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Nate Silver's New Site Stirs Climate Controversy
First time accepted submitter taiwanjohn (103839) writes "One of the first articles on Nate Silver's highly anticipated data-driven news site used flawed data to make its conclusions, according to some of the nation's top climate scientists. Silver's FiveThirtyEight published its first article about climate change on Wednesday, entitled 'Disasters Cost More Than Ever — But Not Because of Climate Change.' But climate scientists are condemning the article and its author, Roger Pielke Jr., saying he ignored critical data to produce a 'deeply misleading' result. The crux of Pielke's article is this: Extreme weather events are costing us more and more money, but that is not because climate change is making extreme weather more frequent or intense. The reason we are losing more money, rather, is because we have more money to lose. Pielke came to this conclusion by measuring rising disaster damage costs alongside the rising global Gross Domestic Product. He also cited a U.N. climate report, along with his own research, to assert that extreme weather events have not been increasing in frequency or intensity."
There is nothing interesting here to comment on. Let the fun begin!
Refreshing there is some common sense creeping into this global warming/climate change/the new name when the current one looses its umph. Naturally the pro-we-ignore-the-earths-climate-has-changed-over-millions-of-years crowd cry foul. I cannot ever recall a group of scientists like these folks be so opposed and go to the lengths they do to squelch any and all dissenting views. That is not science but fanaticism.
My karma is not a Chameleon.
He also cited a U.N. climate report, along with his own research, to assert that extreme weather events have not been increasing in frequency or intensity. Aren't extreme weather events and their relative energy levels easy to gauge and track? Why is this controversial? Either there are more extreme / extremely powerful events, the average energy level increasing, or there aren't. Im sure that (like economists do for inflation), factors that are constant and not constant (like solar output) can be factored.
Most media sites are internet hacks now, posting stories for clicks, that's all they care about (alla Newsweek) and guess what, reddit is their big secret! Nate Silver was one of the very few that stuck to the data, and was trustworthy. But that was then, this is now. He has to prove his new venture is going to be accurate and truthful and not just another HuffPost type bullcrap.
~~~Please pass the salt, I hate unsalted MD5s
Since the correlation of GDP vs damage caused via disasters is being painted as causation, the Pro Climate change crows is just annoyed that their patent didn't go through on this new "scientific approach", and don't like an opposing view using their own "scientific methods" against them.
Completely understandable!
Science advances one funeral at a time- Max Planck
Most of the complaints about the original article are suspect, and the primary and most solid complaint (technological innovations in structures) has in fact been accounted for by Pielke.
I would trust someone vetted by Nate Silver a great deal more than anyone posting on a highly partisan site like "Think Progress" - the goal of FiveThirtyEight being to bring real and carefully considered data to have a conversation based on science, not emotion.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I'm guessing you ignored the part where he fudged the data he did use, and ignored a whole other pile of data and criticisms of his previous analyses, in order to produce this result? The reason scientists always seem to go after results like this is that results like this are pretty much always based on shit science. If you're hanging your views on shitty analyses like these, perhaps your views are wrong.
Nobody is ignoring natural climate fluctuations. Nobody. The fact that the climate fluctuates naturally does not argue against anthropogenic climate change any more than the fact that the weather changes from day to day argues against the existence of seasons. How about you come back when you have an argument that hasn't already been debunked based on evidence here:
https://www.skepticalscience.com/argument.php
This is the problem I've had with this climate change debate all along. It is clearly a very serious thing that we need to address, but there are people that have a ideology that's simply apposed to progress and science period. They're so intense about climate change they think exaggeration and outright lies are acceptable to achieve their goals. If both sides of the argument are tainted, the the general public will just throw up their hands in confusion and get no-where. Despite what many people may think, Jonh-q-public does notice when everyone from one side of an argument ends up being proven wrong eventually while the other side has never done anything but inform him. This is why the majority of the public trusts in science now rather than superstition. If you vehemently believe in climate change, the get the facts... the real facts. Educate and enlighten people. You'll do more for your cause than Al Gore ever did.
Just like a new 'Highest Grossing' movie premier, or 'Most Expensive Flop'
Money related comparisons need to account for inflation.
538's original mix, sports and politics, are both essentially spectator sports. The major interest in entertainment and people watch for the narratives. Seeking to drive interest (and appease partisans) media come up with false narratives that ignore data. This creates a lot of low hanging fruit for 538 to take the data and point out the narratives are wrong.
