The Good, The Bad & The Ugly
That’s the clever tagline to an excellent cover story on climate skeptics in the new issue of Skeptic magazine.
Alas, the actual article, which aims to distinguish between “Climate Skeptics” and “Climate Deniers,” is available only on newstands or by subscription. But because I’ve been trying to puzzle out the distinction myself of late, I’m going to highlight some choice excerpts from the piece.
Here’s the opener:
Among the many battlefronts in the culture wars, few have raised a specter of worry among scientists more than the great big imbroglio over Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW). Especially in America, positions are staked and fiercely held by parties who claim they are evidence-based while their opponents are portrayed as either conspiratorial deniers or the gullible “koolaid-drinking tools of a propaganda machine. An especially vexing aspect of this polarization is the near perfect correlation of the sides with an ancient and largely unrelated left-right political axis.
Well, I’m not sure of that perfect correlation, but I think the above overview accurately captures the popular perception. The writer, David Brin, is fair-minded in his approach. He’s sympathetic to both climate scientists and true, science-minded climate skeptics. Here’s the central question he’s trying to answer:
What discrete characteristics distinguish a rational, pro-science “climate skeptic” who has honest questions about the AGW consensus from members of a Denier Movement that portrays all members of the scientific community as either fools or conspirators?
Towards the end of his piece, Brin assumes (wrongly, I believe) that pro-science climate skeptics are fully cognizant of the associations that are being used to tar them:
The Climate Skeptic has noticed that the Denier movement is directly correlated–with almost perfect predictability–with a particular “side” in America’s calamitous, seditious and self-destructive Culture Wars. This is the same side that includes “Creation Science,” the same side that oversaw the worst economic collapse since the Great Depression, based on mythological asset bubbles, “magical financial instruments”…and the same side that promised us “energy independence” then sabotaged every effort in that direction, including all of the energy-related research that might have helped us get off the oil-teat. (And that research gap is a bigger smoking gun to pay attention to than carbon credits.)
While the Denier sees this association of parallel anti-intellectual movements as a good thing, one than enhances the credibility of the Denier movement, the Skeptic has the mental courage to be embarrassed by it.
Actually, based on my own interactions with skeptics on this blog and over at Roger Pielke Jr.’s site, it seems that most pro-science skeptics could care less about this association, much less be embarrassed by it. I think this willful stance does them no good in the public sphere, where their credibility is clearly undermined by their loose association with the larger denier movement that Brin alludes to.
Brin suggests (as I have on repeated occasion), that “sincere and enlightened climate skeptics” should put some distance between themselves and climate “deniers.” If they did this, I bet their voices would be heard more clearly by both climate scientists and the public.
UPDATE: In the comment thread, David Brin elaborates on what motivated him to write his story.
Of course, one might also suggest that legitimate pro-AGW folks should distance themselves from the pseudo-scientific Al Gores of the world. It seems to me the “distance” problem afflicts both tribes.
I think this commentary is onto something regarding coalitional psychology:
Virtue as well as truth is a casualty of partisan zeal. Even when partisans know what the score is, they’re constantly tempted to shade the truth, or at least keep silent, in order to be a good team player. Recall, for example, the fury unleashed this past fall on the handful of conservative commentators who were willing to admit the obvious: Sarah Palin was obviously, embarrassingly unprepared for the office she was seeking. In coalitional psychology, the only thing worse than an infidel is a heretic, and that fact ensures that most partisans keep their heterodox opinions to themselves. Good for the team, perhaps, but bad for the soul “” and the republic.
I see myself as a pro-science skeptic in matters climatological, i.e. in regard to many claims of recent “climate science”, but I have a strong leaning against right-wing or conservative positions on almost everything. I am all in favor of Keith’s suggestion of emphasizing the distance between pro-science skepticism and the anti-intellectual right wing, that in the same breath may attack evolution by natural selection and anthropogenic climate change, while enthusiastically supporting the Iraq War, opposing Obama’s health reform or supporting Arizona’s immigration law. I can find good and bad aspects in all these issues, of course, but cannot suffer to be associated with such ugly bedfellows.
Moreover, I think the far right is against AGW for no scientific reason at all: they simply oppose any government intervention, and seize on whatever argument is around, just in fear of more taxes that may arise from climate policy. If AGW were a purely scientific claim similar to claims about black holes or string theory, they would not care a bit.
that all implies that ‘sceptics’ are some kind of organised force..
Could I just say I’m not a ‘sceptic’, just a fellow human being with a NON – ‘postal normal’ scientis perspective.
I just see mainly individuals, very loosely linked up, by the commentors themselves, flitting from blog to blog, not by the blogsites themselves.. (ie I came across collide a scape – from a comment on bishop hill – does that make Keith a sceptic? 😉 )
I’m an individual (in the UK), how can I disassociate myself from what others label me..
I know very little about CAGW AGW politics in the USA (rather more in the UK, EU) exxon mobil is just another business and I have never smoked, nor do I have a coal fire..
I also believe 6 million peole plus, diesd in europe because of their religion, so why should I fend people off, trying to smear me, with climate change denial (not even man made?) equals the same mentality as holocaust denial. The onus is on the smeares to behave themselves and the media politicians should pick them up on it. Not join in!!
It is just strange to me..
The advocates are the people making these false associations, trying to label people, to close down debate (ie ‘deniars =started a few years ago)
So, the questions should be why are the CAGW advocates continuning to smear people with innuendo and strange associations and why do so many people in the media, just not see it for what it is and question this. Are they scared of being called a ‘sceptic’ or worse ?
Andy (1), the problem for climate skeptics is that the Moranos/Inhofes and Moncktons are the public face for climate skeptics.
The AGW stage is shared more widely by a spectrum of voices, of which Gore certainly stands out.
All I’m saying is that it behooves true pro-science climate skeptics to enage more constructively with the “denier” tag foisted on them. They can do that in their own blogs. But perhaps they are inhibited by that coalitional psychology (2) you mention.
Perhaps my own path through the climate issues would be helpful in understanding both the ‘larger denier group’ and the ‘pro-science skeptics’. I have been members of both more than once over time, and I continue to question whether the characterization of the ‘larger denier group’ is fair or reasonable, and certainly question whether the assignment of base ulterior motives to a group is productive. Sort of reminds me of prejudice based on national origin or religion.
My first contact was Michael Crichton’s “State of Fear” novel. I didn’t read it because I was interested in the climate, I read it because I had read another of his novels and was looking for something to read before a long plane ride. After reading it, I tended to regard CAGW folks as part of the ‘environmentalist’ group that, in my mind, has parallel characteristics to those some of you want to apply to skeptics or deniers. There are people who legitimately are concerned about the environment mixed in with a spectrum of people ranging from criminals who put ceramic spikes in logs to cause sawmill breakdowns to passionate recyclers whose carefully packaged recyle material is then burned at the town dump, etc. Mostly good hearted folks whose efforts produce good feelings but maybe not much real difference.
At some point I went to the RC site and was initially convinced by the scientific information presented there that there was really something to the CO2 issue and maybe we should do something about it.
After finding WUWT and many other sites, reading about Dr. Mann and Dr. Jones’s refusals to cooperate with CA and others, I became convinced that most of this was a criminal scam. I said so on some web sites that probably still have my comments. It didn’t seem unreasonable to agree with statements that increasing from 38 to 39 molecules per 100K molecules of air was not something to be really worried about. I had no trouble dismissing the results of the computer models as my professional background included work on large scale (for the 1970s) models and I understood that the results of same were easy to manipulate and often only loosely related to the data or theories.
It was Science of Doom recommended by WUWT that first educated me on the facts that Dr. Curry now accepts: there is more CO2 than before, and reflected long wave radiation warms the surface (and the air?) more with more CO2. I have spent many hours reading papers and discussions on many sites and probably have moved from totally ignorant to maybe advanced beginner in terms of being able to understand the more complex papers. I no longer believe that the whole movement is a conspiracy, but still have unresolved issues with the hockey team’s behavior and the apparent reluctance of the rest of the community to do anything about it.
As a pragmatist, and definitely not on the left side of politics, I continue to wonder about the rationality of those here who passionately discuss whether acknowledging uncertainty will become an excuse for inaction. I saw an article earlier today that claimed that the entire CO2 reduction achieved by Europe and the US had been offset by growth in CO2 emissions in India and China. Whether that is technically true or not ‘right now’, does anyone think that the two countries are going to stop building coal fired power plants as fast as they possibly can for the next several decades? Absent a technical breakthrough that makes some other kind of power generation reliably cheaper, it seems to me that you really have to be in some kind of altered mental state to believe that global CO2 emissions will do other than continue to increase at an increasing rate for decades.
So if you really believe that the ice will melt and the rest of the consequences are ‘likely’ or ‘very likely’, then responsible governments and leaders should be preparing to relocate populations away from sea shores and taking other adaptive actions. Clearly most governments don’t believe that these actions are prudent within the foreseeable election cycles, and I don’t know of any reductions in ocean front property values.
There is just a near complete disconnect between actions responsible managers and leaders would take if they believed in CAGW and the actions those same folks are actually taking. One can continue to lament their refusal to take CO2 related policy actions seriously and blame it on denialists and MSM and whatever, but maybe it is just pragmatism. The confidence level that India and China will more than offset every conceivable effort by all of Europe and the US to reduce CO2 has to be greater than 99% over the next few decades, baring that massive technology break through, so why should any responsible government harm their economy by reducing CO2?
A pro-science skeptic seems more likely to criticize (or correct mistatements of) the radical enviro groups than the anti-science mostly right wing political deniers. At the same time, the establishment climate scientists are more likely to criticize (or correct misstatements of) the anti-science mostly right wing political deniers than the radical enviro groups.
If the pro-science groups on both sides are being objective, both the enviro and the political denier groups should be criticized by both the establishment climate sciences and the pro-science skeptics if they make incorrect, alarmist, or otherwise inappropriate statements.
The pro-science skeptics seem more likely to criticize both the radical enviro groups and the political denier groups, than the climate establishment is to criticize an enviro group when it makes an inaccurate, inappropriate alarmist statement. Some members of the climate establishment have all but branded me as heretic for supporting things that the pro-science skeptics say, and listening to what CEI has to say (which i don’t categorize as anti-science). Until the climate establishment can criticize the radical enviro groups when appropriate and listen to the pro-science skeptics, the public trust in this group will continue to erode, IMO.
I self-identify as a layperson who is a scientifically-literate Lukewarmer. Judging from reactions to blog comments from advocates of the AGW Consensus position, this makes me an infidel (mostly) or a heretic (sometimes).
I am in favor of Science-Done-Right. In the case of climate-science publications, this means following the norms of the experimental hard sciences. It means <i>rejecting</i> post-normal approaches and postmodern reasoning.
In the case of climate-science institutions, it also means following the norms of the experimental hard sciences. Many of Judith Curry’s C-a-s comments speak to this point.
Sometimes, Science-done-right will end up supplying ammunition to the AGW Consensus stance. Other times, it will buttress the “Skeptical” view. And there will be many head-scratchers. I could guess at percentages (which might surprise some), but that’s not the point. Rather, we should re-read Richard Feynman’s wisdom on this and related subjects.
If I thought the anti-vaccine movement was backed by good science, I’d be sympathetic to it. But the weight of the evidence overwhelmingly supports the “standard” medical views on the subject.
It is very difficult–but not impossible–to learn a lot of biology and work as a scientist in the biological sciences, while rejecting the Modern Synthesis and embracing Creationism or Intelligent Design. In that area, there is an avalanche of evidence in support of evolution, with barely a flurry against it. Yet I accept that some papers will report well-done work that challenges evolutionary theory. To the extent they really do represent careful, logical and excellent work, publish ’em! We’ll learn something (maybe/maybe not what the authors intended…). If the theory ‘evolves’ to take the new data into account: that’s the way science is supposed to work.
To summarize a rather long post and tie it back:
Maybe the skeptics some of you continue to stigmatize have simply not found the time or don’t have the background to understand the science. Their position seemed reasonable to me at one time. It is easy to find (false) statements that make it easy for a casual reader believe that the trace gas CO2 doesn’t really matter. It is easy to find publicity that is true that at least some climate scientists have intentionally withheld their data for fear of being exposed as folks who probably intentionally mislead governments with scare propaganda.
Have you considered that the rabid deniers just read the news and have made a judgment that you also might have to agree with someday if better proxies and better UHI adjustments and better understanding of ocean oscillations show that what we have here is mostly natural climate variability and that the adjustments we should be making are to accommodate a cooling climate that might be descending to the next ice age?
If the weather for the next couple of decades gets colder each year, which side will look back and call the other one foolish?
I have no real idea who Morano is or what he stands for,, and Moncton is a bit of an irrelvance, Monckton has no organisation, no one looks to him for orders, all the blogistes quite happily disagree with each other about things.
I like reading Tom Fuller, for example,, yet he has very radically different ideas to me, and we manage to avoid calling each othe names in the comments.
With respect to my last 2 sentence..(ref journalists) #4
At a Campaign Against Climate Change Meeting – Ben Stewart – Greenpeace Media Director (UK) said, we need to make sceptical journalists ‘scared’ and to make ‘brand sceptic’ – ‘toxic’
The Campaign Agaisnt Climate Change, honourary president is Geroge Monbiot Guardian journalist, the Guardian being the mainstream UK newspaper, that strongly backed the outgoing UK government for the last 13 years (whose leader – Gordon Brown – went to Copenhagen , calling ‘sceptics’ – flat earthers – and that we ‘had 50 days to save the planet’
In the UK and europe, ALL politicians and nearly ALL media are at one with CAGW, thus politically motivated ‘sceptics’ comments just appear strange to us. I presume it is different in the USA?
Judith (7): You write, The pro-science skeptics seem more likely to criticize both the radical enviro groups and the political denier groups. (my emphasis)
I’m not seeing that reflected in the public debate, though it’s very possible I’m not aware of it. If this is so, can you or anyone else provide me a few links.
But I wholeheartedely agree with you and others who recommend that the climate establishment be more critical of the “climate doom” meme that is all too often used by activists for political purposes and as a means to raise greater concern in the public.
I’m not an American (I only lived there a few years) and the links from science to politics don’t really connect in the UK, at least not in the same polarised way they appear to in the US. So, despite being a climate sceptic, I’m not really pigeon-holed politically. I suspect that if there were a movement in the UK, to parallel the US’s Republican/talkradio/creationist/anti-intellectualist, there’d be a greater impetus to make the distinction.
In fact I don’t generally come across many “denialists” in the blogosphere where I hang out. Sure, occasionally they crop up at ClimateAudit or WUWT, and even on occasion – probably courtesy of some un-reciprocated link-back – on Bishop Hill’s blog, but they’re dispatched quickly. They don’t have anything to contribute because – far too much like RC sycophants – they’ve already decided on their conclusion and have absolutely nothing with which to debate. They arrive to shout their irrelevant political victories against AGW, they’re left cold and lonely because nobody’s interested, and they’re gone again in sixty seconds flat. The climate sceptical blogs I frequent are an environment distinct from the political commentators (Delingpole, Booker etc) where politics rarely enters the fray. When policy enters the debate, it’s usually for its fiscal or scientific issues, not for its political implications.
But the truth is that, when faced with a pro-AGW fanatic that truly believes that I’m a denier in the political sense simply because I’m not “a believer”, it’s simply great fun to circle and out-flank them in a scientific discussion on the nitty-gritty of climate science*. Their premise is that because I’m a “denier” I must be anti-scientific and know nothing about atmospheric composition or climate forcings/feedback – because RealClimate says I don’t, pretty much. This frequently makes for easy pickings. Not that I’m looking for easy pickings, I’d rather get into an informed debate, but you takes what yous can get.
The pro-AGW movement’s readiness to dismiss all sceptics as “denialists”, rather than engaging with them and addressing their points of order, has led to the AGW camp minions having almost no counterpoints to the sceptical onslaught. They’re simply not coached in the nuances of the debate. Their exposure to the science is often so exact, limited and one-sided that they’re blissfully unaware that there even ARE valid questions about the science and methodologies. The pro-AGW crowd appears to suffer from an affliction of “unknown unknowns”.
* I’m not a climate scientist. I don’t pretend to be. I don’t even have a science degree, I went to art college. But I know more about the hockey stick controversy, the problems with the peer review process today, the problem with bristle cones and Mike’s Nature tricks, and the problems with the GHCN than any pro-AGW commenters I’ve interacted with on MSM sites. And (shockingly) I have a deeper appreciation for (and sometimes even understanding of) the scientific method than some climate scientists I’ve debated with there, too.
7# I agree.. with respect to radical enviro advocacy groups.
Look at the harm done to the IPCC ‘peer’ reviewed ‘wwf’ literature for example.. (and the wwf, is relatively sane, compared to some )
And Al Gores every higher ‘tidal waves’
There is no organised group called sceptic… (maybe 20 years ago)
The advocates message WON and big oil started chnageing 15-20 years ago. Business’s always follow the money/politicains and can change into ‘big energy’ scientists/politicains promoting CAGW, or AGW, or if/when it may turn out to be aGW, have nowhere to go, and can’t back down.
Barry,
It is not really different in the USA. Nearly all the mainstream media parrot the CAGW line without question. There are a few elected politicians who make news as skeptics, but the President, most of both houses of congress, the Environmental Protection Agency, and almost every major news outlet except Fox news refuses to carry anything contrary to CAGW. The Washington Post is a prime example. Climategate emails were public for weeks before any mention appeared anywhere except in blogs.
From my perspective, the pro CAGW folks complaints more resemble fear that the skeptical position will escape confinement than legitimate complaint. The New York Times and the Washington Post, probably the two most quoted newspapers, almost never publish anything except pro CAGW pieces. One US Senator makes the news once in a while with his comments, but he is more likely to be parodied than treated as legitimate news.
I agree with Andy #1. What’s good for the goose is good for the gander. High profile climate scientists aren’t willing to publicly distanced themselves from the over-wrought exaggerations of an ex-divinity student. Real Climate actually promoted Al’s movie to school teachers. The people that work with the most impressionable.
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/01/calling-all-science-teachers/
“”An Inconvenient Truth,” the Davis Guggenheim documentary on global warming starring Al Gore’s presentation on the subject, provides an accurate, engaging, accessible, thought-provoking and (at times) even humorous introduction to one of the most important scientific issues of our time ( see our review of the movie).”
Part of the sentence below left me feeling you were alluding to “true Scotsman”. If you were, it worked. I was annoyed.
“He’s sympathetic to both climate scientists and true, science-minded climate skeptics.”
Bob (15):
That’s awkward phrasing on my part. By “true” I meant purely scientifically based, as opposed to climate skepticism springing from ideological, religious, economic or political motivations.
Keith,
How about climate skepticism springing from a combination of ignorance and the kind of suspicion that older, often right side of the political spectrum, folks have when they sense that it is left side folks who are presenting scare stories that sound like propaganda? And once it gets into their minds that the promoters, like Al Gore, were not ethical, and the ongoing promoters are associated with Al Gore’s message, trust has been lost.
Once they no longer trust the folks promoting the CAGW message, there isn’t any combination of words or messages originating from the same folks that will change many minds.
I disagree with the concept that their skepticism springs from the motivations you list. They are maybe older than you and have been scammed before. Once it looks like a scam, acts like a scam, and is promoted by MSM and left wing folks, it will be hard to ever penetrate their well founded perception that the bearers of these messages should not be trusted.
cagw (17):
You’re sounding like Jeff Id, over at Air Vent. As far as I’m concerned, your political biases have biased you.
Just because George W. Bush and his administration sold the public a false bill of goods for the Iraq war doesn’t make me suspect that every Republican is out to hoodwink me. Just because President Clinton lied about his tryst with Monica doesn’t make me question the morality of all Democrats.
Sorry, but the most credible climate skepticism to my eyes springs from an engagement with the science, not out of some antipathy towards a political party.
Keith 16
Thanks for clarifying. I wouldn’t even have mentioned it if you had also used the same adjective to describe climate scientists. There are also people in that group who would fall under your definition. Goose, gander applies.
I think the term skeptic has now become politically loaded. I am going to become a denier.
Shub (20):
You are absolutely right–which is one reason I bet Skeptic magazine felt obliged to try and draw a distinction between “climate skeptic” and “climate denier.”
Keith,
Clearly I am not communicating here: “Just because George W. Bush and his administration sold the public a false bill of goods for the Iraq war doesn’t make me suspect that every Republican is out to hoodwink me. Just because President Clinton lied about his tryst with Monica doesn’t make me question the morality of all Democrats.”
I am not referring to your skepticism or that of any science based skeptic. I am trying to get you to agree that folks who motivations are routinely castigated on this site and others are maybe not possessors of the ulterior motives that are so consistently applied to them.
PS: Never heard of Jeff Id or Air Vent until just now.
Just because a few climate scientists really did mislead folks, just because it is pretty easy to see that Al Gore’s propaganda is just that, maybe there are lots of folks who do exactly what you say you do not do. They associatively smear the whole CAGW tribe because it makes sense to them to do so.
I didn’t say that the climate scientists deserved the smear, but I did say that penetrating those minds with a different message is probably not going to happen if people they already distrust are the message bearers. I knew little or nothing about climate science when I saw Al Gore’s message, but I was once a military intelligence officer and I knew propaganda when I saw it.
Those same deniers whose motives you and others here routinely denigrate have pretty good bullshit detectors. It is not unreasonable for them to have seen through the hype, and once they did all the carefully reasoned and presented messages are likely to be like rain on a duck’s back.
As I have tried to say before, if the scientists keep looking for ulterior motives in questions from these same folks, you will easily see what maybe isn’t really there. Seeing what is not really there, and refusing to engage in perhaps boring repetitive explanations, seems to me to be a recipe for continued paralysis.
Keith,
Andy (1), the problem for climate skeptics is that the Moranos/Inhofes and Moncktons are the public face for climate skeptics.
It’s all well and good to say that climate skeptics need to dissociate from these people. But since the “association” appears to be in the minds of the labelers, the call for action is rather impossible to interpret.
First, who are the skeptics? I’m under the impression the Pielke’s do not consider themselves skeptics at all. If those calling for these actions would tell us precisely who they consider to be the science based skeptics, maybe those science based skeptics would figure out that they are the ones being called to action.
Second, if one were a scientifically oriented skeptic, is there anything one could do to “distance” themselves from the “deniers” in the eyes of those doing the labeling and seeing the association?
I’ve frequently criticized Monckton. As far as I can tell, “some” think these criticisms are insufficient to results in any dissociation between me and those who they label deniers. So, assuming “person X” thinks I need to dissociate from this man, what am I supposed to do? Challenge him to a duel and shoot him? That seems a little drastic.
If you want to motivate “X” to dissociate from group “Y”, you are going to have to tells people who is in each group and then explain what act someone in groups “X” does to dissociate from “Y”. Because otherwise, those you think are in group “X” have no way of knowing if you have lumped them in group “Y” (in which case, acting is futile), and even they think you consider them in “X”, they have no idea what they could do to cause you to think the are or are not associated with “Y”.
Keith Kloor wrote “I think this willful stance does them no good in the public sphere, where their credibility is clearly undermined by their loose association with the larger denier movement that Brin alludes to.”
I see a different willful stance here than Kloor does.
In principle I do support criticism of irresponsible critics of the IPCC: smite them with my blessing! (And when Lucia does it it can be a particular treat: find suitable cover behind some low sturdy reinforced concrete structure near the horizon, throw popcorn, and watch it first burst into flame then get snuffed out by the blast wave.) But I don’t see that it should be an important priority for critics of the IPCC.
Kloor and Brin seem comfortable with the IPCC supporters’ choice (very conspicuous in this controversy compared to various older major controversies where pseudoscience and accusations of pseudoscience were also common) of passing up more general slurs like “crank” or “shill” or “flat-earther” in favor of converging on the more specifically mass murderous “denier.” It doesn’t seem to me that IPCC critics brought this slur upon themselves. There is grounds for embarrassment here, but when confusion is stubbornly extended to unfounded analogies to attempts to conceal enormous mass murder, should the accused be embarrassed or should the accuser be embarrassed?
Imagine if history had proceeded somewhat differently, so that IPCC supporters had avoided converging on the “denier” label for their opponents, while instead IPCC critics had converged on “Durantyist” as such a label for their opponents. (And to avoid a distracting ambiguity, assume that this convergence clearly preceded the AGW Academy Award and Nobel Prize, so that “Durantyist” couldn’t be based on an analogy of the Pulitzer to the Academy and Nobel, but was necessarily based on the analogy to people denying an enormous act of mass murder.) What then to make of a Divad Nirb who solemnly intoned that the responsible IPCC supporters needed to do more to distinguish themselves from the Durantyists? How could readers take seriously the idea that Nirb was honestly reporting a sound judgment on how his factional rivals did too little to prevent confusion, as opposed to demonstrating that even where there was no reasonable basis for confusion he still chose to promote that confusion?
cagw (22)
Sorry, I’m having a hard time following you. But I will tell you this: I’m not denigrating anyone’s motives. I’m just saying what I think is obvious to most people: that actual science-based climate skepticism is a different animal than politically/ideologically-based climate skepticism.
That they get lumped together is to the detriment of the science-based skeptics.
Lucia,
I’m not saying you should make public proclamations or pledges to disassociate from specific individuals. I’m not a fan of litmus tests.
But you’re a tad bit disingenuous. Those who are reading this blog or post don’t live in information vacuums. You know how the debate is framed. You know that climate skeptic in many quarters has become shorthand for climate denier. That, in turn, has come to imply that you’re part of a larger denialist movement that is anti-science (e.g. creationism, anti-vaccine proponent, etc).
That’s a perversion of the term skeptic, as far as I’m concerned. Again, that’s why I suspect that Skeptic magazine is promoting its cover story to distinguishing between actual science-based skeptics and anti-science “deniers” . (So you should have a beef with them too.)
Now in this magazine story, the writer has some suggestions for sincere science-based climate skeptics on how they can counteract this awful impression of them (which he thinks will go a long way towards having climate scientists take skeptics more seriously).
I’m not going to make such suggestions. But I think engaging with the issue on your blogs or in discussions such as this would be constructive. And yeah, calling out extreme rhetoric by blog commenters on occasion or over the top statements by those public faces of climate skepticism couldn’t hurt (which you do).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kFzNeyqRico
Keith
Now in this magazine story, the writer has some suggestions for sincere science-based climate skeptics on how they can counteract this awful impression of them
Pay wall…
(which you do).
And which as far as I can tell is insufficient to result in whatever it is those calling for dissociation consider to be “dissociation”.
Look, I think I know who those claiming they can’t tell the difference between groups “X” and “Y” think are in groups “X” and “Y”. But I read blogs and blog comments, and I’m not entirely sure. Call it disingenuous– but what are people to make of rhetoric coming out of the Steve Bloom and Dhoghoza’s of the world?
I also think some making these calls for “X” to dissociate are being a bit disingenuous to suggest that some can’t distinguish group “X” from “Y” unless “X” does whatever the heck it is that would be sufficient to result in “dissociation”. The fact is, many of those making the calls perfectly well know different two groups (or more specifically– there is a range of people.) If they didn’t know this range existed, they wouldn’t make the call that one group “dissociate”.
Equally important, I think that some of the rhetoric “associating” all skeptics with denial is, itself, a political choice and the part of some who claim to see no difference. To some extent, some in the group simply don’t want to acknowledge the existence of science based skeptics and would continue to paint the debate as between those who believe in AGW and some group of flat-earth, anti-vaccine, climate change deniers no matter what anyone like the Pielkes, JeffId, SteveM or I do or say.
I’m not aware of any significant political based scepticism in the UK..
Many advocates of AGW would say maybe James Delingpole & Christopher Booker in the Telegraph..
James has an almost idealogical shall we say ‘difference of opinion’ with George Monbiot of The guardian.. (and vice versa)
The Guardian of the left (labour /liberal tendancies)) the Telegraph of the right (conservative party.. )
James is also very very sceptical of CAGW… long before climategate, as was Booker.. Does that make him a right winger tory?!!!
NO. After 13 years of labour CAGW delusion, he is even more sceptical and outspoken, against the new conservative Liberal coalition Government, and is totally contemptuous of the coalitions – CAGW policies.
Totally contemptuous of Dvaid Cameron, whenever he talks about green economies and windmills. As he was prior to the general election..
Allthough, his newspaper is totally aligned with the Conservative party, it has allowed Delingpole and Booker to continue to be very critical of CAGW.. Whilst of course the majority of Telegraph journalists still come out with any CAGW story that is doing the rounds..
In the UK, it is about the issue first, the politics come second (as ALL parties believe it officially – ie where it matters at the top)
Telegraph journalists, Geofrey Lean (40 years environment correspondent)and Lousie Grey get very many comments, mostly very well educated people pulling there latest articles to pieces scientifically.
Louise Grey got caught (see Bishop Hill)
http://bishophill.squarespace.com/blog/2010/6/29/tee-hee.html
recycling the exactly the same AGW story about garden lawns from last year, even quoting the same professor (I think, as a kindness, they have turned comments OFF, on her articles now)
Why do the Telegraph allow Booker and Delingpole write this, well the obvious conclusion is not political, or anything like that..
Their article have done WONDERS for the Telagraph website traffic… ie virtually the only place to go to commentm (climategate/copenhagen time) and feedback to the media, that people do not believe everything from a wwf/IPCC/gore hymn sheet.
Sir John Houghton warned me personally, last month, about how Lord Lawson(nearly 80, and basically totally ignored now by the conservative party) and Christopher Booker, part of the same pr machine the tobbaco industry had, my wife ‘just very sorry for him – some sad old deluded man’ –
Maybe 20 years ago, he was fighting a denial machine with the IPCC, that has gone, yet the romamce of the big fight lives on amongst the activists/groups, which is partly why they have absolutely no idea how to deal with an increasingly sceptical general public… or all the sceptical websites/blogs that sprung up.. Climate aduit itself, spawned both Lucia’s Blackboard and Bishop Hill, both were regular readers, yet their websites are very different and indivdual.
I even went as far as buying a domain name a month ago, but as yet have done nothing with it. (£8.95 – I mentioned the name to Keith – shhshh)
The activists governments, etc just think the denial machinary PR is better than theirs, that they must work harder fighting ‘deniars’ to get the ‘message’ across.
Where as, as someone said above, the general public may not know the science, but they recognise the PR ‘spin’ tactics, the more shrills of catastrophy, the less likely anybody is going to trust them.
That is perhaps one problem with blogs, as anyone anyone in the world, whose view is coloured by local politics, can get totally confused by reference that seem ‘obviously wrong/incorrect, (ie exxon/mobil tobacco sponsored, just sound like a fantasy to me) and assume another commentor is being deliberalty obtuse, when in fact the comments make sense, with refernce say, to USA local politics.
One positive thing, we now have a least one method of communicating an issue..
The use of CAGW, AGW and agw, to explain levels of scepticism/alarmism amonsgt ourselves
Me, I’m agw, until I see some scientific evidence outside of a computer projection.
Keith,
Only one more try: “politically/ideologically-based climate skepticism”. How about substituting simple disbelief for those terms? Most of the people I know that are not ‘science based’ skeptics have no political or ideological basis for disbelief, but often they will aggressively dismiss any AGW presentation. They may in fact be religious or Republican, but that isn’t the reason for their disbelief.
They just don’t believe and their disbelief isn’t going to be moved in the direction you want them to be moved by slandering their ideology, religion, or politics.
Whether their original reasons for disbelief were well founded or not, calling them names for not believing your science based message will generally reinforce their disbelief, in my opinion.
It probably is true that the group of deniers, as you call them, is older and more likely to be religious and on the right side of the political spectrum. They (and I) have been castigated as heartless for believing that welfare was a destructive force and should have been ended a long time ago. Thousands of social scientists promoted for decades the theory that just providing ever more generous benefits was the right thing to do. Their control of welfare programs in the US did incalculable damage to generations of mostly black poor folks and severely damaged a whole culture. Will those social scientists ever apologize for the damage that their recommendations did? Were the ‘work or don’t eat’ folks the heartless ones?
No one really knows whether drastic changes in the way we produce energy are necessary or not. The people who have non-science based skepticism have perhaps an ordinary human disbelief in your science based message. There may be a some actual oil company shills out there, but I continue to believe that the drumbeat of folks like you who find fault in the motivations of the skeptics is very destructive.
They don’t really need a reason to not believe what you are telling them. They don’t believe a lot of what they hear from the main stream media, and over the years their disbelief has served them well. It is perhaps more intuitive than rational.
And none of these folks are going to try to separate themselves from the commentators you don’t like. I can vote against a politician, but how do I vote against a commentator who may not even be in the same country where I live?
Regardless of whether you think some of these folks are slandering scientists, you can’t just take a shotgun and start blasting away at anyone who disagrees with or questions your science. I have never met Monkton, or Jeff Id, or any of those other folks. I can’t begin to visualize the situation where any of them would care in the slightest if I expressed my disapproval of their action even presuming I could find them to express it.
In my judgment, it is irresponsible behavior by the scientists and promoters of AGW and CAGW that has caused the great political divide that now exists. Blaming media and deniers for the situation is like taking sand to the beach in terms of how likely the blaming action is to produce changed behavior. Maybe the PR folks think that articles like the latest one blaming prehistoric hunters for the start of AGW will sway the masses; I think the CAGW folks have dug a deep hole and that more hype like that article is just digging a deeper hole.
As ever, Lucia is concise:
“Second, if one were a scientifically oriented skeptic, is there anything one could do to “distance” themselves from the “deniers” in the eyes of those doing the labeling and seeing the association?”
ie they know their is a distinction, and choose to do this, so that all ‘sceptics are ‘flat-earther’
ie, an analogy, how to respond when someone ask you.
‘when did you stop beating your wife?’
ps# (comment 29#, may be stuck in moderation )
I’d like to promote the use of the word “dissenter” as about the least value laden word which is descriptive of those who disagree that agw is some sort of urgent problem to be solved.
Dissenter would be good if we had an established policy.
Contrarian is tried and true, both in finance and elsewhere.
I don’t think we sceptics actually have a choice in the name given us, nor is it easy (or perhaps even possible) to distinguish ourselves from the creationists when the pro-AGW camp is so very willing to misrepresent us.
It has always been the case, and WILL always be the case, that the pro-AGW camp will call us “deniers”, even when they know that we’re actually just scientifically sceptical. The only variable in the name calling is in the loudness they scream the denigration – the more cogent our point, the louder they shout.
It’s all a bit like the final scene of The Bodysnatchers, really.
Lucia (28):
Maybe this will help. I think there’s a class of people like Steve Bloom, who dirties the blogosophere with comments like this one left at Tim Lambert’s site. I recently started moderating this blog because I didn’t want to whip out my pooper scooper anymore when someone like Bloom casually drops a turd on those he deems the opposition.
Then there are influential commentators like Danial Drezner, who, based on this post, I’m willing to bet has put climate skeptics in the denier category. He’s likely not distinguishing between science-based skeptics and political/ideological deniers, because in the dominant frame of the highly contentious climate change debate, there is no distinction.
As with all public debates, there are usually simplistic narratives where the two sides compete to identify (demonize) the other in unflattering terms. This is most obvious during political campaigns, where one party tries define the terms of the debate.
Well, since the climate change debate is highly politicized, that means there’s constant jockeying for control over the dominant narrative. Enter the skeptic/denier association.
Now this is unfortunate, since people like Judith Curry (and myself, I might add) think that there’s a positive role for citizen scientists to play in this debate.
But I take your’s and SimonH’s (34) point about not having control over the label. After all, most democrats hardly call themselves liberals anymore, even those whose records would qualify them as liberal in the traditional sense. But because Republicans have successfully tarnished “liberal” as the equivalent of a tax-loving socialist, even “liberal” democrats now refer to themselves as “progressives.”
But I’m not sure the battle over the definition of a climate skeptic is over. And that’s because so few of you scientific climate skeptics have yet to push back against the label. What do I mean by pushing back? Maybe just speaking out more against those who seek to exploit the skeptic side for their own political and ideological gain.
cagw (30):
Simple belief based on what? Just that? Sorry, I don’t buy it. There has to be something that led you to disbelieve in AGW. And for you, it sounds like a political leaning. Fine. I’m not holding that against you.
I’m just saying you’re not a science-based climate skeptic.
KK
“The AGW stage is shared more widely by a spectrum of voices, of which Gore certainly stands out.”
Gore, as opposed to say Monckton, gets more of the science right than his frothing critics give him credit for:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2006/05/al-gores-movie/
One thing the apologists science-minded-sceptics could work on is discouraging the frothing at the mouth their fellow skeptics engage in whenever they, or someone else, mention Al Gore.
JC:
“Some members of the climate establishment have all but branded me as heretic for supporting things that the pro-science skeptics say, and listening to what CEI has to say (which i don’t categorize as anti-science).”
You mean, the CEI that had this to say today about Michael Mann’s latest exoneration?”
“”It’s no surprise that it’s a whitewash of Dr. Mann’s misconduct, because it was designed to be a whitewash,” said Myron Ebell, director of energy and global warming policy at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a Washington advocacy group. He accused the panel of failing to interview important witnesses.”
This was a panel that interviewed Richard Lindzen, among others, regarding Mann’s methods.
Ah, apparently the strikethrough function doesn’t work.
Make believe it did for the the word ‘apologists’ in that last post.
Keith, you may notice that the population of actually well-informed people (tellingly identified in this thread by the absurd name “pro-AGW”) is staying away from this thread in slack-jawed amazement.
I certainly don’t propose to take this up on its own terms, as it presumes there actually is a scientifically serious opposition to the consensus position. in other words, you are begging the question. By “serious” I mean informed and competent as well as well-intentioned and open-minded. If there is no scientifically serious opposition, you are kindly and thoughtfully offering advice to something which doesn’t really exist.
As a science reporter, the first step is to evaluate the claim that there is a serious opposition in the first place. This turns out to be an immensely interesting question in the present case. Please note that sincerity and openmindedness do not suffice; questions of objective fact and not of philosophy are at stake. Science can effectively constrain the answers to such questions, and has.
Your primary mission as an environmental reporter should be to find out which party has the best grasp on the evidence. The presumption that there are “serious skeptics” depends crucially on the answer to that question.
Barry Woods , lacking information:
“I have no real idea who Morano is or what he stands for’
Glad to help:
http://www.esquire.com/features/marc-morano-0410?click=esq_new
As is more frequently the case, I have to differ from Michael Tobis in my assessment of this issue. For years, those most frenetic, if not fanatic, about the urgency of dealing with climate change have worked vigorously to establish the opposing positions as the ‘good’ vs. everybody else. How many times have both Pielke’s been called skeptics or denialists? How many times has Joe Romm said that ‘delayers are as bad as deniers?’ They have been adamant that there are only two positions–the enlightened and the great unwashed. And anybody who tried to establish a middle ground got crucified. See the sad saga of Bjorn Lomborg.
After a decade of pushing us all into the same cattle pen while they searched for a branding iron, now comes the call for us to self-segment ourselves. To what purpose? Those at the other end will continue to lump us all together. And now that we share the same cell, we lukewarmers find that the skeptics are actually pretty nice people. They don’t call us names just because we believe that global warming exists. They normally just politely disagree and look for something else to talk about.
And no matter how much we protest, people like Michael will just make the assertion that we don’t understand the science. Because for him, agreeing with his position is the definition of understanding the science.
There’s another reason why folks from his side of the fence might be staying out of this particular thread, Michael–shame.
I always felt that the use of ‘denier” automatically invokes “Godwin’s Law” and the argument is over with the loser being the one who used the term.
Why should I worry about the “Denier” label, when most pro-agw people do not refute the “Religon” accusation.
Keith:
“cagw (30):Simple belief based on what? Just that? Sorry, I don’t buy it. There has to be something that led you to disbelieve in AGW. And for you, it sounds like a political leaning. Fine. I’m not holding that against you.
I’m just saying you’re not a science-based climate skeptic.”
I am planning to re-enroll in English Writing 101 as it is clear that I can no longer make myself understood. Maybe it is advancing age.
I changed my name from AGW Skeptic to CAGW skeptic to make it clear that it is the catastrophic part that I am skeptical about. I I even quoted directly my agreement with Dr. Curry’s assertion that ‘more CO2 makes the surface warmer’ to make it clear that I agree with those indisputable facts.
You claim that there must be a reason for disbelief. I would point out that no skeptic needs any reason for disbelief other than to observe that the promoters of CATASTROPHIC agw have not made a convincing case. No ideology or belief in creationism is required. It is on the promoters of the idea that society must completely change the way energy is provided to prove their assertions, and I see nothing wrong with reading your position papers and saying ‘nice but not convincing”.
It is true that the CATASROPHIC part hasn’t really happened yet, and that mostly nothing of note has happened except earlier spring, later fall, and milder winters. Sea shells aren’t dissolving, islands are not flooding, etc.
Umm, permission to revise and extend my remarks, Mr. Chairman…
I have (I hope) been very critical of obvious conservative attempts to hijack global warming as a convenient issue to use in attacking Democrats. People like Beck, Limbaugh et al–but I have to say that they are so obvious that I don’t see much point in harping on it.
I have also criticized Monckton, who actually advised Margaret Thatcher to investigate global warming as a way of gaining leverage against the coal miner unions and promote nuclear power–which led directly to BP funding CRU.
But I don’t have time or space enough to criticize those who honestly don’t believe that temperatures have not yet exceeded natural variability, or those who believe that the AGW supporters are full of hot air. And I note that their educational level is quite high. There’s a post on Jeff Id’s site where he asks people to talk about themselves. The level of educational attainment is quite impressive, and obviously not faked.
Tom (44):
That post at Jeff Id’s that you reference is here. It is quite impressive. (And btw, Jeff, if you happen to wonder by, I meant no disrespect when invoking your name upthread. It’s just that your political views are…well, colorfully exhibited at your blog.)
Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to unslack my jaw so I can think about how to respond to one of the most condescending remarks (#39) ever left at this blog.
#44 Tom Fuller:
“I have (I hope) been very critical of obvious conservative attempts to hijack global warming as a convenient issue to use in attacking Democrats. People like Beck, Limbaugh et al”“but I have to say that they are so obvious that I don’t see much point in harping on it.”
If the outlets helmed by Beck, Limbaugh et al. were only as popular, high-profile, and influential as , say, WUWT, that would be a laudable position. As it stands, it looks like convenience.
And btw, a high education level was noted among parents who refused to vaccinate their children too. And I long ago lost count of the number of highly educated engineers, software developers, chemists, physicists, doctors, etc, who have ‘told’ me (on the interwebs) that evolutionary biology is basically nonsense.
The people on Jeff Id’s list are very smart. Probably most of them are sincere. And sincere people should be engaged sincerely by the scientific community. I agree with that. I encourage that. I hope they push us to more openness, better outreach and more accessible data and analysis tools. But on the substance they are wrong.
Now perhaps you don’t know that. But you as a member of the press you need to try to make that determination, and to pay attention to them in proportion to the likelihood that they are correct. It’s quite easy to argue that they haven’t achieved the standing to be taken as coequals to the middle-of-the-road consensus position in policy debates, and certainly not without a countervailing more-alarmist-than-IPCC position weighed in the balance.
I don’t see any acknowledgment of that here. I realize it is considered shocking or condescending in some circles to say your opposition is simply incorrect. That is a problem.
Whether what I said is condescending or not is contingent on whether the opposition is wrong or not. If you have a solid basis for a conclusion about that, please let us know, because it’s important.
Okay, after some hard thought, I really can’t come up with anything that might entice the slack-jawed hordes (#39) to patronizing this thread.
But Michael, you did leave out the part where you usually say I’m being “unhelpful.” Anyway, thanks for the free advice.
Tobis
Could you please explain your first paragraph in #39?
Keith, could you explain what it is about Steve Bloom’s comment on my blog that has you heading for your fainting couch?
Michael, again, sorry but I’m at a loss to break through the black/white box you’re locked in. But I’ll quote some more from the David Brin article, who as I mentioned in my post is sympathetic to climate scientists. Here’s what he says that might be taken as a reply to your comments in this thread:
Not every person who expresses doubt toward some part of this complex issue is wedded to shrill, Fox News anti-intellectualism. Nor do they all parrot nonsense, e.g., that winter snowstorms refute general atmospheric warming. You are likely to know individuals who claim to be rational, open-minded “AGW-skeptics.”
…They deserve a chance to show they are motivated more by curiosity than partisan fever.
A big hat tip to Willard for pointing out a recent typically odd but brilliant essay by the odd but brilliant Eliezer Yudkowsky, which all interested in the topics at hand should take the trouble to read and understand.
Tim, he sarcastically referred to Lucia as the “‘world’s most polite and reasonable-sounding denialist'”.
And actually, that’s pretty mild stuff for your threads.
I guess it was news to me that Lucia was a denialist. What about you?
Keith, I do not disagree with Brin. As individuals, such skeptics deserve respect, indeed they deserve more respect than the scientific community can realistically afford, but we should certainly try as hard as we can to address it.
As a collective, however, they have not earned the excessive attention the press gives them, especially compared with the systematic censoring of their opposite number on the alarmist side of the consensus.
Any effort by the press which does not put IPCC in the middle of the science but rather at a purported extreme continues the severe damage that the press is doing to the public understanding of the issue.
This isn’t a black/white box I’m locked into. It’s a grey/white box that you are locked into, and you are calling the grey black. You’re missing the picture: the consensus position is the **middle**.
Mr Tobis
Could you please explain your first statement in #39?
Moreover I don’t understand what you are saying. You seem to adopt a lot of positions, assume a lot of things, talk in higher abstractions when your first principles are are not clear.
Michael,
You seem to be ignoring the point of this post. The skeptics you define as the “collective” which the press pays excessive attention to are the Moncktons and Inhofes. (However, there is a good argument to be made that the press had no choice to pay attention to Inhofe when he was chairman of the Senate Resources committe during much of the 2000s.)
That would be the fevered partisans wing of the skeptic world (what Brin would call the denialists). What I’ve been arguing is that there is good cause to separate out legitimate scientific skeptics (many who don’t question AGW but the catastrophic (c) part.)
You’re not only lumping everyone together (denialists and skeptics) but also simplifying what they’re skeptic about.
Perhaps you should take a cue from this recent Nature editorial (emphasis added):
More generally, scientists, institutions and funding agencies must increase transparency wherever possible. When engaging the public, the kind of uncertainties and internal debates that scientists struggle with on a daily basis should be played up, not down. Likewise, neither the IPCC nor national governments should endorse regional studies that overstate scientists’ ability to forecast the local effects of climate change on short timescales.
Finally, scientists must steer clear of hype and rein in exaggerations about the threat of global warming. Those who seek to sow doubt about the solid and widespread evidence for global warming must be countered with facts as a matter of course. But legitimate fears and scientific scepticism must be welcomed into the discussion.
Michael, not only should you reign in your own exaggerated tone and warnings about looming climate catastrophe, but you should welcome scientific skepticism into the discussion.
Shub,
I am noting that most of the defenders of the mainstream are staying away from this thread and may be starting to stay away form this blog. I am not sure Keith is going to be perceived as safe neutral territory if he keeps offering advice to the opposition, an opposition which many of us find to be pernicious even at its best.
Journalistic “neutrality” (as opposed to the preferred state of “objectivity”) is bad enough, but it looked as if Keith were maintaining an even enough tone for people to feel safe engaging.
That doesn’t appear to be the case on this thread. c-a-s risks becoming yet another naysayer outpost. Keith can get a respectable amount of traffic that way, but he won’t be doing anything unusual or memorable, which just a few weeks back it looked as though he might.
Climate scientists wanting respect would do well to heed this advice.
Details that could throw doubt on your interpretation must be
given, if you know them. You must do the best you can–if you know anything at all wrong, or possibly wrong–to explain it. If you make a theory, for example, and advertise it, or put it out, then you must also put down all the facts that disagree with it, as well as those that agree with it. There is also a more subtle problem. When you have put a lot of ideas together to make an elaborate theory, you want to make sure, when explaining what it fits, that those things it fits are not just the things that gave you the idea for the theory; but that the finished theory makes something else come out right, in addition.
In summary, the idea is to try to give all of the information to
help others to judge the value of your contribution; not just the information that leads to judgment in one particular direction or another.
http://www.lhup.edu/~DSIMANEK/cargocul.htm
Michael (57):
Now I’m the one who is slackjawed. I guess this tops the I’m Not Being Helpful comment you made when I did my series of Q & A’s with Judith Curry a few months back.
1) How do you know “most of the defenders of the mainstream are staying away from this thread and may be starting to stay away from this blog”? Are they emailing you personally? Have you seen what Kloor wrote today? Can’t go near that one with a ten foot pole?
And who is this mainstream? Do you mean Thomas Friedman was about to mention me as his next go-to blog but I blew it with this post? Was Romm about to hit the send button on a post, saying I was all wrong about Kloor–but changed his mind after reading this thread.
I’ll tell you what, though, somebody forgot to get Andy Revkin that memo on me, cause he tweeted this yesterday.
Sometimes, you truly amaze me, Michael.
Keith, I would not refer to Lucia as a “denialist”. But commenters at my blog are allowed to post things that I disagree with.
Michael (57):
The other thing that I have to observe about your remarkable comment is this notion that “I’m offering advice to the opposition.“
I just don’t operate on that wavelength. Trust me, people on all sides have found that out about me. I mean, jeez, if I was worried about giving ammunition to your “opponents”, would I have been so vocal about Romm’s rhetorical excesses in the last year?
BTW, this post and thread is playing off an article (in Skeptic Magazine!) that seeks to distinguish between climate skeptics and climate deniers.
I guess one can imply from your comment that you don’t make such a distinction.
The uncertainty thing wasn’t a bad little piece as long as you remember that uncertainty cuts deeper on the high sensitivity side of climate, but the fact that Revkin liked it is no great recommendation as far as I’m concerned!
This thread more directly addresses the political issue that popped up briefly on the Tao of Science thread, and I think it is key to the primary focus of this blog. Wanna talk about “culture wars?” Read the comments above.
This post begins with this quote from the Skeptic article: “What discrete characteristics distinguish a rational, pro-science “climate skeptic” who has honest questions about the AGW consensus from members of a Denier Movement that portrays all members of the scientific community as either fools or conspirators? ” (The excerpt from the article does not use the word conservative, but I don’t see any other way to read it. Nor has anyone else yet that I can tell.)
The article then proceeds to a litany of horrors perpetrated by those darn conservatives who are clearly intended to be the ones who are: ” the same side that includes “Creation Science,” the same side that oversaw the worst economic collapse since the Great Depression, based on mythological asset bubbles, “magical financial instruments””¦and the same side that promised us “energy independence” then sabotaged every effort in that direction, including all of the energy-related research that might have helped us get off the oil-teat.” (I would love to dissect this nonsense, but this is not a political or economics blog.) Conservatism is then suggested to be one of two “parallel anti-intellectual movements….,” not to mention being “calamitous, seditious and self-destructive….”
I am so glad we are trying to make the conversation more civil.
I always enjoy reading that there is too much partisanship in the world, and if the damn conservatives would just shut up and realize liberals are smarter and better people than they are, we could all get along. You just can’t make this stuff up. (If you don’t get why the first sentence of this paragraph is self contradictory ….you may be a liberal.)
The described central premise of the article seems largely correct. There does appear to be an overall correlation between the politics of the individuals on the different “sides” of the climate debate and where they fall on the political spectrum – when it comes to the political, extremely expensive, government centered remedies being proposed. Why would it be any other way?
