December 17, 2009
Psychoanalyse This
Greeted with the news that Copenhagen is stalling because delegates can’t agree to points of procedure, one has to ask what’s really going on. Could it be that ministers are (subconsciously) sabotaging the process so as to avoid having to face tough, unpopular decisions on the substance?
Similarly it’s time to ask what’s up with our home-grown climate change deniers. Faced with the evidence, one would be tempted to say that many of them are just stupid. After all the scientific facts are so overwhelmingly against them, and the improbability of AGW being either a conspiracy or an illusion so enormous, how could anybody deny that climate change is the single biggest threat facing humanity?
With some “commentators” and “opinion formers”, the label of outright idiocy seems to suffice. Mad Mel, as previously noted, is both thick and nasty. Someone like Lord Monckton appears to avoid the thicko label at first. After all, he publishes long-winded pseudo- explanations of why AGW is bunk (armed with his degree in, erm, classics). Then again, there comes a point when an individual’s staggering arrogance that they are right whilst (virtually) the entire scientific community is wrong shades off into stupidity, albeit of an especially hubristic kind.
But it’s hard to categorise all AGW deniers as idiots. Iain Dale, for example, can be extremely erudite and incisive when he chooses to be. I’ve seen him debate, and the man is sharp and intellectually very capable. Similar things must be said of Tim Montgomerie: he’s one climate sceptic it’s unrealistic to categorise as stupid. Fraser Nelson – regardless of his attention-seeking flirtations with AIDs denialism – hardly comes across as thick.
Yet to entertain, as all the above do, some of the sheer nonsense that climate sceptics spout is hard to comprehend. Could Tim Montgomerie really believe that a good argument against AGW – which he ran on his website – consists of simply noting that
“Peter Lilley MP said last month that “fewer people in Britain than in any other country believe in the importance of global warming. That is despite the fact that our Government and our political class—predominantly—are more committed to it than their counterparts in any other country in the world”.
Can Dale really believe that the non-sequiturs and conspiracy-fuelled lunacy that pervade his blog constitute anything like a reasonable response to the overwhelming body of scientific evidence? Ditto for Nelson and the Spectator website. And to pick on another example, does Nigel Lawson – former Chancellor and Oxford graduate – really believe that economic measures to halt climate change would be more destructive than, you know, the collapse of the global ecosystem?
It’s all a little confusing. But there is a potential explanatory hypothesis: that these prominent deniers aren’t stupid at all, for they know exactly what they’re doing. Although poll data on popular perceptions of climate change is mixed, there is no doubt an electoral market for those who’d rather believe AGW is not happening. That we can all go back to adopting the ostrich position and avoiding difficult sacrifices. And think of the political capital this might yield: Labour doom-and-gloom with tax rises and consumption curbs, vs. Tory narratives of don’t worry everything is fine, no sacrifices needed it’s all just a tax-hiking conspiracy. When it comes to winning elections in the short term, the latter message could be highly successful.
But if that’s what leading Tory deniers are up to, then a simple conclusion emerges: that they are the very worst sorts of people. The sort who lie, manipulate and distort the truth about a potentially humanity-destroying crisis so as to put their favoured party into power.
Of course, if they don’t like that conclusion there’s always the alternative of admitting they are too stupid to make sense of the science, and don’t really know what’s going on. But if that’s the case, they ought at least to have the decency to bow out and let others get on with finding solutions.
Dave Semple said,
December 17, 2009 at 6:47 pm
I don’t see any reason why it must be one or the other, that these people know they are wrong and are deluding others, or that they are stupid.
You and I (and forgive me if I take liberties here) invest the traditional ‘elites’ of science with authority. We trust them to be right and honest about their research. This is not necessarily the case with others, and it’s not about stupidity unless one can’t be wrong without in some way impugning one’s own intelligence.
The question of which groups of people or which institutions individuals vest with authority is a question of ideology, rather than stupidity or duplicity.