I think that 538 has made the mistake of believing that this low-hanging fruit exists elsewhere. When you have multiple groups of writers all trying to generate the best 2.5 hours of cable news punditry every week you're going to get a lot of easily debunked BS. When you try to apply that same once over data analysis to areas of serious scientific study you're going to be the one spewing BS.
I hope Silver can find some additional areas of news that are in real need of analysis because trying to do original scientific research in a news article won't end well.
I stole this Sig
The "science is in" and the "debate is over". But it wasn't before they changed the name from "warming" to "climate change". When they can accurately predict what the weather will be *tomorrow* maybe I will listen. Also if "the debate is over" then why would you ever need to use that phrase? They lie by reflex.
My beef with Pielke's conclusions are that they are the same as regular climate "scientists"; namely that a transfer of wealth will somehow save the world. Whether it's carbon credits, or simply giving our money away to have less wealth to lose, global warming proponents simply can't come up with conclusions that allow the status quo to remain in place. When there are some conclusions that point out the advantages of oil spills, recommend increasing the number of wars waged to secure oil resources, show the economic benefits of more subsidies for oil exploration, and demonstrate without a doubt that the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is nothing more than a make-work program for lazy polar bears who haven't contributed anything of value to humanity since coming into existence 130000 years ago, then I'd be open to supporting more research in this area. Until then, I'll have to take solace in my yachts and record profits since people won't thank how I single-handedly saved all the whales from extinction; whales with the intelligence to spend very little time considering how much methane they produce when they use the bathroom. And once the environmentalists finally succeed in stemming the rising oceans, the whales are welcome to swim in my giant pool of money, while they wait for humanity to figure out how to prevent the oceans from getting too small.
--Big Oil
PS Just don't take my money. The whales will have no place to swim.
PPS If I had more money, the whales could swim in my pool of money, and I could just float the oil on the defunct oceans and save a lot of hassle. Plus all those advantages of oil spills to boot. Where's that research at?
The day before this article came out, the AAAS released a report on The Reality, Risks and Response to Climate Change, and seems to be starting a publicity push on the topic.
Here's what I see -- the majority of scientists believe that there are real problems with global warming, even if there may be some cyclic effects (heat kills off all the humans, they stop causing problems, everything cools back down).
So instead we have groups trying to sow disinformation with questions about the incidence of some severe weather events (are we just monitoring better and catching more, in part because humans are in more places, or are they actually increasing), and are the increases in intensity statistically significant?
And at this point, I've seen some data that might've been tainted (eg, temperature monitors that have had buildings encroach), but the general concensus is that yes, storms are getting worse.
I'm not going to say his results are completely bunk, as he's likely right in that some of the problems can be explained by how and where people build (eg, in the flood plain -- but the flood plain was resurveyed and is growing in my area ... that might be because of silting up of rivers from construction, it could be because of increased rainfall))
Where I do fault the article is for referencing a 'recent' UN report that hasn't been released yet (website says "The Summary for Policymakers will be released on 31 March 2014"), so we can't actually get to the underlying data that he's basing his claims on.
Build it, and they will come^Hplain.
Very well put. You have nailed the issue precisely.
This same attempt to apply facile contrarian statistical analysis to real scientific issues led to the sad flame-out of Levitt and Dubner in Super Freakonomics. You need to understand when the analytic techniques you are applying work and when they don't, and don't draw over-broad conclusions for the sake of a headline and some clicks.
Second class citizen of the New Gilded Age
Yeah sorry they just aren't getting worse no matter what the scare mongering media claims. I've been living in the gulf south for 35 plus years just like my parent and their parents before them. I've been through powerful storms multiple times just like my relatives and ancestors. When the coasts start getting slammed with multiple cat 5 hurricanes in quick succession every year for decades on end then maybe you will have a case for increasing storm activity and intensity. All I see right now is media scare mongering and attention whoring centered around statistically anomalous storms that are normal for an area to have every 20-30 years.
You're projecting your ideas onto what's happening. Full disclosure, I'm a FON (fan of Nate).
This article is about **launching a site**...it's about being "controversial" to get clicks.
Nate Silver doesn't agree with you. He isn't fighting against some imagined climate change fanaticism or intolerance, b/c **none exists**
Pollution hurts the environment. End of story.
