Don't Play Silly With Science -- Even if You Disagree With It

When hackers released information showing top climate scientists fudged some data and tried to intimidate scientists who oppose their views on climate change, the American media was practically mum. So I'm not
holding my breath for coverage of this latest blip, as reported by the National Post in Toronto:

The UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change misled the press and public into believing that thousands of scientists backed its claims on manmade global warming, according to Mike Hulme, a prominent climate scientist and IPCC insider. The actual number of scientists who backed that claim was "only a few dozen experts," he states in a paper for Progress in Physical Geography, co-authored with student Martin Mahony.

Of course, given that the National Post is misreading what Hulme and Mahony wrote, it's probably best that the blip stay off the screen. The Post has done what many are guilty of -- seizing on one particular
passage in a paper and misinterpreting it badly. Here's what Hulme and Mahony write:

Consensus-making in the IPCC has been largely driven by the desire to communicate climate science coherently to a wide spectrum of policy users -- "to construct knowledge" -- but in so doing communicating uncertainties have been down-played. As Oppenheimer et al remark: "The establishment of consensus by the IPCC is no longer as critical to governments as [is] a full exploration of uncertainty.

Without a careful explanation about what it means, this drive for consensus can leave the IPCC vulnerable to outside criticism. Claims such as "2,500 of the world's leading scientists have reached a consensus that human activities are having a significant influence on climate" are disingenuous. That particular consensus judgment, as are many others in the IPCC reports, is reached only by a few dozen experts in the specific field of detection and attribution studies; other IPCC authors are experts in other fields. But consensus-making can also lead
to criticism for being too conservative, as Hansen has most visibly argued. Was the IPCC AR4 too  conservative in reaching its consensus about future sea-level rise? Many glaciologists and oceanographers think they were, leading to what Hansen attacks as "scientific reticence."

In other words, for the guys who really understand and have unquestionable expertise in human impacts on the global environment (specifically in the field of detection and attribution studies), their numbers are understandably few. But many others with expertise in closely-related fields have studied what these experts have agreed is correct and agree with their assessment. So to say the number of experts who agree that humans are causing climate change is to ignore Hulme and Mahony's entire argument.

What's going on here is that Hulme and Mahony are lamenting past emphasis on consensus-building over efforts to study climate uncertainties. Hulme is against alarmist climate language and believes climate change is a "relative risk, not an absolute [risk]." He's a good, cautious, skeptical scientist who sees the data,  acknowledges that there are serious climate risks that been to be addressed, but also cautions that alarmism and political tomfoolery with climate change will do nothing to fix the problem, given climate research uncertainties. The rest of the paper from which the Post extracted its headline-grabber details research going on into the uncertainties Hulme and Mahony believe need to be studied.

So, shame on the National Post for doing precisely what Hulme and Mahony criticize some climate scientists and politicians for doing: alarmism.

Hulme, of course, is put off by this and many other misinterpretations of what he wrote:

The point of this bit of our article was to draw attention to the need for a more nuanced understanding of what an IPCC 'consensus' is - as I say: "Without a careful explanation about what it means, this drive for consensus can leave the IPCC vulnerable to outside criticism." The IPCC consensus does not mean - clearly cannot possibly mean - that every scientist involved in the IPCC process agrees with every single statement in the IPCC! Some scientists involved in the IPCC did not agree with the IPCC's projections of future sea-level. Giving the impression that the IPCC consensus means everyone agrees with everyone else - as I think some well-meaning but uninformed commentaries do (or have a tendency to do) - is unhelpful; it doesn't reflect the uncertain, exploratory and sometimes contested nature of scientific knowledge.

Those who question climate change should not indulge in the same tomfoolery they accuse the climate scientists of doing. You can't win the argument playing silly buggers like this.

Climate Change Keystone Kops

I thought, at one time, that scientists were supposed to be rational beings. As Climategate continues to snowball -- though you couldn't tell if you're reading American news media outlets as the scandal seems, at least to the news folks, to be a purely British phenomenon -- additional revelations keep emerging that demonstrate how scientists and climate change true believers are using scare tactics, not science, to push their agendas.

This is a critical error. If scientists and true believers want to convince skeptics that climate change is real -- and I believe they do a fairly good job in some aspects of this -- I have to confess they end up looking like the Keystone Kops when their exaggerations and half-truths come to life.

The Times Online offers this report revealing that in 2007, the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change incorrectly linked global warming to an increase in natural disasters, based on an unpublished and unreviewed study that when it was published, the Times said, "had a new caveat. It said: 'We find insufficient evidence to claim a statistical relationship between global temperature increase and catastrophe losses."

