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Comments 40951 to 41000:

40951. Doug Bostrom at 09:46 AM on 2 November 2013
       How we discovered the 97% scientific consensus on man-made global warming
       

       I'm not an expert either, Rob, but as a bystander to properly constructed surveys I've been amazed at how much useful information can be extracted from what looks like not only a terrible response rate but that coming on top of a "small" sample size. My skepticism over these counterintuitive scenarios has been nullified after being treated to detailed explanations. Not to say it's easy. The process reminds me somewhat of people traversing glaciers with crevasses covered witn snow, or something like that. Looks simple, turns out to be quite perilous, can be done pretty reliably given enough expertise.

       Given that survey research methodology in detail and as it's used for conducting scientific inquiry is taught at the graduate level, a BSc  doesn't seem very predictive of a person's qualifications for assisting Fergus' work, not even if it's a degree in a directly related field.  Not to say that Fergus' assistant couldn't have been helpful, just that the BSc isn't sufficient or even very relevant.

       I get what Tom is saying, but defocusing a little bit it's fairly clear that all the darts on this board are falling in the same general vicinity; latterday climate change is significant and  is mostly thanks to us. However the tea leaves sink to the bottom of the cup, the message is the same. It would be nice if we were permitted to stop trying to evade this conclusion and concentrate on fixing the problem.

40952. Rob Nicholls at 09:43 AM on 2 November 2013
       US school infiltration attempt by Heartland’s IPCC Parody
       

       Dikram Marsupial, #29, maybe I misinterpreted what you meant by "real canards" when I posted my last comment. I apologise if this is the case. (I thought you meant that just dropping the most blatant falsehoods would improve the debate, but maybe you meant something more than this). Also, my sentence that said "This is encouraging further delays in taking action to reduce CO2 emissions, and possibly / probably causing more suffering for future generations" should have read "This is encouraging further delays in taking action to reduce CO2 emissions, and further delays could lead to more suffering for future generations."

40953. Rob Nicholls at 09:21 AM on 2 November 2013
       US school infiltration attempt by Heartland’s IPCC Parody
       

       Dikran MArsupial #29, I suppose it might be better if the most blatantly flawed arguments were dropped by the people who don't believe that AGW is real and dangerous, as this would allow more of a focus on the more subtly flawed arguments, but at the same time it would make it harder for non-experts to see that these people really are talking nonsense. Unless it changes radically and actually engages with the totality of available evidence, I don't think the NIPCC's work could really be part of a serious debate about the science, even if the NIPCC acknowledges some of the basics, e.g. that humans have caused the recent rise in CO2 levels and that CO2 is a greenhouse gas etc. The danger of people like Singer is that they know enough to be able to make their arguments look scientifically valid to non-experts, even when they're contrary to what the evidence says. This is encouraging further delays in taking action to reduce CO2 emissions, and possibly / probably causing more suffering for future generations.

       I would really like to see a line-by-line expert analysis of an NIPCC report, as I think this would be a great educational tool, but I don't expect any expert has time to produce such a thing.

40954. Rob Honeycutt at 09:17 AM on 2 November 2013
       How we discovered the 97% scientific consensus on man-made global warming
       

       Doug...  Maybe so.  I'm certainly not an expert on polling but it would seem to me, with only 140 data points, and the low end consisting of figures of 1's and 3's, those are not very robust figures when only a few additional data points could alter the conclusions fairly significantly.  The method of collection could also have a significant affect on the results at this 

       The Doran figures are usually critiqued for similar reasons, even though they start with well over 1000 respondents and whittle that down to a small figure representing researchers who have specific expertise in climate work.

       But then again, the conclusions of Doran were that the greater the expertise in the climate research, the more likely they were to believe the AGW was a problem.  

       It seems to me if you really wanted to get a true read on what they seem to be setting out to find, don't you think you'd want to do a bit more work?  You'd want a larger sampling.  You'd want some way to better test that your phrasing wasn't influencing your results. 

40955. Tom Curtis at 09:02 AM on 2 November 2013
       How we discovered the 97% scientific consensus on man-made global warming
       

       Doug @5, the authors did in fact elicit the aid of David Jepson, who is described as a "poll specialist" and as having a BSc.  What branch of study for a BSc would qualify you as a "poll specialist" is beyond me.

       More importantly, the agreement on a 97% concensus is entirely superficial and depends on incorrectly interpreting the Cook et al (2013) concensus as being that "human activities contribute a net positive forcing over the twentieth century", or something equivalent.  In fact, the Cook et al "consensus position" is that "humans have caused greater than 50% of recent global warming" where "recent" is undefined, but certainly includes the last 40 years, and probably not more than 130 years.  Only 82% of respondents to Fergus' survey could reasonably be interpretted as agreeing to that proposition.

       Given the poor quality of the survey, however, I believe that to be an irrelevant data point.

40956. Doug Bostrom at 08:39 AM on 2 November 2013
       How we discovered the 97% scientific consensus on man-made global warming
       

       Rob, your remarks seem unduly harsh.

       The sample size isn't necessarily a huge problem in itself, depending on what's being tested.

       As Tom highlights in his remarks on the methods of elicitation employed for the effort, having more concerted assistance by a social scientist familar with the nuances of survey technique would  have been of benefit for Fergus' paper. Unfortunately, social scientists seem to be at a discount among so-called hard science types, one of the reasons physical scientists are flailing so badly in attempting to communcate with the public at large. Fergus' paper is an example of what may happen by ignoring a substantial body of expertise.

