Hacked Climate Science Emails
A set of very damaging e-mails have apparently been hacked from the Hadley Climate Research Unit; they purportedly show climate scientists there manipulating and deploying historical climate data to reach predetermined conclusions, coordinating messaging, and attempting to control the definition of expertise in order to marginalize those who disagree with them.
I have not read the full set of e-mails, nor have I seen authoritative evidence of their provenance, but for the sake of argument let’s assume the allegations are correct. None of this surprises me. I argued over two years ago that: 1) Long-term climate reconstruction was one of the two key trouble spots in climate science; 2) mathematically sophisticated critics had debunked the methodology used to reconstruct long-term climate evidence that is the basis for the famous “hockey stick” increase in global temperatures; and 3) excellent evidence had been presented to the U.S. Senate that, in climate reconstruction, academic peer review meant, in effect, agreement among a tiny, self-selected group of experts. The root problem here is not the eternal perfidy of human nature, but the fact that we can’t run experiments on history to adjudicate disputes, which makes this less like chemistry or physics than like economics or political science.
In human terms, the scandal is obviously a PR disaster for those who believe that climate reconstruction is “science” in the sense we normally use the term, but what it does not change is the basic physics of how CO2 molecules interact with radiation. As I have always argued, this is the real basis for rational concern about greenhouse-gas emissions, and is a key reason that all the major national scientific academies agree that the greenhouse effect is a real risk. Recognizing this risk, however, does not entail accepting the political conclusion that we need laws to radically reduce emissions at enormous cost.
You’re vastly overstating what was found in the emails. In fact, you’re making up what was in them.
— Chad S · Nov 25, 11:02 AM · #
Too much is being made of the leaked records. This unhinged email about the leak from an IPCC author is another matter, though.
— Matt Frost · Nov 25, 11:42 AM · #
I assume you haven’t read Gavin Schmidt’s post on the affair? Or this Wired post? This is hardly a PR disaster.
— Isaac · Nov 25, 11:43 AM · #
Yes, Chad is correct. It is not a set of emails; it is a single email, which suggested altering a graph to present data in a way more conducive to arguing against AGW. That was a mistake on the part of that scientist, and he deserves the hit to his reputation that he has taken. But that’s what it was— one email from one scientist from one institute, ten years ago. It does not disprove anything.
And yet here you have Jim Manzi, one of the more thoughtful commentators on AGW, buying into a factually incorrect narrative about what that email represents and what it says about AGW, and doing so while admitting to not having done the necessary research to understand what actually happened. And this again points to what is to me one of the more worrying aspects of the right wing’s decline: the tendency towards paranoia and conspiratorial thinking, where all liberal positions are not other sides to be disagreed with but nefarious crimes to be discovered. Many people now seem to think that winning in politics is not a matter of revealing better ideas and better arguments but rather finding some “gotcha” moment and prosecuting it.
Too much is being made of the leaked records. This unhinged email about the leak from an IPCC author is another matter, though.
That’s exactly right. That’s the real story and the really worrying thing.
— Freddie · Nov 25, 11:46 AM · #
Way to minimize this brewing scandal!
“It is not a set of emails; it is a single email…”
Really? That’s all there is? Just one email with some carelessly chosen language?
What about the ones that advise lying or deleting emails rather than turning them over to FOIA requests? Is that just, “…a mistake on the part of that scientist…”?
From George Monbiot,described by the Daily Mail as a “leading environmentalist” and one of the big proponents of AGW:
“‘I am now convinced that they are genuine, and I’m dismayed and deeply shaken,’ he said. ‘There are some messages that require no spin to make them look bad.
‘There appears to be evidence of attempts to prevent scientific data from being released, and even to destroy material that was subject to a Freedom of Information request.
‘Worse still, some of the emails suggest efforts to prevent the publication of work by climate sceptics, or to keep it out of a report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.”
Funny, that sounds a bit more serious than “one email”.
Nice try at whistling past the graveyard but you’re not going to be able to wish this one away.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1230635/Scientist-climate-change-cover-storm-told-quit.html#ixzz0Xt9uWOIp
— tomaig · Nov 25, 12:25 PM · #
Jim, I find yours to be one of the most sober and rational voices in the climate issue, and so I find myself rehearsing your arguments very often in discussions I have.
