It Would be Nice
The previous thread on climate skeptics is a marvel in 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 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.
Could this be a framework for common ground between all the sides?
” it is quite possible to agree with the mainstream science …”
And then, Keith:
“Could this be a framework for common ground between all the sides?”
No, of course not, because there’s a side the refuses to accept mainstream science.
I personally don’t have a problem with someone who says “I accept what climate scientists are telling us about climate change, but I think we should sit on our rear and not worry about it”. That’s an honest position. It removes debate to the political realm.
But that’s not what we’re hearing.
That’s not a very cooperative start, dhogaza.
Keith, while I think this is a good idea in principle, it’s a bit vague. Could you formulate a specific question for us to think about?
Denialism: CO2 is not a greenhouse gas and has no effect on climate.
Minimalism: CO2 is a greenhouse gas but the associated feedbacks are negative or negligiable. Warming is uncertain but likely to be below IPCC estimates.
Consensus: CO2 is a greenhouse gas and the associated feedbacks are likely to lead to a 2 – 4.5 C warming with doubled CO2.
Catastrophic: CO2 is a greenhouse gas and the associated feedbacks are likely to lead to warming upon doubled CO2 of more than 4.5C.
Minimalist, Consenus-guy, and Catastrophist have a common ground upon which to have common discussion about the science.
Denialist and Minimalist have common ground upon which to discuss policy.
Consensus-guy can have rational discussions with Minimalist and Catastrophist about policy.
But policy is only partially about climate science and is primarily about economics. (and is inherently about politics).
And, frankly, as long as you continue to focus on “global temperature rise,” you are missing the boat on biological and economic impacts. Regional climate change: temperature (annual, seasonal, diurnal), precipitation, humidity, and aridity. This full range of regional changes is short-shrifted when the discussion becomes focused on global sensitivity. Hint: changes in growing seasons will have dramatically more impact than simple changes in daily temps.
Michael,
You’re already looking for a way forward when we haven’t even established if this is suitable common ground.
That said, here’s a question that might logically follow from such a framework:
So what’s the debate we should be having on energy policy that also maintains buy-in from all these sides?
The problem, dhogaza, is precisely with mainstream science, and especially with some of its most contentious issues. Normally scientists would resolve this quite easily: educated laypersons would understand that there are uncertainties and sometimes conflicting views and results. But in the case of recent climate science there are a number of legitimate questions motivated by what appears to be a failure of the self-correcting mechanisms that are usual to science. Apparently, data are not normally open for cross checking and verification. Journal editors and editorial boards have been pressured to accept or reject some papers based on their allegiance, or lack thereof, to accepted views. Methodological procedures and routines have been hidden from view, and revealed only after prolonged haggling, usually in an imperfect fashion that is not easily amenable for replication of results. Accepted protocols within the IPCC (e.g. deadlines for reviews, or for including a paper in the references) have been tampered with in order to keep some paper in or out of the report. Some polite and legitimate questions have been received with sneers and disdain, instead of prompting honest answers.
I am not, of course, referring to ideological postures that reject climate change in the name of economic interests (including the claim that the recommended policies would cost much taxpayer money, used as an excuse to deny the validity of the science). This is denialism, akin to creationism in that criticisms are based on a priori beliefs and nonscientific concerns. I am referring to specific, detailed and rational questions about specific data and procedures. Let me mention a few:
1. IPCC reports and some scientists have claimed that recent warming is unprecedented during the latest 1000-2000 years. This is based on climate reconstructions and statistical procedures which have been both criticized (the proxies, it is claimed, do not reflect temperature in a faithful manner; periods of “divergence” between proxies and thermometers have been excluded, just because they do not fit; also, it is claimed that the statistical procedures used would generate a flat temp curve along a millennium, and a sudden surge in the 20th century, even if fed with random data). The specifics of these questions are long and detailed, and all concern the scientific side of the problem.
2. Instrumental measurements during the last century had to be corrected from the additional increase in heat coming from the growth of human activity around the stations (concrete flooring, cars running nearby, airport heat for many stations, etc.). The correction in place took a large number of stations as “rural”, but in fact most of them have been modernized during the 20th century, including putting a concrete parking lot or other hot surface besides them, or they are not actually rural any more. An informal survey of more than 1000 such stations in the US, plus a number in the Old World, suggests the adjustments had not been sufficient. If true, this claim would lead to a lower warming trend in instrumental measures. These questions arose during mostly during the 2000s, but nothing has been done to revise the instrumental record.
3. Standard climate models estimate climate sensitivity to CO2 based on estimates of a large positive feedback (net of any negative feedback). The net positive feednacks make 4/5 of the total CO2 effect. But there are many suggestions that the net impact of clouds has not been well understood, possibly involving an underestimation of their cooling effect (reflecting solar energy back to space) or overestimation of warming caused by their greenhouse effect. The IPCC reports acknowledge that cloud effects are not well understood, but not enough room is left for this factor in the predictions (it could completely reverse the conclusions and lead to completely new models if the negative feedbacks are larger than previously estimated).
These and other similar problems are not ideological rantings but precise questions on technical matters. The usual response has been dismissing the question as irrelevant, and refusing to release the necessary data (or to incorporate the new data). Internally, some of the questions were taken very seroiusly, and many efforts were displayed to defuse the dangers they involved for the “cause”, as clearly shown in many Climategate emails.
It is quite possible that this boils down to a perversion of the scientific self-correcting mechanisms, through the operation of cliques with policy agendas. Probably the reason, beyond personal commitment to a cause overriding scientific protocols, is that climate change analysis has been subordinated to a policy (and political) process, governed by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, where rapid and clear answers were wanted from scientists in order to get politicians into acting. Political pressure may have distorted the slow and uncertain pass of science. It is time to correct that distortion. Otherwise the truer parts of recent climate change may lose public credibility as well, in a reenactement of the story of the shepherd who cried wolf too often.
I applaud Ron Broberg try to associate epithets with real (scientific?) claims.
My only constructive comment would be the choice of “catastrophic”. In science, catastrophe is already taken:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catastrophe_theory
It has three other demerits. First, it’s an attack that rings adversarial. Second, it’s not related to science. Third, the catastrophe is the consequences of the claim, not the claim as stated. As stated above, one could be a minimalist while advocating policies to prevent a penultimate catastrophe.
It would make a very interesting starting point for a discussion without pigeon-holing people, comparing blogs, rehearsing CRU emails and bashing the IPCC.
There is no common ground among *all* 4 categories: denialism, minimalism, consensus, and catastrophy in either the science or energy/climate policy except – possibly – this one: reduce dependence on foreign oil.
But as John Stewart, that’s a goal that everybody can agree on while political follow-through has been light. Nevertheless, US oil imports have been slowly dropping since the peak import year of 2005. Coincedentally (?), 2005 also currently holds the title of “peak annual crude oil production.”
http://www.eia.doe.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=PET&s=MTTIMUS1&f=M
http://www.eia.doe.gov/ipm/supply.html (spreadsheet 4.1d)
I think the debate should logically be about actions, not beliefs. Make a list of actions that address climate change, either through prevention, adaptation or remediation. Ask people which they would support.
I would go so far as to leave the litmus tests and covenants out of the conversation. I support an increase in clean energy supplies, in part because I want to see more plug-in electric vehicles, in part because I want less conventional pollutants, in part because I want to lower CO2 emissions. Does or should anybody care which of these is primus inter pares?
I did a survey last year on examiner.com that was swamped by visitors from WUWT, as Anthony kindly provided a link to it. It showed that 64% of Republicans who took the survey were willing to pay $250 a year more in taxes to support the construction of a smart grid.
I’m not a Republican. I support other measures. But right now, more than half the fuel we burn to create electricity never gets to the customer. It is completely wasted. If Republicans want to start with a smart grid that reduces that, that’s okay with me. If they want to take the political credit and get more contributions from the utility companies that benefit, that’s okay with me.
I don’t care what you believe. I care what actions you are willing to support.
As long a climate science is focused on presenting the downside of a warmer world, no rational evaluation of the future is possible. That requires also assessing the benefits of a warmer world and then evaluating the trade-offs.
Its like trying to solve 2 – x = y. It can’t be done. Therefore, some will plug in their own values to reach a solution. Others will realize insufficient information is available and no solution can be reached. Which group has a better grip on the current situation?
Keith,
What you are suggesting as possible common ground for argument would lead to an open discussion of the central questions in the climate debate, so the probable answer to your question is no. If a debate began on the common ground this post proposes, it becomes a typical cost benefit debate, that can take into account the uncertainty in the science (and the uncertainty as to the extent of that uncertainty?).
Those with a vested interest in “climate change” advocacy have been trying to forestall such a debate at all costs. They have “won”the debate and “the science is settled.” You are asking them to give up their high ground and come down to the same level as their inferiors to debate.
I think it is fair to say that this common ground is already occupied, by the likes of Judith Curry, Lucia, Steve McIntyre and many many more. It is a land populated by those who are are ostracized and disdained by the “climate science” community.
Michael Tobis (426), toward the end of the Good, the Bad and the Ugly thread, makes an analogy that inadvertently shows the risks in cost benefit analysis for climate advocates. He likens the risks of catastrophic global warming to a hypothetical security, with a known cost and known risks of profit and loss. Apparently, his point is that uncertainty as to the amount of the potential gain makes an investment even more logical.
But this leaves out the key issue of the real climate cost benefit debate; the uncertainty of the probability of the risk and the return at all. In the analogy, initial cost is set at $1,000, and the chance of a 100% loss is put at 10%, and the probability of a 10,000% return is also put at 10% . The analogy seems to suggest that, the more uncertainty there is, the more the potential reward (in the climate debate, the avoidance of even more catastrophic consequences) . So we can ignore uncertainty in the science.
The problem is that uncertainty in the science does not just go to the amount of the risk or reward ($1,000 vs. $100,000), it also goes to the probability of either, that 10%.
Want to go broke? Sell a security costing $1,000, and tell your prospective investors that you are not really sure how much the security will cost, you are not sure how much they may profit on the investment, and you don’t really know what the probability is that they will receive any profit at all. But hey, the sky is the limit on profit. (If this is how you would sell securities, don’t quit your day job.)
Want to lose the climate change debate among the voting public? Tell them you are uncertain of the amount of warming that can be expected, uncertain of the effects such warming will have, and uncertain of whether what you are proposing will actually prevent the change you fear; but that you are absolutely certain that your remedies will cost them trillions of dollars and slow down the entire world wide economy (if you can get the Russians, Chinese and Indians to buy this “security” as well).
Another important matter is the IPCC scenarios, which are marred by several shortcomings. One of them is population. In the first place, population has been projected exogenously, totally independent of economic development, which is not good (even current UN demographic projectios have this problem). There a high statistical correlation of fertility, mortality and migration with economic per capita income. In the IPCC, some scenarios assume high demographic growth (such as A2) along with a relatively strong economic growth that would lead to a sharp decrease in demographi growth along the 21st century. Either population or growth (and therefore emissions) shoud by reduced, leading to less emissions, in all parts of the world. The other scenarios have also overstated demographic growth, based on rates from the 1980s and early 90s (the scenarios use projections by Luts 1996 and by the UN 1998, much above current projections which are themselves still on the high side –because not taking per capita income into account). Reducing population projections entails large changes on climate projections (GW1), and even large changes in impact assessments (G@2). What is known so far of the new scenearios being prepared for AR5 rely on the same principles, and the many criticisms of the older scenarios (SRES 2000) have been shrugged away by evaluators, who happen to be the same people who prepared the SRES scenarios in the first place.
Regarding impacts, a lot of flagrant mistakes or misrepresentations have been spotted (starting with the now infamous projection of rapidly vanishing Himalayan glaciers and continuing with others, such as impact on the Amazon forest, all of them without exception involving overstating adverse effects). A number of peer reviewed serious papers have mentioned these questions and raised attention on the errors, all of them emphasing the negative effects of CC.
4. Some of the impacts are on processes invoolving both Earth and Human processes, such as agricultural production. Unlike natural processes (such as sea level rise or the impact on wild vegetation) human intervention is an essential part of agriculture: even the POTENTIAL impact on agriculture requires farmers planting the crops in 2100 under present-day techniques, in spite of their yields being much lower, which is utterly unrealistic: farming in 2100 would be done by 2100 farmers, three generations ahead, using seeds and technology available in 2100, thus obtaining a much increased level of production (total and per capita) even after taking climate change impacts into account, this kind of calculation has been done since the 1990s, but claims about disastrous falls in crop production and food security are still regularly aired. There is little talk of millions of hectares improving yields in temperate regions from Rusia to Canada to Argentina, or the very small impact (either positive or negative) estimated for tropical regions even in the absence of major adaptation or technological progress in farming.
Bibliographical references on request. In the meantime, some references centred on agricultural production in m own recent monograpg on the matter, http://ssrn.com/abstract=1619395. Regarding the Amazon forest, grandiose doomsday predictions of the jungle disappearing in a few decades have been stronglu criticized. A recent paper in Science (http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/science.1184984v1) states that “we therefore need to critically scrutinize the forecasts of some climate models which predict the Amazon will die as the world gets drier” (in fact the IPCC predicts the Amazon to get wetter).
The scientific questions have far-reaching consecuencies. Thay would not negate that temperatures are rising, and they would not negate human activity has contributed to it lately. But the general case presented in the IPCC reports, and vigorously defended by the climate science establishment (not my phrase: see the valuable review by J. Scott Johnston, http://ssrn.com/abstract=1612851) is much more extreme that that. Some small adjustment in the conclusions so far, and a few words about the undertainties involved, plus a general adoption of valoratively neutral language, would do wonders for the credibility of the IPCC and “mainstream climate change”. All this without bothering to answer any frekish claim by non scientific people, although with a caveat: some time fringe scientists carried the day at last, in spite of the fierce opposition of establoished science. One such fringe scientists, 105 years ago, was a humble governmentclerk completele outside the scientific-adecmic world, working at a Patent Office with a minor technical degree obtained in a Polytechnic School (because he was turned down by universities), when he revolutionized world physics at the age of 25.
This debate, as repeatedly pointed out, requieres scientists, phisolophers os science and sociologists-economists of science to rethink their act. The blogosphere, populated by many sorts of character but also by a fair number of well informed ‘citizen scientists’, is a new form in the ‘naturalized epistemology’ of contemporary science, where sciences progresses through open criticism, scrutiny over data and methods, and replication of crucial observations and experiments. For this, science cannot take sides but assume the rol of Honest Broker, as Roger Pielke Jr claims in the title of his main book. This is just what the founding stature of the IPCC claims: it should coldly and impartially reflect the state of science, with warts and all (i.e. with all conflicting views and uncertainties), abstaining from policy recommendations, and, of course, refusing to tilt scientific results, or the wording thereof, towards favored policy alternatives or towards unjustifiably enhancing the rhetoric value of some alternative conclusions at the expense of others.
HectorM. So far your excellent and thoughtful posts have attracted no comment at all. However, to this observer, your points are well made and articulate well the reasons for my own scepticism.
A further factor that you might have included is the many unexplained “adjustments” to the temperature record in many places (have a look at the blink comparator for the GISS temperature record in 1990 compared with the 2007, and the shenanigans with the New Zealand temperature record) that all serve to make early 20th century temperatures cooler, thus exaggerating the warming since then. A further factor is the self serving selection of temperature stations that tend to support the warming meme, and rejection of stations that don’t. You mention the delta UHI effect, but that is another weeping sore for the climate science community.
Until climate science acknowledge that there are real questions that deserve answers, they consign themselves (in my view) to irrelevancy. No wonder the public is turning off.
Keith, that original post you liked started off with a no-starter:
“Xenophon Says:
July 6th, 2010 at 11:47 am On the “precautionary principal” ““
I completely reject the typical uses of the precautionary principal … opportunity costs appear (to me) to be one of the largest sources of unintended consequences.”
Wrong, demonstrably, refuted thus:
http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/chemistry/laureates/1995/crutzen-lecture.html where he points out
“… the nightmarish thought that if the chemical industry had developed organobromine compounds instead of the CFCs – or alternatively, if chlorine chemistry would have run more like that of bromine – then without any preparedness, we would have been faced with a catastrophic ozone hole everywhere and at all seasons during the 1970s, probably before the atmosphe- ric chemists had developed the necessary knowledge to identify the problem and the appropriate techniques for the necessary critical measurements. Noting that nobody had given any thought to the atmospheric consequences of the release of Cl or Br before 1974, I can only conclude that mankind has been extremely lucky, that Cl activation can only occur under very special circumstances. This shows that we should always be on our guard for the potential consequences of the release of new products into the environment. Continued surveillance of the composition of the stratosphere, therefore, remains a matter of high priority for many years ahead….”
That’s one example of the need for applying the precautionary principle. There are many others extant. Look into the public health literature. There’s no public health economics literature.
Hector is making a lot of sense here, but I still think instead of looking for who’s right, we need to be looking for who’s left. Who is still on board looking for solutions? Are we going to spend the next decade blaming each other for our shortcomings?
As I just posted on the other thread, I’m all for space solar power as the long-term solution. I would suggest concentrating solar power in floating arrays in “desert” areas of the oceans as the medium-term solution. Note that industry, and even agriculture could be removed to such locations, which would not only eliminate the need for lots of long-range power transmission but substantially reduce our ecological footprint on parts of the planet with active ecosystems.
The major problem with CSP, IMO, is the overwhelming requirement to hand out huge amounts of money to existing powerful corporations to do “cutting edge” research on how do do things (such as make mirrors) that could easily be done with existing technology.
Not that I’m completely against government funded research, but if low-tech (or mid-tech) solutions can do the trick, do we really need high-tech stuff? For example, the use of vacuum shielded heat collectors to maximize efficiency in CSP is suspicious to me. Assuming cheap mirrors, couldn’t it be done with still air at an admittedly lower efficiency but substantially lower cost?
I dunno, but I strongly suspect nobody asked that before allocating the funding for the fancy high-tech research.
It would be nice, but it won’t be easy. I have hope though.
Yes, that would be a good framework to start from. However, I think there are preciously few people who accept the mainstream view of climate science and still argue strongly against any emission reductions.
I’m totally on board with 5# and 7#
But, elsewhere, I’ve been called a ‘sceptic’ or deniar, or worse, for voicing similar opinions.
Some of those thoughts are just ‘not allowed’ by certain factions, as it calls certain articles of ‘faith’ of ‘settled science’, into question.
Trying to be concise 😉
Keith:
I agree with the statement – which to me really just states that everybody can think whatever they like.
This is obviously true.
I am not sure it provides much of a framework however, because everybody could always think what they wanted.
If by framework, we are trying to get everybody (or even a large majority) to agree on a core set of beliefs, I think it is not going to work.
We have to figure out a path which allows us to make plans without needing a large majority.
For example, gather data for X years and if it shows Y then action Z should be taken.
Something like that will allow more people to agree, rather than trying to force one side or the other to agree with the other side (which isn’t going to happen).
The Community is gagged, too shy, to participate.
Thus, this is an exercise in silliness. …Lady in Red
PS: My suspicion is gagged, vis a vis funding.
Science is not about “common ground” or any “faux balance” argument.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_to_moderation
First of all, we do have a bunch of things that we agree upon, in no particular order:
1. CO2 warms the planet to some extent
2. It’s a good idea to improve energy efficiency
3. It’s a good idea to foster reforestation
4. Using renewable energy will help control the rate of warming to some extent
5. Population growth control is of paramount importance for the future energy demand (and therefore CO2 emission) control
I am being slightly presumptuous but I really don’t think anybody who wants to be reasonable would dispute any of these.
Now, I believe that “mainstream science” is a bit of a misnomer in terms of what it projects into public policy debate. What does this so-called “mainstream science” say that the general public can digest apart from (1) above. I suppose, most people will quote the 2-4.5 range as Ron Broberg did in (3). Think about it: why is it that they bundle this huge range into one group? My answer: because the political leaders want to present a consensus position to the public even if the consensus becomes meaningless. What else? IPCC concluded that it’s “very likely” blah blah blah. Ruth Curry is much better than I explaining why it’s not quite so. This is precisely what IPCC is for: showing one public face for a broad range of opinions. Remember also what Phil Jones said when confronted with the question on the subject of “debate is over”? He doesn’t believe that “the vast majority of climate scientists think this”.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8511670.stm
The concept is of almost monolithic scientific consensus is manufactured by a PR machine. It doesn’t exist. When you talk about recognition of rational reasons for consensus view I don’t even know what you are talking about.
