With all due respect, the text at Amazon was indeed searchable at the time Romm posted his first post. It is not now. No conspiracy mongering, just observation.
However, possible misquotes of Caldeira are the least of the problems with this chapter as William Connolley and Tim Lambert have shown.
My take is here: realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/10/why-levitt-and-dubner-like-geo-engineering-and-why-they-are-wrong/
Anyone reading this and Romm's comments, who doesn't see how this topic has become a sort of religion for many, just isn't paying attention.
As I think you're trying to demonstrate (haven't read the book, or course), this is a complex subject with room for debate and further research, if not on the fact of climate change, at least on the proposed solutions.
I'm not a 'denier', but I'm always suspicious of the cry "We must act now!" when even the most aggressive proposals won't mitigate the changes we're seeing for fifty years or so.
Me thinks they dost protest too much. Clearly, if the thought leaders of the climate change movement are so quick to debase solutions outside of complete economic control, one has to question their true motivations. Keep it up.
Maybe you could respond to critiques of your presentation of the science of climate change: See William Connolley, a former climate modeler at the British Antarctic Survey who often disagrees with Joe Romm on climate change issues: scienceblogs.com/stoat/2009/10/superfreakonomics_global_cooli.php
I don't have the expertise to evaluate any of the substantive issues, but even after reading the chapter I took the "Global Cooling" in the subtitle to refer to the anecdote about scientific beliefs in the 1970s and NOT to the proposed geoengineering project.
The problem is that the term "Global Cooling" is a well-established one in the discourse on climate change, routinely used by conservative commentators to disparage those who point to a scientific consensus on global warming. I'm sure you are sincere when you say this was not your intention, but the fact remains that this is the clear interpretation of the term in the context of the global warming debate. If this was not your intention, the subtitle should be altered in future editions.
I will give you some irrefutable evidence and then let you decide what to think about global warming: Humankind has long witnessed periods of time marked by the rise of new cultural, religious, and political movements. Well known examples (to the Western world) include protestantism, the renaissance, the inquisition, the industrial revolution, socialism, etc. I don't know the answer to this question but I think it is a fair one: Is the global warming movement about science, religion, politics, or a little of all three?
No,no,no,no---you have committed apostasy; heresy! You are not allowed to speak of warming except in the most emotional, alarmist tones!
You are not allowed to follow an objective, skeptical line of reasoning in this matter. You are not allowed to consider whether or not it is cost-efficient or even possible to cease all carbon emissions, you simply must do it. You must shun all otherwise-intelligent people who think maybe warming may have some benefits that might, just might offset the problems.
But you guys have absolutely guaranteed that you will sell a ton of books. I already have my order in and I hope that "SuperFreakonomics" generates an honest, open discussion on the topic that causes all sides to reconsider their position. Well done.
I believe it is Henry Ford who said (and I paraphrase) "Whether you think you can do something or don't, you are right.". You don't think mitigation of AGW is feasible, but others (e.g., Romm, Krugman) believe it is, and is probably much easier (and less costly) than most people think. The day we have to spray sulfur dioxide into the atmosphere to counteract catastrophic climate change is the day we certainly have to be actively pursuing reducing CO2 emissions. As a plan B, insurance policy kind of thing, sure, let's study geoengineering. But not as a primary solution.
You guys are extremely defensive on this topic which makes me think you know you sort of screwed up with taking the whole "contrarian" think too far in a subject where you know far too little.
You are trying to smear people like Krugman, Yglesias, Romm, et al, but frankly, they're much, much more credible on this topic than you, and your rebuttals to their claims are not the least bit convincing.
What's really ironic and hilarious about your critics is that some of them seize on the line that global warming is occasionally treated as a religion, and they then use that line to excoriate you as a damnable heretic.
Congrats! You have generated enough controversy to guarantee millions from book sales! What more do you want? Didn't you talk about "incentives" in your earlier book?
And of course, now you also have ultra right-wing fanboys on your side! They can now use their pea-size brains to post comments everywhere and fan this controversy even more.
If Romm has indeed done some of the things you have mentioned, I find it inexcusable. And as someone who works in the field I've found his approach to be at times divisive and ultimately counterproductive.
This is it? This is your response to the substanstive criticisms of Paul Krugman, Ezra Klein, Matt Yglesias, the Union Of Concerned Scientists, William Connelly, RealClimate.Org, and many others? Lame. Totally lame.
It's not a smear. You wrote a superficial chapter about a complex subject, quoted people who aren't even climate scientists, picked one perspective and presented that as fact. You wrote a mediocre magazine article, one not worthy of The New Yorker because it lacks facts, balance and solid discussion. You deserve the criticism.
And then you put garbage words on the cover of your book. On the cover of your book. Repeat: you chose to put garbage words on the cover of your book.
Keep up the good work, guys! When scientists refuse to even examine alternate proposals or points of view, they cease being scientists. Leave the smearing to the politicians.
This blog to-ing and fro-ing really isn't interesting. Whilst misrepresenting a scientist - even by accident - is pretty careless, the substance of the chapter is pretty poor and contains numerous factual errors about a very important subject. What a shame.
The complaints are that many of your facts are under-researched or simply wrong, and that you grossly misrepresented the views of Caldeira.
Worse, you have ignored the specific and sharpest criticisms and are instead pointing fingers back, calling it smear campaign.
If you wish to address a scholarly audience rather than a sensationalist poplar one, you would do much better by squarely addressing the meat of your critics issues and questions.
The misrepresentations are much more on the side of human-caused global warming than visa versa.
However, the main problem I see here is the suggestion that we should do something to try and cool down the planet. The author, says, "... figuring out how to cool the Earth if indeed it becomes catastrophically warmer," while I don't completely disagree with this statement, it does cause me great concern.
Anyone, whose done any research into the history of climate change knows that global cooling has been much more disastrous to humanity than global warming ever has. In fact, the global warming that has existed for the past 10,000 may well have been the catalyst that has made our modern civilization possible.
Alternatively, ice ages are not happy times. Even in modern times many more have died from the cold than have ever died from it being too warm. Interestingly, the warmest summer in recorded history in central Texas happened over three quarters of a century ago, when Austin suffered 69 days in a row of temperatures over 100 degrees ... it didn't make the papers (and they didn't even have air conditioning back then). It appears we have become whimps.
So ... it scares me when the option of trying to cool the earth comes up. ... We just might be too successful.
It's pretty pathetic that even after this thorough explanation, there are those who refuse to see common sense and will continue to spout lies about your work.
I'm impressed to hear about how much work you did to ensure that this book was accurate. I wasn't going to buy it before, but I just ordered it on amazon. Thank you.
The term "global cooling" referred to the hypothesis in the 70's that said atmospheric aerosols would reflect sunlight and cool the earth.
So despite any political charge, it is the correct term to describe Caldeira's climate engineering project.
@ all
Whether or not climate engineering is a good idea is not the purpose of this particular blog post. This post is to address the specific claims by Romm and ClimateProgress that Levitt and Dubner lied about Caldeira's position and denied global warming is occurring. These two particular claims by Romm and others are plainly false.
Let any other criticisms of climate engineering stand on their own. It isn't the purpose here to respond to those criticisms. Those criticisms are all sorts of valid.
Steven Levitt on NPR yesterday: "I'm not a scientist and Steven Dubner's not a scientist either, but we've managed to interact with some of the greatest scientists in this country. I think what we conclude is that the nature of the debate is just completely wrong. The real problem isn't that there's too much carbon in the air. The real problem is it's too hot."
Scientist Ken Caldeira: "If we keep emitting greenhouse gases with the intent of offsetting the global warming with ever increasing loadings of particles in the stratosphere, we will be heading to a planet with extremely high greenhouse gases and a thick stratospheric haze that we would need to main more-or-less indefinitely. This seems to be a dystopic world out of a science fiction story. First, we can assume the oceans have been heavily acidified with shellfish and corals largely a thing of the past. We can assume that ecosystems will be greatly affected by the high CO2 / low sunlight conditions
Is this chapter available somewhere for reading before the book is released? I keep seeing snippets here and there, but I get the feeling that the critical blog posts are just attacking straw men.
How dare you write the words of "Global Cooling"!!!1! They Are words of faith that as climate deniers you can never understand.!!
It seems like a bunch of Cardinals of the Climate Vatican didn't like that you were questioning the orthodoxy. I don't know what people would expect otherwise from contrarians such as yourselves.
What we've learned from this tale is that climate scientists like Cardiera are saying much different things to people when being candid, then when they're under pressure from the Climate industry. He is now not credible for either side on this issue, he's willing to say and confirm things with you that he later denies. Sounds like someone had his funding threatened.
As for the criticism from Big Climate: It's mostly based on the lies of Cardiera and false assumptions.
Take Krugman for example, he's been waiting for anyone to even insinuate that global socialism isn't the only solution to carbon pollution. I'm glad you did, and that your responses are not a mea culpa.
Also, consider the source of your dissent:
Krugman - Keynesian Klein - Recent wrote a post called "Obama promises improvement, not change" Yglesias - Practically the Rush of the Left UCS is an unlabeled socialist lobby group
When they can't attack the message they'll attack the person.
You still havent addressed the reported error in your book where you say the main problem with solar cells is that they are black, despite actual solar cells being blue.
You guys have not defended yourselves against many of the charges which have been laid against you.
You assert in the book that "over the past few years, global temperatures have decreased." This is patently false. You have (wisely) chose not to defend it. It has been charged that you made at least three inaccurate statements about solar panels, you have replied to none of them. It has been asserted that you provided inaccurate forecasts of the consensus estimates of the rise in sea levels, I see no defense of this above.
Here are three more critiques of the chapter than you need to defend which may not have been mentioned elsewhere: In order to show that global temperatures were cooling into the 1970s, you use 1945 as the base year. That would be 1945, which was much hotter than both 1944 and 1946, and much much hotter than every year from 1880 to 1943. Using that one special outlying year as a base year to show a temperature decline is not quite lying exactly, but it falls into the category of "willfully misleading your readers". Most charts I've seen suggest that the 1960s and 1970s, while cooler than 1945, were actually warmer than the 1950s, the 1930s, 1920s, and much warmer than the 1910s or 1910s. And, of course, China and India have only been industrializing since about 1980, during which time the Earth has gotten much warmer.
Second thing: can I see your citation for where Al Gore tells everyone to "give up" their air conditioning? You make it sound as though he actually proposed this as a solution. Or did he just point to air conditioning as a cause of global warming, and as an example of something which might need to be curtailed?
Third thing: Many climate scientists are deeply uncertain about the impact of using aerosols to cool the planet. They say they have no idea what might happen. You did not include any of their reservations in your chapter... Instead, your bogeyman is the supposedly a-scientific Al Gore, with whom the vast majority of the scientific community actually agree with on this issue.
There are many logical fallacies in the Myhrvold and Caldiera taking points that I've seen. One is the silliness of thinking that an increase in the *average* doesn't matter if the variation is larger than that. Another is the idea that even if the temperatures have trended lower recently, it indicates much. No, just think about how the temperatures fluctuate up and down as we move from season to season. A decade is too variable for long-term trends (roughly the same as using a ten-day period, to pretend to disprove the effect of the Earth's axis on climate ...) Of course, there's the fundamental theoretical issue of the absorption of IR by CO2, something the trend-fixated skeptics often ignore.
Also, here's a fundamental problem with the way these Lomborgian skeptics argue: they'll say first that the effects of what we're doing now is not all that bad, but then say "it's too late" to do anything because there's already so much CO2 out there, etc. Well: if the effect is small now, then stopping a really big increase in CO2 would be well worth it and doable, since the goal is more modest (say, preventing from reaching 800 ppm instead of say 500.)
But if the effects are already great, then: 1.) they have to admit the effect is already large, and 2.) it would still be worth doing for future generations, to help prevent from absolutely horrible outcomes. Otherwise, they sound like people saying "It's too late to stop the epidemic since it will still kill half the population even if vaccinate everyone now at great cost" - so go ahead and let 90% die?
White and dark: for one thing, they ignore non-visible reflection - like leaves reflecting lots of IR. Also, a few more leaves and solar cells (in particular!) don't affect albedo that much. However, if we used white roofs (as Energy Secretary Chu suggests) and lighter roads etc., that could make a difference.
I'm going to harass all my friends into buying a copy and give everyone I know a copy as a Christmas gift. I encourage you all to do the same. These men are not blinking in the face of a near-lynching, and that's admirable. It's a rare opportunity to be able to support a real cause like this.
Gosh, forgive me, but it's somehow hard to see how being called out by multiple credible folks (well beyond Joe Romm, and including the Union of Concerned Scientists, the unflappable William Connelley, Paul Krugman, Ezra Klein, etc.) for making a series of lazy, misleading and often simply erroneous "counterintutive" statements regarding the best response to an issue of worldwide importance (i.e., does the threat of climate change demand a global effort to mitigate CO2?) constitutes a "smear".
To the posters trying to defend Levitt and Dubner...
Have you guys read page 187 of SuperF ? The number of lies and distortions and outright scientific errors is almost unbelievable. Quoting Mhyrvold as an expert in thermodynamics and heat transfer is laughable... an undergrad ChemE or MechE could easily see that the statement about the thermal energy re-radiated by solar panels as a significant global warming issue is clearly wrong.
Even the best power plants reject half or more of the thermal energy to the environment, but this thermal energy is insignificant compared in the global energy balance. Further, CO2 ends trapping over 100,000 times the thermal energy released by burning carbon to CO2. Mhyvold's energy analysis would get a failing grade in any undergrad science course. Anyone trained in doing energy balances, and understanding the science behind the energy industry would have spotted this howler a mile off. Mhyrvold seems to suffer from PowerPoint superficial analysis syndrome.
Here is a critique of that page in SuperF: delong.typepad.com/sdj/2009/10/six-questions-for-levitt-and-dubner-more-superfreakonomics-blogging.html
Levitt and Dubner need to save what is left of their reputations and get the publisher to pull the book. Next time, they need to have more creditable and knowledgeable people in the fields they write about, review their material.
The NY Times blog message boards are full of the same people who worked as extras in the old Frankenstein movies, You know the ones - with the pitchforks and torches? When the mob gets worked up, they have to tear down something.
The Goddard Institute of Space Studies might know a thing or two about AGW and how to remedy it but hey - what could they know eh. Well put it this way, a damm sight more physics, chemistry, biology and the global earth system that anyone here does and hence I will take their word for it every time!!!
Wow ... got into this debate late, but guys like Romm and his fellow worshipers of environmentalism make Osama's followers look tame in comparison ... just waiting for these people to blow some things up in the name of their God ... environmentalism.
I wish Krugman would take himself back to the land of credible research, where he was actually worthwhile reading (and which was, hopefully, the reason he won his Nobel prize).
I wish Krugman would take himself back to the land of credible research, where he was actually worthwhile reading (and which was, hopefully, the reason he won his Nobel prize).
Although Heckman may view Freakonomics as somewhat insignificant to the broader field of economics, it plays an important part in providing different perspectives founded on academic rigor to all those beyond academia. It's a pity when politics enjoys the attention of the public sphere because of its drama, but many of us still enjoy your work!
At the very least this debate will probably increase sales - and it must be satisfying to an extent to know that all those critical of SuperFreakonomics who purchased the book to bash it will (at the very least on paper) ultimately help to make the book a success.
Dang two posts on a weekend! You guys are really getting your prunes steamed on this deal.
I'd be happy to interview either one of you on my blog @ northandclark.net if you are in Chicago. They say a little controversy can be a great thing for a little website.
This type of debate is stupid. I have seen so much disinformation parleyed about by various nonprofessionals that i just ignore material that is not refereed. This book isn't, so as far as I'm concerned, its arguments are not reliable. Debating this sort of thing online serves no purpose. Each side will spew away, and the truth suffers. Why this merits any attention is beyond me. Robert J. Brulle PhD Drexel University
Global warming and carbon trading. What a load of bull. It's distracted the world from the ongoing pollution, deforestation, abuse of natural resources (water, food, forest, minerals) and on going economic plundering of those less fortunate. There are so many governments entities and corporates out there who stand to gain from carbon trading while the environment, communities and many countries stand to either lose out in huge tax gains or worst, everything; all on carbon trading plans which only stand to encourage more pollution. Sure many of us are not scientist. But we should be listening to them. Look at these and go do your own research and come to your OWN conclusions. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_scientists_opposing_the_mainstream_scientific_assessment_of_global_warming oism.org/pproject/ I rather believe REPUTABLE scientists that are experts in the field; than politicians, media and government funded scientist; all who stand to gain huge financially from carbon trading.
You chose a very, very bad subtitle for your book. The subtitle leads you to believe you're saying one thing, but then the content of the book differs.... What did you think would happen?
The risk of an ingenious, simple and cheap solution to AGW is just as big a threat to rent-seekers as showing AGW isn't a threat at all. This is why you're being attacked so ferociously.
By categorising the balanced approach taken in Superfreakonomics as one of "deniers" (note the inflammatory connotation to the holocaust) the contributors to the AGW blogs are showing that they are not interested in honest debate about the science. Instead, the detractors attack with cheap slurs to try and ward off any questioning of the 'consensus' that isn't just about scientific research but also public relations, ad dollars, energy company subsidy, lobbyists and insurance premiums.
Keep up the good fight and don't just debate with the alarmists such as Romm, Hansen and Krugman. Why not Lindzen, Spencer, Christy, Lomberg, Mcintyre and Lawson too?
Ingenious explanations of socioeconomic phenomena that go against the grain of conventional thinking may be the authors' stock in trade, but with climate change they've clearly bitten off more than they can chew. Leave the science to the climatologists, gentlemen, and stick to what you're good at, such as analyzing crime rates or baby naming.
Just expose the truth on The Daily Show. These knee-jerk comments of Romm and the like need to be put to rest, and The Daily Show is a significant enough platform to silence, or at least shame your uninformed critics.
Dear Robert: OK- YOu raise a question. And I agree that there is a difference between knowing and thinking, and between scientists and intellectuals. But Social science and a scientific entrprise that is inclusive of all the sciences presupposes the existence of the sort of real understanding and the type of intellectual who knows the difference. So what if these guys do--
A real debate is what we need and what they are seeking to generate. Mere Opinion is not good enough if we are to survive long-term on this planet or any other. And using `your' title does not do the trick! It merely seeks to usurp leadership when a mutual orientation of our activities is required.
You should make available all these emails you've received, so we can have a look and figure out the story for ourselves. Plus this sounds like a great case for my Critical Thinking students to gnaw on!
