Benford on Crichton

Reason Contributing Editor Gregory Benford has coauthored, with Martin Hoffert, a scorched-earth review of Michael Crichton's State of Fear, claiming the anti-green-activist tome misrepresents and misunderstands much of the science on which it is based (Benford and Hoffert are the authors of a paper that Crichton misuses in the book).

Writing in the San Diego Union Tribune, they say:

Much is at stake if we embrace "State of Fear's" take on global warming. Antarctic ice cores show that our civilization has enjoyed a long, comfortable climate for the last 10,000 years. To disturb this with a sudden rise in temperature could soon endanger us. Worse, there are some clues that we could tilt the global equilibrium and not be able to get back to the balmy era we've enjoyed throughout human history. That would be a catastrophe dwarfing the recent tsunami's destruction.

The climate/energy issue failed to surface in the last election not because it's unimportant but because we fail to sense the urgency. In large part this is because of deniers like Crichton, resulting in a U.S. policy that is "aprs moi le deluge."

Benford and Hoffert believe that technological fixes can counteract global warming with few problems. Whole thing here.

Reason's Ronald Baily reviewed Crichton's book in the Wall Street Journal here.

And Benford suggested ways to beat man-generated heat in Reason here.

Comments

[R C Dean]

To disturb this with a sudden rise in temperature could soon endanger us.

Sure. Is there any evidence that a "sudden rise in temperature" is either underway or imminent? I haven't heard of any. In fact, the use of the word "sudden" makes me think someone is trying to scare me rather than educate me. I have heard a lot of controversy about the quality of data, and about the apparently inexplicable inconsistency between surface temperatures (which may be creeping up, but in any event are based on low-quality data) and upper atmosphere temperatures (which may be creeping down, and are likely higher quality data).

Worse, there are some clues that we could tilt the global equilibrium and not be able to get back to the balmy era we've enjoyed throughout human history.

The climate changes constantly, at micro and macro levels. If anything we are coming off of a cold spot (the Maunder Minimum). Is there any indication that some kind of semi-permanent equilibrium is about to be disrupted?

Given that carbon dioxide is not even one of the top climate variables, what is this supposed to mean? What are we doing to affect water vapor, for example? How does man-made CO2 and particulates really stack up against natural sources for these things (volcanos, hurricanes, and the like)? Why should we conclude that mankind's marginal contributions to a couple of the variables in play is "responsible", or that anything we do will preserve an "equilibrium" that includes the so-called "little ice age"?

That would be a catastrophe dwarfing the recent tsunami's destruction.

Of course, implementing the one-world government, complete with massive wealth destruction and transfers, would also be a catastrophe dwarfing the recent tsunami. That is, after all the solution that is being pushed by most of the global warming crowd.

I don't have an opinion on the technical fixes the authors propose, but I do think that the vast majority of "global warming" science is a scam and a fraud being funded and perpetrated by people with a political agenda. Fundamental questions are not being answered, wild and unsupported conclusions are being solemnly put forth as fact, etc.

If there is a low-cost solution to the potential for global warming, then sure, maybe its worth looking at. But you have to discount the potential cost of global warming against both (a) its benefits and (b) its likelihood before you can even begin to come to a conclusion about what cost is low enough.

[xray]

RC: why would you have no opinion on the technical fixes the authors suggest? you obviously have expert opinions on the "science" behind the global warming conspiracy.

[chthus]

On the subject of global warming, this may not be the earth's first go-round.

"WASHINGTON ? Scientists call it "The Great Dying," a 250 million-year-old catastrophe that wiped out 90 percent of ocean species and 70 percent of land species in the biggest mass extinction in Earth's geologic history.

The cause of the cataclysm is a matter of great dispute among paleontologists, but research released yesterday offers new evidence that global warming caused by massive and prolonged volcanic activity may have been the chief culprit.

