EPA denies global warming petitions
By: David SherfinskiExaminer Staff Writer7/29/10 4:45 PM EDT
The Environmental Protection Agency on Thursday denied 10 petitions, one of which was filed by Virginia attorney general Ken Cuccinelli, challenging the agency’s 2009
determination that climate change is occurring due to the emission of greenhouse
gases and threatens human health.One basis of Cuccinelli’s petition, filed
in February, was the so-called “Climategate” flap, in which internal e-mails from climatologists alleging to have manufactured data were revealed. An investigation into the matter largely cleared the scientists involved of wrongdoing.“These petitions — based as they are on selectively edited, out-of-context data and a manufactured controversy — provide no evidence to undermine our determination,” said EPA Administrator Lisa P. Jackson.
Read more at the Washington Examiner: http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/local/blogs/capital-land/epa-denies-global-warming-petitions-99575494.html#ixzz0vGbHkH1u
7/31/2010
Why this Blog Exists
Because stories like this still exist. Until government stops throwing around its weight without the scientific basis to back it up, there has to be an opposing viewpoint.
7/20/2010
Why the Muir Russell Clamategate Inquiry Didn't Dig too Deeply
The Muir Russell inquiry, which Muir Russell himself kept a distance from with a clothspin on his nose, found "the rigour and honesty [of the scientists caught up in Climategate] are not in doubt." How is that possible when blogs like Watts Up With That counts up the omissions,
New Scientist magazine criticizes their
What does it all mean? When engineers write a reliability report, they'll test some number such as 500 or 1000 parts at high temperature, high humidity, high operating voltage and other accelerated factors to see how quickly they fail. But often the test ends with no failures, which looks pretty good on paper. Nonetheless, a failure rate is calculated as if a failure was just about to occur if the test had gone a little longer. Therefore a short test with no failures is not as good as a long test with no failures.
The trick of the Muir Russell report is to only go so far as to find no wrongdoing. If the scientists' behaviour had problems, you need to investigate less. If they misbehaved in many areas simultaneously, you have to prune several more areas of investigation. In that way, the investigation was severly hampered, but the end result was achieved, it looked pretty good on paper, as far as it went. The only problem is nobody's buying it. Including Muir Russell, who felt it was necessary to stay as far away as possible.
A cynic could read, "the rigour and honesty [of the scientists caught up in Climategate] are not in doubt" in a different way than intended. Whether they are guilty or innocent is not in doubt, the investigation just failed to say which it is.
They decided against detailed analysis of all the emails in the public domain. They examined just three instances of possible abuse of peer review, and just two cases when CRU researchers may have abused their roles as authors of IPCC reports. There were others. They have not studied hundreds of thousands more unpublished emails from the CRU. Surely openness would require their release.
All this makes it harder to accept Russell’s conclusion that the “rigour and
honesty” of the scientists concerned “are not in doubt”.
New Scientist magazine criticizes their
“failure to investigate whether emails were deleted to prevent their release
under freedom of information laws.”
What does it all mean? When engineers write a reliability report, they'll test some number such as 500 or 1000 parts at high temperature, high humidity, high operating voltage and other accelerated factors to see how quickly they fail. But often the test ends with no failures, which looks pretty good on paper. Nonetheless, a failure rate is calculated as if a failure was just about to occur if the test had gone a little longer. Therefore a short test with no failures is not as good as a long test with no failures.
The trick of the Muir Russell report is to only go so far as to find no wrongdoing. If the scientists' behaviour had problems, you need to investigate less. If they misbehaved in many areas simultaneously, you have to prune several more areas of investigation. In that way, the investigation was severly hampered, but the end result was achieved, it looked pretty good on paper, as far as it went. The only problem is nobody's buying it. Including Muir Russell, who felt it was necessary to stay as far away as possible.
A cynic could read, "the rigour and honesty [of the scientists caught up in Climategate] are not in doubt" in a different way than intended. Whether they are guilty or innocent is not in doubt, the investigation just failed to say which it is.
