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EPA Quashed Report Skeptical of Global Warming
theodp writes "CNET reports that less than two weeks before the EPA formally submitted its pro-carbon dioxide regulation recommendation to the White House, an EPA center director quashed a 98-page report that warned against making hasty 'decisions based on a scientific hypothesis that does not appear to explain most of the available data.' In an e-mail message (pdf) to a staff researcher on March 17, the EPA official wrote: 'The administrator and the administration has decided to move forward...and your comments do not help the legal or policy case for this decision.' The employee was also ordered not to 'have any direct communication' with anyone outside his small group at EPA on the topic of climate change, and was informed his report would not be shared with the agency group working on the topic. In a statement, the EPA took aim at the credentials of the report's author, Alan Carlin (BS Physics-Caltech, PhD Econ-MIT), describing him as 'not a scientist.' BTW, the official who chastised Carlin also found himself caught up in a 2005 brouhaha over mercury emissions after top EPA officials ordered the findings of a Harvard University study stripped from public records."
Science may not be biased, but scientists certainly are.
"The purpose of learning is growth, and our minds, unlike our bodies, can continue growing as long as we live." - M.J. A
I made a post very critical of carbon emissions not long ago, think it ended up scoring (1, Troll). I was even trying to cite the numbers from other sources. Now is it worth severe economic consequences to lower the temperature (and this is just a maybe, and likely using the best model for the pro-carbon-emission-controllers out there) by ONE-TWENTIETH of ONE degree? (over the course of decades) I know I certainly believed most of this green crap when I was in school (not all of it is COMPLETELY crap). However the carbon dioxide aspect of it is the biggest fairy tale we seem to want to believe. Clouds and sunspots have more effect on climate than carbon dioxide ever will. Feel free to mod me down, but at least explain where I'm wrong before doing so. Once again please note I'm only talking about carbon dioxide, and I'm not saying things like smog, or other emissions that cause acid rain are not problems.
I hate to be a troll - but I agree with the EPA, a PhD in economics is not the same as being a climate scientist - unless he has decided to dig into the climate computer models - which I doubt - I am not sure what the substance of his report would be - economic impact?
"No warming in 11 years", in particular, is a wingnut claim. And with a PhD in Economics, he's not a climate scientist.
First, have a look at the data: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Instrumental_Temperature_Record.png
"Global temperature" is a meaningless term in any case, but so long as measures are consistent (they aren't--the thermometer coverage in Asia dropped precipitately after the fall of the Soviet Union) the trend should have something vaguely to do with atmospheric heat content. On that basis, there was a large increase in atmospheric heat content from around 1900 to about 1940, then nothing much for the next forty years, then a sudden jump between 1980 and 2000. It's too soon to tell yet, and I've not run a statistical analysis myself (although one is trivial to do) but you'd have to be insane not to notice that the past decade looks a lot like noise.
Furthermore, the climate modelling community are now predicting "the possibility" of a reduction in global heat content in the next decade, making AGW an untestable hypothesis, globally. If temperatures go up: it proves we have global warming! If temperatures go down: it proves nothing because global warming can cause that too!
So now the ball is firmly in the court of AGW advocates: what facts would you count as evidence that AGW is NOT occurring? If you can't name any, then your belief is not science but faith. We'll argue about priors strength and whatnot after you've adduced the facts that you would count as evidence.
Secondly, with a B.Sc. in physics from Caltech he is one of the smartest people you could possibly imagine, with a better grounding in physics--and remember, climate science is nothing but a special category of physics, so anyone with a decent physics degree is qualified to do climate science--than many people with Ph.D.'s in the subject. I was a post-doc at Caltech, coming from a top-tier university, and felt myself in good company with the grad students, post-docs and profs there. The undergrads were like they belonged to a different species: focused, intelligent and intense beyond belief.
And I should also point out: no one doing "climate science" is a computational physicist, yet a huge amount of climate science is nothing but computational physics. As a computational physicist who has had a look at GCM's, I'm appalled by what I find there. Good science, certainly, but nothing like what I would want public policy based on.
I think there are good reasons to try to reduce our dependence on carbon-based fuels, and as a believer in free markets I am in general an advocate of cap and trade as a sustainable mechanism for imposing property rights and limiting dumping in the atmospheric commons. But as a scientist I think there are far more open questions on AGW than settled ones, and the public debate as pretty much abandoned any pretence of science, with each side arguing its own religion with no reference to any facts that would reasonably bear on the issue.
Blasphemy is a human right. Blasphemophobia kills.
Economists are the Rheumatologists of the the math world. If you want to diagnose some strange condition, that every other Dr tells you is all in your head, and no one is able to diagnose, you go to a Rheumatologist.
The economist's job is to spot and analyze trends. Since global warming has everything to do with trend analysis, I think an economist is the perfect person to evaluate the data.
Historically, the claim of consensus has been the first refuge of scoundrels.
Alan Carlin has no place in any serious discussion about climate change.
Ok then, so what's the solution? He has a point of view you--and presumably the Obama administration--disagrees with. As a 38-year long government employee, should he be fired for his views? After all, if as you say, he has no place in any serious discussion about climate change, why NOT fire him?
Couldn't disagree more. The reason economists are useful in analyzing global warming is that they understand economics. They actually have half a clue what will happen to the economy if we impose massive regulations on it.
PJ O'Rourke was writing about his experiences in a number of countries with major famines. He observed that there was always plenty of food around but that the thugs in charge didn't allow it to get to starving people. Nature, in a nutshell, doesn't cause famines, people do.
So if the science is settled, fine, but also realize that it's a historical fact that we could easily kill more of ourselves than global warming if we screw up the solution. So we need a debate about the economics and we need proper economists to weigh in.
Does that mean that when I have a fancy MIT Ph.D. on my resume in a few years, my opinion be given as much impact as someone who's studied climatology? I'd hope not.
You haven't been around here long, have you? You don't even need a degree in a related field to have your opinion be given as much weight as the consensus positions of the world's scientific academies, climatologists, etc. At least by this crowd.
I tore these out of your symbol, and they turned into paper.