Jennifer Marohasy

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Be Very Cautious of the Precautionary Principle. A Note from J. Richard Wakefield

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Some who adhere to the global warming theory use the Precautionary Principle (PP) as a reason to act. Their claims are that even if the science is not guaranteed as to the cause and effect of our emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) that the PP dictates that we act to reduce our emissions. That is, if Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) theory has a potential to be wrong, because we cannot have 100% certainty as to the effects of our emissions of CO2, then we must act anyway because the PP applies.

Surprisingly there is no specific definition of the Precautionary Principle.**

Wikipedia has this: “The precautionary principle is a moral and political principle which states that if an action or policy might cause severe or irreversible harm to the public, in the absence of a scientific consensus that harm would not ensue, the burden of proof falls on those who would advocate taking the action.”

According to Bill Durodie in ‘An Apology for Capitalism’, “One of the more authoritative [definitions] versions comes from the 1992 Rio ‘Earth’ Summit. It contains a rather cumbersome triple negative, to the effect that not having evidence is not a justification for not taking action. If we undo a couple of the knots, then as two negatives make a positive, we are left with ‘action without evidence is justified’. That’s it, in a nutshell. The precautionary principle is, above all else, an invitation to those without evidence, expertise or authority, to shape and influence political debates. It achieves that, by introducing supposedly ethical elements into the process of scientific, corporate and governmental decision making.”

Is the use of the PP as a reason for acting to change climate change justified? The Wikipedia definition has two important aspects: morals and politics. Both of these are highly abused and twisted depending upon the political bent of the people wheedling the PP sword.

Does the PP require us to act to stop climate change? I would argue no. There are two simple reasons for this.
First, does invoking action actually change the course of climate change? According to Wiki “burden of proof falls on those who would advocate taking the action.” Thus those who advocate taking action to curb climate change need to show us that taking action will actually achieve the desired goal. It’s not like some potential new drug coming to the market where the company needs to show that it is safe. There is no action on the part of the advocates of caution there as they just prevent the drug from coming on to market. What the advocates of PP on climate change want is for positive actions to take place. This includes spending billions on things like the carbon trade system and billions more on carbon sequestering. Thus the burden of proof falls on them to show that these actions they propose will actually work, and not do more harm than good.

Second, what is the cost of the proposed actions? Does the cost of action out trump the “costs” of inaction? This is a common sidestep by those who advocate action by saying the cost of inaction will be much more. But the economy is so complex, so interdependent, that there is no way that such evidence can be shown. Furthermore, economic models are notorious for being grossly wrong, worse than climate models.

In conclusion, we should forcefully challenge any claim that the PP be used as a reason to act against climate change. We must demand that they show that the use of the PP, and their actions, can be justified.

Richard Wakefield
London, Ontario, Canada

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** Gary Marchant and Kenneth Mossman explain in their book ‘Arbitrary and Capricious: The Precautionary Principle in the European Union Courts’, (International Policy Press, 2005) that the more than sixty European Union judicial opinions mentioning the PP, with perhaps a single exemption, do not attempt to define the PP and that the European Union Courts are well aware that the PP is not defined in European Union legislation, in specific regulatory enactments, or by the EU courts themselves (pg.31).

This blog is a gathering place for people with a common interest in politics and the environment. I strive for tolerance and respect. I don’t always agree with what I publish, but I believe in giving people an opportunity to be heard. I take no responsibility for comments and hyperlinks that follow each blog post and some content may be considered offensive by some people.

Second Attempt to Deny the Medieval Warm Period: New Paper by Michael Mann

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In yesterday’s The Australian science writer Leigh Dayton claims that the northern hemisphere is hotter now than at any time in the past 1500 years. The article qualified her comment with this is “according” to the most comprehensive reconstruction of the earth’s temperature over the last two millenniums.

Dayton is referring to new research soon to be published by Michael Mann – the climate scientist credited with the now infamous 1998 “hockey stick” graph that shows a sharp uptick beginning around 1900 and that featured prominently in the 2001 IPCCs Third Assessment Report.

