What to Do About the "Polluted" Climate Discourse?
Andrew Montford, a Scottish climate skeptic who blogs at the Bishop Hill site, recently tweeted of his trip to London:
Had interesting conversations with a couple of enviro jouros today. Both agreed that media refusal to report “reasonable middle” is problem.
This prompted UK climate scientist Richard Betts to respond:
It is increasingly annoying that some media cover climate as a debate between NGOs and sceptics, with no actual scientists.
Ben Pile, a sharp critic of environmentalism who frequently dissects media coverage of climate change, then chimed in with his own complaint:
Plenty of stories in media with just one scientist, and no counter view at all.
He linked to a recent post of his that pointed out a spate of such stories.
All three observations are, to varying degrees, legitimate. Of course, there’s this grumble at the other end of the grievance spectrum: Not enough sirens and flashing lights.
Meanwhile, another take that addresses the dysfunctional climate discourse (and its resulting polarization) is advanced by Yale’s Dan Kahan, who argues that our “reasoning powers have become disabled by a polluted science-communication environment.” He writes:
People acquire their scientific knowledge by consulting others who share their values and whom they therefore trust and understand. Usually, this strategy works just fine. We live in a science-communication environment richly stocked with accessible, consequential facts. As a result, groups with different values routinely converge on the best evidence for, say, the value of adding fluoride to water, or the harmlessness of mobile-phone radiation. The trouble starts when this communication environment fills up with toxic partisan meanings “” ones that effectively announce that “˜if you are one of us, believe this; otherwise, we’ll know you are one of them’.
This tribal dynamic pretty much characterizes the state of our climate debate today. Any efforts to cleanse the “polluted science-communication environment” that Kahan refers to will necessarily require the media (across the spectrum) to curb its too often simplistic and sensationalistic coverage of climate change. Is that possible?
I find Dan’s work compelling about the issue of the pollution. But every time I read it I feel like Carl Zimmer tweeted about that story:
It may be possible to sweep out some things on some fronts (although that BBC report a while back didn’t help like I’d hoped). But the pollution on some topics comes from folks who have no reason to stop–it’s working for them. And as they are not tied to anything like a professional organization with standards, how can you get them to stop polluting? It’s raising money and blog post hits for them.
Yes, I’m a fan of Dan’s work, too, but Zimmer is spot on (I missed that tweet!).
The John Nielsen-Gammon paradox:”Given that those most likely to speak out in public are either getting paid to do it or feel more extremely about the matter at hand than others, it follows that the people whose opinion you should trust the most are those whose opinion you never hear.”
Paul, yes, I remember reading that and thinking it was so true.
One person who more journalists should seek comment from is Richard Betts (who I mentioned above). I find him to be a fair-minded, temperate voice in this debate.
Keith –
Everywhere you step, the quicksand gets deeper.
Any response to Ben Pile’s (in my view) dissembling about his own error in “reporting?” I found more of note there than simply his list of what he ironically labeled a “failure to interrogate the data.” Cafeteria. Food fight. Jello.
Joshua,
Quite. To the extent that a “problem” exists the likes of Ben Pile, and indeed Andrew Montford, are as much a part of it as anyone else.
I think it’s wrong to lump the genus “science journalism” with the “environmental/health journalism” species. I work in materials science & while issues occasionally arise with unusual claims & the associated hype that needs weeding out (and yes the weeding is primarily done through peer review), there is absolutely nothing close to the enviro/medical blatherfest (fully stocked with easily accessed soundbiters to fill all points of the ideological compass, talk about your journalistic cakewalk!). Of course, this occurs because the 99% couldn’t care less about our fascinating industry……Unfortunately, if you get your science info from the mainstream media (I’m talking to you New York Times Science Section) you are perfectly justified to think 95% of all science revolves around health/environment & occasionally some weird happening in the cosmos………
Joshua, your cultural lens is leading you to cherrypick. Your beef with Pile doesn’t address the larger point of my post (or necessarily negate Pile’s).
As it happens, I’ve had a few spitball fights with Pile (I don’t feel he’s owned up to the way his own lens leads him to be critical of only one side. ) But on his broader criticisms of environmentalism and the shrieking alarmism of activists and the credulous way media echoes that, well, he’s got much of that right.
The pollution of climate discourse by partisan politics is the inevitable result of seeking solutions through government action. It can be overcome only by working for solutions independent of government.
Keith –
OK, I acknowledge mommymommyism there.
Pile’s post is stunningly ironic, however, and I think that AA’s point is what I would like to get across. The roots of the problem are deep and spread out in all directions. I think that efforts that focus recognizing balance – and I don’t mean a false balance – will be more beneficial in the long run because they more clearly focus on the full range of the problem. While the links are useful for examining an important phenomenon, I’m not sure they are more useful than the object lesson we can get from looking at the lack if insight in Pile’s post. I think that the links are a surface example of a much larger problem, and efforts that focus on the surface problem do so at the expense of addressing what lies underneath.
As to whether Pile gets much right, that may be (I haven’t read much from him), … but my feeling is that waaaaaay to much media-blaming takes place on both sides. I see it as the victimization component that goes hand-in-hand with the motivated reasoning. Part of the identification element is the need to be part of a group being victimized. We can see this element far beyond the walls of the climate debate lunchroom. Each side sees coverage that isn’t exactly how they’d want it, and shrieks “Bias!” I saw that, specifically, with the “skeptic” reactions to the “unprecedented” melt. There is a valid point to be made by “skeptics” as represented by that case, but that validity gets buried beneath piling on (heh!) from the other side.
The debate in climate science revolves around the degree of scientific certainty of a topic in which the available tools are insufficient to resolve the inherent complexity. The belief that we can predict the trajectory of the climate is not rooted in any reductionist process that an engineer can take seriously. The predictions cannot be tested objectively. Climate scientists seem to be generally aware that a full objective assessment of uncertainty would not produce the outcome that they seek. Put all this together, mix in a little passion, and there is really no hope that a civil discussion can manifest. Fortunately, communication is a bit of a sideshow in the larger scientific debate.
Of course life would be very nice if on any contentious issue we could all find common ground and get along nicely. But I don’t think that’s realistic, or even desirable. I don’t share the claim (made by Montford, but presumably Keith agrees) that because there are different groups with strongly opposed views there must be some kind of “reasonable middle”. That isn’t necessarily so, and I’m inclined to invoke “Okrent’s Law” here – “The pursuit of balance can create imbalance because sometimes something is true”. I would also make the point that when people want to define the “middle ground” it very often seems to be, coincidentally, very close to their own views.
Similarly, I’m not buying Ben Pile’s claim that a story which quotes a particular scientist’s view there should necessarily include an opposing view.
The quote from Dan Kahan mentions “the value of adding fluoride to water, or the harmlessness of mobile-phone radiation” as examples of issues on which there is wide agreement. Well that may be true up to a point – I doubt there would be much disagreement here for example, but there are still plenty of people out there who will argue that adding fluoride to water does pose a risk to health and that the safety of mobile-phone radiation is far from proven. Should we be seeking a “reasonable middle” on these issues? When journalists quote scientists who say that fluoridation is safe and there is no proven risk from mobil-phone radiation should they also present opposing views?
Paul Kelly,
The pollution of climate discourse by partisan politics is the inevitable result of seeking solutions through government action. It can be overcome only by working for solutions independent of government.
I disagree. That’s an argument about solutions and yes, to an extent that argument is “political”, but much of the disagreement is over whether there is a problem that requires a solution to begin with, and that debate is equally partisan and political.
The ‘climate debate’ comes down to a debate as to how much the socialized costs are and who should bear those costs. By definition that makes the issue political.It’s no more contentious then any other issue involving ‘alleged’ socialized costs of similar magnitudes.The reporting on issues such as medicare isn’t much different then then the reporting on climate.
Joshua,
The thing about tribalism is that it pre-disposes you to dismiss some people because they are being critical of your team.
Being tribal also allows you to overlook/ignore the missteps of your own side.
We see this all the time in the climate sphere. Climate concerned folk wave away climategate, rationalize Gleick’s actions, etc, etc.
On the other side, all the crazy of Watts and Monkton et al are often quickly forgiven or downplayed, etc, etc.
Most of the hardcore climate skeptics are just as tribal as the passionate climate activists. Both sides love me so much.
You seem like a smart guy who wants to have an honest give-and-take. You can’t really do that if you have tribal blinders on.
Andrew (12)
There is no default “reasonable middle” for me. I don’t go there to find some happy medium. But some of the climate issues that are most hotly debated aren’t as cut and dry as you suggest they are with your comparison to the flouride and radiation debates.
And that’s where my colleagues in the media fail. Because much of the narrative remains so squarely fixated on the climate denial/climate doomsday frame. (The on-going Richard Muller soap opera being the latest example.)
But it doesn’t behoove either side to have a more sophisticated debate on climate change. We all know that, right?
harrywr2 #14,
I think there’s more to it than the “socialized costs” aspect but in general you are absolutely right – reporting on climate is no worse than on a number of other issues, and actually better than some.
Keith,
Since you bring up the tribalism charge again, perhaps you’d care to let us know what tribe you belong to? It might help us identify instances where you
Keith,Is lukewarmerism/a-pox-on-both-your-houses-ism not a tribe? Are there no blinders that come with that worldview?
I think you have just as much a right to criticize as anyone else, and I think some of your critiques are spot-on, even when they are at the expense of “my side.” I think you have a valuable perspective. This isn’t about that.
I take pretty strenuous exception, though, to a viewpoint that suggests that there are two and only two groups in this discourse, that they are (more or less) equally extreme and blinder-ed, and that the people who consider themselves outside those groups are of necessity more clear-headed.
That, in my opinion, is every bit of an extreme position as “skeptics are oil industry shills” and “warmists are Marxist fanatics.” Other than “extreme people are extreme,” I don’t think it’s fair to generalize people like that. Everyone is reasonable to a degree, and everyone has blinders on to a degree.
Andrew Adams doesn’t seem to have understood the thrust of my argument, spread across two blog posts and the article at Spiked. (I don’t blame him for not wanting to trawl through so many ramblings of someone he doubtlessly disagrees with, but Keith has given us an opportunity here).
I do not ‘blame the media’, or naively ask for some kind of ‘balance’. In my Spiked article, Mark Brandon does say that there is a problem with an editorial thirst for ‘easy’ headlines. Another of his points was that the lay reading of climate science — by journalists — often misses the meaning. My reply was that the deficit between scientists and journalists isn’t quite enough to account for the character of the debate and incautious/alarmist speculation, and that scientists can equally fall victim to an environmentally-deterministic, and thus alarmist perspective. MB and I disagree about quite a lot, but what we seemed to agree on is that expectations of science can cause problems in *both* the sceptic and other camp.
As for ‘balance’, the point here was that in lieu of peer-reviewed science published in a scientific journal, there could be no context given to Laxon’s study. So I wasn’t asking for someone else to be allowed to be given right of reply in every radio programme or newspaper article that covered the research. I was pointing out that nobody could possibly give such a view *at all*, given that the science was not in the public domain for us to see for ourselves. We had to take Claxon’s word for it. And this epitomises the problems of speculation and opinion being reported as science, and even good, robust science nonetheless speaking to existing narratives — expectations.
Naturally, people want science to be decisive, and to close the debate, either in the favour of ‘warmists’ or ‘sceptics’. But this is an unrealistic, and damaging misconception of ‘science’, and of real-world problems that are brought into the climate debate.
Marlowe (18)
People keep asking me that: Which tribe do I belong to? The answer, if you want to keep this strictly related to the climate debate, would be none.
Does a person have to choose a tribe?
Keith –
Your points are well-taken (especially the one about my intelligence). But what I keep trying to get at with you is a question similar to Marlowe’s. Do you have an agenda?
I am willing to accept that your focus is on different planes of discourse, and this blog is only one of them. Still, and this is the point that I keep stressing with you, I think that from what I see you are too willing to accept blaming of the media from one side as you tend towards dismissing blaming of the media on the other.
Assuming I am right there about your the balance in your portrayal (a big assumption given my tribalism as you rightly point out), then the question is whether that your portrayal is a valid reflection of the reality of the media. I don’t think it is. For example, when I looked at the “concern” about the “unprecedented” melt, I saw a legitimate point about uninterrogated evidence, but I also saw a paranoid/victimhood reaction (it’s all part of the left-wing media plot) as well as an exaggeration of the problem as it existed (outright dismissal of any legitimacy to the characterization of “unprecedented”).
Using this case as an example, I think that merely stating that the media tends towards simplistic and/or sensationalistic gets us nowhere. That isn’t going to change, is it? And both sides will continue to envision demons in those attributes of the media. That isn’t to say that we don’t have a “media problem,” But for me, the point of focus is more on that demonizing, and what lies beneath that tendency on both sides than a (perhaps banal?) focus on what we already know about the media.
(21) Keith.
Everyone is afflicted by motivated reasoning – The drivers (cultural, political, and social identification) are universal.
Which tribe do I belong to? The answer, if you want to keep this strictly related to the climate debate, would be none.
No blinders here. Got it.
Two Tribes
ROMM
WATTS
Very simple. Everything else is reasonable middle, whether or not useful, true, or shrill.
Keith, you don’t have to choose a tribe. They’ll do it for you. Fortunately, your alternating between the sins of Watts and Romm means they have to do it on a rotating basis. You’re a good guy! You’re a bad guy!
At some point they may wake up and realize that their need to categorize their interlocutor says more about them than they realize… but not soon, I would guess.
Marlowe – what do you think? Stunning or epic?
Tom Fuller Says: August 16th, 2012 at 12:33 pm
Case. Rested.
PDA at 12:39
Exactly. But I don’t think it means what you think it means.
PDA (19)
Are you implying that I’m a lukewarmer? I suppose on odd days, Morano might call me that, but then on even days, he calls me a warmist.
In any event, you write:
“I take pretty strenuous exception, though, to a viewpoint that suggests that there are two and only two groups in this discourse, that they are (more or less) equally extreme and blinder-ed, and that the people who consider themselves outside those groups are of necessity more clear-headed.”
I agree with you! You’re missing a subtle difference in my criticism. There are two camps that have come to be the representative faces of the climate debate. This is due to the norms of journalism. We chase after conflict and look for opposing sides.
There is a herd mentality then a narrative forms. (Sometimes there are several overarching narratives, or new ones emerge. You get the picture)
Everyone feeds off these narratives (including me). They are fodder for the blogosphere.
To follow up on #14’s point, this dynamic is not unique to climate change.
Now what’s interesting to me about all this is that in recent years, there’s been a big debate in science journalism circles about how to improve coverage of health and medicine and generally speaking, research published in journals. But environmentally-related topics, including climate change, aren’t much part of this debate. That suggests a blind spot on the part of my colleagues. It’s something I’ll be returning to another time.
So to circle back how I ended my post: If climate coverage wasn’t so often simplistic and sensationalistic (and so dominated by the same cast of characters), we wouldn’t be having a debate shaped by only two perspectives that at opposite ends of a wide spectrum.
Keith,Happy to stipulate that lukewarmers and pox-on-both-your-housers are separate tribes.
What I won’t stipulate is that they are not tribes, by the definition of the term you use.
Clearer?
Keith, you miss the part where the extreme faction on either side contributes to the simplification of the battlefield, where for the alarmists McIntyre is the same as Morano and for the skeptics, Bart Verheggen is the same as Al Gore (where is Bart these days?).
Nuance is the enemy of blind prejudice and must be stamped out before anybody starts to (God forbid) actually communicate.
It’s fascinating to me that some of you just assume that I should belong to a tribe and have an agenda. And that if I did have some sort of leaning or allegiance, I should reveal it to you. For example, would you ask that of all journalists? Should political reporters disclose whether they are voting for Obama or Romney? Would that help you better understand their articles?
Can’t you simply make a judgment based on my published work and the contents of this blog?
I wonder if Keith has read anything by Jay Rosen at all. Sometimes it seems like everybody on the internet except journalists is aware of Rosen’s critique of journalism.
Keith’s explicit claim of not having a tribe quite clearly puts him in a very well-defined tribe. That is, the tribe of mainstream American journalism, which adopts a “view from nowhere” in the name of objectivity, a point of view which increasingly fails to serve the intended purposes of a free press. I highly recommend following Rosen to get an understanding of how this works.
John Nielsen-Gammon is a great guy and despite our disagreements he makes what is in general a very good point. I like the quote a lot. The question I would raise is where the silent middle actually is.
As I have often said, though, the purpose of the IPCC is and was to define the middle, not to stake out an extreme.
