There is an interesting article in The New Republic about why the Greens failed politically across the board in the last two years. From “Blame Game: Has the Green Movement Been a Miserable Flop?”
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.
This led to an 84 page study:
On Tuesday, Matthew Nisbet, a communications professor at American University, released a hefty 84-page report trying to figure out why climate activism flopped so miserably in the past few years. Nisbet’s report is already causing controversy: Among other things, he argues that, contrary to popular belief, greens weren’t badly outspent by industry groups and that media coverage of climate science wasn’t really a problem. And he raises questions about whether greens have been backing the wrong policy measures all along. Is he right? Have environmentalists been fundamentally misguided all this while? Or were they just unlucky?
No, they brought it on themselves.
I have been trying to explain the problem in post after post. Here are my 10 answers to the question, “Why the belly flop?” in no particular order (and this isn’t an all inclusive list):
1. Anti humanism: The environmentalist movement has become infused by a deep misanthropy. It isn’t going to generate mainstream support if people are told they are a cancer or an HIV virus afflicting Gaia.
2. Increased Radicalism: Environmentalism has–or is perceived widely to have–become increasingly radical. It’s public face has gone from promoting responsible conservationism, to thwarting resource exploitation and dampening the economy. (As in the Central Valley of California, much of which now lays fallow because of environmental restrictions.) Add in the drive to make “ecocide” a crime and the “rights of nature,” and environmentalism appears to have stepped way beyond the political mainstream.
3. Al Gore: By letting a clear partisan and unhinged advocate like Al Gore become the face of global warming–and giving him an unwarranted Nobel Prize–the eventual collapse in support was predictable.
4. Overly Dire Predictions: Panic mongering–with some of the catastrophic predictions already failed–helped ruin the movement’s credibility.
5. Contradictory Pandering to the Weather of the Moment: All severe weather events became “what we would expect from global warming.” Snow? Global warming! No Snow? Global warming! Drought? Global Warming! Flood? Ditto.
6. Climategate and the UN IPCC”s Uncredible Report: Fair or not, those e-mails broke the credibility of “the scientists,” and many of the exonerations were, for many, entirely unconvincing. The IPCC’s scientifically shoddy and politicized report really sunk it, particularly the nonsense about the Himalayan glaciers disappearing within 35 years.
7. Unscientific Stacked Decks: Heterodox thinking in science was damned, with skeptics accused of being like Holocaust Deniers. With so much stifling of those with different views, it came to seem as if the alarmists had something to hide.
8. Cold winters: People felt the chill and no amount of arguing could convince them it was all about the heat.
9. Alternative Media: The more the MSM tried to push the global warming meme, the more alternative sites such as Climate Depot and Watts Up With That sprouted. The information they presented was credible enough to convince many that the “consensus” was as much political as scientific.
10. Word Games: First it was “global warming.” Then, it was “climate change.” Then, “climate weirding.” When you are reduced to word engineering, rightly or wrongly, people begin to smell a rat.
And here’s a bonus answer:
11. Green Became the New Red: Environmentalism became a front for Left Wing economic collectivism and political authoritarianism. People came to perceive that the movement would reduce human freedom and promote socialist policies.
I don’t think anyone opposes transforming our energy creation to methods that are more environmentally friendly. But that is a generational project. People are not going to support lowering their living standards in the many years it will take to make that transformation. If Greens want to succeed, they should listen to Lomborg more and Al Gore and the IPCC less.
April 21st, 2011 | 5:36 pm
Why the belly flop?
Try reality. More CO2 does NOT cause global warming. It is the added energy photon in the greenhouse effect that causes warming. Simply add more energy like every morning & it gets warmer. Decrease the energy like every evening in spite of adding more CO2 and it gets colder. It is very hard to sell a concept when it is a lie.
Reality just caught up to them. & they do NOT believe it yet. The gullible fools.
April 21st, 2011 | 6:18 pm
“If Greens want to succeed, they should listen to Lomborg more and Al Gore and the IPCC less.”
