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Comments matching the search attack the consensus:

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There is no consensus

RicardoB at 23:13 PM on 10 September, 2023

Eclectic @951:

Thank you for you comments.

You stated: "Dr Jordan Peterson shows how little he knows about climate matters ~ fair enough ~ but why is he choosing to boost Dr Curry?"

He chooses to boost Curry as he chooses to boost many other prominent "climate narrative contrarians" that he "interviews" in that same channel, like Robert Bryce, Steven Koonin, Richard Lindzen and Alex Epstein.

Dr. Peterson main point of view on the "climate debate" seems to come from his strong belief (?!) that the political measures that are being enforced by governments (to tackle global warming) will lead to mass impoverishment and starvation via the rise of the energy bill. In his words: "People can't care about environmental concerns when they are so desperate they are worried about tonight's shelter and the next meal." He frequently rages about "the consensus" and the "hysteria" that are leading to these political choices.

Hence, he deliberately chooses to debate the topic only with "specialists" from the "contrarian side" - champions for the carbon industry agenda. It suffices to say that these interviews function not as debates or means to get to the truth (by now, Dr. Peterson seems mostly uninterested in the cientific truth), but as opportunities both to let these "specialists" voice their cherry-picked concerns and attack established comprehensive scientific bases, and to not get himself confronted/debunked on his opinions. There's no debating; there's only agreeing.

97% consensus on human-caused global warming has been disproven

Eclectic at 11:07 AM on 5 July, 2023

Duran3d @75 ~ the short version is that Rob Honeycutt is correct. The long version is that Rob Honeycutt is still correct. [See also: Bob Loblaw @77 ]

In derivation, the word consensus has a (narrow) range of meanings . . . but the meaning which you wish to use is nowadays an extreme outlier (used by hardly anyone). Over decades, the meaning of a word can gradually drift in one direction ~ and the drift does occur by consensus ;-)

Consensus does not mean merely a majority, or even a supermajority [indeed some sources claim "over 75%" agreement is a consensus ~ but that is far too weak for expressing consensus among scientists]. And some people try to gild the lily by going all mathematical: e.g. in year 2010 the consensus among scientists was >97% about the human cause of modern Global Warming . . . a figure which has now risen to >99% agreement (at time of writing). # But that sort of thing is unnecessary, because the overall evidence (of AGW) is so overwhelming, that it is a justifiable short-hand to use the simple word consensus.

Duran3d , you may be pleased to hear that one of the range of meanings of consensus used by the Ancient Romans . . . included a situation involving "plotting together". That fact could be joyous news to current climate-science-denying contrarians & Conspiracy Theorists ! Though I think most of that group are not really interested in meanings or facts.

As an aside ~ the word consensus is attacked by one of the (current) U.S. Presidential candidates [RFK.Jr] who uses his lawyerly skills to advocate the Anti-vaxxer cause. But coming from him, it is all just a torrent of words intended to convince the already-convinced intransigent Anti-vaxxers. He continually demands "scientific evidence in controlled studies" while also continually ignoring the bleeding-obvious evidence which already exists as a huge mountain. He is a true Denialist.

How to inoculate yourself against misinformation

Philippe Chantreau at 05:06 AM on 3 July, 2022

David-acct,

Your argument failed on multiple points.

You postulate the future discovery of an unknown forcing. Then you jump on to the hypothesis that said forcing would automatically be labeled as misinformation. Why would that be? If serious scientific work confirms the existence of such a forcing, with multiple converging lines of evidence and multiple research teams obtaining similar results through various methods, nobody in the scientific world will call it misinformation. That is, unless the work is misrepresented and its significance conveyed to the public in a way not supported by the research.

Further, you equate the future discovery of a hypothetical forcing that would be real to the hyping of phenomena that do not constitute forcings. When such phenomena, currently known, identified, and properly investigated, are misrepresented as forcings, it is entirely correct to call that misinformation.

Next point: you argue that stifling misinformation impairs the advancement of knowledge. In fact, it is exactly the opposite that happens. The rapid spread and wide reach of misinformation is a colossal obstacle to the advancement of knowledge. It skews public perception and makes everyone less able to understand a given issue. It distracts, diverting attention and resources away. It has also many other side effects, insidious, and extremely detrimental to long term societal balance.

Finally, you make the ridiculous claim that it is "forbidden to question the consensus." That is a straw man big enough to go vacation at the Burning Man festival. All scientific work that is of quality is welcome in the litterature. Of course, it has to meet certain standards. No work should be given a pass for just questioning anything. In fact, it will likely attract higher scrutiny for doing so, which is entirely reasonable and to be expected in any scientific area. I will reiterate again that what is called the consensus, is not just a consensus of expert opinion. It is a consensus of research results, a convergence of multiple lines of enquiry from multiple teams, using multiple methods. A big picture emerges from that. That big picture is the consensus.

It is good to remind everyone that a common pseudo-skeptic lie is that there is no consensus. When corrected, they jump on to attacking the consensus. The dishonesty of the overall approach will not escape the attentive reader.

It is also necessary to remind everyone that no dissenter's freedom of speech is under attack. This site exists because the public space has been swamped with misinformation, and because the sources of it are loud, aggressive, doing everything possible to drown quality information, attacking people personally, trying to weaponize the justice system against scientists whose message they don't like.

We live in the macroscopic world. There is such a thing as reality. Allowing any and all BS to be on the same plane of validity as legitimate information is wrong, detrimental, dangerous. People who try to convince others that the Earth is flat must called what they are.

There is no consensus

BaerbelW at 02:42 AM on 10 April, 2021

Karlengle @892

Have you browsed our TCP homepage about (esp.) our consensus-related studies yet? I'm fairly certain that we by now have answers for all the various attacks lobbed by the usual suspects at them. Most will be answered in the FAQs and others in one of several blog posts and rebuttals published over time and listed a bit further down on the homepage. And there's also The Consensus Handbook with even more information!

2020 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #32

nigelj at 08:53 AM on 9 August, 2020

"The encyclical was seen in some camps as an attack on capitalism, and it made some Catholic Republican leaders squirm, like former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, who in 2015 observed that the pope "is not a scientist."

The pope is not a scientist. Yes Mr Bush, we know that. The Pope is not claiming to be a scientist. He is not making up his own science. He is not twisting or interpreting the science. Hes quoting the majority view in the scientific community. Plenty of consensus studies show what the vast majority of scientists think documented here.

With climate and coronavirus, 'the broad shape of the story is the same'

nigelj at 18:12 PM on 14 April, 2020

There is possibly another parallel between climate change and covid 19, and it's related to scepticism verging on denialism. Firstly we know there are several consensus studies showing most climate scientists agree we are changing the climate, and a very small number of scientists disagree. It appears covid 19 might be similar in New Zealand with most health experts agreeing covid 19 is a big problem, and small goup of strongly dissenting voices in NZ trying to essentially minimise the covid 19 problem, and attack the lockdown response. While I havent seen a poll or anything, this picture is emerging strongly in our media.

The media article about the denialist group has mysteriously disappeared, but the following article refers directly to this dissenting group and is critical of it.

www.stuff.co.nz/national/health/coronavirus/120984583/coronavirus-lockdown-rules-should-be-relaxed-health-experts-say

One sees some interesting features with this covid 19 scepticism that parallels the climate issue. First the covid sceptics take quite an extreme position, much like the climate denialists, so no middle ground with these guys. Secondly their group includes a motley mixture of health experts, economists, legal people and statisticians, so while not exactly fake experts the group is light on actuall health expertise. Thirdly Thornley claimed that only 10% of fatalities were caused by covid 19 while, the rest were caused by underlying conditions. This is moronic and misleading and a sort of red herring argument.

Thornley implies covid 19 is no more lethal than influenza, which is not what the weight of evidence says (granted nobody is 100 % certain). The group say that the data show covid is not a huge problem seemingly oblivious that the reason our numbers of infections have fallen is because of the lockdown that they generally criticise. This is so stupid it beggars belief.

The group as a whole claim covid 19 is no worse than influenza for most people, while neglecting to mention it is a great deal worse for about 20% of people and causes more severe complications than seasonal influenza (this appears beyond debate now). The group also promote the Swedish model, without mentioning that they have quite a high mortality rate. The group cherrypick various other examples.

These assorted tactics are all remarkably similar to climate denialism.

(That said, while I think lockdowns make sense, we have to also consider the very significant economic and social distress this causes and tread carefully and minimise their length.)

A history of FLICC: the 5 techniques of science denial

nigelj at 06:23 AM on 3 April, 2020

I suspect most "fence sitters " are really denialists that just don't want to be labelled denialists. In my experience that turns out to be the case because when pushed they tend to start attacking the agw consensus more than they reinforce it.

Perhaps some young people are legitimate fence sitters and need more information and I dont disagree with OPOFs categories, but the older generation has more than enough information to have made up their minds unless they have been living under a rock.

Is Nuclear Energy the Answer?

nigelj at 15:49 PM on 21 January, 2020

michael sweet @141

nigelj: "Its clear an 80% solar and wind grid needs much less storage than a 100% grid. Orders of magnitude less. Nuclear power is one way of filling in the 20%. I have never said its the only way. Hydro would work in some places" my emphasis.

MS: "Your claim of "orders of magnitude less [storage]" is not supported by your reference. It appears you made this up. The inference that nuclear can reduce storage by "orders of magnitude" is simply nuclear industry propaganda."

nigelj :The magazine reference I quoted stated "Geophysical constraints on the reliability of solar and wind power in the United States posits that the U.S. electrical grid could be 80% powered by a solar-heavy+wind power combination using just 12 hours of energy storage to smooth out the variability. .....To reach a 100% wind+solar U.S. electricity grid would require 3 weeks of energy storage. " Clearly 12 hours of storage is "orders of magnitude" less than 3 weeks of storage exactly as I stated.

Perhaps the reference is wrong, but that is not my fault.

I never intened to mean that an 80% solar and wind power grid had to have nuclear power or only hydro power filling the gap, just that it was a possibility. Plus New Zealand has a lot of hydro power so I'm probably subconsciously influenced by that. Other possibilities are geothermal power, or biofuels steam turbine power, etcetera. I don't care. Whatever works.

Electricity grids need reactive power as you probably know. Solar and wind power are poor at providing reactive power although it may improve. The Drax biofuels turbine system supplies reactive power to the UK grid to help out the renewables component, which has a lot of wind power. Nuclear power , geothermal power and hydro power also provide plenty of reactive power.

I also never said a 80% solar and wind power grid didn't need battery (or similar) storage, just that it needed a lot less storage than a 100% grid.
You either don't comprehend what people say, even when its simply put or skimmed it a bit fast. I assume the later.

MS: "When you say "Sometimes the consensus view is just wrong and the research on this issue [Linear Response No Threshold] is rather old and inadequate" and you dismiss a 2006 National Academy of Sciences expert consensus report you are repeating nuclear industry propaganda."

No I'm expressing my own opinion.

MS "You exchange a lot of posts on the unmoderated RealClimate forum. Much of the material posted there would not be allowed at SkS because it contradicts the peer reviewed literature and is untrue. Be careful what you repeat here that you read there."

Obviously you haven't read much of it, because I've spent half my time attacking claims made by the pro nuclear lobby, and also promoting renewable electricity. However I think they make some good points on some aspects of things that persuades me theres some place for nuclear power in the mix. I'm not alone.

"If you continue to repeat unsupported nuclear industry propaganda here I will continue to call you out. Renewable energy can provide ALL POWER to the world at a cost similar or lower than BAU."

I think renewables will win the day and you will be proven right. But its all speculation right now because we dont have a 100% renewables grid to know. The papers modelling costs are theoretical. Modelling costs is hard and has a bad track record.

France has nuclear power and some of the cleanest electricity in the world. They have already arrived at a clean grid.

I can't see a problem with a grid that has some nuclear power in it if people want. Its not actually a big deal to me. I don't accept your argument this undermines trust in renewables. People are not stupid. The world has long had grids with multiple sources of power.

This is probably going to be my final set of comments on this particular issue. I'm getting fed up with the bickering and accusations made against me about what I say or who influences me. I think for myself. I've had to waste time over this. I made my comments in good faith quoting an article froma main stream source, not some denialist / nuclear power website.

There is no consensus

MA Rodger at 21:16 PM on 19 December, 2019

PatrickSS @862,

You present three names in response to my request @858 for the scientists you tell us "think that doubling CO2 will raise the world temp by about 1C," a position you appear to set as equal in importance to "those who think that doubling CO2 will raise the world temp by about 3C." It's not much of a list. Do note that two of these are not climatologists and further, I do not see that any of them present substantive reasons to support their bold claims. This is evidently not two sets of scientists arguing. It is sadly science under attack from a handful of swivel-eyed lunatics.

In support of my own rather bold statement, I would share with you my view of the one climatologist you name - the veteran climate denier Richard Lindzen. He has been at this game so long that he has lost entirely his grasp on the science he is supposed to be practising and now resorts to bare-faced-lies/deluded-foolishness [delete as applicable]. He has certainly ventured far beyond the science of climatology with his nonsense. See his 2017 version here and tick off the numerous examples of untruth he presents. (And to keep us on-topic, note his first attempt to refute AGW is "The 97 Percent Meme".)

I note you cite Dickie Lindzen when you say "Increasing CO2 causes the IR to be emitted at slightly greater altitude. This warms the surface because the temperature at which the emission takes place is the same, so when the lower atmosphere is chaotically mixed the air reaching the surface is hotter (because it gets compressed as it comes down)." I am not sure where Lindzen explaining this mechanism but the way you phrase it is subject to vast misinterpretation.

You add that Judy Curry has had difficulty getting published yet if she has anything worth publishing she only has to post it on her website to get it into the scientific/public domain. Yet there is complete absence of any substantive comtribution from Curry, an absence that speaks volumes.

@862 you say you do not feel your "main argument" has not be "really engaged." You appear to be arguing that the scientific view of AGW is not truly reflected in the 97% consensus and specifically that Verheggen et al (2014) is 'obviously not' fairly summarised by the 91% value. I find this difficult to accept. Perhaps we are reading a different paper.

Millions of times later, 97 percent climate consensus still faces denial

Eclectic at 12:26 PM on 18 August, 2019

Fair comment, BillyJoe @10 .

Mainly , primarily , and largely . . . are all well-justifiable. But extremely is a bit . . . er . . . extreme . Yes, it's a logical consequence of the other three descriptors, but it doesn't present well.

Word choice is close to irrelevant, in some ways. The "climate denying blogosphere" will attack anything, anything at all, that it dislikes. Words, logic, arithmetic — all can be perverted to serve the denialist agenda.

# Only just today, I was admiring Lord Monckton's assertion that the climate science consensus was 0.3% rather than the more truthful 97-ish percent. And I am sure every reader here can think of multiple examples of other intellectual insanities promulgated in the "deniosphere".

And speaking of the good Lord M — I have begun reading the (very lengthy) "Lord Monckton's Rap Sheet" from the Climate Asylum blogsite [ bbickmore.wordpress.com ]. Amusing +++ . As the blogger says: "Nobody could make this stuff up". But we already knew we were dealing with a most peculiar personality !

The consensus on consensus messaging

Loz73 at 10:45 AM on 11 August, 2019

In Australia the reason that, “Voters believe that there is no consensus about global warming with the scientific community” (Nigelj) is that no Australian scientist has ever persisted in telling them otherwise. As a retired biological scientist with 10 years of activism in BREAZE (Ballarat Renewable Energy & Zero Emissions) I am in a state of despair. Parts of Australia are in the worst drought in history; the Barrier Reef and the Murray Darling basin are in terminal decline; our Prime Minister fondled a lump of coal in parliament and told us not to be afraid; and neither of the main political parties opposed the giant Adani mine. Virulent attacks on young Swedish activist Greta Thunberg and school strikers here confirm how terrified those on the hard right of politics and media are of the youthful threat but they’re nowhere near terrified enough yet. As the life support systems of all creatures face extinction, though, comment by Australia’s climate scientists continues to be so subdued as to be ineffectual.
Scientists have one last chance of redemption. It doesn't involve the safe pathway of publishing ever more articles in prestigious journals to fine-tune what we already know. Instead, we are suggesting that climate scientist show leadership and join students to form an alliance that cannot be silenced. If we are to avoid the catastrophe of a 2 degree temperature rise we need activism on the scale of the Vietnam era protests, with kids in every school screaming for action and screaming for their parents to support it, and we need to have kids supported by loud and hard evidence from fearless scientists. Now is the time for action and hope.

The consensus on consensus messaging

One Planet Only Forever at 03:10 AM on 9 August, 2019

My efforts to constantly improve my awareness and understanding of what is going on have developed a personal understanding (open to improvement by the presentation of Good Reason to change it) that, to limit the amount of harm done by pursuits of status (power, popularity or profit), the acceptability, merit, or value of actions must be based on the helpfulness of the actions to the development of sustainable improvements (benefits for the future of humanity including benefiting those yet unborn in the distant future). The Sustainable Development Goals are a robust basis for determining the proper value or merit of actions. They include Climate Action Goals which are directly associated with the IPCC actions and the Paris Agreement and their constant improvement.

Of course, improving awareness and understanding of the climate science consensus is not the only required helpful action. However, it is undeniably a helpful action (no scientific investigation basis required to confirm that it is helpful). And it is not harmful to the achievement of the required corrections of developed human activity. But it undeniably will face unjustified resistance from people who deserve to lose perceptions of status that have been obtained through harmful unsustainable actions.

Similarly, putting a significant surcharge onto CO2 emissions from fossil fuels is not the only helpful corrective action. And all of the Sustainable Development Goals need to be achieved not just the Climate Action Goal.

There is undeniably a diversity of resistance to correction of many aspects of the developed status quo, particularly resistance to correcting incorrectly developed perceptions of 'status' and the related 'stories made-up, and made popular, to defend the status quo from being questioned and corrected'.

Attempts to argue against efforts to improve awareness and understanding of the consensus of understanding regarding climate science and the related impacts of human activities beg an explanation. A well reasoned consideration of the issue, without a rigorous science investigation basis (abductive reasoning applied to best explain what is observed to be going on), should conclude that such an action is helpful, not harmful, to efforts to increase the rate of correction of developed human beliefs and related harmful unsustainable activities. That leads to fairly obvious questions:

What is the reason for criticism of efforts to helpfully improve awareness and understanding?
Are the critics attempting to limit the rate of improvement of awareness and understanding of the required corrections of developed popular and profitable, but undeniably unsustainable and harmful, human activity?
Are the critics trying to defend unjustified perceptions of status obtained by some members of current day humanity via harmful unsustainable actions?

Undeniably, undeserving wealthy powerful people have many ways to effectively influence the stories that get told, how they are told, and how prominently they are promoted. The Propaganda Model (PM) developed by Edward S. Herman and presented in “Manufacturing Consent” in 1988 (with assistance from Noam Chomsky), predicts that powerful interests are able to significantly influence the people who tell stories to the population - manufacturing the stories that become common beliefs or understandings. It predicts that part of the attack on the climate science identification of corrective actions would be restricting the opportunity for reward or positive recognition of any promoter of the improved understanding, including unjust attacks on the character of such promoters. That type of pressure, or the awareness of its potential to be applied, could make very smart people question the merit or value of promoting the climate science consensus.

