Streetwise Professor

The French Vice Chairman of the UN’s Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has accused the FSB of causing Climategate by hacking into UEA CRU’s computers.  This presents ol’ SWP with something of a dilemma, with many of the targets of my ire–the French, the UN, the IPCC, and the FSB–arrayed against one another.  What a target rich environment.  On the one hand, I can’t miss.  On the other, it does make choice of target something of a challenge.  LOL.

And I’d be sitting down, ladies and gentlemen, because on this one I have to side with the FSB, at least on the basis of what we know so far.

Here’s what IPCC VC said:

“It’s very common for hackers in Russia to be paid for their services,” Professor Jean-Pascal van Ypersele, the vice chairman of the Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change, said in Copenhagen at the weekend. “It’s a carefully made selection of emails and documents that’s not random. This is 13 years of data, and it’s not a job of amateurs.”

The leaked emails, Professor van Ypersele said, will fuel scepticism about climate change and may make agreement harder at Copenhagen. So the mutterings have prompted the question: why would Russia have an interest in scuppering the Copenhagen talks?

This time, if it was indeed the FSB behind the leak, it could be part of a ploy to delay negotiations or win further concessions for Moscow. Russia, along with the United States, was accused of delaying Kyoto, and the signals coming from Moscow recently have continued to dismay environmental activists.

When Ed Miliband, the Secreatary of State for Climate Change, visited Moscow this year, he had meetings with high-level Russian officials and pronounced them constructive. But others doubt that Russia has much desire to go green.

In brief, M. Van Ypersele rests his case on (a) opportunity, and (b) motive.  The notorious abilities of Russian hackers provided the opportunity.  This cannot be disputed.  The motive is much murkier, however, and very indirect.  First, Ypersele assumes that the motive of the leak was to derail Copenhagen.  Perhaps–or perhaps it could have been the result a fit of conscience by someone at CRU (or an affiliated institution) who was scandalized by the anti-scientific behavior of Jones et al.  That could explain the very specific documents targeted in the leak emphasized by Ypersele.

Second, Ypersele stretches to argue that Russia has an especially strong motive to derail the implementation of a global cap and trade system.  The reverse could be true, given that Russia owns the largest stock of Kyoto-created emissions credits: an aggressive climate change deal that required other nations to reduce sharply emissions would enhance the value of these credits.  Yes, Russia has other agendas, such as protecting inefficient polluting industries and encouraging demand for its energy.  Thus, it is hard to determine on net whether Russia’s interests lie with or against CO2 caps.  (And in saying “Russia” one always has to remember it is the Russian elite and power structures that matter.  The credits could create a very nice slush fund for these folks to skim.)

There are other interests–Saudi Arabia comes to mind–that does not have such conflicting interests.  And, as Ypersele notes, Russian hackers are paid for their services: I’m sure Saudi money spends just as well as Russian, and the Saudis are likely to have more at the moment.

So the motive angle is very weak, and does not put Russia at the top of the list of suspects.  (This is sounding like a game of Clue or something.)

Nor does the fact that the documents appeared on a server in Tomsk mean much of anything.  The hackers originally tried to put the stuff on the RealClimate website (and no, I won’t link to that) using a computer in Turkey.  Then, using a computer in Saudi Arabia, they put up a link to the Tomsk site.  Given the murky international connections in the hacker world, it’s impossible to make anything of this.  Moreover, these sorts of analyses inevitably get into the Holmes-and-Moriarty on the Train quagmire: the FSB wouldn’t have put the stuff on a Russian server because it would have drawn suspicion; because people would figure the FSB would never draw suspicion to itself by posting on a Russian server, they put it on a Russian server; because people would figure . . .

This isn’t like Georgia at the time of the invasion in 2008, or in Estonia on 2007.  In each of those cases the motive was clear, few others had the same ability or opportunity, and other circumstances made it clear that Russian interests, and likely the Russian state were involved.  Here, the circumstantial case that Ypersele advances is pathetically weak. Not to say that it’s impossible that the FSB was involved, just that it’s far from proven, or even the most likely scenario.

One final thing.  The NYT article linked above discussing Russia’s Kyoto credits has yet another example of the economic idiocy that characterizes its news pages:

That is because Russia, as a result of the collapse of much of its heavy industry in the 1990s, owns one of the largest stocks of credits to offset carbon emissions.

The unearned windfall, a legacy of the Kyoto agreement that tried to deal with the threat of  climate change, is worth several billion dollars. If abruptly sold abroad, those credits could send the price of carbon on the world’s fragile emissions markets plunging toward zero.

I see.  The credits are worth billions.  Unless they’re sold.  In which case they’re worthless.  Whatever.

