Climate Predictions Come Up Short, Example #2,453
[Guest post by Aaron Worthing; if you have tips, please send them here. Or by Twitter @AaronWorthing.]
It feels like it’s been a while since I have done one of these posts, so it is worth taking a moment to start with first principles. The subject of the environment is one of those areas where I respectfully disagree with Patrick. As I wrote in December:
My default is that the government cannot take away our freedom until and unless they prove that it is justified. Environmental laws inevitably take away our freedom. So the government as a matter of practice should not impose such regulations unless it can prove that the dangers it is guarding against are real.
And when it comes to “climate change,” the scientific process is so broken we cannot trust the doom-mongers. And the proof of that is how they continually and spectacularly get their predictions wrong:
I wouldn’t fault them from staying out of the prediction game. But they make that prediction and turn out to be wrong, time and again. They claim to know what the future will be, and are proven wrong, again and again. They can’t predict two weeks from now. They can’t predict the climate one year from now. But we are supposed to trust their predictions into the next century?
Further, the fact that no other scientist contradicts them is damning, too. For instance, the other day NASA unveiled a claim that they discovered a new form of bacteria that uses arsenic in its DNA. This was a tremendous deal, if true. And now we are seeing that assertion questioned, as scientists come out questioning the science behind the claims. Now I won’t pretend to know who is right in that food fight, but this is what you expect to see when science is operating properly—that when scientists hold a press conference and start getting things wrong, that other scientists speak up and tell us this. The fact that these climate scientists very publicly make a string of clearly erroneous predictions, and no one contradicts them (except the so-called deniers) says to me that the scientific process has been corrupted.
So this is familiar ground and the only question is what prediction is proven wrong today. And it’s a doozy:
In 2005, the United Nations Environment Programme predicted that climate change would create 50 million climate refugees by 2010. These people, it was said, would flee a range of disasters including sea level rise, increases in the numbers and severity of hurricanes, and disruption to food production.
The UNEP even provided a handy map. The map shows us the places most at risk including the very sensitive low lying islands of the Pacific and Caribbean.
It so happens that just a few of these islands and other places most at risk have since had censuses, so it should be possible for us now to get some idea of the devastating impact climate change is having on their populations.
Read the whole thing, but the short version is this: the reports of an impending wave of climate refugees was greatly exaggerated. I mean there was New Orleans and… that’s pretty much it. Everywhere else people were supposed to flee from as the ocean would come crashing into their cities… well, the ocean didn’t come in and thus there was no need to flee.
Which brings up another point. Al “Crazed Sex Poodle” Gore and the IPCC both won a Nobel Prize in 2007 “for their efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change, and to lay the foundations for the measures that are needed to counteract such change.” The theory went something like this. Global warming will cause things like refugee crises, which will somehow lead to war. So given that these crises have never materialized… shouldn’t they give their awards back?
[Posted and authored by Aaron Worthing.]
Some of the Pacific islands that have been predicted to disappear, such as Tuvalu, have been capitalising on that prediction; ultimately what they want is visas for their entire population to resettle in either Australia or New Zealand, and if they can also get lots of money in “compensation” then so much the better. But there has never been any evidence of an actual rise in sea levels.
Milhouse (ea66e3) — 4/13/2011 @ 7:46 amHow about this: in order to justify a regulation, the government ought to satisfy the same burden of proof that you or I would face if we wanted an injunction against our neighbour to stop him doing something we claimed was endangering us.
Milhouse (ea66e3) — 4/13/2011 @ 7:48 amGlobal stupidity is more of an danger to us.
DohBiden (984d23) — 4/13/2011 @ 8:10 amThat first comment by Mr. Milhouse is certainly true and what’s sad is that it will probably happen. There is some evidence that those islands are slowly sinking- the sea isn’t rising.
Douglas (392f36) — 4/13/2011 @ 8:33 amIts interesting to note that the inhabitants of those wretched islands don’t want to go to Russia, China, North Korea or anywhere except the richest countries in the region, Australia and New Zealand.
