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David Kirtley at 11:32 AM on 9 September 201497 hours of consensus: caricatures and quotes from 97 scientists
Update to my comment at #14 above.
The 97 Hours website has been updated so that when you click on one of the lit-up cartoons the quote bubble will pop-up and stay up - so you can click on the scientist's bio page. There is also now a link in the lower right which goes to the source of the scientist's quote.
Have fun!
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Tom Curtis at 09:08 AM on 9 September 2014Sea level rise is exaggerated
TD inline @202
Cristobal JASL trend, 1907-2010: 1.5861 mm/yr. Note that there is a large dip in sea level around 2000, with a rapid recovery (nearby stations show trends of 13.788 and 13.707 mm per year in the period of recovery) such that by carefull enough chery picking you might find a period with near zero trend depite the rapid overall rise.
Balboa JASL 1907-2010: 1.5494 mm/year (previous link). In both cases extending the data beyond that held for the PSMSL stations increases the rate of sea level rise. That strongly suggests that any lack of sea level rise Maui claims is, at best, the result of cherry picking.
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Glenn Tamblyn at 07:52 AM on 9 September 201497 hours of consensus: caricatures and quotes from 97 scientists
Donny
I assume you are reerring to the big change at around 6500 BP. This period, the major cooling ad warming is called the 8.2 kiloyear event. The main theory for its cause is that it was the final collapse of Lake Agassiz. Agssiz and its sister Lake Ojibway were massive glacial lakes in the northern US and central Canada that formed as the Laurentide ice sheet melted. Probably held more fresh water than all lakes on earth today.
The main theory is that repeatedly as the ice sheets melted these lakes were prone to ice wall collapse floods, dumping huge amounts fo fresh water. When these bursts of fresh water flooded out into the Arctic or North Atlantic the change in salinity they caused triggered a slowdown/collapse in the Atlantic Meridinal Overturning Circulation- the current system that includes the Gulf Stream that makes wester Europe artificially warm. If the current collapses then the north atlantic basin can cool signiicantly and then warms again when the current restablishes.
The 8.2 Kyr event is thought to have resulted from the last collapse of Lake Agassiz - there were earlier floods triggering previous events like this that come from earlier in the core, not shown on this graph.
Importantly, these sort of events appear very differently in the Antarcic cores and other studies with the same period being perhaps warmer. Which is what we might expect - if heat isn't being moved northward then there should be more heat remaining in the south.
The cores aren't recording global events so much as local and regional ones. Standard denier tosh to suggest, imply, or 'leave the reader to form their own view' that black is white through cherry picking the data they use.
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2014 SkS Weekly Digest #36
jim - Depends on the period you are looking at, on whether you are examining sufficient data for statistical significance, etc. The period 1985-1999, for example, is 15 years (too short for significance, as are the last 15-17 years), showing a warming rate of 0.23 C/decade, while the statistically significant period 1984-2014 shows a warming rate of 0.167 C/decade. Short term variations definitely added to warming in the 1990's (albeit without statistical significance).
Longer term, the AMO for example appears to have had a cooling influence in recent decades (Mann et al 2014). There seems to be no way to support natural variation as a majority cause in recent warming.
"...does that mean that the warming attributed to anthropogenic carbon is overestimated?" - No, it means that there is natural variability plus the anthropogenic forcing trend, hardly a surprising result. See IPCC AR5 WG1, Chapter 10, Detection and Attribution of Climate Change, for the current state of the science.
As noted on RealClimate wrt Chen, Tung, and others, "Nobody has any problems with the idea that multi-decadal internal variability might be important. The problem with many studies on this topic is the assumption that all multi-decadal variability is internal. This is very much an open question."
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scaddenp at 07:00 AM on 9 September 20142014 SkS Weekly Digest #36
Jim, try a read of Double Standard. Note also that the internal variability strongly affects surface temperature (ENSO in particular), but it doesnt do much to OHC. I would say that pretty much all variations in OHC are due to change in forcings.
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jim10940 at 05:48 AM on 9 September 20142014 SkS Weekly Digest #36
If the hiatus is due to internal variation of the climate system does that imply that previous warming must be partially attributed to internal variation? And further does that mean that the warming attributed to anthropogenic carbon is overestimated?
