Climate, Caution, and Precaution

These responses also reveal what I call the “dirty secret” of the “we’re all gonna die in fifty years from CO2″ crowd. The dirty secret of their forecasts of massive impending doom is that all of the threatened catastrophes they warn us about are here already.
I eagerly await the response to this. I’ve found that the adaptability of the human race is actually quite astonishing. I live in the are of Ohio between Dayton and Cincinnati. One of the more prominent events here, which I though of immediately following the North Dakota floods of last year, is the flood of Dayton in the early 1900s.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Dayton_Flood
Read about it and the response to it, and the capability of man to overcome nature becomes apparent. I especially like the “false” glacier ideas and fog nets outlined above. These three events show that the local population will adapt to the local conditions to survive.

For some people, society pouring money down a bottomless hole is a desirable outcome. I’m talking about Al Gore, the Carbon Exchange, Goldman Sachs and others who are at the bottom of the hole scooping up that money.

Many thanks, Willis. An excellent and creative article that extends our ability to look at the situation rationally. Hopefully some of those in the alarmist camp will eventually allow themselves to be exposed to these kinds of ideas.

Another great post Willis! Happy New Year sir and may logic and reason prevail more this year than the last.
I know it’s OT for this post but I would be curious to hear your thoughts on CO2 IR wavelength absorption saturation as a limiting factor. It seems to pop up on occasion and the one serious article I’ve read on it used GISS as the reference for its calculated sensitivity.
Also, a crazy idea to start the New Year: Subsurface (but still near surface of the 1-6 foot variety) temperatures are essentially naturally smoothed averages for the surface temperature. I’d be curious if a measurement of this type could be used… for example, as a QC check for surface station instrument measurements.

Well said. If humans followed the precautionary principle the way it is interpreted by AGwarmers we should never lle in our bed: over 90% of people die in a bed.
As for the ingenuity of humans to get water where needed, have a look at the ancient Qanats of Persia.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qanat

The Precautionary principle requires one essential ingredient: a solution that has at least a fair chance of working to solve the possible problem. The solution in this issue is to reduce CO2 emission by at least 50% now, not in 10, 20, 50 years time. They couldn’t even agree to a 1% reduction in 50 years at the Copenhagen summit. So, what’s the point of talking about the Precautionary principle if they are not prepared to believe their own nonsense and act accordingly? It’s all one big con.
Ok, let’s think about this for one tick. Let’s assume the man-made global warming alarmist crap is actually true. The only way to avert it is to reduce CO2 emmission now, not by introducing a new tax that only makes the rich get richer and the rest of us poorer, but to start building nuclear, solar and other forms of power generation systems. At the same time there must be a complete ban on building any more coal fired power stations. Now tell that to countries like India and China. They will tell you where to go quick smart. SO, either we are all doomed or the AGW is a hoax and we’ll be OK. Take your pick.

Yes, it is a Dirty Little Secret.

Bulldust and John Trigge
Yes, write to the Abbott. He needs all the help he can get. I have spent all Christmas on it.

Very sensible, and well argued article Willis.
The ‘no regrets’ definition reminds me of the early sixties, when as a young engineering surveyor volunteer, I found myself in central Africa, working on highway schemes, infrastructure, mapping, hydroelectric projects, you name it. Was it worth it? Well to me it was, the experience was rewarding, and maybe there are a few folk, who can now trade more easily, who have electricity and better communications and health, just maybe. But on balance, I suspect that most of the wealth created by me and others now lies in a Swiss Bank.

The warming doom wasn’t true in the 30’s, and it certainly isn’t true now.
The cooling trend wasn’t irreversible in the 1890’s and 1950’s, and it probably won’t be this time either.
One of these trends, we will get one that goes a step beyond. Wouldn’t it be great if we had already been adapting, practicing precaution, instead of singing The Sky is Falling Kumbayas?

“The rule of the no-regrets approach is very simple — do things that will provide real, immediate, low-cost, tangible benefits whether or not the threat is real. That way you won’t regret your actions.”
Indeed! I mean, we were going to have to maintain and raise living standards ANYWAY, and who knows…
Maybe some other catastrophic event will take place, in which case we’d be caught with our pants down in “retooling” civilization.
Maybe, despite any real problem that might materialize, our current sources of energy are the only cost-effective way that would save as many human lives as possible.
Maybe any real problem would turn out to not be C02, but rather something else!
But these points and many others that I’ve argued with various greens over the years are wasted time and wasted breath. They want themselves and others to be afraid, to “atone”, and they want that massive ego-trip of self-righteousness that comes from being “the good shepherd”.
Oh well. Human nature will over-run there plans. They may think that in promoting all this greenery that they are changing human nature, but when all is said and done…
…nothing has changed about human nature! They’re damming something that cannot be dammed up! They are not in controll of anything!
About a year before Climategate was “household” word, I predicted that something big was going to happen (in terms of AGW issue) in 2009, and probably late in the year as the growing economic hardships set in. That was my prediction for 2009 in the year 2008. My prediction for 2010 is that the whole plan will be all but forgotten. Human nature can do some amazing turn-arounds in such a short time.
Oh, and… Happy new year, all !!!

I absolutely agree that Willis’s approach is the right one. I wouldn’t even mind paying (yet) more for my energy bills if the money raised was genuinely going to pay for upgrading flood defences on the one hand (which we need irrespective of any ‘risk’ of Greenland melting) or providing affordable, reliable energy for the third world on the other.
And if that energy is produced by modern, efficient coal fired power stations using indigenous coal, then so far as I’m concerned, that’s great!
But what is now on offer is the destruction of the Western economies chasing a chimera. And incidentally transferring unbelievable amounts of money and power to Pachauri, to Maurice Strong, to the Carbon Exchanges, to Goldman Sachs, to the Goracle and to all the other crooked scumbags who are busily pumping up the AGW scam. And not forgetting the vote hungry scientifically illiterates like Obama, Brown, Milipede and Rudd (the Genius of the Antipodes).
These are the people we have to beat, not a few deluded Greenies. Some pepper spray will deal with them.
I’m not in favour of Capital Punishment. But I think I could put a brave face on seeing heads on pikestaffs around the keep of the Tower of London for some of the big money crooks whose activities are sucking hope out of the third world, terrifying our children and destroying what’s left of our economies.

Schmidt provides some entertainment with this article on CO2 and climate change from the 1950’s reprinting work by Plass.
http://www.americanscientist.org/issues/id.8374,y.2010,no.1,content.true,page.5,css.print/issue.aspx

After writing to our local MP about Climategate, the biased response of the mainstream media, and the threat to democracy of the whole AGW issue, I got a letter from him in which he did appear to recognise the need for the state of affairs at CRU to be investigated, but he also put forward the absolute necessity to pursue the precautionary principle with regard to CO2 emissions. I have just now forwarded him the link to Willis Eschenbach’s article. I really hope he reads it.

Brilliant article Willis! I love it, common sense science and practicality! – I shall be forwarding some sections and the url to many people!
Thanks

Whilst this makes a great deal of sense, I was curious about how your argument would read from a “greenie” perspective. After all, I was told by a greenie that the point of limiting CO2, regardless of whether climatology is right, is that it would force limits to consumption, which would in turn force a limit or reduction of “greed”. She was quite candid about this. My impression is that she was quite sincere, as she’d moved countries twice looking for a green job to do with limiting CO2.
So I pop over to The Ecologist web site today and notice an article with this quotation:

‘On the one hand FOE is concerned about human rights and environmental protection. On the other hand, you have PR projects funded by industries that destroy the environment and commit human rights abuses,’ says head of economics Ed Matthews.

