The Wierding Way: Repost

This is a repost from my other blog. It seemed to me that the content is a little more appropriate here.
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Not something out of Dune, but an op-ed by Thomas Friedman in the NYT.

Now, I'm not that big a Tom Friedman fan. I remember he had a clever turn with his meme "The World Is Flat," which was, in fact, clever as far as it went, and I thought he had some interesting points. I ultimately felt it was a bit of oversimplification, which could not support the weight with which he rode it into the ground. I also remember him as an early and vocal supporter of the Iraq war, where he made the phrase "Suck on this!" briefly relevant to international diplomacy. Here, he provides an earnest, if fact-lite (okay, it is an op-ed), defense of global warming science, which doubtless could use some defending about now.

Global wierding? I agree that the term "global warming" should be avoided. I prefer something like "climate change." It is clear, concise, and quite descriptive and appropriate to the subject. "Global wierding" sounds (suspiciously) like a clever and catchy book title. Look for it by the end of the year.

His opening argument is essentially that weather is not climate, which is correct. The problem is that this argument works both ways: a heat wave in summer is likewise not evidence of global warming. He, of course, forgets this later talking about how recent weather events are "right in line" with climate change predictions. Such predictions are cheap and easy. I predict that sometimes weather will be severe and sometimes not: no matter what happens, it will be "right in line" with my prediction! The truth is that the climate models did not predict these events, and may be ever unlikely to do so. And while I feel for Australia and its 13 year drought, such droughts are not unique historically, such as the 300 year drought in North America 1000 years ago that led to the disruption of the Anasazi, or the one that brought down the Akkadian empire.

His diagnosis and prescriptions for the current climate science debates seem superficial. The faults are in citing non-peer-reviewed work and failing to respond to legitimate questions, but not making stuff up or conspiring to manipulate the peer-review process. And forgive my ignorance, but I thought the IPCC process was already supposed to be a convening of top world experts to put forth a summary of the science. I'm not sure a new panel convened to make better sense (or make up better stuff, perhaps?) of the old panel is such a hot idea. Besides, they would probably be the exact same experts (since there must be a "consensus").

I actually support the idea of investing in new energy technologies, but there are a host of good and valid reasons for doing so; making an unsupported statement such as "the warming that humans are doing is irreversible" shouldn't be necessary. Part of the problem, as he correctly states, is that larger numbers of people are going to try to "live like Americans," but I'm not sure there are enough resources on the planet to allow everyone to live that way; the current economic crisis indicates that we have enough trouble maintaining the American standard for those who live that way already. Sometimes it feels as though the purpose of climate alarmism is to redistribute (a la Robin Hood?) resources to a more "equitable" plan.

Tom does seem to have concerns about China. Maybe he should dust off the old standby "Suck on this!"