Welcome to the new Ice Age
According to the National Post today:
Snow cover over North America and much of Siberia, Mongolia and China is greater than at any time since 1966.The U.S. National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) reported that many American cities and towns suffered record cold temperatures in January and early February. According to the NCDC, the average temperature in January "was -0.3 F cooler than the 1901-2000 (20th century) average."
China is surviving its most brutal winter in a century. Temperatures in the normally balmy south were so low for so long that some middle-sized cities went days and even weeks without electricity because once power lines had toppled it was too cold or too icy to repair them.
There have been so many snow and ice storms in Ontario and Quebec in the past two months that the real estate market has felt the pinch as home buyers have stayed home rather than venturing out looking for new houses.
In just the first two weeks of February, Toronto received 70 cm of snow, smashing the record of 66.6 cm for the entire month set back in the pre-SUV, pre-Kyoto, pre-carbon footprint days of 1950.
And remember the Arctic Sea ice? The ice we were told so hysterically last fall had melted to its "lowest levels on record? Never mind that those records only date back as far as 1972 and that there is anthropological and geological evidence of much greater melts in the past.
The ice is back.
Gilles Langis, a senior forecaster with the Canadian Ice Service in Ottawa, says the Arctic winter has been so severe the ice has not only recovered, it is actually 10 to 20 cm thicker in many places than at this time last year.
OK, so one winter does not a climate make. It would be premature to claim an Ice Age is looming just because we have had one of our most brutal winters in decades.
But if environmentalists and environment reporters can run around shrieking about the manmade destruction of the natural order every time a robin shows up on Georgian Bay two weeks early, then it is at least fair game to use this winter's weather stories to wonder whether the alarmist are being a tad premature.
Comments (52)
Snow is precipitation, though. More snow on the East Coast could, f.ex., mean that it's hotter in the gulf of mexico, which creates more clouds which are then taken up the coast.
Always funny also how people who don't understand the difference between global temperature average and local weather make these claims of a cooling down.
It could be 10 degrees colder in one region yet hotter on average on the whole planet. Heat distribution can change, what matters is global average.
Published: February 25, 2008 12:43 PM
"Always funny also how people who don't understand the difference between global temperature average and local weather make these claims of a cooling down."
Also funny how enviros consider thinning ice to be irrefutable evidence of global warming, but thickening ice is ignored. : \
Published: February 25, 2008 1:04 PM
As recent iceages go, we're overdue. It's been 12 thousand years since the end of the last one.
But seriously, I wish the doom and gloom sayers would tell me why the Atlantic hurricanes have _not_ been numerous and deadly these last couple years, when over and over they said that with "global warming" I'd be up to my neck in rain water.
But no, my shrubs have died of thirst, and most of North Carolina has been on water rationing for nearly a whole year, with no end in sight.
Published: February 25, 2008 1:25 PM
Also funny how enviros care about useless concepts like "average" temperature for the entire planet.
Published: February 25, 2008 1:27 PM
I think it's funny how they pretend to actually have an average temperature for the entire planet.
Published: February 25, 2008 2:12 PM
It's funny to watch environmentalists masquerade as "scientists", much as hare-brained socialists used to posture as "intellectuals". So, on one hand, these "New age scientists" drone on about melting arctic ice and the "crises" of global warming; but on the other hand, they are thunderously silent about the anomoly of cooling in Antarctica, where climatic conditions perpeutally run counter to those on the rest of the planet. So, as conditions have warmed on earth as it continues to emerge from the grip of the last Little Ice Age, conditions in Antarctica have featured thickening ice and drooping temperatures.
If anthropological increases in CO2 were really causing global warming, then, according to the Green hypothesis, this warming would first appear at both poles. The New Age "scientists"--despite their claims to having arrived at "scientific consensus" about this "crises"--cannot offer a good explanation of this phenomena.
However, Henrik Svensmark's recent book "The Chilling Stars" provides a cogent and proven solution to this anomoly. I recommend the book to anyone who is curious about the science of climate change, and who is tired of the incoherent shameless lies of environmentalist hucksters.
Published: February 25, 2008 3:04 PM
To follow up on Mr Humprey's comments, this video is worth watching. Makes sense. Who'd a thunk the sun is behind global warming?
Published: February 25, 2008 4:55 PM
James shows the inherent problem with environmentalism. If it snows too much, you blame global warming. If it snows too little, its global warming. How does one prove it's not global warming then?
Does it have to snow the same amount exactly as last year?
If there is such a damn consensus on global warming then there should be a consensus on signs of global warming. Unfortunately anything is a sign of global warming.
Published: February 25, 2008 5:45 PM
Another interesting and amusing question for the enviros is to find out if their solutions for global cooling are the opposite of their solutions for global warming....
Published: February 25, 2008 7:02 PM
Button up your overcoat . . . and warm yourself to the chuckle that future generations will have over the present silliness:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5VvQ48ulQ-A
Then park your car and get ready to take the bus to work:
http://www.simmonsco-intl.com/files/Minnesota%20State%20of%20Representatives.pdf
Assuming you have a job amid the coming hyperinflationary depression:
http://www.shadowstats.com/article/38
Published: February 25, 2008 8:24 PM
Dear Prof. Block:
Thank you for continuing in the hoary LvMI blog tradition, followed by Dr. Reisman, Sean Corrigan and many others here, of doing one's level best, by way of self-example, to illustrate how strongly we are in the grip of reflexive cognitive patterns such as confirmation bias.
This confirmation bias helps us at LvMI to report, with self-reassuring glee, any iota of evidence that the planet might be cooling, while dodging evidence to the contrary, and to mock those who say that the "climate" is cpmplex and not the same as the weather.