The PM also predicts that the resistance to the efforts to improve awareness and understanding that is contrary to the interests of the powerful in the developed status quo in Free Market Capitalism driven cultures would include claiming that the corrective actions are Socialist plots (or communist or terrorist or any other developed label that can be successfully unjustifiably applied in efforts to maintain or prolong stories, beliefs and perceptions that are actually undeniably unsustainable because they are harmful to the future of humanity).

'No doubt left' about scientific consensus on global warming, say experts

One Planet Only Forever at 01:28 AM on 4 August, 2019

"Discrediting of peer-review" is likely to be an 'increasingly popular' misleading attack on the 'constantly improving climate science consensus in peer-reviewed presentations of research'. (Note: this will be a liberal arts related comment fundamentally based on abductive reasoning used to develop a best explanation for what can be observed to going on in the real world - no statistical mathematics or lab experiments are applied, mainly because social 'experiments-interviews' are difficult to perform in a way that is not open to easy manipulation, mainly because the 'act of observing those things that way' can alter the result of what is observed, like poll results are functions of the way the questions are asked and what order they are asked in)

The recent Washington Post item "Why we shouldn’t take peer review as the ‘gold standard’" is an example of the subtle ways that the Propaganda Model (PM) developed by Edward S. Herman with support from Noam Chomsky results in twists of the reporting of things (the stories that get told and believed) in ways that are beneficial to developed powerful wealthy interests (The PM was presented in detail in "Manufacturing Consent" published in 1988 and updated in 2002, with further related research and presentations by many others since then, one of the most recent being "Propaganda in the Information Age" compiled by Alan MacLeod as an update on the PM including his recent interview with Noam Chomsky).

A full reading of the Washington Post article shows it to be a comprehensive presentation that includes pointing out ways that the 'peer-review' concept and label is abused for propaganda purposes, and still supporting the importance of peer-review for the advancement of understanding.

The Title Banner in particular does not make it clear that "Wealthy powerful harmful interests are abusing the concept of 'Peer-Review' in their propaganda efforts to mislead the general population regarding important new understandings like climate science". The title appears to be deliberately vague, wide open to interpretation by a 'media consumer'. And though the opening statements are critical of an incorrect cliam by the Trump Administration about a specific recent climate science report, the opening statements are vague regarding the rest of climate science reporting. That allows a 'pseudo-skeptic' to accept a perceived to be 'minor criticism' of the Trump Administration while maintaining the belief that climate science claims are all misleading propaganda. And the title implies that, even though the Trump administration was incorrect about the report being 'peer-reviewed', the 'peer-reviewed' report can still be questionable propaganda.

Herman's PM predicts that pressures from wealthy neoliberal interests will create story presentations that suit their interests as much as possible (as media outlet owners; as advertisers; as sources of pre-packaged "new news content from supposedly reliable sources''; as flak attackers of anyone who is not sufficiently deterred by the first 3 pressures/filters). Note that neoliberals tend to flock to the right-wing parties, but they can also be seen to attempt to influence other parties that are competing for popular support and funding to promote them (neoliberal influence in the US Democrats is the fuel behind unjust but powerful criticism of things like the Green New Deal or single-payer health care insurance)

In this case the title and opening statements are wide open to the interpretation that peer-reviewed climate science is just a bunch of misleading manipulation. Many people are known to only be seeking confirmation of preferred beliefs, not improved understanding. And many of those easily impressed people only read headlines. And many more only read the headline and opening statements (and news sites like the WP can be seen to present items that way on their home pages for quick consumption).

The PM model predicts that if the title and opening statements of the article had been more directly correct and critical of the harmful wealthy interests abusing misleading propaganda efforts, the author and editor would have been pressured to 'change it, pragmatically make it more centrist, be 'more balanced (code for compromising actual better understanding)'. And maybe they were. The resulting presentation is incredibly misleading in a way that benefits harmful wealthy interests while allowing them to claim that 'the full story presented is not biased in their favour' even though its presentation undeniably is.

The PM also predicts that articles like this will be abused in other claims in a propaganda chain trying to discredit the 97% or 99.9% consensus in peer-reviewed presentations by simply referring to the article by its heading knowing that many 'consumers' of the propaganda (enough to make a difference on an election day) will not bother to actually read the full article.

2019 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #26

nigelj at 08:20 AM on 30 June, 2019

Regarding the great interview with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Greta Thunberg. The considerable power of lobby groups and the lack of limits on campaign donations in America is because the constitution protects free speech and the courts have interpreted this to mean that there should be no limits on lobby groups and what people can donate to political parties. Refer this article. Changing the constitution is not easy.

It looks from various polls like the left mostly accept the science of climate change and want something done at both individual and government level, and the right largely still reject the overwhelming consensus on climate science, and see this issue as a socialist conspiracy to entrap them and attack their wealth and privilege, just for the sake of it, and to manipulate people like Greta. Unless this thinking of the right changes, we have a stalemate situation and probable environmental disaster of epic proportions. Yes all people and political parties need to find common ground, but the right have to shed some delusions.

There is no consensus

pl at 01:06 AM on 4 May, 2019

Philippe Chantreau @795,

assuming you are commenting my "nitpicking" here. I believe I already stated I don't consider these considerations critical to the actual topic of AGW and I don't claim it has high priority on any related to-do list. However, I also consider the question how a consensus in measured and how the resulting "numerical level" is adjusted for apparent systemic biases to be relevant - both in general (as some kind of methodological best practice, regardless of the field) and also in the field of climate science, if not for anything else, at least to prevent possible attacks from deniers. I'm afraid people waste time on many less useful things than that.

There is no consensus

Eclectic at 01:12 AM on 30 April, 2019

Pl @793 ,

< "Consensus" can mean either the proposition itself, or the fact that there's an agreement. For me, the former is rather clear ("AGW is a thing"), the quantification of the latter is what I'm commenting. > unquote .

"Consensus" is potentially a very large Venn Circle indeed, and we would do well to define it more closely and pragmatically. (Semantic confusion can easily be a Black Hole that swallows up any effectual discussion.)

"AGW is a thing" is far from correct. AGW is much more than "a thing" in the colloquial sense ~ AGW is a physical reality. Likewise, choosing to label the Consensus as a proposition, is a choice of even more nebulous terminology.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, for climate purposes Consensus is essentially a term for the established science. (There have been rare occasions when the established non-climate science has been overthrown or enormously modified - think Newtonian/Einsteinian physics of motion - but the established climate science is the product of a century of work by countless thousands of modern scientists, not the work of a single English genius in the 17th Century . . . and the chance of the mainstream climate science being seriously overthrown by startling new insights, is such a vanishingly small chance, as to be ridiculously fanciful.

In looser terminology, "Consensus" is often used in climate matters as a type of numerical proxy for the scientific position. It is this latter meaning which gives rise to public confusion/uncertainty about the actual underlying science (a confusion magnified by numerous propagandists who injected much deliberate obfuscation).

The purpose of the Cook et al., 2013 study was to achieve an improvement over earlier studies/surveys : to achieve a more definitive figure for the numerical consensus, and to greatly reduce the scope for any [as you yourself quote:] "lines of attack from deniers". The Cook study was very clever - and award-winning - and produced the very widely cited 97% figure, which has become notorious (and which has become infuriating & nauseating, to all the science-deniers).

As might be expected, the denialists' fury has resulted in massive eruptions of Motivated Reasoning. The gigantic brain of Lord Monckton (and cronies) has produced very "creative accounting" which has variously redefined the Cook 97% figure down to 33% or 13% or 4% or similar absurd figures. Yet that's hardly surprising, coming from intellects which are in full denial about the physical properties of CO2.

As I mentioned earlier, the 2013 Cook study is now quite dated ~ centered on approximately 2005. More modern studies [e.g. 2014] show a consensus well above 99%. And more importantly, the "contrarians" have still produced nothing valid in the way of support for their skepticism. Nothing at all.

Pl , the 2016 link you gave earlier (to Cook and other consensus investigators) is merely a meta-analysis.

"Circling back" to your original comments ~ Pl , I had hoped I had already answered your "two examples" ; answered them directly as well as en passant. If that is not so (in your own mind), then perhaps I have not expressed myself clearly enough. Or perhaps you are doubling-down on your "Devil's Advocacy". Either way, you will need to state your objections in a far more precise & thorough manner.

At the same time, you might care to expand on the "non-binary nature" you mentioned ~ although once you have eliminated the obscurity, it might well be that we find it rather off-topic for this thread.

There is no consensus

pl at 06:59 AM on 29 April, 2019

Eclectic @790,

"Consensus" can mean either the proposition itself, or the fact that there's an agreement. For me, the former is rather clear ("AGW is a thing"), the quantification of the latter is what I'm commenting.

The paper I was linking to is also "Cook et al", but from 2016, so perhaps an updated and upgraded version.

Where our views may differ is your last sentence, where you consider measure of consensus "essentially irrelevant". I may agree that it is not absolutely essential in case of AGW, where it's rather obvious that a widespread consensus exists. I still think it is relevant, especially as questioning the consensus is one of the lines of attack from deniers.

Generally speaking, measuring consensus as a concept of skeptical thinking is also very relevant, but I think it's pretty obvious.

So circling back to my original comment, I still don't see couple of variables influencing the measure (I have given two examples) being addressed.

In addition to the two examples, there'd be more. I already alluded to natural non-binary nature of scientific claims. Skimming through the Cook 2016 article, I also didn't find it explicitly addressed. We would probably agree that it's something completely different to claim "90+% of scientists agree, that the probability of AGW is above x" when the x is 50% compared to say x=99%.

Climate's changed before

michael sweet at 22:00 PM on 16 December, 2018

Ed,

You claim that you are "semi-informed". You are citing resources that are at least 10 years out of date. The current IPCC report is AR5 or the 2018 supplimental report. Perhaps the discrepancy you notice is caused by SkS being up to date while your reference is out of date.

You are clearly echoing some other web site you have read. Can you cite and link that web site directly so that we can see the entire argument? SkS probably addressed this myth in an OP 10 years ago when it was first raised. It will be easier for us to directly address the source instead of rehashing the argument again.

When you claim to be semi-informed attacking consensus scientific orthodoxy ought be done with humility, If the best you can find is a 10 year old web site that is no longer active you might want to reconsider how strong your argument is.

Climate's changed before

Eclectic at 16:46 PM on 16 December, 2018

Ed @ 621/622 ,

you don't really advance your case (whatever it is) by waving a rhetorical hand in the direction of Copernicus, Galileo, Einstein, and LeMaitre.

Copernicus and Galileo were (strictly speaking!) representing the scientific consensus of their age (an age of very few scientists, indeed). Their opponents (shall we label them denialists?) were a group of rich & powerful men (in the upper echelons of the Papal state) who supported an evidence-deficient position. Easy to see a parallel with the rich & powerful magnates of the upper echelons of the fossil fuel industry . . . plus c'est la meme chose. Even more irony, in that the modern-day Pope denounces those same science-deniers.

Einstein and LeMaitre advanced the physics/astrophysics science ~ but they did not trash the pre-existing body of science.

# Attacking the consensus scientific orthodoxy [especially in climate matters] ought to be done with humility [and genuine skepticism], lest you join the ranks of the Dunning-Krugerites.

"Uncertainty" about ECS (currently the most probable ECS figure being around 3 or 3.5 degrees) is an interesting scientific question ~ but in no way justifies delaying on decently fast transition to a nett-zero-emission economy. After all, we citizens/voters/politicians/parents ought to be intensely practical in prudent risk-managing.

My apologies, but my little laptop is struggling to access "figure 8.14 and 8.15 of AR4 WG1". Perhaps, Ed, you would be kind enough to upload those charts and explain how you think they undermine the mainstream position.

Strangely, the same goes for Dr Humlum's "climate4you" illustrations. (I have no difficulty accessing the WUWT and Climateetc websites.) On the little I know of Dr Humlum: he has (scientifically speaking) a poor track record indeed. * That is not to say he must therefore be wrong, on the cloudiness issue. But it seems the somewhat-related "Iris Hypothesis" of Prof Lindzen has fallen flat on its face. And on a second point: a "cloudiness drop" providing a warming forcing of "roughly 4 W/m^2" has much the same problem I mentioned above in post #619.D . . . that if true, then there must also be some Unknown Mysterious Cooling Factor that nicely follows/matches the rising arc of CO2's warming forcing effect. Which seems absurdly unlikely, if not quite impossible.

(And which would leave only another 5 impossible things to believe before breakfast.)

The GOP and Big Oil can't escape blame for climate change

nigelj at 07:18 AM on 7 August, 2018

The Nathaniel Rich history is an excellent history and all credit to the LA Times for publishing this. The more climate coverage like this the better!

However imho the article does indeed make way too many excuses for the fossil fuel industry and the Republicans, and this is so frustrating and peculiar. The writers own conclusions contradict his own history. I think the writer was trying to be nice to everyone and unbiased, and took this too far to the point of sanitising the real history, all perhaps because of the attacks on the media lately by Trump made him reluctant to be too critical of one side of politics. It's good to be unbiased and impartial, but being unbiased should not mean sanitising history.

Or perhaps the writer is just a political centrist or something.

However you have to ask why did the brief political consensus break down? Imho Naomi Klein has it right when she refers to the frustrating and flawed neoliberal ideology that gained traction from the early 1980's, with the Reagon and Thatcher reforms and the anti tax and anti regulation agenda, and tendency to put excessively huge faith in free markets and unlimited economic growth. This was the birth of the "greed is good" generation that falsely believed that all problems will be solved by the unlimited pursuit of profitability, and the near idolisation of wealth aquisition. Neoliberalism has also been an excuse to let money excessively influence political campaigns. If we blame anything, its probably more useful to blame this neoliberalism, than scapegoating political parties as such.

Not that all elements of neo liberalism are flawed, for example I personally have no problem with free trade and profit is not an evil thing. In other words, the 'neoliberal' issue is confoundingly complicated, and hard to unpack, especially in a world that deals in simplistic slogans and sound bites.

The article also tries to lay home blame on "everybody" for the climate problem, and by arguing our lack of action is "human nature". Well we have more confounding complexity here!

I guess we are all to blame in a very general sense, because we continue to consume products with a high fossil fuel content etc, however some do this more than others, and one side of politics has been more obstructive towards things like a carbon tax and renewable energy development. So some are more responsible than others. Those are the facts of history.

And solving the climate problem has two sides. Individually we must make voluntary and responsible changes in how we consume, yet the government has a part to play as well. It has to provide energy and transport alternatives, or incentivise the development of these, and ensure fossil fuels are priced to reflect the damage they cause with carbon taxes or something similar. And we need to support political parties which have the strongest climate policies.

And while humans are governed by our human nature, people do clearly rise above the baser instincts of human nature at times. Whether we do this enough to solve the climate problem is of course the big question. Do we wait until climate change is so severe that it can no longer be ignored, or take a more planned action? I hope for the later, but increasingly fear it will be the former.

The article ends with an interesting point. It makes the observation that humans are not good at acting to prevent long term problems that involve many future generations, because psychology shows us we are more tuned to respond rapidly to short term threats than long term threats. Again there is some truth in this, yet it's a generalisation and somewhat defeatest in tone, because some people do clearly think and act with consideration to long term issues. We all care about our grand children.

James Hansen certainly looks far into the future, so for me if we want to leave the planet in sound condition for our children and grand children perhaps people can be encouraged, and taught to think longer term. I dont think we are totally captive to our evolutionary instincts of "short termism".

American conservatives are still clueless about the 97% expert climate consensus

TPohlman at 23:24 PM on 10 April, 2018

The difficulty I see with consensus surveys is the definition of what the consensus components are. For example, President Obama defined the consensus as “warming is real, manmade and dangerous”. Unfortunately, that definition is wrong, per the scientific papers on the consensus, and also other surveys of the scientific community, so it’s easily attacked. If the definition is watered down to “CO2 is rising and the planet is warming”, then there is consensus, but it’s meaningless, because most skeptics agree with that as well. Getting a meaningful consensus statement such as “It is warming, man is over 50% responsible, with fossil fuels the majority of the driver, and will lead to dangerous effects if not reversed”, is difficult, given the state of the peer-reviewed science, and is certainly not the consensus at the 97% level.

I think it would be well for political purposes to be more cautious about climate change attribution, and attempt to rebuild credibility among persuadable skeptics. Non-scientists who fuel alarmist memes are hurting the cause, and reducing the credibility of climate science, as amply noted in the trends the article describes.

American conservatives are still clueless about the 97% expert climate consensus

nigelj at 07:52 AM on 7 April, 2018

William @3

I normally agree with your comments, but I think your alternative wording is over complicating this. People will also say "97% of scientists have done research and that their results are consistent witht the theory etcetera" was done in the past and was wrong.

Keep it simple. There are no clever wordings. People must surely know a consensus is not 100% proof, but they realise a strong consensus counts for quite a lot. This is why the denialists attack the consensus idea so much.

We can't do much about people that choose to interpret a consensus totally cynically or stupidly and they will do this however it is worded. You aren't going to change, this because their mindset is driven by ego, emotion and politics.

We can only convince people who are open minded and seeking information.

Anti-vaccers, climate change deniers, and anti-GMO activists are all the same

Alan at 03:21 AM on 21 January, 2018

To the moderator: As I initially saw the article on this page with comments, I thought it would be the place to add to the discussion. I will continue here for the sake of continuity and to answer some concerns.

My point was to show that man has two options in science: he can do things correctly or falsely, and this depends on two factors. 1) he uses current knowledge and reaches into the unknown with induction/deduction to further science; and 2) his perception is not distorted. I believe the latter is more important as even observable “facts” can be wrong, as Darwin, Curies’, et-al. have proved to the consensus. My post was written to show that even if there are thousands of well-established scientists agreeing on one theory, they could be proved wrong by only one person. Now let us take Climate Change Theory: is everyone aware there are at least a few hundred to thousands of high-level scientists who are accusing the CCT school of “denial and irresponsibility?” So who is right as both can’t be?

Unfortunately, it is well known that “facts” and “research” in the modern-era can be used prejudicially and incorrectly to make one’s point. The case of the ex-editor of the New England Journal of Medicine, Dr Marcia Angell, stating that this once world-renowned magazine is corrupted by their sponsor drug companies is a case in point. It is becoming exceedingly difficult to take “scientific research” at face value as fraud and bad research abound. One must take their time to double-check original references, etc, and most people do not have the time or inclination to do this. I did not say I do not believe in science, but only in observable theories that can usually be collaborative with other branches (i.e., a unifying principle). True scientists have always been geniuses with the instinctive gift to discover a profound truth. A truth that usually leads to someone else later improving it, as more creative thinking is applied. This is what makes it “good” science. This should rebut the original author’s claim "that one has to either accept science or not.”

To poster “eclectic”: To your first point, Semmelweis was right, while pre-Columbus sailors were wrong; this is the domain of correct perception. Second point: are we so omnipotent as to state that our scientific thinking is at an all time-high without capacity for serious error, while simultaneously mocking the pre-mid 20th century minds? May I remind everyone that the most profound and life changing inventions and ideas emerged before the “information superhighway."

