Global Warming: "Pseudoscientific Fraud"

[cowboy]

I would like the cliff notes version. It isn't a criticism of you, it is an acknowledgement that my attention span has become woefully lacking. If I didn't have a great regard for your thoughts, I wouldn't have asked for the cliff notes.

Basically, there is no such thing as a true yes or no answer to a scientist or an economist. It's all a matter of probabilities. If the probability of a x causing y is greater than 50% then a scientist will say he believes that x probably causes y, even if he only thinks that the probability is 51%. Hence, while over 90% of scientists may agree that humans contribute to climate change, the probability of humans actually causing climate change may be much smaller, as the weighted average probability assigned to humans contributing significantly to climate change by the scientists surveyed will most certainly be less than 97%.

More importantly, while virtually all scientists may agree that humans likely contribute to climate change, the weighted average opinion of the following is still unknown: 1) that humans contribute considerably, 2) that the effects of said climate change will be catastrophic, and 3) that there is anything that we can (or should, given 1 and 2) do to mitigate the effects in any meaningful way. Hence, until we can answer these three questions with some degree of certainty (and this is my opinion now, not Pelagius') it is somewhat premature to spend vast amounts of resources, and put our economy at risk, to 'fight' global climate change. I may have read that wrong, but that is how I interpreted the professor.

[Jeff Lebowski]

Back off man, I'm a scientist.. Well, ok, I'm not.

Well, I think I will throw my hat in the ring. I don't think I'm ideologically inclined to dismiss man-caused global warming, and I think science has lots of authoritative weight. Furthermore, I do think it is more likely than not that man-made forces are causing at least some global warming. That said, my subjective probability is only a little over 50% (In technical terms I am talking about the posterior distribution that is the product of Bayesian updating). One of the reasons my updating (the term for the change in probability caused by seeing the evidence ... in this case the authoritative consensus of scientists) isn't stronger is because of the way some combination of the press and the scientists interviewed by the press (at least the ones I've heard) talk about the issue. I haven't and I don't want to dig into the underlying literature (assuming I could even understand it properly); I just don't care enough about the issue. And while the discussion in this thread (from my skimming of it) is lucid and clear enough, I don't think anything in the thread cleared up why it is difficult for me to do some kind of Bayesian updating with regard to the probability of man-cause global warming.

It has been reported widely by the press, by scientists in interviews, and by Leb in this thread that there is overwhelming consensus for man caused global warming. I think that's important, and it's the primary reason (because of its authoritative weight) why I think man cause global warming is more likely than not. Yes, I am skeptical that the consensus number is 97%, but I would be shocked if it wasn't very high (my guess is the true number is at least 90%). Still, it's the wrong number. Yes, it is correlated with the right number (so it's certainly not irrelevant), but it's still the wrong number. And, other posters in the thread have noted that it is the wrong number: most notably SU and Creekster. it's not the percentage of scientist that believe in man caused global warming that's important, but rather their certainty with respect to the cause. If I'm a scientist and I'm asked whether I believe in man caused global warming, then I would answer yes, if I think the probability is greater than 50%. So what scientists should publish (as a consensus document) is a description of their probability distribution (in fact in science, there is a precise name for it: a posterior distribution ... in a dream world I would get a discussion of the prior distribution as well).* Furthermore, not all 'cause' is equal. Really, I want to know the probability that it's a meaningful or significant causer in terms of magnitude (not significant in a statistical sense). Of course, what is actually a big enough magnitude is a mushy boundary but conceptually it is not a hard concept.

So what I am looking for is something that describes the probability distribution of scientists after they have weighed the evidence. But, for whatever reason, some combination of the press and scientists have reduced that to a simple statement about binary consensus. The problem is I essentially have to infer the consensus probability distribution from the binary consensus statement. For example, does it make sense to assume a uniform distribution from 51%-99% among the 97% who believe in man-cause global warming and uniform distribution from 1%-49% for the 3% that don't? Probably not, but I don't have a great sense for what the distribution should look like so I am left to guess (so that's basically what I've done). Look, talking about the posterior distribution can get technical very fast; I understand that (which is way I don't view the collapse to only reporting a binary consensus as dodgy in any way). But I think scientists can give a far better sense of their posterior distributions without much additional complexity.

