Cuffe in Cancun

@R Tol
You state that “funding for Irish research on environmental matters has been severely cut” – can you provide details of what these cuts are?

@seafóid
I think it is unfortunate that there appears to be only one climate change/green policy contributor on this blog that presents only one viewpoint – another perspective would be interesting to hear instead of continual green bashing.

Richard Tol is the JTO of environmental issues.

Richard,

Very good point, though perhaps you have interpreted Mr Cuffe somewhat uncharitably — reading his text benevolently, it does appear that he is vaguely aware of the ‘logic of instrumental reason’. Yet the way he puts it shows that he doesn’t draw a clear line between ‘advocacy science’ and truth-seeking science that ‘follows the argument wherever it goes’. He’s another cherry-picker and data dredger — and there are plently of them on both sides of the divide in the field of climate change.

At the risk of teaching my grandmother to suck eggs, I recommend the following book as a must-read.

The Honest Broker: Making Sense of Science in Policy and Politics
by Roger A. Pielke Jr.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Honest-Broker-Making-Science-Politics/dp/0521694817/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1291973476&sr=1-1

The book’s focus is on the interaction between climate change science and climate change policy. Chapter Six is particularly fascinating (Title: When scientists politicize science).

In other words, Mr Cuffe argued that science necessitates action. This is not true. Science will tell you what if. If you do not like the prediction, you should do something about it. That is a value judgement, however, rather than a scientific fact.

How dare Mr. Cuffe come out with such balderdash.

It is like someone saying I had to hit the brakes because a woman walked in front of the car. The driver clearly did a complex calculation based on on the velocity of the car and then made a value judgment based on the likely injuries to the woman, his legal liability, the sociological and economical cost of mowing down women crossing the road and made a value judgment.

Or it is like politician in the lashing rain saying they had to put up their umbrella because of the rain. More lies and dissembling by the mandacious political classes. They assessed the wear and tear to the umbrella likely to be caused by the rain, the damage which could be caused by the rain to their clothes and health, their tough man image, the possibility of a photo-op, how other people would regard their use of an umbrella in the rain and then made a value judgment.

It is about time somebody called a halt to the misleading, deceiving and distorting statements like these which are destroying public debate. These short, clear and simple statements lack the length, complexity and endlessly-recursive qualities needed to properly inform the public!

Dihydrogen Monoxide is the most deadly and widespread pollutant on the planet, contributing hundreds of times more to global warming than all the other greenhouse gases combined. If Cuffe can get agreement in Cancun to ban this ghastly stuff then all our problems will be over.

Well they seem hell bent on trying to ban CO2.

You’re right Richard, GCAA doesn’t aim to reduce energy directly, it ‘tackles climate change adverse effects on communities through active projects implemented within eighteen most vulnerable countries’

i.e. helping other countries deal with the consequences of countries like Ireland who spent a decade churning out greenhouse gases to create empty houses.

@Brian J Goggin Says:

“Someone has to work out how to pay for things.”!

Absolutely and the economist is the person best qualified to study and suggest generally where the money came from, where it went and whether it took an unnecessary detour along the way. Economics is fascinating and revealing and the little glimpses I get here of what happens inside the economy are fascinating.

I would hold however that economics is a social science with a fundamental dependency on value judgements and which is inextricably tied to political outlook – left wing monetarists are in short supply, ditto right wing Keynesians (to a lesser extent).

Economics is also an important weapon on battleground of ideology and let us not pretend that we do not have a preferred side in the war or worse that the “laws” of economics support a certain political viewpoint or organization of society.

@ Shay Begorrah

One thing I dislike in social sciences is the way that people try to pigeonhole authors/researchers according to their perceptions on a left-right scale. The left-right divide is unhelpful as it ignores the underlying logic that led the person to their conclusions. You’ll find that even most of the economists you label as ‘right-wing’ will hold apparently ‘left-wing’ views regarding some issues (e.g. education health etc), but right-wing views regarding other issues (e.g. some unions). With that in mind, I cringe when I hear someone labelled (even if by themselves) as a ‘Keynesian’, ‘austrian’ or ‘monetarist’. I doubt many people could have their thinking summarised by these terms.

What I’m getting at is this – you seem to be judging economists who write on climate change by your perception of either them or of economics itself. This is quick and easy, but inaccurate. The arguments themselves are what matter.

