The Problem with AGW: the boy who Cried "Wolf"

[Skeptic]

AGW is often claimed to be like evolution -- that skeptics are merely ignorant deniers. But the reason there are skeptics has little to do with science -- but with sociology and psychology. You see, there had been similar panics in the past -- acid rain; global cooling; the population bomb; the anti-nukes campaign; and so on and so forth.

In all those cases, the proponents claimed that what they are saying is scientifically proven; that immediate, extremely expensive and coercive, action is required to avoid disaster; that those who disagree are just willfully blind and/or stupid; and that those within the scientific camp who disagree are practically traitors.

So, why should we believe the latest scare any more than all the previous ones?

Can it be true this time? Sure! But, frankly, if it is true, if mankind is facing doom due to AGW and only urgent action can save it, and if nobody believes them and considers them annoying Cassandras, these folks have themselves to blame for crying wolf so often and so wrongly over various other end-of-the-world catastrophes that never happened.

[casebro]

Your problem is with "these folks". There are a bunch of different "those folks" for each disasterbation.

The only "these folks" are the media. Catastrophe sells. So the media pushes the snowball down the hill. It's the nature of the media.

Hey, you left out all the diseaseturbations. Don't viruses count as environmental disasters? Ebola, hetero aids, Flesh Eating Bacteria, Swine Flu.....

[patrick767]

1) Acid rain - Are you saying this was not and is not an environmental problem? You would be wrong. The harm is well-documented, but fortunately there have been successful efforts to address it.

"Overall, the Program's cap and trade program has been successful in achieving its goals. Since the 1990s, SO2 emissions have dropped 40%, and according to the Pacific Research Institute, acid rain levels have dropped 65% since 1976.[15][16]"

2) Global cooling - Really? You're going to trot out this old canard? The 1970s global cooling hypothesis never had strong scientific support. The popular press is largely responsible for that one.

3) Population bomb - Do you have evidence that this book that got popular in the last '60s was the generally accepted scientific view by those in the relevant fields? Not seeing it.

4) Anti-nukes campaign - Huh? I don't even know what your argument is here. Nukes are bad, mm'kay?

In general, your argument is that scientists have been wrong before, therefore how can we believe them about anything? That's your argument? I guess since the experts haven't been right 100% of the time -- even though they've been wrong far less than you claim -- we should stick our heads in the sand.

[Guybrush Threepwood]

Originally Posted by Skeptic

AGW is often claimed to be like evolution -- that skeptics are merely ignorant deniers. But the reason there are skeptics has little to do with science -- but with sociology and psychology.

Great post, I don't think anyone on the site will disagree with this.

Quote:

You see, there had been similar panics in the past -- acid rain; global cooling; the population bomb; the anti-nukes campaign; and so on and so forth.

In all those cases, the proponents claimed that what they are saying is scientifically proven; that immediate, extremely expensive and coercive, action is required to avoid disaster; that those who disagree are just willfully blind and/or stupid; and that those within the scientific camp who disagree are practically traitors.

Oh dear, you couldn't quite keep up the standard. Although this is a winning strategy, you need to play the full set at once for it to be effective and you missed Y2K and the hole in the ozone layer. Also why doesn't lead in petrol count? I never see that included in these lists.

I do admire the chutzpah of a poster who spends a lot of his time on threads warning of the dire consequnces of Iran obtaining nuclear capabilites claiming that the 'anti-nukes campaign' is crying wolf.

Quote:

So, why should we believe the latest scare any more than all the previous ones?

How about we believe it as much as the ozone layer hole, Y2K, acid rain, coal fires in cities etc. etc. and take effective action to stop it?

[Pardalis]

Originally Posted by Skeptic

So, why should we believe the latest scare any more than all the previous ones?

It doesn't really matter IMO, the benefits of reducing the world's carbon emissions and pollution are still there, either way.

[Skeptic]

That's certainly true. But at what cost?

[Francesca R]

Best to find that out by having the market price-up carbon emissions isn't it?

[Pardalis]

The planet is only going to get more populated, and inevitably more polluted, the benefits will outweight the costs in the long run if we start to change now.

[Skeptic]

True. But forcing by law everybody to exercise and lose weight on the pain of prison or death would surely go a long way to help general health, too, especially in the long run. But for obvious reasons nobody is doing this.

I am deeply suspicious of plans which will "benefit us all in the long run". History shows that such plans -- communism, for instance, or eugenics -- tend to become corrupt, merely benefiting the plan's originators in the short run.

