Dr. X: These subjects lie beyond my science expertise.
Speaking as a citizen, I’ll point out that we don’t know that the disruption to our economy would be huge. Note the dramatic fall in the cost of renewable energy and the number of jobs that could be created in clean energy. We must also acknowledge the economic costs of not reducing GHG emissions. Then we have an optimization problem, not a binary proposition.
I couldn’t find the Bill Gates quote about insufficient land for wind and solar. But a number of people have estimated the land area required to meet electricity needs. In the US, one estimate suggests we would need solar panels covering an area of 20,000 square miles, or about one-fifth the area of Arizona. Say we double this to 40,000 square miles to allow for electrification of new sectors such as transportation. This would be roughly the area of paved surfaces in the US. That’s a lot of land, but I don’t know that it is beyond the limits of human engineering
Ken S: The IPCC reports say that the worst-case economic impact of their projections would be a worldwide decrease of GDP between 5% to 10% by 2100.
If we start with GDP of 100 and assume a rate of growth of 2%, by 2100 GDP = 487
Most of the GDP loss would be in the later years, but for sake of simplicity and to overestimate the GDP loss, I will assume the worst case, 10% reduction begins now. GDP of 100 with a growth rate of 1.8% (10% less than 2%) by 2100 GDP = 416.
The way the IPCC calculates it is to take the 10% off at the end which would be a 2100 GDP of 438.
This is their absolute worst case and assumes technology does not improve and humanity does not adapt in any way to the changing climate. This economic difference would not be noticeable to the average human living in 2100.
Why would it make sense to cause economic disruption now and leave the poor people currently living without electricity in that miserable state, to economically benefit the people in 2100 is a way they would little notice?
The IPCC’s own numbers indicate there will not be a GDP problem in 2100.
Mr. Dyke: What about the developing world? The progress made in these countries is due to cheap energy, and the cheapest energy is coal. To deny them access to fossil fuels is to send them back to the Stone Age. Nuclear power plants are technically challenging to build and operate. They require sophisticated systems of education, regulation, and quality assurance. Accidents happen in developed countries. Does anyone see nuclear power plants in Third World countries presenting the risk of terrorism, accidents, or the proliferation of nuclear weapons?
Dr. X: Again, speaking only as a citizen: I’ve read that in many places, solar power is now cheaper than coal per unit of energy produced, even before accounting for external costs of coal, in health risk and climate change, borne by the public. I agree that nuclear power, in the hands of the technologically unsophisticated, poses risks.
Ken S: If solar and wind are less expensive, why are electric bills more expensive by 2 and 3 times in places with high penetration of wind and solar? This comparison applies to similar places without that penetration or the same place before the renewables arrived.
Mr. Dyke: Bjorn Lomborg, who accepts anthropogenic warming, states that even if all the Paris commitments were met, which they will not be, it would only affect global temperatures by a fraction of a degree. And in a list of existential threats to humans and to the planet, global warming does not even make the top ten.
Dr. X: A fraction of a degree compared to what? If the claim is that meeting the Paris commitments will lower global temperatures by only a fraction of a degree compared to not quite meeting those commitments, then it’s tautological. If the comparison is to doing no mitigation whatsoever, then the claim is probably false.
I avoid the term “existential threat” because it’s often used hyperbolically, as if the extinction of humans were imminent. If I were listing top threats to human well-being, however, as opposed to survival, global warming would be high on the list. I do think it’s appropriate to talk about existential threats to low-lying island nations inundated by sea level rise. The entire population could safely move elsewhere, but in some sense the nation would no longer exist.
Ken S: Lomborg takes the calculations IPCC uses to project the 2100 temperature increase and uses the same calculation with CO2 reduced by the reductions called for in the Paris agreement. He assumes that everything else stays the same. The resulting calculation show the Paris mitigation would reduce whatever the 2100 temperature would have been by .05 degrees Fahrenheit. Less than .025C.
Dr. X: Broadly speaking, we know how to control the climate. Add GHGs to the atmosphere, and the Earth warms (among other changes). Remove GHGs, and it cools. Again, I am not convinced that cutting GHGs will be economically catastrophic compared to the alternative of unmitigated warming.
Ken S: No we don’t. We might be able to tinker at the edges, but what humans don’t know about climate exceeds what humans know. GHGs are one factor among many. There are multiple feedback loops: some we know about, some we know of but understand poorly, and, most likely, some of which we are unaware. Some are positive and some negative. Their impacts cumulatively result in the temperature of our atmosphere being what it is.
When the natural events occur in the universe that result in a planetary temperature increase or decrease, the feedback loops affect how much warming or cooling occurs. We currently don’t know the magnitude of each loop’s impact or which direction the cumulative effect will be.
We can control the simple, virtual climates in the computers, but those climates bear only a passing resemblance to the real climate.
We humans can geoengineer a change in one factor, but we have no idea what the final resulting temperature will be. There is complexity beyond our understanding and ability to control.
At some point, this interglacial is likely to come to an end. The planet will cycle back into the next ice age. Humans will not be able to stop it. Humans will be severely challenged just to survive.
Fortunately for most of us, we will be gone when that happens. We will have to content ourselves worrying that we might nuke ourselves out of existence before then.
Mr. Dyke: The only action we should be taking is to make our economies strong enough to be able to adapt to whatever changes come our way.
This seems to be a claim that we should do nothing to limit climate change, regardless of our best understanding of how nature works. Reasonable people, I submit, would assess the evidence as best they can, then choose what seems to be an optimal balance of mitigation and adaptation measures. Compromise will be necessary, and solutions will be imperfect. But it isn’t a binary choice between mitigation and adaptation. We must do both.
I will close with some questions for climate skeptics. For the sake of the argument, let’s suppose you accept the science and conclude that a failure to mitigate GHGs will make the Earth less hospitable for present and future generations. What policies would you advocate? Would you support decentralized wind and solar energy production, and the end of fossil-fuel subsidies? What about government investment in a more robust and efficient electric grid? Would you pay out-of-work miners to cap methane leaks? In short, how can we mitigate GHGs with minimal cost and maximal benefits?