       What's interesting to me is that despite its limitations, Fergus' experiment produced a result broadly in agreement with Cook et al. "97%"  seems to be a point of convergence. :-)

40957. John Hartz at 07:23 AM on 2 November 2013
       Why climate change contrarians owe us a (scientific) explanation
       

       All:

       Elephant in the Room posted a lengthy moderation complaint laced with sloganeering. It was therefore deleted. 

40958. Rob Honeycutt at 07:14 AM on 2 November 2013
       How we discovered the 97% scientific consensus on man-made global warming
       

       I agree with Tom.  This just doesn't look like a serious poll.  And the conclusion about the significance of the rejection side is, I would think, not supportable at all.  Starting out with such a small sample, I don't see why you would even begin writing the paper!  You'd be better off just scrapping the results and starting over.  Spend time trying to find ways to get a larger sampling of respondents and improving the questions.

       Heck, if we were able to get thousands of respondents for Cook et al, it can't really be that difficult a task.  (Though, I'll admit to contributing a considerable number of hours collecting email addresses off the internet for Cook et al.)

40959. Tom Curtis at 06:28 AM on 2 November 2013
       How we discovered the 97% scientific consensus on man-made global warming
       

       Fergus Brown @2, the article is not peer reviewed - or more probably is peer reviewed and rejected.  The reason it could not pass peer review, if the authors even had the gumption to risk that sort of rejection is plain to see.  In the methodoligy, they state that:

       "A simple, single question opinion poll was carefully constructed to test scientific opinion. "

       In fact, a complex compound question is asked, which differs from response to response.  That is because each potential "response" introduces new, and not necessarily compatible elements so that ordering responses on a numerical scale is meaningless.  Thus response one includes five distinct sub hypotheses, including a claim of no warming, a claim of scientific fraud by the IPCC, and a claim that the physics of greenhouse are "a false hypothesis".  Agreement with response one requires agreement with all five distinct sub-hypotheses, and therefore is not a simple measure of the primary question.  Response 6, which among other things agrees that the IPCC understates the problem also requires agreement that the IPCC has been politically compromised.  

       The standard practise in surveys is to ask simple, distinct questions which respondents are asked to rate their agreement with.  On that basis, agreement with the basic physics should be separated out as a distinct question.  Likewise, agreement that the IPCC has been politically compromised should be separated out as a distinct question.  Indeed, ideally, it should be two questions, "To what level do you agree that the IPCC has been politically compromised so as to understate the effects of global warming?" and "To what extent do you agree that the IPCC has been politically compromised so as to overstate the effects of global warming?"  Together with a distinct question that "Indicate on a scale of 1 to 7 the extent to which the IPCC underestimates (1), accurately reflects, or overestimates (7) the risks of global warming", this would allow you to tease out the level of disagreement with the IPCC which is simply scientific disagreement.

       When faced with such complex, compound responses, respondents must either not respond, respond in a bin that does not truly reflect their opinion to avoid more seriously compromising their position, or attempt to treat the scale as a simple scale in response to the main question.  The researcher can have no idea as to which strategy was taken, and as diverse strategies are likely, the proportion of each taken.  The data, therefore becomes uninterpretable except at the grossest level.

       This problem is compounded by the clear bias in the responses.  Out of seven numbered responses, four indicate the IPCC has overestimate the problem, either drastically and fraudulently, or through excessive confidence.  This means scientists who agree with the IPCC or believe it understates the problem are pigeonholed into just three position, and are less likely to find a response that matches their actual opinion.  They are, therefore, less likely to respond.  This bias would explain the significant disagreement in results in what still remains the best and most comprehensive survey of climate scientists results, Bray and von Storch (2010) (despite certain problems I have with it on some questions).

       All in all, the survey you link to is almost a complete waste of time.  I am, therefore, unsurprised to see Roger Pielke Snr's name attached to it, but disappointed to see James Annan's. 

40960. Composer99 at 04:36 AM on 2 November 2013
       2013 SkS Weekly Digest #43
       

       VeryTallGuy:

       Because I do not intend to portray engineers, as an aggregate, as being likely to become climate science contrarians, I think I shall simply apologize for bringing the speculation up at all and leave it at that.

       Fourthly, I'm not aware of any correlation between religious belief and climate contrarianism as you assert. I'd be interested if you can point towards any evidence for this?

       As far as this goes, the second survey I linked to in #12 surveys the religious affiliation of the respondents, as well as their views on climate change.

       On pp. 28, we see that respondents identifying as Republican come in at 6% with no religious belief vs. respondents identifying as Tea Party coming it at 8%, vs. a national average of 14% (the "None") entry. In other words, these respondents were also more likely to identify as religious than respondents in other categories, as well as more likely to identify as being skeptical of global warming (whether of its existence or of its anthropogenic origin). Tea Party members also appeared to be the most likely to walk the walk - more Tea Party respondents attended a religious devotional gathering more than once per week or participated in "extra-curricular" religious activities than any other group (although curiously they were more likely than Republican respondents to never attend a religious service).

       I have found a more useful (in my opinion) survey here, dating from 2008, which examines the relationship between acceptance of global warming evidence as compared to religious belief, without also tying in political orientation. It is worth noting that only respondents who identified as "Unaffiliated" agreed in the majority that the Earth was warming (primarily) due to human activity.

       While the largest single bloc of respondents in each other religious group noted in the findings also agreed that the earth was warming (primarily) due to human activity, it remains the case that that bloc represented a minority of respondents. That is, the majority of respondents identifying with specific religious groups (in large enough numbers to be included in the analysis) included some sort of contrarianism in their response.

