What defence do we have against politically-motivated scientists?

[Drogue]

But if you like space, why should we foot the emissions bill for that. Everyone likes space, but do you like it enough to pay for the pollution that comes with it? I have no issue with tradeable permits so rich countries can pay more and pollute more. As other countries get richer, these permits will get more and more expensive, and so your preferences for a lifestyle that pollutes would be more costly.

I think it would be unfair just to grant you more rights to pollute simply because you like space.

[SpencerH]

Originally posted by Drogue

How so? Should the UK be allowed to pollute as much, in total, as the US? Should we just set a cap on total pollution that everyone must stay below? Country boundaries are arbitrary lines. What matters is how much each person is polluting. It makes sense to have a limit based on the amount of people in your country. Else countries could just break up. Like if the US decided it was going to be 50 individual states rather than one country, no state would be the world's biggest polluter. However there's no overall change in pollution output, and no change in per capita output.

I do agree with Ned's point, there should be the same rules for all countries. Like a limit per capita or somesuch. It's just the developing world pollute a lot, lot less than the developed world.

In terms of potential effects on climate, it's total pollution that counts. Reducing the US, Canada, and Europes CO2 emmisions while allowing the Chinese and Indians to 'make up the difference' is not rational.

[Jon Miller]

Originally posted by Drogue
But if you like space, why should we foot the emissions bill for that. Everyone likes space, but do you like it enough to pay for the pollution that comes with it? I have no issue with tradeable permits so rich countries can pay more and pollute more. As other countries get richer, these permits will get more and more expensive, and so your preferences for a lifestyle that pollutes would be more costly.

I think it would be unfair just to grant you more rights to pollute simply because you like space.

We have space, you don't.

JM

[Drogue]

Originally posted by SpencerH
In terms of potential effects on climate, it's total pollution that counts. Reducing the US, Canada, and Europes CO2 emmisions while allowing the Chinese and Indians to 'make up the difference' is not rational.

Exactly, it's total pollution. But as I said, if you set a limit per country, what's to stop China breaking up into 20 different countries and each polluting at the upper level? Or would it be feasible for the UK to pollute as much as the UK, despite having 5 times less population? It is rational to allow countries to make up the difference per capita, as looking at this from a global level, what matters is overall global pollution, which means arbitrary national boundaries don't come into it. The only way we can break it down into non arbitrary boundaries is if that boundary is each individual person. Each person is allowed to pollute so much.

For example whether Europe counts as one or whether each country gets its own limit shouldn't matter. The pollution is the same either way. And capping overall national pollution would hurt the US a lot more.

[Ned]

Drogue, agreed that a global limit based on some science-based greehouse gas goal is what is needed. But what is that goal? What are the factors that give us that goal?

As I have tried to point out here, really really tried, is that the world is dynamic and it is constantly changing. There is no optimum temperture during warm interglacial periods. But we do have a MAJOR MAJOR problem with ice ages. Interglacial warm periods are relatively short. They last typically less than 10k years. Historical data suggests the next ice age is NOW due.

I think we have to do a lot more investigation into exactly when summer sunlight levels are low enough to trigger an ice age. (The calculations done by Huybers of Harvard (see above) seem highly relevant.) We might be there now. Obviously, if we are, the last thing we need is to reduce greenhouse gasses enough to trigger an ice age.

[Drogue]

Originally posted by Ned
Drogue, agreed that a global limit based on some science-based greehouse gas goal is what is needed. But what is that goal? What are the factors that give us that goal?

As I have tried to point out here, really really tried, is that the world is dynamic and it is constantly changing. There is no optimum temperture during warm interglacial periods.

There is. Not in a super-long-term sense, but in the sense that Holland being covered by sea is not a good thing. We need to set a level of greenhouse gases that leaves sea levels constant.

Ice ages will happen pretty much whatever we do. Greenhouse gases may raise the temperature slightly, but they'll do jack-all against an ice age. I reckon we need to try and keep the environment as stable as we can until it becomes impossible to do so. For example sea levels constant, temperature constant, and if we end up in a situation where an ice age starts to form, there's little we can do except ride it out. Or have advanced enough technology to heat the entire planet.

[Ned]

Drogue, modest changes in sea level are not a problem so long as they occur slowly and not like they do in Gore's favorite movie where NYC was inundated overnight. ****s can be built or raised. People can migrate. Etc. AFAIK, sea level changes from the modest temperature changes that are occuring will be very modest and very slow.

No one knows whether greenhouse gasses can or even now forestall a new ice age. We all agree, I assume, that a new ice age is the main threat in the near term.

