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Comments 30051 to 30100:

30051. One Planet Only Forever at 23:34 PM on 29 April 2015
       Heartland takes climate foolishness to a Biblical level
       

       It is important to not refer to the Heartland Institute as a 'religion based group'. They are simply one of the many groups created by the collective of people who want to be able to get away with their desired but unacceptable attitudes and activity. Some of the groups created by this collective of callous greedy and intolerant people try to disguise themselves as 'religious'. Others claim to be objective investigators of economic matters. Heartland does boh the religious and economic masked nonsense.

       All such disguised groups make selective use and misrepresentation of information, including selective parts of religious texts, as the basis for their claims. They will try to claim things even though it is possible to better understand the objective truth that has recently developed about those things. And religious objective truth seekers will indeed justifiably tear apart and dismiss claims made by such people.

30052. Tom Curtis at 14:28 PM on 29 April 2015
       Satellites show no warming in the troposphere
       

       KR @41, it has emerged lately that Spencer and Christy have revealed their code here (under Mean Layer Temperatures - UAH).  William Connelley recently bloged about it.  Apparently Eli mentioned it in 2013, but Spencer and Christy have certainly not advertised it.

30053. dcpetterson at 14:08 PM on 29 April 2015
       Satellites show no warming in the troposphere
       

       Tom Curtis and KR ---

       Thank you for the informative replies. Very revealing!

       I was not aware that Christy and Spencer have never revealed their code or algorithms. That rather makes a mockery of scientific rigor, doesn't it? Or am I mistaken?

30054. KR at 13:27 PM on 29 April 2015
       Satellites show no warming in the troposphere
       

       Tom Curtis - "...truly informed comment on UAH v6 will have to await release of the code and examination by experts..."

       Of course, Christy and Spencer have never released their code or algorithms (unlike the other temperature records). Making such examination difficult in the extreme. External corrections have come from various groups reconstructing the UAH record without assistance from UAH, discuvering where they may have gone wrong, and then after some (often considerable) period of time the UAH group has updated their results. 

       It's been 26 years so far, and the UAH group has yet to release their methods. I don't expect that to change any time soon. 

30055. Tom Curtis at 12:55 PM on 29 April 2015
       Satellites show no warming in the troposphere
       

       dcpetterson @37, truly informed comment on UAH v6 will have to await release of the code and examination by experts (of which I am not one).  Several of Spencer's graphs stood out to me, however, as allowing some form of preliminary assessment of the difference between v5.6 and v6.

       Of these, the most important is that showing weights by altitude:

       

       Because satellite data does not come from just one layer, satellite temperature products show the weighted average of temperature data from different altitudes.  Because of their new method, UAH v6 gives a much lower weight to near surface temperatures and a higher weight to (cooling) lower stratosphere temperatures.  This is partially balanced by an increased weight to warmer upper tropospheric temperatures (can any body say "upper tropospheric hotspot").  Spencer says this cools the record by " less than 0.01 C/decade".  As the difference between v 5.6 and v 6 trends is 0.026 C/decade, that represents about a third of the difference just by changing the weighting profile.

       Also of interest is the chart of trends by zone:

       

       Ignoring the inappropriate use of a line chart rather than a bar chart, what stands out is the huge reduction in Arctic temperature trends.  The other note worthy cool changes in the record are, in order of magnitude, the NH north of the Tropic of Cancer (NExtraT), the USA 49, the USA 48, and the NH.  Clearly almost the entire change comes from high latitude NH temperatures.  That is clearly inconsistent with surface temperature records by GISS, or DMI:

       

       It also does not pass the smell test in relationship to changes in Arctic ice (sea ice, glaciers and ice sheets).

       Finally comes the data excluded from the analysis:

       

       Caption:

       "Fig. 1. Local ascending node times for all satellites in our archive carrying MSU or AMSU temperature monitoring instruments. We do not use NOAA-17, Metop (failed AMSU7), NOAA-16 (excessive calibration drifts), NOAA-14 after July, 2001 (excessive calibration drift), or NOAA-9 after Feb. 1987 (failed MSU2)."

       If you look at the excluded satellites, that means that from late 1998 to mid 2003, NOAA 14 was the only satellite from which Spencer and Christy would accept data.  Curiously, a general warming trend of UAH v6 relative to UAH v5.6 reverses in 1998, and flattens out in 2005 (ie, the onset of NOAA 18).  That is a noteworthy coincidence at least, and suggest their diurnal temperature correction has problems.  Whether it does or not, of course, can only be answered by detailed analysis which I am unable to provide.

30056. Rolf Jander at 12:52 PM on 29 April 2015
       Heartland takes climate foolishness to a Biblical level
       

       The pontifical Acadamy will tear heartlands "expert" a new one!

