Cull the farting camels?

When life imitates the Onion.

Hat tip (on the article and the Onion reference): Nat Wilcox

Economists versus climate scientists

This piece compares the reactions - calm, measured economists versus freaked-out climate scientists - between two sets of scholars studying climate change.

The piece argues that climate scientists and economists differ in their beliefs about the adaptability of social and economic institutions to climate change. I think that is correct.

I think there are also likely differences in the process of selection into economics and climate science that feed into these differences in attitudes. A cynic might also argue that the two groups face different elasticities of research funding with respect to predictions of doom.

There is room for some deeper sociology of science in this area.

Oh, and we should have a carbon tax.

Via this Matt Yglesias post.

Winter Warriors versus Snowmageddon

The wussies at the WaPo are now calling DC's mid-sized snowstorm "snowmageddon". Please. Places like Syracuse and Rochester get snowfalls this size all the time without whining or expecting national news coverage.

Meanwhile, in Ann Arbor, "winter warriors" dined and drank outside in a special promotion to boost the downtown business area.

Snow comes to Beltwayland

Mocking the wussies inside the Beltway, who think that a few inches of snow is just a millimeter or two away from the apocalypse.

Hat tip: the consumerist (!)

Estimate quality and task difficulty

Estimates of the number of people who will show up at the UN climate conference this week: not so good, despite the UN having issued credentials to most of them

Estimates of global temperatures 100 years in the future: spot on

Hat tip: Lars Skipper

Gropenhagen

The city government of Copenhagen is trying to get the climate delegates to focus on their work rather than on sex, or at least to focus on unpaid sex with each other or with horny enrviro-groupies rather than with Copenhagen's many sex workers.

The city council has contacted 160 hotels asking them not to arrange prostitutes for guests, reports Avisen.dk.

In collaboration with The Nest International – an anti-trafficking organisation – and tourist organisation Wonderful Copenhagen, postcards with the slogan ‘Be sustainable – don’t buy sex’ have been distributed to hotels as part of the campaign.

The prostitutes are fighting back by offering free sex to delegates.

Do remember that sex work is completely legal in Denmark.

Hat tip: not even worth saying.

Superfreakonomics and Global Warming

Dubner goes after the pre-publication (!) critics of the chapter on global warming / climate change in Superfreakonomics.

Some observations:

It is good to know that Joseph Romm, editor of climateprogress.org is a lying, ideological hack. Who would have guessed?

Here is the choicest bit:

The chain begins with Joseph Romm telling [famous climate scientist] Caldeira that he had read SuperFreakonomics and “I want to trash them for this insanity and ignorance.” Romm adds that “my blog is read by everyone in this area, including the media” and tells Caldeira that “I’d like a quote like ‘The authors of SuperFreakonomics have utterly misrepresented my work,’ plus whatever else you want to say.”

I understand that blogging, especially advocacy blogging, doesn’t operate under the rules of journalism (where you don’t feed quotes to people), but still: that’s quite a quote to feed to someone.

Caldeira didn’t give him the quote. He did, however, respond point-by-point to a series of statements about him in the book. “The only significant error,” he wrote to Romm, “is the line: ‘carbon dioxide is not the right villain in this fight.’ That is just wrong and I never would have said it. On the other hand, I f&@?ed up. They sent me the draft and I approved it without reading it carefully and I just missed it. … I think everyone operated in good faith, and this was just a mistake that got by my inadequate editing.”

So, let's see. Caldeira gets to review the draft chapter in Superfreakonomics that discusses climate change and that references his views and he gets this opportunity not once but twice but cannot, somehow, find the time to read it carefully? What else was he doing? Unlike most books, you know in advance that this one is going to sell a million-zillion copies. What could be more important than getting this right? Cleaning test tubes? A referee report? What was he thinking?

The rest is worth reading too. I think Dubner and Levitt are far too kind their critics, who seem mainly to be trying to make their point that for many people, this is about religion, not science.

Link via Marginal Revolution

Reasonable thoughts on global warming ...

This review by Freeman Dyson is remarkably thoughtful and reasonable, both qualities which are quite rare even in the highbrow policy literature on global warming.

Hat tip: Ken Troske (who is easily pleased)