7/18/2010
If I wanted a Job as a Global Warming Skeptic, this would be the ideal Climate!
What an ideal environment for a writer! The other side never concedes a point, never gives in. You can keep reviving the same arguments in all different ways. It reminds me of high school debate club. The only end to all of this is if eventually the other side dries up and blows away to get jobs doing something else. That is if the public ceases to line up behind them, which it appears is already beginning. The only problem with this ideal job is I don't want it. I just want to button up the topic and move on to something else. But I need to keep weighing in as long as the other side is fairly strong.
To the Defense of Big Oil's BP! - Sort of
BP has recently caused a couple of stirs. 1 - They had the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico and 2 - they lobbied for the release of the Lockerbie bomber to grease the way to more oil business with Libya. How should we feel about those things?
The gulf spill was a combination of government oversight, industry accepted practices, and possibly inadequate steps by BP to implement those practices. It has been widely reported that government oversight has been too cozy and lax with industry, while BP may have cut corners. If it turns out that both of these are true, then yes, government is corrupt and so is the company. In the end, the responsibility to do right was with BP and they should be held to blame.
In the case of the lockerbie bomber release, again it remains to be seen what BP's role was. If it turns out they exerted pressure on governments who in turn put pressure on doctors to find a reason to release him, and then did release him as we know they did, that would be a negative for BP. But the wrong done was not the lobbying pressure, it was the actual act of releasing him, which was done by the government.
In both cases, it looks (at first glance) like the government was inept or corrupt in their handling of the situations, but in one case they actually did something wrong, in the other case the big oil company did something wrong and must be made to answer to it (if accurate). Notice that this is an immediate moral question, not a moratorium on whether big oil should eventually be shut down because of a belief in global warming. Let's hold all to an ethical standard equally, not allowing a green agenda's end to justify the means, nor allowing corporations or governments that behave corruptly to go unanswered.
The gulf spill was a combination of government oversight, industry accepted practices, and possibly inadequate steps by BP to implement those practices. It has been widely reported that government oversight has been too cozy and lax with industry, while BP may have cut corners. If it turns out that both of these are true, then yes, government is corrupt and so is the company. In the end, the responsibility to do right was with BP and they should be held to blame.
In the case of the lockerbie bomber release, again it remains to be seen what BP's role was. If it turns out they exerted pressure on governments who in turn put pressure on doctors to find a reason to release him, and then did release him as we know they did, that would be a negative for BP. But the wrong done was not the lobbying pressure, it was the actual act of releasing him, which was done by the government.
In both cases, it looks (at first glance) like the government was inept or corrupt in their handling of the situations, but in one case they actually did something wrong, in the other case the big oil company did something wrong and must be made to answer to it (if accurate). Notice that this is an immediate moral question, not a moratorium on whether big oil should eventually be shut down because of a belief in global warming. Let's hold all to an ethical standard equally, not allowing a green agenda's end to justify the means, nor allowing corporations or governments that behave corruptly to go unanswered.
Statistics: The Achilles Heel of Climate Scientists
When it comes to scientific use of statistics, Odds Are It's Wrong. Science News wrote a great expose of the problem when statistics are used to link A with B, such as fertilizer with crop yields, dog barking with hunger and various genes with various diseases. This last one is interesting because like climate prediction, hundreds of variables could simultaneously influence the outcome (the climate of the future), so establishing a link by statistical methods must be done carefully and is very often done incorrectly.
The article gets into a bit of math, but some of the concepts offer very simple illustrations. For example, how could a drug test for baseball athletes which is correct 95% of the time catch cheaters only 50% of the time and incorrectly accuse non-cheaters the other 50%? Box 4 of the article makes it clear.
It is apt that Mark Twain quoted that going from bad to worse, you have "lies, damned lies and statistics." More than a hundred years later, we have a bigger problem, we rely on the damned statistics more than ever. Perhaps it will be another century before we really learn to use this potentially useful tool.
