Last week, Nature published another strong statement addressing the political/economic attack on climate science in an editorial titled “Into Ignorance“. It specifically criticized the right wing element of the U.S. Congress that is attempting to initiate legislation that would strip the US EPA of its powers to regulate greenhouse gases as pollutants. In so doing, it cited as an example the charade of a hearing conducted recently, including the Republicans’ disrespectful and ignorant attitude toward the science and scientists. Among many low points, this may have reached its nadir when a House member from Nebraska asked, smirkingly and out of the blue, whether nitrogen should be banned–presumably to make the point that atmospheric gases are all either harmless or outright beneficial, and hence, should not be regulated. Aside from the obvious difference that humans are not altering the nitrogen concentration of the atmosphere, as they are with (several) greenhouse gases, such a question boggles the mind in terms of the mindset that must exist to ask it in a public congressional hearing in the first place. But rarely are the ignorant and ideological bashful about showing it, regardless of who might be listening. In fact an increasing number seem to take it as a badge of honor.
There have been even more strongly worded editorials in the scientific literature recently as well. Trevors and Saier (2011)*, in a journal with a strong tradition of stating exactly where it stands with respect to public policy decisions and their effect on the environment, pull no punches in a recent editorial, describing the numerous societal problems caused when those with the limited perspective and biases born of a narrow economic outlook on the world, get control. These include the losses of critical thinking skills, social/community ethics, and the subsequent wise decision making and planning skills that lead a society to long-term health and stability.
Meanwhile, scientific bodies charged with understanding how the world actually works–instead of how they would imagine and proclaim it to–continue to issue official statements endorsing the consensus view that humans are strongly warming the planet in recent decades, primarily by greenhouse gas emissions to the atmosphere. Three years ago, we wondered whether geologists in general have a different view on climate change to the climate research community. A recent statement from the U.K. Geological Society, however, suggests that our impressions perhaps were not well-founded.
Notwithstanding these choices of ignorance, many other organizations continue apace with many worthwhile and diverse goals of how to deal with the problem. Here are a few links that we have run across in the last week or two that may be of interest to those interested in sustainability and adaptation. Please note the imminent deadlines on some of these.
The CDKN International Research Call on Climate Compatible Development:
The Climate Frontlines call for abstracts for a July conference in Mexico City on the theme “Indigenous Peoples, Marginalized Populations and Climate Change” [Apologies: the official deadline for abstracts has apparently passed; view this is a conference announcement]
George Mason University’s call for votes on the Climate Change Communicator of the Year
*Trevors, J.T & Saier Jr., M.H. 2011. A vaccine against ignorance? Water, Air and Soil Pollution, DOI 10.1007/s11270-011-0773-1.
#52 Edward Greisch. I may be being unfair but you seem to be suffering the same disease as Trevors and Saier. The implications of their editorial, to a European, that humanity (in their case the US specifically) is held back by ignorant uneducated masses clinging idiotically and religiously to beliefs that are transparently (to the educated) false and stupid, are deeply unattractive.
The language of ‘inferior’ and ‘superior’ (the latter’ll be them, then) thoughts leads on, to a European mentality, to re-education, Brave New World, even forcible birth control and questions of universal suffrage – I know they didn’t say any of those things, but the tone of (their and theirs) superior judgements and thoughts, the positive dislike of capitalism, free markets and the profit motive, certainty of the need for population control (presumably preferably the inferior, to up the percentage of the ‘superior’), absolutely startled me and also scared me a little.
“… this goal can only be achieved when the inferior ideas and thoughts in ignorant human minds are eliminated…” Can you tell me that sentence (fragment) doesn’t scare you in its meaning and tone just a little bit?
The certainty that if only these fools were properly educated THEY WOULD THEN AGREE WITH THE AUTHORS – my word that’s arrogant and ugly. Does this pair have an ounce of doubt or humility?