This article was about getting "clicks"...it's not trying to overturn decades of science...at best it's a "opposing viewpoint" kind of thing that is attempting to do for climate change deniers what you're attempting to do with TFA...
Thank you Dave Raggett
Nate made a name for himself doing statistical analysis on events where there are generally two possible outcomes and a fairly limited numbers of possible ways to get there. Sports, voting, etc are ALL yes or no answers with very very limited possible ways to get there.
Real science on the other hand frequently involves situations where the answer isn't really known and the possible ways to get there are infinite. So rather than evaluating whether the local voters will vote for candidate A or candidate B is an entirely different situation than evaluating whether climate change is increasing the cost of disasters. There are two variables in the first and good data (such as polling) indicating how people in general will vote. With solid statistical analysis this type of situations should be fairly easy to predict IF your data collection is good. He made his name by doing better data picking than the others.
Climate change disaster levels on the other hand is an entirely different game. Because this is all rather cutting edge science, whether the frequency or size of disasters has gone up (at this time) is a question of open debate in the scientific community. This paper makes blatant assumptions about which side of this debate is right then proceeds to use that assumption as the basis to draw firm conclusions. This isn't good science and it's not good data analysis. Consensus is needed in science if you are going to rely on the conclusions to make predictions on other data sets. And that's exactly the problem, there isn't a yes or no answer to the question there was an assumed answer. There is evidence indicating things and certain scientists may agree or disagree about what that evidence indicates and in time after much research the scientific community will reach a consensus and we'll likely have the real answer with hard evidence at that point.
Nate should stick to what he's good at, fixed data sets with yes or no answers. He apparently doesn't have the scientific background to realize that not all scientific conclusions drawn in papers are either right nor are they the consensus of the community. After all, any jackass can write a paper and draw conclusions and be completely wrong or even fake data, in fact it happens all to often.
The evidence claims that so far, there hasn't been an increase in monetary cost of natural disasters relative to GDP. I'll let other, more informed people tackle this factual issue.* My problem is purely based on faulty logic; at the end of the article, the author extrapolates that this trend of disaster damage being correlated with and caused by increases in GDP will continue indefinitely. But the only evidence cited for the conclusion that climate change won't ever cause increased natural disasters actually says that US tropical cyclones won't significantly increase in frequency and severity for several decades; I found nothing about winter storms/polar vortex, crop loss due to drought, sea level rise, etc. and I'm not even sure how accurately you can extrapolate to tropical cycles in other places, not to mention many of us hope to still be around in several decades. I appreciate that Nate Silver is a great statistician, but this is going to go downhill really quick if the conclusions of articles posted on his site are only tangentially related to the actual statistics.
*The other disappointing thing is that the author has claimed this before, has been refuted, and hasn't changed his argument even so much as to mention the points made by various people who had rebuttals.
You know, when I was alive millions of years ago these great big rocks came out of the sky and destroyed everything. So I'm really getting a kick out of these "extreme weather events" y'all are having.
- Dinosaurs
... in the face of dogma.
-Styopa
Climate scientists hate Pielke because he's so much smarter than them.
When I wander around with eyes closed, I hit my head on walls. It is not because my eyes are closed, but because there are too many walls.
Nate Silver, stats-steeped liberal darling of the past 6+ years, has the temerity to direct his ruthless, data-driven worldview against a liberal sacred cow.
Hilarity ensues.
Well, did you read the article? Because AFAICT his analysis seems good. Do you see real problems with it, or are you just guessing based on a headline? Because that would be as bad as what you are accusing him of.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
A hard-left Obama-dicksucking socialist doesn't toe the AGW line... how fucking dare he?
Someone (in this case Pielke, Jr.) writes up their research then others with expertise in the field get to criticize it, hopefully producing something better ultimately. What is irritating is criticism from people who obviously don't know what they're talking about.
Well, did you read the article? Because AFAICT his analysis seems good. Do you see real problems with it, or are you just guessing based on a headline? Because that would be as bad as what you are accusing him of.
I read his article and the response.
If I recall his claims were mainly that costs had increased at the same rate as GDP (you really confident with his linear fit of that data? way too much noise) and that the IPCC had stated that extreme weather wasn't getting worse (not sure how true that is).