       There is also this report, which also surveyed respondents and found (on pp. 5 - page 6 of the PDF) that, where in 2008 respondents were very unlikely to cite political orientation or religious beliefs (separately) as reasons not to accept the existence of global warming (religious beliefs cited in under 1% of cases), by 2012 they were much more likely to do so (by 2012 religious beliefs cited in 10% of cases).

       I found some other surveys related to the topic, but like the one linked to in #12 they mixed political orientation & religious belief together, making it hard to see any separate relationship.

       The linked surveys are US-only, so the results may not hold elsewhere. I should also add that, not being a statistician I am not in a position to say whether these surveys are quality evidence or not.

40961. John Hartz at 04:33 AM on 2 November 2013
       Why climate change contrarians owe us a (scientific) explanation
       

       All:

       Elephant In the Room's comments of today have been deleted for violating the sloganeering prohibition of the Comment Policy. He/she had been warned about the consequences of continued violations of this provision. If I had the authority to do so, I would bar he/she from commenting on SkS. 

40962. MA Rodger at 04:28 AM on 2 November 2013
       Why climate change contrarians owe us a (scientific) explanation
       

       For those no longer with us, Mike Lockwood has posted at Carbonbrief due to a badly reported BBC interview. Of course, there are those who may consider a scientist writing on his specialist subject cannot be trusted and consider they knows better. But is there a place for such fallacious arrogance in this forum? I think not.

40963. Fergus Brown at 03:46 AM on 2 November 2013
       How we discovered the 97% scientific consensus on man-made global warming
       

       Just in case anyone cares: http://www.jamstec.go.jp/frsgc/research/d5/jdannan/survey.pdf

40964. Fergus Brown at 03:23 AM on 2 November 2013
       How we discovered the 97% scientific consensus on man-made global warming
       

       Hi Mark,

       Though the sampling and methods, as well as the questions, were different, and though the presentation was not officially published (though it has been cited since), Our survey in 2007-8 resulted in the following conclusion: (verbatim):

       4. Almost all respondents (at least 97%) conclude that the human addition of CO2 into the atmosphere is an important component of the climate system and has contributed to some extent in recent observed global average warming.

       
       Since it was me who constructed the sample list and since my co-authors are not trivial figures in the field, I know that it was a decent stab at getting to the reality, at the time, of Climate Scientists' opinion. What is remarkable is that the 'bottom line' is so similar, though the approach was so different.

       Perhaps the time has come to reconsider the original survey and attempt a more rigorous follow-up...

       Best wishes, F.

40965. Dikran Marsupial at 03:14 AM on 2 November 2013
       US school infiltration attempt by Heartland’s IPCC Parody
       

       Rob Nicholls to be fair to Singer, he makes a very good point in calling for real canards to be dropped, they do the skeptics no favours as at all, and the public and scientific debates would both be more productive if we could stick to issues where there actually was some substantial uncertainty.  All "skeptics" should read Singer's article, ... aparently including Singer himself.

40966. Dikran Marsupial at 03:10 AM on 2 November 2013
       US school infiltration attempt by Heartland’s IPCC Parody
       

       jdixon1980 The NIPCC report relies heavily on the paper by Prof. Essenhigh that appeared in Energy and Fuels, but fails to mention the paper (written my my alter ego), which explains the errors in Essenhigh's paper and shows that a short residence time is completely consistent with the rise in CO2 being 100% anthropogenic (see here for details).  According to Google scholar, Prof. Essenhigh's paper has only been cited eleven times (i.e. it has generated more or less zero interest outside the blogsphere) one of those was my rebuttal and two relate to the rebuttal by the EPA.  That the authors rely so heavily on a paper that has been cited so little, and fail to mention (nevermind address) the refutations, is not suggestive of good scholarship.

       The most cited paper that references Prof. Essenhigh's paper is the one written by Humlum et al, which was cited 10 times, and two of those are refutations (there was a third that Google Scholar doesn't seem to have found yet, for details, see here).  Sadly, those who can't learn from history are doomed to repeat it.

40967. Rob Nicholls at 02:55 AM on 2 November 2013
       US school infiltration attempt by Heartland’s IPCC Parody
       

       Dikran Marsupial (#22), thanks for pointing to S Fred Singer's article. This is funnier even than the NIPCC report. Fred Singer seems to be claiming that he is the voice of scientific reason in between the "warmistas" (including the IPCC) and climate deniers. He seems to believe this sincerely.

       The article includes laughable errors, e.g. the suggestions that the ocean(s) didn't warm between 1978 and 2000, and that satellite observations of the atmosphere didn't show any warming in the same period.

       There's also the interesting categorization of the IPCC's methods as "a curve-fitting exercise". This is deliciously ironic; it comes from a lead author of the NIPCC report which mentions the name 'Scafetta' 20 times in total in Chapter 1 (Models).

       To quote the NIPCC: "Scafetta’s work demonstrates there is increasing evidence our solar system plays a significant role in decadal and multidecadal climate variations. The climate projections produced by Scafetta’s empirical harmonic model may be far more realistic and are certainly more optimistic [than the IPCC's projections of global temperature]." (Chapter 1, page 39). The reference for this assertion is Loehle and Scafetta, 2011 (see http://www.skepticalscience.com/loehle-scafetta-60-year-cycle.htm for some background).

       You could not make this stuff up.