As to scientists discovering truth, and therefore by implication being more perfect, ‘superior’ even, in their ability to forecast what’s around the corner, I refer you to Future Babble and the work of Tetlock at Berkeley.
SM, that’s clueless.
You pretend you haven’t undestood the chemistry.
You claimed you are a scientist, some time back?
Carbon dioxide, bicarbonate, calcium carbonate, magnesium carbonate.
You can understand this with high school chemistry.
NOAA’s links will help anyone who wants to understand it.
The rate of change is documented. So are the solubilities.
Hot Rod, Would you prefer:
“… this goal can only be achieved when we get people to abandon their bat-shit crazy adherence to ideas that are demonstrably false.”
There. Feel better, tone troll?
Ray Ladbury – given that the goal referred to was specifically controlling population growth, that would mean that the desire to have children was bat-shit crazy, an idea that was demonstrably false.
If that’s really what you mean, then whoops, you have Trevors and Saier disease too.
But I suspect you didn’t look at the context of the quote.
@53 Septic Matthew says- “My point is that if pro-AGW forces want to succeed they should either become perfect and beyond all reproach, or else they should focus entirely on science and quit casting aspersions on the intelligence, knowledge and integrity of opponents.”
Perhaps you should follow your own advice about casting aspersions on the integrity of your “opponents.” Your description of some dishonest scientist standing in front of congress telling them that chalk in a glass of vinegar is a literal representation of ocean acidification is flat out false. Video of the actual testimony is here.
Pay close attention when Dr. Luchenco says (emphasis mine) “I want to be crystal clear here. The ocean will never be as acidic as vinegar is. I have used it here simply as a visual demonstration of what happens when you increase the level of acidity in a solution- what happens to calcium carbonate shells. To show you what actually happens in seawater… the seawater that is projected to be affected by increased CO2 by the end of this century, I have a video clip…”
As for your assertion @87 that nothing living is made of chalk, but from carbonates in organic matrix, this is not only wrong, but disingenuous. Living coccolithophores- the plankton responsible for England’s chalk deposits- are surrounded by extracellular plates of CaCO3. The outer layer of each mature scale is pure chalk with the only organic component being the base plate underneath. Similarly, corals build their CaCO3 skeletons on an organic matrix, but below the calicoblastic layer that matrix is lost, leaving behind an almost pure aragonite skeleton. Furthermore, solitary and phaceloid corals often have no tissue overlaying this skeleton outside of the calyx itself, so again you have CaCO3 with no organic matrix in direct contact with seawater in living organisms.
Your claim is disingenuous because even in those organisms where the CaCO3 retains its organic matrix, the ability to calcify is still highly dependent on the carbonate chemistry of the surrounding seawater- the fact that it is laid down on an organic matrix doesn’t provide protection.
Why are you anti-education, Hot Rod?
If you consider the recent Congressional hearings, is there any part of those proceedings that wouldn’t have been improved if the participants just had a clue what they were talking about?
Now, capitalism is great – but pretending it should be allowed to run free and uncontrolled – only someone who is ignorant of the facts or has some vested interests would make such a claim. Capitalism with no control is just anarchy.
Trevors and Saier (2011) may read a little like a sermon – but I think the reason you dislike it so excessively is that it is very hard to fault it.
For example, statistics show that there is a link between smoking and education. Still. Decades after the dangers became apparent. Is that acceptable to you, or is the generation of profit more important than human life and wellbeing?
Or your concern about population – ask Hans Rosling. Population growth is linked to healthcare and education. It just is. You need to train health professionals, you need to raise the quality of life. Longer education leads to better wages and smaller families. This is already happening, it has been happening for decades. It is not some sort of wild guess about the future.
Education, education, education. It’s called the “silver bullet” for a good reason.
Septic Matthew #86, 87,
Re: Congressional testimony
I take it you weren’t talking about Hansen, then, but inquiring minds still want to know: about whom?
