Don’t be disingenuous - there’s a big difference between research with a grant and research where the payment is based on a biased outcome. Govt. grants aren’t predicated on what the outcome of research will be. It’s not the “payment to do research” that’s being objected to, it’s the “payment for research that fits our biases”. No-one’s showed a clear bias in what the US Govt pays for - gods know, the US Govt. certainly tried to undercut the case for AGW for years. But that didn’t stop scientists with Govt. grants from doing pro-AGW work, now did it? So there’s no clear evidence of bias in US govt funding AFAICT
No, I wasn’t - that’s why I answered my own rhetorical question, see.
No, it’s “I don’t like his in-the-media arguments” AND “I don’t think he’s unbiased because of who he works for”. His scientific arguments can be argued on their own merits.
I agreed that comparison to Holocaust deniers is off. I prefer comparisons to Flat Earthers, IDers and Luminiferous Aether theorists, myself.
Okay, I’m seeing your point. His more general statements about his own opinions in that editorial could be construed as also being the opinions of his IPCC co-authors and NAS panelists, and that’s misleading.
You think, and I think different! Maybe some of his fellow NAS panelists agreed with him. Nothing stopped those that didn’t from clarifying their own views. Truth is, neither of us know, and we both colour our interpretations with our own preconceptions. (Unless of course you can find a cite, whereupon I’ll concede the point. I haven’t looked, myself.)
The scientific community, maybe not. It’s the political and environmental activists, those trying to influence policy and/or with axes to grind, who attack the credibility of dissenters.
Mann took a lot of heat, true, and I doubt much of it was deserved. But I find it hard to have sympathy. When the whole hockeystick affair kicked off, and Mann eventually (reluctantly?) published his raw data on the internet, I followed the link to it out of curiosity. It was a two-column text file of numbers (or a spreadsheet file, I can’t remember now) with no headings, units, or explanations of any kind. So he could claim he’d made his data available, while petulantly making it as hard as possible for anyone to do anything with it. (Yes, those are my preconceptions talking again. Maybe Mann just told a grad student to put the data online, and student did just that.)
I’m in mid-emigration at the moment (UK to Australia) and I’m a tad busy, so I’m afraid I can’t give this discussion the attention it deserves. I’ll try to look in occasionally.
Again, you’re being disingenuous - By “Meteorologist” , they (& you) mean “T.V. Weatherman” - so you want me to trust a TV weatherman’s say so (someone who has never published anything in literature that’s climate-related that I can find) on what the story is behind science funding? How would he know?
Again, there’s nothing there to indicate that the grant funding is conditional on a pro-AGW stance in the outcome of the research, as it undeniably is with the American Enterprise Institute money. Show me where it says anything in grant conditions about expected outcomes, and you’ll have a point.
And pointing to money going to mitigation, publicity or activist groups like Sierra Club or Greenpeace isn’t a counter either. I’ve been talking about the money to fund the science research itself. Show me where funding for a research project was conditional on it being pro-AGW - then we can compare millions to billions.
Lastly, it’s a little illogical to point to a US Govt website that’s discussing perceived inequalities in funding as evidence that *the US Govt *is biased, no?
I agree - if a meteorologist makes a scientific argument, they should get some attention. But since what you quoted was one TV meteorologist (Cullen’s) opinion on another group of TV meteorologists, let’s not pretend it has anything to do with the science or validity of AGW theory in the slightest. It’s just one person’s opinion about who in her profession should be accredited. If I was on a geologist accreditation committee, I’d think long and hard before accrediting Flat Earthers, too.
What Cullen said is that people who disagree with her should be punished. Sorry, jshore, but lots of people disagree with her, science is ugly that way. The next logical step, which James Hansen has now taken, is to call for people who don’t toe the party line to be tried and imprisoned.
Yep, you’ve got some great folks on your side of the discussion, all right … when one side of a scientific discussion calls for punishment, or trial and imprisonment for those who have the insufferable cheek to disagree with them, a dispassionate observer can only conclude one thing about which side is losing the debate.