Should the leaders of those two countries overcome the liberals who say “Yes! Yes!! Bring them all here!” and deny them entry they will be branded as racists.
wait, wasn’t some island at risk of tipping over, according to a congressman?
Aaron Worthing (e7d72e) — 4/13/2011 @ 8:52 amThat’s when it comes to the environment. When it comes to WAR, you’re quite happy to jump in, even if the predictions of a “mushroom cloud” from WMDSs come up short.
It’s a bit of a joke to think that the scientific process has become corrupted, unless you can somehow prove that it has been corrupted everywhere. Outlying examples like this are just that: outliers. Every field has them, but they prove nothing.
Kman (5576bf) — 4/13/2011 @ 8:57 amKman
Yeah, you are right. i don’t give saddam hussien due process. pity that.
*rolls eyes*
Aaron Worthing (e7d72e) — 4/13/2011 @ 9:13 am🙄 Kman is just another islamonazi.
DohBiden (984d23) — 4/13/2011 @ 9:15 amdohbiden, how do you make that rolleyes thingie?
carlitos (00428f) — 4/13/2011 @ 9:24 amWell, that’s one way to look about it.
I was thinking more from the perspective of putting troops in harm’s way to combat a non-existent threat. You, uh, do care about the troops?
Kman (5576bf) — 4/13/2011 @ 9:24 amKmart drools standing up.
JD (f9d675) — 4/13/2011 @ 9:25 amLike this :eyeroll:
hussein was an non-existent threat but qaddafi ain’t?
And your projecting your troop hatred on to someone else………again.
DohBiden (984d23) — 4/13/2011 @ 9:25 am:eyeroll: test.
Kman’s non-sequiturs do not resonate.
carlitos (00428f) — 4/13/2011 @ 9:36 am🙄 i meant to say
DohBiden (984d23) — 4/13/2011 @ 9:39 amThis is… National. Soros. Radio.
happyfeet (a55ba0) — 4/13/2011 @ 9:45 amIt’s not a non-sequitur. Both are about threat assessment, and how much “proof” is required before this nation commits itself to putting in resources to resist that threat.
Kman (5576bf) — 4/13/2011 @ 9:46 amRemember when we used to talk about real pollutants, like carbon monoxide, good times.
narciso (8a8b93) — 4/13/2011 @ 9:47 amKman doesn’t want to convince you. He just wants Aaron’s attention.
It’s especially clear when he starts freaking out about something totally off topic, and I think when he does this his comments should be deleted.
But yeah, Bill Clinton, the architect of the ‘saddam is a threat, has WMD, and we need regime change’ concept indeed didn’t wait until we had a smoking gun. The reason for this is obvious.
Collapsing our economy based on fears of global warming is a lot different. The scope of the project is immense. Most liberal activists will eventually admit they don’t even think we can prevent global warming (which is rational… we have no power to stop climate change, a basic force of nature). It’s not just about whether the threat exists, but how to solve it. With Iraq, we knew how to stop Saddam (which a noose). So this comparison is wildly unfair.
But like I said, Kman is hoping to change the subject because that’s more annoying than being a troll on topic.
Dustin (c16eca) — 4/13/2011 @ 9:48 am:rolleyes:
carlitos (00428f) — 4/13/2011 @ 9:48 am:icon_rolleyes:
carlitos (00428f) — 4/13/2011 @ 9:49 amkman
you can relitigate the iraq war as many times as you want, but in 8 years you have never produced any evidence that bush should have known that saddam didn’t have the WMDs in the amounts he claimed. There is no such thing as perfection, you just hold him to an impossible standard because he is a republican.
You would think after 8 years of failing to prove that you would give up. but then you would think after 9 years of stalking me and getting your @$$ handed to you, you would have given up on that, too.
Aaron Worthing (e7d72e) — 4/13/2011 @ 9:52 amDo you really need a picture of a guy rolling his eyes?
c.c
Dustin (c16eca) — 4/13/2011 @ 9:52 amWhat about Qaddafi kman?
