Today's Half-Baked Climate Science Ignorance Casserole

Whether it is because of simply have given little thought to it or because of desire to grasp any straws in order to believe climate change is not a human concern, people who do not accept the established science typically are highly ignorant of climate science.

I have noted before that "ignorance" is by no means necessarily an insult. There is a lot of knowledge - no one can learn about everything. The negative connotation on ignorance is when it is actively embraced by shunning accurate information and/or lapping up inaccurate information. Unfortunately there is lot of that when it comes to climate.

I read a comment today that exemplified the hodgepodge of disinformation, misinformation, misunderstanding, contradictions and such that so many people throw into the pan and bake together to support their desire to refute the science of climate change. These casseroles tend to be very similar, and I think it is worth regularly debunking and trying to enlighten on various ingredients.

The starting point was a post on The New Republic describing how many politicians have abandoned trying to dispute climate science in favor of simply declaring that any efforts to control greenhouse gas emissions will supposedly crush the economy. A comment from one "mr_rationale" tried to chop down climate science with the wet noodle of ignorance.

No one doubts that the Earth's climate changes, has changed in the past, will change in the future. Total and complete agreement on this point.

The argument is over anthropogenic global warming (AGP) :
- What is the real magnitude? Initial models have been proven wrong and most of the warming happens at night due to heat sink. And the raw climate data set has yet to be made available, ignoring FOIA requests.
- Can you use the most recent 150 year data set to predict the earths climate, a planet that is over 4 Billion years old. Hmmm
- Is AGP lasting and permanent? A few million years of recent climate data would suggest otherwise -- the earth's climate is a robust system that has always reverted to mean
- Even if true, can AGP be stopped.
- Even if true, do the costs of AGP outweight benefits?

The binding ingredient here is what I call "anything butter". (I would also call this sort of a person an "anything butter") As in, acceptance of virtually anything but having to address climate change driven by human activities. Piece by piece...

No one doubts that the Earth's climate changes, has changed in the past, will change in the future. Total and complete agreement on this point.

This is little more than an attempt to seem reasonable by expressing agreement with something that if disagreed with would basically end the conversation. Acknowledging past climate change is like acknowledging there is water in the ocean. You get no credit for that because, as this person said, no one disagrees with that.

The argument is over anthropogenic global warming (AGP) :

I have no idea why the acronym chosen is "AGP". I could think of something like it being a warping of "anthropogenic" since those letters are all at least in there, but I suspect that would be too generous.

- What is the real magnitude? Initial models have been proven wrong and most of the warming happens at night due to heat sink. And the raw climate data set has yet to be made available, ignoring FOIA requests.

This is where the nonsense begins, and it is so thick it can barely be chewed. Most of it is not even wrong. What "initial models"? What has been "proven wrong"? Again I am clueless when it comes to "most of the warming happens at night due to heat sink" - that basically points to this person having heard some things and trying to parrot them despite a near complete lack of understanding. That assessment is further supported by not realizing that copious climate data is and long has been readily available.

- Can you use the most recent 150 year data set to predict the earths climate, a planet that is over 4 Billion years old. Hmmm

The fundamental point here this person does not grasp is that climate science is not based solely on the instrumental temperature record. That initial acceptance of past climate change should have already hinted at that. There are many independent lines of evidence from theory and data and observations that all converge. That is why we know that greenhouse gas increases will warm the planet.

- Is AGP lasting and permanent? A few million years of recent climate data would suggest otherwise -- the earth's climate is a robust system that has always reverted to mean

The cluelessness is only matched by the failure to realize it. What "mean" state does the earth's climate supposedly have? The climate system does not have some sort of homing instinct - climate responds to whatever ways forcings (like greenhouse gas concentration changes) push it.

- Even if true, can AGP be stopped.
- Even if true, do the costs of AGP outweight benefits?

Here we reach the thick base layer of "anything butter". This person shows no attachment to disbelief that human activities are affecting climate. The only concern is not doing anything about it. Any excuse will work. Maybe nothing can stop it! Maybe it will actually be better!

Please do not let any of the undercooked or spoiled ideas poison your brain.

Risk management and risk maximization

As summarized in a Herald article today the Grand Forks City Council last night was briefed on flooding risks for this spring. It is estimated that the chances of a 60-foot (the level to which the permanant protection including levees is supposed to work) flood in Grand Forks is 2-3 percent. To put it in a another perspective, that is basically the odds of any given number coming up on a roulette spin.

Often events with a 2-3% chance of happening are basically ignored. A 2-3% risk that any restaurant will get your order wrong? No big deal, you will still go out to eat. But Grand Forks City Engineer Al Grasser very well summarized why 2-3% is not always disregarded in describing the odds of a 60+ feet flood as

low probability of a high-consequence event.

