Broad Irony
Michael Mann and Gavin Schmidt
[update 3/20/07: The New York Times has run a short letter from us w/ a link to RealClimate for more info (scroll down to 5th letter; the 2nd letter from James McCarthy of Harvard is quite good too, as are some of the others).]
The first rule when criticizing popular science presentations for inaccuracies should be to double check any 'facts' you use. It is rather ironic then that William Broad's latest piece on Al Gore plays just as loose with them as he accuses Gore of doing.
We criticized William Broad previously (Broadly Misleading) for a piece that misrepresented the scientific understanding of the factors that drive climate change over millions of years, systematically understating the scientifically-established role of greenhouse gases, and over-stating the role of natural factors including those as speculative as cosmic rays (see our recent discussion here). In this piece, Broad attempts to discredit Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth" by exaggerating the legitimate, but minor, criticisms of his treatment of the science by experts on climate science, and presenting specious or unsubstantiated criticisms by a small number of the usual, well-known contrarians who wouldn't agree even if Gore read aloud from the latest IPCC report.
Broad starts out by quoting Don Easterbrook (Western Washington University) with a statement,
there are a lot of inaccuracies in the statements we are seeing, and we have to temper that with real data.
Thrown in for good measure is a similarly poorly-supported quote by Kevin Vranes (who is referred to as a climatologist, but who now works on science policy) that
questioned whether his [Gore's] presentations were overselling our certainty about knowing the future.
Unfortunately, neither Easterbrook's inaccuracies nor Vranes oversold certainties are mentioned. We reviewed the movie ourselves, looking hard for such 'inaccuracies', and could only find one minor area (the explanation of the complex relationship between the global surface temperatures and greenhouse gas concentrations over glacial/interglacial cycles) where justified criticism might be levied (and here, the accusation was only that Gore simplified a complicated relationship, something that is arguably unavoidable in a movie intended for mass popular consumption).
Broad then draws upon the same false dichotomy used previously which seems to equate the mainstream of scientific opinion (that global warming and climate change is real, almost certainly in large part anthropogenic, and likely to lead to substantial and potentially deleterious changes in our environment if no action is taken to reduce greenhouse gas emissions) with "alarmism", and places contrarians at the very fringe of scientific thinking on an equal footing with mainstream scientists. He goes on to trot out a number of the usual suspects, reciting the usual specious claims and half-truths.
Among the worst, is this one
Mr. Gore, who highlights the devastation of Hurricane Katrina and cites research suggesting that global warming will cause both storm frequency and deadliness to rise. Yet this past Atlantic season produced fewer hurricanes than forecasters predicted (five versus nine), and none that hit the United States.
This is dishonest in at least two different ways. First of all, Broad conveniently forgets to mention that the 2006 Hurricane season was accompanied by a moderate El Nino event. It is well known that El Nino events, such as the 2006 El Nino, tend to be associated with stronger westerly winds aloft in the tropical Atlantic, which is unfavorable for tropical cyclone development. The season nonetheless produced a greater than average number of named storms in the tropical Atlantic (10), 3 more than the typical El Nino year. But El Ninos come and go–more or less randomly–from year to year. The overall trend in named tropical Atlantic storms in recent decades is undeniably positive. We can have honest debates about the long-term data quality, but not if we start out by misrepresenting the data we do have, as Broad chooses to. Additionally, this is a clear misrepresentation of what Gore actually stated in his book. Gore indicated that it is primarily Hurricane intensities which scientists largely agree should be expected to increase in association with warming surface temperatures, and specifically notes that
There is less agreement among scientists about the relationship between the total number of hurricanes each year and global warming.
Next. Roy Spencer, best known for his satellite work arguing against warming of the atmosphere (which turns out to have been an artifact of a combination of algebraic and sign errors), criticizes Gore for pointing out that recent warmth appears to be anomalous in at least the past 1000 years. Spencer does this by both mis-characterizing the recent National Academies Report on the subject which indeed pointed out that there are numerous lines of evidence for precisely this conclusion, and by completely ignoring the recently-released IPCC Fourth Assessment report, which draws the stronger conclusion that the warmth of recent decades is likely anomalous in at least the past 1300 years.
We also find it amusing that Broad takes anything Robert Carter has to say seriously, given that he doesn't even believe that current rises in CO2 are human caused (judging from his Senate performance). Sea level rise statements from the IPCC Summary are horribly mischaracterised. Easterbrook's implication that global temperatures have varied by more the 20 times the medieval temperature anomaly over the Holocene is simply laughable (only if you include the deglaciation might that be true, but since that was before the onset even of settled human communities it seems less than relevant).
This article is very disappointing, not just because it gets things so wrong, but because it misses an opportunity to address a much more substantive issue. It is inevitable that working scientists will find popular presentations of their work lacking in depth and nuance (after all, depth and nuance are what we do!). Whatever you may think about Al Gore's movie, it is indisputable that it has raised awareness of the issues and left a substantial part of the public hungry for more information. That hunger can only be fed by people who are closer to the science than Gore, and it is inevitable that the AIT will be used as a springboard or contrast for further presentations. A better article would have investigated how that is happening and how that is affecting public awareness of the science. Unfortunately, this article does nothing to improve public awareness, and that is deeply ironic.
[Hat tip to David Roberts for pointing out his own article on the Broad piece. David picks up on some additional morsels we left out]
[Update 3/14/07: See also excellent discussions by Tim Lambert and Andrew Dessler]
13 March 2007 at 10:32 AM
I looked up Vranes’ CV.
http://tinyurl.com/2lhaqc
It doesn’t appear that he has a single peer-reviewed article on climate change. Yet, he’s spouting off on the issue. This fits a pattern in which Roger Pielke Jr. has also been quoted as a climatologist in other news stories. Although, he’s been lately positioning himself as a policy guy ever since the policy of climate change became more important.
Now I’m sure that both of them will say that these were mistakes on the part of the journalist….but there does seem to be this pattern.
13 March 2007 at 10:44 AM
[edit]
Hopefully sometime before it’s too late to prevent the global economy from shrinking 20% as the Stern report suggests is a possible outcome of delaying action too long.
13 March 2007 at 10:44 AM
I sent Broad an email that minced no words. As someone with a science background and a journalism degree, I find this kind of crap disturbing and insulting. The general atmosphere at newspapers is that editors don’t want anyone on staff that knows more than they do. They don’t understand science, and thus don’t hire anyone who does. Revkin is the exception. This guy is typical. They ony want to report a false controversy, because that’s the hook the editor demanded.
13 March 2007 at 11:07 AM
Are you going to submit a version of this to the NYTimes? It would be useful.
13 March 2007 at 11:12 AM
The conclusion of this fine article strikes a naive note in treating this particularly blatant instance of deceptive intent as some kind of “missed opportunity.” Functionaries such as Broad (and institutions such as the Times, and cultures such as ours) are obviously getting thing wrong on purpose. The reason they do so is expressed eloquently by the unnamed Bush aide who disdained those of us in the “reality based community”:
People like Broad suffer from a kind of sociological schizophrenia, intentionally conflating perceptions with realities, which is a sign of the times.
13 March 2007 at 11:13 AM
If only newspaper articles were accompanied by error bars or %.
“But part (4 people out of 1800) of his scientific audience is uneasy. In talks (.1%), articles (.05%) and blog entries (.5%) that have appeared since his film and accompanying book came out last year, these scientists argue that some (1%) of Mr. Goreâ��s central points are exaggerated and erroneous. They are alarmed, some say, at what they call his alarmism.” The other 99% of scientists fear for our future based on thousands of scientific studies and believe that we need to change what we’re doing to avoid drastically harmful effects.
and, of course, this line is hilarious: “Dr. Easterbook, who told his peers that he had no political ax to grind”. Well, he told his peers, so he must be telling the truth. I’m not saying he does, of course, but pretty much noone can say he doesn’t without mind reading.
This article is attempting to create an issue where there is none - at least none that wasn’t shot down a year ago. I guess that sells newspapers. I would be more impressed if the article didn’t roll out the few professional skeptics left to say their standard things. I mean, really, did the writer have this article under a stack of papers and only just found it and send it to his editor?
The article contains lies. Not “inaccuracies”. Outright lies. I wish I knew why. Global climate change will affect the writer’s family and children as surely as it will affect mine. For example (no, I’m not listing the rest of them. But they’re there.)
“â��Nowhere does Mr. Gore tell his audience that all of the phenomena that he describes fall within the natural range of environmental change on our planet,â�� Robert M. Carter, a marine geologist at James Cook University in Australia, said in a September blog. â��Nor does he present any evidence that climate during the 20th century departed discernibly from its historical pattern of constant change.â��” THIS is untrue. Gore *does* specifically shows how this is OUT of the natural range. The writer should probably see the movie and/or read the book. It’s not the “natural range of…the planet” that’s the concern anyway, duh. It’s the range for OUR civilization and OUR agriculture and OUR growing seasons and OUR coastlines. It’s time to wake up, it really is.
