How the profiteers who market Thermageddon offend against the principles of formal logic
Guest post by Monckton of Brenchley
LOGIC is the heartbeat of all true learning – the soul of the Classics, the Sciences and Religion. Once everyone studied the Classics, to know that in logic there is a difference between true and false; the Sciences, to discern where it lies; and Religion, to appreciate why it matters. Today, few study all three empires of the mind. Fewer study the ordered beauty of the logic at their heart.
Is Private Fraser’s proposition that “We’re a’ doomed!” logical? I say No. G.K. Chesterton once wrote: “When men have ceased to believe in Christianity, it is not that they will believe in nothing. They will believe in anything.” The belief that Thermageddon will arise from our altering 1/3000th of the atmosphere in a century is in-your-face illogical, rooted in a dozen fallacies marked out by Aristotle as the commonest in human discourse.
“Consensus” is the New Religion’s central fallacy. Arguing blindly from consensus is the head-count fallacy, the argumentum ad populum. Al-Haytham, founder of the scientific method, wrote: “The seeker after truth does not put his faith in any mere consensus. Instead, he checks.”
Two surveys have purported to show 97% of climate scientists supporting the supposed “consensus”. In both, 97% agreed little more than that the world has warmed since 1950. So what? One involved just 79 scientists, hardly a scientific sample size. Neither was selected to eliminate bias. Neither asked whether manmade global warming was at all likely to prove catastrophic – a question expecting the answer “No.”
Claiming that the “consensus” is one of revered experts is the argumentum ad verecundiam, the fallacy of appeal to authority. T.H. Huxley said in 1860, “The improver of natural knowledge absolutely refuses to acknowledge authority, as such. For him, scepticism is the highest of duties: blind faith the one unpardonable sin.”
Believers talk of a “consensus of evidence”. Yet evidence cannot hold opinions. Besides, there has been no global warming for 18 years; sea level has risen for eight years at just 1.3 in/century; notwithstanding Sandy, hurricane activity is at its least in the 33-year satellite record; ocean heat content is rising four and a half times more slowly than predicted; global sea-ice extent has changed little; Himalayan glaciers have not lost ice; and the U.N.’s 2005 prediction of 50 million “climate refugees” by 2010 was absurd. The evidence does not support catastrophism.
Believers say: “Only if we include a strong warming effect from CO2 can we explain the past 60 years’ warming. We know of no other reason.” This is the argumentum ad ignorantiam, the fundamental fallacy of argument from ignorance. Besides, natural variability is reason enough.
They say: “Global warming is accelerating, so we are to blame.” Even if warming were accelerating, this non sequitur is an instance of the argumentum ad causam falsam, the fallacy of arguing from a false cause. They go on to say: “CO2 concentration has risen; warming has occurred; the former caused the latter.” This is the post hoc ergo propter hoc sub-species of the same fallacy.
They say: “What about the cuddly polar bears?” This is the argumentum ad misericordiam, the fallacy of needless pity. There are five times as many polar bears as there were in the 1940s – hardly, as you may think, the profile of a species at imminent threat of extinction. No need to pity the bears, and they are not cuddly.
They say: “We tell the models there will be strong CO2- driven warming. And, yes, the models predict it.” This is the fallacy of arguing in circles, the argumentum ad petitionem principii, where the premise is the conclusion.
They say: “Global warming caused extra-tropical storm Sandy.” This inappropriate argument from the general to the particular is the argumentum a dicto simpliciter ad dictum secundum quid, the fallacy of accident. Individual extreme events cannot be ascribed to global warming.
They say: “Melting Arctic sea ice is a symptom of global warming.” This unsound argument from the particular to the general is the argumentum a dicto secundum quid ad dictum simpliciter, the fallacy of converse accident. Arctic sea ice is melting, but the Antarctic has cooled for 30 years and the sea ice there is growing, so the decline in Arctic sea ice does not indicate a global problem.
They say: “Monckton says he’s a member of the House of Lords, but the Clerk says he isn’t, so he’s not credible.” This is the argumentum ad hominem, a shoddy sub- species of ignoratio elenchi, the fundamental red-herring fallacy of ignorance of how a true argument is conducted.
They say: “We don’t care what the truth is. We want more power, tax and regulation. Global warming is our pretext. If you disagree, we will haul you before the International Climate Court.” This is the nastiest of all logical fallacies: the argumentum ad baculum, the argument of force.
These numerous in-your-face illogicalities provoke four questions: Has the Earth warmed as predicted? If not, why not? What if I am wrong? And what if I am right?