Thanks for writing this, Stephen. Let the debatable points be debated, but the way you and Levitt are being slammed is abhorrent. Can't wait till my copy of SuperFreakonomics arrives.
It seems to me that CO2 reduction is a good long term goal and artifical global cooling a short term fix that might help as we ween ourselves off energy that releases CO2.
We need both!
This is the wrong time to be fighting with all the GW deniers in Congress looking at legislation that if passed may help start bending the economics against fossil fuels.
I'm looking forward to seeing the defense of the substantive points, but at least you've chosen the right place to start, as Caldeira is certainly the most damning critique.
I will say a couple things about this defense:
(1) You need to actually justify your point that people would have to be deliberately misreading you to think you were implying there was a consensus about cooling.
Your subtitle is a term that is heavily loaded with denialist baggage about the world cooling. Your first anecdote is about all the stories on how the world was cooling in the 1970s - without any reservations that "hey, this was a minority position. "
Lets start with the quote:
"[t]hese days, of course, the threat is the opposite. The earth is no longer thought to be too cool but too hot."
I don't see how you come away not thinking that there was some consensus about cooling. Especially since the subtitle is a loaded reference to that myth. And I don't see how the story fits in the context otherwise. As the critics read it, the first two pages are basically setting up for your softening up the global warming conventional wisdom on the third and fourth pages. (The models are even worse than the models that destroyed our economy, there are lots of variables, its a religion, there's really "only" a five percent chance of disaster, etc).
Implying that climatology had a consensus around global cooling in the 1970s helps that argument. If its just a throwaway point that some people thought it in the 1970s . . . why, exactly is it in there?
(2) Really, I think Caldeira needs to step up and talk, seeing as Romm's new post and this one seem to contradict each other. This is the difficulty with having interested parties mediate which quotes we get.
I cannot find out with any degree of certainty whether the Arctic Ice is expanding or shrinking since 2007. I can find "respectable" articles that say one thing and other "respectable" articles that say another.
This should not be in question and clearly someone is lying. How can people think scientifically when there is not trust in scientists to get the facts straight.
All this extraneous talk is just a cul de sac. Its not exactly a feather in your cap that you guys haven't figured out the fundamental science fraud nature of the campaign against warmer winters for the Laplanders.
Stop anticipating the endpoint of your enquiry by calling carbon dioxide a pollutant. Settle down to this matter in a systematic way. What is your beginning point? Clearly the overwhelming reality of earths climate is that we are in a brutal and pulverising ice age with infrequent interglacials. That our CO2 levels are dangerously low, in that they could be five times higher and conditions would be better, whereas if they fell in half we'd all die.
So thats your starting point. Next you must seek out and ask for any convincing evidence that costs ought to be imposed on people IMPROVING the CO2 situation with emissions.
We await any convincing evidence for that. But I suppose you are going to have to find out for yourself. Thats where your expertise lies. Statistics. You will find that there is no such study. It is all a big lie. But on the other hand, with the disorganized approach you seem to be taking to things, you may never sort this much, of what ought to be a very simple puzzle, out.
The human conduct is driven specially by money. Global warming will be easily controlled as soon as the Big Money finds out that this feat is rewarding. The carbon dioxide religion is already helping to change the excessive behavior of modern urbanites, and this reason is already good enough to go on preaching that faith.
Good to see that you've kept the comments section open, unlike some other blogs.
Well, I'm sure that all the finger pointing everyone is indulging in is going to solve the problem.
Where's the denial of the fact that you guys got some apparently basic facts wrong? I don't see that. That's more important than this "he said she said" you're indulging in.
How would you respond to Brad DeLong's "Last post" on superfreakonomics? That's more substantive than what you've put here.
There's much to say here, but I'd like to see just one thing: a source that predates this controversy that states that "global cooling" in the subtitle referred to the future need to fight climate change. Dubner, Levitt and their publishers have produced a ton of publicity, interviews, and writings about Superfreakonomics. If Dubner isn't lying here, there should be something someplace that backs him up.
I love how Krugman dismisses your factual dissection of Romm as "legalistic quibbling." Krugman, the man who assigns all sorts of heinous motives to conservatives, when faced with the worst sort of motives and behavior from a fellow traveler just dismisses it as irrelevant. And they wonder why no one trusts them.
Perhaps you might go through the chapter and rebut the substantive charges made against what you have written? Citing emails that remain outside the public domain as evidence that you are being "smear[ed]" is hardly compelling. Nor is it good scholarship. Given the quality of your scholarship is being questioned, you might want to start your rebuttal using good scholarly practice?
Why not start with Brad de Long's review of the first 20 pages, for example. It may be a time consuming exercise, but then, your reputations are at stake. And you are currently behind the curve.
Is it possible that both sides are wrong? The real cause of global climate change is not driven by greenhouse gases, sunspots or even Al Gore. It's caused by the wobble of the earth's axis over a 26,000 year cycle. Don't take my word for it, read this article (first published in "Science"), newsroom.melbourne.edu/news/n-119.
It strikes me, based on your description in this post, that having the majority of the discussion that underpins the content of this book as coming from Intellectual Ventures is an awfully narrow approach to such a controversial subject.
Without being able to read the book to find out if this is generally true, what say you to this criticism?
Many people are more or less decided on how to deal with global warming. The level of their fervor would be humorous if they weren't so close to destroying the world. Global cooling has occurred in the past.
As some others above, I read the global cooling in the title to be about the 1970's issue....since you open the chapter with reference to it.
It is hard for me to not believe that you are here being dishonest to say it was about anything else.
Your entire chapter reeks of snide contrarianism and is filled with not-so-subtle jabs at environmentalists. To suggest you were being intellectually open-minded and honest is itself a lie. You clearly misrepresented Caliera, who says as much.
Quite simply: How is it that you ended up having your main source come out afterwards and essentially say that you spun his comments to be quite different from his position?
If this were an insignificant topic, I wouldn't bother with commenting. But the best scientists--the ones you quote--see this as perhaps the gravest threat to mankind. To make book sales by holding on to a contrarian position by muddying the waters in this was is well...
Do you want to fix this? Come out with a major mea culpa.
"Is the global warming movement about science, religion, politics, or a little of all three?"
Where would you put atmospheric chemistry? Because that's where global warming is quantified. Journalists and econ profs with certain political leanings project their biases on the scientific community. It would be laughable if not so sad. What it really is is just plain old fashioned ignorance. F.
Thank you for this response to part of the book's criticism. I look forward to your response regarding critiques that the chapter misrepresents climate science, particularly the role of excess atmospheric CO2.
Thanks, Aaron Huertas Union of Concerned Scientists
Fascinating to watch all of those here who have already made up their minds. Global Warming is indeed a religion and to question it is to brand oneself a heretic.
It seems as if the same people who support the orthodoxy on AGW are the same that are willing to judge a book by it's cover and to make a critique of a book they haven't read.
Bravo to L&D for leaving the comments open to expose these climate fascists for what they are.
Perhaps they all should have left their philosophical diatribes to a scientific journal--or perhaps the paper was rejected because it is not appropriate scientific work?
"I gave him a chance to proof it," is not a defense. Your goal should have been to get it right and to find solutions to an extremely difficult and controversial problem, not come up with a catchy quote to sell books. Or which was it?
Next time I would suggest getting more references than a few interviews from people working at the same office (or university, or lab), especially when doing such controversial work. You could even go crazy and bring in an expert to help you interpret the findings. That's what most scientists do when they working in a field that is not their expertise.
I have no idea why you are surprised at this response. You questioned orthodox opinion and you go the usual response that heretics get. Sloppy proofing is a shame but the response would have been the same without the contested quote - you woudl have been crucified by the vested interests.
Here is a link to series of emails exchanged between Levitt and another economist. standupeconomist.com/blog/economics/more-superfreakonomics-emails-from-steven-levitt/#comment-256
The email exchange is really depressing. Especially depressing is how Levitt simply can't understand why the natural cycle of CO2 isn't as important as the fact that CO2 from fossil fuels has increased the CO2 in the atmosphere to a level 150% of where it stood when the natural cycle was in balance (see Brad DeLong's comment at the linked site).
I have spent a significant amount of time going through this information on SuperF, and my premise was that the authors did this either intentionally, or had bad luck in selecting their sources.
Now I see I was wrong. There really is no point talking to Levitt or Dubner; they don
What is the old saying? "If you're digging yourself into a hole, the first thing to do is get rid of the shovel." The sloppy work in Chapter 5 has aroused consternation among economists and geophysicists, a pretty wide swath for a general non-fiction book . Seems the best strategy would be to apologize, fix it, or move to planet Inhofe.
Good post on the things you did to ensure accuracy in your chapter. Also a good post on the blogstorms that often arise in the climate change world.
One item I have not seen discussed anywhere and may be worth examining for the climate change chapter in your next book is the extremely thin base of primary source data that underlies most of the historical assumptions on world temperatures before 1850 as well as several fundamental statistical errors that climate scientists made in constructing their models and reporting their results.
It is funny though how people react to issues like this, getting all uppity when they read something that isn't consistent with what they read on a dot org website.
Dot org sites like climateprogress.org push their own agenda and politics. Just because the editor of a website has a Ph.D. in physics from MIT (Romm) doesn't mean he is always going to bring the facts untainted and without his own spin and agenda thrown in.
"Let the wild rumpus start." Well, this is fueling my suspicion that this is another balloon hoax case, and you deliberately created this controversy in order to increase sales of your book among the deniers of global warming. I mean, we expect a significant amount of lazyness in research from journalists nowadays, but not from Professors of renowned iniversities. And yet, by your own statements here it seems that the strongest arguments you make in that chapter atre based on a one day interview you conducted at a company who wants to profit from the very same solutions you advocate in that chapter?
I mean, come on, you probably don't mind about this obvious one-sidedness of your approach, but didn't at least Prof Levitt have some objections? Didn't he insist on including an opposing point of view, or conduct a peer review of that chapter? After all, we're talking about probably the most urgent problem of mankind right now, and people can expect you t put at least the same kind of research and investigation into this topic as into the trivial problems you covered in "Freakonomics"! And yet, as countless critics have convincingly pointed out, you engaged in a lazyness that only serves the purposes of those who deny that there's a need for urgent action.
Dunno about you, but this can't have escaped Prof Levitt's attention. So, this really looks like a cheap PR stunt. You may earn more bucks because of it, but as a journalist and scientist, you both failed your responsibility. It's a shame.
A book that has not been published yet, but is rumored to question global warming, starts a massive debate. But the book does not question global warming, actually tries to think of some new and better was to counter it.
So this is not an attack between believers and deniers, but a clash between two groups of believers. One group favors carbon reduction as a solution, the other wants to talk about geo-engineering and wants to debate wether or not carbon reduction is an actual solution.
It's not: "how dare you doubt the problem!" it's: "how dare you doubt that our solution is the only and best way!".
This debate must be held, even if you guys are wrong. And it is scaring me just how much vitriol this is causing.
You may want to head on over to RealClimate as well as they are pitching in with their two cents worth.
They are notorious for snipping out views not in accord with their party line but I cannot see how they could refuse you a right of reply in this case:
Thanks for giving the eye-rolling high priest of global warming/change some more factual argument. Someday (hopefully soon), the disgusting charlatan and his brown-shirted acolytes will be proven wrong. By facts. Until then, we will have to endure their fascist attacks on the scientific method, and anyone who would dare question their specious claims. Keep up the good work, and I will certainly buy your book.
Hey, sometimes it's hard to be like Galileo. Serious skepticism in the scientific tradition is one of the essential qualities that sets economics apart from the other social sciences (and, apparently, some physical sciences as well). Keep up the good work!
"Believers", "deniers". This argument stopped being about science a long, long time ago. Global warming has become a religion, and Romm and his ilk are inquisitors - sniffing out the heretics.
Whenever a "scientist" tells you that the science is settled, watch your wallet - there is another motive in play. For ages, scientists thought the atom was the smallest particle on earth - until other scientists cracked one open and a whole bunch of smaller stuff spilled out.
Science, by its nature, is never settled. Religion, on the other hand....
The day we have to spray sulfur dioxide into the atmosphere to counteract catastrophic climate change is the day we certainly have to be actively pursuing reducing CO2 emissions.
One could also reasonably say that 'the day we decide to reduce per-capita carbon emissions by 90% (90!) in a few short decades is the day we had damn well better be absolutely certain there are no less extreme alternatives".
What is scarier -- the prospect of geo-engineering the climate or eco-engineering the global economy? Neither one is particularly desirable, but which of the two is likely to create greater suffering among the world's poorest peoples who live closest to the margins? It's a reasonable question on which reasonable people can differ. Or so it would seem. But among activists like Romm, it's not even kosher to raise this question. How can one not start using terms like 'true believer' and 'heresy' in such an intensely politicized environment?
Gosh, you spent a whole day doing research for your chapter, and people -- instead of acknowledging your great expertise in the field -- have the temerity to question you? My heart bleeds.
Paul Krugman is a skunk. What's worse is that he doesn't know much about good economics. I don't know if it's that he purposely distorts stuff or is just plain living in some alternate universe. However he tends to get things wrong a lot.
For example, he has this babysitting example where he confuses labor dollars with money. How the hell can anyone who knows the least little bit about economics make this mistake?
He also self contradicts. He advocated pumping up the housing bubble at it's beginning, yet now that it's obviously wrong he denies that's what he was doing. Yet, now he advocates the government pumping up more bubbles.
I'll withhold judgment on the book until I've read it; however, I will point out that the "global cooling" study was the results of a couple of very primitive climate modeling runs and was never taken very seriously in the scientific community. Journalists, however, latched onto it and created a scare of it - sensationalism is not a new thing when dealing with a distant possibility misunderstood by ignorant men.
Why do you treat all this criticism about your book as a "smear," as defamation? It sounds like you guys are being overly defensive about this, instead of taking it as good-natured academic criticism and being humble to recognize other viewpoints. Then, you can better explain your arguments in a better, more precise way to address this criticisms. But by crying out loud and saying this is a "smear" and "lie," you seem to take away legitimacy to your well-founded arguments.
At one point, the Earth had dinosaurs, animals so large that immense amounts of vegetation kept them alive. Even the Arctic had dinosaurs. Then the Earth went through an ice age, where ice covered regions where people now live (and where dinosaurs used to live). I also remember there was something called a "little ice age" when it was so cold, fairs could be held on the frozen Thames in London during the 17th century. Seems to me that the earth goes through "climate change" over the ages no matter what anyone says and does. I think pollution is bad and we should have less of it but I don't think we need to bankrupt our economy to accomplish what may be a minimal intervention. However, I am not a scientist, just your average ignorant American.
Allow Eli to summarize why pushing sulfates into the atmosphere is stupid; To reprise J. Willard Rabett's laws to guide climate change policy makers
1. Adaptation responds to current losses. 2. Mitigation responds to future losses 3. Adaptation plus future costs is more expensive than mitigation, 4. Adaptation without mitigation drives procrastination penalties to infinity.
Once you start down the sulfate stream in an attempt to adapt, you are committed for your, your kids, your grandkids and essentially forever's lifetime. The cost accumulates.
Moreover, your statements about Calderia agreeing with you are flat out unbelievable. Calderia studies acidification of the oceans by increasing CO2. Pushing sulfates into the atmosphere, not only would do nothing about this, the sulfuric acid that rained out would exacerbate the problem which threatens just about everything in the ocean except the jellyfish.
I wonder what Levitt and Dubner will think of these comments. Personally, I think I'd be more embarrassed by the supportive comments than by the critical ones. "Climate fascists"?
Global Warming is a religion, and anyone who questions it in any way will be called a heretic. As you have said, it is an extremely complex issue, and anthropogenic global warming has by no means been conclusively proven. Romm, Krugman and the rest are just defending their religion--be a heretic, and call them out.
I have a feeling that many of the comments presented herein are from the blogosphere echo chamber and do not reflect the opinions of people who have actually read the book. In fact, I'd guess that many of the bloggers commenting on SuperFreakonomics haven't read the book themselves.
Now you know why there is "no other side". Any type of dissenting information that gets put out there is pounced upon by the cabal of e-environmentalists that patrol the net.
An interesting article would be to interview scientists or journalists that have published research or ideas that are against the dogma.
hey guys, can you consult with us the next time you decide to write a book? i mean, everyone seems to know so much better than you guys do so i think it would help, not hurt. ;)
"Despite how certainty feels, it is neither a conscious choice nor even a thought process. Certainty and similar states of "knowing what we know" arise out of involuntary brain mechanisms that, like love or anger, function independently of reason."- Robert A. Burton, M.D.
It seems to me the real religious zealots are the right-wing denier crowd that don't want anyone "mes-sin" with their right to emit as much Co2 and they damn well please. It's a machine cult that worships at the alter of the wealth and power generated by burning fossil-fuels.
I seems the premise a little knowledge is a dangerous thing holds firm particularly in this age. Bloggers and posters can seem a small sample of writing and project a lot into it. Others can take the blogger words and amplify it. Few have the time to read a book let alone master the subject and fewer of them are posters.
It takes a lot of time and energy to be truly good at something. More and more the internet seems to be the realm of pretenders and hacks. The sad thing is many of the people spreading these distortions think the are good and intelligent. Well, you are. Still, great high jumpers are not NBA guards even if they could have been had they gone through years of training practice and experience in basketball.
Bring Freeman Dyson to the blog. Your critics have deomonstrated that they HAVE turned the concept of "global warming" into a religion. Remember now, some of these people are employed because if it.
There's only so much you can fit in a chapter on Global Warming. You can't satisfy all parties, and I much rather authors take a sharp stance (like S&L) than fence sit and offer no personal opinion.
It looks like Caldeira made a mistake by not reviewing the manuscript carefully, and he should have, considering he knew how popular Freakonomics was, and knew his views within would be read by many.
Yeah, you guys get little sympathy from me. I'm pretty intimately familiar with climate science, and the statistical tricks used by deniers and (more recently) all manner of non-actionists. For that matter, I also know how enviros work (for good and for ill) and understand how the conflicts between the two usually leave econ people feeling roughed up irrationally.
First, you get no sympathy because you (or your publishing machine) deliberately courts controversy. You knew what would happen when you put "global cooling" in the title - it's a deliberately controversial phrasing that plays up the unorthodox-ness of the Freakonomics brand. Certainly, the Freakonomics schtick is puncturing orthodoxies, but you can't claim to do that without inviting some serious criticism from its proponents.
