(This IBD Editorial was sent to me by the authors)
By WILLIE SOON, ROBERT CARTER AND DAVID LEGATES
This is a response to “Why Can’t We Innovate Our Way To A Carbon-Free Energy Future?“, a “Perspective” by Bjorn Lomborg that ran in this space a week ago.
Bjorn Lomborg, author of “The Skeptical Environmentalist” and “Cool It,” is right about the need to focus on critical health and economic priorities. But he is wrong about human carbon dioxide emissions causing what is now being called “global climate disruption.”
By demonizing the gas of life, in league with Al Gore and Bill Gates, Lomborg commits several serious scientific errors. As independent scientists, with broad training in mathematics, physics, chemistry, geology and geography, we know CO2 is not a pollutant, and the notion of “carbon-free” or “zero-carbon” energy is inherently harmful and anti-scientific.
If nitrogen, oxygen, hydrogen, helium or any other nontoxic gas is pumped into a chamber containing air and a growing plant, the response is barely measurable. By contrast, if more CO2 is added, the plant and its root system benefit enormously, displaying enhanced growth and more efficient use of available water and nutrients.
Far from having detrimental effects, carbon dioxide has decidedly beneficial impacts on plants, aquatic and terrestrial alike, and a new study connects enhanced plant productivity to greater bird species diversity in China. How, therefore, can anyone conclude that human carbon dioxide is a pollutant that must be eradicated?
These facts erect a formidable barrier for “zero-carbon” advocates. By insisting that no human CO2 should be emitted, they are promoting continued suboptimal growth of food plant species in the face of impending global food shortages — and poorer functioning and less diversity in the global ecosystem.
Zero-carbon activists respond to these facts by asserting that human CO2 emissions cause “dangerous global warming.” They are wrong about this, too.
If rising atmospheric CO2 levels drive global temperatures upward, as they insist, why is Earth not suffering from the dangerous “fever” that Al Gore predicted? Instead, after mild warming at the end of the twentieth century, global temperatures have leveled off for the past decade, amid steadily rising carbon dioxide levels.
Lomborg’s claim that we need to “cure” so-called “unchecked climate change” is thus fallacious and contradicted by reality. Reducing human CO2 emissions will likely have no measurable cooling effect on planetary temperatures.
His insistence that we prioritize expenditures is spot-on when applied to genuine environmental and societal problems. However, it is irrelevant when the problems are mythical — or devised to advance ideological agendas. Moreover, even if human impacts on the global climate can actually be measured at some future date, humans currently lack the scientific and engineering understanding and capability to deliberately “manage” Earth’s constantly changing climate for the better.
Most certain of all, atmospheric carbon dioxide is not the “climate control knob” that anti-hydrocarbon alarmists assert, and it is irresponsible for Lomborg to claim his socio-political agenda will provide a low-cost solution for the global warming “problem.”
The scientific reality is that even the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has been unable to demonstrate a cause-and-effect scientific connection between rising human CO2 emissions and dangerous warming.. To support global limits on CO2 emissions, in the absence of real-world data showing clear cause and effect, is scientific and policy incompetence on the highest order.
Imagine a drug company seeking FDA approval for a new drug, based on an analysis that says simply: “Our supercomputers say the drug is safe and effective. We have no clinical data to support this, but can think of no reason actual results would contradict what our computers predict. Moreover, failure to license the drug will be disastrous for patients suffering from the targeted disease.” Failing to demand actual dose-and-response studies, before licensing the drug, would be gross negligence on FDA’s part.
Between 2007 and 2009, U.S. carbon dioxide emissions dropped approximately 10%, to their lowest level since 1995, largely because of reduced energy consumption during the recession. Similar CO2 emission reductions occurred in Britain, Germany, France and Japan.
Have their climates gotten better or less dangerous? Are they now a better place, for having a lower intensity carbon energy diet? Have global temperatures been statistically unchanged since 1995 because, or in spite of, Chinese and Indian carbon dioxide emissions increasing far more than the aforementioned countries reduced theirs?
These are practical, not rhetorical questions. As far as we can see, the only direct effect of decreasing CO2 levels via expensive renewable energy programs has been to cost more American and European jobs than would otherwise have been the case during the global economic recession.
The central issue is not whether rising CO2 levels will cause a warmer planet. The fundamental concern is whether globally warmer temperatures are factually worse (or better) for human societies — and more (or less) damaging to the environment — than colder temperatures (like those experienced during the ice ages and Little Ice Age).
