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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."
So, under the old boss, he leaned one way, and under the new boss he leans another.
Color me shocked.
"As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly." A. Carlson
I wonder how many of these reports on other things (crime, drugs, copyright, etc) have been censored too in order to only give the government's point of view?
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
They told me if I voted for McCain that science would be subservient to policy goals. And they were right!
Thx Instapundit.
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.
There will ALWAYS be skepticism on a scientific theory as controversial as this. At some point we have to take action. And maybe this paper was given the bum's rush, but I think it was less "conspiracy to silence critics of the almighty environmentalists" and more "oh, God, let's just get on with this already."
The EPA is a federal organization that, at the end of the day, must side on the consensus of the scientific community. Not be paralyzed by every single dissenting opinion.
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?
If you read through the entire article, you can find some interesting information on what it was he wanted us to do. Instead of regulating CO2 emissions, he states that it is more economical to reduce the amount of radiation from the sun that reaches the earth. I don't really understand his position. In effect, he's saying, "I don't believe in global warming. However, even if I did, there's no reason to regulate CO2 emissions." He seems bent against regulation of CO2 at any cost.
Secondly, he also states that global temperatures have fallen for the last 11 years. I really would like to see his work. This article (http://earthtrends.wri.org/updates/node/83), reported in the September 26 issue of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, shows global temperatures rising for the last 30 years.
This man strikes me as being very much against any type of environmental regulation, and I'm not surprised that the EPA is trying to silence him.
They said he's not a climate scientist, but he has an undergrad physics degree and a PhD in economics and he's seems to have spent most of his career writing position papers for economics think tanks! Heck, that should be enough to qualify him as a client scientist...oh wait. What I mean is, with those credentials he should be able to practice dentistry and set policy on...no, that's not it.
He's a...race car driver? No, that's not it either.
Let me think.
I know! He's an economist.
So now all I have to do is prove that climate science is a subset of economics and the "how dare they say he isn't a climate scientist" outrage will be justified.
--MarkusQ
P.S. From what I can gather, the "suppressed opinion" was just that--an opinion. It isn't like the guy had gone out and done any original research.
Stop giving them power to take your money and make your choices for you. Then you don't care.
Under the old boss, the EPA was accused of quashing reports on climate change made by climatologists. Now, they're accused of quashing reports on climate change made by economists. There's a fundamental difference there.
Wow, the guy has worked for the EPA for almost 40 years but because he has an MIT PhD in economics, that makes it ok?
It wasn't ok when it was the other side, and it's not ok now. End of story.
True... only you have alternatives to the corporate doctor, when the state takes full control, your options get pretty thin pretty fast.
Not really, because for the vast majority of americans it isn't the corporate doctor making the decision, but the corporate insurance agency bureaucrat who has a vested interest in not doing anything for you. With the government at least they have the ostensible purpose of administering your good health and outrageously bad decisions reflect on politicians concerned about being reelected. Outrageous decisions from the insurance companies result in them giving someone a promotion and bad press that comes to nothing because politicians care more about lobbying bucks than constituents.
I'm quite skeptical that the US government can create and run a reasonable socialized healthcare system, but I don't see any better alternatives. What we have now isn't working. We pay more than other countries for much less and it is one of the major factors destabilizing our economy. Half of personal bankruptcies are the result of medical problems. 75% of those were people who had health insurance that found a way to not ay or underpay to such a degree that the individual could not afford treatment. I've been through the system. I had some of the best healthcare available to the middle class when I became ill. I still ended up paying over $20K out of pocket to get treated which would have driven the majority of people (without my paranoiacly large amount of savings) into complete poverty. I can't even imagine how many people who are too poor for personal bankruptcy to make sense are driven into poverty by our broken healthcare system.
Medicine is one of those fields along with firefighting, law enforcement, and military defense where capitalism is a very poor fit.
This man has been working for the EPA since 1971. Hell, he helped BUILD the place.