Second, you get no sympathy for being innocent scientific ingenues - if you're making policy arguments in the book, they're up for debate. And there's a strong argument to be made that a microeconomist and a journalist who dabble in schtick are not good policy analysts for this issue. So when you go out making policy arguments, and they're not good arguments (i.e., their conclusions, rather than their facts, are wrong), you should expect some serious criticism, especially in the heat of a major policy battle over your subject matter.
Third, you get no pass for methods. I haven't read the book, but the blog routinely takes scientific data and decontextualizes it, resulting in an artificially unorthodox headline. Look at the post last week on ocean cycles. It sounds like that's exactly what happened here. It sounds like Romm laid into your editing process a little more than was warranted, but the central point is that people who know more about this than you take the facts you took, put them in a different (and presumably more expert) context, and reach very different conclusions.
Finally, you keep whining about how political this fight is. Well, for one thing, what do you expect? The stakes in politics are sufficient to rough up unwary data people. For another, politics is a CRITICAL part of the context of the global warming debate. The viability of EVERY policy solution depends on its POLITICAL prospects, not just its scientific or economic ones. We could have solved this problem years ago if everyone just blithely agreed to stop carbon pollution on a sliding descending scale, but that's not how domestic or international politics work. So research into solutions that ignores politics is totally useless.
In conclusion, you guys asked for this, got it deservedly, and get no pity. I look forward to dissection of your conclusions on the merits.
It seems frankly disingenous to put "global cooling" in the title of your book and then act surprised if people assume you're a global warming denier, and start reading your chapter on that premise. At which point you would need to really bend over backward in your writing to get people back onto what you claim you intended. And that's your fault for sending people down the wrong path in the first place.
If you're actively trying to look controversial, you shouldn't be surprised if you're controversial.
Romm appears to be a scumbag and a liar. The misrepresentations and smears on the part of the global warming prophets are quite staggering.
I think this episode is simply the latest in a long list that shows the global warming movement is a religious one, that must denounce and destroy dissent, and ignore contradicting scientific evidence.
This is exactly NOT how they would proceed if they were acting in good faith, and eager to evaluate all scientific evidence to make sure we got it right.
No, they have a preconceived idea, and all evidence must either fit into that framework, or be discarded. Those who do not unqestioningly adhere to their ideology are branded apostates and have the digital lynch mobs sent after them.
Fortunately, the weight of scientific evidence against man made global warming destroying the earth in 60 days is growing too large to be fully ignored.
The fact is that very, very few people understand the science behind the issues well enough to make definitive statements about it, so people instead move in whatever direction their social, political, or economic momentum carries them.
Kudos to you guys for at least engendering a healthy debate on the variables.
Questioning dogma -- even scientific dogma -- is not only responsible but good.
"Science" once told us spaceflight was impossible, Pluto was a planet, and childhood vaccinations cause autism.
Blind faith, even in science, is still blind. And it's my observation that scientists are as slow -- or slower -- as anyone else in admitting their errors.
WOW! Incredible! How inspiring to see these numerous, concerned , thoughtfully and - mostly - patiently written comments on an intricate and involved subect of vital concern to all human kind. Such a relief to sift through the many insightful ideas and questions and opinions that helped me to realize -if not comprehend - the parameters and complexities of these environmental issues. Thanks to all who contributed to this subject!
Seriously? Politics and all of the little ideological points both sides try to make are a religion for most people. The fact that so many people are so up in arms about this confirms that they're offended not by poor research, or lack of logic, but by the fact that the conclusions don't fall in sync with their own.
Krugman and Romm are notorious for not being able to actually mount an objective, logical and reasonable comeback for conclusions that don't mesh with their own ideas about the world.
That Caldeira does not agree with the conclusions you draw is not an indictment of your reasearch, or of your representation of the facts. Two people can reasonably look at the same data and draw two reasonable and even logical conclusions. Of course when conclusions are mutually exclusive one must be right and the other wrong. But until further data and more conclusive facts come into play it is childish to start calling names and bashing credibility just because two reasonable people disagree.
I can tell you this - wehther or not I agree with the conclusions you draw in the book, I will certainly be buying tomorrow.
At least Levitt and Dubner have left their comment board open. Krugman apparently is too good for comments and has turned them off with respect to all of his posts on this issue.
The aggressive reaction to anyone who dares questioning the global warming theory indicates that the theory and its followers are indeed ideologically biased.
If you will recall, the orginal "Anatomy of a Murder" was a deeply cynical movie showing the behind the scenes of a jaded criminal defense lawyer (Jimmy Stewart) getting a guilty murderer off (Ben Gazara) for killying a paramour of his wife (Lee Remick), claiming she was "raped" by the deceased.
Stewart ultimately got Gazara off by using the junk science of a quack shrink (Orson Bean) against bellicose prosecutor George C. Scott to claim temorary insanity. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anatomy_of_a_Murder
With that cast of characters in mind, and the current "Anatomy of Smear" to be cast, who was raped, who is offering junk science, and will the accussed get off scott free for their insanity?
Maybe its just me, but I always thought the books were kind of tongue in cheek anyways. I mean, they are very short analysis of very large issues, with lots of jokes and humour thrown in. I figured it was more of a "get you thinking" kind of thing than any in depth research.
You guys love being contrarian (and the book sales that ensue) far more than you love the truth. That's your problem.
And if the seventies Ice Age scare is so clearly a very different case than today's scientific consensus, why does it merit mentioning at all. What's it there for?
Interesting that Dubner pans climate models on the one hand when the suggest global warming is a serious issue and reduction of greenhouse gasses are important - but supports/looks favorably upon climate models on the other when talking about his global cooling scheme - which is it?
Keep up the good work guys. I believe in climate change and I'm often infuriated at the knee-jerk reaction of our ilk to well-intentioned critiques of the science.
That's why it's called science people. All of this is open to debate if you come to the table with fair inquiry. This is fair inquiry.
denying GW is apparently now just as much a part of the far right catechism as "the free market always finds the best solution" and other fantasies.
climate is sufficiently complex that nothing is certain, but the current best guess is that human activity is causing potentially harmful warming. another part of the righty script is that scientists who find GW are just following the crowd and somehow need to do that to protect their funding. i am a scientist and believe me, if i worked in this area and cared about nothing but funding, i would "prove" that there was no GW and bask in the support of Exxon et al. i know it's hard for some to believe, but most scientists just like to play with neat ideas and follow the observations wherever they lead.
as for the freaky idea of injecting SO2 into the atmosphere to counter GW with cooling, it is one of the most stupid proposals of all time. ever hear of "unintended consequences"? just as climate is too complex to be 100% certain about GW, we understand even less about what this amazing experiment would do to our planet. if you believes that playing sci-fi games with the atmosphere is a good idea, i bet you would even think that credit default swaps should be unregulated, because "the free market always finds the best solution."
The problem with alarmists as far back as Malthus, Club of Rome and more recently, the Global Warming crowd is that they make dire predictions without much risk of the consequences if they are wrong. There is also something to be said about the state of discourse in this country as far as politics, environment and health issues. There is a lack of civility and too much emotion involved that it clouds the real issues. Every point is polarizing and the tone of the discussion borders on "uncivil war" approaching the Jerry Springer Show.
Of course, I haven't read the book. However, my impression is that their (alleged) misinterpretations of climate science demonstrate the pitfalls of interdisciplinary research/analysis. In order to make certain they were interpreting the data correctly, perhaps they should have consulted climate scientists as they wrote the chapter.
An issue this politicized deserves careful analysis, especially when the commentators (e.g., Levitt and Dubner) are viewed widely as authoritative sources of information. Whether their expertise on this particular matter is real or not, perception is reality...
Yes, we all know that Romm is an idiot; there's one on every side.
By rebutting only his attacks and ignoring the far more substantial criticisms made by William Connolley and Tim Lambert (both over at scienceblogs.com), you're trying to paint your detractors as irrational and not worth replying to. It's a little sad to see from people whose opinions I generally trust.
Assuming their summaries are accurate (please tell me you don't really use the "global cooling" argument), there are serious flaws with your arguments, flaws that you really need to rectify as soon as possible.
Most striking to me is the number of responses here in the Comments that ridicule and deride Dubner for having failed to address or refute the substantive criticisms brought by such renowned scientists as "Paul Krugman, Ezra Klein, Matt Yglesias . . ." and others.
There are two possibilities: it is a hoax or it is not a hoax. The burden of proof is on the postulators and they have failed. The closest they ever got was time slicing. But clearly for every period they show that climate change is upward and potentially man-made, I can find a longer AND shorter period of time to disprove them. Pleistocene (pre & BP) for example AND last ten years.
I trust the record more than the models of the poli-sci's.
I know too many scientists to even dream of taking any of them too seriously. That they are now to be unquestioningly respected and spoken of only in hushed tones of respect is a hoot. AGW is not even worth investigating. A waste of time and resources is all it is or was ever meant to be. 'Disrupt the system' and generate a concensus of panic against a mythical common enemy.
You fanatics are clearly bucking for a 'religious war'. Good luck to you when it finally comes.
"So, yes, my representation in the Superfreakonomics book is damaging to me because it is an inaccurate portrayal of me. The problem is the inaccurate portrayal, not my actions or statements."
which indicates you're smearing his reputation by clearly misrepresenting his views. It doesn't matter if Romm asked him to state this. Someone can ask me to say the grass is red all they want and I won't agree if it's not true. That's a clear red herring.
As noted elsewhere, there are many more problems with your chapter than just the Caldeira misrepresentation. I sincerely hope you spend sufficient time in understanding what the science says (not just what some blogs claim it says) and make the appropriate corrections. I'm sure you'll sell lots of copies regardless, as your book is being promoted by "skeptics". If you refuse to correct the errors, what you won't be able to retain is your credibility.
I love the fact that people want to choose the climate experts you should have talked to. The simple fact is there are no true climate experts. There cannot be in that domain. There can only be people who spend all their time working to understand the complex system of our climate. This makes them no more valuable, and probably more dangerous, than a cab driver on the subject. Any honest scientist will understand why this is the case. This doesn't mean we should crap in our backyard, however. It means you have terrible critcs.
It gives them a belief system, a good vs evil view of humanity, and a moral code to live by even if it doesn't always make sense. Most people don't recycle for any reason other than it makes them "feel good" and they "feel" like they should do it. (I'm not saying it's bad to recycle, I do it all the time, I'm just saying people approach it from a spiritual perspective)
To Dubner and Levitt, I'm curious as to how the "outrage" regarding this chapter of your book compares to that of the Abortion/Crime chapter.
The freakonomics guys might wake up and see the purveyors of the global warming religion for what they really are if this keeps up.
The urge to save humanity is almost always only a false-face for the urge to rule it. -- H L Mencken, quoted in the table of contents for Impact Press (October-November 2000)
Your unpardonable sin appears to have been to attempt a balanced view of the conflicting evidence and theories, and apply an economist's analysis of costs and benefits to CO2-induced warming and proposed solutions. One is not supposed to point out the Emperor's nakedness, or to question the practicality or efficacy of reducing or even eliminating CO2 emissions. When absolutists are challenged on their beliefs, they respond as Inquisitors historically have done. Even you have felt the need to assure them that you are not a heretic! Good luck with your book. I hope it is as enjoyable and thought-provoking as Freakonomics.
Stephen and Steven, I read your first book and really liked it and am waiting for SuperF. I don't think the controversy was some sort off a publicity stunt and do believe your intentions were honorable in trying to address GW in your book. But I agree with a previous poster that you bit off more than you bargained for. It is an emotive issue on both sides of the aisle.
However, it seems very ironic to me (from the comments) that the people who will be rushing to buy SuperF will be the skeptics, even if they can't appreciate the irony themselves.
The second interesting thing, in light of all the "OMG AGW is a religion" comments, is that if someone were to draw a very large Venn diagram of all AGW-skeptics, creationists and other ultra-religious types, the circles would nearly converge. They would know the tenets of a good dogma, won't they?
Although, not being a climate scientist or anywhere near (lawyer actually), I do understand that global climate is an extremely complicated phenomena and any kind of mitigation or geo-engineering would require careful fore-thought. But, if the cost of doing nothing could be catastrophic as opposed to the cost of any action(s) or a combination, then I would suggest taking Pascal
I have always had 3 questions for people that believe in MAN made global warming. It seems they never want to answer them. For good reason because they know if they answer, they prove their theories wrong.
Here they are:
1.) If the volcanoS put out more global warming gasES (yes gases because there are 4 more according to the EPA, then just CO2) then humans , then how can humans be such a big part of the equation?
2.) If the IPCC (the UNs own studies) show that cows put out more global warming gases then all the cars, how can humans be such a big part of the equation.
3.) If the oceans (WATER and everything in them) are responsible for 98% of all global warming and everything else (including humans and cows) are only responsible for the other 2% of global warming how can man be such a big part of the equation.
Yes thats right, H2O (WATER) is the main global warming gas (95%) in the WHOLE atmosphere.
Then I give them a picture they can rap their minds around. For instance, If you where to take the Houston Super Dome and fill it up with people to show all the things responsible for all of global warming and then take a count of the people in that dome responsible for man made global warming it would be 4, thats right just 4 out of tens of thousands.
#11 Why would you ever say that Krugman has any authority or special knowledge in climate science? Just curious. Maybe you have a radically different definition of "expert" than I do. Something that incorporates "notoriety" or "he agrees with me" perhaps?
I think the jury is still out on the whole concept, but that politics has hijacked the science in order to advocate and rationalize some extreme social & political actions.
I have yet to ear a coherent thoughtful response to the multitude of various weaknesses in AGW theory, the flaws in the models, the lack of support or reflection of the data. But I've sure heard a lot of histrionics and overblown outrage by those defending something they want taken on faith.
So frankly, I'm disappointed to hear that you didn't play more the sceptic/contrarian. I look forward to reading the book.
why does the right go so bananas at the suggestion that human activity might be warming the earth?
it's absolutely no different from their reaction to suggestions that we might need higher taxes to pay our bills, or that national health care might be the best solution. you can't have a rational discussion, all they do is scream NOOOO and try to kill the messenger.
it seems like religion, but that doesn't really answer the question. i think the right in America, like angry children, simply "freak" out at any suggestion that there might be limits on their behavior. any other suggestions?
and i repeat, the plan of continuing to pump out CO2 while countering it with SO2 is insane.
One more thing - everyone talking about unintended consequences need not forget those of mitigation. By outlawing DDT millions of africans have died from malaria. Instead of thuoghtful debate on the use of DDT, western countries "FREAK"ed out and promoted hysteria - I think they should be held accountable for millions of lives.
I read chapter 5. I enjoyed it and I like the ideas discussed. Moral of the story is all about externalities - something a lot of folks need to know a lot more about. Sorry about pirating chapter 5, but I promise I will buy the book. I hope the rest of the book is as interesting as chapter 5.
Rix (#163), it could be true that many or even most creationists are AGW skeptics (I don't know enough creationists to have a sense about that), but I doubt very much that the converse is true. Many AGW believers lump skeptics in with creationists and "flat-earthers" to marginalize their views, and knocking down that strawman is evidently easier than marshaling data to support their AGW conclusions. And I'm not sure what an "ultra-religious type" is. Regardless, in view of the strong "climate change" advocacy by most mainstream churches, it appears that the skeptics do not enjoy the monopoly on "religious" types you assert .
More than 31,000 real scientists, by name, have signed a petition at oism.org stating 1) that to the extent that the earth is warming (or cooling) it natural climate change between ice ages, 2) proving that CO2 is not a pollutant, ever: it is a building Block of life, 3) that with more people to feed earth needs more vegetation (not less) and therefore needs more CO2 (not less) as CO2 doubles and triples plant growth and makes plants draught resistant. Man cannot change earth
tomk (#169), in the interest of a "rational discussion," dismisses an AGW adaptation suggestion as "insane," and characterizes skeptics as selfish children who want no limits on their behavior. No need for any discussion, apparently. So much for rationality.
There is no man-made global warming. The best evidence shows no warming larger than natural variability. (A lot of contrived, manipulated, and lost "evidence" shows otherwise - hardly anything that can be called "best".)
As MIT atmospheric physicist Richard Lindzen says, we're getting hysterical over a few tenths of a degrees? (And we can't even be sure of that.) Such "science" is going to look ridiculous in the future, he says.
So who cares?
I'm just an environmental scientist from Boulder, Colorado
When was the last time science was so denigrated - perhaps during the fierce debate around whether there was a link between cigarette smoking and lung cancer?
There didn't seem to be much debate around the link between the hole in the ozone layer and CFC emissions. CFC reductions were agreed to under the Montreal Protocol - that agreement has been successful in reversing the depletion of the ozone layer. We don't hear much about it, most likely because it didn't challenge the energy industry or threaten a change in our lifestyles.
So it seems science is brought into question when vested interests are threatened - or a change to our lifestyles is called for.
BTW, a question I had from my first reading of this blog - why did you only focus on the I.V. company? Weren't there others to interview?
I happened to be sitting next to your fresh-from-AnnArbor research assistant on the flight back from singularitysummit.com/ on Tuesday the 6th when you were on your way to Boulder . I mentioned to her that I had been driven by fear of this anti-science , anti-life attempt to suppress the available carbon in the biosphere by would-be global tyrants to have spent a painful amount of time over the last several years gaining an understanding of the basic physics . See my http:/CoSy.com for the textbook calculations showing that our mean temperature , like any object in our orbit , is quite constrained to be about 1/21 that of our sun -- and we are .
Within the next couple of months I'll refine these classic functions to provide quantitative values for the effect of any particular spectrum . But in any case , as Caldeira points out , the change in our spectrum at these levels of CO2 capable of sustaining life are "governed by the law of diminishing returns" . That is , at these life sustaining levels , variations in CO2 can not make virtually any difference in our mean temperature . ( He's an order of magnitude off tho , on the residence time of CO2 . A glance at the yearly variation in Mauna Loa CO2 data by anyone with a sense of exponentials shows its half life is a fraction of that . )
What is most sad - and fearful - tho , is that in the name of environmentalism these watermelons are seeking to reduce the welfare of the entire planet by Global State Force in order to actually limit the "volume" of the active biosphere by restricting our restoring to it carbon sequestered in previous extremely lush ages . As Joe Bastardi of AccuWeather.com points out "Common sense dictates that a trace gas needed for life on the planet would not be the cause for destroying life on the planet." Were higher levels of CO2 destructive of life rather than its very , substance , we would not exist . We exhale CO2 because CO2 + H20 thru photosynthesis form more than 90% of the substance of the food we eat -- and thus more than 90% of our own substance . That is why it is not a stretch to label those who want to put the enormous fossil resources laid down in our planet's creation off limits as some cosmic "look but don't touch" joke , anti-science and , in deed , anti-life .
