Media Miscoverage of Global Climate Change:
That's the topic of my latest media analysis column for the Rocky Mountain News. Plus a short item on the Denver papers failing to report on Governor Bill Owens' support for illegal aliens.
Media Miscoverage of Global Climate Change:
That's the topic of my latest media analysis column for the Rocky Mountain News. Plus a short item on the Denver papers failing to report on Governor Bill Owens' support for illegal aliens. |
I felt Michael Crichton also made a strong case for alarmist and unbalanced reporting of global warming in his novel "State of Fear", which was salted with facts and cites. It seems to be ignored.
Additionally any evidence that journalists are very bad at reporting climate issues should apply just as much to this article as it does to the other articles. While the poor record of journalists gives us no reason to doubt the consensus of scientists it does give us reason to be suspicious of the entirely unsupported claim of significant evidence against global warming.
As with all complicated scientific issues there are going to be certain facts and phenomena that at first glance may seem to suggest the theory is wrong. People advocating intelligent design can present examples that look to an unsophisticated audience as if they discredit evolution though properly understood by an expert (or explained at length) can be rightly seen to do nothing of the kind. The same is true of climate research. Just as it would be totally irresponsible for journalists to trumpet examples from the ID crowd as if they cast doubt on evolution just because a proper explanation was above the heads of the newspaper readers it would be similarly irresponsible for journalists to suggest that there are serious reasons to doubt global warming because there are a few misleading data points.
Several years ago there were valid reasons to be skeptical of human driven climate change and some of these concerns were valid. However, most of the serious scientists who were skeptical have been convinced by new data and now are firmly convinced of global warming. If you are not yet convinced then rather than reaching your decision based on the poor journalism on science change I recommend trying to read through some of the more detailed descriptions of the climate change research. realclimate.org is a good place to find some summaries that are much better than what you find in the paper.
a) virtually every peer-reviewed scientific paper in the discipline supports claims of global warming and
b) the mass media frequently gives equal time to people saying there is no global warming.
The media bias runs counter to that professed
Nevertheless all that proves nothing each of us has to evaluate the evidence on his own.
They used to run ads saying 9 out of 10 Doctors prefer Camels*.
For those of you too young to remember, Camels was (and perhaps, "still is") a brand of cigarette.
But my point was not necessarily that global warming is correct but that the mass media coverage has generally played down global warming, relative to the science, much more than it has played it up.
How about scientists being wrong in the past? In the 1970s, these same scientists were going around claiming that we had to prepare, a new Ice Age was starting!
In grad school, I got a job shelving books in the campus science library to unwind. I'd stop to read a bit here and there. The 1970s ecological books are a laugh riot. Dire predictions abound, like that almost all mammals in North Americal would be extinct by 2000.
I'll start taking climate modelers seriously when they can take their model, input data from 50 years ago, and get today's climate. They can't even do that! So why should I believe their predictive value is any good for 50 years into the future? Just because they use a lot of computer time?
For example, although the last two years of hurricane activity have certainly been extraordinary, hurricane activity for the prior 30 years was below normal at a time when there were increased CO2 levels in the atmosphere. Daily temperature data recorded over the last 100 years shows no consistent temperature rise outside of urban areas.
This complicated issue has unfortunately become politicized, clouding free exchange of information.
The problem with anthropogenic driving of climate is that the atmosphere is too big for us to cause any changes in its behavior. My comment to this is two fold. Do you know of any species on earth with a body size as large as ours (energy demand) with populations as large as ours (total demand) able to modify the environment as much as we do (eg. farming--something seen as benign)? Second contemplate the satellite pictures of the earth's night side. After pondering these two points then tell me anthropogenic driving is not possible.
Secondly, judging today's science by what was said or written 40 or more years ago is imprudent. I remember the 1970's, I am old. Most engineers were still using slide rules! Why, sonny I remember the first Radio Shack personal computer we had in our lab. 1 GB of RAM ha--we only had 10 MB of disk space on our third generation computer an IBM AT. Computer modelling-ha! What data were available to input into the models--satellite temperature data--hell there probably wasn't very good land based coverage of temperature, satellite observed cloud cover, water temperature, deep ocean current speeds...... Find the data I'm sure they would love to input it into their models.
The scientists you are doubting also begin by doubting. The good ones are constantly examining there own assumptions which is why the models get better and better. If you doubt they are better try meteorologic predictions--compare the accuracy of weather forecasts from the 1970s to those you see every night. The models are better, gee I wonder why?
vortex.nsstc.uah.edu/public/n\msu/t2lt/tltglhmam_5.2.
(The third leftmost column of figures is the average deviation from the 1979-1998 temperature average in degrees Centigrade.)
The media can't handle the gloval warming issue because they confuse correlation with causation. I'm sure temperatures are higher than they would be without anthropogenic CO2, but how much higher is impossible to determine unless we can observe temperatures on two planet Earths, one with the CO2 and one just the same as the first but without the CO2. Some of the warming could be caused by changes in solar luminosity, some by changing patterns of human land use, and some by other factors of which we have no knowledge. The attribution of all warming to CO2 is based on global climatologic models, but there is a lot involved in climate that the models don't even consider. One important factor is the role of clouds, which can exert both a warming and a cooling effect depending on what kind of clouds. There is also the question of cyclical climate change due to Milankovich cycles, i.e., periodic variation is the eccentricity of the earth's orbit, the precession of the equinoxes, and the tilt of the earth's orbit. Nothing much Al Gore can do about this.
"As most of you have heard many times, the consensus of climate scientists believes in global warming. Historically, the claim of consensus has been the first refuge of scoundrels; it is a way to avoid debate by claiming that the matter is already settled. Whenever you hear the consensus of scientists agrees on something or other, reach for your wallet, because you’re being had.
