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Comments 53701 to 53750:
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Rob Honeycutt at 01:53 AM on 20 September 2012PBS False Balance Hour - What's Up With That?
Just catching up here... @4 Dale makes the comment, "Well, not without taxing your own population into poverty..." This is a huge misconception about taxes. People seem to have this notion that taxes suck money out of the economy and nothing could be further from the truth. Tax revenues do not disappear from the economy. In fact, a carbon tax will more likely turn out to be have net positive benefits for most people. The challenge is that there are clear losers too. The losers are going to be the fossil fuel industry. -
PBS False Balance Hour - What's Up With That?
The other half of the equation, Evan Jones, hath spoken in comment at PBS:Sorry, but Watts is dead-on correct. If anything, he understated the issue in your program. Menne (2010), which used the data I -- personally -- compiled used the obsolete and fatally flawed Menne (1999) methodology for rating stations. But when applying the new (WMO-approved) Leroy (2010) methodology, the trend differences between well and poorly sited station are stark. Well microsited rural stations without airports show barely half the NOAA-adjusted "official" record. This is true even after accountig for TOBS bias and MMTS conversion. NOAA is going to have to readdress its entire USHCN dataset.
Hrmmm . . . even after accounting for those factors. -
Bob Lacatena at 01:47 AM on 20 September 2012PBS False Balance Hour - What's Up With That?
CRV9, And why do you think it is that half of USA lawmakers think AGW is a hoax? Imagine yourself in the 1970s. A PBS show presents a number of scientists demonstrating how they have discovered that tobacco is linked to lung cancer. At the end, they add an interview with an acupuncturist who tells the viewer that he's done studies to prove that the air in the scientist's work is tainted by pollution and so not a reliable test of tobacco smoke, and anyway the scientists are in it because they've created this entire cottage industry on doing cancer research. In fact, universities have created entire departments around cancer research. Anthony Watts:Well global warming had become essentially a business in its own right. There are NGOs, there are organizations, there are whole divisions of universities that have set up to study this, this factor, and so there's lots of money involved and then so I think that there's a tendency to want to keep that going and not really look at what might be different.
1970s version:Well cancer research had become essentially a business in its own right. There are NGOs, there are organizations, there are whole divisions of universities that have set up to study this, this factor, and so there's lots of money involved and then so I think that there's a tendency to want to keep that going and not really look at what might be different.
Really? You don't think it was not "that bad?" -
Doug Bostrom at 01:44 AM on 20 September 2012PBS False Balance Hour - What's Up With That?
CRV9 makes some good points about acknowledging "wrong" and letting the public see what it looks like. The trouble is, many viewers are not obsessively fascinated with this topic and (our cognition being what it is) will in the absence of any other story adopt Watts' story as their operative picture of what's going on with climate science and climate change. Leaving aside that the segment was remarkably uninformative on its notional topic, one should set some sort of lower threshold to the "quality of wrong" chosen for illustration. A presentation including somebody such as Richard Lindzen would actually have been better. Lindzen shares many of the ideological fixations as does Watts but is fully able to describe climate science accurately if he so chooses. Based on his track record we'd have been presented with a similarly slanted perspective but one more comprehensive than Watts was able to accomplish, given his limitations. Lindzen is state-of-the-art "wrong" so if the producer's objective was to present the best "wrong" available Lindzen would have been a much better choice, with a cluster of other better alternatives to Watts also in the realm of best fit for purpose. A presentation with Lindzen would still leave open the question of what is the point of parading "wrong" in front of viewers. Obviously the intention is not to present a freak show but rather is a communications effort of some kind. News Hour failed to "speak in its own voice" to properly explain their objective with the segment, leaving us guessing the reason for why a person who is essentially unqualified to solidly improve public understanding of the topic of climate change was chosen to occupy ten minutes' airtime. Other choices would leave open the same question. -
vrooomie at 01:43 AM on 20 September 2012PBS False Balance Hour - What's Up With That?
