Hi Guys,
Things have been too quiet at MFO lately. It is time to unleash another firestorm. Who knows what treasures are revealed when you shake the tree?
It’s as simple as asking the following question; Are Global Warming Models Wrong Again?
Princeton physics professor William Happer’s “Yes” answer to that question is posted in the March 27 opinion section of the WSJ. Here is the referenced Link:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304636404577291352882984274.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEADTopHapper’s reply exposes the dangers of using words like “always” or “all” or “100 %”. From my personal lessons learned, I have adapted my communications to soften my interpretations to include modifiers like “almost always “ or “mostly” or “statistically nearing 100 %”. These qualifiers are almost always necessary when honestly presenting a controversial viewpoint.
That’s particularly pertinent when using fresh data, evolving perceptions or models when forecasting future events. That’s especially true when projecting investment outcomes.
Global warning and its potential global impact are not closed issues. An honest assessment of the issues recognizes the complex meteorological feedback loops that are not well understood and only modeled in an incomplete manner. The chances of missing significant, interactive components are huge. The likelihood of mischaracterizing the initial conditions in the scientifically formulated computer simulations is similarly huge, and chaos theory demonstrates that the impact of those likely errors on final trendlines is enormous. Much more needs to be discovered and learned.
Those individuals who are absolutely, positively certain that our near-term prospects are doom and gloom without a substantial realignment of our energy priorities overstate the issue by an order of magnitude. The issues are much smaller in scope and scale, are much further in the future, have positive as well as negative outcomes, and require far less dramatic resource reallocation.
Certainly as the population increases, resources will become more scarce. Economic Theory is based on the realization of that scarcity and designs responses to it. It has been that way in a formal sense since the days of Adam Smith. We will adapt and adopt. With respect to global warming, we have time to do exactly that.
Professor Happer quotes Richard Feynman in this regard:
"In general we look for a new law by the following process. First we guess it. Then we compute the consequences of the guess to see what would be implied if this law that we guessed is right. Then we compare the result of the computation to nature, with experiment or experience; compare it directly with observation, to see if it works. If it disagrees with experiment it is wrong."
Feynman was the renown Cal Tech scientist who, with a very simple laboratory experiment, demonstrated the O-Ring casket temperature sensitivity problem that caused the Challenger shuttle failure a few decades ago. The paragraph quoted above defines the scientific method precisely.
For our laymen-like understanding of the global warming issues that are presently being debated, it is important to hear Happer’s voice on the matter as well as those that represent the other side. In the WSJ article, Happer said, when referring to the dire global warming cohort’s predictions:
“But these ominous predictions are based on computer models. It is important to distinguish between what the climate is actually doing and what computer models predict. The observed response of the climate to more CO2 is not in good agreement with model predictions. “
I don’t know the answer to the question posited by Happer, if one really exists at this moment. But I do have a tentative and tenuous position on the subject. Maybe I’m a Luke-Warmer at this time since I believe every new baby that adds to the population growth is a heat engine who increases the earth’s temperature a smidgen and uses just an infinitesimal more resources.
I adopted the lukewarm sobriquet from University of Alabama professor Roy Spencer who used the term to describe his own current standing in this hot debate. Professor Happer used recently updated temperature data from Professor Spencer’s government funded studies to bolster his opinion. Here is the Link to Roy Spencer’s website:
http://www.drroyspencer.com/Spencer is actively engaged in collecting data. His website offers several insightful articles on the overall science. I encourage you to visit it.
The True Believer global warming environmentalist will dishonestly attempt to discredit these scientists by falsely charging that they are compliant slave-servants to industry vested interests. These charges are mischievously motivated by ideology and selective data screening that serves no useful purpose but to distort current scientific inquiry, status, and consensus.
The global warming debate, and its net impact, and its time horizon, are all open issues. It is too early to judge so let’s keep most of our money in our pockets and perturb our economy only slightly by conducting scientific research and exploratory pilot –plant scale experiments.
Your forthright assessments and comments are encouraged and truly welcomed. There is plenty of headroom for honest debate and uncertainty on this topic.
Best Regards.
Comments
Thanks for the quiet catch. I made the necessary correction.
From Wickipedia: William Happer is a physicist specializing in the fields of optics and spectroscopy, and led the 2009 petition to the American Physical Society to change its position statement on climate change. That petition was signed by a few hundred of the 47,000 members and was rejected.
Hi Joe,
Your reply is an excellent illustration of the messenger assassination syndrome.