[Pardalis]

Originally Posted by Skeptic

True. But forcing by law everybody to exercise and lose weight on the pain of prison or death would surely go a long way to help general health, too, especially in the long run. But for obvious reasons nobody is doing this.

But diabetes and other health problems due to obesity exist, just like the possibility that the Earth will no longer be able to support life exists too, and to prevent it from happening we need to be aware of it, and a good scare is a sometimes a good thing,. an extra incentive to actually get off our butts and do something about it.

If there wasn't this fear, like the legitimate fear of getting diabetes or lung cancer, we would become complacent and change will never happen, until we find ourselves 20, 30 years from now where we will have massive problems, irreversible ones, death and famine on unimaginable scale.

Quote:

I am deeply suspicious of plans which will "benefit us all in the long run". History shows that such plans -- communism, for instance, or eugenics -- tend to become corrupt, merely benefiting the plan's originators in the short run.

But didn't you just agree that there are definately benefits to stopping pollution and reducing our carbon production?

[epeos76]

Acid Rain is an interesting example. I've been hearing about the success of the cap and trade program for sulfur dioxide quite a bit recently. It was apparently more successful and less costly than anticipated.

[Micromegas]

Originally Posted by Pardalis

It doesn't really matter IMO, the benefits of reducing the world's carbon emissions and pollution are still there, either way.

^^^ This.

The well-funded attack on greens and the AGW hypothesis couldn't be more irrelevant. Society has to change its habits whether or not the polar ice caps are melting rapidly.

-Mike

[PogoPedant]

... so essentially, successfully warding off wolf-attacks by alerting the village to actual wolves will cause the villagers to stop listening to the shepherds, since no wolf-attack was ever successful.

... and it is the shepherds fault for being so good at avoiding wolves?

[GreyICE]

Originally Posted by Skeptic

That's certainly true. But at what cost?

Would you like to be a part of that debate?

Then be a part of it. Lets discuss it. There's definitely good proposals and bad proposals out there. There's definitely tradeoffs on everything we do. These are important issues worth discussing.

But Global Warming is different. Y'see, many of the people who don't like the current proposals have decided to go a different route. They've decided to declare its not happening.

It's like the dictators in Africa. Faced with hard choices about what to do with the AIDS crisis, they've decided to deny HIV causes it, and blame western conspiracies.

Faced with hard choices about what to do to handle the problem of Global Warming, a subset of people have decided it's not happening.

That's just stupid. And these people have doomed themselves to being utterly irrelevant in the debate, because like the dictators in Africa denying that HIV causes AIDS, there's no good way to use their 'suggestions' as inputs into reality.

[Skeptic]

Originally Posted by Pardalis

But didn't you just agree that there are definately benefits to stopping pollution and reducing our carbon production?

Yes. The problem comes from creation of a multinational bureaucracy to force countries into doing that, with no regard to their current well-being. The greater the sense of dire emergency and needed immediate action, the more coercive power will be given to such institutions.

[Ryokan]

Originally Posted by Skeptic

I am deeply suspicious of plans which will "benefit us all in the long run". History shows that such plans -- communism, for instance, or eugenics -- tend to become corrupt, merely benefiting the plan's originators in the short run.

Capitalism was introduced to benefit us in the long run...

[Darth Rotor]

Originally Posted by Ryokan corrected for what capitalism is

Capitalism was introduced to benefit us in the long run...

make a buck or fifty.

[Piggy]

Originally Posted by Skeptic

I am deeply suspicious of plans which will "benefit us all in the long run".

But it makes no sense to stop at being suspicious.

What we're looking at with global warming is a classic "tragedy of the commons" scenario.

It's clearly in everyone's interest in the long run to stop global warming, because if we don't we're looking at coastal flooding, the collapse of food fish populations, the melting of the Tibetan glaciers which supply water to nearly half the people on earth, increasingly violent weather events, and other really nasty and expensive stuff.

On the other hand, it's not in any of our individual interests in the short run, because it's going to cost money and we don't get immediate payback for it.

Free markets are inherently bad at handling those kinds of situations. So you end up with the Easter Island effect.

The dynamics of the unregulated free market inevitably lead to using up all the fossil fuel we can while it's cheap, and taking little if any action to forestall truly horrific consequences long term.

Therefore, planning must be involved. And at the moment, national governments, in cooperation through international organizations such as the UN, are the only agencies which have the capacity to provide such planning.

In short, there is no free-market solution to this, and some sort of government-enforced regulatory solution is required.

That being the case, we need for leaders in the areas of science, politics, and business to devise and implement the best plans they can. And of course to alter course as needed, because it's too much to hope that we'll hit on the right solutions right off the bat.

