The Perfect Is the Enemy of the Good

Mark Thoma thinks that geoengineering is too risky as a solution to global warming. Quoting an article in Scientific America he writes,

Geophysicist Kate Ricke of Carnegie Mellon University and her colleagues show that one of the more feasible geoengineering methods—injecting reflective particles into the atmosphere to mimic the world-cooling effects of a volcanic eruption—will have effects that vary from place to place. So, for example, India might be rendered too cold (and wet) by a level of particle injection that's just right for its neighbor China while setting the levels to India's liking would toast the Middle Kingdom.

What's worse, the computer models that show that such injections might work in the short term also show that they will change global weather patterns by making part of the atmosphere more stable—and therefore less likely to promote storms. That means less rainfall to go around—and these side effects become worse with time. ...

He goes on to conclude

Engineers used to show up in comments and tell me that, unlike economists, they know how to build systems in ways that prevent the chance of catastrophic collapse like we had in the financial system. ...Even if the models said this will work without any worrisome side effects or geographic differences, the stakes are too high to use that result as an excuse to delay action on the global warming problem. We need to start solving this problem now...

Considering conventional wisdom's solution is ridiculously expensive and politically infeasible, avoiding a viable and inexpensive strategy even if they models say they are fine is embarrassingly sloppy. I'll certainly agree that the climate change models are better than the economists by a long shot (climatologists don't have to worry about the cloud's expectations or rainfall's irrational exuberance) but let's be careful about putting too much faith in them. And even if the models are accurate and this strategy will have adverse side effects (lower rainfall being a big one) that doesn't mean it's not the best option. Cutting global warming the traditional way generally runs in the tens to hundreds of billions of dollars a year. Volcano simulation (from what I read in Superfreakonomics tallies in the tens of millions of dollars a year. That's a lot of extra money to subsidize irrigation.

But what really irks me is that this geoengineering plan could be set up and executed in a few years and we would notice the effects, both positive and negative, in less than a year. Then, if the models were correct, we could just shut it off and, in actually trying something, gain so much insight about fixing the problem that the quality of our discussion of climate change would increase ten fold. And the environmental and economic damage would be minimumal, not to mention that global warming would be (slightly) curtailed.

Darwin Zero

I found this post via Megan McArdle concerning the data surrounding climate change in the wake of "climategate." It's an interesting post but it's long. It's a case study on a temperature record station, Darwin Zero, and how climatologists adjust the raw data to something that is consistent across the past century. There's good reason to have adjustments (changes in station location, instruments, time of temperature recording, etc) but the adjustments to Darwin Zero are very...strange.


From the author:

Yikes again, double yikes! What on earth justifies that adjustment? How can they do that? We have five different records covering Darwin from 1941 on. They all agree almost exactly. Why adjust them at all? They’ve just added a huge artificial totally imaginary trend to the last half of the raw data! Now it looks like the IPCC diagram in Figure 1, all right … but a six degree per century trend? And in the shape of a regular stepped pyramid climbing to heaven? What’s up with that?

This doesn't mean that all adjustments are suspect or that climatologists are lying or even that these are falsifications (though you can bet I'd like to know the reasoning behind those adjustments). And over the years, I've become more sympathetic of climatologists' claims (decentralized researchers all saying about the same thing is a good litmus test for truth). But it does highlight the need for publicly available raw data and comprehensive explanations for all the adjustments. If the scientists really want to convince people, transparency is key.

The Boston Research Party

In the season premiere of Boston Legal, one of the named partners enlists the main character to defend her from Stanford University. She originally said she'll donate money to fund a study on climate research but pulled the three million when she discovered an oil company donated 100 million for similar research.

It would be foolish to think a study is treated the same when its chief financiers have a vested interest in a particular outcome (just like climatologists have a vested interest in pushing other results). But it would be sloppy to conclude thus the study is bunk and has no value whatsoever. An incentive to lie does not translate into an act of lying; other incentives can counteract and overcome that motivation.

But skepticism is something people should hold in abundance. If Shirley Schmidt wishes to pull it away upon discovering this other financier, why shouldn't she be allowed to? It is her money and she can tag on any requirements she wishes. Stanford doesn't have to accept the dough and perhaps encouraging universities to choose between the hundreds of millions from a few and the millions from hundreds would add a diversity of research, and thus conclusions, and thus something close to the truth. Not everyone has to be invited.