CRV9, no one here seeks to "suppress every skeptic voice," nor does anyone here advocate allowing no other opinion other than our (scientist's) opinions. However, as evidenced by thousands of posts here, *if* a Watts, a Lindzen, a Christy make outlandish/obfuscaory/flat-out wrong assertions, it is to be expected that those who *do* do this professionally will, in a scientific way, take out their incorrect/badly- or not-supported opinions *vigorously*. On another early thread, I pointed out that science is a blood sport: the main difference is we attack ~ideas~, not the originators' of those ideas. Watt's is the *first* to whine about having his opinions challenged, byt, never, as far as I can see, offers up much beyond his usual snarky comments, then just repeats the lie he got shown ~was~ a lie. PBS' dog-and-pony show, in some feeble effort to show they're "fair and balanced," was, in what it didn't say, bad. -
caerbannog at 01:37 AM on 20 September 2012PBS False Balance Hour - What's Up With That?
(I hope that Kevin C doesn't object to my tooting his horn for him here) Dale, A few weeks ago, Kevin C, one of the regulars here, posted a *one page* python script that computes global-average temperatures from GHCN v3 data. With that script, you can easily test Watts' favorite claims about the global temperature record. The script will allow you to process rural and urban stations separately, so that you can see the effects of UHI for yourself. You can also generate global-average temperature estimates from raw vs. adjusted data, so that you can see for yourself how much (or little) the "data adjustments" matter on a global scale. You can find Kevin C's original python script here. (After you go to that link, simply do a ctrl-f text search for the string "show code" to find the actual script.) I modified the script ever so slightly to make it easier to perform direct "apples vs. apples" comparisons of the script output with the official NASA/GISS "meteorological stations index" (available at the NASA/GISS web-site). The modified script writes the results out in a format that can easily be imported into Excel or OpenOffice and plotted. I also added a bunch of "newbie-friendly" comments to the script that explain in detail how to get all the temperature data and crunch the data with the script. You can get the modified version here. If you download the script and follow the instructions provided in the comments, you will be able to perform direct "apples vs. apples" comparisons of your own results with the official NASA results -- i.e. you can easily plot up your own rural, urban, raw, and adjusted results and compare those results with the official NASA version. So check it out and see how it goes -- and don't be shy about sharing your findings with us right here. Let us know how your own results square with the claims that Watts has been making. You will probably need to install some additional software on your PC/laptop (i.e. python and OpenOffice), but that additional software is completely free and very easy to install. And a final note -- just want to make it clear that Kevin C did all the real work writing that script -- I just "polished the cannonballs" a bit. ;) -
vrooomie at 01:18 AM on 20 September 2012PBS False Balance Hour - What's Up With That?
Kevin C@46, this is all Feyerabend's fault: seems as if the denialosphere has adopted epistemological anarchism as its Holy Screed! The 'mass' of opinion, to which the lesser educated public seems to put a large amount of stock into, is indeed the result of that, and I would posit as support of your statement: "Of course raising problems with existing theories is a valuable activity if done within a knowledge-seeking framework. I guess one source of confusion to the public is in the distinction between a paper which critiques a theory in order to increase knowledge and one which critiques a theory in order to avoid knowledge. " It all depends on *where* laypersons look for the "knowledge-seeking framework." In many cases, what the "masses" want is confirmation bias, of an already formed, usually negative, opinion of science. they find that framework in the well-funded, highly visible likes of Watts, Lindzen, Christy et al, and that is the main disservice PBS has done, in their interview with Watts. -
John Hartz at 01:14 AM on 20 September 2012PBS False Balance Hour - What's Up With That?
Dana: Any truth to the rumor that Watts is about to receive nother big shipment of smoke bombs and mirriors from Koch Industries? He did, after all, use up some of his inventory in the PBS interview. -
dana1981 at 01:10 AM on 20 September 2012PBS False Balance Hour - What's Up With That?
Mole @32 - This isn't the place to talk about carbon pricing, but the European Union and its (27, I think) member states have had a carbon emissions trading system in place since 2005. Australia is about to join it. It's not yet global, but there are major international economies participating. The rebuttal also isn't just an appeal to authority/expertise - it goes into a lot of detail about how we know carbon pricing will have minimal economic impact, and will be a net benefit to the economy when compared to business as usual/adapting to climate change. But if you want to continue this discussion, it should go in another post, for example the 'CO2 limits will harm the economy' rebuttal comments. -
CRV9 at 00:58 AM on 20 September 2012PBS False Balance Hour - What's Up With That?
