A Red Team to end the climate wars: fun but likely to fail.
By Larry Kummer. From the Fabius Maximus website.
Summary: Team Trump has proposed a Red Team project to resolve the climate debates. It’s an exciting promise of an easy solution to the public policy gridlock. It will make the situation worse.
The climate debate has — like so many other policy debates — become dominated by a proposal by Team Trump. They suggest some kind of “Red Team vs. Blue Team” debate about climate change. These articles show there is little agreement about the structure or goals of the project.
- E&E News: “Pruitt will launch program to ‘critique’ climate science.”
- NY Times: EPA to Give Dissenters a Voice on Climate, No Matter the Consensus.
- Niskanen Center: Can a Red Team Exorcise the Climate Debate?
What is “Red Teaming”?
To understand these proposals, first turn to the Red Team Journal (founded 1997). Start with “A Balanced View” of Red Teaming.
“Defined loosely, red teaming is the practice of viewing a problem from an adversary or competitor’s perspective. The goal of most red teams is to enhance decision making, either by specifying the adversary’s preferences and strategies or by simply acting as a devil’s advocate. Red teaming may be more or less structured, and a wide range of approaches exists. In the past several years, red teaming has been applied increasingly to issues of security, although the practice is potentially much broader. Business strategists, for example, can benefit from weighing possible courses of action from a competitor’s point of view. …
“Despite the many advantages of candid red teaming, the practice is subject to various limitations and constraints. A red team cannot predict with certainty what an adversary will do, nor can it uncover all possible weaknesses in a concept, plan, or system. Red teams that claim these abilities overstate the benefits of red teaming and invariably mislead their clients. Decision makers who attempt to use a red team to divine specific events risk doing worse than nothing.”
Red Teams work well to analyze an organization’s positioning and actions vs. an adversary or competitor. It is a natural tool for the military and security fields, and works well for business strategy. A Red Team artificially creates divisions within an organization, breaking consensus thinking and facilitating growth of new perspectives. No matter what the outcome, there is little risk to the organization or its staff from these projects. For example, Army officers gaming the Opposing Force in a war game will not be seen as the real enemy (Nazis, Russians, etc).
But there is no enemy organization in the climate debates, no OpFor. The existing divisions in our climate science institutions are part of the problem. Climate science today has broken into two tribes (of unequal size). Worse, their work has become politicized and tied to the polarized politics of America. Now some advocate pouring kerosene on these flames by pitting the two sides in a head to head confrontation, like a World Series of Climate Science — with the crowds cheering “their” team. It would take divine intervention for this to produce anything useful — for either climate science or the public policy debate.
A Red Team is not a relevant tool to help resolve the climate debates. It is the opposite of what we need today.
Alternative Analysis
Red Teams are one form of Alternative Analysis (A. A.). From the Red Team Journal.
“Alternative analysis is the superclass of techniques of which red teaming may be considered a member. As with red teaming, these techniques are designed to help debias thinking, enhance decision making, and avoid surprise.
“According to Fishbein and Treverton, ‘alternative analysis seeks to help analysts and policy-makers stretch their thinking through structured techniques that challenge underlying assumptions and broaden the range of possible outcomes considered.’ They further clarify the term by specifying that ‘Alternative analysis includes techniques to challenge analytic assumptions (e.g. devil’s advocacy), and those to expand the range of possible outcomes considered (e.g. what-if analysis, and alternative scenarios).'”
I doubt any A.A. tool will advance the state of climate science. I have seen no historical examples of this, let alone successful examples. But some forms of A. A. are appropriate tools to break the public policy paralysis.
Call in experts to answer a question
How can A.A. methods be used in the climate wars? First, what is the key question to answer? The answer should make a difference in the debate. It should be doable with the time and funds available. Many of the proposals flunk one or both of these, such as calls to review the IPCC’s Working Group I report — the physical science. The time and money required to this adequately would be immense.
Since 2009 I have had recommendations to re-start the public policy engines. Especially this, which fits these criteria. Others have made similar proposals.
- A review of the climate forecasting models by a multidisciplinary team of relevant experts who have not been central players in this debate. Include a broader pool than those who have dominated the field, such as geologists, chemists, statisticians and software engineers.
Models are the fulcrum in the climate policy debate, turning theory and data into forecasts that are the primary input to the climate policy debate. There has been little work done to validate them (see this list of the literature and this example). Model validation is a well-established field. With money and time a group could investigate and evaluate one or more of the major modeling systems. Whatever the result, we would know more than we know today.
It is an operationally simple proposal, using people uninvolved in the climate wars, likely to produce useful results. So neither side will like it. That’s today’s America!
It’s not a silver bullet
Experts in alternative analysis warn that these are tools, not miracles. The success rate of these projects is unknown, but there are a lot of failures. Even simple projects often result in organizational discord or even chaos, as with the 2016 Red Team examination of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Clinical Center.
Also note that this is not the first A.A. project in the climate wars. The Berkeley Earth project raised $2.5 million (including $150,000 from the Koch Foundation) to fund a group of scientists who reanalyzed the Earth’s surface temperature record. They published their initial findings in 2012, with no visible effect on either the debate among scientists or the public policy debate. See Wikipedia for details.
An ominous example of A.A. failure
An extreme example of a failure of A.A. is the 1976 “Team B” project. A group of hawks accused the CIA of underestimating Soviet military capability. They were given free reign to produce an analysis more acceptable to the GOP’s hawks. They did so, producing what became politically useful justifications for Reagan’s massive military buildup. The CIA later concluded …
“In retrospect, and with the Team B report and records now largely declassified, it is possible to see that virtually all of Team B’s criticisms of the NIE proved to be wrong. …While Team B was estimating a relentless, continuing buildup at a growing pace, it was later learned that, in fact, Soviet leaders had just cut back the rate of spending on their military effort and would not increase it for the next nine years {in response to the Reagan buildup}. “
The USSR never built directed energy weapons, mobile ABM systems, and anti-satellite systems. The Soviet Empire collapsed in 1989 and it died in 1991. In fact, the Team B conclusions were backwards, as later analysis with data from Soviet records found that US intelligence exaggerated Soviet aggressiveness and military capabilities. See the details here.
The members were selected for their politically useful views. Most were later rewarded for their false analysis by promotion to high offices.
This is what many scientists and politicians fear will happen with any “Red Team” project conducted by the Trump Administration. They will stack the Team B with people who will produce the desired conclusions, then use the report to drive new public policy measures. But this is not 1976, nor is Team Trump the hawk neocons at the peak of their cunning. In today’s politically polarized America, a stacked Red Team will be seen as illegitimate by most climate scientists and much of the public. It will further the politicization of science, resolve nothing, and accomplish nothing.
We can do better. But we probably won’t.
A a proposal for a “Team B” project
Dr. Roy Spencer (meteorologist, principal research scientist at U AL-Huntsville) proposes a “Team B” project for climate science in “A Global Warming Red Team Warning: Do NOT Strive for Consensus with the Blue Team” at his website. It’s designed to document the skeptic position on a broad array of climate-related questions.
His proposal has two potential problems. First, I doubt there is a consistent skeptic paradigm to contrast with that expressed in the IPCC’s WGI report of AR5. The skeptics’ have a wide range of beliefs, which will add up to a grab-bag of ideas. Second, this probably will polarize the climate science field into opposition to their work (that would be my reaction if I were a climate scientist). Also, it is unlikely to have the political effect he desires. I doubt politicians will stake their careers on theories which most climate scientists loudly oppose.
For More Information
Climate scientists Judith Curry has some valuable insights about this proposal at Climate Etc.
For more information about this vital issue see the posts about the RCPs, about the keys to understanding climate change and these posts about the politics of climate change…
- Important: climate scientists can restart the climate change debate – & win.
- We can end the climate policy wars: demand a test of the models.
- How we broke the climate change debates. Lessons learned for the future.
- A story of the climate change debate. How it ran; why it failed.
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….our red teams have been a disaster
Latitude,
I agree, but would like to see your view on this. What Red Teams, and how have their failed?
Larry, we need a red team with some balls…..they sit there, talked down to, mealy mouth around
…they need to be in attack mode…and rightly so
I’d like to see someone like Tony, Rud, and David wipe the floor with them..and they can do it
Sometimes a picture says it all…
http://littlepawspetsitting.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/Submissive-dog.jpg
Umm – what’s the picture meant to be saying?
Something about balls?
I don’t see any.
submissive…and no balls
Politicians want to play the qualifications game, but no one wants to completely invalidate their own field by calling fraud.
Hence why every red team effort has been quibbling about uncertainties and climate sensitivity
kyle….I think you just nailed it
Unfortunately, Latitude, what reads like floor-wiping mastery here, in this forum, will flounder in real world debate. That is the flaw in Pruitt’s plan – those who speak out of hundreds of years of focused scientific enquiry into planetary behavior will always wipe the floor with Monday morning quarterbacks building spurious ‘theories’ by hijacking the scientists’ hard won knowledge.
You can’t win – denial of what is happening to the planet will be seen to be lame when it goes up against reality.
JD,
I’m impressed by your obvious confidence. It reminds me of all the pundits forecasting an uncontested win by Clinton.
The climate debate has… become dominated by a proposal by Team Trump.
Um, no. Not even close to being true. Cut it out Larry.
Talk of a “climate war” is furtive doubt-mongering and is about as legitimate as the “evolution war” or the “spherical earth war”. Scientists who work in the field are almost universally appalled at the way their clear, incontrovertible observations are trumped by vested interests and garner at best some lip-service.
The Titanic steams on.
The irony here is the Blue Team knows going in the science proposition of AGW is a farce but plays it like Moses descending from mountains carrying the Commandments while the Red team grovels trying to appease and find tepid dissenting side points. They are generally worse then RINOS are to the GOP in comparison.
The division among actual skeptics who view the situation as political contrivance and the hairsplitting nerd wing arguing endless margin of error data stats will be highlighted yet again.