I would be interesting to see a poll with two questions. First, based on what you know right now, do you favor placing a charge on carbon emissions and the creation of new agencies (national or international) to manage the effect of the economy on climate NOW? Second, do you consider yourself a liberal, moderate/independent or conservative? I suspect you would find those convinced of the need for immediate, expensive, governmental remedial measures to be overwhelming liberal, with the skeptics being a mix, but primarily conservative.
As to why this issue is poisoning the climate debate? Opinion polls in the U.S. show 42% of the populace self identifying as conservative, 20% as liberal and 35% as moderate, with moderates increasingly leaning toward conservative candidates in the next election. And since “climategate,” LOTS of those folks are now reading the blogs. By all means climate advocates, entertain yourselves with condescending attitudes and snide remarks toward conservatives and conservatism. Just don’t expect to accomplish anything.
Copenhagen didn’t self destruct because liberal and moderate skeptics had doubts, so convincing them won’t do anything for those advocates. And since China, India and Russia are already ignoring them (because of their incomprehensible refusal to halt their economies absent better proof of the need), without the U.S. (and its horrible, stupid conservatives), they are just whistling in the dark.
To put it more simply, the climate change advocates already have most of the liberals on their side, yet cannot achieve the results they seek; and they aren’t going to convince people to accept the painful prescriptions they seek by insulting their intelligence and integrity.
Michael, Revkin is at the NYT blog Dot Earth. Isn’t he mainstream?
Also, it’s no secret you were none too happy with my thread on the PNAS paper (The Climate Experts) last week, which drew over 400 comments. Is that when this mysterious “mainstream” started to turn away from my blog? Because again, I should point out that that thread was mentioned at CJR’s Observatory, MIT’s journalism tracker, and that fellah you don’t care for–all mainstream bastions.
Clearly, somebody needs to get word to them that I’m “offering advice to the opposition.”
GaryM (63):
I did catch the thinly veiled Republican/conservative criticism you point out in that passage. You think the author has his own bias? 🙂
Abundant availability of crude helped America to an incomplete exorcism of its problems with identity and social category by encouraging ‘white flight’.
And today, many of us drive 30 miles to work and try to whine about CO2 pollution (!)
You know what got you there – not knowing who the other guy is, calling him names, ostracism and racism.
Mr Tobis, The core science in climate itself may be esoteric and not accessible to everyone – skeptics or enthusiasts alike. Certainly, I do not presume, for example, that you would know anything about my area of specialization.
If you insist on saying things that, as outside observers clearly perceive as false or too generalized, it only increases suspicion. Especially considering your audience is well versed in science-society interaction, evaluation of uncertainties and science-derived policy formulation – because these are broad issues that play out along similar lines across several areas, areas your skeptical brethren are in.
Your condescension towards them, does not inspire any trust. If climate science cannot be bothered to convince the scientifically minded members of society and keeps pulling out its argument-by-authority even with these people, its ability to rise to the supposed danger to society at large from climate change is even more suspect.
Why is climate change science one of the few areas whose claims and conclusions do not go down well with members of other scientific fraternities, even after all these years of attempting to “restrain the political postures possible”? Today, it has become inconvenient to be openly skeptical of this climate business, but one chooses to, let us assume – he or she can easily do so. In other words – there are only social repercussions to face for being openly skeptical.
I am sure many of the c-a-s audience perceive your politically-correct but somewhat repulsive comments this way. Sorry.
I’m speaking of the scientific mainstream which I will happily distinguish from the journalistic mainstream. Indeed, that’s the whole problem, see? It’s one thing that philosophically inclined members of the public are misled; that carny tricks can focus their attention on minutiae and away from the big picture, and that the carnies are there to do it. It’s another thing entirely when the press gives the process its blessing and calls it democracy. That’s a failure.
The CJR piece had some of the usual stigmata of compulsive difference splitting but didn’t end up totally vapid, which was a nice surprise. It ended by linking to Lemonick’s very sane essay in Time. More like that please.
As for skeptics vs deniers, I am trying to avoid the “D” word, especially about any individual. I think very few people are actively consciously lying (though there are a couple of prominent folks I strongly suspect). And there is a silver lining in that people are taking an interest in science and starting to worry about its clubby and hidebound aspects. But if there were not trillions of dollars in coal and oil reserves at stake, or if the press were not vulnerable to false balance, there would not be this pantomime of a scientific disagreement.
Again, I’m all for engaging individuals to the extent it’s feasible, and I’m all for better explanations and shared data and methods. I’m opposed to the press treating it as “the skeptics vs the IPCC”. That is a very bad representation of the situation.
The IPCC is the scientific mainstream, and the skeptic-naysayers deserve no more attention than the (equally skeptic) doomsayers who would say that IPCC is hiding the dangers to protect the statis quo. The failure of the press to tell the story fairly, the substitution of an imaginary one-sided uncertainty for the real two-sided uncertainty, is immensely frustrating.
Couple of points about what Michael Tobis is saying (he’s been saying it to me for over a year, so I claim prior experience). First, remember that he is now in the journalism game–he actively publishes on more than one blog and comments on others. Look at what he says on his own forum. He doesn’t talk much about science. He doesn’t talk much about policy, either. He’s essentially a media critic. Bear that in mind.
Second, Michael (correct me if I’m wrong–oh, what the heck Michael, correct me if I’m right–you always do…) is really, really convinced that the consensus is right and that only the evil and ignorant would dispute it. He’s convinced that I don’t understand the science–not because he’s ever corresponded with me about the science, mind you–because I don’t agree with him and those who he respects.
In his mellower moods he tolerates us and patiently tries to convince us of the error of our ways–not using science, again, but by the methods we see here in this thread. Go get ’em, Michael!
As for being tough on Republicans, I can’t feel too much sympathy–I’m a liberal Democrat in Nancy Pelosi’s district (and I’ll vote for her this November), and I seem to recall similar attitudes and behaviours from the other side of the fence just a couple of short years ago. And I support Barack Obama’s energy plan–although I liked it better before he was elected, honestly.
And don’t worry about Michael’s compatriots staying away from this blog. They are following every word. They’re just waiting for an angle. Of course, they’re also celebrating Michael Mann’s impressive ritual cleansing, so they might be forgiven for being a bit distracted.
So the difference between a skeptic and a denier is a little bit of education about reflected long wave radiation and the ability of CO2 molecules in the air to reflect it back towards the ground.
Once a denier reads enough to understand the difference between incoming short wave radiation (sunlight) that is not absorbed by CO2, and outgoing long wave radiation that is absorbed and reflected, the denier can move from the ignorant denier category to the science based skeptic category.
For me, the people selling the CAGW point of view and the way they were selling it preceded all of this actual scientific knowledge. My training as a military intelligence officer included how to create propaganda to use against the enemy. Propaganda is essentially the use of partial truths and lies to convert your enemies to your way of thinking.
When Al Gore and associates started using propaganda to try to convince the American public to support their desired policy goals, my immediate reaction was to investigate why I was being targeted. The only rational explanations I could come up with were: a passionate belief in the need to save the world from dangers that they think I could not comprehend; and they want my money.
It seems that the CAGW crowd divides between the two choices. Some are passionate believers that are just convinced that their view that civilization as we know it will end if we don’t reach zero CO2 emissions. Some are in it for the money. Some maybe are both believers and in it for the money.
Michael appears to be believer. Probably Dr. Jones and Hanson and most of the hockey team are believers. Dr Pachuri appears to be in it for the money as are the heads of the inquiries that cleared Mann and Jones. The Oxburgh panel is after the money.
The fun part is that it probably will get colder for the next few years and many of the current CAGW crowd will manage to do a smooth pirouette into studying the coming ice age. No apologies will be issued or expected from those who have slandered the CAGW skeptics.
I dislike the labelling of all shades of opinion into a box.
I am skeptical that the science of AGW is solid, and very skeptical that the CAGW claims of sea level rise and “acidification” (they mean neutralisation) and drought and famine and whatever are well founded.
My chief problems with the science?
1. The change in evaporation rate with temperature is not known with any certainty. The surface sensitivity between highest and zero change is doubled. The models seem to have an unrealistically low change in evaporation, and I am unaware of where the modellers get their number from.
2. The assumption of a constant lapse rate seems wrong . I think it unlikely that an imbalance at the thin cold tropopause will change the temperature of the hot massive surface. The fact that the surface drives the air temperature, and that it is thermodynamically isolated from the tropopause seems to be ignored in most discussions. It is the Surface energy balance, and that alone which drives the surface temperature.
3. The solar hypothesis has been discarded for what seem to be inadequate reasons.
4. The natural variation in the surface temperature is complex. The Mann etc reconstructions, viewed from an archaeological standpoint, are very suspect.
5. Peer-review is not quality control. It is not even close.
6. The claimed feedbacks are unproven and very shaky. If I doubled CO2 tomorrow, getting a 4W/m^2 forcing at the surface, I would get a 0.5DegC rise in surface temperature and some increase in evaporation. To maintain the IPCC claimed 3 DegC increase you’d need between 16 and 26W/m^2 at the surface, and not much time has been taken in explaining where all that extra forcing comes from.
Keith, it seems to me that you may have recently come to the realisation that much is amiss in the way that climate scientists have been responding to dissent. If so, it pays to bear in mind that many of us came to that conclusion a lot earlier than you, and have the advantage of having had more time to contemplate the circle you are, IMO, trying to square. I suspect your wish to see some form of categorisation between “good” and “bad” sceptics is a well-intentioned but ultimately doomed attempt to preserve at least something of a mid-set that ought to be rejected out of hand, as the good Michael Tobis’ contributions continually remind us. As I have observed to Michael elsewhere, science is an essentially unfair discipline, in that a theory composed by a diligent, educated researcher, and widely supported, perhaps even to the extent that a “consensus” may be discerned, can be disconfirmed by someone with no counter-theory (since the null hypothesis does not require one) and indeed no special training in the field. If you doubt this, read Michael Kelly in Oxburgh. Michael Tobis’ contributions reveal that he either does not understand this, or rejects it, or both. Fine, but if he will not learn it for himself, he will, in the long run, have the learning thrust upon him!
Keith, try this ““ imagine it’s 1984 and the topic of your blog is not CAGW but peptic ulcer. The consensus, established in 1954, is overwhelming that the causes are stress, leading to gastric hyperacidity. Claims have arisen periodically that the true cause may be bacterial, notably in the form of helicobacter pylori. These claims have been refuted derisively by the gastro- establishment. Would you urge the dividing of sceptics of the consensus in the way you are prescribing for climate science? Just to make it real, let’s imagine you yourself have a bleeding ulcer ““ who would you trust to cure it? The Michael Tobises who all want you to believe their diagnosis because they are the voice of authority, or the bright young postgrads in Perth, deplored by the Tobises, but who “did a better experiment” and eventually won a Nobel Prize for their discovery?
For some reason, this whole debate calls to mind the old story about the First Mate on a tramp steamer who inspected the log to find that the captain, who had stood the last watch, had entered “First Mate drunk.” Recalling that he had, indeed been a little tipsy, but feeling that his drunkenness was neither so severe nor so frequent as to merit a log entry, he took umbrage. At the end of his watch, he duly wrote in the log “Captain sober”.
Keith, If I might take a moment, let me say how much I have come to enjoy this blog after having found it only a short time ago when I idly followed a link from another blog. It’s the most refreshing, open and intelligent climate blog I have so far come across. I congratulate you.
As for the odd condescending contributor, well, all I can say is that intelligence and/or expertise don’t always go hand-in-hand with self-awareness, and those who aren’t very self-aware may have difficulty being other-aware, and hence invoke hostile responses without grasping why that should be so. Speck. Beam. Eye.
There are those for, those against, those who truly don’t know, and those who aren’t interested either way. And within each of those four broad categories (which I don’t claim are exhaustive) there are an undefined number of shades of opinion, motivation, and scientific awareness. It’s much more subtle than crude labels like denier, sceptic, warmist and alarmist can describe.
I say, let’s dispense with the urge to neatly categorise. Let’s just look at what people say and address the substantive content. When someone says something interesting and free of invective, whatever direction it comes from, I usually sit up and listen, and may then go off to pursue the matter on the Web or elsewhere.
Maybe I am wrong to ignore postings that are laced with snide comments (subtle or crude) against others; maybe I should take the time and trouble to carefully sift out the nuggets that might be found there. However, I am but human; I can’t bear to wade in cesspits and fish them out with bare hands.
Somewhere out there, I’m sure there are lots of people with differing opinions who can hold civilised conversations and are prepared to learn something new. This is one of the few blogs that seems to be attracting them in reasonable numbers.
#57
“I am not sure Keith is going to be perceived as safe neutral territory if he keeps offering advice to the opposition, an opposition which many of us find to be pernicious even at its best.”
Am I prenicious now, I am honoured 😉
Seriously Keith, this is what happens, to ANYBODY, trying to be reasonable, in allowing a debate…
like Judith, described in the comments, over at RealClimate, maybe it is too late for Keith, he is a ‘goner’ as well..
And Keith won’t be ‘allowed’ to sit outside of CAGW ‘tribes’ village anymore, and won’t be allowed to gaze admiringly at them… Soon amonsgt the ‘tribe’ it will be ‘Keith who’, with dull recognition, ‘oh, he lasped to the dark side, do not mention his name again’ – the high priests have spoken…..
I hope the ethereal “mainstream scientists” that Tobis is somehow connected to the minds of aren’t keeping away because of Andy’s or my use of the term “pro-AGW”. To quote my niece, “lawwwl”.
Seriously, though, I am appalled by Tobis’ repeated allusion (although it isn’t even thinly veiled) to KK’s and JC’s disenfranchisement from “mainstream scientists” for daring to engage with nonconformist commentators. It amounts to a terrible indictment of the mainstream “pro-AGW” science establishment by Tobis. Boycotts are never anything but infantile. I genuinely hope that this is merely puerile bluster from Tobis and is not a true statement of any actual situation, which would reflect abysmally on the average character of individual members of the mainstream “pro-AGW” movement (the square root of mainstream science).
And Tobis can call me the “D” word, if he feels the need. Knowing what I know, I actually find it quite funny.
Ack.. forgot to add: If this genuinely is, as it does indeed appear to be, an insight into how the “scientific consensus” is maintained, then Tobis has exposed a very hairy back-side to the integrity of climate science. Tobis reads like a sheepdog (and they coincidentally DO have very hairy backsides) rounding his flock.
Keith, I apologise if I sound derogatory towards Tobis and his well-groomed flock. I am having some difficulty concealing the depth of my disgust.
Tom,
Your reply to Michael Tobis doesn’t address the main point he’s making. He’s basically describing the picture visualized on his blog here. He literally sais: “The IPCC is the scientific mainstream”. And there are outliers on either side.
Note he doesn’t say who is right or wrong, though surely he’ll put a higher likelihood on the scientific mainstream being approximtely correct than on scientific outliers being approximately correct, which is a very sensible position to take imho.
There out outliers (in scientific terms) on either side of the mainstream. The problem is that the discussion is often framed as one outlier side (on the ‘not as bad as expected by the mainstream’ side of things) against the mainstream. This paints an entirely sked picture of the spectrum of scientific opinions, which could be described as the IPCC as the scientific mainstream/consensus, and scientific outliers on either side (and uncertainties going in either direction).
The ‘not as bad as expected by the mainstream’ side is the mirror image of the ‘worse than expected by the mainstream’ side. Whereas often it is portrayed as if the former is the mirror image of the scientifi mainstream.
Michael (67):
Oh, so according to you, mainstream climate scientists are suddenly sour on this blog because I’m playing off a cover story in Skeptic magazine that seeks to distinguish between pro-science “climate skeptics” and politically/ideologically motivated “climate deniers.”
Is this not a legitimate intellectual and journalistic inquiry? Should Skeptic magazine not have undertaken such a story (and put it on the cover, no less!).
Did someone (#71 TomFP) just seriously invoke the stomach ulcers to make a point about climate science?
One may want to read this essay and get a better idea of what really happened
http://www.csicop.org/si/show/bacteria_ulcers_and_ostracism_h._pylori_and_the_making_of_a_myth
Michael Tobis, the joe six packs with science degrees (e.g. Jeff Id’s audience) view science as a process, they are examining the evidence, and they aren’t convinced of the conclusions from the establishment (e.g. the IPCC). If the establishment can’t convince this group, it is in very big trouble.
Forget the audiences of Beck and Limbaugh, nobody is going to convince them of anything other than, well, Beck and Limbaugh. Yes, this is a large group of voters, but they dont influence policy other than at the ballot box, and AGW is about 20th on their list of priorities. Its not like they are going to vote for an anti-AGW candidate who is pro abortion. So just forget this group.
And get back to figuring out what it would take to convince the group with science degrees, who are approaching this from a scientific perspective and not an ideological perspective.
Why are there 3 sides: science, skeptics, irrational-deniers (who are alligned with skeptics).
Shouldn’t there be four sides: irrational AGW proponents, rational AGW proponents, irrational AGW skeptics, rational AGW skeptics.
There is enough irrationallity to go ’round. In fact, I’m guess the irrational propoganda scale would tilt to the AGW proponent side (based on word count in the PRL).
Bart #76
Isn’t that the nub of the issue, whether the IPCC truly represents the scientific mainstream? It appears that on closer inspection, the IPCC may have made some stuff up, or reported as scientific fact stuff that may have been made up by others. A number of errors and irregularities have been reported, and they all err on the same side of the question; they are not “randomly distributed”. It is a little disconcerting that this represents the mainstream; it is much more disconcerting that this represents science.
Marco:
TomFP was perhaps referring more to the aspect, that most of the medical establishment had a detailed theory about the cause of ulcers, without any scientific backing for it, when there was a single cause that could pull everything observed together. “Close minded dogmatic rejection” is not the same as “ostracism”.
Such gut-level ‘intuitive’ understanding of cause and effect plagues any scientific or political position, which seeks to overplay the hand of one cause, at the cost of a more complete understanding.
For example, there is a detailed gut-level photosynthesis denial explained at John Cook’s website right now. We learn, that “CO2 might boost plant growth in the lab but the real world is an uncontrolled environment where hundreds of factors matter” and attributing observed increased plant growth to CO2 is only falling for the “fallacy of exclusion” that “if all other factors are eliminated, CO2 is the only cause left”.
AGW skeptics are accused of practicing CO2 denial when they point out that “CO2 might produce warming in the computer models but the real world is an uncontrolled environment” and gawk when the IPCC tells us that “the only way to explain the recent warming is that if you exclude CO2, the level of current warming cannot be explained”.
Banjoman,
Your characterization of the IPCC sounds heavily influenced by the spin put on some minor errors. Upon closer inspection, it’s much ado about very little.
Dr Curry
My plea in #66 is to try to avoid ‘segmentation’ and exclusionary behavior of any kind, because we never know where the ill-effects will break out. Glenn Beck’s audience may be beyond persuasion, truly, but as supposedly educated members of society, aren’t we supposed to pull or drag them along, or explain to them?
(Or maybe I haven’t had any heavy-duty Glenn Beck audience exposure. ;))
Bart,
Have you gone through the WG2 document? The situation is really bad.
Shub,
My comment pertains to wg1, which is the field with which I’m more familiar, and which is also the field that has been under quite a lot of attack (even though the more serious mistake (Himalayan glacier) occurred in wg2.
MT’s and my comments regarding the mainstream climate science refers to the wg1 field: physical climate science.
79# It may be a cultural thing, (UK vs USA?)
but a number of references to Joe sixpacks with science degrees, just comes across to me as incredibly patronising and condescending!
I imagine that is not the intent… (such is the power of text, local cultures to confuse)
In addition, would we agree:
Professional Climate scientistts vs ‘amateur’ citizen scientists
Proffesional Expert sotware develpoers vs Amateur software devloping ‘academic climate sceintists’.
In the same way as expert statisticians, might see climate scientists as ‘amateur’ statitistians.
It is just the levels of superiority that come across (unintentionally?) from some ‘climate scientists’ is beginning to grate a bit.. If you have a PHd in a very narrow field, it does not make you an expert in everything you touch or pronounce on, in the climate science field.
Especially if you use say statistics, or software devlopment where many professional would be willing to assist, but seem to be dismissed out of hand.
“Michael Tobis, the joe six packs with science degrees (e.g. Jeff Id’s audience) view science as a process, they are examining the evidence, and they aren’t convinced of the conclusions from the establishment (e.g. the IPCC). If the establishment can’t convince this group, it is in very big trouble.”
You can find groups of very smart people with science degrees who are smart yet believe in creationism (Roy Spencer is one). There will always be educated people who can’t be convinced of the correctness of one or another branch of science.
This isn’t due to a problem of communication by the scientific establishment. Some people simply can’t be convinced that things that go against their personal beliefs are actually true, no matter how well that truth is communicated.
Bart,
Since you’re checking in, what do you make of this notion of Michael’s that I’m “offering advice to the opposition.” You’re a mainstream climate scientist. Do you see it that way?
And what of my last question to Michael: is trying to distinguish between a science-based “climate skeptic” and a politically/ideologically based “climate denier” a legitimate intellectual and journalistic pursuit?
“Michael Tobis, the joe six packs with science degrees (e.g. Jeff Id’s audience) view science as a process, they are examining the evidence, and they aren’t convinced of the conclusions from the establishment (e.g. the IPCC). If the establishment can’t convince this group, it is in very big trouble.”
Judith, how about very smart people who don’t think that cigarette smoking is not a particularly potent cause of lung cancer or heart disease? Is this due to the medical establishment not having done a good job of communication, or just due to the fact that some people are never going to be convinced, possibly because they’re chain smokers and are in (yes) denial?
(I am, of course, thinking of Lindzen, but I have no doubt you could round up a degreed, intelligent group easily as large as those at The Air Vent who share his belief that cigarette smoking is essentially harmless.)
Judith (79):
I agree with both #86 and #87. But given your previous boosterism of citizen science, I’m inclined to agree with Barry that you probably didn’t mean it to come off as you did.
And, get this, I agree with Dhogoza on his point about not being able to persuade all the smart people with science degrees who may have extra-science reasons for their suspicion/opposition to AGW.
This thread encapsulates all I have found difficult with AGW discussion: The Community sits on high, silently staring at walls, uncommunicative, repetitive, tossing out IPCC reports here and there.
Everyone else can’t get questions answered and are smeared with hoi poloi paint: skeptics, deniers, lukewarmers, just plain ole thinking folk.
The discussions here, on WUWT, the AirVent, ClimateAudit are intelligent, thoughtful ““ and respectful. Not so on Climate Progress, Real Climate ““ and here, too, when Tobias enters the fray. (Thank you Tom Fuller for your distillation of your prior experience with Tobias. It helped. …KK may be slack jawed, but Tobias is certainly set-jawed, buzz-sawed. …smile.)
(I had never seen Deltoid before a brief dip today to view Steve Bloom’s remark and, well, I don’t think there is much mind gold over there…. Are these Joe Romm’s friends? Gavin’s colleagues?)
The Community, mostly, will simply not engage. It flicks Important Scientific Papers over the transom for the edification of the unwashed. It won’t even issue a pronouncement from on high espousing rigorous standards for data management, archiving, processing. It won’t advocate open, repeatable science. Forget the history ““ going forward! Silence! Frankly, I’m tired of the pomposity. “¦.But, Michael Mann is now cleared of all charges. Please allow me a chuckle.
I never liked Rush and his dittoheads, but I do find Beck charming, disarming, and even challenging, whenever I’m near a television. And, it is impressive he could send Fredrich Hayek’s dusty “The Road to Serfdom” to the top of the best seller lists. That doesn’t sound like the Joe SixPack crowd to me. “¦…Lady in Red
Dhogoza (89):
You couldn’t leave well enough alone, could you? You made a good point in #87, but then you you try to punctuate it with a bizarre analogy.
I can’t imagine there are very many intelligent people who DON’T know that smoking can lead to heart disease and lung cancer. But they continue to smoke because they ignore the risks– not out of ignorance or denial of the proven medical hazards– but out of the hope that that they’ll be spared 30 years down the line.
We all engage in this behavior with our fatty diets, our repeated visits to fast food restaurants, etc.
Shub, there was no dogmatic believe in the medical establishment about the cause of stomach ulcers. Stress was known to be an issue (and still *is* considered a risk factor, for well-established reasons (hint: stress affects the immune system)), but otherwise it was well known and agreed upon that we didn’t really know all risk factors.
Regarding CO2 and “plant food”: you probably only read to paragraph 2. Right after that the discussion goes to the “uncontrolled factors” in the real world, getting more specific. Especially the comments make a few important additions.
And with CO2 as a climate driver you are essentially turning around the argument: it was already known that CO2 (or rather, greenhouse gases) would likely increase the temperature of the earth, based on physics. We can now even discern its influence and get a reasonable idea of its effect, since we cannot find other factors that are pointing in the upward direction over the last 40 years.
Re “joe six pack with science degrees”, that term was introduced on a previous thread by someone who considered himself in that group (can’t recall who it was), but nobody objected to that term when it was widely used and discussed on that thread.
Re “citizen scientists”, it is an unobjectionable term (mostly), but not entirely descriptive, since many of these scientists have advanced degrees.
I hope that everyone here understands that I am in no way trying to disparage this group (however the is characterized or whatever label is used, however insufficient given the diversity of the group). I am supportive of this group, have learned a number of things from a number of different individuals, and I am generally intrigued by the issue of how this group can further be enabled by social computing.
Keith,
Then there are influential commentators like Danial Drezner, who, based on this post, I’m willing to bet has put climate skeptics in the denier category.
Ok– I read that post. I find nothing objectionable in it. Why don’t we ask Daniel if he sees a spectrum in the ranks some activists lump together as “skeptics who are indistinguishable from deniers”?
I don’t happen to know Daniel….
Just thought it may be aa americanism 😉
My point above, I know many phd’s and if I’d have hung around Reading Universty, I to could have a PHd in say meteorology, and be a ‘climate scientist’. (stopped at MSc)
but I recognise that a ‘climate scientist’ with that background has no more authority on any other topic in ‘climate science’, say astro-physics, or tree ring proxies, than somebody outside of climate science completely.
The way that many ‘elilte climate scientists’ talk and behave, talking outside of their specialisation, leads me to think they have forgotten this. Just having membership of the ‘tribe’ (ie not talking about all climate scientists, just the team, ipcc, Cru club, etc) just seems to trounce and expert professor of astro physic for example.
Lady in Red:
Discussions on WUWT are respectful? Cognitive dissonance comes to mind. Just to take two (of which the first partial) comments from today’s latest thread:
“I need some climate ca$h and publicity for my institute, so I’m supplying hysterical statements on my research for an alarmist AGW article for the MSM. Global warming is a BIG DEAL! Please send me lots of climate ca$h ““ quickly.” (bold in the original)
“Your real world observations and maths do not jive with my agenda, infidel. In computer models and leftwing virtual realities ice’s melting point is -20C and water’s boiling point is 0.1C.”
And let’s look at two comments at the Air Vent’s latest post:
“Read George Orwell’s book “1984”³ and you will see how the Truth Ministry actually operates.”
“Of course the science was not the point of the investigation. Whitewashing and covering up were the points of the investigation. Like superstitious religionists, all the CAGW true believers needed was to be told by someone in authority that indeed the relic was really a bone. Since it is really a bone, it must be magically powerful. How cynical transparent and disgusting.”
ClimateAudit, then, maybe, please?
“One inquiry into Climategate by a non-skeptic is not a total whitewash. ” so starts the latest post. Hmmm, does not promise much in terms of respectful.
And again I select two quotes:
“This whole thing reminds me very much of the OJ Simpson mess. Everyone who is paying attention knows the truth, but the “system” simply has no way to accomodate all the politics, confusion and obfuscation. So”¦relax and laugh; nobody who is paying attention has been fooled by this comedy.”
“But Climategate caused a huge breach in all of those arguments. Peer-review is shown to be nothing more than “˜scratch my back’ deals and blackballing the outsiders. The consensus is composed of maybe 50, not 2500, and the IPCC process is a bent as a nine bob note. ”
I’m having a hard time to see any of this as “respectful”.
What can I say?
I have read all the blogs for about nine months. That is my
observation. I am occasionally short-tempered, snarky, but
never unkind (I would say) and I have been banned from Climate Progress and Deep Climate and (I suspect) from Real Climate, as well. (Certainly, I have been snipped to oblivion.)
But that’s not my point which is: I am disgusted in the extreme by the blowfish pomposity of The Community at large who will not engage beyond the intellectual moat of Their Friends. We are right; we are right; we are right…. and that’s the end of the discussion.
Frankly, it’s the same mentality I find so unappealing about Rush and the dittoheads. …same thing, same thing…
For a group of people who claim to be of and about science, they do damn little talking about it. That was my point.
………Lady in Red
Re “respectful”, I would judge the posts separately from the commenters. In terms of disrespectful posts, climateprogress and climatedepot earn top marks. Yes there is often some very good energy policy content on climateprogress, but that is becoming more and more hidden in the midst of, well, rants.
The posts and comments at climateaudit are mostly rational and respectful, although the comments can get out of hand when McIntyre can’t monitor closely (e.g. the thread on North and Thompson that Michael Tobis participated in). Note, the climateauditors are very dismissive of “appeal to authority” arguments, so if you are counting that as disrespectful, when then yes they are disrespectful.
Most of posts at WUWT are not unreasonable in terms of tone (often with dubious content tho), but the commenters can often go really over the top.
Jeff Id’s posts are often political, and mixing technical and political also. He has an audience, if its not your cup of tea it is easily avoided.
Trying to convince “everybody” is pointless. No one is going to convince Lindzen about smoking, so what, move on. Many evangelicals are leading scientists (most notably francis collins, Sir John Houghton also) and do not believe in literal creationism (i.e. the earth is 6000 years old), but rather in theistic evolution. The bottom line is that it is that there is a broad spectrum of preconceived notions, political positions, technical capability that feed into how people perceive the global warming issue.
The climate establishment should target their efforts at the technically educated population that are amenable to scientific evidence and argumentation (this includes citizen scientists, lawyers, at least some policy makers, and many in the business world). Trying to convince “unscientific america” is probably a waste of time, and targeting our efforts at that group (i.e. insulting them, appealing to their own authority) has resulted in our losing the educated group that is amenable to scientific evidence and argumentation.
OK, Lady in Red moving goalposts. Well, so do I then:
Who would want to engage in communication with those that come with the snark I indicated?
And they are supposed to talk about it to their students, at conferences, to journalists. That’s what they are getting paid to do. If they have time to also talk to the general population it is an added bonus. Most of their communication is in the scientific literature anyway, and as soon as they explain what it means in the bigger picture, they get hung out to dry as “activists”. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.
Keith,
I haven’t followed this comment thread in detail, just got in now towards the end. I don’t see anything wrong with suggesting to those who self identify as serious skeptics to distance themselves from outright denialism.
In my latest post, I also tried to distinguish between different kinds of skepticism, though I focused on the disconnect between public and scientific understanding, and naturally, extra-scientific reasons then start to dominate.
I tried to paraphrase Michael’s main point, with which I agree, in a previous comment:
The ‘not as bad as expected by the mainstream’ side is the mirror image of the ‘worse than expected by the mainstream’ side. Whereas often it is portrayed as if the former is the mirror image of the scientific mainstream. That is not conducive to increasing public understanding; to the contrary.
Just re-read what I wrote at my blog, which is also (unasked) advice to those whoe self identify as serious skeptics:
The more contempt they show for science, the more they argue the big picture of what’s known, the more they rage against emission reductions and talk about “˜world communist governments’ and other paranoid ideas like that, the less serious I take their criticism. Because to me, these are not characteristics of sincere skepticism; to the contrary.
Marco,
Are you the same Marco over at Bart’s some time back?
All right, Marco.
The Community must stay inside the castle, lest they “get hung out to dry….” Ok. That’s what I’ve seen: silence. And now I understand why: “damned if you do, damned if you don’t.”
Personally, bias aside, I would contend that McIntyre, Watts and Id are all supporters of good science. Show them a mistake and they’ll get out the pencil eraser. They do not appeal to mindless authority but to facts, information, data and science. But, all those “Community Scientists” who sign consensus letters appealing for “action” are unable to engage the folk who people the “skeptic” blogs? I find that strange, but, possibly, they are too tired after a long day with the students… I suppose? If this is credible to you, fine.
The goalposts are unchanged. Pls re-read the original message.
……….Lady in Red
Never mind the citizen scientists for a moment, the most significant problem for climate science is that it doesn’t even take a science degree to recognise or react against the post-normalism inherent in climate science. I don’t need a science degree to recognise that, for example, a climate model run is not a substitute for a scientific experiment. Neither do I need a science degree to identify the problem that some climate scientists clearly think it does.
Marcos & Lady:
Can we try and keep the discussion pertinent to the post (not goalposts) and the main thread. I think you both have your own firmly held beliefs about these other sites and let’s just leave it at that.
“I can’t imagine there are very many intelligent people who DON’T know that smoking can lead to heart disease and lung cancer.”
Lindzen is on record as saying he doesn’t believe in what might be labeled “catastrophic tobacco smoking”. He suggests that the risks are greatly exaggerated to the point where they can be ignored. That’s a bit different than your statement, he might be labeled a “lukecancerer”, not an outright denialist.
I don’t think that’s all that uncommon, YMMV. I certainly know intelligent people who claim to believe the same.
” But they continue to smoke because they ignore the risks”“ not out of ignorance or denial of the proven medical hazards”“ but out of the hope that that they’ll be spared 30 years down the line.”
My point is that it would not be that difficult to round up a small number of intelligent, degreed people – similar in number to those who doubt climate science who populate JeffIDs blog – who deny that the risk is relatively small, despite all evidence to the contrary. These people are not going to be convinced no matter how well the medical information is communicated.
I said nothing regarding the vast majority of smokers, who I suspect fit your description perfectly.
where’s the preview button when you need it … or I need to ignore brazil v. the netherlands while I type
“who deny that the risk is relatively small, despite all evidence to the contrary.”
“Who claim that the risk is relatively small …”
“The climate establishment should target their efforts at the technically educated population that are amenable to scientific evidence and argumentation”
What is your evidence that they don’t?
Keith– Sorry for the long single post. But… it’s the beginning of a long weekend 🙂
Steven Sullivan 37.
One thing the apologists science-minded-sceptics could work on is discouraging the frothing at the mouth their fellow skeptics engage in whenever they, or someone else, mention Al Gore.
I’ll avoid the debate about the label. But could you name the people who you think aren’t doing this? There is very little frothing at the mouth about Gore at, for example, my blog or Pielke’s blogs. You may not like the way we discourage this behavior and you may not recognize what we do as “discouraging it”, but what we do is obviously effective.
Michael Tobis 39
Keith, you may notice that the population of actually well-informed people (tellingly identified in this thread by the absurd name “pro-AGW”)
And what does this mean? Maybe they don’t really like to engage except inside their own echo chambers?
Keith– Note that in 39 Michael Tobis appears to simply posit the group of science minded skeptics you are suggesting exists simply does not exist. (Of course, to do this he rewords a bit using language that involve “the consensus”… but never mind.) This is why I don’t concur with your suggestion that I was being disingenous in lucia 23. The list of people who won’t see any skeptics as science based in not limited to Steve Bloom or Dhogosa (sp?), and might I add Joe Romm?
( Note: Michael once again complains about people being wrong on facts. But as we saw before, he seems to conflate ideas like “the range of consensus opinion is X is probable” with “X is a known established fact”. I’m also in awe of his lecturing you on your “primary mission as an environmental reporter”. I’m not getting his notion that this sort of lecture becomes not condescending if he’s some how right about “the science”. )
Keith Kloor — 59
My theory of why there aren’t a stupendous number of comments relative to your other posts is that we are nearing the 4th of july long weekend, and people are on summer vacation. It’s also my theory about why I am seeing fewer posts at many climate blogs.
Michael Tobis — 67
As for skeptics vs deniers, I am trying to avoid the “D” word, especially about any individual.
Do you mean you’ve decided to stop posting long winded explanations of how those who disagree with you are evil Devils? Or decorating your posts about the evil skeptics with images of red Devils? For what it’s worth, many of us are perfectly aware that you try very hard to avoid distinguishing any difference of opinion among those who disagree with you and prefer to characterize all disagreement using the most extreme possible examples. That you prefer to then label this “skeptic” instead of “denier” has also been observed.
Your habit gives the appearance that you wish your readers to believe that those who disagree with you even slightly are the equivalent of flat-earthers, creationists and anti-vaccine campaigners.
Judith Curry — 79
Gave this advice to MT–
And get back to figuring out what it would take to convince the group with science degrees, who are approaching this from a scientific perspective and not an ideological perspective.
Michael, perpetually telling people who know they exist that they don’t exist hasn’t been working for you. Use the scientific method and put on your empiricists hat: It’s probably not going to suddenly start working in the future.
dhogaza Says:
July 2nd, 2010 at 10:57 am
“The climate establishment should target their efforts at the technically educated population that are amenable to scientific evidence and argumentation”
What is your evidence that they don’t?
….Smile. ….Chuckle! Precious! ….Lady in Red
It’s become more and more clear that the conversation has a variety of camps; I don’t want to proliferate too badly because after all the number of people who (correctly I think) have climate and similar global sustainability topics front and center is small compared to the population at large. So, with an emphasis on approach to science:
I MOSTLY ACTIVISTS
believe that there is so little evidence against the proposition of risky anthropogenic climate change that current policy inaction is clearly and grossly inappropriate
I a – postmodern climate scientists, who believe that the press has failed to communicate to the public, and feel ethically obligated to step up; mostly interested in conveying understanding to the public (RC editors, myself). Believe an informed public is crucial to a sound policy.
I b – climate scientists who have been inducted into IPCC WG I and have been explicitly asked to communicate; charged with conveying the balance of evidence to the policy sector
I c – WG II and impacts communities, especially ecological sciences; were already politicized and frustrated before climate became an issue
I d- Committed activists who use science as a legalistic debating hook; may be aware of mitigating evidence but try not to discuss it; mostly interested in using science in debate toward influencing policy (Romm is the prototype)
MOSTLY PASSIVISTS
Believe that climate science is extremely immature AND that, lacking evidence, the sensitivity of the system to anthropogenic perturbations implicitly MUST be small compared to natural perturbations.
IIa – Credentialed scientists; a very small group which probably would not exist were it not for the extrascientific momentum of this group. Opinions carry little weight among honest scientists.
IIb – Committed activists who use science as a legalistic debating hook; may be aware of mitigating evidence but try not to discuss it; mostly interested in using science in debate toward influencing policy (Watts)
IIc – The really odd group; scientifically educated people from other fields who approach climate science with a hostile attitude. Various levels of sophistication and ideological commitment; generally have a pro-science attitude, but various levels of understanding in the conduct of observational science. Typically though not always very weak grasp of climate physics and a consequent overemphasis on statistics. Very confused idea of the history of climate science. Extremely difficult to address as a group.
“NEUTRAL” IN STANCE
Try to maintain a posture of balance in some way between the other positions. Effectively act as allies for inactivists.
IIIa – The majority of climate scientists (non-postnormalists) who believe that policy is somebody else’s job, who have no IPCC role, and who have not yet been attacked by the Morano wing. Believe (with Pielke Jr.) in the purity of science and the traditional model of it. Not interested in policy; sometimes grim and fatalistic about it.
IIIb – The mainstream press, which have grossly misidentified IPCC-like consensus and skepticism as the two wings of the scientific debate. Believe in informing the public but accidentally misinform them. Keith and Andy Revkin are exemplary.
IIIc – Academics, generally not from physical or biological sciences, who see career advancement opportunities in a neutral stance and don’t fully understand the scope of the risks. Usually economists, political scientists, some academic engineers. Almost invariably represented in the press by Roger Pielke Jr.
===
Now, I absolutely agree with Judith (#79) that the IIc group is important to address and that we have done a spectacularly lousy job of it in the past. On the other hand, addressing that group is extremely difficult. I’ve gone on long enough here and will have to save that for a later date.
So now I’ve come up with 10 camps (in none of which I’d be entirely comfortable slotting Dr. Curry!) Keith’s advice in this thread is group IIIb advising group IIc. As a member of group Ia, I am objecting. The misplaced “neutrality” of IIIb is bad enough. For a member of the ostensibly neutral group to offer *tactical* advice to one of the passivist groups takes an already very dysfunctional constellation and tends to make it even worse.
I think the press loves the battle and doesn’t want to see it resolved. Climate science just wants to be left alone. Even the postmodern climate scientists want to be left alone. We just see that we will never be left alone until the public gets a much better understanding of the evidence. Ideally the press should be our key ally in this matter. It is bad enough that the press has emerged as a key obstacle instead. But it’s even worse when the press takes up the cause of the confused against the cause of the informed. Is it any wonder we get a little grumpy sometimes?
Michael–
I am constantly amazed at your descriptions of the groups who, today, you call “passivists”.
I think if you want to segment a group of people you might look at how they segment naturally before imposing groups upon them. In my opinion people have gravitated naturally to four positions, one of which they find congenial. Their choices almost certainly do not depend on education or intelligence.
There are two extremes–for convenience’s sake let’s label them Romm and Morano. Team Romm is desirous of political victory, and the science is just a tool. The same is true for Team Morano. Team Romm exaggerates the potential impacts of gobal warming to the point of hysteria. Team Morano minimizes the potential impacts to the point of absurdity.
There are two sides in between them. The scientific consensus broadly supportive of the IPCC and Team Lucia, which you can call Lukewarmers and includes me.
One important point about these groups is that current events and major news can have a slingshot effect driving some from the middle side to their extreme counterpart (i.e., from Lucia to Morano) temporarily, but these people drift back over time. It works vice versa, too. There are times when MT seems to feel the IPCC is the only game in town and times when he feels that it clearly isn’t getting the job done.
The reasons for choosing sides include but are not limited to science. Politics, education, training, age, professional affiliation all have a part. But so do smaller factors like reaction to public statements by representatives of these factions.
What this isn’t about is the scientists vs. the masses. It’s about one coalition of temporary convenience against another, with two groups of moderates in between.
Hey, Keith–told you Michael was wrong and his team would show up in force….
Amazing!
As a non-officially-practicing ethnologist, this is a mind-blowing thread – as have been the recent ones (I’m catching up with the past, Keith – luckily, there aren’t hundreds of comments on each post as now)! But I still might write a thesis some day….. and there’s plenty of material here!
BTW, I’m the Kendra who wrote Jeff Id at the Air Vent that I’d be interested in the actual backgrounds of commenters – not their identity, simply in general who they were – which prompted the thread mentioned above.
This discussion has really brought up some of the nuances and complications in making generalizations and classifications. A very human thing to do (especially in high school, and I did have to shake my head a few times because of – well, you know who you are).
(Not much time because the every-3-year Zurich fest at the lake is just now starting.)
May I point out a couple of extremes that I’ve noticed? Where the nuances have not at all been acknowledged.
Inhofe is supposed to represent the partisan “denier” based on his party affiliation. Has anyone not bothered to research enough to find out that he was a warmist until it behove him to look into the details? Has anyone not remarked that some time ago he and the Gore agreed, and both joked about it, to get together to look into soot / black carbon?
Have you never met a philosopher who thought that evolution / Darwinism was an integral part of Intelligent Design? Or have you only met Creationists who advocate that position?
That the vaccine debate also involves “skeptics” who maintain that the vaccines themselves are not necessarily bad/a problem but that government programs might deliberately give too many at once in the name of efficiency? Or that doctors themselves say that they would prefer to give at intervals but overload out of fear that the baby/child won’t come back (whether out of parental fear, laziness or cost)?
I do agree that in a very general sense “right wingers” insist much more upon evidence and “left wingers” have much more trust in big government/authority. These are the knee-jerk reactions that are par for the course. My personal experience with both, however, is that those who identify with leftist narratives, while maybe not knowing exactly what the ideology is, do know what the slogans are and dogmatically resist any information that might challenge that. I know far more than they about the science – they don’t even want to hear what the issues are, and only vaguely know CO2 is supposed to play a role, but have no clue what that is – what they do know is that anyone like me who researches and tries to even tell impartially what the hell the argument is is seen as a danger to their identity/world view. So I pour us another glass of wine and we agree on recycling… (sigh).
I guess what I want to say is that,I’ve been dealing with phony categories all my life, partly out of necessity and partly out of my “ethnological/psychological” interest. The necessity part also includes my being an expat and confronted from all sides with stereotypes: “Americans are (fill in blank with your favorite prejudice).” “Swiss are (fill in blank with your favorite prejudice)”.
I wonder where JohnB is now, he’s the one who brought up the problem of every “Joe Sixpack” now knows an idiot with an undergraduate degree so “Joe” isn’t so respectful of authority anymore. And all the millions with undergraduate degrees who know idiots with multiple grad/post docs (post-normal?) – well, that “expertise” thing doesn’t cut that much ice anymore, does it.
Sorry, respect has to be earned.
Keith, your preconceived ideas do show, but what I appreciate is that it seems your aims are to break out of such restrictions and I salute you for your efforts here and success in making such a great environment for discussion.
Michael Tobis still contends (#112) that I’m dispensing advice to his opponents (#57 “an opposition which many of us find to be pernicious even at its best.”)
I suppose Skeptic magazine is guilty of the same supposed offense, since the objective of the article I play off in this post is to try and distinguish between pro-science “climate skeptics” and political/ideologically-motivated “climate deniers.”
Michael, based on your latest comment, am I to assume that you do not believe this is a legitimate intellectual and journalistic pursuit? Should Skeptic magazine not have done this story?
I guess skeptic (skeptic?) magazine was founded on it being a positive word, now maligned..
The biggest sceptic to a scientists work, used to be the scientist doing the actual research themselves, lest they make a silly mistake, when their work out and met it’s critics.
What is the source for the allegation (dhogaza #89) that Lindzen “[thinks] that cigarette smoking is not a particularly potent cause of lung cancer”? And for the later “Lindzen is on record … the risks are greatly exaggerated to the point where they can be ignored” remarks in #107?
From the way dhogaza chose to rest his argument on the #89 allegation I’d expect it to be clearly supported by what Lindzen has written or said, and from the way dhogaza doesn’t need to link to give a link to support it, I’d expect it the support to be easy to find. But so far my Googling has led me only to what looks like a game of “Telephone” kicked off by _Newsweek_ printing what seems to be merely a coy paraphrase with no connection to any direct quote from Lindzen: http://www.newsweek.com/2001/07/22/the-truth-about-global-warming.html , and passed on by people like John Quiggin ( http://johnquiggin.com/index.php/archives/2006/04/23/credibility-up-in-smoke/ ) .
Newsweek wrote of Lindzen that “he’ll even expound on how weakly lung cancer is linked to cigarette smoking.” Perhaps unintentionally, that passage does seem to invite the reader to believe that Lindzen was even in 2001AD arguing that smoking is not a particularly potent cause of lung cancer. But for whatever reason, that passage does nothing to eliminate the possibility that the actual literal truth is something rather different than dhogaza or Quiggin would have us believe, e.g., that (0) Lindzen smokes and (1) Lindzen is more than willing to criticize some piece of smoking-related research even though for someone less ornery its political importance as a source of scare quotes and factoids to support a fashionable cause would tend to make it above criticism.
I have a biology degree. I have two main groups of relatives, the long-lived nonsmokers and the smokers who died of lung cancer and emphysema. I have vanishingly small patience for anyone who actually tries to argue “cigarette smoking is not a particularly potent cause of [diseases with only weak confounding factors like] lung cancer” or “the risks … can be ignored.” However, it doesn’t follow that all claims about the harm of cigarette smoke are true or well supported by the evidence. In particular, I have seen claims about secondhand smoking in particular that I suspected deserved severe technical criticism, and I seem to remember they were fairly common ten years ago. And besides the ones I saw, my cynical opinion of politicized technical disputes makes me expect that there were probably other technically invalid anti-smoking arguments floating around. If Lindzen made such criticisms, then more power to him. (Not only do I support truth for its own sake, I tend to have pragmatic doubts about the tactical effectiveness of defending a cause with falsehoods, no matter how worthy the cause may be. Maybe that means I’m a “lukecancerer” too.)
I guess I reject the notion that the burden lies entirely on the skeptics to dissociate themselves from the “deniers,” particularly when the denier category has been defined exclusively by climate scientists. Take Michael Tobis: every one of his posts seem (to me) to drip with dismissiveness and disdain for anyone who does not accept the consensus. Why is this my fault?
Keith (blog entry and 5),
If your point is that Moranos/Inhofes are more odious than Romms/Gores then it needs a proof. Personally, I am skeptical. My immediate reaction is the same as Andy’s (1). Have RC post something reasonable on Romm – that’ll be a start.
From the moral standpoint, I disagree that pro-science climate skeptics owe any response to the “denier” tag. The tag is no more than a propaganda weapon. The alarmists are quite able to appreciate the difference between say Lomborg/Pielke and Morano/Inhofe. But they won’t acknowledge it. Why is it that it behooves us to respond? It behooves them to get real.
Where does Steve Mcintyre fit in with the Good, Bad and Ugly?
Looks like Steve Mcintyre is going to a ‘climategate’ debate in London… see comments here…
http://climateaudit.org/2010/07/01/the-pearce-inquiry/
Steve Mcintyre:
“One inquiry into Climategate by a non-skeptic is not a total whitewash. Fred Pearce actually read the emails and makes some important findings. Fred Pearce’s book on Climategate and the events leading up to it (The Climate Files) has just been published. (Pearce kindly sent me a copy.)
Pearce has been involved in environmental reporting for the past 15 or so years and, like George Monbiot, is a strong supporter of climate policy.”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/jun/30/guardian-debate-climate-science-emails
George Monbiot is Chair of the debate:
Monbiots Royal Flush: Top Ten Climate Deniars
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/georgemonbiot/2009/mar/06/climate-change-deniers-top-10
George is also Honourary president of the Campaign Against Climate Change, which has a ‘deniars hall of shame’
http://www.campaigncc.org/hallofshame
I believe Latimer Alder (who has commented here is going) as are some others from Bishop Hill.. (I might pop along to)
I’m sure a transcript will be interesting, wonder who will be The Good, The Bad and The Ugly. 😉
Kendra #115, fascinating! would like to hear more
Michael Tobis, your categorization is interesting, but it is a definite oversimplifcation of the “elite” scientists in the field, and also the more technical skeptics. Most don’t define themselves in terms of politics or policy. To categorize them (including myself), i think the uncertainty cats is the most illuminating way to go (as per previous thread), in summary:
1. Uncertainty denier
2. Uncertainty reducer
3. Uncertainty simplifier
4. Uncertainty detectives
5. Uncertainty assimilator
Elite scientists tend to be uncertainty reducers, they seek to reduce uncertainty at the forefront of knowledge; this is good for scientific progress. The technical skeptics are mostly in the uncertainty detective category; this is also good for science and more elite scientists should be active in this category. These categories are fluid, and as a subject becomes more policy relevant, an individual scientist might end up spending time in #1, #3, or #5.
As for me, I started my scientific career as a #2, working to advance science in my chosen field by reducing uncertainties. As a saw the field becoming more policy relevant, I thought we needed to spend more time and effort as uncertainty detectives. During my brief period as a political attackee in the hurricane wars, I was introduced to #1 and #3, and during the period 2007-2009, I accepted #3 and the “consensus.” Now I am back in uncertainty detective mode #4, and trying to build up some knowledge, expertise and experience in #5.
Sashka (120):
You and Lucia and probably many others on this thread confuse the “alarmist” activists and the general public.
Implicit in my post and comments on this issue is the contention that many outside the close confines of this discussion make no distinction between climate skeptic and climate denier. I think that’s to the detriment of the public debate on climate change, for the same reason I called on environmentalists to rebuke Joe Romm for his over the top rhetoric. (Of course, the only people who disapprove of my “advice” there are the hardcore Joe Romm fans; these are the same people who can’t abide my critiques of Romm, and they are folks who who never, ever question Romm’s tone or tactics. P.S., Tim Lambert, are you still there, checking in?)
