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SCM | 1 Jun 2007 12:55
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[Global Change: 1676] Re: NASA Administrator Griffin "not sure" global warming is a problem


On May 31, 5:13 pm, "gerha... <at> aston.ac.uk" <gerha... <at> aston.ac.uk>
wrote:
> Maybe he's being a little provocative by using the word "arrogant",
> and by not saying something about why people believe that stasis is
> better than change, but fundamentally I think he's making a valuable
> point. Science and scientists should tell us about facts, and as an
> aside about their personal opinions and values, but in a democratic
> society it is not scientists who should decide for the rest of us
> what's worth having and what's not worth having.

Assuming a changed climate could well be better, as Griffin implcitly
does, is far more dangerously arrogant than saying we should trying
and limit climate change. We *know* we can cope with our old climate
but we don't know how we'll cope with a changed one.

I think the precautionary principle is valuable here. It may be
possible that global warming can be weathered without too much
difficulty but I'm not sure I want to find out via an uncontrolled
experiment on our only habitable planet!
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Hank Roberts | 1 Jun 2007 13:18
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[Global Change: 1677] Re: NASA Administrator Griffin "not sure" global warming is a problem


This from the agency that flatly rejected Jules Verne's simple,
straighforward method of putting the first men on the Moon by putting
the spaceship in a deep hole and setting off a large explosion under
it, because they "calculated" the rate of change would be a problem.

Calculus?  Arrogance!  Who are they to say people can't deal with
change, no matter how fast?
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Timothy Chase | 1 Jun 2007 08:23
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[Global Change: 1675] Re: NASA Administrator Griffin "not sure" global warming is a problem


On 31/05/07, gerhaush <at> aston.ac.uk <gerhaush <at> aston.ac.uk> wrote:

> I'd guess that Griffin wants dangerous climate change avoided, but
> presumably his personal idea of where the threshold between dangerous
> and not dangerous lies differs from Hansen's (I don't entirely
> understand the organisational structure of NASA, is Griffin actually
> Hansen's line manager?).

I would like to know what Griffen would consider dangerous.

Consider the following:

1.  According to the IPCC WG1 AR4, we are speaking of agricultural
output being cut in half for some countries.

2.  The south west of the US is quite likely to enter a state of being
a permanent dustbowel.

3.  Agricultural output in the south east US will be greatly reduced
due to drought.

4.  NASA recently projected average temperatures from 100-110 F for
July-Aug during the drier years in places like Chicago and Washington
DC.

5.  Hansen himself sees the potential for positive feedback between
the disintegration of glaciers in Greenland and the western penninsula
of the Antarctic.
(Continue reading)

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Michael Tobis | 1 Jun 2007 14:51
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[Global Change: 1678] Re: NASA Administrator Griffin "not sure" global warming is a problem


The role of scientists is not limited to pure science. There are
social and ethical responsibilities.

Of course an astronomer discovering an asteroid intersecting the
earth's trajectory should not limit herself to publishing that result
in a long table in an obscure journal, even though that is sufficient
for it to be considered a scientific result.

Such a scientist has an ethical obligation extrinsic to the pure
science process but intrinsic to the social context of science to
inform the public of the real world implication of her work.

The optimal rate of change of climate is quite clearly at or near
enough zero, so the accelerating forcing of the present day is without
any doubt a serious problem because it exceeds the adaptation rates of
increasing numbers of subsystems. Whether there is an "optimal"
climate is entirely beside the point.

One may argue that the optimum position of a vehicle is at its
destination, but that does not imply that the optimum velocity of the
vehicle down the road is the fastest it is capable of. When you are
already traveling far faster than the posted safe speed, any assertion
that arguing for slowing down is "arrogance" is divorced from reality.

From a NASA administrator, such a statement is not just wrong, it's crazy.

mt
(Continue reading)

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Tom Adams | 1 Jun 2007 15:11
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[Global Change: 1679] Re: Is adaptive, incremental global policy feasible?


On May 24, 8:25 am, James Annan <james.an... <at> gmail.com> wrote:
> Michael Tobis wrote:
> > James, (or anyone) could you state an adaptive policy in a form that
> > you might expect the general public to understand and support?
>
> Apologies for the delay, an intrusion of Real Life :-)
>
> The underlying presumption of the rational, economically optimal
> approach seems to be that "we" should choose the "best" temperature
> change in say 2150 (actually a discounted change over all time, but
> still...), and then use climate model to work out what CO2 level this
> amounts to, and use a carbon cycle model to work out what CO2 emissions
>   will produce this result, and then set economic policies to generate
> the emissions. And we have to take account of all the uncertainties at
> all  stages (and for anyone who thinks the climate science aspects are
> uncertain, 150 years of economics and technology is at least a binary
> order of magnitude worse). What hubris!
>
> ("Best" is not really set a priori, but is itself dependent on the
> economic policies necessary to achieve the result, but that's a bit of a
> detail.)
>
> "Adaptive" means that we try to point in roughly the right direction,
> with the understanding that our policies will change according to all
> future innovation and knowledge gains, but without any precise outcome
> in mind. Of course we need to think a bit about what "roughly the right
> direction" means, in order that we don't set off in the wrong direction
> entirely. But we don't need to know what our great-grandchildren will be
> doing in 2100, let alone telling them what they ought to be doing.
(Continue reading)

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Tom Adams | 1 Jun 2007 15:39
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[Global Change: 1680] Re: Is adaptive, incremental global policy feasible?


