Political Science (Global Warming)

Wall Street Journal ^ | February 3, 2007 | Philip Stott

[Tolerance Sucks Rocks]

I confess I was afflicted by a profound world-weariness following the release yesterday of the latest gloomy machinations from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The U.N.'s global-warming caravanserai, founded in 1988 by the World Meteorological Organization and the United Nations Environment Program, had this time pitched camp in Paris, in order to issue the "Summary for Policy Makers" relating to Working Group One of its "Fourth Assessment Report: Climate Change 2007." This is the group that focuses on "The Physical Science Basis" of climate change, and its summary was greeted with the usual razzmatazz, the Eiffel Tower's 20,000 flashing bulbs being symbolically blacked out on the evening before. Further IPCC reports are due this year, one in April from Working Group Two, on the impacts of, and adaptation to, climate change, and another in May, from Working Group Three on climate-change mitigation.

But it is the science summary that always gives rise to the jamboree -- with journalists, politicians and eager environmentalists desperate to claim that this particular report is the last word on climate change, that it represents a true consensus, that the world is doomed, and that we must recant our fossil-fuel ways. Moreover, as in 2001 with the Third Assessment Report, Friday's release was preceded by speculative leaks, the political shenanigans and spinning beginning even before the final text had been haggled over and agreed upon.

Unfortunately, the IPCC represents science by supercommittee, as rule 10 of its procedures states: "In taking decisions, and approving, adopting and accepting reports, the Panel, its Working Groups and any Task Forces shall use all best endeavors to reach consensus." I bet Galileo would have had a rough time with that.

[Rhiannon]

I read an interesting paper on the evidence of climate change based on cores, tree rings, etc. and sun cycles. You can acess it at http://www.ncpa.org/pub/st/st279/st279c.html

[megatherium]

Yes, science is not done by opinion poll. But the IPCC report is the result of a lot of highly qualified scientists doing a lot of hard work going over thousands of published scientific papers, and the report was heavily reviewed by other scientists.

One thing to remember is that science is often messy and contentious. Even well-established science has dissidents. The theory that the retrovirus HIV is the cause of AIDS is still contested by Peter Duesburg, the UC Berkeley retrovirologist. So there are a relatively small number of scientists who challenge global warming, or that global warming is human-caused. This I am afraid to say doesn't necessarily make me quick to reject the scientific consensus on global warming.

Another thing to remember is that there is a concerted, well-financed effort by vested interests (the energy companies) to challenge global warming. They have their talking points, and they are all over FR. It strikes me as curious that we are supposed to doubt and distrust the scientists because they have some weird agenda (to get grant money, or make us socialist hippies, or something) -- but we can trust the energy companies and their PR firms because free enterprise is swell and all-American. These companies make a lot of money, and it doesn't surprise me in the slightest that they would resort to a FUD campaign to deflect concern about global warming.

I've run across some egregious nonsense on the web. A few months ago, some loser posted (on a different board) some article about how solar irradiance was increasing, as measured by the increasing temperature on the lens of a certain solar observatory satellite. Some hunting on Google eventually came up with an explanation for this: the temperature was increasing because (as its designers anticipated) the opacity of the lens was gradually increasing (in the UV radiation of space). It blew my mind that some creep would find this and apparently deliberately spread this nonsense on the web. (The perpetrator might have been merely stupid, but I doubt it. The original data, and the explanation for it, were hard work for me to find. The originator of the story must have spent a lot of time hunting for that. Possibly someone working for a PR firm? No scientist would have made that mistake.)

[USFRIENDINVICTORIA]

Good find.

This is what I meant by using the "scientific consensus" documents as ammo. The vast majority of the "true believers" have never actually read what their scientists are saying.

[USFRIENDINVICTORIA]

"This 'double ethical bind' we frequently find ourselves in cannot be solved by any formula. Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest. I hope that means being both."

How to lie just enough?

[USFRIENDINVICTORIA]

"“…they do not have special knowledge about the causes of global climate changes,” says Tim Ball. “They usually can tell us only about the effects of changes in the local environment where they conduct their studies.”


Dr. Ball lives in Victoria -- I should try to see him.

[ancient_geezer]

One might be tempted to consider that a possibility ;O)

[listenhillary]

The activities of the Union of Concerned Scientists deserve special mention. That widely supported organization was originally devoted to nuclear disarmament. As the cold war began to end, the group began to actively oppose nuclear power generation.

Their position was unpopular with many physicists. Over the past few years, the organization has turned to the battle against global warming in a particularly hysterical manner.

In 1989 the group began to circulate a petition urging recognition of global warming as potentially the great danger to mankind. Most recipients who did not sign were solicited at least twice more.

