It’s a fair point. 

I think  that at least some of the difference comes down to the perception that GMO research is being driven by large, unaccountable, and rapacious agribusiness multi-nationals like Monsanto, ADM, DuPont, etc. 

Given mainstream environmentalists historic distrust of these companies, it’s not hard to see how some would then justify harassing the scientists that are aiding and abetting these firms. Consider, for example, how the public would react to the harassment of tobacco researchers who were looking into ways of making smoking a little bit safer.

Personally, my own concerns with GMOs are about the economic arrangements that they lock farmers into rather than the risks that they present from an ecological point of view.

There’s a missing ‘wondered’ in my first sentence, last comment

Not just those who work on GMOs. Those  testing animals get it in the neck too.

Marlowe @ 6

[...] suggests that the farmers will ultimately lose out.

How, exactly? It is in nobody’s interests. If one agribusiness tries to lock in farmers in, say, Brazil, to a GM soya, then another will come along with a cheaper alternative of similar or better characteristics. And all the time, the GE technology is going to be escaping the corporate fence as noncorporate regional research continues. Time and technology favour farmers, not lawyers.

I’m not saying the buggers won’t try to screw the producers, mind you. But it will be interesting to see just what big agribusinesses will be allowed to get away with when there are a billion more people to feed and CC is starting to bite on agricultural productivity. Will they be permitted to profiteer? Or will they be compelled to behave at least borderline acceptably? Will the role of noncorporate GE research grow in response to profiteering?

The genetic concerned community is not correct about this?

Only one explanation for the anti-GMO mania in the Old Country – Heartland Europa has proven “effective at dissuading teachers from teaching science”………..

I’m amused at the New York Times combining the seriousness of death threats with a not unreasonable legal challenge for Michael Mann to release e-mails involving publicly funded research.  If Mann has done nothing wrong,  these e-mails shouldn’t embarass him,

#10,

Dan, that’s a good article! And my congratulations to you on joining the well organised and well funded denial machine. How do you like the pay?

On GMOs, I see a large part of the problem being a lack of education on food science generally.

First, I make a distinction between genetic modification and genetic engineering. Genetic modification has been practiced for about 6000 years now by plant breeders. They find mutations and variations and cross-breed them to modify the genetics of a crop. The difference between modern crop plants and their wild ancestors is vast. Genetic engineering is when you bring about genetic changes by design, based on understanding. Virtually all the food you eat is genetically modified. Carrots are not orange in the wild.

Second, you have to address another common green phobia which is the matter of “chemicals”. People tell me they want to eat food that doesn’t have chemicals in it. That’s an amazing thing for people to say, when you think about it. What the heck do they think food is made out of?!

99.9% of the pesticides in food you eat are natural. Plants produce them naturally as part of their ‘immune system’ seeking to deliberately poison anything trying to eat them. Most of these chemicals are unknown and untested for safety, and of those few that have been tested, about half prove carcinogenic. When the plant breeders breed ‘pest resistance’ into a plant, how do people think the plant achieves it? And is it safe?

This can have some unexpected results. Organic foods raised without artificial pesticides fall back on the natural ones. And when a plant is attacked by pests, it sometimes reacts by increasing production, loading its flesh with extremely high doses of toxic chemicals. Think for a moment about the implications of that.

Genetically engineered foods are not 100% safe, but they are safer than ‘natural’ foods. Natural foods are safe too. It’s a question of perception – we notice the tiniest risks in the artificial because we go looking for them, we assume the natural is benign because we don’t think to look. The risks of the natural are tiny, the risks of the artificial even tinier – but with our distorted risk perception we make the wrong decisions.

On nuclear power, the problem is similar. We have no intuitive feel for the scale of risks. In Fukushima, 20,000 died as a result of what you might call ‘wave power’, the infrastructure devastated, the land polluted with salt and with industrial chemicals from iron foundries and petrochemicals, but the only thing people can talk about is the tiny traces of radioactivity. It’s a phobia.

The naturalistic fallacy is at the heart of a lot of the Green thinking that outsiders find annoying. I don’t think it’s something Environmentalists have deliberately chosen to exploit; I think the problem is that people subject to naturalistic thinking are naturally attracted to Environmentalism. They join in vast numbers, and their worldview overwhelms that of the more scientifically minded.

