‘Why is there no Congressional Climate Calculation Office that scores how much carbon proposed legislation will save, and how much it will lower 2100 temperatures?’
It’s carbon dioxide! Carbon is a solid. Why is it nobody in the climate lunacy can speak in whole molecules?
Answer to question. Because neither is possible. There is a continuous exchange of CO2 between atmosphere and plants and oceans. CO2 vents into the atmosphere from the oceans, from plant decay and other natural sources as well as from burning fossil fuels. It is reckoned 50% of fossil fuel emissions are absorbed by vegetation’s and oceans within twelve months.
Given this, it is impossible to calculate net ‘saving’ by reduction in fossil fuel use because of the other unobservable, unmeasurable, uncontrollable factors. During the 2020 economic shutdown which resulted in CO2 emissions reduction on the scale we are told is needed to stop global warming, the monitoring station at Mauna Loa observatory showed no change to atmospheric CO2 concentration, meaning atmospheric concentration is not sensitive to Human caused CO2.
So we cannot even measure the reduction in atmospheric CO2 from Manmade sources when we reduce them.
There is no way then to ‘predict’ what actual reduction in CO2 there will be in 2100 and in any case no mathematical formula which can produce a number for the concomitant temperature reduction based on the putative CO2 reduction.
The Mean Global Temperature Anomaly data has shown no increase in rate of warming since 1996, and an eleven year slight decline to date. The ‘scientists’ say the rate is in fact increasing, just the heat is being consumed by the oceans, somehow bypassing temperature measuring equipment.
So not only can we not monitor or measure C02 reduction, we cannot measure temperature reduction - there is no way way of knowing if observed temperature reduction is real or, according to ‘scientists’, possibly false due to insufficient sensitivity of the global temperature measuring system.
So we are to proceed on a course of action with no way to monitor progress or know when we have achieved the target and on the basis it will be without significant cost but deliver enormous but unquantifiable benefit to future generations - if anyone has survived deindustrialisation.
It’s all fake of course, a scam for grifters, ideologues and the political elites.
Having used CO2 to destroy the fossil fuel industry, they are now demonising methane in order to destroy agriculture. Anyone who does not see a plan is not paying attention.
Whether it's actually possible to calculate or not, it's officially possible. That is, the government backs up its claim of potential future calamity by reference to consensus models for climate and impact, that, however suspect, cannot but provide a framework for analysis and scrutiny of policy. This setup is *supposed* to deter the worst and most brazen political abuses whereby literally anything no matter how foolish or corrupt or costly or wasteful can be legitimized by vague reference to the mere existence of a threat, since by doing so the government risks being hoist with its own petard.
That's why the "show your work" norm had to go. Just like all the other norms that when consistently applied are inconvenient for and get in the way of the expansion and exercise of power.
That being said, forcing the government to show it's work on climate might at least force it into consistency, but there is a whole space of purportedly empirical models that can consistently justify alarm and any particular policy. The experience of the last century proves over and over that if you try to back power into a corner with science, power will just turn the tables and press harder and harder until science cries uncle.
Hysterias over COVID, racial equity, and many other things are driven in part by the fact that people can log onto their smart phones are be bombarded with daily statistics whose context is framed by alarmists. Are COVID case counts going up something to be worried about? At least without the availability of constant statistical updates at your fingertips it would be easier to ignore.
And constant statistics without context. Increase in ‘cases’ a term conflating positive PCR tests with hospitalisations. Rising number of infections without indicating how many tests being carried out to show whether increase infections an artefact of increased testing or real increase.
As someone said: police based science instead of science based policy.
In the UK, scientific advisors on CoVid actually admitted they were reactive rather than proactive. They would ask Govt what they wanted to do and then they would provide ‘data’ and modelling to justify it.
Right, very common problem. In the law, "results-oriented". In the humanities, "normative sociology". "Politically correct" instead of actually correct.
There has been a lot of discussion online lately about "Effective Altruism" in what may turn out to be a test for whether this is the "breakout moment" for that movement or not. There is also a lot of internal and external criticism and - it seems to me from my admittedly cursory browsing - an anxious scrupulousness of some insiders as to whether they are missing some big problems.