Ken S: Building prosperity and improving our knowledge and technology is not doing nothing. (please excuse double negative). Those steps may be the best thing we can do to prepare for whatever is to come. Let us not label that “doing nothing” and take it out of the discussion.
I do not accept the assumption that we know that GHGs, at the current projected rates of growth, will make the Earth less hospitable. There are too many scientists who believe the computer models are running hot, exaggerating the problem. If by 2100 the temperature is different than today by less then 2C, which is well withing the error margins of the IPCC, the Earth could be more hospitable for the ecosystem that it is now. I see those chances at about 50/50.
The science is not close to being settled. Until we know more, drastic action would a blind shot that could easily do more harm than good
Dr. X: This is false, alas. Global mean sea level has been rising by about 3 mm per year since 1993, when global sea level could first be measured by satellites. The satellite measurements have global coverage and high precision, unlike earlier tide gauge measurements.
As temperatures rise, water expands. This is a major component of sea level rise. (Additional mass from glaciers and ice sheets is the other one). Recent work shows that sea level rise is accelerating.
Ken S: 3mm per year times 80 years = 240mm or 24cm or less than 10 inches.
In 2100 will anyone notice?
Mr. Dyke: Susan Crockford, a zoologist at the University of Victoria who has been studying wildlife in the Arctic for thirty years, does not believe polar bears are in danger, and Inuit researchers agree. In fact, overall, their numbers are increasing.
Dr. X: Most scientists who study Arctic climate change think polar bears are in danger. Here’s a recent example. I’m not aware of any peer-reviewed studies showing that the number of polar bears is increasing. Can you point me to one? To be fair, I’m also not aware of studies showing that polar bear populations are decreasing. This doesn’t mean they aren’t threatened by climate change. It might mean that polar bears are hard to count accurately—or were, until recently, so it’s too soon to see a trend.
Ken S: The most recent counts and anecdotal observations by the few indigenes people living there indicate 11 of the 13 polar bear population to be growing or holding even. Counting polar bears is inexact at best, but if decreases had been detected, the researchers on the bandwagon would have splashed that news everywhere in the media. Large research grants to follow. It’s the dog that is not barking.
Dr. X: The statement that high CO2 has no effect on animal life is true in the narrow sense that animals don’t suffer directly from breathing air with 420 ppm CO2 as opposed to 280 ppm CO2. But animals will suffer from other effects of increasing CO2, including warming and ocean acidification.
Some plants thrive under higher CO2 and others don’t. As CO2 levels change, so does the competitive balance among species. A recent Scientific American article (one of which I approve) summarizes the pros and cons. The broad claim that higher CO2 is on balance a good thing for plants or the humans who eat them is not supported. For example, there is evidence that many crops, including wheat, rice and soy, have fewer nutrients when grown in high-CO2 conditions.
Ken S: The increased greening of the Earth is visible from space. Most plant species evolved when CO2 was above current levels. Experiments with slightly elevated CO2, below 1000 ppm, indicated increased growth with less water use. This makes many plants more resistant to drought. It would appear the few species that might suffer are greatly outnumbered by the species that would benefit.
Mr. Dyke: Millions of years ago CO2 levels were as high as 2000 ppm. Where did it go? It was consumed by plants and became one of the components of plant and animal life, and ended up captured as carboniferous rock, coal, oil, and natural gas, all of which abound. Once CO2 levels reach about 130 ppm, plants struggle to survive. That would be the end of life on earth. Is it possible that putting CO2 back into the atmosphere is a good thing, regardless of any effect on the temperature?
Dr. X: It is highly unlikely that adding CO2 to the atmosphere is a good thing, on balance. We are confident that levels of 500 ppm or higher are suboptimal for most natural systems, which for the past million years (until 1850) have seen CO2 concentrations between 200 and 280 ppm.
Ken S: Over tens if not hundreds of millions of years organisms in the ocean used CO2 in their skeletal structure. As they died and the skeletons and shells sank, sequestering the CO2 at the bottom which eventually became sedimentary rock. This process, with some variations caused by other short-term processes, gradually reduced atmospheric CO2 down to our preindustrial 280 ppm. If this level had reduced further, it would have eventually reached a level where many plants species would suffocate for lack of CO2. Most of the Earth’s ecosystem would have died.
There are a lot of green house studies with CO2 up at 800 ppm that indicate the ecosystem would thrive at that level. I have never read anything that even mentions 500 ppm as some kind of cutoff point.
Mr. Dyke: History tells us that starting about 800 AD, the Vikings sailed across the North Atlantic in open boats and settled in Greenland. They raised crops and cattle. At about the same time, grapes were being grown in England to make wine. This was the Medieval Warm Period, well documented. About 1200 AD, the weather grew colder. By about 1600, the Vikings had been wiped out of Greenland by the Inuit, the cold, and the lack of support from home. About 1630, Samuel Pepys’ diary records bitterly cold winters, and the Thames froze. This was the Mini Ice Age. It has been warming ever since. The Roman Empire reached its peak at a time of very warm temperatures. In travels in Ireland, I visited the site of an ancient agrarian culture, the Ceide Fields, from about 5000 BC. It thrived during a period of very warm temperatures.
Dr. X: That some regional warming is a good thing doesn’t mean long-term global warming is a good thing. As far as we know, the Medieval Warm Period was largely confined to Europe and the North Atlantic. The global warming of recent decades has no precedent in the past 1000 years, probably much longer. Prolonged global warming of 2 degrees C or more will probably conform to the portrait in the IPCC reports.
Ken S: There are well over a thousand papers produced in the last decade, studying temperature proxies all over the world. The Roman Warming period and Medieval Warming period have been detected in most of these papers. The theory that those periods were localized to Europe has been disproved. They were a worldwide phenomenon.
Going back only 1000 years is not far enough. It misses the 7,000 of the last 10,000 years that science generally agrees were warmer than now
Response to Dr X’s response to Mr. Dyke. Respectfully submitted in parts because the space limits in comments
Dr. X:
Scientists get things wrong, too. But the business model for science doesn’t favor getting things wrong; whereas in a hyperpolarized democracy, the business model for journalism inevitably will. The business model for science is different. To stay employed, scientists need to publish peer-reviewed papers; to succeed at peer review, they need thorough, careful arguments, drawing careful lines between what’s well-founded and what’s more speculative. Many papers end with a disclaimer to the effect that “more work is needed to understand this problem better.” This leads to more papers, and eventually what we can call well-established knowledge—and not much drama.
The reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change are very well vetted—a single chapter could have dozens or even hundreds of reviewers—so much that they usually err on the side of caution. The authors are scrupulous in using probabilistic language (virtually certain, extremely likely, more likely than not, etc.), and they state whether the conclusions have high, medium, or low confidence. I suggest starting with the Summary for Policymakers, then reading the chapters that most interest you. The IPCC Fifth Assessment Report from 2014 is a bit dated, but the Sixth Assessment will appear in the coming year. Also, recent IPCC Special Reports treat, for example, the impact of global warming above 1.5 degrees C, or the oceans and cryosphere.
Ken S: The business model of much of science is to be published to build prestige and be more financially successful. Many scientific journals, unfortunately, prefer splashy headlines to attract more eyeballs and clicks to be more financially successful. This incentivizes the scientists, who want to publish, to find results that will get published. Add to this that in many scientific areas the peer review process is not what it used to be. The limited time, people, and resources available to do thorough reviews is a problem. There is also the “incest” problem of small specialized scientific communities all reviewing each other’s papers. Scratch my back so I get published and I will scratch yours so you get published.
There is also the issue of “bandwagon” science. If you want to advance your career, get the research grants you seek and be prosperous, you had best not rock the boat of current conventional wisdom. The easiest path to success to be on the bandwagon.
In recent years roughly half of conclusions in peer reviewed papers are found to be in error, totally wrong, and is some cases fraudulently arrived at. Few humans, in any industry, are immune to influence of a potential short cut to success. My first thought when I hear of a new semi sensational scientific finding is “I wonder how long before this is found not to be true.” The scientific community needs to reform the peer review process to regain the credibility it has lost in the last few decades.
Dr. X: Indeed, the scientific consensus is that warming since the mid 20th century has been driven mainly by GHGs. Other causes, including changes in solar and volcanic activity, are possible in principle, but have been ruled out by observation. For example, we can measure the solar energy reaching the Earth, and it is not correlated with recent warming. Nor can changes in ocean currents explain the recent warming. Changes in ocean circulation account for many of the natural variations in climate, but generally they redistribute heat rather than warming the entire Earth.
Ken S: The small change in Solar irradiance is not the only way the Sun affects Earth’s temperatures. There are large variations in the solar magnetic field strength and the solar wind. These changes create variations in the amount of cosmic radiation passing through Earth’s atmosphere. The CERN Cloud experiments have demonstrated that changing the amount of cosmic radiation affects cloud formation. The theory, backed up by these experiments, is that greater cosmic radiation increases cloud formation. The increase in clouds cools the Earth by reflecting more solar radiation away from the surface. Less cosmic radiation results in fewer clouds, more solar radiation reaching the surface and a warming atmosphere.
I’m not saying CO2 has no effect, just that there are other forces at work that likely have a greater effect on global temperature.
Dr. X: Climate prediction is indeed difficult, and models require assumptions and simplifications. But climate models are very good at the essential physics: For example, computing how much incoming and outcoming radiation are absorbed, transmitted, or reflected by different gases in the atmosphere; modeling large-scale atmospheric and ocean currents (the Hadley cell, prevailing mid-latitude winds, ocean boundary currents, etc.); and conserving energy and water.
Climate models have been extensively validated by empirical observations. They are not perfect, but they are improving. They are good enough to make hindcasts of how the climate has responded to past GHG emissions, and credible forecasts of its response to future emissions, within stated uncertainty ranges.
Ken S: The last 40 years of global temperature change, as measured by satellites calibrated against weather balloon measurements, has invalidated the models. Actual temperature change falls outside the error margins of most of the models.
The models have their uses for research, but because of the limits of computing power, they are so simplified, compared to the complexity of the climate, that they have failed at prediction.
Dr. X: Activists will not provide the best available science information, and what’s reported in the media is of uneven credibility. Here’s how I would summarize the evidence for the effects mentioned:
• There is strong evidence that climate change is contributing to a greater number and severity of forest fires, droughts, and floods. In most cases, it is not possible to attribute a particular weather event to climate change, but only to say that climate change makes such events more likely.
• On physical grounds, we would expect global warming to enable stronger storms, because a warmer atmosphere holds more of the water vapor that supplies energy for storms. But I am not aware of evidence that the overall frequency of storms is increasing. This is often misreported.
• It is virtually certain that rising temperatures are responsible for most global mean sea-level rise, in the form of thermal expansion of seawater and melting of glaciers and ice sheets. Sea-level rise is not uniform; it also depends on local and regional factors such as ground subsidence and post-glacial rebound. Whether and when a particular region becomes uninhabitable depends on many factors, including the residents’ capacity to adapt.
• Arctic sea ice cover is decreasing, which makes life harder for animals that use sea ice as a hunting platform. Polar bears may be able to survive on nearby land or in regions that retain sea ice. I am personally fond of polar bears (at a safe distance), but I agree that climate reporting is often imbalanced in favor of charismatic species as opposed to others that are equally or more threatened.
• Obviously, global warming is not responsible for historical racial inequities. Speaking as a citizen: To the extent that historical inequities have rendered some groups less able than others to adapt to the effects of climate change, these groups are likely to suffer disproportionately.
Ken S: The amount of damage from fires has increased, because humans have built more in the forest, but the number and severity has not increased. Roger Pielke has compiled data on fires, tropical storms and tornados which show little if any increase in the time frame where we have decent data. The way the media plays up every storm and fire does make it appear there is an increase when there is not.
Arctic sea has varied over the last few decades, but the expected decrease has not occurred. Most of the variations in particular areas are the result of winds shifting the ice pack about the Arctic Ocean. Too much sea ice is bad for polar bears because the less sun reaching the water, the less photosynthesis and productivity at the bottom of the food chain. Also, thinner ice is where the primary food source of polar bears, seals, prefer to have their pups. Thick ice makes it more difficult for the bears to find seals on which to feed. Polar bears did however survive the early parts of this interglacial when temperatures warmer than now made it likely the Arctic Ocean was at times ice free. They have developed a habit of going where the food is
Kudos to Eric Dyke and to Dr. X. Their exchange has been the highlight of a very interesting series.