I refer to Matt Ridley's argument and his defense here:
http://www.mattridley.co.uk/blog/whatever-happened-to-global-warming.aspxI found convincing the email he quoted from the Chen and Tung (2014) authors supporting his interpretation of their paper.
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Composer99 at 04:37 AM on 9 September 201497 hours of consensus: caricatures and quotes from 97 scientists
I must say, adding the guitar into Dr Alley's cartoon character is a nice touch.
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Marco at 03:10 AM on 9 September 201497 hours of consensus: caricatures and quotes from 97 scientists
Rob, as also pointed out at Hotwhopper, Watts actually put up Loehle 2007, before all the corrections were made.
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Rob Honeycutt at 02:38 AM on 9 September 201497 hours of consensus: caricatures and quotes from 97 scientists
Marco @18... Also, Watts tries to pull out Loehle's work to make up for his posting such a thoroughly debunked graph of GISP2. But in my first SkS article I took that one on and created the graph below with Dr Loehle's assistance.
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Rob Honeycutt at 02:02 AM on 9 September 201497 hours of consensus: caricatures and quotes from 97 scientists
Donny... You have to bear in mind that that graph represents only one small part of the globe. It is a regional record of temperature at the Greenland summit. Also bear in mind where the Greenland summit is. It's well above the arctic circle and thus it's where we expect to see much more rapid swings in temperature.
I'm really amazed that Watts has posted that version of the GISP2 data. He totally knows that the it's wrong where it states that the year 2000 = "present." That should give you a sense of how much Watts cares about accuracy and truth. In fact, of all the versions of the GISP2 data floating around the denialsphere, that one is probably the most misleading of all.
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Maui at 01:59 AM on 9 September 2014Sea level rise is exaggerated
It is curious this controversy on a scientific level. "They have a millimeter measurement" for 68 years ... every day ... well documented ... Panama Canal.
Repeat ... for 68 years
Without any pressure from powerful groups and only practical for the normal functioning of locks filing purposes.
The levels of the Pacific and the Atlantic, have been unchanged in the last 68 years.Give a bit of a laugh to see how each to defend a theory and make specific studies in specific geographic areas and draw overall conclusions.
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Governments need to collect more taxes, and for that... we have to blame something.Moderator Response:[TD] Please provide a citation for your claim. NOAA's Sea Level Trends page shows trend of increase since 1908/1909 on both ends of the canal. (Click the arrows on that page to see more info, and in the resulting dialog window click the "Linear Trend" link.)
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Donny at 01:54 AM on 9 September 201497 hours of consensus: caricatures and quotes from 97 scientists
KR looking at the graph above it looks like there was rapid warming 6300 years ago of more than 3 degrees in about a 200 year span.... do they have theories as to what caused that rapid warming?
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97 hours of consensus: caricatures and quotes from 97 scientists
Donny - That's one of the most misrepresented data sets on the climate blogosphere. See the Crux of a Core series here on SkS.
Long story short: it's a local record of a particular location in Greenland, not a global proxy, often mis-graphed with incorrect proxy endpoints, and shown with a noteworthy lack of the most recent temperatures:
Good data, deceptive presentations, ridiculous interpretations.
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Marco at 01:18 AM on 9 September 201497 hours of consensus: caricatures and quotes from 97 scientists
Donny, see http://skepticalscience.com/10000-years-warmer.htm
No surprise to see WUWT not caring (see their "update") about using, once again, a falsified graph.
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Rob Honeycutt at 01:08 AM on 9 September 2014When their research has social implications, how should climate scientists get involved?
saileshrao... If you're an AGU member and are genuinely interested in this issue, then I'd suggest you approach the Moscone Center people about it. AGU is not a caterer, nor does AGU even select a caterer, for the events. Whoever does event organizing at AGU is, likely, merely selecting which services the Moscone Center offers. It's unlikely AGU has an option to choose an outside catering service for events. That would be the exclusive service of Moscone Center.
That said, this is San Francisco. I would imagine the management at Moscone Center would be open to hearing your suggestions about offering low carbon meal packages for events. Only at that point would AGU even have the option to do what you're suggesting they do.
