Who Decides?
A Guest post by Evan Jones.
We are currently in the midst of a serious policy debate on the highly technical subject of world climate change. What is it happening? Why is it happening? What are we to do? And ultimately who is to decide what we will do? I attempt only to answer the last of these questions here.
The important decisions facing this world will, in the future as in the past, be decided not by experts but by laymen: the public at large and/or our elected officials. In a significant majority of important policy cases, the decision makers are not expert in the field. They are (usually) not scientists, economists, historians, or strategists.
It is notable that a technocratic, authoritarian “solution” has been advanced on many occasions, including, recently by David Shearman, Joseph Wayne Smith in The Climate Change Challenge and the Failure of Democracy, which seriously recommends rule “by experts and not by those who seek power”.
http://www.greenwood.com/catalog/C34504.aspx
Seeking power but not in the name of seeking power is, however, an inherently self-contradictory proposition. The free citizen and his elected representatives alone have the right, and wherewithal to make these decisions.
Yes, experts must inform us. In fact, their advice is indispensable. Without expert advice, many of our decisions would be made in a fog of ignorance and uncertainty. The expert has a special status and a deserved esteem. However, it is the role of the expert to inform, not to decide. This is as it should be. The alternative is a technocracy which not only excludes the common citizen from the decision making process, but results in intramural conflict between the technocrats themselves.
A courtroom operates along the same lines. In many cases, the advice of the expert is essential. Only the expert can inform us about a DNA match, a bullet grooving, or even mundane details of, say, phone records. It may be fairly said that in many if not most cases, both the decision and the remedy hinge on expert testimony.
Yet it is not up to the expert either to reach a verdict or to pass sentence. And it up to the judge to act as “gatekeeper”, not the experts. It is very poor form for an expert to refuse to divulge data or methods. It is at the very least an anti-scientific attitude and should be regarded by the layman as such.
Experts are excluded from the jury, deliberately separated from the decision process. In the realm of politics, the unelected expert plays much the same role as in a trial: Decision makers may well call upon expert testimony and advice. But when it comes down to the hanging chads, the expert has only his vote as an expression of power, a vote with no more absolute weight than that of Joe Shmoe.
In the role of advisor, the expert has a considerable obligation. He is expected to be truthful and objective. He is expected to limit his advice to his realm of expertise. He is expected to tell the story straight and not exaggerate for effect or to ensure a particular course of action.
He is expected to be responsible. He is, in a sense, our shepherd. He must not cry wolf for “amusement” nor in response to every passing shadow. This is important. There are real wolves out there, and there are times when only the shepherds can provide us with warning. The obligation of the shepherd is not only to cry wolf when there is a real potential danger but also not to cry wolf when there is not. The decision whether or not to cry wolf is up to the shepherd, not the public at large.
This leaves the layman in a difficult position, for the public, as decision makers must pay heed to a cry of wolf. They are not experts on wolves. And the solution to a false crying of wolf is not to ban shepherds. Nonetheless, in terms of climate as well as wolves, the layman can and must play the role of arbiter, and play it well. If the public at large were not capable of deciding basic issues of policy, democracy itself would long since have proven an unworkable farce.
However if the individual expert or decision maker is found to be acting deliberately in bad faith, he may be held accountable. For example, as Steve McIntyre has pointed out, it is against the law to promote a mining enterprise using only the richest ore samples.
But where to draw the line between outright fraud, mere intellectual dishonesty, or irresponsibility becomes moot. What then of the infamous email reported by David Denning, saying, “We have to get rid of the Medieval Warm Period,” in order to “pervert science in the service of social and political causes”.
http://www.climatechangeissues.com/files/PDF/conf05mckitrick.pdf
This, if true, is clearly dishonest, but it is not at all clear that it is actionable.
In the climate debate, three examples of legal though clearly deplorable advocacy spring readily to mind.
1.) Heidi Cullen’s suggestion that the AMS should withhold certification from weathermen who did not, “truly educate themselves on the science of global warming,” leaving no doubt as to what the conclusion of said education should be.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heidi_Cullen
Note, however, that it would be perfectly acceptable to decertify (or even prosecute) a weatherman who deliberately misreported an approaching storm in order to make a killing by short-selling the stock of the local insurance company.