40968. jdixon1980 at 02:41 AM on 2 November 2013
       US school infiltration attempt by Heartland’s IPCC Parody
       

       It is worth noting that the EPA provides some climate science curriculum materials here: http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/kids/resources/lesson-plans.html

40969. jdixon1980 at 02:09 AM on 2 November 2013
       US school infiltration attempt by Heartland’s IPCC Parody
       

       John Hartz @ 17 - "I'm not sure that either would have the financial resoures to print and distribute the millions of reports that would be needed."  

       I wonder if it would be feasible to crowd-fund it somehow.  

40970. jdixon1980 at 01:53 AM on 2 November 2013
       US school infiltration attempt by Heartland’s IPCC Parody
       

       Oh lol, I post that and then I see the links appear for adjustment time and lifetime, with cross-referencing.  I guess they don't appear retroactively, as they are not there in the residence time thread comments.  

       That said, "residence time" still needs a mouseover definition.  

40971. jdixon1980 at 01:51 AM on 2 November 2013
       US school infiltration attempt by Heartland’s IPCC Parody
       

       Re: DM @22, interested readers can find the "short residence time" argument that humans aren't the major cause of rising CO2 thoroughly debunked here - take note especially of the discussion in the comments about the distinction between adjustment time and residence time: 

       http://www.skepticalscience.com/co2-residence-time.htm

       SkS admin: how about adding automatic mouseover definitions for the terms "residence time," "adjustment time," and "lifetime," with cross-references and disambiguations?    

40972. Dikran Marsupial at 01:16 AM on 2 November 2013
       US school infiltration attempt by Heartland’s IPCC Parody
       

       There are contradictions on the science as well.  Fred Singer is a lead author of the NIPCC report, but he also wrote an article for American Thinker, titled "Climate Deniers Are Giving Us Skeptics a Bad Name".  The article basically argues that there are some skeptic arguments that should be dropped as they are easily and conclusively refuted, and hence makes the skeptic side of the debate lose credibility whenever they are trotted out.  Two examples given in the article are:

       "Another subgroup accepts that CO2 levels are increasing in the 20th century but claims that the source is release of dissolved CO2 from the warming ocean"

       and

       "Another subgroup says that natural annual additions to atmospheric CO2 are many times greater than any human source; they ignore the natural sinks that have kept CO2 reasonably constant before humans started burning fossil fuels. Finally, there are the claims that major volcanic eruptions produce the equivalent of many years of human emission from fossil-fuel burning. To which I reply: OK, but show me a step increase in measured atmospheric CO2 related to a volcanic eruption."

       Now lets look at the NIPCC report, on page 164 we find

       "The short residence time suggests that anthropogenic emissions contribute only a fraction of the observed atmospheric rise and other sources, such as ocean and volcanic degassing of CO2 need to be sought" [epmhasis mine]

       Clearly the lead author/editor didn't read the report very carefully!
       

40973. Ger at 01:11 AM on 2 November 2013
       Hans Rosling: 200 300 years of global change
       

       Renewable is more than solar and wind alone, Germany: biomass (residues + waste) produced 33.5 TWh, total a 101 TWh of renewable out of a 450 TWh consumed. That is a bit over 20%, not bad. Picking on one (or two) industries only is the same cherry picking strategy as used in deniers arguments. source Wikipedia (for the numbers of course)

40974. jdixon1980 at 01:03 AM on 2 November 2013
       CO2 limits will hurt the poor
       

       I am just now noticing that the discussion of socioeconomic considerations of mitigation is a little more robust over at this thread:  

       http://www.skepticalscience.com/global-warming-too-hard.htm

        

40975. TjallingL at 00:24 AM on 2 November 2013
       US school infiltration attempt by Heartland’s IPCC Parody
       

       Nice to read about this here, because the exploitation of the general public's inability to seperate pseudoscience from decent science is a serious problem. 

       I recently did some reading of my own on the NIPCC and it was a frustrating experience. It has its origins with the SEPP, which is vague about its funding. However, there is nothing vague about what is said about the 'History of the NIPCC'. Essentially they say:

       Step 1: realize the IPCC can't be trusted because of where their money comes from.

       Step 2: Team up with the Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change, which clearly states on its own website:

       ""Where do you get your funding?" This is a common inquiry we frequently receive. Our typical response is that we never discuss our funding. Why? Because we believe that ideas about the way the world of nature operates should stand or fall on their own merits, irrespective of the source of support for the person or organization that produces them."

       This results in a severe loss of credibility in my view...

40976. Stephen Leahy at 23:58 PM on 1 November 2013
       ONLY HOURS Left to Be Part of a New Collaborative Approach to Media Coverage of Climate
       

       Success! The project is fully funded.

       Special thanks to Skeptical Science readers who spread the word and made a significant share of the donations we believe. Some of our CNM articles will be posted here and we will send details about where you can follow the live blog. 

       Thank you.

40977. MA Rodger at 23:06 PM on 1 November 2013
       US school infiltration attempt by Heartland’s IPCC Parody
       

       I was a little over-optimistic with what I said @12. The NIPCC Chapter 2 becomes rather quickly dull reading being mainly straw-man-lynchings, misrepresentations and denialist nonsense. How boring is that?
       I do wonder if a useful approach to debunking this NIPCC nonsense would be to compare the level of mistakes it manages to present with the level of mistakes within IPCC AR4. Then a short analysis of part of NIPCC would show that these numpties, the denialist 3%, are so error-prone that they create 30,000%* the level of error (* Actual value to be determined). How many mistakes in AR4 WG1? How many pages?