But let’s try this from a different angle—the climate change school is really the newcomer to the field and therefore has to prove their point. Did not they use all of the nine points the article refers to going against mainstream science? It was very easy to use the accusatory terms “fringe and denial” against CCT, and with the roles reversed, one can see it’s an ad-hominem attack. I prefer to call the anti-CCT school unbelievers, as CCT has not been proven by observation. One can cite all the studies until tomorrow, but the very real fact that we are getting snow and freezing temperatures all over the world and a deep-winter pattern is re-emerging shows that climate change is real, but not in an abnormal way. I prefer not to list all the studies and web sites to counter CCT, as I am just addressing the “logic of science.”

I personally find it is a mistake for the anti-CCT school to withhold a statement about the Earth’s environment, as they are seen as uncaring, boorish, and influenced by money, etc. This is not the case at all with many of us. We care about the environment and would like to reduce pollution as much as feasible and practical. If we would not need combustion engines and coal, fine, but that is impossible at this stage, and forcing a nation to forego their energy requirements is tyrannical. The agents of pollution that are immensely more dangerous that CO2 (of which man-made is a minor part) are the chemicals and the full spectrum of electromagnetic energy, and I would not mind if there was a vast reduction in their usage.

The Debunking Handbook: now freely available for download

Cedders at 22:45 PM on 23 November, 2017

I'd read The Debunking Handbook once before and it was worth re-reading recently, although it can't cover everything to do with climate communication. Really we all want civil, informative, constructive dialogue but things can get out of hand. If there's a personal attack on Twitter it's hard not to respond with an excessive salvo and risk provoking a 'backfire effect'. I want to explain science, I want what I say to be well-supported (so I usually double-check via diverse comprehensible web sources beforehand), but when it comes to climate I also want to link to people's values and encourage action. It's hard to know for sure that, while confident you're putting reasonable effort into representing science correctly, you're not adding even more noise and confusion that is a barrier to public consensus.

Restating the central point and trying to reduce distraction is fairly easy to remember. However, it's not always easy to remember to provide an 'alternative explanation' that sticks and doesn't reinforce the myth, as it can be on a very obscure point.

In extreme cases responding does involve questioning motives of sources which is a kind of ad hom. In many online discussions (and the rarer face-to-face ones), there are people who are 'cautious' and confused by what appear to be advanced arguments, and it's necessary to simplify things. I feel a simple analogy like 'greenhouse gases are like an extra blanket' can summarise in a supportable way. In some ways, the handbook seems at odds with Diethelm & McKee 'Denialism: what is it and how should scientists respond?' (2009), which says 'a willingness to look at the evidence as a whole, to reject deliberate distortions and to accept principles of logic. A meaningful discourse is impossible when one party rejects these rules'. I still think it's worth attempting. Quite popular at the moment is a list of cognitive biases to look out for in self and others https://www.yourbias.is. Daniel Dennett also recommends:

You should attempt to re-express your target’s position so clearly, vividly, and fairly that your target says, "Thanks, I wish I’d thought of putting it that way."
You should list any points of agreement (especially if they are not matters of general or widespread agreement).
You should mention anything you have learned from your target.
Only then are you permitted to say so much as a word of rebuttal or criticism.

Finding something you have in common will encourage mutual trust and enable the subject matter to be looked at more seriously and critically. As I understand it, this is the idea of Kahan's 'two-channel communication'. It's also something addressed for different audiences by Climate Outreach, a UK-based charity providing research and training: two key things I take from them are a) need to reach across political divides and include all; b) need to couple the science and risks of climate change with a positive message appropriate to the audience.

Climate's changed before

Rodhole at 10:57 AM on 2 November, 2017

Skeptical Science,

Being new, I was not aware of the rigorous monitoring of the rules. Regardless, that was a perfectly fine rhetort to the post "attacking" my assertions. Am I not allowed to defend my comments? Why didn't you strike her initial comment on guns? Do you just outlaw things (especially if it makes your cohorts look bad) that you don't agree with?

One thing I learned in college is to have an open mind and allow others to voice their opinion. Unfortunately these days opinions that don't comform with the "consensus" are dismissed. I hope this cite does not only allow things it agrees with. If it does, than this not a place for thoughtful discussion, rather it is a place of pretend fantasyland.

BTW, I didn't know what it meant so I had to look up "sloganeering". I laughed bc this entire comment section is "sloganeering".

Climate denial is like The Matrix; more Republicans are choosing the red pill

nigelj at 11:29 AM on 24 July, 2017

Thoughts on Bjorn Lomberg.

His environmental scepticism has consistently been shown to be discredited and badly informed. Hes an economist not an environmental scientist. Although this doesnt automatically mean he is wrong, it means he does not bring much formal training to books on the environment.

I have had some trouble reconcling this climate sceptics scepticism with his involvement in some worthy looking social causes and advocacy. Normally people active in these sorts of areas are receptive to climate science.

It is staring us in the face. Lomberg is a leader in the Copenhagen Consensus Center's advocacy for data-driven smart solutions to global challenges. This means he has a vested interests in resources going into his consultancy on multiple projects, rather than climate mitigation.

I also think it's essentially cynical of Lomberg to attack Californias efforts on emissions. They are not the only place making an effort, and it has not hurt their economy. Like the comment above we have to start somewhere.

Ideally we want all countries to move equally in tandem, but its not happening. I would be more impressed with Lomberg if he gave us some ideas how we could better get everyone to move on the issue. Anyone can be a critic or sceptic, theres nothing easier. But I think his priorities are his consulting work, not climate change.

2017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #27

ubrew12 at 00:27 AM on 10 July, 2017

For those interested, I highly recommend the David Runciman article: "How climate scepticism turned into something more dangerous". Some quotes from that article: "climate scepticism is being driven out by climate cynicism. A sceptic questions the evidence... A cynic questions the motives... In these politically charged circumstances, there is no safe space for the facts to retreat to. That was made clear by... “climategate"... the emails betrayed the scientists’ awareness that the idea of a consensus on... climate change was under concerted attack. So they went out of their way to shore up the consensus. Which, when revealed, confirmed to their opponents that the consensus was a sham... we dislike hypocrisy more than we dislike lying... [and this] is not just a problem for climate politics. It is a problem for democracy... Trump has always been careful not to come across as the wrong sort of hypocrite: the kind who seems to be talking down to people. Hillary Clinton was not so careful. And when the voters get to choose between the two, the hypocrite loses to the liar... We live in an age when mistrust of politics has spilled over into mistrust of expertise... To respond with ever-greater certainty in the name of science is a big mistake... climate science... in the age of Trump should not keep saying that the populists are lying about the consensus. They should say that they are hypocrites about the doubt: they do not practise what they preach because they think they know the answers already. Climate change deniers argue they are only trying to discover the truth. We should all be sceptical about that."

Denial thrives on the idea of science hypocrisy. It is combatted not by attempting science purity, but by hammering on denial hypocrisy itself. At the very least, point out how someone cannot be a skeptic if he ignores the ocean of evidence before him to focus on one bit of cherry-picked data. And keep hammering the idea that much 'denial' is being funded by an industry with a $22 trillion interest in the outcome of this debate.

Study: to beat science denial, inoculate against misinformers' tricks

nigelj at 08:06 AM on 9 May, 2017

This junk science attacking vaccines and climate science, and this misleading rhetoric, is all so frustrating. It's a bit of a side effect of everyone having a super computer in their pocket, to spread or read this stuff.

The fake balance in the media is also frustrating. On the other hand you are not going to get a 97% / 3% split of warmist and denialist articles, and it will be closer together for practical purposes. But a 50 / 50 split is certainly artificial, and is creating a false impression.

But at the very least the media could have an advisory note above climate denialist style articles, that there is a 90 - 97% consensus. This would gain them readers through grabbing attention, and promoting full disclosure.

There is no consensus

Spassapparat at 03:06 AM on 30 March, 2017

Eclectic @745 , thanks for your response!

Since the chair of the science committee in today's hearing on climate change brought the papers critiquing the Cook et al study into public record, this brought me back here.

I am aware of (A), but one should note that even there we still do not get close to a 97% consensus on category (1). I've looked into the data, and it suggests that 17% of the authors of papers that do express an opinion on climate change self-identify their paper as a category 1 paper. This is substantially higher than the rating by Cook et al. themselves, but still a farcry from the 97%.

If Cook et al. are now saying that many papers do not make a definite statement because it is obvious that most of global warming is human-made, I am inclined to agree with this assumption, not least because of other research referenced on this page showing a similar degree of consensus. However it is still just that, an assumption.

I do not think it is just Spass to play with words, I do think there is a substantial difference between saying "Cook et al. show that there is a 97% consensus that most of global warming is human made" (which, in my opinion, is an untrue statement) and "Cook et al. show there is a 97% consensus that some global warming is human made".

I wonder why, since there are half a dozen other studies showing a similar agreement, this site in particular and the climate science community in public discourse in general chooses to use a study whose proclaimed findings are so easily attackable.

Over 31,000 scientists signed the OISM Petition Project

KojoKerr at 09:30 AM on 25 March, 2017

The blog seems to attack common weaknesses of both realists and alarmists. The alarmist assertions, from ambiguous questions, are a commonality. I addition, the % of survey targets delivered a tiny number of respondants.

Consensus is irrelevant as all scientists should know however, it has been clearly assessed by Von Storche etc, that the relationship between alarmists, the media and consensus in the unqualified dogma of the masses, is a self perpetuating myth.

This blog, so far, contributes to the mythology.

Paced version of Denial101x starting on March 21!

Wake at 01:36 AM on 18 March, 2017

In response to Nigel let me answer:

1. MOST of the people I hear making these comments about global warming and oil companies controlling the world own SUV's. Houawives going to meetings of "save the Earth" are running bicyclists off of the road and accelerating to beat pedestrians to the crosswalk. I think that hypocrites should see themselves for what they are.

2. I quite agree with Nigel that this is a fight about government power. We already have heard from the IPCC that the US now has such low emissions that the real problems are coming from India and China in which we are unlikely to see any real improvements. So giving government agencies extra-governmental powers as the EPA had been given is an attack on our Constitution.

3. Virtually ALL peer-group pressure is on the AGW side. The very term "denier" has been turned into an insult to anyone not willing to bow down to the Great God Global Warming. There is NO proof to support AGW and yet we have identified it as a know fact. Even though "consensus" is a rediculous standard, when one man with the truth trumps 1,000 who are following each other, this has become the standard of truth. And what do we see as proof of "consensus"? That the AMA and the American Horticulturalists of America believe in AGW. That organizations without polling their own members will take the side of NOAA.

4. There WAS no political gridlock. It was Obama's way or the highway. It was agencies whose powers circumvented the Constitutional powers of the government that were telling the US what they WERE going to do.

This is where it stands - most of the people in this country do not believe in it and you and the True Believers do not have the power to order us what to do and how to do it. Ain't Democracy grand?

A Perfect (Twitter) Storm

Doug_C at 10:14 AM on 17 March, 2017

Whatever he is I don't think there is any excuse for anyone to attack scientists and claim there is a deficiency in information available to understand the fundamentals of global warming and climate change.

I have some second year college science courses but no degree so I have some science literacy but I'm definitely not a professional. About a decade ago I got frustrated with being unable to get a clear idea of what was going on with climate change and all the contradictory views and began my own research. I spent many hours reading IPCC reports, articles from climatologists like James Hansen, books by "skeptics" who claim there is no such thing as human forced global warming and books about the extensive denial campaign.

At some point I had a rather unpleasant awakening that some climatologists have described of going through a period of despair when they realized what their research was saying and how no action was being taken to address it. This lasted for several months for me.

There's no question in my mind now that the science supporting anthropogenic global warming is extensive and very well supported. If a person is willing to commit to the time and energy that is required to get a meaningful grasp of this issue it is more than possible with all the information out there now. I think it requires a choice either conscious or unconsious to remain in ignorance about this issue. In one of the books I read by a Scottish scientist - I forget his name - he talked about something he refered to as consensus trance reality where people use a short-hand form of information to deal with the complexities of modern life that prevents them from fully grasping some complex issues like climate change. Maybe group-think is another term that aaplies.

Whatever the case, it's clear that there is some deep psychological factors at work on a wide scale that prevents a lot of people from coming to terms with what is actually happening in the world around them not just with this issue but many others. They follow a mental shorthand that is often written by others against the common interest. I think this is in part what the extensive climate change denial disinformation campaign is targeted to do.

From what I read here Skeptical Science is part of an effort to come to terms with the psychology behind denial which I think is crucial. It seems to me that Adams and his supporters would make good case studies in the dynamics of denial. Instead of informing themselves of the true dimensions of this subject they take the approach of shooting the messenger.

Global warming theory isn't falsifiable

stephen baines at 14:48 PM on 7 March, 2017

That's a great succinct review Tom!

Applying the strict Popperian criteria of falsifiability in a blanket sense to complex topics like climate change is a common trick of all science skeptics. It's also common trick used by those challenging evolution, who claim that every uncertainty or gap concerning the mechanisms which give rise to new species, adaptation or novel traits should be taken as disproof of decades of research supporting central role of evolution in biology.

The other trick is to claim that consensus formed through years of testing and rejecting alternative hypotheses results in an unfalsifiable hypothesis, as if the previous testing never occurred. It's an effective attack (on purely rhetorical grounds) when targeting those unfamiliar with the history of disciplines in question. It plays well in the atmosphere of cultural division that we now see.

Just who are these 300 'scientists' telling Trump to burn the climate?

nigelj at 10:18 AM on 28 February, 2017

The poll of 300 people is clearly weak, but like other polls and campaigns of denial it all adds up, and wears people down. Unfortunately many people don't have time to research what the poll really means, or who it includes, and these are the targets of the so called poll..

Scientists and open minded, reasonable people are going to have to fight back hard. I hate that science is getting tied up with politics, but there's no denying this has happened, so responses have to be commensurate with this unfortunate fact.

It's all part of the Trump attack on climate science. The latest Trump news has him wanting to increase military spending by 9%, which is pretty substantial, especially in a country already having a massive military.

And guess what Trump wants to cut to pay for the military spending? Spending on "Federal Agencies" like the EPA.

www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/feb/27/trumps-budget-54-billion-increase-defense-spending

And thank's for the link on the various consensus studies, and the history of climate sceptical research, and how it has been utterly and comprehensively refuted in the published literature. But listening to the denialist liars, you would think none of this has happened.

2016 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #51

nigelj at 06:22 AM on 21 December, 2016

Jonbo@69, I wouldnt get too worried about skeptical research papers. There is a lot of complete nonsense out there, and I have given up worrying about it, unless it gets the attention of websites like this.

Here is an example. I recall a paper by Roger Pielke. Now this guy is actually a highly qualified sceptical climate scientist, who claimed there had been no sea level rise since 1970. Now this guy does have some real expertise, but I still had big doubts, because what he was saying was so far outside the consensus.

A google search revealed a paper published attacking the Pielke paper, authored by no less than 50 scientists. It became plain to even to non climate scientist like me their criticisms were totally valid. Pielke had no understanding of satellite data on sea level rise, and was outside his area of expertise, basically. And this guy was at least qualified in climate science, so if he is wrong, the people on the fringes are even more likely to be wrong.

2016 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #48

One Planet Only Forever at 14:50 PM on 28 November, 2016

chriskoz@1, I agree that already more fortunate humans should not benefit from any steps toward sustained improvement of life for less fortunate humans that may be achieved from a known to be damaging activity that needs to be rapidly curtailed.

If Australian coal was to be properly employed it would be used in a way that only benefited the least fortunate and sped up their transition to a lasting better way of living (which means rapid advancement to ways of living that do not need coal burning).

However, India has plenty of its own coal. So a better way to help would be for Austarlian mining expertise to be donated to help the Indian nation most safely and effectively extract their resource for the benefit of their least fortunate (no wealthy or already more fortunate citizens of India getting any benefit from the activity).

The same goes for the extraction of Tar Sands in Alberta and its export for burning. It should only be done in a awy that only benefits the sustainable improvement of ways of living of the least fortunate.

That would be what should happen if advancing humanity to a constantly improved future as part of a robust diverstity of all life on this amazing planet was the objective of "Winners and Leaders".

Clearly, the problem is that unjustifiable understandably damaging pursuits of profit and Trumping-up support for them can succeed 'Famously Tragically' contrary to that objective.

The threat of unLeaders and unWinners who try to excuse 'unacceptable exploitation of their potential freedom to get away with things' or 'dismiss or discredit better understanding of what is required to advance humanity' needs to become the common sense understanding globally if humanity is to have a future on this or any other amazing planet.

The following recent Opinion article on the CBC News website highlights how the twisted attacks of groups like "Unite the Right" have pushed reasoned 'common sense' (consensus of understanding by people who think about things from a collective perspective) to become senseless passion (individual's encouraged to base their 'understanding' on their gut emotion about an issue).

"How 'common sense' came to mean its opposite under Donald Trump"

Trump or NASA – who's really politicising climate science?

nigelj at 07:07 AM on 26 November, 2016

Excellent article.

"Climate research conducted at NASA had been “heavily politicised”, said Robert Walker, a senior adviser to US President-elect Donald Trump.This has led him to recommend stripping funding for climate"

I think the claim is empty. Walker provides no evidence, because there is none and hopes that bluff will win the day. The media need to start demanding these right wing schills provide hard proof, and it needs to be something more than some trivial rubbish or sophistry.

In my opinion the accusation is also a subtle form of bullying to try to cripple and intimidate the researchers by wearing them down with constant false accusations. We have seen other attacks on scientists documented on this website. Its more off the same.

In contrast the rhetoric of the denialists is full of political statements about liberal scams, Chinese scams, etc, etc, in a gish gallop of click bait designed to inflame people. Yet most in the media are so weak they let people get away with this without challenge.

I agree that climate denail is clearly related to political ideologies opposing government actions and roles. The correlation is striking. The reason is ultimately fear of change or constrraints on personal activities, and letting this reach an unhealthy level.

The consensus is really important, as it shows the climate community is of one mind (apart from a few eccentics that you will always get,) so hence the sceptics attack the consensus. I have emailed this consensus material to local media, and encourage others to do the same. The consensus studies are reasonably recent, and not part of IPCC releases, so many of the mainstream media are likely just not aware of them, and certainly not that there are several consensus studies finding much the same thing.

Can the Republican Party solve its science denial problem?