We just love confirmation bias, because it allows us to dismiss all those who have concerns about how our long-term and unmoderated experiment with the Earth's climate and eco-systems are going as evil and/or crackpots - AND thus spares us from doing any heavy lifting on a number of distasteful tasks:
- actually trying to understand what climate scientists are saying about the climate system, our influences on it and present or future system responses;
- considering the likely consequences if we continue to treat the atmosphere and oceans as unmanaged open-access commons (Mises himself noted: "The extreme instance is provided by the case of no-man's property referred to above. If land is not owned by anybody, although legal formalism may call it public property, it is utilized without any regard to the disadvantages resulting");
- engaging in a good faith discussion with those who have differing views (and their own confirmation biases, no doubt); and
- exploring Austrian and libertarian principles and explicating their possible application to the problem that others declaim (i.e., the general efficacy of property rights, problems of information and transaction costs, rent-seeking, bureaucratic mal-incentives, the lack of rule of law relating to shared global/regional commons and in poorer nations, and with coordinating action for transborder commons under a Westphalian global order, and the legacy of 150+ years of - as you have put it - the "failure of the government to uphold free enterprise with a legal system protective of private property rights.").
It is precisely this cognitive bias that Friedrich Hayek noted in his 1960 essay, “Why I am Not a Conservative”: http://www.fahayek.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=46
Hayek noted these additional traits that distinguish market liberals from conservatives, which also are commonly manifested here:
• Habitual resistance to change (hence “conservative”);
• Use of state authority to protect established privileges against the forces of economic change; and
• Claim to superior wisdom based on self-arrogated superior quality in place of rational argument.
The upshot? That most of us here at LvMI are engaged in the task of convincing ourselves that the climate is not changing or that those who have concerns about it are illogical man-haters, and that we refuse to engage these others by (i) understanding first that for resources where property rights are undefined or uneforceable, public debates rather than private transactions are the chief means of expressing one's preferences, and (ii) actively defending or advancing freedom - through attempting to persuade others.
There are other freedom-loving thinkers who have made modest starts in a productive engagement with others, such as:
- Gene Callahan, in his essay "How a Free Society Could Solve Global Warming", in the October 2007 issue of The Freeman: http://www.fee.org/publications/the-freeman/article.asp?aid=8150;
- Sheldon Richman, in his essay "The Goal Is Freedom: Global Warming and the Layman", in the December 8, 2006 edition of The Freeman: http://www.fee.org/in_brief/default.asp?id=966); and
- Edwin Dolan, in his Fall 2006 Cato Journal essay, "Global Warming: Rethinking the Market Liberal Position". http://mises.com/blogs/tokyotom/archive/2008/02/14/edwin-dolan-applying-the-lockean-framework-to-climate-change.aspx.
But we here at LvMI don't want to be troubled to be productive, engage others or advance the cause of freedom, so we don't post, cite to or discuss authors like that. Being thoughtful or engaging is too much work! We prefer to cherish our existing beliefs and to nourish our hatred of "enviros", while ignoring everyone else:
http://mises.com/blogs/tokyotom/archive/2008/02/18/cool-rationalists-or-conservatives-and-neocons-on-the-environment.aspx
http://mises.com/blogs/tokyotom/archive/2007/12/17/holiday-joy-quot-watermelons-quot-roasting-on-an-open-pyre.aspx
http://mises.com/blogs/tokyotom/archive/2007/12/15/quot-heroic-quot-expert-voices-proven-wrong-on-agw-make-another-slick-cry-for-relevance-at-bali.aspx
http://mises.com/blogs/tokyotom/archive/2007/12/14/who-knows-climate-science-the-mises-blog.aspx
http://mises.com/blogs/tokyotom/archive/2008/02/24/george-reisman-or-how-i-learned-to-hate-enviros-and-love-tantrums.aspx
I am relieved that you seem to want to be one of us, and are not challenging us to get engaged, like Callahan, Richman or Dolan.
Sincerely,
Tom
PS: One of the conditions of membership in the "Reisman/Corrigan Club", as we sometimes call it, is that we forswear reading any of the IPCC reports and the reports of all major academies of science. Can you confirm that you have you have not yet tainted yourself with such "information" and undertake not to? Also, you must avoid posts by apostates such as this who post other "science" tripe: http://mises.com/blogs/tokyotom/archive/2008/01/15/did-global-warming-stop-in-1998-jim-hansen-says-no.aspx
Published: February 25, 2008 11:42 PM
Europe on the other hand is having less snow each year. In Estonia we've had only a few weeks with good winter weather (low degrees and atleast decent amounts of snow) this year. A year earlier we had plants that usually bloom a lot later blooming already in January and February.
This all reminds me of a documentary I saw on 'global dimming'. The thesis of the show was that due to less sunlight every year for some decades now the clouds and rainfall (therefore also snow) have moved away from their usual patters.
Published: February 26, 2008 3:20 AM
It rained all night the day I left, the weather it was dry,
The sun's so hot I froze to death, Suzanna don't you cry.
Published: February 26, 2008 6:53 AM
Now that this evidence-free movement has been so dramatically disproved, we might take some time-out to think about just what a wicked movement it was.
This was a crowd that seemed to live only to make sure that little Yukos never got to see his first butterfly.
Taking after the White Witch of Narnia, they appeared to want winter forever, but they weren't too keen on the comparative daily Christmas of consumer goods that is the gift of capitalism. Or at least they weren't too keen on the rest of humanity enjoying this comparative-Christmas every day.
That the Laplanders might have slightly warmer early mornings in the wintertime than otherwise, was a travesty to these ethically handicapped nutballs.
You see before you. Little Anastasia. There she is. Warming her hands close to a heater. This heater is burning heavy carbon fuel. Fuel too heavy and chock-filled with carbon atoms, even for a diesel engine.
Well the knowledge that the air outside is just that little bit less frigid than it otherwise might have been...... and the knowledge that little Anastasia is adding to the sum total of industrial-CO2 being put out there to aid in natures primary production...............
...... Well that was just a little bit too much for these environmentalists who might rather have seen a great deal of us dead. Or at the very least they would have wished that many of us had never been born.
I see him now little Hamisi, filling his all-terrain vehicle with liquified-coal and getting about the place helping to build commercial premises and structures of one sort or another, with his liquified-coal-powered dingo-digger in the back.
See there little Hamisi. And on his way, taking time out to kill any mosquito-breeding sanctuary of still and fetid water. Hamisi is there killing such mini-swamps with his digger and with his DDT. He kills them immediately as they present themselves to his attention.
