Elevated from a comment by Doug Proctor November 14, 2013 at 10:00 am
I’ve been thinking about what makes the warmist-skeptic fight go on and on. What I have noted is the constant difference in how each side places its emphasis, and that this shows up in its speech. Specifically, the skeptics use declarative, as in “this will”, “this shall” or “this does”, and, of course, its negative equals. The warmists use conditionals, i.e. words like “could” or “should” or “may” or “might” that indicate undefined probabilities and, in truth, possibilities, things that are determinable only after the fact.
The use of conditionals after 25 years is remarkable (here I make a declarative statement). Despite all the models and claims of correlation/matching of observation, we still have no “does”, “shall” or “will” in the IPCC or other CAGW programme. The dangers and fears are in the distant future, discussed only as emerging from the present, but still only becoming obvious in some, never-close-to-today, tomorrow.
This is not an academic situation. The human world acts on what it thinks, and it thinks through words. If the words are confusing, its thoughts are confused and its actions are not necessarily the best. The Mainstream Media (MSM) is particularly prone to confusion from the way they are instructed, and prone to confusing the readership by the way they combine emotional response with a misunderstanding of what the use of conditionals in a discussion means. The MSM think conditionals represent scientific caution, but what they represent is scientific uncertainty. The extent to which they are used represents the consideration of the likelihood that what they think “will” come, actually comes.
From what I see, there are four different types of (Un)Certainty involved in the CAGW narrative: 1) Computational, 2) Emotional and 3) Representational and 4) Ideological. (There may be more, or more subtle versions of these, but these 4 are probably close to the general breakdown.)
The IPCC 95% type is Computational Certainty, that is the outcome as proposed by models is consistent with input data and mathematical relationships between identified factors. McKibben’s certainty is based in Computational Certainty, as in “Do The Math”. It could also be labelled “Intellectual” Certainty, as it is based on the idea that nature is deterministic enough, and we are smart enough and knowledgeable enough to figure out what is going on in a usefully predictive way. The application of the argument by ignorance is applicable to this form of certainty: if we can’t think there is another way, then it must be the way we say. While naively reasonable, and a reflection of the arguments Sherlock Holmes was claimed to use in solving crimes, how it is used by the IPCC adherents is actually a perverse misuse of what Holmes did: Holmes used the concept to bring to the table non-current, usually non-obvious solutions, which would be then investigated closely. The IPCC cabal use it to dismiss the non-current and non-obvious).
The second type, the Emotional Certainty, is what roots Gore, the IPCC Summary and the 97% Consensus concept. With Emotional Certainty, the statements say that we are personally comfortable with the work done and where it ended – with the understanding that not everything could be done, but we believe to be the most important parts were covered. Outside the workers themselves, this comfort derives from authority, the trust in credibility of certain socially recognized individuals or groups. The MSM in particular seizes on this particular form of Certainty (regardless of how they, themselves, perceive it). Anyone connected with the IPCC is credible, therefore I am comfortable with what they say. Personal investigation in this regard is unnecessary, and indeed is a “skeptical” activity for those still not convinced, as it suggests a “better” understanding can exist outside what one gleans from just the Summary remarks. The notable history of a President misleading America about the reasons for going to war, or a Bernie Madoff misleading investors as to what was happening to their money makes no impact on the credibility of other parties: that was then, this is now (and these ones).
Ideological Certainty is what drives the eco-green. Greenpeace, the Sierra Club, Maurice Strong, David Suzuki, Friends of the Earth, the Waterkeepers, opponents of the XL Keystone pipeline: the arguments for CAGW are mere backups for other, anti-capitalist, anti-consumerist, pro-nature beliefs. This is not to say that those other beliefs are not valid, only that the principle position is not CO2-based warming per se. With Ideological Certainty, the certainty is that continuing the path we are on, the status quo, will cause socio- and environmental damage that is unacceptable (and may be catastrophic). The devil is in the general, not the detail: if we continue to consume and destroy – and fossil fuels are a fundamental part in this activity – the bad things will happen. Arguments about actual temperature sensitivity are not relevant. Whether we will experience 4 degrees or 1 degree warming by 2100, our societies are still on the road to ruin. It is this movement that must be stopped.
