Dr. Roger Pielke Jr. explains why some leftist bloggers set themselves up for failure when they espouse their intellectual superiority. Screaming “hell, high water, global boiling, climate disruption, etc ” while at the same time saying “you’re too dumb to understand it” looks to be an epic “failure to communicate”.
He writes:
If you spend anytime at all perusing the blogosphere, you will find a common theme coming from self-described liberal or progressive bloggers, and that is that those on the political right are ignoramuses.
The argument is that they are just too stupid to know what’s what – they are even anti-science, rejecting knowledge itself — and consequently they support dumb candidates advocating ignorant policies. Such arguments are particularly evident in the corner of the blogosphere that discusses the climate change issue. This line of argument of course is a variant of the thinking that if only people shared a common understanding of scientific facts they would also share a common political orientation (typically the political orientation of whomever is expressing these views).
Read his whole post here where he explains why.
Or buy his book:
The Climate Fix: What Scientists and Politicians Won’t Tell You About Global Warming is now available at Amazon.com
Why has the world been unable to address global warming? Science policy expert Roger Pielke, Jr., says it’s not the fault of those who reject the Kyoto Protocol, but those who support it, and the magical thinking that the agreement represents.
In The Climate Fix, Pielke offers a way to repair climate policy, shifting the debate away from meaningless targets and toward a revolution in how the world’s economy is powered, while de-fanging the venomous politics surrounding the crisis. The debate on global warming has lost none of its power to polarize and provoke in a haze of partisan vitriol. The Climate Fix will bring something new to the discussions: a commonsense perspective and practical actions better than any offered so far.
Editorial Reviews via Amazon
From Publishers Weekly
Pielke (The Honest Broker) presents a smart and hard-nosed analysis of the politics and science of climate change and proposes a commonsense approach to climate policy. According to Pielke, the iron law of climate policy dictates that whenever environmental and economic objectives are placed in opposition to each other, economics always wins. Climate policies must be made compatible with economic growth as a precondition for their success, he writes, and because the world will need more energy in the future, an oblique approach supporting causes, such as developing affordable alternative energy sources rather than consequences, such as controversial schemes like cap-and-trade, is more likely to succeed.
Although some may protest on principle the suggestion that we accept the inevitability of energy growth, Pielke’s focus on adaptation to climate change refreshingly sidesteps the unending debate over the reality of anthropogenic climate change, and opens up the possibility for effective action that places human dignity and democratic ideals at the center of climate policies.
The book is available at Amazon.com and I think it is destined to be a best seller in the “Global Warming” category.
The Climate Fix: What Scientists and Politicians Won’t Tell You About Global Warming is now available at <a href=”http://www.amazon.com/Climate-Fix-Scientists-Politicians-Warming/dp/0465020526/&tag=wattsupwithth-20″ target=”_blank”>Amazon.com</a><!–more–>
Why has the world been unable to address global warming? Science policy expert Roger Pielke, Jr., says it’s not the fault of those who reject the Kyoto Protocol, but those who support it, and the magical thinking that the agreement represents.
In <em>The Climate Fix</em>, Pielke offers a way to repair climate policy, shifting the debate away from meaningless targets and toward a revolution in how the world’s economy is powered, while de-fanging the venomous politics surrounding the crisis. The debate on global warming has lost none of its power to polarize and provoke in a haze of partisan vitriol. <em>The Climate Fix</em> will bring something new to the discussions: a commonsense perspective and practical actions better than any offered so far.
Editorial Reviews via Amazon
From Publishers Weekly
Pielke (The Honest Broker) presents a smart and hard-nosed analysis of the politics and science of climate change and proposes a commonsense approach to climate policy. According to Pielke, the iron law of climate policy dictates that whenever environmental and economic objectives are placed in opposition to each other, economics always wins. Climate policies must be made compatible with economic growth as a precondition for their success, he writes, and because the world will need more energy in the future, an oblique approach supporting causes, such as developing affordable alternative energy sources rather than consequences, such as controversial schemes like cap-and-trade, is more likely to succeed.
Although some may protest on principle the suggestion that we accept the inevitability of energy growth, Pielke’s focus on adaptation to climate change refreshingly sidesteps the unending debate over the reality of anthropogenic climate change, and opens up the possibility for effective action that places human dignity and democratic ideals at the center of climate policies.