So what if he's "just an economist"? According to my degree, I'm "just a fish farmer", yet I'm working for a company and doing stuff that keeps the telcom grid alive. Nine years of military communications experience will do that for you. Makes me wonder what 38 years of experience working for climate scientists would do for an economist?
It's not exactly like he's going to just pull this stuff out of his backside after 38 years of service. Nobody that manages to survive THAT long, through seven presidents-five or whom were hostile to the EPA-is going to just buck the trend without a pretty darn good reason.
I'd say it's worth paying attention to the man. Even if he's on the verge of retirement, 38 years of experience is nothing to sneeze at.
[End Of Line]
Physics degree qualifies you to report on whatever the hell you like as far as I'm concerned.
This is one bit of denialist propaganda that gets repeated over and over. Only there's one huge problem with it -- the satellites temperature measurements correlate very closely with the ground temperature measurements. (Compare the blue with black and red lines here). I suppose the satellites are misbehaving in exactly the same way too?
To make laws that man cannot, and will not obey, serves to bring all law into contempt.
--E.C. Stanton
Except a ecological degree guarantees that you are fully indoctrinated in the environmental dogma of the day...not necessarily that you understand the nature of natural phenomena.
THL phish sticks
What does Al Gore have a degree in?
3 things about computers: they're alive, they're self-aware, and they hate your guts.
Unbelievably, despite the fact that I am working on a deliverable for this coming week, I took the time to a) RTFM on CNET, and b) download the PDF of the author's report.
I read through the table of contents, and thought it was worth scanning through portions of the document.
Ironic Item One
In the executive summary, the author chides the EPA as an organization for relying on decades of work by the IPCC, and thousands of person-hours involved in climate science that were brought to bear on the IPCC reports over the last several years. The author points out that the IPCC reports did not include the most recent findings regarding, among several phenomena, solar sunspot cycles, cosmic rays, and the melting of Greenland's ice sheet. The author supports his contention that sunspot cycles and cosmic rays affect Earth's climate by citing one or two, non-peer-reviewed postings to web sites.
Interestingly the most recent peer-reviewed findings regarding all of these items indicate that a) sunspot cycles have nothing to do with global mean temperatures; b) cosmic rays have nothing to do with global mean temperatures; c) Greenland's ice sheet continues to melt at a fairly good clip.
Ironic, and damaging, Item Two
Scanning through the report, the reader comes to page 64 of the report, 79 of the PDF, and finds this heading:
The author then goes on to point out how the following aspects of life in the US have improved over the last century or so, despite rising atmospheric CO2 concentrations:
Then, the kicker comes on page 66; I quote:
While the author does cite a number of actual scientific reports, the text quoted here and the failure to consider the entire constellation of improvements wrought by technology over the last century render his entire report ridiculous.
If the Government becomes a lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for law;
This just serves to remind us, 'liberal' and 'conservative' alike, that political maneuvering and groupthink look pretty much exactly the same and have the same consequences, regardless on which side of the ideological fence it occurs.
Groupthink is groupthink, and it's ALWAYS bad.
That's why, as a liberal, I preferred Dennis Kucinich and am wary of Obama; Obama is far too good at mixing up the Kool-Aid and fomenting groupthink. Kucinich is a plain talker, and it apparently makes him unpopular for saying things that rattle people's delusions and make them uncomfortable. Obama NEVER does that. He's a playa.
Medicine is one of those fields along with firefighting, law enforcement, and military defense whee capitalism is a very poor fit.
This may be true, but Government control of medicine is actually worse. I live in Britain, where we have socialised healthcare in the form of the NHS. I pay for the NHS with a big chunk of tax money; all Brits are forced to do likewise, no choice, no opt-out. Still, many of us choose to buy private health insurance as well, paying twice simply because the quality of NHS care is so poor. It is poor because it is inefficient, and it is inefficient because it is run by a Government monopoly staffed by more bureaucrats than doctors.
