Denialism

Tim Blair quote mines me

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by

MarkH
in

I see that Tim Blair has decided to quote mine me. As part of my analysis of Cockburn’s crankery I made the following statement.

Below the fold I’ll summarize Cockburn’s arguments and how they use the denialist tactics, George Monbiot’s responses (including his amazing crank-fu!) and discuss why in the future we may start seeing global warming denialism from the left as well as the right.

…

It’s important to remember both the left and the right have anti-scientific tendencies, the left’s just tend to be less religious, less world-threatening and more woo-based. My brother recently told me about moving to California, “they don’t believe in Jesus here, just bullshit” in reference to the woo-based beliefs of large portions of the population. The risk of unscientific tendencies is when people with potential to become cranks see a scientific theory as a threat to some overvalued idea they hold dear. Sometimes the over-valued idea isn’t even a bad quality, it can be compassion – but taken to an extreme. If the left starts to see global warming policy as a money-grab by the elites, expect to see more left wing crankery and climate denial based on conspiratorial beliefs about carbon markets.

I suspect this is what has happened to Alexander Cockburn, a lefty who has gone over the deep end, on what appears to be suspicions of a conspiracy to further defraud and hurt poor countries using global warming science.

Basically, I was saying that the origins of anti-scientific arguments are based on certain overvalued ideas that the left has as well as the right. Neither is completely free of unscientific movements. How does Tim Blair read my statements?

That this means there is no consensus on global warming science!

CONSENSUS LESS CONSENSY

Mark Hoofnagle predicts:

In the future we may start seeing global warming denialism from the left as well as the right.

But … but … the debate is over! And it’s been over for 15 years, according to Al the Colder:

I actually can’t figure out exactly what his reasoning was here. Does it mean that left wing crankery somehow disproves science? That Alexander Cockburn, a political writer, disagreeing with global warming science is proof of no consensus? This is classic crank logic here though. A single sentence out of context proves they’re right! There is no consensus! If any left-wingers think something stupid the science is untrue!

Sadly, he doesn’t allow comments without registering (and he isn’t registering anyone new). Basically, they all sit around in a circle-jerk making fun of my last name (I’m being persecuted!) and acting like it’s some great coup that Tim Blair could take half of a sentence out of an essay saying something completely different, and warp it into something absurd.

What a moron.
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**Update** Blair has suggested that I’m made unhappy by the attention I’ve gotten from his blog and the Blairites. Quite the opposite. The thing about running a blog on denialists and cranks is that you’re going to be attacked. I’m mostly amused when it happens. And besides, the Blairites don’t troll like others have – the 9/11 truthers come to mind. If anything they’re very polite, if a little touchy. I don’t mind having them around at all and am not so afraid of trolling (or just dissent) that I create a gated community of people who agree with me.

Comments

260 responses to “Tim Blair quote mines me”

  1. Dustin

    You know what I think? I think that anyone who demands consensus as their criterion for truth is automatically a crank, and anyone who points to a lack of consensus as something meaningful is a crackpot.

    I have to say, Tim, you have some loose screws.

    Reply
  2. Chris Noble

    I actually can’t figure out exactly what his reasoning was here.

    You appear to be starting with the false assumption that there was any reasoning there at all.

    Speaking as an Australian Tim Blair is an embarrassment.

    His blog is an example of the sort of group-think process that is indicative of cranks. He seems to encourage the stupid chatter that goes on there.

    Reply
  3. Wes

    Seems Blair is relying on his readers not actually reading the article he linked to. I’d think even an idiot could read that post and see your comment doesn’t have anything to do with the consensus.

    I think the “logic” was that you used to word “left”, and since in the mind of a partisan hack all issues boil down to what-the-left-says vs. what-the-right-says, Blair interpreted your comment as saying that both the left and the right, both as a whole (instead of at the fringes as you implied), were going to reject global warming, and hence that means global warming is not true. The quote-mine, taken out of context, sounds like you’re saying the left collectively will reject evolution–I’m sure that’s what the shithead was going for.

    And since his readers aren’t going to read what you actually wrote, that’s what they’ll believe.

    Reply
  4. Harry Eagar

    Just what science is being denied by AGW denialists?

    Do you believe in GCM projections, for example?

    If Blair and I decide GCMs are bogus — which they are, no doubt about it — than why shouldn’t we deny their significance?

    All you have done is to take the word ‘heresy’ and replace it with ‘denialism.’

    Blair calls you out, very mildly too, on your little Charlottesville Inquistion, and you react like — well, like a holy inquisitor.

    Reply
  5. bob

    As an Australian myself, I would say I find Chris Noble a profound embarrassment when he expresses his odd views on overseas forums.

    Reply
  6. Bob Bunnett

    Mark, you are simply missing the point. You take yourself very, very seriously – and no doubt the issues at stake are serious, both economically and environmentally. Blair, on the other hand, is just a joker. Everything he writes is basically a joke – but usually one with a certain wry observation or kernel of truth in it.

    It is a totally different kind of writing to the kind of psuedo-scholarly discourse (or is it really an “Inquisition”, as Harry would have it?) going on here. It’s a bit like you getting upset watching a roadrunner cartoon: “That doesn’t make sense – that coyote would be dead by now” kind of thing. Your “quote mine” was little more than a handle for a new joke to rest on. Most of Tim Blair’s readers don’t give a damn what you think or believe.

    Contrary, to Wes’ assertion, the link is there for readers to follow as they wish. I think that you should be glad to get this kind of exposure from a very popular Australian blog – assuming that your objective really is to reach out and persuade. I have had a good look around and there is some very interesting material here.

    I’m not very impressed by your (non)explanation of the idea of “overlap” in your article on the role of water vapour, though. It’s pretty clear that you haven’t got a handle on this issue. The compounding and modifications to overall greenhouse effect among component gasses is mostly due to actual physical interactions between the molecules, not to the mere fact that there is some overlap between the EMR wavelengths absorbed. I would suggest re-acquainting yourself (or should there be a “re” in that word at all?)with some basic quantum mechanics. You could start by asking yourself the question – how “finely tuned” does the wavelength of a infrared photon have to be to be absorbed by an isolated molecule of X?

    Reply
  7. Cain

    Blair calls you out, very mildly too, on your little Charlottesville Inquistion, and you react like — well, like a holy inquisitor.

    ‘elp, ‘elp, I’m being repressed! Come see the violence inherent in the system!

    Reply
  8. Daddy Dave

    Hi, I’m a regular at Tim Blair’s “circle jerk.” I’d like to make a couple of comments on your reaction to his reaction to your reaction to denialism.
    First, regarding your inability to register: time was, anyone could register. Very popular blogs such as timblair.net often end up closing the gates, due to trolls and people intent on abusing the free registration to derail the forum. Still, you have your own blog, so feel free to respond on it (as you have done).

    Second, despite his sarcastic, often flippant style, Blair can make some cutting, and incisive, observations. His attack on global warming is multi-pronged. He consistently draws attention to ludicrous, and overblown rhetoric about global warming. Prior to reading Blair’s blog, I was taking a lot of this nonsense at face value (for example attributing Katrina, or any weather abberation, to global warming – I don’t see people like you hosing down such misinformation, leaving the field wide open for Blair).

    Furthermore, he has drawn attention to scientific sceptics, and their arguments. I had not actually read these arguments in any detail prior to becoming a Blair reader.
    I have to say I am persuaded that the case is not airtight.
    (I have a science PhD if that means anything to you).
    There are real “denialist” arguments out there that require more than just a dismissive wave of the hand.
    The strongest one is this: all the strong evidence for catastrophic global warming (ice core, hockey stick) is now questionable.
    I think you’ve been blindsided by someone who has better rhetorical and PR skills than you. I agree that has nothing to do with the merit of the arguments. But it so happens that I also think he has a stronger case than you give credit for.

    Reply
  9. Brian

    Bob’s post on missing the point kinda made my head explode. Maybe he was just being ironic.

    I do agree to some extent though, Mark. You should be super psyched that the wrong kind of people will get the wrong kind of idea about what you wrote! Lord knows it worked for Ken Jennings.

    Reply
  10. Tyler DiPietro

    “There are real “denialist” arguments out there that require more than just a dismissive wave of the hand.

    The strongest one is this: all the strong evidence for catastrophic global warming (ice core, hockey stick) is now questionable.”

    Can someone tell me why denialists always assume that simply restating their original claims in tantamount of an argument? Dave, no one here is impressed by unsupported assertion and self-congratulatory wanking. Tell exactly why you think that this evidence is “questionable”. Your bringing up the hockey stick is a good indication you have little to nothing more than the standard denialist canards at your disposal.

    Reply
  11. Brian

    Because repeating your own beliefs just feels better than learning. It’s like how eating a cheeseburger feels better than eating a salad. Most people know how to be healthy, but they usually don’t make that choice. Similarly, indoctrinated denialists know how to learn and understand, but usually don’t make that choice.

    This will drive all of us insane FOREVER. You can’t reason with it, and I think Mark and Chris set a great precedent for refusing to. Expose the tactics and expose the lies, let the denialists expose themselves.

    Reply
  12. Chris Noble

    ….due to trolls and people intent on abusing the free registration to derail the forum.

    How could anyone derail a forum thread that was off the rails to begin with?

    I’ve read the particular thread on Blair’s blog and I can’t find a single intelligent comment.

    Reply
  13. Daddy Dave

    I’ve read the particular thread on Blair’s blog and I can’t find a single intelligent comment.
    Most of it – on that particular thread- is idle chit-chat that has nothing to do with you or your blog.

    In terms of on-topic chat, however, there was a link to a “denialist” editorial that came out today, discussion of the effect of methane, discussion of well-known inconsistencies in the warming theory, such as in the ice core data, and how warming advocates account for it, and some mockery of Al Gore. Pretty light, I’ll admit, but that crowd has discussed all this stuff endelessly before, and is kind of bored with re-hashing it on every new thread.
    I don’t condone making fun of people’s names. That was wrong, and I’m not making excuses for it.

    On a totally different note, I’d really like to know: how much “skeptical” stuff have you read on global warming? Have you actually read, for example, “The skeptical environmentalist” by Lomborg, or essays by Lindzen or Crichton? Did you watch the Intelligence Squared debate? Have you read criticisms of the fact-spinning in “An Inconvenient Truth?”
    If not, I would be very interested to know if your current view could survive such exposure. Mine didn’t.

    Reply
  14. Tyler DiPietro

    “The compounding and modifications to overall greenhouse effect among component gasses is mostly due to actual physical interactions between the molecules, not to the mere fact that there is some overlap between the EMR wavelengths absorbed.”

    You would have done well to link to the actual article, but I presume you mean this one from RealClimate. I’d like to know where in that post you’re seeing a claim even remotely to the effect of what you describe here.

    Reply
  15. HarryEagar

    Well, at least Mark isn’t insisting that all of us heretics are in the pay of Big Oil.

    However, the idea that AGW has been settled, making heretics of all us skeptics, is not a true statement.

    There are a few flies in the IPCC ointment. We could begin with the fact — and it is a fact — that there is no global surface temperature observation earlier than the 21st c. All claims that the globe is warming are uncertain by (at least) the uncertainty of the global surface temperature at any point time than 2000.

    Therefore, all claims about the rate of warming are unicorns.

    I could go on, but I’ll limit myself to one more: Show me the theory that explains the action of cloud formation in the overall feedback system that keeps climate stable.

    Heresy-hunting is never a pretty thing to watch.

    Reply
  16. MarkH

    Just what science is being denied by AGW denialists?

    You name it they deny it. It’s like 9/11 truth. Some admit planes hit the buildings, some don’t. Some think it was an inside job, some think it was explosives. It’s too varied to characterize.

    AGW denialists will alternately deny global warming is even happening, that temperature can be accurately recorded – see Lindzen in the National Post, to admitting there is warming but that humans have anything to do with it – see anyone who promotes the idiotic “Mars is warming too” BS or it’s all the sun. This question is hard to answer because every denialist is off on their own topic, all inconsistent with one another – and none caring to be consistent with one another.

    Do you believe in GCM projections, for example?

    Why yes. I think they’re doing quite well if you don’t delete the projections you don’t like as Patrick Michaels did.

    If Blair and I decide GCMs are bogus — which they are, no doubt about it — than why shouldn’t we deny their significance?

    Your evidence is? Oh wait, I know, they don’t predict the weather blah blah blah.

    All you have done is to take the word ‘heresy’ and replace it with ‘denialism.’

    That’s all you have done. I describe denialism in very specific terms that are available for all to see. Briefly, it’s the use of rhetorical tactics to deny sound science, specifically using the tactics of alleging conspiracy theories, cherry-picking data, using fake experts, moving goalposts, and illogical arguments to advance an agenda. If you aren’t using these tactics, you’re not a denialist in my view. Based on Blair’s use of half of one of my sentences out of context to say something I didn’t mean (as well as his long history of being a retard) I think I’m safe in calling him a denialist.

    Blair calls you out, very mildly too, on your little Charlottesville Inquistion, and you react like — well, like a holy inquisitor.

    Persecution! You poor baby.

    Everything he writes is basically a joke – but usually one with a certain wry observation or kernel of truth in it.

    That wry kernel of truth that is twisting my words to say something I didn’t intend?

    I’m not very impressed by your (non)explanation of the idea of “overlap” in your article on the role of water vapour, though. It’s pretty clear that you haven’t got a handle on this issue. The compounding and modifications to overall greenhouse effect among component gasses is mostly due to actual physical interactions between the molecules, not to the mere fact that there is some overlap between the EMR wavelengths absorbed. I would suggest re-acquainting yourself (or should there be a “re” in that word at all?)with some basic quantum mechanics.

    I have a degree in physics. It allows me to know that your statement is grossly absurd. Quantum effects have nothing to do with AGW, unless Planck’s constant has recently increased by several million-fold in magnitude. Nice try.

    how “finely tuned” does the wavelength of a infrared photon have to be to be absorbed by an isolated molecule of X?

    Not very. You have no idea what you’re talking about. Charming really, the first appeal to quantum mechanics I’ve seen outside of alternative medicine/Deepak Chopra woo.

    He consistently draws attention to ludicrous, and overblown rhetoric about global warming.

    As do I, but I do it without quote-mining and twisting others words.

    (for example attributing Katrina, or any weather abberation, to global warming – I don’t see people like you hosing down such misinformation, leaving the field wide open for Blair).

    I have a post going about this live tomorrow around 9AM, I wrote it yesterday if that makes you feel better.

    There are real “denialist” arguments out there that require more than just a dismissive wave of the hand.
    The strongest one is this: all the strong evidence for catastrophic global warming (ice core, hockey stick) is now questionable.”

    Actually no, unless you listen to absurd Inhofe/Wegmen BS. The National Academy of Sciences has reaffirmed and certified the hockey stick and Mann’s work. The ice core proxy data is also solid except among denialists.

    I think you’ve been blindsided by someone who has better rhetorical and PR skills than you. I agree that has nothing to do with the merit of the arguments. But it so happens that I also think he has a stronger case than you give credit for.

    Blindsided? By half of a sentence of mine taken out of context? Wow. I must be 99.9% blind already to be blindsided by that pathetic attack.

    Can someone tell me why denialists always assume that simply restating their original claims in tantamount of an argument? Dave, no one here is impressed by unsupported assertion and self-congratulatory wanking. Tell exactly why you think that this evidence is “questionable”. Your bringing up the hockey stick is a good indication you have little to nothing more than the standard denialist canards at your disposal.

    Ahem, Tyler, I know you’ve seen the HOWTO.

    Reply
  17. Tyler DiPietro

    On a totally different note, I’d really like to know: how much “skeptical” stuff have you read on global warming? Have you actually read, for example, “The skeptical environmentalist” by Lomborg, or essays by Lindzen or Crichton? Did you watch the Intelligence Squared debate? Have you read criticisms of the fact-spinning in “An Inconvenient Truth?”

    Oh please, are you really trying to assert that the vast majority of climate researchers who accept the consensus on global warming have simply failed to read the criticisms from hacks like Crichton? That doesn’t even justify a serious response.

    There are a few flies in the IPCC ointment. We could begin with the fact — and it is a fact — that there is no global surface temperature observation earlier than the 21st c. All claims that the globe is warming are uncertain by (at least) the uncertainty of the global surface temperature at any point time than 2000.

    Therefore, all claims about the rate of warming are unicorns.

    Holy fucking non-sequitor, Batman! This is a false claim too, since global surface temperature has been measured in the decades preceding the turn of the century. And of course the handwaving away of paleoclimate reconstructions is unsupported.

    Denialists sure are funny.

    Reply
  18. Anonymous

    this doesn’t even justify a serious response
    I’ll take that as a no.
    btw interesting to single out the non-scientist (easiest one to ridicule), while pretending I didn’t even ask about anyone else.

    Reply
  19. Tyler DiPietro

    “Ahem, Tyler, I know you’ve seen the HOWTO.”

    Okay, yeah. Sorry for my failure to attribute the observation to you. 🙁

    But still, I find myself wondering how some people get the impression that such a thing forms a coherent argument. It just doesn’t go together, like a broken rubick’s cube.

    Reply
  20. Tyler DiPietro

    “I’ll take that as a no.”

    You’d be wrong, and incredibly presumptuous. I have read the TSE and slogged through Crichton’s awful, self-congratulatory book. What part of something being such a silly trifle and not deserving of serious consideration do you not understand, tool?

    Reply
  21. Daddy Dave

    the handwaving away of paleoclimate reconstructions is unsupported
    Who would want to wave it away? Ice core data shows that warming comes first, followed by increases in carbon dioxide, not the other way around.
    The warming camp is still clinging to the early (but now widely accepted as incorrect) interpretations of the data, when it was thought that the CO2 preceded the temperature change.

    Reply
  22. MarkH

    On a totally different note, I’d really like to know: how much “skeptical” stuff have you read on global warming? Have you actually read, for example, “The skeptical environmentalist” by Lomborg, or essays by Lindzen or Crichton? Did you watch the Intelligence Squared debate? Have you read criticisms of the fact-spinning in “An Inconvenient Truth?”

    I’ve read all of it. Lindzen, Lomborg, Crichton, if you’re convinced by what they’ve written you have no critical reading skills.

    For instance, take Michael Crichton, his famous “Aliens cause global warming speech” nicely destroyed by Reasic is a total and complete joke. One giant appeal to the Galileo gambit, it doesn’t even deserve the attention Reasic gives to it.

    Lindzen? I’ve covered him too.

    Lomborg I haven’t bothered with yet, I’ve only had about a month or so on this blog, but I’ll do something soon. But why should I have to do it? Everyone else has torn his crap apart before. Lambert has an example of his cherry picking, or Island of Doubt’s coverage, or how about his spreading the DDT ban myth? The guy is a crank. I’m unimpressed.

    If you guys really want to know what denialism is all about, and want to see that it isn’t just name-calling as you allege without reading anything about the blog, then spend some time here. We have defined criteria, which denialists have to meet. It’s not just people we disagree with, they have to meet certain criteria.

    Reply
  23. MarkH

    the handwaving away of paleoclimate reconstructions is unsupported
    Who would want to wave it away? Ice core data shows that warming comes first, followed by increases in carbon dioxide, not the other way around.
    The warming camp is still clinging to the early (but now widely accepted as incorrect) interpretations of the data, when it was thought that the CO2 preceded the temperature change.

    Oh please. Not this again. It’s the exact opposite of disproof. Learn the difference between feedback and forcing, please.

    Reply
  24. Daddy Dave

    If you guys really want to know what denialism is all about, and want to see that it isn’t just name-calling as you allege without reading anything about the blog, then spend some time here. We have defined criteria, which denialists have to meet. It’s not just people we disagree with, they have to meet certain criteria

    I’ve been civil, I’ve been reasonable, I’ve engaged in a pretty coherent debate, really, as debates like this go. I’m not even wedded to denialism. I’ve just read some persuasive stuff and are currently persuaded.

    Thanks for the invite: I would have stuck around, but gratuitously calling me a tool has done it for me, I’m afraid.
    That’s really poisoned this whole experience, this site for me, and I’m not interested in what you’ve got to say, if you can’t be civil and treat me with at least a modicum of respect. Enjoy hanging around with people who agree with you. I’ll go back to doing the same.

    Reply
  25. mega

    From chaos theory to AGW in a decade, what’s the next fashion?
    How long have you been ‘doing Science’, Tyler?

    Reply
  26. Bob Bunnett

    Agree with your basic sentiments, Daddy Dave. Mark was fairly rude in his response to me (but then again, I had some digs at him in my original post) but so far I have escaped “tool” status!

    Tyler, yes that was the correct article. It doesn’t provide any kind of explanation of the non-linearity of the combined effects of various mixes of greenhouse gasses but seems to say that it is due to the overlap of spectral lines for tyhe component gasses. This certainly complicates attributing the absorbtion of IR radiation to particular gasses by measuring the overrall degree of absorbtion, but it is not a causative mechanism for the phenomenon itself. To find that, you have to look at the physical interaction between molecules and how that affects their capacity to absorb IR radiation. The key is that a molecule of a particular gas doesn’t have to just interact with its own kind in a combined mix.

    Mark, are you starting to follow me now? Your post above was made in wounded dog mode – lashing out at all and sundry and, in the case of my post, you were not thinking clearly about what I had said or (worse) you have no idea of what I am actually saying, despite your Physics degree. Are you seriously trying to say that the absorbtion of IR photons by gas molecules has nothing to do with quantum mechanical concepts? The breadth of spectral absorbtion lines is a critical factor in determining the degree to which a mixture of gasses can absorb IR radiation, and the physical interactions between molecules are a key determinant of the former. Just so you get it clear, I am telling you how you can improve your article on water vapour because at the moment your “explanation” of the mechanism of this non-linearity in mixing GH gasses is BS. I am not saying that AGW is BS because Deepak Chopra (never read the man, myself) told me so. You do have a basic understanding of the interation between EMR and the vibration and rotation modes of molecules, right? If so, just spend a second or two thinking before you snap next time.

    Reply
  27. Dunc

    I’ve been civil, I’ve been reasonable, I’ve engaged in a pretty coherent debate, really, as debates like this go.

    If you seriously think that the lags between warming and CO2 in the paleoclimate record provide an argument against the AGW hypothesis, then you clearly don’t know what coherent debate is.

    If I prove that chickens always come from eggs, I haven’t proven that eggs can’t come from chickens. Causation is not exclusively uni-directional.

    Reply
  28. Luna_the_cat

    *ahem*
    Daddy Dave, Bob Bunnett: please check names on posts. Neither Hoofnagle ever called you a “tool”.

    If you get upset at insults from other posters, rather than the site host, then perhaps you should try appealing to the site hosts to set rules or guidelines about it…but don’t blame them for it.

    Or is this just an excuse to leave because hanging around with people who think you talk nonsense is discomfiting?

    Reply
  29. JonathanH

    Hey, Hoofnagles! Another Blairite here. Interested in your comment about the National Academy of Sciences. Strangely they don’t seem quite as gung-ho and with-the-program as you! From their report ‘Climate and Science’ (available on their website):

    ‘Measurements show that temperatures at the Earth�s surface
    rose by about 1 degree Fahrenheit (about 0.6
    degrees Celsius) during the 20th century. This warming
    has intensified in the past 20 years. Greenhouse
    gases are accumulating in the Earth�s atmosphere. The
    current scientific consensus is that this is causing surface
    air temperatures to rise, although how much of
    experienced rise is from human activities is unknown.
    Using physical principles, mathematical models predict
    the warming will probably continue even if greenhouse
    gas emissions remain unchanged.
    Uncertainties remain because of natural variability
    inherent in the climate over long periods of time.

    Wow! That’s convincing! No room for debate there! Or this, from ‘Understanding Climate Change Feedbacks’:

    This report highlights broad guidance on the key avenues of research that need to be pursued to better understand climate feedbacks and is intended to call attention to those areas where additional focus might be productive in the near term. The key finding of this report is that an enhanced research effort is needed to better observe, understand, and model key climate feedback processes.

    Omigod! George Monbiot! You were right! Buy me a second hand Renault! Buy me a frisbee! We’re all gonna die!

    Actually, what I gleaned from my perusal of the National Academies site is that the careful and (dare I say it) skeptical tenor of their reports is much closer to Chrichton and Lindzen than to you. Cheers

    Reply
  30. Whale Spinor

    Your Category is “Cranks”. Your first paragraph refers to “denialism”. And you claim to be a scientist – or on the verge (MD/PhD Candidate). Mind you I have known quite a few people who have continuing claims to be PhD candidates without ever getting within cooee of ever achieving the end result. I had a couple myself years ago.

