NoaIzumiSinger is Out of Tune
February 21st 2009 21:34
We have a special guest on Editorial Fact Check today: noted AGW contrarian Dr. Fred Singer, writing in Investor’s Business Daily. Singer was one of the original skeptics of the theory of anthropogenic global warming, and I’m so grateful for the opportunity to give one of his pieces “the treatment”.
War Over The Climate Heats Up Even As Climate Itself Cools Down
“In one corner you find those concerned with the recovery of the economy, in the second corner those concerned about threats to national security and in the third corner global warmers who agonize about catastrophic climate change”
Dr. Singer sets up (not for the first time) a conflict between the economy, national security, and the environment. But the conflict is mainly a straw man.
I addressed some of the national security and economic issues of global warming in a previous post
And frankly I’ve always been somewhat confused on the issue of “economy vs. global warming” anyway. Don’t a lot of the proposed measures consist of improving energy efficiency? Weatherizing homes and increasing mpg standards for cars, for example?. People use less fuel, lowering emissions and lowering the price of energy at the same time. Everybody wins.
It’s also been repeatedly shown that carbon emissions can be significantly cut without significantly damaging the national economy. More on that later.
“Nothing can be achieved by way of controlling atmospheric levels of CO2 without the active participation of China, India and other developing nations”
And is that a reason to do nothing? The US is a world leader. That means taking the first step.
This argument has a juvenile logic. I didn’t do my homework, but it’s OK because my big brother has more homework than I do, and he didn’t do it either. What, is Fred Singer ten years old?
Besides, the big brother is doing his homework:
Really Long Link
Really Long Link
And the Copenhagen conference of later this year will likely produce a successor treaty to Kyoto, which will include targets for reduction of CO2 emissions of developing countries, something that was absent from the Kyoto Protocol.
Really Long Link
“It is a global issue, and the U.S. cannot make a significant impact, even if it were to adopt extreme measures.”
“Cannot make a significant impact”? The United States is still responsible for 22% of the world’s CO2 emissions, behind China in absolute terms, but with a lock on second place for the foreseeable future. The developed world (including the US, Western Europe, Japan, South Korea, Australia) is still responsible for well over 50% of CO2 emissions, and will remain so for some time to come.
Really Long Link
And in terms of carbon emissions per person, the US is well ahead of China, India, and almost everybody else.
Really Long Link
“the U.S. Senate voted unanimously against anything like the Kyoto Protocol”
Ten years ago. Now there’s a different Senate, a different political climate, and a ten-years-of-additional-resea rch stronger case for AGW. In addition, based on the experience of certain European countries which ratified Kyoto, it’s now known that carbon emissions can be cut without serious cost to the economy.
“the Kyoto Protocol, which calls for a reduction of only 5%. And note that European nations and Japan, which signed up for Kyoto, will not come close to achieving even this modest goal by 2012,”
True for the Kyoto signatories as a whole, but individual countries have made impressive progress. The United Kingdom and Sweden have met their Kyoto goals, and Germany, France, Denmark, and possibly Norway have all reduced their carbon emissions to below 1990 levels, although they’re not likely to meet their goals under Kyoto.
Really Long Link
In addition, and here are those examples that I promised earlier, during the time that these countries were cutting their emissions, the GDP of every single one of them grew at a faster rate than that of the United States.
Really Long Link
“global warming, whether natural or human-induced, may be good for you. Economists tell us that a modest warming would improve agriculture and forestry and increase GNP”
Probably true of modest warming (which is most likely inevitable now in any case), but what if the warming is greater than modest? Is Fred Singer saying that the warming trend will stop right where we want it to stop?
It’s also not just the amount of change; there’s also the rate of change to consider.
Really Long Link
“the climate has been mildly cooling for the past decade”
No, it hasn’t. Singer is going on the idea that 1998 (an El Nino year) was the warmest, when it wasn’t. According to NASA, 2005 was warmer, worldwide.
Really Long Link
“While their 2007 Report asserts a better-than-90% certainty that the average temperature increase over the last 50 years is human-caused, they have produced no credible evidence to back this up. None!”
The IPCC does none of its own research, but instead bases its findings on the body of scientific evidence available at the time. To say its findings may be politically influenced to an extent is fair enough; to say they have no evidence behind them at all is ridiculous.