30057. william5331 at 10:09 AM on 29 April 2015
       2015 SkS Weekly News Roundup #15B
       

       It is disquieting that while the NSISC reports figures like 14.54 square miles of ice - 4 significant figures - , Cryosat2 reports figures like 21000 cubic km of ice.  What is happening with their satellite or their soft ware or with whoever is processing the data. By now we should have had three or so years of a graph for ice volume similar to the one that the NSIDC gives for ice extent and it should be to more significant figures.  Even if the measurement is off, if it is off by a certain amount in a certain direction, we would have a trend which is arguably more important than the absolute value.  Cryosat is said to be able to see through clouds so it should be able to give very good results during freeze and melting periods, clear and stomy weather and in summer and in winter.  What is going on at the ESA.

30058. Tom Curtis at 10:08 AM on 29 April 2015
       Lomborg: a detailed citation analysis
       

       ryland @52, out of interest I did a google scholar search for the author of the opinion piece in The Australian, Jennifer Oriel.  It turns out that after a publication in 2005 based on her PhD thesis, she has published two further academic journals plus one for the organ of the Australian Union of Students.  From those publications she has a google scholar h-index of 3 (strictly 2 counting purely academic journals alone).  She has also published two book reviews and an article for the Institute of Public Affairs, the later suggesting (though not proving) a right wing ideological bias.  Her academic affiliation was (and may still be) with Deakin University, who list her research output as zero.

       I looked this up because her argument is based on the charge that academic pubication is a poor measure of research output because of a supposed left wing institutional bias in academic publication.  Given that is the nature of her argument, the question arises what claim does she have to expertise in this area, and it turns out the answer is none.  (That it also shows she has a personal interest in rejecting h-indexes, or publication records as a measure of research merit is a bonus.)

       As to her argument I will make three points.

       First, it is irrelevant.  What the h-index measures is the ability and willingness to make your case to those who have the relevant expert knowledge to actually pick up your mistakes in argumentation, mistatements of data, etc.  Anybody unwilling or unable to do that has no place heading an academic think tank at government expense.  Indeed, the selection of such a person for that role shows the government is using public money to promote its private ideology - something event the IPA should be able to recognize as bad.

       Second, her argument is evassive.  There is substantial evidence that that Lomborg in addition to evading scrutiny by his peers, has indulged in a host of academic sins including cherry picking, framing of straw man opponents, misrepresenting data and employing different discount rates when making cost comparisons.  That is, on the public record is is reasonable to suppose that his "research" is not only not presented to his peers, but that it would not survive such a presentation because it lacks academic merit.  The low h-index is merely a symptom of this larger problem.

       Third, her own google scholar record proves her wrong.  Specifically, it shows that google scholar cheerfully includes not only peer reviewed publications, but publications from ideological think tanks such as the IPA.  It includes 18,200 articles from Australia's most influential, but not peer reviewed journal Quadrant.  Ergo, even if her self serving claims about academic publication are accepted as true, there are more than sufficient alternative means of publication with a designed right wing bias to establish a significant publication record, and more than sufficient authors of articles in those journal to establish a respectable h-index.

       So, all in all, her argument has no merit.

       I will not bother, however, submitting an opinion piece (or even a letter) to The Australian because long experience has shown they have an overwhelming bias against policy relevant opinions they do not like.  So much so that on climate change their opinion pieces appear to represent an exact reversal of the AGW consensus, with around 3% of opinion pieces from those supporting the consensus, and 97% from those opposing it.

30059. william5331 at 09:59 AM on 29 April 2015
       Inoculating against science denial
       

       I think one of the best ways to argue with the "faithful": that is to say someone that basis his opinion on faith rather than belief is simply to ask them penetrating questions.  Don't ever, if you can help it, give them your opinion.  Wethere there faith is Christianity or climate denial, they can tie themselves in knots and the questions remain like trogen horses in their minds.  The problem is to start them thinking rather than just parroting the faith based line.

30060. bozzza at 07:50 AM on 29 April 2015
       There is no consensus
       

       What happened circa 2007- 2008 I wonder?

30061. dcpetterson at 05:41 AM on 29 April 2015
       Satellites show no warming in the troposphere
       

       Thank you, Michael. I know that the people at UAH have had a lot of trouble, and have a history of unreliable calculations, as this article shows. I suspect the contrarian crowd are about to seize on the latest UAH numbers, and I’m hoping to have some responses I can give.

30062. michael sweet at 05:15 AM on 29 April 2015
       Satellites show no warming in the troposphere
       

       Spencer's post does not link to any peer reviewed paper.  Will they submit it for review?  The blog post is written in the style of a scientific paper.  I wonder if they have allowed anyone to look over their new mothods to find errors or if they will wait for others to find them later.  In the past other scientists have found major errors in UAH data processing.  Most of those errors have caused the trend to be falsely low.

       The surface record does not have a history of making major adjustments to the data like the atmosphere data do.  It is more reliable.