For all its faults, I envy the American system and wish that we had it here. An American may lose his house to pay for an operation, but at least he gets the operation, while the Brits die from MRSA, waiting months for urgent surgery in a dirty ward, paying more (on average) for the privilege.
The tao of democracy: the government you can vote for is not the real government.
Al Gore isn't setting EPA policy.
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.
I call paskahousut.
ANYONE with a physics degree can certainly comment on the physics of AGW theory.
[flame thrower on]An ecology degree or a degree in meteorology is what you you get when you can't do the math for your physics.[flame thrower off]
The problem with current AGW theory is that the data doesn't always match the theory as well as would be expected. Generally for people trained in the basic sciences this means that one needs to re-examine the original hypothesis or perhaps the models. Not for people that truly believe in AGW. These folks, scientists or not, can be pretty dogmatic. In today's climate that means that work is either censored, ignored, or the researchers attacked. I find it odd that people who publish works that don't follow the prevailing wisdom that writes the pay checks for AGW researchers are called skeptics or crackpots or are accused of being paid off by "Big Oil" (While money in the form of government grants and/or "green" organizations isn't tainted, ever)
The laws of physics change for no person. They just get occasionally refined (hat tip Einstein). If the basic physics upon which the theory is based doesn't work, then the theory is wrong. Period.
I suspect he was speaking more from his economics degree. If one is to make a decision as to what is better for the world, with a limited supply of resources (ie money) wouldn't having someone with an economics background help do the cost benefit analysis? -cluge
"Science is about ego as much as it is about discovery and truth " - I said it, so sue me.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
This may be true, but Government control of medicine is actually worse. I live in Britain...
Congratulations, you live with one of the worst implemented of socialized medicine.
Still, many of us choose to buy private health insurance as well, paying twice simply because the quality of NHS care is so poor. It is poor because it is inefficient, and it is inefficient because it is run by a Government monopoly staffed by more bureaucrats than doctors.
I'm sure it's terrible, but statistically, you still pay less than the average US citizen with much, much better results. It may seem bad to you over there, but the grass is definitely browner over here. The rates of people going blind from preventable causes, is absurdly higher here, for example. The correlation between wealth and lifespan is much more drastic. The overall lifespan is shorter.
. An American may lose his house to pay for an operation, but at least he gets the operation...
Fewer and fewer have houses to lose, in no small part because of health care costs and trying to get a loan so you can get medical treatment is not going to happen. It's a bad bet. I have a friend who is naturally skinny and tall. He can't get insurance at all because he is clinically underweight. I know a girl who is short. Clinically overweight, no insurance for her. Most doctors won't even treat them even if they have cash. They don't go to the hospital when they get very ill, because they simply can't afford it. One had something stuck in their eye, but decided to wait it out and hope they would not lose vision in that eye, because the alternative was losing everything she owned. The other spent a week in massive pain because of a serious infection of the inner ear. Again, no option other than begging people he knew with money in the hopes someone would help. You assert that Americans get the operation but a huge number of us certainly don't. In the UK they prioritize by severity of condition but here if you don't have the money you just suffer in pain or even die. I have other friends stuck in jobs that provide health insurance. The job is terrible but they can't ever quit because it's the only way they can get healthcare. Oh, and what about me. I'm physically fit, not too old and have no serious medical conditions. I will never, ever be able to buy medical insurance again because I had an inexplicable illness once and they never figured out what it was, so I'm a poor investment for insurance companies too.
Sorry, but the US has every other first world nation pretty well beat for worst health care and there are plenty of numbers to back that up.
On target, gandhi. Global warming is nothing more than the religion of the 21st century. Either you are a believer, or you are a blasphemer. By definition, a blasphemer is NOT qualified to have an opinion. To make things clear, I am a blasphemer, and I think that Al Gore goes down on little children and baby goats.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
I tend to believe that it is impossible to burn THIS much fuel and have no effect on a balanced system. I pretty much believe Climate Change(tm) is possible.