Huge amounts of carbon dioxide were released into the air from open volcanic fissures known to geologists as the "Siberian Traps," researchers said, triggering a greenhouse effect that warmed the Earth and depleted oxygen from the atmosphere, causing environmental deterioration and, finally, collapse."
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2002156517_global21.html

[The Wine Commonsewer]

Mrs TWC has read the book and loved it if for no other reason than it portrays the eco-fascist movement for exactly what it is.

My only reservation is that I have not forgotten Crichton's xenophobic and completely WRONG take on the state of the world in Red Sun Rising.

He is an engaging and entertaining writer but if one can be as 180 out of whack as he was in Red Sun I will be reading State of Fear with a salt shaker nearby.

At the same time I will be heartened and cheered by the fact that every once in a while there is some well done Pop Culture propaganda for somebody besides the whacky left and their apostles.

If we are ever to win the intellectual battle it will be because liberty and freedom have become cool and are reflected in our pop culture as such. Movies, TV, and books not screeds documenting Harry Browne's misuse of connections at the LP as seen at Liberty online this month. BORING and we don't care. Neither does anyone else.

About dam time.

[Sarnath]

My only reservation is that I have not forgotten Crichton's xenophobic and completely WRONG take on the state of the world in Red Sun Rising.

Don't forget his butchering of Chaos theory in Jurassic Park.

[gaius marius]

To believe Crichton and company, you have to believe that there's a vast conspiracy ? involving the editors of Science, Nature, Scientific American and some dozen other peer-reviewed journals ? to exclude and reject climate skeptics papers. The skeptics mainly publish books and on Web sites, avoiding journals.

i can't speak for crichton, but i (unlike mr dean) don't see the need for an anti-skeptic conspiracy any more than in any other example of crowd groupthink. peer-review is a wonderful thing, but it is far from infallible because people are not rational monads. we're complex, social, herding animals.

anyone who doesn't see catastrophic global warming's narrative parallel to the book of revelations must be blind; but it is one thing to see the parallels and another to accept why they would be potentially valid. indeed, if all environmentalists are scientists and all scientists are rational, there could be no such parallel except by coincidence.

but neither of those two presumptions is true -- indeed, very few environmentalists are scientists; and no scientist is strictly rational, despite effort.

it seems to me that MUCH more needs to be done even to demonstrate conclusively and quantitatively that warming exists; and then again to demonstrate that, if it exists, the mechanism has something material to do with mankind and industry -- and not, say, the vagaries of solar output.

it very well might; and if it can be shown to, it will merit the full use of social institutional power to check and moderate the industrial markets of consumption. and i fully agree with benford when he says:

now is precisely the time to take seriously the concept of "geoengineering," of consciously altering atmospheric chemistry and conditions, of mitigating the effects of greenhouse gases rather than simply calling for their reduction or outright prohibition. While such a notion may seem outlandish at first blush, it merely acknowledges explicitly what everyone already understands: that human activity has an impact on the planet.

but starting manhattan projects on unfalsifiable speculation is unwise, to say the least.

[Titus]

I have a few questions.

What are the chances that the earth's climate could become a lot colder as a result of natural (or more accurately, non-man-made)events? If volcanos etc make the climate warmer, what makes it cooler?

Have global-cooling possibilities been considered in the equation? If so, what are the chances that man-made heat would be a good thing?

[jc]

If you don't want to be ignored, my first suggestion is not to use phrases like "aprs moi le deluge" in an English-language paragraph.

[Gary Gunnels]

The novels of Michael Crichton have a very consistent theme, which is the stupidity and arrogance of scientists (with a few scientific heroes thrown into save the day).

This theme runs throughout Prey (this book was almost hysteria-driven in its view of nanotechnology), Timeline (the man proved himself to be a hack in two fields - physics and history - what an amazing feat) and Jurassic Park (let's plagiarize Gleik, but do so in a way as to empty chaos theory of anything more than mere sensantionalism, and do it in a way to ignores the true nature of what folks are talking about in the field).

[Jason Ligon]

To me, the asteroid impact scenario is a good example to test our feelings about global warming.

I personally find the asteroid call for action more compelling. After a little introspection, I come up with the following reasons:

1) We know with much greater precision what would happen were an asteroid of a given size impact with the earth. The results of global warming are unclear.

