Eos: let's get the bankers and the climate modelers talking, but will the bankers be too realistic?

From Eos June 11, 2013, PAGE 215, comes a recommendation that the finance community and climate scientists work together. One wonders though, if people in the results driven financial world will soon realize that the climate models just aren’t performing, and drop such collaborations like yesterday’s bad stock tip.

Collaboration Urged for Climate Science and Finance Communities

Increased coordination and collaboration is needed between the climate science

community and the financial services industry, according to speakers at a 3–4 June

workshop held in Washington, D. C., by the American Meteorological Society (AMS).

The AMS workshop brought together business and financial leaders and climate scientists.

The financial industry needs climate data for a variety of predictions, but there has

been little collaboration between the industry and the climate science community, speakers said.

In a briefing summarizing the conference outcomes, Gary Geernaert, director of the

Department of Energy’s Climate and Environmental Sciences Division, pointed to the variety of climate data needs for different stakeholders. For example, catastrophic event

risk managers may need short- term predictions of extreme weather events, while

reinsurance managers need climate predictions on longer- term time scales. He said that

in some cases, currently available climate change information does not meet the needs

of these stakeholders. In particular, climate models often do not adequately represent the

likelihood of the most extreme events or take into account multistressor events that happen when different weather extremes occur at the same time.

Climate modelers and financial decision makers are different in many ways and do not

often interact, explained Tom Bogdan, president of the University Corporation for

Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo. However, “uncertainty, risk, change—these

are not concepts that are alien to financial decision makers,” he said. Variability in the

Earth system, from extreme events to changes in temperature to air quality issues, brings

uncertainty, risk, and change to the financial landscape, he noted. Building relationships

between financial decision makers and climate scientists is key, Bogdan said,

because “you can’t adapt to climate change by googling climate change.”

Full essay here, thanks to Dr. Leif Svalgaard.

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Kaboom
June 20, 2013 9:43 am

Let the bankers invest the live savings and retirement funds of the modelers under the assumption that their predictions are right. That oughta be fun to watch.

wwschmidt
June 20, 2013 9:45 am

lol – calls for cooperation between the fraudsters and the thieves, what could go wrong?
speaking of risk, I wonder how each of those parties is taking into account the chances of the other party sticking a knife into their back the first chance they get, since I put the odds of that happening at a pretty near certainty.

Svend Ferdinandsen
June 20, 2013 9:50 am

It would be an unholy allience. The finance sektor works very well with their bad predictions anyway, and when it fails too big, they are bailed out. To use climate science would just give them an extra excuse to fail.
By the way it seems that the world bank (i think it was) makes their own dodgy projections.

Sam Schulz
June 20, 2013 9:52 am

Carbon credits, the sequel. Find a way for big business to profit from AGW and you’ve done an end run around the public.

Patrick B
June 20, 2013 9:53 am

The bankers don’t care if CAGW is real or not or whether it can be proven. They only care if it can be used to get the government to subsidize projects the bankers can sell. The fees earned on the sale of limited partnerships in windfarms and similar transactions justify banker involvement. They don’t care if the models are right or wrong, only whether they can help create an economic opportunity that can be exploited.

Tim
June 20, 2013 9:57 am

The financial experts sure know a thing or two about dodgy computer models…

June 20, 2013 10:00 am

I read this as a reminder to the financial institutions that government bailed them out in 2008 and it is the explicit policy of the US Administration as well as most governments currently in power to reorganize their economies around climate change and green energy. Financial institutions wanting to be a part of the lucrative heads they win, tails taxpayer loses Cronyist public/private partnerships need to play along. Now.
It doesn’t matter to the Statist planners if the climate models reflect reality because that is not their purpose. The purpose is to change reality. And the reality to be changed is the nature of the economy and society and what the dominant beliefs are among future voters. It shows up in National Research Council reports every week. Charitable foundation releases. Chamber of Commerce releases. UN edicts.
I have JP Morgan Chase sponsoring the Global Cities Initiative with this vision and others sponsoring the Global Metropolitan Futures Project in lovely Bellagio, Italy. And all of this remake the world planning is relying on the AGW fallacy as an excuse.
There’s a lot of money to be made in being the preferred bond dealer with so much remaking going on. And that’s apart from the new Social Benefit Bonds being contemplated. Woe be to the intern who notices the model for all those future fees isn’t based in reality.