Ian Forrester at 13:20 PM on 1 May, 2016

Rolf, I have spent countless hours studying the similarities and differences between AGW deniers and GMO apologists. The similarities are staggering, in many cases the same people are best described as both, Matt Ridley and the Averys spring to mind. The same think tanks that attack climate science and climate scientists support GMOs and smear any independent scientist who publishes a paper showing the negative effects of GMOs. Of course these people and their organizations receive money from the companies involved in these areas. The Science Media Centre has a cabal of GMO apologists hiding under their identification as “independent experts”. They do not disclose their close financial ties to the GMO indiustry.

http://www.gmwatch.org/index.php/news/archive/2012/14224-how-independent-is-the-science-media-centre-and-its-experts

The big difference is that at the start the GMO apologists and their companies did and controlled the research. Any scientist wishing to study the GMO crops had firstly to get samples from the company involved and had to allow the company to vet and veto any results before they could be published. It is no wonder that the initial impression was that these crops were safe, the only research allowed out was controlled by the companies. It was only later that independent scientists such as Arpad Pusztai published results showing negative effects. The industry and its apologists were so incensed by this that they got him fired from his position at the Rowett Institute in Aberdeen. Since then there have been quite a few similar studies showing problems. The industry has responded in a similar fashion smearing and vilifying the scientists.

The other big difference is the argument about consensus. The AGW deniers argue that there is no consensus regarding AGW when in fact approximately 97 % of scientists and science papers agree that there is. The GMO apologists claim that there is a consensus supporting “GMOs are safe”. This is just not true.

You are perfectly correct when you state that the science involved in rDNA technology is much more complicated than climate science. I’ll just throw out a few terms which I’m sure most people have never heard of but are critical to understanding what could go wrong with the technology: post-translational modification, cryptic transcription, horizontal gene transfer, activation of silenced genes etc.

It’s settled: 90–100% of climate experts agree on human-caused global warming

Ikaika at 08:41 AM on 15 April, 2016

I understand the concept of suggesting a consensus, but I also think that it becomes an easy taget of attack for contrarians. I would prefer the use of 97% consilience of data to support AGW. This goes to the heart of scientist, who they are and more importantly what they do.

Fossil fuel funded report denies the expert global warming consensus

Rolf Jander at 13:51 PM on 23 February, 2016

The frustrating thing is that scientists need to waste their time saying that they all agree on the problem. refuting the attack on the consensus must be taking some time away from actually doing vital research and communicating the finding. That must be part of the objective of these attacks.

A Rough Guide to the Jet Stream: what it is, how it works and how it is responding to enhanced Arctic warming

Tom Curtis at 17:18 PM on 28 October, 2015

Chuck Wiese, former TV weatherman, (snip)

As Glenn knows quite well, I am not the Thomas Curtis employed by Deutsche Bank. Rather, I am this Tom Curtis. You will no doubt now riddle my qualifications (only a BA, and that only in philosophy), but when you do you will miss the point. The point is that by ending every communication you make on the subject of climate science with the title, "Metereorologist" you are implicitly claiming that what you say ought to be accepted based on your expertise alone. That is particularly the case given that you do not cite sources, and in this instance presented no data. Well, I am prepared to accept that some people are entitled to so ponitificate. Those people, however, are restriced exclusively to those with an extensive publication history on the topic in hand, and who are in agreement with the scientific consensus on the particular issue on which they discuss. Put another way, even the most qualifed loose their right to pontificate once the detailed topic of discussion is contentious within the scientific community.

You do not fit that category.

What is more absurd is that you are implicitly claiming that your authority as Chuck Wiese BSc, and sometime TV weatherman is superior to that of Jennifer Francis PhD in atmospheric sciences, with her thesis focussing on the Arctic, and with 40 odd recent publications on related topics. Not to mention the more then ten similarly or better qualified people who have reviewed and or discussed her thesis in the peer reviewed literature without noting the "killer argument" against it you claim to have found.

In that context, and given your implicit claim to authority, rebutting that claim does not constitute a personal attack. When you claim authority on a topic, the reality of that authority becomes relevant to disussion - and when yours is discussed it is found to be worse than non-existent.

That is demonstrate hilariously when you defend yourself against accusations of pseudoscience by apealing to Miskolczi.

On to more substantive matters:

1) The ice core record shows that rises(and falls) in CO2 generally (but not always) lags the rise(and fall) in SH temperatures, but precedes rises in NH and global temperatures. This record is consistently misrepresented by deniers who refuse to acknowledge that sometimes CO2 rises precede even SH temperatures, and insist on treating the purely regional SH temperature record as a global record. The facts as revealed by all of the data are fully consistent with a strong enhanced greenhouse effect with the initial rise in CO2 triggered by milankovitch forcing.

2) On Miskolczi's humidity thesis, even the well known AGW skeptic Roy Spencer can only bring himself to say:

"... his additional finding of a relatively constant greenhouse effect from 60 years of radiosonde data (because humidity decreases have offset CO2 increases) is indeed tantalizing. But few people believe long-term trends in radiosonde humidities. His result depends upon the reality of unusually high humidities in the 1950s and 1960s. Without those, there is no cancellation between decreasing humidity and increasing CO2 as he claims."

So, only if two thoroughly implausible spikes in water vapour from the early days of the radiosonde record, when instruments are known to have been unreliable, are not artifacts is there even a basis for the claim - but it would remain without theoretical basis of any substance.

3) The temperature trend over the last 18 years exactly, using the most recent update from GISS is 0.118 +/- 0.104 C/decade. That is, it has a statistically significant trend that distinguishes it from zero, but not from the model predictions. (Determined here, with an initial date of 1997.78) So, even the tired old, mendacious denier trick of pretending a positive trend not statistically distinguishable from zero is "a static global temperature" is now out of date. Time for you to switch to "its only because of the El Nino" while hoping we don't notice how carefully you cherry picked the last very strong El Nino for the start date of the sequence.

4) You mention two textbooks in defence of your claim, not quote no passages. Nor do you explain how their result was derived. In the meantime, Francis and Vavrus also cite a textbook in support of their views:

"When zonal wind speed decreases, the large-scale Rossby waves progress more slowly from west to east, and weaker flow is also associated with higher wave amplitudes [Palmén and Newton, 1969]. Slower progression of upper-level waves causes more persistent weather conditions that can increase the likelihood of certain types of extreme weather, such as drought, prolonged precipitation, cold spells, and heat waves. Previous studies support this idea: weaker zonal-mean, upper-level wind is associated with increased atmospheric blocking events in the northern hemisphere [Barriopedro and Garcia-Herrera, 2006] as well as with cold-air outbreaks in the western U.S. and Europe [Thompson and Wallace, 2001; Vavrus et al., 2006]."

Presumably then, at least one of you have misinterpreted your source, and your appeal to your authority as a BSc to ensure that it is not you really does not cut it, evidence wise. Particularly given your vocal history espousing pseudoscience.

A Rough Guide to the Jet Stream: what it is, how it works and how it is responding to enhanced Arctic warming

Chuck Wiese at 10:51 AM on 28 October, 2015

Mr. Curtis: Your comments reflect an individual who knows little or next to nothing about meteorology or atmospheric science. As such, the only thing in your background that you seem capable of is to launch personal attacks against those who don't agree with you. (snip)

The physics of Rossby waves are well established in the published scientific literature. Those who don't get that like the comment from scaddenp and you assume I need to publish a paper to prove my assertion. That is incorrect. The opposite is actually true. It is up to the author of this article and Jennifer Francis to show where the prior established and peer reviewed literature is wrong. References of this include "Dynamic Meteorology and Weather Forecasting", authors Godske,Bergeron, Bjerknes and Bundgaard. American Meteorological Society Volume 605, 1957, Chapter 11, Hydrodynamics of the Atmosphere. With your background, you wouldn't recognize the names but the authors are famous for their work in atmospheric science. Another reference, " Dynamical and Physical Meteorology" Haltiner and Martin Chapter 12, Horizontal Frictionless Flow, 1957 ISBN 57-8005.

The physics of planetary Rossby waves are quite clear in all of this literature and point at the fact that if latitudinal tempertaure gradients decrease from arctic amplification, the amplitude of the waves and mean inflection points migrate to higher latitude and decrease. This is the opposite of what this article and Francis claim. As I said, she has offered no physics to demonstrate where the founding literature is wrong. But that is how the scientific method works. You need to prove where the established literature is in error and that has not been done.

I want to thank you for pointing out my lecture to the Oregon Chapter of the American Meteorological Society and would encourage the readers to watch it. There were also two other presenters who share my views, physicist Gordon Fulks and Climatologist George Taylor.

Your point 1 has been debunked. The ice core records prove temperature actually leads increasing CO2, not follows it. There is no demonstrated cause of CO2 affecting temperature as claimed by politicians like Al Gore. (snip)

Your point 2 is wrong. My lecture used MODTRAN and water vapor IR radiation calculations derived by Dr. Ferenc Miskolczi, a principle research scientist from NASA who specialized in IR radiative transfer. The point in doing the calculations were to show the warming of the last century far exceeded what basic IR radiation calculations would demonstrate and that there are no positive feedbacks from water vapor as claimed by warmers.

It is interesting that those like youself with no apparent science background are quick to name call those like me as "deniers" and all of the other nasty things you do, but it is also interesting to look at your background, This is from Bloomberg Business: "Mr. Thomas Curtis is the Managing Director and Global Co-Head of DB Climate Change Advisors. He has been the Global Head of Strategic Planning and Communications, Head of Business Development, and Member of Global Operating Committee at Deutsche Asset Management Inc. As Global Head of Business Development from 2004 to 2009, and prior to that, as the Head of Corporate Strategy for Deutsche Bank Americas from 2000, Mr. Curtis has been responsible for initiating and executing ...the full bio is here:

http://www.bloomberg.com/research/stocks/private/person.asp?personId=13010869&privcapId=84655488 (snip)

It would appear that you are a heavily invested special interest banker and finace person of sorts who stands to lose a lot of profit and potential income if the desired regulations and taxes imposed from carbon upon individuals fails to get traction from politicians. It also appears from your comments that you not only don't understand the fallacy of claimed "consensus" opinion on AGW, but fail to realize the concept is a ruse and a lie. There si no "consensus" on AGW like you and many other special interests claim:

http://www.climate-resistance.org/2013/07/tom-curtis-doesnt-understand-the-97-paper.html

BTW, I have more experience in opertaional meteorology than you claim. I am President of Weatherwise, Inc, and have developed a first generation brand of weather instrumentation of its kind that has predictive value:

http://www.google.com.gh/patents/US5372039

(snip)

Chuck Wiese

Meteorologist

Global warming deniers are an endangered species

mancan18 at 10:19 AM on 25 July, 2015

In Australia, Climate Change denial does pay. Australia is one of the world's largest coal exporters, a significant proportion of it's power generation comes from coal, and coal products are an important component the national income that underpins Australia's wealth. As a result, attitudes towards climate change follows party lines, with one party, Labor, promoting it as a serious issue and the other, Liberal/National Party, while giving it token support, take a "lukewarmer" position. This is the reason that the Government has implemented it's clayton's climate change policy, "Direct Action" and has attacked the climate advisory bodies, climate change funding arrangements for developing needed technologies, and promoted many climate change deniers to important positions upon it's economic advisory bodies.

The reason for this is actually quite simple. One of the main Liberal/National party policy think tanks is the Institute of Public Affairs (the IPA). It is Australia's equivalent of the George C Marshall Institute. The IPA, along with other Liberal Party policy think tanks like the Menzies Research Centre and the H. R. Nicholls Society, all actively promote Climate Change denial. Scientists like climate change deniers, Ian Plimer and Bob Carter are attached to the IPA, providing advice related to climate change policy. Plimer is also an important member of the Mining Council of Australia, having been it's chairman, and he influences it's political stance. Gina Reinhart, Australia's wealthiest person, who made her money from huge mining projects, is also related to the IPA. She funded a Christopher Monkton speaking tour of Australia, at the height of the ETS/Carbon Tax debate when Labor tried to introduce an ETS. The IPA is also an important source of climate change denial material and underpins the political stance of Murdoch media outlets who reach around 83% of the Australian population, where right wing commentators like Andrew Bolt, Miranda Devine, and Piers Ackereman, and right wing shock jocks like Alan Jones and Ray Hadley, disseminate IPA inspired climate change denial material to their readers and listeners.

Also, the IPA, through it's journal, provides climate change material to its readers, and it's latest effort comes in the form of a book called "Climate Change - the Facts 2014" with contributions from Ian Plimer, Richard Lindzen, Bob Carter, Nigel Lawson, Bill Kininmonth, Willie Soon, Christopher Monckton, Garth Paltridge, Richard Tol, Brian Fisher, Bob Carter, Donna Laframboise, Anthony Watts, Alan Moran amongst others and other climate change deniers. Also, this book seems to form the basis of Matt Ridley's latest essay in June's Quadrant magazine "How the Climate Wars Undermine Science", where John Cook's Consensus Project is discredited, (in their eyes), by referring to it as being biased and unrepresentative.

Now I don't know about you, but, I don't think that climate change deniers are being marginalised in Australia. If anything, they are still pre-eminent due to the IPA's political and media reach. Trying to take effective action to tackle climate change in Australia has already seen the toppling of two prime minsters and a leader of the Liberal Party who did think that the issue was important. It will be a significant issue in the next election but whether the electorate will embrace it, after a fear campaign related to the hip pocket nerve and xenophobic fears related to asylum seekers, is questionable.

While it is easier to have a debate with like minded people; what is happening in Australia, while the Sydney Morning Herald and the Guardian do present material properly conveying the 97% consensus; demonstrates why climate change advocates need to be more engaged with the climate change deniers from the IPA, the Murdoch press, and the right wing shock jock community, because, at the moment the denier/lukewarmer argument is still pre-eminent and not getting it's proper voice with Australia's public.

Climate denial linked to conspiratorial thinking in new study

ryland at 07:49 AM on 10 July, 2015

Philippe Chantreau. If you're going to attack something i wrote, attack what I actually did write rather than what you think I actually wrote' You start off with this comment of mine:

"There may be a 97% consensus of climate scientists that humans are responsible for climate change and certainly I consider that humans have contributed and do contribute to climate change but there are a lot of other scientists who are less convinced."

You then say:

It matters very little that there are "a lot" of scientists who are less convinced. They're still only 3%.

Can you not see i didn't say 97% of scientists but 97% of climate scientists. You then follow up by saying it matters very little as they're still only 3%

Who are still only 3%? All the other scientists who are not climate scientists? Geologists? Meteorologists? Physicists? Surely you recall the survey by the American Meteorological Society that showed only 52 % of its members were convinced oof AGW. The survey did make it plain that meteorologists were at odds with the majority of scientific research on climate change. I was careful to distinguish between climate scientists and other scientists, a distinction you appear not to have noticed. After that introductory bit of stunning misapprehension I didn't bother to read the rest as its late

scaddenp what I can't get from the daily mail I make up. And as for the media The Guardian in which dana frequently writes is a useful source as is RealClimate. So is Roy spencer and judith Curry and Jo Nova and Grant Foster

Climate denial linked to conspiratorial thinking in new study

PhilippeChantreau at 07:04 AM on 10 July, 2015

Ryland, your ramblings are not limited to this thread. Unfortunately, I can find no better word to describe you overall contribution so far; it accurately describes what you do, so it's not really "scathing." Perhaps there is another word with a less negative charge, but I couldn't think of one.

You may wonder what I consider "rambling." Take this for instance:

"There may be a 97% consensus of climate scientists that humans are responsible for climate change and certainly I consider that humans have contributed and do contribute to climate change but there are a lot of other scientists who are less convinced."

It matters very little that there are "a lot" of scientists who are less convinced. They're still only 3%. It changes nothing at all to where the weight the evidence points. "Less convinced" is vague and suggests they may disagree while in fact their disagreement could be quite minor, changing nothing again to the big picture. This is rethoric. Rambling. You've got truckloads of the stuff, I'm sorry to say.

I see very little new substance from you in this thread, despite the increasing word count. You state what your personal opinion about conspiracy thinking is, I guess that's something.

The papers mentioned are about the fact that deniers are heavily influenced by conspiratory thinking. It uses a rigorous method to show that.

One paper came under fire from a hysterical crowd so far removed from rational thinking that it should be ignored. But they found a way to intimidate the publisher, a way that is obviously illegitimate, as was well explained by jgnfld, who I'm sure could also attach diplomas to his name. This maneuvering is why contributors here get emotional about the subject. It is unjust and underhanded. A perverted justice system allowing for exploitation and bordering on threatening freedom of speech.

Intimidation with threat of lawsuit hinging on a technicality was used to discourage publication; your posts vaguely seemed to defend the act of withdrawing the publication, although, as usual you didn't clearly say that or otherwise either.

You're very good at that; it has on several occasions allowed you to later complain that you were being wrongly attacked from all sides for something you didn't actually say. I do not recall seeing anyone on this site who was asked as often to clarify their meaning, or state what their point actually was. Whatever your PhD is in must involve extensive use of language, you have certainly achieved a level of mastery there.

When you're pressed to truly clarify, you escape. Just like a while ago you would not definitely answer whether you thought that was OK for Chisty to lie to Congress and instead moved on to the next squirrel.

Whether one has diplomas has no bearing whatsoever on the validity of their argument. Being educated in a field reduces the likelihood of being wrong about a particular problem pertaining to that field and should ensure that some basics are mastered. That's all it does. One thing it doesn't do is impress me.

Attaching a diploma to ramblings does not increase their value, but it can decrease the value of the diploma, by demonstrating that said diploma does not protect against ramblings. In fact, it takes away the excuse of confusion, or poor mastery of language, for not stating clearly a meaning; it also takes away the excuse of ignorance, thereby increasing the probability that one may be arguing in bad faith. Not that this would be the case with you, I'm just considering the meaning of throwing diplomas in a generic conversation.

One thing that could speak more loudly than diplomas would be a style of argument with a predilection for rethoric and convoluted language. Surely something against which we all must exercise caution.

As for how much fossil fuel there remains to be played with, I had no doubt you were going to remind me of that. I'll remind you that there is no long term future for mankind that does not involve the complete eradication of industrial scale use of FF, one way or another. That much is 100 % certain, just like the radiative properties of CO2.

Climate denial linked to conspiratorial thinking in new study

ryland at 04:44 AM on 10 July, 2015

Phillippe Chantreau. My ramblings as you so scathingly call them arose because I was attacked from all sides regarding my initial post. In this post I asked if the paper Recurrent Fury was in fact a new paper as the headline stated or a revamped version of one retracted in 2013 by the Frontiers Journal. Foolishly I also said the Journal had retracted it for ethical reasons. This unleashed a torrent of comment pointing out how this was not true. Perhaps even more foolishly I responded to these comments in a vain attempt to show that in the final analysis the Journal did cite privacy of respondents as a reason for retracting the paper. As jeopardising privacy is a significant ethical concern in research publications of this nature this provided the Journal a very good reason/excuse for retraction.
I may ramble but at least the ramblings are from a scientist with a PhD from the University of Western Australia who rose to become a Professor at Curtin University in Perth. I don't believe in conspiracy theories but neither am I entirely convinced that only by reducing CO2 levels will climate change be averted. There may be a 97% consensus of climate scientists that humans are responsible for climate change and certainly I consider that humans have contributed and do contribute to climate change but there are a lot of other scientists who are less convinced. I'm less convinced because the empirical evidence doesn't always entirely support all the contentions of the climate scientists. But Phillippe Chantreau I am certainly not a subscriber to conspiracy theories.