The fact that opposition to IPCC on one side seems far more visible than from the other is because the core of the so called “skeptic” camp is commercial in origin and political in orientation. It has the skills and motivation to play the Nowhere Man American press, and the ideologically confused public that they have created, like a fiddle. They understand the likes of Keith, and using their loyalty to the No-Tribe Tribe they manipulate them mercilessly.
This trick doesn’t work nearly as well (though not for want of trying) in most other countries where the press lacks this well-intentioned and superficially reasonable no-ideology-ideology. Consequently the IPCC position is regarded as centrist and uncontroversial there.
As a consequence, there is a debate in the English-speaking world and especially America about facts that are almost everywhere else considered established and important.
Tom, please, don’t overdo it or people will catch on that I put you up to this to prove my point.
I can still put a stop on that check. Just sayin.
It’s fascinating to me that some of you just assume that I should belong to a tribe and have an agenda.
It’s fascinating to me that you seem literally unable to parse the numerous comments suggesting that there are tribes other than the two you acknowledge.
It is almost as if cognitive dissonance is causing you to experience the equivalent of an equine bridle that blocks your ability to perceive things contrary to your preconceptions.
Keith –
FWIW – I don’t agree with the designation of you into a particular “tribe.” In particular, I disagree with MT’s characterization of your tribe.
I think tribes is a useful concept, but focusing on tribes can be misleading. “Tribalism” may be a more useful concept than “tribes” – but really I think that tribalism is better described as motivated reasoning.
If instead of saying you have an “agenda” – if I described it as a focus on a thesis that tribalism – and in particular the tribalism of environmentalists – has a negative impact on the resolution of environmental issues, would you accept that?If agenda is pejorative, maybe we could use “mission.” What is the mission of your work? Surely you mist identify one; I’m truly curious to hear you state what it is.
I would assume motivated reasoning on the part of all journalists. And all plumbers.
It is a by-product of fundamental elements of our psychology and the nuts and bolts of how we reason. The question is how to we control for motivations influence how we reason. We can’t do it perfectly, but we can work on it.
PDA – they are not tribes, by the definition of the term you use.
This touches on the debate Keith and I had — ‘spitballs’, which was more of a twitterspat.
My argument is that environmentalism, although it is as a political doctrine, incoherent, and comprises many contradicting perspectives, is nonetheless a ‘thing’, in so far as it has been reproduced in the constitution of public institutions, and in policy.
Climate change scepticism does not have such an identity. There are few instances of organised scepticism. And those that there are given much more significance, and credit with much more agency than they are due. In the Western world, there are few — if any — mainstream political parties that will identify as sceptical. Scepticism is thus not ‘established’, so to speak, other than in the occasional think tank, a few publications, and in the blogsphere. By contrast, there are supranational organisations, international agreements, transnational bureaucracies, government departments, non statutory public bodies, NGOs, and much more besides, broadly established on the environmental perspective. In spite of which, there is no meaningful mass environmental movement. Environmentalism, if it is a movement at all, is a movement which occupies the minds of the establishment.
So it may be misleading to think of ‘tribes’, or or two equivalent phenomena, that developed in similar circumstances. That would be to relativise the debate into nothingness. The putative ‘tribe’ of environmentalism has its own history. The history of the sceptics, on the other hand, is much more opaque, its history less definitive. Hence, it remains the subject of so much mythology.
That isn’t special pleading on behalf of the sceptics. It’s just saying that it is a mistake to see scepticism in the same terms as environmentalism, or for that matter, ‘lukewarmism’.
Michael (24)
Jay Rosen is a smart, insightful guy. (I know him. Remember, I also teach at NYU–but as an adjunct.) It amuses me that he has become a Yoda-like sage to the likes of you.
Jay’s View from Nowhere construct has become received wisdom in Michael’s circles.
The irony is that you fail to see that it doesn’t apply to environmental journalists, including most of those covering climate change.
At the risk of being even more overly-semantic:
I don’t know if you have an allegiance. I think that you have leaning. As I interpret it, your leaning is to focus on tribalism, and in particular, tribalism amongst environmentalists. (And maybe secondarily, sloppy science reporting).
My guess is that leaning is a product of another leaning – concern about environmental issues and the potential of blowback from environmentalist extremism. (And your secondary leaning is the product of your years of experience in the field of science journalism).
I appreciate those leanings. I think they are good leanings! The question is whether those leanings are manifest in some way through the vehicle of motivated reasoning.
#25 Two Tribes
James Hansen editorial Climate Change
http://host.madison.com/news/opinion/column/james-e-hansen-climate-change-is-here-and-worse-than/article_3c99b9ca-dff1-11e1-a316-0019bb2963f4.html
John Christy guest post at Roy Spencers blog
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2012/08/fun-with-summer-statistics-part-2-the-northern-hemisphere-land/
Are their views of societal costs and benefits being driven by their
science or is their science being driven by their views on societal
costs and benefits?
Obviously, both would proclaim that science is driving their views.
PDA (36)
” It’s fascinating to me that you seem literally unable to parse the numerous comments suggesting that there are tribes other than the two you acknowledge.”
I guess you felt free to ignore what I said in #30. Do you want to have an honest exchange or do you want to keep putting words in my mouth?
The MSM is there to cover the fight, not the science. The science is boring, the fight is not. The middle ground hasn’t moved much in the last 10 years, it’s not news. It would be interesting to know what people consider the middle ground actually to be.
The same thing is happening with the US election. The ridiculous daily jab and counter jabs are covered with lustful enthusiasm, with the most extreme statements getting all the attention. The candidates standings on the issues are rarely even documented at all. I suppose it can be proven that the fight is what the people actually want to read about, but saturating the airwaves with it for 1.5 years before election day seems a bit silly to me. I think most people tune this out.
The daily fight and extreme statements are crack cocaine for lazy journalists, this stuff writes itself. Making reasonable positions or nuanced science interesting reading takes a lot of work, and an incredible amount of skill.
what did you say in 30 that allowed for the possibility of a No Tribe Tribe, let alone your membership in that tribe? I’m genuinely confused.
Keith,
As I’ve said many times before, I think that your invocation of ‘tribal’ and ‘partisan’ labels is unhelpful in promoting useful dialogue. You regularly use it as a rhetorical tactic to delegitimize points of view that you happen to disagree with.
Further, your suggestion that you don’t belong to a climate ‘tribe’ in blogland is laughable. When it comes to lack of self-awareness, only Tom Fuller seems to have you beat on this issue (i’ll settle for spectacular rather than epic Joshua 😉 ). Just because your tribe is orthogonal to the traditional skeptic-consensus axis doesn’t mean that it doesn’t exist. Your tribe (RPJr/TBI) shares the following set of beliefs:
-climate change is real-clean energy investments is the way to go-carbon pricing won’t work-climate mitigation advocates are doing more harm than good.
As an experiment, why don’t you setup a poll asking your readers what climate tribe they think you belong to?
p.s. the ‘bullet list’ button doesn’t appear to work….
Choose, damn you! Choose! Or we’ll do it for you and by God you won’t like the results.
It’s difficult. In part because the debate veers between science and politics without warning and an opinion on one is inferred to be chained to a position on the other.
It is a privilege to be part of a tribe that doesn’t have a manifesto or creed. It makes it easier to see the faults of the skeptics and alarmists. If Lukewarmers ever get organized, I guess we’ll pick and choose which faults we’ll copy and adopt on our own.
I will say that the alarmists are much like the Bush administration, with their ‘you’re with us or you’re against us’ mentality. I don’t think skeptics are organized enough to permit themselves that luxury. But that’s why the alarmists are the ones pushing for you to declare yourself. It isn’t intellectual curiosity.
Remember what they did to Revkin.
Keith –
Read post #42. Have you not read similar criticism of the media perhaps thousands of times? Is there anything new to be gleaned from such analysis? Is there anything new about saying that the sensationalism/simplistic analysis in media w/r/t the climate debate parallels what we see in media coverage of political fights?
Yes, the media is sensationalistic and simplistic. You asked if that can be curbed. I expect not. So then, what?
I would suggest to focus on how people seek to invalidly exploit (on both sides) those inherent tendencies in the media, and how motivated reasoning is leads to claims of victimization at the hands of the big, bad media. I see you doing that with Romm. Good!
Maybe I’ve missed it, but do you also focus on the similar weak claim of victimization from “skeptics?” That was the reason why I objected to your treatment of Pile’s post. It seemed to me that you tacitly accepted a unilateralism in his portrayal of the failings of science reporting.
Speaking for the tribe of gardeners, I must say that speaking of tribes might be considered offensive.
Let alone that it induces people to talk about all motivational stuff that does not pertain to rational discussion.
The tears of the world are a constant quantity. For each one who begins to weep somewhere else another stops. The same is true of the laugh. Let us not then speak ill of our generation, it is not any unhappier than its predecessors. Let us not speak well of it either. Let us not speak of it at all. It is true the population has increased.
People will make whatever they please of that last paragraph. incidently written by an Englishman who wrote in French.
Ben (38)
“Climate change scepticism does not have such an identity.”
I disagree. The loudest, most cartoonish skeptics are the public face of climate skepticism. And they are influential in climate skeptic circles.
So since we’re talking about skeptics, we would include Watts, Monckton, Inhofe, Delingpole, Heartland, etc.
Moreoever, the skeptics focus inordinately on a few climate scientists and activists (partly because they are the public face of their camp) and seize on any exaggeration, misstep, etc.
Both sides play this game. (Who’s been keeping score?)
And of course, the tribal nature of climate skeptics doesn’t allow them to be critical of one of their own. So when Watts made a fool of himself in recent weeks (trying to one-up Muller), did you see any critical blog posts on this at climate skeptic friendly sites? Even Steve Mac, who apparently was taken in by Watts, held his tongue.
The point being: Climate skeptics (and those who are sympathetic to them) circle the wagons around one of their own every bit as much as their adversaries do in the climate community.
Of course, you’re right to say that there is a variegated spectrum of climate skeptic opinion. Just as there is in climate science. But neither gets much sunlight in the media or the blogosphere.
Well, if it doesn’t apply the resemblance is mighty striking.The match isn’t perfect because scientist bloggers are not activist bloggers, so the tension between the likes of you and the likes of me is <a href=”http://init.planet3.org/2011/03/more-metajournalism.html”>somewhat different</a>. In both cases, though, the key complaint about the press is its refusal to evaluate factual claims. A sort of progress has been made, under the influence of PolitiFact, where the press is now determined to find <em>an exactly equal weight of dishonesty</em> on either side of any debate. Which is a sort of progress in that it’s explicit that there is truth-bending out there, but isn’t in that it systematically prevents people from evaluating the merits of competing claims. It’s also regress, because it feeds into the general atmosphere of distrust and corruption.Regardless, your claim of No-Tribe rings mighty hollow. I’d drop it if I were you.
It’s also a bit natural to consider the sins of one’s co-believers to be more venial than mortal and to feel the opposite about the sins of the opposition.
Just for the record:
Marlowe has been around here longer than I – but I don’t see Keith as particularly aligning with that “tribe.” From what I’ve seen, he really doesn’t belong to a “tribe.” I still think he has a “mission” however. And there’s no reason why he (or anyone else) shouldn’t.
Joushua – do you also focus on the similar weak claim of victimization from “skeptics?” That was the reason why I objected to your treatment of Pile’s post. It seemed to me that you tacitly accepted a unilateralism in his portrayal of the failings of science reporting.
Where have I claimed victim status for sceptics? Moreover, you’re talking about a series of articles which emerged after an interview with a climate scientist — who described himself to me as a ‘warmist’ — about the problems *he* perceived with the media’s coverage of science and our subsequent discussion about it, in which we variously agreed and disagreed.
You obviously cannot have read anything I’ve written.
Dr. Tobis wants you to declare yourself as part of any tribe except his, so he can become more vehement in his criticism. Doesn’t quite dare, yet. But hey–Anthony Watts ceremoniously moved your blog link into the seventh circle of hell reserved for Pro-AGW views, so it works both ways.
Mr. Pile, your co-discussant is not interested in communicating. Trust me.
Well, if it doesn’t apply the resemblance is mighty striking.
The match isn’t perfect because scientist bloggers are not activist bloggers, so the tension between the likes of you and the likes of me is somewhat different.
In both cases, though, the key complaint about the press is its refusal to evaluate factual claims. A sort of progress has been made, under the influence of PolitiFact, where the press is now determined to find an exactly equal weight of dishonesty on either side of any debate. Which is a sort of progress in that it’s explicit that there is truth-bending out there, but isn’t in that it systematically prevents people from evaluating the merits of competing claims. It’s also regress, because it feeds into the general atmosphere of distrust and corruption.
Regardless, your claim of No-Tribe rings mighty hollow. I’d drop it if I were you. Just own that there is a journalistic culture with its own biases and obsessions, even in environmental journalism. In particular, it has a huge affinity for symmetry and difference-splitting, that is at least arguably cowardly and ineffective at least sometimes. Is that so hard to admit?
#50 +1
Keith –I disagree. The loudest, most cartoonish skeptics are the public face of climate skepticism. And they are influential in climate skeptic circles. So since we’re talking about skeptics, we would include Watts, Monckton, Inhofe, Delingpole, Heartland, etc.
But they are on the whole just that — cartoons. And myths. My point was that no matter how popular they are, they have almost zero institutional muscle, rather than being a political force as such. This is an extremely important distinction. The sceptics are outside of / impotent to challenge institutional/political processes. They remain as cartoonish individuals.
Too lose sight of that distinction is to lose all political and historical perspective.
I simply don’t care about the putative tribalism of the sceptics (nor do I believe in it, as you know). It is inconsequential. Until environmentalism is *actually* and explicitly challenged by political parties, public organisations, companies, and so on, we cannot say that the dynamic of the climate debate is ‘tribal’ as some have described it.
Note, moreover, that it is the incoherence and excesses of the environmental movement (in the broadest sense) that has most beset the environmental agenda, not sceptics at all.
# 54 – Ben
I am certainly quite capable of misreading something that you’ve written, but when I see something like this:
“Equally?” Equal do who?
When I read that, I see a logical implication that journalists (the missing who) fall into an environmentally-deterministic perspective. That implies that “skeptics” are at a disadvantage in media portrayal – and thus the victims of environmental-determinism at the hand of journalists as opposed to a more basic problem of sensationalism and being simplistic. There’s more. Let’s start with that.
Michael (57)
I know you fancy yourself a keen observer of journalistic culture and mores. My experience with you (in previous discussions of the deficit model) suggests otherwise.
I think you’ll have to accept that we have very different ideas of the press’s role. So we’re just talking past each other at this point.
I alternately read this argument and read the argument that “skeptics” have won the battle by exposing the fraud in the work of climate scientists (in fact, the last nails and final stakes have been driven many times). This viewpoint is a non-starter, IMO. Limbaugh, Beck, Inhofe, Hannity, Republican presidential candiates, etc., have institutional muscle. Arguments about who has bigger guns seems like a reasonable debate. Claims that “skeptics” are 90 lb weaklings seem motivated to me, and is also completely contradictory to much of what I read from those who call themselves “rational skeptics.”
Joshua,
As an exercise, look over Keith posts over the last couple of months and let me know if you can find any that are critical of the work put out by RP Jr, TBI, Hartwell, etc. I think you’ll be hard pressed.
FWIW, I don’t have a problem with Keith identifying or even promoting the arguments from that particular ‘tribe’. I do have a problem when he pretends that doesn’t belong to that tribe, particularly when lobs the accusation of ‘tribalism’ at others. It looks like he’s in denial from where I’m standing.
Joshua – When I read that, I see a logical implication that journalists (the missing who) fall into an environmentally-deterministic perspective. That implies that “skeptics” are at a disadvantage in media portrayal ““ and thus the victims of environmental-determinism at the hand of journalists as opposed to a more basic problem of sensationalism and being simplistic. There’s more. Let’s start with that.
Your powers of comprehension are overwhelmed by your desire to read what you want to see.
I was suggesting that scientists are as vulnerable to environmental determinism as journalists. I would claim that scientists have great difficulty overcoming determinism — something that has long been observed as the problem with positivism. I.e. it’s not just journalism and ‘the media’ which are prefigured towards alarmism. If you took more care to read the things you’re pronouncing on, it might be clearer to you.
Ben (59)
I don’t agree that the power dynamics are as you have characterized. (I do I agree that conventional environmentalism is not challenged by institutional media) But we will have to table this particular debate, as this thread has grown tentacles and I don’t have the time to wrestle with them all right now. I have to move on.
But do let’s take this up soon. I’ll be in touch.
Those of you still anxious to wrangle should do so, but I have to bow out for the day. I’ll return to the thread tonight and respond where appropriate.
(49) Willard –
I loved that post. I think I even understood some of it.
