Gosh! Who would think a climate scientist could get so angry about people criticizing a politician? Here is an amazing exchange seen on Prometheus. Some highlights and excerpts follow
- Gore Critics are “Palpably evil”
- Suggests critiquing Gore’s science “morally comparable to killing 1,000 people”
According to his bio, Michael Tobis of the University of Texas is a “Research Scientist Associate (in practice, mostly a software engineer) at the University of Texas Institute for Geophysics in the delightful city of Austin.” Tobis is also editor of the EGU journal Geoscientific Model Development.
Here’s an excerpt from the blog conversation:
“As for the scope of the ethical risk, let us consider the possibility that the behavior of the Times and the Post this year increases the chance of an extreme event with a premature mortality of a billion people by a mere part per million, a per cent of a per cent of a per cent. The expected mortality from this is a thousand people. Is that morally equivalent to actually killing a thousand people? It’s not all that obvious to me that it isn’t.” […] Tobis later asks: “I’d sure like to know how I ‘gave ammunition to my enemies’”
Pielke Jr. writes about kerfluffle:
“I am beginning to get a better understanding why some scientists react so strongly to some of the things we write here at Prometheus. For instance, one climate scientist suggests that my calling out Al Gore for misrepresenting the science of disasters and climate change (as well as Andy Revkin’s comparison of that to George Will’s misrepresentations) to be the morally comparable to killing 1,000 people. I kid you not. I wonder how many climate scientists share this perspective.”
Keith Kloor, a journalist, summarizes the exchange [Pielke Jr.] had this week with that climate scientist: http://www.collide-a-scape.com/2009/03/02/climate-gutterball/
What are we to make of Michael Tobis, a University of Texas climate scientist, who on his blog recently said this about Revkin: “I don’t think his dragging Gore into Will’s muck was a minor transgression of a fine point of propriety. I think it was palpably evil.” (End excerpt of Tobis.) […]
Tobis is just getting warmed up. In the comment thread of his post, he has this exchange (which I’m excerpting) with Roger Pielke Jr (who Tobis and other bloggers blame equally for his role in the Revkin piece that equates Gore with Will). Tobis: “It is difficult for me to state how grave I think the transgression of ethics committed by Revkin and Pielke in this matter is. Consider some statistical expectation of human lives that will likely be lost as a consequence of the delay due to this confusion. I think such a number could present a very grave picture indeed.”
Pielke Jr’s response.:
“If you think that it was unethical for me to point out that Gore was misrepresenting the relationship of disasters and climate change (based on my research I should add), then I am really amazed. What kind of scientist says that misrepresentations are OK or should be ignored if politicians with the right values are making them? [And maybe I read you wrong, but are you really suggesting that Revkin and I are complicit in “statistical deaths”? Please do clarify that odd claim …]”
Tobis obliges:
“Implying an equivalence between Gore, who is constantly treading a fine line between effective politics and truthful description of risks, and George Will, who is wrong from beginning to end in conception, detail and emphasis is unacceptable because it perpetuates this dangerous skew. As for the scope of the ethical risk, let us consider the possibility that the behavior of the Times and the Post this year increases the chance of an extreme event with a premature mortality of a billion people by a mere part per million, a per cent of a per cent of a per cent. The expected mortality from this is a thousand people. Is that morally equivalent to actually killing a thousand people? It’s not all that obvious to me that it isn’t.” – Pielke is incredulous: “Wow. These sort comments give far more ammo to your political enemies than anything I could ever say or do. Eye opening stuff.” – Tobis asks later in the exchange: “I’d sure like to know how I ‘gave ammunition to my enemies’? – Pielke Jr. is now asking on his blog: “Anyone care to give him an answer?”
Read it on Prometheus
If Gore is Mr Efficiency who believes we should only consume what we need, how is he gaining so much weight so fast?
If he believes the seas are going to rise by up to 20 metres, why did he just buy a beachfront property in San Francisco?
There couldn’t be any confusion if the science were settled.