As I said before I didn't think it was necessary that bad. Of course, it's one simple mind of the general public. But I did feel that they did spend too much time for Mr. Watt and they should have had someone from NASA or NOAA for a counter view. However, you can't suppress every skeptic voice no matter how absurd they sound scientifically to you. Over reacting of suppression or dismissal sounds suspicious rather. People will hear their voices no matter how much you wish it is not fair. You have to be confident that you can let them state their points and you state your points, and you can confidently let people decide. You'd have to have that poise. You can't have every TV show, news article or whatever in media to not to show skeptics today. It becomes it doesn't matter how much they scream when they'd sound absurd to the public. I don't think getting too emotional and blaming the messanger is a good idea. I don't have any objection that you complain to PBC though. you need more allies not more of dissents. Main point was that half of our lawmakers still believe AGW is a hoax despite the 97% of climate scientists, so the show stated and that's because of people like Mr. Watt. And I don't think they said he was a climate scientist. I didn't think it was bad, to be honest. I wished they showed a climate scientist from NASA or NOAA as I said before but I thibk they sort of assumed more of the public already know. i guess you may hate me now. -
Kevin C at 00:52 AM on 20 September 2012PBS False Balance Hour - What's Up With That?
DSL: I think you've made a critical point here. To underline it, I think any analysis would conclude that climate science is knowledge-seeking - it is developing a single unified understanding of climate, consistent with observations and with the laws of physics. Details change in the light of new evidence, but the size of the changes is declining, i.e. the process is gradually converging. By contrast, most climate skepticism is knowledge-avoiding, and thus is correctly classified as a form of denial. Climate skeptics are almost without exception not building a comprehensive and consistent understanding of reality - often they raise problems with existing theories without any interest in providing an alternative understanding, or they advance explanations which address microcosms of the data without attempting to fit them into a broader understanding (e.g. the Humlum paper), or they simply look for evidence that the science is unknowable. The distinction is somewhat congruent to Lakatos' distinction between progressive and degenerate research programs, Of course raising problems with existing theories is a valuable activity if done within a knowledge-seeking framework. I guess one source of confusion to the public is in the distinction between a paper which critiques a theory in order to increase knowledge and one which critiques a theory in order to avoid knowledge. -
Bernard J. at 00:35 AM on 20 September 20122012 SkS Weekly News Round-Up #1
Perhaps...America is [the] only nation where climate scientists face organized harassment by Katherine Bagley...
;-)Moderator Response: [JH] ROFL! -
PBS False Balance Hour - What's Up With That?
SW: "He completed his PhD thesis in April of 1905 and submitted his paper on what was to become known as the theory of relativity in June of that year and it was published in September." Dale, of all the myriad differences between Watts and Einstein, there's the most important for this situation: Einstein was developing a theory. Watts is developing doubt. Watts has no interest in scientific progress. Indeed, the evidence strongly suggests that he is actively attacking the scientific project through the decisions he makes about blog content and comment streams. The surface stations project is/was not an attempt to add to science. Watts fought revision the whole way, and he's fought criticism the whole way after publication. Since the results of the first project didn't fit the required message, he tried to do it again in a slightly different way. Fail. I know that he triggers the underdog response in many people, but what do we gain by giving Watts wide play? Baseless confusion and doubt. If Watts says there is doubt and shakes a graph at non-experts, then there is doubt. There's already a mechanism for skepticism built in to science. It's worked quite well for a few centuries. It's very hard to work around, especially in a dynamic, hyperintegrated, and large field. Watts' doubt is not being cast toward the science; it's being cast toward the public. That alone should trigger warning bells. -
Sceptical Wombat at 23:59 PM on 19 September 2012PBS False Balance Hour - What's Up With That?
Dale @ 7 Einstein didn't even have a degree (let alone a PhD) when he published his theory of relativity in his 20's. He was a patent office clerk. His PhD was given to him well later. I don't know where you get your information from but according to Wikipedia Einstein had completed a 4 year mathematics and physics teaching diploma at Zurich Polytechnic which I would guess was probably at least as formidable a qualification as a modern BSc. Describing him as a clerk at the patent office is a bit condescending - he was in fact an assistant examiner. He completed his PhD thesis in April of 1905 and submitted his paper on what was to become known as the theory of relativity in June of that year and it was published in September. -
David Lewis at 23:56 PM on 19 September 2012PBS False Balance Hour - What's Up With That?