OK, so you have admitted that you have not read any of the underlying technical literature, so your entire assessment here is based on what you have gleaned from articles and features in the general media. And your gripe is that they have not given you an extremely technical analysis of their confidence intervals and posterior distribution. There is a very simple reason for this. Their objective of the press is to communicate information to the general public. If they were to do that using the academic jargon that you showcased above, 99% of the public would have their eyes glaze over and the would tune out faster than you can say “Bayes Theorem rocks”.

So when I start my updating using scientific consensus with high authoritative weight I don't update to a super high probability (that man-caused global warming is the truth). Also, I think there are additional things that further reduce my probability. For example, the dispersion in the model estimates of temperature trends over time have pretty wide bands. That suggests there is a significant amount of uncertainty (but I am guessing a bit). Furthermore, we are in a sub-field with limited ability to experimentally manipulate (the bread and better of causal inference). Well, maybe a better way to put it would be to say, that it appears the sub-field has some important limitations on how generalizable the inferences are from experimental manipulation. This doesn't mean I throw my hand up and proclaim it's all hokum. But I do lower my subjective probability some.

I think the peer review process is really quite noisy. Incentives of people are notorious mixed and often political (in the micro sense of field ... academic politics can be awful just like work place politics). Furthermore, recently we've seen problematic reports related to the number of experimental results that can be reproduced even in the best journals. I am not proposing a direction to the bias here, but noise undermines at least my probabilistic confidence (it's not a big hit but it does matter). I do agree that there is an incentive for scientist to try to overturn consensus or orthodoxy. But I don't think that's true for the mode or median scientist. I actually think that incentive is only strong for a relatively small part of the distribution. Yes, if you view yourself as a young elite (and ambitious) scientist, you might want to try to overturn consensus; but it is risky. A publishing strategy that deals with smaller issues may be much more likely to pay off in terms of gaining tenure and a solid reputation.

I view the reported data scandals in much the same way. They shouldn't cause people to throw their hands up and once again exclaim it's all hokum (they don't imply the probability is zero) but it strikes me as rather rational to lower our probabilistic confidence at least a little. Additionally, I think the median political beliefs of scientists enter in much the same way. I don't think scientists are generally driven by political ideology. But, I do think it matters on the margin at least a little. This causes me to update less strongly towards a man-made cause; but only a little less strongly.

(Also, there are some technical things related to the nature of my Bayesian prior that I won't go into to that leads to less updating.)

Given these issues, I think it is pretty defensible to be on the below 50% divide of the debate.

footnotes
----
**Note, one thing I don't want is the 'confidence intervals' from the models ... those are related but technically shouldn't be same as the probability of significant in magnitude man-caused global warming given the evidence.

As I've stated before, models are very important in this case, but they are not the sole foundation of the science. It is a rather simple matter to estimate the amount of greenhouse gases we are producing. It is also rather simple to measure the greenhouse gas content in the atmosphere and track how it is increasing over time. Furthermore, the relationship between greenhouse gases and the greenhouse effect is a simple physical phenomenon that is well understood (thank heavens for the greenhouse effect – otherwise we would all be frozen solid!). What would be truly remarkable is if we somehow discovered that increasing greenhouse gases in this manner had no effect on world temps over time. The models allow us to examine the complex interaction of a variety of physical phenomena to explore what kinds of things are likely to happen (temp rise, ice melt, etc) over long periods of time as this greenhouse effect operates over time and how severe those effects are likely to be. But the core issue of increasing gases = increasing temps is a very simple one.

In spite of this, you pinpoint a few somewhat noisy elements in the science and as a result claim that “it is pretty defensible to be on the below 50% divide of the debate” (without the benefit of any actual numbers being analyzed, I might add). The funny thing is, as we sit here and debate confidence levels and ways to measure consensus, the science has moved on. Except for at the fringes, the core questions of “is global warming occurring?” and “is it being impacted by anthropogenic greenhouse gases?” are no longer serious questions for debate among scientists. Almost everyone has moved on to collecting and analyzing data to study the rate at which it is occurring and how severe it will be.

[pelagius]

OK, so you have admitted that you have not read any of the underlying technical literature, so your entire assessment here is based on what you have gleaned from articles and features in the general media. And your gripe is that they have not given you an extremely technical analysis of their confidence intervals and posterior distribution. There is a very simple reason for this. Their objective of the press is to communicate information to the general public. If they were to do that using the academic jargon that you showcased above, 99% of the public would have their eyes glaze over and the would tune out faster than you can say “Bayes Theorem rocks”.