Let’s be clear: the work of science has nothing whatever to do with consensus. Consensus is the business of politics. Science, on the contrary, requires only one investigator who happens to be right, which means that he or she has results that are verifiable by reference to the real world. In science, consensus is irrelevant. What is relevant is reproducible results. The greatest scientists in history are great precisely because they broke with the consensus."
I also remember hearing that 9 out 10 doctors who tried camels went back to their wives.
Wrong, most of these people are dying because they are poor and can't afford proper food and medical care.
He's got an MD from Harvard.
Regardless of who said it, or his qualifications, it's hard to dispute: Consensus has nothing to do with Science. It only takes one scientist who is right and has independently verifiable results. Will such a scientist please step forward ...
Your faith in William Gray is nothing more than that. You have found a once respectable scientist who in old age has found a cause to fight against where he can beat up on the young whippersnappers who understand the technology and are getting all the glory William Gray is nothing but a bitter old man and a sour old fart. He is old school to the extreme and just doesn't believe in any of this new-fangled computer modeling. At 76 years old he is being contrary just to be contrary. He constantly complains about how wrong all the new theories are and that he can demonstrate that he can prove it but still has not presented any alternative explanation as to why the global warming proponents are wrong. Calling them nazis is not a scientific argument.
In fact all of the arguments against global warming amount to either "it's not happening (a less tenable position with each passing year)", distortion or outright lying about the data (e.g., claiming that the fact that the ice sheet in some areas in Antartica is growing is evidence global is not occuring when it proves exactly the opposite), saying that global warming is not caused by man or if it is we can't do anything about it.
Temperature Trends in the Lower Atmosphere.
Industrial CO2 emissions as a proxy for anthropogenic influence on lower tropospheric temperature trends
This is one of the silliest things I have ever heard in my life. I doubt there is one instance in the entire history of modern science where "once scientist who is right and has independently verifiable results" suddenly changed the world of science. Maybe Darwin or Einstein came close. But even their assertions were mere bases for years of follow-up research and verification before their theories became widely accepted.
Global Warming theory rests on an undeniable chemical fact. CO2 and other greenhouse gases trap reflected radiation from the sun. The amount of CO2 in the atmosphere has risen by 30% in the last 100 years and this rise is mostly due to human activity. All other things being equal, the more CO2 there is in the atmosphere, the more reflected radiation will be trapped and the warmer the earth will be. This can be demonstrated theoretically and experimentally using classic thermodynamic principles that have been well understood for 150 years.
Jonas Salk
Joseph Goldberger
Louis Pasteur
Werner Heisenberg
Alfred Einstein
The list goes on and on.
What do you think the process of Independent Verification is? What you argued doesn't refute what I said.
Current AGW studies and models are seldomly put up for peer scrutiny. The few that were have been found to have quite a few holes and leave many unanswered questions.
When there is a real breakthrough in the subject you won't have to use the word "consensus".
Yes it does. All the people on your list were pioneers, no doubt, but they relied on years of science before and follow-up on their work after. Jonas Salk discovered the vaccine for one of our most debilitating diseases at a time when many important vaccines were reaching the market. Heisenberg was one of many scientists who advanced quantum physics in the years before World War II (and if our physicists weren't better than Heisenberg, we would have never built the bomb). There is no modern scientific discovery that occurs in isolation, not one.
I would think that independent verification would imply not being in isolation, but I guess not. Regardless of how you want to define the process, it still holds that consensus has nothing do with science.
As an aside Heisenberg intentionally stalled Hitler, and have Niels Bohr a critical piece to the nuclear puzzle.
Einstein did not issue his papers and nurture a coterie to attack anyone who disagreed. Skepticism is a required component of the scientific process of finding the truth.
These attacks here, comparisons to intelligent design, labeling Crichton, a brilliant scholar and a superb author as a "second-rate science fiction author", and degrading Grey as "nothing but a bitter old man and a sour old fart" are uninformed, emotional, and doctrinal. The popular movement to choke off debate on this topic is as dangerous and contemptible as the action by The Church to silence Galileo and his peers.
Can you point me to a large scientific consensus that believed with great certainty there was a coming Ice Age? No, you can't because there was no such thing. This is the perfect example of why journalists are bad at reporting on climate and other scientific subjects.
At some time in the 70s and perhaps 80s there was a bit of evidence suggestive of a coming Ice Age. This of course made for interesting headlines so the journalists splattered this all over the news but that didn't mean the scientific community was strongly convinced this was going to occur.
Saying that we shouldn't trust the strong scientific consensus over global warming because scientists at one point had some data that might suggest the earth is cooling is to totally ignore the difference between saying something might be the case and saying we have strong evidence to back it up. Refusing to believe the strong scientific consensus now because their speculation in the past has been wrong makes about as much sense as refusing to believe the mechanic who just took apart your care and carefully examined when he says your problem is the distributor cap because when he heard the car roll into the shop he said 'sounds like a loss spark plug wire'
Also to the person who commented on the climate modelling community and the pressure not to publish reports critical of global warming. Yes, there were plenty of good reasons to be skeptical of global warming years ago and science suffers from social influence as does law. However, at this point we have had independent confirmation of human driven climate change from several sources, there are pretty good climate records and the valid criticisms of the evidence for global warming seem to have been thoroughly rebutted by further evidence.
One need not even subscribe to the view that scientific truth is entirely based on consensus to recognize that it is, and always has been, heavily dependent on it. A scientist will get absolutely nowhere unless others can reproduce his results and validate the methods used. The public, social nature of science is exactly what makes it superior to other forms of knowledge.
Yes, consensus opionion is often proven wrong (sometimes spectacularly wrong). But how is it proven wrong, if not by replacing one consensus with another? Change in consensus is what drives progress in science. It's a feature, not a bug.
