Kate Sheppard of Mother Jones on Climategate here.
The article discusses me and the climate blogs in relatively measured terms. However, the headline is another unscientific fantasy from the climate community (quoting Michael Mann):
How climate science became the target of “the best-funded, best-organized smear campaign by the wealthiest industry that the Earth has ever known.”
As readers know, this characterization of Climate Audit and other critical climate blogs (WUWT, Jeff Id, Lucia, Bishop Hill) is total fantasy on the part of the climate science community. It seems to me that the fantasy is an ideological construct that they use to avoid looking into the mirror.
Obviously one expects Mother Jones to give the climate community an easy ride and they’ve done so. Unfortunately, I don’t have time right now for a full comment.
8 pm: Jaeah Lee, a nice fact-checker from Mother Jones, has a genial online video in which she tries (unsuccessfully) to figure out the trick to hide the decline, eventually being tricked by Briffa.
Jon Stewart saw through the trick, acidly satirizing the disinformation originally put out by Gavin Schmidt and subsequently adopted by the credulous climate science community:
It means nothing…He’s just using a trick to… hide the decline. It’s just scientist-speak for using a standard statistical technique for calibrating data in order to …. trick you…into not knowing about ….the decline.
Yup.
Both Kate Sheppard (in the article) and Jaeah Lee (in the video) uncritically accept Team bafflegab that the deletion of adverse data is acceptable scientific practice.
The “trick”—substituting recorded temperature data when proxy data become unreliable—isn’t intended to deceive; it’s an acceptable practice in paleoclimatology, since most proxy data sets end around the 1980s, and recorded temperatures are more reliable, anyway.
Deletion of adverse data is not acceptable scientific practice – a point eloquently endorsed by Richard Muller – even if it is an “acceptable practice” in Team paleoclimatology. That the Team see nothing wrong with the practice is the problem. And it’s hardly just Mann. Esper notoriously stated:
this does not mean that one could not improve a chronology by reducing the number of series used if the purpose of removing samples is to enhance a desired signal. The ability to pick and choose which samples to use is an advantage unique to dendroclimatology.
Climate Audit 
133 Comments
You know they are in trouble with their communications (and message)when they have to resort to such garbage.
I don’t think that is fair. Aside from the subtitle, the article is remarkably even-handed for a green mag. It only implies that skeptics are soulless cranks trading the world for a few pieces of gold rather than coming out and saying so.
And it used McIntyre’s name several times, so interested folks can find their way here to get the other side of the story.
It might be a good idea to put together an “intro to the audit” for people who make their way here from the article and run it at the top of the blog for a few weeks.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_Audit
I’ve often been intrigued when debating CAGW proponents as to how they frequently accuse others of the faults they themselves are obviously most guilty of in their comments. This seemed to be such a constant meme that I was sure there would be some psychological term for it and sure enough it is known as ‘psychological projection’ or ‘projection bias’
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_projection
How do AGW believers’ prevent the public from noticing the flaws in the IPCC? They distract them by endlessly repeat a simple 3-point mantra: 1) the science is settled 2) skeptic scientists are corrupt 3) media needlessly allows balanced coverage to skeptics.
All three points are unsupportable, but the central one about skeptic scientists is something that has arguably kept the whole ‘crisis’ alive for more than a decade – please see my article “How an Enviro-Advocacy Group Propped Up Global Warming in the MSM” http://bigjournalism.com/rcook/2010/11/02/how-an-enviro-advocacy-group-propped-up-global-warming-in-the-msm-a-nov-2-election-connection/
Re: Russell C (Apr 21 11:35),
At least there was only one use of “denier” in the whole article, that I noticed. It is irksome to see the references to oil-companies and the Kochs, especially since the supporters of the climate change crowd like George Soros and all the environmental groups (not to mention the MSM) is never mentioned. But there are some links back to CA, so if there are any people interested in the actual problems with the hockey stick and the other flaws in the climate change theory, they could find them. You’ve noticed, of course, that articles like this never discuss what the real problems are. Mentioning strip-bark bristlecone pines, magic trees, inverted proxies and prediction failures never seems to happen.
History is full of examples of countries using the specter of boogeymen to quiet the populace about the problems within. Eventually, the country either had to conquer or fall. That is what is happening with the warmist camp. Because their predictions of doom and gloom have not come to pass, and even their models are falling apart, they have created a boogeyman – big oil – to try to draw the residents into a tight knit circle and keep them from asking their own questions and wondering why things are not as the seem.
The Sheppard Mother Jones article was indeed soberly written and well documented. Steve, since you are at the center of it, we would be interested in your detailed response.
BTW, I agree that the work of IPCC, Mann, and Hansen is flawed. In my opinion, however, it understates both climate sensitivity and the feedback driven catastrophes that await our children and grandchildren.
Is this a religious belief that you have or do you have some science behind it. Please enlighten us if there is some science we have been waiting a very long time for it.
There is a recent editorial that contains a huge PDF file from a reputed communications professor that delves into the reasons why the “Green Movement has been a miserable flop”.
This is in the New Republic, hardly an outlet of right wing media, since it supports liberal economic and social policies.
http://www.tnr.com/article/politics/87140/environmental-green-movement-al-gore-nesbit
“What the hell went wrong? For months now, environmentalists have been asking themselves that question, and it’s easy to see why. After Barack Obama vaulted into the White House in 2008, it really did look like the United States was, at long last, going to do something about global warming. Scientists were united on the causes and perils of climate change. Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth had stoked public concern. Green groups in D.C. had rallied around a consensus solution—a cap-and-trade program for carbon emissions—and had garnered support from a few major companies like BP and Duke Energy. Both Obama and his opponent, John McCain, were on board. And, so, environmental advocates prepared a frontal assault on Congress. May as well order the victory confetti, right?
Instead, the climate push was … a total flop”
To Steve’s point about big-oil funding and “looking in the mirror”, this piece echoes that reasoning with some evidence to back it up.
“Nisbet estimates that green groups and their allies spent $394 million on climate-change activities in 2009—ads, organizing, lobbying—compared with just $259 million from conservative and industry groups. Nor does he think media-assisted denialism was a decisive factor. His research found that the biggest news outlets—The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, CNN, and Politico—tended to reflect mainstream climate science in their coverage. The implication, then, is that environmentalists have no one to blame but themselves for failing to sell their climate policies.”
That final sentence coupled with the financial recession explains their hair-thin defeat…
Some years ago a creationist encouraged his followers to put up lots of critical posts to scientists in the hopes that it would waste their time and disrupt their research work.
Seems to me there is a branch of CAGW trying to do the same.
Keep on with your research: you have more important things to do than to let them distract you. (Pity they don’t have more important things to do!)
Mike:
So Mother Jones has documented that the oil industry orchestrated the actions of Steve M., Anthony Watts, Bishop Hill, etc., and funded their analysis of the ClimateGate matter?
The funding organisation behind the brilliantly orchestrated global warming scare campaign that Mann represents – the state – is numerous orders of magnitude larger than that “wealthiest industry”.
It also has has an obvious and huge vested interest in public acceptance of the CAGW its Climategate-tainted lackies like Mann preach.
All of this on top of the huge and crushing power it obviously wields by virtue of exercising the monopoly of legal violence in society.
Google ‘pdj_grant_since1990.xls’ to see the $22m that Phil Jones burned through between 1990 and 2009. (Even after paying off the Russell and Oxburgh fiascos, Jones and the UEA, are substantially in the black). (Who would have thought that Mike’s Nature trick would have been so lucrative? No wonder this document was scheduled for deletion by the CRU.) Meanwhile activist journalists, and climatologists, are pretending that those asking questions are well funded – it is laughable.
Mike Roddy: Where are the data, facts,observations and experiments that support your extreme opinions. Your views are complete rubbish (that is a polite way of saying BS).
Humm, not exactly polite debate…
You are right Andy – this site does tend to be more focused on scientific method than on “self esteem” support.