Re: government work
Well, I saw you painting a picture of government workers as thugs who shake down others for money and feel good about themselves for doing so. That’s the real problem here – not “ignorance,” but a subculture that cultivates a pathological resentment, distrust and hatred towards “elites” in general and “government” in particular, as a means of rationalizing away any evidence they’re shown. And you were feeding it. I think you’re better than that.
Re: ocean acification, vinegar and chalk, and other metaphors
No, of course I wouldn’t stretch my fruitbowl demonstration of the solar system further than the metaphor reaches. Neither did Lubchenko. If you missed Hank’s video link above, here it is again:
http://www.noaa.gov/video/administrator/acidification/
Our knowledge of ocean acidification is not extrapolated from experiments with chalk in vinegar. It’s the other way around. Chalk in vinegar is a passable illustration of one principle involved in ocean acidification. You know the difference.
You mean CaCO3. And I agree there’s a difference between lifeless chalk and a calcium-shelled organism that will actively strive to maintain its integrity, and that evolution has probably equipped with one or two tricks to do that. So as the water gets more and more carbonized, the chalk will just peacefully dissolve. The organism will struggle harder and harder to keep its shell. Until it loses the struggle.
Captcha: dintsee oceanogr
“…certainty of the need for population control (presumably preferably the inferior, to up the percentage of the ‘superior’), absolutely startled me and also scared me a little.”
Population control is a dead certainty. It will be achieved by education, fair economic policies, and social/political consensus, decreasing birthrates; or it will happen naturally through war, famine, and pestilence, increasing death.
Didactylos – I’m not anti-education. T&S make a presumption that if people were better educated they would agree with T&S about what needs to be done – I don’t like that. Especially if I have to join Milton in a dumpster raid. :)
I don’t know what you mean about uncontrolled capitalism. I think T&S made some weird comments re capitalism which caused an early commenter to describe it as an anti-capitalistic diatribe, not inaccurately.
We may need a CINC debate on smoking – I’d say it correlated best in a causal way with income, and income and education correlate, and round and round we go. But my instinct is generally that low income causes smoking, not low education except as a second effect by causing lower (relatively) income. However badly educated you are the idea that you are ignorant about smoking dangers is somewhat laughable these days, so lack of education, in my book, is not causing smoking (I assume you mean in the USA).
I don’t think T&S is very hard to fault – it read like an evangelist sermon perhaps, but sentences like ‘The current USA is an example of a failed capitalistic state in which essential long-term goals such as prevention of climate change and limitation of human population growth are subjugated to the short-term profit motive and the principle of economic growth.’ are frankly odd, especially since US resident population growth has been rock steady at 1% for around 50 years, which is hardly ‘failed state’ territory even if you’re a freegan.
Education and wealth lead to smaller families – agreed.
Anyway, enough already. I think they’re a pair of unattractive crackpots, you think their editorial is hard to fault, so we may have to politely recognise that we won’t agree! Have a good evening.
Hot Rod, what is bat-shit crazy is the desire to bring more children into the world than the planet can support. We are already well beyond that number. Human population is going to decrease. The only questions are:
1)whether we will take charge of the issue and do it in an equitable, intelligent and non-Draconian fashion
2)how much permanent damage we will do to the planets ability to support us along the way
3)what level human population will finally stabilize at.
If you would care to actually learn something, I could direct you to some reading that outlines the sorts of actions needed. They include things like:
1)increasing education for women and girls
2)increasing living standards
3)decreasing infant mortality.
Do you have problems with any of those?
Hot Rod: “T&S make a presumption that if people were better educated they would agree with T&S about what needs to be done – I don’t like that.”
Who cares what you like? The presumption is entirely yours, since T&S make no such assertion. It certainly fits your paranoid and delusional false frame of a global (or is it just ‘European’? What country is that again?) social_ist conspiracy, but that just identifies you as a bigot, which brings me back to my first remark.
