Re: What Does this Graph Mean to You?

As I understand it, this graph is the revision of the famous hockey stick graph. Apparently the algorithm that produced the original hockey stick would create a hockey stick out of any data set. So now we have this graph.

I really don't know enough about statistics or the methodology to say whether this graph is accurate. Lets suppose for a second it is. The red line represents the scientist best guess at earth temperature for the last 1000 years. The gray area represents the margin of error for this measurement.

I think it's interesting how little this graph tells us. You could say the following about the graph, all of which are true:

1. Data indicate that the earth's temperature has been rising since industrialization.
2. Data indicate that the earth's temperature will continue to rise.
3. Data are inconclusive as to temperature trends in the last 1,000 years.
4. Data are consistent with no change in temperature for the last 1,000 years.
5. Data are consistent with slight decline in temperature for the last 1,000 years.

What does this Graph Mean to You?

Reading the Tree Rings

If the majority of the world's most top notch climatologists or whatever they're called all agree that global warming is occurring at an alarming rate and we, as men, are largely to blame and they are in fact wrong,that really it's just a big media-hyped farce (like witches in Salem) why are all these scientists in agreement? What's their motive? Why do they want to squash dissent (or maybe they don't, maybe that's just the media). In other words, what's in it for them to lie or to distort or to exaggerate?

I've asked this question to people smarter than me before and they've said something along the lines of: so they can keep getting gov. funding for their science projects. It's easier for me to see the motives of the few scientists who say man isn't causing or quickly accelerating global warming--most of them (correct me if I'm wrong) are funded by oil companies. Link.

I looooove the East Anglia climategate story.  

Deference to experts is a logical fallacy. So is attacking motives instead of arguments. 

But in case you really did think that climatologists were some sort of impartial arbiters of fact and truth, I'm glad you are now totally disabused of this notion. Whatever motivates them, it is now very clear that they are, in fact, ideologues committed to stifling dissent.

Of course, that doesn't mean they are necessarily wrong.

Global warming alarmist who want the world's inhabitants to significantly reduce their carbon foot prints have the burden of proving their case. They need to show, with some degree of certainty, 1) the earth is warming, 2) it is, at least partially, caused by man (anthropogenic) 3) warming is bad, 4) it's bad enough that it justifies a drastic reduction in our standard of living 5) technology will not be able to solve the problem. Only if they can prove all of these does it make sense to dramatically reduce our use of hydrocarbons without a adequate substitute.

I could never get past one. Not that I know the earth isn't getting warmer; just that I doubt that anyone can accurately measure or show that it is. I agree with Derbyshire, that measuring the earth's temperature within one tenth of a degree is basically a fool's errand. And it's not just the temperature now, but the temperature going back hundreds of years from different points all over the earth, measured from ice cores and tree rings, etc. 

A lot of smart scientists do seem to think that the earth is getting warmer and that the warming is caused by man. And even though that has no bearing on the merits, it certainly makes the theory of global warming seem more plausible. However, we now know that the original East Anglia temperature data was deleted, and that even the data Anglia kept was inadequate and improperly processed. So, did this consensus of  scientist come from each individual scientist collecting his own data, or are they relying on the "treated" data from the likes of East Anglia?

UPDATE: There is also some money to be had and influence to be peddled by being a climate change believing scientist (again, not that this means they are wrong). See here and here.

Climate Change as Macroeconomics

Here's a graph showing the projected unemployment rate with the stimulus (dark blue), the projected unemployment rate without the stimulus (light blue) and then the actual unemployment rate with the stimulus (red dots).

Is the stimulus working? You wouldn't think so after looking at this graph. In fact, according to the graph, not only are we worse off than we should be with the stimulus, we're also worse off than we should have been without the stimulus. The graph seems to suggests that, not only did the stimulus not help, it actually hurt the economy.

But the counter argument is simple: The predictions were wrong! The economy was much worse than thought when the Obama administration make it's unemployment projections, and unemployment actually would have been much higher without the stimulus.

Of course, with this we-underestimated-the size-of-the-problem argument always at hand, there's no real way to determine whether the stimulus is actually working. (Greg Mankiw already made this same point much better than I can, here.)

This same prove-me-wrong problem applies to climate change science, too. It could be that human activity is changing the temperature on earth, even though the earth's temperature has steadied in the last few years. But for human activity, the earth might have cooled significantly during that period. Instead, the human interference may kept the temperature of the earth artificially high. Or the affect of human activity might simply be sporactic warming such that we shouldn't expect the earth to warm consistently (although from what I've read I understand that most models predict consistent, gradual warming).

Because of these uncertainties, there is basically no way to prove or disprove anthropogenic global warming, just as there is no way to prove or disprove the effect of the stimulus. We simply don't have any scientifically rigorous way of controlling for all of the other factors that can affect the variable we are trying to measure.

That's ok. Both economics and climatology still provide useful ways of organizing and thinking about the world. But from now on, let's give climatologists the same credence we give economists.