The idea of a lone scientist in his basement refuting the prevailing theories of the day is so mistaken that it could only come from--well, from second-rate science fiction writers, I guess. Anyone who, like Mr. Crichton, believes it self-evident that consensus is more important to politics than science clearly understands very little about either.
It's sad enough that a prominent fiction writer believes (whether earnestly or not, it is hard to tell) and expounds this fantasy in public; but much more sad that so many gullible people are eager to accept this nonsense simply to buttress their fragile political ideology.
I think what's really going on is that people will "believe" other people who say what they already believe to be true, regardless of that person's qualifications. If Michael Crichton wrote a book attacking creationists he would be lambasted as a writer of popular but mindless fiction by the right (cf. Dan Brown). Since he happened to attack the idea of global warming in an utterly idiotic book (and NOT because of its "ideas"), he's the voice of reason.
Gray is a bitter old man and a sour old fart. Have you ever seen him speak or an interview with him. He gets whipped up into a righteous rage and ends up calling the proponents of global warming Nazis and Goering like propagandists.
And you accuse my side of trying to choke off debate? The problem with the "debate" on the issue is that there are very few facts to support one side as demonstrated by the very lame editorial that is the subject of this post. Journalists and the media have played up bad theories in the past so they shouldn't give much credence to global warming now. Although, in fact the opposite is true, the MSM gives a lot more credence to the very small number of scientists and groups (most of which are funded by right wing groups or other groups that have vested interests in the continued consumption of fossil fuels) that disagree with the overwhelming consensus on global warming, giving the false impression that there is a serious debate on the issue.
Science Magazine Article
It seems to me that whether the journalists have it right or not is irrelevant. Would you rely on the opinions of journalists for a legal opinion?
It's the scientists that count and while there may be some legitimate scientific dissenters, the consensus seems to be that climate change is both happening and humans have had a large part to do with it. Am I saying that sheer consensus makes the majority correct? No. But I can't see any reason for non-scientists to have more faith in the minority than in the majority opinion, except for wishful thinking. Hey! Do I like the idea of having to change my habits? No way!
Moreover, even accepting the majority view (that human activities have influenced climate change,) there is still plenty of opportunity for disagreement over what policies to adopt.
So I guess I am puzzled by the op-ed's premise. The media is not the source but, by definition, the medium and it is not, by the preponderance of the scientific evidence, distorting things. The majority of scientists agree and that is what the media is saying. No?
The Geiger-Marsden experiment refuting Thomson's model of the atom? Einstein refuting the Newtonian world-view? Kepler refuting Ptolemiac-Aristotelian cosmology?
Wake up.
Everytime people point out this coming Ice Age theory in the '70s I remember an exchange between one of the weathermen in Chicago and the news anchor. It was a particularly bitter winter and the anchor asked the weatherman if the weather was an indication of an new Ice Age, the weatherman said he had talked to a climatologist at one of the universities. The Climatologists said, "no, the only way you can tell you're in an Ice Age is in July. If there's snow on the ground in July, you might want to start worrying about an Ice Age.
Laughable.
Did anyone say that bold new scientific hypotheses occur in an intellectual vacuum?
No one.
"There have been repeated claims that this past year's hurricane activity was another sign of human-induced climate change. Everything from the heat wave in Paris to heavy snows in Buffalo has been blamed on people burning gasoline to fuel their cars, and coal and natural gas to heat, cool and electrify their homes. Yet how can a barely discernible, one-degree increase in the recorded global mean temperature since the late 19th century possibly gain public acceptance as the source of recent weather catastrophes? And how can it translate into unlikely claims about future catastrophes?
The answer has much to do with misunderstanding the science of climate, plus a willingness to debase climate science into a triangle of alarmism. Ambiguous scientific statements about climate are hyped by those with a vested interest in alarm, thus raising the political stakes for policy makers who provide funds for more science research to feed more alarm to increase the political stakes. After all, who puts money into science--whether for AIDS, or space, or climate--where there is nothing really alarming? Indeed, the success of climate alarmism can be counted in the increased federal spending on climate research from a few hundred million dollars pre-1990 to $1.7 billion today. It can also be seen in heightened spending on solar, wind, hydrogen, ethanol and clean coal technologies, as well as on other energy-investment decisions.
But there is a more sinister side to this feeding frenzy. Scientists who dissent from the alarmism have seen their grant funds disappear, their work derided, and themselves libeled as industry stooges, scientific hacks or worse. Consequently, lies about climate change gain credence even when they fly in the face of the science that supposedly is their basis."
Here
His bio
here
He mostly talks about how scientific studies are carried out and ways to improve them.
Wow, what a decisive, fact-based refutation of Gray's claims (whatever they are). Is calling him a sour old fart who hates computers an example of a "scientific argument"?
Unfortunately rather than trying to read through the debate at even a slightly technical level most of the global warming skeptics in the public at large latch on to a few facts/papers which seem to contradict global warming. However, the correct data analysis makes a huge difference in climate research so it is quite easy to find what appears to be strong evidence against global warming that disappears once a confounding factor is taken into account. For instance it turned out that some seemingly contradictory data about changes in the temperature of the troposphere disappeared once the correct compensation for orbital factors was applied. Frequently (as in this case) the serious scientists who (appropriately) raise these concerns agree with the correction in the data interpretation but this sort of deep technical discussion never gets played out in the news media or most internet discussions of the issue.
However, for many people even this level of analysis of the real arguments and data for climate change is either above their heads or simply takes too much time. How should these people form judgments about the validity of climate change? Rather than merely relying on non-experts like journalists who all too frequently trumpet one contradictory piece of evidence as if it counterbalances the many mutually supporting observations that confirm human driven global warming they should base their opinions on what experts in the field think. If the huge majority of experts in the field conclude that human driven global warming is real then apart from going and reading the arguments themselves this is the best evidence they will get.