On May 24, 8:25 am, James Annan <james.an... <at> gmail.com> wrote:
> Michael Tobis wrote:
> > James, (or anyone) could you state an adaptive policy in a form that
> > you might expect the general public to understand and support?
>
> Apologies for the delay, an intrusion of Real Life :-)
>
> The underlying presumption of the rational, economically optimal
> approach seems to be that "we" should choose the "best" temperature
> change in say 2150 (actually a discounted change over all time, but
> still...), and then use climate model to work out what CO2 level this
> amounts to, and use a carbon cycle model to work out what CO2 emissions
>   will produce this result, and then set economic policies to generate
> the emissions. And we have to take account of all the uncertainties at
> all  stages (and for anyone who thinks the climate science aspects are
> uncertain, 150 years of economics and technology is at least a binary
> order of magnitude worse). What hubris!
>
> ("Best" is not really set a priori, but is itself dependent on the
> economic policies necessary to achieve the result, but that's a bit of a
> detail.)
>
> "Adaptive" means that we try to point in roughly the right direction,
> with the understanding that our policies will change according to all
> future innovation and knowledge gains, but without any precise outcome
> in mind. Of course we need to think a bit about what "roughly the right
> direction" means, in order that we don't set off in the wrong direction
> entirely. But we don't need to know what our great-grandchildren will be
> doing in 2100, let alone telling them what they ought to be doing.
(Continue reading)

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gerhaush@aston.ac.uk | 1 Jun 2007 19:30
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[Global Change: 1681] Re: Is adaptive, incremental global policy feasible?


> Hanson et al, thinks the tipping point may be 1C.

Note that this is above present, rather than above pre-industrial,
it's essentially the same number as the EU goal of 2C.
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Tom Adams | 1 Jun 2007 20:19
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[Global Change: 1682] Re: NASA Administrator Griffin "not sure" global warming is a problem


Why can't the Republicans teach their people how to think?
This mental class distinction by now should be antique.
If you thought as he does, sir, Instead of the way you do,
Why, you might be spewing idiocy, too.
A Republican's way of thinking absolutely classifies him,
The moment he talks he makes some other
Republican despise him.
An age of reason I'm afraid we'll never get.
Oh, why can't the Republican learn to set
A good example to people whose
Arguments are painful to your ears?
The Senate and the House leave you close to tears.
There even are places where reason completely
disappears. In the White House, they haven't used it for years!
Why can't the Republican teach their people how to speak?
Norwegians learn Norwegian; the Greeks have taught their
Greek. In France every Frenchman knows
his logic from "A" to "Zed"
The French never care what they do, actually,
as long as they argue for it properly.
Arabians learn Arabian with the speed of summer lightning.
And Hebrews learn it backwards,
which is absolutely frightening.
But use proper logic you're regarded as a freak.
Why can't the Republicans,
Why can't the Republicans learn to think?
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gerhaush@aston.ac.uk | 1 Jun 2007 21:42
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[Global Change: 1683] Re: NASA Administrator Griffin "not sure" global warming is a problem


> The role of scientists is not limited to pure science. There are
> social and ethical responsibilities.

You are certainly right about that. Still, most government
organisations have, I believe, a mandate to be policy neutral, which I
understand as meaning that they provide facts, but not political
advocacy. How that's to be interpreted is another matter, but the
basic principle that objective facts and subjective opinion should be
separated out, as far as possible, seems eminently sensible.

There is a big grey area there, eg think of one of your pet concerns,
namely the assumptions that go into economic models.

I understand that we are adapted to the present climate, and that
climate has been stable for a long time, so any change comes at our
peril, and I've commented extensively on both points fairly recently
here, eg
http://groups.google.com/group/globalchange/msg/ff2d74d601ef5ce5

Economic models, depending on the assumptions you feed them, in the
peer reviewed literature do include negative damages in their range
(see the paper by Tol I quoted earlier), so believing that modest
climate change may be beneficial is not nearly as outlandish as some
people here seem to think.

Let me say one final thing about Griffin. Looking at his CV, climate
change is not at all his speciality and it seems to me that he got
asked his personal opinion here. I also think that Griffin accepts the
IPCC consensus on the climate science, but when it comes to questions
(Continue reading)

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Michael Tobis | 2 Jun 2007 03:24
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[Global Change: 1684] Re: NASA Administrator Griffin "not sure" global warming is a problem


The impact of  a new climate equilibrium may well be a net positive,
though the losers in such a scenario may feel robbed by the winners.

That's entirely beside the point. We are moving into sustained rates
of change rarely if ever seen in nature, even in the rather
climatically erratic recent million years. It is indeed outlandish to
suggest that this is a good idea.

Economists seem to think derivatives (they call them "marginal rates")
are some subtlety unique to themselves, but the slightest exposure to
physical science makes clear the whole physical universe seems to be
glued together with first and second order differential equations.

In the present case, whether one equilibrium is slightly better than
another is of little consequence as the rate of disruption continues
to accelerate.

Heiko, Griffin is severely wrong and to the extent you agree with him
you are wrong too.

The difference is that he represents an agency which should have
expertise on the matter. I would hope that if you were in a position
of similar responsibility you would take into account the opinions of
the experts who were in your agency before making such a sweeping
statement.

mt
(Continue reading)

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