Climate Change: Science and Issues

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

...The reason nothing went wrong is because thousands of programmers all over the world spent several years fixing the software defects...

Proof?

I sincerely doubt it, however. If that were the case, then the message would have been: "Guys, nothing to worry about, we spent the last several years fixing it, so nothing is going to happen." Instead, there was a palpable sense of panic around the world right up to the midnight.

Which reminds me of the climate panic. When nothing will happen, the Roberts and Barts of the world would surely claim that's thanks to the Paris agreement  and their valiant efforts

[LesPalenik]

Instead, there was a palpable sense of panic around the world right up to the midnight.

Very true. On that night, most DP managers just closed their eyes and prayed for best. In reality, the problem was not as big as originally painted.

Firstly, most date formats and date calculation routines had been located and fixed either manually or automatically in time. Also, many outdated systems were totally replaced with the new generation of programs, rather than trying to fix the old code. 
Secondly, some of the incorrect date calculations which slipped through, were rather minor and not affecting greatly the production or office activities.
And lastly, even the more serious problems which were not detected in time, were identified and corrected very quickly.

As I pointed out in my previous post "Worrisome State of Software", the current state of software quality and number of bugs in prematurely released programs by all kinds of companies could be now much worse and worrisome than in year 2000.
http://forum.luminous-landscape.com/index.php?topic=120996.0 

[Robert Roaldi]

Proof?

I sincerely doubt it, however. If that were the case, then the message would have been: "Guys, nothing to worry about, we spent the last several years fixing it, so nothing is going to happen." Instead, there was a palpable sense of panic around the world right up to the midnight.

Which reminds me of the climate panic. When nothing will happen, the Roberts and Barts of the world would surely claim that's thanks to the Paris agreement  and their valiant efforts

This is off-topic, for which I apologize, but you sincerely doubt what, that there was no date bug to fix? What proof could I possibly provide you that you'd believe? Many of my former colleagues in software development did exactly this work and many companies hired consultants to vette and repair legacy computer systems. Do you actually believe that they all fell prey to fake alarmists?

[Alan Klein]

I'm not sure what you're referring to but the levees in New Orleans were badly designed on top of sandy soil. Nothing bad happened for years, and then one day something bad happened. All predictable.

Your remark reminds me a bit about the criticism of all the hoopla surrounding the millennium bug, by people who sounded disappointed that no planes crashed and that none of their bank accounts were zeroed out, hinting that it was all nonsense. The reason nothing went wrong is because thousands of programmers all over the world spent several years fixing the software defects.

Sea levels are rising. There are good ways to plan for this and bad ways. Climate changes all the time, and the more we understand about the hows and whys and the mechanisms involved, the better off we'll be. I don't understand why this is controversial. Advances in other fields are not treated this way.

My point had nothing to do with New Orleans.  I was referring to the times alarmists predicted catastrophe that never happened.  So I was commenting on your point about alarmists when they are wrong.  But all the times they are wrong raises questions about their other alarms that haven't yet happened. How do we know its not just another case of the incorrect predictions 3-4 decades ago for an new Ice Age or mass starvation in the world when the population increased to 7 billion.  Neither of these two things occurred despite the alarms.  So arguing that because predictions in New Orleans turned out right does not mean predictions are right in other instances.  Hindsight is always 20/20. We have to be discerning though beforehand regarding alarmists.

[Alan Klein]

This will be close to Alan Klein's heart.  The US taxpayers have spent over $12B to rebuild the flood control system in New Orleans following the devastation resulting from Hurricane Katrina. 

No one should believe the government is going to protect him.  Ever.  That's madness.  The government assured everyone that the Army Corp of Engineers' decades long construction of levees, dikes, and pumps protected New Orleans before Katrina.  Tell that to the people there who drowned.   Yet people moved back into a flood plane. Does anyone really believe the city is protected now because they spent $12 billion dollars?   

And now we have Paris telling us that through a system where no one is legally mandated to meet requirements and that have no penalties, they're going to get all the nations of the world to agree with a hand shake to do things over the next 60 years to change the climate of the earth.  Maybe we should hire the environmental designers who worked on the VW diesel engines.  We couldn't save New Orleans but we're going to save the world.  What hubris. 

[pegelli]

Proof?

I sincerely doubt it, however. If that were the case, then the message would have been: "Guys, nothing to worry about, we spent the last several years fixing it, so nothing is going to happen." Instead, there was a palpable sense of panic around the world right up to the midnight.