30063. Ian Forrester at 05:06 AM on 29 April 2015
       Lomborg: a detailed citation analysis
       

       Pluvial says:

       who get upset at my lack of scientific acumen and jump to the conclusion that it makes me wrong.

       You cannot make statements like that, which is completely against any published science, without at least citing a source for the comment. If you found this erroneous statement (and I'm certain it wasn't in any science paper) then at least let us know where you are getting your information from.

30064. CBDunkerson at 04:11 AM on 29 April 2015
       There is no consensus
       

       

30065. dcpetterson at 03:51 AM on 29 April 2015
       Satellites show no warming in the troposphere
       

       UAH has apparently completed a reivew of their methods and data, and re-written their software. Their new calculations seem to indicate a lower warming trend than they had been reporting. I don't know enough math or physics to make sense of their recent claims. Can someone comment?

30066. John Hartz at 03:47 AM on 29 April 2015
       Heartland takes climate foolishness to a Biblical level
       

       Over the past few days, I have been posting links to articles about the Pope's initiatives on the SkS Facebook page. This week's News Roundup will also include a number of articles on this topic.

30067. jenna at 03:07 AM on 29 April 2015
       Inoculating against science denial
       

       Dr. Judith Curry has posted some thoughts on this subject at her blog if anyone is looking for a few laughs.

       I won't post a link, those who follow the propaganda from 'that' side of the argument will know where to look.

       Jen.

30068. jgnfld at 01:58 AM on 29 April 2015
       Heartland takes climate foolishness to a Biblical level
       

       I suggest firmly supporting your neck and head before reading on...

       I will not dignify this with a link, but it is from the Heartland website and googling all or part of the quote will show that is true.

       ...The Vatican workshop is already being presented by the liberal media as an endorsement by the Catholic Church of policies that are profoundly anti-poor and anti-life. ...

       Good Stewardship

       Most people agree that safeguarding creation – and being a good steward of the environment – is a high moral obligation. If human activity posed a genuine threat to the world’s climate, then some action would be appropriate. But global warming alarmists wave off any evidence that the threat is small or even nonexistent, and they call for policies that would shut down virtually all economic activity around the world. These unnecessary policies would cause the suffering and even death of billions of people. All people of faith should rise up in opposition to such policies.

       Certain persons currently scheduled to speak at the workshop, including UN General Secretary Ban Ki Moon and Jeffrey Sachs, director of the United Nations Sustainable Development Solutions Network, are outspoken advocates of the man-made global warming hypothesis. They and other climate alarmists have misrepresented the facts, concocted false data, and tried to shut down a reasonable, scientific debate on the issue of climate change. This conduct violates the Eighth Commandment: “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.”...

       Lecturing the Pope on the eighth commandment while breaking it to bits!!! Gotta say they have some lot of hutzpah! Actually something tells me they googled "what is the Catholic Church against" and just worked in every catch phrase they could into a word salad. It certainly doesn't display the depth of scholarship I'd expect from, say, a Jesuit-trained writer.

30069. ryland at 01:25 AM on 29 April 2015
       Lomborg: a detailed citation analysis
       

       There is an opinion piece in today's (April 29th) Australian on Lomborg's appointment, that spends some time on h-factors.  The writer seems less enamoured of them than some who have so lucidly  commented here.  Perhaps posters here will write a comment to the Australian on this opinion piece as it will reach a very wide audience.   As commenters here have a very different perspective from that of the journalist, this will add significantly to the understanding of the general public about this somewhat arcane issue.

30070. bozzza at 00:51 AM on 29 April 2015
       There is no consensus
       

       I was looking here for arctic sea ice data...

       But that Neven site said some new near-real-time ice thickness maps had just recently been made available from here.

       So I guess we'll be talking about 3 metre ice thickness a fair bit from now on... I mean, the trajectory of the 2015 Arctic sea ice as of April 27 looks somewhat interesting. [/understatement mode]

       Multi-year ice: I saw something today somewhere on multiyear-ice from 2000- 2009 that looked frightening but is there information on multi-year ice after this? (In the Arctic that is of course!!)

30071. One Planet Only Forever at 00:32 AM on 29 April 2015
       Inoculating against science denial
       

       My view on this matter have more holistic basis, a basis that applies to more than just the matter of excess CO2. It is in line with, but slightly different from, many of the comments made.

       - Many religious people understand the problem of excess CO2 production by human activity. They consider it to be another unacceptable result of the socioeconomic system that encourages people to pursue their desires regardless of the ability to understand the unacceptability of pursuing those desires. And many non-religious people share that 'worldview' and pursue advancement of civil society and humanity being a part of the robust diversity of life on this amazing planet.