That quotation seems to be one of the typical green views, basically that corporations are evil psychopaths. I think to many people, environmentalism is inherently “OK” because it resonates with their dislike of corporations. Here the Precautionary Principle is mostly about simply limiting the power of corporations. I’d say the PP becomes framed as,
“It is cost-effective for the consumer to pay 15% more for products, if a giant corporation is forced to prevent Bhopal style disasters that kill thousands of innocents and ruin ecosystems, and we won’t postpone legislation just because the corporations can hire so-called experts to muddy the data about the real damage.”
Along these lines, it is also more cost effective for the consumer, to classify CO2 as a “pollutant” as this simply speeds up the process of placing every corporation under tighter legislative controls, rather than having to painstakingly explore the case for every single chemical in turn, and wait decades for the legal fights to be resolved. Let’s just whack on a big tax and then use the money to clean up. Again, from the point of view of the consumer, this is more “cost-effective”.
(Of course, when carbon trading is linked back to Enron, that public support begins to crack at the foundations.)
Then there is the “deep ecology” view. As far as I understand this (not that I’ve made a study of it), deep ecology is a perspective from “outside”, gazing at the planet as a “blue marble” in space. When viewed from this perspective, there is just “the whole” and it can even seem spiritual; The One, The Way, Unity, God, etc. From this perspective, humanity is just one species, one part of the intricate and homeostatic whole, and the whole is more important than any part. Consider, what does this do to our “cost-benefit” analysis in the Precautionary Principle?
“The cost to multiple species, so serious a cost that they are threatened with extinction, is far greater than the cost to one species—to limit their own numbers—and this limit should be imposed even if there is insuffiecient data to determine when and how these multiple extinctions might occur.”
This can be applied at multiple scales. Consider the cost of eating tuna fish, where overfishing damages multiple ocean species, when you could just eat carrots. Or consider the cost of having three children, when the whole planet is heading into a virtually certain cataclysm when one day, things just run out. It really doesn’t matter when or how. It doesn’t matter if we manage to invent new technology that gives us another boost, just like the green revolution gave us a boost in the 60s. All that led to was increasing numbers, as we keep having kids, rather than stopping and being satisfied with our place in the ecosystem.
I guess that there are other currents of thought in environmentalism, but I wonder that these two, corporate-psychopathology, and humanity-as-cancer, are the two that seem to keep appearing. I wonder that in each of those perspectives, the PP becomes a rather different calculation. We can all agree on the PP, we just come to different answers.
Personally I believe there are answers to each of those versions of the PP (basically it is about what they each ignore). But my point is that, people’s worldview will interpret the PP and alter the calculation.
Like the greenie campaigner said to me, CO2 doens’t particularly matter, it is about what it can facilitate for the cause. So we need to tackle the underlying worldview, the “cause” of the cause.
As one strategy fails, greenines will simply regroup and reframe with new strategies. The Ecologist today has an article about “blackwashing” (doom scenarios), and how they are not working. They realise that the public is turning against them. They admit that their data about “extinctions” is partly made up, anyhow. But they restate their determination to continue, and that they will need new strategies, even if this makes them appear more moderate.
I think we need to engage them and demonstrate why the Precautinary Principle doesn’t work, not via our worldview’s interpretation (which I entirely agree with), but through their worldview’s interpretations.
We need to show why mankind is not a cancer from the perspective of Gaia, and why corporations are not all bad from a perspective of sensitive caring.
But if we can’t, then the greens largely have a point.

“We have full scientific certainty that seat belts save lives, and that using an umbrella keeps us dry. Thus, using them is not an example of the PP, it is simply acting reasonably on principles about which we are scientifically certain.”
Not disagreeing with the bulk of this article, but the above statement is incorrect, and should probably be removed. There is no scientific certainty that using an umbrella will keep you any drier than not using one ( ex. it might not rain), nor is there certainty that a seat-belt will save your life (ex. you might not get into an accident). PP certainly does apply to your decision to buckle up or bring an umbrella with you.

Mention of the simple things brings to mind a clip on TV a while back which told the tale of a chap in some part of Africa who built water pumps using old bicycle parts.He managed to back the pumping into a game so all the small kids could take turns pumping,brilliant and affordable low tech. Can’t rmember where i saw it but it would be wonderful to see this guy get some backing.
PS Lady in Red,I know a place where you would be welcome 😉

“The three key parts of the PP (emphasis mine) are:
1) A threat of serious or irreversible damage.
2) A lack of full scientific certainty (in other words, the existence of partial but not conclusive scientific evidence).
3) The availability of cost-effective measures that we know will prevent the problem.”
Let’s apply this to the firm of Hansen, Mann, Schmidt & Jones and why they need to keep the myth of AGW alive.
1) Their life style would take a serious hit.
2) They may not get another position with equal or greater funding.
3) Hide the decline.
It’s as easy as 1-2-3.

PP is a Political Policy, not a scientific one based on “real” issues. It is an “excuse” to do whatever the great minds at the global and national leadership levels want to do about anything that strikes their fancy. It is a waste of mental energy and personal and national wealth to ascribe reasonableness or precaution –or spend a penny– in any case that uses “the existence of partial but not conclusive scientific evidence”. My hangup is the term “scientific”. It used to mean something. It no longer does. Climategate has so abused the word that it now means nothing whatsoever; its a joke. For something to have anything approaching the old fashioned definition of scientific basis it must first have qualified minds in the field(s) being addressed. Today, we see socialologists, gynacologists, etc., etc., pontificating about anything but their field of study and some stupid politician or media type calling them scientists (as if they were qualified to speak on any subject that crossed their little minds). This issue is about power, political power, pure and simple. How do you sway 6+ billion people to do something YOU want them to do, get a “scientist” (any PhD will do) to tell them the simply have to. Sick!
PS: “conclusive scientific evidence”? Sorry, it died of overheating and exposure to too much CO2 and AGW.

“Support the use of micro-hydroelectric plants for village energy.”
What of the poor snail darters!?

Draconian measures to limit CO2 actually violate the Precautionary Principle rather than fulfill it. Comparable to Willis’ ecosystem analogy, crippling the fossil fuel economy is like removing the “top predator” in a food web. The effects will cascade all over the place and degrade the system. Precautionary efforts would seek to increase the alternatives before instead of cutting off the primary controller in the system.

The precautionary principle as it has been included in the Lisbon treaty is nothing more but an insurance policy for the continuation of the destructive policies and tax scams, even when the science says otherwise.
In the real world it’s called bad policies, very bad policies and we must hold our politicians accountable for those policies.
If we don’t, we will pay a very high price.
Thanks for the article Willis and Anthony thanks for posting it.

Willis, you wouldn’t mind doing another article on the other problems in the Rio and related texts, would yout? I’ve tried to read and understand the consequenses of UNFCCC’s Text of the Conventiont for a while now, and it just keeps getting worse.. Thank you for this one!
@ Dave F (22:56:25)
Let’s just hope it isn’t cursed and carry one away like Mary Poppins 😉

Adding to the “Precautionary Principle” post above we should also think about the “Law of Unintended Consequences.”
See the following here from the WSJ relating to biofuels:

“…some earlier studies didn’t account for one hard-to-measure factor: the decision by farmers world-wide to convert forest and grasslands to grow feedstock for the new biofuels.
Draining and clearing peatlands in Malaysia and Indonesia to grow palm oil emits so much CO2 that palm biodiesel from those fields would have to be burned for more than 420 years to counteract it.”