The book is available at <a href=”http://www.amazon.com/Climate-Fix-Scientists-Politicians-Warming/dp/0465020526/&tag=wattsupwithth-20″ target=”_blank”>Amazon.com</a> and I think it is destined to be a best seller in the “Global Warming” cate
intrepidwanders says:
October 31, 2010 at 2:20
In the future, we will be forced to consider Marxism, but we are not ready now.
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Odd, I thought we already had, and found it wanting.
“The climate models are not yet capable of making specific predictions. Due to the empirical nature of some of the parameters, and the chaos in climate models, their predictions, just like weather models are uncertain. The nature of such predictions is such that we cannot expect them to predict the future accurately. To complain about this shows ignorance of the fundamentals of climate science. Climate models have been used for “hindcasts” and the results are reasonably good. It has been shown that the evolution of global temperature since 1900 cannot be explained without the contribution from human emissions of greenhouse gases.”
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Actually the hindcasts are ‘g0od’ only after significant ‘training’ of the models. Given that the earth’s climate is a complex, non-linear, chaotic system I would assert that models will NEVER predict future climate with any degree of confidence.
A state senator recently made the observation that the counties in his senatorial district with a predominance of Democrats are responsible for making nearly all of the demands on his time and efforts to provide favors and tax monies on their behalf. By contrast, the counties dominated by Republicans are rarely heard from and tend to take care of and pay for their own local problems, or they do without rather than seek favors and outside appropriations of money. The differences in behavior are very stark.
The counties in his district with the demanding Democrats have serious problems with crime and poorly maintained infrastructure, while the counties with the Republicans have low crime rates and reasonably well maintained infrastructure, albeit less extravagant in the first place in keeping with the low income of the farms and small communities.
eadler;
re: climate models
(and I quote)
“The nature of such predictions is such that we cannot expect them to predict the future accurately. To complain about this shows ignorance of the fundamentals of climate science.”
Are you honestly attempting to assert that we cannot expect the models to predict the future accurately and we shouldn’t complain about it? Really? I mean freakin’ seriously? Your asking me for my tax dollars to mitigate future problems based on a model you admit can’t predict them and with a straight face tell me to stop complaining about it because if I understood it I wouldn’t complain?
Then consider the gob smacking unreality of your next sentence which confirms your either so completely besotten by groupthink that you’ve completely lost the ability to reason, or that you are so short of brain matter that a single beer may well kill off enough brain cells that you will forget to breath:
“Climate models have been used for “hindcasts” and the results are reasonably good. It has been shown that the evolution of global temperature since 1900 cannot be explained without the contribution from human emissions of greenhouse gases.”
Are you reading what you are writing? Are you getting this drivel off warmist web sites and sticking the paragraphs together in what you think is some semblance of a logical train of thought? Or do you simply subscribe to the notion that you can fool some of the people some of the time, so let’s see how many this time. You began by admitting that the models aren’t that good at predicting the future, and then vaunt their accuracy in hindcasting to prove warming from GHG. Let’s explain some science that I don’t appear to understand and have no right to complain about. Not complainin’, just explainin’.
The models don’t know the difference between future and past. They are built with a set of rules regarding how various elements of the climate interact with each other, and calculate from a given set of conditions at a given point in time the resulting end state conditions for a different point in time. The fact that they can hindcast accurately but are unable to forecast is proof positive that the rules are based on factors that are not, in fact, the correct factors. They are clearly factors coincidental in the past with the correct factors, and hence the inability to predict the future with any accuracy. Further, the hindcasts aren’t all that good. They can’t recreate variability even at the decadal scale, and they can’t hindcast the MWP and LIA.
I have two suggestions for you.
1. I have built a computer model that hindcasts my bank account. When I run it forward it insists that you are going to give me all your money next week, and if you don’t a bolt of lightning will descend from the heavens and strike you dead. You’re probably going to complain, but if you understood models you wouldn’t.
2. Have a beer. I want to see what happens.
eadler says: October 31, 2010 at 4:49 pm
H.R. says: “Education and intelligence are two seperate things. It’s a mistake to assume that all formally educated people are intelligent and it is another mistake to assume all people without a formal education are not intelligent.”
Your mistake lies in the use of the phrase “to assume all people without formal education are not intelligent.” In a society with universal public education and a lot of opportunity for higher education for merit scholarships for those who are bright, not wealthy, there will be a correlation between educational level and intelligence.
