Conquer Club

Metsfanmax wrote:

thegreekdog wrote:

Metsfanmax wrote:Given the stakes of most Congressional races today, Large Company doesn't have the ability to single-handedly determine the outcome of an election. To some extent, I have to imagine that all those campaign dollars wash out against each other.

Obviously I disagree. I think recent history has given enough proof that campaign dollars do not wash out against each other.

For a contrary perspective, see Freakonomics:

The misperception that political spending drives electoral outcomes is reinforced every campaign season by sensational media coverage, post-election debriefs from losing candidates and the exaggerated rhetoric of professional reform advocates. And this first presidential election cycle post-Citizens United promises to bolster that errant view as sanctimonious posturing by pundits on the evils of money in politics will likely crescendo to a spectacle rivaling only a North Korean grief orgy.

It is true that winning candidates typically spend more on their campaigns than do their opponents, but it is also true that successful candidates possess attributes that are useful for both raising money and winning votes (e.g., charisma, popular policy positions, etc.). This “reverse causality” means that campaign spending is potentially as much a symptom of electoral success as its cause.

In order to identify the treatment effect of campaign spending on electoral success, researchers exploit natural experiments. For example, imagine re-running a race between two candidates but varying the campaign spending of each; repeat that exercise enough times and you have an experiment that will allow you to observe the causal effect of campaign spending, all else constant. That’s basically the approach taken by Steve Levitt in his seminal study of repeat meetings of the same Congressional candidates over time.

Levitt finds that changes in campaign spending produce negligible changes in electoral outcomes when candidate characteristics are held constant. Now that doesn’t mean that candidates don’t need to get their message out to voters. We’re talking about marginal changes in campaign spending. Given you are already spending a million dollars running for a House seat, another hundred grand or so won’t make any appreciable difference.

Phatscotty wrote:http://www.carbonbrief.org/blog/2013/03/scientists-set-straight-mail-on-sundays-latest-climate-contortion

Phatscotty wrote:http://www.carbonbrief.org/blog/2013/03/scientists-set-straight-mail-on-sundays-latest-climate-contortion

The graph compares recent global temperatures from the Met Office's HadCrut4 dataset with projected temperatures from a set of climate models which will be used in the next IPCC report, called CMIP5.

CMIP5 includes a range of different models, which vary in how they represent some aspects of the climate system. Scientists run the models repeatedly with slightly different - but equally plausible - starting conditions. This produces quite a spread of projected future temperatures, which can be interpreted to give an idea of the likely range of future temperatures.

Hawkins's comparison shows global temperatures are tracking the bottom of the range in which 90 per cent of the model simulations lie. In other words, global temperatures are, broadly speaking, represented by a model simulation that is cooler than about 90% of the CMIP5 model runs.

More simply, most of the models predict warmer temperatures than we've seen in the past decade.

Observations vs model data

Based on this assessment of the past decade, Rose claims "the speed of warming has been massively overestimated". Rather than showing temperatures "steadily climbing", the graph "confirms there has been no statistically significant increase in the world's average temperature since January 1997", he says.

The argument that slowed temperature rise in recent years means global warming has stopped certainly isn't new. And scientists and commentators have extensively picked apart, discussed and critiqued it many times online.

But what about the argument that temperatures over the past decade show that climate models are flawed? As Hawkins writes in another blog post, there are three possible reasons for the mismatch between climate models and measurements.

Natural variability

The first is natural variation in the climate. Small changes in solar radiation, volcanic eruptions and ocean circulation patterns can affect global temperatures, producing short-lived warming or cooling effects. These natural processes mean temperatures bounce around over the short term.

Scientists believe such natural processes may be masking the full extent of human-induced warming currently - making global temperature rise slower than in previous decades. Hawkins notes:

"[A] decade with no global warming (or even a cooling) is not implausible - various analyses indicate that around 5% of decades should exhibit a cooling trend globally, perhaps because the warming is in the deeper ocean."

