Scare Tactics
Emily Yoffe, writing in today's Washington Post, takes a look at the scare tactics employed by Al "Gorezilla" Gore and his sycophant true believers from the First Church of the Presumptuous Assumption of Global Warming™ and sees the seeds of the movement's own destruction in their campaign to terrorize children.
Usually we want to protect our children from awful events, adjusting the message to suit their age. Certainly we tried to do that after Sept. 11. But an essential part of the global warming awareness movement is the belief that scaring us to death is the best way to spur massive change. Gore explicitly compares warming to the Nazis of the last century and terrorists of this one.
And a recent New York Times profile of Gore tells that we are to be flooded with "An Inconvenient Truth." It is going to be shown in schools; book versions for children and young adults and a children's television show are planned. The global Live Earth concerts scheduled for July 7 are expected to raise millions, going to a three-year public relations effort, headed by Gore, to deluge us with bad news.
All this is not to say that it's not getting warmer and that curbing our profligate environmental ways is not a commendable and necessary goal. But perhaps this movement is sowing the seeds of its own destruction — even as it believes the human species has sown its own. There must be a limit to how many calamitous films, books and television shows we, and our children, can absorb.
It doesn't seem sustainable to expect people to remain terrified by such a disinterested, often benign — it was so nice eating out on the patio! — and even unpredictable enemy. (I understand we're the enemy, but the executioner is the weather.) Recall that the experts told us last year would be a record-setting hurricane season, but the series of Katrinas never materialized.
Since I hate the heat, even I was alarmed by the recent headline: "NASA Warns of 110-Degrees for Atlanta, Chicago, DC in Summer." But I regained my cool when I realized the forecast was for close to the end of the century. Thanks to all the heat-mongering, it's supposed to be a sign I'm in denial because I refuse to trust a weather prediction for August 2080, when no one can offer me one for August 2008 (or 2007 for that matter).
There is so much hubris in the certainty about the models of the future that I'm oddly reassured. We've seen how hubristic predictions about complicated, unpredictable events have a way of bringing the predictors low.
Yoffe points out the irony (we'd call it hypocrisy) of Al Gore denouncing the politics of fear in his new book while using the politics of fear to promote his own agenda. This is nothing new for the Gores of the world, however. Gore preaches conservation while using obscene amounts of energy himself. He preaches respect for the earth while strip mining it.
Environment, Left Wing | Gaius Monday, 25 June , 2007
By Purple Avenger, Monday, 25 June , 2007 @ 7:53 am
Most of the source code for the “models” I’ve examined were garbage from a computational mathematics POV.
No attempts to detect any generated NaN or INF results were made. No attempts to control or compensate for rounding errors between generations were present. No attempts to even set a reasonable rounding mode were made, compiler defaults being taken instead.
They were obviously written by people who had no idea what the inherent limitations and pitfalls of floating point hardware are — which is to say they were scientists rather than computational mathematicians.
Frankly, they look like they were written by a bunch of undergrads. I could probably spend a whole semester teaching a graduate level course on floating point hardware architecture, techniques and their limitations.
Through circumstances beyond my control, while with IBM and Borland I was thrust into the position of having to learn about this stuff in all its gory splendor.
Its not something that is covered in the cursory shake n’ bake programming courses that most mathematicians, engineers and scientists are given.
Its not even something that one finds in graduate level courses unless you were specializing in computational math, and even then it would only be covered in a generic theoretical sense rather than the hard mechanical details of how to make it happen on specific hardware.
I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again - the models are junk. They’re not built on a sound computational footing. Their answers may be right, but that would not be to any intrinsic correctness of the code, rather by accident. Their answers may also be wrong, because the code certainly isn’t right.
By jay k., Monday, 25 June , 2007 @ 12:14 pm
it’s amusing that this site seems to be all for fear-mongering and hysteria when it comes to the middle east and a failed foreign policy…but not when it comes to the environment. your predictions and the predicictions of those you support have been proven to be flat out wrong time and time again and yet you are still at it. if you have a problem with gore’s tactics, which are your own, then why don’t you try leading by example?
