Guest post by Dr. Patrick Michaels
Three items appeared last week that make me wonder if The Onion is surreptitiously acquiring science journals and trade publications. Here’s what one, “ScienceNordic” says it does on its home page:
Our team of experienced science reporters and editors follow the regional scientific communities closely, and report constantly and relentlessly on the latest and greatest discoveries.
NEWS FLASH #1: According to ScienceNordic, global obesity is caused by eating too much. Eating too much is caused by increasing concentrations of atmospheric carbon dioxide.
Surely one of the “latest and greatest discoveries” of our time! To wit: a Danish researcher, Lars-Georg Hersoug and his colleagues at the University of Copenhagen put six—count em’—six volunteers into rooms either with ambient carbon dioxide or elevated concentrations. After seven hours, they could eat whatever they wanted. Those who breathed higher CO2 ate six percent more. Call ScienceNordic!!
Yeah. This is what masquerades as environmental science these days. Allowing for an equal number of controls means that only three individuals were in each group. There is simply no way that these results have any statistical validity, but, hey, we’re talking about carbon dioxide, the death gas. Forget suing McDonald’s for obesity, Exxon-Mobil has a lot more dough!
Furthering my hypotheses about The Onion, you have to wonder if it has bought Geophysical Research Letters from the American Geophysical Union.
NEWS FLASH #2: Models that don’t work provide “useful estimates” for engineers.
Huh? But, indeed, a recent edition of GRL contains a paper by Francina Dominguez of the University of Arizona (with three co-authors) on changes in winter precipitation for the western U.S. predicted by regional climate models. They compared the observed average and historical 50-year record daily rainfall to values simulated by eight climate models. Gaze and weep:
Area-averaged mean (left) and 50-year maximum expected daily rainfall (right) for four western regions plus the entire area (“all”). The black marks are the models and the red dots are reality. This is what climate model failure looks like.
Damn the data! Full speed ahead!! Despite the fact that the models don’t work, they go on to generate estimates of the differences in daily and extreme precipitation projected for the middle of this century compared to the recent past. This is not “useful” information. It is bad information.
NEWS FLASH #3: A great idea: “1984” in 2084.
People were horrified that the socialist dystopia in George Orwell’s 1984 employed sophisticated “science” for behavioral modification and social integration. S. Matthew Liao of New York University and two colleagues think such things in fact should be considered because global warming is so horrible.
They write in the journal Ethics, Policy and Environment, “our central aim here is to show that human engineering deserves consideration alongside other solutions in the debate about how to solve the problem of climate change”, they then propose some examples that they think are feasible, including
•a pill or a patch that would induce nausea when people eat meat
•embryo selection or hormonal modification to make people smaller
•drugs to enhance empathy and altruism, because “higher empathy levels correlate with stronger environmental behaviors”
•a fixed allocation of greenhouse gas emissions per family to limit the number of children
In an interview in The Atlantic, Liao vociferously asserted that he does not think that these changes should be mandated, rather he says they should be “modifications borne of individual choices”. In his paper he is a bit more specific:
As we envisage it, human engineering would be a voluntary activity – possibly supported by incentives such as tax breaks or sponsored health care – rather than a coerced, mandatory activity. [second italics added]
Excuse me, but charging people higher taxes for not taking a pill that makes them sick, for not aborting embryos that may become tall children, for not taking drugs to care about global warming, and for not limiting progeny is nothing but coercive.
Astoundingly, Mr. Liao argues that the nausea pill enhances liberty because people who want a steak will make decisions based upon that desire, rather than “truly deciding” to be coerced by a state-incentivized drug. In Mr. Liao’s world, like George Orwell’s, freedom is slavery.
Count me out on this one. Hopefully, The Onion or whoever will stop publishing papers providing “useful estimates” for engineers based on models that do not work. And while we are at it, we could actually take a little responsibility for our weight, instead of blaming Exxon-Mobil.
Patrick Michaels is the former state climatologist for the State of Virginia, and is a senior fellow in environmental studies at the Cato Institute.
The Onion has been all over climate change for sometime. Enjoy:
OT, I’ve got a letter in today’s WSJ: http://on.wsj.com/GDa6iL
Pay attention, people – “sciencenordic” is a web site that has published one of these stories:
http://sciencenordic.com/
http://sciencenordic.com/new-theory-co2-makes-you-fat
GRL article on winter precip:
http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/pip/2011GL050762.shtml
Liao’s (short) brain child:
http://www.smatthewliao.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/HEandClimateChange.htm
I for one welcome our new tiny, cat-eyed, eco-green overlords.
I have to say I thought I made it quite obvious that I was referring to REAL publications. I would be risking all kinds of legal problems if I said GRL published something that it did not!
A note on the development of the piece: It originally just reported on the three studies. When I sent a draft to my somewhat young girl friend her immediate response was, “you got these from The Onion, right”?
killsmith says:
Uhmmm….you ARE aware The Onion is a joke, right?
tigerwoodsleg says:
What? You do know the Onion is comedy, and they are making fun of global warmers here, right?
You guys might want to look again. The articles referenced were NOT from The Onion. They were actually published in “legitimate” publications, and were all referenced in earlier posts on WUWT.
Lol good one, but did you know that with rising CO2 plants will grow faster and bigger therefore more food, so with more food we eat more, and more food means we get fat, getting fat means you will die younger. So CO2 will make you fat and make you die soon!! Ah do not you love the logic?
michaelspj says:
March 21, 2012 at 7:52 am
I have to say I thought I made it quite obvious that I was referring to REAL publications. I would be risking all kinds of legal problems if I said GRL published something that it did not!
Well, b*gger! That’ll teach me to read things properly, I hope :D. My apologies, Dr. Michaels.
