The Frog jumps to "Resource Crisis"

"The Frog that Jumped Out" was closed in 2014. The discussion is now on the new blog "The Seneca Effect"

 

One year ago, I started the blog titled "The frog that jumped out." The first post appeared on April 28 2013 and from then on I published 127 posts for a total audience of more than 80,000 contacts. Not a bad result for a blog that was a totally personal effort - without any attempt to use SEO or other Web tricks to diffuse it.

This year of blogging on "The Frog" has been a learning experience that changed my views of how to act on the climate problem. At the beginning, I thought that there was a problem of communication; that the fact that nothing was being done about climate change was the result of us not being able to pass the message in the right way. That is something that many scientists have discovered. The result has often been a search of better methods of communication. It has led, for instance, to books such as "Don't be such a scientist" where the main idea is that scientists should improve their skills of communicating with the public by becoming clearer and more entertaining. That, in itself, is not a bad idea: scientists are often extremely poor at communicating: boring, pompous, incomprehensible, and even worse. Improving on that is surely a welcome trend.

But transforming yourself into a Ronald McDonald of climate science doesn't solve the problem. No amount of gee-whiz power will carry the message across to people who don't want to hear it. The mistake in this idea is steeped in the so called "information deficit" model. It says that people are not doing anything about climate change because they are not informed enough. Therefore, if we find a way to explain to them how things stand, they'll do something. Hence, the idea of "sweetening the pill". Alas, no. It doesn't work that way.

The real problem can be summarized by a comment that I received from a friend of mine (DJ at Bottleneck Foundation):

"The main problem is that the deniers are rolling rocks downhill in human mindspace and we are rolling them uphill. "


I think this concept explains a lot of things, although I would personally modify it as follows: "The main problem is that we are trying to roll rocks in human mindspace and the deniers are trying to keep them where they stand".

That is, in order to fight the dire effects of human caused climate change, it is not enough that the problem is recognized. We need to generate deep changes in the way society functions. But this is almost impossible to do because society is simply not geared for deep changes. Our society, as most complex systems, exists because it has built-in mechanisms that resist change. It is much easier to keep things as they stand than changing them.
 
So, effecting change is a systemic problem, not just a communication problem. That makes the problem more difficult but, at the same time, gives a different perspective to it. Systemic changes occur all the time - they are simply unavoidable. No matter how much society tries to resist change, it must, eventually, cede to physical reality. So, at some moment in the future, we'll have to stop our emissions of fossil carbon in the atmosphere either as the result of depletion or as the result of the damage generated by climate change. The problem is that we are not doing that fast enough to avoid a traumatic adaptation (this is what I call the "Seneca effect"). However, the end result is certain: it is only a question of which trajectory we'll follow. Eventually, we'll have to learn to live within the limits of this planet.

These considerations affect the future of this small blog, "The frog that jumped out". Once you see the climate problem as a systemic problem, you see that the solution is not just communicating what the problem is (although that's also necessary) but promoting a whole array of actions that go from new technologies to new kinds of social and economic behavior. As a result, I think that the focus of this blog on communication alone is a bit too narrow. So, my idea is to merge it with my other blogs, of which right now the most important one is "The Seneca Effect"

 
"The Frog" does not disappear from the Web, I'll still keep it as a repository of posts specifically dealing with climate change. But most of the action will be on the other blog, The Seneca Effect. So, thanks to all of you for your attention and your support and I hope we can continue the discussion "The Seneca Effect"

Report to Galactic Command: the eradication of the human species is in progress

(originally published in 2012 on "Cassandra's Legacy")

From: Earth Orbital Outpost
To: Galactic Central Command
(note: time spans in this report are measured in Earth orbital revolutions. One Earth orbital revolution corresponds to 4e-10 Galactic years)


Progress report: Human eradication plan


- Strategic Summary

The Earth Orbital Outpost is pleased to report to Galactic Command that the eradication of the creatures termed "humans" inhabiting the planet known as "Earth" is proceeding according to plans. The rapid warming of the planet obtained by the injection of large amounts of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere is expected to wipe out most large vertebrates within 40-50 planetary revolutions around the parent star. The planet will be ready for colonization by our species in a few thousand years; when the ecosystem will have been restored.

- The original (1st level) plan

Planet Earth was the object of several preliminary explorations before being selected as suitable for colonization. Upon reaching this decision, the Earth Orbital Outpost was set up with the purpose of facilitating the colonization task. The Outpost proceeded to study the planet, finding that it is dominated by a species, known as "humans", which has appropriated most of the planetary ecosystem productivity. Individually, humans turned out to be highly intelligent and it was soon clear that the species poses an important obstacle to colonization. A necessary step for colonization was therefore their eradication. The decision was reached also upon the consideration that, if left to themselves, humans were likely to reach a technological level sufficiently high to become a nuisance at the Galactic scale.

Several plans were developed to carry out the eradication program. It soon became clear that sterilization with neutron beams, carried out by the Galactic star fleet, was possible but expensive and, besides, humans were rapidly reaching a technological level sufficient to produce a significant opposition. Instead, it was found that humans could be eradicated at a much lower cost by warming the planet at temperatures high enough to make their survival impossible. That could be accomplished by exploiting the human habit of burning fossil carbon materials in order to obtain energy. According to initial observations carried out about a hundred revolutions ago, just letting humans to themselves would lead them to inject in the atmosphere sufficient amounts of greenhouse gases to cause a warming intense enough to destroy most large vertebrates.

In previous reports, we were pleased to describe that the plan was working. 50 revolutions ago, the concentration of greenhouse gases in the Earth's atmosphere had already picked up a trend of rapid growth and it was calculated that it would lead to the collapse of the ecosystem in less than a hundred revolutions. However, as mentioned earlier on, humans turned out to be remarkably intelligent and the brightest of them were able to identify and understand the ongoing process (that they usually referred to as "global warming.") Humans built up a sophisticated planetary monitoring system and created theoretical models of the atmosphere. At that point, they embarked in a planet-wide effort to stop global warming by curbing fossil carbon burning and deploying non-carbon based energy sources.

Having observed this development, it was necessary to alter the original plan and intervene more directly in the eradication task, although still doing an effort to avoid the enormous costs involved in deploying the Galactic fleet.

