This is a guest post by Dave Gaukroger.
__________
The Australian today has published a confusing article by Malcolm Colless where he attempts to paint the discussion of climate change as a “beat-up” and offers as an example two events from the past few decades when people have supposedly overreacted to an imagined threat. Colless’ argument basically boils down to two points, firstly, things probably aren’t our fault, and secondly, we should avoid taking action because of the cost and limited chance of success. The problem with Colless’ argument is that the examples he has chosen were both caused, and solved, by human action.
Colless’ first attempt to re-frame the climate change debate is by comparing it to the Y2K bug. He appears to have fallen into believing that because there were no disastrous failures on the eve of the year 2000, that the Y2K bug was merely hype. I can assure him that the colleagues of mine who spent that New Year’s Eve posted at critical government sites throughout Canberra would quickly disagree. The reason that major failures due to the Y2K bug never eventuated was because of the enormous amount of effort spent averting it. The more extreme claims like
Aircraft could fall from the sky
were almost entirely creations of the media, rather than the IT industry. As to who caused the Y2K bug, that has never been in doubt, it was programmers who never dreamed that thesoftware that they were writing in the 70s and 80s could possibly still be in use by the year 2000.
The second example that Colless chooses is perhaps even more astounding, the hole in the atmospheric ozone layer. Colless dismisses the hole in the ozone layer as an environmental concern because
The hole is apparently still there, although it has stopped expanding and has, in fact, started shrinking. Coincidentally, it is now playing second fiddle to global warming in the climate change debate.
and for some reason he decides to draw a parallel with climate change that seemingly undoes his entire argument
But just as we were told to disregard any suggestion that a hole in the ozone layer could be, in large part anyway, caused by Earth’s natural evolution, so we must accept that global warming cannot be attributed to any natural changes in the planet’s climactic cycle. No. It is all our fault.
The simple fact here is that there is no doubt whatsoever that the hole in the ozone layer was caused by the release of chloroflurocarbons (CFCs) and hydrochloroflurocarbons (HCFCs) from aerosols and refrigerants, products that are man made. The Montreal Protocol was proposed in 1987 and has had the effect of reducing the amount of ozone depleting substances in the atmosphere, which is why, as Colless noted, the hole has started shrinking.
Colless spends the second half of his article criticising the Rudd Government’s intransigence when it comes to climate change, and their reliance on peer reviewed scientific journals, specifically condemning Greg Combet’s comment that
“Publication in newspapers and blogs is no substitute for the careful processes of scientific rigour,”
With all due respect to Mr Colless and the medium he writes for, if the argument he made today in the Australian is the best reason he can come up with to justify inaction on climate change, I’m afraid that I have to agree with Mr Combet.
63 Comments
Pages: « 1 [2] Show All
You could have least kept in the word “bearded” you fascists.
Iain,
“Just how do you know that funding for scientific research is not contingent upon results?”
That’s so funny. Dark conspiracies, indeed.
This is what the ‘sceptics’ are reduced to. The whole scientific process is corrupt – funding goes to those who toe the line, peer review filters out those who don’t.
Typical conspiracy theory nonsense.
And BTW, I didn’t say “sceptics are paid to promote particular views”, I said funding for ‘sceptics’ is not for research but to promote particular views, which is quite different. You, however, said other scientists are making money out of AGW.
While his arguement is ill argued his point remains.Its called the Malthusian Trap. People(incluing Thomas Malthus), have made predictions about man-kind and its impending doom since the begining of modern history. As of yet they have all proved to be wrong.
Climate change, does it exist, of course. Is it man made…..who knows and more importantly who cares. In the course of this debate we only have the Malthusian trap as our historical guide, and what does it tell us….
Well time and time again men,women, and in this case “anthropological man made climate change advocates” have told us of our impending doom. Of our need to change courses or else.
Well Thomas Malthus was wrong, historically millions more have been wrong in predicting our doom.
so guess what, history is not on your side CC advocates, and only history will prove you right or wrong(or in this case wong). But history will tell you that you are full of shit. And so will I
The premise of the Blog though was that his points were wrong. Well actually Malthus and his Trap have probably vindicated him, even if he didnt explain it very well.
madeinaustralia,
A couple of years ago a few people were going on about the sub-prime mortgage market in the US. Silly duffers – it all turned out fine, didn’t it? Oops.
Anyway, what is all this ‘impending doom’ stuff? There is a middle ground between “impending doom” and ‘”who cares”, you know. I’d also note that while those who accept AGW are often accused of hype and exaggeration, but it seems to be the ‘sceptics’ who are the most keen to turn this into ‘then end is nigh’. I suppose it’s easier to dismiss extreme claims than face real risks and have to deal with them.
Whether history is on our side is not the issue. Science is. If it makes you feel better, you can lump AGW in with every wild claim in history, but you are ignoring the real science behind predictions of climate change. To say ‘but what about…’ is not even a logical argument, let alone a scientific one.