When Richard Muller appeared in March 2011 before the House Committee on Science (his full statement is here) he had one recommendation for what the Committee could do in the way of legislation to "advance our knowledge of climate change". He called for the creation of a Climate Advanced Research Project Agency, or Climate-ARPA, saying it "could help". He went on: "Without the efforts of Anthony Watts and his team, we would have only a series of anecdotal images of poor temperature stations, and we would not be able to evaluate the integrity of the data. This is a case in which scientists receiving no government funding did work crucial to our understanding climate change. Similarly for the work done by Steve McIntyre. Their "amateur" science is not amateur in quality; it is true science, conducted with integrity and high standards. Government policy needs to encourage such work. Climate-ARPA could be an organization that provides quick funding to worthwhile projects whether they support or challenge current understanding" PBS could have asked Muller what he thinks of "true" scientists of "integrity" who have such "high standards", eg Watts, now. -
John Hartz at 23:52 PM on 19 September 2012PBS False Balance Hour - What's Up With That?
Yet another critical review of the PBS interview of Watts: PBS NewsHour Falls Into “Balance” Trap, Provides Megaphone For Anthony Watts , Farron Cousins, DeSmog Blog, Sep 17, 2012 Dana’s review is still the best of the bunch because he strips away the bombastic rhetoric of Watts to show that Watts's understanding of climate science is a millimeter deep and a kilometer wide. -
vrooomie at 23:05 PM on 19 September 2012PBS False Balance Hour - What's Up With That?
Another good discussion of the Watts' PBS piece. Media Matter's discussion of Watt's obfuscation -
Kevin C at 22:48 PM on 19 September 2012PBS False Balance Hour - What's Up With That?
gws: I think that's a very useful terminological distinction! -
ajki at 22:45 PM on 19 September 20122012 SkS Weekly News Round-Up #1
#8, John I second your suspicion. I for one would be very interested in a chinese perspective on changing climate patterns in a fast changing environment. -
PBS False Balance Hour - What's Up With That?
re #37 I have noticed for several years now that in the US (and maybe elsewhere? Australia?) the "appeal to authority"-fallacy argument is often made (more often by "skeptics") to discredit authoritative voices when it should actually be called "appeal to expertise", which IMHO is not the same. In Europe, especially Germany, where I am from, expertise is usually at least somewhat critically evaluated by journalists. Especially in public television and newspapers. You can trust hearing the facts, and having debunkings presented when expertise is questionable. Non-experts (like Watts) are simply absent (with very few "outliers") from non-internet media, and can only express their doubt-mongering online, where they do not reach the masses. This is a major difference between NA and EU media landscapes. -
John Hartz at 22:29 PM on 19 September 20122012 SkS Weekly News Round-Up #1
@ajki #8: I tend to agree with you -- Katherine Bagley and the headline writer should not have used the adverb "only". In addtion, what's going on in three other continents (Africa, Asia, and South America) was not addressed. Generally speaking, we in the Western World need to broaden our concept of what "world-wide" means. On that score, I suspect that the number of regular SkS readers from, Asian, African, and South American countries is a relatively small fraction of our readership base. How SkS should go about marketing itself to pople in Asia, Africa, and South America merits further discussion. -
Eric (skeptic) at 21:22 PM on 19 September 2012PBS False Balance Hour - What's Up With That?
About the only Watts statement in the PBS transcript that isn't simply conservative politics is "Yes, we have some global warming. It’s clear the temperature has gone up in the last 100 years, but what percentage of that is from carbon dioxide and what percentage of that is from the changes in the local and measurement environment?" Does Watts agree with 97.5% of climate scientists who say yes to the question: "Do you think human activity is a significant contributing factor in changing mean global temperatures?" He may in general, but the snippet above implies no. The rest of his responses are political except the swipe at Muller. What Watts (along with editing by PBS) did is establish his political view, cast doubt upon the amount of warming caused by CO2, and swipe at Muller. I very much doubt he changed the views of any of the PBS viewers. -
Kevin C at 20:42 PM on 19 September 2012PBS False Balance Hour - What's Up With That?