Look, it's no different than the situation with doctors. If you have some ailment it doesn't become cancer just because the doctor says so. The best method to form an opinion about whether it is cancer is to get the results of all your tests, go to med school for a couple years and read all the latest research results about the subject and then make up your mind. However, short of doing this your best bet is to trust what a sample of competent doctors tell you. Sure the medical profession has been majorly mistaken in the past as has the scientific profession but this no more establishes that trusting the scientific consensus isn't the best thing to do for a lay person any more than it urges you to throw out the drugs your doctor gives you and trust some quack with a crystal.
It seems like Bret has some romantic notion of a scientist working in his basement--or perhaps in a castle on a lonely, craggy mountaintop--all by his lonesome, or maybe with his trusty assistant and graverobber, Igor, working against all scientific consensus until, by stitching a few odd parts together and a fortuitous thunderstorm he creates life from lifeless flesh.
But then of course the MSM distorts his discoveries after one unfortunate incident with a little girl and a well and all liberal environmentalist weenies burn down his house.
Or is the Kuhnian paradigmatic consensus shift de rigueur nowadays and worth a punt even if it has nothing to do with the _truth_ of the scientific hypothesis in question?
OMG is philosophy of science not taught nowadays??
Dwillo answers his own question, oblivious to irony.
Well, if he had any real counter-arguments (he has an explanation for the alarming melting of ice at the poles and glaciers world wide but has yet to provide any evidence of the mechanism that would explain the warming cyle).
So Gray has a theory but no evidence while the proponents have a theory and evidence, yet you choose to defend the scientist with no evidence and deride the scientists with evidence.
What a truly bizarre world we live in. Don't you realize you are arguing exactly the opposite of what you claim to be arguing?
In my last post I did include a link to a decisive fact based refutation of many of Gray's points. Now while I'm not signing on to the way in which he was critisized here details about his psychological state are relevant to whether we should trust him as an expert.
If all we were concerned about was the content of Gray's arguments it would be irrelevant whether he was a crazy cult leader who also advocated healing with crystals. The arguments would be right or wrong regardless of who made them. However, the global warming skeptics clearly are not relying on the actual content of the argument but the fact that an apparently respectable 'expert' has made them to lend them credibility. Thus if we have information that might explain why he is not being objective in this case or is being unduly influenced by personal factors it is relevant to how much weight we should put behind his expert opinion.
The situation here is really no different than it is in the law. If you are a criminal defendent in a complex case and someone gives you a complex legal argument as to why you will likely prevail at trial and shouldn't accept a plea bargain then if the argument is valid you should accept it no matter who made it and if it is invalid reject it. However, if you do not have the time or expertise to really evaluate that argument it is going to make a great deal of difference to you whether this was a position taken by your compotent lawyer or your friend Joe who watches lots of law and order.
However, should you discover that your lawyer has some strong psychological reason to prefer you go to trial you should put less weight in his opinion. If, for instance, you discover that he has always wanted to try a case of this kind and that going to trial with this case would be of significant benefit to his career it is rational to put less confidence in his expert opinion (even if you believe he is honest and ethical people unconciously tend to believe what they want to believe). The criticisms of Gray are similar. They are pointing out reasons we shouldn't give his opinion the full weight we would give to an expert we thought was unbiased and objective.
Just as a random comment while reading the various back and forth arguments about human caused global warming did ultimately convince me it was real (plus the expert opinions of course) I am still quite skeptical of the hurricane claims. I understand a new study just came out but I haven't had time to read the data or arguments.
I wouldn't, you wouldn't, but tune in C-SPAN on any given day and you'll be sure to see multiple Senators waving around copies of this newspaper or that and making impassioned pleas for spending billions on this project or that, because "it's right here in the ______."
So I don't mind the "consensus" people crowing about how we're all going to die unless we start riding bicycles and turning our thermostats down to 50 degrees, but when the media pick this stuff up, we get the above scenario. That's not good, that's when incomplete theory ends up costing us real money.
The facts on the global warming issue will not be found by deriding and insulting those who suggest a theory contrary to your own.
Well as someone who just TAed a phil of science course this term I couldn't resist disagreeing/nitpicking.
Surely you don't mean to say that scientific truth is dependent on scientific consensus. Sure maybe if you take a hardcore reading of Kuhn or adopt some coherence theory of truth you could defend this position but on any theory which accepts that scientific statements should be right/accepted insofar as they agree/predict with a preexisting reality this will be false. Sure our best guess at scientific truth might depend on consensus but the actual truth was the same all along.
Moreover, I think you may be confusing a descriptive fact with a epistemic fact. Yes it is certainly true that scientific consensus plays a very important role in the actual practice of science but this is different than saying that the consensus is epistemically relevant over and above the observations and experiments that it is based upon. In particular if one was perfectly rational and knew the results of all the experiments it is quite reasonable to assume that you should not be influenced by scientific consensus. Of course as an outside observer who does not have the time to delve into all the arguments it is of course appropriate to use consensus as a proxy for the evidence which is what is relevant to this discussion.
Additionally all those scientific revolutions supposedly started by loners were nevertheless almost always greatly informed by current scientific thinking, just not through formal education. However, the fact that scientists often need to see previous theories and know what worked and didn't work is a very different claim than the fact that the consensus that a given theory is correct should be epistemically relevant to them.
For example it was certainly very important for Einstein to know about Maxwell's equations and the previous ether theories to develop speical relativity. However, this doesn't imply that this would have been necessery if he was fully rational nor does it imply that the real Einstein could not have developed special relativity if 5 years before all the physicists had mysteriously given up on ether theories and now all believed that light was carried by magic gnomes.
Well, good for him. Linus Pauling was one of the most brilliant chemists of his day and I believe is the only person to ever win both the Nobel Peace Prize and a Technical Nobel Prize (Chemistry). Yet in his later years (by the late '60s) he was a certified crackpot, pushing megadoses of Vitamin C and all other kinds weird theories.
