Brilliant Piece on Global Warming
August 1st, 2008 by Rich
Humans are slow to react to anything that is not an imminent threat, so says Dan Gilbert in his piece on why we have not reacted to global warming as quickly as we should.
It is a brilliant piece. One I suggest everyone watch. and one you should all pass on.
If you cannot view the above, you can go to the Pop!Cast page directly.
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August 3rd, 2008 at 8:58 pm
While a fairly effectively delivered speech with some interesting take-aways about how the brain works in regards to long-term danger (albeit completely devoid of sources), this is almost a perfect demonstration of speculation and Hegelian dialectics as tools to influence thought and create unconscious buy-in, rather than allowing one to draw his own conclusions after witnessing untainted facts — i.e. it is the definition of propaganda.
Contrast this speech to those with open presentations of independently verified scientific facts & double-blind studies, simple logic that does not reverse cause and effect (”wet streets are the cause of rain”) that create conclusions that aren’t designed to create massive fear (facts don’t need hype), and also admission of flaws, unknowns, and counter-theories (which this presentation is completely devoid of).
It is plain to see this is the work of a person with an agenda rather than a person with solid facts and interesting conclusions, or even interesting, well-considered theories.
August 3rd, 2008 at 9:17 pm
Dave,
you are back! Man.. been a long time.
The reason I love this piece is that his whole agenda is that we are a species that does not recognize a threat until it smacks us in the face, and for some the timeline is a lot longer.
Recognize it or not, believe in it or not, global warming is an issue that generates different ideas within people, and I think a lot of this comes down to their ability to grasp the issue that you and I have discussed as being too big.. too abstract.
for me, being concerned about water availability and quality, I am reading a lot of reports on water tables going downhill, desertification occurring in lush green areas, etc.. and I can tell you with 100% certainty that average temperature rises are playing a part… a part… and actually, I am still of the mind that it is a cycle where both cause each other equally.
I see the threat in a 1000 ways, but where I like this is video is that he gets into the psychological part of why people don’t see the threats that are really right in front of them…. and that essentially you have to see the first one to see the rest.
good to have you back.
R
August 4th, 2008 at 6:41 pm
Yo. Yeah, hao jiu bu jian!
Yes, I thought that part of the presentation was interesting/good. His methodology wasn’t good, however. Had he simply said, “I have these interesting thoughts and observations”, and had not made wild, speculative claims, I would have liked the speech much more. Alas it’s hard to break the noise level in the media these days without being wildly speculative, doomsday-oriented, or jumping on someone else’s bandwagon.
David
PS - since the world has actually been cooling during the past 10 years I’m not sure what you are referring to regarding being 100% sure water shortages are due to warming…
August 4th, 2008 at 8:44 pm
David.
do me a favor and source the global cooling you refer to. Geographic areas are surely different patterns (i.e. not every place on earth), but everything I see says that when you measure out the world as a whole, we are looking at warmer temperatures.
Again - we get back to you can debate why and you can debate what happens next, but the stats (and I’ll go find some reputable sites for you) show increase temperatures.
Also - for this speech, he is a Harvard professor of psychology, not a climatologist, so his speech is going to reflect his unscientific views of the problem. I don’t think that is a bad thing because his goal was to look into why people do not see climate change as a threat, and are generally pretty complacent in an environment where everyone in the science community is saying that our current pattern of life is not sustainable.
Global warming aside, we are looking at major water, food, and energy issues going forward, and everyone should be seeing that coming. Only after a sustained period of gas price increases did people change habits, but anyone who followed the basic supply/ demand curve saw it coming… why did it take so long?
That is what he is getting at.
R
August 5th, 2008 at 1:07 am
Very hectic here so I’ll be brief (I hope).
Good points. Yes, prof of psych - that’s kinda my point. If his speech was truly about the hows and whys of our response (or lack) to long-term threats, why use global warming, a totally non-conclusive (and not even concensus) topic? And why make wild assertions and speculations? It’s either a) potshots (best case), or b) propaganda (more likely). Better said, it’s a religion, and the topic he used to underlie his theories may as well have been “why we don’t all immediately convert to Christianity to save our souls”.