Bjorn Lomborg, Al Gore and Bill Gates need to consider the likelihood that, driven by changes in solar activity and ocean circulation, Earth will cool significantly over coming decades. Damaging the global economy with ineffectual carbon dioxide controls, in a futile quest to “stop global warming,” looks stupid now.
Viewed later, with hindsight, it will be judged outrageously irresponsible.
• Soon studies sun-climate connections at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.
• Carter is an emeritus fellow of the Institute of Public Affairs and chief science advisor to the International Climate Science Coalition.
• Legates is a hydroclimatologist at the University of Delaware and serves as the state climatologist of Delaware.
This editorial appeared at Investors Business Daily – here
GM’s currently in the troll bin. He can get out if he does either of these:
1. Comes clean with admission that locking up people is the same as “jailing”. He advocates “locking up” Lomborg for “crimes against humanity”
or…
2. Decides that honor is important and puts his own name to his words.
His choice. But I’m not going to have people like him ranting about locking people up that don’t have integrity enough to stand behind their own words. He’s at Cal-Tech, using the publicly funded state college network, so one would hope there’s some integrity there.
GM says:
“Elementary risk management tells us that we should try to avoid climate change at all costs”
Maybe elementary risk management tells us, but reading a post over at climate etc by:
cb | October 29, 2010 at 12:37 pm says:
“Specifically, one will often hear from activists that “uncertainty is not your friend” as a rebuttal to proponents of inaction. They apply “risk management 101″ — i.e., symmetric probability of a large effect (pick your poison — cryospheric loss, transient or equilibrium temperature rises, etc)
However, as someone experienced with a wide variety of applied risk management, I must say this is naive with regard to risk management “201″, if you will — that the shape of the distribution matters, not merely its location and scale. Specifically, if the 3rd moment is large, it could easily be that the upper bound from paleoclimatic considerations is much tighter than a lower bound from models with a variety of feedbacks and infelicities. In that sort of scenario, percentile points or VAR style risk analysis does not yield the same kind of decision surfaces as a naive symmetric (or even Gaussian) shape because the “upper limit” scales differently with the lower limit.”
I have very little idea of what he/she is saying, I’ll bet neither do you, but one thing is certain, it is neither elementary, nor at all costs.
Regarding GM: My bet is he won’t disclose his identity. Audacious enough to make inflammatory comments when hiding behind the mask of anonymity – but even he probably doesn’t feel like his comments have enough validity to stand behind them openly.
John Kehr October 30, 2010 at 8:51 am says:
Explaining the science in a simple and easy to understand manner is the key to eventual victory. … Arguing the benefits of higher CO2 (even if accurate) isn’t going to win the battle. Getting people to understand will. Keep it simple.
GM October 30, 2010 at 9:17 am says:
… it will end up harming plant growth in large areas of the globe by decreasing the water supply to plants…
Gentlemen and trolls,
Explaining the science isn’t going to sway trolls like GM. He thinks the oceans are going to boil away into outer space and the Earth will dry up like a prune. That’s not rational, not even close to rational. Cogent explanations, with or without the math, don’t stick in such cases.
The best we can do is attempt to soothe feverish brows with soporifics. It’s all going to be okay, GM. Trust me. Warmer is better. Really it is. You’ll like it. The plants and the animals will like it. Nothing to worry about. Now close your eyes and go to sleep and you’ll see… in the morning things will all be okay.
Thank you Dr.s Soon, Carter and Legates for your post.
One of my jobs after college was as a site data QC editor for a clinical trial. Your comparison was spot on and one of the reasons I disapprove of the use of models as “research”. I would also add that if a study using real patients averaged the vitals of other participants to get the data for a drop out (smoothing) or failed to report a morbid/fatal event (cherry picking) and got away with it, no drug would be safe.
I also want to mention that my (animal) cell cultures grow much better in a CO2 incubator than a regular one. CO2 really is a life giving-gas.
Thank you again.
Totally agree wit Carter, Soon and Legates. I have read Bjorn Lomberg’s books and enjoyed his analyses but he really needs to be educated with regard to AGW.
An open public debate between scientists who follow the data and the others who believe in poorly programmed super computers is exactly what is needed.
No prizes for guessing which side avoids such an event. As we know from the ‘disinvitation’ posts they are even afraid to share a platform with knowledgeable opponents.