One question, though:
Why is the discussion of motivation irrelevant to rational discussion? Can’t it be incorporated into a rational discussion?
A cartoon:
[Joshua] Do you also focus on the similar weak claim of victimization from “skeptics?”
[Ben Pile] Where have I claimed victim status for sceptics?
Mythical.
Joshua – <i>his viewpoint is a non-starter, IMO. Limbaugh, Beck, Inhofe, Hannity, Republican presidential candiates, etc.,</i>All individuals. No agencies. No organisations. No processes. No parties. No movements. Against huge supranational, supra-democratic agencies and organisations, governments, political parties, NGOs, Quangos… And so on… Perhaps there is a correlation between environmentalism and the failure of the sense of scale and perspective.
(64) Ben –
Do you think that environmental determinism is the most prevalent influence that affects scientific journalists? Is it not vastly overwhelmed by sensationalism and a tendency towards simplicity? Is it not counter-balanced by a romanticism for technology? Aren’t journalists influenced a drive for balance -which at least some times leads to a false balance? Yes, journalists as well as scientists fall prey to tendencies to find patterns, to oversimplify patterns and make patterns more prominent than they may be with more “interrogation.” That doesn’t require a tendency towards “environmental determinism.” There are cultural influences that might lead in that direction. Maybe that is worth some discussion. If you have some kind of validated evidence to support your assumptions in that regard (and no, a collection of headlines that you don’t like won’t suffice), I’d be happy to read it.
I’m going to bow out for now as well.
Joshua, your comment at #69 is extremely good and pertinent.
“What to Do About the “Polluted” Climate Discourse?”
Nothing. It is a luxury the participants can afford, because it does not matter much. Rio+20 proved that poverty erasion and growth rule the minds of those in power.
I visited Germany for a couple of weeks in the beginning of August. Everybody recycles and they are into green things, but…. like this one guy I talked to who drives a 2.5 ton Audi SUV with a V8. He said that it is not so green but the V6 model was not just up to the task.
How practical.
KK:
There has been an epidemic of medical research studies that make it into major journals that are later proven to be incorrect.
The entire article is worth reading.
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2010/11/lies-damned-lies-and-medical-science/8269/
People are starting to pay attention to the flaws of increasingly sloppy medical research, and the consequences will be the improvement of the science. The same thing could be true for climate science if there was enough critical analysis.
Montford isn’t Scottish. He just happens to live in Scotland. According to my understanding. I could be wrong. I often am.A trivial point perhaps, but then this is all rather trivial isn’t it? I think that if I was an (ultra accurate) science writer, I’d probably push the idea that science writing was ultra super important. But, really. Is it? Who really takes any notice? I do cos I’m interested in the way that dishonesty is handled by society. And there’s a lot of dishonesty knocking around the climate arena that will need explaining one day, if the nice caring people turn out to be wrong on this one. A fascinating subject, for a tiny number of people. Most people just get on with their lives. None of this will affect them. At all. Ever.
Ben, the difference between those skeptics singled out as having influence in the debate and those on the alarmist side is not in fact their influence. Limbaugh, Heartland, etc. do actually have influence.
But their interest in global warming is peripheral, not concentrated like the alarmists. Alarmists are one-note Johnnies, for good or ill. Limbaugh and Heartland go after a dozen topics at a time. This dilutes any effect they might have on climate policy or even discussion. I doubt if they’re stupid, but the casual nature of their interest in climate change is evident in the level of knowledge they show about it, which further lessens their impact.
The very few skeptics that focus on climate change (Morano, Monckton and Watts) have, for different reasons, been unable to make much of an impact.
The American exceptionalism rears its head with Morano and his sponsor James Inhofe. They have made climate skepticism a litmus test for Republican orthodoxy to a certain extent. As a Democrat, I applaud the damage this is certain to cause Republicans. As a lukewarmer, I’m saddened to see the effect on the debate.
> All individuals. No agencies. No organisations. No processes. No parties. No movements.
Ayn Rand would be proud.
A dream come true.
Too bad this too is mythical.
A quick examination of Ben Pile’s article on the GL melt reveals much about the media’s examination post NASA headline, and reveals much about the media’s examination of the media’s examination of the GL melt. But it also reveals that the media had no real interest in getting the story right. They either wanted it to be that Greenland melts away or that the event is a cycle that happens every 150 years and was expected because of this. Neither of these is correct. From Ben Pile
He uses the NASA presser quote
But what does that mean? Where does that come from? The number itself comes from Richard Alley paper in 1995. It is not used as a number to denote an expected cycle, but to denote a classification.
Further examination of that paper reveals that before 1889, the last time the melt occurred was about 700 years before that. It also reveals that that most melts occurred during the MWP and then again many more during the Holocene Optimum, both times when it was anomalously warm over the N Hemisphere. Ya know, like now. It’s only expected because of the conditions, not cycles.
This information wasn’t looked into. Perhaps the problem with the media is that it can’t decide which
tribe keeps getting things right and which isn’t. Who distorts (knowingly or not) simple quotes to avoid finding themselves in one of those tribes. Or perhaps the media is just too inept to handle a simple piece that details the reality of this particular or any other phenomenon.
Do you think that environmental determinism is the most prevalent influence that affects scientific journalists?
No, I think it afflicts a great many others besides. I’m not letting journalists off the hook. But not singling them out, either. I simply don’t think we can account for the excesses of certain environmental ‘messages’ by blaming the media.
Is it not counter-balanced by a romanticism for technology?
What a wonderful oxymoron.
Aren’t journalists influenced a drive for balance -which at least some times leads to a false balance?
‘Balance’ with respect to which attributes of what? I think there’s a preoccupation with certain cartoonish characters. But they’re as often as not wheeled out as ‘aunt sallys’ — straw men — to represent ‘scepticism’.
That doesn’t require a tendency towards “environmental determinism.” There are cultural influences that might lead in that direction. Maybe that is worth some discussion.
The case I point to most often to make the point is the WHO/GHF’s claim that rising temperatures will result in an increase in the incidence of malaria, malnutrition, and diarrhoea. (They were wrong in fact, anyway, but that is by-the-by). These, I argued were lower-order effects of poverty, even if they could be seen as much greater-order effects of climate change. The (contingent) condition of poverty not being a necessary consequence of climate change, it seemed to me that a false equivalence was being made of climate’s sensitivity to CO2 and society’s sensitivity to climate. This tendency seems to be prevalent across the debate about the ‘impacts’ of climate change. For another e.g. the claim that a billion (or so) lives depend on Himalayan glaciers. Never mind that the prediction of the glaciers’ demise was premature, the fact of the dependency was over stated in the first case, the many alternative possibilities of capturing or delivering water to where it was needed (anything between ‘adaptation’ in its crudest sense, and ‘development’ in the most general sense) were excluded.
To keep the thread on-topic. The description of tribalism in the debate isn’t sufficient to explain it. We should see what different perspectives consist of, to see why they react differently to the same seemingly overwhelming evidence, rather than to posit mechanisms (tendencies in the media to X, etc), to account for the excesses of the debate, or to remedy them. (If you’re really interested in the problems I have with environmentalism, and its determinism, you can find them by searching my blog, or contacting me through it. I don’t think people want to read about it here.)
Ben, I would say feel free to expound further, if for no other reason than you’re not a frequent commenter here. Electronic space is cheap.
Tom F: – Ben, the difference between those skeptics singled out as having influence in the debate and those on the alarmist side is not in fact their influence. Limbaugh, Heartland, etc. do actually have influence.
Only insofar as people listen to them. But in a merely nominative democracy, it has little material effect as far as I can tell from this side of the Atlantic. More pertinently, perhaps, if you’re really concerned about the capital that such individuals and small think tanks get out of taking robust stands against mainstream thought, you might consider that they are given their ticket by the excesses of the agenda they respond to. My argument about which tribes have agency, put crudely, is that Monbiots make Moncktons.
Ben, I would agree while noting that it works both ways.
Limbaugh created both Stewart and Colbert–so we owe him a vote of thanks at least for that.
Tom – Ben, I would agree while noting that it works both ways.
I think it would be an injustice to Stewart to say that he didn’t make himself, notwithstanding his talent for parody and satire.
I don’t think it does work both ways. Sceptics don’t have the leverage. That’s not to say that things won’t change — for better or worse. But right now, and until now, sceptics have been less than a side show in the development of global environmental politics. The debate about whether ‘climate change is happening’ or not is immaterial to the construction of organisations like the UNEP and UNWCED etc, and all the agreements and things that followed — Rio, UNFCCC etc. These things seem like mere background to the debate about ‘is it happening’. But they began long before climate was emphasised in the environmental narrative.
Hi Ben, without wanting to split hairs or quibble, my way of looking at it is that the true skeptics I know have zero influence or power. There are a variety of people and institutions with real and recognizable power who have picked up some skeptic arguments (and usually twisted and distorted them) and used them as an additional arrow in their quiver to achieve political ends.
Keith. there is an interesting experiment you can do to establish which tribe you belong to.
1. criticize Watts.
2. criticize Romm.
(opps youve done that )
neither side will accept you as one of theirs.
both sides will ask you to declare loyalties, and
then not trust any declaration you make, even a declaration of no affiliation.
That very question is the clue that they don’t know where to put you and are uncomfortable claiming you as one of their own. You need to learn to get with the program, even that won’t do.
I remember when I read the climategate mail where Mann(?) said that Revkin could not be trusted to carry the message. I felt deeply honored at that point to know Andrew because I had heard similar messages from the other side about him. I feel the same way towards you. Deeply honored Keith.
Geez, Keith, you brought it up. And this whole thread has been about typecasting and generalizing about other ‘tribes’. You should be able to get as good as you give.
There is no guarantee that the truth is symmetrically arranged at the center of the culture. The Tribe of We Have No Tribe is also the Tribe of The Truth Must Be Smack Dab In The Middle.
I would like you to know that as a freshman, I discovered that the way to get a A on papers is to write that The Truth Must Be Smack Dab In The Middle. Having discovered that secret I changed my major from vague liberal arts (with an interest in journalism) to engineering. In short, I discovered that I already knew all that was to be known about nonquantitative reasoning.
The Truth Is Smack Dab In The Middle. Slap in some colorful anecdotes and perhaps a subtle hint of bemused eyebrow raising, and you are done.
It is the strategy of choice for people who are more interested in getting A grades on papers than on actually getting any learning out of school.
If the culture gets something badly wrong, the people who see it most clearly will be perceived as extremist by the A students in the soft disciplines. Since the world is run by A students from soft disciplines, bankers and lawyers and pundits and such, it persists in error much longer than should be necessary.
I would have thought the compelling new Hansen analysis would budge people, but around these parts all it seems to have done is make them dislike Hansen all the more.
I suppose ’twas ever thus. But this time it will cost us.
Dr. Tobis, I have been following this weblog since its inception. I have never once seen anything Keith Kloor has written that could possibly be taken in a reality-based universe as indicating he believes the truth is smack dab in the middle.
Norbert would be ashamed.
Revkin can be indeed be trusted to carry the message, but only on even-numbered days.
“But this time it will cost us.” So when you pronounced with equal certainty that Egyptian famines, Pakistani floods, Texan drought and Russian heatwaves were due to climate change, those times didn’t cost us?
Oh, yeah! That’s right! They didn’t cost us because they weren’t related to climate change. You only said they did.
We’re at the third and possibly wobbliest leg of the stool. All of this
tribalism and war mentality is caused by participation in a political
process. Participate in a different process and most of all that doesn’t
happen. It’s not that the political process is bad, The political
process is good, but like the deficit model, it cannot be successfully
applied to the issues at hand. How much more empirical evidence is needed?
Keep it up, Paul. You’re correct. It will take time. Use that time.
The anthropogenic climate change we see now was already inevitable in 1990 and is starting to cost us now. This includes the events of the summers of 2010 and 2011 which you mention. Hansen’s data vindicates those of us who suggested that climate-related damage was likely no longer hypothetical in the light of those specific events.
The climate change that is now inevitable will cost us further.
The climate change that still remains avoidable in principle but not in practice (because science has failed to communicate effectively to the public) will cost still more. That’s the part we still might conceivably benefit from talking about.
“The Truth Is Smack Dab In The Middle” and “I have never once seen anything Keith Kloor has written that could possibly be taken in a reality-based universe as indicating he believes the truth is smack dab in the middle” are both oversimplifications.
I disagree that Keith Kloor has ever written, literally, that “the truth is smack dab in the middle.”
I also disagree that he has never written anything that could possibly be taken as meaning that.
Paul Kelly Says: “We’re at the third and possibly wobbliest leg of the stool. All of this tribalism and war mentality is caused by participation in a political process.”
Absolutely agree. Ironicly the whole polarisation of the “debate” appears to depend an agreement by all participants – enemies and friends alike – that everyone should make a category mistake and assume climate is everything else *but* politics. Please don’t mistake anyone accusing their opponent of “playing politics” with the *climate* as a disproving this though, that is just a tactic to start another cycle of delusionary “debate” by pushing the reset button when it starts to look too realistically political 😉
Science seems to be one of the favourite categories to mistake ones position for. The best category for imbuing oneself with some feeling of incontrovertible authority.
If you realise it is *just* mundane politics however, then everything becomes clearer. Hint – for instance does anyone think that most, if not all, politicians have received death threats at some time and just don’t think it worth making capital on it because they know they have a constituency they talk to and a constituency they offend? Only the delusional or terminally naive would think they should be free of these real world effects
Participating in politics is just too grubby a thing to admit it seems – magical “climate”, however, promises sparkling virtue in your favorite non-political category – so bullshit wins. 😉
Dr. Tobis at #91, you already conceded that academic and peer-reviewed scientific publications showed you to be in error regarding your past claims. Now you’re taking it back.I’m not surprised.Wolf! Wolf!But remember, Dr. Tobis. There was a wolf.
@ 93
Science seems to be one of the favourite categories to mistake ones position for. The best category for imbuing oneself with some feeling of incontrovertible authority.
I thought that was contrarianism.
BBD,It is both. Information is filtered according to each person’s values before it is even processed. Most everyone believes he or she speaks on good authority.
Then we must be careful. A rational start-point would be that science is a ‘good authority’ whereas contrarianism is a state of mind.
PDA (93):
You’re starting to make me regret spending as much time as I did engaging with this thread today. Because if you’re going to continue to willfully misinterpret/misread the meaning of my words, what’s the point?
I’ve already said to you (and others) that I believe the climate debate is dominated by the extremes. That much should be clear, right? (I’ve said this previously many times.) And that the media naturally gravitates to those who shout/agitate the loudest. So those in conflict at opposite ends are pitted against each other in the media. This binary frames narratives like: Climate change is a hoax versus climate change will destroy civilization). I’ve also made it clear that there are other perspectives situated between these two poles that don’t get much attention in the media or blogosphere.
Yet you to continue to paint me as some reflexive middle ground seeker. So now you cite an old post of mine as supposed proof of this. Let’s go to the last graph (my emphasis):
I think Kevin makes a fair point, that the proverbial middle ground might also be a no-mans land, where truth can never be found. But I also think it depends on where you define the middle. Climate change, as it is discussed and interpreted in the public sphere, does not reflect the full spectrum of perspectives. Rather, most debate is characterized by hyperbole and spin from opposite ends of the spectrum. In this world, which journalists must navigate, being in the middle is not such a bad place to be.
That’s what happens when people view the political spectrum as a two-dimensional line…Whee! 3D! (Sorry, Muhammad Ali…)
+1 TF #99?? TF #94 I don’t even understand what you are saying.
That doesn’t work without formatting, does it?
+1 TF #99
?? TF #94 I don’t even understand what you are saying.
“I would have thought the compelling new Hansen analysis would budge people, but around these parts all it seems to have done is make them dislike Hansen all the more. ”
Tom. bookmark this.
An easy way to judge a contributor’s dedication to their “tribe” is the diversity of their blog links. The first place I started looking at the climate foofaraw was at RealClimate (climate science from climate scientists!). But looking through its links was (and still remains) pretty unsatisfying. EcoEquity is there but not Lucia? Please….
The climate debate is, of course, dominated by whatever the press pays attention to. By paying attention to the extremes it makes it especially easy to look good by aiming for the middle, doesn’t it?
This dynamic is particularly not specific to climate.
And anyone with something to communicate to the public knows it.
“On the one hand, as scientists we are ethically bound to the scientific method, in effect promising to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but “” which means that we must include all the doubts, the caveats, the ifs, ands, and buts. On the other hand, we are not just scientists but human beings as well. And like most people we’d like to see the world a better place, which in this context translates into our working to reduce the risk of potentially disastrous climatic change. To do that we need to get some broadbased support, to capture the public’s imagination. That, of course, entails getting loads of media coverage. So we have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we might have. This ‘double ethical bind’ we frequently find ourselves in cannot be solved by any formula. Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest. I hope that means being both.”