Let me buck the trend here and argue that we shouldn't necessarily dismiss someone's claim on the basis of their expertise. It's more complicated than that. I think that it depends on both the forum and the nature of the claim. If someone is presenting their opinion, then we should certainly weigh that opinion against their expertise. Faced with multiple contradictorary opinions, we have to look for external metrics to select from among them. Expertise, prior record, vested interested, honesty and other metrics are all relevant in this case. If someone is presenting a scientific argument, by which I mean an argument which is structured as evidence based-reasoning as would be published in a peer-reviewed journal, or indeed a summary of such an argument where the full argument is also available, then we no longer need to fall back on expertise and so on. In this case we can evaluate the argument on its merits without reference to the source, and indeed we should do so because otherwise we preclude the possibility of scientists ever making contributions outside their original disciplines. I suggest that this gives us an appropriate methodology for evaluating different kinds of arguments. Watts of course fails on both counts - his recent attempt at a scientific contribution falls short on evidence-based evaluation, and his opinions fail on the basis of expertise and a track record of promoting wrong and contradictory material. -
scaddenp at 20:23 PM on 19 September 2012PBS False Balance Hour - What's Up With That?
Mole, tell me how a pigovian carbon tax would harm an economy? However, whether carbon tax or any other measure is harmful, the one thing that is harmful is rapid carbon change. The whole basis of any policy is studies that conclude reducing emissions is a better long term option than doing nothing. By all means feel free to suggest other ways to reduce emission besides pricing carbon. Myself, I am just happy with banning construction of new power plant that emit. Let the market figure out the best alternative. -
ajki at 20:09 PM on 19 September 20122012 SkS Weekly News Round-Up #1
When I read "America Is only Nation..." about european climate scientists being less of a target for insults and harassment and find Dr. S. Rahmstorf supporting this claim (to a degree), I must really wonder what I'm forced to find on websites like EIKE and the like. There may be less insults by quantity, but not by quality. -
chuck101 at 18:44 PM on 19 September 2012PBS False Balance Hour - What's Up With That?
Dale, When you go to your dentist you no doubt are reassured by his certificate of competance proudly displayed on the wall, showing that he has passed the relevant exams and courses of study. Or perhaps, with your disdain for professional qualifications you would rather go to this guy: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7_oQRFaNzwY If you follow the above link, you will find it goes to an Indian street dentist, who's only qualifications are that he has worked in other highly technical professions, such as fixing bicycles. Alternatively, lets try this exercise. You go flying in a jumbo jet who's pilot's only qualifications are that he has passed his private pilot's license, whilst I go flying with a captain with full ATPL and 20,000 hours. I will look forward to having drinks in the bar whilst you are dragging yourself out of a smouldering wreck at the end of the runway, (if you are lucky). -
Doug Bostrom at 18:25 PM on 19 September 2012PBS False Balance Hour - What's Up With That?
Yeah, Mole, "ooops." I'm sure that after laboriously parsing your last paragraph the moderators will work extra hard to repair your error for you. :-) -
Old Mole at 17:30 PM on 19 September 2012PBS False Balance Hour - What's Up With That?
Ooops ... the comment "the 57% figure is much firmer than it looks" should red "the 57% figure is not as firm as it looks". -
Old Mole at 17:21 PM on 19 September 2012PBS False Balance Hour - What's Up With That?