Q1. Has the Earth warmed as predicted? In 1990 the IPCC predicted that the world would now be warming at 0.3 Cº/decade, and that by now more than 0.6 Cº warming would have occurred. The outturn was less than half that: just 0.14 Cº/decade and 0.3 Cº in all.
In 2008 leading modellers wrote:
“The simulations rule out (at the 95% level) zero trends for intervals of 15 years or more, suggesting that an absence of warming of this duration is needed to create a discrepancy with the observed warming rate.”
Yet the linear trend on the Hadley/CRU monthly global temperature anomalies for the 18 years 1995-2012 shows no statistically-significant warming, even though the partial pressure of CO2 rose by about a tenth in that time.
The modellers’ own explicit criterion proves their scary predictions exaggerated. Their vaunted “consensus” was wrong. Global warming that was predicted for tomorrow but has not occurred for 18 years until today cannot have caused Sandy or Bopha yesterday, now, can it?
Q2: Why was the “consensus” wrong? Why do the models exaggerate? The climate-sensitivity equation says warming is the product of a forcing and a sensitivity parameter. Three problems: the modellers’ definition of forcing is illogical; their assumptions about the sensitivity parameter are not falsifiable; and their claims that their long-term predictions of doom are reliable are not only empirically disproven but theoretically insupportable.
Modellers define forcing as the net down-minus-up flux of radiation at the tropopause, with surface temperature fixed. Yet forcings change surface temperature. So the definition offends against the fundamental postulate of logic that a proposition and its converse cannot coexist. No surprise, then, that since 1995 the IPCC has had to cut its estimate of the CO2 forcing by 15%. The “consensus” disagrees with itself. Note in passing that the CO2 forcing function is logarithmic: each further molecule causes less warming than those before it. Diminishing returns apply.
Direct warming is little more than 1 Cº per CO2 doubling, well within natural variability. It is not a crisis. So the modellers introduce amplifying or “positive” temperature feedbacks, which, they hope, triple the direct warming from CO2. Yet this dubious hypothesis is not Popper- falsifiable, so it is not logic and not science. Not one of the imagined feedbacks is either empirically measurable or theoretically determinable by any reliable method. As an expert reviewer for the IPCC’s Fifth Assessment Report, I have justifiably excoriated its net-positive feedbacks as guesswork – uneducated guesswork at that.
For there is a very powerful theoretical reason why the modellers’ guess that feedbacks triple direct warming is erroneous. The closed-loop feedback gain implicit in the IPCC’s climate-sensitivity interval 3.3[2.0, 4.5] Cº per CO2 doubling falls on the interval 0.62[0.42, 0.74]. However, process engineers building electronic circuits, who invented feedback mathematics, tell us any loop gain much above zero is far too near the singularity – at a loop gain of 1 – in the feedback-amplification function.
At high gain, the geological record would show violent oscillations between extremes of warming and cooling. Yet for 64 million years the Earth’s surface temperature has fluctuated by only 3%, or 8 Cº, either side of the long- run mean. These fluctuations can give us an ice-planet at one moment and a hothouse Earth the next, but they are altogether inconsistent with a loop gain anywhere near as close to the singularity as modellers’ estimates imply.
Surface temperature changes little, for homoeostatic conditions prevail. The atmosphere’s lower bound, the ocean, is a vast heat-sink 1100 times denser than the air: one reason why 3000 bathythermographs deployed in 2006 have detected no significant ocean warming. The atmosphere’s upper bound is outer space, to which any excess heat radiates harmlessly away. Homoeostasis, then, is what we should expect, and it is what we get. Thus the climatic loop gain cannot much exceed zero, so the warming at CO2 doubling will be a harmless 1 Cº.
Yet the overriding difficulty in trying to model the climate is that it behaves as a chaotic object. We can never measure the values of its millions of defining parameters at any chosen moment to a sufficient precision to permit reliable projection of the bifurcations, or Sandy-like departures from an apparently steady state, that are inherent in the evolution of all objects that behave chaotically. Therefore, reliable, very-long-term modelling of future climate states is unattainable a priori.
The IPCC tries to overcome this actually insuperable Lorenz constraint on modelling by estimating climate sensitivity via a probability-density function. Yet PDFs require more, not less, information than simple estimates flanked by error-whiskers, and are still less likely to be reliable. The modellers are guessing. Their guesses have been proven wrong. Yet they continue to demand our acquiescence in an imagined (and imaginary) consensus.