But I wonder if you could help with two things: 1) where can one find the analysis of the mathematical models you mention? I would like to check this out myself. More substantively: 2) as far as I understand it, there’s more than just facts speaking for the anthropogenesis of climate change. Our best models of Earth’s formation and geologic history involves large amounts of carbon dioxide and other compounds indirectly or directly hazardous to life being leached out of the atmosphere through biological entrapment and decay. Therefore, if we are burning and releasing large amounts of this trapped CO2, it is a ‘hypothetical-deductive’ consequence of our models that this will cause climate change. Since our models have power beyond their specific predictions for climate change, it seems to me that the burden of proof ought to be on the climate change skeptics, not the advocates. And furthermore, there is the observed and real changes like glacier recession, receding ice sheets, snow-cap deterioration, etc. How do you respond to these points? Thank you.
— Michael · Nov 25, 12:26 PM · #
Yes, it’s all a conspiracy! The sinister forces out to subjugate conservative explains all!
— Freddie · Nov 25, 12:39 PM · #
Freddie,
You are being uncharitable. Jim’s post is littered with qualifications, such as “apparently,” and “purportedly.” He states that he is assuming for the sake of argument that the critics are correct. He does say that “none of this surprises me,” which could be read as a statement that he expected nefarious conduct from climate scientists. If it was Mark Steyn saying it, that inference would be on firmer ground. However, I think Jim deserves more consideration from you.
Then, Jim basically restates the position he has laboriously illustrated here at the American Scene over numerous posts. He seems to be stating that the CRU hack has not changed his position.
— Chris · Nov 25, 01:11 PM · #
Most anyone who was paying attention, intellectually honest, and not drinking the global warming koolaid knew that the claims were being exaggerated for political purposes. I mean, Al Gore? comeon on, now, who didn’t know?
— mike farmer · Nov 25, 01:46 PM · #
Chad / Matt /Isaac / Freddie:
The point I was trying to make about this is that EVEN IF everything asserted about these emails is correct, it doesn’t change much at all of the substance of the debate. Thos who think this is some of kind of a watershed event are, in my view, likely to be badly mistaken.
As a separate point, and as per the post, I would avoid going way out on a limb defending the long-term climate reconstruction work that is the area of research that appears to be at issue here, at least until you’ve read the so-called “McCritics” mathematical deconstruction of its analytical methods. The reason none of what is alleged about these emails surprises me is that I’ve argued for a long time that climate reconstruction becomes a very, very weak part of the AGW case once you’re willing to spend the time to look closely at the evidence that it has proffered.
To repeat for clarity (and as I said in the post, and have said many times in my writing on this), EVEN IF we were to assume that historical climate reconstruction provided no useful information, there would still be rational cause for concern about AGW.
— Jim Manzi · Nov 25, 02:03 PM · #
Michael:
I did a liong reply that TAS has eaten, I believe.
Short version: go here for a good introduction from Technology Review to the analytical deconstruction of the “hockey Stick” temperature reconstruction: http://www.technologyreview.com/Energy/13830/
— Jim Manzi · Nov 25, 02:16 PM · #
For what it’s worth, I’m normally on the opposite side of Manzi on his AGW posts, but this looks pretty damning to me:
http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=1447
— salacious · Nov 25, 02:17 PM · #
Jim, the McCritics were pretty well rebuffed by the National Research Council report , which I presume you’re at least familiar with (note that it came out a few years after the Technology Review link you provided). Whatever claims the McCritics have leveled, moreover, they seem to primarily apply to the work of Mann et al, and not the other temperature reconstruction methods the NRC report mentions. “Very, very weak” is not an honest way of describing this stuff, Jim, according to the most rigorous examination we’ve been able to bring to the controversy.
As for the rest of your post, count me in the camp that sees your post as one long “told ya so.” And as for your argument that AGW “does not entail accepting the political conclusion that we need laws to radically reduce emissions at enormous cost,” you keep dropping the ball on explaining why you place so much faith in the economic models, which don’t have nearly as much evidence behind them as the physical models. (And no, it’s not the case that the latter are dependent on the former for useful predictions, nor is it the case that we have no basis for making this decision without good economic models.)