This ranks with a story I read some time back in the NYT which expressed astonishment that the unemployment rate went up even though the rate of increase in layoffs had fallen.  First derivative.  Second derivative.  Again–whatever.

Anybody who gets economic analysis from the NYT is sadly misinformed, but probably considers him- or herself as one of America’s elite.  Which explains quite a lot of our current economic and political troubles.

Perhaps reporter James Kanter can hide behind the adverb “abruptly.”  But why would Russia dump them on the market if that would drive the price to zero?  And if the price doesn’t go to zero due to self-destructive behavior, the whole premise of the rest of Kanter’s article disappears.  Oy.

Update:  An interesting analysis by a systems administrator that casts serious doubt on the hacker story.  In brief: it is almost certain that all the documents had already been assembled, probably by a freedom of information act officer, in response to or anticipation of FOIA requests.  Now, it could have been the case that a hacker gained access to this and disseminated it, but since it was (per this analysis) assembled and ready to go out, it’s also quite possible that this was a leak.  And if it was already assembled for FOIA/FOI purposes, the reasonable inference is that it would have been released in time.  That said, the release weeks before Copenhagen–just enough time for the story to get traction, not enough time for it to die–is crucial.

Commentor Scott raises the issue of the incentive to collect data, particularly large data sets, if it is imperative to make said data public.  This is a very important issue that I addressed a bit in my first post on the CRU fiasco, but it’s worth a couple of additional thoughts.

Here are some ways to provide incentives:

• Subsidies, in the form of grants or prizes.  This is already done to some degree.  Receipt of such funding to support data collection–i.e., the subsidization of a public good–should be contingent on making this data freely available.
• The provision of complementary services for a fee, such as consulting on the use of the data, or creation of customized data sets.  This is the source of revenues for many providers of open source software.
• Licensing or sale of the data for a reasonable fee.  This has been quite effective for many databases widely used by finance and economics academics (and industry), notably the CRSP stock and bond data (but others as well).
• Conditioning access to data on formal recognition in all working papers and published papers, perhaps including the creation of a “data authorship” category of something of the sort.

In brief, a variety of mechanisms can provide incentives to create information/data.  A variety of mechanisms are utilized in markets for other information goods.  The just listed are some of the most well known.

Intellectual property rights (e.g., granting rights of exclusive use, trade secrets) are other means by which creators can capture a stream of benefits, thereby giving them an incentive to produce information goods.  These may be the efficient arrangement in some settings, but I am dubious that that is the case in the sciences and social sciences.  Science depends on replication, which is incompatible with “I’d show you but I’d have to kill you” secrecy.

I also had an additional thought regarding how to evaluate scholarship for hiring, promotion, tenure, and salary decisions in a research university in an open source, non-journal dominated system.  I mentioned the idea of using citations as a main metric, and evaluating the “quality” of citations based on characteristics of the works in which a citation occurs–such as the number of times the citing author’s work is itself cited.  This is essentially a links-based metric.  Major search engines, notably Google, utilize such metrics in ranking web sites to determine display order.  The concepts underlying search engine ranking algorithms could perhaps be adapted to rank scholarly impact as well.

The creation of a data set that is utilized by other scholars could be an input to the ranking algorithm, providing another incentive to invest in their creation.

Presumably the CRU employees associated with the creation of a climate data set would have achieved a stratospheric impact factor/ranking under such a system because myriad other scholars wold have used the data.  But of course, this would have come at a (private) cost: they couldn’t have controlled the conclusions of the work done with their data (which the emails suggest was an important consideration to them).  But that private cost is swamped by the benefit of permitting open access to other researchers, so the proper response is: tough luck to you.

The whole CRU disaster has got me thinking about whether given modern information technology, peer review is an anachronism that impedes, rather than advances, scientific knowledge (including social scientific knowledge).  It is quite entertaining–in a perverse, watching a car crash kind of way–to observe the defenders of the climate change consensus repeat “peer review” like a magic spell that will somehow ward off evil (skeptic) spirits.  But if anything, the whole fiasco calls into question the reliability of peer review.

Indeed, the whole display brings to mind the comments of my former colleague, the late Roger Kormendi.  Somebody once mentioned to Roger that he should pay particular attention to a certain piece of research because it had been peer reviewed.  To which Roger replied: “Oh, that means it’s completely arbitrary.”

But as with any institution, it’s not sufficient to point out the flaws in one to justify its replacement with another.  It is necessary to make a comparative analysis with realistic alternatives.  What would be the alternatives to peer review?