       - The desire for freedom to get away with unacceptable pursuits is a 'collective view' encouraged by mass-marketing mass-consumerism. And that collective of like-minded people often politically pairs itself with the collective of people who want to get away with restricting the freedoms of others, unjustly persecuting them if they behave in ways that do no harm other than disturbing the unjustified but firmly believed values of those who selectively interpret religious texts to suit their interests. Both collectives share the desire to get away with actions that can be understood to have no real future, are meant for the enjoyment of the members of the collective to the detriment of others.

       - People's desires, not just their feelings, can strongly motivate their investigation into, and way of thinking about, an issue. A scientist that allows their personal desires to influence their work will not be as successful as they could be. A person in the global community can, at least temporarily, enjoy more success in satisfying their desires if they deliberately dismiss or discredit any better understanding that is contrary to their interests as long as hey can get away with the unacceptable things they want to get away with. And those people will fight to protect their 'freedom to do what they please' (even fighting against methods of catching them breaking driving rules). The success of such people is what needs to be stopped. And that can be accomplished by pointing out the unacceptability of their desired pursuits, but like an addict, a person locked into a damaging cycle of behaviour, you have to get them to admit that what they desire is indeed unacceptable. Until they take that first step there can be little success made by attempts to change their minds.

       - And like any other harmful addiction, the real problem is the motivations for a person to fall into the addiction. The real trouble-makers are the ones who deliberately tempt people into the damaging addiction. This can be seen to be what is going on regarding the matter of the production of excess CO2. It is a very desireable thing that many people have developed a massive damaging addiction to. And it is not a national issue. The addiction is a significant part of the global economy with varying degrees of addiction in all nations.

       Which leads back to the root problem. The power of misleading marketing, which itself is a field of science. I learned about it in my MBA training. And we were advised by our Professor that the temporary success of misleading marketing can be very tempting, but can not be expected to last. That makes it an appealing action to promote a 'dud' movie to maximize the revenue before improved public awareness from people who actually see the movie spreads. That is also what makes it appealing in politics where the effect only has to last through the time of an actual election. Of course after a series of successes through deliberately misleading marketing the success will fade, but a decade or two of such unacceptable success is all that some poeple want to get away with. Some are even pleased to get away with one political win that gives them 4 to 5 years of ability to get away with damaging unjustifiable actions.

30072. RobH at 00:31 AM on 29 April 2015
       Inoculating against science denial
       

       At times I begin to think that the business of pondering the basis of denialism is a waste of time - in the end I find myself coming to the inescapable conclusion that it is just a matter of stupidity - in the end when lives or livelyhoods are threatened then neuronal processes begin to reflect on reality.  Note contrite parents of disabled (or worse) kids who werent immunized.  Also note that there is a surprising lack of gw denialism amongst local authories on the coast or within insurance companies or small oceanic states.

30073. Jim Hunt at 00:21 AM on 29 April 2015
       There is no consensus
       

       Michael,
       
       It seems the CT hiatus is "caused by computer problems, and they hope to have them resolved this week."  For alternative sea ice area data until the CT computers are fixed see:
       
       http://forum.arctic-sea-ice.net/index.php/topic,1112.msg50809.html#msg50809

30074. michael sweet at 20:46 PM on 28 April 2015
       There is no consensus
       

       Bozzza,

       Arctic sea ice is hard to predict.  Current sea ice area is near record low.  Most observers feel that April sea ice area is not predictive of September sea ice area.  Last year there was one group that seemed to have a good model that predicted September sea ice area at the end of May, based on the number of melt ponds.  Check back at the start of June and there might be better information.  You should look at Neven's Arctic Sea Ice Blog for updates and discussion

       Does anyone know why Cryosphere Today stopped updating April 12?

30075. bozzza at 18:20 PM on 28 April 2015
       There is no consensus
       

       Is there a consensus forming over the behaviour of Arctic sea in 2015?

       If there is, what is it?

30076. mancan18 at 16:35 PM on 28 April 2015
       Lomborg: a detailed citation analysis
       

       bozzza @48

       Trolling is personally attacking someone with abuse and threats on twitter and in emails where the comments made have absolutely no relationship with the debate being discussed. Also, trolling occurs because the people doing it do not like an opposing argument related to the issue being discussed. It is often done by politically motivated types or just for mischievous purposes. It is designed to drive people involved in legitimate discussion making legitimate points from the debate. The simplest way of dealing with a troll is to block them but quite often people have had to close their online accounts and stop making comments. Trolling is just another strategy to confuse and obstruct a legitimate debate.

30077. PluviAL at 14:53 PM on 28 April 2015
       Lomborg: a detailed citation analysis
       

       Ian Forrester @31, et al 32 to 25, Thumbs up. Thanks for the comments. Sorry if I drift, and not to attack the man here, but, Ian illustrates the point well; there was no consideration of the alternative argument offered. (Shrinking continents/globe was the precursor explanation for mountain building)

       If Lomborg's Present Value, and other arguments are faulty, they need to be addressed; the future of humanity may rest not just on the most precise technical understanding of the science, but the practical politically actionable business of successful action. That means money and political will.