    I hope you achieve your doctorate, but if you do, you will never amount to anything scientifically if you view anyone with opposing views as “cranks” and “deniers”. Please retain some healthy scepticism of ideas both within your field and external.

    I am not a climate scientist (although I do have a PhD in Theoretical Physics), but I have read enough to believe that the debate is not over and a lot of the arguments on both sides really don’t prove anything at all. And in the end, what we are talking about here is basing our future on nothing more than the predictions of models – mathematical models based largely on second order mixed integral-differential equations of conservation and continuity that Boltzmann and Gauss would still be comfortable with. But I suppose the beauty of climate science (as opposed to meteorology) is that you can make earnest predictions today that not even your grand-children will be alive to verify. Look up Freeman Dyson for his thoughts on these models.

    Reply
  31. factician

    JonathanH,

    To distort a quote from Inigo Montoya in “The Princess Bride”, the statements you quote from the NAS report:

    I do not think it means what you think it means.

    Read it again. Notice it says warming will continue if “greenhouse gas emissions remain unchanged”. That means, if we keep dumping CO2 in the air at current rates, warming will continue. “Uncertainties remain” is science speak for “we don’t know the magnitude of the effect yet”. Don’t look to the NAS for bold declarative statements. Look to them for accurate statements couched in probabilities.

    Reply
  32. MarkH

    I hope you achieve your doctorate, but if you do, you will never amount to anything scientifically if you view anyone with opposing views as “cranks” and “deniers”. Please retain some healthy scepticism of ideas both within your field and external.

    As I’ve explained repeatedly to the new folks, cranks and denialists are not simply people that disagree with me (thanks factition). I’ve linked repeatedly to the pages that describe what cranks are, and what denialism is. It’s actually pretty scientific. It is the specific use of conspiracy theories, cherry-picked data, fake experts, moving goalposts and logical fallacies to argue against people that have things like data and science on their side. Recognizing these tactics being used in debates is the way you tell the difference between BS and real science.

    As far as the national academy, I was referring to their certification of the Mann paper, which has been routinely attacked as “debunked” because of a report put together under the auspices of a famous American crank Senator – Inhofe. Read about the Hockey Stick, or see what the national academies said about Mann in 2006. Hockey stick isn’t debunked. That’s a myth. For anyone interested here is the National Academies site containing their publications on global warming. They’re pretty solidly behind AGW science. Not sure where you found that exact paragraph but especially the more recent reports are supporting the IPCC.

    And wounded dog? What? Lashing out? The way I understand it you’re saying that QM makes it unlikely that carbon gas will act as a greenhouse agent? That it doesn’t absorb sunlight and warm the atmosphere – is this correct? That’s how I read your comment and that is clearly wrong.

    Reply
  33. Anonymous

    I have a degree in physics. It allows me to know that your statement is grossly absurd. Quantum effects have nothing to do with AGW, unless Planck’s constant has recently increased by several million-fold in magnitude. Nice try.

    Convection can certainly be handled in a macroscopic manner, but absorption and scattering of radiation? These underpin climate models and if they don’t have anything to do with Quantum Mechanics then I’m L Ron Hubbard.

    You appear to be a stove-piped “physicist”. Broaden your horizons

    Reply
  34. Bob Bunnett

    Hey Luna_the_cat (good name),

    It’s not me who has the reading difficulties. If you look carefully at what I have said you will see that I am not particularly upset about anything anybody has said about me. I merely pointed out that Mark had made some snide (but civil) comments about my post – but I even conceded that I had “started it” by having some digs at him first.

    I have simply made two main points – one was about the nature of Tim Blair’s blog (which I think Mark was taking too seriously) and the other was about a specific deficiency in his “explanation” of a particular phenomenon, namely the inherent limitations of trying to identify the “pure” contribution of a single component in a mixture of greenhouse gasses. On that second issue, I started off the snide stakes but, lets face it, Mark’s “explanation” of this specific phenomenon is pretty crappy. Generally a pretty good article, though, and many of the comments are interesting.

    At no point have I said that I doubt the basic thesis of AGW – if any participant here thought otherwise, that is merely an assumption on their part. For the record, I am something of a sceptic in that I detest much of the hysteical alarmism that has coloured the public debate, but I have no doubt that the issue of greenhouse gas emissions needs to be addressed by the world as a whole over coming years.

    Reply
  35. Bob Bunnett

    Mark, your last comment turned up while I was writing mine. Yes, you did misread me. Carbon dioxide is a substantial greenhouse gas with a longish atmospheric lifetime and is responsible for a significant proportion of the overall global greenhouse effect. My point is that none of the component greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere acts in isolation to the other gasses that it is continually bumping up against. The reason this is so is because the physical interactions between molecules enhance their capacity to absorb IR radiation, not because the spectral lines of individual gasses overlap, which is what your article seems to imply (although you don’t really deal with the basis for this phenomenon at all).

    Reply
  36. factician

    Mark,

    I think you meant to put a “not” in here:

    As I’ve explained repeatedly to the new folks, cranks and denialists are simply people that disagree with me.

    Reply
  37. Whale Spinor

    I think you meant to put a “not” in here

    Ok, let’s here it for the “not” then. But what’s this about the million-fold increase in Planck’s constant? Presumably a superior and cutting riposte from someone who knows about these things to someone who doesn’t. Sorry, it’s pathetic and I feel embarrassed to think a physicist would even write it. The value of Planck’s constant guarantees the stability of the atom. Why is it that value? Who knows – the anthropic principle might explain it, but is an easy out. Maybe string theory. But if it was any different we wouldn’t exist and wouldn’t have to worry about AGW.

    That might be a good thing, but then again, the world has numerous religions, why not another one?

    Reply
  38. Whale Spinor

    here = hear
    Physicists can’t spell, I can’t even spell whale properly

    Reply
  39. MarkH

    I actually must apologize for that statement Whale – after Bob’s reply I see I misread what he said.

    I thought it was some appeal to quantum mechanics – something you see a lot when writing a blog about skepticism, where people try to handwave away knowledge with references to quantum mechanics since in their mind it makes anything possible. The reference to Planck’s is about how people don’t understand that quantum effects are really not applicable on even a macromolecular scale, a flaw of reasoning you see with many common cranks here in the states.

    I saw that reference and thought it was something else. I misread, so my statement, of course made no sense. Sorry for the confusion.

    Reply
  40. Tyler DiPietro

    “My point is that none of the component greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere acts in isolation to the other gasses that it is continually bumping up against.”

    I didn’t see that in the article, my reading of it indicated that it’s main thesis was that water vapor isn’t generally a climate forcing because of it’s low-residency time in the troposphere as compared to other GHG’s. I don’t see where the RC authors fail to acknowledge that component gases interact to produce the greenhouse effect.

    Reply
  41. J F Beck

    MarkH reckons Lomborg’s a crank and then links to Lambert’s DDT rubbish. Ironic.

    Reply
  42. Harry Eagar

    So Blair makes fun of ridiculous statements, such as that warming will lead to an increase in tropical diseases like malaria. Well, such statements are ridiculous. I live in Hawaii, and we don’t have malaria (except for birds). It isn’t because it’s too cold here.

    How is making fun of ridiculous statements ‘denialism’? Isn’t that ‘realism’?

    I am far more of a skeptic than Blair, who does not, so far as I’ve seen, claim that the earth hasn’t warmed at all.

    I suspect it may have. But only a fool would say ‘the earth has warmed 0.6 degree C. in the past century’ as if that is a meaningful statement.

    First, we do not know the global surface temperature in 1907 to within an accuracy of 0.1 degree, because it was not observed. (The same is true of 1997, by the way.)

    Even if our proxies for 1907 are not too far off, it is mystical nonsense to treat 1907 as a meaningful date.

    For it to be meaningful of anything, we would also have to know the global surface temperature in 1807 to within a tenth of a degree, because it is not forbidden by observation to suspect that global surface temperatures fell from 1807 to 1907. (There’s even physical evidence to believe they did.)

    If the 1807 temperature was even a little cooler than 1907, then the unicorns of accelerated global warming become even more imaginary.

    You don’t need a degree in physics to figure this out. You do need analytical skills and some 6th-grade math.

    I don’t know how Blair figured out AGW is dubious. Apparently, he worked like a real journalist, read what its advocates were saying, looked around and found that reality did not match and started jeering.

    And you have only Ossas of speculation heaped on Pelicons of estimations, and you expect us to accept your projections without demur because you have a degree in physics? Please, Mr. Physicist, explain to me the role of cloud formation in feedback loops affected by minute changes in atmospheric gas concentrations.

    Reply
  43. Brian

    Re: Hawaii

    I’d say something about the vast majority of malaria deaths occurring in Africa, but that’s just silly. Clearly high temperatures CREATE malaria, and wouldn’t just make it worse in areas that already have it.

    Reply
  44. MarkH

    And you have only Ossas of speculation heaped on Pelicons of estimations, and you expect us to accept your projections without demur because you have a degree in physics? Please, Mr. Physicist, explain to me the role of cloud formation in feedback loops affected by minute changes in atmospheric gas concentrations.

    I actually never, hopefully, appealed to my physics background as a reason to listen to me (its been 6 years or so since I studied physics in any meaningful way). What I do expect people to do is not to dismiss an entire field of science, and dismiss expert opinions because they think they’ve figured out some critical flaw (and then never investigate whether it’s been addressed).

    You know, the people that study this stuff aren’t stupid. Quite the opposite, they have thought of these problems, and answers to most of the questions I’ve seen here could be obtained from spending a little time on Realclimate, reading the main articles, and the comments too – sometimes the location of the most informative aspects of their articles as they are very good about addressing such questions.

    I would never appeal to my expertise on the subject, because I’m a molecular biologist these days, and haven’t thought about Lagrangians and eigenstates for almost a decade.

    What I do argue at this site, is that the people who supposedly have debunked global warming science, have done so about as thoroughly as those who claim to have debunked evolution, or that HIV causes AIDS, or that the holocaust didn’t exist, or that the moon landing didn’t happen. That is, they’re using the same BS methods again and again.

    In order to “debunk” climate science its skeptics have used all the same techniques as the creationists denying evolution or any of the other denialists. Just look at Cockburn’s article (the thing that started this mess)! He alleges conspiracies of scientists who are just grant-guzzling fools, that the data can’t be true because of a 4-year period in the 30s (classic cherry pick), he quote mines a paper about modeling, cites as his experts Pat Michaels (who essentially lied in front of congress about climate models) and some guy he met on a boat! Moving goalposts, logical fallacies etc., they’re all there.

    What I’m pointing out, is that if the skeptics want to be called skeptics, and not denialists, they shouldn’t be using the same tactics as the flat earthers and creationists. There are legit skeptics who do so, but Cockburn is not such a skeptic. He’s a crank, he uses the classic denialist arguments.

    As far as Blair, he’s using the alarmists (and some who are not) to dismiss the science as a whole, and that’s not reasonable either. I hate the stupid alarmist crap from the Independent as much as anyone – they’re total crackpots! I don’t want those jerks writing about the environment. I swear they’re trying to bring down science from the inside. But the facts are that there is substantial good evidence for this, the IPCC reports are real scientific documents and not evidence of a 21st century illuminati, and you can’t argue your way out of the implications of this science through quote-mining and only emphasizing the alarmist crackpots. His other writing on science is just as snarky and ill-informed, I realize you guys think he’s a witty genius or something, but I’m with Lambert on this one. Blair is clueless on science.

    Reply
  45. brb

    Your an idiot!

    Feel debunked?

    Reply
  46. minimalist

    Wow, Mark, and here I figured your first big kook-rush would come from the creationists, not the AGW deniers. Not so surprising in retrospect, I guess, since the Uncommon Descent bottom-feeders are pretty terrified of wading into Scienceblog waters.

    Citing Crichton as an authority? That tells me pretty much all I need to know about them.

    (And DDT cranks to boot! Hilarious.)

    Reply
  47. Luna_the_cat

    Bob Bunnett: Sorry, my statement was really more directly aimed at “Daddy Dave” rather than you — he seemed to be responding to Mark as if it were Mark who had called him a tool. You seemed supportive of his being miffed and I kind of got the impression that you also thought that it was Mark who called him that.

    (Anyway, I can understand not liking being called a “tool”, but it was another poster who called him that, not a site host. I also note that on many of the ScienceBlogs, people who come in making outrageous or crankish claims, use the excuse of being insulted by other posters to disappear as soon as they are called on to support their statements with evidence. This may not have been Daddy Dave’s intention, but it fell too close to the pattern.)

    For my own position: I’m a computer scientist and biology student; I’ve worked for BP in the past, and am still a member of the AGU; I’ve done a lot of reading of the primary science lit on this issue, not because it is my field but simply out of interest and because, parked next to the North Sea as I am, it has a direct effect on my life; and it seems quite clear to me from the [hundreds of] papers I’ve read over the years that the observed behavior of the climate system over the past decades actually can’t be explained without incorporating anthropogenic influence on greenhouse gas levels.

    There is some debate in the primary literature over the extent of human influence as a forcing agent; from all that I have seen, this ranges from “just most of it” to “almost all of it”. The problem is that this can change once certain boundary conditions have been reached, as “natural” positive feedbacks can kick in (such as CO2 sinks like oceans and peat bogs turning into CO2 sources as they warm) which will put the behavior of the system out of reach of our influence for hundreds of years, but not in a good way. There is a great deal of concern about that, because a significant number of geophysical scientists seem to think that we are riding the edge of those boundary conditions already.

    The problem of communicating all this to the public is several-fold, as I see it.

    1. The people which profit most from the status quo are understandably reluctant to lose profit; they therefore have real motivation to preserve the status quo, and moreover, they have the money and power to ensure that propaganda is spread to convince everyone else that this is a good idea. Many of the “skeptic scientists” and almost all of the “skeptic groups” receive considerable funding from ExxonMobil, specifically, as well as certain consortiums of power providers in the US who run primarily coal-burning plants. I do not consider this accidental.

    2. People always have an easier job convincing people of what they want to believe, regardless of the truth of the matter; and it is always easier and a far happier thing to convince people that it is not necessary to change their lifestyles than to convince them that they do.

    3. People in general are always interested in making a profit, off anything they can. This means that there ARE opportunists, honest and dishonest both, who are trying to get on top of the global warming issue in ways that will profit them. The general public regards this with justifiable suspicion, however, suspecting that there is a con behind it. Unfortunately, in this case it’s kind of like deciding not to believe in quantum physics, because there are so many quackticioners and hucksters out there who market all kinds of unlikely products and claim that they work because of quantum physics.

    4. The science itself is extremely complex; trying to make sure that the public has accurate information, enough to understand the problem AND understand how what they are told by propagandists and hucksters from either side of the issue is wrong, butts up hard against the large proportion of the population who is scientifically illiterate and not well schooled in spotting faulty logic and/or discredited arguments.

    5. People like seeing themselves as independent skeptics, and so backlash against “consensus” as a matter of principle. The media perpetuates this in their frequent presentation of false “debate” and “balanced views” — like the “debate” over evolution, or the “balanced view” that ID is a legitimate science. Refer back to problem 4.

    The truth is, when this issue first came to my attention in 1995, my first thought was “Oh God, this is going to be another of those Alar-on-apples things.” However, as my familiarity with the work and the science increased, I changed my mind, and the behavior of the people expressing “skepticism” visibly deteriorated to the kind of level and tactics of creationists as actual knowledge advanced, which simply annoys me. I am very well aware that there are still some large uncertainties; the thing that concerns me is that the uncertainties are largely in the arena of “how much”, not “whether”.

    Glad you like my name, btw. >^_^<

    Reply
  48. Luna_the_cat

    I also apologise for my terrible, confused grammar. It’s been a long week, and this happens when I get tired.

    Reply
  49. TallDave

    Even the IPCC’s clatch of politicians didn’t go so far as to say anthropogenic warming is a certainty; the best they could do was “90%” and even that caused a lot of scientists to resign in protest.

    The pro-AGW people are just as unscientific as the anti-AGW people, if not more so. The null hypothesis does not bear the burden of proof.

    Reply
  50. blairite

    You know, the people that study this stuff aren’t stupid. Quite the opposite, they have thought of these problems, and answers to most of the questions I’ve seen here could be obtained from spending a little time on Realclimate

    RealClimate is a propaganda blog. It is funded by the environmental groups that have take explicitly political positions. If that is your idea of backup for your opinions, then I guess it would be unsurprising to find out that you believe that “polar bears are being driven from the planet” despite paleoclimate data that shows that it was warmer for thousands of years than it is today since, presumably, and I am presuming you are not a creationis, polar bears evolved some time prior to the holocene.

    http://www.gfy.ku.dk/~kka/icecores_palaeoclimate.pdf

    Have a look at figure 3

    You might read the summary as well where you will find this nugget.

    It is from the ice core perspective thus not
    possible to attribute the warming of the past century solely to the influence of mankind. The climate changes recorded by meteorological observations since 1875 are not
    unique in climate history. Taking into account that the period around 1875 appears to have been one of the coldest during the Holocene makes it even more difficult.

    I am wondering. Do you think that this ice core data has been debunked somewhere?

    There is this nugget from the caption of figure 3 as well.

    The upper plot displays temperature variations over the past 8,000 yrs, whereas the lower plot is a zoom on the past 2,000 yrs. Similar temperature variations for the last 2,000 yrs have been reconstructed from Law Dome bore hole data from Antarctica.

    Or do you believe that the Earth is warmer than it has been in a million years. Are you a “flat climater”? Because if you are, there is a lot of science that you have to throw out with the bathwater.

    Hansen bases his conclusions about long term temperature history on one cherry-picked site. I will be happy to discuss this further if you want to call bullshit on the above assertion.

    He also cites himself on matters of statistics when he is not a recognized expert in that field. In fact, he cites himself a lot. Einstein got away without citing prior work, Hansen is no Einstein.

    Reply
  51. MarkH

    The pro-AGW people are just as unscientific as the anti-AGW people, if not more so. The null hypothesis does not bear the burden of proof.

    Dumbest statement on the thread. But I suppose that’s what you expect from someone who links back to an HIV/AIDS denialist like Esmay.

    Reply
  52. TallDave

    “alleging conspiracy theories, cherry-picking data, using fake experts, moving goalposts, and illogical arguments to advance an agenda.”

    That sounds exactly like what Al Gore and many other AGW alarmists have been doing.

    Reply
  53. TallDave

    MarkH,

    Well, Duesenberg managed to get a cover story in SciAm, so he can’t be a total crank. And there are serious problems in how AIDS is being diagnosed.

    But it’s easier to just call people names than debate them. That’s what passes for “science” here, apparently.

    Reply
  54. blairite

    I love this quote I’ve read all of it.

    Really?

    Michael Crichten, who obtained a PHD from Harvard University is a “hack”. He has a degree in medicine, a scientific discipline and heavily data driven where interpretation of study results is a primary skill. I know it doesn’t match up to our host’s PHD candidacy, but in some circles, but he is not Art Bell.

    Reply
  55. blairite

    One more comment about RealClimate. They screen all posts and their commenting policy specificaly says that they will not allow posts that “muddy the water”. How is that any different than a gated circle jerk? Oh, except that you agree with them.

    Reply
  56. Daddy Dave

    Others have pointed out that I misattributed the senseless namecalling, when in fact it was merely another contributor here. So, okay, I’m back in, (Just skipping over anything by the nasty, foul-mouthed “Tyler”).

    First up, ice core data.
    MarkH: Oh please. Not this again. It’s the exact opposite of disproof. Learn the difference between feedback and forcing, please.
    I know the difference.
    My problem is this: If the warming lags the carbon dioxide, that’s evidence for the AGW position (as per earlier interpretations). But if the carbon dioxide lags the warming, that’s also evidence for the AGW position? No matter how the results come out, they can be spun to suit the theory.

    Links presented above to articles “debunking” Crichton and Lindzen were unimpressive. All you’ve got on Lindzen is a cherry-picked quote from a radio interview.
    Re Crichton’s “aliens cause global warming”, I agree that his second-hand smoking example wasn’t strong, but the review doesn’t really address Crichton’s article (/speech) in the spirit that it was intended. It’s an essay on how science is being corrupted by politicization, and the central message is (in my opinion) quite valid.
    I agree with him entirely on SETI, by the way. SETI is pure indulgence of unsupported fantasies. The rest of your response article is overly skarky. For example, Crichton has some criticisms of the way the “Nuclear Winter” issue was deliberately politicised, and suggests that it was based on shaky modeling. Valid points for a critic to make. To suggest he should submit a scientific article himself on the matter if he feels so strongly is just facetious.

    Reply
  57. Luna_the_cat

    TallDave says: “Even the IPCC’s clatch of politicians didn’t go so far as to say anthropogenic warming is a certainty; the best they could do was “90%” and even that caused a lot of scientists to resign in protest.”

    …If you actually read what the IPCC scientists said about it, too, many spoke out in protest of the political influence because they felt that the politicians were forcing their conclusions to be watered down too much.

    The IPCC scientists had in fact concluded that the anthropogenic “signature” is near definite; many protested at having this certainty eliminated in the summary statement, largely because of the refusal of the US and China to pass any statement which contained those certainties.

    For further examples of political interference in climate science:
    http://www.climatesciencewatch.org/index.php/csw/details/ucs-gap-report/
    http://oversight.house.gov/story.asp?ID=1162

    Only one person left because he felt that a threat from AGW was being exaggerated: Chris Landsea. This was specifically over the strength of the link being posited to increased hurricane activity.

    …Oh, and blairite? Realclimate is the blog of a group of climate scientists. Their agenda is what it is because of what they study, not the other way around. And polar bears are the most recent bear species to have evolved, existing entirely within the current ice age. (http://www.geol.umd.edu/~candela/pbevol.html) Earth *is* warmer now than it has been at any point in time since polar bears first appeared, just; the problem is that the temperature is still rising. Try to fact check a little better, ok?

    Reply
  58. blarite

    Since you have read “it all”, here is a paper on the divergence problem that came out this year. On the RealClimate propaganda blog, Mann attributes this to an artifact of “smoothing”. This paper surveys all of the problems with surface temperature reconstruction.

    http://climatesci.colorado.edu/2007/05/04/a-new-paper-on-the-differences-between-recent-proxy-temperature-and-in-situ-near-surface-air-temperatures/

    Somehow “Smoothing” did not show up as one of the possible causes for the divergence problem.

    Even Hansen is, to his credit, admitting that the surface data is crap.

    http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=1648

    Yet your side keeps tooling along, as if the science were somehow “rock solid”, despite acknowledged problems with the data. The satellite data has shown global temperature flat for the past five years. The surface temps disagree, but the surface temps are what alarmists use, because they are scarier. And the skeptics are the “unscientific” ones.

    I could go on.

    Reply
  59. Luna_the_cat

    Note to Mark: I have a post stuck in your moderation queue, I guess I put in too many links.

    Reply
  60. MarkH

    Well, Duesenberg managed to get a cover story in SciAm, so he can’t be a total crank. And there are serious problems in how AIDS is being diagnosed.

    No, his research in cancer is interesting, although his interpretation of the results is characteristically black-and-white. Orac discussed it pretty thoroughly.

    But he is a crank on HIV/AIDS, no doubt about it. The science is in and he still denies a link. And as I’ve said a hundred times now, it’s not just name-calling. It’s about methods.

    “alleging conspiracy theories, cherry-picking data, using fake experts, moving goalposts, and illogical arguments to advance an agenda.”

    Ahh, the classic “I’m rubber and you’re glue” defense. What are the conspiracy theories from Hansen and Michael Mann and Al Gore? That Exxon funds people like Pat Michaels to shit on the science? It’s not a conspiracy theory if the facts actually back it up. Conspiracy theories in this context are more like truther conspiracies, it’s a way of thinking about the world and associating random bits of information into crazy and complicated alternative hypotheses.

