General intelligence, social reasoning, and global warming

As I’ve previously stated, the vast majority of people believe what they believe because other people believe it, and not because they have actually attempted to reason through the evidence to come to the correct answer themselves.

When there is a divergence of opinion on a subject matter, people are far more likely to use whatever reasoning ability they have not to figure out the actual truth of the matter, but rather to figure out which group they should believe.

This leads to the phenomenon of partisan politics, because when there’s a divergence of opinion on some political issue, part of the reasoning process of figuring out which opinion to believe includes an analysis of what the “correct” group believes, so a liberal will figure out his beliefs on a particular issue based on what other liberals believe, and conservatives will do likewise.

People with higher general intelligence (let’s call that fluid g) are better at reasoning, but they aren’t more likely to use their reasoning ability to figure out the actual truth of a matter, they are just better at figuring which group’s opinions to mimic. People with higher intelligence also have a greater degree of social conformity than people with lower intelligence. A former commenter to this blog (who I haven’t seen around recently) once explained to me that smarter children are more easily socialized and in fact become “oversocialized” because the socialization process is geared towards socializing those of average intelligence.

One of the reasons why intelligence seems to have such a high correlation with higher-class behaviors is that smarter people are better at ascertaining how more successful people behave and they attempt to mimic those behaviors. There seems to be an exception for nerds. For example, nerdy computer programmers, smart enough to figure out the intricacies of design patterns, are known to enjoy drinking soda and eating Big Macs, because they don’t seem to get that these are now considered to be low-class foods, and that they ought to be eating an artisanal sandwich and drinking pomegranate juice.

Mass media (that’s newspapers and radio, then television, and now the internet) has the result of increasing conformity because now it’s easier than ever to determine how to think and how to behave by figuring out how other people are thinking and behaving.

This leads me to the recent bit in the news about how Mitt Romney says he believes in global warming but Governor Rick Perry of Texas doesn’t. Rick Perry has the correct beliefs about global warming. It’s what people who are smart, are knowledgeable about physics, and who think for themselves believe. People like the physicist Jonathan Katz of Washington University. Jonathan Katz also believes in HBD. That’s how I know I can trust his opinion on global warming. Belief in HBD is a great litmus test because anyone who believes in HBD not because they are racist KKK or white nationalist types, but because they simply understand it’s the correct explanation for differences in human behavior and abilities, demonstrate themselves to be freethinkers who can be trusted to give you the correct opinions in their areas of expertise.

Unfortunately, Rick Perry has the correct belief about global warming not because he’s smarter than Mitt Romney but because he’s stupider than Mitt Romney. We have reached the sad state in which the majority of smart people believe in global warming, and smart people figure out what to believe based on what other smart people believe, and that is how Mitt Romney has come to the wrong conclusion on global warming and why Rick Perry has failed to come to the wrong conclusion on global warming. Rick Perry isn’t smart enough to realize how stupid he appears to smart people when he says that he disbelieves in global warming.

Comments

[Jeff]

I agree with your last bit, but on what do you base your belief that global warming is false? It seems like you're saying that it is false purely because people who believe in HBD tend to believe global warming is false. I am open to believe it is false, but it just seems to me like there's compelling reasons on both sides of the dispute, so I guess I am a global warming agnostic. I don't see how you can so easily deny it.

[sabril]

I basically agree with you, but I think you need to keep in mind that the human brain is comprised of different components and it's possible for people to believe contradictory things simultaneously.

Significantly, most people have a standby rationality mode which guides their actions when significant personal interests are at stake. People also have a brain function to harmonize the different beliefs of different parts of their brains -- the so-called rationalization hamsters.

In reality most people don't actually believe that global warming is a serious problem and most people do believe in HBD.

That's why real estate prices for beachfront property have not crashed. Despite the "scientific consensus" as well as the fact that CO2 emissions continue to rise.

Similarly, real estate prices in Kansas City did not spike when unlimited money started being spent on schools there. Because deep down, nobody seriously expected that poor black kids in the ghetto could be raised up by dramatically increased school funding.

Fundamentally, a free thinker is someone who prefers being unpopular to being a hypocrite.

[Maximus Aurelius]

Argumentum ad verecundiam -

Jonathan Katz believes in HBD, which is correct.
Jonathan Katz says global warming is false.
Therefore, global warming is false.

See also -

Newton is knowledgeable in physics, which is correct.
Newton believes in alchemy.
Therefore, alchemy is correct.

[Douglas Knight]

If you're going to cite Jonathan Katz, you should link directly to his essay so people can see what he actually believes.

[Thrasymachus]

>>A former commenter to this blog (who I haven’t seen around recently) once explained to me that smarter children are more easily socialized and in fact become “oversocialized” because the socialization process is geared towards socializing those of average intelligence.>For example, nerdy computer programmers, smart enough to figure out the intricacies of design patterns, are known to enjoy drinking soda and eating Big Macs, because they don’t seem to get that these are now considered to be low-class foods, and that they ought to be eating an artisanal sandwich and drinking pomegranate juice.>Unfortunately, Rick Perry has the correct belief about global warming not because he’s smarter than Mitt Romney but because he’s stupider than Mitt Romney.<<

Your social arguments are compelling but I think Mitt Romney knows global warming is bogus, but feels he would be destroyed socially if he said so. In other words he's under liberal social control, and so useless.

[ATC]

"For example, nerdy computer programmers, smart enough to figure out the intricacies of design patterns, are known to enjoy drinking soda and eating Big Macs, because they don’t seem to get that these are now considered to be low-class foods, and that they ought to be eating an artisanal sandwich and drinking pomegranate juice."

Nerds are somewhat depressed and are more likely to believe that investing time and energy in trend-tracking is futile, since people will see through their hipster mask soon enough anyway.

Also, as you've mentioned, computer programmers tend to be the unexpectedly smart kid of middle-class or prole parents.

[albert magnus]

"Global warming is real and much of it is probably anthropogenic" - Jon Katz.

Do you believe this?

[Ken Hirsch]

There are intelligent, skeptical things one can write about climate change, but your posts today have none of them. They are really scraping the bottom of the barrel.

First you write about astrologers predicting flooding 500 years ago. This has no more relevance to climate change science than Nostradamus's shortcomings bear upon predictions of hurricanes striking Louisiana. This is complete fluff.

Now you write about how there is an intersection between the set of climate change skeptics and the set of believers in HBD. Really. How astonishing.

I've glanced back at your earlier blog posts about global warming and the reasoning is appalling. Lots of snow, therefore there's no global warming! Newsweek said in 1975 there would be global cooling, therefore nobody can predict anything! And we certainly haven't learned anything in the last 35 years!

Are you serious?

[Whydont]

Sigma you're doing the exact same thing you accuse others of doing. Figuring out what the right people believe and then believing the same thing. John Katz is the right kind of person in the HBD subculture and since you feel he denies global warming, you do too.

Smart people are more likely to believe the truth overall, but many issues they just mindlessly parrot the scientific consensus because no one has time to become an expert on everything themselves, thus if you're going to place your bets, odds favor what the smart people believe so that's the group to mimmick.

[jeanne]

I'm an AGW skeptic, due to the recent scandals involving their data gathering..and also because I'm old and I've been fooled by bad-science hysteria before and it just wears you out.

There is a blog I frequent that is great at health scam busting, but the bloggers ascribe to AGW because, well, it's clearly settled science, and besides it's not their discipline, so let the climate scientists decide the truth for them.

[Douglas Knight]

let me try again. here is Jonathan Katz on global warming:
http://wuphys.wustl.edu/~katz/climate.html

[Commander Shepard]

I believe in HBD and climate change. Does that make me credible on the subject?

I don't see what's so hard to "get". C02 is naturally occurring but human activity is spiking it beyond what the planet can handle, especially in an age with a massive human population. Plus deforestation has devastated the earth's natural defense mechanisms against excess C02. Since everybody wants to live like westerners we better start developing sustainable energy models before we reach the point of no return.

Most climate change deniers are proles who watch conspiracy videos and listen to talk radio. It's understandable to associate your worldview with low class people.

[Bostonian]

HS is embarrassing himself with such poor reasoning and sloppy reading. Katz *does* believe in global warming -- here is a quote:

"Global warming is real and much of it is probably anthropogenic. Nothing serious will be done about it, no matter how frantic or hysterical certain people become. Fortunately, global warming is probably good for humanity. Sit back, relax, and watch it happen."

[Whydont]

"Nerds are somewhat depressed and are more likely to believe that investing time and energy in trend-tracking is futile, since people will see through their hipster mask soon enough anyway."

Or it could be that nerds are more autistic than most people and thus have a social learning disability.

[cannotwest]

Rick Perry lies that he doesn't believe in global warming to get elected because not believing in global warming becoming more and more popular. Google Rick Perry and Al Gore.

Rick Perry is a disgusting globalists front man, dangerous and slick like a snake.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l_KyjvfnHBs

[sabril]

"Do you believe this?"