Just a grammar n*zi picking of a nit, “Merit Scholarship®” is a registered trademark of the National Merit Scholarship Corporation. So is “Merit Scholar®.”
To see who’s really bright and who isn’t, look up Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Steven Chu, and Bill Gates at the National Merit web site.
https://www.memberconnections.com/olc/pub/NMS/register/register.cgi
I sympathize with the belief, but please, point out one, just one, free market. I’ve not seen one lately.
[Stamp collecting? Garage sales? Paparazzi? ~dbs ☺]
I’m a college dropout- but also a rocket engineer who has designed 22 rocket engines, ten of which have been built and tested, including two that have powered two rocket airplanes that safely did over sixty manned flights- six of them where I was the on-board Talk down to me at your peril.
I contributed to the research and analysis linked at http://www.commercialspaceflight.org/?p=1362
Draw your own conclusions.
RE: Mike 1:03 PM “Now conservatives reject climatology because they think – wrongly – that it threatens the free market system. ”
Mike – – No. The thing is — is. Not reject. Not feel. Not claim. Is. The great and powerful is. Measure without a side and objectively.
PS: Interglacial. “During the Eemian Stage sea level was about 8 meters higher than today and the water temperature of the North Sea was c. 2°C higher than at present.”-Wikipedia.
Peter Sørensen says:
October 31, 2010 at 2:52 pm
“Well from my viewpoint in Denmark some of the candidates from the Tea party movement are amazingly ignorant and stupid. . . . . Or how about Palin claiming that she knows a lot about russia because she’s seen russia across the Bering strait……..”
Well for the 19th time, Mr. Sorensen, Ms. Palin never said this. An actress playing her in a comedy show uttered that line. It was funny.
It would be interesting to see a survey done of the broad community of scientists, those working outside climate science itself who supposedly endorse the CAGW hypothesis overwhelmingly, to see what percentage of them have actually laid eyes on any of the work of the IPCC or any of the other canonical works of climate science. My own acquaintanceship of working scientists is admittedly too limited to form a conclusive judgement, but based on purely anecdotal evidence, I would suspect that percentage is much smaller than advertised. I have encountered a number of ardent carbon demonologists, who were working scientists and were more than ready to call me an idiot when I questioned their perspective, who if I could actually get them to respond to a question, revealed that they had spent considerably less time than myself in examining the science they were so certain of. Often they had just absorbed the media stereotype that the argument was between “scientists” on one side and politicians, corporate PR hacks, ignorant lay people on the other and of course their sympathies were with their Fraternal brothers in support of “Science”.
An earlier commenter mentioned the Dunning-Kruger Effect involving low skilled thinkers overestimating their abilities, but I think there is a different psychological effect at work on the other end of the educational spectrum. It’s called “preference falsification” and is based on a book by Timur Kuran from 1987.
http://www.amazon.com/Private-Truths-Public-Lies-Falsification/dp/0674707583
The basic notion is that when asked to make public statements on issues. even barely controversial ones, people tend to offer up what they think others expect them to say, rather than what they really believe, even where there would seem to be little negative consequence from speaking the truth, or gain from the falsehood. Given the thuggish levels of intimidation that have been visited on those who have made fairly timid criticisms of CAGW dogma, I suspect PF could account for a great deal of the climate “consensus”, at least that part of it which is not completely illusory.
Ed Forbes says:
“…It feels real strange as one who considers himself as liberal voting a straight Republican ticket for the first time…”
Don’t worry, I was a registered Democrat for 23 years.
I wised up. It became very clear that the rain that I was told was falling turned out to be a urine stream from my elected representative.
I ‘ve known a lot of “highly educated people” with a title who walk in a thunderstorms with a steel shafted umbrella.
Who did our pal Barnie Madoff con, the streetwise who learn to do their due diligence or the highly educated who “just took his word for it”?
eadler says:
October 31, 2010 at 4:49 pm
H.R. says:
Education and intelligence are two seperate things. It’s a mistake to assume that all formally educated people are intelligent and it is another mistake to assume all people without a formal education are not intelligent.
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“Your mistake lies…”
No, eadler, your mistake lies in projecting meaning onto my words beyond what I wrote. I made no comments about educational opportunitues, public education, etc.
Whenever I hear mention of the Tea Party I can’t help but think of the Mad Hatter and his guests.
