The Times February 11, 2007
Nigel Calder, former editor of New Scientist, says the orthodoxy must be challenged
When politicians and journalists declare that the science of global warming is settled, they show a regrettable ignorance about how science works. We were treated to another dose of it recently when the experts of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change issued the Summary for Policymakers that puts the political spin on an unfinished scientific dossier on climate change due for publication in a few months’ time. They declared that most of the rise in temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely due to man-made greenhouse gases.
The small print explains “very likely” as meaning that the experts who made the judgment felt 90% sure about it. Older readers may recall a press conference at Harwell in 1958 when Sir John Cockcroft, Britain’s top nuclear physicist, said he was 90% certain that his lads had achieved controlled nuclear fusion. It turned out that he was wrong. More positively, a 10% uncertainty in any theory is a wide open breach for any latterday Galileo or Einstein to storm through with a better idea. That is how science really works.
Twenty years ago, climate research became politicised in favour of one particular hypothesis, which redefined the subject as the study of the effect of greenhouse gases. As a result, the rebellious spirits essential for innovative and trustworthy science are greeted with impediments to their research careers. And while the media usually find mavericks at least entertaining, in this case they often imagine that anyone who doubts the hypothesis of man-made global warming must be in the pay of the oil companies. As a result, some key discoveries in climate research go almost unreported.
Enthusiasm for the global-warming scare also ensures that heatwaves make headlines, while contrary symptoms, such as this winter’s billion-dollar loss of Californian crops to unusual frost, are relegated to the business pages. The early arrival of migrant birds in spring provides colourful evidence for a recent warming of the northern lands. But did anyone tell you that in east Antarctica the Adélie penguins and Cape petrels are turning up at their spring nesting sites around nine days later than they did 50 years ago? While sea-ice has diminished in the Arctic since 1978, it has grown by 8% in the Southern Ocean.
Read the rest of this entry >>
The science involved in predicting future climate is enormously complex and beyond the ability of just about any layperson to understand. Still, if one is curious, willing to think, and has some scientific understanding, it is possible to make informed judgments.
With that in mind, look at the following two graphics which have been publicized by advocates for catastrophic anthropogenic global warming:
Arctic Climate Impact Assessment
IPCC Third Assessment Report
The first comes from an international group concerned with climate in the arctic regions, and is meant to link rising temperature to rising carbon dioxide concentration. The second is from the same famous group of “2500 climate scientists” that we hear so much about. This second graphic is the so-called “hockey stick” that the IPCC displayed prominently for several years until it finally died a deserved and long overdue death last year.
If one understands science and data analysis, both of these graphics can be immediately recognized as propaganda, without any knowledge of the underlying research. The tell-tale signs include arbitrary scaling, spliced datasets, and ignored confidence limits. When one actually digs into the specifics, the deception becomes even more apparent, and appalling.
I have some sympathy with those who remained convinced that “all the scientists believe it”, and that “the skeptics are a tiny minority”. However, it is not true. If you have an open mind and are interested in how the whole sorry thing came to this point, the best summary is given here:
Politics of Climate Change
Mr. Chresand:
For public policy to be successful, decisions need to be based on the most expert and authoritative sources available. Likewise in order to avoid making mistakes and suffering ther potentially distasterous consequences of those mistakes, public policy decision making must be based on an analytic process that is objective, impartial, scientific and empirical.
The scientists who are warning us of global warming represent the most expert and authoritative sources available. They come from the leading scientific organizations established by our government, and other governments for the purpose of allowing us to understand the meterorilogical and climatological forces that are affecting our planet. To falsely ascribe to them political motivations that simply do not exist is a clear example of a child-like mentality of denial that will lead us to future disaster.
If we have learned one thing from the Iraq fiasco it is that defiantly and impetuously ignoring the advice of experts is a recipe for disaster. In Iraq we willfully ignored the advice of diplomats who counseled the need to work with the United Nation, we scornfully ignored the recommendations of experienced generals who said we needed many more troops, we carelessly discarded the advice of foreign service officers on the need for a plan to rebuild Iraq and restore stability, and once the fighting began we never bothered to review the classic rules of counter-insurgency regarding the importance of not losing hearts and minds.
