Fundamental Transformation by Computer Model
California is always ahead of the curve. In 2006, before the federal government initiated its own slide toward Armageddon, then-governator Arnold Schwarzenegger gave us AB32, the California Global Warming Solutions Act, a commitment to force state carbon dioxide emissions to 1990 levels by 2020, with a further reduction totaling 80 percent by 2050. AB32 restrictions begin to kick in next year.
Funny, I’ve missed reports of all the privately funded factories being planned for the green vanguard of The World’s Fourth Largest Economy. Must be all that cheap labor and currency manipulation from China. But I digress.
The current issue of Science contains a gem of a report entitled, “The Technology Path to Deep Greenhouse Gas Emissions Cuts by 2050: The Pivotal Role of Electricity.” From this morning’s San Jose Mercury News:
Not only will electricity be carbon-free, California will need a whole lot more of it to make up for the loss of gasoline, natural gas and coal.
The equivalent of 1½ to two nuclear power plants would have to be built each year between now and 2050 to meet the growing electricity demand, said Margaret S. Torn, a biogeochemist at the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory who is one of the study's co-authors.
Please read the above keeping in mind that California law prohibits even thinking about constructing a new nuclear power plant. And lest you order the reprint of what must be a brutal exposé of environmental utopianism, be warned that Torn and her co-authors support our state’s Great Environmental Leap Forward.
The new study found that meeting that long-term goal is possible and does not require major technological or behavioral breakthroughs such as the development of nuclear fusion or a mass conversion to vegetarianism and bicycle commuting.
However, it will require a lot of innovation and investment, preferably starting now, Torn said.
"We don't have to assume a miracle," she said.
Good thing, too, since prayer is also banned in California public schools.
So we have the latest installment of science by computer model. Collecting data is just so slow and painstaking compared to programming an elaborate simulation that might just possibly be something like the real thing. For example, this latest “scientific report” tells us that an authoritarian re-engineering of the lifestyle of 30+ million people will even benefit our economy, “if the price of oil rises as expected.” And, of course, with politicians and scientists working together--c.f., Keystone XL pipeline cancellation-- “society” can meet this expectation and so much more.
Straight from the presses of the government-academia complex, this press release from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory sheds additional light on the methodology:
The scientists developed this prescription using a model of California’s greenhouse gas emissions from 2010 to 2050 that takes into account the state’s changing population, economy, and physical infrastructure. The model includes six energy demand sectors (residential, commercial, industrial, agriculture, transportation, and petroleum industry) and two supply sectors (fuel and electricity).
They explored the best ways to reach California’s goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions in 2050 by 80 percent below 1990 levels. This target is consistent with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Fourth Assessment Report, which outlines the global emissions required to stabilize atmospheric concentrations at 450 parts per million. In California, this means a sharp reduction in CO2 emissions per year from 427 million metric tons in 1990 to 85 million metric tons in 2050.
Ironic, isn’t it, that this latest peer-reviewed output from some computer model shows us how to meet the dictates of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which itself bases the entire anthropogenic global warming scare on other computer models. And lest we forget, as ClimateGate I and the newly emerging ClimateGate II emails amply demonstrate, politics is the dominant variable in the equation from start to finish.
If any of you can’t already guess, a computer model can deliver whatever result its programmers desire. The scientific part is to prove correspondence to actual real world behavior. And when you are dealing with a system that moves on a slow time-scale—climate, anyone?--you can claim just about anything. Not for nothing has recent global cooling led to a preference for longer forecast horizons and more elusive vocabulary on the part of “climate change” enthusiasts.
For today’s example, also from Science, we learn that the earth’s temperature may be far less sensitive to carbon dioxide concentration than hammered into public consciousness by the last decade’s “settled science” of catastrophic global warming. The Los Angeles Times reports:
Researchers involved with this study compiled large data sets of land and ocean surface temperature reconstructions from that Last Glacial Maximum, when the last ice age was at its peak, and then ran them through the climate models they’ve been using for years, inserting a range of sensitivity numbers from near zero degrees to as high as 8 degrees. Their results showed that temperatures didn’t change as much as would be predicted using the most dire sensitivity numbers. Some independent studies have suggested that carbon dioxide sensitivity might be 10 degrees or higher.
“In fact, a climate sensitivity of more than 6 [degrees] would completely freeze over the planet,” Schmittner pointed out, referring to the ice age. Which, of course, didn’t happen. The ice sheets and glaciation only reached so far toward the equator and then stopped. “So, from that observation alone that it was pretty clear to me that those high climate sensitivities are out of the question, as they are virtually impossible.”
