The answer to your question is in your article.
Guest opinion by David Hoffer
Carol, in your recent CNN opinion piece, the headline was “Why are we still debating climate change?”. The very first statement in the article that followed was “There is no debate”.
The answer to your question is actually right in your own article. I’ll get to that in a bit, please bear with me. I wanted to touch on your claim that there is no debate first. I’d like you to consider the following statement, which I provide with no intent of malice whatsoever, only as a means of making a point.
Carol Costello is stupid. There is no debate.
Now what would you think if you saw this in print, followed by a long explanation as to what is wrong with people who don’t agree, and a refusal to examine any facts related to the accusation? I imagine you’d be miffed. I imagine also that any examination of the facts would prove me wrong, I seriously doubt that such a statement would stand up to any fair debate of the matter. Which brings me to a question Carol:
If the facts supporting Climate Change are so obvious, should not debating the facts of the matter strengthen those facts? Just as you would be eager to prove that you are not, in fact, stupid, should you not be equally as eager to prove your opinion by engaging in factual debate?
While you ponder that, and keeping in mind that I did say the answer to your question is in your article and I would get to that, let’s examine the only fact upon which your argument rests, which is that there is a consensus among 97% of scientists. Well Carol, I read that study. Did you? I’m guessing not.
Carol, that study was done by Margaret Zimerman, who sent the survey to 10,257 Earth Scientists. Of those, 3,146 responded. Of those, Ms. Zimmerman excluded all but 77. That fact alone should have your journalistic instincts on high alert. But it gets worse. The two questions which lead to the 97% finding were:
Q1: “When compared with pre-1800s levels, do you think that mean global temperatures have generally risen, fallen, or remained relatively constant?” 76 of 79 (96.2%) answered “risen.”
Q2: “Do you think human activity is a significant contributing factor in changing mean global temperatures?” 75 of 77 (97.4%) answered “yes.”
The problem here Carol is that they should have gotten 100% to both questions. The earth has been warming since the Little Ice Age which was 400 years ago. So obviously the answer to the first question would be “risen” even if human influence was zero. As for the second question, you may be surprised to learn that all but a tiny fraction of skeptics agree that rising temperatures are, in part, due to human activity. You see Carol, the debate about climate change is not a simple matter of “yes” or “no”. It is much more nuanced than that. There are questions relating to order of magnitude of change, endangerment related to any change that does occur, and in regard to strategies of mitigation versus adaptation. That study did nothing to determine consensus opinion on any of the central matters of the climate debate. It is not only contrived, but nearly meaningless. But I digress.
You go on to quote studies categorizing the population. I said I’d show you the answer to your headline question in your own article. Well, here it is. Your article goes on to quote results from Anthony Leiserowitz, who categorizes the population as follows:
- Alarmed (16%)
- Concerned (27%)
- Cautious (23%)
- Disengaged (5%)
- Doubtful (12%)
- Dismissive (15%)
Well that hardly seems like a consensus. In fact you go on to claim that the Dismissives are a powerful, well funded, well organized lobby group who are muddying the debate. Well Carol, if the facts are so powerfully on one side of the debate, why begin your opinion piece by categorically insisting that there is no debate? If there is no debate, how is it that only 16% of the citizenry are alarmed? Why, by the definitions in your own article, do 82% of the people think that climate change is something that won’t, for various reasons, have a direct effect on their lives?
But most importantly Carol, if you want to change their minds, would not an open and honest debate of the facts be your most powerful weapon? Are you going to let me accuse you of being stupid, or would you like to prove me wrong?
Lastly Carol, you sum up your article on this statement:
“The good news is, those uninformed minority voices are being quieted by nature and by those who have powerful voices.”
Well Carol, on that second point, I will allow that you are correct. Powerful voices (like yours) are eager to stifle the debate. Oddly, your own article points out the importance of having one if you want the facts as you see them to prevail. Will you use your powerful voice to that end? Or shall we call you stupid, insist there is no debating the matter, and call it a day?
But more importantly Carol, the first part of your statement is wrong. It is a simple matter to see that when one looks at the data, all the predictions of the “consensus” science have failed. Arctic ice retreat has stopped, and Antarctic ice has hit record levels. On a global basis, hurricanes and tornadoes have declined in both frequency and severity. According to the temperature records kept by the “consensus” scientist themselves, the earth hasn’t warmed in close to two decades, despite ever rising levels of CO2. Nature in fact is taking sides in this debate, and not the side you seem to think.