dana @29 Unfortunately, not everyone sees carbon taxes (or cap and trade) as benign. I keep looking at the link to counter-argument #37 and not seeing the same thing that you apparently do. The pie chart in the middle, based on the New York University Law School study really jumps out, "The pool of economists was selected by searching the top twenty‐five economics journals over the past fifteen years and identifying all articles related to climate change." Fascinating, but I wouldn't recognize a "top economics journal" if I found one in an airline seat back, have no idea what process they use to select articles for publication, or whether those writing anything about climate have any more academic credentials to do so than does Anthony Watts ... and the study isn't illuminating about any of those issues. Back to said pie chart: "57% agreed that the U.S. government should commit to greenhouse gas reductions “regardless of the actions of other countries,” while an additional 15.5% agreed that it should do so “if it can enter a multilateral emissions reduction treaty with some countries,” and 21.8% agreed the U.S. should move forward “if other major emitters commit to reducing emissions through a global.” Only 0.7% would wait until all countries commit to action, and 2.1% thought the U.S. should not act regardless of the actions of other countries." To you, that looks like consensus, but to me, that looks like over 37% think the economic consequences of setting a carbon tax without international agreement would do more damage to the economy than it was worth ... a position I personally find incredible and inconsistent with any form of "expertise in climate". I also think that the 57% figure is much firmer than it looks since no numbers were mentioned in the survey ... in my experience, when things get specific, the support tends to go down. So, at least among economists (or the half who completed the survey) there is less a consensus than a raging controversy over the relative harm to the planet (or the country) that climate change will cause relative to the harm they think mitigation will do to the economy. Pretending that this issue is settled among economists is not constructive. Am I convinced by the studies provided? Yes I am, but I am not going to pretend that there are no serious economists with impeccable credentials who disagree ... and in that field there are not outnumbered anything like ninety-seven to three. It might be helpful if you could recruit some to participate at this site, and to do more public advocacy, because you can't really make economic arguments based on appeals to authority yourself, unless you have additional degrees you have been hiding under a bushel. Best wishes, Mole -
skywatcher at 17:16 PM on 19 September 20122012 SkS Weekly News Round-Up #1
jyyh - my guess would be it's something to do with how the open water is appearing with low sun angles - looking at yesterday's mosaic (and the previous two days too), you can see a distinct latitudinal lower limit to the greenish tint on the right-hand side of the Arctic mosaic - looks a lot like wherever there's open water above ~80N there's the green tint, perhaps the blue spectral channel is not getting as good signal at low sun angles. -
shoyemore at 17:07 PM on 19 September 2012PBS False Balance Hour - What's Up With That?
Dale @7, Just a point of information - Einstein graduated from Zurish Polytechnic in 1900 with a Teaching Diploma that had a mathematics and physics component. He became a patent examiner two years later. He never placed much value on his Diploma, but the Polytechnic did bring him into a lively circle of mathematicians and physicists. He befriended some of these and discussed his ideas with them. The group included his first wife, who was also a student at Zurich, in the same maths and physics courses. She failed to graduate and her role in Einstein's early work is contested. Einstein's youthful achievements were amazing without making them more so. It is true he worked alone, but he was not the complete outsider that is often portrayed. -
John Mason at 16:53 PM on 19 September 2012PBS False Balance Hour - What's Up With That?
Dana #29 - that's what I find so extraordinary about this whole taxes line of argument. Can these guys not add up? Has it not ever, once, occurred to them what the first knock is going to be from a destabilising climate? Guess I'd better spell it out. The first big and wide-reaching hit from climate change will be due to disruption to harvests in major food producing areas of the world. It only takes one of these major areas to be badly affected - e.g. the USA Midwest this year. Get several such areas so affected for say three years out of five and we are looking at substantial hikes in food prices. This hits the poorest people of the world hardest but it affects everybody in the pocket and it hits harder and harder over time. Compared to any proposed carbon tax, food price-hikes are going to hit everyone and, unlike the luxury of being able to choose whether or not to drive somewhere, eating is not optional. That is what Watts and friends are NOT telling you. -
jyyh at 15:13 PM on 19 September 20122012 SkS Weekly News Round-Up #1
The late melt area in Arctic has gone greenish in this image: http://lance-modis.eosdis.nasa.gov/imagery/subsets/?subset=Arctic_r04c04.2012262.terra.1km Could it be the Arctic algae have found a new breeding (and decomposing) ground this year? Of course it can be also something else f.e. some error in the imagining system on Terra, or late season refraction due low sunlight. Any way if it's algae it'll die soon as the sun goes below the horizon. -
dana1981 at 15:05 PM on 19 September 2012PBS False Balance Hour - What's Up With That?
scaddenp @28 - I think that was one of those rare moments of total honesty. 'What bothers you the most?' 'Carbon tax.' It's totally absurd when you think about it. Carbon pricing is such a benign solution - you're talking about very minor increases in energy and gasoline prices, which could be offset by reductions in other taxes if that's something you're worried about (like British Columbia is doing). On the other side of the coin if the deniers are wrong, you have utter catastrophe. How can a carbon tax possibly bother you more than the potential for a climate catastrophe? I guess if you deny that a catastrophe is even possible. But you know, there's a term for people who are in denial. Anthony Watts doesn't like that word, but he's living it. -
scaddenp at 14:14 PM on 19 September 2012PBS False Balance Hour - What's Up With That?