       To attain good results we need good science, good communication, and good strategies. And yes, Lomborg may not be aware of his motivations anymore than those who get upset at my lack of scientific acumen and jump to the conclusion that it makes me wrong. The point of the article is to consider Lomborg's value, and the discussion is stuck on indices and technicalities, unable to broaden the perspective. This may be scientifically defencible, but may be missing the point.

       Finally, JH: I thought you all would know that earth flux is 44 TW and insolation is 174,000 TW, my shorthand sumo-illustration was too cryptic, sorry.

30078. ryland at 14:03 PM on 28 April 2015
       Lomborg: a detailed citation analysis
       

       Thanks to all for the time and effort taken in answering the points I raised.  Apologies Tom Curtis @47 I couldn't check the Danish newspaper report to which you refer as the link was not operating.  

30079. Rolf Jander at 12:20 PM on 28 April 2015
       Inoculating against science denial
       

       Hi.

       My first post here. I have been fighting the good fight on YouTube comments. This article fits very well with what I have expeirenced there. I always figured I would not convince the person I was arguing with but hoping to sway lurkers who might be open to the facts.

       Besides religion, I think the hardest nut to crack is the conspiracy aspect. Those who are scared to death that Climate change is an excuse for the UN to step in and take their property and force them into some kind of ghetto. If they talk of Agenda 21, it seems like game over.

30080. bozzza at 10:49 AM on 28 April 2015
       Inoculating against science denial
       

       Religion is about choosing to believe in a heavenly government so the idea that religious belief makes carbon dioxide irrelevant is absurd even to the religious..

30081. ubrew12 at 10:23 AM on 28 April 2015
       Inoculating against science denial
       

       DSL@5 Agreed.  I was going to say that many deniers have been taught that climate denial is 'of a piece' with their entire Spiritual viewpoint.  Appearing to attack elements of that viewpoint, rather than restricting oneself to the matter of AGW, reinforces the paranoic vision they've been spoonfed.  If someone imagines that accepting your arguments will land them in h_ll, you will not prevail.  On the contrary, if your evidence matches what they see outside the door each day, and also what certain Spiritual leaders, like the Pope, are saying, the chances for success are higher.

30082. bozzza at 10:08 AM on 28 April 2015
       Lomborg: a detailed citation analysis
       

       mancan18 @ 46, what is the definition for 'trolling' ?

30083. Tom Curtis at 10:01 AM on 28 April 2015
       Lomborg: a detailed citation analysis
       

       ryland @41, the problem with Lomborg is not that he studies how best to tackle global warming, nor even that his proposed solution isn't a solution.  It is that his "research" in support of his conclusions is distinctly second rate, and probably constitutes academic misconduct.  I have quoted other peoples opinion on this here and here, but I have not read his books and must rely on their opinions in that regard.  However, one issue I have looked at is the use of different discount rates in the "Copenhagen Consensus".

       Kare Fog gives the story:

       "4) Inconsistent use of discount rates
       The experts were instructed in advance to use two discount rates, viz. 3% p.a. and 6 % p.a. That is, the benefit/cost ratios are calculated twice, once with the low rate, and once with the high rate. In practice, however, only the results obtained with the low rate (3 %) have been used in the conclusions. So, the high benefit/cost ratios for the many programmes in the fields of health, nutrition and diseases were calculated using a discount rate of 3 %.
       The only exception is in the field of global warming. Here, Yohe et al. use a discount rate of 5 %, gradually declining over 100 years to 4 %, whereas Green uses 4 %.
       Why did the climate specialists not use the prescribed discount rates? As to Yohe et al., the explanation given by the economist Richard Tol here is as follows:
       "On the discount rate: I do not know what the other papers used. We used a consistent discount rate — all calculations, and all reporting was done with the same discount rate. The models that we use would require extensive recalibration for a different discount rate. . . As we used dynamic optimization models fitted to observations, we had to stick to the discount rate we had. As the rest of the Copenhagen Consensus used simpler methods, they should have used our discount rate."

       So Richard Tol thinks that all other specialists should have used the discount rate that gradually declines from 5 % to 4 %, because his group could not easily adapt to the prescribed 3 %, whereas it would have been relatively easy (?) for all others to adapt to his group´s discount rate. In any case, the result is that the disocunt rates are not comparable.

       As to Green, he performed his calculations with a 4 % discount rate, but also included results for a 3 % discount rate.

