The Stern Review: A Dual Critique (download PDF), for The World Economics Journal of Current Economic Analysis and Policy.
The abstract;
The Stern Review, described as the most comprehensive review ever carried out on the economics of climate change, was published on 30 October 2006. The twin papers from a combined team of scientists and economists present a critique in two parts of the Stern Review. Part I focuses on scientific issues and their treatment in the Review. It forms the point of departure for Part II which deals with economic aspects. Each paper has its own list of authors. In relation to both scientific and economic issues, the authors question the accuracy and completeness of the Stern Review’s analysis and the objectivity of its treatment. They conclude that the Review fails to present an accurate picture of scientific understanding of climate change issues, and will reinforce ill-informed alarm about climate change.
Two interrelated features of the Stern Review are that it greatly understates the extent of uncertainty as to possible developments, in highly complex systems that are not well understood, over a period of two centuries or more; and its treatment of sources and evidence is persistently selective and biased. These twin features have combined to make the Review a vehicle for speculative alarmism. In the judgement of the authors of the Dual Critique, the Stern Review mishandles data; gives too little attention to actual observation and evidence, as distinct from the results of model-based exercises; and takes no account of the failures of due disclosure, and the chronic limitations of peer reviewing, that have been characteristic of work relating to climate change which governments have commissioned and drawn on. As to specifically economic aspects, the authors note among other weaknesses that the Review systematically overstates projected costs of climate change, partly though by no means wholly as a result of its failure to acknowledge the scope for long-term adaptation to possible global warming; underestimates the likely cost—including to the world’s poor—of the drastic global mitigation programme that it calls for; and proposes worldwide adoption of a specially low rate of interest for discounting the costs and benefits of mitigation, on the basis of inadequate analysis and without regard for the problems and risks that would result. So far from being an authoritative guide to the economics of climate change, the Stern Review is deeply flawed. It does not provide a basis for informed and responsible policies.
The Stern Review online
BBC: Stern Review at a glance.
Quell suprize.
Here is your money quote:
“Though the Review neither mentions nor discusses them, several other
plausible explanations of recent warming have been advanced in the professional
literature. One line of research has correlated recent temperature
trends with local heating caused by urbanization and industrialization.31
Other studies using longer-term geological evidence also suggest minimal
impacts from greenhouse gas forcing. One of these concludes that:
…the global warming observed during the latest 150 years is just a short
episode in the geologic history. The current global warming is most likely a
combined effect of increased solar and tectonic activities and cannot be attributed
to the increased anthropogenic impact on the atmosphere. Humans may be responsible
for less than 0.01°C (of approximately 0.56°C total average atmospheric
heating during the last century).32
The Review fails to refer to any of this research, the very existence of
which contradicts claims that the science is settled or that GHG forcing is
needed to explain current warming. It also fails to notice that models
trained to emulate climate using both the instrumental record and longterm
geological evidence—e.g. the last 140 years of surface temperature
measurements,33 the last 5,000 years of proxy climate data from a
Caribbean marine core and a South African speleothem,34 or the 100,000
year-long GRIP ice core35—are not only successful in ‘predicting’ the current
warming phase, but also suggest cooling over the next few decades.
This conclusion has also recently been strengthened on a more analytical
basis by NASA and the Russian Academy of Sciences, both of which have
issued predictions that cooling will occur early in the twenty-first century
as solar activity decreases.”
Oh no another ICE AGE with 3 kilometer sheets of ice over Toronto. Better warm up your lattes now!!
“This brings us to the matter of feedbacks. It is generally calculated that
a doubling of CO2 would, other factors kept constant, result in a global
mean warming of about 1 degree C. Alarming predictions all require that
water vapour and clouds act so as to greatly amplify the impact of CO2. But
it is freely acknowledged, including by the IPCC, that water vapour and
especially clouds are poorly modelled, while the underlying physics for
determining their behaviour is missing or even unknown. The governing
equations of fluid dynamics (Navier-Stokes) have resisted solution for over
100 years; indeed the Clay Institute is offering a $1 million prize to anyone
who can merely prove a solution exists. The Review’s glib treatment
of this fundamental issue again spotlights its failure to grasp the uncertainty
of climate research.”