Like I said Dr. Gray has lots of theories to explain recent climate changes but absolutely no evidence that backs up his theories, unlike the scientists who have evidence to back up global warming theories.
If you have some disease and 99% of the emminent doctors you consult say one thing and one (or a couple) of emminent doctors disagree it makes sense to take the treatment recommended by the 99%.
Not to mention the actual fact based refutation I linked to.
The scientific consensus on global warming includes the IPCC, the NRC, the NAS of multiple foreign countries, the American Meteorological Society, NOAA, the American Geophysical Union, the Federal Climate Change Science Program commissioned in 2002 by the Bush Administration, and lots of others. William Gray may be a fine man but he doesn't sell me. My favorite is Bjorn Lomborg, who wrote the fabulous anti-environmentalist scare book, The Skeptical Environmentalist, but who concluded that manmade global warming was occurring.
Now, as a policy matter, I'm mostly on the side of the antis. I don't think there's much for the US to do that will do much good, and some things like Kyoto could do great harm. But it annoys me to see people on "my side" of the policy issue lose integrity on the science. And by putting their chips on the science, rather than the economics, they're playing a losing hand.
The point of my earlier post is that there is no place for personal attacks, derision and insults in a debate on a complex subject. Gray has a long and distinguished career, and deriding him or anyone else as "an old fart" because you disagree with his position is outrageous.
Some want to choke off debate on this subject and get on with ...something, but that is doctrine, not science. The scientific process requires debate and fair consideration of different viewpoints on the journey to discover the truth. Debate stops when the facts are known and the questions are answered.
Perhaps at some point in the future the climate situation will become fully understood, and looking back, we may say that Gray missed the boat on this one. Or, maybe we will say he was right. Time will tell. In the meantime, all sides deserve to be heard without being demeaned and derided. It sounded like a Holy Inquisition here for a while.
But what is the endgame to this debate? Is everyone supposed to agree that yes, global warming is indeed occurring for any action to be taken? Do you think that a scientific consensus has to be reached first?
If so, this has already happened!
This is true in a sense, but then you have to actually *discover* that the guy has some psychological reason. "He's a bitter old fart who wants you to go trial so that he can show superiority to other lawyers" isn't a reason you'd use to mistrust a lawyer unless you actually had a specific reason to believe he's a bitter old fart.
Any psychological evaluation made about one's opponents in a public policy issue will almost never be be valid. I find that these are usually used to make unfalsifiable claims about the source of a person's beliefs, to poison the well, and/or to imply that the person in question must obviously have some psychological troubles since all people who don't have such troubles would come up with the right answer.
(And remember that the same psychological analysis can apply to other people. Most people who claim that someone is a bad expert because he has psychological reasons for his beliefs, will themselves have psychological reasons for wanting to think the guy is a bad expert.)
I'm familiar with the stories of the lone scientist upsetting received wisdom, but the stories of how credible scientists' repeated studies and experiments just making them more and more wrong--less so.
Anyway, no one's addressing logicnazi's point at all. Yes, it could be true that all the scientists are wrong and you are Michael Crichton is right, but is it likely? Do you have any evidence for it? No. You believe it because you want to believe it. Always sad to see that from a professor.
If so, this has already happened!
Consensus sounds too democratic. "The majority won, so shut up." If the answers were known, there would be universal agreement and it would be settled, in the same way that we no longer debate the constant speed of light or the atomic nature of matter.
Climate is incredibly complex. There is still disagreement among highly qualified scientists on the matter. Attempts to quell debate by declaring victory and demeaning any dissent isn't the way to end it. Try to avoid the attitude that "I know I'm right, so the debate is over, this is the way it is, and you suck if you say otherwise."
When will debate end? When the facts are known, there will be no more debate. That may take a long time.
With more information twenty years from now, the conventional wisdom may be that extra CO2 helps rain forests and coral to grow, shifting ocean currents caused the hurricane spike, and everyone fears the coming ice age. It pays to keep an open mind until the facts are known.
Have you examined your own conclusions? Did hot spells every occur on earth before people started pouring CO2 into the atmosphere? For that matter, have atmospheric CO2 levels risen in the past? Are ice bergs calving any faster than they did 200 years ago? Did we have fewer and weaker hurricanes before the industrial age?
You may be surprised what you find.
What to do about it is a political one.
Aye, there's the rub. You may not have to convince scientists. But you do have to convince the general public and their representatives, who more often than not have a poor understanding of the science involved. Condescending documentaries like An Inconvenient Truth probably isn't the best way to go about this.
What's unfortunate is how the Left has become synonymous with the environmentalist movement. I've seen these organizations referred to as "watermelons". Green on the outside, red (communist) on the inside.
Consider Greenpeace's latest public relationship gaffe:
In this kind of situation, conservatives will oppose any action against global warming on principle, regardless of the science. The motives and proposed solutions of organizations like Greenpeace are suspect.
interesting statement to make while we're on the topic of logical reasoning. Perhaps you'd like to restate your position after reviewing "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions"
The fact is that at any given time it is _unusual_ for conflicting positions to appear in the literature together. It's true that when a _field_ is new and the ideas novel there is some genuine wrestling at the beginning, but thereafter publications become very conformist.
This is not indicative of correctness but rather of an inherient stabilizing force in science: acquisition of funding + publication, both of which favor extending the presumptions that prevail already.
Geology, and to a lesser extend Earth Sciences have particularly been prone to bouts of conformity followed decades later by repudiation and a new bout of conformity. The famous example of course being theory of plate tectonics.
I agree with you that often these sort of personal or psychological attacks are inappropriately used to distract attention from the real issue and should be treated with suspicioning. I also agree that calling him an "old fart" does nothing to further the discussion which is why I tried to distance myself from the manner in which the previous commentators criticized Gray.