– Steven Schneider, 1989
(emphasis added)
Dr. Tobis at #101, when I brought to your attention academic papers showing that the Pakistani floods and Muscovian heatwaves could not be attributed to global warming, you acknowledged their existence with grudging surprise. When confronted with Egyptian agricultural TFP improvements over the period of anthropological contributions of CO2, you backed away from your earlier statement.
No, I wasn’t painting you as a reflexive middle-seeker. I disagreed with mt characterizing you as he did. I also disagreed with Tom characterizing mt as he did. How about that, I’m not agreeing with anybody.
Saying”being in the middle is not such a bad place to be” is not the same thing as “the truth is smack dab in the middle,” absolutely. But could it “possibly be taken in a reality-based universe as indicating” something like that? Obviously it depends on the error bars around “possibly,” but I don’t think it requires an absolute break with reality to make that interpretation.
Anyway, you seem prickly and defensive as hell around any suggestion that you have your own tribal loyalties to a particular point of view, and I honesty don’t get it. I don’t think that’s some great moral failing, and in my first comment above I tried to make it clear that I’m not trying to invalidate your perspective.
You asked what to do about the discourse. I’m just suggesting that a necessary (if not sufficient) step is to acknowledge our own biases. Each of us. Not just the people you think of as extreme.
Anyway, I yield the balance of my time to Joshua. He seems to be making similar points to mine, without being as antagonizing.
Dr. Tobis, including the needed context for Stephen Schneider’s statement does not make it any prettier. If I want scary scenarios, I’ll buy a ticket for that type of movie. I expect better from science.
Dude!When I start reading that major Republican Party politicians, Fox News, and people who are among the most influential political figures in the country have no agencies, organizations, parties, movements, methinks it may be time for me to step off the convo. (Let me just say that I’m not arguing that “skepticism” can be reduced to those entities, but to deny that those entities have any power in the “debate.”)And when I see an exchange like this:
It is clearly convo step off time. That, my friend, was a classic.
Steve at #102, I do not feel compelled by Hansen’s analysis.I think he should have used a longer base period.I think he cherry picked the one he used.I think he should have analyzed every 30 year period available for as far back as he had data.I think his study is about to get whacked.
OK – reformat time:
Dude!
When I start reading that major Republican Party politicians, Fox News, and people who are among the most influential political figures in the country have no agencies, organizations, parties, movements, methinks it may be time for me to step off the convo. (Let me just say that I’m not arguing that “skepticism” can be reduced to those entities, but to deny that those entities have any power in the “debate???” Wow!)
And when I see an exchange like this:
It is clearly convo step off time. That, my friend, was a classic.
1) existence of a peer reviewed paper does not prove validity of its arguments. Hansen’s paper also exists.
2) Whether you like or dislike Schneider’s notorious comment, it provides clear evidence that the press is perceived as selecting for extremism. Nonscientists are just more politic and know not to say it out loud.
Fuller: I do not feel compelled by Hansen’s analysis.I think he should have used a longer base period.
Hansen: We address questions raised about our study “The New Climate Dice” by using longer base periods that include the 1930s.
That seems to me to be the basic point of discussing motivated reasoning: As I understand it, it is fundamentally inconsistent with the concept to point anyone and say that by virtue of their position on the spectrum “they” are inherently more subject to motivated reasoning than I am. What I find to be a particularly funny variety of that is when some “skeptics” claim that other “skeptics” are nutbars because… well…they aren’t in step with the mainstream of “skeptics”
We’ve all got our schtick. Everyone’s and extremist to someone else.
I would have to guess that some of us are more open to exploring biases than others. But there sure ain’t many of those open-minded folks hangin’ in the blogosphere from what I can tell.
PDA
Mosher drops a broad hint at # 102 that a reply is on its way. Let’s see how it pans out. It’s interesting that this study provoked a strong response by Tom and Mosher and others.
BBD, I suspect they just are making the Pielke-esque argument that strong evidence is especially unconvincing.
PDA, I read the paper before I commented on it.
BBD (114)
Just curious: Would it be just as interesting if the Hansen study provoked a strong response from other climate scientists that don’t dispute climate change (and also believe it should be dealt with ASAP)? And I don’t mean Cliff Mass.
Would that be interesting to you?
Ben Pile,
Andrew Adams doesn’t seem to have understood the thrust of my argument, spread across two blog posts and the article at Spiked. (I don’t blame him for not wanting to trawl through so many ramblings of someone he doubtlessly disagrees with, but Keith has given us an opportunity here).
Fair enough, I confess I was just reacting to the quote which Keith cited. I did read the piece he linked to but didn’t read the whole trail of blog posts (lack of time more than anything else).
I guess I was arguing with Keith rather than with you, although I have to confess that I’m not normaly very sympathetic to anything that comes from Spiked.
Keith –
It would be interesting to me. Are you referring to specific scientists or dropping hints?
There are a lot of hints, which is intriguing, but let’s see how it pans out. This is exciting. Science is fun!
Keith,
Sure, I wasn’t necessarily saying that the climate change is straight forward an issue as fluoridation or mobile-phone radiation – they are different issues and have to be treated on their merits. But I still believe it’s a subject where some people are broadly right and others plain wrong.
I agree that the whole Muller “converted skeptic” stuff was pretty tiresome and not helpful to public understanding. To a large extent Muller is responsible for this as he seemed to be playing for the spotlight, just as Watts was playing for “skeptic proves the alarmists wrong” kind of publicity (somewhat less successfully).
But I have to say that the deniers vs doomsayers thing is pretty much what the “skeptics” want – it suits them for the public to think there are two sides, people who support fringe views always aim to give the appearance of a genuine controversy. Maybe then those on my side of the argument have played into their hands, I don’t know. But it’s certainly wrong that we are often portrayed as doomsayers, predicting the end of the world. Actually we’re not – yes we think that there will could be dire consequences if nothing is done but I think most of us have faith in the ability of the human race to actually rise to the challenge and actually do something about it, and indeed that there are things that can be done. It’s the skeptics who say that taking action to mitigate AGW will destroy our economies and mean going back to the stone age, not us.
I guess your last point is a fair one. While I think that the tone of the debate is neither surprising or unusual given the importance of the issues involved and the strenth of views on both sides it could still, as you say, be more sophisticated at times. I get as tired of the juvenile name calling which occurs here at times as anyone. And there are places much worse than here. But again that’s true of many other issues.
Ben Pile,
My argument about which tribes have agency, put crudely, is that Monbiots make Moncktons.
Sorry but I think that’s nonsense. For a start there’s the implied slur on Monbiot, who is far more trustworthy source than Morano any day, but my main point is that it simply isn’t true that the skeptics exist only as a reaction to the “excesses” of the other side. The arguments for action on AGW would exist without the existent of Monbiot and others who you no doubt disapprove of and the skeptics would still be trying to thwart such action.
On the subject of influence, well it’s thankfully true that the skeptics do not have too much influence here in the UK, but it’s diffent in the US, as others here have pointed out. It’s absolutely toxic politically for anyone on the Republican side to admit to accepting the mainstream scientific arguments, and that’s not down to the actions of our side.
Over here, despite the best efforts of the likes of the Mail and the Spectator such views have not gained much traction outside the readerships of those publications. Mind you they keep trying and they are worth arguing against, not just because they are seeking influence but because they are wrong.
#116: You read the follow-up to the paper that addresses your criticism before commenting on the paper? As I recall you didn’t mention the follow-up.
Right, bed time. Just one quick point on attribution.Surely “we cannot attribute event x to global warming” is not the same as
saying “event x was not caused by global warming”, as it’s incredibly difficult to specifically link
an particular event to climate change. So ISTM that until we start getting events
which are so exteme that they are way outside what could be termed “natural
variation” as we have experienced it (and we do seem to be getting close to
this) any link between extreme events and climate change is likely to be
statistical rather than a direct proof of cause/effect.
So there is not necessarily a contradiction between Hansen’s paper and others which have concluded that we cannot say a particular event was caused by climate change.
Oh, FFS
Right, bed time. Just one quick point on attribution.Surely “we cannot attribute event x to global warming” is not the same as saying “event x was not caused by global warming”, as it’s incredibly difficult to specifically link an particular event to climate change. So ISTM that until we start getting events which are so exteme that they are way outside what could be termed “natural variation” as we have experienced it (and we do seem to be getting close to this) any link between extreme events and climate change is likely to be statistical rather than a direct proof of cause/effect.
So there is not necessarily a contradiction between Hansen’s paper and others which have concluded that we cannot say a particular event was caused by climate change.
So a new comment software will be instituted overnight. It’ll be very similar, but hopefully more user-friendly.
Andrew, I think that’s the first FFS I’ve seen from you. Glad to know you’re human.
#116, yes.
Joshua:- When I start reading that major Republican Party politicians, Fox News, and people who are among the most influential political figures in the country have no agencies, organizations, parties, movements, methinks it may be time for me to step off the convo. (Let me just say that I’m not arguing that “skepticism” can be reduced to those entities, but to deny that those entities have any power in the “debate???” Wow!)
But the Republican party doesn’t take a categorically ‘sceptic’ line. And to my knowledge, never has. The fact of some Republicans expressing their scepticism — and being allowed to — doesn’t make it ‘institutionalised’, as such.
Ditto Fox News. The Murdochs are not known for their scepticism, but on the contrary, their desire to make their global operations carbon neutral. No doubt, on the other hand, the network itself speaks much more to those of a Conservative persuasion and is intended to. Hence it gives expression to those perspectives; conservative climate sceptics amongst them, but not exclusively. There’s a difference, you see, between an editorial agenda, which seeks to assert a particular point of view, and permitting points of view to express themselves. The former we can say is a clear instance of a ‘sceptic’ institution. We can’t say as much about the latter.
The point remains that there is no counter to environmentalism at the scale of the institutions and the resources available to environmentalism. Given a sensible perspective, these ‘tribes’ are completely different. The real myth of ‘balance’ is that they are equivalently resourced and influential. And this myth gives rise to the conspiracy theories and fantasies about powerful interests dominating the debate, distorting the science, and so on. Because there’s no other way, it would seem, to account for the failure of environmentalism. What environmentalists need to realise is that they were defeated, not by the other tribe, but by the incoherence of their own project, and their own excesses. It was their political project to lose. Very little has stood in its way. There was an unprecdented and almost entirely unopposed agreement to ‘do something’ — to build supranational political instutions, above sovereign governments and national democracies. Perhaps it just got too ambitious. Perhaps it was the tribalism within the environmental movement itself which led to its own failure. Sceptics had little to do with it.
Andrew Adams – Sorry but I think that’s nonsense. For a start there’s the implied slur on Monbiot, who is far more trustworthy source than Morano any day, but my main point is that it simply isn’t true that the skeptics exist only as a reaction to the “excesses” of the other side. The arguments for action on AGW would exist without the existent of Monbiot and others who you no doubt disapprove of and the skeptics would still be trying to thwart such action.
Sceptics are, by definition, a reaction to the ‘excesses of the other side’. Scepticism has an object, which is the claim(s) made by the ‘other side’. I think the only form of scepticism which didn’t have an object as such would be some kind of radical scepticism which claimed that ‘nothing is true’. If there were no claims that the earth was warming due to CO2 emissions, Morano’s (I think you meant to say Monckton) site would be even harder for you to understand.
Over here, despite the best efforts of the likes of the Mail and the Spectator such views have not gained much traction outside the readerships of those publications. Mind you they keep trying and they are worth arguing against, not just because they are seeking influence but because they are wrong.
Indeed, there is a political consensus, amongst the established parties, and civil society about climate change. But this isn’t yet a victory for environmentalism, but rather vindicates the sceptics’ cause, if not their arguments. That consensus was formed without democracy. And that democratic deficit is a real problem for the legitimacy for those organisations, institutions and processes. Those values, principles, ideas have not been tested at the ballot box. Even if Mel and the Spectator etc are wrong about the science (I make no judgement here) they are not wrong about the legitimacy of environmentalism’s ascendency in the UK and EU. It is through environmentalism as an ‘ideology’ that the science is seen through, and acted on.
Thanks, Keith.
Ben –
First, the distinction you make is of relatively little significance. What makes the difference is political power and influence. Republican presidential candidates have significant political influence and power, as do sitting members of Congress who actively promote the “hoax” conspiracy. Those muscles are further flexed by major media influences as represented by Limbaugh – shown by polls to be the most influential citizen within the Republican constituency.
Second, sure, the Republican Party, Fox News, etc., are not monolithic, and neither are environmentalists or international agencies (if they were, they’d be able to accomplish more). But while not being completely uniform, they play a very significant role in disseminating ideological opposition to goals of environmentalists. There is enough of a balance tipping the scales that their efforts on one side of the debate are not anywhere close to being cancelled out – therefore the fact that they aren’t totally monolithic is a meaningless point. The idea that environmentalists have disproportionate power to the array of opposition staked against them is, quite simply, proven false by the fact of what does and does not get legislated and instituted.
Third:
While I see this claim made, constantly, by “skeptics,” I have yet to see anything that makes it anything other than speculation. Where are your data that show cause-and-effect behind where public opinion stands on environmental issues, let alone climate change specifically? How have you controlled for or quantified, in determining that no other explanation would be valid, for the actual influence of other variables? Like political opposition that clearly does exist. Or the influence of economic conditions. Or the influence of weather (specific to climate change?) Or the difficulties presented by inherently complex problems with very difficult solutions? And in your determination of “failure” and “defeat,” how do you factor in that climate change is a major concern for large segments of the public? And while efforts have not manifest as some environmentalists may have liked, we have had significant changes in our societies that have taken place, directly, as the result of environmental advocacy? By what measure is some degree of significant change “failure?” Give me some data, Ben – something that has been “interrogated.” That is a highly respectable standard. It is one that should be applied by all involved in the debate. Give me any data to back up your arguments by assertion.
Sez who?
Sez who?
You? Sure, you may be right, but you are also, clearly a zealot. Give me some data that quantify your assertions.Otherwise you are just someone else who is arguing by assertion. Maybe you’re right. And maybe you’re just confirming your biases. Join the club.
#128, wut?
How long do you think the base period should be?
I love it when people demand data on internet chat rooms. If you’re interested in the argument, Joshua, there are several hundred articles on my blog, which is searchable via Google. Meanwhile, it is sufficient here to point out that the institutional apparatus available to environmentalism is vastly greater than that which is available to scepticism.
Which leaves your idea that the weight of so many governments, NGOs, supranational organisations and agencies, etc, etc, is counterposed merely by the charisma of some presidential candidates, a few dozen news anchors, and so on. You say:
“What makes the difference is political power and influence. Republican presidential candidates have significant political influence and power, as do sitting members of Congress who actively promote the “hoax” conspiracy. ”
No presidential candidate ever has any political power. His position is that he is seeking an office with power. And he (or she) has influence, only by virtue of that which was given to him during the processes which got him to his candidacy. In short, you’re getting things upside down. No presidential candidate can move himself, by himself, to the position of either candidate or president.
I’m trying to understand what role ‘influence’ plays in your argument. Do you imagine that politicians are individuals who posses some kind of ability to make people think things, and to do things at whim? Do you think that by virtue of simply being a representative in a parliamentary debating chamber, he can simply will political institutions or changes into existence?
It seems to me that you have this idea of ‘influence’ which reduces to a belief that sceptics just utter scepticism, and people fall for it.
If this were true — and this is why I emphasise that institutions as a measure of political reality — we would see scepticism more coherently and more commonly manifested in institutions. Political influence and power is manifested as political institutions: organisations, agencies, policies and changes that reflect the aims of the political approach or perspective. If scepticism was a political force, we would be able to see a political movement of sceptics. We would see politicians and other individuals with influence making deliberate, concerned, material changes to policy. We don’t see that.
Instead, we see a few high profile blogs. A few troublesome politicians, but most sitting on the fence. A few journalists. All of which is supposed to have undermined the massive effort under the UN to establish environmental politics. It’s inconvievable that such a process — which has been going on since the late 1960s — has been troubled by sceptics. They haven’t had access to it. Even Bush Sr signed up to it in Rio. It is inconceiveable that scepticism, with the power and influence you credit it with, could have asserted itself invisibly, throughout America and the rest of the world.
Sez me. Take it or leave it.
After thinking about it for a bit, I thought it might be useful to clarify a bit on where the TBI/RPJr/Kloor/Hartwell ‘tribe’ fits relative to the traditional consensus vs skeptic axis.
The former is strictly concerned with the questions of relevance to WG I. Is the climate changing? If so, how much is due to GHGs and how serious a problem is it likely to be? While the last question strays into WG II territory the others do not.