Everybody: Ignore Hot Rod. He is a provoker. He is trying to get us angry for his own amusement. What he refuses to understand is that the alternative to our way is an otherwise inevitable population crash. When I said things will go rather badly for us as a species, I was referring to the population crash that will happen circa 2052. We have been over that ground before. What we mean by population crash has been discussed before as well. I was referring to work by Aiguo Dai, Barton Paul Levenson, Brian Fagan, Jared Diamond, William E. Rees, K. E. Trenberth, and T. Qian.
“Population crash” means that the human population of Earth goes from somewhere between 7 and 9 billion down to somewhere between zero and 3 billion. Extinction is included in the possibilities. The primary reason will be the collapse of agriculture. Sorry to have to mention that again. If we do not change our own path, Mother NATURE will change our path for us. Evolution has been driven by climate change before. Just remember, Hot Rod, we told you so.
Hot Rod:
It’s odd that you should trip over the causality question so badly. I think the reason is that there are multiple senses in which we talk about “education”. There is the trivial sense, in which people can be informed or not about issues such as smoking or climate (and can lead to paradoxes where supposedly well-educated people are lamentably ignorant about certain fields) and the social sense, when talking about demographics and the number of years spent in full-time education.
There is very clear evidence that education in this second, social sense is the driver of both economic success (better educated people get better wages) and health. It is in this indirect way that the smoking link works.
It all comes back to education in the end, which is why it is absolutely criminal to place financial bars to getting a good education.
In the wake of all the financial scandals of the last decade or so, it is hard to argue that capitalism can’t be improved, or that regulation isn’t needed.
Finally, I think you are taking the discussion of population out of context. The passage is discussing global issues, and this is expanded on later. While it is true that US policies and failures have led to a virtual third world for the poorest Americans, it is the failure to consider long-term sustainability that has the bigger global impact. Besides, what makes you think a growth rate of 1% is small? It’s not; it is the global average. And it is exponential.
This is education in the first sense. Hot Rod, get your facts right, and things make a lot more sense.
I found this article by a former physics professor interesting. There’s a baby, or two, in his bathwater that I won’t throw out, but he provides a scientific rebuttal to anthropogenic climate change that should be answered scientifically, and non-dismissively, by climate scientists who assert anthropogenic climate change is a reality. I submit it for review and commentary….maybe a separate post can be created that addresses the points he puts forward..
http://activistteacher.blogspot.com/2011/03/on-gargantuan-lie-of-climate-change.html
I do agree with him in the sense that there appears to be concerted effort by the Establishment to co-opt and exploit anthropogenic climate change and that will serve to undermine efforts to not only bring accurate awareness of the crisis, and let’s face it, it is a crisis, but also to usurp any and all proposed solutions to the matter, which in the end, may be so watered down and misdirected that they may not be solutions except in name only.
Environmental scientists and government agencies get funding to study and monitor problems that do not threaten corporate and financial interests. It is therefore no surprise that they would attack continental-scale devastation from resource extraction via the CO2 back door. The main drawback with this strategy is that you cannot control a hungry monster by asking it not to shit as much. … All in all, the best way to not pollute and destroy the environment is to not pollute and destroy the environment. The best way to not exploit others is to not exploit others…..
It’s about exploitation, oppression, racism, power, and greed. Economic, human, and animal justice brings economic sustainability which in turn is always based on renewable practices. Recognizing the basic rights of native people automatically moderates resource extraction and preserves natural habitats. Not permitting imperialist wars and interventions automatically quenches nation-scale exploitation. True democratic control over monetary policy goes a long way in removing debt-based extortion.
Again, I’m not defending his denial, but he raises some valid questions that should be answered and some of his points, which I have highlighted, have merit.
Ray said – 1)increasing education for women and girls…
I think increasing education for men and boys might be an even more important element in a lot of places…
Morocco Bama wrote: “a former physics professor … provides a scientific rebuttal to anthropogenic climate change”
With all due respect, this so-called “rebuttal” by Denis G. Rancourt is nothing but a compilation of pseudoscientific nonsense.