RockyRoad says: October 30, 2010 at 10:14 am
So GM says:
News flash – if you were so concerned about plant growth, you should advocate for humans starting a massive program for decreasing the oxygen content in the atmosphere.
GM…whoever/whatever you are… that’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever read on WUWT–
You know… and I offer this advice seriously… you should send a letter to your alma mater (I suspect it was one of those liberal institutions of “higher learning”) and request a FULL REFUND of your tuition money because you were robbed! Your brainwashing is on full display and we’re all laughing.
—————————————————————————————RockyRoad You are right. The latest series of outbursts from poor old GM convinced me that he is seriously damaged. To begin with, I thought that he was just overcome by his own assessment of his intellectual prowess – but now – I think it’s really rather sad. He doesn’t process his thoughts very well.
Doug
GM
Have you ever seen anybody starve to death? I have. Its one thing to see pictures of hungry kids but quite another to experience it with a friend. This woman was diagnosed with a strange condition that when she ate for some reason her stomach would not utilize the food she consumed. Eating solid food became impossible so she was switched to liquids. The doctor said there was no cure so she was literally consigned to a slow death by starvation. An iv was used to keep her hydrated and to help keep the sodium level constant. Over the ensuing weeks she just got thinner and thinner. On my last visit to see her she was very thin but was still able to talk(barely).
It was hard to take even at this point. I was very busy for the next week and couldn’t get to see her, but finally after one week I went up to see her. The sight that greeted me I was completely unprepared for. She was now nothing but a skeleton with skin stretched over it. The absolute worst part is the eyes sink back into the skull. I was immediately traumatized. The emotions are indescribable. I made my way to the lobby and promptly broke down. This was the most emotionally jarring experience in my entire life, NOTHING else compares to it.
YOU GM are an IDIOT who does not know what he/she is talking about. BRING ON THE CO2! More biomass for everyone!
Anthony your spam filter is apparently working well!
Ah – GM’s from California. Who’d have thought it?
If I bought insurance against being trampled by a herd of elephants while watering my lawn, would that be good risk management?
Momentum counts when pushing a pov or agenda. In the past year the AGW agenda has lost a great deal of that particularly valuable commodity, and judging from the activity in the political and financial sectors, is unlikely to regain it. I expect that if the political expectations for Nov 2 come to pass, that the fall out in the green industries will be spectacularly bad. I may have to crack open that bottle of champagne I’ve been saving. 🙂
Anthony ,
Perhaps you should leave him there . All he really does is insult the contributors , the mods and the commentators . At the very least , he could back up his attacks with references .
2010 has been and will be a very good year, rest in peace AWG, AKA CC, AKA GCD, long live Biodiversity Disrupton it needs a global somewhere but it will be AKA by next July. X number of species go extinct every day? month? Year? pick your meme here ..
From the same experts who cannot accurately tell us the number of species on planet. I saw a great quote , source forgotten, credibility is like virginity, you can only lose it once.
There’s a very interesting post over at James Delingpole’s blog which contains some graphics which put the question of CO2 into a more easily understood perspective.
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100060540/happy-climate-fools-day/
We in the UK have been committed to spending tax-payer’s money at the rate of £18 BILLION a year for the next FORTY years to pay for … What?
“So let’s consider the following visualisation of 1000 (double stacked) 55 gallon drums {representing the atmosphere}. Remember the political slush-fund described above is for the UK only. There are over a billion people just in Europe and the US alone, and only 60 million in the UK. So what Co2 reduction does our £18 billion a year buy us in real terms? Out of 55,000 gallons the UK’s total contribution is arguably *drum roll* less than one gallon (about six and a half pints). In that context even an 80% cut is – quite literally – a drop in the ocean.”
Quod erat demonstrandum.
GM:
If we look back in history when ever intellectuals had an agreement and there science was settled, disaster was shortly to follow.
Amongst the wast knowledge and experience mankind has to offer intellectuals hold only a small portion of that knowledge.
If we deny the knowledge of the average person or even the clinically insane been applied to an argument and only intellectuals with the limited knowledge get to determine where to lead society history only will repeat itself.
There is no evidence that renewable energy schemes cause any reductions in CO2 emissions due to factors such as emissions caused during manufacture, construction, operation and decommissioning of the schemes. In particular, the need to back up wind farms with conventional fossil fuel power stations at all times results in increased CO2 emissions.
Very good to see an article on the possble biological effects of climate change/meddling. Supposedly that is the point of the whole thing–who really cares whether arctic icebergs are melting unless this affects the narwhals and whales, the bears and the caribou and the Eskimos?