My problem is that some of this has become the flat-earth dogma that science is supposed to rise above.
My wife is a wildlife biologist. Has a degree in Zoology and Conservation Ecology. Working on her masters. Her office consists of wildlife tech's working their way thru the "tree-hugger circuit" as I call it: taking several years worth of seasonal wildlife technician jobs before finding a permanent one. So I've hung out with, rock climbed with, had BBQ's with many more "hackysack-playing, bluegrass-listening, quickdry-and-plaid-wearing 20-something's" with ecological bachelors and masters degrees than you are ever likely to meet.
So take me as something of an educated witness that an ecological degree caries with it a certain indoctrinated mindset about things. A sort of "don't question global warming" mentality. I thought science questioned everything.
Broad brush? Unfairly stereo-typing? Mostly true? Yep. I put more faith behind the physics degree in explaining physical natural phenomena.
THL phish sticks
But he did give a speech last year to the media where he told them that it was past time to allow dissenting voices to be heard as they only confused people. He said the debate was over and those few voices from the other side were outliars (intentional misspelling) and must be ignored One wonders how many millions of dollars he has made as he flies about the world in his private jet, travels in his SUVs and lives in his massive mansions.
The guy had a physics degree, and an economics degree. Neither which fully qualifies him to report on Global Warming.
What does, in your opinion?
The problem with "climate science" is that it really does require a broad application of disciplines - suggesting that someone with a degree in physics in not a scientist, or not qualified to report on GW is absurd. As for economics, this is an even more important discipline when it comes to determining what action, if any, should be taken (eg, cost benefit analysis of various approaches, etc).
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?
Whilst it's not directly relevant to the decision in quashing the report it's interesting to look at who is pushing this. The file is hosted at by the Competitive Enterprise Institute, an right-wing think tank who "seeks to overturn government regulations that the CEI regards as inappropriate, such as regulations pertaining to drug safety, rent control, and automobile fuel efficiency" See info at http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Competitive_Enterprise_Institute
They get significant corporation funding, including from the likes of Texaco.
However, I suspect that the reality of this is that the EPA commissioned a report under the previous government and chose someone who would give them the line the White house wanted, then with the change of President they cancelled it. It's politics. Don't let that stop any conspiracy theories though.
Most of these reports are poor, whether they support your point of view or not. They are intended to take a large body of primary material understandable only by experts and make it easy for politicians to get ideas from. Usually this results in an unacceptable simplification of that primary material.
Si hoc legere scis nimium eruditionis habes.
There are two standard academic journals where the specialized stuff in Environmental Economics is published: Land Economics and The Journal of Environmental Economics and Management. Carlin has published only a single article in Land Econ and none in JEEM during his entire career dating back to the mid-1960s. Furthermore, he only began publishing on the economics of global warming in 2007. Finally, anyone who is first rate coming out of a Ph.D. Econ program in MIT gets a Prof job at Berkeley, Harvard, Chicago, etc. The second raters get placements at Nebraska, Auburn, Oregon State, etc. It is only the dregs that end up as civil servants in places like the EPA. I would almost completely dismiss him except that I did notice that he had co-authored a couple of papers 15 years ago with Kip Viscusi who is certainly not a lightwieght in the field of risk assessment but who has also happily accepted money from Exxon for studying the economics of punitive damages resulting from the Exxon Valdez oil spill case.
Bottom line: Carlin is a 60 year-old fart who has done no significant research in his entire career and has a political viewpoint that is coloring what little work he has done.
FreeSpeech.org
True, but no other branch of science is working within governments to literally tax every person on the planet under the guise of helping mother earth. But climatologists are so yes they get more scrutiny.
It doesn't make people feel warm and fuzzy when the guy that is supposed to be detached has become a "believer".
Climatologists have already reached a very solid consensus that CO2 emissions *must* be reduced at *any* cost.