       Having read section 2.1 of NIPCC, it is truly riven with error. And almost all the citations are rather ancient. One passage is a simple cut-&-paste from Idso's website, a bizarre move as this insertion is new for 2013 in the NIPCC (that is, not in the 2011 version) but the insertion was written in 2000. So it's smack up to date, then.
       
       Well, it is smack up to date compared with some of their "case" that CO2 does not cause warming (apparently). That graph they use from the Journal of Archaeological Science gives part of the Alley 2005 data that is known to provide data only up to 1855. Yet the numpties assume it provides data up to 2000 (which is quite evidently wrong if anyone actually examines the graph) This erroneous assumption of 2000 data results in them concluding that temperature has not been affected much by the 100ppm rise of CO2 over the last 200 years. This is a whopping CO2 rise give the previous 275-285ppm CO2 range during a 4,800 year period which shows large temperature fluctuations (although I'm not sure the Romans ever reached Greenland, or did the Late Bronze Age for that matter). Of course, by 1855 CO2 had yet to rise above 290ppm which sort of pulls the rug from under their "case" that 'CO2 doesn't cause warming'.
       
       So to go through a whole chapter of this level of drivel is perhaps asking too much. I think I'll stick with a section or two. Error is ubiqitous although due process even on a single section will probably require more work than the numpties ever invested.

       Then, may be it takes a lot of effort to pack in so much error. For instance, the numpties say of Pagani et al 1999:-

       "They (Pagani et al 1999) stated their finding “appears in conflict with greenhouse theories of climate change.” In addition, they noted the air’s CO2 concentration seemed to rise after the expansion of the East Antarctic Ice Sheet, also in conflict with greenhouse theories of climate change."

       I think that counts as two errors in just the one sentence as "conflict" is neither stated nor implied by Pagani et al 1999.

40978. Phil at 20:30 PM on 1 November 2013
       Hans Rosling: 200 300 years of global change
       

       Andy @5

       the more I believe that any solution will require an "all of the above"

       quokka @6

       Anything other than "all of the above" looks increasingly untenable.

       Surely, we've known this for some time: 15 "wedges"

40979. quokka at 20:24 PM on 1 November 2013
       Hans Rosling: 200 300 years of global change
       

       #4 KR,

       OK, my comment was mildly inflamatory, but somebody has to ask the question - how did the public become so badly misinformed about the contribution from wind+solar? This subject is deserving of more than a little attention.

       This level of "devasting ignorance" falsely and quite directly implies belief in a level of success in dealing with the climate problem that simply does not exist in reality. Collectively we are failing despite whatever local or national efforts have yielded some measure of success. The emissions intensity of the energy sector worldwide has not improved in 20 years (source IEA) but energy consumption has risen sharply and will continue to do so.

       I see little to be gained by not being ruthlessly honest about this. Complacency is not helpful at all especially among those members of the public who do accept the science and believe we have a serious problem.

       Just as an aside, the only period in the last 50 years when the emissions intensity of the energy sector did improve was between around mid 70s and early 90s due to rollout of nuclear power.

       Anything other than "all of the above" looks increasingly untenable.

       Moderator Response:

       [JH] Unsubstantiated global assertions (e.g. "...how did the public become so badly misinformed about the contribution from wind+solar?") constitute sloganeering -- which is prohibited by the SkS Comment Policy. Please read and adhere to the Comment Policy. 

40980. VeryTallGuy at 19:52 PM on 1 November 2013
       2013 SkS Weekly Digest #43
       

       And now on impact - why does this matter?

       I guess I’m interested (and likely biased) because I’m an engineer. I’m also interested in the motivations and causes of climate change denial.

       One of the drivers to increase entrenched positions in the debate, I believe, is the tendency to pidgeonhole or stereotype viewpoints. To include entire professions without a very careful examination of what is actually being suggested risks both alienating potential allies and obscuring the true root causes.

       Let’s say, for instance that at least a proportion of your hypothesis is true. I would not be surprised, for instance, to discover that “a larger proportion of US educated engineers than US educated natural scientists doubt the significance of human caused climate change”, although I’ve not seen any actual evidence to support that.

       If this were true, it would be useful to understand why. The paper you cite suggests that those in the US with a conservative and religious background are more likely to choose engineering than other STEM subjects. We could hypothesise the reasons for that, perhaps an unwillingness to choose subjects like biology likely to challenge core values such as creationism, or maybe a desire to uphold core values like economic self-sufficiency through a clear path to employment.

       Whether contrarianism of engineers, even if true, has anything to do with engineering per se is then questionable. It could only really be linked to engineering, rather than values and background, if it were shown that an engineering education increased this tendency. I suggest that is highly unlikely. As John points out, engineering faculties and institutions are, in fact very active in teaching and research on mitigation and adaptation to climate change and show, as far as I’m aware, no contrarian inclinations whatever.

       Which leaves the fundamental issue as nothing to do with professions, but rather on values:

       How do we engage with those who believe that climate science is in conflict with their core values?

       Stereotyping of groups in general and engineers in particular will only make that engagement more difficult.

40981. VeryTallGuy at 19:30 PM on 1 November 2013
       2013 SkS Weekly Digest #43
       

       Composer99,

       well, I think I owe you an apology too - I misread the abstract, your reading #12 looks correct.