The fourth type of Certainty is Representational, in which what is projected is compared to what, at an initial state, is observed. This is where the skeptical position focuses. The skeptic wants to know the detail of what IS to happen and so looks to what HAS happened as a true indication (by pattern or observation) of how closely a predicted outcome has been matched by actual outcome. He does this so that he may respond – as he would say – “appropriately”.
The skeptic recognizes that responses are, and should be, proportional to the triggering event: a minor problem should not have elicited a large preventative measure if a small one would have sufficed. Energy – emotional, physical, social – is liimited and should be used wisely and sparingly if possible. To determine the details and hence the level of action that is appropriate, of course, one needs facts. And facts are not determined in policy summaries but in the field and the laboratory. Facts are not nailed down by consensus, i.e. group opinion, but by falsifiable testing. The skeptic, in his hunt for facts, is forced to read and question. Arguably having this desire for Representational Certainty is where the various skeptics or luke-warmers like Pielke, Lindzen, Watts and ourselves come in.
It should be noted that not all anti-CAGW narrative is driven simply by a desire for Representational Certainty before we act. Ideology, emotion and a narrow but intense trust in intellectual work also drive some skeptics. Certainly CFACT, Morano, the GWPF are seen in the eyes of warmists to be not just attacking the facts of the CAGW story, but the spirit: the obstructionism against CO2 reduction is perceived as anti-regulatory, pro-free market, pro-energy industry sentiments. Which, to some extent, is true. But all of us determine the course of our lives and support on the basis of multiple pulls and pushes, motivating factors that shift through time.
What makes the CAGW fight persist, IMHO, is that we argue about “Certainty” as if we are dealing with the same thing and each side is either foolish, perverse, or a paid shill not to recognize what each side holds. What I am saying in the above essay, is that we are not dealing with the same thing. I have listed four different aspects that lead to the decisions we make on supporting or not supporting CO2-related initiatives. The technical, dictionary-defined words are the same, but we argue because we are not using the same mental vocabulary.
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UPDATE: Maurizio Morabito (omnologos) observes:
Calvin and Hobbes explain why Climate Change alarmists are almost invariably rabid about it
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Gene Selkov says:
November 14, 2013 at 2:47 pm
“We are not using the same mental vocabulary talking about lots of things. Many words that once had common and widely accepted meaning have now been redefined within certain political and social groups.”
Amen, brother! Take the sociologists’ and psychologists’ relatively new meaning of the word ‘mistake’. It used to mean having done A when you had intended to do B, or in arithmetic getting the wrong answer. Now it has a woofty poofty meaning commonly used when someone is a drug addict, bank robber, and the like: they made a ‘mistake’ when, in fact they did exactly what they had intended to do. It’s hard to mistakenly rob a bank, unless you had intended to rob a trust company and got the bank by accident. Similarly it’s hard to mistakenly shoot up heroin, unless your incompetent doctor had intended to vaccinate you for small pox or your diabetes shot was switched.This word change was made by politically correct, neosocialist socio/psychs who wanted to take away responsibility for the actions such folks. Indeed, it should be blamed on the responsible, functioning, well-behaved majority!
@Gary Young Pearse: the word “misstep” is also common in the context of bank robbers’ careers and such. I don’t know if it is a full synonym of “mistake” or has its specific connotations, but I often hear stories about people who had been firmly on the right path, and then misstepped.
They can say all they want, the bottom line is what the temperatures will be doing going forward, and that is going to be down.
AGW theory is BS, and it will be proven wrong before this decade is out.
Although solar flux is high currently , it is not being reflected in the AP index which is very low or UV light measurements in the 0-105nm range still running quite low.