My sole objective in this thread–and with this blog–is to have a civil, pluralistic dialogue, where nobody tries to shut out voices they disagree with. So when I extend this attitude towards climate skeptics, Michael Tobis paints me as suddenly favoring one side. He of all people should know better, since he’s been reading my blog almost since its inception, so he should be familiar with my antipathy for litmus tests.
The irony of all this is that nobody on the climate advocate/climate science side has ever taken my “advice” about Romm (to the best of my knowledge). And based on the responses in this thread, skeptics are not taking my “advice” on the merits of distinguishing between those who are skeptic for scientific reasons and those for political/ideological reasons.
And so the two sides dig in their heels, neither wanting to give an inch to the other, and the climate debate is poorer and increasingly rancorous as a result.
I’d like to address some of Michael Tobis’ earlier points speaking from my viewpoint as a “Joe Sixpack with a science degree.” (Actually, that would be two science-related degrees — B.S. Mathematics, Ph.D. Software Engineering. But I digress…)
I’m well aware that my knowledge of statistics is weak, and that my understanding of atmospheric physics is limited (although I do remember my undergrad physics classes). I began paying detailed attention to climate change after hearing one-too-many news report that included the “The Science is Settled” meme. I decided that in any field with settled science, I ought to be able to easily find and read the papers that make up the key evidence.
So I started searching. And reading. Note: original papers, not IPCC or other reviews — although I did use the IPCC reports and especially their references to start my literature search.
And what I found was very troubling. There sure seems to be plenty of argument about the climate’s sensitivity to increasing CO2. And I was unable to discern why the IPCC reports are so confident of the range they give. So, think I, surely there’s at least strong agreement about the temperature record. And indeed this appeared to be so, at first look.
Right about then, ClimateGate hit. And I heard that there was some source code included (as well as the infamous harry_readme file). That’s my area, so I had a look. EEEK!
From there, I started looking for other available source code. And issues related to computer modeling (and associated predictions, accuracy, claims, etc.). And what I’ve found is bad. I mean really, REALLY bad.
For example:
The IPCC uses the divergence of various runs of a software model as though they demonstrate the error bar of something real. Such claims are can only be justified by experimental confirmation, which appears to be utterly missing.
The IPCC (and many commentators) appear to claim that “general agreement” of a group of models validates the overall correctness and “meaningfulness” of those models. Once again, such claims are worthless without strong experimental validation of the models.
Software codes (think the GISS temperature software) with minimal and insufficient test suites. No demonstration that those codes are actually capable of detecting a pre-determined signal from a synthetic data set deliberately seeded with that signal.
Software codes with laughably poor implementations. Read that as “I would fail an undergrad who submitted something like that as part of their homework,” or maybe even “I’d fire the employee who wrote that.”
Data management practices that fail even the fairly lax standards found in Computer Science. I can only imagine how bad this must seem to folks who are used to dealing with the FAA, or the FDA… not to mention the folks who regulate nuclear plants.
Notice that these problems that I see in the existing climate science world are deficiencies that fall squarely in my field. It’s not a matter of criticizing something outside my competence.
I can confidently state that none of the (admittedly limited) set of climate software I have examined to date–to wit: GIStemp, and the codes from the ClimateGate leak–even rises to the very low level of an “amateurish” implementation.
With respect to GIStemp, my professional opinion is that there is no reason to believe any results based on that software. This is not a statement that the results it produces are wrong. Rather, there is no evidence that its authors (a) understand/understood what it actually does (as compared to what it was intended to do), (b) have demonstrated that it is reliable enough and correct enough for its intended use, or (c) that the answers it produces are in any way reasonable. It remains entirely possible that GIStemp is both reliable and accurate. But the mess “under the hood” is so bad that there’s really no good way to tell one way or the other.
Is the accuracy as stated? Who knows? In order to answer that question, you’d need a clean implementation from which to draw the algorithm. You’d need test suites based on synthetic data that demonstrate that the algorithm (and its implementation) are capable of detecting each of the various kinds of signals that may be present, even in the face of the various confounds the software attempts to correct for (e.g. missing data, insufficient global coverage, urban heat island effects, etc. ). Then you’d need a professional numerical analyst to ensure that neither the implementation nor the algorithm gratuitously lose accuracy. Finally, you’d need a professional statistician to ensure that the reported uncertainty in the results was correctly characterized. (Oh, I forgot… there is no reported uncertainty. What about that?)
And none of this addresses any of the questions about hockey sticks, strip bark, correct (or incorrect) use of PCA, the difference between various forms of temperature record data (raw, corrected, re-corrected, value-added, etc. ad nauseum). I don’t need any of these issues to be skeptical. The software I’ve seen–all by itself–is enough to raise serious doubts in my mind.
In the end, my position is this. If you want me to support massive changes in our society, you need to get the basics right. That means evidence I can trust. Today, I can’t even trust the basic temperature record. And if Climate Science (as a whole) can’t manage a quality job of that, why on earth should I be anything other than skeptical about all the rest?
I want to be in the middle, the alarmists label me as a ‘denier’ deliberately…. to link people to an extreme, to be ignored.
As I know nothing of USA politics, CAGW, etc.. It is hard to disassociate myself from the ‘extreme political deniars, in the USA’, as I am not that aware of them, and never thought to associate myself to them in the first place..
Does Steve Mcintyre, have to continually disasociate himself from them as well, for example…
Just the act of saying, I’m not one of those, puts it into people’s mind the ‘association’ !!!! Which is the intention of those who are labelling people.
Judith, your taxonomy of practicing scientists has explanatory value and is quite useful.
Still I object to the idea that it clarifies the social perspective, which is what my taxonomy is aimed at. Assigning the TechSkeps to the same taxonomy as the EliScis focuses on their benign interest in truth at the expense of their social interest in subverting active climate policy.
While the TechSkep group is actually interested in truth, their own capacity to participate is something they greatly overestimate and the sophistication of the field is something they greatly underestimate. They also do not acknowledge the inevitable sub rosa participation in their escapades of cynically motivated financial interests, eager to inject doubt and confusion into the policy debate. So a focus on a taxonomy purely of approaches to uncertainty derails the discussion of the relationship between science and policy, which is what we desperately need, and substitutes a somewhat awkward discussion about technicalities. Well, of course we share with the TechSkeps a love of technicalities that the rest of society loathes.
If there were no policy issue, none of this would be happening. There would be no websites dedicated to embarrassing and mocking the professional practitioners, there would be no absurd parliamentary investigations, and Keith would be investigating something else. These debates are part of the arsenal intended to delay time-critical policy discussions. Our primary ethical responsibility is not to encourage people to nit-pick in the interests of their education or our refinement. Rather it is to insist that policy must proceed despite uncertainty and cannot await an unattainable state of perfect knowledge.
Keith and Judith, you are both sort of falling into what I believe is a deliberate trap set by the Rommulans, in characterising a lot of people as skeptics who really are not. The Lukewarmers. I think that characterizing people in these artificial categories obscures, not illuminates.
As for skeptics digging in their heels and failing to distinguish between political vs. scientific reasons for skepticism, they have been burnt pretty often–and so have we Lukewarmers.
Quick question–how frequently do you see people defending the Limbaughs, Becks and Moncktons? Is it really that frequent? Are you trying to solve a real problem?
What if the issue of climate change has moved past the science? What if most people now believe that there is a lot of uncertainty about the issue and there really isn’t much that will change their minds absent some discovery that doesn’t involve the rapid spread of blue tongue disease to Slovenia?
What if we actually have to play this out in the policy arena as opposed to the scientific one? Do the above categories still help us in deciding what to say or do?
Doesn’t all the real evidence coming from polls, elections, etc., indicate that that is the case? That people by and large believe some warming is going on and support measures that pick the low hanging fruit but don’t trust the science enough to make very large sacrifices?
In which case we will need new categories, or at least new names for the categories we have.
By carelessly adopting propaganda tactics from PETA, the label “denier” for climate change skeptics was deliberately meant not merely to paint opponents with the same broad brush. With Al Gore declaring the debate over and the myth that CAGW skeptics are all shills for Big Oil debunked, typical leftist politics upped the ante by directly attacking moral character. I am very sad that Keith, who chastised Dr Curry for using “warmista”, not only permits the use of “denier”/”denialist”, but actually casually uses this language himself.
The historical background of the term goes back to Feb. ’07, when in a Boston Globe opt-ed piece, Ellen Goodman famously declared climate change skepticism with Holocaust denial. It must be handled as a crime against humanity. Outspoken skeptics need to be internationally tried, convicted, and punished accordingly (death penalty).
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2007/02/09/no_change_in_political_climate/
The activist bloggers, desperate to “take back” the word “skeptic” eagerly embraced the pejorative label. As it trickled down to the more moderate CAGW believers, rather than reject the ridiculous allusion to the Nazis, they defended it by back-peddaling, claiming that the skeptics were just being over-sensitive. Officially in early 2009, an attempt to water down the emotionally charged word was put forth to expand the definition to also refer to pseudo-science promoters. Creationists, 9/11 Truthers, anti-vaxxers, etc. already had their established labels, so the excuse for the practice is disingenuous.
By inferring that the majority of climate change skeptics are ideologically motivated, is clearly in and of itself a purely ideological mindset.
Is your advice for climate skeptics to bear the burden of debunking ideological propaganda? How does one do this? By spending all effort to slay straw men? How about addressing their scientific arguments without poisoning the well or impugning motives?
It is like referring to all blacks as the N word, and insisting it’s up to each individual to somehow prove this bigoted stereo-type doesn’t apply to them.
Tom Fuller, you raise a good point. Skeptic in my mind is anyone who challenges the IPCC narrative, either the physical basis, the impacts, and the proposed solution. So lukewarmers would be skeptics under this definition, but not under a definition that is focused mainly on WG1 issues.
While my position shares some features with the lukewarmer position (not convinced by “C” and not liking the UN policies), i don’t think we can state with confidence that the climate sensitivity is small (i think 2C is the comment lukewarmer opinion.) My opinion on climate sensitivity is that the range is larger than that stated by the IPCC (on both sides) and that the uncertainty is too large for there to be a credible pdf.
So maybe we need to categorize as to whether people are skeptical of the physical science basis (WG1), the impacts (WG2), and the solutions (technical/economic; WG3).
It goes back a bit further Tom…. (The Guardian, UK)
George Monbiot: (21/09/2006)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2006/sep/21/comment.georgemonbiot
“Almost everywhere, climate change denial now looks as stupid and as unacceptable as Holocaust denial. “
Judith the real problem is that you (probably correctly) place lukewarmers in with some skeptics but the other side of the fence just grabs that and labels us deniers.
Judith Curry (#99) I’d like to hear your view on how Steve McIntyre’s recent attack on me here – http://climateaudit.org/2010/06/23/arthur-smiths-trick/ was “respectful”? It is filled with false statements about what I said, which he refused to correct, and then he closed the comment thread rather quickly…
Xenophon:
“With respect to GIStemp, my professional opinion is that there is no reason to believe any results based on that software”
Go talk to these people:
http://clearclimatecode.org/
Also software professionals (as am I). Unlike you, rather than pontificate, they’ve done real work, in particular they’ve:
1. Rewritten GISSTEMP (NASA will adopt it)
2. They’ve confirmed that GISSTEMP implements the algorithms published in the peer-review literature.
I have no reason why I should place more faith in your professional opinion, not backed up by analysis, over their work.
I’ve also read a fair mount of NASA GISS Model E and find the criticisms of code quality to be far overblown. It’s of higher quality than most of the systems software from DEC (Digital) I worked with back in the 1970s and 80s.
And I’ve worked with a fair amount of code from academic computer scientists. Stones and glass houses and all that.
FWIW, it seems to me that the most useful (ie most closely represent my own views) comments in the thread are those from Judith, Lady in Red, and Xenophon
Judith said “Michael Tobis, the joe six packs with science degrees (e.g. Jeff Id’s audience) view science as a process, they are examining the evidence, and they aren’t convinced of the conclusions from the establishment (e.g. the IPCC). If the establishment can’t convince this group, it is in very big trouble.”
The reality is that those concerned about the risk of CAGW have not attempted to address the questions raised by those questioning the ‘science’.
Like others, I have been following the discussion closely over the past 6-7 years at most of the pertinent sites on both (all) sides of the discussion. It is very clear that those associated with RC refuse to engage or respond to reasonable questions. It is also very clear that the case for the positive feedbacks to climate sensitivity is very weak. Clearly the “peer review” process has been, shall I say, exploited.
And most damaging in my view has been the clear manipulation of historical temperature records by unexplained “adjustments” that always (it seems) serve to
lower early temperatures, thus making the warming seem more serious than it is. A typical example of this is the case of NZ.
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Thank you Xenophon (#124): I needed that!
It has been frustrating to be lectured about how the poor HARRY_READ_ME fellow fixed all his mistakes sometime later and, well, don’t look there, nothing to see, all better now.
Again, there seems to be no commitment to rigor or excellence, only to priestly secrecy, esp of data and methodology. Surely, I think, there are those within The Community who will advocate for the highest standards, the best — not intellectual bludgeoning or obfuscation.
I just read Xenophon’s comment to a computer science friend who nodded, in agreement. The truth is leaking out and, everyday, there will be another Xenophon, then another, and another”¦. in all the myriad aspects of the science until the changes that need to take place do, until the stable is swept clean. “¦.Lady in Red
PS: “TechSkep Group”: that is cute! If they are dubbed that, does that mean The Community need not address the concerns raised? Were you not a little bit embarrassed, Mr. Tobis?
Keith (123)
I am not sure that your contention “that many outside the close confines of this discussion make no distinction between climate skeptic and climate denier” is correct. People who know my background approach me with questions. From the feedback I don’t get the impression that you are right. However, this is a rather special slice, not the general public.
To repeat myself I find your suggestion a little strange. Just because some people deliberately try to paint us black and associate us with flat-earthers doesn’t mean that we have to get defensive.
Perhaps more relevant to your goals, I’m not sure that following your suggestions would be helpful even if your premise is correct. Even if there is a substantial subset of public that doesn’t distinguish between climate skeptic and climate denier, this would be so because they eat from warmers’ hands and pay no attention to our arguments. Whatever we say, it’s only our narrow audience that listens and those people understand the difference already.
Judith says:
“And get back to figuring out what it would take to convince the group with science degrees, who are approaching this from a scientific perspective and not an ideological perspective.”
There’s an assumption here that skeptics with scientific degrees are free of ideological bias. dhogaza refutes this notion by noting Roy Spencer’s view on creationism (a scientific perspective…really?) One could also note his close steady contact with Rush Limbaugh. So if contrarians with the highest credentials might be at least partially influenced by ideology, certainly many less sophisticated bloggers with a science/math degree are. So I don’t think the categories are mutually exclusive.
There’s also a bit of Dunning Kruger. Someone with a 4-year degree in Geology or Statistics with no publication record might believe they know enough to determine human impacts on climate are insignificant, or far less than the big bad IPCC (based on the preponderance of peer-reviewed evidence) states. On other days, they will argue that climate scientists are arrogant to think they understand something as complex as the Earth’s climate.
I think any issue that entails implied government action is going to have notable contrarians at all levels of expertise (although always a small minority on the expert side) – more so when the government action called upon is significant. For that reason, global warming denial won’t disappear in our lifetimes, no matter how hot it gets.
Judith says:
“Some members of the climate establishment have all but branded me as heretic for supporting things that the pro-science skeptics say, and listening to what CEI has to say (which i don’t categorize as anti-science). ”
Let’s not create strawmen. Many of your statements have been criticized, and not simply because you listen to what someone has to say or agree with it. What anyone says should be well-supported, and I’m afraid a lot of the stuff put forth by skeptics you’ve taken at face value. It’s ok to be skeptical of the skeptics, even the ones you think are “pro-science”.
CEI is a political organization. They are not pro-science. Like any right-wing think tank, they start with the premise that government regulation is bad and they seek to wrap the science around that. That’s how lawyers work – not scientists.
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Competitive_Enterprise_Institute
It was even stated in their doctrine:
“Until August 2007 CEI’s website CEI stated that it served “as both a think tank””creating intellectual ammunition to support free markets””and an advocacy organization””putting that ammunition to use in persuasive ways.”[2]“
What has the CEI got to do with anything, I’ve been sceptical for a long time, and only heard of it here ?
Re CEI, CEI has been very active in terms of FOIA requests and lawsuits, they are the ones that have filed the lawsuit against hansen and schmidt regarding the 3 year delay in their FOIA requests. They are not anti-science, if i can put words in their mouth, they would like to see more skepticism of the Lindzen variety, they think the consensus needs to be challenged.
You can be political and have a policy agenda without being anti-science. Otherwise, all enviro groups and think tanks would be categorized as anti-science. You can have a political stance, understand and generally accept science, but not be in favor of scientific management type policies. Science does not equal policy and policy does not equal science.
“What has the CEI got to do with anything, I’ve been sceptical for a long time, and only heard of it here ?”
That’s odd. They’re quoted regularly, most recently in today’s article on Mann’s exoneration (again), in which their spokesperson predictably chants “whitewash”.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/02/science/earth/02climate.html
Keith-123
And based on the responses in this thread, skeptics are not taking my “advice” on the merits of distinguishing between those who are skeptic for scientific reasons and those for political/ideological reasons.
Ok. But now that you say that, what of the fact that I criticize both Romm and Monckton? That I have criticized Real Climate and pointed out difficulties with many of the arguments about inadequacies at surface stations’s perverting the surface temperature record?
I’m not going to write posts calling people names or imitate Michael Tobis and explaning how they are evil. I think both are unacceptable, polarizing and moreover are ineffective at swaying anyone. But if I think people make an argument that is incorrect, I engage that. Or, if they behave in ways I think are not correct, I’ll discuss that. That’s pretty much the way I engage.
Beyond that, I don’t know how to “dissociate” myself from anyone on any “side”. In that sense, I’m not taking your advice. This of course assumes the advice is aimed at me– and I think to some extent you consider it to be aimed that way. (BTW: I still don’t know the specific things the Skeptic article thinks science-based skeptics should do to dissociate. I’m not goign to pay. I’m sure it’s a great magazine, but there are tons of great magazines. )
Tom Fuller – 127
I think Keith is trying to reclaim a word. It’s not clear he will succeed, but I suspect he is trying and knows he is trying.
But, I agree with you that Rommulans– to use your word– want to apply skeptic to everyone who is not a “hell fire and brimstone” activist and then describe all skeptics and being “the ice age cometh coolers”. No matter what word anyone uses, I don’t think there is anything anyone can do to get Rommulans to admit to the existance of any range of opinion in the non-Rommulan population.
I disagree with just about everything M.Tobis said in 126.
1. The purported sophistication of the field. In what exactly?
1a. Statistics maybe? See how well the climatologists defend against SM’s crticism.
1b. Climate prediction? I heard Lucia sells mugs with illustration.
1c. Current climate maybe? The models cannot reproduce even that.
I call it infancy. You can call it whatever you like.
2. Financial interests.
Largely mythical. Maybe they pay Inhofe or Michaels. But the skeptical segment of blogosphere is competely independent. Speaking of financial interests, don’t you guys have finacial interest to blow up the problem to improve your funding? Nothing personal, of course.
3. Injecting doubt.
This is a false concept. There is no need to inject. The doubt is there objectively due to uncertainty. THe opposite is true in fact. You guys are trying to suppress the doubt and stifle the discourse.
4. Time-critical policy discussions.
I doubt that anything is time critical. You may believe anything you like but it has nothing to do with science.
5. As a scientist you should pursue the scientific truth. Nitpicking is part of due process. It is unethical to discourage it. As if the climatologists are so holy that they are not up to common standards.
6. I see absolutely know reason, moreover I find your claim completely absurd and perverse, that policy must proceed despite uncertainty. Precisely the opposite is the case. Policy must depend on the level of uncertainty.
Of course CEI wants to challenge the consensus, but their reason for it is not based on good faith skepticism. They don’t approach the issue from a scientific angle.
“creating intellectual ammunition to support free markets”
What more needs to be said? This was the driving force for their skepticism on tobacco’s effect on health.
Arthur, re the climateaudit thread. Steve’s original post was a bit short tempered, which comes from having to say and defend the same thing over and over and over again. There is also the issue of his viewing that you were picking on one tree and ignoring the forest. So you stepped into a situation with a lot of baggage and history. But I think the thread overall was quite informative (with 334 posts), and it was useful for you and the climateauditors to engage in the discussion. It was also particularly useful for Angliss to engage with the climateauditors, which resulted in his making a number of changes to his post. So is all this “respectful”? Well, it is not disrespectful, in terms of making insults to your intelligence, attributing motives to your statements, etc. If you attack somebody’s written statements and/or arguments, then don’t be surprised if they defend themselves.
Pro-science?
http://cei.org/pages/co2.cfm
“Steve’s original post was a bit short tempered, which comes from having to say and defend the same thing over and over and over again. ”
Well that sounds familiar…
In #126, Michael Tobis comments on Judith Curry’s characterization of elite scientists and technical skeptics in #122.
Michael writes,
“Assigning the TechSkeps to the same taxonomy as the EliScis focuses on their benign interest in truth at the expense of their social interest in subverting active climate policy.”
The first “their” might refer to either “Technical Skeptics” or “Elite Scientists.” In the context of Michael’s writing, the antecedent to the second “their” can only be “Technical Skeptics.”
Thus, “Technical Skeptics” aren’t primarily technical at all, since their social interest is to subvert active climate policy. Well, there are crumbs; Michael allows that this group (in which I place myself) has some actual interest in truth.
This essay, like earlier ones, continues in this vein. Often, people see what they want to see.
140# I’m not american!
I tend to read the UK press, sceptics, or should I say non ‘post normal’ climate CAGW agnostics, are still allowed in the UK.
I’ve just seen CEI mentioned a few times, but not really aware of what it has to do with Mann and co.
I’d sure appreciate it if Judith, or Michael Tobis or any of the practicing climate science folks who’ve popped in here occasionally would weigh in on my reasons for skepticism.
Note that I certainly don’t claim that there is no warming. I even allow that a quality re-work of both the historical temperature data and the programs that analyze it might well produce results essentially similar to what we have today. I’m concerned however that the standard of rigour shown in the software I have seen is so poor that all that can be concluded about questions such as “how much warming” and “what is causing the warming” (and many other interesting and important questions) is a great big “not proven.”
My thesis committee would certainly have rejected any argument based on data processed by the software I’ve seen, or based on data sets managed with the lack of rigor that has been evident to date. And in my time in the software industry, we’d have needed a better quick-and-dirty “proof-of-concept” to justify spending as little as a couple of person-years on a new product feature.
But without a valid baseline that is derived from the recorded temperature record in a rigorous fashion, it seems impossible to evaluate any of the interesting questions that might reasonably drive policy! This would appear to be quite a substantial issue. Right?
Xenophon
Xenophon, this is sort of what I was alluding to about the argument having moved past the science to a degree. I agree with you. I would imagine Judith does. On a good day, maybe Michael Tobis would concede you have a point or two worth investigating. But obviously it no longer matters hugely.
Everybody’s mind is made up (of those who will ever have an opinion on the subject), and putting labels on the jars we have chosen to sit in isn’t really going to do very much.
Unless someone out there really thinks that the next time I get called a denialist I’ll slap my forehead and say, ‘my God, he’s right! What was I thinking?’ As I’m a bit stubborn, it kind of tends to have the opposite effect.
Xenophon #149, A number of independent citizen-scientist groups have successfully emulated GISTEMP, found bugs, fixed errors, improved code, and re-written code to meet higher standards of quality and clarity. See <a href=”http://clearclimatecode.org/”>Clear Climate Code</a> (other teams linked there).
These groups report that emulation of GISTEMP is generally robust. So it appears that the state of computational analysis of the instrumental record may be better than you had feared.
Of course, obviously the point in calling us denialists isn’t to change our minds, it’s to influence other people’s opinions of us.
Judith Curry (#145) – please don’t patronize me. Did you actually read the ClimateAudit thread and my article? The only reason Steve McIntyre felt “attacked” by me was because he misinterpreted my paraphrase of Brian Angliss’ article as an attack on him, and then refused to give an inch of ground when I explained clearly over and over that was not my intent.
Or tell me where in my article I ever “attacked” McIntyre? I think I went out of my way to avoid any insult to him in the original story, and I edited it later to further clarify that I had not intended any such attack. Rather I was examining one specific claim made by Steve Mosher and Tom Fuller (which I had assumed had been discussed at ClimateAudit, but McIntyre and Mosher claim not, which was why I later edited my post).
But apparently you think McIntyre’s specific, unrescinded statements referring to me:
“has gotten a little punch drunk”
“let’s help Smith (and Angliss) along a little”
“spitballs from the confused Arthur Smith”
“Smith is confused”
were not “disrespectful, in terms of making insults to your intelligence, attributing motives to your statements,”??? And that’s in the post body – he gets worse in the comments, not to mention those from others.
Aside from all that, McIntyre actually agreed with the central conclusion of my post – Mosher was wrong. Mosher agreed too. Which you could have learned from reading my post, without the exceedingly unpleasant mess that ClimateAudit added to the case.
Michael Tobis #126,
“Our primary ethical responsibility is not to encourage people to nit-pick in the interests of their education or our refinement. Rather it is to insist that policy must proceed despite uncertainty and cannot await an unattainable state of perfect knowledge.”
Does this mean that anyone who doesn’t believe all you do about future warming is simply nit-picking? Is it an ethical responsibility not to address the public’s doubts, but instead ‘to insist’ on policies the public does not want?
Should the public not be allowed to reach a consensus on the need for specific policy? What exactly does ‘to insist’ mean in your comment? To force?
This has really been an interesting thread – thanks again to the host for this forum where reasonable discussion can take place.
I guess for me the take-a-way from all this is that people should focus on arguments and not individuals or ideology. We have limited control over what boxes others put us into, but we have total control over how we individually react and conduct ourselves. So it seems to me the best policy is focus on the substance of what people say and ignore, as much as practicable, attempts to put us in tribal boxes. That will be hard and frustrating, but I see little alternative.
Arthur–
Can we read your post as it existed before you edited it to correct the things SteveMc had criticized and which you seem to concede were not quite so right? Even now you drop quite a few references to climate audit in that post.
AMac @151 — I am aware of the ClearClimateCode effort. If that code were endorsed and/or adopted by the GISS folks (for example) that would provide only the first step of what’s needed for quality computational analysis. It’s a worthy first step, indeed, but it’s only the beginning.
My list was:
“…In order to answer that question, you’d need a clean implementation from which to draw the algorithm. You’d need test suites based on synthetic data that demonstrate that the algorithm (and its implementation) are capable of detecting each of the various kinds of signals that may be present, even in the face of the various confounds the software attempts to correct for (e.g. missing data, insufficient global coverage, urban heat island effects, etc. ). Then you’d need a professional numerical analyst to ensure that neither the implementation nor the algorithm gratuitously lose accuracy. Finally, you’d need a professional statistician to ensure that the reported uncertainty in the results was correctly characterized. (Oh, I forgot”¦ there is no reported uncertainty. What about that?)”
The ClearClimateCode effort addresses only the first sentence of that paragraph. Once that paragraph is handled, there are pleny more worms in the can. For example there’re all the issues of data quality (including trackability of and justification for all adjustments made to the data sets), ability to re-run with previous versions of code, data, or both, and to characterize the differences, and on, and on. It may sound nit-picky, but these are nits that we routinely require in areas with far less potential impact on our lives.
Every individual part in every (non-experimental) airplane has a pedigree that goes back to the manufacturer’s certification that it meets spec. Every drug has more paperwork than you can imagine. And these ordinary examples are of minuscule importance compared to the claimed impacts of the mainstream view of Climate Science.
Arthur (132 & 153):
This thread is not the place for you air your grievances about how you’ve been treated elsewhere. But I’d welcome hearing your thoughts on the topic of the post under discussion.
Judith Curry (79) writes: “Forget the audiences of Beck and Limbaugh, nobody is going to convince them of anything other than, well, Beck and Limbaugh. Yes, this is a large group of voters, but they dont influence policy other than at the ballot box, and AGW is about 20th on their list of priorities. Its not like they are going to vote for an anti-AGW candidate who is pro abortion. So just forget this group. ” (emphasis added)
I am reminded of that old chestnut “Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how did you like the play?” AGW as a problem may be 20th on their list, but guess where enormous tax increases imposed by government agencies based on uncertain science regarding CAGW will rank? Once again, why do you think Copenhagen collapsed? Why are cap and trade laws (sorry, emissions controls) having such a hard time in a US congress that is overwhelmingly Democratic?
Tom Fuller (127) makes the contrary point, with which I agree: “Doesn’t all the real evidence coming from polls, elections, etc., indicate that that is the case? That people by and large believe some warming is going on and support measures that pick the low hanging fruit but don’t trust the science enough to make very large sacrifices?”
Forget the scientists, the politicians who pay for their research know full well who will make the real final decision on any expensive, government centered remedy. And they are very good at what they do. The prominence of the hockey stick graph, the exaggerations in the executive summary and the inclusion of scare scenarios from gray literature in the AR4, the magical disappearing Himalayan glacier and Amazon rain forests…. Do you really think these were targeted at the luke warmers, or the liberals in the skeptical scientist “camp?”
And with all that, not to mention Al Gore and the movie The Day After Tomorrow, they still shot blanks at Copenhagen. Copenhagen, a conclave of liberal politicians and CAGW true believers, could not pass an agreement on anything of substance. Why? Because so many of those politicians would like to remain in office, and they know the natives are restless.
You can treat this whole ongoing climate debate as some obscure anthropological seminar on who belongs to what tribe, what are the prerequisites for membership in the cool clans, who dated whom in high school…or whatever. (Full disclosure, I think Limbaugh and Beck are hilarious, and nothing beats a dose of Maddow or Olbermann to remind me of why I am a conservative. So remember to leave me off the list for the next prom.)
But maybe, just maybe, all this trying to label other people and convict them by association, so you can avoid even listening to them, isn’t very…I don’t know…scientific? Most people I know feel no need to distance themselves from Mao, Stalin, Hitler, Bush, Clinton, Beck, Maddow, Dowd, Gore, Inhofe, Hansen, Monckton, Smith, McIntyre, the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy or anyone else for that matter. Nor do they seem to care if anyone else does. If you do, great, knock yourself out. But don’t expect tens of millions of other mere voters to care.
By the way, if you hate Inhofe now, keep up the great PR work, ’cause you’ll love him with the subpoena power.
Arthur, #153
I read both threads, start to finish. Stating an opinion that somebody is confused is not disrespectful. This is much less disrespectful than accusing someone of patronizing you. Overly thin skins don’t have an easy time of it in the blogosphere.
(sorry keith, just want to finish what i started, and I’m definitely finished)
Here is a modest proposal: why not characterize specific positions by finding specific comments expliciting them, and then try to find labels for the doctrines? It’s very tough to ascribe an epithet to someone without ascribing an attitude. It’s even tougher to ascribe oneself an epithet and not ascribe an attitude to real or imaginary opponents. For instance, being all for “science-done-right” presupposes that opponents are for science not done right, or worse science done wrong.
Marco: “We can now even discern its influence and get a reasonable idea of its effect, since we cannot find other factors that are pointing in the upward direction over the last 40 years.”
Hmmm, I can’t speak for all Joe Sixpack’s but, with all due respect, this sounds an awful lot like “cause we can’t think of anything else”. That rationale doesn’t go far in many circles.
Keith,
“Brin suggests (as I have on repeated occasion), that “sincere and enlightened climate skeptics” should put some distance between themselves and climate “deniers.” If they did this, I bet their voices would be heard more clearly by both climate scientists and the public.”
I’m not so sure about this. I think lots of ‘sincere and enlightened climate skeptics’ go to great lengths to point out gross errors in basic scientific understanding by those you classify as ‘deniers’. You need only read a few threads to see this is true… you can start reading any of the several threads where Willis Eschenbach tries to convince ‘deniers’ that burning fossil fuels must increase atmospheric CO2, and that increased CO2 really must have some warming effect. Or read over some threads at The Blackboard and see how well comments contrary to basic scientific principles are received.
Yet none of this matters to those who insist upon lumping anyone who expresses doubt about accuracy and/or certainty of future warming (or worse, who suggests that the existing science does not justify immediate and dramatic reductions in fossil fuel use) with individuals who claim thermodynamics and radiative physics are completely wrong. I long ago concluded that this lumping together of people who are “sincere and enlightened climate skeptics” with those who are probably not sincere, not enlightened, or both, is motivated by politics, and is anything but well intentioned.
It is far simpler to discredit the arguments of “sincere and enlightened climate skeptics” because they are ‘only deniers’, than to honestly address those arguments. To address those arguments would give them the legitimacy they deserve, and would weaken the case for immediate and dramatic reductions in fossil fuel usage. There is altogether too much politics involved in classifying someone as “a denier”.
hot off the press, check it out, about the impacts of climategate on loss of trust
“For example there’re all the issues of data quality (including trackability of and justification for all adjustments made to the data sets)”
The adjustment algorithms are described in published, peer-reviewed work in relevant journals, which takes care of your parenthetical (as a parenthetical, why didn’t you know this?). As for data quality, the historical data that is available is what it is. It’s flawed, but that’s the only data that exists. Scientists can either mine that data for the highest-quality temperature reconstruction possible, or sit on their rears hoping that someone invents a time machine.
“ability to re-run with previous versions of code, data, or both, and to characterize the differences, and on, and on.”
There’s no particular need to re-run with previous versions of the code. Roughly 95% of the raw data is available to anyone who cares to work with it, and a variety of people in the skeptic community have been working with it to build their own reconstructions using their own favorite adjustment and statistical techniques.
And coming up with temp reconstructions that match GISSTemp very closely.
Really, this complaining of code quality is tiresome.
“Every individual part in every (non-experimental) airplane has a pedigree that goes back to the manufacturer’s certification that it meets spec. Every drug has more paperwork than you can imagine. And these ordinary examples are of minuscule importance compared to the claimed impacts of the mainstream view of Climate Science.”
I imagine you’ll be relieved to learn that climate science doesn’t actually rest on programs like GISSTemp, then, despite your claims.
This mini-debate over the data code/quality/code, etc is not relevant to this thread. Regardless of your position on it, please stay on topic.
Xenophon, if you are referring to the much flogged code file among the files stolen from CRU, please see this article. The absurd overinterpretation of that bit of code has been emblematic of the naysayers’ insistence on making mountains out of molehills, or as my mother once said, having lost track of the idiom, “making from a bubblegum a Zeppelin”.
Keith, obviously I don’t find Judith’s “tribal” justification of McIntyre’s behavior very persuasive, (and Lucia, all changes to my post are marked with strike-outs or bold, as indicated at the front) but I won’t discuss it further here.
I do find it odd that you’re organizing discussion around an article here that most of us have not and cannot read at the moment.
However, I’ve read some of David Brin’s writings on climate before – he posts occasionally at DailyKos, for instance here:
http://david-brin.dailykos.com/
and in this post here he presumably covers the same ground as his Skeptic magazine article:
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2010/2/11/836306/-Distinguishing-Climate-Deniers-From-Skeptics
You will in fact note that I commented there, 5 months ago.
I suspect you will find the “skeptics” Brin actually talks about are quite a different beast from the SNIP we seem to be mainly discussing in this thread.
(mt: Our primary ethical responsibility is … to insist that policy must proceed despite uncertainty and cannot await an unattainable state of perfect knowledge.)
Steve Fitzpatrick #154:
Does this mean that anyone who doesn’t believe all you do about future warming is simply nit-picking?
No, it means that our work of explaining the situation to them is not done.
Is it an ethical responsibility not to address the public’s doubts, but instead “˜to insist’ on policies the public does not want?
If I thought that, why would I be blogging at all?
Should the public not be allowed to reach a consensus on the need for specific policy? What exactly does “˜to insist’ mean in your comment? To force?
No, scientists need to avoid getting sidetracked by minutiae, and to remind everyone that the balance of evidence includes huge and mounting costs for delays.
FYI I seem to have a comment in moderation, pointing to an original article by David Brin on this subject that people may find more informative than the discussion so far.
Michael, you all have been explaining for 10 years. For good or ill, a lot of people are not listening. Looking at the survey Lucia linked to indicates opinions are moving away from your position.
I understand your position. I don’t agree with it. What you consider explaining to me feels like lecturing.
I sincerely believe that human emissions of greenhouse gases have contributed to warming the planet. I also think that our emissions are far from the only factor. I don’t think you or anybody else knows what the atmospheric sensitivity to a doubling of CO2 actually is. I don’t think you or anybody else knows how the ocean and the atmosphere interact WRT the exchange of both heat and CO2.
With all of your lecturing you have not convinced me regarding those two rather important points. That does not make me a denialist, nor fit into Box 32B of your Rube Goldberg matrix.
And your response is always to say I don’t understand the science. But, no Michael. I don’t agree with your interpretation.
David Brin is traveling, but he sent me a quick email, saying he hoped to join the fray while on the road. Meanwhile, he said I could post the following comment on his behalf, which is from his email:
I certainly did not expect a majority – from either side – to grasp or embrace my point. The problems with today’s “discourse” are stunningly awful… and indeed, it is the process of discourse that my article is actually about. I am far more fascinated by the blatant immaturities and futilities of the Climate Change debate, than I am about the topic itself, which is pretty much a no-brainer. (We should act “as-if” the Global Warming is real and modernize our energy systems asap… duh?
“We also found that the loss of trust in scientists among those Americans who followed the Climategate scandal was primarily among Americans already predisposed, for ideological or cultural worldview reasons, to disbelieve climate science.”
In other words, they were easily and willingly duped by a manufactured controversy. The current political landscape makes this group all the more vulnerable to this sort of disinformation compared to pre-2008.
One place the Yale report errs is consistently not prefacing “scandal” with “alleged”, which is part of the problem with the media in general. The allegations hold little to no water. The main scandal was the theft.
The study cites polls until Jan. 2010. There’s actually been somewhat of an uptick (to the shagrin of climate contrarians) since then.
http://www.pollingreport.com/enviro.htm
Populated sections of the east coast in late 2009 experienced some unusually cold or snowy weather, pounced upon by contrarians. Those same areas had a scorcher of a spring.
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/gistemp/do_nmap.py?year_last=2010&month_last=5&sat=4&sst=1&type=anoms&mean_gen=0303&year1=2010&year2=2010&base1=1951&base2=1980&radius=1200&pol=reg
and June is not much different. Are there any formal studies that measure weather’s impact on global warming views? One could survey opinion over time in different regions, and see if say DC opinion on the issue shifts during a big snowstorm vs a major heat wave.
New York, fugeddaboutit. I was not duped, the controversy was not manufactured, and weather is weather.
The majority of climate scientists consistently play up projections of catastrophe. Rarely is any mention made of benefits which may accrue from having a warmer world and a larger fraction of co2 in the atmosphere.
If climate scientists wish to be perceived as objective presenters of science they shouldn’t be touting one position to the exclusion of the other. After all, cost benefit analysis isn’t part of their skill set
Mr. Fuller,
I know you weren’t duped, the controversy was manufactured (you’re one of the factory managers), and weather is indeed weather.
Happy Independence Day! It comes as one distinguished scientist begins to regain his academic freedom.
http://julesandjames.blogspot.com/2010/07/penn-state-live-investigation-of.html
Just some advice: chanting “whitewash” begins to be less effective over time. Some people (you know, those not ideological pre-disposed to disbelieving climate science) eventually begin to question the accusers. Imagine if there’s a real science scandal in the future. Who would listen to the Wolf-Criers?
Funny you should ask, NY…
Dr Curry
Leiserowitz and Maibach have done some crazy damage to the ‘AGW cause’.
This paper however has interesting data. Looking forward to see how they reconcile all their previous papers and ideas with the current situation.
Tobis:
You want all the two-bit ‘skeptics’ who are riffing here to take a hike so that the real Beltway and Sunshine state insiders start feeling disinhibited enough to wander over here and let loose their pearls of wisdom – that’s what you want right?
As has been pointed out above, participating online requires a “three eyes open, thick skin and open skull” approach. It requires years of investment of time and effort to get good at, I would add.
I am not sure you’ll get what you want, if all the skeptics packed their bags. If it would achieve your goal, I am all for co-operation, though.
I remember this thread in Sciencemag where a lot of the climate bigshot dudes hanging around, having polite conversation and sounding very important. Do you know how it went?
Important Person A: Did you know, in my book I say “blah blah blah – for three paragraphs -blah”?
Important Person B: Oh! is that so. But that conflicts, but also partially agrees with what I say in my book: “blah blah blah – for three paragraphs -blah”.
and so forth repeatedly.
Just as you say that outsiders cannot truly contribute to climate science and its processes and can only offer new insights only to a certain extent, those who resent the online process and act as if they know what is going on – without actually dipping their toes in – will only be able to offer limited insights.
As of now, it is “swarming with skeptics” – as Kloor himself once said.
Shub, I’m reminded of my childhood. My father was an academic, my mum was a secretary. As a small kid, I remember my dad imparting his wisdom as only an academic can. He’d say really smart things, like “just because an elephant is pink does not mean that everything that is pink is an elephant.” Good lesson, well delivered. Later, out of earshot of my dad, my mum would pat me on the head.. “Simon, elephants aren’t pink. Okay?” :o)
As indicated by the quote from David Brin in comment #172 above, and based on my reading 5 months ago and rereading today of Brin’s earlier post (linked above in my comment #168) I believe Keith Kloor has completely mischaracterized Brin’s comments in “Skeptic magazine” – though I have not seen that article myself yet (has anybody else besides Kloor, who has commented here?)
I hope he will speak to this later, and I hope I am not misinterpreting. But as I understand it, when Brin talks about the “blatant immaturities and futilities” of the discussion he is going even further than Michael Tobis has here. “Skeptics”, in Brin’s language, do not include *ANY* people who use or hint at the term “whitewash”, for example, in discussing the various independent investigations. That is the realm of conspiracy theory, not of any true “skeptic”. “Skeptics”, to Brin, if they are not indeed experts in a field already, recognize that they know less than the actual experts, and are willing to listen to and read what the experts say, and give that appropriate weight.
I have corresponded with and met in person some “sincere and enlightened climate skeptics” in Brin’s terms. These are people who have honestly been convinced by colleagues, friends, or relations who are or seem more expert in climate-related topics than they are; but uniformly they have not themselves researched the topic in any great depth.
Because once you do start to do that research, unless you are very “confused”, any sincere skeptic (A) starts to understand the weight of the body of science involved, and (B) quickly realizes the scope of conspiracy that would be required for the IPCC to be largely wrong. The analysis of “convinced” vs “unconvinced” experts in the recent PNAS study shows that the body of “unconvinced” is exceedingly small – and at least one such identified protested that he had been classified as “unconvinced” rather than “convinced”, making the actual body of “unconvinced”, skeptical experts, even smaller.
The true “skeptics” in climate science are the scientists themselves. The most withering substantive criticisms I’ve seen of climate science results have not been from outsiders, but from people in the field. Kerry Emanuel, James Annan, Chris Landsea and many others have made substantive arguments that other climate scientists have got things wrong. The “climategate” emails themselves included some pretty substantive challenges to one another on pointed issues. That’s healthy scientific skepticism.
Everything else is something else… let’s respectfully call it “confusion”. It’s not skepticism.
Keith @ 158: “This thread is not the place for you air your grievances about how you’ve been treated elsewhere.”
Compare with Keith @ 35: “Steve Bloom, who dirties the blogosophere with comments like this one left at Tim Lambert’s site.”
Keith, mocking you for your obsessive hatred of Joe Romm doesn’t make me a hardcore Joe Romm fan.
I don’t agree with Michael Tobis in his comment about “advice to the opposition”. He perfectly tagged earlier as a High Broderite, and that sort of thing is one of the distinguishing field marks of the Broderite.
If Kevin Trenberth says “it is a travesty we cannot account for the missing heat” in the emails and writes a Science magazine article about it – that is genuine skepticism.
If Joe Six Pack asks, hey how come the trend is flatlining for the past 10 years, that is pseudoskepticism.
If a climate scientist does not know what the shiznit is going on, that is called uncertainty.
If the Joe is blinking dumb, that is called ignorance.
Tim (181):
Wow, “obsessive hatred.” Now why would you say that? Because I’ve critiqued Romm for his tone and penchant for ad homs and personal attacks? I certainly hate Romm’s style of blogging, but not the person. I’ve never met him or talked with him.
> they continue to smoke because they ignore the risks
It’s surprising to see that old tobacco company claim repeated uncritically by a modern-day journalist. Can you find anyone but Lindzen who still believes it?
http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=link:http%3A%2F%2Fajph.aphapublications.org%2Fcgi%2Fcontent%2Fabstract%2F97%2F8%2F1357
“If Kevin Trenberth says “it is a travesty we cannot account for the missing heat” in the emails and writes a Science magazine article about it ““ that is genuine skepticism.”
No, it’s not skepticism.
Trenberth himself has said so, repeatedly.
If your standard of honesty is that once you’ve quote-mined someone so that you claim they say something they don’t mean, and afterwards, they explicitly say they’ve been quote=mined, and yet you continue to quote-mine them …
Well, you have no standard of honesty. Sorry.
Post #182 is a damned fine summary by Arthur Smith.
Good job.
“The majority of climate scientists consistently play up projections of catastrophe. Rarely is any mention made of benefits which may accrue from having a warmer world and a larger fraction of co2 in the atmosphere.”
Actually, the majority of climate scientist simply lay a card on the table: it’s warming, and our burning of fossil fuels are a very significant contribution.
And then they get death threats, etc.
“Rarely is any mention made of benefits which may accrue from having a warmer world and a larger fraction of co2 in the atmosphere”
This has been studied, of course. The problem is that scientists who study the possible outcomes don’t find them to be beneficial.
But of course you, a blog commenter, can simply say “they don’t study the benefits!” without telling us what they might be, and why they might outweigh the downside.
So, be specific. Tell us of the benefits. A warmer arctic due to a lack of sea ice leading to more frequently blizzards in the American eastern seaboard?
Any other benefits you can think of?
Off the top of my head here are a few that get tend to get little mention.
Expansion of temperate growing regions.
Increased vegetative growth.
Potentially more efficient water usage by plants.
Increase of available long term transportation routes.
Lower heating bills in regions that require it.
Less loss of life from cold which outnumber losses from heat.
It’s pretty amazing that Arthur Smith could even speculate (#180) that I have “completely mischaracterized Brin’s comments in “Skeptic magazine,” not having read the article.
I recognize that people are at a disadvantage not being able to link to the story. Ordinarily, I shy away from discussing magazine articles behind pay walls, but in this case I thought an exception was warranted. Also, I made sure to quote completely from the opening paragraph and then the nutgraph (this is the section that tells the reader what the story is about and/or why it’s important/relevant).
I could have provided long quotes to show that Brin is sympathetic to both climate scientists and climate skeptics, but that would have made the post too long. You’ll just have to take my word for it on that one, but please do correct me if you feel differently after you have read the story. (Lucia: P.S., you don’t have to buy it, just go to a nearby Barnes & Nobles or Borders and read it over a coffee in the cafe.)
The only place I took the liberty of interpreting the author’s meaning is in that last quote I discuss in my post. But I fail to see how even this could amount to a mischaracterization of Brin’s use of the skeptic term.
I think Arthur’s reaction is similar to what has set Tobis off–this argument I’m making that there is a great deal more nuance to positions held by climate skeptics than the public is led to believe. And that it is worth distinguishing between skeptics who are motivated more by scientific curiosity than those who are politically or ideologically predisposed.
I would welcome hearing if David Brin believes this too.
Arthur Smith and Michael Tobis, it seems, would prefer to keep the public perception of the stereotypical climate skeptic in place. Hence, Michael’s assertion that I am “offering advice to the opposition.”
@Marco ““ I’m indebted to you for the link, although it differs from my own gastrologist’s account of the matter. But even if Warren & Marshall were not ostracised, or ridiculed ““ even if they were treated with the utmost courtesy, what then? We are still left with a long-standing consensus over a theory that proved in the end false. Now, applying the sort of categorisation advocated here, we do not have to impute bad faith to its adherents to say that it would have reinforced belief in the false theory, at the expense of due consideration of the null hypothesis. And if you don’t consider the null hypothesis (as seems to be endemic in climate science) you are not provoked to consider other theories that might better fit your data. And then you end up like Trenberth, “…the data are surely wrong.”
Keith, for an example of what I’m talking about, see here, where your response to an egregiously wrong George Will column was a post blasting … Joe Romm. Since we’re into advice giving in this post, let me suggest that your reflexive criticism of Romm no matter what leads to folks outside the Morano camp dismissing your criticism. Maybe you should seek the middle ground between Romm and Kloor in your criticism of Romm?
Keith,
Don’t you think you’re mischaracterizing Michael Tobis’ views? I don’t find his spectrum of opinions as he detailed in this comment to be stereotypical or negative at all. I think it’s a very good description of the spectrum of opinions on the science-policy interface.
I get the feeling that both of you are shooting at strawmen in your accusations of each other.
#115 Kendra. I’m still here, but my time zone is GMT +10, so I’m out of sync with most of you.
Keith, the reason for lumping all the sceptics together is quite simple and very human. The worldview of those who most use the “D” word is based on the certain knowledge that they are right. The debate is over and the science is settled. Anybody that dissents from this view is either uneducated or is politically motivated.
Because they see the facts as pretty much self evident and incontravertible, then their beliefs about those who oppose them follow quite logically.
However, if the sceptic camp were to be somehow divided into two camps, the political and the “honest” sceptic, their worldview is threatened. To accept such a division would mean that people with honest doubt must exist.
This would mean that the science isn’t settled and the debate isn’t over. It also means that if the sceptics aren’t uneducated or politically motivated, then they might have a valid point or three. This threatens their worldview at the most basic level and must be fought against. It’s human nature.
It is therefore impossible for honest sceptics to distance themselves from “deniers” in the eyes of those who lump them together. This is not lost on the reading masses.
What is also not lost on the reading masses with a modicum of education and exposure to logical thinking is that if things are so settled and grounded in fact, why the excessive use of logical fallacies?
“Denier” can only be described (due to the intended connotations) as both a general “Ad Hom” and “Guilt by Association”. “Appeals to Authority” “Appeals to Popularity” are legion. Threats of “Crimes against Humanity” trials can only be described as “Appeal to Force”. We have exxon secrets being widely used for “Poisoning the Well”, “Circumstantial Ad Hom” and “Guilt by Association”.
Calls for immediate action use “Appeal to fear”, based on the idea that the models agree with each other (sort of) which is “Appeal to Popularity”.
Even the “We can’t think of anything else” is nothing more than “Appeal to Ignorance”.
I personally find it fascinating that the side that claims to such strong supporters of science and the scientific method use so many logical fallacies as weapons of choice. In part, the refusal to listen to dissent and the logical fallacies are what made me sceptical.
Yes, I’m sceptical. However I am actually quite willing to be convinced and to change my mind. To me, it’s not that Climate Science is wrong, it’s just that the case “for” strong AGW is “not proven”, nothing more. Just present the data openly and honestly, be open about uncertainties and stop it with the logical fallacies.
As an aside, has anyone else noticed that this is the only debate where both sides have likened their opponents to creationists?:)
As indicated by the quote from David Brin in comment #172 above, and based on my reading 5 months ago and rereading today of Brin’s earlier post (linked above in my comment #168) I believe Keith Kloor has completely mischaracterized Brin’s comments in “Skeptic magazine” ““ though I have not seen that article myself yet (has anybody else besides Kloor, who has commented here?)
