Guest essay by Eric Worrall
Stephan Lewandowsky (of retracted Recursive Fury fame ) has just released a paper supporting the “precautionary principle” (h/t JoNova). According to Lewandowsky, the more uncertain you are about risk, the more you should spend to contain the risk.
Lewandowsky of course applies this principle to climate sensitivity – he suggests uncertainty increases the high end risk.
But now that Lewandosky has opened our eyes, let’s try applying his principle to other issues.
Witch burning. Just as there has never been a clear anthropogenic climate signal, so there has never been a clear demonstration of supernatural power. Yet can we be absolutely certain? Lewandowsky teaches us that the less you know about something, the more worried you should be. So for the sake of the children, we had better dust off those old witch finding books.
Flying saucers. There has never been a verified case of human contact with aliens. But there have been plenty of anecdotal accounts of alien encounters, many of which sound rather unpleasant. Lewandowsky teaches us that uncertainty is risk – can we be absolutely certain Earth is not being observed by malevolent alien beings? Better step up efforts to keep us all safe from the unknown.
I’m sure readers can think of other examples – chemtrails, rains of frogs, strange wart like pimples… it’s a long list.
Thank you Lewandowsky, for opening our eyes to what is really important.
Lewandowsky says, “Greater uncertainty also increases the likelihood of exceeding ‘safe’ temperature limits and the probability of failing to reach mitigation targets. The authors highlight this with the case of future sea level, as larger uncertainty in sea level rise requires greater precautionary action to manage flood risk.””
What a coincidence: Green Noah
Director Darren Aronofsky on Noah: “Noah is out saving the animals. He’s not out saving innocent babies. He’s saving the animals. He’s saving creation. In Genesis2:15, the first thing that God tells Adam to do is to tend and to keep the garden. It’s right there in Genesis. So it was very clear to us that there was an environmental message, and to pull that message out of it, we think, would have been more of an editing job than just presenting what was there.”
Aronofsky also spoke of the dangers of climate change in the modern era, bringing up the U.N.’s recent report and telling Amanpour, “We are living the second chance that was given to Noah.”
Skiphil comments on Lew’s fixation on ‘shaping tomorrow’s world’.
This is basically the idea that government knows best, and it is at the root of most of our problems.
The gov’t is in reality just a clique of wannabe social engineers, who make decisions that they believe [maybe even sincerely] will improve society. But if so, they are hopelessly deluded.
Consider that every person in this country [≈315 million] makes many thousands of decisions each day, from small to large; from swatting a mosquito to investing in a 401-K. These decisions are interactive with the decisions of others, and also with what each person learns through the media, through observation, etc.
Further, these are not just computer binary decisions of 0 or 1. No, each decision is prioritized constantly by every individual, and each decision is constantly adjusted. Some people call this the economy, but it is far more than that.
Think about that collective decision-making as a huge quantum supercomputer, with millions of qubits. There is no possible way that a limited entity like ‘government’ can make decisions anywhere near as good for society. Only society can make the best decisions. Government is not society; government gets in the way of the efficient working of society.
That is the basic problem with allowing government to control the economy, or to get involved with pernicious laws, such as passing subsidies for ‘green’ energy, bailing out banks, etc. Government cannot possibly do it as well as society can. Government only gets in the way, and makes society sclerotic.
Government is also composed primarily of self-serving individuals, who craft rules with one thought, and one priority in mind: how will this benefit me?
That does not help society, it only helps the Lewandowskys of the world. They do not want the best supercomputer ever made to prioritize things and make them efficient, they simply want to be our dictators. When you find out what kind of a reprobate Lewandowsky is, ask yourself: Is this the guy I would want controlling my life??
Blockquote tags are even better.
dbstealy,
Excellent comments, and in addition to the thousands of specific decisions made by each person daily, one cannot even estimate the vast number of non-decisions available to each person daily…. i.e., the numbers for all the possible actions which are not even consciously considered, but which still must factor into any comprehensive “decision tree” of all possible choices, reaches numbers that are truly ….. astronomical …. even for one individual. All the social engineers ala Lewandowsky simply have no conception of how vast the possibilities are once one tries to take account of all the millions (billions) of individuals who can potentially interact daily, weekly, annually etc. Ofc, to the Lewandowskys of the world more complexity or “uncertainty” is supposed to be a reason for MORE central control not less…..