Climate denial linked to conspiratorial thinking in new study

KR at 00:00 AM on 10 July, 2015

ryland - Um, nope. Frontiers retracted the article stating that there were no ethical or academic issues with it, but rather some potential legal expenses they didn't want to risk (even a frivolous suit, as would have been the case, costs money), in a statement agreed to with the Frontiers expert panel and with the authors. The expert panel stated that:

"...among psychological and linguistic researchers blog posts are regarded as public data and the individuals posting the data are not regarded as participants in the technical sense used by Research Ethics Committees or Institutional Review Boards. This further entails that no consent is required for the use of such data. [...] ...to the charges that Fury was unethical in using blog posts as data for psychological analysis, the consensus among experts in this area sides with the authors of Fury." (emphasis added)

The editors later made some statements contradicting themselves and their own expert panel, but given what happened with the Recursive Fury paper and other issues (the HIV paper mentioned above), I would mark those down to a lack of integrity and consistency on the publishers part, rather than anything wrong with the original RF paper.

Public posts are public information, no ethical breachs occurred - and while these (unsupported) ethical complaints against the RF paper are, well, a convenient handle for some to wave about attacking it, they have absolutely no relevance to the conclusions of the Recursive/Recurrent Fury papers, or to the obvious stacks of conspiracy theories spawned as climate denialists frothed about the original 'NASA' paper.

Yours is a (again, unsupported) complaint about methods, not conclusions, and IMO the conclusion is clearly that many climate denialists are conspiracy nutters.

There is no consensus

KR at 02:31 AM on 4 June, 2015

TD - Repeating foolishness over and over does not improve its quality.

Quite frankly, I find repetetive attacks on consensus, not to mention specific papers or scientists, to be indicators of their quality and veracity - the number of complaints in the denier blogosphere appear to be directly related to how clearly and effectively they demonstrate the actual science that debunks climate denial.

Which 'TruthDetector' has just demonstrated once again.

Things I thought were obvious!

Cocoa Jackson at 09:55 AM on 6 January, 2015

William[34] wrote: '...[undeveloped]...countries argue that they should not be expected to forgo fossil fuel exploitation, which is what the...[developed economies]...asks of them, as the development of the West was largely facilitated by the burning of fossil fuels.'
That perspective is interesting and understandable.

Which raises the obvious question: Where did anyone read or hear emerging economies demand carbon based fuel explotation?

From this perspective this has been a strategy used by reactionary thinkers to maintain the status quo, what is reality in the recent past and currently is a completely different scenario however.

Multiantional corporations headquartered in developed nations are the ones who wish to expoit these countries and are the ecosystems greatest threat. As they have a history of using local nepotism and corruption of poor public policy due to undeveloped govenace to gain commercial dominace of the carbon energy resources.
It is true undeveloped economies may in the some projected future demand our energy intensive goods and increasingly luxurious lifestyle. And to explot vast resources of fossil fuel. But largely they are happy to get lights, energy for cooking, and the ability to pump clean healthy water. The real world scenario is undeveloped countries have a take up rate of innovative alternative technology that is running at enviable rate.

Where there are individual solar power units on homes, businesses are even creating local small grids and other clean alternative energy sources for power production. They are in the position of being ahead of the developed nations with the clean technology ratio when directly compared to the developed economies.

Our challenge in developed economies is those same using the same corporate culture to lobby against individual power units in local small to large business, homes, schools, and social capital services; creating micro grids for small groups, towns and suburbs. Because the economic leverage of energy monopolies would suffer a poor return on efficiencies due to atrophy in their consumer base and subsequent hit to their yearly profit. While enabling individuals and small business with cheap clean energy.

Realistically undeveloped countries have a distinct and increasing advantage over the developed countries who are still chained to the carbon economy. Left on their own the undeveloped countries will continue to seek current technology that is flexible and affordable. As most importantly clean solar power units to give them cheap power for lights, energy for cooking and pumping clean water. Not only that but the exponential growth in cheap alternative energy in these countries will continue to challenge developed economies for goods production. Most noticeably when sophistication in systems develops even further with automation.
In all probability the emerging undeveloped economies will be even more competitive and then their alternative energy technology uptake rate compared to developed nations will really be seen as clever.

Our best chance is modelling alternative clean and cheap energy sources, setting a better example toward a dominant alternative energy ratio. While at the same time encouraging international regulation of multinational corporations and the partners with the rule of law to put our ecosystem before ROI or yearly profit.

What are the probabilities this will happen though?

My guess for what it's worth is:

The probabilities are the same as carbon energy corporations not attacking the scientific consensus on acidification and warming of oceans.
...

Things I thought were obvious!

Cocoa Jackson at 08:19 AM on 4 January, 2015

Appreciate the comment and context Jen,
you wrote: '...this evolving into a 'socio/political' discussion...they don't care because they are suffering from media fatigue...I guess what I'm saying is that the reasons a large percentage of Americans don't care about Climate issues are many...'

For what it's worth I agree with all your experiences and have come across similar mindsets.

What is central to all arguments is the understandable media overload as you pointed out. This overload was the prime strategy employed to successfully counter the international scientific consensus that tobacco was harmful to human health; and they still do in emerging economies as you are aware.
A strategy where the vested tobacco interest; that is employed professional lobbyists, dedicated advertising agencies, business or political partners who all colluded to create dissention, distrust and doubt.

Naturally because of diversity of levels of education, experience, age, family history, politics region etc.etc. means the emotive triggers this professional group hit vary greatly. I call all that 'diversity and variability' simply a group or individual's 'life conditions'.

This same tobacco industry strategy as you will have realised is employed on denial of the warming and acidification of our ecosystems oceans.

Realistically unless you personally are involved as a working earth or climate scientist who specialises, publishes and carries the credibility these disciples have; countering the closed loops of denial science is generally fruitless. Circular reasoning chasing denial logic works like that. As the individual or group caught is affected by the ability to focus. They simply get confused by fallacious circular logic created by the attack on the consensus.

When it is understood it's the international consensus that is the greatest threat to the carbon industries in this paradigm shift in energy production.

That is; simply making others appreciate that deferring to those who are experts as working earth and climate scientist is the clever decision.

The interesting benefit in the exploration of the logic of deferring to experts is generally it unearths the emotive trigger hit by those professionally attacking the international consensus. This information in turn gives leverage to build on in any future discussions around the actual science.

However this is where greatest issue in my experience dealing with the denial in North America is and what I have labeled 'team support' for the last five years. Where the individual or group falls into the simplistic Liberal or Conservative stance. This roughly speaking breaks into two further subcategories. Those who believe in creation or don't. As the last Gallup Poll in North America found only 21% of North Americans believe the bible is a fable.^ So the challenge of all the diversity in religious ideology comes attached.

Once it is established this denial is due to political and or religious ideology. Then it is a matter of getting the individual to understand what their position is.

It must be said; the choice between ideology and science seems simple. But when others confuse science with ideology it gets very difficult.

As any skilled critical thinker will tell you it is crucial to be able to recognise personal biases, setting them aside and analysing any information.

No one will be forced into believing what we know are facts. It is only with all the interior questions answered or as the truism goes 'being honest with ourselves'. Without it, no amount of logic will convince anyone. So all we can sometimes do is establish an individual's biases firmly front and centre of their thinking.
Make them own their biases, rather than defer to their 'team' as their default position.
If change in thinking is possible it follows this awareness.

Why we need to talk about the scientific consensus on climate change

KR at 02:45 AM on 21 November, 2014

topal - Nobody rejects science when it's real science??? Please tell that to climate deniers who say that CO2 isn't being increased by anthropogenic activity, that it has no effect on temperatures, that it's all some unknown long term cycle, that it's cosmic rays, that all of the science is a malicous plot by the Illuminati, etc. etc. etc.

Because those are people documentably rejecting real science.

Scientific consensus on complex issues is notable because we (the public) use it to evaluate those issues. And like tobacco research, climate science and consensus is under constant attack by those who wish to disuade any action on the subject. Which is both a rejection of science, and a campaign of disinformation intended to prevent public policy changes, by a very small segment of the population.

Skeptical Science Study Finds 97% Consensus on Human-Caused Global Warming in the Peer-Reviewed Literature

Composer99 at 05:59 AM on 23 September, 2014

I believe, Russ R, that you should probably attend more to the goalpost-sized log in your own eye before getting so exercised about the mote in that of the current POTUS. (*)

I mean, your initial line of attack last week was that there were serious problems with Cook et al 2013, using a source that alleged fraud on the part of the Cook et al author team.

This week, without the slightest peep of acknowledgement that last week's criticisms were bogus, we're on to how President Obama is being misleading. That's practically a textbook example of moving the goalposts:

Person A: Cook et al is wrong [baldly stated or carefully insinuated] because reasons.
Person B: Those reasons are all rubbish. [Explanation demolishes reasons presented by Person A.]
Person A: Well, what about Obama's tweet, then?

(*) Recall that the scientific consensus - the degree of expert agreement - about AGW is a stand-in for the preponderance of evidence gathered regarding AGW, as outlined in (to pick a not-so-random-example) the IPCC reports.

So President Obama, at least, has a leg to stand on when he Tweets "climate change is real, man-made and dangerous", even if he is off the mark in referring to "ninety-seven percent of scientists" and providing a hyperlink to the Reuters article describing Cook et al 2013.

Skeptical Science Study Finds 97% Consensus on Human-Caused Global Warming in the Peer-Reviewed Literature

KR at 05:13 AM on 20 September, 2014

Stepping back a bit from the repeated attempts to post hoc redefine the criteria actually used in the Cook et al paper (absurd), I find it utterly fascinating how stridently any expert consensus on AGW is being denied.

Look at other consensus objections: as with creationism, anti-vaccines, the entire tobacco industry campaign, ozone, acid rain, and now anthropogenic global warming - a repeating pattern of minority opinions trying to convince the public that the experts are not in agreement (when they actually are). Possibly because people without a relevant background will trust the majority opinion of the experts as being meaningful, and that shapes policy.

So - nit-picking on tiny aspects of papers that don't, that cannot, change the base conclusions of the science, fake experts (the 3%), the ad hominem attacks on authors in attempts to discredit their work, the contradictory counter-explanations du jour (the sun, cosmic rays, cycles, it's not happening, anything but us), on and on and on. And claims that the consensus doesn't exist, despite 'skeptic' attempts to claim a skeptical consensus does (the OISM petition). But a distinct lack of science - of attempts to examine the data and see if those minority opinions have any support from the evidence.

So why is consensus on AGW fought so much by the 'skeptics'? IMO it's because if 95-97% of those studying a topic agree, yet you vehemently disagree, you just might be fooling yourself... and people seem to find that intolerable.

2014 SkS Weekly Digest #34

GSR at 13:25 PM on 30 August, 2014

[snip]

Richard Tol accidentally confirms the 97% global warming consensus

Tom Curtis at 22:27 PM on 5 June, 2014

michael sweet @11, Cook et al found 3896 abstracts endorsing the consensus and 78 rejecting it, and endorsement rate of 98% (excluding abstracts indicating no opinion, or uncertainty). To drop that endorsement rate below 95% requires that 121 abstracts rated as endorsing the consensus be rerated as neutral, and 121 rated as neutral be rerated as rejecting the consensus. If more endorsing abstracts are rerated as neutral, fewer neutral abstracts need be rerated as rejecting to achieve so low a consensus rating. If endorsing abstracts are reduced by 40%, no increase in rejecting abstracts is needed to reduce the consensus rate to 95%. (You will notice that pseudoskeptics do spend a lot of time trying to argue that endorsement is overstated ;))

Anyway, the upshot is that I agree that a large bias by the SkS rating team is extraordinarilly unlikely. Never-the-less, even a small bias coupled with other sources of error could lift an actual consensus rate from just below 95% to 97% with relative ease, both by inflating the endorsement papers and simultaneiously deflating rejection papers. For instance, taking the prima facie bias shown by comparison with author ratings (discussed above), and correcting for it in the abstract ratings drops the endorsement ratings to 3834, while lifting the rejection papers to 176, giving an endorsement percentage of 95.6%. Dropping another 1% due to "uncertain" papers, and 0.5% due to other error factors brings the consensus rate down to 94.1%. As previously stated, I do not think the prima facie bias shown in the author comparisons should be accepted at face value. There are too many confounding factors. But we certainly cannot simply exclude it from the range of possible bias effects.

As the range of uncertainty I allow, I work in units of 5% because the uncertainty is too poorly quantified to pretend to greater precision (with exception of error due to internal rating inconstency which has now been quantified by Cook and co authors). I extend the range of plausible consensus ratings down to 90% because in calculating the effects of numerous skeptical and pseudo-skeptical objections, I have never come up with a consensus rating lower than 90%; and I think it is unlikely (<33% subjective probability) to be below 95% because of the size of the biases needed to get a consensus rate less than that. I think it is important to be aware, and to make people aware of the uncertainty in the upper range (95-99%) so that they do not have an unrealistic idea of the precision of the result, and of the unlikely but possible lower range (90-95%) so that people are aware how little significance attaches to the obssessive attacks on the concensus paper result, very well summarized by CBDunkerson above.

The Wall Street Journal denies the 97% scientific consensus on human-caused global warming

Tom Curtis at 19:02 PM on 29 May, 2014

austratsua @4:

"Firsly, it is unseemly to attack people who disagree with you with terms like "denier"."

Firstly, despite your complaint, nobody was called a "denier" in either the original post, nor in the three comments that preceded yours. Rather, it was said that certain people deny certain propositions, ie, they claim that those propositions are false. You are so determined to control the terms of the debate that even use of simple verbs to describe the beliefs of others is now not OK with you.

So, here are two simple questions:

1) Do Bast and Spencer claim that there is not a 97% consensus of climate scientists who agree that >50% of recent global warming was caused by anthropogenic factors?

2) If Bast and Spencer do make that claim, why do you react so strongly against the simple description that they deny that claim?

Secondly, despite you concern about how unseemly the missing attack was, you seem unconcerned that Spenser should refer to climate scientists as "Global Warming Nazi's", unconcerned about Bast's use of billboards to draw a connection between AGW and the Unabomber, unconcerned about the frequent accusations that climate scientists are guilty of fraud (scientific, and less frequently) financial, an unconcerned about accusations that people seeking policy action against AGW are routinely accused of desiring genocide by your fellow pseudo-skeptics. Absent evidence the contrary, in the form of links to comments where you have protested such activity by your fellow pseudo-skeptics, I will conclude that your concern for civility is, like that of most of your fellow travellors, one sided and hypocritical.

The simple fact is that concern about the term "AGW denier" does not arise from genuine feelings of offense. They arise from the same desire to win the debate by persuasive definitions that led pseudo-skeptics to call themselves "skeptics". It is an attempt to controll the debate by controlling the language used in the debate. As with Orwell's "Big Brother", it shows a determination to controll the language to limit what can be thought.

The Wall Street Journal denies the 97% scientific consensus on human-caused global warming

austrartsua at 15:18 PM on 29 May, 2014

Wow, where to begin. Firsly, it is unseemly to attack people who disagree with you with terms like "denier". Criticism is central to scientific progress. You never know, you might actually improve your methodology if you listen rationally to criticism. Calling them "denier" and talking about irrelevent facts about their history and rupert murdoch is at best "post-modern" and at worst a cynical attempt to evade the criticism.

"By that standard, there’s less than a 1% expert consensus on evolution, germ theory, and heliocentric theory, because there are hardly any papers in those scientific fields that bother to say something so obvious as, for example, “the Earth revolves around the sun.” The same is true of human-caused global warming."

Are you seriously suggesting that the the earth's climate is as well understood as the heliocentric theory or evolution? Have you heard of scientific fallabalism? It goes like this. A new theory is always assumed to be wrong. This is the default position. Based on this quote the author is so sure that anthropogenic global warming is true that he thinks it's as obvious as the fact that the earth goes around the sun. If all scientists thought this way they would never be able to correct their mistakes and they would hold on to theories no matter what data comes in.

"if the 97% expert consensus is right, it means we’re in for several more degrees of global warming if we continue on a business-as-usual path." This is false. The consensus quoted in your paper said nothing about how much the world will warm in the next century. In fact the criteria did not require any quantification of the amount of warming in the future or in deed in the past 150 years. Accordingly, one could rightly claim to belong to your consensus and still predict relatively little warming over the next century. And then there is the issue of dangerousness. You are right to say that some people are more risk-averse than others. But does this mean that highly risk-averse people should be able to force those who are not so risk averse to pay more for energy? Should wealthy risk-averse westerners be allowed to force poverty-stricken Indians and Chinese not to have access to cheap coal that could allow them access to clean water and clean air and a good life?

Global warming theory isn't falsifiable

mbarrett at 14:22 PM on 10 May, 2014

The public may rightfully use scientific tools such as falsifiability to analyse the legitimacy of climate science arguments that are presented in summarised, or superficial form, (websites such as this one, Wikipedia, media articles, government policy statements etc). This communication needs to be beyond reproach. I don’t feel that this required level of "trust" is presently met regarding falsifiability. Using a benchmark of unfalsifiable pseudoscience such as the statement "Ghost are real and only people who believe in ghosts can see them", I find the following problematic:

- Whenever temperature records are adjusted or otherwise shown to be previously flawed, the data has logically been proven to be unreliable. However, as long the new data supports the hypothesis, the original failure/limitation of the scientific method is ignored.

- The definitive scientific meaning of the statement “The anthropogenic global warming signal has definitely emerged” is "flexible" in terms of its communication to the public in relation to natural variability.

- A reliance on a multitude of complex and easily adjustable models.

- Contradictory statements about the significance of short term/decadal temperature trends and the reasons for them. (Eg. Late 20th century temperature record versus 21st century temperature record).

- Noteworthy examples of a perceived reluctance by climate scientists to publicly share all data and methods.

- Climate scientists who are subject to ad hominem attacks from colleagues only after they dissent from the consensus, not before.

There is no consensus

Stephen Baines at 08:03 AM on 9 May, 2014

I have said this before…the idea that the consensus is evidence of some sort of greed-induced conspiracy among scientists completely baffles me as a scientist. Yes, individuals care about getting grant money to support or students and technicians, but it’s not like we are all friends and family living off a common bank account. We often criticize each other strongly, sometimes with vitriol, about things noone else seems to care about. We compete with each other for limited money and review each others grants, sometimes agressively.

If I sense someone is falsifying results, I have every incentive in the world to attack them, especially if they are doing different research than I and getting money that I could get. Heck, I even get famous if I overturn their accepted wisdom. And I could make much much more being a shill to vested interests who would prefer we deny climate change. If money were really the main factor here you’d see a lot less of a consensus.

The fact that I do not know a single scientist who rejects the idea of AGW, despite differences I have with them on a multitude of other issues, is an indication of the power of the scientific arguments supporting it, and the commitments of scientists generally to following the evidence. Nothing in any of the surveys is inconsistent with that impression.

Contrary to bakertrg’s cynicism, I find it all rather uplifting. If only I could figure out why bakertrg hates me, I’d be a happy camper!

