Things that scare Anthony Watts at WUWT: Air-conditioning, Oklahoma City, and rising seas

Arguably, one good explanation for why people reject climate science is that it scares them. Today Anthony Watts, who runs the climate conspiracy blog WUWT, said he was scared by air-conditioners, and Oklahoma City. He also said he was scared of rising seas. He often rejects the fact that seas will rise as ice melts.

I'd say that being scared is probably one of the main reasons for deniers denying. It fits with the research on the conservative brain. It's been shown already that free market ideology is a predictor of climate science denial. Pair this with the research on the conservative brain and it is apparent that emotions are more likely to get in the way of reason for people who are politically conservative than for others. In particular, fear rather than reason is probably what drives a lot of people to reject climate science.

Belief trumps fact at WUWT. And are fake sceptics "cynics"?

Anthony Watts gives another illustration of his limited vocabulary and poor grasp of English (archived here). Anthony put up a rather nice photo of a researcher at Michigan State University and described him as looking "angry". He doesn't. He's even showing a hint of a smile.

Many times when Anthony disagrees with someone, he describes them in terms of being "angry" or "full of hate" or "mendacious" or a variation. Those are three of his favourite ways of describing people with whom he disagrees. He couldn't label this scientist using what is pretty well the only other descriptor in his arsenal, an "anonymous coward" or a "hateful anonymous coward", because his name was on the research paper and in the press release. And anyway, he showed his photo, which tends to dispel any notion of anonymity.

Anthony seems unable to write: "I disagree with X because Y".  Many times it's because Anthony can't figure out what "X" is.  All he knows is that it's something that he disagrees with. Maybe because a scientist wrote it. Or maybe because the person who said "X" votes Democrat. Or maybe because they wear yellow socks, or a polka dot tie, or a skirt and high heeled shoes. Whatever. If by some chance Anthony does work out what is being said (the "X"), then he's unable to articulate the "Y" - why he disagrees. In this case it's really hard to figure out what Anthony Watts disagrees with or finds contentious. The research results should not surprise anyone.

This particular researcher, Michigan State University sociologist Aaron M. McCright, has had a paper published about American perceptions of weather and human-caused global warming. Interestingly it was published in Nature Climate Change, rather than a sociology journal.

Quote of the Week - Anthony Watts himself sums up the scaredy cat deniers at WUWT

I've often observed how much Anthony Watts and his 8% dismissives at WUWT are scared of being scared.  As Anthony himself points out, his "quote of the week" sums up Anthony and all his climate science denying fans very well. (Archived here.)  Anthony writes:

David Elder of Australia, commenting on this event at WUWT, condensed what many of us feel about global warming and environmentalism into a single sentence.

A great victory over the radical green extreme. We here in Oz have found WUWT invaluable in this cause. There has got to be a better way of stewardship for the planet than by scaring the hell out of everyone.

I won't comment on his giving credit to WUWT except to observe that almost no-one I meet has ever heard of Anthony Watts and WUWT.  If they had they'd agree they were all utter nutters.

For the rest, if there ever was an article on "stewardship of the planet" on WUWT, it was likely to be some harebrained scheme to destroy natural arid areas and all the life they contain by turning them into forests - by diverting water thousands of kilometres (and destroying natural waterways in the process) or bringing hordes of cloven footed beasts to wreck Australia's natural grasslands or some other wacky idea.  Even those wacky ideas are few and far between.  Most of the WUWT articles are to encourage the burning of fossil fuels so we go down the gurgler more quickly, or irrational disbelief and mockery of mainstream science and scientists, or wacky and paranoid conspiracy theories of the "one world government", or Agenda21 and climate science is a commie, fascist, socialist, treehugging, greenie, "Lysenkoist" plot kind.  They aren't the nuttiest of the utter nutters but they are moving quickly in that direction.

Global warming makes WUWT-ers crazy scared

The key element of the quote is "scaring the hell out of everyone".  Anthony and his WUWT fans are scared shitless of being scared.  And when it all comes down to it, the findings of climate science scare them more than anything.  That's one of the main reasons they protest it so much.  That's why they deny it. (The other reason is that they don't want governments to do anything to stop it. It offends their staunchly pro-individual anti-social ideology. See Smokey's comment on my other article for a classic example of both.)