Likewise, I don’t think the Green movement is a radical left-wing conspiracy. I think that radical left-wingers saw it as a movement they could use, and sought to infiltrate it and take it over. It’s good camouflage – they hide among the flock, and take the lead in political activism. You could think of them as wolves wearing woolly jumpers and sandals. On the contrary, I think most Greens are ordinary well-meaning people who just like nature, and don’t like to see it spoilt. Mostly they haven’t thought very hard about it. But they’re not the ones running things.

The right do care about the environment. We care about air pollution from cooking fires. We care about access to clean water. We care about smog, and people dumping toxic waste. We care about wildlife. But we understand there is a trade-off between people’s interests and the rest of nature’s and that sometimes the rest of nature will have to adapt. We would like to do it in the least damaging way, but nature red in tooth and claw extends to us too. We are still having to play the great game. Nature itself is about conflict and exploitation and self-interest, and we are an integral part of it. Nature is not a Walt Disney movie, where the bunnies and foxes sing songs in harmony. It is also tough and adaptable and can survive and recover from damage. We think nature can very well look after itself. But we do care, and we want to do what we can to help it.

But being the right, we have different views on the best way to do it. We think the best protection for the environment results from prosperity. When people can spare resources from bare survival, they are more willing to devote them to making the world a nicer place to live in. We believe in the power of human ingenuity to find ways to do so. We sometimes makes a mess getting there, and accidents are unfortunately inevitable, but we can (and should) clean it up later. The West cleaned up its act voluntarily as soon as it had the resources to do so. The faster the rest of the world catches up, the less damage there will be to fix.

I don’t know if there’s any way to reconcile the two worldviews. But it is certainly true that the current state of environmentalism alienates the right and pushes them away from wanting to. I wish you well, but I don’t have much hope for anything fixing that.

#17,

It’s possible that I’m over-generalising again. I talk about the right I know. While I know quite a few who don’t like environmentalists, I don’t know any who don’t like the environment.

While I have less knowledge of the situation in the US, I do wonder how much of that reputation is down to the anti-capitalist cant. George Bush and the Tea Party are subject to a lot of politically-motivated opposition. While I’m not in a position to compare, I’ve heard of plenty of examples of environmental action from the likes of Bush, and plenty of examples against it from the American left.

Bush signed in the Clear Skies initiative, the Healthy Forests initiative, the Brownfields legislation, the Great Lakes Legacy Act, and created the world’s largest marine protectorate in Hawaii. He did on the other hand promote oil drilling in Alaska, although with stringent regulation, and of course there is the Kyoto Protocol, which was actually killed by the Byrd-Hagel Resolution, but which for some reason Bush always gets the blame for.

As for the Tea Party, again, the only two environmental issues I’ve ever heard them speak out on are domestic oil drilling and global warming. From what I’ve heard, their primary issues are all economic, to do with government spending.

I’ve even heard that Bush is personally quite green.

But I haven’t done sufficient research to tell if it’s true or not, so I don’t insist.

To be honest, I was trying to be positive about your post and Dan’s and to build a few bridges. I think it’s worthwhile, and I think most of the people I know on the right would think so too. But I’ve no doubt people will be able to find fault if they try hard enough.

#18,

Even on a local scale, nuclear is very safe compared to many other industries. Do you think a hydroelectric dam up-river from civilisation is ‘safe’?

I said it before. People think living in houses is ‘safe’, even though if you hit the average house with a force 9 earthquake followed by a 10 metre high wave of water travelling at 100 mph it’s liable to collapse on you. What do you mean by ‘safe’?

As for Monsanto, I’m no more keen on the protectionist tactics used by big business than you are. But the same applies to all sorts of businesses, ranging from the music industry to the supermarkets. It’s got nothing to do with GM, or the environment.

It’s not enough to justify threats and vandalism.

And I do wonder, given the violent animosity towards genetic technologies, how much of what they say about Monsanto is true.

Input your comments here…Aah. So the paragraph breaks aren’t as easy as they used to be. I’ll work it out eventually..

#23,

Type your comment.

Switch to html view – the blue < > button.

After every end paragraph tag </p>, press Enter twice to leave a blank line.

Thanks NiV.