Lomborg has degrees in political science, not climatology. One would have thought that scientific questions ought to be directed to, and answered by, experts in the relevant fields. i.e. that the considered opinions of the over 2500 reviewers who were involved in producing the IPCC’s last report should count for a little more than the musings of a statistician and political scientist.
The “alternative media” (and most of the “traditional” sources as well) might have succeeded in confusing the public with endless and frequently misleading debate and “commentary”, but the scientific facts are well established: The Earth is warming and human activity is largely responsible. Without intervention, this warming will have adverse effects on human life. This is something about which a majority of experts in the relevant fields agree.
It is unfortunate that a large proportion of the general public are of a contrary opinion – and tragic that the public square has become so riotous that voices of reason are so easily drowned out and dismissed as hysterical. The average climatologist is unlikely to be as eloquent as the average politician, as emotionally manipulative as the average blogger, or as influential as the average oil tycoon but, when it comes to the Earth’s climate, he is far more likely to know what he is talking about.
It’s not about anything Al Gore has said or written (last I checked he has published no papers in peer-reviewed journals), its not about what some fringe environmental activists may or may not believe; the real question is “What conclusions are justified based on all the scientific evidence before us?”.
Denialism may have short-term benefits – but the consequences in the long run are likely to be far from pleasant.
For those interested:
The Scientific Guide to Global Warming Skepticism
Balazs Reply:
April 22nd, 2011 at 10:24 am
@Raven Chukwu,
“… the scientific facts are well established: The Earth is warming and human activity is largely responsible.”
This part of the statement is probably true.
“Without intervention, this warming will have adverse effects on human life.”
This part is in the cloud of high degree uncertainties. All the doom scenarios are regarded as possibility without anybody knowing their likelihood. The “adverse effects” are highly uncertain, but the costs to “prevent” global warming is rather hefty.
Alternative energy sources are expensive even for rich nations and are far beyond reach for the poor (e.g. 1.5 billion people without excess to electricity). All the solutions demonstrated so far are feasible only if our vision is to satisfy the energy needs of ~2 billion people in the developed word and either eliminate or deny access to modern life for the remaining 5 billion, which is still growing.
We are better to listen to economists, who could guide better resource allocation and management to make our planet a home for 7 billion or more people.
Raven Chukwu Reply:
April 22nd, 2011 at 11:46 am
@Balazs, I agree that no one is yet able to say with certainty how much of an impact the predicted warming will have on human life and economic activity but I’m at least glad you agree that the first two points are well established: (1) The Earth is warming and (2) Humans are mostly responsible.
I wrote earlier that scientific questions are to be address to scientists and that is a position I stand by. The IPCC’s job was not to guide resource allocation, make policy, or say what we ought to do. Their function was simply to present the relevant scientific information before policy-makers who would then make decisions about what might be economically or politically feasible.
What we have seen in the last few years is a concerted attempt by non-experts to undermine scientific findings merely because they are uncomfortable with the policies these findings seem to suggest. This is, obviously, not in our long-term interests. We ought to first determine what the facts are and then decide what we ought to do in light of those facts and the constraints under which we labour.
Most economists do not, in fact, claim that the proposed policies to mitigate carbon emissions will “eliminate or deny access to modern life for the remaining 5 billion, which is still growing”. There are a few who do, but they are in the minority.
Remember that those who urge that we either do nothing, do very little, or pursue strategies which the scientific experts dismiss as ineffective are themselves making a gamble. They’re betting that the more dire scenarios will not occur . Is there scientific justification for this confident complacency? What level of risk would justify drastic action? A 5% chance that the worst case scenarios will play out? Or maybe 10 or 20%? How certain are you that the effects on warming will be benign enough to justify inaction?
Raven Chukwu Reply:
April 23rd, 2011 at 6:48 am
@Raven Chukwu, Timely article in Mother Jones – “The Science of Why We Don’t Believe Science: How our brains fool us on climate, creationism and the vaccine-autism link”:
Raven Chukwu Reply:
April 23rd, 2011 at 6:48 am
@Raven Chukwu, http://motherjones.com/politics/2011/03/denial-science-chris-mooney?page=1
April 21st, 2011 | 8:20 pm
Without doubt the best summary of the global warming conundrum I have read. I wish I could have done so well. Congratulations.