-  The 2nd level plan

Stopping humans from taking measures to avoid destroying themselves turned out to require a quite modest effort - completely within the resources available to the Earth Orbital Outpost. This result may be surprising and, indeed, some members of the Galactic Command had expressed doubt on being able to convince humans - individually very intelligent - to continue actting in ways that were leading to their destruction. Nevertheless, we succeeded in accomplishing this task.

The key element of our action has been the study and the exploitation of the human information network, that they call "the Web." It is a sophisticated planet-wide information system that has been fundamental for humans in developing their understanding of climate and diffusing this knowledge with their decision makers. However, we found fundamental flaws in the functioning of this network.

In particular, we found that the network is dominated by "super-nodes" which show a higher level of connectivity than most nodes. These super-nodes are called by humans "media" and sometimes "mainstream media". Surprisingly, we found that the supernodes are managed by humans who are quite unable to understand the basic elements of the functioning of the Earth's ecosphere. Even more surprisingly, we found that the humans in charge of these media nodes make no effort whatsoever to check that the information they diffuse corresponds to physical reality.

We also found that the humans in charge of managing the media supernodes are easily influenced by other groups of humans which are called "lobbies," whose role is not easily understood by us. We believe it has something to do with the abnormal interest of humans in a virtual entity that they have created and that they refer to as "money". Although the characteristics of this entity are obscure to us, it seems that humans (especially males) care about being associated with large amounts of this virtual entity and this, in turn, seems to have something to do with the behavior of human females. In any case, we were able to penetrate the human computing centers which produce this "money" and appropriate large amounts of it for our purposes.

In practice, it was sufficient for the Earth Orbital Outpost to take control of a small numbers of leading human individuals; whom we refer to as "avatars." This task was accomplished mainly by our control of large amounts of the above mentioned "money" entity. Using money, the takeover of these minds turned out to be extremely easy: we found little resistence on their part and no evidence that our operation was detected by other humans. Our avatars carried out several tasks, mainly providing the media super-nodes with fake data that contradicted the results of the previous scientific investigation on the degradation of the ecosystem.

A special operation that turned out to be extremely successful was to break into the database of one of their best scientific organizations (called by humans "climate research unit") and diffusing internal data exchanges all over the network. This operation generated considerable confusion among humans as it highlighted several uncertainties in the research; something typical of scientific investigation but that, apparently, most of them are not familiar with.


Assessment of the present situation

The takeover of the human information system (the "Web") by our human avatars was completely successful and we have been able to turn it into an instrument for our purposes. We are pleased to report that most human leaders have been turned into avatars under our direct control or are completely confused about the issue of global warming. It has been possible to relegate the discussion on this theme to only some minor clusters of the information network. All attempts carried out by humans to diffuse it outside these clusters are met by aggressive denial (humans turn out to be extremely aggressive for reasons that to us appear futile).

As a consequence of our takeover of the information network, all attempts of humans to stop the ecosystem destruction have been halted and appear unlikely to be restarted any time soon. The amount of greenhouse gases being emitted in the Earth's atmosphere keeps increasing. That is creating a rapid rise of temperatures, as confirmed by the recent observation of the near complete melting of the North Pole ice cap, a planetary feature that had been existing for several million years of planetary history.

It is clear that the Earth's system is heading towards a tipping point where rising temperatures will trigger a series of phenomena which will lead to runaway warming and to the total collapse of the ecosystem, even without further human generation of greenhouse gases. We have been monitoring the system evolution using climate modeling programs developed by humans, which turned out to be very sophisticated. According to these models, the tipping point could have been already reached or, in any case, will be reached within a few planetary revolutions. Therefore, we expect that the eradication of the human species could be fully accomplished within a few tens of revolutions.

Recent developments and recommendations for the future

Even though the Earth's climate tipping point is likely to have been reached, humans could still, theoretically, react with various countermeasures, such as restarting with the phasing out of fossil carbon burning, deploying non carbon energy sources, shielding the Earth from solar radiation, and so forth. In order to succeed, however, humans need first to regain control of the planetary information system. Our avatars on the planet report ongoing human efforts in this sense, perhaps triggered by the observation of the melting of the North Pole ice cap.

Given these recent developments, the coming planetary revolutions will be critical for the success of the human eradication plan. The Earth Orbital Outpost will keep the situation under strict and continuous monitoring. We do expect difficulties, in particular with our avatars. Their physical integrity cannot be guaranteed if their role in the eradication plan is discovered by humans not under our control. Nevertheless, they have done their job and their loss will not change the rapid evolution of the Earth's climate system.

Assuming that things continue to move according to plans, planet Earth will soon be free of humans and of most large vertebrates that could be a nuisance for colonization. We shall therefore proceed with the second part of the plan, which consists in cooling down the planet by deploying space mirrors. Subsequently, natural processes will re-absorb greenhouse gases and restore the planetary ecosystem in about one thousand planetary revolutions. At this point, the planet will be ready for colonization by our species. Ships with colonists are expected to arrive in about ten thousand revolutions from now. Then, a new planet will be added to our Galactic civilization!


End Report - The Earth Orbital Outpost 





(note: this post was inspired by Isaac Asimov's story "The Gentle Vultures" - 1957)

A corollary to Godwin's law: the "law of genocidal intentions"

(image from Corellianrun)



You surely know about Godwin's law (also known as "reductio ad Hitlerium"); the one which says that, given enough time, any Internet discussion will eventually result in somebody being compared to Hitler. This law seem to be almost as strong as the principles of thermodynamics and, recently, we saw it applied to Russia's president - Vladimir Putin - compared to Hitler in a press release by the US secretary of state, Hillary Clinton.