       Now, when all data for all items were summarized and compared, all other projects were represented by the benefit/cost ratios obtained wit a discount rate of 3 % (the results with a 6 % discount rate were not used in the final evaluation). Only the climate projects were represented with different discount rates. And these rates were higher than those used for other issues. Which is against the usual thinking that the longer the time perspective, the lower must the discount rate be. As the climate issue has the longest time perspective, it should have the lowest discount rate.
       This is especially remarkable in the case of Green´s project. Here there existed a version where a 3 % discount rate was used, but in spite of this, the version included in the final ranking was the one using a 4 % discount rate. And that matters quite a lot. As stated in the previous paragraph, for Green´s project, 4 % yields a benefit/cost ratio of only 16:1, whereas 3 % yields a benefit/cost ratio of 28.5:1. Which would have brought Green´s climate project near the top of the ranking list, above the efforts against tuberculosis, malaria, child diseases and heart diseases. The climate project would have got a priority near the absolute top. But the slight change in discount rate, from 3 % to 4 %, sent the climate project far down along the ranking list, out of the range of projects that are granted money.
       Incidentally, this is the same situation as in the Copenhagen Consensus 2004. There, the discount rate used for the climate issue was 5 %, whereas that used for HIV/AIDS was 3 %.
       So there is an obvious reason why the climate issue always is ranked last. It is systematically treated with a higher discount rate than the other issues.

       It would of course be interesting to hear Lomborg´s comments to this criticism. And indeed, he has been forced to comment upon this in a debate in a local Danish newspaper in February 2009. See here."

       On this, I have verified independently that Tol in fact used a higher discount rate than was used examining other projects considered by the Copenhagen Consensus, and that that materially alters the priority rating of takling global warming as compared to those other projects.

       In the case of Tol's paper, that may just be Tol's fault, although Lomborg ought to acknowledge the problem, something he seems determined not to do.  But in the Green case mentioned above (which I have not independently verified), the choice to use the valuation based on the 4% rather than the 3% discount rate was Lomborg's, and amounts to academic fraud.

30084. Paul W at 09:46 AM on 28 April 2015
       Inoculating against science denial
       

       @CBDunkerson, What an excellent question!

       "Obviously, 'inoculation' is a useful tool to halt the spread of misinformation, but how do you get through to someone who has already been successfully inoculated against reality?"

       I've been teaching a form of counselling for 30 years. I'll give you my take on it.

       I think we need to start with the common personal decision making aparatus - feelings. Most people from my experience decide most everything based on their feelings. Feelings can be manipulated to be made up of a large part of the past so the person walks around with a pseudo-reality made up of old attitudes and painful emotions as if it's all real. These become self perpetuating. Self fulfilling justifications.

       As an example - an argry man can become convinced that everyone is defensive. If they are not defensive in the first second of a conversation with him I expect they will be by the second or third second.

       I see ideologies as being the pseudo realities that hold all the painfull past in place. When a person is very relaxed and open I don't have much trouble with a sensible discussion of climate change. Very few are that relaxed and open!

       The world views I've come across occupying climate denial are those of the right wing, the religeous evangelical, the haters of communism, those working for fossil fuels. Of course a clear headed right wing, evangelical anti communist fossil fuel employee could be an ally to climate science. It's about cultural blind spots.

       A workable path out of this blocked up pseudo real life is through relationships that have trust and humour. Once those features are in a life - a relationship with someone who does know about climate change science and who is also trusted personally, humour is able to be used to begin to break up the rigid mass of the pseudo real. The ideological blocks of pain filled attitudes after a big laugh are loosened up for a little while.

       With skillfull humour and a good relationship the approaches that John Cook discusses become with in reach. Then his recommendation about weak denial inoculation looks work able to me. Having done that with denialist friends I know that it's possible for me to acheive that.

30085. mancan18 at 09:38 AM on 28 April 2015
       Lomborg: a detailed citation analysis
       

       WheelsOC

       Perhaps, I have missed the purpose of this thread and should not have posted as what I'm saying is not exactly in line with the discussion. This is about Lomborg's h index, which is an index that is totally independent of his credentials related to CC and what he says. It is also about whether he deserves to be given 4 million dollars by the Australian Government to establish his research centre in Australia and further obfuscate the CC debate.

       Now, if this an esoteric discussion purely about academic credentials amongst academics, then I am happy to take your point. This, unfortunately, is not going to enlighten the wider public about the quality of a CC argument, who these academics are and what they are saying. In fact, in Australia, most CC related comments that make it to the wider public are mostly by non climate scientists writing denier based articles in the Murdoch press or comments made by right wing shock jocks. While Sks does conduct a proper balanced debate based purely on the science, the economics and social impact; this debate does not filter into the public forum because, in Australia, the mostly denier/skeptic comments get a free unchallenged run because those putting up a more balanced position have been hounded out of the public forum with torrents of abuse and trolling. In other words the public do not get a balanced view based on the science. I am not suggesting that some CC credential for CC scientists be used to select scientists for research centres, the h index should be enough.  Also, I would be fairly sure that Lomborg probably doesn't use it or would use any other artificially CC related credential. I would be pretty sure that he would select his academics using his own criteria. What I am saying is that the wider public do need some way to assess the quality of a CC article in the public forum. Unless climate scientists properly engage in the public debate then they will well and truly lose the debate despite what they might be arguing in purely academic circles. In public forums in Australia, it's too easy to be a denier. It should not be.

