Letters continued
At least communism was proven failed
only once, and no one was adventurous
enough to push it a second time.
I was most impressed by two of the
many useful observations in the article.
Choice architecture has instant appeal, as
we all have experienced its benefits. In my
own field of defined benefit plans for very
small entities, we see most clearly the high
proportion of plan sponsors who are practically begging to be guided into choices
that will work for them, because they are
too busy just doing what they do best.
The other shrewd observation is
about predictive modeling and how
easily it succeeds when the model is unbiased. An article in a very early issue
of Contingencies (“Actuarial Prediction
Surpasses Clinical Judgment,” May/
June 1990) described an experiment in
which actuaries, with no specific medical knowledge, gathered data on actual
diagnoses made after observing specific
symptoms, and then tested the model.
It showed that more often than not they
reached more accurate diagnoses than
the doctors handling the case.
farhad minwalla
Cincinnati
fact check
While reading Michael Walters’ ar- ticle, “The Jury’s Still Out on Global
Warming,” in the July/August issue of
Contingencies, I encountered several
misleading and/or untrue statements
that I would like to address.
The author criticizes the mainstream
news media for not telling us “that the
number of polar bears has actually increased 400 percent since 1950.” He
doesn’t tell us that the reason for the increase is the drastic change in hunting
laws, adopted in 1973 by the five nations
having polar bear populations. We’re
also spared the information that major
bear populations have been declining in
number since 1986. The body weight of
adult bears is currently decreasing due
to a significant reduction of hunting
area provided by the Arctic ice cap. They
seem to be having difficulty in adapting
rapidly enough to the 40 percent shrinkage of the ice cap in the past 40 years.
The author also states that the “
Oregon Institute for Science and Medicine
now counts some 31,000 scientists in the
skeptical category.” This number comes
from a petition circulated in 1998 to “
scientists” by a very small, obscure group.
The petition was accompanied by a report formatted to look like an article from
the esteemed Proceedings of the National
Academy of Science (PNAS). In a highly
unusual move, the PNAS issued a statement disavowing the petition. Most of
those signing were computer scientists,
biologists, and engineers. Very few credentialed climate scientists signed. Scientific
American concluded that about 1 percent
of signatories who claimed to have a Ph.D.
in a climate-related field actually did.
In 2008, the American Association of
State Climatologists declared inoperative their earlier statement (referenced
by the author) that urged waiting to get
a better handle on the accuracy of the
models. The group is currently developing a new statement.
The author talks about Europe’s
motivation in wanting current action,
and ascribes it to a European desire
for world government. I believe there’s
another possibility. Although northwestern Europe is the same latitude as
Canada, it enjoys warmer weather because of the Gulf Stream current, which
is sensitive to water temperatures and
salinity (influenced by melting glaciers) in the Atlantic Ocean. Global
warming may trigger a shutdown in the
North Atlantic deep-water circulation
and a slowing or diversion of the Gulf
Stream, which could bring dramatic
and rapid climate change to northwestern Europe. Perhaps Europeans don’t
see themselves gradually adapting to
such a change.
Neither a climate of fear nor one of
dismissal is helpful. I believe if we sort
out the various pieces, we should be
alarmed regarding some of them, dismiss others, and take a middle ground
on the remainder. The pieces truly
have different implications, urgencies,
and costs. We also need to consider the
big picture. For example, perhaps it
wouldn’t be so costly to put people to
work on projects in times of high unemployment. We might find that, as in
health care, “an ounce of prevention is
worth a pound of cure.”
max klicker
salem, ore.
first, state the problem
Those who accept fossil fuel burning as the cause of global warming have
some very strange articles of faith: ( 1)
In nature, the tail wags the dog; ( 2) The
sun directs individual beams of carefully
measured energy at each of its planets.
Thus, a fossil fuel signature of four
parts per million (four ten-thousandths
of 1 percent of the atmosphere) is more
meaningful than the fact that the ice
caps on Mars have been decreasing
3 meters per year for years. ( This is published data—I’m assuming actuaries will
not accept my word, but will research.)
I confess that I’m scared to death of
turning the management of atmospheric
CO2 over to politicians and so-called climatologists. (If a climatologist is defined
as one who knows what causes climate
change and can predict it, perhaps one
will be available in a century or a millennium.) Ask them what the optimum
level of atmospheric CO2 is. Ask them
if there is a CO2 level at which photosynthesis slows or stops. Ask them why,
if CO2 has a greenhouse effect, no one
has been able to calibrate it—it’s been a
theory for more than 50 years. Remember that all life as we know it depends
on CO2 and photosynthesis, and remember we are still paying the costs of forest
management practices that ignored
natural factors and assumed preserving
meant unchanging.
