From: 70053.3464@compuserve.com (Paul Farrar) Subject: Critique of Moore on Glo Date: 3 Jul 1995 23:14:12 -0500 Message-ID: <950704041202_70053.3464_CHU29-1@CompuServe.COM> Tom Moore (moore@Hoover.Stanford.EDU) writes: >Let me start by thanking Raymond Pierrehumbert for taking the time to review >my paper. I must confess that my reference to CO and CO2 in the atmosphere in >the last eight thousand years was based on carelessness and I apologize. If I >publish any revised edition, I will correct that mistake. >The first two pages of Pierrehumbert's comments, however, are attacks on what >he assumes is my politics and ideology and not on what I have to say. He >refers to "propaganda set-piece" and "Republican anti-environmentalists". I Well I, for one, wish he had toned that bit down a little because I feel it allows diversion of the discussion from what is, in my view, the principal sin of your article, which is: The attempt to influence public policy through the use of schlock science. I have no doubt that your error on CO2 levels was innocent in the sense that I believe you would not have knowingly presented false information. Yet, the error was not innocent in that reasonable caution and competent editorial practice would have prevented it. False information, once published takes on a life of its own, particularly when it is so seductively useful. I am sure we will hear it again, probably during Special Orders on C-SPAN. A correction in the letters to the editor of "The Public Interest", by you or someone else (I have urged this course on Pierrehumbert), is a partial remedy. Merely leaving out the claim in a possible future revision is not. >might say that as an economist I would prefer to take the $500 billion per >year worldwide and spend it on improving the living standards of the poor of >this world. If we could increase the incomes of Africa and much of Asia, we >would do wonders for our environment. As the evidence shows, higher incomes >lead to lower birthrates and eventually to more attention to the environment. >Moreover, high income countries are in a much better position to buffer >themselves from natural catastrophes, including warming if it turns out to be >harmful. >Pierrehumbert spends over three full pages attacking my claims in two >paragraphs about the possible implications of climate. I did not intend to >make this essay a discussion of how the climate works, although I included a 9 >page appendix for the lay public on some rudimentary factors, including a >discussion of the "Intertropical Convergence Zone" which he apparently missed. >Any fair reading of my essay would conclude that it is not about the physics >of climate but about how humans have fared in periods of warmer and colder >climate. The text of the essay is 54 pages long; the discussion in the text of I believe that an understanding of climate processes is necessary for a competent discussion of the issues covered in your essay. If you do not understand something of the physics of climate, you will make one blooper after another (at least 3 people in sci.environment independently spotted the CO2 one immediately). If my definition of competence counts for anything, I will say that a good operational definition will be found by taking Peixoto and Oort's _Physics of Climate_, opening it to random pages, and seeing if you could explain those pages. The error on CO2, which sci.environment denizens can catch, but Stanford, the Hoover Institution, the Marshall Foundation, and "The Public Interest" cannot, illustrates nothing so clearly as that: Not one competent person read that essay before it was published in a national opinion magazine. The principal fault lies with "The Public Interest." What on earth led to this abdication of editorial duty, to this "Trahison des Clercs"? Technical incompetence is, of course, necessary, but not sufficient. The Kristol Krew has some explaining to do. >storms and rainfall take up two paragraphs of those pages -- they were never >meant to cover all the qualifications that a climatologists would include in a >full discussion of the issue. >Pierrehumbert has promised us further discussion of Clouds, Glaciology, and >Climate Modeling. He is wasting his time and the reader's time since my paper >has very little to do with any of those aspects. If we wants to attack my Only if your paper has nothing to do with climate. He is not wasting my time. >premise that it was warmer during the Medieval period (at least in North >America) as Jan Schloerer has, that would be germane. If he wants to attack >the evidence that people prospered during that period or that they suffered >during the subsequent cold period that too would be germane. Please do not te >more about the beauties of climate modeling -- the magazine Science had a >quite adequate discussion of modeling's limitations a few months back. It was pretty good. "Science" is one magazine which is a reliable source of climate information, largely because of Richard Kerr. But you are headed down the path of perdition again should you think, even for one minute, that reading a popularizing article qualifies you to lecture a meteorologist on his craft. >------------------------------------------------------------------------------ >Thomas Moore |In democratic eyes government is not a blessing but| >Hoover Institution |a necessary evil. | >Stanford University | Alexis de Tocqueville | >------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Paul Farrar "Drink deep or taste not the Pierian spring... "