| Muck and Mystery Loitering With Intent |
blog - at - crumbtrail.org |
Bureaucrats - and this includes academics since they seldom have any real world insights or experience beyond the creche where they were whelped and never ventured further - have a very difficult time grasping systems dynamics. This leads them to seek authoritarian solutions to problems in natural systems - a guaranteed failure.
This post makes the case for why the science is settled on climate change. . . Here I am going to define "the science" as that science of the global earth system which is necessary to open up the possibility that decision makers may wish to consider action on greenhouse gas emissions. Any decision on what action (if any), when, at what costs will result from many factors beyond climate science and different people who decide to act together will necessarily have vastly different views about the state of the science and its importance. . .Even after noting that the theoretical truth of the warming function of a planetary atmospheric blanket gives little insight or guidance about the specific effects much less human response, if any, to the continual small changes in the composition of the blanket, Pielke slides magically into an assumed reaction of decarbonizing economies.Debates over action get wrapped up around debates what we know and what we don't know, and these debates are unlikely to be settled any time soon, whether within the scientific community or among the broader public.
The fulcrum on which action rests to decarbonize economies and improve adaptation will not be science, but everything else.
This is one of those "then a miracle occurs" universal can openers that fuzzy thinkers use to bridge the awkward bits and make their equations balance. It assumes that there exists some mechanism - an authority - to do this magical decarbonizing even though a more sober analysis invariably concludes that this cannot happen. Fittingly, he quotes Thomas Friedman - always a sloppy thinker - to support his thesis:
If we prepare for climate change by building a clean-power economy, but climate change turns out to be a hoax, what would be the result? Well, during a transition period, we would have higher energy prices. But gradually we would be driving battery-powered electric cars and powering more and more of our homes and factories with wind, solar, nuclear and second-generation biofuels. We would be much less dependent on oil dictators who have drawn a bull’s-eye on our backs; our trade deficit would improve; the dollar would strengthen; and the air we breathe would be cleaner. In short, as a country, we would be stronger, more innovative and more energy independent.If, dog, rabbit. Who is this "we"? What would make anyone with even the most modest grasp of systems dynamics assume that the mindless tinkering of political engineering would accomplish the listed benefits? Why would anyone assume that these benefits - which are pursued by more sober thinkers for their own merits rather than to support a political power grab - would not occur even more quickly and in a superior fashion if "we" obsessed about something else, and so didn't muck up the works?
Pielke and Friedman are like the naive auto owner who wants to "help" the mechanic fix their broken automobile. Their help is hindrance. Things would be done better and more quickly if they just took a nap. Better still, they could do something else useful, if they have any useful skills, and so be productive rather than destructive with their time.
I think that it's important to recognize how much of our current dilemma is a result of the ongoing tinkering of those who think of themselves as bosses, and that the paradigm change needed at this threatening juncture is for them to mature a bit and realize at long last that they are the problem rather than the solution. Their lust for power can no longer be indulged. They have made too large a mess of things, their ideas about what to do next are nonsensical, and that the pain to come will not be reduced by their continued meddling.
The argument that doing nothing is delusional needs to be explored a bit. "They" should do nothing so that "we" can restore sanity and begin to clean up the mess that they have made. The something that they can do is to abdicate completely, to make it very clear to humanity that they see how they have failed and that they won't meddle in future. This would energize humanity. Instead of sitting on their hands, dragging their feet, and passively resisting the idiotic orders of the foolish bosses society would shrug off those chains and set to work.
Lest you object that this too is a "then a miracle occurs" type non-solution think about how much better our current position would be had things gone differently in the past few decades so that we now had the better energy systems that could exist and do exist in some places. Think about the antiquated coal fueled power plants that were not upgraded incrementally since doing so would have forced the operators to replace them due to ham handed regulation that made them subject to stringent requirements if they changed anything.
Progress has been impeded in thousands of ways. Erecting further impediments is not helpful. The more convinced you are that we face dire threats the more you ought to oppose further aggrandizement of bureaucratic power to meddle.
I'm on the exact same page you are. After the last two entries on his blog including the one panning Sarah Palin called "Sarah Palin's Nonsense", one thought hit me and I've not been able to get past it: Pielke Jr is trying to get back in good graces with the Left after they've recently labeled him a climate skeptic or denier.