We do risk cooling, however. If we’re lucky, we’ll get off with a relatively painless drop, back, say to 70s-era, but it could be much worse. Fortunately, the best way to prepare for it is healthy, vibrant economies powered by cheap, reliable energy. Win-win.
Not sure what he is doing in this topic area since he has not qualifications or expertise. Their logic is a little odd as far as I can see. Their basic premise seems to be that greater uncertainty increases the likelihood of higher impacts. Well that’s an “interesting” take on probability.
Assuming, for the sake of sanity, that uncertainty can be described in terms of a broader spread of standard deviations around a projected mean this does not increase the likelihood of higher impacts only increases the magnitude of possible impacts. However, by the same token it also increases the spread of “impacts” below the mean so for example if mean climate sensitivity is (say) 3 with a standard deviation of 0.5 then two standard deviations either side of the mean suggests that climate sensitivity has a reasonable probability of being with 2 to 4. If we change the uncertainty to (say) 1 then the spread of 2 standard deviations changes to suggest that climate sensitivity would be between 1 and 5. I suppose, in the twisted corner of the world that is Lewandosky’s mind this increases the probability of higher impacts, however, it also increases the probability of lower impacts, but they wouldn’t want to mention that.
Now consider the precautionary principle as coined in the Rio Declaration – The lack of full scientific certainty should not preclude taking actions to reduce impacts in the future. All well and good provided you don’t have fruit loops instead of neurons in your brain. Unfortunately, as you say, there are lots of potential disasters facing the Earth for which we lack certainty. I’d like to say that the authors of the Rio Declaration did not have this in mind, but I don’t think that is true. Unfortunately the World Governments had already been assimilated in the alien green movement know in Australia as “Earthians”.
The paper from Lewandonsky is one of the dumbest I have ever seen. But one should point out that the increase in uncertainty is in the direction of LOWER climate sensitivity and impacts, meaning his argument of increased risk and effects is a sleight of hand.
I think the science is getting more certain not less. Its becoming very apparent that CO2 has limited impact on the climate as it (CO2) steadily climbs and the temp stays even. Its even more obvious that climate models have no skill at prediction at all and are in need of a complete rewrite. The climate sensitivity to a doubling of CO2 is certainly less than 1.5C. Finally a rise in temperature of upward of 2 degrees C would continue benefits we are already receiving due to Natural warming. These things are accepted by scientists looking at the best data we have available, which is better than what we understood 17 years ago.
From a risk management perspective we have to look at all risks and take action on those risks that give the best return on investment. In order to do that you have to know that what your going to do is going to work and that you have the resources to perform it. If we were to try and prevent every risk and used the uncertainty principle in many cases we would have to guard against the possibility of opposite outcomes, for example CAGW causing extreme warming and or extreme cooling. Spending money on uncertain outcomes has to be the dumbest thing anyone could ever do. Fire extinguishers are not an example of this, the outcome of a fire is not uncertain. The likely hood of a fire is low on a per house basis but that has nothing to do with the outcome of a fire. A fire extinguisher properly used leads to a significant savings. The same cannot be said for unspecified, untested and uncertain “action” against CAGW.
I am starting to suspect Lewandowsky is perfoming an elaborate trolling spanning several years. Surely he will unveil his grand machivellian charade some day soon? Surely universities would not employ someone genuinely unhinged? It must be an illusion…
I am very uncertain of the risk Lewandosky poses to the world. That is because although I see no reason why anyone would give him credence, history tells me there are many in power who will believe him because they agree with his message. Therefore, due to this uncertain risk, much more should be spent to contain him. /sarc
Here’s a good one 🙂
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boltzmann_brain
The Boltzmann paradox suggests that Boltzmann brains – bizarre alien entities which appear at random out of thermodynamic noise – should be far more common than organised universes full of stars, planets and people.