“The best-fitting models had a climate sensitivity of about 2.3-2.4. So that is slightly less than the IPCC best estimate of 3.”
Applying those findings to the future atmosphere, a doubling of carbon dioxide from 1850 levels might mean a rise of 2.4 degrees, rather than 10 or more.
The latest headline from the world of peer-reviewed climate science shows that, using the same computer models forecasting the climatologic end-of-the-world, different inputs yield different forecasts; substantially different, in fact.
Coincidentally I’m sure, global climate change politicos are meeting in South Africa to “plot the next big push against climate change.” From another San Jose Mercury News story:
Everyone agrees that the few wealthy nations have the primary responsibility for reducing carbon emissions, since it was their industries that pumped carbon dioxide into the atmosphere for 200 years. Climate scientists say the accumulation of CO2 traps the Earth's heat, is already changing some weather patterns and agricultural conditions, and is heightening risks of devastating sea level rise.
If we substitute “colonial oppression” for the complaint about 200 years of carbon dioxide pumping, how is the animating argument for climate “justice” any different from garden variety international Marxism circa 1975? Why then are we allowing our political leaders to reorder our lives on the basis of such dross?
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May '10
Re: Fundamental Transformation by Computer Model
"Why then are we allowing our political leaders to reorder our lives on the basis of such dross?"
The answer must be in there somewhere.
Jun '10
Re: Fundamental Transformation by Computer Model
Perhaps the California economy will wither enough gradually due to the continual assaults on its ability to produce wealth, cause people to leave, and thus reduce the need for all this growth in electricity supply they keep forecasting for the future. Problem solved.
Dec '10
Re: Fundamental Transformation by Computer Model
Because the vast majority of politicians and journalists understand nothing about mathematics, or science. And because the majority of scientists know that the politicians are the readiest suppliers of cash, in a world where industry and commerce require reliable science.
Edited on Nov 26, 2011 at 3:31pmMar '11
Re: Fundamental Transformation by Computer Model
I have long believed that this attack on energy production was always a backhanded effort to defeat capitalism by denying producers all important energy.
Apr '11
Re: Fundamental Transformation by Computer Model
Nice post. We have to keep hammering at the fact that most of the claims of catastrophic warming are based on computer models and wonky data. As someone pointed out, if the science is so settled, why does the IPCC publish a range of six predictions from six different models.
Dec '10
Re: Fundamental Transformation by Computer Model
Just ask somebody who professes to "believe in science" what science actually is. Blank stares.
It's almost like the Oracle at Delphi, which possesses some secret gnosis from the Science god.
Re: Fundamental Transformation by Computer Model
AmishDudeJust ask somebody who professes to "believe in science" what science actually is. Blank stares.
It's almost like the Oracle at Delphi, which possesses some secret gnosis from the Science god. · Nov 26 at 12:49pm
Science, hard science anyway, absolutely rests on the ability to test hypotheses. Assertions are tested by using appropriate methods--in the biological sciences, primarily statistical tests-- to attempt to disprove them. A non-disprovable hypothesis--unobservable parallel universes in other dimensions, runaway global warming based on CO2 emissions--may be many interesting and worthwhile things but it is not science. Conjecture, speculation, religious faith, whatever; but not science.
A perfectly reasonable scientific question is to ask "What evidence would cause you to conclude that the anthropogenic global warming hypothesis is false?" If no answer is forthcoming,then the respondent is not practicing science.
May '10
Re: Fundamental Transformation by Computer Model
George,
Are the complete details of any of these "models" publicly available? For peer and public examination and review?
If not, how can they be seriously considered to indicate anything?
I'm kind'a amazed that we (the public at large) don't immediately demand the complete details, and independently verify the results, of any model that makes claims that could determine public policy.
May '11
Re: Fundamental Transformation by Computer Model
AmishDude Just ask somebody who professes to "believe in science" what science actually is. Blank stares.
It's almost like the Oracle at Delphi, which possesses some secret gnosis from the Science god. · Nov 26 at 12:49pm
Science is simple. Earn a PhD somewhere by doing useless research that nobody will ever read about a useless subject that nobody will ever care about. Make up a dire prediction. It could be anything, so long as it blames America and capitalism for being the cause of a catastrophe. Global warming. Global cooling. Both at once. It doesn't matter. Just so long as it's dire. Get government funding to do "research" that confirms your prediction. This generates interest among other "scientists" -- interest, that is, in getting some of that government funding. Peer-review each others' work. Declare among yourselves a consensus. Attack and discredit anyone who points out that your research is nonsense. Repeat.
Dec '10
Re: Fundamental Transformation by Computer Model
George Savage
AmishDudeJust ask somebody who professes to "believe in science" what science actually is. Blank stares.