If you think it's an important issue, it's certainly within your power to help make it happen.
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Donny at 00:30 AM on 9 September 201497 hours of consensus: caricatures and quotes from 97 scientists
Can someone please tell me if this Greenland ice core graph is real or crap? Not sure who to believe.
wattsupwiththat.com/2014/09/08/monday-mirthiness-97-hours-97-opinions-97-consensus/
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Dikran Marsupial at 18:07 PM on 8 September 201497 hours of consensus: caricatures and quotes from 97 scientists
Jenna, I suspect there are a handful professors who don't have a PhD (for instance because they have built up an impressive track record of industrial research before moving into academia) but I would suspect the number would be exceedingly small, especially as it is possible to get a "PhD by publication".
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Ashton at 14:56 PM on 8 September 201497 hours of consensus: caricatures and quotes from 97 scientists
Jenna Professor is an academic title used by universities. Most professors have a track record of attracting grants and publishing in the peer reviewed literature and are considered experts in their field. Drs in this context have a PhD but may not work in a university so are not referred to as Professor even though their scientific output is similar to those of "Professors". And of course there are may scientists working in university who also have excellent credentials but are not professors as there are only a limited number of professorships available
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saileshrao at 14:08 PM on 8 September 2014When their research has social implications, how should climate scientists get involved?
Tom Curtis @23:
The carbon cycle is not the only biogeophysical cycle that humans have altered among the planetary life support systems. As a member of AGU, I'm concerned about all the cycles that we have messed up, not just the carbon cycle.
As Prof. Will Steffen said, "Climate change is one of many global changes that are destabilising our planetary life support system. It is ultimately a question of core values. Can we change our core values rapidly enough – and decisively enough – to halt our slide towards collapse? That is humanity’s most important question in the 21st century!"
As scientists, we are very good at rationalizing any set of core values, but then we should expect the general public to get very good at ignoring our pet peeves. -
David Kirtley at 11:28 AM on 8 September 201497 hours of consensus: caricatures and quotes from 97 scientists
Each scientist's cartoon and quote page (follow BaerbelW's link or instructions above at comment #7) here on SkS has a link to that scientist's bio page. Usually hosted by their university, etc.
Each hour's featured scientist on the 97Hours website (http://skepticalscience.com/nsh/?#) has the same bio link.
Also, when you hover over the smaller figures which are already "lit up" on the "turntable", and click your mouse that scientist's quote balloon will pop up. The bio link is also in that bubble but there is a trick to get to it. Click and hold your mouse button and drag over to the underlined link, release the button and a new tab/window will open with the bio page.Have fun!
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SteveS at 11:19 AM on 8 September 201497 hours of consensus: caricatures and quotes from 97 scientists
Jenna, I have found the rotation and pan arrows to be helpful sometimes in accessing a particular scientist. I think those buttons give a very cool effect, so congratulations to the people who worked on this.
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DSL at 11:13 AM on 8 September 201497 hours of consensus: caricatures and quotes from 97 scientists
For example, David Karoly.
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DSL at 11:11 AM on 8 September 201497 hours of consensus: caricatures and quotes from 97 scientists
Jenna, the professors are scientists who regularly publish in their respective sub-disciplines. It would be cool to get a google scholar link for each of them (or a link to their CVs).
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jenna at 11:01 AM on 8 September 201497 hours of consensus: caricatures and quotes from 97 scientists
I have 2 observations;
1) it's vewry difficult to get some of the figures to respond to your mouse-over. I'm not sure what the problem is, do we need to rotate the screen?
2) there seem to be too many "professors" and not enough "scientists" (as in dr.'s, etc). Or are the professors really scientists?
Jen.
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Ken in Oz at 09:51 AM on 8 September 20142014 SkS Weekly News Roundup #36B
jja should that perhaps be "Climate change threatenst to put the fight against hunger back by Millenia"?