If it were indeed settled no amount of bluster from so called deniers (actually sceptics) could have any effect with the public.
If it were indeed settled then sceptics would universally be regarded in the same way as astrologers, that is, benign eccentrics (I hope trhat does not insult any astrologers too much).
The fact that sceptics are traduced in such a way tells us much about the current state of climate science. It seems to lack any self confidence or support with the lay public.
Just suppose that the warmlings are wrong and energy rationing kills billions through economic devastation, third world poverty and cold without it ever having been necessary. Would they accept a corresponding level of individual personal responsibility to that which they seek to impose on sceptics ?
It’s been kind of chilly lately. Maybe he’s a just little bit under the weather.
Holy guacamole! {See – I can make my expletives green}
So, to measure this against a recent post here on WUWT, the two Jeff’s {C & Id} are morally evil for criticizing the Steig et al paper. I mean, if criticizing a failed politician is so bad, how bad is it to criticize a politically correct scientific paper {never mind those minor technical errors; their hearts were in the right place, right?}?
Send out the thought police.
Comparing hot heads to religious folk is an insult to religious folk.
If criticizing Al Gore is the moral equivalent of killing 1000 people then what would be the moral equivalent of punching him in the face? Presumably the destruction of all life on the planet.
On the other hand maybe giving him the Nobel prize is the moral equivalent of curing all disease. Which doesn’t seem to have happened yet. More sacrifices are needed. Maybe sainthood for Al Gore would save us all.
Tobis asks later in the exchange: “I’d sure like to know how I ‘gave ammunition to my enemies’? – Pielke Jr. is now asking on his blog: “Anyone care to give him an answer?”
It was this kind of moral grandstanding, and the uncivil ad hominems that accompany it, that led me finally into the skeptics camp. Dr Tobis has every right to continue to believe that AGW is real. And I suppose that, under the 1st Amendment of the constitution, he has the right to insult and personally attack those who hold a different view, by using statistics, abstract “ethics” or any other means he deems appropriate and effective.
I, for one, am not impressed by this grand “philosophizing” — really nothing more than emoting in public. Tobis knows nothing about engaging in civil debate in civil society, and is a damage to himself and his cause. Skeptics should give him a bullhorn and soapbox. He’s no match for George Will (and I say that as someone who frequently doesn’t agree with Will, but always respects him).
OT, short update:
The warming that started around 8 jan 2009 seems to have ended medio feb. But feb will appear warm in statistics to come.
However now we are back at the situation where 2009 global temperatures are near 2008.
Ice area in the arctic is very near the normal for 1979-2000.
Cosmic rays persist to stay at record levels, Oulo Finland.
http://www.klimadebat.dk/forum/attachments/opdatemar09.gif
And what i find rather interesting: Just as last year, the refreeze of ice already started near 20 feb! – And a quite nice start too:
http://www.klimadebat.dk/forum/attachments/antice240203032009.gif
As a graduate of The University of Texas at Austin, B.S. Chemical Engineering 1977, I am saddened and dismayed by the ever-increasing embarrassing pronouncements issuing forth from that once-proud institution of higher education.
Their green belief is well-entrenched now, however. Our alumni magazine is full of such articles predicting gloom and demise from global warming, yet the letters from alumni (we call ourselves Texas Exes) shows that many, perhaps most, of us do not agree with their conclusions.
To the point of this posting, that persons should be accountable for inaction that may (conceivably) result in one thousand premature deaths, why focus on this? Should we also hold accountable those who obstruct known technologies that improve health and prolong lives, such as sanitation, chorinating water, DDT to prevent malaria, basic medical care, and refrigeration to reduce food spoilage?
His statement assumes, though at low probability, that AGW will take place. And what is the “ethical risk” to proponents of AGW if there is a one in a million chance of disastrous global cooling — the onset of an ice age — happening instead?
Tobis’ argument is specious and has no merit because no one knows the true chances of either or neither taking place.
Tobias is [snip, cute but too close to profanity]
It’s amazing how irrational people get when one refuses to drink the “kool aid”.
