Scientists Explain Why Chairman of House Committee On Science Is Wrong 476
Lasrick writes "Michael Oppenheimer and Kevin Trenberth take apart Rep. Lamar Smith's (R-Tex.) Washington Post op/ed on climate science saying: 'Contrary to Smith's assertions, there is conclusive evidence that climate change worsened the damage caused by Superstorm Sandy. Sea levels in New York City harbors have risen by more than a foot since the beginning of the 20th century. Had the storm surge not been riding on higher seas, there would have been less flooding and less damage. Warmer air also allows storms such as Sandy to hold more moisture and dump more rainfall, exacerbating flooding.'"
Fantastic... (Score:5, Insightful)
Man, I certainly can't think of any better candidates for the chairmanship of the House Comittee on Science, Space, and Technology than a lawyer without any technical or scientific background, a big fan of SOPA, expanding the DMCA's restrictive elements, and PCIP. Just as icing on the cake, the guy is a Christian Scientist, so he probably has a worse-than-average relationship with medical science.
Honestly, how do we end up with these jokers?
Re:email leak (Score:0, Insightful)
Yeah, the reports from Fox News and climate deniers about those emails was terrible. The emails, not so bad, but the reports on them from certain infotainment outlets was awful. Thank god I don't think for myself or I'd start to smell all the bullshit I was standing in.
So we now call speculation "conclusive evidence"? (Score:5, Insightful)
I'll quote Feynman on this one, because I couldn't say it any better:
"I would like to add something that's not essential to the science, but something I kind of believe, which is that you should not fool the laymen when you're talking as a scientist. . . . I'm talking about a specific, extra type of integrity that is not lying, but bending over backwards to show how you're maybe wrong, [an integrity] that you ought to have when acting as a scientist. And this is our responsibility as scientists, certainly to other scientists, and I think to laymen."
Re:Rich people deserve safe beachfront homes (Score:3, Insightful)
If you really want to play the 'OMG Poor People!' card, it'd probably be worth considering the impact of even relatively modest shifts in climate or precipitation on the billion or two economically marginal subsistence dirt farmers and 'squalid urbanites who spend 50% or more of their household income on staple foods'...
The value of some highbrow beachfront property is highly visible; but total chickenshit compared to perturbations in the low-rent side of the agricultural sector.
Re:email leak (Score:3, Insightful)
So you obviously have made up your mind on the argument without looking at any evidence. You willfully accept propaganda and when someone offers you actual evidence you claim it is propaganda. You really should work for Fox News.
Re:email leak (Score:3, Insightful)
people who stand to profit from climate change
If you think that anyone would profit from even the average predicted scenario, you must be living comfortably on another planet. Droughts, floods, food shortages, heat waves, extreme weather patterns, economies destroyed? Where's "profit" in that, for any economy?
Re:data sample question (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:data sample question (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:email leak (Score:4, Insightful)
It depends on how you ask. Here are two examples:
Q: All you arrogant scientists want us to believe this AGCC nonsense; yeah, well prove it to me!!
A: Go F*** yourself.
Translation: You're a troll. I'm busy doing my work. I don't have time for trolls.
Q; Wow, thousands of scientists have spent decades studying this, and they appear to agree for the most part. Gee, I'd really like to know more about this, can you help me understand?
A: Well, it's really complicated, and I only know part of the science behind it. I can explain what I'm doing, but if you want an overview, perhaps you should start with the IPCC report, and maybe track down the references on the Wikipedia article. After that, I'd be happy to answer questions to the best of my ability. Again, though, I'm a specialist, so I won't be able to answer all your questions
Translation: I understand the sincerity of your question, but this is like asking a biologist to teach you all of biology while you stand on one foot. Really, you need to dive in and get past larval stage before you're in a position to ask meaningful questions.
Note: this is hypothetical, I'm not a climate scientist, nor do I play one on TV.
Re:email leak (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:email leak (Score:0, Insightful)
... One of the things I do remember from high school science class is that when you don't understand something in science, you should ask hose saying it to clarify or explain their position, that is all I am going - I thought that was the scientific process, ...
No, you are not asking a question.
You are saying that you have an opinion on things that you admit you don't understand, and that your opinion comes from the email leak. That's why everybody thinks that you are either stupid or a troll; when you will ask a real question I am sure that you will be treated like an adult.
