[PowerLine] SETTLED SCIENCE: LIBERALS MORE CLOSED-MINDED AND INTOLERANT THAN CONSERVATIVES

another day another data point

 

I've read his blog off and on for over ten years. You are boiling down what you take to be his "opinions" as "Climate change is a hoax." I reject your question and that characterization. What PART of climate change does he believe to be a hoax? That would be a more fair question. I'd say he thinks the policy recommendations made by those who think they "know what the science says" are bullshit. A hoax, if you will. In that regard his views resemble those of Vaclev Klaus who wrote Blue Planet in Green Shackles.

 

I trust that climate is changing but I do not believe we know what percentage of that change is due to anthropogenic causes. I also do not believe that the systemic significance of climate elements such as clouds, water vapor, and 'natural' climate oscillations are well understood at all. I also do not think climate models are anywhere near as precise or predictive as they need to be--anymore than economic models are in the cultural realm--if we are to base our decision-making on the information such models yield.

I also believe that the demands to spend significant amounts of capital to curb climate emissions "yesterday" are likely to be poorly spent. I think that with an as-yet poorly understood phenomenon such as global warming, a more prudent cause of action would be (in addition to "affordable" R&D that makes sense anyway) to 'bank' such monies against some future time when the problem is better understood as well as our possible technological responses to that problem. Many commenters use 50 years as a likely time horizon--that makes sense to me.

I also respect Marxian approaches to the philosophy of science and understand science as a social institution. I believe many scientists in fields that are far, far removed from "climate science" now suck at the scientific-government-industrial teat and piggyback every possible study to "climate" in order to gain research funds. Say the magic words "climate change" and your research is suddenly "relevant." This makes for bad science and even worse policy. (In short, you cannot just "Take out the political agenda of these men or any men, and just talk science." That is a naive view and one that is not consistent with a modern philosophical or sociological understanding of science and technology.)

Finally I believe that most climate advocates really don't believe the sky is falling. If they did, they would all be embarked on a zealous program of nuclear advocacy. Someone like Roger Pielke Jr estimates we would need the equivalent of one new nuclear plant EACH DAY from now until 2050 to meet the energy demands of reducing our carbon emissions in most of the IPCC scenarios. There is absolutely NOBODY making those recommendations--all we hear about is renewables, windmills, and Green New Deals. So I conclude that in fact nobody really worries about carbon emissions, and instead are more interested in a kind of romanticized, roll-back-the-clock primitivism that is more anti-technological and anti-modern than it is realistic.

 

Here is where I think you are mistaken. The federal contribution to climate science research is $2 billion /year according to the GAO. If you add in technology-related, applied climate research, that number swells to nearly $10 billion annually. That is simply the federal funding. https://www.gao.gov/key_issues/climate_change_funding_management/issue_summary . As someone who has chased NSF funding for example (and won some) I can tell you that it helps to do everything within your power to relate your proposals to the scientific flavor-of-the-month. This is not a conservative talking point, this is simply the reality of getting research funded.

And as you say, private or industry funding is probably an order of magnitude (or more) higher.

I wish more climate scientists were more broadly educated in history. If they were, they would have a long view of how the world has always been going to hell in a handbasket, and that the insight from Ecclesiastes that "there is nothing new under the sun" is likely true in this latest of predictions about the end of the world. I am old enough to remember previous scares: population bombs, nuclear winters, acid rain, ozone holes. We as a species have survived many scares over the centuries, and we will survive this one as well.

To put it an other way: In virtually every case in recent history, when there have been fears that nature is fragile and that the end is near, it turns out nature is resilient and life goes on. If the future is anything like the past, I think nature will prove its resilience once again as regards climate change.

As for scared scientists, I'd remind you of something that E.F. Schumacher once said: the problem is not that generalists are specializing, it's that specialists are generalizing. Most of those scientists have genuine expertise in their relatively tiny little corners of academia (or wherever), but they are way beyond their paygrade when they begin to make scary pronouncements about subjects they have no expertise in and when those pronouncements extend to policy and economics. (Michael Mann at Penn State is probably Exhibit One in this regard.) I'm not saying that they shouldn't have opinions on those subjects, it's just they need to take off their PhD "Scientist Hats" when they wander afield and simply admit that they are equal to every other "Joe Citizen" out there in terms of competence and knowledge in fields they know little about.

I agree with you here.

 

as luck would have it: https://www.newstatesman.com/2019/01/post-truth-world-we-need-remember-philosophy-science

and on edit: a good complementary essay: https://aeon.co/ideas/philosophy-can-make-the-previously-unthinkable-thinkable

 

maybe . . . maybe not.

Let's use one example related to the estimated costs of stopping climate change to prevent sea level rise flooding places like Bangladesh (a popular example), versus simply coping with and adapting to sea level rise.

In an early paper on global warming and the precautionary principle, economist Wilfred Beckerman estimated that measures to prevent climate change to slow sea level rise would cost the world community $20 trillion – i.e., ten times as much as the then-estimated costs of simply adding protections (seawalls and the like) against predicted rising sea level.

He argued that it would clearly be in everybody’s interests, including the Bangladeshis’, to make some sort of deal so as to not incur the $20 trillion costs that would be needed to prevent sea level from rising. He argued instead that we should consider giving a fifth of the resulting economy – namely $4 trillion – to the people who would suffer from the sea level rise.

Beckerman argued that if you actually put it the actual citizens of Bangladesh, they might take that deal. Here's what the numbers would look like for the average Bangladeshi who accepted a sort of "buyout" as an incentive to move elsewhere, i.e., to higher ground:

The population of Bangladesh is 162 million
The percentage population affected by climate change flooding: 32%
Making the # of people affected by flooding: 52 million

$4 trillion in aid/compensation to 52 million people would yield approx. $77,000 US to each citizen; a family of four would receive the equivalent of $308,000 U.S.

Compare that payout to the cost of living in Bangladesh (sources below):
The cost of living in Bangladesh housing (for rent) is 82% cheaper than US avg. rents
A 3-bedroom apartment cost city center: $340/month
A 3-bedroom apartment outside of city center: $230/month

So the $308,000 payout for a family of four would yield:
$308K / $340 mo= 905 months = 75.5 years rent for an urban apartment on higher ground
$380k / $230 mo= 1339 months= 111 years rent for a rural apartment on higher ground

(caveat: I acknowledge these are just estimates; I understand that housing pressures elsewhere would likely raise the market for rents "on higher ground.")

Alternatively, for home purchases that $308,000 payout for a family of four would yield:
The purchase price for a home near a city center: $82/square foot, or a 3700+ square foot home
The purchase price for homes outside city centers: $46/sq ft, or a 6600+ square foot home

Alternatively, that $77,000 payout for an individual would yield the following equivalent in salary:
Current average monthly salary net: $336/month
$77,000 / $336 mo = 229 months salary = 19 years of salary

http://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/country_result.jsp?country=Bangladesh&displayCurrency=USD
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Clearly, if you offered an affected Bangladeshi head-of-household $308,000 to move his or her family to higher ground, and they were satisfied with something less than a 6600 sq ft home (a mansion in other words, in this country or in Bangladesh), they might be more than happy to take that $308,000, buy a smaller home for a fraction of that amount and then pocket the rest.

Again, these numbers are meant purely as a heuristic, they may or may not be roughly accurate. The idea, however, is that rather than trying to prevent global warming, we might be better off spending less money (or the same amount) on mitigation and adaptation, rather than on prevention--especially if prevention increasingly seems quixotic.