2.) David Suzuki’s challenge, “to find a way to put a lot of effort into trying to see whether there’s a legal way of throwing our so-called leaders into jail because what they’re doing is a criminal act,” i.e., those who stood in the way global warming legislation. (This is especially unseemly, coming as it does from an official of a human rights group.)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Suzuki
Yet it would be perfectly appropriate to do so in the case of an MP who accepted a bribe from an oil company in return for a vote against GW measures.
3.) David Roberts’ deplorable comment that, “When we’ve finally gotten serious about global warming, when the impacts are really hitting us and we’re in a full worldwide scramble to minimize the damage, we should have war crimes trials for these bastards — some sort of climate Nuremberg.”
http://gristmill.grist.org/print/2006/9/19/11408/1106
It is the responsibility of the layman to recognize such statements, whatever their source, for what they are: advocacy of the suppression of free and open debate. He must consider only the legitimate points from both sides of the controversy and come to a rational policy decision.
No matter how complicated an issue may be, it can generally be broken down into basic questions and decision points that can be expressed on the side of a postcard. But in order to do that, the layman requires unbiased advice, or at least the advice of both sides. For the expert to rebuke him with a patronizing “read a book” is an abrogation of responsibility on the part of the expert. It is not the layman’s responsibility to become an expert on every subject requiring a decision. Furthermore, it is a practical impossibility. It is up to the expert to explain his position simply, plainly, and in layman’s terms.
Anthony
Btuce Cobb just refuses to stop being abusive. I have no intention of adding his recent insults to the ones he already has on WHY BANISHMENT? #71. I am quite content with –
“Senile, bipolar, forgot to take his meds.”
and
“I say boot the senile, bipolar royal loon snotbag believer in Gaia, aka Johnny “the debate is over” Davison.”
I am willing to play according to your rules but I am not sure about Bruce Cobb.
REPLY: OK I’ll edit that out. I think that was from before the “clean slate point” today but I’ll check.
FOLLOW UP: Ok I checked, all that you referenced is from well before earlier today where I offered you a “do over” if you abided by the rules. So is your “snot bags” comments on us from the beginning of your visit here. I really don’t have the time to go back and sanitize everything, and to be fair I’d have to remove comments from both sides.
The best I can do is to say that I will intercept and if need be, edit or delete any new comments that may be disparaging to Dr. Davison, or from Dr. Davison’s comments to us also. He’s agreed to be civil, let’s give him the opportunity.
Now can we all just get along and get back to business and stop the flame war?
by pronouncing guilt on everyone in order to extract money from their supposed carbon sinfulness. i.e. a new swindle to make money out of thin air.
Indigo, you mean like this
Evan, the glaring problem it that there are numerous well meaning individuals who have allowed a weak media and propagandists to convince them that in accepting the alarmist view of carbon guilt, that they are in fact displaying intelligence and virtue.
Unfortunately true. Been through that in the ’80s, but it was the Cold War, population, and resources back then.
I was hugely encouraged, however, to discover that most of the guys “felt that way” just to get girls. When it came down to actual decisionmaking, they actually (usually) thought with their heads. And, one may hope, some things never change.
Now I’m in trouble. Thanks a lot.
Much the same proposed (anti-development) solution is proposed today, and from much the same sort of people who proposed it then. Which pattern arouses my suspicions. Not unlike a nine year-old kid who always has a whole host of seemingly disassociated problems, and somehow the solution for all of them turns out to being allowed to say up until 11:30. (Wait for it, Rev,)
In postcard one we should expose the monstrous lie that CO2 is a dangerous pollutant that religiously stamps all people as carbon sinners.
The first postcard would pose the issue. If there was room, it might indicate that CO2 is not poisonous in any way, in and of itself, and that the controversy was over alleged secondary effects, only.
CO2 would definitely get a secondary card all its own.
The point about CO2 is that it is not really anything much of a greenhouse gas for planet earth once it gets the early work done and above 0 degrees Celsius.
I did not know that the GH effect of CO2 was temperature-sensitive at that level. One of the controversies seems to be the percentage of GH effect of CO2. What then become HIGHLY relevant is:
a.) How much of the TOTAL % GH effect is from CO2?
b.) How much % an effect does ADDITIONAL CO2 have?
If those numbers are significantly different at the o°C level, that could be the crux of the debate in practical, if not scientific terms.
If one stipulates, for example (and I know this is not true), that CO2 was 100% of GH effect under o°C, and 0% of GH effect above o°C, then obviously a doubling of CO2 would be completely meaningless.