In the modern era, the ability to disseminate papers nearly universally and instantaneously, and to make people aware of their existence through things like SSRN makes it possible for myriad scholars to access and evaluate papers, rather than one or two reviewers.  Moreover, the same information technology makes it feasible to provide access to data and code to facilitate replication, examinations of robustness, and the testing of alternative specifications and models on a given set of data.  In this way, it is possible to harness the knowledge of myriad, dispersed individuals with specialized expertise, rather than one or two or even three individuals.  Moreover, the open entry model mitigates the incentive problems associated with peer review, where individuals with weak and often perverse incentives exert incredible influence over what gets published and what doesn’t.

Furthermore, wiki-type mechanisms can be employed to collect and aggregate commentary and critiques about particular papers or groups of papers.  This is another way of harnessing the dispersed knowledge of crowds.  In particular, it would facilitate the exploitation of comparative advantage, allowing, for instance, statisticians to comment on statistical methodologies, computational experts to critique numerical techniques, and so on.

Just think of how things might have evolved differently if climate data and paleoclimate reconstruction had been done under this model, rather than via the peer review mechanism.  The “hockey stick” reconstructions would have been subjected to the critique of expert statisticians who would have uncovered Mann et al’s misuse of principal component methods.  Making raw climate data available would have made it possible to evaluate the sensitivity of results to data selection and methods used to “clean” (quotes definitely needed) data.*  In sum, we wouldn’t be where we are now, not knowing with any confidence just what the climate record tells us, or even what the climate record actually is.

The open kimono approach with code and data would also provide an extremely strong deterrent to fraud.  Moreover, reducing reliance on journals would reduce resources devoted to rent seeking activities (e.g., influencing journal editors, gaming submissions, torpedoing competitors, spending time devising submission strategies).  It would also enhance competition, and reduce the rents that incumbent “gatekeepers” can extract.  Reduced reliance on journals would also mitigate the file drawer effect because journals inevitably condition acceptance on measures of statistical significance.  This leads scholars to abandon research that does not generate such results and encourages selection searches and other “econometric cons,” meaning that published results are likely to present a biased picture of the true state of the evidence.  A more open model would likely reduce these (statistical) size distorting incentives.

One challenge posed by this alternative model relates to the fact that the hiring, tenure, and promotion mechanisms at modern research universities are adapted to the journal publishing mechanism.  Since citations are probably a better metric of quality than whether or not something is published in Journal A or Journal B, or published at all, perhaps a citation-based mechanism could suffice.  (Though if journals faded in importance, this would raise the questions: Cited in what? and How do you compare the quality of citations?  Perhaps some metric where the number of citations of the paper in which a particular work is cited could be used to determine citation quality.)  Also, since participation in wikis, etc., contributes to knowledge, it would be desirable to provide incentives for that kind of activity–which would inevitably require some (inevitably noisy) measurement technology.

These hiring and P&T issues are not immaterial, but to me the first-order issues are reducing the costs of producing knowledge, discovering error, and deterring fraud.  The open source, wisdom of swarms, collaborative, Wiki-based model seems to offer many advantages over the received, hierarchical, journal-based model.  Open access, open source, “swarm,” and wiki models are threatening other information dissemination mechanisms–notably journalism.  So why not journals too?  Why not have reviews by tens or hundreds or thousands of peers who bring to bear comparative advantages (e.g., statisticians critiquing work done by non-statisticians but employing statistical techniques), and who are self-selected for their interest, rather than reviews by less than a handful of inevitably distracted, sometimes conscripted, and often conflicted peers?

The whole journal-based, peer review process is arguably well adapted to a particular technology for producing and disseminating information.  Given the radical changes in information technology, it is at least worth considering whether this received mechanism is still optimal.  I, for one, have serious doubts.

* As a (relevant) aside, one of the most outrageous admissions to come from the Hadley CRU fiasco is that (a) original source data was allegedly destroyed some time ago, and (b) East Anglia University/Hadley have the audacity to claim that only “value added,” processed data was retained.

The arrogance of this claim is beyond belief.  We are supposed to accept that CRU’s methods maximized “value added” for all possible uses of the data?  That every one of the myriad choices that CRU made when processing, filtering, and adjusting the data was the right one for every possible use of the data, and beyond question, let alone reproach?  We should just take this on faith?

How can we test this remarkable assertion?

Oh, we can’t–because they destroyed what would be necessary to do so.

Just think of the hundreds of possible ways of transforming the raw data to deal with problems such as missing observations, or aggregating individual station data to characterize climate over wide areas.  Hadley made a set of choices, and due to their destruction of the original data, we have to live with that, perhaps forever.

Who the hell died and made them the last word?

With open source data and open source code, we would not have to live with the systemic risk inherent in relying on a single set of choices.  Maybe the choices were right–but if they are not, our ability to change adapt is severely constrained.  And maybe they were right at a particular time, but we are now saddled with choices made in light of the techniques available when they were made; it is impossible to bring new techniques to bear on the old data.