Moreover, your title was “brilliant piece on global warming”, so I was responding to that. While the speech is interesting in the ways you’ve said it is, it is not at all interesting or insightful about the topic of global warming — on that topic the speech is just sloppy rhetoric and fear-mongering. (on a personal note, I add that this is nothing new for a g.w. advocate, particularly since there is no proof for and they are almost always unwilling to admit that their theories are nothing more than theoretical).
Anyhow, I have gotten a bit off track. The simple point is that his speech was not really about what it was purported to be about (a common strategy of propaganda), and considering g.w. a foregone conclusion and frequently “proving” it is dialectical and/or reversing cause-and-effect style logic — i.e. it’s a sham and the speech suffers greatly from this obvious agenda.
Conclusion: Would have been a better speech if it were simply about the topic were something like, “why people don’t respond well to long-term risks”. This has tons of implications and uses — financial markets (investment) for instance. However in its utter lack of consideration of “the other side” (e.g. importance of commitment v. hedging strategies in worlds of uncertainty) it fails to provide much value other than pure theoretical interest.
Dave
PS - Google for world’s temps over past 10 years. It’s off topic and it’s not an uncontentious subject either, but the point generally is that it’s nowhere near a foregone conclusion. Oh, also, for a source right off the top of my head see Bob Carter’s excellent and thorough speeches on the topic. There are of course many, many more.
August 5th, 2008 at 1:09 am
PPS - I should have said “I’ll be quick” rather than “brief”. It wasn’t brief but I wrote that as one stream of consciousness, quickly.
Peace.
August 5th, 2008 at 1:32 am
David.
Fair enough - It was my title that you are working with, and honestly, I think that the title fits. It is not that he is trying to prove global warming, it is that he is saying that it is amazing that global warming is fact yet humans are not seeing it as a threat.. and therefore are not responding.
No agenda there - he is just getting into the psychology of why people are not reacting to a phenomenon that people accept to be the case.
1) Googled Bob and first thing that comes up is this Wiki profile. 3rd paragraph in, and we have this little gem
Now, I have only spent 5 minutes on this, but I did not see any papers where his research (he is a paleontologist) looks at temperature, the effects of temperature, etc on the earth and its biosystems (current or past). there is a bit of glacier stuff in there, but I need more time to see what he did there.
Aside from that. did a google of “global temperature records for 10 years” and landed at another wiki that links up to NASA. Graph is here.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:1000_Year_Temperature_Comparison.png
Now, I will admit that there may be some controversy over readings from 1000 years ago, but the last 50 are going to be pretty solid.
At NOAA there is an article abotu 2007 being the warmest on record, and in their article NOAA: 2007 a Top Ten Warm Year for U.S. and Globe, they have the following quick fact:
Now, perhaps we have something here to discuss further? Are you speaking about land temperatures, ocean, atmospheric, or all when you say that temperatures are going down?
Perhaps (and we have had this duscussion),
there is some statistical difference that should be looked into.
will spend more time on Bob later, but I think I have offered stats/ charts that show the traditional global warming argument.. so maybe you can do the same for your side? I really would be interested to see where the differences are.
R
August 5th, 2008 at 3:55 am
We’ve wandered. I’d be happy to to about global warming in general (as you know I would!), but let’s not confuse things here.
To summarize (about the original post):
1. “Brilliant piece on global warming” I think it is not, since he refers to a non-conclusive, controversial subject as fact, and moreover since he requires this “fact” to make his points. Thus I see it as essentially an op-ed, and one than rests a theory (human response to long-term threats) on top of another theory (anthropogenic global warming). Perhaps it’s a brilliant op-ed, but it’s devoid of facts and thorough consideration and in regards to its effect I think it is deluding rather than compelling….perhaps it’s brilliant in that way?
2. Cont from 1, there is no consideration of anything other than his theories (confounding data, independent studies, alternate theories, etc.), and therefore it is nothing more than theoretical - and theory in isolation (which is better known as philosophy or, dare I say, religion). Well again, if viewed as an op-ed I could give some ground here, though I think the guy breaks some rules of even a good op-ed when he mis-states facts and purports theories to be conclusive.
