Ear Rational Thoughts

What does it mean to be ahead?

In general, Europeans do drive different automobiles, which tend to be smaller and more efficient. ... In Europe, the scooter is far more popular and differentiated (the scooter with roof is a common sight). Bicycles are also more common and differentiated, and the institutional supports for cyclists are more highly developed (cycle superhighways are old news in Europe).

And then there's public transport. From buses to trams to trains to high-speed rail, Europe is well ahead of America.

That's quoted by Megan McArdle in this post on carbon taxes and innovation.

I don't dispute any of the facts of what is said above (or any in the rest of the post). But it's interesting to use the word "ahead" to refer to public transportation - that seems to be a matter of opinion. Why is having more public transportation considered better than the alternative?

I mean, single family homes are much less efficient then a single large gymnasium capable of housing thousands of people. And restaurants with 2 or 4-person tables are much less efficient than a giant cafeteria. And yet I don't think anyone would say that a country where the majority of people live 1000 per in large gymnasiums, or eat all of their meals in large cafeterias was "ahead" of America. Ditto tiny cars, scooters and bicycles in comparison to a Camry.

I understand the point that without a carbon tax, the true cost of the Camry isn't necessarily included in the operating cost. But it's worth noting that the "solution" is actually a reduction in living standards. Which is not what you would assume when you hear the word "ahead".

The virus of totalitarianism

Don Boudreaux continues his crusade against evil:

The virus of totalitarianism is seldom detected when it first infects ‘progressive’ intellectuals. ... Think of the fawning admiration bestowed for many years by the likes of Ida Tarbell, Lowell Thomas, and Sigmund Freud upon Mussolini. Or of Lincoln Steffens’s and Dorothy Parker’s enthusiasm for Stalinism. Or of Joe Kennedy’s present-day coziness with Senor Gen. El Presidente-for-Life Hugo Chavez. Well-meaning intellectuals all, and nary a word of dissent from their contemporary comrades-in-ink-and-paper-and-podium.

Your pages today offer yet another alarming example of how easily ‘progressive’ intellectuals regress into championing tyranny. Insisting that Bill McKibben’s proposals for saving the planet are too modest (!), Paul Greenberg – reviewing McKibben’s lastest use of trees to spread the Green gospel – endorses, as allegedly being the only practical means of saving the earth, “some overarching authority, a kind of ecologically minded Lenin”.

Read Greenberg’s words carefully. Read them again. Ponder them.

No degree of global warming poses to humanity anywhere near the danger that is posed by intellectuals who are fascinated with the prospect of rule by strong men.

I want a bumper-sticker based on that last sentence.

Urban heating

From Anthony Watts:

There’s a new paper out by Dr. Edward Long that does some interesting comparisons to NCDC’s raw data (prior to adjustments) that compares rural and urban station data, both raw and adjusted in the CONUS.

The paper is titled Contiguous U.S. Temperature Trends Using NCDC Raw and Adjusted Data for One-Per-State Rural and Urban Station Sets. In it, Dr. Edward Long states:

“The problem would seem to be the methodologies engendered in treatment for a mix of urban and rural locations; that the ‘adjustment’ protocol appears to accent to a warming effect rather than eliminate it. This, if correct, leaves serious doubt for whether the rate of increase in temperature found from the adjusted data is due to natural warming trends or warming because of another reason, such as erroneous consideration of the effects of urban warming.”

He then displays this striking graph of the raw (i.e. not corrected adjusted by scientists) temperatures:

Of course the first thing to notice is that the urban temperatures show most of the warming since ~1970 and the rural temperatures are mostly flat. Of course it's well known that cities are generally hotter than rural areas because the buildings and concrete trap heat.

But what's truly, truly amazing is the next graph, which shows the corrected adjusted version:

One would've thought that the correction adjustment would've been to remove this urban heat island effect, but instead, it has been to assume the rural areas are somehow artificially cold in recent times and therefore need to be adjusted upwards.

I don't know if the paper is at all valid, but if it is, it's just incredible.

How is climate science like Enron

I don't ask the question, and neither does the always insightful Steve McIntyre. Instead it comes from Rob Bradley, who worked for Enron, and is asked of Gerry North, a climate scientist who worked with Bradley at Enron as their climate consultant. The reference is mostly in regards to information gleaned about the process of climate science from the so-called Climategate emails.

Asks Bradley:

Here are some themes from Enron to consider applying.

1) Slippery slopes where small deviations from best practices escalated into problems that were not anticipated at the beginning of the process.

2) A lack of midcourse correction when developing problems were not properly addressed.

3) Old fashioned deceit when the core mission/vision was threatened (for Enron it was ‘to become the world’s leading company’–for Jones et al., it was there is a big warming and a climate problem developing)

4) The (despised) short sellers busted the Enron mirage. Ken Lay at the last employee meeting even likened the short sellers to ‘terrorists” (this was just a few months after 9/11). Question: does mainstream climate science regard Internet ‘peer review’ of Jones et al. like the Enron faithful regarded the short sellers who first discovered the problems of Enron?

5) Enron suffered from the “smartest guys in the room” problem. Does Climategate reveal arrogance and a lack of humility among “mainstream” climate scientists?

6) Denial: we employees were almost all in denial when the problems at Enron first surfaced. Have you and others who are close to the scientists of Climategate been slow to recognize the problem? Has Nature and Science also been slow? If so, What does this say about human nature.

7) Taking responsibility. Skilling and Lay never did and, in fact, they joined together in a legal cartel where the unstated strategy was to not blame each other for anything and sink or swim together. Has this happened, or is it still happening, with Climategate if you believe that scientific protocol and/or legal rules were violated?

And then:

I do leave Dr. North with the challenge to more forthrightly deal with Climategate, which he has failed to do to date. I am very discouraged about the circle-the-wagons mentality of too many academic scientists who are covering for each other (many are long time personal friends, and they are united in THE CAUSE of climate alarmism).