There is no consensus

KR at 05:33 AM on 9 May, 2014

bakertrg - I expect you will be subject to moderation, due to claims that people are presenting deceptive opinions due to financial renumeration. That said:

Although Spencer Weart has expressed concerns about a particular study (Anderegg et al 2010), you do not appear to have read his actual comment, which states:

The statistics are certainly interesting, but must be interpreted as "2-3% of people who have published 20 climate papers are willing to publicly attack the IPCC's conclusions." That is, to me, a surprisingly high fraction...

If Weart feels that 2-3% rejecting the consensus is a high number, he is hardly disagreeing, now is he? It appears his concerns were with the methods of that particular study, and not the conclusion of an overwhelming consensus. Curiously, you present your information linking a website that appears to be a blog from someone in climate denial, which only reinforces the impression that you, too, are in climate denial. In fact, the more you write, the less interested (IMO) you appear in actual science. It's rather sad that the only lesson you take from Weart is an out of context of a single paper, rather than the copious work on the basics of climate change that I pointed you to. Your reading appears to be rather selective...

Incidentally, Dr's Spencer and Lindzen are quite familar names, as they have quite a history of climate denial themselves - see here and here.

There is no consensus

bakertrg at 04:43 AM on 9 May, 2014

(snip) Despite how my posts are being characterized I'm not intent on being a dissenter I am just skeptical of some of what is here and any website pushing that 97% number so hard and calling it the consensus makes me VERY skeptical of both the message and the messenger.

Sorry if I offended you with my retort Dikran, not my intent but I felt you totally mischaracterized my post drew a conclusion I never made and sent me off to read sources that don't refute my point, aren't relevant to the issue and actually support my position not yours.

(snip) One of his arguments was that the papers in the 97% number actually don't say man is the main cause of global warming... which is exactly my leaning. I'm not emotionally vested in this idea, it's just the best answer from the data I have actually researched.

dikran 593: 97% of the papers that take a position on the question do take the position that it is mostly anthropogenic.

next paragraph

If you want a study of scientists that are publicly stating that humans are the primary cause of climate change, then you won't find one, because scientists have better things to do

so 97% of scientists are taking the position that THE cause of global warming is anthropogenic but none of them are publicly stating that humans are the cause of climate change? Maybe I'm missing something but that seems to contradict itself.

Despite what it may appear to be my goal is to find answers. I am skeptical of some of the things that are held to be incontrovertible here. My main question and the reason I'm posting on this thread is because I strongly disagree with the methodology for coming up with the number 97%. It seems that a lot of scientists think that humans are A cause of global warming and the graphic takes a huge liberty with meaning by saying humans are THE cause. The meanings are vastly different. I have tracked down some of the papers I'm going to see how many say THE cause.

I'm not a climatologist, I do have a background in physics, computer science and engineering, I have no dog in this fight other than I truly want to know what is happening on our planet if not solely for my edification so that I can at least educate my kids to the best of my ability and speak intelligently on the subject which potentially has massive ramifications going forward. In any event I am honestly trying to address each counter to my initial post (despite what is pretty close to being dog piled which is my reading comprehension is any good turns out to also be against the comment policy)

I see the words "easily disproven", but I actually thought it was accepted fact that we have had cooling trends during the modern industrial period despite ever rising CO2 levels. I posted 1900 to 1940 because I believe I read that on this website but in actually going to look I found some different time lines that had downward trends. 1880 to 1915 or 1940 to 1975 would have been a better example for me to use, I stand corrected.

http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/last_200_yrs.html

In any event, the point still remains the same, if the CO2 level is constantly rising and the causation is as great as is being purported shouldn't we see an accelerating temperature change? According to information IPCC admittedly can not explain temperature has been flat for the last 17 years. That is very difficult to explain if the problem is accelerating and even suggests that the causation is either much smaller than alarmists suggest (small enough that mother natures natural variance swallowed it whole) or the link to causation is less strong than you're suggesting.

dr don easterbook gives a fairly informative view both in text and video (though my research shows that he has taken money from the koch brothers) sadly, many players in this discussion have taken funding from one side or another and/or have a book centric profit motive to push their beliefs. Richard Lindzen also falls in this same space. Unfortunately it's hard to determine what came first the ideology or the funding, of course the non consensus supporters are going to look for scientists who share their ideology to champion the cause so it's not surprising that the guys who get funded by big business have the anti AGW ideology. (snip)

The video is long but interesting and he does seem to have quite a bit of data. video the text can be found here and has a lot of great information. Dr Lindzen also offers some pretty compelling video's and his credentials are top notch. That being said his monetary incentive made me watch both videos with a very jaundiced eye. I found him to be pretty credible but I'm always skeptical of people getting paid for their science by a source that only wants a specific outcome.

KR - I briefly looked at Spencer Weart and despite being a believer in global warming comes out against a recent argument for the consensus here. His post about the flawed assumptions in the paper from PNAS made me think he's at least interested in being objective. A very telling point of his post (made on this very website) here poses a big problem for the 97% number. He states that while he is convinced by the evidence, he is surprised by the number who are not. Doesn't appear as if he believes it's only 3% dissenting. He pointed to several reasons why that number could be skewed and he's a recognized figure on your side of the argument.

There is no consensus

Composer99 at 02:23 AM on 22 March, 2014

I'm kind of curious if anyone can show that the mainstream medical science position on gastric ulcers prior to Warren & Marshall's work was anything like as well-supported by evidence or as well-endorsed by the practicing researchers of the time as the scientific consensus of global warming is today.

The interview with Marshall that michael sweet linked to suggests such is not the case, which is likely another reason why the case of Helicobacter is a poor choice in attacking the scientific consensus on global warming.

Another relevant passage from the interview:

One of the things that happened with me is that I was interested in computers, even in 1980 with e-mail, but it was really teletypes in those days. Our library had just got a line to the National Library of Medicine. So I came in and started doing literature searches, because I was interested in computers and it was fun for me. But I started trying to track these bacteria. And I found various, very widespread, dispersed references to things in the stomach, which seemed to be related to the bacteria, going back nearly 100 years. So that we could then develop a hypothesis that these bacteria were causing some problem in the stomach, and maybe that was leading to ulcers. And then, instead of having to do 20 years of research checking out all those different angles, the research was done, but it was never connected up. And so, with the literature searching, as it became available, we were able to pick out the research that was already there and put together this coherent pattern, which linked bacteria and ulcers. It didn't happen overnight. We actually thought about it for two years before we were reasonably confident. It was really quite a few years before we were absolutely water-tight.

(Parenthetically, Marshall goes on at some length about how he likely could have made more progress advancing the hypothesis if he himself had been more diplomatic.)

2014 SkS Weekly News Roundup #9B

monkeyorchid at 00:41 AM on 3 March, 2014

Here's some more evidence of BBC bias, or perhaps just a complete inability to distinguish between science and politics:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-26187711

Check out how the author repeatedly calls manmade climate change a "view" and attacks the Green party for daring to suggest that all government ministers should accept the scientific consensus. I'm not saying the BBC should agree with the Greens, but neither should they present it as a party demanding that everyone agree with them. Meanwhile the BBC has been accused of right-wing bias, which could could be linked to its refusal to treat the science as settled:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/bbc-accused-ofpolitical-bias--on-the-right-not-the-left-9129639.html

Vision Prize: scientists are worried the IPCC is underestimating sea level rise

Tom Curtis at 07:58 AM on 21 February, 2014

Prufocks @7, you have touched on a point which is a slight weakness of the paper. One of the strengths of Oreskes' original study is that she identified papers that did not include direct assessment of anthropogenic contribution to global warming, and did not include them in those that affirm global warming. This did not prevent her study being attacked by "skeptics" with the argument from irrelevent denominator (ie, the claim that she overstated support for the concensus because x papers did not support the concensus because they never directly address the issue). In formulating the categories for Cook et al, Cook et al did not include a category for those papers that explicitly address attribution. Consequently "attribution papers" tend to get sorted into "impacts", "methods", and occassionally "mitigation". The problem is that we cannot, from the paper, directly address the propotion of attribution papers support consensus.

Having said that, Dana has said on a couple of times that 100% of recent attribution papers support >50% anthropogenic contribution to recent warming. I suspect his definition of an attribution paper in that comment may be a bit tighter than one that would have been used in the survey; but cannot be sure without conducting a mini survey of my own.

It should be noted that the "obvious" problem with extending the analysis beyond attribution papers to those that merely accept AGW and go on from there is not a problem at all. Scientists do not simply accept claims. If they adopt AGW as a working hypothesis, it is because they have read a significant number of relevant papers, or at least review papers, and been convinced by the evidence. I am sure there are exceptions, but not enough to distort the result. That means that a general survey like Cook et al will pick up on whether or not controversy about a theory is general, or restricted to a small group unconvinced - and clearly the later is the case.

It should be noted that the criticism of the concensus paper is coming from people who, in general, accept the OISM petition as evidence that there is no concensus, ie, they accept that the signing of an internet petition by bachelors or vetinary science, is evidence that there is no concensus of climate science; but they do not accept that detailed discussion of the consequences of anthropogenic warming by climate scientists is evidence, if those climate scientists assume global warming in that study rather than prove it from first principles.

MP Graham Stringer and CNN Crossfire are wrong about the 97% consensus on human-caused global warming

Russ R. at 14:35 PM on 18 February, 2014

KR @29,

I had completely forgotten that we had previously debated this very issue at WUWT. Thank you for linking to it and refreshing my memory. Nice to see that some people can still be civil even when they disagree.

Anyway, having seen the less-than-polite response you got over there, I don't blame you for giving up in frustration. It's not easy trying to respond to a barrage of simultaneous attacks, as I'm finding out here.

If you disagree with the consensus measured by Cook et al, support your argument on the appropriate threads.

I don't disagree with it. At all. What I disagree with is misrepresenting that "97% Consensus", extending it to cover areas that it never addressed.

If you object to a public understanding of that scientific consensus, I would ask why you feel that policy decisions should be made under perceptual errors on expert opinion.

Far from objecting to a public understanding of the consensus, I feel that public dialogue should accurately reflect exactly what the study acutally found.

2014 SkS Weekly News Roundup #7

Dikran Marsupial at 19:07 PM on 17 February, 2014

Russ R wrote: "I'm sorry you feel that I'm not giving you adequate attention."

Again, this is disingenuous,I did not say that Russ didn't respond to my question, I pointed out that he responded evasively, making no attempt to answer it (by making a counter-attack that Cook et al. didn't address his list of 12 point - straight out of "rhetoric for beginners").

"I gave a list of 12 question that were specifically not covered in the "97% Consensus" from Cook et al. (2013), but were all part a critical chain of reasoning to argue for policy action. I wasn't making an argument for or against any of the 12 questions."

Again, that is disingenuous as you wrote:

"According to your definitions, I'm part of the "97% Consensus", but I still do not support the vast majority of proposed "climate policies" because I have numerous doubts relating to the dozen issues I've listed above."

which shows very clearly that you were making an argument about these 12 points, namely that there were numerous doubts about all of them. The fact that you didn't answer the question, but engaged in evasion instead shows that this was actually mere rhetoric and had no evidential basis

"Your desire to debate each of the 12 questions was not germaine to the point I was making. Sorry."

I didn't express any desire to debate each of the 12 questions, just the first one, to see whether your list of points actually had some evidential basis, or whether it was just a gish gallop designed to allow you to invoke the uncertainty monster to argue against any action on climate change. I guess that question has been answered now - it was just a gish gallop.

I suggest you read this article by Sir Paul Nurse, which explains why the sort of rhetorical arguments used in the polictical debate are an extremely poor approach to discussing science (as you have demonstrated here by frittering away your credibility by evasive rhetoric).

If the politico-economic arguments against action on climate change are so strong, it is hard to understand why those who hold that position seem so keen to substitute bogus scientific arguments in their place (e.g. the list of 12 issues, many of which have no substantial scientific doubt associated with them, e.g. item 2).

DNFTT, sorry Russ, it was your choice to behave that way.

2014 SkS Weekly News Roundup #7

Leto at 14:05 PM on 16 February, 2014

"What observable evidence would cause you to reject your belief that global warming is a serious problem that requires urgent policy action?"

Russ, this strikes me as a cheap rhetorical device rather than a genuine discussion point. The falsifiability of climate science resembles most other aspects of science for which there is overwhelming consensus. There is nothing intrisically unfalsifiable about the key propositions underlying AGW; there is just so much accumulated evidence that it is hard to imagine what combination of errors and conspiracies could account for the current consensus and the multiple independent lines of evidence backing it up. (It is also hard to account for the lameness of the denialist attacks on AGW. If good denialist arguments existed, we would have heard them by now; it was this more than the positive evidence that helped convince me.)

Perhaps you could establish that yours is a genuine question either by answering the following question, or showing how your question is different?

What observable evidence would cause you to reject your belief that smoking causes lung cancer?

MP Graham Stringer and CNN Crossfire are wrong about the 97% consensus on human-caused global warming

Russ R. at 00:45 AM on 16 February, 2014

Tom Curtis,

Good to see you again, and thank you for continuing to be as fact-based and scrupulously analytical as I remember.

First, I wrote my comment here to Dana because I believe that he is being sloppy. He quite rightly points out that individuals who accept only "minimal" impact from human activities are not part of the "97% Consensus" (he should know, he was a co-author").

However, he goes on to attack "those who support the status quo and oppose efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions" saying they "have long engaged in a disinformation campaign to misinform the public about the expert consensus." I'm making the point that one can be completely reasonable in opposing "climate policies", while still completely agreeing with the "97% consensus", because the two "consensus" positions are not sufficient on their own to necessitate action.

Second, you wrote: "Of course, it is possible that Russ is different. If so, he can undoubtedly link us to his criticisms of errors in the science by Senator Inhofe (for example)." While you know this line of argument is clearly ad hominem, I'd be happy to indulge your request. Since I'm not an American, I don't pay much attention to Senator Inhofe, so I haven't felt the need to find and correct his errors. But if you want an example of me being impartial and objective, back last summer while I was giving you and others here a lesson on the economics of gasoline taxes in British Columbia, demand elasticity and exchange rate differentials, I was also arguing with a regular over at WUWT over his opposition to the BC gas tax based on a flawed economic argument. http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/07/15/why-revenue-neutral-isnt-and-other-costs-of-the-bc-tax/ (As a financial analyst by profession, economics is one of the few things I know a bit about, and I like to limit my arguments to things that I know something about.)

In this case... I know what Cook et al (2013) said, I know what it didn't say, and I know that the way it's being applied and presented is not entirely in keeping with what it actually said.

Attacks on scientific consensus on climate change mirror tactics of tobacco industry

Fergus Brown at 23:15 PM on 30 November, 2013

Poster: suggest you read the AMS Blog: http://blog.ametsoc.org/columnists/going-to-the-source-for-accurate-information/

Precisely proving the point made in the article, Heartland has sent out an email which at first glance might look like one from the AMS. The AMS response has been to point out that the 'interpretation' of the paper is basically BS.

This is a canard which appeared last year, and in 2009. It's a regular attack, in other words, on the consensus. From familiar 'players'. Who are using familiar tactics.

Extreme weather isn't caused by global warming

dvaytw at 00:37 AM on 12 November, 2013

Has anyone seen Bjorn Lomborg's latest:

Don’t blame climate change for extreme weather

He makes a lot of claims allegedly based in the IPCC's 600-page report,

Managing the Risks of Extreme Events and Disasters to Advance Climate Change Adaptation

...basically saying that the benefits of AGW will outweigh the costs until pretty far down the road. I don't have time to verify his claims myself; has anyone seen a rebuttal to his argument?

This
No, climate change will not be good for the world

and this
NY Times Says Earth Has Unlimited Carrying Capacity, So Forget Climate Change and Party On, Homo Sapiens!

are relevant, but I'm specifically concerned with his claim that it is the IPCC itself which is saying these things. I'm getting attacked by a guy in a debate who says, "You've been talking all along about how a skeptic must accept the scientific consensus... now you're disagreeing with it when it doesn't suit your ideology!"

Consensus study most downloaded paper in all Institute of Physics journals

gpwayne at 15:38 PM on 15 October, 2013

MartinG: to produce a logical rebuttal, a logical argument is required. Most of the arguments I've seen attempt to find error in the methodology where there was none, build straw-men only to set them on fire, or attack the authors in crude ad-hominems.

Outside of that, and with the patience of a saint, the team has responded repeatedly to criticisms, here and elsewhere. If you would really 'rather read some logical rebuttals', and given that it took me all of five minutes to find, list and link to the following, I'm moved to ask - what's stopping you?

Debunking 97% Climate Consensus Denial

Debunking New Myths about the 97% Expert Consensus on Human-Caused Global Warming

97% consensus on human-caused global warming has been widely discredited and misclassified 35% of abstracts

The 5 characteristics of global warming consensus denial

The Cook et al. (2013) 97% consensus result is robust

Debunking 97% Climate Consensus Denial

Tom Curtis at 11:23 AM on 10 September, 2013

Charlie A @7, first, I see no indication at the first link that the consensus is that humans cause "some" global warming.

Second, it is not possible to interpret the Cook et al survey consistently such that each rating category is unique (ie, so that papers do not fall into to rating categories) without interpreting "AGW" as being a theory that implies that at least 50% of recent warming (typically ascribed as the last 50 years, or since 1950) has an anthropogenic cause. As surveys should be interpreted as consistent if they can be, that means Cook et al find that 97% of papers discussing the issue endorse the theory that >50% of recent warming has been anthropogenic in origin.

Suggestions to the contrary are primarilly inspired by rhetorical needs rather than analysis. This is seen in that:

a) The initial response of so-called "skeptics" was to argue that papers had been incorrectly classified as endorsing the the consensus, when the papers involved all acknowledge that increasing CO2 will cause some warming. That initial response is inconsistent with the same "skeptics" later claims that to "endorse AGW" means just to endorse that increased CO2 will cause some warming; and

b) The response in self rating showed a higher tendency to rate the papers as "rejecting AGW", than the abstract ratings, thus showing the authors of "skeptical" papers interpreted the "rejection of AGW" as being consistent with accepting some warming from increased CO2.

It was only when initial rhetorical attacks on Cook et al failed to get traction that "skeptics" suddenly "discovered" that everybody endorses AGW. Interestingly, this same rhetorical tactic has been used on every prior paper showing a consensus in support of AGW.

So, in answer to your final question, the proportion of climate scienctists who agree with the claim that most (>50%) of recent warming has an anthropogenic cause is almost certainly >90%, and probably greater than 96%. We know this not just from Cook et al, but from a variety of other studies examining the consensus.

Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists: Closing the Consensus Gap

Bert from Eltham at 12:01 PM on 20 August, 2013

This is why John Cook's refereed paper 'Qualifying the Consensus' is so important! It is also why it is attacked with the most spurious inane analyses.

The anti science brigade will always do damage to the rest of us. The anti vaccination mob against preventable diseases are a good example of a subset of deniers that fear an outcome that has no basis in scientific reality. Yet when there is a lethal outbreak of whooping cough these deniers line up in droves.

I look forward to all the deniers having a 'road to Damascus' conversion. The comments on denial sites seem to me to be now only the most fervent ignorati. Cherry picking has become such an art, that the Japanese would categorise it as a 'National Treasure'!