Little Hamisi, barely 14 years old, driving his hated stripped-down SUV-equivalent, Destroying any malarial infestations as a sideline to all the capital-goods-creating errands he runs, and all the capital-goods-creating jobs that he does.
The now dramatically disproved environmentalist racket would be scandalised and aghast at this inspiring vision of poor little Hamisi. Who exists only in a parallel universe where his daddy wasn't killed in childhood by stupid white rich taxeaters who indirectly gave him malaria.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Very soon, and without delay, we will have to get over this Indian-Summer-of-stupidity.
We will have to get down to the realisation that we will need a great deal more industrial energy-production, for very many reasons, but also in order to deal with the cooler and drier planet that awaits us.
Published: February 26, 2008 8:59 AM
TT,
I've said it before, and I'll say it again: Even if AGW is real, advanced technologies will handle it in due course:
http://www.livescience.com/environment/080219-kurzweil-solar.html
So chill out and let the market work its wonders, as the world has more immediate problems to attend to.
Published: February 26, 2008 10:29 AM
TokyoTom,
The whole point of the Reisman/Block et al argument is that the tidal wave (pun intended) of support for the THEORY of global warming has more to do with people following in lock step with the common mindset (and the concomitant governmentally-stolen funds lathered on such people) and less to do with actual scientific evidence.
Should we listen to new ideas and theories and understand whether they are feasible and/or plausible? Absolutely. Is the current global hysteria about global warming justified? Well, let's put it like this: The THEORY we are being asked to accept as hard cold scientific fact goes something like this: First, the current evidence indicates that there has been a rise in average global temperatures (which evidence is part scientific fact and part conjecture given the nature of trying to come up with a global average temperature over decades). Second, and here's where it gets real tenuous, this rise is caused almost exclusively by anthropogenic carbon emissions and has not been influenced significantly by other factors, such as non-anthropogenic emissions, solar energy and the general cyclical nature of our planet's climate. Third, here's where it gets even more tenuous, a drastic reduction in such anthropogenic emissions will cause a significant decrease in atmospheric carbon dioxide to a point that will have a significant impact on average global temperatures (again, this is purely conjecture based on a mixture of scientific theory and guesswork).
This movement relies on so much theory, guesswork and computer modeling (which itself is based on theory and guesswork) that, at other times of our history, we would have called this science FICTION.
The point is: we are not close to the point where we can definitively say anything except that it APPEARS that global temperatures have been rising. To take this one semi-fact and use it to destroy hundreds of years of human development seems a bit out of line.
Yet, the global warming movement would have us believe that people who do not accept this entire line of reasoning verbatim are simply reactionaries along the lines of flat-earthers and those guys that didn't like Galileo, and we simply must impose drastic, draconian, totalitarian and global governmental restrictions to get things done because of reactionaries like these.
This is the line of thinking that Reisman and Block are attacking.
Paul
Published: February 26, 2008 10:37 AM
TT
Hayek's comments would seem to apply to the proponents of manmade global warming, not Reisman, et al. For example, the video linked by me above contains compelling arguments for a theory vastly superior to the Gore, et al, theory that man is destroying the planet by exhaling carbon.
The real problem is that productive exchange of ideas is impossible when the other side is strictly interested in advancing an unstated true agenda. And that's what Reisman, et al, attacks. In response, we get silence or misrepresentations.
Published: February 26, 2008 11:56 AM
"The whole point of the Reisman/Block et al argument is that the tidal wave (pun intended) of support for the THEORY of global warming has more to do with people following in lock step with the common mindset (and the concomitant governmentally-stolen funds lathered on such people) and less to do with actual scientific evidence."
Thats EXACTLY!!!!!!! whats going on. We know that this is whats going on since the whole concept of scientific evidence has been abandoned in favour of the "scientific consensus" which is itself yet another lie.
When the question of scientific evidence comes up the fraudsters will always change the subject. They will start talking about externalities, or another tax or something. Anything at all. They will talk about everything else but scientific evidence. If you cannot identify an unscience fraud under those circumstances you will never see it for what it is in a decade of Sundays.
Published: February 26, 2008 7:56 PM
I don't see why we should even begin to engage the environmental alarmists in a debate until they answer the following questions:
(1) What exactly is wrong with the earth getting warmer, anyway? Most people I know are moving to Florida and Arizona to get away from the cold.
(2) If you COULD control the global thermostat, exactly what temperature would you set it at? Should we take a global vote on that? (Majority rules, of course!)
(3) How do we know that, after we spend gazillions of dollars and kill millions of people trying to slow carbon emissions, some other natural disaster like a volcanic eruption won't come along and plunge us into global cooling?
(4) Throughout history, we have always ADAPTED to whatever Nature throws at us. What's wrong with simply adapting to whatever happens this time?
Published: February 26, 2008 9:28 PM
TokyoTom,
Well, doesn't confirmation bias work the other way round too? The global warming activists who are so thoroughly convinced disaster is looming on the horizon and CO2, and only CO2, is the primary cause, are just as apt to fall prey to this.
Published: February 27, 2008 12:18 AM
I'll have a go JRS:
1. I'd presume there's an optimal temperature for farming. If it's too cold or too hot then the crop production would go down. People go hungry and/or the population reduces in step. And might it not be creepy if there are slow but steady migration of people towards the polar regions?
2. I s'pose at the 'Goldilocks' temperature that would allow for maximum crop production. I find it creepy that Greenlanders are hoping for Global Warming so they get to produce crops at home. I think most of the land mass is closer to the equator than the poles.
3. Yeah, Murphy's Law of Climate Control would mean that's inevitable.
4. Wasn't the increase in human population over the last 150 years or so to do with going against Mother Nature. When people lived with the natural forces and cycles the population would grow and contract in kind such that the overall population never really grew at all? Or, from a distance, the human adapts and survives but individuals and families don't, the Indonesians will replace the 400,000+ people who perished in the Boxing Day Tsunami in time.
P.S. I did throw the question out to Raheem & co. - 'So what if Global Warming is shown to be non-existent (or virtually so) how would this necessarily negate the rest of concerns towards the environment.