“independent assessment of the same published information by the Non-Governmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC) reaches exactly the opposite result: Nature, not human activity, rules the climate.”
The NIPCC is a relatively recent development, founded in 2007 by Fred Singer himself. The full report can be found here.
Really Long Link (PDF file)
It repeats many of the common skeptical arguments: “the Hockey Stick has been debunked” (it hasn’t), “it was warmer in the Medieval Warm Period” (claim relies on cherry-picked data), “Between 1940 and 1975, the climate cooled while CO2 content was raising” (ignores the dimming effect and change in solar activity at the time), “models haven’t predicted reality” (actually, they have), “the atmospheric warming pattern doesn’t match the models’ predictions” (relies on uncorrected data), “water vapor has a negative feedback” (yes, and a positive feedback too, completely ignored by the authors}, “it hasn’t warmed since 1998” (not according to NASA), “any warming is due to changes in solar activity” (except that there haven’t been any significant changes in solar activity over the last quarter century, nor does the paper provide any evidence that there have been), “warming won’t effect the spread of malaria” (actually it’s been proven that it does and will, albeit in a minor way), “moderate warming will provide benefits” (true to an extent, but only for people living at higher latitudes; and what about greater-than-moderate warming?), “CO2 levels were much higher 500 million years, and the temperature was comparable” (ignores the widely-held belief that the sun was dimmer at the time)
“And 31,000 scientists, about one-third of them with Ph.D degrees, have signed the Oregon Petition against the Kyoto Protocol.”
Most of the signers (>17,000) put their names when the petition was first circulated, ten years ago. How many people would sign it today? Scientific American wondered that too.
Really Long Link
Another reporter noted the lack of verification for the names.
Really Long Link
“His latest book is "Unstoppable Global Warming — Every 1,500 Years"
Incidentally, I’ve read this book, and liked it. It’s a solid work on past climates and scientific methods of investigating them, and I recommend it to anyone interested in paleoclimatology. However, its main point regarding current climate change is, “It happened naturally then, therefore it’s happening naturally now,” and it tries to sell this without providing any evidence of a current natural cause. I could use the same argument to show that guns and bombs (and sharpened sticks, for that matter) couldn’t possibly kill anyone.
War Over The Climate Heats Up Even As Climate Itself Cools Down
“In one corner you find those concerned with the recovery of the economy, in the second corner those concerned about threats to national security and in the third corner global warmers who agonize about catastrophic climate change”
Dr. Singer sets up (not for the first time) a conflict between the economy, national security, and the environment. But the conflict is mainly a straw man.
I addressed some of the national security and economic issues of global warming in a previous post
And frankly I’ve always been somewhat confused on the issue of “economy vs. global warming” anyway. Don’t a lot of the proposed measures consist of improving energy efficiency? Weatherizing homes and increasing mpg standards for cars, for example?. People use less fuel, lowering emissions and lowering the price of energy at the same time. Everybody wins.
It’s also been repeatedly shown that carbon emissions can be significantly cut without significantly damaging the national economy. More on that later.
“Nothing can be achieved by way of controlling atmospheric levels of CO2 without the active participation of China, India and other developing nations”
And is that a reason to do nothing? The US is a world leader. That means taking the first step.
This argument has a juvenile logic. I didn’t do my homework, but it’s OK because my big brother has more homework than I do, and he didn’t do it either. What, is Fred Singer ten years old?
Besides, the big brother is doing his homework:
Really Long Link
Really Long Link
And the Copenhagen conference of later this year will likely produce a successor treaty to Kyoto, which will include targets for reduction of CO2 emissions of developing countries, something that was absent from the Kyoto Protocol.
Really Long Link
“It is a global issue, and the U.S. cannot make a significant impact, even if it were to adopt extreme measures.”
“Cannot make a significant impact”? The United States is still responsible for 22% of the world’s CO2 emissions, behind China in absolute terms, but with a lock on second place for the foreseeable future. The developed world (including the US, Western Europe, Japan, South Korea, Australia) is still responsible for well over 50% of CO2 emissions, and will remain so for some time to come.
Really Long Link
And in terms of carbon emissions per person, the US is well ahead of China, India, and almost everybody else.