Bert

The 5 characteristics of global warming consensus denial

scaddenp at 07:59 AM on 30 May, 2013

A certain breed of "sceptic" does this - usually referred to as lukewarmers. So classification of what you mean by "sceptic" is tricky. In all those polls that ask "do you believe in man-made climate change", I am happy to agree that those that say "no" are not "sceptic" - bringing a fine word into disrepute - but simply and accurately deniers.

However a real skeptic is critical of all evidence. Faux skeptics fete any paper that suggests low sensitivity or reduced effects and attack any paper suggests high sensitivity or expensive consequences. (Of course same criticism of lack of skepticism can levelled at the greenpeace crowd but in reverse).

For the policy maker though, you have to go with consensus position and precautionary principle.

The 5 characteristics of global warming consensus denial

Tom Curtis at 11:06 AM on 29 May, 2013

Brandon @8, I (not Dana) have compared various permuations of the results to see if various criticisms of the paper actually have any impact on the result. For example, assuming a vary large number (50%) of false positives among affirmations only reduces the headline result from 97.2% to 96.2%. Such calculations in no way endorse the arguments being tested. Nor do they endorse the claim that 50% (or whatever) of the affirmations are false positives (or that false positives are only to be found among affirmations). They merely show how robust the results are even if the criticisms are given far more weight than they deserve.

In fact, the nearest I have come to the comparison you make (from memory) is to compare categories 1&2 as a percentage of categories 1,2,5,6,&7 (92.76%). (And no, I am not endorsing the absurd notion that no category 3 rated abstracts actually affirm the consensus.)

The silly thing is that I have to make these calculations. Where the critics of the paper making a serious analysis, they would perform these calculations themselves. Doing so they would conclude that the paper was interesting, and together with other papers analyzing the consensus showed that it is almost certain that papers endorsing the conensus (>50% warming anthropogenic) constitute >90% of all papers discussing the topic, and likely that they constitute >95% of such papers. We might then quibble about whether that is best called a "consensus" or merely an "overwhelming majority".

Serious analysis is, however, not the purpose of those blogs; most certainly not the purpose of your blogs. The purpose of the blogs is found in this graph:

Those attacking this paper, with few exceptions, know the overwhelming disconnect between public perception of the state of scientific opinion and the reality. They also know that that disconnect helps maintain strong political pressure against effective actions to combat climate change. Therefore they are bent on preserving the false perception by the public. They are determined to keep the public decieved for their own political ends. Hence they provide talking points, not analysis, in their attack on Cook et al 2013. Taking note, no doubt of Lincoln's dictum, they set their ambition on fooling enough of the people, enough of the time.

On the value of consensus in climate communication

gpwayne at 16:30 PM on 25 May, 2013

I'm wryly amused by this little spat, because all the protagonists seem to be operating in the famously closed world of academia - a gentle accusation that is characterised by the comment that the study "doesn’t meaningfully enlarge knowledge of the state of scientific opinion on climate change". My rebuttal to that point is that for those who do climate science, or study it from a lay perspective (e.g. me), scientific opinion is irrelevant to the actual science. There are no planks to my own arguments with contrarians that depend on opinion (wheras nearly all contrarian arguments are not only opinionated, but usually stated as fact).

My arguments depend in their entirity on published papers, the experiments designed to test them, and the evidence that supports them (plus the consilience of climate science with other disciplines, and with the foundational science on which it rests, and with which it must conform).

Yet this study is really important in my view, and to support that view I need to ask that we step out of the scientific community, and into the wider world. On arrival, we might find something disconcerting: while it would be nice to think that the issues we're discussing are about science, in fact the issue is something else entirely, something grubby and distasteful, something that I have found scientists and activists are very reluctant to engage with, and that is propaganda.

We are at war. We didn't want it, but it was forced on us, by those who cannot or will not embrace the implications of the science, and by those whose interests are threatened by those implications i.e. fossil fuel companies. Since the demagogues have no science to back up their arguments, it is necessary to find other weapons with which to wage war, and these weapons are stamped out of molds all too familiar: attacks on credibility and probity, insinuation, misrepresentation, demonisation, conspiracy, and implied or asserted furthering of vested interest. These are the weapons of the ideologue, and what this study does is put an equivalent weapon in my hand - one I have no hesitation in pointing at the enemy, because I recognise that there is good propaganda as well as bad, and what little I contribute is, I hope, of the former kind. It certainly isn't science.

It is also important to understand where this battle is being fought. It is taking place in the media; the paper itself demonstrates that it isn't taking place within the climate science community. And it isn't scientists waging this war - at best, I think scientists feel co-opted, as if they've been caught up in a bar brawl when they were just trying to get a glass of water. Reading Kahan's remarks, there is a sense of frustration and annoyance which he acknowledges, but frames in terms of some putative failure on his part, or on the part of those trying to improve the communication of science. This misses the boat: science will never, ever, convince the public to support political and economic measures to mitigate or adapt to climate change. They don't get it, don't get the compelling probabilities, don't get the causal chain, don't get the timescales or the rapid development, which often appears contradictory or equivocal.

What the public do get is propaganda. They may not recognise it as such, but so powerful is the effect of the constant repetition that the public discourse is blighted and twisted out of shape, where black really can be made to appear white, where there is no nuance and no shades of grey, and where there is no such thing as a fact. And in this petty war, one of the facts most open to attack is the consensual nature of climate science, for the 'unsettled' science is, as John points out, not only Luntz's weapon, but that of the tobacco industry before it, and perhaps more emotively, the principle tool of the National Socialists in the 1930s. I won't repeat Goebbel's aphorism about propaganda, but I will point out the consistency between his application of it, and that of all ideologues who followed, of which Luntz is just one more professional liar.

This is a very old debate: when does the means justify the ends? Previously, I've identified the problem as the 'Bomber Harris' paradox. Harris ran the RAF's Bomber Command and is held responsible for either shortening the war by firebombing German cities, or for destroying the moral credibility of the Allied forces by being as inhuman and evil as the Nazis. This debate carries echoes of the same issue: the denial brigade lie all the time, so we find it incumbent to be truthful. Deniers never admit mistakes, so we have to (as SkS did, bravely, this week - and of course got pilloried for it - was this honesty successful if success is measured in propaganda terms?).

So there's the paradox: while science continues on its quiet course through the long days of number crunching and patient gathering of information, there is a dirty war raging outside. Scientists don't want to be like Harris, don't want to tool up and start burning stuff, and good job too. Leave the dirty work to the soldiers, but don't think this war will be won by science, by evidence, or by banging on about the consensus, for this paper is nothing more than our missile shield, our Patriots, our counter-intelligence. It's purpose is to sabotage the enemy's propaganda, and for that I'm thankful because I'm very short of effective weapons when science and evidence don't work.

Skeptical Science Study Finds 97% Consensus on Human-Caused Global Warming in the Peer-Reviewed Literature

Tom Curtis at 07:53 AM on 18 May, 2013

william @90, I'll bite. Just how often has the past consensus of a mature science (one with more than a million man hours of scientific research behind it) been wrong? I can only think of one instance (continental drift) and in that instance the alternative theory presented at the time was also wrong, but when a correct theory was presented it was rapidly adopted as the consensus view.

People often forget how few were the number of scientists before the twentieth century, and how limited their resources. For example, science courses (other than Mathematics) did not even exist at Cambridge University until 1851. With the small number of scientists in the past, and their limited resources, it took time to falsify promising theories. Further, most "examples" of theories that have been overturned are like Newton's theory of motion in which the overturning theory predicts the same results as the original theory withing the range of conditions in which the first theory was tested. Even today, NASA uses Newtonian theories of motion to work out the orbits of satellites and interplanetary missions.

In fact, if the history of science teaches us anything, it teaches us that once a scientific theory commands a consensus with in an area of detailed observation, any future theory will predict the same observational consequences within the resolution of current observations. So unless the CO2 concentration exceeds that of Venus, or drops near zero (the range of current observations), the history of science suggests that if any theory replaces AGW it also will predict a CO2/temperature linkage.

Further, people often forget (if they ever knew) the real bite of the argument from scientific consensus. The scientists are the experts, where an expert is somebody who knows enough about a subject not to make dunderhead mistakes. If there is a scientific consensus, then that means the vast majority of people who will not make silly mistakes accept the theory (and the exceptions all have known, strong ideological agendas, like Fred Singer who turned down a job offer from the White House because it would not allow him enough influence on policy). That means it is extraordinarilly unlikely that there is any obvious error in the theory of AGW, while obvious errors in alternative theories abound.

However, this is beside the point. Climate change deniers frequently argue that there is no scientific consensus on climate change. The need to. If they do not accept that false belief they are forced to explain why so many people who know far more about the evidence then they do, and typically are far more intelligent, accept a theory while they reject it. This article, and the paper it reports on merely shows that frequent denier claim. The frenzy with which the paper has been attacked by climate change deniers shows they know what is at stake. If this paper becomes well known and accepted, their most powerfull (and falacious) argument - that there is no scientific concensus so therefore the evidence must not be conclusive- is false.

Be part of a landmark citizen science paper on consensus

Jonas at 08:44 AM on 26 April, 2013

I usually give to SkS at the end/beginning of the year. A paper that more thorrowly investigates the consensus (the biggest attack point of big oil/coal) makes me exceed my planned giving budgets ... we need this paper, and we need it free.

Recursive Fury: Facts and misrepresentations

citizenschallenge at 01:34 AM on 26 March, 2013

Sorry JH, but I'm going to bit, quick'n dirty:

The question: "So in what way; which parts of 'science' need defending? From what?"

~ ~ ~

Science needs defending from people who misrepresent it.

Science needs defending from people who believe it is OK to quote mind and cherry pick in order to defend a preconceived notion.

Science needs defending from people who mangle the intellectual playing field and ignore the fact that no Earth Science study is ever perfect and the job of scientists is to separate the grain from the chaff.

Science needs defending from people who forget that scientists learn from their mistakes, acknowledge doubts and flaws, and move forward in a nonstop effort to distill the best provisional consensus possible from the evidence that's available, as the pursuit of further understanding continues.

Science needs defending from people who refuse to acknowledge and learn from their mistakes.

Science needs defending from people who believe their political causes allow them commit intellectual atrocity after intellectual atrocity.

Science needs defending from people who resort to paranoid and vicious personal attacks rather than focus on LEARNING !

Living in Denial in Canada

BillEverett at 16:08 PM on 3 March, 2013

Possibly off-topic comment: An important issue is raised in this post without concrete suggestions for dealing with the issue. Moreover, dealing with the issue is probably outside the mission of the SkS site. Nevertheless, I continue.

The issue: What to do about implicatory denial?

Example of a vague (non-concrete) suggestion for dealing with the issue: We each need to behave consistently with our belief that AGW is a serious threat.

I think one of the reasons for implicatory denial is the lack of a clear, detailed, articulated vision of how we want to be living in 2050 with the problem "solved." In other words, not knowing exactly where I want to be, it is hard for me the think about where to go next in order to finally get there. My first rule of thumb for attacking a difficult problem is: Begin at the end.

Briefly, here are a few skeletal suggestions for a 2050 vision. Non-permitted commercial emission of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere is treated in the courts (including the International Court) as a crime against humanity, similar to genocide. We live and work in shelters (homes, office buildings, factories, etc.) that are maximally energy efficient, that produce useful energy forms and carriers, and that are connected to intelligent energy grids as both a sink and source of energy, depending on the variable circumstances. We move ourselves and physical materials and products the minimum needed and most efficiently. Our healthy diets are produced sustainably. And so on.

The development and communication of a consensus vision for 2050 might help to free people from the stasis of implicatory denial.

Did Murdoch's The Australian Misrepresent IPCC Chair Pachauri on Global Warming?

Macro at 18:08 PM on 2 March, 2013

I have deliberately refrained from commenting before now in order to let the topic run its course (so to speak) however as bill warned some days back the commentator Andy S is not the genuine article, the good that comes out of the following discussions/rebuttals will be helpful to the genuine enquirer, but to Andy S it is just a game. Here are his comments on "Climate Conversation" (sic) a little group of "skeptics" who chat amongst themselves about the latest "climate conspiracy" following the above warning:

(-snip-)

Conspiracy Theorists Respond to Evidence They're Conspiracy Theorists With More Conspiracy Theories

Kevin C at 19:59 PM on 27 February, 2013

The new paper is based on one very important point that I completely failed to grasp on my first reading of the paper.

It is completely unsurprising that many climate contrarians reacted with anger to the original ideation paper - and as a result that reaction provides no evidence of anything. The key point is that the anger reaction was expressed by constructing new conspiracy theories. That provides additional data which tends to support the original hypothesis.

The new data is not without it's problems - there is no control test in this case. Steve Mosher correctly suggests that as a control we would compare the reactions of the consensus community to an attack, although calibrating the results would be problematic. I am doubtful of an exclusive link between conservative ideologies and conspiracy ideation - I gave up reading the liberal newsroll 'Common Dreams' after finding too many stories which sounded like conspiracy theories and did not survive fact checking.

Oreskes' work is the outlier here. It is a conspiracy theory, but one which so far appears not to be born out of consipracy ideation and which survives fact-checking. Of course that does not mean that people of a liberal mindset cannot build it into their own conspiracy ideation. The issue has to be broken down into three separate questions:

1. Does the conspiracy theory survive a skeptical analysis of the evidence? (Roughly, is it true?)

2. Was the conspiracy theory born out of conspiracy-ideated thought processes?

3. Does the conspiracy theory continue to propogate through conspiracy-ideated thought processes?

These questions can have any combination of answers. My guess for Oreskes is that the answers would be yes, no, it varies. (Note: first answer corrected)

There is no such thing as climate change denial

Cara Hernandez at 10:56 AM on 21 February, 2013

James Taylor has followed up on his dishonest editorial of last week with a second editorial based on misrepresenting the very same study. The latest editorial is entitled "As The Consensus Among Scientists Crumbles, Global Warming Alarmists Attack Their Integrity" and can be found here.

There is no such thing as climate change denial

Composer99 at 04:01 AM on 16 February, 2013

The comments by pseudoskeptics and assorted contrarians on The Conversation version of this post, as far as I can tell, universally neglected the most important part of the post:

There are two aspects to scientific consensus. Most importantly, you need a consensus of evidence – many different measurements pointing to a single, consistent conclusion. As the evidence piles up, you inevitably end up with near-unanimous agreement among actively researching scientists: a consensus of scientists.

The reason there's a consensus of scientists is because there's a consensus of evidence. But for some reason, none of the contrarians wanted to engage with that part (I can't imagine why not).

Discussion on the relative importance of a scientific consensus on climate change IMO obscures the fact that every single other widely-accepted major scientific theory is also backed by a large, perhaps overwhelming, scientific consensus, in an almost identical manner to the way climate science is accepted:

evolution of organisms through descent & modification
quantum mechanics
general & special relativity
plate tectonics
germ theory of disease

(and the list goes on)

The only difference is that, except for medical science, attacks on these consensus positions are generally the sole purview of isolated individuals or groups.

What self-styled climate "skeptics" might not realize (or might try to ignore or downplay) is that anyone familiar with attacks on some of these other consensus positions can quickly spot similarities between their methodologies and those of, say, young earth creationists, or anti-vaccine activists, and the like.

Lukewarmerism, a.k.a. Ignoring Inconvenient Evidence

dhogaza at 12:02 PM on 12 February, 2013

In the case of Mosher and Fuller, I wonder if the need to distance themselves from the consensus view despite their actually sharing the consensus view is related to the fact that they wrote and profited from a book that accused leading climate scientists of scientific fraud?

It was Mosher who, years ago, before ClimateGate, coined the term Michael "Piltdown" Mann as part of the CA-led attack on MBH 1998/99 and the "hockey stick", in essence claiming that his work on climate reconstructions was a fraud on the level of Piltdown Man.

Perhaps portraying the mainstream as having moved to their view, rather than the obvious fact that their view has moved to be in line with the mainstream (regarding climate sensitivity to a doubling of CO2, at least) is easier than admitting that their earlier claims of scientific fraud were unwarranted.

Lukewarmerism, a.k.a. Ignoring Inconvenient Evidence

shoyemore at 04:42 AM on 12 February, 2013

Steve Mosher recently defined "Lukewarmer" on WUWT as (reformatted for clarity)

... back in 2007 or 2008 we did a poll on Climate audit asking the question
How much of the warming we see today is due to GHG?
There was a distinct group of us that said ‘some, but not all ” heck even Willis said 30%
We called ourselves Lukewarmers.
Over the years a few of us have worked to define what we mean by Lukewarmer and what defines the position.
1. Acceptance of radiative physics.
2. Acceptance of a lower bound to sensitivity. basically the no feedback estimate is 1.2C per doubling. We think that the true sensitivity will be above 1.
3. over/under line. The over under line is 3C. That is, if offered a bet that the climate sensitivity is either ‘between 1 and 3 or over 3, we take the under bet.
ballpark:
less than 1.     2 5%
    1.2 to 3.     50%
    3 to 4.5      45%
     4.5+          5%
So if you believe that GHG can warm the planet and not cool it, and you think that the mean estimate of the IPCC of 3.2 is more likely high than low, then you are a lukewarmer. But you have to drop the crazy refusals over radiative physics.
Note:
Lukewarmers dont have to attack the surface record, its probably correct to within .2C
We also dont have to slam models, or invent kook theories about the sun.
Everything we believe is well within the consensus and we think that you can change the consensus from inside the tent rather than attacking everything and everyone.
Focus on sensitivity, work to refine that. You see there is a debate in climate science, its a debate about sensitivity.
When folks start putting their effort into that ( instead of frittering away time on tangents then you will see changes.

I find most ofthat innocuous, which suggest that "Lukewarmerism" is more of an emotional position with regard to scientific consensus than a fundamental scientific difference. Ridley and Michaels are definitely not "Lukewarmers" like Mosher.

Climate science peer review is pal review

MartinG at 18:21 PM on 7 February, 2013

What more evidence do I want??. Well, for a start I want some evidence. Come on guys – you are not going to convince anyone with a critical mind of anything with phrases like “pal review” is “no review” , and “ I consider junk”. If those papers were not subjected to a proper review then they shouldn’t have been there – no question - and the reviewers, and especially the editor did not do their jobs.

But the papers are not “junk” just because you say they are, or because many people disagree with the conclusions. As far as I am aware de Freitas still considers them legitimate, and we don’t have any evidence from the reviewers that they didn’t do a proper review. That the contents are attacked in subsequent papers by providing new (or old) scientific arguments proving that the original authors were in error – why that’s just great – that’s how the literature is supposed to work – an interchange of ideas until we reach a consensus. As long as there are well founded scientific questions to the subject – or to the established consensus we should welcome them and deal with them based on the science.

That was the original point I made in this thread. A peer review cannot be used as support for the validity of a paper any more than the absence of a peer review proves that an article is bad. But I agree that all published papers should be subject to a peer review for the purposes of weeding out unsupported or unserious papers. Nor is a peer review by people in your own technical field that you know (pal review) necessarily bad. I would get my "pals" to peer review my next article without any bad conscience - just because I know they have my best interests at heart and will help me to improve the quality and validity of the paper. (but I would also invite a couple who had different ideas to pitch in.) It all depends if you are interested in using the literature to convince everybody out there that your ideas and conclusions are correct, or if you use it in a common search for the truth. I feel we should be looking at content and not get hung up with superficial jargon.