Re:email leak (Score:3, Insightful)
This is not science class. The people asking the questions are not looking for real answers. The average person is simply not even qualified to ask questions.
Do you ask questions about how nuclear reactors are working to power your home? No. The experts know. If you ask a question of them. If they are nice they could give you some dumbed down version. But you will never really understand without spending YEARS of your life.
There comes a point where you simply have to trust the experts. We are well beyond that..... VERY well beyond that. The people asking questions publicly are simply doing it for political reasons. They are disingenuous and the enemy of scientific understanding.
It is reasonable to ask questions. However if you go around questioning if F=MA is applicable to every day life, your not questioning your a fucking troll.
Re:So we now call speculation "conclusive evidence (Score:5, Insightful)
Also, I don't even have a problem with saying that CO2 is the primary driver of increased temperatures - but I do have a problem with
a) anything that goes beyond CO2 (that is 1.3K for a doubling) that is pure speculation, consists of poorly researched feedback mechanisms, with the poor state of research in cloud formation being among the worst offenders and most important negative feedbacks that are currently being ignored due to the poor state of knowledge and
b) I do have a problem with the constant one-sided discussion of the effects of increased temperatures. They are always held in the tone of horoscopes and greek oracles to avoid any clear statements that could be easily contradicted. "Extreme weather events" being the worst offender. That's says nothing and is obviously taylored to feed a constant media frenzy. This is combined with a complete lack of reporting on past "extreme weather events". Thus even decidetly average events like hurricanes Katrina or Sandy (in their historical and geographical context!) become "unprecedented monster storms", which is just laughable for anyone who bothered to look into the history of hurricanes on the US south and east coast.
Science or Not (Score:2, Insightful)
Both sides can make their claims. But unless someone can do a proper experiment with a control planet, and make that experiment repeatable while you're at it, its all speculation. Not proper science.
And Smith forgot to make an important point about the Keystone Pipeline. Stopping it doesn't mean that carbon stays in the ground. It means the Chinese will burn it. And they will do so with less rigorous emissions standards. But then I can't prove that either. Its all speculation.
the scientists are right, but... (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, you aren't giving it.
True, but incomplete. Sea levels have been rising steadily since long before industrialization:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Post-Glacial_Sea_Level.png [wikipedia.org]
Therefore, although warming can cause sea level rise and sea levels have risen, there is no conclusive evidence that anthropogenic emissions have contributed significantly to sea level rise.
True, but that could mean anything from totally insignificant to significant increase in damage; nobody knows how much increase there is. Since the sea level rise isn't attributable to human emissions, however, that point is academic.
The actual problem is that people build in flood plains and too close to the ocean, because Congress bails them out with taxpayer money. That problem is much easier to take care of than carbon emissions.
True, but nobody knows whether that is a significant effect (likely not) either or how much of it is due to human emissions.
So, the scientists actually haven't said much factually wrong, but their statements are misleading and full of weasel words, and their policy recommendations are unfounded and ineffective.
Lamar Smith is right: "wait and see" is the right approach for the US. To that I'd add: eliminate federal flood insurance and disaster aid. If millionaires want to live on the beach, they should self-insure and not have the tax payer assume their risks.
Re:data sample question (Score:3, Insightful)
On one level, you are correct, we do not know how the CO2 level in the various ice core being sampled correlates to what the average temperature on of the planet was at that time. On the otherhand, we do know that the more CO2 and other greenhouse gases, the warmer the average temperature will be until it becomes a runaway system like Venus. We also know the approximate age of those ice core samples and we know from the fossil record elsewhere on the planet what the flora was and we can come pretty close to estimating what things were like.
Here is a simple car analogy for you. When you put your foot on the accelerator you expect it to go. When you put your foot on the brake, you expect it to stop. How do you know that will happen, since we do not have thousands of years of data to compare those actions with? The simple answer is you don't need thousands of years of data. You need reliable data points that are consistent enough that you can extrapolate the likelihood of something happening.
You don't know for certain that your car will go forward if you put your foot on the accelerator, but you expect it will, because the probability is high. Scientists don't know for certain what is going to happen with the climate if we continue as we have been, but they have very strong expectations because, based on the data, the probability is high.