Paul Sagar said,
December 17, 2009 at 6:56 pm
Dave, you are of course right about the logic of available positions. I guess I’m just sceptical that Dale, Mont, Nelson et al have such radically different world views to us that they simply don’t recognize or cognicize the authority if scientists in matters of, erm, science.
Hence I’m disposed to be more cynical about their motives. Though of course there may be an element of resentful-distrust of authorities whose expertise one doesn’t understand and whose (potential) power one is therefore jealous/suspicious at work as well.
So point taken, but I don’t think it can knock out my cynicism.
Dave Semple said,
December 17, 2009 at 7:00 pm
Oh no, totally I’m with you. They’re all lying scumbags sucking on the corporate teat.
Dan said,
December 17, 2009 at 10:15 pm
Though of course there may be an element of resentful-distrust of authorities whose expertise one doesn’t understand and whose (potential) power one is therefore jealous/suspicious at work as well.
From where I stand, it’s not so much that I don’t understand the expertise of the authorities in climate science as that the whole field has become inextricably politicized. When that happens, I think that reflecting on the kinds of incentives that the working scientists face (for instance, it is not going to be to find that climate change isn’t happening, or that it is harmless even if it is) ought to lower the level of credence one places in the findings. I’m obviously not saying we should discount them entirely, just that it is worth being, well, sceptical. (I think this applies particularly strongly when vested interests start getting seriously on board. For example I don’t see how anyone can look at, say, the cap and trade bill in the US and still believe that it is not designed primarily to enrich certain politically well-connected corporations rather than save the planet. I realize you think that it’s in the interest of big corporations to minimize rather than emphasize the significance of climate change, but I don’t think you fully understand how much they stand to gain when they manage – as they inevitably will – to use it as another way of extracting rents.)
Paul Sagar said,
December 17, 2009 at 11:35 pm
Ok Dan, when your ideology starts carrying you to the point where even climate change and the disparate influences prevalent upon thousands of scientists across twenty years is reduced to the malign influence of government and big corporations then it’s time to ask if you’ve become a wild ideologue unable to view the world without a seriously distorting prism.
Sure, there’s reasons to be sceptical about specific policies and actors’ intentions. But you seem to be translating that up to general AGW scepticism.
But if course, AGW must be a particular bette noir for your tribe. For who but governments could prevent disaster?the nightwatchmanand it’s small free Market agents can’t halt this one…
Paul Sagar said,
December 17, 2009 at 11:36 pm
Slightly drunk, apologies for shit reply
Dan said,
December 18, 2009 at 12:33 am
Sure, there’s reasons to be sceptical about specific policies and actors’ intentions. But you seem to be translating that up to general AGW scepticism.
Well, for a start, I never said that. If I had to put a subjective probability on mainstream climate science being right about AGW, it would probably be about .6 or .7. But you’re right that at the same time I am damn sceptical about the incentive structures at play in academia. Both my parents are working scientists, and I think I have a pretty good rough idea of how the sociology of science works. Although in some cases it fits the model of the dispassionate search for truth quite well, I can only image how badly this breaks down in cases where the science gets politicised – and I don’t think there is any way to argue that CC science is not politicised.
Imagine, counterfactually if you insist, that a competent climate scientist has research that suggests AGW is overblown or mistaken. What do his career prospects look like if he goes ahead and publishes? How will he get funding in the future? These are the kind of worries I have when people start talking about “consensus”, and to put it mildly they are not exactly lessened when I see the kind of emails coming out of the CRU.
But if course, AGW must be a particular bette noir for your tribe. For who but governments could prevent disaster?the nightwatchmanand it’s small free Market agents can’t halt this one…
On the contrary, I would have very little problem if it was done right, say if carbon emissions were taxed so that the externality was internalized and then we let the market do its thing. Even better would be a tax on activity which according to our best scientific estimates contributes to a movement away from some ideal global temperature; of course the flip side would be a subsidy on activity which causes a movement towards it, and I imagine once people get wind of the massive sums they stand to gain from stabilizing things we’d see some pretty innovative solutions that governments wouldn’t have come up with in a million years.
