Guest essay by Eric Worrall
According to the Sydney Morning Herald, telling the truth about climate doesn’t work. Hyping extreme climate scenarios is sometimes the only way to motivate climate action.
How Y2K offers a lesson for fighting climate change
Earlier this month, New York magazine published a riveting and frightening look at the future of the planet we call home.
Now that global warming is well underway, we are in for an apocalyptic awakening, and “parts of the Earth will likely become close to uninhabitable, and other parts horrifically inhospitable, as soon as the end of this century,” the writer, David Wallace-Wells, argues.
The article captured the public’s attention, quickly becoming the most-read piece in the magazine’s history. But many critics, including several climate scientists, argued that it was flawed because Wallace-Wells focused on the worst-case scenario, a pessimist’s take.
Why feed the public a too-bleak picture of the future? Why frighten people into action, rather than inspire them?
Because sometimes, the worst case is the only thing that prompts us to get anything done.
…
One popular misconception about Y2K is that it was a wasted effort. After all, when the clocks turned over on January 1, 2000, there were scattered problems, but the world didn’t end. And there is some evidence that money was misspent.
But several of the government and outside analysts who have studied the response – including the Senate task force – concluded that on the whole, the effort was justified, given what we knew about the bug beforehand, and especially considering the United States’ particular vulnerability to tech problems.
…
People are not fools. It is one thing to argue a position, an entirely different thing to deliberately distort the truth.
The Y2K bug – as a software expert I was involved in fixing the problems. I was a Y2K alarmist – there just seemed to be far too many decrepit, decades old COBOL systems running core business processes, all hopelessly riddled with Y2K defects, written by people who had long since retired or died of old age. To my surprise the world didn’t end January 2000.
But it never occurred to me to deliberately exaggerate the problems I thought I saw, to try to panic people into acting.
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I have to disagree about Y2K Eric. Even in 1999 I knew a lot of people who said “Y2K is a million dollar problem that got turned into a billion dollar industry.” In the case of AGW, replace the “b” with a “t”.
+1000
The problem with too many people who think the end justifies the means, is that they are generally not very good at considering all the ends, not just some of the ends. Some end-point in our future is always somebody else’s start-point. Fortunately, we don’t currently live in a world where the majority think it is acceptable to tell any lie necessary to achieve our desires, and we also don’t want later generations to do so.
The planet-savers often like to invoke this “think of the grandchildren” argument, but don’t seem to think it a problem that the grandchildren might then be living in a world shaped by grandparents who were incorrigible liars. That would actually be a lot worse than a slightly warmer planet with more atmospheric carbon dioxide.
Michael,
Yes, a lot worse…because warmer is better on a half frozen planet and more CO2 is better in a world starved of the primary nutrient of the biosphere.
This is the most perverse and successful thing the warmistas have achieved…they have convinced even many skeptics that warmer is a problem, rather than the blessing it is, and that CO2 is a bad thing, a pollutant, rather than the most important and beneficial molecule that is in short supply.
Climate alarmists claim that the global warming problem is so severe that any and all forms of propaganda are justified in order to solve it, including lying and exaggeration.
The problem with this approach is that it employs the exact same tactics that fraudsters would use to promote a con trick.
-So, how do we tell one from the other?
Using the worst case scenario imply that if we ignore the IPCC greenhouse gas emissions reduction agreements/protocals; the worst will happen.
That can be used to catalyst support of member nations on climate change mitigation & adaptation.
Telling the truth about climate won’t help indeed.
Because there is very little to tell.
If someone claims that 2+2=5, it does indeed help to point out that 2+2=4
But no one is claiming that poor understanding of arithmetic will end life on Earth.
And yet poor understanding of arithmetic is far more likely to end all human life on Earth than the climate wobbling back&forth as it has throughout the entirety of this planet’s existence.
These people are fooling themselves. Most members of the public have more intelligence and recognise alarmist scare tactics.
I think you may be wrong about that.
It is only those with the knowledge to understand the truth that recognize it.
Large majorities have no such insight.
Schrod,
A story is told that you might like, regards a U.S. presidential campaign by Adlai Stevenson.
A supporter once called out, “Governor Stevenson, all thinking people are for you!”
Adlai Stevenson answered, “That’s not enough. I need a majority.”
Just a quick question. The surface station org page comes up but the photo gallery will not connect to server when clicked. Has that been discontinued?