As the Met Office explained back in January, such variability is not evidence that global warming has stopped. It says:

"Small year to year fluctuations such as those that we are seeing in the shorter term five year predictions are expected due to natural variability in the climate system, and have no sustained impact on the long term warming."

And as Dr Richard Allan, climate scientist at the University of Reading, tells Carbon Brief, surface temperature is not the only indicator of how the climate is changing. He says:

"Some aspects are changing more quickly than predicted by climate simulations (e.g. Arctic ice) and others are slower than the projections (e.g. surface temperature over last 15 years)."

We've written more about this here.

Climate models are constantly being refined to better account for natural variability, but they are not perfect. Over the short term - a decade, for example - natural variability may lead to mismatches between model and observed temperatures.

Some climate models are projecting too high

Natural variability may not give the whole story, however. Hawkins also suggests climate models that project the highest temperature rise may be getting it wrong.

Professor Matt Collins from the University of Exeter tells us this could be down to assumptions the climate models make about tiny particles in the atmosphere, known as aerosols, which provide a cooling effect which suppresses greenhouse gas warming. He says:

"[T]here are assumptions about the declining role of atmospheric aerosols from 2005 onwards which are probably incorrect."

As tighter controls on pollution are introduced, aerosol emissions should reduce, and this could produce an additional warming effect. But if climate models are overestimating how much aerosol pollution has been reduced in recent times, that could explain why they project more rapid warming than we can observe at present.

A third possibility is that climate models are overestimating how much the climate would warm if carbon dioxide levels doubled - what scientists call climate sensitivity. The IPCC estimates a likely range for climate sensitivity of between two and 4.5 degrees, but hasn't ruled out higher values. Recently, however, scientists have suggested that values higher than this range are appearing less likely. This is an area of continuing scientific debate.

Significant climate change

The difficulty, as Hawkins explains, is disentangling the different reasons why models might overestimate recent temperature rise. This isn't a simple task. James Annan, a climate scientist quoted in the Mail on Sunday article, tells us:

"In my opinion, the most obvious reason for the moderate model-data mismatch would be that the models are a little bit too sensitive overall. However a detailed physical explanation of why this is so would be harder to discern."

Annan is quoted in the Mail on Sunday article as having said that the "true figure [for climate sensitivity is] likely to be about half of the IPCC prediction...". But he writes in a blog post today:

"[This is] not something I can imagine having said, or being likely. I do think the IPCC range is a bit high, especially the 17 per cent probability of sensitivity greater than 4.5 degrees. But their range, or best estimate, is certainly not something I would disagree with by a factor of two."

Professor Piers Forster from Leeds University is also quoted in the article. In a response to the article, he says that even if it turns out that very high values of climate sensitivity can be ruled out, this only means higher estimates of temperature rise are less likely - not that future temperature rise will be insignificant.

Forster concludes:

"Even with a suggested [climate sensitivity] of around 2.5 Celsius or so we can end up with a very significant climate change by 2100 if we don't do something. Therefore,I think the tone of the article in terms of its implications for the IPCC, climate science and the climate itself are all wrong."

Climate forecasting is complicated, and scientific debate about why models don't generally match the last decade or so of observations was in full flow before David Rose's latest article. While the climate scientists we spoke to said it'll take a few decades more data until we know what's causing the current mismatch, none have argued this is anything close to "irrefutable evidence that official predictions of global climate warming have been catastrophically flawed", as the Mail on Sunday puts it.

Rather, the Mail on Sunday has spun up an extreme interpretation of a scientific discussion as part of a wider project to challenge the government's green policies. It's not the first time, and it won't be the last.

Phatscotty wrote:yes, I read it

Metsfanmax wrote:

Phatscotty wrote:yes, I read it

So you understand that you cherrypicked an infographic from a page that was entirely dedicated to debunking that infographic. Do you have any response to any of the arguments made on that page?

Phatscotty wrote:

Metsfanmax wrote:

Phatscotty wrote:yes, I read it

So you understand that you cherrypicked an infographic from a page that was entirely dedicated to debunking that infographic. Do you have any response to any of the arguments made on that page?

the debunkers are wrong.