3. Conclusion: Insightful? I agree that it is. Scientific or conclusive? Not even remotely close. Compelling? Definitely, but not for the right reasons, and that’s my beef with it.
Side note: My comments were about your title, but my real beef is with his assertions of foregone conclusions as well as his logic methods which are, simply put, not logical. It is akin to using a word to define itself in the dictionary, disguised with a lot of rhetoric and style, and backwards logic smothered in dialectics, all of which I view (with detest) as propaganda and brainwashing.
As we have discussed offline, this is my beef with this entire issue — i.e. NO ONE KNOWS what’s going to happen in the future regarding climate, yet somehow a “religious” group has claimed some sort of conclusive authority and, annoyingly, moral high-ground on the subject without providing any proof of their conclusions. Even worse as I see it, they are exploiting ignorance and propaganda tactics to create buy-in (”sheep”) rather than having logical, healthy, intelligent debates about both the risks and appropriate tactics for dealing with them. I view this as an utter travesty, both in its exploitation of brainwashing tactics to create belief in something unknown, and in the harm it can do — i.e. wasting incredible amount of resources and in many instances creating WORSE results via not actually understanding the actual problems we face and diverting attention away from other, real, imminent, and crucial problems, both environmental and otherwise.
—-
Re: Bob Carter, watch his videos - he cites his sources. I mention him simply because he popped into my mind as someone who has done thorough research and consideration, has reliable sources, points out varying problems on both sides, and is not funded by oil companies, etc. That he has ruined his career and reputation (in some circles) by speaking up only makes me respect him more — and history has demonstrated over and over again that people don’t like someone who confuses their beliefs with facts, so frankly this outcome was probably inevitable. Regardless, he’s one of many, many, many, (now more than 30,000 scientists in USA alone who signed a petition saying so in May 2008 — source: PRNewsWire) who are either skeptical or incredulous about the great g.w. theory, and Bob is a decent “source of sources” for facts about global temps. in the past 10 years (though again, as I mentioned before and as you mentioned, even data and its interpretations are somehow still contentious - very frustrating to people who simply want to know the FACTS).
CONCLUSION TO MY SIDE NOTE: You stated that you are “100% sure” about reductions in water tables being in part due to rising temps, and I simply ask how you can be 100% sure of that given the lack of certainty even that the world’s temp is actually increasing (not to mention about the statement itself) among the scientific community?
I’ll conclude with a very brief list of sources (including the IPCC) that talk about temperature plateau’s and cooling in recent years (from a 5 min google search)…not to be conclusive but again to show that things are NOT certain:
1. http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23411799-7583,00.html
2. Speaking of NASA - “Josh Willis at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory says the oceans are what really matter when it comes to global warming.” and, according to Willis, “There has been a very slight cooling (over the past 4-5 years in ocean temperatures), but not anything really significant.” Btw, Willis is a global warming “believer”, and he goes on to talk about why this doesn’t refute g.w., which I certainly agree with, but again my point is pointing out the recent trend and also the inconclusiveness.
3. comment on why cooling temps in past decade, accepted by IPCC, do not mean no global warming — http://blogs.chron.com/sciguy/archives/2008/02/is_the_global_t.html
4. http://www.dailytech.com/Temperature+Monitors+Report+Worldwide+Global+Cooling/article10866.htm
Again I just did a very quick google search and specifically looked for sources that actually believe in global warming — even they all agree the world’s temps have been level or falling the past decade.
I’ll stop here.
Peace.
August 5th, 2008 at 5:39 am
“not actually understanding the actual problems we face”
Dave -there are indeed a lot of problems we face; do you, then, think global warming is one of them?
It seems from your above arguments (not about the video, but your arguments about global warming) that you do not think global warming is taking place? But, maybe you just mean it is not a big problem?
August 5th, 2008 at 7:44 am
Adam:
Thanks for the question (a good one). It occurs to me that I can answer it AND give perhaps a better insight as to my criticism of this video by proposing a simple, alternative hypothesis (to Mr. Gilbert’s).