13 March 2007 at 11:37 AM
So last night, I’m sitting in my easy chair, reading the next day’s NY Times on the web, as I am wont to do. I am sipping wine and speculating to myself about the effect of climate change on the vines that supply the Beaujolais I am drinking. I read Broad’s piece. I splutter, I fume, I am at first baffled at the conflation of opinions, mis-statements of fact, self-serving tut-tutting tripe presented as balanced reporting. Then I get mad, fire off an e-mail to Mr. Broad regarding Lindzen and the “iris”, Peiser and his swing and a miss on Oreskes, and the Huntsville Two (radians? degrees?) Spoiled my sleep, this piece did, but I am happy to see it spoiled Mike and Gavin’s also….
[Response: Yes, indeed it gave me a bit of digestion. Now in fairness to Spencer, he is only responsible for a combination of algebraic and sign errors that led him to a cooling trend from satellite data that correctly analyzed, actually indicated warming. The degrees vs. radians error that compromised the Michaels and McKitrick “bombshell” claim that the global surface temperature record is compromised by non-temperature related biases, was all McKitrick. -mike]
13 March 2007 at 11:37 AM
[[When are we going to stop dithering about these reckless obstructionists, and make misinformation on global warming a crime?]]
On the Greek kalends, I hope. Misinformation should be fought with information, not with the coercive power of the state. Your repeated attempts to portray AGW believers as some kind of fascists have never worked, and never will work. No responsible climatologist would say anything like the kind of thing you say above.
13 March 2007 at 12:08 PM
Which is why, I repeat, you guys need to do a major documentary of your own, with a prominent director and publicist, for theatrical release rather than just PBS.
13 March 2007 at 12:42 PM
Debate on scientific details is one thing, on the better way to popularize scientific understanding of climate another. The main (and recurrent for some months) question is: has Al Gore AIT done the “mainstream” science community a favour? IMO, the answer is: no.
Make the test with your circle, picking persons not particularly responsive to the details of GW debate. I did it. After viewing AIT, these lay spectators conclude that CO2 is the main and nearly sole driver of temperature change during geological past, that the link between hurricane activity and AGW is now clearly established, that sea-level rise will reach catastrophic values in a near future, etc. Maybe Al Gore wanted to put more “nuance and depth”, but in this case, he clearly failed.
So, when the same lay spectators are explained than CO2 is not the sole forcing during interglacial transition, than there’s no real consensus for the moment about hurricane intensity trends and causes, that sea-level rise for the near future is better expected at 18-59 cm, etc., part of them logically conclude they’ve been presented a one-sided and exaggerated view on climate change. And if this one-sided view is simultaneously presented as a very good reflect of “mainstream” science view, they further conclude that this “mainstream” science view may itself be biased in its communication toward medias and politics.
I confess I’m pessimistic about these questions. Each new report of IPCC should diminish the controversies, but we can state that the contrary happens (look at most recent discussions here as an evidence). Alarmist-skeptic discussions indefinitely go around the same topics and whatever your “side”, it’s evident there’s no “killer argument” appearing in the debate. And it’s unlikely there will be, because the ultimate basis of controversy will remain (that is: models must deal with uncertain measurements and uncertain parametrizations on a very complex system, so models conclusions are just the temporary expression of our limited knowledge, expression whose likelihood is quite difficult to quantify).
Discussions centered on the explanation of recent scientific results would be more fruitful for everybody.
13 March 2007 at 12:56 PM
The critical error made was in allowing Al Gore to become the face of “global warming” in the first place.
In the USA, Al Gore has no credibility, being known as, at best, a fanciful liar.
We remember his campaign to save the USA from satanic subliminal messages in recordings of rock music, his invention of the internet, his being the inspiration for “Love Story”, and so on…
To pick him to star in this movie was simply foolish.
13 March 2007 at 1:14 PM
Broad does seem to have beaten the bushes to find dissenting voices. I hope that your criticisms of his piece will appear in the NYT as well as in this blog.
13 March 2007 at 1:21 PM
re: 11. Separate your political views such as they are from the science. Science, particularly data, is not political. The messenger does not matter. And attacking the messenger is irrelevant to the science.
13 March 2007 at 1:32 PM
Comment 11 repeats ridiculous anti-Gore canards invented by right-wing smear operations (and, sad to say, spread by the lazy and credulous mainstream media which echoes these assertions without ever investigating or correcting them). Pre-emptive attacks on his opponents’ strengths are a fundamental part of Karl Rove’s political tool kit (Swift boats, anyone?). Those who still fall for these tricks have only themselves to blame.
13 March 2007 at 1:33 PM
[[In the USA, Al Gore has no credibility, being known as, at best, a fanciful liar.]]
That may be the view on the right; it is not the view on the left or in the center. Most Americans have a favorable impression of Al Gore according to polls. Note, also, that he won the popular vote in 2000.
13 March 2007 at 1:37 PM
Gore and another person were the inspiration for the male lead in “Love Story.” He never claimed to have “invented” the internet, either. He did claim that he “took the initiative in creating the internet” when he was asked about his Senatorial accomplishments in an interview.
13 March 2007 at 1:39 PM
The liars are those who claim Gore said he “invented the internet”. He actually said “During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet.” Vincent Cerf, Marc Andreesen and many others have explicitly credited Gore for provoking ‘net investment.
The liars are those who deny that Erich Segal, author of Love Story, corroborated that both Gore and his Harvard roommate, Tommy Lee Jones, were indeed the models for the story’s main character.
The liars would be those who claim Gore ever said anything about “satanic subliminal messages” in rock music.
But, yes, Gore’s problem is that, given so many lies told about him by the same crowd that now finances denialists, a large portion of the population find him not credible.
13 March 2007 at 1:46 PM
Re 13: It is indeed too bad that a former politician like Gore is the messenger on this. Many people in this country voted against him and many who voted for him think his badly run campaign and post-election strategies did not demonstrate adequate leadership skills. And in the movie it was Gore who couldn’t separate his politics from his science and included clips from the Florida recount.
Many people don’t trust politicians and they are justified in their belief. Had Walter Cronkite (or his modern day counterpart) made Inconvenient Truth the other side would have much less ammunition for personal attacks.
13 March 2007 at 1:58 PM
Nice piece, guys.
I wrote a longer piece on the article myself, covering some of the inaccuracies y’all missed:
http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2007/3/12/233737/021
Plenty of inaccuracies to go around! This one is an embarrassment to the Times.
[Response: Thanks for the heads up David. Nice piece yourself! We’ll put in a link to it at the end of our post. -mike]
13 March 2007 at 2:12 PM
One interesting thing is that Dr. Hansen’s remarks were melded with the ones on the muted 2006 hurricane season:
“Still, Dr. Hansen said, the former vice president’s work may hold “imperfections” and “technical flaws.” He pointed to hurricanes, an icon for Mr. Gore, who highlights the devastation of Hurricane Katrina and cites research suggesting that global warming will cause both storm frequency and deadliness to rise. Yet this past Atlantic season produced fewer hurricanes than forecasters predicted (five versus nine), and none that hit the United States.”
He then continues with his quoting of Hansen. (‘We need to be more careful in describing the hurricane story than he is,’ Dr. Hansen said of Mr. Gore. ‘On the other hand,’ Dr. Hansen said“…).
13 March 2007 at 2:16 PM
The writing about all of this needs to be looked at through an ethcial lens for so many reasons. For instance, the skeptics usually conflate the magnitude of scintifically plausible impacts with proven impacts. In other words, unless impacts are absolutely proven, they want to call anything else alarmist. Yet scientfically plausible impacts are very relevant ethically even when they are not proven to 95% confidence levels. In fact, science should be allowed to speak about all scientiflcally plausible climate change impacts particularly when proof is illusive as a matter of ethics. (This by the way, is now what IPCC does) As a matter of ethics, that is, if impacts are scientifically plausible and suffficiently dangerous, the burden should shift, according to most ethical theories. to those who want to continue to behve in a way that is dangerous to others. In fact, at some point, the victims of climate change have rights to participate in decisions about uncertain impacts when decision makers will be placing bets about uncertain impacts that affect others. As we have said the the White Paper on the Ethicl Dimensions of Climate Change, http://rockethics.psu.edu/climate/index.htm. scientific uncertainty is an ethically inappropriate excuse for not taking action to reduce the threat of climate change given some undisputed scientific facts about climate change and other issues that establish scientifically plausible impacts. (Note the scienfiic facts are still relevant to the ehical analysis) These facts include many things about climate change including the fact that:(1) before all of the uncertainties are resolved, harm will either occurr or be put in motion and, (2) the longer we wait to take action, the more difficult it will be to stabilize GHG in the atmosphere at safe levels, etc.
So in addition to correcting the climate skeptics’ misstatements about the facts, clarity will come in this debate only when we examine the unstated normative assumptions that are often hidden in the scientific debate including the notion that some want to call alamist anything that is not proven. Limiting this debate only to scientific issues plays into the normative assumption that nothing should be done until the science has reached high levels of ertainty. Because of this the questions that should be asked of the skeptics, given the burden of proof should shift, what have you proven will be the impacts. In other words, the skeptics should not be silenced but they should be seen to now have the burden of proof if they are implicitly arguing for no action until higher levels of certainty are achieved. They should be asked directly such questions as (1) Are they now saying that high levels of climate sensitivity are not possible, or (2) Are they now saying that some of the climate surprises including more rapid releases of carbon from the stored carbon are not possible. And if so, what is their proof. This is an issue that needs to integrate normative questions with scientific questions.