So how much does the effect change and at what temperatures? A reliable answer would rate a line on the CO2 card if the answer would affect policy.
Stan, we have this papal decree that CO2 is a very dangerous pollutant and therein we have one of the most fraudulent concepts ever perpetrated by people … a nasty piece of work for this is the mad-hatter world of carbon cops imposing carbon charges in order to expiate your carbon sinfulness and thereby minimise your time spent in Purgatory. Where does it start and end because the possibilities for corruption are immense? e.g. A carbon charge from the AGW clergy on every birth, annual carbon fees per child and a carbon credit for sterilization? Also if you are large or suffer obesity perhaps then let’s have some additional charges, too. Of course the wealthy will be advantaged and easily able to offset their sinful deeds. Very pre-Copernican I must say because it is all in the mind.
Of course, alarmist AGW exists but it is all in the mind which is the only place we can find it. It is simply a mind over matter mind virus where people are told they have bad breath. The non infected from little ol me to our giant ball of plasma, sunnyboy, will be deemed heretics, marginalized and punished with plenty of “the end is near” talk of course. AND oh the horror of it all. We are seeing this in the media every day …. cool becomes warm, cold becomes hot, and i dare say that it all is going to get very dirty with all this at stake.
I particularly don’t want a colder world because of the hardship it will bring to humanity and nature but I must confess my growing desire to flush these charlatans down the dunny.
Indigo
While it is true that under experimental conditons (and with some difficulty) one can demonstrate CO2 to be a limiting factor for plant growth, it is not likely that this is often a limiting factor in the natural world. Water, light, temperature or mineral nutrients are virtually always the limiting factors. I have watched over the last thirty years the devastating pollution of Lake Champlain due entirely to the phosphates and nitrates associated with agricultural fertilizer, detergents and especially human waste.
One solution which I have offered is to develop hydroponics on a grand scale to grow corn and sugar cane on our lakes and reservoirs and at the same time cure them of their eutrophic condition. It would neutralize the prospect of drought. We already have the technology. All we need is the engineering to make it possible. To grow corn for biofuel with conventional methods will only further pollute the Gulf of Mexico due to agricultural runoff. If we have the time, which I seriously doubt, we must adopt a whole new strategy which to date we simply are not doing, at least to my satisfaction. We must not only stop what we have been doing, we must reverse it. Our lakes, our rivers our ground water and the oceans, the ultimate sink, have become the sewer for nearly 7 billion human beings. It is untenable.
“Mankind fiddles while earth burns.”
It’s a trace gas. c. 1/25th of 1%.
It has anywhere between 1x and 7x the effect of water vapor by ppmv. I can never get that answer straight, and I’d sure like to.
I’d also like to know if the answer is not known and to what extent the experts disagree.
All that is info for the CO2 “card”.
“Historical” fog is NOTHING compared with statistical fog. Every time I hear about “lies, damn lied, and statistics”, I think how little that holds on, “lies, damn lies, and paragraphs”.
Well, I want to know the accurate GH gas effect statistic, within known prameters. And I’d like to have the accompanying paragraph, for that matter. I may have to write it myself, but I WILL have it. (And I want decent citations because I can’t get anywhhere without sourcing it.)
Disagreement is fine. In that case I want to know the numerical scope of the disagreement.
John A, the limiting factor as i see it comes from the impatient farming practice of feeding the plant rather than feeding the soil. Hydroponics that you mention, with its exceptionally controlled environmental conditions, is the natural extension of this particular mindset. If you put production and the consumer forward as your foremost objective then you will be caught up in the loop where you are unwilling to forego short term gains for the benefit of long term solutions. i.e. the hurried process of squeezing the soil to the point of complete exhaustion, followed by degradation of the whole landscape with a ‘no return’ status and then due congratulations you mug farmer.