My view
1 – yes, at best it gets cash to projects in developing states that have to cope with the consequences of Irish emissions; at worst it means getting 18 votes to join the EU bargaining position
2 – if the govt lives long enough it will
3 – no – it contributed to a EU pan-governmental fund.
4 – no, see 1

“Mr Cuffe argued that science necessitates action. This is not true.”

http://www.monthlyreview.org/100301magdoff-foster.php

Climate change does not occur in a gradual, linear way, but is non-linear, with all sorts of amplifying feedbacks and tipping points. There are already clear indications of accelerating problems that lie ahead. These include:

• Melting of the Arctic Ocean ice during the summer, which reduces the reflection of sunlight as white ice is replaced by dark ocean, thereby enhancing global warming. Satellites show that end-of-summer Arctic sea ice was 40 percent less in 2007 than in the late 1970s when accurate measurements began.4

• Eventual disintegration of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets, set in motion by global warming, resulting in a rise in ocean levels. Even a sea level rise of 1-2 meters would be disastrous for hundreds of millions of people in low-lying countries such as Bangladesh and Vietnam and various island states. A sea level rise at a rate of a few meters per century is not unusual in the paleoclimatic record, and therefore has to be considered possible, given existing global warming trends. At present, more than 400 million people live within five meters above sea level, and more than one billion within twenty-five meters.5

• The rapid decrease of the world’s mountain glaciers, many of which—if business-as-usual greenhouse gas emissions continue—could be largely gone (or gone altogether) during this century. Studies have shown that 90 percent of mountain glaciers worldwide are already visibly retreating as the planet warms. The Himalayan glaciers provide dry season water to countries with billions of people in Asia. Their shrinking will lead to floods and acute water scarcity. Already the melting of the Andean glaciers is contributing to floods in that region. But the most immediate, current, and long-term problem, associated with disappearing glaciers—visible today in Bolivia and Peru—is that of water shortages.6

• Devastating droughts, expanding possibly to 70 percent of the land area within several decades under business as usual; already becoming evident in northern India, northeast Africa, and Australia.7

• Higher levels of CO2 in the atmosphere may increase the production of some types of crops, but they may then be harmed in future years by a destabilized climate that brings either dry or very wet conditions. Losses in rice yields have already been measured in parts of Southeast Asia, attributed to higher night temperatures that cause the plant to undergo enhanced nighttime respiration. This means losing more of what it produced by photosynthesis during the day.8

• Extinction of species due to changes in climate zones that are too rapid for species to move or adapt to, leading to the collapse of whole ecosystems dependent on these species, and the death of still more species. (See below for more details on species extinctions.)9

• Related to global warming, ocean acidification from increased carbon absorption is threatening the collapse of marine ecosystems. Recent indications suggest that ocean acidification may, in turn, reduce the carbon-absorption efficiency of the ocean. This means a potentially faster build-up of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, accelerating global warming.10

But never mind. The ESRI have a climate SWITCH model that shows the environment is doing very well.

@Seafroid

Get with the times! Virtually all the alarmist points that you list have been disproved or downgraded since ClimateGate, HimalayaGate, and others.

Even former AGWers have returned to the practice of science rather than dogma, viz Judith Curry.

““It’s a very complex scientific problem. There’s a lot of uncertainty,” she says. “It’s not that we’re incompetent, there’s just a lot of inherent variability. A lot of that is unknowable.”

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/11/03/a-profile-of-dr-judith-curry/

@Richard

Having denounced Cuffe for confusing politics with science, you then make a spurious argument that the 2deg target is the ultimate reason for the politicisation of climate science.

Is it not more reasonable to blame the serial science mercenaries like Singer, Soon, Baliunas (etc. etc.), people with a long and well documented history of signing up to whatever anti-science campaign is ongoing, and of profiting personally as a result? Cigarettes and lung cancer, the ozone layer, climate change etc are all one to them.

Fred Singer recruits Hal Lewis to sign an open letter and apparently that’s news. Then Lewis resigns from the APS and signs up with the GWPF and that’s news again. How many more times will the same guy doing the same thing continue to be news? And more to the point, shouldn’t you therefore direct some of that ire against Singer who has left a paper trail a mile long detailing his commercial dealings with the oil and tobacco industries?

Climate science has become politicised because the denial industry lays out arguments more like defensive trenchlines than as part of a coherent scientific schema. They can’t win the scientific argument — they don’t conduct observations or publish papers because they’ve nothing to say. Rather, only by politicising the argument can they drag the conversation on ad infinitum — and only by ensuring no conclusion is ever reached can they avoid losing the debate.

@ Adrian

Having denounced Cuffe for confusing politics with science, you then make a spurious argument that the 2deg target is the ultimate reason for the politicisation of climate science.

Bingo. The poor state of the ESRI these days, part XIV.

@Richard Tol

Thanks for your response re cuts to EPA funding.

@Richard

Is there any application of the word “worst” which isn’t somewhat dependent on some form of value system? This is a bizarre level of pedantry. “The worst effects of climate change” is a pretty reasonable phrase.

If a paper talked about avoiding the “worst effects of a cancer”, it’d be reliant on a value system, but still entirely reasonable.