And in another example
here

“Britain is mulling tougher labeling standards to make it more difficult for imported food to carry an “organic” label. The idea is to make it less appealing to air-freight in fruits and veggies from Africa, with their aircraft emissions, in order to save the developing world from the ravages of global warming somewhere down the road. But one group may come out the loser much sooner: poor farmers in the developing world.”

These kinds of issues will simply multiply as the world fumbles about with an experiment never before carried out: adjusting Earth’s thermostat.
Do the alarmists think that the world will have any will or resources left to fight other real environmental problems when so much effort is suddenly switched to drastically reducing CO2?

Instead I would suggest to apply the Precautionary Principle to those individuals or institutions which pretend knowingly or unknowingly, purportedly or unpurportedly, innocently or maliciously, to diminish the amount of CO2, because it is a proven fact what the lack of carbon dioxide would cause to life on earth, and so directly and gravely affecting human life, human activities,etc. implicitly representing a serious violation of the human rights.

The precautionary principle is a particularly virulent aspect of post-modernist science. This was developed by a couple of left-wing philosophers in the 1960s and 1970s and stemmed from the hang-ups that humanities faculties have with science, which appears to them to deal in absolutes. In a nutshell, the normal definition of scientific logic is replaced by a sociological definition of logic, in that one does not test a hypothesis but considers what the effect of a particular scientific speculation has on society. The hypothesis doesn’t need to be rigorous. testable or right, it just has to be raised so that society can respons to it. The precautionary principle is the response in post modern science to an untested hypothesis.

Lindsay H
Rather than read Gavins ramblings on co2 have a look at Slocums vey elegant 1955 demolition of Callendars 1938 co2 theory.
http://www.pensee-unique.eu/001_mwr-083-10-0225.pdf
Slocum realised that Callendar had cherry picked co2 measurements in order to demonstrate his theory. Keeling in turn accepted Callendars figures of 300ppm -the rest as they say is history, even though the evidence to the contrary lies in Callendars own archives which are a revealing read.
Tonyb

I have always thought that the precautionary principle can easily be rebutted by wheeling out the law of unintended consequences.

“Would you like flies with that?”
Perfect.

The information in these comments is simply astounding, thought-provoking, and a credit to all contributors. However, for many people, form often trumps substance so grammatical and spelling errors often dissuade others from getting the full weight of your comments. May I kindly suggest that after typing your entry, right click in the comment area, “Select All”, hit “Ctrl C” (for copy) and paste (Ctrl V) it in a word processor in which you apply the grammar and spell checker. After correcting, copy it back to your comment space; if you mess up, you still have a copy of it in your word processor. I’m often incapable of finding my own errors, so this procedure has been very beneficial personally, and if applied to your comments, will make them error free and more persuasive.

Terra Preta satisfies this precautionary principle.
Terra preta, means black earth in Portugese, and refers to the dark black soil in about 10 % of Amazonia, which is now known to have been man made. It is extremely fertile soil, whereas the surrounding natural yellow clay soil is very poor. Scientists have now discovered the reason for terra pretas’ fertility: charcoal. It turns out that the pre-Columbian Amerindians discovered that putting charcoal in the soil traps nutrients and water, and that vast quantities of microorganisms thrive in terra preta. These microorganisms form a symbiotic relationship with plant roots, and carry the charcoal trapped nutrients and moisture to the plant roots.
Once established, (two to three years for optimal microorganism growth) terra preta does not require any further fertilizer, and water usage drops about 15%. Crops can be grown without rotation (forty years in some places), and lands that are otherwise too arid to grow crops, can be used to grow them. Often terra preta yields are double that of conventional farming.
And if CO2 sequestration is your thing, charcoaling plant and animal matter eliminates about 30 % of the carbon in them from retuning to the atmosphere for hundreds, even thousands of years. Some of the terra preta soils are several thousand years old. Plus the gas and oil which is produced in the charcoaling process, can be used for fuel, and the fuel source is sustainable.

In general the precautionary principle and its variants are the most dangerous of ideas. Dangerous in the sense that right thinking individuals seem completely unable to defend against its onslaught.
Take the example of the War against Iraq. Mr Eschenbach did not talk about the Afghanistan war presumably because it does not come under the realm of science. The case for the Iraq war was not admittedly made on ‘scientific grounds’ but it can still serve as an useful example. The case was made on reasoning, not outright appeal to emotion. Various strands of ‘intelligence’ were woven together. Colin Powell showed ‘physical evidence’ for the existence of WMDs at the UN presentation. Iraq did nothing to provoke aggression. But yet ‘the coalition of willing’ invaded to strike preemptively. We all know what happened next about the WMDs.
To be able to hold back, to not do anything until the precise moment is a valuable thing – in politics and in real life. To not do anything keeps choices alive, keeps the options open, affords valuable time to see if the predictions appear to be shaping up. Preparedness is one thing, decisive action is another.
In general, all the harm that humans do to one another come couched in the precautionary principle.
Look at climate science:
A great science evolves in the past 20 years
The science makes predictions of dramatic change in long range events
These events have transpired in the exact same period the science has evolved.
With all its advances, the science has confirmed findings that were present at the initial stages of its evolution.
The conclusions of this science are that action needs to be taken and it has to be done *now*, no later.
The consequences of inaction are catastrophic.
The proposed actions that need to be taken are irreversible.
All the codified facts of this science consist in models and retrospective data. The retrospective data is not direct measured quantities but reconstructions.
No prospective data can be had because the periods of observation exceed the average productive lifespan of human beings.
No experimentation is possible.
In the face of these limitations, the science has arrived at a level of unprecedented certainty.
And now we are being told that we should undertake global legislative action under a quasi-governmental authority based on the precationary principle applied to the conclusions of such a ‘science. Anyone game?

Please also read:
Be Very Cautious of the Precautionary Principle
http://www.climatechangefraud.com/temperate-facts/the-precautionary-principle
Thanks.

In the case of anthropogenic climate change (ACC), PP only applies to the effects of those changes to our environment.
The consensus for ACC is solid. To say it isn’t is just ignoring the wealth of evidence in support of ACC. To those who say ACC isn’t real, I can only suggest either educating yourself better, or trust the experts – over 95% agree that ACC is real. To ignore the issue altogether is just being irresponsible.
The degree and timing of the effects of ACC are still under study. How we address these effects is where the PP is applied.
Regardless of dooms-day scenarios of rising ocean levels, there are measurable effects that can be extrapolated to near-term problems for humanity. For example, the melting of glaciers that are the primary sources of water for many people is not in dispute. We can only surmise what will happen when those people run out of drinking water. What would you do if you ran out of drinking water?
PP is so much of a concern, the military is taking action to plan for the effects of ACC.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=9580815
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/09/science/earth/09climate.html
So, don’t confuse the reality of ACC with its possible effects. The former is not in dispute, but the latter is not fully understood.

The PP is not even Pascal’s Wager. In Pascal’s Wager, there’s an upside either way. The PP just says that you have to buy insurance, which is an expense. And often you hear one of the two arguments in favor of carbon caps:
1) “What’s wrong with clean air”?
2) This will reduce oil imports, so will be an economic benefit.
The first on is just vapid, and the second one is false, especially in the coal-rich US.
We’re not so fortunate as to this being a Pascal’s Wager “win-win” situation.

