SuperFreakonomics Authors Forced To Answer Critics

Since we posted the video and teaser for SuperFreakonomics, the follow up to the bestseller Freakonomics, there's been an outcry from scientists over the chapter on climate change. A pdf of the chapter, titled "What Do Al Gore and Mount Pinatubo Have in Common," was posted briefly on the internet. Scientists did a quick review and what's come out of the ensuing online debate is that the book has possibly misrepresented the position of the climate change expert, Ken Caldeira, the source Levitt and Dubner relied upon for their own position on global cooling. Based on their interpretation, they called global warming a "religion," and claim that Caldeira said that CO2 emissions were not the culprit in climate change.

But Joe Romm, an MIT physicist and former employee of the Department of Energy now at the Center for American Progress had an e-mail exchange with Caldeira and it is reported in Climate Progress' blog:

Levitt and Dubner's portrayal of Caldeira is false. As he told Climate Progress's Joseph Romm in an e-mail interview, he believes carbon dioxide is the central villain: "Every carbon dioxide emission adds to climate damage and increasing risk of catastrophic consequences. There is no safe level of emission. I compare CO2 emissions to mugging little old ladies."

And from Mother Jones

Romm also questions the way Levitt and Dubner characterize the conclusions of one of the primary sources in the chapter: Ken Caldeira of the Carnegie Institution Department of Global Ecology. Levitt and Dubner describe Caldeira as "among the most respected climate scientists in the world" and write that his "research tells him that carbon dioxide is not the right villain in this fight." But Caldeira tells Romm a completely different story: "carbon dioxide emissions represent a real threat to humans and natural systems, and I fear we may have already dawdled too long."

We want to hear from the authors of SuperFreakonomics as well as anyone who's read the chapter in question. Is the global cooling stance just another form of denial about the damage we've done to the environment, or is global warming a "religion" as the authors suggest?

Update: Huffington Post Books pushed this story to the top and asked for an answer to the critics of the science world. You can read the author's response here.

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Comments

[necessary cynic]

I just finished reading the book and a lot of the criticism levied against it, and I think the question after the article misses the point entirely. While I don't necessarily accept every assertion made by the book, I read it as neither denying the damage to the environment nor overly castigating global warming as a religion. Perhaps, it is easier to draw those conclusions if only this section was read rather than the whole book but otherwise, the argument seems (to me) to be that there may be other cheaper, simpler ways to positively affect change in the environment rather than just reducing carbon emissions.

What I found more frustrating is that the criticisms about the book deal more with semantic arguments or focus on specific, refutable points rather than addressing geo-engineering as either a good or bad idea. As I said, I don't accept every assertion but I also haven't read any criticisms that help me to clearly understand what is so wrong with the underlying argument.

While I hope to gain a full understanding of this, it should be known that the counter-attacks so far seem to be coming from those who didn't read the book (or perhaps only the climate section), so this should be taken into consideration before passing judgment on it.

My hope is that if the ideas indeed lack credibility, someone will take the time to explain why, rather than simply seizing on a few misquotes and bashing the authors.

[klbrz]

I read through most of the blog. I get that they are apparently asking and answering a different question than their critics. The reason the critics are so aggravated, I think, is the same reason I get aggravated when reading them - everything is so simplistic. You can't approach a subject like climate change with a series of 12 true/false questions (and all the answers are "true"). It's no wonder they have people so bothered. They are taking one of the most complex problems on the planet and offering up two as of yet, untested "solutions" that they say we can drop if they don't work, no harm done. Yet, the "solutions" are *untested;* that means we don't know what will happen. Isn't that what got us into this mess?

[voteblue4evr]

Based on the bickering from everyone below I deduce that Global Warming is a religion.

[RomeoMD25]

New Scientific Report Confirms, 'Global Warming' Is A Hoax!
A newly released scientific study published by MIT climate scientist Richard Lindzen destroys one of the fundamental underpinnings of global warming theorists.

This study provides another major rebuttal of the 'Global Warming' phony science theory being perpetrated by Al Gore and other 'Hot-air' heads!

The study collected 15-years of long wave radiation measurements from a satellite orbiting the earth. The study correlates the change in the earth’s surface temperature with the change in outgoing long wave radiation. Lindzen’s study shows that as the earth warms, the amount of radiation being bounced-back into outer space actually increases. This is exactly the opposite result that is assumed to occur in the UN climate models.

http://www.seas.harvard.edu/climate/seminars/pdfs/lindzen.choi.grl.2009.pdf

[ssg13565]

"Lindzen’s study shows that as the earth warms, the amount of radiation being bounced-back into outer space actually increases."

Well, why would you be surprised at that? Does the increase in bounced-back radiation completely counter the increased incoming radiation? If not, you get global warming.

Sounds like a typical believer in perpetual motion machines. You get out more than you put in. Just doesn't happen.

[ssg13565]

I should have said that of course hotter bodies give off more radiation. That is no surprise.

However they do not give off enough radiation to counter the effects of the green house retention of heat.

The retention of incoming radiation by the greenhouse effect causes two things (at least). The earth warms up and it gives off more radiation. If it were not for the greenhouse effect, much more of the incoming radiation would be reflected back and the earth would not warm up, it would reach a stable temperature..