DohBiden (984d23) — 4/13/2011 @ 9:53 am“I was thinking more from the perspective of putting troops in harm’s way to combat a non-existent threat.”
Uh huh.
The graveyards of the middle east are full of people killed by your “non-existent” threat.
Dave Surls (d6bf51) — 4/13/2011 @ 10:04 amIn the article sited by Kman, the IPCC report is referenced as fact. However, the IPCC has been exposed over and over as having misrepresented facts or grossly exaggerated information. Here is one good example: http://jimball.com.au/Features/IPCC-False_evidence.htm
It was just a few months ago scientists were exposed falsifying informaiton with the Climategate scandal. The climate was changing 1000 years ago and it will be changing 1000 years from now.
Eddy (76b227) — 4/13/2011 @ 10:09 am80,000 years ago, DC was at least partially underwater, must have been those Mammoth SUV’s
narciso (8a8b93) — 4/13/2011 @ 10:11 amNo, actually, I am accusing you of a double standard.
When it comes to a military threat, you cast your lot in for action, even in the absence of proof. But when it comes to an environmental threat, you ignore overwhelming evidence and latch on to comparatively small incidents where the predictive evidence fails to materialize (as if that represents the whole body of evidence, which it doesn’t).
I mean, there’s no law that requires you to assess different types of threats with the same exacting standards. But I am just pointing out the inconsistency, and inviting you to explain it.
Kman (5576bf) — 4/13/2011 @ 10:14 amI opened today’s LA Times to see the paper trumpet the new California law requiring power companies to produce a third of their energy from wind and solor energy in 10 years. Besides all the green love, the paper seemed to think this was going to add to employement as well.
What a joke. Very little was said about the high price of energy causing a further exit of manufacturing business from California.
And then it struck me. Doesn’t the LA Times use a lot of electrial power? Maybe this hike in energy cost would be the straw that broke the camel’s back for the LA Times, finally putting it and us out of our misery.
But then I thought, California liberals would pull an Obama and give exemptions to all their political cronnies, i.e. the liberal press. As George said, some animals are more equal than others.
Arizona Bob (7d2a2c) — 4/13/2011 @ 10:24 amAnd you ignored my proof that there is no double standard, since it’s clear how to remedy Saddam, but there is no proven remedy to the unproven global warming issue.
Only a nutcase would say the world isn’t a better place with Saddam gone. It’s just a matter of how much better. He lobbed missles into other countries, invaded three of his neighbors, killed his own people, constantly broke the ceasefire, and had either dormant or active WMD programs. Clinton was right to demand regime change.
You comparing this to the environment wasn’t serious, but rather an attempt to change the subject in the most attention grabbing manner possible. Aaron’s point that we don’t have the data to justify much on climate change still stands your criticism. The predictions for climate change are so consistently a failure, much unlike a long term look at Saddam’s record. In fact, you focus on WMDs specifically because it’s the outlier with Saddam, who is otherwise consistently awful.
You cherry pick in order to pretend someone else is unreasonable, and you wouldn’t have to do that if you were better at basic debating.
BTW, there are plenty of great ideas for energy that work great for climate change worriers that don’t require proof of impending doom. I mentioned this in a recent thread. We don’t need to prove we’re ruining the planet (which we aren’t) if we are talking about much milder solutions, such as modernizing our energy plants.
Dustin (c16eca) — 4/13/2011 @ 10:24 amWhat I find amusing about these laws is that they are terrible for the environment. Of course, Cali imports power from red states anyway, but if they really relied on solar, that means using up a ton of land and potential for tremendous mercury pollution. Had Japan had enough solar panels to produce as much power as Fukushima’s nuclear reactors, and they were struck by the same tsunami, we’d be looking at a much worse environmental problem that the disaster they face now.
Solar and wind aren’t always serious solutions, and they certainly aren’t perfectly green.
I think part of the idea is to simply create an ongoing political drama that the left hopes to benefit from, especially antiamerican radicals.