In your comments on global warming I detect the same spirit of heedless, reckless, arrogant, impetuous, defiance that have led us to defeat in Iraq. Instead of distilling the information regarding Global Warming objectively you have allowed emotion, politics and ideological predilection to drive your interpretation of the relavent information. According to the immature syllogism that you used to arrive at your position on global warming: 1) Most of the experts who say that global warming is man made are environmentalists, 2) most environmentalists are politically liberal, 3) many political liberalism are secular humanists or athiests, 4) so therefore, environmentalism is the product of a Godless philosophy, and 5) global warming must be a hoax. Congratulations you have devised a process for understanding scientific information that transforms it entirely into a theological exercise while managing to exclude the actual science all together.
Mr. Scourtes:
You wrote:
This is not true. The IPCC group is self-selected. The 2500 scientists are mostly environmental scientists from small countires that have no background in the relevant disciplines required to predict changes in climate. In fact, the majority of scientists with relevant credentials study meterology and as a group do not subscribe to the alarmist position. Even within the IPCC group, there is widespread discomfort with the political pronouncements of the leaders.
I have an advanced degree in chemical engineering, spent 7 years working as an environmental engineer, and have experience modeling complex physico-chemical systems. My opinions on this are informed and rational. Yours are ill-informed and hysterical.
I gave two examples of graphics used by the global warming alarmists which are clearly meant to decieve, and which someone with a technical background could see through immediately. These were publicised after the purportedly exhaustive peer-review process by the scientists you are extolling. Something is clearly corrupt in the IPCC process.
Where exactly did I say any of this?
Did you read the article I recommended? If so, what do you think about what Dr. Paltridge’s qualifications and what he had to say?
Dean, I must say your vomitus in comment #3 is overboard by even your standards.
You not only set up a straw-man to knock down, the straw is in flames–I’m surprised you didn’t burn your hands assemblying it.
If there is any analogy with the Iraq war it is that arroagantly rushing into a difficult, complicated and dangerous situation for political and personal reasons can be disasterous. That is exactly what you and the other chicken little’s are doing with climate change. Much of the so-called data is equivalent to the WMD’s in Iraq which every major intelligence agency in the world believed to be there.
Take some vallium and go to bed.
#3 – Mr. Scourtes,
I must lend support to Mr. Chresand. Contrary to what you hear from Al Gore or the UN, there are plenty of serious and well qualified individuals who disagree with the so-called “consensus” on the causes of global warming for reasons other than ideology. They are not all idiots, fanatics, irrational, or evil people on the level of holocaust deniers.
I am an engineer who obtained my graduate degree at a distinguished university. I have thorough training in geology and earth sciences. During my graduate studies I had the opportunity to interact with several students of climatology.
One of the most appalling aspects of their forward modeling of the global climate was the cavalier attitude they exhibited toward scaling up small-scale laboratory observations to a global scale, something that is extremely risky when dealing with the sort of mathematics that govern meteorologic processes. Furthermore, the models by and large failed to properly estimate the huge contribution to the atmosphere of greenhouse gases generated through geologic processes and the variability of these contributions. I was thoroughly unimpressed by the rebuttals to most of these arguments, which were usually “you need to talk to my research supervisor,” or “anthropogenic CO2 may be a small contribution, but it upsets the balance.” I suspected at the time that research funding was given to people who were biased toward a favored outcome.
As for the “hockey stick” graph, it has been thoroughly debunked. Any student of history can tell it gives inadequate indication of changes in climate that were recorded by contemporaries during and after the middle ages. Of course, it was designed to ignore these historic variations in climate.
Okay, I admit I attempted to fold global warming into a much larger discussion of how the current conservate movement, and the Bush adminstration, have rejected conventional wisdom accross the board and much to the detriment of our country. As result of right-wing policies our nation is now deeply in debt, mired in war, with it’s international reputation in tatters and economic insecurity among our people steadily rising. Is ruining the environment also on the agenda?
I am also deeply suspicious that much of the global warming skepticism promoted in the media is funded by energy industries with a vested financial interest in lax environmental regulation, and too easily accepted by religious conservatives who have been steadily trained and oriented to mistrust science.
However, I will read the items Mr. Chresand referenced with an open mind , hoping that they will offer a scientific and objective perspective on the issue, and then offer a response.