Bring your facts. Bring your data. Leave your “opinions” at the door.
Good to know that Steve Mosher and Charles the Moderator are rolling in Oil dough.
Re: EdeF (Apr 21 12:46), They had a nice fact checker write to me. She wanted to do the fact checking on the phone but I insisted on a written record for the fact checking.
So, I have that. Strangely they didnt ask about oil funding for me. So, that was a fact they didnt see fit to check.
All their facts about me check. The innuendo’s? they dont bother checking them.
Having extracted the Hockey Stick out of thin cone data, of course Mann would just keep making up new fantasies. No surprise there.
Unlike some of our “newspapers of record” (including my beloved NYT), Kate Sheppard has done her homework and gets almost all the facts right with respect to Mann, McIntyre, Wegman, the hockey stick, Climategate, etc. This is noteworthy, welcome, and somewhat surprising. She obviously brings a “Mother Jones” perspective to her reporting (looking for evidence of Koch brothers and Big Oil behind every tree — not necessarily a bad thing, IMHO), but does not compromise accuracy; her article presents a sharp contrast to some of the sloppy reporting that has appeared under the Revkin byline, for example.
To: Mike Roddy at 12:03 PM
Re: Mother Jones article soberly written and well documented; children and grandchildren
I had a strange teacher in the 6th grade. She spent the whole year hysterically screaming at everybody. We knew there was something wrong with her but we did not understand what it was. Then something unexpected happened when she came back in the fall. She was not screaming so much anymore. We were kids—we did not know about mental diseases or heavy medication but we noticed how she suddenly seemed quite sober. When I think about the whole affair today I realize that she was still not behaving normally but the contrast with her previous hysteria was striking.
Is that what you had in mind when you called the Mother Jones article sober?
Did you notice that Kate Sheppard spent a lot of words on the nitty-gritty timeline of how the CRU emails were leaked and how journalists did not spend time to deal with the actual content? Well, in her own article she quite soberly glosses over anything in the emails that has to do with actual scientific malpractice.
Did you notice how many times she soberly mentions Exxon, the Koch brothers, oil interests funding the skeptics?
And did you read the conclusion? It’s all about communication. The scientists just have to be better at communication and crisis management.
For the sake of our children and grandchildren, which part of it do you think deserves Steve McIntyre’s detailed response?
If you don’t have an explanation for failure, then make one up. So what exactly is Mann proposing? Cutting off all that funding? Yeah right, good luck finding it.
To: TAC at 1:36 PM
The only remarkable thing about the Kate Sheppard piece is how it self-documents the new approach. The article represents the desired “better communication and crisis-management strategy” the catastrophic warmists believe they need:
Regain some footing by admitting the irrelevant but drive the party line hard.
I do not believe they learned anything but then I am old and cranky and I’m trying hard not to get fooled again.
I do not disagree. Still, reporting the facts correctly is a welcome improvement, whatever the motive — but then I am old and cranky. 😉
What a crock! Sorry, only made it through the first page and a half and the writing was so bad, so one-sided, and so weak in the facts that I wasn’t about to bother with any more. Life is too short.
What struck me reading the Mother Jones article, is that even when they try everything they can to spin the story, the climate science community still comes out of it looking pretty bad.
At least they actually told the whole story, after a fashion, rather than the very partial accounts typical of the left wing media, followed by a comment that all concerned have been cleared by multiple inquiries. I suspect Mother Jones readers will learn quite a bit they didn’t know, along with all the disinformation re funding.
Watch the video embedded in the story.
It is an amusing report on how they “fact checked” the “hide the decline” issue.
They were confused until Briffa was kind enough to take them by the hand and kindly lead them to the truth.
Thanks for mentioning the video. I missed that. Kind of depressing that the fact checkers were fooled by the trick. I had to comment on the video.
The thing I don’t get is how journalists can so badly misunderstand the nature of science.
Effectively, the article follows the consensus meme: “the science is fine, it was just a bunch of scientists behaving badly”
Fundamentally, “scientists behaving badly” means scientists preventing the progress of science.
If you admit that the scientists were behaving badly, you must also admit that the consensus science is based on a non-scientific foundation.
The consensus science is fine, it’s just non-scientific.
I get the impression that she’s doing her best to suppress her bias, although nobody can really do that. She does tell us, in an unintended way that she’s clueless about science;
“(The “trick”—substituting recorded temperature data when proxy data become unreliable—isn’t intended to deceive; it’s an acceptable practice in paleoclimatology, since most proxy data sets end around the 1980s, and recorded temperatures are more reliable, anyway.)”
But if you ignore any of her comments on the science, it’s a pretty engaging article on the intrigue of Climategate.
For me these two quotes were critical in the overall assessment of Sheppard’s supposedly unbiased overview-
“(The “trick”—substituting recorded temperature data when proxy data become unreliable—isn’t intended to deceive; it’s an acceptable practice in paleoclimatology, since most proxy data sets end around the 1980s, and recorded temperatures are more reliable, anyway.)”
and-
“But climate scientists don’t tend to be adept at politics, and most of them didn’t enter the field expecting to land in the middle of a controversy over the future of industrial society. Accustomed to the slow-moving peer-review process, they were utterly unprepared to deal with the real-time, 24/7 news circus.”
Says it all Kate.
I love to get on my Karl Popper soapbox. If good ol’ KP were here, he could say to all these journalists that they don’t HAVE to understand “the science”, all they really have to do is understand the actual scientific method–with that alone they can judge the probity, the integrity, of much of scientific commentary; and with that they can ask lots of good questions of the ones commenting, the kinds of things that SM is always bringing up here: archiving ALL the data and code at publication, acknowledging errors, etc. It really is quite simple.
“It seems to me that the fantasy is an ideological construct that they use to avoid looking into the mirror.”
It’s a psychological construct known as ‘denial and projection’.
“in my opinion” is not part of a statement about science.
Science is about what one can prove.
The paleo data is there because it supposedly correlates well with the temperature data, and would therefore be a proxy. So the best reason the authors could come up with to justify deleting the later data is that that part didn’t correlate well with the temperature data. The authors chose not to accept that perhaps it is just not a good proxy. I realize that journalists aren’t rocket scientists, but it shouldn’t take one to see the sham here.
How could we explain it to Ms Sheppard?
Perhaps this best-funded, best-organized smear campaigner funded by the wealthiest industry that the Earth has ever known-
http://www.informath.org/media/a42.htm
Whoever Mr. Esper is, he is most amusing, in an unintended way.
In the video the narrator introduces Briffa’s letter with: “and then a miracle happened”. This is exactly the phrase which was used on the Climate Audit thread to ‘introduce’ the Climategate e-mails…
Steve: I noticed that as well and might do a post on it.
If Briffa and Mann both say there is no problem, why ask anyone else? 😉
It is utterly astonishing that someone could write six pages on the Crutape Letters, including an extended section on the hockey stick, and never mention the Medieval Warm Period. Climate skeptics do not deny science. Neither do they deny history, unlike
The Team.
Antidisestablishuniformitarianism.
===================
The hypothesis I get out of this is that attempting to explain away the CRU emails (and the increasing skeptism of the teams claims of science)does not work. Defending the indefensible only shows one up as a fool or zealot.However like the charges of plagerism against Wegman, claims of motive against the effective questioners of the teams theology tends to cause home goals, as the bewilderment apparent in the authors work usually causes some of their readers to inquire at the source and people who actually read the emails tend toward increasingly sceptical attitudes. And Steve McIntyres behavior is such a contrast to the “official”consensus experts that people will take notice.
There is a certain problem with the argument that the proxy is not a valid proxy for temperature because it doesn’t match current temperatures. If only the proxies that match current temperatures are accepted, then it could still be the case that those proxies are not valid either. You are simply weeding out the ones that show the picture you want.
Your argument makes no logical sense. An apple which is rotten on the outside could still be a good apple inside because an apple which is good on the outside could be rotten on the inside?