2) I feel confident in good ol' Newtonian mechanics as a fix to the asteroid problem. When asked to spend money on something, I can ask, "Okay, how would that fix change the mechanics of what is essentially a billard ball problem?" Someone might propose a solution that imparted a small amount of perpindicular momentum to the body, and every scientist in the world could come to agreement on whether that momentum would be sufficient for a rock of X mass and A, B, C dimensions. The predictive power of climate models is absolute crap by comparison. The variables are interdependent. In all honesty, until we have a model that works, we don't even know if we are helping or hurting ourselves. It is not obvious that cooling is better by any mechanism.

3) The cost of proposed solutions to climate change is ginormous, for all that we don't know what they will accomplish. It is a real problem that every dollar either spent toward preventing the unpreventable or toward a non solution to a real problem can be translated into increased poverty and lack of innovation elsewhere.

4) The call to just 'trust the scientists' is misguided, as Benford should know. Climatology ain't physics. No one would cross a bridge if engineers had the same error bars as climatologists do. All we can get is that 'it is real' and that 'warming is happening'. When we ask at what rate, we get nothing. When we ask if the increase goes on forever, we get blank stares. When we ask about the contribution of backgroud effect, we get 10,000 answers. This, we are told, is Scientific Consensus. I call BS until you can meet even a fraction of predictive standards held in other scientific disciplines.

[M1EK]

In order to accept RC's hypothesis that the scientists who are (fairly unanimously) pushing the "GW hoax" are just doing it for political or economic benefit, one must presume that climatologists are, or will become, extremely wealthy by doing so, since it's fairly certain they come from positions throughout the ideological spectrum otherwise.

One must also assume that the millions and billions being spent by oil and coal companies funding groups like the Greening Earth Society and their pet skeptics (where 99% of the skeptics actually come from, actually) are simply an example of Our Friends At Those Corporations spending their hard-earned money for no other reason than for the good of all mankind.

Occam is spinning in his grave.

[Jason Ligon]

And I agree 100% with criticisms of Crighton. Especially the Chaos debacle. Even Gleick sensationalized the study by leaving readers with the impression that nearly all systems are chaotic. When I actually studied nonliear dynamics in college, boy was I bummed.

[gaius marius]

If you don't want to be ignored

doesn't everyone want to be ignored by dullard francophobes, mr jc?

The novels of Michael Crichton have a very consistent theme, which is the stupidity and arrogance of scientists (with a few scientific heroes thrown into save the day).

mr gunnels, i rather view crichton's theme as a part of a literary and cultural (d)evolution back into mythology. i just got done reading mitch albom's wildly popular little vignette -- which is still ironic in mode, but most of the way to recycling myth and the stories of gods. also note the ubiquitous "da vinci code", which again make myth, conspiracy and mystery out of what was once presumed rational, i think the framework within which one can interpret crichton becomes clear.

to the extent that he is a cynic w/r/t scientism -- the faith of science as the solution to all problems -- he could be disguised as a rationalist. but i think his view is one skeptical of science, and as such he is yet another resonant echo of the romatic elevation of mythos. honestly, i view the ascendant popularity of such types of fiction -- having now replaced the irony of arthur miller, steinbeck and hemingway -- as yet more evidence of the deep decline of the west from irony and absurdity into mystery.

[John]

I don't think that there has to be a vast conspiracy for a lot of what Creighton says to be true. The fact is long term climate change is an incredibly complex subject. A definitive answer is likely beyond our reach. The best science can do is give educated hypothesis on what they expect to happen and how to explain what already has happened. Scientists are not immune from their own personal biases. People see what they want to see and are much more easily swayed by theories and explanations that fit their pre-conceived worldview. The fact is most of the scientists in this area have a pre-conceived world view that capitalism; especially western capitalism is bad for the environment. They are therefore, much more likely to embrace any explanation for events that confirms this view. Man-made global warming fits that bill in spades. Interestingly enough, the same climatologists, who embrace global warming now, embraced global cooling in the 1970s. The consensus in the 70s was that the world was headed into another ice age because; you guessed it, of man-made pollutants in the atmosphere.