Dustin (c16eca) — 4/13/2011 @ 10:29 amThey’re not consistently a failure, and every honest person here knows that. AW writes “Example #2,453” to suggest that this type of thing happens a lot, but we all know that’s a gross exaggeration. And if AW were actually pressed to come up with other so-called “failures”, he couldn’t come close to double digits (much less 2,453). The truth is that scientific predictive failures represent an insignificant amount given the overwhelming science out there confirming climate change.
Kman (5576bf) — 4/13/2011 @ 10:31 amShorter kmart – bbbbbbbbbbbbush!!!!!
JD (2da347) — 4/13/2011 @ 10:31 amKman, your naivete on this issue is obvious. There is a pile of evidence that numerous scientists and organizations have covered up data to further the Global Warming (now deceptively called Climate Change) hysteria. There have been petitions of thousands of scientists going on record questioning this “science”. The double standard living by messengers like Al Gore and Rajinda Pachauri who continue to make millions off of their hysteria and live with bigger carbon footprints than entire cities makes one wonder.
Eddy (76b227) — 4/13/2011 @ 10:33 amKmart would be hard pressed to find 5 doom and gloom predictions that have come true. That is classic nozzle behavior from the stalkerish sophist.
JD (822109) — 4/13/2011 @ 10:34 amNot that I should really respond to Kman but:
“overwhelming science out there confirming climate change.”
Do you mean ‘climate change’ or do you mean ‘anthropogenic climate change’? Global climate change caused by man?
luagha (5cbe06) — 4/13/2011 @ 10:40 amOh, no, that can’t be a double standard because they aren’t Republicans. Just because Al Gore pollutes the planet with his jets and mansions, while telling me I can’t keep my light bulb on doesn’t mean he isn’t sincere and consistent! He’d have to be conservative for that.
The guy lives near the ocean, but his movie warned us of oceans rising, just as Obama promised his election was the moment the oceans began to all. Can’t you see that Gore is actually shielding us with his mansion? He is a human shield for Gaia.
Meanwhile, no more nuclear power plants, which I realize I probably sound like a shill for, but they are the true environmentalist’s choice. I don’t agree with Obama most of the time, but he could have been a great president if he had simply led, even with some big government ideas. Sure, he would still have left the USA with the debt crisis, but at least he’d have improved it. We’d be better equipped, instead of shovel ready.
Dustin (c16eca) — 4/13/2011 @ 10:41 amIt’s true that you have to overwhelm science with Kman style lies to show we have manmade climate change that we can cure with democrat policies.
On the other hand, the climate changes, and always has, and always will, and proving that alone is nothing.
Dustin (c16eca) — 4/13/2011 @ 10:43 amluagha:
Both. I personally hesitate to say “caused by man” because that ignores other natural factors, which do exist. But “precipitated by man”? Sure.
Kman (5576bf) — 4/13/2011 @ 10:47 amOur earth has been changing since its beginning. Las Vegas NV. was at the bottom of an ocean, palm trees were found frozen under the ice around the artic circle. The earth changes or it would destroy itself. As the oceans currents travel around the world this changes the water temperatures. Oceans are a part of making our weather.
Fred Huebner III (c56d31) — 4/13/2011 @ 10:54 amFred, you’d think your points were just common sense, but I guess that needs to be said over and over.
Not only would the Michael Mann’s of the world need to prove AGW, but they need to prove we should fix it (that it’s making the world worse to be warmer) and that we can. They can’t even prove the AGW part, hence the fraud and the shift to mere change of the climate, which is like saying you’ve proven water is wet, so now we need commit suicide.
Dustin (c16eca) — 4/13/2011 @ 10:56 amThe Truth Wears Off
Is there something wrong with the scientific method?
by Jonah Lehrer December 13, 2010
Read more http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/12/13/101213fa_fact_lehrer#ixzz1JQN99rhF
This article reveals that many experiments that result in changes in the “received wisdom” that gets embedded in our culture prove to be non-reproducible. And the bias in scientific journals is to either publish a “definitive article” game changing article and not revisit the topic, or to publish additional articles only if they reinforce the results of the initial article’s conclusions.