The video on Mother Jones missed the point completely because their “investigator” did not understand the concepts behind paleo reconstructions. A “proxy” isn’t automatically proxy for anything just because someone says so. For something to be a valid proxy for temperature, it should at the minimum satisfy all of the following three principles:
1. There must be valid scientific and physical evidence to believe that the proxy is capable of carrying information about extant temperatures where it is located.
2. It should demonstrate (through validation) that it can produce that information when the actual local temperatures for which it is a proxy are available.
3. The relationship between the proxy and the temperatures should remain constant throughout the lifetime of the proxy.
If any one of these principles is not satisfied, you just have a string of numbers, not a proxy, and the situation becomes open to spurious correlations and cherry-picking.
In the case of “hide the decline” (post 1960s end), the proxy failed the second of these principles. No scientifically based justification for this has been produced (only vague arm waving) and to believe that the proxy contained valid information, we now have to violate the third principle as well and assume without proper evidence that the proxy is valid during the time period when the actual temperatures were not measurable.
The real problem is with the argument that “the proxy is
nota valid proxy for temperaturebecausedespite the fact that it doesn’t match current temperatures”. Pinning the “temperature record” tail on this donkey cannot convert it into a thoroughbred proxy race-horse.Roman —
I think MikeN may simply be cautioning against cherry picking in his last 2 sentences, and therefore basically agreeing with you, even if his first sentence comes off wrong. A proxy has to correlate with temperature throughout in order to be valid, but that in itself does not make it valid, if it was cherry-picked from a much bigger set of similar series that didn’t correlate.
Hu, it was his first sentence that set the tone of the comment for me. The rest of it did not justify that it seemed acceptable to assume (without substantial evidence) that the remainder of the series could be OK and that was the point of my response.
IMHO, the avoidance of “cherry picking” is one of using proper statistical methodology to extract the temperature information from the proxies. I agree with you wholeheartedly that when the methodology is misused (as in opportunistically choosing only proxies which correlate with some temperatures – upside down or otherwise), the validity of the result can indeed be in serious question.
Yes I was referring to cherry picking, that it is just another form of Mann 08, made even worse because you are also weeding out proxies with a high medieval warm period, like Polar Urals.
In short, 2 plus 2 is not equal to 4 if your motives are suspect. And, 2 plus 2 can be equal to something other than 4 if your motives are perceived as being pure. Sigh. Time to read Alice in Wonderland again. It is a very well written article judged by how persuasive it seems – if one does not try to check the accuracy of numerous statements in it.
Kate Sheppard’s article seems spot on and your response seems to follow exactly the “logic” it highlights – you don’t address the point, you put words into the mouths of opponents, you cherry pick and obfuscate by bringing the argument to an unrelated “point of strength” you think you have. I do, though, enjoy the irony.
http://mitigatingapathy.blogspot.com/
Hi – welcome to one of the best science blogs on the net.
In case you were wondering, within these numerous pages you will find amazingly detailed analysis of both the original hockey stick and its many siblings. Curiously the mantra of the day is that “numerous studies have backed up the original claim” – but a studier of these pages will be familiar with the phrase “you have to watch the pea” – because slight of hand reigns supreme with these repeat analysis’.
What do I mean? Well there are in fact a few dogdy proxies [not just bristlecones] and to establish the “verified” conclusion there is always one of them in play. It was therefore somewhat gratifying to have Gavin acknowledge that without these few special cases, there was no statistically sound temperature analysis going back before 1400AD.
Being a studier of this issue, I guess you probably already knew that. These pages would also make you aware that a great majority of these same kinds of proxies have a pronounced MWP – but of course the verification studies never give weight to any of these – despite their equal validity.
So you may have been a little bit quick to object to the comments here – since it is generally assumed that folk coming here would be across the pages of analysis already performed.
However, you may have just dropped in to tag your web site – so I went and had a quick look. It appears to be very pessimistic – and given the predictions of the models versus the real time freezing that many are experiencing, it is highly likely that pessimism will continue to prevail amongst believers.
But good for you – at least you can make a business out of it in the mean time.
Aggh – irony.
You know Paul it is probably because the points have been addressed ad nauseum on this blog. If you’re new to it avail yourself of the extensive library of posts that go over the points in minute detail. If you’re not sure where to start just ask I’m sure there will be many willing hands to help you through the process. And I’m not being sarcastic, the points are well known on this blog and have been addressed time and time again avail yourself of the opportunity.
I noticed in the comments that Steve McIntyre is only know by references from people who have made their acquaintance with him in realclimate.com. Many seemed to be of the opinion that this blog is challenging the CAGW theory. It’s always best to get your info first hand. Here’s your opportunity.
Geronimo,
thanks for the help. My comments are directly related (and address the point)to both articles, which I have read in detail, so no more context is required, but thanks for the suggestion. Maybe addressing the points in detail would be of more help to me, as saying they have been addressed (or worse – debunked) is another such strategy. I read the blog from time to time, but have not felt that I would contribute anything otherwise.
http://mitigatingapathy.blogspot.com/
Re: paul haynes (Apr 22 05:47),
You just said zilch. Try us. Present a particular (with an actual quotation)statement by Steve McIntyre with which you disagree. Then state in some detail just what you disagree with about it. If you have the moxey, make it a statement relating to the science behind the Climate Change meme. Then we can engage in a civilized, if spirited, discussion.
Absolutely! What Dave said.
OK, worth a challenge – We have to wait until sentence 2 (although it would’ve been sentence 1 if he had used a semi-colon before the word “however”:
“the headline is another unscientific fantasy”
The headline: How climate science became the target of “the best-funded, best-organized smear campaign by the wealthiest industry that the Earth has ever known.”
wealthiest industry in the world – the fossil fuel industry but we might include their primary dependents for their role in funding (Oil, coal, gas, nuclear and the car industry etc) so this seems true.
Well organised, well funded smear campaign – yes again – climategate (in which the scientists were exhonerated of blame) forms only one tiny part of the lobbying against and hounding of the IPCC, Mann, Jones in particular and peer reviewed climate science in general.
The claim is made here:
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/thinktanks-take-oil-money-and-use-it-to-fund-climate-deniers-1891747.html
Just two examples:
Mercatus center: ($9.2m received from Koch grants 2005-2008) Conservative thinktank at George Mason University. This group suggested in 2001 that global warming would be beneficial in winter and at the poles. In 2009 they recommended that nothing be done to cut emissions.
Americans for prosperity. ($5.17m). Have built opposition to clean energy and climate legislation with events across US through disinformation.
The headline is not, therefore another unscientific fantasy, but based on evidence.
You’re welcome!
Holy cow! Come back to reality man.
Scientists exonerated of blame by a manifestly incomptent panel of pals. After deep digging they are able to come up with a couple of examples of oil funding that represent but a rounding error compared to the amounts flowing to the alarmist camp. And to top it off, the article you cite throws McIntyre’s picture at the top, oh, not directly saying it to be sure, but implying as hard as they possibly can that he is in the pay of big oil.
The headline is nothing but fantasy. But you’ve demonstrated that the tactic works — some folks uncritically swallow it hook, line and sinker.
No, exonerated of blame by there not being a case (inuendo doesn’t count) according to an independent council at UEA. This is the banal reality of climategate. Those who wish to bring a civil action are clear to do so.
I think hundreds of millions of dollars is hardly pocket change (but you are right – not much to fossil fuel interests in lobbying, which is why they spend the money so wisely). I do not imply anyone is in the pay, I actually give 2 clear examples of millions of dollars spent by one organisation and why, and an article detailing more. I use evidence to support my case – your evidence please. Thought not.
Re: paul haynes (Apr 22 09:44),
The fantasy of which Steve speaks is not that the oil industry has funded some think tanks and organizations that challenge AGW. Everyone knows they do that. The fantasy is the claim that the roots of skepticism lie in the gullibility of the masses to the persuasive appeal of the right wing think tanks who are heavily funded by said oil industry.