Last paragraph, typo on the word – the?
“…think it is teh eeeevil…”
Or perhaps just remove “teh” completely as unnecessary?

Willis & Anthony,
Thanks for bringing in the New Year with this great post.
In past few weeks on WUWT I have noticed more articles, like this one of yours, that are really touching on the philosophical (world view) differences between the AGW advocates and the mostly skeptical climate thinkers. I think it would be interesting to pursue an idea such as: it is the philosophy of Plato ( and all his historical & current derivatives ) that is most consistently aligned to the base of an AGW advocate world view. On the other hand, the skeptical position seems to be much more consistently aligned to the Aristotelian world view.
Philosophy is a fundamental science in the Aristotelian world view, at least it was at the time of Aristotle. So, a post on this may not be totally OT on a science blog like WUWT.
I’d love to see a post on this.
John

Great post, Willis. Thanks.
Typo alert:
“they solve a real program today…”
should be:
“they solve a real problem today…”

1. An asteroid hit is A threat of serious or irreversible damage.
2) A hit is scientifically certain, only the timing has A lack of full scientific certainty (in other words, the existence of partial but not conclusive scientific evidence).
3) Interception/deflection is, possibly, an available cost-effective measure that we know will prevent the problem. The Russians seem to be volunteering their services, though perhaps for a potential space weapon advantage.
So the PP fits this threat far better than it does AGW

Physicist Serge Galam -a pioneer in sociophysics- view on the PP is very critical: applied outside of specifically defined boundaries, the PP can lead to true totalitarism. Imagine, using PP, someone is arrested because he COULD act in someway contrary to the State’s interest…

I agree w/ Pamela Gray–I live in an area where cougars, wolves, and grizzlies have been introduced all around and it has created a big problem. Better to strive for a balance than some artifical ecosystem imposed by bureaucrats.

Stefan (04:26:45) :
Good post, well thought through.
There is no single response, in any direction, to the ever growing ‘world view’, that will set a marker point that all can, or will, agree with.
Taking a couple the prime concerns for all of us, no matter what our persuasion on AGW/ACC.
Species extinction.
There is nothing new here (it has always been the case) EXCEPT some sort of human belief that we have an option to control what comes or stays and what goes.
Why is it acceptable (Indeed is it acceptable?) to support virus destruction whilst camaigning for the rights of .
Availability of core resources.
Or, from another persepective, do we use or hibernate those things we find usful?
We know how useful coal is. We know how useful Oil is.
The chances of the entire population of the world deciding to skip the benefits of those two resources (among many) is small.
So be it. If they offer a source of energy that allows humanity to move to another level of existence, fine. If they don’t and humanity fails to find a way forward, so what? That’s evolution. The planet survives, species develop (or don’t develop) and ‘the ecology’ moves to the next level.]
The only real threat to ‘man’ and ‘man’s’ ‘progress’ is, currently, self belief and in the long term, correct identification of what helps ‘mankind’ progress and what holds ‘mankind’ back.
‘Mankind’s’ forward predictions have, in the main, been poor. There is no reason, so far as I can ascertain, to assume that the last few years has improved mankind’s predictive capability.
On which basis the only real threat to anything substantial and existential is to humanity – which really does not matter to much in a long view of the survivability of ‘the planet’ within the cosmos.
.

Stefan (04:26:45) : wrote:
>>>Then there is the “deep ecology” view. As far as I understand this (not that I’ve made a study of it), deep ecology is a perspective from “outside”, gazing at the planet as a “blue marble” in space. When viewed from this perspective, there is just “the whole” and it can even seem spiritual; The One, The Way, Unity, God, etc. From this perspective, humanity is just one species, one part of the intricate and homeostatic whole, and the whole is more important than any part. Consider, what does this do to our “cost-benefit” analysis in the Precautionary Principle?
“The cost to multiple species, so serious a cost that they are threatened with extinction, is far greater than the cost to one species—to limit their own numbers—and this limit should be imposed even if there is insuffiecient data to determine when and how these multiple extinctions might occur.”
This can be applied at multiple scales. Consider the cost of eating tuna fish, where overfishing damages multiple ocean species, when you could just eat carrots. Or consider the cost of having three children, when the whole planet is heading into a virtually certain cataclysm when one day, things just run out. It really doesn’t matter when or how. It doesn’t matter if we manage to invent new technology that gives us another boost, just like the green revolution gave us a boost in the 60s. All that led to was increasing numbers, as we keep having kids, rather than stopping and being satisfied with our place in the ecosystem. >>>
Well, if what they say is true, about multiple catastrophes happening because of Global Warming and excess population, then that takes care of the excess population right there doesn’t it? I’m not being mean, don’t get all emotional on me, I’m just pointing out the flaw in the logic. Do they actually have a computer model that shows a reduction in CO2 would cause a reduction in births? Ha, ha. I think an increase in condoms would be more cost effective. : )

r (11:00:29) :
“Well, if what they say is true, about multiple catastrophes happening because of Global Warming and excess population, then that takes care of the excess population right there doesn’t it? I’m not being mean, don’t get all emotional on me, I’m just pointing out the flaw in the logic. Do they actually have a computer model that shows a reduction in CO2 would cause a reduction in births? Ha, ha. I think an increase in condoms would be more cost effective. : )”
————-
I get the impression that AGW is simply a convenient propaganda/religion they are spewing which is quite contrary to their base belief that the world is actually on the verge of another glacial epoch so the occasional catastrophe, compared to the wide distribution of people, is insufficient to reduce the earth’s population to the level supportable by an ice-encrusted Earth. But if they can turn off power plants so people freeze to death, increase taxes and government control so people can’t afford nutritious food and necessary medicines resulting in many deaths, and control CO2 and all aspects of agriculture so people starve to death, those policies preserve resources and mothballs infrastructure that become available to them when the ice really hits the fan. They simply don’t want anybody but their elite group around with which to compete, for they aren’t survivors when competition gets intense, nor are they nice people in general. No, they are criminals for their policies include mass genocide. (Those two terms would normally be redundant, but on the scale they’re taking it, I think not.)
I can’t see where all this AGW baloney benefits anybody but them.
The same pressure is being applied to health care here in the US, and I can tell you, as a licensed health insurance agent, what they’re proposing is going to make health care more expensive and less beneficial–there are far better ways of solving the problems but they aren’t interested because it goes against their philosophy and would actually resolve the problems. Why would they do that? It’s simple–they want control of all aspects of our lives so when push comes to shove, everybody but them gets pushed off. That’s the only conclusion I can logically derive.
But I think they’ve underestimated the average Joe.