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Tom Curtis at 09:43 AM on 8 September 2014When their research has social implications, how should climate scientists get involved?
saileshrao @19, a reasonable estimate for revving car engines for an hour is 5 liters of petrol consumed (based on a 1.8 liter, 4 cylinder engine), with CO2 emmisions of 11.5 Kg. That in turn is half the CO2e emissions of 1 kg of grass fed beef, which comes in at 19.2 Kg per live kg of beef for the worst category (grass fed) in the Midwestern USA. Even serving 500 g steaks means the beef is comparable to just one hours of "revved engines", and for the more reasonable 350 or 200 g steaks, the advantage is entirely with the beef. Of course, the calculations above do not include CO2 generated in transporting and cooking the beef, but nor does it include that in transporting, refening and than further transporting the petrol.
Of course, there is just one banquet at an AGU, and you propose an equivalent of 15 hours revved engines as the CO2 equivalent of that banquet. Clearly you are not arguing this from science, or anything approaching a factual basis.
Further, the AGU already advertizes its attempts to support sutainability, mostly through its choice of convention center which will by itself reduce emissions generated from the meeting by a greater amount than eliminating beef from the menu. They further recommend that attendee's use the BART transport system, which will save CO2 emmissions more than that of a steak meal for each round trip. These steps are visible, more effective, readilly associated with a concern regarding CO2 emissions and do not advertize a hair shirt mentality in the same way that banning beef from the banquet would do. That later point, however, makes them insufficient from saileshao's point of view.
saileshao @21, "foregoing the constant economic growth paradigm" is not necessary to tackle climate change and should not be coupled to reducing CO2 emissions as a strategy. Doing so merely encumbers the later making it far less politically achievable. Once again, hooking your particular political agenda to concern about AGW acts only to the detriment of the later and is not the strategy that shoud be pursued by those whose primary concern is ensuring AGW is controlled.
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Trakar at 06:53 AM on 8 September 2014When their research has social implications, how should climate scientists get involved?
Personally, most of those I know, regardless of their political persuasion, understand and accept the basic mainstream science. While this is interesting, it leaves a lot of room for social/public policy choices and decisions. I'd rather start hearing more about the range of options and trade-offs with respect to individual choices and decisions, neighborhood/local planning, as well as State and Federal options.
If enough people are responding at individual and local levels, we can drag the higher levels of social architecture along for the ride. Too many are interested in working on national and state level politics, without much attention to their personal and local level decisions and options. Too many view this as a black or white issue that one political "side" has the monopoly on. As in most such issues the reality is closer to being that there is one side that is generally much less wrong about what the science says. In fact, there are many traditionally fiscally conservative public policy positions, such as revenue neutral carbon taxes, that ahould, and probably will, play vitally important roles in addressing AGW climate change adaptation and mitigation.
We will never get past the "should we do something" stage and fully into the "what should we do" stage, if we don't start defining the options that everyone has at each level of decision making.
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wili at 06:49 AM on 8 September 201497 hours of consensus: caricatures and quotes from 97 scientists
Is this great initiative being intentionally coordinated with the "Disruption" screenings being held tonight around the country?
"Disruption" film: grassroots global revolt a key answer to CC
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saileshrao at 06:08 AM on 8 September 2014When their research has social implications, how should climate scientists get involved?
Rob Honeycutt @20
Re: "Simple taxation works wonders to alter broad consumer behavior."
I don't see governments all over the world and the corporations who control them in our capitalist system foregoing the constant economic growth paradigm anytime soon. Therefore taxation policies that alter peoples' behavior so that they become net contributors to ecosystems instead of net consumers is a distant dream. This is not as easy a problem as getting people to switch to reusable shopping bags, which is why governments have been punting on this issue for the past two decades.
We're facing the same intractable problem worldwide that Gandhi faced in India in 1915: an entrenched power structure that is utterly impervious to reason. Gandhi tackled it with voluntary grassroots actions.
Besides, why wait to do the right thing at AGU meetings just because we haven't yet received price signals not to do the wrong thing? The IPCC AR5, Chapter 11, is unequivocal that the consumption of animal foods at present levels is unsustainable. Please take a look at Fig. 11.9 to see the land use component and the energy flow of animal food products vs. the land still remaining as pristine forest and the energy flow of plant food products. That figure illustrates why Nature has a loaded gun pointed at our heads, saying, "Change your conduct or it's your life!". And those stats are from 2000 and it has only gotten worse since then! -
johnthepainter at 04:54 AM on 8 September 201497 hours of consensus: caricatures and quotes from 97 scientists
Ah. Now I see that only the name appears when the cursor is held on the figure (and not until it waves) and that the statement usually requires a click before it appears. I hope folks don't give up before they figure this out, especially old guys like me.
