tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9093436161326155359.post3557124028494066968..comments2024-03-28T06:43:02.954+00:00Comments on Variable Variability: The Trump administration proposes a new scientific method just for climate studiesVictor Venemahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02842816166712285801noreply@blogger.comBlogger11125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9093436161326155359.post-28690491932665371212017-07-04T00:39:48.916+01:002017-07-04T00:39:48.916+01:00Robert P Bruce, agree we have to be careful and ag...Robert P Bruce, agree we have to be careful and agree that Pruitt is smart. However, also note that this debate has been going on for some time. <a href="http://variable-variability.blogspot.de/2017/04/red-team-blue-team-curry-christy-koonin.html" rel="nofollow">My previous post</a> was from April and Pruitt is not camera shy, but he did not make the proposal this week, some anonymous operatives did. Less smart Rick Perry and Ted Cruz did go on record as supporting the idea.<br /><br />Rumour has it that Pruitt also does not want to go after the endangerment finding. Rightly fearing it will fail in court and only be a waste of time in which he could otherwise destroy the environment and subsidise his donors more effectively. But many Republicans and donors are so radicalised and stupid that they do want that. The question is who wins. The first months of the Trump regime suggest the extremists often win internally and then the Republicans lose.<br /><br />I guess also the people who support climate science have only limited time and cannot judge with confidence how solid it is. But when it comes to the basics or whether climate change is dangerous it is rock solid. At least when the word "dangerous" means the same thing in the courts as it means for normal human beings.<br /><br />That there is still 3% not convinced has nothing to do with the evidence. I do not think you need to know much about climate, anyone with some scientific training and time can see how weak the "arguments" are that are used by the mitigation sceptical movement. The contrast between the strength of the arguments of the Red and the Blue team is so large that it is not credible that scientists prefer the Red Team because of the evidence.<br /><br />The IPCC may also fool people by being excessively careful in its formulations. Scientists are already very careful, but the IPCC really tops it; they seem to be very afraid of making too strong claims. They may be right to be careful: such mistakes would be abused enormously and would damage climate science strongly.<br /><br />Maybe it is nothing like evolution or gravity (in its domain of applicability) but climate science is very solid due to <a href="http://variable-variability.blogspot.com/2016/12/scott-adams-non-expert-problem-climate-change.html" rel="nofollow">the many different lines of evidence.</a> Even if one line contained a mistake, the others would stand. And none of these lines can be very wrong, otherwise they would not fit to the others. Victor Venemahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02842816166712285801noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9093436161326155359.post-82968256829423823582017-07-03T20:33:00.402+01:002017-07-03T20:33:00.402+01:00Need to be very careful about this initiative. Unl...Need to be very careful about this initiative. Unlike Trump, Pruitt is no idiot and does little without a carefully conceived gameplan. In 2009 the Epa declared CO2 a 'public danger'. This was an important step as it legally allowed the Epa to regulate CO2 emissions without any approval from the Senate or Congress (both of which had blocked all previous measures for CO2 reduction). Pruitt knows he must overturn this declaration, otherwise he is legally removing measures needed for protection of the American people, and will face legal challenges. I expect this red/blue exercise to be set up as a kangaroo court out of which they will force a legal conclusion that CO2 emissions are not a public danger. If he achieves this Pruitt will be free to dismantle all action against fossil fuel emissions with no risk of legal challenge. Robert P Brucehttp://www.theglobalrace.netnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9093436161326155359.post-44220063501272154492017-07-03T17:30:53.370+01:002017-07-03T17:30:53.370+01:00Fernando Leanme, may I just say for the other read...Fernando Leanme, may I just say for the other readers that you provide no evidence for your claims of group think in the direction of too much alarm of a size that is politically interesting for the dysfunctional US "debate" where many people still claim the greenhouse effect itself does not exist. <br /><br />Some group think will naturally exist. Scientists are humans. Our institutions are build to fight it, but there always be something left, if only as overcompensation. I would especially be interested in your evidence that the group think does not go into the direction of too little alarm. <br /><br />In my experience most scientists are very careful and only make claims if they have strong evidence for it. That leads to a tendency to understate the case because then you can present strong evidence for that that more limited case holds up. <br /><br />For example, in my field, when it comes to the global mean temperature increase, there have been many studies on whether this could be due to urbanization around the station (finding that this is a small effect). That was important to make the case that the world is warming due to the greenhouse effect. <a href="http://variable-variability.blogspot.de/2015/04/raw-temperatures-show-too-little-global-warming.html" rel="nofollow">Many other effects that could bias our estimates of how much warming we had towards too little warming (smaller sensors, better screens and siting, irrigation, ...) have not been investigated (much) yet.</a> <br /><br />Studying urbanisation was important to make a strong case and were primary. The cooling effects would "only" make the warming bigger and are secondary. That is likely a pattern you would see for many scientific questions, that is how science works.<br /><br /><br />Your political movement is fighting to make the worst case scenario a reality. Please stop whining that scientists compute the consequences of your favourite scenario. People need to know what the consequences of a a broad range of policies would be. <br /><br />It looks as if the worst case is no longer realistic with the enormous drops in the prices of renewable energy, fast growth rates and the international commitment of the Paris Agreement. The mitigation sceptical president of the United States makes an effort to reverse this progress, we need to know bad the world would be this corrupt nationalist wave would conquer the world. Fortunately, it looks as if the open incompetence and ugliness of Trump has cooled down global enthusiasm for mitigation sceptical parties. Victor Venemahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02842816166712285801noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9093436161326155359.post-41182490921547290852017-07-03T14:08:03.931+01:002017-07-03T14:08:03.931+01:00Griff, yes, I should also have mentioned the GW Po...Griff, yes, I should also have mentioned the GW Policy Foundation botched "review". Another example of a PR exercise intended to confuse the public, create a fake impression that the fundamentals of climate science are not clear yet. <a href="http://variable-variability.blogspot.com/2015/04/two-new-reviews-of-homogenization-methods.html" rel="nofollow">I wrote a post about this fake review and their silly questions</a> at the time. <br /><br />I wonder if they only intended to launch it to get one more newspaper article spreading doubt and never intended to follow through. Or whether they are so incompetent that they are not able to follow through. Same for the OAS.