On 6/15/2013 3:24 PM, Jason Resch wrote:
Coincidentally I came across this wikipage of Freeman Dyson quotes today:
* My first heresy says that all the fuss about global warming is grossly
exaggerated.
Here I am opposing the holy brotherhood of climate model experts and the
crowd of
deluded citizens who believe the numbers predicted by the computer models.
Of
course, they say, I have no degree in meteorology and I am therefore not
qualified
to speak. But I have studied the climate models and I know what they can
do. The
models solve the equations of fluid dynamics, and they do a very good job of
describing the fluid motions of the atmosphere and the oceans. They do a
very poor
job of describing the clouds, the dust, the chemistry and the biology of
fields and
farms and forests. They do not begin to describe the real world that we
live in.
*The real world is muddy and messy and full of things that we do not yet
understand.* It is much easier for a scientist to sit in an air-conditioned
building
and run computer models, than to put on winter clothes and measure what is
really
happening outside in the swamps and the clouds. That is why the climate
model
experts end up believing their own models.
o "Heretical Thoughts about Science and Society", in /Edge/ (8 August
2007)
<http://www.edge.org/documents/archive/edge219.html#dysonf>
He's right that the world is messy. But climate scientists are out measuring everything
they can think of. And because things are messier than the models doesn't mean they are
exaggerating the effects; they can just as well be underestimating the effects.
*
* I believe global warming is grossly exaggerated as a problem. *It's a real
problem,
but it's nothing like as serious as people are led to believe.* The idea
that global
warming is the most important problem facing the world is total nonsense
and is
doing a lot of harm. It distracts people's attention from much more serious
problems.
o Interview in /Salon/ (29 September 2007)
<http://www.salon.com/books/feature/2007/09/29/freeman_dyson/>
Since we don't have precise predictions (and such predictions would require predicting
what people are going to do) we don't know whether it merely serious or catastrophic.
*
* All the books that I have seen about the science and the economics of global
warming, including the two books under review, miss the main point. The
main point
is religious rather than scientific. There is a worldwide secular religion
which we
may call environmentalism, holding that we are stewards of the earth, that
despoiling the planet with waste products of our luxurious living is a sin,
and that
the path of righteousness is to live as frugally as possible. ...
Environmentalism
has replaced socialism as the leading secular religion.
o /The New York Review of Books/ (12 June 2008)
That's nonsense. Environmentalism is not a religion, it's based on evidence of despoiling
large parts of the Eartha and on a scientific understanding of the relation of human well
being to that of the environment. It is no more a religion than consumerism - which is
the more widely practiced philosophy of life - "Who dies with the most toys wins" - in
the OECD nations and one that is promoted by trillions of dollars in advertising.
Brent
*
What do others think about his comments? Are his critiques valid?
Jason
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