Well, again, I confess I haven't invested nearly enough time to be confident about it, but I think this exact issue of epistemic corruption is going to be one of their major problems, and so far as I can tell from my limited reading, they are missing it. I think a kind of tacit or even subconscious assumption is that they've got the right stuff as mostly exceptional individuals and the right social dynamics so as to make EA epistemic security against such an ideological or political subversive attack particularly robust. With regards to their emphasis on prediction markets, they have a point, and things may improve over time, but right now it only goes so far. A three foot wire fence vs a thirty foot steel wall.
So they seem to act like this won't be a big problem for them, but I think they're wrong. Go back into the LessWrong archives to see what happened when it came time to apply Bayesian inferences on human subpopulations on variables related to the usual hot button topics. The brain knows where the minefields are and refuses to walk over them. When we have 'AI' computers do the same thing, and the right way, people still dismiss the results without being able to find and point to any bigoted bugs in the code.
If you are going to arguments with logic and evidence end up determining who gets more charity prestige, where large amounts of money get allocated, and whether projects that politically important groups love or hate get done or not, then the pressure will be on and keep growing until the EA seal of approval is hollowed out of rigor and turns into nothing more than a cover story and rationalization signal from the powers that be of the verified and unquestionable righteousness of their desired course of action. This is precisely what happened to "cost benefit analysis" in the government which by law employs an army of economists to summon the power of the magic three letters PhD and utter their abstruse and esoteric incantations to sanctify and bless off on nearly every single thing that every administration wants to do.
Right now I don't see how EA is going to solve and avoid this problem, which threatens to make it a victim of whatever success it is going to achieve.
Call me sceptic, but there is no such thing as altruism. Public Choice/Public Agent theory equates motivation for choices made in the social market with choices made in the market economy. Nobody shops out of an altruistic desire to provide profit for the shopkeeper, or works out of an altruistic desire to help one’s employer or his customers.
Making decisions to solve problems for others or ‘doing good’ - Effective Altruism - can only be influenced by what produces the biggest ‘payday’ for the alleged altruists.
Nobody does something for nothing and reward is not necessarily monetary.
We are currently assailed by people who tell us what to eat, what to drink, how big our waistline must be, stay at home, wear a mask, get medicated, reduce consumption, use less water, less electricity, use the car less… all out of their altruistic desire to help us make the right choices out of their altruistic desire to make us do what is for our own for our own good.
On climate change scoring: I have long predicted that the CO2 concentration in the atmosphere only stops rising if 50% or more the planet's human population dies in a 5 year period.
I won't live to see it, but we can pass all the climate change laws we want to in the US and Europe, and CO2 levels will still breach 1000 ppm by the end of this century. A hard lesson is going to be learned when all these windmills and solar farms need complete capital replacement. We really haven't seen that horizon yet because most of the builds have occurred in the last 20 years, but will start showing up in the power bills in another 10 years.
I think drawing conclusions about charter schools' differential behavior during the pandemic in places like D.C. and Los Angeles (or wherever, specifically Educational Realist teaches) is going to be silly. The parents are still deeply committed Democrats as are the actual teachers in the schools, and they are all still under the thumb of the local and state government mandates the entire time.
Charter schools were more likely to be in remote most places, which makes sense if you consider that charter schools are majority non-white. Not just DC, but also NYC and Chicago. Success Academy charters were closed when NYC publics were offering hybrid. In California, charters were *more* likely to be closed. There are links in my article, or this is easily googled.
This is from December 2020 (published in early 2021):
"Well over half—57%—of students enrolled in district schools receive all their instruction remotely. Another 19% split their time between in-person and remote learning in the hybrid model (see Figure 8). Although parents of nearly three-fourths of the district students said they can choose among options, only 37% have the option for their children to attend in person full time and only 24% receive all of their instruction in person.
Students enrolled in charter schools are even less likely to enter a school building. The parents of 66% report that they are fully remote, 16% hybrid, and 18% in person full time. In the charter sector, parents of 61% of students say they have a choice among more than one option, but the parents of only 35% say they can send their children off to school every day."