At that time I was responsible for a large petrochemical complex. We had several process control systems with thousands of programs.

We spent about 2 years and tested every single one of them for the millenium bug. About 25% had the problem and we fixed it, about half of those bugs would have caused a serious upset or plant shutdown, the other half would have had limited concequences.  The other 75% was OK.

We made sure we had extra staff on site at the actual moment in case we had missed something, but fortunately everything went OK without any problem.

Contrary to your story there was no panic, just a well planned and executed approach with enough safeguards to make sure we could deal with anything unexpected. I'm sure there were many other companies and organisations in the same situation.

Maybe the media hyped some excitement (but there was no panic anywhere as far as I can tell) but that's all.

I'm sure that's not enough proof for you (since it doesn't corroborate your story) but for people who were in the business at that time it was more than enough proof that doing nothing would have caused a serious problem and fixing it in an organized fashion was the right thing to do.

[pegelli]

You can't get too picky as to what people say.

Yes we can 
If people spread FUD or lies they should be called out on it. Nothing wrong with that.

[pegelli]

How many times have the alarmists demanded things be done and nothing was done but then nothing happened. You won't read about those instances because there is no story there.

Tell us, examples and references go a long way.

[pegelli]

Which reminds me of the climate panic. When nothing will happen, the Roberts and Barts of the world would surely claim that's thanks to the Paris agreement  and their valiant efforts

Already working on your defense now Slobodan?  It's still pretty early in the game so it might be better to wait a bit 

[Farmer]

Contrary to your story there was no panic, just a well planned and executed approach with enough safeguards to make sure we could deal with anything unexpected. I'm sure there were many other companies and organisations in the same situation.

At the time I was in banking - international trade finance, specifically.  Being part of a multi-national banking group, and being in Australia, we were the focus of the years of preparation that went into making sure it wouldn't be a problem for the bank.  Being a bank, there was also involvement in the programs and updates and changes and tests and so on that went with the entire financial industry here.  I wasn't an IT person then, but lots of our (and my) staff were involved in testing and checking and so on.  Some were even working right up to the stroke of midnight and a little beyond to make sure everything was fine and be available if it wasn't (to help the IT folks check and test and what not). 

The time and money involved was massive.

If nothing had been done, it would have been a huge problem.

Funnily enough (perhaps not quite the right term, but run with it), there were scare mongers.  Some of them even tried to get us to finance them with a "fix" they had invented.  It was all a scam designed to play into the FUD and make them rich.  They made up all sorts of scientific sounding terms and nonsense and peddled it to various financiers.  Most of them just turned them down because they just didn't understand what was being peddled at them enough to give them the confidence to get into it but they didn't actually understand what it was, but when it came across my desk I realised what it was because, even then, I was a computer geek (I just happened to be a banker by profession).  Anyway, a mate of mine had a mate who was in the fraud squad.  They didn't enjoy their new millennium so much.

The point is that all sorts of people will believe all sorts of things, but what you really need to do is rely on someone who actually knows what they're talking about instead of those who say what you want to hear.  I was the guy who knew what he was talking about in that case.  In terms of climate change, I'm listening to the folks who know what they're talking about, and who happen to be in the vast majority.  If they change their views because of new evidence, I'll keep listening and change, too, but it's foolhardy to not listen to them just because you don't like what they're saying or you think you know more than they do when you don't.

[Alan Klein]

Tell us, examples and references go a long way.

I had given two examples.  The Ice Age prediction and global food problem causing starvation due to the population explosion.  Both catastrophes predicted decades ago that didn't happen.  I remember all the articles and news casts and fear concerning these issues.

[Alan Klein]

We've focused a lot on China the worse Co2 producer at 30% not complying until 2030.  But India might be worse.  Although currently the third largest CO2 producer at 7%, they are suppose to triple it by 2030 way surpassing the US.
http://instituteforenergyresearch.org/analysis/india-triple-co2-emissions-new-climate-commitment/
 Both India and China still have huge commitments to coal fired plants while the US is phasing them out favoring natural gas. 

Does anyone really expect India to make their commitments? While not exactly CO2, pollution is pretty close.
http://www.dnaindia.com/delhi/report-us-flight-to-delhi-cancelled-due-to-poor-air-quality-2559286

[Alan Klein]

The were some comments how over 200,000 new jobs exist now in the US regarding renewable energy.  It appears that LNG (Liquid Natural Gas) will create 452,000 jobs by 2040 and add $73 billion to its economy.  China and other Asian countries will be big buyers.  The point is that by burning "cleaner" fuels will reduce CO2 and other pollutants with or without Paris.  Even though America has "dropped out" of Paris, it will continue to be a leader in clean energy production and use. 