Costs, Benefits, and Global Warming

Last night on Real Time with Bill Maher Bjørn Lomborg argued before the panel that global warming is not the problem society should be focusing on; there are many other problems that are more important. After the video feed ended the panel didn't quite get it. Rob Thomas said "I have no idea what that guy was talking about." Allow me to explain, Rob.

Lomborg is saying that there are all kinds of problems in the world: hunger, disease, war, intolerance, climate change, and so forth. Some of these are big problems, having a very real impact on those affected. Suffering and dying. But some are not big problems. They're still problems, like a broken leg or getting your car towed, but compared to larger issues, they aren't that scary.

Lomborg is also saying these problems also differ in our capacity to solve them. Both cancer and malaria are deadly but, in developed countries, malaria's easier to cure so there's much more focus on cancer. Since society only have so many resources (time, money, personnel) to devote to solving problems, the smart thing would be to focus on the big problems that are relatively easy to solve; that way we can do the most good.

Global warming fails both criteria. It is very expensive to solve and not that big of a deal. There should be more focus on making it cheaper to mitigate the problem: focus on making good solar panels, not installing lots of crappy ones. Going to the moon's a lot cheaper in 2007 than in 1907. Lomborg is asking us to prioritize better.

The New Scientific Method

Recently I’ve been reading The Chilling Stars. It is about Henrik Svensmark’s and others new theory on climate change. The theory, in extreme brevity:

[Svensmark] saw from compilations of weather satellite data that cloudiness varies according to how many atomic particles are coming in from exploded stars. More cosmic rays, more clouds. The sun’s magnetic field bats away many of the cosmic rays, and its intensification during the 20th century meant fewer cosmic rays, fewer clouds, and a warmer world. On the other hand the Little Ice Age was chilly because the lazy sun let in more cosmic rays, leaving the world cloudier and gloomier.

This theory implies that carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases play a small role (if any) in climate change. His colleagues’ reaction to the new theory was complete rejection. One called it “extremely naïve and irresponsible.” Svensmark was invited to a dinner with other Nordic scientists. He was invited so others could mock him, which they did, and labeled his work as “dangerous.”

The government was reluctant to give him funding, and when he got a grant from the Carlsberg Foundation a government scientist wrote to the foundation urging them to cancel the funding. Svensmark won Danish prizes for his discovery: the Knud Hojgaard Anniversary Research Prize and the Energy-E2 Research Prize, but he was still scandalized in the press.

Apparently the scientific method that I learned is now outdated. Theories don’t have to be proven wrong or invalidated. Hypothoses don’t have to be tested. New theories can simply be derided and have the funding cut if they don’t conform to your priors so you can keep believing whatever you want.

Happy Belated Earth Day

Here’s the Daily Show on Earth Day.

Kidding or Not?

Dave Barry commented on his blog “sometimes this blog cannot tell when people are saving the earth, and when they are kidding.” He said that in response to this Sheryl Crow quote:

One of my favorites is in the area of forest conservation which we heavily rely on for oxygen. I propose a limitation be put on how many squares of toilet paper can be used in any one sitting. Now, I don't want to rob any law-abiding American of his or her God-given rights, but I think we are an industrious enough people that we can make it work with only one square per restroom visit, except, of course, on those pesky occasions where 2 to 3 could be required.

I hope she is kidding, but given the crazy things environmentalists say I’m not sure she is. The green wisdom continues from the singer:

This next idea I have been saving but I will share it with you if you promise not to steal it. It is my latest, very exciting idea for creating incentive for us all to minimize our own personal carbon footprints. It's a reality show. (I feel pretty certain NO ONE has thought of this yet!) Here is the premise: the contest consists of 10 people who are competing for the top spot as the person who lives the "greenest" life. This will be reflected in the contestant's home, his business, and his own personal living style. The winner of this challenging, prestigious, contest would receive what??. . . . a recording contract!!!!!

The Scientific Process of Scientific Progress

To celebrate Earth Day I finally took the opportunity to watch Warren's recommended movie, The Great Global Warming Swindle. It was quite good. So good, I went over to Wikipedia to see why they said about it.