Q3: What if I am wrong? If so, we must travel from physics to economics. Pretend, ad argumentum, that the IPCC’s central estimate of 2.8 Cº warming by 2100 is true, and that Stern was right to say that the cost of failing to prevent warming of that order this century will be about 1.5% of GDP. Then, at the minimum 5% market inter-temporal discount rate, the cost of trying to abate this decade’s predicted warming of 0.15 Cº by typical CO2-mitigation schemes as cost-ineffective as Australia’s carbon tax would be 48 times greater than the cost of later adaptation. At a zero discount rate, the cost of acting now exceeds that of adapting in the future 36 times over.
How so? Australia emits just 1.2% of Man’s CO2, of which Ms. Gillard aims to cut 5% this decade, abating 0.06% of global emissions by 2020. Then CO2 concentration will fall from a predicted 410 μatm to 409.988 μatm. In turn predicted temperature will fall by 0.00006 Cº. But the cost will be $130 billion ($2 quadrillion/Cº). Abating the
0.15 Cº warming predicted for this decade would thus cost $317 trillion, or $45,000/head worldwide, or 59% of global GDP. Mitigation measures inexpensive enough to be affordable will thus be ineffective: measures expensive enough to be effective will be unaffordable. Since the premium vastly exceeds the cost of the risk, don’t insure. That is a precautionary principle worthy of the name.
Q4: What if I am right? When I am proven right, the Climate Change Department will be swept away; Britain’s annual deficit will fall by a fifth; the bat-blatting, bird- blending windmills that scar our green and pleasant land will go; the world will refocus on real environmental problems like deforestation on land, overfishing at sea and pollution of the air; the U.N.’s ambition to turn itself into a grim, global dictatorship with overriding powers of taxation and economic and environmental intervention will be thwarted; and the aim of science to supplant true religion as the world’s new, dismal, cheerless credo will be deservedly, decisively, definitively defeated.
Any who say “I believe” are not scientists, for true scientists say “I wonder”. We require – nay, we demand – more awe and greater curiosity from our scientists, and less political “correctness” and co-ordinated credulity.
To the global classe politique, the placemen, bureaucrats, academics, scientists, journalists and enviros who have profiteered at our expense by peddling Thermageddon, I say this. The science is in; the truth is out; Al Gore is through; the game is up; and the scare is over.
To those scientists who aim to end the Age of Reason and Enlightenment, I say this. Logic stands implacable in your path. We will never let you have your new Dark Age.
To men of goodwill, lovers of logic, I say this. It is our faculty of reason, the greatest of the soul’s three powers, that marks us out from the beasts and brings us closest in likeness to our Creator, the Lord of Life and Light. We will never let the light of Reason be snuffed out.
Do not go gentle to that last goodnight – Rage, rage against the dying of the light!
it is not that the true believer, when he abandons a belief, will believe in nothing.
he merely transfers his credulity to some other mythology.
in each case, he is not seeking a higher truth but fleeing his own ignorance.
it is hardly surprising to find that one of the founding members of the co2 cargo cult will preach with equal vehemence against it at a later date.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/christopherbooker/7823477/Was-Margaret-Thatcher-the-first-climate-sceptic.html
The UN is not a scientific organization; it is a political organization. Understanding why it would use its “authority” to advance its political power, a very unique authority that they never earned for themselves, one they have learned to abuse in a now insatiable pursuit of controlling the very people of the countries who initially granted them such authority a long time ago – is as easy as understanding why a dog licks … you know.
And like a untrained dog on a leash being allowed to pull his master along the road deciding which path to take, it’s long past time to bring this dog to heel. The best way to expose their descent into irrelevance is for the USA to take the lead and …leave them. With the fraud perpetrated on us by their IPCC now ripe for public outrage at the real economic damage it has done to us and the suffering it is bringing to millions or even billions of poor people who are, for a hoax, being denied their right to use their own resources to improve their own lives – I cannot think of a better time to do it than now.
I think of global warming as a theory. A theory which has certain meteorological principles behind it such as the Classius-Clayperon water vapor relation and certain basic physics principles behind it such as the strong absorption band of CO2 in the IR. There are many others.
Then I think of the other basic meteorological principles such as the tendency for water vapor to rain out and release energy high into the troposphere through thunderstorms. I think of the trillions of photons and the trillions of molecules involved in this millisecond transfer of energy. I think of the Stefan-Boltzmann equations which are the fundamental principles of energy and temperature equations which successfully tell us about how energy and temperature are related across the whole universe. I think of how this theory starts to ignore this principle half-way through its development. I think of the molecular collision rate of atmospheric molecules approaching 8 biillion collisions per second, unbelievable really. I think of the 100s of climate papers I have dissected and found an appalling ability to conclude global warming is real despite the basic data in the paper almost proving the opposite. It’s like a paper is automatically published no matter what it says as long as it says global warming in the abstract.
