good reads from down under

In the wake of the floods this Spring and the continued uncertainty over the Federal government, the issue of climate change continues to be more central within Australian politics than to other jurisdictions where it has quietly slid on to the back burner (and beyond in some instances).  In a policy climate that continues to be volatile, it is gratifying that this week two postings emerged that illustrate a balanced and credible delineation of the issues.

The first is a post on Roger Pielke Jr.'s blog by Neville Nicholls which discusses the causes of the recent extreme rainfall in E. Australia. He concludes that the cause was the record La Nina event, but, no, that event is not related to AGW, nor was it driven by human induced climate change. Moreover, to conflate the true cause, the extreme ENSO, with AGW-related aspects of global warming, is not scientifically credible.

The second  was over at Judith Curry's blog and was an essay by Don Aitkin on the current state of the climate debate.  Aitken offers a wonderfully balanced summation of the contrasting perspectives of both the supporters of the AGW orthodoxy and its dissenters, offering a description of the myriad a variants inhabiting both broad perspectives.  Along the way, he offers an accurate asse4ssment of why the climate debate has faded from both public and political centrality over the past 2 yrs. and the challenges that the invigorated blogosphere discussion of climate presents to another orthodoxy, that of academic peer review.

Too often discussion and perspective are subsumed within a morass of confirmation bias, ideology and self-interest.  These two posts illustrate that intellectual discussion does not have to be that way.

embedding myths

It has long been a contention of mine that ecomyths are embedded into public consciousness by ideologues, who are often well intentioned but usually are intellectual elites seeking to impose on the world their notion of what is correct, required and necessary for others.  They are stasists in thought and method and the very antithesis of the dynamism necessary for the implementation of sustainability.

Of course, such elites merely espouse sustainability as a construct: they have no real allegiance nor commitment to human sustainability, freedom or development.  No, ecomyths exist primarily as a tool for their own exercise of control, the desire to exert power of the direction and characteristic of the life others should lead.

Two examples today of how:

• ecomyths become embedded in the public domain
• elites use a selective interpretation of science as an apparent imperative to justify their ideology and,
• the politics of eco-activism, governance and intellectual elitism, are mutually reinforcing elements that drive stasism.

The first example describes the mis-use and abuse of science by eco-activists in a demarketing campaign designed to stigmatize fish farming, embedding in the process the well-worn ecomyths of toxic pollution, health risks and the anti-environment narrative of commerce and technological advancement (even when that progress provides employment, food and health benefits).

The second is the latest in a series of articles debunking the myth of obesity.  It suggests that

• obesity crusaders remain unaware that there is an absence of scientific evidence to support their assertions

and

• the success of the obesity crusade rests not on the truth of its science, but on the way in which the obesity entrepreneurs use that science to change policy.

The policy fields vary tremendously but the defining characteristics do not:

• a self-appointed and self-serving coterie of aspiring officials, bureaucrats, politicians and activists
• funding an ambitious cadre of scientists
• a compliant and non-intrusive media
• a phalanx of celebrity enablers, and 
• a mutual distaste for, and disregard of the masses, their thoughts and values and livelihood.

There is no large scale conspiracy here. Just the latest manifestation of the centuries old imposition of elite ideology on the rest of society.  The only difference is that the tools are now the very implements and features of enlightenment that were meant to remove the imposition of oppression: information, science, media, literacy, democracy.

There is, however, one crucial difference between today and previous generations: the masses are neither ignorant nor compliant.  As with climate, the continued mis-use and abuse of science will only serve to remove the trust the masses place in those elites who hide behind ecomyths to justify their policies.  Politicians are right to be wary of the Tea Party and its local variants.  Academics are wise to be wary of blogs and peer to peer accountability. Freedom is indeed scary to those who wish to impose power over people rather than empower them.

caught with the hand in the cookie jar...

There are those who still contend that Climategate was (a) a theft  (b) much ado about nothing and (c) confirmed as such by the "independent inquiries" that have "exonerated" the leading protagonists of the climatocracy revealed by the emails to have fatally corrupted the IPCC process in subservience to the interests of the CRU/Team.  Some are trolls who pop up on blogs, repeat their mantra, throw in a snide ad hominem remark and then retreat back to their morally superior perches of privilege and ignorance.  Still worse are those in the larger academy who ignore the whole affair in the hopes that no one will see that the behaviours and actions of the climate coterie are not that unusual within the venal corridors of higher education.  Indeed, as long as those activities bring substantial amounts of funding and prestige, they are both officially sanctioned and praised by administrators who view the academy as them and professors as mere minions to serve at the administrators' directive.