However, the link I posted above gives some good reasons to believe Gray has decided what conclusion he wants his theory to reach before he develops it. In particular when the primary assumption underlying his prior reason for doubting global warming was shown to be false rather than change his conclusions about global warming he revamped his theory so the new facts would still yield the same result. I think this combined with a plausible story about why a man like Gray might like viewing himself as the lone maverick who sees the real story (hell I sometimes find this attractive) is good reason to give Gray's disagreement less weight than we otherwise would.
Tom952,
No one is saying that scientific consensus should end debate in the scientific community or that it is appropriate to silence scientific skeptics. The credibility issues I mention with Grey are only reasons for the public not to give his conclusions great weight not reasons for the scientific community to ignore the arguments he makes. However, from what I have seen the scientific community has quite convincingly dealt with the objections that Gray has raised.
Basically the idea is this. There should be nothing democratic at all about climate science itself. Experts in climate change should come to their conclusions based on their own analysis of the arguments and evidence. However, if you are someone who doesn't know enough to competently evaluate the arguments yourself then you should look to the experts to evaluate the arguments for you. If almost all the experts come to the same conclusion (including many who came to it despite prior skepticism) this should give you great confidence that this conclusion is what the evidence supports.
Ohh and of course the earth has gone through very warm periods and quite cold periods in the past. In fact it is the correlation between records of greenhouse gases and past temperature that gives us some of the best evidence for the role of CO2 in climate change. Since we have extremely strong evidence that the current rise in CO2 levels is caused by human activity this (combined with other evidence) gives us good reason to believe the current increase in temperature is being driven by human emissions.
JonBuck,
I agree completely about the harm the association of climate change with liberals is doing. While groups like Greenpeace and other environmental organizations were quite important in bringing environmental issues into the public debate I think now they are doing more harm then good by reinforcing the association of environmentalism with liberalism and a anti-technology, anti-progress, touchy-feely agenda.
Even worse the failure of the various environmental groups to prioritize global warming over other less serious environmental concerns ensures that many conservatives are going to be very suspicious about global warming claims. Heck, the fact that all these groups publish articles warning about the great harm if the such and such owl goes extinct in the same breathless tone that they do about global warming made me very skeptical of global warming for some time. Furthermore the failure to prioritize means these groups often stand in the way of doing something about global warming. In the bay area some of them are lobbying to tear down hydroelectric dams to free up habitat for animals not to mention the resistance to nuclear power.
Someone credible and hard headed needs to come on the seen who is clearly only concerned about the welfare of people (not trees, birds or furry creatures) and can educate people about the dangers of global warming. Preferably someone who is at least somewhat conservative.
On the one hand, the author points to well over 100 years of unfounded alarmism to attack those who say the sky is falling on global warming.
And yet, on the other hand, the author ignores more than 100 years of American history and the positive impact immigration has had on our society in order to join those who say the sky is falling on immigration.
Tom952 is quite right on the money re: scientific progress and you probably agree with him on him on most substantive points. Except for this quibble:
Freder Frederson is surely trying that tactic. That, plus his strident denials of the role that consensus-shattering refutation plays in science is just retarded.
There are many reasons for why the Denver media is failing, and trapped in a cycle of diminishing returns. One is because they are inherently corrupt, immoral, and dishonest. This latest failure and cover-up on their collective part is evidence of that.
The common cause leading to unprecedented agreement is unprecedented funding.
Science has nothing to do with agreement. It has to do with curiosity, which is what made peer review work, when it worked.
It's hardly agreement. It's a single guy who thinks, ``Well, this is odd,'' and starts following this new interest he's discovered in a strange claim.
Scientists on the management track act the opposite.
Side effect : everything you read on global warming is written to defeat curiosity. Check it out.
Incidentally, scientific computer modelling sucks and always has.
Jesus H. Christ.
No I'm not. If Dr. Gray has evidence to back his theories, let him present it. He simply hasn't. He says his theories are correct, but when asked to present evidence to back up his assertions he states they "are natural cycles" and he is working on the evidence. He simply doesn't have a consensus-shattering refutation. The science behind Global Warming is just too solid.
On the other hand, every opportunity he gets, in interviews and public appearances, he gets whipped up into a frenzy (sometimes literally screaming at his opponents) and accuses the proponents of Global Warming of all kinds of nefarious purposes, conspiracies and tactics and calls them names up to and including "Nazi". I call him a "sour old fart", and you get all bent out of shape. Considering his public behaviour, I think the description is accurate.
And while there may have been some consensus-shattering refutations in the past (Darwin's theories were certainly one of them), in modern science, they are an extraordinarily rare thing indeed. Because we know so much more about the natural world, have much better analytical equipment and mathematical tools, the rigorous process of peer review and verification and science is able to explore free of the restraints of religion, plus the sheer cost of making truly revolutionary new discoveries, the chance of any one person discovering that everyone else is wrong is almost unheard of (remember how quickly Cold Fusion fizzled).
I wasn't defending him. I don't know a thing about the guy. I was mocking you for doing exactly the thing you sneered at Gray for (name calling).
I really hate it when a bunch of lawyers and laymen try to pretend they know anything about how the science community works.
So which group are you in - professional scientist, or ignorant prating layman / lawyer?
In order to both hold that 100 years of bad climate warnings makes current warnings suspicious, but 100 years of good immigration doesn't make current immigration good, one need only believe that the differences between past and present alarmism are not as significant as the differences between past and present immigration. This is by no means a hopelessly inconsistent belief.
Funny, I'm reading this on my computer monitor and it never occurred to me that monitors cannot be computers.
Secondly, the word "alien" implies something from another planet. But all the easier to dehumanize people, right?
Do I really need to post "this guy gives sci-fi geeks a bad name"?
