Thursday, April 12, 2007



The Herald on climate change

An editorial in the Herald this morning blasts the government on its inaction on climate change, saying that its response is "not just feeble, it is in disarray". That's certainly true of the long-term - we've had effectively no real policy for seventeen years, irrespective of who has been in government. But in the short-term, its simply not true. Where the Herald sees "disarray", I see a steady process of policy development, which is advancing as fast as can be expected, given the need for public consultation. And where they see a "feeble" response, I see solid policy. Not as solid as I'd have liked in some ways, but a marked improvement on its predecessors in others, notably agriculture.

The Herald is clearly impatient to see this policy translated into action. So am I. But we live in a democracy, not a dictatorship, and so these things take time. From my reading of cabinet papers on the issue (something the Herald might want to try some time, given that they call themselves "journalists"), the key policy decisions will be made this month, and policy presented after the budget. And then the real battle - trying to get a Parliamentary majority for the necessary legislation - will begin.

Finally, its a bit rich for the Herald to complain that the government isn't taking the threat seriously enough when in the same edition it publishes this crap from Garth George saying that its all "hot air", and regularly gives space to the deniers of the New Zealand Climate Science Coalition for their spurious "debate" (there is no longer any debate, anymore than there is one over whether the Holocaust happened or Conservation of Energy is correct - small groups of freaks in basements notwithstanding). If they want the government to take the issue seriously, then perhaps they should start by helping the public to.

30 comments:

I seem to remember a relentless campaign of misinformation against the "Fart Tax" and against the "Carbon Tax" by that ridiculous newspaper - now they bemoan that, under public pressure, no majority in Parliament was available to progress the policies: The Government has been a minority government for seven years after all.

Posted by Anonymous : 4/12/2007 02:49:00 PM

Thinker: 2 + 2 = 4. (shows working)

Believer: 2 + 2 = 27. (shouts a lot)

Lazy Media: Ooh, we'd better give them both a platform, and equal respect. Maybe the truth lies somewehere in between. Can't be arsed to read up on it myself.

(See "intelligent design", etc, etc)

Simon

Posted by Anonymous : 4/12/2007 03:04:00 PM

I don't believe that the tenets of basic physics are in any way accepted by the NZ media. It's not long ago that one of the tabloid pseudodocs ran a piece on some nutter in Northland who claimed to have made a motorbike run on water.

Maybe we need a new tort of "scientific libel" where, just as untruths about a person are actionable, so are statements that blatantly disregard accepted scientific fact.

Posted by Rich : 4/12/2007 04:19:00 PM

"Maybe we need a new tort of "scientific libel" where, just as untruths about a person are actionable, so are statements that blatantly disregard accepted scientific fact."

I don't imagine this would be popular with the anti-GE crowd...

Posted by Anonymous : 4/12/2007 10:37:00 PM

Maybe we need a new tort of "scientific libel" where, just as untruths about a person are actionable, so are statements that blatantly disregard accepted scientific fact.

No thanks - too much like laws barring Holocaust denial. And no matter what we might think of it, people have a right to be idiots.

Posted by Idiot/Savant : 4/12/2007 11:41:00 PM

A while ago, I was kvetching that the Herald needed a tech editor badly, as the stories in that section don't make a great deal of sense currently.

Seems it's not just tech coverage then, that's suffering from a lack of editorial capability...

Posted by Anonymous : 4/13/2007 12:01:00 PM

Maybe we need a new tort of "scientific libel" where, just as untruths about a person are actionable, so are statements that blatantly disregard accepted scientific fact.

Of course, a lot of new, good science comes about by challenging what we already believe. Indeed, at one point people who believed that we were capable of causing changes to the climate were the crazies. So I'll pass, thanks.

Posted by Paul McBride : 4/13/2007 12:18:00 PM

It's the old question of how much journalists need to know abou their subject areas, vs how much they can rely on picking the brains of others. I'd argue that you can get away with a lot of the latter, but at least some knowledge is vital as a bullshit-filter. OTOH, the example above illustrates the shallowness of the Herlad's knowledge-pool; what's going on is visible if you're really paying attention (and I am), but much of it is invisible if you confine yourself to just looking at the press releases.