April 21st, 2011 | 10:40 pm
I am always amazed how stupid the global warming skeptics think that the rest of us are. When climate scientists are nearly uniform in their beliefs about the likely disastrous effects of increased C)2 emissions, why should I believe a non-scientist who doubts the scientists? I can only conclude that you believe we should not listen to overwhelming evidence–that is, that you think we are really dumb.
Tom Reply:
April 22nd, 2011 at 11:15 am
Student,
More studying, more reading from outside your cocoon, less certainty. You’ll be less embarrassed at yourself in 20 years.
Think about it.
IggyDalrymple Reply:
April 24th, 2011 at 6:43 pm
@Student,
“I am always amazed how stupid the global warming skeptics think that the rest of us are.”
Why should you be amazed? We’re not amazed at [no first person, please] level of stupidity.
April 22nd, 2011 | 1:49 am
What else but stupor and dogma can one possibly expect from “The Institute on Religion and Public Life” which no doubt would argue against anything scientific from Evolution to the Climate Science.
When will America wake and shake off its religious nutters!
April 22nd, 2011 | 5:44 am
I’m curious as to what you think of the author’s final point:
“Maybe none of the theories about what went wrong are correct. It’s quite possible that climate activists basically did a competent job —after all, they did get a big, complicated bill to the 20-yard-line in a legislative body that rarely passes big, complicated bills—and they just got unlucky.“
Wesley J. Smith Reply:
April 22nd, 2011 at 10:39 am
DSDan: I think close is only good in hand grenades and horse shoes. They didn’t get unlucky. The Democrat senators from states like W. VA (Rockefeller) and other energy producing states were not going to cause their troubled peoples even further economic woes. But there is a bigger point to the article. It wasn’t just a political flop, the people are not generally concerned about global warming. And the more the powers that be try to force them, the less they do.
Here’s the thing, this thing has failed among the people. It is at the very bottom of people’s concerns in polls. Only the Left and the academic crowd find this a reason for passion.
April 22nd, 2011 | 7:50 am
“…it really did look like the United States was, at long last, going to do something about global warming.”
There lies the heart of the matter, this megalomania mindset that the the USA, or anyone, can control the climate.
“Our ignorance about the climate system is enormous, and policy makers need to know that. This is an extremely complex system, and thinking we can control it is hubris.”–Dr. John Christy, , Professor of Atmospheric Science and an IPCC lead author.
April 22nd, 2011 | 7:51 am
Of course, the NIPCC, the Heidleberg Initiative, the Oregon petitions,the Manhattan Declaration, the Statement By Atmospheric Scientists, the Leipzig Petition, don’t matter; it is only the scientists for the IPCC! They are the only REAL scientists – even though some of the authors were simply activists with B.A. degrees and many of the authors of the IPCC report found their work fundamentally altered. John Christie is considered a skeptic, yet he shared in the IPCC Nobel.
Here’s a nice little list of those heretofore unknown dissenters. http://www.populartechnology.net/2007/10/no-consensus-on-global-warming.html
How about Ivar Giaever, Freeman Dyson, Will Happer, Roger Pielke Sr., Roy Spencer, Timothy Ball, past president of the AAAS the late Frederick Seitz, Patrick Michaels, Joanne Simpson, S. Fred Singer, Kiminori Itoh? How about the meteorologists who are skeptics? Fully 65% of broadcast meteorologists think warming is natural. If anyone cares to learn the truth they can simply look it up.
Who says the Earth is warming? Given the terrible record of American stations, we don’t know WHAT is happening on the ground. http://www.surfacestations.org.
What we DO know is that the head of CRU, the premier collator of raw data, was actively, purposefully working to “hide the decline”. Similar “problems” at Noaa, at GISS, etc.
Frankly, it only takes a few bad apples in positions of authority to distort the whole apparatus. Many scientists believe in AGW because they accept the data given them – which may be faulty.
There is no hot spot in the tropical troposphere – the necessary signiature of global warming per the models.