13 March 2007 at 2:17 PM
I think that the main efforts to politicize climate science come from the small but vocal contrarian camp; while Lindzen says he is worried about ’shrill alarmism’, he himself can be characterized as a shrill, stubborn polemic-minded scientist who repeatedly ignores scientific advances and who refuses to admit to any past errors or inaccuracies in his own scientific work.
A more balanced discussion of the political aspects would surely have included Pat Robertsons comments during the AUg 2006 heat wave: …But I tell you stay in doors ladies and gentleman. Stay cool. Get fans or whatever. And the poor, they need emergency fans and ice to cool down â�� the number of people dead. I have not been one who believed in the global warming. But I tell you, they are making a convert out of me as these blistering summers. They have broken heat records in a number of cities already this year and broken all-time records and it is getting hotter and the ice caps are melting and there is a build up of carbon dioxide in the air. We really need to address the burning of fossil fuels. If we are contributing to the destruction of the planet we need to do manage about it.
The fact of the matter is that global warming doesn’t pick and choose over politics, despite the best efforts of Roger Pielke Jr. to portray the issue as a political rather than a scientific issue. It is also verifiably true that certain sectors of the fossil fuel industry have been running a massive disinformation campaign that mirrors tactics used by, for example, the tobacco lobby over lung cancer and other smoking-related health issues: you’ve got CEI’s “CO2: We Call it Life” campaign, the Western Fuel Associations “The Greening of Planet Earth”; and so on. On the other hand, the reinsurance industry is worried about being bankrupted by global warming. A balanced view of the economics has to include a discussion of fossil fuels, renewable energy, and the insurance industry outlook on global warming.
What’s diappointing is that all of the above are not scientific issues, but journalistic issues related to fair coverage of the topic. William Broad goes directly to the small, shrill group of contrarians and joins in the attempt to make global warming a political rather than a scientific issue, while (apparently deliberately) ignoring many of the economic issues involved. Even if you ignore the science, this is slanted journalism.
If you look at the discussion of the science itself, however, Broad’s coverage is just very poor and displays a high level of ignorance of basic scientific concepts. People who do science journalism should have a background in science and should be able to explain scientific issues without having to rely entirely on ‘expert soundbites’. There is a complete lack of mention of the basic physical phenomena that influence climate - the atmospheric composition in particular - not even a word about the mechanisms that are responsible.
13 March 2007 at 2:21 PM
It is as unfortunate as it was probably inevitable that Al Gore’s person, rather than his argument, should have become the focus of attacks on AIT — but let’s not forget that the image of Gore as a “fanciful liar” is the creature of a disinformation campaign. He never, for example, claimed to have “invented” the internet. Similarly, his statements on the Segal novel, childhood in Tennessee, service in Vietnam, etc. — so widely reviled by the hackosphere as fabricated or exaggerated — turn out on closer examination to have been … well, true. It is not necessary to believe Gore is a model of perfection to note that his track record of accuracy and truthfulness is actually better than that of most public figures. The way the contrary meme took hold (in some quarters, at least) is a tribute to the power of aggressive PR. It should also be a cautionary tale for those trying to educate the public on climate, or anything else. That whiff of brimstone you may smell is your clue that Frank Luntz has not left the building.
[Response: Actually Frank Luntz is on record (late last year) as saying that action needs to be taken on emisisons. Quote: “Not everything is about politics” - gavin]
13 March 2007 at 2:25 PM
And I blogged on this thing here. It’s a blog-o-sphere feeding frenzy!
13 March 2007 at 3:13 PM
Pielke comments here from time to time. I think it reasonable to ask him to explain himself.
The piece was shameless.
13 March 2007 at 3:24 PM
re:2
The day it becomes a crime to speak out against AGW, is the day I switch sides and become a AGW-denier.
Propaganda machine or not, if the truth - the science - is on the side of AGW ocurring, it will carry the day, no matter what some contrarian says.
13 March 2007 at 3:24 PM
Along with all this blogging, I trust the NYT also received a response that will reach their many readers. After all, mass media is largely where public perception is formed.
13 March 2007 at 3:34 PM
Point well taken re/ Luntz. I’d not been aware of his comments to the BBC:
In my view, he still has some ’splainin to do, but let’s be generous.
sed = seventh_circle_of_hell | ’s/Luntz//’; Luntz >>> sixth_circle_of_hell
13 March 2007 at 3:52 PM
The accusation of GW “alarmism” is beginning to irritate me. First I took it with humor, suggesting that, yes, there might be some mad dashing and shopping cart clashing at Home Depot as people rushed to buy CF bulbs and weather stripping.
Let’s get this very very straight now: There will be time to walk, even crawl away from the seashore as it heads inland due to sea rise. DAY AFTER TOMORROW was fun & thrilling sci-fi, so, no one need pack bags for Mexico. And we don’t have any code red or orange on this — just a persistent code yellow, like a reminder to keep on searching for ways to reduce GHGs, and I’d really really suggest looking into cost-effective ways first, but no one has to listen to me.
If by alarmism, they mean yelling GW in a crowded theater, that just ain’t happening. There are people, however, informing others that GW could cause great harm to the earth and to their progeny, and that if one wants to prevent that he/she will have to pitch in with the others and reduce GHGs. This is more like informing the theater crowd politely of a problem, letting them know there are good ways out, and encouraging them to file out orderly so no one gets hurt.
So if Exxon does not want to diversify into alternative energy, well, forewarned is forewarned.
The sooner people act on this, the less harm to the earth & people there will be, and the less drastic the political measures that may have to be taken. If people persist in harming others through AGW, well, perhaps some laws may have to be enacted. Let’s hope everyone does the right thing without having to enact a whole lot of laws and rules.
Even contrarians in a burning theater would appreciate being informed of the fire and the various exits, you’d think. So, if that’s alarmism, then what exactly is wrong with it?
13 March 2007 at 4:02 PM
Welcome to Planet Earth. From time to time there are floods, droughts, tidal waves, and hurricanes. Sometimes the weather is warm, and sometimes it is cool.
From time to time this warming and cooling caused the humans that live on Planet Earth considerable alarm:
70,000 BC: Coldest temperatures on record. Turned out to be the start of an Ice Age.
10,000 BC: Highest temperatures for tens of thousands of years. Turned out to be the end of an ice age.
1970 AD: A few cooler than average years caused panic. Early arrival of next Ice Age predicted. Turned out to be… a few cooler than average years.
2000 AD: A few warmer than average years and a few more hurricanes than average caused panic. Turned out to be… a few warmer than average years.
The humans on Planet Earth liked to blame themselves for things, to make themselves feel important. These superstitions now seem bizarre to us.
13 March 2007 at 4:05 PM
And I’m just sick of hearing negative things about Al Gore. He seems to be a very nice and wholesome person. In fact his slight awkwardness is actually more endearing to me and makes him seem more like a real person, than the smooth wheeler-dealer personalities of Bush and Clinton.
I know the Religious Right is upset that Gore changed from anti-abortion to pro-choice (which is the only complaint about him that I am aware of), but it would be the height of hypocrisy for them to refuse to listen to him as he tries to save lives by informing people about AGW. It also makes their anti-abortion clammer ring very hollow, and gives me the impression that they only want to point their fingers at other people’s sins, but do nothing about their own short-comings (accept kill the messenger).
13 March 2007 at 4:12 PM
#29, gtpunch, are you kidding? Where I come from (obviously not the same planet earth), people like to blame anyone or anything but themselves. Even I do that now & then, but my choir leader when I was a kid showed us that when we point the finger at others, there are 3 fingers pointing back at ourselves (try it & see), so sometimes after I point the finger at others, I also look to see where I might be guilty of the same thing.
Another point, if people really were blaming themselves for AGW, then the human emission of GHGs would be declining, rather than increasing.
13 March 2007 at 4:18 PM
Dr. Don on the Little Screen Trashes Al Gore and IPCC on the Small Screen
Don Easterbrook late of Western Washington Univ. on “Tucker” on MSNBC today around 4:45pm, repeated at around 6:45pm. Easterbrook said that the most recent IPCC report was only written by a few people, 143 geologists and not the “real scientists” who number in the thousands.
He said that at least 10 times in the last 10K years there has been climate change greater than predicted by IPCC and Gore. However, he said that some warming is occurring and although not due to humans, may require us to adapt to a 1 degree F rise in temperature by 2100. It’s going to be 84 degrees F here tomorrow, Don. How should I adapt?
Finally, he said that the hurricane relationship Gore gave in the movie is specious and that the oceans should cool between now and 2010.
Tucker, taking a break from beating up on his president, seemed relieved.
13 March 2007 at 4:23 PM
Folks,
Good post, but how do we explain the James Hansen quote criticizing Gore on hurricanes in the article? Okay, Broad made a very simplistic argument about 2006 in the Atlantic that ignored El Nino. But presuming that Hansen was indeed quoted correctly, I rather doubt that was his objection….I suspect it was something else.
13 March 2007 at 4:25 PM
Re #29: gtpunch — Yes, there was a stadial about 70,000 years ago. And then another about 20,000 years ago, called LGM for Last Glacial Maximum. (Helps to get the facts right.)