The article gets into a bit of math, but some of the concepts offer very simple illustrations. For example, how could a drug test for baseball athletes which is correct 95% of the time catch cheaters only 50% of the time and incorrectly accuse non-cheaters the other 50%? Box 4 of the article makes it clear.
Author Tom Sigfried writes,Suppose an anonymous player tests positive. What is the probability that he really is using steroids? Since the test really is accurate 95 percent of the time, the naïve answer would be that probability of guilt is 95 percent. But a Bayesian knows that such a conclusion cannot be drawn from the test alone. You would need to know some additional facts not included in this evidence. In this case, you need to know how many baseball players use steroids to begin with — that would be what a Bayesian would call the prior probability. Now suppose, based on previous testing, that experts have established that about 5 percent of professional baseball players use steroids. Now suppose you test 400 players.
How many would test positive?• Out of the 400 players, 20 are users (5
percent) and 380 are not users.
• Of the 20 users, 19 (95 percent) would be
identified correctly as users.
• Of the 380 nonusers, 19 (5 percent) would
incorrectly be indicated as users.
... in practice, widespread misuse of statistical methods makes science moreMaybe that's why every other study of coffee drinking seems to be favorable with the others being unfavorable. It's about what you would expect from completely random results derived from poor use of statistics. The same disputes come up with every one of a hundred variables about global warming, including water currents, how land mass affects wind currents, various aerosols in the atmosphere, volcanoes and scores of others. Focusing on one, the claims vary from CO2 causes global warming, to CO2 rises as a result of global warming to the two rise and fall together but are not connected but one does not cause the other. Meanwhile, this writer notes that crystal clear nights are cooler than humid or cloudy nights. CO2 does not seem to cause as much warming as any number of other factors.
like a crapshoot. It’s science’s dirtiest secret.
It is apt that Mark Twain quoted that going from bad to worse, you have "lies, damned lies and statistics." More than a hundred years later, we have a bigger problem, we rely on the damned statistics more than ever. Perhaps it will be another century before we really learn to use this potentially useful tool.
7/16/2010
The Death of Science Based Policy -- Good Things Can Come of it
Climategate taught many of us that government-funded science is government funded corruption. It was true all along, check Michael Crichton's pre-climategate essay, but some of us were in blissful ignorance until now. Scientific research was once believed to be an unimpeachable source of truth. Now we know it's ripe for impeachment.
Government legislators need big leverage over the people to get their cooperation. God and Country lately doesn't have the authority over the masses it once had, science was the perfect replacement. And then it happened. By their influence over the scientists, they corrupted the science and thus showed themselves to be equally corrupt.
This looks like a bad day for science. If people no longer trust the science, what are we to base policy on, superstition and opinion? Ah, but isn't that what the corrupted science is based on already? The recognition of this is knowledge and knowledge is power. It takes the teeth out of the false-science tiger is to put it in its proper place. That's what we need to do.
I am an engineer and have worked with scientists. The relationship is this: The scientists study new technologies or natural phenomena or new components to take advantage of in future products. Think of any product, next cellphone frequency spectrum or a better paint coating on a car. It often starts with a scientist figuring out how to harness the new capability. Once they "simplify" the technology down to something manufacturable, they hand it off to engineering. That is called a reality check. What the engineers do at that handoff is combine the new technology with other parts, components to make a new working system. If the scientists got their part right, the product moves ahead smoothly. If they got it wrong, you may not have a product at all.
It isn't that way with government funded science, because there often is no practical application at the end of the process, no reality check. The longer you go without a reality check, the further from reality you eventually drift. A meteorologist forecasting hours to days ahead is constantly getting slapped by reality, every day in fact. They quickly learn how to reduce the errors and where the errors cannot easily be reduced, those are the uncertainties, the chaotic factors. By quickly, I mean several decades of daily lessons. A climatologist who forecasts decades to centuries ahead may not get slapped by reality in his lifetime. The closest thing is slapped on the errors in the work, if emails are leaked, or never, if they're not.