That completely misrepresents the opinion of climatologists. The consensus is that CO2 is increasing, that CO2 is highly correlated with historical temperature changes, and that the last century of climate change is caused primarily by humans. There is far less consensus over the exact changes that will occur, that they will all necessarily all be bad, or that we must reduce them at all costs.
Not a typewriter
Ok, so it seems what you're basically saying here is, the guy's background is in physics and econonomics--he's not a climate scientist (btw, who is--do you have to have a degree called "climate science" or can other scientists count as well?) and so his writings on anything touching on the climate should just be dismissed (I notice that you haven't touched on any of the merits / lack thereof of anything he's actually written, so I assume this is your point of view)?
Lastly, since he doesn't fit in the "solid consensus," he should just get in line with the consensus.
You'll forgive me, but that doesn't sound like any kind of scientific community / environment that I would want to be associated with or promote, and I seriously hope you would agree. I don't think this has anything to do with what side of the "global warming debate" / whatever you want to call it you fall on.
btw, slightly off-topic, but it seems somewhat noteworthy that others were interested in the EPA's submission process of the IPCC as seen at: http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=6354
ANYONE with a physics degree can certainly comment on the physics of AGW theory.
Sure, they may comment, but that doesn't mean they have any qualifications for making an informed judgment. A bachelors in Physics does not necessarily prepare you to understand chaotic biological and thermodynamic systems at a global scale any more than a bachelors in Nuclear Science or Computer Science. You may have proven that you can stomach the math and a logical thought process, but surprisingly there is actual, applicable knowledge being offered in an ecology major (depending on the school offering it).
For what it's worth, a 40-year position at the EPA doesn't necessarily prove he's qualified either, because he could have just as easily earned that experience by calculating budgets for dam construction or making policies for airport rainwater runoff allowances.
Finally, a PhD in Economics CERTAINLY doesn't prove he's qualified to judge the scientific findings. His input may be invaluable in determining the most practical way to budget for (or ignore entirely) the scientifically-analyzed situation, but not to evaluate the scientific findings themselves. If you are experiencing symptoms of a possible stroke, you don't take advice from your accountant until you've had a doctor examine you.
That being said... I still find it appalling that his report was squashed and hidden from sight. Scientific debate is about considering the all the evidence and a winning theory should be able to explain any major questions or inconsistencies. Rather than silence the report, qualified scientists that have arrived at the contrary scientific conclusion (i.e., Global Warming) should simultaneously distribute a paper that convincingly refutes the "rogue" economist's arguments. Government should be about transparency, and Science even more so. If the officials think he's just interfering with the new policy for political (and not scientific) reasons, then their counterpoint should seek to reveal his dishonest intentions. At least, that's the proper response in an ideal world...
It seems Obama isn't the only one quashing dissenting opinions.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/christopherbooker/5664069/Polar-bear-expert-barred-by-global-warmists.html
Summary. Leading export on Polar Bears excluded from Polar Bear conference because he is a "skeptic" (shudder)
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
A creationist could use exactly the same argument to discredit evolution. And like evolution, I think the fact is that if you sit down and study it, the evidence leans in favor of the experts, which you are not.
There's a lot of people decrying the 'religious fanaticism' surrounding climate change science. However, the fact is that the people trying to discredit climate change are in fact those who ascribe to the church of the almighty invisible hand of the economy which will right all ills if we just leave it alone and let it do its business.
I find it amusing that everyone is so fired up about Cap and Trade when they ignore the fact that it will only work if EVERY emitter buys into it.
That's simply not going to be the case.
What's going to happen is that more heavy, energy-intensive industry will move to India, China, and other less industrialized countries and C02 emission will stay the same (if not actually increasing due to lower levels of efficiency).
The only true solution is mitigation or sequestration.
To summarize your post:
1. I'm a reasonable person. I think massive increases in the earth's Methane/CO2 levels are probably-to-possibly going to induce massive changes in the biosphere, thus placing large numbers of human beings (including myself and my offspring) in harm's way.