Arther, I’ve read the Skeptic article and it is pretty close to the Kos article that you cited (frequently word for word). I quite liked it (but disagreed with some of it), however, I haven’t had the pleasure of meeting any of the climate skeptics as defined by Brin’s article. Rather I’ve only dealt with climate deniers (as per the articles list of criteria).
“In part, the refusal to listen to dissent and the logical fallacies are what made me sceptical.” Jon B
Me too. And like Xenophon in areas where I do think I know something – I’m an economist who has worked in both academia and government – I have been shocked by the quality of some of teh work. It was the hockey stick, or perhaps more accurately the die-in-the ditch defence of the indefensible, that began it for me. But then the Detection and Attribution studies seemed very weak evidence – economists have. alas, long experience of models that fit the past well but whose predictions break down on new data. Moreover there have been huge advances in modelling economic time series as a result, which climate scientists seem rather unfamiliar with. Then there are papers like Schmidt’s 2009 paper in I think the Journal of Climate, whose cursory review by Phil Jones we are now able to read. This makes two simple (undergraduate?) errors: first he argues that if replacing the actual surface temperature with modelled temperature gives the same coefficients as Mckitrick and Michaels get he has disproved their critique, which is fine. but he doesn’t notice that he has not got the same coefficients when its done properly. Second, and sorry that this may seem a bit technical, he rightly points out that spatial auto-correlation can be a problem , and claims that this invalidates the M&M work. But he confuses autocorrelation in the dependent variable, which is a feature of the data requiring explanation with autocorrelation in the residuals of the regression equation, which is a sign that the equation is not explaining important features of the data. And when McKitrick submits to the journal pointing these errors out the paper gets rejected… I am not impressed. So I am joining the “remain to be convinced” group. Can I have that as a label? I might add that I am a lifelong Guardian reader and have never voted for anyone to the right of the Lib Dems.
Because the majority of people haven’t read the article, I’ve quoted it heavily below. All of these points are discussed in greater detail in the article, so my cherry picking doesn’t do it justice. According to the article, the difference between a climate skeptic and a climate denier is:
* “Climate Skeptics first admit that they are non-experts in the topic at hand. And that experts tend to know more than non-experts.”
* “the Climate Skeptic is keenly aware that, after endless jokes about hapless weathermen who could not prophesy accurately beyond a few hours, we recently entered a whole new era. Meteorologists can now forecast three days ahead fairly well, and more tentatively as far as 14 days, based on a science that has grown spectacularly adept, faster than any other. Now, with countless lives and billions of dollars riding on the skill and honesty of several thousand brilliant experts, the Climate Skeptic admits that these weather and climate guys are pretty damn smart.”
* “The Climate Skeptic further avows that this rapid progress happened through a process of eager competitiveness, with scientists regularly challenging each other, poking at errors and forcing science forward–a rambunctious, ambitious process that makes Wall Street look tame. ”
* “Climate Skeptics go on to admit that it is both rare and significant when nearly 100% of the scientists in any field share a consensus-model, before splitting up to fight over sub-models. Hence, if an outsider perceives “something wrong” with a core scientific model, the humble and justified response of that curious outsider should be to ask “what mistake am I making?” before assuming that l00% of the experts are wrong. ”
* “We cannot say too often that, just because nearly all of the experts in a field share a consensus, that doesn’t absolutely prevent their paradigm from being wrong. Still, the Climate Skeptic admits this is rare in science history. Moreover, a steep burden of proof falls on those who claim that 100% of experts are wrong. ”
* “the Climate Skeptic hasn’t finished “admitting things” yet, in order to have her curiosity taken seriously. For example, she openly affirms who the chief beneficiaries of the current status quo are: those who spent two decades delaying energy efficiency research and urging us to guzzle carbon fuels like mad. But let’s have it out in the open.”
* “the Climate Skeptic accepts that some things ought to be done, urgently and with full force of national and public will, even-though and even-while he nurses doubts about the likelihood of the full Global Warming scenario. She does not arm wave vaguely against “rash actions,” but actively engages in negotiation over which urgent efficiency measures to promote. Even if only as a precaution.”
* “The Climate Skeptic admits something pretty darned creepy and suspicious–that the main “news” outlets pushing the Denier movement are largely owned by those same petromoguls who have benefited from delayed energy independence.”
* “the Climate Skeptic has noticed that the Denier movement is directly correlated–with almost perfect predictability–with a particular “side” in America’s calamitous, seditious and self-destructive Culture Wars.”
* “there is one more thing our Climate Skeptic has to admit, if she truly is honest and ready to start peppering the experts with questions. She needs to acknowledge that atmospheric scientists are human. Having tried for 20 years to use logic, reason and data to deal with a screeching, offensive and nasty Denier movement, these human beings are exhausted. Their hackles are up. They have very important work on their plates. Their time is valuable and, frankly, they see little point in wasting any more of it trying to reason with folks who… [I’ve cut a list of typical claims that appear regularly]”
If I were to be writing the article, I would probably not place much emphasis on the more political points such as the culture wars and add some points about the climate skeptics makes detailed arguments, not vague generalist waffle and the climate skeptic places a great deal of emphasis on trying to get research published in the peer reviewed literature.
Tim (191):
As one of my loyal readers and consistent critics, you should recognize that I sometimes use parody–just to mix it up and give a serious topic a lighter treatment. As for the Romm post you’re referring to, did you happen to notice that he inserted a gratuititous “Breakthrough Institute lies” mention in the first sentence? That’s a favorite tactic of Romm’s–the guilt-by-association card. So my short playful post that you take exception to was my way of have some fun.
Personally, I find all the handwringing over Will redundant. (After all, it’s not like he’s a blogger spewing that stuff every day, right?) But lest anyone think I give him a free pass, see my take on why Will beats his own drum on climate change.
But back to the point of my initial comment on Romm that got you all riled up: so have you ever publicly in your blog taken issue with Romm’s partisan tone or attack-dog tactics? His ritual seizing on the latest wildfire/flood/storm disaster as global-warming related?
But back to parody: you neglected to mention whether you liked this recent one or not? Even Michael Tobis said he laughed. I’m thinking of doing a regular spinoff off this, titled, “Where in the World is Thomas Friedman?” Is that okay by you?
Bart (192):
I never addressed Michael’s “spectrum of opinions.” All I’ve done is say that I object to Michael’s assertion that mainstream scientists are fleeing my blog because of a supposed perception that I’m not being neutral. I asked him to back this up. I also took great issue with his assertion that my exploration of the skeptic/denier labels amounted to me “offering advice to the opposition.” That sort of thing just takes my breath away.
That’s the extent of my criticism of him on this thread.
then the Detection and Attribution studies seemed very weak evidence ““ economists have. alas, long experience of models that fit the past well but whose predictions break down on new data. Moreover there have been huge advances in modelling economic time series as a result, which climate scientists seem rather unfamiliar with.
Mikep, if you have knowledge and skill set to make this claim credibly, then you have the knowledge and skill set to write some peer reviewed publications that do it right. This way, you will have made an actual contribution to humanity as opposed to some anonymous guy commenting on a blog. Your research may simple confirm what we know, or you may end with a Noble prize.
CEI has been very active in terms of FOIA requests and lawsuits, they are the ones that have filed the lawsuit against hansen and schmidt regarding the 3 year delay in their FOIA requests. They are not anti-science, if i can put words in their mouth, they would like to see more skepticism of the Lindzen variety, they think the consensus needs to be challenged.
Judith, if we use David Brin’s article as a base, it seems that CEI would fit the following description:
“consider some eerie parallels in methodology with the Great Big War over Tobacco. Some of the very same consulting groups who formulated Big Tobacco’s “deny, delay, and obfuscate” strategy–providing that industry with nearly four decades in which to adjust to growing societal awareness of its problems–are working on the Climate and Energy Denier Front today, with precisely the same agenda.”
Consequently, the respect shown to organisations like CEI is one of the differences between a climate skeptic and a climate denier.
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Ken Miles (#196): This is too funny! A brilliant synopsis, I am sure! And what a relief to know I have not been crazy all these months…. That’s really what I’ve experienced…. yesh!
Thinking about The Community’s wish to appeal to the wisdom of conferred authority and the value of consensus, I pulled my three little volumes of Medical Mavericks off the shelf. The author, the late Hugh Riordan, founder of a research and medical center in Kansas where they actually cure people of wide-ranging stuff that confounds the mainstream, wrote the books he said because the history of medicine is no longer taught in medical school. There are the usual suspects ““ Harvey, Hippocrates, Pasteur, etc. ““ many I had never heard of, but good innovative, out-of-the-box thinkers all.
I’m saddened by Dhogaza’s dismissal of Xenophon’s concerns as intellectual bug bites, of Arthur Smith’s appeal to group authority: “…any sincere skeptic (A) starts to understand the weight of the body of science involved, and (B) quickly realizes the scope of conspiracy that would be required for the IPCC to be largely wrong. The analysis of “convinced” vs “unconvinced” experts in the recent PNAS study shows that the body of “unconvinced” is exceedingly small ““ and at least one such identified protested that he had been classified as “unconvinced” rather than “convinced”, making the actual body of “unconvinced”, skeptical experts, even smaller.”
Another way, Arthur Smith might state it: Roll over, stop thinking, take your shot, accept the inevitable: pre-chewed thoughts and scientific positions.
In the past, good science has rarely been done by consensus. It is unimpressive that the supposed most compelling arguments offered to scientifically concerned skeptics are merely that The Group all thinks this way. For me, it says volumes about the quality of the intellect within this community itself.
…Lady in Red
“the Climate Skeptic accepts that some things ought to be done, urgently and with full force of national and public will, even-though and even-while he nurses doubts”
And this is the giveaway… The skeptic plays along – takes our word for it. The denier, not so much. So “denier” is an ad-hom tossed at people who oppose certain other peoples pet social policies.
But, pretty much everybody knew that already, I’m thinking.
Dhogaza
How nice of you to try to set moral standards for *other people*. It is very helpful that you are offering your services to decide for all, what ‘honesty’ is and and who is telling ‘lies’.
Not only can we quote (mine) Trenberth about the ‘travesty’ – out of context, in context – however it is that you wish to characterize it, we can now cite Trenberth for it.
Tracking Earth’s Energy.
10.1126/science.1187272
Let me see – who disagrees with the above Trenberth paper? Pielke Sr. And how did they resolve their differences? By agreeing for ‘more measurements’. I think you should go and ‘call out’ on Pielke Sr.
Ken Miles (#199) writes “Mikep, if you have knowledge and skill set to make this claim credibly, then you have the knowledge and skill set to write some peer reviewed publications that do it right.”
Recognizing error in a piece of technical work can be far easier than originating a comparably ambitious piece of work. I myself have successfully spotted (and apparently been the first to report) an error which invalidated a published proof in computational complexity. (And not just a typo: it was a small but fundamental mistake, somewhat comparable to mikep’s point about comparing against the wrong cross-correlation, so that when later a valid proof was published, it required some new insight.) Quite possibly I’m insufficiently smart and insufficiently knowledgeable in that area to construct a publishable proof in computational complexity. Certainly I’ve never spent the hundreds of hours that often go into hunting for such a proof. That didn’t stop me from spotting the error during my dozens of hours of studying.
Also, it is fairly common (e.g., when overfitting historical data as mikep mentioned) that no one in the world can possibly do valid work which is nearly as triumphantly successful as the optimist/flake/charlatan/whatever claims his work to be. Therefore, it is an extremely bad idea to require critics to produce work as ambitious as the work they criticize: that way lies madness like “Astute, if you have knowledge and skill set to make this criticism credibly, then you have the knowledge and skill set to make an energy source as cheap and powerful as the cold fusion research you are criticizing. This way, you will have made an actual contribution to humanity…”
Ken (#196): Thanks for that.
The article is obviously US-centric and accordingly there is a gradual divergence from my own self-assessment. While I can track that and easily make sense of it (even though assertions of sceptic perspective become progressively alien), ultimately the sceptic described in the piece does not relate to me. But I exist and am not alone. So one must conclude that the piece does not cover all sceptics, their political persuasions or their path to sceptical enlightenment. And it notably also does not cover those sceptics who come to the debate specifically because they regard the distinction between science and politics as important as the separation of church and state (the engine of my own scepticism)
And most of all, I disagree with the sentiment expressed in this:
there is one more thing our Climate Skeptic has to admit, if she truly is honest and ready to start peppering the experts with questions. She needs to acknowledge that atmospheric scientists are human. Having tried for 20 years to use logic, reason and data to deal with a screeching, offensive and nasty Denier movement, these human beings are exhausted.
The inference is that the statistical errors, the concealment of data, the obfuscation in the resistance fight against replication and independent verification/falsification, are all the inevitable result of scientists just being human.
This is a defence I hear an awful lot out of climate scientists, usually it seems as a last line of defence, and I’m afraid it simply does not cut it with either Joe Sixpack, BSc. OR EVEN Joe Public, BA. Why I feel I need to draw an analogy is yet another reason why this notion is preposterous, but here we go anyway:
I get my tyre changed at Kwik Fit and half-way down the road that wheel falls off. Do I need to be a mechanic to know that something is wrong? Should I have expected this to happen? Do I recognise that human error played a part? Should there be a reasonable expectation on my part that a process ought to be in place to prevent this happening? [and, for those celebrating scientists’ vindications] What should be my reaction if Kwik Fit, having assessed that I had a wheel changed and it fell off 100 yards later, determined that the mechanic was not at fault, had followed procedures correctly (and was in fact a distinguished mechanic), and that Kwik Fit’s QA processes were fit for purpose? Or, perhaps no less pertinently, what should be my reaction if, on assessment, Kwik Fit further determined I had been mistaken and that my wheel had not in fact fallen off?
Please feel free to give a probablistic assessment of my returning to Kwik Fit for future car maintenance.
Some reactions. While i haven’t read the article behind paywall, i think i have a sense of it from the excerpts. Brin seems to codify the image of skeptics/deniers that the IPCC types have. By doing this, something important is missed.
Yes people with expertise in the field who live and breathe this stuff constantly have developed a “sixth sense” mental model of how all this works, and they have much better intuition of where the knowledge frontier lies and hence can do original research (reduce uncertainty). This is Michael Tobis point, I think.
But the mainstream climate scientists have some blind spots: statistical analysis, logics of simulation modelling and experimental design, and the overall logic of the argument and how to reason about uncertainty (JohnB’s point). Others outside the climate field with expertise in these areas are unconvinced by the parts of the argument where flaws in reasoning may make a big difference in the overall conclusions, so they remain unconvinced. The true skeptics are best characterized as uncertainty detectives, those willing to do work to point out and clarify the issues (e.g. McIntyre) rather than those who just say they “aren’t convinced.” So there is an active vs passive skeptic, perhaps this is a useful distinction.
The denier label should be reserved for anti science people. And this label should not be used lightly. And if somebody is looking at evidence, and prepared to consider evidence, no matter what the mistakes in their arguments, they should not be considered anti science IMO.
William, clearly I haven’t explained myself very well if you think that “if you have knowledge and skill set to make this criticism credibly, then you have the knowledge and skill set to make an energy source as cheap and powerful as the cold fusion research you are criticizing” is what I’m saying.
Mikep has specifically claimed that the current D&A studies are weak and that there are better techniques that have grown out of a field (economics) that he is an expert in. Because I’m a nice guy, I’m happy to take it as a given that Mikep knows enough about both D&A studies in both climate and economics to not just making assertions that he has no idea about. If he is familar with the existing techniques and better techniques, then he is in an excellent place to use these techniques.
To use your cold fusion example, Mikep isn’t claiming that it is wrong*, but rather that economists (of which he is one) can do it better. To which, my point is simple: show, don’t assert.
* The climate skeptics could learn something from the scientific community re cold fusion. Rather than a barrage of misrepresentation, the scientists published a variety of papers discussion both experiments and theory which killed cold fusion dead.
Hi SimonH,
I guess that one of the themes of the article is that not all skeptics are skeptics. Even if they think that they are.
Because I’m far more interested in the science rather than policy, given the large number of peusdoscientific beliefs that revertabrate around the world, I have a hard time taking seriously anything that the mythical Joe Sixpack thinks.
I think that we percerive the state of the science different. To use your analogue, I have a vision of some guy standing by a car with all four tires in place complaining that they aren’t there. To which the best response is to slowly walk away.
The inference is that the statistical errors, the concealment of data, the obfuscation in the resistance fight against replication and independent verification/falsification, are all the inevitable result of scientists just being human.
Sorry, I should have quoted more. Your inference is incorrect. Rather, the point is that is the real skeptic shouldn’t be put off if they are initally given a poor response. They have been preceded by a long line of complete jokes. It would take a Gandhi to initally assume that the next in line is acting in good faith.
Anyone want to actually read the article?
KK, did you invite Dr. Brin here?
All: Google a few phrases from the excerpts that begin this thread and you’ll find:
http://www.davidbrin.com/climate2.htm
“… This is when the honest Climate Skeptic recites what I suggested earlier.
As I said earlier, when I meet a conservative AGW skeptic who says all that (and I have), I am all kisses and flowers. And so will be all the atmospheric scientists I know. That kind of statement is logical, patriotic and worthy of respect. It deserves eye-to-eye answers.
But alas, such genuine “skeptics” are rare.
… Have I wasted my time, here? Because, while the species of sincere, conservative-but-rational AGW Skeptics does exist (I know several, and kind-of qualify as one, myself), they turn out to be rare. For the most part, those calling themselves “climate skeptics” are nothing but fully-imbibed Denialists, who wallow in anecdotes and faux-partyline talking points, participating in something that is far more insidious and devastating to our civilization than mere Energy Company Propaganda.
As I have suggested elsewhere, the real purpose of it all may be to undermine the very notion of expertise in our civilization, leaving no strong force to challenge any ruling elite. But whatever the underlying purpose, one result is clear: Tens of thousands of Denialists egotistically assume that their fact-poor, pre-spun, group-rage opinion entitles them to howl “corrupt fools!” at the men and women who have actually studied and are confronting this important topic….”
—————-
I’ve been recommending Brin’s writing online for years in climate discussions. I wish people would actually read_what_he_wrote instead of just retyping their old familiar talking points.
He makes you think, if you give him the chance. Recommended.
I just found something interesting in the wikipedia, on the pragmatic theory of truth (about 40% down the article), that is is relevant to our discussion:
“In 1877[55], Charles Sanders Peirce (pronounced /ˈpÉœrs/ purse) (1839″“1914) characterized inquiry in general not as the pursuit of truth per se but as the struggle to move from irritating, inhibitory doubts born of surprises, disagreements, and the like, and to reach a secure belief, belief being that on which one is prepared to act. He framed scientific inquiry as part of a broader spectrum and as spurred, like inquiry generally, by actual doubt, not mere verbal doubt (such as hyperbolic doubt), which he held to be fruitless. He outlined four methods of settling opinion, ordered from least to most successful:
The method of tenacity (sticking with one’s initial belief) “” which leads to trying to ignore contrary information and others’ views as if truth were intrinsically private, not public.
The method of authority “” which overcomes disagreements but sometimes brutally.
The method of congruity or the a priori or the dilettante or “what is agreeable to reason” “” which promotes conformity less brutally but depends on taste and fashion in paraidgms, fosters barren disputation and, like the first two methods, fails to advance knowledge.
The scientific method “” the method wherein inquiry regards itself as fallible and actually tests itself and criticizes, corrects, and improves itself.
Peirce held that slow, stumbling rationcination can be dangerously inferior to instinct, tradition, and sentiment in practical matters, and that the scientific method is best suited to theoretical research, which in turn should not be trammeled by the other methods and practical ends; reason’s “first rule” is that, in order to learn, one must desire to learn and, as a corollary, must not block the way of inquiry. The scientific method excels the others by being deliberately designed to arrive “” eventually “” at the most secure beliefs, upon which the most successful practices can be based. Starting from the idea that people seek not truth per se but instead to subdue irritating, inhibitory doubt, Peirce showed how such doubt can lead some to submit to truth and seek truth as simply that opinion which would lead consequent practice to its goal and not astray.”
Published text available for download here:
http://www.amazon.com/Climate-skeptics-climate-deniers-Cover/dp/B003SAIMKO
“This digital document is an article from Skeptic (Altadena, CA), published by Skeptics Society & Skeptic Magazine on March 22, 2010. The length of the article is 4144 words. ..”
(someone with a word-count tool might want to compare the text from Dr. Brin’s website linked above to the “4144 words” number and see how close they may be, or perhaps he’ll come tell us what’s different about the two texts)
Hank,
Thank you for proving my point (long quote in 209).
The denier/skeptic distinction has nothing at all to do with science. Simply name calling at those who disagree with a pet social policy.
And a further PS for KK — seriously, do you believe what you wrote above, that people who continue to smoke do so “because” they don’t believe the science about the health risks? That’s a sound bite from the paid PR that the industry has disavowed. The industry knew for decades the critical age range for addiction: only children are easily hooked by tobacco; child smokers sustained their market base.
If you believe addiction is simply a moral failure of will, you just don’t believe the science about the health effects. Hmmmm.
http://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/icsh/meetings/summary120808/youth/index.htm
Hank, the article that you cited seems to be virtually identical to the published one (at least at a quick glance). The only exception seems to be the very end where the last section and last sentence of the second to last section have been omitted.
Ken Miles writes (#207) “Mikep has specifically claimed that the current D&A studies are weak and that there are better techniques that have grown out of a field (economics) that he is an expert in.”
I suggest you go back and read it again. That may be what you honestly believe his position to be, but your paraphrase “better techniques” strengthens his claim in a way that he might wish to avoid. Further, your choice of phrase “specifically claims,” like dhogaza’s choice of “on record” (#107) and Michael Tobis’ choice to emphasize “MUST” by capitalizing it (#112), is a choice to particularly emphasize some aspect of your opponent’s position, and it seems to me that having chosen to emphasize it, you should be particularly careful in your paraphrase of it.
As an example of an ambiguity in what mikep wrote that disappeared in your paraphrase, mikep might support the (fairly common) criticism that Mann showed poor judgment in avoiding a family of well-established statistical techniques in favor of concocting a novel twist on PCA. If I were criticizing an experimental apparatus which used a jar of peanut butter where ordinarily people would expect an off-the-shelf resistor, I might write “there have been huge advances in off-the-shelf electronic components since 1780, which researchers in doofus science seem rather unfamiliar with.” That certainly wouldn’t mean that I had “specifically claimed” that off the shelf resistors were better. My remark could be entirely justified even if peanut butter ultimately turned out to be just as good or even better for the purposes of that particular circuit, but nonetheless the uncertainties introduced by the choice of peanut butter instead of a standard resistor deserved more justification than the researcher had given and more careful calibration than the researcher had done.
http://tobaccocontrol.bmj.com/content/11/suppl_1/i5.full.pdf
Hello Hank
Two quick questions, if you will:
Do you believe that smoking cigarettes is a bad thing?
Do you think that refusing to smoke could be due to a failure of the will?
Judith (#206): Your “active vs passive” sceptic distinction is useful. McIntyre is obviously an “active” sceptic, at least regarding statistical analysis and procedural integrity. I’m a passive sceptic (as you could easily determine from reading my posts here, which are mostly just running commentary and occasionally hyperbolic observation) and my role is to disseminate the active sceptics’ work and impart its summaries and conclusions to a less interested, less informed public base. A base with a vote to go with their opinion, no less.
We passives take the discussion on as debaters before our friends in pubs, and we beat our (rapidly diminishing crowd of) CAGW friends over the head with our reasoned and logical précis of the issues of climate and the issues of uncertainty in climate science, the breaches of scientific method and the fundamental flaws in hypotheses like, for example, CAGW by doubling atmospheric CO2. We resolve the popular urban myths of impending polar bear extinction, explain (in the simplest, most digestible ways) what “hide the decline” really means (and who did it, and why it’s so important) and perhaps most importantly, we address – as only friends can – the internal dilemma facing our deeply well meaning friends who, through honourable reasons of virtuous intent, have embraced the political “tenets” of the IPCC calling for immediate action.
These friends, who almost invariably are modern-thinking and determinedly secular, having rejected such things as religion in deference to Dawkins, faith in deference to scientific proof, are at first unfamiliar with the concept of uncertainty in science (highschool never actually touched on uncertainty) and are eyes-wide and mortified when presented with evidence of this and of scientific advocacy pervading climate sciences and of the post-normal nature of climatology. We address their cognitive dissonance, we walk them through the process and into the light. Their sense of betrayal – their realisations at having been duped by the politicians with the help of the climate science establishment- is absolutely palpable.
So yes, in the climate debate we are passive observers. But in the gap between the science and the policy, we’re anything but pacifists. Never underestimate the ability of viral communication as a vehicle to greater understanding.
Shub, I believe you (and KK) should rely on the published science, including the papers that document the industry’s lying PR tactics, rather than trust them to be telling you the truth. Look it up.
PS, Shub, you should in fact read the David Brin article; thanks to Ken Miles for comparing the online to the magazine version.
Brin writes there:
————–
THE TOBACCO CONNECTION
While looking at this aspect of things, consider some eerie parallels in methodology with the Great Big War over Tobacco. Some of the very same consulting groups who formulated Big Tobacco’s “deny, delay, and obfuscate” strategy – providing that industry with nearly four decades in which to adjust to growing societal awareness of its problems — are working on the Climate and Energy Denial Front today, with precisely the same agenda. As one analyst recently put it:
This parallel with Big Tobacco is creepy in the short term, but in the longer view it actually gets puzzling. Because in the end, the tobacco industry faced severe public ire and prodigious liability judgments as punishment for these very tactics. Judgments that they escaped only through fast-footed political maneuvering.
———
News — since Brin wrote the above — Tobacco did indeed escape penalties, thanks to the Supreme Court:
http://www.google.com/search?q=tobacco+“supreme+court”
That will let Coal and Oil relax their denial campaign, admit they’ve been lying, and “move on” — the wrist-slap now has precedent as the appropriate penalty for such corporate malfeasance, and the market has boosted their stocks since.
William, I have deliberately focused on just one of Mikep’s claims because I have found in the past that it is better to resolve one issue rather than not resolve many issues. Indeed, a cynical person may suggest that by bouncing around arguments, one may never actually have to defend their position. As I’ve been talking about the improvement that modern economics can make to detection and attribution studies, I don’t that getting into Mann’s PCA technique to be that relevant.
To quote his claim:
the Detection and Attribution studies seemed very weak evidence ““ economists have. alas, long experience of models that fit the past well but whose predictions break down on new data. Moreover there have been huge advances in modelling economic time series as a result, which climate scientists seem rather unfamiliar with.
From this, I really struggle to see how I have mischaracterised his claims. As far as I can see, he does claim that the current D&A studies are weak and that economics (of which he is a practitioner of) has models that do a better job. Climate scientists are apparently unaware of these advances.
However, if you feel that my term “better techniques” overstates his case, feel free to use his term “huge advances”.
If you have a moral objection to smoking, the industry tactics that you speak of, will appear objectionable.
You cannot criticize the tobacco industry effectively without being sympathetic to its cause.
You assume I haven’t looked it up – I have. Whether tobacco companies follow ‘lying tactics’ or any other type of tactics is a matter of judgement, not science. Whether targeting teenagers with advertisements is acceptable or not, is a moral standard.
Every cause (anti-smoking, CAGW) aggrandizes and accretes all available evidence around its center of gravity, around its noble cause. The tobacco industry may succumb to the moral fashion of the day and declare that it does not target teenagers, when it actually does.
What pressures exist on distant observers to accept the same moral pressures about AGW? None. The paradigm of CAGW is as much about setting moral boundaries for acceptable behaviour as it is about vast masses of citizens accepting its scientific ‘tenets’.
Ken (#208): “Your inference is incorrect. Rather, the point is that is the real skeptic shouldn’t be put off if they are initally given a poor response. They have been preceded by a long line of complete jokes. It would take a Gandhi to initally assume that the next in line is acting in good faith.”
I’m afraid the chronology just simply doesn’t fit with your assessment, unless you assert that it is an offence for a citizen scientist ask for help from him, to question a climate scientist’s work.
Another protestation of beleaguered scientists under siege is the “barrage” of FOI requests to the CRU for data. Purposeful resistance and obfuscation by Jones long-precedes the 60 or so requests, mid 2009, and I concur with the ICO’s assessment that, with five whole years given to prepare for FOI enactment in the UK, those 60+ requests should not have presented a challenge. Jones continues, today, to obfuscate – presumably for the purpose of preventing replication, unless you can think of a different reason? Seriously, I ask how long you think it will be before we will see an end to being “initally given a poor response”?
I think that we percerive the state of the science different. To use your analogue, I have a vision of some guy standing by a car with all four tires in place complaining that they aren’t there. To which the best response is to slowly walk away.
I suspect you’re correct, that we do indeed perceive the state of the science differently. I regard climate science as “hard” science’s poor relation, dogged by flaws in hypotheses masked by the use of projections in place of experimentation, marred by ideological advocacy, grossly undermined by transgressions from the time-tested scientific method and appended peer review process.
I feel my (I’ll concede grossly oversimplified) analogy is valid, but if you feel you need an expanded version with more granular explanations of the parallels between the analogy and main players in the climate science establishment, I’ll happily provide.
It’s pretty funny to read Revkin’s response to Michael’s notion of camps, which Michael also posted at his blog.
see: http://initforthegold.blogspot.com/2010/07/ten-camps.html
Revkin was specifically categorized here: “IIIb – The mainstream press, which have grossly misidentified IPCC-like consensus and skepticism as the two wings of the scientific debate. Believe in informing the public but accidentally misinform them. Keith and Andy Revkin are exemplary.”
Revkin’s response begins:
Your reading of my work as neutral on the question of anthropogenic climate change — and the need for a big response http://j.mp/eQuest — is so divorced from reality that it’s hard to believe you read anything I write, or have written, in covering this issue since the mid 1980s.
and ends with a comment on the back of a napkin cartoon graph Michael drew and often tries to awe us with:
As I mentioned in a reply to a Dot Earth comment, your graph of science and media has some substantial flaws, as well (particularly your assertion that the most concerned scientists don’t get media attention; Jim Hansen certainly hasn’t lacked for coverage, for instance).
Have a great weekend.
I’d add that I think most of Michael’s categorizations here as well as many of the rather ideosyncratic philosophical ideas he posts at his blog are divorced from reality. In his categorization of skeptics above, he complain that some focus on statistics. This is rather odd as statistics provide a a formalism to a notion that forms the backbone of science: Empiricism. That is: scientific theories must be tested against data. Statistics happens to be a useful tool when testing.
Though he focuses on the word “statistics here, my impression is Michael rhetoric serves to denigrate the importance of empiricism in science. I think his apparently great reluctance to test both his philosophical and scientific notions against observed realty, and worse, his tendency to criticize those who insist that scientific theories large and small ultimately square with obseravations may be Micheal’s greatest weaknesses both as an actual scientist and as a person who wishes to persuade others with even a modicum of scientific training.
That these weakness of Michael’s come to the fore at his blog and in comments here may well be one of the reasons that he will probably never be able to put together a persuasive argument to change the mind of anyone who believes in the scientific method.
Simon, a key issue in skepticism is related to the overall logic of the narrative; in this regard, the armchair skeptics that discuss these issues have much to offer in terms of a target for our narrative and in poking holes in it.
Ken Miles wrote:
> I haven’t had the pleasure of meeting any of the climate
> skeptics as defined by Brin’s article. Rather I’ve only dealt
> with climate deniers (as per the articles list of criteria).
There’s the problem–finding skeptics. I don’t know that Brin has found any either, though I haven’t read everything he’s posted.
When the glacier problem in the IPCC came out, it did come as a shock that WWF reports were being cited – to those outside the post-normal IPCC world – in other words, the ‘new skeptics’.
Today, the IPCC looks like it needs to withdraw or retract another one of its major passages – about the Amazon.
I am sure some of the momentum for this conclusion came from saying: – “Hey, this just doesn’t add up”.
How come no one in the climate establishment never says: “Hey, this sounds right, but it doesn’t add up”?
Ken,
You misunderstand what I meant, which may be my fault. The D&A studies are fine as far as they go. What they show is that particular combinations of assumed processes etc are capable of reproducing past temperatures. Some of these processes such as the direct effect of carbon dioxide are well understood. Some, such as cloud feedbacks are much less well understood. Some of the necessary data inputs to the models – the time pattern of particles in the atmosphere which may affect warming are not well determined. So far, so like economics. What we have found is that models built on this basis often break down when used to forecast, even though they reproduce the past wonderfully well. So my recommendation is to see how well your models predict. The new methods I am talking about are the developments in time series analysis of non-stationary series. We have realised that much of the pre 1970 statistical analysis assumed that the data came from series which were stationary, which few economic time series are. Using methods developed for stationary series on non-stationary series can get things wrong bigtime. I was not trying to claim I could waltz in and do better – clearly I would need to know a lot more about climatology. I was saying that D&A evidence as described to me in IPCC reports did not seem very convincing because I had seen similar evidence in my own field evaporate.
Judith (#225): Indeed, as kind of jestingly alluded to in my comment at #179.
I’m not ideologically opposed to green policy. In regard to saving the planet, I’m on board. But the science has to be clean (or cleansed, now) and now must adopt the stringent standards that have been assumed to be in place by so many. I’ve never been opposed to environmentalism or conservation, and have (in my youth) campaigned actively for pre-corporate Greenpeace. My ideologies haven’t changed since then, but my understanding of the current state of climatology has.
Climate science at some point will have to dress itself down, and once it’s done so, you will be able to count me among the supporters of its science. But (and yes, I have a big but) I see a long road ahead and I think, with a few exceptions like yourself, it’s difficult to see it happening. Top-down, I think universities bear a great burden of responsibility for allowing the current situation to have developed; for allowing fiscal considerations to cloud scientific pursuits – magnificently caricatured by UEA’s Acton, I must say – and for not nurturing scientific principles of integrity in a fledgeling subject. Bad parenting, as I’ve described it before.
Keith, I criticized Romm in the comments on the very post that we were discussing. You have misrepresented Romm’s post. He doesn’t use guilt-by-association against Breakthrough. He links to post that proves that Breakthrough lied. It is telling that you are more upset at Romm calling out Breakthrough for their dishonesty than at Breakthrough for their deceit.
I don’t think your parody worked — your Romm doesn’t sound like him. If you are interested, here is my attempt at a parody.
Judith,
Being one of those “pub disclosers” that SimonH speaks of, I think he explains the “logic” in post#218 very well.
My concept is far simpler, the difference in thinking between the “engineering types” and the “researcher types”. “Armchair skeptics” is a term or label that is not necessary. A researcher is NOT expected to be as precise as an engineer. Xenophon expresses these concepts very well. Working in the a world of ISO and other standardizations, an “engineer type” will always be the “skeptic type”, since it usually is a formal respect for the “engineer type” to “make it work”.
btw – Thank you for taking time out to discuss this. I was overly harsh “way back when” you did your pilot introduction (WUWT). I hope you understand why.
Ken Miles, I don’t know nearly enough either about current D&A studies or about the kind of time series modelling techniques that mikep is likely to be referring to to argue about them in detail. And I don’t particularly want to argue about technical statistical questions here, just about the narrower question of misunderstanding.
I shouldn’t’ve chosen Mann as an example: if I had read #195 more carefully I’d’ve noticed that mikep seemed to be referring to more recent studies than that. (And of course in your paraphrase you made it sharper by making him specifically refer to current studies.) But it was only a hypothetical example to illustrate a possible ambiguity, and I don’t think choosing Mann as a detail particularly obscured the illustrative point. The same ambiguity is illustrated if you replace Mann with a hypothetical current D&A study using a peculiar statistical procedure with insufficient justification or analysis.
In #207, you write “To use your cold fusion example, mikep isn’t claiming that it is wrong*, but rather that economists (of which he is one) can do it better.”
Within that one sentence it’s unclear whether your “do it better” means “construct ambitious models better” or “identify bogus ambitious models better” or what. (And there is a similar ambiguity with your later “do a better job.”) But in the context of dismissing my analogy to cold fusion, it seems that you must mean specifically “construct ambitious models better.” Conversely, from #195 it seems to me that mikep is talking at least as much about “discard bogus models better” as about “construct ambitious models better.”
My background in statistics is mostly from Monte Carlo simulations and machine learning, so the economists’ way of looking at things is often somewhat alien to me. The computer science community has become much more sophisticated about the mathematics of overfitting in the past few decades (using concepts like minimum description length and structural risk minimization). We’ve also gotten much better at building various kinds of models, and at data compression techniques that are formally related to models. In economics, I don’t know much about how they tend to look at it mathematically. so I can’t say much about what huge advances he’d be thinking of, but I expect there are corresponding general advances, and perhaps more that are specific to time series. I also know something about the economics culture. Some fallout remains from the embarrassment of the peer-reviewed policy-controlling old guard when ambitious underverified models met reality in the 1970s. Moreover, since the 1970s economists have enjoyed decades of cheap computing, endless data mining, and expensive collision with reality to help keep them from slipping into complacency about overfitting, and they’ve lived through cases of broad politicized consensus (_Limits to Growth_, strong claims for efficiency of dirigisme) resisting prompt confirmation or falsification but eroding into clear embarrassment over a period of decades. With your emphasis on the value of constructing ambitious models (“this way, you will have made an actual contribution to humanity” forsooth) compared to the destructiveness of merely knocking down bogus models, you may tend to misunderstand mikep’s ideas until you appreciate how deeply the priorities of his culture can differ from the priorities of yours.
Ken Miles,
Thanks for posting that list of how to distinguish “skeptics” from “deniers”. Most useful. It raises the bar pretty high to be called a true skeptic. Quite a (refreshing) change from the extremeley low bar use the term has gotten in the climate change discussion.
Keith,
In that case I misunderstood what comment you were addressing. Apologies.
Bart, I’m finding that list somewhat comedic. It not only depends wholly on political ideology being the premise of extreme denialism (which it may or may not be), but also that the sceptic’s journey to “non-scepticism” is ideological. As I’ve hinted at already (#205), this is fallacious. Removing the false premise of socio-political ideology as the root cause of scepticism (rather than denialism), the purported path from denier to non-sceptic as proposed in this piece is rubbished.
I fully appreciate your desire to embrace this self-satisfying piece as a definitive guide through the spectrum of scepticism, but I suggest that this desire itself speaks more to your own personal ideology – that you only see sceptics and climate scientist AS ideologically differentiated – than it actually speaks of the sceptics of the real world. This, yet again, is a red flag to sceptics like me, who regard this permeation into science of personal ideologies as a scientific cancer.
Judith Curry,
In another thread, you claimed;
“2M strong WUWT army”
Am I right to assume that 2M means 2 million? Where do you get this figure from?
Hank (#209):
Perhaps you haven’t read through the whole thread. Please see here.
Tim (230):
Not sure where in the comments you criticized Romm. But in any event, let me be clearer: I was referring to your blog, which has a sizable audience and is apparently read by Romm. You’re not shy about criticizing media missteps or skeptics, which is totally fine; why not apply similar standards to excesses of those in your own tribe, such as Romm?
I would like to go back to my post #210 and make the following point. Here is an alternative ranking of skeptic vs denier, in the context of an actual theory of knowledge:
He outlined four methods of settling opinion, ordered from least to most successful:
1. The method of tenacity (sticking with one’s initial belief) “” which leads to trying to ignore contrary information and others’ views as if truth were intrinsically private, not public.
2. The method of authority “” which overcomes disagreements but sometimes brutally.
3. The method of congruity or the a priori or the dilettante or “what is agreeable to reason” “” which promotes conformity less brutally but depends on taste and fashion in paraidgms, fosters barren disputation and, like the first two methods, fails to advance knowledge.
4. The scientific method “” the method wherein inquiry regards itself as fallible and actually tests itself and criticizes, corrects, and improves itself.
#1 is clearly denial and anti-science.
#4 defines science, and it includes testing and criticizing (arguably skepticism).
#2 is the appeal to authority. According to Brin’s classification, all good skeptics accept authority of the experts. Well, this is only one step away from anti-science, much further away from science than is questioning and criticizing.
And then we have to ask, who is the authority? With regards to the statistical issues that were at the heart of the hockey wars (centered PCA, the R2 statistic), who is the expert we should listen to? Mann because he is a climate expert, or Wegmann, Joliffe (and yes, McIntyre) because of their statistical expertise? So the appeal to authority rests on making a choice as to which authority you appeal to.
The whole point of skepticism is that you are challenging the dominant establishment view. It has nothing to do with accepting the authority of a particular group of self proclaimed experts.
#185 Dhogaza
“”If Kevin Trenberth says “it is a travesty we cannot account for the missing heat” in the emails and writes a Science magazine article about it ““ that is genuine skepticism.”
No, it’s not skepticism.
Trenberth himself has said so, repeatedly.”
—
I respectfully disagree and this is one of my favorite insights revealed by Climategate. I’m a bit of a traditionalist and expects scientists to do the hypothesis, experiment, observation, validation, conclusion, publication thing. Often that’s not a simple linear process leading to an absolute conclusion but can be subject to refinement post publication.
It’s also a great context-sensitive quote for testing degrees of belief/acceptance, or scepticism.
Despite the fairly strong wording, a believer may think it’s been taken out of context, nothing to see here, so move right along.
A denialist may think it’s evidence that we don’t know what’s going on and it’s all a conspiracy.
The media may think ‘whatever’ and publish the latest press release from a lobby group telling us we need to decarbonise now for reason of their profit projections or personal beliefs.
A sceptic, or scientist may think Trenberth makes some good points and is acting as a scientist should. There’s a hypothesis about how AGW theory should be affecting the atmosphere. There are model simulations to test that hypothesis. There is observation data that diverges from the model output. So understanding the missing heat is something worthy of understanding and explaining, hence Pielke Snr and Trenberth’s debate. As a sceptical spectator, that’s educational to observe.
Where I think climate science has a problem is in it’s use of PR, presentation tricks and appeals to authority. Nothing to see here, move on with the mitigation spending please. That isn’t helped by ‘tricks’ as used in Sherwood 2008, as discussed by the great JoNova here:
http://joannenova.com.au/2010/07/sherwood-2008-where-you-can-find-a-hot-spot-at-zero-degrees/
“With poor resolution and a carefully chosen color scale the top graphs give the glancing impression that models aren’t doing too badly. But the color scale above is not just counter intuitive, it actively prevents anyone from comparing the trend in the upper troposphere with the surface. Any warming trend at all is “red”. Trend information is lost within the graph.”
Why was this scale and colour scheme chosen? Like the ‘nature trick’, it’s a crude presentation gimick that misleads or hides information rather than presenting it simply or clearly. Why do climate scientists feel this is necessary given it does nothing to reduce science based scepticism, or may actually encourage it to increase?
SimonH #234 brings up a critical observation that the warmers will almost certainly ignore.
From the Yale study on post-Climategate opinion:
Egalitarians are predisposed to perceive climate change as a serious risk and
to support a variety of policies to address it. Individualists, however, are predisposed to perceive
climate change as a nonexistent or low risk and to generally oppose climate specific policies,
especially those that involve [excessive]government action.
So, worldview and political ideology has the same influence on those who ascribe (or is it subscribe? never sure of this particular grammar rule) to the tenets of ACC . For example, the disturbing revelations in the Climategate emails is immediately dismissed with ridiculously anti-scientific excuses. When skeptics beg for something so fundamental as an independent audit, they easily dismiss the need, then conduct a cursory self-audit and remained baffled why this isn’t sufficient. They actually buy into the notion that unlawfully withholding information is justified just to keep it out of “the wrong hands.”
This is the same crowd that seized upon a national tragedy for ruthless political gain. Hurricane Katrina was shamelessly exploited as proof of CAGW , as well as, a golden opportunity to humiliate President Bush. No wonder why they attempt to blame the cold winter for creating climate change doubt considering the influence Katrina had.
Perhaps the remainder of the scientifically convinced of CAGW should do all they can to separate themselves from the ideological alarmists and stealth advocates. Instead, we have RC advocating AG’s pseudo-science flick, AIT. When the IPCC seamlessly presents NGO activist propaganda as robust science, the lines are blurred. The consensus of climate experts stand behind mickey-mouse report tarnish credibility. The NAS publishes what amounts to a beauty contest using Google searches for criteria. Only a few disavow themselves from this trite soft science.
One of the most telling traits to distinguish ideological proponents from the scientifically convinced is demonstrated by declaring the “science is settled. Surprisingly, when Phil Jones candidly admitted that the science is not settled and admitted what he wrote in the emails was awful, it spoke volumes about his credibility. Too bad it may have been a little too late.
We have one climate scientist who understands, Judith Curry. She boldly distances herself from the political corruption that has contaminated the entire field of climate science.
Andy Revkin has a related post and thread over at Dot Earth. This comment by Mike Roddy caught my eye, of which I think this passage is relevant to this thread (my emphasis):
Meanwhile, based on your own statements…you are essentially convinced of the reality of human emission caused warming, and of its potential to do great harm. However, if you believed this with any conviction, this would drive you to treat the whole swarm of skeptics with disdain, and to consider the evidence more than adequate to drive the need for very serious action from our political leadership.
Roddy considers himself a “truthteller” the say way Michael Tobis et al do. So if myself or Revkin or other journalists show any inclination to discuss aspects of climate science or climate policy in shades of gray, then that is taken as de facto proof that we are not “truth-tellers” or possessed of the requisite “conviction” on the climate change issue. A variation of this is the disinformer-delayer label that Joe Romm is fond of.
Now, what Roddy is essentially saying above (and which Tobis and Romm often echo in their own style) is that every news article or blog post should leave the impression that AGW will have castastrophic consequences for humanity if it not treated with the utmost urgency by policymakers.
In this vein, such discussions of climate sensitivity, of scientific uncertainties, of the merits of including scientifically-inclined skeptics in the debate–all these things are treated like poison pills by the Roddy’s, Romms, and Tobis’s. Thus, people like Andy Revkin, Judith Curry, Mike Hulme, Roger Pielke Jr. and Fred Pearce are to be mistrusted and disparaged, because what they sometimes say or write detracts from this urgent “truthteller” narrative that Roddy and Romm and Tobis are trying to enforce.
So when Roddy tells Revkin he should be treating the “whole swarm of skeptics with disdain,” well, that’s not much different from Michael Tobis asserting that I’m “offering advice to the opposition” when I try to distinguish who’s who in this “swarm.”
Anyone following U.S. politics knows that these kinds of purity tests have become a hallmark of the modern day Republican party, to such an extent that nearly all the moderate or dissenting Republican voices have been extinguished.
It’s incredible to me that so-called liberals (I’m assuming that Romm, Roddy and Tobis would consider themselves liberal democrats) are applying similar litmus tests for the climate change debate.
KK
There are many shades of gray in the republican party; the tea party movement threatens to split the party, according to some. It is all too easy to paint with a broad brush,
Put simply: pot, kettle, black.
Keith (#240): “It’s incredible to me that so-called liberals (I’m assuming that Romm, Roddy and Tobis would consider themselves liberal democrats) are applying similar litmus tests for the climate change debate.”
I would agree, Keith, but one has to recognise that in matters of ideology, the ends invariably justify the means. Having observed the blistering effectiveness of this in the Republican Party, I suspect the temptation to imitate and apply to climate scepticism is more than can be borne by some.
“In this vein, such discussions of climate sensitivity, of scientific uncertainties, of the merits of including scientifically-inclined skeptics in the debate”“all these things are treated like poison pills by the Roddy’s, Romms, and Tobis’s.”
This a situation where ideological advocacy takes precedence over the science (which, one is expected to believe, they’ll fix later, they’re all just technical niggles, promise..). It is required that we act immediately, without stopping to think. Stopping to think jeopardises the mission. And it is the mission that is the important, nothing else, least of all the credibility of the science. The end justifies the means, remember.
Sure, call me cynical.
kdk33:
Really? The party that has molded itself in Rush Limbaugh’s image? I’d like to hear from David Frum and Christopher Buckley on those shades of gray.
Kloor,
Want to hear something funny beyond words. Just over at Youtube – type “Bill Hicks Rush Limbaugh” in the search box.
Be warned. * Not* for the faint of heart at all.
[You can delete this post if you like]. This is just FYI – because not many know Bill Hicks.
A quick google search: there are about 55 million registered republicans, and that’s about 1/3 of registered voters. To deny that there are shades of gray is rather foolish – I think you know better.
I enjoy your site.
kdk33:
I just assumed you knew I was talking about the composition of the Republican party in the House and Senate. Not Republican voters.
Judith Curry (#210) – theory of knowledge is very much what this whole discussion is all about, so good of you to bring up Peirce. I’ve also recently been reading Polanyi (“Personal Knowledge”) which I’m finding very enlightening, but I feel I haven’t absorbed enough to talk much about it yet.
The reason why Brin argues that skeptics should start from a position of respect for the experts is that *that is the rational thing to do*. It does not mean he is claiming they should believe everything they say; to the contrary, as skeptics, they will likely have grave doubts on this or that point. But the starting position has to be one of humility, not an assumption of conspiracy or idiocy on the part of the experts.
I think the best perspective to understand Brin’s “skeptic” argument is the Bayesian one. When making any decision the Bayesian approach requires the rational person to weigh the various different options against their probabilities, and as they gain new knowledge to alter their probability assessments appropriately. But it also requires a rational set of “priors” – a priori probability distributions.
And a priori, the rational skeptic’s probability assessment that large fractions of climate experts are in cahoots in some big conspiracy, or just plain incompetent, should be pretty low. Anybody who thinks those things are likely, a priori, is *not* a “skeptic”.
Another quote from the Yale survey (sorry Keith, can’t read the Skeptic article).
In 2008, 71 percent of Americans said “yes,” global warming is happening. By 2010, however,
this number had dropped significantly to 57 percent.
Meaning 43% said “no,” global warming isn’t happening. That completely overshadows the percentage of the population who are flat-earthers, moon-hoaxers, YEC’s, anti-vaxxers, HIV deniers, or 9/11 truthers. The percentage of smokers or registered Republican voters also can’t claim those numbers. Believing this many people deny or don’t understand the science is illogical and elitist.
A new 2010 survey of those 2500 scientists who publicly endorsed CAGW would be interesting. Doubt that will ever be done anytime soon, though.
As a registered Democrat since 1969 ( year I first voted) and as one who just this last month changed his voter registration to Republican, I will say that there is quite a bit of “gray” in both.
Will be the first time I have ever voted Republican for anything, but the dems have lost this yellow dog dem over their support for cap and trade.
Welcome, Ed! The Republican party needs to become a big-tent party!
#225 Lucia throughly misunderstands me about statistics. I don’t denigrate statistics; I have the utmost respect for people who do it well. Doing it well is difficult, as it requires a statistical representation of physical models. My concern is for people who substitute number crunching for the understanding which exists. Statistics which respects extant theory is a subtle matter. Running datasets through cookbook formulae is not.
Well, we’re 250 comments into this thread. To me, Brin (who can say almost anything he wants around me as the author of The Uplift Wars) makes some sense in his description.
It is pretty clear that in the early days of the climate wars there was a concerted effort to emulate the defense thrown up by Big Tobacco. I think the consensus team was briefed by Naomi Oreskes and they did a good job of combatting the attacks.
I think that to this day they refuse to believe that a later generation of skeptics without ties to anyone has arisen and has their own motivations, some solid gold and some less so.
As a lukewarmer, I am extremely happy to have made the acquaintance of some of these skeptics. And I admit my eyes just sort of gloss over some of the more rabid comments made by other skeptics.