As long as the community of climate scientists continues to allow the Hockey Team to do what they have done, and continues to support the IPCC recommendations without at least attempting to resolve the uncertainty issues, I won’t be supporting any policy to reduce CO2.
Maybe some are willing to overlook evidence that the publicly prominent leaders (Jones, Mann, Briffa, etc.) give the appearance of being folks driven by their passionate beliefs who are quite willing to manipulate the data to fit their beliefs. I am not willing.
To me it just doesn’t smell right, and if the rest of the community of climate scientists think that urgent policy actions are necessary now to address their crisis, then they urgently need to clear away the garbage that has produced the odors. Address the UHI issues rather than say they are not meaningful. Open the datasets and procedures for replication. Understand that acquiescence in (pick one fraud, sloppy work, conspiracies, giving politicians what they want) means that I won’t be willing to separate recommendations from other members of the community from those I believe are suspect.
If it is so all fired important to save the world now, then go clean up the messes that gave rise to the skepticism. Appeal to your colleagues like Mann and Hansen and Jones to quit hiding the data used to produce the Hockey Stick and related papers or to just admit that they no longer have the data.
If it is just about trying to get the gravy train of cap and trade in place before the next election, then continue on your way. Republican control of either house will probably mean that the perpetrators will get subpoenas and will finally have to do what they should have done years ago.
Yes, CAWG-skeptic…. I agree….
The silence is deafening, and, rumors have it, Judith Curry’s days are numbered for having broken the silence.
Can you believe? Thousands can sign petitions, but no one will participate in a blog? Is that weird? ….Lady in Red
(#25):
This blog does not traffic in rumors, so please refrain from doing so.
Watching Gavin, Michael, and the others dance around the questions without ever really addressing the issues just reinforces my suspicions that there really are conspiracies afloat. Many here want to believe that it simply is unrealistic that NASA/NOAA/CRU etc. would be intentionally deceptive in their climate work, and would be working collaboratively (in a conspiracy) to do the same.
Yet it walks like a duck, talks like a duck, refuses to address real issues like a duck would, and smells like a duck. None of this proves guilt, but innocent people seldom act like guilty ones over a long period of time for no good reason. Speaking to the community: if you have nothing ugly to hide, then quit hiding it. If you keep hiding it, people like me will continue to not trust you, and also will not support your policies. Nonsensical behavior is often explained by the phrase ‘look for the money’, and there are billions at stake in the CO2 crisis game.
Please delete my comment. I am sorry. …Lady in Red
Hmm. Let’s see. What’s the absolutely stupidest thing the climate science community could do. Eureka! Make trouble for J.C.
And what community is famous for successively doing the stupidest thing it could possibly do… Eureka!
I think it should be possible to seperate the politics from the science, but too often the science is being used to oversell policy. We must reduce CO2 emissions, therefore we must build aerogenerators which aren’t reliable. Because we’re building those, we must upgrade infrastructure to smart grids and fit everybody with smart meters.
Estimated cost in the UK alone for smart meters is £7bn, and if this is an example of a smart meter, why bother?
http://www.first-utility.com/residential-energy/smart-meter
Most renewable schemes suffer from matching supply and demand, so ideally need storage. That’s apparently really complicated. My home has 3 energy storage devices, a fridge/freezer, electric hotwater tank and storage heaters. Currently water and heating use cheaper off-peak to heat overnight. Really smart meters should mean I could use renewable energy when it’s a surplus and should be cheaper. But current policy and subsidies mean it’s cheaper to stop aerogenerators feeding the grid. UK policy has also encouraged people to use gas for heating and hot water, which can’t help manage supply and demand of green energy.
Thats the kind of area where there should be more common ground, but NGO’s use the science to promote crazy policy and generally the scientists stay silent.
cagws99, your vicious screed makes exactly no sense. It serves to make people angry but I can think of no other purpose for it.
Who is hiding what from whom? If you are going to be as belligerent as that, you need to be specific. As we have seen over and over, when it comes down to specifics there really is no sign whatsoever of fraud, conspiracy, etc. that anybody has been able to offer any specifics about. That is because nobody gets into this field for malicious reasons.
Malicious money-motivated people have far more effective routes to their goals than getting doctorates in a geophysical science. There might conveivably be an exception or two, though nobody has identified any. The idea that the entire field is colluding in this way is completely implausible.
I wonder if people think a grant of a half million is like the government cutting you a personal check for a half million? Nope.
Keith, I’m glad this site doesn’t traffic in rumors. What then do you make of #27?
It may seem counter-intuitive, but I think it’s critically important to separate policy disputes from science in these discussions. Science informs policy, it does not determine it. People who are on opposite sides of the spectrum can support the same policy for different reasons. There doesn’t need to be complete agreement on the science to implement meaningful (but perhaps not decisive) policy.
For example, consider moving away from fossil fuels, especially oil, toward renewable, especially non-carbon, sources. One faction could support that policy on the grounds that it will reduce CO2. Another because it would improve US energy security. Another because it would bring a new source of jobs and economic benefits. Etc. Bringing such factions together is how consensus policy is formed on a host of issues.
These kind of policies are the low-hanging fruit that we should be able to implement even without any consensus on the science. They are the kind of “compromises” that politicians hammer out as a matter of routine. I fear, however, that these potential policy agreements are sacrificed in the name of ideological and factional purity in pursuit of tactical victory over the “enemy.” I’m reminded of Conan who, when asked what is best in life, replies, “To crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentation of their women.” Perhaps I’m overly cynical, but it seems to me there are too many Conan’s more interested in defeating perceived enemies than real, if imperfect, progress. Politicians, venal animals that they are, sense this dynamic and follow suit.
Perhaps I’m being a bit too dramatic, but I hope you can see my point. Besides, it’s not everyday that I get to quote Conan.
Tom Fuller (8) writes: “I did a survey last year on examiner.com that was swamped by visitors from WUWT, as Anthony kindly provided a link to it. It showed that 64% of Republicans who took the survey were willing to pay $250 a year more in taxes to support the construction of a smart grid.”
Sometimes reading posts on these climate blogs feels more like reading something from Margaret Mead. “I was startled at the aboriginals’ capacity for using tools….” But it has ever been thus.
#27 is merely letting off steam. …as do many “who care,” ‘ “are interested,” “believe in truth…”
I suspect Mr. Tobis PhD you would not understand, care.
….Lady in Red
Michael, has Dr Mann suddenly decided to release the data adjustments and source code in Fortran 77 that was described in the Penn State hearing report. Do you believe that the remote possibility that floating point rounding differences justify refusing to release the data because someone might get different answers?
Has Dr. Jones really released, or admitted that he cannot find, his data and adjustments?
These have been discussed many times, but the answers are always the same. There is yet another hearing tonight in England, and CA has a very detailed series of questions without answers freshly posted for all to see. Your name isn’t mentioned there, and I didn’t say anything about you personally hiding anything. But to say that no one is hiding anything is to deny the obvious.
You were allowed to pick the reason for hiding. Fraud has a lot of baggage. Pleasing politicians and the ones who approve grants has less baggage. Wanting to avoid professional embarrassment that would go with using sloppily managed data and code to produce a published result would not imply fraud to most folks.
You see it as a vicious screed. I just see it as describing what has been happening that the climate science community as a whole has steadfastly, for whatever reason, chosen to avoid addressing in public. There are a very few voices with PHDs in climate related subjects who have spoken about the need for more openness, and generally they have been ostracized for collaborating with or joining the enemy.
I don’t believe that the climate science community who so passionately believes that urgent action is necessary will see that action happening until these matters are addressed. I won’t vote for your policies, and I don’t know many who will. If that makes me a rabid science denier in your eyes, then so be it.
Is the apparent ethic that says none of the issues surrounding the hockey stick and the IPCC manipulations will ever be addressed in public by those who could actually address them worth seeing your desired policy changes go nowhere? It seems to me that the policy changes are maybe not that important to you and your colleagues, or maybe your assessment of the politics differs from mine.
Lady in Red; cagw_skeptic99:
You each can blow off your steam elsewhere, if you must. You both seem to have fixed views that are not helpful to constructive dialogue.
In a post that seeks to establish broader ground, you continue to focus on select individuals and/or the “community.” Why must you generalize and stereotype the climate science community when I’m trying to show that climate skeptics themselves shouldn’t be stereotyped?
CAGW’s comments are right to the point. Hardly a “vicious screed.”
Of course we don’t know exactly what and how much the Hockey Team, et al, is hiding. You only need to read a few of the Climategate emails to be aghast at the collusion to deliberately violate FOIA laws. Jones gave clear directions to delete specific emails and find any justification for not disclosing data, methods, computer codes, etc. Everything from claiming it was available online, to IPR, claim that the requests were really just filed to harass the staff, or even that the data had been “lost”. Meanwhile vowing to delete the requested data before he’d share it.
Why have the inquires all been pretty much self-conducted when an independent audit is desperately in order? We can’t even begin to imagine what they are so terrified to disclose that it drove them to abandon ethics and break the law.
How are we supposed to create prudent or effective policies when the people we paid to give an accurate evaluation of the situation behaves suspiciously?
On a different note,
nobody has mentioned nuclear power on this thread. I say, “yes in my backyard!”
laurasauras (38):
I’d say that the obsession with the hocky team by you and others is about as constructive to cross dialogue as Michael Tobis’s determination to defend them against all real and perceived slights.
I am sorry, will leave.
Recently, I appealed to friends in The Community to speak….
..to no avail.
Sorry. outta here! ….Lady in Red
Pls delete my earlier, offensive comments.
Best!
I’ve been very limited for time today, and have had difficulty affording this latest stage of the discussion the time it deserves.
Hector M, I think, fairly succinctly covers the principle issues with the science/conduct to date – many, if not all, aspects of which I think are core reasons for climate science scepticism. Or, more specifically, a table of issues which must be addressed in the science, specifically for the sake of the science itself and for sciences more broadly.
The issues that have arisen in climate science are not limited to climate science and any subject in academia has the potential to suffer or fall foul of the principles which I think we as societies have broadly assumed were non-issues. We are very secular societies today but the premise upon which we have acquiesced to science (and academic authority in science) has been recently examined and has been found wanting. The restoration/reassertion of the integrity of science in academia must be a priority. Post-normalism has to go.
All of this is distinct from energy policy, or the reasons therefore. Appropriate alternative energy explorations (read: NOT dependence on such highly variable and unreliable sources as, for example, wind), energy storage solutions, energy transfer efficiency improvements (I agree with Tom Fuller, the lossy nature of today’s technologies are so poor as to be offensive), solar, (though I’m loathe to say it) nuclear and potentially tidal/wave sources, all of which are appropriate considerations, BUT are entirely distinct from climate science assertions of CO2 as a driver of global warming and climate change, and are distinct from climate change policy.
Briefly reviewing, I think there is or can be common ground regarding alternative energy investment policy. I don’t think there is common ground at this time on climate science’s assertions of CO2 being a primary driver of climate change or on policies derived from that science, of CO2 mitigation and its associated carbon trading schemes etc – and not just because of the clear evidence that the system in place is poorly devised and open to abuse. I’m in favour of social impact-considered policy provided the justifications are honest and up-front. I’m not in favour of policy which by design provides get-rich schemes for wealthy investors at the expense of the poor – inevitably the most heavily impacted by any taxes on an essential like heating or travel. This is all to say that emerging technology solutions must be cost-effective and competitive with fossil fuel sources or energy policies will not stick. But that’s a different topic, I suspect, and one for another day.
Andy (33):
Well said. I agree with you about their being too many Conans.
Michael Tobis’s determination to defend them against all real and perceived slights.
wtf??? What on earth are you talking about???
I don’t “defend them against all slights”; I don’t think anything they have done is either especially scientifically important or especially ethically shocking. I simply don’t engage in the endless tedious and pointless discussions about them. I don’t care about them. They are innocent victims of malicious indirection of attention. The correct thing to do about them is to think about more important things.
Whether you agree that that’s constructive or not is one thing, but please if you are going to criticize me, use actual things I do rather than things you make up.
Keith, if you insist on using me as an example of extremism I’ll be happy to go away. You also said “Michael, you don’t want to give any ground here, because to you, the science points to imminent catastrophe” but that doesn’t represent me either.
I am not sure why I should hang around to have words put in my mouth. Once is an honest mistake but twice starts to be a pattern. I’m pretty dang peeved at the moment.
Sorry folk,
Denialism: CO2 is not a greenhouse gas and has no effect on climate.
is a real issue that poisons the discussion. Minimalism has been dealt with in detail, but survives in such papers as Lindzen and Choi and the iris papers and their refutations.
Pretty dang peeved. It gets tough away from the home field, doesn’t it?
Keith (4) originally asked: “So what’s the debate we should be having on energy policy that also maintains buy-in from all these sides?”
So far, there have been posts suggesting we leave the science disputes out of it and concentrate on the solutions. Others argue that we should forget the politics and resolve the scientific issues. But it is unclear how the issue of what we should do now can be settled without resolving both. Finally, we could settle for the low hanging fruit as Andy (33) suggests, but would the climate change advocates agree to such a limiting of the debate? And if they are right, should they? So what does that leave?
In fact, I don’t think you need to change the terms of the debate at all. We have a strong, vocal, vociferous adversarial debate going on. There are people with strong convictions on both sides. There are honest people and dishonest people on both sides. There are both some people who stand to benefit financially from implementation of the policies recommended by the “consensus” advocates, and some who object to being taxed and regulated under those policies. There have been mistakes in the science and the math on both sides.
And all of those issues are and should be fair game, on both sides. It would be nice if the tone could be more civilized, (that is why I like this site), but the information and arguments of both sides should be fully aired, and they are now more than ever before. As many have said before, politics ain’t beanbag.
I share the opinion of most of the scientific community on the “hockey team”. It is well expressed by the British House of Commons Science and Technology Committee assigned to investigate the matter:
The focus on Professor Jones and CRU has been largely misplaced. On the accusations relating to Professor Jones’s refusal to share raw data and computer codes, we consider that his actions were in line with common practice in the climate science community. … In addition, insofar as we have been able to consider accusations of dishonesty””for example, Professor Jones’s alleged attempt to “hide the decline”””we consider that there is no case to answer.
If I stand implicitly accused of being radical or extreme because I share the opinions of a British parliamentary committee, our discourse has fallen to a very sorry state.
Going back to Dhogaza’s comment “there’s a side that refuses to believe mainstream science.” Let’s dissect that statement because Dhogaza (despite his no doubt noble intentions) represents a very good example of the hard-line catastrophist fringe who are, by and large, preventing useful policy dialogue:
a. The IPCC projections go all the way down to 1.1C per doubling. That lower value is extremely acceptable to mainstream dissenters, because it is scientifically defensible whilst the values above that are not – yet. Hence skepticism still remains within the bounds of mainstream science.
b. It also really depends on how you define “science”. Reliance on models didn’t used to be called science: Rather we used to require some substanciation from hard data before making pronouncements of doom. From that perspective a lot of skeptics – me included – believe themselves to be defending traditional, empirical science from this post-modern tendency to believe models over data. Scientific computer modeling is my profession so I am certainly not anti-models – just extremely wary of all the rank guesswork involved in the multiple inputs – as all good scientists should be.
OK, here’s a simple and straight-forward question for MT. Can you agree that there are rational reasons for skepticism of the science? I laid out some of mine in my posts in the previous thread. Another poster (an economist) commented on his field’s experience with computer modeling and excess faith there-in. HectorM laid out a bunch more in a nice long post above.
Note that I’m not asking you to agree that the “scientific consensus” is wrong, nor am I asking you to agree with any particular one of those reasons for skepticism. Rather, I’m asking because I’m really tired of being told that “X thousand scientists know better” than I do, or that any doubts are clearly due to well-orchestrated heavily-funded denialism (funding usually attributed to the oil industry), or that “the science is settled.”
Perhaps I should not be addressing this to you, MT — you’re no more “to blame” (if that’s even the right phrase) than many other posters. But you’ve been visible in these two threads, and have caught my eye, so…
And since I’m asking MT a straight-forward question, I’ll answer a similar question of my own: Can you agree that there are rational reasons for supporting the (scientific) consensus view as represented by the IPCC documents?
Although I don’t currently support the consensus view in full (note, however, that the basic radiative physics are pretty inarguable), I certainly see plenty of rational reasons to support the consensus view. First, anyone without the time and energy and education to read papers and form their own understanding is probably best-advised to start with the consensus view. Second, there’s a substantial body of peer-reviewed work supporting many parts of the IPCC docs. Finally, I find suggestions of deliberate conspiracies and wide-spread fraud to be laughably unlikely.
None of the above means that I believe that the case has yet been well enough made to justify any public policy changes beyond “no-regrets” actions that we’d take anyway (because they make good economic sense in and of themselves). And I still have plenty of what seem to me to be rational reasons for skepticism about various aspects of the science.
Nevertheless, I recognize that reasonable well-meaning people can find good reasons to disagree with me. I just wish that more of the blog posters who support the “scientific consensus” could understand that reasonable well-meaning people can find good, rational reasons to disagree with them!
None of which of course prevents us from trying to find common ground on energy policy. Many, if not most skeptics, I find, are very willing to do so. They just don’t like the relentless and blatantly false propaganda nor the minimalist attention paid to the extreme likelihood of adverse consequences from bad policy.
“Going back to Dhogaza’s comment “there’s a side that refuses to believe mainstream science.” Let’s dissect that statement because Dhogaza (despite his no doubt noble intentions) represents a very good example of the hard-line catastrophist fringe who are, by and large, preventing useful policy dialogue”
That’s a lie. I would favor a political decision to do nothing, if it were made with full acceptance of science and the consequences that follow.
I really don’t care much about policy. I’m 56, have no kids (intentionally), won’t live long.
Policy will not change enough to be effective, no matter how strong the science is.
That’s reality.
I just want those responsible to admit, with all honesty, that they don’t care about the future.
On the accusations relating to Professor Jones’s refusal to share raw data and computer codes, we consider that his actions were in line with common practice in the climate science community
If so, it speaks volumes about climate science community and its common practice.
“It also really depends on how you define “science”. Reliance on models didn’t used to be called science”
So if you were alive when Newton was, you would’ve said Newton wasn’t doing science? Newtonian physics is a *model*, and it’s *wrong* (yet useful).
Galileo, who fudged his Pisa experimental results to fit his model, is often upheld by denialists as being the prototype for Lindzen, Christy, Watts, et al … Galileo trumped his model, which despite being overriden by his own experiments, was largely correct.
So I guess you’re saying that Newtonian physics is so wrong that if I shoot you with a bullet from a gun, I couldn’t possibly hit you, if I aim at you informed by Newtonian physics.
Because models suck (TM).
Hank Roberts (July 6th, 2010 at 3:18 pm) thinks “There’s no public health economics literature.” In fact there is plenty. There are several specialized journals, and a rapid overview may be got at the Health Economics section of the Social Science Research Network, http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/displayjournalbrowse.cfm. A lot of it is concerned with the precautionary principle. Only they clearly understand that crying “The world is coming down” at every possible problem is not the right way of applying that principle.
“They just don’t like the relentless and blatantly false propaganda”
Oh, yes, false propaganda like … the world really is warming.
Hank Roberts also thinks “Instead of looking for who’s right, we need to be looking for who’s left. Who is still on board looking for solutions?” The problem, Hank, is solutions for what. The disagreements are about the nature and extent of the problems, and also about the usefulness of some proposed solutions. No way out: one has to discuss who is right, after all.