@albert magnus

I believe it and I am an AGW skeptic. See, the warmists are actually pushing two completely independent hypotheses:

(1) That mankind's CO2 emissions will result in an increase in global surface temperatures; and

(2) Any such increases will be dramatically enhanced by operation of water vapor feedback.

The first is a completely reasonable hypotheses; the second is not. The warmists have pulled a bait and switch by pretending that the dispute is over the first issue.

[sabril]

"C02 is naturally occurring but human activity is spiking it beyond what the planet can handle"

Nonsense, there have been plenty of times in the past when atmospheric CO2 levels were far higher than they are now.

What is the evidence to support your claim?

[Georgia Resident]

http://wuphys.wustl.edu/~katz/climate.html

Katz seems to believe that warming is probably at least partially anthropogenic, but that most of the fears that it will result in major disasters, or represents a large net loss for the world economy, are false.

[albert magnus]

"Any such increases will be dramatically enhanced by operation of water vapor feedback."

Why is this not a reasonable hypothesis, aside from the arbitrary definition of "dramatic"? Global humidity has been increasing as well as the temperature and its properties make it a strong greenhouse gas. Its not just water vapor that's a positive feedback, but also the decreasing area of ice since the liquid water doesn't reflect the relevant radiation as well as ice.

[Shawn]

"As I’ve previously stated, the vast majority of people believe what they believe because other people believe it, and not because they have actually attempted to reason through the evidence to come to the correct answer themselves."

True, and this is why the media really does influence how people think and act, especially those (such as the elderly) who are unable to use the internet to find their own media. People's thoughts are to a very large extent the product of what is explained to them.

**However, it is true that on average the majority opinion on any given matter will be correct more than 50% of the time.** Hence, there is some rationality at work here.

[MrGreenGenes]

I'm a scientist who believes in HBD. A few of my low-class friends don't believe in global warming. They view climate change as similar to predicting the weather. I tried explaining to them that global warming mainly has to do with the average temperature on earth, which is determined predominantly by thermal radiation processes. Because photons do not interact, linear electromagnetic interactions determine these thermal radiation processes. Therefore, we can make fairly reliable estimates of the extent of global warming based on the fraction of carbon and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Weather predictions on the other hand, involve highly chaotic, nonlinear processes.

HS, you're not a scientist. Your certainty is partly due to your ignorance. Why don't you stick to what you do best. Your intelligent readers are turned off by you nonsensical global warming blog entries on the occasion of some cold weather during the winter.

If you want to have an influential blog you're going to have to appeal to the elite readers. The racist readers of your blog only enjoy it when you say things against NAMs. But at the end of the day, you're a jew, and they don't approve. Cater to your quality audience.

[mikeca]

"let me try again. here is Jonathan Katz on global warming:
http://wuphys.wustl.edu/~katz/climate.html"

Thank you for posting this link. This sounds like a sensible position.

Katz says global warming certainly exists, but the climate is very complex and hard to model. The physics of CO2 concentration increase causing climate warming is well understood and not controversial in the scientific community. The climate though is a very complex system and we don't understand it very well. It is unclear how much of the warming we have seen in the last 100 years is caused by CO2. Katz says he thinks some of it is due to CO2.

Katz believes there is nothing that can be done to stop the CO2 increase. He believes that human behavior being what it is, we will never be able to stop the CO2 increase. I think there is a lot of truth to that. All we are likely to do is slow down the increase.

Katz does not believe that global warming will be that serious a problem. He seems to think that people will be able to adjust and adapt to the climate change.

The point that this misses is that the CO2 increase is in large part due to burning fossil fuels. The Earths supply of fossil fuels to be burned is not limitless. It is already clear that oil prices are rising because it is far more difficult to find new oil fields and production at existing fields is declining. In another 50, 100 or 200 years fossil fuels will be in short supply and very expensive. We need to find non-fossil energy sources and convert the economy over to using them. That means things like solar, wind and nuclear. We don't have to do this in the next 20 years, cause the fossil fuels will not run out that quickly, but we need to start working on the technology. These are the same technologies that lower CO2 emissions.

The people who predict the rising CO2 concentration will lead to extreme climate change may or may not be right. The only way to find out is to ignore CO2 emissions and see what happens. If they are right, it will be too late by the time you find out. Since fossil fuels are not going to last forever, and fossil fuel prices are only going to be rising, we need to be putting more emphasis on alternative energy technologies no matter who is right in the AGL debate.

[Patrick]

This is some of the most poorly-reasoned and poorly-researched crap you've ever written, HalfSigma.

As noted by others, Katz does NOT deny global warming and does not deny an anthropogenic cause, rather he takes the view that it's net effect is neutral to beneficial -- i.e. no big deal.

He DOES believe the scientific argument for the phenomenon, just not the policy prescriptions for mitigating it.

So his position is nearly identical to Mitt Romney's: it's real but we shouldn't do anything about it. He's in the "smart" camp.

Rick Perry is in the stupid camp with yourself because neither of you gives any credit to science which doesn't affirm your preconceived notions and political views. For this reason, you both are fundamentally anti-science.

I believe in the evolutionary biological ideas encompassing "HBD" and I also believe that man-made global warming is real. This is called intellectual honesty and consistency.

That is, I don't reject science because it undermines my political ideals. You do.

On top of this, you're going so far as to construct convoluted and tortured explanations for why your guy Mitt Romney would believe the scientific basis for something that you don't believe in, putting you in league with latterday holy man and renowned dumbass Rick Perry.

The cognitive dissonance you're revealing here is embarrassing.

"Rick Perry isn’t smart enough to realize how stupid he appears to smart people when he says that he disbelieves in global warming."

Replace Perry's name with yours and you'll understand why the smart half of your readership is appalled when you put your pet idiocies on display.

[Commander Shepard]

"Nonsense, there have been plenty of times in the past when atmospheric CO2 levels were far higher than they are now.

What is the evidence to support your claim?" - sabril

I'm well aware of that. Were billions of people living on the planet then? I didn't think so. Warming/cooling cycles are natural but today the warming process is being accelerated by human activity.

[Dreamer]

A few things. First, people to take word from experts, as it is impossible to learn everything or even become a expert in one field without a reliance from some. There authority figures includes teachers and parents - when we are young, doctors, experts, and even our peers that put faith in their abilities.

Basically, people adopts behaviors not just they are good at mimicry, but if many times they trust a friend's taste and reasoning for his actions. It is not just desire to conform to peers.

That include nerds, many are well aware of other intelligent people's taste of pomegranate and etc. But they still reject it with reasoning they it is not very effective. More prole-ish (why can't we find a better word than something from 1984) nerds still eat Big Macs, but I think it is more being raised in that background rather than depression and they can't get accepted in a "higher tier" group. The rest accept some of the better habits, but despise the absurdity of hipsters and reject some SWPL fads (IE iPad and that juice). Many instead look up to other people, who are still "nerds," but have their life more together in some ways or perhaps have some cool expertise or talent.

Second, I heard a good bit about global warming over the years. I remember the IPCC report and that graph that shows the correlation between carbon dioxide and temperature that push me to take it more seriously. As well that the big scandal over data manipulation that made me more skeptical. So far, I don't recall anything that is raw hard data that disprove global warming or its dangers. Talking about Katz is a fallacy as pointed above and talking about HBD and free thinking with climate skepticism seems like an attempt to appeal to ego as everyone wants think themselves as a free thinker.

[sabril]

"Why is this not a reasonable hypothesis"

For a few reasons:

First, in any system which is reasonably stable over long periods of time, feedbacks can normally be expected to be negative not positive.

Second, the hypothesis relies on predicting complicated interactions of forces which are not well understood.

Last, there is essentially no evidence to support the hypothesis.

[sabril]

"Therefore, we can make fairly reliable estimates of the extent of global warming based on the fraction of carbon and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere."

If, as you seem to claim, climate is a regular and predictable function of the makeup of the atmosphere, then what caused the Little Ice Age? What caused the Medieval Warm Period?

[XVO]

I agree with Patrick above about global warming. Even if some of it's implications are problematic there is no way to know how global warming will actually play out and there is no way to stop it that isn't really damaging to the economy. So until it's proven without a doubt to be more damaging than the cost of changing we won't change and we shouldn't try. All the co2 we're releasing was in the air at some time in the past and it wasn't catastrophic, we'll just have to adapt.

And to be fair not every smart person wants to conform there are often more valuable things that can be done. I've seen you say this in previous posts but I haven't seen any evidence from you that isn't purely anecdotal.

There are also legitimate reasons to eat fast food. You save money and time and since money is earned by selling your time you save time over those who cook their own food and over those who spend more money at upscale quick serve restaurants.

[not too late]

I'll start by saying that I do not know whether global warming is real and if it is whether humans caused it. I do not know.

