Dear Jessica

Non-exclusionary positions on divisive debates, and Climate Change

Published: 2024-02-19

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Introduction

The ravages of a changing climate are inbound and the world is going to need to mitigate them.

The recent article on the rift between Russia and the West, "An Anglo-Euro-Russo- Rift", included a section examining the consequences for Europe's economies, due to its technocrats' adoption of the US' economic warfare against Russia. The quoted sentence seems to have inspired a comment from community member, Jessica:

Man made climate change is a cunning device to de industrialise and impoverish the world.

In response, I suggested that she may find the earlier False Dichotomies article of interest. Our discussion paused with an agreement that this article should be written to further it.

This article contains no 'news'. Rather, it is a re-explanation, hopefully more clearly, of my position on "climate change" and a further exploration of the motivation behind the False Dichotomies article.

Background

I am a generalist. I've studied English Literature and Drama, Mathematics and Computer Science and many of the physical sciences. I am not a polymath. My mind just likes puzzles, curios, anomalies. It also requires the support of art in its many forms. I am a poor musician. I have acted. I am a fledgling writer.

I am a scientist of the Khunian, Falsificationist and Humian epistemological variety. Beginning with Hume, I believe that, in the field of science what is knowable is limited to that which can be measured. This puts science in a box. It cannot be useful in metaphysics, ethics, aesthetics and many other fields of study.

Khun's work speaks of paradigms shifts. It helps to begin with Popper's falsification of theories. A theory in science is a useful explanation of how things interact. It has to be useful, which is to say it must make predictions possible. This exposes it to challenge when its predictions are contradicted by reproducible observation, or reliable anomalies. I expect that we are on the verge of another paradigm shift in physics akin to the Newtonian to Einstinian shift, based upon the multi-dimensional (11+? of them) String theory. The problem faced is measurement outside of the 4 dimensions to which we feel ourselves confined. But, enough of that or this essay will wander too far afield.

There is one, extremely important understanding which is embedded in Falsificationism. Science is not about truth. There is no 'correct' theory. They are all wrong, with some being more wildly wrong than others.

This philosophical position was expressed by quotation by Assoc. Prof. Sørup, who we meet below, in the acknowledgments to his Ph.D thesis:

"Essentially, all models are wrong, but some are useful."

- George Edward Pelham Box

False Dichotomies

The October, 2023 article was a rumination on two controversial topics which seem to have produced a Buba Bush "You're with us or against us" divide in the skeptical communities of the alternate/independent media. The article visited the CoVID and Climate Change debates. At its core, it asks the reader to consider non-exclusionary positions on these divisive topics. This is akin, in geopolitics, to the Non-Aligned Movements of the Cold War era. We, said many a leader of emerging independent nations, do not wish to align ourselves on either side of the Cold War ideological divide. Some, like The Congo's Patrice Lumumba, were assassinated for this radical approach of "I'm trying to not pick a fight with anybody". Or, an attempt to not fight resulted in his murder.

Climate Change, Political

In False Dichotomies, I related that the position I finally took regarding Climate Change was twofold. Firstly, the work done by James Corbett on Maurice Green and others convinced me that environmental movements have been infested with grifters from the outset. I generalized this to the observation that whenever an emergency, real or generated, induces governments to spend a lot of money lobby groups will attempt to direct the money towards whichever established groups can best position themselves to be the beneficiaries. I remain quite proud of how I expressed this idea:

Inspiring extreme government spending outside of 'normal' activities is an aphrodisiac for grifters

With this fairly obvious observation out of the way, the question becomes "is Climate Change real or fictional?"

The first observation must be that the amount of money expended to hype up the threat, to increase the amount of government money to be spent, should be less than that spent. But, when that amounts to trillions of dollars, world wide, then one should expect a torrent of hyped-up narrative. These advertisements, for that is what they are, use all of the tools of advertising, particularly, appeals to emotion. In the case of Climate Change, these appeals also often cloaked in "science".

The introductory section to each official, large publication by the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is a classic example. Actually, even before that, the name itself gives the game away; it affirms the result supposedly being investigated. But, the first section of these publications is political, not scientific. And this is the section which is commented upon by the media. It is pure narrative. Thus, these authors are narrative writers under the influence of the lobby groups or grifters.