Hey, Hector, don’t go giving my lines to Hank Roberts. Them’s mine…
As for looking for solutions, we have energy-related problems that exist independent of all climate discussions. Some of the solutions to those problems may lower our CO2 emissions. These used to be called ‘no regrets’ policy options, although David Brin wants to use an acronmy–TWODA, although I don’t remember exactly what it means…
Simplified example:
Currently we purchase a lot of oil for our use. Most of it is from friendly countries such as Mexico, but some comes from countries that either don’t like us, or whose leaders we don’t really approve of. Importing less oil saves us money and some level of political embarrassment. Plug-in hybrid vehicles will use less gas. However, if the power plant that provides the electricity for those plug-ins is coal, it is less efficient. Building renewable or nuclear power plants wins for energy independence, lets us import Chinese toys instead of Venezuelan oil and reduces our emissions. (I kinda think you’re already aware of all this and probably some ramifications I haven’t touched on.)
I think most Americans would vote for energy independence. We know that they are voting for plug-in hybrids. The question is would they (commenters on this blog that are all hacked off at the arrogance and obfuscation coming from the consensus holders, for example) draw the line at charging their batteries with electricity from renewable plants?
The real question is this one, two or three issues? Because there’s a whole lot more of them.
Personally, I think the science is irrelevant. The real problem we have is we cannot do anything significant about CO2 so debate has split into two camps.
On one side we have the “activists” who are desperate to “do something” so they can pat themselves on the back and say they “did something”. The fact that the things that being “done” are completely ineffective and often cause more harm that good is irrelevant. Something was “done” so they are happy as we sink into the sea of debt.
On the other side we have the “fatalists” who are happy to let the future look after itself and discount all discussion of catastrophic outcomes as implausible. Their convictions are re-enforced by the “activists” who insist on imposing policies that will accomplish nothing useful at great expense.
The way out of this is impasse it forget the grand schemes and think small. Identify specific actions that diversify the energy supply or use the supply we have more efficiently and are also *economically* sustainable.
The phrase “economically sustainable” is key. That means that massive subsidies for inefficient energy production are off the table because the subsidies become unaffordable when applied at scales large enough to do anything about the problem.
What is also off the table are any sorts of carbon trading or offsets because they simply divert human ingenuity away from productive tasks toward ways to game the system. The recent revelation that the CDM has created an industry which makes HFCs for no reason other than to destroy them for billions in credits is a perfect solution. More “carbon credit police” is not the way to fix a concept that is fundementally broken. It must be discarded.
Michael
“The focus on Professor Jones and CRU has been largely misplaced. On the accusations relating to Professor Jones’s refusal to share raw data and computer codes, we consider that his actions were in line with common practice in the climate science community.”
So the reason that he continues to refuse to share raw data and computer codes for the papers in question is that it is still ok? Many of these issues would probably go away if the players would now either admit that they don’t any longer have the data or share what they do have.
What justification can there be for continuing to keep the data secret? It was freely shared with those whom Dr. Jones expected to support his conclusions, and explicitly not shared with those who might find fault. Does the ‘we didn’t do it then’ explanation continue to work for you now?
What is one the table are funding for R&D into new technologies. If economic technologies can be found then they will find their way into the market without any help from government.
What is also one the table are efficiency regulations when they make sense. This one has to be careful about trading off cost and intangibles vs. real benefit. In many cases, simply ensuring consumers have accurate information before making purchasing decisions can do wonders.
Loan guarantees are also an option because lenders may balk at funding a project when there is no history that allows them to evaulate risk.
Another important point: don’t let perfection be the enemy of the good. Replacing an aging coal generation plant with a modern high efficiency without CCS one is progress. Refusing to consider that option simply ensures the old plants will be keep in operation longer than they should have. The same issue comes up with nuclear – people who oppose it are making the problem worse.
Hector,
The most practical, maybe the only practical, way to reduce dependence on foreign oil is to replace it with coal and nuclear energy. Maybe the renewables will work someday with a technical breakthrough that hasn’t happened yet, but coal and nuclear would actually make a difference if maximized over say the next two decades.
Nuclear requires so much concrete that it actually takes a long time to break even carbon wise, and of course coal is the root of all evil due to CO2 emissions.
The conflict between using coal that we actually have to replace oil that we import is perhaps why the skeptical community insists on a high standard for proving that CO2 might actually be important. Imported oil is a real, tangible threat to the security and prosperity of the US and many other countries. CO2 is a possible, maybe someday or maybe not real problem.
Nuclear is opposed by many of the same people who are focused on CO2, to the possible detriment of the cause they hold so dearly.
Paralysis appears to be the probable net result until someone manages to convince the voting public that one path is actually better than doing nothing.
With Ref to 49#
Oxburgh Enquiry, Professor Kelly’s notes obtained by FOI requests, by Bishop Hill:
“I take real exception to having simulation runs described as experiments (without at least the qualification of ‘computer’ experiments). It does a disservice to centuries of real experimentation and allows simulations output to be considered as real data. This last is a very serious matter, as it can lead to the idea that real ‘real data’ might be wrong simply because it disagrees with the models! That is turning centuries of science on its head.”
http://bishophill.squarespace.com/storage/kelly%20paper.pdf
Steve Mcintyres take on the Kelley notes:
http://climateaudit.org/2010/06/22/kellys-comments/
http://bishophill.squarespace.com/blog/2010/6/22/the-kelly-paper.html
Professor Kelly again:
“In neither of these papers is there any overt malpractice, but one can’t eliminate the possibility of conscious or unconscious bias in the choices of data. I just do wonder if a different hypothesis was being tested whether the same approach could give a very different answer.”
#55 Tom Fuller
“The question is would they (commenters on this blog that are all hacked off at the arrogance and obfuscation coming from the consensus holders, for example) draw the line at charging their batteries with electricity from renewable plants”
I, and I suspect most people wouldn’t care, as long as it were reliable and affordable. Challenge at the moment though is renewable generation is more expensive, and alternative generation is becoming more expensive to make renewables ‘more competitive’. The Hartwell Paper makes the issue distinct-
“The first step is to recognise that energy policy and climate policy are not the same thing.”
But too often they’re bundled together as a package deal and oversold together. That makes it easier to become sceptical of both, especially when there are obvious conflicts of interest, like Lord Oxburgh and wind/carbon capture or Woods Institute and REDD, or when scientists like Hansen are advocating policy wrt coal. NGO’s also compound the problem thanks to their traditional opposition and ‘denial’ of nuclear as a low carbon alternative.
I think this is more a problem of NGO’s and SIG’s using or abusing climate scientists as advocates in areas outside their expertise, and some seem more than willing to support this kind of marketing activity. I personally became more sceptical about the science after seeing the policy proposals, and the way those were being sold to me.
Dhogaza
Again you demonstrate quite well the climate change argument “game” that diverts from real discussion, using three strawman arguments and a wish for everyone to admit we are all doomed whatever we do.
I do Finite Element analysis programming. It can be nearly 100 per cent accurate so many models do not suck. Newtons theories, were easily compared with real life data. If they hadnt they would have been rejected. Thats traditional science. He was also inspired by real life observations, like many scientists. The model we are talking about here is nothing like that, it is a method of using numerical analysis to solve equations that are impossible to solve by other means. Gross assumptions can be made and sometimes it doesnt matter but sometimes it matters hugely. We can only ever know if it matters or not by comparison with real world data. This basic fact has been replaced by the idea that we can validate a model by comparison with other, equally bad, models. The notion is utterly presposterous.
“Oh, yes, false propaganda like “¦ the world really is warming.”
Warming of 0.6K last century, much of which is admittedly natural, has been extrapolated into 1.1 to 6k per century in the future based on models that have demonstrated no predictive skill, use grossly pessimistic assumptions with little or no foundation or theoretical backup and which leave big chunks of the physics of the natural world out. This is the reality.
So no we are most probably not doomed and most folk in the world do actually realize that. The blatantly false propaganda I refer to is the notion that only bad things can happen due to this small warming and that we can already see some bad things happening that are attributable to this small warming. The former is pessimistic guesswork and the latter is just untrue.
Wealthy peoples develop new technologies. Poor peoples do not. Legislating a move from low cost energy to high cost energy destroys wealth. Cost competitive alternative energies will one day appear – probably not by government fiat.
“Discussing who is right” is a very complete expression, in the context of climate blog wars. At the very least, we need to know who is right about what. And to what extent. And how does it matter, in the grand scheme of things of policy. And if that justify the Conan attitude, which is already derailing the thread. For instance, a “blatantly false propaganda” is quite obviously an oxymoron, not to mention a strawman, as I don’t believe anyone here is for blatantly false propaganda.
If Andy’s right in #33, and Keith seems to agree with him –or was it just about the Conans?–, policy issues are, in a most certain way, autonomous from the scientific ones. And if they are, discussing who is right.
And to complicate matters, observe the two-pronged topic “science/conduct” in #42 to synthetize Hector’s comment. Are the policy issues also autonomous from “scientific conduct”? Judiciary conducted discourses might look like as political as scientific. Is the point of judiciary discourse to declare who’s right in the same sense of the scientific discourse?
To complete the last sentence of my second paragraph:
> And if they are, discussing who is right in science is not what must be done first and foremost, before discussing policy.
re Andy #33
“The greatest happiness is
to vanquish your enemies,
to chase them before you,
to rob them of their wealth,
to see those dear to them
bathed in tears, to clasp to
your bosom their wives
and daughters.”
–Ghengis Khan
re willard #66 : If Andy’s right in #33 … policy issues are, in a most certain way, autonomous from the scientific ones
Of course.
There seems to be an assumption that if everyone agreed on the science (or some portion of it), then everyone would agree on the policy. I believe that to be a false assumption.
Then there is the “we can get everyone to agree with a policy, without bothering to find agreement on the science”, which seems irrational to me, and therefore is probably more realistic.
Romm is hoping for the first. Pielke Jr seems to be trying to make room for the second. I like to think I’m a rational thinker; I prefer the first. I am pretty sure that politics as actually practised tends to favor the second.
re Tim G 67 On the other side we have the “fatalists” who are happy to let the future look after itself and discount all discussion of catastrophic outcomes as implausible
Every other Sunday, I am a fatalist who believes that catastrophic outcomes are plausible.
On the alternate Sundays, I am a techno-optimist similar to kdk33.
Mostly I hope for better modeling of regional climate change so that people can better quantify the risks and benefits of proposed policy choices. But that’s just because I’m genuinely interested in the science. I doubt that better knowledge will lead to better choices: see any McDonalds.
#68 – Ron Broberg
Mike Hulme has a good paper on how a person’s personality affects their perception of risk and their willingness to accept certain types of policies. That it why I think it is impossible to get agreement on policy even if one agreed on the science.
dhogaza– 52
I just want those responsible to admit, with all honesty, that they don’t care about the future.
I suspect many already suspected getting people to submit to your views,rather than acting to preventing damage due to rising temperatures is your first concern.
Thanks for confirming it.
Luckily, there are still some whose prime concern is trying to enact policies avoid triggering excess climate change and/or mitigating ill consequences should the climate change while also balancing the current costs that can also result in some human suffering.
Note: Today’s WSJ runs this quote: “Language is not innocent,” says Dr. Kaslow. “We usually say what we mean.”
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704178004575350940170440292.html?KEYWORDS=Kaslow
“I suspect many already suspected getting people to submit to your views,rather than acting to preventing damage due to rising temperatures is your first concern.”
Until the science is accepted, nothing will happen. The last thirty years of inaction strongly support my supposition.
For the sake of an interesting argument I will disagree with Willard. Suppose we stipulate that the science needs to be sound before any policy based on the science is implemented. That certainly sounds reasonable.
For example, before we implement a policy of daily injecting 25 million tons of fossil carbon into the atmosphere tomorrow, we should certainly establish beyond reasonable scientific doubt that such behavior has no substantial foreseeable consequences. As long as the question is open, such a policy would appear to be reckless in the extreme.
In general, the party injecting a substance into the environment has the obligation to demonstrate that the behavior is safe. They do not have the right to begin their dumping until such time as it is proven unsafe. As long as we are asking for proof, we should do so in a way that is consistent with how we approach the commons.
CO2 is only especially privileged by comparison to other substances by precedent and by scale. It is clear that the decision as to what to do tomorrow is already made, that we cannot literally make sufficeint changes overnight. But advocates for what is framed as “no policy” are not really advocating for no policy. They are advocating for continuing, active, ongoing support of an unreasonable policy enacted in error in the past, i.e., a decision that fossil carbon emissions should be considered safe. There is not adequate scientific support for this decision, so we should stop making that decision at every turn.
Thanks to Moe Garcia for a clear recent statement of this argument.
MT: “CO2 is only especially privileged by comparison to other substances by precedent and by scale. ”
And perhaps by the enormous, undeniable, good that flows from readily available low cost enrgy. Not to mention its biological ubiquitousness (is that a word).
Re #75 (?) Michael Tobis
I don’t think that makes an interesting argument. The emission of CO2 from burning fossil fuel is not a policy. It is the natural result of persons making their free choices, in this case choosing the most efficient energy.
Policy is involved when the government acts to interfere with the normal flow, either to prohibit, tax, or otherwise discourage certain activities. Or to subsidize or otherwise encourage other activities.
MT: “before we implement a policy of daily injecting 25 million tons of fossil carbon into the atmosphere tomorrow, we should certainly establish beyond reasonable scientific doubt that such behavior has no substantial foreseeable consequences.”
I’m thinking: current standards of living and life expectancies and all the conveninces we in the developed world enjoy. Did you have something else in mind?
Michael Tobis..
Of course the real world is a little different…
The recautionary principle, givine the uncertainties in ‘climate science’ should equlayy be preapring us , for the worst case scenarios, that some astro physicist put forward, ie heading for a nother little ice age.
Or at least the possibility due to solar inactivity, and oceans cooling of a decade or 2 of cooling..
Historically, for the human race, cold is worse than warm.
Energy is life, and civilisation in a cold world.
If every coal fired power station stopped producing electricty, or car /lorry/train use stopped. ther eowuld be chaos and deaths within 24 hours.
So why are we not having that cold insurance policy put forward, the evidence for this appears a little stronger than the warm policy?
Did you get stripped of your Phd…?
I notice you have stopped using it in your name..
Sometimes you do, sometimes you don’t, any particulary reason for doing this..
Or is there one Michael Tobis with a PhD, and another one without, could be confusing.
If you would like to post your subject, I may defer to your Phd in that specific area, any other topic, we are as equals..
Barry Woods BSc, Msc, Bronze, Silver and Gold swimming certificate (for when the sea level rise, 6mm a year) I could of course list all my other profesional qulaification, but that would just be another ‘appeal to authority’…
Anybody with a phsycoanalytical background, must be fascinated by all this..
I had a quick tour of the blog roll.. And so many faces here, and blog owners, commenting on each others threads, the ‘in crowd’ the outsiders, any newcombers tend to get ignored, unless they are really persistant, or need to be ‘taken down’ for being impertinant, or threatening the message..
It is actually a very small world (blog wise)
If we have 2-3 winters like the last one, how soon before the vast numbers of people in the general public, that are unaware of all our fun, just say ‘Enough’ to the politicians and lobbyists.
Some other common ground: some climate scientists could make an effort to make data readily available, even to harassing individuals overloading them with requests. A better high-level plan for handling FOI requests would help. That was the one meaningful critique in the Muir Russell report out today, that vindicated CRU scientists and put a final nail in the coffin of the manufactured scandal dubbed by the media and smear merchants as “ClimateGate”. The McIntyre & Co. allegatations are thoroughly debunked and they will be fortunate if they aren’t faced with a libel suit.
http://www.cce-review.org/pdf/FINAL%20REPORT.pdf
The common ground in particular:
“Openness and FoIA. We support the spirit of openness enshrined in the FoIA and the EIR. It is unfortunate that this was not embraced by UEA, and we make recommendations about that. A well thought through publication scheme would remove much potential for disruption by the submission of multiple requests for information. But at the level of public policy there is need for further thinking about the competing arguments for the timing of full disclosure of research data and associated computer codes etc, as against considerations of confidentiality during the conduct of research. There is much scope for unintended consequences that could hamper research: US experience is instructive. We recommend that the ICO should initiate a debate on these wider issues.”
Compliance for FoIA was determined to be the responsibility of UEA faculty leadership and the Vice-Chancellor.
NYJ (#80): “…that vindicated CRU scientists and put a final nail in the coffin of the manufactured scandal dubbed by the media and smear merchants as “ClimateGate”. The McIntyre & Co. allegatations are thoroughly debunked and they will be fortunate if they aren’t faced with a libel suit.”
Oh dear god, man. It’s this kind of idiotic language from people like you that reminds people like me that we’re not wrong.
As for the Sir Muir Russell enquiry, there is much to digest. It appears some serious shortfalls in the report and its self-determined remit are already beginning to come to light, and in fact RPJr has identified the point of source of a rather significant inaccuracy in Sir Muir’s understanding of the issues raised with him in submissions, which most certainly should have been better understood by him better, and which have deep implications for the past actions of the CRU team.
But of course, if you’re not going to interview expert witnesses, it’s inevitable you’re going to come up short.
Some light relief; see if you recognise some people – or even yourself:
http://vodpod.com/watch/995934-extremism?u=kosmopolit&c=kosmopolit
To see ourselves as others see us…
M Tobis’s argument would be sensible except for the fact that CO2 is a naturally occurring compound well known to be benign, beneficial and useful for many diverse purposes and yes, it’s also essential for life on Earth. Not quite the same as pumping out dioxins now is it? Now soot can easily be considered nasty unnatural stuff and everyone agrees that it should be controlled for health reasons and Hansen/Ramanathan tell us that doing so would be a good way of combatting a big chunk of the putative manmade warming until these greenish alternative energies come on stream. Alas no controls are ever passed because people only ever want to talk about CO2. As Lindzen would say; “I’m wondering what’s going on”.
HaroldW said “I don’t think that makes an interesting argument. The emission of CO2 from burning fossil fuel is not a policy. It is the natural result of persons making their free choices, in this case choosing the most efficient energy.
Policy is involved when the government acts to interfere with the normal flow, either to prohibit, tax, or otherwise discourage certain activities. Or to subsidize or otherwise encourage other activities.
Maintaining 2-5 aircraft carrier groups and 50000 troops in the Persian Gulf is a policy.
Having a 75 million dollar cap on ‘deep sea’ damages is a policy.
Allowing or prohibiting drilling on federal lands is a policy.
There are numerous policies in place shaping our current energy infrastructure. The question on the table is: how should we design those policies we have inherited to reflect our shifting policy goals? Which should be added? Which should be discarded? And which should be reshaped? (Assuming we understand what we wish our current policy goals to be)
@SimonH:
Roger is playing semantics. “Consideration” does not mean something has to be discussed in the IPCC report.
More importantly, and Roger notably refers to that himself:
“should clearly identify disparate views for which there is significant scientific or technical support, together with the relevant arguments”
That is, only disparate views for which there is significant scientific or technical support should be included. To establish what disparate views with significant support are, requires an assessment by experts, exactly what the Muir-Russell review argumented!
Marco, I think that’s tripe. I think RPJr has it right and I don’t think he’s just playing semantics. Sir Muir clearly has been given the impression that the authors of IPCC WG1 were expected to actively downplay uncertainties by presenting their own, preferred view of a much-debated subject. That is not what the IPCC WG1 is for, at all, and to allow that to be the net effect is to diminish the value of the IPCC dramatically, and certainly to do damage to any value that could then be assumed of a WG2 that relied on the personal opinions of the assessment of the science at the sharp-end of WG1.
No, Marco, the IPCC WG1 is requested and required to present the breadth of current understanding, including a breadth of understanding in and of areas where there is debate and dispute.
MT, you’re supposed to be a scientist, so you should get your emissions number right to at least the correct order of magnitude. If you’re an honest scientist then you would also add the atmospheric total of CO2 to which our contributions are made.
Like everybody else, I have my own take on the Russell report, here: http://www.examiner.com/examiner/x-9111-Environmental-Policy-Examiner~y2010m7d7-Global-warming-An-inquiry-that-doesnt-look-at-the-science-cannot-understand-Climategate
This is just the UK way of doing things. For perspective’s sake, they just released the 10th inquiry into Bloody Sunday, 40 years after the massacre. And there are still unanswered questions.