30086. Rob Honeycutt at 09:32 AM on 28 April 2015
       Lomborg: a detailed citation analysis
       

       ryland @ 41...

       The challenge comes with the "at least in part" aspect of his position. Over the years it's become undeniable that climate change is, in fact, happening. So now the default denial position is that it's happening and humans are responsible "at least in part." This is not much of a shift in position. Lomborg still says that we should continue to burn FF's because not burning it would hurt the poor, which is a position that's not supported by research. 

       Catch that? The shift in position is there to make higher profile climate deniers sound credible, while their position on any kind of action to limit carbon emissions remains completely unchanged.

30087. bozzza at 08:58 AM on 28 April 2015
       Lomborg: a detailed citation analysis
       

       ryland @ 41,

       the opposition is to the fact that he is a pro-nuclear campaigner being given tax payer dollars to assume a position of status at one of Australias proudest universitys and from that pulpit command that the voters of this country lay down and accept the worlds nuclear waste as a good idea.

       Jest if you must: it's all true.

30088. Rob Honeycutt at 08:38 AM on 28 April 2015
       Lomborg: a detailed citation analysis
       

       Tom @42...

       Ouch!

30089. Tom Curtis at 08:20 AM on 28 April 2015
       Lomborg: a detailed citation analysis
       

       ryland @39, first, Lomborg purports to be an expert on environmental issues including global warming.  Ergo Cook and Dana are in the same field as his purported area of expertise.  However, his actual area of expertise (in as much as he has one) is game theory.  Therefore for comparison I did a google scholar search for game theory and here are the first to authors registered on Google Scholar from that search:

       Robert Gibbons h index = 42

       C Camerer h index = 94

       So exactly was your point?

30090. ryland at 08:17 AM on 28 April 2015
       Lomborg: a detailed citation analysis
       

       I was under the impression that Lomborg fully accepts both the science of climate change and that humans are responsible at least in part.  I thought his field was not climate science per se but how humans could best adapt to climate change and the cost benefits of various approaches.  I can't see how this is reprehensible or in any way undermines what climate scientists promulgate.  In fact it seems to complement their efforts as he is saying the effects of climate change are going to be manifested so how can we best deal with them.. I cannot understand why there is such antipathy for an appointment that has little to do with the science of climate change and a lot to do with how best to cope with it.

30091. Tom Curtis at 08:13 AM on 28 April 2015
       Inoculating against science denial
       

       Tom Dayton @2, a further nitpick.  "x implies y" if, and only it cannot be the case that x is true and why is not, ie, if x is sufficient for y.  You can flesh out "cannot" as a logical relationship or a causal relationship, but "implies" indicates sufficiency in either case.

       It is true that nowadays there is a common meaning of "implies" which means merely that it hints at, but that is not the meaning used in the the common claim that "correlation does not imply causation".  Indeed, it is probably a bastardized meaning that comes from the inflation of language evident when you see politicians or reporters say that they "refute an accusation" when they merely mean that they reject it (as if, like God, their claiming something makes true).  (A refutation, of course, reqires the actual giving of evidence (ie, a rebutal), and the evidence actually proving the point,ie, that the rebutal is successful, and not merely rhetorically).

30092. Rob Honeycutt at 07:23 AM on 28 April 2015
       Lomborg: a detailed citation analysis
       

       ryland... The issue here is that Lomborg's publishing record on climate – the subject matter of the center he's being funded to lead – is nearly non-existent. 

       Perhaps his h-index is more in line with those publishing on game theory (the subject of a couple of his papers), but I would doubt that's even the case. 

30093. ryland at 07:12 AM on 28 April 2015
       Lomborg: a detailed citation analysis
       

       The comparisons made by Bradshaw don't seem to take any account of the h-index in different disciplines.  It is all very well contrasting Lomborg with Nuccitelli or Cook or whomsoever but such comparisons are largely meaningless.  Why is there no comparison of Lomborg with others in the same field?  It is claimed that the h-index has a strong discipline biasand that comparisons should be made after normalisation via  h/(h)d where h is the individual's h-index and (h)d ther average h-index for the discipline.  Was that done?  If so I obviously missed it.  Overall this seems a comparison of grapes with car tyres.  Not one of the better articles in SkS 

       Moderator Response:

       [PS] Fixed as requested

30094. DSL at 07:06 AM on 28 April 2015
       Inoculating against science denial
       

       Full disclosure: I am non-religious, in the usual sense.  Attacking religion is a bad idea.  After all, we are faced with a situation where the universe and human interests are not aligned.  We die. We suffer injustice. We suffer from imperfection.  We drop our keys in the toilet.  We can understand all of these conditions from a scientific perspective, but it won't stop us from trying to build narratives to cover the basic fact that human interests and the universe are not aligned.  Any single version of the religious narrative may be wrong from a scientific perspective, but it may be critical to remaining sane in bewildering conditions.  The non-religious have their own fictions, of course, and for the same reasons.  One of the great questions of the 20th and 21st centuries is whether or not the value of the individually-derived narrative will rise above the collectively-derived narrative.  We'll still be telling ourselves stories, though, regardless.  
       