Published: February 27, 2008 12:52 AM
"1. I'd presume there's an optimal temperature for farming. If it's too cold or too hot then the crop production would go down. "
Sam. There is no optimal temperature for crop production except to say that it is a warmer temperature than what we have now. And we must ask ourselves what is the cause of this increased temperature in this fabled scenario? Is this increased temperature here because of extra solar brightness? Or because of increased greenhouse gasses?
The best situation would presumably be a slightly lesser solar brightness and massively more greenhouse. Since it is greenhouse which reduces temperature differentials.
But thats in the realm of fantasy.
What is NOT fantasy, as far as crop-growing is concerned however, is the potential for higher levels of atmospheric-CO2.
Plants that are well-cared for in other ways continue (on average) to gain benefits from higher CO2 levels even if the CO2-levels are 600ppm and rising. That is to say the gains from extra-CO2 don't even begin to flatten out in the general sense until the CO2 is above this level.
The gains from extra-CO2 for plants somewhat more stressed don't even begin to flatten out until CO2 levels rise above 1500ppm.
So if you wanted to geo-engineer things in a sort of fantasy thought-experiment it would be about 1500ppm that you were looking at.
Now I don't think that would have any effect on world temperatures. But still it might do from where I sit. It might stall the next destructive ice age somewhat. It might, at that level mean a slightly higher air pressure or something, that over many hundreds of years, coupled with some tiny amount of greenhouse effect, coupled with serendipity, well its at least possible that it could slow down the cooling trend.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
But if you are talking a fantasy scenario for maximum crop-growing what we would want is this 1500ppm coupled with acknowledged overheating.
Because with acknowledged overheating we could then start a voluntary campaign of accumulating these little SO2 missiles. And every time a jumbo took a flight over the equator we could have them shoot this little SO2 missile into the upper stratosphere and explode and have all this SO2 up there. We would explode these things over the open water for maximum effect.
What this would engineer under this fantasy scenario is a more even-temperatured world. Taking that edge off at the equator to stop cumulative warming. And the plants there getting easily enough sunlight as it stands.
Hence the alleged nightmare that the no-evidence-campaign is putting before us is actually our best daydream for crop-growing, if we are so inclined as to daydream about such matters.
I myself am not so inclined and will be happy for any mitigation against the coming cooling as what any potential human effect could have.
And none of us should look the gift-horse of enhanced CO2-levels in the mouth. Since its just narrow-minded and nasty to not be happy about the CO2 enhancing the natural world and helping with crop yields and therefore food prices.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
"P.S. I did throw the question out to Raheem & co. - 'So what if Global Warming is shown to be non-existent (or virtually so) how would this necessarily negate the rest of concerns towards the environment."
It doesn't.
Anti-capitalism is extremely bad for the environment. And this is an anti-capitalist
world.
Although in my version of capitalism there is relentless homesteading, but there are always buffers around newly privately homesteaded properties. And there might be many millionaires getting about trying to patch up the (in my view) mistakes of prior generations by, in many cases, trying to buyback land to put these buffers, also known as nature corridors, back into the scene.
The point was that the environmentalist movement is currently an intensely evil movement. The point wasn't that there were absolutely no environmental concerns.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Sometimes to understand natural phenomenon its helpful to use personification. Like when Hunter Thompson had this essay on electricity where he described very well how electricity worked by giving it two human characteristics. Electricity is very homesick. But its also very lazy said Hunter.
Well conversely, we can get some sort of working understanding of these HUMAN movements, involving HUMAN persons if we DE-personify the human-movement.
DE-PERSONIFY THE HUMAN MOVEMENT.
If we liken the environmentalist movement to a natural phenomenon, like a Hurricane for example, this might help us get a better working-and-predictive-model of the movement.
So thats what I will do right here. I'll depersonify the environmentalist movement and treat it, in an extended analogy, as if it were an impersonal natural phenomenon. To be specific an hurricane.
You see you are not taking the same perspective as Professor Reisman. He is looking at this hurricane-most-vile from a vantage point akin to a satelite photo. And in this analogy he has identified that what motivates the air molecules in the calm centre and in that first outer violent circle is the evil human-negating principle of the INTRINSIC VALUE OF NATURE.
But supposing you have a different vantage point. You are not seeing a hurricane from the satelite point of view. And lets jump back to a real hurricane to further this analogy.
And in this story you are a farmer in the far West of the US in the 1870's. You are in an area that does not yet benefit from the telegraph. Well there is this hurricane on the east coast doing all sorts of damage. But what you are seeing is that your farm, which has been suffering from drought, is now getting plenty of beneficial rain. So you are not going to understand the damage that has been done, and the nasty nature of the centre of the storm.
Likewise if you focus on this repulsively evil environmentalist movement from a different perspective, from a different time-frame, and a different vantage point, you are not necessarily going to perceive the intense evil that is there in the eye of the storm ,and in its activist first-circle.
You might be on the ground away from the storm seeing some businesses cleaning up their act and not making the river dirty. You might be seeing some people getting out there and picking up litter as volunteers. You might be seeing people donate money for some crowd helping a particularly beautiful endangered species of the parrot.
In these instances you are like that Western farmer thinking that the storm is a good thing.
But you need to know about the evil driving the environmentalist movements direction, since you need to be able to predict what it will do.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Had we fully understood the intensely evil nature of this environmentalist movement, we could have predicted where it was going, and we could have at least ATTEMPTED to stop the malaria-bureaucratisation holocaust, as well as this now decades-long energy-deprivation campaign.
We could have had some immunisation against their non-stop lying and spin. And we could have warned the future victims.
There is no going head-on against the Reisman principle. If you want to retrieve anything of value from this movement, that in its totality is clearly evil, then your job is the task of DIFFERENTIATION.
I wish you all luck in retrieving some value from this evil movement in terms of biodiversity heritage. But your first duty is to understand this psychopathic movement, to understand where it is headed, and to warn its future victims.
Its a bit too late to say NEVER AGAIN!!!!
Published: February 27, 2008 8:08 AM
Frankly, most of what has been posted here on the climate is nonsense, as I have shown rather painstakingly, post after post, over the past few years.
There is cause for concern about massive externalities of the type Mises himself noted, in relation to unowned, open-access commons, and destructive exploitation of resources in the developing world due to a lack of property rights and rule of law.