The graph was contested from the beginning because it did not show the medieval warm period and then
Canadians Stephen McIntyre and Ross McKitrick were unable to replicate Manns’ results and Mann initially refused to provide them with all the input data. The saga is detailed in various publications** and a chapter in Aynsley Kellow’s book ‘Science and public policy: The virtuous corruption of virtual environmental science’

I wonder how his new research by Mann has dealt with the medieval warm period ? Indeed I wonder how, after all the controversy surrounding Mann’s earlier work, Dayton can so uncritically report something so at odd with what is know about the history of Europe over the last 2,000 years.

Update: The paper is available on line
Proxy-based reconstructions of hemispheric and global surface temperature variations over the past two millennia. PNAS, September 9, 2008, vol. 105, no 36.
http://holocene.meteo.psu.edu/shared/articles/MannetalPNAS08.pdf

hat tip to Nexus 6 for the update/link.

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** The following text including citations is from Ross McKitrick’s website:

Hockey Sticks, Principal Components and Spurious Significance Geophysical Research Letters, Vol 32(3), Feb 12 2005, copyright 2005 American Geophysical Union (doi: 2004GL012750). Further reproduction or electronic distribution is not permitted. This is a preprint of the GRL paper that shows Mann’s program mines for hockey sticks and overstates the statistical significance of the final result. There have been 4 technical comments submitted to GRL in response. We submitted replies to all 4, and they were sent out for refereeing. Two of the comments have been rejected by GRL. The two that were published were accompanied by our replies. These exchanges are discussed below.

The M&M Critique of the MBH98 Northern Hemisphere Climate index: Update and Implications Energy and Environment 16(1)69-100. AVAILABLE ON-LINE AT ENERGY AND ENVIRONMENT by kind permission of the publisher. This paper shows how Mann’s results can be reconciled to our results based on handling of the PC algorithm and a Gaspe cedar ring series. We also discuss the bristlecone pines in detail and show why they should not have been included in the original data set.

“Corrigendum” by Mann, Bradley and Hughes. Nature 430, July 1, 2004 p. 105. This arose from our Materials Complaint to Nature in the winter of 2004. The story is detailed on the page about our dealings with Nature (see below–link to Archive).

“Verification of multi-proxy paleoclimate studies: A case study”. Accepted abstract for presentation at American Geophysical Union Meetings in San Francisco, December 2004. Steve travelled to the AGU in December 2004 and presented our research–this was the abstract.

“Corrections to the Mann et al (1998) Proxy Data Base and Northern Hemisphere Average Temperature Series” Energy and Environment 14(6) 751-772.
This is the paper that started the whole ball rolling!

PR Wins Top Journalism Prize

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The Victorian Government has awarded a fiction writer, Richard Flanagan, their highest award for outstanding journalism.

The judges awarded the John Curtin Prize for Journalism to Richard Flanagan for an article on “the tragedy” of Tasmania’s forests, a piece that was described by Australia’s Minister for Forests, Eric Abetz, in June last year as including 70 deliberate or inexcusable errors of fact, selective citing of fact, or twisting of facts.

The award comes just a week after Guardian journalist Nick Davies described journalism as increasingly about falsehood, distortion and propaganda at the Melbourne Writers Festival. Mr Davies has written a book on the trajedy entitled Flat Earth News.

My advice, keep reading blogs!
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Out of Control: The Tragedy of Tasmania’s Forests
Richard Flanagan, Published in The Monthly, May 2007, No. 23
http://www.themonthly.com.au/tm/?q=node/512

Hat tip to Alan Ashbarry
http://www.tasmaniapulpmill.info/home

Skinny Whales, Claim Japanese

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“Australian scientists have expressed serious doubts about a Japanese study which claims whales are losing blubber because more of them are competing for food,” according to a recent article at ABC Online. It continues,”The Japanese Government-backed study, published in the Polar Biology survey, examined more than 6,000 dead whales. It concluded that the amount of blubber on Antarctic Minke whales had declined over the past 18 years because increased numbers of whales were competing for krill and other fish.”

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This blog is a gathering place for people with a common interest in politics and the environment. I strive for tolerance and respect. I don’t always agree with what I publish, but I believe in giving people an opportunity to be heard. I take no responsibility for comments and hyperlinks that follow each blog post. Some content may be considered offensive by some people.

