The Authors of Freakonomics have dared to (mildly) question the “accepted science” of AGCC in their forthcoming book SuperFreakonomics, for which heresy the church of algore is in full baying pursuit mode:
Error-riddled ‘Superfreakonomics’: New book pushes global cooling myths, sheer illogic, and “patent nonsense” — and the primary climatologist it relies on, Ken Caldeira, says “it is an inaccurate portrayal of me” and “misleading” in “many” places.
Climate Progress
New Book “SuperFreakonomics” Mischaracterizes Climate Science
Union of Concerned Scientists
SuperFreakonomics Authors Forced To Answer Critics
The Puffington Host
Wow, all this for a book that won’t even be available in e-format for another day or two and which won’t be available in Hardback until the end of October…
Global Warming in SuperFreakonomics:
The Anatomy of a Smear
By Stephen J. Dubner
Freakonomics Blog1. Let the wild rumpus start.
Yes, it’s an ancient cliché: a lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes. But it’s still accurate.The final chapter in our forthcoming book, SuperFreakonomics, is about global warming: the risks, uncertainties, misperceptions, and proposed solutions. It has already come in for steep criticism by, among others, a prominent environmental blogger and a well-known environmental advocacy group. Their criticism has radiated into the blogosphere, producing many further stories with headlines like “SuperFreakonomics Gets Climate Change Super Freaking Wrong.”
They have given the impression that we are global-warming deniers of the worst sort, and that our analysis of the issue is ideological and unscientific. Most gravely, we stand accused of misrepresenting the views of one of the most respected climate scientists on the scene, whom we interviewed extensively. If everything they said was actually true, it would indeed be a damning indictment. But it’s not.
2. What we actually say in the book.
Our global-warming chapter has several sections. We discuss how it’s a very hard problem to solve since pollution is an externality – that is, the people who generate pollution generally don’t pay the cost of their actions and therefore don’t have strong incentives to pollute less. We discuss how even the most sophisticated climate models are limited in their ability to predict the future, and we discuss the large measure of uncertainty in this realm, given that global climate is such a complex and dynamic system. We discuss some of the commonly held misperceptions about climate and energy, including the fact that the historic relationship between global temperature and atmospheric carbon dioxide is more complicated than is generally thought.
There is considerably more, and it is well worth the read.
Having read Freakonomics when it first came out, I was already planning on buying any new releases by these authors. I look forward to this new effort on their part now with even greater anticipation.
]]>< 