Over at the Christian Post, an author has a problem with Obama’s speech, namely, the facts about global warming. He provides a handy bulleted list.

On almost every point, I could answer with “[citation needed]”, so let’s just assume there’s a general request for this across the board. For instance…

2014 was, according to NASA’s data, only one-one hundredth degree Celsius warmer than the next warmest year (2010), but the margin of error is ten times as much. That makes the difference meaningless.

According to NOAA, 2014’s temperature anomaly (essentially the change from the 20th century average, if I’m understanding it right), is +1.00 ± 0.20 C. According to the same source, 2010’s temperature anomaly for land was +0.96 ± 0.11 C.

So, no, it wasn’t one-one hundredth a difference… it was four one-hundredths! That makes it only five times as much as the margin of error! Actually, in his case, that would have been 20x the error margin.

He’s off, but in the ballpark. This doesn’t really help his case. In science, uncertainty calculations are common, and are supposed to help us manage the math. The fact that different year’s average temperatures can be within each other’s margin of error doesn’t rebut the fact that the average is going up. – the average, incidentally, being the most reliable number presented. As long as we’re talking about a consistent process of evaluation, it’s meaningful to observe that the average increased.

So what is the author’s point? At best, it’s pointing out that this record holder’s status is somewhat ambiguous with another record holder’s status.

It’s like saying that, based on our ability to measure two different sky scrapers, Building A is 1000m ± 1m, and Building B is 1000.5m ± 1m. So we can’t really say for sure that Building B is taller than Building A. Is that the point he’s making?

No, he’s saying that, therefore, tall buildings do not exist.

Let’s mark this one as an irrelevant non-sequitur.

NASA’s claim was based on surface data, which are notoriously less credible than satellite data, and according to the latter, 2014 was the third warmest year on “record,” beating out the next six by less than the margin of error, which means it might have been anywhere from third to ninth warmest.

When looking for information, I’m not getting NASA so much as NOAA. If anything, I’d think all of NASA’s data would be satellite-based. NOAA tends to use non-satellite information.

Okay, though. And? The sky scrapers that are clearly towering over everything else aren’t there?

Don’t get me wrong, the process for gathering data is important. The linked article about NOAA’s methods show that a lot of time and study has been poured into that topic.

The satellite “record” goes back only 35 years, and NASA’s surface “record” 135. But the Minoan Warm Period (roughly 3,000 years ago), Roman Warm Period (roughly 2,000 years ago), and Medieval Warm Period (roughly 1,000 years ago) were warmer than the present—all before people began burning fossil fuels.

This type of claim pops up regularly. It could be the “Yeah but natural cycles” argument.

Let’s state this for the record: We are not saying that changes to the climate can only happen through artificial means.

Once a person grasps that point, the next realization is: Therefore, natural cycles are not a rebuttal.

It’d be like saying that, since we have plenty of evidence that the Obamaisacommunist River has naturally had varying water levels, due to heavy rain or droughts in the past, that therefore, it’s current flooded state has nothing to do, whatsoever, with the giant dam that humans built in front of the flooded area.

We are capable of ruling out possibilities. Science does this all the time. It’s done often with “controlling the conditions”. We have armies of scientists examining and studying everything they can get their hands on. That includes sources of greenhouse gasses. In this case, it’d be like saying that the dam has nothing to do with the flood behind it, because it had rained a lot, when in fact, the area is currently in a drought.

But apparently the measurable gasses emitted by our vehicles and industry, despite laboratory tests being able to easy determine (and measure exactly) their greenhouse values… none of that counts.

Look, look at the natural cycles. They’re cyclic, right? Note that, at the end, the CO2 levels, suddenly, within a very short period of time, suddenly go Viagra on us. That’s not natural. Viagra is not natural.

Setting aside the specifics about the satellite technology going back 35 years… so what? Does he think the scientific community hasn’t addressed the topic of switching measurement techniques? Generally speaking, we wouldn’t start using a new methodology unless it’s been determined to be reliable in collecting data.

It’s not like the satellites are measuring 25C where the old technology would have measured 20C. When we employ a new technology for measuring something, the first thing we do is see how well it stacks up against the established technologies. Further, we have multiple ongoing approaches for cross-corroborating the values.

It strikes me that people, such as this author, would be willing to dismiss a field of study on the flimsiest of objections, but have no problems with the egregious problems with topics such as Biblical canonization, or the historicity of Jesus.

For 14 out of the 15 warmest years on either of these records to come in this century would be significant only if it were improbable. But probability applies to random chance, like rolling dice, and the climate system isn’t random. It’s “a continuous process of incremental change,” as Holman Jenkins put it, going on to explain that this kind of reasoning “is akin to assuming that, because you weighed 195 pounds at some point in your life, there should be an equal chance of you weighing 195 pounds at any point in your life, even when you were a baby.”

I… what? I honestly don’t understand the point that he thinks he’s making.

If we were modifying the climate (so that the planet is getting warmer), it wouldn’t be improbable… and it would be significant. It would be significant because it’s a demonstration of what we’re saying.

Can someone who speaks Denialist please translate this for me?