And everybody who has ever predicted an outcome, either by building models, or building a real world project, is slapped by the reality that things aren't just the way the calculations predicted. This is as true of building a bridge, a motor, a wind tunnel simulator, a light bulb as it is of a climate model.
The lack of verifiability through periodic reality checks in government funded science is the perfect breeding ground for both scientific and government corruption. We should not put so much faith in science based policies. Skepticism is good.
Footnote: Personal impact statement. This realization was a disappointment for me. I thought science could triumph over just about everything, objectively rising above partisan politics. I have recently learned two areas of weakness: Scientists do not make effective use of statistics and scientists do not work effectively in government funded unverifiable projects.
Government legislators need big leverage over the people to get their cooperation. God and Country lately doesn't have the authority over the masses it once had, science was the perfect replacement. And then it happened. By their influence over the scientists, they corrupted the science and thus showed themselves to be equally corrupt.
This looks like a bad day for science. If people no longer trust the science, what are we to base policy on, superstition and opinion? Ah, but isn't that what the corrupted science is based on already? The recognition of this is knowledge and knowledge is power. It takes the teeth out of the false-science tiger is to put it in its proper place. That's what we need to do.
I am an engineer and have worked with scientists. The relationship is this: The scientists study new technologies or natural phenomena or new components to take advantage of in future products. Think of any product, next cellphone frequency spectrum or a better paint coating on a car. It often starts with a scientist figuring out how to harness the new capability. Once they "simplify" the technology down to something manufacturable, they hand it off to engineering. That is called a reality check. What the engineers do at that handoff is combine the new technology with other parts, components to make a new working system. If the scientists got their part right, the product moves ahead smoothly. If they got it wrong, you may not have a product at all.
It isn't that way with government funded science, because there often is no practical application at the end of the process, no reality check. The longer you go without a reality check, the further from reality you eventually drift. A meteorologist forecasting hours to days ahead is constantly getting slapped by reality, every day in fact. They quickly learn how to reduce the errors and where the errors cannot easily be reduced, those are the uncertainties, the chaotic factors. By quickly, I mean several decades of daily lessons. A climatologist who forecasts decades to centuries ahead may not get slapped by reality in his lifetime. The closest thing is slapped on the errors in the work, if emails are leaked, or never, if they're not.
And everybody who has ever predicted an outcome, either by building models, or building a real world project, is slapped by the reality that things aren't just the way the calculations predicted. This is as true of building a bridge, a motor, a wind tunnel simulator, a light bulb as it is of a climate model.
The lack of verifiability through periodic reality checks in government funded science is the perfect breeding ground for both scientific and government corruption. We should not put so much faith in science based policies. Skepticism is good.
Footnote: Personal impact statement. This realization was a disappointment for me. I thought science could triumph over just about everything, objectively rising above partisan politics. I have recently learned two areas of weakness: Scientists do not make effective use of statistics and scientists do not work effectively in government funded unverifiable projects.
7/14/2010
Two Great Essays: One on Whether Global Warming is Real, the Other on What to do About it if it is
Is global warming real? Michael Crichton of Hollywood fame (co-wrote Jurassic Park, The Andromeda Strain, Coma, Westworld, Twister, Congo, Sphere and directed some of these) wrote an illuminating essay about the scientific case for global warming, humorously entitled "Aliens Cause Global Warming".
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/07/09/aliens-cause-global-warming-a-caltech-lecture-by-michael-crichton/#more-21629If Global Warming is real, what should be done about it? Atlantic writer Clive Crook looks at the history of moralizing about what's bad and what they did about it, "Climategate and the Big Green Lie".
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2010/07/climategate-and-the-big-green-lie/59709
Similarities and Differences between 1960's hippies and 2000's Global Warming Alarmists
Similarities: Both promote an alternate lifestyle, simplifying, shunning the trappings of modern society. Both are idealists with a vision of a better world.