Since the “Precautionary Principle” is in play here, the views of Cass Sunstein (Obama’s Regulatory Czar) may be worth considering:
Sunstein, Cass R. “Throwing precaution to the wind: Why the ‘safe’ choice can be dangerous.” boston.com – The Boston Globe, July 13, 2008. http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2008/07/13/throwing_precaution_to_the_wind.
Main point: “Yet the precautionary principle, for all its rhetorical appeal, is deeply incoherent. It is of course true that we should take precautions against some speculative dangers. But there are always risks on both sides of a decision; inaction can bring danger, but so can action. Precautions, in other words, themselves create risks – and hence the principle bans what it simultaneously requires.”
…
“In the context of climate change, precautions are certainly a good idea. But what kinds of precautions? A high tax on carbon emissions would impose real risks – including increased hardship for people who can least afford it and very possibly increases in unemployment and hence poverty. A sensible climate change policy balances the costs and benefits of emissions reductions. If the policy includes costly (and hence risk-creating) precautions, it is because those precautions are justified by their benefits.
…
“The nations of the world should take precautions, certainly. But they should not adopt the precautionary principle.”
Sunstein, Cass R. Laws of Fear: Beyond the Precautionary Principle. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2005.
“This is a book about the complex relationship between fear, danger, and the law. Cass Sunstein looks afresh at the precautionary principle, and at the idea that regulators should take steps to protect against potential harms, even if causal chains are uncertain and even if we do not know that harms are likely to come to fruition. However Professor Sunstein argues that in its strongest forms the precautionary principle is both incoherent and potentially paralysing, as risks exist on all sides of social situations, and he demonstrates that in practice such a principle can only operate because different cultures focus on different risks, and that there is no ‘general’ precautionary principle as such. This is a very important insight for the contemporary world, and Laws of Fear represents a major statement from one of the most influential political and legal theorists writing today.”
Notes:
Adopted Broadly (Pg 17)
“In February 2000, the Precautionary Principle was explicitly adopted in a communication by the European Commission, together with implementing guidelines. The Precautionary Principal even appears in the draft Constitution for the European Union….”
Pg 35, #1: Availability Heuristic:
“making some risks seem especially likely to come to fruition whether or not they actually are;”
Pg 35, #2: Probability Neglect:
“…leading people to focus on the worst case, even if it is highly improbable:”
Pg 35, #3: Loss Aversion:
“… making people dislike losses from the status quo;”
Pg 35, #4: Benevolence of Nature:
“a belief in the benevolence of nature, making man-made decisions and processes seem especially suspect;”
Pg 35, #5: System Neglect:
“… understood as a inability to see that risks are part of systems, and that interventions into those systems can create risks of their own.”
On-Line:
Sunstein, Cass R. Beyond The Precautionary Principle. Working Paper #38. Public Law and Legal Theory. University of Chicago, January 2003.
http://www.law.uchicago.edu/academics/publiclaw/resources/38.crs.precautionary.pl-lt.pdf.

Wade (06:36:18) : “Remember, the goal of these people is not to make life better for the poor or to fix the world’s climate problems. The goal of these people is to make money and to become powerful.”
The “limit CO2 emissions” scam always reminds me of movies and TV shows about firefighters. We see a large building on fire with impressive amounts of water being flung in its general direction, but with no discernable effect on the fire. Obviously the goal is not to put out the fire; the goal is to shoot spectacular footage for the show, and the more the better.
The analogy isn’t limited to CAGW, of course; many political “solutions” also qualify, e.g. “War on Poverty”, “Energy Independence”, “Cash for Clunkers”, “Economic Stimulus”, etc.

“GP (10:31:28) :
[…]
We know how useful coal is. We know how useful Oil is.
The chances of the entire population of the world deciding to skip the benefits of those two resources (among many) is small.
So be it. If they offer a source of energy that allows humanity to move to another level of existence, fine. If they don’t and humanity fails to find a way forward, so what? That’s evolution. The planet survives, species develop (or don’t develop) and ‘the ecology’ moves to the next level.]”
A logical error. Wind and Solar are nonviable in the marketplace because they cost around twice as much as energy from fossil fuels and are not available round the clock. We spend about 2% of GDP for energy needs. So if fossil fuels become unavailable, we would have to spend 4% for energy and make do with the inconvenience of fluctuating availabilty. Which can be alleviated by more or less expensive storage solutions – pretty low tech like pumped-storage hydro.
It’s not like we would all die without fussil fuels. It’s just very expensive.

Believe it or not, it’s technically illegal. The state or municipality owns your rainwater.
If that is true, then what all Frenches think of Statesiders is true: Statesiders are crazy!
That reminds me of the laws that say you are not allowed to hang your clothe out to dry!
Do you have a link?

r (11:00:29) :
Well, if what they say is true, about multiple catastrophes happening because of Global Warming and excess population, then that takes care of the excess population right there doesn’t it? I’m not being mean, don’t get all emotional on me, I’m just pointing out the flaw in the logic. Do they actually have a computer model that shows a reduction in CO2 would cause a reduction in births? Ha, ha. I think an increase in condoms would be more cost effective. : )

The other evening a friend was saying that man is the worst for wrecking the planet. I asked what’s different to say, giraffes eating leaves off trees? My friend replied that nature keeps those in balance. So I asked, what will happen when humans go past the limit, won’t we also simply be put back into check by nature? — It was one of those moments where there is no reply, the conversation just ends abruptly.
So just as you say… if there is a problem, nature will solve it for herself.
Another angle on it is, if man is just another species, no more privileged than any other, then why do all the other species get to compete, but we’re not allowed to? Isn’t our dominance simply a temporary and transitory evolutionary experiment by nature herself? To be shrugged off and forgotten when nature becomes bored with us? Is not our belief that we’re to “put nature back into balance” a tremendous arrogance on our part, presuming that we have the intellectual capacity to understand and put a planetary ecosystem into balance, when our technological peak is somewhere around the level of the mobile phone?
I loved that episode of Futurama, the one where the environmentalists feed their pet lion tofu (it looks sickly), where Leela at the end notes, something like, “wouldn’t it be better if we just let nature do its own thing, as that can’t possibly be any worse than all the things we did to save it?”

Roger: Thanks for correcting the link

“Stefan (15:28:53) :
[..]
The other evening a friend was saying that man is the worst for wrecking the planet. I asked what’s different to say, giraffes eating leaves off trees? My friend replied that nature keeps those in balance. So I asked, what will happen when humans go past the limit, won’t we also simply be put back into check by nature? — It was one of those moments where there is no reply, the conversation just ends abruptly.”
You have sabotaged his/her game. As in transactional analysis. A person in a conversation likes to talk about certain things in a certain way because it gives him/her satisfaction. This is very obvious with fearmongers. It makes them feel important.
This book is a must read: (Disclosure: no i don’t get paid for this)
Berne, Eric (1964). Games People Play – The Basic Hand Book of Transactional Analysis. New York: Ballantine Books. ISBN 0-345-41003-3
What game do i play? Uh, maybe being a smartass? You decide… 🙂
So often it’s not so much about the logic behind the arguments. You can also see this in the behaviour of trolls. Trolling can go on and on and on and the troll changes his position all the time. It’s his game.

A very moral approach to climate change!

“Skeptical Skeptic (18:05:09) :
[…]
Regardless what you think, ACC is real.”
With ACC, do you mean a warming?

OK, I looked at some of those websites about who owns rain water. That is the most ridiculous thing I ever heard! If God drops the water on me, its mine. Try and take it. See how far you get.

Sorry, this is off track a bit (ok- a lot), but I can’t find a relevant thread and I am sure many of you will be interested if you haven’t seen Michael Mann’s extraordinary letter in the WSJ, which includes this passage:
“Society relies upon the integrity of the scientific literature to inform sound policy. It is thus a serious offense to compromise the peer-review system in such a way as to allow anyone—including proponents of climate change science—to promote unsubstantiated claims and distortions.”
Having read most of his contributions to the climategate e-mails (in the reference I posted earlier that was kindly corrected for me by Roger) I am, er, gobsmacked. The guy is in desperate need of some serious quality legal advice.
You can read the full letter here: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703478704574612400823765102.html

The so-called “precautionary principle” has been misused and abused over the years; so Willis, your post is a breath of sanity on the subject. I used to represent clients with whom I would remonstrate about this subject all of the time (obviously, in a different context from the subject of climate). All social and political policy these days is getting away from the proper analysis of risk, in favor of the promotion of a specific type of ideology. The ideology of the technocrat, the bureaucrat: life is too complex to be run by the average person, the democrat, the representative government. So it becomes an exercise in the use of power to achieve the goals or ends of the “experts” as prescribed by the “experts.” A prescription for disaster if I’ve ever heard one. You and Bjorn Lomborg generally have the right idea. For myself, I am a “do nothing except further study the effects and the question” and I will stay that way because none of this stuff happened overnight, nor is it resolved overnight. I can, however, live with “no regrets” solutions as long as they are truly “no regrets.”

