Re: [asa] Teaching ID and teaching that Gobal Warming is not real

On Jan 5, 2008, at 9:37 AM, John Walley wrote:

> I agree. As mentioned before on this list, we had Dr. Kim Cobb of GA
> Tech who is a Climatologist come an present to our RTB Chapter last
> year and she said exactly what Don stated below. Their is consensus
> among scientists about the warming and even anthropogenic warming,
> but their is much less data and consensus supporting what exactly
> the options are and what can reasonably be done about it. Her
> presentation is online at the link below but that site appears to be
> down at the moment though.
>
> John
>
>

We've discussed on this list some of the pluses and minuses of the
various mitigation approaches, e.g. David O.'s discussion on Pigovian
taxes vs. cap and trade. If that was all that was being controverted
we wouldn't have an issue here. When people like myself use the term
global warming deniers it is very specific. When I use the term I
refer to those who perpetrate and follow those who deny significant
anthropogenic climate change though the use of fraudulent data
manipulation, e.g. cherry picking, changing axis labels on graphs,
fraudulently citing sources, truncating data sequences, improper use
of uncertainty etc. People who are skeptical of various "solutions" on
the table are not necessarily in view unless they take advantage of
the fraudulent data in order to minimize the scale of the problem.
When I use the term global warming alarmists it is people that do the
same on the other side of the issue. I will note, though, that the
alarmists generally will take data that is in the high end of the
uncertainty while the deniers are completely outside the bounds of the
data.

One thing that is pushing me closer and closer to the alarmist
position is as we pump more and more CO2 into the atmosphere the
system becomes more and more non-linear. Our computer models require a
certain amount of stability where the change happens relatively
slowly. Given the paleoclimatic analogs also happened slowly, rapid
change could put us into area that is sui generis where the physical
mechanisms are unknown. This appears to be the case where we are
seriously underestimating the melting ice in the arctic and antarctic.
The ice models we had did not take into account that the melting would
happen as quickly as it has. For example, the melting water underneath
the glaciers acting as a lubricant. The inaccuracy of the models that
is often cited by the deniers is a cause for alarm and not calm as the
inaccuracies are uniformly underestimating the measured effects.

Other adaptive systems, e.g. biological evolution, technological
progress, and economics-in-general, also require a certain amount
stability. Rapid changes in the climate or rapid depletion of oil
fields "shock" these systems in an unpredictable fashion. The people
who suggest that we can adapt with technology assume a future that is
much like the past. This will NOT be the case. The denialists always
ask the question what is the "optimum" climate. The answer is there is
no optimum climate, but that is the wrong question to ask. The right
question is how much rate of change (in any direction) can be
tolerated before there is massive economic and ecological disasters on
our hands. When there was rapid -- but less rapid than current --
climate change we saw mass extinctions.

The professor for my MBA-level accounting class first words were:

> If you remember nothing else, remember this: unknown costs are NOT
> zero.

We need to make sure that the GHG levels are such that we can predict
the costs and so be able to budget adaptation. We are rapidly
approaching the red-line where we don't know whether we will blow the
engine. As such, we need to find the most effective means of doing so.
Interestingly, what I haven't seen much of is a call by Christians for
us to voluntarily act NOT in our economic self interest. When
secularists scratch their heads and wonder "what is the matter with
Kansas", they don't realize that Christians can and do act in manner
that is not purely driven by self-interest. We were asked to sacrifice
-- and some paid the ultimate sacrifice -- for the global war on
terror and we responded in 2004. We saw cynical power manipulation in
W ashington in 2006 and we stayed home or switched sides. From what I
have seen by other "solutions" of climate change forcing self-
interested parties to act responsibly probably won't be sufficient.
There needs to be a call from Christians to Christians to sacrifice
for the sake of our poorer brethren. We may be able to adapt because
we have the resources but the poor who did not cause this mess will
inevitably pay the price.

Whenever such as above is proposed there is the inevitable cry of
protest from the deniers who are more beholden to their p olitical
philosophy than to Scripture. That cry is wearing thin on
evangelicals, however. Note David Brooks' column yesterday with his
Iowa post-mortem:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/04/opinion/04brooks.html

> H uckabee won because he tapped into realities that other R
> epublicans have been slow to recognize. First, evangelicals have
> changed. H uckabee is the first ironic evangelical on the national
> stage.

> He criticized Wall Street and K Street. Most importantly, he sensed
> that c onservatives do not believe their own movement is well led.
> He took on R ush L imbaugh, the Club for Growth and even P resident
> B ush.

> H uckabee probably won’t be the nominee, but starting last night in
> Iowa, an evangelical began the R epublican Reformation.

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Received on Sat Jan 5 13:47:33 2008