Now. I don't think that makes me stupid. I don't think it is a stupid opinion. I just can't figure it out and plenty of smart people have opposing views. The folks who say there is AGW suffer IMO from their ability to benefit from the view. That doesn't necessarily make them frauds, but they stand to lose from abandoning their position of absolute certainty. So, that weighs against their credibility.

Gov. Perry should say he doesn't know, and then go on to say that we should not burden our industries more than foreign industries with some carbon reduction agreement or tax.

[blah]

"Nerds are somewhat depressed and are more likely to believe that investing time and energy in trend-tracking is futile, since people will see through their hipster mask soon enough anyway."

Nerds are man-children who have no taste.

[majordomo]

HalfSigma, if you want to know of an HBD-believing, global warming skeptical physicist, go to Lubos Motl's blog (motls.blogspot.com).

Motl used to be a physics professor at Harvard.

[Brian]

Mitt Romney is pretending to care about global warming to help position himself as a moderate. It does not mean he will actually put policies in place that reflect that belief.

[John]

Patrick has it right. His opinion, like Katz's, and mine, is that global warming is real, but we shouldn't do anything about it right now because the cost of stopping it is orders of magnitude greater than the costs of letting it happen.

Unfortunately, this point is too subtle for a lot of people to get, so it is easier to just believe that global warming isn't happening. I don't have much problem with Perry disbelieving global warming. We're not voting for National Scientist, we are voting for President. If the president doesn't want to pass laws to limit energy usage, I'm going to support him. If his reasons are faulty, I don't much care.

[bored]

Sabril - "Nonsense, there have been plenty of times in the past when atmospheric CO2 levels were far higher than they are now."

True and what was the climate like at those times?

[outlaw josey wales]

Perry also doesn't believe in evolution. He claimed not to know how old the earth is. I wonder if he believes in phlogiston, ether, and imbalances of the humors. Someone should ask him if he thinks people actually landed on the moon.

[destructure]

I'm an AGW skeptic. It's not that I wouldn't consider it. It's just that I don't find the evidence convincing. I'll briefly summarize the fallacies AGW proponents use.

Ad hominem. There's plenty of that in response to HS's post.

Pascal's wager. The idea that one must agree because the cost of being wrong is too great.

Appeal to emotion. Some people read stories about those poor polar bears drowning because of melting ice caps. But the study on which that is based is very weak. http://goo.gl/DeoOS

Argument from authority. How many times have we heard that a majority of climatologists support AGW? An issue like this shouldn't be settled by a show of hands. The biggest report supporting AGW was the IPCC. Yet they included a bogus report about the Himalayan glaciers melting. It wasn't even based on a real study. That's not a small thing. And yet none of the scientists bothered to check. That doesn't inspire a lot of confidence. http://goo.gl/HbUX3

So what of the actual temperature? Well, the temperatures have leveled off in spite of increasing greenhouse gas levels. So there you have all these people screaming "Global Warming Denier!" and "The science is settled!" and it turns out the temperature has already stopped increasing. http://goo.gl/rLtB3

So then they go back and try to say it was because sulfur in the air was masking the global warming. I think they're grasping at straws. http://goo.gl/pdkYB

The fact is that climate change has been going on since the beginning. And the general trend has been warming for the last 10K years. It's been warming more or less consistently for the last couple of hundred years. So if they're going to now say its because of people rather than simply a continuation of existing trends then they'd better be able prove it. But they can't because they don't even understand it. Otherwise, they would have predicted the recent drop in temperature.

[sabril]

"True and what was the climate like at those times?"

Sometimes it was warmer than now; sometimes colder. But the main point is that planet "handled" the higher CO2 levels as far as anyone knows.

[Nicole]

HS,

Do you think that I can get into HYS with a 3.2 gpa and a 175 lsat score as a African American woman. I attend a t-20 public school. I plan to explain my low gpa in my personal statement as I have been through several hardships throughout the last two years. Your input would be greatly appreciated.

[HS: No problem at all getting into HYS with a 175 LSAT if you are black. Go for it. The only question is, which of the three should you choose? I think that Harvard is the best choice.]

[sabril]

"I'm well aware of that. Were billions of people living on the planet then? I didn't think so."

I agree, but so what? Your claim is that humans are "spiking" CO2 levels beyond what the planet can "handle." This is a dubious claim since the planet has "handled" far higher CO2 levels in the past.

Besides, you haven't supplied any evidence to support your claim.

"Warming/cooling cycles are natural but today the warming process is being accelerated by human activity."

So what if it is? Every time you light up a cigarette you are making the surface of the planet warmer than it otherwise would have been.

The question is how much, and there is no evidence to believe that warming caused by human CO2 emissions will be a serious problem.

[Meng Bomin]

I read Jonathan Katz's essay on Global Warming. It's a poignant critique of the attitudes toward climate change that are prevalent among the ruling classes of the West. However, if you think he is arguing that the average temperature across the globe is not increasing over time and that if it were, the increase is not caused by man, look at the concluding paragraph. The first sentence of which is:

"Global warming is real and much of it is probably anthropogenic."

His real heresy is not that he disputes the fact that average temperature is increasing and that human activity is partially responsible, it's with the policy implications. The rest of the paragraph is as follows:

"Nothing serious will be done about it, no matter how frantic or hysterical certain people become. Fortunately, global warming is probably good for humanity. Sit back, relax, and watch it happen."

Since you've listed Katz as a prime example of someone who is willing to figure out and state the truth in the face of adversity, then I wonder, is it your position, as it is Katz's, that "[g]lobal warming is real and much of it is probably anthropogenic" and that the real issue is that there isn't a realistic discussion of the policy concerning that fact or do you indeed deny the notion that the average temperature is increasing or that human forcing is a factor in that increase?

As I said Katz makes poignant critiques. I have not seen any critiques of similar caliber by anyone denying one or both of those two propositions.

[HS: The earth is somewhat warmer now than it was a century and a half ago. A century and a half ago is when we came out of the Little Ice Age. No one knows what caused that and no one knows what caused the Medieval Warm Period. No one knows what causes ice ages and interstitial warm periods. There is far too little known about climate changes to say definitively what caused the temperature increase from 160 years ago.

Carbon dioxide is likely only a minor contributor to the warming, based on the Heinz Hug spectral analysis.

"Global Warming" is the belief that increased carbon dioxide is causing a significant and unprecedented increase in temperature which will lead to catastrphic consequences. This is what is the false belief.

I think that Jonathan Katz is trying a little too hard to sound smart and nuanced, and not like one of those people who deny evolution.]

[Mark Caplan]

As I understand it, Rick Perry's position is that MANMADE global warming has not yet been scientifically proven to a degree of likelihood that satisfies Rick Perry. That's different from the blanket statement that Rick Perry doesn't believe in global warming.

Of course the Upton Sinclair maxim: "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary [or job or profits] depends upon his not understanding it!" applies with equal force to both side of the global warming controversy.

[Helene Edwards]

I guess I'm the only here who'll cop to his proxy basis for denying the AGW "crisis." I have no scientific training, so I have to watch who's pushing what and what they've pushed in the past. If you've followed the political press since the '80's, you know that the people who said it was "racist" to oppose race quotas in education are the same people who pumped up AGW. It's entirely rational for me to assume that people who fabricated all manner of nonsense justifications for AA, are doing so again with AGW.

[albert magnus]

"First, in any system which is reasonably stable over long periods of time, feedbacks can normally be expected to be negative not positive."

Very false. Pushing a child on a swing contains both positive (the push) and negative feedbacks (drag, gravity) which modify the amplitude of the swing without making it unstable.

"Second, the hypothesis relies on predicting complicated interactions of forces which are not well understood."

Atomic physics, thermodynamics and radiation tranport are well understood.

"Last, there is essentially no evidence to support the hypothesis."

Except it happens every time the sun comes up and goes down.

[sabril]

"'Global Warming' is the belief that increased carbon dioxide is causing a significant and unprecedented increase in temperature which will lead to catastrphic consequences. "

Unfortunately, the phrase "Global Warming" is ambiguous. Even Richard Lindzen, one of the most prominent skeptics, agrees that mankind's CO2 emissions are likely to result in increases in global surface temperatures.

[pconroy]

@Sabril,

I agree with all your comments.

Additionally I would add, what we have is a small increase in global temperature - with some places having a larger increase and some an actual decrease - over the last few decades or so. But climate doesn't operate on a decade timescale, rather centuries at the minimum or even millennia. In just the last millennium there has been a warming period and a cooling period, each lasting a few centuries - what caused these, burning fossil fuels, hardly?!

The only means we have to accurately measure past temperatures and try and infer climate is to check ice-cores in places like Antarctica, which reveal many, many warming and cooling periods, before modern man had anything to do with things.

[pconroy]

cont'd

Most of the climate on earth is influenced by "sun spot" activity, and that goes in 11,000 and 20,000 year cycles IIRC, and we don't have much clue about it yet.

