Pope Francis' upcoming climate change encyclical 'Laudato Sii' (Praised Be)

[estesbob]

This is not true; it is simply invention. The issue is not “trends”, but whether we can explain what is happening with the climate. The theory of AGW posits certain effects in response to specific causes, viz: more CO2 will lead to more warming. The problem of course is that we have had more CO2 but we have not had more warming. That is not a “trend” problem, it is a problem with the theory. As I have pointed out several times, even the AGW scientists recognize the issue. Why is it so hard for you to do as much?
I was referring to the quote by von Storch in 2013 when he acknowledged that if warming did not return in the next few years it would demonstrate something “fundamentally” wrong with their climate models. That wasn’t a narrow observation, and a two year old citation hardly refers to “early” models. Finally, if the models fail to represent the actual behavior of the climate, it is in fact strong evidence that the physical processes which control the climate are poorly understood…which is the position of the anti-AGW side.

Now, given all the issues raised about the accuracy of the models, how does this relate to the encyclical? What are we supposed to do when the science itself is unsettled, yet we are being “encouraged” to act as if it wasn’t? If there were doubts about the science, are those doubts any less after the encyclical than before?

Ender

And as the years go by with No warming enemies of the church will use this encyclical to attack the credibility of the church, just like they still rant and rave about Gallileo 500 years after the fact

 

[zz912]

And as the years go by with No warming enemies of the church will use this encyclical to attack the credibility of the church, just like they still rant and rave about Gallileo 500 years after the fact

It’s already happening. And it will fall upon future apologists for the Catholic faith to explain that this was not an infallible part of the encyclical. It will make it harder to bring in many to the faith who otherwise would believe in the Church, but they will see this teaching on the myth of AGW as a sign that the Church formally taught error.

 

[estesbob]

It’s already happening. And it will fall upon future apologists for the Catholic faith to explain that this was not an infallible part of the encyclical. It will make it harder to bring in many to the faith who otherwise would believe in the Church, but they will see this teaching on the myth of AGW as a sign that the Church formally taught error.

The other problem we are seeing already. Catholic Democrats claiming this encyclical gives supporting AGW the same moral importance as opposing abortion. Thus, the rationalize, they can vote for a pro-abortion pro homosexual marriage candidate over a candidate who opposes both of them if that candidate does not believe in AGW and they do.

 

[LeafByNiggle]

This is not true; it is simply invention. The issue is not “trends”, but whether we can explain what is happening with the climate.

It was not my choice to talk about trends. It was estesbob who cited the 18-20 year trend of no warming. I was only responding.

The theory of AGW posits certain effects in response to specific causes, viz: more CO2 will lead to more warming.

This is too simplistic a statement of the claims of global warming because it does not take into account the other factors that influence temperature measurements, including random ones. Scientists who advocate AGW acknowledge this.

I was referring to the quote by von Storch in 2013 when he acknowledged that if warming did not return in the next few years it would demonstrate something “fundamentally” wrong with their climate models.

That was not the quote I was thinking of, but it is interesting. I suppose you mean the 2013 interview in Der Spiegel by conducted by Olaf Stampf and Gerald Traufetter. I read the entire interview, and it does not convey the sense of ultimatum that your take-away does. von Storch seems like a very reasonable, practical, non-activist scientist whose advice we can both take.

That wasn’t a narrow observation, and a two year old citation hardly refers to “early” models. Finally, if the models fail to represent the actual behavior of the climate, it is in fact strong evidence that the physical processes which control the climate are poorly understood…which is the position of the anti-AGW side.

