The Climate Fad and How Academic Disciplines Go Wrong \ stacker news ~conspiracy

pull down to refresh

The Climate Fad and How Academic Disciplines Go Wrong

3628 sats \ 28 comments \ @denlillaapan 25 Jan conspiracy

@krispy_donkey, @Solomonsatoshi and @IamSINGLE, I'm putting my responses in a standalone post here. Correct, krispy: I started the convo so I owe you a serious explanation (but I do reserve my right to call people stupid, and I'm not obliged to respond fully and seriously at your timeline.)

For the rest of you, there's some meaty conspiracy vibes in the opening here.

So apparently this post "Why I Don't Think the Green Fads/Climate Change Worries Last"(#862261) triggered some people so I'm shoving some thoughts here.

Meta convo before we start: Consider that maybe, just maybe your take is wrong. If I'm arguing with a brick wall—immovable, irresponsive—then there's no point. If you don't get it, I don't have the time to convince you sorry.

Meta level 2: consider that maybe, just maybe experts and entire academic disciplines can be wrong and/or captured. Example: bitcoin.

Bitcoin clashes with monetary economics as it comes out of research papers and teaching at elite universities. It comes with a monetary theory that isn't supported or favored by the monetary economists/scientists out there. (Since I've recommended Josh Hendrickson's defense of mainstream economic's view of bitcoin—short story: economics proper favors it; econom_ists_ are mistaken about their own discipline—I'll link that here #732427) If I took a consensus poll among (elite) economists on whether bitcoin is a good or viable monetary system, I'll get 96%-ish taking the negative. It's been done: spend five minutes scrolling through the Chicago Booth economist survey (here's the questions on bitcoin). My favorite is my otherwise idol Eugene Fama, Nobel prize in 2013:

Yes, esteemed professor, I posit that everything you've learned about monetary theory is meaningless.

The fact that an overwhelming consensus of a field thinks a certain way is not evidence that their position is therefore true.

Now, if you accept that—plausible, given that you're here and have some bitcoin—I ask that you consider the same for climate science.

That entire fields of inquiry go astray from time to time is pretty common in the history of science (hashtag Thomas Kuhn), but calls out for an explanation. Besides straight-out conspiracies, which I have no evidence for, the most convincing explanation I've seen is one of selection: of institutional features surrounding funding, university structure and path-dependent faculties.

That is: The Fed is one of the largest funders of monetary econ research, and probably the single biggest employer of monetary economists. (That's not enough to indict something; the Fed take on money could be right and the dominance merely a consequence of that.)

The selection operates on a number of levels:

the kinds of people who go into/complete econ Ph.D programmes are not the ones who are mesmerized by bitcoin;
the types of people who stay, either in academia or in research position (i.e., at the Fed or on Fed money) are unlikely to have a strong position that central banking makes life worse and economies poorer/more unstable, all else equal
even if they do at the onset, they are unlikely to stay having that opinion. You get nowhere in organizations, funding magically dries up, and it's hard to cognitively bite the hand that feeds you (Upton Sinclair quote = "It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it.")

I ask that if you think this is possible in economics, that you also consider it in climate science.

Now, here's how I think about climate matters: Level 1: Most of "expert climate takes" we consume via the news or activists is not a faithful and balanced rendition of the underlying science. (Go read Shellenberger's Apocalypse Never, Lomberg's False Alarm, and Steve Koonin's Unsettled for in-the-weeds.) We get extreme, dumbed-down takes on fires/sea level/natural disasters/crop failures/warming etc that sometimes are directionally right but quantitatively way off, but often presented to us for their flashy news value rather than scientific rigor. (Numbers are big and humongous; attribution studies on the latest "crisis" absolutely suck.)

Level 2: Even most of the serious science—not even the UNFCCC summary write-ups, political as they are—do not in any way say/claim or justify as aggressive a climate worry as that presented in any popular magazine or among the unsuspecting public. I encourage you to download some lit reviews and take a look; disaster porn ain't there.

Level 3: Even to the extent that the climate science is accurately reflecting some changes in the real, observable world, this has almost entirely ignored the much-relevant science of economics.

My favorite illustration here is my 2021 Human Progress piece on a Super Cyclone in the Indian Ocean—physically speaking, the worst the world had by then ever seen. It made landfall on a poor country (Bangladesh). This should be precisely everything that the climate change crowd has warned about, no? A record-bad natural disaster on a poor, defenseless country... yet rather than the 500,000 people who died 50 years earlier from the then-record cyclone, 128 people died from Amphan. Is that indicating a more or less dangerous nature?

Human progress, encompassing technology and economic growth, stuff and wealth and information, made sure that what nature threw at us did almost nothing to (permanently) harm us. Put differently

If climate change makes nature 10% riskier/more dangerous/more volatile but economic growth and innovations and productivity makes us 100% richer, smarter, and better off... is climate change something to worry about?