Then I know that no theory can explain this properly. There is too much going on at too fast a pace for us to understand it. We could model it and sometimes complex systems such as this can be successfully modeled. But maybe not in this case.
Then I think the only way to really know is to just see what is really happening. When I do this, I see the theory does not work. More is going on than Hansen’s 1980 theory predicts. It is one-third of the predictions every time.
It is just a logical way of trying to assess whether I should believe a theory or not.
A very nice pro-AGW article. I propose the introduction of a new, more precise term than merely “skeptic”: “pro-AGW skeptic”. Just to avoid a possible confusion.
By the way, Christopher: why would you bring the issue of membership in the House of Lords into the topic “The logical case against climate panic”? You do not want people here to start discussing it, do you?
[Pro-NGW Skeptic? Mod]
@richard Courtney 4:00pm Just went back and looked,(the rathole) see your point.
Mayhap a truce is necessary and a reboot of what we know and what we can agree on.
Unfortunately, the CAGW promoters have all the ear-marks of a religious cult to me.
Jonestown writ large?
So keeping religion out of the conversation takes conscious effort.But what a troll tool.
What are the error bars on the satellite land surface and sea surface assumed means?
I read the presentation to parliament you referred me to, ouch.
Is it an intentional act of omission, to fail to state the assumed mean in degrees C with error bars, on each of the temperature anomaly graphs presented ?
@Mike Palmer
— “Modern [formal] logic is just a part of mathematics.”
But the question is not about “modern” logic, which does indeed often rely on mathematical models. The question is about logic. It is hardly the case that, before Boole, people could not think logically. The discovery of the reality of non-Euclidean geometries was a triumph of logic, not of mathematics. It was made on this principle: if Euclidean geometry consisted of logically necessary truths, it should be possible to prove it logically inconsistent, if one of its axioms or postumates were negated. But try as we may, no contradictions follow from negating the fifth postulate. Therefore, curved space is logically as real as straight space.
— “As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain; and as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality.” (Einstein)
But Einstein used ‘reality’ as shorthand for “what observably exists”, i.e. for what interested him as a physicist. Mathematicians are interested in mathematical reality. Applied to mathematical reality (which does not observably exist), Einstein’s remark is nonsense. So is his remark, “Human beings, in their thinking, feeling and acting are not free but just as causally bound as the stars in their motion”, which reduces logic and mathematics to causal effects of physical forces, and his first quote to “As far as the laws of physics refer to physical reality, they are not certain; and as far as they are certain, they do not refer to physical reality.” If the laws of physics are hypotheses (as Popper claimed), they are therefore “uncertain”. What does this mean? That with every advance in physics, we come closer to the point where we should realize that there is no such thing as physical reality–that physics is a science without an object?
@Jeff Albers
— “Personally I don’t think religions use much logic. Making proclamations without evidence is not logical. That’s religion in a nutshell, IMHO”
Theologians used logic long before there was any science in the modern sense of the word. Arguably, there would still not be any science in the modern sense of the word, if theologians had not provided a synthetic worldview in which questions of fact and questions of meaning could be separated logically and systematically.
If you think that making proclamations without evidence is “religion in a nutshell”, I advise you think again — after having informed yourself on a subject that vastly trascends your understanding of it. If you agree that there is such a thing as “true science” as opposed to junk science, popular science, post-normal science etc., you might perhaps consider that “true religion” has also been opposed to junk religion, popular religion, etc., mainly by the scrupulous use of logic. Today, CAGW is a prime example of “popular science”, but that does not make it “true science”, does it?
@rgbatduke
— “You bewail the cost of a new “religion”. Look back at the cost, historically, of actual religion in general, or its ongoing cost today.”
To put this in perspective: How many of the more than 200 million people who died at the hands of governments in the 20th century, were victims of the Christian religion? How many of them were victims of modern science? If you want to distinguish between “science” and “political abuse of science”, why not distinguish between “religion” and “poltical abuse of religion”?
— “Atheism is not a religion. It is the lack of a religion.”
Not so, “Atheism” is “denial of God”, but there are many godless religions. A religion is a scheme for interpreting the whole of human experience in such a way that its parts and aspects make consistent sense. The meaning of the Latin word ‘religiosus’ is thoughtful, scrupulous, exact, anxious to avoid mistakes. Let’s hope that all scientists are religious.
I am an agnostic. I take no offence at Monckton of Bencley for writing as a professed Christian on any subject he wants, but I do find it annoying that so many people take offence, even at the mere mention of religion as the time-honoured way of trying to establish “why it matters.” Science itself does not answer the question, “Why does science matter?”. And it does not answer the question “Does it matter that science does not answer that question?” Does this mean that those questions are nonsensical, and that trying to make sense of possible answers is beneath contempt?