The Blue team will make fools of themselves with the usual arrogance and know-it-all persona but likely we’ll be left wondering how they weren’t crushed in the public forum of debate, yet again. The baseline technical skeptics remain much of the problem.
Acknowledging the AGW fraud process from inception is the only path to decisive victory. Validation of doctored agenda driven model theory only delays the correction. The Red team should acknowledge the AGW fraud and the political reasons for its creation as a starting point. Skeptics who can’t accept it should sit in the back row. Curry and Lomborg should lead the Red Team? That’s a sad joke.
Lindzen, Murano and Delingpole have the breadth of it figured out. Another make-believe “science” farce is in the works.
Distinguish Professor Michael Mann expects to be elected unanimously captain-generalissimo-supreme commander of the blue team
Joe,
Here is some evidence supporting your theory, in a broad sense, from a reader at the FM website look at a discussion about Red Teams at ATTP’s blog.
I have not verified this. Has anyone here seen that thread?
The post is by Michael Tobis link is here: “The Only Way Not To Lose Is to Play“.
https://andthentheresphysics.wordpress.com/2017/07/03/the-only-way-not-to-lose-is-to-play/
I found his text quite reasonable; commenters not so much.
Ron,
What did you find “reasonable” about Tobis’ post? Much of what Tobis writes is nonsense, like this:
What is the point of that? If it is a rebuttal, what is he referring to? Most of his post is like this. It is a commonplace tactic among climate activists. They make up stuff, write rebuttals, and declare the win.
He makes one point identical to that in this post, but then returns to his core belief that he’s correct and those who disagree with him are inherently wrong and can be disregarded (no matter how eminent their climate science professional record). It shows that he does not understand the purpose or operation of a Red Team.
I, too, see little that’s reasonable in Michael Tobis’ post. For example, there’s this:
“While there’s a sound foundation for climatology that (barely) predates the computational science era (essentially the basics of physical climatology were codified in a 1967 monograph by Ed Lorenz) it’s the progress that has been made since the first successful general circulation models that makes the field so exemplary of modern, computationally driven science.”
A Red Team which had as its members some of the computational fluid dynamics people who try to predict the drag of a new airliner would be non-climate scientists who are experts in CFD – unlike the climate scientists who attempt to use it to model the entire planet. They would instantly shoot down the idea that a CFD model on that scale could predict anything accurately beyond a small number of time steps, and that the 100 year predictions are equivalent to random number generators. There has never been a “successful general circulation model”, unless the definition of “success” is a model that wouldn’t diverge to infinity in a few time steps. There never will be, either. No matter how many times computational power doubles, it will never approach the speed needed to resolve the Kolmogorov scale for the Earth’s atmosphere.
But even more to the point, bringing in engineers and scientists who are skilled in making accurate measurements would blow the entire “consensus” out of the water. I’m an engineer, and pay attention to the nature of my sources of data. When I saw that the “global average temperature” from the beginning of the “instrumental period” was being reported to two significant figures, I became suspicious. Averaging can improve accuracy if one is averaging measurements of one thing (and there is no bias in the measurements). Averaging 3,000 measurements of different things doesn’t change the accuracy of each individual measurement at all. The early instrumental record had a measurement accuracy no better than +/- 1 degree C. It’s not possible, therefore, to come up with a temperature change of less than 1 degree C.
However, it’s worse than that. When I delved into the subject, and realized that the “global average temperature anomaly” doesn’t contain even a single measured temperature, I realized that this whole thing is a farce.
I think this Red Team approach (which is used by every aerospace company to vet their own proposals) could, in fact, destroy the pseudo-science of climate change.
MSK,
Even today, the automated weather stations round off their temperature readings to the nearest degree F and then convert it to a precision of 1/10th degree C.
Fabius, the bit you quoted makes sense to me:
““there’s no fundamental reason that physical science would fail to grapple with the earth as an object. And it hasn’t.”
He simply and correctly said that the physical science applied to the study of Earth is sound science. His referants are Earth and science, and he’s implying the insights gained are legitimate.
What’s not to understand?
Jack,
The statement by itself, taken out of context, is meaningless. He did not simply say that “physical science is sound”, he made a clear assumption that because it sound it is capable of describing earth system accurately.
This is a nonsensical argument. Let me provide some examples to illustrate:
Physical science behind controlled nuclear fusion is sound so we should have nuclear fusion reactors producing energy.
Physical science behind what causes cancer is sound so we should have it cured by now
Physical science of how brain work is sound, so we should be able to explain it by now.
See the problem here? While first part of the statement, “Physical science is sound” part is correct, second part isn’t. Because of enormous complexity of the problem that you try to solve with that “sound physical science”, it’s soundness makes no difference to end result whatsoever.
And we know, without any shadow of a doubt, that there are no computational system out there that is capable of accurately analyze climate system. So all this “sound science” talk is meaningless diversion.
Sorry Udar, he said no reason why it shouldn’t ‘grapple’ with understanding Earth’s systems – and science has grappled very well and brought us great insight into the workings of our world. Nobody is asking science to ‘accurately predict’ the minutiae of outcomes, but science has been very successful at modeling and predicting the big picture.
One of the fascinating things to watch is how science fills in the gaps in our knowledge as the details of global warming emerge. For instance, it was correctly forecast that the poles, particularly the Arctic, would warm faster than the rest of the planet – that was a very early prediction. What science didn’t foresee was the way changes to the jet stream would give us super cold mid-latitude winters, but because scientists were ready with sound physics, we now understand the mechanisms behind that phenomenon reasonably well. It’s a fascinating watch, and I fear many of the contributors to this forum are missing the enjoyment to be had in watching good science develop before our eyes.
This would be a blessing, you want all the Marxist faction there in full social revolutionary form.
What you don’t want are the Red Team political equivalent of David Brooks of NPR/NYT, John McCain and Lindsey Graham representing anyone on climate.
Would facts and logic sway the believers? Hasn’t so far. Neither has actual observational data.
John,
You nailed it! That’s why a Red Team is unlikely to have any political effect. The true believers on both sides are entrenched in their views.
Hence the need to try other methods of Alternative Analysis. I like the idea of bringing in new voices, experts so far largely excluded from the debate — such as statisticans, software engineers, experts at model testing and validation. People whose analysis cannot be easily blown off, giving new perspectives.
I get pretty much ignored, and have a good fit to your critera, as well as being a leader in my expertise areas (circuit analysis, simulation and modeling, and data analytics for almost 40 years)
I get pretty much ignored, and have a good fit to your critera, as well as being a leader in my expertise areas (circuit analysis, simulation and modeling, and data analytics for almost 40 years)
micro6500,
“I get pretty much ignored, and have a good fit to your critera,”
Yes, that’s the problem. A review board of uninvolved experts from a wide range of relevant fields is a plausible tool to change that.
Unlike creating a partisan team — obvious further politicization of science, whose conclusions would be easily ignored — a team of well-funded prestigious experts might change the game.
Only one side has True Believers – the Alarmist side. The only thing Skeptics/Climate Realists “believe” in is truth, and actual science.
Right, but that’s already been done in some areas of the climate debate. Case in point: Steve McIntyre and all of his statistical work that has debunked warmist models and analyses. He’s an outsider that showed the mathematical flaws in Mann’s hockey stick, yet he was largely viewed as heretical by the warmist establishment. The problem is more fundamental than asking whether or not a Red Team/Blue Team approach will work in the Climate Debate. Quite frankly, it won’t because the warmist side does not engage in actual science or logical debating about the objective facts that are known. Warmists live and trade on what COULD happen, what MIGHT happen, and it’s always bad news when it comes to their version of the future climate.
The tide of the battle, I think, changed in 2009 with Climategate. It will continue to rage for some time, but I think cooler heads will prevail (pun intended!). I think the warmist side will just continue to whither, especially now that we have an administration that seriously questions CAGW, and best of all, plans to yank a lot of the funding for all their “research”. I give it another decade or two, when hopefully we see cooler temps that result from the current, very inactive, solar cycle 24. Eventually, CAGW will be viewed like a flat earth was, but that’s probably a generation or two away from now.
FM, what about an audit of techniques, methods, payola, etc. that the consensus builders/enforcers havee been using for many years now? A sort of truth commission….
Larry; you write: “Decision makers who attempt to use a red team to divine specific events risk doing worse than nothing.”
How can this be consistent with: “Hence the need to try other methods of Alternative Analysis.”?
Isn’t a “Red Team” also an “Alternative Analysis”? It would seem to suggest a conflict to me.
Certainly I agree “worse than nothing” is a very real risk since it always seems to me that doing nothing never shows up on the table in these proceedings. I’m a personal fan of the “don’t just do something, stand there” approach to politics when there’s such a large disagreement by experts in the field.
Bartleby,
“Larry; you write: ‘Decision makers who attempt to use a red team to divine specific events risk doing worse than nothing.” How can this be consistent with: ‘Hence the need to try other methods of Alternative Analysis’?”
The first sentence warms about inappropriate use of Red Teams (one form of Alt Analysis). The second recommends using other forms of Alt Analysis (i.e., other than Red Teams).
Why is this inconsistent?
Until recently, there has been no real debate in government. All I hear is bumper sticker slogans… especially the (fake appeal to authority) belief that 97% of scientists believe in some myth of CAGW or AGW or global warming… None of which is specific. Just some general belief that we must do something about CO2. Having a debate in government turns the corner. That there are now two sides of a debate, there can be the possibility of doubt in some people’s minds. We were there before with witches being agreed upon as a problem that must be dealt with.
Exactly, John. Reason has little value in a religious argument.
Reply: JohnKnight below is correct. That was bigoted. You happy now John?~ctm
Couldn’t disagree more.
Reason has enormous value in religious arguments, just as it does in most areas of life. While I get your sentiment and feel the same way, please don’t throw those of us with a faithful persuasion under the bus with warmists.