As for Colless, it wasn’t just that “he didnt explain it very well”. He used two examples where problems were averted to claim they were never problems in the first place, and therefore this isn’t. If facts and logic still mean anything, he was simply wrong.
Aurgh,
Actually the Malthusian trap only extends to the impending doom of mankind, not events existential events like sub-prime mortages, but while were on that path the recession turned out the be the worst in history also didnt it:), swings both ways. Actually shows the reflexivity in financial markets and there evolving ability to cope with shocks.Lets not mistake instability in markets with market destruction.
Actually to be honest ive seen more impending doom things from GW advocates as opposed to AGW ppl. AGW ppl are usually the who cares types. Why would the skeptics care? they dont have a case to argue IMO. But they do talk about financial instability if things like cap and trade systems are allowed to continue. Here is an example from “the great american bubble machine”
BUBBLE #6 Global Warming
Fast-forward to today. It’s early June in Washington, D.C. Barack Obama, a popular young politician whose leading private campaign donor was an investment bank called Goldman Sachs — its employees paid some $981,000 to his campaign — sits in the White House. Having seamlessly navigated the political minefield of the bailout era, Goldman is once again back to its old business, scouting out loopholes in a new government-created market with the aid of a new set of alumni occupying key government jobs.
Gone are Hank Paulson and Neel Kashkari; in their place are Treasury chief of staff Mark Patterson and CFTC chief Gary Gensler, both former Goldmanites. (Gensler was the firm’s cohead of finance.) And instead of credit derivatives or oil futures or mortgage-backed CDOs, the new game in town, the next bubble, is in carbon credits — a booming trillion dollar market that barely even exists yet, but will if the Democratic Party that it gave $4,452,585 to in the last election manages to push into existence a groundbreaking new commodities bubble, disguised as an “environmental plan,” called cap-and-trade.
The new carboncredit market is a virtual repeat of the commodities-market casino that’s been kind to Goldman, except it has one delicious new wrinkle: If the plan goes forward as expected, the rise in prices will be government-mandated. Goldman won’t even have to rig the game. It will be rigged in advance.
Here’s how it works: If the bill passes, there will be limits for coal plants, utilities, natural-gas distributors and numerous other industries on the amount of carbon emissions (a.k.a. greenhouse gases) they can produce per year. If the companies go over their allotment, they will be able to buy “allocations” or credits from other companies that have managed to produce fewer emissions. President Obama conservatively estimates that about $646 billion worth of carbon credits will be auctioned in the first seven years; one of his top economic aides speculates that the real number might be twice or even three times that amount.
The feature of this plan that has special appeal to speculators is that the “cap” on carbon will be continually lowered by the government, which means that carbon credits will become more and more scarce with each passing year. Which means that this is a brand new commodities market where the main commodity to be traded is guaranteed to rise in price over time. The volume of this new market will be upwards of a trillion dollars annually; for comparison’s sake, the annual combined revenues of all electricity suppliers in the U.S. total $320 billion.
Goldman wants this bill. The plan is (1) to get in on the ground floor of paradigmshifting legislation, (2) make sure that they’re the profitmaking slice of that paradigm and (3) make sure the slice is a big slice. Goldman started pushing hard for capandtrade long ago, but things really ramped up last year when the firm spent $3.5 million to lobby climate issues. (One of their lobbyists at the time was none other than Patterson, now Treasury chief of staff.) Back in 2005, when Hank Paulson was chief of Goldman, he personally helped author the bank’s environmental policy, a document that contains some surprising elements for a firm that in all other areas has been consistently opposed to any sort of government regulation. Paulson’s report argued that “voluntary action alone cannot solve the climatechange problem.” A few years later, the bank’s carbon chief, Ken Newcombe, insisted that capandtrade alone won’t be enough to fix the climate problem and called for further public investments in research and development. Which is convenient, considering that Goldman made early investments in wind power (it bought a subsidiary called Horizon Wind Energy), renewable diesel (it is an investor in a firm called Changing World Technologies) and solar power (it partnered with BP Solar), exactly the kind of deals that will prosper if the government forces energy producers to use cleaner energy. As Paulson said at the time, “We’re not making those investments to lose money.”
The bank owns a 10 percent stake in the Chicago Climate Exchange, where the carbon credits will be traded. Moreover, Goldman owns a minority stake in Blue Source LLC, a Utahbased firm that sells carbon credits of the type that will be in great demand if the bill passes. Nobel Prize winner Al Gore, who is intimately involved with the planning of cap-and-trade, started up a company called Generation Investment Management with three former bigwigs from Goldman Sachs Asset Management, David Blood, Mark Ferguson and Peter Harris. Their business? Investing in carbon offsets. There’s also a $500 million Green Growth Fund set up by a Goldmanite to invest in greentech … the list goes on and on. Goldman is ahead of the headlines again, just waiting for someone to make it rain in the right spot. Will this market be bigger than the energyfutures market?
