Bishop Hill More on fraternisation
Apr 6, 2012 Climate: Models Climate: Sceptics Interest in the ongoing "football match between the trenches" continues, with an article on Yale Climate Forum by Keith Kloor, who discusses the Met Office's outreach work as well as Scott Denning's visit to the Heartland Conference. This bit was somewhat irksome.
Reminded that much opposition to climate science (and dismissal of climate change) seems ideological in nature, perhaps limiting the amount of headway that can be made on the science if people are already predisposed against it, Denning agreed that the culture war dynamic presents a high hurdle to overcome.
“Almost everyone that dismisses climate change as a problem does it for ideological or political reasons, not for scientific reasons,” he said. “We scientists need to recognize that.”
I clearly have an ideological objection to the use of unvalidated climate models as policy tools. There must be an "-ism" for that. :-)
Reader Comments (64)
Yes, they have not been listening have they. Or reading your book. ;-)
Maybe ' The Hockey Stick Illusion' should be a climate science primer.
“Almost everyone that dismisses climate change as a problem does it for ideological or political reasons, not for scientific reasons,”
The science is post normal science though so its not even science, and does this statement suggest 'The Teams' support for 'The Cause' is not political activism.
Sadly they are deluded, it was the lack of any real science that sparked my investigations into what basis the the science was based on, I found none.
“Almost everyone that dismisses climate change as a problem does it for ideological or political reasons, not for scientific reasons,”
This quote sum up a major part of the reason we sceptics have been so successful lately. These people actually BELIEVE that! They are typically either unaware of the serious scientific objections to CAGW, or have looked no further that RealClimate or SkS for their "rebuttals", leaving them to think no serious scientific case exists. If you misjudge your enemy, and the challenges you need to overcome, to this extent your cause is doomed.
Actually, I have no real problem with the "greenie in the street" having these views, but for people who presume to be giving authoritative advice to scientists and policy makers to be so woefully ignorant of the true state of the scientific debate is inexcusable.
We need to take these idiots behind the bike sheds and 're-educate' them. 'Back radiation' isn't real - it's created by the very act of measurement which shields the offsetting radiation form the warmer body.
Also, Hansen unilaterally claimed present GHG warming is 3.6 times higher than reality. In consequence the IPCC has exaggerated GHG-AGW by at least an order of magnitude and these eco-lunatics are performing their angry chimpanzee act with absolutely no scientific justification.
I'm getting sick and tired of centuries of good work by real scientists, many of whom lived in poverty to do their work, being trashed by poseurs gorging themselves at the CAGW propaganda trough, the purpose of which is to justify carbon taxes to support the Euro.
“Almost everyone that dismisses climate change as a problem does it for ideological or political reasons, not for scientific reasons,”
Has he found a single sceptic that "dismisses climate change"? I thought the core of scepticism was that the climate is always changing and you can infer nothing from a rise, or fall, in temperature other than it's part of a natural cycle, unless you can produce empirical evidence that there are forcings that are breaking this natural cycle.
Such "evidence" as I 've seen seems to be "it's warming, we can't explain why, so it must be because of CO2 caused by human emissions." What predictions have been made have, to a prediction, failed to materialise. When that has happened their are two reactions: First to move the goal posts a la Vicky Pope who told us the lack of cooling between 1997 and 2008 was normal and to be expected. When their previous position is that the accelerated heating from 1980 to 1998 could only have been caused by an increase in CO2. Or second to say they never made the prediction in the first place. Dr Denning should be aware he's supporting a scientific theory that's unfalsifiable, and as such is already dead in the water as a scientific hypothesis.
If he has found no sceptics who hold the same political views as he does then the reverse of what he says must be true, that all those holding the view that humans are destroying the planet must hold the same political beliefs as he does. I am assuming he's against globalisation, big corporations, capitalism, sees the need for global government of the environment and votes for Obama. The lack of self-awareness is awesome.
PS had 'Cap and trade' gone through, the US would have adopted the Amero also supported by carbon taxes. All you greenie Marxists must understand that the true nature of the cause you support has nothing to do with destroying capitalism, just changing who owns it.
Let me rewrite that for him.
“Almost everyone that promotes climate change as a major problem does it for ideological or political reasons, not for scientific reasons,” he said. “We scientists need to recognize that.”
“Almost everyone that dismisses climate change as a problem does it for ideological or political reasons, not for scientific reasons,” he said. “We scientists need to recognize that.”
