This page is for discussing the contents of Irrationality and the Global Warming Debate.
Nick, feel free to edit your 'rebuttals' on the main page! I tired to get the essence right. But keep the lenght down - it is much easier to see arguments when they are short and to the point...
Here's the points 'as is', and I'll now add my comments directly below your 'rebuttals'. Do likewise if you want to these comments.
Is belief in man-made Global Warming Irrational?
In an article in the London Times Higher, Martin Cohen (one of P.I.'s resident editors), argued that it is. He gave some brief examples by way of an introduction to a longer discussion in which the irrationality of the debate was illustrated more generally, by:
• indicating the deliberate distortion and manipulation of facts by proponents of the man made CO2 is causing global warming' theory.
• providing examples of some of the 'marketing' and propaganda techniques employed,
• and pointing out some of the apparently 'unintended consequences' of the theory.
He then expanded on the argument here, largely in response to requests to do so by Nick Beech, a 'neo-Marxist' currently based at University College London.
Cohen (in beige outfit) offered the following additional material to support his position that support for MMAGW (to use out of necessity an awful acronym!) is irrational, and Beech (in neo-Marxist yellow) offered the following 'rebuttals'.
| First of all, the sheer amount of electricity that can be saved by swapping to 'low-energy' bulbs is, in terms of the amount of energy that the sun heats the atmosphere by each day, entirely negligible. The idea that 'saving' this energy could affect the earth's climate is risible.That is one form of irrationality. | How we distinguish the 'rational' and the 'irrational', and to what extent either is 'useful' in terms of action? Your first point: contains two points, first: the quantity of energy saved compared with the amount of energy produced by the sun that 'heats' the atmosphere. Well, I'm not sure if that comparison is the right one to make. One could argue, rationally, that the comparison should be made across 'traditional' light bulb energy consumption, and 'eco' light bulb energy consumption. Otherwise, we could 'rationally' make the claim in the opposite direction: we should/can/could switch to a new type of light bulb that consumes huge amounts of energy, because in comparison to the energy of the sun the ratio is negligible. |
Comments on the rebuttal:
We can start a page just defining rationality if you think we need to...
I've offered this take on it already:
| As many of us will know, in social science circles, rational behaviour is any behaviour that is 'in accord with your aims'. Weber offers various jargony levels of rationality, of which being 'logical' is of course much admired. Now I don't personally go along with any of this, as indeed it has rightly been pointed out that the Nazi death-camps were a very rational exercise, given their aims. In fact, I don't even go along 'personally' with a weaker' kind of worship f rationalism that seems to be there when people defer to 'scientists' and ' experts' with their 'evidence'. The reason is that 'personally', I want to allow primacy for values, that is to say, a policy is correct if it is harmonious (consistent with) certain values. |
| To cut to the quick, I am using rationality here as a measure of consistency - if you hold one thing to be true or important, then you should not do things that assume it to be either not true, or unimportant. For example, if you are a scientist who believes in the integrity of your data, you should not make irregular and bizarre adjustments to it to force the data to fit your desired pattern. The 'hockeystick' and indeed claims about 'global' (atmospheric? /sea surface? deep ocean?) record high temperatures all seem to me to be irrational in this sense. Even 'if' I had excellent CO2 and temperature records, say for the shed at the bottom of my garden, and these showed higher levels of the one preceding the other by say 200-1000 years (as it is supposed to require) it is completely 'irrational' to grub around for recent evidence of 'unusual' weather events - and everyone knows that - even the people doing it! |
| Another kind of irrationality in that it involves contradiction, is there in the green movement supporting this theory, when the effects are to hasten deforestation and species loss, to encourage Nuclear power and to disempower local communities at the expense of governments. |
| A third instance of irrationality it seems to me is there in the actions of those who nominally defend social justice and the 'poor countries' in supporting a politics which is premised on a transfer of resources from the poor majority to the rich minority. We see this already within countries where fuel taxes affect the weaker members of the community far more than the George Monbiots and Antonia Seniors (the London Guardian and London Times' Climate Change 'experts' respectively). Let alone the gifts to the well-off to help them buy new cars! In the wider, macro-economic context, the profferred intention to help poor people living on atolls or in dry African savannahs, is held despite the fact that the developed rich world makes its profits out of 'low energy' innovation, design and services, while the developing world has only those energy intensive industries and CO2/ methane producing agricultural activities. |
Your point just seems non-existent, to be honest. To repeat, if you believe say, the river is about to flood your town, and you opt to start drinking glasses of water out of it each day to 'reduce its size'. as your response is not going to solve the problem, it is in my sense 'irrational'. The fact that it has additional negative side-effects only makes it worse.