[Skeptic]

Originally Posted by GreyICE

Then be a part of it. Lets discuss it. There's definitely good proposals and bad proposals out there. There's definitely tradeoffs on everything we do. These are important issues worth discussing.

Absolutely.What you said is true for the usual right-wing pundits who deny AGW because they dislike the proposals. But certainly this is not true in general. I think that many, perhaps most, scientists believe, reasonably I think, that AGW is real and has real effects, but that dire predictions of impending catastrophe unless YOU DO WHAT I TELL YOU RIGHT NOW are silly and counterproductive. The opposition is not to science, but to hysterical WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIE! predictions, to quasi-religious "The end is nigh" suggestions.

[Piggy]

Originally Posted by Skeptic

The problem comes from creation of a multinational bureaucracy to force countries into doing that, with no regard to their current well-being.

Interesting problem, but not one we're facing.

That's what all the negotiation is about -- how to balance the costs (which are real) against expected benefits, and how to distribute both.

[Ryokan]

Originally Posted by Darth Rotor

make a buck or fifty.

No, it was actually designed to be a tool to spread the wealth better than mercantilism did. And it did.

[Piggy]

Originally Posted by Skeptic

dire predictions of impending catastrophe unless YOU DO WHAT I TELL YOU RIGHT NOW are silly and counterproductive

I think you're confusing this cartoon scenario with the reality we're facing right now, which is overwhelming evidence of actual catastrophic events unless we figure out how to stop them and begin implementing those steps very soon.

Merely calling the predictions "dire" and "catastrophic" says nothing about their accuracy.

Yes, the volcano can erupt and bury the town in ash and lava.

Yes, huge space rocks can hit the earth and kill billions of living things.

Yes, the earthquake can destroy the metropolis and kill millions of innocent people.

Yes, the tsunami can wipe out the coast and drown babies and grandmothers.

The earth does not care about us. Physics does not care about us.

There is nothing special about us -- our species or our planet. There is no Deep Magic protecting us.

If the planet continues to warm at the present rate, our coastal cities will flood, the glaciers will melt, species will go extinct, the oceans will acidify which will kill the coral reefs and spark the collapse of many food fish populations, and so on and so forth.

In fact, if things are pushed too far, we'll go into a period shift, marking the end of one millenia-long period of climate configuration, and the beginning of another. Such shifts are violent and involve quite a bit of extinction.

That's just physics and biology, plain and simple.

Dire? Catastrophic? Absolutely.

But that's what the evidence shows.

No one knows at what point the more disastrous events become inevitable. Heck, we might already be beyond the tipping point.

But what's clear is that some of the scariest predictions are already starting to occur, including sea level rise and de-glaciation. If present trends continue, the Tibetan glaciers could disappear in my lifetime.

If that doesn't scare the hell out of you, I don't know what will.

So it's best to resist the temptation to lapse into denial simply because the predictions are dire.

We have to have the guts, and the sense, to face them and do our best to turn things around.

[Pardalis]

Originally Posted by Skeptic

The opposition is not to science, but to hysterical WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIE! predictions, to quasi-religious "The end is nigh" suggestions.

Surely there is alot of woo and hysteria out there, but it is based on genuine concerns about the planet, and if we keep wasting our planet away at the rate we're doing it, those hysterical predictions will come true (a few decades down the line, even a century). Why wait until those predictions become real and inevitable?

I understand your skepticism about the hysteria, I think sometimes it's too politically motivated, and sometimes they're flat wrong about alot of things (like Greenpeace about GMOs, IMO) but the end goal is justified in my opinion. I don't think anyone is suggesting to change our way of life completely over night, at gun point, but we do have to start changing it.

Like your example of obesity, one doesn't need to get paranoid about saturated fats and cholesterol, but if one doesn't start changing one's lifestyle and food habits, one will get health problems.

[Pardalis]

Originally Posted by Piggy

The earth does not care about us. Physics does not care about us.

There is nothing special about us -- our species or our planet. There is no Deep Magic protecting us.

But we care about ourselves, and our future, and there is something special about us, our moral consciousness.

Some people can say we will go extinct eventually, that there's nothing we can do about it, that nature is stronger than our will, and it will kill us eventually. They're right, of course, in a way, but as a moral and sentient species we can't sit there and let it happen. We have the moral obligation to do whatever we can to avoid it, we have the moral obligation towards the generations of humans of the future to avoid them the suffering of famine and unimaginable destruction.

We know we could go extinct, but we will not go without a fight.

The Greatest Generation sacrificed itself for us when they fought fascism in Europe and Japan, we have something to learn from them.