The science is not nearly as clear as proponents seem to think it is. There is a hell of a lot of groupthink going on in the scientific community about this. Every piece of data is immediately interpreted in a way that supports the theory regardless of other equally plausible explanations. This combined with some thoroughly nasty leftist masquerading as greens is quickly diminishing the world's ability to think cogently about this subject. It's a very difficult issue. Even if CO2 is causing warming, I have yet to see one practical solution to lower CO2 levels that didn't involve the destruction of most of the world's GNP, a solution that is much worse than the disease. Since the scientists have become so dogmatic about this Greens will do anything to stop capitalism, there is not a whole lot of cost benefit analysis going on. More than anything, there is a lot of careerism, dogma and outright religious faith. That is not a recipe for good policy.

[Psych-o-naut]

M1EK: They're not getting rich, but they are getting paid.

As Dr. Klein said in the NY State Psych Institute, you gotta make your grants sexy if you want to get federal funding. Right now, and for the last 10 years global warming is sexy, so grants proposing to prove it will get funded. Pretty good for a bunch of atmospheric science majors who would otherwise be trying to get a gig on the weather channel, or driving a bus or something.

I'm not stating that either side is right or wrong, but don't think people only sell out for millions. I've seen folks sell out for a few thousand bucks if it's in the form of a steady paycheck.

[John]

You are right psychonaut. If you found out tommorow a way to definitively prove that global warming is crap, how many NES grants do you think you would get? How popular would you be in the scientific community after you ruined so many people's life's work? You might win out in the end if it was definitive, but the fact is the answer is not going to be definitive either way. The problem is just too hard. What is more likely to happen is you have some data or theories that are a turd in the punch bowl to global warming but not definitive. How far does your career go then? Not far at all and if you cared about your career and wanted to have one, you might just forget or not publish those conclusions.

[skippy]

Gaius Marcus,

you're putting an onus of 'proof' on this issue that is not asked for, or expected, in any other scientific field.

The current evidence on global warming is about as conclusive as these sorts of things get. Period. End of discussion.

Now, what to DO about it, is another matter entirely, and there's plenty of room to argue about that.

[gaius marius]

The current evidence on global warming is about as conclusive as these sorts of things get. Period. End of discussion.

if only that were so, mr skippy. it may be as conclusive as they get for *philosophical* systems -- for example, the theory of civilizational cyclicality i often refer to -- but it has virtually none of the rigor of science.

there are two issues: one is the phenomena, second is the mechanism.

with gravity or evolution, the phenomenon itself is not in question. but we still have very incomplete pictures of the mechanisms of both. no one knows how gravity really works -- only that it does.

with manmade global warming, there has to be the phenomenon observed -- rising temperatures around the planet -- and then a mechanism demonstrated not only potentially but quantitatively and isolated from other factors, subject to falsifiable predictive testing.

i have yet to see the data that shows me conclusively that the phenomenon exists. (i took a bs in chemical engineering -- if you have technical evidence, toss it to me. i'm dying to be convinced.) indeed, the fact that there is a debate still raging about the phenomenon makes folks who claim the debate is over simply look deceitful.

again, none of this is to say that global warming can't happen, or that human industry has no effect -- to the contrary on both points.

but it is silly, if not outright deceptive, to claim that both the phenomenon and mechanism have been conclusively discovered.

[psych-o-naut]

Skippy: It's as conclusive as studies of association get, such as the link of cigarette smoking with lung cancer (r squared of .15). That menas that smoking can explain 15% of the varience associated with symptoms of lung cancer in patients. In other words, something is going on, but if you smoke you do not necessarily get lung cancer, as most people can tell you from personal experience.

Other examples of this type of science of statistical association are cholesteral levels or blood pressure to heart disease and specific genes relating to certain cancers.

It's not as conclusive as the science used to knock an asteroid out of the earth's path, tho.