2. But here's a personal anecdote about some crunchy tree-huggers I hung out with.
Ergo,
3. On balance, I think it would be valuable to take an unsubstantiated swipe at the scientists who are qualified to researching this incredibly complicated subject. And even though I haven't read his report, I place more faith in this guy's undergrad BS degree than in real scientists in the area.
If you really want to stand by this guy's BS in physics, I urge you to read this comment --- from someone who actually read his report (or better, read the report). Post back to me if you still think the guy is making a strong, scientific argument.
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.
You do realize that Mr. Carlin isn't an academic? I know plenty of engineers, doctors, lawyers who don't publish in academic journals. Do you know why that is? Because they are active practitioners doing the jobs they have trained to do. Mr. Carlin's report was not new science. New research isn't even the EPA's role. His report was a summary of papers counter to the holy scripture put forth by the political hacks running the show, political hacks in an agency that isn't supposed to be political. In fact he cites court cases that specifically state the EPA is supposed to be providing information on all of the positions around an issue. Not just the positions that support the executive branch's agenda.
So, how about, instead of the piss poor ad hominem hatchet job on this guy -- who is doing the job he is supposed to be doing -- why don't you explain why the EPA is failing to do its duty?
And he has a point. Most people are not well enough educated to understand that there will always be dissent. Most of the time the climate change deniers use that as evidence that there is no problem coming.
It's been the fact that the Republicans can find a half dozen hardcore scientists to question the findings of studies which has caused the kind of damage that we're already seeing. It's roughly analogous to pay a lot now or pay a lot later and put up with the inconvenience of having a mobster busting your kneecaps. One way or another we will pay, but if we allow for the dissenters to derail the progress, then we may reach the point where the only option is to cut down to 19th century levels.
Also, that's a nasty ad hominem argument to make, yes he really shouldn't live in a house like that and lecture us on cutting back, but it's really not germane to the argument.
I'm sure the EPA needs economists to evaluate the impact of its policies on the economy. Having said that, that doesn't mean that the opinion of said economists should have any weight whatsoever when it comes to evaluating the science of climate change. The fact remains that the author of the "quashed" report has never published a single paper relating to climatology and climate science, and has only worked as an economist for his entire career.
I'm a Ph.D. student in engineering at MIT with a substantial background in physics. 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.
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.
"Money" is an abstract value for the actual costs are in terms of labor, materials, etc. Economics often involves money, but it doesn't have to. Similarly, astronomy isn't necessarily about optical telescopes.
In terms of the environment, we have a limited amount of CO2 and other forms of pollution that we can put into the atmosphere without causing large amounts of harm. Figuring out the optimal point for CO2 output versus the level of harm is valid area of economic study. Money could play a part here, but it doesn't have to.
Not a typewriter
The grant money argument is one of the stupidest against global warming. Seriously, you believe there is some conspiracy of individuals furthering a false hypothesis and cooking data across several branches of science on the topic of global warming to get grant funding? I'm not going to claim grant funding is easy to get, because it isn't, but smart people will find plenty of good topics to study. We know very little about the climate, and the NSF would be funding lots of research even without the global warming tag attached to it.
Furthermore, the GP points out flaws in the paper that anybody can see. You don't need to be a climatologist to see that there is no causal link between lifespan, crop yield and global warming despite a correlative link.
I find it interesting that mentioning Obama's middle name is considered "taboo". Now, why is that? Hmmmm???
It's not a taboo, it's just doing that makes you look stupid. After all, people don't usually write "George Walker Bush" or "Franklin Delano Roosevelt" in full, either. Same goes for Obama - only context when his middle name is spelt out is generally when someone is trying to hint at his "un-American" ancestry.
You don't have to read very far into icecap.us to realize these guys are a fraud. The http://icecap.us/index.php/go/faqs-and-myths is filled with strawman arguments like these:
# CO2 is a pollutant.
(Who claimed it was a pollutant?)
# CO2 is the most important greenhouse gas.
(Who claimed it was?)