By contrast, the questions that Keith’s tribe are concerned with are focused almost exclusively on policy options (e.g. WG III). So it’s not a matter of not fitting into either the consensus or skeptic tribe on WG I issues. It’s a matter of addressing the ‘consensus’ position as it relates to mitigation policy and seeing how the tenets of his tribe hold up. Now Keith, because he belongs to this particular tribe has his blind spots. He doesn’t, for example, blog about the work done by:the IEA
Marty Weitzmann
Robert Stavins
Nicholas Stern
Ross Garnaut
The Pew Center
The McKinsey Group
the California Air Resources Board
World Resources Institute
Keith this is of course your blog and your free to choose topics that interest you. But if I were you I’d be a little more careful lobbing around accusations of ‘tribal blinders’.
Gonna leave it, Ben.
It is simply false that candidates have no power simply by virtue of not having yet been elected. They have the power to influence opinion, and as such influence political outcomes. The same with unelected media figures.
No. I “imagine” that politicians influence public opinion, and that their candidacies help cohere and coordinate constituencies along political concepts. It is not a unilateral flow – candidates reflect public opinion just as they influence public opinion, but the fact that the influence moves from citizens to candidates does not mean that there is no flow in the other direction as well. The same goes for the media. I see this all the time when I go to non-climate specific blogs and see
commenter after commenter, who pay little more attention to climate
issues than to other issues, repeating over and over the same false information about
climate issues. That rhetoric serves as a proxy for political wrangling – and the informational loop runs back and forth between tribes and media outlets. Citizens are not pawns of the media (not the least pawns of the supposedly pervasive “environmental determinism” of the media) – but they are influenced by the media (stories about heat waves and stories about climate science hoaxes alike) just as they influence the what and the how of media coverage.
You may have some quantified and/or validated data to show some cause-and-effect negative causation between environmental advocacy and policy development, but I’ve been asking for such data for a while now from “skeptics” and have yet to see any such evidence offered. If you’d like to offer a link or two, I’d love to look at them. I’m certainly not going to spend time rooting around on your blog simply because you say that they’re there somewhere.
You first set the criteria, and then determine what they will measure. That is a very convenient system. To me, it looks a little too convenient. “Skepticism” is not perfectly coherent or overwhelmingly manifest in institutions, but it exists in its imperfect and less than suffocating form. It doesn’t cease to exist simply because it isn’t the only thing in the universe. Neither is “environmental determinism” manifest in a perfectly coherent and overwhelming fashion, and yet you manage to see it everywhere you look. Imagine that!
Sorry – but I have to Dude! you again. We don’t see ideological politicians and other individuals in opposition to environmental advocacy (one branch of which is climate “skepticism”) exerting real influence in policy implementation? Seriously? I give you credit for writing posts as long as mine, and for dissuading me from my intent to step off the convo – but I’m really out now. The worlds we inhabit are so alien that I feel there is no real potential of speaking a common language. In my world I see lots of people on both sides of the debate hand-wringing endlessly about being victims, and the big bad media as being the worst of the victimizers. On both sides the good folks are waging war against Goliath – with but a pebble and a slingshot to hold off the beast. I don’t buy it from you just as I don’t buy it from Romm. I wish my world were that simple or binary. My life would be less complicated.
Wait, this is a chat room?
No offense, guys… but you really need to work on your sex talk. Or else this is a kink I’ve never heard of.
Keith,
You’re on the money. Keep at “˜er.
PDA, I’d be happier with 150 years if that was available. I know you’ve seen this a million times, but in a data series with lots of noise, the longer the period the easier it is to tease out the trend.
Hansen apparently chose 1950-1980 in part because it showed signs of stability–with little variance. And that can certainly help in certain kinds of analysis. But it left the study vulnerable to criticism, a lot of which will be forthcoming and some of it deserved.
I don’t think his work is completely worthless. But I think he ignored several opportunities to extend its utility, especially as he looked further into the record while selecting his base period.
Since I’m not a scientist I could never recommend a course of action, but if these were not esteemed scientists at the top of their profession and expert in all things, I would have told them to take 30-year periods for the entire good temperature record. From 1980 to 2010. From 1970 to 2000. From 1960 to last Tuesday. Or something like that. I would have looked for the period with the greatest variability. I would have looked for the period with the least variability–but also the most. I would have certainly looked for the median, but also the mean. I would have looked for groupings or clusters that might indicate a natural tendency for the climate to ‘rest’ at one level or another. And I would have shown what 1980-2010 looks like against more than one period.
I would have reported equally on two standard deviations from the mean, and one. And I am at a loss to understand why, if I were looking at how global climate affected U.S. temperatures, I would have failed to look at some place like Europe with equally good temperature records and investigated the same issues there.
But like I said, I’m not a scientist.
Joshua: – We don’t see ideological politicians and other individuals in opposition to environmental advocacy (one branch of which is climate “skepticism”) exerting real influence in policy implementation? Seriously?
Of course we do. But you’re just trying to see the entire debate, and the failure of environmentalism (or at least climate policy) in terms of just this one, woolly concept: ‘influence’. An entire country, ney, world, under the direct control of Fox News! And yet you criticise me for telling David and Goliath stories.
@ 139 Tom Fuller
Hansen and co-authors are interested in climate change *post* 1950. You know, the period over which the anthropogenic signal is starting to emerge from the noise. So what you say is the quintessence of missing the point. And you really, really need to read their response to their ‘critics’, which has now been repeatedly linked. The extension of the baseline period is explicitly discussed:
I would have reported equally on two standard deviations from the mean, and one. And I am at a loss to understand why, if I were looking at how
global climate affected U.S. temperatures, I would have failed to look at some place like Europe with equally good temperature records and investigated the same issues there.
Eh? HSR12 examined data for the full NH land surface. *Tamino* looked at the US lower 48.
But like I said, I’m not a scientist.
Nor is Mosher, who is clearly whispering in your ear.
Ben Pile
Sceptics are, by definition, a reaction to the “˜excesses of the other side’. Scepticism has an object, which is the claim(s) made by the “˜other side’. I think the only form of scepticism which didn’t have an object as such would be some kind of radical scepticism which claimed that “˜nothing is true’. If there were no claims that the earth was warming due to CO2 emissions, Morano’s (I think you meant to say Monckton) site would be even harder for you to understand.
Skeptics are certainly a reaction to the other side – it’s the word “excesses” I object to. Of course if no-one was claiming that the earth was warming due to CO2, or that such warming may well be dangerous, there would be no-one expressing skepticism about such claims, but that doesn’t mean they are necessarily “excessive”.
Indeed, there is a political consensus, amongst the established parties, and civil society about climate change. But this isn’t yet a victory for environmentalism, but rather vindicates the sceptics’ cause, if not their arguments. That consensus was formed without democracy. And that democratic deficit is a real problem for the legitimacy for those organisations, institutions and processes. Those values, principles, ideas have not been tested at the ballot box. Even if Mel and the Spectator etc are wrong about the science (I make no judgement here) they are not wrong about the legitimacy of environmentalism’s ascendency in the UK and EU. It is through environmentalism as an “˜ideology’ that the science is seen through, and acted on.
Whether or not we need to take action on climate change is a question which politicians, and indeed civil society, are entitled to consider and come to conclusions on independently, based on their reading of the evidence. But in a democracy their views on the issue will be put to the voters at election time and any policies they enact will be judged at the ballot box next time round. There is no “democratic deficit” specific to climate change. Nor does the existence of the consensus you mention (which I don’t dispute) necessarily vindicate the skeptics – their arguments stand or fall on their own merits.
I guess you could object that all three parties had broadly similar polices on the subject at the last election (as was the case on other issues as well), but that’s partly because environmental issues are something which seems to be important to the British people nowadays. Personally I don’t consider myself an environmentalist as such but I do actually think it’s a good thing that such concerns have gained traction here.
Ben –
Actually, I’m not. I’m saying that the influences are multiple. I’m not saying that Fox News is the entirety of the explanation why climate policies haven’t gone further. I’m saying that there are multiple reasons, like weather, like the economy, like political opposition to environmentalism, like the difficulty of finding clear solutions, like “false balance” in some media coverage, like the influence of corporate interests, etc. Included, would be some influence of “environmental determinism” in journalism generally or science journalism, motivated reasoning among scientists, and the lack of international organizations with a specific anti-environmental mission, motivated reasoning among scientists, etc.
I am dismissing your argument that no influences other than those last three exist, or that those last three are so disproportionate to the other influences so as to make the others not even worthy of consideration. I think considering the relative strengths of the different influences is worthwhile, but that to gain your kind of absolute confidence you need quantified and validated evidence. And I’m saying that many of those influences are a manifestation of the same underlying mechanism of human cognition and psychology: motivated reasoning.
Andrew – Skeptics are certainly a reaction to the other side ““ it’s the word “excesses” I object to.
The excesses I refer to are in particular the democratic deficit, which you wave your hands at:
I guess you could object that all three parties had broadly similar polices on the subject at the last election (as was the case on other issues as well), but that’s partly because environmental issues are something which seems to be important to the British people nowadays.
Evidently not, or there would be no need for any climate policies, institutions, etc. Environmentalism would be a mass movement, capable of establishing its own institutions, rather than a categorically establishment/elite preoccupation. It is no coincidence that post democratic politics and environmentalism developed simultaneously. In other words, the greening of the UK/EU establishment doesn’t just happen in spite of public disengagement from politics, it happens because of it. The political consensus occurs because the old parties cannot find consensus with the public — their political projects need to be legitimised somehow. And ‘saving the planet’ is as good a reason as any other. You’re pleased, it seems, about the fact of powerful political institutions and far-reaching policies being put out of the reach of democratic control. These are the excesses of environmentalism I was referring to.
There is no “democratic deficit” specific to climate change. Nor does the existence of the consensus you mention (which I don’t dispute) necessarily vindicate the skeptics ““ their arguments stand or fall on their own merits.
There is a democratic deficit specific to climate change, but its context is a more comprehensive shift in the character of politics, away from democracy towards technocratic and supranational political institutions. You don’t have to be a climate sceptic to see it. I didn’t claim that the sceptics arguments can be vindicated, but that their cause can clearly serve as a vehicle by which concerns about the corrosion of democracies can be expressed. FWIW, I’ve often argued that scepticism which is preoccupied with the science is a clumsy expression of the grievances people have with contemporary politics. in other words, the ‘science’ is a a distraction: environmentalists (in the broadest sense) smuggle their politics under cover of ‘science’, and sceptics are complicit in this, by imagining the debate to be about science, and thinking that the political debate can be won by emphasis on the science.
Keith –
A thought experiment. Not meant to be fully explanatory but to suggest an analytical window. Nothing novel, but maybe just something to think about.We all have our schticks. Think of mine a being (broadly speaking) the motivated-reasoning schtick. Think of Ben’s as being the “skeptics”-have-no-institutional-power-and-“environmental determinism”-dominates-the-media-schtick.
Everybody’s schtick functions as like a boundary that circumscribes how their reasoning is motivated. Think of circles in a Venn diagram.
My circle and Ben’s circle have very little overlap. Sure, there are some congruencies (we’re western, we both don’t want people to starve, we both think that extremism undermines solid analysis), but they are relatively few and weak (especially if we add a constraint that we’re only putting views at least tangentially related to climate science into our circles).
Now you have a schtick, too. Here’s some of what I see in your circle: extremism-(on both sides)-undermines-solid-analysis; environmental-extremism-has-damaged-science-journalism; environmentalists-in-general-are-blind-to-the-counterproductivity-of-their-extremism’ climate-policy-is-a-sticky-problem, motivated-reasoning-is-a-problem.
Your circle overlaps both mine and Ben’s in some places. As a result, Ben’s arguments about environmental media bias resonate for you. That sets your motivations (and motivated reasoning) a-tingling, and I would argue leads you to overlook some of the exaggerations in his arguments about the presence of “environmental determinism” in the media. But it also registers for you that he fails to properly analyze the balance of power because his dismissal of power amongst “skeptics” sets off your “extremism-(on both sides)-undermines-solid-analysis” alarm. That causes a sympathetic vibration in your “motivate reasoning” alarm – which in turn overlaps with my circle. To go back to a previous discussion w/r/t the importance of listening: we hear those alarms ringing much more clearly when those alarms are circumscribed by our own circles, by our schticks.
Joshua – I think considering the relative strengths of the different influences is worthwhile, but that to gain your kind of absolute confidence you need quantified and validated evidence.
I don’t indulge in live comments very often. I think of them as largely a waste of time, going over so much old ground with so much baggage, moving so quickly across a range of subjects and being forgotten soon enough, are ultimately disposable. For that reason, I’m not going to compile evidence and footnotes for a few hundred words in a point-scoring contest.
You rightly point out that there are a multitude of influences. The point I have been trying to explain to you is that the measure of these influences is the extent to which they are made concrete — institutions, policies, changes, and so on. You can’t actually measure any ‘influence’ directly. You can, on the other hand, see that there exist many organisations established to deliver environmental messages, and even in the country where the sceptical perspective seems to thrive, the EPA (for instance) is still able to move to attempt to classify CO2 as a pollutant. The USA still sent a delegation to COP meetings. It still sought an agreement. In other words, I’m trying to get to a ‘sociological’ perspective, rather than to get preoccupied by this sort of thing:
those influences are a manifestation of the same underlying mechanism of human cognition and psychology: motivated reasoning.
Forget about ‘motivated reasoning’. It’s a dead end. It patronises everybody, because its premise denies individuals of their rational faculties. There are perfectly good, rational reasons why, to take one example, sceptic conservatives might be less concerned about changes in the natural world than people who hold with the view of a deterministic relationship between the natural world and society. To reduce that reasoning to a phenomenon of ‘motivated reasoning’ presupposes that you can understand the reasoning without dialogue with the reasoner, simply by looking at his motivations. If you’re interested, I have an article on Chris Mooney’s similar attempt to pathologise his opponents beleif systems at http://www.climate-resistance.org/2011/05/trust-me-i-speak-for-science.html .
Ben – I’ve read that. It isn’t the same thing. Sorry, bud, but the motivations of your reasoning cause you to conflate things that aren’t the same. I’m not “pathologizing [my] opponents.” I’m speaking to a phenomenon that is a fundamental aspect of human cognition and reasoning. We’re all included.
#139,
Those are all good points.
While it’s true that it’s easier to tease out a trend in a longer data series, I think it’s worth emphasising again that not all data series have trends. You can generate an AR(1) series and much of the time over short periods the level will drift up and down. But the true mean of the distribution at every point in time is zero. There is no trend.
The way parameter estimation works is to assume that the data follows a particular statistical model – a restricted class of random behaviours characterised by unknown parameters – and then finding which member of the class is the most likely to have generated the observed data.
The example they use in the textbooks is a linear trend plus additive independent Gaussian noise, and OLS tells you which one of these was the most likely to have generated that data.
But if the actual physics doesn’t generate trend+iid Gaussian outputs, the OLS trend is meaningless. It’s just as easy to fit a polynomial, or a sine wave, or a step function, or a sum of decaying exponentials. The evidence connecting the data to a particular model has to be separately provided; you cannot derive it from the data, and the fit of the data to the model cannot be used as evidence in support of the model. (Although a non-fit does count as evidence against.)
The way I did it was to simply plot out all the distributions, for every month. I compared them against a 1900-1950 baseline (earlier the data is sparse, later is where it is claimed warming occurs) and showed where probabilities had increased or decreased. The variability is higher 1850-1900, drops in 1900-1950, drops even further 1950-1990, and then jumps up sharply at the end. There are distinctive step changes, particularly at 1998.
Summer temperatures are chosen because the spread in summer is much smaller than in winter. The far extremes in summer temperatures increased sharply in the 1970s, the middle of the distribution (what Hansen plotted) shifted around 1990 up to levels matching the 1940s, and then in 1998 jumped sharply again, now shifted up beyond that. The shift is smaller than the annual spread, but peeks above the noise in summer.
Reporting standard deviations is a bad idea because the distribution is heavy-tailed, not Gaussian; SD tends to be dominated by the outliers. Quantiles would be better (50%, 95%, 99%, etc.) but the distribution density itself has all the information these summary statistics miss.
Looking at the distributions of anomalies is an interesting study, but it doesn’t tell you much about heatwaves. I’ve got a strong suspicion most of the ‘heatwaves’ Hansen is detecting are in Siberia and northern Canada. The 20th century rise in mean temperatures is not easily to attributed to man, and far less so for the bounds of the distribution. The data points to a step change in 1998, which doesn’t indicate a primary relation to CO2.