[Newtons Bit]

Originally Posted by Skeptic

In all those cases, the proponents claimed that what they are saying is scientifically proven; that immediate, extremely expensive and coercive, action is required to avoid disaster;

This is why a large number of people are so extremely skeptical of climate research. This is why so many people should be skeptical of climate research.

[Pardalis]

When you're going towards a precipice, do you really need to press on the brakes at the very last second?

We all agree there is a precipice out there in our path, and we all agree we will need to press on the brakes at some point, don't we? The sooner, the safer we'll be, IMO. In other words, to press on the brakes sooner than later is a win-win decision.

[Piggy]

Originally Posted by Newtons Bit

This is why a large number of people are so extremely skeptical of climate research. This is why so many people should be skeptical of climate research.

This is no argument at all.

The fact that it was dangerous and expensive to fight fascist expansion in the early 20th century, for example, did not make it unneccesary to do so.

And the fact that the current predictions are indeed dire, and that it will require significant expenditures to mitigate climate change, is not any sort of argument against the necessity of doing it.

The glaciers are indeed melting. The seas are indeed rising. Species are indeed moving toward the poles. These things are happening. The warming is real, and the mechanism is known.

And in the past couple of years, the truly alarming fact is that these processes are occuring at the high end of the predicted range.

Which means we do, in fact, need to act quickly and decisively.

To cite the call to action itself -- and the predictions and the near timeframes -- as evidence that there is some reason to doubt the reality of the situation is utterly nonsensical.

We now have decades of data and analysis of that data, from all over the globe, and from the oceans to the atmosphere. It all points in one direction.

There is no reason to doubt the science.

[Bob Blaylock]

Not just “The Boy who Cried ‘Wolf!’”.

This whole scam also borrows heavily from “Chicken Little” and “The Emperor's New Clothes”.

Roll these three classic fairy tales together, and you have the current “Global Warming” scare.

[Megalodon]

I wonder who read it to the Arctic

[Upchurch]

Wow. Really? We can't trust the science? "Newton was wrong so we can't trust Einstein"?

Is there a single reputable scientific organization that doesn't agree with the conclusion of global warming?

[Piggy]

Originally Posted by Upchurch

Is there a single reputable scientific organization that doesn't agree with the conclusion of global warming?

Nope.

Not only that, there's not a single reputable scientific organization that doesn't agree with the conclusion of anthropogenic global warming.

Which is why Bob Blaylock provided no citations to support his (erroneous) statements.

[Piggy]

Originally Posted by Megalodon

I wonder who read it to the Arctic

And the Tibetan glaciers. And the coral reefs. And the sea level. And the subtropical species. And the atmosphere.

[Newtons Bit]

Originally Posted by Piggy

This is no argument at all.

The fact that it was dangerous and expensive to fight fascist expansion in the early 20th century, for example, did not make it unneccesary to do so.

And the fact that the current predictions are indeed dire, and that it will require significant expenditures to mitigate climate change, is not any sort of argument against the necessity of doing it.

The glaciers are indeed melting. The seas are indeed rising. Species are indeed moving toward the poles. These things are happening. The warming is real, and the mechanism is known.

And in the past couple of years, the truly alarming fact is that these processes are occuring at the high end of the predicted range.

Which means we do, in fact, need to act quickly and decisively.

To cite the call to action itself -- and the predictions and the near timeframes -- as evidence that there is some reason to doubt the reality of the situation is utterly nonsensical.

We now have decades of data and analysis of that data, from all over the globe, and from the oceans to the atmosphere. It all points in one direction.

There is no reason to doubt the science.

I think you missed my point. Or maybe the definition. "Skeptical" does not always mean "always disagree".

If you take your car into the shop to get the oil changed and the mechanic says, "you've got a huge problem with your transmission, it'll blow up if you don't pay $1,000 to fix it right now!" Will you believe him, or will you go get a second opinion? Now, if the second opinion agrees with the first, you should definitely get it fixed.

This is just normal human behavior. Most people are wary of a scam when a stranger comes up to them and tells them there's this big horrible problem that has to be fixed right now and it can be done if they just fork over a bit of cash. That doesn't mean the stranger is wrong, just that people are wary.

Now with climate science, the fix is going to cost thousands if not millions of lives. The ethanol debacle has already proved that we are going that way. We must always reserve at least a sliver of doubt for any science which will result in this happening. If we don't, then we're just creating a new religion which sacrifices the most impoverished and hungry people to its' imaginary god.

[casebro]

...the fix is going to cost thousands if not millions of lives.