Even the United Nations IPCC, which is consensus climate science central for the world, now admits in their recent report (IPCC AR5) that the climate models themselves are wrong. It is their expert opinion that sensitivity to CO2 lies well below the model estimates. What are the models based upon Carol, if not the science? And if the best scientists in the world, in their capacity as advisors to the United Nations and world governments alike, are collectively stating that the models and the science the models are built on are in doubt, does that not deserve public debate?
Even among the “consensus” scientists themselves Carol, there is now considerable doubt about the science. Does that not give you pause to reconsider your position?
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klem says: @ur momisugly February 26, 2014 at 2:13 am
Carol and her producers know full well that climate alarmism is a political position, a left position….
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
How about we leave out the left/right crap and say it like it really is.
“climate alarmism is a political position, a
leftTOTALITARIAN position.”The totalitarians do not care what route they take to power as long as it gets them what they want POWER and MONEY.
Ask yourself this – How many laws have the Republicans or the Democrats repealed?
Carol Costello naively wonders “Why are we still debating climate change “ If she had done her proper research before writing her article she would have found :
The global annual temperature anomalies have not risen now for some 17 years. The Northern Hemisphere temperature anomalies [ hadcrut 4nh] have declined since 2004 [ 10 years]. The annual temperature anomaly for United States has been declining for 1 5 years. Winters have been getting colder for 15 years now in North America. Winters like we used to have 30 years ago are returning as we have seen with the current severe winter. This colder winter weather spills over into a colder spring in Canada and colder spring in United States . Fall is also getting colder in United States. In summary the weather is getting colder for 7 months of the year, flat for another two and only slightly warming during three months. The same climate is being predicted to 2020 and possibly the next 2-3 decades .
Yet the opposite was supposed to be happening . We were supposed to get unprecedented warming and warmer winters .
The questions that she should be asking is: why is the debate not more open and widely discussed? why are these global warming scientists so far off in their science ?why are we spending so much money to chase a problem that does not even exist.when we have all these financial restraints?
David Hoffer,
I suggest you read the comments make corrections as needed and polish up this letter then send it to Fox News, or the Wall Street Journal or possibly Delingpole at Breitbart.
btw, policycritic… are you the one that left insightful comments on economics and money over at Real Science? I’m glad to see there is at least one other person in this world besides me that understands “modern money” AND is skeptical of AGW-Climate Change. Most of my friends and associates that understand the money system well are politcal progressives in academia and believe in CAGW-Climate Change.
Consensus is not science. There was once a consensus that the world was flat.
If anyone else is curious, I’m referring to the comments section here:
http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2014/02/21/obama-hoping-to-double-the-national-debt-before-he-is-impeached/#comments
Yeah, that was me. Your friends and associates in academia aren’t applying the same operational clarity to AGW-Climate Change that they apply (accurately in my view) to actual federal government monetary/currency operations, which are Byzantine at best because of all the left-over laws from the gold standard days gumming up the works. I would suggest the reverse is often true here, but this is a smarter crowd, especially the ones who have hard science as a background. Tough to convince–not that I’m peddling–but willing to listen to a cogent argument when the subject comes up occasionally.
I’m not proud of it but I hijacked a thread here about three weeks ago with long explanations you might enjoy (note rgbatduke’s praise of Keynes statistical skill). It’s taken an hour to locate it. My regret at disrupting the thread involves Dr. Svalgaard who was leading most of the commentary that was the topic of the post, and at which he’s an expert. I mention this because a few months ago I asked Svalgaard why if a particular chart he referenced showed 400 years of correlation between sun spots and earth’s climate, why wouldn’t he say sun spots were a cause. (I’m paraphrasing badly, but it was something like that.) He answered because we don’t know the physics, if you don’t know the physics, you can’t say it’s the cause. Correlation doesn’t count. It was just the knock on the head I needed to apply the same thinking I use with modern money operations: you better know how it works. Not supposition. Not politics mixed in with what you want it to be. Not wishful thinking, or fear mongering. How it works. The dreary 1-2-3.