John W. Garrett
June 20, 2013 10:08 am

As one who spent a lifetime dealing with computer models, I am acutely aware that there’s nothing more fallible in the world

Bloke down the pub
June 20, 2013 10:13 am

When the ‘Occupy’ group were camped on the steps of St Paul’s cathedral, they stated two of their targets as bankers and action on climate change. They seemed to be totally oblivious of the fact that it was the bankers who were most likely to profit from ‘action on climate change’ from their margin on emissions trading.

stan stendera
June 20, 2013 10:20 am

The worst criminal gangs in the world joining forces. What could possibly go right.

June 20, 2013 10:26 am

I recommend reading Cityboy by Gerraint Anderson a nice background to another industry wrecking economies for profit; thinly disguising greed (Gore/Hansen), codes of silence, looking down on the rest of the populace (superior green planet saving morality), making things horrendously complex so everyone else is confused and cannot detangle the web of deception when a single line would do, saying failure to do as they say will be like (climate) Armageddon (Hansen), vastly inflated egos (Mann), making up figures/charts as it suits them (Mann, Cook or Lew) or to confund, flagrant breaches of laws (Glieck or anyone butchering the raw data), …err I am seeing the synergy here. Not a meeting of minds, more a meeting of blaggards.

Neo
June 20, 2013 10:38 am

So what’s bigger that “too bit to fail” ?

John
June 20, 2013 10:39 am

The bankers will talk, alright. They are one of the leading forces behind cap and trade, they will make gazillions, with just a tiny bit of each trade. Same as derivatives — they won’t be looking to see if there is any good there, they will just take their skim.
Are we really back to trusting the financial community, so soon after they crashed the world’s financial systems? If so, shame on us.

Resourceguy
June 20, 2013 10:44 am

Give the financial community another tax loop hole like Google got and they will whistle Dixie while wearing grass skirts—with climate modelers.

wobble
June 20, 2013 10:55 am

One wonders though, if people in the results driven financial world will soon realize that the climate models just aren’t performing, and drop such collaborations like yesterday’s bad stock tip.

Don’t count on it. Wall Street financed far too many flawed, alternative energy projects to think that they can be relied on to question the scientists – despite the fact that incredibly large amounts of money are at stake.

AnonyMoose
June 20, 2013 10:58 am

If only there were a financial way to protect yourself against unlikely losses. Some organization which would forecast a risk and gamble that your payment would cover your future uncertain losses. Some type of company which could insure you. They might have been considering such climate effects already.

mwhite
June 20, 2013 11:00 am

Bankers have to be careful
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-22954586
“Jail reckless bankers, standards commission urges”

JP Miller
June 20, 2013 11:04 am

Anthony, your question, “One wonders though, if people in the results driven financial world will soon realize that the climate models just aren’t performing, and drop such collaborations like yesterday’s bad stock tip” is so far off base I wonder if you understand anything about the world of finance?
Financiers are out to make money, as they should be. Unfortunately, because of government regulation, they’ve learned that manipulating markets politically is a far more certain way to gains than “predicting the future.” Which is exactly what climate scientists have done. Finance guys don’t make money predicting the future. They do it by identifying and quickly exploiting market inefficiencies, which are often created through political influence on how those markets operate.
The very fact that you wonder if there’d be salutary impact tells me you ought to stick to meteorology and climatology where you have some experience and expertise.

REPLY:
Oh, please. Results=profits. My blog, I’ll have any opinion I please on any subject. Tough noogies if you don’t agree with it, but you don’t get to tell me what opinions I can or cannot have, unless of course you are writing from communist controlled regime. 😉 – Anthony

Sun Spot
June 20, 2013 11:11 am

Isn’t carbon trading the result of bankers and climate modelers getting together ??

DirkH
June 20, 2013 11:13 am

There are a lot of similarities. Peter Schiff who predicted the housing crash in 2007 was laughed at, much like climate skeptics. The consensus -of the “financial decision makers”- thought house prices would never go down.

Sun Spot
June 20, 2013 11:14 am

Bankers took down the economy in 2008 and they are still behaving badly, get them together with climate modelers and you are asking for a disaster of the dolts.

June 20, 2013 11:16 am

Global warming and C02 issues are simply a method to create a TAX ON LIFE ITSELF . . all life forms on earth are CARBON BASED . . so if C02 is a by product of living then you have the broadest possible tax base . . life, energy, farming, travel, transportation, manufacturing, yes all of human activities and even animal behavior. Read about the history of taxes here . . see the keep trying to get more money which gives government more power over people.
http://articlevprojecttorestoreliberty.com/history-of-taxation-in-the-united-states.html

mwhite
June 20, 2013 11:18 am

“…we at Deutsche Bank Climate Change Advisors (DBCCA) have always said that the science is one essential foundation of the whole climate change investment thesis.”
http://joannenova.com.au/2013/06/more-signposts-on-the-road-to-the-post-climatic-oblivion/
“Big financial players that at one time had a large profile in the market, such as Deutsche Bank and Barclays, were once again absent after missing the event last year…”

rogerknights
June 20, 2013 11:34 am

mwhite says:
June 20, 2013 at 11:00 am
Bankers have to be careful
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-22954586
“Jail reckless bankers, standards commission urges”

Incidentally, I was the coiner of the phrase, “Too Big to Jail,” on a financial site, I think Seeking Alpha. (When I made this claim six months later, someone checked it out and confirmed it.)