Like the Y2K issue, the “stuff stored” on ageing computer systems is a problem. Unlike the Y2K issue, old links die and much of the time folks just move on.
The idiom for this is “There are other fish to fry.”
No, “worst case” is the only thing that draws advertisers. If it bleeds it leads, and makes money and money is all they care about, actually reporting “news” or “facts” don’t even enter the equation.
“The climate of fear,,, like little kids locking themselves in dark closets to see how much they can scare each other.” – Richard Lindzen
Thanks, I needed that.
Linear progressions are not “models” in any way… they are hypothesis tests in their purest form.
The Warmists have been wrong 100% of the time when they test their hypothesis.
MSM operate with the thumb on the scales.
Selling doom … negatives are hyped
Selling Green Magic solutions … negatives are kept out of it.
What do you think about Elon Musk’s speech last week
‘solar is so good you only need this small area and a few batteries to power the hole USA’ ?
Seems MSM just swallowed his salesmanship uncritically as usual.
I just spotted the BBC’s enviro correspondent @BBCmarshall retweeting Greenpeace’s Doug Parr about that dream.
https://twitter.com/doug_parr/status/887209799938695168
There’s not enough silver for that area.
Elon Musk has very creative math.
If Elon Musk is such a creative genius why does he keep stealing my money? I have researched the man and everything I find shows he is vastly wealthy because of tax subsidies from USG. All his wealth appears to come from “tax dodges”, not from actual scientific or engineering advances. Other than OTHER PEOPLE’S scientific and engineering advances. He certainly appears quite adept at stealing other people’s ideas.
What will climate alarmists do when climate is destroyed?
And then remade?
David,
Please provide a date.
We are now retired, but wonder if we should sell everything and give to the poor of the world.
If there are only a few weeks left, that would make their lives better during the remaining days.
If the date is, say 2050 or 2100, there is no reason to give away things now.
There will still be lots of poor when we go in 10 to 20 years, and different, but still poor folks, will get our stuff in either case.
So, we need a date.
What is the scientific theory of “climate change”?
I understand the theory of Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming ( CAGW) clearly.
It is quite a straightforward theory whatever the debates about it.
” Human emissions of CO2 and other greenhouse gase are warming the world dangerously.”
But “climate change”?
Err… ” Human emissions of CO2 and other greenhouse gases are changing the climate of the world dangerously”?
What are the climatic changes alleged ( before we go to issues of benefit or detriment)?
Man made climate change will risk a new Ice Age?
Man made climate change will risk “the Venus Syndrome”?
Man made climate change will cause species extinction?
How can anyone prove such a theory? How can anyone falsify such a theory?
Is the theory that Anthropogenic climate change causes global “weirding”?
Perhaps the UNIPCC AR5 WG1 spells out the answer but I have missed it.
Let me clear it up for you! The “theory” of climate change is that the climate changes constantly. The facts of climate change are that humans are not causing it and can not stop it. Hope that helps.
The theory is the first “Theory of Everything” for climate. No matter what happens, it is due to “climate change”. More rain, less rain, more heat, less heat, more snow, less snow. All of it. The “Theory of Everything”.
Nuclear power plant designers consider the worst case scenario. Single failures, maximum control system delay times, reactor coolant at min max temp/pressure whatever is most relevant for the accident being considered, cooling water at extreme, rods fully out, etc, everything at its extreme.
This isn’t how the accident will probably play out, it is very unlikely to occur like that, maybe a 1% chance everything aligns to be close to worst case, thats just how machine designers do things to be covered if things go really really bad. They pile all worst case assu,ption on top of each other. It does not reflect how an event will probably happen.
There is no reason to consider the worst case for climate models, unless you are trying to fool the public that the worst case is the most probable scenario. Does it make sense that every climate variable assumption is worse case when the Earths climate has been so remarkable stable over the years? Obviously there is lots of negative feedbacks to stabilize the climate. Climate model predictions should be most probable, like tomorrow’s weather prediction. If the weatherman made the worse case prediction for tomorrow’s weather, we may never leave the house. If you have to claim a worst case climate prediction then you need to attach a number to that showing how improbable it is.
No one in Romania worried about Y2K at a nuclear power plant. I know someone who worked, 400km, from one.