Private schools depended on the demographic. Most majority white private schools were highly motivated to be in person, but in places like California and DC, many places were required to be remote for a long time.
Which is exactly my point- the charter schools were vastly majority Democrat run and populated. Trying to tease out differences when the schools you are comparing are in the exact same jurisdictions is silly work. Yes- the charters might have been slightly more attentive to parents' wishes, but the fact is that the schools that remained close to in-person instruction were nearly exclusively in blue jurisdictions, not red. Blame the parents if you wish- I know I do- but don't blame the charter system itself- every one you point out is a creation of Democratic politics with Democrat clientele.
I'm not blaming charters. I didn't see Yglesias as, either.
But it's not politics. Vermont schools were open, and that state has strong unions and is progressive as all get out. Their schools were open from September on. Washington state schools also open in white areas, even if they were Dem. Even in California, the few majority white regions were open.
Meanwhile, in Florida, 30% of kids were remote all year.
Politics at the state level determined whether schools had to follow CDC guidelines or not, but they had little to do with remote education. Even in California, Newsom allowed schools to open if they asked for a waiver.
I have been reading Cowen's blog since 2004-2005- his audience has changed in those intervening years, and it started when he began first writing for the NYTimes and then Bloomberg. He isn't the same writer or thinker any longer- not terribly thoughtful, and not terribly courageous either these days. Most of his pokes at today's majority audience are both silly and ineffectual. See his critique the other day about the "Inflation Reduction Act".
“Tyler goes so far as to deliberately take a poke at his audience now and then.”
You can be playing to trope by taking pokes at your audience from time to time. I think Tyler’s audience is looking for the self-styled, erudite reader who thinks outside the box just enough but never strays too far out of proper lanes.
‘Why is there no Congressional Climate Calculation Office that scores how much carbon proposed legislation will save, and how much it will lower 2100 temperatures?’
It’s carbon dioxide! Carbon is a solid. Why is it nobody in the climate lunacy can speak in whole molecules?
Answer to question. Because neither is possible. There is a continuous exchange of CO2 between atmosphere and plants and oceans. CO2 vents into the atmosphere from the oceans, from plant decay and other natural sources as well as from burning fossil fuels. It is reckoned 50% of fossil fuel emissions are absorbed by vegetation’s and oceans within twelve months.
Given this, it is impossible to calculate net ‘saving’ by reduction in fossil fuel use because of the other unobservable, unmeasurable, uncontrollable factors. During the 2020 economic shutdown which resulted in CO2 emissions reduction on the scale we are told is needed to stop global warming, the monitoring station at Mauna Loa observatory showed no change to atmospheric CO2 concentration, meaning atmospheric concentration is not sensitive to Human caused CO2.
So we cannot even measure the reduction in atmospheric CO2 from Manmade sources when we reduce them.
There is no way then to ‘predict’ what actual reduction in CO2 there will be in 2100 and in any case no mathematical formula which can produce a number for the concomitant temperature reduction based on the putative CO2 reduction.
The Mean Global Temperature Anomaly data has shown no increase in rate of warming since 1996, and an eleven year slight decline to date. The ‘scientists’ say the rate is in fact increasing, just the heat is being consumed by the oceans, somehow bypassing temperature measuring equipment.
So not only can we not monitor or measure C02 reduction, we cannot measure temperature reduction - there is no way way of knowing if observed temperature reduction is real or, according to ‘scientists’, possibly false due to insufficient sensitivity of the global temperature measuring system.
So we are to proceed on a course of action with no way to monitor progress or know when we have achieved the target and on the basis it will be without significant cost but deliver enormous but unquantifiable benefit to future generations - if anyone has survived deindustrialisation.
It’s all fake of course, a scam for grifters, ideologues and the political elites.
Having used CO2 to destroy the fossil fuel industry, they are now demonising methane in order to destroy agriculture. Anyone who does not see a plan is not paying attention.