Psychology shows that the conservative brain responds to fear.  And there is barely a more conservative brain that that of the average WUWT-er.  The disability is described here at alternet.org - an excerpt:

Consider for a moment just how terrifying it must be to live life as a true believer on the right. Reality is scary enough, but the alternative reality inhabited by people who watch Glenn Beck, listen to Rush Limbaugh, or think Michele Bachmann isn't a joke must be nothing less than horrifying.

Research suggests that conservatives are, on average, more susceptible to fear than those who identify themselves as liberals. Looking at MRIs of a large sample of young adults last year, researchers at University College London discovered that “greater conservatism was associated with increased volume of the right amygdala”. The amygdala is an ancient brain structure that's activated during states of fear and anxiety. (The researchers also found that “greater liberalism was associated with increased gray matter volume in the anterior cingulate cortex” – a region in the brain that is believed to help people manage complexity.)

I have no sympathy for them and their destructive desires and simple minds.  Anthony Watts and his mob at WUWT are intent on becoming more scared by rejecting climate science and by rejecting any and all ways of mitigating global warming.  Even a conservative brain unable to manage complexity shouldn't be that dumb. It's not logical!

Scared of 'scary' graphics!

Why do deniers reject climate science?

Based on this article by Anthony Watts at WUWT - it looks as if one answer is because they don't want to see 'scary' graphics.

(It's that darn conservative brain at work again!)

To save you having to go over and see what I'm talking about, here is what Anthony Watts wrote about a climate discussion on CNN:

The panelists, while on one hand saying there’s no link between tornadoes and increased CO2, on the other hand they were playing Janus and trying to convince the audience that now the weather has a new ‘personality’ while using scary and misleading graphics like this one:

Okay - it was me that bolded the 'scary' bit :D  My guess is the image was probably from the hottest year ever recorded in the USA last year - but I don't know.

Whatever - it sure is scary!

Can you cope with more scary?

Australia's angry summer - 2012-13.

Unreasonably "Reasonable" - Uncertainty is No Monster - Live with It or Die by It

Or ... Why Judith Curry is Wrong

A major bushfire is heading straight for your home, getting bigger and faster and fiercer by the minute, fueled by wind and dry vegetation. The fire front is about 900 meters away. You can hear the roar, it's creating its own wind. You can see the glow through the thick pall of smoke that's covered the sky. The daylight is a weird colour, orange-pink - almost peach-coloured. You can't breathe properly, it smells of burning leaves. You can see the embers falling ahead of the fire. You can hear the loud bangs as trees explode in the heat and flames. You know from past fires something of what to expect, including the unexpected.

Your sister from a city a thousand miles away phones you and says, "It's not certain the fire will hit you, is it?"  Sis has always had a Pollyanna streak.  She is afraid for us and is seeking reassurance.

The weather bureau reports a 30% probability of a change in wind direction but not until some time later in the day, with a 10% probability of light rain.

Which of these responses would you regard as 'sensible'?

1. Dump tonnes of kerosene in the fire's path, leaving a trail of kerosene leading straight to your back door?
2. Don't take any action at all.  Wait until you have more information?
3. Send out helicopters, fire trucks with fire retardant to try to contain the blaze and pack up your car with family members, pets and whatever you can grab and get the hell out of there?

Too many people argue for the first response.  Keep adding fuel to the fire.  Keep pouring CO2 into the atmosphere.  Wait until it's 100% certain that the wind won't change in time and stop the fire's momentum.  Continuing to add fuel to the fire is the way to go until we can better 'scope' the uncertainty, they will argue.

A few people will argue for number two.  Don't add any more fuel to the fire but otherwise don't do anything until you know more.  Close all coal-fired power stations immediately.  Shut down the oil refineries.  But don't go building wind turbines or electric vehicles.  Don't plan for higher sea levels. Don't go changing building codes.  Don't shore up water storage for future droughts.

Others will argue for the third option.  Change the source of energy away from fossil fuels and adapt to what climate change will bring.  Minus the "getting the hell out of there".  (People who live in the bush will have their fire plan ready each summer, their valuables and pet cages at hand, their fire retardant clothes in their emergency kit along with a mask and water, and their fire escape route planned out.)  