[realpolitic]

From a Mother Jones article.....

"Less obvious—but no less troubling—is the way SuperFreakonomics misrepresents the research of Harvard Professor Martin Weitzman, an expert on the economics of environmental catastrophe. Dubner and Levitt report that his models have determined, "the future holds a five percent chance of a terrible-case scenario—a rise of ten degrees Celsius." After playing up the "great uncertainty in even this estimate of uncertainty," they follow up by asking: "So how should we place a value on this relatively small chance of worldwide catastrophe?" But focusing so narrowly on the possibility of a 10 degree rise ignores the very real risks of a temperature rise of anything above two degrees Celsius—which scientists have suggested is the maximum increase the planet can safely withstand."

http://www.motherjones.com/blue-marble/2009/10/superfreakonomics-freaky-science

[jmyoung666]

People like Romm are turning climate change into one more religion.

[Richard2]

This all seems like a great publicity boon for this new book, which isn't even available yet in book stores. It is likely to be a big seller this Christmas Season.

[klbrz]

This doesn't really surprise me. I tried to read Freakonomics and couldn't get through it. They seemed to make very simplistic assumptions and only discussed what proved the point they wanted to make.

[S1m0n]

After 20 years of this debate and a great deal of science, relying on any single source* for 'the scoop' on climate change is beyond sloppy.

*If that's what this book has done, as this piece alleges. I haven't seen the chapter.

[RomeoMD25]

Did you know that many farmers operate machines which produce CO2 in their greenhouses to encourage plant growth?

Carbon dioxide (CO2) is not to be confused with its poisonous evil cousin carbon monoxide (CO), which can kill humans and animals in just a few minutes. Life as we know it could not exist without carbon DIOXIDE in our atmosphere.

Did you also know that Carbon dioxide is actually invisible? The puffs of clouds you see from coal-fired power plants are just that -- clouds. Power plants use steam to drive the turbines which generate electricity. Steam must be cooled and condensed to water to reuse it to make more steam. The fat, curvy towers that look like they are belching white smoke are really only emitting pure water vapor. They are in effect making clouds. The actual exhaust emissions come from the smokestack, which is the tall skinny tower. Because modern technology makes it possible to remove much of the fly ash and sulfur before releasing smokestack gases to the air, smokestack emissons today are often almost invisible.

[Shiroe]

If carbon dioxide emmisions were dangerous to the earth, everything that breathes in oxygen would breathe out something else. The idea of manmade global warming has indeed become a religion, and it seems all its followers are fanatics and extremists.

Global warming is a natural process of the earth. If I had to venture an explanation, I would call it earth's thermostat or maybe earth's radiator. Man is a scapegoat being blamed for a crime based on circumstantial evidence and incomplete data.

This is not to say we're not poisoning our environment. We've found lots of ways to do that, from pillaging the earth's resources to eradicating entire species of plants or animals because they're inconvenient. We poison the land with pesticides and the air with pollutants. Our food is grown either from poisoned land or from eating from poisoned land; the food we catch in the seas is also poisoned by our activities. I agree with all of these things. I believe if we don't put a stop to it, if we continue to take more than we need from the planet, we are willfully contributing to our own demise.

The truth is, the entire population of cows on the planet turn out three times as much carbon dioxide emmission as the combined effort of every human on the planet, including our cars, manufacturing, etc. If man is guilty, cows are guiltier, so down with beef?

[Lulubelle1]

We have to do whatever it takes. I wish we knew what it WOULD take. We don't.

The earth is a giant system, as critics note. Yes, global temperatures fluctuate in the natural course of things, as critics note. Yes, it will be expensive in material terms for us to drastically curtail our contribution to CO2 levels. (Might even mean going vegetarian, which I'm not thrilled about, believe you me.)
Critics don't seem to realize that extinction is natural too. If animal life (us, and many other species) throws the earth out of equilibrium, the system will simply adjust itself. Higher temps, shifting weather patterns (colder in some places, wetter in some, drier in some).

Whatever changes in result will benefit the system, not us as a species. The earth doesn't care if it's 100 degrees in Ohio in January, and 150 in June. Eventually it'll go back to the way it was centuries ago. Or it won't.

What's a reasonable effort to make, rather than overkill? We all just don't know. Unfortunately the potential consequences could be catastrophic. Truly. No hyperbole!

I like the sun, a breeze on my face, being able to take a big, deep breath outside. Let's take care of what we have, and be mindful of our collective impact. Even if evolution were a one-generation process, I'd hate to see it needed to accommodate an environment too extreme for unassisted human survival.

[S1m0n]

Global warming is the 'natural process of the earth' that happens when you release back into the atmosphere the carbon which was buried millions of years ago in the form of fossil fuel.

[Shiroe]

And you don't think that could have happened without man involved?

[doxienan]

For the truth about climate change (and this error-filled book), read Joe Romm's Climate Progress blog. Romm is a scientist, not an economist:
http://climateprogress.org/2009/10/16/science-error-superfreakonomics-why-stop-amazon-search/