The term ‘religion’ has been (to my mind) too casually adopted as a slur of sorts in the “climate wars”, by many of an atheistic bent. To be an atheist, one must have faith that there is no God, for instance, since it is not possible to directly observe the absence of such a hypothetical Entity. It is therefore a “religious” position, in the “faith based” sense, and one quite zealously advanced/evangelized for at times, it seems to me . .
Often in ways that belie an unthinking assumptive certainty, I feel, which can render the “true disbeliever” a veritable bundle of self contradiction . . and somewhat incapacitated in the realm of self awareness, in terms of recognizing/accepting that their “religious persuasion” is not some sort of default scientific Truth, that theists are somehow “deniers” of, to borrow a term from another band of zealous absolutists ; )
Reply: Let’s avoid spiraling off in a discussion of theism vs atheism. Avoid the temptation! ~ctm
(Why aren’t you sticking that note in the box of the person who started the “spiraling off”, sir? I just responded to someone dissing “me” . . for the umpteenth time. ????)
(PS ~ Charles, I suggest you “avoid the temptation” to screw up Anthony’s site, by disallowing responses to derogatory (and unsupported) cliches you happen to not see as problematic . . I never saw him make any such attempts to stifle responses to slurs of the kind you just did, and things went a whole lot further in several discussions I’ve watched and/or participated in. If you want, I can go find a few good examples . .
If you are going to be effectively enforcing a ban on responding to blatantly bigoted comments, I’m going to be booted rather quickly, I suspect ; )
Reply: Uh, I saw your comment and politely asked you not to go in another direction. I did not see the previous comment as yours was the one I freed from moderation. It has been a longstanding policy on this site to avoid certain conflict-ridden conflicts, such as evolution, intelligent design, middle east conflict, religion. I did not ban you, censure you in any way. I was steering something I saw, and not looking for it to go elsewhere. The fact that this happens anyway when no one is looking does not mean that I will not point it out when I see it. There is no need to take offense. Now I have to go look at the comment that you say is bigoted to see if I have to do anything else. Thanks a lot. ~ctm
Charles,
“You happy now John?”
Only occasionally these days . . but right now is such an occasion, thanks ; )
“I did not ban you, censure you in any way.”
Well, psychologically you did . . in the sense that despite what you call long standing policy, discussion on some of those topics has been allowed to take place, of late anyway (I’ve been commenting here for less than two years), often initiated by what might be called atheistic perspective proponents . . but, I have initiated some at times within what to me seem like topic relevant circumstances.
Specifically, I have several times advanced ideas having to do with the potential that the CAGW is not the first attempt to (as I see it) commandeer science, and indoctrinate the general population to accept a virtual god role for the “scientific community” . . and that Evolution theory was/is a set-up of sorts, which served/serves as a model, so to speak ; ) for what we have been watching the CAGW clan attempt in the way of elevating “consensus” positions, to unquestionable “settled science” status.
And, it’s not a real comfy sort of position to be in on a “science site” . . though Anthony (and the crew) have been gracious in allowing me to develop (and I believe advance) the proposition at times. And to respond with some latitude (as here I feel) to some who hound me a bit, and inject their . . sense that I am an ignoramus for questioning/threatening Evolution theory’s status (in their mind’s) as unquestionable scientific fact.
Thanks for your tolerance and . . intolerance ; )
Reply:I’m going to send you an email because I would snip the things I’m going to say to you if anyone posted them.~ctm
Huh? . . I haven’t the slightest idea why you would be freaking out over anything I wrote . .
Reply: No one freaked out. I sent you an email where I would say things I would not say here. ~ctm
Charles,
How exactly is evolution “conflict-ridden”? It’s a scientific fact, ie an observation. There is no scientific controversy over the fact of evolution. Biologists differ in their conclusions as to whether selection or stochastic processes are more important, but over the fact of evolution, there is no disagreement.
Evolution is far less contentious than is gravity, for instance. How can a science blog ban discussion of evolution? You might as well ban discussion of the heliocentric solar system.
Repy: Because discussions of evolution spawn discussions of religious faith, theism vs. atheism and a lot of ignorant sniping. So it is better to leave it alone. I don’t want people of faith attacking you, and I don’t want you attacking people of faith. The schism between science and religion is a relatively recent one, and one we would like to avoid here. `ctm
“Reply: No one freaked out. I sent you an email where I would say things I would not say here. ~ctm”
Things you would snip if said here, according to your last note . . How ’bout a clue? I see nothing new in my mail yet . . Is it thanking your for doing your job? You know, being intolerant? That’s why you’re here, after all, isn’t it, Charles the moderator? You know, like snipping something would entail?
If it’s just for trying to explain what I’ve experienced here . . I’m freaked out ; )
Reply: Sent almost 24 hours ago. It’s not my fault if you don’t register your correct email. ~ctm
It’s the correct email address, if it’s what I’m looking at right now below the box I’m typing in. johnknighted@gmail.com
“I was steering something I saw, and not looking for it to go elsewhere.”
Without bothering to read what I was responding to? As the thread was before you came in with your (to me) bizarre directive to avoid some imaginary temptation you assumed I felt, I don’t think there was a realistic chance the discussion was going to continue at all . . Read it again, and I think you’ll agree.
Be that as it may, this is what I am interested in;
“The schism between science and religion is a relatively recent one, and one we would like to avoid here.”
If the schism exists it is here, right? You mean you wish to avoid discussing the matter here, right? Thing is, I have been, as I told you, Anthony allowed me to. And now (I believe) many here know that science, in the modern sense, was initiated, and until very recently dominated, by Christians.
PS ~ These two comments are expressing the very same bigotry, to me;
Reason has little value in a religious argument.
… discussions of evolution spawn discussions of religious faith, theism vs. atheism and a lot of ignorant sniping.
Can you see it?
Reply: Not in the quote from me. I see motivated reasoning on your part assuming your tribe was being accused of something~ctm
You seem extremely susceptible to believing whatever happens to pop into your head, to me, Charles;
” I see motivated reasoning on your part assuming your tribe was being accused of something~ctm”
I bet you did see that . . in your imagination ; )
A clear and straightforward statement about the deceptive concoction of the 97% consensus and the intrusion of politics via the Al Gore involvement would set the stage for the need for review. Cue the waiting experts to deconstruct “An Inconvenient Truth”and explain how utterly untrue it is. At that point you haven’t even said anything vaguely contestable and you’ve moved the needle a long way toward a real debate. I’m a little bit happy right there!
That has to be followed up with a strong attack strategy. Direct accusations against Mann, the IPCC and others of the corrupt cabal. Stress repeatedly the financial corruption of the entire enterprise. The need here is to set and control the agenda and keep them in the public eye defending themselves. Over time this will utterly corrode their credibility.
As an example, a proper assessment of his signature book and presentation carried out in the public eye and followed up with the details of how he got rich off that garbage, would associate his cause with self-interest and fr@ud!
This war is not science, it is politics. That’s how it has to be fought.
Sadly, John Harmsworth, those “believers” don’t even accept the errors in “AIT” even when shown them.
Perhaps, the effort shouldn’t be toward the believers but more toward real scientists and those folks with an open mind.
After all, the majority of actual scientists express some level of skepticism as to whether and how much human CO2 emissions are having even a detectable level of atmospheric warming. Even some of the hard-core believer scientists have a hard time trying to pin down that one elusive amount.
“Cue the waiting experts to deconstruct “An Inconvenient Truth”and explain how utterly untrue it is.”
We should put the English judge who ruled that Gore’s movie contained factual errors, on the Red Team.
“Cue the waiting experts to deconstruct “An Inconvenient Truth”and explain how utterly untrue it is.”
The problem with that is that Gore was essentially spot-on with An Inconvenient Truth. History has absolved him.
I wish people would stop talking about the 97% concensus as if climate change is a matter of opinion, when all evidence is that it is an unfolding fact that we should be dealing with.
JD,
You said, “The problem with that is that Gore was essentially spot-on with An Inconvenient Truth. History has absolved him.” Apparently you are unaware that an English judge disagrees with you.
You also said, “I wish people would stop talking about the 97% concensus [sic] as if climate change is a matter of opinion,…” The problem is, alarmists keep raising the point that they think authority should be more important than facts and logic. They even ignore the several critical analyses of the 97% claim and keep repeating it.
Clyde Spencer – I sure ain’t guilty of appealing to authority when I say history has absolved Gore. The evidence that he was correct is all about us and piling up daily. I go on my own understanding of the situation and my respect for the magnificent body of scientific work we have amassed on the subject.
It seems ironic you accuse ‘warmists’ of appealing to authority in almost the same breath as you appeal to the judgement of some crusty old pommie judge. That’s probably not even scientific authority you appealed to!
The intent is not to “sway the believers”. The new crop of Government decision makers (presidential advisors and Agency heads) are not dedicated “believers”. The intent should be to provide them with sufficient information to allow them to decide that the policies demanded by CAGW are unnecessary and inconsistent with those intended to MAGA.
JohnWho, if as the article above says, the fulcrum of this issue is the climate models, then there will likely be claims that only modelers are qualified to participate. And the blue team objective is simply to build better models. After all, observations can’t tell us the future. Nor can the models BTW, but if you are a modeler, you gotta believe.
Ron,
“that only modelers are qualified to participate.”
I agree. That’s why I said build the team around relevant experts. Such as modelers from other fields, mathematicians (including statisticians), and software engineers. I believe that even the hardest core climate activist would find this proposal difficult to fight in public (although they might freak out in private).
It’s a mousetrap.
“I believe that even the hardest core climate activist would find this proposal difficult to fight in public ”
On the contrary, I think climatologists would welcome the outside modelers – and when the outside modelers get to grips with the knowledge the climatologists contribute to the models, they too will be climatologists.
You can’t win because the climate models are not wrong – just imperfect.
JD,
You appear to be new to this debate. You don’t seem to be familiar with the infamous email exchanges exposed in the Climategate scandal. If you were, I don’t see how you could have such trust in the modelers “welcoming” outsiders. There are several instances where FOIA requests have been fought because the holder of data expressed concern that ‘D nye-ers’ would just use the data to create problems.