Yep, I’ll just pick me up a cool million bucks, a Nobel Prize in Mathematics for solving the Navier-Stokes equations in fluid dynamics, and presto climate change will be solved!!! Shouldn’t take but an afternoon in a snow laden Greater Vancouver.
This has nothing to do with Stern review…but here is part of a letter I submitted to our local rag:
55 million years ago during a time known as the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum, the Arctic ocean’s average temperature exceeding 20 deg C: the Arctic was downright tropical compared to the current average temperature of -1.5 deg C.
Even more recently (1200 yrs ago) during the time of the Vikings, Iceland and Greenland where quite a bit warmer then today: the Vikings where farming in these Arctic locations and it was rare to encounter any sea ice.
It is estimated that for about 30% of earth’s history there where no polar ice caps or glaciers to be found. Technically speaking we are still coming out of an ice age; just a short time ago (in geological terms) Calgary was under more than a kilometer of ice.
The weather is always changing and regardless of man’s influences, the Arctic has been both warmer and colder in the past. Although politically fashionable, to imply that climate change is caused solely by human activity, is absurd and rather myopic if one considers historical and geological evidence.
4. CONCLUSION
We conclude that the Stern Review is biased and alarmist in its reading of
the science. In particular, it displays:
• a failure to acknowledge the scope and scale of the knowledge gaps and
uncertainties in climate science
• credulous acceptance of hypothetical, model-based explanations of the
causality of climate phenomena
• massive overestimation of climate impacts through an implausible population
scenario and one-sided treatment of the impacts literature,
including reliance on agenda-driven advocacy documents
• lack of due diligence in evaluating many pivotal research studies despite
the scandalous lack of disclosure of data and methods in these studies
• lack of concern for the defects and inadequacies of the peer review
process as a guarantor of quality or truth.
These and other related problems arise because the Review has relied for
advice almost exclusively on a small number of people and organizations
that have a long history of unbalanced alarmism on the global warming
issue. Most of the research cited by the Review does not, on inspection,
make a convincing case that greenhouse warming constitutes a major
threat that justifies an immediate and radical policy response. Contrary
research is consistently ignored, as are basic observational facts showing
that alarm is unwarranted.
The Review fails to present an accurate picture of scientific understanding
of climate change issues, and will reinforce ill-informed alarm
about climate change among the general public, the bureaucracy and the
body politic. HM Government will need to look elsewhere for a balanced,
impartial and authoritative review of the current climate change debate.
Man made climate change is as bogus a theory as peak oil or global cooling scams of the past.
As far as I’m concerned science is on trial here after it has taken a political bedmate to sell credibility for patronage revenue.
Governments that are set to levy carbon tax want reports that support their position and vice versa…what amazes me is there is always some scientific organization.institutite/professional association to step up to the plate and take tainted political payola for a report that aligns with policy.
Science will have a lot of credibility to regain after the dust on this climate change theory clears.
This is saying that the stern report is complete propaganda, lies, incompetence and crass advocacy mascarading as academic study. It just says it in a polite way.
Basically, the so-called “scientists” shilling their doom and gloom are more intested in their pseudo-cultist religion than actual science.
It is getting easier every day to identify the hairy eared square wheel enthusiasts who come slowly down from the hills with great difficulty due to their traditional use of square wheels. If anyone questions them they immediately and loudly denounce the spreading use of round wheels, stating that what was good enough for their grandparents is good enough for them. And here they are in SDA, under a banner that reads: Economists Against Stern.
As usual in these testimonials for the economics of 40 years ago, they find no specific error or mistake with Stern. They just do not like his findings that much needs to be done and it will cost more later so let us get to it. Sounds pretty modest and common sense. Not for the Sqare wheelers. They want to discount the future, having the effect of presenting a claim that there is no need to do anything at all right now and when there is, a few decades from now, everyone will be a lot rilcher than today and so it will not be a big expense.
