Form of Argument: Adventures in Rhetoric
Form of Argument: Adventures in Rhetoric
In 2009 I received some questions from Westview High School in San Diego, California (see here). A few weeks ago I heard from the same teacher, Bob Whitney, and he was curious about how I would respond to the issues raised in this posting on Rogues and Scholars. This is a long exchange of postings between two engineers, Burt Rutan and Brian Angliss.
In my blog, for better or worse, I have tended away from engaging in the type of discussions that are represented by this exchange. A couple of reasons: One, this line of argument that works to discredit climate change is at this point political, and as I argued here, engagement in this argument is not productive. Two, while it is necessary to address the factual inaccuracies that are stated in this type of discussion, it has been done repeatedly and well by many others (look around, for instance, at Real Climate). That said – what do you say to students who have the discussion between Rutan and Angliss at hand and want to make sense of it all?
When I look at the words used by Rutan, I see words anchored around fraud, dishonesty, alarmist - this is an argument that relies on discredit and personal attacks. Such an attack quickly raises the emotion and takes the discussion away from a knowledge base. It is the sort of attack that has become pervasive in our political conversation in general, and it is an excellent diversionary tactic. It raises the specter of distrust.
I tell students to look for the form of argument. So, first, does it rely on discredit? In this case, it does rely on discredit, and it relies on discrediting thousands of scientists, writing many thousands of papers, over many years, from many countries. It is fundamentally conspiratorial, and not only is it conspiratorial it requires that many years before climate change emerged as an important environmental problem, that the foundation for the conspiracy was being laid down. To me, this lacks any credibility in reason, but if conspiratorial beliefs are held, then it is virtually impossible to provide convincing counterarguments to the person who holds those beliefs. If the form of argument relies on conspiracy, then it is immediately suspect.
One way to address, rationally, issues of dishonesty and conspiracy is to seek external review and, ultimately, judgment. The body of climate science research has been subject to extensive external review. Governments, the National Academy (here as well), non-climate-science scientists, and lawyers have reviewed climate science. They have all affirmed the results to be well founded and based on proper scientific investigation. The studies have documented that scientists have foibles and that peer review captures the vast majority of errors and prejudices and that there are no fundamental shortcomings in the conclusions that the Earth has, at its surface, on average, warmed and with virtual certainty will continue to warm. But if you dismiss climate science on the principle of conspiratorial malfeasance, then it is simple to dismiss external review. If you stand on only your own review and have the foundation to dismiss all external review because of conspiracy, then you are always right. Hence there is no discussion. There is no possible way forward for the student other than looking at the evidence and behavior and form of argument and standing as judge.
Does the argument rely on invoking moral levers of trust and distrust based on the belief of conspiratorial fraud?
Does the argument pull out single pieces of information and ignore other pieces of information? Does the argument rely on planting belief and disbelief by reaching for metaphors outside of the field? Does the argument assert that broad claims are made when there is no evidence to support such assertion?
So for the student – you have to think about the whole, not just isolated points that are meant to be provocative and planted to grow on an emotional state fueled by claims of amoral behavior.
Yes, carbon dioxide acts as a fertilizer, but is that the complete story of the vigor of plants? Is there any denial of this role of carbon dioxide in the climate literature? Can you find quantitative, science-based studies of the carbon dioxide fertilization effect?
Yes, there was a lot of carbon dioxide when there were dinosaurs; it was warm – what is the relevance of that argument? Does that establish that carbon dioxide is not a pollutant? Can’t things that are natural also be a pollutant? Isn’t that why we don’t want mine tailings in our drinking water? Isn’t that why we manage our sewage?
There is a wealth of information out there. There are ways to analyze that information, to evaluate its validity. If this sort of argument is encumbering, then there is a need to synthesize, personally, that information to form defensible conclusions.