Why isn't he critical of Obama, Holdren, Lisa Jackson, Chu, and Al Gore for saying almost the same thing that Palin said?
The commenters are taking him to task for it and he's making comments about how tribalism is alive and well. I didn't realize how unaware he is of himself until now.
Curiously, Pielke Sr has just made an odd entry on his own blog stating that the CRU email scandal doesn't change the IPCC's conclusions on temperature trends, then proceeds to state that the IPCC overstates the magnitude of global warming.
Is there a piece of the puzzle missing from the box that I'm not seeing?
Posted by: Jeffrey at December 9, 2009 01:02 PMWell, perhaps. I can't know your mind but from your words one could infer that the situational imperatives of those who work in academia and the policy business are not fully grasped.
Where you stand is seldom far from where you sit, as the old saying goes. If you are in the climate business then your job is to do climate policy, either feeding the policy process with science production or contributing wonkery. You have to jockey for status and power within that community, so there are strict limits on how far you can stray off the reservation.
In dealing with such folks I use an analogy to the circus performer who works with big cats. Never forget what they are. You are an illusionist, entertaining an audience (perhaps) by consorting in the cage with them, but don't believe your own illusions. They will kill and eat you when it suits them, by an internal logic that you can't really grasp, so keep your necessary distance and lines of retreat in mind.
And in truth the things that I say are nothing more than common sense for those who are not in those businesses. They are not our friends, our buddies, our family and friends etc. They are more like our parasites and predators which we endure since the cost of total elimination exceeds the benefit.
At the moment we have too large a parasite load and it is trying to grow larger still. This will not just kill the host - us - it will kill the parasites too. Hopefully they can grasp this if nothing more and cooperate in the planned reduction. A cull is needed.
Curiously, some academics have written about historical instances when societies faced similar situations. Those that failed to do a cull collapsed, while those that executed such a downsizing endured far longer, though in those cases where the fundamentals were out of whack this just delayed the inevitable.
I'm for both reforms. Downsize and improve the foundations. No one gets out of this fix whole. We're all gonna feel some pain.
Posted by: back40 at December 9, 2009 02:05 PMFrom:
http://www.c3headlines.com/2009/12/roger-pielkes-the-son-nonsense-his-comments-on-sarah-palin-tom-friedman-nyt-re-climategate-etc.html
"...but it would seem Roger is feeling a need to assure others he is a 'liberal-man' and can bash Palin with the best, while making sure to kiss-the-ass of the critical liberal overlords, such as Friedman."
One of the many examples of misleading statements noted in the article that you cited has been one of my issues:
"the CO2 we put into the atmosphere stays there for many years, so it is “irreversible” in real-time (barring some feat of geo-engineering)"
CO2 lives for only 12 years in the atmosphere. Its chemical breakdown is far longer, but in the real world 8% of atmospheric CO2 is sucked out of the air by plants every year, and so we have an opportunity to capture that CO2 and sequester it.
This may be called a "feat of geo-engineering" but to me it is improved agronomic systems, which we need for a number of other reasons in any event.
I'm less outraged by the Palin bashing stuff, in part because of my attitude toward all politicians (whack them again, harder), and in part because her populist rhetoric marks her as an enemy of all aspiring intellectuals. His remarks are like a mouse expressing suspicion of cats: duh. Mice and cats can't help but be themselves.
Posted by: back40 at December 10, 2009 10:16 AMI've got no love for Palin or any other politician, left or right. She is, as you say, a politician and I see no reason to pamper her even a fraction of the amount that the Left and the media pampers Obama et al.
But that's just it. My point is that Pielke Jr singled her out to pan, while ignoring (pampering) the Leftist figureheads who've been saying the exact things she did about basing policy on sound science.
My #1 pet peeve is hypocrisy and the Left is doing more of it than ever.
After about 95% (my guess) of Junior's commenters were more than a little critical of him on several of these latest blog entries, he's now calling bullshit on Stephen Schneider for lying about the Hockey Stick and is also applauding MacIntyre for his work to expose the junk math climate science has been hanging its hat on.
I suppose political scientists can't help but catch the same social diseases that not only plague politics, they DEFINE politics.
Posted by: Jeffrey at December 11, 2009 07:55 AMI'm not disputing your claims Jeffrey, I'm just bloviating about why the cited behaviors are not surprising to me. Just sayin'.
Posted by: back40 at December 11, 2009 08:17 AM