BBD, I see precious little disagreement about the physics. (I do, however, see many people who think that discussion about sensitivity is on the same plane as the physics of the greenhouse effect, which it clearly is not.)The fact that the range given by the IPCC for plausible sensitivities ranges from 1.5 to 4.5 C should be evidence enough that it is not determined by physics. Neither does it seem at this point to be confirmed by observation.

All of the debate is about the non-physics stuff, except for iron sun-heads and sky dragonauts.

We also have to account for the MWP and LIA. Impossible with low climate sensitivity.

@BBD

you’ll notice that Fuller is trying to hoodwink us by suggesting that all of the values in the 1.5 to 4.5 range are equally likely. now tom being such an honest fellow surely knows something that you and i do not. like you, i eagerly await enlightenment.

#33, seems like just yesterday you were saying how nice it was to have a real conversation. Oh–it was just yesterday.

Reflect on why they are so rare when you are involved.

Tom, # 30 and # 31?

Tom, how do we explain deglaciations and climate variability such as the MWP and LIA with a *low* climate sensitivity?  

The current best estimate of ~3C fits paleoclimate behaviour. Lower estimates don’t. I’m the messenger. Shooting won’t change the message.

“We also have to account for the MWP and LIA. Impossible with low climate sensitivity.”

Neither the MWP nor the LIA constrain the sensitivity estimate. That is why gavin says the MWP is uninteresting. The LIA, on some interpretations, was caused by successive volcanism.

Put another way. MWP ( what little we know about it ) and LIA ( as we learn more) are conistent with the accepted range of 1.5-4.5.

And as you all know the lukewarmer position ( sensitivity more more likely to be less than 3C than greater than 3C) is already the IPCC position and this past year several new studies support figures of less than 3 for the mean.

steve mosher

Put another way. MWP ( what little we know about it ) and LIA ( as we learn more) are conistent with the accepted range of 1.5-4.5.

They are most consistent with the *most likely* value of ~3C (AR4 WG1). Is there anything uncontroversial in the literature that supports the assertion that the MWP, LIA and indeed deglaciations are consistent with a low CS – eg 1.5C? 

I’ve said to you before that I have no problem with best estimates of 2.7C or 2.8C. I’ve also pointed out that you are on a hiding to nothing trying to pretend that 2.7C is ‘lukewarm’. It’s mainstream. Consensus. ‘Lukewarm’ is not consensus in the normal usage of the term. Some might think you are trying – rather clumsily and artlessly – to reposition yourself.

#18the tension between local vs. global risk of nuclear to be spot onReally? I live equidistant from a coal fired plant and a nuclear powered plant. About every two years I spend two days pressure washing my house in an effort to ‘decontaminate’ it from the soot.The coal plant is the largest emitter of NOx and is responsible for restricting my view of Mt Rainier quite frequently as well.Anti-nuclear sentiment is the same as anti-vax sentiment.  I.E. In order to insure no one is harmed from vaccines we should all expose ourselves to a harmful disease.

Tom

And you really don’t seem to be interested in periods other than 1975-1998.

Which is exactly when the effect of increased CO2 forcing was expected to become distinct from natural variation.

And we are early on in the game. 1.7C – 1.9C decadal average increase in GAT is in good agreement with an estimated *transient* climate sensitivity of ~2C (per AR4).

You do not seem to ever want to consider temperatures before 1,000 years ago.

Oh come on Tom. I’ve *just been asking you* to consider that deglaciations under orbital forcing and the MWP/LIA are incompatible with an insensitive climate system. They are *compelling* empirical evidence for a moderately high sensitivity (eg ~3C ECS for 2xCO2 or equivalent forcing). Paleoclimate behaviour is *compelling* evidence for this in general (Hansen & Sato 2012).

It kinda looks a little silly.

No, Tom. Arguing for an ECS much below ~3C looks a bit silly.

@45You’re right. NIMBYism is not restricted to nuclear.  About half of the pollution I breathe on a daily basis comes from south of the border.  when a gas plant went up across from my tennis club upwind from my house i couldn’t understand the local opposition as that very plant was ostensibly put in place to replace a much older, and dirtier coal-fired plant not too far away. It’s also hard to get worked up about pollution your neighbors are sending your way if you’re not prepared to clean up your own backyard.  i suspect that electricity policy is pretty contentious no matter where you live, but I think we’d all agree that adult discussions in the public realm are few and far between.