Warmists will scream that we are destroying the earth at an unprecedented pace and so all past data means little, they will then scream about the Amazon rain forests, saying stuff like, "They are the lungs of the planet, if they go, so goes the earth!" - yes, someone actually said that to me. Of course when you point out that satellite imagery shows that until the spread of Europeans into South America, the Amazon basin was all agriculture and supported a huge population, WITH LITTLE OR NO FORRESTS. So how could clear cutting or burning the Amazon mean much, all it will do is temporarily increase CO2 production, if the method used is burning.

Then there is the fact that warming oceans absorb more CO2, so that the warmer it gets the more CO2 will get locked into the Oceans - so a natural feedback mechanism.

Then there is the fact that the vast majority of the land on earth is in the Northern hemisphere, and if the Arctic was to be permanently free of ice - or even free just for 1/2 the year - it would result in an economic explosion, benefiting all of mankind. You could ship Natural Gas directly across the Arctic, from Russia/Siberia to Canada and on South to the US etc.

Indeed, the most likely scenario will be a coming Ice Age - we are past due one for millennia already - and the slight global warming is postponing this Ice Age...

You see being Aspie means that I don't take the consensus view of anyone, I do my own thinking, which is largely free from emotional or political biases - in other words it's more Rational.

[B.]

Did you ever watch the game show, "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?" One of the resources the contestant gets is he gets to poll the audience for the correct answer on one question of his choosing. I only saw a few episodes of this show but I never saw the audience majority answer incorrect. "Crowdsourcing" for the correct answer, like stereotyping, is a useful algorithm for getting the correct answer more often than not. It's like gambling with favorable odds. You'll win more often than not, but don't bet your life on it.

-B

[Nicole]

HS,

My gpa is extremely low a 3.2 is generally too low to get into ivies. Even considering my high lsat score. I have been receiving conflicting information. A law teacher here at my school told me that HYS needs to admit minorities so they take some minorities who have LSAT and GPA scores below their 25th percentile mark, or some below and some with 50th percentile LSAT or GPA. As a black woman my LSAT score puts me above HYS’s 75th percentile. Which I am guessing is great for them, they fill their minority quota AND they dont get hurt in terms of their 75th percentile scores. But my GPA puts me WAY WAY WAY below their 25th percentile, which terrifies me and is why I am considering staying at my university a fifth year to try and bring up my gpa (I have a scholarship). If I can’t get into HYS or atleast UVA, Duke, Columbia than I will probably not go to law school at all and instead get my MS in nursing. With everything said HS, what should I do?

[HS: Harvard will take you if you are black and have a 175 LSAT. They will overlook your GPA. I don't think you appreciate how rare it is for a black person to score that high.]

[pconroy]

Oh, and one more thing...

Remember that this whole Warmist Meme was spread, or at least publicly spread, by Al Gore, the same Al Gore who, "Invented the Internet":
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Rnv_d_iEu0

Here is his latest screed on a new thread to Earth:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kqasecwLZXA

[johnny r]

"Nonsense, there have been plenty of times in the past when atmospheric CO2 levels were far higher than they are now.

What is the evidence to support your claim?" - sabril

I'm well aware of that. Were billions of people living on the planet then? I didn't think so. Warming/cooling cycles are natural but today the warming process is being accelerated by human activity.

One problem with ecology and the biological sciences in general are the multivariable, nonlinear, chaotic elements to it. Some scientists in other fields get smug from the confidence that their more lab-controlled, single-variable (or at least much fewer vairiable) research has, putting down the common statistical "noise" of sciences that have the world as their lab.

On the point of variable CO2 levels through earth's deep time. Sure,it's probably happened, but how will we be able to respond to it? Ecosystems will transition with rising CO2 levels, and no, I have no model of my own that predicts how they would change.
The fear for me is ecological instability, which translates into human instability. You bet geography is destiny. If significant parts of the world desertify, that will no doubt create more migration to places where desertification hasn't happened. I don't relish the thought of any more border instability anywhere in the world.
There are some whose concerns about possible global warming are very much tied to concerns about social instability and migration of peoples.

Just because the "planet" has handled various CO2 levels and the possible climate extremes in some areas, doesn't mean that people will, and those people, millions of them, are going to move to greener pastures.

[Commander Shepard]

@sabril

I said the planet couldn't handle elevated C02 levels with a massive human population. Did you not read that? My "evidence" is the widely cited changes in weather patterns, storms, droughts, elevated sea levels, and all the impacts that changes in the climate composition bring. These will effect people mostly for the worst.

Cigarettes? Really? Are those the ridiculous strawmans you're resorting to?

As for the credibility of the danger I'm gonna side with global scientific consensus that's it's at least a problem to be concerned about. They have more gravitas on the subject than your side, which consists of bloggers, conspiracy theories, fossil fuel industry "research", etc.

[Jehu]

I'm inclined to tune out the AGW/CC crowd because if I grant every single one of their premises and their reasoning to a conclusion, their proposed solutions do not actually even make a dent in their supposed problem (to do that would require insanely drastic measures, akin to Rainbow Six or Pol Pot on steroids). What those solution do accomplish, however, is a massive transfer of power and wealth from people like me to parties they favor. Therefore there's zero upside in supporting them.

[wait]

Many good businessmen do not really believe in global warming, yet publicly proclaim it in order to improve their standing.

So, why do you believe that Romney truly believes in it? He is a politician after all.

Not that I am saying I don't want politicians to lie.

[JP]

"smart people figure out what to believe based on what other smart people believe"

Herd instinct and social cowardice is a sign of intelligence now?

Smart people believe in things that are TRUE regardless of who else believes them or not.

"Rick Perry isn’t smart enough to realize how stupid he appears to smart people when he says that he disbelieves in global warming"

Expressing skepticism of AGW is a sign of intelligence, not stupidity.

[Nicolai Yezhov]

The earth is now in an ice age. Never hear that, do you? For most of its history glaciers existed only on top of the highest mountains. Obviously the global warmining people have ulterior motives.

To the "Argumentum ad verecundiam" guy,

You obvisously aren't up to speed in philosophical logic, and you obviously didn't understand HS's argument.

[The_King]

Global warming is part of the next phase in the "Globalist Agenda" for carbon tax and implementing further checks and balances. Any politician who is against global warming will pay for it in campaign money and eventual loss to replacement candidates.

Similar to how many educated liberals will only confine HBD talk in the realm of academics and not in other social situations to conform with other liberals.

[sabril]

"Very false. Pushing a child on a swing contains both positive (the push) and negative feedbacks (drag, gravity) which modify the amplitude of the swing without making it unstable."

I have no idea what your point is here. If you give a small push to a child on a swing, the other forces in the system will act against you and eventually return the child to his original position. Because the system does not amplify your push -- it works against it.

An example of a positive feedback system would be if an object were balanced on top of the swingset. In that case, the effect of a small push would be amplified by positive feedback and the object would fall down.

"Atomic physics, thermodynamics and radiation tranport are well understood."

Well in that case,

(1) why can't anyone accurately predict global surface temperatures over a 10 to 30 year period?

(2) Why does the IPCC admit that a lot of forces which drive the climate are not well understood?

(3) Why is it that climate models disagree sharply with eachother in terms of the Earth's sensitivity to CO2?

"Except it happens every time the sun comes up and goes down."

Again, I don't understand your point. What exactly is the evidence to support the water vapor feedback hypothesis?

[sabril]

"I said the planet couldn't handle elevated C02 levels with a massive human population. Did you not read that?"

Well you said "especially" not "because of." So you opened the door to comparisons with pre-human eras.

Anyway, what is your evidence that the Earth cannot "handle" current CO2 levels given the large human population?

"My 'evidence' is the widely cited changes in weather patterns, storms, droughts, elevated sea levels, and all the impacts that changes in the climate composition bring."

There's no evidence that any of these things are the result of increases in atmospheric CO2. There have been droughts, storms, etc. throughout human history and long before too.

"Cigarettes? Really? Are those the ridiculous strawmans you're resorting to?"

How exactly am I misrepresenting your position?

"As for the credibility of the danger I'm gonna side with global scientific consensus that's it's at least a problem to be concerned about."

Ahhh, the last refuge of the cornered warmist -- the "consensus" argument.

I address that here:

http://brazil84.wordpress.com/2008/09/13/60c-authority/

[J1]

Much like Helene, I am prepared to admit I don't know much about climate science and have to use proxies to decide who to believe. I do know a lot about human behavior, and my observation has been that folks who try to silence dissent or punish those who disagree with them are pretty much always on the wrong side of the argument. Only one side in the AGW argument has demanded that anyone stop doing research or proposed sanctions against scientists with a differing opinion.

"Smart people believe in things that are TRUE regardless of who else believes them or not"

Baloney. I know lots of extremely smart people who have all sorts of goofy beliefs; vaccines cause autism, organic food is healthier than non-organic, locavorism is better for the environment than large scale commercial agriculture, collectivist economic theory is valid and any number of other things that have far less scientific support than fundamentalist Christianity. Half is right that smart people believe, or at least claim to believe, that which they think benefits them socially.