The Earth’s Climate is Tracking into Uncharted Territory: A Note from Andrew Glikson

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Studies of Pleistocene glacial-interglacial cycles based on sediments and ice cores back to 640 000 years (640 kyr) document abrupt initiation of global warming and cooling events over short time scales of decades to a few years, implying extreme instability of the Earth’s atmosphere, with implications for 21st century climate change projections.

Current rise rates of atmospheric radiative forcing toward ~450 ppm CO2 are tracking toward an ice-free Earth.

Time tables of carbon emission reduction targets which take little account of the rates of ice sheet melt/water feedbacks and carbon cycle feedbacks, including release of methane hydrates from sea bottom sediments and from bogs, are unlikely to be able to prevent runaway global warming on a scale similar to the last glacial terminations.

Extreme climate change events in the recent history of Earth include:

A. Intra-glacial warming cycles, termed Dansgaard-Oeschger (D-O cycles), between 80 kyr and 20 kyr, including 21 ~1470 years-long cycles, each initiated over decades-scale time frames (Figure 1). The D-O cycles are attributed to interactions between weak solar radiation maxima and ocean current systems [1, 2].

WARNING FIGURE 1 blog.jpg
Figure 1. An example of a Dansgaard-Oeschger abrupt climate event. 1 of 21 cycles during the alst ice age, 80 000 – 20 000 years-ago. Greenland ice core. From Rahmstorf, 2004.

B. Evidence for the last glacial termination based on deuterium and oxygen isotopes from the Greenland NGRIP ice core indicates sharp 3-years-long warming by 2 to 4oC at 14.7 kyr, sharp 1 year-long cooling at 12.9 kyr, and sharp 3 years-long warming at 11.7 kyr (Figure 2) [3].

WARNING FIGURE 2 blog.jpg
Figure 2. deuterium-drived determinations of temperatures from Greenland NGRIP ice core for the period 14 740 – 11 660 years-ago, displaying abrupt warming and cooling changes between the ‘oldest dryas’ cold period, Allerod and Bolling warm periods, youngest dryas cold period and the Holocene. Note transitions occur over periods of 1 – 3 years. From Steffensen et al., 2008.

C. Evidence for the last glacial termination from the Greenland GISP-2 ice core, based on Nitrogen and Argon isotopes, indicates abrupt warming by 10±4oC at 12.8 kyr over a period of ~100 years and abrupt warming by 4±1.5 oC at 11.27 kyr over period of 70 years [4]. Sea level rose by 40 metres following the termination up to about 8500 years-ago [5].

Mean global temperature changes are estimated as about half the polar temperatures.

The origin of the D-O cycles is interpreted in terms of interaction between weak insolation signals and the thermohaline current system [2]. Glacial terminations at intervals of about 100 kyr, 41 kyr and 23 kyr (Milankovich cycles) were triggered by axial tilt toward the poles, elevating mid-June insolation by up to <60 Watt/m2 at latitude 65N [6]. The glacial terminations involved mean global solar radiation anomalies of 4 to 5 Watt/m2, triggering ice melt feedback loops and greenhouse gas release loops [6]. The intertwined synergy of these processes resulted in: (1) Ice sheet and glacier melt, reduced short-wave reflection (albedo) by sea ice and ice sheets, exposure of water surfaces absorbing infrared, further melting of ice by warming water, migration of boreal forest northward causing decrease in albedo. (2) Carbon gases (CO2, CH4) released from warming oceans, drying biosphere and fires; methane released from sea-bottom methane hydrates (clathrates: water-CH4 molecules) in sea bottom sediments and from drying bogs. Rapid release of methane hydrates is invoked as a mechanism for a runaway greenhouse effect and consequent mass extinctions through the history of Earth, specifically the Permian-Triassic (251 Ma) mass extinction and the Paleocene-Eocene (55 Ma) extinction (~ +6oC global warming) [7] The combined radiative synergy of ice melt-feedback and greenhouse gases-feedback triggering rapid polar meltdown affected pole-ward migration of the inter-tropical convergence zone (ITCZ), subtropical arid zone and mid-latitude zones, affecting the ocean thermohaline circulation. The Greenland ice-melt flow result in abortion of the Gulf Stream which warms Europe and northeast America. Warming of the southern oceans weakens the Humboldt current west of South America and the trade winds, indirectly enhancing El-Nino events which result in droughts in the southwestern Pacific, India and Africa [8]. The rise in mean global temperature by several degrees Celsius over time scales of a few years to a century testifies to a high susceptibility of the atmosphere to minor to moderate energy forcings. According to Hansen et al. 2007 [6] the solar energy pulse from orbital variations which triggered the glacial terminations is up to 0.25 Watt/m2. Mean global atmospheric energy rise associated with the glacial terminations of +4 to +5 Watt/m2 (~ +5 to +7oC) are consistent with the upper range of the IPCC projections for the 21st century, +1.1 to +6.4oC. Comparisons between abrupt glacial-interglacial terminations and 21st century projections are complicated by the lower mean global temperatures at which the glacial terminations commenced and the large volumes of ice compared to the Holocene, including the Laurentian and Fennoscandian ice sheets. The fast rise of the greenhouse gas forcing component since the mid-1800s, at rates since 1960 reaching 387 ppm in 2007 at rates of >1.6 ppm/year, are two order of magnitude higher than CO2 rise rates of 0.012 ppm/year at the last termination. Where 1 ppm CO2 induces an atmospheric energy rise of ~0.02 Watt/m2, this equates to an increase of 1.7 Watt/m2 in atmospheric radiative energy since 1750, not counting carbon cycle and ice melt feedbacks.