AGW theory has gone belly up because it does not describe reality. In the end, a child pointed and declared “the emperor has no clothes.”
Thanks, Mr. Smith, for a wonderful piece.
Wesley J. Smith Reply:
April 22nd, 2011 at 10:33 am
Timothy: Thanks. Note from some of the comments that the true believers refuse to see that some of their own allies cause the problem. Narrow focus.
Raven Chukwu Reply:
April 22nd, 2011 at 1:51 pm
@Timothy Birdnow, There will always be dissenting scientists. As has been pointed out ad nauseum, there are still scientists today who deny that the Human Immunodeficiency Virus causes AIDS. Does this change the fact that there is a consensus amongst virologists that it is, in fact, the causative agent?
The lists of skeptics you present are hardly new but very few of the signatories are climate scientists or active researchers in the field. The Oregon Petition, for instance, accepts anyone with an undergraduate degree in a science subject as a “scientist” and is filled with the names of medical doctors, engineers and biologists – with only a minority having advanced degrees in any of the environmental sciences. The Leipzig Declaration, as of 2003, had a grand total of 105 signatories – only 20 of whom had any scientific connection with the study of climate change. It’s not all that difficult to fill a sheet of paper with signatures if one isn’t too choosy about who signs.
TV weathermen, about half of whom have a degree in meteorology, are not necessarily trained in climate science, and generally do no independent research. They are certainly not experts in climatology. As Charles Homans wrote in the Columbia Journalism Review last year,
The American Meteorological Society, as we know, endorses the consensus.
The question we ought to ask, though, is what proportion of climate scientists accept AGW. Trotting out a long string of names accomplishes nothing if for every one on your list there are 20 equally eminent signatories on the opposite side. A consensus doesn’t mean that every dissenter has been silenced or convinced. It means that a position has been accepted by the majority of the community and is considered so certain that it is no longer seriously debated. This is the case with the existence of anthropogenic global warming.
But while we’re taking names, here are some of the bodies which support the consensus:
*The national science academies of Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Cameroon, China, Ghana, Indonesia, Ireland, India, Japan, Kenya, Madagascar, Malaysia, Mexico, Nigeria, Senegal, South Africa, Tanzania, Turkey, Uganda.
*The Royal Society of the United Kingdom, the Russian Academy of Sciences, the Royal Society of Canada, the Royal Society of New Zealand, the Institut de France, Leopoldina of Germany.
*The European Academy of Sciences and Art
*The Network of African Science Academies
*The American Association for the Advancement of Science
*The American Chemical Society
*The American Institute of Physics
*The American Physical Society
*The American Geophysical Union
*The European Geosciences Union
*The American Meteorological Society
*The American Institute of Biological Sciences
*The American Statistical Association
*The American Astronomical Society
and it just goes on and on.
Wesley J. Smith Reply:
April 22nd, 2011 at 2:00 pm
Raven: But you continually refuse to see, or deal with, what I wrote. There are REASONS your scientists are losing ground. And they are substantive and abiding. The post wasn’t about whether AGW is real or its extent.
Raven Chukwu Reply:
April 22nd, 2011 at 2:20 pm
@Wesley J. Smith, I am well aware that the post is about the politics, the theatrics of it – what one must say and do to sway the public when the calm presentation of evidence fails.
My first post addressed this. It is, I wrote, tragic that reasonable voices are so easily drowned out and distorted by the media.
Subsequent posts were, as they tend to be, reactive. A commenter opined “there is no consensus” and you commended him. I responded, pointing out that there is. Such is the nature of conversations.
And btw, Wesley, they are no more my scientists than they are yours. A clear majority of experts support a certain position and present supporting evidence. I, having no expertise in the field, accept it. Your attitude – your cherry-picking of which scientists or economists to attend to is the one which requires explanation.