Value added my foot.  Who the hell is Hadley to make that assertion?  Just a supercilious, self-serving effort at CYA.

As #1 SWP daughter said in a discussion of these issues: “PAY NO ATTENTION TO THAT LITTLE MAN BEHIND THE CURTAIN!”  That analogy is spot on.

In a couple of excellent posts, Shannon Love at Chicago Boyz notes that one of the most disturbing revelations resulting from the ripping open of the Hadley CRU’s kimono is the shockingly bad, ad hoc, sloppy, and (fill in own pejoratives here) nature of the computer code underlying the quantitative work that is such an important prop for the entire climate change policy edifice.  Love points out that software is not peer reviewed, and that scientists are for the most part self-taught programmers who do not follow the strict protocols associated with commercial software development.  For an endeavor like that undertaken at Hadley, incremental changes are made on the fly with little documentation, and soon the code resembles a rat’s nest, or an overgrown, weed-choked garden.

The code of the Hadley folks and their confreres (or should it be co-conspirators?) is mainly related to data preparation and analysis.  Many of the tasks it performs are relatively pedestrian in concept; the difficulties arise from dealing with the messiness of the underlying data (and, arguably, the perceived necessity of fitting the data to the theory).

But it does raise questions in my mind about the other major prop of the climate change policy edifice: dynamic climate change models.  These are huge and complex.  I know from much personal experience on simpler but related problems in finance that the kinds of equations they are intended to solve are extremely touchy.  Solution techniques can be very brittle.  Errors can be subtle and hard to catch.

It is my understanding that this code, like the Hadley programs, is written by scientists.  So, my questions: what is the quality of the climate model code?  Is it documented properly?  Has it been tested?  Has it been audited?  By whom?  What confidence can we have in its reliability? (Reliability in the relatively simple sense that it is bug-free, and properly performs the calculations implied by the underlying theories it is intended to implement.  The reliability and completeness of the underlying theories–relying, as they do, on “fudge factor” parameterizations and incomplete characterizations of potentially first order phenomena like clouds–are other issues altogether.)

Henry Kissinger once quipped “in academia, knives are so sharp because the stakes are so small.”*  This insight is largely correct.  In the absence of large pecuniary rewards, academics tend to receive remuneration disproportionately in the form of prestige and reputation.  One the positive side, these can be achieved by hard work and brilliance.  On the negative side, by manipulation, conspiracy, and backstabbing.

In the modern academy, peer review plays a major role in the establishment of reputation.  On the positive side, it can serve as an important tool in identifying errors, poor reasoning, and weak exposition.  On the negative side, it can serve as a mechanism for enforcing consensus even around dubious concepts, punishing dissent, and protecting incumbent interests.  As is the case with many social mechanisms, it tends to be conservative in nature, and hostile to true innovation.  It tends to filter out the different, with mixed consequences.  Bad work is often different, but not all that is different is bad.  Moreover, since in its operation it tends to empower the avatars of prevailing views, it can be used and manipulated to punish or otherwise quash those that challenge said views.

The Hadley CRU emails provide a window onto the often shabby operation of this process.  The Wegman report characterized the historical climate reconstruction community centered on Michael Mann as a clique.  The members work with one another and review each others’ work.  As a result of the insularity of this community, and its hostility to outsiders, the published peer reviewed work in the area all tended to reinforce the views of its members.  There were many different published papers, but because they were written or reviewed by the same people, often using the same data, these papers were not independent, in the mathematical/statistical sense.  A mere count of the number of papers gave a misleading view of the actual number of independent data points.  In statistical parlance, they gave an exaggerated view of the “size” of the tests in favor of the AGW hypothesis.

Moreover, by exerting undue influence on the peer review process, the clique suppressed dissenting views and the publication of truly independent work.  It then added insult to injury by condescendingly dismissing contrary work as not being peer reviewed, or being published in the leading journals (over which they exerted their influence).  It was a scientific Catch-22.

The Hadley CRU emails show just how right the Wegman report was.  Indeed, they demonstrate that if anything, “clique” is an understatement.  “Cabal” or “mafia” is more appropriate.  The enforcers of consensus resorted to threats, slander, and crude insult to protect their precious reputations and squelch opponents.  They reveled in the death of one gadfly and expressed the desire to inflict violence on others who had the temerity to present papers that dared suggest the Emperors had no clothes.

In brief, the climate reconstruction mafia behaved exactly as Kissinger described, wielding their sharp knives.

The problem is that, unlike the run of the mill academic disputes described by Kissinger,  in this matter the stakes are anything but small.  Indeed, they are staggeringly large.  In such matters, typical academic failings are intolerable.  There needs to be a different mechanism for evaluating and appraising such policy-relevant research than reliance on a self-selected, self-reinforcing group of interested individuals.