[gaius marius]

The problem is just too hard.

mr john, i appreciate your view. i think people too often apply the reductive analysis and abstraction that are central to modern science where is cannot be of much use. global environment, it seems to me, is a system of irreducable and unstable complexity that will probably never be well-defined or well-understood. some evidence seems to suggest that the degree and violence of natural climate variation is potentially well beyond anything we commonly imagine or have any explanation for. (though this too is subject to debate.)

that isn't to say we should quit examining the planet, obviously. but i think it behooves us to take our simplistic catastrophe theories with a healthy dose of appropriate modesty, acknowledging that they probably say at least as much about us as they do the weather.

[R C Dean]

I don't mean to imply there is a conspiracy to push global warming, and indeed I never used the term.

I do think there is a lot of groupthink and grant-chasing going on amongst scientists, and I also think there are a lot of tranzis pushing and funding global warming as a stalking horse for their world government ideas. That's no more a conspiracy than anything else involving power and money.

[John]

Skippy, you miss the point. Even assuming that the current evidence on global warming is about as conclusive as these sorts of things get. That is not the end of the discussion, because these things don't get real conclusive. Its one thing to take something, which by the way is a hundred times more conclusive than global warming, like evolution and brand it the gospel, no one ever lost their job and livelyhood over the belief in evolution. But with global warming, we are talking about the livlyhoods and futures of millions of people and trillions of dollars in wealth that we will forgo creating in the name of preventing global warming. With those kinds of stakes, "as conclusive as these things get" even if it were true, which its not, is not good enough.

[joe]

We're talking a about the lives and futures of hundreds of millions of people and trillions of dollars of wealth we will forgo in the name of "don't rock the boat" if we fail to prevent a looming global crisis, John.

Insurance companies - who are either crypto-commies, bubble headed treehuggers, or funded entirely with NSF grants, perhaps RC Dean can help me straighten that out - have already determined that the additional costs created by climate changes, more frequent and severe storms, and more flooding, are already costing them billion of dollars per year.

Reason's embrace of hack Chrichton's lousy science, after scorning him for so long, was a very clarifying moment.

[John]

No Joe,

Insurence companies understand that they can be sued and loose billions of dollars over whatever crackpot theory is floating out there today. Insurance companies could careless about global warming. What they care about is the public perception and the possibility that the oil comapnies they insure are going to be the next target of the tort lawyers' shake down operation. That is the next big wave of law suits after suing fast food companies. Suing oil comapnies for damages from every hurricane or any other weather related loss on the theory that it was caused by global warming. The insurence companies are just trying to get ahead of it by paying protection money to the greens now rather than later. Its politcal gansterism pure and simple. It has nothing to do with science or insurance companies believing in global warming

[Gilbert Martin]

"We're talking a about the lives and futures of hundreds of millions of people and trillions of dollars of wealth we will forgo in the name of "don't rock the boat" if we fail to prevent a looming global crisis, John."

Another version of the same circular logic I've heard from other global-warming boosters. We just "can't wait" for any actual proof of a crisis because, well because it's a crisis, dammit!

LOL

[Isaac Bartram]

I wonder how many lefties would support the GW thing if they knew it started as a ploy by M Thatcher and the Tories to destroy the coal miners union and to promote nuclear power.

http://www.john-daly.com/history.htm

Tongue firmly in cheek.

[NoStar]

Global Warming was invented by an Ass Hole at Woods Hole in order to get increased government funding.

That's my conspiracy theory and I'm sticking to it.

[Gary Gunnels]

Well, whether we are convinced that human induced climate change is under way or not (I am in the not category), we can all at least agree that Crichton sucks! 🙂

[Isaac Bartram]

...more frequent and severe storms, and more flooding, are already costing them billion of dollars per year.

I suppose it's possible that these events are GW related, but no recognized climatologist, the members of the IPCC eg, has ever suggested that this is so. The problems of GW are in the future.

Of course this may be a ploy by Big Insurance to raise our premiums. But, no, no corporation ever used false pretenses to make money. 🙂

[jc]

Insurance companies... have already determined that the additional costs created by climate changes, more frequent and severe storms, and more flooding, are already costing them billion of dollars per year."