It would be useful if Scott Denning can provide some examples, or even one example, of such a person. The task might prove more difficult than the warmists imagine.
Maybe we can make a list, one side all those who dismisses climate change as a problem for ideological or political reasons; and on the other side all those who promote change as a problem for ideological or political reasons.
Since I can't think of anyone in the former group, but many for the second group, I remain perplexed by what appears to be Scott Dennings projection bias.
Scott Denning: can you link me to your own econometric (LSR) results showing that atmospheric CO2 is a more potent GHG than atmospheric H2O, thereby falsifying Tyndall (1861)?
My own peer-reviewed paper using LSR showing that Tyndall was right is at my website (www.timcurtin.com) and that of the Australian Economic Society (www.ace2011.org.au).
Keith Kloor, yet another activist maskerading as a "scientist", falls foul of the First Law of Bullshit, which states that he who habitually spouts bullshit inexorably comes to believe it himself.
The plain facts are that climate always changes and nobody disputes that.
That, since the end of the Little Ice Age, global temperatures have increased by a trivial amount. Nobody disputes that.
That man's activities have some impact on the climate, not least through deforestation and urban development. Nobody disputes that.
Concentrations of the trace gas CO2 seem to have increased since the end of the Little Ice Age and very likely have done over the last 50 years. Few people dispute that.
The influence of increases in CO2 (from all sources) is to enhance plant growth. It is possible that some small proportion of the trivial warming is attributable to CO2 and it follows that, as man has likely made a modest contribution to the modest increase in concentration of CO2 that a modest proportion of a trivial increase in temperatures may be attributable to man's emissions. Few people dispute that.
It follows that Kloor's comments on "dismissal of climate change" is an exercise in straw man bullshit.
What IS in dispute is all the shroud waving scary prognoses, which appear to be based on "science" about as robust as Homeopathy.
And policy "solutions" to the "problems" trumpeted by the likes of Kloor which demonstrably just don't work or which are buttock-clenchingly expensive.
What a stunningly ignorant article, written from a biased POV. Kloor should open his eyes and do some homework. And besides, looking at his CV I would say that his journalistic output hasn't been at all impressive - minor league stuff.
Reading him tells me he hasnt looked at climate science all that deeply, writes like he is writing a pamphlet, and is an advocate, not a journalist.
Sadly, that seems to be the normality in the USA.
He says that almost everyone who dismissed climate change does it for ideological reasons. That is patent nonsense. Few people 'dismiss' climate change. What we are talking about is discussing it. Read the science posts by David Whitehead at the GWPF. No ideology there, just science dissected and discussed. Something that Kloor doesn't seem to understand.
I remember reading long ago in the memoirs of a politician (Crossman's diaries, I think) how there was just so much going on when in government that there is virtually no time to think. They live off a kind of intellectual capital, and the daily tasks do not admit reflection, study, and original thought so much as reaction to events, especially nowadays media events, and spinning away to get by. Now the CO2 Crisis folks are in effect 'in government' and are highly-strung, hyper-sensitive to what they see in the media, and reacting as best they can to threats to their position. Inventing positions for the 'opposition' is part of this, and it does not matter if these inventions are facile and glib and without much foundation. They just need a glimmer of truth, an example here and there to focus on, and the spinning can go on.
I think for the wellbeing of all, such spinning will have to stop, but how and when?
Who could do it? I am inclined to the view that the scientists, most of them at least, involved in this crisis business have been stampeded along by those for whom the political advantages of such a crisis were all too apparent and too attractive to resist. The scientists have benefitted from huge increases in funding, but that is peanuts compared to the sums being spent elsewhere as a result of the political success of the crisis campaigners. Now I wonder whether it would matter very much if these scientists were to bite the hands that feed. Frank discussions of uncertainties, modest claims about the models, due recognition of the paucity of good data compared to the climate system's complexity, avoidance of catastrophe talk - perhaps none of this will make much difference now. The wheels have turned, the ratchets have clicked - the massive new bureacracies, the newly empowered eco-busybodies, the almost complete surrender of the political class, the corruption of our education system to push eco-fears onto even the very young, and the passing of draconian legislation such as the Climate Change Act, are all faits accomplis.
BH:
"There must be an "-ism" for that. :-)"
With this kind of 'outreach', the only '-ism' I can think of is evangelism.