You seem to be using the terms “poorly” and “fail” in an absolute sense without qualification. Our understanding may be “poor”, but is it good enough? The models may have “failed”, but how badly did they fail? Von Storch points out in that same interview that longish periods of temperature stagnation did occur in 2% of the runs. That was for 15-year pauses. I suppose the incidence of 18-pauses would be somewhat lower than 2%. But these model runs do simulate random influences. That is why you can run the model simulation numerous times and get different results each time. The fact that a particular outcome occurred infrequently or not at all in a set of model runs does not mean that the theory on which the model is based absolutely precludes that particular outcome. Therefore when that outcome actually happens in real life, that does not absolutely condemn that theory. In the case of models with random (name removed by moderator)ut, it just means the model underestimated the extent of the random effects, as von Storch admitted in the interview. But one thing about random effects - they do not stay biased for ever.

Now, given all the issues raised about the accuracy of the models, how does this relate to the encyclical? What are we supposed to do when the science itself is unsettled, yet we are being “encouraged” to act as if it wasn’t? If there were doubts about the science, are those doubts any less after the encyclical than before?

Ender

The encyclical was not intended to settle any questions of science, and it does explicitly say this. I think the writing style of Pope Francis is such that any message of his needs to be considered in its totality for meaning rather than dissected into sound-bites. By focusing too narrowly on this one question of validating AGW theory, you can miss the much more important message about the duty the Pope is calling us to recognize - the duty to the world’s poor to protect the environment that we all share. Perhaps the new element to this admonition is the recognition that our personal responsibility extends even to the areas where responsibility seems to be terribly diluted - as in global warming. Previously most people thought more locally about the environment as far as their sense of responsibility goes. (As long as I am not sending toxic waste down the river, or throwing trash on the road, I am doing OK.)

 

[ucfengr]

It was not my choice to talk about trends. It was estesbob who cited the 18-20 year trend of no warming. I was only responding.

The length of the trend isn’t that important (because an 18-20 year trend is statistically zero when talking about 10,000 years of recorded history or the couple million years of unrecorded human history), it’s that the models AGW supporters rely on don’t predict it, which calls their validity into question. If the models don’t show the pause, then there ability to predict further out should be called into question as is the idea that we should be making future plans based on them.

 

[Ender]

This is too simplistic a statement of the claims of global warming {more CO2 = hotter climate} because it does not take into account the other factors that influence temperature measurements, including random ones. Scientists who advocate AGW acknowledge this.

Everyone clearly knows there are factors that influence climate other than CO2, but that hardly matters given that it is CO2 that is the concern, and virtually all of the significant mitigation efforts are directed at reducing CO2. The point is that it seems a bit late to assert, now that the data do not support the theory, that CO2 is just one of many factors.

I suppose you mean the 2013 interview in Der Spiegel by conducted by Olaf Stampf and Gerald Traufetter. I read the entire interview, and it does not convey the sense of ultimatum that your take-away does. von Storch seems like a very reasonable, practical, non-activist scientist whose advice we can both take.

Yes, that was the interview I was citing, but I disagree with your assertion about my statement. Those were von Storch’s words:*If things continue as they have been, in five years, at the latest, we will need to acknowledge that something is fundamentally wrong with our climate models.
*There is no way to spin that to get it to mean something else. If warming does not return soon it will mean there is a fundamental flaw in the models…which implies a fundamental flaw in our understanding of the climate.

You seem to be using the terms “poorly” and “fail” in an absolute sense without qualification. Our understanding may be “poor”, but is it good enough? The models may have “failed”, but how badly did they fail?

If the models are fundamentally flawed in what sense can they be considered useful?

Von Storch points out in that same interview that longish periods of temperature stagnation did occur in 2% of the runs. That was for 15-year pauses. I suppose the incidence of 18-pauses would be somewhat lower than 2%.

And 20 year pauses occur even less often.A 20-year pause in global warming does not occur in a single modeled scenario.

The encyclical was not intended to settle any questions of science, and it does explicitly say this. I think the writing style of Pope Francis is such that any message of his needs to be considered in its totality for meaning rather than dissected into sound-bites.

This is a problem, and it becomes a bit of a bait-and-switch argument. On the one hand we will be told “The pope has spoken” when the debate is general, but then when the debate focuses narrowly on the science we will be told to consider his message broadly. It’s like putting your finger on a ball of mercury; it is impossible to pin down.