But Godwin's law seems to have many variants; e.g the "racist variant". Here, I would like to propose another variant or corollary; one which doesn't necessarily mention the name of Hitler or the term "fascism". It is the "law of genocidal intentions", which can also be termed as "reductio ad exterminium," . It can be described as follows:

Every discussion about environmental policy, sooner or later someone will accuse someone else of genocidal intentions, that is of planning to exterminate most of humankind

This seems to apply especially when the environmental policy being discussed has to do with population. In this form, one of the first examples goes back to the the publication of "The Limits to Growth" in 1972. The sponsors of the study, the Club of Rome were later accused of being an evil organization dedicated to the extermination of most of the world's population. They were even accused to have created the AIDS virus specifically for this purpose. Needless to say, "The Limits to Growth" or the members of the Club of Rome never ever recommended - or even remotely conceived - anything like that. But the legend remains widespread as you can see by googling, e.g. "club of rome" together with "extermination" or "depopulation." See also a post of mine titled "How the Limits to Growth was demonized"

The law of reductio ad exterminium doesn't apply just to discussions about population. It pops out more or less in any discussion involving environmental policies, in particular those related to climate change. In this case, any action designed to reduce the damage involved with global warming may be defined as aiming, in reality, to the extermination of most of humankind. A recent example involves a paper by Lawrence Torcello, where the author expressed the opinion that:

We have good reason to consider the funding of climate denial to be criminally and morally negligent

Note that Torcello said that what should be criminalized is only the funding of climate denial by those who have "a financial or political interest in inaction." He never said that about people expressing their opinion on this matter. But the "law of genocidal intentions" immediately kicked in. For a report on the hate campaign unleashed against Lawrence Torcello, see this article by Graham Redfearn. Here are a couple of examples taken from the Web:

So, what happens when we discover there is not enough prison space anywhere to house the 2/3 of America guilty of Climatic Blasphemy? I guess executions will be necessary, which suits the whole Agenda 21, environmentalism-as-religion philosophy just fine, since such people believe at least 80% of the planet's population needs to be eliminated for things to be sustainable. (link)
and

What is the logical extension of jail time? Taken to its end, Torcello’s philosophy leads to execution. You may think that’s crazy, but you’d be wrong. This is how fascism begins. Liberal philosophy evolved always leads to fascism. As they say, the path to hell is paved with good intentions (link)


These laws, Godwin's law or the reductio ad exterminium, look almost funny, but what we are seeing is the complete degeneration of the debate: a true "reductio ad vituperium." Will we ever be able to set up a rational discussion on any important subject? Probably not, and that's a real tragedy in a moment in which we desperately need to find a consensus on what to do to avoid various impending disasters; including climate change.









 __________________________

Note: "exterminium" is a late Latin term which is the origin of the English term "extermination" (see here). Literally, it means "outside the borders" and figuratively can be taken as meaning "destroy" or "kill". "Vituperium", instead, can be simply translated as "insult" and it has been coopted in various ways in the modern English language. 

Climate change for engineers

Last week, I was giving a seminar to a group of engineering students. Everything was fine, but when I started discussing climate change, a discussion ensued which I think is worth reporting here. 

The question. Professor, it is all right that you tell us these things about climate change, but I have to tell you that, a few weeks ago, we had here another professor who told us more or less the opposite; that is he told us that carbon dioxide is plant food, that models are uncertain, that there is much exaggeration and alarmism about climate change. Now, he is a scientist, just like you. So, what should we think?

My Answer. I understand your question and I even know rather well the person you are mentioning: a colleague of mine; a chemist by training, just like me. Of course I could dispute his statements about climate one by one but, from your point of view, it would only create confusion. Your question is not about the details of climate science but, rather, why there is this strong disagreement among two scientists.

Let me try try a personal interpretation. The point is, I think, is that with climate we are discussing about science and not about engineering. These are two different things, engineering is about building things that work using knowledge we believe is well established. Science, instead, often deals with matters which are uncertain and where the data are insufficient. As a scientists, you have to work with what you have and you are supposed to be creative. You have to question the data, the theories and everything if you want to understand what you are studying. And if you do that, then you have to take the risk of following the wrong road. This is the way science progresses. Then, if it turns out that new data contradict your interpretation, well, there is no blame in changing your mind. Of course, you understand that this kind of attitude would be no good for an engineer who is supposed to design such things as bridges or planes.

So, when we deal with climate change, it is perfectly legitimate for scientists to have different opinions. For instance, I am in contact with a colleague who believes that global warming is not a serious problem if we take into account the depletion of fossil fuels. According to his interpretation, soon depletion will force us to strongly reduce our emissions of carbon dioxide and the earth's climate will stabilize without creating big problems. I don't agree, but I recognize that it is a legitimate position: the data and the models we have are uncertain enough that my colleague's interpretation is a possible future.

Still, even engineers sometimes have to deal with uncertain situations and insufficient data. In this case, you know that you don't have to be creative. You have to be extremely conservative - it is exactly the opposite attitude to that of scientists. That is, you don't need perfect models of the deformation of tubular structures in steel to understand that if the Titanic hits an iceberg, then the results will not be good. If you like, it is a moral issue: you just can't afford to put people's lives at risk and that holds for both engineers and scientists. But, occasionally, scientists don't have this point so clear.

Let me go back to my colleague; the one who spoke to you last time. This colleague of mine has stretched a lot the uncertainties related to climate science - I think well over legitimacy - but it is also true that these uncertainties exist and, within some limits, it is legitimate to emphasize them, especially for a scientist who is trained to push science forward by questioning the established positions. What is not legitimate at the present stage is to neglect the risks of climate change. That is, I think my colleague sees the climate question as a gigantic scientific experiment in progress and, as a scientist, he thinks it is legitimate for him to question the data, to question the interpretation, in short to play the role of the contrarian. As an additional note, I know that my colleague has built his long and distinguished career on petroleum chemistry and we may imagine that he resists the idea that acting against climate change could force us to stop using petroleum. But the important point is that he doesn't realize, unfortunately, that he is playing with the life of people, and especially with the life of young people as you are.

It is, in the end, a moral issue, as I said. In this case, there is the additional point that you have much more future - many more years to go - than your teachers. So, the climate related risk for you is much larger than for them. If your teachers don't understand this point, I think they are failing you and I am sure you are smart enough to understand what I mean.

Now, if you like, I could tell you more details about climate science but perhaps it is not needed. If you reason like good engineers, as you are being trained to become, you can look at the data and make up your mind by yourselves.