Let me explain. Thermodynamics, the concept that entropy always increases, that hot objects heat cold objects, is actually a stochastic phenomenon. There is an incredibly tiny but nevertheless non zero chance that a cold object could heat a hot object.
This concept is invoked to explain the existence of our universe. One theory of how our universe came to exist, is that it is the product of an incredibly unlikely reversal of entropy, a winding back of the thermodynamic clock, on a vast scale.
The key to the concept of Boltzmann brains, is that such a large scale reversal of entropy, such as may have been the cause of the formation of our universe, is incredibly, unimaginably unlikely – so unlikely, that the probability of such a fluctuation creating a bizarre alien Boltzmann brain is actually significantly higher than the probability that such a fluctuation would create a large scale organised universe like the one we inhabit.
So science tells us that for every universe like ours, there should be uncountable “mini” universes composed of unimaginably alien entities floating in featureless high entropy environments.
The only way for such alien entities to survive, if they obey anything remotely resembling our laws of physics, would be for them to find a way to feed on lower entropy energy sources – such as our universe. So if there is any way for such an entity to reach out to our spacetime, to feed, then such entities should exist – and be accessible in some way.
Stephen Hawking once summed this up in a talk he gave – “Cthulhu might really exist” (from memory, he mentioned it in “a brief history of time”). Some spoilsports have since done some theoretical work which suggests Hawking might have been wrong, but hey, it makes a good story.
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21829184.400-string-theory-may-limit-space-brain-threat.html#.U0SdCq2SyWU
Perhaps we should be worried – all that uncertainty 🙂
A little knowledge is a dangerous thing, I’ve heard. Lewandowsky is, by this criteria, very dangerous.
Lewandowski is an idiot, & there are lots of lovely comments above, but it seems none of you took the time to read the item at Jo Nova’s. There, you would have seen that at the bottom she mentioned that the article was tagged as “parody and/or satire”!!!
You have been had, big time.
Jo let her readers, including me, in on the secret only after a bunch of people had commented. It seems we all should learn to check items at the source before we go off half-cocked. And at Jo’s site, we should take note of how she categorises each item she posts.
You are confusing JoNova with Scientists unmask the climate uncertainty monster
.. and of course, some insecure atheist has to belch …
Disgraceful. What in world is a psychologist (of sorts) doing writing a paper on risk and uncertainty!!! Where are the climate scientists out there. I’ll tell you all what is wrong with the way the consensus herd communicates. Butchers, bakers, candlestick makers and psychologists put out their totally idiotic crap on global warming and we don’t get any response from the clisci warming proponents. If it supports the meme, it doesn’t seem to matter. Here’s a bulletin for all you fellows: it’s precisely this attitude and your silence in the face of all this and your acceptance of smears and thuggish threatening behavior by the fringe of supporters.
Take a leaf from Anthony Watts’s notebook on dealing with those that violate the bounds ethical behavior, thuggish smears threats and ad hominems, palsie reviews of scientific articles… regardless of whether the perp is a CAGW proponent or a skeptic. To tolerate and worse, encourage and even support giving awards to fraud artists, thieves, collusionists, those who egregiously cherry pick from populations of data, gatekeepers and character assassins just because they are on the “same side as you” is what is wrong with your communicating to the public. If Trenberth, or Mann, or Wigley, or Jones or…. stepped forward and said this is unacceptable behavior, they would have made a huge stride in communications. The bad guys are diluting your message. The company you keep is its own communication to the public.
Maybe even state that this skeptic or that has a point now and again, like the points about the importance of natural variations, quiet sun, El Ninos, PDO, AMO that you ungraciously purloined from skeptical scientists. That is perhaps expecting far too much, but what a high quality communication that would be. You don’t need communications consultants, you maybe just have to remember what your grandparents probably said about this kind of behavior. Start by straightening out Lewandowski he is not a friend of yours.
Eric Worrall says: “I am not saying there is zero chance Climate Change might be an issue….The reason is that my alien invasion model, however scary, is not backed by any evidence. Just like models of dangerous anthropogenic climate change are not backed by any evidence.”