Climateers have a point. There is nothing scary about climate developing. They are already hyping it well beyond any reasonable degree with their usual fare. The desperate creations now are well beyond decent fiction. It is a mistake to compare it with Y2K if the purpose is alarm. Y2K was a dud and we must have known more about it than we do about climate (actually I’ve always wanted a good explanation how it wasn’t possible to see that Y2K would be a dud. Couldn’t one simulate what would happen? It was after all, just arithmetic).
Gary writes: “actually I’ve always wanted a good explanation how it wasn’t possible to see that Y2K would be a dud”
It was possible Gary and we really did do it. As you mention, it’s just not that hard to set the clocks forward in a lab. I worked for a computer vendor a the time and we finished Y2K certification/testing in the early 90’s. Sure, it was something worth checking, it was never the crisis the MSM made it out to be.
There were some consulting companies that made a fair amount of money doing “Y2K certification” for companies (end users) who had legacy applications they’d been running since the 60’s on ancient hardware. That mostly turned into a non-event also. There may have been a few problems but they were found easily and the software was either corrected (if the source for it was still around) or it was forcefully retired 10 years or more before it could cause problems.
The only real similarity between the AGW scare and the Y2K scare is the level of MSM hyperbole involved.
“The only real similarity between the AGW scare and the Y2K scare is the level of MSM hyperbole involved.”
One similarity between AGW and Y2K was a lot of money was spent on both of them. In the case of Y2K, I think it was something like $400 million spent worldwide. Enough for a nice additional economic stimulus in the booming stockmarket of the late 1990’s.
If moderate scenarios don’t require action, then why say they aren’t working?
Slightly off topic but in Oz the Fairfax press ( aka in some circles as “F%&kFacts”) have a long article by the inglorious leader of the infamous Ship of Fools ‘expedition’ to the Antarctic a few years ago. Of course like any true blue ‘climate scientists’ the article is just an extract/promotional piece of his new book of the whole ridiculous, disorganised, unscientific stuntfest.
Can you post a link?
I believe the easiest way to reject these doomsday predictions is to strongly disagree with their obvious assumptions, which are all false : that the world’s transportation and power technologies will not radically change long, long, long before any kind of doomsday scenario is even possible, even if carbon were capable of doing the really bad things they envision.
When you’re willing to exaggerate and lie to further your argument, rest assured it’s not science. Science is a search for truth, as such it abhors exaggeration and lies.
My Cobol programs would not have crashed.
I was not thinking about Y2K, only leap years and leap centuries, but I could not find a routine to calculate them (there was no leap century in 2000). So I created a little routine starting at year zero, and counted up the days of the week and the leap years, to the current date.
It seemed to work in all scenarios, and I am sure it would have coped with Y2K, although I did not specifically test for 1st Jan 2000.
Ralph
Y2K is not a good comparison it was clearly evidence based. In my company in the early 90’s I did a study of coding looking for coding that would fail in not only 2000 but also 1999, One of the main culprits was using a 9’s record in the date field of a file or database to signify end of file. Many other memory saving tricks were used in the 60’s-90’s to minimise memory use and limit files in many enterprise critical systems. It is testament to the many programmers who spent months and years fixing systems to get them through Y2K. There were few actual serious Y2K problems worldwide because this work was done.
I know from industry contacts that some problems were only solved by delaying problems to say the 2030’s eg If a 2 digit year comparison was used say subtract 30 from the YY so 99 became 69 and 2017 would become 87 and capable of a comparison without lengthening the date field. This avoided the 1900 problem of subtracting too many from say a system with valid dates in the 1930’s. All based on the assumption that none of the coding would still be in use. Very similar logic to no one expecting 60’s systems to be running in 2000.
I am led to understand that many banks still run old cobol systems at the heart of their operation although I’ve been out of the coding game for over 20 years and never worked for a bank.
Beware there be devils.
Climate catastrophe is not evidence based in the same way.
“. . . hopelessly riddled with Y2K defects ….
as a software expert I was involved in fixing the problems.
To my surprise the world didn’t end January 2000.”
I was not surprised, but am surprised that you are surprised.
Y2K was a real problem and the people involved understood that it was.
Think of gallstones — these can cause problems, but not always. The solution is understood.
With either Y2K or gallstones, once the issue is known, talented people know how to go about fixing it.
With Y2K, fix it they did.
“… fighting climate change” is a very different thing.
There is nothing to fix.
Admitting to spreading propaganda and claiming that there is no fake news? The end justifies the means? The fifth column is a conspiracy theory?
The ‘disaster scenario’ is the only reason to DO anything.