[Devin Finbarr]

Moldbug had a great quote on this subject:

"An important factor to consider when looking at the late ancien regime is that power attracts talent. As the ancien regime started to lose power, it lost talent. Hence the reactionary Jesuits of France, whose prediction of the results of the French Revolution was accurate, do not measure up in talent to the Enlightenment philosophes, whose prediction was inaccurate. Thus we see the paradox, very common over the last two centuries, in which the dumb people are right and the smart people are wrong. Healing this wound is perhaps the great intellectual challenge of the 21st century."

[Engineer]

It's weird that the only response HS has made in this thread is to the black woman's irrelevant law school post. There have been some very cogent arguments made against HS' poor reasoning skills, and he ignores it. This blogs crusade against AGW is starting to become an embarrassment that detracts away from the quality HBD posts.

HS says: "
"Global Warming" is the belief that increased carbon dioxide is causing a significant and unprecedented increase in temperature which will lead to catastrophic consequences. This is what is the false belief.
"

HS is correct in that the temperature increase is not unprecedented in terms of magnitude, but it is in terms of RATE. The median temperature increase that the IPCC estimates (which is a conservative prediction, since they have historically underestimated temperate increase in order to not give ammunition to AGW skeptics) for the upcoming century is about 4 degrees celsius. The temperature on this planet has fluctuated by a far greater amount historically, but that occurred over a much greater period of time. The last time the planet's temperature shifted by four degrees was the Eocene glacial period, which transpired over 15 MILLION YEARS.

Oh, how I wish people understood how long geologic time periods are! When people say that the planet's temperatures has always changed, they are correct, but they have no understanding of how LONG it took So yes, when the planet is expected to undergo a temperature change over the next hundred years that previously occurred over the course of millions of years, yes, it is entirely reasonable to conclude that human industrial activities are the contributing cause.

As for Sabril's comment:
"Sometimes it was warmer than now; sometimes colder. But the main point is that planet "handled" the higher CO2 levels as far as anyone knows.
"

yes, Sabril, you are correct. The planet will not be affected, and Earth will be fine thousands and millions of years from now. But the issue is not the planet, but rather HUMAN BEINGS. We depend on stable and favorable climactic conditions for our own sustenance. That's why human beings throughout history have settled where there is arable land. Right now, at this point, we are managing to produce enough food to feed the 7 billion people on the planet (but barely, as there is still food insecurity and famine like conditions in certain pockets of the world). But a 4 degree centigrade rise in temperate (again, the median estimate for temperate rise over this century) will lead to an approximate 50% drop in global rice and wheat yields planetwide. This, while the UN estimates world population to increase by 50%.

So basically, by the end of this century we will have between 10 to 11 billion people on this planet, while producing only enough food to feed 3 to 4 billion of them.

We are looking at the greatest mass famine of human beings in history.

And for anyone who thinks America wont be affected, there are already signs of drought like conditions spreading in the Midwest..... By the end of this century, the cornfields of Nebraska will have become like the deserts of Arizona. America is likely to turn into a food importer due to continuous desertification.

But I agree, nothing will be done (or can be done) to stop this. Human beings (especially the modern American) are extremely shortsighted. All they care about is now! now! now! which is why we are in the economic troubles that we are in. We deindustrialized as a nation, just to get some immediate foreign capital and goods in our hands, without considering the long term consequences. In the same way, the average American doesn't care about how the planet is going to be like 70 or 90 years from now, all he cares about is economic growth now. And politicians know that.

[Nicolai Yezhov]

"But a 4 degree centigrade rise in temperate (again, the median estimate for temperate rise over this century) will lead to an approximate 50% drop in global rice and wheat yields planetwide."

Bullshit. No one knows even approximately what the effect of glabal warming will be on ag productivity.

AND industry isn't the problem. The problem is too many people. When professional environmentalists put FORCED birth control FIRST then I'll listen, until then they have NOTHING to say.

[DT]

"I don't see what's so hard to "get". C02 is naturally occurring but human activity is spiking it beyond what the planet can handle, especially in an age with a massive human population."

CO2 levels have been much higher in Earth's past, any where from 5-20x higher in fact. On what do you base the claim that CO2 levels today are higher than 'the planet' can handle? And what would human population have to do with determining this level?

"Plus deforestation has devastated the earth's natural defense mechanisms against excess C02."

Earth's biosphere is showing rising levels of plant growth and photosynthesis. This is due, at least in part, to higher CO2 levels. See: http://tinyurl.com/5sf5us and http://tinyurl.com/4rwwst4

On what do you base the claim that deforestation has devastated the Earth's 'natural defense mechanisms against excess CO2?'

"Since everybody wants to live like westerners we better start developing sustainable energy models before we reach the point of no return."

Define 'point of no return' and show a scientific basis for determining that point.

"Most climate change deniers are proles who watch conspiracy videos and listen to talk radio. It's understandable to associate your worldview with low class people."

AGW theory has been a hobby of mine for the past 16 years. I don't watch conspiracy videos but I do read scientific papers from skeptics who supposedly do not exist, as well as review relevant data as it is published.

How many papers have you read? How often do you review the relevant data sets?

[DT]

"Global humidity has been increasing as well as the temperature and its properties make it a strong greenhouse gas."

The temperature has not been steadily increasing in response to CO2. The 20th century saw temperatures move in roughly 30 year cycles. The middle cycle saw significant cooling despite the post-WWII ramp in CO2 output. Since 2000 temperatures have been relatively flat compared to predictions from AGW models.

As for global humidity, we've only recently had the satellite instrumentation necessary to properly monitor and evaluate this. I do recall reading a paper that argued global humidity had not changed as predicted in AGW models based on what data was available, but I'm having trouble finding it. One well known issue is that the tropospheric warming predicted by AGW models has not occurred. This is one of the most prominent failed predictions of AGW and strongly suggests that AGW model assumptions about water vapor feedback are false.

"Its not just water vapor that's a positive feedback, but also the decreasing area of ice since the liquid water doesn't reflect the relevant radiation as well as ice."

Global albedo is much more complex than just ice. Global ice coverage has not varied that dramatically and is dwarfed by other factors such as particulates and snow cover.

[DT]

"Therefore, we can make fairly reliable estimates of the extent of global warming based on the fraction of carbon and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Weather predictions on the other hand, involve highly chaotic, nonlinear processes."

It's obvious that you're not a climate scientist. Cloud behavior is a highly chaotic, nonlinear process, and we're not even close to modeling it. Cloud behavior can literally make or break AGW theory. Until we can model it, we cannot make reliable predictions even 10 years out, much less 100.

And it's hardly the only relevant process which we cannot model or predict. I would say, at this point, predicting the climate is much harder and more error prone than predicting the weather.

If estimates of global warming were easy to make then the AGW model predictions for temperature rise made in the 1990's would not have been so far off. See: http://tinyurl.com/3enh7hd

[DT]

"I said the planet couldn't handle elevated C02 levels with a massive human population."

What difference does the human population make?

"My "evidence" is the widely cited changes in weather patterns, storms, droughts, elevated sea levels, and all the impacts that changes in the climate composition bring. These will effect people mostly for the worst."

I get so tired of people trying to prove AGW in a debate by appealing to "lots of really bad stuff." If I've learned anything in the 16 years I've been studying this topic, it's that for every paper predicting consequence X, there is another paper some where predicting the opposite of X.

If you wish to discuss some specific changes and their potential impact on man, then we can continue. Otherwise please refrain from the argument that "lots of people say lots of really bad stuff is going to happen...and it's going to be BAD...REALLY BAD...because LOTS OF PEOPLE said so".

Side note: there is no question that the biosphere does better in a warmer, higher CO2 environment. Likewise humanity did better, a lot better in fact, during the Roman Warm Period and the Medieval Warm Period than they did during the Little Ice Age.

"As for the credibility of the danger I'm gonna side with global scientific consensus that's it's at least a problem to be concerned about."

In 16 years I've heard the term "consensus" more times then I could possibly count. But in all that time I have never found, nor had someone present to me, either of the following:

* A statistically valid global survey of scientists on the topic.

* A statistically valid global survey of papers on the topic.

What I have found instead is a wide range of conflicting opinions on nearly ever facet of the topic. I have no more reason to believe there is a consensus than I have to believe that Santa Clause delivers Christmas presents from the North Pole.

There are many petitions, but they are obviously not statistically valid. I do find it curious though that there is a petition against AGW theory that is 10x larger in signatures than any petition I've ever come across in support of AGW theory.

While I'm at it: the scientific method is not a democracy. Models are proven or falsified based on their predictions, not on how many people think they're really swell models. So far AGW models have utterly failed to made accurate predictions.

"They have more gravitas on the subject "

Who are "they"?

"than your side, which consists of bloggers, conspiracy theories, fossil fuel industry "research", etc."