Really Long Link
“the U.S. Senate voted unanimously against anything like the Kyoto Protocol”
Ten years ago. Now there’s a different Senate, a different political climate, and a ten-years-of-additional-resea rch stronger case for AGW. In addition, based on the experience of certain European countries which ratified Kyoto, it’s now known that carbon emissions can be cut without serious cost to the economy.
“the Kyoto Protocol, which calls for a reduction of only 5%. And note that European nations and Japan, which signed up for Kyoto, will not come close to achieving even this modest goal by 2012,”
True for the Kyoto signatories as a whole, but individual countries have made impressive progress. The United Kingdom and Sweden have met their Kyoto goals, and Germany, France, Denmark, and possibly Norway have all reduced their carbon emissions to below 1990 levels, although they’re not likely to meet their goals under Kyoto.
Really Long Link
In addition, and here are those examples that I promised earlier, during the time that these countries were cutting their emissions, the GDP of every single one of them grew at a faster rate than that of the United States.
Really Long Link
“global warming, whether natural or human-induced, may be good for you. Economists tell us that a modest warming would improve agriculture and forestry and increase GNP”
Probably true of modest warming (which is most likely inevitable now in any case), but what if the warming is greater than modest? Is Fred Singer saying that the warming trend will stop right where we want it to stop?
It’s also not just the amount of change; there’s also the rate of change to consider.
Really Long Link
“the climate has been mildly cooling for the past decade”
No, it hasn’t. Singer is going on the idea that 1998 (an El Nino year) was the warmest, when it wasn’t. According to NASA, 2005 was warmer, worldwide.
Really Long Link
“While their 2007 Report asserts a better-than-90% certainty that the average temperature increase over the last 50 years is human-caused, they have produced no credible evidence to back this up. None!”
The IPCC does none of its own research, but instead bases its findings on the body of scientific evidence available at the time. To say its findings may be politically influenced to an extent is fair enough; to say they have no evidence behind them at all is ridiculous.
“independent assessment of the same published information by the Non-Governmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC) reaches exactly the opposite result: Nature, not human activity, rules the climate.”
The NIPCC is a relatively recent development, founded in 2007 by Fred Singer himself. The full report can be found here.
Really Long Link (PDF file)
It repeats many of the common skeptical arguments: “the Hockey Stick has been debunked” (it hasn’t), “it was warmer in the Medieval Warm Period” (claim relies on cherry-picked data), “Between 1940 and 1975, the climate cooled while CO2 content was raising” (ignores the dimming effect and change in solar activity at the time), “models haven’t predicted reality” (actually, they have), “the atmospheric warming pattern doesn’t match the models’ predictions” (relies on uncorrected data), “water vapor has a negative feedback” (yes, and a positive feedback too, completely ignored by the authors}, “it hasn’t warmed since 1998” (not according to NASA), “any warming is due to changes in solar activity” (except that there haven’t been any significant changes in solar activity over the last quarter century, nor does the paper provide any evidence that there have been), “warming won’t effect the spread of malaria” (actually it’s been proven that it does and will, albeit in a minor way), “moderate warming will provide benefits” (true to an extent, but only for people living at higher latitudes; and what about greater-than-moderate warming?), “CO2 levels were much higher 500 million years, and the temperature was comparable” (ignores the widely-held belief that the sun was dimmer at the time)
“And 31,000 scientists, about one-third of them with Ph.D degrees, have signed the Oregon Petition against the Kyoto Protocol.”
Most of the signers (>17,000) put their names when the petition was first circulated, ten years ago. How many people would sign it today? Scientific American wondered that too.
Really Long Link
Another reporter noted the lack of verification for the names.
Really Long Link
“His latest book is "Unstoppable Global Warming — Every 1,500 Years"
Incidentally, I’ve read this book, and liked it. It’s a solid work on past climates and scientific methods of investigating them, and I recommend it to anyone interested in paleoclimatology. However, its main point regarding current climate change is, “It happened naturally then, therefore it’s happening naturally now,” and it tries to sell this without providing any evidence of a current natural cause. I could use the same argument to show that guns and bombs (and sharpened sticks, for that matter) couldn’t possibly kill anyone.
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