#47, you can also get a reasonable ECS estimate by taking current GHG forcing (~3.05 watt/M^2), subtracting the current measured radiative imbalance (~0.4 watt/M^2), subtracting the AR4 best estimate for aerosol effects (direct and indirect ~1.2  watt/M^2), and comparing that to the current average surface temperature rise over the pre-industrial period (~0.8C)… it works out to about 2C per doubling. 

(Experimental re-post to see if specific language I removed caused this to go into moderation. Apologies if Keith posts up the previous version.)So here we are again. You say your evidence is compelling. I and many others do not feel compelled. You may say we are denying science. We respond saying we are merely rejecting conjecture. You call models compelling. You say temperature records will catch up due to lags in heat and CO2 sinks. We say those sinks have lag times measured in centuries and what we’re seeing now is at least in part the response of the deep ocean to what happened around the time of Charlemagne. The science is still being done. From Argos to ERBE, from radiosondes to thermocoupled sensors in white-painted boxes, measurement techniques are being evaluated, improved and re-evaluated. Judith Curry thinks we’ll be lucky to know sensitivity in 30 years or longer. Stephen Hawkings is worried about climate change. Freeman Dyson is not. James Hansen is worried about climate change. Richard Lindzen is not. I’m not really sure the world is waiting to see a resolution of the climate dispute between BBD and Tom Fuller.Over a year ago I suggested that we assume a temperature rise in this century of 2.5C just for planning purposes, so city developers and regional planning committees could look at where sea walls should be cited, roads relocated and other infrastructure rerouted. I think temperature rise this century will be about 1.9C, but I favor a margin of error in engineering. I think sea level rise will be about six inches, but I think we should plan for more. Sea level rise, that is”¦What should our conversation be about, BBD? You have made your arguments repeatedly about why we should believe what Hansen says about atmospheric sensitivity. I don’t think there are new converts available here. Should we both go back to the Sunday papers?

Marlowe @ 52

Yes indeed. But 3C is bad enough for me. 2C this century is bad enough for me. I marvel constantly at the complacency with which these numbers (for *average* global temperature) are bandied around. Yup, we’ll just crank GAT up a couple of degrees more or less instantaneously and it’ll be fine and dandy. Nothing to worry about. Back in your box, BBD

BBD, if you actually think we know enough about paleoclimate to say meaningful things about atmospheric sensitivity to CO2, then either you’re deluded or are waiting for Stockholm to call. This is a recurring theme with people like you. You say in one sentence that Knutti and Hegerl have results that strongly suggest equilibrium climate sensitivity is about 3C. Strongly suggest? About? And then you think you have enough information to speak with authority. I do not believe that you know how much you do not know.

Example please?

Examples of what, Tom?

@Tom Fuller
If climate sensitivity is close to 3C, we cannot burn the known reserves of conventional fossil fuel and remain under a 2C rise this century.

If climate sensitivity is close to 1.5C, we cannot burn the known reserves of conventional fossil fuel and remain under a 2C rise this century.

Your 1.9C guess is only “ilkely” in the event of a highly unlikely low sensitivity combined with large-scale efforts to curb emissions in the next 30 years.

I find it bizarre to use the uncertainty at the high end of sensitivity to fashion a comforting best-case story and call it “likely”.

TBH, I would say this conversation reached its logical conclusion about #29, when it meandered away from GMOs onto sensitivity.

Dave H

Agreed, and guilty as charged. It would be nice to have a side-thread where OT discussion can go once it starts up.

Here’s my 2 cents on GMO’s:I personally love what science has done for the tomato. I grew up in the dismal days when the only palatable tomatoes were sun-ripened in your own (or neighbor’s)back yard. Anything from the grocery store or served in a restaurant, tasted like mushy cardboard. Although the home-grown tomato still reigns supreme, you can easily buy something pretty tasty to put in your salad all year around thanks to these brave souls.Thank you, GMO scientists!Broccoli and corn taste better than ever, too! 

As usual, NewYorkJ shows up late and we’re still waiting for his brain to engage. In particular, he seems not to have read where I wrote that I do not know what climate sensitivity is. Perhaps his lips are still moving and we should give him time.