I'm fretting the day I hear an unexpected knock on the door, open it, and find myself face to face with two hippies brandishing the latest IPCC report.
sounds like fun!
GlobeScan: The Regeneration Project: Bringing Rio Closer
http://theregenerationproject.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/Bringing_Rio_Closer_Rio+20.pdf
GlobeScan
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GlobeScan
"I clearly have an ideological objection to the use of unvalidated climate models as policy tools. There must be an "-ism" for that. :-)"
GIGOISM ?
“Almost everyone that dismisses climate change as a problem does it for ideological or political reasons, not for scientific reasons,”
Scott Denning-how do you know this?
A few have already hit the nail squarely on the head. The real problem isn't skeptics who think the climate never changes, no the issue here is the creationists who wilfully refuse to accept that skeptics ate challenging the meme that man is solely responsible for the climate changing.
Until the creationists understand the skeptics position nothing will change.
Mailman
An alternative brief explanatory narrative to Denning and Kloor is on offer in discussion by me".
"How Kuhn on Scientific Revolutions Illuminates the Present Climate Science Debate" is informed by acceptance of the anomalous science confirmed by the climategate emails and developments this winter since climategate 2.0.
Kindly please read my version and compare with the above Yale Climate Forum account -- unless our host directs otherwise. Thank you.
I'd be very interested to see in Mr Kloor could write down precisely what he thinks my ideology is. I could then compare his stereotype with the political, moral, scientific and practical positions that I actually take. He might want to take a punt at guessing my education levels and work experience too. That would be a very interesting exercise.
“Almost everyone that dismisses climate change as a problem does it for ideological or political reasons, not for scientific reasons,” he said. “We scientists need to recognize that.”
It's a wonder he didn't suggest 'treatment' for sceptics - it's the next logical step for frustrated climastrologers with no evidence to put forward.
Shouldn't be any trouble arranging a debate on the science, then. Just science, no politics. Where shall we have it? I suggest the Bish as the arranger. We ought to have no trouble finding scientists from the AGW side. Always falling over themselves trying to explain the science, they are. Never miss a chance to debate.
@ John Shade
I agree with your post. My MP thanks me for my comments (well many of them) but in the end he says the government relies on the official science advice. A change in that opinion would require a massive U-turn by both the official scientists and the politicians in charge. I do not see it happening with the present cadre of political party leaders. That does not stop me from continuing to present what I consider to be rational arguments against that advice.
It is also necessary to point out to MPs the absurdity of many of the supposed solutions to the problem they claim exists (eg windfarms). There seems to be a little progress on this front, but not much. Such as it is, the politicians will want to keep quiet about it, to do it by stealth to avoid embarrassment. Eventually the economics will decide.
Problem us Keith sees thing through a US political prism....
Yet Met office engagement IS with UK sceptics..
We are such a NUISANCE, aren't we..?
'Almost everyone that dismisses climate change'
So would they care to name those that 'dismisses climate change' or are they once again trying to conflict AGW with climate change in a desperate attempt to label AGW skeptics as anti-science?
I don't know if there is an 'ism' to describe this but the Roman Catholic church have something nearly identical, papal infallibility.
The 'money quote' about all sceptics being ideological is by Denning. Kloor quotes it, and does not explicitly disown it, but nor does he explicitly endorse it. As consensus-upholding journalists go, he's pretty fair. Give him a break?
Keith is just letting us know that his brief embrace with ethics and critical thinking has worn off and he is now back to being a true believer.
Part of the problem with the "dialogue" is confusion of views on the science with views on mitigation schemes. Would so many of us have invested the time we clearly have on this topic had not we been alarmed at the breadth, and expense of the mitigation schemes? If the "science" had just sat there as an arcane subject for the enquiry of very bright post-docs and been tossed about in their collegial colloquia, would we have cared? Likely not.
But I would submit that both environmentalism and the reaction to environmentalism is ideological.
If the environmentalists choose to frame their schemes based on their science, they shouldn't be at all surprised that their "science" will then receive close scrutiny from dissenters.
And i don't think it makes any difference at all what the ideological disposition of the disputants might be if the discussion is going to be scientific, but then I suspect, the warmers do not really welcome legitimate scientific discussions.
Now, now, Susie, be a good Morelock and eat your greens.
I find it interesting people on the "consensus" side, who are apparently fully qualified to debate the science - seem to prefer to join the sociological/political/psychological PR circus with statements like this.