What do you think about that?  What path would you recommend?

Nowhere else to go

Where I live there's a new classification of Code Red = Catastrophic fire warning.  Code Red is beyond Extreme.  When this is announced people are supposed to leave the area (not mandatory).  Problem is, there's usually nowhere within 500 km that isn't in the Catastrophic fire zone.  Just like with global warming.  We've only got one earth.

Seeking reassurance

Many climate science deniers appear to reject the evidence because they react like Sis did.  They want reassurance.  So much so that they seek it out.  They lap up disinformation and hoard it like gold.  They avoid or dismiss unpalatable facts as "alarmist".  They can't cope with 'alarm'.  Studies suggest the conservative brain is more responsive to fear.  Although this confers some advantages it can also impede reason, resulting in poor judgement and 'wrong' decisions.

There is always uncertainty

As anyone who's done any planning will tell you, there is always uncertainty. Uncertainty is not a monster.  There is almost never only one "right answer".  When facing something like a bushfire or climate change, the "wrongest" answer is to not act at all.  Societal paralysis while climate change continues unabated.  Geological history gives us insight into what to expect, including the unexpected.  If we waited for 100% certainty about everything in the future, we'd never get out of bed in the morning.

The "wrong" answer

To not act is as deliberate a decision as acting based on information at hand.  It is the wrong response.

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Quit Shooting the Messenger!  Demand Leadership from Leaders!

This post was inspired by reactions to Judith Curry's recent written and oral testimony to a US House of Reps subcommittee.  For example:

Shifting goal post alert: The real question that must be settled before any policy actions are taken to address the postulated threat from human-induced global warming is ....(insert shifting goal posts here)

Strawman construction 1:...suggesting (to me) a much more cautious approach to emissions reduction than has been adopted in Australia and elsewhere....Of course, I regard “cautious” as not taking extensive and costly action without more convincing evidence as to the merits of such action, others might interpret it as pre-emptive large-scale precautionary reductions.

Strawman 2: ...Those who posit that there is one (a problem), which requires remedial action, have to show empirical evidence that they know what the hell they are talking about – BEFORE they request any action be taken.

And Curry herself, IMO misrepresenting scientific uncertainty, its nature, how it is scoped and quantified, and the relative importance of different aspects of science and the relevance of different aspects to government policy development - and building her own strawmen.  Even though she states clearly up front that humans are causing global warming, she later implies that scientists are wrong to assert that humans are causing global warming, which is the scientific consensus, writing instead:

Given these uncertainties, there would seem to be plenty of scope for disagreement among scientists. Nevertheless, the consensus about dangerous anthropogenic climate change is portrayed as nearly total among climate scientists. Further, the consensus has been endorsed by all of the relevant national and international science academies and scientific societies.

I have been trying to understand how there can be such a strong consensus given these uncertainties....

...When uncertainty is not well characterized and there is concern about ‘unknown unknowns,’ there is increasing danger of getting the wrong answer and optimizing for the wrong thing.

And her over-simplification of decision-making pitfalls mixed with a bright red herring.  No, Judith, neither of these hits the nail on the head:

There are two situations to avoid: i) acting on the basis of a highly confident statement about the future that turns out to be wrong; and ii) missing the possibility of an extreme, catastrophic outcome. Avoiding both of these situations requires much deeper and better assessment of uncertainties and areas of ignorance, as well as creating a broader range of future scenarios than is currently provided by climate models.

I strongly disagree with Curry.  The main situation to avoid is that of waiting till it is too late.  Waiting until options are reduced to all but a few.  Waiting until atmospheric CO2 gets so high that there are no choices left to humanity.  Waiting until climate change wreaks havoc and destabilises economies such that we can no longer afford to take action.  Or worse, waiting until there are no longer coherent societies or stable governments that can see actions through to completion.  There are a myriad of actions that can be taken now, which won't be "wrong" in any sense of the word.

Leaders, take responsibility! Certain science, uncertain policy response

The biggest sin Curry commits is that of pointing her finger at science, rather than at the leaders, the rule-makers, the legislators.  The uncertainty is in the policy response, not the science.  The science is settled more than adequately to inform policy decisions.  Legislators' efforts need to go towards determining what paths to follow, what suite of policy responses and programs to implement.  It's not the science that's uncertain in this context.