The truth will be known, but only after the principals are safely buried. That’s just the way they do things.
SimonH:
“Oh dear god, man. It’s this kind of idiotic language from people like you that reminds people like me that we’re not wrong.”
That’s odd. It’s evidence (or lack thereof) that reminds me that “people like you” are wrong. The incredible shrillness is just a sideshow.
And as I mentioned to Mr. Fuller, screams of “whitewash” lose their effect over time. People begin to question the accusers. Now that the official nonpartisan investigations into climate scientists are over, I would think some of their followers would welcome an investigation into the accusers. Then we could examine all of their blog posts and book writings line by line. Everyone should be held accountable for their actions.
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/2010/07/01/the-good-the-bad-the-ugly/#comment-9996
Trying to take a step back and look at the bigger picture. How we regard the current state of the science is determined by our fears. The policy decisions we favor reflects what we believe poses the greatest threat.
This is why it is nearly impossible to separate policy from the science. Bad information leads to bad decisions. Indirectly, it is the worst of human nature that is most terrifying. That’s why distrust has so powerfully colored our objectivity.
@SimonH:
Care to provide evidence that “Sir Muir clearly has been given the impression that the authors of IPCC WG1 were expected to actively downplay uncertainties by presenting their own, preferred view of a much-debated subject.” ?
I also find it interesting you ignore the “significant support” requirement indicated by the IPCC. That requires assessment. By experts.
NYJ, what part of “I do not believe this was a whitewash” is difficult to comprehend?
NYJ, by what definition are the Oxburgh and Muir enquiries non-partisan?
Marco (#89): “Care to provide evidence that [..]”
I had felt I clarified that in my following paragraph, so I apologise for not being more clear. The inevitable result of excluding papers which don’t support the author’s view, or which the author/s himself/themselves determines are “bad” papers itself has the (undesirable, IMO) effect of downplaying the uncertainties associated with that aspect of the science. The IPCC’s report preparation principles clearly state that authors are expected to “identify disparate views for which there is significant scientific or technical support, together with the relevant arguments”. So Sir Muir’s understanding and the IPCC’s requirements are conflicting.
http://www.examiner.com/x-9111-Environmental-Policy-Examiner~y2010m7d7-Global-warming-An-inquiry-that-doesnt-look-at-the-science-cannot-understand-Climategate
Yep! Tom said that.
“I do not believe this was a whitewash. However, I do believe that the overarching framework of dealing with this issue using a series of segmented investigations of limited scope guaranteed that the vital issues would fall through the cracks.”
He writes a column a great column for Examiner.com.
And McIntyre’s response to DeepClimate, et al.
http://climateaudit.org/2009/10/09/core-counts-and-reverse-engineering/
Just one thing I’d take issue with, Tom.. I would certainly agree that the practices you observe regarding enquiries in the UK are perhaps “established”, I would not describe them necessarily as “accepted”. That would imply that the British people find these enquiries “acceptable”.
I promise these reports are broadly met with much eye-rolling, except for individuals with according motivations (exemplified by responses like NYJ’s) for whose self-serving purposes these reports are made.
Marco, to address the “significant support” matter properly, we would have to explore the inclusion of the unpublished (by IPCC deadline) Wahl & Ammann 2007 (“accepted”), and its references to a 2nd at-the-time unpublished/unaccepted paper, Ammann Wahl (upon which it depends). We can do that if you desire. It is a fascinating chronology, and really does deserve close examination. Once we’ve done that, we can examine whether the Wahl & Ammann interdependent papers do in fact, as claimed, disprove MM’s claims of statistical failings and independently verify MBH98/9.
Good lord, what a pile of nonsense the opposition comes up with whenever I try to say something sensible that doesn;t fall into their familiar patterns! I wonder whether it would do any good in the grand scheme of things to respond to any of it. Should I respond to the stupidest one, leaving myself open to an accusation of failing to respond to “stronger” arguments? Or should I read them all carefully to see if any of them got a glimmer of an idea of what I was saying, and respond to that one?
Regarding the credential thing, one of my computers still has it in its cache and I keep forgetting to erase it. I just meant to post it once. No special meaning is implied, except that having a PhD doesn’t save you from being a bit stupid. Unlike others here, I try to save my stupidity for inconsequential matters…
I chose #77 which has a non-stupid element to it:
Re #75 (?) Michael Tobis
I don’t think that makes an interesting argument. The emission of CO2 from burning fossil fuel is not a policy. It is the natural result of persons making their free choices, in this case choosing the most efficient energy.
This is a coherent position which claims that individual action is free while collective action is not free. This is an interesting philosophical point in principle. I don’t agree at all; I think some freedom applies to the collective will as well. For a simple instance, I believe I should have the right to live somewhere where my across-the-street neighbor does not have the right to open a 24 hour casino. This right can only be enforced by a neighborhood acting collectively against the individual’s free use of the resources they have allocated.
Fortunately this debate is entirely beside the point. In practice, the claim is utter nonsense. There are enormous explicit and implicit subsidies for fossil fuels and for energy-intensive lifestyle choices that make the argument entirely moot.
Michael, it seems sensible to only address issues that ire you. If you don’t like being misrepresented, shoot those down with correction/clarification. Pedantic criticism is pedantic, universally recognised. Ignore.
As for me, I prefer to spread my stupidity far and wide. Stupidity is not always the thing of vacuousness that it’s perceived to be. If you play chess, this you know. 🙂
Michael,
I for one find myself agreeing with you more often than not if that helps 🙂 ! and i might add that I’m also with Tom Fuller’s original post on this thread that the best tactic for achieving meaningful progress is to focus less on beliefs and more on actions.
>”… public health economics literature.” In fact there is plenty.
My bad wording.
I don’t know what within Economics is like the subset in Medicine called “public health”; yes, public health writes much about economics, including the precautionary principle.
Well, there’s Schumacher:
“… Schumacher was writing in the heat of the cold war and in the very last essay of the book he points up what he thinks are the three key polar choices an economy makes: Between
… thus creating 8 possible outcomes, not merely the choice of private ownership market economy in a free society or the other choice of public planned economy in totalitarianism. In 1973 the problematic was couched in terms of two choices: The economy of the United States and the west against the economy of the Soviet Union. But Schumacher point out there are six other combinations possible and he is arguing for aspects of those other six.”
http://www.webster.edu/~corbetre/personal/reading/schumacher-small.html
Schumacher gets six hits at SSRN. Not much, since 1973.
But I think something besides the Cold War duality might be of interest as approaches to managing problems that don’t have boundaries, like the oceans and the atmosphere and climate. Perhaps useful to the “wouldn’t it be nice” topic.
@95 MT ” Unlike others here, I try to save my stupidity for inconsequential matters.”
Well, when you tell people their comments are stupid you can’t expect them to embrace yours. Including the letters after your name is a slightly more subtle way to express your feeling of superiority.
After all, you’ve been harping on us all along to quit analyzing the quality of the science and move on to policy. This recession we’re in is the result of bad decisions that resulted from poor information. The precautionary principle many people are practicing is not rushing into knee-jerk reactions to faulty information. The intelligence experts had overwhelming evidence of WMD’s in Iraq. 8 years later we’re stuck in a war that is costing us trillions. Maybe it’s prevented terrorism, but who knows?
The original intent of this post was to discuss areas of agreement and disagreement.
In comment #129 to the “The Good, The Bad & The Ugly” thread, Judith Curry says:
“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).”
We could start with some proposed subdivisions within the WG1 category:
WG1.A — History or projections of CO2 concentration
WG1.B — Direct radiative effect of CO2
WG1.C — Feedback effects (i.e. delta temp due to CO2 doubling)
[I focus on CO2 because most proposed mitigation strategies are based around that. Plus, the IPCC claims this is the largest forcing. But perhaps this should be collapsed into one category.]
WG1.D ““ Other forcings: solar, CH4, aerosols, land use”¦
Other WG1 subdivisions? WG2 could include sea level, storm damage, drought/crop yields, disease, biodiversity”¦
In each category, one could assess one’s views on a 1-5 scale such as:
1 = IPCC greatly overestimates (effect/danger)
2 = IPCC has it generally right but overestimates a little
3 = IPCC is spot on
4 = IPCC has it generally right but underestimates a little
5 = IPCC greatly underestimates (effect/danger)
As with any linear scale, this is not going to have the precision to convey nuance; one might think, for example, that IPCC overestimates drought on a global level but underestimates its effect regionally. But perhaps it’s a start.
Apologies for the MS Word-spam at front of previous post. Next time I cut-and-paste from Notepad 🙂
Can this be edited, please?
Judith, I could convert that into an online survey for people to fill out. Would you like me to? Should we include other questions?
# 74 dhogaza
Until the science is accepted, nothing will happen. The last thirty years of inaction strongly support my supposition.
Why would we have taken any action about “warming” 30 years ago? 30 years ago was 1980 and we had just come out of a 30+ year long cooling trend. Any warming could have been quite rightly called a warming “blip” on a general cooling trend.
Or may we start using short 10 year periods to define trends now?
Perhaps “considered” is a better word than “called” in the above.
SimonH:
The Wahl&Ammann study did have significant support, as the NAS report did its own analysis and found no major discrepancies for MBH98, and compared to all the other reconstructions in the AR4, MBH98 did not stand out as something special either. No surprise that that was taken in.
“Significant support” is, and will always be, an expert assessment. Inclusion of very bad papers (again: as per expert assessment) with no significant support (again: as per expert assessment) should not be included, because they create a *false* sense of uncertainty (again: as per expert assessment). In evolutionary biology you don’t see frequent references to papers by creationists, as they are considered hopelessly flawed by experts. But by your standards this should then be considered as something horrible, since it does not show “the uncertainty”. Same goes for HIV/AIDS (I guess you are up in arms about all those WHO reports that don’t cite Duesberg and the like?).
Marco, the Wahl & Ammann paper did NOT have significant support. It didn’t have ANY support, except the cheerleading of Overpeck, because Wahl and Ammann couldn’t get their paper, that the “team” so desperately wanted to cite, through from provisionally accepted to accepted, let alone – as was necessary – final pre-print. Overpeck wrote:
“Based on your update (which is much appreciated), I’m not sure we’ll be able to cite either in the SOD due at the end of this month (sections will have to be done this week, or earliest next week to meet this deadline). The rule is that we can’t cite any papers not in press by end of Feb.
From what you are saying, there isn’t much chance for in press by the end of the month? If this is not true, please let me, Keith, Tim and Eystein know, and make sure you send the in press doc as soon as it is officially in press (as in you have written confirmation). We have to be careful on these issues.”
TSU couldn’t have had a “final preprint” copy until AFTER the Government & Expert Review stage had completed, because assertions made in the paper cited Ammann Wahl 2007, rejected by GRL. This paper didn’t get accepted until Jun 13, 2007! LONG after the IPCC published its WG1 report. Wahl & Ammann should NEVER have been cited in the final document, given the difficulties it had getting accepted by journals and going to press.
The only conceivable reason for trying so desperately to get it included – AND including it inappropriately – was to manipulate the WG1 report’s assessment by excluding MM’s criticism of MBH89/9.
If you can tell me, WITH a straight face, that this joke of a scenario is in fact acceptable and is the standard of climate change research which should be met, and the standard expected of IPCC assessments of said climate science, then that’s fine. Bizarre, but fine. In so doing, though, you do absolutely nothing to address the perfectly reasonable level of scepticism.
For any onlookers unfamiliar with the importance of this, the scenario is that McIntyre and McKitrick (MM) had challenged the Mann Bradley Hughes (MBH) “hockey stick” with a paper that showed, among other things, that using the statistical methodologies employed by MBH, you could throw “red noise” (a type of random, meandering data stream) at Mann’s program and it would STILL produce a hockey stick – Mann’s method appeared to seek out “hockey sticks” in data and give them greater weight. Wahl & Ammann’s paper, which they had difficulty getting published and in fact failed to get published by the IPCC deadlines for “in-print” cited literature, purportedly independently verified MBH – meaning consequently that the hockey stick by Mann could still be used in AR4. Subsequently, McIntyre showed that Wahl & Ammann’s methods failed standard statistical tests for veracity (R2, RE). But, of course, Wahl & Ammann by this time was cited in AR4. Mission accomplished for the “team”.
Marco, I maintain that you are confusing an “expert assessment” and an “expert opinion” in the context of the IPCC. The IPCC requires the former but by your failure to take in the spirit of the IPCC as well as its explicit instructions, you describe the latter.
MT: “I chose #77 “…
…so you could change the subject, it seems to me.
You made some silly assertions in 75 – lumping CO2 with ordinary pollutants, unknown consequences of CO2 emmissions. Perhaps it was tongue-in-cheeck.
CO2 is not an ordinary pollutant, for the obvious reasons. Would you support a moratorium on water vapor emmissions.
We are certain of one consequence of CO2 emmissions: it has been a profound good for humanity. It might, maybe, be responsible for part of a 1F temperature increase. So far, the scales clearly tilt to the good.
You seem convinced that CO2 emmissions endanger our future. I’d like to hear your logically coherent rationale for thinking so.
I don’t think name calling is appropriate.
Michael Tobis, comment #48 above, why would you cite a manifest whitewash as support for your position?
“If I stand implicitly accused of being radical or extreme because I share the opinions of a British parliamentary committee, our discourse has fallen to a very sorry state.”
This is just an appeal to authority. You do not spend enough time reading ClimateAudit. Graham Stringer voted against much of the report, so it was 25%/75% – hardly clear-cut. And to all those who actually followed the details, Stringer was right, and the others, well, … history will pass its verdict. And now the chairman, Phil Willis, claims that
“I frankly think that there has been a sleight of hand in that the actual terms of reference are not what we were led to believe.”
So, the chairman says the committee was misled on the terms of reference regarding the Oxburgh inquiry (thereby impacting his own committee’s agenda), and one of the four voting members was clearly of the opinion that all was far from well, and yet you cite this as exoneration of CRU and the HT. Harrabin’s account is worth some deep contemplation – I’ve made it easy for you – see my transcript at http://climateaudit.org/2010/07/07/harrabin-on-ueas-sleight-of-hand-phil-willis/#comments
Since the topic is what makes a sceptic sceptical, Michael, I’m sorry to say it, and I regret the piling on, and I accept your sincerity, but you are part of the problem. It is damned near impossible to take you seriously. While everyone else is happily throwing around their qualifications, mine are PhD in the techniques of sophistry as developed by the Athenians in 5 century BC, whereby one could argue to make the worse appear the better cause, no matter how bad the cause. I see the climatology establishment using these techniques repeatedly. It distresses me deeply. There is not much of a career in ancient Greek nowadays, so I retrained as software engineer, and have spent the last two decades writing time series and data analysis software. So leaving the science issues aside, on the data analysis side I know that those who are right have been unjustly vilified, and those who are wrong have been lauded beyond all reason. When I first started going through Steve McIntyre’s work I found it hard to accept the silence of the lambs (as he himself put it). Why won’t the climatology community speak up when the statistics and data analysis are just plain wrong? You keep wimping out on this question – you say things like
” I don’t think anything they have done is either especially scientifically important or especially ethically shocking. I simply don’t engage in the endless tedious and pointless discussions about them. I don’t care about them. They are innocent victims of malicious indirection of attention. The correct thing to do about them is to think about more important things.”
Innocent victims? Are you claiming that McIntyre is malicious? This is making the worse appear the better cause. Michael Mann’s handiwork has infested the planet with wrongness. He was the lead author who used the IPCC to promote his own work. I find that at the very least highly ethically dubious. The devious dealings by Briffa, Wahl and Amman in the FAR to marginalise McIntyre are just more of the same. Claims that it doesn’t matter are just plain disingenuous, because the HS and related studies are the foundation stone of all claims for unprecedented warmth. So it does matter, greatly. And it matters to me personally, because I find it really hard to stomach the willful blindness by scientists to plain wrongness. Whatever happened to the values of the enlightenment? This matter is very serious, and I want to take it seriously, but if I cannot trust the numbers, then it is hard to know what to do. I can accept the science of radiative physics – that is not the problem – the problem is in the calculations of how much, and by when, and the extent of consequences. For this, the scientific position has to be whiter than white, utterly beyond reproach, defensible against all attacks and critiques. It does not have to be 100% certain – it just has to be wholly fair and totally above board. And it is not, and has not been so for as long as I have been following the matter. The great tragedy of the recent white wash inquiries is the failure to seize the moment, because I am desperate to have a reason to restore my trust in the scientific process. The inquiries could have been a turning point – instead, they have just made matters worse.
Sorry for the radio silence. I’ve been traveling the past 36 hours and have had little to none internet access. I’ll be back in the mix throughout the day and by tonight, for sure.
SimonH:
http://www.cce-review.org/pdf/FINAL%20REPORT.pdf
See section 9.4.4 and 9.4.5
Note also that you are essentially defending the position that a paper that creates doubt about the criticism of M&M, and thus reduces uncertainty for MBH98 should NOT be part of an assessment because of supposed deadlines, while you at the same time complain about others papers not being part of the assessment, as this would mean uncertainty is downplayed.
The analysis by Wahl & Ammann *was* supported by (or rather, itself supported) other publications. Rutherford 2005 showed M&M made mistakes and that MBH98 held. The NAS report showed the hockeystick remained when they did their own analysis. The whole group of reconstructions in AR4 showed MBH98 was not an outlier.
I once again note that the IPCC indicates “significant support” is required. What constitutes “significant”? Expert assessment, which contains an element of opinion. The spirit of the IPCC is not to cite any and all brainfarts, nor do the rules say so. It requires significant support. And however you want to play the semantics game, deciding what is significant without a clear definition (2, 4, 10…papers? Sorry, no definition), this is decided by an expert opinion. It is essentially your claim, without any evidence, that they left papers out because they did not fit their preferred view. It is my claim, and supported by the Muir Russell review’s interview with Jones, that they wanted to leave it out because it was not supported by anything else (and that was already before they found the radians/degrees error…).
kdk33:
It’s the energy production process that was good for humanity. It just also included CO2 emissions as a side effect. Quite different from your claim that CO2 emissions are good for humanity.
With your argumentation one would consider certain mercury emissions good for humanity, radioactive waste dumped in the oceans good for humanity, low level ozone formation good for humanity, etc.
Marco,
CO2 emissions are the unavoidable byproduct of energy from fossil fuels. Can’t utilize fossil fuel energy without emitting CO2; won’t emmit CO2 absent the energy thereby created.
Dumping nuclear waste into the ocean is not the unavoidable byproduct of nuclear energy.
One consequence of emitting CO2 is readily available low cost energy, which has been a profound good. Another consequence might be warming…. So far, the trade-off is clearly on the positive side.
I didn’t think this was controversial.
“Why would we have taken any action about “warming” 30 years ago? 30 years ago was 1980 and we had just come out of a 30+ year long coolingtrend. Any warming could have been quite rightly called a warming “blip” on a general cooling trend.
Or may we start using short 10 year periods to define trends now?”
Remember that climate science is not based on observed trends, but rather physics. Confusing this is a typical mistake made by many. Observed trends are support for the physics-based theoretical framework, nothing more.
We knew enough in 1980 to take action – Margaret Thatcher, as PM of the UK in 1979, was warning of the potential problem. Members of the Nixon cabinet were doing so some years before.
If we *had* listened to the science 30 years ago, and had begun taking modest steps to capture low-hanging fruit, today we’d probably be talking about tweaking stuff rather than talking about the possible need for drastic action.
And every day we wait, the more drastic the future action will need to be.
Kieth, you’re site is amazing, Thank you.
