Over the last couple of weeks, there has been intense blowback here and elsewhere from people who deny AGW (anthropogenic global warming) is real after scientists reported that the level of confidence it is real is now very high. The data now supports a so called 5 sigma level of confidence in the data showing AGW is real.
AGW skeptics dismiss the data with arguments including "blah, blah, blah" and the scientists are liars and faked their data. One AGW skeptic attack was an assertion of an unpublished, not peer-reviewed crackpot hypothesis by a scientist with zero peer-reviewed papers in climate science arguing that climate scientists are clueless about basic aspects of science. I finally got frustrated and banned the purveyor of the crackpot's theory after being accused of dishonesty, bias and whatnot. That raises a question:
Question: When is there enough evidence in support of something like AGW, if ever, that even trying to discuss it with people who simply reject accepted evidence and expert opinion is more socially harmful than not? I refuse to allow this channel to be used as a platform for dark free speech such as lies and quack science, and anything else that strikes me as socially more harmful than helpful. Is that unreasonably arrogant or misguided?
Complex adaptive systems: Things could be much worse: Also attacked and rejected as false was my assertion that there is about a 98% consensus among climate science experts that AGW is real. Long story short, that led me to look at a think tank skeptic who attacked the 98% expert consensus data as flawed and not believable. That led to this article by the Fraser Institute, Putting the 'con' in consensus; Not only is there no 97 per cent consensus among climate scientists, many misunderstand core issues. The article was written by Ross McKitrick, an economics professor at the University of Guelph, Canada.
The Fraser Institute received a high fact accuracy rating and a center-right bias by the Media Bias/Fact Check site. Given that, I read his article, which was originally published in the Financial Post. Dr. McKitrick's article includes this:
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change asserts the conclusion that most (more than 50 per cent) of the post-1950 global warming is due to human activity, chiefly greenhouse gas emissions and land use change. But it does not survey its own contributors, let alone anyone else, so we do not know how many experts agree with it. And the statement, even if true, does not imply that we face a crisis requiring massive restructuring of the worldwide economy. In fact, it is consistent with the view that the benefits of fossil fuel use greatly outweigh the climate-related costs.
One commonly cited survey asked if carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas and human activities contribute to climate change. But these are trivial statements that even many IPCC skeptics agree with. And again, both statements are consistent with the view that climate change is harmless. So there are no policy implications of such surveys, regardless of the level of agreement.
Here is what the IPCC said in its 2003 report: “In climate research and modelling, we should recognize that we are dealing with a coupled non-linear chaotic system, and therefore that the long-term prediction of future climate states is not possible.”It made no sense to argue that (1) there are no policy implications in most experts agreeing with CO2 being a greenhouse gas and human activities contribute to climate change, and (2) long-term prediction of future climate states is not possible. If it is true that long-term prediction is impossible, which is necessarily true for a complex adaptive system like climate, then it is possible the climate situation could be much worse than what most experts now believe.
I wrote to McKitrick as asked if it was possible that the climate situation could be worse than now believed. After an initial evasion, his answer was that it could be much worse than is now believed. There is simply no way to know. The climate situation could be much better, much worse or about what most experts now believe. This is the first time I recall any AGW skeptic acknowledging that the climate situation could be worse than it is now believed to be. Here is the email string:
Me: Dear Dr. McKitrick, Your article, Putting the con in consensus, made a couple of statements that, taken together, are unclear in their logic. The article states: "One commonly cited survey asked if carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas and human activities contribute to climate change. But these are trivial statements that even many IPCC skeptics agree with. And again, both statements are consistent with the view that climate change is harmless. So there are no policy implications of such surveys, regardless of the level of agreement." Since (1) even IPCC skeptics agree that CO2 is a greenhouse gas and human activities contribute to climate change, and (2) both statements are consistent with the view that climate change is harmless, why isn't it also possible that the statements are consistent with the view that climate change is much worse than whatever the expert consensus is? Why is it only possible that the situation could be neutral, beneficial or trivially negative, but not significantly or even catastrophically underestimated? I cannot see the logic on this point. Given the apparent ambiguity, it is arguable there are enormous policy implications of the surveys. What am I missing here? What is the flaw in the logic of arguing the situation could be modestly or even much worse than expert consensus currently holds? Thank you for your time and consideration.
McKitrick: The point is that you can't say 97% think AGW is dangerous, as Obama and others assert. When 97% agreement is found, leaving aside the sampling problems, it is only on relatively trivial statements that are consistent with a wide range of views about the level of harm. I don't argue that 97% think AGW is not a problem, nor can we argue based on the surveys that 97% think the problem is worse than the IPCC states. Either statement goes well beyond what the surveys show, either because the questions weren't asked or if they were asked, the split was nothing like 97-3.
Me: Thanks for getting back. I appreciate it. Just so I understand you, it is possible that things could be very serious or at least significantly worse than is now often believed to be the case. That is consistent with a complex non-linear system being unpredictable.
McKitrick: Yes, that's in the range of what's possible.
Me: Thank you.My prior AGW post argued we are playing Russian roulette with the climate, civilization and maybe even the human species. If the unpredictability of climate as a complex adaptive system is correct, and there's no obvious reason to think otherwise, McKitrick is incorrect to claim that the survey data has no policy implications. We could be in a far worse climate situation than what most experts now believe.
Based all the science, including the unpredictability problem, it is reasonable to believe that AGW skepticism is not defensible and is based on factors such as political ideology, personal bias, tribe identity and/or economic self-interest. One can also argue it is immoral. Is that logic and conclusion of immorality reasonable?
B&B orig: 3/6/19
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