Poison the well much?

[DT]

"HS is correct in that the temperature increase is not unprecedented in terms of magnitude, but it is in terms of RATE."

This claim has never made sense to me for multiple reasons.

For starters, the rate of change in average temperature year to year is often greater than the observed change over the entire 20th century. This is also true between some decades. Sometimes I think AGW proponents spend so much time looking at smoothed graphs that they forget what a straight plot of temperatures looks like. It flies up and down. Why would a 0.6C rise over one century be particularly fast or damaging to nature when nature has to deal with >1C changes between years? There's at least one 5 year period in the U.S. surface data set when the average temperature shot up 2C in 3 years then dropped back down 1.5C in just one.

Second, let's get away from averages and just talk about seasons. Am I honestly supposed to believe that Earth is sensitive to a 0.6C change in its average temperature over one century when its natural systems are adapted to yearly seasonal changes of 30-40C or more?

Finally, proxy data generally does not offer the resolution necessary to determine if a 0.6C change over 100 years is fast or slow. On what basis do we assume it's fast? And even if it is, on what basis do we assume that fast = man made? It seems to me that we would have to observe this planet for probably 1,000 years or more to determine what the range of natural variation is for rate of climate change. (FYI, the onset of the Little Ice Age was comparable in rate to what we've directly observed in the 20th century, just in the opposite direction.)

"The median temperature increase that the IPCC estimates (which is a conservative prediction, since they have historically underestimated temperate increase in order to not give ammunition to AGW skeptics)"

LOL! Really? http://tinyurl.com/3enh7hd

"for the upcoming century is about 4 degrees celsius."

Their 1990 predictions are already off by 0.5C, and that's off the low estimate. What confidence should we have in their 100 year mid or high end predictions?

"Right now, at this point, we are managing to produce enough food to feed the 7 billion people on the planet (but barely, as there is still food insecurity and famine like conditions in certain pockets of the world)."

We are easily producing enough food for 7 billion. Remaining famines and food insecurity are due to factors that have nothing at all to do with the maximum potential production of food. With proper application of technology we could probably feed another 7 billion. Increasing CO2 and warmer temperatures would improve our ability to produce food.

"But a 4 degree centigrade rise in temperate (again, the median estimate for temperate rise over this century)"

Again: their low estimate is already way off.

"will lead to an approximate 50% drop in global rice and wheat yields planetwide."

LOL! Source? I would love to know just what imagined catastrophe will cause this when a 4C rise would open vast areas of land to growing these two crops, and when both of these crops respond very well to higher CO2 levels like every other form of plant life.

"So basically, by the end of this century we will have between 10 to 11 billion people on this planet, while producing only enough food to feed 3 to 4 billion of them."

I don't think you've ever seriously studied food production: http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/progress/index.html

"And for anyone who thinks America wont be affected, there are already signs of drought like conditions spreading in the Midwest..... By the end of this century, the cornfields of Nebraska will have become like the deserts of Arizona. America is likely to turn into a food importer due to continuous desertification."

LOL! OK. Honest question: have you ever even once studied why weather is what it is over different parts of the U.S.? Because if you had I'm pretty sure you would recognize the foolishness of this prediction.

[TGGP]

I second the others that Katz is not denying AGW. Since it hasn't already been discussed, I'd like to highlight this:
The IPCC says it is ``90%'' confident of this. The number is meaningless, and cannot be meaningful until they make a large number of predictions in which they claim a similar degree of confidence, and find that 90% of them are correct. They haven't done so; 90% is a spuriously quantitative way of saying "We think this is probably the case, but cannot be really sure".

He seems to be advancing a frequentist view of probability, while the IPCC statement would not be remarkable under a Bayesian interpretation. But if we as third-parties wanted to know how much confidence we could put in the IPCC's offered probability, we would like an "outside view" of how accurate their predictions tend to be. Looking at track records we can see that estimates of major projects tend to lowball the cost and time, with the California High-Speed Rail boondoggle (and the Big Dig before it) being a case in point.

[Commander Shepard]

"Anyway, what is your evidence that the Earth cannot "handle" current CO2 levels given the large human population?

There's no evidence that any of these things are the result of increases in atmospheric CO2. There have been droughts, storms, etc. throughout human history and long before too.

How exactly am I misrepresenting your position?

Ahhh, the last refuge of the cornered warmist -- the "consensus" argument.I address that here" - Sabril

As others have already explained to you the planet will get by with elevated C02 levels it's just people (by the millions) that will suffer the immense consequences. Apparently that matters little to you.

The link you provided was laughable. Remember what I said about the credibility gap? All you had was a link to some blog that was so worthless it didn't even have a single comment. Calling me a "warmist" and thinking you "cornered" me proves what I already had suspected. You're more interested in agenda pushing than thoughtful discussion.

[JP]

"I know lots of extremely smart people who have all sorts of goofy beliefs; vaccines cause autism, organic food is healthier than non-organic, locavorism is better for the environment than large scale commercial agriculture, collectivist economic theory is valid and any number of other things that have far less scientific support than fundamentalist Christianity. Half is right that smart people believe, or at least claim to believe, that which they think benefits them socially."

You're missing my point, which is that you (and HS) should conclude from this that these people aren't really "smart" at all. Someone who is the intellectual and social prisoner of ideology (and worse, *doesn't even know that they are a pirsoner*) really isn't very intelligent.

[sabril]

"HS is correct in that the temperature increase is not unprecedented in terms of magnitude, but it is in terms of RATE."

No it is not. Let me ask you this:

Do you agree that the RATE of temperature increase in the first half of the 20th century was roughly equal to the RATE of temperature increase in the second half of the 20th century?

"The median temperature increase that the IPCC estimates . . . for the upcoming century is about 4 degrees celsius."

At best, this is a prediction. (Actually many of the IPCC predictions are not predictions at all). So basically you are assuming that the IPCC predictions are true and using it to argue that other IPCC predictions are true.

Why should I accept that there is likely to be a 4 degree C temperature increase over the next 100 years? The primary evidence to support the claim is untested computer simulations.

[sabril]

"But a 4 degree centigrade rise in temperate . . . will lead to an approximate 50% drop in global rice and wheat yields planetwide."

I'm extremely skeptical of this claim for a few reasons. First, there was a 1 degree rise in temperature in the 20th century and it had no significant impact on food production. Second, there is lots of frozen tundra in Russia, Canada, and Greenland which could be brought online for food production if temperatures really did go up.

But most importantly, there is essentially no evidence to support the prediction that there will be a 4C increase in temperature this century. Nothing besides untested computer simulations, that is.

[sabril]

""And for anyone who thinks America wont be affected, there are already signs of drought like conditions spreading in the Midwest"

There were far worse droughts in the US in the 1930s. Please give me cites for (1) "drought like conditions spreading in the Midwest"; and (2) that the IPCC specifically predicted such events.

[albert magnus]

"I have no idea what your point is here. If you give a small push to a child on a swing, the other forces in the system will act against you and eventually return the child to his original position. Because the system does not amplify your push -- it works against it."

Your push amplifies the amplitude of the swing increasing the energy of the system by a small perturbation. That's a positive feedback. However, its effect diminishes as the amplitude grows which means the system stabilizes. You obviously don't understand feedbacks.

The initial quantities of CO2 will cause more warming and more water vapor feedback than later quantities of the same magnitude which why the earth's atmospheric temperatures hasn't spiraled out of control previously. But it can get hot enough, and it has in the past, to increase past 4C above 20th average temperatures which is enough to reduce the habitable land significantly.

"(1) why can't anyone accurately predict global surface temperatures over a 10 to 30 year period?"

They have predicted the trend from 1981 to today.

"(2) Why does the IPCC admit that a lot of forces which drive the climate are not well understood?"

They are small, hard to isolate and almost certainly not as significant as the dominant ones.

"(3) Why is it that climate models disagree sharply with each other in terms of the Earth's sensitivity to CO2?"

They agree within uncertainty, which doesn't include insignificant warming.

The water vapor increase during the day and decreases at night showing that water vapor responds to temperature and since its a GHG its clear that its a positive feedback.

Your argument is that its not a reasonable hypothesis, not that it hasn't been proven or is difficult to calculate. Its a totally reasonable hypothesis and you should admit that you are wrong.

[J1]

"You're missing my point, which is that you (and HS) should conclude from this that these people aren't really "smart" at all"

I'm not sure there's any disagreement between us on that one. I'm using "smart" in the sense HS generally uses it: high IQ people with "elite" education. My experience has been that a lot of people in that category are very, very good at going to school, but not much else, and tend to believe they have insight when they really don't.

In a similar vein, I believe HS is incorrect that "Rick Perry isn’t smart enough to realize how stupid he appears to smart people when he says that he disbelieves in global warming". Rick Perry knows full well how "stupid" he appears to people in that category. He also wants to be president, and is well aware that a solid majority of voters think AGW theory is nonsense and don't want their lives forcibly disrupted to accommodate it.