Yes, this is totally about my subjective probability which is a function of my information set. It is not a sophisticated information set (so one can certainly criticize me for being unlearned but my limited information set really drove the whole post ... how a hopefully reasonable person but without significant technical expertise should update their beliefs to a certain information set). Despite writing a fairly long post I'm not interested in the issue of global warming at all. in fact, I doubt I would have cared enough to even write anything up if creekster hadn't asked me about it privately (for some reason creekster things I don't post enough). I essentially just copied and pasted what I wrote to him with some expansion. In fact, the only thing I find interesting in the discussion is thinking about how I should update my beliefs based on new information.

Maybe my relatively low probability (although it is over 50% for a significant in magnitude effect ... I hope that's clear that's what my subjective probability was referring to even if the notion is a bit ill-defined by me ... I would have a significantly higher probability for the simple yes/no) is entirely the fault of the media or the media sources I hear talk about these things. I don't expect scientists to talk about this in technical terms in popular outlets. I do think it is possible to have much better information relayed without resorting to the technical level commonly found in my posts (it doen't strike me that the only two ways to comunicate are either the current level of discourse or my overly esoteric discourse). Sure, in my post I was technical about what I wanted: a consensus posterior distribution (I did that for precision ... but sometimes I get carried away). And maybe that was a mistake to use that language because I don't need a super technical discussion of Bayesian updating to make a sharper inference than I think I currently can (some relatively simple statements about the probability distribution of scientists would help me a lot).

I want to make a reasonable inference without having to work very hard. It's possible that if I worked a little harder to understand things my probability would shoot up. But my post was an explanation for why I find it difficult to make a reasonable inference given I get my information from popular sources (and I was left with a fair amount of guess work to just casually assess what I thought of the probability). That's all; you, for example, are working off a different information set. I'm trying to infer something about probabilities from what I hear in the popular press. You can't impart your information set to me easily because it is largely a function of technical expertise (axceptt for your probability distribution and some high level intitution). I do take your assessment and the assessment of other scientists (at least the way it is relayed in the popular press) as having a heavy authoritative weight.

As I've stated before, models are very important in this case, but they are not the sole foundation of the science. ...
... But the core issue of increasing gases = increasing temps is a very simple one.

For what its worth, I think my understanding here was fine.

In spite of this, you pinpoint a few somewhat noisy elements in the science and as a result claim that “it is pretty defensible to be on the below 50% divide of the debate”

You may be right that no reasonable person should be below 50% in terms of probability even conditioning on just a popular press information set. Maybe I am at the low end (or even a little lower) than what any reasonable person should be and I am over 50%. (the caveat to that would be your Bayesian prior ... if it was sharp ex ante that this was very unlikely ... below 50% could be justifiable ... there is no such thing as the expected change in temp, only my expected change in temp).

[Jeff Lebowski]

For the record, Pelagius, I find your stats-nerd talk very sexy.

[beefytee]

for some reason creekster things I don't post enough

I think we would all like you to post more.

[Indy Coug]

I think we would all like you to post more.

If he would ever get off of his posterior distribution....

[woot]

Basically, there is no such thing as a true yes or no answer to a scientist or an economist. It's all a matter of probabilities. If the probability of a x causing y is greater than 50% then a scientist will say he believes that x probably causes y, even if he only thinks that the probability is 51%. Hence, while over 90% of scientists may agree that humans contribute to climate change, the probability of humans actually causing climate change may be much smaller, as the weighted average probability assigned to humans contributing significantly to climate change by the scientists surveyed will most certainly be less than 97%.

More importantly, while virtually all scientists may agree that humans likely contribute to climate change, the weighted average opinion of the following is still unknown: 1) that humans contribute considerably, 2) that the effects of said climate change will be catastrophic, and 3) that there is anything that we can (or should, given 1 and 2) do to mitigate the effects in any meaningful way. Hence, until we can answer these three questions with some degree of certainty (and this is my opinion now, not Pelagius') it is somewhat premature to spend vast amounts of resources, and put our economy at risk, to 'fight' global climate change. I may have read that wrong, but that is how I interpreted the professor.