Here's another way to think about it. How do we find sub-atomic particles? Somebody proposes how such and such particle should behave and then we go to the collider and look for something that behaves like it was predicted. If we find it, we confirm it. That's an example of the scientific method. Likewise, climate change makes certain predictions about the increased frequences of certain types of weather patterns and their severity. However, when these predictions are manifested in reality, certain powers that be deny it. So, why is this methodology acceptable in all other areas of science but not this one?
But, maybe the naysayers are right and it isn't climate change. I and many others would like to hear their hypothesis as to what is causing the changing weather patterns, melting polar caps and rising seas. If it is just a cyclical phenomenom as many opponents say, well, I am sure they have the data over the last 100,000 years to back that statement up. Otherwise, that is more wishful thinking than scientific methodology.
Re: email leak (Score:5, Insightful)
This is a classic tragedy of the commons situation. If everyone pollutes everyone looses. If only you pollute and no one else does.... you win. If you dont pollute and everyone else does... you really loose. If no one pollutes everyone kind wins.
I have no idea why tards on the right who get all huffy about free market economics would not recognize this economics 101 situation. Given a free market situation we will always turn to the WORST possible outcome. Since it is always better for the individual to pollute the Nash equilibrium is achieved when everyone chooses to pollute.
Now how to deal with this flaw in the free market solution is more up to debate. But in general this is the EXACT situation where governmental regulation is needed and will produce the most net surplus. The free marketer solution is that every single potential polluter gets together and negotiates who gets to pollute..... I like to call this solution a "government". But repubs get all pissy about that name for some reason. They think every individual entity should negotiate... They seem to forget there are a thing called transaction costs which make this completely crazy in the real world.
Disagree with your charactersiation (Score:3, Insightful)
The "leaks" worst offense was that in some cases scientists' felt pressure to modify the way they presented their facts to the public.
I disagree with that. The worst offense was that some of the scientists privately expressed frustration at denialists trolls who play political games, and waste their time. I don't think the emails show that the scientists were modifying how they presented anything to the public. But they do show occasional defensiveness and frustration from scientists.
/should/ provide everything and the kitchen sink to "skeptics" even if you know they are going to be intellectually dishonest with the information. Doesn't matter. Let politics be politics, and science be science.
The smear campaign works by being completely unreasonable, and then demanding to be taken seriously. Whenever people get frustrated, you just claim that they are being unreasonable, and are ideologues. It is classic projection.
So the way I see it, a bunch of trolls pissed off some scientists, and privately expressed defensiveness over the issues. The scientists in question should not be defensive (though it is understandable), and
Re:email leak (Score:5, Insightful)
If you're more worried about the money than the science you're doing it wrong. Do you really think that the vast majority of climate scientists from around the world are falsifying science for the sake of money when they're smart enough to know that their falsification will eventually be discovered utterly destroying their scientific reputations? I don't doubt there are a few scientists around who are that venal but not enough in the long run to overcome the vast majority who are honestly seeking to understand our physical world better. To think they're all in on falsifying climate science is to postulate conspiracy on an impossible level.
The science is nearly 200 years old now starting with Fourier who discovered the greenhouse effect in 1824 and it's just been building since then. In the past 20-30 years it's been subject to intense scrutiny yet no one has come up with that magic bullet that explains the current climate change better than the current explanations. If somebody does I'll pay attention.
Re:So we now call speculation "conclusive evidence (Score:2, Insightful)
Also, I don't even have a problem with saying that CO2 is the primary driver of increased temperatures - but I do have a problem with
I would hope not - that it's a greenhouse gas has been well established for about 100 years.
a) anything that goes beyond CO2 (that is 1.3K for a doubling) that is pure speculation,
On what basis is it purely speculation?
consists of poorly researched feedback mechanisms, with the poor state of research in cloud formation being among the worst offenders and most important negative feedbacks that are currently being ignored due to the poor state of knowledge and
What feedbacks, and ignored by whom?
b) I do have a problem with the constant one-sided discussion of the effects of increased temperatures. They are always held in the tone of horoscopes and greek oracles to avoid any clear statements that could be easily contradicted. "Extreme weather events" being the worst offender. That's says nothing and is obviously taylored to feed a constant media frenzy. This is combined with a complete lack of reporting on past "extreme weather events". Thus even decidetly average events like hurricanes Katrina or Sandy (in their historical and geographical context!) become "unprecedented monster storms", which is just laughable for anyone who bothered to look into the history of hurricanes on the US south and east coast.