The response was that he was disregarding the fact that modern structures and forecasting should reduce costs, and that some work had indicated storms were getting worse. (to which he had a counter-response taking issue with the modern structure claim)
My point isn't that he's necessarily wrong (I honestly don't know), it's that it's a far more complicated question than the article implies.
I stole this Sig
That post is a lot more clear than your first one, thanks
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Much of the problem is that the Alarmists and the Deniers like to cherry pick the data. What they do is pick a span of time that proves their point. If you look at the last 17 years then you come to one conclusion. If you look at the last 34 years you get another conclusion. That sort of thing. This is classic bad science and both sides are doing it. It's annoying.
That's about right. There's a sort of basic ontological fallacy in an article like this. Just because we can construct a question like "To what extent is climate change responsible for the cost of disasters?" it doesn't necessarily follow that it can be answered quantitatively, or that it even has a meaningful answer. Basically the article is two or three graphs and a bunch of qualitative analysis-- it's punditry in scientistic drag.
Running the numbers can never tell us what we have to do, right and wrong aren't subject to cost-benefit analysis. Always be wary of people that try to apply such logic, considering that the wrong thing to do tends to be the cheaper thing.
Don't blame me, I voted for Baltar.
Much of the problem is that the Alarmists and the Deniers both like to cherry pick the data to prove their favorite theory. What they do is choose a span of time that proves their point.
If you look at the last 17 years then you come to one conclusion. If you look at the last 34 years you get another conclusion. That sort of thing.
This is classic bad science and both sides are doing it. It's annoying.
They give them accolades, awards etc.
Pielke isn't a actual scientist, he's a political scientist who doesn't understand real science enough
He worked at the National Center for Atmospheric Research as a REAL scientist for eight years. Possibly using his mathematics degree, you realized he had one?
You weren't actually basing your understanding on who he was based solely on what someone trying to discredit him painted him as... right? Right?? Sigh.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Anyone remember how it all started?
Club of Rome publication "The Limits to Growth" (1972)
"The main thesis was that a foreseable decline of non-renewable resources would have an influence on all of the other factors. The decline of resources was predicted to happen already in the 1970s while by 2015, food production and global industry was thought to decline leading to a shrinking of world population."
So either we're all starving & on our way out, or there's a lot more to climate modelling than we know now, and the current fanaticism people on both side exhibit regarding the subject has more in common with 2 fleas arguing about who owns the dog, than reasoned scientific debate in search of a reliable and accurate model
I trust that linear fit about as much as any fit to climate data I've seen, 'error bars' are expected, if you don't like the look of the noise stretch out the time scale or picture on your monitor it will disappear in a hurry. So yeah, the fit has 'some validity'. But more importantly isn't the fit itself it's what happens to the data when scaled to GDP, the data CLEARLY show a leveling out of the costs of the damage over time and as such the author directly attributes this to "we're getting richer with more stuff & more expensive stuff to damage"...how that is controversial I fail to see. There may be an effect due to intensity & frequency but its in the noise, it would take a pretty big 'oopsie' in analysis to change the main conclusion. This is of course you believe GDP is a measure of wealth.
Well there is one obvious problem that those who continue to claim that the Earth isn't heating ALWAYS overlook. In fact, it is so fatal to their entire "its all just a hoax/bad science/a bunch of unethical scientists/or take your pick" view of the phenomenon of global warming.
If its not getting hotter, why are virtually all the world's glaciers and ice shields simultaneously melting faster than at any time in geological history?
Why is it that the "it ain't warming crowd" never have an answer to this question?
It didn't explain why it might not be true, it just asserted that it isn't.
Which in part listed FIVE PAPERS as an example, which is a pretty far cry from mere assertion.
I have to laugh at your comment. However, since it would appear that being someone who is ruthless and data driven perhaps you could answer a question that I find it remarkable that those who don't believe that global warming is occurring never seem to want to answer or seem simply incapable of answering.
If the Earth really isn't getting hotter, why is it that virtually all the world's glaciers and all the world's ice shields are simultaneously melting at a faster rate than at any time in geological history?
Those who believe that the world isn't getting hotter really better have an answer to this question that is well grounded in geophysics, if they want to be taken seriously. They surely don't have time for popcorn, as long as they leave this question unanswered.