I have a PhD in thermodynamics and I don't care what any pseudo-scientist has to say about it.....The heat capacities of all gasses are more or less the same and approximately one thousandth of those of incompressible fluids (i.e. earth). By pulling CH from the ground and reacting it with O2 , making CO2 and H2O (incompressible) makes it such that the net effect is changing the composition of the earth's atmosphere from one gas (O2) to another (CO2) and should be negligible.
Besides, the solar cycle, if there is such a thing, is not well understood (NASA 2009).
I work on 'green' technologies but it is because we are running out of conventional oil period.
Keep up the good work. Unfortunately, you seem to kinda support the man made global warming nonsense BS. That hokum will be shown for the lying religion it is soon enough. In the mean time you do gooder posers get a life. Nuff said.
Something about CO2 increase that wasn't mentioned is that it isn't just a greenhouse gas. When dissolved in water it dissociates to hydrogen ion (a strong acid) and bicarbonate (a weak base). The acidification that has already occurred in the ocean is partly responsible for the killing off of the coral reefs and their function as a fish hatchery, and also the destruction of shellfish of all kinds that require calcium carbonate in their shells. The acidity has been measured in the Antarctic and showed that the ocean's capacity to buffer the excess CO2 had been reached. For this reason, shields blocking the sun's rays aren't really all that effective since CO2 causes other problems that are just as serious as the greenhouse effect.
Another thing that needs mentioning is that the obligate mention of how the models are inaccurate neglects to say which direction they are on. The data show that the models are too conservative and that the climate is going to blazes faster than the models predict. That means if the model says 10 years until we reach the point of no return, we actually have less time before the PNR. That's why at one time the sea rise was thought to be less than has already occurred. Same for Arctic ice cap melting, Greenland glacier movement, ocean pH, and numerous other indicators of coming disaster. For those who advocate taking our time and "what's the big hurry", that's the big hurry. We are fast running out of time if we haven't run out already.
Given the reaction of some of the commenters, one would think that you had attacked the one true religion. As for me, I actually read your post with an open mind. For those who would attack the author, you may wish to remember that drafts of the proposed chapter were sent to all involved, not once but twice. They had ample and fair opportunity to review the text, and make changes if they so desired (which they did, not once, but twice). At each point, Caldeira and others consulted might have voiced protest. That they did not until after the book went to the presses, and the public outcry began, seems to suggest cold feet.
And little wonder. If the level of vitriol on display in the comments to this post is any indication of the general level of discourse to be expected on this topic, I might be a bit nervous as well. Far better to offer a few weasel words after the fact to smooth things over a bit than to wonder when the brick is going to come through the window, eh?
One would almost think that there exists a certain amount of insecurity here.
The problem (addressed in one of the blog posts) is that cooling will encourage us to carry on emitting CO2, making ocean acidification worse and killing the whole ecosystem there, which is obviously pretty undesirable.
If anyone is curious about the scalability of solar, I'd suggest watching Dr Richard Swansons talk "Solar Cells at the Cusp":
"So it seems science is brought into question when vested interests are threatened - or a change to our lifestyles is called for." When unfettered scientific discourse is hijacked and suppressed by an organized group of political extremists bent on forcing drastic and unnecessary social reengineering with hysteria and panic, then it should and will be called into question. An unproven theory is not grounds for implementing an authoritarian state.
The Progressives eat one of their own - how deeply satisfying. Mr. Dubner has exposed the debased and rabid politicization of AGW for all to see if they only wish to. There is no room for any variation from the company line. Mr. Romm gives himself away at first blush by identifying himself as promoting the "Progressive perspective on climate science...". There is no valid political perspective on climate science, there is only the scientific view. As for Mr. Romm, he has shown you the Progressive view, which is characterized by twisting and distorting the truth, character assassination, and screaming one's bloody head off until one get's his/her way. In a world where integrity and science actually mattered, Mr. Romm would be discredited and be considered irredeemable by most people on any side of the issue. But no, he's just seen as an overly aggressive advocate and the likes of Gavin Schmidt glibly use his smears to bolster his own - admittedly much more reasoned, but no less rejectionist - critique of you.
I know of only one reason why people reject critical thinking and exploration of ideas and perspectives in a civil and reasoned way; when they are hiding something. Why are Romm et al so freaked out by any discussion or criticism of their positions? If the science is settled, well then it's easy to prove that the criticism is wrong. But he's going nuclear over issues that aren't even science - he's just bashing you because you oppose his hegemony over the truth of any issues surrounding AGW.
It won't matter that you've show his horribly unprofessional email and vile intentions. The political has taken over reason - on both the left and right and polemics are all that matter. It's too bad that our really pressing problems won't yield to hysteria or rhetoric.
One major flaw is that you banked your chapter on a self-interested company, IV, who of course are going to talk up the approaches that they have patents on, and can profit from, and dismiss everything else.
Why did you rely so much on IV? Seems pretty naive, if not outright shifty, to essentially base your chapter on their own self-serving PR.
It's ... not easy to admit that you've messed up. You put a lot of time into this, spoke to a lot of people, learned a lot ... and still didn't manage to do the subject justice. And like most smart people, your knee-jerk reaction when criticized is to defend your work.
Yes, from a journalistic standpoint, you followed all of the necessary procedures. But nevertheless, your treatment of the subject was not quality work. People make mistakes, and you've made a big one, and now it's time to own it.
Your reputations will not recover until you admit this. I'm sorry you've had to learn this lesson so publicly.
I don't buy it. You repeat several "conventional wisdom" factoids that are repeated again and again by deniers, aimed at a scientifically illiterate audience, and do not in the slightest challenge them. So why are you repeating them in the text of your book?
Just take the "...agnostics grumble that human activity accounts for just 2 percent of global carbon-dioxide emissions,...." Why are you repeating this without pointing out that this fact is irrelevant, since the biosphere emits the most CO2, but it also sequesters an equal amount. There is no net change over time, which cannot be said for fossil fuel burning.
You say above that you did not imply that the "global cooling" has any scientific consensus in the 70's, and to think otherwise is a "willful misreading.' This is nonsense. Unless the reader is aware of the history of the brief "global cooling" media sensation, you leave a impression that the idea had the broad support of the scientific community. Just like the "2%", you are repeating the half truths of deniers, without in the slightest challenging them, leaving their impression to stand.
I don't see any smear. Having read the chapter I see the criticism as very well founded.
Do you guys seriously think that just reflecting sunlight is going to solve the problem? I'm not even sure you guys even know what the dangers of global warming actually are.
It's not just about things getting hotter, it's about the oceans becoming more acidic/toxic, leading to a very possibly chain reaction of extinction. It's about sea levels rising as the ice sheets melt. It's about hurricanes and other natural disasters worsening. It's about international famine as the drought sets in.
Just reflecting the sun isn't going to get rid of the CO2 that causes or contributes to all these problems. What you don't seem to want to admit is that the US is one of the only barriers to an international effort to reduce carbon emissions.
If you are a carpenter, a hammer is the solution to everything. If you are a socialist or Al Gore, the need for a Warming Crisis is obvious, because socialism is the answer.
What is refreshing about the freakonomics approach is the open mind. If there is a problem how do we fix it? Aerosols, natures volcanic method. Seaborne mist ships, again a natural method. What about nuclear power, no carbon, but verboten by the warmists as impure or psychically unclean.
Global warming is indeed a religion. A faith necessary for those seeking power over others.
SG, there were significant (most) parts of the chemical industry who knew they had replacements for the CFCs. Also, at that time a lot of the management were professional chemists and chemical engineers who could understand the research and recognize the need. However, and, as you point out, there were denialists, and curiously enough, many of them denied that environmental tobacco smoke was dangerous, and today deny that climate change is a problem.
I have learned to take a certain pleasure from watching people claim a few things.
Big Anthropogenic Global Warming Science is, clearly, ignoring or brushing aside the many substantive criticisms against it, and by god Dubner and Leavitt have poked the proverbial stick in the giant's eye! Bravo, they say.
If you completely ignore the factual refutation of these criticisms that follows, like clockwork, as soon as the data gets crunched, it's a lovely picture.
I do appreciate the criticism that it's become something of a religion. It's a lot easier to point back to other people who have refuted an argument than to learn enough to refute it yourself, and this leads neatly into loyalty based on belonging to a group, not understanding the scientific position. It's a bad criticism, though. The people most interested in ambiguity and questioning are the climate scientists that keep turning up evidence.
Finding solid, provocative evidence that global warming isn't ongoing would make your career! People keep asking statistically verifiable questions about the likelihood that something is happening, and it keeps coming up p<0.05.
The SuperF supporters on this thread sound like the true religious zealots... They offer no scientific evidence to counter the criticisms.
I have read through all the comments, and no one is able to support the engineering and scientific calculations that were done incorrectly in this chapter that are subject to the criticism. Its not a smear, if Levitt and Dubner published a load of lies, which they did.
Here is just one more lie in this chapter: Superfreakonomics excerpt from Page 176:
First off, let me say congratulations for fearlessly taking positive economics into dangerous territory, albeit perhaps with a profit-driven ulterior motive ;)
I notice Gavin Schmidt's response on your blog. Shame that he would not let me air polite questions about Briffa's tree ring analysis on his Real Climate web site. It seems to be a one way street over there. Is that how real science is done Gav?
Let this be a challenge to all those who passionately believe in global warming and those who challenge it. Re-create the famous bet between Paul Ehrlich and Julian Simon in 1980 when the resource exhaustion was the flavor of the day. Why not challenge those who stake their reputation on GW to also put their money where their mouths are. There can be several metrics like CO2 level, global temperature and sea levels by a certain time period which can be objectively measured by a neutral third party.
Why not put on the table the Nobel Prize, research funding and above all, their personal funds to see if people are willing to take risks based on what they believe? After all, we are in a free market (or are we?) where price (or prizes) are means of discovery and knowledge.
As someone with a background in science (geology though, not climatology), reading this thread is just incredibly depressing. So many people who think that all it takes to dismiss the consensus of an entire field of science is to point out really obvious facts like; "it hasn't warmed recently!" and just assume that somehow the world's climatologists had up till now been ignorant of them.
You do not understand the science well enough to refute it. To anyone with more than a basic grasp of how science works you sound exactly as ridiculous as the creationists who think all they have to do to disprove evolution is say; "If man evolved form monkeys, why are there still monkeys?".
A and Hank, you overreact a bit. although i do think that we need to raise taxes - the top marginal rate (90% in the conservative GOP Eisenhower admin) is near a historic low - i was talking about the REACTION of our righty fringe, the language they use and the mantras they repeat. what i said is that the reaction to the science of GW is exactly the same as their reaction to the other bogeymen we've been hearing about since 1980, and i wonder why. if you have a better suggestion than "nobody can tell me what to do", i'd love to hear it.
if we could dial back the ideology for a bit: just look at a graph of temperature alongside CO2 levels going back as far as possible. there is an excellent correlation, and the recent rise in CO2 is definitely from human activity. isn't that hard to ignore? do you really think all the scientists are taking their orders from ACORN or shilling for funding? don't you think they have to be at least taken seriously?
ignoring or explaining away something as obvious as the CO2-temp correlation, and smearing the messenger, reminds me of how every developed nation but us provides excellent health care with a national plan for as little as half our costs, but, oh no, we can't look at that. reality
so Hank, you really think it's a good idea to keep pumping out the CO2 but counteract it by pumping out some SO2? sorta like a drug addict who tries to get the right mix of uppers and downers instead of quitting? sorry, but you guys do seem totally out of touch with reality.
How about a LINK to the actual chapter so that we can read it? I am fairly web-savvy, and have looked, but have found no obvious paths to the actual work that everybody is so hot and bothered about. Posting and blogging about what bloggers (notoriously biased people, by my observation) have written about a yet-to-be-published chapter in book seems, sounds and is ridiculous.
Global warming advocates, here's a little tip. Quit tossing grenades in a debate more suited to precision tools. You accomplish nothing and only serve to stop discussion with people who like the Freakonomics guys, are open to hearing all sides and any well sourced facts you might have. You look like some bizzarro combination of thought police and little children when you throw a temper tantrum at the Freakonomics crew, who are fairly moderate on this issue.
Pre-ordered my copy allready. I think I will read it before I condemn or praise- but know this, if I can't debate my position effectively, I won't lay myself and my argument low by stooping to name calling...its sad and benefits no one.
As a scientist, I've been unhappy with the way the left has politicized an important issue like climate change. There are politically correct consequences of climate change that we are permitted to subscribe to; the world will end in a CO2-ushered apocalypse and/or ice age. There are also politically acceptable "solutions". They do not include nuclear power.
You two were very fair, logical, and nonpartisan in your previous book. Being attacked by the political climatologists means you have something interesting to say. I cant wait to read the book. Count me in as another customer, thanks to this controversy.
The smear merchants are you, not the scientists and supporters of science who are pointing out your errors, omissions, distortions and fabrications.
ResponderEliminarWith all due respect, the text at Amazon was indeed searchable at the time Romm posted his first post. It is not now. No conspiracy mongering, just observation.
ResponderEliminarHowever, possible misquotes of Caldeira are the least of the problems with this chapter as William Connolley and Tim Lambert have shown.
My take is here:
realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/10/why-levitt-and-dubner-like-geo-engineering-and-why-they-are-wrong/
7. There is much more to be said.
ResponderEliminarAnyone reading this and Romm's comments, who doesn't see how this topic has become a sort of religion for many, just isn't paying attention.
ResponderEliminarAs I think you're trying to demonstrate (haven't read the book, or course), this is a complex subject with room for debate and further research, if not on the fact of climate change, at least on the proposed solutions.
I'm not a 'denier', but I'm always suspicious of the cry "We must act now!" when even the most aggressive proposals won't mitigate the changes we're seeing for fifty years or so.
Me thinks they dost protest too much. Clearly, if the thought leaders of the climate change movement are so quick to debase solutions outside of complete economic control, one has to question their true motivations. Keep it up.
ResponderEliminarMaybe you could respond to critiques of your presentation of the science of climate change: See William Connolley, a former climate modeler at the British Antarctic Survey who often disagrees with Joe Romm on climate change issues: scienceblogs.com/stoat/2009/10/superfreakonomics_global_cooli.php
ResponderEliminarI don't have the expertise to evaluate any of the substantive issues, but even after reading the chapter I took the "Global Cooling" in the subtitle to refer to the anecdote about scientific beliefs in the 1970s and NOT to the proposed geoengineering project.
ResponderEliminarThe problem is that the term "Global Cooling" is a well-established one in the discourse on climate change, routinely used by conservative commentators to disparage those who point to a scientific consensus on global warming. I'm sure you are sincere when you say this was not your intention, but the fact remains that this is the clear interpretation of the term in the context of the global warming debate. If this was not your intention, the subtitle should be altered in future editions.
I will give you some irrefutable evidence and then let you decide what to think about global warming:
ResponderEliminarHumankind has long witnessed periods of time marked by the rise of new cultural, religious, and political movements. Well known examples (to the Western world) include protestantism, the renaissance, the inquisition, the industrial revolution, socialism, etc. I don't know the answer to this question but I think it is a fair one: Is the global warming movement about science, religion, politics, or a little of all three?
No,no,no,no---you have committed apostasy; heresy! You are not allowed to speak of warming except in the most emotional, alarmist tones!
ResponderEliminarYou are not allowed to follow an objective, skeptical line of reasoning in this matter. You are not allowed to consider whether or not it is cost-efficient or even possible to cease all carbon emissions, you simply must do it. You must shun all otherwise-intelligent people who think maybe warming may have some benefits that might, just might offset the problems.
But you guys have absolutely guaranteed that you will sell a ton of books. I already have my order in and I hope that "SuperFreakonomics" generates an honest, open discussion on the topic that causes all sides to reconsider their position. Well done.
I believe it is Henry Ford who said (and I paraphrase) "Whether you think you can do something or don't, you are right.". You don't think mitigation of AGW is feasible, but others (e.g., Romm, Krugman) believe it is, and is probably much easier (and less costly) than most people think. The day we have to spray sulfur dioxide into the atmosphere to counteract catastrophic climate change is the day we certainly have to be actively pursuing reducing CO2 emissions. As a plan B, insurance policy kind of thing, sure, let's study geoengineering. But not as a primary solution.
ResponderEliminarYou guys are extremely defensive on this topic which makes me think you know you sort of screwed up with taking the whole "contrarian" think too far in a subject where you know far too little.
ResponderEliminarYou are trying to smear people like Krugman, Yglesias, Romm, et al, but frankly, they're much, much more credible on this topic than you, and your rebuttals to their claims are not the least bit convincing.
You concede that your primary source for the chapter (Ken Caldeira, "one of the most respected climate scientists on the scene") says that
ResponderEliminarWhat's really ironic and hilarious about your critics is that some of them seize on the line that global warming is occasionally treated as a religion, and they then use that line to excoriate you as a damnable heretic.
ResponderEliminarCongrats! You have generated enough controversy to guarantee millions from book sales! What more do you want? Didn't you talk about "incentives" in your earlier book?
ResponderEliminarAnd of course, now you also have ultra right-wing fanboys on your side! They can now use their pea-size brains to post comments everywhere and fan this controversy even more.
You can certainly draw different policy implications from Caldeira's work than him, but you claimed that he drew the same ones as you. I quote:
ResponderEliminar"It is one thing for climate heavyweights such as Crutzen and Caldeira to endorse such a solution."
Caldeira has not endorsed your solution (and neither has Crutzen for that matter).
If Romm has indeed done some of the things you have mentioned, I find it inexcusable. And as someone who works in the field I've found his approach to be at times divisive and ultimately counterproductive.
ResponderEliminarThis is it? This is your response to the substanstive criticisms of Paul Krugman, Ezra Klein, Matt Yglesias, the Union Of Concerned Scientists, William Connelly, RealClimate.Org, and many others? Lame. Totally lame.
ResponderEliminarIt's not a smear. You wrote a superficial chapter about a complex subject, quoted people who aren't even climate scientists, picked one perspective and presented that as fact. You wrote a mediocre magazine article, one not worthy of The New Yorker because it lacks facts, balance and solid discussion. You deserve the criticism.
ResponderEliminarAnd then you put garbage words on the cover of your book. On the cover of your book. Repeat: you chose to put garbage words on the cover of your book.
Good job.