You said, “You can’t win because the climate models are not wrong – just imperfect.” That is like saying that if I get a bank statement that says my savings account has grown larger than I think it has, that the bank statement is not wrong, it is just imperfect. Sophistry! A telescope mirror may have a blemish that causes it to be imperfect. However, saying that 2+2=5 is just plain wrong; it is not an imperfection.
Clyde, you know what I mean. Sure 2 + 2 = 5 is incorrect, but if I say ‘two and a bit plus another two and a bit will be somewhere close to five’ I’m quite correct and have roughed out a useful prediction. That’s what I meant.
I think any reasonable referee would find the (to use your word) d-nye-er team more guilty of sophistry than the warmists (I’ll embrace the tag, and it seems permissible here).
Yes, I read at the time some of the unfortunate emails you speak of, but you have to understand, they were countering folk who were insisting two plus two equals five.
This argument is not sophistry, but you’ve got me seeing angels dancing on the head of a pin – so I’m out.
Cheers
I suspect that it will take another multi decade cooling period to completely unseat the warmest crowd. Of course, as with the last cool period, the watermelons will somehow blame mankind for it too.
Doesn’t matter if it fails as long as the skeptical viewpoint gets genuine attention, The debate will finally start.
Scarface,
“The debate will finally start.”
The potential outcomes are more complex. Consider the risks (there are always risks).
If this is seen by climate scientists as an attempt to further politicize their field — much like the 1976 Team B exercise did to US intelligence — then many or most will rightly unite against it. Borderline skeptical scientists might avoid it. The news media will, of course, support condemnation of the project. Public opinion is likely to follow.
It could easily become a fiasco.
The public ranks climate change the least pressing matter. Meanwhile, the leftist MSM is losing all remaining credibility. I say: bring it on!
Heh. Maybe we should use such reasoning to debate solutions to the opioid crisis:
It won’t.. It will cast as the 3% deniers against the 97% scientists.
I like that, KK – the 97% real scientists are the skeptics, and, you nailed it, the small 3% of the CAGW by CO2 folks are the ones not accepting the actual science.
That is one of the inconvenient truths that needs to be brought forth more often.
But this misses the point. All that’s needed is mandated equal funding and peer review to both sides of the argument, all on the basis that ‘consensus science’ is as Einstein made very clear, a non-science. He said that just one argument against would have knocked down his theories and the then consensus would be meaningless. Trump simply needs to reinstate the Royal Society’s motto to science: “Nullius in Verba” – “on the word of no one” or “Take nobody’s word for it”.
“It doesn’t matter how beautiful your theory is, it doesn’t matter how smart you are. If it doesn’t agree with experiment, it’s wrong.” Richard Feynman. Experiment = Reality.
Let us science to do its work. In the end the truth will come up like oil. We should remember that the whole mess is do to a team called IPCC. It was invented by top politicians. Politicians never say that “We were wrong”.
What Trump’s administration would do and should do is to establish a neutral committee to carry out an audit, in which way the global temperature data sets have been calculated starting from the very first calculation methods up to last versions. This is work carried out by state’s public officers and they are accountable to do it by right and transparent methods.
aveollila,
“Let us science to do its work. ”
Unfortunately the mills of science, like the “mills of God”, grind exceedingly slowly. As Stephen Mosher has said, the current public policy gridlock has prevented us from even preparing for the certain repeat of past weather.
“establish a neutral committee to carry out an audit”
Yes, that’s essentially what I (and others) have proposed. The question is what specifically to audit. Resources are limited, and too broad scope is likely to produce vague much. I believe models are the best subject, the schwerpunkt (the focus of the probe, a term from blitzkrieg).
“to establish a neutral committee to carry out an audit, in which way the global temperature data sets have been calculated starting from the very first calculation methods up to last versions.”
The Berkeley Earth project spent $2.5 million doing that, with seed money from the Koch Foundation. What are the odds that another group would produce different resutts?
Ave:
“to establish a neutral committee to carry out an audit, in which way the global temperature data sets have been calculated starting from the very first calculation methods up to last versions.”
Fabius:
The Berkeley Earth project spent $2.5 million doing that, with seed money from the Koch Foundation. What are the odds that another group would produce different results?
Reviewing data homogenization methodology was an example of what I expected from the Red Team effort. My understanding is that Berkeley is part of the blue team, and as “referee” would see and call the same “fouls” as NOAA etc. I don’t expect their “fouls” to be mistaken, I expect them to have missed “fouls” going the other way.
However, I’ll do some research and see if most skeptics believe as you do, Fab, and why.
I tend to agree. “Red Teaming” has now become a buzz word for some ill defined procedure that is supposed to be the grand solution for all problems. I guess it’s easier for most to just spout the latest jargon than to take the time to define the actual problem and derive a fix that is clear of all, or at least most unintended consequences. Competent systems diagnosticians are few and far between. And, the current state of climate research and publishing is a system level problem that is going to require system level fixes, not just jumping on the latest buss word.as a generic solution.
Joe,
“Red Teaming” has now become a buzz word for some ill defined procedure that is supposed to be the grand solution for all problems.”
That’s an important point. I wanted to discuss it in this post, but it was already too long. Proposals for Red Teams are popping up for all kinds of problems, for most of which it is not a relevant solution.
In many cases the people using the team treat it as an almost meaningless buzzword. That is true in the climate debate. People call for a Red Team, then describe something quite different in structure and goals.
I tend to think the exercise proposed by EPA’s Pruitt will be useful, and not only for addressing the endangerment finding. CAGW at heart rests on a few core assertions that can be examined for their likely veracity. Every time I check one, it turns out not to be true. These are not subtle or complex flaws. Example: unavoidable model parameter tuning drags in the attribution problem, which has caused them to undeniably run hot. Example: 35% of the increase in atmospheric CO2 since 1958 happened this century, yet except for a now fully cooled 2015-16 El Nino blip there has been no meaningful warming this century except by Karlization. Example: Greenland is bowl shaped so most of its ice would have to melt, not calve, so sudden SLR alarm based on Greenland is impossible. Example: there is no SLR acceleration except by poor choice of tide gauges or by splicing on sat alt that fails the closure test. Example: polar bears do not depend on summer ice; most of their feeding is on spring ice during the seal whelping season and nobody claims sea ice won’t form during the Arctic winter to be there in the spring. I have covered many more examples in essays in Blowing Smoke.
Getting such simple facts out into general public awareness in coherent simple pictures that expose the core half truths and falsehoods will hit hard at the warmunist hysteria. It changes the political dynamic to the science isn’t settled, and a lot of what you were told was settled science is simply wrong. Sometimes deliberately so, to the point of academic misconduct.
Ristvan,
“I tend to think the exercise proposed by EPA’s Pruitt will be useful,”
What did Pruitt propose? His statements are vague and inconsistent. My guess (emphasis on “guess”) is that he is floating trial balloons — politically smart tactics for this kind of thing.
The devil is in the details about Alternative Analysis projects, often deciding if a project is a homerun or a fiasco.
Journalists have been unable to get details from him or the EPA (as of Thursday). I contacted EPA’s press office and was told that they got nothing on this (they’re usually very helpful).
Fair enough.Perhaps we are projecting a little, but some minor recognition that there is another viewpoint has to be good. We will have to be prepared as the counterattack will be fierce!
John,
“but some minor recognition that there is another viewpoint has to be good.”
I believe we can aim higher than that. It will require understanding the various Alt Analysis tools available, the importance of project design, and weighing risks vs. potential rewards.
What do you think of a review board as I suggested in this post (and several climate scientists have proposed, in various forms)?
Pruitt was merely offering an endorsement of the proposal of Steve Koonin.
Rud,
There are at least three individual problems to be solved, each requiring a different solution. First is, as you mentioned, getting the information out to the public to overcome their current level of ‘brain washing.’ But, in order to do that you need to solve the second problem which is the control of the main stream media by the CAGW crowd. The third is the totally biased/controlled state of both the research funding the peer reviewed publication. This last one is the direct cause of so called “97% consensus.” Academics in one field tend to trust that those in other fields know their subjects. It is highly possible that fixing this last problem will eventually lead to solving the others.
JC, agree with all your points. Trump busted through on #2 using twitter and rallies. The government could also, I think, to an extent by, for example, issuing a revised National Climate report based on the ‘red teaming’. And part of the academic/grant problem #3 could be fixed by executive order to the NSF. Problem is, there just aren’t many skeptical academics left to apply for such grants. Lindzen retired, Curry resigned, Pielke Jr moved on…
Not going to get nearly 30 years of momentum reversed overnight, for sure. But working hard on key leverage points (e.g. Endangerment finding, models, sensitivity, renewable subsidies and intermittency) may hasten CAGW’s demise.
Rivstvan,
Have you considered the risks (there are always risks), and the odds of successful outcome (it’s never certain)? As I said to Scarface upthread —
If this is seen by climate scientists as an attempt to further politicize their field — much like the 1976 Team B exercise did to US intelligence — then many or most will rightly unite against it. Borderline skeptical scientists might avoid it. The news media will, of course, support condemnation of the project. Public opinion is likely to follow.
It could easily become a fiasco.
There may be an answer to the lack of skeptical academics. If I remember correctly, Curry said that one reason for her leaving was that she could no longer advise her students on how to negotiate the CAGW (my term) mine field. There are bound to be those that believe in academic skepticism that would gladly research the alternatives if only consistent funding and publication opportunity were available. Hopefully the tide may be turning.
I’m not sure this is correct — I’m looking at surface temps from the last few months (non-Karl data sets), and the last few months are solidly warmer than 90% of 2000-2014. It doesn’t look to be “fully cooled”.
Even if it is true, though, does it matter? CO2 isn’t supposed to just instantly warm the atmosphere; instead the claim is that it causes the atmosphere to cool more slowly, with heat building up over time. The less time that CO2 has been in the atmosphere, the less time it’s had to do this. So on short timescales, natural variability can certainly overwhelm these effects.