That the planet’s been warmer the last 35 years than the previous 115 implies nothing about what made it that way. The fact that computer climate models (whose prognostications ground the fears of dangerous manmade global warming) exaggerated the observed warming since 1979 by 2 to 5 times and utterly failed to predict the absence of warming for the last 18 years and 3 months demonstrates that the sensitivity of global temperature to added CO2 programmed into them is wrong, and consequently the models are worthless for forecasting future temperature. Consequently, climate scientists the world over are reducing their estimates of CO2’s warming effect to levels that aren’t dangerous.

We really need a citation for these claims.

First, I agree. The fact the planet is warming doesn’t indicate what caused it. That’s why we demonstrate a causal mechanism:

Step 1: Demonstrate that CO2 is a greenhouse gas. (This can be done with simple science classroom experiment).

Step 2: Demonstrate that burning sources, such as gasoline, produce CO2. We actually know the precise chemical formula of different hydrocarbon reactions.

Step 3: Measure the output of CO2 from society. In 2010, humanity produced about 22,298,800 barrels of motor gasoline per day. Unless we’re just perpetually stockpiling it, we’re burning it.

Step 4: Make predictions. If the CO2 increase is related to human activity, variation in that activity should vary the CO2 increase.

Not long ago, we had mile-high gas prices… that’d force many to cut back on consumption, thus, should have reduced CO2 emissions. Below is an excerpt from the “TRENDS IN GLOBAL CO2 EMISSIONS 2012 report“, emphasis mine.

Global emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) – the main cause of global warming – increased by 3% in 2011, reaching an all-time high of 34 billion tonnes in 2011. In 2011, China’s average per capita carbon dioxide (CO2 ) emissions increased by 9% to 7.2 tonnes CO2 . Taking into account an uncertainty margin of 10%, this is similar to the per capita emissions in the European Union of 7.5 tonnes in 2011, the year in which the European Union saw a decrease in emissions of 3%. China, the world’s most populous country, is now well within the 6 to 19 tonnes/person range spanned by the major industrialised countries. In comparison, in 2011, the United States was still one of the largest emitters of CO2 , with 17.3 tonnes in per capita emissions, after a steep decline mainly caused by the recession in 2008–2009, high oil prices compared to low fuel taxes and an increased share of natural gas.

Of course, I knew that in advance, so it’s more postdiction… but my point is, it’s a model that we can use to predict future occurrences. That indicates that the causal mechanism is established and corroborated. He may quibble about the year-to-year exact estimates, but like talking about the weather, you may know that, in a week, you’re due to be hit by a snow storm. He’s essentially saying that despite predicting the arrival of the storm, and the snowfall, the fact that we predicted 10″, and only got 5″, means we don’t have an ability to predict it.

Keep in mind, this overall trend of global warming is something we’ve been predicting for a very long time. Svante Arrhenius calculated how much CO2 it’d take in the atmosphere to change the surface temperature back in 1896. This concept is not new.

In regards to the computer models – fine, toss them away. All we have to do is look at the existing data for what has happened to establish the anthropogenic contribution as incontrovertible. “The trend will be that the temperatures continue to increase” is apparently insufficient as a prediction. We don’t believe that anthropogenic climate change is real due to computer models. That’s about trying to figure out whether where and when that particular “storm” will hit, when we already know it’s coming.

Do we really have to have a computer model that’ll be within 99.999% accuracy before this guy will think it’s time to take action?

His last point:

Finally, 2014 was actually among the 3 percent coldest years in the last 10,000.

I had to take a double take. I realized that what he means is that it was the peak most cold year, as opposed to the average. According to NOAA, 2014 had the coldest Land & Ocean temperatures in 135 years.

So what? Does this person not get the difference between a range and average? Fuck, I failed statistics in college 3 times, and I get this.

It’s the difference between an outlier, and a trend. His point isn’t a rebuttal because it’s apples and oranges.

Suppose we have 5 numbers: 10, 10, 10, 10, 10

The average is 10. Suppose we change it to: 5.0, 11.5, 11.5, 11.5, 11.5

The average is now 10.2 – still an increase from before, even if the first number plummeted. The reason why this isn’t a rebuttal is for the same reason that I don’t consider heat waves to be evidence for global warming. I’m talking about the long-term trends.

If there was ever a situation where the phrase “You’re missing the forest for the trees” would be spot-on, this would be it.

The author has an overall point to trying to rebut the latest global warming/climate change data. This is the title to the article: “Oppressing the Poor In the Name of Fighting Global Warming“, emphasis mine.

As the Copenhagen Consensus has found through repeated studies, many times more people are and will remain at risk of disease and death because their poverty deprives them of safe and sufficient food, water, sanitation, and pest control than even the most alarming scenarios of the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) forecast will be threatened by global warming. Ironically, spending billions or trillions of dollars trying to reduce global warming actually puts more people at risk, by prolonging or inducing poverty, than doing nothing about it—even according to the IPCC, whose Working Group 3 scenarios show more people at risk from such problems in cooler futures and fewer in warmer futures.