It's almost as if they are desperate to sweep the "settled" science under the carpet and move on to safer ground.
They must dread the day when the mouldering corpse of climatology is finally exhumed and forensically dissected by real scientists - the stench is going to be appalling.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/apr/06/nasa-scientist-climate-change
So this mad proffessor pay more taxes to keep him in a job
So wher is the best 5 Star hotel in Edinburgh
And did he fly Top Business class with Kevin Spacey
Pay more taxes on cheap oil and gas l to keep people in the 3rd World poor
Climate Change is like slavery Chain him up and and make him work in a field for 18 hours a day
Sorry that is the 3rd World without the chains
"And why beholdest thou the mote that is in your brother's eye, but considerest not the beam in thine own eye?"
I can find no evidence that Keith Kloor has published any peer reviewed paper on climate nor has any scientific qualification.
"There must be an "-ism" for that. :-)"
Yes. It is call Intelligentism.
"You can have any colour as long as it is green."
So Kloor says we can have a meaningful debate once we have dropped our "ideological" objections to climate change.
The Politburo would be proud.
Please could we be a bit more careful with quoting others:
IMHO too many comments have argued that there are few if any who dismiss climate change. That is not Denning's point: "as a problem" is crucial.
I suspect few if any here dismiss climate change. We can all state the mantra: "Climate changes - that's what climate does!"
The issue for many/most/virtually all here is the problem component.
The questions that I ask include:
How large has that change been?
Is the most important cause of the change the increase in carbon dioxide concentration?
How about other anthropogenic effects?
How does all the man-made change compare with what would have happened anyway if man hadn't been here?
How quickly will future change come?
Can the change be negative? i.e. cooling
And then:
What are the "problems" that result from each of the answers?
Are there benefits that counter the problems?
How much (between zero and the total world annual GDP) is it worth spending now to mitigate the effects of future changes in the climate?
Many of these questions have a scientific component. Many also have ideological and political components.
Scott Denning has chosen (presumably deliberately) weasel words that are open to wide interpretation. In the words of the late Professor C E M Joad on "The Brains Trust" (BBC, 1940s), "It all depends on what you mean by…"
where the ellipsis would include (as a minimum): dismiss, Climate, climate change, science/scientific, ideology/ideological, politics/political, to say nothing about "problem".
The choice of words displays either sloppy thinking or journalism or a dishonest approach with what I might call, "Argument by cliche"
--- Richard Nixon
No, logic is logic. Isms are for positions based on belief: examples chosen quite at random include climatism, alarmism, cronyism, pessimism and agrarianism.
I agree with jferguson. I first laughed at cAGW decades ago when I was still a high-school science pupil. The "97%", or whatever, of scientists probably never had the time or inclination to give it the time of day. They're more interested in their own science, their own jobs, paying their own bills, and feeding their own families. But now the 'harmless' zombie is not only not going away, it has set about destroying the livelihoods of most [but clearly not all].
If they took the trouble to look, Keith Kloor and Scott Denning might find a lot of scientifically educated people who are just waking up to what environmental-alarmism has been allowed to get away with for many years. And it's quite frightening.
It is obvious reading the posts here that many commenters are just appalled at the abuse of the scientific method going on, no matter what their main scientific knowledge is in.
Simple Seeker:
Fred from Canuckstan:
I learned a lot about the origins of the term intelligentsia and of all the original -isms, including nationalism and socialism, from James Billington in Fire in the Minds of Men. An awesome book and that's one of the reasons. Who for example knew that an eccentric Parisian pornographer called Restif first coined the phrase communism?
Billington's subtitle "Origins of the Revolutionary Faith" gives a hint that he'd be broadly in line with the idea that isms are for something resembling faith. But the addition of -ism, which we take for granted in the modern world, began like so many things in and around the French revolution. The history is fascinating in its own right and important for the light it sheds on the world we came into.
“Almost everyone that dismisses climate change as a problem does it for ideological or political reasons, not for scientific reasons ...”
Keep this thought in mind:
Greens/Liberals/Democrats/Progressives/Fabian Socialists always accuse their opponents of what they themselves are guilty. It's called Unconscious Projection. What they do, they cannot believe others are not doing. Once this principle is understood, all their pronouncements fall into place. They think we are lying just like they are! For the same reason: money! And if we aren't taking money we are stupid, and thus are not to be believed. So far, no one has forced a way out of this logical trap.
Ed Caryl
I will - I have it down as this year's most illuminating Easter message.