Kurt Gödel, certainly one of the greatest logicians and mathematicians of all time, tried his hand at proving the existence of God. He did not publish his proof, probably because he did not want to incur the scorn of the censorious atheistic bien-pensants in Academia. It seems to me that the atheistic knee-jerk reactions to “religion” and “Creator” in the comments to Monckton’s post are if not sufficient then at least highly persuasive evidence for the truth of the thesis that atheism is indeed a censorious religion (albeit, as it proudly proclaims, not a true one).
John Whitman says:
January 6, 2013 at 5:03 pm
Bruckner8,
Simple can work too.
A = one who has natural understanding of the nature that is one’s natural experience as exclusive basis of knowledge
B = one who has supernatural understanding of a supernatural realm/being as basis of knowledge
A=A yes. B=B yes. A=B no.
Now tell me the answer to my previous question to you. Where do you get your omniscience that all ‘A’ must be ‘B’. What possible ‘a priori’ do you say justifies in your conclusion?
John
OK, John, I’ll keep playing, but I’m sure everyone’s getting bored. I never made such a claim. In fact, if anything, I said take B off the table entirely. I only care about A, and how one gathers one faith whilst being A.
“Monckton of Bencley” — apologies for the spelling error!
@jim Cripwell
Kindly contact me at imcqueen(at)nbnet.nb.ca
IanM
rgbatduke says: January 6, 2013 at 12:19 pm
Well said, rgb.
Bruckner8 says: January 6, 2013 at 1:16 pm
Hard to agree with that. Theism is virtually “automatic programming”, especially if you get them early. 100% faith comes standard.
Atheism requires a bit of thought and logic, and a “non-acceptance” (a lack of faith?) in an entirely implausible tale. (or series thereof).
Surely a scientific approach is to observe the complete lack of a physical or logical explanation to the proposed mechanism, and entirely discount it on the basis of our currently known science?
One may well propose the world came into existence via a collision between discarded nose pickings from star fairies. There is also no known evidence against that. Is there?
– – – – – – – –
Bruckner8,
Agree with you that ‘B’ should be taken off the table. As I think should Christopher Monckton.
But then you proceed to imply instead a morphing ‘A’ to be a hybrid of ‘B’ as your conclusion to the argument. So I would still request you to explain the ‘a priori’ you use to justify doing so. So my original request to you stands.
Also, I would like to point out that you did say “All ‘A’ must be ‘B’. “ :
John
{Once everyone studied the Classics, to know that in logic there is a difference between true and false; the Sciences, to discern where it lies; and Religion, to appreciate why it matters. Today, few study all three empires of the mind. Fewer study the ordered beauty of the logic at their heart.
Is Private Fraser’s proposition that “We’re a’ doomed!” logical? I say No. G.K. Chesterton once wrote: “When men have ceased to believe in Christianity, it is not that they will believe in nothing. They will believe in anything.” }
Just a point of contention, I think that (maybe) Monckton was attempting to show that the warmists are NOT being true to their “Religion” (the consensus) by failing to “appreciate why it matters” with Chesterton’s statement. If this is the case then it is not tied together well and appears to be a poorly framed religious argument.
Otherwise, superb article and enjoyable overview of logic.
@ur momisuglyFrankK, your objections to the climate models may be valid and based on much experience, but they are unrelated to pure logic.
@ur momisuglyTheo Goodwin: “Your two sentences contradict one another.”
Yes. The second sentence was meant as an exception to the first one. An exception always contradicts a general principle – that is its purpose in life.
Lord Monckton did not point out any intrinsic logical inconsistencies in the warmist theory. Therefore, the exception, which I stated merely for completeness, does not apply in this case; there is no relevant “logical” argument against the warmist case.
@ur momisugly S.H.A. Prodi: “But the question is not about “modern” logic … The question is about logic.”
The Lord explicitly used the term “formal logic”. That term usually refers to modern mathematical logic.
Guest post by Monckton of Brenchley: “The belief that Thermageddon will arise from our altering 1/3000th of the atmosphere in a century is in-your-face illogical, rooted in a dozen fallacies marked out by Aristotle as the commonest in human discourse.
“Consensus” is the New Religion’s central fallacy.”
==========================================================
Christopher, I am not sure what exactly type of fallacy you committed saying that, but Aristotle would certainly not be amused.
