend what was being said in the first place.
Janama,
Let’s form up under Greenies Against Scientific Piffle (GASP), or Organisation of Greenies Against Silly Models (ORGASM), or … er …
“That AGW has become the pinnacle of liberal/left ideology and philosophy was inevitable; AGW is the ultimate expression of externalised self-loathing; that self-loathing should flow from the intense subjectivity of the boomers and their epigones says a lot about human nature;”
You fell the for bait and switch pretty easily.
The Reagan years changed the US attitude to socialism by convincing Americans that the Left was communism, whereas Aussies (and Canadians?) think it means socialism. That’s why the US argues so vehemently against a public health system and why they pan Europe and ridicule the French – they think its’ socialism and socialism means communism!!
I have found Americans to have a built in distrust of public enterprise – whereas most Aussies actually prefer it – Telstra for example. Most Aussies preferred it as it was under government control and hate the privatisation – same with public utilities like power, transport and health.
I think we are more socialist than the Canadians which why we have been described as feral Canadians.
“Experts attending a professional conference in Europe, when presented with data from a speaker showing steadily declining air pollution trends along with the claim, “everyone knows that air pollution levels are continually decreasing everywhere.” “I looked around the room” …”
He is going to attack me for his ignorance? I don’t know what logical fallacy that is, maybe it’s a new one.
Of course particle pollution has been falling for years, it’s common knowledge as far as I have been able to tell. Car engines have changed a lot, with catalytic converters, computer controlled ignition, smoke exhausts from factories and air emission standards have done a lot. At least in the West. The big issue for AGW is not particle pollution, but CO2 pollution. That can’t be scrubbed out with a catalytic converter. You burn hydrocarbons, you get CO2.
IMO this is an odd paragraph
“Experts attending a professional conference in Europe, when presented with data from a speaker showing steadily declining air pollution trends along with the claim, “everyone knows that air pollution levels are continually decreasing everywhere.” “I looked around the room” …
And just as odd
“Later I asked one of them, a close friend, if he had known that air pollution levels were constantly decreasing throughout Europe and the United States on a yearly basis. “I had no idea,” he said. It was certainly news to me”
Seems someone was confused regarding “experts” on “pollution”. But how sharp are we?
“reduced” pollution = less visible C but more CO2 per flue discharge
Fuel efficiency was once a wonderful goal
Empty rhetoric from Hayward..just meaningless. the first two paragraphs make claims about knowledge levels and unrigorous practice without reference or rigor. Very helpful…
Seymour Garte, in a rapture of self-congratulation, proclaims he doesn’t understand why he’s an authority on pessimism.
One reason why particulate pollution is declining,in Europe and the US and certainly not “everywhere”[can Hayward be trusted to quote accurately?] is that the filthiest industries have been sent to low-regulation economies. Ever heard of the Atmospheric (Asian) Brown Cloud?
Oh lord..another conservative “think”tanker. Why bother with this lazy brain-rot?
Nick:Ever heard of the Atmospheric (Asian) Brown Cloud?
The one largely caused by burning animal dung and other biomass?
janama:I have found Americans to have a built in distrust of public enterprise – whereas most Aussies actually prefer it – Telstra for example. Most Aussies preferred it as it was under government control and hate the privatisation – same with public utilities like power, transport and health.
Yeah it was really great under Telecom wasn’t it? The Telstra problems are largely because it was a public enterprise(now there’s a contradiction of terms) so now has entirely too much clout in the market.
Likewise wasn’t air travel so cheap and accessible to the masses when we had one government owned airline and another “private” airline “competing” with it in a Fascist arrangement with no other competition allowed? These arrangements were kept in place by the government monopoly on violence or the threat of it. Would you lunatic lefties/socialists/communists here like to tell us what is moral about this?
The very same,Eyrie. What is the other major contributor to yer Cloud? What are cities like Shanghai,Beijing,Shenzen,Seoul, New Delhi,Mumbai famous for? More than burning dung! Why are black carbon emissions on the rise throughout Asia?
yes it was – there was telecom office in every major town. You didn’t have to listen to music to contact them – you could walk in and discuss your problem. The cost of intallation was fixed so it didn’t matter where you were, the install fee was the same, therefore when I installed the phone in my Goonegerry house in 1979 they bought in a D9 bulldozer and ran a line to my home for the $149 installation fee.
“I have never understood why pessimism has for so long been associated with a liberal or progressive political world view” …
Maybe someone here can help me understand why the word “progressive” would be used for those morons who wish to halt all civilization. Ban chemicals, cut carbon, make the earth a bigh National Park. That is progressive????
janama,
There’s no hope for you. Ever try to get your phone fixed out of hours back then? $149 back then is about $750 now. Ever thought that your “cheap” phone installation was paid for by somebody else’s expensive one? Socialists really are stupid or have the barbarian looter mentality as you’ve just proved.
“black carbon emissions”; great; so we can now order carbon in colours; I’ll have 2 purple and one lillac please.
make my green pls coher’s!
““black carbon emissions”; great; so we can now order carbon in colours; I’ll have 2 purple and one lillac please.”
In other words, nothing to say.
great sense of humour you have SJT…..not. You of course are always so constructive in your comments and we all admire them so so so much. Why do you read this blog…you learn nothing and snipe from teh edges continuosly. Do us all a favour and ……………..
“great sense of humour you have SJT…..not. You of course are always so constructive in your comments and we all admire them so so so much. Why do you read this blog…you learn nothing and snipe from teh edges continuosly. Do us all a favour and ……………..”
In other words….
in other words …you are just a sh.t stirrer who acts like a 10 year old.
For years, watching news that featured England, the backdrop would be a photo of the Houses of Parliament – impressive grey buildings. Suddenly, they were a lovely golden sanstone. What had happened? They had been cleaned, removing centuries of household cooking and heating coal emissions coated on the buildings. London is now breathing the cleanest air it has had in 400 years – since Elizabethan times – because power is now supplied by electricity. Controlling car emissions has further enhanced the air quality. The same has hppened in all Western cities.
From this it is credible to accept evidence that much of the Asian brown cloud comes from household cooking fires, and also that the worst air pollution in the world is now to be found in third world kitchens. With serious health consequences for women and children. We know how to alleviate the Asian brown cloud problem. The same way the West solved its own brown cloud problems.