But what has been occuring for the last 250 years, and most noticably for the past 50, is that humans are taking a huge slug of carbon from the ground, where it did not participate in climate, and putting into the air as carbon dioxide, where it does participate in climate.
That is, it is becoming noticably warmer. The fact are well understood and it is not a superstition. Sorry, but you’ll have to adjust to it.
13 March 2007 at 4:34 PM
Well, it looks like Bill Broad’s fair and balanced article got picked up by a network.
http://tinyurl.com/2h656k
Fox News…who would have guessed?
13 March 2007 at 4:43 PM
26: You would switch sides in the AGW issue solely as a protest or reaction to an obviously ridiculous law, and not because scientific evidence had changed your mind?
Yowza.
13 March 2007 at 5:08 PM
Re. #28
Do you have a url for that? I’d like to be able to link to an authorative source for that quote.
Dave
13 March 2007 at 5:10 PM
The issue is time. The tobacco industry managed to fudge the issue of smoking and cancer for nearly 30 years before finally being forced to admit there was a link. We can’t afford to wait 30 before acting on global warming.
13 March 2007 at 5:12 PM
Here’s the source of that famous quote:
October 17, 2004
Without a Doubt
By RON SUSKIND
http://www.cs.umass.edu/~immerman/play/opinion05/WithoutADoubt.html
“… In the summer of 2002, …I had a meeting with a senior adviser to Bush. He expressed the White House’s displeasure, and then he told me something that at the time I didn’t fully comprehend — but which I now believe gets to the very heart of the Bush presidency.
“The aide said that guys like me were “in what we call the reality-based community,” which he defined as people who “believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.” I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off. “That’s not the way the world really works anymore,” he continued. “We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you’re studying that reality — judiciously, as you will — we’ll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out. We’re history’s actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.”
13 March 2007 at 5:20 PM
I am always wryly amused by those who would agree with Dick Cheney that a 1 percent probability of a terrorist threat:
‘In his new book, The One Percent Doctrine, Ron Suskind quotes the Vice President as follows: “We have to deal with this new type of threat in a way we haven’t yet defined. . . . With a low-probability, high-impact event like this . . . If there’s a one percent chance that Pakistani scientists are helping al Qaeda build or develop a nuclear weapon, we have to treat it as a certainty in terms of our response.”‘
will treat a 90 percent likelihood of environmental disaster as too unsettled for us to do anything without further study.
13 March 2007 at 5:44 PM
It is sad when the gray lady has come to this–Broad must have studied at the same journalism school as Judy Miller. I’m not a great fan of Al Gore. However, he hardly butchered the science in “An Inconvenient Truth”, and I think he does do a service in popularizing the science. Unfortunately, there is a lot of hatred for anyone from the Clinton years, which conservatives view as a dark regency between Bush I and Bush II. And given the way Bush II has turned, they have to demonize Gore to justify their vote.
13 March 2007 at 5:52 PM
I haven’t seen one aspect of Broad’s article mentioned in other blog postings, and it is so ridiculous that it shouldn’t be passed over. Broad quotes this from a blog posting by Roy Spencer, a climatologist at the University of Alabama: the IPCC report shows â��that all we really know is that we are warmer now than we were during the last 400 years.â��
Oh really? That�s the only solid conclusion to be drawn from all 8,488 words and 21 pages of the IPCC report? Not that �paleoclimate information supports the interpretation that the warmth of the last half century is unusual in at least the previous 1300 years,� as stated in the IPCC? Or that �the last time the polar regions were significantly warmer than present for an extended period (about 125,000 years ago), reductions in polar ice volume led to 4 to 6 metres of sea level rise�?
Both of these findings, two of many described in the IPCC report, support points made by Gore � points that Broad�s sources say have no scientific backing.
What possible justification could there be for printing something so patently untrue and profoundly absurd? I can only conclude that Broad has a mission when writing about climate change: To correct what he perceives to be errors in the record and restore a sense of balance to journalistic coverage that he thinks has tilted too far in the direction of climate alarmism. Nothing wrong with trying to correct the record, maintaining journalistic skepticism, etc. But as Michael Mann and Gavin Schmidt pointed out in their original posting this morning, if you�re going to do it, you�d better get your facts straight.
For more reactions to the article, go to Environmental Journalism Now, the blog of the Center for Environmental Journalism.
13 March 2007 at 6:03 PM
@Lynn Vincentnathan - I think you misunderstood, by “humans blame themselves” - I mean blame humans in general, not each human shouldering their own blame.
@David B. Benson - You are confusing facts and speculation.
1. “What has been occuring [sic] for the last 250 years, and most noticably [sic] for the past 50, is that humans are taking a huge slug of carbon from the ground […] and putting into the air as carbon dioxide.”
- True.
2. “it is becoming noticably [sic] warmer”
- Debatable, it depends where and how you measure, and what timescale you are comparing to.
3. “carbon from the ground, where it did not participate in climate, and putting into the air as carbon dioxide, where it does participate in climate.”
- Care to comment on how changes in C02 levels follow temperature changes in the data, rather than the other way around? The Earth has recovered from far higher temperatures and C02 levels in the past.
This winter has been cooler in some parts of the Northern Hemisphere, and colder in others. There have been fewer than predicted North Atlantic Hurricanes.
I’m just astonished that so many people are quick to jump on one single variable in a complex system as the sole cause of so many evils- hurricanes, extinction, malaria, floods.
You’ll look back on this issue one day, and somehow your mind will prevent you from remembering how wrong you were.
13 March 2007 at 6:06 PM
I’ve found a good source for the Luntz quote: http://thinkprogress.org/2006/06/27/luntz-gw/
13 March 2007 at 6:06 PM
Who is the NYTimes’s acting science editor, and is this person new on the job? Last week they ran an article poo-pooing peak oil (”…broke their near silence on peak oil…A very disappointing piece from a normally top-notch NY Times energy reporter…. basically transcribes the industry talking points…”)
Please look into the personnel situation - my guess is that something has changed, and it could turn out to be interesting.
13 March 2007 at 6:33 PM
On Bob Carter - I contacted him by email a few months back after hearing some statements of his that I thought were being misinterpreted to mean the 20th century rise of CO2 wasn’t human-caused. I couldn’t believe anybody claiming to be a legitimate scientist could look at the CO2 data and claim it was natural. My question to him was:
“A friend quoted to me a comment of yours: “historically, temperature increases have been followed by - not preceded by - CO2 increases.”. I was wondering - do you believe this statement applies to the dramatic increase in CO2 during the 20th century? If so, when do you believe the preceding warming occurred and how much was it? ”
His response (and I do very much appreciate his taking the time to respond):
“Dear Arthur,
Published work would indicate that the 20th century CO2 rise is largely due to human influence.
That said, there is a paper in preparation by a German scientist which shows a strong relationship between temperature and carbon dioxide between the early 19th and late 20th century.
The issue is complex, and not well suited to yes-no answers.
Kind regards.
Bob Carter”
How do you like that?
I think RealClimate would do the world a huge service by publicly listing each of these guys who are at least somewhat qualified, as scientists, to comment on the issues, and get as clear quotes as we can from them on where exactly they stand. They certainly are in the public eye often enough!
13 March 2007 at 6:38 PM
>same journalism school
Coauthors, actually:
Germs: Biological Weapons and America’s Secret War
by Judith Miller, William Broad, Stephen Engelberg
Simon & Schuster, 2001
13 March 2007 at 6:56 PM
Re #44: gtpunch — I’ll just address your point 3 and a bit on point 2, leaving you to read
W.F. Ruddiman
Earth’s Climate: Past and Future
W.H. Freeman, recent
to help you gain a better understanding of climate.
Let us just concentrate on the warming from LGM (20 kya) to the Holocene Thermal Optimum (10 kya). For the first few centuries, following orbital forcing and ice sheet decay properties, the climate warmed a bit. Then atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations began to rise, which helped the climate to warm a bit faster and somewhat further.
The climate warmed about 6 K. The increase in so-called greenhouse gases explains about half of that. Why? The effect of so-called greenhouse gases has been studied for over a century now and the physics is rather well understood. Start by reading Ruddiman’s book, for example.
So the effect of the additional carbon slug going into the air is understood. It is warmer and it will become still warmer, even if no more fossil carbon is added to the atmosphere. (Of course, more will be, at a rate increasing every year.)
Regarding warmer recently, the IPCC report says it is now warmer than at any time in over the last 300,000 years. Homo sapiens sapiens is, as a species, younger than that. We are adapted to cold (global) climates. Seems to me that ought to be enough to start being rather alarmed, yes?
13 March 2007 at 7:09 PM
Looking at the nytimes archives, it appears that Mr. Broad’s area of expertise (or at least coverage - I can’t judge his expertise) is threats with mustaches - Iran, uranium, bombs, star wars stuff. And research fraud.
(not climate)
13 March 2007 at 7:16 PM
Re 44: gtpunch, exactly how is whether it is warmer or not upen to interpretation. Certainly not at the poles, where ice is melting in huge volumes. Certainly not in the amount of time between first and last frost. Certainly not in terms of overnight low temperatures. These are exactly what is expected from a greenhouse mechanism.