It's almost like the Oracle at Delphi, which possesses some secret gnosis from the Science god. · Nov 26 at 12:49pm
Science, hard science anyway, absolutely rests on the ability to test hypotheses. · Nov 26 at 1:11pm
Absolutely. I think, as a mathematician, I have the best insight into science because I see it from the outside. I often say that I am very much not a scientist. Science is about testing, not about anything else, including reason.
Medieval Europe based almost all of its observations of science on ancient texts which bore no resemblance to the scientific method and believed those things to be true because they were articulated by a great intellect.
I am speaking, of course, of the works of Aristotle. To the medieval Christians, Aristotle (no, not the bible) was the height of learning. So when he said that a light object falls more slowly than a heavy object, they believed it to be true, even though a simple test would have proved it false.
Reason is not enough.
Dec '10
Re: Fundamental Transformation by Computer Model
Larry3435
AmishDude Just ask somebody who professes to "believe in science" what science actually is. Blank stares.
It's almost like the Oracle at Delphi, which possesses some secret gnosis from the Science god. · Nov 26 at 12:49pm
Science is simple. ... Make up a dire prediction. It could be anything, so long as it blames America and capitalism for being the cause of a catastrophe. ... Get government funding to do "research" that confirms your prediction. This generates interest among other "scientists" -- interest, that is, in getting some of that government funding. Peer-review each others' work. Declare among yourselves a consensus. Attack and discredit anyone who points out that your research is nonsense. Repeat. · Nov 26 at 1:16pm
It's almost identical to the process of alchemy.
(1) Obtain credentials as a true alchemist.
(2) Claim that you can turn lead into gold.
(3) Conduct an "experiment" to try it.
(4) Show the local prince small flakes of gold in the fire. "We're very close, sire."
(5) Get lavish funding.
Re: Fundamental Transformation by Computer Model
Don Tillman: George,
Are the complete details of any of these "models" publicly available? For peer and public examination and review?
If not, how can they be seriously considered to indicate anything?
I'm kind'a amazed that we (the public at large) don't immediately demand the complete details, and independently verify the results, of any model that makes claims that could determine public policy. · Nov 26 at 1:13pm
The commonly used climate models are published--at some level, anyway. IPCC has one introductory paper here on the principles. The problem is not that any given model is opaque, but that many of the critical variables for every model are at best simply guesswork. Yet the oh-so-precise-appearing output from various model runs is inevitably treated as real science on a par with sending a space probe from earth to Mars orbit.
I often link to Michael Crichton's 2003 Caltech lecture, "Aliens Cause Global Warming" as my favorite summation of the problem.
Re: Fundamental Transformation by Computer Model
These days, California seems to exist solely as a warning to the rest of us.
Dec '10
Re: Fundamental Transformation by Computer Model
Nobody is useless, one can always serve as a bad example.
Re: Fundamental Transformation by Computer Model
I am reminded of this jewel from Despair.com
May '10
Re: Fundamental Transformation by Computer Model
One day soon I hope the rest of us will send a warning to California (and their co-authoritarians in Washington): don't tread on me!
Dec '10
Re: Fundamental Transformation by Computer Model
Before I read other comments, please allow me to note a significant edit to my previous comment. I wrote "scientists" when I meant to write "politicians". No mistake could have made my comment less intended.
Feb '11
Re: Fundamental Transformation by Computer Model
CJRun..."Because the vast majority of politicians and journalists understand nothing about mathematics, or science"....one almost never sees an article by a journalist who seems to grasp the difference between kilowatts and kilowatt-hours.
Feb '11
Re: Fundamental Transformation by Computer Model
AmishDude/the works of Aristotle as a medieval authority.
Apparently many "educators" favor the use of computer models as a substitute for lab experiments in schools. This of course eliminates that main *point* of science...that you can always see for yourself...and substitutes the authority of a black-box model for the authority of nature. Very similar, really, to the medieval approach, but with much less excuse.
Dec '10
Re: Fundamental Transformation by Computer Model
George, you are right on it. In Europe the question is whether Italy or Greece want to commit suicide. The question in America is whether California wants to commit suicide. The reality that the man made component of climate change is miniscule and would surely be lost in the much larger events that will naturally take place is just beginning to sink into people's consciousness. The titanic obsessive self delusion of man made global warming is thus becoming clear. California addicted to this gigantic lie is still lost in denial.
We the healthy minded must try to defeat the political forces that would encourage this madness and guarantee suicide. It is unclear whether we can wrest control of this society from the lunatics soon enough. What is clear is that nothing is more important!
Edited on Nov 26, 2011 at 7:33pm