I will let people read it themselves and decide if that is what she said. At any rate, she was one person, speaking for herself.
Cite?
Poppycock…It is “your side” who has actually hauled people up in front of Congressional Committees, even pissing off moderate Republicans like Boehlert. The wacko Congresspeople like Barton and Inhofe (the latter whom you seem to be linking to more in this thread than you link to any refereed literature) are embarrassments even to their own party.
Of course, you find this perfectly acceptable because you have already decided that the people who they are going after deserve it.
By the way, I had already responded to this explaining why this is not such a reasonable thing to believe…but I just thought it worthwhile to also point out that the last time that an individual year’s global temperature fell outside the shaded area on the low side was 2000. Since then, all the years have fallen within the shaded region or above it. (PDF file with graph here.)
In other words, if they disagree with Heidi’s interpretation of the “fundamental science of climate change”, they lose their certification … and with it, in many cases, their jobs. How is that not punishment?
Sure. From his interview with the Guardian, where he says:
Clear enough for you? And surely, if we indict them for “funding to help shape school textbook discussions of global warming”, to be evenhanded we’d have to indict Al Gore, for putting “An Inconvenient Truth” into classrooms. You ready to do that? Al’s just as guilty of influencing classrooms as Exxon is.
Nor is Hansen the only one making this threat. In 2006, David Roberts of Grist Magazine wrote "When we’ve finally gotten serious about global warming, when the impacts are really hitting us and we’re in a full worldwide scramble to minimize the damage, we should have war crimes trials for these bastards – some sort of climate Nuremberg.”
And of course, now that you have read Hansen’s words, and Roberts’ words, you will courageously speak out against this outrageous attack on free speech … or do you also support trials for those who disagree with the “consensus”? Or will you just ignore this, now that I’ve provided the cites? Your call, but I’d like to know where you stand on this important question.
Poppycock, indeed. Michael Mann had publicly stated his bizarre idea that the most common scientific request, that of asking him to reveal his data, was “intimidation” … and he refused to reveal it for a very good reason - he knew for a fact it was bogus. He had refused a variety of requests to reveal his data, despite the fact that his work was funded by my tax money through the NSF. Their policy is clear:
So, eventually it was necessary to force him to do what every real scientist does without question, and what the policies of the relevant bodies (in this case, NSF and Science Magazine) require – that he reveal his data, so that his work can be replicated. Without replication, it’s not science.
I have no problem with him being forced to reveal his data. I would support that for any scientist who is greatly influencing public policy who refuses point-blank to reveal his data or methods, regardless of which side of the debate they are on. Mann should have done it on his own, he didn’t, and he paid the price.
w.
PS - I don’t recall linking to a single thing that Inhofe has said. I linked to his pages full of links to interesting quotations from a wide range of scientists … but you don’t want to discuss the scientific quotations, just attack Inhofe.
PPS - Both you and the “pissed-off” Bohlert forgot to mention, or perhaps didn’t notice, when “your side”, in the person of Al Gore, hauled Richard Lindzen and other scientists up in front of a Congressional Committee with a much more sinister purpose than forcing him to comply with standard scientific practice and reveal his data:
That of course is entirely improper. D’you have a cite that it’s actually happened? That someone has literally been told to publish research attacking AGW, money contingent on outcome?
I’m quite sure people have been paid to research possible causes of non AGW, but that’s not the same thing. True, if they did the research and found nothing, their funding would dry up. Or if they researched it and found the opposite, there would be a strong temptation not to publish those finding. Both of these are bad.