Feigned ignorance just got more difficult. Denial of inquiry whitewashing and soft-pedalling just got more difficult. Defence of the Team and its actions just got more difficult.  Academic endorsement by subtle, tacit acceptance of the necessity of the Team's actions just got more difficult. 

Just as Climategate confirmed much of what skeptics had alleged and criticised about the IPCC process, the antics of CRU and the bully, expertise politics of the climatocracy, so there are now revelations and confirmation that indeed, emails were deleted by request, truth was obscured and that the inquiries established to root out these issues, did not do this job.

Simply put: the game is up and sooner or later it will get very messy and legal.

Any academic now has a final chance to demonstrate and rescue their intellectual and personal integrity.  To continue to ignore, excuse and otherwise endorse the actions of the Team in the development and promotion of the Hockey Stick meme is to lose any pretense of objectivity and self-respect.

Cartoons by Josh.

theory vs. practice redux

Theory is interesting.  It starts with someone's ideas, intuition or ideology.  It builds momentum using selective data until the point it becomes an accepted, axiomatic construct, the mainstream narrative.  It can only be challenged by a counter explanation, but the counter explanation requires far more evidenciary traction and explanation than the original hunch, guess or bias because that prevailing theory has now become the dogma with which people have emotional investment.

Let's deviate away from the strict ecomyth to illustrate this dynamic and use instead the housing and financial mess in the US as an exemplar.  Most know of the situation but rely on either the mainstream media or their selected on-line sources for their understanding of the actual circumstances and explanatory constructs: why let facts interfere with confirmation bias?  Moreover, in this like many other situations, our actual knowledge tends to be indirect and subject to ideological interpretation.  Despite this, there is a dominant narrative, a theory that has gained acceptance as the "correct" explanation for what happened.

But what if these are not in a strict sense, fully accurate? Truthful, but only in the details, not the intent and not so far as the origins of the crisis?  We only get the facts we ask for.

Here is an alternative explanation that does look to cause.

And, here is an actual example of the dynamic in play with its results.

If nothing else, Obama will leave the US presidency with at least one clear legacy: crony capitalism as the new community.  

The art in politics, as always, is selling the people on the narrative of what you claim to be doing and not on its substantive details.  

The art of the myth.

The difference between theory and practice is greater in practice than in theory...

The title for this post comes from a reply to a comment in response to this post by Willis Eschenbach.

As with many people I am familiar with in the blogosphere, I have never met Willis in person.  Indeed, I know of him only through his posts at Climate Audit, at WUWT and at Climate Etc..  He has always impressed me with his insight, his candor and his constructive ideas.  In short, Willis thinks rather than merely reciting from dogma. Thus, I was very intrigued to get his back story and impressed that he took the time to reply to all the anonymous and sometimes very personal attacks at him personally as a result of his sharing his ideas.

Shaw once said that youth was wasted on the young.  I think if he was alive today, he might be tempted to say that education is wasted on academics.   An educated mind should be an open mind.  It is one of life's most perplexing paradoxes for me that so many academics are closed minded.

Willis puts many in the discussion of climate and environmental change to shame.  The dialogue would indeed be that much more engaging and productive if all involved were as sanguine.  Having letters after your name does not make you smart, informed nor enlightened.  It should, however, confer a requirement for open mindeness and intellectual curiosity.  Sadly, it does not.

The difference between theory and practice is greater in practice than in theory...

political change

Change is inherently messy.  Thus, as  much as some long to exert control over change, fearing that mess and loss of control as an inherent vice, change has a tendency to happen regardless.  Instead of fearing change as a vice, it is possible to view all change as opportunity to be embraced as the defining characteristic and purpose of human existence: we exist to change, to grow to become....Ah, but there is the rub: to become what?  It is the very uncertainty that unnerves people, especially the ruling class who view their own roles as leaders as a divine right but scorn the capability of the regular citizen to take a shift, to embrace and act morally and in good fashion.