The Butterfly Effect

The article also mentions "Chaos Theory", or non-linear dynamics. I studied this topic, dear to my heart, at University back in the very early 1990s. It is of particular interest for me because it limits the utility of scientific theory. Useful predictions cannot be made when the mathematics behind the systems being described hold the property expressed as "sensitive to initial conditions" and non-linearity. I wrote code in Pascal on an IBM PC to graphically express the Julia Set, a superset of the Mandelbrot Set. This self-study exercise in pure curiosity was undertaken because the equation is so trivially simple. It is literally:

As an aside, I saw the self-similar, fractal structures emblematic of the Mandelbrot set in a recently published image of another galaxy taken with the James Web Space Telescope.

Mandelbrot Zoom Sequence, Mathigon, uploaded 2020-04-02

NGC 4254, JWST (James Webb Space Telescope)

The unpredictability of sensitive to initial conditions, non-linear systems is metaphorically expressed as the Butterfly Effect. The weather, climate, is a quintessential non-linear system. More precisely, it is a large collection of interacting, non-linear systems which are sensitive to initial conditions. Modelling global weather systems with precision over long time periods is so fundamentally, fiendishly difficult that I believe a mathematical physicist would classify it as impossible. But, if one drops precision and settles on patterns, one can produce models, some of which may be useful.

Climate Change, Scientific

The scientific position I reached on "Climate Change" was via friendship. I taught a course with Assoc. Prof. Sørup, henceforth Hjalte (pronounced Yall-teh). His field of study involved "Big Data" and the use of the High Performance Computing systems. The Computing Science department of the University at which we worked had invested in hardware and software which provided the needed compuational support. I contributed my expertise in computing science towards our collaborations. Together we enhanced the research potential of our department by facilitating the use of these High Performance Computing system across numerous fields of post graduate research via the course we taught and structures we established at the department.

I don't recall the exact moment, but it was likely during a break during one of our teaching periods when I asked Hjalte about "Climate Change". His response was simple and clear. Climate change can be reduced to understanding that there has been an increase in the average energy density of the atmosphere. The key phrase is 'average energy density'. The reason I remember it is because it is a measurable quantity. Values for it can be derived from other measurements, often space based (satellites).

As research for this article, I looked up Hjalte's Ph.D thesis. In it is mentioned a list of publications which were issued during the period of study which are not included in the thesis. One of these was "Markov chain modeling of precipitation time series: Modeling waiting times between tipping bucket rain gauge tips."

I mention this because I happen to know a little about the automated systems which the Danish government agency responsible for monitoring its weather, DMI, use. They are these 'tipping bucket rain gauges'.

A Ph.D candidate, now Ph.D, Raphael, whom I had the joy of working with was using satellite data to study the Brahmaputra River, which is probably one of the world's largest river systems of which you have never heard (I had not). It drains into Bangladesh and is a major cause of the annual flooding.

I mention Raphael, for I learned that he had to study the physics of the instrument aboard the satellite so that he could properly understand the measurements it was making, such that he understood their limitations.

In both cases, these scientists are directly connected with what is knowable. What is being measured, and how is it being measured? This is the root of science. It was fundamental to the research being done at this department because the professors that lead the research demanded this of their Ph.D candidates, just as their professors had probably, previously demanded of them.

There is bullshit in "science". Studies are published which have no practical value, claim to be science, and deserve to be derided and lampooned. This is not the work I saw at this department. I worked there, doing my best to help the professors by assisting their Ph.D's and trialing innovations in teaching and research, for a decade. I proudly count some of them, including Hjalte, as friends.

Hydrology

I enjoy a walk, particularly in the dawn of early morning. Half a year ago while working on learning to make bread I published an article on hydrological infrastructure. This essential engineering is a part of something larger, the commons, in which I am becoming increasingly interested. This morning my walk took my along a stormwater drain, a piece of infrastructure dear to Hjalte's supervising professor, Peter Steen (Mikkelsen).