Of course, I'm making up these numbers for illustration but the magnitudes are about that (go look at Nordhaus' climate models or other integrated econ-assessments of climate effects.)

There is a lesson here that’s relevant to the climate change conversations that often dominate the news cycle: no matter what effect a changing climate may have on natural disasters, humans have it in their power to prepare, protect, and adapt to the dreadful power of nature. The difference between a catastrophe with hundreds of thousands of dead and merely a costly clean-up isn’t a degree or two in global average temperature. Rather, it is poverty and venal governments that don’t care about the welfare of the populace.

Basically:

climate change isn't what you hear about on the news
the climate science itself is nowhere near as dire as anything you've heard
and it doesn't matter anyway, since econ and technology trumps anything that nature can—and does!—throw at us.

This is pretty common:

I'm not trying to take it as a premise but I'm worried having listened to more and more powerful calamities happening around the world than were in my life's past. I don't look it from either of capitalist or communist perspective/propoganda but I feel that there's no harm in planting more trees. I do it and I encourage everyone to do it. I'm also against the whatever plantation or green coridor development projects that the world is focused at in the deserts.

More calamities are not happening around the world. Fewer people die from natural disasters than ever. What you hear about and pay attention to is not the same as reality.
I agree, I like trees. A warmer climate is indeed doing that for us (Greening of the Earth). Besides, you couldn't plant enough trees fast enough (and with opportunity cost?!) to offset the world's total emissions so you still need this conversation/framework.

@Solomonsatoshi's take here is particularly asinine:

Your statement is not backed by the overwhelming majority of science. Climate change is accepted by the vast majority of scientists, and you are not one.

Look, if the litmus test for thinking/having a position on anything is that you're on the inside of a cushy academic club with homogenous beliefs then by definition there can't be criticism, eh? Also, I hate this "science" idea... which science? The overwhelming majority of climate scientists ignore the insights of economics so what's your point? (That makes it a draw; let's go back to drawing board and argue about reality instead of mudslinging).

So yeah, is there climate change happening in some select domains, in some particular ways? Sure, perhaps a little. Did humans and their fossil fuel-spewing machines do it? Probably (I don't see how not). Does it matter, i.e., do "we" have to do anything about it? No, keep economic growth working and we'll be fine (as long as we keep our wits about us, as Deirdre McCloskey usually says).

Yes, entirely disciplines can go wrong (DEI and grievance studies, anyone?!), and I posit climate scientists is in that stage (as is monetary economics when it comes to central banking).

Here is a non-exhaustive list of my previous writing on the topic, so while I'm "not a scientist" this isn't the first I'm looking at this: https://thedailyeconomy.org/article/lets-cancel-environmentalism-a-triple-review-of-environmentalisms-opponents/ https://thedailyeconomy.org/article/playing-fast-and-loose-with-numbers/ https://humanprogress.org/floating-on-hyperbole-the-new-york-times-take-on-low-lying-islands/ https://humanprogress.org/the-amazon-forest-is-not-about-to-disappear/ https://humanprogress.org/is-the-arctic-ice-about-to-disappear/ https://thedailyeconomy.org/article/why-shouldnt-brazil-burn-its-rainforest/ https://capitalismmagazine.com/2021/02/sustainability-misses-the-point/

view all related items

92 sats \ 11 replies \ @grayruby 25 Jan

I am in your camp. I think a lot of the “climate science” we see is perversely incentivized groupthink. Because the science is flawed does that mean anthropogenic climate change doesn’t exist, no, but it should mean we should be skeptical about the chicken littles telling us the world is ending or the politicians who want to use “climate change” as a means to accrete more power.

I believe if they all believed things were as dire as they say we would have had a global coordinated effort to extract carbon from the atmosphere yesterday. Instead we have people who argue if we tax people for carbon and give governments unchecked power the rain won’t rain so hard and the fires won’t burn so fiery and the wind won’t be so windy.

This doesn’t mean I don’t think we should be exploring greener and more sustainable alternatives. I just think we should do it because the market demands it and it makes economic sense, not because of coercion.

67 sats \ 2 replies \ @SimpleStacker 25 Jan

I don't think the right is entirely innocent in this debate either. I have friends on the right who are totally unreceptive to the idea that we might be affecting the climate, they outright disparage electric vehicles despite never trying them, and believe every conspiracy theory about WEF trying to depopulate or whatever.

I think in the end it's still just tribalism on both sides.

Please hear me clearly though: the "science" dudes are equally tribal and immune to reasonable debate. They don't have the high ground

70 sats \ 0 replies \ @denlillaapan OP 25 Jan

That is a different flavor of stupidity too, also drives me nuts. (Maybe next week I do a parallel/opposite, jeeez right-wingers don't get basic science post!)

