Catallaxy Files

John Quiggin has just put up another post on the Phil Jones statistical significance issue. This time putting the boot into Richard Lindzen. It seems Lindzen is the originator of the claim that there has been no statistically significant warming since 1995. Jones agreed with that statement at the 95 percent level, but only just. Recall my discussion on that point here and here.

This is what John Quiggin says (emphasis added)

Lindzen has published a couple of hundred papers in climatology, so I think we can assume he knows that the statement “there has been no statistically significant warming since 1995? means nothing more than “given the variability in the data, we need at least 15 observations to reject the null hypothesis at 95 per cent confidence”, a fact so trite as not to be worth mentioning.

It is sad to see a respected scientist reduced to this kind of thing. And as far as I can tell, all this is simply to avoid admitting that he backed the wrong horse back in 1990, when he bet that he was smarter than the majority of climate scientists who thought humans were (probably) causing global warming. The data since then has supported the majority view, but instead of revising his position, Lindzen has resorted to dishonest statistical trickery.

The problem with that argument is the bit about 15 observations – John is exactly correct on that point; using 15 observations would be a dumb thing to do. When Lindzen wrote that email he would have had less than 15 annual observations. But I suspect Lindzen and Jones used monthly data for their analysis not annual data. Using monthly data you end up with 15 x 12 = 180 data points.

At a general level the question is whether using 15 years of monthly data is enough? My gut feeling is to say no. If we believe that climate change occurs over long periods of time, we should use longer time series. That is what Terry Mills does here.

The WSJ has one of its characteristically snappy and devastating op-ed pieces on the Rudd Stimulus package. Unfortunately they now have a pay-wall.

When Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd unveiled a massive 42 billion Australian dollar ($38 billion) stimulus package last year, he sold it as a far better response to recession than “to allow the free market to let rip.” Now like other national leaders who sprayed out taxpayer cash, he’s finding government may not be as efficient a savior as the market, after all.

After a devasting critique of the home insulation debacle, the green-loans debacle, and the solar-panel debacle this is the bottom line.

None of this is a great surprise. Australia’s green stimulus, like its American cousin, was always more about promoting liberal visions of wealth redistribution than actually spurring sustainable growth. Australians are now paying for Mr. Rudd’s mistakes.

Peter Costello has a good article in the Age today.

Once you announce there is $2.7 billion of free insulation to be distributed, you can hardly be surprised when contractors materialise from thin air to take up the business. If the government’s plan is to shovel out money as fast as possible, then safety and training is not going to be their priority.

Nor was it a priority for the government when it announced the scheme on February 3 last year. The government declared: “The insulation program is expected to create a significant number of new Australian jobs. These jobs require limited retraining and so the benefits to the community can be realised quickly.”

What a tragic miscalculation that proved to be. The retraining was so “limited”, four young men tragically lost their lives and thousands of homes are now at risk. So where did the idea to insulate houses come from?

Costello tells us it emerged out of the bureaucracy and he opposed it when in government. Okay. New government comes in gets sold the idea and implements it. I understand that too. Lots of new governments implement the dumb ideas the old government rejected. It’s called inexperience – everybody suffers from this at some point in their life. So while I agree with Costello, I can’t help think about the super levy surcharge and the ban on nuclear power in Australia.

Steve has been a busy boy – writing books and papers and whatnot. His Macroeconomic Theory And Its Failings an edited volume on alternative perspectives to the GFC has just been published by Edward Elgar. Well done. Unfortunately EE has a business plan that focusses on selling books to libraries and not a mass market. It clearly works for them, but their books are on the pricey side. My understanding is that he’s got another two books coming out this year.