What I see here is a sustained effort to model yourself as “the reasonable conservative” on this stuff, Jim, who at least recognizes that science isn’t a complete lie, but who still gives other conservatives (e.g. Reihan) an out to avoid opposing taking action to reduce the damage we’re doing to ourselves and the ecology every day. When you put up posts like this one, however, it tends to undercut that facade in my eyes, and paint you more as someone who’s already fixated on a predetermined answer (do nothing on global warming that might inconvenience the economy), and who’ll take the quickest, easiest logical argument he can to that point.
— Chris · Nov 25, 03:15 PM · #
Silly wabbit, only the Chamber of Commerce and Exxon-funded think tanks get to worry about the PR implications of their research!
— rj · Nov 25, 03:23 PM · #
Chris, thanks for reading Jim’s post.
— Reihan · Nov 25, 03:24 PM · #
Chris:
As you believe I will say what is necessary to support pre-determined conclusions, I don’t think it makes much sense for me to dispute your (undoubtedly superior to my own) understanding of my psychology.
In regard to the substance, I’m not going to get into a science debate in a combox, but I read that NRC report in detail a couple of years ago, and I don’t think it’s accurate to say that it “pretty well rebuffed” the specific criticism of the principal components analysis method used in Mann et al (the papers that presented the “Hockey Stick”).
The report (as would be expected) has a really excellent section on how to evaluate the statistical questions at issue. The key is the difference between the fit of a statistical model to the set of data on which it is constructed versus its performance on data not used in its construction. Roughly (though not technically – read the report for the full picture) “CE” in this example means a measure of performance on unseen data, and “skill” is a forecasting term of art for predictiveness better than random guessing. They say (page 94):
They go on to say (page 95):
This endorses the essence of the statistical charge levelled at them by the McCritics (the relevant papers from 2005 are cited in the report).
The overall conclusion about the temperature record itself was also pretty far from “rebuffing” the critics or endorsing Mann et al. Their take on the long-term climate reconstruction wass (page 3):
If you look at their primary graphic (Figure S-1; page 2) of temperature reconstruction back to 900AD, it looks a lot more like ‘U’ than a Hockey Stick – the proxy average for 2005 is only abour 0.2C higher than the proxy average in about 950AD.
— Jim Manzi · Nov 25, 04:02 PM · #
Jim-
You say you’re not going to debate science into a combo box, and then dive deep into the weeds on a statistical attack. I really am not going to debate science in a combo box, but it’s clear that you’re cherry-picking quotes from the NRC report, which also says (page 3):
Considering that the original Mann claim under dispute was that the 20th century had been hotter than the last 1000 years (IIRC), then the validity of temperature before 900AD seems less important. And yes, the certainty on the data prior to 1600 is less than that after 1600, but it’s still not as invalid as M&M would have us believe.
Nor am I the only person who says this – Roger Pielke Jr., not exactly an unabashed AGW booster, said
Beyond that, we’re reduced to arguing whether a graph as a “U-shape” or a “hockey stick shape,” which is not exactly an objective criteria. So while I’m not claiming all climate reconstructions are perfect and wonderful and unimpeachable, I still maintain that they’re a good deal more valid than you suggest here, and I think that conclusion is backed up by more than just AGW cheerleaders, Jim.
— Chris · Nov 25, 04:47 PM · #
Chris:
1. You can call it the “staistical weeds” all you want, but you claimed that this report “pretty much rebuffed” specific criticisms. I’ve pointed to the actual passages in the report that directly support the criticims (in essence, incorrect use of sequencing in PCA that may create spurious results in hold-out data). Do you understand the issue? You don’t seem to have any reaction to it.
2. As a separate point, the conclusions of the report on the overall questions of long-term temperature history are extremely different than the Hockey Stick analysis of Mann et al. You can quote people all you want, but just look at the data. Here is the actual Hockey Stick (Figure 2.20), and here is the final NRC chart. They are vastly different. The HS chart has very low variance in temperatures every century from 1000AD to about 1900AD (declining over this period by about 01.C), then an enormous, discontinuous spike in one century of about 1.0C. In contrast, the NRC reconstruction shows, over the same period, the temperature going from something about 0.1C lower than today, down to much lower levels, and then returning back to the level about where it started. That’s a world of difference.