One of the stranger complaints involved the drama concerning Carl Wunsch. Wunsch appeared on the film describing his work on the feedback mechanism of oceans, CO₂ and heat. Warmer oceans release CO₂, warming the atmosphere, and thus the oceans. Cooling the oceans absorbs CO₂, cooling the atmosphere, and thus the oceans. The movie uses his work to describe how the jump in CO₂ in recent years isn't something that is obviously man-made. An outside element (such as additional solar activity) could have initiated a feedback loop.

Wunsch, as it turns out, believes that humans are the original source of the problem, not the sun, and accuses the producers of "misrepresenting" him. It's true that from the movie, one would think he's a member of the skeptics camp and in that way I can see why he is upset. But some people have taken this incident to mean there's something wrong with them using his science, or something wrong with the producers in general, or that they didn't portray the science accurately. But they did portray his work accurately--they just used it in a way he didn't like.

If someone used my work (accurately) to support government funding of research, I would say "that's an interesting take--let's talk about it." I would claim I'm being misrepresented if I was painted as being in that person's school of thought. Wunsch's anger is understandable, but alludes to a disturbing problem with climatology: perceptions are becoming far more important than good science. The truth may not be in a direction you agree with which is why you have to allow your work to be used in a way you might not like. We want scientists to be willing to let such ideas be explored freely. Climatology, in its current state, is not in that position. This is what happens when science becomes media-saturated and politically entrenched: perceptions, not science, take the center stage.

Global Warming Videos

After watching An Inconvenient Truth, I wondered when the opposing view would be made into a movie. The Great Global Warming Swindle came out and I thought the market had made its reaction. Then I found out that a similar video had already been made in 1990. Last night I went to the Heritage Foundation and watched the new film An Inconvenient Truth or Convenient Fiction? It was done in a style similar to Gore’s, with obvious shots to mimic him. I didn’t think it was as good as The GGWS (I liked hearing straight from the scientists), but it was still worthwhile to watch.

Gingrich Kerry Debate

Yesterday I attended the debate between Newt Gingrich and John Kerry on Climate Change. Both took the position that man is the driving force behind the warming earth and something needs to be done and quick.

Gingrich stated that economic growth matters, and leadership should start with science, entrepreneurship, innovation. He advocated the use of prizes to spur innovation, citing the X-Prize as an example, among others. He also supported various tax breaks and incentives to promote greenness. He said something to the effect that he doesn’t want a “laissez-faire market, but incentive based market.” This statement left me confused, as I assumed that laissez-faire markets were all incentive based. I assume Gingrich meant he wants a politically incentivized market, fit to his wants and desires.

Kerry stated his support for the prizes, and said we had a “moral obligation” to meet this. He repeated you can’t believe “half the science,” I assume he meant all the catastrophic predictions that some scientists make along with the scientific ones, although I’m not sure. He kept citing the sulfur dioxide reductions as a model for CO2 cap and trade legislation. He said we’ll hit the “tipping point” if we hit 450 part per million (ppm) CO2 concentration. He said that the worst thing that will happen if he’s wrong is that more jobs will be created, more technology will be made, health will be better, and we’ll have energy independence. I’m used to politicians exaggerating or giving ridiculous promises, but having all this seems completely outlandish and nothing but vacuous political rhetoric. He seemed to have no concept whatsoever of tradeoffs (gain jobs in the wind sector, but lose jobs elsewhere) or rent seeking (he mentioned companies who already do something green lobby to coerce other companies to do the same). He felt that “We’re living outrageously as an outlaw.”

At the end of the debate I didn’t really feel good about either of them, but felt better about Gingrich. Kerry seemed pessimistic and that unless we undertook all sorts of big measures now and listened to him we are all but doomed. Gingrich seemed optimistic and had faith in the markets to create solutions, if properly incentivized by tax breaks and prizes. They both want more government, but just applied in different ways.

Interesting Graphs

For all the talk we hear about global warming and how CO2 is going to melt the ice and kill the polar bears, there usually isn’t much said about changes temperature due to solar activity. You don’t have to be an econometrician or run regressions to know which variable better fits changes in Arctic temperatures.

Consensus on “Carbon Neutrality”

Recently I commented on Gore’s increasing carbon footprint. In the comments I was told:

God, if you're gonna make fun of something, at least know what you're talking about:

Live Earth says it will implement a new 'Green Event Standard' that will become the model for carbon neutral concerts and other live events in the future. This will include:-

All electricity that powers the shows will be from renewable sources, either through utility supplied renewable energy, biodiesel generators, or renewable energy credits

Recently there have been some initial analyses on using “carbon neutral” energy.