Apr 6, 2012 at 2:56 PM Alan Bates
I think everyone here agrees that the climate changes.
Many would also agree that climate change (man made or otherwise) as a problem cannot be ruled out.
Just one potentially tragic aspect of the CAGW scam is that climate science, with its:
- manually adjusted (and original data deleted) temperature records
- focus on concepts with no physical meaning (eg globally averaged temperature)
- claims that unvalidated models provide meaningful results
- disregard of the scientific method
- billion dollar/pound/euro body of "climate scientists" who see nothing wrong with the above
simply cannot be now trusted. Not even a little bit. Not an inch.
So we are now worse off than if the climate had never been studied at all.
Not only do we not know if climate change poses a danger, what has been done under the heading "climate science" means that detemining whether there is a danger is now essentially an impossibility.
If Denning’s statement was recast as “Almost everyone that expresses an opinion on climate change does it for ideological or political reasons, not for scientific reasons” it would more correctly true. Even so the debate has moved on a lot in the last 5 or so years. Many of those who do not accept that climate change is a major problem now recognise that CO2 and other greenhouse gases are capable of warming the atmosphere, that anthropogenic emissions have contributed to the increase in atmospheric CO2 and that global temperature have risen due, in part, to the greenhouse gases. On the other hand many of those who do believe climate change is a problem have also moved on and realise that attributing all the world’s ills to climate change is counterproductive.
The scientific debate has been distilled down to one question: how much warming would be caused by a doubling of CO2 equivalent? Global temperature has risen by 0.8 °C since 1850. CO2 equivalent has risen by 60%. If all the warming was due to greenhouse gases then this implies that a doubling of CO2 equivalent would lead to a maximum of 1.2 °C of warming. This is close to the figure for greenhouse gases only generally taken as 1.0 °C and suggest that neither fast response positive feedback, such as increased water vapour from increased warming, nor slow response feedback, albedo changes, has kicked in yet.
Apr 6, 2012 at 4:19 PM Ron
No, there is another question.
What are the dynamics of atmospheric CO2 concentration?
Understanding this is key to knowing the relation between released carbon dioxide quantities and atmospheric CO2 levels.
The IPCC uses a model (the Bern model) which, so far as I can see, is inherently incapable of being validated. That means, at best, it is a guess. (Perhaps a pessimistic guess, since it seems to predict CO2 residence times far greater than estimates based on physical measurements.)
So, even if the relation between atmospheric CO2 level and warming were known precisely, the overall impact of CO2 would remain unknown.
>Global temperature has risen by 0.8 °C since 1850. CO2 equivalent has risen by 60%.
That's a total misrepresentation as it assumes all warming is solely caused by CO2.
Ron,
If I have in my wardrobe clothes for -20, 10 and 30 degrees C, what will I have to buy if the planet warms 2 degrees? Nothing: 2 degrees is well within normal diurnal range. The only way this can be made an issue if it is attached to dire warnings at the same time as neglecting benign effects. So far, only the latter have emerged. So what's with this "yet" of yours?
I'm sure its been mentioned many times before, but I find it hugely ironic that everything that they complain about when dissing climate realists is applicable to them in spades!
@ Ron,
"The scientific debate has been distilled down to one question: how much warming would be caused by a doubling of CO2 equivalent? Global temperature has risen by 0.8 °C since 1850. CO2 equivalent has risen by 60%. If all the warming was due to greenhouse gases then this implies that a doubling of CO2 equivalent would lead to a maximum of 1.2 °C of warming. This is close to the figure for greenhouse gases only generally taken as 1.0 °C and suggest that neither fast response positive feedback, such as increased water vapour from increased warming, nor slow response feedback, albedo changes, has kicked in yet."
3rd more likely possibility, there is no major +ve feedback.
Kloor supports the quote from Denning with a link to a recent Guardian article by psychologist Adam Corner about his research into climate scepticism, quoted at length with approval by Kloor.
The Corner article was the subject of a recent post by Ben Pile at
http://www.climate-resistance.org/2012/03/shrinking-the-sceptics.html
I got in touch with Corner to ask for more information, and, despite the fairly brutal comments about his research at Climate Resistance, he very reasonably offered to answer questions about it after Easter.
If anyone has any questions, I believe they can get in touch with me via this blog without disturbing HIs Grace every time. (How does that work?) But please read Corner’s research paper first (links are in comments at CR)