Nowhere is this narrative of change more profound or entrenched than in politics.  Ruling elites have always sought to justify their oppression as a necessary indulgence for their essential role in firstly defining civilization (in their image, of course) and secondly, defining its maintainence (at the cost of others lives, of course).  The others ae minimized and demonized as a leaderless rabble without morality and any measure of that ultimate virtue, control.

Throughout human history, every empire has crumbled, every dictator has eventually fallen.  It has taken a long while, but finally literacy has empowered a greater majority of the world's inhabitants.  Moreover, elite regimes are no longer able to control all of the media, all of the information and all of the education.

Not to say that we, as people will not make mistakes. Mistakes are a valuable learning tool.  Change is messy.  It is imperfect, it is not controllable.  Moreover, change is not something we should seek to control: it should be something we seek to constantly create, adapt and share.  Utopian maybe, but not an elitist utopia, a democratic one.

Here is Brendan O'Neill's excellent commentary on the Libyan situation (and those in Egypt, Tunisia, Bahrain....).

The change indeed is going to come.

changing education paradigms

I blog to express my ideas around central concepts and constructs influencing the sustainability of the world.  A bit pretentious, but small goals lead to small results, so why no embrace really big, worthwhile goals like a better planet for future generations?

I write myself and I link to posts and other comments that stimulate and arouse my curiosity, inform my world and inform me.  Occasionally, I just want to link to something that requires no additional comment, but just a whole lot of reflective consideration.  Today's post is one of those.  Watch, consider and implement improved praxis:

I constantly seek to improve my own teaching praxis, which is encapsulated within this presentation.

the spencer challenge

Sometimes you lead, sometimes you follow.  With this post I am happy to follow the lead of WUWT and post the link to Roy Spencer's challenge that cuts right to the heart of the climate question:

• I’ve been picking up a lot of chatter in the last few days about the ’settled science’ of global warming. What most people don’t realize is that the vast majority of published research on the topic simply assumes that warming is manmade. It in no way “proves” it. 
• If the science really is that settled, then this challenge should be easy: 
• Show me one peer-reviewed paper that has ruled out natural, internal climate cycles as the cause of most of the recent warming in the thermometer record. 
• Studies that have suggested that an increase in the total output of the sun cannot be blamed, do not count…the sun is an external driver. I’m talking about natural, internal variability. 
• The fact is that the ‘null hypothesis’ of global warming has never been rejected: That natural climate variability can explain everything we see in the climate system.

The challenge has provoked some interesting responses. Many have objected to the reversal of the normal null hypothesis of scientific inquiry and many have simply retorted, kindergarten style, well show us how natural change precludes the effect of CO2.

I suspect that is the real purpose of Roy's challenge: to point out that AGW is not falsifiable but, instead is a presumed, axiomatic construct without refutable scientific basis.  Doesn't in itself mean it's wrong, just not a scientific imperative for global reorganization of the economy, society and the rules of scientific inquiry.

Science is a means to measure and understand things.  What those measurements mean and what we do with that understanding, are societal 
determinations: the social and political processes of decision making and not hard science.  Science, both good and bad, is but one input into societal decisions: it is not the sole determinant of those decisions.


What most activist scientists fail to realize is that politics is an exercise in power, not truth.  The truth of the science is irrelevant.  Climate science, like any science of the environment, is merely a convenient contrivance for the promotion and imposition of a particular ideological dogma. Science that promotes the advocacy of the dogma is favored, the science that challenges the dogma, marginalized.


But within democratic society, political power is exercised by the acceptance of the dominant narrative: if the mainstream, voting public sways in the belief, their trust in the dogma, then it loses its political traction, becomes a liability and the political imperative switches to an alternative narrative, with amended framing.


Because of its excessive use of authority and its presumptive use of the science, the climate dogma has spectacularly imploded as the narrative runs counter to so much of observed personal experience.  It has simply ceased to be useful as a presumptive political imperative, hence the desperate shift to recast the climate narrative as "climate disruption".