    And cherry-picking? That allegation needs to be backed up. Remember, again, the method is very specific. Cherry-picking isn’t just citing a single fact. It’s removing facts and information from context to show something that either isn’t true, or wasn’t the intent of the author/scientist. (click the cherry for more)

    Fake Experts? We also have this well-defined – it’s all on the about page. But briefly, it’s someone who is an empty set of credentials (see for instance the appeal to Crichton’s Hahvahd degree), who argues the opposite of the what people who actually study a field would say. There are many examples, Michael Egnor – UD’s resident neurosurgeon/anti-evolution crank, the Geiers on vaccines, etc. It’s not about even necessarily working in the field so much as having knowledge of the science, and representing the state of the field accurately. I see where you’re going with this – but it’s a dead end. Gore represents the state of the field pretty well for a lay expert. He makes mistakes, sure, but he’s a communicator whos being at least a honest broker in the debate, something denialists aren’t.

    Reply
  61. TallDave

    2. People always have an easier job convincing people of what they want to believe, regardless of the truth of the matter; and it is always easier and a far happier thing to convince people that it is not necessary to change their lifestyles than to convince them that they do.

    It’s also quite easy to scare people into taking nonsensical action with doomsday predictions involving complex phenomenae that most people don’t understand. Google “comet pills” to see what I mean.

    AGW isn’t a total fraud; there’s certainly some element of C02 forcing, given how high CO2 levels are. But no one really knows how large it is or what the ultimate effects will be.

    And ’tis an ill wind that blows no one any good; try explaining to people in Greenland and Siberia why global warming is bad for them. Given that historically warmer weather has been a huge boon to mankind and the IPCC’s predictions of sea level rise are pretty tame, it’s hard to find much negative that isn’t likely to be offset by positives elsewhere. But you don’t get billions in grants for predicting that things will be fine.

    Reply
  62. blairite

    You should also google up your man Mann’s paper on “Scientific Reticence”, and tell me if this is science or politics? Remember that it is primarily Mann’s reconstructions that drive the propaganda campaign against our modern economy.

    Reply
  63. Tyler DiPietro

    Re: blarite, one can look at the publication list of the author he cites and realize the date of his citation is 2001:

    Andersen, K.K., P. Ditlevsen, and J.P. Steffensen, Ice Cores and Palaeoclimate, in Climate Change Research – Danish contributions, eds. Anne Mette Jørgensen, Jes Fenger and Kirsten Halsnæs, Gads Forlag, 2001.

    Anything more recent than that? Did paleoclimate research stop four years ago?

    BTW,

    Just skipping over anything by the nasty, foul-mouthed “Tyler”

    Oh please. I didn’t even call you a “tool”, I called an anonymous poster one because he/she made a stupid argument. And calling someone a “tool” is hardly the height of nastiness, so grow a thicker skin.

    Reply
  64. TallDave

    “cherry-picking? That allegation needs to be backed up.”

    Easy, those thirty-foot floods in AIT. The IPCC’s consensus was much tamer; there’s little reason to expect flooding like outside of a millenial time frame. Al’s just trying to scare people.

    he’s a communicator whos being at least a honest broker in the debate

    I’m trying not to fall off my chair laughing at this.

    Reply
  65. Tyler DiPietro

    “[F]our years ago” should be “six years ago” above, sorry.

    Reply
  66. minimalist

    Michael Crichten, who obtained a PHD from Harvard University is a “hack”. He has a degree in medicine, a scientific discipline and heavily data driven where interpretation of study results is a primary skill.

    1. Crichton does not have a Ph.D., but an M.D.;
    2. MD’s are typically not taught how to interpret data and statistics — and certainly not to the extent that, say scientists are;
    3. Crichton has zero relevant qualifications in climate science, physics, or anything remotely associated with GW.
    4. All of this means squat about the substance of his “arguments”, which consist of cherry-picking, quote mining, and general dishonesty, and have been debunked thoroughly and repeatedly.

    Thanks for exemplifying the “appeal to fake expert” crank gambit.

    Reply
  67. MarkH

    You guys are still missing the point – and I didn’t cherry-pick Lindzen. I like how the commenters like my tactics, even though they aren’t thinking very hard about their application.

    A cherry pick is when you cite something out of context to misrepresent something. It can be a quote – like Blair’s quoting of me – or a paper – science often wobbles on its way to truth so you can always hold on to dismissed hypotheses endlessly as science doesn’t “expunge” the literature of all the dead-ends on the way to current knowledge.

    As far as Lindzen, read his interviews and his famous WSJ op-ed and there is simply no substance there. He alleges it’s all about climate scientists lying to gobble up grant money (classic anti-science conspiracy crap) – like they wouldn’t have something to study if there weren’t global warming. And Crichton? He just plays the Galileo gambit and the “science was wrong before” card. Alarmists existed in the past, so what? There were alarmists about x therefore y and z are false? Ok, it’s an argument for skepticism, but he never makes the jump to show how the science is wrong. What does that have to do with the current state of the science? He says, outright in that speech, that if there is a consensus you shouldn’t believe it, that it’s always a scam. Really? No one who has done science would say that’s a sensible statement. His whole anti-consensus meme is just a pathetic appeal to Galileo – the orthodoxy was wrong once, so it’s always wrong! What BS, Reasic nails it perfectly. This is not impressive argument against the science, it’s just rhetorical nonsense and deserves to be called such.

    The way we researched this site was using examples from these so-called skeptics from global warming to HIV/AIDS to evolution, we found these same rhetorical tactics popping up again and again. There is no substance there – it’s just nitpicking and BS. They are not honest brokers in a debate, interested in sharing ideas and reaching a finding any kind of truth. They have a set idea they want to promote and the facts or honesty be damned. That’s why it’s denialism and not debate.

    Reply
  68. Luna_the_cat

    blairite: Crichton IS a hack. I’ve read everything he’s written, speeches, books and polemics; he supports himself by cherry-picking data and handwaving a lot, and I have seen him blatantly misrepresent the data and conclusions in legitimate papers, which annoys me no end. Being a PhD is no guarantee of being honest, and sadly, being a doctor is no guarantee of being either honest or being able to honestly or effectively evaluate primary data. For example, I have been watching the neurosurgeon Dr. Egnor’s misrepresentation of biology and evolution with a combination of amusement and downright horror, just recently, and let us not forget that Deepak Chopra is actually a qualified cardiologist.

    The only thing to do is look at the data, and Crichton’s (mis)use of available data is truly despicable, as is his frequently blatant contempt for working scientists.

    Incidentally, I wonder at your statement that satellite temperature measurements have been “flat” for the past five years; even the scientist frequently quoted as a “skeptic”, John Christy, does not claim that. From the very site you link to:
    http://climatesci.colorado.edu/2007/04/13/new-paper-on-the-assessment-of-tropospheric-temperature-trends-by-the-university-of-alabama-research-group/
    …there is a consistent warming trend.

    Seriously, there is a predominance of data pointing in one direction; hundreds of small things, but all indicating the same trend.

    Reply
  69. MarkH

    Last comment for a while here – I’ve got to get some real work done and go drinking.

    Given that historically warmer weather has been a huge boon to mankind and the IPCC’s predictions of sea level rise are pretty tame, it’s hard to find much negative that isn’t likely to be offset by positives elsewhere. But you don’t get billions in grants for predicting that things will be fine.

    This is a common misconception. IPCC’s predictions of sea level are tame, however they specifically do not consider the loss of major ice sheets.

    Now, paleoclimate reconstructions of previous periods of equivalent warmth that we’re heading to in the next century suggest that sea levels were far higher with small increases of temperature beyond what we’re currently experiencing.

    IPCC is unwilling to include these predictions in the report because no one is sure about how the dynamics of the Greenland and antarctic ice sheets will play out. There is evidence accumulating that they might be showing an accelerated melt, but so far it’s inconclusive.

    However, the inference that sea levels won’t rise catastrophically is not a safe one based on what we know of the record. We have had far higher sea levels – they’re talking meters – in the past with similar temperatures. We can’t be sure, and that’s why the IPCC doesn’t include it, but it enough to be cautious about sea level increases with the loss of the ice sheets.

    Hope that clarifies.

    Reply
  70. Tyler DiPietro

    “Easy, those thirty-foot floods in AIT. The IPCC’s consensus was much tamer; there’s little reason to expect flooding like outside of a millenial time frame. Al’s just trying to scare people.”

    This is an urban legend, actually.

    Reply
  71. Blarite

    Anything more recent than that? Did paleoclimate research stop four years ago?

    I am not the one who says the findings are wrong. I asked an honest question, has the work been debunked? Has the stalagmite data been debunked?

    Tyler,
    From the tone of your question, I assume that you are a “flat climater?”

    Reply
  72. TallDave

    Realclimate is the blog of a group of climate scientists. Their agenda is what it is because of what they study,

    Sure, and the Tobacco Institute was a group of tobacco scientists who just happened to find that tobacco was good for you because they studied tobacco. No agenda!

    Only one person left because he felt that a threat from AGW was being exaggerated: Chris Landsea.

    Landsea wasn’t the only one:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Reiter


    Reiter says he was a contributor to the third IPCC Working Group II (Impacts, adaptation and vulnerability) report, but resigned because he “found [himself] at loggerheads with persons who insisted on making authoritative pronouncements.

    “A galling aspect of the debate is that this spurious ‘science’ is endorsed in the public forum by influential panels of ‘experts.’ I refer particularly to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Every five years, this UN-based organization publishes a ‘consensus of the world’s top scientists’ on all aspects of climate change. Quite apart from the dubious process by which these scientists are selected, such consensus is the stuff of politics, not of science. Science proceeds by observation, hypothesis and experiment. The complexity of this process, and the uncertainties involved, are a major obstacle to a meaningful understanding of scientific issues by non-scientists. In reality, a genuine concern for mankind and the environment demands the inquiry, accuracy and scepticism that are intrinsic to authentic science. A public that is unaware of this is vulnerable to abuse.”

    Reply
  73. TallDave

    Tyler,

    It’s not an urban legend. Gore took an extremely unlikely scenario and presented in a way that made it sound likely. He might just as well have said “But if the Earth crashes into the Sun, global temperatures could go up even further!”

    Of course, if you follow all your doomsday predictions with “…but of course that’s extremely unlikely,” you don’t fill the seats.

    Reply
  74. Wonder Woman

    I have a degree in physics. It allows me to know that your statement is grossly absurd.

    — and I have a degree in motherhood. it allows me to know that you argue like a petulant 2-year-old.

    Reply
  75. Anonymous

    IPCC is unwilling to include these predictions in the report because no one is sure about how the dynamics of the Greenland and antarctic ice sheets will play out. There is evidence accumulating that they might be showing an accelerated melt, but so far it’s inconclusive.

    From http://www.co2science.org/scripts/CO2ScienceB2C/education/reports/hansen/HansenTestimonyCritique.pdf

    A good perspective on this issue [ice sheet disintintigration] is provided in the 16 March 2007 issue of Science by Shepherd and Wingham (2007), who review what is known about sea-level contributions arising from wastage of the Antarctic and Greenland Ice Sheets, focusing on the results of 14 different satellite-based estimates of the imbalances of the polar ice sheets that have been derived since 1998. These studies have been of three major types – standard mass budget analyses, altimetry measurements of ice-sheet volume changes, and measurements of the ice sheets’ changing gravitational attraction – and they have yielded a diversity of values, ranging from an implied sea-level rise of 1.0 mm/year to a sea-level fall of 0.15 mm/year. Based on their evaluation of these diverse findings, the two researchers come to the conclusion that the current “best estimate” of the contribution of polar ice wastage to global sea level change is a rise of 0.35 millimeters per year, which over a century amounts to only 35 millimeters, or less than an inch and a half.

    Al Gore is an alarmist and outside of the mainstream.

    Reply
  76. Luna_the_cat

    TallDave: Compare the population in Siberia and Greenland to the population in Bombay, Tokyo, New York, Miami, London, Venice, Amsterdam, and a few other cities within a yard or a yard-and-a-bit of sea level.

    Tell me what will physically happen to these cities if sea level rises 30 cm, which is well within the predicted range of possible sea level rise by 2100, and is an outside possibility for sea level rise by 2050.

    Now tell me about how Siberia and Greenland affect the world economy compared to these cities.

    Now, in another part of the world, contemplate the various neverending “humanitarian crises” going on in Africa, and how they are likely to be affected by further, ongoing drought there.

    Now, are you going to claim that Siberia and Greenlands’ increased agricultural productivity will offset problems in these areas, and how they will be happy to help shoulder the costs of the economic disruption elsewhere in the world?

    Reply
  77. Tyler DiPietro

    “It’s not an urban legend. Gore took an extremely unlikely scenario and presented in a way that made it sound likely.”

    So far as I know, Gore cited no particular time-frame for the collapse of the greenland ice-sheet and didn’t indicate any certainty among the scientific community of if and/or when it would happen. I also don’t see that the situation is so horribly unlikely, at least in the eyes of scientists who study the climate.

    Reply
  78. Luna_the_cat

    Ah, yes, good old co2science.org. We wouldn’t want to think *they* were biased, now would we?

    Reply
  79. Daddy Dave

    Some of the AGW commenters here are prone to irony and oblique reference- a debating style more in tune with humanities and lit crit circles than science, and incidentally a style that I can’t stand. But anyway.

    Just to stir things up again, here are some wild “denialist” assertions.

    1) the earth may have warmed over the past century, but due to our incomplete understanding of the environment, it’s not clear whether we are causing this, or even if we are capable of controlling the climate to that extent;
    2) warming has pretty much plataued since 1998 (2006 was slightly higher however);
    3) due to the realities of global politics, even if humans are 100% to blame, there is absolutely no practical solution to this. India, China, other developing countries will never sign on to emissions reductions. Just won’t happen. Turning of your AC at night in Western country is nothing but a symbolic gesture;
    4) major AGW activists are hypocrites, who consume vast amounts of energy, fly around the world, live in huge houses, etc. They buy off their sins with carbon credits, which bears such a similarity to medieval Catholic practices that it is beyond parody;
    5) scientists who advocate AGW get more funding from funding bodies. this political practice enforces the status quo, regardless of its truth;
    6) An Inconvenient Truth was largely a propaganda piece;
    7) realclimate.org has an agenda, and cannot be used as an authority source. Same goes for wikipedia;
    8) AGW activists indulge public alarmism but scream at any hint of skepticism: this is a “one-sided” scientific pose.

    Reply
  80. Tyler DiPietro

    “I am not the one who says the findings are wrong.”

    No, but you are citing a six-year paper about climate-reconstructions that discusses the past centuries warming to discredit the idea that the warming trend of recent decades is not anthropogenic (or at least that’s what I’m reading at as, correct me if I’m wrong). It doesn’t seem particularly crucial, or even relevant.

    Reply
  81. TallDave

    Tell me what will physically happen to these cities if sea level rises 30 cm,

    Very little. Storm surges reach 5M, tides vary by 10M, ocean surface topography varies by 1M. Seasonal variations reach 1M. Hell, El Nino changes them by .6M.

    Compare the population in Siberia and Greenland to the population in Bombay, Tokyo, New York, Miami, London, Venice, Amsterdam, and a few other cities within a yard or a yard-and-a-bit of sea level.

    Siberia and Greenland aren’t the only cold places in the world. A good chunk of the world’s population lives in temperate regions, and more than a couple freeze to death every year.

    Africa… how they are likely to be affected by further, ongoing drought there.

    Maybe they’ll get MORE rain. No one really knows. Anyways, Africa’s problems have to do with terrible mismanagement of resources much more than drought.

    Reply
  82. Luna_the_cat

    Ah yes, and from “Recent Sea-Level Contributions of the Antarctic and Greenland Ice Sheets”, Andrew Shepherd and Duncan Wingham, Science, 16 March 2007 315: 1529-1532 [DOI: 10.1126/science.1136776] :

    As global temperatures have risen, so have rates of snowfall, ice melting, and glacier flow. Although the balance between these opposing processes has varied considerably on a regional scale, data show that Antarctica and Greenland are each losing mass overall. Our best estimate of their combined imbalance is about 125 gigatons per year of ice, enough to raise sea level by 0.35 millimeters per year. This is only a modest contribution to the present rate of sea-level rise of 3.0 millimeters per year. However, much of the loss from Antarctica and Greenland is the result of the flow of ice to the ocean from ice streams and glaciers, which has accelerated over the past decade. In both continents, there are suspected triggers for the accelerated ice discharge—surface and ocean warming, respectively—and, over the course of the 21st century, these processes could rapidly counteract the snowfall gains predicted by present coupled climate models.

    What they actually say, not what co2science.org says they say. Is a bit different, no?

    Reply
  83. TallDave

    Gore cited no particular time-frame for the collapse of the greenland ice-sheet

    That’s the problem! If he’d said “but that most likely won’t happen for thousands of years” it wouldn’t be alarmism, would it? But again, that doesn’t fill the seats.

    Dave: Compare the population in Siberia and Greenland to the population in Bombay, Tokyo, New York, Miami

    BTW, have you thought about why more people live in warmer regions? (Hint: BECAUSE IT’S WARM!!)

    Reply
  84. Luna_the_cat

    TallDave: I have to go, I have a lot of things to do tonight — but seriously, Google Scholar is your friend, and you really need to read up on the effect that sea level rise has on storm surge, for example, and the predicted effects of climate change on both Africa’s rainfall and the Asian monsoons. Also, consider the population differences again, between the cities I have named and any cold temperate region you can think of (this might help, or even better, this). Note also, how many people die of heat every year, too.

    I’m not trying to be alarmist — I dislike alarmism — but the potential economic disruption is actually a great deal more than you are admitting, and the “nobody knows” is in fact not strictly true.

    Reply
  85. Manboy

    Looks like someone is waving the “conspiracy” card here.

    I find it ridiculous that these denialists are accusing the IPCC of sloppy science all the while supporting nobodies such as Lindzen et al.

    If you looked more carefully into this you’d find IPCC was supported by several national scientific academies around the world. The US, UK, Germany, France, India, Japan, China, Russia, etc etc.

    Now, you’d be a fool indeed to accuse IPCC of poor science with this support in mind.

    Or maybe this is a worldwide consipiracy after all ?

    Time to don your tinfoil hats, gentlemen !

    Reply
  86. Daddy Dave

    I like the idea of this blog.
    Global Warming is not an issue where you’ll score knock-out blows, all that will happen is you’ll become a wheel on the Realclimate/Gore propaganda wagon.
    Much better if you work on something where thousands of small children die every day:
    immunization skeptics.
    To my knowledge, AGW skeptics didn’t result in anyone’s death this past week. That’s not true for immunization skeptics.
    Atta boy.
    So, I’m looking forward to lots of good stuff on vaccination deniers, evolution deniers, AIDS deniers, free trade deniers, holocaust deniers, 9/11 deniers, and so on…

    There are lots of easy points to be scored, and lots of low-hanging fruit out there to be picked.
    Global Warming isn’t one of them.

    Reply
  87. Anonymous

    If you looked more carefully into this you’d find IPCC was supported by several national scientific academies around the world. The US, UK, Germany, France, India, Japan, China, Russia, etc etc.

    This is the problem. There’s a bureaucratic consensus on global warming. Bureaucracies in science organizations, funding departments, and governments have reached a consensus. That’s different than a scientific consensus, which there isnt.
    The reason there’s no scientific consensus is that the evidence simply isn’t strong enough.

    Reply
  88. Dave Surls

    “I actually can’t figure out exactly what his reasoning was here.”

    It’s not that hard to follow…if people are still debating, then the deabate isn’t over.

    Think about it (for about half a second, that’s all that should be required).

    Reply
  89. Daddy Dave

    that last comment was by me. Keep forgetting to sign, sorry…

    Reply
  90. Manboy

    Yes, I’d trust anonymous to tell me if there is or is not a scientific consensus.

    So, you’re saying all these prestigious national scientific academies are joined in a bureaucratic consensus on this climate science issue ?

    Sure.

    I’ve heard this argument before.

    I’m so glad we have nonpartisan pundits such as Tim Blair to point this out to us.

    Reply
  91. Anonymous

    you really need to read up on the effect that sea level rise has on storm surge

    Again, smaller than El Nino and seasonal variations. And that’s over a century. Also, while you’re thinking ahead, consider what resources will be available in 100 years that aren’t today. Try extrapolating world GDP at a growth rate of 3% for 100 years. And don’t forget to consider advances in technology!

    and the predicted effects of climate change on both Africa’s rainfall and the Asian monsoons.

    Right, and those predictions have a great record of accuracy I’m sure. Just like last year was going to be the worst Atlantic hurricane season ever.

    Have you noticed the Amazon has more biodiversity than the Antarctic? Why do you suppose that is? (Hint: see previous hint.)

    Reply
  92. Luna_the_cat

    Daddy Dave, I was unfortunately serious about having to go — but I would simply like to say, as a parting shot, that every single one of your “wild denialist assertions” is, in fact, by the evidence, false.

    The only exception to this is the fact that yes, RealClimate do have an agenda; which is based on the conclusions they have drawn from their own research, however, and which is technically entirely justified by the data. If you don’t like their conclusions, you need to disprove their data. They can be used as an authoritative source because they are primary researchers, they are the people doing research work. They are thus qualified to speak on it.

    One quick and easy one to refute, though, is your statement about temperature having plateaued since 1998. First, 1998, was an exceptional temperature spike; that the subsequent few years did not surpass it is unsurprising and representative of little. What is more representative is the fact that the continued trend is actually quite clear to see, if you look:
    http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/2005/
    http://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/news/20070208/

    Reply
  93. MarkH

    1) the earth may have warmed over the past century, but due to our incomplete understanding of the environment, it’s not clear whether we are causing this, or even if we are capable of controlling the climate to that extent;

    Appeal to ignorance, we actually are pretty sure (90%) that we are. It’s also a moving goalpost, as it’s never possible to be 100% sure of anything, but that’s not an argument for inaction.

    2) warming has pretty much plataued since 1998 (2006 was slightly higher however);

    Not true. Classic cherry pick (grist).

    3) due to the realities of global politics, even if humans are 100% to blame, there is absolutely no practical solution to this. India, China, other developing countries will never sign on to emissions reductions. Just won’t happen. Turning of your AC at night in Western country is nothing but a symbolic gesture;

    This is contradicted from news just from this week that China and India will back our leadership on climate. Also this is just fatalism based on a sloppy generality.

    4) major AGW activists are hypocrites, who consume vast amounts of energy, fly around the world, live in huge houses, etc. They buy off their sins with carbon credits, which bears such a similarity to medieval Catholic practices that it is beyond parody;

    That has nothing to do with the validity of the science – nice channeling of Cockburns crankery though. You can be a hypocrite and be correct.

    5) scientists who advocate AGW get more funding from funding bodies. this political practice enforces the status quo, regardless of its truth;

    Conspiracy theory – and a classic one from anyone who is anti-science. It’s all about the grants! The entire field is full of liars falsifying data for grants! You know who also says this? The evolution denialists, the HIV/AIDS denialists, the holocaust denialists, animal rights extremists etc. This is the most tiresome anti-science conspiracy theory out there.

    In this case it also assumes there wouldn’t be anything interesting to study in a field like climate science without warming. Pretty laughable really, and further, an assertion without data to back it up.

    6) An Inconvenient Truth was largely a propaganda piece;

    Admittedly so. But one that had its facts certified by climate scientists as being accurate.

    7) realclimate.org has an agenda, and cannot be used as an authority source. Same goes for wikipedia;

    Again, the conspiracy theory that makes it impossible for anyone who studies something to make a valid point about it. Since everyone is contaminated by the grant conspiracy no one can be believed but the cranks on the outside railing against the system. Absurd. As far as wikipedia – who the hell uses it as a primary source for anything? Quick reference maybe, but not exactly reliable especially on controversial subjects – because of the cranks, not the scientists.

    8) AGW activists indulge public alarmism but scream at any hint of skepticism: this is a “one-sided” scientific pose.

    I write skeptical articles about AGW too, I attack the independent and their alarmism whenever I can. Most scientists who care about not being tarred with the alarmist brush hate crappy reporting on the environment.

    You guys, further, are not expressing skepticism, but denialism. I’ve defined the techniques, and all you do is offer it up again and again. Hell, your post here gets a score of at least 3/5. Are you seeing what we’re talking about yet? There is no substance here, just conspiracy theories and paranoia, it’s like arguing with truthers (but the blairites are far more polite).

    PS – wonderwoman – I apologized for that statement, I misread something and got snappy. It was immature (and 3AM).

    Reply
  94. minimalist

    Global Warming is not an issue where you’ll score knock-out blows,

    Not the first time I’ve seen this. I think this should be made a standard denialist tactic. Call it the “Black Knight Gambit”.