“The points he puts forward” are nothing but groaningly tiresome, copied-and-pasted denialist talking points, all of which have long-since and many times over been thoroughly debunked. And of course there is the usual haughty, arrogant and condescending tone characteristic of one who is utterly ignorant of the most basic scientific facts, who is thereby absolutely certain that he has found the “truth” that hundreds of brilliant, diligent scientists who have studied the issue for decades have missed.
I disagree with your suggestion that they deserve a “non-dismissive” response. They deserve to be harshly dismissed as the utter drivel they are.
I recommend that you spend some time with the “Start Here” section of this website, and with the debunkings of common denialist arguments at SkepticalScience.com — where you can see each and every bogus claim in Rancourt’s article thoroughly refuted.
Joe, I think Ray is talking about the existing gender inequality in school enrolment. The gap has closed a lot recently, but is still there.
Morocco Bama:
SecularAnimist has accurately summarised the main body of your “scientific rebuttal”. It’s badly cooked nonsense.
But these extracts you pull out for our consideration – they don’t even make sense. It’s like someone read some denialist talking-points, misunderstood them, then went on a big bizarre rant.
The important point that you both appear to be missing is that climate change exacerbates existing problems. Lack of clean water, malnutrition, malaria, AIDS – just a few issues that will become bigger problems in a warming world.
#112–Sorry, I think “dismissive” is entirely appropriate.
For example, he claims more CO2 from “anthropogenic animal breathing” than fossil fuel burning? I don’t think so. . .
But it doesn’t matter. The carbon from exhalations isn’t fossil–it’s already part of the carbon cycle and doesn’t increase atmospheric concentration over time.
Logic fail.
Ray Ladbury #30:
“‘Cwon1, you are an idiot,’ is NOT an ad hominem.
‘Cwon1 is an idiot, so you shouldn’t pay attention to anything he says,’ IS an ad hominem fallacy.”
It seems to me that this is a trivially flawed argument. If you were to say “Cwon1 is smelly” then that wouldn’t be ad hominem – as you merely throw an insult at someone. But to say “Cwon1 is an idiot” is to imply that he is “a person affected with extreme mental retardation” (Merriam-Webster). Clearly there is an implication that Cwon1’s ideas are unlikely to be worthy of great interest. Why would you listen to an idiot?
And surely, that is ad hominem.
[Response: Actually it isn’t. If someone unfortunately suffered from ‘extreme mental retardation’, that might be quite sensible grounds to discount their opinion. However, for someone ‘smelly’, there is no obvious connection between their odiferous properties and the quality of their opinion, and so ‘X is smelly, so don’t listen to them’ is clearly fallacious. Merely being insulting is not ad hom, nor is forming an opinion about someone’s state of idiocy based on the quality (or lack of it) of their arguments. – gavin]
Hey, this sounds pretty hopeful:
http://preview.tinyurl.com/PracticalArtificialLeafPR
(Dr. Daniel Nocera of MIT, at the American Chemical Society meeting Sunday.)
Not an energy “silver bullet,” but potentially quite helpful, I’d think.
Sorry, kludged the tinyurl a bit, and you’ll have to click “Proceed to this site.”
#112 Morocco Bama,
I’m sorry, but “activistteacher” doesn’t raise any valid questions, and what he does raise has been debunked over and over. Scientists shouldn’t be wasting their time on this. If you want to pick out a specific argument or two that you’re wondering how to refute, the rest of us might try to help out. But otherwise, it’s tempting to follow Brian Dodge’s lead upthread and just point to the whole list of debunked arguments at http://skepticalscience.com/argument.php
Activistteacher is a left-wing mirror image of the right-wing crowd I had in mind above when I talked about a subculture that cultivates a pathological resentment, distrust and hatred towards “elites” in general and “government” in particular, as a means of rationalizing away any evidence they’re shown. I’m just wondering if there are two distinct such subcultures on the left and the right, or whether the extremes blend into each other, as they have a way of doing.
