To the Climate Change Alarmist: 5 Things Which You Must Persuade Me

It’s been a long blogging hiatus! But that’s ok because no one reads this anyway, except maybe a few through facebook.

There is something I don’t believe most climate change activists understand about those of us who are stubbornly unconcerned about it, and (like me)insist on ridiculing the idea. I had a back and forth with @ClimateBrad on twitter today which highlighted this for me.

The ridicule:

rickyteachey: Smug climate scientists increasingly less smug, part 56874136: dubious claims of sea level rising.http://bit.ly/cXdtb3

The “well, actually…”:

climatebrad @rickyteachey Read the story. Scientists retracted claim of *limit* to sea level rise.

I remain unconvinced of the prediction of sea level rise:

rickyteachey: @climatebrad Think you’re hearing what you want to hear. The upshot of the story is they don’t know anything.

climatebrad @rickyteachey The “scientists don’t know anything” hypothesis is one way to interpret that story, yes. A bit bizarre, though.

rickyteachey: @climatebrad Not at all bizarre if you’re a scientist or engineer and have 1st hand experience with computer modeling. They don’t know, bro.

Finally, I’m presented with incontrovertible evidence that I am wrong:

climatebrad @rickyteachey Even if you don’t believe in expert modeling, you need to explain away the evidencehttp://bit.ly/aiC8Qg http://bit.ly/b7K4FT

All snark aside, I appreciate ClimateBrad’s desire to set the record straight here. After all, the title of the Guardian piece (Climate scientists withdraw journal claims of rising sea levels) is certainly misleading.

The reason I linked the piece, however, was simply because it exemplifies a situation where the claim “the science is settled” is obviously a dubious one. The science is constantly in flux. The reason climate science is constantly in flux is because it is based on inadequate computer models and very little data.

Now here’s the interesting part (yeah I knew you were wondering when that was coming). Here I thought we’re having a little exchange of opinion about the reliability of predictions about the negative effects of climate change, and then I get thrown some links about Antarctic ice shelf decrease over the past 3 years, and how I “need to explain away the evidence”? But the prediction of future climate catastrophe is a separate (and admittedly related) issue from what has been going on today. In fact, there are actually 5 separate issues at stake in this, not just 1, and you can’t go jumping around hitting them with links links links. They have to be taken one at a time.

Now I could try pointing out that temperatures worldwide are actually LOWER over the past several years and have continued to fall during the same time that ice has decreased (according to those links). But I’m not a climate scientist and don’t really know all the ins and outs of that stuff.

Here’s what I do know. Climate change characterized by global warming isn’t even 1/4 of the issue here. There are actually five things I would have to be convinced of in order for me to stop rolling my eyes over this.

1. That climate change- characterized by long term global warming- is happening.
2. That it will be bad for the world if it does happen.
3. That it is man-caused.
4. That man is able to stop it (this is a separate issue from #3).
5. That it is worth making the effort to stop it (in economic and moral terms).

As you can see, the original article relates to point 2. However, data about what is happening today, while related to point 2, doesn’t really convince me that the science as it stands is capable of making anything approaching a reliable prediction about climate.

As a matter of fact, the evidence tells us they don’t know what the hell they are doing. As far as I am aware, the models have yet to accurately predict much of anything. And this isn’t meant as a knock against scientists- their job is hard! I’m an engineer (kinda- still working on that masters degree!), and from what I know about computer modeling and data interpretation for climate science (which is to say, more than most people, but not enough to make me an expert), it’s very difficult to make a good model, and (especially for global climate) perhaps impossible with the amount of knowledge we have about how the climate works and all the different mechanisms affecting it.

As for the 5 points themselves, I’m not convinced any of those things are true. However, even if I concede that, yes, it is happening, you’re only 20% of the way there in convincing me it’s even worth talking about.

I tend to believe that the opposites of #2-#5 are true.

5. Stopping global warming wouldn’t be worth the cost:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dtbn9zBfJSs

4. We couldn’t stop it anyway. The political will isn’t there, and we don’t have the technology to replace our energy resources. Don’t talk to me about renewable energy. It’s mostly bunk.

3. Lots of scientists DO NOT THINK that it is caused by man or at least believe that the cause is unknown:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_scientists_opposing_the_mainstream_scientific_assessment_of_global_warming#Global_warming_is_primarily_caused_by_natural_processes

2. Overall, global warming would actually be a net benefit to the world:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_scientists_opposing_the_mainstream_scientific_assessment_of_global_warming#Global_warming_will_not_be_significantly_negative

To be honest, I am agnostic about point #1, which is to say I don’t care. However, even if I believed 100% that climate change characterized by global warming was occurring, it wouldn’t change my attitude toward it one iota. And that is what climate change alarmists need to understand about us: we don’t care if it’s happening. YOU have to convince us to care. YOU have to convince me that ALL FIVE of those things are likely to be true.