If you look at the form of argument that relies on emotion, picks out pieces of information to support the argument, ignores pieces of information that do not support the argument, paints moods by long reaching metaphors, and ultimately relies on a belief that a field is corrupt, and that corruption requires a conspiratorial organization extending across decades and all nations – if that is the form of argument, then how is that robust? How is that believable? It is a prejudicial form of argument directed only at making someone believe the person making the argument; it is not seeking knowledge-based understanding.
That’s how I would look at that discussion.
r
Figure 1: A summary figure I use after I walk through about 10 lectures on the basics of climate science and global warming.
If you made it here - Here are links to a PDF and a Powerpoint Slide Show that includes several viewgraphs on thinking about arguments that are frequently raised in the political argument opposing the science of climate change. (They are each about 5 MB).
PDF
PPS
Reader Comments
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nymore
Just wanted to stop in and thank you posting the other day about rare earth metals. Sent me off into hours of interesting reading. Took some chemistry in HS and college, so I am familiar with the periodic table. Thing is, the chemistry I learned was just general and organic and it was a while back, so I had no idea these elements, the rare earth metals, were important in so many ways to life as we know it. Electronics, oil refining, medicine, even catalytic converters for engines and the batteries that run hybrid vehicles. Also of interest, how China has mined the bulk of the world supply since the 1980s.
So thank you, nymore!
And Patrap.
My brain has trouble comparing prices and the number of rigs, because oil's just getting harder to get to and some rigs don't produce a heckuva lot per day - which might explain some of the increase in number of rigs.
...
OK. I'll leave you to your brandy and cigars and exit blog left.
:)
The Rig Count is Up because we are, er, we kinda want to ween ourselves off foreign Imported crude, but hey...
WT? do I know, them Republicans confuse the masses, then when things get going, like rig production numbers and let's say, the economy overall, they trend to er, "Lady Plumbing" been my obs of late.
The Brandy does stimulate the appetite sum,..
The red Line is the price,..
..this graph only runs to July last year, Im too tired to find a current.
The Price per BBL will rise ad infinium in the future as all the "easy Oil" has been had like 15 years ago.
Thus the TransOcean BP Deep Well and others.
But those can be problematic when,well...u know.
Large SDO Image, Coronal Hole
Huh? You don't love your home? It is jsut a pile of wood? Your car? Your hometown? Your country?
Still no answer about Gaia, cricket? I'm not gonna let you off the hook for this. Post a typical denialist snarky comment and then run away.
So what is gaia? I don't think you have any clue what you are posting about. Either fess up to your ignorance or demonstrate how you justify the comment.
I just think of love or like of Mother Earth as a metaphor. However when I think of it as my home planetary body I'd have to say I do love it considering the alternatives... which are currently none.
Your assumption about my view of air travel is incorrect.
Also, according to the study the melting of Greenland's ice will likely become unstoppable if warming continues. From the study:
"...under certain conditions the melting of the Greenland ice sheet becomes irreversible. This supports the notion that the icesheet is a tipping element in the Earth system... If the global temperature significantly overshoots the threshold for a long time, the ice will continue melting and not regrow %u2014 even if the climate would, after many thousand years, return to its pre-industrial state."
So, it's nothing that's gonna happen tomorrow--but, still, it warrants concern, I think...
The study that just came out shows oil is not the big problem. It said even if you burn every drop of oil known in the world, which is trillions of bbls it would raise the temp less than 1 degree C. Now if you want to argue coal should be done away with I would agree with you as it is over 15 times worse. If we ever have technology to leave all fossil fuels behind I am all for it but as of now we are not there.
"How many times can someone be wrong...etc." Fine. Then you state these facts:
we have a glut of oil
oil is not the big problem
trillions of oil = <1 degree C
coal is over 15 times worse than oil
as of now we are not there
You can't say everyone else is unreliable and then use a bunch of "fahcts" a la Rafa Benetez in your conclusion.
We would already be 'there' if anti-American knuckleheads were not felatiating the foreign oil knozzles.
And ice volume?
FWIW, it appears that Arctic Sea ice area reached its peak last week at 13.68 million km2, placing it in 5th place out of 34 years, but still ahead of 2008, 2009, and 2010.