Step outside this loop to a practice where water flow is slowed and captured by numerous retention mechanisms which naturally keeps water on/in the land. Consider the soil climate and that much of the work in the soil is done by the numerous soil organisms and microorganisms that thrive to make “living” soils. This is a complex soil food web teeming with earthworms, mites, bacteria, fungi—all kinds of mostly microscopic, interdependent organisms that release mineral nutrients and create the loose soil structure crops need to thrive. It makes much sense and there is next to no space here to explain nor to examine its full significance. The major point is that with careful patience, sustainable agriculture is then possible and extra free atmospheric CO2 is a healthy, greening bonus as it enters the soil climate.
ps I feel everyone deserves a break from little ol boing me …. cheers
Evan, not so long ago I read Bruce’s link which has a pretty good primer to CO2 and its atmospheric effect re gw. Maybe a reasonable starting point to do some personal research.
http://middlebury.net/op-ed/global-warming-01.html
Indigo
You can’t even find earthworms in the soils of much of American agriculture. They have been poisoned out of existence. I know from personal experience when I was trying to find earthworms for bait several years ago in the cotton country of Mississippi. I substituted beef liver only to discover that every catfish I caught was loaded with tumors. My suggestions, and that is all that they are, certainly have absolutely nothing to do with politics. They have to do with our survival. In my opiniion it is already much too late in any event.
That other product of oxidation, water, is also posing the same threat that CO2 is. Why do you suppose world wide precipitation is increasing? Equal molecular quantities of H2O and CO2 are produced with the oxidation of glucose. The oxidation of reduced substrates like gasoline and fuel oil produces a much higher H2O/CO2 ratio. Water vapor is a greenhouse gas too.
I am flabbergasted that anyone would identify climbing atmospheric CO2 as an extra, free, healthy, greening bonus. I doubt if it is ever a limiting factor outside the experimental laboratory. CO2 is first and foremost a poison.
Alfred Russel Wallace long ago recognized what we are doing to our planet –
“Remember! We claim to be a people of high civilization, of advanced science, of great humanity, of enormous wealth! For very shame do not let us say ‘We cannot arrange matters so that our people may all breathe unpolluted, unpoisoned air!'”
Man’s Place In The Universe, page 257 (1905).
The simple truth is that we have failed miserably and are now paying the price.
“Mankind fiddles while earth burns.”
The best explanation I can find for AGW hysteria is the demographic fact that 50% of the population is, by definition, below average intelligence. And according to the NIH, 21% of the population can be classified as mentally ill to a greater or lesser degree.
Thus, we have well over 100 million folks in the U.S. alone who can easily be sold on the notion that the sky is falling, aliens are abducting members of congress, and sea level will be at your doorstep tomorrow morning.
Excuse, me, I have to go now and change a few laws of physics so I can join the AGW crowd and apply for some grant money….
“CO2 is first and foremost a poison.” Nonsense. C02 is no more a “poison” than water vapor, or even 02 is. The more C02, in fact, the better it is for plants, which is good for us. Yes, the increase of C02 from 335 ppm (pre-industrial level) to today’s 385 has actually been a boon to mankind. Man has contributed roughly 3% of that, the rest from nature, primarily the oceans, due to off-gassing. Yes, C02 has some warming effect (and a good thing, too), but it is logarithmic, meaning the initial rise in C02 has more effect. The warming we’ve experienced has also been good, coming out of the LIA as we were. The indications now, in fact, are that we will be (if not already) going into a cooling period.
Dr. Davison,
Cheer up; there is hope on the horizon.
Mr. Davison, I ask again, for the third time. If you truly believe there is an emergency, why haven’t you given up all your technology and assumed a hunter-gatherer lifestyle? It’s the ONLY way to reduce human industrial CO2 which you believe is a pollutant and a poison (hey, too much O2 will kill you too, eh?). Failing to do so labels you a hypocrite of the highest order.
I’ll stand with Tim Flannery, thank you very much. I just sent him an email to let him know I am a strong supporter.
The current warming is trivial compared with the effects associated with it. The earth is an extremely delicate system which can respond violently to even slight disturbances. No dramatic effects may be manifest until the polar sea ice is mostly gone at which time all hell will break loose. I am sorry that no one here can see what I see. I guess there must be something wrong with me. Or maybe others are not watching the weather reports which continue each day to present a frightening scenario, at least to me.
Sorry to be wasting your time with my heresies. It is nothing new for this old physiologist. After 54 years in the science game, I can still say that nothing I have ever put in print has been shown to be without foundation. Of course there is always a first time, but they better hurry. I can’t live forever.
I love it so!
“Mankind fiddles while earth burns.”
The Flannery who is not a climatologist.
Or maybe there’s really nothing frightening going on, only the spin.
And you still haven’t answered my thrice-asked question.