You are saying, very clearly, that you believe there is no evidence that greenhouse gas emissions might be a problem. To the point where main stream science can be compared to alien invasions and all kinds of other things so completely improbable they can be ignored.
In other words, the range of possible future temperature increases that might be caused by doubling atmospheric greenhouse gases (which we are well on our way to doing) excludes anything we need to worry about. It is not just saying that we don’t know if it might be an issue. Once you consciously decide to keep going down the road of increasing emissions, you are implicitly betting that it is not going to be an issue.
This is a huge bet, and you are going ‘all in’. You do that when you are virtually certain, otherwise you’d hedge. You aren’t hedging. That is certainty. That is saying effectively zero chance it is an issue, zero chance main stream science might have some merit. ‘Alien invasion’ zero chance.
Main stream science appears to be a little more circumspect, yielding possible temperature increases that range from potentially manageable at the low end to very likely unmanageable at the high end. Not certainty, but enough evidence and a wide enough range of potential consequences to suggest some risk management now would be wise.
Leo Geiger
Eric Worrall says: “I am not saying there is zero chance Climate Change might be an issue….The reason is that my alien invasion model, however scary, is not backed by any evidence. Just like models of dangerous anthropogenic climate change are not backed by any evidence.”
You are saying, very clearly, that you believe there is no evidence that greenhouse gas emissions might be a problem. To the point where main stream science can be compared to alien invasions and all kinds of other things so completely improbable they can be ignored.
Why is an alien invasion any less probable than the possibility we are causing dangerous climate change? In both cases, it is possible to construct a compelling model which suggests that dangerous climate change, or alien invasion, might be happening, such as my nanotech probe extrapolation model, or the Boltzmann brain hypothesis.
What is missing from all of these scenarios, climate change and alien invasion, is actual evidence that there is a problem.
Compare that to say the probability we will be struck by a dangerous meteor – we have actual evidence that meteors may at some point in the future cause tremendous loss of life, possibly in our lifetimes, such as the half megaton meteor explosion which occurred recently over Russia – thankfully a near miss rather than a city busting disaster.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/02/14/large-meteor-in-russia-caught-on-tape/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chelyabinsk_meteor
Yet meteor monitoring, let alone research into measures which might be useful to deflect a dangerous meteor before it hits, gets at most a few million dollars budget every year.
On the scale of prioritisation of scarce resources, I suggest we start with threats we can actually measure.
Egg on my face it seems. I have just followed the links to Bristol University’s website, & unless Lewandowski is pulling a late April Fool’s joke on everybody, or has deliberately published a false paper as part of his “research” into “denier conspiracist ideation”, he actually believes the c**p he has written.
Leo,
Why is it a huge bet when the IPCC admits they haven’t a clue if clouds are a positive or negative feedback mechanism?
Why is Eric accused of being all in when you conveniently failed to mention the growing support for adaptation strategies over mitigation strategies?
Why is Eric all in when, when historical reconstructions (before the crimes of Mann) clearly indicate a warmer planet a scant 1000 years ago?
Why are you supporting a trash paper that basically says; the less we know the more we should act?
Perhaps you’re projecting here Leo, but, it seems to me that you’re the one who is all in. All in for less, all in for death,
My new CAGW insurance. For the nominal sum of $100/month I will insure you. On accepted proof of you suffering from a CAGW event, you will receive your money back. Trust me.
Payable by direct deposit only to my Seychelles account.
Problem solved. Uncertainty removed.
Yes. Click on Tags: Satire&Parody
http://joannenova.com.au/2014/04/how-to-convert-me-to-your-new-religion-of-global-warming-in-14-easy-steps/
hiss-boom-baa
Eric Worrall says: “What is missing from all of these scenarios, climate change and alien invasion, is actual evidence that there is a problem.”
What is missing is any uncertainty in your mind that *you* might be wrong about that complete lack of evidence for climate change. Not even a hint of doubt. Just an unwavering certainty that main stream science is so completely, utterly wrong, doubling GHG in the atmosphere is as safe as betting against an alien invasion.