You guys have much too much time on your hands. I suggest that you all help your wives dust and vacuum the house or do some worthy vulunteer work in your city and stop toying with your computers so much. Sanity and functionality start at home.
Michael:
Have you been talking to my wife?
Seriously though, successful democracies require an informed citizenry. The internet is growing source of information on important issues affecting our nation and society. Because many sources of information (including the mainstream media) may have a particular viewpoint that slants their presentation, blogs such as this one serve a valuable function in allowing indiviudals to share diverse, competing and opposing viewpoints.
In that respect Blogs such as this one are the new venues or marketplaces of ideas in our modern wired world. This blog serves the same purpose as the steps of the Acropolis in ancient Athens, the coffeehouses of Renaisance Europe, or the salons of Paris.
Father Jacobse has provided a valuable forum for sharing information and ideas and those of us who care about such things are all in his debt for that.
Dean, too bad we can’t have the coffee and rolls too.
Can someone explain the conservative resistance to the possibility of global warming? It’s not like it’s in any way an assertion about a Biblical belief (such as a 6,000-year old Earth), and it doesn’t threaten to impose a certain view of morality upon the world (as do some other scientific endeavors might correctly be labeled as doing).
If it’s false, at worst we will have found alternative ways of consuming our resources and perhaps have spent some money unnecessarily. Both parties in Congress seem to have no issue with the latter, so what gives?
Can someone explain the conservative resistance to the possibility of global warming?
Sure
1) The science (especially the assumed human component) is problematic, but popular press and certain politicos (from the left) are trying to bully people into thinking it’s settled – much like global cooling was not even 30 years ago.
2) It just so happens that the left wants to use this issue to further their agenda, which already included reducing economic growth and re-distributing wealth by the point of the sword before they had this issue
3) As we have discussed before, there is not viable “alternative” energy source other than a robust nuclear program. Oil is cheap, plentiful, and relatively harmless. “Can someone explain the conservative resistance to the possibility of global warming?” is a positive moral harm, in that it is economic growth that is the best way to solve poverty, health, and all sorts of other moral issues – especially in the third world.
4) As we have discussed at length before, a real warming trend (assuming we are in one which I personally find is likely). is at worst neutral, but probably a positive moral event on balance for the whole of humanity (e.g. more even climate and rain fall in middle latitudes meaning much better food production).
5) The left, being ideological and faddish, is of course buying this one hook, line, and sinker. The right, being much more balanced in the use of science and the related moral implications is of course rightly being skeptical…
#11 JamesK
Most people have no idea what would be required to truly balance carbon dioxide emissions with natural uptakes. To get a feel for the magnitudes involved, consider that CO2 concentrations started to rise around 1880. Can you imagine the world now – with 5 times as many people – reverting to 1880s carbon usage? To do so would plunge the world into economic misery, and poor people in developing countries would be hit the hardest.
It is on this point that the alarmists are the most dishonest, and the agenda outlined by Christopher in #12 is most apparent.
Add to this the fact that the CO2 concentrations inferred fom ice cores almost always show CO2 rising after temperatures had already risen, and you can see why there is much room for “conservative resistance”.
#8 Michael
I have a much less exalted view of the blog habit than does Mr. Scourtes, so I will accept your chiding and slink away…
Tom writes: “Can you imagine the world now – with 5 times as many people – reverting to 1880s carbon usage?”
I can imagine taking SOME action. I can imagine that it probably doesn’t take a 4,000 pound truck with a 6.1 liter V8 engine getting 12 miles per gallon to carry a 100 pound woman to the store in order to get a gallon of milk. The U.S. is the largest consumer of oil, and around two-thirds of that is used for transportation.
Christopher writes: “Oil is cheap, plentiful, and relatively harmless.”
Cheap and plentiful, at least until we hit the “peak,” which may already have happened. I’m not sure what you mean by “relatively harmless.” It is not harmless in it’s environmental effects. The harm that oil imports inflict on our balance of trade is well-known. And the harm that results to our foreign policy due to our dependence on imported oil is well-known .
Christopher: “As we have discussed at length before, a real warming trend (assuming we are in one which I personally find is likely). is at worst neutral, but probably a positive moral event on balance for the whole of humanity (e.g. more even climate and rain fall in middle latitudes meaning much better food production).”