No it is not. Man will adapt. It may cost thousands of polar bears their lives, but I doubt that too. They also can adapt. (Interbreeding with brown bears is the first thing that enters my mind.)

I'd rather go on driving my gas guzzler than preserve polar bears. Except that they probably taste good, greasier than pork?

[Newtons Bit]

Originally Posted by casebro

...the fix is going to cost thousands if not millions of lives.

No it is not. Man will adapt. It may cost thousands of polar bears their lives, but I doubt that too. They also can adapt. (Interbreeding with brown bears is the first thing that enters my mind.)

I'd rather go on driving my gas guzzler than preserve polar bears. Except that they probably taste good, greasier than pork?

Two cases that I can see:

1. Man does nothing. The sea-levels rise. People in low-lying countries flee their cities and move inland. These refugees will cause problems. It will start wars.

2. Man fixes the problem by outlawing carbon-heavy energy sources. Sea-levels don't rise, however, the cost of living everywhere goes up significantly. The people on the lowest end of poverty no longer have access to food. They starve to death.

Either option is bad.

[Piggy]

Originally Posted by Newtons Bit

I think you missed my point. Or maybe the definition. "Skeptical" does not always mean "always disagree".

If you take your car into the shop to get the oil changed and the mechanic says, "you've got a huge problem with your transmission, it'll blow up if you don't pay $1,000 to fix it right now!" Will you believe him, or will you go get a second opinion? Now, if the second opinion agrees with the first, you should definitely get it fixed.

This is just normal human behavior. Most people are wary of a scam when a stranger comes up to them and tells them there's this big horrible problem that has to be fixed right now and it can be done if they just fork over a bit of cash. That doesn't mean the stranger is wrong, just that people are wary.

Now with climate science, the fix is going to cost thousands if not millions of lives. The ethanol debacle has already proved that we are going that way. We must always reserve at least a sliver of doubt for any science which will result in this happening. If we don't, then we're just creating a new religion which sacrifices the most impoverished and hungry people to its' imaginary god.

I'm a dyed-in-the-wool skeptic. I don't misunderstand what that means, btw.

My point was that your argument is simply without merit.

The science is conclusive at this point. A skeptic, like me, who bases his beliefs squarely on evidence will have no choice, once informed, but to accept it.

My problem with your arguments is that they are fact-free.

Here's the challenge I lay down to all those who mistakenly believe that there's still some debate about the basics of AGW: Go to the Science Daily climate page and browse around.

You will find that there simply is no scientific dissent about the basics of AGW. Just as there is no longer any scientific dissent about the basics of evolution.

If there were actually any scientific controversy, it would take five minutes to find and document.

But you won't find it.

It is not enough to merely speculate that a mechanic may have a motive to cheat you, when you are asking a question about a particular mechanic.

You can't just stop there with some generic assertion.

Yes, it's correct to be wary when someone says there's a big horrible problem looming. But it is irresponsible to simply stop there and not get the facts.

Please, take my challenge, and see for yourself if there's any legitimate controversy about AGW anymore.

You'll find there is not.

[Piggy]

Originally Posted by Newtons Bit

Two cases that I can see:

1. Man does nothing. The sea-levels rise. People in low-lying countries flee their cities and move inland. These refugees will cause problems. It will start wars.

2. Man fixes the problem by outlawing carbon-heavy energy sources. Sea-levels don't rise, however, the cost of living everywhere goes up significantly. The people on the lowest end of poverty no longer have access to food. They starve to death.

Either option is bad.

What about the melting of the Tibetan glaciers?

What about the acidification of the seas and the death of coral reefs, leading to the collapse of food fish populations?

You underestimate the consequences of doing nothing.

[Newtons Bit]

Originally Posted by Piggy

What about the melting of the Tibetan glaciers?

What about the acidification of the seas and the death of coral reefs, leading to the collapse of food fish populations?

You underestimate the consequences of doing nothing.

I was responding to a post about how man was going to be fine.

Man ain't.

[WildCat]

Originally Posted by Piggy

What about the melting of the Tibetan glaciers?

What about the acidification of the seas and the death of coral reefs, leading to the collapse of food fish populations?

You underestimate the consequences of doing nothing.

And what will the costs be of not doing enough? If China and India are given a pass on emissions (and China already produces more carbon than the US) then what?

It appears that the island nation of Tuvalu is being thrown under the bus.

So apparently reaching an agreement is more important than actually stopping the temperature rise?

[Piggy]

Originally Posted by Newtons Bit

I was responding to a post about how man was going to be fine.

Man ain't.

Sorry. My apologies, then. I need some sleep.