Problem is, exactly the same motivational biases exist in many sources of funding for general climate change research. While outcome is theoretically independent of funding, researchers are always very careful to underline that their results support, or at least don’t contradict, the all-important consensus. You don’t want to get labelled as a dissenter, or your future funding might dry up. Here’s an example:
From that article: “While other studies have linked hurricane intensity to global warming, this is the first published study to indicate that changes to vertical wind shear seen in future climate projections would likely diminish the frequency and intensity of hurricanes. Some effects of global warming, such as coral bleaching and melting tundra, are better understood than the impact on hurricanes.”
The first line is a weaselly statement. Other studies have stated that hurricane intensity would increase due to global warming. The models predicted it. (Link to example below.)
The last sentence is straight propaganda. Glossing over the fact that the models originally missed a big part of the picture, they just had to mention coral bleaching and melting tundra. In a NOAA article about wind shear. I’m surprised they didn’t slip in drowning polar bears.
And later " “This study does not, in any way, undermine the widespread consensus in the scientific community about the reality of global warming,” said co-author Brian Soden, Rosenstiel School associate professor of meteorology and physical oceanography whose research is partly funded by NOAA. “In fact, the shear changes are driven by global warming.” " Which is fair enough, except that (1) Nobody doubts the existence of warming. It’s how much of it is down to us which is in dispute, and this study has nothing to do with that (2) The study does undermine the reliability of the models, or at least the way they were used in previous studies. When the models were predicting increasing hurricane intensity, and a spike in hurricane intensity was observed, some were only too happy to attribute it to warming.
Like it or not, there’s a propaganda war going on, with hyperbole on both sides. A tremendous effort to convince the press, the public and the policymakers, with impressive amounts of money at stake. Maybe I’ve been so taken in by propaganda that I’m living in a bizarro-world of confirmation bias. (I honestly do worry that’s the case, sometimes.) But your comparison with ID proponents and Flat Earthers makes me suspect the same of you. This history by AGW proponent and Realclimate regular Spencer Weart shows that there was highly justified controversy over the matter throughout most of the 20th century. You may find his summing up of why he considers the matter settled now convincing, but I do not. I suggest you read it, and at least ask yourself if your Flat-Earther comparison is fair.
I do think it’s convincing - and the reason I think that is that the media attention is way out of proportion to the amount of controversy *current now *in the science literature. It’s a manufactured controversy, and it’s not right to pretend that there are equal sides slugging it out in the media. In the actual science literature, there’s no such controversy, so I wouldn’t call the pro-side “propaganda” as much as “education”.
Global warming’s been on the cards in science for more than a century. When the denialists have had all that time to make their counter-case, and instead are being more and more disproved, what does that tell you? When they resort to the media and blogosphere rather than the literature, what does that tell you?
The pro-research side gets more funding because there are a hell of a lot more of them, and their research is producing results, which of course leads to more funding. There’s no mystery there.
It’s a myth that controversial research won’t get published. Lots of groundbreaking work had to. So why is the anti-GW stuff not rising up through the literature? There a a few possibilities, but the top 3 I can see seem to be - a global conspiracy by all top editors, scientists and governments, the peer review process is inherently flawed (but only in this particular field, it seems), or just that it’s bad science that can’t pass peer review.
I know what I believe, and so I’m perfectly comfortable making the comparisons to IDers etc. Sure, I’m open to being proved wrong on exactly how bad things will get and how quickly. But I have no doubt that there’s warming already, and that it’s anthropogenic. That, and the Precautionary Principle, are enough to make me say something needs to be done. So brazil84 can dick around over how “catastrophic” it will be, what that even means, and what the meaning of “is” is. Me, I vote and use my charitable contributions to do something now. And I agitate on the internet, of course, because some people with a modicum of science training seem to be needed to counter all the “informed laymen” out there.
Your first one has the subheading “Think tank offers scientists $10,000 to criticize UN study confirming global warming and placing blame on humans.” Clearly an article hostile to what the think tank did. So you’d think the author would quote the most incriminating part of the letter they could find! Yet the only part of it they quoted was this: " “The purpose of this project is to highlight the strengths and weaknesses of the IPCC process, especially as it bears on potential policy responses to climate change,” said the memo" Oh the horror! Not strengths and weaknesses!