Dr. X is right that scientists tend to be very cautious in their language. They tend to be equivocal about their findings both in journal articles and in presentations at meetings.
He is also right that the press rarely presents scientific findings using the nuanced language of science. After all, the age-old credo of the main stream press has always been, “if it bleeds it leads.” Whether the topic is climate issues, crime, politics or international affairs, everything is sensationalized and simplified to such an extent to make the news media virtually useless to open-minded consumers of news. Whether the press has always been as daft as it is now is an open question, but there’s simply no question that whatever else he was wrong about, President Trump was right about one thing; the press has turned itself into “the enemy of the people.”
This is truly unfortunate because like all other professions, scientists need to be held to high standards and their work needs to be aggressively scrutinized to prevent ambiguous scientific findings from being turned into bad public policy.
Rather than merely parroting the work of their favorite and most quotable climate scientists, we would be far better off as a country if the press aggressively but fairly critiqued the findings of climate scientists.
We see the same poor performance this week in a different scientific arena; whether the SARS-CoV-2 virus arose naturally or whether it resulted from gain of function research in a Chinese laboratory funded in part by the NIAID-NIH. It’s an open question and an enormously important topic that has been completely ignored by the mainstream press almost certainly for political reasons like the fact that it makes expert scientists look like they have a lot less expertise than ordinary citizens might think. Without the necessary scrutiny, biomedical science can run amok. The same thing must be true of climate science.
I do have one quibble with Dr. X. His assertion that the rules of science are set up to encourage the discovery of true things; that not quite right. I have no experience in climate science, but I’ve worked for decades in biomedical research. Peer review for both grant funding and the publication of journal articles is the coin of the realm in all scientific endeavors at least in the West. It’s the best system available but it is highly flawed. Scientists with views outside of the mainstream are usually shunned by their peers. Obtaining grants becomes almost impossible as does getting papers accepted for publication in prestigious journals. Simply put, there are enormous disincentives for scientists who want to explore unpopular hypotheses or suggest alternative theories. Even with reasonable preliminary data, it is often impossible to assert alternative suggestions or publish data that contradicts the scientific consensus. While I don’t know anything about climate science, I would bet the house that it’s as true of that field as it is of other scientific fields.
An additional feature of the scientific enterprise is that its remarkably faddish. Both topics to be explored and the new technologies used to pursue them become trendy. It’s bit of an exaggeration, but only a bit, to say that investigators flock to trendy ideas with all the enthusiasm of teenage girls flocking to the latest boy band. Perhaps a gentler way to say it is that scientists have the same human frailties as everyone else. These frailties inevitably get in the way of truth seeking.
One final question, if taken in their entirety as accurate, Dr. X, does the evidence you site prove anything other than an association of increased greenhouse gas emissions with climate change? Don’t we know that association and causation are not necessarily the same thing?
We certainly understood the association between smoking and lung cancer long before we understood the mechanism of action through which cigarette smoke incited the development of lung tumors. But there are numerous examples of association leading us down the wrong path to understanding causation. You’ve highlighted quite a lot of interesting and provocative data; but is any of it really proof?
First, let me thank Dr X for the extensive time he spend to answer each of my points. I should have known Claire would not let my letter remain unanswered.
I relish the detail you have provided which I think others will appreciate as well. One of my failings I realize was cherry picking, finding views that aligned with my own. I am sure its on the list of Logical Fallacies. I avoided mainstream media other than to detail their fear mongering, I did read some scientific papers and I read a lot of history, but I concede most ideas came from those with my predilection.
In defence of skeptics, I am reminded of the graph of the hockey stick, which showed unchanging temperature until the industrial revolution, when it showed a frightening increase. This was partly Michael Mann’s work. Two professors at the University of Guelph, Stephen McIntyre and Ross McKitrick, with extensive experience in statistics, refuted the graph and asked to see the data upon which it was based. Mann refused to release it for a number of years. Some error in the graph was finally acknowledged, though the controversy continues. About the same time, Climategate occurred when thousands of emails were exposed and some embarrassing admissions by some climatologists were revealed and pounced upon by critics. This has nothing to do with your reply. I relate these points only to indicate how hard it is for outsiders to form an opinion.
Which is why your response is helpful.
You challenged me to support a couple of my statements. Bill Gates agrees global warming is a problem and in a 2010 Ted Talk he reviewed the possible energy sources we should consider, including renewables. However at a Stanford Energy Global Energy Forum in Dec 2018 he appears to have revised his views. He says the idea that renewables will supply energy for a city of 27 million like Tokyo is a pipe dream. Bill Gates is a thoughtful interpreter of the data. His conclusion is we need to innovate in every direction.
Susan Crockford bases her statements on IUCN Polar Bear Studies Group, which is also referenced by a number of other groups, both pro and con. From the data on the site, 19 populations are listed, 8 have deficient data, 5 appear to be stable, 2 are increasing and 4 appear to be decreasing. What is interesting is that decreasing sea ice in each region does not clearly correlate with decreasing populations. In any case, I would say the data is inconclusive.
In general, though, you have given me a great deal to think about.
Let me ask two more questions.
1. Critics say that research funds are only being directed to those who support global warming, and those who do not are rejected. Do you see that happening?
2. The harmful effects of global warming are stated everywhere in great detail. Are there no countervailing benefits?
Christopher Hitchens has a wonderful story of his brother, Peter, whose wife, a Jewess, converted to Catholicism just to marry him. Subsequently, their grandmother informed them that their family had fled Europe before the war, and they were in fact, Jewish. Christopher enjoyed the look on Peter’s face, and said, “ It rearranged the baggage in the hold.”
You are rearranging the baggage in the hold, Dr X.
Your comment about resisting binary solutions deserves a lot more exploration. It's probably born of the "save the planet" / "save our economy" from certain doom presentation that we're drowning in. Keep throwing life rings.
A story about the biologist J.B.S. Haldane goes that when asked what would make him doubt the validity of evolutionary theory he replied, "A Precambrian rabbit," or words to that effect. What discovery would indicate to you that human activity plays a far smaller role in climate than you currently believe?