ResponderEliminarKeep up the good work, guys!
ResponderEliminarWhen scientists refuse to even examine alternate proposals or points of view, they cease being scientists. Leave the smearing to the politicians.
This blog to-ing and fro-ing really isn't interesting. Whilst misrepresenting a scientist - even by accident - is pretty careless, the substance of the chapter is pretty poor and contains numerous factual errors about a very important subject. What a shame.
ResponderEliminarCommenter #8: "The problem is that the term
ResponderEliminarThe complaints are that many of your facts are under-researched or simply wrong, and that you grossly misrepresented the views of Caldeira.
ResponderEliminarWorse, you have ignored the specific and sharpest criticisms and are instead pointing fingers back, calling it smear campaign.
If you wish to address a scholarly audience rather than a sensationalist poplar one, you would do much better by squarely addressing the meat of your critics issues and questions.
On substance, so far you're losing this battle...
Wow - if this is the response to one unpublished chapter - I can only imagine how good the other ones should be :)
ResponderEliminarThe misrepresentations are much more on the side of human-caused global warming than visa versa.
ResponderEliminarHowever, the main problem I see here is the suggestion that we should do something to try and cool down the planet. The author, says, "... figuring out how to cool the Earth if indeed it becomes catastrophically warmer," while I don't completely disagree with this statement, it does cause me great concern.
Anyone, whose done any research into the history of climate change knows that global cooling has been much more disastrous to humanity than global warming ever has. In fact, the global warming that has existed for the past 10,000 may well have been the catalyst that has made our modern civilization possible.
Alternatively, ice ages are not happy times. Even in modern times many more have died from the cold than have ever died from it being too warm. Interestingly, the warmest summer in recorded history in central Texas happened over three quarters of a century ago, when Austin suffered 69 days in a row of temperatures over 100 degrees ... it didn't make the papers (and they didn't even have air conditioning back then). It appears we have become whimps.
So ... it scares me when the option of trying to cool the earth comes up. ... We just might be too successful.
It's pretty pathetic that even after this thorough explanation, there are those who refuse to see common sense and will continue to spout lies about your work.
ResponderEliminarI'm impressed to hear about how much work you did to ensure that this book was accurate. I wasn't going to buy it before, but I just ordered it on amazon. Thank you.
@ Jason.
ResponderEliminarThe term "global cooling" referred to the hypothesis in the 70's that said atmospheric aerosols would reflect sunlight and cool the earth.
So despite any political charge, it is the correct term to describe Caldeira's climate engineering project.
@ all
Whether or not climate engineering is a good idea is not the purpose of this particular blog post. This post is to address the specific claims by Romm and ClimateProgress that Levitt and Dubner lied about Caldeira's position and denied global warming is occurring. These two particular claims by Romm and others are plainly false.
Let any other criticisms of climate engineering stand on their own. It isn't the purpose here to respond to those criticisms. Those criticisms are all sorts of valid.
Steven Levitt on NPR yesterday: "I'm not a scientist and Steven Dubner's not a scientist either, but we've managed to interact with some of the greatest scientists in this country. I think what we conclude is that the nature of the debate is just completely wrong. The real problem isn't that there's too much carbon in the air. The real problem is it's too hot."
ResponderEliminarScientist Ken Caldeira: "If we keep emitting greenhouse gases with the intent of offsetting the global warming with ever increasing loadings of particles in the stratosphere, we will be heading to a planet with extremely high greenhouse gases and a thick stratospheric haze that we would need to main more-or-less indefinitely. This seems to be a dystopic world out of a science fiction story. First, we can assume the oceans have been heavily acidified with shellfish and corals largely a thing of the past. We can assume that ecosystems will be greatly affected by the high CO2 / low sunlight conditions
All pretty useless.
ResponderEliminarIt's time for the influential and responsible adults of the world to push forward with non-polluting strategies of all kinds.
Why don't you join in?
Is this chapter available somewhere for reading before the book is released? I keep seeing snippets here and there, but I get the feeling that the critical blog posts are just attacking straw men.
ResponderEliminarHow dare you write the words of "Global Cooling"!!!1!
ResponderEliminarThey Are words of faith that as climate deniers you can never understand.!!
It seems like a bunch of Cardinals of the Climate Vatican didn't like that you were questioning the orthodoxy. I don't know what people would expect otherwise from contrarians such as yourselves.
What we've learned from this tale is that climate scientists like Cardiera are saying much different things to people when being candid, then when they're under pressure from the Climate industry. He is now not credible for either side on this issue, he's willing to say and confirm things with you that he later denies. Sounds like someone had his funding threatened.
As for the criticism from Big Climate: It's mostly based on the lies of Cardiera and false assumptions.
Take Krugman for example, he's been waiting for anyone to even insinuate that global socialism isn't the only solution to carbon pollution. I'm glad you did, and that your responses are not a mea culpa.
Also, consider the source of your dissent:
Krugman - Keynesian
Klein - Recent wrote a post called "Obama promises improvement, not change"
Yglesias - Practically the Rush of the Left
UCS is an unlabeled socialist lobby group
When they can't attack the message they'll attack the person.
You still havent addressed the reported error in your book where you say the main problem with solar cells is that they are black, despite actual solar cells being blue.
ResponderEliminarWow... You've had a busy weekend!
ResponderEliminarYou guys have not defended yourselves against many of the charges which have been laid against you.
ResponderEliminarYou assert in the book that "over the past few years, global temperatures have decreased." This is patently false. You have (wisely) chose not to defend it. It has been charged that you made at least three inaccurate statements about solar panels, you have replied to none of them. It has been asserted that you provided inaccurate forecasts of the consensus estimates of the rise in sea levels, I see no defense of this above.
Here are three more critiques of the chapter than you need to defend which may not have been mentioned elsewhere: In order to show that global temperatures were cooling into the 1970s, you use 1945 as the base year. That would be 1945, which was much hotter than both 1944 and 1946, and much much hotter than every year from 1880 to 1943. Using that one special outlying year as a base year to show a temperature decline is not quite lying exactly, but it falls into the category of "willfully misleading your readers". Most charts I've seen suggest that the 1960s and 1970s, while cooler than 1945, were actually warmer than the 1950s, the 1930s, 1920s, and much warmer than the 1910s or 1910s. And, of course, China and India have only been industrializing since about 1980, during which time the Earth has gotten much warmer.
Second thing: can I see your citation for where Al Gore tells everyone to "give up" their air conditioning? You make it sound as though he actually proposed this as a solution. Or did he just point to air conditioning as a cause of global warming, and as an example of something which might need to be curtailed?
Third thing: Many climate scientists are deeply uncertain about the impact of using aerosols to cool the planet. They say they have no idea what might happen. You did not include any of their reservations in your chapter... Instead, your bogeyman is the supposedly a-scientific Al Gore, with whom the vast majority of the scientific community actually agree with on this issue.
There are many logical fallacies in the Myhrvold and Caldiera taking points that I've seen. One is the silliness of thinking that an increase in the *average* doesn't matter if the variation is larger than that. Another is the idea that even if the temperatures have trended lower recently, it indicates much. No, just think about how the temperatures fluctuate up and down as we move from season to season. A decade is too variable for long-term trends (roughly the same as using a ten-day period, to pretend to disprove the effect of the Earth's axis on climate ...) Of course, there's the fundamental theoretical issue of the absorption of IR by CO2, something the trend-fixated skeptics often ignore.
ResponderEliminarAlso, here's a fundamental problem with the way these Lomborgian skeptics argue: they'll say first that the effects of what we're doing now is not all that bad, but then say "it's too late" to do anything because there's already so much CO2 out there, etc. Well: if the effect is small now, then stopping a really big increase in CO2 would be well worth it and doable, since the goal is more modest (say, preventing from reaching 800 ppm instead of say 500.)
But if the effects are already great, then: 1.) they have to admit the effect is already large, and 2.) it would still be worth doing for future generations, to help prevent from absolutely horrible outcomes. Otherwise, they sound like people saying "It's too late to stop the epidemic since it will still kill half the population even if vaccinate everyone now at great cost" - so go ahead and let 90% die?
White and dark: for one thing, they ignore non-visible reflection - like leaves reflecting lots of IR. Also, a few more leaves and solar cells (in particular!) don't affect albedo that much. However, if we used white roofs (as Energy Secretary Chu suggests) and lighter roads etc., that could make a difference.
I'm going to harass all my friends into buying a copy and give everyone I know a copy as a Christmas gift. I encourage you all to do the same. These men are not blinking in the face of a near-lynching, and that's admirable. It's a rare opportunity to be able to support a real cause like this.
ResponderEliminarGosh, forgive me, but it's somehow hard to see how being called out by multiple credible folks (well beyond Joe Romm, and including the Union of Concerned Scientists, the unflappable William Connelley, Paul Krugman, Ezra Klein, etc.) for making a series of lazy, misleading and often simply erroneous "counterintutive" statements regarding the best response to an issue of worldwide importance (i.e., does the threat of climate change demand a global effort to mitigate CO2?) constitutes a "smear".
ResponderEliminarTo the posters trying to defend Levitt and Dubner...
ResponderEliminarHave you guys read page 187 of SuperF ? The number of lies and distortions and outright scientific errors is almost unbelievable. Quoting Mhyrvold as an expert in thermodynamics and heat transfer is laughable... an undergrad ChemE or MechE could easily see that the statement about the thermal energy re-radiated by solar panels as a significant global warming issue is clearly wrong.
Even the best power plants reject half or more of the thermal energy to the environment, but this thermal energy is insignificant compared in the global energy balance. Further, CO2 ends trapping over 100,000 times the thermal energy released by burning carbon to CO2. Mhyvold's energy analysis would get a failing grade in any undergrad science course. Anyone trained in doing energy balances, and understanding the science behind the energy industry would have spotted this howler a mile off. Mhyrvold seems to suffer from PowerPoint superficial analysis syndrome.
Here is a critique of that page in SuperF:
delong.typepad.com/sdj/2009/10/six-questions-for-levitt-and-dubner-more-superfreakonomics-blogging.html
Levitt and Dubner need to save what is left of their reputations and get the publisher to pull the book. Next time, they need to have more creditable and knowledgeable people in the fields they write about, review their material.
The NY Times blog message boards are full of the same people who worked as extras in the old Frankenstein movies, You know the ones - with the pitchforks and torches? When the mob gets worked up, they have to tear down something.
ResponderEliminarThis is not funny anymore and as the science of AGW states and continues to state this analysis is just plain incorrect and at worst wrong.
ResponderEliminarrealclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/10/why-levitt-and-dubner-like-geo-engineering-and-why-they-are-wrong/
The Goddard Institute of Space Studies might know a thing or two about AGW and how to remedy it but hey - what could they know eh. Well put it this way, a damm sight more physics, chemistry, biology and the global earth system that anyone here does and hence I will take their word for it every time!!!
Wow ... got into this debate late, but guys like Romm and his fellow worshipers of environmentalism make Osama's followers look tame in comparison ... just waiting for these people to blow some things up in the name of their God ... environmentalism.
ResponderEliminarI wish Krugman would take himself back to the land of credible research, where he was actually worthwhile reading (and which was, hopefully, the reason he won his Nobel prize).
ResponderEliminarSteven Levitt invoked interactions with "some of the greatest scientists in this country" in stating on NPR yesterday that "The real problem isn
ResponderEliminarI join those waiting for a serious response to Krugman's point that you misread Weitzman's work.
ResponderEliminarI wish Krugman would take himself back to the land of credible research, where he was actually worthwhile reading (and which was, hopefully, the reason he won his Nobel prize).
ResponderEliminarAlthough Heckman may view Freakonomics as somewhat insignificant to the broader field of economics, it plays an important part in providing different perspectives founded on academic rigor to all those beyond academia. It's a pity when politics enjoys the attention of the public sphere because of its drama, but many of us still enjoy your work!
At the very least this debate will probably increase sales - and it must be satisfying to an extent to know that all those critical of SuperFreakonomics who purchased the book to bash it will (at the very least on paper) ultimately help to make the book a success.
This defense was fluff. Lame.
ResponderEliminarDang two posts on a weekend! You guys are really getting your prunes steamed on this deal.
ResponderEliminarI'd be happy to interview either one of you on my blog @ northandclark.net if you are in Chicago. They say a little controversy can be a great thing for a little website.
This type of debate is stupid. I have seen so much disinformation parleyed about by various nonprofessionals that i just ignore material that is not refereed. This book isn't, so as far as I'm concerned, its arguments are not reliable. Debating this sort of thing online serves no purpose. Each side will spew away, and the truth suffers. Why this merits any attention is beyond me.
ResponderEliminarRobert J. Brulle PhD
Drexel University
Global warming and carbon trading. What a load of bull.
ResponderEliminarIt's distracted the world from the ongoing pollution, deforestation, abuse of natural resources (water, food, forest, minerals) and on going economic plundering of those less fortunate.
There are so many governments entities and corporates out there who stand to gain from carbon trading while the environment, communities and many countries stand to either lose out in huge tax gains or worst, everything; all on carbon trading plans which only stand to encourage more pollution.
Sure many of us are not scientist. But we should be listening to them. Look at these and go do your own research and come to your OWN conclusions.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_scientists_opposing_the_mainstream_scientific_assessment_of_global_warming
oism.org/pproject/
I rather believe REPUTABLE scientists that are experts in the field; than politicians, media and government funded scientist; all who stand to gain huge financially from carbon trading.
You chose a very, very bad subtitle for your book. The subtitle leads you to believe you're saying one thing, but then the content of the book differs.... What did you think would happen?
ResponderEliminarIncentives matter.
ResponderEliminarThe risk of an ingenious, simple and cheap solution to AGW is just as big a threat to rent-seekers as showing AGW isn't a threat at all. This is why you're being attacked so ferociously.
By categorising the balanced approach taken in Superfreakonomics as one of "deniers" (note the inflammatory connotation to the holocaust) the contributors to the AGW blogs are showing that they are not interested in honest debate about the science. Instead, the detractors attack with cheap slurs to try and ward off any questioning of the 'consensus' that isn't just about scientific research but also public relations, ad dollars, energy company subsidy, lobbyists and insurance premiums.
Keep up the good fight and don't just debate with the alarmists such as Romm, Hansen and Krugman. Why not Lindzen, Spencer, Christy, Lomberg, Mcintyre and Lawson too?
Ingenious explanations of socioeconomic phenomena that go against the grain of conventional thinking may be the authors' stock in trade, but with climate change they've clearly bitten off more than they can chew. Leave the science to the climatologists, gentlemen, and stick to what you're good at, such as analyzing crime rates or baby naming.
ResponderEliminarJust expose the truth on The Daily Show. These knee-jerk comments of Romm and the like need to be put to rest, and The Daily Show is a significant enough platform to silence, or at least shame your uninformed critics.
ResponderEliminarDear Robert: OK- YOu raise a question. And I agree that there is a difference between knowing and thinking, and between scientists and intellectuals. But Social science and a scientific entrprise that is inclusive of all the sciences presupposes the existence of the sort of real understanding and the type of intellectual who knows the difference. So what if these guys do--
ResponderEliminarA real debate is what we need and what they are seeking to generate. Mere Opinion is not good enough if we are to survive long-term on this planet or any other. And using `your' title does not do the trick! It merely seeks to usurp leadership when a mutual orientation of our activities is required.
You should make available all these emails you've received, so we can have a look and figure out the story for ourselves. Plus this sounds like a great case for my Critical Thinking students to gnaw on!
ResponderEliminarThanks for writing this, Stephen. Let the debatable points be debated, but the way you and Levitt are being slammed is abhorrent. Can't wait till my copy of SuperFreakonomics arrives.
ResponderEliminarIt seems to me that CO2 reduction is a good long term goal and artifical global cooling a short term fix that might help as we ween ourselves off energy that releases CO2.
ResponderEliminarWe need both!
This is the wrong time to be fighting with all the GW deniers in Congress looking at legislation that if passed may help start bending the economics against fossil fuels.
It seem the big man is not convinced:
ResponderEliminarkrugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/10/18/superfreakingmeta/
I'm looking forward to seeing the defense of the substantive points, but at least you've chosen the right place to start, as Caldeira is certainly the most damning critique.
ResponderEliminarI will say a couple things about this defense:
(1) You need to actually justify your point that people would have to be deliberately misreading you to think you were implying there was a consensus about cooling.
Your subtitle is a term that is heavily loaded with denialist baggage about the world cooling. Your first anecdote is about all the stories on how the world was cooling in the 1970s - without any reservations that "hey, this was a minority position.
"
Lets start with the quote:
"[t]hese days, of course, the threat is the opposite. The earth is no longer thought to be too cool but too hot."
I don't see how you come away not thinking that there was some consensus about cooling. Especially since the subtitle is a loaded reference to that myth. And I don't see how the story fits in the context otherwise. As the critics read it, the first two pages are basically setting up for your softening up the global warming conventional wisdom on the third and fourth pages. (The models are even worse than the models that destroyed our economy, there are lots of variables, its a religion, there's really "only" a five percent chance of disaster, etc).
Implying that climatology had a consensus around global cooling in the 1970s helps that argument. If its just a throwaway point that some people thought it in the 1970s . . . why, exactly is it in there?
(2) Really, I think Caldeira needs to step up and talk, seeing as Romm's new post and this one seem to contradict each other. This is the difficulty with having interested parties mediate which quotes we get.
kids: cynicism pays.
ResponderEliminarI cannot find out with any degree of certainty whether the Arctic Ice is expanding or shrinking since 2007. I can find "respectable" articles that say one thing and other "respectable" articles that say another.
ResponderEliminarThis should not be in question and clearly someone is lying. How can people think scientifically when there is not trust in scientists to get the facts straight.
All this extraneous talk is just a cul de sac. Its not exactly a feather in your cap that you guys haven't figured out the fundamental science fraud nature of the campaign against warmer winters for the Laplanders.
ResponderEliminarStop anticipating the endpoint of your enquiry by calling carbon dioxide a pollutant. Settle down to this matter in a systematic way. What is your beginning point? Clearly the overwhelming reality of earths climate is that we are in a brutal and pulverising ice age with infrequent interglacials. That our CO2 levels are dangerously low, in that they could be five times higher and conditions would be better, whereas if they fell in half we'd all die.
So thats your starting point. Next you must seek out and ask for any convincing evidence that costs ought to be imposed on people IMPROVING the CO2 situation with emissions.