IOW, it's not sustainable.
Yes, there are still large oil and coal reserves in US territory. But getting to them will require the destruction of vast swaths of land. I realize that those sucking at the Big Oil spigot think it's all about profit and convenience, but, frankly, I don't want to see my nation butchered like the Alberta tar sands region.
(The figure you mentioned about how burning all the oil in the world will only cause a less than 1.C rise in temperatures has been handled before/ To begin with, the study included only the release of carbon sequestered underground; it failed to inlcude the carbon costs of extraction, refining, or transportation, which--as oil becomes scarcer--will raise that carbon price exponentially.)
Well sure, re: the chase for more domestic petroleum. Perhaps I did not state well what I had to say about the graph comparing crude oil price to number of domestic rigs. One might infer from the graph that an increase in domestic rigs has kept crude oil price below 2008 levels. A more useful comparison, according to female logic anyway, might be domestic production against crude prices because some of these new rigs are not very high producing, some of those I've read about in Oklahoma anyway.
comment 206. Always amazes me how different views of nature resemble one another. That sun image looks like the inside of a digestive tract. (Fractals?)
I understand. And maybe more than three sides. Can't say I had to make final decisions but have made some where knowledge of what was really happening meant life or death.
212. greentortuloni
We would already be 'there' if anti-American knuckleheads were not felatiating the foreign oil knozzles.
Well, that's a colorful metaphor.
So is this:
210. Neapolitan ...everytime I hear someone speak glowingly about this or that new oil or coal reserve, I'm reminded of a drug addict discovering there's a new dealer in town.
I am open to your suggestions on how to decrease oil dependence. What viable remedies to oil dependence do you see? Are we s'posed to just cold turkey it or what? Will there be a "methadone" treatment for oil dependence, and how will this substitute be distributed, and what will be the cost to the environment and to "We the People"?
I assume you are talking about my comment about 'we would already be there...'
Fine. It is my opinion and I cannot prove that we would already be 'there'.
And your conjectures? Do you withdraw them as well?
You don't want it to look like the oil sands so you would rather have it look like Chinese mines. Having China mining over 90% of these elements is as much a risk if not a hell of a lot more than your oil accusation.
The authors of the study it self said that would be double counting and the estimates for WTW vary so wildly they could not be broken down and added to the study.
IOW to use an analogy like you moving from one form of pollution to another is like moving from Cocaine to Crack. Both forms of pollution are bad.
You know I always hear you and others whine about a problem while putting forward no possible solutions.
It reminds me of people who say they can not find work, well maybe they can look in North Dakota for work. People are not fighting for the jobs the jobs are fighting for people. The only thing required to get a very good paying job is a pulse.
The first step in breaking an addiction is admitting to yourself that you have a problem. But so long as the drug dealers are getting immensely rich off of the production and sale of that drug, they'll work overtime in an attempt to convince the addicts that nothing's wrong, everything's fine, there's plenty to go around, go ahead and take all you want, it's not hurting anything. And those addicts, thus bamboozled, will continue unabated--until the day there are no more drugs.
And that's when the fun starts.
There are a lot of steps to take but no, right now it is impossible to stop 100%.
However these are all steps that could be taken:
Raise cost of gas for cars to $10 per gallon. [Use the money to pay off debt and fund research.]
Raise cost of importing oil through taxes to $200 barrel.
Use the money for solar installations, wind installations, funding electric bikes/bike infrastructure, electric and other vehicle infrastructures.
Use LED lighting.
Close city centers to vehicles.
I guess a lot more but it is quitting time. Yabadaba doo... the pub is waiting!
You often state, "I always hear you and others whine about a problem while putting forward no possible solutions." You're certainly free to believe what you wish, but communicating a problem and pointing out the purveyors of it is part of the long and noble tradition of solution-finding. That is, until/unless people realize what's being done to them for the sake of profit, we'll not get off the oil teat until we're forced off against our will. And when that happensm it won't be pretty.