— Jim Manzi · Nov 25, 06:17 PM · #
Jim,
What you said:
“The point I was trying to make about this is that EVEN IF everything asserted about these emails is correct, it doesn’t change much at all of the substance of the debate. Thos who think this is some of kind of a watershed event are, in my view, likely to be badly mistaken.”
Except that you’re trying to make it into some big scandal by claiming it proves some sort of conspiracy. Your initial post on the subject is misleading at best(or you wrote it before you actually read the emails in question, and are cribbing off of how someone else described them) and dishonest at worst. Don’t backtrack and try to minimize the story or try to change your narrative after you were called out for trying to make up a story that’s just not there. You can’t use the terms “PR Disaster,” “very damaging” and “manipulation” then try to claim what you’re talking about is not a big deal.
— Chad S. · Nov 25, 06:40 PM · #
So Jim says — in his original post, and again in his comments — that (a) this doesn’t affect the substantive scientific debate but that (b) it’s a PR disaster, and that’s supposed to be some kind of contradiction? How, exactly?
— Alan Jacobs · Nov 25, 07:36 PM · #
I’m very confused about the point you’re trying to make with those two figures. In the NRC figure, the curves are all from different published papers (including one by Mann) in the literature — there is no NRC reconstruction as best I can tell. The curve in the IPCC report (with its rather large error bars) is from an earlier paper. What does any of this have to do with McIntyre’s stuff (the PCA aspects of which, at least, the NRC report said were irrelevant)? As best I can remember, the entire conclusion of the NRC report is that the earlier Mann paper underestimated the uncertainty in the proxy record prior to AD 1600, and that prior to AD 900 things are getting pretty sketchy. The IPCC graph stops at AD 1000.
Really, this focus on one single paper is just bizarre. Even if the paper were completely incorrect, it would be completely irrelevant towards just about everything. The same can be said about any individual paper in any field of science. That’s how science works.
— Aaron Bergman · Nov 25, 09:49 PM · #
Before passing judgment, it is important to understand just how egregiously wrong and ill-informed the stuff Jones and company are trying to keep out of the IPCC process can be. Passing peer review is perhaps necessary to be confident that a paper is sensible, but it is not sufficient.
If a true proposition (the earth is warming on account of human activities, for instance) is increasingly well demonstrated, it becomes increasingly difficult to construct arguments to the contrary. To be accused of bias when rejecting such arguments defeats the point of science altogether. The darkly jocular exchanges of dedicated people finding themselves in that position constitute less damning evidence in the end than might appear.
None of this is to say that this is anything but a PR disaster, one which the owners of fossil fuel reserves and their ideological allies will be quick to pounce upon. The public cannot really be expected to understand the distinction between science and a steady barrage of agenda-driven pseudoscience. This is especially true when faced by a clever and well-funded effort to blur the distinction. Even scientists not in subfields plagued by comparable phenomena don’t seem able to imagine the kind of corner this paints a scientific community into, especially a small and closely knit one.
Jim’s point that none of this matters all that much substantively is true. I’ve also said this all along. The main thing I’d like to add here is a link to an argument as to why this matters so much to the public. John Nielson-Gammon, the Texas state climatologist, explains in a recent article in the Houston Chronicle
The upshot is that most people understand the concept of “global mean surface temperature” and do not understand “how CO2 molecules interact with radiation”. Politically, people need to believe not the demonstrated fact that something awful will eventually happen, but the rather more dubious fact that something somewhat bad is already happening and we can expect more of it. This is why the debate in the public centers on observational evidence while scientific interest is elsewhere.
This leaves us in the somewhat ridiculous position of hoping the winter brings a severe and destructive El Nino and a new annual temperature record. The scientific impact of such an outcome would be negligible, but the political impact of a new record would be very helpful about now.