Whether it's actually possible to calculate or not, it's officially possible. That is, the government backs up its claim of potential future calamity by reference to consensus models for climate and impact, that, however suspect, cannot but provide a framework for analysis and scrutiny of policy. This setup is *supposed* to deter the worst and most brazen political abuses whereby literally anything no matter how foolish or corrupt or costly or wasteful can be legitimized by vague reference to the mere existence of a threat, since by doing so the government risks being hoist with its own petard.
That's why the "show your work" norm had to go. Just like all the other norms that when consistently applied are inconvenient for and get in the way of the expansion and exercise of power.
That being said, forcing the government to show it's work on climate might at least force it into consistency, but there is a whole space of purportedly empirical models that can consistently justify alarm and any particular policy. The experience of the last century proves over and over that if you try to back power into a corner with science, power will just turn the tables and press harder and harder until science cries uncle.
Hysterias over COVID, racial equity, and many other things are driven in part by the fact that people can log onto their smart phones are be bombarded with daily statistics whose context is framed by alarmists. Are COVID case counts going up something to be worried about? At least without the availability of constant statistical updates at your fingertips it would be easier to ignore.
And constant statistics without context. Increase in ‘cases’ a term conflating positive PCR tests with hospitalisations. Rising number of infections without indicating how many tests being carried out to show whether increase infections an artefact of increased testing or real increase.
As someone said: police based science instead of science based policy.
In the UK, scientific advisors on CoVid actually admitted they were reactive rather than proactive. They would ask Govt what they wanted to do and then they would provide ‘data’ and modelling to justify it.
Right, very common problem. In the law, "results-oriented". In the humanities, "normative sociology". "Politically correct" instead of actually correct.
There has been a lot of discussion online lately about "Effective Altruism" in what may turn out to be a test for whether this is the "breakout moment" for that movement or not. There is also a lot of internal and external criticism and - it seems to me from my admittedly cursory browsing - an anxious scrupulousness of some insiders as to whether they are missing some big problems.
Well, again, I confess I haven't invested nearly enough time to be confident about it, but I think this exact issue of epistemic corruption is going to be one of their major problems, and so far as I can tell from my limited reading, they are missing it. I think a kind of tacit or even subconscious assumption is that they've got the right stuff as mostly exceptional individuals and the right social dynamics so as to make EA epistemic security against such an ideological or political subversive attack particularly robust. With regards to their emphasis on prediction markets, they have a point, and things may improve over time, but right now it only goes so far. A three foot wire fence vs a thirty foot steel wall.
So they seem to act like this won't be a big problem for them, but I think they're wrong. Go back into the LessWrong archives to see what happened when it came time to apply Bayesian inferences on human subpopulations on variables related to the usual hot button topics. The brain knows where the minefields are and refuses to walk over them. When we have 'AI' computers do the same thing, and the right way, people still dismiss the results without being able to find and point to any bigoted bugs in the code.
If you are going to arguments with logic and evidence end up determining who gets more charity prestige, where large amounts of money get allocated, and whether projects that politically important groups love or hate get done or not, then the pressure will be on and keep growing until the EA seal of approval is hollowed out of rigor and turns into nothing more than a cover story and rationalization signal from the powers that be of the verified and unquestionable righteousness of their desired course of action. This is precisely what happened to "cost benefit analysis" in the government which by law employs an army of economists to summon the power of the magic three letters PhD and utter their abstruse and esoteric incantations to sanctify and bless off on nearly every single thing that every administration wants to do.
Right now I don't see how EA is going to solve and avoid this problem, which threatens to make it a victim of whatever success it is going to achieve.
Call me sceptic, but there is no such thing as altruism. Public Choice/Public Agent theory equates motivation for choices made in the social market with choices made in the market economy. Nobody shops out of an altruistic desire to provide profit for the shopkeeper, or works out of an altruistic desire to help one’s employer or his customers.
Making decisions to solve problems for others or ‘doing good’ - Effective Altruism - can only be influenced by what produces the biggest ‘payday’ for the alleged altruists.
Nobody does something for nothing and reward is not necessarily monetary.