More fun than chess

A tale of two markets

The Political Economy of Alternative Energy

Another stab at carbon offsets

After reading these the consensus seems to be that credits and carbon neutrality doesn’t work as it claims to. And anyone who denies this is a fringe skeptic in the pocket of the environmental lobby.

Measuring Temperature

Recently I’ve been reading up on global warming. I came across something that I hadn’t heard before on the measuring of temperatures. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, thousands of measuring stations closed in the former USSR. The closing of these stations in cold areas correspond to the rise in temperature measured in the late nineties. Now whenever I see the claims that 1998 was the hottest year on record, I can’t get excited about it. It should be expected that eliminating thousands of Siberian and other cold weather stations will lead to an increase in measured temperature.

Gore's Increasing Carbon Footprint

In his quest to against global warming, Al Gore is hosting “Live Earth” concerts on all the continents, “including the first ever rock gig in Antarctica.”

Apparently Gore feels that burning who knows how much fossil fuel and increasing his carbon footprint is a good way to lower emissions. My question is how many people will watch the concert and say “Hey, now I’ll stop burning so much gas since Mr. Environmentalist burned through untold barrels of oil to go to one of the most desolate and undeveloped places on earth. Now I’m convinced that wasting energy is a bad idea.”

Climatology and my Return

David's posted some interesting material recently about the fallibility of climatological models predicting great disaster in our near (i.e. w/in 100 years) future.

To add to the noise, I'm pretty confident that a huge variable hasn't been at all accounted for - volcanism.

What's the big deal? I mean, why get hot and bothered about a bit of lava? One word: Krakatoa.

I'm not so much worried about that particular volcano - it's watched like Michael Jackson at a cubscout jamboree - it's more what it showed us. Our everyday Joe American may not have heard of it, but believe me, it's worth knowing about.

In 1883 it heaved off some steam, launching the world into a miniature ice age of sorts (by heaving off about 25 cubic kilometers of said world, incidentally). All of this rock-vomit, according to Wikipedia, lowered global temperatures by about 1.2 degrees celcius, and the climate supposedly didn't return to "normal" for 5 or so years.

But that's not all this magma-muffin's dished out - far from it! Let me preface this with the disclaimer that this is a disputed thesis regarding Krakatoa as the direct cause, but the conclusions are solidly testified to in dendochronological records. That said, the real party started around 535 AD. Things are looking up for Rome, Emperor Justinian and his prize-fighter Bellisarius are out ridding their hood from the Germanic vagrants that settled in, and BOOM.

Yeah, that's an all-caps boom. We're talking major. Proto-Krakatoa let loose with the mother of all explosions, and all hell breaks loose. Global temperatures drop, causing crop failures, darkness during the day, and general misery. Teotihuacan in modern Mexico is abandoned. Barbarian slavs are pouring into the Balkans, nomadic pastorlist tribes in central Asia like the begin rampaging. Falling temperatures make it easier for plague to be transmitted, and there's a decade of incessant disease and suffering. The list goes on. You know, it wasn't the dark ages for nothin', folks!

Let me suggest that this is more than just a little blip in the data - this was a phenomenon that easily spread more than a decade. But what does that have to do with climate models in the long-run?

As David says, climates are sensitive, complex systems. Small disturbances in the present can have tremendous affects on outcomes in the long run, and this is a phenomenon that seems to be able to do more than just a little thing.

Who knows when a major volcano could erupt? Even more important, who has integrated this important tidbit into their climatological models of temperature change?

Less importantly to matters of public importance than the possibility of erupting volcanoes ushering in an era of catastrophy, I'll be heading to Moscow on Monday to get my daughter's passport, and my wife's green card. Just a few weeks then, and with luck I'll be back home!

An Inconvient Model

Today Jason Briggeman of Productivity Shock ends Hurricane Week--a week-long recognition that no hurricanes made landfall this hurricane season. I applaud Jason's efforts to remind everyone the failings of climatology.