This is a truly fascinating statement. In this venue, the “liberals” have been raked over the coals countless times for the well-intentioned welfare policies of the 60s and 70s that in some communities had a very negative effect. Conservatives delight in denouncing this “social experiment,” over, and over, and over again, even as reforms have been in place for years.
Now the conservatives come with their own experiment — not a social experiment, but an environmental experiment using as it’s subject the only planet we have. In this experiment they propose that we continue to pump various greenhouse gases into the atmosphere — and not just at current rates but at exponentially increasing rates, thus virtually guaranteeing to accelerate global warming. And in this experiment, there is no “reform,” no do-over, no rolling back to the default settings.
Comes now Christopher, the Doctor Pangloss of global warming, saying not to worry. A warmer planet will be better! Will cities flood? Will forest fires increase? Will new dust bowls and deserts be created? Will hundreds of millions of people die or be displaced? Will weather patterns dramatically change? Will species go extinct? Will malaria-bearing mosquitoes show up in Seattle? Not to worry, says Christopher Pangloss. No, for him and other conservatives this experiment on planet earth is all a wonderful thing, and we will all be better for it.
Christopher Pangloss: “The right, being much more balanced in the use of science and the related moral implications is of course rightly being skeptical…”
Interestingly, the right is skeptical of the science behind global warming but they are not skeptical about using the earth as a grand high school science experiment. “Come on guys, let’s pump all this crap into the atmosphere and see what happens. Surely the result will be good, with more food for all!” For Christopher, this is the “moral” position to take.
Jim Hansen, Director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, writes:
The Threat to the Planet, The New York Review of Books, July 13, 2006
I thought this would be enjoyable to all those with open minds and strong stomachs.
“The Cooling World”: From Newsweek, April 28, 1975. ?1975 Newsweek Inc. All rights reserved. Reprinted by permission.
The Cooling World
Herewith some excerpts:
I don’t know how I survived the 70s with all that global cooling going on. Good thing we listened to…oh never mind.
Mr. Chresand: I was amused by your sardonic depiction of those concerned about possible global warming as ideologically motivated “alarmists” and “chicken littles”. Not like sober, non-ideological conservatives like yourself. In fact, as I read your words I experienced a flood of memories from early 2005 when Conservatives like yourself were in a frenzied panic over the looming collapse of Social Security. Remember that?
Most economists, as well as the trustees and actuaries of the Social security program felt that the financial solvency of the social security was in danger only under the most pessimistic of economic scenarios. With a some relatively minor adjustments, like increasing the amount of income subject to FICA tax or raising the retirement age a year or two, most experts said that the program could remain solvent for the next 75 years. But this wasn’t enough to satisfy the conservatives who were demanding the most drastic response of all – the complete privatization of the social security program. Conservatives wanted to take our social security savings away from the government and give it to those trustworthy fellows on Wall Street. You don’t suppose that was a little alarmist and ideologically motivated?
Mr. Scourtes:
I can understand how the Newsweek article might encourage you to change the subject.
Wasn’t that extraordinary? It had everything: expert quotes from the National Academy of Sciences and NOAA, unanimous predictions, mass starvation and resulting migrations, ominous warnings to apathetic political leaders, the “grim reality” of not taking immediate action, etc. etc. But all over the prospect of cooling and all only 30 years ago.
Anyway, for the record, I have never been very interested in the social security issue, and certainly never in a “frenzied panic”. I also don’t recall anyone in a “frenzied panic”. I think it would be a good idea, though, to partially privatize SS, much as they do in Sweden and Germany.
I need to give this stuff up for Lent. I hope your Lenten journey is a blessed one.
Tom, may the blessing of our Lord be with you this Lent. Giving up dispute, rancor and judgement for Lent, what a concept!
In the spirit of Forgiveness vespers I ask all to forgive me.
Anger is a challenge for Christians. On the one hand, some things should make us angry. One of my friends likes to say “If you’re not angry, you’re no paying attention.” Even Our Lord turned over the tables of the money-changers in the temple and drove them out calling them thieves. On the other hand, anger is a toxic emotion that impairs our ability to be understanding and sympathetic to others, and my drives us to do or say things we later regret.
The bottom line I think is that no matter how upsetting something is to us, we must stop short of being hurtful to other people. If I have crossed that line than I offer my sincere apologies.