You're now holding up insurance companies as a bastion of scientific truth-seeking!

[James]

I'm sure the "extreme weather events" card was also played by the global cooling lobby. It seems that if the earth doesn't average the same temperatures as in the 20th century, we will have hell to pay. I never realized how lucky I was to be born into man's climate glory years.

[R C Dean]

We're talking a about the lives and futures of hundreds of millions of people and trillions of dollars of wealth we will forgo in the name of "don't rock the boat" if we fail to prevent a looming global crisis, John.

This is called assuming your conclusion, joe.

Not to mention that the Kyoto Protocols will also affect the lives and futures of millions of people and will cost trillion of dollars of wealth. So, I am being asked to balance a guaranteed economic (and thus social) catastrophe in the form of Kyoto, against a possible economic and social catastrophe (in the form of global warming).

Not to mention that Kyoto won't do a damn thing to alleviate global warming.

Remember to balance the costs of global warming (offset by its benefits and discounted by its probability) against the costs of your proposed solution. Kyoto doesn't even remotely pass this test. Whether any of the various techno fixes do or not, I don't know.

[The Wine Commonsewer]

Sarnath, I'm not smart enough to understand how Chricton butchered chaos theory. I'll take your word for it.

[John]

Wine,

He butchered Chaos theory by using it to make the pretty obvious statement that large, dangerous, intelligent animals you know nothing about make very poor pets and zoo animals and have a bad habit of escaping their cages and wrecking havoc. Why he felt the need to put that simple fact under the veneer of "chaos theory" is really beyond me. The plot would have worked just as well if the dinosaurs had escape their cages because their keepers were stupid and didn't plan well enough, but instead it had to be used as an example of chaos theory. To try to look smart I guess.

[Titus]

No, seriously. Does anyone know if and to what extent the possibilty of natural global cooling was taken into consideration in future forcasts?

As Joe said, billions of lives are at stake. It would suck to make all the sacrifices necessary to keep the world from getting too hot, only to get frozen to death.

[John T. Kennedy]

If the best alternative is to make climate a public policy matter, as Benford thinks, then we are surely doomed.

[Dumb Engineer]

Titus,your questions are right on the mark.

"What are the chances that the earth's climate could become a lot colder..."

As John says, "The consensus in the 70s was that the world was headed into another ice age because; you guessed it, of man-made pollutants in the atmosphere."

I read a novel in 1979 called _Ice_, where the world was ruined by the rapid, unexpected onset of a vast ice age. It was from the same people who now claim we're making the world too warm.

What's the impact of natural global warming vs natural global cooling? The answer is -- nobody, including our "climatologists", understands what the hell is going on. We do know that there has been a natural climate shift over the last 2500 years or so, but we don't know why. There used to be more rain and water back then in the Mediterranian, which we know through historical records. That's where civilization started. And yet they'll tell us that we're about to drive the whole climate system "unstable". But you cannot predict stability (or its lack) without a very thorough understanding of the system. An understanding clearly lacking.

Jason,

"I call BS until you can meet even a fraction of predictive standards held in other scientific disciplines."

Ahmen.

I'm an engineer, and am clear that many scientists consider us engineers dangerous idiots. But as someone who has to *use* science daily, I know this -- any theory, scientific or otherwise, that runs roughshod over common sense, is to be treated with much skepticism.

Common sense tells me that volcanoes pose a great big problem for the "man's pollution is ruining the atmosphere" story. Do you know how much crap comes out of even a small volcano? Enough to make our industrial output look small in comparison. There's too many unanswered questions, on this front alone, for the whole man-made global warming theory to be taken as a known, proven, thing.

The whole thesis that climate doom is imminent, looks exceedingly doubtful.

[joe]

"You're now holding up insurance companies as a bastion of scientific truth-seeking!"