In my defence, it was early, and The Onion is my favourite satirical rag (as Viz is not readily available here).
Does he really think someone will take a pill to make them sick at the sight of meat rather than just not eat the meat in the first place?
But what really got me is that he thinks a parent will choose to make his or her child a midget just to get a tax break.
If that is truly what these people believe, then that says a lot about the sort of people they are. A conservative could never have come up with such a plan, because it would never have entered into his or her head that anyone would want to trade off the wellbeing of a child for some tax dollars. But I guess these “right on” liberals do think like that. It sends chills up my spine.
A pre-print of the paper by Laio et al. is available at:
http://www.smatthewliao.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/HEandClimateChange.pdf
The “aversion” therapy advocated for meat eaters appears to be similar to the treatment of little Alex in “A Clockwork Orange”. It seems that the current crop of academics have to advocate dystopias that top both science fiction and Paul R. Ehrlich’s predictions (that have never been right as far as I know).
@ur momisugly Mike M “In the final analysis ALL decisions are voluntary comrades. For example, some thug like Saddam or Obama is holding your wife, children and parents hostage and ask that you voluntarily sign a confession, (eg “I ate meat.” or “I do not believe in CAGW junk science.”, etc.)
It’s not like you don’t have a choice…”
Hey Mike, I understand your point, but no, you are misusing the word “voluntary.” Simply being a choice does not make something voluntary.
If I say, “Act (or choose) a certain way, and I will make your life better,” then your choice is voluntary.
If I say “Act (or choose) a certain way or I will make your life worse,” then your choice is NOT voluntary, it is coerced.
That is a simple but very important distinction. Free markets are voluntary. Legislation and regulation are coercive. Love is voluntary. Rape is coercive.
Not the same…
To paraphrase Will Rogers, “I never lack for humorous material to read while CAGW alarmists and climate scientists are publishing articles and research like this”. Really, you can’t make this stuff up.
Jay Davis
I will note that news flash #2 is not a problem. Those are useful models for engineers, even if they are “not accurate” in scientific terms. The key is the concept of conservatism. Look at the figures: all the models estimate HIGH. When using an environment model for engineering design (EMED), you want the loads you are designing for to be higher than what nature will actually provide the in-service design; then the widget can handle the real-world conditions… EMEDs are not solely driven by accuracy; they have a second driver in public safety. An EMED is as accurate as possible, to minimize the costs of construction; however, the EMED must always estimate as high or higher than the peak in-service load, to ensure public safety.
“All I know is what I read in The Onion”
Temporary–
Are you saying that inaccurate models are fine if they artificially inflate risk? Why not just take, say, today’s 50 year flood and double it, and design accordingly? I don’t see how a model that doesn’t work has any utility whatsoever, sorry.
•drugs to enhance empathy and altruism, because “higher empathy levels correlate with stronger environmental behaviors”
So would this mean the end of socialism since all the bad things attributed to free enterprise and capitalism would be gone leaving individuals to concentrate on building and doing things that are only good and with no need for government intervention.
michaelspj –
Yep, inaccurate models can be useful.
For example, whats the 50 year daily peak rainfall at a mine-site in Colorado, the ore body was only identified 3 years ago, and construction started 6 months ago. The nearest long-term weather records are at Colorado Springs, 70 odd kilometers to the West… and possibly much more influenced by being in the foothills of the Rockies, as opposed to the site which is open prairie.
Sure, a reliable local historical record would be better. It’s not perfect data, but it’s something to work with. That’s why conservative is preferred to accurate for this kind of engineering model.
Coolologists have discovered global cooling may have dangerous effects on agriculture on earth.The science of coolology has found past cooling caused widespread economic disruption.
Temporary–
False problem that has been solved with real data. Are you familiar with the PRISM precipitation data?
Alan the Brit @ur momisugly 3:49am –
Someone already made that movie in 1968. It was called “Wild in the Streets” and the closing theme song was “Shapes of Things to Come”. Makes you wonder though where people like Liao
get their ideas.
Jay Davis
@ur momisugly jayhd
I was not aware of that I’ll wikipedia it, as of course I was thinking of Logan’s Run. But that also sounds interesting, & thanks for the tip!
I guess they could do a data trawl through Dr Who, Star trek, etc for some more scary scenarios to whip up the fear! 😉
I think the Onion has been reading too much WUWT again….
michaelspj says:
March 21, 2012 at 7:52 am
> I have to say I thought I made it quite obvious that I was referring to REAL publications.
I thought it was clear, though I’ll grant that an uncaffeinated mind might note some of the text and the Onion label and assume they went together.
URLs for the reports would have helped. (Thanks to dp for his list.)
temporary says:
March 21, 2012 at 9:36 am
This could make for an interesting trial if the dam breaks and floods a town downstream:
Atty: How did you estimate the safety margin?
Temp: We found a bunch of models that all estimated rainfalls higher than had been observed before.
Atty: Did these models include a safety margin that matched industry practice?
Temp: The models had no saftey margin, they were simply wrong.
Atty: Did you compare data from geographically similar regions that had a longer record?
Temp: No
Atty: Why not?
Temp: The model data came in on our daily newsfeed from The Onion, that seemed to be wrong in the right direction so it was useful.
Do me a favor – build your dams downstream from me, please.
It would be nice if it were all from ONN. But what with AR5 and the Rio bong fest coming up, it is pedal to the metal time for one worlders everywhere. It’s time for a re-run at what they spectacularly failed to achieve in 2009.
One option is to find out who your country is sending and have them justify their support for Agenda 21++ on national TV. They got away with it last time because few were aware of what they had done. Now we have a live universal feed.