Trouble is, this time the exposition has been too fundamental for the narrative to be simply re-cast.  The very assertive power of ideological environmentalism as a political imperative is now being questioned and rejected by many, perhaps even the majority.

the ends should never justify the means

In her comments on a recent workshop in Lisbon, Judy Curry notes that:

• "Climate scientists seem frustrated by an apparent inability to communicate effectively to the public.  They seem to think that knowledge speaks to power: if we communicated better, people would do what is needed."

Does anyone else get a sense of irony from the fact that so many involved in climate science are either (a) educators or (b) government employees?  Both constituent groups would appear to have as a prerequisite good communication skills.  Is it then the skill that is lacking, or the will?  
 
Is the explanation indeed in the latter part of the quote, the presumption that knowledge is power and that the science when applied to climate is less about the understanding of fundamental truth for enlightenment and more about the imposition of power to direct behavior towards a presumptive end? 

I will suggest further that the understanding of science, post-normal science and the politicization of science as exemplified by environmentalism (including climate) is enhanced by an appreciation of the ideology guiding the politics that direct the science through its funding.
 
Reduced to a simple sound bite: the political interest in climate is a contrivance, an excuse to mandate presumptive political controls.  The science is used selectively when it supports the political agenda of economic intervention by government and behavior modification consistent with the mantra of the  environmental ideology seemingly made imperative by the selective science employed.  There is no pervasive interest in "truth", only in the science that provides the convenient answers: the control over funding and the predominance of the IPCC process, are the tools through which the conduct of science is thus "guided".  Self interest and wise career management tend to further correct the system, which is further reinforced by the normal processes of academia.  For example, personalities are enveloped into the system, as we do not do a good job of differentiating ideas from individuals.  This has the effect of furthering tribalism as individuals perceive themselves to be under attack whenever the ideas they have been promoting are queried, scrutinized or "attacked".
 
Thus, rather than extend a discussion about the relative merits of scientific method and PNS, I would suggest that all recognize the influence that both politics and ideological goals have on both the conduct of science, the framing of the questions asked of the science and the manner with which the findings of science are then communicated and received by different audiences.  The corollary is that those who engage in the debate on climate do so for a wide range of reasons: some as "pure" scientists seeking just the "truth", some as scientists seeking a particular truth, some as political activists seeking to use either sets of knowledge as an appropriate contrivance to some ends and others simply because it is the highest profile (best funded) are of research open to them: no labels, that only serves to obscure the variety of motives and activities that do exist.
 
My point is that we can either continue to identify when, where and why people agree on our understanding of the science; or we can continue to differentiate what our preferred adaptive strategies are and when, why and how they differ.  To continue to conflate the two, is to continue to confuse the primacy of the science with the exigency of the politics.  To my mind, reconciliation of the science (the means) is not possible without first neutralizing the politics (the ends).  At present, too much of the discussion of climate is characterized by the political ends justifying the scientific means.

Reflection:
much of the above commentary stems from my own reflection on this wonderful post by Ben over at Climate resistance.  He states:

• The mistake Nurse makes in his treatment of the climate debate is to imagine that it is divided over a simple claim that ‘climate change is happening’. It is this polarisation of the debate into simple categories — scientists verses deniers — which obscures the real substance of debate, its context, and its nuances. The reality is that climate change is a matter of degree, not a matter of true versus false. From this question of degree emerge points of disagreement about the likely material consequences of warming, each of which are also questions of degree. And from these consequences emerge debates about how these Nth-order effects of Nth-order effects of global warming are likely to cause problems for humans. There are then yet further debates about how best to respond effectively.

• Nurse might argue that this reorganisation of political life around environmental issues comes with the blessing of scientific authority, and that it is science which identified the need to adjust our lifestyles and economy. But the greening of domestic and international politics preceded any science. The concept of ‘sustainability’ was an established part of the international agenda long before the IPCC produced an ‘unequivocal’ consensus on climate; the IPCC was established to create a consensus for political ends. Nurse, nearly recognising science’s role in the legitimisation of such political ecology, worries about loss of trust. If scientists are not ‘open about everything they do’, he says, ‘then the conversation will be dominated by people driven by politics and ideology’. But it is already ‘driven by politics and ideology’... it’s simply that Nurse does not recognise environmentalism as political or ideological, and he does not notice himself reproducing environmental politics and ideology. The loss of trust he now observes is not the consequence of politics and ideology, but the all too visible attempt to hide it behind science and highly emotive images of catastrophe.

resources are not, they become

I have been asked by a reader to expand upon the construct that resources are not, they become. This is the base construct for all resources management and environmental policy, including sustainability, yet it remains poorly understood by many.  