The arena of climate change is fraught with this type of self-reinforcing, anti-challenging mindset. Oh, then there is the practitioner bias of selectively choosing data that “proves” the preferred hypothesis, rather than scientists behaving like impartial investigators of fact. Shocking!
Even if there is factual evidence of warming, we are a long way off from proving it is man-made rather than part of the cyclical norms that have affected the planet for millions of years.
in_awe (44fed5) — 4/13/2011 @ 10:59 am“overwhelming science out there confirming climate change.”
There isn’t any scientific evidence supporting AGW theory, and there isn’t likely to be either.
What there is is a theory, some good data on current atmospheric composition, some laughably inaccurate temperature data (a lot of which has been deliberately falsified by so-called “scientists”), a lot of proxy data about how things used to be, and a fair amount of certainty that the climate changes naturally, without the help of human beings.
What there isn’t is any scientific data supporting AGW theory.
Dave Surls (d6bf51) — 4/13/2011 @ 11:48 am“Some of the Pacific islands that have been predicted to disappear, such as Tuvalu, have been capitalising on that prediction; ultimately what they want is visas for their entire population to resettle in either Australia or New Zealand, and if they can also get lots of money in “compensation” then so much the better. But there has never been any evidence of an actual rise in sea levels.”
Actually, Milhouse, it is my understanding that there is a great deal of evidence for rising sea levels, it’s just that they have been going on for about 10,000 years, and there is no evidence whatsoever of their being connected in any way to man.
As for the islanders exploiting White Guilt, good on them if they can get away with it, and it does them some good. I’m not a “oh, my God, all colonial powers were absolutely horrible, I must rend my garments!” type, but historically when tribal peoples have encountered expansionist nation-states, the rights and properties of the tribes have taken a shellacking. If, like the American Indians and their Casinos, they can now find a way of screw us back I find it hard to get mad at them. I’ll resist paying any money over which I have any control, but I won’t get ANGRY about it.
C. S. P. Schofield (8b1968) — 4/13/2011 @ 11:52 amAt least twice in the past 15,000 years glaciers advanced to the continental US creating enormous glacial lakes. Glacial Lake Missoula was 6,000 feet deep at its deepest point and held more water than modern day Lake Michigan. When the glacial dams burst as a result of global warming, the runoff from the lake scoured the earth from Montana to to the Pacific. This left behind the “scab lands” of Washington state and deposited rich soil in the Willamette Valley of Oregon. There was Glacial Lake Helena at a slightly smaller scale as well.
Yeah, it happened at least twice. In the past 15,000 years.
And pro AGW truthers are ignoring the fact that the Arctic is now revealing evidence of palm trees and other tropical vegetation. Likewise, evidence is being found documenting the ability of polar bears to handle significant swings in average temperatures in past climate cycles.
in_awe (44fed5) — 4/13/2011 @ 12:37 pmClimate change, definitely. We have had ice ages and come out of them. We have had the Medieval Warm period and the Little Ice Age.
What is confusing Kman is that modern temperature recordings with mercury thermometers in adequate quantity just happened to come online in 1905, when the world was in a cold cycle.
We got hotter until 1940-1945, with a slight respite in 1931-1934 for volcanic eruptions.
We got cooler until 1970-1975.
We got hotter until 1998-2003.
And now we’re getting cooler.
And all this while our industrialization has been ramping up and all this while the CO2 concentration has been steadily increasing.
Anthropogenic, man-caused, global warming completely fails to explain the cooling from 1945 to 1975 and it completely fails to explain our current cooling.
What fools everyone is that our measurements happened to start on the bottom of a curve and end at the top of a curve but ignore the dips and dashes in between. So you can make statements like, “We have been heating up .6 degrees every decade for this whole century!”