Joshua – I’m speaking to a phenomenon that is a fundamental aspect of human cognition and reasoning. We’re all included.
Speak for yourself. The problem with relativising all reasoning as you do, to ‘motivations’, is that you throw the reason out with the motivation bathwater. You caveat your argument with the ‘we’re all included’ remark, but it’s obvious that the concept of ‘motivated reasoning’ amounts to no more than ‘you would say that, wouldn’t you’. It doesn’t even help you understand how motivations do influence reasoning.
I think my shtick is the ‘I-am-rubber-you-are-glue’ shtick. Because when I read polylogues like this, I see people (on all sides of the discourse) angrily fulminating at each other as they go on doing EXACTLY what it is they’re accusing others of.
#148,
When it comes to US policy, the reasons for the lack of international action are given in the Byrd-Hagel resolution, and have nothing to do with sceptics.
The ‘official’ position of the US government has always been that they believe in AGW, but that any measures taken in response have to be effective, which means they must apply to all emitters equally, and the economic costs are not to be targeted at the US. The reason there has been deadlock is that everybody else has been pushing for a solution in which only the wealthy nations face restrictions, which of course would be ineffective, and that the wealthy nations would pay all the costs – not only for their own transition, but also that of the developing world.
The policy is bipartisan – both parties have followed it, whatever their rhetoric. There was almost a breakthrough at Bali, when the Chinese agreed to emission limitations. I think this is what led to the Obama campaign talking up the action he was going to take on climate change. The deal fell through when the Chinese subsequently announced they intended only limits on emission intensity. In other words, no limits at all. And thus it was that Obama backed off, and has since gone very quiet on the subject.
At the international level, everyone knows that effective limits are not acceptable to the developing world, and massive wealth transfer with a hobbling of the economies of the West is not acceptable to the US, and neither side is going to move from that. It’s dead. The only question that remains is how long they can keep going to the conferences.
The odd UK situation is explained by environmentalism being primarily an EU policy. The British parties know they can’t realistically resist EU directives, so none of the serious contenders has proposed to try. And indeed, since a lot of our politicians are already on the EU renewables/carbon-trading/subsidy gravy train, many of them don’t want to, either. The British public seem cynically resigned to the situation. It’s just one more line of incompetence and corruption among all too many, and scarcely noticed.
Today is random thought day for me.
I was thinking about something I found interesting – don’t know if anyone else might, but since I’ve got my bully pulpit/text window/soap box I’ll give it a shot.
I was thinking about that “Someone’s wrong on the Internet” cartoon and why I have such a hard time not responding to Ben’s comments – and that led me to thinking about the question of why do I argue on blogs with people who dismiss my arguments out of hand.
I can think of a number of reasons that. Some are not exactly pretty. But some are more palatable. One of the more palatable reasons is that I think, in part, by throwing ideas at the wall to see if they stick. Bouncing ideas off of other people is a good way to gain some perspective. Even perspective given by people who have disdain for me or for my ideas can be useful in that regard. But the point is that I throw ideas out there even if they aren’t fully formed or completely thought through because that’s kind of how I often reason — through devil’s advocacy — and so I can post ideas on blogs to enlist the input of other “devils.”
Now maybe it’s just me, but I think that maybe others use blogs in a similar fashion; but I’m led to wonder if that phenomenon may be, largely, a very Western phenomenon.
I work a lot with international clients and students, and in my experience, people from non-western cultures, and Asians in particular, think that the way that Westerners spout off about ideas without actually knowing the answers to questions is pretty bizarre.(And of course, there is also much variability here among westerners from different countries).
This difference in cultural orientation towards expressing ideas to explore ideas can be particularly striking in a classroom. Think of a classroom where Latinos are constantly interrupting the teacher for clarification, and responding to questions even if they aren’t 100% sure of the answer, and Asians thinking that (1) why is the teacher wasting my time asking for answers rather just explaining the answers to us? (2) why would anyone presume to take the teacher’s time and the time of the other students to speculate about questions when they don’t actually know the answers?But it isn’t limited to the classroom. I have had Asian clients (Japanese in particular) express complete wonderment at how Americans waste so much time in business meetings discussing questions for which no one has an answer. They have compared that to a Japanese context, where someone in authority would designate people to conduct research and then report back with their results so that the person charged with responsibility for making decisions could make informed decisions.
Of course, I’m making a lot of overly broad generalizations here (for the sake of argument).
So here’s where I’m going with this. First, it would be fascinating (well, to me at least) to see what differences there are in, say, a Japanese blog chat dynamic. My guess is that it would be very different.
Second, I’ve been thinking a lot about the universality of motivated reasoning, and I’m wondering about whether there actually needs to be some kind of cultural referencing for that concept. Motivated reasoning is a lot about personal identification with a group – but I also think that there’s some element of reinforcing and protecting the individual identity. But individualism is a much more prominent feature of Western societies – as apposed to more value being placed on consensus, agreement, and community in (at least some) non-Western cultures – particularly those with Confucian roots.
Joshua: ndividualism is a much more prominent feature of Western societies ““ as apposed to more value being placed on consensus, agreement, and community in (at least some) non-Western cultures ““ particularly those with Confucian roots.
Indeed, people are so much more obedient in feudal political orders. It’s hard to resist the conclusion, therefore, that this is one reason why environmentalists emphasise the virtues of feudal modes of production and peasant lifestyles.
NiV: “The data points to a step change in 1998,”This is not surprising in the least. The really large scale weirdness seems to have commenced with the super El Nino of 1998. “which doesn’t indicate a primary relation to CO2″That doesn’t remotely follow and is a version of the Hoerling fallacy. Nonlinear systems commonly have regime transitions rather than smooth responses to smooth changes in forcing. Cans don’t crumple as you squeeze them every harder, until then they do. That doesn’t mean that the crumpling can had nothing to do with squeezing it.
” feudal modes of production ”
I didn’t realize this was the environmentalist emphasis! Can you cite what you mean?
#154,
It’s not just you.
My argument is that because everyone has cognitive biases and blind spots, including me, none of us can determine on our own whether our beliefs are really true. But different people have different blindspots, so I can see what they cannot, and they can see what I cannot. By talking to them, I am forced to fill in the gaps in my own reasoning, check things I had formerly taken for granted, and sometimes realise a belief of mine is flawed and change my mind. (It’s not perfect, and my biases resist, but it does help.)
Talking only to people who agree with you, or who are polite about not contradicting your beliefs doesn’t help. They likely share the same blindspots. You need to talk to people who vehemently disagree, who are emotionally invested in debunking your ideas, and who have the intelligence and knowledge to be able to do so. You do not get to be fastest and strongest without competing.
As Milton said: “I cannot praise a fugitive and cloistered virtue, unexercised and unbreathed, that never sallies out and sees her adversary but slinks out of the race, where that immortal garland is to be run for, not without dust and heat.”
When the reasoning process is known to be flawed and biased, even ‘rational’ argument gives no guarantee of truth. But survival of our ideas in the arena of debate gives us our only real justification for belief. There is no ‘intelligent designer’ of scientific truth, either, but evolution by natural selection can give the illusion that there is.
See also Mill’s argument:
“I answer, that it is assuming very much more. There is the greatest difference between presuming an opinion to be true, because, with every opportunity for contesting it, it has not been refuted, and assuming its truth for the purpose of not permitting its refutation. Complete liberty of contradicting and disproving our opinion, is the very condition which justifies us in assuming its truth for purposes of action; and on no other terms can a being with human faculties have any rational assurance of being right.”
http://www.utilitarianism.com/ol/two.html
#156,
I agree that the 1998 El Nino connection doesn’t prove that CO2 isn’t implicated. But the connection, if there is one, is indirect and yet to be demonstrated.
I’m not aware that anyone has yet claimed the El Nino cycle is affected by CO2. Several of the attribution studies that have been brought up here in the past have sought to remove the ENSO signal to show that the world is ‘still warming’.
Was 1998 a sign of global warming? That’s going to be another contentious debate.
NiV: “The data points to a step change in 1998,”
This is not surprising in the least. The really large scale weirdness seems to have commenced with the super El Nino of 1998.
“which doesn’t indicate a primary relation to CO2″³
That doesn’t remotely follow and is a version of the Hoerling fallacy. Nonlinear systems commonly have regime transitions rather than smooth responses to smooth changes in forcing.
Cans don’t crumple as you squeeze them ever harder, until they do. That doesn’t mean that the crumpling of the can had nothing to do with squeezing it.
NiV at 153, exactly. The US policy has been bipartisan since 1997. Some had a need to pretend otherwise from 2000 to 2008, but have since discovered otherwise.
The UK is engaged in feel-good policy, they invested in stuff that scratched a political itch, but won’t reduce emissions. They will not shut down their coal plants, so the only difference with the US is that we’re reducing emissions and feeling bad about it ( because we use gas to do it) while the UK doesn’t reduce emissions and applauds itself.
NiV
By talking to them, I am forced to fill in the gaps in my own reasoning, check things I had formerly taken for granted, and sometimes realise a
belief of mine is flawed and change my mind.
Arctic ice? GIS?
Several of the attribution studies that have been brought up here in the past have sought to remove the ENSO signal to show that the world is “˜still warming’.
Yes, there is a fair amount of complexity under that hood. But it goes one way or the other.
Tamino’s approach to separating out ENSO and the GMST trend assumes that anthropogenic forcing directly or via global warming does not affect ENSO. If we assume there is no connection, then the warming signal is clear.
It’s not obvious that this is valid. The new energetics may well have forced ENSO into the cool phase post 1998. But this alternative reading is, while it may make the story harder to tell, no panacea.
If there is a new La Nina dominated configuration, it would make some sense in a hand wavy general systems point of view. The new energy imbalance means the deep ocean has to take up more energy. For it to do so effectively, it has to “find a way to” present a cooler surface to the atmosphere. Less anthropomorphically, the existence of an energy imbalance at the surface may make the system more stable to a relatively cooler interface, which conceivably could drive the system to a more La Nina like phase.
Or, maybe this just happened anyway for some coincidental deep ocean reason, and we got lucky, which is essentially consistent withTamino’s superposition model, except that we are lucky and it will tend to stay in the cool phase for a long time.
New coral records do show that ENSO has various temperaments which seem to stick around for a century or so and then change. Maybe we have a prolonged La Nina cool phase coming on.
If ENSO dynamics haven’t changed, that is bad luck in the short term because the temperature curve will bounce back to the baseline. If they have changed, that is mostly good luck because it gave us an extra decade or so where the deep ocean absorbed much of the excess heat. (Mostly, but not totally, because it still amounts to ongoing sea level rise.) But that would be a one-time dividend which we have used up.far
The radiative imbalance keeps climbing. Even if we have things far more badly wrong than there is any sign of, the ever increasing imbalance is going to catch up with us eventually.
> When the reasoning process is known to be flawed and biased, even “˜rational’ argument gives no guarantee of truth.
Even a flawless and unbiased argument does not offer such guarantee.
Nothing trumps reality.
<i>The data points to a step change in 1998</i>Is this really true? It looks to me like 1998 is just a spike – the temp for 1999 fell back down to below where it was in 1997 and 2000 was (depending on which data set you use) only slightly higher or even lower still. ie it looks exactly like one would expect an exceptionally strong el Nino event to look like.
#163,
It’s possible. I don’t think it’s clear yet what causes events such as the 1976 great Pacific climate shift and the 1998 super-El-Nino, so a role for greenhouse forcing can’t be ruled out. But from my perspective, I don’t take it as the default cause for everything unless proved otherwise. Maybe it’s oceanic oscillations superimposed additively on other influences, or maybe the timing and magnitude of the oscillations and step-shifts is affected by the other influences, or maybe they’re illusory and caused by staring too long at the data.
As I said in #150, this sort of curve-fitting interpretation of data generally assumes a particular model or class of models for the behaviour, and it is incredibly easy, by overlaying a few lines on the graph to guide the eye, to see evidence for a particular interpretation that originates not in the data but in the implicit assumptions. Human brains are over-powerful pattern-finders: we find pictures and patterns and stories in ink-blot randomness. We can so easily fool ourselves this way.
With different background assumptions, I see something different. It doesn’t mean that you’re wrong or that I’m wrong about what’s going on – it just means that the data here isn’t telling us.
#165,
The fall-back afterwards in 1999 looked like Gibbs phenomenon to me. But that may be a case of pattern perception.
The picture I was thinking about is here. Red/yellow means more likely than the 1900-1950 average, blue/cyan means less likely. What do you think?
NiVYes I take your point. Looking at the HadCRU data I would say that if a step change did occur it is more around 2000/2001 but that’s just a quibble.
#166 True. Data isn’t everything.
For instance:
http://www.economist.com/blogs/babbage/2012/08/james-hansen-climate-change
In 1988 Hansen predicted that by 2010 “four sides of the die would be red”. He had no data to back that up, only something he took for physical insight. He got a lot of grief for that from empiricists and from deniers who claim to be empiricists. His calm demeanor and high reputation made his wild and implausible predictions
And now, it turns out that he was right. Four sides of the die are red.
So now we get to evaluate his physical insight in the light of events. How likely is such an outcome in baseline conditions?
That’s hard to evaluate in detail. Is it fair to use the Holocene as the null hypothesis? Should one use 1950-1980 as a baseline? Should one include the 1930s on the grounds that it was anomalously warm in our own area (not globally) at that time?
But are people really going to go on calling it just a lucky guess? I think this will separate the hard core empiricists from the deniers who have been taking an empiricist pose.
I have a totally untestable hypothesis, but it seems likely to me that it is true: Had the data preceded the theory, the deniers would be theoreticians. They would treat empiricists with shrugging contempt, and bend over backwards to come up with half baked excuses for alternate theories. Their discussions would be utterly devoid of reference to data, and the people whose email had been stolen would be theorists.
Fortunately for us all, Dr. Hansen has pretty strong skills and track records on both sides of the empirical/theoretical divide, and has managed to provide an especially clear instance of a successful prediction that would be extremely unlikely under a null hypothesis. So, NiV, does this successful prediction affect your opinion in any way? I suggest that it should.
#167 NiV, that’s a really excellent visualization. Where does it come from and what are the details?
@159
I’m not aware that anyone has yet claimed the El Nino cycle is affected by CO2.
Not directly, of course but by long term warming. I could have sworn that either Amy Clement or Steve Zebiak (possibly together) did something like that but I couldn’t immediately find it. Instead I found reference to this paper which may have even more relevant references therein:
Timothy Eichler, David Rind, Stephen Zebiak. (2006) Impact of global warming on ENSO variability using the coupled giss GCM/ZC model. International Journal of Climatology 26:10, 1283-131
#169,
“…and has managed to provide an especially clear instance of a successful prediction that would be extremely unlikely under a null hypothesis.”
It depends on the null hypothesis. If the null hypothesis is that climate naturally would be perfectly static and the 1950-1980 period is representative of it, I’d agree. That hypothesis is falsified.
Against a null hypothesis that climate naturally varies considerably on decadal and centennial timescales, it’s not so unlikely. And there is a risk of ‘confirming the consequent’ here. A successful prediction is decisive only when the prediction distinguishes the hypothesis from all alternatives.
I predict that if you drink this snake oil now, in three days time your cold will have disappeared. In three days time it has. Should you change your mind? That does not imply that the snake oil wasn’t a factor – maybe it has vitamin C in it – but there has to be more to the argument in its support than that.
All Hansen is really saying is that the temperature has recently risen, just expressing it in a different way, which we already knew and which in itself wasn’t convincing. Maybe the same thing happened during the MWP, or Roman times? It’s the interpretation being put on it that is the problem. It doesn’t imply all of what people seem to want it to.
#122 Andrew
Today’s headline http://www.foxnews.com/us/2012/08/17/co2-emissions-in-us-drop-to-20-year-low-some-experts-optimistic-on-global/
Republicans gave your side the energy acts of 2005 and 2007. It looks like the US may come pretty close to meeting the Kyoto targets of reducing emissions to 1990 levels as a result of the Energy Acts of 2005 and 2007. Without section 322 of the energy act of 2005 there would be no hydro-fracking. In case you haven’t noticed we have built quite a few windmills and spent a lot of money on solar panels as well.No matter how much Republicans do to ‘address climate change’ your side will claim we’ve done nothing and we are the problem.So why would any Republican talk about ‘climate change’? We took action twice and then got accused of doing nothing. Our plan seems to be having a bigger impact then anyone on your side would have thought possible.
#170,
You can find it here.
Obviously the interpretation put on it there may not be to your taste. But you can run the code and draw your own conclusions. The full-size version of that graphic is definitely worth looking at.