Are we now to avoid the word "Jihad" because that was the name of an animated Star Trek episode?
I was calling Gray names because that is all he does--get up in front of meetings and the press and call global warming proponents names while claiming he is right. He has no evidence to support his claims yet he is held up by the global warming skeptics as "prominent" scientist who doesn't believe in global warming. This may be true, but he doesn't have any evidence to back up his alternative theories other than to say the computer models are wrong and the atmosphere is too complex to model. That is not an argument, it is merely naysaying.
And I am a very dangerous combination--I am a scientist and I used to be a lawyer. One of the things I really hated about lawyers when I practiced law (and the reason I only practiced for a year) was their absolute disinterest in, and actual hostility to, facts that contradict their point of view (I went to law school after getting a BS in Chemistry and five years of working as a chemist).
Conservatives have very effectively invoked scientific evidence to dispel past alarmism and junk science. If they throw over scientific evidence on global warming, it just shows a lack of integrity.
I just dispute that consensus means everything that has been implied by this thread. Opposing the consesus is not equivalent to rejecting science; it is in Kuhn's words "rejecting normal science", which he does make the argument, is not a bad thing in itself.
Therefore, it does not follow that if there is any dissent from a near universal consensus that we should conclude on that basis alone that the dissent is wrong. The dissent should be judged on its merits (or lack thereof).
Second, it is also true that the scientific consensus is not necessarily the "truth". As such, research should always be an ongoing process. However, a widespread scientific consensus is the best approximation to the "truth" available for policy and planning purposes. While some consideration should be given to the possibility of error, that should not be the primary assumption.
Third: I'll admit that using Wikipedia for research is sloppy; however, it's a useful quick-and-dirty shortcut that although utterly inadequate for peer review, remains a suitable first pass in blog and Usenet discussions. Kopel's article includes as skeptics Balling ("The buildup of greenhouse gases and/or some other global-scale feedback, such as widespread changes in atmospheric water vapor, emerge as potential explanations for the recent residual warming found in all latitudinal bands") and Michaels ("The effect of increasing the rate of carbon dioxide emissions, coupled with the fact that more and more carbon dioxide produces less and less warming compels our climate projections for the future warming to be pretty much a straight line"). These two appear at present to be debating the amount of impact, as opposed to the existance. Since I'm in Charlottesville, perhaps I'll see if professor Michaels is in town this summer and ask if this is an accurate characterization.
Which brings me to my fourth, and concluding point: while the exact extent of the problem is still debated in the scientific community, "there is a scientific consensus on the reality of anthropogenic climate change."
Since the environmentalists continue to oppose increasing nuclear electricity generation in the US, we must assume that they think that the consequences of nuclear power are more severe than the consequences of continuing to depend on coal for electricity generation. Therefore I would have to conclude that Greenpeace et al do not believe that the consequnces of global warming are as bad as, say, a Three Mile Island per decade.
-dk
Once scientists who are experts in a field have come to a consensus, I think the burden of proof falls on the other side to demonstrate why the consensus is wrong, through logic or data, of which I see none, at least so far. Not even an attempt.
Scientific issues should not be liberal/conservative, but they often are. People love scientific findings that support their ideology but dismiss those that do not, with arguments like the "9 out of 10 doctors" argument.
There are numerous reasons to oppose nuclear energy besides the obvious waste disposal and safety issues. It is extraordinarily expensive and has never lived up to its promise of "too cheap to meter" even after the government pays for almost every aspect of it besides the generation. The government manufactures the fuel, insures and indemnifies the plants against catastrophic failure, does or pays for most of the research, trains most of the operators, is responsible for all waste disposal and will be the operator of the eventual high level waste disposal facility and operates the only mid-level facility and is responsible for taking care of all the decommissioned plants--which themselves will be massive high-level radioactive waste sites.
With all that government help, nuclear power is still among the most expensive ways to generate electricity, sixty years after we were promised it was the cheap, abundant energy source of the future. Perhaps it is time to stop throwing good money after bad and start looking at more viable sources of electricity. Once you break away from the large central generating plant model that we have used since the dawn of the electrical age and start considering micro generation the future is a whole lot brighter (although not for the Commonwealth Edisons and other large utility companies and fossil fuel companies of the world). But those are the breaks.
Mature. Any other absurd racist stereotypes up your sleeve you haven't played yet? Maybe when Jews stop controlling the world banking system we'll see if the free market really works? Or if African Americans and Mexicans get less lazy we'll see what the optimal employment rate is?
In terms of actual "substance," Chinese are buying cars as quickly as they possibly can and the polution problem in China has gotten far worse as a result.
I think you've got it backwards. It is the conservatives who have made it a liberal-conservative issue. It is the conservatives who have literally made it an issue of faith that global warming is some elaborate plot cooked up by some evil cabal (probably led by the French) who, apparently because they are jealous of the American way of life, want to destroy our economy by forcing us to use less fossil fuels so the namby-pamby pussy Europeans, with their socialized medicine, smart cars, well-insulated houses, willingness to walk or ride bicycles to work and public transportation will laugh at us while they eat cheese and take their six week vacations while we fume because we can't get gas for our 50 mile commutes in our Hummers as God intended.
The problem, Freder, is that for the past 30+ years the environmental movement has been synonymous with Leftist economic and social politics. Greenpeace's latest gaffe that I also cited does not lend credibility to the anti-global warming cause. Conservatives will not support any solution that reeks of socialism, science or no science. Until you realize that and try to speak their language instead, you will make no headway.
Face it. At minimum, you're going to have to compromise on what actions should be taken. Kyoto-style emissions targest just aren't working. Spain is over 50% above their 1990 emissions, Canada is 34%. Neither country has a hope of meeting their obligations without energy rationing, which would crush their economies.