Metsfanmax wrote:

Phatscotty wrote:

Metsfanmax wrote:

Phatscotty wrote:yes, I read it

So you understand that you cherrypicked an infographic from a page that was entirely dedicated to debunking that infographic. Do you have any response to any of the arguments made on that page?

the debunkers are wrong.

If data and reasoned arguments don't matter to you, why do you bother trying to find data to disprove the hypothesis? Can't you just say "I don't want to believe it" and be done with it? At least we'll be honest with each other, and we can have more productive conversations.

Phatscotty wrote:

Metsfanmax wrote:

Phatscotty wrote:

Metsfanmax wrote:

Phatscotty wrote:yes, I read it

So you understand that you cherrypicked an infographic from a page that was entirely dedicated to debunking that infographic. Do you have any response to any of the arguments made on that page?

the debunkers are wrong.

If data and reasoned arguments don't matter to you, why do you bother trying to find data to disprove the hypothesis? Can't you just say "I don't want to believe it" and be done with it? At least we'll be honest with each other, and we can have more productive conversations.

Of course it matters. The question I'd ask you is, is it possible for data to conflict?

The truth about that chart is it has been peer reviewed. The data is there to back it up. It's not what I want to believe, it's that there is peer reviewed data that concluded what I believe,

and that is that, while I believe the climate is changing, I also believe people are exploiting the data to push their politics and exploit a situation to gain money and power and central control.

I get suspicious whenever anyone says "we have all the answers, it's too complicated to understand, just trust us to do the right thing and remake the economy, and don't bother involving yourself, cuz your'e just dumb and we are smart" I've heard crap like that all my life, and the older I get, the more I realize that means someone is about to be taken advantage of.

It seems that even wood isn’t green or renewable enough anymore. The EPA has recently banned the production and sale of 80 percent of America’s current wood-burning stoves, the oldest heating method known to mankind and mainstay of rural homes and many of our nation’s poorest residents. The agency’s stringent one-size-fits-all rules apply equally to heavily air-polluted cities and far cleaner plus typically colder off-grid wilderness areas such as large regions of Alaska and the American West.

While EPA’s most recent regulations aren’t altogether new, their impacts will nonetheless be severe. Whereas restrictions had previously banned wood-burning stoves that didn’t limit fine airborne particulate emissions to 15 micrograms per cubic meter of air, the change will impose a maximum 12 microgram limit. To put this amount in context, EPA estimates that secondhand tobacco smoke in a closed car can expose a person to 3,000-4,000 micrograms of particulates per cubic meter.

Most wood stoves that warm cabin and home residents from coast-to-coast can’t meet that standard. Older stoves that don’t cannot be traded in for updated types, but instead must be rendered inoperable, destroyed, or recycled as scrap metal.

The impacts of EPA’s ruling will affect many families. According to the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2011 survey statistics, 2.4 million American housing units (12 percent of all homes) burned wood as their primary heating fuel, compared with 7 percent that depended upon fuel oil.

Local LOCM 0% governments in some states have gone even further than EPA, not only banning the sale of noncompliant stoves, but even their use as fireplaces. As a result, owners face fines for infractions. Puget Sound, Washington is one such location. Montréal, Canada proposes to eliminate all fireplaces within its city limits.

Only weeks after EPA enacted its new stove rules, attorneys general of seven states sued the agency to crack down on wood-burning water heaters as well. The lawsuit was filed by Connecticut, Maryland, Massachusetts, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island and Vermont, all predominately Democrat states. Claiming that EPA’s new regulations didn’t go far enough to decrease particle pollution levels, the plaintiffs cited agency estimates that outdoor wood boilers will produce more than 20 percent of wood-burning emissions by 2017. A related suit was filed by the environmental group Earth Justice.

Did EPA require a motivational incentive to tighten its restrictions? Sure, about as much as Br’er Rabbit needed to persuade Br’er Fox to throw him into the briar patch. This is but another example of EPA and other government agencies working with activist environmental groups to sue and settle on claims that afford leverage to enact new regulations which they lack statutory authority to otherwise accomplish.