Jim, if you have a link to an explanation of how we can achieve the huge reductions in net emissions that are necessary without “laws to radically reduce emissions” I would be very interested to follow up on it. If there is a way to be sure we will get where we need to go in the absence of regulation, it would be foolish not to pursue it. It would also be great news in the current context, because it would mean that the PR windfall the liars’ club is getting here would not amount to much. Indeed, we could all bury the hatchet as our disagreements would be moot.
I’m, to coin a phrase, skeptical about this happy eventuality, but not a denialist. The risks of getting this wrong are very high. How do you propose to get it right without a regulatory guardrail? The only acceptable solutions are 1) the carbon stays in the ground, or else 2) the energy in the carbon is extracted and the carbon goes back in the ground. Unconstrained markets show no sign of performing one of these miracles without some substantial encouragement.
— Michael Tobis · Nov 25, 09:51 PM · #
Aaron:
By “NRC reconstruction” I meant the reconstruction shown in the NRC report.
That curve is the “Hockey Stick”, and was the specific analysis to whihc M&M were responding in their papers.
As per the quotes from the statistical analysis seciton of the paper, I don’t think that’s true at all.
As per the comment, the results for the past 1000 years in the NRC report are very different to those presented as the Hockey Stick.
People present theories and evidence. Others challenge them with different data and/or analysis. That’s also how science works.
— Jim Manzi · Nov 25, 10:49 PM · #
I would argue that this is a PR disaster for “science” in general. The kind of discussions in these emails – hostility towards skeptics, “tricking” of figures to get the point across, cynically choosing potential reviewers – are present in any scientific concentration that relies on peer-review/grant-funding. The mis-conception that “science” is some kind of benevolent anarchy is both flattering and condescending; and I think it’s a big source of the conventional wisdom that scientists are just children in an ivory tower. Science is a benevolent dictatorship, and that’s how it mostly works.
— trizzlor · Nov 25, 11:20 PM · #
As per the quotes from the statistical analysis seciton of the paper, I don’t think that’s true at all.
From the NRC report, p. 113
As per the comment, the results for the past 1000 years in the NRC report are very different to those presented as the Hockey Stick.
The NRC gives a number of different reconstructions, including that of Mann 2003. It’s worth remembering that the IPCC figure comes with large error bars. On this subject, the NRC says (pp. 115-6)
In particular, the NRC sets up a hierarchy of confidence with high confidence from AD 1600 to the present, less from AD 900 – AD 1600, and not too much before AD 900.
People present theories and evidence. Others challenge them with different data and/or analysis. That’s also how science works.
Which is exactly what happens. There are multiple reconstructions now in the literature. The NRC cites many of them. There are more in IPCC AR4, WG1 Fig 6-10. So, what’s the problem?
— Aaron Bergman · Nov 25, 11:45 PM · #
I ate way too much today. If anyone is selling off their carbon credits, I’m interested (or I will be tomorrow morning after my first cup of coffee).
Chris seems like a smart guy. I’m sure he knows why limiting confidence in temp reconstructions to the last 400 years might indeed be a big deal when studying the climate. Let me ply thy eye to the following analogy.
Solar cycles, everyone knows them, yes? 10.66 years and so on. The guy who noticed them — my man Schwabe — needed 17 years to notice some kind of regularity in the occurrence of sunspots. Based on the data he had at hand, he guessed a 10 year cycle. Another dude, Wolf, got interested and compiled as much data as he could, going all the way back to 1610. The cycle was proved and continues to be proved, and here we are.
I bet you can see where I’m going with this. 11 year cycle. 17 years of hard data to recognize it. 400 years ago we were at a temp nadir. Now we’re at a peak. The alternative hypothesis to explain the data we have is climate cycling. To disprove this theory and clinch AGW we need more than 400 years of data, since best case scenario (for AGW), 400 years is .5 revolutions (Schwabe needed data from 1.7 revolutions).
Of course, that’s not all, and Pielke is right that this is irrelevant to the detection and attribution of current trends. We still have the models, and the hard physics on CO2, which is good evidence as far as it goes. (How far does it go? Me, I think it still leaves us making shadow puppets at the other cave-dwellers. But whatever. Better than nothing, I say. Still: “Modeling Error and Nested Feedback” should be tattooed on back of our hands.)