By focusing too narrowly on this one question of validating AGW theory, you can miss the much more important message about the duty the Pope is calling us to recognize - the duty to the world’s poor to protect the environment that we all share.

But you know that has never been the argument. No one opposes protecting the environment, and if that was what the encyclical was about it wouldn’t have created such a stir.

Perhaps the new element to this admonition is the recognition that our personal responsibility extends even to the areas where responsibility seems to be terribly diluted - as in global warming.

This assumes that AGW is real. That is exactly the issue. What is my responsibility to solve a problem that doesn’t exist?

Ender

 

[LeafByNiggle]

The length of the trend isn’t that important (because an 18-20 year trend is statistically zero when talking about 10,000 years of recorded history or the couple million years of unrecorded human history), it’s that the models AGW supporters rely on don’t predict it, which calls their validity into question. If the models don’t show the pause, then there ability to predict further out should be called into question as is the idea that we should be making future plans based on them.

The best way to illustrate the error of your argument is to consider another hypothesis: The odds of rolling a die and getting ‘3’ is one in six. To support that hypothesis one could toss the die 6000 times and see that the number '3’s appears around 1000 times. But if you try to validate that hypothesis by tossing the die only 6 times, you might not get any '3’s. The “model” for this process says there should be exactly one ‘3’ out of six tosses. But the “model” may very well fail on short runs. Applying your argument, you would say that the model for tossing a die fails to predict the outcome in short runs, therefore the ability of this model to predict further out (i.e. 6000 tosses) should be called into question. That, of course, is nonsense. This particular model gets better and better the further out you go, and it might fail miserably for very short runs. The number of tosses is clearly a significant factor in evaluating this hypothesis.

Returning to the global warming hypothesis, we know that in addition to the systematic effect of CO2 on global temperature, there are also random effects. Just like with tossing a die, the effects of random (name removed by moderator)uts is more significant for short runs and less significant for longer runs. It is not unreasonable to put confidence in long term trends even though shorter term trends are not well-predicted.

As for your comparison with very long term trends (10,000 years or millions of years), these patterns are of interest. But they can tell us nothing about what happens when a large amount of fossil carbon is suddenly released into the atmosphere, because that has only happened in the last 150 years or so. It is true that CO2 levels have been much higher in prehistoric times, and perhaps some facts about cause and effect can be deduced from that data too. But the rate of CO2 increase in those prehistoric periods was gradual over a much longer time span than 150 years. In that case it might be hard to tell the difference between cause and effect. Also the environment during those times was fundamentally different, so it is not exactly applicable to today’s environment. In any case, data from prehistoric times will not definitively answer the questions we are raising today.

 

[lynnvinc]

The other problem we are seeing already. Catholic Democrats claiming this encyclical gives supporting AGW the same moral importance as opposing abortion. Thus, the rationalize, they can vote for a pro-abortion pro homosexual marriage candidate over a candidate who opposes both of them if that candidate does not believe in AGW and they do.

Why don’t we all try and get the conservative candidates to own up to AGW – they could, for instance, be champions of mitigation strategies that save money without harming productivity or people’s pocketbooks.

The problem seems to be they are heavily funded by the fossil fuel industries, and I know these industries also fund Democrats to some extent, as well.

We are in this terrible dilemma – vote for someone who will hopefully reduce abortion, but lead us into serious harms to life on earth OR vote for someone who may not help us reduce abortion, but might help deflect us from running head-long into earth systems destruction.

We could also work on getting Democrats onto the anti-abortion platform.

There is a lot of work and sweat over this, terrible decisions we face.

I hope Laudato Si helps conservatives change their tune on AGW…

 

[LeafByNiggle]

Everyone clearly knows there are factors that influence climate other than CO2, but that hardly matters given that it is CO2 that is the concern, and virtually all of the significant mitigation efforts are directed at reducing CO2. The point is that it seems a bit late to assert, now that the data do not support the theory, that CO2 is just one of many factors.