The lag between CO2 and temperature in PAST epochs has been beaten to horseburgers–basically why would we expect CO2 to lead in the past. Nobody has suggested CO2 is the only variable that can cause climate to change. In past epochs, the warming started via some other cause (orbital perturbation etc.) and then ghg were released as permafrost and the oceans warmed, prolonging and intensifying the warming.
You say Earth has survived past warming epochs greater than the present one–certainly true. However, nothing like this has occurred during the epoch of human civilization–that is what is at risk here.
The fact of the matter is that NO ONE can predict exactly what will happen when we add significant amounts of energy to the climate, because the climate is a chaotic system. However, if you draw comfort from that fact, then you haven’t thought the matter through (particularly in light of the era of remarkable climatic stability of the past 10000 years) and you don’t understand chaotic systems.
13 March 2007 at 7:42 PM
Re #11:
As a matter of fact Al Gore did play a significant role in arguing for and pushing for the implementation of legislation that was instrumental in making the internet what it is today. See here and here.
No one picked him to make the ‘An Inconvenient Truth’. He set about making it himself having previously spent years earning his stripes by presenting the message to live audiences.
From outside the US it seems incredible that so many on the right there can so blatantly employ or accept baseless character assassination to undermine anyone with information or a message that undermines the extreme right perspective. And they do it while claiming the moral high ground, hogging a disproportionately high percentage of media time and moaning about being disadvantaged because they are on the fringe.
And to top it off they turn around any try to pretend that anyone pointing out a right-wing pundit’s demonstrable track record of poor arguments and use of repeatedly discredited ideas is somehow unfair and dishonorable!
13 March 2007 at 7:52 PM
Can anyone address the “issue” that CO2 rises allegedly lag temperature rises? At least debunk it?
Thanks.
13 March 2007 at 8:14 PM
Re 53: Hopefully you will have read post 49. I also mention the reason briefly in post 51. Basically it comes down to this: Who ever said all warming epochs are CAUSED by CO2. The CO2 increases in warming epochs the begin via other means (e.g. orbital fluctuations, etc.) serve as positive feedback onto the initial warming.
13 March 2007 at 8:21 PM
One of the ongoing points of contention in this debate is the weight of expertise and research backing each of the various lines of argument.
It would be great if someone could put together a website that assists the scientists to demonstrate their weight of opinion. I’m imagining a site that presents a comprehensive list of all the theories and lines of reasoning (possibly in some hierarchical manner). The site would then allow each climatologist to create an account, to list their peer reviewed papers (as proof of credibility) and to vote on the scientific validity of each idea. The voting options might be categories along the lines of ‘totally accept’, ’strongly accept’, ‘have significant reservations’, ‘totally reject’. The vote tallies would be clearly shown as a bar graph in the header of each concept’s page, and possibly as icons beside each heading on the contents page.
Ideally, each concept could be described in the admirably easy to read manner of the How to Talk to a Skeptic pages, but would use totally neutral language and would present arguments both for and against. Each would also be linked to a list of relevant literature.
Voting should be open to anyone with published peer reviewed papers - even if the consensus among other scientists is that a particular paper is dodgy and discredited.
In this way it would be possible for the public to quickly gauge how well supported each assertion in the debate is.
Are there any website development guru’s out there among the readers who can put such a site together? You would be doing us all a huge service.
13 March 2007 at 8:40 PM
Craig, the IPCC sets out the level of understanding of each of the identified forcings every few years; explaining that might suffice; else you’d just have a new argument started.
13 March 2007 at 9:14 PM
Having held the Vostok chart (unfolding upwards) in 1997 when VP Gore gave a talk on this issue for 30 minutes without notes, I was impressed how well he knew his material. Then last year, I saw the movie, and was impressed with his greater set of graphics and his knowledge. Early this year, I got to twice hear him give his talk to those he is training to spread his message, and what was immediately evident is that he knows a lot more than is in the movie–his talk had 275 visuals and went over two hours both times. And I understand he has a working inventory of something like 900 visuals to draw from, tuning each talk to the audience.
The idea of judging what he knows by what is shown in the movie is a bit like judging a book by its cover–one is seeing only one perspective on his understanding–the second time I saw his movie I could not believe how much had not been included (it might not have been in the talks they filmed). Having been at these training session sto help answer scientific questions, two observations: (1) any that I made the first time, he had absorbed and incorporated by the second time, and this was the observation of one of the other scientists who likewise had done this; and (2) By the end of the full days he devoted to this task, I was getting the impression he was passing questions to me so he had a break to take a sip of a soft drink, not because he did not know how to answer the question. Everyone needs to see him give a full talk and answer questions before questioning his depth of understanding–not just of the main thrust of findings, but of how the data were gathered and the range of interpretations and uncertainties. The film would have had to be several times as long and with no family clips to come close to doing his understanding justice.
13 March 2007 at 9:35 PM
RE#53, the correct phrasing seems to be that “CO2 and CH4 lags temperature change at the very beginning of the glacial-to-interglacial transitions”. This is from the ice core records, which also show that CO2 and temperatures rise together.
The issue is discussed at a previous RC post in 2004: http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=13 :
“Does this prove that CO2 doesn’t cause global warming? The answer is no.
The reason has to do with the fact that the warmings take about 5000 years to be complete. The lag is only 800 years. All that the lag shows is that CO2 did not cause the first 800 years of warming, out of the 5000 year trend. The other 4200 years of warming could in fact have been caused by CO2, as far as we can tell from this ice core data.
The 4200 years of warming make up about 5/6 of the total warming. So CO2 could have caused the last 5/6 of the warming, but could not have caused the first 1/6 of the warming.”
What the ice cores also show is that the climate can change very rapidly: see http://www.aip.org/pt/vol-56/iss-8/p30.html for a good article by Spencer Weart on rapid climate change. This means that the climate system can be very sensitive to forcings under the right conditions.
This is typical behavior for the contrarian camp - they never look at the whole picture, but only pick isolated issues where the levels of uncertainty are highest. If an uncertainty is removed from the list by better data collection and modeling, they then move to focus all their efforts on the next topic. Since 1980 or so, first it was the radiative behavior of CO2; then it was the water vapor feedback effect; then it was solar forcing, and now they’re clutching at a last few straws, such as the uncertainty in the mechanisms that lead to CO2 increases in the glacial-to-interglacial transition. This has been loudly trumpeted by Sherwood Idso’s CO2science website, in their nonsensical commentary on http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v429/n6992/abs/nature02599.html (Eight glacial cycles from an Antarctic ice core, Nature 2004 abstract) (CO2science is the worst of the worst when it comes to scientific distortion and deception)
The contrarian camp seems to be running out of bona fide scientists who will give them support, so they are reduced to distorting the work of others.
Contrarians also seem to avoid discussing the 55 mya Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum, which provides more support for the current estimates of climate sensitivity to CO2: http://news.mongabay.com/2006/1207-petm.html
13 March 2007 at 9:39 PM
Re #53 “Can anyone address the “issue” that CO2 rises allegedly lag temperature rises? At least debunk it?”
You will find explanations here and here.
Re #56
Unfortunately the IPCC website is a shocker. I have struggled to find find any useful detailed up-to-date information there. It certainly gives no information about the outsider theories we see tossed around (and regularly debunked here at RealClimate). And I am unable to find any information about the people behind the IPCCs work. Frankly it is a good demonstration of how bad scientists can be at communicating with the public. I trust the consensus approach of the climatology community, but the IPCC site is next to useless as a resource to be used when discussing the science and the validity of the consensus with others.
13 March 2007 at 10:07 PM
RE#59,
Craig, that’s true, I had to hunt for quite a while before finding the useful TAR sections of the IPCC website, but here they are:
2001 TAR - The Scientific Basis
http://www.grida.no/climate/ipcc_tar/wg1/index.htm
2001 TAR - Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerabilty
http://www.grida.no/climate/ipcc_tar/wg2/index.htm
2001 TAR - Mitigation
http://www.grida.no/climate/ipcc_tar/wg3/index.htm
Still, if you’re looking for a specific piece of information, it’s easier to use the google site search function, for example type this into the Google search box:
site:www.grida.no baseline
I still don’t understand the rationale behind the choice of baseline in the 2007 IPPC FAR SPM…for some reason they decided to use the period 1980-1999 as their baseline,instead of the more generally accepted 1961-1990 WMO normal period baseline that was used in the TAR… and NOAA is using the 1971-2000 baseline. I look forward to reading the IPCC justification for this choice… which might be what? Better satellite data?
13 March 2007 at 10:18 PM
gtpunch:
Please give just one citation to a climatologist who said this or admit you are playing fast and loose with the truth.