I believe the prolonged solar minimum is intact despite the blip in sunspots and solar flux readings of late, and this type of solar condition if it persist is going to result in a temperature decline going forward.
The internet is not keeping the debate going. It is simply a tool that we use to communicate. Without it, we would communicate more slowly, but we would still communicate.
I began studying AGW after Hansen’s infamous presentation to Congress in 1988. As a meteorologist, I had access to much of the literature in the journals, but there was precious little on the internet.. After about two years, I was highly skeptical and believed I was the only one. In the early 1990s, I attended a conference where I discovered that I was not alone. There were many skeptical of an AGW crisis and we had all arrived at our conclusions independently. We were not crazy.
The skeptical movement existed before the internet and will continue to exist if the internet goes away. While it facilitates the exchange of information and ideas, it does so indiscriminately for both sides, therefore…the outcome of the debate may very well be the same as if the internet did not exist at all. We will just arrive at that outcome sooner.
Jim Clarke says:
November 14, 2013 at 8:02 pm
So what are we going to do about it?
I’ve thought a lot about that, and can offer no remedies.
When my children were younger there were often occasions when together we observed a stupid, idiotic action by another individual. I would respond, “Look at what that person is doing, do you see the ignorance in that action(s)?” They would ask, “Why are they doing that?” Often I would just respond that I didn’t know. In order to appropriately answer their question (and yours, albiet inappropriately) I’m inclined to relate one of the most intelligent, intuitive, responses given to me by my 12 old following one of my “I don’t know” responses:
She matter of factly surmised, ” I guess it’s because you can’t think stupid.”
Scottish Sceptic: ‘There are no conditions in these.’
The phrase ‘that can be attributed’ sounds conditional to me, whereas ‘There are no conditions in these’ does not sound at all conditional.
Here are a couple of other statements without conditions:
• ‘So science is never settled’
• ‘Caution is the mark of a true sceptic’
The latter statement also contains the ‘no true Scotsman’ fallacy.
Scottish Sceptic, perhaps it’s time to re-think your moniker.
M Courtney said @ur momisugly November 15, 2013 at 7:54 am
In response to ferd berple at November 15, 2013 at 7:24 am…
Phew! I thought I was about to disappear then I read the second paragraph.
Reminds me of an old philosopher’s joke. Descartes walks into his favourite bar an orders a drink. After he has finished it, the barman asks: “Would you like another M. Descartes?” Descartes replies: “I think not” and disappears in a puff of smoke.
The IPCC used to make predictions [will] then changed to proposing story lines and ‘what ifs’ when the realised failure.
The reason why this fight goes on and on is simple. AGW as first told to us in the first IPCC report has failed according to observations between then and now. In any other science this would be game, set and match. But CAGW is kept going by massive funding, media backing, political backing and pointing to individual weather events over days or months. The climate as per IPCC and WMO is 30 years or more of weather data.
Ahhhhhh those were the days. The days when they were confident. Here are a few examples.
berniel says:
November 14, 2013 at 3:41 pm
A bit too much linguistic reductionism for me. reminds me of those who think they can solve Palestine co[n]flict lingu[i]stically. in this case, with AGW, I’m with Hume: ‘reason is a slave to the passion’
berniel,
I agree with your assertion and Hume’s quote is apropos.
I favor Ayn Rand: Reason is not automatic. Those who deny it cannot be conquered by it.
This is a dark age for reasoned thought and analyses. We face persistent adversaries on many, many fronts, as a result.