We await any convincing evidence for that. But I suppose you are going to have to find out for yourself. Thats where your expertise lies. Statistics. You will find that there is no such study. It is all a big lie. But on the other hand, with the disorganized approach you seem to be taking to things, you may never sort this much, of what ought to be a very simple puzzle, out.
The human conduct is driven specially by money. Global warming will be easily controlled as soon as the Big Money finds out that this feat is rewarding.
ResponderEliminarThe carbon dioxide religion is already helping to change the excessive behavior of modern urbanites, and this reason is already good enough to go on preaching that faith.
Good to see that you've kept the comments section open, unlike some other blogs.
ResponderEliminarWell, I'm sure that all the finger pointing everyone is indulging in is going to solve the problem.
Where's the denial of the fact that you guys got some apparently basic facts wrong? I don't see that. That's more important than this "he said she said" you're indulging in.
How would you respond to Brad DeLong's "Last post" on superfreakonomics? That's more substantive than what you've put here.
There's much to say here, but I'd like to see just one thing: a source that predates this controversy that states that "global cooling" in the subtitle referred to the future need to fight climate change. Dubner, Levitt and their publishers have produced a ton of publicity, interviews, and writings about Superfreakonomics. If Dubner isn't lying here, there should be something someplace that backs him up.
ResponderEliminarIts the book itself that needs explalning, not the reviewing process. For example, the author should be explaining pages 186 and 187.
ResponderEliminarSome of these comments include very specific criticisms. Book supporters might consider countering them.
I love how Krugman dismisses your factual dissection of Romm as "legalistic quibbling." Krugman, the man who assigns all sorts of heinous motives to conservatives, when faced with the worst sort of motives and behavior from a fellow traveler just dismisses it as irrelevant. And they wonder why no one trusts them.
ResponderEliminarPerhaps you might go through the chapter and rebut the substantive charges made against what you have written? Citing emails that remain outside the public domain as evidence that you are being "smear[ed]" is hardly compelling. Nor is it good scholarship. Given the quality of your scholarship is being questioned, you might want to start your rebuttal using good scholarly practice?
ResponderEliminarWhy not start with Brad de Long's review of the first 20 pages, for example. It may be a time consuming exercise, but then, your reputations are at stake. And you are currently behind the curve.
Is it possible that both sides are wrong?
ResponderEliminarThe real cause of global climate change is not driven by greenhouse gases, sunspots or even Al Gore.
It's caused by the wobble of the earth's axis over a 26,000 year cycle. Don't take my word for it, read this article (first published in "Science"), newsroom.melbourne.edu/news/n-119.
It strikes me, based on your description in this post, that having the majority of the discussion that underpins the content of this book as coming from Intellectual Ventures is an awfully narrow approach to such a controversial subject.
ResponderEliminarWithout being able to read the book to find out if this is generally true, what say you to this criticism?
Any religion has it high priests who invariably make out like bandits, as the intermediatories between man and his god.
ResponderEliminarthe AGW/ gaiaa religion has its share of rent seeking high priests like Gore and Romm.
see some of the writings of Richard Lindzen re how the climate science guys profit from "Big Science"
and also take a look at how much money Gore's comapanies will stand to make from cap and trade
scumbags all!
Many people are more or less decided on how to deal with global warming. The level of their fervor would be humorous if they weren't so close to destroying the world. Global cooling has occurred in the past.
ResponderEliminarAs some others above, I read the global cooling in the title to be about the 1970's issue....since you open the chapter with reference to it.
ResponderEliminarIt is hard for me to not believe that you are here being dishonest to say it was about anything else.
Your entire chapter reeks of snide contrarianism and is filled with not-so-subtle jabs at environmentalists. To suggest you were being intellectually open-minded and honest is itself a lie. You clearly misrepresented Caliera, who says as much.
Quite simply: How is it that you ended up having your main source come out afterwards and essentially say that you spun his comments to be quite different from his position?
If this were an insignificant topic, I wouldn't bother with commenting. But the best scientists--the ones you quote--see this as perhaps the gravest threat to mankind. To make book sales by holding on to a contrarian position by muddying the waters in this was is well...
Do you want to fix this? Come out with a major mea culpa.
Sounded like you had some sort of libel lawsuit you could pursue against Romm.
ResponderEliminar... Then I got to the part where Caldeira said, "I do think there are a bunch of things in the chapter that give misimpressions.
courage!
ResponderEliminar"Is the global warming movement about science, religion, politics, or a little of all three?"
ResponderEliminarWhere would you put atmospheric chemistry? Because that's where global warming is quantified. Journalists and econ profs with certain political leanings project their biases on the scientific community. It would be laughable if not so sad. What it really is is just plain old fashioned ignorance. F.
Mr. Dubner,
ResponderEliminarThank you for this response to part of the book's criticism. I look forward to your response regarding critiques that the chapter misrepresents climate science, particularly the role of excess atmospheric CO2.
Thanks,
Aaron Huertas
Union of Concerned Scientists
Interesting. According to the true believers in the Church of Climate Change. Levitt and Dubner have committed a grave heresy and must be punished.
ResponderEliminar#7 - Stephen: "Is the global warming movement about science, religion, politics, or a little of all three?"
ResponderEliminarIt's about science.
It's about politics ignoring science.
It's about religious sects (broadly defined) whose fundamental tenets include the absolute right to externalise costs.
It's about giving rational credence to experts instead of blind credence to fantasists and well-funded PR operations.
And just to correct your framing, Steve: global warming is not a movement - it's a process.
Fascinating to watch all of those here who have already made up their minds. Global Warming is indeed a religion and to question it is to brand oneself a heretic.
ResponderEliminarKeep questioning.
It seems as if the same people who support the orthodoxy on AGW are the same that are willing to judge a book by it's cover and to make a critique of a book they haven't read.
ResponderEliminarBravo to L&D for leaving the comments open to expose these climate fascists for what they are.
This problem is why science has peer review!!
ResponderEliminarPerhaps they all should have left their philosophical diatribes to a scientific journal--or perhaps the paper was rejected because it is not appropriate scientific work?
"I gave him a chance to proof it," is not a defense. Your goal should have been to get it right and to find solutions to an extremely difficult and controversial problem, not come up with a catchy quote to sell books. Or which was it?
Next time I would suggest getting more references than a few interviews from people working at the same office (or university, or lab), especially when doing such controversial work. You could even go crazy and bring in an expert to help you interpret the findings. That's what most scientists do when they working in a field that is not their expertise.
I have no idea why you are surprised at this response. You questioned orthodox opinion and you go the usual response that heretics get. Sloppy proofing is a shame but the response would have been the same without the contested quote - you woudl have been crucified by the vested interests.
ResponderEliminarProbably help sell the book though.
Here is a link to series of emails exchanged between Levitt and another economist.
ResponderEliminarstandupeconomist.com/blog/economics/more-superfreakonomics-emails-from-steven-levitt/#comment-256
The email exchange is really depressing. Especially depressing is how Levitt simply can't understand why the natural cycle of CO2 isn't as important as the fact that CO2 from fossil fuels has increased the CO2 in the atmosphere to a level 150% of where it stood when the natural cycle was in balance (see Brad DeLong's comment at the linked site).
I have spent a significant amount of time going through this information on SuperF, and my premise was that the authors did this either intentionally, or had bad luck in selecting their sources.
Now I see I was wrong. There really is no point talking to Levitt or Dubner; they don
What is the old saying? "If you're digging yourself into a hole, the first thing to do is get rid of the shovel." The sloppy work in Chapter 5 has aroused consternation among economists and geophysicists, a pretty wide swath for a general non-fiction book . Seems the best strategy would be to apologize, fix it, or move to planet Inhofe.
ResponderEliminarAn objective view of something so popular will never provoke a amiable response.
ResponderEliminareasypr.com
Good post on the things you did to ensure accuracy in your chapter. Also a good post on the blogstorms that often arise in the climate change world.
ResponderEliminarOne item I have not seen discussed anywhere and may be worth examining for the climate change chapter in your next book is the extremely thin base of primary source data that underlies most of the historical assumptions on world temperatures before 1850 as well as several fundamental statistical errors that climate scientists made in constructing their models and reporting their results.
Interesting to read this line from Caldeira: "I was drawn in by Romm and Al Gore
ResponderEliminarAll of that won't stop me from buying the book.
ResponderEliminarIt is funny though how people react to issues like this, getting all uppity when they read something that isn't consistent with what they read on a dot org website.
Dot org sites like climateprogress.org push their own agenda and politics. Just because the editor of a website has a Ph.D. in physics from MIT (Romm) doesn't mean he is always going to bring the facts untainted and without his own spin and agenda thrown in.
Looking side by side at the distortions attributed to you and to Romm, Romm is looking rather incredibly bad.
ResponderEliminarIf there was a substantive argument against this chapter, it has now been overshadowed by Romm's apparent libel.
And there appears to be no question that Romm acted deliberately.
I'm glad he altered his original post on the subject. But it is really not enough. He's gone way too far this time and seriously hurt his credibility.
"Let the wild rumpus start."
ResponderEliminarWell, this is fueling my suspicion that this is another balloon hoax case, and you deliberately created this controversy in order to increase sales of your book among the deniers of global warming. I mean, we expect a significant amount of lazyness in research from journalists nowadays, but not from Professors of renowned iniversities. And yet, by your own statements here it seems that the strongest arguments you make in that chapter atre based on a one day interview you conducted at a company who wants to profit from the very same solutions you advocate in that chapter?
I mean, come on, you probably don't mind about this obvious one-sidedness of your approach, but didn't at least Prof Levitt have some objections? Didn't he insist on including an opposing point of view, or conduct a peer review of that chapter? After all, we're talking about probably the most urgent problem of mankind right now, and people can expect you t put at least the same kind of research and investigation into this topic as into the trivial problems you covered in "Freakonomics"! And yet, as countless critics have convincingly pointed out, you engaged in a lazyness that only serves the purposes of those who deny that there's a need for urgent action.
Dunno about you, but this can't have escaped Prof Levitt's attention. So, this really looks like a cheap PR stunt. You may earn more bucks because of it, but as a journalist and scientist, you both failed your responsibility. It's a shame.
A book that has not been published yet, but is rumored to question global warming, starts a massive debate. But the book does not question global warming, actually tries to think of some new and better was to counter it.
ResponderEliminarSo this is not an attack between believers and deniers, but a clash between two groups of believers. One group favors carbon reduction as a solution, the other wants to talk about geo-engineering and wants to debate wether or not carbon reduction is an actual solution.
It's not: "how dare you doubt the problem!" it's: "how dare you doubt that our solution is the only and best way!".
This debate must be held, even if you guys are wrong. And it is scaring me just how much vitriol this is causing.
You may want to head on over to RealClimate as well as they are pitching in with their two cents worth.
ResponderEliminarThey are notorious for snipping out views not in accord with their party line but I cannot see how they could refuse you a right of reply in this case:
realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/10/why-levitt-and-dubner-like-geo-engineering-and-why-they-are-wrong/
I ordered the book already and loved the first one too.
Thanks for giving the eye-rolling high priest of global warming/change some more factual argument. Someday (hopefully soon), the disgusting charlatan and his brown-shirted acolytes will be proven wrong. By facts. Until then, we will have to endure their fascist attacks on the scientific method, and anyone who would dare question their specious claims. Keep up the good work, and I will certainly buy your book.
ResponderEliminarHey, sometimes it's hard to be like Galileo. Serious skepticism in the scientific tradition is one of the essential qualities that sets economics apart from the other social sciences (and, apparently, some physical sciences as well). Keep up the good work!
ResponderEliminar"Believers", "deniers". This argument stopped being about science a long, long time ago. Global warming has become a religion, and Romm and his ilk are inquisitors - sniffing out the heretics.
ResponderEliminarWhenever a "scientist" tells you that the science is settled, watch your wallet - there is another motive in play. For ages, scientists thought the atom was the smallest particle on earth - until other scientists cracked one open and a whole bunch of smaller stuff spilled out.
Science, by its nature, is never settled. Religion, on the other hand....
PS - It snowed in Virginia yesterday (Oct 18).
I know which book I'll be buying this week!! :)
ResponderEliminarStep one inch away from the official narrative, and you get burned, Dubner!
ResponderEliminarThat'll teach you a lesson about the nature of the radical crowd who espouses all of this global warming nonsense.
By the way, the world has been cooling off for the last 11 years... but don't say it too loud or the'll come after you with the pitchforks.
The day we have to spray sulfur dioxide into the atmosphere to counteract catastrophic climate change is the day we certainly have to be actively pursuing reducing CO2 emissions.
ResponderEliminarOne could also reasonably say that 'the day we decide to reduce per-capita carbon emissions by 90% (90!) in a few short decades is the day we had damn well better be absolutely certain there are no less extreme alternatives".
What is scarier -- the prospect of geo-engineering the climate or eco-engineering the global economy? Neither one is particularly desirable, but which of the two is likely to create greater suffering among the world's poorest peoples who live closest to the margins? It's a reasonable question on which reasonable people can differ. Or so it would seem. But among activists like Romm, it's not even kosher to raise this question. How can one not start using terms like 'true believer' and 'heresy' in such an intensely politicized environment?
Gosh, you spent a whole day doing research for your chapter, and people -- instead of acknowledging your great expertise in the field -- have the temerity to question you? My heart bleeds.
ResponderEliminarPaul Krugman is a skunk. What's worse is that he doesn't know much about good economics. I don't know if it's that he purposely distorts stuff or is just plain living in some alternate universe. However he tends to get things wrong a lot.
ResponderEliminarFor example, he has this babysitting example where he confuses labor dollars with money. How the hell can anyone who knows the least little bit about economics make this mistake?
He also self contradicts. He advocated pumping up the housing bubble at it's beginning, yet now that it's obviously wrong he denies that's what he was doing. Yet, now he advocates the government pumping up more bubbles.
I'll withhold judgment on the book until I've read it; however, I will point out that the "global cooling" study was the results of a couple of very primitive climate modeling runs and was never taken very seriously in the scientific community. Journalists, however, latched onto it and created a scare of it - sensationalism is not a new thing when dealing with a distant possibility misunderstood by ignorant men.
ResponderEliminar"ween ourselves off energy that releases CO2."
ResponderEliminarLike aerobic respiration?
#82 Jon,
ResponderEliminarExcellent insight! Did you see the irony in your statement?
Why do you treat all this criticism about your book as a "smear," as defamation? It sounds like you guys are being overly defensive about this, instead of taking it as good-natured academic criticism and being humble to recognize other viewpoints. Then, you can better explain your arguments in a better, more precise way to address this criticisms. But by crying out loud and saying this is a "smear" and "lie," you seem to take away legitimacy to your well-founded arguments.
ResponderEliminarjust saying...
At one point, the Earth had dinosaurs, animals so large that immense amounts of vegetation kept them alive. Even the Arctic had dinosaurs. Then the Earth went through an ice age, where ice covered regions where people now live (and where dinosaurs used to live). I also remember there was something called a "little ice age" when it was so cold, fairs could be held on the frozen Thames in London during the 17th century. Seems to me that the earth goes through "climate change" over the ages no matter what anyone says and does. I think pollution is bad and we should have less of it but I don't think we need to bankrupt our economy to accomplish what may be a minimal intervention. However, I am not a scientist, just your average ignorant American.
ResponderEliminarAllow Eli to summarize why pushing sulfates into the atmosphere is stupid; To reprise J. Willard Rabett's laws to guide climate change policy makers
ResponderEliminar1. Adaptation responds to current losses.
2. Mitigation responds to future losses
3. Adaptation plus future costs is more expensive than mitigation,
4. Adaptation without mitigation drives procrastination penalties to infinity.
Once you start down the sulfate stream in an attempt to adapt, you are committed for your, your kids, your grandkids and essentially forever's lifetime. The cost accumulates.
Moreover, your statements about Calderia agreeing with you are flat out unbelievable. Calderia studies acidification of the oceans by increasing CO2. Pushing sulfates into the atmosphere, not only would do nothing about this, the sulfuric acid that rained out would exacerbate the problem which threatens just about everything in the ocean except the jellyfish.
I wonder what Levitt and Dubner will think of these comments. Personally, I think I'd be more embarrassed by the supportive comments than by the critical ones. "Climate fascists"?
ResponderEliminarGlobal Warming is a religion, and anyone who questions it in any way will be called a heretic. As you have said, it is an extremely complex issue, and anthropogenic global warming has by no means been conclusively proven. Romm, Krugman and the rest are just defending their religion--be a heretic, and call them out.
ResponderEliminarI have a feeling that many of the comments presented herein are from the blogosphere echo chamber and do not reflect the opinions of people who have actually read the book. In fact, I'd guess that many of the bloggers commenting on SuperFreakonomics haven't read the book themselves.
ResponderEliminarNow you know why there is "no other side". Any type of dissenting information that gets put out there is pounced upon by the cabal of e-environmentalists that patrol the net.
ResponderEliminarAn interesting article would be to interview scientists or journalists that have published research or ideas that are against the dogma.
I think you would see a very predictable pattern.
Congratulations, Steve:
ResponderEliminarNow you know what it's like to be Rush Limbaugh.
hey guys, can you consult with us the next time you decide to write a book? i mean, everyone seems to know so much better than you guys do so i think it would help, not hurt. ;)
ResponderEliminar"Despite how certainty feels, it is neither a conscious choice nor even a thought process. Certainty and similar states of "knowing what we know" arise out of involuntary brain mechanisms that, like love or anger, function independently of reason."- Robert A. Burton, M.D.
It seems to me the real religious zealots are the right-wing denier crowd that don't want anyone "mes-sin" with their right to emit as much Co2 and they damn well please. It's a machine cult that worships at the alter of the wealth and power generated by burning fossil-fuels.
ResponderEliminarI seems the premise a little knowledge is a dangerous thing holds firm particularly in this age. Bloggers and posters can seem a small sample of writing and project a lot into it. Others can take the blogger words and amplify it. Few have the time to read a book let alone master the subject and fewer of them are posters.
ResponderEliminarIt takes a lot of time and energy to be truly good at something. More and more the internet seems to be the realm of pretenders and hacks. The sad thing is many of the people spreading these distortions think the are good and intelligent. Well, you are. Still, great high jumpers are not NBA guards even if they could have been had they gone through years of training practice and experience in basketball.
Bring Freeman Dyson to the blog. Your critics have deomonstrated that they HAVE turned the concept of "global warming" into a religion. Remember now, some of these people are employed because if it.
ResponderEliminarThere's only so much you can fit in a chapter on Global Warming. You can't satisfy all parties, and I much rather authors take a sharp stance (like S&L) than fence sit and offer no personal opinion.