       However, I can't agree with

       based on the findings in GH2007, one can reasonably expect to see engineers form a larger proportion of climate science contrarians than other STEM professionals.

       initially on the facts:

       Firstly, rather than a "reasonable expectation", it's a huge extrapolation from the paper, which is about Jihadism, not climate denial. 

       Secondly, the data in the paper is mainly US based, and what little data there is from elsewhere shows major differences vs US and also is very  hard to compare directly.  For example, whilst I have nothing against Town Planners, I wouldn't at all agree they should be included in "engineers"!

       Thirdly, your statement above seems to state that you expect engineer contrarians to be more numerous than other STEM contrarians.  That depends not only on proportions, but on numbers - you'd also need to demonstrate the total numbers to support your statement.  However, for example in the UK engineers are only about 1/3 of STEM total, see http://www.hefce.ac.uk/whatwedo/crosscutting/sivs/stem/

       Fourthly, I'm not aware of any correlation between religious belief and climate contrarianism as you assert.  I'd be interested if you can point towards any evidence for this?

        

40982. Andy Skuce at 14:23 PM on 1 November 2013
       Hans Rosling: 200 300 years of global change
       

       quokka: you are correct about the solar and wind contribution to German energy supply. According to this spreadsheet it amounts to about 4.5%. 

       That is sobering when you consider what a vigorous (and inspiring) effort the Germans have made to promote renewables and how much progress there is yet to be made before the economy is decarbonized. 

       The more I look at the problem of decarbonization, the more I believe that any solution will require an "all of the above" approach, with nuclear, CCS, conservation, lifestyle changes along and so on, along with solar and wind power. 

40983. KR at 13:55 PM on 1 November 2013
       Hans Rosling: 200 300 years of global change
       

       Wind power accounted for about  4% of US electrical supply (Table ES1.B) in 2012, and accounted for 25% of electrical power in the state of Iowa. Miles to go, certainly, but significant contributions from renewables are possible. 

       quokka - You might consider the details of the Comments Policy, in particular regarding "No accusations of deception". Those are serious accusations in your post, and without any support.  

40984. quokka at 12:27 PM on 1 November 2013
       Hans Rosling: 200 300 years of global change
       

       "Less than 1% of the world's energy is currently generated by wind and solar power. In a survey of the UK public, 70% of people believe that the amount is five times or more that"

       I'm not suprised by that at all. Here's another fact - In 2012 non-hydro renewables supplied about 8.3% of Germany's energy (BP 2013 Statistical Review of World Energy). Take away the various bio technologies and solar+wind supplied perhaps  5% of Germany's energy. So what has been achieved in the nation that has probably spent the most money on solar and wind is right at the bottom of UK public perception of what has been achieved globally.

       Which should lead to the obvious question of what are the sources of this vast disconnect between public perception and reality.

       You really don't have to look too far for a couple of major contributors - various "green" organizations and the PR machine of the renewables industry. The public is bombarded with stories about PV in Germany generating as much power as "N" nuclear power plants (yes for an hour or two, but what about the rest of the time?) or PV supplying 50% of electricity (same story). If you want to find out how much energy was produced by PV in the middle of winter, you have to ferret out the information yourself - it won't be headlined in the Guardian.

       There has been a sustained campaign to overstate the achievement of solar and PV. Making the situation worse is the terrible energy reporting in the media. Frequently mixing up MW and MWh, pretending that there is no such thing as capacity factor, and singing the praises of some project or other on the basis that it will power "X" homes. Since when is a "home" a unit of energy or power? The "X" homes stuff is especially deceptive because it carries that implication that powering all homes by adding "n" more such projects will deal with the problem. No it won't - not even close.

       You don't have to wonder too much about the motivations of the renewables industry in this ongoing charade, but how about the "green" organizations? Why have they deliberately done their best to create such a disconnect between reality and public perception? The answer is pretty easy - they fear that perception of the achievements of solar/wind that matches the reality will open the door to nuclear power. And they do not want that - not at any price including the price of fundamentally obsfuscating the climate/energy problem.

       This is a very bad situation.

40985. Rob Nicholls at 09:27 AM on 1 November 2013
       US school infiltration attempt by Heartland’s IPCC Parody
       

       I find the NIPCC entertaining, but its propaganda is very dangerous because most people don't know enough about the science to see through the cherry-picking and the lies. An example of a blatant misrepresentation is figure 3.1 in chapter 3 (solar forcing), page 245. One of the graphs presented there seems to show solar irradiance (TSI) increasing rapidly , and suggests that the global temperature trend has followed the changes in solar irradiance very closely in the last 40 years. This is nonsense (I understand that total solar irradiance seems to have peaked around the mid-20th century and certainly hasn't risen in the last 30 years of satellite observations).

       But how would anyone know that unless they were familiar with the evidence?

       NIPCC perfectly demonstrates the usefulness of this skeptical science website - just in the executive summary of the latest NIPCC report I think I found the following commonly used false arguments: #6, #12, #49, #67, #2, #21, #116, #138, #154, #7, #26, #52, #47, #49, #1, #13 and the bonus ball #113. (see "view all arguments" near the top left of this page, http://www.skepticalscience.com/argument.php )

       Also, there are loads of other misleading arguments in the executive summary which don't quite fit into any of the numbered myths on your website. The arguments which are used by proponents of climate change denial often evolve subtly over time, in much the same way that a virus may evolve so that a host's immune system finds it more difficult to deal with, and there are an infinite number of possible subtle variations on the same theme - this makes the job of challenging the denial industry a very difficult one.