And you haven’t done it.

Ezra Klein can be really silly

Ezra Klein said (via The Corner):

At this point, Lieberman seems primarily motivated by torturing liberals. That is to say, he seems willing to cause the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people in order to settle an old electoral score.

Look, I understand that, from a left-leaning perspective, being pissed off at Lieberman right now is the logical thing to do.

But come on. I don’t read his blog every day, but I was under the impression that Klein is reasonable enough fellow, as leftists go. This comment is just stupid on its face. Yes yes, I know he linked to a study. Whoop tee doo.

A Key Difference Between Right and Left

I haven’t written on this here blog in quite a while. I just haven’t felt like it.

However, the president’s Afghanistan speech last night put me back in the mood. He talked about summoning unity. He also said:

We will go forward with the confidence that right makes might, and with the commitment to forge an America that is safer, a world that is more secure, and a future that represents not the deepest of fears but the highest of hopes.

I want to say a few things about “right makes might” and unity.

I think what the president intended to communicate here was that because our cause is just and good, that we will prevail. But I think that is a naive attitude. Goodness in no way guarantees success. Although it feels nice to understand that good should always overcome bad, it doesn’t, and it never will in this world.

I picked out that quote because it is illustrative of an important thing to understand about Obama and people on the left who think like him. People to the left of the political spectrum live in what is very much a dream world. They imagine what that they can create a perfect world if they try hard enough. John Lennon is a case in point:

And also Robert and Ted Kennedy, who both said:

Some men see things as they are and say ‘Why’? I dream things that never were and say ‘Why Not’?

The Kennedy brothers have never been more correct about anything. This is a key difference between the right and the left. People on the left dream naive dreams that never were (and never will be). They live in a dream world.

People to the right of the spectrum do indeed see things as they are and say “Why?” We acknowledge that the world will never be even close to perfect, and the best we can do is restrain gratuitous evil and assuage gratuitous pain as best we can. We ask “Why are things this way?” and then we try to make things better.

As for unity, it is true that everyone can unify around the idea of living in a better world than the one today. But there are different ways of going about getting a better world.

John Lennon, Barack Obama, the Kennedys and those like them have a way. They dream of a world with “no possessions… No need for greed or hunger, A brotherhood of man… Sharing all the world”, and try to make that world a reality.

People on the right, in contrast, have another way. We take the world we have today at face value and say, “ok- what can we do to make this a little bit better for the most people?”

But are these two approaches mutually exclusive? Yes, they are. What the left always does is 1. identify something that is broken or imperfect, 2. imagine something better, 3. completely abolish the imperfect thing, and 4. replace it with their imagined perfect replacement. The right seeks to 1. identify something broken or imperfect, 2. ask why it is this way, 3. think of ways to improve, and 4. try out the best solution.

The left and right can’t have unity. The left wants to destroy and replace flawed institutions. The right wants to fix them, and maintain them. True unity is a myth. What unity really means is “Unity behind my values”- the values of the person preaching unity.

So when the president gets on stage and talks about unity and right making might, please forgive me if I don’t fall all over myself in adoration for these wonderful words. The man lives in a dream world. I have no desire be in unity with someone who lives in a dream world. His words are just air. They sound nice, and they mean nothing.

The Stimulus Package

I like Jim Manzi. And he’s right, ya know:

As I tried to get into at length in the prior post, once you get past all the mumbo jumbo, it seems to me that there is one thing we can know with confidence about deficit spending on stimulus: it will, in part, transfer wealth from future generations to our own. Of course, if you’re reading this, and you’re, say, 24 years old, then that should read as “transfer wealth from you to a bunch of Baby Boomers”.

This makes the incredible support of this age cohort for Obama seem pretty ironic, at least on this issue. You know all those rallies you went to, and how excited you were on election night? It turns out that the most important result of that, so far at least, is that you get work much, much harder over the next 40 years so that the overweight guy in the khaki pants down the hall from you at work who does nothing of much observable value doesn’t have to move to a smaller house or trade in his car.

What’s this we stuff Kimosabe? – Yes you can!

How to better spend your time

I think my time tonight would have been better spent watching this 20-25 times than watching the awful awful awful presidential debate:

i was young when reagan was in his hey day, but from what i remember of him, she reminds me of that feeling.  she goes straight to the people like gipper did.

wow. that was a HELL of a closing statement from her. wow. excellent.

biden did an excellent job- really. no huge ugly mouth diahrrea like people were expecting. this closing statment though…. the class warfare… it’s just the same ol’ dem talking stuff.  there’s no change here.

good job palin.  “support a ticket that will create jobs, or one that will kill jobs.”

it’s too bad though, that we’re basically at statistical full employment.

good answer from biden on how to change the tone in washington: ” don’t question motives’

oh my god. biden: “i oppose judges based on ideology.”

ok palin, all this stuff about anti partisanship… partisanship is more good than bad. i’m sorry.