Dr. X: These subjects lie beyond my science expertise.
Speaking as a citizen, I’ll point out that we don’t know that the disruption to our economy would be huge. Note the dramatic fall in the cost of renewable energy and the number of jobs that could be created in clean energy. We must also acknowledge the economic costs of not reducing GHG emissions. Then we have an optimization problem, not a binary proposition.
I couldn’t find the Bill Gates quote about insufficient land for wind and solar. But a number of people have estimated the land area required to meet electricity needs. In the US, one estimate suggests we would need solar panels covering an area of 20,000 square miles, or about one-fifth the area of Arizona. Say we double this to 40,000 square miles to allow for electrification of new sectors such as transportation. This would be roughly the area of paved surfaces in the US. That’s a lot of land, but I don’t know that it is beyond the limits of human engineering
Ken S: The IPCC reports say that the worst-case economic impact of their projections would be a worldwide decrease of GDP between 5% to 10% by 2100.
If we start with GDP of 100 and assume a rate of growth of 2%, by 2100 GDP = 487
Most of the GDP loss would be in the later years, but for sake of simplicity and to overestimate the GDP loss, I will assume the worst case, 10% reduction begins now. GDP of 100 with a growth rate of 1.8% (10% less than 2%) by 2100 GDP = 416.
The way the IPCC calculates it is to take the 10% off at the end which would be a 2100 GDP of 438.
This is their absolute worst case and assumes technology does not improve and humanity does not adapt in any way to the changing climate. This economic difference would not be noticeable to the average human living in 2100.
Why would it make sense to cause economic disruption now and leave the poor people currently living without electricity in that miserable state, to economically benefit the people in 2100 is a way they would little notice?
The IPCC’s own numbers indicate there will not be a GDP problem in 2100.
Mr. Dyke: What about the developing world? The progress made in these countries is due to cheap energy, and the cheapest energy is coal. To deny them access to fossil fuels is to send them back to the Stone Age. Nuclear power plants are technically challenging to build and operate. They require sophisticated systems of education, regulation, and quality assurance. Accidents happen in developed countries. Does anyone see nuclear power plants in Third World countries presenting the risk of terrorism, accidents, or the proliferation of nuclear weapons?
Dr. X: Again, speaking only as a citizen: I’ve read that in many places, solar power is now cheaper than coal per unit of energy produced, even before accounting for external costs of coal, in health risk and climate change, borne by the public. I agree that nuclear power, in the hands of the technologically unsophisticated, poses risks.
Ken S: If solar and wind are less expensive, why are electric bills more expensive by 2 and 3 times in places with high penetration of wind and solar? This comparison applies to similar places without that penetration or the same place before the renewables arrived.
Mr. Dyke: Bjorn Lomborg, who accepts anthropogenic warming, states that even if all the Paris commitments were met, which they will not be, it would only affect global temperatures by a fraction of a degree. And in a list of existential threats to humans and to the planet, global warming does not even make the top ten.
Dr. X: A fraction of a degree compared to what? If the claim is that meeting the Paris commitments will lower global temperatures by only a fraction of a degree compared to not quite meeting those commitments, then it’s tautological. If the comparison is to doing no mitigation whatsoever, then the claim is probably false.
I avoid the term “existential threat” because it’s often used hyperbolically, as if the extinction of humans were imminent. If I were listing top threats to human well-being, however, as opposed to survival, global warming would be high on the list. I do think it’s appropriate to talk about existential threats to low-lying island nations inundated by sea level rise. The entire population could safely move elsewhere, but in some sense the nation would no longer exist.
Ken S: Lomborg takes the calculations IPCC uses to project the 2100 temperature increase and uses the same calculation with CO2 reduced by the reductions called for in the Paris agreement. He assumes that everything else stays the same. The resulting calculation show the Paris mitigation would reduce whatever the 2100 temperature would have been by .05 degrees Fahrenheit. Less than .025C.
Dr. X: Broadly speaking, we know how to control the climate. Add GHGs to the atmosphere, and the Earth warms (among other changes). Remove GHGs, and it cools. Again, I am not convinced that cutting GHGs will be economically catastrophic compared to the alternative of unmitigated warming.
Ken S: No we don’t. We might be able to tinker at the edges, but what humans don’t know about climate exceeds what humans know. GHGs are one factor among many. There are multiple feedback loops: some we know about, some we know of but understand poorly, and, most likely, some of which we are unaware. Some are positive and some negative. Their impacts cumulatively result in the temperature of our atmosphere being what it is.
When the natural events occur in the universe that result in a planetary temperature increase or decrease, the feedback loops affect how much warming or cooling occurs. We currently don’t know the magnitude of each loop’s impact or which direction the cumulative effect will be.
We can control the simple, virtual climates in the computers, but those climates bear only a passing resemblance to the real climate.
We humans can geoengineer a change in one factor, but we have no idea what the final resulting temperature will be. There is complexity beyond our understanding and ability to control.
At some point, this interglacial is likely to come to an end. The planet will cycle back into the next ice age. Humans will not be able to stop it. Humans will be severely challenged just to survive.
Fortunately for most of us, we will be gone when that happens. We will have to content ourselves worrying that we might nuke ourselves out of existence before then.
Mr. Dyke: The only action we should be taking is to make our economies strong enough to be able to adapt to whatever changes come our way.
This seems to be a claim that we should do nothing to limit climate change, regardless of our best understanding of how nature works. Reasonable people, I submit, would assess the evidence as best they can, then choose what seems to be an optimal balance of mitigation and adaptation measures. Compromise will be necessary, and solutions will be imperfect. But it isn’t a binary choice between mitigation and adaptation. We must do both.
I will close with some questions for climate skeptics. For the sake of the argument, let’s suppose you accept the science and conclude that a failure to mitigate GHGs will make the Earth less hospitable for present and future generations. What policies would you advocate? Would you support decentralized wind and solar energy production, and the end of fossil-fuel subsidies? What about government investment in a more robust and efficient electric grid? Would you pay out-of-work miners to cap methane leaks? In short, how can we mitigate GHGs with minimal cost and maximal benefits?
Ken S: Building prosperity and improving our knowledge and technology is not doing nothing. (please excuse double negative). Those steps may be the best thing we can do to prepare for whatever is to come. Let us not label that “doing nothing” and take it out of the discussion.