See Roy Spencer’s blog. He has a post on it with the standard chart of UAH V6.
Ahh. But that’s just UAH. We’ve already ruled out Karl’s NOAA set, so that leaves the following data sets:
— UAH, RSS, Berkeley Earth, GISSTEMP, and HadCRUT, and pre-Karl NOAA dataset.
Of these, only UAH shows that the past few months have fully cooled back to the level of 2000-2014. The rest of them all show warming.
Is there a good reason to put more faith in UAH than all of the other data sets?
Windchaser, there is also HadSST3 which covers 71% of the surface temps. I clearly shows the end of the last El Nino perturbation.
https://rclutz.wordpress.com/2017/07/07/ocean-cools-and-air-temps-follow/
Sure. But it doesn’t show that the temperatures have cooled down to 2000-2014 levels.
Out of curiosity, I ran over to the HadSST3 website* and checked their data. The last 3 months have been warmer than only 25% of 2015-2016, mostly the beginning of 2015, before the El Nino really kicked in. However, the last 3 months have been warmer than 98% of 2000-2014. It has not cooled back down. Even well after the El Nino ended, it’s remained warm.
I encourage you to check the data for yourself.
[*] http://hadobs.metoffice.com/hadsst3/data/download.html
With the steady rise since the little ice age, what SHOULD you expect for the past twenty years, thirty years, etc? Then compare 1910 ton1940. What SHOULD we expect from natural variation on what we know to be a thirty/sixty year up and down cycle. When you add the two, and subtract the two, what SHOULD we expect from a natural swing.
Now how much is your number greater?
If not, or if only ten percent or so, then nothing at all unusual is happening.
With the steady rise since the little ice age, what SHOULD you expect for the past twenty years, thirty years, etc? Then compare 1910 ton1940. What SHOULD we expect from natural variation on what we know to be a thirty/sixty year up and down cycle. When you add the two, and subtract the two, what SHOULD we expect from a natural swing.
Now how much is your number greater?
If not, or if only ten percent or so, then nothing at all unusual is happening.
@ur momisugly ristvan
July 8, 2017 at 10:13 am: The Prof who taught me statistics said “use this to sort out methods and good from bad. But for your own raw data, get a real Statistician. If I can see the faults, how much better such people would be at skewering our opponents. Real stats and modelling verification people from outside the tent would do the trick on the incompetents we are dealing with. So long as the power lies not with them. The lie has just a few ‘foundations’, which justify the rest.
I saw Mann’s bluster when caught in Congress. Make them fish out of water.
Trump’s climate team need to address five questions only:
1. Is the recent rise of global temperature (whatever that is) being fraudulently exaggerated (if so, why and by whom)?
2. Is the anthropogenic component of global warming (and the certainty of its quantification) as against natural climate fluctuation, being fraudulently exaggerated (if so, why and by whom)?
3. Is the detrimental nature of global warming to ecosystems and human populations (as against its possible benefits) being fraudulently exaggerated (if so, why and by whom)?
4. Is the beneficial effect of rising CO2 on plant growth, global greening, global increase in tree number and rising crop productivity and marine productivity, being fraudulently downplayed and hushed up (if so, why and by whom)?
5. Is the economic damage, the reduction in quality and reliability of electricity supply and (perversely) the environmental damage caused by the aggressively forced adoption of intermittent, unusual and expensive power generation technologies (wind and solar in particular) and unusual and expensive electrically powered automobiles, being fraudulently downplayed and hushed up (if so, why and by whom)?
Greening of the Earth and its drivers
Zaichun Zhu, Shilong Piao, Ranga B. Myneni, Mengtian Huang, Zhenzhong Zeng, Josep G. Canadell, Philippe Ciais, Stephen Sitch, Pierre Friedlingstein, Almut Arneth, Chunxiang Cao, Lei Cheng, Etsushi Kato, Charles Koven, Yue Li, Xu Lian, Yongwen Liu, Ronggao Liu, Jiafu Mao, Yaozhong Pan, Shushi Peng, Josep Peñuelas, Benjamin Poulter, Thomas A. M. Pugh, Benjamin D. Stocker et al.
Nature Climate Change 6, 791–795 (2016) doi:10.1038/nclimate3004
Received 08 June 2015 Accepted 29 March 2016 Published online 25 April 2016
Global environmental change is rapidly altering the dynamics of terrestrial vegetation, with consequences for the functioning of the Earth system and provision of ecosystem services [1,2]. Yet how global vegetation is responding to the changing environment is not well established. Here we use three long-term satellite leaf area index (LAI) records and ten global ecosystem models to investigate four key drivers of LAI trends during 1982–2009. We show a persistent and widespread increase of growing season integrated LAI (greening) over 25% to 50% of the global vegetated area, whereas less than 4% of the globe shows decreasing LAI (browning). Factorial simulations with multiple global ecosystem models suggest that CO2 fertilization effects explain 70% of the observed greening trend, followed by nitrogen deposition (9%), climate change (8%) and land cover change (LCC) (4%). CO2 fertilization effects explain most of the greening trends in the tropics, whereas climate change resulted in greening of the high latitudes and the Tibetan Plateau. LCC contributed most to the regional greening observed in southeast China and the eastern United States. The regional effects of unexplained factors suggest that the next generation of ecosystem models will need to explore the impacts of forest demography, differences in regional management intensities for cropland and pastures, and other emerging productivity constraints such as phosphorus availability.
I’d recommend removing the word “fraudulently”. It implies both intent to deceive and to profit from the deception.
For instance, we care whether the recent rise of temperature is exaggerated… less so about whether it was on purpose or not. Accidental exaggeration is still bad.
But anyways, I think the Berkeley Earth study already settled that first question. The surface temperature series is quite sound. The satellite data, on the other hand… not so certain.
Windchasers,
How about the Sea Surface Temperatures, which are commonly conflated with Land Surface Temperatures? How do you feel they compare with land and troposphere? Various alarmists have dismissed historical ocean pH measurements out of hand because of poor sampling protocols. Yet, the historical water temperatures were often taken at the same time and place. Yet, nobody has suggested dismissing the historical water temperatures because of poor sampling protocol!
BEST was rejected by every major science journal. Mueller claimed to be a skeptic, which was later proven to be a lie by his own words (in a previous recorded video).
Despite that, Mueller went on a worldwide PR campaign before the paper was ever published or peer reviewed.
Rejected by all major, legitimate journals, the paper was finally published in an Indian pay-for-play startup, which is now under criminal investigation.
BEST is a joke. A sad, politically motivated anti-science joke.
Reg Nelson, with regard to the results of BEST, can you tell me who said, “I’m prepared to accept whatever result they produce, even if it proves my premise wrong.” ????
Yes, it’s very difficult to get published in a major science journal. Basically impossible when your results are not novel, as BEST’s weren’t. They were quite similar to the results by other major temperature series. But that’s what we expect to find for any sort of red-team exercise.
When your work just reproduces old findings, you’re going to be publishing in a lesser journal.
I’m guessing that you’re the sort of guy who usually says “consensus doesn’t matter, only evidence matters”. If that’s the case, then you should be focused on spotting the errors in BEST’s work or coming up with a better temperature dataset. What you’ve presented here are just ad hominem attacks that have nothing to do with the quality of the work.
You dismiss BEST not because you have some evidence that it’s meaningfully wrong, but because you don’t like it.
Yet, the historical water temperatures were often taken at the same time and place. Yet, nobody has suggested dismissing the historical water temperatures because of poor sampling protocol!
I can’t quite see what the two have to do with each other. Sure, they may have been measured at the same time, but they were measured with different instruments. Some measurements are easier to take than others, with fewer calibration issues.
Windchasers,
I think that you were responding to me. The point I was trying to make is that the SPATIAL sampling protocol for historical pH and SST were neither random or on a grid. The historical pH measurements were therefore criticized, but not the temperatures.
In my mind, reversal of the “endangerment finding” is of paramount importance. Nothing is more important than that, nothing.
“In my mind, reversal of the “endangerment finding” is of paramount importance.”
Agree strongly John!
Here is an overview of the endangerment finding:
https://www.edf.org/climate/overview-epa-endangerment-finding
If empirical evidence/science were to prevail, this finding would quickly be disposed of. The increased risk from droughts for instance. We have decades of observational data. Global drought has not increased, in fact, the planet is greening up…… not in spite of but because of the increase in CO2. Increasing CO2 makes plants more water efficient. The worlds most productive crop producing area, the US Cornbelt has had the least amount of drought in it’s recorded history over the past 3 decades. Since 1988, only 1 widespread, severe drought, 2012. Of course we heard that this 1 drought was made more likely from human caused climate change.
2015 and 2016 were the hottest years ever globally, while this area experienced record setting crop production and crop yields for corn and soybeans. This is just one region of course but globally, we have seen no evidence in the past 4 decades that suggests a trend towards increasing drought. The real science of significance related to CO2 and crops/food production……..that is provable outside the world of modeling, is the law of photosynthesis.
There is no evidence that hurricanes are increasing, that needs to go. There is clear evidence that violent tornadoes have decreased. Meteorology 101 tells us to expect this. Warming the highest latitudes most, thus decreasing the meridional temperature gradient decreases energy for some extreme weather events like this.
Stating that “damaging impacts outside of the United States may harm our trade, humanitarian, and national security interests” is absurd. There is no evidence of this.
The amount of warming experienced over the past 40 years has been greatest at the highest latitudes in the coldest times of year……….in places that would consider this to be beneficial. Record high minimums have greatly exceeded record high maximums.
With regards to global temperature. Why is it that the optimal level of temperature for life is assumed to be the temperature before humans began to burn fossil fuels? Same thing with the optimal level of CO2 in the atmosphere. Since the endangerment finding pertains to humans, it’s human life that’s most relevant to evaluate in this particular case.