This will present a great challenge.  When the political consequences of science are so great, it will be very difficult to keep politics out of science.  Where to begin?  The recommendations laid out in the Wegman report (emphasized in a comment by Mike Giberson) are a good place to start, but likely additional steps are required.

Follow up (noon, 11/27/09).  The normally sensible Megan McArdle states that “Sexing up a graph is at best a misdemeanor.”  I think she means “at worst,” but regardless, in context it is clear that she means to minimize the importance of the data and methodological abuses employed to create the hockey stick and related graphics.  I think this is incredibly wrongheaded.  There is NO excuse for lying with statistics in this way.  And, as the post points out, the stakes in this issue are immense.  The “sexed up” graphs have been used repeatedly in order to advance an agenda that will have enormous economic, and perhaps environmental, consequences.  (The economic costs are indisputable.  The environmental consequences are far less certain, because (a) as the debate shows, the scientific basis for AGW is on shakier ground now, and (b) even if AGW is correct, the effects of the measures currently contemplated may be very small indeed.)  Given these consequences, the expected cost of any distortion of the evidence is extremely large.  What’s more, the emails provide strong evidence that the sins go far beyond tarting up an inconsequential graphic.  These sins plausibly include, based on the code extracts and comments particularly, wholescale fraud.

* I have used this line from time to time in the past.  For instance, I used it in response to a lawyer’s line of questioning about what people have said about my academic qualifications during what was at the time the largest fraudulent conveyance claim trial in US bankruptcy law history.  The judge chuckled, and said something like “that’s true of judges councils too” and suggested that the lawyer try another line of questioning.  So, you see, I’m environmentally responsible: I recycle!

Note: I wrote the following over three years ago, but never posted it.   It seems particularly apposite to do so in light of the disclosure of the now infamous CRU document drop (or heist).   The documents now available provide even more evidence of the McKitrick and McIntyre accusation of scientific misconduct, with individuals other than Mann being complicit in said misconduct.

Even absent any outright manipulation of results–which the documents (especially the comments in the code) also strongly suggest occurred–the failure to disclose data and methods is unpardonable.   This piece includes an analysis of intellectual property rights issues as they relate to science generally, and climate science in particular.

I will probably write more later (holiday schedule permitting) on an aspect of the Wegman report that I didn’t discuss in the original post: the climate science “clique” (Wegman’s word).   The emails suggest that clique is far too polite a word.   “Cabal” or “mafia” seems closer to the mark.   But, hopefully, more on that later.

Here’s what I wrote (in China, as a matter of fact) in August 06:

The NAS recently wrote a report which made it abundantly clear that the Mann “Hockey Stick” used to bolster the case for anthropogenic global warming was fundamentally flawed, but out of politeness–or cowardice–failed to pronounce the verdict in so many words. Indeed, the summary of the NAS report and subsequent press coverage it seemed determined to avoid pointing out that Emperor Mann had no clothes.

Hence, it was left to the Wegman Report to proclaim that Mann is indeed as naked as a jaybird. Wegman and his co-authors–very reputable statisticians all–make it abundantly clear that the statistical foundations of Mann’s work are extremely defective. Indeed, Wegman et al sustain all of the McIntyre-McKitrick criticisms of Mann’s work.

From this date hence, anyone who uses the Hockey Stick to bolster any argument that the current increase in global surface temperatures is unprecedented, and is attributable to anthropogenic influences, is displaying either willful ignorance or shocking intellectual dishonesty.

A couple of points.

First, I have read a good deal of the literature on global warming, and have always been quite unimpressed with much of the statistical work in this field. Wegman recommends that future work in this area include contributions from mainstream statisticians, which seems right.

Second, and perhaps more important, even the Wegman report (by design, it appears) tippy-toes around the issue of scientific conduct–or misconduct. At the very least, McIntyre and McKitrick raised serious questions about sloppiness by Mann and his co-authors, and indeed made a plausible affirmative case for scientific misconduct. Moreover, the consistent failure of Mann–and others–to disclose fully methods, data, and code is deplorable.

It is interesting to contrast the lack of transparency in climate research–at least the proxy record research that M-M focused on–with how scientific and statistical evidence is handled in litigation. I do a good deal of work as an expert witness. In such cases, if you make a mistake, it will be discovered. Every line of code, every piece of data, every method is discoverable. The opposing side’s experts will comb over every piece of information you disclose–and you must disclose everything. Opposing counsel will grill you for seven and one-half hours (in a federal case), asking you about every aspect of your methodology and results. You better check, double check, and check again. You can’t get away with claiming your code is proprietary (as Mann has done) or playing bait-and-switch with your data (as McIntyre and McKitrick claim that Mann also did.) It’s the Full Monty.