And OTTH, if an amateur like me can use the OIA to monitor the development of climate change policy, so can a professional journalist. The question we should be asking based on this editorial is why they're not.

Posted by Idiot/Savant : 4/13/2007 12:20:00 PM

Anon: There is a perfectly reasonable argument to be made that the risks of releasing GMOs into the field outweigh any benefits. (To argue that a release of GMOs will inevitably lead to mutated monsters stalking the land, or conversely that GMOs are risk-free would be demonstrably incorrect).

A statement that the movements of continents cause climate change (in a perceivable timeframe) is demonstrably incorrect and I believe any reasonable media outlet shouldn't print such rubbish.

Whether the right to free speech outweighs the public interest in accurate scientific knowledge is debatable..

Posted by Rich : 4/13/2007 12:30:00 PM

"The question we should be asking based on this editorial is why they're not."

One (harsh) answer is that the thicker members of our good country don't demand quality news, nor do they care about the wider world, or other people, very much... so it would make little business sense for the Herald to hire intelligent staff, or give them time to write intelligent articles...

I'm not pretending my comment is very enlightening, I'm just having a general sigh at the state of the world here... (sigh)

* it occurs to me that 'thicker member' could be considered complimentary... I should clarify that I mean 'dumber citizen'

** I've noticed that the usual suspects who campaign on higher education (NZUSA et al) never seem to throw up the argument that a more educated citizenry would demand a higher quality of public debate and produce better political outcomes... it seems to me this is a really important aspect of education which no-one really mentions as a 'positive spillover'. The implication is that we should move towards a state of the world with cheaper BA's, LLB's, etc (degrees that teach you about reason, argument, and the progression of knowledge) and slashed funding for Accounting, management, engineering etc (degrees that give you skills with fully appropriable returns and less spillovers...)

sigh again

Posted by Anonymous : 4/13/2007 12:39:00 PM

"public interest" ???

I'm yet to meet someone who knows themselves what they mean when they say this...

Posted by Anonymous : 4/13/2007 12:41:00 PM

Engineering teaches you a rational scientific approach to problems.
To some extent accountancy does too.

On the other hand, most of the units of a management course exist purely so that Mum and Dad in Guangzhou think their kid is doing something constructive instead of driving round and round Queen St in a hopped up Scooby. (I'm not being racist - if NZ had more money Kiwis would sign up to do management at Amsterdam Uni and spend all their time getting stoned).

Posted by Rich : 4/13/2007 01:14:00 PM

ABC said
move towards cheaper BA's, LLB's, etc (about reason, argument, and the progression of knowledge) and slashed funding for Accounting, management, engineering etc (give you skills)

Where do you put sciences - in with engineering because they teach skills or with arts because they're about reason? I'm assuming the former purely because engineers are required to do a year of science before starting engineering, but not to do any arts papers.

In my experience (I have an ME and half a BA), the arts schools seem to rarely be about reasoned argument and the advancement of knowledge, and more about regurgitation and "finding answers" (I hesitate to call it research because so often the critical evaluation part of research is missing). Having done courses in philosophy, religion, education and feminist studies I like to think I have at least some exposure to the broader BA world.

The flip side, in engineering I found much respect for reasoned argument and research, with little time for faith-based waffle as you'll often find in the arts or economics worlds. The problem is, you see, that engineering is based on results (the scientific method, even), and you just don't get exposed to that approach in most arts or law courses (at least, when you do it's as much about rhetoric as reason). Admittedly, even "hard" social science deals with things that are hard to quantify so it's not ever going to be as clear-cut as most engineering, but it does mean that silly ideas take a long time to wash out of the research. Look at how long it's taking to realise that sedition laws are a bad idea, for instance. Hardly an advertisement for the quality of your average LLB grad, I would have thought.

I'm particularly offended by your associating engineers with economists. The two groups are disjunct, and for a reason. Engineers who make predictions and are flatly wrong on a regular basis [1] generally find themselves working with arts graduates rather than engineers, whereas economists who are dismally wrong seem to find themselves in charge... I give you the world bank and imf as examples.