My main point is, we shouldn’t kid ourselves about the lesson of the NRC report. Losing confidence in our ability to know anything about what the mean surface temp was more than 400 years ago is a big deal. And I get really weirded out when I see the way the NRC report was spun by these guys (quoting commenter Benny Peiser at that Pielke link you gave).
Headlines in the hands of politicians can change the world and move mountains of cash. Makes me get all itchy and shit.
— Kristoffer V. Sargent · Nov 26, 01:05 AM · #
Shorter me: there’s a lot we don’t know, including, in part, what we don’t know. Everybody knows this.
The NRC report made matters worse, by letting us know that we don’t in fact know what we had heretofore thought we knew. Got it?
— Kristoffer V. Sargent · Nov 26, 01:30 AM · #
Jim-
Aaron points to the relevant passage from the NRC above; the question is not whether M&M have any validity to their critique at all, but whether said critiques invalidated long-term climate reconstruction in general. They did not, despite the selective quotes you’ve pulled trying to show otherwise.
— Chris · Nov 26, 01:49 AM · #
Kristoffer-
You’re spinning the import of the report pretty damn hard. Yes, it said we had decreased confidence in temps before 1600, but that’s not the same as no confidence. It also reaffirmed what we did know about recent temps, and the (high) likelihood the global warming is real. That being the case, the headlines you cite are not inaccurate as ultra-short summations of the report, even if you don’t like their political import.
— Chris · Nov 26, 02:15 AM · #
Just a few weeks ago, we had a very strong reminder about the dangers of leaping to strong conclusions based on looking at a handful of emails which were presented in isolation, removed from the context of the bigger conversation which they were a part of. The prosecution of Ralph
Cioffi and Matthew Tannin was based heavily on a small number of emails which, looked at in isolation, seemed to be very incriminating. However, when the jury learned the context of the emails, they acquitted Cioffi and Tannin of all charges.
We have a very similar situation here. The emails which were illegally hacked from the CRU server, some dated this year, others as far back as 1996, clearly constitute only a few tiny snippets of a number of lengthy discussions. It would be prudent to avoid reaching sweeping conclusions based on these snippets, no matter how comforting it might be to do so.
— Jestak · Nov 26, 02:30 AM · #
It looks like some climate scientists have been behaving badly. But whether they’re behaving scientifically or not, there doesn’t seem to be a single one who thinks anthropogenic global warming is a big danger that requires action. So why should I?
— The Reticulator · Nov 26, 02:43 AM · #
Chris,
Since I am avoiding my family right now, let me respond by using truncated quotes from the conclusion to the report. To begin:
Before 1600AD, Mann’s reconstructions were not ‘robust’ because they were strongly dependent on one source of data:
And the validation step was problematic:
And substantially different reconstructions can be made with the same data, depending on one’s choice of statistics:
Put these together with the sparseness of proxy data from before 1600AD (“The lower precision during [AD 1000-1600] is caused primarily by the limited availability of annually resolved paleoclimate data) and what I said is right on the money. Low confidence versus no confidence is meaningless given all the problems listed above.
My conclusion, not theirs, but I do flatter myself that I know what I’m talking about.
— Kristoffer V. Sargent · Nov 26, 03:02 AM · #
So in conclusion, I think Jim is on firmer ground re Mann and the NRC report. Not sure how that affects the larger issue, though.
— Kristoffer V. Sargent · Nov 26, 03:11 AM · #
Kristoffer-
Well, that is your conclusion, but it is not theirs, and I’ll take their word over yours, Kristoffer, even if you do reassure me you know what you’re talking about:
(From page 115 of the NRC report.)
Kristoffer, Jim’s argument was:
A) As Aaron pointed out, the NRC found that Mann’s statistical work, while “not recommended”, didn’t actually influence the end results. So “debunked” is not accurate.
B) The NRC report likewise has lots of other research, completely outside of Mann’s work, that backs up Mann’s conclusion. So they’ve reaffirmed the “hockey stick.”
If those two things are true, then I don’t know how Jim is on firm ground re: the NRC report, no matter how you try to spin it.