I think efforts to create new categories for beliefs regarding climate change are unnecessary and will be manipulated by the consensus team–because they have attempted to manipulate every good faith effort to bridge the divide.
Those representing themselves as the voices of the scientific consensus have lost my trust. If they won’t play fair with someone as unimportant as commenters on weblogs, why on earth would we believe they would play fair with something on which so many of their jobs and reputations depend?
Group 1: Rommulans and Deltoids
Group 2: Verheggen and Curry
Group 3: Liljegren and Mosher
Group 4: Monckton and Morano
If you want a more elaborate grouping, tell us who doesn’t fit pretty easily in one of those groups.
Michael at #251, more than a few people here could volunteer some names of climate scientists who could have benefited from your good advice about running datasets through cookbook formulae.
Curry: But the mainstream climate scientists have some blind spots: statistical analysis, logics of simulation modelling and experimental design, and the overall logic of the argument and how to reason about uncertainty (JohnB’s point). Others outside the climate field with expertise in these areas are unconvinced by the parts of the argument where flaws in reasoning may make a big difference in the overall conclusions, so they remain unconvinced. The true skeptics are best characterized as uncertainty detectives, those willing to do work to point out and clarify the issues (e.g. McIntyre) rather than those who just say they “aren’t convinced.”
Sorry, I find this very unconvincing.
This bears strikingly little resemblance to the universe I inhabit. That Judith is unaware of scientists with the skills she mentions does not mean they do not exist. It would be a very difficult thing to demonstrate, at best, but I would simply claim it to be untrue. In fact most of the conversations I have had with mainstream climatologists fit under the rubric of one or more of the purported “blind spots”. In my experience, these are key topics for model developers, as well they should be.
As for “skeptics” of climate science who are in a position to add value and highlight important issues, it’s hard for me to come up with a useful example. Perhaps Judith might remind us of some more than marginally useful contribution in the real world from the group calling itself “skeptics” of climate science.
Michael at #254, does restoration of the MWP count?
Seriously, Michael, what would count for you? I think just the pointing out and correction of error should be of tremendous value to science, and one which skeptics have certainly tried to do.
Skeptics have successfully pointed out some things that should be of significance both to scientists and policy makers:
1. That Himalayan glaciers will not lose 80% of their mass by 2035, and when an IPCC contributor tells you thins in 2004, you should not call it voodoo science.
2. That Lamb’s (possibly hand-drawn) representation of the climate record over the past 1,000 years can be considered as an alternative to other depictions.
3. That whatever may happen in the future WRT floods and hurricanes, no signature has been detected of global warming’s effects in the historical record to date.
4. That African agriculture will face many challenges in the future, but what climate change takes away in one region will probably be given back in another.
5. That if we want to insure the survival of polar bears, we should stop shooting them.
If all the skeptics do for the next 50 years is point out mistakes, they will a) be busy and b) be making an immensely valuable contribution.
laursaurus @248:
“A new 2010 survey of those 2500 scientists who publicly endorsed CAGW would be interesting”
Actually, according to Mike Hulme, the “2500 scientists” is far from accurate. Pls. see:
http://hro001.wordpress.com/2010/06/18/honey-i-shrunk-the-consensus/
Keith “I have thus asked Michael whether this was a legitimate issue to explore in a blog post or a magazine story:”
My objection to someone in the journalist camp offering advice to skeptics of the science was that he was offering advice as to how to get the attention of the public, rather than advice as to how to effectively gain the attention and respect of the relevant scientists. These are two dramatically different issues.
The issue of engagement is a very serious one.
The scientific community at the core of this issue is relatively small and the public interest in the topic is immense. If every one of us were to awaken every morning to answer every point of explicit confusion and error we could find on the topic, I doubt that we could keep up. As for informed skepticism, that’s even harder. To answer a single informed skeptic within the context of science may take a very long time, even if that skeptic is serious, skilled and openminded. Better skeptics are in ample supply within the community; we don’t find the need to look very hard to engage in productive arguments. The upshot is that there simply aren’t enough scientists to go around. It is my belief that this task should fall to science journalists, who should be a much larger and more vigorous tribe than they are.
The issue of public attention is very different. Here, there is no need to offer advice to the “skeptics” because the attention they garner is drastically out of proportion to the value they add to the scientific debate. Indeed, a major complaint is that many people who pretend to be interested in science are only using science as a proxy to delay the policy debate. Such people hardly need advice in getting attention. The last few months have demonstrated that they already get far too much. For them to receive such advice from someone representing the journalistic community strikes me as inappropriate.
IN #256 Tom Fuller raises a list of five debating points of various import but does not raise a single point that I recognize as a meaningful question in physical climatology. Admittedly, his point 2 is related to physcial climatology, but it is devoid of logical content.
In a separate post #255 he raises “restoring the MWP”. While scientifically unimportant at least it’s arguably physical climatology. I’d like to know how it was “deposed” and how it was “restored” before I concede the point, but in any case I think it fits under “marginal”.
I have never been a defender of IPCC working group 2, and consider all the attacks on it to be irrelevant to the question of teh soundness of physical climatology. If “skeptics” have helped climate science advance in any substantive way, Tom Fuller has not identified it.
#248
43% said “no,” global warming isn’t happening.
Sadly true.
Believing this many people deny or don’t understand the science is illogical and elitist.
This makes no sense to me. Is it elitist to suggest that 43% of the public doesn’t know, say, the fundamental theorem of calculus? Would that refute the theorem? Would all of science and engineering suddenly stop working?
We’d best not take the poll.
Keith (240) I agree with so much of this post, particularly: “Now, what Roddy is essentially saying above (and which Tobis and Romm often echo in their own style) is that every news article or blog post should leave the impression that AGW will have castastrophic consequences for humanity if it not treated with the utmost urgency by policymakers.and have tried to make the same.” (See my post 18, on the Tao of Science thread.)
But let me dissent from the bit of snark you added: “Anyone following U.S. politics knows that these kinds of purity tests have become a hallmark of the modern day Republican party, to such an extent that nearly all the moderate or dissenting Republican voices have been extinguished.” At the risk of being burned at the rhetorical stake, let me suggest that your comment is accurate in part (though a caricature of the process), but that it is a good thing.
There was a time not long ago that both political parties had both conservatives and liberals. The Democrats had conservatives like Sam Nunn and the early version of Al Gore. The Republicans had liberals like Gerald Ford and Bob Michel. After the 1968 Democratic convention, the more liberal, activist, organized elements of the left assumed ever increasing control of the Democratic Party. While the Republicans continued to include liberals like George Bush (No Child Left Behind, dramatic increase in medicare, etc.) Olympia Snowe (hell most current Republican Senators for that matter) and others.
What happened in the Democratic Party in the 70s and 80s was no more a litmus test that what is occurring with the Republicans now. Those who think alike on primarily economic issues are moving their allegiances to the political party that most reflects their views. And believe it or not, this is a good thing. Look, either decisions regarding the economy should be made by a centralized group of the elite as the general rule, or they shouldn’t. It isn’t necessary to decide which “side” is right, to know that the debate will be conducted more clearly if each of the two parties actually clearly represents one side of the argument. Until fairly recently, the Republican Party, like most European “conservative” parties, was run by “me too” conservatives. That would explain why so few people really (including Republicans) really understand conservative economics.
Coming back to the topic of this thread, the core of this debate, despite the complaints on all sides to the contrary, is inherently political. To use Gavin Smith’s description of the “consensus:”
The earth is getting warmer (0.6 +/- 0.2 oC in the past century; 0.1 0.17 oC/decade over the last 30 years (see update)) [ch 2]
People are causing this [ch 12] (see update)
If GHG emissions continue, the warming will continue and indeed accelerate [ch 9]
(This will be a problem and we ought to do something about it)
Points 1, 2 and 3 are science. It is the what we ought to do about it, that comes from point 4, that has made this one of the central political issues of our time. The climate change advocates are certain about all 4, and want big government solutions to answer point 4.
Conservatives are just as concerned about the degree of change and impact, and the degree of certainty of points 1, 2 and3, as “liberal” skeptics. Discounting their (our) concerns on those issues, because their concerns are politically based, is silly. Those who think that conservatives have these concerns because of their political beliefs have it backwards. It is the climate change advocacy community that has been demanding large scale political action NOW because of their asserted consensus and certainty.
Most people never heard of climate forcings, the hockey stick, or the CRU, until they heard the UN and US Democrats telling them they had to immediately enact massive tax increases, severely restrict the use of fossil fuels (the viability of alternative energy be damned), and by the way, Enron devised this great cap and trade system…. But they’ve heard about them now, and they’ve heard about the disappearing Amazon rain forests, vanishing Himalayan glaciers, discarded or lost reams of climate data, sloppy statistical analysis, secret climate models and data… But yeah, they’re troglodytes for having their doubts…
#145 Judith Curry:
“Arthur, re the climateaudit thread. Steve’s original post was a bit short tempered, which comes from having to say and defend the same thing over and over and over again.”
(/spit-take)
“There is also the issue of his viewing that you were picking on one tree and ignoring the forest.”
(/bug-eyes + comical ‘sproing’ sound effects)
Oh, the ever-loving irony. I do hope the RealClimate mods see this.
I find that books on climate written before 1990 tend to give a much less biased read on the climate debate. This is before professional reputations stared being on the line to the extent seen today.
Writers such as Lamb, Fagan, Wigley, Ingram, Farmer, Grove are still noted in references today. Well worth reading no matter which side of the debate you fall on.
.
My problem with taking “AGW” over “aGW” at face value started when I was researching material on public policy and global warming for use in my master thesis in Public Admin in 1999.
Looking at the debate over time, and I am old enough to remember when humans were sending us into the next Ice age in the 70’s, I find the change in positions striking.
Global Warming experts first agreed that the MWP was at least as warm as today, and likely warmer. But it was then said to be just a local event, not worldwide. Computer models were produced showing a 14d F increase in temperature over the next 100 years. When it was shown that no, the MWP was a world event, the models were updated. The interesting part was that the forecast did not change even when the underlying assumptions changed. Looking into the computer models more closely, I found that the models did not take into account cloud cover, which I understand to be 95% of climate. I found it very strange that the models were giving 100 yr predictions based on less than 5% of the data, and the 5% used was very much in question.
.
Now, some of the “experts” are stating that no, the MWP was not warmer than today. This totally refutes, with little evidence, Lamb and the others in the field who did extensive work documenting the MWP. A few, but telling, items: Grain was grown in areas of Greenland where it cannot be grown today; Ice packs were much farther north in the arctic than seen today; Wine was grown in England much farther north than can be grown today; England was a major competitor with France in the wine trade; Large areas of land in England, Scotland, and parts of Europe were under cultivation in the MWP that were abandoned during the Little Ice Age and are still abandoned to farming today.
.
So what to make of the statements being made that we are in the warmest period of earth’s history in over 1000 yr?
.
In some circles, I am a “denier” because I believe Lamb over Mann. Be still my heart, however can I live with myself with such a label.
Michael (#259): “In a separate post #255 he raises “restoring the MWP”. While scientifically unimportant at least it’s arguably physical climatology. I’d like to know how it was “deposed” and how it was “restored” before I concede the point, but in any case I think it fits under “marginal”.”
Neither the MWP nor the LIA are scientifically unimportant. To better understand how the MWP was “deposed”, may I join Judith in recommending that you at the very least avail yourself of the pages of The Hockey Stick Illusion. I’m beginning to think that this should be required reading for all climate scientists. Without it, Judith’s “blind spot” observation seems irrefutable.
Keith@236, to answer your question with a question: why don’t you criticize excesses of those in your own tribe, such as Pielke Jr?
Arthur:
“And a priori, the rational skeptic’s probability assessment that large fractions of climate experts are in cahoots in some big conspiracy, or just plain incompetent, should be pretty low. Anybody who thinks those things are likely, a priori, is *not* a “skeptic”.”
Maybe the skeptics look at this with a sense of history.
Just as someone who will refuse to reason out things, or see reason when explained to is likely to say: “it’s all one big conspiracy”;
people who refuse to reason or want to take shortcuts can also say: “so you think its all one big conspiracy”;
Michael– I don’t think I misunderstand you.
Michael Tobis #254
If you are prepared to accept that full time climate researchers have special expertise, then why not accept that full time statisticians, computer scientists, etc. have special expertise?
Re your final question regarding what have the technical skeptics contributed to the science. Again, refer to my uncertainty cats classification. The technical skeptics are not uncertainty reducers (e.g. making original scientific contributions), but rather uncertainty detectives. If the climate researchers were actually to collaborate with the people who are not climate researchers but with other technical expertises, well then we would have something powerful. But tribalism is precluding this.
Tim (265):
Nice misdirection. So all these years on your blog, no rebukes whatsoever of any rhetorical excesses or outright falsehoods of climate bloggers that you are naturally aligned with? And you wonder why I call you an advocate. Even Michael Tobis, who I have been critical of on this thread, has been willing to publicly raise his eyes or occasionally blurt out criticism of climate bloggers such as Joe Romm. And I bet he’s caught flak for even doing that much. (BTW, journalists are my tribe, not political scientists.)
Michael (258):
You’re raising an objection to something that I did not do. I have argued that the public cannot distinguish between Tom Fuller’s (253) groups #3 and #4 (nicely put, Tom!). I further argue that this is to the detriment of the climate debate.
Be honest, Michael: what you object to is that I’m suggesting that groups #3 and #4 be dinstinguished in the public’s eye. You deem that unhelpful to your own mission. See again my comment (240) here.
Arthur Smith #247, I have been hoping to see some sign that somebody hanging out in the climate blogosphere is interested in the epistemology, philosophy of science, etc. surrounding climate change. Everytime I try to gently go there, my post is ignored. So I am delighted to see your interest in this! I am DEEP right now into all sorts of philosophy of science literature to try to wrap my mind around how we should be reasoning about all this. I need help and would love to discuss this with any philosophers, humanists, AI, lawyers, whatever. If you are interested in doing something on your blog, email me, and I will be there!
Michael Tobis- 258
My objection to someone in the journalist camp offering advice to skeptics of the science was that he was offering advice as to how to get the attention of the public, rather than advice as to how to effectively gain the attention and respect of the relevant scientists. These are two dramatically different issues.
I’m pretty sure you don’t understand what Keith is doing. Skeptics don’t have any trouble getting the public’s attention. I’m pretty sure Keith’s knows that and his goal is something else entirely.
Re Brin’s article (I can’t find the relevant posts that I think I am responding to). I agree that a rational starting point is the establishment knowledge base and view point. But climategate has brought to a head the issue of trust: concerns about political motives, funding motivation, group think and tribalism, etc. So why a massive conspiracy is unlikely, there has been a big loss of trust and concerns about certainty levels that are too high and alarmism on the part of WGII. So climategate seems to have brought a lot of skeptics into the skeptic fold, and they are starting from a position of distrust.
Judith:
Try reading this classic:
“Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of crowds”
First published 1841.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Extraordinary-Popular-Delusions-Madness-Crowds/dp/051788433X
No Hoax, No scam, No global conspiracy required, just human nature, repeated forever for each new generation, who look on the people in the past as fools, to be so deluded, somehow it is allways ‘different’ this time 😉
I’m talking about CAGW, not AGw or aGW
A germ of a credible idea, an interesting scientific theory, etc has a mass (in this case wwf, ect driven) delusion created out of it, against all reason, and sceptics ignored at every turn.
Truth is complicated (see the wikipedia):
“Truth can have a variety of meanings, from the state of being the case, being in accord with a particular fact or reality, being in accord with the body of real things, events, actuality, or fidelity to an original or to a standard, truth “behind” everything, the ontological truth. In archaic usage it could be fidelity, constancy or sincerity in action, character, and utterance.[1] Varioustheories and views of truth continue to be debated among scholars and philosophers. There are differing claims on such questions as what constitutes truth; what things are truthbearers capable of being true or false; how to define and identify truth; the roles that revealed and acquired knowledge play; and whether truth is subjective, relative, objective, or absolute. ”
Truthiness is easy:
1 : “truth that comes from the gut, not books” (Stephen Colbert, Comedy Central’s “The Colbert Report,” October 2005)
2 : “the quality of preferring concepts or facts one wishes to be true, rather than concepts or facts known to be true” (American Dialect Society, January 2006)
Gotta love Steven Colbert
To add to MT’s #260: the usual numbers given in cognitive classes is that modus ponens has a 90% success rate, modus tollens has 65%, and affirmative disjunction is bellow 50%. Usually, these studies involve university undergrads, so one might say that it misrepresents the whole population: you can’t be that bad a reasoner and survive all by yourself outside an alma mater, perhaps. More seriously, the reason why it is so is still unknown, as fas as I know.
These are not remote considerations. Most arguments discussed so far in this thread are not in syllogistic form. Worse, they’re not even spelled out. So the reasoning process is not at the core of what is being done here.
Michael
Be honest, Michael: what you object to is that I’m suggesting that groups #3 and #4 be dinstinguished in the public’s eye. You deem that unhelpful to your own mission. See again my comment (240) here.
I think Michael is in group 1, and he think it’s in his interest to not only make the public unable to distinguish between 3&4, but if he could, he’d make them unable to distinguish between 2,3&4.
Keith is correct that it’s in group 3s interest to be seen as distinct from 4. The difficulty is, how? There are an awful lot of Michael Tobis’s out there doing their best to try to make sure everyone thinks there is group 1 (who is “right”) and everyone else is a flat earther.
Fortunately for everyone else, Michael and many in group 1 end up spewing gooble-dy-gook often enough to ensure that many people know that, whatever they might be, they don’t want to be in the Rommulan camp!
I have experienced serious dissonance the past year wanting, generally, to believe The Climate Science Community, but fighting the reality of the information it was ignoring. I would defer to The Experts, in general, always. At the same time, for a long time now, The Community has acted like a flock of mindless sheep, moving uniformly and without reason in an identical direction. If it looks like a sheep and walks like a sheep….? why respect it as an expert?
Moreover, I hark back to Michael Tobis’s (# 112) early comment about his bias:
“…believe that there is so little evidence against the proposition of risky anthropogenic climate change that current policy inaction is clearly and grossly inappropriate…”
Thinking like this kicks me from the lukewarmer camp hard into the skeptic camp. What is he writing about?
If I shrug and say ok to AGW, what is going to be foisted upon me, the world by the scientific sheep pack, teamed with the policy meglomaniacs, I wonder? Anything reasonable? Or, not?
Subsidize exploration of alternatives, priorities for ONR, NSF grants…? Tax credits to companies?
Drill, baby, drill?
Carbon emissions taxes in the US? (Did people consume less when energy were cheaper, or is the cost just going to flatten the back of Joe Six Pack more, even, than costs today…?)
Cap and trade (which is not, I think, about controlling emissions as much as throwing a new commission bone to the likes of Goldman Sacks. They have made a new bundle off of commodity trading commissions in the past half dozen years.)
Is “action” going to be unilateral, in the US alone? What about growing emissions from China, India… Will that offset our efforts?
Is “action” rooted in an understanding of available financial resources? Is they the same, now, in our deficit-ridden world, as before? (If you have five dollars and the basement’s flooded and the kids are starving, what do you do? Even if you choose to try to fix the basement, would it do any good?) I’m struck by the extent to which The Community totally ignores Bjorn Lomborg and his appeal to the imperative of greater, more immediate needs ““ world hunger, clean water ““ completely dismissed, by The Community and its devotees in the demand for attention for this more far-off problem.
If we did commit vast resources of which we are very shy now, what if it didn’t make a difference? What if we had lots more volcanic Icelands and couldn’t touch the problem? (How much did Iceland explosion, BTW, contribute to the problem?) What if, simply, the computer models were wrong?
Like the flock mentality of The Community which agrees “the science is settled” it also agrees, apparently, upon A Solution, A Very Expensive, Unaffordable-At-Present, Solution with the same unthoughtful uniformity. What “action” I wonder was Mr. Tobis thinking was so imperative?
“¦.Lady in Red
SimonH:
If I remember correctly, Michael Tobis has said the exact same thing, some time back – that the debate on the hockey stick is unimportant (or some other word). This time – it is ‘marginal’.
At that time too, there was an effort by the various, to point out that it is important.
Now he has appended and refined that position that the entire WG2 is unimportant, attacks on it are unimportant and ‘irrelevant’ to the field of physical climatology. (Did he really say that?).
Mr Tobis, please think, just hypothetically, that the temperature anomaly rises by 3C over the next century, you know the BAU thing and the magical number ‘3’. Let us say nothing else happens – no climatic ‘impacts’ occur (as these are not a part of physical climatology – per argument). Do you think anybody would care?
So, what is it? Climate ‘impacts’ are unimportant, and therefore the attacks on WG2? Or that climate ‘impacts’, as laid out in WG2, are important, but somehow attacks on it are not important?
For if you believe in the second option, you cannot say that the attacks are not ‘important’.
The field of physical climatology consists of quantitative science performed on ‘physical-geologic-biosphere’ entities, the very same entities in which the ‘impacts’ occur. It is a well-known conundrum in climate science that the measurements show impressive changes but real-world changes that actually have any ‘impact’ are hard to detect/measure or outright bogus.
If the state of the science in WG2 bothers you and makes you look away, how is it that you are able to psychoanalyze the skeptics who do bother to look and attack?
And let me tell you – you are right – it is a indefensible mess.
If physical climatology cannot translate its findings and build a bridge into real-world impacts, if scientists and their defenders keep turning away from the WG2, – it only means that your science is still young, and immature, you guys can go and wait in the back, for your turn to influence the world.
I started out on the non-consensus side (re Judith #272), and in the past 3 months have come to undertand a lot more about the science. I guess I’d be in the lukewarmer section–I still have doubts about things, but the radiative transfer physics really can’t be argued with. So we’re in for a little more than 1 degree of warming for certain.
One of the things that catches my attention is the certainty issue. Outside the IPCC reports I don’t see much in the way of the scientific community delineating which things are more certain than others. I don’t believe for a minute that feedbacks and models are as certain as radiative transfer, but I don’t get that same sense from the community.
I’d also like to see retractions when scientists and advocates on both sides make “science-based” predictions that don’t come true. Perhaps it’s just human nature to shout when you’re right and forget when you’re wrong, but it’s the best of human nature to be honest with yourself and your audience.
And to Shub’s comment at the end of #278, may I suggest to Keith a separate post on the maturity of climate science? I think that would be a very interesting discussion.
[…] of people have found it useful to distinguish between different kinds of climate skepticism. In the current edition of Skeptic Magazine, David Brin makes this point and distinguishes climate denialists from climate skeptics. Keith […]
Nice dodge Keith. The difference here is that I have criticized Romm while you have never ever been critical of Pielke Jr’s “rhetorical excesses or outright falsehoods”
And I note how you skated away from your example where you claimed that Romm was using guilt by association when in fact he proved that Breakthrough was being deceitful.
And I ask you again, what is it that you think I am advocating?
Tim,
This is getting silly. All you’ve done is answer my question with a question, instead of providing a link to your supposed criticisim of any like-minded climate bloggers.
Bill (279),
I like reading peoples stories – how their understanding evolves.
I would offer that, while radiative physics is well understood, climate responses are less certain. If the overall system feedback is negative, we’ll be in for a bit less warming than you might think.
Just food for thought.
Keith and Lambert, I have noticed a tendency within myself to be more critical of those in the Rommulan/Deltoid camp than of those nearer my position. And I don’t apologise for any of my criticisms.
But I’m not as hard on the Morano / Monckton team, I admit. I think there are several reasons. First is that there is so much to criticize (oh, and sooo little time…) in the Rommulan/Deltoid camp. Second is that the Monckton Morano group is not always attacking me, so I don’t have to react to insults, ad hominems and outright lies.
Third, the Monckton / Morano group does not hold the levers of power and hence cannot abuse them. The scientists on the consensus side who at least acquiesce in the service that the Rommulan / Deltoid team provides hold the data, commission the inquiries, staff the organisations. So some mistakes made by their team have a real effect. Mistakes made in weblog comments are not as pernicious. At the end of the day, Morano is an aggregator with a flair for headlines and Monckton is a journalist with enough money and time to fly to the scene of various activities.
Romm and Lambert are out to inspire their followers and they often do so by pointing out the heinous crimes of the opposition. Well, their opposition is not heinous and what the opposition does is not criminal, so there’s a bit of a reaction to that.
Lambert rather histrionically paints Pielke Jr. as the Devil incarnate and wonders why you don’t criticise him. If he asked me, my reply would be that I see very little in his published writings to criticize, that his behaviour (to me) seems far more restrained and cordial than Lambert’s, and that my position is close enough to his that things Lambert thinks are deserving of criticism are things I find worthy of praise.
Keith, I answered your question with a question because I suspect your answer will the be the same as mine. Why won’t you answer my question?
Tom’s list:
Group 1: Rommulans and Deltoids
Group 2: Verheggen and Curry
Group 3: Liljegren and Mosher
Group 4: Monckton and Morano
is incomprehensible to me regarding opinion; it is simply a parsing according to discursive style.
I may be more strident than Bart, putting me in category 1 I suppose as far as this audience is concerned. In note with some regret that “even Michael Tobis” is apparently my name around here. Note that this is a formulation which I don’t care for; like most people I consider myself a moderate.
The point is, I agree on substance with Bart and neither with Joe nor with Judith. Bart and Judith may be equally considerate of peculiar skeptic positions, and more patient than “even Michael Tobis”, but Bart uniformly says things I recognize as true or at least strongly defensible, and Judith and Joe frequently don’t.
In my taxonomy, both Tim Lambert and Judith Curry are outliers, while in Tom’s they are representative of something. So I really can’t help much.
What I think y’all are trying to say is that there is a sharp distinction between honest climate science skeptics and commited climate science deniers. I think there is a continuum, but not a sharp distinction, which is why it doesn’t appear in my taxonomy.
It’s an interesting and revealing topic, though. I believe I shall follow up at my first opportunity.
Michael, I have been reading your weblog and your comments on numerous other sites for over a year now.
I don’t know where you fit in my list, either. (And it’s a travesty that I don’t know… oh. Sorry. It’s the 4th…) You write about other people and media so much that I don’t really know what you believe about the science.
Note that there is a wide range in two of the categories–I doubt if Bart and Judith have congruent views on every aspect of climate change, nor do (I suspect) Lucia and my esteemed co-author. I think the tents get roomier closer to the center.
I would personally like to see you expound on the actual subject matter more and a bit less on the failings and defects of the frail humans surrounding you.
Science and policy.
Tom,
I’m undertaking a revision in the next few weeks, but the most current summary of my opinions is prominently linked from my “Best Of In It” list, entitled “My Point of View in a Nutshell”.
Tim Lambert, perhaps you have forgotten that last November I set up a post especially for you to come and debate me on issues:
http://rogerpielkejr.blogspot.com/2009/11/open-invitation.html
Tim declined to dispute any of the 10 assertions that I presented, instead wanting to play blogosphere-he said/he said rather than debate issues. Typical.
Here are those 10 assertions again:
1. There is no greenhouse gas signal in the economic or human toll record of disasters.
2. The IPCC has dramatically underestimated the scale of the stabilization challenge.
3. Geoengineering via stratospheric injection or marine cloud whitening is a bad idea.
4. Air capture research is a very good idea.
5. Adaptation is very important and not a trade off with mitigation.
6. Current mitigation policies, at national and international levels, are inevitably doomed to fail.
7. An alternative approach to mitigation from that of the FCCC has better prospects for success.
8. Current technologies are not sufficient to reach mitigation goals.
9. In their political enthusiasm, some leading scientists have behaved badly.
10. Leading scientific assessments have botched major issues (like disasters).
I’m not hard to find Tim, so if you’d like to come out from spreading insults deep in comment threads and engage in a debate over real issues, well that is your choice. The fact that you do not when given the chance says a lot about your MO. The offer is still open . . .
Best to all for a happy 4th!
Michael, I agree with most of what’s on your linked post. Where I disagree (and I’m not surprised) is your attribution of malfeasance, ill will and ignorance to the world at large, especially economists (who have a different idea of what growth is than you) and the media (who I don’t believe are afraid to report that there are grave problems with the climate).
I like your concept of referring to all planetary CO2 as a quantity to be measured and monitored. I agree that obsessing over this day/year/decade’s temperature is not relevant.
Looking at what you write on that post, you sound like you would be in the Lucia/Mosher camp. Looking at the grumpy things you write here and elsewhere, you seem much more extreme.
If I’m right, or even close to it, I think you should analyse what you’re trying to achieve on your blog and when you venture forth to comment elsewhere.
Mr Tobis:
About you never defending the WG2, and skeptics contributions:
http://initforthegold.blogspot.com/2010/03/loose-cannon-in-press-office.html
I did not go looking for it, just happened to find it. No doubt, your *main aim* in the above post was to criticize the reporter whose headline you did not like, but the consequence was to defend the IPCC against the press release in question.
You even had a conspiratorial angle to the press release .
“What this means is that there is a systematic process of turning ordinary science into denialist memes that bears precisely zero relationship to the actual substantive content of the publication.”
You repeated the assertion earlier in your article as well , that of ‘Amazongate’ being a “…yet another utterly baseless meme in the denialist canon”.
The only one who ‘called you out’ (the calling out meme) was in fact, Kloor. Heh.
Why is it that a specific error in the IPCC pointed out by skeptics, becomes a “denialist meme”, when evidently you neither had at the time, or ever since, followed WG2 issues? How can to judge their contributions if you throw them in the trashcan?
(Lets leave the fact that you blindly sided with the IPCC WG2 report, for reasons that are not obvious).
#291 I never said I had no interest in WG II matters, only that I have never been a defender of the final product. That doesn’t constitute a commitment never to discuss particular points.
The main issue for me, in any case, was not the Amazon’s sensitivity to drought. It was that inaccurate press releases should not serve as a proxy for the peer reviewed science it purports to report. We are seeing a systematic pattern of misleading press releases, and should be on guard against it as a means of introducing bogus science into public debate. Do you disagree?
Finally, you claimed that I “blindly sided with” the WGII. This crosses into offensive in my opinion. It also has nothing to do with the matter at hand. It didn’t matter that the controversy was in WG II. I would have been equally concerned if it were in epidemiology or civil engineering or any other scientific discipline with a public policy impact.
I did think the press officer had overruled the scientists, not that the graduate student/first author had injected his own politics into the text. Either way, the contents of the press release were very far from peer reviewed science, and actively misrepresented the views of a totally uninvolved party as well. What’s more, this is a pattern that applies to the malicious injection of pseudoscientific memes into public debate. I think that’s a bad idea, don’t you?
The fact that I guessed wrong on who was doing the nastiness doesn’t change the fact that nastiness was done.
Anyone following Peter Cox’s work realized that the Amazon was in deep doo doo because climate change would decrease precipitation.
David Brin here. Sorry to have taken so long to reply, and for having to just skim the hundreds of comments here. Anyone who seriously wants to pursue these matters with me (and with a very smart blogmunity) should come on over to http://davidbrin.blogspot.com/ and drop down into the comments section.
Or see: http://www.davidbrin.com
Mr. Kloor seemed to understand the core point that I was making — that skepticism in science is all very good and helps drive the process. But for science to be useful in informing and guiding public policy, we all have to develop a sliding scale of BURDEN OF PROOF.
The denier movement pretends to be about asking honest questions about a scientific matter that is both complex and *possibly* fraught with systematic errors. I believe that honest skeptics can play an important role there. But denialism is ALSO about preventing the community consensus in atmospheric science from affecting public policy. They insist on a burden of proof that 99%+ of skilled experts in a field are insufficient – and yet a slim majority of science-illiterate politicians (during the Bush Era) and now a40% *minority* of science-clueless politicians – should have absolute power to ignore the best scientific advice of the era.
This legerdemain and sleight of hand over burden of proof is dismal, ignorant, dishonest and purely a product of left-right fixated ideology. By any standard of logic –
1) the burden of proof falls upon those dissenting from the current standard model, especially when the percentage of experts hewing to the SM is in the high 90s and when that field has a recent track record of being very very very very smart. (Atmospheric studies of far planets, correlating perfectly with weather models that have improved reliability from three hours to four days(!) in just a generation.
2) When the precautionary principal shows us a genuine (if as-yet unproved) chance of catastrophic risk, prudent measures are called for before the risk is “proved.” Yes, there can be arguments over other tradeoffs like economic impact. But when the denier side was responsible for (a) catastrophically bad economic management and an economic theory (supply side) that always and universally failed, and (b) deliberate obstruction of ANY climate palliation measures, even basic research…
…then that side merits very little credibility under our present conditions.
3) Since most (admittedly not all) climate palliation measures are blatantly “things we ought to do anyway” (TWODA), in order to seek economic success, reduce dependence upon foreign petro-lords, dominate new industries and make a safer world, this obstructionism is especially nonsensical. Indeed, this is the smoking gun proof that koolaid-drinking deniers are parroting talking points from a conniving oligarchy that is spreading sedition purely for personal benefit. Those who dance under such marionette strings may not be directly culpable. But neither do we have to give credibility to puppets.
This was the reason for my article in SKEPTIC Magazine (subscribe!;-) Those who are genuine, nit-picking and scientifically informed skeptics ought to be able to say – aloud – all of the statements that I list. Statements that clearly distinguish such people from members of a flagrantly loony Denier Cult.
Anyone who can say those very reasonable (!) statements aloud can proudly step aside from that pack of lemmings. Such a person deserves respect – indeed, more respect than the harried and distracted scientists are giving to sincere question-askers, right now! (I also wrote the piece to help my scientist friends to parse these two kinds of questioners apart, and to be more fair to the sincere skeptics.)
If curiosity is your motivation, you SHOULD be part of this ongoing debate… WHILE our civilization also makes strong public policy moves to act upon expert advice and enact sensible TWODA measures, while funding research, even by dissenters so that we’ll know more next year than we do, today.
But if curiosity is your motive, you will distance yourself as far as you can from Rupert’s Cult.
Tim (285):
Like I said, this is pretty silly. It’s preposterous that you can even counter-claim that I’m not critical of my own tribe or of people that I might inclined to agree with otherwise.
My background is as an environmental/science journalist. I recently spent nearly ten years as an editor of one of America’s pre-eminent environmental magazines, where I helped produce two special issues on climate change. In 2007-2008 I was a Fellow at the Center for Environmental Journalism, in Boulder Colorado. In short, I have a long interest in environmental matters. And I have spent much of my career as an editor/writer covering ecology/nature/environmentally related issues.
So in fact, given my background and resume, some people who know me and who have worked with me have been disconcerted by my criticism of Joe Romm on this blog. I would go so far to say that I have even complicated some long-time friendships and jeopordized several professional associations because of this. So be it.
You know what, I also love nature and one of the writers I have most admired is Edward Abbey. And yet…I don’t let that keep me from critically examining Abbbey’s legacy.
You might reasonably conclude from all this that I don’t believe in sacred cows. I also don’t believe that I should avoid criticizing individuals who might share my larger concerns about the planet– if they express views that I find offensive.
So trust me, I’ll have no problem critizing Roger Pielke Jr. or the Breakthrough Institute when I feel it’s warranted. Meanwhile, suffice to say that I feel that both have been unfairly maligned by the likes of you, Romm, and others in the blogosphere.
Judith (#270), I also would love to see more of a discussion of epistemology. The questions are fascinating, and I think quite relevant to all the discussion here. One current philosopher of science I’ve read a bit of is Philip Kitcher – I’m wondering what you thought of his recent Science essay/review here:
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/328/5983/1230-a
“It is an embarrassment (at least for me) that philosophers have not contributed more to this necessary conversation. We might clarify some of the methodological issues””for instance, those concerning the variety of risks involved in model-building. Perhaps more important, we could use recent ethical work on responsibilities to future generations and to distant people to articulate a detailed ethical framework that might help a planet’s worth of policy-makers find their way to consensus.”
I’ll definitely let you know when I have a bit more to say and we can have a discussion on my blog – or I’ll keep an eye out if it seems to come up elsewhere. Thanks!
And, for epistomology fans out there
http://rabett.blogspot.com/2010/07/not-in-it-for-gold.html
Mr Tobis:
The content of the press release and the paper are very much related to the IPCC statement about the Amazon. How much it overturns the IPCC statement is a matter of judgement, debate and a different matter altogether.
How did you decide there was no connection at all?
In your post you do not provide the reasoning. You do not examine the original criticism of the IPCC statement in the denier blogs. You vehemently criticize Mr Taffe, the Dr Samanta in your post. Even as we speak, I am not even sure you are aware whether the IPCC has actually committed a blunder.
Your assumption that press officers are cooking up headlines and statements to bring the IPCC down, gives away hints and support, for my claim that you supported the IPCC blindly. Could it not have been, in your mind, that the authors of the paper had some criticism to make?
The news that, this or that thing is wrong with the IPCC process has kept trickling through the blogs, scientific literature and news reports for years. Maybe you kept ‘rationalizing’ the same way you did this instance? That is what I am trying to get at.
Both Climategate and Amazongate are almost entirely products of bloggers. They have had an enormous impact – good/bad, short-term only/long-term – all that is moot. Yet, here we are, with you systematically, downplaying their importance and the issues they raise, instead trying to characterize their efforts as inconsequential.
Arthur (#296) I read Kitcher’s essay, i definitely like the para that you quoted. But the rest of the essay was an eloquently written version of the world according to Schneider/Hansen/Oreskes, which provides fodder for the Rommulan wing. I don’t agree with this. I think Hulme’s view (I haven’t read his book, but much of his other writings) has more merit. In any event, these are the kinds of issues that need more discussion!
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/jul/04/climatechange-hacked-emails-muir-russell
Dr Curry. Thank you for defending science. (I am doing one of those tribal bowing salutes now) –/__ –/__ –/__
Shub, thanks for spotting this.
David Brin (#294):
Wow!
Wow, again. …Lady in Red
David Brin…. I just listened to 9:27 minutes of
introduction to you:
Pls answer me: what climate change action do you wish?
Be a champion of The Enlightment With Me.
Help me see The World’s Future — From Your Eyes.
………….Lady in Red
Judith Curry (#270) writes “I have been hoping to see some sign that somebody hanging out in the climate blogosphere is interested in the epistemology, philosophy of science, etc. surrounding climate change”
You (like anyone else both interested in the philosophy and comfortable working with probability and statistics) might find it worthwhile to chase various philosophy of science ideas into modern quantitative generalizations. In my experience, the philosophers of science aren’t terribly good at pointing these out, and I haven’t noticed them mentioned here, so here are the ones I’ve stumbled across.
To see two different modern generalizations of the ideas of Ockham and Popper on inductive reasoning, you can skim the explanatory text in the first few chapters of Gruenwald (u with an umlaut, actually) _The Minimum Description Length Principle_ and/or Vapnik _Statistical Learning Theory_. (The Vapnik book has lots of math that you likely don’t need in many applications of the ideas; e.g., if one wants to implement these ideas in software, there are more practical books specialized to applications like support vector machines. But the explanatory text doesn’t seem unreasonably math-heavy.)
And I haven’t tried to study Robert Aumann’s work on disagreement, but my casual impression is that his work is at likely to be as relevant as work of philosophers like Peirce.
David Brin (#294): In this post, you confuse ideology and science. You confuse postnormalism and science. You confuse consensus and evidence. You confuse “denialism” and scepticism.
You seem a little confused.
I am one drunk skunk friend of #305 and just Really Read David Brin’s #294. I cannot believe #294. For real…? I am off to bed, in need of a much saner world. I cannot believe#294..!
Possibly, I did not say: I cannot believe #294?! ..Lady in Red
Judith, in reference to a quote in the Grauniad re Phil Jones, I broadly agree that he’s more or less hands up at this point. There still is the matter of the station data he’s used in creating his grids. He continued, at the Parliamentary Enquiry, to be elusive on this. While he said “most” of the data were available, he also inferred that his results could be replicated using the information available. The station data selection, however, continues to be the encryption key required to unlock his work and he still obfuscates on this to this day. Unless and until he puts that information where it needs to be, I’m afraid that no matter what he says and how hands-up he is about his transgressions, he’s still effectively the same brick wall faced by McIntyre.
As a complete OT and aside, if any non-Brit ever wondered why we so often misspell the Guardian name, this harks back to a period in the paper’s print-press history which precedes today’s good practices of copy review and spell-checking. The Guardian’s reputation for bad spelling was well earned. Of course, this period is long-passed but you know how fond the Brits are of tradition. http://www.grauniad.co.uk
Apologies. He implied. We were to infer. It’s 4am. :p
David Brin–
What the heck is Rupert’s Cult?
<em> While he said “most” of the data were available, he also inferred that his results could be replicated using the information available.</em>
http://rhinohide.wordpress.com/crutemp/
In case you hadn’t noticed, that particular drum has lost its tone.
#294
What a rant! I’m sure it will help everyone join together and sing Kumbaya.
“1) the burden of proof falls upon those dissenting from the current standard model, especially when the percentage of experts hewing to the SM is in the high 90s and when that field has a recent track record of being very very very very smart. (Atmospheric studies of far planets, correlating perfectly with weather models that have improved reliability from three hours to four days(!) in just a generation.”
Substitute standard model with religion and experts with high priests. Then if you can’t prove there is no god you shall be required to pay large sums into the coffers of the religion. Try proving a negative.
Last I heard, other planets also show warming. Are we responsible for that also?
“2) When the precautionary principal shows us a genuine (if as-yet unproved) chance of catastrophic risk, prudent measures are called for before the risk is “proved.” ”
I assume you meant principle. As in doctrine.
Don’t we have to apply the precautionary principle to extraordinarily expensive actions taken due to application of that principle?
It is also as-yet unproven that we won’t be struck by a huge meteor in the next 100 years. So maybe we should apply that wonderful principle right now an start spending trillions to prevent that occurrence too.
“But when the denier side was responsible for (a) catastrophically bad economic management and an economic theory (supply side) that always and universally failed.”
You must be talking about Fanny Mae, Freddie Mac, Chris Dodd, Barney Frank and others of their ilk.
Metaphor alert! Use caution when reading further.
“3) Since most (admittedly not all) climate palliation measures are blatantly “things we ought to do anyway” (TWODA), in order to seek economic success, reduce dependence upon foreign petro-lords, dominate new industries and make a safer world, this obstructionism is especially nonsensical. Indeed, this is the smoking gun proof that koolaid-drinking deniers are parroting talking points from a conniving oligarchy that is spreading sedition purely for personal benefit. Those who dance under such marionette strings may not be directly culpable. But neither do we have to give credibility to puppets.
Those who are genuine, nit-picking and scientifically informed skeptics ought to be able to say ““ aloud ““ all of the statements that I list. Statements that clearly distinguish such people from members of a flagrantly loony Denier Cult.”
I won’t bother wasting any more time on what is an obviously myopic rant. I’ll just say I dissent from his position.
Lucia (#309): I believe he means Rupert Murdoch.
Bob Koss (#311): “Don’t we have to apply the precautionary principle to extraordinarily expensive actions taken due to application of that principle?”
Thank you. I tried to say this here, but I don’t think my analogies are making nearly as much sense to people around here as your straight-talkin’.
Ron (#310): Thanks for that. Does this mean that Jones has released the requested station data, including station selection and adjustment meta-data?
313 SimonH,
Thanks for noticing.
It is the first thought that comes to my mind when someone tries to rely on it. Usually silence or incoherence is the response to pointing it out.
Jones cannot release all the requested station data since some of it is under non-redistribution licenses. For instance, see the license for the Swedish data:
3.2 The Licensee owns no right to use the data or products provided under this agreement for commercial purposes and not for development or production of meteorological, hydrological and oceanographic value added-value services. The licensee does not own nor authorized to redistribute, sell, assign or otherwise transfer data products or documentation without further processing to third parties unless the parties have received written permission from SMHI.
http://data.smhi.se/met/climate/time_series/html/essential20.html
The first wave of released data was associated with the WMO RBCN and thus its IP status was known. This included the CRU meta data for each station including both the baseline average and standard deviations associated with each. I suppose that if you desire, you can use the WMO id in the CRU to compare with the CRU adjusted data against the matching GHCN unadjusted station data (also identified by WMO id).
A month or so after the first release, a second wave was released with additional station data. I haven’t looked at this second, larger data set.
For Lucia:
‘Rupert’s Cult’ is, I expect, shorter Brin for “Rupert Murdoch’s Culture War”
Those who’ve been reading Brin for a while would recognize that reference to what he calls the cult of selfishness — rich people promoting fake divisions to suppress progress.
As Brin says, see his page for continuing conversation with him:
http://davidbrin.blogspot.com/2010/07/clarifications-re-climate-skeptics-and.html
“… a common theme of mine — the fact that oligarchy has always been the worst enemy of freedom, whether it wears raiment of the left or right …. I have been describing the abandonment of Adam Smith by the right. That icon and co-founder of modern capitalism is now an embarrassment to the oligarchs who control today’s conservatism, since Smith called oligarchy the very worst enemy of free enterprise.
So who has replaced Smith in the hagiography of the right? Glenn Beck has been ranting lately about Thomas Paine. True, Paine railed against abuse of authority. But the truly heinous betrayal of Paine, by Beck & co., can be seen by actually reading Paine’s pamphlets, instead of turning him into a strawman. In fact, Paine despised aristocratic oligarchy even more than Adam Smith did and far more radically.
Seriously, read up about this. Even those Founding Fathers who were aristocrats shared much of this radical attitude. Today, every last one of them would be laughing …. ”
— David Brin
Seriously, read the man’s sites. I’ve been recommending him for a long time because he can keep a conversation going in productive directions so very well. Try going over there.
David Brin 294#
Wow. How very ‘post normal’
please, David (and I am a big fan) have a read, of the the following, front page article The Guardian (UK) – 5th July 2010
print edition headline below:
Climategate has changed us for the better, say scientists
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/jul/04/climatechange-hacked-emails-muir-russell
highlights: (particularly, for me, the recognisation of my issues with computer models)
“But greater openness and engagement with their critics will not ensure that climate scientists have an easier time in future, warns Hulme. Back in the lab, a new generation of more sophisticated computer models is failing to reduce the uncertainties in predicting future climate, he says ““ rather, the reverse. “This is not what the public and politicians expect, so handling and explaining this will be difficult
“Jones seems genuinely repentant, and has been completely open and honest about what has been done and why… speaking with humility about the uncertainty in the data sets,” she said.”
“The climate scientist most associated with efforts to reconciling warring factions, Judith Curry of the Georgia Institute of Technology, said the idea of IPCC scientists as “self-appointed oracles, enhanced by the Nobel Prize, is now in tatters“. The outside world now sees that “the science of climate is more complex and uncertain than they have been led to believe“.
“Roger Pielke Jr of the University of Colorado agreed that “the climate science community, or at least its most visible and activist wing, appeared to want to go back to waging an all-out war on its perceived political opponents”.
I have been on the recieving end of some of certain activists vitriol, ie the ‘foot soldiers’ who can only parrot, quotes from how to treat a sceptic propaganda, fed to them. It has not been pleasant, in my local community (transitions towns), online, public meetings
.
I can agree with 95% of the content of the article.. (and I’ve been blocked by the Guardian from commenting, Realclimate are part of their environment network, so I’m not exactly the Guardians biggest fan. Especialy George Monbiots vitriol)
I have received comments put out in the mainstream media, TV, radio, press, like ‘ flat earther’ or ‘anti science’, or ‘climate sabatouer’, ‘deniar’, from UK, Ministers of State, Prime Ministers, and journalists, for anyone even raising the above topics, and insisting that they are an issue.
I, for the last 8 months, have received abuse, called all sorts of names, had my motivations questioned, my mental state questioned, had green peace threats (we know where you live’ ) had people walk away from me in public meetings. Just for saying what about,this, questioning the certainties, questioning the IPCC inaccuracies, questioning the acts designed to ‘close down any debate’, questioning the believe in computer models vs real data..
By some of the people in that article (ie Bob Ward, Watson), who have completely changed ther ‘message’ without any apparent shame.
This article is a victory for all science. Let us, all forget about ‘post normal science.
Thanks to Judith Curry for her patience, particulary if she read any of my longer comments 😉 and for a number of her comments, particulary, for all of comment 48# in the link below (choice highlights)
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/2010/04/17/some-spicy-curry/
“One element of scientific integrity is when to speak up vs when to stay silent.
The Georgia Tech students and alumni expected me to speak out on this issue When others failed to speak up, I felt that I needed to step up to the plate.”
“I have actually found the people who habituate the technical skeptical blogs and their proprietors to be much more open minded than most of the “warmist” blogs.”
“So how do we proceed from here? We need some open, rational discourse on a range of topics from openness and transparency in the science, improvements to the assessment process, a dialogue on an expanded range of policy options, the politics of climate science, improved communications, etc.”
Anybody here going to the Guardians public meeting, 14th July,
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/jun/30/guardian-debate-climate-science-emails
it would be nice to say hello. it sounds like it could actually be very positive, instead of ‘dismiss’ the sceptic, that maybe I was expecting.
Steve Mcintyre is going I believe and Latimer Alder who has commented here.
Ron (#316):
That’s interesting because SMHI, when asked by the Phil Jones and the MetOffice in December, on first reading might indeed have appeared to refuse permission for CRU to release the SMHI data.
In fact SMHI did not refuse to allow their data to be released, as that is not in effect what Jones had requested. Jones had asked, very explicitly, for permission to release a CRU-adjusted version of the SMHI data. Effectively Jones’ adjusted version, described as SMHI’s own. Jones writes:
“We stress that the data we hold has arisen from multiple sources, and has been recovered over the last 30 years. Subsequent quality control and homogenisation of these data have been carried out. It is therefore highly likely that the version we hold and are requesting permission to distribute will differ from your own current holdings.”
This was the red flag to SMHI that it indeed ought to have been, and those of a suspicious nature might even determine was intended to be. Releasing data, described as SMHI, but unrepresentative of SMHI would be both misrepresentative of SMHI and wholly inappropriate. Marcus Flarup clarified, on 4th March:
“Our response was based on your information that it was likely that the version held by you would most likely differ from our current holdings. It has never been our intention to withhold any data but we feel that it is paramount that data that has undergone, for instance, homogenisation by anyone other than SMHI is not presented as SMHI data. We see no problem with publication of the data set together with a reference stating that the data included in the dataset is based on observations made by SMHI but it has undergone processing made by your research unit.”
So, are SMHI as defensive as you say they are regarding their data? Marcus Flarup continues:
“We would also prefer a link to SMHI or to our web site where the original data can be obtained.”
So in fact SMHI, unlike CRU, are readily complying with EIR and are accordingly willing to share their data freely – something they already do.
And what does this mean to the CRU and HadCRUT? It means that we STILL need Jones’ station selection and meta-data in order to appropriately replicate and verify his work. Or, to put it another way, proceed according to the scientific method.
William (#304) thanks much for the refs, i will check them out
William Newman, while googling Robert Aumann, i found this nice overview on disagreement
On a more light hearted note..
I wonder how this persons sceptical views – a blogging response to climategate – fit into the various sceptical/deniars categories in the Sceptic Magazine…?
Maybe worthwhile of a whole new section…… 😉
Be warned, a very pink website, and some interesting about me photos 😉 even a cute fluffy kitten…
http://blog.katiekayholmes.com/?p=24
Note, further down, she is refering to the Tom Wigley reponse to the ‘consensus’ statement.. one of the very same emails that leaped out a me (great minds, alike, obviously) A friend of mine being one of the signaturies.
http://blog.katiekayholmes.com/?p=20
By admin on December 2nd, 2009.
Filed Under:climategate
Subscribe via: RSS
The Climategate emails are everywhere, so where’s the front page headlines?