The non-linear nature of atmospheric CO2 and CH4 rise, from 1.3%/year in 1990-1999 to 3.3%/year in 2000-2006 [9], combined with further ice melt and albedo decline and carbon cycle feedback effects, including release of CH4 hydrates, drying/burning biosphere, reduced CO2 sequestration by the oceans, threatens to move the Earth’s atmosphere into glacial termination-like conditions. Rapid ice melt rates in Greenland, the Arctic Sea and west Antarctica, the latter continuing through the southern winter, are documented from satellite and on the ground. The polar ice sheets, initiated about 34 million years ago, when CO2 levels declined below 450 ppm, are in danger.

The Earth’s climate is tracking into uncharted territory.

Andrew Glikson
Canberra, Australia

Andrew Glikson undertakes earth and paleo-climate research at the Research School of Earth Science, Australian National University.

[1] Broecker, 2000. Earth-Science Reviews 51, 137–154;
[2] Braun et al., 2005. Nature, 438)
[3] Steffensen et al., 2008. Science Express, 19 June, 2008 ;
[4] Kobashi et al., 2008. Earth Planet. Sci. Lett, 268, 397 ;
[5] Siddall et al., 2003. Nature 423, 853.
[6] Hansen et al., 2007. Phil. Trans. Roy. Soc. London 365A, 1925. Hansen et al., 2008. Am. J. Sci (in press;
[7] Zachos et al., 2008. Nature 451 (7176): 279; Ryski, 2003. Geology; 31, 741;
[8] Trenberth et al., 2002). J. Geophys. Re. 107, 4065..
[9] International Carbon Project 2006. Recent Carbon Trends and the Global Carbon
http://www.globalcarbonproject.org/global/ppt/774,1,

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This blog is a gathering place for people with a common interest in politics and the environment. I strive for tolerance and respect. I don’t always agree with what I publish, but I believe in giving people an opportunity to be heard. I take no responsibility for comments and hyperlinks that follow each blog post. Some content may be considered offensive by some people.

Will the Earth Start Warming Again in 2015: In Just Eight Years?

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“Who has noticed that the period 2014-2015 keeps on turning up in the debate on greenhouse science?

“That is when greenhouse proponents say the long-delayed global warming apocalypse will start happening. In addition, that general date has turned up in forecasts made by an arch sceptic, and two researchers in the US have forecast that sunspot activity will cease entirely by 2014…”

Mark Lawson, a journalist with the Australian Financial Review, discusses the significance of the year 2015 to both ‘warmaholics’ and ‘skeptics’ in a piece published today in On Line Opinion entitled ‘Activity is Quiet on the Sunspot Front’, read more here.