I should note, an error was pointed out in the R script – the “download(…” function should be “download.file(…”. That might not be the only problem, of course.
harrywr2, am I the only one surprised to see that Fox News wrote a good article about the subject? That was good reporting. I guess I’m more used to the opinionators over there.
Gypro: I didn’t realize this was the environmentalist emphasis! Can you cite what you mean?
Sure. Here’s one example.
http://www.climate-resistance.org/2011/08/against-development.html Further links in the post.
This is pretty amusing – from that “fair and balanced” Fox News article.
OK. So “many of the world’s leading climate scientists didn’t see the drop coming. As opposed to uh….um…..er…..hmmmmm.
Ben Pile @148: I don’t indulge in live comments very often. I think of them as largely a waste of timeHmmm… judging by the frequency of “live” comments here and at your own blog, it seems we may have differing definitions of “very often.”
#150 NiV
+100
If only statistics weren’t so easy to intentionally and unintentionally manipulate (and if only we could tell the difference). Watching an OLS trend change as you interactively start removing outliers is an exercise everyone should understand, but is difficult to grasp intuitively.
The squaring of the errors gives outliers a disproportionate affect on the trend line, and to make it worse any pre-filtering of the data to selectively remove the “right” outliers tends to give you what you want.
Honest science would require the data processing methods to be locked down before results were analyzed to try to avoid the inevitable “tuning” of results as you interactively filter data and watch outputs change.
The game is simple enough, identify the offending data that is not giving you the results you “expect”, and then come up with a reason to exclude that data. Nobody ever said there isn’t art in science.
Where this process crosses the line of honest science is a huge gray area, and plausible deniability is almost always present.
Hansen is competent enough to understand this process, but it is my belief that his political activism results in him favoring the “best possible presentation” of the data to fit his ideology. He presents a selective truth, but is it the whole truth? Hardly.
PDA: Ben Pile @148: I don’t indulge in live comments very often. I think of them as largely a waste of timeHmmm”¦ judging by the frequency of “live” comments here and at your own blog, it seems we may have differing definitions of “very often.”
That’s exactly the sort of low quality comment that makes live commenting so very, very pointless, and so very, very disposable. I’ve committed to a discussion here. So shoot me. And of course I comment on my own blog in response to questions and comments. What a stupid thing to say. What a completely pointless, vapid remark.
#177 Joshua,
That quote would be from an AP article, bonehead. Open mouth, insert foot. And Borenstein and AP are typically on “your side” of the fence if you bothered to even take a cursory examination of anything before you reflexively take pot shots at everything you disagree with.
(15) NiV-
I liked that Milton quote the first time you excerpted it in the truncated form – even more so now that you’ve posted more of the quote. The Mils’ quotation is great also.
I think our shared perspective in that regard helps explain why I don’t skip past your comments. I find your comments useful as a guide for evaluating my own opinion.
(181) Tom S –
I clicked on the link that harry gave to Fox News’ website. I saw that Tom mentioned the balance of the article – that he was surprised to see a “good article” at Fox News.
Yes, it was an AP article at the Fox News website. Yes, I didn’t notice that. My mistake. And apparently, neither did Tom F.
But I’m a “bonehead” because I didn’t notice it and criticized the article and Tom F isn’t a “bonehead” because he didn’t notice it and offered praise for the article.
Right.
And my criticism of the article stands no matter the source.
Thanks, again, for providing a perfect example of how some “skeptics” reason.
Motivated reasoning is motivated.It’s nice that there are folks like NiV (and a few others around) who differentiate themselves intellectually, even if they don’t always wish to do so ideologically.
What a stupid thing to say.
It was an accurate thing to say. Claiming that you don’t do something “very often” when there’s documentary evidence that you do it “very often” might be described with the adjective you used.
Pearl-clutching about the quality of blog comments has been around since USENET days. I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s evidence of monks scribing “OMG STFU LUSER” in the margins of medieval manuscripts, for that matter. so, yeah, no originality points there.
It’s a free world, so you get to post monologue after monologue, refuse suggestions that you substantiate your assertions with even vaguely objective sources, insult other commenters (and the medium itself), and bemoan how “low quality” and “pointless” everyone else’s contributions are.
And I get to laugh at your pompous ass.Cheers.
#183,
You criticism is what?
The AP comment apparently states that climate scientists were surprised that market forces would be responsible for this change as opposed to government policy. Nobody predicted the emerging trend of cheap natural gas and fracking 10 years ago. Is that your interpretation? And the criticism would be?
#183, and yes it is boneheaded to take a standard ad hominem shot at Fox without first checking the source of the article. I suspect you know that, and would expect to be called on it around these parts. It clearly exposes your own bias.
-1 to anyone saying +100 to anything, unless he speaks for at least 99 other people.
The +1 idiom started in the python language community as an informal voting mechanism.
You can also vote -1, or +0 or -0. +0 means slightly in favor but abstaining, and -0 means slightly opposed but abstaining. These votes indicate that you believe further discussion and refinements are necessary.
Votes of -1 are usually accompanied by brief explanation. Votes of -0 or +0 may or may not be elaborated at length. Votes of +1 are never accompanied by text, except possibly a blurt of enthusiasm. If you agree with something it is presumed you agree with it.
It’s amazing what a community of shared interest can achieve in conversation, compared to a community built around a controversy, by the way. I’m not sure the idiom will ever be used successfully in places where there aren’t obvious shared objectives among all participants, which for all its virtues, c-a-s ain’t.
But using a number other than 0 or 1 is really annoying.
> Yes it is boneheaded to take a standard ad hominem shot.
What should we think of this badhominem, then?
@147 Joshua:
This is a great comment.
I think that you’ve got a good analysis there. Now apply what you perceive to be Keith’s schtick to Pielke Jr./Breakthrough/pox-on-both-your-houses-ism/inability-to-call-Lomborg-a-joke and you might understand why some think Keith is a golden meanie, or suffers from The View from Nowhere.
You’re using different terms, but you’re all talking about the same thing. “Tribes” is a most unhelpful way to talk about it, because it implies group identity characterization that many would reject.
Consider this- how likely is it that someone who has, as you put it, Keith’s schtick would be able to see that for himself (unless it is pointed out to him repeatedly)? And further, how would someone who has Keith’s schtick react to efforts to bring it to his attention?
I think that explains a great deal of the conversational dynamic between Keith and a certain group of commentors.
#187
+1000
ha ha
WRT to comments about whether increasing radiative forcing would promote La Niña conditions, there is a lot of research about this. Paleo evidence suggests it’s possible, and it’s certainly what one might expect from the MCA.
Climate models don’t show it as a robust result, but climate models until relatively recently were pretty bad at realistically producing ENSO altogether. However, the CMIP3 models are in much better agreement about the behavior of the Southern Oscillation Index, and show it growing increasing positive (Powers and Kociuba, 2011). That would add a little more credence to the idea. The thought that warming could result in a “permanent El Niño” as proposed for the Pliocene has been killed off by the discovery that the alleged “permanent El Niño” appears to have been an artifact of proxy analysis rather than a real phenomena.
As I mentioned a long time ago here at C-a-S, irrespective of the cause (be it anthro or natural variability), the drought associated with anthropogenic warming in combination with persistent La Niña conditions is nightmare material.
Why the existence of medieval megadroughts offers some people consolation in the face of anthropogenic warming is beyond my ability to comprehend.
Joshua,
Just caught your question above:
Discussing about motivations may be relevant to a rational discussion, but as soon as you incorporate in your discussion as an argument, it amounts as a badhominem.
In a rational discussion, I believe you can say why you think some argument seems bogus to you, but you can’t say it’s bogus because it’s motivated by such and such. It’s very tough not to read your explanation of why an argument is bogus as an argument against that very argument.
Another way to put it is that as soon as you are trying to talk about what lies behind an argument, the topic changes. Therefore, discussing motivations ignores the question at hand, thus leading to a bad hominem.
There are ad hominems that do not ignore the question. But many believe that all ad hominems are bad hominems, among who we find Nullius, unless he changed his mind on the question. So mileage can vary, I suppose.
***
We all have interests.
We all have motivations.
We all have intentions.
I’m not even sure I could tell you all my interests and my motivations.
I’m not even sure I could tell you why I’m here, although it’s quite clear that some flowers need some watering.
When the garden is dry, the flower dies.
Please make that what you will.
It would be a curious thought to imagine that WUWT or the antics of Monkton were swaying the votes of world leaders at Copenhagen or Cancun. Especially with the attendance of many thousands of individuals from the governmental and non-governmental green machine. Compare Heartlands budget to Greenpeace.But as Ben Pile says it’s not just quantitative, it’s qualitative. My children have learned environmental awareness in school in all three countries we’ve lived in. My old mother spends too much of her remaining precious time washing her garbage before putting it in the recycling. Environmentalism is ingrained in our society in a way that climate skepticism never will be. Yet climate policy fails to attract mass support and obscure sceptic blogs are blamed.As a society were already over-schooled in environmentalism. Journalists are pushing against an open door, even the bad one’s can’t really fail in those circumstances. There has to be another (better) explanation to why the message is failing to be turned into mass outrage.
I get you point, Willard.
But it is possible ask people to examine for biases, to suggest biases that they might look for, w/o them assuming a hadhominem. It requires some trust, earning trust, and willingness and ability for self-examination. (Perhaps it requires a mediator)
I would argue (perhaps in vain), that identifying motivations and suggesting motivated reasoning are not one in the same. I have experienced that difference in dialog, with positive outcome, in real life. This goes hand-in-hand with differentiating interests from positions. One develops positions from motivating reasoning, which may in fact do disservice to their real motivations. I take it on faith that my interlocutors here have laudable motivations despite the possible interference of motivated reasoning.
I don’t see a distinction of significance between saying to someone that “I don’t see how your argument makes sense, because I don’t understand [x] aspect of your logic,” (or as you suggested, “Your argument is bogus”), and saying “I suspect that your reasoning is motivated by a desire to achieve a goal of confirming your starting orientation.” There is a difference of language, by does that mean manifest as a difference in connotation?
As my father used to say: I never promised you a rose garden.
Life is tough. Now maybe it isn’t possible to say “Your argument is bogus,” and the most we can ever say is in some random moment when someone won’t take it as a personal affront, “Argument X is bogus” (when argument X is something that you know your interlocutor has advocated) – but can’t we hope for something more direct than that?
What is the alternative to sharing the process of uncovering how our reasoning is biased? The off chance that someone is just right despite their motivated reasoning?
Ben,
I don’t actually disagree with you that we have a problem with democratic accountability, I think I probably was too dismissive of this in my previous comment. And to the extent that the problem exists it will have an impact on most areas of policy, including environmental/climate change policy.
It’s also fair to say that there have been particular areas of policy where governments have pursued an agenda which has been damaging democratic accountability or for democracy itself – the attacks on civil liberties in the name of the “war on terror” being a good example.
Sometimes governments can get “captured” by special interests, sometimes the government’s intentions aren’t malign, they are just misguided. And we should avoid the temptation to confuse “undemocratic policies” with policies we just don’t happen to agree with or conclude that when we have a minority view on a particular issue it is somehow undemocratic if the opposing view prevails.
I’m happy to be corrected but it seems to me that you see environmentalism as some kind of malign force which has managed to “capture” our politicians and you see this as one of the areas of policy where governments have pursued an undemocratic agenda, with climate change being a particular manifestation of this. I don’t agree with any of those propositions; as I said I’m not an environmentalist but I do have sympathies in that direction, nor do I see that (and leaving aside for a moment the issue of climate change) politicians have been using pursuing some environmentalist agenda which has undermined democracy. The fact is that an awful lot of their fine talk about their green credentials has been just that – fine talk with little substance.
And I’m certainly not buying climate change “skepticicsm” as a rational response to a lack of democratic accountability. This is certainly a line pushed by some skeptics – that politicians are using climate change as cover to pursue their own agenda, but then the people making these claims tend to be from the part of the political spectrum which is particularly hostile to government in general – I would say it says as much about their own prejudices as anything else. Also, it doesn’t tie in with the timidity of what governments are actually doing, or allow for the fact that there are actually many different stripes of governments and politicians in different countries, yet virtually every government accepts there is a real problem to be addressed.
And that’s the thing – there <i>is</i> a problem, or at the very least a very plausible case for there being one. One can still suspect the government of using it as an excuse to pursue its own ends, or just believe it’s solutions are completely wrong headed, and still accept there is a problem. I think our government has abused civil liberties in a dangerous and totally unacceptable manner in the name of protecting us from terrorism, and has been guilty of scaremongering at times. But I still have no problem in accepting that there are people out there who want to do us harm.
But the skeptics, at least the ones you have referred to, the Moncktons, Moranos etc, they refuse to accept there is even a problem. And that’s not a question of “democratic accountability”, it’s a question of science. But instead of accepting the science and criticising the reaction of politicians they distort and misrepresent it, or just reject it outright. There would be no need to do that if their “skepticism” was an honest and reasonable reaction to the excesses of my “side”.
Andrew – I’m happy to be corrected but it seems to me that you see environmentalism as some kind of malign force which has managed to “capture” our politicians and you see this as one of the areas of policy where governments have pursued an undemocratic agenda, with climate change being a particular manifestation of this.
I don’t credit environmentalism or environmentalists (in the broadest senses) with so much agency. I emphasise that environmentalism hasn’t been established on its own steam, and thus is not its own force. It captures the imaginations of politicians, certainly, but the interesting part of the story is not the power of environmentalism, but the conditions of its possibility. Many of those conditions are certainly not unique to environmentalism. Politicians, then, are not driven or captured by environmentalism as such, but by the moment, and the limitations of contemporary poltics.
And that’s the thing ““ there is a problem, or at the very least a very plausible case for there being one.
I get very bored of having to repeat the point. I’m critical of environmentalism, which is not the same as saying ‘there are no environmental problems’ or that ‘we don’t need to do anything about environmental problems’. A similar problem is pointing out the problems of the UNFCCC process’s legitimacy, or lack of it. To point it out is instantly seen as saying… shouting… “climate change is not happening”. I make no such claim. I don’t take a view on science very often, partly because I’m agnostic about it, but mostly because I beleive that ‘what science says’ cannot be understood in this atmosphere of… for want of a better word… tribalism. It coulours the view of science. It loads the question. Too much is presupposed.
#195,
“But instead of accepting the science and criticising the reaction of politicians they distort and misrepresent it, or just reject it outright.”
I think they would say they do both.
I’ve said on previous occasions that the connection between politics and climate scepticism isn’t that people are sceptical purely because it suits their politics to be. (Nor do I think it of most left-wing believers in climate catastrophe.) People believe as they do because of the science (or what they see as science); people care enough to argue about it because of the politics. People may examine the issues more closely because of their politics, but the problems they find as a result are a question of science.
And there are criticisms of the politics even on its own terms. If global warming is really an emergency, then the politicians should be:
1) Spending significant money improving and validating the science. You can’t make high-value decisions without the best information available, and there should be absolutely zero tolerance for people mucking about withholding data and fudging results in the face of a global emergency. You want to keep the data private so you can publish more papers on it and obtain more funding for your institutions? Seriously?
2) Pushing for an effective global solution – none of this “common but differentiated responsibilities” nonsense.
3) Dropping all the ineffective gestures with twisty lightbulbs and windfarms, and starting a massive wholesale transition to nuclear power. Or even gas.
They don’t, and it’s hard to avoid concluding that it’s because they don’t really believe it’s an emergency either. It is, though, a good excuse for more taxes and more government control, and every government is in favour of that.
Joshua,
What you’re asking for is not a rational discussion, but just a conversation.
I agree that it would be a great thing to have. But I also believe that what you are asking for is better made among friends, in a more collegial setting, and perhaps in a less virtual environment.
A walk is good for that. Perhaps some Marshmallow Experiment. Or perhaps a journey leading to a spiritual bonding. PDA is better placed to answer to that one.
Ron Broberg once proposed
> One imagines scotch in a refined and quiet atmosphere.
http://neverendingaudit.tumblr.com/post/2167895377
Such an atmostphere could even attract Jeff Id.
So perhaps there’s still hope.
I hope there’s still hope, otherwise how could I make that very speech act?
Best of luck in your search,
w
> [T]he interesting part of the story is not the power of environmentalism, but the conditions of its possibility.
Some background on the concept of condition of possibility:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Condition_of_possibility
It would be great to hear such transcendantal story, be it historical or not.
Lots of good exchanges on this thread. Thanks to those who obviously have put some time and thought in their comments. I’m going to catch up with the thread in its entirety over the weekend. Much fodder for me!
Willard –
Could you give an example of a rational discussion? Even more, have you ever seen one in the climate blogosphere?
(189) TB –
I see a fairly big difference between Pielke Jr. and Keith. Maybe not so much w/r/t their view of the state of the science as in how they engage in the debate.