Like the global economy, the world's climate is a high-dimension, non-linear system (which is a fancy way of saying "there's lots of important factors and they are all connected"). These complex systems are nortoriously hard to model because all the variables interact with each other, often in unpredictable ways. Economists learned this the hard way, having spent decades attempting to map the global economy but with only very limited success. But this was not mere academic time wasted: the flawed economics led to flawed policy. Economies went haywire as simple plans were grafted to a non-simple system. Recessions and hyperinflation followed.

Today climatologists are doing the same thing. While they might have more success (software is better and the climate forces are usually more predictable than people), the science is not yet at the point where policy is a safe idea. It pains me that the climatology discipline seems to want to repeat our mistakes. Not only might this roll of the dice not result in a lowering of global temperature, with the world economy more connected than ever before the unintended consequences could be far worse than any economic policy.

An Inconvenient Movie

The plan is to see Al Gore's movie this weekend with some friends and in preperation I found a TCS article written a month ago entitled "Questions for Al Gore." Climatologist Roy Spencer hits on a lot of good points, notably reminding us there is not a total consensus that global warming is an unnatural phenomenon. It sounds like this film is a "documentary" in the same way Star Wars: The Phantom Menace was "good." The only people that buy the label are already too invested in it to consider otherwise.

Tempers, Temperatures and Temper Tantrums

Today's Wikipedia's featured article is global warming, an article I've tried to edit in the past and gave up after receiving unkind commentary on my changes, some of it deserved and some not. Skimming the talk pages reveals this is not unusual--nasty words have been exchanged by both sides of the argument. The whole thing is not unlike Jason and Tim's argument this past week. Just read it and you'll see as much heat as light.

When I was in college, I read Bowling Alone by Robert Putnam, which argues people are spending more and more time alone thanks to certain of technology, such as television and the computer. Putnam agrues Internet interaction is a poor substitute for real human interaction. I don't agree, but one thing is for sure is it makes it a lot easier to be nasty. Any online forum (blogs, Wikipedia, discussion boards, etc) is prone to parties simply throwing rants and temper tantrums, barely reading what the other has to say. Part of this is because we are only thinking of our counterpart in the abstract; we just don't know him. Part of this comes from talking to our agreeing friends about such issues, so we are more prone to repeat the less diplomatic agruments we make to each other. Part of it is because we talk in paragraphs, which end up becoming speechs for ourselves. I'm sure there are other reasons.

In being a better advocate for liberty, I think it's worth learning how to tone down our arguments and make shorter, cleaner claims. For example, it's amazing how much more likely people will pay attention to what you write if you show some patience and acknowledge some points the other side made. It's something we all need work at.

Global Design and Intelligent Warming

Regular vistors of L3 would probably have noticed my reservations when it comes to accepting the theory of global warming, or more specifically, that humans are the cause. With the recent decision about intelligent design, it might seem odd that I side with the scientists on this one.

Consider the similarities. Both theories are nearly universally accepted in scientific circles. Both ideas are seeped in politics. Both relate to dynamic systems. Both have huge bodies of evidence but neither can be "proven" in the lab.

But there are solid differences.

1) Politics played against evolution when the theory first appeared. Global warming scares are modern tools of politicians. The consistency lies in disbelieving what the government tells you.

2) Evolution describes a dynamic system. GW makes causal claims of a dynamic system.

3) Evolutionary theory became more sophisticated as technology developed (using DNA to demonstrate how species are connected, for example). GW theory has certainly become more complicated as computer technology improved, but its reliance on modeling the unknown does not make it more sophisticated in any useful sense.

4) The most important difference is that evolution is the best scientific theory we have that explains the origin of life. But there are far better origins of causation for changing climate (ie that it's natural and the virtue of this theory is, like evolution, it has historic evidence).

The judge was absolutely correct when he said ID is nothing more than creationism with a scientific-sounding name. When opponents perversly argued that evolution is its own dogma, they were equally, absolutely wrong. By definition science cannot be dogma. But that doesn't mean scientists are never dogmatic.

It's Almost As If Climate Is a Dynamic System

Jason at Productivity Shock did some research about hurricane activity over the past seventy years. The downward trend from the 60s to the 90s is most telling.

Note that in the original data, even the 60s didn't have two close together, suggesting why we are having an "epidemic" all of a sudden. Some one should tell climatologists that one decade does not indicate a trend.

What I'd really like to see is data for all hurricanes. But so far that search is not yielding data...