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BaerbelW at 04:31 AM on 8 September 201497 hours of consensus: caricatures and quotes from 97 scientists
johnthepainter - you can see the ones already published via the menue-path: Resources --> Climate Graphics - 97 Hours of Consensus . This takes you to this page:
http://www.skepticalscience.com/graphics.php?c=9The ones in the email you received contain a glimpse into who is yet to come - a preview if you will.
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johnthepainter at 04:18 AM on 8 September 201497 hours of consensus: caricatures and quotes from 97 scientists
Oh. Never mind. I saw the figures wave when I put my cursor on them, but didn't hold it there long enough to see the statements. Guess I'm too impatient.
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johnthepainter at 04:15 AM on 8 September 201497 hours of consensus: caricatures and quotes from 97 scientists
Hey, I got tipped off to this by a George Mason Univerity email, which posted six of the figures with their statements. It's a great idea and I'd like to email friends about this, but I don't see a way to see all of the statements already made on this website--and the examples on the email don't all match the first six on the website. I don't know when people will check their emails and I don't want them to miss anything. When I check the corner box on the home page, I am taken to the picture of the group, with the ones whose statements have been made fo far shown and the rest as darkened figures. It took a little while before a large figure with a statement appeared, and I hope people will have the patience to wait until this happens. I also can't get back to the home page without downloading it all over again. If you can tell me how to navigate this any better, I would like to share it with the folks I am emailing.
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Trakar at 03:17 AM on 8 September 201497 hours of consensus: caricatures and quotes from 97 scientists
While it is important to note and accentuate the fact of mainstream science support and confirmation of AGW, there are consequences to reinforcing perceptions of the importance of "concensus" (in general) on issues of science, especially with regard to the shaping of public policy in response the findings of science. These consequences can become more problematic as these terms get translated from considered debate to more colloquial exchanges.
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Rob Honeycutt at 03:02 AM on 8 September 2014When their research has social implications, how should climate scientists get involved?
saileshrao... "A carbon tax sends a message that well-to-do people, such as Al Gore and climate scientists, can continue with their profligate consumption, but it is the riff-raff, the poor people, who should be cutting down on their consumption."
I think this is absolutely wrong. What it means is that the well-to-do have the greatest incentive to change. In fact, it's already the case that it's easier for people of means to, say, build a LEED certified home or purchase a Tesla and charge it with the solar panels the put on the roof of their home.
But at the same time, carbon taxes that are paid by those who polute the most will ease the impacts on any rising cost of energy that result from taxation.
Tax and dividend certainly would not "continue the orgy of consumption." In fact, quite the opposite. It's likely the only viable approach to changing broad national behaviors that produce carbon emissions.
With regards to voluntary participation, the example I always use is the use of plastic grocery bags in California. We had decades of outreach, education, news stories, etc, etc, on the impacts of using plastic grocery bags. But volunary participation was limited even with people who agreed that it was a serious problem! But the first day the law went into place that said retailers had to charge 10 cents for a shopping bag, that was the day everyone changed. Now, here where I live, everyone uses reusable shopping bags.
Simple taxation works wonders to alter broad consumer behavior.
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John Bruno at 01:11 AM on 8 September 201497 hours of consensus: caricatures and quotes from 97 scientists
RFMarine: we've got heaps of that now in biological repsonses to warming. Such as range shifts in marine and terrestrial plants and animals, changes in timing of life history events, etc. Ecologists like to say we dont even need all the therometers (and satellites) - we can clearly see the warming in ecosystems responses. example one example two
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Magma at 00:57 AM on 8 September 201497 hours of consensus: caricatures and quotes from 97 scientists
Very clever, and well done. But I count 100 figures, so I wonder who the remaining 3 will be.