Gail Combs
June 20, 2013 11:42 am

The World Bank has been in on the CAGW scam from the get go.
World Bank’s Influence at IPCC, straight from good old Patchy himself.
Extended Interview:
Climate Science Leader Rajendra K. Pachauri : Why, the people will see it. After all, let’s face it, my predecessor [at IPCC, Robert Watson] was working with the World Bank and he was getting a salary from the World Bank while he was essentially working for the IPCC. You could say that he was serving the interest of the World Bank, which a lot of people would criticize.
#1. Dr. Robert T. Watson, who was Chief Scientist and Director, Environmentally and Socially Sustainable Development for the World Bank at the same time he was IPCC chair.

…Chairman of the Global Environment Facility’s Scientific and Technical Advisory Panel from 1991 to 1994, Chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) from 1997 to 2002 and Board co-chair for the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment from 2000 to 2005. He is currently Director of the International Assessment of Agricultural Science and Technology for Development and co-chair of the International Scientific Assessment of Stratospheric Ozone. He has been Chair or co-chair of other international scientific assessments, including the IPCC Working Group II, the United Nations Environment Programme/World Meteorological Organization (UNEP/WMO), and the UNEP Global Biodiversity Assessment. Professor of Environmental Sciences; Director of Strategic Development, Tyndall at the University of East Anglia… WIKI

#2. In the Danish text, a secret draft agreement, the World Bank would get effective control of climate change finance. Copenhagen climate summit in disarray after ‘Danish text’ leak: Developing countries react furiously to leaked draft agreement
#3. IPCC is left out of the current talks and a World Bank report is used instead. See WUWT
#4. yet as the World Bank is clubing politicians at DOHA over the head with a 4-5C castrophic warming they have INCREASED loans for Coal plant construction from 100 Million in 2050 to $4270 million in 2010! The US finances these loans at between 12% and 20% Between FY 1993 & 1995, the U.S. contributed an average of $1.2 billion/year to the World Bank.
#5. And just in case you wondered about what would happen to all that US coal, Just like in Australia, Coal’s not dying — it’s just getting shipped abroad
And remember all the flak in the USA about the Canadian oil pipline? Well Canada is signing a one-sided Canada-China trade deal – Ottawa capitulated to China on everything.
The killer confession:

Top Senate Democrat: bankers “own” the U.S. Congress
Sen. Dick Durbin, [has been the Senate Majority Whip, the second highest position in the Democratic Party leadership in the Senate, since 2007.] on a local Chicago radio station this week, blurted out an obvious truth about Congress that, despite being blindingly obvious, is rarely spoken: “And the banks — hard to believe in a time when we’re facing a banking crisis that many of the banks created — are still the most powerful lobby on Capitol Hill. And they frankly own the place.” The blunt acknowledgment that the same banks that caused the financial crisis “own” the U.S. Congress — according to one of that institution’s most powerful members — demonstrates just how extreme this institutional corruption is.
The ownership of the federal government by banks and other large corporations is effectuated in literally countless ways, none more effective than the endless and increasingly sleazy overlap between government and corporate officials. Here is just one random item announcing a couple of standard personnel moves:
Former Barney Frank staffer now top Goldman Sachs lobbyist….
….Paese went from Chairman Frank’s office to be the top lobbyist at Goldman, and shortly before that, Goldman dispatched Paese’s predecessor, close Tom Daschle associate Mark Patterson, to be Chief of Staff to Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, himself a protege of former Goldman CEO Robert Rubin and a virtually wholly owned subsidiary of the banking industry. That’s all part of what Desmond Lachman — American Enterprise Institute fellow, former chief emerging market strategist at Salomon Smith Barney and top IMF official (no socialist he) – recently described as “Goldman Sachs’s seeming lock on high-level U.S. Treasury jobs.”….
Sen. Evan Bayh’s previously-reported central role on behalf of the bankers in blocking legislation, hated by the banking industry, to allow bankruptcy judges to alter the terms of mortgages so that families can stay in their homes.….

And as a footnote:
Watch Out: The World Bank Is Quietly Funding a Massive Corporate Water Grab

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