I was reading an article and couldn’t help but think of you and what you are striving to achieve. Maybe the folks here will find it interesting:
“It is important for adult educators committed to hermeneutic conversation and context-transcending truths to learn new ways of moving our way through
conflictual deadlock. When logger confronts environmental activist, or proabortion squares off against a pro-life advocate, the conversation (and mutual
learning) is often stymied because each party asserts an absolute against the other. Warnke suggests that the conversation can only continue if we shift
emphasis from a conflict between two absolutes (or rights) to a conflict between interpretations. As long as the conflict is over “˜correct principles’, stalemate will
occur. The sharpness of the opposition needs to be softened. Each party to the debate must be open to learning from the other; this openness to learn becoming
possible once “˜we acknowledge that neither one has an exclusive grasp on either correct principles or social meaning’ (p. 163). Yet evidence abounds of all or
nothing kinds of position taking in civil society. Dogmatism and fundamentalism are the enemy of hermeneutic conversation. Dogmatists know what is true before
conversation begins; they listen mainly for faults in the other’s logic, or cracks within which they can wedge their own arguments.” (Welton, 2002, p. 205)
Welton, M. (2002, May-June). Listening, Conflict and Citizenship: Towards a Pedagogy of Civil Society. International Journal of Lifelong Education, 21(3), 197-208.
> Judith
> In each category, one could assess one’s views on a 1-5 scale
> Tom Fuller … make it an online survey
Judith, what you need is a GUI. Basically you’re asking people to look at the published error bars. Give them a copy of the forcings image with error bars
http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/fig/figure-ts-5-l.png
and Javascript to make the |—–o—–| mark for each forcing into a slider–so the ends and median could be pushed and pulled with the mouse.
That’s the basic idea, right? People who don’t believe X is a cause will push the error bars right off the chart. People who believe X is more involved will narrow the error bars and move the median.
Then, using that as input, run the statistics backward — so the measurements or time span of the forcing would be changed to fit what people say they believe about the outcome.
Seriously, people do much better with graphics than numbers.
People want to say what they believe about the observations.
#104 is extremely revealing; it reveals that the obsessive focus on the recent temperature record among the naysayers is so dominant that many people think that is the whole story. Indeed it is a minor part, which is why the Charney report, in 1979 at essentially the coldest point of the most recent dip in the decadal global temperature record, explicitly warned of global warming in ways very similar to the current consensus.
As long as the McIntyre camp can wander over here and divert the conversation to their favorite minutiae and off the major points of concern, and as long as Keith, and Judith, and others contend that splitting the difference is wisdom (somebody call the ghost of King Solomon, please) we’ll get nowhere.
The cynical view is that we should create an anti-McIntyre site, learning from his techniques to cast doubt on any evidence that tends to limit the risk from AGW. Then we should use those techniques to advocate for a net REMOVAL of 80 million tons of CO2 from the atmosphere per day, accuse anyone who disagrees of dishonesty, and subject them to harrassment at their day jobs.
Then people like Keith will see us arguing for a net emission of negative 80 million tons per day and people like the McIntyre camp arguing for continuing the positive 80 million tons. This will allow them to make a calm, reasoned argument for zero net emissions, and some hope of a rational policy will emerge.
DaleC: “because the HS and related studies are the foundation stone of all claims for unprecedented warmth”
No, this is demonstrably and unambiguously false. See the Charney report, ca. 1979, written by a committee of the most eminent meteorologists and oceanographers of the day.
Your high-sounding claims of sophism are based on a false premise.
It is interesting that people who feel confident expressing an opinion regarding the science of climate change can’t identify the practical distinction between restraint on CO2 emissions and restraint on H2O emissions. Everybody who has a firm grasp on the science should have little difficulty answering. I believe that people who can’t express the distinction clearly should be asking questions, not making confident pronouncements about the scientific evidence.
I think it pedagogically sound to leave the answer to the H2O question as an exercise for the reader for the moment. Please discuss it if it’s new to you. But if you are not confident as to your answer, please consider that you may not be qualified to express an opinion on the underlying science.
I agree with the common wisdom that there are no stupid questions. On the other hand, there are plenty of stupid assertions. It would be much better if people had reasonable insight into their own level of expertise on these matters.
Tobis
people like the McIntyre camp arguing for continuing the positive 80 million tons
Where has McIntyre argued for anything of the sort?
SteveM isn’t participating in the discussion on this thread. I’m under the impression McIntyre would be open to reducing emissions. Presumably, SteveMcIntyre must be in the McIntyre camp, non?
What’s the point of alienating people who might be willing to take steps in the direction you prefer by falsely accusing them of positions they do not hold?
118# Michael: Have you ever stopped to contemplate, that some of those ‘stupid assertions’ ‘might’ be your own?!
I’m not saying that they ARE, just have you ever contemplated the possibility that you may be wrong..
Seriously, come back in a day or 2 re-read your own comments and see how you come across. If people agree with everything you say, they are OK, the slightests difference – stupid, I’m sure you do not intend this, it is just how you come across, sometimes. m
Very, many people ‘get the sicence’, they just do not agree with all the different interpretations.
As, unless you, or anyone else for that matter, have PhD’s in over a hundred areas covered by what is called ‘climate science’ I do not see how, anybody, can be as assured that they are ‘right’ as you seem to think..
The IPCC have projections from +1.0C to +10.0C, if we KNEW ‘climatescience’ completly there would only be one projection.
In the absence of any apparent positive feedbacks, I’m inclined to go with the 1.0C – 2.0C projections. Part of the IPCC literature that is often overlooked are positive impacts to this low level of global warming. The drastic actions, trillions spent, etc,etc just look unecessary..
Of course, still of interest to look to alternative enegies, for all sortsof reason, security of supply being one, and all the other desirable outcomes environmentally. Yet, no need to ram them though, inside a man made CO2 ‘trojan horse’ broking no argument and sweeping aside all rational thoughts of: is this really needed, are we spending 50 time more, than simply adapting, as humans have always done..
Lucia,
The point isn’t what McIntyre believes; it’s that sometimes there are ‘truths’ and these cannot discovered simply by setting up a continuum and picking the point in the middle…
I would further suggest that one of the oddities of McIntyre is his mild agnosticism towards emissions reductions compared to the vast majority of the commenters on his site. I’d suggest a similar dynamic exists at RPJr’s place.
Now of course hosts can’t be held accountable for the views of their guests, but it does beg the question when such a disparity between the two appears to exist.
Kryptongate, a far-too-unstrained-for-comfort analogy:
http://is.gd/dknWp
Dr. Tobis,
You are certainly worth the price of admission.
Does it make me a bad person, if I make a living on a different planet, comment ? 😉
Actually, As Michael has time to write comic strips, I wonder if he could find a bit of time to read ‘The Hockey Stick Illusion’ or at least the RealClimate newspaper of choice’s Fred Pearce (The Guardian) ‘The Climate Files’..
Probably not, far too serious.
I don’t think approaching this using the normal political process is going to work. The sides are already split and have their own beliefs about the issue, and are not likely to change them. They’re too interested in the win/lose scenario. Any attempt at compromise always leaves us with a bad policy as a result, and everyone pissed off.
If there was a way to fashion policy based on both sides getting something they really want, that might have a shot. Each side gets to pick something that they can take back to their political base for a “victory”, so that in some sense each side is satisfied. And each side also has the magnanimity factor, that they “let” the other side have their “victory”.
Now, what those things are still needs to be addressed. Perhaps the non-consensus side gets to have 10 new nuclear power plants, and the consensus side gets to have a carbon tax, who knows. The other options in play can be debated and a compromise reached on them. But I think giving each side something they want has a better shot in the long term.
Michael
The point isn’t what McIntyre believes;
If your point has nothing to do with SteveM,, why create a distraction from your point by specifically introducing the SteveM’s name into the discussion at all? I should think a half-way decent writer could make a point about picking a point in the middle without inaccurately attributing a position to SteveM.
it does beg the question when such a disparity between the two appears to exist
What question does it beg? I think you might do well to state your thought directly rather than through insinuation. If you did so, people could figure out if they agree or disagree with what idea you actually hold. But if you prefer the plausible deniability that comes with written obscurity,that might explain your writing style, right?
What was the purpose of the MT link in 122? Was it intented as some sort of analogy? If so, it certainly demonstrates how seriously wrong consensus can be. It seems to cry out Nullis in Verba. Especially when much time is spent living in a fantasy world.
Re: Krypyongate
“Was it intended as some sort of analogy?” No, any similarities to any real fiascos dead or alive is purely coincidental. 🙂
The fable might conceivably serve for those of you who dehumanize us in the scientific community, garble our intentions, misunderstand our failings, and garble our successes, to imagine how we see the story.
Hank and Tom #115, i like your idea. Apart from the radiative forcing itself, exactly how this translates into a surface temperature change is another area of uncertainty that receives very little attention.
129 , pot , kettle , black…
Lucia: If your point has nothing to do with SteveM,, why create distraction from your point by specifically introducing the SteveM’s name into the discussion at all?
An arguable point. The question as to what McIntyre thinks he wants vs what he says he wants vs what outcome his actions obviously tend to create is far more complex than I meant to raise in #116, the posting in question.
In retrospect I would remove the two examples of “McIntyre camp”, and substitute “naysayer camp” to avoid raising this question. As for “anti-McIntyre site”, let’s just say “radical sequestrationist”. Thank you for helping me clarify.
Judith, I’m not sure I can do slider bars on my software, but a Likert scale should give the same flexibility. Can you email me and we can correspond about the survey contents?
If this expands in scope beyond this specific question, I would like a volunteer from the consensus side and one from the skeptic side to audit the questionnaire for fairness and clarity before posting it. Nominations?
Michael Tobis, if you have questions about McIntyre’s motivations, why don’t you ask him? Is he that hard to reach?
You’re better off with Krypton stories. Maybe there’s a lesson there.
It would be nice if all sides of this discussion would recognize that there are rational reasons for skepticism
[…]
Could this be a framework for common ground between all the sides?
You can lead a horse to water… The best anyone can hope to achieve is to put information where it can be found, and use common disinformation as examples of how not to think. A person holding onto a rational reason may not be rational; the ‘reason’ may be trivia irrelevant to the science (was Wahl & Amman published on a Thursday or a Friday), evidence for the ‘reason’ may be greatly overweighted (climate sensitivity less than 2 deg. C), the ‘reason’ may be too vague to be tested (GCMs are unreliable), etc. etc. Debates are near useless for moving the science forward or promoting greater understanding. They attract fundies and dilettantes. Invariable stuborness is amplified when the debate is public. The usual obfuscating debating techniques cloud understanding. Concessions are not made, points not noted. This thread is an example. Sorry Keith, it was an idea with good intentions. If you want skeptics to discuss with then you could try James Annan and Julia Hargreaves, who are critical of the IPCC and probabilites of high-side sensitivities, nailed the issue down and published… in other words they made a quantified, falsifiable contribution to understanding. Try Susan Solomon, Karen H. Rosenlof, Robert W. Portmann, John S. Daniel, Sean M. Davis, Todd J. Sanford, Gian-Kasper Plattner, Veerabhadran Ramanathan, and Greg Carmichael, who have published tentative research into previously unknown or poorly understood factors in the attribution of recent change. You could ask them what they think the climate sensitivity is and the need for action… and compare their responses with self-proclaimed skeptics who cite their work as evidence against xyz. There are your real skeptics with the knowledge to be skeptical and the drive to do so. Real skeptics don’t throw mud… they follow issues through and demonstrate effects.
Presumably real ‘climate scientists’ don’t throw mud either…
or ‘hide the decline’ 😉
So we are agreed, let’s ‘try’ be nice…
Lucia,
To be clear I’m not a MT sockpuppet. I’m not insinuating anything by pointing out that there appears to be a large gap between what bloggers like Steve Mc appear to support in the way of policy actions compared to the bulk of their commenters. I’ve said much the same to RPJr btw. I think it’s an interesting question. Don’t you?
why don’t you ask him?
… actions are generally more reliable than words as guides to intent.
Lazar. Given the input of the new papers, would you say that the confidence the IPCC showed for their attribution of forcings was misplaced?
Michael, thanks for the link to the 1979 report, it appears to be interesting reading. However, (placing tongue firmly in cheek) a quick skim does lead to an observation.
If the Climate models in 1979 gave a sensitivity of between 2 and 3.5 degrees for a doubling of CO2, and modern models give from 1 to 8 degrees, it would appear that for all the millions of dollars and lives spent in research, all the Climate community has managed to do in 30 years is increase the uncertainty. 😉
Seriously though, I think that part of the problem is conflicting reports. You pointed to the Charney Report of 1979 which spoke of warming. We also have the 1974 CIA report which speaks of cooling.
Note the “Consensus” reached by the three different schools of forecasters after the second day. (Page 27)
“We will not soon return to the Climate Patterns of the recent past”
In other words, they expected the cooling to continue.
It’s very easy to complain about a lack of long term policies, but how can long term policies be formulated if the predictions reverse in 5 years? Who should the policy makers of the late 1970s and early 1980s have listened to?
As a side note, and not (I think) related to AGW in any way. I noticed the first time I saw the ice core records that the current interglacial is very different from those that came before. We peaked at a lower temperature and the temps have remained unusually constant. Could someone with knowledge in this area point me to some reading matter on why this interglacial is different?
Since the topic of this thread is how to come to the type of discussion that would have a chance of moving the debate forward, here is the kind of site I would love to see:
I would like to see a site that mirrored the IPCC process, but that allowed dissenting views not just to be submitted, but to be actually presented on an equal footing: similar to Wikipedia, but with separate “articles” for the pros and cons, and with restricted access. The AR4 could be used as a framework, with each seriously disputed section being treated as a separate article.
A specific set of skeptical “editors” could be given the opportunity to write whatever objections they chose to the article(s) of their choice (not on the IPCC process, but on the validity/certainty of the actual assertions of that section). If climate scientists then chose to reply to criticisms of a particular section of the AR4, an additional page could be added to that section for that purpose. Each side could then respond to the other’s critiques, if they so chose, by editing their page within the structure provided. By restricting access, which would have to be done by an agreed upon moderator, you could avoid the harsher types of arguments found on the blogs and might well elevate the tone of (and even advance?) the debate.
You would think there would be such a site, given the amount of time so many spend on blogging, writing articles and testifying on these very topics. But I suspect there never will be because (apart from finding someone with the time to moderate, and who is capable of getting the “right” people on both sides to contribute), those who participated in and/or support the IPCC’s recommendations will likely say that the AR4 already did all that; it is a waste of time; there is no one worth responding to….
But it sure would be nice to see.
Nice idea Gary, but as you say I think there would be problems.
What might be easier and would certainly go a long way towards getting the sceptics off the backs of Climate Scientists would be some sort of “Ask a Climate Scientists” site.
I have to agree with the intent of many of Michael Tobis’ comments. When I read something that doesn’t seem to make sense, as a reasonable person I have to admit from the start that there is a very real probability that I’m missing some basic knowledge.
Hence, I think somewhere with a semi formal atmosphere where a person can say “This doesn’t make sense to me” and get it explained both with and without references and especially without partisanship would be a good idea as well.
One of the big problems with the polarisation of the debate is that questions like “………. doesn’t make sense to me” are taken as meaning “You are talking nonsense” by one side and “………. is talking nonsense” by the other.
Just because something doesn’t make sense to me does not mean that it doesn’t make sense, it probably means that I’m missing a concept somewhere. I accept that.
It would be nice if the other side accepted their own oft repeated mantra as well “Just because I don’t know everything doesn’t mean I know nothing.”
Marlowe Johnson 138
There well may be a gap and why that happens is moderately interesting.
I also notice MT brings that gap up after I point out that he introduced inaccuracies about SteveMcIntyre, and then when the innaccuracies are pointed out complains that we readers should just ignore those innacuracies because they are irrelevant to the point MT was trying to make. Why does MT constantly inject inaccurate slams about SteveM into paragraphs that are supposedly not even about SteveM? I think that question is even more interesting than the one about the difference between SteveMc’s policy inclinations and those of his readers. Do you?
The question of what McIntyre sais he wants/claims vs the impression he creates amongst his followers and what the majority takes away is very important. I realize it’s not the topic of this thread, so I’ll just give one example of how McIntyre is a master of digwhisle politics. If that’s not his intention (I can’t read his mind), I’d suggest he seriously reconsiders his way of communicating.
Bart Verheggen #144,
After reading your remarks on McIntyre and reflecting, I won’t write a direct response. Some part of what I would say would be as you’d predict and some part would not, from either a (Curry) “two tribes” or a (Tobis) “multiple camps” analysis.
There is a 0% chance of coming to agreement on these discussion points. The odds for deriving shared insights from them aren’t much better. Such assertions invite beam/mote ripostes. In a polarized debate where emotions run high, such responses may well hit home.
It would be possible to parse your comment so as to openly state assumptions (which might or might not be true in part) and so as to mute its perjorative thrust. But you have emerged as one of the most reasoned proponents of the pro-AGW Consensus position, and did not do so prior to hitting “Submit Comment.”
A similar observation could be made of many of the remarks made by advocates of “skeptical” or “reformist” positions, of course.
“It would be nice” to open the floor to discussions of questions such as the one you raise? Probably not so much.
On my comment at 109, Michael Tobis at 118 says:
DaleC: “because the HS and related studies are the foundation stone of all claims for unprecedented warmth”
No, this is demonstrably and unambiguously false. See the Charney report, ca. 1979, written by a committee of the most eminent meteorologists and oceanographers of the day.
Your high-sounding claims of sophism are based on a false premise.
**********************
OK – I read the Charney report, 1979. Where does it say that current temperatures are unprecedented within the hockey stick time frames? Here is my synopsis:
Forward: pg vii – CO2 will lead to a warmer earth
Preface: pg ix – to identify principal premises for current understanding, assess adequacy and uncertainty of knowledge, summarize best present understanding of the CO2/climate issue for benefit of policy makers
ch 1: pg 1, summary and conclusions: realistic models predict doubling CO2 will lead to surface warming of 2-3.5C
pg 2, perceptible temperature changes may not become apparent nearly so soon as has been anticipated
[thus, not only is current temperature not unprecedented, but any increase is not even measurable]
pg 3, capacity of the oceans to absorb heat could delay estimated warming by several decades
[again, no warming yet]
ch 2: pg 4-6, CO2 accounting, role of oceans and sinks, doubling to occur by 2030 at 4% increase per year, but all very hard to predict.
ch 3: pg 7-11, physical processes, modeling, radiative heating 4w/m-2, feedbacks, water vapour, albedo, low clouds cool, high clouds heat, oceans heat transport
ch 4: pg 12-17, models and their validity, radiative-convective and albedo, 3D GCMs, larger changes at high latitudes, models consistent and mutually self-supporting
appendix: pg 21-22, snow-ice effects in models.
Thus, the only references to current temperatures assert that there is no change.
I spent many years studying and/or teaching European history. I know all about the Roman and medieval warm periods from direct engagement with the documentary and social evidence. These periods remain essential to understanding the historical narrative, and were not even remotely under question until the hockey team got started on it in the mid to late nineties. So why, in a document written in 1979, would I find a reason to accept that my statement “the HS and related studies are the foundation stone of all claims for unprecedented warmth” is, as you claim, “demonstrably and unambiguously false”?
Either you inadvertently misdirected me to the wrong document, or totally misunderstood my meaning. But it was a worthwhile couple of hours – the main message is that little has changed in 30 years in terms of model predictions, though it was useful to get a reference for the assertion that the polar regions (that is, both of them, although not to the same extent) will get warmer.
But beyond this, you appear to have failed to grasped the essence of what I am trying to tell you. When the HT came along with its rewriting of history, and the climatological community said nothing about it – indeed you left the basic due diligence on this central rhetorical thesis of the TAR to Steve McIntyre – and since, as it happens, on the basis of both my areas of primary expertise I knew for a fact that the HS was complete bunk, then it is just not possible for me to take the endless pronouncements of gloom and worse than we thought and all the rest seriously. You (collectively) have blown your credibility with me. The HT has made you all a laughing stock to those who actually understand the issues. And please don’t tell me yet again that it is irrelevant etc. My children’s geography texts quote MBH almost verbatim. Lazy teachers subjected them to Al Gore’s climo-porn (with Lonnie Thompson’s acquiesence) times beyond counting. My government’s web site is plastered with this rubbish. Lloyd’s insurance featured the HS in their promotional literature. The silence of the lambs has caused huge damage. It baffles me that you cannot accept this elementary and obvious point.