While it is true that some skeptics are predisposed to their beliefs by virtue of their prior conservative political commitments, perhaps influenced by the rhetoric of the right wing think tanks, the roots of skepticism lie much deeper. It lies predominantly in the appalling lack of scientific transparency and the deliberate obfuscation practiced by certain elements of the climate science community. It is reinforced when review panels called upon to carefully investigate the climategate e-mails produce glowing exonerations without having had the decency to actually investigate the claims of wrongdoing (e.g. FOIA e-mail deletions). It is further reinforced when an MJ fact checker commissioned to find out the meaning of “hide the decline” reports a “miracle” when none other than Keith Briffa comes along to assuage her confused condition with some psuedo-scientific bafflegab. You might think that in an article the prominently features Steve McIntyre, the fact checker might have consulted with him regarding the meaning of the decline? Nah, that would be too much like objective reporting.
Point 1 the two are inextricably related, but not just think tanks but a wide range of lobby groups and campaigns, not all of which is funded by fossil fuel, but the backbone and talking points are generated by such interests (in multiple forms) by framing the issue to different consituencies very well (a la Karl Rove). Point 2, your second paragraph is exactly the type of argument developed by said talking points. It is dishonest to claim that the climate scientists are guilty of something without any real evidence. The FOI requests, as you will know were generated as part of an orchestrated campaign. Deleting emails was an error of judgement, based on (as it turned out justified) suspicion of the intentions of skeptics but the real crime was hacking computers, as the UEA concluded. So, to sum up – who is undermining science, the interests who benefit from challenging those who show the need to take action, or the scientists who are, lets face it, not very good at PR and don’t usually think about the public perceptions of their abstract and lofty views. I know who I think are to blame. Its a complex story, though, I agree.
It’s always amusing when someone new shows up on this site and makes unfounded statements like this. For whatever other purpose it may serve, CA has consistently, throughout its history, provided substantial real evidence of scientific malfeasance by certain climate scientists. Take time to read the history.
As for FOIA e-mail deletions, this is not merely an “error in judgement”. It was an illegal activity. And for what it’s worth, Phil Jones’ call for deletion of e-mails was completely unrelated to the so-called “orchestrated campaign” to obtain CRU international agreements, predating the latter by a year.
And as far as “real evidence” is concerned, perhaps you can provide some “real evidence” that the UEA computers were hacked. Do you know something that the rest of the world does not know?
“The FOI requests, as you will know were generated as part of an orchestrated campaign.”
The campaign was largely organized by the very people to whom you are addressing. The very people whose arguments you dismiss simply because of hypothetical association with corporations that you apparently demonize. Have you no concern of how very foolish you are if, perchance, you are wrong? Have you no concern that you might be prejudiced? Have you no shame?
I learned long ago that those quick to attribute nefarious motives to others are usually projecting their personal experiences or practices. So one wonders, why are you here? Of whom are you in the pay of, or otherwise obliged to?
Re: paul haynes (Apr 22 12:37)
Yes, an orchestrated campaign to get at the truth.
In response to an orchestrated campaign to hide the truth.
If Jones and Mann et al had even scrap of honesty and integrity, they would have published their code and data up front, without having to be asked. And then no FOI requested would have been needed.
I missed this point the other day. The sense I get is that even before climategate, climate science centres in the UK were annoyed that they were being asking for information as a ploy and to waste their time and partly to (dishonestly in their view) discredit the science by any means necessary. Climategate confirmed these fears for many. My view is that as much information should be made available as possible, but this will require trust. You won’t get trust until the perception that dishonestly recycling of debunked ideas is an acceptable practice by sceptics. Hence my view that engagement is crucial – if the name callers on both sides are marginalised, some useful debates are to be had. I think some of Judith Curry’s blog comments have been really helpful in the past year.
Steve: the people in question have put out all sorts of disinformation. Mann provided data to Briffa, described by Mann as his “dirty laundry” and provided to Briffa because he could “trust” Briffa. If people publish articles and are obligated to provide supporting data as a condition of publication or grants, then I or others are entitled to ask for it and it should be provided.
Like you, I strongly disapprove anyone “dishonestly recycling debunked ideas” by “skeptics” or anyone else. However, to my knowledge, there is no evidence that any “skeptics” who sought data from CRU fell into that category. Do you have any such evidence? If not, please withdraw this allegation.
“the perception that dishonestly recycling of debunked ideas is an acceptable practice by sceptics”
The perception.
I think what I’ve said is really clear (I worry that such a basic misunderstanding can be made by those who imply that they have expertise in auditing texts).
Do you not think the perception exists?
I base my view that the perception does exist on conversations and questions in presentations from these very climate scientists.
If the perception DOES exist, the key question is how can the perception be changed to enable a better understanding.
The rationale behind the FOI act was to ensure that UK tax payers know how UK taxes are spent, according to the Labour Party Manifesto, which is slightly different from the reality of the requests made, although the rights you mentioned did indeed become law. In MY view, science should publish as much supporting data as possible and as such there would be no need for FOI requests at all, hence the perception point I mentioned.
Steve:
Let’s deal with the “perception” then. Two points.
Climategate defenders have all too often concocted delusional fantasies about the history. A good example is the fantasy that climate scientists had spent years burdened with FOI requests – a fantasy promulgated by Nature. Yes, there were many FOI requests in late July 2009, but these did not cause data refusals in 2005 or 2006. Nor were they a burden.
I asked you for any evidence of “dishonestly recycling of debunked ideas” by “skeptics” and you provided none, saying that this was merely a belief held by scientists, who, in my opinion, have delusions on other points.
It is the responsibility of the people holding the opinions to do so rationally. I see no reason why people should defer to such delusions. And without criticizing the scientists for their delusions, you say (in your voice) that the onus lies on the innocent parties to rebuild “trust” with the offenders. You say: “My view is that as much information should be made available as possible, but this will require trust.”
I disagree in the strongest possible terms and am astonished that you support such a standard. It is not up to the Climategate scientists to decide who they “trust.” If they publish articles in journals with public money, they are obliged to comply with data availability standards of the journals, the funding agencies and the scientific community. There is very little public sympathy for Climategate scientists refusing data. It’s not the requesters that you should be admonishing.
Re: paul haynes (Apr 22 09:44),
Let us begin:
Frankly I’d never heard of them before, but looking at the Wikipedia article on them I see they’ve had several names over the years (not that I recall the others either.) I note that their founder was formerly the head of the Koch Family Foundation so it’s hardly surprising that there’d remain a connection between the two. One thing you didn’t show is what % of their total budget comes from the Kochs and more importantly, what % of it is used to support climate skeptic positions (and how).
Next, I went to the center’s webpage (which is linked from the Wikipedia page.) I thought I’d see what sort of books, articles, etc. they produced concerning climate science. I searched a dozen or so pages of lists of such publications and didn’t find a single one which had a title indicating it was concerned with global warming or the like. Perhaps some of them do mention it as part of a larger subject such as how regulation effects the economy, but if you have a particular item in mind I’d appreciate a link. Otherwise all the publications appear to be concerned with economics and markets as the name of the center would indicate. BTW, I’d expect most people here would agree with both of the positions you attributed to the Mercatus Center,though some (possibly including our host)might not.
I also note that neither of the two positions you cite occur in the same time period as the grants you report (not that I’d expect that they didn’t get Koch grants then too,) so if you’re trying to create some cause and effect relationship, this isn’t a very good way to go about it.
In summary, the first of your refs doesn’t seem to support your position. You might be able to punch it up, but you’re going to have to be more quantitative and specific.
There are others that were funded during the period 2005-2008:
Institute for humane studies ($1.96m). Several prominent climate sceptics have positions here, including Fred Singer and Robert Bradley.
Heritage foundation ($1.62m). Conservative thinktank leads US opposition to climate change science.