CO2science.org has an article showing that too much winter ice in Hudson Bay can cause whale drowning, while Nature (of all rags!) recently published an article showing that Antarctic warming had increased biodiversity on a Southerly island and saved the macaroni penguin from extinction.
I am also highly concerned about the stupidity of the brilliant. The smarter someone is, the more brain power he can bring to defend things s/he believes in. Recently, I have seen articles in peer-revied literature that were 5% science and data and 95% speculatin on how effects on a particular enzyme MIGHT make warmer temperatures bad for the species under study. Such stuff could not be published 30 years ago.
Some skeptics think we are arrogant to imagine humans can affect the climate, but if we have not done so yet, we will soon be able to. The recent fascinating book “Super Freakonomics” includes a description of a method to bring about global cooling by a few 2-mile-high smokestacks to inject sufurous substances into the stratosphere. The technology sounds much simpler that that used to drill the Macondo well 2 miles below the gulf floor. I believe it would work, and best of all, it would be easily reversible.
If it is done, the actual biological result would be famine and extinctions. If we learned a lesson, it could be worth it. But how many extinctions and deaths would it take to get through to GM, or James Hansen or Phil Jones, etc.? Remember–these people know how to funnel grants funding, fire journal editors, trash reputations, etc. if they do not like a scientist’s results.
–Esther Cook
People such as GM appear to imagine that anything that may be a risk should be acted against. If that were true, all automobiles would have full roll cages, automatic fire extinguishing systems, drivers would be belted in to full harnesses and be forced to wear flameproof overalls, masks and skull caps under full-face crash helmets with safety goggles to protect vision. While this applies to most race cars, it would be ridiculous to apply all such measures to every automobile ‘just in case’. In the case of automobiles, the facts have been arrived at over a century of actual experience. GM and his cohort ignore long experience from plant breeders, etc, and persist with the sort of nonsense that belongs in the horse age – suggestions that the human body would self-combust if the tremendous speed of 30 MPH was attained, and similar ‘theories’ were promulgated then and eventually proved to be silly nonsense.
GM and his cohort are irritants with nothing sensible to contribute; thank you, Anthony, for giving us respite from him.
C02 is a control knob. However, it operates with a long time lag with respect to temperature response. Apply an input forcing today and the temperature response, al beit small, will not appear for decades. It’s rather like steering an oil tanker. In fact, in the short term where other forcings have more immediate effect you can and will witness what appear to be response reversals. You turn the knob up, but the temperature goes down. But over the long run, if you turn the knob up the temperature will eventually go up. Also, increased C02 does make life better for plants. This is a short term response, unlike the temperature response. So, what we witness is the following: C02 is increased, we see a benefit to plant life, and we dont witness a concomitant increase in temperature. That response is decades in the future. And its so small that in the intervening years we can see evidence that makes us wonder if C02 warms the planet at all. But it does.
The other complication here is the cost of turning the knob. Turning the C02 knob down has immediate costs. Draconian costs. Costs that spread to every aspect of life. Costs that will change life dramatically. That is why C02 cannot be controlled by any rational democratic political process. People won’t stand for it. The short term costs to turn the knob down are high. The short term benefits ? hardly any. The only benefit, if there is one, lies decades off. Will increasing C02 cause long term warming? Our best science says yes. Will decreasing C02 have no short term effects and massive short term costs? Our best science says yes. That means, of course, that the only political system that could impose and maintain such controls is a totalitarian one.
Anthony,
Please let GM continue posting at least until Wednesday. Methinks the angry young man will undergo metaphorical spontaneous human combustion when the California global warming bill and Nancy Pelosi are both put out to pasture on the same day. The spectacle will be most entertaining.
REPLY: Yeah maybe you are right, people like him demonstrate just how seriously messed up the climate defenders are. OK We’ll let him post unfettered again, without the extra troll bin quarantine and examination. Of course he won’t admit to being wrong, or even admit that he called for jailing people. He’ll probably play the victim on some other blog saying “boohoo Watts banned me” when he isn’t banned, just given extra quarantine attention. People like him typically do that. In fact there’s a whole website dedicated to tracking such horrible dastardly deeds like this that I do. Gasp! Shock! Of course it’s run by another “anonymous coward”. Heh.
Have it at GM, show your brilliance, write some commentary. – Anthony
Lomborg says “let’s forget about subsidizing inefficient technologies or making fossil fuels too expensive to use. Instead, let’s fund the basic research that will make green energy too cheap and easy to resist.”
