Showing posts with label Green New Deal. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Green New Deal. Show all posts

3.04.2019

Disabusing the 97% claim




Fact Checking The Claim Of 97% Consensus On Anthropogenic Climate Change

Excerpt:

The 97% figure has been disputed and vigorously defended, with emotional arguments and counterarguments published in a number of papers. Although the degree of consensus is only one of several arguments for anthropogenic climate change – the statements of professional societies and evidence presented in reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change are others – there is data to suggest that support is lower. In this post, I attempt to determine whether the 97% consensus is fact or fiction.

The 97% number was popularized by two articles, the first by Naomi Oreskes, now Professor of Science History and Affiliated Professor of Earth and Planetary Sciences at Harvard University, and the second by a group of authors led by John Cook, the Climate Communication Fellow for the Global Change Institute at The University of Queensland. Both papers were based on analyses of earlier publications. Other analyses and surveys arrive at different, often lower, numbers depending in part on how support for the concept was defined and on the population surveyed.

This public discussion was started by Oreskes’ brief 2004 article, which included an analysis of 928 papers containing the keywords “global climate change.” The article says “none of the papers disagreed with the consensus position” of anthropogenic global warming. Although this article makes no claim to a specific number, it is routinely described as indicating 100% agreement and used as support for the 97% figure.

In a 2007 book chapter, Oreskes infers that the lack of expressed dissent “demonstrates that any remaining professional dissent is now exceedingly minor.” The chapter revealed that there were about 235 papers in the 2004 article, or 25%, that endorsed the position. An additional 50% were interpreted to have implicitly endorsed, primarily on the basis that they discussed evaluation of impacts. Authors addressing impacts might believe that the Earth is warming without believing it is anthropogenic. In the article, Oreskes said some authors she counted "might believe that current climate change is natural." It is impossible to tell from this analysis how many actually believed it. On that basis, I find that this study does not support the 97% number.

The most influential and most debated article was the 2013 paper by Cook, et al., which popularized the 97% figure. The authors used methodology similar to Oreskes but based their analysis on abstracts rather than full content. I do not intend to reopen the debate over this paper. Instead, let’s consider it along with some of the numerous other surveys available.

Reviews of published surveys were published in 2016 by Cook and his collaborators and by Richard S. J. Tol, Professor of Economics at the University of Sussex. The 2016 Cook paper, which reviews 14 published analyses and includes among its authors Oreskes and several authors of the papers shown in the chart below, concludes that the scientific consensus “is robust, with a range of 90%–100% depending on the exact question, timing and sampling methodology.” The chart shows the post-2000 opinions summarized in Table 1 of the paper. Dates given are those of the survey, not the publication date. I’ve added a 2016 survey of meteorologists from George Mason University and omitted the Oreskes article.

... Despite the difficulty in defining a precise number and the opinion that the exact number is not important, 97% continues to be widely publicized and defended. One might ask why 97% is important. Perhaps it’s because 97% has marketing value. It sounds precise and says that only 3% disagree. By implication, that small number who disagree must be out of the mainstream: cranks, chronic naysayers, or shills of the fossil fuel industry. They are frequently described as a “tiny minority.” It’s not as easy to discount dissenters if the number is 10 or 15 percent.

Comment: It's repeated so much ...

From 1989:








Posted by Jim Peet at 3/04/2019 05:28:00 PM 1 comments

Labels: , , , , ,

2.15.2019

That "Green New Deal"


A few questions for Democrats about the Green New Deal ... Presidential debate moderators should ask: How soon do you plan to abolish airplanes? And cows? 


  • As you know, the original Green New Deal appeared to call for the end of cows. How do you envision this taking place? How will cattle owners be compensated? What will happen to the dairy industry? What’s the impact on the GDP and unemployment rate of wiping out cows? Is there a technological response to the “cow fart” problem identified in the Green New Deal? Can you describe it?
  • As you know, the Green New Deal called for an end to airplanes. Exactly how are people going to travel across oceans if planes are grounded? Wouldn’t this create a significant imbalance in military preparedness if the United States gives up its aviation sector? And how many people are employed by the aviation industry? What happens to them? And what about Davos?
  • As you know, the Green New Deal said those unwilling to work will be taken care of with full medical benefits and other subsidies. What’s the cost of this provision? How do you incline the able-bodied-and-healthy-but-lazy to work when they can receive money and enjoy the same health benefits as someone who enjoys working?
  • As you know, the Green New Deal included among its 15 “requirements”: “Obtain free, prior, and informed consent of Indigenous peoples.” What does that mean? When you endorsed the Green New Deal, did you have in mind written consent from the nearly 3 million Native Americans in the country? What would they be consenting to? Does each Native American have a veto over, say, the plan’s requirement to “upgrade or replace every building in the US for state-of-the-art energy efficiency?” Even if consent is obtained, what is that new, federal, supersized nationalized building code going to cost?
  • As you know, the original Green New Deal also included among its 15 requirements: “Ensure an economic environment free of monopolies and unfair competition.” Doesn’t the Green New Deal presume a level of governmental control over all of the economy - “every building,” after all, is in its scope, not to mention the entire bovine population - that dwarfs that of monopolies of the past? How is the level of mandatory and centralized government command-and-control authority it requires different from a Soviet-style five-year plan or Mao’s Great Leap Forward? What will happen to people who say, “No thanks. My new building is up to code” or “I like my cows”?
  • How would the Green New Deal oblige the United States to deal with countries devastated by socialism and fascism such as Venezuela, which the rebuilding of - indeed the feeding of the people of - requires sale of their vast petroleum reserves?
  • Do you regret endorsing the Green New Deal? If so, what does it say about your judgment that you were for the Green New Deal before you were against it?
Comment: The text of is here / Original here / The original FAQs:



Any large-scale transformation of society can create the risk of some people slipping through the cracks. That’s why the Green New Deal also calls for an upgrade to the basic economic securities enjoyed by all people in the US to ensure everybody benefits from the newly created wealth. It guarantees to everyone:
  • A job with family-sustaining wages, family and medical leave, vacations, and retirement security
  • High-quality education, including higher education and trade schools
  • High-quality health care
  • Clean air and water
  • Healthy food
  • Safe, affordable, adequate housing
  • An economic environment free of monopolies
  • Economic security to all who are unable or unwilling to work

Posted by Jim Peet at 2/15/2019 05:44:00 PM 0 comments

Labels: , ,

Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)