<br /><br />I really look forward the silly questions of Scott Pruitt. They want to go after the endangerment finding? If that means in legalise what it means in normal people language that they think they can show that climate change is not dangerous, they are completely deluded. <br /><br />If they can put more doubt on the impacts of climate change, that only increases the risks. Uncertainty goes both ways. <a href="http://variable-variability.blogspot.com/2015/12/judith-curry-uncertainty-monster-high-risk.html" rel="nofollow">The uncertainty monster is not our friend.</a>Victor Venemahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02842816166712285801noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9093436161326155359.post-4477507621778277412017-07-03T14:01:15.018+01:002017-07-03T14:01:15.018+01:00magmacc, I really like asking mitigation sceptics ...magmacc, I really like asking mitigation sceptics why big Oil does not fund alternative research. Sometimes they even answer that also big Oil is part of the global climate conspiracy to enslave mankind with renewable energy. Maybe we should have a lookout for the Exxon branch on Mars.Victor Venemahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02842816166712285801noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9093436161326155359.post-91329821243317988812017-07-03T13:58:59.266+01:002017-07-03T13:58:59.266+01:00Marco, it looks like you are right and I misrememb...Marco, it looks like you are right and I misremembered. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berkeley_Earth" rel="nofollow">The Wikipedia page on BEST</a> mentions direct funding by the Charles G. Koch Foundation and does not mention any indirect funding by the Heartland Institute. Have updated the text.<br /><br />The amount is not that important. BEST clearly had their seal of approval and the funding quickly stopped when it became clear BEST was doing real science not PR:ยด. Also the funding by private individuals was limited to the first year.<br /><br /><a href="http://berkeleyearth.org/funders/" rel="nofollow">The "Anonymous Foundation" is interesting.</a> A big BEST funder: three times 250,000$. Victor Venemahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02842816166712285801noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9093436161326155359.post-11653391812570083582017-07-03T09:05:34.749+01:002017-07-03T09:05:34.749+01:00"Climate science" isnt done wrong as suc..."Climate science" isnt done wrong as such. However, those of us who have been engaged in these studies know that thousands of decisions are made along the way which can distort results. A lot of it arises from simple human error, some of it is caused by career politics (it's easier to please the boss) and some of it is politically driven. <br /><br />I've advocated a review of the EPA work because it was based on what I consider a "co2 emissions pathway on steroids". These pathways are given almost no attention, and most climate scientists aren't educated in this field, which explains why I usually find myself in a sealed chamber and it has taken me almost half a decade to get this point across. <br /><br />And I must add, as long as work continues to use these poorly backed pathways, it will continue to yield meaningless results. Millions of hours have been spent on studies I know will have to be tossed out. Maybe this coming effort by the trump administration will lead to more focus on this problem? Fernando Leanmehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16085680730729620836noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9093436161326155359.post-63264366348019129622017-07-03T08:40:46.520+01:002017-07-03T08:40:46.520+01:00Victor, I don't think BEST was funded by the H...Victor, I don't think BEST was funded by the Heartland Institute. They don't list it at all on the funders page, and it would get in the way of the money the Heartland Institute already spends on the NIPCC reports (which provide the desired outcomes to HI).<br /><br />BEST did get funding from one of the Koch Foundations, but only in the first year, and it was much less than half of the total funding that first year.<br /><br />Weirdly, in some later years money was obtained from "Anonymous Foundation". Who the frick are they?Marconoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9093436161326155359.post-47380278690502101042017-07-03T04:18:44.381+01:002017-07-03T04:18:44.381+01:00This seems to be an extension of the
GWPF http://w...This seems to be an extension of the<br />GWPF http://www.tempdatareview.org/<br />and<br />WUWT https://theoas.org/join/<br />Both no more than websites after the noise in the echochambers died down.<br /><br />Two teams is nothing but a publicity stunt. If they do it properly they get the same conclusion as the main stream. They load it with has beens and the wayward they get gibberish.<br /> Griffnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9093436161326155359.post-49992299154768552632017-07-03T03:11:00.876+01:002017-07-03T03:11:00.876+01:00If coal or oil corporations thought there was a mi...<i>If coal or oil corporations thought there was a minute possibility that climate science was wrong, they would fund their own research. Feel free to call that Red Team research. That they invest in PR instead shows how confident they are that the science is right. Initially Exxon did fund research, when it became clear climate change was a serious risk they switched to PR.</i><br /><br />I've thought the same thing for a long time now. It is such an obvious point -- with many billions of dollars of annual revenue and trillion dollars of assets held by fossil fuel companies at risk -- that it is another case where deniers have to work very, very hard to ignore the obvious. But that is what they do, and is only to be expected. I am angrier at the lazy media and centrist politicians who have let disinformation muddy the waters for 30 years now in the goal of pursuing false equivalency and spurious middle-ground compromises.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9093436161326155359.post-1794942096501179732017-07-02T22:56:16.454+01:002017-07-02T22:56:16.454+01:00Good stuff, Victor, thanks.Good stuff, Victor, thanks.climatehawk1noreply@blogger.com