[Alan Klein]

Here's article covering last post.
http://instituteforenergyresearch.org/analysis/u-s-become-major-lng-exporter/

[Alan Goldhammer]

Proof?

I sincerely doubt it, however. If that were the case, then the message would have been: "Guys, nothing to worry about, we spent the last several years fixing it, so nothing is going to happen." Instead, there was a palpable sense of panic around the world right up to the midnight.

Which reminds me of the climate panic. When nothing will happen, the Roberts and Barts of the world would surely claim that's thanks to the Paris agreement  and their valiant efforts

I'll add to Pieter's comments as well.  I was working in at the pharmaceutical industry trade association and we established a special committee of IT professionals to address Y2K problems.  A significant number of process control computers were running WinOS as well as some specialized OS and there was real concern about what the impact of January 1, 2000 might be.  Nobody could afford to have systems go haywire particularly in QA/QC divisions which would have shut down the manufacturing lines.  There was a multi-million dollar investment across the pharma industry to work on this issue in advance of 1/1/2000 to make sure nothing bad was going to happen.  Nothing bad did happen and maybe the investment was a waste of money but at the time the concerns were real.

I think there is a direct application to climate change here.  There is a huge unknown in terms of CO2 impact and there are a variety of options on the table from do nothing to do a lot.  We know that there is a correlation between temperature increases and atmospheric CO2 increases.  The big question is what to do in light of existing data.

[Alan Goldhammer]

No one should believe the government is going to protect him.  Ever.  That's madness.  The government assured everyone that the Army Corp of Engineers' decades long construction of levees, dikes, and pumps protected New Orleans before Katrina.  Tell that to the people there who drowned.   Yet people moved back into a flood plane. Does anyone really believe the city is protected now because they spent $12 billion dollars?   

Anyone who believes they are 100% safe is a fool.  The whole flood control and flood insurance program is broken and as long as the government keeps stepping in to protect people after a flood disaster things won't change.  There has been talk about having the private insurance industry come back in and insure folks but I'm not sure that will happen.  I'm a shareholder in Berkshire Hathaway who have a large insurance and re-insurance operation.  The re-insurance operation lost a tone of money because of the hurricanes this summer. 

And now we have Paris telling us that through a system where no one is legally mandated to meet requirements and that have no penalties, they're going to get all the nations of the world to agree with a hand shake to do things over the next 60 years to change the climate of the earth.  Maybe we should hire the environmental designers who worked on the VW diesel engines.  We couldn't save New Orleans but we're going to save the world.  What hubris.

As I've said on several occasions, we have a database that implicates CO2 with global warming.  Some may argue that it's imperfect but the data is what it is.  the policy decision is what to do about it.

[Bart_van_der_Wolf]

The point is that all sorts of people will believe all sorts of things, but what you really need to do is rely on someone who actually knows what they're talking about instead of those who say what you want to hear.  I was the guy who knew what he was talking about in that case.  In terms of climate change, I'm listening to the folks who know what they're talking about, and who happen to be in the vast majority.  If they change their views because of new evidence, I'll keep listening and change, too, but it's foolhardy to not listen to them just because you don't like what they're saying or you think you know more than they do when you don't.

I agree, that's the point.

Blog posts or even some newspaper/magazine/etc. reporters may not fully understand the scientific research they report about. So it always helps to add references to their source material, links to the actual papers they report on. It often reveals that they quoted things out of context, left out the nuances, or totally missed the point.

Scientific knowledge and understanding makes progress, so it's silly to blame outdated insights when better (or the same but more accurate) insights are available, it's even sillier to blame science when its warnings are proven correct.

Cheers,
Bart

[Bart_van_der_Wolf]

Even though America has "dropped out" of Paris, it will continue to be a leader in clean energy production and use.

Burning natural gas is not clean. It's cleaner than coal, but that's setting a pretty low target to beat.

Cheers,
Bart

[Christopher Sanderson]

Hot News from the Antarctic Underground

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

... Scientific knowledge and understanding makes progress...

And the progress so far confirms the skeptics: it is not warming as fast as predicted, the "catastrophic" consequences are steadily moving further and further into the future, with less and less likelihood of happening. Which, of course, our three musketeers (Bart, Pieter, Robert) will attribute to the heroic efforts of the mankind so far