"Red Flags" Fly as Gore Raises Stakes

(Note to Readers---this is an alternate and updated version of the posting on Al Gore on July 19. The conclusions are the same.)

Al Gore put himself back on center stage this weekend with an even more preposterous claim about what mankind needs to do about Anthropogenic Global Warming or "AGW". Just as scientists are starting to more publicly challenge the premises of AGW he ever so casually "challenged the nation to commit to producing 100 percent of our electricity from renewable energy and from truly clean, carbon free sources within 10 years". The question is why?

 

Gore and many like minded people (James Hansen of NASA being another) are becoming almost unbearable for anyone with a serious interest in rationally discussing this topic. Gore proposes the impossible and the undesirable, while his self pro-claimed science adviser, NASA's James Hansen, wants to indict any person in an oil company with an opposing view. I sometimes think that satire is the only structural form of argument that has any chance of shattering the complacency the media, politicians and the public appear to have on this topic. Think Orwell's 1984 or Animal Farm, except applied to the hypocrisy and anti-science of the politics of AGW. Even better, South Park's Manbearpig satire of Al Gore and AGW may be the best of all. But I will try and stick to dry old rational argument in this commentary.

 

I give this political movement far too much credit by stating that the issue is about science or AGW. It clearly is not. It is in the name of "science" this game is being played. But it is predominantly one of power, money, crony capitalism, ideology, research grants, and "Tammany Hall" style "local" politics.  Everyone involved in "AGW" knows this. The public at large seems to be the only group being kept "out of the loop"; but they are gradually catching on and do not like what they see.  Ironically, keeping the topic "narrowly" focused to AGW, (that is, the science of global warming caused by man made CO2 emissions), makes it more difficult for its promoters to accomplish their objectives. This is because people like Gore will say and do almost anything but provide actual scientific evidence. Any real science that is presented is "suggestive" of this and "supportive" of that. But there is no actual evidence of AGW because it has not happened yet; nor is there conclusive evidence it ever will.

 

A theory is proven (technically, scientific hypotheses usually are not proven, their "alternatives" are disproved) only after the evidence comes in to support the theory. AGW evidence has yet to appear. The promoters of AGW believe it will appear over the next 100 years.  But it is not as if scientists are measuring the arc of an incoming meteor. AGW is completely unobservable and may even be unobservable in principle. People are often too willing to treat scientists as if they were infallible priests divining the inscrutable truths of the Universe. Believe it or not, most scientific theories are pretty accessible. People often confuse "science" with "mathematics". Mathematics can definitely be "inaccessible", but scientific theories generally are not. The normally educated person should feel comfortable being a skeptic toward any scientific claim which appears "extraordinary". The burden of proof is on the shoulders of the proposer of new ideas, not vice versa.

 

Unobservable phenomena can only be demonstrated through statistical and/or logical based inference from very specific hypotheses and experimental testing procedures. For example, Einstein studied Galileo's relativity of motion and broadened the concept to incorporate time. This was counterintuitive to every day experience and common sense. Critics could easily have said (as many did) it was just a clever trick of logic. It was clearly an unobservable phenomenon. However, if true, it implied that light would bend around large gravitational masses. An experiment was conducted in South Africa on May 29th, 1919 during a solar eclipse Eclipse that Changed the Universe. It was confirmed again on September 21, 1922. Scientists were able to see the light from a star which could have occurred only if it "curved" around the Sun. This was a very public event. Einstein was literally on the front page of almost every newspaper in the world. 

What is AGW 's falsifiable hypothesis or hypotheses? Where is AGW's Einstein? Inside a computer model? The truth is, climate science is far less understood than either relativity or quantum mechanics. But Gore wants you to believe "the science is settled". Do you believe AGW science is "settled"? Relativity is not even "settled". If "science is not settled" it does not mean there is a "50-50" chance a theory is correct. It means nothing of the sort. The range of outcomes can be anywhere from a theory being a complete non-sequitur to it being correct. But until there is confirming evidence there is no basis for an a priori probability as to its soundness. If that were the case, we should act on every assertion that any group of scientists "believe".

Einstein "discovered" both relativity and quantum mechanics. For 103 years, he and other physicists tried, unsuccessfully so far, to reconcile both theories with each other. At their core, they contradict each other. Both theories cannot be true. Various theoretical attempts have been made, the latest being a multi dimensional concept called "string theory". But physicists are aware this can never be proven until a falsifiable experiment is created. Scientists have yet to figure out how to even test the theory. Therefore, the science is not settled. Again I ask the question: what is AGW's "falsifiable hypothesis or hypotheses"?  Einstein could describe his "falsifiable hypothesis" so clearly it made the front pages of global newspapers.  Does Al Gore know?