But no, we aren’t going to get any of these policies that might actually solve the problem, because actually existing governments are simply going to use it as an excuse for arrogating more power for themselves and handing ever increasing sums to their corporate buddies. Look very closely at the US cap and trade bill, because that is the sort of thing we are going see a lot more of in the future.
Paul Sagar said,
December 18, 2009 at 10:17 am
Re science etc, surely the question is how we get to consensus points in the first place? AGW theories started up, what, 20 years ago? And steadily virtually everyone in the field has come around to it. Now you could explain that by politicised incentives. Except, where does that incentive come from and how does it operate? I mean, what incentive was there for scientists to spend the last 20 years gradually coming to a consensus that the world is fucked? It’s not like governments are exactly keen to do anything about it – look how weak, pathetic and ineffectual cap n trade is, and as far as I’m aware most climate scientists don’t see it as a viable solution.
Furthermore, the politicised measures like US cap n trade come way, way down the line from the broad consensus emerging, so I don’t see how they could have fostered a false consensus. Your story about the lone scientist who wants to protect his or her career so doesn’t publish sceptical findings about AGW may be plausible now, but it hardly explains how we got to now. (And it leaves aside the fact that many previous scientists to have been AGW sceptic were decidedly partial because of the silver they’d been taking). It just seems to me overwhelmingly likely that AGW is happening, and that we’re tossing around pointlessly debating the fine points of incentive structures at this point.
And furthermore, let’s look at it this way: we can either take effective measures, or not take effective measures. If AGW turns out to have been false, well, we may have made economic sacrifices and reduced our ostentatious standards of living in the west (and I don’t know re developing nations, that’s trickier) but we get to go on existing and so does the planet. But if AGW is happening, and we don’t take effective measures. Well then we are really fucked.
Anyway, regarding your point about taxes used to internalise the externalities and create market solutions to the problem, I actually agree that this should be a big part of any viable solution. Of course individual innovators are more likely to come up with “organic” (shall we say) workable solution on a problem like this than clunking central government. Ideally, we need some sort of market situation where American and German technology is profit-incentivised to come up with machines that pull the fucking stuff back out of the air. I can’t honestly see measures to reduce carbon by trading emissions and switching to “green” lifestyles will be able to have a big or quick enough impact to make the difference. Though certainly, what you propose would be better than the nothing-shit that’s on the table at the moment.
I guess I’m just sceptical that the sort of market-interference – and the levels that might be required of e.g. manipulation of individual consumption patterns by government – we’ll need to save the planet are really compatible with a libertarian conception of the state.
But that’s a non-falsifiable postulation, and no doubt you may disagree. Or you may (quite legitimately) point out that saving the planet in the short term trumps state minimalism.
But then, I still want to say that AGW throws up some particular problems for libertarians. Then again, it’s not like your utopian vision of the world is ever going to come about so this is all rather academic…
Paul Sagar said,
December 18, 2009 at 10:20 am
…except in Alberta, I suppose.
Copenhagen and Christmas; Carnival of Socialism #45 « Though Cowards Flinch said,
December 19, 2009 at 9:23 am
[...] stemming from Copenhagen, there’s meta-coverage on the media and green issues. There are two articles over at Paul Sagar’s Bad Conscience. Hopi Sen is pretty appalled. Sunny Hundal suggests that [...]
rogerthesurf said,
January 18, 2010 at 1:44 am
There might be global warming or cooling but the important issue is whether we, as a human race, can do anything about it.
There are a host of porkies and not very much truth barraging us everyday so its difficult to know what to believe.
I think I have simplified the issue in an entertaining way on my blog which includes some issues connected with climategate and “embarrassing” evidence.
In the pipeline is an analysis of the economic effects of the proposed emission reductions. Watch this space or should I say Blog
http://www.rogerfromnewzealand.wordpress.com
Please feel welcome to visit and leave a comment.
Cheers
Roger
PS The term “porky” is listed in the Australian Dictionary of Slang.( So I’m told.)