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Worth noting that the Institute for Energy Research was founded by the ex-director of public policy for Enron, and has received donations from the likes of Exxo

Worth noting that the Institute for Energy Research was founded by the ex-director of public policy for Enron, and has received donations from the likes of ExxonMobil and the American Petroleum Institute, so while this post may well contain valid points, it produced by an organization likely to have a bit of a conflict of interest when it comes to anthropogenic climate change. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institute_for_Energy_Research https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institute_for_Energy_Research

mlthoughts2018 7y ago
I think this really is not worth noting and the rapid appearance of a bunch of astroturfing comments along these lines is really disappointing. This post deserves to be dealt with on its own, and it’s perfectly fine as a statistical commentary on these graphs. It happens to be wrong in the conclusion, but not for any kind of political bias-based reason. If you aren’t willing to engage with people who hold a different view and have power to stop your preferred policies, why would expect them to do the same for you, and why would you expect your policies to ever be enacted? You’re looking for reasons to dismiss something on purely superficial grounds, and effectively disallowing any possibility that certain groups could actually present data that forces you to change your beliefs. It strikes me as even worse and more dangerous dogmatism than what comes out of the right-wing climate denying think tanks.
- carapace 7y ago
  > I think this really is not worth noting and the rapid appearance of a bunch of astroturfing comments along these lines is really disappointing. Not at all, IMO, it was the first thing that occurred to me: "Sounds like the title of a hit piece. I wonder who wrote it?" Cf. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_Law_of_Headlines https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_Law_of_Headline... etc... - - - - "What is the most important part of any message?" "The name of the messenger."
  - mlthoughts2018 7y ago
    So in some superficial judgement, you decided it must be a hit piece without reading it and then confirmation-bias-googled some funding sources to reinforce your view still without reading it, and then use a rhetorical quip to act like this is justified? It seems like you’re just admitting to what I claimed. You dismiss things based on superficial details but don’t admit they are superficial. To be very clear, I don’t agree with the OP post at all, but it was thoughtfully written and the point about statistical significance being very misleading for inference goals is really valid, especially for climate predictions. It actually takes some statistical effort to point out why the posts conclusions aren’t valid (eg it’s the trend of temperature increase that affects policy, not the nearness of the observations to the model’s mean prediction). As someone who works professionally in statistics, I say this post is of higher quality than a large amount of even published research, especially in social science, and seems like fair un-extreme skepticism that deserves to be honestly and sincerely engaged with, and not dismissed out of hand because you spent 5 seconds googling the buzzword name of a funding entity you dislike.
    - carapace 7y ago
      There's only so much time in the day, and there's so much information, presented in so many ways, and it's so common for these sorts of things to be biased to the point of propaganda, that I've developed a heuristic that says (in this case) I shouldn't waste my time with this particular piece. However, > As someone who works professionally in statistics, I say this post is of higher quality than a large amount of even published research, especially in social science ...this makes me sit up and take notice. I'll go back and actually read the thing now. - - - - I got as far as the first paragraph: > As an economist who writes on climate change policy, my usual stance is to stipulate the so-called “consensus” physical science (as codified for example in UN and US government reports), and show how the calls for massive carbon taxes and direct regulations still do not follow. For an example of this discrepancy that I often mention, William Nordhaus recently won the Nobel Prize for his work on climate change economics, and he calibrated his model to match what the UN’s IPCC said about various facts of physical science, such as the global temperature’s sensitivity to greenhouse gas emissions, etc. Even so, Nordhaus’ Nobel-winning work shows that governments doing nothing would be better for human welfare than trying to hit the UN’s latest goal of limiting warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius. Yeah, thoughtfully written crazy-talk waste-of-time bullshit. Like a wedding cake made out of Crisco, I'm sorry I even tasted it.

mlthoughts2018 7y ago

I think this really is not worth noting and the rapid appearance of a bunch of astroturfing comments along these lines is really disappointing. This post deserves to be dealt with on its own, and it’s perfectly fine as a statistical commentary on these graphs. It happens to be wrong in the conclusion, but not for any kind of political bias-based reason. If you aren’t willing to engage with people who hold a different view and have power to stop your preferred policies, why would expect them to do the same for you, and why would you expect your policies to ever be enacted? You’re looking for reasons to dismiss something on purely superficial grounds, and effectively disallowing any possibility that certain groups could actually present data that forces you to change your beliefs. It strikes me as even worse and more dangerous dogmatism than what comes out of the right-wing climate denying think tanks.

carapace 7y ago
> I think this really is not worth noting and the rapid appearance of a bunch of astroturfing comments along these lines is really disappointing. Not at all, IMO, it was the first thing that occurred to me: "Sounds like the title of a hit piece. I wonder who wrote it?" Cf. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_Law_of_Headlines https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_Law_of_Headline... etc... - - - - "What is the most important part of any message?" "The name of the messenger."
- mlthoughts2018 7y ago
  So in some superficial judgement, you decided it must be a hit piece without reading it and then confirmation-bias-googled some funding sources to reinforce your view still without reading it, and then use a rhetorical quip to act like this is justified? It seems like you’re just admitting to what I claimed. You dismiss things based on superficial details but don’t admit they are superficial. To be very clear, I don’t agree with the OP post at all, but it was thoughtfully written and the point about statistical significance being very misleading for inference goals is really valid, especially for climate predictions. It actually takes some statistical effort to point out why the posts conclusions aren’t valid (eg it’s the trend of temperature increase that affects policy, not the nearness of the observations to the model’s mean prediction). As someone who works professionally in statistics, I say this post is of higher quality than a large amount of even published research, especially in social science, and seems like fair un-extreme skepticism that deserves to be honestly and sincerely engaged with, and not dismissed out of hand because you spent 5 seconds googling the buzzword name of a funding entity you dislike.
  - carapace 7y ago
    There's only so much time in the day, and there's so much information, presented in so many ways, and it's so common for these sorts of things to be biased to the point of propaganda, that I've developed a heuristic that says (in this case) I shouldn't waste my time with this particular piece. However, > As someone who works professionally in statistics, I say this post is of higher quality than a large amount of even published research, especially in social science ...this makes me sit up and take notice. I'll go back and actually read the thing now. - - - - I got as far as the first paragraph: > As an economist who writes on climate change policy, my usual stance is to stipulate the so-called “consensus” physical science (as codified for example in UN and US government reports), and show how the calls for massive carbon taxes and direct regulations still do not follow. For an example of this discrepancy that I often mention, William Nordhaus recently won the Nobel Prize for his work on climate change economics, and he calibrated his model to match what the UN’s IPCC said about various facts of physical science, such as the global temperature’s sensitivity to greenhouse gas emissions, etc. Even so, Nordhaus’ Nobel-winning work shows that governments doing nothing would be better for human welfare than trying to hit the UN’s latest goal of limiting warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius. Yeah, thoughtfully written crazy-talk waste-of-time bullshit. Like a wedding cake made out of Crisco, I'm sorry I even tasted it.