By jay k., Monday, 25 June , 2007 @ 12:25 pm
and oh-by-the-way…
gore was corect about the internet (and please don’t resort to the thouroughly debunked right-wing myth about inventing the internet) the first iraq war, and the latest iraq debacle…his track record on major issues is a lot better than yours. until i see anything but oil industry funded deniers and rants about codes from purple avengers i think i’ll go with a proven track record.
By gil, Monday, 25 June , 2007 @ 3:12 pm
Answer to Purple Avenger
WHAT??
I tought the topic was Global Warming.
By StratRat, Monday, 25 June , 2007 @ 4:53 pm
If we are wrong about global warming - the world dies. If the world dies, we will die. Does maybe erring on the side of caution make any sense to you? So you looked at code - so what? I don’t think most people want this globe to either live or die simply on your wisdom, do you?
By Gaius, Monday, 25 June , 2007 @ 6:21 pm
Bull. The climate changes. The rest is hysterical hype. Much like the hysterical hype over Alar a few years ago.
The vast majority of greenhouse gas is water vapor. Period. There are a lot of scientists who do not bel;ive the hype - but there is a concerted effort to stifle them.
Incidentally, there is a comment policy here - it is enforced and I have already nuked a few comments from folks who think name-calling makes their point.
By puddle jumepr, Monday, 25 June , 2007 @ 6:38 pm
Here’s the deal. Let’s say we follow the recommendations for easing climatic change and all of the scientist are wrong about Global warming and you’re right. What happens? So we spent a lot of money and changed a lot of things about the way we handle evergy and we end up with a cleaner enviroment and no dependency on foreign oil. Not seeming a downside here. Now let’s say your are, gasp, wrong, and the scientist are right, and Global warming is for real. The worst case is the existinction of the human race. The real problem is there is going to be no way to know how big a problem Global warming is until it is too late to due anything about it. I’m not willing to bet the future of the human race on the possiblity that doing nothing will work in the end.
By Purple Avenger, Monday, 25 June , 2007 @ 9:15 pm
I tought the topic was Global Warming.
We are. If the models aren’t demonstrably computationally sound, what good are their results?
They can’t even predict the past, we would be fools to trust them to predict the future.
By Purple Avenger, Monday, 25 June , 2007 @ 9:21 pm
I would add that if you don’t know what the phrase “IEEE 754″ means, then you can’t possibly even begin to understand what I’m talking about. IOW - you would be completely ignorant about how the vast majority of computers do mathematical computation.
Which is to say 99.9% of the public, scientists, and mathematicians probably won’t understand what I’m talking about.
In grossly simplified terms a scientist or mathematician might understand - this issue might be likened to the difference between a series converging and not converging…which is the difference between night and day.
Get it wrong and your answers are worthless.
By jay k., Tuesday, 26 June , 2007 @ 6:45 am
in other words…99.9% of scientists and mathematicians aren’t as smart as the purple avenger. i don’t think anything more has to be said on THAT topic.
By Purple Avenger, Tuesday, 26 June , 2007 @ 8:35 am
in other words…99.9% of scientists and mathematicians aren’t as smart as the purple avenger.
If you’re willing to restrict the topic at hand on how to get reliable results from floating point math hardware, then that is a correct statement.
Somehow I suspect this is not what you mean, so I’ll just chalk you up as another leftist idiot who doesn’t know anything about anything.
By HastingsPete, Tuesday, 26 June , 2007 @ 11:25 am
Purple Avenger draws on one body of knowledge, assumes that it suffices to discredit what thousands of studies haev concluded, and thinks he knows better than the huge plurality of scientists who think otherwise. Kind of like putting your faith in the guy down the block who has a “thing” against conventional medicine while the rest of your doctors think chemotherapy makes sense in the face of cancer. Look, Purple Avenger, you may have looked at one or two models and had issues with it. Logged and noted, taken into advisement. But the science is not just based on computational models, and it is overwhelmingly indicative.
The right way to look at the problem is touched on by others: if you have a 90% certainty (not 100%) that a bad event is going to happen to you next year that’s going to cost you BIG TIME, then you would be well-advised to stick 2-3% of your income into an insurance fund to stave off the worst of that happening. If the 10% is composed of people like you who seem smart but are at odds with the consensus, what should I do? Be a maverick and take a shot that YOU (a nameless poster) are right, and a gabillin other far more noted scientists are wrong? Um. Bad bet. By the best analysis we have, global warming is REAL. Justa bout everyone, including your president, has acknowledged that by now. You can be the brave voice in the wilderness, yelling along with unbiased Exxon that its all a myth. I think I would rather be safe than very, very sorry.