The curse of flame wars

From ZeroHedge

Why Trolls Start Flame Wars: Swearing and Name-Calling Shut Down the Ability to Think and Focus

Submitted by George Washington on 02/25/2014 11:53 -0500

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Psychological studies show that swearing and name-calling in Internet discussions shut down our ability to think. 2 professors of science communication at the University of Wisconsin, Madison - Dominique Brossard and Dietram A. Scheufele - wrote in the New York Times last year:

In a study published online last month in The Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, we and three colleagues report on an experiment designed to measure what one might call “the nasty effect.”

We asked 1,183 participants to carefully read a news post on a fictitious blog, explaining the potential risks and benefits of a new technology product called nanosilver. These infinitesimal silver particles, tinier than 100-billionths of a meter in any dimension, have several potential benefits (like antibacterial properties) and risks (like water contamination), the online article reported.

Then we had participants read comments on the post, supposedly from other readers, and respond to questions regarding the content of the article itself.

Half of our sample was exposed to civil reader comments and the other half to rude ones — though the actual content, length and intensity of the comments, which varied from being supportive of the new technology to being wary of the risks, were consistent across both groups. The only difference was that the rude ones contained epithets or curse words, as in: “If you don’t see the benefits of using nanotechnology in these kinds of products, you’re an idiot” and “You’re stupid if you’re not thinking of the risks for the fish and other plants and animals in water tainted with silver.”

The results were both surprising and disturbing. Uncivil comments not only polarized readers, but they often changed a participant’s interpretation of the news story itself.

In the civil group, those who initially did or did not support the technology — whom we identified with preliminary survey questions — continued to feel the same way after reading the comments. Those exposed to rude comments, however, ended up with a much more polarized understanding of the risks connected with the technology.

Simply including an ad hominem attack in a reader comment was enough to make study participants think the downside of the reported technology was greater than they’d previously thought.

While it’s hard to quantify the distortional effects of such online nastiness, it’s bound to be quite substantial, particularly — and perhaps ironically — in the area of science news.

So why do people troll in a rude way?

Psychologists say that many of them are psychopaths, sadists and narcissists getting their jollies. It's easy to underestimate how many of these types of sickos are out there: There are millions of sociopaths in the U.S. alone.

But intelligence agencies are also intentionally disrupting political discussion on the web, and ad hominen attacks, name-calling and divide-and-conquer tactics are all well-known, frequently-used disruption techniques.

Now you know why ... flame wars polarize thinking, and stop the ability to focus on the actual topic and facts under discussion.

Indeed, this tactic is so effective that the same wiseguy may play both sides of the fight.

Losing your marbles because of climate change

(image from "thisnext")

From Roy Spencer's blog.

Time to push back against the global warming Nazis

I’m now going to start calling these people "global warming Nazis" ... Like the Nazis, they advocate the supreme authority of the state (fascism), which in turn supports their scientific research to support their cause (in the 1930s, it was superiority of the white race).




(maybe it is an effect of the heat??)

Something awfully wrong with the whole concept of "debate"

A chilling sensation down your spine.....

Now, read this and consider: how do you feel about belonging to the "Homo Sapiens" species? Don't you feel a horribly chilling sensation about that down your spine?

From The Independent, h/t Stephan Lewandowsky

Maybe Nigel Lawson is right. There can’t be global warming, because isn’t it always colder at night?

It’s a method of argument perfected by disgruntled men in the corner of pubs

by Mark Steel

I wonder why Nigel Lawson was on the radio yesterday morning, telling us angrily that the floods are nothing to do with climate change. Will this be a regular slot, in which people from the 1980s are invited to shout, with no evidence, that everyone else is wrong? Next week Depeche Mode will be screaming that the koala bear is actually a flower, then Torvill and Dean will yell that triangles only have two sides.

One of Nigel’s points to show that scientists can’t prove climate change was that “only a couple of months ago the Met Office were predicting that this would be an unusually dry winter.”

Apart from the fact that unpredictable storms fit in perfectly with theories of global warming, Nigel Lawson seems to have confused the International Panel on Climate Change with the woman who does the weather on the telly. Presumably when Sian Lloyd says: “This low pressure should clear up by Tuesday”, he shouts back, “How dare you expect me to get those useless energy-saving light bulbs, you know NOTHING” – which must be quite exhausting.
If he’d had the time he could have made other valid points, such as: “They know nothing about carbon emissions. Only last November they reckoned England would win The Ashes, so why should we take any notice of them?”

Then Sir Brian Hoskins, a climate change scientist, replied that in recent years the seas have warmed by 0.8 per cent, and that the West Antarctic ice sheet has receded to an unprecedented level, and along with other changes that this must have had an effect on the weather. To which Nigel replied: “That’s extreme speculation. There’s been no global warming for 15 years and that’s a FACT.”

This is an innovative approach to science – saying that precise statistics from a knighted scientist are speculation – but you can tell a true fact because it’s said by someone who says “and that’s a FACT”. These students who revise for weeks before physics exams, so they can calculate electric currents, are wasting their time. They just need to write “Electricity is made up of tiny flames that live in a plug socket and that’s a FACT.”

It’s a method of argument often perfected by disgruntled men in the corner of Wetherspoon’s pubs. As it appears to be in vogue, this could be the new style of debate on news programmes. John Humphrys will say that “a new 246-page report suggests  an independent Scotland would be viable as an economy. With us to discuss the matter is Ted from the Moon Under Water in Stechford. Ted, what do you make of this?” And he’ll say: “It’s all speculation that is, they’re planning to become part of China  and put us all in labour camps and that’s  a FACT.”

To be fair, Nigel Lawson has filled out his thoughts in other interviews. For example he told The Guardian that climate change didn’t concern him because “if you look around the world today there are countries that are very cold, and countries that are very hot, and you have to adapt.”

So the reason we’ve been getting in a state is that we hadn’t realised this cold/hot thing, and once we grasp that we can get the Inuit to wrap up a bit and Arabs to stop riding camels while wearing a duvet, then no one need ever recycle anything again.

Maybe Lawson’s next book will explain  that there can’t be global warming as it’s colder at night, which comes after the day, which means – if anything – the planet’s getting colder, and that the sun doesn’t  have any human activity and that’s even hotter than a hot day on Earth, so  explain THAT.
But he did somehow find the space to  say: “These floods are a wake-up call, to abandon the crazy costly policy of spending untold millions on useless wind turbines and solar panels.”