13 March 2007 at 10:28 PM
Hi, I was referred here by a reader…I’m wondering if when you scrutinized the movie you were aware of the following alleged inaccuracies?
eg. “The MPB (mountain pine beetle) is a species native to this part of North America and is always present. The MPB epidemic started as comparatively small outbreaks and through forest management inaction got completely out of hand.” - Rob Scagel, M.Sc., forest microclimate specialist, Pacific Phytometric Consultants, Surrey, B.C., comments on Gore’s belief that the mountain pine beetle is an “invasive exotic species” that has become a plague due to fewer days of frost.”
or
regarding SEA LEVEL:
“I can assure Mr. Gore that no one from the South Pacific islands has fled to New Zealand because of rising seas. In fact, if Gore consults the data, he will see it shows sea level falling in some parts of the Pacific.” - Dr. Chris de Freitas, climate scientist, associate professor, University of Auckland, N.Z.”
or
“Gore is completely wrong here - malaria has been documented at an altitude of 2,500 metres - Nairobi and Harare are at altitudes of about 1,500 metres. The new altitudes of malaria are lower than those recorded 100 years ago. None of the “30 so-called new diseases” Gore references are attributable to global warming, none.” - Dr. Paul Reiter, professor, Institut Pasteur, unit of insects and infectious diseases, Paris, comments on Gore’s belief that Nairobi and Harare were founded just above the mosquito line to avoid malaria and how the mosquitoes are now moving to higher altitudes.”
(cited in:
http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/financialpost/story.html?id=d0235a70-33f1-45b3-803b-829b1b3542ef )
I’m curious to know what IS the truth on some of these issues…perhaps someone reading this can enlighten me?
13 March 2007 at 10:55 PM
“It certainly gives no information about the outsider theories we see tossed around (and regularly debunked here at RealClimate). And I am unable to find any information about the people behind the IPCCs work.”
Well Craig welcome to the real world where “outsider theories” don’t count when judged against scientific reality. This is about scientific reality not BS, thus, there’s no need to debunk the debunked except in journalism where they never seem to catch on. Look harder for the IPCC folks, they’re scientists of merit.
13 March 2007 at 11:03 PM
More Irony?
After reading the Broad piece in today’s newspaper, I turned the page to read that Arctic explorers Ann Bancroft and Liv Arnesen abandond their current arctic exploration. The goal of the current expedition was to raise awareness of the impact of global warming on the Arctic. Why did they quit after seven days? Damaged equipment, frostbite, and extreme cold temperatures. How cold? They estimated -103F at night. They suggested that global warming could cause such unexpected temperature extremes.
http://www.yourexpedition.com/explore/ArcticOcean2007/pressroom.jsp
13 March 2007 at 11:05 PM
“eg. “The MPB (mountain pine beetle) is a species native to this part of North America and is always present. The MPB epidemic started as comparatively small outbreaks and through forest management inaction got completely out of hand.” - Rob Scagel, M.Sc., forest microclimate specialist, Pacific Phytometric Consultants, Surrey, B.C., comments on Gore’s belief that the mountain pine beetle is an “invasive exotic species” that has become a plague due to fewer days of frost.”
I don’t know if Gore called the MPB exotic or not, although I doubt it, but I wrote a chapter on this in my novel and just yesterday was hired by Los Angeles county as a Japanese Beetle trapper, which IS an exotic species. That said, the pine bark beetle is native and present, but controlled by temperatures, which of late have so abnormally warm in North America that they never die off in the winter due to drum roll…global warming. They used to. Drought makes their work easier. When will they stop? When they reach the east coast and run out of coniferous forest at the sea’s edge according to a forester in BC. How’s that lookin for ya in the “inconsistancy” department? Do exotic and native have a similar meaning here? For 25 points.
13 March 2007 at 11:06 PM
#61, re. sea level rises, the sea level is not even, just as temperature is not even. Sea levels are indeed falling in some places and rising in others, but in the context of global warming we are talking about the *global mean* sea level, and that *is* rising quite rapidly (more rapidly than was predicted in the 2001 IPCC report). There is no controversy about that fact among genuine oceanographers at all. See:
http://www.globalwarmingart.com/wiki/Image:Recent_Sea_Level_Rise_png
http://sealevel.colorado.edu/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_level
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=314
I’m not up on the other points though.
13 March 2007 at 11:32 PM
I haven’t seen the movie, I felt sites like this would be a better place to get science. Nor am I climate scientist, so I won’t try to judge either way.
I was wondering if the 20′ sea level change that is suppose to be in the movie isn’t overstated, since the UN says it will be less than 2′ in the next century? (I guess 20′ is after the Greenland ice sheet completely melts, or slides into the ocean?)
14 March 2007 at 12:25 AM
Mark A. York may be a journalist. I doubt it, but the threshold is pretty low. He obviously has never been in a newspaper newsroom, though.
I have.
14 March 2007 at 12:32 AM
13.) “Many people don’t trust politicians and they are justified in their belief.
I don’t know that the average person trusts or puts great stock
in scientists and their work, either.
Science, Man and the International Year of Physics
Stefan Michalowski Executive Secretary, OECD Global Science Forum
Published: January 2006
http://www.oecdobserver.org/news/fullstory.php/aid/1724/Science,_Man_and_the_International_Year_of_Physics.html
…”Why are the accomplishments of modern science so poorly reflected in the emotional and spiritual life of society? A possible reason is that, despite the magnificent achievements of the last hundred years, science is not advanced or internally consistent enough to have great appeal for ordinary citizens. Scientists pose profound questions, but they are still far from providing satisfactory answers. They have earned the right to ask â??why is reality the way it is, and not some other way?â?? but the socalled explanations provided to dateâ??something about multiple universes or various forms of the Anthropic Principleâ??cannot be considered to be the final word.”…
And as far as this piece in the NYT; anyone who reads newspapers
know that most newspapers are one way or the other; liberal, left or right wing; for the most part.
“THE PUBLIC EDITOR; Is The New York Times a Liberal Newspaper?”
DANIEL OKRENT July 25, 2004
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9D01E7D8173DF936A15754C0A9629C8B63
“OF course it is. “…
For better or worse, newspapers ENDORSE specific candidates in large write ups when they are running for election or re-election to office.
So, personally, one takes these things with a grain of salt and notes that the reporter who did the story doesn’t seem to carry an affinity for Al Gore.
A bigger issue is the lack of confidence by the public within
the climate sciences field, in due part to the differing proffered perspectives of the issues (it’s a nonissue, it isn’t a crisis, it isn’t happening, it is happening…) in addition to the notion
that EVEN if the public were to agree that untoward climate changes were happening; would they be willing to act on it in relation to the economics
of the cost of the action.
Consider for example the huge federal government tax deficit burden that is being left for the children and grandchildren of today and tomorrow. It’s up to something like $28,000.00 plus or minus some change per person.
Consider that many people are one or two
paychecks away from being homeless. Sure the stockmarket may be “good”, but
its the big CEO’s and stock holders reaping those profits. Not the employees of the company.
And additionally, the stock market is currently, and uncharacteristically being propped up and driven by the past artifically astronomically high home values; with
many of those homes being subprime loans that are ending in defaults, with the notes left in the stock market firms that bought up those notes.
Gee, doesn’t anyone remember Coolidge being told the market was going to crash
and he needed to act upon it however, the president decided to ignore it; which was his general policy pattern. And of course, the bag fell
into Hoover’s lap bringing the 1929 stock market crash and the ensuing
Great Depression.
Public agrees global warming exists, but divided over seriousness of problem 18-Feb-2007
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2007-02/su-pag021307.php
“A majority of Americans agree with most scientists that the Earth is getting warmer, but they are divided over the seriousness of the problem, according to surveys conducted by Jon Krosnick, professor of communication and of political science. Their uncertainty is based on a beliefâ??shared by two-thirds of the populationâ??that scientists themselves disagree about global warming.”…
…”Ongoing surveys
In addition to these findings, Krosnick will discuss work on three surveys in progress. This includes an update to a joint ABC News, Time magazine and Stanford poll on global warming released last March, which revealed that public concern about global warming has spiked sharply over the last decade and that 70 percent of people think that global weather patterns have become more unsettled in recent years. Krosnick said the new survey results, to be released in April, will gauge how public perception on global warming has changed during the last year.
Secondly, New Scientist magazine has commissioned a survey by Stanford and Resources for the Future, a Washington, D.C.-based, nonpartisan think tank, that will assess how educating people about the cost of addressing global warming affects their support for specific solutions. “People may support ameliorative efforts until they learn that these solutions are costly, at which point their support could evaporate,” Krosnick said. However, as the Stern report on global warming reported last October, the cost of doing nothing to combat global warming ultimately may be a lot more expensive for society than tackling it now, he said. Survey results will be released May 12 in New Scientist.”…
“…
Finally, Stanford’s Woods Institute for the Environment is funding a survey to be released this summer that will look at which effects of global warming the public is most worried about. These include both local effects, such rising sea levels and increased storm activity, and worldwide consequences, such as species extinction. According to Krosnick, the survey will gauge how media coverage that reflects the views of both scientific skeptics and believers influences public opinion about global warming versus reports that only include statements by experts convinced it is a serious problem.
“…
The Debt to the Penny and Who Holds It
http://www.treasurydirect.gov/NP/BPDLogin?application=np
..”Current Debt Held by the Public Intragovernmental Holdings Total Public Debt Outstanding
03/12/2007
Debt Held by the Public 5,041,373,406,144.03
Intragovernmental Holdings 3,791,660,464,269.03
Total Public Debt Outstanding 8,833,033,870,413.06
“…
The Nationâ??s Long-Term Fiscal Outlook January 2007 Update - The Bottom Line: Federal Fiscal Policy Remains Unsustainable
http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d07510r.pdf
The Financial Condition of Our Nation’s Government
Ross (AR04) - Floor Statements - May 25, 2005
http://www.house.gov/list/press/ar04_ross/morenews/floor_052505.htm
…” I contend this evening that it is every American citizen’s problem, because every American citizen’s share of the national debt equals $26,000. $26,000 is each individual’s share of the national debt, including the children, the babies that are being born today. Every United States citizen would have to write a check for $26,000 in order to get our Nation out of this hole that we are in.