40986. Dan Moutal at 09:04 AM on 1 November 2013
       Hans Rosling: 200 300 years of global change
       

       Thanks for posting this, I hadn't seen this yet, and any video by Hans Rosling is worth watching.

       My Favourite definitely has to be the Magic Washing Machine.
       http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BZoKfap4g4w

40987. wili at 07:34 AM on 1 November 2013
       Hans Rosling: 200 300 years of global change
       

       "We think we have done more than we have done and we haven't understood how much we have to do. "

       That's the take away. I am glad that he is at least acknowledging now that there is a price to be paid for raising the affluence of countries to the point where they undergo a demographic transition and stop growing in population. I would hope that he would include the point that coal is not necessary for lifting people out of poverty any more. In many cases, solar and especially wind are better values.

       
       Infant mortality before industrialization had as much to do with ignorance about sanitation as about the rise in incomes of families. We can still keep babies alive (and provide the parents with contraceptives) without relying heavily on coal.

40988. Jpflynn at 06:07 AM on 1 November 2013
       US school infiltration attempt by Heartland’s IPCC Parody
       

       Even the structure of the NIPCC report exposes its true intention, which is to mislead rather than to educate. Instead of examining the physical basis of climate change first (e.g., temperature measurements, CO2 measurements, species movements, ocean temperatures and levels, etc.), or basic physics, the first chapter of the "Physical Science" section begins by bashing the reliability of models.

       I'm also partial to this sentence in the Summary for Policymakers: "Global climate models produce meaningful results only if we assume we already know perfectly how the global climate works, and most climate scientists say we do not" (emphasis added).

       A central premise of the NIPCC report, therefore, is that unless we know everything about everything, we cannot make meaningful projections about anything. Fantastic.

40989. KR at 04:21 AM on 1 November 2013
       The Sun Has Cooled, So Why Are The Deep Oceans Warming?
       

       grindupBaker - There's no contradiction here. A warm atmosphere decreases the skin layer gradient, retaining more energy in the oceans and warming them faster, but in the balance reducing the amount of energy going from the oceans to the atmosphere. The rate of incoming sunlight->ocean->*->atmosphere energy flow is directly dependent on that gradient, at the '*' (as, of course, one of a number of factors in total energy). 

       Warming of the atmosphere, a change in temperature, depends on an energy imbalance, an energy accumulation in the atmosphere. If energy rising from the ocean decreases (because it's warming the oceans instead) incoming energy to the atmosphere decreases, as does the atmospheric warming rate. 

       It's really a matter of where at any time the top of atmosphere (TOA) energy imbalance is accumulating - more in the oceans (water warming fast, air warming slowly if at all), or more in the atnosphere (air warming fast, water warming more slowly). 

40990. John Hartz at 03:46 AM on 1 November 2013
       US school infiltration attempt by Heartland’s IPCC Parody
       

       jdixon1980: I second your idea of creating a "Let's set the record" straight document for distribution throughout the U.S.

       The National Acadamey of Sciences would be my first choice as author of the document. My second choice would be the Union of Concerned Scientists.

       Having said that, I'm not sure that either would have the financial resoures to print and distribute the millions of reports that would be needed.

       We should explore these and other possibilities further. 

40991. jdixon1980 at 03:31 AM on 1 November 2013
       US school infiltration attempt by Heartland’s IPCC Parody
       

       I would like to see a concise retort to the Heartland pamphlet distributed to teachers on the same scale, authored or endorsed by one or more actively researching climate scientists.  

       Nature editorial from 2011 is on point and the editors of Nature have credible expertise, but the writing comes across as sort of polemical, as does this kind of post from RealClimate 2008: http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2008/11/not-the-ipcc-nipcc-report/.  I think they are fine for their intended readership, and I myself enjoyed reading them, but I could see grade/middle/high school teachers being turned off by their tone.  

       Graham Wayne, I like your post much more as a message for teachers.  It rightly criticizes the NIPCC, but doesn't poke fun.  I will certainly pass it along to teachers in my personal circle.  However, it unfortunately doesn't bear the signature or stamp of approval of a climate scientist or climate scientific body or journal (although you obviously are more than climate-literate enough to grasp the substantive flaws of the NIPCC that you point out), which would lend more weight to it for mass distribution.  I wonder if you could get one or more climate scientists to endorse your letter to teachers for that purpose?  Or is somebody already taking on a similar project, like maybe Union of Concerned Scientists or the National Center for Science Education?  

              

40992. jdixon1980 at 02:34 AM on 1 November 2013
       US school infiltration attempt by Heartland’s IPCC Parody
       

       John Hartz I noticed that too, and I had to Google "numpty," apparently British slang for someone who openly and unwittingly reveals their ignorance of a subject that they are rambling on about.  I like it, and I don't there is a counterpart in American English.  

40993. John Hartz at 01:55 AM on 1 November 2013
       US school infiltration attempt by Heartland’s IPCC Parody
       

       This thread seems ripe for a "What is the 'real name' of the NIPCC?" contest. So far we have two entries:

       1. Non Intelegent Panel on Climate Change by #11 MP3CE
       2. Numpy Idiots Professing Climatological Credentials by #12 MA Rodger

       The winner of this context will be required to donate $100 to the Climate News Mosaic (CNM). 

       As is always the case, the decisions of the SkS judges will be final. 

40994. Stephen Leahy at 01:44 AM on 1 November 2013
       ONLY HOURS Left to Be Part of a New Collaborative Approach to Media Coverage of Climate
       

       Tom @9 agree its the UN climate conference at end of every year that spikes coverage. Copenhagen had by far the biggest media turnout with 6000 media, 100,000 people marching in the streets etc. The graph does show how media interest in the UN meets has fallen off. Barely a handful of jurnos from North America at the 2012 COP in Doha. 