The response here is a collective effort by most in assembling a patchwork of fig leaf rationalization that fail to clothe what is at its root a reflexive dismissal of data inconsistent with made-up minds, manifested also as an unwillingness to consider principles, a smug but unfounded superiority, and a hostility towards others - hostility both to those who also have made-up minds (but just as much claim to express their own preferences as to how commons should be managed) and, in the case of Chodorov and others here, towards those like me who challenge Miseseans to be a little for forthright and engaging.
Paul: "This is the line of thinking that Reisman and Block are attacking."
Respectfully, all you've done is assemble all of the strawmen (Reisman's and maybe Corrigan's; you're probably right about Block as well in one place - thankfully, at least, without the hyperventilation.
But i's a simplified view that crumbles if you examine almost any of it carefully.
And it fails both to give any thought to the undeniable impact of human populations, demands and technology on global ecosystems, tempered only partly by property right and markets.
Regards,
TT
Published: February 27, 2008 9:59 PM
Further to my last post, let me note a further comment on the mirror thread on my blog, and my response:
- Donny with an A posted the following comment (Wednesday, February 27, 2008 6:17 PM)
"Actually, I thought Gunter's article was reasonably fair, as long as it was intended as satire the way he implied at the end. He specifically said that evidence he presented didn't entail anything about the long-term state of the comment, and his purpose seemed to be to call attention to the sort of reporting which can legitimately be considered alarmist is nature; screaming about droughts, heat waves, and floods really is unfair and unrepresentative of the current state of the science.
"However, it's worth noting that none of the events he cites are particular problematic for the mainstream view. Just as individual warm years don't prove anything, neither do individual cold years. A quick glance at a temperature record spanning over the past century does seem to reveal a trend, with considerable year-to-year variability. Last year was a departure from the trend which doesn't seem outside of the range of the normal variability we've seen over the past century. It isn't that these things fall short of being conclusive evidence against the mainstream view; they aren't convincing evidence against it at all.
"In short, if Block were citing the article to try to dispute the mainstream view, his argument would miss its mark. Gunter's article doesn't really make any trouble for anyone. But if he's just taking a shot at the mainstream media, then I personally don't think he's being unfair."
http://mises.com/blogs/tokyotom/archive/2008/02/26/thank-you-prof-block-for-feeding-our-confirmation-biases.aspx#20171
My response:
"Donny, I wish that you wouldn't try to twist yourself into a pretzel by trying to be even-handed with those whose own attempts to appear even-handed are easily dtermined to be disingenuous.
"Gunter has consistently tried to cast doubt on the main conclusions coming from science and on the motives of others, rather than being frank about the science and focussing on policy. He has an agenda of persuading Canadians to do nothing (and perhaps to assist those similarly inclined here), and this consistent with it.
"Likewise, Block's intentions can be judged from his complete lack of commentary on structural problems/policy from a Misesean viewpoint and from the reactions he elicited on the main thread.
"It's extremly disappointing."
That hateful enviro, TT
Published: February 27, 2008 10:26 PM
TT, what is being challenged is the idea of an "average" temperature and the idea that the globe is warming up BECAUSE of man, when the "predictions" have been incorrect. How many times the press reported predictions of god-awful hurricane seasons that would drown all of us in our own complacency, only for such a thing not to happen? And yet you insist on people taking your links (or you) seriously?
The worst is the way the watermelons back-pedal on everything - it is not Global Warming anymore, now is "Climate Change", as if the climate was constant for the last 4.5 billion years on this good Earth, changing ONLY at the appearance of man, because we spew CO2.
Published: February 27, 2008 11:35 PM
TokyoTom,
Me thinks you have the same confirmation bias when it comes to evidence in favor of AGW and perhaps even CAGW. You always seem to have an almost knee-jerk reaction against evidence to the contrary. It's always being put forth "by people with confirmation bias" or "ties to certain corporations" (what's your occupation/source of funding?) or "without certain degrees approved of by you" (what are your climate science credentials, by the way?), etc.
In my view there is every much a need to challenge global warming alarmism on the science side of things as there is to put forth free-market environmentalist alternatives. Both these tasks need not be undertaken in the same post or by the same people.
Published: February 28, 2008 12:42 AM
Goeffrey. Tom is just a spammer. He's been cyberstalking Reisman for two years. He won't listen to reason and never shows up with any evidence. He's just a spammer. He talks about externalities and when you point out that industrial-CO2 is a positive externality it doesn't matter. Next week he'll be back talking about externalities again.
He's just a cyber-stalker and this evil movement brings such trash into being and motivates them to do what they do.
Published: February 28, 2008 10:47 AM
"In my view there is every much a need to challenge global warming alarmism on the science side of things as there is to put forth free-market environmentalist alternatives. "
Its most unclear what you are saying here. It is implied that you would want us to VOLUNTARILY reduce CO2-output?
Is this right?
And if so why?
Published: February 28, 2008 10:54 AM
"Its most unclear what you are saying here. It is implied that you would want us to VOLUNTARILY reduce CO2-output?"
Not necessarily. For one thing, I'm not convinced that it's the primary driver in global warming, assuming the climate is still warming. I've seen a number of academic studies and enough problems with the surface station temperature data and climate models to think that it is quite possible, even likely, that the recent warming cycle has ended.
My wife and I drive an SUV and I don't advocate not driving them. Some of our lightbulbs are CFLs but not all of them. (They're supposed to save us money on electricity, not just use less, and I don't have Dr. Reisman's aesthetic aversion to them.) I'm against government subsidies on ethanol and other alternative fuels. I'm against cap-and-trade policies and against a carbon tax. I think Sheryl Crow's suggestion that we use only one square of toilet paper per sitting is silly. (Sorry, Sheryl, I haven't a square to spare.) As is her re-usable/removable shirts sleeve/dining napkin. (How barbaric!) I don't use reusable bags at grocery stores. I take either paper or plastic, don't feel guilty about dead trees with regard to the latter (commercial tree farms replant) and re-use the plastic bags in my smaller trashcans at home. Need I go on? You can see my blog for many posts attacking the statist-alarmist environmentalists for their alarmism, on the science, and on their statist politico-economic policies.