No, I'm holding them up as bastions of effective actuarial analysis. And contra the conpriacy theorists above, they are reporting AT THIS TIME that they are paying out more claims because of global warming - not just future projections, but their ongoing experience. But hey, since when has the market ever been an effective way to analyze a great deal of information?

[gaius marius]

Do you know how much crap comes out of even a small volcano? Enough to make our industrial output look small in comparison.

mr engineer -- i dug around quickly on the net for volcanic output by mass of greenhouse gases and found little of use. do you have more definitive info?

i suspect you're completely right, and your criticisms are mine. but if industrial output is, say, 10% of geologic output, that can be a significant factor -- whereas 0.1% much less so.

[gaius marius]

they are reporting AT THIS TIME that they are paying out more claims because of global warming - not just future projections, but their ongoing experience.

mr joe, they (munich re, that is) say they're paying out more claims. they don't have any better an idea of why that is than you or i do. assigning that fact to a phenomenon that has caught the public fancy and may or may not exist as an excuse to permanently raise premiums and profits is what reinsurers are supposed to do.

again, the market is made of people and people are not simple rational monads processing information coolly and honestly.

fwiw, the difference in payouts and death tolls from 2002 to 2003 is well within the standard variance. as the cited article notes, the number of natural disasters were roughly the same; they simply occured in less opportune places.

[M1EK]

GLOBAL COOLING WAS NOT ANALOGOUS TO THE CURRENT CONSENSUS ON GLOBAL WARMING.

http://www.wmconnolley.org.uk/sci/iceage/

[anon]

Shouting doesn't prove your point, only your fanaticism.

[clarityiniowa]

gaius marius - Your philosophy mystifies me. On one hand, you seem to decry the West descending into "mystery," by which I assume you mean "mysticism," while on the other hand you seem very delighted about how incapable we mere humans are of ever understanding complex systems such as global climate change, and the limits of inductive reasoning and "reductionism."

Overall, you sound to me like a mystic trying to cloak his language and world view in rational terms in an attempt at being accepted and respected. I hope I am wrong, but all your posts seem to have these recurring themes, and I am trying to understand your point of view.

[joe]

"This is called assuming your conclusion, joe."

Um, no, it's not, RC. I used the phrase "if we fail to prevent a looming global crisis" in order to make it clear that I wasn't asserting, one way or the other, that there is a looming global crisis. My comment was a refutation of the LOGIC of John's post, not a factual assertion. If we need to worry about the impacts of doing something with imperfect information, we also need to worry about the impacts of doing nothing with imperfect information.

[clarityiniowa]

I go at this question another way - How does one philosophically defend, from a Libertarian point of view, pumping ANY noxious or potentially harmful gases or material into the atmosphere, or for that matter, into the ground water or land, when it has not only the potential but the objective certainty of affecting the enjoyment and use of other people's property, and of the commons we all, as residents of this planet, share?

In my state, the DNR regulates according to particulate amounts of phosphorus, sulfur dioxide, etc. a plant or farm installation is ALLOWED to spew into the immediate environment. Shouldn't the legal default be against fouling your neighbors' life and property AT ALL, and then have adjustments made according to the inevitable leakages that will occur?

In other words, my friends, the approach we generally take to human pollution and contribution to potential climate change, like so much that is driven by politics, is completely bass-ackwards.

[Gilbert Martin]

"You're now holding up insurance companies as a bastion of scientific truth-seeking!"

"No, I'm holding them up as bastions of effective actuarial analysis. And contra the conpriacy theorists above, they are reporting AT THIS TIME that they are paying out more claims because of global warming - not just future projections, but their ongoing experience. But hey, since when has the market ever been an effective way to analyze a great deal of information?"

Actuarial analysis doesn't have anything to do with predicting climate changes. Any insurance company that atributes any claims it's paid out to global warming is not "reporting" anything but merely engaging in the same kind of speculation for political propoganda purposes that the environmental activists are.

[clarityiniowa]

Gilbert Martin - Any insurance company that atributes any claims it's paid out to global warming is not "reporting" anything but merely engaging in the same kind of speculation for political propoganda purposes that the environmental activists are.