ResponderEliminarIt looks like Caldeira made a mistake by not reviewing the manuscript carefully, and he should have, considering he knew how popular Freakonomics was, and knew his views within would be read by many.
Yeah, you guys get little sympathy from me. I'm pretty intimately familiar with climate science, and the statistical tricks used by deniers and (more recently) all manner of non-actionists. For that matter, I also know how enviros work (for good and for ill) and understand how the conflicts between the two usually leave econ people feeling roughed up irrationally.
ResponderEliminarFirst, you get no sympathy because you (or your publishing machine) deliberately courts controversy. You knew what would happen when you put "global cooling" in the title - it's a deliberately controversial phrasing that plays up the unorthodox-ness of the Freakonomics brand. Certainly, the Freakonomics schtick is puncturing orthodoxies, but you can't claim to do that without inviting some serious criticism from its proponents.
Second, you get no sympathy for being innocent scientific ingenues - if you're making policy arguments in the book, they're up for debate. And there's a strong argument to be made that a microeconomist and a journalist who dabble in schtick are not good policy analysts for this issue. So when you go out making policy arguments, and they're not good arguments (i.e., their conclusions, rather than their facts, are wrong), you should expect some serious criticism, especially in the heat of a major policy battle over your subject matter.
Third, you get no pass for methods. I haven't read the book, but the blog routinely takes scientific data and decontextualizes it, resulting in an artificially unorthodox headline. Look at the post last week on ocean cycles. It sounds like that's exactly what happened here. It sounds like Romm laid into your editing process a little more than was warranted, but the central point is that people who know more about this than you take the facts you took, put them in a different (and presumably more expert) context, and reach very different conclusions.
Finally, you keep whining about how political this fight is. Well, for one thing, what do you expect? The stakes in politics are sufficient to rough up unwary data people. For another, politics is a CRITICAL part of the context of the global warming debate. The viability of EVERY policy solution depends on its POLITICAL prospects, not just its scientific or economic ones. We could have solved this problem years ago if everyone just blithely agreed to stop carbon pollution on a sliding descending scale, but that's not how domestic or international politics work. So research into solutions that ignores politics is totally useless.
In conclusion, you guys asked for this, got it deservedly, and get no pity. I look forward to dissection of your conclusions on the merits.
It seems frankly disingenous to put "global cooling" in the title of your book and then act surprised if people assume you're a global warming denier, and start reading your chapter on that premise. At which point you would need to really bend over backward in your writing to get people back onto what you claim you intended. And that's your fault for sending people down the wrong path in the first place.
ResponderEliminarIf you're actively trying to look controversial, you shouldn't be surprised if you're controversial.
ClimateProgress are superfreakin religious zealots of the worst sort.
ResponderEliminarRomm appears to be a scumbag and a liar. The misrepresentations and smears on the part of the global warming prophets are quite staggering.
ResponderEliminarI think this episode is simply the latest in a long list that shows the global warming movement is a religious one, that must denounce and destroy dissent, and ignore contradicting scientific evidence.
This is exactly NOT how they would proceed if they were acting in good faith, and eager to evaluate all scientific evidence to make sure we got it right.
No, they have a preconceived idea, and all evidence must either fit into that framework, or be discarded. Those who do not unqestioningly adhere to their ideology are branded apostates and have the digital lynch mobs sent after them.
Fortunately, the weight of scientific evidence against man made global warming destroying the earth in 60 days is growing too large to be fully ignored.
The fact is that very, very few people understand the science behind the issues well enough to make definitive statements about it, so people instead move in whatever direction their social, political, or economic momentum carries them.
ResponderEliminarKudos to you guys for at least engendering a healthy debate on the variables.
> It seems as if the same people who support the orthodoxy on AGW are the same that are willing to judge a book by it
ResponderEliminarDear hapa
ResponderEliminarNot cynicism i.e., but fundamental doubt and it really pays. There is a difference.
My god, aren't we a bipolar society...
ResponderEliminarQuestioning dogma -- even scientific dogma -- is not only responsible but good.
ResponderEliminar"Science" once told us spaceflight was impossible, Pluto was a planet, and childhood vaccinations cause autism.
Blind faith, even in science, is still blind. And it's my observation that scientists are as slow -- or slower -- as anyone else in admitting their errors.
WOW! Incredible! How inspiring to see these numerous, concerned , thoughtfully and - mostly - patiently written comments on an intricate and involved subect of vital concern to all human kind. Such a relief to sift through the many insightful ideas and questions and opinions that helped me to realize -if not comprehend - the parameters and complexities of these environmental issues. Thanks to all who contributed to this subject!
ResponderEliminarSeriously? Politics and all of the little ideological points both sides try to make are a religion for most people. The fact that so many people are so up in arms about this confirms that they're offended not by poor research, or lack of logic, but by the fact that the conclusions don't fall in sync with their own.
ResponderEliminarKrugman and Romm are notorious for not being able to actually mount an objective, logical and reasonable comeback for conclusions that don't mesh with their own ideas about the world.
That Caldeira does not agree with the conclusions you draw is not an indictment of your reasearch, or of your representation of the facts. Two people can reasonably look at the same data and draw two reasonable and even logical conclusions. Of course when conclusions are mutually exclusive one must be right and the other wrong. But until further data and more conclusive facts come into play it is childish to start calling names and bashing credibility just because two reasonable people disagree.
I can tell you this - wehther or not I agree with the conclusions you draw in the book, I will certainly be buying tomorrow.
At least Levitt and Dubner have left their comment board open. Krugman apparently is too good for comments and has turned them off with respect to all of his posts on this issue.
ResponderEliminarkrugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/10/18/superfreakingmeta/
krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/10/17/weitzman-in-context/
krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/10/17/superfreakonomics-on-climate-part-1/
Let debate flourish!
Karl
"It seems as if the same people who support the orthodoxy on AGW are the same that are willing to judge a book by it
ResponderEliminarI think it is interesting that you have not taken an express position (in this article) on whether Caldeira said:
ResponderEliminarThe aggressive reaction to anyone who dares questioning the global warming theory indicates that the theory and its followers are indeed ideologically biased.
ResponderEliminarIf you will recall, the orginal "Anatomy of a Murder" was a deeply cynical movie showing the behind the scenes of a jaded criminal defense lawyer (Jimmy Stewart) getting a guilty murderer off (Ben Gazara) for killying a paramour of his wife (Lee Remick), claiming she was "raped" by the deceased.
ResponderEliminarStewart ultimately got Gazara off by using the junk science of a quack shrink (Orson Bean) against bellicose prosecutor George C. Scott to claim temorary insanity. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anatomy_of_a_Murder
With that cast of characters in mind, and the current "Anatomy of Smear" to be cast, who was raped, who is offering junk science, and will the accussed get off scott free for their insanity?
Maybe its just me, but I always thought the books were kind of tongue in cheek anyways. I mean, they are very short analysis of very large issues, with lots of jokes and humour thrown in. I figured it was more of a "get you thinking" kind of thing than any in depth research.
ResponderEliminar" 'That said, when I am speaking, I place these facts in a very different context and draw different policy conclusions.' He added that
ResponderEliminarYou guys love being contrarian (and the book sales that ensue) far more than you love the truth. That's your problem.
ResponderEliminarAnd if the seventies Ice Age scare is so clearly a very different case than today's scientific consensus, why does it merit mentioning at all. What's it there for?
You are obviously prevaricating on this.
Interesting that Dubner pans climate models on the one hand when the suggest global warming is a serious issue and reduction of greenhouse gasses are important - but supports/looks favorably upon climate models on the other when talking about his global cooling scheme - which is it?
ResponderEliminarKeep up the good work guys. I believe in climate change and I'm often infuriated at the knee-jerk reaction of our ilk to well-intentioned critiques of the science.
ResponderEliminarThat's why it's called science people. All of this is open to debate if you come to the table with fair inquiry. This is fair inquiry.
denying GW is apparently now just as much a part of the far right catechism as "the free market always finds the best solution" and other fantasies.
ResponderEliminarclimate is sufficiently complex that nothing is certain, but the current best guess is that human activity is causing potentially harmful warming. another part of the righty script is that scientists who find GW are just following the crowd and somehow need to do that to protect their funding. i am a scientist and believe me, if i worked in this area and cared about nothing but funding, i would "prove" that there was no GW and bask in the support of Exxon et al. i know it's hard for some to believe, but most scientists just like to play with neat ideas and follow the observations wherever they lead.
as for the freaky idea of injecting SO2 into the atmosphere to counter GW with cooling, it is one of the most stupid proposals of all time. ever hear of "unintended consequences"? just as climate is too complex to be 100% certain about GW, we understand even less about what this amazing experiment would do to our planet. if you believes that playing sci-fi games with the atmosphere is a good idea, i bet you would even think that credit default swaps should be unregulated, because "the free market always finds the best solution."
Let's be honest.
ResponderEliminarGlobal warming is an unfalsifiable theory. It can't be disproven but must be taken on faith.
Let me add some information here from John Coleman who is our local TV weatherman and a founder of the Weather Channel.
ResponderEliminarmedia.kusi.com/documents/Comments+on+Global+Warming02.pdf
The problem with alarmists as far back as Malthus, Club of Rome and more recently, the Global Warming crowd is that they make dire predictions without much risk of the consequences if they are wrong. There is also something to be said about the state of discourse in this country as far as politics, environment and health issues. There is a lack of civility and too much emotion involved that it clouds the real issues. Every point is polarizing and the tone of the discussion borders on "uncivil war" approaching the Jerry Springer Show.
Now suppose warming gets better and cooling gets worse?
ResponderEliminarAnd can you arrange to make Alaska warmer and Texas cooler?
And as long as I have you here: what is the optimum temperature for the global thermostat? Who decides? Ski resort owners or swimming pool builders?
Or some totally objective people who can judge exactly what is fair?
Of course, I haven't read the book. However, my impression is that their (alleged) misinterpretations of climate science demonstrate the pitfalls of interdisciplinary research/analysis. In order to make certain they were interpreting the data correctly, perhaps they should have consulted climate scientists as they wrote the chapter.
ResponderEliminarAn issue this politicized deserves careful analysis, especially when the commentators (e.g., Levitt and Dubner) are viewed widely as authoritative sources of information. Whether their expertise on this particular matter is real or not, perception is reality...
Yes, we all know that Romm is an idiot; there's one on every side.
ResponderEliminarBy rebutting only his attacks and ignoring the far more substantial criticisms made by William Connolley and Tim Lambert (both over at scienceblogs.com), you're trying to paint your detractors as irrational and not worth replying to. It's a little sad to see from people whose opinions I generally trust.
Assuming their summaries are accurate (please tell me you don't really use the "global cooling" argument), there are serious flaws with your arguments, flaws that you really need to rectify as soon as possible.
Most striking to me is the number of responses here in the Comments that ridicule and deride Dubner for having failed to address or refute the substantive criticisms brought by such renowned scientists as "Paul Krugman, Ezra Klein, Matt Yglesias . . ." and others.
ResponderEliminarSeems like an own goal of sorts, no?
There are two possibilities: it is a hoax or it is not a hoax. The burden of proof is on the postulators and they have failed. The closest they ever got was time slicing. But clearly for every period they show that climate change is upward and potentially man-made, I can find a longer AND shorter period of time to disprove them. Pleistocene (pre & BP) for example AND last ten years.
ResponderEliminarI trust the record more than the models of the poli-sci's.
I know too many scientists to even dream of taking any of them too seriously. That they are now to be unquestioningly respected and spoken of only in hushed tones of respect is a hoot. AGW is not even worth investigating. A waste of time and resources is all it is or was ever meant to be. 'Disrupt the system' and generate a concensus of panic against a mythical common enemy.
ResponderEliminarYou fanatics are clearly bucking for a 'religious war'. Good luck to you when it finally comes.
Mr. Dubner,
ResponderEliminarCaldeira clearly states:
"So, yes, my representation in the Superfreakonomics book is damaging to me because it is an inaccurate portrayal of me. The problem is the inaccurate portrayal, not my actions or statements."
which indicates you're smearing his reputation by clearly misrepresenting his views. It doesn't matter if Romm asked him to state this. Someone can ask me to say the grass is red all they want and I won't agree if it's not true. That's a clear red herring.
As noted elsewhere, there are many more problems with your chapter than just the Caldeira misrepresentation. I sincerely hope you spend sufficient time in understanding what the science says (not just what some blogs claim it says) and make the appropriate corrections. I'm sure you'll sell lots of copies regardless, as your book is being promoted by "skeptics". If you refuse to correct the errors, what you won't be able to retain is your credibility.
Mark B - what are the errors? Show me the money! Show me the analysis. pfffft..the sound of nothing.
ResponderEliminarI love the fact that people want to choose the climate experts you should have talked to. The simple fact is there are no true climate experts. There cannot be in that domain. There can only be people who spend all their time working to understand the complex system of our climate. This makes them no more valuable, and probably more dangerous, than a cab driver on the subject. Any honest scientist will understand why this is the case. This doesn't mean we should crap in our backyard, however. It means you have terrible critcs.
ResponderEliminarYou guys opened up a can of worms - but I'll bet you knew that when you started writing.
ResponderEliminarI look forward to reading your book. Thanks for all you do out there.
Environmentalism is a religion to many people
ResponderEliminarIt gives them a belief system, a good vs evil view of humanity, and a moral code to live by even if it doesn't always make sense. Most people don't recycle for any reason other than it makes them "feel good" and they "feel" like they should do it. (I'm not saying it's bad to recycle, I do it all the time, I'm just saying people approach it from a spiritual perspective)
To Dubner and Levitt, I'm curious as to how the "outrage" regarding this chapter of your book compares to that of the Abortion/Crime chapter.
The freakonomics guys might wake up and see the purveyors of the global warming religion for what they really are if this keeps up.
ResponderEliminarThe urge to save humanity is almost always only a false-face for the urge to rule it.
-- H L Mencken, quoted in the table of contents for Impact Press (October-November 2000)
wow.. and you thought abortion was a lightning rod..
ResponderEliminarrelax peeps!
Your unpardonable sin appears to have been to attempt a balanced view of the conflicting evidence and theories, and apply an economist's analysis of costs and benefits to CO2-induced warming and proposed solutions. One is not supposed to point out the Emperor's nakedness, or to question the practicality or efficacy of reducing or even eliminating CO2 emissions. When absolutists are challenged on their beliefs, they respond as Inquisitors historically have done. Even you have felt the need to assure them that you are not a heretic! Good luck with your book. I hope it is as enjoyable and thought-provoking as Freakonomics.
ResponderEliminarStephen and Steven, I read your first book and really liked it and am waiting for SuperF. I don't think the controversy was some sort off a publicity stunt and do believe your intentions were honorable in trying to address GW in your book. But I agree with a previous poster that you bit off more than you bargained for. It is an emotive issue on both sides of the aisle.
ResponderEliminarHowever, it seems very ironic to me (from the comments) that the people who will be rushing to buy SuperF will be the skeptics, even if they can't appreciate the irony themselves.
The second interesting thing, in light of all the "OMG AGW is a religion" comments, is that if someone were to draw a very large Venn diagram of all AGW-skeptics, creationists and other ultra-religious types, the circles would nearly converge. They would know the tenets of a good dogma, won't they?
Although, not being a climate scientist or anywhere near (lawyer actually), I do understand that global climate is an extremely complicated phenomena and any kind of mitigation or geo-engineering would require careful fore-thought. But, if the cost of doing nothing could be catastrophic as opposed to the cost of any action(s) or a combination, then I would suggest taking Pascal
Can we get Ken Caldeira as a guest blogger? Give him all the time to prepare and space he wants.
ResponderEliminarOr, is there another site where we can get his version of the story, unfiltered by Romm or Dubner?
There's no such thing as bad press.
ResponderEliminarI have always had 3 questions for people that believe in MAN made global warming. It seems they never want to answer them. For good reason because they know if they answer, they prove their theories wrong.
ResponderEliminarHere they are:
1.) If the volcanoS put out more global warming gasES (yes gases because there are 4 more according to the EPA, then just CO2) then humans , then how can humans be such a big part of the equation?
2.) If the IPCC (the UNs own studies) show that cows put out more global warming gases then all the cars, how can humans be such a big part of the equation.
3.) If the oceans (WATER and everything in them) are responsible for 98% of all global warming and everything else (including humans and cows) are only responsible for the other 2% of global warming how can man be such a big part of the equation.
Yes thats right, H2O (WATER) is the main global warming gas (95%) in the WHOLE atmosphere.
Then I give them a picture they can rap their minds around. For instance, If you where to take the Houston Super Dome and fill it up with people to show all the things responsible for all of global warming and then take a count of the people in that dome responsible for man made global warming it would be 4, thats right just 4 out of tens of thousands.
"Can we get Ken Caldeira as a guest blogger? Give him all the time to prepare and space he wants."
ResponderEliminarI second this. Love to get his direct viewpoint.
#11
ResponderEliminarWhy would you ever say that Krugman has any authority or special knowledge in climate science? Just curious. Maybe you have a radically different definition of "expert" than I do. Something that incorporates "notoriety" or "he agrees with me" perhaps?
I think the jury is still out on the whole concept, but that politics has hijacked the science in order to advocate and rationalize some extreme social & political actions.
I have yet to ear a coherent thoughtful response to the multitude of various weaknesses in AGW theory, the flaws in the models, the lack of support or reflection of the data. But I've sure heard a lot of histrionics and overblown outrage by those defending something they want taken on faith.
So frankly, I'm disappointed to hear that you didn't play more the sceptic/contrarian. I look forward to reading the book.
why does the right go so bananas at the suggestion that human activity might be warming the earth?
ResponderEliminarit's absolutely no different from their reaction to suggestions that we might need higher taxes to pay our bills, or that national health care might be the best solution. you can't have a rational discussion, all they do is scream NOOOO and try to kill the messenger.
it seems like religion, but that doesn't really answer the question. i think the right in America, like angry children, simply "freak" out at any suggestion that there might be limits on their behavior. any other suggestions?
and i repeat, the plan of continuing to pump out CO2 while countering it with SO2 is insane.
One more thing - everyone talking about unintended consequences need not forget those of mitigation. By outlawing DDT millions of africans have died from malaria. Instead of thuoghtful debate on the use of DDT, western countries "FREAK"ed out and promoted hysteria - I think they should be held accountable for millions of lives.
ResponderEliminartomk, two quotes from you:
ResponderEliminar1) "... reaction to suggestions we might need higher taxes to pay our bills, ..."