  

Further, has anyone noticed that more scientists than ever are providing evidence we cannot demonstrate that AGW exists?  David Evans, the Australian scientist responsible for his country's Kyoto protocols is the latest of countless scientists to question the non-science orthodoxy of AGW.(‘No evidence carbon emissions cause global warming,’ says top ) Disagreements among scientists are prima facie evidence that the science is explicitly not settled. The default position for the politics of AGW is to resort to outcomes of so-called computer models. This is High Definition circular reasoning. The computer models are the hypotheses, not the results of experiments. They are using the hypothesis to "prove" the hypothesis.

 

The existence and implications of the "non-settledness" of AGW science is both obvious and everywhere. But Tom Brokaw's unspoken assumption, or "background meme", on his Meet the Press show with Al Gore is we have a massive problem that requires a radical "fix". The only "tough" questions to Gore were basically whether 10 years was too quick. But there was no serious challenge to the "lie in plain sight" premise behind all of Gore's proposals; i.e., "that the science is settled". Additionally, the only potential conflict of interest he raised was Gore's large electricity usage, basically his utility bill.

This is journalistic negligence of the highest order. Gore has made well into eight figures carnival barking this issue and stands to make well into nine figures if severe CO2 restrictions are put into law. Al Gore's Carbon Crusade: The Money and Connections Behind It  How can this massive conflict of interest not raise the slightest curiosity in Brokaw? Because on the upper East Side it is rude to talk about money? Can't he see the red flags waving? Even the media language has morphed into an Orwellian hodge podge. Brokaw leads off one question with the phrase "I think that probably our audience understands that there is a growing consensus that climate change is real.....". Climate change? What is climate change? What happened to AGW?

 

Red flags have been flying for some time and many are starting to notice. The American Physical Society (the national association of physicists) also engages in a very peculiar use of language and reasoning in their official statement released in November 2007. Their official view might be called "AGW Light" if not "AGW Non-existent". They use the term "climate change" and "global warming" almost interchangeably as if to make their statement even more vague than it is.  Their 150 word official statement is a politically correct bizarre strong assertion of the concept "maybe". They say:

 

"Because the complexity of the climate makes accurate prediction difficult, the APS urges an enhanced effort to understand the effects of human activity on the Earth's climate, and to provide the technological options for meeting the climate challenge in the near and longer terms."

 

This is what one would expect a scientific organization to say. If the science is so complex that accurate predictions are difficult, it makes perfect sense to push for more effort to make the science more understandable so such predictions can be made. They also say the evidence is "incontrovertible" that global warming is occurring but never provide a base year (it has certainly not been warming since 1979: UAH: Global Temperature Dives in May « Watts Up With That?  ). This global warming statement is unfortunately an example of a clever use of language to create a particular false impression. The planet has been emerging from what is called the "Little Ice Age" at the same .5 degree celsius rate per century for almost 4 centuries and physicists know this more than anyone. This might be called the language of "deniability".

More interesting, however, is what they do not say. They do not say anthropogenic global warming is occurring. They say "greenhouse gasses....affect the Earth's climate" but they do not say how severely or in what way. They conclude by urging  "governments, universities, national laboratories and its membership to support policies and actions that will reduce the emission of greenhouse gases" but make no statements regarding how much or over what time frame.

 

Talk about damning with faint praise. And they support the politics of global warming. Predictions are too difficult to make due to its extreme complexity; no statement is made saying man made global warming even exists; they do not say in what way greenhouse gases are affecting the climate. Yet they urge the support of all policies which result in the reduction of greenhouse gases? Based on what reasoning? It couldn't be because of government funding for research could it? Yes it could. Where is this settled science of Al Gore's world? Do you think that the APS very carefully chose the words it put in its "official statement on climate change"?  I do. The sound and fury of the statement indicates "strong support"; but what they are strongly supporting is..........what?

 

There also appears to be a fissure forming within the APS. The editors of its journal, Physics and Society, have just opened a debate on global warming by inviting scholarly articles on both sides of the argument. They led with an anti-global warming study. This spooked the APS leadership enough that they immediately posted on their website a strong assertion that they still support their lame 2007 statement on "climate change".

 

It is useless and boring to present list after list of groups of scientists who line up on one or the other side of the issue. What is the point? It is like "proving" the New England Patriots were going to beat the New York Giants by looking at the point spread. As John Madden is fond of saying "that is why they play the game". It used to be the case in science that "that is why they do the experiments". As serious scientists see science being "hijacked" by politics, the more we see them stating that the "science is settled" emperor has no clothes. Science is, of course, never settled. Science is not a democracy where consensus rules. If consensus ruled we would still be measuring "the ellipses" of the planet Mercury and would never have advanced past Aristotle.