And do not try to ask them to explain , for they will telll you they have worked all this out in models that you could not possibly understand.
Their claims do not even command the agreement of all the economists, among whom a number find the 575 Stern report (involving the work of at least 12 scholars over a year) quite sensible in its methods and conclusions. As one of them, the Australian economist John Quiggan remarked, (I paraphrase) if you do not care about the future at all, you can agree with those who refuse to accept Stern’s advice; if you do care about the future you will find Stern reasonable.
And what are the people like in Alberta? Do you say, to hell with the future, just so I make a buck while I am around, that is all I care about. Or do they have a different view.
By the way, the future is now.
Humans may be responsible
for less than 0.01°C (of approximately 0.56°C total average atmospheric
heating during the last century).32
This quote has been discredited – authors averaged CO2 emissions (that can be credited to humans) over entire geological history of planet. Since Industrial revolution is about 2 centuries old, this seems a bit of a stretch.
Garhane,
wipe your chin, you’re drooling again.
Warwick:
When garhane passes at least several courses in “Advanced Theoretical Physics” we might give him some credence.
So far he hasn’t posted a solution to the Navier-Stokes equations which I have studied.
For a primer one can peruse the following:
http://www.navier-stokes.net/
From personal experience, I can attest Navier-Stokes equations are far from trivial.
Gird your loins for combat my friends, the moonbats are on the march. Anything that might reduce the elevated status of the “We’re all going to die” folks back to their basement living existance will be attacked. They’ve achieved status with this do-do and are loath to let it go.
Why this gives Moonbatism a Cause Celebre. Something that they can be! Something certainly better than being a recipient of “Easy Money” in the oil patch at 40 below.
RE: By the way, the future is now.
I think that little gem is only true if one is a clown with a basic need to redefine ones daily reality.
Future-time to be; what is to come.
Now- at the present; at this moment.
When all is said and done, global warming being bullshit or not… it wouldn’t kill us to start cleaning up our collective act. As long as the focus is here in Canada, lets just get on with it.
No one can deny that we have an impact on our planet, and I say lets start by going back to glass bottles and eliminating plastic ones. Throw the tupperware out!!! Free yourself from the world of plastic and your not only doing the earth a favor, your saving yourself as well.
Little steps make for big results
I like plastic Joe. Glass is heavy. And it burns gas to ship the added weight.
Having lived on the praires all my days, I’m really looking forward to the upcoming climate change. . I hope the projections are correct. So we in Calgary / Regina are going to be balmy warm like Rapid City, South Dakota or maybe (dare I say it!) Salt Lake City?
ah I’m sure those good folks share all the sympathies…
now if I could just recall where all those hurricanes were supposed to be last summer…
Joe Calgary makes sense when he advocates many small steps.
By the way if you take a good look at the Dual Critque and note the authors, you really can say we have here the last stand of the AGW deniers and friends. They even work up the idea that global warming is temporary and not even caused by human activity, and quote a couple of guys whose method was to compare human CO2 emissions to those of nature over the whole history of the planet and conclude that human emisssions did not amount to much. Pretty swift,eh?
There is somebody who believes you need to know physics to understand that conclusion is sincerely dumb? Poster Tom Riel is correct on this item.
And, can it be, yes, this motley bedraggled crew of left over deniers wants to revive an attack on the Hockey Stick, a fight the deniers lost and lost and lost years ago.
This production is part of the past, as are the authors. Right now we have a need to look into the affairs of the worst carbon emitters in Alberta who are currently demanding the government make it profitable for them before they will even consider reducing emissions.
RE: And what are the people like in Alberta? Do you say, to hell with the future, just so I make a buck while I am around, that is all I care about….
Here is a post I saw on Maggies farm this morning. It seems to apply equally to garhane and Canadian liberals too. No big surprise there./s
-The principal feature of American liberalism is sanctimoniousness. By loudly denouncing all bad things — war and hunger and date rape — liberals testify to their own terrific goodness. More important, they promote themselves to membership in a self-selecting elite of those who care deeply about such things…. It’s a kind of natural aristocracy, and the wonderful thing about this aristocracy is that you don’t have to be brave, smart, strong or even lucky to join it, you just have to be liberal.-
P.J. O’Rourke
You mean The Hockey Stick ISN’T a manipulated load of cherrypicked and ignored data?