2) "i think the right in America, like angry children, simply
I read chapter 5. I enjoyed it and I like the ideas discussed. Moral of the story is all about externalities - something a lot of folks need to know a lot more about. Sorry about pirating chapter 5, but I promise I will buy the book. I hope the rest of the book is as interesting as chapter 5.
ResponderEliminarRix (#163), it could be true that many or even most creationists are AGW skeptics (I don't know enough creationists to have a sense about that), but I doubt very much that the converse is true. Many AGW believers lump skeptics in with creationists and "flat-earthers" to marginalize their views, and knocking down that strawman is evidently easier than marshaling data to support their AGW conclusions. And I'm not sure what an "ultra-religious type" is. Regardless, in view of the strong "climate change" advocacy by most mainstream churches, it appears that the skeptics do not enjoy the monopoly on "religious" types you assert .
ResponderEliminarMore than 31,000 real scientists, by name, have signed a petition at oism.org stating 1) that to the extent that the earth is warming (or cooling) it natural climate change between ice ages, 2) proving that CO2 is not a pollutant, ever: it is a building Block of life, 3) that with more people to feed earth needs more vegetation (not less) and therefore needs more CO2 (not less) as CO2 doubles and triples plant growth and makes plants draught resistant. Man cannot change earth
ResponderEliminartomk (#169), in the interest of a "rational discussion," dismisses an AGW adaptation suggestion as "insane," and characterizes skeptics as selfish children who want no limits on their behavior. No need for any discussion, apparently. So much for rationality.
ResponderEliminarI don't get the controversy.
ResponderEliminarThere is no man-made global warming. The best evidence shows no warming larger than natural variability. (A lot of contrived, manipulated, and lost "evidence" shows otherwise - hardly anything that can be called "best".)
As MIT atmospheric physicist Richard Lindzen says, we're getting hysterical over a few tenths of a degrees? (And we can't even be sure of that.) Such "science" is going to look ridiculous in the future, he says.
So who cares?
I'm just an environmental scientist from Boulder, Colorado
A couple more things.
ResponderEliminarWhen was the last time science was so denigrated - perhaps during the fierce debate around whether there was a link between cigarette smoking and lung cancer?
There didn't seem to be much debate around the link between the hole in the ozone layer and CFC emissions. CFC reductions were agreed to under the Montreal Protocol - that agreement has been successful in reversing the depletion of the ozone layer. We don't hear much about it, most likely because it didn't challenge the energy industry or threaten a change in our lifestyles.
So it seems science is brought into question when vested interests are threatened - or a change to our lifestyles is called for.
BTW, a question I had from my first reading of this blog - why did you only focus on the I.V. company? Weren't there others to interview?
I happened to be sitting next to your fresh-from-AnnArbor research assistant on the flight back from singularitysummit.com/ on Tuesday the 6th when you were on your way to Boulder . I mentioned to her that I had been driven by fear of this anti-science , anti-life attempt to suppress the available carbon in the biosphere by would-be global tyrants to have spent a painful amount of time over the last several years gaining an understanding of the basic physics . See my http:/CoSy.com for the textbook calculations showing that our mean temperature , like any object in our orbit , is quite constrained to be about 1/21 that of our sun -- and we are .
ResponderEliminarWithin the next couple of months I'll refine these classic functions to provide quantitative values for the effect of any particular spectrum . But in any case , as Caldeira points out , the change in our spectrum at these levels of CO2 capable of sustaining life are "governed by the law of diminishing returns" . That is , at these life sustaining levels , variations in CO2 can not make virtually any difference in our mean temperature . ( He's an order of magnitude off tho , on the residence time of CO2 . A glance at the yearly variation in Mauna Loa CO2 data by anyone with a sense of exponentials shows its half life is a fraction of that . )
What is most sad - and fearful - tho , is that in the name of environmentalism these watermelons are seeking to reduce the welfare of the entire planet by Global State Force in order to actually limit the "volume" of the active biosphere by restricting our restoring to it carbon sequestered in previous extremely lush ages . As Joe Bastardi of AccuWeather.com points out "Common sense dictates that a trace gas needed for life on the planet would not be the cause for destroying life on the planet." Were higher levels of CO2 destructive of life rather than its very , substance , we would not exist . We exhale CO2 because CO2 + H20 thru photosynthesis form more than 90% of the substance of the food we eat -- and thus more than 90% of our own substance . That is why it is not a stretch to label those who want to put the enormous fossil resources laid down in our planet's creation off limits as some cosmic "look but don't touch" joke , anti-science and , in deed , anti-life .
I have a PhD in thermodynamics and I don't care what any pseudo-scientist has to say about it.....The heat capacities of all gasses are more or less the same and approximately one thousandth of those of incompressible fluids (i.e. earth). By pulling CH from the ground and reacting it with O2 , making CO2 and H2O (incompressible) makes it such that the net effect is changing the composition of the earth's atmosphere from one gas (O2) to another (CO2) and should be negligible.
ResponderEliminarBesides, the solar cycle, if there is such a thing, is not well understood (NASA 2009).
I work on 'green' technologies but it is because we are running out of conventional oil period.
Keep up the good work. Unfortunately, you seem to kinda support the man made global warming nonsense BS. That hokum will be shown for the lying religion it is soon enough. In the mean time you do gooder posers get a life. Nuff said.
ResponderEliminarSomething about CO2 increase that wasn't mentioned is that it isn't just a greenhouse gas. When dissolved in water it dissociates to hydrogen ion (a strong acid) and bicarbonate (a weak base). The acidification that has already occurred in the ocean is partly responsible for the killing off of the coral reefs and their function as a fish hatchery, and also the destruction of shellfish of all kinds that require calcium carbonate in their shells. The acidity has been measured in the Antarctic and showed that the ocean's capacity to buffer the excess CO2 had been reached. For this reason, shields blocking the sun's rays aren't really all that effective since CO2 causes other problems that are just as serious as the greenhouse effect.
ResponderEliminarAnother thing that needs mentioning is that the obligate mention of how the models are inaccurate neglects to say which direction they are on. The data show that the models are too conservative and that the climate is going to blazes faster than the models predict. That means if the model says 10 years until we reach the point of no return, we actually have less time before the PNR. That's why at one time the sea rise was thought to be less than has already occurred. Same for Arctic ice cap melting, Greenland glacier movement, ocean pH, and numerous other indicators of coming disaster. For those who advocate taking our time and "what's the big hurry", that's the big hurry. We are fast running out of time if we haven't run out already.
Given the reaction of some of the commenters, one would think that you had attacked the one true religion. As for me, I actually read your post with an open mind. For those who would attack the author, you may wish to remember that drafts of the proposed chapter were sent to all involved, not once but twice. They had ample and fair opportunity to review the text, and make changes if they so desired (which they did, not once, but twice). At each point, Caldeira and others consulted might have voiced protest. That they did not until after the book went to the presses, and the public outcry began, seems to suggest cold feet.
ResponderEliminarAnd little wonder. If the level of vitriol on display in the comments to this post is any indication of the general level of discourse to be expected on this topic, I might be a bit nervous as well. Far better to offer a few weasel words after the fact to smooth things over a bit than to wonder when the brick is going to come through the window, eh?
One would almost think that there exists a certain amount of insecurity here.
The problem (addressed in one of the blog posts) is that cooling will encourage us to carry on emitting CO2, making ocean acidification worse and killing the whole ecosystem there, which is obviously pretty undesirable.
ResponderEliminarIf anyone is curious about the scalability of solar, I'd suggest watching Dr Richard Swansons talk "Solar Cells at the Cusp":
fora.tv/2009/10/08/Solar_Cells_at_the_Cusp_with_Dr_Richard_Swanson
Smear or not, I'm with ya. Sacred cows make the best hamburger!
ResponderEliminar"So it seems science is brought into question when vested interests are threatened - or a change to our lifestyles is called for."
ResponderEliminarWhen unfettered scientific discourse is hijacked and suppressed by an organized group of political extremists bent on forcing drastic and unnecessary social reengineering with hysteria and panic, then it should and will be called into question. An unproven theory is not grounds for implementing an authoritarian state.
The Progressives eat one of their own - how deeply satisfying. Mr. Dubner has exposed the debased and rabid politicization of AGW for all to see if they only wish to. There is no room for any variation from the company line. Mr. Romm gives himself away at first blush by identifying himself as promoting the "Progressive perspective on climate science...". There is no valid political perspective on climate science, there is only the scientific view. As for Mr. Romm, he has shown you the Progressive view, which is characterized by twisting and distorting the truth, character assassination, and screaming one's bloody head off until one get's his/her way. In a world where integrity and science actually mattered, Mr. Romm would be discredited and be considered irredeemable by most people on any side of the issue. But no, he's just seen as an overly aggressive advocate and the likes of Gavin Schmidt glibly use his smears to bolster his own - admittedly much more reasoned, but no less rejectionist - critique of you.
ResponderEliminarI know of only one reason why people reject critical thinking and exploration of ideas and perspectives in a civil and reasoned way; when they are hiding something. Why are Romm et al so freaked out by any discussion or criticism of their positions? If the science is settled, well then it's easy to prove that the criticism is wrong. But he's going nuclear over issues that aren't even science - he's just bashing you because you oppose his hegemony over the truth of any issues surrounding AGW.
It won't matter that you've show his horribly unprofessional email and vile intentions. The political has taken over reason - on both the left and right and polemics are all that matter. It's too bad that our really pressing problems won't yield to hysteria or rhetoric.
dear science minded,
ResponderEliminaryer chain's being yanked. make sure you get a receipt.
One major flaw is that you banked your chapter on a self-interested company, IV, who of course are going to talk up the approaches that they have patents on, and can profit from, and dismiss everything else.
ResponderEliminarWhy did you rely so much on IV? Seems pretty naive, if not outright shifty, to essentially base your chapter on their own self-serving PR.
It's ... not easy to admit that you've messed up. You put a lot of time into this, spoke to a lot of people, learned a lot ... and still didn't manage to do the subject justice. And like most smart people, your knee-jerk reaction when criticized is to defend your work.
ResponderEliminarYes, from a journalistic standpoint, you followed all of the necessary procedures. But nevertheless, your treatment of the subject was not quality work. People make mistakes, and you've made a big one, and now it's time to own it.
Your reputations will not recover until you admit this. I'm sorry you've had to learn this lesson so publicly.
Good luck.
-Will
I don't buy it. You repeat several "conventional wisdom" factoids that are repeated again and again by deniers, aimed at a scientifically illiterate audience, and do not in the slightest challenge them. So why are you repeating them in the text of your book?
ResponderEliminarJust take the "...agnostics grumble that human activity accounts for just 2 percent of global carbon-dioxide emissions,...." Why are you repeating this without pointing out that this fact is irrelevant, since the biosphere emits the most CO2, but it also sequesters an equal amount. There is no net change over time, which cannot be said for fossil fuel burning.
You say above that you did not imply that the "global cooling" has any scientific consensus in the 70's, and to think otherwise is a "willful misreading.' This is nonsense. Unless the reader is aware of the history of the brief "global cooling" media sensation, you leave a impression that the idea had the broad support of the scientific community. Just like the "2%", you are repeating the half truths of deniers, without in the slightest challenging them, leaving their impression to stand.
I don't see any smear. Having read the chapter I see the criticism as very well founded.
Do you guys seriously think that just reflecting sunlight is going to solve the problem? I'm not even sure you guys even know what the dangers of global warming actually are.
ResponderEliminarIt's not just about things getting hotter, it's about the oceans becoming more acidic/toxic, leading to a very possibly chain reaction of extinction. It's about sea levels rising as the ice sheets melt. It's about hurricanes and other natural disasters worsening. It's about international famine as the drought sets in.
Just reflecting the sun isn't going to get rid of the CO2 that causes or contributes to all these problems. What you don't seem to want to admit is that the US is one of the only barriers to an international effort to reduce carbon emissions.
Its envy that's driving Romm's "freak-out." His book is at #224,977 on Amazon's Sales Ranking; Freakonomics is at #128. He knows size t matters.
ResponderEliminarIf you are a carpenter, a hammer is the solution to everything.
ResponderEliminarIf you are a socialist or Al Gore, the need for a Warming Crisis is obvious, because socialism is the answer.
What is refreshing about the freakonomics approach is the open mind.
If there is a problem how do we fix it?
Aerosols, natures volcanic method.
Seaborne mist ships, again a natural method.
What about nuclear power, no carbon, but verboten by the warmists as impure or psychically unclean.
Global warming is indeed a religion. A faith necessary for those seeking power over others.
SG, there were significant (most) parts of the chemical industry who knew they had replacements for the CFCs. Also, at that time a lot of the management were professional chemists and chemical engineers who could understand the research and recognize the need. However, and, as you point out, there were denialists, and curiously enough, many of them denied that environmental tobacco smoke was dangerous, and today deny that climate change is a problem.
ResponderEliminari meant, "the last six posts"
ResponderEliminarI have learned to take a certain pleasure from watching people claim a few things.
ResponderEliminarBig Anthropogenic Global Warming Science is, clearly, ignoring or brushing aside the many substantive criticisms against it, and by god Dubner and Leavitt have poked the proverbial stick in the giant's eye! Bravo, they say.
If you completely ignore the factual refutation of these criticisms that follows, like clockwork, as soon as the data gets crunched, it's a lovely picture.
I do appreciate the criticism that it's become something of a religion. It's a lot easier to point back to other people who have refuted an argument than to learn enough to refute it yourself, and this leads neatly into loyalty based on belonging to a group, not understanding the scientific position. It's a bad criticism, though. The people most interested in ambiguity and questioning are the climate scientists that keep turning up evidence.
Finding solid, provocative evidence that global warming isn't ongoing would make your career! People keep asking statistically verifiable questions about the likelihood that something is happening, and it keeps coming up p<0.05.
The SuperF supporters on this thread sound like the true religious zealots... They offer no scientific evidence to counter the criticisms.
ResponderEliminarI have read through all the comments, and no one is able to support the engineering and scientific calculations that were done incorrectly in this chapter that are subject to the criticism. Its not a smear, if Levitt and Dubner published a load of lies, which they did.
Here is just one more lie in this chapter:
Superfreakonomics excerpt from Page 176:
First off, let me say congratulations for fearlessly taking positive economics into dangerous territory, albeit perhaps with a profit-driven ulterior motive ;)
ResponderEliminarI notice Gavin Schmidt's response on your blog. Shame that he would not let me air polite questions about Briffa's tree ring analysis on his Real Climate web site. It seems to be a one way street over there. Is that how real science is done Gav?
Let this be a challenge to all those who passionately believe in global warming and those who challenge it. Re-create the famous bet between Paul Ehrlich and Julian Simon in 1980 when the resource exhaustion was the flavor of the day. Why not challenge those who stake their reputation on GW to also put their money where their mouths are. There can be several metrics like CO2 level, global temperature and sea levels by a certain time period which can be objectively measured by a neutral third party.
ResponderEliminarWhy not put on the table the Nobel Prize, research funding and above all, their personal funds to see if people are willing to take risks based on what they believe? After all, we are in a free market (or are we?) where price (or prizes) are means of discovery and knowledge.
As someone with a background in science (geology though, not climatology), reading this thread is just incredibly depressing. So many people who think that all it takes to dismiss the consensus of an entire field of science is to point out really obvious facts like; "it hasn't warmed recently!" and just assume that somehow the world's climatologists had up till now been ignorant of them.
ResponderEliminarYou do not understand the science well enough to refute it. To anyone with more than a basic grasp of how science works you sound exactly as ridiculous as the creationists who think all they have to do to disprove evolution is say; "If man evolved form monkeys, why are there still monkeys?".
"They have given the impression that we are global-warming deniers of the worst sort..."
ResponderEliminarDubner says that like it's a bad thing.
A and Hank, you overreact a bit. although i do think that we need to raise taxes - the top marginal rate (90% in the conservative GOP Eisenhower admin) is near a historic low - i was talking about the REACTION of our righty fringe, the language they use and the mantras they repeat. what i said is that the reaction to the science of GW is exactly the same as their reaction to the other bogeymen we've been hearing about since 1980, and i wonder why. if you have a better suggestion than "nobody can tell me what to do", i'd love to hear it.
ResponderEliminarif we could dial back the ideology for a bit: just look at a graph of temperature alongside CO2 levels going back as far as possible. there is an excellent correlation, and the recent rise in CO2 is definitely from human activity. isn't that hard to ignore? do you really think all the scientists are taking their orders from ACORN or shilling for funding? don't you think they have to be at least taken seriously?
ignoring or explaining away something as obvious as the CO2-temp correlation, and smearing the messenger, reminds me of how every developed nation but us provides excellent health care with a national plan for as little as half our costs, but, oh no, we can't look at that. reality
so Hank, you really think it's a good idea to keep pumping out the CO2 but counteract it by pumping out some SO2? sorta like a drug addict who tries to get the right mix of uppers and downers instead of quitting? sorry, but you guys do seem totally out of touch with reality.
How about a LINK to the actual chapter so that we can read it? I am fairly web-savvy, and have looked, but have found no obvious paths to the actual work that everybody is so hot and bothered about. Posting and blogging about what bloggers (notoriously biased people, by my observation) have written about a yet-to-be-published chapter in book seems, sounds and is ridiculous.
ResponderEliminarGlobal warming advocates, here's a little tip. Quit tossing grenades in a debate more suited to precision tools. You accomplish nothing and only serve to stop discussion with people who like the Freakonomics guys, are open to hearing all sides and any well sourced facts you might have. You look like some bizzarro combination of thought police and little children when you throw a temper tantrum at the Freakonomics crew, who are fairly moderate on this issue.
ResponderEliminarLee #199 - It's already been done. Check Nature, Aug. 18, 2005 (Vol 436, page 897).
ResponderEliminarPre-ordered my copy allready. I think I will read it before I condemn or praise- but know this, if I can't debate my position effectively, I won't lay myself and my argument low by stooping to name calling...its sad and benefits no one.
ResponderEliminarAs a scientist, I've been unhappy with the way the left has politicized an important issue like climate change. There are politically correct consequences of climate change that we are permitted to subscribe to; the world will end in a CO2-ushered apocalypse and/or ice age. There are also politically acceptable "solutions". They do not include nuclear power.
ResponderEliminarYou two were very fair, logical, and nonpartisan in your previous book. Being attacked by the political climatologists means you have something interesting to say. I cant wait to read the book. Count me in as another customer, thanks to this controversy.