Skeptical Skeptic.
Even if we stipulate that the earth is warming and it’s caused by human activity, that doesn’t get us very far. See my posting of 02:07:32 above.

Dear Skeptical Skeptic,
When you are a little older you will realize that “experts” aren’t all they are cracked up to be. I realized this when I had to deal with “expert” lawyers, and “expert” accountants and “expert” financial planners when dealing with my mother’s estate. These are supposed to be professionals and the advice they gave me, and expected me to pay for was often wrong and would have cost me sums of money many times larger than their fees. They did not care. It was not their money. Ultimately, I had to research and learn for myself the truth. I had to seek information in many and varied places to be sure. Nevertheless, in the end, the truth ultimately asserts itself. Always, be skeptical.
Bon chance.

RE: Truth seeker
I’m pretty sure the link is http:/brneurosci.org/co2.html – I really want to throw this mobile in the toilet… Who makes a “smart phone” that can’t copy and paste. Worse comes to worse google CO2 ir absorption saturation and it’s the first link. It’s more of an overview article and doesn’t go in depth, and I ran across a pro-AGW article (4th down in the search results maybe) that indicated that even if the CO2 wavelengths were completely absorbed, more CO2 would still make more warming(?)

RE: DirkH
Thanks for sharing your notes – great stuff!

It is correct as someone said above that the ‘precautionary principle’ is in fact Pascal’s wager. The logic is exactly the same.
It rests on the true proposition that the expected value of an outcome is its probability times its cost or return. So for example, the expected value of an event which will pay off 10.00, if it has a 50% chance of happening, is worth 5.00. That is what a rational person to whom the distribution of expected values is not important should pay for it. He should pay the same for an event which pays 20.00 and which has a 25% chance of happening.
Pascal now used this fact to consider the implications of belief in God, and in particular the Christian religion. The consequence of rejecting this, should it be correct, is eternal damnation. This is a very very large payoff. The probability, he argued, might be very small, even vanishingly small. The expected value will nevertheless be huge. The argument is essentially that there is no probability so low that the expected value will be low enough for a rational person to take the chance of disbelief.
To see that the argument is fallacious, notice that it assumes that there are two alternatives, belief or disbelief. The same logical situation characterizes the use of the ‘precautionary principle’ in climate discussions: the assumption is always that we face a choice between ‘action’ and inaction. It is assumed that action is well defined, its carbon emission limitation.
The argument however, as used, provides no way of discriminating between multiple alternatives, which is the real situation. In religion, we face a choice between being eternally dammed for not accepting Christianity, but also face the same thing for not accepting Islam. Most religions (though not all) forecast some form of eternal doom if one does not accept them. So the issue is not whether to belief in God, it is rather which God to believe in, and here you notice that not all Gods are the same, but that the principle appears to suggest that the payoff from believing in several different incompatible Gods is identical. Which really does not help the seeker after salvation one bit.
We see the same thing in climate. There are a variety of things we might do which have a bearing on climate and its evolution, including adapt, ignore, wait and see….and so on. The ‘precautionary principle’ does not tell us which of these are correct, and can be used to justify any of them. If the chances that adaptation measures taken early will save human civilization, then surely we should take them, however small the chance, and however much they cost, because the payoff is so huge. Consider the question of firing huge amounts of sulphur into the stratsophere. If there is only a very tiny chance that will save civilization on earth, we surely ought to do it? Perhaps standing on our heads every morning will save civilization? Maybe if we all wore black turtleneck sweaters and bowed in prayer to Cupertino every morning? Why should we not all pray in unison ten times a day, if it has any potential, however small, to avert the wrath of God and having Him burn up the planet?
We can think of large numbers of alternatives, posit a very low but positive probability that doing them will in some way save the planet, and then conclude that they are all justified. Let us say we argue, as some have done, that to launch a nuclear first strike at a nation bent on acquiring and perhaps using nukes has any chance at all of preventing nuclear Armageddon, surely we should do it? You can all think of truly idiotic military and social proposals which can be justified by the same line of argument.
The admission of the precautionary principle as a valid way of assessing social policy thus leaves us exactly where we were before we started out. We have huge numbers of competing proposals, resources mean we cannot do them all, they all have different costs and paybacks, and the PP gives us now way of choosing between them, just as Pascal’s Wager gave us no way of deciding which religion to adopt.
This is because the PP is not a logical method of arguing, but a rhetorical device to attempt to compel an emotional assent to one particular alternative. Its problem is, it proves too much. It justifies just about any harebrained scheme one likes to think of. There is no substitute for getting down to business, calculating the real probabilities costs and benefits of proposed policies, and until you have a reasonably decent idea why you are doing things, being very careful indeed, they may just make the situation worse. The fact that they have been justified by the PP means that there was little other real justification, so the chances of this last are high.

Skeptical Skeptic (08:54:32) :
In the case of anthropogenic climate change (ACC), PP only applies to the effects of those changes to our environment.
The consensus for ACC is solid. To say it isn’t is just ignoring the wealth of evidence in support of ACC.

Skeptical Skeptic, I trust science because it is self-correcting. You must also accept that science is self-correcting, if you trust science. (If you say science is not self-correcting, then science will be full of error. If you say science always gets it right without correction, then science is omnipotent and religious.) So then, science is self-correcting.
To bring this from the abstract to the real world, we need to make this empirical. What empirical evidence do you have for the variables and factors which affect the speed at which a science can and will self-correct?
Let’s say my guesstimate, for any field chosen at random, is that a consensus takes 80 years to be corrected, if indeed it needs correcting.
Can you disprove this guestimate empirically?

http://www.foodconsumer.org/newsite/Non-food/Healthcare/harvard_says_swine_flu_was_oversold_0201100713.html
A note on how PP can make a stampeding idiocy out of society.

Dear Skeptical Skeptic,
A quote from Albert Einstein:
No amount of experimentation can ever prove me right; a single experiment can prove me wrong.
That is how science is.
So, something big and obvious like the medieval warm period, simply blows the whole CO2 global warming thing away.

Skeptical Skeptic is assuming that Co2 must drive the climate because there is no other theory in place to explain. This does not make Co2 driven climate correct by default. He also uses the” no peer-review” argument even though it has clearly been shown to be corrupt. You say you are no expert, and I would have to agree. Posting links to sites that “prove” global warming is as “arm chair” as it gets. I have lived off grid, have you? I have spent more time out doors (especially in winter in Canada) than anyone I have ever met. Come winter camping with me and we will see how much you miss the comforts you currently take for granted. This is the reason for my previous questions posed to you. Have you thought your line of thinking through to it’s conclusion? What kind of world do you want? Gilligan’s Island? Flintstones? I love spending time out doors, but it sure makes me appreciate being able to come back inside and warm up now and then. I appreciate that my life expectancy is ~65 years rather than 35. You are probably a young lad (I am 46) and I pride myself on my eco-friendliness ( mainly because I abhor wastefulness) and try to make my world as sustainable as possible. I am saddened by the wastefulness of our society and that is where money should be focused and spent. Not to reduce a wonderful life giving gas known as Co2. Tell me why greenhouses keep there PPM level at 1000? And tell me what kind of world it is that you want?