       With CNM we're hoping to do something to halt the decline.

       Thanks Alexandre - we're very close thanks to SkS readers!

40995. jdixon1980 at 00:51 AM on 1 November 2013
       US school infiltration attempt by Heartland’s IPCC Parody
       

       "Many climate sceptics seem to review scientific data and studies not as scientists but as attorneys . . . ."  

       It seems to me that quite a few of them are not scientists but attorneys - see James Taylor, J.D. e.g....  Being a lawyer myself and knowing many of them, I think I can say confidently that practicing law, more than most other professions, could make one susceptible to the allure of (and adept at constructing) grand self-delusions.  Laws are designed (and constantly modified) by people to create social outcomes, not explain or predict physical outcomes like scientific theories do.  Legal disputes between parties very frequently are limited to two opposing sides, who on the surface are arguing about the truth of what the existing law is, what the relevant facts are, and/or how the law should be applied to those facts, while they care not about the analysis but only about their side prevailing - the analysis is a means to an end rather than the end in itself.  I don't think these aspects of the modern legal system are necessarily bad things, but when you are constantly living and working in this framework, it is easy to fall into the trap of viewing everything, even science, through the lens of partisan advocacy.  

40996. Composer99 at 00:10 AM on 1 November 2013
       2013 SkS Weekly Digest #43
       

       VeryTallGuy & John Hartz:

       I overstated the case I was making in comment #1, for which I apologize. I will stand by the statement that, based on the findings in GH2007, one can reasonably expect to see engineers form a larger proportion of climate science contrarians than other STEM professionals.

       GH2007 reviewed previous work documenting the political & religious views of academics in the US and elsewhere and found that on the average engineering faculty & students are more politically conservative (pp. 45-50), or more religious (pp. 51-53), or both, than their counterparts in other fields.

       This is a key finding in the paper, as noted in the abstract:

       We consider four hypotheses that could explain this pattern ["that engineers alone are strongly over-represented among graduates in violent [Islamist] groups in both" the Middle East/North Africa region and North America/Europe]. Is the engineers’ prominence among violent Islamists an accident of history amplified through network links, or do their technical skills make them attractive recruits? Do engineers have a ‘mindset’ that makes them a particularly good match for Islamism, or is their vigorous radicalization explained by the social conditions they endured in Islamic countries? We argue that the interaction between the last two causes is the most plausible explanation of our findings [...] [emphasis mine]

       To the best of my knowledge, political conservatism and religious belief are both strongly associated (perhaps even causally related) with the willingness to adopt contrarian positions on evolutionary biology and climatology. (I am not sure, VeryTallGuy, that either creationism or climate contrarianism can be said to be extremist as social phenomena even though they clearly are extreme scientific positions.)

       As final notes:

       • For what it is worth, which may be very little, I began my own post-secondary education studying software engineering.
       • With respect to my own current vocation, my admittedly anecdotal experience suggests on average practicing musicians and other performing artists are far more likely to have contrarian positions on various scientific subjects, including harmful positions such as anti-vaccine sentiments, than are practicing engineers or other STEM professionals, and for far weaker reasons.
40997. MA Rodger at 20:50 PM on 31 October 2013
       US school infiltration attempt by Heartland’s IPCC Parody
       

       Re climate feedbacks @9 & 10.

       The NIPCC analysis of cloud feedbacks would indeed be laughable if they actually were talking of feedbacks. Actually it is far worse than that.

       The finding I quoted @4 is based within their Chapter 2 Forcings & Feedbacks , a 98 page treatment by Craig Idso & Tim Ball with contributions from Tom Segalstad. These gentlemen then must be the NIPCC experts on forcings & feedbacks. The quote @4 appears in Section 2.4 Clouds but it is very obvious from reading section 2.4.1 that these "experts" do not know the difference between "forcing" and "feedback" which is a trifle embarrasing, even for Numpy Idiots Professing Climatological Credentials.

       I think I will enjoy reading the rest of Chapter 2. I will learn why, for instance, these numpties source their paleoclimate reconstruction from an archaeologist and not from the original climatologist (Alley 2004) or perhaps a more recent piece of work.

40998. VeryTallGuy at 18:33 PM on 31 October 2013
       2013 SkS Weekly Digest #43
       

       @John Hartz #6

       Full disclosure:  I have a Masters in Chemical Engineering

40999. grindupBaker at 17:38 PM on 31 October 2013
       The Sun Has Cooled, So Why Are The Deep Oceans Warming?
       

       KR #11 My issue is not addressed. To clarify: I am in agreement with "decreased ocean cooling",  increased ocean warming, all the ocean stuff. I have specific disagreement with "A reduced viscous skin layer thermal gradient leads to less atmospheric warming over the oceans" because, by straightforward logic, this would depend on the cause of the reduced thermal gradient. If the cause was more circulation of cool water to the surface then " less atmospheric warming over the oceans" I agree. But if the cause was more LWR hitting the skin layer then there's no reason for the atmospheric warming over the oceans to reduce even though ocean cooling reduces --- because there's more energy overall due to more LWR.

41000. MP3CE at 14:14 PM on 31 October 2013
       US school infiltration attempt by Heartland’s IPCC Parody
       

       NIPCC - does it stand for Non Intelegent panel on Climate Change ?

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