    Also reminds me of my days on sci.skeptic, when you’d have cranks coming in and saying “Gosh skepticism is great when you’re applying it to obvious bullshit like UFOs and homeopathy — ha ha ha, aren’t those kooks funny? — but dammit why do you SKEP-TO-PATHS have to deny that astrology works!?”

    Reply
  95. Daddy Dave

    Global Warming is not an issue where you’ll score knock-out blows,
    Not the first time I’ve seen this. I think this should be made a standard denialist tactic. Call it the “Black Knight Gambit”.

    no, this wasn’t intended to be persuasive, or a tactic. It was just a suggestion. Obviously one that won’t be taken up, but fools rush in, as they say.

    Reply
  96. Richard Simons

    Daddy Dave asked

    Have you actually read, for example, “The skeptical environmentalist” by Lomborg, or essays by Lindzen or Crichton?

    No, but I have read ‘Jurassic Park’ and given an extract of it to undergraduate students to see if they could spot the five blunders on the one page. Crichton is not an expert on science.

    Reply
  97. Manboy

    That damn Crichton even got velociraptors all wrong ! I thought they were l33t killers but in reality they were just tiny !

    Damn him ! Goddamn him to hell !

    Reply
  98. Daddy Dave

    1)

    Appeal to ignorance, we actually are pretty sure (90%) that we are.

    so to rephrase, my point was, literally, correct.
    2)

    classic cherry-pick

    Perhaps. But even if temperatures have plateaued, smoothing would continue to show an increase for some time after the plateau, as your chart shows. I should note that using the past 100 or so years to show warming may turn out to be the most classic cherry pick of all time…
    3) this is just fatalism You may be right. I’m pretty fatalistic when it comes to international politics.
    4) That has nothing to do with the validity of the science no it doesn’t, but it has everything to do with the credibility of the individuals
    5) saw a recent article from a climate scientist who jumped the fence to the skeptic side, claiming exactly this (link eludes me- will find if you really want it)
    6) we’re in agreement again. How many is that, now?
    7) fair enough. I think both sides have a point here though. yes, they’re entitled to an agenda. But yes, they’re funded by political organizations, which tends to undermine their credibility.
    8) I think my point here still stands.

    Reply
  99. MarkH

    Now that I think about it, I think the holy grail might have been entirely about cranks.

    Think about it. You start with the guy obsessed with the origin of the coconuts, who blathers on endlessly about it that Arthur has to ride one. You’ve got the black night, who won’t admit defeat no matter what. Then of course the the political peasant – perfect example of crank persecution complex. People convicting women as witches over warts, the fanatical obsessiveness (and prudishness) of Lancelot, and then there’s the french, just spewing bile from parapets.

    I’m beginning to look at that movie in a whole new way….

    Reply
  100. Luna_the_cat

    A few quick words on the scientific consensus:

    http://www.agu.org/sci_soc/policy/climate_change_position.html
    http://www7.nationalacademies.org/ocga/testimony/Global_Climate_Change_Policy_and_Budget_Review.asp
    ( http://dels.nas.edu/basc/Climate-HIGH.pdf ,
    http://www.nap.edu/collections/global_warming/index.html)
    http://www.aaas.org/news/press_room/climate_change/mtg_200702/aaas_climate_statement.pdf
    http://www.ametsoc.org/policy/climatechangeresearch_2003.html
    http://www.royalsoc.ac.uk/document.asp?latest=1&id=3222
    http://www.icsu-africa.org/Resource_centre/Globalresponseclimatechange.pdf
    http://www.nationalacademies.org/includes/G8Statement_Energy_07_May.pdf

    …These are not all, just a good sample. Note — these are the scientists and independent science academies, not the politicians, speaking.

    Reply
  101. blairite

    “No, but you are citing a six-year paper about climate-reconstructions that discusses the past centuries warming to discredit the idea that the warming trend of recent decades is not anthropogenic (or at least that’s what I’m reading at as, correct me if I’m wrong). It doesn’t seem particularly crucial, or even relevant.”

    I am not the “flat climater” who says that current temps are unprecidented. It is extremely relevant, since alarmist claim that the greenhouse effect will lead to runaway warming. If it has been warmer in the recent past, then why didn’t the feedbacks runaway then?

    Reply
  102. Daddy Dave

    Look, we can argue Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming all day (using the long-winded, but correct term for the theory in dispute, so I wont be accused of shifting goalposts). Two facts are indisputable:

    There is a bureaucratic consensus.
    There is not a scientific consensus.

    This stands in contrast to, for example, AIDS, evolution, free trade, vaccination, iridology, homeopathy, astrology, astral traveling, and pretty much any of the other things you want to attack.
    There is a scientific consensus on all these things. There are no scientists that deny these.
    The IPCC and all the “bodies” that have made declarations are bureaucratic entities. That is no substitute for a scientific consensus that does not exist.

    Reply
  103. Daddy Dave

    correction. I should have said, “there are no scientists that disagree with the prevailing scientific opinion”. You probably got the idea anyway.

    Reply
  104. blairite

    In both continents, there are suspected triggers for the accelerated ice discharge—surface and ocean warming, respectively—and, over the course of the 21st century, these processes could rapidly counteract the snowfall gains predicted by present coupled climate models.

    OK, so we have to spend trillions of dollars on “suspected triggers”? This is your big takedown?

    Reply
  105. MarkH

    Last trade, then it’s beer o’clock.

    1)

    Appeal to ignorance, we actually are pretty sure (90%) that we are.

    so to rephrase, my point was, literally, correct.

    And so was mine, that this is a goal-post moving argument. There can be no absolute truth, how positively po-mo of you.

    2)

    classic cherry-pick

    Perhaps. But even if temperatures have plateaued, smoothing would continue to show an increase for some time after the plateau, as your chart shows. I should note that using the past 100 or so years to show warming may turn out to be the most classic cherry pick of all time…

    We don’t use the last 100 years, we typically use about 2000 in the hockey stick, and reconstructions go back almost 800k years now.

    3) this is just fatalism You may be right. I’m pretty fatalistic when it comes to international politics.

    You shouldn’t be, environmentalism is a growing movement in china and india as citizens are tired of being poisoned. Further, just this week they signed on with Bush’s weak policy proposal, showing that where there is leadership, even pitiful leadership, they may follow. Ultimately this is kind of a “Timmy’s mom let’s him stay up till 12!” argument. The answer is so what, and if you want to be slightly optimistic, think of all the advantages of developing more efficient technologies, selling it to the world, and bankrupting the countries that just attacked us 6 years ago.

    4) That has nothing to do with the validity of the science no it doesn’t, but it has everything to do with the credibility of the individuals

    No, actually it doesn’t. Credibility has nothing to do with hypocrisy – which is a stretch anyway. It’s hard to eliminate your carbon footprint, and when they try they’re not just accused of buying forgiveness like medeival sinners. It’s lose-lose. The only choice such arguments give advocates is to go live in a quonset hut – hence the Quonset hut attack. So you’re either doomed to not believe in the science, or become a hermit on the mountain. I don’t like this bifurcation.

    5) saw a recent article from a climate scientist who jumped the fence to the skeptic side, claiming exactly this (link eludes me- will find if you really want it)

    Hmm, sounds like Duesberg again. They won’t fund me because it’s an old-boys network – wah wah. Etc. Same old conspiracy nonsense, or at least sour grapes (you hear this from lots of real scientists during grant season). I’d need some data on this rather than the second-hand opinion of some disgruntled guy.

    6) we’re in agreement again. How many is that, now?

    Yes, it’s political theater? So what? He wants to advocate for change? Should he have done a puppet-show instead? Or just gone to live in a quonset hut on a mountain waiting for those seeking wisdom to seek him out?

    7) fair enough. I think both sides have a point here though. yes, they’re entitled to an agenda. But yes, they’re funded by political organizations, which tends to undermine their credibility.

    Political? NIH? NSF? NIST? Every time I hear this conspiracy theory that eliminates the experts from a field, the tin-foiler always says the granting organization is political as if this means something. They really aren’t that political, if you’ve ever been to a study section or consensus conference. Everybody is working under pretty tight rules and it’s difficult to push an agenda since there’s so many balancing factors.

    8) I think my point here still stands.

    I don’t. I gave you a score of 3/5, I think it should have been a 4/5 since I forgot the goalpost moving. Almost a perfect denialist argument, all you forgot was to cite a hack like Crichton and you would have a perfect score.

    There is no data here, just oft-recycled canards. There is no substance, no real debate.

    Beer O’clock. Later.

    Reply
  106. Luna_the_cat

    Daddy Dave, sadly, there are scientists who argue over AIDS, evolution, and homeopathy, just to take a few. Never heard of Behe and Dembski, or Duesberg? They are crap scientists, but they are scientists.

    The number of “climate skeptic” scientists actually stands in about the same proportion as “evolution skeptic” scientists: far, far fewer than 1% of the people in relevant disciplines, which by itself should tell you something. Even Reiter — he debated that climate change predictions could be used to accurately predict the spread of malaria, but I can’t find anywhere that he states any lack of acceptance of anthropogenic climate change. True “skeptics” are Singer, Lindzen, and…who? How many others in any relevant field? Out of how many thousand?

    Please note the above links, too, and accept the fact that when we talk about a scientific consensus, there is a genuine reason for this.

    Now, going…really…I gotta.

    Reply
  107. Blairite

    [AIT] had its facts certified by climate scientists — MarkH

    Really, CERITIFIED? Look up the word please. Do you have a link? Or do blog posts from a site that is funded by the Environmental Defense Fund constitute certification?

    I would accept it if you told me that it had been peer reviewed. I would be most interested in any evidence of same?

    Somebody asked my why paleoclimate is important. Al Gore said that polar bears are being “pushed off the planet” Is there a study showing this? If so, why didn’t polar bears go extinct in the last warm period, which was warmer than today, and lasted thousands of years? I would really like to see “certification” of that claim.

    Reply
  108. MarkH

    @Blairite:

    AP put together a panel to watch it. 19 climate scientists is pretty good peer review if you ask me, a paper usually only gets about 3-4.

    Also Real Climate’s review.

    Ok I’m out.

    Reply
  109. Anonymous

    Writing in the 30 March 2007 issue of Science, for example, Anandakrishnan et al. (2007) describe a sedimentary wedge or “till delta” deposited by and under West Antarctica’s Whillans Ice Stream that they detected via radar surveys made from the floating Ross Ice Shelf. This grounding-line buildup of sedimentary material, as they describe it, “serves to thicken the ice and stabilize the position of the grounding line,” so that “the ice just up-glacier of the grounding line is substantially thicker than that needed to allow floatation.” Consequently, they say that “the grounding-line will tend to remain in the same location … until sea level rises enough to overcome the excess thickness that is due to the wedge.”
    So how high would the sea need to rise to “unground” the Whillans Ice Stream and wrest it from the continent? In a study that analyzes this question in detail, Alley et al. (2007) find that “sea-level changes of a few meters are unlikely to substantially affect ice-sheet behavior,” and they conclude that a rise on the order of 100 meters might be needed to “overwhelm the stabilizing feedback from sedimentation.” In fact, Anderson (2007) states that “at the current rate of sea-level rise, it would take several thousand years [our italics] to float the ice sheet off [its] bed.” What is more, Alley et al. say that the ice sheet’s extra thickness up-glacier from the grounding-line wedge will tend to stabilize it against “any other environmental perturbation.”

    I guess that the above mentioned “denialist’s” carries no weight against suspected triggers.

    The debate persists. I will say that there is a very large consensus on the idea that CO2 can force temperatures. The subject of feedbacks and scale of the forcing is so vast that to pretend that it is currently understood is nothing short of lunacy. To suggest that debate on this subject, when alarmists are demanding trillions of dollars and points off of GDPs worldwide, is closed is downright Orwellian.

    Reply
  110. Blairite

    From your “certification”

    “I thought the use of imagery from Hurricane Katrina was inappropriate and unnecessary in this regard, as there are plenty of disturbing impacts associated with global warming for which there is much greater scientific consensus,” said Brian Soden, a University of Miami professor of meteorology and oceanography.

    There is no consensus on hurrican intensity, yet it is a picture of a hurricane which graces the cover of AIT.

    There is one study, by a researcher at University of Georgia, I think, which was done only over the past 35 years, which shows a link. No long terms studies support her findings.

    MarkH,
    Friendly advice, you should be more moderate in your language. That is two howlers today, first “I have read all the literature” and then AIT was certified, when in fact, a bunch of people informally reviewed it.

    This is nothing like having “3 or 4” qualified researchers fact check it.

    Reply
  111. Daddy Dave

    “90 percent certainty”
    what’s the certainty that evolution is true?
    90 percent also?
    Contemplate that number for a while…
    Cheers.

    Reply
  112. Blairite

    I think it is fair to say, given the current state of debate on hurricane intensity, that Gore “cherry picked” his studies so that he could blame Katrina on AGW.

    I don’t deny AGW, btw. I accept it. I just don’t think the alarmism is supported, and I don’t think it is well enough understood to claim the “debate is over”.

    Reply
  113. factician

    DaddyDave
    So, I’m looking forward to lots of good stuff on vaccination deniers, evolution deniers, AIDS deniers, free trade deniers, holocaust deniers, 9/11 deniers, and so on… There are lots of easy points to be scored, and lots of low-hanging fruit out there to be picked. Global Warming isn’t one of them.

    This makes me chuckle. I had an anti-vaxer tell me to pack up and work on the *real* denialists, the anti-global warming people.

    Sorry, dude. If you’re working against the scientific consensus, and you have zero data backing you up, look in the mirror – you’re a denialist.

    MarkH:
    Beer O’clock. Later.

    I couldn’t agree more. 😉

    Reply
  114. Luna_the_cat

    blairite, not only do you seem to be entirely unused to the language of science, you also don’t pay attention. Polar bears have been around for, AT MOST, 200,000 years. The bulk of that time period has been dominated by glaciations. It is currently warmer now than it has been during that time period. Cripes — it is repeating the same thing over and over, even after positive evidence to the contrary has been given, which makes people look like cranks, you know.

    A few of the more easily found pieces on polar bears:
    http://www.taiga.net/coop/reference/indicator_assessments/rptfat.html — non-scientist summary of science pieces; “executive summary”
    http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1748-7692.2005.tb01212.x — what climate warming does to ringed seals
    http://www.jstor.org/view/02698463/di995352/99p0081p/0 –why ringed seals are massively important to polar bear survival
    predicted effect on polar bears.

    Gone now. Honest. I’ll be back later.

    Reply
  115. Luna_the_cat

    blairite, not only do you seem to be entirely unused to the language of science, you also don’t pay attention. Polar bears have been around for, AT MOST, 200,000 years. The bulk of that time period has been dominated by glaciations. It is currently warmer now than it has been during that time period. Cripes — it is repeating the same thing over and over, even after positive evidence to the contrary has been given, which makes people look like cranks, you know.

    A few of the more easily found pieces on polar bears:
    http://www.taiga.net/coop/reference/indicator_assessments/rptfat.html — non-scientist summary of science pieces; “executive summary”
    http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1748-7692.2005.tb01212.x — what climate warming does to ringed seals
    http://www.jstor.org/view/02698463/di995352/99p0081p/0 –why ringed seals are massively important to polar bear survival
    And, predicted effect on polar bears.

    Gone now. Honest. I’ll be back later.

    Reply
  116. blairite

    DaddyDave,
    That 90% certainty is for a range of outcomes so wide that it includes warming scenarios so slight that without sophisticated instruments, that would not be noticed.

    Now, I do have a life. You guys here at the denialism blog can continue your circle jerk assessment that the incredibly complex and chaotic climate of this planet, physics of the sun, oceanic circulations, contributions of cosmic rays, orbit of the sun through the milky way and its attendent adventures, cylcles of planetarty precession, feedbacks of clouds, methane concentrations (inexplicably dropping), etc are fully understood and that anyone who questions this is obviously a moron.

    Reply
  117. minimalist

    no, this wasn’t intended to be persuasive, or a tactic. It was just a suggestion. Obviously one that won’t be taken up, but fools rush in, as they say.

    Okay, so it just a friendly suggestion that we’ll totally get our legs bitten off… eventually. Thanks.

    But I’d like to return to this, since it’s been disturbing me as I was working:

    Much better if you work on something where thousands of small children die every day:
    immunization skeptics.
    To my knowledge, AGW skeptics didn’t result in anyone’s death this past week. That’s not true for immunization skeptics.
    Atta boy.
    So, I’m looking forward to lots of good stuff on vaccination deniers, evolution deniers, AIDS deniers, free trade deniers, holocaust deniers, 9/11 deniers, and so on…

    So… something that could possibly result in death and economic disaster further down the line isn’t really worth addressing, in your scheme of things? Or is it just that you cannot even entertain the possibility that there are consequences if you are wrong — let alone the possibility that you might be wrong?

    Either way it’s a rather disturbing dimension to crankery that I hadn’t really noticed before. So thanks for that, too… I guess.

    Reply
  118. Daddy Dave

    You guys don’t get it, do you? There is not a scientific consensus. There’s not anything close to the sort of consensus that there is on vaccination, evolution, yada yada.
    Government panels are no substitute for consensus.
    And, 90 percent, guys. Think about it.
    You won’t find scientists saying “we’re 90 percent sure astrology is wrong.”

    Reply
  119. trrll

    t’s not that hard to follow…if people are still debating, then the deabate isn’t over.

    Think about it (for about half a second, that’s all that should be required).

    By this criterion, the roundness of the earth is still under debate. If the criterion for the debate being over means the complete absence of cranks, then no debate is ever over.

    You guys don’t get it, do you? There is not a scientific consensus. There’s not anything close to the sort of consensus that there is on vaccination, evolution, yada yada.
    Government panels are no substitute for consensus.
    And, 90 percent, guys. Think about it.
    You won’t find scientists saying “we’re 90 percent sure astrology is wrong.”

    There are some things that scientists are even more certain about than the reality of global warming, so therefore global warming is uncertain? That’s a cranky argument if I ever heard one!

    Reply
  120. Daddy Dave

    So… something that could possibly result in death and economic disaster further down the line isn’t really worth addressing, in your scheme of things? Or is it just that you cannot even entertain the possibility that there are consequences if you are wrong

    The position you are advocating is called the precautionary principle.
    Philosophers destroyed it a century or two ago.

    Reply
  121. Daddy Dave

    so therefore global warming is uncertain?

    No, global warming is uncertain, period.
    Ninety percent certainty is not certainty. Facts that are absolutely established, such as vaccination, evolution and the roundness of the earth, don’t get this “we’re 90% sure” treatment attached to them. They’re just accepted as facts.

    When a government body hand-picks a group of scientists to make a consensus statement, and the best they can agree on is ninety percent, and even then they have some of the hand-picked members leave in disgust, you don’t have consensus.

    Reply
  122. Daddy Dave

    It’s been fun. I’m gone. Cheers.

    Reply
  123. Brian

    I found some goalposts in my backyard… did someone else move them here?

    Reply
  124. Anonymous

    Daddydave,
    Facts that are absolutely established, such as vaccination, evolution and the roundness of the earth, don’t get this “we’re 90% sure” treatment attached to them.

    So you’re now comfortable with the 90% sure statement? 90% sure is pretty darn sure. Not as sure as 99% sure. Or 99.9% sure. Would you tell me which level of sureness that you will feel comfortable gambling with the future of your children on?

    I doubt you’ll find any honest scientist that will say they’re 100% sure about *anything*. I’m not 100% sure that umbrellas don’t cause cancer. But I’m 90% sure they don’t… Hmmm…

    You won’t find scientists saying “we’re 90 percent sure astrology is wrong.”

    You’ll find that it is much easier to “prove” something wrong than it is to “prove” something right. If you ever do find an honest scientist willing to put their 100% stamp of approval on something, it will most likely be that something is wrong.

    Blairite:
    Now, I do have a life. You guys here at the denialism blog can continue your circle jerk assessment that the incredibly complex and chaotic climate of this planet, physics of the sun, oceanic circulations, contributions of cosmic rays, orbit of the sun through the milky way and its attendent adventures, cylcles of planetarty precession, feedbacks of clouds, methane concentrations (inexplicably dropping), etc are fully understood and that anyone who questions this is obviously a moron.

    “It’s all too hard to understand!”. Yep, it’s pretty hard. Especially for a couple of dopes wasting time on the internet (yep, I include me in that statment). Fortunately for us, thousands of really bright folks have spent years on this problem, obsessing day and night. Passing peer review. Publishing. Thinking, thinking, thinking. And testing their assumptions over and over.

    I confess, I don’t have a total handle on global warming science. I suspect that none of the above posters do, either. But I do have an excellent handle on how science is done. And I trust it as a methodology to get shit done. If 2000 scientists get together and manage to produce a document that says “we’re 90% sure of something”, that’s a pretty amazing thing. I take notice of that. And you should too.

    The alternative is to say, “Me and Michael Crichton, we’ve figured this out, and those dumb scientists haven’t”. And quite frankly, that makes you look just a little bit silly.

    Reply
  125. Bruno of Blarir

    “see what the national academies said about Mann in 2006. Hockey stick isn’t debunked. That’s a myth.”

    You’ve keen to define “denialist”, how about defining “debunk”. I’m not a sciencist, so I’ll have to use a dictionary defination. Apoligies for my ignorance.

    Debunk: To expose or ridicule the falseness, sham, or exaggerated claims of:

    What did the National Academies say about Mann – “So while the committee that wrote the report found Mann’s conclusion of unprecedented warming during the final decades of the 20th century to be plausible, it placed much less confidence in his claims about the 1990s and 1998 being the warmest in the past millennium.”

    Now let’s define “cherry picking”…

    Reply
  126. Jestak

    You guys don’t get it, do you? There is not a scientific consensus. There’s not anything close to the sort of consensus that there is on vaccination, evolution, yada yada.

    You forgot the key seven words of your argument that make it unassailable–“this is true because I say so.”

    Reply
  127. rmp

    Daddy Dave, are you saying that if the scientific consensus is only 90% we should ignore it? I suspect not. I suspect you would agree that it would be prudent to act in such a manner as to address the very ‘probable’ climate change. What are we debating again?

    Reply
  128. David

    Realclimate is the blog of a group of climate scientists. Their agenda is what it is because of what they study, (Luna)

    Sure, and the Tobacco Institute was a group of tobacco scientists who just happened to find that tobacco was good for you because they studied tobacco. No agenda! (Talldave)

    Although the main appeal here is to conspiracy, there’s the germ of a denialist card (a Get Out Of Jail Free card?) that I have come across occasionally before. This is the idea that anybody who has taken the trouble to study something in depth is, ipso facto, biased and therefore not to be trusted. In effect, the only trustworthy people are the lazy and ignorant, because only they don’t have a vested interest.

    It’s a useful argument because you can allege the effects of conspiracy without there actually being one. However, in the larger scheme it becomes self-defeating as the denialists reveal themselves to be more obsessive and vested than any geek. I mean, Tim Blair is only a light hearted joker with a kernel of truth in his observations, and we have how many comments here?

    (As a parenthesis, I love this blog because it inverts normal netiquette: if you pass remarks about fellow-posters, you are on-topic, but if you start discussing substantive content like ice cores you are derailed.)

    Reply
  129. Daddy Dave

    I shouldn’t have peeked. *sigh* this blog is getting addictive!.

    Daddy Dave, are you saying that if the scientific consensus is only 90% we should ignore it?
    It’s not a 90% consensus. It’s a 90% probability that the theory is correct. It’s a clear admission of uncertainty, and you need to have the honesty to admit that even the IPCC thinks there’s a 10% chance that they’re wrong.

    This is the idea that anybody who has taken the trouble to study something in depth is, ipso facto, biased and therefore not to be trusted

    no, anybody that gets their funding from partisan political organizations to do science should be viewed skeptically. Surely that is something we can all agree on. It was true for tobacco research, so it’s true here.
    Especially when they use their money to do “outreach” (ie propaganda)

    Reply
  130. rmp

    So if it’s a 10% chance they are wrong, we should do what?
    Or if you’d rather,
    it’s a 90% chance they are right, we should do what?

    Reply
  131. minimalist

    What’s funny is that on the one hand the cranks are crying about how incredibly insanely unbelievably inhumanly complex everything related to climate study is and even scientists who devote their lives to it are just no better than soothsayers and blah blah blah…

    are also insisting that we need better than 90% certainty in order to justify getting off their asses and doing something.

    No inconsistency there, nosirree.