It is a fact that heavy rains have increased with the warmer atmosphere holding more moisture. High end flooding events have also increased as a result. Sea levels continue to rise and could accelerate a bit higher with increasing global temperatures. However, the current rate is something like a foot/century. We should use a realistic projection when assessing future risk. Doubling that would be 2 feet/century for instance.
The problem is that these projections are based on busted global climate models that have been too warm. The potentially catastrophic sea level scenario’s are based on the busted models, not being busted. But they are busted. How is this not obvious to every climate scientist?
Which is one reason why the red team idea will not work. If climate scientists have continued to use busted global climate models because it supports their theory, despite the compelling evidence that they are too warm and they already know the arguments of skeptics(deniers) and can see the same things, they have already chosen their path based on knowing the conclusion. A group of less qualified( in their minds) scientists telling them about what they have already considered and discarded will not change their conclusion. If anything, it has resulted in them looking for reasons to defend it.
One of the problems with an adversarial approach is that the few times it has happened is with Congressional panels. The panelists state their (usually) conflicting positions, but the congressmen don’t have the expertise to call ‘foul,’ or probe more deeply into conflicting testimony. What is needed is an impartial ‘jury’ of scientifically qualified peers to question and pass judgment on the claims. At the very least, it would demonstrate where the consensus or skepticism is weak, and more research is needed. At best, something like a rejection of the infamous ‘Hockey Stick” could come out of it. There might not be an obvious winner, but the press could hardly ignore it. And, the public would be exposed to the unstated assumptions of the current ‘consensus’ and, hopefully, understand why many criticize the consensus.
As stated by the author, the linchpin of the Armageddon prophets is the validity of the extant GCMs. Prior to convening this public panel, experts should be given the task of reviewing the various GCM codes, assumptions about parameterizations, and generally vet the claims made by the published modelers. Not unlike a teacher’s work saving tactic of telling their class, “Now hand your paper to person in front of you and I’ll read the correct answers,” different groups of modelers could be asked to review the actual code of ‘competitors.’ Unless the assumptions and implemented parameterizations are significantly different between different groups, tax money is being wasted in duplicate efforts. The people most competent to criticize the work of competitors are those competing for the same pot of grant money! If Congress were to reduce the amount of funding available, it would make the sharks hungrier. Survival of the fittest!
Clyde,
Nicely said! I esp like the idea of having modelers review each other’s work. That’s the kind of “out of the box” thinking we need now.
Also useful would be to have modeling experts from other fields look at climate models. Investment firms around the world pay millions of dollars to Ph.D. mathematicians and physicists to build trading models — to which billions of dollars are entrusted. It’s a Darwinian process which quickly weeds out the less competent. While the fields are quite different, these people probably could make an interesting contribution to a review of GCMs.
Great idea. Get all the modelers to agree that all the models need more funding.
Stephen,
What I was proposing was that NSF would announce that only half the current modelers would continue to be funded. The decision as to which ones to continue funding would be based on applicants demonstrating superior understanding of the extant models, and the problems with them. They would be encouraged to discover and articulate the problems with the models they would be competing with, and how their future models would address those problems. That forces them to admit that there are problems and what they are (at least as they see them), to specifically address the problems, and demonstrate how they have improved the modeling when they submit their report to the funding agency.
I’d like to see funding allocated specifically to try to design a GCM with low sensitivity.
It’d be pretty meaningful if such a GCM could be created, that performed just as well as other GCMs on all the other metrics (precipitation, ocean currents, etc.), but had low sensitivity to an increase of CO2.
My preference would be to build a computer model that is as accurate as humanly possible with existing computer technology — and determine how and why it differs from reality.
That’s what I see already, when I look at the scientific literature. It’s this endless iterative process of improving models, running them, seeing where they aren’t as accurate as they should be, and then improving them again. Lots of papers out there analyzing the shortcomings of models and working to improve them.
From what I understand, the increase in resolution and improvements in the statistics of sub-grid parameterization are rapidly converging to resolve one of the big remaining issues: errors in precipitation.
“Climate Scientists”
You keep using that term and its companion “Climate Science”, yet the basic problem is the failure of CAGW pushers to produce either.
The Parasites keep offering up legions of their fools and bandits, waving talking points and political agenda..
The taxpaying citizen is still waiting for that mystic beastee…”The Science”.
John,
You have a high bar for what constitutes “climate science.” I suspect similar standards applied to most fields would disqualify lots of folks.
Nothing going on in climate science is unusual in the history of science — whether of the physical, social or medical kinds. Science is a social endeavor, done by people — not demigods. It’s an imperfect process at best, and individual branches often go dysfunctional for long periods of time.
Climate science is significant (but not unique) because of its political involvement.
As aveollila said upthread: “Let us science to do its work. The truth will come up like oil.” Like everything else, it just takes time. The political question is what to do now. The gridlock has prevented action to prepare for the inevitable repeat of past weather. When we get unlucky, the people affected aren’t going be interested in our excuses for inaction.
I cannot accept that the present push of political influence and funding into a particular field of science has ever occurred before.
“Nothing going on in climate science is unusual in the history of science ”
Indeed; Eugenics being the last obscenity of such epic proportions.
There is always room for mass hysteria in the affairs of man, how ever science as a social endeavour still requires standards.
The lack of empirical measurement,a falsifiable hypothesis,reproducible results…Some social endeavour.
Yes Climate Science as practised by the adherents of CAGW fails my standards.
Considered discussion is impossible when one party willfully chooses to refuse to define their terms.
Genuine scientists do not refuse to share their data and refuse to argue their position..Usually they are so grateful to find anyone willing to take an interest,that you cannot shut them up.
Whatever Team CAGW UN IPCC (TM) are doing it is not science as I knew it.
In fact the only “standard” demonstrated by all proponents of CAGW, is “Good enough for government”.
John,
“I cannot accept that the present push of political influence and funding into a particular field of science has ever occurred before.”
See the history of racial science in the West (including America). Stephen Jay Gould’s books are an easy introduction to this bleak history. Lots of lessons we can learn from this, but here (as in so many things these days) Amnesia Not Learning is our motto.
I generally think this piece would be ok for most of these actions but not for the climate “debate”, I would go along the lines of Latitude’s argument of many of the debaters on the “red team” being balless, further going to point out that many of the people aren’t in “red” team… they are more “light blue/purplish” team.
The light blue/purplish” aka people like Mr Watts are not willing to ball up and call these people what they are mother F***ing psycho genocidal evil people. I understand why he doesn’t want to do it and I don’t begrudge him for it. However it not helpful when the enemy gives you lots of throat and nut shots and you decide to not take them even though they are doing it and worse.
You need a combo of angry people that are scientists but NOT academics. Normal scientists without any degree at all that can come in and bring and hate and logic to the argument in a way normal people can understand. They need to be backed up on the paperwork side of the house by good no hold bars academics.
The biggest problem in the debate about global warming is, their has been no debate at all. This red team event would let real people get in their and go for the throat in front of the public at large and get those result pushed into the media… at the very least to trump himself. Any random high school student with a bit of knowledge should be able to easily debunk 90% of the BS that they throw down during this event.
This is the reason they refuse to debate…. because they know they will be destroyed. If the red team is true scientists and they debate like true scientist aka no holds barred point out these people are evil eugenic supporting, etc, etc, etc. The debate would break out and they would be forced to respond and debate more… and thus lose more.
However if this event turns into another light blue or blue academic love fest nothing will change.
To Temp:
The refusal to debate is a Saul Alinsky principle:
– If you permit a debate, that tells people your opponents are worthy of a debate.
— Since the Alinsky style is to ridicule and character attack opponents,
you would be contradicting yourself, if after calling them names such as “science deniers”
and “pawns of energy companies”, you suddenly considered them worthy of a debate.
You think Team B fear debates because they will lose?
You are wrong — with absolutely no real science to back them up, they have already convinced a majority of people on Earth that man made CO2 is an evil gas, and CO2 emissions are “carbon pollution”.
There has already been too much brainwashing and junk science for Team B to lose a debate … especially when they will claim they can predict the future climate … and so many people believe them, even after 30 years of wrong average temperature predictions.
Exactly how could any A Team refute predictions of the future climate ?
People believe in lots of things without proof.
I don’t, but almost everyone else does.
How can you stop people from believing in “climate change” ?
(which really means runaway warming from CO2 that will eventually kill all life on Earth,
although many believers don’t even realize exactly what it is that they believe in!)
Climate blog for non-scientists:
http://www.elOnionBloggle.Blogspot.com
It’s a damned shame Richard, but you probably nailed it.
+1
Yup.
You arguing against pseudo science.
It’s like arguing about natural food.
And more importantly and precisely it’s about whether a government should
require everyone to only eat natural food.
“The refusal to debate is a Saul Alinsky principle:
– If you permit a debate, that tells people your opponents are worthy of a debate.”
That’s right. Good post, Richard.
Cogent argument Temp. There has bee no “debate” about climate science. Since the late 1970’s it has been nothing but a political movement by leftist power seekers, especially the United Nations. The whole UN climate enterprise was, surprise , surprise, built an enabled by politicians with a goal in mind. Research the whole thing from the first Rio treaty, through the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, to the IPCC process. The whole process assumed all of its premises from day one and listed them all in the UNFCCC founding documents.
Nobody, from any point on the political spectrum questioned any of it, because it was a way to build a consensus around climate change for political power.
We can argue the science all we want. It won’t do any good. The problems are with the politics. The only hope is that politcians like Trump and his appointees can poke some holes in the twisted, false premises behind all the regulations.
I agree with you and Richard Greene. I think we only need to look at trump as to see why we must fight bitterly. Trump went out and said “horrible, mean, racist, bigoted, etc, etc, etc” thing and won… the reason why he won was because it was the cold hard truth. Science is able dealing with reality as it is… not as you want it to be. As with trump if someone comes out with the cold hard truth yes they will be denounced far and wide by fanatics… but they will be a scientist and ,science, history and most of all reality will look to them with favor. Much like trump the we have long won the debate in science, its a matter of getting a leader to step up and rally the people to the cause. That leader will never be someone who is mealy mouthed and refuses to call a spade a spade.