"ANTHONY WATTS: They want to change policy. They want to apply taxes and these kinds of things may not be the actual solution for making a change to our society." Isn't this the most extraordinary admission? This is tantamount to saying "Accepting AGW might result in more taxes, ergo AGW is wrong". If you understand and accept AGW, then of course you want to change policy. What reasonable person would not try and prevent a disaster. However, Watts is implying that people want to raise taxes, therefore they are making up AGW as way to achieve this! I cant even begin to get my head around this worldview. The correct way to look at issue, is to decide whether AGW is likely to be true on the basis of evidence, then decide what is the best response. Dont like carbon pricing? Come up with an alternative then. -
Doug Bostrom at 14:11 PM on 19 September 2012PBS False Balance Hour - What's Up With That?
Dale: Academic credentials can help, but they aren't a pre-requisite. Credentials also don't guarantee any sort of expertise either. Assertions that unfortunately fly in the face of facts at hand. If News Hour was trying to select an expert to offer cogent support of contrary viewpoints on AGW, they obviously failed. On the other hand, if News Hour was attempting to illustrate the gulf between expert understanding of climate change and the opinions of a celebrity dilettante, they accomplished half of their intention. -
Albatross at 14:02 PM on 19 September 2012PBS False Balance Hour - What's Up With That?
Doug @20, You raise a very important point and one that the interviewer would have picked up on had they done their homework. -
Albatross at 13:51 PM on 19 September 2012PBS False Balance Hour - What's Up With That?
Dale @17, That is an interesting paper, but it does not challenge the fact that the positive water vapour feedback (e.g., Randall et al. 2007; Dessler 2012), and empirical data together with model data suggests that the cloud feedback is weakly positive (e.g., Dessler 2010, Dessler 2012). All good scientists are skeptics, true skeptics that is. Those true skeptics have been asking "how much" as evidenced by the plethora of scientific papers on the issue, and Dana cited some of the more pertinent ones in his post. So can we please not "debate" points/facts that have been well established all along. It is, however, disconcerting when individuals elect to borrow the term "skeptic" as a front or cover for their bias and/or agenda (as Mr. Watts let slip in the interview). Watts' record demonstrates that he is not a true skeptic, but a fake skeptic (which is the antithesis of a true skeptic in this case). PBS has acknowledged that they should not have only posted Watts' comments in that blog post. So they have accepted an error when it was brought to their attention and in their update tried to address that error/shortcoming.Moderator Response: [DB] Per KR's suggestion, any further discussion on WV feedbacks should be taken to a more appropriate thread. -
Dale at 13:48 PM on 19 September 2012PBS False Balance Hour - What's Up With That?
Doug @20: Academic credentials can help, but they aren't a pre-requisite. Credentials also don't guarantee any sort of expertise either. I've hired numerous IT people with all sorts of credentials who ended up being complete duds. Some of the best IT people I've hired for companies were non-credentialed people. John @22: Neither would I, but not surprising, I'm not American. But I suspect the producer probably also wanted to play a bit on the Watts v Muller snipeing. If you look at it one way, a sceptic of station siting turns warmist (Muller) and a warmist turns sceptic over station siting (Watts). A bit of journalistic license, and you got yourself a show that fuels the public. And that's what the show did. From a journalistic POV, the show worked wonders. -
PBS False Balance Hour - What's Up With That?
Dale - Thank you for providing a link. However, while potential increases of afternoon rains over drier soils (as discussed in that link) are interesting, global precipitation is driven by relative humidity. And that (see Dai 2005), while demonstrating significant variations on a regional level, shows that global RH hasn't changed more than 0.6% in the 1976-2004 timeframe. If you are interested in discussing that topic further, however, I would suggest taking it to one of the "cloud" or "water vapor" threads. This thread concerns the false balance issue (attention should be proportionate to evidence), Watts' misinformation (such as claiming a bad temperature record, when his own peer-reviewed paper states otherwise), and PBS's failure to ask basic questions of investigative journalism. Do you have any relevant comments regarding this thread? -
John Hartz at 13:40 PM on 19 September 2012PBS False Balance Hour - What's Up With That?
