Last week, after reading 'Nine Lies About Global Warming' in which Ray Evans draws a comparison between the issuing of taxi licenses and carbon trading, I posted a quote from Ray and some related information at this blog.
I was interested in exploring the comparison.
Blair Bartholomew made several interesting observations. Following are some edited extracts.
"The big issue of course is how many licenses to grant. From the point of safety regulations you could argue that an unlimited number of licenses would be acceptable. The issue of availability of service i.e. enables a certain number of cabs to be available at all times would demand some restriction in the number of licenses. Otherwise you would have plenty of cabs available at the more popular times of the day and the year and a dearth of cabs at others.
So in making the decision as to the number of licenses the regulators rely on data to support their decisions. If they get it wrong and have two few licenses then the original lucky taxi license holders make a windfall. If they issue too many licenses then taxi users will suffer from an unreliable service.
Similarly with respect to emission controls, in the absence of controls, the population, as a whole, would be worse off from the effects of AGW. Just as the cab regulators need good information to decide on the number of cab licenses, so do the emission regulators to decide on the level of emission controls."
Then Blair made a second comment, asking more questions.
"Regulators have to decide whether the likely scenario, after the introduction of controls (and allowing for the costs of implementing the controls) is preferred to the likely scenario without the controls. In other words will there be an aggregate gain in society's welfare. To do this they need information about the alternate states, the "with" and the "without".
In the case of global carbon emission controls the information needs are infinitely greater and more complex (and the effects of "bad" research much greater).
While the questions and topics are different, regulators would enquire [information] along the following lines. For the carbon emission regulators:
1. Is the increase in world temperature over the last 60+ years largely the result of human-induced carbon emissions?
2. And without regulation will the situation worsen i.e. the world gets even hotter?
3. In the absence of controls will profitable technology provide the solution? By profitable I mean carbon emitters will voluntarily invest in the research as they will be better off from application of the research.
4. If it is agreed that indeed warming will increase, what will be its effects on human welfare?
5. How do we quantify these effects?
6. What will be the distribution of these effects? Will some regions/countries/people actually gain some benefits from warmer temperatures and by how much? What regions/countries/people will lose and by how much?
7. If we are satisfied with the projected outcomes in the absence of the controls, then we must model expected outcomes in the presence of different levels of controls ...no mean feat.
8. How do we quantify the benefits from the implementation of these different levels controls?
9. What are the likely costs and their distribution from implementation of controls?
10. Finally how do we then determine the "right" level of emission control?
A lot of the rather heated discussion on this blog seems to relate to points 1,2 and 3.
However I have not seen much discussion or data relating to the subsequent points.
I am sure some economic thinktank would have done the massive modelling required to come up with the answers. That is why Phil I asked you earlier if you are familiar with studies estimating the economic returns, including distribution of benefits and costs, from the massive research in global warming and appliction of its findings viz levels of controls etcetera."
I am unfamiliar with any "massive modelling' effort by an economic think tank. The analysis I am most familiar with, and that I consider most comprehensive, was done by Bjorn Lomborg in Chapter 24 of 'The Skeptical Environmentalist' published in 2001. But perhaps there has been something done more recently?
As author, I respond to the chattering classes about this letter in "The Australian".
15 February 2006
"THERE is an excellent argument for curbing the public statements of scientists like those from CSIRO, a former employer of mine. Scientists, like the public, cover a spectrum of beliefs, some of which are based on emotion rather than science. There are greenie scientists in CSIRO and there are honest ones. Human nature being what it is, there are private agendas pushed by CSIRO people that would make your jaw drop. An example is the selection of Australian weather recording sites used to construct the temperature measurements of the continent, which play a big part in southern hemisphere weather models. From the beginning, most sites that showed little or no temperature rise or a fall from, say, the 1880s to now were rejected. The few sites selected to represent Australia were mainly from capital cities and under suspicion for "heat island" effects. I could give example after example as it was one of my employment functions to distill the best results from the bogus on many matters related to energy/greenhouse/nuclear etc. I found few truly objective submissions among those masquerading as science."
1. Nowhere did I mention BoM.
2. Nowhere did I criticise BoM.
3. Nowhere did I say I had worked for BOM.
4. I was critical of some statements made by people in CSIRO, but not about the selection of weather sites for early greenhouse models. What alarms me more is the stupified silence of senior scientists when they see bogus data. That is my real criticism.
4. Since writing that letter I have recognised it was the University of East Anglia, not Bath, which used the climate data from Australia.
5. I have since asked Phil Jones from East Anglia for a copy of his selection of the original Australian data. He says "We no longer have the Australian station date we were using in the early 1980s. At that time we had a limited network."
6. In the MID-1980s (which was my time choice) there were abundant stations which were not used by Jones at all. Here is a list for which data were then available, but not used by Jones - not a full list, just a sample: Geraldton, Narrabri, Hay, Albany, Rottnest Island Lighthouse, Walgett, Deniliquin, Bourke, Cape Naturaliste Lighthouse, Coonabarabran, Echuca, Cooma, Moruya Heads Pilot Station, Omeo, Dubbo, Alice Springs, Gabo Island Lighthouse, Bathurst, Strathalbyn, Mt. Gambier, Yamba, Wilsons Promontory Lighthouse, Newcastle Signal Station, Cape Otway Lighthouse.
7. These stations, when averaged from the 1880s to the mid 1980s, showed a temperature decline until about 1951. This decline was not used in Jones's paper, which some would say ignited the greenhouse debate with its alarmist conclusions.
8. These and many other Australian stations, averaged from 1951 to 1985 or so, showed a slight increase in temperature. Jones's modelling was essentially post-1950.
9. Point is proven.
10. I continue to find the poorest quality of science in greenie publications. The most common error is to manipulate the raw data to fit the desired theory. Some is quite stupid, like from the nuclear industry, "Radwaste has to be managed for 250,000 years". How many nuclear scients who know this to be nonsense, whether from the CSIRO or not, have stood up and said so?
11. The Think Tank for which I helped formulate direction was the Tasman Institute. The person who brought this climate data to my attention was Warwick Hughes, a geologist (I am a Geochemist) used to dealing with hard data.
12. The statistical manipulations being used for climate data, that I have read, would commonly fail the stringency tests required of geologists when interpolating values of economic ores in deposits from drill hole data. If high standards of maths are needed to avoid wrong estimates of orebody worth, then they are equally needed for political-scientific issues like climate modelling.
13. I have suggested to Phil Jones that he use a certain type of mathematical statistic to get better results.
14. So, how many of you bloggers will now admit to wrong interpretation of, and confusion about, my letter to the Australian? I can prove all that I said and have proved some of it above.
15. I am currently moving home, so my telephone, email etc address will change in the next few days and I do not yet know what they will be. So don't bother to try to argue with me, contemplate your navels instead.
Ian on a more "positive" note RC has just done a revisit on climate sensivity with a new paper. Be interested in your take sometime.
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=274
Nah ducked it.
Dont you know you dont answer a question with a question?
50:50 chance rog will respond intelligently
So what are you saying then. Therefore what point Rog?
I am not assuming "rampant inaccuracy" therefore you have no justification for assuming so.
If BOM publish statements that the quality of their data is improving then it seems obvious to me that their older recordings may have been prone to some inaccuracy.
Rog - you're setting up a straw man rhetorical question.
if that's what you quality comment is referring to, you still have no justification for assuming rampant inaccuracy and not fit for purpose. One can always do better but don't play on creating a feeling of "inaccuracy and therefore unsuitability" without doing your homework. There are accuracy assessments in David's listed papers. If you ask he may be able to provide you with copies.