30 sats \ 0 replies \ @grayruby 25 Jan

Agreed

40 sats \ 4 replies \ @kilianbuhn 25 Jan

The world isn't ending but skiing in the ancestral homeland of my family was an important childhood memory for me but isn't something my children will experience. Because it doesn't fucking snow amymore.

40 sats \ 0 replies \ @SimpleStacker 25 Jan

It doesn't snow at all, in a place that you used to be able to ski? Where is this place you are referring to?

0 sats \ 2 replies \ @grayruby 25 Jan

How much of your freedom and children’s freedom are you willing to relinquish to governments so they can try to mitigate warming and there are more places to ski.

20 sats \ 1 reply \ @kilianbuhn 25 Jan

i don't think i have to relinquish anything

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @grayruby 25 Jan

Interesting. Seems unlikely. The basis of most of your standard of living comes from the trade off of emitting carbon but you think no longer emitting carbon which will have to be done by force because no one will choose to lower their standard of living, will not effect you?

25 sats \ 2 replies \ @Solomonsatoshi 25 Jan

In the short term the market will favour cheaper energy to more expensive energy. Free markets have no mechanism to consider the long term consequences of actions which deliver the highest short term gain but also deliver long term costs.

This is why we have governments to regulate use of resources where the users impose damage to the wider environment without experiencing those costs themselves.

This is where logically government regulation has a role to create a fairer more equitable solution rather than asking market forces to solve a long term problem that market forces logically cannot and will not address.

This is why Libertarians hate climate change and defy logic and reason in seeking to address it- because it is a case where government - collective action is the most if not only logical response...and where market forces are inherently impotent.

0 sats \ 1 reply \ @grayruby 25 Jan

So just speaking hypothetically here you would be in favour of governments across the world being given absolute power to cap the amount of carbon each citizen emits and to monitor it the way the CCP monitors social credit?

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Solomonsatoshi 25 Jan

In short, no, because your question is heavily loaded and based on false assumptions and assertions.

Firstly governments can only more or less wield the degree of power citizens will collectively accede. Even in a seemingly autocratic China, if the CCP goes too far it would risk being removed, and knows it. The CCP operates under something comparable to The Heavens Mandate of the past. It is largely because the CCP has delivered exceptional improvements to most Chinese peoples economic conditions and expectations, that they remain in power. Another example is the Covid mandates which governments were eventually forced to give up on when too many citizens objected/refused to comply. Very few democratic governments that imposed Covid mandates remained in power at the next election. So consider this when you talk hypothetically about governments being given absolute power- we are all ultimately the government and governments can only wield, more or less, the power we accede to them.

Given the above reality about the nature of government power (rather than your hypothetical but unobtainable absolute) it is in fact very difficult for governments to deal with climate change.

The 'best effort' so far, collectively, the Paris Agreement has been agreed to by all governments except

Iran Libya Yemen And now the USA

Notwithstanding that the Paris Agreement doesn't appear very effective- I am no expert on it but the impression is it is so mired in compromise that its not going to have much effect...because to have effect sacrifices need to be made and politicians have struggled to pledge sacrifices on behalf of their citizens to whom they have to answer. The need to act decisively and collectively in the global best interest is challenging when such significant sacrifices would need to be made to succeed.

So theoretically, solving climate crisis, imo, relies upon enough citizens globally acknowledging there is a problem and supporting government action to resolve it. It is not a problem that will be solved as long as there is significant citizen level resistance to the science behind it and the need for it- this is why bullshit such as is being propagated here on SN by the OP and others deserves to be challenged.

The combination of small but vocal deniers and the very wealthy vested interests who inherently do not want to reduce emissions, is enough to endanger everyone.

21 sats \ 0 replies \ @IamSINGLE 25 Jan

Thanks for the reply. I'm not that much well read on either side, I accept. My thought was based on my life's experiences, I believe most will resonate. I don't see as many trees as were in the past, exactly in 20 years and so, around me. The ground water levels have gone down 10 times however I'm living near the largest river in India all these years. I'm not worried but I'm just cautious, if trees have any role to level up water level, we should try it, may be. I'm not entirely sure.

However I do believe, we humans are too small to change nature's course entirely and if it has a fault it'll autocorrect.

BTW, @Solomonsatoshi is a bot, he'll showup whenever you write such articles.

350 sats \ 0 replies \ @Solomonsatoshi 25 Jan

It is fine for you to be a Libertarian and champion 'the market' as the solution to all problems but when you are challenged as I did on the post you cherry pick a portion of my response and you fail to respond there on the original post but instead initiate this new post- giving your arguments 98% of the post and a small cherry picked and now out of context slice of my response.

That is devious and dishonest avoidance of reasoned, sequential and in context debate.