OT: Have you seen the report
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/18/20090303/tsc-space-rock-gives-earth-a-close-shave-50a9c9d.html
about the asteroid that just missed us Monday lunchtime?
Size of the Siberian incident in 1908.
came within 45000 miles… twice the orbit of a satellite. according to yahoo news.
sorry if the link does not work. Never sure how to do that! I just paste the address page.
Increasing death rates caused by efforts to reduce global warming.
1) Temperature and Fatalities
Evidence: More deaths are caused by cold weather than by hot weather.
Application: Adding CO2 to raise global temperatures will reduce weather related deaths.
2) CO2 and Food
Evidence: Global population is increasing.
More food will be required to feed the global population.
More people die from famines than from excess food.
Primary productivity increases with increasing CO2.
Application: Adding CO2 to the atmosphere will increase food productivity and reduce the number of deaths from famine.
3) Fuel & Income
Evidence: Families with little work have insufficient income to purchase food resulting in increased deaths from malnutrition and famine.
Use of fossil fuels has strongly increased economic output and incomes.
Consumption of fossil fuels below the population growth rate will reduce global economies unless replaced by less expensive renewable fuels.
Application: The effort by global warming alarmists to reduce CO2 emissions will result in millions of more deaths from cold and from famine than would occur by adding CO2 from consuming fossil fuels.
Challenge: Locate data and apply statistical methods to quantify these trends.
Thanks to Al Gore and ‘green fuels,’ people in the third world are starving today. Do these green fools take responsibility for that?
It will be a civil war before soon of a magnitude that makes the Russian civil war and subsequent goulag look like an incomplete draft. People re-read Solzhenytsyn…
To quote the Canadian economist, Marshall McLuhan:
“Moral indignation is a technique used to endow the idiot with dignity.”
Given that the extreme hazards predicted by Gore and others can only be reduced or avoided by drastic reductions in CO2 omissions, ( assuming the AGW brotherhood is correct), then heavy carbon taxes and outright bans on hydrocarbon burning must take place as soon as possible. This will directly and inevitably result in reduced economic activity and lower general prosperity. What is the moral responsibility for those who call for such policies? Reduced economic activity will result in greater poverty, especially among the poorest of the poor, that is, the poorest people in the poorest regions. It is not some abstract and hypothetical risk that faces such people, but very real and statistically measurable increases in malnutrition and disease. We would face an immediate and sustained increase in infant mortality, malnutrition, lower life expectancy, and greater deaths from preventable diseases. Is Mr. Tobis willing to accept direct moral responsibility for the deaths of tens of thousands, or millions of the most vulnerable people in the world? Does he even consider them?
Frank Lansner (10:26:29) :
Cosmic rays persist to stay at record levels, Oulo Finland.
Cosmic rays are no higher this minimum than at every odd-even minimum since 1952, and have in fact started to come down.
Isn’t it the easiest thing in the world for these guys to gather for a conference in Bali, or Copenhagen or Kyoto or wherever, and give themselves a pat on the back JUST for being who they are. Now that’s REAL dignity. (sarc. off)
Yet another Kamikaze attack.
Ross (10:32:09) :
Tobis’ argument is specious and has no merit because no one knows the true chances of either or neither taking place.
Yes. Furthermore, the typical response of an advocate is to ignore negative consequences (negative w.r.t. his or her hypothesis) when citing already specious arguments. I.e., his fallacy is compounded by the possibility that such warming might decrease cold related deaths by say, 2000 (a number just as arbitrary as Tobis’), resulting in a net gain of 1000 lives. By his own logic, we should be sainted for advocating warming.
Mark
I should add: “as pointed out by David L. Hagen’s examples above,” since he noted the possible means for a decrease in deaths before I came along. 🙂
Mark
Professor Tobias takes himself WAY too seriously.
I hope my kids don’t see this one…it’ll be, “I’m not lying dad, I’m ‘treading a fine line between effective politics and truthful description of risks'”. Really that line is pretty good, it had to have come from from an SNL writer.