Comments on: ClimateHate

By: Climate, Markets and Machiavelli « Bad Conscience

Climate, Markets and Machiavelli « Bad Conscience — Sun, 28 Mar 2010 08:04:08 +0000

[...] anti-climate change lobby is bound-up with a well-intentioned hippy-era environmentalism. As Giles pointed out, many climate activists don’t just want to save the planet – they want everyone to ride around [...]

By: The Docks Are Empty Now « Bad Conscience

The Docks Are Empty Now « Bad Conscience — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 14:08:39 +0000

[...] reading Giles’ excellent re-write of ClimateHate, I’ve been doing some introspection about where my own tribal political allegiances come [...]

By: Alex

Alex — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 18:38:24 +0000

Alternatively, the problem is that climate sceptics aren’t questioning the science, they are questioning the economics and the ethics which lead to radical conclusions over necessary changes.

I think the “how can you dispute the consensus scientific position on climate change?” argument is a straw man. It is possible to accept the science and still dispute the enormous changes that it is claimed are needed in our lifestyles, a la Nigel Lawson.

Personally, I fully accept the science, but disagree with the suggested course of action of most activists.

By: freethinkingeconomist

freethinkingeconomist — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 12:09:10 +0000

I think the answer Left Outside gave on the LibCon thread is a better one than I can give here. In brief, as far as I can see, the anti-AGWers seem to have a hodge podge of often contradictory reasons for their belief, that to me seem like they are united only by a desire to think that climate change is not a threat we should be doing anything about. Whereas the pro AGW case is simple: the physics makes sense, the empirical data for what it is worth is fully consistent with the theory, and it is clearly a problem with massive risks. David Cameron’s office’s letter puts it well.

http://liberalconspiracy.org/2010/01/31/cameron-re-affirms-claims-to-go-green/

We have had thermometers for more than 30 years!

By: diogenes1960

diogenes1960 — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 22:41:39 +0000

What impresses me is the lack of real scientific consensus behind the AGW hypothesis, by proponents of hard science. It is the same group of people who get cited, time after time. The antis seem to outnumber the AGWs. And they weigh in with things about scientific process and mindset rather than just appeals to authority. Question “real climate” and you get a highly technical paper about lower-tropopausal warming as a response and the debate rapidly bogs down into highly techinical issues. As well as that, the issue gets clouded by the emotive appeals to polar bears and Himalayan glaciers…any response to that pavlovian stimulus? Remember the fuss made by Greenpeace over the Brent Spar platform, in defiance of the facts?

Have you ever looked at the numberwatch blog? There are a lot of physicists who think that the climate scientists are doing science by pictures.

How wuld you measure the temperature of the planet? Perhaps by using the same geographically dispersed set of thermometers calibrtated in the same way over a number of years? That has not happened. Those measurements do not exist. Any measurement set that extends more than 30 years into the past is suspect.

And you ask why i should be sceptical?

By: Alex

Alex — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 19:03:21 +0000

Giles, the demographic transition will probably solve the problem of population growth, but not population itself. World population is projected to peak at around 9-10 billion in about 2050. Currently it is 6.8 billion. Maybe we’ll be okay, but I don’t think Malthus can be ruled out so easily this century.

But I do have to disagree with Straus’ point that “climate change [is] just a symptom of the underlying disease of overpopulation.” Overpopulation may be a future problem. Climate change is already a problem. And as it stands it is in no relation to population currently – most of the emissions come from the billion or so in the developed world, not the billions more in the developing world.

By: Tom Freeman

Tom Freeman — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 13:32:16 +0000

Giles, there was a really good piece in Nature last week that looks into how people's cultural/political outlooks affect how they respond to scientific evidence, particularly around climate change. I've excerpted it here.

By: freethinkingeconomist

freethinkingeconomist — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 10:19:45 +0000

The MMR example is an excellent one. Hopefully, the defeat of Andrew Wakefield presages what will eventually happen to other conspiracy theorists

By: freethinkingeconomist

freethinkingeconomist — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 10:18:55 +0000

You are clearly right; something must trigger the initial decision to follow one tribe, and the affection for collectivism versus rampant individualism must work. however, I would hope that when an emergency gets sufficiently serious, such preferences are silenced – eg. WWII.

Overpopulation will be solved by growth – middle class people have fewer kids. Look at Korea.

By: Prateek Buch

Prateek Buch — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 09:19:53 +0000

The point about disbelieving anything my enemies believe is similar to Straus’ point about political bias – both involve a preference for prejudice over dispassionate fact, for ‘gut instinct’ over empirical determination.

Trouble is, empirical determination wrt AGW (or MMR, mobile phone radiation, homeopathy etc) leaves most people questioning their gut instincts – and the latter almost always wins out – so those of us who ‘believe’ that MMR and mobile phones are safe, that homeopathy is nowt but sugar pills and that human activity is accelerating global climate change are left campaigning vociferously – thereby entrenching the impression that we’re polemics advocating our beliefs, not concerned observers of fact.

*Sigh* if only there were a way of communicating the urgency of climate change without resorting to Monbiot-style denier-baiting (fun thought that is)…