Although many academics express disdain for expert witness work because it is supposedly tainted by the fact that it is bought and paid for by interested litigants, the adversarial process makes it very difficult for seriously flawed or biased work to survive to influence the outcome of the case. This is not to say that experts will not disagree. They will. Different experts can examine data in an honest and intellectually defensible way and arrive at different conclusions. However, the kinds of stunts Mann has pulled would never fly in litigation. The opposing counsel or the judge would make short work of that.

The stakes in the cases I have worked on have been in the tens of millions, the hundreds of millions, and in one instance, the billions of dollars. Cases of such magnitude are not exceptional. Because of the high economic stakes, each side expends considerable resources to present its own affirmative economic and statistical analysis, and to rebut that of its opponent.

As high as these stakes are, those in the climate change debate are substantially higher. Billions is spent on climate research. Moreover, policies to address climate change likely have direct and indirect costs amounting to the trillions of dollars. Scientific work like paleoclimatology or climate modeling is routinely used to justify the needs for such policies. Given these stakes, “discovery” procedures like those employed in civil litigation seem more than justified. Specifically, full disclosure of data, methods, and computer code to other researchers is warranted. This will impose some costs on researchers, but knowing the burdens in advance they can take the appropriate measures to mitigate these costs. Moreover, it is essential to note that these procedures reduce costs as well–researchers seeking to replicate or evaluate others’ studies will incur a far smaller expense if methods, data, and code are made more transparent. Moreover, greater transparency will reduce the likelihood that scientific errors will go uncorrected. When research is policy relevant, as much climatological and some economic research is, such errors can be extremely costly. We have already paid a very high price to protect Michael Mann’s vanity, and the interests of those with a stake (intellectual, reputational, financial, or political) in the hypothesis of anthropogenic global warming. The point is to get the right answer, not the politically correct answer–and to get it in a timely fashion. Transparency is essential to achieve this objective.

An analogy with intellectual property law is apposite here. The key issue is whether disclosure will reduce the amount of original research by more than it will increase the “follow on” research. My intuition suggests the answer is no inasmuch as most of this research is not commercial in nature. Under these circumstances, protecting the original research through a form of “trade secrets” barrier is inappropriate. An analysis along the lines presented in the Landis-Posner book The Economic Structure of Intellectual Property Law is apposite here. Landis-Posner note the tension inherent in protecting intellectual property. On the one hand, protection generates a stream of rents that induce production of intellectual property; absent such protection, copy-cats could merely reproduce the property at virtually zero cost without incurring the expense and effort of creating it in the first place, thereby freeriding off the efforts of the inventor and undermining his incentive to innovate. On the other hand, increasing IP protections raises the costs that others incur to produce new works. That is, one can view existing work as an input to new, follow on work; high IP protections raise the cost of this input, leading to less work building on the old.

Inasmuch as basic science–including paleo-climatalogical research–is not funded by the sale of the intellectual property, but through grants and other mechanisms, the benefits of IP protection are small. One could argue that scientists are motivated by non-pecuniary factors, such as the prestige of being the first to publish a result. At most, this justifies the protection of IP to the point of publication. Once a result has been produced and published, the benefits of protecting the IP are minimal, while the costs are appreciable. Given the cumulative nature of scientific discovery and the centrality of the replication process, past research is an essential input to future research, and raising the cost of utilizing past research imposes a burden without a corresponding benefit. I am very hard pressed indeed to provide any economic justification for Mann and others to refuse to disclose their computer code, or to make it burdensome to access their data, or to impede replication of their work by publishing only obscure–and arguably misleading–descriptions of their methodology.

The next time somebody whines about how the West exploited Russia after the fall of The Wall, and didn’t offer any meaningful economic assistance, ask them about this:

To say that Russia is hesitant about tackling climate change is putting it mildly. The last time the world tried to get the country’s cooperation on the issue was in 1997, during negotiations for the Kyoto Protocol (the international treaty on limiting greenhouse-gas emissions). Because Russia is the world’s third largest source of emissions after the U.S. and China, the accord would have failed without it. So the treaty was written in a way that would allow Russia to keep polluting as much as it wanted and grant the country billions of dollars in emissions allowances to sell to other countries that needed to meet their Kyoto commitments.  (Read about getting air traffic under control.)

As a U.N. official who participated in the talks put it, “Russia got the sweetest deal: free money, no restrictions.” But apparently even that wasn’t enough. It took another seven years of painstaking negotiations — and promises from the West to help Russia join the World Trade Organization (WTO) — to get the country to ratify the deal.