In developing nations, unsafe water and inadequate sanitation and hygiene put more than 12 times more people in developing countries at risk than climate change. In fact, out of 24 risks to human life ranked by U.S. Interior Department analyst Indur Goklany, climate change ranked last.

This is his referenced graph. Yes, he actually cited something for once.

I don’t think the author understands the concept of time; as in, a future-problem versus a now-problem. The chart he references is talking about current problems due to global warming/climate change. Right now, in the scientific community, there’s still an ongoing discussion as to whether the full effects of climate change can be avoided… you know, in the future.

It’d be like arguing that the Mars-sized planetoid that’s due to smash into Earth isn’t a health risk, because nobody is currently dying from being hit by a Mars-sized planetoid. That’s the sort of thing you’d want to be preparing for as far ahead of time as possible.

He continues.

But the prescriptions for fighting “climate change”—mainly, turning from abundant, affordable, reliable fossil fuels to diffuse, expensive, unreliable wind, solar, and other alternative fuels—all mean slowing economic growth in the world’s poorest countries and reversing it in wealthier countries, i.e., making or keeping people poor. To put it bluntly: if President Obama achieves his aim of a global agreement to fight global warming, he will have condemned about two billion people to added generations of abject poverty marked by the use of wood and dried dung as primary heating and cooking fuels, the smoke from which kills some 4 million people a year—mostly women and children—and afflicts hundreds of millions more with respiratory diseases that weaken them and reduce their ability to produce and climb out of poverty.

First, the idea that solar/wind is unreliable is a severely antiquated notion. That’s just a question of technology.

Suppose you only get 8 hours of sunlight a day. You can erect enough panels to power civilization for those 8 hours. Need power for the other 16 hours? Triple the number of panels, and store the extra energy. Only get that 8-hours one day a week? Multiply the number of panels by 7. Combine that with overlapping with other types of power, like wind, and you’ve got a diverse portfolio of power sources.

The primary purpose of Obama’s initiatives in investing in technology is so that they will be dirt cheap. Consider your average smartphone. I got mine for $20 on discount. This would have been worth billions of dollars, 30-40 years ago. Thanks to the technological advancements it’s now affordable to the poor. After all, Fox News keeps complaining that poor people have smartphones.

The goal is to achieve that with alternative energy sources, electric cars, etc. Unfortunately, this area is one of many where free-market capitalism fails miserably. If there’s no potential profit, there’s no motivation. So it needs a very socialized infusion to get those innovative gears moving…. even if capitalism eventually takes advantage of the results. It’s called “an investment”. Germany already has 6% power generation from solar. Wind power is also making significant contributions in the U.S. It’s already in progress.

The hope is to get to the point where the poor/3rd world people will have access to this dirt-cheap technology… but it’s something we need to be working on, and availability of the “cheap” fossil fuels prevents that progress, unless we voluntarily set it aside.

Beyond that, I don’t understand what his point is. I’m fine with 3rd world countries using the crude/obsolete technology until the green technologies can take hold. The big consumers like China and the U.S. are the ones that are voluntarily trying to cut back, and work on better technology. The author seems to be operating under this idea that Obama is going to ban everyone from using oil, instead of it being an ongoing process of adaption from the biggest contributors to the smallest.

Spending billions or trillions of dollars fighting global warming will have “devastating impacts on the poor.” It is an oppressive, rich man’s game.

As opposed to what? Do we just hand the money over to them directly? The billions (or trillions – I wish!) spent on developing a better future are just as much for them as it is for us. The “devastating impact on the poor” seems to be mostly a figment of his imagination (particularly when we’re talking about hiring people – you know, jobs – to build things). When the poor are exploited, or their native patents scooped up by outsiders, it’s been mostly capitalism doing that.

The author doesn’t seem to have any valid points at all. At least he didn’t end this article (like another CP author did), by talking about how an invisible wizard put the coal there for us to use, and that it’s a blessing.

Oddly, this just came through my Facebook feed.

The National Photovoltaic Household Electrification Program will cost about $200 million, which is basically nothing in the scheme of most international budgets. Peru also leads the way in national dedication to organic food and doesn’t allow GMO. The program plans to install about 12,500 photovoltaic solar systems to provide for approximately 500,000 households. The remainder will be auctioned off. Energy and Mining Minister Jorge Merino said, “This program is aimed at the poorest people, those who lack access to electric lighting and still use oil lamps, spending their own resources to pay for fuels that harm their health.” Currently, only about 66 percent of Peru’s population has access to electricity. “With about 29.5 million inhabitants, Peru is the fifth most populous country in South America.[78] Its demographic growth rate declined from 2.6% to 1.6% between 1950 and 2000; population is expected to reach approximately 42 million in 2050.[79] As of 2007, 75.9% lived in urban areas and 24.1% in rural areas.[80] Major cities include Lima (home to over 8 million people), Arequipa, Trujillo, Chiclayo, Piura, Iquitos, Cusco, Chimbote, and Huancayo; all reported more than 250,000 inhabitants in the 2007 census.[81] There are 15 uncontacted Amerindian tribes in Peru.[82]”

Stop it! Stop devastating them!