Respond to the comment I made where I fucking made it, in full context to what I was responding to- not by re orienting the entire narrative as you have done here.

Now to deal with some of this new narrative you have started here- 'Also, I hate this "science" idea... which science? The overwhelming majority of climate scientists ignore the insights of economics so what's your point? (That makes it a draw; let's go back to drawing board and argue about reality instead of mudslinging).'

It is not a role of climate scientists to address economic questions. It is their role to study and assess climate science.

As an economist commenting upon climate science however you need to become urgently aware that the problem of climate change cannot logically be addressed by free markets - because the drivers of climate change are not regulated by market forces as the producers and users of climate change inducing fuels and activities do not face any immediate or direct market response as a consequence of their use of fossil fuel and other climate change drivers. The responses are considerably delayed and delivered to future generations without discretion. This is what climate science tells us.

So a market forces favouring economist faces a dilemma when considering climate change- they face a problem that their market forces are incapable of fixing. In response what is required is firstly recognition that market forces do not solve all problems and that his knowledge of economics does not extend to climate science. Ignoring the results of climate science and ridiculing climate science is not a logical rational or honest solution. If he goes on to ignore the reality that market forces cannot be used to respond logically to climate change then he will be undermining his own credibility as an economist.

64 sats \ 1 reply \ @Aardvark 25 Jan

I'm literally never going to get into a debate with you about anything ever. I got like 3 or 4 quips and a snarky remark at best on any given topic. This is a weapons grade rebuttal.

21 sats \ 0 replies \ @denlillaapan OP 25 Jan

Guess I was in a bad mood #862938

70 sats \ 4 replies \ @anon 25 Jan

Meta convo before we start: Consider that maybe, just maybe your take is wrong. If I'm arguing with a brick wall—immovable, irresponsive—then there's no point. If you don't get it, I don't have the time to convince you sorry.

Meta level 2: consider that maybe, just maybe experts and entire academic disciplines can be wrong and/or captured.

@denlillaapan, apply this meta to yourself, too, when reading and responding to people with views opposing yours, such as @Solomonsatoshi.

0 sats \ 3 replies \ @denlillaapan OP 25 Jan

True dat, anon

0 sats \ 2 replies \ @Solomonsatoshi 25 Jan

Except that you do not reply directly to the facts and issues I raise in a fair and transparent contest of ideas.

Instead you evade and avoid them by completely rejigging the narrative on a separate post.

Good science, whether economics or climate, is based upon a fair contest of ideas in an open transparent manner, not rigging and manipulation of the narrative to suit predetermined bias and dogma.

0 sats \ 1 reply \ @denlillaapan OP 25 Jan

Didn't. Read the piece again, and especially the accompanying like seven pop articles.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Solomonsatoshi 25 Jan

You have not responded in context to many of my previous comments here and in previous posts. Instead you refer me and readers to links and other posts. You take one snippet of a previous comment of mine responding to a previous post and insert it into this post completely out of context. That is not an in context contest of ideas- that is rigging the narrative and repeatedly taking it out of context. Respond to replies to your posts/comments in context...and demonstrate you are confident of your ideas and capable of defending them IN CONTEXT.

92 sats \ 0 replies \ @Undisciplined 25 Jan

Besides straight-out conspiracies, which I have no evidence for,

There have been straight-out conspiracies that have been exposed and admitted to. The whole Climategate saga happened while I was a research assistant in climate science. It was a huge deal, both in academia and publicly. The premier experts in the field, in the UK primarily, were blatantly falsifying data and results.

Edit: apparently you were still talking about bitcoin and monetary economics there. No, my colleagues are just very dumb about many things, but I also have seen little to no evidence of malicious conspiracy on the bitcoin front.

24 sats \ 0 replies \ @jgbtc 25 Jan

Climate Change is an obvious scam that the government loves because its a path towards totalitarianism. Government funds "research" that proves it needs total control or else the world will end. How convenient. And then useful idiots regurgitate the nonsense while bleating "you're not a scientist" appeals to authority. It's so blatantly a communist power grab at this point anyone who isn't at least skeptical is a brainless sheep.

24 sats \ 0 replies \ @charonnakamoto 25 Jan

Wonderful post and glad someone is looking at this from first principles. One of the books I read by Michael Crichton called ‘State of fear’ made an impact on me in my youth and that book, more than anything else, made me a skeptic about mainstream narratives around climate ‘science’. Always felt uncountable with that skepticism when people were talking about climate change as though it were as blasé as gravity. Glad to see some critical thinking coming back into the discourse, now!

0 sats \ 2 replies \ @8ff9f91889 25 Jan freebie

I read somewhere that the effects of climate change have led to disasters which have eaten up at least a third of global GDP annual growth.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Bell_curve 25 Jan outlawed

stackers have outlawed this. turn on wild west mode in your /settings to see outlawed content.