Although it is an overstatement to say the CO2 must immediately produce higher global temperatures, it is also an understatement to say the CO2 is just one of many factors. The random factors, in particular, have a more prominent effect of shorter term measurements. The CO2 signature may be totally obscured and overwhelmed by random effects in the short term, but over the longer term, the random effects tend to average out to zero, and the signature of any systematic effects (like increased CO2) will eventually dominate the outcome. Besides random effects there may be other systematic effects, like cloud cover. Many of these other factors are outside of our control. So even if they have a major effect on global temperature, there is nothing we can do about them anyway. In the end, it all comes down to a decision of cost-effectiveness. What can we do and for how much and what will we get for it?

Yes, that was the interview I was citing, but I disagree with your assertion about my statement. Those were von Storch’s words:If things continue as they have been, in five years, at the latest, we will need to acknowledge that something is fundamentally wrong with our climate models.
There is no way to spin that to get it to mean something else. If warming does not return soon it will mean there is a fundamental flaw in the models…which implies a fundamental flaw in our understanding of the climate.
If the models are fundamentally flawed in what sense can they be considered useful?
And 20 year pauses occur even less often.A 20-year pause in global warming does not occur in a single modeled scenario.

In the very next paragraph he also says:
There are two conceivable explanations – and neither is very pleasant for us. The first possibility is that less global warming is occurring than expected because greenhouse gases, especially CO2, have less of an effect than we have assumed. This wouldn’t mean that there is no man-made greenhouse effect, but simply that our effect on climate events is not as great as we have believed. The other possibility is that, in our simulations, we have underestimated how much the climate fluctuates owing to natural causes.
You may be rooting for the first explanation (and frankly I hope that is the case too), but he also allows for a second explanation that is not so comforting.

If the models are fundamentally flawed in what sense can they be considered useful?

If the “fundamental flaw” was in underestimating natural causes that might be temporarily cancelling out the effects of CO2, that would explain the pause without doing away with the eventual outcome of higher global temperatures.

This is a problem, and it becomes a bit of a bait-and-switch argument. On the one hand we will be told “The pope has spoken” when the debate is general, but then when the debate focuses narrowly on the science we will be told to consider his message broadly. It’s like putting your finger on a ball of mercury; it is impossible to pin down.

That is nothing new. For example, the Church tells us we have a duty to perform acts of charity, especially during Lent. But if you try to get the Church to tell you exactly how much money you need to give to to whom, you find that the Church leaves that up to the prudential judgement of the faithful. This is no way detracts from the general message of our duty to charity.

But you know that has never been the argument. No one opposes protecting the environment, and if that was what the encyclical was about it wouldn’t have created such a stir.

I’m not sure that protecting the environment is so universally recognized. Pope Francis apparently thought it was not getting enough recognition. Here is a borderline case that might not seem obvious (and which has nothing to do with climate change): What about the discarded electronics that we send to China for recycling? When those e-waste contaminates pollute the soil and the water and the people in China, is that their problem? Or do we bear some of the responsibility for generating that waste in the first place?

 

[ucfengr]

The best way to illustrate the error of your argument is to consider another hypothesis: The odds of rolling a die and getting ‘3’ is one in six. To support that hypothesis one could toss the die 6000 times and see that the number '3’s appears around 1000 times. But if you try to validate that hypothesis by tossing the die only 6 times, you might not get any '3’s. The “model” for this process says there should be exactly one ‘3’ out of six tosses. But the “model” may very well fail on short runs. Applying your argument, you would say that the model for tossing a die fails to predict the outcome in short runs, therefore the ability of this model to predict further out (i.e. 6000 tosses) should be called into question. That, of course, is nonsense. This particular model gets better and better the further out you go, and it might fail miserably for very short runs. The number of tosses is clearly a significant factor in evaluating this hypothesis.