At last someone’s had the common sense to say what the rest of us were thinking. Who hasn’t watched these floods and thought, “it’s those bloody wind turbines and solar panels that have caused all this”.

The solar panels stop the water from draining, as rivers can’t get through glass. Then the wind turbines frighten the water so it runs off and hides in living rooms in Somerset.

Other than this it’s hard to see how there’s a connection, unless he’s simply decided  to use the issue to yell about something else that annoys him. Tomorrow Nigel Farage  can go on to say, “these floods are a wake-up call, that if you let any more Bulgarians in we’ll all be living in canoes”.

The puzzling part is that among the scientists whose job is to study these matters, there is no disagreement that rising carbon emissions have altered the climate.

So continually debating it, as if both sides  are equally valid, makes as much sense as saying: “Now for sport. In the Winter Olympics the ski jumping final takes place today, but first I’m going to talk to Bill, who says there can’t be any ski jumping because gravity doesn’t exist.”

But the people we should feel sorry for most are probably those in government, who  seem perplexed as to why there are less  flood defences then before.
Who would have thought that cutting something would mean that that thing might be reduced in any way. No wonder so many people get confused.

Deep Future: the other side of the carbon pulse

A review of the book by Curt Stager

I had high expectations about this book, but I was disappointed. Not that it is a bad book; on the contrary it is full of interesting information. However, I was positively angered by reading it. But if something makes you angry there have to be reasons for that and, if you can understand these reasons, then you have a chance to learn something. So, one thing that I learned from this book is a better understanding of how difficult is it to maintain a purely rational attitude about climate change, even for those of us who are trained in the scientific approach.

So far, the question of climate change has been dominated by an attitude that says - more or less - that climate is a big problem, sure, but we have solutions and nothing horrible will happen if we just do a few little things like installing double paned windows and bicycling more to work. Unfortunately, by now it is clear it is not going to be so easy. Nothing has been done up to now and it is likely that nothing will be done before it is too late (assuming that it is not already). So, we are being caught in a gigantic planetary storm of our own making and we are plunging straight into a future where climate will manage us rather than the opposite. So, what's going to happen to us?

Plenty of people seem to be convinced that planetary warming will not be so bad - on the contrary it will bring advantages, from the naive idea that they'll be able to save on home heating, or that an ice-free Artic ocean will be a bonanza for oil recovery. In the short run, both expectations may turn out to be fulfilled - in part. But what will be the destiny of humankind after the great carbon pulse? Not many texts deal with this question. One is the book by Curt Stager "Deep Future" (2011) which examines the future up to one hundred thousand years from now. A bold attempt to deal with fascinating subject, unfortunately not completely successful.

One problem with this book is Stager's insistence in taking the view that future changes will be smooth and gradual, giving people plenty of time to adapt. This attitude brings Stager to a number of perplexing statements such as that "... sea-level rises would be more of an expensive annoyance than a catastrophe"(p. 132). I understand that this line was written before Hurricanes Sandy and Hayan, but that doesn't make it less annoying. Then, about extreme heat in tropical regions, Stager seems to think that he can show how easy it is to adapt by stating (p. 186) "I'll never forget gaping in amazement as columns of muscular French Foreign Legionnaires jogged and maneuvered amid the rippling mirages of Djibouti, a furnacelike pocket of lava ridges and troughs..." Those of us who are not "muscular legionnaires" might find that a bit upsetting, not to say offensive. 

Occasionally, Stager's insistence on slow and gradual changes also negatively affects the scientific content of the book. For instance, you won't find in it a word about oceanic anoxia - one of the most dangerous long term consequences of climate change. It is a curious omission because Stager tells us (p. 45) that he himself had been navigating the waters of lake Nyos, in Cameroon, just one year before that a giant burst of CO2 emitted by the lake killed almost two thousand people. Lake Nyos is anoxic, just like oceans are believed to have been during the climatic phases that led to mass extinctions. But these past killer bursts of gases are never mentioned in the book, possibly because they are in contrast with Stager's thesis that changes is always slow and gradual.

Stager's attitude also spills to his views on what climate scientists should say about climate change. It is clear that he sees the attitude of most of his colleagues as excessively catastrophistic. That's a legitimate opinion, were it not leading Stager to even more perplexing statements. For instance, at page 240, he says "I also know that at least one well-known figure in the climate community has purposely exaggerated the dangers of global warming in public presentations, because he told me so at a conference. His justification was this: 'If people aren't scared, they won't pay attention'." Now, this is not fair: you can't support your thesis just by citing an anonymous and unverifiable source. In a book, there is plenty of space to cite actual statements by scientists that would support the idea that some scientists are purposefully exaggerating the dangers ahead - it is up to the author to find them and report them. But, I am afraid it won't be so easy. For instance, in the whole "Climategate" story, there surfaced no documents that could be used to accuse scientists to be exaggerating anything.

So, an interesting book, marred by an attitude that often leads the author astray in his attempt to minimize the dangers ahead. But it deserves to be read for its wide sweep at a remote future which most of us rarely pause to consider. Will there be life after the great carbon pulse? Stager's answer is perhaps too optimistic, but it is a definite possibility. Humanity, intended as a species, could survive the change, even though the loss of human lives lost could be enormous.

But the book is most interesting as it evidences that everyone of us is biased when looking at the ultimate results of climate change. Facing the impending catastrophe, some of us tend to deny it (we call them "deniers"). Others, like Stager, don't deny the change but try their best to minimize it. And many of us react with a frenzied climate activism while, at the same time, we try not to look at the true face of the impending disaster. Yet, the carbon pulse is ongoing and we are headed to an Earth so changed that we can consider it as another planet. Before landing on it, we may as well try to understand what we'll be finding there.