AGW/AGCC Religion is powerful, no doubt about it. They believe because they want and/or need to believe. It has nothing to do with science with them. Sad, really.
Jeff Alberts
I see you refuse to follow Anthony Watts’ suggestions. You know nothing of my life style and never will if it is up to me. All I know about you is that you are crass and have made my list (#71 on my WHY BANISHMENT? thread) because of it. That is all I need to know and I am happy to see to it that others now know that also. I cherish and collect insults and am delighted to share them with others.
Congratulations.
“Mankind fiddles while earth burns.”
REPLY: FYI it looks like your website is busted. When I visit http://john.a.davison.free.fr/ gives a 500 internal server error. Just thought you should know.
Just for fun, is there another soul commenting on this weblog that feels we are facing a serious crisis due to the climbing levels of CO2 and, of course, water vapor? Am I the only alarmist here on a forum dedicated to the subject of global warming? If true it is not the first time I have been in that position. It will also be true that this does not qualify as a forum.
That does not require an answer. Silence will do.
“Mankind fiddles while earth burns.”
john.a.davison.free.fr/
REPLY: I note that there are several, whether or not they’ll reply to you remains to be seen. Did you see the note about your website being brokeN?
My website is not broken. There may have been a bandwidth problem. I have agreed to remain civil but Jeff Alberts has not done so. He is accusing me of being a hypocrite and making ignorant allegations about my life style. He is also interrogating me. I have no intention of responding to anyone who uses those tactics. I don’t even know who he is. If he is allowed to continue in that vein I will simply have to inform others that this is a hateblog. He has also said some hateful things about Tim Flannery. That is also unacceptable by any standard. If you can’t control your clientele just say so. I won’t be surprised. It will just become a matter of record. That is the way it is supposed to be.
“What happens in cyberdumb stays in cyberdumb.”
John A. Davison
Mankind fiddles while earth burns.
REPLY: Mr. Alberts assures me he will not respond to your posts anymore. I suggest you do not respond to him also. As for Tim Flannery the only thing I can see that was said is that “The Flannery who is not a climatologist.” which is in no way hateful and happens to be true. Flannery is an expert zoologist/field biologist and his written a number of respected bestselling books, but he is not a climatologist by his CV on Flannery’s own webpage.
I just tried the link to your website here: http://john.a.davison.free.fr/ and it’s definitely not working, I’m just trying to help you so that you know its not working.
Now lets all move on folks. Please leave Dr. Davison alone, and I mean that most sincerely.
Dr. Davison,
I assume from your subsequent comments that you didn’t bother to look at the Craig Venter video I linked to at 05:37:02. You really need to check it out. It may actually restore your faith in the future of mankind, particularly the part about using surplus CO2 as a feedstock for a new generation of biofuels.
Yes I did and thank you. I see no reason why we can’t imitate photosynthesis on a grand scale. All these possibilities require energy and that is the problem. My position now as in the past is that it is much too late to do anything to reverse the situation. I believe that is Flannery’s posture as well.
I am sorry to be so pessimistic.
“Mankind fiddled while earth burned, past tense.”
As for being a climatologist, I have no idea what that word even means. It seems to me that anyone can be a climatologist by simple decree. I too study the weather and the phenomena associated with it. Ergo I am a climatolgist. I am also a geneticist, a physiologist and an ecologists and have published in all those areas. Labels mean absolutely nothing. They have only snob appeal as far as I am concerned.
Dear Dr. Davison,
Thanks for clearing that up, regarding your statement “Ergo I am a climatolgist.”
I’d point out that I think you mean “c l i m a t o l o g i s t“. It seems to me that if you declare yourself to be one, you should at least spell it correctly.
Thank you for your continued participation.
Big deal, I spelled it correctly all but once but that waas enough wasn’t it? Anything to make the dissenter look bad . Thanks for esposing yourself.
Now dump on me for mispelling exposing. I love it so!
REPLY: Why would I do that? But here is a helpful hint, if you use Firefox, there is a spelling check feature for use within form submissions, it will highlight the word with a red underline allowing you to click on it.
If you are using Internet Explorer, if you install Google Toolbar it has an “ABC Check” button which will highlight words in forms in red, allowing you to click and get spelling fixes. I hope you find that suggestion helpful.
Thank you for your continued participation.
It is too bad you don’t have an edit capacity as they do at ISCID’s “brainstorms” forum where I also hang out.