Climate change

[goat starer]

At last a proper economic assessment of the impact of climate change by a respected economist (Sir Nicholas Stern is former chief economist at the World Bank) and supported by Gordon Brown (UK Chancellor of the Exchequer). Will the potential to shrink the global economy by 20% and a projected cost of £3.68 trillion (yes that is pounds not dollars) be enough to make the US administration take the problem seriously?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/6096084.stm

[Sibling Lambicus the Toluous]

Will the potential to shrink the global economy by 20% and a projected cost of £3.68 trillion (yes that is pounds not dollars) be enough to make the US administration take the problem seriously?

Will there be enough of a change over any particular 4-year period to let people say "things were much worse than when you were elected!"?

Will it be clear that any particular elected official (or any particular country) is to blame for what happens?

Would they be able to institute costly environmental programs without any losing votes?

Hmm... didn't think so.  I'm not optimistic.



Not that my country's any better.  I'm furious with my government after the "flipping the environment the bird" exercise that they had the gall to call the "Clean Air Act".  Bah.

[goat starer]

I rather thought they had over the last 4 but maybe I am underetimating the US electorates response to Katrina. I rather doubt that even if this were the case politicians would respond. They would simply deflect attention with a big foriegn adventure just before an election.

[Sibling Lambicus the Toluous]

I rather thought they had over the last 4 but maybe I am underetimating the US electorates response to Katrina.

But Katrina happened because God was punishing us.  It has nothing to do with global warming.

[Bob in a quantum-state-of-faith]

I rather thought they had over the last 4 but maybe I am underetimating the US electorates response to Katrina.

But Katrina happened because God was punishing us.  It has nothing to do with global warming.

And for those folk who are not so comfortable with that idea, there's the "Once in a 100 years hurricane" idea that most of the rest use.  With the idea that it'll be at least 100 more years before the next one ... too bad it doesn't work quite like that, isn't it?

[Sibling Chatty]

I keep seeing the 'usual suspects' in the media saying that "the electorate" hasn't changed that much. They're forgetting something.

The "average guy" in the Not-Major-Market. He's pissed. He thinks the guys in charge are idiots, he thinks that he ones that MIGHT replace them aren't that much smarter, and they're tired of being patronized and told they don't understand.

I have been amazed at the depth of climatological knowledge of the old farmers and ranchers, and how much so many of them have bothered to learn from the internet. At least around here, there's a HUGE disconnect between the expected level of knowledge and the actual level.

And these folks are pissed off. Pissed at the government for weakening standards, for selling off our natural resources, for NOT signing the Kyoto Treaty...2 old ranchers in ther late 70's cussing the Repubs for not stickin' to what was agreed, not signin' in...using the phrase "tinhorn jackasses that can't do nothin' but cut brush and pretend that dang pig farm's a ranch."

It's not certain, but it seems the 'common man' is just too tired of bailing out the corporate man. I hope it's so. that's how it's looking here in the boonies...

[Sibling Spoffish]

Well, at least they can stop using economy as an excuse - that's our government's main reason for not ratifying Kyoto. Though I'm sure they'll come up with some babble to cover themselves.

But at least my school's going to take my entire year (120 spoilt rich girls) to An Inconvenient Truth... that's a start.

[Sibling Lambicus the Toluous]

And for those folk who are not so comfortable with that idea, there's the "Once in a 100 years hurricane" idea that most of the rest use.  With the idea that it'll be at least 100 more years before the next one ... too bad it doesn't work quite like that, isn't it?

I guess those are the folks who leave me hoarse from yelling at the TV when "Deal or No Deal" is on.  They DO teach math in US schools, right?  

Hmmm...  I got to ride out a 300-year storm a while back.  It happened two years after the 100-year storm.

[Bob in a quantum-state-of-faith]

I guess those are the folks who leave me hoarse from yelling at the TV when "Deal or No Deal" is on.  They DO teach math in US schools, right?   

Hmmm...  I got to ride out a 300-year storm a while back.  It happened two years after the 100-year storm.

Yup. The ODDS of a 100-year, 50-year or whatever-year are what the meteorologists are saying.

What STUPID, IGNORANT people HEAR, is "once every 100 years, like clock-work, so since we just had one I'm obviously safe".

Just LOOK at the number of gullible idiots who purchase LOTTERY TICKETS, for a FINE example of the number of people totally ignorant of STATISTICS.

*bleh*

[goat starer]

I rather thought they had over the last 4 but maybe I am underetimating the US electorates response to Katrina.

But Katrina happened because God was punishing us.  It has nothing to do with global warming.

he was punishing you FOR global warming!

[Sibling Lambicus the Toluous]

I guess those are the folks who leave me hoarse from yelling at the TV when "Deal or No Deal" is on.  They DO teach math in US schools, right?  

Hmmm...  I got to ride out a 300-year storm a while back.  It happened two years after the 100-year storm.

Yup. The ODDS of a 100-year, 50-year or whatever-year are what the meteorologists are saying.

What STUPID, IGNORANT people HEAR, is "once every 100 years, like clock-work, so since we just had one I'm obviously safe".

Hmm...

I suppose it could be also a misunderstanding of how the world works.

After a big earthquake, I suppose it would take time for the stress to build up along the fault line again... this might mean that an earthquake is less likely for say... several years after a big one (or that any quakes that happen then will be smaller).

Maybe people think that big storms take a while to "form up".