Seems so appropriate.
[Sorry your side is losing. -mod]
Someone up here asked what does C on CAGW stands for: Computerised. The complete acronym stands for Computerised Aided Global Warming. You see, the only warming we had these last 10 years were computer-modelled predictions of global warming, ranging from the moderate through hockey-stick and now to catastrophic. LOL
How would our cognitively superior left wing academia respond to that seriously smart but intellectually modest sceptic, Freeman Dyson? In my humble opinion, they might find his ‘heretical thoughts about science and society’ quite intellectually challenging 🙂
Bill Illis says: October 31, 2010 at 7:18 pm
“Is the theory factually accurate or not. That is the debate.”
Gee Bill, what do you have against red herrings?
Question for you from your sensitivity post.: “…Given the last GISS study, we can take 75% X 150 Watts/m2 X 4.5% (water vapour feedback based on its percentage of the greenhouse effect) and we get +5.0 Watts/m2 from water vapour feedback…” If the water vapour feedback results in a temperature increase as you calculate, wouldn’t this in turn increase the water vapour level further and therefore the temperature with it leading to a sensitivity increase? Am I missing something?
too many die hard right wing conservatives, too many die hard left wingers, not enough independent free thinking people in the US today. What a mess for both science and society, a nation doomed to decline unless something changes.
Ammonite;
If the water vapour feedback results in a temperature increase as you calculate, wouldn’t this in turn increase the water vapour level further and therefore the temperature with it leading to a sensitivity increase? Am I missing something?>>
Yes. Negative feedbacks. Water vapour blocks downward radiance and well as upward, and then there’s pesky clouds, etc etc.
For me, the fundamental difference between the Left and Right is that the Right believes that individual rights come from our Creator, the Left believes that individual rights come from the government. That is why one of hallmarks of a Lefty regime is to deny a Creator. And why whenever the Left decides who deserves special rights or protections, the solution is always more and bigger government to provide those rights. In my opinion, individual rights don’t belong to the government or to the politicians for them to hand out as rewards for approved behavior, like voting as a bloc for a certain political party.
Totally off topic and having to do with the Oulu Cosmic Ray Station. We are back into the mode of a peak in the cosmic ray flux at the middle of their day. Lately (like in the last 3 days) it has become a massive peak to trough difference. Earlier in the record, it was much smaller. Does anyone out there have an explanation for why this occurs. Are we rotating toward a cosmic ray source during the day and then away from it? This seems to happen for long periods of time and then there is a period where the peak to trough does not seem to occur at mid-day only to return to its earlier behavior.
Over time it seems to have little to do with the sunspot count or the 10,7 cm flux, so I do not think it it is solar in origin.
eadler says:
October 31, 2010 at 8:00 pm
“He graduated from Harvard Law School with a Magna Cum Laude honor, which is quite good.”
Oh goody. I got a live one!
http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~advising/honors.html
The Harvard Law Review is a student-run organization. It’s president is elected by popular vote not by academic qualification or accomplishments. No one questions the fact that Obama can convince people to vote for him. That’s charisma not intelligence. Interestingly Obama never published anything in the Harvard Law Review which is rather unusual for the leader of the organization.
Let’s see the transcript. If it’s so magna(ficent) I don’t see why there’s a problem with producing it. The truth of the matter appears to be that we have an affirmative action poster child in the White House – charismatic yes, very bright no.
That’s not to say there’s anything wrong with having a person of average intelligence in the white house. In fact there may be quite an advantage as high intelligence often gets in the way of common sense. I should know. I’m in the 99.97th percentile in intelligence quotient and when it comes to common sense I do some pretty boneheaded things because I always think I can do better than what commonly accepted wisdom would dictate.
R. Gates says:
October 31, 2010 at 5:07 pm
Mike says:
October 31, 2010 at 1:03 pm
I think the truth is most people who think AGW is real don’t understand the science…
______
C’mon Mike, please get real. There are many highly educated scientists who are…
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I did not say most scientists, I said most people. The average person does not know what causes the seasons to change. Of course most scientists believe AGW is real, just as most scientists believe evolution is real. Look, most people who believe in electricity do not understand it. If some religion or ideology came out against Maxwell’s equations there would soon be blogs and radio talk show hosts denouncing them and millions of saps following along.
Oops! Sorry for posting twice. Didn’t think it went through the 1st time.