Close, but not quite. I used to work for a gawdawfully huge biotech company, and their "green" propaganda was strictly to enhance the bottom line, nothing particularly political about it. Ecopanic just happens to be sexy in terms of attracting and keeping a certain sort of well-heeled investor, and putting a "green" face on your PR campaign and/or business operations can convert into bucks pretty cheaply and efficiently.

[Gilbert Martin]

clarity:

Political propoganda is just a tool to get what you want. Your biotech company using to get a fatter bottom line is really no different than the watermelon environmental groups (green on the outside, red on the inside) using it get the statist controls over others that they've always wanted.

[joe]

"Actuarial analysis doesn't have anything to do with predicting climate changes.'

No, but they have a great deal to do with understanding what is causing your payouts to go up, and why.

[The Wine Commonsewer]

John, thanks, see I wouldn't have known one way or the other...

[Gilbert Martin]

"No, but they have a great deal to do with understanding what is causing your payouts to go up, and why."

Actuarial analysis is about predicting mortality rates and long term health care cost trends for various slices of populations in order to determine funding status of pension plans and health care plans and such.

It has nothing to do with the property and casualty type insurance claims that cover damages from hurricanes, floods, etc.

[anon]

Clarityiniowa - Your point that pumping any pollution into an ecosystem makes it less enjoyable is not true. Much of this country would be very unpleasant without air conditioning, DDT to kill the bugs, draining swamps, laying electrical/phone lines, killing large predators, etc. Those activites are all sources of pollution, but I wouldn't want to live anywhere in Dixie (and other spots) without those inprovements.

Improvements by man to nature usually outweigh his damage to nature in making the world more hospitable to man.

[Gilbert Martin]

anon:

Excellent point.

People talking about externalities of pollution talk as if companies are producing pollution just to be doing it rather than it being a byproduct of some goods or services demanded by the public and that greatly contributes to their quality of life. Despite all the dire talk of how polluted our world has become, the average life span of humans continues to get longer and longer due to technology. The benefits outweight the costs.

[clarityiniowa]

anon - Your point that pumping any pollution into an ecosystem makes it less enjoyable is not true.

Non sequitur. Your farts may smell like roses, but that doesn't give you the right to break wind in my face.

I love pork, but have you been anywhere near a 5000-7000 head commercial hog confinement? Those oinkers shit 12 times more than a human being, and yet such a confinement doesn't come near, on the average, to being able to handle the sewage that would be created by the same number of people. I don't care how yummy my Iowa Chops taste, I will still object to paying much higher municipal taxes to get the hugely excessive nitrates, nitrites, raw nitrogen, sulphur and sulphur oxides and other noxious solutes out of the local water table. Also, I shouldn't have to put up with the stench when sitting out on my front porch of an evening.

[clarityiniowa]

Gilbert Martin - Let me put this another way for you: Just because I'm voluntarily paying you to give my kid swimming lessons doesn't mean I have to put up with your peeing in my pool.

[Jadagul]

I definitely agree with you, clarityiniowa. I've felt for a while that real libertarianism demands a certain level of environmentalism--in that if we want to protect my property rights, we have to protect them against businesses, and not just against individuals. If an individual dumped sewerage into my yard or poisoned my water supply, that would be actionable; the fact that corporations do it instead of individuals doesn't change that.

On the other hand, that doesn't make me any more comfortable supporting the environmental movement, because they do lots of things that, quite frankly, scare me. Also seem to adopt lousy science in order to cripple industry; and want to protect my property not only from other people, but also from myself (Endangered Species Act &c). Still, they have a valid point that no one should be able to pump smog into my yard without my consent.

[Gilbert Martin]

"Gilbert Martin - Let me put this another way for you: Just because I'm voluntarily paying you to give my kid swimming lessons doesn't mean I have to put up with your peeing in my pool."

The world isn't "your pool".

[Jadagul]

No, but your pool is your pool. I don't like environmental regulations that protect my property from me; but the fact that I buy a car doesn't mean Ford can dump toxic sludge in my yard.

[haha]

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