You really shouldn't have pointed to that article to make your point, since the biggest problem that increase in carbon dioxide causes with respect to the oceans is not the temperature but the acidification created by increasing concentrations of carbon dioxide and its affects on marine life, both invertebrate and vertebrate. A great many marine animals are highly vulnerable to minute lowering of pH, because in early stages of embryological development low pH inhibits the mechanisms these organisms have evolved to produce calcium-based exoskeletons and endoskeletons.
Given that humans obtain about 50% of all protein consumed from the oceans, that is particularly bad news for Homo sapiens. Even if you like to eat jellyfish, which are less susceptible to this problem, you are still in trouble as many jellyfish rely on invertebrates and vertebrates that do use calcium in their skeletons as food.
Just give me ONE global warming denier who can cogently explain why, if the Earth isn't getting any hotter, virtually all the world's glaciers and ice shields are simultaneously melting at rates faster than previously recorded in geological history?
I'm beginning to feel like Diogenes of Sinope. I keep asking this question and still haven't found a single global warming denier who is intellectually honest enough to even confront this question, much less answer it with a cogent explanation steeped in geophysics, or any science at all for that matter.
Of the 20% (more like 3%) who argue that the Earth isn't getting any warmer, can anyone find even ONE who can explain why, if its not getting hotter, are virtually all the world's glaciers and ice shields melting a rates faster than seen at any time in geological history?
How can ANY global warming denier be taken seriously, if they can't answer this question?
.... but I doubt you will understand it.
But here it is: Because we are just at the end of the RECOVERY from an ice age.
That simple fact is backed by 100% of the geological findings around the world. Including geological core analysis at every single one of those glaciers you are talking about.
If trust is to be the final arbiter of this debate, how could anyone trust a global warming denier who is unable to answer the following simple question?
If the Earth climate isn't getting hotter, why are virtually all the world's glaciers and ice shields simultaneously melting at rates faster than previously recorded in geological history?
Has anyone seen or heard of even a single global warming denier trying explain how this could happen?
I have to laugh at your comment.
And I'm still chuckling at yours -- it's like the perfect intersection of straw man argument and cut-and-paste blizzard. Very impressive, I'm sure.
At the risk of pointing out the obvious, did you happen to take note that neither this article nor my post said anything about temperature?
A few weeks ago, Roger Pielke Jr wrote this in response to similar attacks on him by John Holdren.
BTW, the United Nations report he mentions comes from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the group which shared a Nobel Prize with Al Gore.
Let say for the sake of argument that your two questions are correct.
Ok then, what do you do? You can't lower CO2 because we have plainly seen over the last fifteen years that CO2 is not much of a driver of warming - CO2 emissions have remained really high while warming came to a standstill. Lowering CO2 emissions therefore would not help.
So then your question is what do you do to address the problem you see (increased melting of ice), since you are convinced the whole cause of it is from man. Reducing CO2 does not help, so in what way is mankind contributing to the problem you are seeing that can be reduced or cut back?
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Have you priced a beach house lately, anywhere in the world? I know of one tropical island where beach front houses were selling for $25,000 - $30,000 25 years ago, those exact same small beach houses, now 25 years old have a resell value of $200,000 - $300,000 now that this vacation spot has been "discovered", and new construciton beach front houses start in the $500,000 range. The same is true in many other even non prime areas, the town I live in has seen a rampant increase in property values over the last several years, I know one person that paid $29,000 for an older 1920's house about 15 years ago, which was a good, but not great price in his neighborhood, at the same time the house next to his sold for about $32,000 and the very small ugly brown house across the street was on the market for many months at $19,000. The house next door with a few cosmetic upgrades (vinyl siding, privacy fence in yard, etc.) recently sold for $169,000, and the ugly brown one across the street which was just repainted and had a few other improvements is currently on the market for $139,000.
Oh, you mean "catastrophic man-made global warming"...
So why are you saying 'climate change'? Because the climate is ALWAYS changing, that's why... You're LYING by misusing the phrase 'climate change' instead of 'catastrophic man-made global warming'... Why is that?
www.climatedepot.com
A cute piece of "poisoning the well" there
Tubby or not tubby. Fat is the question
What is that "qualification" you are asking for? What kind of qualitifaction does it take, to make a statement as simple as "you can't lose what you don't have" AND have it accepted?