    How many decisions in your life are made at less than 90% probability, anyway? Business decisions, weather… Weathermen predicted a 60% chance of rain today. It is pissing buckets out there right now and the thunder is about one-Mississippi-two away. Am I dry or am I wet? I am not a dumbshit, so I brought an umbrella to work.

    Reply
  132. Daddy Dave

    This 90% thing raises a few interesting issues.
    1) if even the IPCC says there’s a 10% chance that -effectively- the skeptics are right, then you need to take them out of the “crank” category. They’ve clearly got a role to play, because there’s a 10% chance you’ll all be wearing egg on your faces in 50 years from now. There’s no intergovernmental report giving that kind of legitimacy to, say, tarot card readings, creationism, or flat-earthers.

    2) the most important thing about the 90% statement is the acknowledgement of uncertainty, not the figure itself. In fact, the number 90 was, as far as I can tell, pulled out of thin air. You can’t ascribe probabilities to the correctness of a scientific theory, unless you’re in a field such as epidemiology, where you actually have probability data to play with.

    3) there’s no indication that this number is universally agreed on. some think it’s 50%, some 100%, some zero.

    Reply
  133. rmp

    Some think it’s zero!!! OK, I’d avoid using that as a supporting statement to your position. If you require 100.00% certainty before you are willing to even take prudent precautionary steps, then I think (arrgh, looking for a polite way of saying this, arrrgh, can’t do it) you are being foolish.

    Reply
  134. Davis

    Now let’s define “cherry picking”…

    Okay, here’s the quote you gave:

    “So while the committee that wrote the report found Mann’s conclusion of unprecedented warming during the final decades of the 20th century to be plausible, it placed much less confidence in his claims about the 1990s and 1998 being the warmest in the past millennium.”

    Here’s what the NAS report actually says (Summary, pg. 4):

    Based on the analyses presented in the original papers by Mann et al. and this newer supporting evidence, the committee finds it plausible that the Northern Hemisphere was warmer during the last few decades of the 20th century than during any comparable period over the preceding millennium. The substantial uncertainties currently present in the quantitative assessment of large-scale surface temperature changes prior to about A.D. 1600 lower our confidence in this conclusion compared to the high level of confidence we place in the Little Ice Age cooling and 20th century warming.

    I’d be careful about accusing others of cherry-picking, when you can’t even get the actual statement of the report’s findings correctly. Now I’d be curious to see how you claim the NAS “debunks” Mann, based on what they said.

    Reply
  135. Davis

    if even the IPCC says there’s a 10% chance that -effectively- the skeptics are right, then you need to take them out of the “crank” category.

    You’re repeatedly overlooking the entire point of this blog, despite our host’s attempt to remind us all. Being a “crank” or a “denialist” is not about what position one takes. It’s about the tactics used to argue one’s position.

    the most important thing about the 90% statement is the acknowledgement of uncertainty, not the figure itself.

    First off, no scientist will ever claim 100% certainty about anything, so I hope that’s not what you’re asking for. Assuming I’m right, if 90% is not certain enough, then what is? 95%? 99%? 99.999%? Personally, if I were faced with a 90% chance of experiencing a life-changing event I’d take action. But perhaps I’m just more risk-averse than most.

    Reply
  136. Daddy Dave

    If God exists, I’m better off believing on God so I don’t go to hell.
    If God doesn’t exist, then it doesnt matter which I believe.
    Therefore, I should believe in God.

    substitute
    God=Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming, hell= global catastrophe

    Reply
  137. Bronze Dog

    If I get in a car accident, I’m better off buckling my seatbelt so I don’t get seriously injured.
    If I don’t get into an accident, it doesn’t matter.
    Therefore, I should buckle my seatbelt.

    substitute

    Reply
  138. Anonymous

    Davis – you imply that my quote was in some way deceptive, when it was, in fact, taken from the link provided by this blog’s host.

    Mann et al is debunked (exposed as a sham or exaggerated claim) their analysis of the data (sham) to produce the conclusion (exaggerated – “it placed much less confidence in his claims about the 1990s and 1998 being the warmest in the past millennium”) be reproduced except by using their flawed methodology.

    The fact that the report, using “newer evidence” – i.e. not part of the original Mann et al analysis” – finds that the conclusion in plausible is immaterial to the debunking of Mann.

    Reply
  139. rmp

    If we’re bring Pascal’s wager into the equation, we’re opening a hole new can of worms. I’m not sure if those worms are denialists though.

    Reply
  140. Harry Eagar

    Sheesh! Not 90% certainty, 90% confidence level.

    That is, not confident enough to get published in a refereed journal.

    I don’t have even one degree in physics, but I do have a physics adviser. He is pretty worried about AGW, but when he saw that report about 90% he burst out laughing. He’s a real scientist. Actually a rocket scientist.

    You and your lagrangians, Mr. Physicist. How about high school statistics?

    Let’s analyze your concept of ‘denialism’ to see if it is, indeed, different from ‘heresy.’

    If a person spent time thinking up objections to Kepler’s Laws of Planetary Motion, which are long and well established by many different arguments, he might well be thought to be in ‘denial.’

    But if he is skeptical about an area which is not well established, which in fact is not based on observations at all (I notice you’re not taking up my challenge about the lack of global surface temperature series before 2000), then he isn’t ‘denying’ well established science. He’s a ‘questionist’.

    What you have done is define AGW as dogma and then you can label doubters denialists. That’s exactly heresy-hunting, and your argument is just as passionate but no more scientific than any Dominican monk hunting witches for the Holy Office.

    Whether Lindzen et al have solid or feeble objections to AGW, I have listed 3, and you’ve ignored all 3.

    As for this:

    ‘Re: Hawaii

    I’d say something about the vast majority of malaria deaths occurring in Africa, but that’s just silly. Clearly high temperatures CREATE malaria, and wouldn’t just make it worse in areas that already have it.

    Posted by: Brian’

    This is so incoherent I cannot figure out what you are trying to say. Brian, but if you mean what you seem to say — ‘high temperatures CREATE malaria’ — then you are dead wrong. Malaria has been endemic in places that get plenty cold, and it was the leading cause of death in Illinois in Abe Lincoln’s time.

    Reply
  141. Anonymous

    “see anyone who promotes the idiotic “Mars is warming too” BS”

    It isn’t?

    “or it’s all the sun.”

    What about it is mostly the sun, or partly the sun?

    Trust me,

    you won’t get any grant money proposing,

    “Balance of solar and CO2 inputs on AGW”

    Reply
  142. rmp

    Harry, I know I should just go to bed but I’ve got to ask you, ‘with a 90% CONFIDENCE level’, how should we proceed? It would seem to me that taking precautionary actions based on a 90% confidence level would be prudent. Am I wrong?

    Reply
  143. Tyler DiPietro

    “The fact that the report, using “newer evidence” – i.e. not part of the original Mann et al analysis” – finds that the conclusion in plausible is immaterial to the debunking of Mann.”

    Then why did you quote it as if it wasn’t “immaterial” and rather a wholesale debunking of Mann et al.?

    Just keep digging.

    Trust me,

    you won’t get any grant money proposing…

    I’m sure your intimate connection with climate research gives you such insight into these matters.

    Reply
  144. Brian

    Hi Harry,

    I was referring to the guy before me, who seemed to be using Hawaii as a debunking of a heat-malaria link. I was trying to be sarcastic (i.e. I do NOT believe that heat “creates” malaria), but that’s hard to convey on the internet.

    Reply
  145. Davis

    Davis – you imply that my quote was in some way deceptive, when it was, in fact, taken from the link provided by this blog’s host.

    Indeed it is — the source was not clear in your posting, and a search through the NAS report for “plausible” turned up the quote I posted.

    Here’s the quote they’re summarizing, which I missed in my first search:

    The substantial uncertainties currently present in the quantitative assessment of large-scale surface temperature changes prior to about A.D. 1600 lower our confidence in this conclusion compared to the high level of confidence we place in the Little Ice Age cooling and 20th century warming. Even less confidence can be placed in the original conclusions by Mann et al. (1999) that “the 1990s are likely the warmest decade, and 1998 the warmest year, in at least a millennium” because the uncertainties inherent in temperature reconstructions for individual years and decades are larger than those for longer time periods, and because not all of the available proxies record temperature information on such short timescales. However, the methods in use are evolving and are expected to improve.

    Nevertheless, this is a far cry from “debunking” — they’re claiming the uncertainty in Mann’s original work was too great for him to draw this conclusion. However, if other data supports that conclusion (as is apparent in the previous quote I gave), then Mann is not debunked, since by your definition that entails showing his conclusion is false or exaggerated. Instead the NAS found his claim “plausible,” but by considering research beyond his 1999 paper.

    Put more simply, they suggest Mann was right, just not for the right reason (i.e., he had insufficient data).

    Reply
  146. Bruno of Blair

    Tyler – I produced the quote (from the link that host provided to show that the Mann debunking was myth) as proof that Mann had been debunked.

    The quote shows that Mann’s science hadn’t been accepted.

    Davis pointed to the fact that the national academy report supports the conclusion that Mann arrived at but does so using evidence outside of the work that Mann et al did.

    Point me to some evidence that validates Mann’s science (not its conclusion) to support the assertion that its debunking is a myth,

    Reply
  147. anderson BD

    Not 90% certainty, 90% confidence level.

    Curious. Do you have a reference indicating that it’s “90% confidence level”?

    (I notice you’re not taking up my challenge about the lack of global surface temperature series before 2000)

    Did GISTEMP suddenly cease to exist? They have data going back to 1880. Or does that not count for some reason?

    Reply
  148. Davis

    Crap, that last post was me; stupid stored Firefox data…

    Reply
  149. Harry Eagar

    rmp, 90% certainty is high. 90% confidence level is not high — just one sigma away from the most likely event in the famous bell-shaped distribution curve.

    Two sigmas is the 95% level, which is the minimum level that scientists and statisticians use to feel confident they have a real effect and not just a happenstance.

    That’s why my physicist friend laughed so hard. If your Ph.D. research comes out with the right sign but only 90% confidence level, you don’t get your degree.

    Anderson, nobody has global surface temperature temperature series back to 1880, or even back to 1999. So, you’re right. GISTEMP doesn’t count. It’s not global.

    Or do you think somebody was down in Antarctica in 1880 with a thermometer?

    Reply
  150. Davis

    Point me to some evidence that validates Mann�s science (not its conclusion) to support the assertion that its debunking is a myth.

    Way to shift the goalposts. By your own definition, Mann’s conclusions would have to be shown false (which they haven’t been — subsequent work supports his conclusions), or exaggerated (which they haven’t been — subsequent work supports them). The only critique we can draw from the NAS report is that his conclusions were somewhat uncertain at the time.

    To be honest, I’m not sure where you’re going with this. This is starting to sound remarkably like the creationist tactic of attacking Darwin and his work; there’s seems to be the same misguided idea that discrediting a seminal work also discredits all the work that came after.

    Reply
  151. Bruno of Blarir

    Davis – could explain how I’m deceptive when I take a (broad) quote from the very page that the host provides to support his argument?

    Do you regard quoting from the material provided in defence of position as deceptive? Was my quoting selective?

    Reply
  152. Anonymous

    Davis – reproduce his results. Nobody haw had much trouble doing that with Newton, Darwin and Einstein.

    The point I’m making is that you can find support of Mann’s conclusions but not his science.

    Reply
  153. gwangung

    Do you regard quoting from the material provided in defence of position as deceptive? Was my quoting selective?

    I would say yes, because you’re focussing way too finely on the details (i.e., not supported) and not on what they said. “Not supported” doesn’t mean the conclusion is false. It means not supported….yet. Further research could very well provide the support that was previously missing.

    Reply
  154. Davis

    Do you regard quoting from the material provided in defence of position as deceptive? Was my quoting selective?

    Neither. Your interpretation of it is wrong.

    The NAS specifically says they find Mann’s reconstruction back to 1600 plausible, but they see more uncertainty in his conclusion about recent years being the warmest in the past millennium. This does not support what your are repeatedly claiming.

    First off, you cannot debunk a correct claim, by definition. A correct claim can be made unscientifically, but if you know the claim is correct then that point is moot.

    Second, the NAS is not in any way, shape, or form suggesting Mann’s science is incorrect. They are simply suggesting there’s uncertainty in it. Uncertainty is not the same thing as incorrectness, or even unscientificness (I think I just made that word up). All science contains some degree of uncertainty.

    Reply
  155. Bruno of Blarir

    “Second, the NAS is not in any way, shape, or form suggesting Mann’s science is incorrect.” I thought that was exactly it was doing when it said (according to link supplied by the host): “it placed much less confidence in his claims about the 1990s and 1998 being the warmest in the past millennium.”

    Wasn’t the comparison between now and then the point of the research?

    “you cannot debunk a correct claim, by definition” So, therefore, if Mann had produced his claim and graph by studing chicken entrails but stated that it was derived by the application of the scientific method, evidence of the chicken entrails would not qualify it as debunked?

    Again I ask – can the Mann et al results (i.e. Hockey stick graph) be reproduced from his data without using a flawed methodolgy. (note sly and deceptive allusion to the scienctific method). If not, its debunked!

    Perhaps a study of the Tim Blair “fake but true” thesis would be useful for you. Warning : requires researcher to be open-minded about George Bush.

    Reply
  156. Tim Lambert

    Umm, Harry? The IPCC stated that recent warming was mostly man-made with 90% certainty, not 90% confidence. Go read the AR4 WG1 SPM.

    And we don’t have to exactly know what the average global temperature was in 1900 to estimate how much it has warmed since then. We can work out how much it has warmed in the places where are readings going back to 1900.

    Reply
  157. minimalist

    Go read the AR4 WG1 SPM.

    Yeah, I wouldn’t hold my breath.

    Davis brings up a good point; the “hockey stick” is far from the only study supporting AGW, there have been plenty of studies since then, but the deniers are utterly fixated on just the one study. It’s Icons of Evolution Redux.

    Reply
  158. Daddy Dave

    CAGW bag of tricks.
    1) when someone nails you on one piece of evidence, talk vaguely about all the other evidence that’s out there

    Davis brings up a good point; the “hockey stick” is far from the only study supporting AGW, there have been plenty of studies since then

    2) constantly refer to anyone who doesn’t agree with your scientific opinionns a crank, and compare them to creationists
    3) reinvent Pascal’s wager as if it’s (a) new and (b) a valuable contribution
    4) cherry-pick your critics and things they have said
    5) equate orthodoxy with consensus
    6) frequently comment that people you disagree with are barely worth responding to or not worth responding to.
    7) pretend that untested predictions have the same scientific status as venerated theories;
    8) quote people who get their funding from political sources and vested interests, even though you’d never do that in a debate about tobacco
    9) pretend that there is a consensus, when even the “consensus body” (IPCC) admitted to doubt and had dissenters.

    Them’s your debating tactics, kids. I’ll start giving you scores out of 9

    Reply
  159. rmp

    Daddy Dave, you seem to be avoiding answering the question of what we should do if there is 90% certainty.

    Reply
  160. Daddy Dave

    what we should do if there is 90% certainty

    Deal with problems if and when they arise, as humans have always done.

    Reply
  161. rmp

    With a 90% certainty, it would seem prudent to me to start dealing with it now rather than wait.

    Reply
  162. Harry Eagar

    ‘And we don’t have to exactly know what the average global temperature was in 1900 to estimate how much it has warmed since then.’

    Yes, you do.

    And, as I said before, you also have to know the average in 1800 to know whether the average in 1900 (if you knew it) meant anything.

    For 1900, data are lacking for about two-thirds of the globe. Even in 1999, data are lacking for about one-third.

    As anybody who was paying attention knows, during the late ’80s-most of the ’90s, western North America was warming while eastern North America was cooling.

    It is antiscience to assume that the unmeasured majority of the globe was behaving exactly as the portions inhabited by advanced societies were. They may have been cooling.

    Most AGW skeptics accept that the surface warmed globally in the 20th c., but dispute either 1) that humans did it or 2) that it is something to worry about. This concession is not supported by evidence.

    Reply
  163. Tim Lambert

    Sure Harry, climate scientists couldn’t possible have estimated the uncertainty caused by incomplete coverage. Oh wait, they did.

    Do let us know if you have a problem with the techniques used.

    Reply
  164. rmp

    Tim, your link doesn’t work for me (Firefox).

    Reply
  165. minimalist

    6) frequently comment that people you disagree with are barely worth responding to or not worth responding to.

    No, you’re just not worth debating. Mocking? Heck yes. Hard to resist easy targets who cite the physician author of Dinosaur Clone Rampage 5000 as an authority on climate science.

    Or who are so lacking in irony and self-awareness that they’ll use creationist talking points in the same post where they whine about being compared to them.

    Or so spectacularly lacking in irony that they’ll whine about scientists being funded by “political” organizations while citing skeptics like Lindzen, who take or have taken funding/consulting fees from the energy industry. Nope, no conflicts of interest there!

    In short, you can’t really have proper debate with anyone without a modicum or irony or self-awareness (which cranks don’t). On the other hand, that same characteristic makes for excellent targets of mockery.

    Reply
  166. MarkH

    CAGW bag of tricks.
    1) when someone nails you on one piece of evidence, talk vaguely about all the other evidence that’s out there

    Davis brings up a good point; the “hockey stick” is far from the only study supporting AGW, there have been plenty of studies since then

    Nailed? On the hockey stick? Please. Maybe sick of arguing about it.

    2) constantly refer to anyone who doesn’t agree with your scientific opinionns a crank, and compare them to creationists

    It’s not our fault if you argue the same way.

    3) reinvent Pascal’s wager as if it’s (a) new and (b) a valuable contribution

    What’s wrong with Pascal’s wager? There’s lots of instances of things we do in life that are safety measures against unlikely events. You seem to be disparaging prudence.

    4) cherry-pick your critics and things they have said

    Oh please. Only by changing the definition of cherry-pick to “showing what they said” can this be true. You clearly don’t understand what this terminology means. The use of selectivity in the crank argument is the quoting of people out of context (as Cockburn egregiously did for example). It’s not just using examples, it’s using examples in an intellectually dishonest way, making it appear as though someone said something they didn’t. Alternatively, it’s only picking out the few instances of data that supports your case while ignoring all conflicting evidence. (I give about 10 seconds before DD brings up the tired and worn-out canards he believes is evidence, despite being trashed again and again).

    5) equate orthodoxy with consensus

    Orthodoxy? What? Oh I see, you guys are Galileo again and we’re the Catholic church persecuting you. I get it. No, you’re not a crank. That’s impossible from someone who can’t make an argument without whining about the orthodoxy.

    6) frequently comment that people you disagree with are barely worth responding to or not worth responding to.

    Some people just aren’t. So what? Some people have nothing to contribute, especially cranks. It isn’t worth responding to them, a crank, after all, can’t be turned.

    7) pretend that untested predictions have the same scientific status as venerated theories;

    We called these predictions venerated theories where exactly? With all this discussion about uncertainty, now we’re absolutists? Everything in this field is coached, properly, in uncertainty.

    8) quote people who get their funding from political sources and vested interests, even though you’d never do that in a debate about tobacco

    DD, I thought we’d put this conspiracy theory to bed? Don’t you see that if no one that studies something can be trusted because they’re just grant-guzzling (the tiredest argument of creationists, hiv/aids denialists, etc) that you can never have an expert on anything ever? That you are essentially creating a catch-22 in which the only people that can be trusted to talk about something are people who don’t study it? This is such BS, and you keep repeating it. Thousands of scientists are lying now because we don’t want to lose our grants? Like climatologists wouldn’t be able to find something else to study in a field as interesting and varied as climate? This is your single most puerile and cranky argument. It’s just conspiratorial thinking and you should be embarrassed.

    9) pretend that there is a consensus, when even the “consensus body” (IPCC) admitted to doubt and had dissenters.

    Classic impossible expectations/moving goalpost. You’re never going to get 100% certainty, and you’re never going to get 100% of people to agree. To argue inaction in the absence of 100% certainty is absurd.

    You simply can’t argue without using the tactics can you? I’m unimpressed.

    Reply
  167. Harry Eagar

    Yeah, link busted, but no matter.

    If there aren’t any measurements, what is the basis of the estimation?

    All the AGW crowd does have is estimates. No global surface temperature series, no theory of clouds, no estimate of volcanic forcing in the 19th c.

    They have GCMs, which are in principle incapable of modeling complex surface events. (See O. Pilkey, ‘Useless Arithmetic’)

    I call it the Goldilocks Theory of Climate: Oooh, the 20th century was too hot; eeew, the 18th century was too cold. But aaah, the 19th century was juuust right.

    And they lie and lie and lie.

    They lie about malaria. They lie about increasing frequency or strength of storms.

    I already gave an example of the lies about malaria. It’s not a tropical disease. The climate for the Plasmodium is always 98.6 F.

    Ask any storm researcher how far back reliable storm counts go. He’ll tell you 1966.

    So any antidenialist who claims that warming has increased storms is basing his analysis on — at best — 41 years of data. If you think you can project worldwide climate behavior for centuries — either direction — based on 41 years of data, you’re not just an antidenialist, you freakin’ crazy.

    So, yeah, I believe climate scientists have estimated uncertainty. They did it rectally.

    Reply
  168. Observer_3rd

    Denialism and Anti-Denialism are religions as are Greenhouse, Global Warming and Climate Change. “Consensus” is the means by which believers use to validate their religion or to invalidate their opposing religion.
    Blair is simply pointing that out in a sarcastic kind of way.

    Reply
  169. Daddy Dave

    What’s wrong with Pascal’s wager?

    Been to church lately?
    Pascal’s wager is directly applicable to situations where “belief” is on the table (like in a theory), and where the probabilities are unknown (see below).

    7) pretend that untested predictions have the same scientific status as venerated theories;
    We called these predictions venerated theories where exactly? With all this discussion about uncertainty, now we’re absolutists?

    well, you want to restructure the world economy based on these non-absolute theories, so yes.
    It sounds so whacky to just say it like that, but there you have it.

    8) quote people who get their funding from political sources and vested interests, even though you’d never do that in a debate about tobacco
    DD, I thought we’d put this conspiracy theory to bed?

    I’m not talking about government funding. I’m talking about political activists funding realclimate.org, (thought I’d made that clear earlier, but obviously not). They alone are the target of this criticism, not climate scientists in general. There’s nothing wrong with funding. There’s everything wrong with political funding, and becoming a mouthpiece.
    By the way, Lindzen has repeatedly denied the energy funding you and others accuse him of, and I’ve never seen any paper trail to show he’s a liar.

    9) pretend that there is a consensus, when even the “consensus body” (IPCC) admitted to doubt and had dissenters.
    Classic impossible expectations/moving goalpost.

    Then don’t use the word consensus. That’s not a moving goalpost.

    With a 90% certainty, it would seem prudent to me to start dealing with it now rather than wait.

    That 90 percent figure is one hundred percent plucked out of thin air. It’s not a scientific estimate. All it is is an admission that “There’s a very real chance we’re wrong”.
    Why spend trillions of dollars – yes, trillions – to fix a problem that may or may not happen in a hundred years from now.

    Reply
  170. Jestak

    Lindzen has repeatedly denied the energy funding you and others accuse him of, and I’ve never seen any paper trail to show he’s a liar.

    Actually, Lindzen’s on-the-record denials are always carefully worded to state that his research is not funded by the fossil fuel interests. That, of course, is an accusation that has never been made. The issue is the substantial consulting fees he gets from the industry–fees that he has, in fact, acknowledged.

    Reply
  171. Davis

    All the AGW crowd does have is estimates. No global surface temperature series, no theory of clouds, no estimate of volcanic forcing in the 19th c.

    I love this. Harry Eager takes goalpost shifting to a new level, with his “impossible goalpost setting” argument. Short version:

    “Here’s a list of things I’m going to arbitrarily claim are necessary to make valid predictions about climate. These data, and no others, are necessary to make valid predictions because I say so. By the way, I’ve conveniently specified a set of data I know don’t exist.”

    They have GCMs, which are in principle incapable of modeling complex surface events. (See O. Pilkey, ‘Useless Arithmetic’)

    Oh, and cherry-picking.

    Reply
  172. Davis

    Then don’t use the word consensus. That’s not a moving goalpost.

    Look up the word “consensus.” It doesn’t mean 100% agreement.

    All it is is an admission that “There’s a very real chance we’re wrong”.

    Every field of science makes this admission to some degree. The only place you’ll find absolute certainty is in mathematics.