That is the usual approach by Lefties; more government funding. And the “green energy too cheap and easy to resist” (which is nonsensical, but we know what he means) is just pie-in-the-sky wishful thinking. The entire concept of “green energy” is based on a lie, anyway. Any energy policy which is based on the fraudulent idea that we have to decrease our C02 emmissions is bound to be wrong. The emphasis has to be on energy which can be produced cheaply, and with relatively little real environmental cost.
Steven Mosher says:
October 30, 2010 at 12:54 pm
“C02 is a control knob.”
No, it isn’t.
GM says:
“AGW is an untested hypothesis, that’s correct.”
That makes it a conjecture, no?
As Karl Popper stated, testability is the specific criteria determining whether any hypothesis is scientific. If something is not testable it is simply an unscientific conjecture [an opinion]. A hypothesis is testable if it is falsifiable. If it is not testable it is not science.
Therefore, anything that GM believes about “AGW” – including whether it exists – is an unscientific opinion. There is no testable evidence showing that human CO2 emissions have altered the planet’s climate. The only verifiable effect of the increase in CO2 is increased agricultural productivity. The planet’s current temperature range is unaffected, and is indistinguishable from past climate variability.
The same criteria applies to any scientist trying to show the existence of AGW. They must demonstrate, though empirical, testable, verifiable measurements, that AGW exists. But they have all failed to show this. The IPCC presumes,
a priori, that CO2 must be the cause of climate change, yet they have no more testable evidence of that conjecture than GM does. It is all hand-waving and opinion; it is certainly not science. That is why AGW promoters universally ignore the scientific method. In fact, the scientific method terrifies alarmists because it threatens their funding.
The null hypothesis of the climate is natural variability, within past parameters. Since the planet’s climate is currently well within the same parameters that it has been in throughout the Holocene [it is actually much more benign now than during most of the Holocene], the climate null hypothesis – that the observed temperature changes are a consequence of natural variability – is testable, and remains unfalsified.
In other words, natural variability explains 100% of what we observe. There is no need to add another entity such as CO2 to the explanation, because the increase in that beneficial trace gas makes no observable difference to the planet’s climate. It is an extraneous variable that has no measurable effect. The climate is well within its past parameters; nothing unusual is occurring.
Occam’s Razor states that “one should not increase, beyond what is necessary, the number of entities required to explain anything.” A good example is the same mathematical conclusion reached by both Lorentz and Einstein: that objects gain mass as they approach the speed of light.
But Lorentz believed the effect was due to changes in “the ether” – an extraneous entity that is unnecessary to explain the effect. Einstein, on the other hand, relied on Occam’s Razor – and rejected the ether as an explanation.
Scientists no longer accept that Lorentz’ “ether” exists. But for a long time Lorentz had an extensive following. It was finally accepted that an “ether” is not necessary to explain relativity.
Occam’s Razor applies to the presumed effect on the climate of the similarly extraneous entity CO2, which comprises a mere .00039 of the atmosphere. But there is no testable evidence showing that CO2 controls the climate. That is simply a conjecture. Climate models are built around the presumption that CO2 drives the climate. Modelers go through pretzel-like contortions trying to show that CO2 holds the climate reins. But after spending untold $billions, climate models are incapable of making accurate, repeatable, and validated predictions.
The CO2=catastrophic AGW hypothesis is an unverifiable conjecture; a scientifically baseless opinion kept alive only through an enormous transfer of wealth. It is entirely outside of the scientific method, which is universally rejected by those promoting their agenda that CO2 is the primary cause of climate change.
If the IPCC and its true believers had rigorously applied the scientific method and its corollary, Occam’s Razor to their methodology, the CO2=CAGW conjecture would have long since been relegated to the same pseudo-scientific trash heap along with Scientology, phrenology, astrology and other faith-based belief systems.
Dang, forgot to close the blockquote in my comment above.
Should have read:
Ah, but you can see that courts of law won’t be necessary. The anointed, the believers, need do nothing more than make the accusation. It should be noted that courage on the part of the accuser isn’t required, either.
CO2 is an engine block warmer not a control knob. The water cycle is the engine. CO2 just keeps it warm enough so the engine doesn’t get so cold you can’t start it. Once it’s started the engine keeps itself at the proper operating temperature. It’s all about the water cycle, Stevey. Write that down.