I advocate free markets for the same reason as other libertarians. There are additional reasons for advocating free markets, however., and that is that they will be beneficial (whereas statism is harmful) to our natural and man-made environments and our enjoyment of them.
The statist environmentalists want to develop cleaner alternative fuels. I don't see why this is a problem so long as one doesn't advocate and enact statist means to achieve it. All else equal, less pollution is valued by most people over more pollution. Cleaner forms of energy need not be more costly and less efficient. It's quite possible that scientific and technological breakthroughs will result in cheaper, more efficient, AND cleaner forms of energy; and free markets are the best way to encourage such breakthroughs and their widespread provision and adoption.
Statist policies will distort scientific and technological research and distort and hinder the market. The statist environmentalists hypocritically block nuclear power, hydro-electric power, and some even criticize windmills because they are bird cuisinarts. The latter's not really all that practical in most cases anyway, but the first two are useful. Solar power looks to be a cheap, efficient and ubiquitous energy source in the future if technological breakthroughs continue as they have been. Check out the current state of development on it. Would you object to someone roofing their house with sheet-thin solar panels that are efficient enough to provide all of his energy needs (including full modern amenities and luxuries) and, not only that, produce some excess that he can sell off for a profit?
For pollution in general, it generally represents human conflict over property and resource use. Clearly defining and properly enforcing private property rights are the way to go in resolving this problem. Pollution harms human beings, damages their property, and damages parts of the natural environment that are not privately owned but should be (tragedy of the commons situation). Private property owners tend to take better care of their property than land and objects forcibly open to public use. People or corporations who pollute the property of others, thus violating their rights, can be held accountable in court. Those who want to preserve parts of the currently unowned natural environment for whatever reason (be it hunting, fishing, sight-seeing, etc.) can seek to homestead or appropriate it. For such land that is already owned, they can seek to purchase it from its current owner with the aim of preserving it.
Published: February 28, 2008 12:49 PM
Oh, and I'm also aware of the studies that show that a somewhat warmer climate will generally be good for human beings and human agriculture, and higher CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere promote better plant growth in general. What we don't want is too much warming, but I haven't seen conclusive or even credible evidence that we're in for catastrophic warming.
Published: February 28, 2008 1:05 PM
"Not necessarily..."
Not NECESSARILY? Why not just "NO"?
The question was:
"Its most unclear what you are saying here. It is implied that you would want us to VOLUNTARILY reduce CO2-output?".
And you were unable to give a straight "NO" in the face of this obvious science-idiocy.
Environmentalists will smell out this sort of double-talk based on mental weakness and exploit it mercilessly. They may be criminally-insane but they are not stupid.
Published: February 28, 2008 8:15 PM
You have a problem with voluntary activities, Raheem?
Published: February 28, 2008 10:27 PM
I have a problem with people caving in to NATURE-FASCISM.
Now do you have any evidence to be caving in this way? If you don't have any evidence why we ought to comply with these urgings of the NATURE-FASCISTS why did you go weak-minded like this?
You could have just said "NO". But it appears that the urgings of an irrational and bigoted movement were enough for you to waver in this way.
Its not good that we have people voluntarily rummaging through their rubbish to seperate one sort of rubbish from another. Its not good that they are doing this in the phony belief that they are doing something worthwhile for the planet. It diminishes people to be doing such ridiculous stuff and thinking such ridiculous thoughts.
But in any case the relevant context is that we don't live currently in an Austrian world. There are restrictions, regulations and insufficiently clear property rights in place as an ongoing reality. So to mislead people is to mislead people in this context. And to soft-peddle the wider evil of this movement is to mislead people.
The wicked principle of the intrinsic value of nature may not control all that many individuals one hundred percent. But it does tell us where the movement entire is going with this.
And the movement entire is making us as bigoted towards nuclear power as the nazis were towards Jewish people. And more bigoted against liquified-coal than the KKK was against black people.
Yet these two complementary technologies are the only things which can bail us out of the impending energy crisis that this wicked movement has spent at least three decades pushing us towards.
We have to investigate why it is that you just couldn't say "no."
I'm a bit of a homo-sapien-centred biodiversivist with a sentimental weakness for some of the bigger-brained animals. But I'm not an environmentalist on account of that being an evil and repulsive movement thats killed tens of millions of people last century and is well-placed to kill hundreds of millions more this century.
Why couldn't you just say NO!!!
Thats what we ought to find out here.
Published: February 29, 2008 7:40 AM
Geoffrey. "Raheem is just a spammer. He's been cyberstalking TokyoTom for two years. He won't listen to reason and never shows up with any evidence. He's just a spammer. He talks about evil and repulsive enviros and when you point out that there are no property rights that allow people to express their preferences on environmental matters, it doesn't matter. Next week he'll be back talking about how great CO2 is again.
"He's just a cyber-stalker and this evil movement brings such trash into being and motivates them to do what they do."
I should know, because I AM Raheem - otherwise known as Graeme, GMB and Jimmy Jam!
As Raheem has said in a different comment thread, and I posted and praised on my blog:
"Take me off moderation, ban the multi-year spammer Tokyo Tom. And let me fight it out with these kids.
"What you older Miseans might not realise is that some of the youngsters amongst you have been brought up with this nonsense along with Mothers milk. Its quite likely that Geofrey is a CO2-bedwetter with a superstitious fear of Mother Natures revenge.
"Lets take the gloves off and sort it all out now. But leave the spammer outside."
But let's make darn sure we never talk about libertarian or Austrian principles regarding preferences, property rights or catalaxxy. That stuff's just too confusing - plus, it gets in the way of hating people and having a good fight!\
Super Graeme/Raheem
Published: February 29, 2008 8:08 AM
Tom the spammer is not bailing you out Geoffrey. He can spam all he wants but the question still remains. The question is mine to ask and yours to answer.
We need to know why you wavered.
Apparently one million leftist nutballs saying something one million times has an effect on you.
It ought not do.
Because this is just the leftist version of wishing upon a star and it doesn't change the physical reality around you.