“Skeptical Skeptic (06:53:20) :
If climate science is so wrong about ACC, then by extension, denialists claim that ALL science is wrong.”
Oh sorry! I misunderstood you! The sentence only wants to SOUND like logic because it is simply what you want to sell, in other words, dialectic materialsm, diamat, Hegelian dialectic. Now that’s not so bad. Surely suffices to get a green following. Or convince some journos to reprint and believe it. I see your point now.

Re: Skeptical Skeptic (January 2, 2010 06:53:20):
“The only way the denialists’ claims can work is to assume anything that does not agree with their beliefs must be part of some conspiracy.”
No, the ClimateGate evidence suggests self-interested group-think about the fundamental data and its interpretation.
“The denialists pattern is the same – rant and deny the facts, but present nothing in return. No alternate theory.”
1) Natural climate variation (PDO, AMO, etc.) to account for response lags
2) Cosmic Ray effects on albedo (Svensmark). Better Phanerozoic correlation than CO2 (Shaviv)
3) IRIS effect (Lindzen)
4) Land use changes including UHI
6) Wrong sign on IPCC feedback parameters (Spencer, Lindzen)
5) More
6) All of the above
“If climate science is so wrong about ACC, then by extension, denialists claim that ALL science is wrong.”
Bad logic. Compare consistent use of “denialists” to argumentum ad hominem (Attack on the Person), a classical fallacy. Compare “then by extension” to yet another classical fallacy, Affirming the Consequent.

There are occasions – reading Skeptical Skeptic’s posts being one of them – when I really question evolutionary theory. Case in point, it’s my understanding that researchers have been unable to find any measurable increase in IQ in recorded history.
Belief in AGW or as SS calls it ACC (trying to “reframe” the terms does not change the fact that what he’s talking about is AGW) has become an equivalent to religious faith.
It’s absolutely insane to think that someone who “believes” in science does not accept the very base of the scientific method that us “denialists” seem to believe in – namely falsification. It could (and probably should) be argued that Science is built on Skepticism and that any Hypothesis that cannot be falsified is, at its core, unscientific
It’s a shame that for so many, this is no longer a scientific debate – it is essentially a religious or political debate of the kind that people engage in drunk at 3 am… full of sound and fury yet in the end signifying, and accomplishing nothing
In the end SS will tire and leave, content in his faith that he has “done his part” to enlighten us mouth-breathing, knuckle dragging “denialists” and we will get back to our business… challenging, questioning and verifying the extraordinary claims of CAGW, and looking for the extraordinary solid evidence (anybody seen it yet?) that should be required to back it up.

“The only way the denialists’ claims can work.”
Now I’m confused. Is “denialist” the same as “denier” or does it denote some differences in ideology? Can the original poster clarify this distinction please?

Dear SS,
And don’t think for one minute that I don’t care about the earth. I am an environmentalist. Not only do I recycle, I compost. Not only do I compost, I grow things. Not only do I grow things, I FIX things. Not only do I fix things, I don’t buy stupid things to begin with.
Furthermore, I don’t drive an SUV, I give money to the Salvation Army because they adhere to the second tenet of conservation– reuse, and I don’t use compact florescent light bulbs because there is enough mercury in just one to poison 6000 gallons of water.
But, I have seen no real evidence that CO2 causes warming of the earth. Furthermore, climategate has shown that we have been lied to, as well.
Indeed, the earth is a very special and beautiful place. We need to take care of it. Nevertheless, unwise actions, even with good intentions can cause harm too.

Richard wrote
>>>>However, I am of the understanding that the Flynn Effect is one such well documented increase, at least in measured IQ over the last 50 years, or so. Of course, arguments are ongoing as to whether it is real or an artifact of the measurement procedure, or what.<<<<
Of couse it is an effect of measurement proceedure, they have to hide the decline.
I couldn't resist! ROTFL

An FYI for everyone. I have yet to have this question answered in any way shape or form from any adherent to the diaphanous theory. As for our view lacking scientific credibility, I suggest that everyone (especially Skeptical Skeptic) click on Lucy Skywalkers home page. That should give anyone who thinks we don’t have a scientific leg to stand on a sufficient mouthful to chew on. Are you secure enough in your beliefs to check this, Sketical Skeptic ? http://www.greenworldtrust.org.uk/Science/Curious.htm

My no regrets precautions? Ignore and throw out of power anyone persisting to spout AGW as a known net disease and etiology and its alleged cure as now proposed. Let them get on the next Comet.
Do the same with “Climate Science” or any resembling it.

Touche! Brilliant, Willis. I do enjoy your prose (and stats).

@NickB
In developmental/structuralist psychology, we are indeed advancing and evolving. The culture of 2010 is more advanced, more rational, more sophisticated, than the culture of 1500.
However, each time a child is born, that child has to retrace humanity’s development all the way up to the present day. Small children believe in Santa, which is basically a tribal stage where people believe in the magic of the witch doctor. Back in tribal times, that would be the highest stage available, so a child’s development would end at tribal, and they’d all believe the rantings of the witch doctor.
But in modern society, as children grow up, they pass through those earlier and older stages and go towards a rational, modern mind.
But development is complex, subtle, and nobody really knows how or why it happens. Plus we don’t completely leave behind earlier stages, so a person might be an engineer in their day job, but join some weird cult in their spare time. (They’re employing rational structures at work, but re-activating the older deeper magical structures in their cult).
A person is like a single walking evolutionary history. This is kinda like how the whole planet today has portions of humanity from all epochs. The tribesmen of the Kalahari who still live as man did 20,000 years ago. The core of Africa that seems to be struggling with tribal conflicts, warlordism, and establishing stable nation states. The Middle East which is trying to unite under one religion, after a couple of failed attempts at Modernity. China which is trying to make the transition from a single authoritarian order, to a free market economy. And Europe, which struggles with the joys and pitfalls of egalitarian culture (feminism, environmentalism, etc.)
All the old layers are still there. The difference between two people isn’t so much that one is rational and the other isn’t. Rather, one might be rational more of the time than the other (they spend more time in the upper stages).
The existence of multiple stages concurrently means that what might appear as one stage on the surface, might actually be an expression of an older stage. For example, one might still have mythology-structures active in their mind a large percentage of the time, but be living in a culture where we’re all supposed to be rational and where religion has been discredited. Consequently the mythological structures in a person’s mind might find something else to key into, such as environmentalism. The mythical mind then starts to cite “science” as it it were a mythical authority, just in the same way that in previous centuries they could have cited the mythical authority of god or the witch doctor.
One of the pitfalls of egalitarian stage in the West (it doesn’t exist much in the rest of the world—the Chinese leadership isn’t about to start spouting PostModern ideas—is that it goes to great lengths to be inclusive and non-judgemental, and so it attacks imperialism in any form. It attacks the notion that one culture, the West, could in any way be “better” than the culture of a tribe in Africa (even if that tribe does believe that sleeping with virgins cures you of AIDS)—consequently, and this is a really subtle twist… tribal thinking finds space to exist in post-modern culture in the West.
It means that the image of tribal “natural lifestyle” gains appeal. It means that that pre-Modern ways of life seem attractive to some groups in the West, even when Moderns point out, hey, that would be a nightmare!
This is one of the huge dangers about movements to reduce technology, dismantling capitalism, returning to natural lifestyles. It isn’t just that we’d be losing technology, it is that we’d be losing mental structures and culture. If you want to go back to agrarian technology, you’ll also be going back to agrarian mental structures. You know, slavery, sexism, witchunts, and other brutalities.
If you don’t have a modern world technologically, children’s minds won’t develop up to modern structures. They’ll simply stop at agrarian. All the things that the greens champion, such as “justice”, are built on top of a modern rational technologically advanced society. Remove those and you remove egalitarianism too. We’d be retuned to agrarian brutalities, perhaps for thousands of years.

