Gore’s Naked Imposition
December 29th, 2007 by Wyatt
And now, a roundup of some news items regarding climate change that I’ve been meaning to mention. Let’s start with an opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal earlier this month that is willing to point out that Emperor Al Gore has no clothes. Holman W. Jenkins, Jr. writes about the problem of an “availability cascade”:
How this honor [the Nobel Peace Prize] has befallen the former Veep could perhaps be explained by another Nobel, awarded in 2002 to Daniel Kahneman for work he and the late Amos Tversky did on “availability bias,” roughly the human propensity to judge the validity of a proposition by how easily it comes to mind.
Their insight has been fruitful and multiplied: “Availability cascade” has been coined for the way a proposition can become irresistible simply by the media repeating it; “informational cascade” for the tendency to replace our beliefs with the crowd’s beliefs; and “reputational cascade” for the rational incentive to do so.
Mr. Gore clearly understands the game he’s playing, judging by his resort to such nondispositive arguments as: “The people who dispute the international consensus on global warming are in the same category now with the people who think the moon landing was staged in a movie lot in Arizona.”
Here’s exactly the problem that availability cascades pose: What if the heads being counted to certify an alleged “consensus” arrived at their positions by counting heads?
In formal logic, this is known as circular reasoning. In casual logic, it’s known as pulling oneself up by one’s bootstraps. Whether you have to obey the laws of physics or the laws of logic, you cannot assume the conclusion to prove your point. By claiming a consensus long enough and loud enough, Gore is attempting to do just that.
Mr. Jenkins concludes by making another observation that seems obvious, but is not said enough:
Public opinion cascades are powerful but also fragile–liable to be overturned in an instant when new information comes along. The current age of global warming politics will certainly end with a whimper once a few consecutive years of cooling are recorded. Why should we expect such cooling? Because the forces that caused warming and cooling in the past, before the advent of industrial civilization, are still at work.
No, this wouldn’t prove or disprove a human role in warming, only that climate is variable and subject to complicated influences. But it would also eliminate the large incentive for politicians to traffic in doom-laden predictions–because such predictions would no longer command media assent and would cease to function as levers to redistribute resources.
Mr. Gore would have to find a new job.
Remember, it’s not about saving the planet. It’s about controlling society.