I do not accept the assumption that we know that GHGs, at the current projected rates of growth, will make the Earth less hospitable. There are too many scientists who believe the computer models are running hot, exaggerating the problem. If by 2100 the temperature is different than today by less then 2C, which is well withing the error margins of the IPCC, the Earth could be more hospitable for the ecosystem that it is now. I see those chances at about 50/50.
The science is not close to being settled. Until we know more, drastic action would a blind shot that could easily do more harm than good
Dr. X: This is false, alas. Global mean sea level has been rising by about 3 mm per year since 1993, when global sea level could first be measured by satellites. The satellite measurements have global coverage and high precision, unlike earlier tide gauge measurements.
As temperatures rise, water expands. This is a major component of sea level rise. (Additional mass from glaciers and ice sheets is the other one). Recent work shows that sea level rise is accelerating.
Ken S: 3mm per year times 80 years = 240mm or 24cm or less than 10 inches.
In 2100 will anyone notice?
Mr. Dyke: Susan Crockford, a zoologist at the University of Victoria who has been studying wildlife in the Arctic for thirty years, does not believe polar bears are in danger, and Inuit researchers agree. In fact, overall, their numbers are increasing.
Dr. X: Most scientists who study Arctic climate change think polar bears are in danger. Here’s a recent example. I’m not aware of any peer-reviewed studies showing that the number of polar bears is increasing. Can you point me to one? To be fair, I’m also not aware of studies showing that polar bear populations are decreasing. This doesn’t mean they aren’t threatened by climate change. It might mean that polar bears are hard to count accurately—or were, until recently, so it’s too soon to see a trend.
Ken S: The most recent counts and anecdotal observations by the few indigenes people living there indicate 11 of the 13 polar bear population to be growing or holding even. Counting polar bears is inexact at best, but if decreases had been detected, the researchers on the bandwagon would have splashed that news everywhere in the media. Large research grants to follow. It’s the dog that is not barking.
Dr. X: The statement that high CO2 has no effect on animal life is true in the narrow sense that animals don’t suffer directly from breathing air with 420 ppm CO2 as opposed to 280 ppm CO2. But animals will suffer from other effects of increasing CO2, including warming and ocean acidification.
Some plants thrive under higher CO2 and others don’t. As CO2 levels change, so does the competitive balance among species. A recent Scientific American article (one of which I approve) summarizes the pros and cons. The broad claim that higher CO2 is on balance a good thing for plants or the humans who eat them is not supported. For example, there is evidence that many crops, including wheat, rice and soy, have fewer nutrients when grown in high-CO2 conditions.
Ken S: The increased greening of the Earth is visible from space. Most plant species evolved when CO2 was above current levels. Experiments with slightly elevated CO2, below 1000 ppm, indicated increased growth with less water use. This makes many plants more resistant to drought. It would appear the few species that might suffer are greatly outnumbered by the species that would benefit.
Mr. Dyke: Millions of years ago CO2 levels were as high as 2000 ppm. Where did it go? It was consumed by plants and became one of the components of plant and animal life, and ended up captured as carboniferous rock, coal, oil, and natural gas, all of which abound. Once CO2 levels reach about 130 ppm, plants struggle to survive. That would be the end of life on earth. Is it possible that putting CO2 back into the atmosphere is a good thing, regardless of any effect on the temperature?
Dr. X: It is highly unlikely that adding CO2 to the atmosphere is a good thing, on balance. We are confident that levels of 500 ppm or higher are suboptimal for most natural systems, which for the past million years (until 1850) have seen CO2 concentrations between 200 and 280 ppm.
Ken S: Over tens if not hundreds of millions of years organisms in the ocean used CO2 in their skeletal structure. As they died and the skeletons and shells sank, sequestering the CO2 at the bottom which eventually became sedimentary rock. This process, with some variations caused by other short-term processes, gradually reduced atmospheric CO2 down to our preindustrial 280 ppm. If this level had reduced further, it would have eventually reached a level where many plants species would suffocate for lack of CO2. Most of the Earth’s ecosystem would have died.
There are a lot of green house studies with CO2 up at 800 ppm that indicate the ecosystem would thrive at that level. I have never read anything that even mentions 500 ppm as some kind of cutoff point.
Mr. Dyke: History tells us that starting about 800 AD, the Vikings sailed across the North Atlantic in open boats and settled in Greenland. They raised crops and cattle. At about the same time, grapes were being grown in England to make wine. This was the Medieval Warm Period, well documented. About 1200 AD, the weather grew colder. By about 1600, the Vikings had been wiped out of Greenland by the Inuit, the cold, and the lack of support from home. About 1630, Samuel Pepys’ diary records bitterly cold winters, and the Thames froze. This was the Mini Ice Age. It has been warming ever since. The Roman Empire reached its peak at a time of very warm temperatures. In travels in Ireland, I visited the site of an ancient agrarian culture, the Ceide Fields, from about 5000 BC. It thrived during a period of very warm temperatures.
Dr. X: That some regional warming is a good thing doesn’t mean long-term global warming is a good thing. As far as we know, the Medieval Warm Period was largely confined to Europe and the North Atlantic. The global warming of recent decades has no precedent in the past 1000 years, probably much longer. Prolonged global warming of 2 degrees C or more will probably conform to the portrait in the IPCC reports.
Ken S: There are well over a thousand papers produced in the last decade, studying temperature proxies all over the world. The Roman Warming period and Medieval Warming period have been detected in most of these papers. The theory that those periods were localized to Europe has been disproved. They were a worldwide phenomenon.
Going back only 1000 years is not far enough. It misses the 7,000 of the last 10,000 years that science generally agrees were warmer than now
Response to Dr X’s response to Mr. Dyke. Respectfully submitted in parts because the space limits in comments
Dr. X:
Scientists get things wrong, too. But the business model for science doesn’t favor getting things wrong; whereas in a hyperpolarized democracy, the business model for journalism inevitably will. The business model for science is different. To stay employed, scientists need to publish peer-reviewed papers; to succeed at peer review, they need thorough, careful arguments, drawing careful lines between what’s well-founded and what’s more speculative. Many papers end with a disclaimer to the effect that “more work is needed to understand this problem better.” This leads to more papers, and eventually what we can call well-established knowledge—and not much drama.
The reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change are very well vetted—a single chapter could have dozens or even hundreds of reviewers—so much that they usually err on the side of caution. The authors are scrupulous in using probabilistic language (virtually certain, extremely likely, more likely than not, etc.), and they state whether the conclusions have high, medium, or low confidence. I suggest starting with the Summary for Policymakers, then reading the chapters that most interest you. The IPCC Fifth Assessment Report from 2014 is a bit dated, but the Sixth Assessment will appear in the coming year. Also, recent IPCC Special Reports treat, for example, the impact of global warming above 1.5 degrees C, or the oceans and cryosphere.
Ken S: The business model of much of science is to be published to build prestige and be more financially successful. Many scientific journals, unfortunately, prefer splashy headlines to attract more eyeballs and clicks to be more financially successful. This incentivizes the scientists, who want to publish, to find results that will get published. Add to this that in many scientific areas the peer review process is not what it used to be. The limited time, people, and resources available to do thorough reviews is a problem. There is also the “incest” problem of small specialized scientific communities all reviewing each other’s papers. Scratch my back so I get published and I will scratch yours so you get published.
There is also the issue of “bandwagon” science. If you want to advance your career, get the research grants you seek and be prosperous, you had best not rock the boat of current conventional wisdom. The easiest path to success to be on the bandwagon.
In recent years roughly half of conclusions in peer reviewed papers are found to be in error, totally wrong, and is some cases fraudulently arrived at. Few humans, in any industry, are immune to influence of a potential short cut to success. My first thought when I hear of a new semi sensational scientific finding is “I wonder how long before this is found not to be true.” The scientific community needs to reform the peer review process to regain the credibility it has lost in the last few decades.
Dr. X: Indeed, the scientific consensus is that warming since the mid 20th century has been driven mainly by GHGs. Other causes, including changes in solar and volcanic activity, are possible in principle, but have been ruled out by observation. For example, we can measure the solar energy reaching the Earth, and it is not correlated with recent warming. Nor can changes in ocean currents explain the recent warming. Changes in ocean circulation account for many of the natural variations in climate, but generally they redistribute heat rather than warming the entire Earth.
Ken S: The small change in Solar irradiance is not the only way the Sun affects Earth’s temperatures. There are large variations in the solar magnetic field strength and the solar wind. These changes create variations in the amount of cosmic radiation passing through Earth’s atmosphere. The CERN Cloud experiments have demonstrated that changing the amount of cosmic radiation affects cloud formation. The theory, backed up by these experiments, is that greater cosmic radiation increases cloud formation. The increase in clouds cools the Earth by reflecting more solar radiation away from the surface. Less cosmic radiation results in fewer clouds, more solar radiation reaching the surface and a warming atmosphere.
I’m not saying CO2 has no effect, just that there are other forces at work that likely have a greater effect on global temperature.
Dr. X: Climate prediction is indeed difficult, and models require assumptions and simplifications. But climate models are very good at the essential physics: For example, computing how much incoming and outcoming radiation are absorbed, transmitted, or reflected by different gases in the atmosphere; modeling large-scale atmospheric and ocean currents (the Hadley cell, prevailing mid-latitude winds, ocean boundary currents, etc.); and conserving energy and water.
Climate models have been extensively validated by empirical observations. They are not perfect, but they are improving. They are good enough to make hindcasts of how the climate has responded to past GHG emissions, and credible forecasts of its response to future emissions, within stated uncertainty ranges.
Ken S: The last 40 years of global temperature change, as measured by satellites calibrated against weather balloon measurements, has invalidated the models. Actual temperature change falls outside the error margins of most of the models.
The models have their uses for research, but because of the limits of computing power, they are so simplified, compared to the complexity of the climate, that they have failed at prediction.
Dr. X: Activists will not provide the best available science information, and what’s reported in the media is of uneven credibility. Here’s how I would summarize the evidence for the effects mentioned:
• There is strong evidence that climate change is contributing to a greater number and severity of forest fires, droughts, and floods. In most cases, it is not possible to attribute a particular weather event to climate change, but only to say that climate change makes such events more likely.
• On physical grounds, we would expect global warming to enable stronger storms, because a warmer atmosphere holds more of the water vapor that supplies energy for storms. But I am not aware of evidence that the overall frequency of storms is increasing. This is often misreported.
• It is virtually certain that rising temperatures are responsible for most global mean sea-level rise, in the form of thermal expansion of seawater and melting of glaciers and ice sheets. Sea-level rise is not uniform; it also depends on local and regional factors such as ground subsidence and post-glacial rebound. Whether and when a particular region becomes uninhabitable depends on many factors, including the residents’ capacity to adapt.
• Arctic sea ice cover is decreasing, which makes life harder for animals that use sea ice as a hunting platform. Polar bears may be able to survive on nearby land or in regions that retain sea ice. I am personally fond of polar bears (at a safe distance), but I agree that climate reporting is often imbalanced in favor of charismatic species as opposed to others that are equally or more threatened.
• Obviously, global warming is not responsible for historical racial inequities. Speaking as a citizen: To the extent that historical inequities have rendered some groups less able than others to adapt to the effects of climate change, these groups are likely to suffer disproportionately.
Ken S: The amount of damage from fires has increased, because humans have built more in the forest, but the number and severity has not increased. Roger Pielke has compiled data on fires, tropical storms and tornados which show little if any increase in the time frame where we have decent data. The way the media plays up every storm and fire does make it appear there is an increase when there is not.
Arctic sea has varied over the last few decades, but the expected decrease has not occurred. Most of the variations in particular areas are the result of winds shifting the ice pack about the Arctic Ocean. Too much sea ice is bad for polar bears because the less sun reaching the water, the less photosynthesis and productivity at the bottom of the food chain. Also, thinner ice is where the primary food source of polar bears, seals, prefer to have their pups. Thick ice makes it more difficult for the bears to find seals on which to feed. Polar bears did however survive the early parts of this interglacial when temperatures warmer than now made it likely the Arctic Ocean was at times ice free. They have developed a habit of going where the food is
Kudos to Eric Dyke and to Dr. X. Their exchange has been the highlight of a very interesting series.