The cited study, written by Robert Muir-Wood, suggested that a 2 percent annual increase in catastrophes from 1970 to 2005 coincided with a period of global warming. He cautioned, however, as the Times Online reports:

Muir-Wood was, however, careful to point out that almost all this increase could be accounted for by the exceptionally strong hurricane seasons in 2004 and 2005. There were also other more technical factors that could cause bias, such as exchange rates which meant that disasters hitting the US would appear to cost proportionately more in insurance payouts.

Despite such caveats, the IPCC report used the study in its section on disasters and hazards, but cited only the 1970-2005 result.

Roger Pielke, an environmental studies professor at Colorado University, who commissioned the study, chided the UN for cherry-picking information from Muir-Wood's study. The Times Online says:

Pielke has also told the IPCC that citing one section of Muir-Wood's paper in preference to the rest of his work, and all the other peer-reviewed literature, was wrong.

He said: "All the literature published before and since the IPCC report shows that rising disaster losses can be explained entirely by social change. People have looked hard for evidence that global warming plays a part but can't find it. Muir-Wood's study actually confirmed that."

To me, this illustrates that the true believers of climate change will look for any bit of evidence to support their claims -- even evidence they have to take out of context or misinterpret deliberately in order to use it as proof. Muir-Wood and Pielke were interested in presenting data as it relates to the real world. Those interpreting their data to present it as it relates to the religion of climate change do themselves and their cause a disservice, and once again offer evidence to skeptics that their claims overall must be questioned.

Also this week, the Daily Mail Online offers a report showing that claims that the Himilayan glaciers would disappear by 2035 were that -- just claims. In fact, the individual cited making the claim says he said no such thing and admits that the number was pulled out of the air. He and others accuse the UN of taking the claim for fact in the same IPCC report when it had never been proven in order to put political pressure on world governments to act to curb climate change.

Noble reasons, I suppose, but nobility fades when the route taken there is unethical at best, scientifically wrong at worst.

The Daily Mail Online says:

Professor Graham Cogley, a glacier expert at Trent University in Canada, who began to raise doubts in scientific circles last year, said the claim multiplies the rate at which glaciers have been seen to melt by a factor of about 25.

‘My educated guess is that there will be somewhat less ice in 2035 than there is now,’ he said.

“But there is no way the glaciers will be close to disappearing. It doesn’t seem to me that exaggerating the problem’s seriousness is going to help solve it.’

One of the problems bedevilling Himalayan glacier research is a lack of reliable data. But an authoritative report published last November by the Indian government said: ‘Himalayan glaciers have not in any way exhibited, especially in recent years, an abnormal annual retreat.’

Let me empahsize something Prof. Graham Cogley says: "It doesn't seem to me that exaggerating the problem's seriousness is going to help solve it." All it does is fuel the skeptics and do-nothings who want to find evidence against climate change as badly as those who believe in it want to find evidence that it is imminent.

Of course you'll notice another telling fact in these reports" Both were done by British newspapers. The British press seems to regard this as newsworthy, this Climategate. Not so the American press, which is toeing the climate change line simply by ignoring these things. Or, if not ignoring, at least capably burying the stories next to the tide schedules on page 39.

Ugh

So, nobdy's learning nothin' over there in Copenhagen. You do not gain support by refusing to answer questions -- as opponents to Sarah Palin's run for the vice-presidency will no doubt gleefully point out*. By refusing to answer questions -- as Al Gore did today in Copenhagen concerning the ClimateGate e-mails -- only shows you're dogmatically blind to anything that threatens to shake your firm beliefs. It's kind of fun to see this turned around on those who've used it gainst conservatives (rightly) for so many years.

*Once again, I'm not a Palin fan. But the hypocrisy of the situation just brought her to mind.

Truthiness Dodges the Question

I'm still befuddled -- but more bemused than anything else.

Last week, I asked for help in sorting truth from truthiness in the climate change debate, particularly in light of ClimateGate. I was hoping there was someone out there who can provide rational information, data, context, whatever, on what's really going on. Surely there is someone out there somewhere who wants people like me to have accurate information accompanied by a reasonable amount of confidence that what they say is backed up by their willingness to calmly answer critics.

So it won't be this guy:



Don't want to answer a question? That's okay. But to call security on a journalist and demand he be expelled from a press conference because he dared ask a question you don't want to answer? That's foolish. Never piss off people who buy ink by the barrel is the old newsroom aphorism, and that goes double for people who have two cameras on you and access to YouTube.

