Ok, glad to know you see the errors of at least the extreme forms of green-think. And while I agree that the “back to nature” crowd can never really succeed in their *actual* goals, what worries me is that as their ethos becomes more and more mainstream, policy makers make more and more bad decisions to at least make it look like they are being friendly to their interests.

As for free markets and Upton Sinclair, I have a very different take. In my judgement, by and large, regulation doesn’t correct problems created by the market. Rather, it generally tries to speed up or force solutions to problems, real or perceived, that the market has not yet solved, and creates a variety of different problems (always real) in the process, not to mention doing a poor job of solving the original problem. I don’t challenge at all the idea that businesses by and large act in their own perceived interests, disregarding (when possible) other considerations, nor do I harbor any illusions that they will always act in good faith, always do a good job, or always avoid harm to others. But the same can be said of any individual or institution, including regulatory agencies and government as a whole.

Look at the FDA, since you mentioned Sinclair. The intention in creating that organization was to provide some protection against unhealthy business practices. What we have now is an organization that raises costs of production by billions of dollars in aggregate (which consumers pay for in the form of higher prices), keeps useful, even life-saving, products off the shelves for years, and still allows a great number of harmful products into the marketplace.

The faulty thinking in such endeavors is that the problem is simple: just keep business in check. All we have to do is put up a stop sign when they get out of line, and then all will be well. But in fact, the real problem is far more complex: keeping business in check, in this context, necessitates making millions and millions of product safety decisions. It also forces a binary outcome (safe or not safe, allowed or not allowed) for what in many cases is a gray area (safe for some, not for others, acceptable risk for some, not for others, etc.) That’s a very hard problem to solve. To solve it well would require a good deal of innovation, a maturing of procedures and ideas over time, a constant upkeep of an ever-increasing knowledge base, good management skills, and probably a lot of other things I haven’t thought of. Because we’ve chosen a government solution to this problem in the form of an institution that is paid for with tax money and whose powers are written into law, what we get is a bad solution and a whole host of ancillary problems that will never go away and are guaranteed to get worse over time.

And what did we have in the “before time”, when there was no FDA? We had some unscrupulous meat packing companies, and most likely some similar problems in other industries. As far as I know, we had no actual wide scale public health incidents–no one got sick or died–just the knowledge that the meat packers were not being sanitary. Now obviously that’s a real problem–but put it in perspective, and compare it to the problems I described above. (Incidentally, I can think of at least two *actual* public health problems involving meat in my lifetime, where people actually died, and this several decades after the creation of the FDA.) Also, consider that one of the motivations for creating the FDA at the time was that Sinclair’s book had so damaged the credibility of the meat industry that their sales were plummeting, and they needed the perception of government oversight to restore the faith of consumers at home and overseas. In other words, the market, left to its own devices, would have most likely dealt with the problem by ousting those that were misbehaving, but the government bailed them out.

As a consumer, given the choice, I would vastly prefer the “before time.”

Just for the record, I support nuclear power, as well as developing the space infrastructure for building solar power satellites, and that infrastructure will certainly be polluting in the short term, scrubbing technologies, and the general capacity of the market to adapt. However, absolutely free markets are just as bad as absolutely controlled markets for the simple fact that businesses, being superorganisms, are simple animals dedicated to increasing capital and those that don’t actively have and live up to “good corporate citizen” ideals subordinate all other concerns to making money. Some amount of government regulation is necessary, see the response to Upton Sinclair for a good example.

That being said, the ‘international environmental vetting panel’ counterargument is something of a strawman because, to put it bluntly, it ain’t gonna happen. Rules are static; innovators tend to be dynamic and will find loopholes, one way or another. Besides, the monolithic ideological power bloc required for effective world governance of any sort still isn’t there, and given the human animal, isn’t likely to be there for some time.

Your clarification is appreciated and duly noted. I do think it’s important, however, to never yield to fanatics on either side, even if they have the loudest voices and create flame wars. That dynamic doesn’t erase the possibility that there is an important issue of substance underlying it all.

I mostly raise the issue of Mann et al, not because I think it disproves AGW, but more because it helps to characterize what I think is going on in the IPCC and the climate science “community” in general. I’ve seen many indications that said community, as a whole, is rather incestuous, sloppy, and prone to beg the question as to whether we have something to worry about or not. I have a HUGE problem with the notion of “better to err on the side of ’safety’”, which I think often translates into: don’t worry so much about being accurate, the imporant thing is to get everyone on board, since this is *obviously* a huge, important issue. There’s a religious furvor in the air, which doesn’t tend to aid the progress of accurate scientific investigation.

The one question that I would like to see addressed that seems to be almost universally avoided is: what will be the *cost* of drastically altering our energy usage patterns by direct force of government legislation? And what, comparatively, would be the cost of adapting to gradual changes in climate (some of which would certainly be beneficial, at least in some locations) using whatever technology we can muster as we go? And from that perspective, what does “erring on the side of ’safety’” really amount to?

I also note, at least in the mainstream, the conspicuous absence of discussions such as:

1) Let’s use more nuclear power; or
2) Let’s investigate methods of artificially “scrubbing” or otherwise altering the atmosphere to counteract whatever effect we find that CO2 is having.

And I conclude that those discussions will always remain on the fringe because those are *technological* and/or *market* solutions. And what is really driving this movement foreward are two completely unscientific ideas, one political, and one more fundamentally moral:

1) Increasing government power over businesses and consumers is a good thing in itself (because businesses are greedy, consumers are stupid, and government is wise and well-motivated); and
2) Man’s “footprint” on nature is inherently evil and should be reversed.