"precedented monster storms" don't sell papers/eyeballs. Keep in mind who characterizes them in this fashion. Protip: it's not the scientists. Sometimes, one needs to pick up a better news media. Personally, I just go to the weather service web page. As to past weather events, keep in mind that forecasting then used to be axioms such as "red sky at night, sailor's delight...".
Re:Fantastic... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Rich people deserve safe beachfront homes (Score:2, Insightful)
"If you really want to play the 'OMG Poor People!' card, it'd probably be worth considering the impact of even relatively modest shifts in climate or precipitation on the billion or two economically marginal subsistence dirt farmers and 'squalid urbanites who spend 50% or more of their household income on staple foods'..."
But considering that even the IPCC is pulling back pretty drastically on its claims of climate change driving higher-energy storms, I think maybe GP has a point.
Re:email leak (Score:3, Insightful)
Which is precisely the problem. We have a legitimate issue with pollution and climate change, but then we have assholes like Al Gore profiting off the whole mess and turning it into a political issue. Al Gore should have realized that he would turn the debate into a left verses right issue and kept his stupid mouth shut... if he really wanted to make a difference he should have secretly funded some non-profit to get some politically neutral members of the scientific community to spread the word.
You are correct. The fact that George W. Bush's home was "greener" than Al Gore's shows that this is not a left/right issue. It also shows that Al Gore does not truly believe global warming.
The best way to pull the left/right tension out of the issue would be to stop calling people names and using hyperbole. Capitalist pigs are not out to destroy the world or enslave the masses just as commie-tree-huggers are not out to destroy business (most of them anyway). For example, those who believe that GW is a real problem would make better headway selling money (energy) saving solutions to business rather than force regulations down their throats. Capitalists love money. Use that.
Re:email leak (Score:3, Insightful)
OK, now you are in a position where the burden of proof is on you.
It's legitimate to look at somebody's evidence and say, "it doesn't convince me." It's sometimes *also* legitimate to say "I've seen enough evidence to convince myself beyond a reasonable doubt, so I won't bother thinking about your evidence; otherwise you'd have to take the time to examine the workings of every proposed perpetual motion machine.
What you can't do is say, "I'll dismiss your evidence because there's a possibility you have a conflict of interest." Everyone *always* has a vested interest in any position they've taken in the past. If you go there, if you call a man a liar because he has stated a professional opinion you disagree with, it's *your* responsibility to show evidence that lying has taken place. If you can't, STFU.
Re:email leak (Score:3, Insightful)
Imagine Oppenheimer and Trenberth were surgeons. Then the dialog would go something like this:
OT: You need a costly and risky operation, but we can handle it, trust us.
Patient: What's wrong with me? I don't really feel sick.
OT: You have some kind of tumor, but it's too complicated for you to understand. Just trust us. That cold you had last month, and the headache, and feeling queasy after the Thanksgiving lobster? We can't be 100% sure, but we think they were all probably caused by your disease!
Patient: What's the risk of the operation?
OT: Just trust us that it's less risky to get this expensive operation than not to get it.
Patient: Are there alternative treatments?
OT: None that we recommend. Just trust us, get our operation. We are the experts.
Patient: If I get the operation, how much longer will I live?
OT: Just trust us, you'll live a little longer.
Patient: How much is it going to cost me?
OT: We don't know, but just give us everything you have and we'll see what we can do.
Patient: I'm thinking about getting a second opinion.
OT: Sure, just go down the hall and ask my good friend Dr. Smith about what he thinks about this operation. We are all experts in this disease here and all know this wonderful way of curing it.
Patient: Isn't there some independent doctor I can go to?
OT: No. Everybody who isn't here is a charlatan and you can't trust them. All doctors here agree that this operation is the best thing since sliced bread, even though it's expensive.
Patient: You know, I don't really trust you. I think I'll take my chances and wait a bit longer.
OT: You're obviously in denial. You must be forced to get our operation for your own good. We'll just declare you mentally incompetent, institutionalize you and force you to undergo this procedure. Orderly, put him in a straitjacket.
You don't have to be an expert in a field to conclude that you don't trust someone or their advice.