Dr. X is right that scientists tend to be very cautious in their language. They tend to be equivocal about their findings both in journal articles and in presentations at meetings.
He is also right that the press rarely presents scientific findings using the nuanced language of science. After all, the age-old credo of the main stream press has always been, “if it bleeds it leads.” Whether the topic is climate issues, crime, politics or international affairs, everything is sensationalized and simplified to such an extent to make the news media virtually useless to open-minded consumers of news. Whether the press has always been as daft as it is now is an open question, but there’s simply no question that whatever else he was wrong about, President Trump was right about one thing; the press has turned itself into “the enemy of the people.”
This is truly unfortunate because like all other professions, scientists need to be held to high standards and their work needs to be aggressively scrutinized to prevent ambiguous scientific findings from being turned into bad public policy.
Rather than merely parroting the work of their favorite and most quotable climate scientists, we would be far better off as a country if the press aggressively but fairly critiqued the findings of climate scientists.
We see the same poor performance this week in a different scientific arena; whether the SARS-CoV-2 virus arose naturally or whether it resulted from gain of function research in a Chinese laboratory funded in part by the NIAID-NIH. It’s an open question and an enormously important topic that has been completely ignored by the mainstream press almost certainly for political reasons like the fact that it makes expert scientists look like they have a lot less expertise than ordinary citizens might think. Without the necessary scrutiny, biomedical science can run amok. The same thing must be true of climate science.
I do have one quibble with Dr. X. His assertion that the rules of science are set up to encourage the discovery of true things; that not quite right. I have no experience in climate science, but I’ve worked for decades in biomedical research. Peer review for both grant funding and the publication of journal articles is the coin of the realm in all scientific endeavors at least in the West. It’s the best system available but it is highly flawed. Scientists with views outside of the mainstream are usually shunned by their peers. Obtaining grants becomes almost impossible as does getting papers accepted for publication in prestigious journals. Simply put, there are enormous disincentives for scientists who want to explore unpopular hypotheses or suggest alternative theories. Even with reasonable preliminary data, it is often impossible to assert alternative suggestions or publish data that contradicts the scientific consensus. While I don’t know anything about climate science, I would bet the house that it’s as true of that field as it is of other scientific fields.
An additional feature of the scientific enterprise is that its remarkably faddish. Both topics to be explored and the new technologies used to pursue them become trendy. It’s bit of an exaggeration, but only a bit, to say that investigators flock to trendy ideas with all the enthusiasm of teenage girls flocking to the latest boy band. Perhaps a gentler way to say it is that scientists have the same human frailties as everyone else. These frailties inevitably get in the way of truth seeking.
One final question, if taken in their entirety as accurate, Dr. X, does the evidence you site prove anything other than an association of increased greenhouse gas emissions with climate change? Don’t we know that association and causation are not necessarily the same thing?
We certainly understood the association between smoking and lung cancer long before we understood the mechanism of action through which cigarette smoke incited the development of lung tumors. But there are numerous examples of association leading us down the wrong path to understanding causation. You’ve highlighted quite a lot of interesting and provocative data; but is any of it really proof?
Just asking.
First, let me thank Dr X for the extensive time he spend to answer each of my points. I should have known Claire would not let my letter remain unanswered.
I relish the detail you have provided which I think others will appreciate as well. One of my failings I realize was cherry picking, finding views that aligned with my own. I am sure its on the list of Logical Fallacies. I avoided mainstream media other than to detail their fear mongering, I did read some scientific papers and I read a lot of history, but I concede most ideas came from those with my predilection.
In defence of skeptics, I am reminded of the graph of the hockey stick, which showed unchanging temperature until the industrial revolution, when it showed a frightening increase. This was partly Michael Mann’s work. Two professors at the University of Guelph, Stephen McIntyre and Ross McKitrick, with extensive experience in statistics, refuted the graph and asked to see the data upon which it was based. Mann refused to release it for a number of years. Some error in the graph was finally acknowledged, though the controversy continues. About the same time, Climategate occurred when thousands of emails were exposed and some embarrassing admissions by some climatologists were revealed and pounced upon by critics. This has nothing to do with your reply. I relate these points only to indicate how hard it is for outsiders to form an opinion.
Which is why your response is helpful.
You challenged me to support a couple of my statements. Bill Gates agrees global warming is a problem and in a 2010 Ted Talk he reviewed the possible energy sources we should consider, including renewables. However at a Stanford Energy Global Energy Forum in Dec 2018 he appears to have revised his views. He says the idea that renewables will supply energy for a city of 27 million like Tokyo is a pipe dream. Bill Gates is a thoughtful interpreter of the data. His conclusion is we need to innovate in every direction.
Susan Crockford bases her statements on IUCN Polar Bear Studies Group, which is also referenced by a number of other groups, both pro and con. From the data on the site, 19 populations are listed, 8 have deficient data, 5 appear to be stable, 2 are increasing and 4 appear to be decreasing. What is interesting is that decreasing sea ice in each region does not clearly correlate with decreasing populations. In any case, I would say the data is inconclusive.
In general, though, you have given me a great deal to think about.
Let me ask two more questions.
1. Critics say that research funds are only being directed to those who support global warming, and those who do not are rejected. Do you see that happening?
2. The harmful effects of global warming are stated everywhere in great detail. Are there no countervailing benefits?
Christopher Hitchens has a wonderful story of his brother, Peter, whose wife, a Jewess, converted to Catholicism just to marry him. Subsequently, their grandmother informed them that their family had fled Europe before the war, and they were in fact, Jewish. Christopher enjoyed the look on Peter’s face, and said, “ It rearranged the baggage in the hold.”
You are rearranging the baggage in the hold, Dr X.
Your comment about resisting binary solutions deserves a lot more exploration. It's probably born of the "save the planet" / "save our economy" from certain doom presentation that we're drowning in. Keep throwing life rings.
For Dr. X:
A story about the biologist J.B.S. Haldane goes that when asked what would make him doubt the validity of evolutionary theory he replied, "A Precambrian rabbit," or words to that effect. What discovery would indicate to you that human activity plays a far smaller role in climate than you currently believe?