Trump maybe giving us the only chance to break through to the public and bring awareness to them. It can’t be wasted by sending up light blue players.
Also to Richard Greene I would change this Climate blog for non-scientists into this Climate blog for non-academics. Academics have things like colleges degrees… but having a college degree doesn’t make one a scientist… in fact nowadays its generally proof you aren’t.
I think two key objectives of this process will be 1) to deligitimize the narrative that 97% of climate scientists agree and 2) to expose the climate science cronyism that shuts down debate and skews the science in only one direction. These hopefully will give the ones controlling the purse strings the justification to shut down the climate science cartel so that actual climate science can be practiced.
Also, encouraging whistle blowers to expose the systemic corruption with the commitment to reward and protect them could accelerate the unraveling process
I Came,
You point to an interesting aspect of the discussion about a “Red Team”, seen in this thread. Lots and lots of proposals, many either irrelevant to or inappropriate for a “Red Team” methodology.
As Joe Crawford said upthread: “’Red Teaming’ has now become a buzz word for some ill defined procedure that is supposed to be the grand solution for all problems.”
There are no easy, fast, or cheap solutions to the public policy gridlock. Note that Joe is also the only one (I think) who mentioned that a real review will cost money.. The larger the scope, the more it will require. Berkeley Earth looked at just one piece of the puzzle (the surface temp record); it cost $2.5 million.
It would also help if someone (e.g., Congress, the funding agencies, the journals, etc.) would also provide funding for detailed expert review and audit (e.g., Steve McIntyre’s) of articles prior to publication as well as the funding for replication studies. There should also be a requirement that no conclusions of any published article may be referenced as anything other that conjecture until they have been both audited and replicated.
Yep. Someone like Dr. Michael Mann will express absolute confidence in his crap and people will believe him. The more honest scientists will express uncertainty and the public will think they’re clueless.
We don’t want a trial by judge and jury. We want a trial by judge only. We want the decision to be based on evidence not PR or emotion.
It appears that Mann hasn’t produced the evidence required of him in his lawsuit against Tim Ball. link If that’s the case it indicates a guilty mind. It would be a very good place to launch an investigation.
A few criminal convictions would have a wonderful effect on public opinion.
Thanks for the reference CB. Following it I found an even better description at American Thinker(http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2017/07/things_get_hot_for_michael_mann.html). Since this site has been following the Mann lawsuit fiasco someone should write it up and post an article here.
I do think that with proper funding (which could be at least initiated by POTUS) we will eventually get your “trial by judge” (i.e., academic correction).
CommieBob andJoe,
John Sullivan’s column — repeated at Am Thinker — makes many large assertions. Many seem quite odd.
I suggest reading the rebuttal from Mann’s attorney, Roger McConchie . I’m not an attorney, but it looks more logical imo. Skepticism in the climate wars is essential in all things.
https://www.facebook.com/MichaelMannScientist/photos/a.221233134599563.54502.221222081267335/1466774033378794/?type=3
Thanks Ed… Guess I didn’t do enough research before opening my big mouth. My bad!
there may be all sorts of issues with this Sullivan fellow, but irregardless, Mann has been found in contempt of court according to reports I have read. —- from the American Thinker Article:
[He did even worse; he launched a campaign of punitive lawsuits against anyone who criticized him. He has sued Mark Steyn, National Review Online, and climatologist Dr. Timothy Ball.
Mann shot himself in the foot with that last. For several years, Mann had refused to produce his data for the court (in support of his own case), claiming that it was “proprietary.” After missing a February 20th deadline, he now finds himself in contempt. Under Canadian law, the court is now required to dismiss the suit.]
We know that he has been stonewalling the court in the Steyn case
Or is the finding of contempt just made up by Sullivan???
Don’t know how to put a box around the quote–sorry
JVCstone,
“Mann has been found in contempt of court according to reports I have read”
What reports – plural? There is O’Sullivan’s weird article (much of which is clearly false) and Timothy Birdnow’s article at American Thinker that quotes O’Sullivan.
Also, O’Sullivan says that Mann should be found in contempt of court. He does NOT say that the judge as done so. The only news I’ve seen from a participant in the trial is by Mann’s attorney — who says O’Sullivan’s account is bogus.
Some skepticism, please.
Mr. editor, Having looked closely at a page full of links, it does seem that all of the articles rely on the Sullivan story. I suppose time will tell if Dr. Ball’s claim that the terms of a postponement granted in early Feb were not met by the Mann side is accurate or not.
Hard to say where this is going, but under an agreement in February, in which a settlement was reached under the condition that Mann release the hockey stick research documents, presumably including emails, Mann has not done so by the date prescribed so by definition is in contempt of court. There could be many other twists and turns ahead, and Dr. Ball is far from rejoicing, but if the suit is dismissed, Mann keeps his documents but MAY be required to pay all of Ball’s costs. I’m just as interested in the dense cloud of fecal odors emanating from everything touched by McAuliffe in VA. If I recall correctly, after receiving massive campaign funding, to defeat the incumbent governor who was on the verge of requiring UVA to release Mann’s “stuff” while there, that process was shelved. May find a hit of Mann’s legal support funding in the above-mentioned miasma. Just sayin’…..
For sure. I have problems believing John Sullivan sometimes. By the same token, I would not expect Dr. Mann’s lawyer to fess up. He’s not much of a lawyer if he can’t put forward a convincing case, and yes, it will sound more plausible than anything John Sullivan says. That doesn’t mean Sullivan is wrong. I’m sitting firmly on the fence.
I’m hoping Rud Istvan will weigh in.
Editor of the Fabius Maximus website July 8, 2017 at 11:56 am
CommieBob andJoe,
John Sullivan’s column — repeated at Am Thinker — makes many large assertions. Many seem quite odd.
I suggest reading the rebuttal from Mann’s attorney, Roger McConchie . I’m not an attorney, but it looks more logical imo. Skepticism in the climate wars is essential in all things.
—-
Did you not read the rebuttal? It does not address the settlement \ adjournment, or the conditions of that settlement.
That is the issue.
What exactly did Mann provide? It would be fairly easy for him or his attorney to provide a list. Have they?
In the Steyn lawsuit, Mann has yet to produce or provide anything. His record of dodging FOIA requests speaks greatly to his character or lack there of.
Why would you, or anyone, defend his despicable behavior?
It’s beyond me.
Reg,
“Why would you, or anyone, defend his despicable behavior?”
That’s the classic climate alarmists response to skeptics who suggest skepticism about the most extreme right-wing beliefs. George is skeptical about the predictive ability of GCMs, so must be a denier of physics, probably a creationist.
That I express skepticism about some guys weird statements about the case does not mean I approve of every one of Professor Mann’s actions since birth.
That’s got to be a winner for Weirdest Comment of Thread.
Good ideas ! A few examples of deficient peer review should serve to bodyslam the credibility of the hockey team and justify that approach.
They’ve already been forced to retract and edit many signature papers… more isn’t going to change anything because in science, 90% of the papers they’ve written have been debunked through a number of events. The issue is they can keep producing new ones(ie unlimited money) and they are not held to account for their old papers.
The idea that putting more “reviewers” or Clyde Spencer idea is those standards will never be met. They can’t even meet the current standards. So higher standards wouldn’t be met and yet those papers/models/etc would all still pass.
Better “safeguards/reviews/etc” are completely meaningless in this debate because the people pushing global warming can’t meet the current standard and are successful. The only way for standards to matter is if you punish people for not following them. That means cutting funding, firing, and most of all JAILING. Until people start going to jail no matter how high you set standards they simply will be ignored.
Temp,
I know it probably won’t happen. But, if you can’t be published or referenced until audited and verified that would surely clean up a lot of the garbage out there. Of course academia would also have to change their stupid method of ratings based on articles published. They might even have to do a little work rather than bean counting.
As with everything in the matter no matter how great you craft the system of oversight. They have unlimited time and money to scam it. Without punishment for the scammers you only encourage. I think a huge restructure of the system is needed. However that only fixes the problem in fields that are not actively working together to scam the system.
In climate “science” they all review each others work now, they all audit each others work now. If you set new standard will someone like me be an auditor? or will be some Ph.D cultist who’s an “expert”.
The system is corrupt adjusting the system so it looks less corrupt doesn’t make it less corrupt. Further by making the system look like it has very high standards you you in fact make it easier for the now fully corrupted system to crush dissent.
Nothing I loath more then trying to have a scientific debate only to have some academics whine that what I say isn’t “peer-reviewed” or “published” neither of which has anything to due with science but everything to due with academic practices.
If a viable Challenge Platform was to be created it would need to be peopled by genuinely disinterested parties. The problem lies in the word independence, where often a hyphen is inserted to in- dependence. And who decides?
Otherwise it will descend into a jumped up version of WUWT or Not a lot—. etc.
Perhaps the Engineering Professions could help here; for there we have pragmatism in tooth and nail and the ability to assess the scientific outpourings against the realities. Mind you vested interests also prevail here as everywhere.
The moderator’s role should be of short tenure and hop around amid the credible institutions.
All very difficult.
Larry, you may be too pessimistic about the effectiveness of a debate under any of the above protocols.
Your examples of failure are are not in the same world as CAGW factors. Moreover you see the battle as simply being left against right Dems vs Repubs. Their are four noisy elements here. Scientifically clueless Dems and Repubs political partisans plus scientific literates on opposite sides of the question. Let us conduct the debate only between the latter. It would be a quick decision with independent moderators
Scientific proponents of the warming have largely been beaten already. Proponents confidence was quickly worn down after sceptics got seriously into the fray after about 2005. They had a relatively free reign up til then.