For good measure I must state that I haven’t read the papers involved so I can’t comment on their quality.

Climate of Doubt Strategy #2: Exaggerate Uncertainty

Phila at 04:24 AM on 28 November, 2012

There is vastly more uncertainty about potential terrorist attacks than there is about global warming, yet with terrorism we feel it is our duty to take action despite the unknowns.

During the Bush years, I often made an analogy to Dick Cheney's celebrated "One-Percent Doctrine": "If there's a 1-percent chance that Pakistani scientists are helping al-Qaeda build or develop a nuclear weapon, we have to treat it as a certainty in terms of our response." It was especially effective with people who claimed to see a 50/50 chance (at best) that current climate predictions were accurate.

Unfortunately, I don't think dredging up this ancient history would work nowadays. Most denialists I know would probably say "Dick who?"

That said, ideologues who laugh off AGW often demand that we take immediate preventive action on far murkier problems, on the basis of much more questionable statistics. Like fighting same-sex marriage to protect Civilization Itself from...something or other. Or launching expensive, disruptive schemes to "prevent" the statistically irrelevant threat of in-person voter fraud.

Meanwhile, a massive international conspiracy is the only coherent alternative explanation for the scientific consensus on AGW. There's no evidence that any such conspiracy does or could exist. And yet, this total lack of evidence -- let alone certainty -- doesn't seem to stop a lot of these folks from making very confident allegations about global scientific corruption. Funny how that works.

President Obama's Statement on Climate Change

Doug Hutcheson at 13:50 PM on 26 November, 2012

Q Sounds like you're saying, though, in the current environment, we're probably still short of a consensus on some kind of attack.

THE PRESIDENT: That I'm pretty certain of.

Really? You think Republicans are not in a consensus with Democrats about Global Warming? Well, I never!

Rose and Curry Double Down on Global Warming Denial

citizenschallenge at 08:17 AM on 5 November, 2012

{Doug B @49
Thanks great list!}
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

My little "Curry's No Consensus On Consensus - Challenged" is still a work in progress, so when I can I reread and refine. I want to share today's rewrite of paragraph one's review.

cheers
citizenschallenge

===============================================
Judith Curry writes:
¶1) The manufactured consensus of the IPCC has had the unintended consequences of distorting the science, elevating the voices of scientists that dispute the consensus, and motivating actions by the consensus scientists and their supporters that have diminished the public’s trust in the IPCC.

=================================================

re: ¶1
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

JC: "manufactured consensus of the IPCC has had the unintended consequences of distorting the science..." <<<

That is an incredibly big and damaging charge.

Where is Curry's evidence!?
Specifically what topics have the IPCC distorted?
Why no list?

Where is Curry's examination comparing the scientific community's assessments
with the IPCC's manufactured and published "consensus"?

Where does Curry outline and review the many meetings and conferences and writings and back and forth communication that goes on during this IPCC manufacturing process?

Why make the base assumption: 'IPCC's all sinister'?
{Just because the news is bad for big business? I thought this was science we were discussing?}

The IPCC is actually a small organization tasked with compiling the available legitimate science.

Curry doesn't seriously examine who the IPCC are; what they have been legally tasked with doing; and how they have gone about their task.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

JC: "... elevating the voices of scientists that dispute the consensus..." <<<

What is Curry talking about?
What's it supposed to mean?
What point is Curry trying to weave into her story here?
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

JC: "... and motivating actions by the consensus scientists..." <<<

Scientists read and talk and meet on all sorts of different levels. There are seasons and politics just as in every other professional endeavor. But, it's still a serious organization with a planned process, openly established and openly conducted, and it's produces reports on the state of the science. Fair and square.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

JC: "have diminished the public’s trust in the IPCC." <<<

You won't find anything here about Seitz and Singer and the tactics of manufacturing doubt?

Why not examine the various dirty tricks and PR tactics that have targeted the IPCC and climatologists in general?

Why not ask if there's evidence this "diminished pubic trust" was the product of a manufactured publicity campaign?

=================================================

Here's some evidence:

The American Denial of Global Warming
-
Perspectives on Ocean Science

Series: "Perspectives on Ocean Science" [12/2007] [Science] [Show ID: 13459]
Uploaded by UCtelevision on Dec 20, 2007

===============

A Merchant of Doubt attacks Merchants of Doubt
by Naomi Oreskes and Erik Conway

Nuccitelli et al. (2012) Show that Global Warming Continues

From Peru at 17:40 PM on 12 October, 2012

I don’t know who trunkmonkey is , but here you can found perhaps one of the most extreme bloggers in the ”climate skeptical” community.

In the link there an agrresive attack against Kevin Trenberth, who is called among other things a “hardcore Stalinist” and a then insulted in a way that is so offensive that I cannot quote it without being snipped (read the blog post if your stomach is strong enough).

What is more shocking is that this blogger, Lubos Motl, is a superstring theory quantum physicist(perhaps the most advanced area in the physics community), yet he cannot understand the elementary thermodynamics of planetary climate.

I suspect that the explanation for the paradox of having people that are scientifically educated yet deny the evidence is ideology, since he believes that the climate consensus is a a “worldwide communist conspiracy” against capitalism and the free market. Maybe he had a trauma with the Stalinist regime decades ago, because he is Czech.

What is more sad is that he is not alone in his beliefs. Czech Republic president Václav Klaus believes in this , and had even said things like calling environmentalists "the biggest threat to freedom, democracy, market economy and prosperity" and even "Environmentalism should belong in the social sciences" along with other "isms" such as communism, feminism, and liberalism”.

Not to mention some sectors of the US Republican Party...

I have two questions:

1) How widespread are in the physics community this kind of ideas? I used to believe the physics community one of the more liberal and progressive among the scientific community

2) Maybe this skeptical science team paper could be used at Lubos Motl blog to show how wrong he is about the Kevin Trenberth’s “missing heat”(I think a paper will have a zero effect on himself, but maybe it could wake up true skepticism among his readers)

Naomi Oreskes' study on consensus was flawed

DSL at 13:02 PM on 24 September, 2012

Roxanne, I would say that this is an apples and oranges situation, and Bray knows it. As he points out, Oreskes tested for consensus on AGW basics, which at the time were being attacked by "skeptics." Bray wanted to see if there was consensus not on whether it was happening or whether it was us or even whether it was bad, but on specific issues -- sensitivity, model projections, etc.

I'll read Bray further and see if I have anything to add. It's all kind of goofy to me, though, since the science is what it is. Consensus convinces the untrained and unfamiliar, or it makes research direction decisions. For the former, all you really need to know is that all of the world's major scientific bodies have issued statements of acceptance and concern. For the latter, read Spencer Weart's work at AIP.

There is consensus for a limited range of sensitivity, but there is no consensus on a single figure. That is clear in the literature. If someone wants to turn that into "there is no consensus on AGW," well, they are free to abuse the untrained public. We'll all just deal with the aftermath.

PBS False Balance Hour - What's Up With That?

Composer99 at 12:38 PM on 21 September, 2012

Between the (IMO highly disingenuous) potshots at NOAA, the tiresome reference to Galileo, and rhetoric such as:

Have you forgotten the most basic principle of science, falsifying the null hypothesis.

I must say fretslider appears to be trying to frame the discussion on this thread in a manner better suited to climate pseudoskepticism, a framing which I for one categorically reject.

The attempt to sidestep the massive body of physics, paleoclimate reconstruction, empirical observation, and experimental support undergirding the mainstream understanding of Earth climate (and supporting the consensus position on climate change) with reference to poorly-defined (at the immediate point of use), much-abused concepts from the philosophy or practice of science (as a process) is a behaviour which I personally find infuriating (as compared to conspiracy-mongering, which is amusing).

It is IMO exactly this sort of behaviour that fretslider is engaging in with this sort of nonsense (which also IMO happens to be a personal attack - by oh-so-careful insinuation - against DSL, at least if DSL is a practicing scientist).

Bluntly put, the four pillars supporting consensus climate science - theory, paleoclimate, experiment, observations - are of such size and robustness that they handily falsify any would-be "null hypothesis" which attempts to eliminate or minimize the human element in the modern climate change we find ourselves in - a change, I might add, which is occuring at breack-neck pace (however slowly it might be perceived).

Many self-styled skeptics have been asked to pony up the evidence to support their positions and have fallen short (or fallen silent). So I appeal to fretslider to dispense with the snide innuendo and empty philosophy and get down to providing evidence.

PBS False Balance Hour - What's Up With That?

yocta at 09:10 AM on 20 September, 2012

This is turning out to be quite a bit of a frenzy.

If you just Google news search PBS Climate Change
as of 9am Thursday Sydney time,
you will see the top four:

PBS gets pummeled for showing balanced global-warming piece
From a self confessed skeptic looking to challenge the scientific consensus

PBS Attacked for Allowing Global Warming Skeptic to Speak
From NewsBusters (blog)

PBS NewsHour's Climate Change Report Raises Eyebrows (VIDEO)
From Huffington Post (considered Left leaning I believe)

PBS NewsHour Propagates Confusion On Climate Change
From Media Matters for America (blog)

It would be very interesting to perform some sort of metric to see the direction and weighting the different organisations discuss this event. I know something like that was done on The Australian (Newscorp owned) a while back.

Since someone brought up Einstein I think it is pertinent to put a quote from him here:

This world is a strange madhouse. Currently, every coachman and every waiter is debating whether relativity theory is correct. Belief in this matter depends on political party affiliation

The Continuing Denial of the Scientific Consensus on Climate Change

vrooomie at 00:58 AM on 26 August, 2012

When a spade is a MOERRI

Sorry, Bernard...couldn't resist! I agree wholeheartedly, and it's this--timidity, for lack of a better term--that science/scientists ofttimes exhibit that allow denialISTS [mod: if you wish, please italicize my caps; not sure how to code for italics] to win the day. I see it over on WUWT *all the time*, where they ~whinge and whine~ about having the terrible, dastardly ad hom term "denier" flung at them, in the same breath the astonishing attacks, verifiably ad homs, get flung at The Inconvenient Data and its Messengers.

Pielke Jr and McIntyre Assist Christy's Extreme Weather Obfuscation

OPatrick at 05:04 AM on 18 August, 2012

What disturbs me most about this episode, and so many more like it, is the way that genuine valid criticism gets swamped by hyperbole.

As Dana notes above it may be arguable, for example, that Field was not as explicit about economic losses as he could, or should, have been. However when Roger Pielke starts his post with claims that Field was 180 degrees wrong and fundamentally and unambiguously misrepresenting the IPCC it is inevitable that he will attract criticism for these claims.

Certain commentators will then focus on the way that Pielke was 'attacked' and the impression will be given that anything critical of the consensus position is once again being dismissed out of hand.

This seems a very common pattern to me.

IPCC is alarmist

Tom Curtis at 18:17 PM on 5 August, 2012

krisbaum @76, "grey literature" is a term from library and information science and refers to the accessibility of the literature, not its quality, nor even the quality of the review process it undergoes. There are many examples of grey literature that undergo far more rigorous review than the normal peer reviewed literature - IPCC reports being just one example. Consequently your blanket condemnation of grey literature is misinformed.

It is also evasive. Your attack on the IPCC's integrity is based on the fact that the IPCC uses grey literature, and indeed it says it does. That is a matter of complete irrelevance unless you can also show that the grey literature actually used by the IPCC is actually of dubious quality. To mount the argument that IPCC reports are dubious because they used grey literature, but then to insist that the dubious nature of grey literature be treated as an axiom is to beg the entire question.

Here is the challenge you need to take - go through the 54 purported examples of grey literature in the IPCC AR4 WG1 Chapt 1 as identified by P Gosselin, and show:

1) Why the reference should be considered of low quality such that it should not be used in the report;

2) Why the use made of the reference in the report was inappropriate given its nature and low quality; and

3) What major conclusion, as identified in the summary for policy makers could not have been made without use of that reference.

If you decline this challenge, you show your entire argument to be based on innuendo rather than analysis. At its best, it would amount to an argument from reverse authority - ie, the literature is classified as not authoritative (ie, grey) and therefore is automatically rejected on that basis alone.

Personally, I am going to enjoy your attempts to explain why:

Agassiz, L., 1837: Discours d’ouverture sur l’ancienne extension des glaciers. Société Helvétique des Sciences Naturelles, Neufchâtel.

and

Lorenz, E.N., 1967: On the Nature and Theory of the General Circulation of the Atmosphere. Publication No. 218, World Meteorological Association, Geneva, 161 pp.

ought to be considered to be of poor quality and not worth referencing, even though they are undoubtedly grey literature.

Finally, please note that if you cannot show for any reference point (3) above, you have not shown Pachauri's that the conclusions of the IPCC reports are based on the peer reviewed literature to be false.

The Certainty Monster vs. The Uncertainty Ewok

owl905 at 14:59 PM on 2 March, 2012

Many posters here seriously underestimate Curry, and seem to figure the triumphant-truth shows the holes in her empress's new clothes. It's a dangerous underestimation.

It hasn't shown holes - just added fuel to her fire. She certainly understands both the subject and the evidence. Her rejections and spin-twists aren't weakness - they're servants to her larger purpose.

Her attack at the science has method and a very clear self-centred agenda. Her own words provide the motivation turning point - she was 'vilified' for recommending 'The Hockey Stick Illusion'. After that, she deliberately set about attacking 'the IPCC consensus'.

She's selling, not telling - and she doesn't hide the reasons why.

DenialGate - Infographic Illustrating the Heartland Denial Funding Machine

Tom Curtis at 22:04 PM on 19 February, 2012

Michael of Brisbane @28, there are several crucial differences between the money received by climate scientists and that received from the Heartland Institute.

The first, and most crucial is that money paid to scientists is paid based on the quality of their research, not on the basis of the conclusion reached. So called climate skeptics will dispute that, but there is no question that it is formally correct; and no question also that some well known so called skeptics continue in the university sector in publicly paid positions with no financial penalty despite rejecting the consensus on climate change for over a decade. (Spencer and Christy come to mind, but there are others).

In contrast, payment from the Heartland Institute is definitely conditional on the recipients hold particular opinions. I do not know if that is a formal requirement, but how long do you think Craig Idso would continue receiving his $139,000 a year if he started publicly arguing that the evidence supported the IPCC consensus, and that the IPCC AR4 was a sound document, with few and inconsequential errors?

Because payment form the Heartland Institute is conditional on opinions held, it represents a conflict of interest for any scientist investigating climate change, and any person speaking out on the topic. This does not mean that those receiving payments are wrong (although we know they are wrong on other grounds), but because it is a conflict of interest it should have been publicly declared by those people long before now. Not declaring a known conflict of interest is an ethical breach.

Second, contrary to your supposition, many of the activities of scientists are unpaid, including any participation in the IPCC, and of course in internet forums. While Anthony Watt can build his site with 44-88 k donations from the Heartland Institute, John Cook (for example) must do so with his own money, and that from a few small donations from friends. I understand that RealClimate does receive free web hosting, but that is the limit of funding. As they say:

"The contributors to this site do so in a personal capacity during their spare time and their posts do not represent the views of the organizations for which they work, nor the agencies which fund them. The contributors are solely responsible for the content of the site and receive no remuneration for their contributions.

RealClimate is not affiliated with any environmental organisations. Although our domain is hosted by Science Communications Network (and previously Environmental Media Services), and our initial press release was organised for us by Fenton Communications, neither organization was in any way involved in the initial planning for RealClimate, and have never had any editorial or other control over content. Neither Fenton nor SCN nor EMS has ever paid any contributor to RealClimate.org any money for any purpose at any time. Neither do they pay us expenses, buy our lunch or contract us to do research. This information has always been made clear to anyone who asked."

(My emphasis)

I am sure there are climate scientists who would love to be paid $119,000 a year to work full time in science communication as Craig Idso is paid to work full time on pseudo-science communication, but the money is not forthcoming for that purpose.

Further, unlike payments from the Heartland Institute, payments to scientists are largely used up in research costs and administrative costs for universities (which always take a large chunk). Not having been employed as a scientist, I cannot speak from experience, but my understanding is that scientists typically get paid significantly less than Craig Idso is being paid, and for positions which are very demanding in terms of time and stress. This is not a significant factor for most of the anti-scientists paid by the Heartland Institute. Most of their "research" consists of cherry picking librarianship, with their research costs being restricted to the costs of journal subscriptions (where they do not already have such subscriptions through university affiliation.

Finally, assuming that the Heartland Institute payments are the limits of payments to the various scientists received for their opinions held. There are many conservative "think tanks" which attack AGW, and most of the scientists involved are affiliated with more than one of them. The assumption that they only receive money form one of the poorest and smallest of those organizations is unwarranted.

Tree-rings diverge from temperature after 1960

Phila at 08:49 AM on 3 January, 2012

dawsonjg:

What Mann does is not [science] at its best.

Before this goes any further, let's get one thing clear. You've acknowledged that working with Mann's data is beyond your capabilities. You've also conceded in #35 that you lack the necessary skills to judge which side's arguments are scientifically sound.

It logically follows that you lack the knowledge to critique Mann's work. And from there, it follows that you have absolutely no right to accuse him of bad scientific practice, let alone anything worse. That being the case, perhaps you should show a bit of humility and tone down your rhetoric.

Take yourself out of the equation for a moment and think about this in abstract terms. Suppose that on the one hand, lots of respected scientists in a variety of countries and fields have used a variety of methods to arrive at results that basically agree with one another. And suppose that on the other hand, a guy who doesn't understand these disciplines or these methods decides that their conclusions are possibly or probably wrong because he saw a website that attacked one of them.

Logically speaking, what's more likely: That all these scientists made errors that somehow turned out to agree with each other? That all these scientists put aside their professional rivalries and personal morality in order to falsify mountains of evidence over generations for some unknown purpose? Or that the guy who doesn't understand the science is easy to mislead?

On the Internet, there are sites explaining that the AIDS virus doesn't exist, that chemotherapy is deadlier than cancer, that the Holocaust never happened, that vaccines don't work and that evolution is mathematically impossible. The arguments sometimes sound plausible, and the authors are sometimes actual experts in the relevant fields. They usually have no problem citing instances of "official suppression" of their work, not least because their followers usually can't appreciate the distinction between "suppressed" and "thoroughly debunked countless times" or "correctly viewed by experts as the work of a crazy person." And they usually have no problem coming up with plausible motives for conspiracy, because money and power are at stake in just about any field you can name.

I'm sure you know all of this as well as I do, and I'm also willing to bet that you side confidently with the scientific consensus on most or all of these "controversies." So why do you feel justified in throwing that perfectly rational approach out the window here? If you really want to get to the bottom of this argument, that's the first question you need to address, I'd say. Challenging Mann's work before you've even begun to understand it -- let alone all the work done subsequently -- is like showing up for the Tour de France on a plastic tricycle and expecting to win.

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