Note: not a US official, but a UN one said this.

The latest pissing contest between the Obama administration and Dick Cheney leads me to wonder: If the Bush administration was so criminally negligent in its waging of the war in Afghanistan, why did Obama retain Robert Gates as Secretary of Defense?  And if Obama has only became aware in recent months of how truly inept the Bush-Cheney-Gates policy was, why does Gates still have a job?  (Note that Gates’s assumption of SecDef duties in November 2006 corresponds closely in time with the serious deterioration of the situation in Afghanistan.)  Put differently, how credible is it for Obama and his minions (although henchmen is probably a better description of some) to claim that the Bush policy was negligent and inept while retaining the services of one of the major architects of that policy, who was also primarily responsible for its execution?

And now for something completely different.  (Yes, I’ve been ODing on the Monty Python documentary and movies on the Independent Film Channel.)

A recent poll reports that Americans are increasingly skeptical about anthropomorphic climate change.  Now, to me it is most likely that what is really going on is that Americans are becoming increasingly cognizant of the costs of measures being advanced to combat climate change, don’t feel that the benefit is worth the cost, and express this belief by casting doubt on the existence of climate change.  That’s neither here nor there, though.  What really interests me is the response to these poll results.

One reaction has been to write them off as the result of relentless propaganda by right wing news outlets, lobbyists, and politicians.  Which leads me to ask: If said news outlets, etc., are such mesmerizing Pied Pipers who can convince large swathes of a gullible American public to follow them down a false path, why is Obama president, and why are the House and Senate solidly Democratic?  And what does it say about the efficacy of the mainstream media outlets–the New York Times, the WaPo, virtually every other major urban daily and weekly newsmag, the used to be big 3 networks, CNN, BBC, etc.,–all of which reliably routinely echo the Chicken Little view?  It doesn’t seem that the Left is getting its money’s worth.

The AP article contains a gem that is quite revealing:

Andrew Weaver, a professor of climate analysis at the  University of Victoria in  British Columbia, said politics could be drowning out scientific awareness.

“It’s a combination of poor communication by scientists, a lousy summer in the Eastern United States, people mixing up weather and climate and a full-court press by public relations firms and lobby groups trying to instill a sense of uncertainty and confusion in the public,” he said.

The point about mixing up weather and climate, and extrapolating from a cool summer in the US, is a fair one.  But what’s sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander, Dr. (I presume) Weaver.  For the most strident advocates of draconian measures to control climate change have shamelessly and repeatedly exploited every weather extreme to raise alarm about climate change.  Indeed, the most famous and influential of climate change Cassandras, James Hansen, first brought climate change (then referred to as “global warming”) to the public consciousness by testifying before Al Gore’s Senate committee during a severe drought in the summer of 1988.  Hansen warned that the drought was the harbinger of our planet’s fate unless measures were adopted immediately to reduce CO2 emissions.  (As I recall, 21 years ago Hansen said we had 10 years to take action or we were doomed).  There is considerable evidence that the 1988 drought was caused by the Southern Oscillation, and was not the effect of AGW; similarly, the 1998 temperature spike was also SO related.  (No, not S-O related, nor So? related.  LOL.)  But global warmists have used both temperature spikes to advance their cause.

So, Dr. Weaver, I would be perfectly happy to be scrupulous about the distinction between weather and climate, as long as you and your confreres do the same.  For you all have been far more sinning than sinned against.

In my post-election quasi-rant, I considered the possibility that the worse, the better:  that it would be better in the end for liberty and more limited government if Obama and the Congressional Democrats indulged the wildest policy fantasies in health care, climate change, and domestic government spending.  I conjectured that this would set off a popular reaction that would derail these endeavors.

The first part of the scenario has definitely played out.  Indeed, Obama, by delegating his agenda to the almost uniformly leftist leadership of Congress, and exploiting the financial crisis and sharp recession, has pursued a far more thoroughgoing attempt to reshape America than I thought possible even in my gloomiest moments.

And now there are clear indications that the second part of the scenario is playing out as well. The tumults at Congressional townhalls in particular are the most palpable evidence of this, but that is only the tip of the iceberg.

Much of this opposition is inarticulate at best, and at the fringes degenerates into sputtering and at times ugly rage.  But it is genuine.

And the coastal elites are by no means pleased.  (It is ironic, isn’t it, that leftists praise anger and rage as evidence of authenticity–except when it is directed at them?)  The divide over health care in particular, and to a slightly lesser degree cap & trade, is just another manifestation of the same cultural schism that makes figures like Sarah Palin so divisive.