[1] for example "this bridge will carry 4 lanes of traffic, no ptoblem". If it falls down, said engineer gets it in the neck. An economists who says for instance that "increased GDP results in increased happiness" is simply repeating an economic axiom. One that is likely to be false, but that doesn't seem to stop them basing a religion on it.

Posted by Moz : 4/13/2007 01:29:00 PM

Not to drag this further off topic, but as a sort-of engineer, I'm actually quite impressed with how economists have managed to develop policies that dampen the business cycle and allow steady growth.

Isn't 3.7% employment the economic equivalent of a working bridge?

Posted by Rich : 4/13/2007 01:44:00 PM

Rich: Whether the right to free speech outweighs the public interest in accurate scientific knowledge is debatable..

No its not. People have a right to be wrong, and a right to make fools of themselves in public. But quite apart from my rejection of Kant and the totalitarianism which flows from him, there's the simple fact that science advances by open debate, not by locking people up.

Either truth stands for itself, or it doesn't. If it does, then it doesn't need state protection. if it doesn't, it doesn't deserve it.

Posted by Idiot/Savant : 4/13/2007 02:09:00 PM

ABC: the social benefit of an educated citizenry able to better debate the issues of the day was heavily discussed during the initial debates over student fees in the early 1990's. The bean-counters argued that it wasn't important - and so here we are today, with fees high enough to be a discourageemnt to education, and both students and universities pushed towards useless commerce and management courses - the former because they are seen as having good employment prospects while not being too difficult, the latter because they are cheap to teach.

As for whether that benefit exists, this blog is an example of it. You're reading my student loan...

Like Moz I've done both (hard) science and arts. I've even dabbled in economics ("enough to get myself into trouble"), and I think that Moz is entirely right to be insulted by lumping it together with engineering. Engineers (and scientists) are at their heart empiricits - results speak for themselves, and theory must match and explain them. With economics, its the other way round. It's a religion, not even a social science.

(Of course, this is insulting to all the economists who are intrested in empirical results and use them to question their theories. Sadly, those ones don't seem to end up directing public policy)

Posted by Idiot/Savant : 4/13/2007 02:28:00 PM

Rich: Isn't 3.7% [un]employment the economic equivalent of a working bridge?

It is now. It wasn't the last time we had it, in 1984. Clearly, expectations have changed, and we now only expect one lane...

Posted by Idiot/Savant : 4/13/2007 02:30:00 PM

ABC:

The “public interest” often refers to those activities or policies that have the potential to benefit all individuals and which balance the
needs of the entire society with individual self-interest. Good enough?

Posted by Anonymous : 4/13/2007 02:53:00 PM

I'm not advocating locking people up. Maybe fines and injunctions for commercial bodies and media who deliberately make counterfactual assertions.

Do you agree with the concept of a libel law, where you can be sued if you make an untrue assertion that disparages someones reputation - I'd see this as similar?

Posted by Rich : 4/13/2007 04:14:00 PM

If the Climate Science Coalition said the world was flat, the Herald would publish a headline "Experts Disagree On Shape Of World". They let these guys say complete crap and never call them on it.

I want more bloody mathematical literacy both in the general population and in our journalists.

Garth George should do a simple mathematical model to check what Auer's saying. It'd take him all of ten minutes. The maths isn't hard: a bright 7th-form student would have no problems with it. And if Garth is incapable of doing that then Garth should realise he's incompetent to join this debate - and stop accusing people like me of "believing the world is flat".

I checked Auer's claims carefully and concluded he's talking crap by actually understanding and analysing his claim and seeing if his his numbers make sense (they don't: Auer takes the % of C02 that is from anthropic sources in the atmosphere and assumes it is the % increase in C02 levels caused by anthropic C02 sources - but that assumption only holds in a static equilibrium not dynamic equilibrium).

You don't have to be a climate scientist (I'm not), you just need to understand basic math modelling.

Bob Carter talks equal tripe: his numbers also just don't add up.

And don't get me started on the numbers tossed about by politicians (and DPF) regards the economy - especially their constant switch from average income (mean) to income of the average family (median). If the rich get richer and everyone else stays the same average incomes go up: but the average family's income doesn't.