Cato Insitute ($1.02m). Thinktank disputes science behind climate change and questions the rationale for taking action.
Manhattan Institute ($800,000). This institute regularly publishes climate science denials.
Washington legal foundation ($655,000) Published articles on the business threats posed by regulation of climate change.
Federalist society for law ($542,000) advocates inaction on global warming
mentioned in the same article. The question is what are they doing for their money? I’m sure there are loads of other organisations, not necessarily in the pay of any specific interest, busy in leveraging doubt where they can, but unless I find evidence, I’ll let it pass onto someone who knows about this stuff.
“Frankly I’d never heard of them before” and who had heard of David Axelrod before 2004?
So, what has any of this to do with climategate?
Steve’s point in the post (which you managed to completely miss) is that climategate and the blogs that broke it have nothing to do with these lists of money you are producing. And yet despite this, climategate achieved more for the sceptical viewpoint than any of that funding you listed and was primarily caused by the behaviour of advocate scientists.
If you want to improve communications about climate change, as your blog strapline suggests, perhaps you should learn that secretive advocacy amongst scientists can cause much, much more damage than all the money the oil industry can hurl at an issue.
If you don’t learn this lesson – to make sure your own house is in order before flinging mud at others – then you are destined to make the same mistakes over and over again.
Re: paul haynes (Apr 22 12:47),
As Spence stated, what’s this got to do with climategate? More importantly, why are you trying to muddy the waters when I asked for specific pieces of information. We need to find out how much of the funding of a given organization comes from energy firms and what percent of the work of a particular organization goes to opposing the climate change groups.
You started with one particular organization and I want to pursue it to some conclusion.
This blog is not about just about climategate, but about comments made on another blog, which I responded to. Climategate is not just the analysis of hacked emails or the FOI requests, it encompasses lots of paid and unpaid PR – that is the point Steve dismisses. I am disagreeing with Steve and I use some evidence that there is a lot of lobby money which maybe it would be helpful to find out what it is used for. That is what I am adding. As for getting houses in order, maybe hacking the emails of dodgy right wing lobby groups and campaign groups or “think tank” as they like to be called could settle the argument once and for all. I don’t doubt the integrity of sceptical climate scientists, and I don’t doubt the integrity of Steve, but I do doubt the honesty of fossil fuel interests. Don’t you?
In reply to Paul Haynes’ comment. You say this is about “comments on another blog”.
How convenient. Once your error is pointed out, you move the goalposts.
Let’s remember where this started. You claimed that Steve’s comment above, claiming linkage between climategate and oil money being an “unscientific fantasy” was an error. Now you are suddenly responding to some other comment on some other blog? (If you mean the Mother Jones article, that is also quite clearly about climategate)
There is no evidence to support a linkage between climategate and oil money. Of course the think tanks ran with it, as Steve has eloquently explained, in the same way Greenpeace and WWF run with every snippet of news that supports their case. But climategate was primarily about climate scientists behaving as policy advocates. Unless you believe Phil Jones was a plant from the oil industry, there is no possible linkage between oil money and climategate, except in your somewhat overactive imagination.
Institute for humane studies ($1.96m). Several prominent climate sceptics have positions here, including Fred Singer and Robert Bradley.
Heritage foundation ($1.62m). Conservative thinktank leads US opposition to climate change science.
“Cato Insitute ($1.02m). Thinktank disputes science behind climate change and questions the rationale for taking action.
Manhattan Institute ($800,000). This institute regularly publishes climate science denials.
Washington legal foundation ($655,000) Published articles on the business threats posed by regulation of climate change.
Federalist society for law ($542,000) advocates inaction on global warming”
Quite telling. You haven’t contributed *anything* here remotely related to science. All you seem capable of is decrying the hypothetical affiliation of authors, however tenuous, partial or speculative, with political organizations with whom you disagree. Your “philosophy” of science is self evidently that all science is subordinated to special interests, and all that matters is the politics of those interests. How uselessly postmodern of you.
You have nothing to contribute here.
On THIS particular article and comments, I haven’t seen much science flying around. I am an enemy of postmodernism, which you are not conceptualising correctly AND the view you ascribe to me is exactly the opposite of my view. This is the argument I am disagreeing with here – I think anti-science, for lack of a better word is derived from interests. It is curious how you could get things so wrong when ALL my details are in the public domain.
Re: paul haynes (Apr 22 12:47)
The amounts that the Cato Institute and others spend on climate research, are utterly insignificant compared to the what government spends – all the climate science departments and laboratries of all the universities. Something like a $billion for every $million everyone else spends.
This is done with taxpayers’ money, virtually all of it going to promote its own vested interest, ie a belief in CAGW – thereby paving the way for untold $trillions of more taxes it.
Paul, so far I’ve counted about $23 Million over several years which *might* have been related to climate change. In the same period, the AGW industry has received several BILLION (Yes, correct Billions of $) from a combination of government and industry including the highly conflicted reinsurance industry as well as a number of oil companies. Add to that the $ Millions provided by George Soros to various organizations that propagandize AGW, and there’s simply no comparison.
Even if your thesis that the “Bad guys du jour” (aka the Koch Brothers) are providing funds towards “denialism”, a thesis you simply have provided no proof for at all other than a series of allegations, that amount is utterly insignificant (in the order of 0.1%) of that provided to the AGW industry.
You need to ask yourself, if $20-30 million can have such an impact, why can’t $20-30 billion over the same period have the same impact ? Why indeed, are all the pro-AGW people THAT incompetent ?
its not 20 million its much higher, but we will never know how much as there is no transparency in “consultancy” or “promotion” or charitable trust giving, or directorships.
The research funding given by research councils, is to pay for research, not promote disinformation. Doing real research isn’t as cheap as making stuff up. University overheads or industry R&D subsidise things like teaching, PhD support or specialist equipment, conferences etc. The accounts of university departments are avialable to assess, so no need for a FOI request to see what the money is spent on.
Paul says-
“The research funding given by research councils, is to pay for research, not promote disinformation.”
So only the people you agree with are doing research while others are only promoting disinformation? That’s interesting, please tell us more.
Also Paul you need to understand thoroughly that which you reference, namely-
“Climate change research has the potential to change the way different organisations conduct themselves, make policy and change behaviour from the individual to the largest corporation and government in the world.”
No problem for any of us with that but immediately it’s a fundamental question of the veracity of that climate change research, before you go merrily jumping off into all that potential they speak of and how best to engage us all with it. That’s the missing link for so many here.
Elsewhere you need to look for all the obvious failed policy potential so far, but many here would say if you don’t build policy on solid scientific foundations what outcomes could you reasonably expect?
Observa – Both points you make are good, and I like the poetic language. One point, though, is that there might be an infinite regress with missing links, i.e. the link that links two former missing links needs to be demonstrated, and so on. I’m writing a book chapter on policies, so I’m doing some research on this and I agree with the point that there have been failures and contradictions and there needs to be a more coherent basis for policy. I agree 100% with your final point, without good science, the reason for the policy might be problematic. I think the IPCC has made mistakes, but in my view there is lots of excellent science to justify addressing key risks (and that suggest the costs of not doing so).
I’m not a scientist, so I never comment on the technical details of science research (instead I do research on the philosophy of science, so feel I can contribute there) but I work closely with some of the leading climate scientists in the UK (hence I know Steve’s work through the climategate debates my Tyndall colleagues were involved with) and accept their integrity, as they are generally very careful in not exagerating their claims. This is my basis for my view of the science. I do, however see the value of communities of thinkers collectively contributing to make theb science better, and the arguments better stated and, in this regard, I think blogs like Steve’s could play a really useful role. THIS article, though does not address Kate’s criticism very well.
http://mitigatingapathy.blogspot.com/
Policies on sand,
Uncertain of foundation,
Radiate unknowns.