David’s simple hypothesis: The reason people aren’t reacting to global warming with panic-like alacrity is we are skeptical of the validity of such a lofty prediction, and the reason we are skeptical is because nearly always in the past such lofty predictions have turned out to be false.
A few brief examples:
1. Y2K did not destroy the economy (or anything else)
2. The “global cooling crisis” of the 1970’s turned out to be false
3. So far the “bird flu” has killed almost no one from human to human transmission (and in all likelihood it never will kill more than a handful)
4. Every prediction of economic doomsday consequences from bear markets in the US has turned out to be greatly exaggerated and irresponsible, and in most cases the predictions themselves were actually the case of woes (rather than underlying economic issues), which people later realized.
5. Those who initially claimed that HIV/AIDS would wipe out huge chunks of the population were egregiously mistaken. (note that it remains that HIV has a very low transmission rate, and the real issues with HIV are providing adequate treatment for those who are infected and educating people as to the causes of infection, not a panic-like response to eradicate the virus).
Perhaps an even better example is that of Paul Erlich, a brilliant and highly respected academic who has devoted his entire life to ecological issues. He has been wrong in nearly all his major predictions. He was wrong about diminishing resources, he was wrong about the population explosion, and he was wrong that we would lose 50% of all species by the year 2000. Even his lifelong study of these issues did not prevent him from being wrong in his predictions.
The fact is that the only thing we can really predict with a high degree of certainty is our continued inability to make accurate predictions about chaotic and complex systems and environments. Frankly, most of the time we’re even pretty bad at looking back and learning from our past, much less predicting the future.
To answer your question directly, now, no, I don’t “believe” in anthropogenic global warming any more than I think it is certainty that we’ll be hit by a large asteroid next year. The fact is there’s no proof of either - not even close. The theory itself however I take little issue with, but the pseudo-science to support it and Hegelian-style methods that are being used to evangelize it, the actions that people are taking that pray on the ignorant or brainwashed (ala Mr. Gore and his profiteering cohorts), the religious-like moral high-ground people use to stand on in absence of facts, and the agenda-based propaganda of alarmists and advocates - all of these who seek not to find (or even present) the truth or discuss a reasonable course of action regarding our climate - those are the things and people I detest.
Meanwhile I certainly support worthy environmental causes, as well as a host of other charities, and I even give a thumbs up to climate research and even computer modeling of climate change — conducted scientifically and with appropriate consideration given to the predictions and theories. It’s simply my wish that we keep rationality, truth and reason in the picture and lose the present overly political agendas.
That’s probably more answer than you were looking for, but I hope it was worthy of your reading time.
Cheers,
David
August 5th, 2008 at 8:31 am
David.
One quick remark (and we have discussed this offline) is that you are right. people are literally hammered by sensational reporting (you forgot the great midewest earthquake of 92 that was going to separate Missouri from the earth)
However, where this is a problem is that all the examples you have listed - and the dozens of others we could list - do not predict whether or not this is another sensationalist story or true. they are mutually exclusive, independent events that have 0 correlation.
Where I think we need to back track is that I think we all agree that there are major environment/ climate issues that we face… and we need to make changes as a race to reverse some of these trends.
R
August 5th, 2008 at 6:18 pm
Rich
Correlation does not imply causality (even if you say it three times). If it were so then rise in CO2 levels would be responsible for the falling number of pirates this century, rise in breast cancer, increasing size of lottery payouts, etc. etc. etc. (sticking with the 3’s-for-emphasis idea here).
Anyway, my thesis has nothing to do with correlation or event-interdependence in the first place. It is simply a restatement of the “boy who cried wolf” story applied toward Mr. Gilbert’s ideas about why we aren’t reacting quickly to the threat of g.w. It’s certainly not an all-encompassing theory but it has its merits, and it also serves to show how inconclusive/unverifiable/incomplete Mr. Gilbert’s theory is.
—
In talking about predictions in general I’m alluding to the issue that the entire a.g.w. thesis rests on enormous predictions in an extremely chaotic and complex environment — one that is exceedingly far more complex than for instance Mr. Erlich’s, or a multitude of other examples of irresponsible speculations.