Mabus addressed recent criticism by some members of Congress while he was in Norfolk on Monday for a U.S. Senate Energy subcommittee on water and power meeting.
Some Republicans have said the Navy should spend its limited resources on building new ships instead of developing fuel alternatives.
The Navy, Department of Energy and Agriculture Department are spending $510 million to jump start commercial development of the advanced alternative fuels industry.
Mabus said that if the U.S. doesn't develop home-grown alternative energies, it might not be able to afford to fuel any ships it builds.
Mabus made the comments aboard the USS Kearsarge, an amphibious assault ship that has won numerous Navy awards for its energy programs.
Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2012/03/12/navy-secretar y-defends-spending-510m-on-development-biofuels/#i xzz1p1BlEO4R
All you are doing is moving from one form of pollution to another. I am all for another form of energy but simply shifting from Cocaine to Crack doesn't solve your drug problem.
I agree we have a problem now quit telling me we have a problem and offer me a solution.
To put it another way you hate co2 pollution but have no problem with Heavy Metal, Acid, Sulfide or Radioactive pollution. I get it now or not
Oh, I see: one rule for you and another rule for everyone who disagrees with you.
Or it could remind you of a community banning watering the lawn. Depends on your degree of paranoia.
Second, the majority of heavy metals go into consumer and industrial electronics--cell phones and the like--and thus have nothing to do with green energy.
Finally, if you now agree we have a problem, that's great. Congratulations! Now I just need to convince another few billion, and we can start getting somewhere.
Where do those heavy metals ultimately end up. In the environment where you live contaminating air, soil and water.
So what is your solution to the pollution problem? Do you have one or an attempt at one or is yours like GreenT's and break the economy of the world.
oil is not the bad guy coal is.
I would be willing to bet oil causes less health problems than Coal or R.E.E mining and refining.
I see what you are saying about trading one problem for another, nymore. There are major differences to be observed. Mining of toxic materials and environmentally unfriendly materials do have their down side, obviously. Better extraction practices would eliminate many of these risks. Also, these materials are going into products where the materials can be recaptured and recycled. Fossil fuels pose these same risks, and to some degree even higher risks. Such as The Deep Horizon, Exxon Valdez, the Pemex GOM rig and numerous pipeline leaks and ruptures. And these are only the local to the U.S. regional events. These materials from these types of accidents are not fully recoverable, no matter how great the effort is to do so. One other major difference is that the rare earths can be contained, captured and recycled. CO2 released into the atmosphere from fossil fuel burning are not contained, cannot be captured and are not recyclable. Which do you think really puts us at most risk through their use? Fossil fuels or rare earths?
you can recycle your oil, you can recycle plastics and other things
This is kind of like comparing the burning of fossil fuels to a bank robbery. Coal goes in and robs the bank while Oil is the look out and drives the get away car.
You really do make some valid points, but only as a ploy to continue the unabated use of oil. We know that the extraction of oil is going to cause another catastrophe down the road. The Law of Averages dictates this. We also know that releasing CO2 into the atmosphere, from the burning of fossil fuels, is going to come back and bite us.
I could try to make a defense for using coal by saying that the burning of coal also puts particulates into the atmosphere that block sun light. This allows for a cooling at the surface. Does this actually defend the continued use of coal knowing that the burning of coal also releases CO2 into the atmosphere? When we also know that the particulates will remain in the atmosphere for a short time while the CO2 will remain in the atmosphere for decades?
It's not worth much. You guys are pretty funny. Any time a FACT is thrown in your face that suggests the "warming" may be on delay, you just mock it and point in another direction. Now it's about volume, not surface area. When you start thinking about what you learned about continuous functions, doesn't it begin to seem farfetched that area and extent don't vary directly with volume? I find it farfetched, but I am sure someone here will have a graph or study of some UNPROVEN method of calculating volume that flies in the face of logic and those continuous functions.