    Reply
  173. Chris Noble

    All it is is an admission that “There’s a very real chance we’re wrong”.

    HIV Denialists use exactly the same technique. Antibody tests for the diagnosis of HIV have been developed that have a specificty and sensitivity exceeding that of other tests.

    Cranks translate that into “the tests are not 100% specific and 100% sensitive therfore they are completely non-specific”.

    It is a false dichotomy between 100% certainty and knowing nothing at all.

    Crichton and other AGW Denialists use this technique very effectively if you use blairites as a sample group.

    Reply
  174. John A

    “As far as the national academy, I was referring to their certification of the Mann paper, which has been routinely attacked as “debunked” because of a report put together under the auspices of a famous American crank Senator – Inhofe. Read about the Hockey Stick, or see what the national academies said about Mann in 2006. Hockey stick isn’t debunked. That’s a myth.

    Yep, a Hockey Stick promoter. When it comes down to it, this whole blog is really about defending the Hockey Stick from the entirely true charges that it is a) a fake b) scientifically meaningless and c) a disgrace.

    The NRC report that you linked to, bent over backwards to avoid throwing out the Hockey Stick, but along the way they confirmed:

    1. That the methodology (PCA) was flawed and should not be used
    2. That the statistical significance was near zero
    3. That other statistical metrics should be used to confirm or not the significance of the reconstruction

    While Mann got away with not having his precious Hockey Stick thrown out, every single criticism made by Steve McIntyre about the HS was upheld

    Worse was to come for Mann with the Wegman Report by three top-ranked statisticians (oh and I’m willing to bet that you’re not going to go for the Wegman Report because you’re a coward). In that report, Wegman et al showed that the Hockey Stick had massive data quality issues, massive defects in the model used, used PCA inconsistently and confirmed the massive failure of the HS in statistical significance. Wegman went further in his Congressional testimony calling the HS simply “bad science” and stating that Steve McIntyre’s analysis “valid and compelling”.

    All of this, bear in mind from a person who was not a Republican and who voted for Al Gore in 2000, and had refused any payment from the Committee who commissioned the Report.

    The myth is that the HS has not been debunked. The plain facts are that with data quality being so poor, non existent statistical significance, an extremely dubious methodology, the HS is meaningless.

    You’re just in deep denial of science, of mathematics and of history. Your tactics are straight smear and innuendo, straight out of the agitprop cookbook. I expect more comparisons to “9/11 truthers”, “creationists” and other crackpots to follow because the one thing you can’t manage is proper scientific analysis especially of a powerful totem of catastrophic climate change that you are unwilling to even analyze properly.

    Reply
  175. Tim Lambert

    Oops, here’s the correct link to a description of how they estimate the uncertainty in the global temperature anomaly.

    Harry tells us: “I already gave an example of the lies about malaria. It’s not a tropical disease. The climate for the Plasmodium is always 98.6 F.”

    This is, to put it mildly, untrue. The malaria parasite’s life cycle includes both people and mosquitoes. Mosquitoes do not keep their bodies at 98.6 F. The areas where malaria is endemic are all in the tropics. This is not a coincidence. Malaria transmission by mosquitoes is most efficient when there is year-round warmth.

    Reply
  176. Tim Lambert

    Ok third attempt

    Reply
  177. Chris O’Neill

    “Deal with problems if and when they arise,”

    When we decide we’ve had enough global warming, it will be at least 30 years until the last coal-burning-atmosphere-emitting power station is switched off. Power station owners don’t like to see their investment trashed overnight. Even when the atmospheric CO2 eventually stops rising, the oceans will still be helping to keep us cool but they won’t do it forever so it will keep getting hotter until they reach thermal equilibrium. These inertias will probably cause at least another degree of warming after we finally decide to “deal with the problem”.

    “as humans have always done.”

    That’s right, like they dealt with Hitler when he became a problem, Al Qaeda, the Taliban, tsunami warning, taxation of the American colonies, Great Britain before Hitler decided to invade Russia, the Russian encirclement while the Germans were taking Stalingrad, adequate defences of Singapore from land-based invasion, hitting ice-bergs in the North Atlantic…….

    Yes, humans are really good at dealing with problems if and when they arise. Any other bright ideas?

    Reply
  178. minimalist

    John A,

    Since you have read it, can you provide links to the specific passages in the NRC report that state

    1. That the methodology (PCA) was flawed and should not be used
    2. That the statistical significance was near zero
    3. That other statistical metrics should be used to confirm or not the significance of the reconstruction

    While Mann got away with not having his precious Hockey Stick thrown out, every single criticism made by Steve McIntyre about the HS was upheld

    Again, the report is here. A link to the pages in question would be greatly appreciated, and maybe quotes if you can spare the time.

    I’ve been having problems finding where the report says these things, despite the insistence of ClimateAudit and the denialist sites that crib from it without fact-checking. (For instance, CA cited pages 91 and 111 as supporting your point #2, but there is nothing on those pages that supports that.

    I know that you can help me because you have thoroughly researched this issue without simply relying on the secondhand claims of CA and even lesser sites without fact-checking. Thanks!

    Reply
  179. John A

    Yet again we have ace antiscientist Tim Lambert with yet another set of false statements pulled from his rectum.

    Malaria is not a tropical disease. Some of the largest outbreaks of malaria have occurred near the Arctic Circle. In Britain, malaria was a common malady (described as the “ague” in Shakespeare) and strongly associated with the fetid swamps around the Thames Estuary during the Little Ice Age. It was draining swamps, reducing places for mosquitos to breed and proper modern sanitation that got rid of malria from Britain.

    Malaria is strongly correlated with poor sanitation and poverty. It has little if anything to do with ambient temperature.

    You don’t have to take my word for it -check out the works of Professor Paul Reiter on the subject who is a leading expert on malaria, and not Tim Lambert who is an expert in making false statements and then attacking others when they point out his ignorance.

    Reply
  180. Daddy Dave

    Tim, that paper is simply about estimating variance, not probability of signal. Unless I’m much mistaken, you just threw that out here to see if we were numerate enough to pick up your sneaky bait-and-switch.
    (*waits for contemptous response about how important that paper is*)

    Reply
  181. minimalist

    Well crap, the links in my post didn’t work.

    Anyway, here’s the NRC report again:

    http://books.nap.edu/openbook.php?isbn=0309102251

    Reply
  182. Anonymous

    ‘The areas where malaria is endemic are all poor’

    There, corrected that for ya, Tim. (John nailed you, but I did mention endemic malaria in Illinois in my post. Perhaps you think Illinois is in the tropics.)

    Davis, are you claiming that it would NOT make any difference to estimates of the pace of greenhouse forcing if we knew that the surface temperature was cooling in the 19th c.? Sheesh.

    (And why might we suspect that the surface was cooling then? Well, because we know explosive volcanoes cool, and the 19th c. had [at least] two volcanic explosions that were bigger — one very much bigger — than anything in the 20th c.)

    These are real goalposts, they’ve always been there. It’s the AGW saviors that pretend not to see them.

    Reply
  183. Davis

    Davis, are you claiming that it would NOT make any difference to estimates of the pace of greenhouse forcing if we knew that the surface temperature was cooling in the 19th c.?

    That’s a real stretch to attribute that claim to me based on my post. My claim was that Harry (and now you, apparently) are choosing unavailable datasets, and then flatly declaring that it’s impossible to make any predictions without that data.

    Reply
  184. Richard Simons

    I would like to clarify a few things in my mind as regards people who insist that global warming is not/will not happen.

    Do you accept that CO2 and water vapour act as greenhouse gasses?

    Do you accept that, because of its short residence time in the atmosphere, water vapour is considered a response variable whereas CO2 is considered a driving variable?

    Do you accept that the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere has been increasing for the past 40 years?

    Do you accept that this is mainly due to human activity (isotope and other studies strongly suggest it is)?

    If you accept the above, why do you feel basic physical principles should not be in effect? Do you feel there is some other over-riding process that counteracts the effect of CO2? If so, what is it?

    Do you accept that the change in global temperatures over the past 15 or 20 years matches predictions? If so, what is your explanation for the match?

    What are your predictions for what will happen to global climate over the next few years? Do you believe the next 5 years will be warmer or cooler than the last 5 years? How about the next 20 years?

    Reply
  185. Daddy Dave

    Richard,
    If you want to know the core of my position, I really need to your point 5 (I could chit chat about the others for hours, but let’s cut to the chase).

    If you accept the above, why do you feel basic physical principles should not be in effect? Do you feel there is some other over-riding process that counteracts the effect of CO2? If so, what is it?

    the reason is that, for millions of years, negative feedback systems have kept variations in the climate bounded. To me this is the critical issue. For climate catastrophe to occur, something would need to push it so far out of its zone as to break the system. Could a spike in C02 do this? Possibly, but there are spikes in individual variables from time to time, and negative feedback brings it all back into alignment.
    CO2 and temperature haven’t stayed stable for millenia by magic.

    I also think there’s a cognitive illusion going on. Humans have only recently developed the ability to understand their world and the universe in a way that no animal has done before. Regarding the temperature, since these things are never completely stable, it was a 50/50 toss as to whether it would be increasing or decreasing. It was increasing.
    We then look for explanations of that (even though there may be no explanation) in the most primal, primitive ways we know: “man is evil” and “Oh my God, we’re all going to die!”

    Reply
  186. Daddy Dave

    Richard,
    one other thing: I make no prediction about whether the temperature will or will not continue its modest increase. And lets face it, the increases so far have been very modest. I don’t believe that a 2 to 3 degree increase in global temperature will make the world unliveable, or even less liveable. It may even have – probably would have – beneficial effets in many areas. I think the panic-merchanting that goes on by many is irresponsible.
    Hope this clarifies the position of at least one skeptic.

    Reply
  187. Bruno of Blair

    This is for Minimalist – apologies for the length of the post but I don�t want to be accused of being a being a cherry-picking crank.

    Now that a Blairite has done you this helped you, perhaps you Minimalist could help us by looking at the Wegman Report to confirm whether John A�s acertions are valid or not.

    My emphasis:
    ——
    P112
    Moberg et al. (2005b) separated annual records (tree rings) from smoother (non-annual) records (such as ice borehole temperatures and sediment based records) by using wavelet analysis. These studies indicate that the true amplitude of temperature variations over the last 1,000�2,000 years may have been roughly twice as large as was previously proposed (see Figure 11-1), although their results differ in geographic emphasis and in the details of the time sequence of the temperature changes. Von Storch et al. (2004) used a long-term climate model simulation to produce artificial proxy data and then compared reconstructions of hemispheric mean temperature with varying degrees of noise contamination; they found that the full amplitude of century-to-century variations were underestimated to an increasing degree as the noise level was increased. Thus, the reconstruction of century-long trends has substantial uncertainty when it is based on data that exhibit year-to-year variability.

    P112-113
    A second area of criticism focuses on statistical validation and robustness. McIntyre and McKitrick (2003, 2005a,b) question the choice and application of statistical methods, notably principal component analysis; the metric used in the validation step of the reconstruction exercise; and the selection of proxies, especially the bristlecone pine data used in some of the original temperature reconstruction studies. These and other criticisms, explored briefly in the remainder of this chapter, raised concerns that led to new research and ongoing efforts to improve how surface temperature reconstructions are performed.

    As part of their statistical methods, Mann et al. used a type of principal component analysis that tends to bias the shape of the reconstructions. A description of this effect is given in Chapter 9. In practice, this method, though not recommended, does not appear to unduly influence reconstructions of hemispheric mean temperature; reconstructions performed without using principal component analysis are qualitatively similar to the original curves presented by Mann et al. (Crowley and Lowery 2000, Huybers 2005, D�Arrigo et al. 2006, Hegerl et al. 2006, Wahl and Ammann in press). The more important aspect of this criticism is the issue of robustness with respect to the choice of proxies used in the reconstruction. For periods prior to the 16th century, the Mann et al. (1999) reconstruction that uses this particular principal component analysis technique is strongly dependent on data from the Great Basin region in the western United States. Such issues of robustness need to be taken into account in estimates of statistical uncertainties.

    Huybers (2005) and B�rger and Cubasch (2005) raise an additional concern that must be considered carefully in future research: There are many choices to be made in the statistical analysis of proxy data, and these choices influence the conclusions. Huybers (2005) recommends that to avoid ambiguity simple averages should be used rather than principal components when estimating spatial means. B�rger and Cubasch (2005) use several dozen statistical methods to generate examples of reconstructions; these reconstructions differ substantially even though they are based on the same data. Many of these issues can be decided by using the validation data to select among competing models and focusing on the prediction intervals associated with a reconstruction (see Chapter 9). When the prediction intervals are taken into account, the differences among competing reconstructions may be deemed small relative to the large uncertainty of each individual estimate.

    Regarding metrics used in the validation step in the reconstruction exercise, two issues have been raised (McIntyre and McKitrick 2003, 2005a,b). One is that the choice of �significance level� for the reduction of error (RE) validation statistic is not appropriate. The other is that different statistics, specifically the coefficient of efficiency (CE) and the squared correlation (r2), should have been used (the various validation statistics are discussed in Chapter 9). Some of these criticisms are more relevant than others, but taken together, they are an important aspect of a more general finding of this committee, which is that uncertainties of the published reconstructions have been underestimated.

    P116
    There are very few degrees of freedom in validations of the reconstructed temperature averaged over periods of decades and longer. The RE validation metric used by Mann et al. (1998, 1999) is a minimum requirement, but the committee questions whether any single statistic can provide a definitive indication of the uncertainty inherent in the reconstruction. Demonstrating performance for the higher-frequency component (e.g., by calculating the CE statistic) would increase confidence but still would not fully address the issue of evaluating the reconstruction�s ability to capture temperature variations on decadal-to-centennial timescales.

    Reply
  188. Harry Eagar

    ‘That’s a real stretch to attribute that claim to me based on my post. My claim was that Harry (and now you, apparently) are choosing unavailable datasets, and then flatly declaring that it’s impossible to make any predictions without that data.’

    That was me, Davis. Dunno why my name was not attached to the post.

    I’m not looking for unavailable datasets so you cannot prove GW. I’m saying you cannot prove GW unless you can find some evidence. You seem to be saying that it’s OK if it remains an unknown variable whether the 19th c. was cooling or not.

    The alleged signal — around 0.6 C/century — is not so robust that a cooling 19th c. would be insignificant.

    I published these questions nearly 20 years ago, so the goalposts have been up for a while now.

    Otherwise, daddy dave’s reply to Richard is about right. The remarkable thing about Earth climate is that it doesn’t vary much even when there are big changes in the composition of the atmosphere.

    Reply
  189. dpwiener

    After scanning through these many comments, it appears that there are at least a few intelligent and reasonable posters on both sides to leaven the numerous vitriolic attackers and counter-attackers. I’m therefore moved to lay out my own reasons for being a global warming skeptic. I’m certainly not an expert on climatology, but I’ve read a number of articles and I consider myself an educated layman (I’m an electronic engineer with a Bachelor’s degree from M.I.T. and a Master’s degree from U.S.C.). So here goes:

    1. Extracting information from noisy data. Temperatures differ widely geographically and over short periods of time. Daily, weekly, and yearly variations dwarf the one or several degree changes which global warming models predict over a period of decades or a century. There are also much longer-term variations in the earth’s temperature, with periodicities of centuries or tens of thousands of years, as demonstrated by various proxy evidence and obvious macro events such as past ice ages.

    It is difficult to extract information which proves the existence of recent anthropogenic temperature changes from all those short- and long-term variations, particularly when reasonably high-quality temperature measurements covering most of the globe have only become available in the last few decades. And it is only anthropogenic changes which matter in this discussion. If we were in the midst of a purely natural trend which would add perhaps 1 to 5 degrees to average global temperatures over the next century, my reaction would be “so what”? Life on this planet, and human life in particular, has survived such changes in the past, and we easily handle much greater variations on a scale of months and years, so we’ll deal with similar natural variations in the future.

    Medium- and long-term natural temperature variations will always exist, so at most there might be an anthropogenic component which makes up some portion of future trends. Only if that anthropogenic component is significant and growing will it matter. In my profession I specifically deal with the problem of extracting meaningful data from noisy measurements, albeit on time-scales which are at least ten orders of magnitude faster than climate change. (For what it’s worth, I also deal with the obverse problem of creating better random noise. I have a patent, 6130755, which reduces the low-frequency components of pseudo random number generators so as to limit excursions from the ideal random behavior.) Based purely on past temperature variations and the relatively short span of high-quality measurements, it is not possible to prove that a significant anthropogenic component exists, at least up to the present time.

    Of course Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) theorists do not rely merely on extrapolating from past data. They postulate a physical mechanism, a greenhouse effect caused by elevated CO2 levels, which will result in significant future anthropogenic temperature increases. But the earth’s climate is an enormously complex, non-linear system with lots of feedback loops. Our climate models (and the computing power to run them) are still rather limited. The proof that elevated CO2 will indeed result in significant global warming involves specific predictions and verification derived from future data collected over the next several decades or centuries. It cannot come merely from the data collected to date.

    Some AGW theorists may object that we can’t afford to wait that long. But that is a political objection, not a scientific objection. It may be unfortunate if irreversible ill effects occur before enough data can be collected to confirm the theory, but that doesn’t alter the fact that that amount of time is still necessary. Climate changes happen over relatively long time scales; that’s just reality.

    2. Slow AGW isn’t a big danger. It’s not enough to prove that medium- or long-term temperature rises contain a significant anthropogenic component if the effect is limited to one or several degrees over a century. The big danger, if there really is one, would come from a runaway effect in which temperatures would suddenly and rapidly rise following some irreversible tipping point, leading to the destruction of civilization or even human life. This requires extrapolating an exponential temperature increase from past data even though we are currently below the knee of the curve. But the data is way too sparse and noisy to reliably do that; it could just as easily fit any number of other lines or curves.

    Alternately one could argue that the physical mechanism is so well established and understood that (even absent past corroborating evidence) rising CO2 levels will produce an exponential increase with high probability. But that would be a very strong claim, and not one which I hear coming even from scientists who are strong advocates of AGW. They may sometimes speculate on that possibility, and worry about the consequences, but they do not formally assert it as part of their theories. Instead they confine themselves to the much milder temperature predictions emanating from their global warming models.

    Without an imminent irreversible tipping point, the debate over AGW loses its urgency. We have time to make predictions, collect data, improve our models, and ponder the best corrective actions to take (if any).

    Still, some AGW advocates resort to a form of Pascal’s Wager: Even if the chance of catastrophe is only one in (fill in the blank), isn’t it better to take action now rather than wait till it’s too late? Well, no, that depends very heavily on the (fill in the blank) value. Maybe, if the chance of thermal runaway is 1 in 10, it is necessary to take precautionary action now. Maybe not, if the chance is 1 in 1,000 or 1 in 1,000,000. After all, human resources are limited and there are all kinds of low-probability risks. We can’t protect against everything.

    A good example is the threat of a civilization-destroying meteor strike. The generic odds of it occurring in any given year are perhaps one in ten million or less, based on what we now deduce about the history of our planet. So do we spend trillions of dollars on a crash project to construct meteor defenses? Failure to do so could lead to our destruction if we get really unlucky during the next few years. But we have to assess that risk and weight it against other dangers and opportunities in deciding how to prioritize and allocate resources. The same applies to the risk of runaway global warming.

    3. Many AGW advocates try to tailor the evidence to fit a preconceived political agenda. The alarmist rhetoric coming from the Al Gore types and a lot of environmentalists appears fixated on enacting a specific policy prescription (reduction in CO2 levels through massive government controls and restrictions on economic activities) and then work backwards to justify that policy by agglomerating every possible argument they can think of no matter how nebulous. Perhaps that’s not your impression, but it certainly is my impression and the impression of many others. It makes me very suspicious of the conclusion when I see the extreme efforts being made to promote it.

    Unfortunately, web sites such as the Denialism blog contribute to the perception, as they appear to be efforts to shut off open debate by applying derogatory labels to those who question the evidence and reasoning leading to the preconceived policy goal. Perhaps that’s not entirely fair to the authors of this site, or other respectable scientists who consider the evidence for AGW to be conclusive. But the science is being tarnished by the demagoguery of those who are using AGW to advance their own agendas.

    My advice would be to stick to the evidence and stick to the science. Labeling doubters as “denialists” is not going to convince anyone of the validity of the theory, and will more likely have the perverse effect of raising additional doubts about the robustness of the theory when subjected to criticism.

    If the science is good, it will win out in the end. Evolution wins out over creationism because evolution works; its explanatory power informs all modern biological advancements. Similarly, the HIV virus theory works; it results in cocktails of anti-viral drugs which keep people alive. The same attitude should apply to AGW; if correct, it will result in accurate and testable predictions and explanations of climate changes. Why get bent out of shape over the doubters? Let them be wrong or remain ignorant. Who cares, unless of course the real objective is political policy rather than achieving scientific validity.

    4. The policy proposals are at variance with the purported problem. If I was convinced that AGW was a serious problem, my normal reaction as an engineer would be to look for the most innovative and cost-effective geoengineering methods of solving the problem. Placing restrictions on the release of CO2 into the atmosphere would be way down on my list, since the sources of CO2 are so pervasive and diffuse and often result from processes which carry many other benefits. Possible solutions to global warming include seeding the oceans with iron dust to stimulate CO2-absorbing plankton; modifying surface albedo to reduce light absorption; putting parasols in orbit; adjusting the exhaust of jet airliners to leave dust or sulfur in the upper atmosphere to increase cloud formation, etc.

    Perhaps none of these ideas will work, or else they might have drawbacks which make them unsuitable. The best solutions may still be waiting to be invented. But they all offer greater hope than the solution du jour of adopting the Kyoto treaty so as to ever-so-slightly reduce CO2 emissions (or just reduce the rate of growth of emissions). Anyone who is seriously concerned about AGW should be urgently searching for a technological solution. Anyone who is frightened about the prospect of a near-term thermal runaway effect should be desperately searching for a technological solution, since that would be the only realistic route to preventing it.

    Carbon offsets are actually a good idea, despite the hypocrisy of some of the politicians who utilize them and despite the sleazy similarity to the selling of religious indulgences to expiate sins. Carbon offsets provide a competitive market mechanism whereby various approaches to ameliorating CO2 levels can be financed and tested. The comparative lack of interest in technological solutions compared to government controls on CO2 emissions reinforces my opinion that the issue is being driven by a political agenda rather than by science.

    5. If AGW is a serious problem, economic growth and exponential technological advancement is the best solution. Not only do I doubt the urgency of the problem (see point # 2 above), if it even is a problem (see point # 1 above), but I doubt the need to find an immediate solution. Science and technology are advancing at exponential rates, as is most evident by the improvements in computer processing power but is also showing up in many other fields. If we are not facing an irreversible disaster within the next thirty years, why not just wait fifteen or twenty years to try to solve the problem? By that time computer power will have advanced a thousand-fold, and our engineering capabilities and resources will be vastly greater than they are at present. What today constitutes an enormous technological challenge or an impossibly expensive engineering task might be simple and relatively inexpensive two decades from now.

    Our civilization will also be far wealthier then, making even expensive engineering tasks easier to bear, if economic growth is not artificially constricted by short-sighted limits on CO2 emissions and other regulatory restrictions.

    Going back to the analogy of a civilization-destroying meteor strike, suppose we detected a sizable comet which was projected to directly impact the earth in five years and wipe out life on our planet. Surely it would be worth spending trillions of dollars in an emergency program to deflect the comet. We have the technology, albeit crude and incredibly expensive (especially on a highly-compressed schedule) to achieve that goal.

    Now suppose we detected that same comet and projected that it would impact the earth in thirty years. Would it make sense to spend the same trillions of dollars on the same emergency compressed-schedule? Surely not. It would make much more sense to leisurely study the problem, use improved computer modeling over the next couple of decades to determine the simplest and most cost-effective method of perturbing the comet, and develop the space infrastructure and advanced propulsion technologies which would allow us to achieve the goal.

    Putting it another way, advances in technology are already rounding the knee of the exponential growth curve, thereby far exceeding even the most pessimistic forecasts for exponential thermal runaway. For anyone who doubts that exponential advances in technology will continue, I recommend Ray Kurzweil’s book The Singularity Is Near. If we do nothing now, and Anthropogenic Global Warming turns out to be a real danger, we’ll still have the time and ability to fix it before it can manifest itself as a disaster.