Note that I didn’t address the problems with computer models (on which the entire a.g.w. hypothesis rests), since my thesis does not require being scientific or technical — it’s simply about WHY humans are naturally skeptical (and thus “slow” to act to speculative long-term threats). I am also saying that in some ways this is an ABILITY rather than just a liability.
—
I propose an idea: Let’s make an international futures market for climate change. I “predict” two things will happen (assuming a large enough market): 1) Many of the people who are so religious about g.w. alarmism will not put their money where their mouths are, and 2) People who play that market logically will make a killing off the speculators over time (zero sum game where the “house” thrives off people with unfounded and irrational belief systems).
Note that this is not at all what people like Gore are doing. Their system for creating personal financial rewards is arbitrage, and thus it is far more efficient and foolproof since it purely exploits the believers while precluding a way of playing on the “other” side.
Cheers,
David
August 5th, 2008 at 7:11 pm
David
I see, so you are not proposing “Climate Change is happening, but not sure if humans are to blame”; you are proposing “Climate is not happening” full stop.
Not heard many scientists propose that recently. Certainly seems the majority of scientists believe it is happening.
I looked at most of your sources and they seem very dubious (see below) I am not interested in throwing names of different scientists research around to show it is / or is not happening, as I am sure you will be able to find some justification for whatever you want based on your previous ’sources’ and I could say likewise.
So I am not going to debate this with you. I believe Climate Change is happening and is caused by human actions. You do not. Both of us can (it seems) find evidence both ways. The reason i am saying this is to make my personal position clear.
Adam
For example, quoting PRNewswire about 30,000 US scientists not agreeing with global warming -which was actually “31,000 scientists have signed a petition rejecting claims of human-caused global warming” not rejecting global warming itself. And you will find many many sources writing about these 31,000 scientists including:
“Robinson admitted that only 40 of the 30,000 signatures had come from people claiming to be climate experts. The rest were from people said to have general science, maths, or related degrees. And no, none had been vetted to see if their degrees actually existed.” (source) or (source)
or see here for a snapshot of 3 of the signers. Maybe those 3 are not representative, but then why does Robinson have those kinds of people signing such a survey, and then claim it to be reputable?
August 5th, 2008 at 8:25 pm
OK - for the record, we’re now off the topic of Mr. Gilbert’s presentation. I think/hope my comments are pretty clear about the initial topic. I’ll try to clarify these other things now:
“I see, so you are not proposing “Climate Change is happening, but not sure if humans are to blame”; you are proposing “Climate is not happening” full stop.”
=== Not at all (I think your comment has a typo actually). Of course climate change is occurring — however the cause and the course are unknown.
“Not heard many scientists propose that recently. Certainly seems the majority of scientists believe it is happening.”
=== “heard”, “seems”, and “believe” … there’s nothing here other than conjecture. I have heard/read many scientists, including climate scientists, dispute a.g.w. A simple google search or look on Wikipedia will turn up dozens.
THE POINT HERE IS THERE IS NO CONSENSUS (not that consensus is part of scientific methods anyway), NOR IS THERE PROOF OF A.G.W. OR THE EXTENT OF MAN’S IMPACT ON THE CLIMATE. I’ve also said that it’s a complex, chaotic system and we have a horrible record of making predictions in such environments. I personally don’t see any good reason to “believe” this is the exception, but that’s up to you.
“So I am not going to debate this with you. I believe Climate Change is happening and is caused by human actions. You do not. Both of us can (it seems) find evidence both ways. The reason i am saying this is to make my personal position clear.”
=== I haven’t been making an effort to DEBATE climate change, and I’m replying entirely off-the-cuff to everything here. However, I have pointed out that there isn’t conclusive evidence of the extent of human cause of it or the future course, but meanwhile that there are many that claim it is a proven fact and the future is knowable. I am not trying to prove it can’t happen, just illustrating that: a) there is no proof of it, and b) its entirely speculative and “belief-oriented” in nature.