April 22nd, 2011 | 7:59 am
Oh, and as for the Earth warming, that blistering one degree rise in a century can be attributed to increased solar irradiance in part, as well as other natural variables. The reality is that carbon dioxide is a trace gas; 3 or 4 molecules in every TEN THOUSAND molecules of air. Even if this rise is caused by co2, it will peter out with another degree rise in temperatures, so we are halfway there. Are we prepared to wreck the world economy, to fundamentally alter our way of life, to impose poverty on billions of people to not stop that one degree rise? Everyone admits that the most draconian of efforts will only delay it by a very short time. People die of poverty; can’t say the same for Global Warming. The only documented cases of death by Global Warming is that fool who killed himself out of fear and despair, a fear and despair purposely put in him by the Gang Green, those global warming alarmists who use fear and despair as their tool to remake the world.
April 22nd, 2011 | 8:07 am
This website is a JOKE! They should just put the logo of Peabody Coal on it. What distortions and lack of understanding of climate science.
The “merchants of doubt” own this site.
Made me laugh, thanks!
Wesley J. Smith Reply:
April 22nd, 2011 at 10:43 am
Michael Jones: Thanks for proving my point. You can’t win a political debate by snobbing. Keep it up. We will be safer.
David Reply:
April 22nd, 2011 at 7:28 pm
@Wesley J. Smith, you apparently can’t “win” a “debate” with evidence and data, either
might as well have fun with it, right? ok, time for happy hour
David Reply:
April 22nd, 2011 at 7:29 pm
@David, sorry, that should be “one can’t win a debate…”
April 22nd, 2011 | 8:20 am
“When climate scientists are nearly uniform in their beliefs about the likely disastrous effects of increased C)2 emissions, why should I believe a non-scientist who doubts the scientists? ”
I think that most climate skeptics accept that CO2 is a green house gas. That is well established by experimental science.
Likewise, most climate skeptics accept that the earth is warming. That is established by empirical data.
Taking these two propositions together it is reasonable to infer that human being are causing some warming through CO2 emissions.
The real debate concerning global warming is how much warming is caused by increased CO2 emissions. There is no experimental evidence to answer this question. There is really no empirical data to answer this question because it is difficult to isolate the effects of CO2 from natural fluctuations in the real world data. The only “evidence” that CO2 emissions will result in harmful warming comes from computer models, which, to the extent they have been verified against real world data, are wanting.
From my observations, as scientists from other relevant fields with expertise in thermodynamics, physics, statistics and mathmatical modeling have looked at Climate Science, they have been surprised by the paucity of evidence we are being asked to rely upon.
April 22nd, 2011 | 8:41 am
I guess I could be called stupid. I started taking Hi/Lo daily temperatures for a neighbor, who sent them to the government. At $0.50 a week, over 60 years ago, it was big money. I have a daughter who is still interested in meteorology. 40 years ago we put a weather station on our roof so she could monitor wind speed & direction.
Having spent almost 50 years in science & engineering, multiple degrees, international papers, patents, some relating to thermal system, optics, atmospheric thermal characteristics, Infrared sensors, I guess I would be called “skeptical”.
“Sleptical” about the “nearly uniform” belief of “climate scientists”. It would appear that many are looking for $’s, rather then the truth, and lack the humility to say “I don’t know”.
April 22nd, 2011 | 9:53 am
Oops; I meant to say Frederick Seitz was past president of NAS, not AAAS.
April 22nd, 2011 | 10:14 am
Student: Even non-scientists can judge global warming scientists based on the points made above by Wes.
For example, when Al Gore uses the same language you do about the “uniform” belief that x climate disaster will occur by 2007 and it doesnt’ happen, I am less inclined to believe the “uniform” judgment of climate scientists.
Scientists can argue all they want in the academic sphere about particular climate theories. But when they demand concrete and extreme steps be taken by governments, they need to convince ordinary people like me. And ordinary people like me a are not stupid. We know what it means to fake data or have predictions that do not come to pass.
April 22nd, 2011 | 10:53 am
Michael Jones wrote: “This website is a JOKE! They should just put the logo of Peabody Coal on it.”
Wes: To your point seven, I would add that the environmentalists’ tactic of trying to tar all sceptics as shills for the energy industry based on no evidence or flimsy evidence undermined the credibility of the environmentalists more than the skeptics.