Nowhere in your spacious tirade do you directly challenge the data that prompted the WSJ article. I surely am skeptical of some of Professor Happer’s interpretations and extrapolations of that data, and would challenge him on those grounds. But you failed to do so.
Instead your invective diatribe attacked the WSJ, Fox News, Rupert Murdoch, his family, and even his employees. Wow! That’s a fairly extensive hate list. Too bad. Joe, your reply is completely devoid of any data or data challenges. You attacked your perceived anti-warming protagonists on a personal level. Character assassination is not an acceptable substitute for critical data examination.
If it were me, I would have taken a timeout before publishing that outrage. Some reflective assessments from the frontal lobe portion of my brain should have been engaged before succumbing to the amygdale’s reflexive emotions.
I fully expect that the WSJ Opinion Section will publish a rebuttal to Happer’s submittal by qualified and distinguished scientists in a few days. I plan to Link to that anticipated counterargument to openly present both sides of the debate. Knowledge is indeed power.
I suspect you are truly committed on this subject and find it difficult to accept any inconvenient fresh data. I hope that you invest more carefully.
I recognized that Professor Happer is merely a physicist without specialized training in the metrological discipline. He interprets other peoples data. That is precisely why I explicitly referenced Professor Spencer. He is the source of the global temperature data. His lower earth atmospheric data have been collected from satellite measurements for years. It is Spencer’s data that Happer used to inform his viewpoint. Of course, Happer’s interpretations are subject to scrutiny, skepticism, and controversy.
Professor Spencer was a Senior Scientist for Climate Studies at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center. He shared NASA’s Exceptional Scientific Achievement Medal for his teams global temperature monitoring work with satellites. He definitely possesses the requisite credentials.
Professor Spencer has tentatively hypothesized that a cause for global temperature changes can be explained by something called PDO. He observed that “The Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) is an internal switch between two slightly different circulation patterns that occurs every 30 years or so in the North Pacific Ocean.” He may or may not be correct with respect to his proposed model. More data will test his hypothesis. That’s why I included the paragraph in my posting that discussed the scientific method according to Richard Feynman.
We all use heuristic shortcuts when making decisions under uncertainty. Sometimes that short circuit process leads us in the wrong direction. I’m as guilty as the next guy in that regard. We all suffer from a complex combination of confirmation, recent data, anchoring, and endowment effect biases that often misdirect us astray. I try to combat that decision defect by keeping something that the communication educators call the “Inference Ladder” in mind.
The Inference Ladder progresses from a lower rung data collection effort, to an interpretation of that data based on experiences, to forming quick pattern recognition tools, to selectively screening data in a manner that reinforces those patterns, to final decisions that are sometimes faulty because of the selective screening biases that creep into the process.
The resolution key is an open-minded feedback loop that allows a reassessment and further data assembly and stress testing at the lowest rung of the Inference Ladder. Assumptions must be constantly examined and modified as necessary.
It’s what Jason Zweig recommended in his “Your Money and Your Brain” book when he endorsed engaging both the reflective and reflexive segments of your brain before making any final investment judgments. It integrates the insights gleaned from behavioral researchers like Daniel Kahneman who recently published “Thinking, Fast and Slow”.
A more complete discussion of the Inference Ladder can be found on many websites. It is a tool designed to help a person avoid jumping to conclusions too rapidly. Firmly rooted premature judgments are killers. Here is a Link to one such Inference Ladder site:
http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newTMC_91.htm
Or for a slightly more expanded pictorial summary of the Ladder of Inference as originally conceived by Peter Senge try the following address:
http://www.jadcommunications.com/yvonnefbrown/files/The Ladder of Inference.pdf
The referenced Links offer some useful tips. The ladder itself focuses attention on process and feedback loops that contribute to faulty decision making. Please give them a visit.
An alternate source is Professor Dalton Kehoe who touches on the Inference Ladder in his Great Courses lecture series “Effective Communication Skills”. I wonder how our resident MFO communication expert, Professor Snowball, feels about Professor Kehoe’s qualifications and about his referenced communications course material.
These are all fine sources that are designed to improve our communication skill sets. I have exposed myself to all these resources and have learned from each one. I recommend all of them.
Thanks for your patience.
Best Wishes.
Regarding Mr. Murdoch, his son, his employees, and his works: my observations are entirely accurate and a matter of recent public record.
Regarding Mr. Happer, I merely observe that his opinions are evidently not highly valued by many of his fellow researchers. As he chooses to associate himself with Mr. Murdoch, that is both suggestive and unfortunate. Lie with dogs; expect fleas.