Posted by Mr Wiggles : 4/13/2007 04:18:00 PM

"As for whether that benefit exists, this blog is an example of it. You're reading my student loan..."

And glad I am that I get to read it... the only tragedy being that you don't get paid for the work you do

One small note: my comparison above lumped the study of engineering in with management, ahem, science, and accountancy (not economics). Any offense taken at being compared with economists is misguided.

In economists' defence, I think a lot of the 'arguments' ascribed to them as a group are actually put forward by bureaucrats with very limited understanding of the scientific nuances or the limited scope of economics, or by politicians looking for a reputable source to lean their policies up against. Academic economists rarely go public with support for economic rationalist policies, and brand spanking new market fundamentalists aren't bred from economics departments at university. (Admittedly neither are economics graduates taught enough to see the flaws with economic rationalism).

It's probably natural that the academic discipline most closely related to economic policymaking gets bastardised and misrepresented the most. I'm not sure this is the fault of the academic practitioners though.

By the way, I'm casting no aspersions on the methods of the natural sciences and their practical offshoots (eg engineering). Undoubtedly you learn to think clearly, etc etc. However the policy question for education subsidies would seem to be how much of the benefits of that education are appropriable by the engineer and how much spills over to society, vis a vis an arts degree. No judgements need be made about who the clearest thinkers are, etc

Posted by Anonymous : 4/13/2007 07:06:00 PM

No, Garth George didn't publish any crap at all. George just simply mentioned a quote that Prof. Richard Lindzen made in a TV documentary. Lindzen is well recognized by his peers in the climate science community. He is not just some climate scientist, he is in the same par as say, Neil Bohr or Heisenberg from Physics.

For those of us who frequently read peer review papers in climate mathematical modeling, Prof. Lindzen stands above the rest of the climate science community. One just have to peek in at tons of scientific papers he had published in that field available from his site and see the complexity of models he had proposed throughout his entire career and this is outstanding.

Posted by Anonymous : 4/16/2007 09:22:00 PM

sean said...
You don't have to be a climate scientist (I'm not), you just need to understand basic math modeling.

Sorry, climate modeling is very complex.

Posted by Anonymous : 4/16/2007 09:50:00 PM

ABC said
move towards cheaper BA's, LLB's, etc (about reason, argument, and the progression of knowledge)

And what can you reason with a BA or LLB about?

... slashed funding for Accounting, management, engineering etc (give you skills)

I assume that you banded together engineering & science. It is important to fund science & engineering, because once you acquired those hard core knowledge, then it is easy to self-taught yourself in BA subjects. The knowledge that science & engineering gives an individual would enable him/her to learn any discipline with ease. Why ? Because science & engineering are bloody harder to comprehend.

I will give you an example. Econo-Physicists , (a discipline that merges Economics & Physics) are people who had studied Physics, Mathematics & Engineering but they are practicing economists. They never had a formal learning in economics while they were at Uni, but they just picked up literatures and read about the subject. They then apply, theoretical physics to economic concepts. This shows that if you understand the complex stuff (science & engineering), then anything below that level is easily understood. Now, this can't be achievable if you're a BA person, trying to model and learn Electrical Engineering or Quantum Mechanics? Too difficult.

Posted by Anonymous : 4/16/2007 10:19:00 PM

Sean. That's a little arrogant stating you know more than climate change experts without any formal training.

Umm I/S did you compare it to Holocaust denial? Wow, thats pretty fucked up.

Posted by Just my opinion : 4/17/2007 07:01:00 AM

Sean said...
You don't have to be a climate scientist (I'm not), you just need to understand basic math modelling.

I assume that Sean meant that he understands the maths described here:

"Inferring instantaneous, multivariate and nonlinear sensitivities for the analysis of feedback processes in a dynamical system: Lorenz model case-study"

Posted by Anonymous : 4/17/2007 11:32:00 AM

Heine:

the comparison was between a 'scientific libel law' and a holocaust denial law.

Falafulu:

Your claim is pretty laughable: that a person with a science background could easily learn all that which an arts background provides.