“….
14 March 2007 at 1:00 AM
Was wondering if RC ever focuses on those who are trying to oversell rather than deny AGW?
NPR’s Weekend Edition recently had an interview
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=7579967
with someone from globalwarming101.com as they started out from Iqaluit to document warming induced changes in Arctic Canada as part of an education program (hence the name of the website and expedition). They told NPR the temperature was 28F when it was about 9F and had not been above 20 for weeks and that the average temperature for that time of year was -30 (which would be near the record daily lows rather than the average).
Falsehoods and hyperbole from both sides just make the public think that everyone is telling their own self-serving story and not reporting the facts. To engage in both when you claim you are “educating” the public and students is unforgivable. Would be good to call everyone on their misrepresentations.
14 March 2007 at 1:06 AM
@Richard Simons “Please give just one citation to a climatologist who said this or admit you are playing fast and loose with the truth.”
Kukla, George J., et al. (1972). “The End of the Present Interglacial.” Quaternary Research 2: 261-69.
Kukla, George J., and R. K. Matthews (1972). “When Will the Present Interglacial End?” Science 178: 190-91.
14 March 2007 at 2:58 AM
You write: “Thrown in for good measure is a similarly poorly-supported quote by Kevin Vranes (who is referred to as a climatologist, but who now works on science policy)…”
Frankly, it’s elitist to imply that you must be a “working scientist” to be able to express a credible opinion as to whether aspects of the science are being oversold (if you read between the lines, that’s the implication). The parenthetical comment and use of “but” give the appearance of a passive aggressive attack on Kevin’s credibility just because he’s not just like one of you (a scientist doing purely science).
Let the record show Kevin earned a Ph.D. in climate/oceanography from Columbia and was an AGU Congressional Science Fellow (for a Democrat, FWIW). If you’ve read anything he’s written, you’ll see his views on the science are well within the mainstream and he has a very sophisticated understanding of the science and politics of the issue. He thinks outside the box, and calls it as he sees it with refreshing candor and wit.
See his post at Prometheus on the issue: http://sciencepolicy.colorado.edu/prometheus/archives/climate_change/001138point_made_its_the.html
14 March 2007 at 4:09 AM
Is the USA ever going to do anything collectively about climate change, in a recent article “lets call the coal thing off” (http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2007/03/12/muckraker/) James Hansen was speaking regarding coal in the USA and the fact that 159 new plants are slated to be opened over the next decade but because caol sequestration technology does not exist it could spell disaster for the environment because coal plants are build to last 60 years. James Hansen is calling for a moratorium on coal plants until such a time as new technology can reduce its environmental impact.
This sounds awful to me, from someone in Europe who knows that some of the best climate science work is produced in the USA, isn’t anyone in congress or the senate listening to the IPCC and GISS/NASA?????
14 March 2007 at 5:39 AM
# 61 re: sea level rises.
I took Al Gore’s statement as an assertion of the worse case eventual sea level.
According to the preliminary findings of the South Pacific Sea Level & Climate Monitoring Project South Pacific sea levels are rising on average by 8mm per decade. This would makes it about 75cm by 2100. There has been an increase in the rate in recent decades, and they acknowledge the expectation of climatologists that there may be a lag on the response to the recent rises in global temperature. Even if the rate of rise does not increase, this rate will pretty much condem most salt marshes, a large proportion of mangroves and many of the fisheries dependent on such ecosystems (google for “sea level rise global warming mangrove collapse” to get the low down on this).
14 March 2007 at 6:00 AM
[[Care to comment on how changes in C02 levels follow temperature changes in the data, rather than the other way around? The Earth has recovered from far higher temperatures and C02 levels in the past.]]
Care to comment on how greenhouse gases work? You seem to be forgetting that. If you put more CO2 in the atmosphere, the ground will be warmer, all else held equal. That is physics, not a statistical correlation with paleoclimate data.
14 March 2007 at 6:05 AM
[[Arctic explorers Ann Bancroft and Liv Arnesen abandond their current arctic exploration. The goal of the current expedition was to raise awareness of the impact of global warming on the Arctic. Why did they quit after seven days? Damaged equipment, frostbite, and extreme cold temperatures. How cold? They estimated -103F at night. They suggested that global warming could cause such unexpected temperature extremes.]]
Which proves what, exactly? That climate is really cooling rather than warming? That the Arctic isn’t melting? What does this anecdote prove other than that two people planned an expedition badly?
14 March 2007 at 6:45 AM
#69 Why are you quoting sea level figures for ONE REGION? And misleading even for that region because you are not quoting the South Pacific average but only one small group of islands within it?
Do you also subscribe to the Chrichton school that claims that the fact that not all regions of the world are warming at the same rate, and the fact that a few regions are even cooling slightly, proves global warming must be a myth? Can’t you see that failing to distinguish between a global average and a single regional figure is extremely intellectually dishonest?
The global average sea level rise is the ONLY figure that is relevant, and that is currently running at 1.85cm per year, and the rate of increase is accelerating fast - see:
http://www.globalwarmingart.com/wiki/Image:Recent_Sea_Level_Rise_png
http://sealevel.colorado.edu/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_level
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=314
14 March 2007 at 6:45 AM
#69 I didn’t find on the website you indicate the 8mm/dec for the monitored area (note that such a trend would give a 8cm rather than 80cm sea-level rise for 2000-2100).
On the last consolidated report (link thereafter), values range from 1,7mm/yr (Fiji) to 7mm/yr (Tonga) for 1993/1994-2006
http://www.bom.gov.au/oceanography/projects/spslcmp/reports_6mths.shtml
14 March 2007 at 7:32 AM
Yup - see for instance:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2005/05/gulf-stream-slowdown/
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=225
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=105
And also, there are orders of magnitude more denialist articles being published than overselling ones; and also, the overselling ones are mostly guilty only of exaggeration, whereas the denialist ones are generally guilty of outright mendacity. There is all the difference in the world between taking the high (and therefore unlikely) end of a range of projections and presenting it wrongly as if it were a forecast: and actually being mendacious.
14 March 2007 at 8:08 AM
I think Gore gets the higher sea level rise from James Hansen. Hansen has said, of the drastic rise in sea levels, that they exist in no other model than the historical record. Depending upon how closely you think the 21st century matches our almost archaic past, Hansen’s either being prescient or a fool. Regardless, I don’t think even Hansen imagines that the Antarctic ice will melt in the next 93 years. I think the higher sea levels are imagined to come after hundreds of years of higher temperatures.
14 March 2007 at 8:33 AM
I’ve just read Broad’s article. I think his major problem is his idea, introduced earlier, that there is some “middle ground” in the scientirifc community of those who accept the basic science of global warming and the necessity to deal with it but who “reject extremists” at both ends. As a result, he accepts at face value statements made by various people without checking their bona fides or attempting to probe more deeply into the issues raised. It is a very superficial treatment which throws things together more or less out of context. An example is his bringing up Peiser as though he were disputing Gore’s claim. As noted above, Gore quoted Oreskes work in the peer reviewed scientific literature, where it still stands unchallenged. There are other such examples of Broad’s accepting criticisms at face value. His piece is poor journalism and specially egregious since it appears in the Science Times, where we have some expectation of competence.
14 March 2007 at 8:56 AM
#79 [There is all the difference in the world between taking the high (and therefore unlikely) end of a range of projections and presenting it wrongly as if it were a forecast: and actually being mendacious.]
And would you consider overstating the observed temperature by 20F or misrepresenting the seasonal average temperature - and doing both on a national radio program (as in the case I was citing) - just taking the high end of the range or as an example of mendacity?
14 March 2007 at 9:25 AM
Kukla, George J., et al. (1972). “The End of the Present Interglacial.” Quaternary Research 2: 261-69.
An excerpt (courtesy of Dr. Connolley — http://www.wmconnolley.org.uk/sci/iceage/quat_res_1972.html ):
(page 263):
“When comparing the present with previous interglacials, several investigators showed that the present interglacial is in the final phase … and that if nature were allowed to run its course unaltered by man, events similar to those which ended the last interglacial should be expected soon, possibly within the few next centuries.”
That hardly supports the proclamation, “A few cooler than average years caused panic. Early arrival of next Ice Age predicted…”
14 March 2007 at 10:01 AM
Just a quick followup note. In post #83, I was replying to post #71 (gtpunch).
14 March 2007 at 10:03 AM
You write:
“We criticized William Broad previously for a piece that misrepresented the scientific understanding of the factors that drive climate change over millions of years, systematically understating the scientifically-established role of greenhouse gases, and over-stating the role of natural factors.”
Maybe this is poorly formulated, or do you really wish to imply that, the role of greenhouse gases prior to the existence of humans was a non-natural factor?
14 March 2007 at 11:37 AM
On a positive note, applications of software V&V and SQA procedures would very likely reduce problems like those noted above in this thread, as well as these and these. There are usually plenty of errors to go around in all very large-scale Big Science programs. Better to get them before the fact, not afterwards.