    I think I’ve written enough for now. I originally intended this to be a fairly short comment. Somewhere along the line I totally lost control, and it exploded into a two thousand-plus word monster. I’ll be posting a version of it on my rarely-updated blog (http://wienerlog.blogspot.com) simply because I hate to waste all this writing.

    Daniel Wiener

    Reply
  190. Chris Noble

    Daddy Dave writes :This stands in contrast to, for example, AIDS, evolution, free trade, vaccination, iridology, homeopathy, astrology, astral traveling, and pretty much any of the other things you want to attack.
    There is a scientific consensus on all these things. There are no scientists that deny these.

    THE AIDS INDUSTRY AND MEDIA WANT YOU TO THINK THERE ARE ONLY A HANDFUL OF SCIENTISTS WHO DOUBT THE HIV-AIDS THEORY.


    Ranks of Scientists Doubting Darwin’s Theory on the Rise

    HIV/AIDS Denialists and evolution Denialists use exactly the same script as AGW Denialists.

    They all try to make out that there isn’t a scientific consensus. They all allege that “orthodox” scientists are either stupid or corrupt. They all like to believe that support for their Denial is gaining strength and that the “orthodox” position is on the point of collapse.

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  191. Graculus

    the reason is that, for millions of years, negative feedback systems have kept variations in the climate bounded.

    The postitive feedback mechanisms don’t exist and the Ice Age never happened.

    Please go away.

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  192. Daddy Dave

    Chris: good one. when in doubt, consult your talking points.

    Graculus:

    Please go away.

    read: “I have spoken, now I deem the debate to be over.”

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  193. Richard Simons

    for millions of years, negative feedback systems have kept variations in the climate bounded.

    Which one do you envision coming into play in the near future? The only one I can think of is a catastrophic collapse of human society and even then it would take centuries for CO2 levels to get back to pre-industrialization levels. To me, it sounds like you’re whistling in the wind.

    It may even have – probably would have – beneficial effects in many areas.

    One I have often seen claimed is that northern Canada will turn into rich agricultural land. This ignores the fact that it is mainly lakes, bogs and bare rock, with relatively small pockets of soil deep enough for farming. Also, the infrastructure is in the south. People who live in the north are already having problems with the shorter winters making it difficult to build the vital roads over hundreds of kilometres of lake and bog, so that building supplies and fuel have had to be flown in. Most of the claimed benefits vanish when you look at them and I suspect this is also true for other parts of the world.

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  194. Harry Eagar

    ‘Which one do you envision coming into play in the near future? The only one I can think of is a catastrophic collapse of human society’

    That is a remarkably obtuse statement even for a heresy-hunter.

    The ones that operated for millions of years are still operating. They operated without our presence or assistance.

    We don’t have even the beginning of a theory about what they are, much less how they work. But we can see the results.

    Let’s stand the question on its head: We are now in the longest interglacial warm period of the past several million years. On what grounds do you think that a renewal of the ice age (the norm) is not about to break out?

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  195. Chris Noble

    Chris: good one. when in doubt, consult your talking points.

    The title of Blair’s post was Consensus not so consensy.

    Exactly the same fallacious arguments are made by HIV/AIDS Denialists and evolution Denialists.

    Try going to a HIV/AIDS or evolution “skeptics” blog and try telling them that there is a scientific consensus on these issues.

    You’ll get responses that are uncannily similar to the responses of AGW “skeptics”. They’ll tell you that there isn’t a consensus. That ther are thousands of scientists that doubt evolution. They’ll tell you about being censored. They’ll tell you that most scientists just go along with the “orthodox” position because they’re afraid of losing their jobs.

    They’ll also never admit to being wrong!

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  196. Tim Lambert

    If you want to see where malaria is found, look at this map from the CDC. Oddly enough, Illinois is not one of those places.

    The CDC explains:

    Once adult mosquitoes have emerged, the ambient temperature, humidity, and rains will determine their chances of survival. To transmit malaria successfully, female Anopheles must survive long enough after they have become infected (through a blood meal on an infected human) to allow the parasites they now harbor to complete their growth cycle (“extrinsic” cycle). That cycle takes 9-21 days at 25�C or 77�F. Warmer ambient temperatures shorten the duration of the extrinsic cycle, thus increasing the chances of transmission. Conversely, below a minimum ambient temperature (15�C or 59�F for Plasmodium vivax, 20�C or 68�F for P. falciparum), the extrinsic cycle cannot be completed and malaria cannot be transmitted. This explains in part why malaria transmission is greater in warmer areas of the globe (tropical and semitropical areas and lower altitudes), particularly for P. falciparum. It has been speculated that current trends of global warming may increase the geographic range of malaria and may be responsible for malaria epidemics.

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  197. Daddy Dave

    The title of Blair’s post was Consensus not so consensy.

    The concept of Global Warming has been sold to the public (leaving alone for now whether it’s right or wrong) in part with the claim that there is a “consensus” of scientists.
    Clearly, as regulars here agree, such a thing is impossible and unnecessary. But it was warming promoters that introduced the word. Blair likes to mock it for the meaningless rhetoric that it is.

    They’ll also never admit to being wrong!

    Fair enough, although this is true in general. There are various personal costs associated with changing your opinion. (although opinions do change)

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  198. blairite

    One thing you have to hand to the alarmists. Either they have no sense of irony, or are indulging some kind of 4th degree irony that I plainly admit is beyond my grasp.

    Viz “The Attack on Reason by Al Gore”

    And a “Denialism blog” written by a flat climater.

    There is denialism going on here, that is for sure. Kudos to Tim B for pointing out this laugh a minute blog. Even got an appearance by the august “computer scientist” Tim Lambert, still harping on about mosquitos and malaria.

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  199. Graculus

    read: “I have spoken, now I deem the debate to be over.”

    No, more of a request that the petulant child stop whining.

    You do not answer any substansive ponts, you just keep blathering.

    Tell me, what is your evidence that the Ice Age never happened?

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  200. Richard Simons

    The ones (negative feedback mechanisms) that operated for millions of years are still operating. They operated without our presence or assistance.

    And these are . . . ?

    You still have not answered my question. I suppose you could say that possible mechanisms are increased radiation from Earth (but how high would temperatures need to go for this to stop global warming?) and increased sequestration of carbon, equivalent to the time of deposition of coal and peat (but this would require thousands of years to remove the excess CO2 and apparently is not happening at present).

    Any others you can suggest?

    It is the inability of people who claim the global warming is not occurring or not significant to clearly explain their views that convinces me that they are in denial.

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  201. minimalist

    Thanks Bruno, I honestly wasn’t expecting someone to deliver. Kudos to you, and I mean that. I personally don’t mind the length, it’s necessary for a more complete picture of what’s going on.

    (Incidentally, I shouldn’t have asked for links I guess; I put just 3 URLs in my original post, and it got held up for moderation — just a warning to anyone else, if you don’t want your posts to be delayed.)

    That said, those quotes lend little to no support for John A’s original, unequivocal statements, and the parts you haven’t bolded pretty much undermine them. I don’t have time right now to go into them in detail, but it seems from the passages you cite that this is a much more nuanced examination of a demonstrably flawed paper, and far from a repudiation of AGW in general.

    The important thing to remember is that the NRC report addresses not only the Mann “hockey stick” paper, but many other studies from other research teams. More importantly, the NRC reports that the surface temperature reconstruction — regardless of the questionable validation methods used — is significantly similar to the reconstructions used by other labs with better methods (see Figure S-1).

    The general agreement among climate researchers seems to be that the Mann paper is flawed and not the most conclusive evidence for AGW, and they’re aggrieved that so much attention is focused on it. But there’s much more out there, and it’s foolish to act like we’re pinning all this on a single study. It’s a page straight out of the Jonathan Wells (Icons of Evolution) handbook.

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  202. minimalist

    DD,

    Just to follow up on what Richard said, what you have there is a perfectly reasonable hypothesis. But in science, if you don’t test a hypothesis it becomes no better than a religious belief.

    There does indeed seem to be some sort of corrective mechanism — climate changes caused by extreme volcanic or solar activity can be corrected over time, for example — but you still haven’t established in any substantive way:

    1) what it is
    2) its limitations (that is, how you know that our CO2 output will not overwhelm this mechanism)

    Keep in mind that natural climate changes tend to have short-lived causes: volcanoes eventually stop erupting, solar activity settles down, etc. However, the CO2 we’re putting out is not stopping, and will not even slow down so long as people deny that it’s having an effect. Do you honestly think that this won’t have a cumulative effect on the climate? Climate modelers take forcings by natural (vs anthropogenic) causes into account, and have been able to separate out these effects. Models that include anthropogenic effects end up matching the temperature changes we have seen.

    You dismiss the work of climate scientists as “primitive” we’re-all-gonna-die behavior, but absent any forthcoming scientific detail from you, I see your position as no different from the religio-conservative stance on AGW denial: “God (or an unspecified corrective mechanism) will save us! We just have to believe!”

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  203. Harry Eagar

    Uh, that would be because Illinois is rich, Tim.

    Go back and read the post.

    Malaria used to be the leading cause of death in Illinois, when it was a poor place. And whne it was — according to the GW saviors — considerably cooler than it is now.

    Talk about denialism.

    That malaria not a tropical disease is not controversial in any forum except among climate panicmongers.

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  204. MarkH

    Wow Harry, you have no reading comprehension at all. I like how I’m accused of using denialism as namecalling – even though I have a set of criteria that justify it’s use. However you’ll just misread a post and call it denialist. Pot calling the kettle black here.

    Tim isn’t saying malaria is impossible in cooler climates or that it’s not related to poverty, or that public-health measures can’t be used for its eradication. He’s just saying the organism is more efficient at higher temperatures. These are not mutually exclusive with malaria in Illinois.

    Are you being purposefully obtuse?

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  205. blairite

    OK, youv’e convinced me.

    Tyler pointed out, correctly, that the paleoclimate study I referenced was a couple of years old, five years or so. Therefore, the warm period lasting k-years that it showed never happened. Neither does the Antarctic Law Dome borehole provide any substantiation. You see, this is because the truth value of a study has a half life measured in months, even in the absense of falsifications of the premises or methods. I learned this important truth on this thread.

    I leared that GCMs are as complete, done, and dusted as a table of trigonometric values. To question this is a sign of mental illness because I was confusing denialism with debate. I understand the difference now.

    I learned that Al Gore’s movie has been “certified”, and for this reason, we now know that studies that show the loss of the “snows of Kilimanjaro” is due to deforestation of the slopes has been in fact proven incorrect. I don’t need any study citation, certification of AIT is sufficient evidence for me.

    I learned that Katrina was caused by AGW, studies to opposite notwithstanding. I learned this because what does “certification” mean, if it does not cover the cover art.

    I learned that climatology trumps all other fields of endeavor in truth value, except maybe publich health. I know this because if an astro or solar physicist comes up with a finding that interferes with hoped for result to be obtained in a climate model, that physicists work can be easily discarded with only the thinnest rationalisation.

    I also learned that reference to “suspected triggers” amounts to invoking the writ of Gore, and that these references outweigh the truth value of studies done, even those published this year, that would tend to disprove the existence of such triggers. I think I can than Cato_the_Lunatic for that. forgive me If I mangled the handle.

    I also learned that quoting studies is meaningless. No matter how many studies I quote, I will still have “zero evidence”. In my simpler days, I would have called this response a kind of denialism. To filter out all evidence contrary to one’s position, then to announce that the sum of such contrary evidence amounts to “zero”, but now, I see the errors of my ways. It is all so simple. The questions are all settled. I just hadn’t repeated it often enough, or heard the alarmist, scratch that, reality based, position repeated often enough.

    Thank you guys. This thread should go to the hall of fame for trenchent dissection and dismissal of AGW denialism. /NOT*

    *Irony marker added for the irony deficient

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  206. Daddy Dave

    Tell me, what is your evidence that the Ice Age never happened?

    The ice age is a clear demonstration that the climate varies naturally, in contrast to the position that any trend is (a) obviously created by us, and (b) evidence of impending doom. I would have invoked it as evidence for a skeptical stance, except that you grabbed it first.

    However, the CO2 we’re putting out is not stopping, and will not even slow down so long as people deny that it’s having an effect.

    Whatever happened to ‘peak oil’ and the end of fossil fuels?

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  207. Bruno of Blair

    I hadn’t read the report before going to the link that you provided. I also took to the time to read some of the debate that went on after the report was released.

    Obviously, the debate has been hashed over by participants who are qualified to discuss it. I won’t bore you by going over that ground.

    I might add I did go and read the original McIntyre and McKitrick criteque a fair while ago. I found it, as layman, thorough and convincing.

    I found the language of the NRC report very curious. It continually points to the lack of integrity of Mann’s data and methods yet deliberately (it seems to me – I’ll do it for you, MarkH =conspiracy=denialist=crank) avoids directly disscrediting it or making comment on its intrinsic veracity.

    I think JohnA’s assessment is fair if harsh. I think that MarkH’s statement that “Hockey stick isn’t debunked. That’s a myth.” is disingenous. I was arguing that Mann’s hockey stick was debunked but not that that in itself debunked AGW. (Goal posts right where I left them)

    I think that science is marvellous, the ingenuity required to attempt to measure global temperature over 2000 years is mind blowing. It’s a high wire act that unfortunately Mann was unable to perform. Others have done better. But in doing better they have acknowledged the Medieval Warm Period which creates a different political reality because it shows a high temperature period that was not caused by human activity during which humans prospered.

    When you talk about action, the science crosses into the political realm. This is where, unlike the science, I am (as all citizens are) qualified to participate; and in that political realm I remain a sceptic.

    Richard Simons wrote – “Do you accept that the change in global temperatures over the past 15 or 20 years matches predictions.” Yes, I do accept that temperatures have risen but no, that haven’t matched predictions. They have matched models that where set up to account for the rises. But the predictive ability of models seems poor. And everytime they do fail, the proponents argue the need to improve the models and/or account for a previously unknown phenonemum – never to question the premise of AGM. I think that’s dangerous.

    Not all denialists (or cranks) and the use of the term hardens my scepticism. I must say this had been interesting and I’ve learnt a lot about the debate. I hope you are enjoying the visit of the Blairites. I disagree with your assessment that they are without a modicum of irony or self-awareness. I think they have conducted themselves with wit, intelligence and (mostly) good manners.

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  208. Tim Lambert

    Let’s what the tropical disease initiative says: “Malaria is the most important tropical disease”. I guess the malariologists must be conspiring with the climate scientists or something.

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  209. MarkH

    Tyler pointed out, correctly, that the paleoclimate study I referenced was a couple of years old, five years or so. Therefore, the warm period lasting k-years that it showed never happened. Neither does the Antarctic Law Dome borehole provide any substantiation. You see, this is because the truth value of a study has a half life measured in months, even in the absense of falsifications of the premises or methods. I learned this important truth on this thread.

    Well, I can’t speak for all my commentors, the age of a study shouldn’t matter, but if subsequent records have amplified this result that should be taken into consideration. A lot of work gets done in 5 years. It doesn’t require falsification – lots of things are done correctly and still end up being wrong – but that doesn’t mean that the field hasn’t moved on. Cherry-picking can be performed with perfectly legit papers that might be correct – the data usually stay true – but the interpretation or context is off.

    I leared that GCMs are as complete, done, and dusted as a table of trigonometric values. To question this is a sign of mental illness because I was confusing denialism with debate. I understand the difference now.

    Umm, no one has said there isn’t uncertainty in climate models. With all the comments about clarifying the uncertainty in these damn things why can’t you accept that no one is saying models are perfect?

    I learned that Al Gore’s movie has been “certified”, and for this reason, we now know that studies that show the loss of the “snows of Kilimanjaro” is due to deforestation of the slopes has been in fact proven incorrect.

    19 climate scientists were gathered by AP to independently review the film – they said Al Gore did a good job getting the facts right. Further Al Gore is not the god of climate science. He’s a lay popularizer – the comparison to Oprah is somewhat apt. No one is saying he’s an expert and right 100% of the time – no expert ever is – he’s just trying to call attention to the science.

    I don’t need any study citation, certification of AIT is sufficient evidence for me.

    I learned that Katrina was caused by AGW, studies to opposite notwithstanding. I learned this because what does “certification” mean, if it does not cover the cover art.

    From where did you get this? I wrote a post friday discussing how the hurricane link was weak? People making conclusive claims about hurricane links right now are highly premature.

    I learned that climatology trumps all other fields of endeavor in truth value, except maybe publich health. I know this because if an astro or solar physicist comes up with a finding that interferes with hoped for result to be obtained in a climate model, that physicists work can be easily discarded with only the thinnest rationalisation.

    Ok I don’t know where you’re getting this one.

    I also learned that reference to “suspected triggers” amounts to invoking the writ of Gore, and that these references outweigh the truth value of studies done, even those published this year, that would tend to disprove the existence of such triggers. I think I can than Cato_the_Lunatic for that. forgive me If I mangled the handle.

    I can’t find reference to this either.

    I also learned that quoting studies is meaningless. No matter how many studies I quote, I will still have “zero evidence”. In my simpler days, I would have called this response a kind of denialism. To filter out all evidence contrary to one’s position, then to announce that the sum of such contrary evidence amounts to “zero”, but now, I see the errors of my ways. It is all so simple. The questions are all settled. I just hadn’t repeated it often enough, or heard the alarmist, scratch that, reality based, position repeated often enough.

    Quoting studies is somewhat meaningless out of context. It’s called cherry-picking. That’s why the consensus is important. Why emphasize one study over another? When conflicting studies exist – as they do in any field – do you just toss out them all? No, you keep working, get scientists together to hash it out, figure out where things were derailed etc. You’re never going to have a literature that is 100% consistent with every paper saying the same thing and consensus doesn’t mean 0% error, or 0% disagreement or 100% of papers say the same thing. It’s a view of the field, everything in the field, to get a best guess at where the truth is. That’s why we’re not impressed with studies quoted in isolation against a document like the IPCC Ar4. It’s also why we don’t think that IPCC AR4 isn’t the absolute truth – it is ultimately science-by-committee and will tend towards conservative interpretation and pretty stodgy science.

    I’ll tell you what I’ve learned from this thread though that is pathetic. That AGW denialists still think Crichton is some kind of great mind. That they still allege conspiracies about thousands of scientists based on no evidence. I’ve learned from this and the hurricane thread that there are those of you who are still confused about the difference between climate and weather – yet are dismissive of experts in the field. I’ve learned that climate science = Al Gore, and because he’s not right 100% of the time, climate science must be wrong and alarmist.

    Denialism is based on alleging conspiracies (those grant guzzling scientists forcing the orthodoxy for the evil environmentalist empire and personal enrichment and fame and…. ), cherry-picking data, using fake experts (Crichton if there ever was one), moving goalposts (100% certainty anyone?), and illogical arguments (Insert Gore bash here). How have you guys evaded the definition?

    Reply
  210. Daddy Dave

    Denialism is based on alleging conspiracies (those grant guzzling scientists forcing the orthodoxy for the evil environmentalist empire and personal enrichment and fame and…. ),

    I cry foul. Bias only alleged at realclimate.org.

    cherry-picking data,

    cherry-picking data is about picking data points that fit the hypothesis, and discarding ones that don’t. It doesn’t (at least in general science lingo) refer to citing an individual study.

    using fake experts (Crichton if there ever was one)

    Al Gore, anyone?

    But really, science is supposed to be about transparency- it’s the argument that counts. Appeals to authority shouldn’t count in a scientific debate, yet appeal to authority is a ubiquitous debating tactic for warmingers.

    moving goalposts (100% certainty anyone?),

    I don’t think this is a moving goalpost. First, your side tried to play the ‘consensus’ card, which was not only incorrect (as you all readily admit), but an appeal to authority. Second, political decisions rest on the science. The level of uncertainty is important.

    and illogical arguments (Insert Gore bash here).

    If he’s so irrelevant, don’t defend him or his film. And don’t tell people go and see it (you did, didn’t you?).

    Well, this has been fun, but it’s Monday, and I have work to do. I leave it to your regulars to have the last word… (since this is your turf, that would be the polite thing to do).
    Over to you, Tim, Richard, Minimalist and company…

    Reply
  211. blairite

    Mark,

    AIT has an image of a hurricane as cover art.

    You made the following comment:

    6) An Inconvenient Truth was largely a propaganda piece; –[quoting a commenter]
    Admittedly so. But one that had its facts certified by climate scientists as being accurate.

    Then you said:

    From where did you get this? I wrote a post friday discussing how the hurricane link was weak? People making conclusive claims about hurricane links right now are highly premature.

    This is what I mean by careless language. Makes one wonder about the clarity of thinking behind it.

    And could you please define “denialist”. What exactly does a denialist not believe?

    Does a denialist not believe that polar bears will go extinct in the near future due to climate change? Or is that plain old skepticism.

    Does a denialist not believe that the Antarctic ice sheet will plung into the sea due to ice dynamics during the next couple centuries? After all, suspected triggers have been identified (use your search function on the page)Or could such a person be labeled properly a reasoning skeptic?

    Do denialists not believe that 1750 was the climate norm, and that any changes since then are anthropogenic?

    What facts out there does one have to accept to lose the label “denialist”?

    “allege conspiracies about thousands of scientists based on no evidence.” Who are these “thousands of scientists?” Reviewers on AR4? Then I guess ClimateAudit buys into the consensus, since Steve MacEntyre was a reviewer. If the consensus is so strong, why are the comments of “thousands of scientists”, which were collated on an Excel spreadsheet available for public inspection only in written form on weekdays during bankers hours?

    And your comment that quoting contrary studies is “cherry picking” is classic denialism. A perfect psychological mechanism to keep you from ever having to consider the possibility that you might be wrong.

    I will close with an old saying. “If you have never considered the possibility that you might be wrong, you probably are.”

    Reply
  212. minimalist

    I hadn’t read the report before going to the link that you provided. I also took to the time to read some of the debate that went on after the report was released.

    Then you’ve done what most denialists don’t, and I respect that.

    But I still think your reading of the report has been miscolored by some preconceptions. As I said before, the NRC report doesn’t just deal with the Mann “hockey stick”, but many surface temperature reconstructions from different labs (yes, ones that acknowledge the MWP). And as depicted in Figure 1-S, they all agree to a significant extent, particularly on the data from the last 100 years. The sloppiness of one group’s statistical methods doesn’t necessarily invalidate their conclusion, and it certainly doesn’t wipe out everyone else’s work. The report even explicitly states (p.4) that surface temperature reconstructions are just one line of evidence for AGW, and not even the most important, at that.

    As Mark says above, single studies by themselves don’t mean much; when you have independent sources arriving at the same conclusions, that’s when you really start to take things seriously.

    Reply
  213. MarkH

    I’ve defined it many times on this thread. Try here for the full spiel.

    Reply
  214. minimalist

    Hey DD, your departure without ever giving an evidential justification for a belief in a Magical Climate Corrector That Will Forgive Us All Our CO2 Sins is noted.

    *yawn*

    And how many times do we have to say that Gore is not an expert, but he cites experts and his importance is as a popularizer and consciousness-raiser and– I pretty much lost you after “Gore is not”, right?

    Tedious. You contribute nothing as usual and won’t be missed.

    Reply
  215. blarite

    I looked at your definition of denialist. You have set up a near perfect psychological, not logical, defense of your postion. I would say that it is insurmountable. I know you don’t understand the above. If you understood it, you would have to make an effort to account for it in your thinking.

    For example,
    If a commenter here makes a reference to “suspected triggers” and murky ice dynamics causing rising sea levels, and I cite a 2007 study, which came after the whole ice dynamics controversy around AR4, that says that radar studies of sediment under ice sheets suggest that the ice sheets are very stable, well, that study is cherry picked. Never mind that the whole “ice dynamics” effect was mostly speculatvie and theoretical and not backed with physical studies of the glaciers.

    You don’t have to think about it at all. You can come up with a knee jerk reaction and call it thinking, all the while congratulating yourself for how much smarter you are than denialists.

    Reply
  216. Blairite.

    You may now continue your alarmist circle jerk unabated.

    Reply
  217. minimalist

    blairite,

    f a commenter here makes a reference to “suspected triggers” and murky ice dynamics causing rising sea levels, and I cite a 2007 study, which came after the whole ice dynamics controversy around AR4, that says that radar studies of sediment under ice sheets suggest that the ice sheets are very stable,

    … then that would be a first for you, since you’ve done nothing but shriek, gibber, spread feces on the walls, and make only oblique and very vague references to studies you probably haven’t even read and are trusting ‘ideologically pure’ websites to filter for you.