What we need are strong economies wealthy enough to invest in new technologies--even those environmentalists don't like. IE: Genetically engineered organisms able to produce liquid fuels. And the potential of actually turning a profit on those investments.
What conservatives refuse to admit is that since the invention of the steam engine, there has not been one major societal advance that has not relied, wholly or partially, on massive government backing. Not telecommunications, computers, transportation (even the railroads and especially commercial aviation, and although most automobile companies are successful private entities the vast majority of roads are owned and maintained by the evil government), especially nuclear power and the space program. Like every great advance, ending our dependence on fossil fuels is going to take the active participation of government. If you call that "socialism", so be it, but it is the only way it is going to get done.
It is true that current nuclear power plants receive many kinds of government subsidies. It is also true that there are many additional dangers from nuclear power. However, there are various kinds of fuel cycles that have been developed to alleviate some of these problems. Additionally being allowed to freely release CO2 and other pollutants into the atmosphere is a subsidy of fossil fuel based power that is not taken into consideration either.
Taking all these factors in to consideration the MIT study on nuclear power found that nuclear power generation would still be competitive with coal power generation and that new nuclear plants should be considered to meet future power demands. I actually thought their analysis overestimated some of the harms of nuclear power and underestimated the cost of CO2 pollution by fossil fuel emission. In particular the study rejects several more efficient and less polluting fuel cycles out of nuclear proliferation concerns. While these are certainly good reasons not to export these type of reactors to non-nuclear states it provides no reason not to deploy these technologies in China or the United States. This isn't really a flaw in their analysis since they are talking about the worldwide situation but it does mean that here in the States we have even more reason to consider nuclear power. Additionally, given that many renewable sources of power are only really efficient in a limited number of places I think any successful regime of greenhouse gas controls may need to increase the cost of CO2 emissions beyond what the MIT study assumes.
In any case you are right that there are complex issues involved with nuclear power. However, it is clear that the organizations like Greenpeace are reflexively anti-nuclear and are not seriously trying to balance these issues. This is easily seen from their opposition to fusion research and the ITER. Even though fusion lacks many of the dangers of fission they seem to be frightened just because it is 'nuclear' and solves the problem through technical mastery rather than conservation, sacrifice and natural sounding methods. Sure we shouldn't rely on the unproven technology of fusion to save us but this is no reason to oppose the research.
Also micro generation has always struck me as an amazingly expensive way to generate energy. The very reason we built large power plants in the first place is that they are way more efficient at extracting energy from fuel than many small generators. Perhaps you think some other kind of generation (e.g. solar) will turn out to work the other way. However I suspect the cost of repairing everyone's individual generator and the efficiencies of scale that will lost will make it way more expensive.
At best though your argument establishes that nuclear power is expensive. However, coal power plants and the greenhouse gases they produce are even more expensive and dangerous. We know nuclear power works on a large scale and doesn't produce greenhouse gases so if we want to deal with global warming we should implement something we know will work now even if it is a bit expensive.
Sure I'm all for researching and subsidizing these other areas. However, there are always problems when you try and implement a new technology and unforseen costs. Yes we have some wind farms and things like this and more should be funded but they often are only workable in special locations. If we have a choice between building a nuclear plant and a geothermal plant sure go ahead and build the geothermal one but in many cases it is a choice between building nuclear plants now and waiting for renewable energy sources to be developed and when that happens we should act now.
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Yes, the conservatives are also to blame for making environmentalism a political fault line. However, you can't deny that most environmental groups frame global warming as part of a larger issue about respect for nature and the environment. Everyone should acknowledge global warming is a problem because it will cause real economic and human harm. However phrasing the discussion as being about respect for nature or mother earth is obviously going to alienate people who think it is perfectly acceptable to exploit nature and conservation is only justified in so far as it makes life better for people. Additionally many of these groups use the specter of global warming as one prong of an attack on corporations, capitalism and consumption.
I think it is pretty obvious that many (not all) of the people in the environmental movement feel consumption and modernization are somehow wrong and to be viewed with suspicion. They feel that living more simply and conserving is somehow a moral virtue and don't want to even consider technological solutions that could alleviate global warming without requiring us to give up our easy and consumer oriented lifestyle. Whatever the merits of this view this association definitely serves to give many conservatives an instinctive distaste for anything smacking of environmentalism. Heck I consider myself a liberal and it did that for me.
Why on earth should it be? It is a question of initial vs. maintenance costs. micro generation are generally going to be things that are relatively expensive to build (solar panels, fuel cells, small wind generators) but have low maintenance and operation costs. It all depends on where in the life cycle your expenses are.
We spent lots of money to avert a lot of problems at Y2K (although the press did exaggerate the extent of the problems that would have occurred, they were real), and we avoided the problem.
That TMI, "you should be afraid, very afraid," fear mongering is yet another odd talking point the alarmists use to excess, to ends that they don't even have a clue of.
Hell, TMI was a successful suppression of an accident with no consequences, I'll take 3 or shall we say 30? of those a year let alone 1 a decade, it's safer for us and for the birds (and the views off Cape Cod) than windmill farms are...
Most environmentalists don't understand energy infrastructure economics, including in particular the underlying science and drawbacks of any energy generation/transformation method (such as but not limited to nuclear electric), nor the economics of opportunity costs (EG: you can't have your cake and eat it, too).
In short: most Greens are too ignorant to make an informed market choice.
I think it bleeds into the current debate, too. There's gloom-and-doom scenarios that put the point of no return in ten years, but the only people that act like they believe that are the eco-terrorists who torch cars and such. If it's the end of life as we know it, why would one own a car or a power-hungry PC? That, and the arrogant attitude of the GW partisans more than amply demostrated in the comments above, capsize the GW position.
Suppose some of the wavelengths CO2 reflects have gone from 60% to 100% reflectivity due to added CO2. Adding more CO2 will change nothing.
Water vapor is the