The petition was eventually signed by 700 scientists including a great many members of the National Academy of Sciences and Nobel laureates.--> Only about three or four of the signers, however, had any involvement in climatology.,<---

Interestingly, the petition had -> two pages <- , and on the second page there was a call for --> renewed consideration of nuclear power.

When the petition was published in the New York Times, however,--> the second page was omitted.<-- In any event, that document helped solidify the public perception that "all scientists'' agreed with the disaster scenario. Such a disturbing abuse of scientific authority was not unnoticed.

[Charles H. (The_r0nin)]

But the IPCC report is the result of a lot of highly qualified scientists doing a lot of hard work going over thousands of published scientific papers...

Ummmm, no. The report in question is actually the composition of around 13 people, most of whom represent governments, political parties, and NGOs. The full report might contain more scientific bona fides, but this report is a political document "summarizing" the larger one, which hasn't even been fully developed yet (don't summaries usually come after the document to be summarized? I guess not if you already know what it's going to say...). And remember, the last one of these "summaries" actually made claims not established by the full document, and some even contradicted by it (Steve Milloy at www.junkscience.com did yeoman's work exposing this). So forgive those of us who aren't immediately falling to our knees and worshiping this particular iteration.

And as for the ad hominem of the "funding" question, for every dollar available to a scientist from an oil company, there are a hundred from a government or NGO who want the opposite conclusion. The dirty little secret here is that environmentalist organizations are spending lots of money on this "science," but no one seems to be interested in tracking that money. I wonder why not?

[etlib]

1. I read the summary report and am not impressed. It shows no evidence of science. It is impressive in the extent of quantitative information about current situations and the predictions of the state of things 100 years from now. But it contains absolutely nothing about verification of the models used for the predictions or information showing how the current values were predicted from earlier information. My assumption is that the models are not properly verified and no hypotheses predicting current values were affirmatively tested. That's not science.
2. It is clear from the IPCC web page that scientists with information not supporting the desired conclusion (global warming caused by human action) need not apply.
3. I have read information by supporters of and detractors from global warming. I find that information from global warming advocates more often deviates from real science. Most often this comes in the form of a refusal to admit evidence contrary to their belief.
4. Evidence of warming over the last half century (actually over the last quarter of a century) is not sufficient to confirm a long term trend.
5. I could go on, but what's the point, I am sure you have seen and dismissed it all before.

[sig226]

Science is not done by stupidity, either. All of these screaming meamies ignore the fact that the earth is dynamic. A static state is forever unchanged, think of a perfectly maintained fish tank. A dynamic state is constantly changing and in a model as complex as a planet, it is almost impossible to understand the etiology of significant changes. We only know that things will not stay the same.

Of course the earth's climate is changing. If it didn't, there would be no breathable air. If the earth remained in its original state, life as we know it would have caught fire before it took hold.

But the Cullens and Pelleys of the world have no need of a sound,scientific foundation for thier ideas. That might interfere with their standing in politically correct circles.

[megatherium]

What is the role of the Union of Concern Scientists in the actual IPCC report?

[megatherium]

I suppose we will see in the coming months the full report, and whether the summary accurately reflects the detailed science in the full report.

You should be aware that Steve Milloy is a shill for the tobacco as well as the energy companies. See Steven J. Milloy - SourceWatch. (This is a left-wing wiki, but you have to admit that conservative web sites aren't going to go out of their way to share this information.)

The energy companies do not do much direct funding of actual scientific research on global warming. What they spend money on is public relations campaigns, often quite subtle and very effective. Yes, environmental groups are fighting hard on the other side. It is an interesting question as to where they get their money. But I warrant is isn't from polluters and manufacturers of poisonous, addictive products.

[DugwayDuke]

You might find this information useful in understanding how consensus is reached:

http://www.learn-usa.com/transformation_process/~consensus.htm

[Charles H. (The_r0nin)]

But I warrant is isn't from polluters and manufacturers of poisonous, addictive products.

No, it's from activists with the blood of millions on their hands, thanks to radical beliefs that force countries to ban beneficial chemicals like DDT (leading to millions of deaths in Africa), and other decisions that lower the quality and length of life in the developing world. If I had to choose between Phillip Morris and the Sierra Club or Greenpeace, I'd choose Phillip Morris every time. More people would live (and much better lives) that way!

[Entrepreneur]

Great quotes!

Global warming is one of the greatest threats facing man today, not because of climate change, but because it the vehicle socialists are using to control the masses and destroy individual liberty for the collective good, as determined by the elitists.

In the 1930s man faced communism and fascism. Today we face the same threats with the former disguised as environmentalism and the latter appearing openly as radical islam.