“Sue and settle “ practices, sometimes referred to as “friendly lawsuits”, are cozy deals through which far-left radical environmental groups file lawsuits against federal agencies wherein court-ordered “consent decrees” are issued based upon a prearranged settlement agreement they collaboratively craft together in advance behind closed doors. Then, rather than allowing the entire process to play out, the agency being sued settles the lawsuit by agreeing to move forward with the requested action both they and the litigants want.

And who pays for this litigation? All-too-often we taxpayers are put on the hook for legal fees of both colluding parties. According to a 2011 GAO report, this amounted to millions of dollars awarded to environmental organizations for EPA litigations between 1995 and 2010. Three “Big Green” groups received 41% of this payback, with Earthjustice accounting for 30 percent ($4,655,425). Two other organizations with histories of lobbying for regulations EPA wants while also receiving agency funding are the American Lung Association (ALA) and the Sierra Club.

In addition, the Department of Justice forked over at least $43 million of our money defending EPA in court between 1998 and 2010. This didn’t include money spent by EPA for their legal costs in connection with those rip-offs because EPA doesn’t keep track of their attorney’s time on a case-by-case basis.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has concluded that Sue and Settle rulemaking is responsible for many of EPA’s “most controversial, economically significant regulations that have plagued the business community for the past few years”. Included are regulations on power plants, refineries, mining operations, cement plants, chemical manufacturers, and a host of other industries. Such consent decree-based rulemaking enables EPA to argue to Congress: “The court made us do it.”

Directing special attention to these congressional end run practices, Louisiana Senator David Vitter, top Republican on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, has launched an investigation. Last year he asked his Louisiana Attorney General Buddy Caldwell to join with AGs of 13 other states who filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) seeking all correspondence between EPA and a list of 80 environmental, labor union and public interest organizations that have been party to litigation since the start of the Obama administration.

Other concerned and impacted parties have little influence over such court procedures and decisions. While the environmental group is given a seat at the table, outsiders who are most impacted are excluded, with no opportunity to object to the settlements. No public notice about the settlement is released until the agreement is filed in court…after the damage has been done.

In a letter to Caldwell, Senator Vitter wrote: “The collusion between federal bureaucrats and the organizations entering consent agreements under a shroud of secrecy represents the antithesis of a transparent government, and your participation in the FOIA request will help Louisianans understand the process by which these settlements were reached.”

Fewer citizens would challenge EPA’s regulatory determinations were it not for its lack of accountability and transparency in accomplishing through a renegade pattern of actions what they cannot achieve through democratic legislative processes.

A recent example sets unachievable CO2 emission limits for new power plants. As I reported in my January 14 column, a group within EPA’s own Science Advisory Board (SAB) determined that the studies upon which that regulation was based had never been responsibly peer reviewed, and that there was no evidence that those limits can be accomplished using available technology.

Compared with huge consequences of EPA’s regulatory war on coal, the fuel source that provides more than 40 percent of America’s electricity, a clamp-down on humble residential wood-burning stoves and future water heaters may seem to many people as a merely a trifling or inconsequential matter. That is, unless it happens to significantly affect your personal life.

As a Washington Times editorial emphasized, the ban is of great concern to many families in cold remote off-grid locations. It noted, for example, that “Alaska’s 663,000 square miles is mostly forestland, offering residents and abundant source of affordable firewood. When county officials floated a plan to regulate the burning of wood, residents were understandably inflamed.”

Quoting Representative Tammie Wilson speaking to the Associated Press, the Times reported: “Everyone wants clean air. We just want to make sure that we can also heat our homes” Wilson continued: “Rather than fret over EPA’s computer – model – based warning about the dangers of inhaling soot from wood smoke, residents have more pressing concerns on their minds as the immediate risk of freezing to death when the mercury plunges.”