As the Charney report preface says, the climatological community’s intentions should and must be “to summarize in concise and objective terms our best present understanding of the carbon dioxide/climate issue for benefit of policy-makers”. I see precious little concise objectivity from the IPCC. Had these early ideals been honoured in the subsequent 30 years, our policy-makers would have been much better served, and I would not be writing this today.
Marco (#111): “Note also that you are essentially defending the position that a paper that creates doubt about the criticism of M&M, and thus reduces uncertainty for MBH98 should NOT be part of an assessment because of supposed deadlines, while you at the same time complain about others papers not being part of the assessment, as this would mean uncertainty is downplayed.”
But Marco, I don’t understand what you can possibly mean by this, or by which unearthly path through reason you can make this assertion.
How can, ultimately, a lead author insert a citation to a paper that was not part of the first or SOD, not available to Government and Expert Reviewers, not archived with the TSU, not in-press, had not completed the peer review process, depended on another paper for its assertions – one that had not been accepted to a journal (and wasn’t accepted until after AR4 WG1 was published – and which itself made references to supplementary information which was not made available online until AUGUST 08!!) – and yet somehow gets cited in the final report to specifically counter the MM criticisms of MBH98/9…. be a path to reducing uncertainty!?
And – though it is beyond my comprehension why I would need to point this out – the Expert Reviewers are supposed to be part of this process of formulating the final list of inclusions and exclusions, NOT lead authors. The lead authors’ responsibility is to provide the summary assessment after fully and appropriately addressing all of the comments of the Expert Reviewers. This is specifically the IPCC process that was circumvented in bringing WA/AW into citation.
The Rutherford paper did not sufficiently counter MM’s claims, as you must know, because it used the same exact data and flawed PCs as MBH – those shown to be in error by MM. The WA/AW paper was supposed to be something different and extra. To keep the hockey stick, WA/AW was required. IPCC procedures were circumvented in order to achieve this.
And, of course, ultimately the WA/AW miserably failed statistical tests anyway – a fact that, if the IPCC deadlines had been appropriately observed, WOULD have been discovered before AR4 WG1 went to press. This is WHY these IPCC procedures are there, and this is WHY circumventing them was necessary in order to force a PERSONAL view through WG1.
You’re defending something that I find indefensible, dishonourable, and utterly beneath what anyone with a modicum of respect for due process and for upholding standards in science should expect. But, I suppose, if it gets YOUR message over – regardless of the science – then it must be okay. The ends justify the means, after all. 🙁
#144
I can’t hear a dog whistle. I’d be surprised if you can. Could the whistle you are hearing be imaginary?
If the worst criticism you can level against McIntyre is your disapproval of his writing style, that is further validation of the excellence of his analysis. I like his style. Presentation of a trustworthy analysis is why people pay attention to him.
It is apparent his method has stood him in good stead. I suspect you are just disappointed he is able to present his various analyses without opening himself up to criticism of overstepping what he can demonstrate. Unfortunately the climate science field seems to be infected by many with no apparent compunction against over-hyping some rather sketchy analyses.
Judith, Tom, you could use JQuery to create sliderbars.
http://jqueryui.com/demos/slider/
I’m just getting my feet wet in JQuery. It’s in large part a Javascript DOM rewrite.
On Skeptical Science there’s a relevant guest post on both “sides” the debate (“hotties vs frosties”), and it tries to pave the ground for building bridges:
“I don’t think there is any hope for the lunatic fringe on either side. If your starting point is that the people on the other side are evil incarnate, then you won’t move from that. But for the rest of us, maybe there is some common ground.”
#117 MT
“Then people like Keith will see us arguing for a net emission of negative 80 million tons per day and people like the McIntyre camp arguing for continuing the positive 80 million tons.”
Why are climate scientists involving themselves in mitigation policy though, if that’s outside their area of expertise? As an example, in the UK there was a proposal to replace old coal generation at Kingsnorth with newer, more efficient coal generation. James Hansen took time out from running GISS to block the development, even though the new plant was estimated to reduce CO2 emissions by 20%. Does that kind of advocacy make sense?
Climate scientists have expertise on the expected climatic consequences of adding a certain slug of GHG to the atmosphere, which is what MT opined on. They are not necessarily expert on how to best achieve that (policy or technology-wise).
Lucia,
No I don’t. I’m less interested in the particulars of any one individual case (e.g. Steve M, KK, Revkin, or RPJr) than I am in trying to understand the general phenomenon and its implications for the blog medium.
Marlowe–
I understand the general vs. single case. But I could easily find others who also inject irrelevant slams which are often inaccurate and then complain that readers who comment on the slam (particularly those who comment negatively on the slam) aren’t focusing on their “main point”.
The main reason not to go into this topic here is that I think it’s mostly irrelevant to KK’s main interest.
That said, the habit exhibited by MT may partially explain why people can’t focus on going forward. If discussions of approaches to facilitate mitigation frequently contain real or perceived slams at the groups the blogger considers “evil” (i.e. MT slams McIntire), then no matter what “main point” the blogger wants to communicate, the conversation will inevitably end up focusing on the supposedly irrelevant slam.
The focus will include people agreeing with the slam– which may not bother the blogger. I will also include people defending against the slam, which may prompt the blogger to request people focus. Either way, the conversation revolves around the slam, not “the main point”.
It’s fascinating how the injection of the concept of “evil” in the discussion is described by Lucia. My point about this, one which Lucia objected to vehemently when I wrote about it, is that scientists do NOT discuss things in terms of good and evil, and FAIL to perceive deliberate efforts at polarization against us.
That after years of increasing paranoia directed our way, culminating in the last eight months of hysterical pseudo-scandal and threats of actual prosecution for the normal practice of science may have awakened most scientists to the idea that some of the opposition is not about a dispassionate search for truth is fair enough. But the baseless attacks on our character and motivation have been building for over twenty years. And now that most scientists have finally taken note, now that the newspapers are screaming right along with the coal-funded paranoiacs and their dupes, we stand accused of excessive defensiveness.
Cut us a break, OK? Moms always hate the “he started it” defense, but seriously, twenty years as a punching bag is enough.
I agree that it will be difficult to bridge the gap with people who mix their hostility with an hinest interest in truth, but this idea that, say, I have to accept the bona fides of Steve McIntyre the person, or his obsession with the historical record, as a precursor to any reasoned argument is just another litmus test designed to maintain the gap and shift the blame.
DaleC: “because the HS and related studies are the foundation stone of all claims for unprecedented warmth”
Well, no. The reason I pointed to the Charney document, which is essentially the foundation of the scientific investigation of anthropogenic climate change, is to show that concerns about unprecedented warmth do not arise from the historical record. It is “predictions” of unprecedented warmth that are at issue, not “observations” thereof.
Nobody claims that present-day temperatures are unprecedented. It was almost surely warmer 7000 years ago; the scientific consensus would agree with that. It was almost surely MUCH warmer during the previous interglacial, when sea levels were 20 meters higher.
The claim is that on the present trajectory, unprecedented climate change is coming. However the historical record is used or misused by grade school textbooks and political publications is not the direct responsibility of the scientific community. The scientific purpose of the hockey stick, etc., is to help calibrate and test the hypotheses, not to make claims that “unprecedented warmth” is here.
I will say that the decade just past is more likely than not the warmest in thousands of years. That in itself is trivia, an inconsequential hypothesis either way. If that is what you are all upset about, it has little to do with getting a clear idea of our circumstances and our prospects.
What’s important is science, the science that told us to watch out for rapid, accelerating warming before it even started.
#151 “Why are climate scientists involving themselves in mitigation policy though, if that’s outside their area of expertise? As an example, in the UK there was a proposal to replace old coal generation at Kingsnorth with newer, more efficient coal generation. James Hansen took time out from running GISS to block the development, even though the new plant was estimated to reduce CO2 emissions by 20%. Does that kind of advocacy make sense?”
Yes, it makes sense, because even stipulating a 20% cut (I don’t know the details of the ase you mention) it is not worth the commitment to decades of coal without an equivalent commitment to carbon sequestration. Even the 50% emissions cut associated with conversion to natural gas is probably a bad idea for long-term infrastructure. The net emissions cut we need in developed countries, like it or not, is at least on the order of 80% in the next 40 years, and eventually, literally, 120% or so (negative net emissions) for a considerable while. That’s what “350” means.
If all the smokescreens mean that the energy policy sector fails to understand the necessity for rapid progress to near-zero net emissions, then an ethical responsibility falls to those who do understand it to make ourselves heard.
Whether that constitutes valid expertise or scientifically appropriate behavior is a good question, but simple ethics trumps it.
Michael,
I’ve often wondered how long it will take before the overton window on climate policy moves from incremental targets (e.g. 20% below x) to net-negative (put the carbon back) targets.
It’s one of the reasons that I’m such a big fan of biochar. It’s scalable, low-tech, less expensive than geological CCS, can provide signficant ancillary benefits, and can be widely deployed…
I think what many of us are upset about is the ‘washing of hands and asking what is truth’ as evidenced by MT when he absolves scientists of errors by politicians and environmental advocates.
Correcting error in science is necessary, desireable, laudable and recognised as part of the scientific process. It is no less so in discussions of science in the media, or of policy in the halls of power.
Where was your voice when it counted, Mr. Tobis? It would have been nice to hear from a policy advocate with climate science credentials, a committed belief in action, and his own forum for pronouncing on matters scientific that current warmth was unprecedented.
Maybe it’s just easier to slime McIntyre. Or put him on a blacklist.
<em>James Hansen took time out from running GISS to block the development, even though the new plant was estimated to reduce CO2 emissions by 20%. Does that kind of advocacy make sense?</em>
My gut feeling is that, no, it does not make sense. The way forward in an uncertain enviroment is incrementalism. Not building the plant doesn’t reduce UK power requirements. It Not building the plant doesn’t guarantee that new, even lower, carbon power plants will be built. It does not mean that Britains will use less energy. What is likely to happen is that older plants will be kept in operation longer. I suspect that overall, not having the new plant will mean a net increase in CO2 output over opening a new plant and retiring an old plant.
I’m all in favor of incrementalism. Putting off current infrastructure builds while waiting for the perfect technological solution will only encourage hasty builds with less concern for environmental factors when the brown-outs start occuring.
Here is another politically unattainable goal: “rapid progress to near-zero net emissions.” Haste = cost. We are a nation drowning in our own debt. Recall the old program managers’ triangle (pick two): speed, quality, cheap
My 2c.
Ron, yes, haste is cost. Every minute of delay now requires more haste in the future.
The tradeoffs are complicated in principle, but we are so far behind the optimum rate of decarbonaization now that huge progress will be needed before we really need to be doing a difficult balancing act in practice.
As near as I can tell, the past year has seen two acts that required something close to moral courage.
One is Judith Curry’s ongoing foray into the blogosphere to engage with all those with an interest in the implications of climate change, risking her reputation and who knows what else.
The other was Steve McIntyre’s refusal of the scepter of St. Skeptic at the Heartland Conference, where he took the stage to a standing ovation and left behind a puzzled audience after telling them that, were he a policy maker, he would rely on the institutions that he has criticized for five years and downplaying every skeptic argument during his calm and reasoned presentation.
Contrast that with the sniggering, juvenile behaviour of the consensus blogosphere, playing games with comments and posts, asserting infallibility while labeling any who disagree as ignorant, creating classes of untouchables and adding, ever adding, to the list of those who are no longer to be trusted, from McIntyre to Pielke to Revkin to Curry, while ignoring the mounting hysteria from Hansen, Gore and Romm.
Yeah, sure. It’s Mac’s fault. Flabby-hearted moral cowards.
The net emissions cut we need in developed countries, like it or not, is at least on the order of 80% in the next 40 years, and eventually, literally, 120% or so (negative net emissions) for a considerable while. That’s what “350”³ means.
Wow! Just, wow.
There is no point in searching for common ground since even the most radical policies fall short of accomplishing the impossible.
If we decided to be rational about it, we would aim at a different figure–no less ambitious, but one that has a roadmap that can lead to success.
The entire world used 500 quads last year. 52 of them came from renewable energy sources. Plotting the world’s population growth to 2100 yields a population of 9.2 billion. Accepting the IPCC’s and everybody else’s prediction that the developing world will have attained the same level of wealth (and presumably energy use) as we have today, there will be a firm demand for 3,000 quads by 2100.
The cause of climate change will live or day based on how those 3,000 quads are delivered to end-users. That’s the only relevant number for people with heart. It can be done with renewable energy. It cannot be done with fossil fuels.
Instead of wetting our pants about concentration levels of CO2, let’s build a roadmap to getting to 3,000 quads.
Tom,
It’s not just about energy supply and demand, although that of course is the biggest piece of the puzzle. Consider, for example, California’s cool cars and cool roof programs (i.e. mandating albedo changes). These changes provide a dual benefit in terms of reducing solar forcing as well as lowering cooling demands.
IOW, if we focus too much on the energy side of the equation we’ll miss lots of other low cost solutions. By way of thought experiment, ask yourself what the GHG reduction-equivalent would be if every roof on the planet was white…
Michael Tobin:
Back in #50 I wrote “OK, here’s a simple and straight-forward question for MT. Can you agree that there are rational reasons for skepticism of the science? […] Note that I’m not asking you to agree that the “scientific consensus” is wrong, nor am I asking you to agree with any particular one of those reasons for skepticism.”
I’m still waiting for anything that even resembles a response to this question. It’s rather difficult to find common ground when one of the most vocal posters fails to respond…
er… ooops! Of course that previous should be TobiS, not TobiN.
Sorry about that!
#MT 157
“The net emissions cut we need in developed countries, like it or not, is at least on the order of 80% in the next 40 years, and eventually, literally, 120% or so (negative net emissions) for a considerable while. That’s what “350”³ means.”
350 to me means more rent seeking behaviour. As I understand it, the brand is based on a paper by Hansen theorising a ‘tipping point’ if we exceed 350ppmv. Of course we exceeded that some time ago, and nothing much happened. As for the cost of achieving that target, well, the skies the limit. The costs would be immeasurable for a result that’s likely unmeasurable wrt temperature.
“Whether that constitutes valid expertise or scientifically appropriate behavior is a good question, but simple ethics trumps it.”
I’d like to think that were true. But what about the ethics of energy policy proposed by CAGW advocates like Hansen et al? Here in the UK we have rising fuel poverty due to increased energy costs, partly due to subsidising expensive and inefficient generation. That’s made worse by our recession, as well as the ‘need’ to fund grid upgrades and standby generation for no-wind days. Don’t those sorts of ethical considerations count?
#165 Marlowe Johnson
“IOW, if we focus too much on the energy side of the equation we’ll miss lots of other low cost solutions. ”
Agreed, which is why I think our carbon fixation is bad. But it’s profitable. It’s also sad that people like Pielke Snr are branded as sceptics for researching other factors like land use. Here, cap & tax schemes may have some benefit, so if land is managed badly, agencies responsible can be liable for CO2 emissions from wildfires and loss of biodiversity. Not to mention deaths and injuries.
“As I understand it, the brand is based on a paper by Hansen theorising a “˜tipping point’ if we exceed 350ppmv. Of course we exceeded that some time ago, and nothing much happened.”
Large systems operate on long time scales. We don’t know what systems are already tipping. For instance, consider sea level.
I think direct intervention in West Antarctica is possible: physically propping it up like an ancient but beloved tree. (We can intervene to promote freezing and prevent melting in the Amundsen Bay. Somebody, of course, will have to pay for that.)
Barring that we may have already reached a tipping point there: we have popped the cork and 3 or 4 meters of sea level rise may be in store over the next two centuries.
350 is something of a guess, just like 2 C is, but it’s not an unreasonable one. And it is certainly possible to run this backwards (that is after all Dyson’s point) but it is not going to happen by itself. Every bit of carbon you release today carries an externality of somebody cleaning up your effluent later, and that’s in the hopeful scenario.
Xenophon: Can you agree that there are rational reasons for skepticism of the science?
It isn’t clear to me exactly what the question means. It’s quite overbroad. If you mean, do I think the climate science community has a perfect grasp on the climate system, no, of course not. I think you can assume that, given that I don’t advocate shutting the process of scientific investigation down.
Please note, though, that I do not owe you any answers to any questions. Nobody is paying me to do this (at least yet), and there are lots more questions around than there are qualified hours to answer them well. The good news is that I get to pick my questions, as do most of the scientists who try to engage. The bad news is that lots of people think their questions are being ducked.
Fuller: Contrast that with the sniggering, juvenile behaviour of the consensus blogosphere, playing games with comments and posts, asserting infallibility while labeling any who disagree as ignorant, creating classes of untouchables and adding, ever adding, to the list of those who are no longer to be trusted, from McIntyre to Pielke to Revkin to Curry, while ignoring the mounting hysteria from Hansen, Gore and Romm.
You are the very model of constructiveness, Tom. Thanks, I’ll follow your example in future.
I’d like to call your attention to one particular item in Tom’s example of friendly outreach, though:
asserting infallibility while labeling any who disagree as ignorant
This one is interesting. It is often possible for someone who knows what they are talking about to be immediately confident that somebody else does not know. That is, I can be woefully fallible, and even deeply wrong about some things perhaps, but still be absolutely certain that somebody else is talking complete nonsense on certain occasions. People with less expertise will not be able to make such judgments, and may feel offended on behalf of people they feel are decent and acting in good faith. But that has nothing to do with it. I am not fallible on the question of whether the linked article is ignorant and wrong.
Now this puts you in an awkward position. If you don’t want to put more work into the matter than Eschenbach did, it’s basically my word against his. Maybe we can bring in bigger guns. We can maybe see about bothering Judith about this, but she is loath to criticize the denyosphere for some reason. Maybe Bart has more credibility because he was properly raised by dignified people and can somehow manage to say “worthless nonsense” with more finesse than I can. But it’s still fundamentally wrong, and it would nevertheless be a lot of work to convince any individual person here who doesn’t see that instantly.
And here is our problem. We know what we are talking about. The best of the opposition does not. There are a hundred thousand people with some scientific training for each sertiously competent climatologist. A small fraction of them are hostile and overconfident, but that fraction still competes in numbers with people who know what they are doing.
Meanwhile the people who know what they are doing operate under an array of difficult constraints that thanks to McIntyre and co. have just got more difficult. It’s nobody’s job to present the case coherently at a wide variety of levels of sophistication.
This is the key to the difficulty. People who want to obfuscate the case have much to work with.
Michael, that’s errant nonsense. Climate science is in the exact same position as anthropology was 60 years ago. It was a combination of disciplines that were thrown together under an umbrella name and expected to pronounce authoritatively on controversial questions such as racial differences that had policy relevant consequences.
Nobody then (and nobody now) could be expected to understand all of what had suddenly become anthropology, as opposed to blood factor grouping, pottery shard recognition or grooming behaviour in chimpanzees.
What you’re doing is saying that it is perfectly acceptable that James Hansen does not know detail x of what is now called climate science, but that you dismiss a skeptic because he or she does not.
There are thousands of people who are perfectly qualified to assess, question and criticize the various components that go into climate science, from dendroclimatology to ice cores to energy balance to statistical analysis, from first order forcings such as land use and land cover to model details and weaknesses. And it’s pure baloney on your part to suggest otherwise.
It’s tripe.
And McIntyre didn’t do half the damage to the working environment of climate scientists that the raving, foaming at the mouth, tipping point pushers did. Enforcing message discipline, excommunicating doubters, inventing garbage studies like Schneiders’ PNAS blacklist or Oreskes cherry-picking study a decade before have made it far more difficult to have open investigation than anything McIntyre said or did.
Well, I meant arrant nonsense, but errant probably would work just as well.
Sorry Tom but sometimes expertise and experience matter. Both help to distinguish between mountains and moehills. And whatever you think about McIntyre, you have to admit that he rarely provides any comment as to the signficance of his work to the overall climate change picture. I’ll leave it to you to suggest why this is the case.
You’re going over the rhetorical cliff with your latest.
Fuller: Climate science is in the exact same position as anthropology was 60 years ago.
😉
Marlowe Johnson, of course expertise and experience matter. But that’s a far cry from saying that McIntyre is destructive when talking about statistics when Hansen doesn’t understand it and Mann gets it wrong.