[DumpsterDiver]

The following statement from Steven Schneider makes me think that ol' Steve will say whatever it takes to make sure his paychecks keep coming in on a regular basis.

"It is certainly true that "science" itself strives for objective empirical information to test theory and models. But at the same time "science for policy" must be recognized as a different enterprise than "science" itself, since science for policy (e.g., Ravetz, 1986) involves being responsive to policymakers' needs for expert judgment at a particular time, given the information currently available, even if those judgments involve a considerable degree of subjectivity. "

[etlib]

You might find this information useful in understanding how consensus is reached.

Thanks for the link.

Techniques I have observed which are not in this link are:

• to have votes about what the consensus is and then select either the most voted for items or reject the least voted for items and to change the sense of the vote each time in order to keep the desired outcome on the table
• to fill the audience with "shills" who know the desired outcome and make statements in its favor as well as "stuff the ballot box"
• use the phrase "keep an open mind", which means do it our way because we sure aren't going to do it your way,
• Another favorite is "can't we just try this method," under the pretense that we can go to another later, "if it doesn't work out"

PS, My boss once put me in charge of a committee with a clear objective of getting results. I told the committee we would make decisions by consensus by which I meant we would discuss the subject and then I would tell everyone what the consensus was.

[megatherium]

You may be misinformed on DDT. There is no ban on use of DDT for disease prevention. But mosquitos have developed resistance to DDT so other agents are used to control them (malathion, for example).

As I mentioned on another thread, I saw the articles in the latest issue of the Sierra Club magazine on energy, and it was dismal. Their solution to the energy problem seems to boil down to use a lot less energy. And of course they are still vehemently anti-nuclear. By the way, one of the original co-founders of Greenpeace is now a vigorous supporter of nuclear power. So I am not a big supporter of either the Sierra Club or (especially) Greenpeace.

I should apologize if I sound like a troll on this thread. I am not such a big defender of global warming (I'm not at all convinced it is an imminent catastrophe). But I get really irked at the attitude here, it often comes across as anti-science to me. Posters tirelessly repeat the same canards (long since refuted), such as 'global warming' on Mars. Or they accuse the scientists of making stupid errors, such as ignoring the Sun or that CO2 only has a miniscule effect compared to water vapor -- as if the scientists haven't already long since carefully studied these and built them into their models. Climate science is a far more sophisticated business than you would think reading FR, the researchers are firmly grounded in physics and they are using bleeding edge mathematics and computer science to study the climate (as well as extensive field work, often in hostile environments).

There are a couple of other areas on FR where a lot of people misuse science or treat it with complete disrespect: creation/evolution and 'gay agenda' threads. I've pretty much stopped posting on those threads because I was beginning to become a troll. I think I should drop out of the global warming threads as well. I'll stick to threads where I am in firm agreement with FR (national defense & the war on Islamofacism).

So thank you for engaging me in this thread. But good bye and best wishes!

[USFRIENDINVICTORIA]

"Climate science is a far more sophisticated business than you would think reading FR, the researchers are firmly grounded in physics and they are using bleeding edge mathematics and computer science to study the climate (as well as extensive field work, often in hostile environments)."


The much of the research is indeed based on hard science.

The models are indeed sophisticated -- but they remain models of climate, not actual climate. Models can generate scenarios, not predictions.

The actual reports of the IPCC are candid about uncertainties. Their reports are worth a read.

Unfortunately the extremists are getting all the attention. They cherry pick scenarios, and the MSM in turn magnifies the exaggerations. Anyone doubting massive flooding from melting of ice sheets is labeled a "denier". And yet, the IPCC itself says such scenarios are very unlikely (i.e. in about the same category as an asteroid wiping out the planet).

If the activists and the MSM would confine themselves to an honest reporting of what is actually in the IPCC reports -- I would agree to accept those reports too. I think that IPCC is biased toward GW; but, at least their forecasts would enable us to take reasonable actions -- rather than running madly off in all directions in a frenzied panic.

BTW, you're also wrong about DDT (you've bought into the revisionist version of the issue being promulgated by environmental organizatios that are trying to avoid accountability for their actions) -- but, that's another issue.

[DugwayDuke]

"PS, My boss once put me in charge of a committee with a clear objective of getting results. I told the committee we would make decisions by consensus by which I meant we would discuss the subject and then I would tell everyone what the consensus was."

Pretty similar to my team process. I run all of my teams by the democratic process. Every one gets to be heard, then there is a vote. One man, one vote, my vote.

BTW, we have several other team leaders who use a more consensus approach. I've had several persons tell me they enjoy working on my teams better since the other teams never seem to reach a decision or accomplish any thing.