If you're going to espouse any theory, you have to be willing to answer the tough questions. You ought to know your stuff enough to respons calmly and logically. But a response that basically says "I refuse to answer your question, with malice," does only one thing: It feeds the opposition, and let me tell you, the opposition to stances on climate change are very hungry, especially since they've had the ClimateGate e-mails and programming code tossed into their yard.

Those who espouse climate change are often chagrined at those who do not. I have to wonder why, as those who do the espousing appear to be just as arrogant as those who hold opposing views. Everybody's in the same room, but nobody's really talking about things. They're hurling insults, refusing to intermingle, refusing to answer questions.

Professor Schneider, let me tell you the result of not answering journalist Phelim McAleer's rather innocent question on ClimateGate, at least as far as my search for truth vs. truthiness is concerned. It's introduced me to Mr. McAleer's film Not Evil, Just Wrong, which, inexplicably from a national media completely in the climate change camp, i've never heard of, though they've trumpeted Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth quite loudly.
 
I'll tell you what. I'm going to watch both films this weekend, and try to sort the truth from the truthiness. In exchange, professor Schneider, I'd just appreciate it if you could answer questions with something other than armed security guards.

Another question: Given the developing countries' reaction to the Denmark Document at the current climate talks in Copenhagen, I have to ask if they're going to be shown the door by security as well. This kind of behavior (shunning the less influential or balking at answering legitimate questions) does not bode well, folks.

This doesn't do your cause any good, either, folks.

Truthiness is Taking Over

There are some things the Internet is worthless for -- and finding the truth is one of them.

Truthiness -- the word and concept popularized by Stephen Colbert -- is easy to find, of course. Truthiness defined:

Truthiness is tearing apart our country, and I don't mean the argument over who came up with the word…

It used to be, everyone was entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts. But that's not the case anymore. Facts matter not at all. Perception is everything. It's certainty. People love the President because he's certain of his choices as a leader, even if the facts that back him up don't seem to exist. It's the fact that he's certain that is very appealing to a certain section of the country. I really feel a dichotomy in the American populace. What is important? What you want to be true, or what is true?…

Truthiness is 'What I say is right, and [nothing] anyone else says could possibly be true.' It's not only that I feel it to be true, but that I feel it to be true. There's not only an emotional quality, but there's a selfish quality.

This is why things like ClimateGate are critical for the news media to report on, and to report on honestly. Because for people like me, who want to know the truth -- is the Arctic icecap melting, is Antarctica melting, is this happening, or is that happening -- have nowhere to go now. To find climate change scientists saying they've used a "trick" to "hide the decline" leaves me to wonder where the truth can be found.
 
Unfortunately, what we're getting is more truthiness.
 
Newsbusters.org offers me truthiness from the side that believes climate change is a hoax. Some of what they say rings true, but the truthiness rings louders. Places like RealClimate.org, well, their truth is sounding a lot more like truthiness these days. I want to know what's going on in the world and what I can do to support the long-term livability of our planet, but when it comes to a neophyte like me trying to find truth in the era of truthiness. it comes down to trust. Whom can i trust? I don't trust the deniers. And I'm finding it hard to trust the folks who appear to be cooking the books, using data that suits their purposes, or whatever is going on out there.
 
See, I'm not a climatologist. At best, I'm a guy who understands a bit of science -- I'm gaining more insight into physics given my place of employment -- but to say I understand enough to filter truth from fiction or truth from truthiness on climate change, I do not. I thought the media was supposed to help. But if all they can do on ClimateGate is tell me it's a no nevermind when by own bullshit meter is going off, I can't trust an appeal to the media to help me out on this. Because I've been a member of the media and know that when it comes to science reporting, most of what's out there in the professional media is parroted from the people offering the information in the first place. They can strive for truth and balance but at best can provide only the truth and balance taht other experts offer them. There are few in the professional media -- or int he blogosphere or on the wider Internet -- who have the necessary education to filter the signal from the noise. So an appeal to the mainstream media is laughable at best.
 
Then you go to the experts, and your Weird Shit-o-Meter goes off, becausehow much spin are they giving you? How do you sort the truth from the fiction among those to whom climate science is either a religion with dogma not to be questioned or junk science not to be regarded at all? Looking at the source used to help -- climate change science coming from someone connected to the coal industry, for example, you have to wonder about it. It's a shame ClimateGate is now making me wonder about the science that's coming from the other side of the coin.
 
I don't want truthiness. I want the truth. Can anyone tell me where to find it? I know how Charlie Brown felt when he demanded, "Is there anyone who can tell me what Christmas is all about?" I need a Linus. I need someone to quote me the Bible, chapter and verse.
 

 
Come on, folks. Here's your chance. Save me from climate change truthiness. Point me towards the truth.