Wesley J. Smith Reply:
April 22nd, 2011 at 11:16 am
pauld: I wish I was on the payroll. : – ) Seriously, my post was telling these people WHY they have failed politically, and they have done nothing but validate everything I wrote. It’s funny.
April 23rd, 2011 | 8:13 am
Answer #12. The economy, stupid. People were happy to believe that global warming should be STOPPED! until they began to see the price tag. (They still don’t have much of a clue how much it would cost!) Fully 70% of the population would not tolerate even $ 1.00 of gasoline price increases for the sake of global warming–and the cost of any meaningful “solution” would be far greater than that.
And they are right. When the dire predictions of trouble a century in the future are reduced to economic terms, the immediate cost of “solving” the supposed “problems” of a century hence are way too high to be justified, even if you believe the dire predictions. Which I don’t.
The article mentioned answer #12, in its last paragraph, but didn’t identify it as such.
April 23rd, 2011 | 8:34 am
Raven, why is it that you accept environmental activists writing the IPCC as legitimate and refuse to accept the dissenters. There may have been engineers or M.D.’s signing these petitions (with over 31000 at the Oregon Petition, it would be surprising if some weren’t) but you use that to demogogue the valid signiatures. I named names in my comment – a point you conveniently dismiss. Oh, and Michael Douglas IS a climatologist, he works for NOAA.
You ignore the survey of climatologists by Dennis Bray of the GKSS National Research Center in Germany showing an even split. You ignore Richard Lindzen, Garth Paltridge, Hendrik Tennekes, Craig Idso, Reid Bryson, Sherwood Idso, Roger Pielke Sr. August Auer, Arun D. Ahluwalia, Vincent Gray etc.
The IPCC is a concensus, but the many and varied disputing petitions are invalid. Hmm.
And what do you mean by claims of concensus on AGW? One could say the end is nigh, and another could say, well, yes, there is some minor warming but it isn’t anything to worry about and you would lump them both into the same concensus. Virtually nobody is claiming that there is zero human influence on planetary temperatures. Roger Pielke Sr. argues that land use is far more important that CO2 levels, for instance, but he doesn’t say CO2 doesn’t matter. Roger Revelle himself thought of this as a curiosity rather than an emergency. Will you claim Pielke as part of your concensus, or as a skeptic?
And concensus or not, if the theory doesn’t work it doesn’t matter how many believe it. Everyone believed in Geocentrism prior to Copernicus, and really until Kepler. Was that true? In the end the theory didn’t work.
Much like Global Warming.
And we now know that there have been forces at work to stifle dissent and to keep papers from being published. Read the CRU e-mails if you have any doubts about that. The “Hockey Team” purposefully plotted to silence any doubters.
Yours is a straw man argument. It’s part of the reason why AGW alarmism has gone the way of the Edsel; over-reach. Many good people have been revolted at the blatant dishonesty and partisan demogoguerie coming from the Warmists.
Raven Chukwu Reply:
April 23rd, 2011 at 2:26 pm
@Timothy Birdnow,
(1)“Why is it that you accept environmental activists writing the IPCC as legitimate and refuse to accept the dissenters.”
The IPCC presented a summary of the scientific evidence for man-made climate change. It conducted no original research and presented no new findings. While many individual scientists and professional bodies have taken issue with specific items in the Fourth Assessment Report not one single National Scientific Body or internationally recognised professional body currently disputes its broad conclusions. Skeptics may, of course, rally together and create new scientific bodies solely for the purpose of lending some kind of institutional weight to their dissent but the fact remains – as of 2011, not oneinternationally recognised scientific body dissents from the broad conclusions of the IPCC’s report (though some are non-committal).
As I have said before, since I have no expertise the field, I accept the opinion of the experts when this opinion appears to be, by my imperfect estimation, consistent with the evidence.
If 9 out of 10 doctors tell me that a certain mass in my abdomen is almost certainly malignant, I will tend to accept this consensus – especially if the one dissenting doctor, whose conclusions would otherwise be more palatable to me, is no more eminent than his counterparts and is working from the same data.
(2) “You ignore the survey of climatologists by Dennis Bray of the GKSS National Research Center in Germany showing an even split.”