— Chris · Nov 26, 04:44 AM · #
@reticulator: But whether they’re behaving scientifically or not, there doesn’t seem to be a single one who thinks anthropogenic global warming is a big danger that requires action. So why should I?
No, I think you need to work on your reading comprehension. There are large numbers of scientists who think AGW is a big danger that requires action, and even those who are concerned about some of the climate models that are being put out all agree that putting tons of CO2 in the atmosphere is going to do something to heat the planet up, it’s just a question of when.
— MyName · Nov 26, 06:38 PM · #
Wow. Chris has certainly drunk the Kool Aid.
— Robert · Nov 27, 05:49 AM · #
@Michael Tobis
The problem with Manzi’s arguments is similar to Lomborg’s and other non-denialist “skeptics”. They claim to agree with the scientific basis of concerns over climate change and would have people believe that their contrarianism is only economic. Yet when you scratch these econo-“skeptics” you find underneath some pretty denialist-credulous beliefs.
So you see someone like Lomborg either lying or else inexcusably getting wrong things like sea level rise. Someone like Manzi repeats denialist canards like there has been no real warming for the last ten years<a href=“http://theamericanscene.com/2009/07/07/models-models-everywhere-and-no-one-stops-to-think”>1</a>, or in this post “mathematically sophisticated critics had debunked the methodology used to reconstruct long-term climate evidence that is the basis for the famous ‘hockey stick’ increase in global temperatures” and “the scandal is obviously a PR disaster for those who believe that climate reconstruction is ‘science’ in the sense we normally use the term”.
Those last two would be pretty shocking claims from an ostensible non-skeptic, but are of course gospel among denialists. As those who actually do agree with the scientific evidence are aware, the so-called “hockey-stick” shape of present temperatures vs. paleo temps most certainly has not been “debunked”, “deconstructed”, etc. and is not dependent on a single paper’s methodology, a single archive’s handling, or “a tiny, self-selected group of experts”, but rather is a robust finding across many proxy records and remains even after removing those allegedly “debunked” by self-described Auditors.
Even such purported economic “skepticism” is more akin to ideology than actual evidentiary-based argumentation, as you can see full well when they smear market solutions to the emissions problem as “socialist”<a href=“http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2009/09/the-socialism-implicit-in-the-social-cost-of-carbon.html”>2</a>.
If Manzi does have a solution to climate change that doesn’t involve 1) pricing carbon or 2) pushing past doubled atmospheric CO2 I would likewise love to hear about it.
— thingsbreak · Nov 27, 01:19 PM · #
Wow. Really? Two pages of sourced arguments from Chris and that’s really the best you can come back with? You’re convinced he’s wrong, I assume, but what should I read into your inability to state why about your kool-aid-drinking habits, I wonder?
— Chet · Nov 27, 01:47 PM · #
“Recognizing this risk, however, does not entail accepting the political conclusion that we need laws to radically reduce emissions at enormous cost.”
If you recognize the risk, though, I can’t see how you can avoid the conclusion that we need laws to radically reduce emissions. I’m not familiar with the rest of your writing, but surely it’s beyond controversy that a low-probability, high-cost event is worth insuring against.
As for the cost, there will be high costs borne by some in society. There will be corresponding benefits reaped by others. For example, if a carbon tax were actually instituted, and was revenue neutral such that income taxes were lowered to compensate, then the losers would be energy users and the winners would be taxpayers. Socially, a wash.
Of course there will be a small wedge of deadweight losses that accrue socially, losses such as choosing a 3-series over an Escalade. And it’s this deadweight loss component that would be the only consequence of a rational carbon mitigation policy.
Those who love markets must get in front of the approaching regulatory juggernaut, in which every dog and his uncle will be lining up for subsidies of one sort or another. We have one chance to get this right, and the opportunity is being blown by focusing on epherma.
— NewAlgier · Nov 27, 04:49 PM · #
Global Warming is a Hoax Perpetrating a Fraud Based on a Lie to Establish Control Over The Unknowing.
Don’t you feel foolish now?