But it turns out just to be an artifact of the measurement. By saying ‘this century’ you conveniently start low, end high, and ignore our current cooling trend.
luagha (5cbe06) — 4/13/2011 @ 1:22 pmAbout Tuvalu sinking.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1283669/Low-lying-Pacific-islands-growing-sinking-sea-levels-rise.html
atadoff (5ab807) — 4/13/2011 @ 1:41 pmThe sky is falling.
BR (f68d11) — 4/13/2011 @ 1:50 pmThe science is settled.
Anyone who dares dispute that is an enemy of the people.
luagha, that’s a striking picture.
I feel the same about them as I do about New Orleans. If you’re living in a place that is known to be at risk, you are responsible. Perhaps you deny the risk, or perhaps you accept it, but its on you.
Dustin (c16eca) — 4/13/2011 @ 1:56 pmThat reminds me, predictions are being made for a very active hurricane season this year. The only times they’ve been right since the catastrophic 2005 season were when they predicted mild seasons, since each season since then has been pretty mild. I think the weaseliest prediction I saw was a few years ago, when they said the season would be “near above normal”.
The Sanity Inspector (ef5d4d) — 4/13/2011 @ 2:01 pmThe cornerstones of global warming are the assertions that it is
a) real
b) manmade
c) growing
d) a menace
Criticism of AGW should restrict itself to tackling these assertions. I’m a great respecter of the power of aggregate knowledge. If hundreds of scientists working independently in several different scientific disciplines come up with much the same conclusions, that needs to be reckoned with, other than by simply denigrating the competence of all of them, or smearing the honesty of all of them.
The Sanity Inspector (ef5d4d) — 4/13/2011 @ 2:08 pmIts never been “proven” that recent warming is outside of the boundaries of natural variation except with circular statistical manipulations that have lost all credibility in the climate community. No one stands behind the incompetent work of Mann, Bradley, Hughes et al.
SPQR (26be8b) — 4/13/2011 @ 2:51 pmI think this thread probably won’t get much more attention, it has been eclipsed.
MD in Philly (3d3f72) — 4/13/2011 @ 4:32 pmOne of the things about this issue that always interests me is the way that many leftists who have no serious scientific training or even scientific literacy, nevertheless get all worked up and hysterical about the need to take extreme, traumatic, irreversible actions on climate change, immediately, in favor of their version of the “settled science.” People who wouldn’t know ‘settled science’ if it whacked them on the head with a copy of the Almagest, suddenly pronounce very gravely about ‘science’ — merely because it suits their policy preferences and their revanchist instincts. Oh and also, since the left has lost every serious intellectual and moral battle since say 1917, I guess they’re holding out for a victory at last: it’s like Liza Minelli in “Cabaret” singing “Maybe This Time I’ll Win.”
Not being a scientist myself I have no idea how to judge what’s true or false or speculative or deceptive in this issue and I’ll say so. But I’m a student of culture, and I’m old enough to remember a lot of ostensibly very bright people at top universities gravely pronouncing that Marxism was essentially “settled science”.
There are strong cultural currents at work here, many of them toxic and fueled by primal emotions, and that leads me to a deep and abiding skepticism.
d. in c. (7c90f3) — 4/13/2011 @ 5:36 pmDo you really need a picture of a guy rolling his eyes?
If Kmart roles his eyes, how would anyone know since his head is not anywhere where people can see his face?
AD-RtR/OS! (f37a71) — 4/13/2011 @ 6:12 pmOnly a nutcase would say the world isn’t a better place with Saddam gone.
How many thousands of miles would the largest SUV’s have to drive to equal the carbon footprint of the oil-field fires set at the direction of Saddam Hussein in both GW-1, and OIF?
AD-RtR/OS! (f37a71) — 4/13/2011 @ 6:23 pmThe climate changes each and every time the Sun rises or sets.
AD-RtR/OS! (f37a71) — 4/13/2011 @ 6:25 pmI blame the Koch Bros.
No Koch, Pepsi.
huh (2f2a28) — 4/13/2011 @ 8:54 pm