This is true enough, but you cannot recycle the CO2 that it puts into the atmosphere.
Pollution, of one form or another, will kill us. Unless we take the steps necessary to reduce the pollution.
The Tar Sands oil pipeline was scheduled to built across what is probably our largest aquafier. Should a disaster contaminate this aquafier then we are in a serious hurt. You could not use this water for drinking, cooking, bathing or as irrigation water for our crops. Guess what. Much of the "fracking" being done today and proposed for tomorrow will be over this same aquafier. ... What you are really saying is that you would rather inject water into your veins because smoking cigarettes would not kill you soon enough?
While coal burning may cool the temp in the short run it will warm it vastly in the long run not to mention the mercury and such. As the report said Coal is extremely bad, Oil is not as bad as once believed. But in the long run both are not good, but what else do you have.
As for fracking the jury is still out. Some studies say bad some say no problem.
Well, the "silver lining" is that our fossil fuel consumption probably will grind to a halt in the next 30 to 50 years. Of course that will be due to the near complete collapse of civilization and result in tens of millions to probably billions of deaths over the ensuing two decades after that collapse.
But we won't be adding much fossil CO2 to the mix at that point. So, there's at least some hope that the survivors won't have to contend with Greenland melting.
You know what that means, don't you? ;)
This is an interesting question for a variety of reasons.
1. It's not certain that GreenT's suggestions *would* break the economy, although I can see if those suggestions are implemented poorly that there indeed would be trouble for the economy. But there is no particular reason to implement helpful programs poorly. Implementing them thoughtfully and carefully will not only prevent disruption, it can help to solve the problem.
2. Under business as usual, the economy is going to break anyway --and probably in a far more permanent fashion. Should we choose to continue BAU then we are merely assuring ourselves of comfort and leaving our descendants to deal with the results. I humbly suggest that there is a moral problem with that.
3. It must be understood that at its core economics is irrational and meaningless. It is a game that adults play (mainly because some are very good at the game and they don't want to stop playing). I'm disinclined to worry about the "economy".
What you find far-fetched is of no concern to anyone but you. It has no bearing on the fact that Arctic Ice Volume has plunged in recent years.
If you think it hasn't, then do the work. Conduct your own study, get it published in reputable peer-reviewed journal, and see if it holds up under scrutiny. In lieu of that you are encouraged to link to any scientific paper that meets the above requirements.
But simply saying, "Nuh-uh!" isn't persuasive...no matter how emphatically you mean it.
From the previous blog entry,
The final paragraph of the study states:
"If North American and international policymakers wish to limit global warming to less than 2 degree C they will clearly need to put in place measures that ensure a rapid transition of global energy systems to non-greenhouse-gas-emitting sources, while avoiding commitments to new infrastructure supporting dependence on fossil fuels."
Thanks for the weather report!
Is that graph supposed to show anything other than the fact that it snows in the Northern Hemisphere in winter? If so, what?
Also I am still waiting for all those weather stations I pointed out in post number 194
You don't need a lot of stations to confirm a warming trend.
There are a number of reanalysis products which support the measurement from GISS and these datasets use a wide range of sources to reconstruct temperature, for example radiosondes, polar orbiting satellite data from AVHRR, SSMR and SSM/I sensors, buoys etc.
Reanalysis from, to name a few, ECMWF and NCEP/NCAR support the warming trend in Arctic and Antarctica.
Here’s an example from NCEP,
And a comparison of temperature anomalies according to Environment Canada (GISS data) analysis and NCEP reanalysis.
South Pole Station, Antarctica: Life as a Polie
How many stations did they use globally in 1850, 1870, 1910,1930,1950< etc. vs. now?
Edit, my bad..... I forgot the obligatory vid.
How many more times will we go through this to be true ;)
That's was Ossqss with Led Zeppelin's, classic "How many mo time's" from their breakout Smash Hit first Album in 69'
Up next....Poetry in Motion from the 80's, Thomas Dolby's, "She Blinded me with Science"
"Science!!!
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