Your dislike of Murdoch and his affairs is fine, but he's just a particularly large example of someone or some entity in this country having enough money to push for their own agenda, whatever that may be. Even something like the note I had about CNBC the other day, where Jeff Saut was talking up a couple of stocks at the same time his company was going a secondary, which is a no-no. How much of financial media is one book talker after another? There's more and more of it these days, and it's not only right wing. People with lackluster morals are everywhere and not simply right wing, and they've been allowed the run of the place. The SEC destroyed many documents related to Madoff and other Wall Street cases. No one went to jail because we were told that "we have to put that behind us." Yeah, right. The whole Solyndra situation? (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solyndra_loan_controversy)
Jon Corzine had a lot of friends in this administration - he was "their Wall Street guy", if I remember correctly. I do hold fault this administration and the prior administration for creating a looser and looser rule of law. More moral hazard in the world than many other points in history, I'd say. Those (corporations, individuals, etc) with money, whether left wing, right wing or other, are about as much of a governing power these days as our government, if not more.
I wish there would be more view of the bigger picture of what's going on than people attacking the other side - instead of realizing that moral hazard has not only become bigger, but that neither side has their hands squeaky clean.
Murdoch is certainly not the only one, but you know what? We live in a society where - for all the discussion of the scandal, he has money, so nothing will happen to him. I wouldn't be surprised if nothing will happen to Corzine, either. He has money and friends in high places. There are many other examples.
Again, not attacking either side, but just fascinated at the misplaced anger at "the other side" (when these issues are everywhere), and as long as people spend all their time being angry at the other side while nothing gets done.
As for global warming, "Those individuals who are absolutely, positively certain that our near-term prospects are doom and gloom without a substantial realignment of our energy priorities overstate the issue by an order of magnitude." I do think there is likely some level of global warming, but as with everything else, things swing one way or the other - if someone doesn't agree with something, they act as if the other side is extremist. I think the weather where I am is significantly different than when I was a kid (warmer winters), but that's certainly not scientific. I misplaced my degree in science or I'd have a better reply.
Re global warming, I'm still very much open to conviction on the actual amount that man-made emissions are (or are not) responsible. Might be insignificant, or might be just enough to create a "triggering threshold". Just don't know yet. Re the computer models, of course they are not yet either fully developed nor fully dependable. But to ignore the whole situation on this pretext is ludicrous. It's there, it's happening, the question is simply: "can we do anything to ameliorate the situation?"
And the answer, more than likely, is not "the increase of CO2... will be good for mankind... because of its beneficial effects on plant growth" as Mr. Happer would have us believe. (Congressional testimony, 2009)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0070723/plotsummary
Hi Joe,
Let me explain my intent when using the “spacious” word and the three pejorative terms.
My original post was my attempt to solicit comments on the global warming controversy.
I am open-minded on the issue and tentatively consider it a potential problem to be addressed over time. I am not yet convinced that it is permanent and not transient. Yet many folks demand huge expenditures, significant life-style changes, stringent regulations, and laws that could inhibit economic prosperity. My current feeling is that it is premature for such actions. I really wanted your opinion, and still do.
Initially, I was puzzled by your response to what I wanted to be a focused discussion. My first reaction to your submittal went something like this: “Why did Joe introduce Murdoch, his family, and his army of employees into the mix?’ They are not relevant.
It took several seconds for me to realize that Murdoch owned these operations, and obviously, you have a bone to pick with them. That’s okay, you are forever free to choose your own personal battles, but why introduce them into the global climate warming debate?
I termed that introduction “spacious” in that it expanded the debate space to dimensions not needed to address the climate change issues, unless the Murdoch enterprises have impacts that escape me. Spacious had nothing to do with a physical dimension in the sense that I used that word.
I do not know Murdoch except that he is a successful, aggressive businessman who has made many enemies. Success does that. His WSJ and Fox News entities dominate their competition. He must be doing something right.
Your attacks on the Murdoch franchises seemed mean-spirited, and, since they were not grounded with some expanded documentation, seemed ad hominem to me. That’s the rationale for the three pejorative terms that I used to describe your reply. I’m sure you have solid reasons for your invective attitude towards the Murdoch dynasty, but I felt they did not advance the global climate change debate.
I do appreciate your participation in these discussions. We share a common viewpoint on many of these matters, but sometimes our perspectives diverge. Nothing surprising about that. I personally learn from all such exchanges, especially from those that depart from mine.
I respect your serious analyses and enjoy your humor.
Best Wishes.