    Oh, and citing Michael Crichton as a credible authority on climate science. L, O, L.

    But in a fruitless effort to try to draw something substantive out of you, are you referring here to the Shepherd/Wingham study in Science this year?

    Reply
  218. MarkH

    Well I see you don’t like being accused of cherry-picking but I love how you dismissed the denialism hypothesis solely on that criteria! A cherry-pick itself.

    I’m sure it would be harder to attack it based on the use of denialists of conspiracy theories, fake experts, impossible expectations and logical fallacies.

    And can you really say that the definition of denialism is a psychological defense mechanism? Can you really admit that using these tactics is just invalid rhetoric? No, instead you have to suggest I’ve created a system of protecting my ego – by of all things rejecting bullshit arguments! So yes, I’m very glad I protect myself from believing in bullshit by using my bullshit detector to know when I’m hearing bullshit. I guess that’s a way of protecting my position, from bullshit.

    If this method of identifying is really BS, are you standing up for logical fallacies? Conspiracy-mongering? You’re saying these are legitimate? Interesting – and consistent.

    Reply
  219. blairite

    Question for you Mark, do you agree with this comment?

    then that would be a first for you, since you’ve done nothing but shriek, gibber, spread feces on the walls, and make only oblique and very vague references to studies you probably haven’t even read

    Did minimalist somehow identify any logical fallicies in my arguments? You are the smart one, I am the feces throwing, gibbering buffoon, or whatever. Kindly point out where I threw feces, if you agree with him. Does he give any indication of understanding my arguments? If he doesn’t, wouldn’t a question or two be in order on some point or other? Is his comment considered reasoned discourse?

    Who judges whether an argument is fallacious? You don’t admit to the possiblity of “jury nullification” on this point? This is where the psychological defense argument comes in. Along comes minimalist as a case in point.

    Reply
  220. Blairite

    I guess I would just say that the tone of minimalist’s post is indicative of a defense mechanism in action.

    Reply
  221. minimalist

    Can you name the paper or not?

    Can you summarize it in your own words?

    Yes or no?

    Reply
  222. blairite

    Before I go through the trouble of responding to you after your incredibly rude, and baseless diatribe, lets lay a little wager.

    Are you calling bullshit on the ice sheet stability study? I just want you on the record.

    Reply
  223. rmp

    It does seem as people get really reluctant to actually post the reference to the data that they say ‘splains it all’.

    Reply
  224. Chris Noble

    now know that studies that show the loss of the “snows of Kilimanjaro” is due to deforestation of the slopes has been in fact proven incorrect.

    Getting your information from Crichton?

    Douglas Hardy one of the authors of the study that Crichton cites says that Crichton and other AGW Denialists are misinterpretting and misrepresenting his work.

    Reply
  225. Chris Noble

    Al Gore, anyone?

    But really, science is supposed to be about transparency- it’s the argument that counts. Appeals to authority shouldn’t count in a scientific debate, yet appeal to authority is a ubiquitous debating tactic for warmingers.

    Nobody except AGW Denialists are claiming that Al Gore is an expert. This is a strawman which I’m getting very tired of. Stop pretending that all you have to do is attack Al Gore to debunk all of the scientific evidence.

    I don’t think this is a moving goalpost. First, your side tried to play the ‘consensus’ card, which was not only incorrect (as you all readily admit), but an appeal to authority. Second, political decisions rest on the science. The level of uncertainty is important.

    There is a consensus because of the evidence. This is not an appeal to authority. To avoid dealing with the evidence you invent loony conspiracy theories.

    Yes, the level of uncerntainty is important but insisting on 100% cerntainty is just plain stupid.

    Reply
  226. Chris Noble

    Do denialists not believe that 1750 was the climate norm, and that any changes since then are anthropogenic?

    One of the logical fallacies that are overused by Denialists is the strawman.

    Nobody is saying that 1750 was the climate norm. Nobody is saying that all climate changes since 1750 were caused by humans.

    For the record. I think it is possible to be rational and skeptical about many aspects of climate change and in particular many things written by non-scientsist in the popular press. You appear to tend towards Denialism.

    Reply
  227. Blairite

    “Nobody except AGW Denialists are claiming that Al Gore is an expert” –Chris Noble

    “[AIT] had its facts certified by climate scientists as being accurate.” –MarkH.

    Which is it?

    This is not a science blog, this appears to be a name-calling blog. Whatever.

    Minimalist, read my posts again, if you ever read them the first time. I cannot be responsible for your apparent difficulties with reading comprehension.

    Reply
  228. Daddy Dave

    Give up, Blairite, such disgusting schoolyard vitriol is not deserving of a response.
    You turn up here to talk the talk and there’s nothing but insults, sarcasm and jeers. The rational- and irrational – sides of this debate are on full display on this very thread.
    Besides, they just resort to talking points when cornered.
    Quit. It’s futile.

    Reply
  229. Chris Noble

    “Nobody except AGW Denialists are claiming that Al Gore is an expert” –Chris Noble
    “[AIT] had its facts certified by climate scientists as being accurate.” –MarkH.
    Which is it?

    Do I really have to spell it out for you?

    Nobody is syaing that AGW is science simply because Al Gore said so. Nobody is appealling to Al Gore as an authority figure.

    Al Gore is a popularizer. He simplifies some of the science for a popular audience.

    The climate scientists on the other hand are experts. They do real research and produce real evidence.

    The continued focus on Al Gore is an attempt to ignore what the climate scientists are saying and the evidence that they bring. It is a diversion.

    This is not a science blog, this appears to be a name-calling blog. Whatever.

    I hope you aren’t implying that Tim Blair’s blog has anything to do with science.

    If you want vitriol and name calling it’s certainly the place to go.

    Reply
  230. minimalist

    Besides, they just resort to talking points when cornered.

    Shit, and I just had my irony meter replaced, too. I need to look into new shielding.

    Still waiting for you to back up your belief in a self-correcting mechanism (such that current CO2 emissions will have no long-term effect) with any amount of data whatsoever. Oopsie, is “put up or shut up” a “talking point”? Science is so rude sometimes!

    I know better than to waste any time with blairite. Luna_the_cat dealt with him fairly, politely, and decisively and he ran away, proving once again the futility of treating denialists as serious debaters.

    Blairite, all you had to do was name the paper you were referring to. That’s it. I was not challenging the validity of it, just your interpretation — or rather, the interpretation you most likely got secondhand from that eminently unbiased site, co2science. Of course, Luna_the_cat covered that long ago, and you hid from that as well.

    Reply
  231. Richard Simons

    Besides, they just resort to talking points when cornered.

    Which reminds me, you never did answer my question as to which negative feedback mechanism(s) you expect to see come into play to reduce the effect of the increasing CO2. Surely you must have some suggestions as you are clearly confident that one will be along soon. How about Lindzen’s Iris Hypothesis?

    Reply
  232. minimalist

    As for this:

    Did minimalist somehow identify any logical fallicies in my arguments?

    Uh, yes, plenty. I covered your Crichton fixation before (fake expert); you’ve alleged conpiracies and funding conflicts of interest (pointedly ignoring the energy-industry funding of the “skeptics”, of course); quote-mined (the Shepherd/Wingham paper, covered by Luna_the_cat as I mentioned above); used strawmen (your constant claim that we cite Gore as an “expert”); poisoned the well (RealClimate is funded by enviro-nazis so the opinion of most all climate researchers, the majority of which have sod-all to do with RC, are similarly tainted!); and so on, and so on. Denialist tactics, the same sad spiel recited by creationists, HIV/AIDS deniers, antivaxers, etc.

    You are an idiot, and a dishonest idiot at that. It is not childish vitriol, it is recognition that there is nothing of value you can possibly bring to any scientific discussion of climate, and treating someone like you seriously — as though you’re on par with actual scientists with something to contribute — is an insult to those researchers. Furthermore you are losing in the face of advancing scientific data ad public opinion, so I see no pressing need to debate random fringies whose minds won’t change for anything.

    Reply
  233. rmp

    minimalist, I object to your statements. You will only chase them away when we still had the opportunity for them to further box themselves in a corner. We needn’t open the exit door for them. They should find it for themselves.

    Reply
  234. Harry Eagar

    So, if, per Mark, Tim is NOT claiming that malaria is a tropical disease, why did he go to the trouble to show me a map demonstrating what I already knew, that Illinois no longer has endemic malaria?

    But it used to, when it was cooler than it is now.

    Then Tim replies with a post that malaria is a tropical disease.

    Well, it isn’t, never has been, but I guess we will just have to let Mark and Tim disagree about this one.

    I visited Tim’s blog and now I understand why he is putting up silly comments here. He doesn’t know jack about malaria or DDT or anything.

    I suggest two books by a genuine malariologist, Robert Desowitz, ‘The Malaria Capers’ and ‘New Guinea Tapeworms and Federal Bodysnatchers.’

    Reply
  235. Chris Noble

    From Blair’s initial cut and paste screed: Gallup poll at the time reported that 53% of scientists actively involved in global climate research did not believe global warming had occurred; 30% weren?t sure; and only 17% believed global warming had begun

    This “fact” (which echoes a claim made by The National Review, George Will and Limbaugh) was disavowed by Gallup: “67 percent of those scientists directly involved in global climate research say human-induced warming is now occurring,” the polling group said in a press release (San Francisco Chronicle, 9/27/92). Only 11 percent said that such warming was not occurring, while the remainder were undecided.

    This lie was corrected by Gallup 15 years ago. Why are idiots like Tim Blair still repeating it?

    Why aren’t AGW “skeptics” actually skeptical about what they read?

    Reply
  236. Chris Noble

    More distortions: Even a Greenpeace poll showed 47% of climatologists didn?t think a runaway greenhouse effect was imminent; only 36% thought it possible and a mere 13% thought it probable.

    Blair’s cut and paste source is deliberately trying to conflate the possibility of a runaway greenhouse effect with the question of whether global warming is occuring.

    This survey was misreported on a number of occasions in the US media as showing that only 13% of scientists thought global warming itself was probable. The Greenpeace press release was specific about what a runaway greenhouse effect was: it talked about “a point of no return beyond which lies unstoppable heating of the atmosphere,” and the risk of “unleashing global warming at a rate which threatens the future of the human species, and indeed most life forms.”

    Reply
  237. blairite

    “Do I really have to spell it out for you?” – minimalist

    What does “certified” mean?

    I know these are emotional issues for you guys. That is why you spend so much time with your ears covered. You have invested your psyche in the outcome of this debate.

    Years will pass and we will see who is right. I am not selling my beachfront property. If you want to sell yours cheap, let me know.

    Reply
  238. Chris O’Neill

    “You have invested your psyche in the outcome of this debate.”

    I wonder how much of his own time Steve McIntyre has invested in this debate?

    Reply
  239. blairite

    OK, I admit, this is too much fun.

    I couldn’t help but notice that you did not answer my question. The one about Antarctic contribution to sea level rise and “ice dynamics”. I will make is simple, since you guys aren’t that good at subtle dialogue. If I think that the weight of the evidence is that Antarctic contribution to sea level rise over the next century will be negligable, am I a denialist, on those grounds alone?

    Some other things.

    When did I say this: “RealClimate is funded by enviro-nazis”

    What is a “fixation”? Did I mention Crichten more than once? You said he was a hack. I pointed out that he is well educated. Once. He is a “popularizer” if you will, you know, like Al Gore.

    Another point, however the author of the study on Kilimanjaro wants to be interpreted, the interpretation that AGW did it that Al Gore presents is not supported by his findings. But you have already thrown Gore under the bus. I know it is hard to follow these threads, but the Kilimanjaro thing was a response the the claim that AIT had been “certified” by climate experts. It was not intended to “disprove” global warming.

    I could go on. If my real words are so bad, why do you need to change them, then attack me as if I said the words you made up?

    Reply
  240. blairite

    The question re sea level rise was aimed at potty mouth.

    Reply
  241. minimalist

    So how can I respond if you won’t name the paper you’re referring to? How could I possibly respond that the paper in question does not deny that ice sheet melting is happening (as it would be absurd to at this point)? Or that it refers to stability of the ice sheets relative to one suspected cause of retreat, that is the rise in sea levels? And that the authors themselves have gone on record saying, oh let me quote,

    “Our results, together with recent evidence that ice shelves respond sensitively to ocean-temperature changes and quickly propagate the response inland, point to greater importance of other environmental variables, and especially sub-ice-shelf temperatures,” says Alley.

    Ginny Catania

    The researchers caution that sea level may be the primary control on the ice sheet if other variables that affect ice sheets more quickly, such as water temperature under ice shelves, remain stable.

    “Common climatic forcing, including an increase in ocean temperatures, which can have very large and very rapid effects on ice sheets, is more likely to cause Antarctic glacial retreat,” says Alley.

    All of which is far more nuanced and yes, subtle than a broad, uncomprehending declaration that “ice sheets are stable”.

    But this is all academic since you won’t name the paper so I couldn’t possibly know what you’re talking about. And you refuse to be specific about your statements so I would be unwilling to say anything that could get me accused of “putting words in your mouth” as denialists tend to do so they can weasel out of it and claim they were saying something else entirely.

    So I guess we’ll never know!

    Reply
  242. Blairite

    Snark first:
    “so they can weasel out of it and claim they were saying something else entirely.”

    Uh, I think i clearly demonstrated that you were putting words in my mouth.

    Here is the abstract “A wedge of sediments appears to stabilize the Whillans Ice Stream, suggesting that sea-level rise may not destabilize ice sheets as much as previously feared”

    http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/summary/315/5820/1803

    You could have read my comment and done a google scholar and found it.

    All I’m saying. I pointed to a study that showed that sea level rise is miniscule, somebody referred to suspected triggers, I assumed he meant “ice dynamics” that would cause rapid sea level rise. I pointed out that one of these triggers has been found to be less likely. This also tends to support the IPCCs more conservative estimate of sea level rise in AR4.

    I would also like to point out that down the road “Common climatic forcing”, depend heavily on GCMs which have not performed all that well in Antarctica.

    I am also not saying that CO2 is not affecting the climate. The cooling of the stratosphere is pretty good and reasonably unambiguous evidence that it is. My argument has to do with our limited knowledge of feedbacks and other forcings, and the politically driven demands that we spend trillions of dollars, abandon an economic model that has brought prosperity to billions on the chance that something bad might happen if these primative models are right. Right now they are little more than excercises in curve fitting.

    Reply
  243. Blairite

    That last is my opinion.

    I think that you should know that one of the thing that makes skeptics is the intemperate language of the “alarmists”.

    Al Gore’s movie dug in a lot of heels, based on his stupid claims. Also, constant claims of flat climaters makes one wonder, specifically, if alarmists are so adamant that the current era is warmer than it has been in a million years, despite so much evidence, historical and paleoclimatological that it is not, does the case for alarmism depend on this premise? Because if it does, anybody who ever read more than one history book is going to question it?

    This is an honest question, not an assertion or given as proof of anything, or even said to rais an argument, just a question. How do the flat climaters believe that Hanibal got his elephants accross the Alps?

    Reply
  244. Chris O’Neill

    “”However, the CO2 we’re putting out is not stopping, and will not even slow down so long as people deny that it’s having an effect.””

    “Whatever happened to ‘peak oil’ and the end of fossil fuels?”

    Fossil fuels like — coal? ‘Peak coal’ will take hundreds of years to arrive unlike peak oil which is expected within a few decades.

    Remind me never to trust anything Daddy Dave says.

    Reply
  245. minimalist

    You could have read my comment and done a google scholar and found it.

    You kind of… missed the generous helping of irony in my post, didn’t you? As well as missing the fact that I quoted one of the authors. (I tried linking to those two studies published concurrently in that issue of Science by Alley and Anandakrishnan, but screwed up the tags.) Thanks for confirming once again my hypothesis about irony and cranks, though.

    (I was also confused by your reference to having mentioned it before, because I saw no such post from “blairite”. However, there is a quote from “Anonymous” on June 8, 04:16 PM, which I now presume is you. I missed it searching for your handle.)

    So, yes, I did find the paper(s). My real reason in asking, though, was to ascertain what you’ve read and understood of them. And the answer is: not very much.

    But at any rate, you claim that

    I pointed out that one of these triggers has been found to be less likely.

    which is a bit at variance from your comment of June 11, 12:39 PM:

    I also learned that reference to “suspected triggers” amounts to invoking the writ of Gore, and that these references outweigh the truth value of studies done, even those published this year, that would tend to disprove the existence of such triggers. I think I can than Cato_the_Lunatic for that. forgive me If I mangled the handle.

    Saying that one trigger has less of an effect than others (and indeed explicitly stating that it makes it more likely that other triggers, such as surface and ocean warming, play a more significant role) is far from the same thing as “tending to disprove the existence of such triggers.”

    Even deeper than that, let’s look at part of the Shepherd/Wingham study that Luna_the_cat quoted, to which you had responded with the above.

    However, much of the loss from Antarctica and Greenland is the result of the flow of ice to the ocean from ice streams and glaciers, which has accelerated over the past decade. In both continents, there are suspected triggers for the accelerated ice discharge—surface and ocean warming, respectively—and, over the course of the 21st century, these processes could rapidly counteract the snowfall gains predicted by present coupled climate models.

    In other words, in response to a study in which surface and ocean warming are specifically identified as likely triggers for glacial loss, you cite a study that minimizes the effect of a different trigger entirely and suggests that effects like surface and ocean warming play a greater role. This is, to put it charitably, not the best showcase of your reading comprehension abilities.

    (As a non-expert, I am curious about the fact that Shepherd and Wingham specifically identify surface warming as the more likely trigger for Antarctic glacial loss, but Anandakrishnan and Alley think ocean warming to be more likely. That’s a question I’ll have to look into.)

    And as a final note on the last comment of yours I quoted above: gratuitous name-calling, accusations of using “holy writ of Gore” (even after Luna supplied tons of links to scientific sites and never once appealed to Gore’s authority). Luna was a little sarcastic to you (not that it was undeserved, given your consistent dishonesty and insulting attitude), but the above is beyond the pale, especially given that you had no substantive rebuttal for anything she said to you. Coward, calling names long after she left. I can’t imagine why I don’t treat you with the respect you obviously deserve!

    Reply
  246. rmp

    Seems to me like blairite is being persecuted. I’d have to say that Mark’s formula for determining a crank argument appears pretty dead on.

    Reply
  247. blairite

    I am quite interested in this statement: given your consistent dishonesty

    Where have I been dishonest?

    Reply
  248. Blairite

    And when did “suspected” become proven?

    Reply
  249. blairite

    Didn’t think you had an answer. I have proven you a liar twice. You have called me a liar a lot. Near as I can tell, you define a liar as somebody who disagrees with you. I am sure you won many converts with your little tirade. Winning converts is not the point though, is it? The point is protecting your worldview from dissent.

    Using a little name calling as an excuse to run for the door is a hoot on this blog.

    Reply
  250. minimalist

    Dear dear dear. So not replying within four hours = “not having an answer”? Nobody told me this! What shall I do, I shall have to quit my job just to reply to random anonymous obtuse cretins in the Intarweb.

    But what, then, are we to make of someone who, in response to a thorough demonstration of how said someone’s knowledge claims are baseless, unwarranted and dishonest, posts two cruddy little one-liners that fail to address the substance of the post? What, then?

    But I’ll indulge you. It’s quittin’ time and I could do with a cruel laugh to unwind.

    Where have I been dishonest?

    I have cunningly hidden the answer to this question in the post you are (supposedly) replying to. That’s how tricksy I am, in order to dodge your piercing questions I traveled back in time to demonstrate how you misrepresented the Anandakrishnan/Alley work, Luna_the_cat’s position, and your own claims to knowledge (in that it is apparent you haven’t read the papers yourself and were relying on some source like co2science to interpret it for you).

    If the above is due to staggering incompetence rather than lying, then arguing as if you know what the hell you’re talking about is still dishonesty.

    Or did I distract you by not using irony in a post immediately after I used it? I was being quite straightforward, I assure you. Do I need to use tags to help you sort it all out?

    And when did “suspected” become proven?

    You’ll have to ask someone who used, or even implied, “proven”, because it certainly wasn’t me.

    See, there’s dishonesty right there. You misrepresented my post, when one could easily flick their eyes upward to see that it is baseless.

    I have proven you a liar twice.

    Oh, this should be good.

    Using a little name calling as an excuse to run for the door is a hoot on this blog.

    Well you certainly seem to think so. Don’t let that door hit you on the ass — you’re obviously butthurt enough as it is. Me, I’ll still be around.

    Bunking off work now, so I need to travel home and make dinner. I won’t be around for at least three hours, probably won’t post here for five. Feel free to declare victory again in the meantime!

    Reply
  251. Blairite

    You win. Bye.

    Reply
  252. rmp

    yup, he was persecuted. Man is Mark’s formula dead nuts on or what?

    Reply
  253. Chris Noble

    What does “certified” mean?

    I obviously do have to spell it out for you.

    The fact that Al Gore says something is not important. The fact that expert climate scientists support most of his statements is.

    Your constant assertion that everybody treats Al Gore as an expert is tiresome. It is a silly rhetorical trick designed to avoid looking at the data.

    Reply
  254. Chris Noble

    I guess none of the blairites are interested in Blair posting 15 year old lies about a Gallup poll.

    Any chance of a retraction?

    Admitting to being wrong?

    Reply
  255. blairite

    Even though minimalist used some harsh rhetorical tactics, at least (she?) was interesting, Sorry Chris, you’re not.

    Reply
  256. Sizlac

    Daddy Dave says:

    “First, your side tried to play the ‘consensus’ card, which was not only incorrect (as you all readily admit)”

    Wait, what? You think because Dr. Joe McCoalcheck publiushes something on his weblog that there is serious debate?

    These denialists from Blair’s site are clocksuckers one and all. Publish in the literature if you are so damn smart. (Hint to save time: Don’t try, you’re not.)

    Reply
  257. Sizlac

    Oh, and the IPCC’s “very likely” equates to a 90-95% certainty. Notice how exactly ZERO denialists ever get that right.

    There’s too busy not looking up “consensus” in a dictionary.

    Reply
  258. Luna_the_cat

    Thanks for all that, minimalist.

    Reply
  259. Luna_the_cat

    Kind of a side issue at this point, given that this discussion seems to have petered out, but a few case studies on storm surge+sea level change:

    http://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/news/20061024/
    http://www.csa.com/discoveryguides/venice/review5.php
    http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/klu/nhaz/2007/00000040/00000001/00000004

    Reply
  260. TTT

    It really is scary to see how “grant money” has replaced “matzah meal” as the conspiracy vector of choice.

    To the Blairites who actually believe in this conspiracy, may I request clarification?

    If more or less the entire worldwide scientific community is being bribed, and if every liberal arts college with an atmospheric / ecological sciences department produces new graduates every year who in turn must be bribed, there must be an infinite volume of bribe money.

    Where’s it all come from?

    Please don’t say “carbon offsets” or other stuff that didn’t exist more than 3 years ago. I want a traceable, material explanation for where the money for the conspiracy has been coming from for the last two and a half decades. It would be nice if the explanation were not totally in defiance of the realities of academia, i.e. if it doesn’t propose you can get gigantic payouts just by saying the exact same thing everybody else is saying.

    A few years ago, Ron Bailey of Reason Magazine wrote a book called “Global Warming and Other Eco-Myths.” You can pretty much guess at its contents. Yet if you read his columns and blog posts recently, you can see that he’s come around to basically the consensus position, give or take some ad-hom potshots against Al Gore just for old time’s sake. Just like that, the gigantic gobal conspiracy vanishes, all infrastructure erased, like Kaiser Soze getting into his limo never to be seen again. Or maybe they bribed him too?

    Also, it never ceases to amaze me how wholeheartedly conservatives cling to the cult of personality around Michael Crichton, given that in his book “State of Fear” he basically echoes Michael Moore’s point from “Fahrenheit 9/11” that Al-Qaeda isn’t a real threat and that the government is politicizing the fear of terrorism for its own gain. Then again, since his thoroughly kooky autobiography “Travels” it amazes me how Crichton was ever trusted to hold a scalpel. Before he had his tinfoil hat on about AGW, he was testing it out on GERM THEORY. Yeah. That was a dirty plot with no real evidence too.

    Reply

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