Lindzen, Curry and Christy? -
Glenn Tamblyn at 23:31 PM on 7 September 2014Rising Ocean Temperature: Is the Pacific Ocean Calling the Shots?
BC
Yep! Sea level rise with heat accumulation isn't anywhere nearly as simple as X Joules = Y millimeters. Here is another mechanism that might be involved. As heat moves to diferent points in the ocean this influences the how much density change occurs in different locations. In turn this impacts on the gravitational effect that each part o the ocean has on every otherr ppat, prhaps altering the Geoid slightly. And this might inflluence the rrate of the earth's rotation ever so slightly, in turn influencing how much the oceans bulge out at the equator.
These efects might be small but they highlight that sea level is not simple.
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Rising Ocean Temperature: Is the Pacific Ocean Calling the Shots?
Thanks. Interesting article. So the hiatus could end soon or go on for another 15 years?
Would it be the case that because the heat is going down deep and at mid latitudes the thermal expansion would be reduced? This would be because it's occuring at low temperatures and the coefficient of expansion gets smaller as it approaches 0 deg C.
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RFMarine at 23:09 PM on 7 September 201497 hours of consensus: caricatures and quotes from 97 scientists
Here's an example. If we didnt have all those scientists monitoring the climate, we could tell that somehting is happening when obvious stuff like large cargo ships start using the northwest passage. The first large cargo ship to use the northwest passage was in 2013. If in the future it becomes a rebular occurence then you got non meterorological evidence that something is going on
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saileshrao at 22:52 PM on 7 September 2014When their research has social implications, how should climate scientists get involved?
Rob Honeycutt @16 and 17:
I'm not as concerned about the chain smoking doctor having less influence over his smoking patients. I'm concerned that the AMA annual meeting is officially encouraging chain smoking during the conference, making ALL doctors less effective in the anti-smoking campaign.
Imagine if at the AGU fall meeting, all attendees ritualistically revved their rental car engines for an hour at a stretch, three times a day. And then complained that the general public is not taking climate scientists seriously on greenhouse gas emissions.
Serving animal foods at the AGU fall meeting is a worse display of frivolity from a lifecycle emissions standpoint.
A carbon tax sends a message that well-to-do people, such as Al Gore and climate scientists, can continue with their profligate consumption, but it is the riff-raff, the poor people, who should be cutting down on their consumption. As such, I respectfully submit that it is politically impossible to implement it.
A carbon tax with dividends is more palatable politically, but that just continues the orgy of consumption that brought us all these environmental catastrophes in the first place, because this policy has been shown to "grow the economy" in every analysis that I've seen.
Therefore, there is no way out of our predicament but to change ourselves from within. We have no option but to pare down our consumption voluntarily without waiting for external price signals or Big Brother to modulate our behavior. At the minimum, we need to restrain ourselves in public gatherings for 4 days at the AGU annual fall meeting once a year, or risk being taken not too seriously. -
jyyh at 15:29 PM on 7 September 20142014 SkS Weekly Digest #35
My guess, echoing conspiracy theories, is, it's the countdown to Bardarbunga Main eruption, that is machined by Climate Deniers to discredit global warming next year. lol.
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citizenschallenge at 14:06 PM on 7 September 2014Rising Ocean Temperature: Is the Pacific Ocean Calling the Shots?
Excellent!
Thank you Rob.
Reposted at: citizenschallenge.blogspot.com/2014/09/global-warming-wheres-heat.html
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jja at 02:13 AM on 7 September 20142014 SkS Weekly News Roundup #36B
Climate change threatens to put the fight against hunger back by decades
This is my vote for understatement of the Millenium.
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jenna at 00:32 AM on 7 September 2014Rising Ocean Temperature: Is the Pacific Ocean Calling the Shots?
Sorry to go off-topic here but it appears that the denialosphere (one blogger in particular who shall remain nameless) have already picked up on SKS's sidebar gray flash countdown thingy. They are hurling insults already without even knowing what it's for. (what IS the meaning of it?)
Jen.
Moderator Response:[JH] "Patience is a virtue."
FYI - The comment threads for Weekly Digests and News Roundups are open threads.