While I respect some of Pielke’s technical input, I think he is actually quite content to fan and exploit the tribalism as he pushes his agenda. He flings jello to elevate his status in the debate.
I don’t see Keith’s contributions in that way. I think that Keith is seeking to move beyond the food fight – not throw more jello mold.
Obviously, I don’t know what Pielke is like as person, but as I see him in his on line persona, he is an advocate, does not rise above the juvenile noise-making, and he is not open to evaluating his positions.
@202 Joshua:
“While I respect some of Pielke’s technical input”
For instance? Not saying he’s not contributed any, just curious as to what specifically you consider to be worthwhile.
“I think he is actually quite content to fan and exploit the tribalism as he pushes his agenda.”
Sure. He’s made that abundantly clear by his strawmanning of people correctly discussing increases in odds of extremes vs. signals in normalized disaster losses (and his need to police the discourse about extremes generally), his reflexive attacks the scientists who blog at RealClimate, his serial claims of third parties “supporting” his claims which turn out to be invented, etc.
“He flings jello to elevate his status in the debate.”
Self-promotion is apparently a very valued trait in some corners.
“I don’t see Keith’s contributions in that way.”
Nor do I. I would imagine that Michael Tobis, PDA, Marlowe Johnson, and all the others who try to get KK to acknowlege his own biases would also agree, That’s not the complaint.
That’s not what you described as Keith’s schtick. It’s not that Keith and Junior are very similar in behavior (they’re not, thankfully!). Think about what you said about the schtick and how that mindset would react to the Pielkean, Lomborgian, Breakthrough, Hartwell, et al. posing. Keith and Revkin (and many other journalists) are as far away from the Pielkes’ shameless self-promotion and discourse policing as you can get in many ways. It’s that the former’s biases play right into the latter.
“Obviously, I don’t know what Pielke is like as person, but as I see him in his on line persona, he is an advocate, does not rise above the juvenile noise-making, and he is not open to evaluating his positions.”
I will no doubt be accused of making this all about Pielke even though our focus is on others, so I will cut this short: for some real fun, read his summary of the ozone-depletion regulation fight and compare it to respected science-policy accounts or science historians. Or feel free to email me for the condensed but off topic version.
Joshua,
Just caught your question.
A rational discussion is first and foremost an idealization. It represents an exchange where people stick to the point and keep their hits above the waist. It might not encompass a discussion as a whole.
I have no ready answer to your question. I’ll try to find an example and report back.
@202 “While I respect some of Pielke’s technical input, I think he is actually quite content to fan and exploit the tribalism as he pushes his agenda.” Joshua what is RPJ’s agenda?
Windy, it doesn’t matter what Pielke’s agenda is. What matters is what it isn’t.
That’s not the complaint.
Not even remotely.
My position is more that he’s ideally positioned to address the question of “what to do about the climate discourse,” but that it seems unlikely he’ll make much progress finger-wagging at “extremists” and not acknowledging his own shtick.
For what it’s worth, I see more overlap between KK and someone like mt than I do between the RPJrs and Tom Fullers of the climateverse. The whole “you’re-a-Chicken-Little”/”oh-yeah-well-you’re-a-reflexive-middle-ground-seeker” contretemps is pure shtick in my opinion. Both want to see a discussion of substance, not jello-flinging. The fact that Keith-the-journalist focuses on the culpability of some scientists for the food fight while Michael-the-scientist focuses on journalists could be the beginning – rather than the end – of an interesting, and vital, conversation.
As I’ve said, though, there’s no way Keith is going to be able to hear it from me. I think you, Joshua, express this perspective better, than I can, and can also do so in a way that doesn’t seem to be taken as a personal attack.
RPJ is a producer of science content, KK is a commentator on the communication of that content (or whatever he is, don’t want to get into this inane argument on the definition of KK’s tribe). There’s a world of difference here. No offense KK.
It seems RPJ single handedly brought sanity to the recent SREX report, and calls people out when it is misrepresented for political gain, a target rich environment.
I first ran across RPJ when investigating why Florida’s home insurance rates soared after 2005 / 2006 hurricane seasons. Turns out the insurance industry stopped using historical records for future hurricane estimates, they instead turned to the wisdom of climate models.
2011 Pulitzer Prize for investigative journalism: Florida insurers rely on dubious storm model
http://www.heraldtribune.com/article/20101114/article/11141026
Global cyclone activity is at historic lows. It has been an all time record 2000+ days and counting since a Cat3+ USA landfall has occurred.
Hurricane insurance rates in Florida have not fallen. Taxpayer science at work.
#203 Thingsbreak:
I think the RPJr, (and TBI type folks in general), add value to the debate by examining issues such as the “rebound effect,” the relationship between GDP growth and ACO2 emission, etc.
I haven’t read their stuff extensively, but I have read some of it, watched a couple of clips of RPJr’s talks, and in my view he/they sometimes tend towards overconfidence in their conclusions, underestimate uncertainties, etc. But I think that ultimately the debate is bettered by his/their kind of analyses. I don’t think that Roger is fully responsible, by any means, for the tribalism that plays out around his input, but I do think that he shares in that responsibility.
In terms of “schticks,” yes, I think that the benefit of input from both Roger and Keith is circumscribed, to some degree, by their “stick.” Still, I think that the ways in which they approach the debate mitigates the limiting impact of their “schtick,” respectively.
I have read this a couple of times and I can’t quite understand what you’re saying here:
#207 – PDA
I agree with much of what you wrote there. I will reiterate that everyone needs to evaluate whether they have a schtick, and if so bring it to the table to get past it.
I’m not sure that Keith hears it from me, and rightfully so. It isn’t something that you can just hear. I have a schtick too – so it is appropriate that he filters what I say through my biases. My sense is that in general, he does a pretty good job of listening.
I think that the place to start is to offer the discussion if we think there’s reason to respect our interlocutor. To the extent that we offer conclusions (I am not absolving myself of responsibility here), we do ourselves a disservice. It is usually interpreted (and may in fact be) a sign of disrespect whether we intend it that way or not.
Joshua,
The exchange between John Nielsen-Gammon and Roger Pielke Sr. looks like a good example of a rational discussion:
http://blog.chron.com/climateabyss/2011/08/roger-pielke-jr-s-inkblot/
I could also cite about anything in which Andrew Adams, Bart Verheggen, and Fred Moolten participate.
&tg; RPJ is a producer of science content […]
Let’s not go a bridge too far
http://rogerpielkejr.blogspot.ca/2010/03/stealth-issue-advocacy.html?showComment=1268743615056#c8035892138076271443
I at least feel salvation is here now that Joe Romm has published a book on communicating. (Sing it!) What’s a meta for, boys, what’s a meta for… What did Ida hoe, boys, what did Ida hoe… I dunno but I’ll ask her…
#211, thanks for the link. An interesting article which I missed at the time. But while I agree that the conversation in comments with RPSr “looks like a good example of a rational discussion”, actually it isn’t. It IS a good example of how scientific mores prevent the sort of explosion of snark that is so distressing on other sites inkling this one (and not, so far, P3, I will point out.) But it is an unsuccessful example of scientific discourse insofar as the participants did not emerge with a joint consensus position, nor even a jointly acceptable statement of the nature of their disagreement.
Indeed, neither moved their position at all. Typically this is because one or both of the participants is defending a position for reasons other than scientific. A clear sign of this is frustration in one party – “we’re not getting anywhere, so I’ve had enough”. Although one could imagine taking this stance as a political ploy, more typically the person giving up in frustration is the one who actually sought to make progress, treating their initial position as expendable, rather than to defend a position, treating the identification of common ground as expendable.
So it’s still NOT an excellent example to model ourselves upon. Ideally rational people can, if they cannot come to a common opinion, come to a shared statement of the points they hold in common and the causes of their disagreement. In the best case they can even agree on an objective test of the matters in dispute and collaborate on settling it.
But it’s a complex set of skills. A certain commendable politeness often masquerades for the sort of genuine inquiry that really is what well-intentioned folk want. That politeness is a good thing, but its presence is not enough to really rise to a paragon of discourse
All of this relates to what for me is the key theme of the past couple of weeks – what to engage in and what to ignore.
Dr. Tobis, P3 is still pure of contamination because nobody visits. The reason nobody visits is your censor and edit comments. Which is why when you need intellectual or emotional stimulation you have to get your boots dirty and go slumming amongst the downtrodden.
The ideal you hold up for scientific discourse is radically different from your behaviour.You attack people, their competence and their scientific knowledge based solely on their political position.
You make repeated wrong and/or contradictory statements.
You disappear when confronted with your errors and reappear after there has been time for discussion to veer to another topic.
You don’t choose what to engage in and what to ignore. You attack, retreat and then ignore. Bit of a difference, there.
RPJr censors (although to my knowledge doesn’t edit) comments. Does your logic apply universally, or is there some reason it only applies sometimes?
Oh–now you want to talk to me, Josh? Well, doh. RP Jr. gets about the same number of comments as P3. Both of which get more than my modest effort.
The difference is that Tobis wants engagement–well, with the right sort of people, I guess. Pielke does not seem to care very much about it, probably getting enough feedback from other sources.
I enjoy the comments I get, but am not concerned about number, volume, pitch or tone.
(211) willard –
Thanks. I took a brief look. Some of my quick reactions were similar to MT’s. I’ll go back and look in more detail later to see if I can follow the scientific content in some detail.
Agree about Moolton. He mostly, although not always, upheld principles of rational discussion.. Don’t know about Bart. Agree about AA.
I will note, however, that of your examples (the link, Moolton, and maybe Bart?) three? are limited to science debate (Moolton rarely ventured into that mess overtly). I’m a bit more interested in rational discussion in the social, cultural, and political elements of the debate.
As for AA – I have had very good interactions with him, sometimes involving some measure of disagreement. I agree, he is an “agent” of rational discussion – even when discussing politics. His interaction with Ben in this thread is a good example.
Didn’t realize you had a blog, Tom.
I reserve the right to talk to you sometimes, and not at others. I have no interest in a involved exchange of views with you unless (by some act of god?) you decide that I’m worthy of a good faith discussion.
Well, Josh, sometimes you seem to be and sometimes you don’t.
#215. Re: moderation at P3, I made an early false positive error with one posting from NiV and I did delete one from Fuller. I have no trace of either of them. We learned from these events.
Since then, everything that is not obvious spam has been posted unedited. The so far very rare stuff that is counterproductive is moved to a “bore hole” and linked from the article. Our editorial judgments can be reviewed and contested.
If a counterproductive contribution has some positive value we post an edited version with the rude stuff cut out.
Such comments are delayed because I haven’t written software to handle this yet and it is tedious to do by hand. If I get funding and/or quit my day job this delay will be fixed.
Traffic is less than I’d like but it’s getting better and we’ve only begun to fight. The site is less than a year old. We think it is already worth your attention, and thanks, Tom Fuller for the opportunity for a shameless plug of http://planet3.org
speaking of false positive — my corporate firewall has blocked your site Michael 🙁
Joshua,
Perhaps Jonathan Gilligan?
Tom —
No doubt. Like anyone, I would suppose. Perhaps less often with me (the seems to be as opposed to doesn’t seem to be) than with others – but this opinion you just stated is in contrast with your previous stated opinion. What changed your mind?
I saw you on occasion engage in fruitful exchanges about the topic of a thread or an extension of it that developed organically from it.
Those occasions are vastly different to your long philosophical discourses on topics that are not relevant to the discussion and often appear to be deliberate diversions.
Michael,
Tom fuller in 215 accurately described your modus operandi. The other day I asked you a question twice, in response to your complaints about journalism. It would have required you to support some of your sweepings statements. You chose not to answer. Instead, you moved on..
P3, like RC, moderation is simply stacking the deck to the whims of the moderator. Getting moderated out one time is enough to stop someone from coming back, and everyone knows it. Moderated sites tend to be authoratarian.
I posted at RC frequently enough (maybe once a week) for a while and then got disappeared several times on seemingly innocuous posts and basically just stopped. Their message was clear enough. A Climategate e-mail from Mann revealed a rather poisonous attitude over there:
GAAHHH!!! The hypocrisy! It BURNS!!! IT BURNS!!!
Marlowe,
Me:
Keith,Can you elaborate on your criticism of Sach’s comments? It seems to me that he’s essentially correct.
Keith:Sorry guys, I can’t go down the rabbit hole with you today. Do you just want to play games? If you’re not going to engage in good faith, I’m not going to bother with you.
I’ll leave it to your readers to judge who is engaging in good faith and who isn’t.
The thing about tribalism is that it pre-disposes you to dismiss some people because they are being critical of your team.
Being tribal also allows you to overlook/ignore the missteps of your own side.
Oops – wrong thread the first time. Let me try here.
Ah yes, the ol’ “appear to be.” Yes ““ I must divert you and others from your valuable work of exchanging insults in blog comments. You’ve found me out, Tom.
But truth told, I assume that you and others have a long enough attention span to be able to scroll past any of my comments (and those of people interacting with me) without being distracted from your interest of focus. I know my comments are long, but I’m sure it would only take a second or two to scroll past them. Try that little down arrow on the right margin of your browser.
Now back to what changed you mind. What you said today is in direct contrast to what you said
earlier. Did you make a mistake then? Did you make a mistake today? Or has something changed your mind?
232 pls. see 225.
Ah. Sorry I missed that. So you were wrong when you first described me as someone not worth paying any attention to. And wrong again significantly later when affirmed that conclusion. And it is subsequent to that time that you saw characteristics in some of my posts that were completely different than what you had seen before. Different enough to convince you that your earlier, categorical statement was wrong.
Thanks. You explanation seems implausible to me. I don’t think that the quality of my posts has changed. I think that you are actually finding a sneaky way to admit that you are capable of realizing that you jump to incorrect conclusions after all. Like I said in the beginning.
Joshua, think what you want.
Joshua,
It’s quite obvious that the exchange between NG and Senior did not end that well. At least the standstill (“the nature of their disagreement”) was got clarified. The fact that no decisive outcome does not preclude this exchange from following the unwritten book of head-baseball.
We should not take our idealizations too seriously. If we do, we’d always be asking for 20 millions engineerily derived reports of everything.
But if you want good examples of the opposite of what I have in mind, take a look at #215: just more mindframin’ and more shirt rippin’.
But yeah, please think whatever you want.
Okay, Joshua, I will quit trying to be facile (I don’t like to engage seriously with people who I do not believe will return the courtesy. I actually spend energy when I engage and as I have a finite amount of it, I prefer to pick my spots.)
Have I ever jumped to an incorrect conclusion? Yes.
Are you someone worth paying attention to? Maybe–for me. Others find your contributions valuable. If it doesn’t work out between us, life will go on for both of us.
There’s another possibility regarding the merit of your comments–that they have changed recently (or also that the responses I favor as being worth note are migrating to this blog–maybe you’ve always been this brilliant in fora that I don’t frequent.)
I don’t need to sneak–I managed to apologize straightforwardly to Joe Romm, whom I heartily detest. If I consider myself wrong about something I will tell you quickly. There are two very liberating phrases that I recommend to everyone–“I was wrong and I’m sorry” is one. The other is “I don’t know.”
Hey willard –
I was goofing around with that link that you sent and I came across this:
http://rogerpielkejr.blogspot.com/2011/07/simple-math-and-logic-underpinning.htmlI was curious how you would characterize RPJrs participation in that discussion..
Tom-
I did state that as a possibility. And I find it possible, but implausible. I don’t think that the quality of my comments has changed. Further, I can’t think of any likely mechanism that would have made that happen. Would I dumb down my comment originally to sucker you in so that I could later force you to admit being wrong? Have I had a brain transplant?
I think it far more likely that you jumped to a ridiculous conclusion, made a stupid assertion, wouldn’t back down when challenged, held on for dear life when given the opportunity to let go, in a rather sloppy move made a contradictory statement that revealed your mistake, and now refuse accountability.
That’s how it seems to me.
Seems like you’re bent on proving my initial conclusion correct, actually.
Joshua,
My favorite bit from Junior’s link in your #238 is
Some, but not me, have been inclined to think about Humpty Dumpty:
http://rabett.blogspot.ca/2011/07/theres-word-for-that.html
The fact that you feel it necessary to explain who Andrew W. Montford is strongly suggests unfamiliarity with his superb book The Hockey Stick Illusion: Climategate and the Corruption of Science. I readily grant that the book is difficult reading and requires perseverance, it is a wonderful recitation of Steve McIntyre’s valiant effort to replicate the now-infamous “Hockey Stick” produced by Mann, Bradley and Hughes. Along the way, readers receive an eye-opening education in the methods and practices of climatology and paleoclimatology. It is well worth the time.