SO just about every good blog has a post on the climategate scandal, yet hardly any of the big newspapers and NONE of the major TV networks are running the story”¦yet.
It’s disgusting, and shows the gutless nature of the main stream media who refuse to put the story at the top, or on the front page where it belongs.”
Almost my response, Katie is much more photogenic than me.
Of course, the pictures herself, may not make you the most convincing sceptic.. But it lightened my day, especially the ‘fluffy’ kitten.
http://www.katiekayholmes.com/
Sounds like this member of the public, ‘got’ the politics instantly, whilst maybe not knowing the ins/outs of the science…
The above, must be a ‘spoof’ surely !!
(1st post 20th November 2009)
(not by me, I might add, just stumbled across it, trying to find the Tom Wigley email via, google)
Barry, do you mean his “Dear Eleven” email, where Wigley writes:
“I was very disturbed by your recent letter, and your attempt to get others to endorse it. Not only do I disagree with the content of this letter, but I also believe that you have severely distorted the IPCC “view” when you say that “the latest IPCC assessment makes a convincing economic case for immediate control of emissions.” [..] When scientists color the science with their own PERSONAL views or make categorical statements without presenting the evidence for such statements, they have a clear responsibility to state that that is what they are doing. You have failed to do so. Indeed, what you are doing is, in my view, a form of dishonesty more subtle but no less egregious than the statements made by the greenhouse skeptics, Michaels, Singer et al. I find this extremely disturbing.”
Perhaps Dr Brin would benefit from reading and reflecting upon this email as well as a few others in the zip.
Oh god, I just love this bit… Wigley writes:
“Your approach of trying to gain scientific credibility for your personal views by asking people to endorse your letter is reprehensible. No scientist who wishes to maintain respect in the community should ever endorse any statement unless they have examined the issue fully themselves. You are asking people to prostitute themselves by doing just this! I fear that some will endorse your letter, in the mistaken belief that you are making a balanced and knowledgeable assessment of the science — when, in fact, you are presenting a flawed view that neither accords with IPCC nor with the bulk of the scientific and economic literature on the subject.”
It is in the Katie Holmes first link above!!! (must be a viral marketing spoof, to link to a dating website, surely 😉 )
Plus, this other one about consensus, preceding it…
All about PR and media/political manipulation even back then, for SOME scientists. Noteing Tom Wigley response (former CRU director)
“From: Joseph Alcamo <alcamo@xxxxxxxxxxx>
To: m.hulme@xxxxxxxxx, Rob.Swart@xxxxxxx
Subject: Timing, Distribution of the Statement
Date: Thu, 9 Oct 1997 18:52:33 0100
Reply-to: alcamo@xxxxxxxxxx
Mike, Rob,
Sounds like you guys have been busy doing good things for the cause.
I would like to weigh in on two important questions ““
Distribution for Endorsements ““
I am very strongly in favor of as wide and rapid a distribution as
possible for endorsements. I think the only thing that counts is
numbers. The media is going to say “1000 scientists signed“ or “1500 signed”.
No one is going to check if it is 600 with PhDs versus 2000 without. They will mention the prominent ones, but that is a different story.
Conclusion “” Forget the screening, forget asking
them about their last publication (most will ignore you.) Get those names!
Timing “” I feel strongly that the week of 24 November is too late.
1. We wanted to announce the Statement in the period when there wasa sag in related news, but in the week before Kyoto we should expect that we will have to crowd out many other articles about climate.
2. If the Statement comes out just a few days before Kyoto I am
afraid that the delegates who we want to influence will not have any
time to pay attention to it. We should give them a few weeks to hear
about it.
3. If Greenpeace is having an event the week before, we should have it a week before them so that they and other NGOs can further spreadthe word about the Statement. On the other hand, it wouldn’t be so bad to release the Statement in the same week, but on a diffeent day. The media might enjoy hearing the message from twovery different directions.
Conclusion “” I suggest the week of 10 November, or the week of 17
November at the latest.
———————————
That, made me very ‘sceptical’ and the Tom Wigley response, let alone all the rest of the email, code, ipcc, etc,etc.
You know, on reflection, I realise that my predisposition to believe that it is by the IPCC’s political hand, top-down, that uncertainties in the science are misrepresented may not be as well-founded as I’d thought.
Wigley is writing, here, post-TAR. On reflection it’s reasonable to suspect that what followed in AR4 may in fact have been the IPCC being pulled into line with corrupted/politicised science – bottom up. Wigley’s concern, here, is that the scientists are misrepresenting the IPCC TAR. By AR4, the IPCC’s position has been shifted to the point of misrepresenting the uncertainties in the science to reflect far more what Wigley describes as the “Dear Eleven”‘s PERSONAL views. This is a somewhat disconcerting notion.
Barry (#327), it’s some time since I read that email – I read it in the first few days after release. Amid all the other revelations, I think I was “maxed out” in indignation. Reading that, again, it’s difficult to not be outraged by the prima facie evidence of gross corruption within the climate-scientific community. Quite simply horrific.
Judith Curry (#321): It was Robin Hanson’s writing that led me to Aumann originally. Both he and Tyler Cowen are sharp people, but I wasn’t that impressed by the big picture of this article. It does make lots of useful points, but I see them as points about what I see as “the trees” when what I see as at least as important in real human verbal disagreements is a “forest” that they don’t much talk about.
I see an analogy between their “honest truth-seeking agents” and “members of the same species evolving under selective pressure.” In that analogy Aumann’s work seems important in the same way that various analyses of the effectiveness of genetic algorithms are important. (The advantages of exchange of ideas to reach truth more efficiently and exchange of genes to maximize fitness more efficiently are important, and neither is particularly intuitive, at least to me.) It’s important to understand the advantages there, but it’s at least as important to appreciate that in real ecologies organisms evolving under selective pressure have to devote even more effort to immunology-ish stuff (keeping out genes, as of viruses and whatnot) than to sex. “Honest” has connotations of “really truly doing one’s best to seek the truth” which seem not to fit here, because I see some of the deviations from their “honest” as suggestively analogous to what organisms do when they they are really truly doing their best to maximize fitness.
Also I find it noteworthy that when humans observe other humans actually spending resources doing an act, as opposed to merely arguing for an act, they can often err not in the direction of underweighting information from others, but overweighting it by imitating the act. That looks to me like evidence that humans are fundamentally more receptive to truth-seeking through accepting ideas from others than Cowen and Hanson appreciate. Whatever is interfering with that acceptance in verbal disagreements is probably not something described by the analysis in the paper, because the interference can be so much weaker when the problem changes from “do as I say” to “do as I do.”
(But oops, sorry, Keith Kloor, I now realize that writing about this at the length of #330 probably doesn’t really belong here and should go someplace that is devoted to this kind of thing, e.g. the “Less Wrong” blog.)
( I’d love to chat with SimonH directly, but this is an only means of correspondence…)
Hopefully this is on topic, as Judith posted that Guardian article, saying ‘Climategate has changed for the better, say scientists”
An example of why it needed changing, see this email:
(mainly the P.S.)
From: Phil Jones <p.jones@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
To: mann@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
Subject: Fwd: CCNet: PRESSURE GROWING ON CONTROVERSIAL RESEARCHER TO DISCLOSE SECRET DATA
Date: Mon Feb 21 16:28:32 2005
Cc: “raymond s. bradley” <rbradley@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, “Malcolm Hughes” <mhughes@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
Mike, Ray and Malcolm,
The skeptics seem to be building up a head of steam here ! Maybe we can use this to our advantage to get the series updated !
Odd idea to update the proxies with satellite estimates of the lower troposphere rather than surface data !. Odder still that they don’t realise that Moberg et al used the Jones and Moberg updated series !
Francis Zwiers is till onside. He said that PC1s produce hockey sticks.
He stressed that the late 20th century is the warmest of the millennium, but Regaldo didn’t bother with that. Also ignored Francis’ comment about all the other series looking similar to MBH.
The IPCC comes in for a lot of stick.
Leave it to you to delete as appropriate !
Cheers
Phil
PS I’m getting hassled by a couple of people to release the CRU station temperature data.
Don’t any of you three tell anybody that the UK has a Freedom of Information Act !
Full email:
http://www.climate-gate.org/email.php?eid=498&s=tag69
Hank-
Thanks for elaborating on the “Rupert’s Cult”. Having never heard of Brin before, I still don’t know what he’s talking about.
It’s disappointing he decided to not engage the audience in the venue where they are currently talking– here– and retreated to what appears to be his echo chamber.
I’m afraid that his rhetorical flourishes over there aren’t giving me the impression that he is being genuine. After all, if he is really trying to persuade or really suggesting things honest skeptics can do to demonstrate they are skeptics, this sort of string is– as Tobis might say “not helpful”–
“koolaid-drinking deniers are parroting talking points from a conniving oligarchy that is spreading sedition”
He is giving the impression of a Rommunlan using the cloaking the device to appear like a concern troll.
It sounds a heck of a lot as if all he is doing is saying he can accept someone is an informed skeptic provided they post anti-Bush anti-Republican screeds with some regularity. Presumably, that can’t be what he means. But one might expect more clarity from a man who appears to be a professional writer.
Hi All,
At this stage in a thread, I’m not as vigilant about staying on topic.
And yes, I think some of you have picked up on the irony of Brin mixing up the science and political in his article/previous writings and in a comment on this thread. I too find it problematic.
328#
An interesting thought, not the political process swaying the science, originally. ie not a top down political agenda .
But the personal views of certain group of scientists (in key positions,( ie Sir John Houghton, Hulme, etc, no doubt sincere, no doubt well intentioned, etc) swaying the IPCC and the politicians media, in conjunction with NGOs.
I thought Tom Wigley email reply was quite devasting,
I can’t quite understand why it has not received more attention,
ie personal views, unscientific, trying to gain a PR consensus, ‘get those names’, all that counts is numbers, forget the screening, the media won’t check, etc, all in the email.
All pre KYOTO, in the run up to Kyoto, all those years ago.
Closely linking with NGO’s like Greenpeace to PUSH the views onto the IPCC process and ultimately the politicians pre-Kyoto.
Clearly, in their minds the science was settled then!!! all those years ago, and the scientists became public policy advocates.
Personal views like this, perhaps:
“Although I have yet to see any evidence that climate change is a sign of Christ’s imminent return, human pollution is clearly another of the birth pangs of creation, as it eagerly awaits being delivered from the bondage of corruption (Romans. 19-22).
Tim Mitchell works at the Climactic Research Unit, UEA, Norwich, and is a member of South Park Evangelical Church
http://www.e-n.org.uk/p-1129-Climate-change-and-the-Christian.htm
Absoultely fascinating stuff, for anyone studying human behaviour..
Thanks for reminding all of us of Tom Wigley’s email. Bravo Tom Wigley!
Tom does come out of this well..
He sounds like the type of hard scientist, I recognise and respect
(ie not ‘post normal’)
Mike Hulme, seems be a very interesting personality.
Interesting, as he seems to be both instrumental in the creation of it all,(ie see emails above) and also instrumental in discrediting some of it?
ie, his disengenuous to say 2500 scientist, just a few dozen in reality, statement
and today in the Guardian:
“But greater openness and engagement with their critics will not ensure that climate scientists have an easier time in future, warns Hulme. Back in the lab, a new generation of more sophisticated computer models is failing to reduce the uncertainties in predicting future climate, he says ““ rather, the reverse. “This is not what the public and politicians expect, so handling and explaining this will be difficult.”
Interestingly, The Guardian, no longer has this story on the frontpage of their website?! (whilst of course it is, on the print edition)
Don’t they want it to be easily found around the world?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/jul/04/climatechange-hacked-emails-muir-russell
And the Guardian, still allowing comments – with ‘deniar’ in, yet I can’t get anything into the comments section, my comments just vanish into their ‘moderation policy’
Somebody there:
Jul 2010, 10:22PM
Quoting Judith Curry and Hans Von Storch is just too much claptrap on the subject. Both are involved in the denialist side of the argument and both found wanting in the climate debate. Fancy quoting them here – sjocking but typcial specious journalism
So Judith:
On the web for all to see, courtesy of the Guardian, you have gone fully over to the dark side (to some) , no longer even a ‘sceptic’ but a fully blown deniar…
Should be an interesting meeting, Steve Mcintyre, is now on the
Guardians panel, and he says they were quite impressed by the support he received from individuals making donations for his flight.
http://climateaudit.org/2010/07/05/trip-to-england/
Just added one myself
“…Rommulan using the cloaking the device to appear like a concern troll.”
! KO !! Ding!
In one respect, I cannot believe this thread went on for so long, given that Brin’s views on the climate and ‘skepticism’ seem so simplistic. He is clearly far, far behind from what is going on and far removed and sort of dreamy in his ideas.
Believe me – I would love to be like that (in fact, imagine that, human progress, doing good, wearing white clothes, looking out into the stars). There is a Lius Royo painting that comes to mind. (cannot find it but this is close).
I am sure Arthur Smith will like this as well:
Three Cheers for the Surveillance Society
the Guardian is letting some stuff through moderation: (not me)
Let the promoters of emissions trading /global warming speak for themselves.
International Emissions Trading Association (IETA)
The biggest lobbying group at Copenhagen was the International Emissions Trading Association Its members include :-
BP, Conoco Philips, Shell, E.ON AG (coal power stations owner, EDF (one of the largest participants in the global coal market), Gazprom (Russian oil and gas), Goldman Sachs, Barclays, JP Morgan Chase, Morgan Stanley..
http://www.ieta.org/ieta/www/pages/index.php?IdSiteTree=1249
It has existed since just after Enron ordered Al Gore to put the emissions trading system into the Kyoto Protocol. Funny that.
William (#330) your insightful comments are VERY MUCH appreciated on this as i dig into this literature
Judith,
In a previous book chapter, Oreskes describes how cliamte science stacks up against various scientific methods (starting at page 80).
Bart thanks for this ref, i’ve read a fair amount of oreskes, but not this one.
Judith, Thanks for your interest! My screen doesn’t show comment numbers, or I’d give it! Anyway, it was to a post I made Friday (“ethno/psych”).
I just now caught up after being offgrid since then and am frankly still processing the many comments and rather flummoxed about in what direction the discussion is going. Maybe I’ll get a chance to elaborate before it dies out – but, if not, I’m hoping there will be other relevant discussions later – I certainly expect so, somewhere!
JohnB, I’m GMT (Zulu!) +1 so about in the middle – I already feel “disadvantaged” at always being behind, altho I’m sure there are many in my timezone. Not sure if you’re worse off though.
SH: In fact SMHI did not refuse to allow their data to be released, as that is not in effect what Jones had requested. Jones had asked, very explicitly, for permission to release a CRU-adjusted version of the SMHI data
In fact, they did not (Dec 2009) provide written permission for Dr Jones to release the CRU modified Swedish data.
If Dr Jones takes data from a country such as Sweden and adds a number .00001 to each value – does that data suddenly become free of non-redistribution IP? Of course not. Your argument is silly. The act of adjusting data does not release one from IP licenses. And, yes, after Sweden was held out publicly as *one* example of a country with non-redistribution agreements, they quickly backpedaled and provided written agreement, but only after the public testimony exposed that they had previously failed to do so.
SH: And what does this mean to the CRU and HadCRUT? It means that we STILL need Jones’ station selection and meta-data in order to appropriately replicate and verify his work.
Your take on the scientific method is ahistorical. Replication is not reproduction. The distinction being that replication is demanding the original data and notes (algorithms/code) while reproduction is a using a sufficiently detailed description to generate your own data and algorithms to arrive at a supporting conclusion. The scientific method emphasizes an ability to reproduce a result, not necessarily the ability to replicate it. No one demanded Rutherford’s lab notes so that they could ‘replicate’ his results. They took his published description of his experiments and tried it for themselves in their own lab.
Has enough information about how to go about combining station data for surface temperature been published for interested parties to be able to reproduce and verify those results? Yes. Not only do GISS, NCDC, and JMA provide alternate globally gridded anomalies which support CRUs construction (each with their own similarities and differences), but so have half a dozen different technical bloggers.
Using 4349 as the number of stations per Jones 2005, we currently have CRU adjusted data and metadata for 86% of them. That is more than sufficient to reproduce and verify Dr Jone’s results since <a href=”http://rhinohide.wordpress.com/crutemp/”> I have already done so with the GHCN adjusted data with the original smaller release list of 1243 stations.</a>
For those with a philosophical bent this morning, the useful part of this exchange is the role of “reproduction” -v- “replication” in science. Ponder which audience each is intended for.
Oh lord!
Just received an invitation to this public meeting in my local town…
David Hampton: Carbon Coach
“If CO2 were purple we would have witnessed the sky change colour in our lives ”
http://www.henley-in-transition.org.uk/happening/carbon-coach/
I was not very popular, when I went to their last meeting, it is MY town as well, they are organising, going into schools, ‘educating’ children…
So, NO I can’t just ignore it..
David Hampton: Carbon Coach
has some profound words
“Remember, many ‘deniers’ and ‘sceptics’ (whatever those terms really mean, since we all have a *bit* of denial inside us, if we are honest,) are hurting inside, sometimes somewhere quite deep and painful… sometimes without knowing it…”
Friend of a friend Moira recently (usefully) slapped this old adage onto (climate science) ‘denialists’…
“Arguing with denialists is like mud-wrestling with a pig…
it all gets very messy… and nobody wins… but the pig enjoys it!”
http://www.carboncoach.typepad.com/
http://www.carboncoach.com/personal/influential.html
Nice little business…..
You can earn up to
20% of my fee when
you introduce me to
someone who engages
me as a speaker.
I’m a keynote speaker and broadcaster, and I even run entertaining assemblies for schools.
Re 333 and 334: I asked Brin over on his blog whether it was possible for a non-conservative to be a “denier”–haven’t gotten an answer yet, which tells me “no, only conservatives can be deniers”. Sad. I expect more from my scifi writers, especially good ones like Brin.
Judith…. Pleeeeeeezzzzzzzzzzzzzzzze get the smart, educated,part of the community to speak up! Participate. I sent two pleas this am.
I just read #385’s illiterate home page. Don’t let Barry Woods speak for you….
Please, folk, with friends in The Community: Help them, encourage them to make a difference, to stamp out illiteracy and ignorance. ….Lady in Red
That’s Barry Woods: #346. Sorry. ….Lady in Red
PS: It shocks me!
I have friends in the ‘climate science’ community…
My friend, edited the IPCC synthesis report for policy makers, the summary report for policy makers, 2001, including ‘the hockey stick’)
My friend has not even looked at any of the climategate material, says that it has all blown over, not a topic of discussion amongst climate science friends/colleagues (still very involved)
The ‘science’ community has ‘blinkers’
Simon, if you have some interest in seeing *reproduction* of CRUTEM, I invite you over here:
http://rhinohide.wordpress.com/2010/07/05/crutem-replication-v-reproduction/
… that is my response from The Community, also:
“I don’t read that stuff.”
They will be dead, rightfully so! …Lady in Red
349# Lady in Red?
not my words, David Hampton, educating schools in my home town soon!! ‘profound’ was meant to come across as sarcastic!!!
Assuming the Brin pledge for Skeptics is here: http://www.davidbrin.com/climate2.htm , then it appears by Brin’s definition, I would not be a skeptic at all. After all, I do believe in Human-caused climate change, and so would be flat out lying if I wrote:”Oh, and by the way, I don’t believe in Human-caused Global Climate Change!”
My impression is that Keith thought Brin would define people like the Roger Pielkes, me and many of my readers as skeptics, and so we were the ones being called to do whatever distancing is required. My impression is that some on this thread (i.e. Bloom etc.) think we are flat out deniers.
But, if the pledge is for skeptics, and those people don’t believe in Human Caused Climate Change, it’s clearly for some other group. Brin might clarify by giving examples– names would be nice.
[…] the station anomalization and gridding methodologies. So it was with some surprise I bumped into comment whose author was bemoaning the lack of “replication” of […]
Lucia, you are not a skeptic in the ‘global warming’ sense of the word. You are a skeptic in the normal sense of the word. But you are also a birther, denialist, flat-earther to the Blooms of this world. See? You’re multi-tasking.
Can I be a ‘sceptic’ or a ‘deniar’ of Catastrophic AGW, but a not a ‘sceptic’ of aGW, or even AGW..
All very complicated 😉
“”If CO2 were purple we would have witnessed the sky change colour in our lives “”
Yet another thing I don’t get credit for: I believe I was the first person to make this point on sci.environment back in the early 1990’s; I chose red rather than purple if I recall correctly.
I cannot imagine what Mr Brooks in #345 finds objectionable about this point. The atmosphere has indeed become less transparent to certain frequencies, i.e., has changed color. Unfortunately for all of us, this color is in a band which we do not see with the naked eye.
BW: Can I be a ‘sceptic’ or a “˜deniar’ of Catastrophic AGW, but a not a ‘sceptic’ of aGW, or even AGW.
Can you craft a general definition so that someone else can confidently state “BW would categorize this as AGW; BW would categorize this as CAGW” ? If so, then the answer is yes.
It has now been made official. NASA’s primary mission is no longer as an aeronautical or space agency, it is just a public relations firm.
Keith@295 Well, I guess I was wrong about you. I didn’t think that you would out yourself as a such a one-eyed partisan advocate. Pielke Jr has never ever done anything worthy of criticism? You see nothing wrong with his vicious personal attack on me? Suddenly you don’t care about civility? Really?
And how, specifically, do you feel that I have unfairly maligned Pielke Jr?
Now since you answered my question, I’ll answer yours. I don’t usually criticize people who I generally agree with because, well I generally agree with them and my differences with are minor and not enough to motivate me to write a post.
Roger@289: I took up your offer to debate, but you backed out.
Mr Tobis:
You haven’t answered any questions. I wont pursue them if you do not wish to – that is not the intention.
From your blog – it appears that you did follow the IPCC Amazon issue very closely – three consecutive posts, all in unequivocal defense of the IPCC position, with not a single sentence as to why.
My point is not simply to say – you said you do not defend the WG2, but you did. You can certainly take positions and no justification is needed.
I am making the larger point that, you,
shy away from the IPCC WG2 issues in general
do not think much of the skeptical bloggers and therefore do not care to examine their claims
cannot examine their claims, even if you desired – as their substantial points, if any, come couched in what appears to you as “memes from the denialist canon” and are riddled with prejudice.
therefore never examined the criticism of the IPCC
With these limitations, it is inevitable that you support the IPCC – what other position is possible?
Neither did you seem very much taken in by the experts. Dr Myneni was explicit in his criticism of the IPCC for making “alarmist” statements. So was senior author Ganguly. So was the lead author Samanta (whose ‘Dr’ you kept striking off). None of these things seemed to matter. You proceeded from suspicion of the press officer, to the graduate student, to your gut-instinct that something nasty must have been done (which you still harbor), even after a phone call confirmed otherwise.
Why this reflexive, unbending support for the IPCC? We need people like you to criticize the IPCC – that can only put pressure on the scientists, authors and government officials to be on the watch.
Lady IR, that’s NOT Barry! But you’re absolutely correct about that page being illiterate.
Barry-Your hometown hired this huckster? What a disturbing example of milking global warming alarmism for personal profit. You ought to trace who’s palm that 20% kickback greased. He can’t even originate his own material if the “mud-wrestling with a pig” simile is his best material. Hmm? Then again, the Holocaust denier comparison isn’t going to get any laughs.
This thread has turned out to be a slap in the face to 43% of the public questioning the authenticity of ACC. We were lead to believe the article contained useful insight into why skeptical inquiry is perceived as a threat to the climate science experts. Halfway down the thread, a jaw-dropping post appears “cherry-picking” some lengthy quotes. Certainly if MT accuses this piece of aiding the opposition, the author’s literary style must be tongue-in-cheek sarcasm. Otherwise, suggesting a 10 paragraph-long obsequious preface of self-flagellation prior to attempting a solitary softball question doesn’t square with the impression given.
Maybe this passage serves as a cryptic message:
“the Climate Skeptic is keenly aware that, after endless jokes about hapless weathermen who could not prophesy accurately beyond a few hours, we recently entered a whole new era. Meteorologists can now forecast three days ahead fairly well, and more tentatively as far as 14 days, based on a science that has grown spectacularly adept, faster than any other. Now, with countless lives and billions of dollars riding on the skill and honesty of several thousand brilliant experts, the Climate Skeptic admits that these weather and climate guys are pretty damn smart.”
Of course! It’s the meteorologists who have the most reliable expertise. Their work must be robust. How else could they possess the essential confidence to endure decades of cheap-shot jokes. I wonder which well-funded industry generated the weatherman bashing meme for all these decades? Now we can mend the error of our ways by paying them their hard-earned respect.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/30/science/earth/30warming.html
Now that the author of the article has revealed his genuine contempt toward doubters of climate change orthodoxy, whatever step taken forward in the dialogue has gone 2 steps back. 🙁
Ron (#344): In fact, they did not (Dec 2009) provide written permission for Dr Jones to release the CRU modified Swedish data.
No, Ron, they didn’t. And neither should they have. As I pointed out already, the request from Jones and the Met Office was to release CRU-adjusted data and describe it as SMHI data. This is not what Jones had been asked for and it is not what he should have been asking to release.
Regarding replication vs reproduction, this is more nuanced on both a scientific and a philosophical level and I’m insufficiently armed to debate with you. But I know that station selection and value adjustment meta-data are core to understanding how Jones has arrived at his conclusions. They’re fundamental to his claim.
And it’s also essential to understand, Ron, that my argument is not that Jones’ results are wrong or that his methodology is flawed – though I’m not suggesting that I have any measure of faith that they are correct. The entire scenario sadly prevents this leap – it is that Jones has not met the standards that ARE (or, for crying out loud SHOULD BE) expected in scientific research, where you make your conclusions known and you make your data and methodologies available for independent verification and/or falsification. For Jones to obfuscate as he has, for Jones to deny access and enter into ad hominem attack and derision, not just privately but openly too, is what Graham Stringer MP identified quite rightly, of Jones, as “anti-scientific”. It is. And it has been for a long time.
Ron, forget this predisposition that Brin encourages (nay, yearns for) you to have, that anyone who questions climate science is thus, by default, an ideologically extreme, politically motivated “denialist”. Some of us genuinely hold integrity and honourable intent above all in science and, for the sake of the advancement of society and the science that supports it, are singularly mortified at the ideological corruption that exists and is defended in climate science. I don’t care WHO’S ideology or personal motivations are interfering, left or right, I regard them all as evils.
Sir, knowing what I DO know, I could no more place my faith in climate science right now than I could bring myself to drink from a stream in which there were a dead, floating sheep.
#347, Bill Stoltzfus:
You may want to read David Brin’s first reply to Tom, which also includes an answer to you.
@Laursaurus #363:
Only about half of all weathercasters have a degree in meteorology. Most of those likely a BSc or MSc. You’ll not find many PhDs amongst them. We thus have people who have learned to apply the science provided by the PhDs telling the PhDs they are wrong on the science. Interesting, no?
GaryM (#360): That made me laugh. I counted FOUR new objectives.. I assumed there were quotes around “to study science and math”. I immediately thought of Hansen! 😀
@Marco
Evidence is what matters in science. Not ideology. In order to make wise policy decisions, we must rely on solid science. Religious doctrine is the domain of ordained clergy.
Is there even such a thing as a PhD in climate science, anyway?
<em>Sir, knowing what I DO know, I could no more place my faith in climate science right now than I could bring myself to drink from a stream in which there were a dead, floating sheep.</em>
I appreciate your purity.
I know a number of PhD, even hired hired a few in the past.. And like ANY other cross-section of people.
There are great ones, stupid ones, and the majority are just average… (relatively speaking to the rest of the population)
Anybody, that has hung around a science lab, completed an MSc, knows what you need to do to get a phd 😉 Hang around long enough, help the the professors ‘teach’ their pet subjetcs to the undergrads. Do most of the boring ‘leg’ work, data collection, data archiving, writing code, collecting samples, etc 😉
I don’t remeber the exact quote, but someone likened a PhD.
To knowing absolutely everthing there is to know about a grain of sand, but being oblivious to the beach…
I could have hung around the lab, for a few more years to get a cybernetics phd, or jump university department to get a meteorolgy one (Reading University, good dept, and has the Walker Institute, now) money, funding was available. But I jumped ship and got an IT career. Some people were brilliant, some people were adept at playing academic politics, some were both, most were average(that probably includes me, -average – but I was aware of it, unlike some 😉 ),
ie jobs a bit thin on the ground (early 1990’s) virtuall half of the peple I knew at university, stayed a bit longer at university, get an MSc or PHd, enjoy the ‘attractions’ (can’t remember her name 😉 ) of student life, partly why I did a MSc .
Mainly though to get betterqualified for a job, jumping disciplines from Applied Chemistry to Cybernetics (ie IT )definetly helped get me a job (Chemistry had quite a lot of programming/computing introduced, – results, analysis, etc, as part of the course, that got me interested)
Some never left the departments( I know a few), lots of the guys grew beards and lost their hair… some married some of the undergrads (some more than once) the ones good at academic politics got better at academic politics, peer reviewed publications, made assistant profesors, and the great ones made full professors.
Just because someone has a PhD, in one area of ‘climate science’ does not make them an expert to pronounce on the hundred other areas of specialisation. Some people are amazing, cross disiplined, interested inareas outside of their specialisation, and aware of the ‘beach’
(Another analogy, is how many Nobel Prize winners, make pronoucementt (that get listened to, because they are a nobel prize winner) that makes them look completely stupid.
No doubt full blown ‘climate science’ titled Phd’s are on their way, UEA I believe do a Masters now.
MSc Climate Change and International Development
http://www.uea.ac.uk/dev/MScCCID
MSc Climate Change
http://www.uea.ac.uk/sci/studyscience/postgraduates/env/msclimateschange
Would one of the above ‘trump’ a , for example, astro-physics MSC, or PhD, etc
Would a ‘ climate science’ PhD make someone a bigger ‘voice of authority’ than a Professor of Atmospheric Physics, etc.. say from MIT, or anywhere else for that matter..
Allready we see, ‘climate scientists’ are the experts, to be deferred to..
Just a thought.
http://www.uea.ac.uk/polopoly_fs/1.114971!/MSc%20Climate%20Change.pdf
University of East Anglia – Climate Research Unit
Msc Climate Change – Course profile above…
ONE YEAR
Course Profile
Compulsory (120 credits)
Research Skills (ENV-M60Y)
Dissertation (ENV-M62X)
The Science of Climate Change (ENV-M535)
Climate Change: Science, Society and Policy (ENV-M594)
Options Range (60 credits)
examples of available modules:
Introduction to the Economics
of the Environment (ENV-M521)
Atmospheric Physics (ENV-M563)
Atmospheric Chemical Change (ENV-M577)
Environmental Assessment (ENV-M523)
Sustainable Consumption (ENV-M551)
Fundamentals of Meteorology (ENV-M509)
Air Pollution Chemistry (ENV-M572)
Natural Resources and Environmental Economics (ENV-M524)
Physical Oceanography (ENV-M51Y)
Applied Environmental and Waste Management (ENV-M504)
Geophysical Modelling (ENV-M531)
oh look, an Atmospheric Physics Module, probably to help the guys with geography degrees (tim mitchell ) get up to speed, on physics,
oh look, geophysical modelling (learn a bit of programming?)
But if that is a bit hard, can probably choose, the other options to get your 60 credits.
Choice quote from the blurb:
“You will also learn about research methods, consisting of empirical approaches to climate reconstruction (e.g. tree ring analysis),data preparation and analysis, detection of anthropogenic changes and theoretical or model-based approaches to climate prediction.”
Entry Requirements
This programme is open to students with a good first degree in environmental science or a related discipline.
I know, I could knock one of these off, given a spare year. I bet the majority of people commenting here could as well, (whatever you believe or do not believe)
Then you too, could get a job on the CAGW, IPCC, NGO, political, etc bandwagon. See the blurb below
“The MSc Climate Change is based in the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) at the School
of Environmental Sciences (ENV). The course is designed to provide you with in-depth interdisciplinary knowledge of climate change science, society and policy. The course content equips our graduates for careers in areas as diverse as government agencies, business consultancies and academia.”
(JPMORGAN Climate Care Carbon offests – look a good career, bank bonuses?!)
Sorry for the cysnicism, it’s late, and just spent a couple of hours, getting three, 6 and unders to bed.
Night All
Could not resist. (goodnight)
An ocean acidification Phd (deadline for applications November)
UEA – Environmental Science
Carbon Dioxide Uptake and Carbonate Chemistry in UK Shelf Waters
http://ueasciweb.uea.ac.uk/Resproject/show.aspx?ID=192
Description:
The problem: Net CO2 uptake by marine waters promotes ocean acidification, while reducing the increase of atmospheric CO2 and consequent global warming (Raven et al., 2005; Denman et al., 2007). The CO2 sink and the carbonate system in shelf waters display large spatial, seasonal and interannual variation (e.g. Thomas et al., 2004). The highly productive, global continental shelves are thought to be a CO2 sink, which is roughly balanced by a CO2 source in near-shore ecosystems (Chen and Borges, 2009). Gradually more CO2 data are becoming available for UK shelf waters. The research: This PhD studentship has the objective to assess CO2 uptake and carbonate chemistry in UK shelf waters. Extrapolation of the heterogeneous data set to larger shelf areas will demand the use of specialized empirical relationships, gridding and mapping tools. Our team has used such tools for extrapolating sparse pCO2 data (Schuster et al., 2009; Watson et al., 2009). Modelling may be used to gain a better understanding of the processes driving variation of the carbonate parameters, while satellite observations provide a synoptic data set for large areas. The specialized extrapolation tools and available data will be used for assessing the variability of the CO2 sink and carbonate chemistry for UK shelf waters. The PhD student will benefit from collaborations in the UK Ocean Acidification Programme. Requirements, training and opportunities: We seek an enthusiastic team player with strong scientific interests and self-motivation. She/he will have at least a 2.1 honours degree in physics, chemistry, mathematics, computing, or a branch of environmental science. Good numerical ability and experience in chemical analysis are an advantage. He/she will participate in at least one cruise, and will spend several weeks per year working at Cefas. The candidate will acquire transferable skills, while participating in research of global significance.
——————————-
bold = good for the ego- saving the planet again!!
My how time flies when you are the moderator’s friend [EDITOR’S NOTE: JUST SO NOBODY MISSES THE SARCASM, ELI IS NO FRIEND OF MINE/KK], but to repeat myself, let us consider RPJs # 1 point in 289
1. There is no greenhouse gas signal in the economic or human toll record of disasters.
and his #5 point
5. Adaptation is very important and not a trade off with mitigation.
There is a fundamental incoherence between Roger Pielke Jr.’s policy statements on severe weather damage and adaptation to climate change. Briefly put Pielke holds that there is no evidence of any increase in the cost of hurricanes (and other severe weather) that might be attributed to climate change. This certainly is an arguable position given the data we have, although it requires qualifications. While Pielke estimates a null trend, for example, Schmidt, et al found an annual increase of 4% since 1970, but no trend if one starts in 1950. You might remember that global temperature was decreasing/steady btw 1950 and 1970, but never mind.
In parallel with Eli’s ruminations, Nils Simon, has been thinking about the same issues and coming to a remarkable conclusion. Pielke in a 2008 paper states that
but Simon searches in vain for any such consideration as has Eli.
First, it is obvious even to a stuffed animal that the costs of flood control and surge barriers to limit damage from storms has increased substantially over the last fifty years. If such expenditures have NOT been included in the storm cost estimates, and the trend without them is flat, the trend WITH such costs MUST increase substantially. Any estimate that neglects these costs must be stated as a LOWER LIMIT. Neither Eli or Nils can find any such statement, not just from Roger Pielke.
Second, and this is Nils’ insight, NOT to include such costs or deal with their effect when you are aware of them, is either dishonest or a statement that such adaptation has no effect. Since any look at flood control expenditures shows we have been adapting to increased storm damage like crazy the pick is yours.
Roger can choose door A, storm cost has been increasing mightily in the past century or door B, adaptation has no effect. Ethon is standing behind both doors. Which of his policy principles does he want to feed to the birdie?
Shub: the lead author Samanta (whose “˜Dr’ you kept striking off)
I was told he was a student. Was this wrong?
Anyway, from here on, it’s “Doctor Tobis” to you, mate. (Ph.D. Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences, U Wicsonsin- Madison, 1996)
As for the rest of it, it’s contentious noise. I cannot imagine any way that any answer could contribute to any benefit for myself, Shub or any third party. As I said, my interest in the matter was about science by press release, not about the fallibility or otherwise of IPCC WG II.
I stipulate that I am not greatly impressed by WGII, especially in AR4. That doesn’t mean that everything it says is wrong, and I am not personally invested in the matter one way or the other. It simply isn’t the main reason I found the incident interesting that it had anything to do with IPCC, or even climate.
If Shub doesn’t want to discuss the underlying malfeasance of the “science by press release” trick we have nothing to discuss about this matter. Unlike so-called skeptics I do not consider myself expert on every topic on earth and so I don’t really have a useful opinion on how sensitive Amazonian vegetation is to drought.
Tobis,
I have enough or more reasons to hang a doctoral degree. (apart from the reason that I have one), around my neck too, but that is not the point.
You wrote that post on your own accord and wanted to stress the fact that a doctoral student contributed to the press release. Different members of the authors team spoke to members of the press – see the Telegraph news item. Kloor told you that the PI and others were behind the article solidly. The first author posted on RealClimate supporting their press release.
None of that mattered.
Instead you simply assumed that something ‘nefarious’ must be afoot. You have every right to – you have a certain perspective that lead you to conclude what you did. I only want to know why.
The ‘contentious noise’ that you speak of, is me trying to get you to see why skeptics might have something to contribute, and answer that question. You want to ignore all of it and focus on something else?
If we talking ‘science by press release’ – let me tell you, I totally agree. But on the same count, it is the climate science establishment which is favorable to the IPCC position and ‘CAGW’, that is guilty of this, thousand times over. Misrepresentation is rife. There are prominent scientists on record saying that media overkill, hype, overstretch and drawing untenable connections are good. The selling of fear and alarm in the media is so deep-rooted that the social sciences study it. “How to frame the issue?” – is a constant question.
I feel you have been a positive contribution on this thread, as a mid-wife to many posts here and in many other threads. Please do not take any of this personally (as you appear to have).
With regards
Marco (366): “We thus have people who have learned to apply the science provided by the PhDs telling the PhDs they are wrong on the science. Interesting, no?”
Appeal to authority.
I suppose these resonate among like minded “authorities”, or perhaps those who would leverage that authority to achieve their own (political?) ends. Not so much elsewhere.
But it seems a common ploy. I don’t know why.
Found this in the comments on a climate blog called http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/07/05/the-guardian-climategate-was-a-game-changer/from a Robert M.
“I like the suggestion of calling the careful side Climate “Reformers,” rather than skeptics or denialists. The desire is fixing climate science, not destroying it. Restoring it to its own better self.”
At last, the Skeptical Movement can reclaim their identity. Appears a number of individuals care more about a label than the process of critical thinking. Forget demanding extraordinary evidence. Protecting the fragile egos of the climate change “experts” is a much bigger priority.
Let the Climate Science Reformation Movement commence!
Michael (258) writes:
Indeed, a major complaint is that many people who pretend to be interested in science are only using science as a proxy to delay the policy debate.
And that is precisely why I wrote this post, so that we may distinguish between skeptics who are sincerely interested in the science (which then may cause them to question some of the policies) and those who start out disliking/rejecting the policies (and then find reason to question aspects of the science).
As I’ve said before, Michael, you don’t want to give any ground here, because to you, the science points to imminent catastrophe. It’s not in your interest to recognize legitimate (non-community) skeptics. So you pretend there are none.
If anyone spots a post with my name on it at a site other than collide-a-scape or climateaudit, it is an imposter (imposter(s) are afoot).
The proposed policies are likely to be very expensive, risky, and will affect everyone. Everybody should be interested in the policy and will therefore have an opinion. Some will be inclined to poke around in the science; other less so. Positions on policy are completely irrelevant.
Introducing political persuasion into a science debate is argumentum ad hominem. It’s the kind of thing truth seekers ought not tolerate.
It’s another common ploy. Again, I don’t know why.
You can look this stuff up.
—————-
http://cliveg.bu.edu/people/people.html
Doctoral Students
Arindam Samanta
Ph.D., Department of Geography & Environment, BU, 08/2006-Present
——————–
Dr. Curry, if you use Google to check for the standard phrases used along with names, you can check whether anyone is forging your name and contact the blog owner.
The commonest form is “So Andso says:” — here’s the search example for that string:
http://www.google.com/search?q=“Judith+Curry+Says%3A”
Possibly the older posts at other sites under your name are valid?
When do you think the forgeries begin? Can you name the sites that have been spoofed? Serious nastiness, worth tracking down.
Most blog software records IP addresses; I hope you’ll consider contacting the host at each spoofed blog to pursue this. Even if the identity thief is using a temporary IP, it can be tracked to IP service provider the puppeteer/forger is using, useful to narrow the source geographically. Investigation furthers.
Tim Lambert … this is funny …
“Roger@289: I took up your offer to debate, but you backed out.”
The reason I set up that thread for you on my blog is so that I’d stop seeing you at comment #361 on someone else’s thread reposting for the hundredth time that silly post of yours about me taking issue with Brad DeLong. If you’d like to debate, then I expect to see you over at my blog, rather than hijacking Keith’s threads. I post on climate policy just about every day. If you want to debate, just show up. You are welcome there. But you don’t show up. Why is that?
Now let’s leave Keith alone, and if you want to debate then lets just debate.
Thanks!
Tim (361) writes: I don’t usually criticize people who I generally agree with because, well I generally agree with them and my differences with are minor and not enough to motivate me to write a post.
Hmm, interesting. You certainly are quite the watchdog on your blog, always on the lookout for any distortions by your opponents and missteps by the media–all of which I applaud by the way. It’s a good example of citizen journalism.
The problem I have is that you conveniently look the other way when foul play is commited by your allies. It’s the epitome of the means-justify-the ends mentality, which I have deplored repeatedly on this blog. It’s the attitude that says, yeah, my guy may be hitting below the belt too, but he’s my guy so I’m not gonna criticize him for it.
I understand where you’re coming from; it’s the climate advocate’s equivalance of Ronald Reagan’s 11th commandment.
Hank (381):
I wouldn’t be overly concerned. There is no reason to call into question Judith’s other posts. As soon as I saw Judith’s name connected to a comment with a different email and ispn, I contacted her to verify. Other blog hosts would almost certainly do the same.
Tim Lambert- This will be my last post here with you, but I am happy to continue a conversation at my blog. In that spirit, let me end my part of the exchange with an offer — you are cordially invited to author a guest post at my blog in response to this invitation:
http://rogerpielkejr.blogspot.com/2009/11/open-invitation.html
As with other guest posts I publish, I’d ask for no more than 1,000 words and it will be published as you write it. Here is your chance to show all of my readers where you think I’ve made errors in my analyses, logic or arguments. Have at it! Please send it to me by email, and please acknowledge your acceptance by email also.
Thanks!
Keith (172)
Like most people, I haven’t read the original piece by David Brin. I would assume it’s something interesting and original. Unfortunately, what you related in (172) betrays a shallow mind.
modernize our energy systems asap”¦ duh?
Yeah, just snap out of it. What a great – and simple! – solution.
Since Eli believes in moderation in all things including moderation, perhaps a second point regarding Roger P”s challenge might slip through? This is also an interesting one
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Forgive Eli for uttering the dread JR word, but as JR points out about
4. Air capture research is a very good idea.
if your air capture is from the atmosphere, as Ken Caldera notes, you are committed to a very long time project, because as you pull the CO2 out of the atmosphere, the portion of emissions that has been pushed into the oceans and biosphere will, as L’Chatelier tells us, re-emerge to partially balance the portion you have absorbed and put lord knows where. In short, to achieve a reduction of x in atmospheric mixing ratio, you have to capture 2-3x CO2. Good luck.
The good news is that this will restore the pH of the oceans in the long run. The bad news is that it will be a really long run.
Apologies for the MS nonsense, but the original was composed on MS Word
Keith: As I’ve said before, Michael, you don’t want to give any ground here, because to you, the science points to imminent catastrophe. It’s not in your interest to recognize legitimate (non-community) skeptics. So you pretend there are none.
You badly mischaracterize my position, but that will have to wait. I think I need to clarify the whole conversation.
I really don’t think Brin made his point well enough to sink in with most of us in these parts. The people who call themselves “skeptics” and the people who actually behave according to the skeptical ethic propounded by Skeptic magazine are almost completely distinct populations.
As I’ve said many times, the more doubtful a person is of the science, the more vigorously they ought to support vigorous greenhouse policy. Uncertainty weights the high risk side of the risk analysis far more than it ameliroates the low-risk side. Wally Broecker is a doubter and a skeptic. Pat Michaels is a person with irrational, unexamined beliefs.
I’ve heard rumors some prominent naysayer scientists are young earth creationists. They are people with irrational, unexamined beliefs. They are not skeptics.
People who do not support vigorous policy can only be skeptics if they offer very high certainty that the science is biased to overstate the risks. Nobody does this very successfully. Some pretend to do this; at least their position is coherent, if not very well supported. Their arguments on the science are even more dissatisfying and vague than their arguments about a shocking scandal at CRU.
What is usually called the “skeptical” position simply makes no rational sense. If you could find someone making interesting and plausible skeptical arguments I for one would be genuinely happy to engage them, and I have no doubt other Ia folk would be happy to do so as well. It’s awfully tiring being presented so much half-bakery, especially when your day job oftentimes offers up the finest patisserie. I’d be thrilled to see an opponent arguing half as well as John McCarthy argued against us on sci.environment in the early 1990s. John made us think.
As for skeptics in the sense that Brin means, that is to say, outsiders willing to study the matter in depth using whatever types of scientific sophistication they can bring to bear in an intellectually honest way, you will find that again, I am delighted to talk to them, as are most Ia types. Indeed, this is the essence of the matter. It is exactly this group that the IIc group recruits from.
Since the half-baked so greatly outnumbered the baked, the fact that the science is basically sound is counterweighed by the opposition being of vastly greater number, and to all appearances, greater financial resources at least insofar as public outreach on matters of controversy is concerned.
And it is exactly to compete with the IIc group on this recruitment that we engage in these debates. Every new IIc is another person unjustifiedly angry at the messenger and unconcerned about the message. And many new IIc folk will engage in the blog wars themselves.
I think it’s not enough to compete with the IIc folk for the genuine skeptics who happen by. We also need to provide a way for genuine skeptics to enlist effectively in the battles against the false skeptics. This has been one of our great failures. Doing so is hard, because truth is harder than nonsense, and us genuine skeptics are loath to say things we aren’t pretty sure about.
(Providing an alternative stream with an uncertain amount of nonsense in it is easy enough; that’s the I-d group, which genuine skeptics find off-putting and detract from the credibility of the true story. I hope we can somehow do better.)
Of course, none of this crazy 1a business would be necessary if the press would do its job of competently evaluating the truth of competing claims.
Michael Tobis wrote (#389) —
As for skeptics in the sense that Brin means, that is to say, outsiders willing to study the matter in depth using whatever types of scientific sophistication they can bring to bear in an intellectually honest way, you will find that again, I am delighted to talk to them…”
Michael, could you link to an example of that, at your blog Only In It For the Gold or elsewhere?
David Brin #294
….’1) the burden of proof falls upon those dissenting from the current standard model, especially when the percentage of experts hewing to the SM is in the high 90s and when that field has a recent track record of being very very very very smart … weather models that have improved reliability from three hours to four days(!) in just a generation’…………Anyone who can say those very reasonable (!) statements aloud can proudly step aside from that pack of lemmings.
I would suggest that David really does need to check the opinions of end-users of the forecasts before accepting the ‘improved reliability’ of said forecasts.
It is my experience that forecasters have a higher opinion of their work than the people who try to use the official forecasts to make business decisions.
About 2 years ago I could find some (maybe 20%) of small business people in this area (about 60,000 sq. miles) who strongly supported the forecasters.
Now I cannot find any who are supportive to any degree – nor can I find more than one who is moderate with his criticism (although some days he is also equally scathing with his opinion).
Talking to people from interstate and overseas I hear the same story.
These people have risked their own money testing these forecasts (10 or 12 times a year for 4 or 5 years) and have found the forecasts to be of little or no use. Then you say anyone who cannot support these things aloud are ‘members of a flagrantly loony Denier Cult’.
These people, and their family businesses, live (and sometimes die) with the weather and weather forecasts.
You really should be talking with them before you stick distasteful labels on them.
No one seems willing, now, to deal with Tobis’ annoyance with public “inaction.”‘
I wonder if possible “actions” are another topic? Of course, on the skeptic/denier side almost all seem too silly/expensive/needless, I suppose. Except, of course, prudent use of resourses, care, respect. …hmmmm. …Lady in Red
Tobis (389)
the more doubtful a person is of the science, the more vigorously they ought to support vigorous greenhouse policy.
This is a fallacious argument. If (if!) I am doubt that GHG have anything to do with the warming why would I support vigorous greenhouse policy? Even if I believe that GHG have something (or a lot) to do with the warming it doesn’t follow that any GHG policy is necessary. I’m not saying that we shouldn’t do anything at all but your statement is just an expression of religious faith.
Uncertainty weights the high risk side of the risk analysis far more than it ameliroates the low-risk side.
I understand where you are coming from but we are not playing a stochastic game with risk management objective and we are not – contrary to what your party likes to tell to the public – talking about buying insurance. Because any “vigorous policy” still guarantees nothing at a prohibitive cost.
The last point is, excuse me, … Keith asked me to be polite, so I’ll omit the expression. The job of the press is NOT to competently evaluate the “the truth of competing claims”. Where did you even got this idea? The press is not equipped to perform such evaluation. The science itself is struggling with finding the truth. And you know what? No single truth exists for now.
For once I agree with Sashka on one thing at least. The press as it stands is not equipped to decide the question of where the balance of scientific evidence lies.
One would have hoped they would take IPCC’s word as a consequence; that certainly would have been better than what we have now. We need an institution that is trustworthy and duly trusted. IPCC was set up for that purpose.
I understand that there are who those who consider the IPCC process anything but trustworthy, but I wonder how to set up a process that would satisfy them, given that any fair reading would not report the risks in a dramatically milder form than IPCC does, and possibly to the contrary.
The only alternative I can think of is a scientifically competent press and a scientifically engaged segment of the public. It’s worth a try.
As for “I understand where you are coming from but we are not playing a stochastic game with risk management objective”, I think that is a good model of the situation in any decision making under uncertainty. How to evaluate costs and benefits on this scale is not easy, but the basic principles of optimal decision making do not go away.
kdk33 apparently believes that pointing to the experts is “appeal to authority”. This is a common misunderstanding about the appeal to authority as logical fallacy. The appeal to authority as a logical fallacy is a false appeal to expertise. For example, just because somebody is a Professor or a Doctor does not automatically mean he/she knows everything about anything, and that his/her opinion on matters well outside their area of expertise hold any value.
Compare that to PhDs in atmospheric physics voicing their opinion on matters of the atmosphere, based on their expert experience. Not necessarily right, but more likely to be correct than Professor XY, who holds a PhD and works in, e.g., nuclear physics.
MT:
“I’ve heard rumors some prominent naysayer scientists are young earth creationists. They are people with irrational, unexamined beliefs. They are not skeptics.”