“Your friends and associates in academia aren’t applying the same operational clarity to AGW-Climate Change that they apply (accurately in my view) to actual federal government monetary/currency operations…”
That is exactly what I’ve tried to tell them.
IMO, the people who best understand the monetary system are the Post Keyneisans, and from my experience they tend to be political ‘progressives’. On the other hand, the people who best understand the climate system, or best understand how little we understand about it, from my experience they tend to be political ‘conservatives’.
It’s a bizarre world I try to straddle.
“Why are we still having a debate about climate change” ?[ really global warming the way the alarmist really define it]
Here is why. Winnipeg, Manitoba is experiencing the third coldest winter in more than a century. You say one local winter does not make a trend . Yes it does when the trend of the winters has been getting colder since 1998 or 16 years and colder winters are happening over entire North America and the Northern Hemisphere as well
Yet winters were supposed to get warmer. The debate should be active and vocal because what was predicted is not happening and many parts of the country will not be prepared for the floods that will come from the spring melt or the tornadose that could arise soon because of the cooler than normal spring temperatures that will collide with the warm moist gulf air. Articles like Carol’s do not help as they give the public a false sense of what to expect , namely global warming induced climate change .
http://www.winnipegsun.com/2014/02/26/winnipeg-experiences-third-coldest-winter-in-more-than-a-century
If you’re in academia, I feel for you in that regard. Look what herkimer wrote just after you: “The debate should be active and vocal because what was predicted is not happening.” The Met Office didn’t warn the Brits that they would be flooded this winter. It told the Brits it would be clear sailing. Four feet of water is clear sailing? The Toronto climate modelers didn’t warn Manitoba that it would be frozen stiff. Who pays for their farming costs as a result of a lack of preparation? There are real costs to this.
Did you read the infrared astronomer on Real Science?
policycritic,
No need to hijack this thread too! 🙂 but maybe I’m about too … Just wanted to say that I read through your entire exchange that you linked me to. You’ve got an exceptional grasp of monetary operations. I agree with 99% of what you said. The 1% is just minor quibbles that’d we probably agree on if given the chance to elaborate. Here are the minor quibbles if you’re curious:
1) You said: “Inflation is caused when there is full employment, everyone has money in their bank accounts, and there aren’t enough goods and services produced in the economy to meet the need. The classic definition. Or it’s caused by cost or supply shocks, like a rapid rise in the price of oil…”
Those are definitely the two traditional terms of inflation; a.k.a demand-pull and cost-push. My quibble is that inflationary pressure can also build up prior to full employment: as we *approach* full utilization of resources, a) some bottlenecking can have inflationary effects, and b) upward wage-price ratcheting becomes more prominent.
2) You said: “what really brought down inflation and improved the economy was not Volker but Reagan’s massive deficit spending”
My understanding is that deregulation of natural gas was an important component that ‘broke the back of opec’ … I think you even mentioned this in an earlier comment.
3) You said: “There are five countries in the world that are 100% monetarily sovereign.”
This one I’m confused about. Besdies Eurozone countries, aren’t (almost) all other countries Monetarily Sovereign? What I suspect you’re implcitly saying is that a country is not Monetarily Sovereign if they are maintaining a pegged exchange rate, e.g. China. I suppose in a truely technical sense you’re correct, but so long as that countrt runs a trade surplus then they are – for all intents and purposes – Monetarily Sovereign. My reasoning here is that a trade surplus leading to an inflow of foreign currency (particularly USD) far exceeding outflow permits the public policy space to both maintain the peg AND conduct any appropriate expansionary fiscal policy in their sovereign currency. i.e. China has an unlimited ability to utilize it’s Yuan. The only constraint would be a FOREX attack on their peg, but so long as they have a sufficiently large inflow of USD, they can easily maintain the peg.
“Did you read the infrared astronomer on Real Science?”
I don’t know what this is.
Btw, how do you quote someone else’s text in this forum? Thanks!
SBD,
If you want to quote someone this way, you have to do it the old-fashioned way, via html tags.
Select the type you want to quote. Copy it. Then type the following at the beginning of a new line without the spaces I had to add to avoid block-quoting here!
Put your cursor between the >< and paste.
Otherwise, you can quote them with "".
Let’s see if this works:
>Put your cursor between the<
Any thoughts on 3) above, regarding Monetary Sovereignty?