Just LOOK at the number of gullible idiots who purchase LOTTERY TICKETS, for a FINE example of the number of people totally ignorant of STATISTICS.

I actually figured out the odds for our local lottery, and occasionally when they get a BIG jackpot, the expected value is slightly above the price of a ticket.

Personally, I see lotteries and gambling to be entertainment: I approach it like I would the movies.  If I play craps (which I haven't done in a while, but I do like it), it's for the fun of the game; the money I'll probably lose is the cost of admission.

he was punishing you FOR global warming!

Oh... really?

I guess I'll be leaving now.  Hopefully I'll take my curse with me.

[Bluenose]

Yup, the "one in a hundred year" storm, flood, drought (insert weather phenomenum of your choice) is simply the one that has a one in one hundred chance of occurring in any given year.  These are not the ones I worry about, I worry about the one in a thousand year, or one in ten thousand year events.

All of these are far more likely than winning the lottery, although to be fair, each year we only get to sample the pot once for the "one in ..." events, whereas in the lottery there are enough people buying tickets (ie enough samples) that someone wins almost every time its drawn (at least with lotto type lotteries, other types may have a winner every time, but let us not be distracted.)

Getting back to lotteries if I sold you a ticket at the normal price and it had a one in ten thousand chance you would be pretty happy I would think, even more so with one in a thousand.  One in a hundred would be simply outstanding.  Probability is not something that most people seem to have a very good handle on.

WRT the weather it amuses me to hear people saying things like "well recent events like Hurricane Katrina or the drought in Australia prove that global warming is happening".  That global warming is occurring is not in dabate here (at least not by me) although I am far more skeptical that it is entirely or even at all anthropogenic.  However, its effects are far more subtle than most people seem to think and big storms and long severe droughts are part of the natural order of things and will continue to occur in irregular cycles global warming notwithstanding.

The danger of this sort of ill-informed debate is that when the cycle swings around, as it surely will, then all those who believed it because of these false arguments will turn around and say "we were lied to" and the reputation of honest scientists will be further damaged and continuing necessary work to prepare for the real effects of global warming will run into trouble (and you thought they were in trouble now - well, you ain't seen nothing yet!)

We owe it to our future to be honest in our assessments of the situation, let us not get carried away with the current fashion in climate science and be altogether more skeptical about the extreme claims that are being made.  The reality is we still do not really have a good handle on all the mechanisms involved and until then all our predictions are nothing more than guess work.  Indeed, given that the climate is almost certainly a non-linear system even fully understanding how it works does not mean that the behaviour of the system is at all predictable in the long run.  People who make claims that they have a model of the global climate and that they can confidentally predict anything with it about long-term climate are either ignorant of the basic math of non-linear systems (commonly called "chaos theory"), or they are telling porkies.

I think we should certainly be cautious and do what seems to be the best things to ameliorate any effects we may be having on the global climate, but lets be honest that we are only making as yet rather poorly educated guesses and admit that we may be wrong and in fact it is possible (if unlikely, at least on current knowledge) that these efforts may actually make things worse in the long run.  Let us also spend some serious dollars on basic research that is not tied to any particular point of view to find out what is really going on.

Hmmm...  enough of a rant for now, I guess.

Bluenose

[goat starer]

The evidence of climate change is NOT the frequency of extreme weather events. These are interesting and may be related but the real evidence is statistical measurement of a number of indicators including sea ice area, global mean temperature, sea levels, long term temperature change estimated from physical environmental indicators, plant and animal related changes such as treeline rise etc. There is a clear 20th century trend in these and other indicators that shows that a very rapid and consistent change. This is science. When you see a pattern you look for possible explanations, hypothesise and experiment before reaching a conclusion. Any number of possible causes were proposed before scientists reached a conclusion that fits the available facts, explains previous results and has a sound scientific basis in physics. The result is undeniable. Atmospheric emissions change the climate and change it rapidly. The IMPACT of this is yet to be determined. Global mean temperatures are rising, sea levels are rising, the proportion of temperature change is scientifically significantly higher that at any period since the last ice age over a consistent period of time and has happened more quickly but what this will do is still unknown. You change one thing in climate and everything else shifts so it might mean an increase in extreme weather events and this is likely in most models.

The science behind this is really solid. Just as the science behind the link between smoking and lung cancer was solid long before the link was widely accepted. There is a very strong lobby that has spent millions to argue the case against and yet has come up with no alternative theory that holds water to explain the trends seen over the last hundred years.

When those of us who understand the evidence for climate change use incidents like katrina to make people sit up and take notice it is because it takes this type of event to break through the doubt sown by the oil lobby and our politicians.

The money has been spent on serious research. the results are very clear. But like all scientific discovery that is unpalatable and will impact harshly on our comfort today there will be naysayers for some time to come. Unfortunately as the rate of change increases we are wasting time and energy arguing with people who actively want to undermine this clear evidence.

[Bluenose]

I want to reply to your post in some detail, but I have no time just now, and may not have much time over the next few days since I'm going away for 4 or 5 days and will have only limited access to the Internet.

However, let me say that although I agree with most of what you say, I think that many climatologists have yet to come to terms with the lack of predictibility of non-linear systems.  You can completely know everything about even quite simple non-linear systems, all the forces, the starting positions of everything (to wihin the quantum level of uncertainty) and yet still not be able to predict the behaviour of the system beyond the immediate future with better than chance accurracy.

The climate is by no means a simple system and that will magnify the problem significantly.

Bluenose

[goat starer]

look forwards to the full discussion!