Businesses wants a consistent policy direction.  The science is settled but the policy response, where it exists, is fragmented.  The corporate sector hates a policy vacuum.  Investors look for clear guidance.  The community elects leaders to lead, not fiddle while the bush burns. 

Curry confirms that there is a raging bushfire, that we run the risk of it burning down the house.  She can see the fire bearing down.  Everyone else can see the fire raging and heading in their direction.  But instead of calling for a plan of action to deal with the very real fire, she turns around and says:- "Well, maybe that bushfire we can all see bearing down on us isn't real.  It's red and it's hot and it's got flames and lots of white and black and yellow smoke, and it's leaving burnt forests and grasslands in its wake.  Just the same, I think it needs more analysis.  We need more measurements.  We need more temperature readings, to examine the smoke, analyse the smoke particles, confirm that those flames are really flames.  Build another model. We need to make sure it really is a bushfire before we start to think about getting out of its path or putting it out!  Meanwhile, let's add more kerosene."

IMO Judith confirms her adopted role as that of 'delayer', who wants to keep the bushfire burning by pouring tonnes kerosene onto it, under the guise of "waiting for certainty" about what is already certain.

Downside of the Conservative Brain

Ends and Means - Is Morality Dependent upon World View?

On one of my rare visits to the blog of Judith Curry, I came across a conundrum.  She had an article discussing whether the ends justify the means. 

In it she had a paragraph about Peter Gleick who, by pretending to be someone else, obtained revealing documents from the Heartland Institute.  She implied that she believes the ends did not justify the means in that case.  Her very next paragraph was about the stolen emails from CRU, and the way she referred to them it's clear she believes that when it comes to stealing thousands of emails, the ends did justify the means.

However in the latter case, the use to which the stolen emails were put was for nefarious purposes (to misrepresent science and scientists and thereby try to delay action to mitigate global warming).  On the other hand, the use to which the Heartland Institute documents were put was to expose nefarious goings on.  They showed, among other things, the depths to which the Heartland Institute would stoop to prevent any action to ameliorate global warming.

Now I'm not one to see the world in black and white, but Prof Curry's position does strike me as very perplexing from a moral standpoint. 

(Coby posted an article recently on the Heartland affair, in which he discusses how ethical ends vs means issues are not always black and white.  Scott Mandia expresses the view that what Dr Gleick did was wrong, but that despite this error, he continues to contribute a heap of good to the world, while the Heartland Institute continues to only do bad.  He provides scorecards as evidence.)

Logical fallacies and flawed assumptions

Curry bases her article on a post by Roger Pielke Jr, which in my opinion has logical fallacies and flawed assumptions. 

He argues that people doing the right thing for the wrong reasons is akin to companies pretending horse meat is beef.  What he refers to is people wanting to mitigate global warming because they believe that it will cost relatively less to act sooner rather than later.  (Yes, his argument is more about cost in dollar terms in the relatively short term (decades) rather than loss of human life, biological diversity, and general ecological destruction over the medium to longer term (centuries to millenia.))

As well as disregarding medium to longer term impacts of global warming, there are (at least) two other flaws in Pielke Jr's argument:

Firstly, he says that the science is not 'strong' in regard to increasing costs associated with extreme events (hotter, longer droughts; bigger floods etc), as a proportion of GDP, even if we do nothing to limit global warming.  The jump from the science not being 'strong' to 'there will not be increasing costs/GDP associated with extreme events' as the world heats up, is a leap much to big to take IMO.  For one thing it's not a scientific point - the science is quite clear that we will get more and more often events that today are considered extreme.  The point he is putting forward is an economic one (not a scientific one) - that GDP will rise faster than costs associated with extreme events. IMO the science is at least grounded in evidence.  The economics has a lot more ifs and buts and assumptions (and in any case, he doesn't point directly to any cost/GDP projections to support his position.  He merely makes a passing mention of the Stern Review and the IPCC).

Secondly he seems to imply that even if people overly attribute an extreme event (today) to global warming then it is because someone (knowledgeable) has deliberately deceived them, rather than because they are ignorant or were mislead by another ignorant person.  There is nothing to support that assumption.