— Dean Smith · Nov 27, 09:15 PM · #
Those who love markets must get in front of the approaching regulatory juggernaut
Absolutely. Unfortunately libertarians and Republicans will not do this. Libertarians will refuse to do it because it’s not 100 percent pure laissez-faire. Republicans will not because they’re in deep denial. That doesn’t leave a lot of market lovers left who will do this work. But it’s worth a try just the same.
— The Reticulator · Nov 28, 12:29 AM · #
I’d love a market-based approach to regulating carbon emissions. Absolutely love. But if the market is going to put all its energy, instead, into opposing all such efforts to make the negative externalities of fossil fuel combustion be valued at more than zero dollars, then top-down government regulation by fiat is the only option left to us.
— Chet · Nov 28, 01:29 AM · #
Smart atmospheric scientists have known for a long time that global warming has become a rather politicized issue. Science in fact is a constant dialectic process that avoids taking political positions.
The best exposition of the politicizing of global is a November 2008 paper given by Richrd Lindzen , an atmospheric physicist at M.I.T titled, Climate Science: Is it currently designed to answer questions? in which he writes:
“Given the above, it would not be surprising if working scientists would make special efforts to support the global warming hypothesis. There is ample evidence that this is happening on a large scale. A few examples will illustrate this situation. Data that challenges the hypothesis are simply changed. In some instances, data that was thought to support the hypothesis is found not to, and is then changed. The changes are sometimes quite blatant, but more often are somewhat more subtle. The crucial point is that geophysical data is almost always at least somewhat uncertain, and methodological errors are constantly being discovered. Bias can be introduced by simply considering only those errors that change answers in the desired direction. The desired direction in the case of climate is to bring the data into agreement with models, even though the models have displayed minimal skill in explaining or predicting climate. Model projections, it should be recalled, are the basis for our greenhouse concerns. That corrections to climate data should be called for, is not at all surprising, but that such corrections should always be in the ‘needed’ direction is exceedingly unlikely. Although the situation suggests overt dishonesty, it is entirely possible, in today’s scientific environment, that many scientists feel that it is the role of science to vindicate the greenhouse paradigm for climate change as well as the credibility of models. Comparisons of models with data are, for example, referred to as model validation studies rather than model tests.”
The paper is at:
http://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/0809/0809.3762.pdf
Lindzen in this paper provides compelling evidence of what amounts to fraud in the politicization of global warming.
— Peter Leavitt · Nov 28, 08:45 PM · #
Jim, do you consider yourself an example of someone who learned to shy away from discussing the (not new) questions about the climate data because of all the heat it generated?
— tom · Nov 29, 09:40 PM · #
For the record CRU published this comment debunking all of the deniers claims rather neatly:
<p>http://www.uea.ac.uk/mac/comm/media/press/2009/nov/homepagenews/CRUupdate</p>
“CRU climate data already ‘over 95%’ available (28 November)
Over 95% of the CRU climate data set concerning land surface temperatures has been accessible to climate researchers, sceptics and the public for several years the University of East Anglia has confirmed.
“It is well known within the scientific community and particularly those who are sceptical of climate change that over 95% of the raw station data has been accessible through the Global Historical Climatology Network for several years. We are quite clearly not hiding information which seems to be the speculation on some blogs and by some media commentators,” commented the University’s Pro-Vice-Chancellor, Research Enterprise and Engagement Professor Trevor Davies.”
— Mark Schaffer · Dec 1, 03:25 AM · #
I’m not going to get into the physics at all, but I find the attitude of many of the commenters criticizing Jim very disturbing. They misread his posts, misrepresent his views, resort to name-calling, and state blatant falsehoods (for example, it is not “one email” that is problematic, there are dozens of extremely worrisome emails in that archive, not to mention the revelation of the extraordinarily incompetent data management at CRU). The basic question that needs to be answered much more than any others at this point is simply “how much of the non-CRU results on paleoclimate are truly independent of CRU’s data?”, since CRU has clearly made their results irreproducible. We DON’T KNOW THE ANSWER YET to that basic question, and I detect in the comments on this thread a strong push to change the subject from that question whenever it arises.
— Joe Shipman · Dec 1, 12:26 PM · #
The sky is falling! the sky is falling…the water is rising! the water is rising…..
— levi · Dec 6, 10:40 AM · #