Don’t know if Roy Spencer is a YAC, but he’s certainly swallowed the whole pitcher of Intelligent Design Kool-Aid, as witnessed by this astoundingly canard-filled essay. And he appears to disbelieve that speciation occurs, which IS a typical YAC stance: all organism ‘kinds’ were created at once.
http://www.ideasinactiontv.com/tcs_daily/2005/08/faith-based-evolution.html
His ‘intelligent designer’, not explicitly identified in that essay, is, of course, revealed on other essays to be the God of the Judeo-Christian Bible. No surprise there.
http://theevolutioncrisis.org.uk/testimony2.php
“The possibility then presented itself that, despite all I had previously thought, Genesis, the first book of the Bible, might actually be true! That realization led me to open a Bible for the first time, and to read it for myself, from the beginning. I also became open to reading the Bible because I discovered that a very intelligent friend of mine believed the Bible was the word of God. ……..
……In relation to the basic claims of Christianity, do what I did! Read the Bible. Judge it for itself. Put it to the test. I am confident that you too will find the Bible not only to be in agreement with proven facts of science, but also to be the book which will lead you to a personal faith in God the creator of all things.”
#390 Real skeptics are a relative rarity, but one just popped up to my immense gratification and with excellent timing at Brin’s, with a testimonial that answers AMac pretty well. http://is.gd/dh0l4
Gee, Michael gets to define not only skepticism but norms of skeptical behaviour. If you want to grow up to be a real skeptic, unless they do this, that and the other. And believe this, but not that.
And as a working member of the press, does your description of the press’ inadequacy include yourself?
Michael Tobis, thanks for the response at #395. You and I agree, Brin’s commenter AK indeed shows key traits that we’d hope to find in sparring partners. In particular, he abandoned his denial of the connection between rising CO2 and warming, once shown that it is simply a consequence of Radiative Transfer Equations — well-understood physics. It’s commendable that you played a part in educating him or her.
And it’s puzzling that you say, “Real skeptics are a relative rarity,” having offered this example. For example, of the commenters on this thread whose views you disparage: what percentage of them arrive at C-a-s already knowing what AK had to learn? I’ll guess it’s about 70%. Of the scientifically-literate portion who question some part of the AGW Consensus, I’d guess 95%. Anyone who has recommended “Science of Doom” qualifies, as does Keith’s bete noir Jeff Id. So do Lucia and her ‘regulars’ (in fact, she has a good comment at Brin’s blog, just proir to AK’s).
Rare? Not hardly.
I think a theory that needs revision to better match the facts is the commonly-held view, “When it comes to AGW, it’s mostly Knaves or Fools who disagree with me.”
Michael Tobis my response to your #395 is in the moderation queue. Short version: “Genuine” skeptics like AK (the person you cited) are a dime a dozen, even on this very thread. Yet, like David Brin, you believe that they are rare. That’s a bit strange.
Though not being a very outspoken critic of Roger Pielke Jr, I replied to his ten-point-manifesto here.
On his point 9 (“In their political enthusiasm, some leading scientists have behaved badly.”) I disagreed strongly with his (very implicit) take.
AMac,
Care to offer examples? I’m sure there are some, but a dime a dozen… I think not.
On the original topic.
Could somebody please explain to this Australian, a citizen of a Constitutional Monarchy based on the Westminster system of government exactly why and on what logical grounds I must agree to be classified by American political standards to be considered a “true sceptic”?
Why must I agree to being considered siding with “neo cons”, a subset of, I believe, the Republican Party. A party that I cannot join or vote for in a nation that I am not a citizen of.
And that is why Mr. Brins requirements are senseless. Strange as it may seem to some, America is not the centre of the world and the political divisions of the US cannot be accurately applied to other nations.
Don’t worry…
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/globalwarming/7873998/Curry-for-sheep-could-curb-global-warming.html
‘Curry for sheep could curb global warming’
Curry spices could hold the key to reducing greenhouse gas emissions, scientists claimed today.
A little bit of evidence that maybe to much ‘climate science’ funding has been sloshing around, looking for a home and a scientists to spend it..
we had mammoths and human hunters last week, this week reducing the methane out of sheeps bottoms.
The world’s real environmental problems, of course continue….
Marco(395)”kdk33 apparently believes that pointing to the experts is “appeal to authority”.
Indeed I do. And it plainly is. Look it up:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_authority
Bart Verheggen wrote in #402 —
> Care to offer examples [of real (per MT) skeptics]?
For links to examples, see my comment beginning “Michael Tobis, thanks for the response…” now released from moderation at #399.
Recall that Michael’s example in #397 of a skeptic deserving praise not scorn was AK, because AK came to accept the validity of radiative transfer equations and thus the warming that this bedrock-solid physics predicts as a consequence of rising CO2.
It’s rewarding but rare when somebody like AK says,”Your arguments are persuasive, so now I agree with you!” I had hoped for a link to Michael having an informative, respectful dialog with one of the “real” skeptics. That’s what his remark at #389 suggested to me — “As for skeptics in the sense that Brin means, that is to say, outsiders willing to study the matter in depth using whatever types of scientific sophistication they can bring to bear in an intellectually honest way, you will find that again, I am delighted to talk to them“¦”
I think that Michael and people in his camp write as though they believe, “When it comes to AGW, it’s mostly Knaves or Fools who disagree with me.” To the extent this is so, it is likely to pose a big obstacle to two-way communication with most scientifically-literate people who do not conform to all parts of the AGW Consensus position.
Still, it’s encouraging that AK was open-minded enough to change his beliefs, instead of ignoring well-founded physical principles.
Michael Tobis (#389)
Your arguments regarding who is a skeptic and what is a skeptic fell totally flat for me with this statement: “Pat Michaels is a person with irrational, unexamined beliefs.” And therefore he is not a skeptic, by your determination.
Read his profile on the wikipedia. This is accurate is far as I know, and i actually sat down with Michaels a few years ago over dinner to understand his views. He is basically a lukewarmer, doesnt buy the catastrophe, and shares the libertarian perspective that the best policy is to support economic development so as to reduce vulnerability to weather/climate events. Michaels has participated in the IPCC. His blog is worldclimatereport. As per google scholar, he has a significant number of publications in refereed journals (he appeared on the PNAS list). Most recently he has been publishing papers that mortality is higher for cold events than heat waves.
Michael, care to clarify why you don’t count Pat Michaels as a skeptic? One of the CRU emails talked about wanting to punch Michaels out (I forget who wrote this). So you and your friends dont like him. Is this the criteria for being “irrational” and not a skeptic.?
I suggest that those who likes the science of climate engage in Science of Doom site. A “citizen scientist” who insists that he’s in it for the science should be able to even like going there.
I notice that only a few people from this thread do comment there.
I second willard’s recommendation at #408 of Science of Doom, especially for any skeptics (real or otherwise) who doubt what universally-accepted mainstream physics has to say about the impact of rising CO2 on temperature.
“Not commenting” shouldn’t be confused with “not endorsing.” I only weigh in when I think I can contribute to Signal. Adding a remark like “I agree” to a thread usually doesn’t qualify.
kdk33:
Did you read your own link?
“There is no fallacy involved in simply arguing that the assertion made by an authority is true. The fallacy only arises when it is claimed or implied that the authority is infallible in principle and can hence be exempted from criticism.”
Note also that I do not refer to one authority, but a group of experts and their combined knowledge.
Of course, opinions differ, and I could accuse you of an appeal to authority (that of wikipedia):
http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/appeal-to-authority.html
http://info-pollution.com/appeal.htm
http://www.logicalfallacies.info/relevance/appeals/appeal-to-authority/
MT,
Your level of pomposity is borderline incredible. Exactly how did you get yourself into a position where you are an ultimate judge of who is or isn’t a real skeptic?
As for your “real” skeptic friend AK, his story sounds kind of funny to me. The correct explanation of the greenhouse effect (as in your ex-boss Ray P excellent write-up on RC) takes a couple of hours to write and a at least 15 minutes to digest even from someone with background in science (which AK clearly is not). If you were able to win over him in a couple of minutes then (1)you didn’t tell him everything and (2) he still doesn’t understand.You can call him real skeptic. I call him gullible.
Your suggestion that the press should just parrot whatever IPCC is saying is so odd that I am again struggling to stay civil. It’s as if you (not me) grew up in a totalitarian society and have no idea what the free press is all about.
I strongly disagree that stochastic game with risk management objective is a good model in application to climate. Before it becomes a good model, the statistical properties of the system need to be determined (which is not the case yet). To understand why this is so it is sufficient to recall the recent finanicial crisis. The system blew up precisely because people tried to risk manage based on the wrong assumptions.
@MT #397
Hi Michael…
For the record, I was reading comments here (and those at Brin’s). That’s why I “popped up”.
I’d say the latter part of my post is also relevant, there are certainly questioners (whom I’d call denialists) who simply won’t change their opinions, and keep asking the same questions over and over, wasting time for those who would answer, and leaving anybody who drops in with the idea that the science is still unsettled.
@AMac #399
“he abandoned his denial of the connection between rising CO2 and warming, once shown that it is simply a consequence of Radiative Transfer Equations “” well-understood physics.”
It wasn’t denial in the psychological sense (“cognitive dissonance”), it was the fact (which I still hold) that the cartoons used at the time to illustrate the “greenhouse” effect didn’t (and don’t) hold water. Once I understood that they weren’t intended to represent the actual science it was easy enough to follow MT’s clue to how it worked. Studying the actual science did add rigor.
I should add (also for the record) that I don’t agree that increased GHG necessarily produces warming. All other things being equal more GHG means more heat retention at the surface, which can be expressed as higher temp or increased evaporation or both. More evaporation changes the situation WRT clouds, introducing the highly debated cloud feedback, which potentially could more than compensate (through increased albedo) for the GHG contribution. (And yes, I’ve read textbooks and peer-reviewed papers on that subject.)
However, the precautionary principle still holds.
I’ll also state for the record that I also asked MT regarding the role of chaos theory (aka complexity theory) in climate modeling, and was totally unsatisfied with his answer. I’ve dug into chaos theory fairly deeply, and observed the very limited attempts to model it compared to real complex non-linear systems, for instance most models are discreet (digital) predictable systems while real systems are analog (in many ways) and normally incorporate a huge amount of random information at the quantum level (via collapse of the wave function).
IMO this is true as much for the weather and (contra MT) the climate as the cell and neural systems such as the brain.
Michael (@339),
This comment is illuminating in that it indicates that one’s view on the appropriate policy action determines whether or not one is a legitimate “skeptic” – at least in your eyes. People who don’t agree with your preferred policy action are therefore illegitimate. This position takes you from the scientific realm to the political, IOW your argument is a political one.
Furthermore, the argument that great uncertainty means that more vigorous policy action is needed is a weak one. In my profession (intelligence) we call this “worst casing” and it’s pretty common. See nuclear terrorism, the Iranian bomb, EMP, rogue missiles, etc. All those problems have potentially very high impacts and all of them are uncertain threats where the level of uncertainty is vigorously debated. There are many “Michael Tobias” equivalents in the national security and pundit/talking head community who similarly suggest that we cannot afford to spare expense in dealing with these uncertain threats.
The problem with that entire line of reasoning is that policy doesn’t take place in a vacuum and resources are limited. Even if we wanted to, we could not afford to maximize resources to deal with the potentials and mitigate against uncertainty in all these scenarios – we’d have nothing left over to deal with anything else.
Finally, since policy is about politics, I think you need to recognize the political limitations of your position. Most people, and this isn’t just the US, are not willing to sacrifice beyond the low-hanging fruit in order to implement a maximalist strategy against an uncertain threat. This is particularly true of climate change since policy and resources worldwide would need to be aligned and coordinated – not simply in one country. That increases the political challenge significantly.
The point in all this is to demonstrate that even if your thesis (greater uncertainty requires greater action) were true, it’s irrelevant because it’s not politically possible. A more reasonable and achievable position is to advocate for cost-effective hedging strategies. This way you accomplish something and give the science time to deal with the uncertainties which will eventually provide the political clout to do more.
Just a suggestion.
Sashka
If you were able to win over him in a couple of minutes then (1)you didn’t tell him everything and (2) he still doesn’t understand.You can call him real skeptic. I call him gullible.
I’m under the impression I’ve convinced a few people that the radiative model for CO2 (&etc.) is more or less ok by pointing out that it uses the exact same concepts, equations and methods we mechanical engineers use when doing heat transfer calculations in environments like sooty blast furnaces. Do they understand the physics based on that? Nope. But I think there are some who are willing to trust me who would not trust Michael “call the ‘other’ side evil” Tobis.
Does the reference to engineering and blast furnaces always work? Nope. But that’s where sometimes multiple explanations are required for different types of people. That’s the way things always are.
@Sashka #411
“The correct explanation of the greenhouse effect (as in your ex-boss Ray P excellent write-up on RC) takes a couple of hours to write and a at least 15 minutes to digest even from someone with background in science (which AK clearly is not).”
Re my scientific background, check out my blog.
I already understood how absorption and radiation worked in a gas. Michael’s clue, which was all I needed, was that it wasn’t a matter of how much upward radiation was being absorbed as it was the altitude (and thus the temperature) of the source of the downward back-radiation. (More precisely, the amount of IR being radiated downward at each temperature level.)
Marco (366)–thanks for correcting me on Brin’s response–don’t know why I didn’t see that.
And I third the recommendation to scienceofdoom. I learn a lot there.
Marco (#410) writes “Of course, opinions differ [about what ‘appeal to authority’ means], and I could accuse you of an appeal to authority.”
In such a question (i.e., a question about an arbitrary communication convention such as the definition of a term) “appeal to authority” is not an accusation.
Appeal to authority (and, incidentally, ad hominem attacks on dissenters) are effectively a choice to apply one’s empirical methods to the community of believers instead of applying empirical methods to the underlying belief. In questions of communication conventions, such as “should we use a circle or a vertical line to represent zeroness” or “what does ‘appeal to authority’ mean,” this is actually the right choice to make. There is no underlying correctness or incorrectness to an arbitrary communication convention, all that matters is what community of people will understand that communication convention. It is not fallacious to appeal to consensus for the answer to “should we draw our maps with north at the top?” It is fallacious to appeal to consensus instead of ultimate empirical support for the answer to “do the magnetic poles of the Earth roughly coincide with its axis of spin?”
(And incidentally, to y’all who want to talk sociology: it’s not a good way to resolve a physical question, but it can be interesting, and it’d be nice if y’all’d take the trouble to do it right. One of the sadly amusing features of this controversy is people doubling up on error by first fallaciously shifting from an physical empirical question to a sociological empirical question about the subpopulation that believes a particular answer to the physical question, then second compounding the error by doing a strikingly bad job of addressing the sociological empirical question. Previous c-a-s articles have discussed the weakness of attempts to characterize the consensus that CAGWers like to appeal to. And in this comment thread we have some remarkably careless ad hominem arguments, e.g., #107 “Lindzen is on record…” without being willing to answer a request for a cite, or #389 “I’ve heard rumors some prominent naysayer scientists are young earth creationists.” Even without the initial fallacious shift, arguments of this quality would be noteworthy for their sloppy weakness: imagine “it is on record that people with thermometers at the time showed that the LIA didn’t exist [but I won’t give you a cite]” or “I’ve heard rumors that some of the historical documents supporting the LIA were forged by the Jesuits.”)
>Exactly how did you get yourself into a position where you are an ultimate judge of who is or isn’t a real skeptic?
I’d like to see where MT says he’s the “ultimate judge”, know how an “ultimate judge” looks like, and how do we solve a question like “ultimately, who is or isn’t (always, forever, absolutely, etc?) a real skeptic.
In fact, basic skepticism is invincible. How can we know for sure that we know what we know? Demonstrating an answer to this quandary, which is as old as the Theaetetus, could earn a Nobel prize, at the very least. It could also save money, since we would not need Andy’s line of work anymore 😉
PS: By the way, Andy, I don’t think MT’s point is as categoric as you portray it in #413. The fact that you portray it that way could be seen as “illuminating” too.
@401 Bart
Yes, I very much appreciated your replies then and now. In the aftermath of all that has happened since we had that discussion, do you really think that the following claim is at all controversial?
“In their political enthusiasm, some leading scientists have behaved badly.”
While the sentence is oversimplistic, would you argue that the following sentence is more accurate?
“In their political enthusiasm, NO leading scientists have behaved badly.”
I have a chapter in my new book on the politicization of climate science, and while there is clearly a pathological politicization of the issue on all sides of this issue, there is disproportionate harm to those calling for action. And to assert that there has been _no_ such politicization among advocates for action doesn’t fit the evidence.
But again, there is no need to clutter Keith’s thread when you are welcome to discuss these issues where I raise them.
Thanks.
Willard (@418),
PS: By the way, Andy, I don’t think MT’s point is as categoric as you portray it in #413. The fact that you portray it that way could be seen as “illuminating” too.
That’s certainly possible, but how else could the following statements be interpreted given that there is a clear litmus test based on policy preference.
As I’ve said many times, the more doubtful a person is of the science, the more vigorously they ought to support vigorous greenhouse policy. Uncertainty weights the high risk side of the risk analysis far more than it ameliroates the low-risk side.
And:
People who do not support vigorous policy can only be skeptics if they offer very high certainty that the science is biased to overstate the risks.
Several people are suggesting that there is a question of “proper skeptic” that I am setting myself up as adjudicator for. They have either not read or not understood the article by David Brin that started the conversation.
It’s not me trying to claim any special status on this matter, it’s a member of an existing community using their self-definition as skeptics, defending themselves against another community that is trying to appropriate their name and reputation.
Please take it up with Dr Brin and don’t blame me.
Andy,
I don’t know exactly what a “litmus test based on policy preference” is, but I believe I can understand what MT says. The first sentence refers a consequence of the precautionary reasoning, coupled with the belief that “doing something” is possible and other ceteris paribus clauses. The second one reiterates what was said earlier, in another thread, starting there:
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/2010/06/30/embracing-climate-uncertainty/#comment-9725
The third one seems a different claim. If what we know entails that we should do something, then one must doubt what we know to say we should do nothing. Someone might still indulge in not doing something even if he knows we should and must, but how we deal with this kind of insincere person? As far as I am concerned, the insistence on the uncertainty and the fragility of the social institutions that warrant the beliefs we have might profit both contrarian scientific and political viewpoints.
This is not to say that’s the intention of the people who participates in this strategy. This simply describes some of the effects of the strategy employed. Saying your work helps the contrarians does not mean that you are one. It simply means that if you were one, you would do what you are doing.
As far as I am concerned, this is a kosher attitude attribution. We do it all the time. MT could be more nuanced, of course. But usually, climate scientists are scientists and should not be expected to talk the diplomatic talk.
Lucia,
I still don’t call people who take your word vs. his word (instead of doing very basic independent reading) real skeptics. This is another species. I don’t set the bar nearly as far as MT, but people who are out to choose whom to trust certainly don’t fit.
AK,
I don’t know where your blog is so I can’t check anything. If you are saying you got everything but the last clue on your own then I apologize. I talked to MT about chaos as well. He was trying to tell me that the climate of Lorenz model is predictable. It took me a while to explain why this statement was misleading and irrelevant.
BTW, chaos and complexity are normally different things. Maybe some people are trying to to tie them together but they are not “aka”. These are completely different fields. As far as I understand, there is almost (except in the simplest cases) no way to build analog simulation of a nonlinear system (I also had this thought once). All simulations are numerical by necessity. There models that incorporate stochastic forcing but they don’t reveal anything especially illuminating vs. deterministically forced models. Roughly speaking, there is enough randomness in the chaotic system itself.
Precautionary principle is not a quantitative tool. It doesn’t tell you how much to invest in solving a wrong problem.
On belatedly returning to (and catching up with) this thread, I now realize that I completely left out the part of my argument that was actually relevant to the thread. (Sorry, Keith!)
My actual point was to note that I came to my skepticism through principled and fact-based analysis of the part of the science that falls within my specialty. It may turn out that my skepticism is not justified (see, for example, AMac@151 and dhogaza@133 [btw, 2/3 of my career has been in industry, writing “real code” and shipping products]); alternatively, my doubts may be spot on. We’ll find out, eventually.
As far as I can see, my journey is a perfect match for any reasonable definition of “science-based skepticism” — a thing that any number of posters here argue is either unreasonable or impossible. Others, like MT, seem to argue that I can’t be a “true skeptic” because I don’t accept his policy recommendations (more on that in another post).
As for “calling out” other skeptics about their mis-statements (recommended by *somebody* above as a way to show that I’m a “true skeptic” as compared to one of those evil unconvinceable class-whatever-it-was “skeptics”), well… no can do. I don’t post a lot, because my current job requires that I avoid making any public statements that could possibly be construed as representing the position of my institution, *specifically* *including* blog posts under my own name only. I’ve probably violated that earlier in this thread (Oops!) — a fine example of why I rarely post.
Finally, somebody above noted that skeptics of my variety are “a dime a dozen” in threads like this. That completely matches my observation. If MT and others have failed to observe this, I suggest that their idea of what constitutes a “true skeptic” may be seriously flawed.
In Comment #421, Michael Tobis said, “Several people are suggesting that there is a question of ‘proper skeptic’ that I am setting myself up as adjudicator for.”
Michael, here is a link back to your #389 from yesterday.
It seems to me that you keep saying things, and then responding to not-100%-exact paraphrases with, “I didn’t say that!”
For instance, you haven’t claimed that you adjudicate who is a proper skeptic. But you have explained at great length who qualifies as a real skeptic, i.e. who fits into that exceedingly rare category of “skeptic worth talking to.”
Such subtleties are going to elude a lot of readers.
Andy doesn’t seem to understand my point. I think that holding that climate science is more uncertain than is claimed leads directly to an increased weighting of climate risk and advocacy of a more vigorous policy. I know of a few people who do believe this, but this coherent position gets very little attention. Meanwhile a great deal of attention is wasted on the incoherent position that climate science is uncertain and policy is consequently unnecessary.
Suppose I offered you a security with an 80% chance of matching the bank’s interest on $1000, a 10% chance of being worthless, and a 10% chance of returning a hundred thousand. You would have no hesitation buying that for $1000, probably more. Suppose I asked you to sell me such a ticket, where you were responsible for the gains or losses I accrued. How much would you ask for it? Far more than $1000, I presume. That is risk weighting.
Suppose, for example, that greenhouse sensitivity were horribly overestimated, and it’s really only a tenth of what we believe. Recent warming would then be entirely coincidental (as so many people are eager to believe) and the total cost of unmitigated emissions would be limited to the cost of ocean acidification. Let’s go further and suppose that is also overstated, and that the total cost of unmitigated emission would then be zero.
On the other hand, suppose that sensitivity is tenfold underestimated (here we’d have to presume some masking from aerosols or longer time constants than models say). Then the expected warming due to unrestrained emissions over the next century would be on the order of 30C, which would make most or all of the world about as inhabitable as Mars. We could call the costs of that infinite.
Now I consider the chances of either such outcome very low, low enough to be neglected. But if you do not respect the science, you must consider equally. When you weigh your responses, you should weight the relevant costs equally. If you have a ten percent likelihood of an infinite cost and a ten percent chance of a zero cost, it is the former, not the latter, that should dominate your plans, in the same way that Cheney suggested that a 1% chance of an intended nuclear strike on a US city should be treated very similar to a certainty thereof.
That is why it is logically incoherent to spend much effort criticizing climate science as far more uncertain than it claims, and then using that claim in advocating for delay or inaction on greenhouse gas regulation. There’s a cultural context that pulls for this incoherence, but it’s still incoherent. It’s extremely widespread, but intellectually lazy and not logically supportable.
Skeptics by Brin’s definition are people who accept the value of reason over the value of faith or emotion. They therefore cannot hold both opinions.
It is, on the other hand, coherent to claim that climate science is systematically biased with very high likelihood, and that therefore greenhouse policy should be delayed or eschewed. However, this requires replacing the claims of the scientific community with equally compelling claims to the contrary, along with explanations of how the public face of science got it so badly wrong. In other words, it’s hopelessly implausible. Again, it is not a position that is open to a person thinking logically.
So why does our discourse get this so scrambled? That is a very good question. I am waiting for an answer.
Lucia’s misunderstanding of my beliefs about ethics in these matters is addressed here.
On the “precautionary principal” —
I completely reject the typical uses of the precautionary principal (PP, hereafter), including those I’ve seen in this post. Any rational use of the PP *must* include plausible estimates of the risks and benefits of both action and inaction, along with estimates of the likelihood of the problem arising in the first place. Better still to also have an idea of the costs of the proposed solutions, most especially including *opportunity* *costs*. The latter are routinely ignored in essentially all partisan arguments on most policy issues. But opportunity costs appear (to me) to be one of the largest sources of unintended consequences.
In the absence of such a cost-benefit-risk analysis, the PP is no different from basic paranoia — we must take <some-action-or-other>, else <the-problem-du-jour> will ruin everything.
Yup. And the guy on the corner might be a drug dealer who thinks I’m muscling in on his turf and he could decide to get me out of his way, so I’d better kill him before he kills me. Uh huh.
That example is (more than a bit) over the top. But it matches up fairly well with many of the invocations of the PP seen on this thread. MT writes, for example:
the more doubtful a person is of the science, the more vigorously they ought to support vigorous greenhouse policy.
That would seem to argue that the weaker my evidence about the guy on the corner, the more vigorously I should take care of the problem. This does not compute.
It would be nice if all sides of this discussion would recognize that there are rational reasons for skepticism as well as for the consensus view. Similarly, it is quite possible to agree with the mainstream science while rejecting any or all of the current basket of policy proposals. Or to support those proposals regardless of the science. Or… By now, you should get the idea.
@Sashka #423
“I don’t know where your blog is so I can’t check anything.”
Just click on my screen name.
“He was trying to tell me that the climate of Lorenz model is predictable. It took me a while to explain why this statement was misleading and irrelevant.”
Did he change his opinion? Personally, I didn’t bother, especially since I didn’t/don’t have formal credentials.
“As far as I understand, there is almost (except in the simplest cases) no way to build analog simulation of a nonlinear system (I also had this thought once). All simulations are numerical by necessity. There models that incorporate stochastic forcing but they don’t reveal anything especially illuminating vs. deterministically forced models. Roughly speaking, there is enough randomness in the chaotic system itself.”
Perhaps. The problem with numerical simulations is that since in complex non-linear systems the size of a perturbation doesn’t really relate to its probability of making a major difference, a numerical simulation of a real-world analog non-linear systems will invariably depart from its object with time, often catastrophically. The smaller the scale the longer the departure will take (speaking statistically), which means that while weather forecast systems with their rather small cells might be good for a few days, climate simulations with their much larger cells are unlikely to be good for the many years they are used to forecast.
Having actually looked into the way the climate is modeled, including reading several of MT’s papers, I simply can’t believe they have any real likelihood of forecasting the evolution of the climate. But I also didn’t (and mostly don’t) see any reason to argue with MT or anybody else about it: nobody’s going to change their mind.
“Precautionary principle is not a quantitative tool. It doesn’t tell you how much to invest in solving a wrong problem.”
Carbon dioxide is hardly the “wrong problem“: if it doesn’t impact the climate (and it’s highly probable it will impact the climate system in some way, even if it doesn’t produce global warming), there’s still the issue of ocean acidification (and it is acidification, even if the pH is still on the basic side of 7) and its effect on the complex ecology of the ocean.
A system as complex and complexly non-linear as the Earth’s biosphere has a very high probability of having many inflection points and many paths between meta-stable pseudo-equilibria any of which could be crossed at any time, and the longer the build-up of carbon dioxide continues, and the more gets pumped into the total system (not just the atmosphere but the extra in the ocean and soil), the greater the chance of crossing the wrong “tipping point” and putting the planet onto a part of the attractor that’s less attractive (heh) to agriculture or some other essential aspect of our population’s survival.
Of course, the economy’s another very complex non-linear system, and frantic efforts to reduce carbon dioxide emissions NOW are equally likely to cross the wrong “tipping point” and produce the sort of economic disaster that would be just as bad as an ecological disaster. (Perhaps much more likely if you count passing laws as introducing forcing.)
Bottom line, we should be worried about carbon dioxide, but IMO we should also worry about crashing the economy in dealing with it.
And, most of all, we should be worried about the political agendas of everybody involved in advocacy in any direction.
Marco,
With all due respect, your comment in 366 is an appeal to authority. I’m just stating the obvious. There is, as you later point out, “no fallacy in arguing that an authority’s claim is true” (and, conversely, no fallacy in arguing that an authority’s claim is wrong), the fallacy is when you offer that authority (or count authorities) as evidence that the claim is true. Perhaps you should re-read the paragraph you quoted.
If you believe weathermen are wrong, you are free to offer evidence to counter their claim. Instead you offer that some who disagree have PhDs.
As I said, these appeals resonate with some. But they ring hollow to many others.
[…] many ways, but I find myself looking for a segue into more productive territory. Fortunately, one commenter has laid out a path: It would be nice if all sides of this discussion would recognize that there are […]
Folks should feel free to continue engaging on this thread with the many interesting debates that have broken out.
But in my never-ending search for common ground, I’m hoping to kickstart a fresh discussion here.
Sashka–
I still don’t call people who take your word vs. his word (instead of doing very basic independent reading) real skeptics.
Fair enough. Although, I’d point out that at a minimum, these people generally know they aren’t sufficiently familiar with radiative physics to judge a technical argument, but are willing to change their minds about a belief based on an answer from a person who they judge as having the expertise for this particular question and who they judge as unbiased for this particular question. The totally unskeptical would just use the answer to the question to decide the person answering can’t be trusted to both know the answer and give an unbiased one.
I suspect lots of people inclined to skepticism find themselves in this position from time to time. I would find myself in this position vis-a-vis translations of ancient Greek manuscripts.
So, I do consider people who change their mind after consulting several others to display skeptical attributes even if they fail to exhibit skeptical perfection in all areas.
Brin offers the following in comments at his site in response to Lucia, which I find immensely useful:
all along you have insisted on literal, word by word nitpickery of my sentence-word choices, as if they were grand and towering infernos of bad thinking. Sorry, by [sic] this is a case of forest for the trees” and I’ll not participate, anymore.
You are welcome here. But chill, please.
It’s not that I’m not “a diplomat” as some of my defenders would have it. It’s that I’m trying very hard to communicate certain things in ways that are vivid, interesting and as easy to understand as possible given that they don’t match the thought patterns people have habitually developed on these things.
I would appreciate if people attended to the intended meaning and not to hair-splitting as if I were constructing a theorem. I was casting about for a way to say exactly this, but an intelligent person new to the battlefield had no trouble getting to it.
I think that the forest/trees thing is exactly right. When people start arguing about specific words as if this were a legal document or a peer reviewed paper, they are trying to shut down communication. This is a conversation, not a treaty negotiation. Let’s focus on intended meaning, not on attacking or defending each choice of word, please.
If climate science is less certain than presented, which I suspect to be true; why should we put all our eggs in the basket that says temperature is going to increase unrelentingly unless we do something? The possibility of cooling should certainly not be ignored. It seems to me, Ostrich, head, sand, applies to those who don’t consider that possibility.
We know of temperature swings in the downward direction on the order of 10C roughly every 100,000 years. Shall we ignore that possibility based on an observational time series less than 1/10 of a percent of that period ? Shouldn’t those advocating application of the precautionary principle be willing to apply that same principle to cooling?
Frankly, I don’t believe in the precautionary principle. To me it is nothing more than argument from ignorance.
To truly believe in it, and faithfully act according to it, the principle leads to its recursive application. The first application of it must spawn further application of it based on the action taken.
Re: #434, I read Brin’s criticism of Lucia’s remarks, where she points out that many or most of his proposed “pledge” points are inapplicable to many or most scientifically-literate skeptics.
No true skeptic would agree with Lucia.
AK,
I doubt that he changed his opinion. But I though that he at least understood that mine was legitimate.
I think you throw bridges between weather and climate a bit too easily. Nobody proved that climate is actually chaotic or otherwise. As far as I understand, this is one of the big known unknowns.
There is no need to argue about what the models can or cannot do. The proof is in the pudding. They have to demonstrate it. They haven’t yet. The jury is out.
CO2 is a wrong problem not in the sense that it is irrelevant to climate. It is wrong (as is the whole GW problem) in the sense that it’s a secondary symptom of the actual disease which is a malignant tumor on the body of our planet that is our human civilization. As long as the humans continue to multiply and seek better lifestyles (as they most surely will) they will need more and more energy. The energy quest and overpopulation will not only consume all available fossil fuels (unless we suddenly figure out another solution – in which case CO2 will also become irrelevant) but will become a source of wars over resources and land on such a scale that and extra degree of warming will look like minor nuisance.
I’m not sure what you mean by inflection point. As far as science knows, there are no tipping points. And there may be no attractors either.
I just ventured to read the latest entry on Brin’s blog
http://davidbrin.blogspot.com/2010/07/clarifications-re-climate-skeptics-and.html
and what a pile of <self-censored> I did I find. It’s a collection of lies mostly based on ignorance and political agenda. The content is so off-base that, in my view, doesn’t even warrant point-to-point debunking. It is amazing that Keith was able to forge an interеsting discussions from Brin’s writing.
#436 The “true Scotsman” thing is a clever point. Allow me to rephrase.
It’s clear that the word “skeptic” is being used in two senses. The “true skeptic” word choice was not a good one on my part. I should have been speaking of “skeptic” in the sense of subjecting all beliefs to reason vs “skeptic” in the sense of finding climate science less than trustworthy. Both senses are in use in this discussion, and Brin’s efforts to make the distinction were much misunderstood by those of us familiar with the latter sense.
The scientific mainstream has long been loath to use the word “skeptic” to describe those who distrust us, precisely because we are scientists and thus consider ourselves skeptics in Brin’s sense.
Anyway, those who distrust us and proceed from there to the opinion that carbon is not a problem are not proceeding in a logical fashion. Proceeding from the distrust to opposing greenhouse policy is not “true” skepticism in the sense of valuing logic because the first, far from supporting the second, counterindicates it. That’s the point. This (to my view glaringly incorrect) syllogism is pretty much unexamined; genuine skepticism would at least take the time to examine it.
All, Sashka and AK are reviving this conversation. Shall we move it to my blog or plague Keith with it? I suspect most of the audience will find it too arcane.
Michael Tobis #439,
Thanks for the clarification.
By the way, I agree with you when you say, ” those who distrust us and proceed from there to the opinion that carbon is not a problem are not proceeding in a logical fashion.”
Saska (438):
I was very careful to play off the general premise of Brin’s story, which is, can we distinguish between “climate skeptic” and “climate denier.“
I will say that I don’t find his metrics helpful, which is why I didn’t quote from them in the article (and why Arthur Smith felt I got the article all wrong).
Like Judith Curry has said on numerous occasions on this blog, we can still find something of value in a perspective or argument even if we don’t agree entirely (or much at all) with it.
Yes it is a conversation, M Tobis. But that seems to work only in one direction – why you explain something. When the other party raises some questions, you say they are ‘nitpicking’. This is to lose the plot and to disengage from conversation. (this is all re: Brin vs Lucia)
AMac, Dr. Curry, Sashka and others (and me) have been pointing out the same thing: You believe the skeptics have become so, persuaded by their politics, but are you rejecting their science because of their politics?
AK:
Could you please elaborate the brand of skepticism you practice? If you believe in the precautionary principle why do you need to understand radiative physics and the greenhouse effect at all? You could just go – “I dont know the greenhouse effect completely, but there are others who do and they say it’ll be a bad thing, and that’s enough”.
MT,
(439)
I will repeat that I oppose GH policy not only because of mistrust and uncertainty. That said, uncertainty on centennial time scale is a strong a objection on its own.
(440)
I was actually not aware of that specific blog post of yours but the contents are well familiar. The parallel with fish tank is well constructed but the claim that GH forcing is akin to banging on the fish tank so hard that nothing else matters is a huge overstatement.
Michael Tobis is correct on Pat Michaels.
Tainted research money:
WASHINGTON –Coal-burning utilities are passing the hat for one of the few remaining scientists skeptical of the global warming harm caused by industries that burn fossil fuels.
Pat Michaels — Virginia’s state climatologist, a University of Virginia professor and senior fellow at the libertarian Cato Institute — told Western business leaders last year that he was running out of money for his analyses of other scientists’ global warming research. So last week, a Colorado utility organized a collection campaign to help him out, raising at least $150,000 in donations and pledges.
The Intermountain Rural Electric Association of Sedalia, Colo., gave Michaels $100,000 and started the fund-raising drive, said Stanley Lewandowski, IREA’s general manager. He said one company planned to give $50,000 and a third plans to give Michaels money next year.
“We cannot allow the discussion to be monopolized by the alarmists,” Lewandowski wrote in a July 17 letter to 50 other utilities. He also called on other electric cooperatives to launch a counterattack on “alarmist” scientists and specifically Al Gore’s movie “An Inconvenient Truth.”
http://www.boston.com/news/education/higher/articles/2006/07/27/utilities_paying_global_warming_skeptic/
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Patrick_J._Michaels
Beyond his affiliations, he’s been involved with blatantly dishonest research and testimony.
http://www.logicalscience.com/skeptic_arguments/models-dont-work.html
KK:
“So trust me, I’ll have no problem critizing Roger Pielke Jr. or the Breakthrough Institute when I feel it’s warranted. Meanwhile, suffice to say that I feel that both have been unfairly maligned by the likes of you, Romm, and others in the blogosphere.”
Could you give an example of where you think either have been “unfairly maligned” by Tim Lambert, or where you have criticized them?
This discussion demonizing Tim Lambert for who he chooses not to criticize is a bit ironic, considering RPJ spends the vast majority of his time attacking mainstream climate scientists for usually unwarranted reasons and propping up the views of contrarians. It’s really a pot and kettle deal here.
There’s arguably an issue of time constraints as well. Hardly a day goes by when there is some significant denialist nonsense hitting the media/blogosphere. Tim Lambert does a good job of dealing with the nonsense real-time. Another issue is that when mainstream scientists do make a mistake, such as an improper citation in an IPCC report regarding Amazon rainforests, the magnitude of the mistake is easily overshadowed by the outright media distortion (Amazongate), which has even finally lead to some welcome retractions. Tim has his hands full.
Xenophon (#428) writes “In the absence of such a cost-benefit-risk analysis, the PP is no different from basic paranoia […]”
It seems to me that the precautionary principle is more nearly an instance of the Pascal’s Wager rhetorical trick than it is an instance of general paranoia. (This must not be a novel observation, since I notice that Wikipedia makes the connection.)
To the extent that it belongs in a larger category, I think the correct category is not conceptual errors that individuals are prone to stumbling into, but the rhetorical device of “impossibly high standards that I can apply selectively” that advocates are prone to invoking selectively in order to justify their preferred outcome.
(Green precautionary principleers like to dismiss obvious counterrisks like reducing general wealth (damaging the ability to ameliorate almost any risk, e.g. plague or a big meteor strike or a new Ice Age) and the plausibly-on-the-order-of-one-percent risk of a new Ice Age in the next century (on the theory that Ice Ages are observed occurring naturally every 10K years or so. The “any uncertainty favors my policy” argument is fairly silly unless some strong argument is given to show that countermeasures taken today are much more cost-effective than countermeasures delayed until the catastrophe becomes clear. That can be an easy argument to make in some cases, e.g. introduction of invasive species, but it’s not such an easy argument to make for climate change.)
> There is no reason to call into question Judith’s other posts.
Then I misunderstood her request to watch for forgeries. Sorry.
NewYorkJ (445):
Is everyone who over received fossil fuel industry money is deemed untrustworthy or only the people who you don’t like?
NewYorkJ (446):
Could you substantiate your opinions on RPJ? Like showing top 5 cases of his unwarranted attack on mainstream scientists and propping up contrarians? BTW, you say contrarian as if it’s a bad thing. Do you always go with majority?
Newman (447)
Remember that Pascal’s wager was free.
The statement (#442)
——————————–
do you really think that the following claim is at all controversial?
“In their political enthusiasm, some leading scientists have behaved badly.”
While the sentence is oversimplistic, would you argue that the following sentence is more accurate?
“In their political enthusiasm, NO leading scientists have behaved badly.”
————————-
is the sort of vacuous ju-jistu all have come to expect from Roger Pielke Jr. On it’s face, and given his frequent attacks on folks like Jim Hansen, it appears that he is talking about those who believe that climate change is a serious threat. OTOH, it is a fine fit for folk like Pat Michaels and John Christy and the late Fred Seitz.
The better question is, among scientists, on which side of the issue are folk for whom their science is formed by their policy views and on which side are those for whom their policy views are formed by their scientific conclusions?
Where’s Roger?
@Shub Niggurath #443
“Could you please elaborate the brand of skepticism you practice? If you believe in the precautionary principle why do you need to understand radiative physics and the greenhouse effect at all? You could just go ““ “I dont know the greenhouse effect completely, but there are others who do and they say it’ll be a bad thing, and that’s enough“.”
Informed skepticism. I’m an intellectual anarchist and a “Kuhnian revolutionary looking for revolutions”. I generally distrust loudly proclaimed scientific consensi (sp?) because too often they’re more a circling of the wagons against a paradigm shift than a real consensus. Of course, every case is different, but I could offer as other examples the blanket rejection of drifting continents in American Geology prior to, say, 1960, and the current (AFAIK) rejection of James et al.‘s proposals regarding the bronze/iron age transition in Mediterranean Archaeology.
I actually got into this via studying chaos/complexity theory, and concluding that there are probably a number of fields that are/will experience a paradigm shift as the implications are integrated. Leading among these are the computational biology of the cell, intelligence in neural (etc.) systems, understanding of weather and climate, understanding of socio-economics, etc.
I assumed (and you know what that does) that climate modeling was actively incorporating the results of work in chaos theory until the fuss over Kyoto grabbed my attention in the late ’90’s. I’d always been skeptical of the “greenhouse” effect, but assumed that there was something I didn’t understand about how it worked (which turned out to be correct) until my efforts to find rational answers gained me the sort of political attacks typical of a major political scam.
Since then I’ve gained the impression that the “experts” in the climate community don’t know any more than I do regarding chaos/complexity theory or how it should be applied to climate modeling. Perhaps that will change if somebody actually discusses it with me. Preferably in an environment where denialists can’t take garbled, half understood, excerpts and use them for their own purposes of confusing the issue.
I’m still very skeptical of the political agendas of the catastrophist community, despite agreeing that there’s a significant risk to dumping carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Based on what I saw then, and have seen since, there’s a very large contingent of “Committed activists who use science as a legalistic debating hook; may be aware of mitigating evidence but try not to discuss it; mostly interested in using science in debate toward influencing policy (Romm is the prototype)” (quoting MT), witness the efforts of the “ETC group” to block any effort for remediation, nuclear power, etc. on specious grounds. (I’m also somewhat skeptical that MT’s as far away from this group as he claims, although I give him the benefit of the doubt.)
So do I have a political agenda? You bet: I believe that space solar power is the only feasible long-term solution to a combined growing population and growing per-capita energy usage. Anything else will probably end up in a major population crash, meaning billions of dead people. (I haven’t seen any mention of space solar power on the “ETC Group’s” web site yet, but if it gets any major play I expect them to display the same knee-jerk opposition they have to geoengineering etc.)
The question is how to get there from here while minimizing the risk of eco-climate catastrophe, socio-economic catastrophe, and the risk (high with any imperial system with no effective competitors) of sliding into an effectively static “Byzantine”-like structure. I consider socialism in any form, as well as over-trust in governmental action, very risky in that regard. That doesn’t mean I’m enamored of any of the alternatives, but if we’re going to depend on large monopolistic institutions such as a world government, the IPPC, or the entire climate modeling community, then IMO safety requires very high levels of active, investigatory distrust as a (hopeful) hedge against the sort of thing that happened to the Roman Catholic Church, the Byzantine Empire, and many other examples
P.S. Thanks MT for the link. It’d been a while.
Michael Tobis,
It’s completely possible I’ve misunderstood you, but I think you’ve misunderstood me as well. I agree that uncertainty works both ways – its effect is to widen the gap between worst-case and best case.
However, my view is that dealing with climate change is not a dichotomy of “do nothing” vs “support vigorous policy” based on the upper end of the high-risk side of the equation. A range of policy actions need consideration all along the spectrum of possibilities. So when you state:
I think that holding that climate science is more uncertain than is claimed leads directly to an increased weighting of climate risk and advocacy of a more vigorous policy.
I would agree that more vigorous policy should be considered, but not automatically advocated. Policy has to be weighed against alternatives, be politically viable and be reasonable on a cost-benefit-risk opportunity cost basis. I interpreted your comment to mean that increased uncertainty demands advocacy for a worst-case policy. If that was not your intent, then my apologies.
You continue:
I know of a few people who do believe this, but this coherent position gets very little attention. Meanwhile a great deal of attention is wasted on the incoherent position that climate science is uncertain and policy is consequently unnecessary.
Regarding your first point, I disagree the position is strictly coherent from a policy standpoint. It might be coherent in a narrow climate change context, but policy is much broader since its effects go well beyond the problem at hand. If policy is not politically viable or is not practically achievable or if its negative effects outweigh the positive, then it seems to me that’s more wishful thinking than coherent policy. Good policy must consider other factors (externalities) besides utility in dealing with the primary problem.
On your second point I fully agree. I am not at all advocating doing nothing – quite the opposite in fact. The question of how to respond with what measures on what timeline at what cost is a debate that needs to happen.
Sashka:
“Is everyone who over received fossil fuel industry money is deemed untrustworthy or only the people who you don’t like?”
Your question is based on a strawman. Research funded specifically by industries seeking to downplay global warming is inherently questionable, since the funding is contingent on the results and the results are thus pre-determined. I’d say the same thing of funding from wind/solar industry (if that existed). With Michaels and most of them, the proof of shoddy work is in the pudding.
http://www.logicalscience.com/skeptic_arguments/models-dont-work.html
“Could you substantiate your opinions on RPJ?”
If you make an attempt to answer my question to Keith (or if Keith answers), I’ll answer yours. “Could you give an example of where you think either have been “unfairly maligned” by Tim Lambert?”
“BTW, you say contrarian as if it’s a bad thing.”
Being contrarian isn’t inherently wrong. At one time, believing human activities could warm the planet was contrarian, but not irrational or unjustified. Most of todays climate contrarians unfortunately do not engage in genuine good faith skepticism based on sound, rational and fair arguments.
Andy (452)
I meant to respond to MT along the same lines.
> It seems to me that the precautionary principle is more nearly an instance of the Pascal’s Wager rhetorical trick than it is an instance of general paranoia [, a] rhetorical device of “impossibly high standards that I can apply selectively” that advocates are prone to invoking selectively in order to justify their preferred outcome.
It would be interesting to know how the precautionary principle, all by itself, amounts to arguing from an impossible idealization. If we could have an argument that does not rely on cognitive probing (“advocates” “prone” to “selectively” justify their “preferred outcome”) would be even more interesting.
The precautionary principle is involved in lots of practical reasoning, among which one may find probabilistic reasoning. Pascal’s wager is an instance of probabilistic reasoning. That sure means that both share an attribute. That does not mean one is the other, or that one has all the defects of the other. Guilt by association is not a very strong argument, in this context.
I’ll provide one example for starters. Here’s Pielke Jr. falsely calling Gavin Schmidt a liar and propping up Steve McIntyre:
http://rogerpielkejr.blogspot.com/2009/10/hockey-stick-gets-personal-lies-from.html
DC deconstructs this claim.
http://deepclimate.org/2009/10/04/climate-auditor-steve-mcintyre-yamal/
There is no retraction or apology from Pielke.
[…] July, 2010 (15:08) | Data Comparisons Written by: lucia Recently, Keith Kloor wrote a post commenting on David Brin’s article in Skeptic Magazine (available online here.) The article […]
NYJ:
Is it possible that Pielke didn’t apologize because DC lied along the lines as Gavin? I don’t follow the story in tiny details but I’m sure whatever DC claimed is countered on climateaudit. I’m not choosing sides here. Do you?
You ignored my other questions in 449. In what sense SM is a contrarian? And what is wrong with that?
“I don’t follow the story in tiny details but I’m sure whatever DC claimed is countered on climateaudit.”
So you have no evidence, but you believe it’s been countered. What makes you have confidence in that? Could you provide a link to a counter from ClimateAudit?
“I’m not choosing sides here.”
You appear to be. Pielke certainly is. He’s obviously rather loose with the term “lie” when it comes to mainstream climate scientists.
“You ignored my other questions in 449. In what sense SM is a contrarian?”
You didn’t ask that question in 449.
“And what is wrong with that?”
That was answered in 453.
You’ve ignored my question in 453.
Two cases spring to mind. The first was a <a href=”http://rabett.blogspot.com/2009/06/ethon-rtfr-with-move-of-his-food-source.html”>drive by on Evan Mills</a>, another <a href=”http://cstpr.colorado.edu/prometheus/archives/climate_change/000792conflicted_about_con.html”>on Susan Hassol</a>
More on request
NewYorkJ, has it occurred to you that no matter what DC wrote, Pielke may not have seen it? I don’t read DC–they could be saying anything about me or anything I have written, and I just wouldn’t know.
I’m sorry – I haven’t seen your 453.
But your answer to the first question is an answer at all. It’s a simple yes or no question. Do fossil industry money tar everyone equally or not? If you have any integrity you should apply the same standard to everyone. Do you?
I don’t understand understand why you are asking me about Tim Lambert. I know little about him (and said nothing about him – yet) and he probably knows nothing about him. Why is this non-sequitir?
OTOH, you said
RPJ spends the vast majority of his time attacking mainstream climate scientists for usually unwarranted reasons and propping up the views of contrarians
Which is why I asked you my question. Well, vast majority is a strong claim which I don’t see being substantiated. I think you owe RPJ an apology.
I’ve been to CA a few times in the past. I found SM pretty anal in the way he deals with rebuttals. That’s why I said what I said. When I have some free time I’ll see if can find enough material on the subject of cherry-picking.
#453 NewYorkJ
I’d say the same thing of funding from wind/solar industry (if that existed).
This is the problem, is it not? We don’t know. I think that we can say with good certainty that the Solar/Wind industries spend a lot on lobbying. (I doubt that politicians came up with the subsidies all on their own) Why would they not fund research that advances their cause?
Similarly, those who have very large amounts riding on Carbon Trading (whichever plan you wish to choose) would find it very advantagous to their chequebooks for findings to be exaggerated.
I think that one thing we all can agree on is that there are big dollars floating around on both sides.
I’m quite willing to accept that reports funded by oil are possibly biased, are you willing to say the same about reports from, say, the WWF?
JohnB, the solar wind industries that are doing the lobbying are the same people doing the lobbying on fossil fuels–BP, Shell, GE, Exxon, Chevron. All of the majors are investing heavily into wind especially, but also in other renewables as well.
They are the same people, for good or ill.
JohnB:
“I think that we can say with good certainty that the Solar/Wind industries spend a lot on lobbying.”
That’s correct. Fossil fuel industry money outnumbers green industry money by about 8 to 1, although that ratio is smaller than past years. Such lobbying influences politics and policy, but not so much research.
“(I doubt that politicians came up with the subsidies all on their own) Why would they not fund research that advances their cause?”
Fossil fuel money has funded climate research studies. To my knowledge, green industry money hasn’t. Most research is government funded. One could argue that the U.S. government has a vested interest in suppressing any research that suggests global warming is a problem and funding skeptical studies (or some opposite variation of that), but there’s no evidence for it. It isn’t the way the grant process is done.
Tom Fuller:
“NewYorkJ, has it occurred to you that no matter what DC wrote, Pielke may not have seen it? I don’t read DC”“they could be saying anything about me or anything I have written, and I just wouldn’t know.”