Doesn’t matter what you believe, Mosh. Doesn’t matter what you write. Doesn’t matter how many times you write it. MarTroll will trash you. You don’t belieeeeeeve.

@70

“ For planning purposes I’m more than happy to say “use 3c” andTom suggested using 2.5C.”

you’re proving my point. rational risk  management would suggest that you plan for the worst case scenario, not the median, or most likely scenario. IOW, your decision making framework (e.g. cost benefit analysis) should operate under the assumption of much higher sensitivity values since they can’t (as of yet) be ruled out. 

I thought this thread started with the harrassment of GMO researchers….and the previous thread regarding tribalism in climate discussions………does every thread need to degenerate into a climate sensitivity squabble?

MattB, at most climate venues, after about 40 comments things revert to continuation of past battles.

Steve, I think the key is in mobilizing resources to address effects of climate change–or prevent or minimize them before they occur–that looking at staged deployment of resources means that whatever we do will look the same at the beginning no matter what ultimate resolution of sensitivity is. The problem is that there is a subset of clowns that impedes agreement on any roadmap, demanding subservience to an agenda based on 10C absurdist fantasies.

We see it here all the time. If you agree with one of these… people… about 3C, someone else will (already has) jumped in demanding that you factor in a remote possibility that it will be much, much higher. So no roads get changed. No seawalls get built. No regulations on flood plains are revised. No insurance rules are changed to discourage shoreline development.But of course that’s our fault, as delayers allied with deniers.

@78….Martroll…marTurd..? Really?  Keith, I think steven mosher needs a time out.

Steve (Mosh), you know probably better than I do that a quick sort of available resources doesn’t show a capability of responding to the unknown unknowns. In which case we just build an ark and hope to leave the mosquitoes and bedbugs behind.  

But in more realistic terms a PDF of likely scenarios would show a cluster at between 1.8 and 2.3–in fact I’ve seen a couple that look like that. Factor in a margin and build for 2.5C or even 3C, that’s all fine. Because the things we do in the first decades to ramp up are exactly the same even if sensitivity turns out to be 4C. It just doesn’t make any difference. We’ll still have to have further improvements on CAFE standards and air traffic. We’re still going to have to put the lid on coal in the developed world and help the developing countries put scrubbers on stacks. We’re still going to have to subsidize renewable energy. 

Steve Mennie, if Keith doesn’t clamp down on us maybe your mother will come rescue you from we heathen.

@74

+1

@76
“In the case where a worst case scenario drives you to make a decision where you expend resources Now ( sunk cost) on solutions that don’t work (wind and solar) you cripple your ability to employ solutions down the road when they are needed and could be effective.”

lots of interesting assumptions there Steve. Have any references to back that up?

@81
“But in more realistic terms a PDF of likely scenarios would show a cluster at between 1.8 and 2.3″“in fact I’ve seen a couple that look like that.”

“Because the things we do in the first decades to ramp up are exactly the same even if sensitivity turns out to be 4C.”

“any references for either of those assertions?

“help the developing countries put scrubbers on stacks.”

remind me again how that last one helps solve climate change, rather than make it worse?

Tom, I’ve had my differences with Marlowe too, but I’d still buy him a drink. Whether he’d want to drink with me is up to him. But he doesn’t come across as sozzled, so let’s do him the credit of assuming he is sober and answer his questions.

He doesn’t come across as rabid, either

‘Rabid’ Marlowe Johnson… It has a certain ring. It might cut the ice in a well-run prison, but I suspect not in comments here. MJ will be disconsolate, I’m sure. But such is life.

Well, have another drink, then. I’d rather play the Glad Game anyhow. You need a class in reading comprehension if you think you have described my attitude towards the climate problem. But then there is none so blind as those who will not see. The Will To Ignorance is common amongst your type–maybe that explains the drinking.As for my behaviour during the Climategate episode, I’m proud of it–and have examined it a lot, as it makes me feel good. But I’d love to see you criticize what I did–I need a laugh.

Input your comments here…I haven’t figured out the new com box. The above was originally 3 paragraphs. trying double spacelet’s see

@94

once you’ve typed in your comments click on the blue <> button to reveal html code. then make sure that there is a line space between the end of your paragraph </p> and the start of your next paragraph <p>