# The greenhouse effect is a bad thing.
The greenhouse effect is necessary for life on earth as we know it, were it not for the greenhouse effect, temperatures on Earth would be about 60 degrees F (33C) colder than they are at present. The global warming discussions center on the claims that human enhancement of the greenhouse will raise temperatures, and that these will be large compared with natural variations. (http://www.junkscience.com/Greenhouse/ and Sherwood B. Idso, Craig D. Idso and Keith E. Idso, "The Specter of Species Extinction: Will Global Warming Decimate Earth's Biosphere?,
http://www.marshall.org/pdf/materials/150.pdf)
# Modeling the earth's climate is nearly an exact science.
(Who claimed it was?)
# Summers will be extremely hot and dry.
(Who claimed it was? Some people prefer to call this effect 'climate change', because the effect on the climate is unknown).
Don't be an idiot.
With your logic Einstein would never have worked his way up and out of the patent office. What the hell was HE doing discussing anything other than patents?
At least listen to the message before judging the messenger.
"As a 38-year long government employee, should he be fired for his views?"
Problem is that they are not his views they are the views of the CEI lobbyists as seen in email linked in TFS, and that's all they are views not evidence. The role of a civil servant is to speak truth to power not to push the barrow of a special interest group, particularly when that special interest is anti-science FUD. IMHO he should be sacked for incompetence, corruption, or both.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
Bush vs Obama on the subject of 'squashing dissent':
Bush:
1. Omitted DATA for 1000 years and mandated the insertion of qualifying words such as âoepotentiallyâ and âoemayâ that the result would have been to insert âoeuncertainty... where there is essentially none."
2. Demanded that data from a discredited study funded in part by the American Petroleum Institute be included in climate change reports.
3. Demanded that The elimination of the summary statementâ" noncontroversial within the science community that studies climate changeâ"that âoeclimate change has global consequences for human health and the environment.â
On the other hand:
Obama:
1. Despite the fact that Alan Carlin was no part of any group tasked with studying climate control, Obama allowed his unsolicited and unwarranted report to be analyzed and subjected to PEER REVIEW, and was subsequently REJECTED by his PEERS.
Yeah, that's the same exact thing.
The thing that should stand out to anyone is that Carlin claims in this "report": "There may be in the future. But global temperatures are roughly where they were in the mid-20th century. They're not going up, and if anything they're going down."
This is complete and utter HORSESHIT.
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/
I REALLY expect more from the /. crowd.
[..]
In short, people are generally classified in one of these 2 groups (good or evil):
1) The ones who believe that man is responsible from global warming. They are the "good" people.
2) The ones who believe that other factors might be involved. They are the "evil people", which must all have interests in oil companies.
[...]
Wrong.
There is a group of people who conclude that of the many factors only anthropogenic emission explain the current warming. These are called climatologists.
There is another group of people who while knowing better, spread FUD about the above. These are called "evil people", and they usually get paid by corporations. Many of them were spreading FUD about second hand tobacco smoke, CFCs, DDT, you name it.
Then there are people who believe they have proved 150 years of science wrong, or theory of relativity wrong, or heliocentric solar system wrong. These are ignorants, or fools. They forgot/ignored/haven't slightest clue that human CO2 warming atmosphere is based on very simple physics and very simple statistics, and any alternative explanation must also explain why the CO2 isn't warming atmosphere.
And finally we have people who either believe doctors, lawyers and other experts on issues they feel they can't understand properly, and people who come up with a bundle of excuses not to listen to experts if the experts tell things they don't like.
After all, no science, including climatology, is done on blogs or bulletin boards, or in op eds. If look at those, there is a flood of divergent opinions. For example in early 90s USA joined the Rio agreement to cut emissions (among other things) and majority of American were conserned about AGW. 15 years later majority believes it's a hoax, and USA hasn't done a thing. You want us to believe that's because divergent opinions are not allowed?
> Why don't we examine the content of his report before disregarding it based on his non-qualifications.