MtK
In my studies of the last ice ages, it appears that there was a warming period prior to the last ice age/s. This affected the gulf stream as more fresh water was drained into its current, pushing the sea water down. This was noticed by a nuclear submarine when traversing the polar ice and that there was no marine life in the fresh water that overlay the salt water. I can’t remember the depth but it was significant. Gud luck any way stripping away all the evidence and corrupting the data to prove their hypothesis.,
Jim Clarke says:
November 15, 2013 at 9:02 am
“The internet is not keeping the debate going. It is simply a tool that we use to communicate. Without it, we would communicate more slowly, but we would still communicate […] While it facilitates the exchange of information and ideas, it does so indiscriminately for both sides, therefore…the outcome of the debate may very well be the same as if the internet did not exist at all. We will just arrive at that outcome sooner.”
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Jim,
I believe you have vastly underestimated the power of the Internet and the critical role it has played in the collapse of the AGW inanity. I do not believe the outcome of the debate would have been the same if not for the Internet.
You are correct that the Internet allowed faster communications, and this was critical in allowing the speed of valid scepticism to exceed the speed of invalid action. But the Internet is much more than just “faster” communication, it provided near instantaneous communication allowing the networking of intelligence and resources, both human and data.
A case in point is the crowd sourced physical surface station survey the host of this fantastic site organised with hundreds of volunteers. This project would have been impractical without the Internet. The project totally blind sided the propagandists and forced the hurried introduction of the very valuable CRN stations. The project also resulted in the publication of the Fall et. all study that showed that the supposed AGW signal in surface station data (faster rise in Tmin than Tmax) was actually the signal of the worst sited and maintained stations.
You state – “While it facilitates the exchange of information and ideas, it does so indiscriminately for both sides”. I would argue that this is not the case. In the festering groupthink of twitter and facebook maybe, but not on the blogs. Here is where the propagandists lost. A comparison of the Internet to historical public debate would show that twitter and facebook are the coffee houses whereas blogs are the more respected salons of the 17 & 1800s. The propagandists tried their traditional astroturfing games on blogs and failed. They were seen to censor and post edit debate, which is social death for a salon. Those telling the truth have proved to have an advantage on the Internet. The internet is proving to be acid-dip to “narrative”. All of Soros dollars and all of Fentons men cannot put AGW back together again.
The old saying “a lie has got halfway around the world before the truth has got it’s boots on” while still true in the Internet age, but no longer relevant. The truth now arrives just moments later wearing hobnail boots with steel toe caps. It took 3 years and $300,000 to cook up the Karoly and Gergis Australian hockey stick tripe. How many hours did it survive on the Internet?
It is also said that the price of freedom is eternal vigilance. The Internet now provides that vigilance 24/7 for free. We do not live in the age of Big Brother, but rather the age of Little Brother. Little Brother is legion. Little brother is not just watching, but also recording.
It is in ignoring not just the threat of public freedom and speed of communication, but critically the threat of a citizen controlled and instantly assessable public record that the AGW fellow travellers have made their greatest mistake. The success of their plans and the efficacy of any fall-back exit strategy relied on the complicit lame stream media remaining the gate keepers of opinion and record. The Internet has destroyed all hope of this. In the lame stream media age “given enough rope” may have been the appropriate phrase. In the Internet age “given enough piano wire with spectacular, if messy, results” may be more appropriate.
Konrad said @ur momisugly November 15, 2013 at 5:08 pm
That must have hurt. Good Thing, too 🙂
What makes the warmist-skeptic fight go on and on? Version II
The absolute refusal of AGW proponents to acknowledge that Anthropogenic CO2 Emissions will cause an unprecedented and dangerous rise in global temperatures is WRONG, WRONG, WRONG, WRONG, WRONG, WRONG, WRONG, WRONG, WRONG, WRONG, WRONG, WRONG, WRONG, WRONG,WRONG, WRONG, WRONG, WRONG, WRONG, WRONG, WRONG, WRONG, WRONG, WRONG, WRONG, WRONG,WRONG, WRONG, WRONG, WRONG, WRONG, WRONG, WRONG, WRONG, WRONG, WRONG, WRONG, WRONG, WRONG, WRONG, WRONG, WRONG, WRONG, WRONG,WRONG, WRONG, WRONG, WRONG, WRONG, WRONG,WRONG, WRONG, WRONG, WRONG, WRONG, WRONG,
http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2013/11/16/nasa-demonstrates-unequivocally-that-global-warming-theory-has-failed/
What is difficult to understand about that?