That doesn’t actually illustrate the error at all. It’s pretty easy to model the throw of a single dice, because I can consider all the variables except number of sides as negligible and come up with a pretty good simulation. You can’t do that with climate modeling because the other variables can’t be neglected.

 

[LeafByNiggle]

That doesn’t actually illustrate the error at all. It’s pretty easy to model the throw of a single dice, because I can consider all the variables except number of sides as negligible and come up with a pretty good simulation. You can’t do that with climate modeling because the other variables can’t be neglected.

All that shows is that climate modeling is more complex than tossing a 6-sided die. But you weren’t arguing about complexity back then. You were arguing that short-term failures should cast doubt on longer-term projections. I showed that that argument is not always valid. That is true whether the subject is simple or complex. Now if you want to launch a separate argument that climate science is too complex to model with any practical utility, then go right ahead.

 

[lynnvinc]

As cute as your pirate graph is, it is lacking one thing that global warming theory has, and that is a plausible scientific mechanism for the correlation to be elevated to the level of causation. The observed correlations are not the basis of the theory. They are ony confirmation of the theory.

Actually I think there is a relationship (tho the one between warming & pirates is spurious) in that both the warming and the # of pirates has to do with the increasing industrialization and wealth, which have produced more CO2 emissions, which is producing the warming, AND more wealth that pirates would be interested in stealing

I think I’ll use that in my stats class – sort of getting tired of the more storks correlates with more babies one (they both are due to rural areas, where people have more children and there are more storks)

 

[Theo520]

The best way to illustrate the error of your argument is to consider another hypothesis: The odds of rolling a die and getting ‘3’ is one in six. To support that hypothesis one could toss the die 6000 times and see that the number '3’s appears around 1000 times. But if you try to validate that hypothesis by tossing the die only 6 times, you might not get any '3’s. The “model” for this process says there should be exactly one ‘3’ out of six tosses. But the “model” may very well fail on short runs. Applying your argument, you would say that the model for tossing a die fails to predict the outcome in short runs, therefore the ability of this model to predict further out (i.e. 6000 tosses) should be called into question. That, of course, is nonsense. This particular model gets better and better the further out you go, and it might fail miserably for very short runs. The number of tosses is clearly a significant factor in evaluating this hypothesis.

Throwing dice is a very poor analogy, a better one would be to compare the projections on firing long range artillery or maybe ballistic missiles. They take into account all the variables, including varying friction/resistance and force of gravity (change with altitude), wind, and even rotation of the earth.

Even after a limited number of shots, if they consistently and completely miss the target range, in the same direction, they admit the error of their assumptions and make revisions. The most definitely don’t tell the generals to “trust us, were trained engineers and our formulas are infallible. We promise we won’t miss the very precise military target and hit the surrounding population center”

In the real world outside climate science, people are held accountable for their errors.

Returning to the global warming hypothesis, we know that in addition to the systematic effect of CO2 on global temperature, there are also random effects. Just like with tossing a die, the effects of random (name removed by moderator)uts is more significant for short runs and less significant for longer runs. It is not unreasonable to put confidence in long term trends even though shorter term trends are not well-predicted.

If the ‘random effects’ are causing you to completely miss your projections, then the science is hardly settled. The random effects need to be understood and incorporated.

 

[Ender]

Although it is an overstatement to say the CO2 must immediately produce higher global temperatures, it is also an understatement to say the CO2 is just one of many factors. The random factors, in particular, have a more prominent effect of shorter term measurements. The CO2 signature may be totally obscured and overwhelmed by random effects in the short term, but over the longer term, the random effects tend to average out to zero, and the signature of any systematic effects (like increased CO2) will eventually dominate the outcome.

No one has suggested that the effect of CO2 is immediate; this is another whole cloth creation. As for CO2 being one of many factors, well that’s the question, isn’t it? AGW claims it is much more than that but the climate won’t cooperate with the assertion. Finally, you are arguing against the position taken by the scientists on your own side regarding the significance of the current warming hiatus. They have clearly stated that a 20 year period without warming is significant. If you don’t accept what your scientists say why should we take them seriously either?