[Mark Caplan]

"Rick Perry isn’t smart enough to realize how stupid he appears to smart people when he says that he disbelieves in global warming"

On the other hand, canny politicians -- especially Republican politicians -- relentlessly pander to hick voters by aping their country manners and dimwitted beliefs. The truly smart Republican politician knows how to win elections: act dumb, praise the wisdom and commonsense of the ordinary American, and mock the "elite," pointy-headed Ph.D's, and so-called experts who believe in nonsense like global warming and peak oil.

[HS: Peak oil is real, but for some weird reason (I suppose because liberals are generally anti-oil) it is associated as a liberal belief and not a conservative belief. It demonstrates my point about how people choose what to believe based on what other people believe and not by actually reading the literature on peak oil.]

[not too late]

"Herd instinct and social cowardice is a sign of intelligence now?"

Yeah, because being abandoned by the herd when you are a social animal like humans means that you die. So, the smarties that went that way won the Darwin award.

[not too late]

""And for anyone who thinks America wont be affected, there are already signs of drought like conditions spreading in the Midwest"

Uh, like, there are massive floods in the Midwest. Google Midwest floods 2011. No drought in sight.

Texas has a drought. Is that going to be blamed on Perry AGW skepticism?

Can we cut the hype? Weather fluctuates, a lot.

[Ken S]

HS said:
"Carbon dioxide is likely only a minor contributor to the warming, based on the Heinz Hug spectral analysis."

I found the Hug paper many years ago and it was the first interesting argument I saw against CO2 causing greenhouse warming. I didn't know too much about the greenhouse effect back then and I was just starting my training in chemistry but I liked that Hug tried to determining these things from basic/first principles (I have a preference for this sort of work) and it definitely made me a little skeptical of how important CO2 is to greenhouse warming.

Today I do not put as much weight on conclusions reached from simple calculations/measurements like Hug's, and I know a bit more about radiative forcing and the reasoning behind blaming CO2 as causing the increased absorption so as far as I'm concerned he has refuted no-one. I still give him some credit for trying to stir up a debate about methods used.

Interestingly enough there is a similar paper out there that has actually survived peer review that uses 'first principle' calculations to show the plausibility of the abiogenic oil hypothesis. But it hardly convinces me that the hypothesis is 'likely' and I wouldn't be swayed either way until we can actually look down there and see what is going on or have computers powerful enough to make extremely accurate simulations of such large systems. These hurdles are basically the same ones faced by scientists working on climate change.

[sabril]

"As others have already explained to you the planet will get by with elevated C02 levels it's just people (by the millions) that will suffer the immense consequences. Apparently that matters little to you."

It would matter to me if there was good reason to believe that there will be "immense consequences." So far, you have produced no concrete evidence that one can expect such consequences. Which is unsurprising, since the only evidence is untested computer simulations.

"All you had was a link to some blog that was so worthless it didn't even have a single comment."

Let's see if I have this straight: Your position is that the blog post I linked to did not have any comments and therefore the arguments in the post must not have any merit. Do I understand you correctly?

"You're more interested in agenda pushing than thoughtful discussion"

Nonsense, I'm perfectly interested in thoughtful discussion. And you can start the thoughtful discussion by answering my questions and responding to my arguments on the merits.

[MrGreenGenes]

Sabril,

Of course, internal conditions can affect the climate quite drastically. But given a fixed condition on earth, radiation processes dominate the temperature differentials. Obviously, it is colder at night than during the day. How hot it gets during the day strongly depends on the "quality factor" of the earth, the number of times light will bounce back and forth in our atmosphere. This is determined by the optical properties in the atmosphere, which are strongly influenced by the fraction of greenhouse gases.

The internal conditions on earth change quite slowly. The substantial change that has happened in the last century involves greenhouse gases.

[sabril]

"Your push amplifies the amplitude of the swing increasing the energy of the system by a small perturbation. That's a positive feedback. "

No it is not. The system does not amplify your push. In fact, gravity works against your push. A swingset is a negative feedback system which is why you can push a child in a swing 1000 times but he will eventually return to the initial position.

Let me ask you this:

If you give a very slight push to a child on a swing, at the moment of your push, does gravity work against your push or in favor of your push?

And let me ask you this:

Would you consider a marble rolling around the bottom of a bowl to be a negative feedback system or a positive feedback system?

"They have predicted the trend from 1981 to today."

So you are saying that the climate is understood well enough to predict the trend in temperature and nothing more?

"They are small, hard to isolate and almost certainly not as significant as the dominant ones."

How does anyone know that?

"They agree within uncertainty, which doesn't include insignificant warming."

So you agree that the estimates are sharply different?

"The water vapor increase during the day and decreases at night "

Well do you agree that increased levels of water vapor are likely to increase cloud formation as well as the chances of precipitation?

And do you agree that the highest temperatures are generally recorded in areas with very little humidity?

[sabril]

"internal conditions can affect the climate quite drastically."

So you are saying that "internal conditions" caused the Medieval Warm Period and Little Ice Age? What exactly are these "internal conditions" and what evidence do you have to support your claim?

"The internal conditions on earth change quite slowly. The substantial change that has happened in the last century involves greenhouse gases."

Well do you agree that the rate of change of surface temperatures in the first half of the 20th century was roughly the same as the rate of change in the second half?

[DT]

"(1) why can't anyone accurately predict global surface temperatures over a 10 to 30 year period?"
"They have predicted the trend from 1981 to today."

Predictions were too high for the 1990's, and they failed to predict even the "trend" for the 2000's.

"(2) Why does the IPCC admit that a lot of forces which drive the climate are not well understood?"
"They are small, hard to isolate and almost certainly not as significant as the dominant ones."

Cloud formation and behavior is huge, easily as significant as any other factor in the climate models. For that matter the water vapor feedback on which the predictions of warming depend is unproven and likely either exaggerated in the models or simply non existent based on the fact that we have not observed the predicted changes in the troposphere.

"(3) Why is it that climate models disagree sharply with each other in terms of the Earth's sensitivity to CO2?"
"They agree within uncertainty, which doesn't include insignificant warming."

The models have consistently predicted higher temperatures than we've observed. It doesn't matter if the models agree to within some arbitrarily chosen degree of uncertainty if they are all wrong to begin with.

"The water vapor increase during the day and decreases at night showing that water vapor responds to temperature and since its a GHG its clear that its a positive feedback."

Warm air has the potential to hold more water. That does not mean that it automatically does, either locally over the course of a day or globally in response to CO2.

[albert magnus]

"The system does not amplify your push."

I didn't say that.

[Linda]

"I know lots of extremely smart people who have all sorts of goofy beliefs; vaccines cause autism,"

Smart people like the author of this very recent study on vaccines and autism:

http://www.theoneclickgroup.co.uk/documents/vaccines/Vaccine%20and%20Autism%20correlation%20US%202011%20J%20Tox%20Env%20Health.pdf

[Ernest scribbler]

Climate change is real as evidenced by the fact that Al Gore's movie made money-- the market has spoken!

[brazil84]

"I didn't say that."

Then your claim makes no sense at all. A positive feedback system amplifies the effect of the input. That's the essense of positive feedback.

Sorry, but you have no understanding of positive feedback versus negative feedback.

Also, since you ignored my questions, I will answer them for you:

Question: If you give a very slight push to a child on a swing, at the moment of your push, does gravity work against your push or in favor of your push?

Answer: Clearly gravity works against your push. That's the essence of negative feedback, i.e. the system pushes back against perturbations.

Question: Would you consider a marble rolling around the bottom of a bowl to be a negative feedback system or a positive feedback system?

Answer: A ball rolling around the bottom of a bowl is a classic example of a negative feedback system. (And it's fundamentally no different than a child on a swing.) Note that a ball in a bowl is very stable, which is common in negative feedback systems.

Also, as mentioned before, systems which have been reasonably stable for a long time tend to be negative feedback systems as opposed to positive feedback systems. For example, outside of roadrunner cartoons it's unusual to find a large rock balanced precariously at the top of a hill. Why? Because by its very nature such a system is unlikely to last very long.

That's why it's unreasonable to hypothesize, a priori, that the climate operates by positive feedback. It's like claiming that the climate is like a big rock balanced precariously at the top of hill and has been balanced there for millions of years.

Question: So you are saying that the climate is understood well enough to predict the trend in temperature and nothing more?

Answer: This does seem to be what you are saying. And if it's true, it proves my point, which is that the forces underlying the climate are not understood well enough to make accurate predictions. So it's not reasonable to hypothesize -- without actual evidence -- that the climate operates by positive feedback.

Question: How does anyone know that [forces which are not understood are small, hard to isolate and almost certainly not as significant as the dominant ones]

Answer: It's not known. Indeed, the facts that (1) nobody has been able to accurately predict global surface temperatures; and (2) nobody knows what caused the Little Ice Age or Medieval Warm Period show that there are important forces at work which are not understood.