       Note, of course, that this doesn't mean we shouldn't act on the best information--presumably what science provides, and religion shouldn't try to describe the physical universe.  What science doesn't provide is meaning and purpose.  We have to figure those out for ourselves.

30095. knaugle at 06:20 AM on 28 April 2015
       Inoculating against science denial
       

       @Sunspot
       Be careful about such claims.  Yours are after all a form of dogma as well.  The idea that science and faith cannot exist simultaneously did not really come into existance until the Skopes trial.  However I would say that attempting to refute science using little more than faith cannot succeed on its merits.

       However, I might be willing to argue that science cannot exist at all if viewed through a political lens.

       Moderator Response:

       [JH] You have incorrectly spelled "Scopes." The trail, over the teaching of evolution, is officially The State of Tennessee v. John Thomas Scopes. 

30096. swampfoxh at 05:42 AM on 28 April 2015
       Lomborg: a detailed citation analysis
       

       ...certainly are a lot of comments about Herr Lomborg, hereon.  Australia supports more climate deniers than (seems) most other nation-state "entities" (John's associates and most of y'all herein from "down under" notwithstanding), but will Lomborg, in the end, really matter?  Deniers are all about the status of their wallet, that status always more important than anything else...even their children's future.  ...Don't think that can be changed.  We've stated the inevitable...let's proceed to arrange our lives and the lives of those over whom we have effect and let the climate Devil take the hindmost.  After all, six billion less humans on the planet would put us about where survival for the remaining billion would be virtually assured.  Jared Diamond, essentially asserts that human societies collapse when faced with insurmountable survival obstacles...how will hand wringing about the likes of Lomborg, et al? really change that? 

30097. CBDunkerson at 04:30 AM on 28 April 2015
       Inoculating against science denial
       

       Unfortunately, it seems to me that it is just as possible (perhaps even easier?) to 'inoculate' people with misinformation.

       Look at the whole, 'The hockey stick is broken' myth... setting aside the fact that it is false, even if the 'hockey stick' had been erroneous, that would not have contradicted our understanding of AGW at all. Yet, 'skeptics' are able to take a less than optimal statistical technique (i.e. principal component analysis) in MBH 98 and use that to inoculate people against the study as a whole... and then leverage that rejection of the 'hockey stick' into rejection of AGW as a whole. Denial built upon delusion built upon misinformation.

       We see the same thing with Himalayan glaciers = IPCC false = no AGW and various other 'skeptic' arguments. It is the same concept of knocking down a weak argument to take advantage of human tendency to then reject the entire line of reasoning... just with the addition of the original 'proof' itself being false.

       Obviously, 'inoculation' is a useful tool to halt the spread of misinformation, but how do you get through to someone who has already been successfully inoculated against reality?

30098. Tom Dayton at 04:00 AM on 28 April 2015
       Inoculating against science denial
       

       Excellent article.  A nit:  Correlation does "imply" causation, and indeed is necessary for causation.  It's just not sufficient.

30099. Sunspot at 03:31 AM on 28 April 2015
       Inoculating against science denial
       

       The very basis of science is questioning belief, but we can't have little Johnny going home from school unsure about the existence of god, his parents won't accept even the hint of such a thing. Science and religion are opposites and shouldn't be able to coexist within a sane mind. 

       Moderator Response:

       [PS] I appreciate that it is a fine line on this  topic, but please note the comments policy "Rants about politics, religion, faith, ideology or one world governments will be deleted." Can everyone please be very careful to keep comments addressed to points in the article and avoiding rants.

30100. WheelsOC at 03:04 AM on 28 April 2015
       Lomborg: a detailed citation analysis
       

       mancan18:

       I agree with you that it would be difficult to create some index to assess climate researchers and commentators, because what ever method you used would be modifiable by others to suit their purpose which, in the end, would make the index next to useless.

       That's not what I've been saying. I thought it was quite clear.

       Setting up a screening process to only let in researchers with a pre-existing and narrowly selected point of view is counterproductive to the goal of establishing a credible research center, regardless of your criteria for the viewpoint screening. If it's credibility you're after, then you do not want to establish an ideological filter ahead of time, period. The only appropriate filtering would be to winnow out those researchers who are clearly out of touch with the evidence, the data, and the best available sciencce. That's about simple qualifications, not a nebulous purity test based on agreement with a statement of faith about climate policy.

       Everything else you're saying is just expressing frustration with the popularity of think-tanks that only serve denialist interests and doesn't address the point.

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