Perhaps you both should read DC. DC’s one of the few that bothers to take a critical eye at McIntyre’s stuff. He does a careful and thorough job too. But I think the better question is why Pielke hadn’t read much of McIntyre’s stuff. He’s called Schmidt a liar for allegedly misrepresenting McIntyre (good faith mistakes aren’t even considered) without actually reading fully what McIntyre said on the topic.
NewYorkJ, I’m not sure that the 8 to 1 can be validated. How do we split “research” funding from “advocacy” funding?
WWF reports were often cited by the IPCC, is it research funding that provides the reports? And “advocacy” funding for spreading the word?
If you want, we can lump them together.
According to DeSmogBlog ExxonMobil, Koch and the Scaife Foundations, between them and for the period 1985-2006 gave a Grand Total of $47,506,560. WE know that Exxon gave more than that, a figure of $20 million is often used, so we can add another $14 million to the total.
That gives us $61,506,560 for the 20 year period, or roughly $3 million per year for research, policy influence, taking journalists to lunch and the rest.
In contrast, the WWF in 2009 according to their financial statement, spent on;
Conservation Policy : 25,299,000 Euros
Education: 13,688,000 Euros
Awareness: 51, 547,000 Euros
Grand Total for 2009: 90,534,000 Euros
This appears to dwarf the sceptical funding, does it not? Spending for 2009 alone was nearly twice the figure for 20 years spending by the “bad guys”.
TBH, I think that it would take a full audit of the relevent books to actually work out who is paying how much to who and what for. Especially since money gets passed from one Foundation to another with remarkable speed sometimes. 🙂
Cheers.
Michael Tobis, please be careful–you’re giving pompous a bad name…
Sorry Tom, I missed your #464.
Interesting is it not that the big dollars will come out ahead no matter which way things go?
Interesting to look at the choices they made, too. Some went for the whole portfolio, some went for wind, some for solar, some for biofuels.
Funnily enough, if you talk to senior people in the renewables industry, they’re all worried about nuclear. They have spent no time worrying about either natural gas or each other…
[…] the room: Uncertainty. In a previous thread on this blog, one commenter who works in intelligence talked about how the issue of uncertainty figures into policy debates on various national security […]
I don’t quite understand why an article of a [SNIP] causes so much controversy. His writings is just a repetition of standard dogmas of belligerent warmists, with all standard (and obviously false) attributes: “tobacco parallel”, “orchestrated denialist machine”, “deny that CO2 is a greenhouse gas”, etc. But the most important point of his confusion is in conflation of concept of “science expert” and “climate expert”. Allow me to express an extremely radical opinion on this conflation.
Science of “climate change” is an applied problem that stands on several intertwined “legs” of more accurate scientific disciplines, thermodynamics, hydrodynamics, gas dynamics, astrophysics, radiation physics, scientific instrumentation, computational fluid dynamics, etc. The final answer to climate sensitivity is an inseparable product of all these disciplines. There are no specific objects/components in climatology that were not carefully studied and exhaustively examined in these “parent” (and more rigorous) disciplines.
If any of these “legs” are fishy or plain broken in climate, the compound conclusion of climatology about CO2-induced global warming fails apart, or is questionable at least. If a person is a narrow expert in any of the above areas, he/she must be fully eligible to question the entire construction and conclusions. The argument that climatology has no better means to gather information, has no adequate historical data, or cannot have a capacity to run more detailed models is not an excuse to settle for scientifically inadequate methods (by “making the best sense we can out of what we have”) and peddle unrealistic catastrophic scenarios.
The fact that climatology is a compound multi-dimensional applied project has an interesting and controversial implication. A quick look into content of their training program shows that all the above listed components of the climate problem are compiled into a two-four semester class resulting in totally superficial coverage of all topics. At the same time each of the involved topics is a field that requires 5-8 years of focused studies (and who knows how many years of contributive research) for outstanding individuals to become experts. This begs an interesting corollary: climate scientists are likely the worst experts in their own science.
Cheers to everyone,
– Al
Al T has a point of sorts.
I must insist that in fact there are deep results particular to the climate sciences in the tradition of Rossby and Charney on the atmospheric side, Stommel, Sverdrup and Veronis on the oceanic, merging into the Lorenz, Peixoto and Oort system energetics view and into the emerging field of coupled dynamics where El Nino is a prototype problem for all of physics.
Which is all to say that the knowledge base of the climate sciences is far deeper than may be apparent at first glance.
On the other hand, admittedly, few practitioners have a truly solid grasp on all the relevant fields. I have been privileged to know a couple of them; I don’t consider myself among them. And there AT has a real point.
Nevertheless, when one comes to the actual climate sensitivity, the right approach is necessarily a risk weighting (technically, a Bayesian) decision. The certainty one aspires to in certain branches of physics and engineering is unavailable; one must go with the balance of evidence.
As I have said many times, the idea that “the compound conclusion of climatology about CO2-induced global warming fails apart” is not a fair summary of the uncertainty, because it implies that “CO2-induced global warming” is a surprise, a result that appears unlikely in broad brush estimates that only emerges after complex calculation. In fact, it is not so peculiar at all; it really is the reasonable thing to expect from the most straightforward arguments. The fact is that ever more sophisticated arguments consistently fail to overturn the simple expectation.
Accordingly, it is a matter not of “global warming” as a hypothesis but of “CO2 sensitivity” as an estimation question. And there is uncertainty in both directions there. The less you trust climate science, the greater the uncertainty spread you should use in your risk estimation. Since the costs of unmitigated emissions increase nonlinearly with sensitivity, uncertainty argues for vigorous greenhouse gas restraint. Indeed, you will find among practicing scientists that those arguing most vehemently for restraint are those with the least confidence in existing models and analyses.
I cannot find a well-reasoned case for the reversal of this correlation of opinion among the larger public. Lacking evidence one should take no action, arguably. But rapidly changing the radiatively active composition of the atmosphere is not the same as taking no action.
My offer of an off-the-record coffee meeting to neighbor Al T, if he is still in the Austin area, stands.
Michael doesn’t want to talk much about WG2 and WG3, but calmly asserts that the costs increase non-linearly with sensitivity. If he doesn’t like WG2 and WG3, on what is he basing his statement?
Follow-on example:
If as city planner I decide to construct a sea wall to deal with projected sea level rise, most of my costs are in the decision, property acquisition and contracting for the services. The extra materials used to build the seawall a bit higher to deal with the possibility that estimates are optimistic are trivial as a percentage of overall costs of the project.
If I were a city planner in a vulnerable area I would certainly include a safety margin in any case. But the calculations I would use would stem from IPCC publications and observed trends over the past century, not from hair-tearing hysterics babbling about 20 foot SLR.
So the costs of preparing for sea level rise for that hypothetical community would not rise non-linearly if intelligent assumptions were made.
Tom raises a good question.
Stipulating that the cost of an 0.5 C global warming have been small, consider that an 85 C warming would boil the oceans and make the earth uninhabitable. (Possibly a smaller number would kick off a runaway greenhouse but never mind that, the argument doesn’t depend sensitively on the numbers.)
We can clearly conclude that the essentially infinite cost of an 85 C increase is more than 170 times the modest cost of an 0.5 C increase. Thus the cost increases nonlinearly.
The exact shape of that function is unclear. I don’t think economics has a good grip on it. This is why we should be auditing economics, not climatology. But it’s clear that at some a graph of net cost as a function of global warming must be concave upwards. That’s the existence proof.
In practice, there is some rough consensus that the bend starts around 2 C or 3 C, not in the 70s or 80s. Sea level rise is certainly a big cost at 3 C and not a net benefit at smaller temperature changes. (And of course we shouldn’t neglect the direct chemical effect of acidification on sea life, but that doesn’t fit neatly into this framework.)
Tom, have you consulted with civil engineers on your #474 ? If it’s just a matter of intuition, I would have to say that my intuition does not accord with yours.
And as is sadly common among people who don’t quite see the forest for the trees, your argument seems to begin with a climate change that doesn’t keep going, but rather one that stops.
But the only way it stops is if we stop net carbon emissions (among other things). As Eli says, there is no adaptation without mitigation.
Michael Tobis
We can clearly conclude that the essentially infinite cost of an 85 C increase is more than 170 times the modest cost of an 0.5 C increase. Thus the cost increases nonlinearly.
Maybe at some point, but clearly at some temperature increase the cost reaches a maximum level and stops increasing. I suspect this maximum cost is well below and increase of 85C, because human extinction will happen well below that. Extinct is extinct. Extinct due to eruption of the super volcano under Yellowstone is extinct. Extinct from an asteroid impact is extinct. Extinct from nuclear war is extinct. Extinct from a super disease like in Omega Man (but with everyone actually dying) is extinct. Very few people would consider the cost of “even more extinct” greater than merely “extinct”.
Michael, you don’t often resort to the ‘hair tearing’ hyperbole of some of your comrades in arms. If the climate continues to warm to the extent that you postulate, it will a) not be due to anthropogenic contributions of greenhouse gases, which have been plotted through to declines starting around 2100 and b) will not, as Lucia notes, cost dead people anything.
Yes, I have talked about sea wall costs with a civil engineer, in fact. He was (whisper it) Texan, and much amused by some of the cost scenarios when presented as a percentage of GDP.
One more thing, Michael. You say the costs of an 0.5 degree rise seen to date have been small. I would say they are zero, other than monies spent on studying the issue and lobbying in both directions. Care to comment?
#477; yes, Lucia, I agree.
By arguing from 85C I was being generous.
Your point strengthens my argument, since it means the curve bends upward more quickly. This is what I mean in the concluding paragraph of #475.
Al T #471
Some excellent points, particularly with regards to the applied nature of climate science that integrates a number of more fundamental disciplines. In the 1970’s and 198p0’s, there was a big push in the field of atmospheric science to bring a number of scientists from these fundamental fields and spin them up in atmospheric science. Steve Schneider is one of many of these scientists: his Ph.D. is in mechanical engineering and plasma physics. So there is plenty of fundamental expertise in the climate field. And a few people who came up completely through a meteorological education track have made fundamental contributions to nonlinear dynamics and chaos theory and fluid mechanics (most notably Edward Lorenz). Enriching the field of climate research with a continued infusion of people from the foundational sciences is absolutely essential to maintain the fundamental rigor of the field, to provide fresh looks at problems from outside the field, and to provide intellectual capital to help produce needed progress and breakthroughs.
Instead, what we are seeing (as evidenced by the PNAS thread) is a definition of a climate researcher that is becoming increasingly narrow, but curiously also including a large number of biologists and economists. Freeman Dyson is not “allowed” to be considered as a climate science, even though he has been involved in climate science since 1979, when he worked for the Institute for Energy Analysis on climate studies.
Climate research is a study of a complex system, where the whole is greater and more complex than the sum of its parts, in the sense that the complex system exhibits behavior not obvious from the properties of the individual parts. So there is a need for deep expertise regarding the various parts (e.g. fluid dynamics, atmospheric thermodynamics, etc.) but there is also the need for people with an understanding of complex systems.
It is this latter issue, dealing with a complex system, that is where the greatest weakness in the field lies, IMO. Of course computer simulations are essential, making it possible to represent aspects of nature that are extremely difficult to observe, to experiment with theories in a new way by enabling hitherto infeasible calculations, to understand a system of equations that would otherwise be impenetrable, and to explore the system to identify unexpected outcomes. Computer simulations can further enable construction of new theories about the system, and hence are a vehicle for probing the unknown, such as new hypotheses based on a systematic exploration of a model’s parameter space and feedbacks between components of the system.
While enabling ever more challenging simulations, the computer introduces a host of issues regarding the methodology of science. How to understand, represent and reason about uncertainty in the context of a complex simulation model is a considerable challenge that must be addressed in order to build confidence in the model and the conclusions that scientists reach using the model.
In addition to issues surrounding the global models, there is the issue of the overall logics for making the arguments. This is the biggest weakness of the IPCC, IMO.
So back to the original issue raised by Al T. There is a need for both. Where climate researchers can make the unique contribution is in the context of the overall logics of the argument, but the need the help of philosophers on this one (and lawyers, for the more policy relevant aspects).
I would like to reiterate Michael Tobis point that very few climate researchers have actually wrapped their minds around the entire thing. One climate scientist that has done this to a significant extent is Pat Michaels, which is why it has been so difficult for many of the mainstreamers to best him in a debate. I have taken this on over the past few years, and it is daunting, but I am now at a point where I would at least attempt debating someone on the “whole thing.”
So in addition to needing a continued infusion of experts from the foundational fields, climate research also needs help from philosophers.
On further reflection, my main objection to the PNAS analysis is not so much who was labeled as a skeptic, but who was ignored as being irrelevant (e.g. Dyson).
Tom #478, your point b argues in my favor. As I said to Lucia, it is essentially identical to my concluding paragraph.
I suspect your point a is wrong and that you are again confusing emissions and concentrations. I do not believe there are any suggestions that concentrations are likely to decline by 2100 without significant mitigation efforts. If you have a reference to the contrary I would be interested to know about it. (see http://is.gd/doewa )
That the net cost of an 0.5 C rise has been zero or less is not easily disproven. We’d really need a clearer indication on severe events than we can get without having two (or arguably two sets of) otherwise identical planets. Regardless, the curve still curves upward quite quickly.
MT
Your point strengthens my argument, since it means the curve bends upward more quickly. This is what I mean in the concluding paragraph of #475.
No it doesn’t.
The point that costs are self limiting tells us nothing about the magnitude rate of change of cost as a function of temperature at the present temperature or even the rate at temperature that some project as either likely or even remotely likely.
No, Michael,
Mitigation costs are far more likely to resemble a bell-shaped curve, especially when represented as a fraction of GDP, which climate science traditionally does. It would be interesting to discuss the slope of the curve both going up and going down, but I doubt if we’ll get around to that.
I’m not confusing emissions and concentrations. Check your comment 476–that’s what you were talking about, I followed suit.
As for Judith, where’s Bertrand Russell when we need him?
A continuous function that is flat between zero and 0.5 and which reaches a quasi-infinite value somewhere between 0.5 and 85 (both of which points have been stipulated) must have a positive second derivative somewhere between 0.5 and 85.
This is not something suitable for debate. I am a bit surprised that Lucia is taking the tack she is on this almost elementary point (and dragging poor Tom behind her).
We still haven’t agreed on some postulates here. Why do you give 85 degrees as an upper value instead of 65 or 105? Why do you label a value as quasi-infinite without any attempt to put bounds on it? I say again (with just as much authority as you–which is to say, none) that it will have a well-defined value at 85, and that value will be zero.
Is this really how you do climate science, Michael? Explains a lot, if so.
I am thankful any time Lucia shows up, whether she’s on my side or not for any particular topic. I suggest for the protection of your ego that any good points made henceforth we attribute to Lucia, while all errors be marked against me. Feel better?
Judith Curry said: “..there was a big push in the field of atmospheric science to bring a number of scientists from these fundamental fields and spin them up in atmospheric science. Steve Schneider is one of many of these scientists”
I am sorry, but if you mean that Schneider, the one who said “To capture the public imagination, we have to offer up some scary scenarios, make simplified dramatic statements and little mention of any doubts one might have. Each of us has to decide the right balance between being effective, and being honest.” (Dr. Stephen Schneider, NCAR, in interview for “Discover” magazine, Oct 1989),
then I am afraid we have nothing further to discuss. And which exactly expertise did he brought into climate science with his PhD in “mechanical engineering and plasma physics”?
And regarding E. Lorenz, I don’t recall him speculating about extreme sensitivity of climate to CO2, or catastrophic man-made climate change, or advocating for creation of youth brigades, members of which harassed Lord Monckton in Copenhagen.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8b-vrBKMxy4&feature=related
I am not saying that climatology does not have bright people, it has; I am saying that whoever peddle the “scientific side” of AGW are not.
I agree, “climate research is a study of a complex system, where the whole is greater and more complex than the sum of its parts”. But how it reflects on my thesis that if even one part is broken, the rest makes no sense? I don’t see how complexity can be an excuse for not following, say, Nyquist-Shannon-Kotelnikov rules for temperature data sampling. Or using inviscous approximation for dynamical core of climate models.
You said: ” there is a need for both”. Yes, but there is one technical difficulty. There seems to be a simple “law of intellect capacity limit”: an expert in a particular field of science uses his entire intellect to achieve current top understanding of a subject. Corollary: a person in a multidisciplinary field as “climate change” cannot possible achieve the same level of expertise as a person in a narrow discipline.
MTobis wrote: “the idea that “the compound conclusion of climatology about CO2-induced global warming fails apart” is not a fair summary of the uncertainty, because it implies that “CO2-induced global warming” is a surprise, a result that appears unlikely in broad brush estimates that only emerges after complex calculation. In fact, it is not so peculiar at all; it really is the reasonable thing to expect from the most straightforward arguments.”
Pardon if my reading skills are not up to your writings, but are you inferring to a straightforward argument that says that “more CO2 leads to more IR-opaque atmosphere, such that the “effective IR emission boundary” gets elevated to higher layers where higher== colder, and this creates negative radiative imbalance that has to be compensated by global warming”. Is this the description of certainty you had in mind?
487, I think Stephen Schneider disgraced his career with his recent co-authorship of the PNAS garbage. But give the man some credit.
When the entire establishment (including my hero, Carl Sagan) was saying that a nuclear war as small as 5,000 megatons would produce nuclear winter for 3 months, Schneider stood up to them.
When people were jumping on the bandwagon for global cooling, Schneider dipped his toe into the pool, and said, no, it’ll be warming due to CO2.
He stood up twice. Pity he can’t do it a third time. Greater pity that he lent his name to the PNAS disgrace.
Simply put, if the slope increases in an interval (e.g. if the first derivative increases) then the second derivative must be positive where the slope is increasing. Come on, this is like pre-calc. It’s not a value judgement, it’s not a policy recommendation, it has nothing to do with climate science.
OTOH people digging in on something this simple is a good reason why tempers are short.
Michael–
This is not something suitable for debate.
Agreed. You are making utterly illogical conclusions about what the fact that costs are not monotonically increasing means vis-a-vis the costs at any particular level. We don’t need to debate this, because you are simply trying to stretch a fact to support some conclusion it does not support.
I am a bit surprised that Lucia is taking the tack she is on this almost elementary point (and dragging poor Tom behind her).
What tack? You might benefit by learning to stop thinking that your expressing your surprise is an argument in favor of some position you have taken.
So your surprised. You seem surprised that lots of quite obvious things are true. I’m a bit surprised by your blinders… but so?
As to the greater point, the need for synthesis is clear, but tribalism prevents moves in that direction.
If you look at Jared Diamond’s work, it is his cross-disciplinary training that truly moves him ahead of the pack in being able to make the connections that matter (more in Guns, Germs and Steel than in Collapse, but still, the guy is great…).
What you are calling for is not impossible. It just isn’t quick. Judith alluded to her expanding her boundaries–there are some bright people like her, and I’ll bet it happens in this decade. If they don’t get sniped out by hysterics first.
Mt
which reaches a quasi-infinite value somewhere between 0.5 and 85 (both of which points have been stipulated) must have a positive second derivative somewhere between 0.5 and 85.
BTW– From a math POV, you fail. Just saying…..
Hey Teach–I mean Lucia, can I tell Michael about how this could work in the real world, far away from the gilded towers that produce SREs and Nicholas Stern’s science fiction?
It would not be difficult to invite the principal prime contractors of large multidisciplinary engineering projects to plan out costs and timelines of addressing impacts of climate change.
They will rather quickly come up with a cost per mile (pumping stations included) for bringing water to drought-stricken areas, building dams to provide this water, cost per mile for sea wall with variations for value at risk of the coastland behind. They will provide cost per person for relocation and resettlement of climate refugees. Some will even have experience in providing costs for security related issues should climate change actually contribute to civil or international unrest.
You can put boundaries around this–it is astonishing that in 2010 nobody has done this. Instead they say it will be x% of GDP in the same report where they have a 100% difference in the level of GDP.
Instead we have idiotic name-calling and a clear refusal to even consider this as a problem that can be addressed in the real world using real world techniques that are employed daily.
If this is good, Lucia told me to say it.
Is that really Lucia? That’s astonishing. The most cogent of the opposition don’t know undergraduate calculus.
#488: Pardon if my reading skills are not up to your writings, but are you inferring to a straightforward argument that says that “more CO2 leads to more IR-opaque atmosphere, such that the “effective IR emission boundary” gets elevated to higher layers where higher== colder, and this creates negative radiative imbalance that has to be compensated by global warming”.
Is this the description of certainty you had in mind?
Who said “certainty”? All else equal, an impulsive increase infrared opacity causes an unsustainable imbalance; the first transient is heating near the surface. If there are other adjustments they are a response to that transient. Eventually the system finds a new equilibrium. Most likely it is warmer near the surface.
It’s the case that an effective emission level does get higher as an initial transient but that’s more of a “grey atmosphere” argument for an even simpler case.
It’s already clear that this is the wrong place to discuss science, though.
So good to see, someone still finding the time not to read:
The Hockey Stick Illusion” A J Montford.
It is available in America now..
You don’t have to agree with it, if you really want to see where some sceptics are coming from. It preyty much summarises, years worth of what climate audit, etc is all about, without having to wade through the blog. If you really want to understand other people, it would help, if only to be able to attemot toconter them (ie know they ‘enemy’ /opposition)
please read it.
Additionally, try a book from the pro-AGW camp as well
“The Climate Files” Fred Pearce, it does a fair job of covering all things CRU hack related.
of course you could continue to discuss from a position of ignorance, what harm can 2 books do? One of them by a REALCLIMATE authorised link, Fred Pearce works for the Guardian.
re #497: McIntyre was also linked from RC for some time. A link from RC doesn’t prove much.
Pearce is definitely part of the problem. Read Oreskes & Conway and Elizabeth Kolbert instead.
To formalize my claim that Lucia and Tom appear to disbelieve,
I assert a large value of f(85), and a small slope at
f'(0.5) that linearly extrapolates to a much smaller value. Formally:
f(0.5) + 84.5 * f'(0.5) << f(85)
Then if f is continuous, there must be a positive f”(x) somewhere on (0.5,85.)
Sorry for getting technical. Actually the point I’m making is easy enough to explain at a high school math level. Indeed I had thought that an informal wording would suffice. If there’s interest I’ll elaborate on my blog with diagrams that should make the point clear.
Michael Tobis 496~ has left the blog.
to be replaced by 498# Michael Tobis, PhD…?
I’ll read any book that Michael Tobis, or Michael Tobis, Phd cares to nominate, that might further my understanding.. If Michael could reciprocate and read ‘The Hockey Stick Ilusion’, we both may learn something.
Otherwise, it is just 2 sets of people talking past/at each other..
I’m going to the Guardian Climategate debate on Wednesday in London. On the panel George Monbiot Chair, Bob Ward, Fred Pearce and Steve Mcintyre (very outnumbered by the AGW advocates )- George is linked to TWO, deniars hall of shame. Lists of ‘sceptics/deniars) he has taken exception to. Yet I’m still going along to listen, partly because Fred Pearce’s book was interesting, from an advocacy viewpoint, despite what I may think about George Monbiot.. (he is probably much nicer in person, than his blog persona, well, I’m hoping)
I’m willing to listen/read anything relevant.
Why will not ‘climate scientists’? What are they afraid of?
And ‘The Hockey Stick Illusion’ is very relevant.
“You don’t have to agree with it, if you really want to see where some sceptics are coming from.”
Sure, and “Darwin on Trial” will tell me where creationists are coming from, but frankly, I’d rather reread something by Stephen Jay Gould than waste my time.
That’s an analogy, just in case it’s not clear.
re #498: I have a problem with advice which involves reading somebody instead of somebody else.
My advice – read them all, then decide. Do not take advice which attempts to steer you away from a particular blog.
I personally find Climate Audit an excellent blog well worth reading. But I also read Real Climate (even though my last post never got out of moderation).
You need to read both sides of an argument to be truly informed.
If people want to put together “debates” among people who don;t know what they are talking about, presumably the “winner” will be random. Pearce and Monbiot emphatically do not speak for the climate science community. Watson seems a nice fellow but not a particularly effective advocate. With Monbiot as chair, there is no reason to expect that the really scandalous aspects will be discussed. In particular, nobody outside the trenches seems willing to argue that FOI requests are inappropriate in a scientific context, nor that the badgering hostility from the so-called skeptics is damaging the prospects for open science under the guise of promoting it, whether cynically or inadvertently I cannot say.
As for reading books that claim some sort of malfeasance, you will have to explain to me 1) what the malfeasance was and 2) why it should matter before I expend the effort to acquire and read the book. So far there has been no sign of any accusation that is of any importance. That’s really peculiar given the scale of the associated outrage in certain quarters.
I see that it is possible to work some people up to a rage but none of them have explained to me what they are so angry about in a way I find remotely credible. By now I must presume that such an explanation is impossible. Given that, why would I put up with a book full of innuendo about my peers? Do you suppose I would enjoy it?
Tobis at 499: We don’t agree on postulates. Spending at 85 will be zero.
Climate science at its best: I refuse to read relevant work and I would prefer to mischaracterize the real world so I can create a fancy formula that has no relationship to anything real. And call me Doctor, damn you!
And they wonder why there are non-believers…
#504 I refer to cost, not “spending”.
We cannot predict spending. Spending is something we decide, not something we predict. We decide on the basis of the spectrum of costs and benefits.
In any case, to get back to the real point, it is that the maximum cost far exceeds the linearly extrapolated cost, which is why uncertainty implies caution (in the sense of arguing for limiting emissions).
The “precautionary principle” is the extreme version of this argument, but it is not effective guidance for policy since it effectively calls for complete paralysis. The argument is to consider whether stronger science or weaker science argues for more precaution in that sense. I have maintained for a long time that weaker science argues for more environmental precaution.
Yet all the arguments against climate science seem to get it backwards. Today, Joe Romm quotes Ron Johnson, a leading Republican candidate for a Wisconsin senate seat as saying “We live in Wisconsin ““ I’m glad there’s global warming or we’d be standing on top of a 200 ft. thick glacier. I think it’s absolutely not proven, and for us to be contemplating fixing something that is not proven is absurd.”
Proof in such matters is an ignorant idea. We are discussing an estimate, not a proof. The more uncertain the estimate, the greater the likelihood that the sensitivity is underestimated.
Costs appear to increase rapidly with sensitivity. So uncertainty implies more precaution. I’ve been making this point for a long time. Wietzman [pdf] makes it formally in terms an economist might like.
Like it or not, the BBC, Monbiot and the Guardian and the lobby groups, IPCC, not really the science, have been driving, the UK politicians on CAGW, AGW for years, and to some degree the EU…
The general public, are more and more sceptical because of their behaviour, deniars halls of shame, lots of vitriol, etc, etc
Humour me, and maybe Judith Curry, just take a read of ‘The Hockey Stick Illusion’ and The Climate Files’ and The Real Global Warming Scandal’, parts of ‘climate science; (paleo, models, etc) have been the trojan horse that ALL sorts of politics have latched onto…
It would be much easier if you just read the ‘book’ rather than get people to explain it to you. (what do you want bite sized soundbites of a 480 page book?)
I’d even buy it for you, if I could…
I have for my MP, and she is now the Home Secretary!
It is clear that Doctor Tobis believes in runaway global warming (so perhaps we should also get his opinion on witchcraft).
Framing his formula with an upper bound of 85 degrees C, as opposed to something close to reality, such as 21 (worst case IPCC scenario) allows him to play games. However, it makes the case meaningless, as there will be no spending on anything in a world with a global mean temperature of 85 degrees C.
He further muddies his argument by framing his pitch using costs as a percentage of GDP, as opposed to actually thinking. Thinking would lead him to the surprising revelation that GDP can change with circumstances. For example, very modest warming may actually increase GDP, while moderate to severe warming will undoubtedly decrease it. To frame mitigation costs as a percentage of a fixed GDP is not just irrelevant–it is stupid.
Michael
I assert a large value of f(85), and a small slope at f'(0.5) that linearly extrapolates to a much smaller value.
Ahh… so to make your translation from words into math seem correct you are now changing the word problem to add constraints not included in the word problem before?
I don’t see any reason why the derivative near a zero temperature change is zero and it was not previously agreed to by those who you are trying to convince that the 2nd derivative must be positive. My impression is you are trying to tell us the 2nd derivative is positive somewhere based on things we think must be true.
Based on the word problem as previously discussed, the following candidate is just fine:
COST= min(sqrt(|T|), some large number)
where T is the change in temperature anomaly.
Heck
COST=min(a|T|, large number) would also work.
Neither fit the new assertion you’ve added to the word problem, but it fits the feature I noted before which is that dCost/d T =0 as |T|-> infinity. But that’s because that assertion was not part of the word problem when you advanced your sweeping conclusion.
If your mathematical representation doesn’t match the word problem then “math fail”.
If there’s interest I’ll elaborate on my blog with diagrams that should make the point clear.
Your point appears to be that if you assume the function has a positive 2nd derivative somewhere, then it has a positive 2nd derivative somewhere. Yes. Any highschool student can understand this. It’s called a circular argument.
Tom Fuller
Spending at 85 will be zero.
This is another point where Michael has screwed up the word problem. The only thing those who he is trying to convince of the shape of the function have pointed out is that once we hit extinct, the cost is a constant. do dCOST/dT=0 as T-> infinity.
I’d concede COST(T=0) by definition. As far as I can tell, unless someone brings in some empirical evidence about the COST function, that’s all we know about the functional form of the COST function.
Well, let’s call Halliburton and get a cost estimate.
From the beginning I have been asking for a stipulation that costs to date have been relatively modest.
The informal statement #475 was “We can clearly conclude that the essentially infinite cost of an 85 C increase is more than 170 times the modest cost of an 0.5 C increase. Thus the cost increases nonlinearly.” emphasis added.
The slightly more formal statement #485 was “A continuous function that is flat between zero and 0.5 and which reaches a quasi-infinite value somewhere between 0.5 and 85 (both of which points have been stipulated) must have a positive second derivative somewhere between 0.5 and 85.”
Lucia’s quotation in #493 peculiarly elides the first condition. Now in #509, she claims “you are now changing the word problem to add constraints not included in the word problem before”. But I mentioned the constraint at least twice.
Lucia, the phrase you are looking for is “oops, I’m sorry”. It’s not that hard. Give it a try.
Strictly speaking, the function should be specified continuous and differentiable everywhere. *sigh*
None of this changes the underlying point.
The ‘Hockey Stick Illusion’ was due to be published before ‘climategate’ demonstrating the issues had been brewing for years (just a last chapter squeezed in, as the emails confirmed a lot of what had gone on)
Without the ‘hockey stick’ there would have been no easy graphic, ‘sign’, ‘call to arms’, to politicians, and the media. The Inconveniant Truth would have been lost without Al Gore’s cherry picker ride,and countless, publications used this, to ‘scare’ with unprecedented ‘global warming’
Without this, there would not have been all that funding……
It was the PR tool of the IPCC
513# ‘sigh’
I guess that means Michael is never going to read that book
after all, that and dhogaza’s comaprison to darwin and creationism, is such a good excuse not to,
one of the endorsements (from the cover)
Roger Pielke Jnr:
“For anyone wanting to understand the mind-boggling complexities of the debate over the ‘Hockey Stick’ I’ve seen no single better reference than the engaging narrative by Andrew Montford. Whilst not the last word on the Hockey Stick, Montford’s recounting leads to some unsettling conclusions about the intergrity of a very visible part of the paleoclimate research community.”
At some point, others will read this book and the many otherbooks articles about CAGW, the politics of the IPCC, the vested financial interests and at some point, a politician in power, or a fund manager, or an investor, or a media baron, will sense the scepticsm of the public, and will decide the CAGW bandwagon is not such a good idea anymore. The rush to disassociate from CAGW will be interesting.
A ‘poltical tipping point will be reached, and in a few years time 9 out of 10 people you will meet, will be saying, ‘I was always very sceptical about catastrophic man made global warming, myself, how were all those other ‘silly people’ (scientists and politicians and media) caught up in that ‘delusion’ all along…..’
Time will out.
Michael Tobis–
From the beginning I have been asking for a stipulation that costs to date have been relatively modest.
This only means f(0.5) is small but not zero. But you are now adding that f'(0.5) be small and justify it by reminding us that you said f(0.5) is small. But you ought to know perfectly well that f(T) can be small where f'(T) is infinite. This happens for sqrt(T) at T=0, and near that value.
The informal statement #475 was “We can clearly conclude that the essentially infinite cost of an 85 C increase is more than 170 times the modest cost of an 0.5 C increase. Thus the cost increases nonlinearly.” emphasis added.
Yes. You said this. It is the issue in dispute. Then to “prove” that your claim is true, in 482 you then began to insist that Tom’s 478 argues in your favor. All the discussion of functions appear to be insisting that what Tom conceeds is sufficient to support your functional form.
Tom did not concede your sentence in 475, nor did I. It’s the claim we are disputing.
You can’t use a claim you insist on but others dispute to prove the truth of your own claim to those who dispute it. That’s called “circular reasoning”.
If we don’t concede f'(0.5) = small or f(85)= huge, then we don’t have to concede your functional form.
The only properties I see as obviously true is f(0)=0; f(0.5)= small and f'(T)->0 as T->0. That leaves out your f'(0.5)<small and f(85)=large and means your conclusions about the functional form are overly broad. Since you at least seem to be insisting that your functional form is required by properties Tom and I agree to, you are simply wrong.
Lucia, the phrase you are looking for is “oops, I’m sorry”. It’s not that hard. Give it a try.
The phrase you should consider uttering is, “As usually, I am concocting circular arguments.” Shouldn’t be that hard. Give it a try.
Trees: Second derivative of such and such a fictitious function
Forest: Costs likelyincreases more than linearly at some point, so greater uncertainty means greater risk (at least when the area of supra-linearity is reached)
Replacing forest with trees is reputedly Lucia’s modus operandi. The present conversation tends to confirm it.
I will take this up further on my blog where I can use figures.
Fingers, meet blackboard. Screeching noise ensues.
Stripping away the d$/dt abstractions unrelated to the reality of the 21st century, Michael Tobis’ intended word-problem solution must be true.
Premise: Temperature’s risen ~0.8 C globally, 1890-present.
Premise: The costs of AGW have been very modest to date.
Premise: The temperature will rise “a few” or more degrees over the 21st Century.
Common-sense assertion: At such a point, the costs of AGW will no longer be modest, and further incremental increases in temperature will entail further incremental costs, which will be non-modest.
Mathematical conclusion: Between the present day and that point in the late 21st Century, the trace of the line in the graph of “Costs ($) versus time (year)” will inflect upwards, i.e. be non-linear and concave in shape.
I.e. d$/dt — first and second derivatives — will be positive. But forget the maths; I think most informed people agree on the general answer to the carefully-stated word problem, in terms of relevance to our grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
Michael–
Bart’s comment suggests it’s the introduction of the 2nd derivative and fictional mathematical functions a that are the “trees”. You are the one who introduced the 2nd derivative discussion.
It seemed you did that to avoid Tom Fuller’s discussion of the substantive point of whether or not costs were likely to rise more than linearly. You could have just stuck with that.
If you think they will rise non-linearly, you think that. If you can support it, support it. But trying to obfuscate by discussing 2nd derivatives to try to show that the points you and Tom agree on require the 2nd derivative to be positive? And the to be wrong in your claims?
Ridiculous!
Amac–
If all MT had done was say he thinks the costs will increase at a higher rate with T, I’d say maybe so, or maybe not. (In fact, I did say maybe to that.)
It’s MT trying to insist his view is a direct mathematical consequence of the premises Tom Fuller sets forward that is incorrect. It’s not.
Out of curiosity, what does the empirical evidence suggest about the rate of increase in costs as a function of temperature. I would expect it to be monotonically increasing as a function of T at least relatively near zero. I’m not entirely sure I expect the first derivative to be monotonically increasing near T=0. For an awful lot of things, the initial cost of any action can be high relative to incremental costs. For example: If a small town needs to move away from the shore, it moves. Once the small town moves, moving 20 miles doesn’t cost much more than moving 10 miles or even 1 mile.
So.. what to the analyses actually suggest?
Sorry, Lucia, what is the distinction between a positive second derivative and a nonlinear increase (presuming costs are a smooth function of temperature)? I was just trying to be unambiguous. How is that obfuscation?
Now you have helped me identify some hidden assumptions: the curve is continuous and differentiable (*), and is not currently increasing rapidly (which actually is implicit in the original formulation of the problem). Thanks for the amendments.
(*) I can actually weaken the differentiable constraint but that really gets abstruse.
Lucia,
Can you not think of something interesting to contribute to this discussion? You’re doing a very good job of adding a lot of noise to this discussion.
It should be fairly obvious that the costs of climate change increase in a non-linear fashion. Think, for example, what the effects are on agricultural output @ 1 degree vs 10 degrees. Much more than 10x don’t you think? But hey if you don’t believe me, go read some Tol:
http://www.mi.uni-hamburg.de/fileadmin/fnu-files/publication/tol/RM23.pdf
Or you can try Ackerman, who points out that most models assume: Damages = aT^N
Michael–
Sorry, Lucia, what is the distinction between a positive second derivative and a nonlinear increase (presuming costs are a smooth function of temperature)? I was just trying to be unambiguous. How is that obfuscation?
I didn’t say there a distinction bewteen non-linear and positive 2nd derivative.
I am pointing out that
1) your claim in 480 is incorrect. You claim my pointing out that costs cannot rise once extinction means the function must be concave upward near the origin. That’s wrong. The fact that costs cannot rise after extinction tells us nothing about the shape of the function near zero.
2) You response 485 specifically addressed to Tom in 484 screws up the word problem. Tom has obviously stated he thinks the cost eventually decreases with Temperature. Then to rebut this, you take that word problem and incorrectly simply stipulate the cost at 85C is high, forgetting this is the point that is not conceded. You can’t just refuse to read the point he has made (which is that costs at 85C is not high), decree your view and then decree there is some mathematical requirement that the functional form must go through 85C. That’s screwing up the word problem.
If you want to suggest that you think the cost function must be concave up ward, just say that. Then explain way, but don’t just ignore the actual substantive difference you and Tom are having about how costs rise with temperatures and pretend that his view is precluded by math.
(*) I can actually weaken the differentiable constraint but that really gets abstruse.
Look, is your goal just to show what functional form you think applies? Or are you trying to say that functional form is required by the premises that Tom and I admitted? Because you sure seemed to have been doing the latter, not the former.
If your only purpose in this little excursion into trying to inject the word “second derivative” is for you to say “Look. I agree with myself!”, then… well… Uhmm. Yes. I’ve never doubted you agree with yourself.
Marlow–
Thanks for the reference. That’s the sort of thing I prefer. Interestingly, if the costs go up as T^N, for many common pdfs of outcomes, this will tend to not support Michael’s claim that costs are heavily dominated by the extreme tails. (Of course, the tails matter. But, for example, exp(-x^2) drops more rapidly than T^N. So, the tails don’t matter all that much.
As for going off on this: Michaels is the one who began this little excursion by seeming to insisting that Tom’s premises supported Michael’s view about the cost function. Tom’s premises do not, in fact, support that cost function.
I’d have preferred Michael to just provide evidence for non-linearity rather than trying to insist that those things Tom conceded require the non-linearity of the sort Michael believes holds. But if Michael is going to insist on these ridiculous “proofs”, I’m going to point out they are just confused. If the cost function is non-linear, it is utterly counter productive to have MT advance such a ridiculous “proofs”. The reason it is counter-productive is anyone can see the “proof” is wrong. When people like Michael advance these silly things, it just fosters skepticism because readers may come to believe that these silly wrong headed proofs are the actual bases that people like MT use to support their claims.
You may think the only thing that matters is whether or not MT”s claim about non-linearity is correct and that it’s just fine for the argument MT provides to support it to be obviously bogus, but I don’t. I think there is great harm in scientists being seen to support correct claims with clearly bogus arguments.
“this will tend to not support Michael’s claim that costs are heavily dominated by the extreme tails.”
I made no such claim. It’s plausible but I didn’t say it. If you think that is what I am saying you are not reading the thrust of the argument despite your eagerness to find weaknesses in the details. The claim is not that costs are dominated by the tails. The claim is that cost increases with uncertainty, and that the increase is because of the tails; i.e., that the rate of change of cost is dominated by the tails.
“You claim my pointing out that costs cannot rise once extinction means the function must be concave upward near the origin. That’s wrong. The fact that costs cannot rise after extinction tells us nothing about the shape of the function near zero”
The lower the extinction point, the closer the upward inflection must be to the origin.
“Tom has obviously stated he thinks the cost eventually decreases with Temperature. Then to rebut this, you take that word problem and incorrectly simply stipulate the cost at 85C is high, forgetting this is the point that is not conceded.”
We must be using some very different meaning of the word “cost”.
cost(T>T_extinction) = cost(T_extinction)
Tom’s failure to concede this point means he doesn’t understand the normal meaning of “cost”. Apparently Lucia doesn’t either.
“When people like Michael advance these silly things, it just fosters skepticism because readers may come to believe that these silly wrong headed proofs are the actual bases that people like MT use to support their claims.”
Recall Brin:
all along you have insisted on literal, word by word nitpickery of my sentence-word choices, as if they were grand and towering infernos of bad thinking. Sorry, by [sic] this is a case of forest for the trees” and I’ll not participate, anymore.
I appreciate the (rather minor and fussy) corrections but I do not appreciate the effort to deprecate my efforts. Let’s try to communicate, please. AMac perfectly understood and accepted my argument. Maybe you should treat him the way you are treating me. (Thanks, AMac, by the way.)
I’m done for now.
Michael?
cost(T>T_extinction) = cost(T_extinction)
Tom’s failure to concede this point means he doesn’t understand the normal meaning of “cost”. Apparently Lucia doesn’t either.
What do you mean I failed to concede this. I’m the one who wrote it in the first place!
If you don’t want people to contradict your claims, don’t go off into weird math mumbo-jumbo that is wrong.
I don’t criticize Amac because he doesn’t try to go off into weird obfuscating and incorrect discussions about 2nd derivatives. He is better at writing clearly.
As for Brin… well. Heh!
I do understand the meaning of the word costs. I understand the meaning of the word values as well. Mr.–no, Doctor–Tobis’ arguments impose a cost on readers’ time. They add no value to the discussion of issues, positions, remedies or even politics.
Doctor Tobis is morphing into a troll before our eyes. He very much does not wish to continue the discussion we were having before, because he is wrong on the issue. How to divert atttention? By inventing a formula and starting a fight.
FWIW, I think that costs related to climate change will decrease and then increase over time. I do not see any practical way the most likely path can be modelled. Nor do I see any reason why anyone would want to. Well, apparently with one exception.
A short term increase in the productivity of agriculture and decreasing loss of life due to fewer very cold nights will benefit economies in the Northern Hemisphere for a decent period of time before negative externalities in the Southern Hemisphere outweigh them.
In the Southern Hemisphere, benefits from continuing development will mask costs related to climate change for a goodly period, although those costs will be real. There will also be masking due to more recognisable and attributable costs arising from conventional pollution.
However, in all likelihood there will be a new set of ‘double books’ developed that attribute these negative externalities to either climate change or another cause, depending on availability of funding to address them. Some countries may find it desirable to attribute a water resource issue to something covered by existing Millenium Goals rather than climate change or vice versa, depending on who’s actually disbursing funds. Similarly, some conflict situations will probably be relabeled, perhaps more than once, to get aid funds more quickly. Some really clever people will be able to have situations remediated more than once…
If climate change progresses towards a three degree end point, engineering projects on a fairly large scale will be commissioned in the developing world and paid for by the developed world. However, as the prime contractors will probably be from the developed world, much of the money will just stay at home in their pockets.
Good luck modeling that…
Tom,
Are talking about the costs of climate mitigation or the damages associated with climate change?
If it’s the former, then the discussion only makes sense relative to a particular stabilization point in time (e.g. 350ppm by 2050).
If it’s the latter, then a whole slew of factors come into play. So, of these, in no particular order: climate sensitivity, ecosystem sensitivity, discount rate, risk aversion (think Weitzman), equity judgments (intergenerational and intragenerational), carbon feedbacks, ice sheet dynamics, etc.
With these issues in mind, I’m wondering about your statement
“costs related to climate change will decrease and then increase over time”
Is this just a gut feeling, or can you point to something in the literature to back this up. Finally you say
“If climate change progresses towards a three degree end point, engineering projects on a fairly large scale will be commissioned in the developing world and paid for by the developed world.”
If the we only start to act once we’ve hit 3 degrees then we’ll be in very serious trouble indeed. But why do you believe that the developed world would pay for mitigation at that point when the bulk of emissions would be from the developing world? Put slightly differently, at what point do you think that the realpolitik dynamic at the international level will be trumped by rational decision-making that is in global common interest? Is such a thing possible? Would Copenhagen have succeeded if warming during the 20th century had been 2.6 instead of 0.6 C?
Hi Marlowe,
I’m carelessly lumping it all in together, unscientific though that may be. I don’t think the public or the politicians will differentiate between them.
I believe that even the Stern report noted the economic advantages of very slight warming in some countries.
As for when we start to act, well I hope it’s sooner rather than later, but we have in fact started doing some things, although not a lot. What I think bothers me is how little we’ve done to prepare for effective action should we decide to do more.
Given the amount of foreign aid that has been given in the past, I don’t think there will be too much protest about some of it being green. Especially if it’s ‘native son’ companies that get to be prime contractors, as is usually the case today.
I think Copenhagen imploded more or less independently of external factors. I don’t think anything could have prevented that, as it was ‘internal contradictions’ and natural protection of national interests wot killed the beast.
But your question is relevant because, if some are to be believed, global warming may hibernate for quite a period of time now, and I don’t really see it staying on the policy agenda if that happens. I really don’t. And that will be the tragedy. Some will lay it at the door of people like me who have tried to point out the errors in policy and publications. I will counter by saying that the consensus blew their big chance and it’s only natural that climate change take a back seat for a while.
I guess we’ll see.
There is no middle way, ie sceptics instead of denairs, if the PRO camp label EVERYONE who disagrees with them a deniar.
Someone called Abraham, rebutted a Monckton presentation,
called him a climate denair, and circulated it on the web…
Monckton has responded (in a way that looks like a precursor to a libel suite)
We shall, perhaps see, who is the good, the bad and the ugly..
Abrahams response was pretty ugly, and an attack on the person.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/07/12/a-detailed-rebuttal-to-abraham-from-monckton/
The response is long and detailed, with expect a libel court in mind.. Ie he gave Abrahams a month to deal with it, before, presiumably now going public, as no response.
I expect the university to cave in to the requests, for a full apology, retraction and a donation to a charity. Rather than try to defend it in court at the risk of the CAGW misinformation being analysed in court.
The response is long and detailed, and in my mind, demonstrates Abrahams deliberate misrepresentaion of Monckton’s presentation. As it was circulated to all the ‘pro’ CAGW blogs/media. Including George Monbiot who was ‘crowing’ about it. It’s intents was surely to ‘damage’ his Monckton’s reputation, which he responds to clearly factually and in detail, with a little humour..
I’ll be seeing George Monbiot tomorrow, might ask him a question about it 😉
small extract:
Damage to my reputation
4: Do you accept that your talk was calculated to do very great harm to my reputation?
5: Do you accept that your assertion that you are “a scientist” (2),and the fact that you have used the time, facilities, and imprint of your university in preparing and circulating your talk, and the failure of the University to take down you talk from its servers upon request, are likely to amplify the very great harm that your widely-circulated talk was calculated to do to my reputation?
6: Did you fail to tell me of your proposed rebuttal of my speech in good time in the hope that your very lengthy talk would be circulated as widely as possible before I could circulate a detailed refutation?
How can their be a civilised debate, if the ‘establishment side’ play foul
No doubt, the usual suspects, will find many and varied reasons, not to read Moncktons reply, at Watts Up..
From what I have read (admittedly not a great deal): Monckton has routinely used hyperbole, sarcasm, exaggeration, and other standard debating techniques that should not be in the scientist’s toolbox (“scientist” per Richard Feynman’s notion). He delights in mocking his enemies’ ideas, and in vilifying them as people. He eschews moderation and civility, using vitriol to advance his chosen cause.
After scanning Monkton’s letter, my impression is that Monckton fills its 83 pages and 466 questions with bitter complaints that Abraham routinely used hyperbole, sarcasm, and exaggeration against him. Monckton accuses Abraham of mocking his ideas and vilifying him personally. He claims that Abraham has eschewed moderation and civility, instead using vitriol to advance his chosen cause.
The first rule of holes: when you’re in one, stop digging.
“Monckton has responded (in a way that looks like a precursor to a libel suite)”
Monckton has threatened to sue a rather large number of people, and has yet to follow through even once.
I do not agree with his style or presentation, but it does appear to me that Abraham DID misrepresent him.. So whilst it may be over the top to some, does that make the misrepresentation by Abrahams correct?
Maybe libel laws are different in the USA, but in the UK Abrahams would be at this point, looking to settle in my opinion.
Barry Woods — The AGW debate is full of misrepresentations.
Sorry to be the one to break it to you! ( <- joke )
Monckton’s preferred response to bad speech appears to be the threat of a lawsuit. This contrasts with Justice Brandeis’ approach (“the remedy to be applied is more speech, not enforced silence”).
It seems that the climate scientists didn’t get the Brandeis memo regarding not trying to silence speech either, as in the case of the much talked about retraction by the Sunday Times of the Jonathan Leake story.
GaryM, you seem not to understand the difference between opinion and facts, or what Brandeis said.
“If there be time to expose through discussion the falsehood and fallacies, to avert the evil by the processes of education, the remedy to be applied is more speech, not enforced silence.”
http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Louis_Brandeis
You point to a link from March. Since then, discussion of the falsehood and fallacies has happened.
Leake was plain wrong on the facts. That’s not an opinion. The facts got checked, belatedly.
Consider what else Brandeis warned of–corporate power. Consider that he said “if there be time … to avert the evil” then more speech is the cure. Consider the “refudiation” meant to delay, delay, delay, until it’s too late to take action.
That’s a line Brandeis drew.
In related news:
“… how is anyone supposed to engage with Stormfront?
Here is perhaps an issue that ought to concern people sceptical of human-induced climate change.
… Doesn’t the climate of abuse overshadow the real issues that sceptics are flagging up, and reduce the chances of “sceptical” science being taken seriously?”
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/richardblack/
Stephen Schneider wrote:
“… Clearly it is unproductive and incredibly time consuming to answer all negative reviews or statements about what I say or believe, but when facts are overtly wrong, it might be useful to judge the credibility of the research skills of the accuser by showing the facts. …
… I am very specific in Science as a Contact sport on the difference I see between a real skeptic””all good scientists””and a denier””one who denies the preponderance of evidence by clinging to small point or believes that any unknown aspect of a complex systems problem somehow overpowers a strong preponderance””it doesn’t””that is the false god of falsification, which is not the way systems science is done. Here is some of what I said about that in the book, page 205:
‘When I give a public talk on aspects of climate change, I alwaystake the time to explain the difference between climate deniers and skeptics. All good scientists are skeptics””we should challenge everything. I was a big-time climate skeptic, changing from cooling to warming and nuclear winter to nuclear fall when that is where the preponderance of available evidence led. As more solid evidence of anthropogenic global warming accumulates, the numbers of such legitimate climate skeptics are declining. Climate deniers, however, are not true skeptics, but simply ignore the preponderance of evidence presented. Skeptics should question everything but not deny where the preponderance of evidence leads. The latter is, at best, bad science or, at worst, dishonesty.'”
http://stephenschneider.stanford.edu/SAACS/saacs_objectors_2.htm
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