A couple of guys with clear ideas on climate change

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/sideshow/what-the-world-would-look-like-if-all-the-ice-melted-015759322.html




    Norman 9 days ago
    
     "CO2 , may be a factor in raising the Earth's temperature but I believe only a minor one. Science itself states that at certain altitudes it acts as a coolant mechanism. I believe that the principal reason for the rise is and has been a gradual decrease in our average distance from the Sun brought about by gravitational interactions between Earth and Jupiter. I further believe that this is a long term pattern which will reverse itself in due course and begin to swing in the opposite direction. Venus may play a part in this because it has the ability to slightly increase the distance of Earth from the Sun under certain conditions and co positions of it and Earth. Man's population will decrease from other natural population inhibiters built into the animal species. To wit, food resources. No animal can survive beyond its food resources."


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And this is Lubos Motl (I wouldn't even remotely consider to link here to the source of this text. To find it you can google ""The reference frame" "Schellnhuber" and "master plan" )




"It may be a good idea for the German - or other - intelligence services to physically deal with Herr Schellnhuber and his thugs before it's too late. I assure you, Mr Schellnhuber, that if you will try to apply just a fraction of this insane megalomania on the territory of the Czech Republic, we will give you the same treatment as we offered to the Herr who was a de facto leader of the Czech lands until 1942."

"This Schellnhuber's lookalike, soulmate, and countrymate was serving in the years 1941-1942. Because it turned out that he was trying to help the set of people who would live in the 1000-year empire in the future, rather than the living generations of the Czech lands, our democratically elected government in London (representing the living generations of the Czech lands, rather than hypothetical future generations of the Third Reich) fired this blonde beast in May 1942 - by fireguns. Goodbye, Mr Heydrich."

From the other side of the polar vortex

While everyone in the US is freezing, here in Italy we are still waiting for winter to arrive. I am seeing mosquitoes flying in my house - never seen mosquitoes in Florence in January in all my life. Today it was a 15 degrees C (almost 60 F). Italy is not Nebraska, but in January we were supposed to have snow, once! Instead, it was raining; almost tropical weather. I was expecting to see a T-Rex walking in the garden, in turn transformed into a Jurassic swamp.

It reminds to me the movie "The Secret of the Wings" - maybe you have seen it (OK, it is not for adults, but I loved it). It tells the story of a world sharply divided in two parts: in one it is always winter, in the other it is always spring. It seems that we are seeing something similar in the real word: the Polar Vortex has sharply divided Europe in two: a Winter World and a Spring World - you see below how we are standing in Europe (from MeteoGiuliacci):

They say that next week everything should change and that temperatures should drop of even 15 deg. C. It really looks like a fantasy movie.

Greenhouse gases: are we sure it is our fault?

Data on atmospheric oxygen concentration from the Mauna Kea observatory (link). This result shows that oxygen goes down as carbon dioxide goes up - it is what you would expect as the result of the combustion of fossil fuels. And, yes, it is us who burn them. 

While the preferred weapon against climate science seems to be character assassination, it is also true that climate is a complex subject and there are perfectly correct reasons for perplexity. One is whether the CO2 increase in the atmosphere is really the cause of global warming change - and not an effect of it.

The reasoning goes as follows: we see an increase in the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere and, yes, we also see an increase of planetary temperatures. But how can we be sure that CO2 causes warming and not the reverse? After all, if something else (say, the Sun) were to heat the planet, then we would expect the oceans to release CO2! And in those plots that Al Gore was so fond to show in his movie, warming comes first, then CO2 increases. So, it could really be the Sun (or cosmic rays, or whatever else coming from outer space) and not us.

Alas, it doesn't work that way. The additional CO2 in the atmosphere does not come from the oceans. On the contrary, oceans are a sink that absorbs part of the CO2 we humans generate. How do we know it? Well, there are several ways; one is that ocean water is becoming more acidic. Now, CO2 is an acidic molecule. If oceans were emitting CO2, they would become less acid, not more acid. That shows that oceans are absorbing CO2, not emitting it. Another way, even simpler, is to look at the oxygen record - shown in the figure above.

Suppose that is the sun that warms the oceans and, consequently, causes them to release CO2 in the atmosphere. Then, oxygen is not consumed and you wouldn't expect its atmospheric concentration to change. Actually, if oceans are warming, the may release some oxygen together with the CO2, so the concentration of oxygen should increase. But this is not what we see. We see that the oxygen concentration in the atmosphere is going down, not up.

Suppose instead that CO2 comes from the combustion of fossil fuels. "Combustion" means combining the carbon and the hydrogen contained in these fuels with oxygen. So, the more we burn fuels, the less oxygen remains. The oxygen concentration, then, should go down with time. And this is exactly what we see (see figure above).

With plenty of fantasy, you might find a way to concoct a different theory explaining these data. But remember that there is something called the "Occam's razor." What we see is simple: we burn fossil fuels, we increase the CO2 concentration in the atmosphere, that causes warming. It is straightforward: it is not the Sun, it is us.

• About the loss of oxygen in the atmosphere and its long term effects, see this post on Cassandra. 
• For a more detailed treatment of the same question discussed here, see this post on Real Climate
• About Al Gore's movie and the lag between temperature and CO2 concentration also see Real Climate    

Has Humanity Missed its "Appointment with History"?

Guest post by Max Iacono

In this post, Iacono argues that we missed our "appointment with history" because we don't have an appropriate governance system able to act in view of the climate crisis.  (image source)



The well known Italian journalist Oriana Fallaci tried to “Interview History” back in 1976 during a particular period of history.  

http://www.amazon.com/Interview-With-History-Oriana-Fallaci/dp/0395252237)  

Some say she “spoke truth to power” (of that particular period) and succeeded. Though speaking it and publicizing the replies she received, changed nothing.

But Fernand Braudel the famous French historian also known as The Prince in French “Annales” history circles said in his monumental book The History of Civilizations that there are three types of histories: 

1)  L’histoire evenementielle (the history of events)

2)  L’histoire des periodes (the history of periods)  and 

3)  L’histoire de la longue duree. (long term history)

http://www.amazon.com/A-History-Civilizations-Fernand-Braudel/dp/0140124896

And the difference between Fernand Braudel's History of Civilization and other histories written at that time i.e. the early 1960's (since then his multi-disciplinary approach also characterized by other significant differences has been more widely adopted) is described at the above link to his book. 