@Dale #17: Sorry to burst your bubble, but I wouldn't recognize Anhony Watts if I bumped into him on the street. -
John Hartz at 13:36 PM on 19 September 2012PBS False Balance Hour - What's Up With That?
For yet another critique of the Watts interview, check out: MediaMatters’ PBS NewsHour Propagates Confusion On Climate Change -
Doug Bostrom at 13:33 PM on 19 September 2012PBS False Balance Hour - What's Up With That?
Dale: A scientist does not need academic credentials. They need well researched, well reasoned, well supported points. The first attribute "academic credentials" leads more reliably to the next three. If you're a producer working in the usual feverish haste, skipping the basic notion of formal qualifications as the first step to picking an expert is a very foolish choice, leads to embarrassment. We've just seen that amply demonstrated. Sometimes an "appeal to authority" is not so bad. "Help us" isn't the same as "he just knows." Of course if they'd chosen Richard Lindzen we'd have a whole different set of objections. :-) -
Daniel Bailey at 13:28 PM on 19 September 2012PBS False Balance Hour - What's Up With That?
What, between posts on CO2 snow and climate elves? Watts up with those? -
dana1981 at 13:26 PM on 19 September 2012PBS False Balance Hour - What's Up With That?
Dale @17 -They need well researched, well reasoned, well supported points."
Which Watts does not have. -
Dale at 13:14 PM on 19 September 2012PBS False Balance Hour - What's Up With That?
Please note, my above comments are more a look at sceptics "as a whole" as opposed to Watt's scepticism. PBS wanted to cover the sceptic view, and that sceptic view is "how much?" They could've spoken to any sceptic in reality, but in the US right now, Watts is the most recognisable sceptic. Hell, they could've even spoken to me if they wanted and I still tell them the sceptic view is "how much?" And that's what Watts put forward. His own personal justification to ask that question is due to suspecting station data. Me personally, I ask that question because of uncertainty over some parts of the hydro cycle. But it still all boils down to the point that sceptics are sceptics, because we ask "how much?" My point on scientists, PhD or not, was a simple response to the "why did they interview him, he's no scientist". A scientist does not need academic credentials. They need well researched, well reasoned, well supported points. Mod @9: Here's one to start on. http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nature11377.html -
John Hartz at 13:07 PM on 19 September 2012PBS False Balance Hour - What's Up With That?
For another review of the Watts interview, check out: PBS NewsHour's Climate Change Report Raises Eyebrows (VIDEO) posted on The Huffington Post.Moderator Response: [DB] Your link is circular, pointing back to this very thread. -
PBS False Balance Hour - What's Up With That?
Update and SKS plug at PBS. -
Doug Bostrom at 12:57 PM on 19 September 2012PBS False Balance Hour - What's Up With That?
Watts' remark about a timeline for modernizing our approach to using hydrocarbons was empty hyperbole, a rhetorical flourish. It was also a classic strawman argument, a fabrication describing what Watts would like others to believe his opposition is endorsing. Watts was attempting to associate people making serious efforts at policy response to global warming with a ridiculous solution not conjectured by anybody in a position of responsibility and authority to deal with the problem. Watts got away with that red flag unchallenged. How and why is it that a volunteer blogger for Skeptical Science can spend a little of his free time and be more successful with critical thinking than the professional staff of PBS News Hour? What's the payroll of the production unit responsible for this remarkable failure? -
Albatross at 12:35 PM on 19 September 2012PBS False Balance Hour - What's Up With That?
Dale, Just exactly how many more times does Watts have to be wrong, or promote pseudo science or attack scientists for you to understand that he is not interested in advancing scientific knowledge? While Mr. Watts might be telling you what you want to hear, believe me when I say that I do not want Drs. Hansen, Trenberth and other climate experts to be correct. Additionally, I for one am not going to bury my head in the sand in denial, or ignore the problem, or wish the problem away.
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