Important/Not Important

I am genuinely astonished at some of the reactions to this story:

The academic at the centre of the ‘Climategate’ affair, whose raw data is crucial to the theory of climate change, has admitted that he has trouble ‘keeping track’ of the information.

Colleagues say that the reason Professor Phil Jones has refused Freedom of Information requests is that he may have actually lost the relevant papers.

Professor Jones told the BBC yesterday there was truth in the observations of colleagues that he lacked organisational skills, that his office was swamped with piles of paper and that his record keeping is ‘not as good as it should be’.

The data is crucial to the famous ‘hockey stick graph’ used by climate change advocates to support the theory.

Professor Jones also conceded the possibility that the world was warmer in medieval times than now – suggesting global warming may not be a man-made phenomenon.

And he said that for the past 15 years there has been no ‘statistically significant’ warming.

Perhaps the source of my surprise is that I think that people are having difficulty in distinguishing between what’s important and what’s not important in the issue of climate change.

Is it important whether the climate is changing?

It definitely is. Climate affects what parts of the earth are habitable, how many people can be supported where, and what parts are arable. Of course it’s important. If warming causes the level of the sea to rise, whole countries could cease to exist.

However, the climate has always been changing (one of those things that you wouldn’t think would need to be pointed out). In the 11th century oranges could be grown in southern England. They can’t now.

For a brief period during what we refer to as “the Middle Ages”, Europeans could live in Greenland with a fairly normal European-style habit. They abandoned it when climate change rendered that impossible.

Over the great length of time there have been periods when portions of what are now the Sahara or the Arabian Desert could support grazing herds. Climate change altered that.

Of course the climate is changing. Climate change is a permanent part of life on Earth. That has not changed. What has changed are the political realities that govern has we respond to climate change.

Is it important whether climate change is anthropogenic?

I don’t think it does. Whether human beings have caused climate change or not or to what degree they have caused it makes no difference whatever to whether climate will change, whether that will affect people’s lives, and whether it will have political consequences. Nor will it change the sort of consequences that climate change will bring.

As the sea level rises on a low-lying island will the residents there say “Not anthropogenic. In that case I’ll just sit here and drown!” Or will they do precisely the same things with precisely the same consequences because of the fact of the change rather than alternating them with the cause of the change?

I can already see the obvious report: if it’s not our fault why should we do anything about it? There are any number of answers to this including that it’s the right thing to do. However, in the final analysis I doubt that can avoid the consequences of climate change whether it’s our fault or not. Mass migrations of displaced people will inevitably affect us whether we’re causing the climate change that impelled their migration or not. The question is what we will do not whether we’ll do anything.

Does what is proposed to cope with climate change matter?

I think the answer to that is “Yes”, too, and, indeed, it’s one of my greatest problems with the prescriptions for coping with the effects of climate change. When, for example, people advise us here in the United States to make changes, small or large, in how we live, work, and play in the name of coping with the effects of climate change while ignoring how, for example, the Chinese live, work, and play when China’s production of greenhouse gases is growing at such a pace that there is nothing whatever solely within our power to alter whatever climate change induces on the basis of conservation alone, it’s hard for me to see that as an effective way of addressing climate change. I should note, however, that it is an excellent way to move people to question your motives.

Cost is an important consideration, too. You can only spend each dollar once and (except for the Federal Reserve, of course) there isn’t an infinite supply of them. Choosing to subsidize solar power means you’ll subsidize other alternatives less.

And then there are the secondary effects, which have differing implications of their own.

5 comments… add one
  • I think the reactions (some of which even *I* think are over the top and down-right unwarranted – and I’ve always thought AGW was wrong), stem from the fact that, finally, some basic points of scientific method have been conceeded by the proponents. Therefore, if the evidence leads a researcher to think the Medieval Warm Period probably existed, well they will no longer be treated as the moral equivalent of a holocaust denier (exceot for the outright loons, who have always been beyond the reach of reason anyway.)

    It’s as if one has spent twenty years “arguing” with someone that a couldless noon-time sky is not, as our mythical opponent might argue, day-glow orange, but is instead blue, and then, one magical day, they agree that “yes, it is blue.” If some people have fallen to their knees and shouted “hallelujah!!” I can’t blame them too much.

  • My primary problem is with carbon dioxide. We are approaching a point where there will be a higher concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere than there has ever been since the first primates evolved millions of years ago.

    Additionally, regardless of the effect on temperature (which it has a substantial effect on–ask any Venusians), there is also the problem of increased carbon dioxide in the oceans, which may completely wipe out the ocean ecosystem that primates and humans evolved along side. (see http://www.hereticalideas.com/2008/07/ocean-acidification-another-carbon-challenge/)

    How will these things affect our biology? Well, we’re about to find out, because we’re allowing industry to conduct an uncontrolled experiment on the human species.

  • Drew Link

    Well, I would certainly share Dave’s observation that climate is always changing. In fact one of the best books I’ve read on the subject of global warming makes just that point. (Unstoppable; Global Warming Every 15,000 Years). And it is this fundamental point that the environmentalists just don’t seem to get, or want to get.

    I guess I don’t share Dave’s “astonishment” over what’s important or not important. After all, at its heart this is a political argument from the no growth crowd, and the only source of real action comes out of the political environment. Your following observations are absolutely correct, but these people don’t care a whit.

    I liked Rich Horton’s spiffy wordsmithing: “some points of scientific method has been conceded by the proponents.” Indeed, on steroids. In fact the very core of the database has been left in shambles.