Now, if at least the political parts of his rant made any kind of sense… but they’re just plain incoherent.
Oops, should have known I’d be piling on. Sorry.
“It seems to me that this is a trivially flawed argument. If you were to say “Cwon1 is smelly” then that wouldn’t be ad hominem – as you merely throw an insult at someone. But to say “Cwon1 is an idiot” is to imply that he is “a person affected with extreme mental retardation” (Merriam-Webster). Clearly there is an implication that Cwon1′s ideas are unlikely to be worthy of great interest. Why would you listen to an idiot?
And surely, that is ad hominem.”
Cwon is an idiot, therefore his statement is garbage = Ad hominem fallacy.
Cwon, that argument is garbage, therefore you are an idiot = Not an ad hominem fallacy (although doesn’t necessarily follow).
Cwon, you’re an idiot = not even an argument.
Confusion arises because people like to use the term ad hominem without attaching the crucial words fallacy or argument. So it ends up just something people say in place of the much weaker and victimhood-invoking ‘you’re just being mean’.
An ad hominem is a classical rhetorical fallacy that you certainly want to avoid if you are trying to win a formal debate governed by the rules of classical rhetoric. It is rarely applicable to real life.
In classical rhetoric, if I tell you that you should take a salesman’s praise of the used car he’s trying to sell you with a grain of salt because he has a financial interest in convincing you that that rusty clunker is a great deal, I have just committed an ad hominem “fallacy” and lost the “debate”, because the salesman’s motives have nothing to do with the “validity” of his “argument”.
In the real world, what I told you is common sense, and if somebody even has to tell you that, you are probably just the sort of gullible mark that a dishonest used car salesman loves to have walk on to his lot.
Re 79 Gail Zawacki – I think what was meant was that we are not significantly impacting the N2(g) concentration in the atmosphere (and presumably the total N of the atmosphere of all forms including N2(g)), distinct from the N cycle, acid rain, soil, and biological effects thereof, etc.
James Evans, You are missing the point of the ad hominem fallacy. Logic does not deal in what is probable, merely what is possible–that is not logically contradictory. It is quite possible that even an idiot could impart useful information–e.g. about the building being on fire–in which case we would be not just unwise, but guilt of a logical fallacy if we did not pay attention to the information.
Credibility is another thing entirely.
I bring this up because it illustrates how foolish it is to expect logical debate from denialists when they fail to grasp even the basics of logic.
Joe Cushley, Actually, the correlation is stronger for educating women. This may be in part because women are more underserved to begin with. This UNESCO page has a pretty good treatment:
http://www.unesco.org/education/tlsf/TLSF/theme_c/mod13/uncom13t01s005.htm
Most people don’t even realise that a compliment can be “ad hominem’, it just isn’t ‘the ad hominem fallacy’ unless it’s then used to imply veracity.
Morocco Bama, Jeez, can’t you warn a dude when you are linking to weapons-grade stupid like that?! My only regret is that the author of the piece is so irony impaired that he will not be able to appreciate. That piece is beyond WRONG, beyond NOT-EVEN-WRONG. That piece is self-parody.
That guy should not have been fired for his grading practices. Rather, he should have been fired because he doesn’t know the first thing about physics. The man is a pathetic, ignorant food tube.
And frankly, I don’t know what is more pathetic: his arguments, the fact that you find them credible or your pathetic concern trolling.
Oh please, get back to talking about real stuff, just leave these argumentative nonsense-promoters alone. I think we’ve got the generic answer: check debunked thousand of times-told talking points at skepticalscience, go to Start Here on this site, and if you don’t get it, don’t waste people who actually study stuff’s time. Too many of you are tempted to respond to garbage designed to get you to do just that. Just skip it and move on, rather than feeding it.
Any mother of a two-year-old knows how to use a time out. Please do so!