If you are affected by consensus over evidence you may as well embrace Maynard Keynes as your personal saviour right now.
Published: February 29, 2008 9:27 AM
Raheem/Graeme/Jimmy,
You sound like you're suffering from multiple personality disorder. What we ought to find out here is when and how you went off the deep end. I urge you to get help. Find a good psychiatrist.
I didn't waver and you seem to be mistaking intelligence and thoughtfulness for mental weakness. No surprise there, since intelligence and thoughtfulness are the antithesis of the kind of religious zealotry you display.
Published: February 29, 2008 9:47 AM
"If you are affected by consensus over evidence you may as well embrace Maynard Keynes as your personal saviour right now."
You speak in ignorance once again.
Published: February 29, 2008 9:54 AM
No I don't think so. I think you are wrong. I don't think I speak in ignorance at all.
Now why did you waver?
Do you have evidence that industrial-CO2 is BAD for the environment? I don't think you have.
You are just a kid. And you are studying philosophy. So I expect you to take a philosophical approach.
Why did you pussy out in this way?
Because you did pussy out!
Of that we can be sure.
I've been going back on what Murray did in his lifetime and he wasn't always right in my view. But he never pussied out like this. And I see Reisman show up again and again and he never seems to pussy out ever.
So why did you pussy out?
Show some spine kid.
Published: February 29, 2008 10:04 AM
I'm just a kid? How old are you to be calling me a kid? 80?
You do speak in ignorance and anyone on this blog can read the last Reisman blogpost to find out. They can also go to my own blog and see old blogposts of mind criticizing science by consensus. You reveal yourself for an ignorant zealot the more you post.
Published: February 29, 2008 10:33 AM
I suppose in your zealotry you missed this post of mine above:
"Oh, and I'm also aware of the studies that show that a somewhat warmer climate will generally be good for human beings and human agriculture, and higher CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere promote better plant growth in general. What we don't want is too much warming, but I haven't seen conclusive or even credible evidence that we're in for catastrophic warming."
Posted by: Geoffrey Allan Plauche at February 28, 2008 1:05 PM
Why can't you answer my questions?
Published: February 29, 2008 11:01 AM
Dear Prof. Block:
Your seeming lack of interest in broaching how Austrian principles may relate to open-access commons in connection with the atmosphere is itself quite interesting - given that this is a Austrian blog and not a science one.
It's also interesting, but hardly surprising, that I'm the only one here who seems to have noticed or cared about your active non-engagement. Unsurprising, since as I noted, it is so much easier for us to affirm personal views that it is the wise, reasonable skeptics who are correct on the science (let's call them "Blockheads", shall we?), while the rest of the world's idiots (and particularly the evil enviros) just MUST be wrong.
That leaves poor fellows like Geoffrey, who is an "agnostic" on the science, subject to screeching Birds like Graeme/Raheem and other Blockheads who believe that it is a fatal error for libertarians ever to posit arguendo that man's activities may be affecting the climate, and to move onto the thin ice of Austrian principles regarding preferences, property rights, catallaxy or enduring industrial rent-seeking.
But since your engagement here is on the level of science, did you perhaps note this article by the NYT's science reporter?
As I previously noted on my blog, climate scientists are still seeing long-term warming despite the ongoing La Nina cooling and our position at the lowest point on the solar irradiation cycle: http://mises.com/blogs/tokyotom/archive/2008/01/15/did-global-warming-stop-in-1998-jim-hansen-says-no.aspx
Jim Hansen of NASA stated last month that "when the next El Nino occurs it is likely to carry global temperature to a significantly higher level than has occurred in recent centuries, probably higher than any year in recent millennia. Thus we suggest that, barring the unlikely event of a large volcanic eruption, a record global temperature clearly exceeding that of 2005 can be expected within the next 2-3 years."
I am looking forward to your next climate change "science" post.
Sincerely,
TT
Published: March 2, 2008 9:52 PM
I think Dr Block only linked to an article he found interesting... unless you're referring to some exchange I'm unaware of.
Published: March 2, 2008 10:07 PM
Brent and David:
"Also funny how enviros care about useless concepts like "average" temperature for the entire planet."
"I think it's funny how they pretend to actually have an average temperature for the entire planet."
Yes; metrics can only imperfectly tell us about complex phenomena. Shall we ignore, improve or do away with such metrics, even if there is a long history of private demand and supply of them (prom Poor Richards to modern weather reports)?
My vote is that membership in the Reisman/Corrigan/Blockhead group should require a vow to have no truck with weather or climate statistics of any sort.
Do you agree?
TT
Published: March 2, 2008 10:07 PM
Mark: "It's funny to watch environmentalists masquerade as "scientists", much as hare-brained socialists used to posture as "intellectuals". So, on one hand, these "New age scientists" drone on about melting arctic ice and the "crises" of global warming; but on the other hand, they are thunderously silent about the anomoly of cooling in Antarctica, where climatic conditions perpeutally run counter to those on the rest of the planet. ...
"If anthropological increases in CO2 were really causing global warming, then, according to the Green hypothesis, this warming would first appear at both poles. The New Age "scientists"--despite their claims to having arrived at "scientific consensus" about this "crises"--cannot offer a good explanation of this phenomena."
Who are the "New age scientists" and the "Green hypothesis" that you deride, Mark? Are these real scientists who actually discuss the phenomena that concern you, or are you lazily/deliberately lumping them in with some enviros who like to make sweeping generalizations out of their *ss (not unlike some here)?
And far from being "thunderously silent" on the lag between strong Northern hemisphere warming and cold in the Sourthern hemisphere and Antarctic, it's a child's task to Google up discussions by or about climate scientists concerning such phenomena. For convenience, I've linked to a few articles/discussions here (to avoid the spam filter): http://mises.com/blogs/tokyotom/archive/2008/03/03/antarctic-cooling.aspx
[Hints for those unwilling to make any effort:
- land warms more rapidly than the oceans, which are a heat sink;
- there is more land in the north, and much more ocean in the south;
- ozone is a powerful absorber of surface infrared radiation from the surface, but Antarctic levels have fallen due to GHGs - and have not yet recovered despite the phasing out of CFCs in the industrialized nations;
- a circumpolar wind has strengthened, thus reducing the mixing of cold Antarctic air further to the poles;
- the oceans off of Antarctica are warming, and so is the Antarctic Peninsula, where in the last 50 years temperatures have risen by about 2.5 degrees Centigrade - as much as five times the world average.]