First of all, the AGW concept has absolutely nothing to do with any reference to God. Nor is there any sort of Holy Scripture. There are no rituals and there are no priests. The AGW concept is rational by nature and refers to science only (let us put aside the issue of those claims being scientifically wrong). There is no resemblance to a religion. Given the massive propaganda it is no wonder many people being unable to check everything themselves think that those AGW scientists are right. It is understandable and can not be compared to a blind faith.
Another thing, Christopher, is that you have presented yourself as a religious person recently (on the “Bethlehem and the rat-hole problem” thread). And now you call a concept you are critical of a “religion”. Given the fact that that concept is absolutely not a religion, your calling it a “religion” can only have a derogative meaning.
Now, Christopher, I can not imagine that a religious person can call anything he or she does not like a “religion”. How can a religious person use the term “religion” in a derogative sense? This is beyond my understanding. Aristotle might have called it a “contradiction”. But I am not going to jump to conclusions right now, I hope you can clarify that.
Once everyone studied the Classics, to know that in logic there is a difference between true and false; the Sciences, to discern where it lies; and Religion, to appreciate why it matters.
I did that, as diligently as someone brought up in the common public schools might. Got me absolutely no where. Dead end, and incredibly disappointing.
The Classics teach how to reason and that there is a difference between true and false, but cannot tell what is true or false, right or wrong, good or evil: Truth.
The Sciences only observe or discern facts. They are useful to help train the eye to look, but they do not help people see. A productive person can make an honest living in the Sciences, however.
Religion is the worst of the three – pure fantasy from the mind of man, designed from the ground up to deceive and enslave mankind. True “Christianity” is not a religion.
The more direct and satisfying route has been to simply study The Truth itself. Truth is honest and pure, and completely covers all the bases the three things above pretentiously claim to do.
Steven Mosher says:
January 6, 2013 at 12:28 pm
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/crutem4vgl/from:1995/to:2013/plot/crutem4vgl/from:1995/to:2013/trend
Thanx for cherry-picking 1995. To avoid charges of cherry-picking, look at the longest temperature record available:
http://curryja.files.wordpress.com/2011/12/14.jpg
Notice that there is no acceleration of temperatures. Also notice that the long term trend, right up to the present time, is unchanged despite the large increase in CO2. What does that tell you?
That tells you that the effect of CO2 is vastly overstated, and that the observed warming is natural, not anthropogenic. You cannot find an anthropogenic signal.
Sorry about your models. They don’t work, because the planet contradicts them. Listen to the planet, it won’t steer you wrong. Models will.
“Consensus” is the New Religion’s central fallacy. Arguing blindly from consensus is the head-count fallacy, the argumentum ad populum.
Calling it the “New” religion is argumentum au nouveau, the there is something new under the sun fallacy.
Consensus is how the Pope keeps his job, and how Mohammed was elevated to his elevated status, even though he is dead. 😉
[snip. Read the Policy page. — mod.]
D Böehm Stealey says:
January 6, 2013 at 6:48 pm
– – – – – – – –
D Böehm is D.B. Stealey!
I did not know. But, it is great.
Thanks all.
Cheers to you.
John
markx says:
January 6, 2013 at 6:11 pm
Atheism requires a bit of thought and logic, and a “non-acceptance” (a lack of faith?) in an entirely implausible tale. (or series thereof).
Before Marx and Engels, Atheism was called Narcissism. Worship of self. Cain suffered from it, as did Lucifer. It is the oldest and most basic religion.
If you say there is no God, by the rules of logic, you have just declared yourself to be God, able to make such a statement. Sorry, that’s a more implausible tale than the one that declares a Just and Loving God would make His will clearly known to the people He created by way of the written and spoken word.
rgbatduke wrote
quote
JF, first of all, we worked out the arithmetic
unquote.
Yes, thank you for that. I made a mistake in my calcs (100/5 is rarely 2), trusted your result and didn’t look further, a classic error on my part. Hence my new statement. That’s ‘enough’ BTW, not ‘does’ coat the entire surface. Other effects will limit the spread.
quote
I’m not a peer that would peer review your paper.
unquote
Heaven forfend. I just wanted to know if you had looked at the picture of a smoothed Beaufort inlet and seen the smooth which I see. The answer seems to be ‘no’. You should borrow someone else’s computer. It’s interesting, as is Wigley’s blip, but then perhaps you haven’t looked at ‘why the blip?’ either. Climate science does this: it ignores data to the point of willful blindness, avoids data that contradicts its worldview in order that its comfortable theory is not challenged. Good for grants, bad for science.
Try dribbling a 50/50 mix of light oil and surfactant behind your boat next time you’re out fishing and watch the smooth spread — I’d love to duplicate Franklin’s experiment myself but one would probably be arrested nowadays if one did that on a Clapham pond.