What we have here is a situation that is the exact same thing as a politician claiming that crime is on the rise: Just look at the amount of money that has been stolen in each of the last 30 years. It has been rising consistently, it is now 3 times larger. Crime is three times worse!
Not so says Joe Public pointing out that people now also earn 3 times as much money and are carrying around 3 times as money. There is 3 times as much money around to steal. So you would expect the same level of thievery to net 3 times as much money.
But of course, what is clearly a fearmongering politician in the case I described here, is suddenly perfectly plausible as soon as the climate crowd moves in. You, sirs and madams, are disgusting.
The response was that he was disregarding the fact that modern structures and forecasting should reduce costs,...
What expertise do climatologists bring to this part of the discussion? This is not a question of climatology but of economics. The guys criticizing Pielke are out of their area of expertise on this.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
The response was that he was disregarding the fact that modern structures and forecasting should reduce costs,...
What expertise do climatologists bring to this part of the discussion? This is not a question of climatology but of economics. The guys criticizing Pielke are out of their area of expertise on this.
That's not my objection. It's that this is an actual scientific debate, not some popular misconception that's easily resolved with a once-over of the data.
I stole this Sig
Because they can't write less than a paragraph to try to legitimize global warming.
It's all bunk started by Al Gore.
I am sorry, but climatologists are claiming that modern structures and forecasting should reduce costs. Why? For example, the more modern structure of automobiles intentionally increases the cost of fixing an automobile involved in a crash. The design change is intended to decrease the chance of serious injury to the passengers, but it is accepted that this means that repairing the automobile will cost more.
When the climatologists make this claim, they are operating outside of their area of expertise. By doing so, they are being hypocrites, since these are the same people who have rejected much of the criticism of the theory of AGW because the people presenting it are not "climatologists".
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
You'd be absolutely correct, but Scientology doesn't have any evidence, let alone scientific consensus, to back them up. So you're not correct. Not even slightly. Your bias is showing - it's ugly.
The smart money stopped trying to appease deniers and moved on to solutions a few years ago.
If you argue with an idiot after he reveals he is an idiot you have two idiots. It is a futile exercise to change an idiots mind, once the science was in it was clear that most that continued to argue were idiots or Republicans ; )
The amatuer old standby climate site Http://Www.Globalboiling.org has far more data at your fingertips such as this years running tornado count versus last years or current ocean temperatures or live polar ice caps or a myrid of other real data feeds.
It's "amatuer" and not a designer website but far more informative than that new site.
All those who are true believers in Man Made Climate Change are free to give up their CO2 producing machines right now and start donating 50 to 80 % of their income to 3rd world country's to atone for their previous CO2 sins.
I suspect that wont happen through. This is not about personal atonement. This is about getting permissions to hold a gun to someone else's head and taking the money from their wallet.
Nice bias you have there.
"considering that the wrong thing to do tends to be the cheaper thing".
Like to explain how the UK shipping wood pellets at enormous cost from the USA to burn in a power station (converted from coal at huge expense) helps the Co2 problem, when it creates more Co2 than just burning coal?
To give a very short analogy of why the article is flawed, if it was about roads and whether they are more dangerous today or not, then it would take no notice of whether cars themselves are safer. It would be saying in 1950 1/100000 miles driver someone died, in 2010 1/300000 miles someone died therefore the roads today are safer than the roads in 1950 (all numbers made up).
Car technology has moved on, meaning that even if roads have no more safety measures then less people should die. Our flood defences, planning and response abilities and knowledge of handling risk have also moved on hugely and thus the expectation should be that if weather events remained constant then the damage should be vastly decreased.
"so if they all agree on something, it must be fairly believable"
At one time, rocks falling from the sky were considered to be unbelievable. Believing that rocks could fall from the sky could get you committed. That was the consensus.
History is littered with examples of consensus 'scientific' views being not only proved wrong, but fraudulently so. Even recent history. When 'scientists' set out to prove something, the onus is on them. We see examples of this everyday here. A group sets out to show a link between x and y and lo and behold all of their evidence points to a link between x and y.
The really great scientists didn't work this way. If they had a hunch about how the universe works, they spent most of their time trying to figure out why they were wrong.