And when the theory has failed, so will all the “solutions” to “solve” the “problems” based on that “theory”.
The essential problem in “communication” however is that the warmist’s talk religion based ideology and the sceptics talk fact based sanity”.
As I said before, you can’t fight a religion.
What’s more effective, but tiresome at some times, is to fight the fraud behind the religion.
Don’t pay CO2 taxes and if you don’t have any choice perform your payment under protest.
In the middle of all the internet communication of postings, e-mail, sms and social media I have resorted to the pen, paper and a post stamp.
1. I pay my electricity bill minus the climate BS tax which I transfer in a separate payment under protest and send a copy to the Government.
2. Don’t buy anything from a company that has bent over to the Green doctrine and let their management know why you no longer do business with them.
3. I have done this consequently with Apple Computer and even with Al Gore on their board of directors they have clearly retrieved from he “save the planet” front.
Alarmism doesn’t sell consumer products to non warmists.
4. Don’t fuel up your car with ethanol, don’t participate in any subsidized government scheme because we all know other people have to pay the bill, mostly those who can’t afford it. Protest any green initiative within your community and let your politicians, your local media outlets, radio and broadcasting stations and energy providers know why you are fed up with their crap on a regular. A standard letter with a short summery of verifiable facts and graphs send by the thousands creates a second wave of opposition and it shakes people awake in unexpected places.
The most time consuming:
5. Over the past years I have cut out news paper articles which didn’t have a forum response opportunity or blocked my postings. I underlined the BS remarks in the article with and orange marker, numbered them, made a list with web links that contained real hard facts and wrote a short letter warning them if they continued to print BS not improving on their investigative journalism, I would consider legal measures.
The last last line of any letter to the press: I regard the extremely biased and incorrect press reporting as a threat to my future and my personal freedoms as the content of your article supports devastating and above all very costly Government measures that directly affect my personal life but yours too.
That’s why I would like to remind you of the fact that it is the primary role of the free press to protect the democratic and civil rights of the people, your readers.
In short you have a serious personal stake in this.
In our modern times of Internet and social media, not many letters are send any more and I can tell you that it has effect. I have received calls by several media outlets and had the opportunity to have some interesting discussions.
It all comes down to the notion that Climatism is part of the far left Progressive movement, designed to put more and more power over Other People in the hands of the Government. Jonah Goldberg referred to Progressivism as a fascistic political doctrine. Everything Warmists push finds power over people, companies, and the private economy increasing. It finds more money moving from the private sector to the public sector. It finds government owning, or at least heavily running/regulating, the private sector. It is part of turning the USA, and the world, into a secular entity which pays homage to government.
Yet these same Warmists rarely practice what they preach. How many private planes were flown to COP19? How many of these 10K+ people used fossil fueled travel, and then tell us fossil fuels are Evil? If they truly believed in the mule fritters they push, they’d change their own lives. They don’t and won’t.
Yeah, saving the planet requires some concessions and of course fully justifies buck loads of hypocrisy. They are criminals behaving like Robin Hood.
It seems to my eyes that the objective is simply control via Green totalitarianism. This control can arise out of fear. This control can arise out of manipulation of science. And importantly, this control can consolidate wealth and power in fewer and fewer hands. I asked Lester Brown at his Commonwealth Club appearance in San Francisco after he said we have seven years to solve the Carbon Crisis-if this meant Green Totalitarianism/Maoism-given the global emergency. His interesting response did not touch the question and the commentator moved on to another question. He said there were three responses: the 1942 all out top down solution; a bottom up solution; and a kind of muddle through solution. Maurice Strong of course and others have their agenda and I suspect it is essentially totalitarian.