To sum up Roger Pielke Jr's position, he seems to be saying let's pay for extreme events as they happen.  Don't plan for them or take any preventative action now because the world will have more money in the future to deal with the increase in weather disasters.

To sum up Prof Curry's position, she seems to be saying:

1. Let the world heat up and do it's worst.  Let future generations deal with the consequences.

2. Deception is bad (even if you have good intentions) but stealing is good though you have bad intentions.

The Conservative Brain

I guess these positions are manifestations of the drawbacks of having a conservative brain. (Having a conservative brain is not inherently 'good' or 'bad'.  It has benefits as well as disadvantages.  There are upsides and downsides to having a liberal brain too.) 

This article gives some insight into the conservative brain. Put simply, scientific evidence indicates that people having a 'conservative brain' are more fearful (eg saying climate scientists are 'alarmists'); while people having a 'liberal brain' are more tolerant of uncertainty (more easily make decisions when there is inherent ambiguity). 

Then there is the finding that conservatives have a greater tendency to avoid self-harm ("I don't accept science because I don't want to pay tax"), whereas liberals avoid collective group harm ("I want to save the world and everyone and everything in it").

Combine those two tendencies of the conservative brain and you are part way towards explaining the difficulty many conservatives have when it comes to accepting, let alone acting upon, unpalatable facts that affect the whole world.

More of my musings on the conservative brain can be found here.

Is gang mentality more common among conservative men?

Thinking about what makes men form lynch mobs to attack who they see as an 'outsider' - such as an intelligent women, particularly if they think she doesn't share their world view.  Is the gang mentality more common among conservative men?

In trying to understand what motivates some men to gang up on women I came across this article: How coherence defines conservatism.

The article comments on the low tolerance of conservatives for ambiguity and cognitive dissonance, which is a well known and much researched attribute.  It goes on to discuss the search for 'coherence', which is the opposite of cognitive dissonance.

My thinking is that this may result in the suppression of rational thought when dealing with an uncomfortable situation, and a reliance on emotion to govern behaviour in such circumstances.   Emotional responses can cause people to lash out in an unpredictable way, with sometimes very adverse consequences.

That could in part explain why some men won't acknowledge when one of their rank is behaving like a sexist pig.  Instead of chastising the perpetrator who they see as one of their own, the conservative men gang up and say 'He's not being a sexist pig, you are - because you said that what he said was sexist.'

The Lynch Mob

Such a response is automatic in them and none of the gang members stop to think it through rationally.  It's driven by their emotion and they take comfort in the fact that every member of their gang is with them against the evil outsider (the woman). It's enough for these gang members that they've resolved the feeling of discomfort by attacking the victim not the perpetrator.  They regain their sense of 'coherence'.  Because they view the perpetrator as being one of their own, in their mind if they chastised him they would have had to own his behaviour and their minds could not tolerate that.  It would overload on cognitive dissonance.

That's no excuse of course.  The human brain, including the conservative brain, has the ability to reason.  It's the behaviour of a lynch mob for which there is no excuse. Lynch mobs and gangs operate like a single organism instead of operating like a group of individuals.  An individual needs to separate from the mob to think independently and start to behave in a more rational manner.  (In business jargon it's referred to as 'group think' and there are techniques to try to avoid it.)

Inertia vs effort, morality vs group coherence

The other aspect is that it takes effort to check to see if one of their own gang was in fact misbehaving.  Or to see if the 'outsider' is a trouble maker or if she is simply an individual who happened to observe something nasty and report it.  To not investigate is laziness - and morally repugnant.  However the gang encourages laziness and for some people, gang coherence is a stronger force than moral imperative or justice. There is a risk that if any gang member were to take the effort to look at the situation rationally (in my case it's clear that not one person bothered to look at the situation at all, let alone rationally), the other members would gang up on him and ostracise him.  So laziness is the 'safest' route - for individual 'coherence' as well as for group 'coherence'.

The dark side of the conservative brain

I figure my search for understanding the dark side of the conservative brain will lead in many different directions - from moral writings to cognitive science to ethics and philosophy and back to psychology more generally.