Because in the case of a car crash the small cost of fixing a car is preferably to loss of life or permanent injury. Technology and policy changes have meant that these more important things have been targeted and vastly reduced. In the case of weather events the most important costs are loss of life and economic damage so it makes sense that measures would have been taken to reduce these where possible. If anything your car analogy shows the exact logic that would lead people to conclude that not expecting damage from weather events to fall is irrational.
Well then, that settles it. Because the market is never wrong, buyers are never irrational and ignorant, and bubbles never happen (until they do).
I do see a group of fanatics at work, but I'm afraid they aren't scientists. Science is carrying on with business as usual, and squabbling over who is right or wrong is a normal part of the process. The scientific method thrives on criticism and dissent, and insisting that a conclusion must proceed from valid premises and data is not "squelching dissent". Some climatologists are raising objections to both Pielke's methodology and his data cherrypicking - and that's what science does, it hones reasoning through criticism. No conspiracies required.
But if you like conspiracies, remember this is slashdot, where there's no lack of right-wing astroturfers standing by to mod any anti-science or pro-nuclear diatribe as "insightful". That conspiracy is a lot more credible.
It may or may not be, but what makes climatologists people to trust on this? They are speaking outside of their area of expertise
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
“Pielke’s piece is deeply misleading, confirming some of my worst fears that Nate Silver’s new venture may become yet another outlet for misinformation when it comes to the issue of human-caused climate change,” said Michael Mann
Michael Mann is, of course, His Holyness of this anti-scientific cult of scare-everyone-of-AGW-or-else. Of course, he is going to cry "heretic" when gets less than a full and enthusiastic support.
From the update in the article:
"Pielke particularly took issue with Mann’s claim that Pielke “completely ignores technological innovations (sturdier buildings, hurricane-resistant structures, better weather forecasting, etc.)” when analyzing disaster damage and its cause. Pielke said he has considered mitigation data in previous work, but has found through four of his own research papers not mentioned in the FiveThirtyEight article that there were no strong effects on the data."
Wait for some more bull shit calling anyone who doesn't agree with AGW's His Holyness to be called "deniers" (even if, in this case, they are not even sceptical of AGW.. only of its potential economic impact).
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
Our flood defences, planning and response abilities and knowledge of handling risk have also moved on hugely
I don't think that's true. Weren't you paying attention during Katrina? If anything, more people have moved to flood planes, and our infrastructure has aged, so we are more vulnerable.
I don't know what 'huge improvement in risk management' you are thinking of, unless maybe it's Simpson strong-ties being required in earthquake zones; but that is as likely a product of successful lobbying by Simpson as it is an actual improvement. I'm not sure what actual improvements you are thinking of that would make any significant difference.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Interesting thought experiment: No matter which side of this debate you're on, for 24 hours, assume the other position. Do it seriously. Become emotionally vested in that other position and convince yourself that that stance *must* be correct. Then go out and gather as much information as you can to support this adverse position. Be intellectually honest, be enthusiastic, be creative and, above all, be tough. Only view primary sources or sources that are closely linked to primary sources. Consider the independence of multiple sources and if they seem to draw from the same well, don't consider them corroborative. Give greater credence to those who have more credible credentials. Question conclusory statements. Require citations and downgrade the credibility of uncredited statistics. Follow cites and determine whether cited materials are themselves conclusory. In short, deeply investigate the statements of those who hold this adversarial position, but do so from the standpoint of someone who WANTS to believe that adversarial position, within the above constraints. And observe your thought process and the way you evaluate those sources.
AND THEN -- this is the important part -- return to your original position and spend the next 24 hours repeating the same procedure for sources on your own side.
If you do this with integrity, I would definitely discuss this issue with you. If not, you may have to find someone else interested in holding your hand while you jack yourself off.
If "pro" is the opposite of "con" then what is the opposite of "progress"?
The biggest problem I have with man made global warming scare is that the solution always seems to be bigger government and more taxes. These AGW alarmists go running to Congress to ban this or tax that but neither will really decrease AGW. The way to decrease AGW, if it exists at all, is to create alternatives. Give us something better and people will naturally gravitate toward it because it will be in their best interest to do so.
By creating legislation to bar people from doing something does not prevent people from breaking the law. Getting caught with the wrong kind of toilet or light bulb in your house is unlikely and there is no real punishment for doing so. So people will break the law. However, if you can convince people that using the wrong kind of toilet or light bulb costs them money then you have a convert.