(I’m a computer scientist as well. Big deal.)
By skh.pcola, Tuesday, 26 June , 2007 @ 4:01 pm
< ?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> < !DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
Then stick to computer science. Purple Avenger was explaining how computer hardware processes mathematical operations. That's pertinent, and key to any discussion about the credence of any "climate change" "model." The vast majority of those "thousands of scientists" that you rely on to tell you how to think aren't climatologists at all. The "consensus" (such as it is) is built upon models that return output that the "scientists" want to see. That is irrefutable.
The entire "Glow-ball Climate Change" industry is based on fear-mongering ****** who don't know diddly squat about the subject (BTW, what is the Goracle's expertise vis-a-vis this subject? Politics and destroying the environment with his nickel mine and ridiculous energy consumption?), and "scientists" who manipulate data in a self-perpetuating cycle of funding and fame. All of you liberals have nothing to refute the truth with. The "we may not be right, but isn't it better to be safe than sorry?" mantra is tired and an appeal to emotion. Equally repugnant is the appeal to authority that
someall leftists make when they cite "1000's of scientists." Sociologists aren't scientists, they are hacks that were too danged stoopid to get a real degree.Have you jousting Don Quixotes read about how the UN panel fraudulently manipulated climate data on thier final report, to show an accelerating and worsening degree of warming? Glacier melt rates? Ozone? Lies, half-truths, and omissions. The IPCC is a joke, and many *prominent* scientists with experience and expertise in the climate field have denounced claims that anthropogenic climate change is happening. Oh, but I see that one of y'all has pulled the "funded by big oil" trope out of your nether regions to denigrate Gaius. Heh. When you can't bring the facts, tell some more lies.
(Edit - please watch the language)
By Purple Avenger, Tuesday, 26 June , 2007 @ 5:19 pm
But the science is not just based on computational models, and it is overwhelmingly indicative.
Anything predicting the future is based on generational models. If you fail to properly compensate for creep, your predictions are worthless as errors can magnify between generations.
If you are indeed a “computer scientist” as you claim, then you should know this.
Show me the source for a single model, just ONE, that does alternating roundoff corrections, bothers to set its rounding modes, bothers to set the type of infinity its using (projective vs affine), bothers to check for NaN generation, denormal generation, or even sets the exception status to unmasked responses so any of this badness can actually be detected!
You will be hard pressed, but give it a go. I’ll wait for your results.
I’ve spent 27 years in this industry as a tool BUILDER, not just a tool user. If anyone is qualified to recognize when development tools are being used improperly, it is the people like me, who created those development tools.
By Purple Avenger, Tuesday, 26 June , 2007 @ 5:26 pm
If the world is to spend trillions of dollars on supposed “fixes” for global warming, then is it not prudent to spend a bit more doing a computational mathematics scrub of the code that is causing all the stink?
The “climate scientists” can’t do it because they don’t even know what the issues in their code might even be. I’m quite sure if you asked all the “thousands of scientists” you worship if they knew what a NaN was, all you’d get is a blank stare.
I’m pretty sure if you asked the universe of programmers on this planet if they knew what a NaN was you’d get a blank stare from at least 99% of them.
By Chris, Tuesday, 26 June , 2007 @ 6:05 pm
What’s the harm in putting the brakes on our economy, and therefore on our quality of life? What’s the harm in using flawed tools if they give us the answers we want? What’s the harm in conflating natural occurrences with man-made ones?
Minorities and women will be adversely affected. Oh, and as the U.S. economic engine slows, so does the world’s. Say goodbye to growth, Third World, and say hello to sustained squalor. Say hello to our new Chinese overlords, because they don’t care about greenhouse gases, or anything but their own aggrandizement.
By Purple Avenger, Wednesday, 27 June , 2007 @ 7:10 pm
When the USA gets an economic cold, the rest of the world get economic black plague.