For government-dominated health care (and the rest of the Obama agenda) is an elite project; progressivism (and Progressivism) has always been elitist, and more than willing to coerce the great unwashed into doing what their betters know is good for them.  It looks to Europe for its inspiration, and is dismissive of distinctively American institutions, and of the vision of the Founders in particular.

But Americans have the infuriating habit of not being Europeans.  They are far less deferential to authority, and to the authority of self-styled elites in particular.  European society is far-less open access than the US; just consider the dominance of the graduates of a few elite schools in French government.  Consequently, the elites have a much rougher time getting their way here, than in Europe.

We are at a historical moment.  In my post-election post, I shrunk from hoping for the worse-the-better because I feared that the US had become sufficiently Europeanized that the agenda would be implemented, at the eternal cost of our liberties and future prosperity.  The coming couple of months–most notably, the period of the Congressional recess and the first weeks after its return–will be decisive.

The tragedy is that the organized (and I use that term very loosely) political opposition, the Republican Party, is leaderless, clueless, and itself far too complicit in the statist project to provide a compelling and constructive alternative.  As a result, the current opposition, energetic as it is, is also inchoate and likely to dissipate as soon as this round of the health care and cap & trade debates ends.  Meaning that even if this battle is won, the statist elites will be back.

New presidential science advisor John Holdren (pictured above) is proposing the use of geo-engineering to counter a potential future catastrophic global warming:

The concept of using technology to purposely cool the climate is called geoengineering. One option raised by Holdren and proposed by a Nobel Prize-winning scientist includes shooting pollution particles into the upper atmosphere to reflect the sun’s rays.

Using such an experimental measure is only being thought of as a last resort, Holdren said.

“It’s got to be looked at,” he said. “We don’t have the luxury … of ruling any approach off the table.”

His concern is that the  United States  and other nations won’t slow global warming fast enough and that several “tipping points” could be fast approaching. Once such milestones are reached, such as complete loss of summer sea ice in the  Arctic,  it increases chances of “really intolerable consequences,” he said.

. . . .  

Holdren, a 1981 winner of a MacArthur Foundation “genius” grant, outlined these possible geoengineering options:

—Shooting sulfur particles (like those produced by power plants and volcanoes, for example) into the upper atmosphere, an idea that gained steam when it was proposed by Nobel laureate  Paul Crutzen  in 2006. It would be “basically mimicking the effect of volcanoes in screening out the incoming sunlight,” Holdren said.

—Creating artificial “trees”—giant towers that suck  carbon dioxide  out of the air and store it.

The first approach would “try to produce a cooling effect to offset the heating effect of carbon dioxide and other  greenhouse gases,” Holdren said.

But he said there could be grave side effects. Studies suggest that might include eating away a large chunk of the ozone layer above the poles and causing the  Mediterranean  and the  Mideast  to be much drier.

And those are just the predicted problems. Scientists say they worry about side effects that they don’t anticipate.

While the idea could strike some people as too risky, the Obama administration could get unusual support on the idea from groups that have often denied the harm of global warming in the past.

OK.  Comparing Holdren to Dr. John I. Q. Niedelbaum Frink was a cheap shot.  Holdren clearly views such an intervention as a last ditch measure, to be used only in extremis.  But there is something more than a little mad-scientistish about this scheme, even under supposedly dire conditions.   In particular, it seems to embed a serious internal contradiction, related to the unanticipated side effects feared by “scientists” (just who, exactly, it would be nice to know.)  

The internal contradiction arises from the stated rationale for geoengineering, namely, that there are “tipping points” where positive feedback loops lead to extreme, discontinuous climate changes.  Such tipping points/discontinuities/positive feedback mechanisms are characteristic of chaotic systems.  These are complex systems with dense, unknown, and likely unknowable interconnections.  The response of such systems to shocks is highly sensitive to initial conditions, conditions which are impossible to identify let alone measure.  (Indeed, even if the relevant conditions could be identified exhaustively, and measured, even slight measurement errors could lead to wildly flawed predictions of response.)  

This is explained concisely in Useless Arithmetic: Why Environmental Scientists Can’t Predict the Future, by Orrin Pilkey and Linda Pilkey-Jarvis:

[p]erhaps the single most important reason that quantitative predictive mathematical models of natural processes don’t work and can’t work has to do with ordering complexity.   Interactions among the numerous components of a complex system occur in unpredictable and unexpected sequences.

So, geoengineering would represent an exchange of a devil we think we understand something about (runaway global warming in which climate changes discontinuously in response to a small incremental forcing) for a devil we don’t (the response of the climate to a big shock, e.g., man-made volcanoes, in the midst of an already chaotic event).  

The choice here does not seem to be obvious, although an advocate of the precautionary principle would argue that the very unpalatability of the choice dictates more robust action now.  But that’s a debate for another day.