“Oh, it’ll dwarf it,” says a former staffer on the House energy committee.
Well, you might say, who cares? If cap-and-trade succeeds, won’t we all be saved from the catastrophe of global warming? Maybe — but capandtrade, as envisioned by Goldman, is really just a carbon tax structured so that private interests collect the revenues. Instead of simply imposing a fixed government levy on carbon pollution and forcing unclean energy producers to pay for the mess they make, cap-and-trade will allow a small tribe of greedy-as-hell Wall Street swine to turn yet another commodities market into a private taxcollection scheme. This is worse than the bailout: It allows the bank to seize taxpayer money before it’s even collected.
“If it’s going to be a tax, I would prefer that Washington set the tax and collect it,” says Michael Masters, the hedgefund director who spoke out against oilfutures speculation. “But we’re saying that Wall Street can set the tax, and Wall Street can collect the tax. That’s the last thing in the world I want. It’s just asinine.”
Cap-and-trade is going to happen. Or, if it doesn’t, something like it will. The moral is the same as for all the other bubbles that Goldman helped create, from 1929 to 2009. In almost every case, the very same bank that behaved recklessly for years, weighing down the system with toxic loans and predatory debt, and accomplishing nothing but massive bonuses for a few bosses, has been rewarded with mountains of virtually free money and government guarantees — while the actual victims in this mess, ordinary taxpayers, are the ones paying for it.
Again though AGW people arnt talking about impending human doom, just a massive financial bubble. Science is on your side to a point, and even then its grainy. Im not ignoring the science behind climate change, im just listening to all the sides..not just yours:)
Colless it was poorley written, and your right they were never problems in the first place.I still think though he was eluding to the Malthusian trap, or at least thats what i would have been doing if i was him.
And madeinaustralia, lets not forget February 7 this year when all those doom sayers were saying it would be the worst fire danger we had ever faced. If CC is happening and we do nothing it may get worse, and that would be bad, if it isn’t man made and we do something what the fuck have we lost? Some rich countries will have changed for the better. Even if our pollution isn’t causing GW it is fucking our enviroment and we have to change our way sometime so why not now? And the other thing is we know our energy sources are running out so we should be looking at different options now before it’s too late or is that too Malthusian for you?
Science says that there is a great risk to the furure of our biological world if we do not do somenthing urgent to prevent it or to reduce its impact. The sceptics use odd reaasons to say its not going to happen but the risk put forward by science is too great to risk. I think that we have no alternative but to take the science as gopel and behave quickly to do something about it. If we could have two worlds and let the sceptics take their chance then we could do that but we only have one world.
Keith Bedford
Surlysimon, im all for the halting of pollution, every pollution, but just carbon is just stupid. Its not a start, its not a begining its cutting carbon, one of the life’s building blocks and ignoring the real pollution.
Energy sources running out…plz, Shell alone has enough oil prospects to fuel the workd for 1000 years, or so its recent oil development plan said The oil bell curve was wrong. There is enough oil to last us a millenia, forever…maybe not. but its it malthusian to call the downfall of energy…of course.
Keith Bedford: I have no problem with pollution reduction, this is carbon reduction, last time i checked carbon is not a pollutant.
This has nothing to do with AGW or this post, in fact the stuff that’s been posted here in comments and Dave’s refutations of Colless’s *claims* about the ozone hole don’t support your theories about doomsayers or whatever malthusian shit you’re peddling. The world not ending has much to do with humankind’s ability to avert disaster. So why do you denialists believe we don’t have the ability to avert serious global warming? Actually don’t answer that, i know the answer already.
Straight out of the denialist handbook. Nice attempt at thread derailment, but every time this site has an AGW related post, the delusionists crawl out the wood work to restate again and again their debunked memes.
You are no different.
madeinaustralia why isn’t carbon a pollutant? anything in the wrong place or at the wrong concentration is a pollutant, go do some basic science.
Enough Fuel for 1000 years, give us your source for this fantasy
That UN climate guy Ivor De whatever said when he was last in the country recently that estimates confirm enough non-renewable energy sources (namely coal) for around 800 years. Given humans have existed on this planet for tens of thousands of years, madeinaustralia’s comments confirm the view that it is indeed the denialists who want to shunt the human race back to the stone age! So we continue with our non-renewable dependence, and in 800 years (or 1000 years), then what?
OTOH we can begin to make the transition to renewables NOW and secure the future energy supplies for the world’s population long after we’ve shifted off the mortal. How can anyone claim that is the irresponsible option? Yes barnaby and your curious cohort, looking at you!
For an illustration of why there are genuine concerns about corporations with vested interests being involved in scientific research, this New York Times article on medical research is worth a read.
Pages: « 1 [2] Show All