SDB (sorry I transposed your initials in previous post)
Oh-oh. The html didn’t copy. Okay. I’ll try it this way. Look at this site: http://www.bignosebird.com/docs/h31.shtml
It explains the blockquote tag. You type: <no spaceblockquoteno space> then add your quoted text. At the end, you complete it with: </no spaceblockquoteno space>
Let’s see if that works.
maybe this will work:
Ok, this should work…
Got it 🙂 Thanks!
SDB,
The Real Science article is IR Expert Speaks Out After 40 Years Of Silence : “IT’S THE WATER VAPOR STUPID and not the CO2″
Also scroll down for additional remarks by Sanicola. You can show that to your academics. 😉
SDB,
Now to the meat. Of course I agree 100% with your quibbles. I was trying to write one paragraph and found myself pounding the keys into paragraphs and paragraphs. I didn’t want to get into the weeds. Although I think people should know that it was Jimmy Carter who deregulated natural gas in 1978 that broke the back of OPEC. Warren Mosler jokes that he probably didn’t know what he was doing. Carter did. As Walter Cronkite said in 2003, of all the presidents he covered–google it–Carter was the only president that he had to take two days to prepare to interview. Cronkite said Carter was without doubt the smartest president he ever interviewed of the seven he covered. Cronkite said Carter’s grasp of the issues, both macro and micro, was prodigious, and he had to study to keep up. Natural gas was $0.30 before it was deregulated. It soared to $2.70 or something after deregulation, which was an embarrassment, but it was 10X less than the cost of oil. Power plants retooled. Carter lost the election. Reagan got the praise.
And yes, I am saying that a monetarily sovereign country does not maintain “a pegged exchange rate, e.g. China.” As you write: “China has an unlimited ability to utilize it’s Yuan. The only constraint would be a FOREX attack on their peg, but so long as they have a sufficiently large inflow of USD, they can easily maintain the peg.” Which they do when they purchase treasury securities.
policycritic,
Thanks for the link. I found the IR expert piece a little bit ago and read through it and all the comments. I found it interesting but honestly it’s too deep into the weeds for me. I can’t judge the point-counterpoints… I’m merely an M.A. Economics student who probably spends too much time reading about climate science.
Very interesting stuff on Jimmy Carter. Now I want to learn more about him. Cue some violent reactions from the political-Right 🙂
SDB,
I’m still at the stupid stage. I am completely agnostic politically. I’m still at the stage of wanting to understand how things work. Four years ago I believed we borrowed from China (as if there were a factory in downtown China manufacturing dollar bills that we borrow) and I swallowed all the other nonsense the idiots who pass for financial geniuses on TV were selling me. Now I have to contend with people who understand the monetary system thinking that translates into intimate knowledge of the infrared where CO2 absorbs earth’s radiated heat and causes the greenhouse effect they are basing their conclusions on. Except they are scientifically ignorant, do not understand how gases work, and couldn’t explain the processes (like the greenhouse effect) if their lives depended upon it.
BTW, you won’t find anything useful or significant on Carter. He was maligned because of the Camp David Accord. That’s why he lost the election at the time. Menachem Begin was pissed.
Do you actually deal with many people of this sort?
What I was referring to above in my comments with David Hoffer is my casual interactions with classmates, professors, friends, etc. … I don’t think any of them actually believe they have intimate knowledge of whats going on in climate science. Rather, they accept the mainstream CAGW narrative without much critical thought.
OP Quote:
“Q1: “When compared with pre-1800s levels, do you think that mean global temperatures have generally risen, fallen, or remained relatively constant?” 76 of 79 (96.2%) answered “risen.”
Q2: “Do you think human activity is a significant contributing factor in changing mean global temperatures?” 75 of 77 (97.4%) answered “yes.”
The problem here Carol is that they should have gotten 100% to both questions. The earth has been warming since the Little Ice Age which was 400 years ago. So obviously the answer to the first question would be “risen” even if human influence was zero.”
Actually the question isn’t explicit enough to come to this conclusion as pre-1800s levels could mean any time between the formation of the earth and 1800.
Obviously the earth has been much colder and much warmer within this time frame but on average much warmer so the answer i would give would be “fallen”.
“People only insist that a debate stop when they are afraid of what might be learned if it continues.”
– George Will