Because people hired to make noise must be disregarded eventually. But since the noise-making apparently succeded enough to get a slashdot post, I can at least link to an examination at
deep climate.
Short version: He cut and pasted from various contrarian blogs and astroturf organisations - the ones that are now shouting censorhip - rewriting it slightly to remove too obvious editorialising. The actual content is standard issue denialist fare: misrepresenting papers (and ignoring the protests when the author complains), along with some long discredited talking points (global warming stopped in 1998, and anyway it was the sun and cosmic rays that did it)
xkcd is not in the sudoers file. This incident will be reported.
"I have yet to see *one* criticism of something in the Carlin paper [snip] if you actually looked at the linked comments paper, it attempts to raise questions. Points to new studies, revised data, etc."
Can you point to *one* paragraph, "new study" or "data revision" in the report that you think is worthwhile debating? - All I can see are the same old arguments and misinformation put out out by the anti-science lobbyists at CEI and other FF think tanks that have been debunked a million times over. Here are a few specific critisisims...
1. He claims that tempratures have been trending downwards for the past 11yrs - this can be debunked by a simple google search and is laughable to anyone who has looked at the temprate records.
2. He blathers on about sunspots and cosmic rays - a theory born from a book by a self-agrandising author and completely unsupported in the litrature, debunked in detail by yours trully here.
3. He complains the last IPCC report is 3 years old and thus out of date. - Fucking nonsense.
4. He claims that the 1998 temprature spike cannot be explained - maybe it's a mystery to him but yet another simple google search shows it's well known that the 1998 spike was due to El Nino.
I stopped there because my head was about to explode. Suffice to say that after skimming what I was sure would be 98 pages of anti-science drivel I no longer think he should be sacked, I think he should be prosecuted for collusion and conspiricy.
"all the more reason to not rush through it to satisfy political whims of the day!"
I'm sorry to say, and mean no disrespect, this is exacly what the psuedo-skeptical slimeballs at CEI want you to think. They lost the technical debate over a decade ago and have been promoting "debate" as a delay tactic ever since. These are the same people who promoted "tabacco scientists" in the eighties and are still recieving funding from Phillip Morris. They are the scum of the earth and I don't find it the least bit "bizzare" that the "slashdot crowd" are calling bullshit on this particular example of Machevelian politics.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
Have you ever seen an atom? How many scientists have actually reproduced the Rutherford scattering experiment? Well, most scientists have not, so everybody is following the consensus that atoms are built in a certain way. Damn, most people rely on the consensus about the world being round instead of flat—there is not that much space in the ISS.
I work with methanol, and I never ran spectroscopy to ascertain that methanol actually is CH3OH. I never checked out that the gas it reacts into actually is CO2. I never checked out the circuits in the mass-flow controllers to check they are measuring the right flow, and even then I would have to check that Maxwell's laws are actually true.
Everybody, and this goes for scientists too, make a huge number of reasonable assumptions. That's the consensus, and it is a consensus because it works.
Strawman. Who would those be? Einstein changed the view more than any other, and the only reason certain people frowned upon him was unrelated to his science—he was a Jew. Galileo was surely frowned upon, but certainly not by scientists; and what about the discovery of DNA, the proof of Poincaré's conjecture, nuclear physics—were all those scientists doing ground-breaking work being "frowned upon"?
In fact, making bold new claims is all there is to a scientist's life. You need to publish new stuff, which needs to pass anonymous peer review. It's not just a formality, and when I was called for some reviews I have actually sunk a couple of papers which made fundamental mistakes. The problem you have is, you cannot just make absurd claims without any proof on the only basis of faith or personal political bias.
... and that is misleading, bordering on falsehood. It has never happened this fast in nature, which leaves human activity as the most likely cause. If you make this kind of extraordinary claims you should follow it up with extraordinary proof.
Oh my god, gas-guzzling climate-change deniers have interbred with the evolution-denying fundies! Let's hope they do not meet the flat-earthers too...
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