Eddie:
I took Mike’s posting to indicate that this debate in this forum had been closed, so I wrote to offer assistance with his promised forthcoming article. However, the posting in this forum of that offer and your subsequent message show that I was mistaken. So, I am replying to your message to me, but I see little point in further debate (this probably means that you will ‘get the last word’).
You object to my having said:
“Action to cut carbon dioxide is certain – yes, certain – to kill millions of people, mostly children… It would be a criminal act comparable to the holocaust…The shout of “Fire!” is alarmism and asking people to keep calm is not.”
Your objection is an error. It is not “alarmism” to state why the shout of “Fire!” is harmful: it is factual, reasoned argument for calm.
I explained why action to cut carbon dioxide is certain to kill millions of people, mostly children. If my explanation is flawed in any way then please tell me (and others) the flaw. Your rhetorical response is a logical fallacy, and your resort to it implies that you can see no flaw in my explanation.
You said the GCMs are not suited to predict the short term so I pointed out that no GCM has existed for sufficient time to demonstrate any long-term predictive skill and I asked you;
“Then what makes you think they can predict anything?”
You respond by asserting that I am “confusing weather and climate”. But , no, I AM NOT, YOU ARE.
The GCMs cannot predict ENSO, PDO, etc that are short-term climate effects (which alter and generate weather effects). I am saying that we know the GCMs can not make predictions of these short-term climate effects and we do not know if they can make long-term climate predictions because no GCM has existed for sufficient time to show any skill at long-term climate predictions. And it is not a lack of “civility” to state – as I now repeat – that;
“A model cannot be trusted to ‘project’ climate effects that nobody has experienced when it cannot emulate the climate effects we all experience. Only a blind fool or a religious bigot could think otherwise.”
My statement is simply true. (Your complaint is an example of a call for political correctness that always occurs when the ‘beliefs’ of AGW advocates are mentioned, but AGW advocates rain defamations, insults and abuse on climate realists; e.g. see this forum.)
Your use of actuaries and insurance as analogies is misplaced.
An actuary makes statistical predictions on the basis of observed histories of bulk deaths in the populations. And, insurance companies do not make a “bet” that I will die at a specific time. Actuaries calculate from past history that a proportion of people with my age, health record, affluence and life style are likely to live to a certain age with a statistical distribution of survivals around that age. Therefore, insurance companies use that actuarial information to decide whether or not accept me for insurance and set my insurance premium accordingly.
The behaviour of the actuaries is like that of climatologists who observe the climate cycles and predict the future of those cycles. For example, there is at present much debate on when solar cycle 24 will start. And that debate demonstrates how little is understood concerning climate cycles compared to what is known about human mortality rates. And my repeatedly saying that – on the basis of observed climate cycles – “we do not know if the recent halt to global warming is temporary, will resume or will be followed by global cooling” is like an insurance company saying it does not have sufficient actuarial information to set an insurance premium.
Importantly, an actuary makes assessments of the bulk and not the specific. He does not make assessment of each possible cause of death that exists for each individual then make predictions of specific deaths on that basis. No actuary behaves in that way because the complexity of such a model is very unlikely to provide a correct forecast. But that is what GCMs are constructed to do. And, attempt to make regional climate forecasts is very precisely analogous to trying to do that. But only regional climate forecasts of GCMs are useful because people live in regions and not ‘globally’. Similarly, people are interested in local weather forecasts and not ‘global’ weather forecasts.
And you assert
“The assumption underlying claims about the impossibility of forecasting is that we know nothing about climate. In fact, climate science is based on well-established principles of physics and chemistry, and the CO2 thesis has been around for 150 years.”
Firstly, there is a gross difference between saying
(1) GCM forecasts can not be trusted (as I say)
and
(2) such forecasts are “impossible” (which I do not say).
And I do not assume “that we know nothing about climate”. I have made no such assumption, and I know of nobody who does. Of course we have some knowledge of climate. At issue is the assertion of climate modelers that they understand climate so well that they can predict climate behaviour. Their assertion is unproven and staggeringly arrogant. As I have repeatedly pointed out, we know quite a bit about the human brain that is less complex than the climate system, but nobody claims to be able to predict human brain behaviour (except in such gross terms that the predictions are meaningless).
And the hypothesis (n.b. it is not a “thesis”) that CO2 governs climate has no supporting empirical evidence of any kind. Please note that I have repeatedly stated this, my statement is easy to refute (one scrap of empirical evidence would refute it), but nobody has attempted to refute it).
Then you make a gross error when you say;
”Even more so, the claim that we cannot project or produce future climate scenarios is also based on the assumption that the climate system is utterly chaotic.”
No! The “future climate scenarios” are generated in three stages; i.e.
(a) “Storylines” of future human activity changing over time are created (i.e. social/technology change scenarios).
(b) For each “storyline”, the GHG emissions anticipated in future years are estimated (i.e. emissions modelling).
(c) The changes to mean global temperature in future years resulting from the anticipated future GHG emissions are estimated (i.e. climate modelling).
The complete scenario contains all three stages; (a), (b) and (c). Hence, in each complete scenario, accumulating effects resulting from social/technology changes alter extrapolations from existing social/technology systems, existing GHG emissions, and existing climate. The scenario authors say the “scenarios deal with the future, so they cannot be compared with observations” (ref. IPCC 2001).
The scenarios can be challenged because they contain gross assumptions that many peer reviewed papers – including one of mine – have shown to be ridiculous. Anybody can make up any “storyline” he/she wants.
I answered your accusation that AGW skeptics call AGW promoters liars by my correct statement saying:
“And the title “liars” is thrown about with abandon by AGW proclaimers but not by AGW skeptics (look at this forum for examples of this).”
You respond
A quick Google search will show that AGW sceptics also freely use the ‘L’ word, eg: “Other Al Gore and global warming liars…Gore Lied, Poor People in need of Energy and Technology Died…It is ignorant idiots like you that that allow self admitted Liars like Al Gore…”Liars , Damned Liars and Al Gore…Earth Day is a holiday for liars…The Biggest Liars On Earth: The UN’s Global Warming Panel”. And so on.
I can not answer for everything on the web. But it is a fact proven in a UK Court that Al Gore in his film titled “An Inconvenient Truth” presents a series of lies. There is a profound difference between
(i) pointing out that a propagandist in a propaganda film presents statements that a Court of law has found to be lies,
and
(ii) smearing anybody as a “liar” because they do not agree with assertions of AGW.
I still dislike your having quoted me out of context, but I accept your statement that you did not intend the clear impression that you gave.
As for your distinguishing me from “most sceptics”, you are entitled to your value judgement and I am entitled to disagree with it.
But I very strongly agree with you when you say;
“… debate requires good faith and in particular consistency”.
Richard