===========
do nothing today
as uncertain foundations
problems guarenteed
===========
Risks ARE, statistically, generalities.
The only act we have seen is an act of negligence.
Paul,
I disagree. Risks are specifically identified. You probably mean fear of the unknown.
And you are back to generalities again with your second sentence. (“We”) Could you please be more specific about the negligence you are referring to? Date, time, issue, behavior, etc?
Andrew
unknown unknowns and all that. Risks can only be assessed over a population of events. The “we” is the population as a whole.
Paul you say-
“I do research on the philosophy of science, so feel I can contribute there” and-
“THIS article, though does not address Kate’s criticism very well.”
Well with Steve’s indulgence let me proffer an alternative t
snip – sorry. blog policy against attempts to proe/disprove AGW in a few paragraphs
Can anyone tell me all the proxy sources Mann used for his hockey stick construction? I know the bristle cones he used were highly controversial according to an article published by Natuurwetenschp & Teechniek: “Kyoto Based Flawed Protocol on Statistics”
Also, did Briffa use many of the same proxies?
So Paul you do not know anything about the science or lack of it exhibited by the ” Climate Scientists ” but just took their word and made a post here about Steve. In short you had no clue of what you were talking about except for blind faith and belief. Quite a few of us here have read the science, read all sides of the debate and understood who is wrong and who is right. You might do everyone a favour and either read about what you are talking or just keep shut.
You might follow your own blog title and mitigate your apathy for facts.
Ventor, I should make myself clear (I left the link there so you could find out who I am and where my argument comes from knowing that I work EVERY DAY with climate scientists) – I READ the science, I am INFORMED about the science BUT I’m not a climate scientist. I am someone who does research IN WHAT SCIENTISTS ACTUALLY DO and as such I am qualified to talk about what is being done in the name of science or the scientific method; however, I have also studied logic, so I am qualified, in this capacity, to discuss the way an argument is structured, which in fact IS WHAT I DID.
I love facts and I will search your post again to try to find one. Here is the link in case you missed it:
http://mitigatingapathy.blogspot.com/
Firstly, PLEASE STOP SHOUTING. Secondly, please state the exact quotation from Steve McIntyre with which you disagree, and provide a detailed and referenced logical (since you are apparently well-versed in logic) argument which completely destroys his argument. On this blog, a html link promoting your own blog will not suffice. Many readers here will not grant you the hits. If you wish to engage in meaningful discussion then please provide some information of interest which counters the arguments put forward in this blog, otherwise please just go troll somewhere less important.
Paul
First, get that promo for your blog off when you are posting on another person’s blog. It is discourteous. I don’t care what you studied or read and I’ll judge based upon how you act and talk. As of now you are not practicing the basic decencies while posting in another blog.
You haven’t given a single reason for your statement about Steve and it totally lacks logic, information and content. In short it is an empty statement backed by nothing except your vanity. Put up or shut up.
in case you missed it – here is the “put up”:
We have to wait until sentence 2 (although it would’ve been sentence 1 if he had used a semi-colon before the word “however” to find something that I dsagree with:
“the headline is another unscientific fantasy”
The headline: How climate science became the target of “the best-funded, best-organized smear campaign by the wealthiest industry that the Earth has ever known.”
wealthiest industry in the world – the fossil fuel industry but we might include their primary dependents for their role in funding (Oil, coal, gas, nuclear and the car industry etc) so this seems true.
Well organised, well funded smear campaign – yes again – climategate (in which the scientists were exhonerated of blame) forms only one tiny part of the lobbying against and hounding of the IPCC, Mann, Jones in particular and peer reviewed climate science in general.
The claim is made here:
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/thinktanks-take-oil-money-and-use-it-to-fund-climate-deniers-1891747.html
Just two examples:
Mercatus center: ($9.2m received from Koch grants 2005-2008) Conservative thinktank at George Mason University. This group suggested in 2001 that global warming would be beneficial in winter and at the poles. In 2009 they recommended that nothing be done to cut emissions.
Americans for prosperity. ($5.17m). Have built opposition to clean energy and climate legislation with events across US through disinformation.
The headline is not, therefore another unscientific fantasy, but based on evidence.
I hope this addresses your question. Apologies for not responding to each point but I’m on holiday today and trying not to distract myself from writing.
As for not caring about what I studied, an earlier criticism I had was that I didn’t understand the science, so I had to explain the context of what I did understand.
Your linked article is dated 7-Feb-2010. Please.
“The emails reveal that the CRU was also trying to get money from oil giants British Petroleum and Exxon-Mobil, under its former identity as Esso.”
Mr Haynes, you are a member of “the-team” at the Cambridge Center of Climate Change Mitigation Research.
http://sites.google.com/site/4cmrhome/the-team
According to the climategate emails Cambridge was to receive 40 million $US from British Petroleum. It appears the only one here soaking in oil money is you.
Great find. He’s leads their astroturfing efforts. You’re arguing with a paid lobbyist which is worse than a waste of time. He’s a professional troll.
“Dr. Haynes leads the 4CMR efforts in stakeholder engagement…”
Re: Bob Moss (Apr 23 10:52),
Yes, with his PhD in Sociology, he is their “Communications Manager” which I would interpret as the PR person. he has all of the qualifications necessary for trolldom.
Yes with my PhD in the sociology of innovation, which looks at how technology is actually used by people and organisations, and impacts on social change, I work on a model that looks at, among other things, how technology emerges and is used. I’m paid to do research. I also explain complex economic and sociological issues to policy makers. Your interpretation as PR person would be off the mark. Great find as I actually posted a link to my department to avoid these misunderstanding. Cambridge University publishes its accounts, so any information can be found even without an FOI request.
Paul,
You seem to know quite a bit about funding by fossil fuel interests. I think it’s a red herring but you spent a lot of time on it in your comments here.
So let’s follow your line of reasoning.
You are a staff member of Cambridge University’s 4CMR. I assume that as the Centre’s Communications and Networking Manager you know about its funding.
BP’s Robert Dudley said in his Tsinghua speech *):
“BP also funds work at Cambridge University in energy policy …”
1. Do you know how much it is and what percentage of these BP funds does your 4CMR team receive?
2. Are there any other fossil fuel interests funding your work?
*) 15 Nov 2009 at the founding of the Low Carbon Energy Alliance between Tsinghua, MIT and Cambridge
Click to access RWD_TCMA_speech_as_spoken.pdf
http://news.tsinghua.edu.cn/publish/newsen/6054/2011/20110110110604761101518/20110110110604761101518_.html
Re: “How climate science became the target of the best-funded, best-organized smear campaign by the wealthiest industry that the Earth has ever known.”
This article by Jo Nova should put to rest the argument about which side in the climate debate is getting the most funding:
http://joannenova.com.au/2009/07/massive-climate-funding-exposed/
“Billions in the Name of Climate”
“In total, over the last 20 years, by the end of fiscal year 2009, the US government will have poured in $32 billion for climate research and another $36 billion for development of climate-related technologies. These are actual dollars, obtained from government reports, and not adjusted for inflation. It does not include funding from other governments. The real total can only grow.”
And this is just in the U.S. – one could only imagine what the totals from other countries would amount to…
And please don’t get me started on why we (in the U.S.) would give millions of STIMULUS FUND dollars to the climate elites to spend in 2009 while our economy suffered through the worst recession in recent memory…
“And this is just in the U.S. – one could only imagine what the totals from other countries would amount to…”
Japan – $78 Billion in six years.
http://www.businessinsider.com/japan-global-warming-2011-2
This is money that researchers like Jones (via the US DOE) and Santer benefit from, as well as many other climate scientists, I’m sure.
The story even makes pretzels envious. This Mother Jones piece is to assuage the faithful who refuse to see the blinding light as it penetrates through their thin eyelids.” Sheppard portrays Steve as a troublemaker who is only nitpicking in details when in fact he has found the hockey sticks’s huge death knell methodology errors.