Here is the most recent survey of climatologists by Dennis Bray (conducted in 2008). Note questions 20 and 21. When asked the question “how convinced are you that most of recent or near future climate change is, or will be, a result of anthropogenic causes?” only 1.4% of climatologists responded “not at all”.
This is what Bray himself wrote about the hijacking of his previous study by skeptics:
(3) “You ignore Richard Lindzen, Garth Paltridge, Hendrik Tennekes, Craig Idso, Reid Bryson, Sherwood Idso, Roger Pielke Sr. August Auer, Arun D. Ahluwalia, Vincent Gray etc.”
Not at all. I do not “ignore” them. I just accept that they are in the minority and hold views which most of their colleagues (who are just as eminent as they) consider wrong. The list of actual climatologists who hold dissenting views is dwarfed by those who accept that man-made climate change is, or is going to be, a reality we will have to deal with.
(4) “The IPCC is a concensus, but the many and varied disputing petitions are invalid.”
Not “invalid” – just irrelevant. I’m sure that if one tried hard enough, one could get several thousand people with degrees in the biological sciences and medicine who would be willing to sign a statement claiming that vaccines cause autism or that a 14 week old fetus is capable of consciously experiencing pain. No established scientific bodies would endorse either of these conclusions, though.
Self-selecting petitions are useless when it comes to establishing where a consensus lies or if it exists. The Oregon Petition garnered 31,000 odd signatures from a potential pool of what – 1 million? 5 million? I’m sure many millions of Americans have a degree in at least one of the sciences.
(5) “And what do you mean by claims of consensus on AGW?
(a) The Earth is warming (b) Humans are largely responsible. (c) There is a real possibility that this warming might have adverse effects on human life if unchecked.
(6) “And consensus or not, if the theory doesn’t work it doesn’t matter how many believe it. Everyone believed in Geocentrism prior to Copernicus, and really until Kepler. Was that true? In the end the theory didn’t work.”
Where is the evidence that the majority of experts are wrong about AGW? Are you sitting on some private data we should know about?
(7) “And we now know that there have been forces at work to stifle dissent and to keep papers from being published. Read the CRU e-mails if you have any doubts about that.”
I have read the relevant e-mails. The papers discussed were published. Six independent inquiries have cleared Phil Jones and the CRU of wrongdoing. And the scientific consensus is not merely British or American. Who was censoring publications in Germany, Australia, Canada and France? Were all the major international scientific publications somehow under that thumb of the “hockey team”?
(8) “Yours is a straw man argument. It’s part of the reason why AGW alarmism has gone the way of the Edsel”
We have now gotten to the point that anyone who says “there might be something to worry about here” is dismissed as an “alarmist”. The IPCC report was full of probabilities and projections, possible alternative scenarios, margins of error – but this has all gotten lost in the heat of frantic denialism.
A man who cries wolf when there is none is an alarmist – but a man who dismisses evidence of danger merely because he is not yet absolutely certain it will befall him is foolish indeed.
Raven Chukwu Reply:
April 24th, 2011 at 10:29 pm
@Raven Chukwu, I omitted to mention probably the most salient fact about Bray’s 2003 study: it was a non-representative online study which had no way of limiting its participants to actual climate scientists or of determining if an individual had submitted multiple entries – anyone who had been given the username and password could participate completely anonymously. These log-in details were reposted to a climate skeptic mailing list with over 200 members. (The total number of survey participants – or rather, of submitted online forms – was 577).
pauld Reply:
April 25th, 2011 at 1:15 pm
@Raven Chukwu,
Question (5) “And what do you mean by claims of consensus on AGW?
Answer (a) The Earth is warming (b) Humans are largely responsible. (c) There is a real possibility that this warming might have adverse effects on human life if unchecked.
It is helpful that you have provided a statement as to what you believe is the consensus on AGW. This allows us to discuss some of the nuances of the debate.
As to point (a), “the earth is warming”, I agree as do most of the prominent climate scientists who are labeled “skeptics” (e.g. Dr. Richard Lindzen, Dr. Roy Spencer, Dr. John Christy, and Dr. Roger Pielke, Sr.)