The environment exists and is neutral stuff until it is transformed by human use into a resource.  This is a utilitarian definition of a resource and the corollary is that we manage resources, i.e. human use of the environment, not the environment per se.  The act of management itself is for human purposes, it is management of resources and especially, human use of those resources.  We might engineer the environment, but we manage people.

A resource is defined by four conditions:

• it is known
• a demand exists for it
• it is spatially delineated, and
• its development and production are economically viable.

All four of these conditions change with technology.  As technology advances, so does our conception and definition of the resource base.  Resources are not, they become.  And because their definiton changes with technology several important associated concepts can also be derived:

• Limits do not exist.  Long before we run out of any resource, technology will have supplanted that resource with something better, cheaper, more effective, more efficient.  Resources become obsolete, they do not become extinct.
• Intergenerational equity is a fallacy.  Because the rate of change of technology advances so rapidly (and the contemporary rate of change ever more rapidly than that of the past), we simply do not know what future generations will want or need as their resource base.
• Most appeals for conservation are unwarranted.  Because there are no permanent resource scarcities, no resource limits and no intergenerational equity, all most conservation efforts do is deprive existing populations from the advantages that exist of contemporary use of the resource base.
• Much of sustainability is predicated upon the wrong questions. The defining construct of sustainability is change, and our adaptation to the changing dynamics of the future, not the preservation of existing conditions. Because this perspective is missed,  sustainability is incorrectly framed from a stasist perspective of command and control, fear of limits and inequality, and the wrong questions are advocated as the defining characteristic for future policy.  For example, climate change has begun to morph into a wider concern for alternative energy and a call for de-carbonisation of energy production.   Yet, the central element of the most productive era of development and growth if the human condition in the past 200 years has been the provision of cheap, accessible power.  Ergo, our guiding premise ought to be: "how do we develop more cheap power in more places in a decentralized, non-polluting manner?"  The answer to that question beyond our lifetime, is not simply one of changing fuels, generating electricity with windmills or solar, replacing oil with propane or hydrogen, electric cars or hybrids.  Does anyone seriously think we will be driving a Prius or any variant on one in 2111?  No, what is needed is alternative means to produce energy: alternatives to mass produced, centralized electricity; alternatives to electricity, alternatives to the internal combustion engine, to the steam turbine.  An alternative energy, not just an alternative fuel.

Especially on my last point, too often this perspective is dismissed in a cursory manner as too idealistic, as naive, as unrealistic.  (Meanwhile those same critics are quite willing to completely destroy contemporary globalization and development in the name of prospective climate change in that same 100 year window).  

Look back to 1811.  The world traveled by horse and buggy, by sail and was powered largely by water mill and coal.  The full advent of steam power and the transformation of ocean travel and  the development of the railways had yet to occur.  Move on to 1911 and the advent of the internal combustion engine and the steam turbine, and the long-range transmission of electricity are about to underscore another full scale transformation leading to jet propulsion and nuclear power.  

Technology has not slowed, it has continued to advance, become cheaper, smaller, more effective, more efficient and finally, more equitable under contemporary globalization.  What will power the world in 100 years is unlikely to be oil, but just as with coal, we will not have run out of the stuff, just supplanted it with something more useful, more resourceful.

Not understanding the primary role of technology and, more significantly, technological change, is one of the central reason people continue to subscribe to stasist constructions of resource management and environmental policy.  Ecomyths persist as a natural consequence of this belief.  In turn, ecomyths are then used to promote the dogma of resource limits and the necessity for increased governance. Fear instills the need for stasist controls and limts.

Recognition of the full implications of the construct "resources are not, they become" enables the mind to envisage the true potential for technological transformation of resources, the absence of limits and the empowerment of all to determine their future prosperity.  It is a future that builds upon hope and a belief in the capacity for people to not only want to improve but to act on that desire through the constant innovation and creation of new technology.

Sustainability is not the suppression of change:

• Sustainability is the capacity of a system to engage in the complexities of continuous improvement consistent with deep values of human purpose. (Fullan)

Sustainability is change.