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.
michaelspj
I wasn’t presenting a real problem, just an example that might make sense to people in the US (I am in Canada myself). I assume you are talking about this PRISM, http://www.prism.oregonstate.edu/, which I was not familiar with. PRISM – Parameter-elevation Regressions on Independent Slopes Model – is in fact a model, just like the ones being criticized above. I don’t know if it was one of the ones in the graphs. It certainly doesn’t appear to extend beyond the borders of the contiguous United States.
Ric Werme
Your not getting it. You stick in a safety factor as well. The safety factor is for when the construction subcontractor’s temporary labor proves innumerate/greedy and decides they can get away with an extra 10% aggregate in the concrete mix, allowing them a savings on Portland cement powder…and a much weaker concrete.
But your initial value for the worst case, it may as well be conservative itself. Sure, we could use a scientifically “better” model that predicted the worst-case rainfall +/- 10% (ie it predicts between 90 and 110% of the actual worst case rainfall in the future). But those times when it predicted on the low side would get real dicey. It’s more conservative to use an engineering model that gives you say between 110% and 130% of the actual worst case rainfall in the future. At that point, you get much more comfortable feeling, when the locals start talking about how they have never seen so much rain in all their days, and it’s still 13% below the case you designed for, and added a safety factor after-wards.
But don’t worry. If your in the continental US, your quite safe from me; I’ve never practiced there. If you ‘re a representative sample of the local NIMBY whiners, I’m quite sure I don’t want to…
@Vince Causey
“If that is truly what these people believe, then that says a lot about the sort of people they are.”
They don’t believe that anyone will do these things voluntarily. They may pretend to believe it, but what they really believe is that in the future there will be a global government with enough power to mandate their scheme.
•a fixed allocation of greenhouse gas emissions per family to limit the number of children
So children are a greenhouse gas now.
Liao would also need a huge government program to make sure you’re taking your meat pills. Sounds wonderful.
This Liao chief sounds like that nutter is that recent Batman film who puts a scary sack over his head and sprays his weaponised hallucinogen in people’s faces – only, I’d imagine his sack is even scarier, and his version is a double-barrelled anti-meat-eating abortion spray.
Let’s just hope he ends up in the asylum too, replete with his own ‘I-love-me jacket’ and a three-foot length of rubber hosepipe.
}:o(
It seems that darned few readers bothered to actually visit ScienceNordic to check out the article mentioned [not exactly a scientific approach, n’est-ce pas?]. If they had they would have learned that the researcher also tries to blame beer bellies on higher CO2, but of course he admits he’ll need additional funding to pin that down exactly.
You couldn’t make this stuff up.
Now we know why kids get fat: they spend too much time in classrooms, where CO2 levels routinely rise to 2,500 to 4,000 PPM. No wonder those Cheetos go down the hatch like greased pigs, which is exactly what they are! But it has nothing to do with that, oh no, it’s the miasma.
Perhaps the Danish research is on to something.
Obesitiy is related to CO2.
Just not from the air.
It’s that thirsty-two ouncer from 7-11 filled with CO2…..
and sugar.
I read Human Engineering and Climate Change in its entirety (while drinking Victory Gin). I still believe (because my mind will allow no other possibility) that it is a hoax designed to draw in the gullible and stupid. I await his “confession” in the next edition of Lingua Franca.
http://www.skepdic.com/sokal.html
P.S. Do you not tire of THEM calling US fascists?
New Zealand,
March 22, 2012:
Marmite Woes Wrack Nation; Shortage Traced to Global Warming
New Zealand is facing its severest shortage of the popular breakfast spread Marmite in its history, and with no relief in sight, and civil strife surging, rumors out of the Capital are that President John Key is mulling a declaration of martial law.
“We’ve been saying this would happen for years,” said climate researcher Thadeus Bleuchner, at the Center for Advanced Climate Demagoguery. “The signs have all been pointing to it. CO2 levels at 388 ppm…389…then…” He swallowed, his voice trailing off. “That should have been a clue for policymakers. But no. It takes a catastrophe to make them act. Well, that’s what we have now,” he said, his left eye twitching uncontrollably. “First the greenhouse gasses built up over the inner continent, then came the thermal inversions, temperatures rose, glaciers melted… the thermohaline circulation shut down.”
Asked to elaborate about the PDO, Bleuchner replied, “It doesn’t matter!”
The precise link between the climate problems and the Marmite dearth are unclear. What is known is that supplies of the treackly, black brewer’s yeast-derivative began to slump last year. Then, without any preliminary warning, reserve stocks of Marmite plumetted this winter as shoppers began to buy up the last available lots. “I’ve never seen anything like it,” said grocery story clerk Willow Standon, of the Fred’s Club Wholesale Foods chain. “They’re leaving here with Marmite by the case. They must be hoarding it. It’s scary, really.”
“There’s no accounting for it,” says Tony MacKenzie, a New Zealand Crop and Agricultural Scientist. “Wet weather affected some of the yeast crop last year, but mostly I’d say this is just overreaction…” He scratched his head nervously, then added suddenly, “No. I won’t downplay it. This is fear. Stark, unreasoning fear.” Dabbing at his forehead and lips with a damp handkerchief, the Agency’s spokesman broke off suddenly. “I need to get home to my wife and children,” he said, terminating the interview.
Government workers have been reported leaving their jobs to be with their loved ones, and all non-essential services are standby-alert. Word from the capital is that Australia has offered emergency supplies of their country’s popular spread, Vegemite.” And Prime Minister Key has endorsed the plan,
But the Prime Minister’s sound bite is being rebuffed by New Zealand consumer.
“We want Marmite,” said one woman with a bandana covering her face. “We need Marmite. Have you seen those four stars on the New Zealand flag? Well, three of them stand for Marmite. And the last one…” She adjusted her bandolier, before turning to smash through a supermarket window… “stands… for… Mar…mite!”
With no help forthcoming from Australia, airplanes have been grounded.
“We’ve all seen them… the signs! They’re everywhere!” Bleuchner said. “Rising sea levels. Declining test scores in the public schools. Oh, God, the cattle!” he sobbed. “And now… no more Marmite. Well, we’ve done it to ourselves! You understand? We did it to ourselves!!”
========================== 30 ===============================
See Forbes for more:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2012/03/20/the-great-new-zealand-marmite-famine-marmageddon/
Golden times!
Impossible. I’m sure he’s a vegetarian. Otherwise, his staff would burn him at the stake! (Because they have a big stake in his Green output. He should actually see an internist about that …)