Far from showing the "incoherent shameless lies of environmentalist hucksters", doesn't the true scientific picture on Antarctica in fact show your own lazy preference for rhetoric over facts?
Regards,
Tom
Published: March 2, 2008 11:32 PM
Robert Müürsepp:
Good observation about "global dimming", but it's really unfair to confuse the good people here, who are suffering a dimming of their own, with that kind of nuance.
Sincerely,
TT
Published: March 2, 2008 11:35 PM
Vedran: "If there is such a damn consensus on global warming then there should be a consensus on signs of global warming. Unfortunately anything is a sign of global warming."
This is simply lazy - excellent!
As noted above, membership in the Reisman/Corrigan Austrian Deniers Club absolutely forbids resort to the scientific literature, especially last year's IPCC digests of recent science: http://www.ipcc.ch/
Rather, members in good standing should presume that the climate is quite simple and the consequences of toying with it readily and intuitively understood by all laymen, especially them, the better to be able to claim that weather events disprove what those nefarious "warmers" are concerned about.
Keep up the good work.
Published: March 2, 2008 11:44 PM
David White: "So chill out and let the market work its wonders, as the world has more immediate problems to attend to."
Care to clarify, David? What market, pertaining to what property rights?
Regards,
Tom
Published: March 2, 2008 11:50 PM
happylea: "The real problem is that productive exchange of ideas is impossible when the other side is strictly interested in advancing an unstated true agenda. And that's what Reisman, et al, attacks."
No doubt some enviros (and others) have their minds made up about the correctness of their own view and the nefariousness of others. But they are certainly mirrorred here.
But isn't this a rather common and obvious dynamic with respect to struggles over resources? Why can't Austrians recognize and appreciate this, instead of insisting that the way to resove struggles over unowed resources is to hate those who also what to have voice in how such resources are used?
I'm sorry, but this is where our emotions are leading us, not our principles.
- "In response, we get silence or misrepresentations."
That you can you say that with a straight face is rather strong evidence for how strongly you are trapped by your cognitive biases. Austrians simply are NOT engaging others on climate change or other environmental issues. Rather, we have a continuing serious of rants addressed to the Austrian faithful, not to others.
And much less to outsiders, the blog authors here generally to not deign (except perhaps through the occasional sock puppet) to dignify the questions and observations of apostates and doubting Thomases like myself with responses. Who wants to get near the unclean?
In sum, the authors here rather consistently demonstrate that they are not interested in a "productive exchange of ideas", which, of course, is an excellent way to ensure that none occurs.
If that does indeed trouble you, then perhaps you might venture out to find an "enemy" to engage.
Published: March 3, 2008 12:12 AM
Goeffrey, thanks for your comments:
- "doesn't confirmation bias work the other way round too?"
We're all human, so of course confirmation bias is also at work in others - and me - as I noted in my first comment.
- "The global warming activists who are so thoroughly convinced disaster is looming on the horizon and CO2, and only CO2, is the primary cause, are just as apt to fall prey to this."
Of course we should be wary of over-simplification, but this is certainly a strawman at some levels. The scientific discussion is often about CO2-equivalents (CO2 and other GHGs) and carbon black/soot.
- "Me thinks you have the same confirmation bias when it comes to evidence in favor of AGW and perhaps even CAGW."
Not sure what you mean by CAGW, but it's certainly true that we're all better about pointing out how OTHERS' arguments are screwed up, and pretty good about not noticing our own flaws.
- You always seem to have an almost knee-jerk reaction against evidence to the contrary. It's always being put forth "by people with confirmation bias" or "ties to certain corporations" ... or "without certain degrees approved of by you" ... etc.
Nice try, Geoffrey. Yes, I may seem underhanded in pointing out what I see as confirmation bias, but I'm always happy to argue facts. As to the rest of what you see as "knee-jerk", I challenge you to demonstrate any case where you think I've been unfair or hasty.
Tom
Published: March 3, 2008 12:27 AM
Francisco:
- "what is being challenged is the idea of an "average" temperature and the idea that the globe is warming up BECAUSE of man, when the "predictions" have been incorrect."
Whose idea of average temperature and to what predictions (especially the incorrect ones) are you referring?
- "How many times the press reported predictions of god-awful hurricane seasons that would drown all of us in our own complacency, only for such a thing not to happen?"
Do you have problems distinguishing between the press, Al Gore and the scientists, Francisco? As far as I can see, many scientists think we can expect stronger hurricanes as the climate warms, though not more frequent ones, and a few think that this trend is already detectable.
- "The worst is the way the watermelons back-pedal on everything - it is not Global Warming anymore, now is 'Climate Change'"
You might have missed the discussion, but the change that some have made from discussing "global warming" to "climate change" was a deliberate political tactic led by the Administration and Republicans, based on advice from spin-artist Frank Luntz.
- "as if the climate was constant for the last 4.5 billion years on this good Earth, changing ONLY at the appearance of man, because we spew CO2."
Is this what scientists say, or what I have ever said, Francisco? I think rather I tend to get complaints because I introduce more nuance that anyone cares to learn.
- "And yet you insist on people taking your links (or you) seriously?"
I don't insist on any such thing, Francisco. Rather, I simply take myself and others (generally) seriously. I guess I should be flattered that you chose to drop by, but it's not clear to me whether you wanted to actually discuss something, or just to leave your mark.
TT
Published: March 3, 2008 12:43 AM
Dr. Block, here's a little more data on Antarctica for your reference:
http://mises.com/blogs/tokyotom/archive/2008/03/03/antarctic-cooling.aspx
Apostate Tom
Published: March 5, 2008 12:19 AM
i know im only 13 but look at the storm hitting Australia it looks biger than Italy, and all around the world theres storms ,hurricanes and tonardos so i want to know if there any thing to do to aware my community
please reply
Published: May 30, 2008 6:08 AM