Thank you for your time. That was interesting and instructive in a different sort of way.
JF
For the benefit of Pat Ravasiowho asked “the most basic of questions:” on January 6, 2013 at 10:45 am
Pat, the most basic research would answer all of your questions, but in case that is beyond you…
Q1 Why is it not a good thing to develop alternative energies?
No one is saying it is not, certainly not the author of this piece. Such developments must however be capable of providing for our energy needs. Those that are currently referred to as “alternative” can not do so at present.
For example the Thanet Offshore Wind-Farm off the authors own Kent coast, the second largest in the world, covers 13.5 sq miles and can (according to the developer’s own claims) barely provide 1/20th of the needs of the 1 sq mile City of London. To provide for “The Square Mile” at the current time would take a wind farm of 270 sq miles!
No reasonable person would suggest that current energy provision can be wound down until that changes – but by all means continue to work on changing it.
Q2 What is the harm in cleaning up the environment?
None, of course, unless the act of cleaning it up does more harm than good. For example, according to Greenpeace, the destruction of rainforest to provide biofuels in Indonesia is responsible for 4% of the world’s total “Greenhouse Gas” emissions.
Re-read the article and you will see that the author specifically says he would have us focus on such issues.
Q3 Surely you do not deny that there are serious ill health effects of fossil fuel mining and use?
Clearly so; and all steps should be taken to reduce or eliminate such deaths. Sadly the “alternative” has proven to be no better.
Research by Dr David Kreutzer, Ph.D. – Senior Analyst in Energy Economics and Climate Change – finds that fatalities for the U.S. , removing deaths that are only tangentially related to wind power, shows that there were 10 deaths in the US wind-power industry over the years 2003-2008. This would seem to make wind power much safer than coal mining, which had 176 fatalities over the same period.
However, much less energy was generated by wind than by coal. On a million-megawatt-hour basis, the wind-energy industry has averaged 0.0220 deaths compared with 0.0147 for coal over the years 2003-2008. Even adding coal’s share of fatalities in the power-generation industry, which brings the rate up to 0.0164, still leaves wind power with a 34 percent higher mortality rate.
For the record, the workplace fatality rate for wind also exceeds that when oil and gas are added on an equivalent-energy basis.
Once built the problems are not over. In December 2011, in a peer-reviewed report in the Bulletin of Science, Technology & Society, Dr Carl Phillips – one of the U.S.’s most distinguished epidemiologists – concluded that there is ‘overwhelming evidence that wind turbines cause serious health problems in nearby residents, usually stress-disorder type diseases, at a nontrivial rate’.
Orthopaedic surgeon Dr Robert McMurtry, once Canada’s most senior public health official: ‘Whatever you think about climate change, you can be sure that wind energy is not the solution. There is an abundance of evidence to the show that infrasound from wind farms represents a serious public health hazard. Until further research is done, there should be an immediate moratorium on building any more of them.’
By the way I focus on wind because it accounts for nearly 70% of renewables. I am aware of the alternative alternatives but this response is long enough already.
Q4&5 That we are still burning up the house to keep the family warm? That fossil fuel supplies are finite?
Yes indeed – fossil fuels are finite. However they are not close to exhaustion, particularly as shale gas is likely to provide for several hundred years of consumption. This should be seen as good news by the “alternative” lobby as it gives them plenty of time to develop their “alternatives” to the point that they are actually viable.
However, within this time scale, I would expect the answer is more likely to come from technologies such as aneutronic nuclear than from wind. And maybe sooner than you think.
Q6 That there are readily available alternatives which are economically scalable if only they were adequately supported?
See my answer to question one. At present what is readily available is not up to the job.
With regard to “scalability”; how much bigger can a wind turbine get? They are already the size of the Statue of Liberty. Of course they can and will get more efficient in converting wind energy into (storable?) electricity. But that is not “readily available”.
With regard to “support”; UK on shore wind farms are 100% subsidised and off-shore is 200% subsidised. Thanet alone will receive “support” of £1.8billion over its expected lifetime.
Q7 Development of clean, renewable energy will stimulate the economy and improve the quality of life for all living things on the planet.
Research institute Verso Economics reveals that for every ‘green job’ created by taxpayer subsidy, 3.7 jobs are killed in the real economy and that, thanks to the artificial rise in energy prices caused by renewable subsidies, at least 50,000 people a year in Britain alone are driven into fuel poverty. And Britain is not a poor country.