Or are the hockey stick believers simply burying their heads in the sand and saying “I can’t hear you”?
Again, attack the personalities, not what they say. Classic Lieberal response. Where’s the boilerplate “And they’re gay, too!” accusation?
“No one can deny that we have an impact on our planet”
That’s true but,
Most people in the developed world live in urban areas. When they look around they see an environment that that has been incredibly modified by mans action.Unlike rural people they don’t see the vast majority of the Earths surface that is basically in its natural state. About 71% of the Earth’s surface is covered by salt water. Of the 29% that is land, only 1.5% is urbanized.
Human use of land is approximately:
Arable land: 13.13%
Permanent crops: 4.71%
Permanent pastures: 26%
Forests and woodland: 32%
Urban areas: 1.5%
Other: 30% (1993 est.)
Those that are trembling from pronouncements by the Green lobby have an incredible misunderstanding about the size of man and his modifications in comparison to the size of the Earth.
Pop Quiz:
Could all the gold that has ever been extracted from the Earth’s surface be conveniently stacked in Kate’s back yard?
It is generally a good idea to avoid the converted, since they have a tendency to go to great extremes as a way of renouncing their former manner of life. P J ORourke was a druggie and no account who converted and then could be found in the writers’ stable kept by the Cato Institute. This organization, very heavily funded by the wealthy, is a little to the right of Ghengis Khan. I wondered why poster concrete quoted the endlessly malicious ORourke instead of talking about Alberta people, then realized he was an American, as you can see by his odd use of the word “liberal” so I guess he just does not know. I figure Albertans are pretty much like the people I see at Canuck games, and I hope they show up for the big fight on carbon trading, before the government hands out the public air, for free, to giant polluters who will then try to bully their way into getting us to buy it back.
So Garhane, I take it you haven’t heard the Martian ice caps are melting?
We in Alberta are harvesting our natural resources, under difficult conditions, so people like you, Garthane, can consume them. If you don’t consume them (and pay us well for harvesting them), then it’s not worth the trouble for us to harvest them.
So, Garthane, if you want to know how to decrease the harvesting of our natural resources, look in a mirror. The largest CO2 emitters in Canada are eastern Canada’s (Ontario & Quebec’s) power plants. Of course, if you would really like us to de-fuel you, I suppose something could be arranged. After all, we do control the taps.
http://www.jamesspann.com/wordpress/?p=650
“The Weather Channel” Mess
Quote: “I do not know of a single TV meteorologist who buys into the man-made global warming hype. I know there must be a few out there, but I can’t find them”.
garhane, I am a Canadian. And yes, Albertans are pretty much like the people you see at the Canucks games i.e. they do stand upright when they walk. And the use of the word ‘liberal’ is not odd. You really should break out the dictionary more often. I quoted PJ because he describes the ‘sanctimonious’ attitude of the left (both in America and Canada) so very well. And being called out for being American does not negate your sanctimonious attitude, it underlines it.
RE: before the government hands out the public air for free.
Here is a news flash. Public air IS free. So is the rain that falls from the sky, even for us poor over burdened Canadians. And we certainly do not need our own government or the UN to pile more taxes on us, buying carbon credits from China, which FYI have little to do with pollution. CO2 does not pollute. It is ‘climate change’ that is the alleged target. If the UN were going after smog I would be more inclined to support them, but the UN and Mr. Dion are going to tax CO2. PMSH is writing made in Canada legislation that does effectively target pollution. And the USA has also done a much, much better job than the Canadian Liberals but results do not count for Liberals. They only have to “try”. But IMHO, for Canadas Liberals “Trying is Lying”. Which is fine for the lefties, because it is the sanctimonious attitude of the liberal elite that is important, not the results.