We are currently assailed by people who tell us what to eat, what to drink, how big our waistline must be, stay at home, wear a mask, get medicated, reduce consumption, use less water, less electricity, use the car less… all out of their altruistic desire to help us make the right choices out of their altruistic desire to make us do what is for our own for our own good.
Effective Altruism = busybody’s charter.
Have you read "Unsettled" By S.E. Koonin? You might like it.
Not yet. A friend recommended it, so I should take a look.
If your readers can't handle you saying something they disagree with occasionally, you probably don't want those people as readers, anyway.
On climate change scoring: I have long predicted that the CO2 concentration in the atmosphere only stops rising if 50% or more the planet's human population dies in a 5 year period.
I won't live to see it, but we can pass all the climate change laws we want to in the US and Europe, and CO2 levels will still breach 1000 ppm by the end of this century. A hard lesson is going to be learned when all these windmills and solar farms need complete capital replacement. We really haven't seen that horizon yet because most of the builds have occurred in the last 20 years, but will start showing up in the power bills in another 10 years.
I think drawing conclusions about charter schools' differential behavior during the pandemic in places like D.C. and Los Angeles (or wherever, specifically Educational Realist teaches) is going to be silly. The parents are still deeply committed Democrats as are the actual teachers in the schools, and they are all still under the thumb of the local and state government mandates the entire time.
Charter schools were more likely to be in remote most places, which makes sense if you consider that charter schools are majority non-white. Not just DC, but also NYC and Chicago. Success Academy charters were closed when NYC publics were offering hybrid. In California, charters were *more* likely to be closed. There are links in my article, or this is easily googled.
This is from December 2020 (published in early 2021):
https://www.educationnext.org/pandemic-parent-survey-finds-perverse-pattern-students-more-likely-to-be-attending-school-in-person-where-covid-is-spreading-more-rapidly/
"Well over half—57%—of students enrolled in district schools receive all their instruction remotely. Another 19% split their time between in-person and remote learning in the hybrid model (see Figure 8). Although parents of nearly three-fourths of the district students said they can choose among options, only 37% have the option for their children to attend in person full time and only 24% receive all of their instruction in person.
Students enrolled in charter schools are even less likely to enter a school building. The parents of 66% report that they are fully remote, 16% hybrid, and 18% in person full time. In the charter sector, parents of 61% of students say they have a choice among more than one option, but the parents of only 35% say they can send their children off to school every day."
Private schools depended on the demographic. Most majority white private schools were highly motivated to be in person, but in places like California and DC, many places were required to be remote for a long time.
Which is exactly my point- the charter schools were vastly majority Democrat run and populated. Trying to tease out differences when the schools you are comparing are in the exact same jurisdictions is silly work. Yes- the charters might have been slightly more attentive to parents' wishes, but the fact is that the schools that remained close to in-person instruction were nearly exclusively in blue jurisdictions, not red. Blame the parents if you wish- I know I do- but don't blame the charter system itself- every one you point out is a creation of Democratic politics with Democrat clientele.
I'm not blaming charters. I didn't see Yglesias as, either.
But it's not politics. Vermont schools were open, and that state has strong unions and is progressive as all get out. Their schools were open from September on. Washington state schools also open in white areas, even if they were Dem. Even in California, the few majority white regions were open.
Meanwhile, in Florida, 30% of kids were remote all year.
Politics at the state level determined whether schools had to follow CDC guidelines or not, but they had little to do with remote education. Even in California, Newsom allowed schools to open if they asked for a waiver.
I have been reading Cowen's blog since 2004-2005- his audience has changed in those intervening years, and it started when he began first writing for the NYTimes and then Bloomberg. He isn't the same writer or thinker any longer- not terribly thoughtful, and not terribly courageous either these days. Most of his pokes at today's majority audience are both silly and ineffectual. See his critique the other day about the "Inflation Reduction Act".
“Tyler goes so far as to deliberately take a poke at his audience now and then.”
You can be playing to trope by taking pokes at your audience from time to time. I think Tyler’s audience is looking for the self-styled, erudite reader who thinks outside the box just enough but never strays too far out of proper lanes.
Alex Tabarrok on the other hand…