Noble cause corruption gone wild. People tend to think of scientists as being unbiased, in climate science, apparently if you aren’t biased, you aren’t doing useful work.
From CFACT: A new peer-reviewed paper published in the American Journal of Agricultural Economics, titled “Information Manipulation and Climate Agreements”, is openly advocating that global warming proponents engage in mendacious claims in order to further their cause.
The paper appears to openly advocate “information manipulation” to further the cause of man-made global warming and “enhance global welfare.”
The authors, Assistant Professors of Economics Fuhai Hong and Xiaojian Zhao, note how the media and environmental groups “exaggerate” global warming and then offer their paper to “provide a rationale for this tendency” to exaggerate for the good of the cause.
The paper was published on February 24, 2014.
The author’s boldly note in the abstract of the study that the “news media and some pro-environmental have the tendency to accentuate or even exaggerate the damage caused by climate change. This article provides a rationale for this tendency.”
“We find that the information manipulation has an instrumental value, as it ex post induces more countries to participate in an IEA (International Environmental Agreement) which will eventually enhance global welfare.”
The authors of the paper, Fuhai Hong is an assistant professor in the Division of Economics, Nanyang Technological University. Xiaojian Zhao is an assistant professor in the Department of Economics, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.
The complete Abstract of the paper is reproduced below:
###
The paper:
Information Manipulation and Climate Agreements
+ Author Affiliations
- Correspondence may be sent to: fhhong@ntu.edu.sg.
-
The authors thank Larry Karp, Madhu Khanna, Jinhua Zhao, two anonymous referees, and participants in the Conference on Global Environmental Challenges: the Role of China for their helpful comments.
Abstract
It appears that news media and some pro-environmental organizations have the tendency to accentuate or even exaggerate the damage caused by climate change. This article provides a rationale for this tendency by using a modified International Environmental Agreement (IEA) model with asymmetric information. We find that the information manipulation has an instrumental value, as it ex post induces more countries to participate in an IEA, which will eventually enhance global welfare. From the ex ante perspective, however, the impact that manipulating information has on the level of participation in an IEA and on welfare is ambiguous.
Um … you realize I linked to this – in comments here – weeks ago?
Lying works. Yeah, we knew that. That’s why they do it. Sooner or later though, the lies catch up to them.
I thought you guys patented that tactic years ago?
Anyway, as already noted by Mark543, Aphan and Kevin Hilde, most commenters here have misunderstood the technical language of the abstract.
Kevin Hilde says:
April 4, 2014 at 9:35 am
Your point is well taken. In fact, lying for the cause of global warming is nothing new. Left wing extremists in the environmental movement have been doing it for years…
Ah, I think I understand.
“Fuhai Hong is an assistant professor in the Division of Economics, Nanyang Technological University. Xiaojian Zhao is an assistant professor in the Department of Economics, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.”
A couple of economics types, eh? So remind me, someone, please, how has the world economy been faring, oh, let’s say for the last six or seven years, just as a quick check on the soundness of the thought processes displayed by typical economists?
Mmm. Thought so.
It’s O.K. to lie and cheat in order to invoke worldwide artificial energy rationing that amounts to genocide. Yes, if you are a psychopathic cult!
As several people have stated, it appears that something was lost in translation, or moreover, something quite sinister was gained in the translation of the abstract. The tone of the paper appears to be analytical of the philosophy and the effect of exaggerations, while the abstract is overtly neutral but due to the undertones of a single word (rationale, which has the implicit meaning of support or justification rather than “thought process”, which is it’s dictionary definition), supports the use of deception in science.
What they are really saying, is what liberals believe:
THE ENDS JUSTIFIES THE MEANS.
This obviates the need for honesty and legalizes lying, in the liberal mind.
Talk about air brakes.
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-w7SOKAyEXPU/Uz24r_Kdp7I/AAAAAAACktU/bDYk9wEtAxw/s400/PDA+3a+(4).jpg
Cool pic at the link.
Found here:
http://www.theospark.net/
Well, not sure about the paper, but it seems as though the authors are reporting on the effect of exaggeration/lying, not endorsing it. This is backed up by comments from some people who have read the paper as well.
It looks like these people are applying something referred to in economics as “principal agent theory” where an agent uses asymmetric information to convince a principal into a position for the benefit of the agent. This is something economists have theorized about, but don’t often have real world data. Applying this to climate science through the signing of an international environmental agreement, is something they can measure directly, although even in the abstract they make the point that signing up is one thing – actually implementing it is something else.
I don’t read this as supporting the activities when they say that the IEA’s are a good thing, only that they consider the agent sees the IEA as a good thing and therefore is using the asymmetric information (in this case lying about impacts).
Magma says:
Wrong. The truth just happens to be on our side, so lies are not needed. The Warmist ideology is based on a giant lie, and they have to keep lying in a desperate effort to prop it up. Sadly for them, it’s not working.
Stephen Schneider gave climate scientists the go-ahead to lie way back in 1988:
…like most people we’d like to see the world a better place, which in this context translates into our working to reduce the risk of potentially disastrous climate change. To do that we need to get some broad based support, to capture the public’s imagination. That, of course, means getting loads of media coverage. So we have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we might have. This “double ethical bind” we frequently find ourselves in cannot be solved by any formula. Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest. I hope that means being both.
True, he hoped they wouldn’t have to lie.