As a thought experiment, ask yourself what modern-day environmentalists would be advocating if we could transport them back 200 years, prior to the industrial revolution. It certainly would have been “safer,” from the standpoint of environmental impact, to avoid all of the technological advances that occurred from then till now. Or let’s be less dramatic. Say that we imposed, 200 years ago, some “common sense” regulations requiring that all new major technologies had to achieve special governmentally-disbursed environmental permits, or be approved under the auspices of international bodies created by treaty. The textile mill, the steam engine, the light bulb, the automobile, the airplane, the assembly line, the computer, all would have had to wait for implementation until a large-scale environmental impact report could be provided and approved by political bodies, many of whose members might be hostile to the interests of whichever inventors, entrepreneurs or industrialists were involved. Can you imagine the cost? Try.

Oh no, you misunderstand. It’s not that it isn’t essentially a debate on evidence. It’s that it has become a debate that’s taken the aspect of a religious argument. I take no stand on it as it’s not germane to my own views on the matter (I came across it after I made my decision and so it’s not important to me). The true believers of either side aren’t going to shift because of it, and thus the ‘common ground’ is universally denied.

Also, note that I made it an analogy of probability, not a direct analogy. This was intentional.

I can’t speak for Doctor Plait, but if previous data are any indication, he does not appear to be sympathetic to McIntyre’s claims and, while perhaps politely agnostic concerning McIntyre’s motivations, may hold the opinion that McIntyre is functionally a schill to established petrochemical interests and the AGW “denier” crowd. As for me, I feel that McIntyre is indeed well-meaning and a true skeptic, and that the Mann data, showing flaws, indicates that those flaws should be repaired rather than simply shouted down as not existing. Nonetheless, I think that constructive work towards reducing and reversing greenhouse gas emissions, with simultaneous work in adapting to a heating environment, is still an optimal method to go down whether or not global warming is primarily anthropogenic in nature. We can, at the very least, reduce our own impact and should a sudden global cooling trend occur, well, from empirical data not in the least related to Mann or bristlecones we’re better at heating things up than cooling them down.

Regarding:

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2) Probably because it requires agreement that there’s a hockey stick fiasco, which is as likely as there is to be agreement that some ancient book is the revealed word of God. “Reasonable responses” need at least some common ground to work off of; those who support Mann’s work will say that it isn’t broken; those who support McIntyre’s work will say that it is. Whoopie.
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With all due respect, your analogizing the “hockey stick” debate to a religious argument is … well … wrong. The reason that religious debates are unresolvable is that at least one side is substantially basing their viewpoint on something which can’t be empirically or logically verified. A good skeptic should know the difference between that and a real scientific or factual debate.

What might make the truth of the Mann-McIntyre debate seem elusive is that it ultimately comes down to some figure-crunching which isn’t at all easy to do. And I’m the first to admit that I haven’t tackled it myself, because I don’t have enough time and I’d be hampered by not having a statistics background, which means I’d have a hefty learning curve on a lot of terminology and concepts that are at present out of my reach. That said, I understand McIntyre’s claims, at least in concept, and Mann’s published responses look a lot more like defensive redirection and intimidation than a direct answer to the substance of McIntyre’s argument. That gets my radar up, especially since Mann has the burden of proof, and his conclusion (the graph) has played prominently not only in a lot of political and media hype, but also in the third assessment report of the IPCC–an organization that most seem to be taking as authoritative on this subject.

Still, not having run the numbers myself, I can’t claim certainty, which in part is why I’m interested in what people like Dr. Plait might have to say on the subject. From this site, I’ve picked up that he: 1) is sympathetic to the other camp, 2) is generally knowledgable and intelligent, and 3) seems to have the right attitude about science and skepticism. That makes him a very interesting person for me to query on the subject. And I certainly hope that if he takes the time to answer me, said answer will differ substantially from yours.

Why yes, yes it is. Isn’t that generally sort of the purpose of having a personal blog?

1) Calling Glenn Beck “silly” is perhaps a kindness. I’m silly. Doctor Plait appears to enjoy silliness when he gets his picture taken. I don’t see it as much of an insult, and it’s probably much gentler than Doctor Plait’s true feelings on the matter.

2) Probably because it requires agreement that there’s a hockey stick fiasco, which is as likely as there is to be agreement that some ancient book is the revealed word of God. “Reasonable responses” need at least some common ground to work off of; those who support Mann’s work will say that it isn’t broken; those who support McIntyre’s work will say that it is. Whoopie.

3) “It’s just a joke” defense, and a tired and worn-out one at that. Yes, he was trying to make a politically-charged joke. It didn’t play in Peoria. That’s a matter of opinion and thus I’m going to have to ask you to deal with it.

4) It’s perfectly reasonable to compare zealots of differing religions. As both the Qu’ran and the Bible are documents written through history, they represent the wildly varying means and environments of the people who wrote them. Because of this, anyone who has an agenda can back it up with “revealed” evidence: God said so, and God is summa bonum, so I not only can but should and must to be a good person. This can range from giving as much to charity as possible (Islam) and respecting family (Islam) and never converting by the sword (Islam) and never murdering at all (Islam) all the way to killing all the infidels for the greater glory of God (Islam). I can do the same thing to Christianity if you’d like.