If the “fundamental flaw” was in underestimating natural causes that might be temporarily cancelling out the effects of CO2, that would explain the pause without doing away with the eventual outcome of higher global temperatures.

Either way it demonstrates we do not understand what effects the climate and by how much, and that the claim the science is settled is utterly spurious, which calls into even greater question the appropriateness of an encyclical taking sides on a scientific question open to such doubt.

For example, the Church tells us we have a duty to perform acts of charity, especially during Lent. But if you try to get the Church to tell you exactly how much money you need to give to to whom, you find that the Church leaves that up to the prudential judgement of the faithful. This is no way detracts from the general message of our duty to charity.

Yes, but that is the opposite of what has happened here, where we are in fact being told what we are to support. This decision is absolutely not being left to our prudential judgment.

I’m not sure that protecting the environment is so universally recognized.

If that message was in there it was overwhelmed and lost by the existence of his other message that AGW is true and we are to support it.

Ender

 

[zz912]

Quote:
Originally Posted by estesbob View Post

The other problem we are seeing already. Catholic Democrats claiming this encyclical gives supporting AGW the same moral importance as opposing abortion. Thus, the rationalize, they can vote for a pro-abortion pro homosexual marriage candidate over a candidate who opposes both of them if that candidate does not believe in AGW and they do.

We are in this terrible dilemma – vote for someone who will hopefully reduce abortion, but lead us into serious harms to life on earth OR vote for someone who may not help us reduce abortion, but might help deflect us from running head-long into earth systems destruction.

We could also work on getting Democrats onto the anti-abortion platform.

Right on cue…

 

[ralfyman]

Integral ecology is spot-on. And given multiple global crises, that idea will become increasingly relevant.

 

[Michael_Mayo]

**International report confirms: 2014 was Earth’s warmest
year on record

Climate markers continue to show global warming trend**

noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2015/071615-international-report-confirms-2014-was-earths-warmest-year-on-record.html

 

[estesbob]

**International report confirms: 2014 was Earth’s warmest
year on record

Climate markers continue to show global warming trend**

noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2015/071615-international-report-confirms-2014-was-earths-warmest-year-on-record.html

After some judicious adjusting of prior year’s numbers and upward adjustments of this year’s numbers they managed to squeeze out an alleged two hundreds of 1 degree increase in temperature . How did 2014’s temperatures compared to the models that were put together in 1998 when they’re telling us unless we imposed massive new taxes and regulations we were doomed ?

 

[lynnvinc]

After some judicious adjusting of prior year’s numbers and upward adjustments of this year’s numbers they managed to squeeze out an alleged two hundreds of 1 degree increase in temperature . How did 2014’s temperatures compared to the models that were put together in 1998 when they’re telling us unless we imposed massive new taxes and regulations we were doomed ?

I think they should only impose those taxes on the climate change denialists

Of course that won’t do a bit of good, since the denialists will just pay the higher taxes and continue to pollute as much as they possibly can, without a thought to reducing their pollution and harms (and saving money in the process). Some will even increase their pollution out of spite.

Such taxes would only serve to slightly satisfy the need for a sense of justice, but without the beneficial results intended or hoped for.

So basically we’re still doomed, even with the taxes.

 

[estesbob]

I think they should only impose those taxes on the climate change denialists

Of course that won’t do a bit of good, since the denialists will just pay the higher taxes and continue to pollute as much as they possibly can, without a thought to reducing their pollution and harms (and saving money in the process). Some will even increase their pollution out of spite.

Such taxes would only serve to slightly satisfy the need for a sense of justice, but without the beneficial results intended or hoped for.

So basically we’re still doomed, even with the taxes.

You may be doomed-Im not. But them I have never bought into the upwards to a dozen “the world is going to end if you don’t give me more money” scenarios that have been pushed forward in my lifetime. If people want to buy into this nonsense that is their right but please don’t ask me to fund their fantasies.