The climategate emails reveal the depth and desperation of corruption that arose among their ranks when effective scientific criticism of the underpinning of their theory was put forward. Why (would one think) didn’t they simply counter the criticism with sound logical
scientific answers, backed by convincing data instead. Einstein didn’t resort to vilifying critics, hiding, destroying and altering data. He didn’t threaten journal editors who would publish sceptics’ papers, or have reviewers reject them. It would only make sense to go to the extent of scientific fraud and malfeasance if they had no convincing support for their theory at all.
The disastrous PAUSE and its implications during which CO2 increased 35%, resulted in numerous climate scientists coming down with the now famous Climate Blues. Oh they rationalized they saw the planet coming to peril and no one would listen, but this illness has the classic diagnosis in psychology, ironically, of деиуал. The pause indicated a much lower climate sensitivity that took the alarm away and to accept it, was to accept their long studies an half or if a life’s work was worthless.
How serious a blow was the PAUSE? The unremitting continuation of it for a period equal to the period of the warming that was causing the fuss in the first place, was too much to bear. With the witless support of millions of useful idiots it was decided that a retiring NOAA scientists would simply alter the data once again before he left to get rid of the pause – Karlization!
The fact that AGW proponents have absolutely refused to debate with scientific opponents ( having lost early ones) is further proof that their are no bolts in their quivers. A debate of any kind with neutral moderators would be refused by all CAGW scientists. Forfeiture is an unequivocal win for the other side. Just ordering the debate by Pruitt is all it would take.
A simpler way would be to cut the funding 50% for all projects with global warrming, climate change or CO2 mentioned. The other 50% could then go to projects that not mention these words.
A Red Team could work well. Were I on a Red Team in my field, I would know what to do. Moreover, I would be humble and truly be open to other points of view — while doing my best to crush the Blue team (as they tried to crush the Red team). For me, its always the “truth” that matters (even if I’m proved wrong).
Heck, if I could do it, so can many others. The problem is in picking Red and Blue team members who are primarily interested in the “truth” and are truly intelligent and humble — as opposed to having “reputations” and “settled” opinions to defend. Not sure how one finds such people — if one is a politician (who has virtually no scientific ability or “smarts”), but its worth a try.
WOW! Talk about running with a misunderstanding!
The Trump admin proposal for “Red Team / Blue Team” had NOTHING to do with “Red Teaming”.
BECAUSE the issue has become politicized, it was a call for a “Red” team (not to be confused with Red Teaming) and a “Blue Team”. (Try to find an analog for Red Teaming called Blue Teaming. It doesn’t exist.)
This article is about an issue that is wholly imaginary. This sort of “Red Team” in reality was neither called for or even imagined.
The intent of the “Red Team / Blue Team” concept was to get AGW alarmists to debate skeptics openly.
NOTHING more than that.
Anne,
“The Trump admin proposal for “Red Team / Blue Team” had NOTHING to do with “Red Teaming”.”
Most of the people talking about this proposal disagree with you. See the links I give. For example, Judith Curry’s article at Climate Etc – which has a long discussion of how Red Team exercises work (she uses several of the same sources I use).
I am not very interested in whether other people misunderstood too (intentionally or otherwise).
The fact of the matter is that a meaning was extracted from one phrase, and inserted into a similar but unrelated phrase which was used in (to the best of anybody’s knowledge) a completely different context.
I have seen exactly zero evidence that would justify conflating the two.
… First, what is the key question to answer? The answer should make a difference in the debate….
Ah. We have hit trouble before first base. You see, there is no difficulty with answering questions in a way that will make the alarmists really happy. For example, one obvious question is:
“Might Climate Change be a great danger to humanity?”
And everyone would have to agree that it MIGHT….
Dodgy:Let’s see their evidence! For 40yrs they’ve been incorrectly predicting the disastrous future. Would we give Bertrand Russell’s orbiting tea pot the same type of credence just because it has been proposed and after 40yrs we’ve failed to find evidence of it?
Gary,
While it is potentially possible to prove that the Abominable Snowman exists (by capturing one) it is logically impossible to prove that it doesn’t exist. However, after years of making a concerted effort to observe one, a reasonable person would conclude that the probability of one existing varies inversely with the amount of time and effort expended looking for one.
It’ll fail because the team will be filled with lukewarmers quibbling about climate sensitivity instead of deconstructing the totally bogus temperature record.
They don’t want to call fraud because it’ll invalidate their own fields.
Agreed.
Who is on the team and what the starting point is are critical.
The red team/blue team process/concept is more than just a red team and blue team.
There is a red team, a blue team, a moderator (think schedules, mandatory documentation, rules, consequences for shit disturber players who do not work to identify and if possible resolve issues and/or who bring emotions into an analysis), and processes which force both teams to answer questions and to ensure the analysis/discussions is documented.
The objective of the process is to force the analysis to be critical, fact/logic based, and to quantify issues/differences.
This problem is unique as we have allowed people to manipulate data and models which makes it difficult as there is an issue that the same people and/or their cohorts will not admit they have manipulated data and models (Mann for example).
Yes and attacking the models and proving them fake is one of the simplest from a logic standpoint to do. Once you debunk the models you’ve taken out 99% of the published papers on global warming. Its really a matter of mop after that. Further as its simple logic arguments you only need a scientist and not an academic to do it. Any good high school student should be able to deal with the model debate and crush them in it.
“An extreme example of a failure of A.A. is the 1976 “Team B” project.”
What?!?
In what universe was that a failure?
In case you haven’t noticed the cold war ended in large part because they couldn’t keep up. If we hadn’t followed the path recommended by “Team B” we’d probably still be in the cold war. (brrrr). Poland, East Germany, etc. still behind the iron curtain; years of opportunities for tensions to flare into hot spots; a less accessible China; etc. etc. etc.
John,
“In what universe was that a failure?”
The Team B results have been repeated analyzed by a host of experts, including both the CIA and outside pros. It’s not a complex issue. They made specific forecasts. The forecasts were wrong. Some are mentioned in this post. Others are available in the links provided.
But the Team B project is like Climate Science in one respect. Despite the facts, true believers close their eyes and believe.
“In case you haven’t noticed the cold war ended in large part because they couldn’t keep up. ”
The Soviet Union collapsed as a result of several generations of economic stagnation, plus the effects of low oil prices. Again, this is a non-controversial conclusion among experts on the Soviet Union.
Their long decay was seen by many at the time — those who were not blinded by the west’s propaganda (another similarity to today’s climate wars). Robert Heinlein saw it during his visit to Moscow in 1960 (although he got many of the details wrong).
Not sure where you read your history but thats a very abridged version of it.
“The Soviet Union collapsed as a result of several generations of economic stagnation, plus the effects of low oil prices. Again, this is a non-controversial conclusion among experts on the Soviet Union.”
Economic stagnation? Not really its called collectivism/socialism. Economic stagnation is the result of that form of government but really it wasn’t even economic stagnation at all. It was massive waste and destruction of wealth. Low oil prices were generally meaningless. They happen to a a straw that broke the camels back. Any thing could have push the system over the edge a the point it was. The fact they applied so much weight to the camel from their military build up was much more then the tiny straw of oil prices.
“Their long decay was seen by many at the time — those who were not blinded by the west’s propaganda (another similarity to today’s climate wars). Robert Heinlein saw it during his visit to Moscow in 1960 (although he got many of the details wrong).”
Yes many saw it… just like many see obama evil or global warming fake. The problem is what did the general public and academics at the time see? Well they saw successful socialism, a model we should all follow. They had the economics “nobel” laureate publishing a book the day before the fall saying, the USSR and US have equal and competing system. The vast majority of academics at the time believed that the USSR was going to win the war of ideas and that the US was on the verge of collapse any day now due to it.
Their are literately dozens of studies that were done that if reagan did what he did everyone would die in nuke fire. While we can argue how right or wrong they were in this study they were 1000000% more right then the hundreds of studies that supported “peace”. In simple terms much as you say
“Robert Heinlein saw it during his visit to Moscow in 1960 (although he got many of the details wrong).”
This group saw it just had the details wrong.
“The Team B results have been repeated analyzed by a host of experts”
The same kind of experts that said Russia hacked the election, Trump will never be president, OMG CAGW, etc. etc.
LOL
Oil prices weren’t that low, sure they were way down from the 80’s short lived peak but still higher than ’50 to ’70+. The economy was sacked because of A: communism and B: attempting to appear to match US defense spending.
http://www.macrotrends.net/1369/crude-oil-price-history-chart
PS: If I read the sky is blue in a CIA report I’d get out a color chart for comparison.
In God We Trust; all others bring DATA.
Temp,
” your history but thats a very abridged version of it.”
Yes, that’s obvious.
I wrote a few dozen words as a summary of a subject about which long books have been written. An “abridged version” is all that is possible in a comment (esp since people seldom read comments that are hundreds of words long).
hints not taken it seems….
That’s sure not the way I remember it. The colleges weren’t like they are today. Nobody was publicly holding the Soviet Union up as a worthy example.
Anybody who did refer to a successful model of socialism usually pointed at Sweden.
Really then why is that mobs of pro-stalinist/maoist would run wild? Why is it that Lysenko was taught in US school? Why is it that the NYTs needed to be sued into the ground to even admit that USSR had committed genocide….
I’m not saying everyone believed in the 80s that the USSR was strong… however the very large minority(from the highs of the 60s) still believed it on the day the wall fell… and that small minority had huge power next to the power of who those who didn’t believe. One can even goto wikipedia which is forced to admit( i know horrible source but its just so easy).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predictions_of_Soviet_collapse
which includes great quotes such as
“In a symposium launched to review Michel Garder’s French book: L’Agonie du Regime en Russie Sovietique (The Death Struggle of the Regime in Soviet Russia), which also predicted the collapse of the USSR, Yale Professor Frederick C. Barghoorn dismissed Garder’s book as “the latest in a long line of apocalyptic predictions of the collapse of communism.” He warns that “great revolutions are most infrequent and that successful political systems are tenacious and adaptive.”
No shock it yale and I’m sure they could fill a book with harvard quotes from the 70s-80s.