Forgetting for a moment the history of events (journalism plus) and the history of particular periods (e.g. the post world war II period of the second half of the twentieth century which was “interviewed” by Oriana Fallaci;  (and the list of world figures she actually interviewed is listed at the above link to her book) let’s look for a moment at “l’histoire de la longue duree” and go back (at the very least) to the Peace of Westphalia of 1648.

The world (meaning the European world of those times) had just come out of an interminable, bloody and highly destructive and draining  “30 year war”.   

One response to the end of that war was for the European powers to enshrine the notion of “the sovereign nation state” thinking that this might help to prevent future such wars.   Other things that have been enshrined in various ways though mostly by default over the past 350 years or so have been “international relations” based on “realpolitik”.   We owe this to Macchiavelli,  Metternich, Bismarck and many other thinkers. 

What do we have today?  196 “sovereign nation states” which are not at all able to deal effectively with the major threats that face “common humanity”.   

These are:

 i)     The continuing threat of nuclear war;  

 ii)    The very real threat of catastrophic and irreversible climate change;  and

iii)    The continuing irreversible degradation of the earth’s environment and the biosphere due to
        ignoring  the obvious Limits to Growth which exist on a finite planet.  (and everything which that then brings)   

These threats are very likely to lead to our collective demise.

How could humanity have been present at its appointment with history and what needed to be done between 1648 and the present with an accelerated sense of priority and urgency starting right after World War II?

Two obvious things are missing from world politics and international relations and international decision-making now,  that could have been developed (but were not) during the above “longue duree” sequence of successive “periods”.

The first is an effective global governance.   Meaning a global governance that is inclusive, legitimate, effective and efficient and with the right kind of architecture to deliver these four key variables.    

The current “Disunited Nations” of the world is not and cannot be such a type of global governance.  

What should have been developed over the past 350 years is a “United Peoples of the World” characterized by “good global governance” and its corresponding “architecture” in both a political sense and in a psychological sense.

The first would require a proper combination and synthesis of what are now called the global governmental or public sector,  the global civil society sector, and the global private sector so that the resulting “collective sector” would be able to act in a concerted manner to solve problems of the “global commons” in an effective and sustainable manner.

The second would require the development over time of what is now typically called “a cosmopolitan identity”.   

What this means is that the 7.1 billion humans now populating the earth (and they would have been far fewer now if the above two things had been accomplished in time and humanity had “showed up” at its appointment with history) would each have -above all other elements of identity-  a personal identity which would be firmly cosmopolitan and global.  

Current identities are instead based on other “variables” which regrettably tend to make it impossible to implement the necessary global governance that could address global commons issues and problems and also seize global commons opportunities. 

These other variables are those we see operating all the time and which divide “the peoples of the world” i.e. nationalities, ethnicities, tribes, races, religions, sects, political and economic ideologies,  and political and socio-economic and cultural differences.  (just to name a few of the major “elements of identity”;  there also are many others such as gender, age, sexual orientation, occupational category, language, dialect, regional and local origin) 

 

Over the past 350 years some of these currently existing differences could have been retained, some eliminated and others could have been modified or transformed or qualified or combined or merged or fused.    

All should have become subordinate to a single global cosmopolitan identity as humans.  Humans which moreover would recognize that we are only one living species here on earth which to survive needs to live in harmony with all the other living species which have evolved alongside of us over the past 3.5 billion years or so.

But we have MISSED this appointment with history.   So we have neither a single effective and legitimate global governance nor a common cosmopolitan identity.

We remain instead hopelessly divided politically, economically, socially, culturally, institutionally, psychologically and intellectually.

There are many ways and mechanisms and institutions which we have established to try to cope with such “diversity” and divisions and none are up to the task humanity is now being confronted with.

We have for instance set up the United Nations, “inter-governmental” processes and mechanisms of all types and for all types of purposes (the “COP” climate mechanism being just one of these),  international treaties,  international economic institutions such as the World Bank, the IMF and the WTO and several other regional “development banks” and many others, and we also have of course our current 196 nation states and their state institutions,  and a rich and diverse global, national and local civil society,  and a rich and diverse global, national and local private sector.

What we sorely lack however is i) good global governance and ii) a common cosmopolitan psychological identity.  Naturally these two things would reinforce each other significantly if either one existed or had started to emerge seriously.

Personally I think that as a result of having “missed our appointment” with history we will NOT be able to solve the climate change problem and we will NOT be able to solve the many Limits to Growth problems which we face as a collective human society.    

What will happen to humanity and to planet earth’s biosphere?  I certainly do not know and I don’t think anybody else knows (or can know)  for sure either.  But one thing is for certain,  we would have been in far better shape if we had showed up much earlier at our appointment with history.   We can and should of course keep hoping and trying but at this very belated stage our task is immensely more difficult.  

-----

(*)   With respect to “long term history” what has changed and what hasn’t changed over the past 350 years?   Here is a link to the “Thirty Years War” after which the Peace of Westphalia of 1648 was agreed and the principle of “sovereign nation-states” was established and enshrined.   And here is a series of photographs of various recent G-20 meetings showing all our current world leaders nicely dressed in their suits and ties (and there are "even a couple of women")  and with the beautiful large flags of their (and our) sovereign nation-states placed just behind them.  More or less the same states and flags– plus a few more recent ones – which were established with the Peace of Westphalia.   But if one looks at them carefully and a bit more in depth one can see and perhaps “read” within their minds -and behind their more “modern” external clothing-  to perceive or intuit their deeper mind-sets,  their attitudes, fundamental values, and ways of reasoning and of treating one another.  Have these mental or socio-cultural or ideological characteristics really changed all that much from those of the various kings and emperors of 350 years ago which one can see (or intuit) from the images, looks and mannerisms visible in the first article?  “Images speak”.

And YES, they (and all of us) have indeed (fortunately) changed somewhat and are now somewhat different, but clearly not enough to arrive in time at our Appointment with History.  The era of fossil fuels energy – first that of coal and right after it that of petroleum – began roughly 100 years after the peace of Westphalia.  And from 1800 to the present the human population of planet earth has increased by 700% -and that of animals for human consumption such as cows and pigs by similarly large amounts- and total world GDP as well as GDP per capita -moreover apportioned in extremely unequal and inequitable ways- have increased even more.  But there is still no effective “global governance” and “no common cosmopolitan / global identity” and instead we witness a terrible stewardship and management of “our” various “global commons goods and services”.   And so to conclude, here is one final article about some “Thirty Year Wars” of the current period,  which have been one of the many (disastrous) results.   