The key word in this entire subject is the word you use, “belief”. It’s not science (no testable hypotheses, no independently verifiable proof, and certainly no consensus), but rather belief. That’s fine, as long as it’s presented that way (as you did). As we know however this is not the case in the mainstream media, politics, or even on the street. And, more relevantly to this discuss, Mr. Gilbert presents, alas RELIES, on it being a fact.
=== As for dubious sources, I’ve listed very few sources in regards to the climate change subject (and again totally off-the-cuff or with a very quick google search) since I was trying to discuss Mr. Gilbert’s theory and it’s lack of veracity. Also, as I said, most of the sources I listed are from a very quick google search and I was intentionally trying to find ones from people who actually believe in g.w. but agree the world has not been warming over the past 10 years (pursuant to the topic Rich and I were discussing).
Btw, I’d be happy to discuss a.g.w. separately, but it’s a much bigger topic and will require much more time (perhaps Rich could start a separate thread?), and I don’t expect to get around to it very soon since frankly though very enjoyable to discuss I’m extremely busy right now with things that are more important to me. Meanwhile, you are right that there’s two sides to this, and in fact that’s my point entirely.
So to reiterate and summarize:
1. My intent all along was to illustrate the problems with Mr. Gilbert’s theories and the idea that it is a “brilliant piece on global warming.
2. I haven’t attempted to present a comprehensive case about a.g.w. nor debate it (or the sources).
3. Off topic, I simply attempted to answer your questions about my views about g.w. while trying to keep in the original context of this thread.
In addition to these things, by consequence of the discussion I hope I’ve also introduced some other food for thought about speculation and the anthropogenic global warming topic in general.
Best,
David
PS - I’ll close with a quote from a major publication in the past (one of many similar):
“The Earth’s weather is dramatically changing and may portend a drastic decline in food production… perhaps only 10 years from now. The evidence is so massive that meteorologists, who are almost unanimous, are hard-pressed to keep up with it” …”This April had the most devastating outbreak of tornadoes ever recorded”
Source: Newsweek’s “The Cooling World”, April 1975.
November 20th, 2008 at 5:28 am
Coming back to this after several months.
I am curious, now that the “big three” co-conspirators of the global warming myth/propaganda have been caught red-handed downright lying, are any of you global warming believers finally taking a step back and realizing/admitting that this is all a big con?
I refer to:
1. The discovery this week that the “god of climate change”, Jim Hansen (NASA), lied about Oct 2008 being the “warmest month on record”. In fact he simply carried forward some 70% (ish) of Sept’s figures - ON PURPOSE. This was, obviously, done with the continued INTENT of misleading the public for his cause.
2. Ross McKitrick’s complete debunking of the “holy grail of global warming”, ie Micheal Mann’s Hockey Stick, which showed that in 10,000 trial runs with “red noise” (random data), Mann’s faulty and biased algorithms created the hockey stock more than 9900 times. There were over a dozen errors found in this supposedly “end all be all study”, which was not only accepted but firmly advocated by the IPCC in their Third Assessment Report, thus utterly discrediting the IPCC.
3. The utter debunking of Al Gore’s movie that shows that now a single “fact” in his movie is actually a fact - not a single one. And most of his claims are actually patently untrue, some even absurd. Not that he needs any further discrediting, but moreover Al Gore is a shameless direct beneficiary from carbon reduction/carbon trading/credits businesses, and an utter hypocrite in that he is an enormous polluter in bed with some of the worst of the worst, and leaves a “carbon footprint” of 100 average Americans and 1000 average humans each year while chastising the masses to reduce their own.
You don’t need to know anything about science to see what’s going on here, but if you want to blindly believe in all this nonsense then I pose a question to you: Given that these people and institutions, who are presumably not only at the forefront of climate research but the self-proclaimed experts (and the most cited as well) have all been exposed for what they really are - charlatans, WHY do you think they need to tell these whopping lies about such incredibily simple things, and rest their entire cases on such lies?
I’ll take the liberty of answering my own question (since I suspect some of you will find ways to try to nitpick and quibble rather than admitting the starkly obvious truth here): With respect to Occam, there is a single word answer that explains all this - it is “propaganda”.