Also, I'm unaware of any contribution of "econo-physics" to understanding how economies work. Economists have used concepts central to physics - equilibria, levels and flows, velocity, etc - right from the very start. Having a mathematical training helps with model building, sure. But an economics training gives you that anyway.

The point about the relationship between education funding and political participation, debate, and outcomes, is that certain backgrounds improve democratic outcomes. The point was not that one type of education helps you pick up the knowledge from another discipline more easily, or that one type of student is smarter.

For instance, your education in quantom physics contributes little to my wellbeing. The skills you learn are valuable in the market and you get paid for them - your education is, roughly, a private good. A knowledge of physics doesn't greatly improve your ability to understand any concepts central to politics. My education in politics, philosophy, economics, whatever, contributes to voting behaviour on my behalf which creates better political outcomes, because I better understand concepts like justice, liberty, ethics, and how various policies score on these counts. This benefits you, and I don't get paid for this benefit - my education has more of a public good aspect to it.

Please accept this as a stylised example to illustrate the concept, and fill in the gaps and nuances yourself. I'm also not referring to "I" in the arrogant sense either.

Cheers

Posted by Anonymous : 4/17/2007 01:24:00 PM

ABC said...
Your claim is pretty laughable: that a person with a science background could easily learn all that which an arts background provides.

Yoh, that is right ABC. I am a trained scientist, and if you're an economist, I am afraid to tell you that I had never done any economics course at all in my lifetime, however I had modeled and developed codes for economic dynamical systems and I still do today.

Now, lets see if your claim stood up in comparison to my claim. Take a look at the following model in Economics, about the Black-Scholes developed by 1997 Economics Nobel Prize winners Prof. Merton & Prof. Scholes (Black died before the award) if you can follow it. Now, if you don't follow how its derived, then you do really need some serious study. Ok, I have to inform you that the derivation uses the heat-flow formulations (thermo-dynamics), which is taught in Physics & Engineering. Scientists and engineers already knew these concepts, so there would be no hurdle in reading or studying about it.

Also, I'm unaware of any contribution of "econo-physics" to understanding how economies work.

Yes, Black-Scholes mentioned above is one of the many Physics model that applied to economics. The main reason that you're not aware of those Physics contributions, because you probably don't read economics peer review journals as I do. Why do I bother to read about journals in Computational Economics or Computational Finance ? It is because I develop analysis software in this area, and software is a cut-throat business, you have to be ahead of your competitors by implementing the latest analysis algorithm that has come out of academic research.

Economists have used concepts central to physics - equilibria, levels and flows, velocity, etc - right from the very start.

Boy, where do I start here? Economists have adopted techniques previously used by Physicists. I wondered if you've studied economics and learnt about its history or not. Up until the 1950s, Economics was a disciplines that was non-analytical (non-mathematical). Harry Markowitz , an Economics Nobel Prize winner, started developing the Portfolio Theory. This theory involves heavy calculus and linear algebra which were the tools of Physicists & Engineers for over a hundred years. Since Prof. Markowiz published his papers on the subject, the field of economics started adopting the analytical tools which were mainly used by Physicists & Engineers. Economics now, is an analytical field which adopts similar mathematical derivation as found in Physics & Engineerings.

A knowledge of physics doesn't greatly improve your ability to understand any concepts central to politics.

Yes, that is true, but because I haven't seriously study politics as a hobby to be able to fully understand it. I can if I want to.

Posted by Anonymous : 4/17/2007 05:17:00 PM

Ok, I have to inform you that the derivation uses the heat-flow formulations (thermo-dynamics), which is taught in Physics & Engineering

Ok, you can view an interactive graphics of the heat-flow (diffusion) here and how it relates to the well-known Black-Scholes economic model.

Posted by Anonymous : 4/17/2007 07:56:00 PM

OK, more slagging off at economists: here

Economists: Intellectual Whores

Since the early days of recorded history there have always existed a class of people who will sell their intellectual prowess to those in power. The exceptions seem so rare that they are talked about for centuries afterwards. The most famous being Socrates.... This role has now been taken over by economists.

Posted by Moz : 4/18/2007 06:57:00 PM