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An insider’s story of the global attack on climate science

arstechnica.com

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Re: An insider’s story of the global attack on climate science

#61

Post by onetwofiveten »

seehafer wrote: post #37
acqq wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would be a clear science argument if there weren't groups that are very motivated (money, power) to misdirect the public by making "doubts" for their own gains, as the article clearly illustrates. There is a practical scientific consensus that the current global warming is real and caused by the human activity. The illusion of "maybe yes maybe no" (quasi-religious doubts) can come only from the media who give the…

I'm not unsympathetic to the exasperation of scientists concerning that their work is being dismissed by people who don't have the expertise to evaluate it, but all this talk about a "consensus" is where they shoot themselves in the foot. Science doesn't advance by "consensus". And using that as the defense is just a different type of faith (faith in the omniscience of the group). Prior to the 80's the 'consensus' wa…

The talk of "consensus" emerged because previously there was a concerted effort from vested interests to make the public believe that climate change was a controversial issue amongst the scientific community. This severely muddied the waters of public opinion. So it's important to continue the message of scientific consensus.

The scientific consensus is our best model for reality. That isn't about having faith in any group, it's about having faith in the scientific process. Your example of stomach ulcers only supports that point. Once new evidence was found, the new explanation was quickly adopted into the scientific consensus (so it remained the best model for reality).

Re: An insider’s story of the global attack on climate science

#62

Post by yongjik »

jeremyt wrote: post #59
yongjik wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ...but having worked in government I just don't see any practical way... Yeah, in the same way that scientists discovered that CFGs are eating away ozone layer, but the world's governments were too incompetent to meaningfully reduce CFG production, and now we end up with all the Penguins dying in Antarctica and people dying of skin cancer in New Zealand? Or in the same way scientists discovered sulfur emissions cau…

I think if you equate the difficulty of CFC reduction and sulfur reduction to the difficulty of reducing global CO2 emissions, then you're really not having a serious conversation. There's at least two orders of magnitude of difficulty between the two.

Dude, you can't just say "there are a lot of things that we don't understand about climate (solar cycles, effects of water vapor, ocean CO2 sequestration, etc.)" and then accuse others of not being serious.

Every point you just mentioned has been dealt to death. And if you really want to be serious about "two orders of magnitude of difficulty", please try to quantify it, and explain why, for example, building more solar and nuclear plants just isn't going to cut it.

Re: An insider’s story of the global attack on climate science

#63

Post by acqq »

gd1 wrote: post #58
acqq wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you actually read the article? It looks you haven't. It's about the deniers who obviously trolled everybody at the expense of the taxpayer's money not bringing any scientific improvement at all.

They brought about a great scientific improvement. At NIWA's site you can now see detailed accounting of the methodology behind the adjustments: http://www.niwa.co.nz/our-science/climate/information-and-re... That was put together in December 2010. Before that, they'd been handled in an ad-hoc manner. Some of the adjustments detailed in the literature, some no doubt scrawled on a piece of paper on some professor's de…

As far as I understand, the deniers didn't do it. They just trolled enough to force the additional analysis by the real scientists. The result?

"NIWA's 'seven-station' series has been re-analysed, and independently peer-reviewed, and the result confirms a NZ-wide warming trend."

Practically the same result, nothing that confirms the wishes of deniers.

Re: An insider’s story of the global attack on climate science

#64

Post by subsection1h »

jobu wrote: post #3

The title is a little misleading. The story is from one of the scientists targeted in the attack, not an insider from the attacking side (which would be very interesting indeed). Decent article, but not exactly surprising given what I've already read about on some of the attacks on climate science here in the U.S.

> not an insider from the attacking side (which would be very interesting indeed).

This might not be exactly what you're interested in, but it was reported that the Global Climate Coalition, "a group representing industries with profits tied to fossil fuels" that "led an aggressive lobbying and public relations campaign against the idea that emissions of heat-trapping gases could lead to global warming", was advised by it's own scientific and technical experts that "the science backing the role of greenhouse gases in global warming could not be refuted".

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/24/science/earth/24deny.html?...

Re: An insider’s story of the global attack on climate science

#65

Post by crusso »

tvladeck wrote: post #56
crusso wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

let's also enact policies societies and economies more robust to whatever that answer is I agree completely with that. As a first step, I'd be happy if our federal government could somehow balance and claw the debt back to a point where we will have financial reserves against future challenges rather than our current extremely vulnerable position.

That's a truly impressive non-sequitur. What policies would you suggest to prepare for the risk of catastrophic or highly damaging climate change?

It's a non-sequitur to have an economy that can handle damage from any of a number of disasters - including extreme climate change?

Re: An insider’s story of the global attack on climate science

#66

Post by subsection1h »

gretful wrote: post #6
npsimons wrote: post #2

I'm glad to see this finally being acknowledged and the funding behind these attacks being called out. In fifty years, when economies are collapsing due to rising sea levels and all the upheaval caused thereby, will we finally look back (as we did with smoking propaganda) and realize what influence malicious greed can effect over ignorance?

Or in 50 years when things are the same will we finally look back and realize what influence greed and stupidity can effect over people that reason things through rather than accepting everything printed? Remember - 40 years ago it was Global Cooling.

> Remember - 40 years ago it was Global Cooling.