McIntyre does not pronounce on subjects outside his expertise, as far as I am aware, and is extremely cautious about his statements regarding climate change. I would think that would be widely welcomed as a sign of restraint and understanding one’s limitations–but you seem to think he should be more expansive. May I ask why?
Tobis: It’s true.
MT, this may all be before your time, but back in the 30’s, when people were fighting tooth and nail over the Creation story and eugenics was the rage and people were frantically looking for ‘sciency’ reasons to maintain that whites were the superior race, anthropology was frantically looking for data from different fields to back up the theories they had developed showing that indigenous tribes and blacks were not inferior and should be treated as equals.
They dragged in new techniques of gathering, analysing and reporting on different data every time they were challenged, in a heroic effort to combat religious fundamentalism and racism.
Doesn’t that sound the least bit familiar to you?
Sadly, the aftermath is much less heroic. They got entrenched in their world view and were unable to accommodate new data gathered during and after the second world war, and because they knew they were heroes were perfectly willing to shut out new ideas and new blood. They became fossilized themselves, a condition that lasted almost through the Seventies.
Still doesn’t sound familiar?
Tom Fuller,
There are thousands of people who are perfectly qualified to assess, question and criticize the various components
… then they can either write up and publish their complaints with the rigor of a formal paper, showing quantitative results, stating assumptions and methodology, discussing how the results fit in with previous work… like everyone else has to… or be content receiving lesser attention… you don’t expect stuff like…
Scientific computer modeling is my profession […] I do Finite Element analysis programming. […] models that have demonstrated no predictive skill, use grossly pessimistic assumptions with little or no foundation or theoretical backup and which leave big chunks of the physics of the natural world out.
… to be taken seriously, do you?
Lazar, there’s a thread going on over at the Blackboard that might interest you regarding the merits of publishing.
#170 MT
“350 is something of a guess, just like 2 C is, but it’s not an unreasonable one.”
It’s not a guess at all, it’s a matter of historical record. We’ve been there, done that. What are the measurable, quantifiable differences between our climate/weather in 1990 and today when we’ve added roughly 40ppmv CO2? If you want to know more, work out the IR response for that extra 40ppmv and see how much that could possibly influence the environment in any negative way. Yet the cost of going backwards for CO2 emissions are astronmical compared to natural emissions, or even anthropogenic emissions due to poor land management such as allowing fuel loads to increase and creating far more severe wildfires.
“I think direct intervention in West Antarctica is possible: physically propping it up like an ancient but beloved tree”
That ancient tree is just itching to release it’s carbon next fire season. It’s probably sequestered all it can and may be better served being turned into longer term carbon sequestration like furniture, housing, or even being recycled as biofuel. As for West Antarctica, that may be possible given previous claims of increased ice loss due to CAGW may have turned out to be due to a previously unknown geological feature. Glacier containment may be practical, albeit expensive geo-engineering.
#171 Michael Tobis
Please note, though, that I do not owe you any answers to any questions. Nobody is paying me to do this (at least yet), and there are lots more questions around than there are qualified hours to answer them well. The good news is that I get to pick my questions, as do most of the scientists who try to engage. The bad news is that lots of people think their questions are being ducked.
Some very good points there. (I’ve probably been guilty of the last part, myself.) In many ways it’s about perception, answering one question at the expense of another is percieved to be ducking the “hard” question. But time is limited.
By the same token Michael, I’m not getting paid for this either. Nobody paid me to read AR4, nobody paid me to download and read the number of papers I have.
In a detailed debate on Climate it has not been unusual to take 8 or 9 hours to write a post. With reading the referenced papers, locating the papers to support my argument, actually reading them to ensure that they say what I think they say (which sometimes means reading some of the papers referenced by the original paper) and then assembling it into a coherent whole, that takes time. I don’t get paid for that either.
It’s not that I need to read the literature to understand, it’s that I’ve read lot of the literature and still don’t understand. (With the explicit caveat that I’m almost certainly missing something somewhere.)
No, I don’t have a degree, but I have been indoctrinated for years that “Science” is exemplified by the works of Popper, Feynmann and the motto of the Royal Society. If something goes against those espoused principles, whatever it is, it isn’t “Science” as the word has been defined for hundreds of years.
I add that if “Science” needs to be redefined to admit a particular field of study, then the problem is with the field and not the definition.
Science is not as crisply defined as all that but I would reject definition of science that excludes physical climatology. Or for that matter planetary science, or astrophysics. I mention the other two because they equally permit limited experimentation.
#182 JohnB: It’s not that I need to read the literature to understand, it’s that I’ve read lot of the literature and still don’t understand.
I sympathize. One fellow I know (not in the climate field) often says “The paper is not the result. The paper is the advertisement of the result.”
I presume you have the mathematics and physics preparation assumed of anyone reading the literature. (About four semesters of mathematics, two of general physics, some thermodynamics (engineering thermodynamics is very useful as the atmosphere has much in common with an engine), some fluid mechanics, and ideally some numerical methods and some computing. Then a couple of semesters of dynamic meteorology and/or physical oceanography would help too.) I mean a good grasp, not just a passing grade. Such skills are very rare even among people with science or engineering undergrad degrees. Papers are written at the postgraduate level, and for good reason; otherwise each paper would be eight hundred pages long.
In practice, even if you have that sort of a background you often don’t gain understanding by reading the paper alone. Preferably, you read it in the company of the author, second best is one of his students, third best is someone qualified to review the paper. Journal clubs can work if there is a particularly erudite member or two who shows up regularly.
This method has always worked in the past. Open science is a very very good idea, but it is a very very big change, and it will take a generation to take hold. Expectations that it be in working order immediately, as if the scientific community had a CEO that could issue an edict, are unrealistic. Openness is the future, but making a big toxic game out of openness will damage what works well about science without helping what doesn’t.
It’s not that anybody is hiding anything. It’s that the knowledge is scarce, the pedagogical experience thin on the ground, and the material tightly coupled and hard explain in brief. The number of people needed to be genuinely open to intelligent people without even a scientific undergraduate degree would quintuple the number of workers in the field and leave 80% of them working in an area which has no precedent.
On the other hand, climate does fit reasonably well in a well-ordered human brain; it is not as complicated as a biological or a social system. And mathematics works very well to yield insights into the system. If it weren’t for all the damned politics I’d recommend it gladly to someone very mathematically smart looking for something fruitful to think about for a long time.
Michael Tobis,
Thanks for your responses to my posts, but this soooo frustrating. I try carefully to write clearly and precisely, but I have the distinct feeling that we are just talking past each other. This thread has about run its day, but some loose ends need to be tidied up.
1. At comment #48 above you said
“If I stand implicitly accused of being radical or extreme because I share the opinions of a British parliamentary committee, our discourse has fallen to a very sorry state”
Since I had just seen Phil Willis’ complaint about ‘sleight of hand’, I thought that you should be corrected on this – hence by post at #109. And indeed the discourse has fallen to a very sorry state, but not I suspect in the sense that you meant it. My basic complaint is that policy-makers have in many important points been provided with bad advice underpinned by bad data analysis via the inputs of CRU and the hockey team (among others) to the IPCC. The various inquiries have deftly avoided this. Graham Stringer is now going public on the matter.
“Oxburgh didn’t go as far as I expected. The Oxburgh Report looks much more like a whitewash…Why did they delete emails? The key question was what reason they had for doing this, but this was never addressed; not getting to the central motivation was a major failing both of our report and Muir Russell….The fact that you can make up your own experiments and get similar results doesn’t mean that you’re doing what’s scientifically expected of you. You need to follow the same methodology of the process….I was surprised at Phil Jones’ answers to the questions I asked him [in Parliament]. The work was never replicable…I think that’s quite shocking…We asked them to be independent, and not allow the University to have first sight of the report. The way it’s come out is as an UEA inquiry, not an independent inquiry.” http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/07/09/stringer_on_russell/
A very sorry state when the chairman in effect says he was tricked and the dissenting member of the committee makes the statements above. This is the problem with appeal to authority. Your authority has just effectively annulled itself. I didn’t need Graham Stringer to tell me the inquiries including his own were a standing farce – even Sir Humphrey would have been embarrassed. But you have yet to acknowledged this. That is the sort of thing which makes discussion difficult.
2. On the various millennial reconstructions which have been Steve McIntyre’s primary focus, I said that “the HS and related studies are the foundation stone of all claims for unprecedented warmth.” Your response was to direct me to the Charney report (comment #118), with the point being, as you later clarified, that the models say the warming will eventually be unprecedented (comment #156). I don’t have a problem with the Charney report. Thanks for bringing it to my attention. If the summaries for policy makers of the TAR and FAR were as carefully worded and caveated as the Charney Report, and followed the Charney principle of “summarizing in concise and objective terms our present best understanding of the carbon dioxide/climate issue for the benefit of policy makers” then the hockey stick would hopefully have been aborted at birth, and ClimateAudit would never have happened, and I would still be voting for the Greens, as had always been my prior habit. The abject failure of the TAR and FAR to emulate the integrity of the Charney Report is why the technical skeptics (as Judith Curry aptly calls us) exist. Andrew Lacis’ (a consensus supporter and Hansen colleague) review comment (rejected) on the FAR SPM was –
“There is no scientific merit to be found in the Executive Summary. The presentation sounds like something put together by Greenpeace activists and their legal department. The points being made are made arbitrarily with legal sounding caveats without having established any foundation or basis in fact. The Executive Summary seems to be a political statement that is only designed to annoy greenhouse skeptics. Wasn’t the IPCC Assessment Report intended to be a scientific document that would merit solid backing from the climate science community – instead of forcing many climate scientists into having to agree with greenhouse skeptic criticisms that this is indeed a report with a clear and obvious political agenda… The Executive Summary as it stands is beyond redemption and should simply be deleted.” http://pds.lib.harvard.edu/pds/view/7798293?n=17
We have internet access to this review comment only due to Steve McIntyre’s efforts.
But back to unprecedented. You say
” The scientific purpose of the hockey stick, etc., is to help calibrate and test the hypotheses, not to make claims that ‘unprecedented warmth’ is here.”
But the abstract of MBH99 says
“…the latter 20th century is anomalous in the context of at least the past millennium. The 1990s was the warmest decade, and 1998 the warmest year, at moderately high levels of confidence”.
Why isn’t ‘unprecedented’ a fair single-word summary of MBH99 in a discussion about the current warm period with regard to the medieval and Roman warm periods? The holocene optimum and the last interglacial (as per comment #156) are irrelevant, being respectively several thousand and 100 thousand years outside the period under consideration. And how can you cite model outputs for a future decades hence as evidence that my statements regarding the present and the past are “demonstrably and unambiguously false” and “based on a false premise”. Models are not evidence. Again, that is the sort of thing which makes discussion difficult.
3. You further say at #156
“However the historical record is used or misused by grade school textbooks and political publications is not the direct responsibility of the scientific community.”
Well, then, whose responsibility is it? They get this stuff from the IPCC, and the IPCC is written by scientists. Education departments and parliamentarians don’t take any notice of people like me – all we get back is “… the IPCC says…2,500 scientists agree…blah blah blah.” The only way to stop this nonsense is for the renegade segments of the climatology community to cease and desist forthwith from promoting it (the CRU, the hockey team) and for the rest of you to stop indulging them. Let’s have a lot less silence, and a lot more loud bleating, from the lambs. Perhaps then we can start to move forward.
Finally, my thoughts on ‘wouldn’t it be nice’. Note that I have re-expressed it as a negative, because I don’t expect it to happen. These points are addressed to the entire climatology community.
1. Stop slagging Steve McIntyre and accept his work at face value.
2. Conduct a totally honest assessment of the science, especially in terms of faulty data analysis and statistical techniques. Spurn the whitewash inquiries, and do it publicly.
3. Stop trying to terrify everyone with blatant propaganda, and tell Al Gore to put a sock in it.
4. For the 5AR, make damned sure that all environmental advocacy groups get nowhere near it.
5. Send the HT and the CRU perpetrators to coventry and close down RC by simply ignoring it – as a community do what the various inquiries are have failed to do, and apply the self-correction we keep hearing should happen in science.
6. Tell the journal editors to pull their heads in.
7. Accept that big oil/republicans/Inhofe/Morano etc have nothing to do with the technical skeptics, who basically only care about getting the sums right, and that fair advice is given to policy makers via the IPCC.
8. Paper reviewers should check the calculations and editors must insist that all data is fully disclosed and freely available. No more of the culture of the free pass to mates on the inside.
9. Get the surface temperature record straightened out ASAP – all raw data clearly separated from all adjusted data, and all adjustments for each individual record fully and transparently disclosed.
10. Stop pretending that model outputs are evidence.
I could keep going, but ten is a nice round number, so I’ll stop here. It seems to me that if the technical sceptics are satisfied on these and related points, then we can all move forward together to wherever the evidence indicates. Then you will know who is motivated by the politics, and who is motivated by the truth.
“Finally, my thoughts on “˜wouldn’t it be nice’. Note that I have re-expressed it as a negative, because I don’t expect it to happen. These points are addressed to the entire climatology community.
1. Stop slagging Steve McIntyre and accept his work at face value.”
Interesting. Points 2-9 can be summed as saying that we must mistrust most of climate science. It’s the same old tiresome list of canards that we’ve been hearing for a decade.
Yet in point 1 we’re told that we must accept McIntyre’s pronouncements without criticism.
Is it any wonder that those of us who accept the findings of mainstream climate often point out that self-proclaimed skeptics aren’t really skeptical at all? “Accept McIntyre’s work at face value” is as unskeptical a statement as one can possibly make.
Michael – 155
that scientists do NOT discuss things in terms of good and evil,
You discuss the debate over climate change in terms of good and evil fairly frequently and explain that those with whom you disagree are evil. I think I can point this out even if you insist the point of your discussions of good and evil is to explain that scientists don’t discuss things in terms of good and evil. (I can also observe that you must not be one of these scientists because you discuss “things” in terms of good and evil quite frequently.)
But the baseless attacks on our character and motivation have been building for over twenty years.
Attacks? Or criticisms? The recent Russell report confirms some of the character failings and behavioral short comings that critics alleged. Some will interpret this to contradict your insistence that the criticism were baseless.
dhogaza, #185,
OK – good point – I’ll rephrase #1 to avoid misunderstanding.
1. Stop slagging Steve McIntyre and accept that he has no hidden agenda, is not doing dog-whistles, is not a front for vested interests, and is motivated primarily by a desire to see the common good served by getting the sums right and all the data on which these momentous decisions are being considered in the public domain.
As to being sceptical myself, I follow through on most of his technical topics, and quite an education it has been.
@#171 Michael Tobis:
Your second paragraph makes a good point. You’re not being paid for time spent here, and certainly don’t owe anyone answers. Further, I rather doubt that any of the posters here are being paid for the time they spend on this issue, so answers in this comment thread may be relatively spotty for good and proper reasons.
Yes, the question is ridiculously broad. That’s because it was an attempt to find common ground. My impression has been that you (and most other consensus defenders) would argue that anyone who disagrees with the consensus is flying in the face of reason and rationality. And that implies that the skeptic is not writing from a rational or reasonable skeptical position. That’s why I asked such a broad question.
So MT agrees that it is at least possible that critics of various parts of the consensus may have rational reasons for their criticism. (NOTE: this is not the same as agreeing that any one specific criticism is either rational or correct!) I would thus expect that (?hope that?) consensus defenders such as MT would be willing to say something about why they disagree with a specific criticism, or why it shows a lack of understanding of physics (or statistics, or whatever). This would be a welcome change from accusations that such criticisms are (in the words of dhogaza, above, about which more later) “saying that we must mistrust most of climate science,” or that skeptics are tools of Big Oil, or whatever.
I may be off-base on my impression of MT in particular, but my average impression of consensus defenders matches well with what I’ve seen on line — even when I was first beginning to read papers while fully supporting the consensus myself.
re DaleC@184 and dhogaza@185:
My reading of DaleC’s points is that numbers 2, 4, 8, and 9 are aimed at trying to push climate science in the direction of the degree of rigor we expect “in the real world.” That “real world” is the world of regulated science and engineering, where we expect audit trails, total transparency of data and method, as well as both full repeatability as well as full independent replicability. I put #4 in this list, because participation from advocacy groups appears to help only when you include an extremely broad spectrum of such groups (specifically, enough that they disagree wildly with each other). Narrow participation from advocacy groups simply leads to policy capture for non-scientific reasons.
Dale’s po0int #10 is just plain good science! Out here where airplanes fly (or crash) based on model results, where bridges stand or fall based on model results, (and so on…) the output of the models remains utterly untrusted until they are demonstrated to have strong ability to accurately predict outcomes. In this environment, the IPCC report’s use of models would be considered professional malpractice. Any PE who signed off on such a report (the modeling parts, that is) could expect to lose his license (at a minimum). Further, the idea that combining unproven models yields stronger results than using individual unproven models flies in the face of plenty of computer science research, too. Look at past work on N-version programming. You’ll find that it provides no protection against a wide variety of common-mode errors — for example, flaws in the specification, common design choices leading to common-mode failures, and on and on.
The remaining points (3, 5, 6, 7) seem to me to be sound policy advice. Assuming, that is, that one desires an outcome that is both transparently honest and also rigorous enough to guide policy. That is, these issues do not assume that current client science is wrong. Rather, they are a reflection of the difference between exploratory science and regulatory science. (I wish I could remember who coined those phrases!). From an exploratory POV, the existing climate science may be pretty good. By the standards of proof that practicing engineers are used to, however, the evidence produced to date is quite weak at best. Certainly it would not be sufficient to convince the FDA to approve a new drug, nor would it suffice to convince the FAA to approve an airplane design. Those of us who live in this more regulatory world expect a much higher degree of rigor for anything involving regulatory changes.
DaleC’s point #1 appears to me to be an appeal to the consensus defenders to recognize that McIntyre in particular (and many but not all other skeptics more broadly) is attempting to apply this higher degree of rigor.
“Dale’s po0int #10 is just plain good science! Out here where airplanes fly (or crash) based on model results, where bridges stand or fall based on model results, (and so on”¦) the output of the models remains utterly untrusted until they are demonstrated to have strong ability to accurately predict outcomes.”
The flight simulator for the Boeing Dreamliner was implemented before the first airplane was constructed. In other words, using data from model results.
The test pilots trained for the first test flight using the simulator. The airplane’s performance during the first flight matched the simulator performance exactly.
In the real world of companies like Boeing and the manufacturer of the Airbus 380, airplanes aren’t crashing due to model failures. They almost always crash because pilots screw up.
People who complain about models have their eyes closed not only to modern science (every branch of modern science makes heavy use of modeling) but also modern engineering.
I simply don’t get it.
Ah, the “I used to vote for Greenpeace” concern troll.
I think they are bringing out the big guns. This is far more useful as a manipulative tactic aimed at the reader than as a legitimate argument aimed at the correspondent. (It raises the question why so many vocal critics of climate science remain anonymous.)
Dr. Lacis is entitled to his opinion, I suppose, but I do not understand it. The reader is invited to look at the executive summary to AR4 WGI chapter 9 for himself or herself, to determine whether it actually seems scientific or whether it seems more polemical.
As for ” My basic complaint is that policy-makers have in many important points been provided with bad advice underpinned by bad data analysis via the inputs of CRU and the hockey team (among others) to the IPCC. The various inquiries have deftly avoided this. ” one has to note that there is nothing about malfeasance here, which of course was the important accusation. Whether analysis is “bad” in any sense is up to the scientific process to determine. The only possibly legitimate issue for those outside the particular area is to determine that the area has not been corrupted such that progress is impossible. It turns out that nobody has found credible evidence for that. Talking about “bad” advice delivered in good faith is shifting the goalposts quite spectacularly. And that has always been what this “scandal” has been about; baseless innuendo and vague, shifting accusations.
And so on. Everything being raised sounds plausible at first hearing. It all dissipates on further investigation. Answering this plague of questions eventually turns into a destruction of science by filibuster. This is why taking McIntyre et al at face value is a proposition with enormous drawbacks.