I think this is basically correct in that scientists view everything in terms of being between 0 and ~99 percent likely as evidence warrants. I don't think you're quite right when it comes to 51% being good enough to make positive assertions or to even suggest that it's probable. In such a case, most scientists I know tend to be very cautious, either listing multiple possibilities or else withholding judgment entirely. It does happen, however, where such a case breeds factions within the field, with different authors arguing stridently for their case. I've already described how this can actually be quite effective despite the unfortunate philosophical underpinnings. That doesn't seem to be what's happening here, since the opposing faction is very small, no bigger than what develops against almost any consensus. The politics behind the issue, to which scientists are not immune, as well as extreme distortions in the media, are what make the opposing faction seem significant.

In a case such as this where evidence from multiple independent methods converge on the same conclusion, the probability jumps. If the consensus ends up being wrong, it will have been the result of a set of misunderstandings about related but independent phenomena, not due to any single misunderstanding. This possibility can't be dismissed, but any objective observer will understand that the probability of this outcome is low.

And again, if the partisan conservatives end up being correct, it will have been due to blind luck. As we've seen in this thread, most of those who argue against AGW do so only from a misplaced loyalty to their tribe and hatred of their political enemies, not because of any rational evaluation of evidence. When your tribe decides that scientists can be overruled by political pundits on scientific matters, I'm sorry but your tribe is wrong. The answer is not necessarily to admit that your enemies are correct and have defeated you on this issue; the answer is to realize that science is not your enemy, and to not accept the blind anti-intellectualism that has infused your platform. I agree with republicans on a great many things, and certainly have no love for the democrats, but I simply can't consider voting for a republican as long as their electability requires that they not accept basic science.

[SandYFan]

...but I simply can't consider voting for a republican as long as their electability requires that they not accept basic science.

Is climate change theory really basic science?

[woot]

Is climate change theory really basic science?

Much of it, yes, especially when the common arguments against it almost invariably deny basic science. The intricacies are not basic science, but I don't hear politicians delving into that stuff. On the rare occasions when they address the science at all rather than taking it as a given that it can't be true because the evil democrats accept it, I hear them arguing against CO2 as a greenhouse gas, assuming scientists aren't aware that the sun goes through cycles or that the earth has a long history of climate change, stuff like that. I was also referring to things like the age of the earth, the bible not being actual history, evolution, etc., which indeed are basic science.

Marco Rubio is a good example. You know he's running for president because his responses to science-related questions are incoherent. It's currently a requirement.

[creekster]

Much of it, yes, especially when the common arguments against it almost invariably deny basic science. The intricacies are not basic science, but I don't hear politicians delving into that stuff. On the rare occasions when they address the science at all rather than taking it as a given that it can't be true because the evil democrats accept it, I hear them arguing against CO2 as a greenhouse gas, assuming scientists aren't aware that the sun goes through cycles or that the earth has a long history of climate change, stuff like that. I was also referring to things like the age of the earth, the bible not being actual history, evolution, etc., which indeed are basic science.

Marco Rubio is a good example. You know he's running for president because his responses to science-related questions are incoherent. It's currently a requirement.

I thought he was trying to draw the distinction between aapplied and basic research.

[Uncle Ted]

Goodbye coal-fire power...

The Source: EPA Calls For 30% Coal Cuts By 2030

The Environmental Protection Agency today announced it wants a 30 percent reduction in carbon dioxide emissions from existing coal-fired power plants. The draft rule announced in a press conference is the largest cut ever asked for on power plants.

Coal represents nearly 40 percent of all carbon dioxide emitted in the United States.


Emboldened by recent Supreme Court victories, the EPA proposal has been expected for months by environmentalists and the coal industry.


The U.S. Chamber of Commerce released a study showing how such changes could damage the economy; estimating a $51 billion cost per year.


But the EPA stood its ground, saying that the chamber's study made a host of assumptions that didn't equate with what was in the proposal. The reason the study speculated? It came out before EPA published any draft rules. They argue the report, ignored gains in productivity, job increases in alternative power and health benefits.
[...]

http://tpr.org/post/source-epa-calls-30-coal-cuts-2030

Does Utah still generate more than 80% from coal?

Also, the washington post: http://www.washingtonpost.com/nation...bcf_story.html

Will the EPA’s regulations really increase electricity bills?


The Chamber released a report recently saying that the rule would cost businesses more than $50 billion a year; the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) has estimated that it would save money overall; and the EPA is preparing an analysis that will show that the benefits would outweigh the costs, in part because of the public-health benefits that come from shutting down coal plants.
[...]