The Mother Jones piece is a whitewash for those who refuse to open their eyes.
I read the first page of 6 to this point:
Then I simply quit. What a watermelon she is! Openly hostile? Mr. McIntyre is the epitome of patient, discreet inquiry. I have never read a hostile word penned by his goodself.
Kate Sheppard seems to assume she is writing for an audience who have never read anything but the ‘Chicken Little’ fantasies in the MSM and is trying to shock them with a very partial version of what she sees as the truth. She needs to read the entire parable of Chicken Little as she might find it contains a truth she has not considered.
Thanks Steve for bringing this to my attention. I agree with Bishop Hill’s “not too bad, considering the source” and Steve’s “relatively measured terms”. Unlike others, I didn’t find a piece coming from a different viewpoint so hard that I couldn’t make it through to the end. (They call us bigots. Some people seem to revel in describing their reading habits in a way that makes that all the more plausible. Have never quite seen the point. By all means fail to finish. But why the need to ventilate?)
Indeed, I felt rewarded near the end by this statement:
And this jaw-dropper:
Another way to summarise: Leviathan is dying but inevitably it’s taking a while to do so.
For me Kate Sheppard deserves praise for the clarity of both these passages. It’s right for us to criticise the Climategate inquiries in the minutest detail – and Sheppard is quite wrong to take them at face value. But she gets the big picture exactly right. None of the exonerations mattered.
Likewise the reporter should never have parroted “the current acceleration of climate change” but explained who said this, followed by her detailed questioning of what on earth they meant by it. Even so, it’s fascinating to have this sneak preview into IPCC 2013. Even worse than we thought, as they say.
“The communications work will only get harder in the years to come.” You can say that again. Or you could try something radical: openness, transparency, admitting faults and a warm welcome for those who have helped you spot them. That would convince me.
Brilliant
As regards openness and transparency : the next IPCC report should exclude referencing any papers that lack full disclosure. Or at the very least highlight those lack full disclosure, flagging them as unreliable.
In this context it’s worth reminding people of (or drawing their attention to) Nick Barnes’ blog post entitled “Opening up the IPCC“, which became a submission to the IAC on 29th June 2010. You’ll notice some familiar names among the signatories and passing mention of an organisation you may not have heard of, the Open Climate Initiative. The irony being that when Nick chose to canvas support and submit this to the IAC without feedback from the rest of us then involved in OCI – a rather remarkable balance of sceptics and others at that point – it came to spell the death of OCI. And OCI was the openness movement for climate science that was willing, among other things, to mention Steve McIntyre and his pioneering role in this area. It’s not clear that what came later has quite had the cojones for that. But it’s still worth looking over what was written then. I was certainly very willing to sign. And since Kurt Kleiner published his summary of the open science movement for climate in Nature Climate Science a few weeks ago – not mentioning Steve, despite all he said to me in the long telephone interview we did – I’ve been thinking it’s about time I gave my perspective. But I’m still mulling that over.
Re: Richard Drake (Apr 23 05:29)
What would be needed to restart the OCI?
Could one not just start with website that listed all papers referenced by the IPCC, with an asterisk next to the unreliable ones (ie that lack full disclosure) ?
And some totals at the the end, indicating what percenage of the papers are unreliable?
One way to view it is that OCI is Climate Audit, Climate Etc and the rest. Without the balance of sceptics and non-sceptics we had in London in June 2010 (with admirable help from Georgia from one J. Curry) OCI lost a good deal of its raison-d’etre. But the sub-project you describe is a good one. And I’ve promised Bishop Hill an article both telling my side of the tale and presenting another initiative that, for me, flows directly out of it. Stay tuned.
In response to those who requested evidence for my assertion that climate change is accelerating and becoming ever more dangerous, here is a recent piece from Dr. Hansen of NASA:
http://climateprogress.org/2011/04/20/hansen-sea-level-rise-faustian-aerosol-bargain/
I get my information from climate scientists, about 98% of whom are extremely concerned about ice melt, extreme weather events, ecosystem disruption, and feedback loops.
It’s America, so those who assign dark motivations to climate researchers are entitled to their opinions. I humbly suggest that you do the work of studying the science, including in book form. You will then conclude that burning vast quantities of coal and gas, living profligate lifestyles, and ignoring solid scientific evidence is suicidal- for all of us.
Just because Hansen says sea level rise and climate change are accelerating, it does not become fact nor is it “evidence”. Temperatures have levelled off as Trenberth acknowledged. Ice melt in the Arctic is not accelerating. One of the problems with reading Romm is you get statements, not proof.
Paul Haynes:
I read your very first comment last night and reread it this morning and I’m afraid that in search of brevity you risk mutual incomprehension.
Did you respond to Steve McIntyre or to specific commenters or to everyone as a “community”? Steve’s own post was very brief and said so. Yours was even shorter.
If you were responding to Steve directly please elaborate on:
“you don’t address the point” – what was “the point” of Kate’s article he did not address?
“you put words into the mouths of opponents” – where did he do it?
“you cherry pick and obfuscate” – where?
“bringing the argument to an unrelated ‘point of strength’ – what is the imagined “point of strength” you have in mind?
Also, please note that while I am not shy to make fun of foolish arguments I am not attacking what you said. I genuinely do not understand what you are saying.
It’s clear that you agree that the whole debate in general—and this blog in particular—benefit from better mutual understanding.
You may have noticed that Steve and many of the commenters here focus on the quality and handling of data and facts rather than opinions. We may argue about politics till the cows come home and sometimes it’s a lot of fun but it rarely gets us anywhere. Scientific data and methods provide a better field to get some results.
Steve and some commenters pointed out that the article— besides some obvious bias and innuendo—shows some very basic misunderstanding of the methodological argument in paleoclimatology. I did read your later responses to geronimo, observa and venter but I am not any smarter about what you meant in your original post—other than that you liked Kate’s article and did not like the “response” to it.
You wrote in your follow up posts that your field is the philosophy of science and I am sure you know that some very smart and dedicated scientists fooled themselves in the past in a way that’s nearly incomprehensible in hindsight if one considers the evidence already available at the time.
I assume you agree that while such errors are inevitable and intrinsic to the human condition we should always try to avoid them by focusing on facts and being as clear as possible in our language.
Let’s try to get to the bottom of it.
You may have noticed that Steve and many of the commenters here focus on the quality and handling of data and facts rather than opinions.
“It seems to me that the fantasy is an ideological construct that they use to avoid looking into the mirror”
is this data or fact?
You obfuscate now and I think you know it.
My last comment exemplified an error in your conceptualisation of the blog as always fact based/data driven.
1) Example of bfurscation that brings the argument to an unrelated ‘point of strength’
The “deletion of adverse data is not acceptable scientific practice” is not a central plank in Kate’s original article. This strategy is called priming. The cherry picking was illustrated in Kate’s argument, which was not addressed by Steve.
2)The argument – is there a smear campaign against climate science?
The evidence used by steve to sho it isn’t “Jon Stewart saw through the trick, acidly satirizing the disinformation originally put out by Gavin Schmidt”
3) Putting words into the mouths of not one person but “the climate science community”
“this characterization of Climate Audit and other critical climate blogs (WUWT, Jeff Id, Lucia, Bishop Hill) is total fantasy on the part of the climate science community”
or second example, an “acceptable practice” in Team paleoclimatology, implying all paleoclimatologists.
Apologies for my hurried post (earlier and now) but I really have to get back to work now.
My other posts try to add a bit more detail.
Best of luck and thanks for your patience.
Re: paul haynes (Apr 22 11:08),
Paul, this response indicates that you are either ignorant of the history of this long-term discussion, or are being disingenuous. In either case, it calls into question your ability to validly comment on the topic.
For anyone who has been following this, in the context of the climate-related blogosphere, “Team” is a clear reference to “Hockey Team” which is the self-description of the group over at RealClimate. They branded themselves that way many years ago. Sorry, but no other “Team” comes close.