 

I love you with 95% certainty

Image from "Safety risk and management"

A few days ago, "Nature" published a paper titled "Twenty tips for interpreting scientific claims", by William Sutherland, David Spiegelhalter and Mark Burgman. The paper is described as dedicated to "helping non-scientists" in understanding scientific claims, especially in relation to the climate change problem. The authors claim that "the immediate priority is to improve policy-makers' understanding of the imperfect nature of science. The essential skills are to be able to intelligently interrogate experts and advisers, and to understand the quality, limitations and biases of evidence." (emphasis mine)

It is an appreciable effort, but I think it totally misses the point.  The first problem is that the list is understandable (actually, obvious) for scientists, but not at all for non-scientists. Let me report one of these 20 points as an example

Significance is significant. Expressed as P, statistical significance is a measure of how likely a result is to occur by chance. Thus P = 0.01 means there is a 1-in-100 probability that what looks like an effect of the treatment could have occurred randomly, and in truth there was no effect at all. Typically, scientists report results as significant when the P-value of the test is less than 0.05 (1 in 20).


I don't know what kind of policy-makers you deal with, normally, but those I am acquainted with won't make it beyond the first point. But, apart from this problem, I think that the paper misses the essence of the debate on climate change. Many scientists still operate on the basis of the "information deficit model"; that is, they assume that people will make the right choices when correctly informed. Unfortunately, this is not the way the real world works.

As Dan Kahan has amply shown many times, in issues such as climate change people first take a position based on their pre-conceived ideas, then look for facts that support their position. We all know that science, as every human endeavor, is subjected to uncertainties but, given the way people behave, it is simply suicidal to emphasize "the imperfect nature of science" in the debate, as the authors do. It means giving ammunition to those who have been playing the uncertainty card against science. It means confusing those who have been honestly trying to understand the problem of climate change. It means forgetting that people don't just have a mind, but also a heart and that if you want to move them to action, then you must win their hearts and minds!

Think about that: would you tell to your sweetheart "I love you with 95% certainty"? Not even a scientist would.


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 Here is the list of the 20 points of the paper by Sutherland et al. The full article on Nature is here.

1. Differences and chance cause variation.
2. No measurement is exact.
3. Bias is rife.
4. Bigger is usually better for sample size.
5. Correlation does not imply causation. 
6. Regression to the mean can mislead.
7. Extrapolating beyond the data is risky.
8. Beware the base-rate fallacy.
9. Controls are important. 
10. Randomization avoids bias.
11. Seek replication, not pseudoreplication.
12. Scientists are human.
13. Significance is significant. 
14. Separate no effect from non-significance.
15. Effect size matters.
16. Study relevance limits generalizations.
17. Feelings influence risk perception.
18. Dependencies change the risks.
19. Data can be dredged or cherry picked.
20. Extreme measurements may mislead. 

Requiem for a Meme: Global Warming has NOT stopped

Global warming has NOT stopped. We knew that it has slowed down somewhat but the most recent data show that even the slowdown was mostly an illusion; warming just keeps going on. But lies have a life of their own and can't be stopped by logic and reason, alone. It will take time before we can celebrate a requiem for this nasty meme.

Propaganda is normally based on the deformation of reality - so even the avalanche of lies surrounding us about the global warming "pause" started from a grain of truth.

Scientists had been the first to note that the rise in global temperatures had slowed down with the first decade of 21st century. That had generated some anti-science comments, for instance in 2007 on the Australian "Courier", and in 2008 with a pseudo-scientific paper by Easterbrook. But these comments remained isolated and not widely known.  

However, the "global warming pause" had all the elements needed to become a meme, a term that indicates a concept that spreads virus-like in human minds. The diffusion of this meme started after that Kaufmann et al. published a paper on PNAS in June 2011. There, they explicitly noted the slowdown of planetary temperature; attributing it to the rise in sulfur emissions in China. They were careful to state that they didn't mean to say that there was anything wrong with the concept of human caused global warming. But, perhaps, they were not careful enough to avoid using in their paper expression such as "lack of warming". These statements were picked up in various denialist sites and described as proof of the non-existence of global warming. The pause concept started to behave as a meme, spreading all over the Web.

The final push that propelled the pause meme to worldwide knowledge was probably an article by David Rose that appeared on "The Mail" of 13 October 2011.  In it, Rose showed a graph that he claimed was based on data issues by the Met Office (the British national weather service). However, Rose had arranged the time scale in order to give the impression of a pause that never existed; perhaps even "adjusting" the data a bit. Here is a comparison between Rose's plot and the real data.

Above: David Rose's plot from "The Mail", below: the real data

Even without the recent corrections, it is clear that there never was such a thing as a halt in global warming. But Rose's article had all the elements to create a successful worldwide meme. It claimed a conspiracy, it soothed public conscience, it said bad things about politicians - stuff that sells well. And it was published on a tabloid that sells almost 2 million copies per day, with over 100 million visitors per months to its website (from wikipedia). After Rose's article, the "pause in global warming"  became probably the most diffuse climate denial meme in the world.

Can this meme be stopped? It never had any reason to exist but it is also true that the mainstream media haven't picked up the new results that disprove it completely. And, in any case, memes have a life of their own; they can't be killed using reason, alone. So, it is too early to celebrate a requiem for the pause meme. Eventually, truth tends to win, but it takes time.

In the meantime, we should remember that we are not discussing about virtual entities - memes - that exist only in our minds. Global warming is a nasty thing that exists in the real world and kills real people. So, give a look to the picture below and to the associated statement, from an article by David Rose. Look at that with the eyes of an Australian who has lost everything in one of these gigantic fires. How nasty can denial become, Mr. Rose?

"Instead of focusing on the news that global warming had halted, other newspapers reported on the heatwave and raging bushfires in Australia"

From an article by David Rose on the Daily Mail