| It is rather a symbolic action - but it is a symbolism with a heavy price in terms of environmental pollution and human comfort. (Similarly, cars run on electricity require highly polluting metals in the new batteries.) Since the action is proffered out of concern for the environment, that is another form of irrationality. If we allow the symbolism that any saving of electricity is good, we surely have to also accept that any new use of electricity must be B.A.D | The second part of that first point—that this saving (whether calculated as a ratio with the sun, or as a ratio with 'traditional' bulbs) could affect the earth's climate is a risible concept. I'm not sure that is quite right either. It assumes that the specific policy of forcing a switch to a new technology is a) actually anything to do with the 'climate' and b) that the switch is understood as sufficient. On the question of 'sufficient/necessary', I haven't come across the position that light bulbs are sufficient by those who believe that AGW is occurring, rather, the switch is seen as necessary in two senses (it is accepted that lighting using electric bulbs is necessary AND it is considered necessary to reduce the energy consumed for that purpose) but not sufficient (it can't help at all on its own). that this policy/action could be understood as a symbolic one. That is quite possible, and as you say, that could be weighed against 'real' costs, and shown to be 'irrational' because, as a symbolic action, it defeats the object of the 'symbol'. Perhaps this is 'irrational', but that would mean that any activity that has a demonstrable 'disconnect' between its symbolic value and its material consequence is 'irrational'. I'm not sure if that is as useful as one might think: there are whole areas of human activity (gifts, high consumption festivals in winter (!), war, birth rites, kinship rites) that appear materially unjustifiable, simply discounting them as 'irrational' excludes a host of activity, without proper examination of their symbolic function. At the same time, I'm not even sure if the claim—that the 'symbolic' is outweighed by the energy consumption in the case of energy saving light bulbs—is justified. You suggest that if the value of the symbolic action lies in the fact that energy saving is 'good', then we must assume that all new use of electricity is 'bad'. I wouldn't agree that that is necessarily true. |
Comments on the rebuttal:
Theere's nothing 'necessary' about it. You have again missed the point! LOw-energy bulbs, if they were safe and grew on trees, would still make no 'significant' difference at all to energy consumption - even in terms of individual households!
| Thirdly, in terms of the 'CO2' theory, now formally ditched at Copenhagen, electricity for light bulbs could in any case be from virtuous 'low CO2' sources, such as wind turbines - or more likely nuclear power. Thus the electricity 'wasted' by the bulbs may be said to have nothing at all to do with the CO2 emissions full stop. In France 95% of domestic electricity is thus produced - but of course all the lightbulbs still have to be changed! That is another form of irrationality. | The third point still doesn't hold: because it assumes that there are no energy costs in production and distribution, or that if there are the costs across 'eco' and 'trad' are the same (which I don't think can be true, simply in terms of distribution costs, if an 'eco' bulb lasts as long as 10–20 'trad' bulbs the distribution costs must be higher for the 'trad' bulbs). Now, the French don't run their trucks and cars on nuclear or other, renewable, resources, so they can still reduce carbon emissions through a change to 'eco' bulbs. At the same time, the question of 'all the lightbulbs still have to be changed', which begins to suggest that the French are now in a NEW situation is not quite right. The 'bulbs are changing' all the time ANYWAY, and the stock of 'trad' bulbs is not being 'thrown away', it's being run down. So there is not an introduction of a 'new' energy cost. At the same time, there remains a 'problem' with energy costs in France, just like everywhere else: making energy is not 'cheap' or 'free', and they face serious problems in energy consumption just like everyone else—if you're right that DOMESTIC energy use is 95% nuclear/renewable, it is also true that about 51% of ALL energy consumption is carbon based (coal, gas, and oil). If the French (for whatever reason, and I'd argue that Gasprom is more pressing on the French elite than the environment at the moment) want to reduce dependence on carbon, they need to reduce the DOMESTIC consumption of that nuclear/renewable capacity if they are to shift industrial, agricultural, and transport sectors onto those resources. So the policy, and action, is still not 'irrational' in that context. |
Comments on the rebuttal:
Re. that 51% statistic - what is this? I gave the figures for all French energy use - their industries run on nuclear too. Or am I getting mixed up! But again, the point is differnet anyway. If as many greenies do already like to do, electricity is obtained from a 'renewable source' - what is the point of their having low-energy lightbulbs?
| Fourthly, cars run on electricity have to charge their batteries somewhere. Using a grid system, that source will include oil-fired, gas and coal power stations. Electric cars are thus producing the dreaded CO2 again. What's more irrational, is favouring the conversion of a usable energy source, like oil or coal into a different from, electricity in the grid, and then again into electricity in a battery, at all stages 'wasting' energy - in order to appear green and 'virtuous' in terms of energy use. | You make a number of points in your 'fourth' case of 'irrationality' and I'd like to pick out a 'central' one—that changing cars from 'oil' to 'electricity' will cost enormous amounts in terms of energy loss in distribution. Well, to make that case, we would have to demonstrate that all the current distribution (energy) costs that already exist are less than those that would be associated with the loss of energy in conversion and distribution to batteries in cars. At the same time, we would have to be sure that this particular action is guided, not by concerns over loss of carbon resources, nor by concerns over the geo-political control of resources, but solely on CO2 emission. At present, I think you are probably right to suggest that such a forced switch, with present technology, would engage greater CO2 production. But that isn't anyone's policy, and that isn't what is happening: no-one is advocating a 'forced' switch, with an immediate effect. No-one is suggesting that the technology is available to provide vehicles with the same power, capacity, and range as petrol/diesel vehicles at present, and no-one is arguing that the current technology in batteries would reduce CO2. That doesn't mean that there aren't 'greener' cars—that is, cars advertised on the basis that they reduce fuel consumption. But that isn't your point, you didn't include cars that simply use less fuel. So, though you may be right that such an immediate policy would be 'irrational', it is a 'straw man', and can be safely disregarded. |
Comments on the rebuttal:
It is hardly surprising that irrational positions are left looking like 'strawmen' arguments....!
Comments:
Would this 
and B, C, ...
be any useful to sort the discussion?
2010-01-09 12:57:59 I told Doc the brrs would not work. He don't listen! Nick - keep going!
Yes, P-A, I like your idea - let's go for it. —NormanNitram