[Dauphin]

From a pragmatic point of view, pollution per GDP targets are probably more useful than per capita targets. It then reflects the tradeoff between economy and pollution better and leads to a desire to improve an economy or to reduce pollution, or both, something that everyone can agree on.

[Ned]

Originally posted by Dauphin
From a pragmatic point of view, pollution per GDP targets are probably more useful than per capita targets. It then reflects the tradeoff between economy and pollution better and leads to a desire to improve an economy or to reduce pollution, or both, something that everyone can agree on.

From an economics point of view, you might be right in that it would gain the agreement of the whole world to a new protocol if the goals were set at a time in the future that could be met with non Draconian investments in new technologies.

But, would the environmentalists accept this?

[Drogue]

Originally posted by Dauphin
From a pragmatic point of view, pollution per GDP targets are probably more useful than per capita targets. It then reflects the tradeoff between economy and pollution better and leads to a desire to improve an economy or to reduce pollution, or both, something that everyone can agree on.

Why penalise those who are just further behind on the road to development? We had the benefit of little regulation when we developed, because we weren't contributing to the problem that much. A bit hypocritical to now say since we've developed and are the ones causing the problems that everyone developing has to cut emissions when we didn't have that burden while we were. Moreover it would stop them from developing, which seems vastly unfair - to slow the growth of the world's poorest economies the most. Lastly, it would have little effect. What purpose would low pollution caps on Botswana, or Malawi, or Sudan serve? It wouldn't lower global pollution.

[TCO]

Huybers (the little whoopster beaver rat, he) kicks some bootie. Read his critique of MM. Absent the tendentious sputtering and off-axis Stevian debate, Huybers gets it done with honor. Oo-rah. Muthafukkas.

[Ned]

Originally posted by TCO
Huybers (the little whoopster beaver rat, he) kicks some bootie. Read his critique of MM. Absent the tendentious sputtering and off-axis Stevian debate, Huybers gets it done with honor. Oo-rah. Muthafukkas.

Any links?

I found this: http://www.samsi.info/200506/hottopi...er.huybers.ppt

which seems to suggest that bias corrected data shows global cooling, not warming. Is this right?

[Ned]

Here's the Huybers chart I to which I am referring:

[Ned]

Here is one's author's conclusion about the Hockey Stick debate: Notice he is essentially accusing the Hockey Stick team of bias in their methods and of rebutting arguments by redrafting them as strawmen or ignoring them entirely.

"The black line in the figure, marked MBH in the index, is the famous Hockey Stick graph. The figure shows that there is an enormous variation in the data plots when the statistical methods are tweaked slightly. And once again, Bürger and Cubasch criticise Mann et al for their statistical approach concerning rescaling.

The response of the Hockey Team is feeble at best, as they counter that the arguments which Bürger and Cubasch raise are now no longer relevant and no longer of current concern as they've recently tested other methods laid out in a different publications.

And this leads me to a last and rather tiresome aspect in the Hockey Stick debate: the way how the debate is held. In regard to the criticism of Bürger and Cubasch and the honest points raised in the Daily Kos thread, the authors of Real Climate dodge the raised criticism, they don't deflect or parry. Yet this is an approach which is starting to get noticeable and, personally, looks to me as a one trick pony to ignore the actual debate. There is a certain moral arrogance to it, especially in combination with the haughty tone, and it doesn't slot well with the scientist in me. And again, the expressed doubts about the proxy series still have not been taken into serious regard.

Similarly, McIntyre has expressed his irritation on his own blog about the way how the Real Climate team often rewrites the real criticism. Instead of addressing the point in case, the Hockey Team re-cast what they think is the addressed criticism and then triumphantly torch that down. The RealClimate responses on the critical Daily Kos bystander reflect that as well. In this way they seem to win each debate, while they're not even addressing the issue at hand. It's a trick politicians know as well; it's called spin. And on a gut-level it doesn't bide well for the Hockey Stick team.

So far, the war in the trenches. It's pretty grubby down there: this is a war wherein one group proclaims that their method is perfectly right, and the other side says that it is not. The lesson here is: don't try to mingle unless you're a Marine. And by Marine, I mean a Mathematician or Statistician. Bottom-line, though: this debate is not over. For anyone who is (scientifically) critical, the Hockey Stick figure can no longer be regarded as carved in stone. In this respect, 2006 has every potential to be another stormy year.

http://www.eurotrib.com/story/2006/2/2/7340/85099

[Ned]

Below is a draft copy of Huybers criticism of MBH98 (the Hockey Stick). It demostrates why MBH98 is biased.

So I guess the graph I showed above is, in fact, the data recalculated in an unbiased manner. When done so, it shows a cooling trend.

http://web.mit.edu/~phuybers/www/Hockey/Huybers_Comment.pdf