These researchers are working on branches of engineering to manage extreme rainfall events in urban environments, or "urban flooding". Urban flooding events are particularly costly and dangerous. They not only impact the lives of the local population and local economic productivity, they can be potentially deadly from sewage overflow, for example. This is serious.

A Doctor Doctor

Danish Academia has a qualification which I believe is ancient and unusual, a "doctor doctor". Record time for a Ph.D is 5 years for a Masters plus 3 for the Ph.D. One can, in Denmark, after having been hired as a junior professor, attempt a final qualification which takes the same amount of time again, 8 years. A Ph.D must contribute new research to a field of study and this research needs to be submitted and defended in a manner which can be understood by other experts in the field. The Danish, academic doctorate, this extended qualification, requires not just a new, but a significant contribution to the field, or several fields, of study.

During my time at the department we had one such professor, Ida, who was an amazing woman. During the convolutions of University level departmental staff management she left our department for another. Not too long thereafter, a member of staff achieved this feat. The professor who earned this accolade from his peers was Hjalte's other supervising professor, Karsten.

One of Karsten's great attributes is that he is impervious to charm.

Is Climate Change Real?

Firstly, this is a terrible question. It requires definition.

But, I'll answer, “I don't know”.

What I do know is that serious Humian, Falsificationist scientists are working not on "Climate Change" but engineering improvements to Urban Water Systems to mitigate the impact of extreme weather events. They understand that there is a knowable consequence of an increasing energy density in the atmosphere, an increase in the intensity and/or frequency of flooding events (and other meteorology). They also know that many of the urban drainage systems which exist throughout much of the world were built over a century ago and are not designed to operate effectively in the expected and happening, increasingly intense and/or frequent flooding events.

These applied scientists, engineers, are not stupid. I do not believe that they would be working on risk mitigation technologies and strategies for urban drainage systems unless they were convinced that there is a risk.

Hjalte has been in collaboration with DMI (the Danish Meteorological Institute) since his Ph.D. He has access to the raw data from which he concludes that the increase in average atmospheric energy density is real. From this understanding of observed data, he and his former supervisors, now colleagues, conclude that there is a real risk of billions of people being affected by increasingly frequent and/or extreme urban flooding events. Thus, research is to be done to investigate mechanisms to better protect humanity from these risks. This is his, their, work.

Dear Jessica

I hope that this clarifies my position on "Climate Change".

I thank you for engaging in the topic and agreeing to an article as my way of contributing to the discussion.

or support this work via Buy Me A Coffee or Patreon.

Sources

An Anglo-Euro-Russo Rift, YesXorNo, 2022-02-16

• Comments to "An Anglo-Euro-Russo Rift", YesXorNo, 2022-02-16

False Dichotomies, YesXorNo, 2023-10-05

Waging Peace with Un-newsworthy Pipes, YesXorNo, 2023-07-12

Modelling of spatio-temporal precipitation relevant for urban hydrology with focus on scales, extremes and climate change, Hjalte Sørup, Technical University of Denmark (Department of Environmental Engineering), 2014

Thomas Kuhn, Alexander Bird, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2018-10-31

Karl Popper, Stephen Thornton, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2022-09-12

David Hume, William Edward Morris & Charlotte R. Brown, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2023-11-01

The Braided Brahmaputra, Earth Observator (NASA)

• NB: Raphael was working with data from an ESA (European Space Agency) satellite

Patrice Lumumba: the most important assassination of the 20th century, Georges Nzongola-Ntalaja, The Guardian, 2011-01-17

Meet Maurice Strong: Globalist, Oiligarch, "Environmentalist", James Corbett, The Corbett Report, 2016-02-01

Interview 1131 - Elaine Dewar on Maurice Strong's Cloak of Green, James Corbett, The Corbett Report, 2016-02-02

Episode 282 - The IPCC Exposed, James Corbett, The Corbett Report, 2013-09-28

The IPCC Prepares to Release More Hot Air, James Corbett, The Corbett Report, 2018-10-07

Culture

The Muppet Movie - I Hope That Somethin' Better Comes Along (Extended Version), Ralph the Dog & Kermit the Frog, TheLoon, uploaded 2012-09-22

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