Differences: Hippies changed their lifestyles, they didn't bother anyone except their parents. Alarmists didn't change themselves as much as they tried to change everybody else.
Hippies were never shown the errors of their ways, because fundamentally, their approach was sustainable (although not necessarily for everyone). Alarmists were shown the error of their ways, for many it was no fault of their own. and it remains to be seen how they respond in coming years. Ironic that their idealism was not sustainable.
Differences: Hippies changed their lifestyles, they didn't bother anyone except their parents. Alarmists didn't change themselves as much as they tried to change everybody else.
Hippies were never shown the errors of their ways, because fundamentally, their approach was sustainable (although not necessarily for everyone). Alarmists were shown the error of their ways, for many it was no fault of their own. and it remains to be seen how they respond in coming years. Ironic that their idealism was not sustainable.
The Gulf Oil Spill: Governing by emotion. Better watch your pocketbook
The danger of the gulf oil spill is not lack of supply at the local gas station. It does not appear to be an environmental disaster. What we should be most afraid of is decades of experience in energy mining being skewed by one event, taken out of perspective. If we raise the cost of getting oil dramatically while only attempting to fix one "outlier" scenario, we risk two things: Paying more AND continuing to have oil spills.
Carbon, the Ultimate Sin Tax: Where all Taxpayers are Sinners!!
A tax on immoral or unseemly purchases is a sin tax. This includes alcohol, tobacco and a few other things. The advantage of pushing through such a tax is that it is easy to pass because it does not affect the majority of taxpayers. The disadvantage from the government's point of view is the very same thing: It doesn't tax the majority of taxpayers.
If they could only find something that is very, very bad but everyone uses. At least everyone with enough income to pay more taxes. And that's when it hit them: Petroleum usage. Make it bad, very bad to use. And then tax people for using it. It's the perfect sin tax!
The Cap and Trade Tax and the many other "energy" and "jobs" disguises it comes under are proposals to do just that. The clue is that they are tearing something down more than they are building up something else. It could be the oil industry (I hate to break it to you, we still need it), your personal wealth (you could use it) or the very fabric of society (might come in handy too). Unfortunately, the climategate emails tore it wide open for many, for others it was already clear: There is no connection between energy usage and the end of the world. Except that if one ends, so does the other.
If they could only find something that is very, very bad but everyone uses. At least everyone with enough income to pay more taxes. And that's when it hit them: Petroleum usage. Make it bad, very bad to use. And then tax people for using it. It's the perfect sin tax!
The Cap and Trade Tax and the many other "energy" and "jobs" disguises it comes under are proposals to do just that. The clue is that they are tearing something down more than they are building up something else. It could be the oil industry (I hate to break it to you, we still need it), your personal wealth (you could use it) or the very fabric of society (might come in handy too). Unfortunately, the climategate emails tore it wide open for many, for others it was already clear: There is no connection between energy usage and the end of the world. Except that if one ends, so does the other.
Question: Why can't we have balanced research, studying both sides of the argument on Global Warming?
Answer: Because large scale government funding only comes about if there is an urgent crisis to be dealt with. If they open the debate to skeptical climate researchers, they would quickly establish that there is no case for catastrophic global warming, they would poke holes in the works by alarmists and they would kill the movement entirely.
By the time they did that, the funding would be gone. Which means they couldn't do that. In short, the closer we get to disproving the alarmist case for global warming, the less funding there is to study either side.
Thus, we can only exist in two states, one where there is no alarm about global warming (and no funding), the other where there is alarm (and funding for alarmists). We will never see a scenario where there is no alarm about global warming but there is tons of research examining both sides of the question.
By the time they did that, the funding would be gone. Which means they couldn't do that. In short, the closer we get to disproving the alarmist case for global warming, the less funding there is to study either side.
Thus, we can only exist in two states, one where there is no alarm about global warming (and no funding), the other where there is alarm (and funding for alarmists). We will never see a scenario where there is no alarm about global warming but there is tons of research examining both sides of the question.
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