14 March 2007 at 12:41 PM
Matti, their text is correct.
You’re reading the sentence as though it lacked the comma before “over-stating” — if that comma weren’t there, the latter two points would, as you thought, describe the first one.
They list three reasons for criticizing Broad’s previous piece:
– misrepresented the scientific understanding …,
– systematically understating …., and
– over-stating the role of natural factors.
Those — with the comma — are three different problems.
Your point is a good caution, because that’s far too much to ask of most readers — breaking up text using carriage returns to separate points is always helpful; run-on typing is confusing to the reader and often
14 March 2007 at 12:44 PM
While I agree with your article, and I hate tom nitpick, in order to defend your position, I will anyway. From Broad’s aricle:
Professor Easterbrook disputed Mr Gore’s claim that “our civilisation has never experienced any environmental shift remotely similar to this”. Nonsense, Professor Easterbrook said. He flashed a slide that showed temperature trends for the past 15,000 years. It highlighted 10 large swings, including the medieval warm period. These shifts were up to “20 times greater than the warming in the past century”.
In other words, Broad says that the implies that the climate changes observed in the last century are not noteworthy because natural changes over the last 1500 years were 20 times greater.
This was not the charge you actually answered in your article, and I was hoping to get your perspective on this.
Thank you
14 March 2007 at 12:59 PM
Correction: sorry, I meant 15000 not 1500
While I agree with your article, and I hate tom nitpick, in order to defend your position, I will anyway. From Broads aricle:
Professor Easterbrook disputed Mr Gore’s claim that “our civilisation has never experienced any environmental shift remotely similar to this”. Nonsense, Professor Easterbrook said. He flashed a slide that showed temperature trends for the past 15,000 years. It highlighted 10 large swings, including the medieval warm period. These shifts were up to “20 times greater than the warming in the past century”.
In other words, Broad says that the implies that the climate changes observed in the last century are not noteworthy because natural changes over the last 15000 years were 20 times greater.
This was not the charge you actually answered in your article, and I was hoping to get your perspective on this.
Thank you
[Response: Define ‘our civilisation’. At minimum it involves cities and agriculture which didn’t emerge until the Holocene. Glacial variability was indeed larger, but there was no civilisation to be discomforted. I’ve since been sent Easterbrook’s figure and his claim is drawn purely from the Greenland ice core (which doesn’t reflect global climate by any stretch) and his labelled MWP and LIA are off by about 1000 years. Not an impressive debut. -gavin]
14 March 2007 at 1:35 PM
Re #87: And how!
Re #88: I think the RC post referred to medieval temperature anomaly when it should gave said modern temperature anomaly. Easterbrook’s attempted comparison was to all variations in the last 15,000 years (note not 1,500 as you quoted it), including the medieval warm period, with post-1850 AGW-dominated warming. This is just a technical distinction, though, since if we’re comparing on a scale of 20x the distinction between the medieval and modern warming ceases to be important. As the post points out, the only possibility for a temp excursion on that scale is a deglaciation, which for a variety of reasons is not at all comparable to what we’re experiencing now. That said, if we continue with business as usual emissions and warming such that we climb into the Pliocene temperature range that ended with the beginning of the current deep glacial period three million years ago, we will subject our descendants (and perhaps our very immediate descendants) to the results of a very interesting experiment to determine whether the remaining ice sheets can be induced to behave as the more extensive ones did 12,000 years ago. What fun, eh!
14 March 2007 at 1:50 PM
re 22: Ike, so Lindzen would be acceptable if only he sounded like your recommended and scholarly
Pat Robertson?
14 March 2007 at 2:30 PM
“Mark A. York may be a journalist. I doubt it, but the threshold is pretty low. He obviously has never been in a newspaper newsroom, though.
I have.”
Well Harry that may be but your comment only punctuates my point. What was your point? I have no credentials? I have a journalism and science degree and have quoted the notable science writer KC Cole on editors and their ignorance of science. Broad is a case in point. That said, it’s no wonder I can’t get in a newsroom on the payroll. Even on my college paper at CSUN I had a hard time getting the publisher to run science stories because he felt they excluded minorities and women. I didn’t think that was true, but I wasn’t running the place.
14 March 2007 at 2:30 PM
I want to thank the many people whose reasoned posts have contributed greatly to my understanding of this issue. In particular, I have watched in bewilderment at the foaming rage with which some conservatives attack Al Gore, and many of the posters above explained the origin of those sentiments.
Just wanted to echo another poster’s comment about how this debate should not focus on Gore personally. Is it not true that such attacks are called “ad hominem?”
14 March 2007 at 2:47 PM
Craig (and others), thanks, that certainly answers the charge.
14 March 2007 at 4:21 PM
Re #89 response: [Define ‘our civilisation’. At minimum it involves cities and agriculture which didn’t emerge until the Holocene. Glacial variability was indeed larger, but there was no civilisation to be discomforted.]
You might also note that there are cases of civilizations which were apparently destroyed by climate change. Offhand, the Anasazi and the Maya come to mind, but I’m sure there are others.
It’s also argued that a major reason for the lack of archeological evidence of the human expansion into North America is that it took place during the last Ice Age, along the Pacific Coast, so all the shoreline sites are now under 100 feet or so of water.
14 March 2007 at 4:46 PM
Re #95: James — The Anasazi appear to have just moved south. The Mayans were destroyed by climate change. So were the peoples of Ur III, sometimes called Akkadians(?).
Further, the great movements of peoples from Central Asia, invading at least to the south and west, are thought to be occasioned by periodic climate change.
14 March 2007 at 5:17 PM
Al Gore has trained more than 1000 people to present his slide show on Global Climate Change. In the training he cautioned presenters to have three budgets for each presentation:
a time budget
a hopelessness budget
a complexity budget
Scientists have never accepted the concept of a complexity budget. “Many a 16th century scientist has turned over in his grave on hearing the freshman engineering professor say in reference to his life’s work: It is intuitively obvious that….”
I have watched the layman’s eyes gloss over three minutes into a good, but too complex presentation.
Movies are mostly entertainment. They do not attract only the serious students of science. I was relieved that AIT was not simpler and more exaggerated than it was! The previews had more hipe! Al Gorge put his finger on the problem when he said the human race does not respond to long range problems, only the immediate crisis. Those of us who are concerned about Global Climate Change are proposing upsetting a very comfortable apple cart: An economy that gives us a very, very comfortable life style but runs up an enormous deficit to the environment.
That is not a message the comfortable want to hear.
14 March 2007 at 5:25 PM
re: 62 (and adding to what Mark York said at 65)
Kat - The Scagel quote about the Mountain Pine Beetle (MPB) appears to be from a blog and is misleading at best. You might try doing your own google search before believing everything you read on a blog. Thereâ??s lots of scientific literature on the MPB should you care to learn more. The MPB issue is a particularly fascinating collision between land use practices and climate change and is well worth reading up on. You might start with the Canadian Forest Service MPB website - http://mpb.cfs.nrcan.gc.ca/index_e.html
There are two separate but closely related issues with the MPB and climate change.
1. The impact of climate change on MPB outbreaks
The mountain pine beetle is native to the pine forests of western North America where it normally exists at very low densities, infesting only weakened or damaged trees. Under conditions conducive to survival, populations may temporarily increase allowing beetles to infest healthy trees. On rare occasions, these increases are rapid and widespread, leading to landscape-level outbreaks and the mortality of large numbers of trees. Although there have been 4 outbreaks during the past century in western North America, the ongoing epidemic is unprecedented in its size and severity â?? causing the mortality of mature pine over 12-13 million hectares in British Columbia alone. It is projected to continue until the majority of mature pines in the province have been killed. Both forest management practices and climate change have worked independently and in relationship to create this extraordinary forest disturbance event.
(from a presentation by Dr. Allan Carroll, research scientist in insect ecology with the Canadian Forest Service)
2. The impact of climate change on the anticipated spread of the MPB to the east coast (i.e., MPB as non-native invasive species)
“The area of climatically suitable habitats is anticipated to continue to increase within the historic range of MPB. Moreover, much of the boreal forest will become climatically available to the beetle in the near future. Since jack pine is a viable host for MPB and a major component of the boreal forest, continued eastward expansion by MPB is probable.â??
Impacts of Climate Change on Range Expansion by the Mountain Pine Beetle. 2006. Carroll, A.L.; Régnière, J.; Logan, J.A.; Taylor, S.W.; Bentz, B.; Powell, J.A. Natural Resources Canada, Canadian Forest Service, Pacific Forestry Centre, Victoria, BC. Mountain Pine Beetle Initiative Working Paper 2006-14. 20 p.
In conclusion, the MPB is indeed a growing problem due to climate change both where it is native and where it has become a non-native invasive. So, I donâ??t think you can find fault with whatever Gore said about the MPB in AIT.
And, since Iâ??ve already written a too long comment, let me make it longer by pointing out that the MPB is an example of how there are ecological â??tipping pointsâ?? and how difficult it is to predict the effect of climate change on ecosystems. Let me also add that ecosystems are an unquantified but huge part of our economy. Besides cleaning the air and water, ecosyst