I guess states like W. Va will just export more of their coal to places like China. Therefore, it may not cost (coal related) businesses more than $50 billion/yr. If China is burning the coal it may not help with the carbon dioxide emissions all that much, however.

[woot]

Last night's episode of Cosmos was largely centered on the relationship between carbon and global warming. It's perhaps the most understandable treatment I've seen, so anyone's who's legitimately interested should definitely check it out.

I can't say that the new Cosmos lives up to the original, and my opinion of NDG has gone down somewhat, but it's still well worth watching.

[Uncle Ted]

Last night's episode of Cosmos was largely centered on the relationship between carbon and global warming. It's perhaps the most understandable treatment I've seen, so anyone's who's legitimately interested should definitely check it out.

I can't say that the new Cosmos lives up to the original, and my opinion of NDG has gone down somewhat, but it's still well worth watching.

I missed it but will plan to watch it on-demand. I suspect, however, NDG talked about the difference between Mercury and Venus which reminded me of this YouTube video...

[Moliere]

Goodbye coal-fire power...

http://tpr.org/post/source-epa-calls-30-coal-cuts-2030

Does Utah still generate more than 80% from coal?

Also, the washington post: http://www.washingtonpost.com/nation...bcf_story.html

I guess states like W. Va will just export more of their coal to places like China. Therefore, it may not cost (coal related) businesses more than $50 billion/yr. If China is burning the coal it may not help with the carbon dioxide emissions all that much, however.

No one is building coal fired plants anymore and most are being retired ahead of schedule instead of doing the costly retrofits to make them cleaner. It's causing issues with regulated cost recovery as the plants are needing to be shut down ahead of schedule, however the cost of the plant haven't yet been recouped and the debt hasn't been paid off. It's left many state legislatures with the problem of deciding what's best.

Frankly, the coal plants are pretty easily replaced with gas plants so this new regulation probably won't hurt as much as some say it will and given the supply of gas in this country we should be fine. You are correct as well that we'll just ship more coal overseas. No politician is willing to shut down the coal exports given the political necessity of having certain states on your side come election time. China and India will continue to burn coal like John Daly burns through cigars and CO2 levels will continue to increase. There's a reason China won't sign on to any global reduction of GHG because they see the opportunity to grow their economy cheaply through coal....and can you blame them? It's exactly what America did for the past 100 years.

[cowboy]

No one is building coal fired plants anymore and most are being retired ahead of schedule instead of doing the costly retrofits to make them cleaner. It's causing issues with regulated cost recovery as the plants are needing to be shut down ahead of schedule, however the cost of the plant haven't yet been recouped and the debt hasn't been paid off. It's left many state legislatures with the problem of deciding what's best.

Frankly, the coal plants are pretty easily replaced with gas plants so this new regulation probably won't hurt as much as some say it will and given the supply of gas in this country we should be fine. You are correct as well that we'll just ship more coal overseas. No politician is willing to shut down the coal exports given the political necessity of having certain states on your side come election time. China and India will continue to burn coal like John Daly burns through cigars and CO2 levels will continue to increase. There's a reason China won't sign on to any global reduction of GHG because they see the opportunity to grow their economy cheaply through coal....and can you blame them? It's exactly what America did for the past 100 years.

While we may still have a market for our coal, the fact remains that we are artificially reducing demand, thus artificially reducing price. The irony is that this will give other countries more incentive to burn coal, and those countries will likely have dirtier coal burning facilities that emit more sulfur, etc. into the atmosphere. Ergo, the net effect will be the same or more CO2, and more harmful elements emitted into the atmosphere. At the same time, we will make electricity more expensive in this country, which will act as a tax born disproportionately by the poor, who spend a much higher proportion of their disposable income on electricity than the middle class or wealthy (see WSJ opinion article.) Sometimes I wonder if anyone in the Obama administration understands markets and incentives.

What really sucks about this whole thing, is that we are messing with markets, making them less efficient and hence hurting our economy for no reason. Even the EPA estimates that closing all our coal fired plants tomorrow would drop the global temperature by one-twentieth of one degree over the next 100 years. Do we really think China and India will just throw economic incentive to the wind and follow our lead? I'm not a conspiracy theorist, but I also don't think the Obama administration is that stupid, and the cynic in me believes that this is more about sucking up to the green lobby and funneling money to renewable energy companies who will return the favor with political donations. If this is the case, Obama and his advisers have a very good grasp on markets and incentives.