As to point (b) “Humans are largely responsible”. The IPCC AR4 states the conclusion:
“Most of the observed increase in global average temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations.”
“Most” is undefined in the IPCC, but presumably means more than 50%. “Very likely” is defined in the IPCC as “greater than 90%”
To the extent that the IPCC reflects a consensus among scientists, this statement represents that consensus. All of the skeptics I listed above would agree that humans have contributed to global warming, but all would disagree that the above statement has been proven with a reasonable degree of confidence. I personally think that the jury is still out on this question. Judith Curry, the Chair of the Department of Atmospheric Sciences at Georgia Tech, has a helpful review of the evidence relied upon by the IPCC to support its statement. She evaluates the evidence supporting the IPCC’s position in a series of four posts set forth on her blog starting with “Overconfidence in IPCC’s detection and attribution: Part I .” http://judithcurry.com/2010/10/17/overconfidence-in-ipccs-detection-and-attribution-part-i/ Her bottom-line is that “the IPCC’s “very likely” confidence level for attribution is too high. I think that her analysis is excellent and I encourage you to read all four parts.
As to (c ) , ” There is a real possibility that this warming might have adverse effects on human life if unchecked”, this assertion is too vague to be of use. In my view, statement “c” is a plausible hypothesis that has not yet been proven or disproven with a reasonable degree of confidence. The possibility that warming could have adverse effects on human life could justify adopting low-cost measures. On the other hand, if the cost of reducing carbon emissions is high, (as I believe), then the “possibility” that warming “might” have adverse consequences, does not justify high-cost abatement measures.
I would propose an alternative hypothesis: “There is a real possibility that observed global warming has been caused by natural variations in climate and CO2 emissions have played a minor, secondary role in the observed warming.” The skeptics I list above would all agree that this “null” hypothesis has not yet been disproven.
In the face of these two competing hypotheses neither of which (in my view) is proven or disproven, I would recommend that we wait for further investigation. I would not support any costly policies until we have a better understanding of the situation. Although my analysis would require a much longer post, I think that within the next five to ten years we will have sufficient evidence to prove or disprove each of the above alternative hypotheses. At that point, we can act or not act accordingly.
April 23rd, 2011 | 8:37 am
Wesley, where do I sign up for some of that oil money you are getting? I need a new laptop…
Wesley J. Smith Reply:
April 23rd, 2011 at 10:38 am
Timothy: From thecheckisinthemail.com
April 23rd, 2011 | 12:23 pm
Another issue to include in your list, Wesley: open fudging of scientific data ex post facto by “scientists” with an agenda. The most egregious example is NASA’s “recalibration” of decades of satellite data showing no real warming trend, but instead approximate stasis, to “show” AGW. This is independent of the East Anglia e-mails controversy.
To clarify one of your other points, the red-green links are very old news. As mentioned in responses in previous threads, Soviet defectors admitted Soviet manipulation of the Greens and other such groups decades ago. It was apparent even in the 1980s that many such groups had a Stalinist agenda and desire for iron-fisted control over the population. The USSR is gone now, but the People’s Republic of China is not exactly our friend… Nor is Russia, the successor state to the USSR, either.
Communism was a “scientific” movement, and many Western scientists have been seduced by socialist environmentalism due to the implication that they the scientists will be permitted to have such heavy-handed power over the rest of us. (Don’t underestimate the appeal of such control for a group commonly derided as nerds over the years by an anti-intellectual public. Getback time, baby.)
June 19th, 2011 | 8:16 am
[...] why a growing number of people are rolling their eyes. I have tried to explain it to them, for example in this post in which I list 11 reasons the general public does not generally share GWH. Tonight, I ran across two more stories that illustrate why the credibility of dire warming [...]
June 19th, 2011 | 10:42 am
[...] why a growing number of people are rolling their eyes. I have tried to explain it to them, for example in this post in which I list 11 reasons the general public does not generally share GWH. Tonight, I ran across two more stories that illustrate why the credibility of dire warming [...]
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