The public must decide whether they want honest answers or whether they want to punish people for giving answers they don’t like. If they want honest answers, they should cooperate with the people who think about the questions most, with the most expertise and context. Scientists are nothing if not self-critical. The problem is not the ducking of questions, it is the effort to address the questions whose motivations are antagonistic.
The supply of antagonistic questions is bottomless; some of them are finely honed. None of them do any good because the community being attacked does not deserve them and cannot effectively handle them in quantity.
DaleC’s recommendations are perfect example of politics masquerading as science criticism. They don’t address policy, they don’t address science, they simply throw mud at the scientific community. The fact that the horde of flying monkeys using this tactic to derail policy discussions has arrived at collide-a-scape in force is no surprise, but it is unfortunate. People saying ignorant things like “models aren’t evidence” don’t understand science and are in no position to offer useful critiques. So we end up discussing pine trees and not nuclear vs solar.
This is boring for climate scientists and boring for serious policy experts. It is only exciting for people who enjoy making scientists angry. In the early days of the internet we called people like that trolls.
Keith, YHBT, HAND. (You have been trolled, have a nice day.)
Lacis explained his comment here
“My earlier criticism had been that the IPCC AR4 reportwas equivocating in not stating clearly and forcefully enough that human-induced warming of the climate system is established fact, and not something to be labeled as “very likely” at the 90 percent probability level.”
If Tobis were to broadly represent climate science like DaleC broadly represents climate (“technical”) scepticism (and from where I sit, he most certainly does) then I’m afraid it’s worse than we thought, Jim. Tobis’ rant sounds sickeningly familiar. After all this discussion, after all the reviewing and examining, it’s so disappointing to read that rubbish. It feels like we’re down the snake back to square one.
Who were we kidding?
SimonH, I greatly fear Mr. Tobis doesn’t want a dialogue, he wants an audience.
“SimonH, I greatly fear Mr. Tobis doesn’t want a dialogue, he wants an audience.”
I hope that Tom Fuller realizes this is very typical of science, and why shouldn’t it be?
Does Fuller want a dialogue over whether or not airplanes fly, or would he like to be an audience member at a lecture in which a scientist educates laymen as to why airplanes do fly?
Add other examples, ad nauseum, as you wish.
Why shouldn’t scientists want an audience when it comes to teaching science to [SNIP] like Fuller?
My mind boggles…
dhogaza. I think you missed the point that the models used to contruct the flight simulators are the result of many generations of previous models with proven records of prediction.
I think this is a “Catch 22” for Climate models and I can’t see a way past it. (Although I’m open to suggestions) The only way to test the predictive powers of models is time, so the only 20 year predictions we can test are the ones from 20 years ago. The predictive accuracy isn’t that great.
Modern models are far more complex and presumably better than the ones 20 years ago, but to properly test them takes 20 years. Catch 22. We can use a start date further in the past, but as we go back figures like aerosol content move from known to “best guess” figures.
I suppose the question is “How do you test something that takes 20 years to test, without taking 20 years?”
There is hindcasting and that has some value, but it’s not that hard to be predicively correct if you already know the answer.
By (admittedly rather poor) analogy. Just because my fantastic psychic powers allow me to accurately tell you the winning lottery numbers for the last 10 years is not proof that I can predict the numbers for next week.
Michael Tobis, #191
I am attempting a serious discussion here, but you have lapsed into irrelevancies. I am not a troll, and as for being a big gun – please, that is just silly. As to anonymity, I did in fact use my real name in my first post here, in the Ruckus thread – you are just not making the connections. Dhogaza likes to be known as Dhogaza, and I like to be known as DaleC – the Dr Who connotation appeals to me. In both cases actual identity is easy to establish. You have therefore managed three ad homs in your first five lines. And I mean ad hom in the proper sense: my opinions are not worth consideration because I am a troll, a big gun (with the implication of hired gun) and an anonymous coward. I would prefer that you just called me a naive misguided gullible fool – that at least would be clearly a matter of opinion, without bringing my integrity into question. Ad hominem is among the cruder methods for making the worse appear the better cause.
On the point of malfeasance (my actual terms were ‘dubious’ and ‘devious’) I am surprised to see you continuing in the team’s defence. I thought that the exchange at
http://climateaudit.org/2010/06/04/losing-glacier-data/ (see comments from Jun 11, 2010, 11:47 PM and following)
had clarified at least some of the matter for you:
Tobis: Except for some peculiar talk about (crudely) deleting email, which deletion probably didn’t occur, there isn’t even anything that you have made a solid case for that even looks suspicious.
Steve McIntyre: …I can tell you precisely who and what is being protected. Wahl and Briffa violated IPCC rules in 2006, which resulted in Wahl inserted language about the MM-MBH dispute that had never been sent to external reviewers, departed from what had been sent to reviewers and which purported to “settle” the dispute in Mann and Wahl’s favor. This statement has been relied upon by climate scientists who looked to IPCC for assessment – including, for example, Julia Slingo in her evidence to the Commons Select Committee.
…I have a direct interest in the matter since the reputation of Ross and my work was directly affected by the CRU violation of IPCC procedures.
The probability of a violation of IPCC procedures had been suspected long ago. That’s what led to David Holland’s FOI request for review comments that had not been placed in the IPCC archive according to their rules, and, in turn, to Jones’ request to delete the emails and his statement that Briffa “should” deny the existence of the Wahl-Briffa exchange to FOI officer Palmer.
That climate scientists such as yourself are unoffended by such behavior is precisely what is causing problems with public perception.
Tobis: Interesting…I had not heard this before.
So, do I take it that despite this you continue to refuse to accept bad behaviour by the CRU and the hockey team? It must be so, because at comment #44 above, four weeks after the above CA exchange, you say “They are innocent victims of malicious indirection of attention”. On what basis do you say this? The facts are the facts are the facts, and the facts are not in dispute. The IPCC process was corrupted, with the result that the official record (the FAR WG1) is such that Julia Slingo can give factually wrong advice to the Commons Select Committee – the very point on which this exchange between us began. The Commons Select Committee has now self-destructed (what might Graham Stringer be saying in private?), but this bad-advice scenario has been played out across the committee rooms of governments across the world. That is why it matters, and will continue to matter, and the only way it will stop is for the climatology community to step up to the task and make it stop. Malfeasance (to use your word) is the important means, and the bad advice it has led to is the important consequence. However you managed to get from here to “Talking about ‘bad’ advice delivered in good faith is shifting the goalposts quite spectacularly”. Where ever did I concede “good faith”? Michael, you are making things up. This technique for making the worse appear the better cause is colloquially known as the straw man.
You continue with the straw man. You say “The public must decide whether they want honest answers or whether they want to punish people for giving answers they don’t like.” Of course I want honest answers. My complaint is that on millennial paleo-climate reconstructions, we have been given at the very least the wrong answer. Was it done dishonestly? I have never said so. But the mind-numbing incompetence of it all is beyond dispute by anyone who understands the issues – whether they will admit to it publicly or not.
You next say that my “recommendations are perfect example of politics masquerading as science criticism”. Frankly, I resent that. I’m trying to show, in the spirit of this thread, “that there are rational reasons for skepticism”. My rational reason is that where I have the expertise to check for myself, I have found the matters severely wanting. I cannot undo this knowledge in my head. When I look for disavowals or corrections by the climatology community, I instead find that somehow or other the hockey team are the innocent victims of a malicious campaign by evil deniers to destroy their credibility because we are all in the pay of big oil, or some such nonsense. My recommendations are a way to get the many people like me back on side. It is disappointing that you refuse to see that, and instead attribute ulterior motives.
You obviously didn’t like my recommendations, although several of them at least are endorsed by the various inquiries, so again in the spirit of this thread here are some actions on the policy side which I would fully support:
1. I agree with James Hansen that cap-and-trade is an awful idea – how the environmental advocacy groups and Green parties have allowed themselves to be suborned by the big end of town – their traditional enemies – is another mystery for future historians – but I have no problem with a tax on carbon dioxide emissions. Governments can tax anything they like – always have and always will. A tax can be ramped up or down as required.
2. The Asian brown cloud is an abomination. The West should be providing clean scrubber and related technology at bargain prices so that developing economies do not have to endure the decades of atmospheric filth the West lived through.
3. Widespread deforestation is a tragedy. I don’t care how it is stopped, but stop it must. R&D should be high into developing alternatives.
4. I would gladly pay multiple times over for white goods which lasted decades as opposed to sometimes just months. As a child we had the same vacuum cleaner, the same kettle and the same toaster, the same TV for many many years – I can still see them in my mind’s eye. The waste of resources underpinning the consumer society is criminal. I don’t see how we can support another 3 billion doing likewise.
5. Wind and solar are nowhere near ready for prime time, but instead of stifling innovation by subsidies, so that preserving the subsidy becomes the corporate focus, governments should be offering billion dollar prizes for provable breakthroughs in alternative energy technologies.
6. The up to 50% waste in the current electricity generation and distribution systems should be addressed forthwith.
I’m sure there is plenty more we could all agree on.
I think that this should be the end of our discourse here. You can reply if you feel you must have the last word, but I will not respond.
What would MT call me. a little gun?
I’m just a memebr of the public, that has become interested in thedebate, for reason explained previoulsy, I have friends in climate science, as involved or more so than MT. We can be nice to each other..
Re “climategate”: http://is.gd/do11n
DaleC chides me for not moving on to the real issues and yet at the same time insists on dragging “the team” into everything.
I am not defending “the team”; I am just trying to point out that they are being consistently used as a distraction.
Since we will never agree on whether anything serious was revealed by the CRU emails, pulling that issue into every discussion guarantees a breakdown of communication. The question is to whose advantage is such a breakdown.
I am happy to move beyond this issue as a litmus test. DaleC, apparently, is not.
Tobis, the focus on the hockey team is NOT a distraction, it is the sticking point. Until the sceptics’ issues are properly and transparently addressed, and until new measures to defend against breaches of scientific integrity are introduced, it will never be resolved and progress will never be made. So many climate scientists seem desperately keen to move on from the science and get down and dirty about all the policies they plan to promote. One has to wonder why this is.
Well actually one doesn’t. The reason is plain to see; advocacy has plainly trumped the science. Meanwhile, in the real world, public confidence in climate science continues to haemorrhage. Why? Because scientists apparently think that the science (or lack thereof) is just a distraction.
SimonH, my #44:
I don’t think anything they have done is either especially scientifically important or especially ethically shocking. I simply don’t engage in the endless tedious and pointless discussions about them. I don’t care about them. They are innocent victims of malicious indirection of attention. The correct thing to do about them is to think about more important things.
===
The British House of Commons Science and Technology Committee assigned to investigate the matter:
The focus on Professor Jones and CRU has been largely misplaced.
===
Gareth Renowden’s article quotes leading scientists Ray Bradley, Malcolm Hughes, Michael Mann, Michael Oppenheimer, Ben Santer, Gavin Schmidt, Stephen Schneider, Kevin Trenberth and Tom Wigley:
if one’s research findings tend to support human-caused climate change ““ means to live and work in an environment of constant accusations of fraud, calls for investigations (or for criminal prosecutions), demands for access to every draft, every intermediate calculation, and every email exchanged with colleagues, daily hate mail and threats, and attempts to pressure the institutions that employ us and fund our research. Through experience, we have learned that there is no review of climate scientists’ work that isn’t deemed a “whitewash” by climate change contrarians; there is no casual remark that can’t be seized upon, blown out of proportion and distorted; and there is no person whose character can’t be assassinated, no matter how careful and honest their research.
===
So if that is a sticking point, we are stuck.
MT, how about the rest of that quote on Jones?
“The focus on Professor Jones and CRU has been largely misplaced. On the accusations relating to Professor Jones’s refusal to share raw data and computer codes, the Committee considers that his actions were in line with common practice in the climate science community but that those practices need to change.”
This relates back to the issue of process with transparency that is needed but absent in climate science. This wasn’t an exoneration of Phil Jones, it was a call for the common practice of refusing transparency that Jones and colleagues followed to be changed.
Phil Willis MP, Committee Chair, said:
Tobis (#201):
There is clearly a lack of comprehension, on your part, of what is implicit in the “Climategate” email/documents’ (release/extraction/theft/liberation – pick one). You still seem to think that “Climategate” was just cruel extraction of a fistful of emails, the content of which has been perversely manipulated to make their authors/recipients look bad.
I think, until you actually stop incessantly saying “blah blah blah..” through the protestations of the climate sceptics and get to the bottom of what has their ire, you will never understand what it is you’re demanding they sideline and move on from. I find it extraordinary that, 8 months after the “Climategate” event and 7 years since the issues to which “Climategate” relates commenced, you still don’t have the first idea what it is all about. And yet you demonstrate an extraordinary ability to bluster through, aggressively fighting your corner, while evidently having not the first idea what it is you’re fighting against. How DO you do that?
“Climategate”… some bad practises by a fraction of a percent of climate scientists, practises which do not change any scientific results or conclusions, practises which evolved under the cross-hairs of a concerted disinformation effort. Storm in a teacup. Openess?… the huge quantities of data and code that are freely available and come online every year apparently isn’t ‘newsworthy’.
I’ve seen an 8-10 pp. drop in belief in AGW expressed in those polls which mention “climategate”, and circa 5 pp. in polls which don’t. This effect won’t last unless another “climategate” occurs and the media reacts with an equivalently hysterical enthusiasm. This will last, and is the real problem;
“Just your impression, which one of the following statements do you think is most accurate? Most scientists believe that global warming is occurring. Most scientists believe that global warming is NOT occurring. OR, Most scientists are unsure about whether global warming is occurring or not.”
“Is occurring: 52%”
“Is not occurring: 10%”
“Are unsure: 36%”
Gallup poll, March 4-7, 2010
… or rather, the media are the problem.
Those who want to use climategate to twist the arms of scientists, turning them away from productive research into ‘engaging’ with a tiny minority of amateur doubters, some of whom are informed and open minded, some of whom are fundies or dilettantes, into meandering and rather boring social kibitzing, where claims and contain scant clarity or rigor… it ain’t gonna happen.
SimonH #203: There is clearly a lack of comprehension, on your part, of what is implicit in the “Climategate” email/documents’ (release/extraction/theft/liberation ““ pick one).
Quite true, but not for want of asking. Please try explaining slowly, so as to convince a (genuine) skeptic.
You still seem to think that “Climategate” was just cruel extraction of a fistful of emails, the content of which has been perversely manipulated to make their authors/recipients look bad.
Pretty much. Yup.
Michael Tobis (#205): Great! Now we’re rolling! Stage one is easy! There’s no need for me to write slowly or in capitals.. you can consume the required reading list at your own pace. It’s now time to read “The Book”!
Since “The Hockey Stick Illusion” is in essence the summary of the activities of the CRU and the Hockey Team leading up to Climategate, it’s really important to read this book. Far easier-going than reading the entire Climate Audit blog, I promise, and far quicker to get up to speed too.
I’m not suggesting for a moment that you accept the content verbatim. It’s meticulously referenced, so as a sceptic you should thoroughly enjoy cross-examining the pages at any instance where you feel your hackles rise. Then, when you’re satisfied that you’ve fully apprised yourself, let us know.
I know you’ve rejected the suggestion that you should read this book before, but I know from what you say that you’re now curious enough to explore the sceptical arguments. I’m right, aren’t I? You’re not just being glib, right Michael?
Has Keith read the book? Just curious.
I’m holding out for a Kindle! Less than 6 months to go until Christmas. Please don’t tell me Santa Claus isn’t real!
Here is a link to IPCC media tips for those involved in the AR5.
http://timeecocentric.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/ipccmediatips.pdf
Looking at the list of all the words scientists should avoid using, it looks like they are going to be passing information to the public in pantomime. LOL 🙂
Lazar Says:
July 11th, 2010 at 5:50 pm
“Climategate””¦ some bad practises by a fraction of a percent of climate scientists, practises which do not change any scientific results or conclusions, practises which evolved under the cross-hairs of a concerted disinformation effort.”
Well, yes and no. Disinformation effort, yes: the CRU/UPenn team actively tried to avoid disclosure of key details about data and procedures, even after receiving FOIA requests.
But no, they are not “practises [sic] which do not change any scientific results or conclusions”. To my knowledge, the Climategate emails deal with a significant issue: the claim that the recent rise in world temperature is “unprecedented in the latest 1000-2000 years”. This claim was chiefly based on reconstructions of past temperatures, synthesized in the famous Hockey Stick chart in AR3. Critics McIntyre and McKittrick, in two published peer-reviewed papers (2003 and 2005) criticized the chart. Besides, McIntyre repeatedly asked for details about various aspects of the reconstruction, including data and statistical procedures and code, having great difficulty to replicate the results.
I may call your attention to the fact that the said chart did not show much of a Medieval Warm Period, nor of a Little Ice Age either: it showed steady (slightly declining) temps from year 1000 to the 20th century, until temps shoot up in the second half of the 1900s. The chart clearly indicated that temps at the end of the 1990s (especially the Niño year 1998) were the warmest since the year 1000. If this claim were to be falsified, it would not give reason to doubt predictions of further warming up to 2100 or beyond, nor to doubt the link between anthropogenic CO2 emissions and such warming: it would only contend that the recent rise is not “unprecedented”, and therefore that temperatures similar to those measured now or expected for the coming decades have been already present in the Middle Ages (when the now frozen Greenland got its name).
Criticisms to that chart were various: reliance on small samples (down to one single tree!!!), automatic generation of hockey-stick-like charts even if the code is fed with random data, unwarranted deletion of a large portion of tree-ring proxies (1960- ) because they did not rise in step with the CRU index of land temperatures based on (selected) station data, and some more. The Montford book, The Hockey Stick Illusion, gives a detailed account of the matter.
Such criticisms were not anti-science rantings, nor ideology driven: they consisted of very specific questions about statistical procedures, source data, spliced series, and the like. The Climategate files show several top climate scientists (indeed a small percentage of the discipline, but also the most influential and powerful) engaged in various manoeuvres to keep such criticisms at bay, to avoid disclosure of data and codes, to keep criticis’ papers from being published, and so on. That is the matter, in a nutshell.
Besides the issue of the “practices”, which were indeed not quite appropriate, there is the matter of the conclusions that were criticized: most of such criticisms were never answered, and a proper, open discussion of them would be very welcome, for the sake of climate science’s credibility and influence in the future.
http://www.desmogblog.com/climatgate-autopsy
It begins:
How did emails stolen from climate scientists snowball into a global news story in less than 48 hours?
Since Monckton’s rebuttal doesn’t seem to want to clear moderation at any of the other sites that trumpeted Abraham’s smack-down of Monckton, I thought I’d share it here. I’m not a fan of Monckton, though I admit I’m a fan of his debating skills, but who isn’t? I wonder how others feel about Abraham’s professionalism on reading Monckton’s response. Did Abraham conduct himself properly? Did he misrepresent Monckton, to his audience and also to the researchers he mailed about the assertions he claimed that Monckton had made?
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/07/12/a-detailed-rebuttal-to-abraham-from-monckton/
210, I doubt if you’ll ever believe anything I say given your past comments about me, but I will tell you that, as the first journalist (if I can call my present incarnation that) to get access to the emails, there was nothing about the response to the emails that was organised. Nothing.
They were ignored for half a day before the leaker sent reminder emails and comments, I declined to publish them without further investigation, I remember standing in a drizzle next to Mosher while he talked on his cell phone to Jeff Id about email headers and Steve McIntyre about something else.
We assumed that other journalists would follow the blog stories. I decided I wouldn’t publish the emails before I gave the owners a chance to ask for them back. I did some independent investigating at UEA and found out that they were already saying internally that the emails were real and had not apparently been doctored (they hadn’t read them all yet, but they recognised the attachments and the first few dozen were valid).
But I can assure you there was no coordinated response at all, and nobody leading a charge to get them out there.
“But I can assure you there was no coordinated response at all, and nobody leading a charge to get them out there.”
This is what Fuller’s best pal Mosher says about the piece linked to by Hank:
“I have to concur with Charles. WIth a few minor corrections here and there this is a very nice piece of detective work.”