Climate Change Lowlight of the Week

[marcusmarcusrc]

Michael Crichton was called yesterday to testify about global warming before the Senate Environment & Public Works committee by Senator Inhofe who wants to make decisions based on "sound science".

As discussed on realclimate.org.

What the *&#! is wrong with our government? (And yes, I realize that the government is messing up much more than just climate policy)

Comments

[ploamphed.livejournal.com]

wow.

*pause*

hum, it seems that I can't say anything but
wow
and the moment.

It has been so long since I started noticing stupidities in our government. I can no longer be pissed off by it. It surely is a bad sign that I am becoming complacent and accepting ineptitude in government as a given.

[tanatoes.livejournal.com]

You saw about how they're relaxed all kinds of restrictions re: endangered species? I mean, who really gives a damn about diversity of the gene pool, right?

[shumashi.livejournal.com]

Ok, I'll admit that I haven't read the discussion, but my first reaction is, "Wait, Michael Crichton the author? Is he also a world-renowned expert on global warming and I just never knew?"

[marcusmarcusrc.livejournal.com]

He wrote a science fiction book called "State of Fear" about environmentalists secretly blowing up antarctic ice shelves (causing tsunamis) in order to get global warming legislation passed. The book had _footnotes_ though, so Senator Inhofe thinks it should be required reading for the Environment Committee (which Inhofe is head of).

[marcusmarcusrc.livejournal.com]

Hi Creamo! Wow, its been years!

Yeah, I saw headlines about the endangered species act revisions. I hear rumors that the administration also apparently wants to sell off National Parks in order to raise money. Plus bad mercury rules, bad energy policy, bad wetlands policy... the list of their environmental messups just goes on and on.

Add that to their issues with science in general, the fact that their economic policy bites, and let's not forget "WMDs in Iraq"...

[kirisutogomen.livejournal.com]

He also wrote a fairly interesting essay on climate change, which essentially boiled down to, "these are just computer models, and are thus highly dependent on initial assumptions. Poor assumptions make them useless."

He cited the Drake Equation, that thing where you multiply a whole pile of probabilities together to find out how many intelligent alien species there are. I'd also cite the Club of Rome report and other doomsday predictions from a few decades ago. These weren't really computer models per se, but came to completely wrong conclusions based on poor assumptions, which were mostly accepted by the general scientific community.

[kirisutogomen.livejournal.com]

Our government, like every other government before it, does not know what science is. That's what's wrong.

[marcusmarcusrc.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I've read that essay. I have a few issues with it (of course):

To start with, I would argue that models (mental, computer, or otherwise) are how we understand the world. It is always important to remember what assumptions go into your model, and check to see that the assumptions you are making do not invalidate the use to which you are putting the model. But I would argue that the good climate groups do pay close attention to their assumptions. For example, that would be why our group does uncertainty analyses. Though even our analysis can't capture _all_ the uncertainties that exist... but we think we are as likely to be biased down as up, and that therefore that our models are good enough for policy making.

To hit a couple of other points that I dislike in his essay: "skeptic" became a dirty word in science when tobacco industry lobbyists started lying through their teeth. Ditto for Singer-type ozone hole "skeptics", the early asbestos issues, etc. This admittedly has a counter-reaction that is similarly bad ("well, now that we've got the industry to admit that asbestos does cause health problems, let us ban it in _everything_!"). But I think there's a difference between a good scientist proposing different theories, and the Singers and Crichtons of the world.

On consensus: I think science is all about consensus. Consensus can be wrong, and when good repeatable experiments come along that contradict the old consensus, it eventually changes. But if you are trying to make a policy decision (or teach high school) the current consensus should guide your decision. You don't base your decision on a couple of wackos who say that intelligent design is just as valid as evolution.

Crichton also pulls out the old "we don't believe weather predictions so why should we believe climate predictions" canard which automatically loses him points in my book.

And the horse shit story. Yeah, so people didn't predict the automobile. That doesn't mean you ignore horse shit on the theory that it will go away by itself. Maybe we will suddenly develop a carbon free energy form, or a magic weather machine. Maybe terrorists will kill off half the population with a bioengineered virus. But on the off chance that none of those things happen, our best estimate is that we'll keep using fossil fuels for a long time, and that may well lead to a lot of warming. And therefore, we might want to consider some judicious policies to restrain our emissions (or develop said magic energy source). And if my government is going to be trying to decide what kind of policies are appropriate, I want them listening to people who have a real handle on the problem, not an sf author who dabbles in writing essays on the subject...

-Marcus

ps. Personally, I actually find "Limits to Growth" less ridiculous and doomsdayish than many of the people who cite it. The authors did put in plenty of caveats, they do acknowledge that many problems have technological solutions, and (to me) they mostly seem to be trying to make the point that we should be forward looking enough to implement social solutions to possible problems before we reach the "last tree on Easter Island" point with a problem that turns out to not have a technological solution. But maybe I'm being overly generous in my reading of it.

[kirisutogomen.livejournal.com]

I haven't read the essay since soon after it came out, so I don't remember it well. I'm also astonished to know someone who has actually read Limits to Growth. I sure haven't.

Models: yes, obviously. Modelling is an indispensable part of science. The important thing, as you say, is to be scrupulous about your assumptions. The Drake Equation is crap because it's using a bunch of parameters that are wildly difficult to estimate, and then multplying all the errors.

An underlying problem is that modeling is not taught as one of the principal methods of science. In my experience, schools stick with describing the "scientific method" of hypothesis-->experiment.

If we keep strictly to this concept of science, that if we can't run controlled, replicable experiements, it isn't science, then you're not doing science if all you're doing is constructing models and testing them against the data Nature feels like giving you.

This mostly rules out evolutionary biology, paleontology, astronomy, etc. If we insist on teaching people this bogus definition of science, don't be surprised when people criticize your work as unscientific.

Skepticism: I have no idea what you're talking about here.

Consensus: Yes. Ordinarily we have nothing but scientific consensus. Allowing equal time to every nutcase who makes a lot of noise would be a catastrophe.

I don't think that means that we shouldn't have a few rules identifying the rare circumstances in which we should be more skeptical of the scientific consensus. Any community occasionally succumbs to weird spasms of insanity; scientists are much less vulnerable than most due to the culture maintaining superior standards of intellectual honesty, but they're still human.

Limits: Like I said, I didn't read Limits to Growth. Just the title all by itself makes it difficult for me to believe your assessment. Having a long-term view and preventing problems of the more distant future isn't the same as saying, "Here comes the ceiling."