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One Planet Only Forever at 08:30 AM on 6 September 2014When their research has social implications, how should climate scientists get involved?
Tom Curtis @ 13,
We are in close agreement. I also am optimistic (not even quasi), that properly motivated human ingenuity can develop continuously better sustainable ways of living. However, I see the current market system as a failing system that will only continue to fail.
Waiting for drastic resource access pressures or totally unacceptable damage to accumulate to the point of actually negatively affecting the few most wealthy and powerful before such genious is tapped into and rewarded will not lead to success. History has proven it is cheaper and easier for those who get the benefit to be able to use a non-renewable resource rather than fully recycle those materials, or cause damage, or do things in a riskier way (riskier to others - protection from consequences to themselves if something goes wrong). The competetive advantage of those who get away with those types of development rather than the 'less profitable for them in their moment' actions towards sustainable ways of living are the problem. The motivation system needs to change.
I also look forward to the day that humanity can spread the gift of sustainably living as part of a robust diversity of life on other planets. And I agree with efforts to develop the ability to leave our planet. However, we should not go beyond this planet until humanity as a whole has figured out how to live sustainably, keeping unsustainable and damaging actions from being popular and profitable.
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Rob Honeycutt at 08:28 AM on 6 September 2014When their research has social implications, how should climate scientists get involved?
...to add:
When people complain about Al Gore flying in corporate jets, my response is generally, "So... then... vote for a carbon tax that's going to double the fuel costs on his flights."
Al Gore flying in a corporate jet has no bearing on the reality of climate change. AGU serving meat products during their lecture series doesn't either.
Behaviors will change in a significant way when we get carbon priced in the marketplace.
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Rob Honeycutt at 08:21 AM on 6 September 2014When their research has social implications, how should climate scientists get involved?
saileshrao... But, by the same right, whether or not a scientists changes his/her lifestyle based on the results of their research actually has no bearing on the data they collect and present.
One does not have to follow the other. A chain-smoking doctor may have less influence on their patient's behavior when they suggest they stop smoking, but it doesn't change the fact that smoking cause cancer.
I side with Tom, with his statements about a carbon tax. Forced or imposed behavioral changes (supply side) usually just don't have much lasting impact. A carbon tax (demand side) would place a market value on the damage that comes from carbon emissions, and thus would have far reaching – and long lasting – influence on a broader range of consumer behavior.
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saileshrao at 07:16 AM on 6 September 2014When their research has social implications, how should climate scientists get involved?
doug_bostrom@14:
That's a good analogy. While I agree with you that scientists studying the virtues of seatbelt should be expected to advocate for the wearing of seatbelt restraint systems, such advocacy always carries more weight when the scientists are routinely wearing seatbelts themselves, especially when they are attending a "Virtues of Seatbelts" conference.
If the conference organizers proclaim it a virtue NOT to wear seatbelts to the world at large, then that would undermine the collective advocacy of the scientists. -
Doug Bostrom at 05:39 AM on 6 September 2014When their research has social implications, how should climate scientists get involved?
Circling back to John's points in the blog post, I'm struck by how we're lead to treat certain scientific discoveries as exceptional and warranting discussion of whether it's at all appropriate for researchers to make any connection to the world outside the lab.
Imagining that we were just now discovering the virtues of seatbelts, it's rather bizarre to think that a researcher forming the conclusion that unrestrained occupants of vehicles are at risk of injury should not report that finding along with the perfectly obvious observation that some kind of restraint system might be warranted. Yet in the case of climate change there's an exceptional demand that researchers not mention the obvious knock-on effects of their findings.
So rather than wonder about whether and how scientists should form connections to society at large with their research, I'm left wondering why we should become accustomed at all to the idea they should not.
The answer to this is rather obvious, as it was with automobile safety and the brief struggle over restraint systems and the like: research with policy implications is treated as exceptional, something demanding that scientists volunteer to remain muzzled. As soon as the question of expenditures or changes of social or personal habits enters the picture, scientists are apparently supposed to detect this and retreat into their laboratories.
It's better not to create exceptions or perhaps more to the point be trained into creating exceptions, when it comes to scientists being free to offer their expert advice.
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