Susan Anderson #130 I vacillate between your view and the view expressed by others that it is always worth debunking nonsense – I have been reading RC for quite some time, and one thing has impressed me. Not once, not one single time, has a denier come here with good grounds that they can defend, and boy does it show! In the meantime, the debunking of their drivel provides me with links, arguments, scientific references, usually accompanied by a steep learning curve.
Ray:
He did, with his handle. He apparently doesn’t even understand that Obama’s from Kenya, not Morrocc! :)
I received an email From: Donald Brown
Subject: Article on The Urgent Need to Reform US Higher Education on Climate Change
The following was linked to:
http://rockblogs.psu.edu/climate/2011/03/universities-and-the-need-to-address-global-climate-change-across-disciplines-and-programs.html
The linkage to “Into Ignorance” is obvious, but I think the need is more general and more radical than Dr. Lemons realizes. Namely, the need is for every major, even fine arts, to require the Engineering and Science Core Curriculum.
“Septic” Matthew @ 69:
In a contest between scientists (who normally only deal with honest arguments) and lying advocates (e.g. Monckton) who keep repeating the same discredited talking points over and over again, who do you think will convince those who don’t like the consequences of the science?
I’m sorry but just explaining the science will not win the argument. It won’t stop the lies.
There have been even more strongly worded editorials in the scientific literature recently as well. Trevors and Saier (2011)*, in a journal with a strong tradition of stating exactly where it stands with respect to public policy decisions and their effect on the environment, pull no punches in a recent editorial, describing the numerous societal problems caused when those with the limited perspective and biases born of a narrow economic outlook on the world, get control. These include the losses of critical thinking skills, social/community ethics, and the subsequent wise decision making and planning skills that lead a society to long-term health and stability.
Well.
It doesn’t look to me as though atmospheric scientists all have a history of pulling punches; it looks to me like the recent decline (or so I perceive it) in confidence in AGW is partly due to a decades-long history of exaggerated claims about imminent adverse effects of great magnitude, and a decades-long history of impugning the integrity of all private-sector scientists who disagree with you. To me, you are Brer Rabbit striking the tar baby again. If I am right, as I obviously think I am, then your strategy will be self-defeating (though I should also note that Brer Rabbit outwitted Brer Fox in the end, and some Republicans in the current Congress are acting as dumb as Brer Fox.)
If you think I’m wrong, then go for it! Punch away!
134, Chris O’Neill: I’m sorry but just explaining the science will not win the argument. It won’t stop the lies.
You have conflated two goals. You can not “stop the lies”, but you can “win the argument” with science. What you can’t do is win the argument by calling your opponents “liars” if you have ever made mistakes or expressed unfounded exaggerations.
Here’s one that you might address some day:
http://www.jcronline.org/doi/abs/10.2112/JCOASTRES-D-10-00157.1
James Hansen was quoted in an article in Salon as saying that an expressway he could see would be underwater soon; the author of the article quoted Hansen as subsequently supporting his earlier prediction. To the public, this makes Hansen look ridiculous, though his written testimony to Congress did not predict such an event. To anybody who said in the period of 1980-2000 that the global mean temperature increase was “accelerating”, the 2000-2010 temperature record is an embarrassment; his, or her, reduced credibility in political circles is not because he or she “pulled punches”, but because of being loudly wrong.
[Response: What is your point? That sea level rise is uniquely not going to affect the west side of manhattan? Hansen’s statement about what would happen at 2xCO2 is neither ridiculous nor alarmist. We are not there yet, and if anything, expectations of SLR in the light of recent GRACE results are greater than they were in the 1970s. – gavin]
The Koch Bros are now passe; it’s all about ALEC (just read #49 above). Wonder about the concerted (dare I say well planned) attack against the environment, etc. Now this is within the purview of my study of world views and climate change, so it is not OT.
Bill Cronon has the dope on ALEC (excerpts from http://scholarcitizen.williamcronon.net/2011/03/15/alec/ ):
As mentioned in #49 they are doing an FOIA request on all of Cronon’s emails now. Sound familiar?? See: http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2011/03/my_worlds_collide.php
Some of my environmental anthropology colleagues are suggesting that we help out those legislators & send them bcc of all our emails, so they won’t have to go thru the trouble of filing an FOIA request for our emails. We just have to remember to clean up our language — no “stupid #@*%$# alec.”