 

It is not up to those who do not believe in the catastrophic nature of global warming to prove their point. Nor was it up to "Newtonists" to prove Einstein wrong. It was up to Einstein to set up falsifiable experiments to prove Newton "wrong" (or more accurately, less complete). The global warming alarmists have to prove their case, not merely assert it or "guarantee" they will be proven correct. That is not science, but blatant politics and research grant hogging. The late Cornell physics professor Carl Sagan popularized a maxim of science first noted by philosopher David Hume. Sagan famously said that "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence". Before we turn the world upside down with Al Gore inspired calamity, perhaps even some ordinary evidence would do.

 

But the problem for AGW promoters is worse than the "science is not settled". As Lincoln once concluded, ".............you can't fool all of the people all of the time". Which brings us back to "red flags". In 1997 Europe, Canada and others signed the Kyoto Treaty. The treaty's objective was to lower greenhouse gas emissions, or CO2. Even though the US did not sign the Treaty it was closer to meeting the goals of Kyoto than those who did sign. However, no country is remotely close to meeting the Kyoto objectives (The EU's Kyoto shell game | The Japan Times Online ). What does this tell you? The most obvious thing it tells you is that no matter how many treaties are signed or how many times the  P.T. Barnum-esque Gore tells you the science is settled, in reality no one cares or believes enough in global warming to do anything about it. It costs too much and delivers too little. Like the Loch Ness Monster, it is often evoked but never seen.

 

We are all for anything that is free.

"If I take this pill I will live forever? Really? How much does it cost? It is free? You are telling me that if I take this special sugar pill I will forestall death? Seems odd but if all these scientists say so, why not? Wait, it cost what? $200 dollars a pill 3 times a day? If I skip one day it does not work? Let me look at that UN report again"

 

This is what is happening now. The combination of the enormous costs, the physical impossibility of compliance, and the unobservable nature of AGW is giving all second thoughts. This spring the remarkable and astounding Warner-Lieberman bill collapsed of its own weight as the public realized the government was proposing to forcibly sell to the American people the right to use energy. Normally this would be called a "tax". In DC, politicians prefer more euphemistic terminology.

 

For example, we pay the gasoline company when we buy gasoline. But the government wants in. They already tax purchases, but that is not enough. They want to "wet their beak" or "take their cut" and charge us for the right to use gasoline whether we purchase it or not. This policy is better known by the obscurantist term "Cap and Trade". They also want to limit the amount of CO2 we can use. The government wants the power to grant exceptions; whenever they feel like it to whomever they feel like it. They accomplish this by creating an Agency which, like the god Zeus, determines who gets energy use rights and who does not. Does that not sound like corruption heaven?  Warner-Lieberman was shelved. There probably will be another crack at it as soon as Obama or McCain gets elected.

Kyoto has been in place 12 years. Nothing has happened to reduce CO2 emissions. Nor will anything happen to reduce CO2 except as technology develops to create energy more cheaply with less CO2 emissions.  If Al Gore and other fanatics get there way and a bill like Warner-Lieberman passes in the US, or around the world, the same results will occur. No government can stay in power in a democracy by severely restricting the freedom and wealth of its people unless the reason is compelling, straight forward and obvious. World War II is one such example, when the US Government rationed most goods and services, including energy usage. The extraordinary claim of a man induced theoretical 2 degree increase in temperature 100 years from now just does not cut it.

Governments can still cause great havoc, however. A Stalinist CO2 emissions review board will, like Kyoto, accomplish zero on greenhouse gas emissions. But it will provide plenty of opportunity for rampant corruption, record setting "crony capitalism", and economic inefficiency. And people like Gore will feast. Which, to answer my question in the opening paragraph, is why Gore is now tripling down. He sees his window of opportunity potentially slipping away as the political cracks in "the science is settled" meme expand rapidly. He has noticed, even if Brokaw has not.

 

When the good people of Florida could not read ballots or whatever in 2000, Gore needed to find another "gig". He figured he could get ahead of the curve by lecturing, making movies and creating a private equity firm to invest in Cap and Trade credits and other green schemes. He was not counting on temperatures dropping this decade back to levels in 1979 (when we first began satellite measurement of temperature in the troposphere).  The language politicians use is still  heavily pro "global warming". But no one is stepping too deeply into this bog. Support is the proverbial mile wide and inch deep. It is a loser's game for any politician and Gore instinctively knows it. He is doing everything he can to dupe the public again, as he did when he received his Nobel Prize. I am betting this time he fails.
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