If you don’t know the history, please begin reading this site.
Oh, and if it seems a bit inaccessible, perhaps you could turn your prodigious social media qualifications, and a few percent of your multi-million dollar budget, to index and highlight the discoveries made at this site over the years. That would do more to improve Stakeholder Engagement than anything else I can imagine. After all, Paul you are the one being paid to work on this: nobody related to this site is paid for their efforts here. Understanding who is actually getting funded may help other readers gain a more accurate context for all your claims about funding.
Oh, well said, MrPete. With funding there is perhaps no “big picture” – just individuals, only one of whom is paid to write the things they are writing on this thread. As you say, such a person could be really useful to us, if they really cared about the social media clarity. And we always travel in hope 🙂
I’m not being paid to write on websites (if “work on this” means that) – engaging with people is my idea: I took on the role because as a department we think it is important to make sure that our research is explained to people, rather than half truths and myth. I am paid to conduct research on technological change, which needs to be understood if a model is to explain the effects of innovation and learning on the costs and benefits of specific policy portfolios. To avoid such misunderstanding I posted a link showing who I am, where I work, what I do, what my opinions are, to avoid suhc curious misunderstandings. I happen to think that blogs such as this are useful for understanding each other. One of the problems I have noted is that there is a guilt by association as a short hand of avoiding debate BY BOTH SIDES of the continuum. My argument is not that anyone here is paid, but that some of the talking points I see here are without doubt the disinformation talking points organisations are paid considerable sums of money to promote “Mike’s nature trick” is one obvious example. I think, though, there is value in listening to any new arguments I come across, but emphasis on new.
Re: paul haynes (Apr 24 10:33),
Well, if you want to discover new arguments, this is the place to come to first.
“Mike’s nature trick” may be repeated elsewhere, but CA is where you could have first learned what the various tricks actually were. On this blog, such things aren’t talking points. We’re trying to understand what is actually going on, let the chips fall where they may.
(By the way, I resonate with your focus on better understanding technological change. Happens to be my specialty as well, although I’m not an academic.)
“second example, an “acceptable practice” in Team paleoclimatology, implying all paleoclimatologists”
apologies for not being 100% clear, but I thought the context was obvious: “implying all paleoclimatologists who don’t agree with the sceptic world view”
Paul: Have the climate scientists you work with every day explained the “trick” to you? Have they convinced you that deletion of “adverse” data is acceptable scientific practice?
yes – I know how the word “trick” is used in English in multiple ways. Yes, we do uncertainty analysis. Data splicing can sometimes give insight, sometimes not. The various methodologies can be found in peer reviewed articles.
Steve – however, the trick to hide the decline was not valid methodology. As Jon Stewart observed, it was a trick that had no purpose other than to trick you into not knowing about the decline.
You don’t seem to have answered my question. Do you believe the “trick” in this case, or “data splicing” if you would be more comfortable w/ that, including the deletion of the post-1960 data, was a valid, acceptable practice?
Steve – we’ve been through all this before many times. As you well know “Mike’s Nature trick” has nothing to do with Briffa’s “decline”. There is no “decline” in Mann’s 98 and 99 papers. To intentionally conflate these two separate techniques via the phrase “Mike’s Nature trick” to “hide the decline” clearly a function of “Climategate” misinformation yet again.
The METHOD I was referring to is the assessment of tree-ring density, which IS (obviously) a valid method. Where it falls down is exactly what Jones was talking about in his (illegally hacked) email.
Steve: I’ve clearly distinguished “Keith’s Science trick” from “Mike’s Nature trick”. I’ve carefully analyzed both and scripts have been posted at CA so that people can distinguish precisely what is going on in each case. Neither “trick” can be considered acceptable scientific practice. As I’ve observed before, many readers are too quick to solely blame Mann on Jones’ say-so, when CRU was a greater contributor to hide-the-decline. .
Deletion of adverse data is not an acceptable method. IN my opinion, the continued defence of the indefensible by the climate community has been an error on their part and has worsened the problem.
Steve, my final thought for the day. Yes, indeed yuo have distinguinsed these two things, but your earlier comment just mentioned the word “trick” to which I responded. Sadly we no longer get The Daily Show on TV in the UK. As for the actions of CRU, as far as I know a parliamentory investigation found no wrong doing. No deletion of adverse data occurred (deleting adverse emails is a different issue and was naive but showed no wrong doing either). As for how good individual methods (or methodologies) are, I’ll let peer review sort that one out. At UEA ALL working papers and briefing papers, are peer reviewed and all journal articles are published in peer reviewed form, having already undergone internal reviews to ensure good practice and iron out any potential problems (as I’m sure you know, people like Bob Watson are no push over when it comes to asking for clarity!). Appart from assuming that the entire university is involved in a conspiracy and sacking everyone in CRU and UEA Tyndall, I’m not sure what one thing they can do to convince those with doubts of their integrity. Finally, thanks for taking the time to respond to my (often ill stated) comments – I really appreciate this. Apologies for any misunderstandings on my part.
Steve in VoG mode:
Like many, I’m sure, I learned a lot more about this – what you might call the genealogy of hide-the-decline – from recent posts.
But it does raise the question of what was in Jones’ mind when he talked of Mike’s Nature trick to hide the decline. One thing seems clear: he was using whatever Mann had done in Nature as some kind of justification for what he was about to do for the WMO. But was he so confused that he couldn’t tell the two apart? That seems unlikely. I assume the reference partly reflects the political fact that Mann, though a relative newbie, had come to loom large in this field. But what Jones then did was worse, even less justifiable – though none of it was. So what was he thinking?
Paul:
Re 0) Straw man. I never said “always”. It’s a blog for Pete’s sake but the concept still stands despite a few snarks and jokes. You come here from time to time so you know it.
Re 1) Did we read the same article? Are you saying that “cherry picking” is the “central plank” of Kate’s piece? Is it what you are after?
Re 2) Huh? There is a huge and detailed body of evidence on this blog about “the trick” and other misconduct. Is that the smear? You want it rehashed again in response to an article? Are you suggesting that the few critical blogs engage in “the best-funded, best-organized smear campaign” and it’s upon Steve McIntyre to somehow prove that they don’t? Your argument is incomprehensible to me.
Re 3) So now you say that Steve put words into the collective mouth of the climate science community? Heh.
Kate’s article does make a good point—maybe it could be called a “central plank”—that the catastrophic warmists have lost control of the narrative and the course of public policy.
It seems to me you are trying to mitigate the problem she identified but I’m afraid that you’d have to find time to give it more thought if you want to regain control of the public discourse. Right now it’s not happening.
Thanks for responding and best of luck with the book.
On “Mike’s Nature trick” and “Climategate” misinformation see the above response.
I quoted from the article, so I tried to illustrate the points as clearly as I could.
I agree that the IPCC has lost credibility in the past few years and other (more skeptical) opinions are more influencial in moving the public debate forward.
Anyway, thanks for you kind words – I’m still stuck on the section on framework based standards, so I’d better get back to work. Take care.
snip – too far offtopic
Steve, did Jaeah Lee or Kate Sheppard not consult you about ‘hide the decline’ ?
Steve I hope you make the time to respond to this article in detail because it only has 10,000 or so hits on Google already.
Mr Haynes
It would appear that that “loss of control of the narrative” is worsening while we blog, even the main stream media in the UK is questioning the Oxburgh/Muir Russell inquiries partiality Sunday Telegraph
I suggest you may need to devote more time to your day job
As mentioned, I’m not a PR man – my day job is academic reseach. The Telegraph is a right-wing newspaper with a well known agenda (The Specator has made similar comments). If the Independent calls something into question, it might make me think twice. In the UK the issue is different from the USA, where a key strategy is to cause enough doubt to delay any new energy policies that would limit emissions. In the UK we have legislated emission targets and are part of the EU-ETS, the strategy in the UK involves removing environmental legislation.
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