    The real point here, despite all of the hullabaloo about how the debate is over, in point of fact the debate is just starting. The so-called facts on global warming are coming apart at the seems it’s an absolute restart from where I sit. A total re-do.

    Now to incorporate both Dave and Alex’s comments, does it really matter? Not really. As a pragmatist we have to look at the reactions from Russia China Brazil etc. These folks have absolutely no intention of changing their behavior. Therefore all of the usual prescriptions that America should basically be de-industrialized, and its citizens revert to caveman days, is all but the equivalent of self immolation-wait that would cause CO2, scratch that. Let’s just say sepiku.

    The real point is that there’s absolutely no way to materially affect the trajectory of CO2 consumption with the usual prescriptions of the environmentalist crowd. If in fact, as Alex suggests, the real issue is the oceans as supposed to the atmosphere, then we have to embark on a path that will over time reduce CO2 emissions without destroying the economies of the major CO2 producers of the world. I’ve stated this before, I’ll state it again, wind power and solar power are niche strategies that have their place but have no hope of materially changing the CO2 output of the world’s industrial economies. Nuclear energy is the only strategy(or some variant of the current form of nuclear power) but that’s the direction we have to take.

    All the rest of this driving around in econo-boxes, solar cells on the roof etc. etc. etc. it’s just the height of silliness..

    Oh, and Alex, please, reference the CO2 levels on Venus and comparison to the Earth’s CO2 levels simply debase your argument.

  • Brett Link

    Professor Jones also conceded the possibility that the world was warmer in medieval times than now – suggesting global warming may not be a man-made phenomenon.

    And he said that for the past 15 years there has been no ‘statistically significant’ warming.

    What he said (according to the BBC interview itself, and not the DailyMail article on it) was

    B – Do you agree that from 1995 to the present there has been no statistically-significant global warming?

    Yes, but only just. I also calculated the trend for the period 1995 to 2009. This trend (0.12C per decade) is positive, but not significant at the 95% significance level. The positive trend is quite close to the significance level. Achieving statistical significance in scientific terms is much more likely for longer periods, and much less likely for shorter periods.

    . . . .

    G – There is a debate over whether the Medieval Warm Period (MWP) was global or not. If it were to be conclusively shown that it was a global phenomenon, would you accept that this would undermine the premise that mean surface atmospheric temperatures during the latter part of the 20th Century were unprecedented?

    There is much debate over whether the Medieval Warm Period was global in extent or not. The MWP is most clearly expressed in parts of North America, the North Atlantic and Europe and parts of Asia. For it to be global in extent the MWP would need to be seen clearly in more records from the tropical regions and the Southern Hemisphere. There are very few palaeoclimatic records for these latter two regions.

    Of course, if the MWP was shown to be global in extent and as warm or warmer than today (based on an equivalent coverage over the NH and SH) then obviously the late-20th century warmth would not be unprecedented. On the other hand, if the MWP was global, but was less warm that today, then current warmth would be unprecedented.

    We know from the instrumental temperature record that the two hemispheres do not always follow one another. We cannot, therefore, make the assumption that temperatures in the global average will be similar to those in the northern hemisphere.

    The interview goes on, with some of the major questions addressed directly.

    if it’s not our fault why should we do anything about it?

    It’s more like “if it’s not our fault, what should we do about it?” My personal belief, of course, is that we are causing the climate to change and that we probably won’t do anything concrete about it until it’s too late. It’s a massive case of Collective Action Problem, where literally all of the short-term incentives are against doing anything.

    I should note, however, that it is an excellent way to move people to question your motives.

    That would be happening even if tomorrow the Chinese were to agree to match any cuts the US made, and put it in legally binding treaty form. They just re-package the old Cold War communist-conspiracy rhetoric into new environmentalist-conspiracy rhetoric.

    Therefore, if the evidence leads a researcher to think the Medieval Warm Period probably existed,

    You should read the interview. They accept that the Medieval Warm Period existed – the argument is over whether it was

    A)global as opposed to a regional change, and

    B)greater, equal, or less than what is going on now.

    I liked Rich Horton’s spiffy wordsmithing: “some points of scientific method has been conceded by the proponents.” Indeed, on steroids. In fact the very core of the database has been left in shambles.

    Not really. They’ve found two cases of poor editing on the part of the IPCC report, and they’re still checking up on the CRU stuff, but the latest conclusions are more that they acted badly in terms of preventing a Freedom of Information request as opposed to the data itself being false.

    The so-called facts on global warming are coming apart at the seems it’s an absolute restart from where I sit. A total re-do.

    The CRU and the IPCC are not the only sources of research on global warming. There is extensive research outside of both bodies.

    Therefore all of the usual prescriptions that America should basically be de-industrialized, and its citizens revert to caveman days, is all but the equivalent of self immolation-wait that would cause CO2, scratch that.

    Why do you think that cutting back CO2 emissions drastically is somehow “de-industrializing America”? Is American just not America with massive auto pollution and coal power?

    There are plenty of other power sources out there, and ways to even keep using cars en masse that aren’t nearly as bad in terms of emissions.

  • Drew,

    I’ve stated this before, I’ll state it again, wind power and solar power are niche strategies that have their place but have no hope of materially changing the CO2 output of the world’s industrial economies.

    I can’t say TOO much on this for risk of violating my duty of confidentiality, but you might dig into some major financial moves in this industry. At the present time, it’s cheaper per kW/h to produce power with wind than coal. Solar is catching up. This has not escaped notice.

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