And further down in the same article: “Wuebbles criticized the letter for attempting to influence the outcome of its authors. “Even if groups ask you to write things, they don’t try to give you the answer before hand,” he said.” They bloody didn’t do that, Wuebbles.
“But David Karl, a climate professor at the University of Hawaii, said that the amount of money was typical for authoring such a report, although he did take issue with the tone of the letter. “It sounds like they were looking for a particular outcome,” he said.” That’s a fairer comment, I suppose, but far from definite. Definitely more honest though.
Your second cite is even worse. The headline is “AEI Letter Offers $10,000 Payments Only For Views Critical Of The IPCC Report”. That is a barefaced lie. They link to the full text of the letter (pdf), and nowhere does it make any such offer.
Then they quote selectively to “prove” their point:
The article only quotes the bolded part, which even on its own, doesn’t really justify the claim in the headline. And they neglected to mention that the AEI was seeking to fund an independent review.
Never had any doubt about that!
I respect that. As I mentioned before, warming or not, precautionary principle or not, I don’t think we should be burning fossil hydrocarbons as fuel. I also think our societies are geared towards a destructive consumerism, where people are trained to believe status and happiness are closely tied to wealth. That was true in the past, but now the average American/European standard of living would make Louis XIV jealous (I suspect he would have traded Versailles for a wide-screen TV and a Playstation 3), maybe we should dial it back a notch.
Then my best to you. The truth will surely out, and I’m not terribly invested in the verdict either way. (I have more than a modicum of science training though, if that was directed at me!)
intention: I don’t have time to respond to all of your post now, so I will only respond to this most egregious one. Here is what Rep. Boehlert had to say in response to this pretext for the investigation:
Now, why might Rep. Boehlert say that the charge about refusing to share data “has been soundly rejected by the National Science Foundation”? Well, perhaps because it has been soundly rejected and you very well know it, which makes your quoting of the NSF’s policy, without noting how they had decided it applies in this case, very deceptive and hardly keeping with your supposed strong desire to never sacrifice honesty for effectiveness. Here is the communication that the NSF sent to McIntyre and McKitrick:
I’m not sure where that “shaded area” came from, so I decided to do my own calculation.
And please feel free to correct me at any step.
(1) First, I need to know where exactly the bottom of the “shaded area” is in relation to the 1990 anomaly. From the IPCC chart, it’s pretty clear that the bottom of the shaded area is right about at the level of the red (instrumental record) line where it ends in 2000. Which appears to be slightly more 0.25 degrees above the 1990 anomaly level.
(In the Rahmstorf analysis, the bottom of the shaded area is about 0.18 degrees above the 1990 anomaly level.)
(2) Ok, so what exactly is the 1990 anomaly level and how does it compare to recent temperatures? The CRU web site seems to supply this page for its global surface temperature data.
According to the CSV table, the anomaly for 1990 was +0.254 degrees. (Compared to the average for 1961-1990).
(3) Ok, so what should we use for recent temperature data? To avoid an objection that the IPCC graph is intended to apply to trends not individual years, I will average the last 10 years worth of temperatures from the CRU table. This would seem to be a reasonable choice, given that the legend of the IPCC graph apparently uses a “decadal average” for instrumental temperatures.
(4) The average anomaly for the years 1998 through 2007 inclusive, according to the CRU data, would seem to be +.421 Celcius.
(5) Since that anomaly is in reference to 1961-1990 data, one needs to normalize it to 1990 by subtracting off the anomaly for 1990, which is 0.254.
(6) Thus, according to the CRU data, the average anomaly for the last 10 full years would appear to be 0.167 degrees greater than the anomaly for 1990.
(7) This is clearly outside the shaded area from the IPCC graph.
As I mentioned earlier, please feel free to correct my math.
I thought you were saying the chart wasn’t really a prediction?