@Everyone
Far too much comment on this thread is of the “how dare Tol say this”, “no, he has a right to say this”, variety. I think the anti-Tol people are personalising this and the pro-Tol people address all their responses to whether Tol has a right to speak. Tol’s posts can comes across as abrasive. Maybe that is his natural manner. He tends to be curt, direct and has a mathematical logic. These are unIrish traits but we live in a multi-cultural world. Exchanges on this forum probably don’t help. Also anything connected with the GP now has an automatic negative effect on many people, seemingly him included. Then there was the bad blood from the incinerator debate.

For anti-Tol people I would say that you are losing the opportunity that a Tol post on this forum provides to discuss what you think and why on these particular issues. You should see his posts as an opportunity to put your case, not a heresy that needs to be righteously dismissed lest it pollute feeble minds. It also makes for a terrible thread. I would recommend that you just stop talking about Tol, or his right to speak, and instead focus on putting your own case.

Well said, Oliver.

bjg

@Everyone
Regarding my posts on other threads: yes I am being fairly hypocritical! But I think my advice is still valid.

Scientific American had a great insight into the green brain.

The Tol Method at work.

For the benefit of those who have not read the Scientific American article, it makes no reference to a green brain or to religion but a sub editor uses the word heretic in the title

Judith Curry is not a heretic, just a scienist who has found a way to gain her 15 minutes of fame.

She has no more or less claim to authority than any other scientist.

I notice Richard once again has mounted his clapped-out Rosinante: “Climate Science is a religion”. That spavined old beast won’t carry you far, Professor.

Perhaps you would list for us those you consider “proper” scientists a la the Tol Criterion, and the benighted religionists from whom no good can some?

@Richard,

Glad to hear you say it. I do agree the gentlemen you mention wear their hearts on their sleeve somewhat, and often overstep the appropriate level to pitch their case, but I think “religion” is going a bit far.

Far scarier is the anti-intellectualism and obscurantism you find on all denialist websites, especially, if you delve into the comments. I gave up reading them some time ago as being too depressing, but it is worth the exercise as a one-off.

I regard the Cancun Convention (is that the correct term?) as being in the realm of politics rather than science. Given the forces involved, it is about the best that could be achieved in the circumstances. I fear many more negative outcomes of global warming must become manifest before more forceful action is taken.

@Richard,

Whatever about nutters, I reject the implied equivalence of “both sides”. There is only one side, which is the scientific one. There is a minority view which is too small to be called a side, and then there is a fringe movement in the media and blogosphere.

I have noticed that at least most media outlets have ceased to bother getting the mandatory quote from deniers when reporting global warming. That is good, because the fiction of “both sides” and “scientific debate” has persisted for too long.

Our response to the scientific facts has to determined by our values, which is another story.

by the way- as per Press Release – the money is going to the Global Climate Change Alliance which is an EU initiative – not a UN Fund (www.gcca.eu) (I trust this is not indicative of Mr. Tol’s general scant analysis of facts?)

It is of-course an unscientific leap of faith to jump to the unqualified conclusion that this fund amounts to a ‘bribe’. Mr. Tol says he has seen no evidence to the contrary although he provides no evidence to support his assertion – which seems to be borne more out of his pre-analytic bias.

With respect to insensitivity – there is a world of difference between austerity and starvation – most Irish people understand that despite our woes we are extraordinarily lucky unlike the majority of humankind. That is why we continue to be extremely charitable people.

The five GCCA priority areas include :

• Adaptation: Building on the National Adaptation Programmes of Action (NAPAs) and other national plans: in-depth research on the likely effects of climate change and reliable climate observation is essential for all adaptation measures. Furthermore this information needs to be translated into practical information for use by policy and decision-makers. The GCCA supports developing countries improve their knowledge base on the effects of climate change, so as to develop and implement adaptation strategies.

• Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD): About 20% of global greenhouse gas emissions are caused by deforestation. In LDCs, 62 % of total emissions originate in land-use change, primarily deforestation. The GCCA seeks to decrease the CO2 emissions from developing countries by creating incentives for forest protection, while preserving livelihoods and ecosystems depending on forests.

• Enhancing participation in the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM): The CDM has the potential to bring significant foreign investment to poor countries given that it costs less for industrialized countries to invest in emission abatement in developing countries than at home. At the same time, developing countries receive advanced technologies helping them in their own sustainable development efforts. So far, however, the poorest countries have attracted only few CDM investors. By building capacities and providing technical support, the GCCA will try to level the playing field and promote a more equitable geographic distribution of CDM projects.

• Promoting Disaster Risk Reduction: There has clearly been an increase of natural disasters linked to extreme weather events, resulting from climate change. The GCCA will assist the most disaster prone countries in building their capacities to prepare for, mitigate and prevent natural disasters.

• Mainstreaming climate change into poverty reduction development strategies: Climate change affects many sectors and needs to be integrated or “mainstreamed” into poverty reduction efforts to ensure sustainability. The Alliance will strengthen the on-going implementation of the EU Action Plan on Climate Change and Development (focused on mainstreaming) in the most vulnerable countries.

@ toby

Take pity on flat-earth economists!