Please direct me to a large collection of reports and policy statements published by mainstream scientific organizations 40 years ago that stated that the totality of empirical evidence at the time substantiated global cooling. I want a collection like the following, but one that relates to global cooling:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_opinion_on_climate_c...

Thanks for your help.

Re: An insider’s story of the global attack on climate science

#67

Post by crazy1van »

onetwofiveten wrote: post #55
crazy1van wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"hoax" seems like way too charged of a word. But I don't understand the intellectual condescension towards people who are skeptical about a theory that claims to not only predict the future behavior of an entire planet's climate but also how much one element of the planet (humans) impacts the climate.

The condescension comes because of the quality of the arguments used. People who claim to be "skeptical" use fallacious arguments, misrepresent information and make general emotive points rather than pointing to scientific data and statistical interpretation. For example, you make a point about predicting "the future behaviour of an entire planet's climate". But you could equally say that we should be skeptical of Ne…

Newton's law of universal gravity is a thing of beauty in its simplicity and power. It is simple enough that basic experiments can be run in any high school physics class, and yet so powerful that it can with a great deal of accuracy predict the movement of the planets.

I'm contending that current climate science is different. I think it is too complex to ever boil down to a nice little F = G x (m_1 x m_2) / r^2 package. But perhaps we just haven't discovered that piece yet.

Please understand that I'm not arguing we shouldn't study climate change. The complexity of what climate science is trying to predict just gives me pause.

Re: An insider’s story of the global attack on climate science

#68

Post by jeremyt »

yongjik wrote: post #62
jeremyt wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think if you equate the difficulty of CFC reduction and sulfur reduction to the difficulty of reducing global CO2 emissions, then you're really not having a serious conversation. There's at least two orders of magnitude of difficulty between the two.

Dude, you can't just say "there are a lot of things that we don't understand about climate (solar cycles, effects of water vapor, ocean CO2 sequestration, etc.)" and then accuse others of not being serious. Every point you just mentioned has been dealt to death. And if you really want to be serious about "two orders of magnitude of difficulty", please try to quantify it, and explain why, for example, building more so…

I'm trying very hard to be constructive here, and I'm not exactly making an argument I'm just telling you where I am on the issue. Clearly I'm not an expert and I haven't read everything there is to read about it.

I still don't really see what's wrong with the statement that I made. Would you argue that we know everything that is necessary to know about, say, solar cycles? Or CO2 sequestration? I am willing to admit that it's possible that we do, but it's a much harder argument to make.

Finally, you are making my original point for me. People seem stuck in the theory and don't pay attention to the practical matters. For example, on the issue of nuclear power, Japan and Germany are in the process of decommissioning their nuclear power plants. The forecast for nuclear power is flat at best and negative at worst.

I'm all for building 10,000 nuclear power plants tomorrow, but it's not politically feasible. If that's your solution, then you're just not being serious.

With respect to the two orders of magnitude of difficulty, a quick Google came up with the following title "Fighting Climate Change Could Cost 4% of Global Economy — but It’s Worth It". The article is by someone supportive of CO2 reduction policies, so it seems fair to take the number as a first approximation. 4% of the global economy is A LOT.

Again, with a quick Google search, I came up with the following document (http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.201... addresses exactly this issue. A quote:

"In response to these predictions a large number of developed countries signed the Kyoto protocol in 1997. The Protocol is aimed at mitigating global warming, primarily by reducing net emissions of the main ‘greenhouse gases’: carbon dioxide (CO2), carbon monoxide (CO), nitrous oxide (NO) methane (CH4) and chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs)). A variety of proposals have been put forward aimed at achieving the reductions in emissions proposed under the Protocol. Some of these proposals, most notably reductions in CFC emissions, involve relatively low costs and have additional benefits, such as reduced damage to the atmospheric ozone layer, sufficient to justify them even in the absence of concerns about global warming. Others, such as reductions in emissions sufficient to stabilize the current atmospheric stocks of CO2, would involve substantial economic and social costs."

I'm sorry, but even when I try to read your posts sympathetically, all I see is "The science is settled, and you're an idiot" (I especially appreciate you addressing me as "dude"), when I've just pointed out above that at least some of the points you are making are not in fact settled, or even realistic.

Re: An insider’s story of the global attack on climate science

#69

Post by crazy1van »

jeremyt wrote: post #51

Global warming is one of those tough issues for me. I guess you could call me a skeptic, but I try very hard to be a thoughtful skeptic. What makes the whole conversation unproductive is there appears to be two sides: one which argues there is no problem and we must do nothing, and the other side says that the problem is going to end the world as we know it and we must change our entire way of living and make it our…

> 3. Can we do anything about it? > 4. Should we do anything about it? I believe this is a cost-benefit analysis

Great points. Worrying about climate change is a luxury. Most humans are worried about serious threats to their well being with much shorter time lines. Convincing the population of climate change is challenging. Convincing them to make real sacrifices to combat it seems nearly impossible.

Re: An insider’s story of the global attack on climate science

#70

Post by scarmig »

BrandonMarc wrote: post #39
scarmig wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you're saying that climate scientists are motivated by greed and stupidity? And if you've been involved in climate debates before, you know full well that an article in Newsweek does not mean global cooling was widely accepted among climatologists. It was not.

There's always this adage: "No problem, no funding."

An irrationalist revolt against the Enlightenment and the possibility of rational debate.
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