Septic Matthew:
Hansen wasn’t asked if it would be underwater soon, but whether a doubling of CO2 could lead to it being underwater. The interviewer provided the timeframe, but of course, neither Hansen or any other scientist imagines CO2 doubling in the interviewer’s supposed timeframe.
Of course, this denialist claim you parrot is all based on a recollection by an interviewer of something that took place many years ago, and no transcript has been provided, so we don’t even know if the interviewer is recollecting correctly.
Regardless, Hansen’s answer – assuming the interviewer’s memory is anywhere close to correct, was in regard to a doubling of CO2, not a particular timeframe.
Do you understand why people question your objectivity? You could find this out on your own … instead, you accept such misrepresentations uncritically and use them to smear climate scientists.
How much arithmetic and statistics are UK chancellors (finance ministers) required to know?
The originally private correspondence between Sir John Beddington (UK’s chief scientific advisor) and Nigel Lawson is perhaps more revealing of the latter’s skills than his public writings which are intended for a non-technical audience. They have just been released as a result of a FOI request.
Lawson
Beddington
Yet Lawson still denies that he has made a single scientific error.
It appears that a degree in Philosophy , Politics and Economics does not include any reference to a geometric series, which omits time delays, or for that matter in the use of simple algebra (using self consistency) to disprove the runaway conclusion.
Lawson in his book:
Beddington:
Lawson.
Lawson once visited Realclimate; perhaps he should have returned (or read Grumbine and Tamino).
Reference for my previous comment:
http://www.carbonbrief.org/blog/2011/03/letters-between-lord-lawson-and-uk-government%E2%80%99s-chief-scientific-advisor-reveal-a-critical-view-of-his-climate-sceptic-arguments
SM – why don’t you actually read what Hansen says about SLR in his peer-reviewed papers, and the other articles and books he has authored. Had you, you would realize there is something wrong with the story about the Expressway.
The article contains a miscommunication of some sort as it presents a view of SLR that simply does not exist in Hansen’s writings.
What weighs more, articles written by Hansen, or the Reiss interpretation in notes he wrote about a conversation?
Amazingly, this story is NOT all over WUWT and the wannabes! ;-)
http://www.climatechangedispatch.com/Latest-News/apology-to-dr-andrew-weaver.html
Seems that as of March 5, Tim Ball has retracted pretty much every lie he told about Dr. Andrew Weaver. Good!
Entities like Septic Matthew want the discussion to be all about stuff that scientists get wrong (preferably ‘loudly’ wrong, in its view), and not at all about the stuff they get right (loudly or not).
And of course, the stuff that skeptics get wrong is right off the table.
Re :#144
Link has either been diverted by a hacker or is incorrect.
Deconvoluter – link works for me [might be your browser that’s hijacked!!] – it’s pretty much a copy from denialist “Dr” Tim Ball of the newspapers retraction of his article – a couple months after the paper made good.
captcha: one provin :)
“Sceptic” Matthew:
You have missed the point. Just stating the science does not stop people from corrupting what scientists say. For example, when a scientist says:
“If the world as a whole cut all emissions tomorrow, the average temperature of the planet’s not going to drop for several hundred years, perhaps over 1000 years”
it was corrupted into:
“It will not make a difference for 1000 years,”
by a politician who has no real interest in getting the science right.
So you just don’t realize that just stating the science is not enough. For whatever reason, people will come along and corrupt what the scientists say.
Re Tim Ball apology link – the first time I tried it, it didn’t work, but it was up at 20:45 EST. I noticed comments are disabled – when you first saw it, flxible, were there comments?
“You can not “stop the lies”, but you can “win the argument” with science.”
There’s no consensus on that – &;>)