Phatscotty wrote:Thanks Mets. Just wanted to put the chart out there, and I had to post the debunking one because the peer reviewed one had dimensions CC image tab could not post. And I would love to see smart policy, sucks that the track record for smart policy is piss poor, and getting poorer. Policies like this next one are all too familiar, and probably surprise no one. Just another one size fits all coming from an ever increasing and infringing central power.

AndyDufresne wrote:

Phatscotty wrote:Thanks Mets. Just wanted to put the chart out there, and I had to post the debunking one because the peer reviewed one had dimensions CC image tab could not post. And I would love to see smart policy, sucks that the track record for smart policy is piss poor, and getting poorer. Policies like this next one are all too familiar, and probably surprise no one. Just another one size fits all coming from an ever increasing and infringing central power.

I endorse PS's fiscal policy.


--Andy

demonfork wrote:I wonder how much of a delta there needs to be between computer simulated predictions and actual recorded data before the climate alarmists start to cut their losses?

It's starting to become absurd...

BigBallinStalin wrote:

demonfork wrote:I wonder how much of a delta there needs to be between computer simulated predictions and actual recorded data before the climate alarmists start to cut their losses?

It's starting to become absurd...

How 'bout from years 1960 or so to 2013?

demonfork wrote:

BigBallinStalin wrote:

demonfork wrote:I wonder how much of a delta there needs to be between computer simulated predictions and actual recorded data before the climate alarmists start to cut their losses?

It's starting to become absurd...

How 'bout from years 1960 or so to 2013?

The past almost 18 years of measurments not enough for ya?

Extreme weather: The first six weeks of 2014 have been brutal

Daniel Martins
Digital Reporter

Wednesday, February 12, 2014, 5:02 PM -

Whether you believe in climate change or not, if the first six weeks of 2014 are anything to go by, climate change most definitely believes in you – whether you’re watching it from a 24-traffic jam on an icy highway, or sweltering in a 50-year drought.

Extreme weather is raging across the globe, with ever-rising human and economic costs.

After experiencing its wettest January in almost 250 years, the UK is still gripped by massive floods caused by rain falling on ground so saturated, flood waters have nowhere to go but up.

As of Wednesday, there are more than 300 flood warnings or alerts throughout the country, 16 of them severe or life-threatening, and the UK Met Office is putting the blame squarely, and explicitly, on climate change.

It’s not just the U.K. Africa and Asia are also feeling the sting.

In Indonesia, 40,000 people have been displaced, and 13 killed, beneath pounding rains.

In Africa, flooding has ravaged at least half-dozen countries since the middle of January.

Dozens of people have been killed, and tens of thousands of people displaced, in Zambia, Zimbabwe, Burundi, Madagascar, Mozambique and Tanzania, with the summer, usually the rainy season for much of sub-Saharan Africa, still going.

In South America, several people were killed during torrential rain in Uruguay, including at least one Canadian visitor.

Elsewhere in Brazil, there practically no rain at all. The city of Sao Paulo, South America’s largest, has had so little rain, local water sources could run completely dry by the end of March. In the northeast, populous but comparatively impoverished, farmers have waited in vain for rain amid the worst drought in a half-century.

The lack of rain has been made much worse by the heat in that country. Rio de Janeiro matched the hottest temperature of 2013 last week, 40.8C, while in the southern state of Rio Grande do Sul, Wednesday marked the 10th straight day of temperatures above 40C.

Closer to home: California’s incredible drought has only continued: the state is so parched, the extent of the dry winter is visible from space.



That’s going to mean an exceptionally severe wildfire season when summer comes – Australia, where summer is in full swing, is already in the thick of wildfire season, after parts of the country suffered through their driest and hottest January in years.

Meanwhile in the Middle East, a combination of climate change and local mismanagement has caused Iran’s largest lake to drop to 95 per cent of its water level 20 years ago.

And according to climate scientists, the next few decades don’t look to provide relief, at least in the long-term. A study in the January edition of Nature Climate change said the world became drier between 1923 and 2010, and that trend will continue over the next 30-90 years, leading to more severe droughts.