Question: So you agree that the estimates [by different models of climate sensitivity] are sharply different?

Answer: Apparently you do. Which again shows that the important forces are not well understood. If the important forces were well understood, then different climate models would pretty much agree with eachother.

Question: Well do you agree that increased levels of water vapor are likely to increase cloud formation as well as the chances of precipitation?

Answer: Yes, and this obviously has the potential to act as a negative feedback. In some areas in the tropics, it's very common to have a pattern day after day where the temperature rises; clouds form; there is a big thunderstorm; and the air cools off.

Of course, this observation standing alone does not establish that water vapor acts as a negative feedback, but your observation standing alone does not establish that a positive feedback takes place at this level. You are claiming that solar energy causes temperature to rise which increases humidity, which causes temperature to rise further. But you haven't provided any evidence that this is what actually takes place.

Question: And do you agree that the highest temperatures are generally recorded in areas with very little humidity?

Answer: This is true as far as I know. For example, the highest recorded temperature in North America was in Death Valley.

If your claim were correct, one would expect temperature records to be set in humid areas. Because the sun would warm those areas, which would cause the humidity to increase, which would cause the temperature to rise further, and so on. In other words, you are claiming that water vapor AMPLIFIES the effects of the sun.

And yet this doesn't happen. The areas with the most extreme temperatures are areas with little or no water vapor.

____________

Anyway, I would suggest that you try to actually understand positive and negative feedback.

[Mark Caplan]

"[HS: Peak oil is real, but for some weird reason (I suppose because liberals are generally anti-oil) it is associated as a liberal belief."

I agree with the "elitist" view that peak oil is real. Conservatives oppose peak oil because, were it to be taken seriously, a prudent response would be draconian restrictions on oil consumption, such as enacting extreme fuel efficiency standards for cars, support for public transit, even a Dutch-style vehicle mileage tax.

I used opposition to peak oil as an example of the way shrewd Republican politicians pander to dummies. Another example would be their outspoken support of intelligent design theory.

[HS: Or a prudent response to just let the market figure that stuff out. Oil prices will increase and people will probably just drive smaller cars, drive less, fly less.]

[Keisar Betancourt]

I have to disagree somewhat about the validity of high IQ being matched with success. There is of course a statistical correlation, but that isn't a cause/effect relationship. Rather people with higher IQs tend to be more successful at whatever they put their mind to and in many cases that HAPPENS to be general success. However, there are three specific important aspects of the actual application of intelligence. First, the actual IQ which indicates your simple ability to process data into information. Second (and this is where my disagreement comes in), what you choose to spend that IQ on. If you choose to spend it on "success" then that is what you will get, relative to your IQ, but if you choose to spend that IQ on non-social things, as the so-called nerd class does, then that is what you will be successful at instead. And the third thing is simply that there are structural limitations on what may be achieved by someone with a high IQ in a world designed and tailored for lower/average IQs.

[J1]

"Smart people like the author of this very recent study on vaccines and autism"

I'll see your study and raise you six. And that's what I could find in about thirty seconds: http://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/autism/documents/vaccine_studies.pdf

Interesting side note: the most hard core anti-vaccine nutjob I know personally has, like Prof Delong, a masters in international business. Bizarre.

[Hopefully Anonymous]

Mother of all wrong trails to go down.
Setting aside AGW (I don't think it's a delusion) -catastrophic climate change is real and would be if humans had no environmental impact. So climate science and climate change adjustment logistics both deserve a lot of attention and funding, it seems to me. It will get so hot that our civilization will have to adapt, and it will get so cold that our civilization will have to adapt -unless we figure out how to control the planet's climate, and until then prediction and efficient adaption will be very useful for our survival.

Beyond then, careful scrutiny of human impact on environment seems prudent to me. Of course there's bad faith participation on this topic on multiple sides, but I don't see Governor Perry as heroic, even accidentally so. Let's match up the best good faith arguments on all the sides on AGW and regulation. When I've seen that done, observing in good faith, I've always come down on the side of nuanced AGW regulation.

[sabril]

P.S. "brazil84" is another nickname that I use.

[albert magnus]

"Clearly gravity works against your push. That's the essence of negative feedback, i.e. the system pushes back against perturbations."

A swing set, without drag or friction, would never stop swinging given an initial perturbation. Gravity is not a negative feedback in that system. Nor would that ball without friction on the bowl, so its not a negative feedback system. They are both oscillating systems without any feed backs increasing the amplitude.

Since you don't understand that system, let me point out another clearer example:

Let's say you have microphone with an amplified speaker. Here's four situations:

Situation A: The microphone is far away from the speaker. The sound in the microphone comes out of the speaker at volume A.

Situation B: The microphone is moved closer to the microphone where it can pick up noises from the speaker itself creating a feedback loop. However, its still far enough away there enough losses in the system (from attenuation in the air and in the amplifier) that they are faint compared to the initial sound. The volume coming out the speaker is now A (the originial amplified sound) + B (the sound from the echoes).

Situation C: The microphone is moved much closer to the speaker, where the sound entering the microphone from the speakers is larger than the initial noise that begins the loop. This creates that annoying loud squeal that you've heard.

Your assuming all positive feedbacks are C, and they would be if there were no dissipation in the system. However, B is a positive feeback loop with dissipation. It produces more volume than the mic + speaker alone, but its stable.

In the water feedback model relevant to the atmosphere, the effectiveness of additional CO2 at trapping radiation will dissipate as you add more. Therefore, the atmosphere didn't spiral out of control when previous high levels of CO2 were present even though the amount of trapping was enhanced by water vapor. (though earth's biosphere and geology were quite a bit different then).

Remember, your point is that's its completely unreasonable to even consider it feasible, not that's its negligible or impossible to compute or compensated by other things.

I believe Andrew Dessler's measurements of both the water vapor feedback and his analysis of cloud feed backs. You can go look them up if you have never heard of them.

[albert magnus]

"(2) nobody knows what caused the Little Ice Age or Medieval Warm Period show that there are important forces at work which are not understood."

There is excellent reaseach on these topics (look them up at skepticalscience.com) and neither of these imply there are unmeasurable and unknown quantities today that we can't recognize.

[sabril]

"A swing set, without drag or friction, would never stop swinging given an initial perturbation. "

I agree, but it is still a negative feedback system since the swing does not stray very far from its initial position. Negative feedback keeps the swing near its original position.

By contrast, if you pushed an object on a frictionless surface, it would continue forever.

By the way, are you claiming that if you add drag and friction to your hypothetical swingset, you have a positive feedback system?

It's a simple yes or no question.

__________

"Your assuming all positive feedbacks are C"

No I am not. B is a positive feedback system too since it amplifies the initial input.

__________

"Remember, your point is that's its completely unreasonable to even consider it feasible, "

That was not my point. I said that the hypothesis was unreasonable for certain reasons. Of course it is feasible in the sense of being possible.

Please do not strawman me.

And please answer my question:

If you add friction and drag to your hypothetical (frictionless and dragless) swingset model, do you get a positive feedback system?

It's an extremely simple yes or no question.

[sabril]

"There is excellent reaseach on these topics"

Sorry, but I'm not your research assistant. If you believe something I've said is wrong, feel free to summarize the evidence against it and link and quote the relevant research.

[sabril]

And by the way, you never answered my earlier questions, which are extremely simple:

1. If you give a very slight push to a child on a swing, at the moment of your push, does gravity work against your push or in favor of your push?

(extremely simple yes or no question)

Question: Would you consider a marble rolling around the bottom of a bowl to be a negative feedback system or a positive feedback system?

(extremely simple question, feel free to choose "no feedback" if you like. But do assume friction and drag.)

3. So you are saying that the climate is understood well enough to predict the trend in temperature and nothing more?

(extremely simple yes or no question.)

4. How does anyone know that [forces which are not understood are small, hard to isolate and almost certainly not as significant as the dominant ones]

(not such a simple question, but reasonable given your claims).

5. So you agree that the estimates [by different models of climate sensitivity] are sharply different?

(extremely simple yes or no question)

6. do you agree that increased levels of water vapor are likely to increase cloud formation as well as the chances of precipitation?

(extremely simple yes or no question)

7. Do you agree that the highest temperatures are generally recorded in areas with very little humidity?

(extremely simple yes or no question)

[albert magnus]

"The first is a completely reasonable hypotheses; the second is not."

The second thing you mention was referring to water vapor amplifying the effect of GHG. You are implying its an unreasonable hypothesis. Not a important variable idea refuted by evidence or a complete unknown (neither of which are true), but it shouldn't even be considered.

I would consider changed in the sun or ocean to be a reasonable hypothesis, though we have enough evidence to show that the late-20th century warming can't be from them.

"B is a positive feedback system too since it amplifies the initial input."

I'm glad you agree that water vapor can amplify the effect of CO2 without making atmospheric temperatures unstable.