What Congress has done is made it difficult to produce energy that is both low in carbon output and profitable. They shut down power plants and coal mines, and stopped issuing permits to drill for oil and gas on federal land. What happened? We buy our oil from other countries where they don't care about spilling oil into the ocean. We put high voltage power lines into Mexico where they don't care how many people die from inhaling the coal soot.
What we should do instead is allow for the creation of alternatives. There has not been a new nuclear reactor built in the USA for four decades. There might be some new ones being built now but all they do is build new reactors on the same site as the old ones. We need nuclear power. Without nuclear power we must choose between the status quo, continued reliance on fossil fuels, or reverting to a caveman lifestyle.
I find it laughable about how people will claim that wind and solar will save the environment and give us all the energy we need. Windmills have been shown to kill endangered Golden Eagles and Bald Eagles but Congress lets that happen because wind power is good. Except that wind power does not make a profit. Its economic viability exists only because of taxes, taxes derived from profitable coal energy. Solar power is no different, it kills birds by blinding or burning them and is only held up by taxing the coal industry.
What happens if Congress is successful in driving the coal industry out of business with taxes? The subsidies for wind and solar energy goes away. Energy prices will triple and people will have to choose between freezing or starving to death. Same goes for gasoline and diesel fuel taxes. If the gasoline and diesel fuel taxes go away then we have no money for the roads.
I believe AGW is a farce. I believe this because the actions of Congress show me that they are not serious about it so therefore they have not been convinced. If they were convinced of the existence of AGW they would not be acting as they do. If they thought that AGW was a real threat to the environment then they'd be building nuclear power plants. If they were concerned about the environment they they would not be building windmills that kill endangered species. What they have shown me is that their greatest concern is growing the size of government. What better way to grow government than to build an economy that depends on government?
Subsidies mean people must do as the government says or they don't have a job. Taxes takes money only from those that know how to make money. The best thing that subsidies can do is take money from those that know how to make money and give it to those that know how to make money, which is no better than not taxing them in the first place. But subsidies don't always give money to those who know how to make money, but it does give money to those who know how to do what the government wants.
If Congress was serious about AGW then they'd stop taxing and spending. Instead they'd provide a legal and economic environment where people with the best ideas on saving the environment and the economy thrive. A good start would be to allow nuclear research to happen. They don't have to give them money, just permission to conduct their work.
I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
Pielke is a political scientist, so by your standard he's operating even further outside of his field of expertise.
But that's irrelevant as I've made clear in every one of my comments, my objection is not that he's necessarily wrong, it's that it's a valid scientific debate and is not being presented as such.
The idea of 538 is supposed to be "here's a question that is poorly handled by the media, here's the data that either clears up the issue or adds a lot of context". Instead what we have here is "here's an area of active scientific research, here's my particular theory presented as the obvious conclusion to an uninformed audience without mentioning any of the dissenting evidence"
I stole this Sig
Yes, but as far as I know, Pielke has never claimed that others do not have standing to question his conclusions because they do not have credentials in his field. Whereas these climatologists have.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
Well I have two responses to that.
1) My criticism had nothing to do with his credentials, I actually treated him as a scientific equal to the climatologists and until I read his wikipedia entry while making my previous reply I actually thought he was a climatologist.
2) I re-read the criticism, and they never talked about his credentials either. They accused him of an overly simplistic analysis and misrepresenting climate research on extreme weather.
No one is guilty of your central beef.
I stole this Sig
Modern construction codes, materials and techniques are more resistant to damage. So a moderate earthquake that flattened cities in the past, or in parts of the world that don't use those techniques and materials, would do minimal damage in the US now.
The people making that claim aren't climatologists, they are people in construction and disaster recovery, who deal with earthquakes, floods, etc., professionally.
Your example with the car is flawed. Cars now are designed to make it more likely for the car to be damaged, because the car is designed to absorb the impact in order to protect the passengers. This is different from 50 years ago, when cars were rigid and could survive minor impacts with no damage, but would transmit the impact to the passengers. The result of these changes (and related changes, such as safety belts and reduced maximum speed limits) is that mortality per mile travelled in US autos is rd what it was 50 years ago. And presumably human lives are worth more than car parts, so it's a net reduction in the "cost" of an accident.
But you did make your point - when one operates outside of one's area of expertise, one can make naive mistakes.
Enable 3D printed prosthetics!