Part of becoming a rational human involves not only acknowledging your bias, but more important acknowledging your humanity.
Your bias is about your stake, your money, your reputation, etc.
Your humanity is about
1 Your needs as a human. Humans have needs for things beyond food, like love, social acceptance, and pleasure. Without these things we fail to thrive.
2 Your biological remnants of evolution. The way our brains evolved left us with things like optical illusions, a tendency for errors in math estimations and a limit on how many steps of logic we can follow and the biggie, group think.
3 Your instincts. Instincts are largely subconscious. However, you can know an instinct by the feeling of well being that you feel when they are expressed. For example feeling hungry and then eating at the sight or smell of food, staring at a fire, moving our bodies to music or a more unacknowledged example is digging in dirt, especially in spring time.
Of course, just because an instinct results in a feeling of well being, it does not always result in actual well being. Although it must have in pre-historic times or it would not be here today. Learning can also affect instinct thus resulting in arguments over what is instinct and what is not.
I don’t think we can completely eliminate the above constraints on rational thought nor should we. Although an environment where there is enough food, social acceptance, some outlets for instinct and a bit of education does help. ( Is this the minimum for modern society?)
Nevertheless, merely acknowledging the existence of bias and the different aspects of our humanity allows for a glimpse of the truth.
Perhaps the way to begin any argument is with two questions: What is your bias? And, Do you acknowledge your humanity?

@JP Miller
Very much agree. Educators in the West, since the 60s, seem keen to instil PostModern values in the young, without first checking to see whether the young have learnt Modern values. The personal aspect of Modern values are things such as, free will, rationality, and the pursuit of excellence. It is about using your brain to win and better yourself and the world. It is about mutual respect, the social contract, the open minded pursuit of truth, the fair competition of ideas. When most of the people in society have these values, then in the economy, this can manifest as the free market.
But try to teach PostModern values before kids are grounded in Modern values, and you lose both, because PostModern requires Modern as a minimum. Yes, Modernity has its horrors, like nuclear bombs and oil spills, and people may wish to turn against Modernity, to distance themselves from it, but PreModernity’s horrors were even greater (mass slavery, tribal genocide, human sacrifice), as you say, so our basis, our dignified foundations, need to at the bare minimum be built on Modernity. And that means establishing a curriculum that teaches kids in early teens about the nobility and function of Modernity, how it works economically, as you say, and how it works in the individual, as personal qualities. Then later you can turn them into good little environmentalists, and they’ll be better environmentalists for it, for they can use all that reason and open minded pursuit of knowledge to fix problems.

Stefan,
Yes I wanted to say that as a human being I have a point of view, but also more.
I was really thinking about what and how I teach my children and how this is different from what they learn in school.
It seems that in 12 years of Honors classes, my children have been taught nothing about how to have a proper intellectual argument. You know, how to recognize twisted logic or how to spot and answer a pre-supposition in a statement, and how to respond to it.
An example is: Have you stopped beating your wife yet? There are two pre-suppositions, one that you beat your wife, and two, that you still do.
If you take the bait and respond to either one of the presuppositions, you do not address the other and you are left feeling beaten-up but are not sure why.
These kinds of difficult statements and even simpler stuff, like name calling, and threats, are rife in the public forum. Most people do not know how to dodge them. I’ll admit I am still learning too.
But these are the kinds of things that every voter should know. Every voter should know how to spot the flaws in arguments, how to look for bias, to look for the flaws in their own nature, and how actions should match the words… so that they cannot be fooled.
My children asked me, “Why do I have to learn algebra. I’ll never use it.” The answer is, so that you cannot be fooled by someone who does.
Another problem that I see is, even though schools teach the scientific method, they don’t practice it. In science class, students are given a lab with expected out comes. The students are graded on how closely they match the expected outcome. What is the message that they are really receiving?
Don’t even get me started on economic theory!
So, my post was really about: What are we teaching our children, and what should we be teaching them so that they can resist the onslaught of advertising, cults and even “experts.”
[REPLY – Gosh, yes. Recently I told a class (of 7th graders) that it was not my job to teach them what to think, it was my job to teach them how to think. ~ Evan]

See, Willis, what you’ve got us into? Discussing the foundations of what’s required to “think effectively,” whether a scientist or not… Really! Such a waste of time when we could be name-calling the idiots at CRU or NASA. Let’s get this blog back to the fun knuckle-dragging SS accused us of.
Interesting that since this thread has become a more broadly philosophical discussion relevant to the AGW debate that SS hasn’t had much to say to advance the thinking here — whether or not in support of AGW.
/sarc off
Hey, but this has been fun! Thanks for sharing, folks. Now, how about that weather, ain’t it cold out?

Stefan,
The paradigm/framework you’ve outlined makes a lot of sense both for personal and societal development… especially some of the more schizophrenic-seeming tendencies we grown-ups tend to exhibit due to, as you put it, “the existence of multiple stages concurrently” – As well as our own mini-evolutions from childhood to adulthood.
It’s an absolutely fascinating insight into an area of study that I am admittedly unfamiliar with. A big thanks good sir!
JP/R/Roger,
Thanks as well for the great posts. My apologies for derailing!

Re: r, January 3, 2009 (14:15:50) :
“I was really thinking about what and how I teach my children and how this is different from what they learn in school.
“It seems that in 12 years of Honors classes, my children have been taught nothing about how to have a proper intellectual argument. You know, how to recognize twisted logic or how to spot and answer a pre-supposition in a statement, and how to respond to it.”
You are right. Try one or more of these for the kids or for your own amusement and confirmation of your post.
Downes, Stephen. “The Logical Fallacies, Stephen’s Guide to : Welcome.” http://onegoodmove.org/fallacy/welcome.htm.
—. “The Logical Fallacies: Table of Contents.” http://onegoodmove.org/fallacy/toc.htm.
Holt, Tim. “Logical Fallacies.” Logical Fallacies. http://www.logicalfallacies.info/index.html.
Miriam Joseph. The Trivium: The Liberal Arts of Logic, Grammar, and Rhetoric: Understanding the Nature and Function of Language. Philadelphia, PA: Paul Dry Books, 2002.
“The Taxonomy of Logical Fallacies.” http://www.fallacyfiles.org/taxonomy.html.
(Sorry if this is a repeat. The first try simply disappeared.)
REPLY: [ When a posting “simply disappears” without even an “awaiting moderation” that means it was put in the SPAM queue (which is serviced, but more slowly…) often from ‘too many links’. We fish them out, but it’s a bit slower. -mod ]

analysis of the costs of caution and precaution did not provide any unambiguous results that would allow one to determine if it would be less costly to anticipate climate change or plan cautiously.adijuh.ru