With regards to the quality of life for all living things I will let the Environmentalists at the Centre for Biological Diversity in San Fransico speak to that. [The poorly sited wind farm at Altamont Pass] is “responsible for an astronomical level of bird kills. So far 0ver 2,400 protected Golden Eagles. If you killed just one by poaching you would be locked up”
Similarly the US Government Accountability Office on wind farms’ impact on wildlife, said that 2,000 bats were killed during a seven-month study at a 44-turbine site in West Virginia.
Whales and Dolphins can be affected by off shore wind farms by:
• seismic exploration;
• intense noise due to ramming/piling, drilling and dredging operations;
• increased vessel activities during exploration and construction and later maintenance operations,
• increased turbidity due to construction and cable laying; and, later,
• decommissioning of wind farms. (This may involve the use of explosives.)
• artificial reef effects
• continual operational noise and vibrations emanating from the wind turbines;
• electromagnetic impacts due to cabling that may impact navigation
Henriksen et al. (2001a) predict that seals may hear the noise emitted from marine wind farms at a distance of up to 1km.
There is some evidence for electromagnetic fields emanating from undersea cables affecting the movements of some fish species and associated food chain. (Engell-Sorensen, 2002; Gill & Taylor, 2001)
“Alternatives”, Pat, are not universally good for all living things. Nor is very expensive energy.
So please explain why you oppose an orderly, economical transition to readily available alternative energies?
If such a thing were possible I doubt there would be any lasting objection. However I think the answer is clear from the above. The “readily available alternatives” are simply not up to the job – yet.
You say the “alarmists” are motivated by profits. Yet it is you who are affiliated with the Heartland Institute, a noted man cave for fire-breathing fossil fuel behemoths.
I know next to nothing about Heartland – I shall let others address that particular ad hominem. I do know that our Prime Minister’s Father-In-Law makes a £1,000 a week from his wind turbine. Good luck to him I say. At least he doesn’t pretend it’s not for the money.
Anthony and friends, you can parse the particulars until kingdom come, but fossil fuels are still the Earth’s Goliath. Humanity is still David. The only question is what are we going to put in our slingshot, and why are we so slow in getting about the business so clearly at hand?
Humanity’s David, it seems, has put CO2 in its slingshot and is chucking it with all its feeble might at Earth’s Goliath.
Goliath is smiling.
John Whitman says:
January 6, 2013 at 3:13 pm
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Please explain the source of your omniscience claim that everyman profoundly believes in or has faith in the supernatural.
Omniscience is not required, just simple logic.
Does life exist? I only see the effects of it. If I could see you, I might find you breathing. Do love, peace, joy exist? One thousand other, invisible, “super-natural” things enjoyed by people all over the world and throughout the ages.
Dismissal of the supernatural has not got to be a very satisfying way to live your life. Appreciation is a better place to start. Give it a try. The only thing you’ll give up is arrogance, a worthwhile sacrifice.
John Whitman says:
Bruckner8,
Agree with you that ‘B’ should be taken off the table. As I think should Christopher Monckton.
But then you proceed to imply instead a morphing ‘A’ to be a hybrid of ‘B’ as your conclusion to the argument. So I would still request you to explain the ‘a priori’ you use to justify doing so. So my original request to you stands.
Also, I would like to point out that you did say “All ‘A’ must be ‘B’. “ :
Bruckner8 says:
January 6, 2013 at 1:16 pm
Atheism takes equal amounts of faith as Theism. They are both based on a “belief” that a diety exists or not. “I do [or not] believe in [this or that deity]. [optionally: because…]”
John
John, my entire point is that your insistence on grouping the Theists (B) and the A-Theists (A) is misguided. THEY ARE BOTH B in this case, and I’m trying to take both of them off the table. Both require belief. You can insist on assigning the “supernatural” to B, and the “natural” to A, but you’re just creating a new argument “for fun.” It’s not honest to do so. I don’t care where the “naturalness” fits in to your restatement! BOTH REQUIRE BELIEF (supernatural or not). This does not make the sets equal. It merely assigns another attribute to them. If you have an issue with the term “belief,” bring it on. Otherwise, I see it this way: Mutually exclusive sets that share an attribute. (Cats and Dogs have four legs [observation]; Theists and Atheists require belief [neither has proof]) Nowhere does the supernatural come into play (it could! doesn’t matter!), unless you insist on inserting your own definitions.
james griffin says:
January 6, 2013 at 2:56 pm
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Science is best left to agnostics.
That is what is becoming pervasive now, and it is no longer Science. It’s called government propaganda.
But there is no such thing as an agnostic. The question becomes: under what tenants do the scientists hold themselves accountable? Is one of the tenants that they hold themselves accountable to the other tenants? Not in the current breed.