Re:Ok, I have a question. (Score:5, Insightful)
If the "threatening" now-faster-rate of sea level rise [wikipedia.org] is on the order of a 3.3 mm/year, then how is it that the sea levels in NY harbors have "risen more than a foot since the beginning of the 20th century (which would be 1900AD.)
1000mm / cm ...we're talking 30 centimeters.
2.54 centimeters / inch
12 inches / foot
Wikipedia (linked above) says the *current rate*, which is *faster* than previous, is 3.3 mm / year. 113 years (since 1900) is 372.9 mm if we count 3.3 mm / year for EVERY year since then. That's a total of 3.72 cm (isn't metric easy?) or between one and two inches.
And actually, Wikipedia reports sea level rise this way: "Between 1870 and 2004, global average sea levels rose 195 mm", which is less than an inch.
So, a foot, how? [grumble]
There are only 10mm in 1 cm. So that would be 37.2cm, or 14.68 inches, since 1900. I think you'll find thats more than a foot.
Re:Nothing burger (Score:3, Insightful)
If you need the cliff notes version, then this [youtube.com] and this [youtube.com] give pretty damning information on the "scandal" surrounding the leaks.
What we have there.
1 proponent of AWG is angry and frustrated because data he works with doesnt support his theory.
2 another proponent of AWG discards some data, but only portion that was inconvenient for his theory. Doesnt try to explain why the data is "wrong". Still bases his theory of warming using same data for the cold periods, but ignoring it for the hot ones.
Sure, nothing to see here.
Re:the scientists are right, but... (Score:2, Insightful)
True, but incomplete. Sea levels have been rising steadily since long before industrialization:
Straw man. Anthropogenic climate change existed "long before industrialization".
Since the sea level rise isn't attributable to human emissions, however, that point is academic.
Begging the question, unproven point. You are zero for two. Three, if you count your initial unfounded assertion.
True, but nobody knows whether that is a significant effect (likely not) either or how much of it is due to human emissions.
You can do the math to figure out how significant the effect is; have you done it? Me neither, but I'm not trying to contradict someone who ostensibly has. You can also do the math to at least estimate what portion is from human emissions.
eliminate federal flood insurance and disaster aid. If millionaires want to live on the beach, they should self-insure and not have the tax payer assume their risks.
I agree with the second sentence, but not the first. I do think that people who have multiple homes which aren't devastated should receive no aid. And I believe that people should not be permitted to spend their aid money rebuilding something guaranteed to be wiped out again...
Re:Science or Not (Score:5, Insightful)
It isn't being thrown out, it's being thrown IN. Into a vast sea of data that overwhelmingly favours one side even though you can try to cherry-pick data that points in the other direction (a la http://www.skepticalscience.com/graphics/Escalator_2012_500.gif [skepticalscience.com]).
Nobody is taking one hurricane and saying QED, AGW exists. We're examining the effects of GW (A or no A) on a hurricane. And it's basing it on factors like sea level which are less chaotic than say wind patterns.
This is how you do science. More controls are good. But science is done in reality. We didn't need to create a control Sun and then make its entire mass utterly vanish instantaneously in order to learn orbital mechanics, and we do our verifications using a model of how gravity works and much smaller scale experiments like the Cavendish experiment (generally -- some astrophysicists have since dome some grand measurements as well).
And when birds start flying and magnets levitate, nobody gets excited when we make excuses for why they aren't falling to the Earth. When rockets start moving away in a vacuum, you don't point to it as proof of non-conservation of momentum and dismiss it when we point out you aren't considering the full system of rocket and ejecta. "That's just part of the rocket, not the whole rocket-ejecta system". And when people point out that Earth's gravity does play a substantial role in bird flight, citing the top speed of an eagle dive, nobody claims that they are extrapolating the entire existence of gravity from a single bird dive.
Re:data sample question (Score:4, Insightful)
They threw out one set of data that was showing anomalous results. Since that paper was published there are many new tree ring datasets that don't show an anomaly past the 1960's. If you read the paper they fully explain the anomalous data and what they did about it.
Re:Fantastic... (Score:4, Insightful)
Usually the choice offered is the one who is bad and the who isn't as bad as. Yes, I'm aware of the write in option, but most times the bad one really needs to be voted out in favor of anyone who isn't as bad as.