High-consequence event. If there is a 2-3% you will be run over if you try to run across the street without looking, you take that seriously. Likewise, Grand Forks does not just let slide a 2-3% chance of a 60-foot flood (and about 1% chance of a 63-foot flood). It may be a rather unlikely event, but the costs if something happens that overcomes the local permanent flood protection is so immense that the only sensible option is to take precautions to try to avoid or ameliorate the consequences. That is reasonable risk management.

Now imagine you are in some fictional town along the Red River. The experts have explained that flooding to some degree is imminent. There is a slight chance it may not be so terrible, and those chances improve if serious preparatory action is taken. But on the other end of the spectrum it may be catastrophic, especially if nothing is done in preparation to minimize impacts. However, this town is making no serious effort at all to avoid any consequences - no sandbags, no levees, no diversions, no anything. In fact there is much more action being taken, like diverting even more water into the river, that would lead to worsening rather than to avoiding or minimizing the impacts of flooding.

As inconceivable as that seems with regard to flooding around a town, that exemplifies our action (or inaction, as the case may be) pertaining to climate change. Not only are we avoiding significant effort to deal with the problem, we are causing it ourselves and continuing to stack the odds and consequences against ourselves.

A couple years ago the MIT Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Climate Change performed a new analysis that is analogous to the local peak flood forecasts. They estimated the odds of what the global average temperature increase over essentially the 21st century would be and expressed it like a roulette wheel or a "wheel of misfortune":

By that estimate where we continue recklessly dumping immense quantities of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere there is a roughly 2-3% chance of the temperature increase being 15+ degrees Fahrenheit. A more median projection is 9-10 degree Fahrenheit warming. We have already committed to non-trivial warming, but we could keep things from being that bad. If we enacted and followed serious policy to cut greenhouse gas emissions, the worst case for the year 2100 may be only 6+ degrees warming with a median of about 4 degrees warming.

Will we try to minimize the risk of dire consequences, or will we continue with the business as usual and maximize the risk?

Might Duane Sand *not* truly be a climate science denialist?

It has become basically a litmus test for any Republican that he or she disbelieve the decades of accumulated knowledge and understanding that explains how human activities, particularly burning fossil fuels, are driving climate change. There are a range of ways to get your check mark, from pretending the issue of climate change does not exist (a la Rick Berg) or mostly ignoring the issue except for citing some thinktank-invented uncertainty (a la John Hoeven) to the full-blown tinfoil hat proclamations that it is all a hoax (a la Senator Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma).

In today's Herald multiple-time North Dakota Republican candidate for Congress Duane Sand made a sales pitch for nuclear power. (Nuclear power is a whole other issue - low-carbon but very expensive to say the least.) In a place in that op-ed one could pretty easily interpret Sand as acknowledging that carbon emissions need to decrease, and by really reaching one could guess that Sand understands the reason for that is their effect on climate and the environment.

For certain Sand maintains plausible deniability. He could always say that his mention of the need to replace "aging carbon-emitting power plants" does not mean that he thinks climate scientists are not wrong and/or lying. Also he might only have opposition to fossil fuels to the extent it would stand in the way of nuclear power.

And of course in the past Sand has tried to disregard climate science in favor of his own musings. Might his Americans for Prosperity ideology slightly worn off? Perhaps he is confusing himself with another non-denialist Duane Sand.

Maybe just maybe though, sanity and realism are trying to bubble to the surface for Sand. If so, do not fight it, Duane! Be a leader - acknowledge the need to decrease carbon pollution, and fight to make it happen!

Curb your goose, Kevin Cramer

Fossil fuel industry errand boy, no wait, Public Service Commissioner Kevin Cramer sent an early Valentine to the oil industry last month referring to it as the "goose laying golden eggs".

Bad news, Kevin. That and the other fossil carbon geese are pooping up the planet, most notably with the massive greenhouse gas emissions driving climate change. Just because you deny climate change does not mean you can hide from it, and no amount of golden eggs will change the laws of physics to match your delusion that we can burn fossil carbon with no adverse effects.

Cramer is obviously politically ambitious, and only just turned 50. Assuming he has another few decades on this rock, he will get to see more of the continuing and increasing impacts of climate change. But maybe, assuming money can even buy it, he will have gotten enough shares of the golden eggs to insulate himself enough to continue to ignore those effects. Is that all he cares about?

If Cramer wants to even pretend that he stands for "compassion" & "responsibility" and against "redistributing wealth", he must work to rein in his beloved carbon geese and stop mortgaging the futures of our children, grandchildren, and subsequent generations just to squeeze out as many golden eggs as he can today.