But still, most people embrace the notion that “you will have to pry my nice/improving lifestyle from my cold dead hands” and most people in the world know about media sensationalism, so they do not worry about AGW or even climate change.
The end justifies the means has just been justified by whatever means necessary.
The paper appears to openly advocates …
I don’t think that is proper grammar. Its OK to split the infinitive, but “advocates”?
Mark, I just read the paper — or the non-mathematical portions of it. You are correct, the authors acknowledge that “information manipulation” can boomerang and discredit the exaggerator. But their argument on that point is weird. Translating: If you get caught exaggerating how bad climate change is, then people won’t trust you when climate change turns out to be as bad as you said. That makes little sense.
Gore warns that “If Greenland melted or broke up and slipped into the sea — or if half of Greenland and half of Antarctica melted or broke up and slipped into the sea, sea levels worldwide would increase by between 18 and 20 feet,” the “maps of the world would have to be redrawn,” and hundreds of millions of people living in the world’s great coastal cities “would have to be evacuated,” “would be forced to move,” and “would be displaced.” Obviously, if any of that actually came to pass, Gore’s status as a visionary, world leader, and spokesman for “The Science” would go way up.
What makes this study deeply silly is all the formal mathematics deployed to package “information manipulation” as some great discovery, when we all know, as Jimbo points out, quoting Mencken, that fear-mongering and deception are staples of the political art.
Maybe the most important thing the study reveals is that in the People’s Republic, scholars must go through periphrastic contortions if they wish to discuss the uses and limitations of propaganda.
Think about it; not different from what Prof. Johnson of UWA is doing. Manipulating data and preventing investigation of data that may have been manipulated are much the same.
Talk about a confusing abstract!
“We find that the information manipulation has an instrumental value, as it ex post induces more countries to participate in an IEA, which will eventually enhance global welfare.”
Translate: Lying will eventually help the cause. Very progressive/socialist indeed!
Then they continue:
“From the ex ante perspective, however, the impact that manipulating information has on the level of participation in an IEA and on welfare is ambiguous.”
If we reorder the statements to a before and after:
We find that from the ex ante perspective the impact that manipulating information has on the level of participation in an IEA and on welfare is ambiguous.
However, the information manipulation has an instrumental value, as it ex post induces more countries to participate in an IEA, which will eventually enhance global welfare.
How does this work? Is ex ante before they print a lying article in the LA Times or NY Times and ex post the enhanced global welfare after it’s printed?
Are they telling the press that because it’s ambiguous, you may not be able to identify how it will help before you lie but, go ahead and lie because it will eventually help “The Cause”?
WUWT?
My understanding must be wrong.
cn
Honesty. I once heard someone say something to the effect that the problem with lying is that you have to remember what you said. These guys seem to have forgotten what they had said or hope that the people have forgotten.
We need to keep reminding people what the liars had said.
pottereaton says:
April 4, 2014 at 9:14 am
***
What are these guys? Maoists?
Fair warning. This comment is likely to be regarded as very un-PC. China has a lo-o-o-ng and dubious history of “editing” history dynastically. Each time a dynasty lost the “mandate of heaven” the succeeding dynasty tended seriously prune the surviving history to limit or modify views of the past. They are far from unique in this way, but probably have the best documented history of rewriting history to meet whatever current critical view of the past was dominant. The Egyptian civilization also was extremely thorough at excising past embarrassing or “inappropriate” episodes. Even at present, the only truly viable definition of “history” is: fiction with foot notes.
Peter Hanley: you suggest that the notion that “Its ok to lie to people for their own good.” is a ‘Typical left wingnut rationalization’.
I disagree.
Such a phenomenon is much older, and it isn’t left or any wing political. It’s thousands of years old, and it’s called religion.
Somehow we don’t seem to have grown out of it.
“asymmetric information” is that what bullsh#t is called now?
@Mark 543 et al: I’m with you. The abstract has been misunderstood. Here is my take on the abstract as written:
My translation is that “the tendency to accentuate or even exaggerate the damage caused by climate change” is ONLY effective if that accentuation or exaggeration comes to pass (ex post). True with every exaggeration…. “see, I told you so”.
If on the other hand, the accentuation or exaggeration DOES NOT comes to pass (ex ante) then the effect is rather ambiguous.
They obviously know their stuff. Most people who are not involved in following the AGW saga don’t remember the details of the BS being put out. Rather they just remember that they heard someplace it was bad but “nothing seems to have happened yet” so they just go on with their lives but feeling a little uneasy about it all…… “ambiguous”.
Others do remember the exaggerations however. And when they don’t come to pass, “The Little Boy Who Cried Wolf” is the model for those who do……. “you exaggerated or lied many times before, why should I believe you now”.
Why can’t these people use plain english. I consider myself to have a good comprehension of written English but to me the abstract is very difficult to interpret.
The problem with lying, is that once you’ve been exposed for lying, most people will not trust your word in the future. Liars suffer from the boy who cried wolf syndrome…LOL! When the alarmists start their fear mongering, people yawn, and say, ya, whatever. You have to win back people’s trust, and that won’t be easy.
Perhaps now publishing a research paper should also require a notarized signature indicating truthful reporting under penalty of perjury? Or perhaps if you publish deliberate misrepresentations of facts and information gathered using public funds, you should be charged either with fraud, or misuse of government funds.
When we tolerate scientists like the miscreant subject of this post, the public then lose trust in all scientists.