Bob Carter: innumerate and irrational?

Bob Carter, in Shhsshh … don’t talk about the science, Quadrant Online, Feb 28 2011:

So what about the famous global warming which occurred in the late 20th century, whatever happened to that? Well, not only did the gentle warming terminate in 1998, but in accord with natural climate cycling that warming has been followed by a gentle cooling since about 2001. That’s ten years of no temperature increase, let alone dangerous increase, over the same time period that atmospheric carbon dioxide increased by about 5%.

Run that past me again, Professors Garnaut and Flannery – your advice to government still remains that human carbon dioxide emissions are causing dangerous global warming?

Ross Garnaut, in his introduction to the Garnaut Climate Change Review – Update 2011, Update Paper five, March 10 2011: The science of climate change, after noting that statisticians confirmed (again) the presence of a warming trend in the latest data:

The statistical evidence did not stop assertions in the public debate that the earth was cooling, but it does seem to have discouraged at least the numerate and rational from repetition of errors into which they had carelessly fallen.

So where does that leave Carter, I wonder? I think we can rule out his being careless in the presentation of the facts. And he can’t really be innumerate — the Royal Society of New Zealand does not welcome the mathematically challenged to its ranks. Irrational? How else do you describe someone who argues the exact opposite of the truth? What’s the term I’m striving for? Is he being economical with the truth or simply telling lies? I leave that for the reader to decide.

Montana and a singular madness (wishin’ and hopin’)

Magical thinking is wonderful. Sprinkle a little oofle dust, twitch your nose, and the world can be put to rights. Joe Read certainly believes in magic. He’s just introduced a bill into the Montana state legislature which will solve the global warming problem at a single stroke:

(2) The legislature finds:

(a) global warming is beneficial to the welfare and business climate of Montana;

(b) reasonable amounts of carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere have no verifiable impacts on the environment; and

(c) global warming is a natural occurrence and human activity has not accelerated it.

Peter Gleick and Josh Rosenau have more, and Brad Johnson at The Wonk Room phoned him up for a chat, with extraordinary results. It’s clear that ideology trumps physics in Joe Read’s Montana. A pity he hasn’t told the glaciers in Glacier National Park. But Read’s wishful thinking is a minor thing, compared to the heroics indulged in by Ray “Singularity” Kurzweil

Kurzweil is well known for his contention that exponential growth in technological capabilities (generalising from Moore’s Law) will lead to a merging of human and machine intelligence that will amount to a singularity — an event horizon beyond which we cannot envisage what will happen (though it’s a fertile field for SF writers like Charles Stross). He puts the date of this event in the not too far distant future (mid century or thereabouts), and is doing his best to stick around to see it happen. In this interview with Lauren Feeney at The Daily Need, he applies his exponential vision to developments in solar power:

So right now it’s at half a percent of the world’s energy. People tend to dismiss technologies when they are half a percent of the solution. But doubling every two years means it’s only eight more doublings before it meets a hundred percent of the world’s energy needs. So that’s 16 years. We will increase our use of electricity during that period, so add another couple of doublings: In 20 years we’ll be meeting all of our energy needs with solar, based on this trend which has already been underway for 20 years.

It’s a seductive concept, this idea that technology will advance so rapidly that it will amount to a get out of jail free card for human civilisation. It’s a view that underpins the Lomborg/Breakthrough Institute position that what is needed is not cuts in emissions, but investment in technology. We’re smart, right? We can figure a way to solve this problem.

Kurzweil is quite explicit in the interview. We have “plenty of time”:

Feeney: A lot of climate scientists say that we have about 10 years to turn the situation around, otherwise we’re going to hit this tipping point and we are all doomed. So you think we’re going to make it?

Kurzweil: Even if those timelines were correct, there will be quite a transformation within 10 years and certainly within 15 or 20 years. The bulk of our energy will be coming from these renewable sources. So, I think we have plenty of time. I think we can make it to the point where these renewables are taking over.

Set aside for a moment that Feeney’s question is ill-posed (Stoat will be having kittens, to miscegenate freely). Kurzweil’s answer betrays a fundamental lack of understanding of the nature of the climate problem — not least the climate commitment, the inevitable warming in the pipeline. If we wait for solar power to take over, but carry on emitting vast quantities of carbon in the meantime, the end result — even with 100% renewable energy on tap — will be warming well beyond two degrees, and a planet making a transition towards its own version of a singularity.

I have a more general objection to Kurzweil’s technological optimism, but I first want to make it clear that I find his vision of the future beguiling, interesting and in some respects feasible. It appeals to the boy in me, the one who read The Eagle in the 60s. It helps me to maintain a degree of optimism in the face of what any sane human might regard as an endless stream of bad news. The real problem is that this vision of accelerating “progress” is rapidly running into the buffers of ecological and planetary limits (which include climate impacts). Yes, we may well be smart enough to design and build superior solar energy capture and distribution systems, but can we do it for everyone — for the nine billion who are likely to be around in 2050, when the singularity will be overdue? Kurzweil glosses over this issue in the interview, but I suspect that reality will be a little more demanding than his interviewer. In fact, we already have the technology to “solve” the climate problem, just as we already grow enough food to feed everyone on the planet. The answer lies in fair distribution and getting things done, and we haven’t found it yet.

I want Kurtzweil to be right. I’d like Joe Read to be right too, but it ain’t gonna happen. I might as well move to Montana and become a dental floss tycoon.

[Dental floss and Dusty (something for everyone!)]

Skewed views of science

[youtube]-h9XntsSEro[/youtube]

This excellent video by QualiaSoup looks at how people make judgements about science, and how opinion and bias can distort reality. Climate science is not mentioned, but it’s all too obvious how the arguments used here apply to those who deny the need for action — especially in the light of Doug Mackie’s recent post on cognitive dissonance. Hat-tip to GrrlScientist, who suggests it would make an excellent video to show students taking an introductory science course. It would indeed.

A Christmas cracker for the cranks

The National Institute for Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA) released details of its recalculated New Zealand temperature series last week and in the last couple of days Richard Treagold and the Climate “Science” Coalition have issued statements in reply. And what a contrast they provide: Bryan Leyland for the NZ C”S”C is all bluster, demanding the resignation of the NIWA chairman and a declaration that the new series is “not valid” (whatever that means). Treadgold, meanwhile, describes the NIWA study as a vindication of his original “report”. One hopes they attend different carol services, because they’re clearly singing from different hymnals.

Lets review events to date, and see what the latest NIWA report really demonstrates…

Continue reading “A Christmas cracker for the cranks”

NIWA’s new NZ temperature series: plus ça change…

NZtempsoldnew.png

Earlier this afternoon NIWA released its recalculated NZ temperature record [full report], and as expected the changes from the “old” seven station series are more or less negligible. The trend over the last 100 years is identical, 0.91ºC per century, as the graph above shows. There are minor differences in some years, and larger ones at some stations, but the net effect to is confirm what we already knew: New Zealand warmed significantly over the last century. Commenting on the new report, NIWA CEO John Morgan said:

“I am not surprised that this internationally peer reviewed 2010 report of the seven station temperature series has confirmed that NIWA’s science was sound. It adds to the scientific knowledge that shows that New Zealand’s temperature has risen by about 0.9 degrees over the past 100 years”.

I’m not surprised either. But I confidently predict that the NZ Climate “Science” Coalition and Richard Treadgold will still find something to whinge about. After all, they’re trying to sue NIWA to have the original seven station series declared invalid. Now it’s been replaced — by something that looks rather similar. Which just confirms how shonky their original complaint and their subsequent silly suit really were. (More on this later, when I’ve had a chance to read the report in detail).