What if AGW is wrong?

[XT]

@Lightnin'

But isn’t it more likely that the “pile on”, as you call it, is simply because there are so many more people who disagree with you? Post any proposition which isn’t supported by the majority, and you’ll see the same effect.

Sure…I never said there weren’t valid reasons for a pile on (though to be honest, those piling on sometimes don’t have a clue as to their own side). I just was giving a reason why someone from the other side might feel a bit skittish…in response to your own seeming lack of understanding why someone would be a bit circumspect in posting it.

@Lightnin'

Fine, with you so far.

I guess so, since I quoted this from you.

@Lightnin'

Sure. If the science is good, other scientists will come to the same conclusions.

Certainly…that was my point. I think the science behind GW (and to a lesser extent AGW) IS good, at least as far as it goes.

@Lightnin'

The media looks for sensational stories. Few scientists rush to the papers when they’ve corroborated experimental data. Most just publish… in, you know, scientific papers.

Uhuh…the sky is blue. Thats why I posted this point. Glad you followed along.

@Lightnin'

Solutions such as cutting down on carbon emissions?

Sure, thats one (overly simplified) ‘solution’. There are others that are a bit more involved of course. The point is, that some folks are using the nearly universal consensus among scientists wrt GW (and AGW) to legitimize their SOLUTIONS to the problem. Solutions which AREN’T as solidly based on science. Take reduction of carbon emissions for instance. How much reduction will have an effect? How will the carbon be reduced? What method will we be able to use to track what, if any, effect we are having? How long will we have to do it for? What will it cost? Will reduction of carbon be enough or will we have to reduce other emissions as well? What will the short, medium and long term results be…and what are those predictions based on?

@Lightnin'

So your objection is that averting the worst-case scenario for AGW is that it’d be an imposition?

Only if your use of ‘imposition’ is the equivenlent understatement of ‘The big bang was a bit noisy’. You see, I have yet to read (or get anyone on this board) to actually give me some realistic figures on what the fuck it will actually take to halt and/or reverse GW. In addition, most of the ‘worst-case scenario’ thingies I’ve seen are completely off the wall. Most of the main stream predictions are much more modest in their effects on the world.

@Lightnin'

Big Business didn’t like having to limit their mercury emissions, but that didn’t exactly drive them out of business. They didn’t like not being able to hire children. They didn’t like having to keep their workers reasonably safe. Businesses adapt or fail.

This goes a bit beyond that…halting the use of child labor or the use of mercury doesn’t exactly correspond to the types of cuts (and loss of revenue) some are talking about to make a REAL difference. Unless you are talking about some modest government regulations coupled with a market approach to the problem? In that case I’m all for it. However, thats not really going to realistically address the ‘problem’…is it? And thats not really what you are getting at either…is it?

@Lightnin'

Oh, and when you talk about an agenda, surely you’re also talking about Exxon trying everything it can to discredit AGW, like bribing scientists to publish anti-AGW papers, right?

Certainly. Of COURSE Exxon is going to have an agenda as well. I’m unsure why you feel the need to point out that water is wet, but I can certainly agree that both sides (as well as other sides) have agenda’s. Glad we could clear that point up (not that it was cloudy, mind :)).

@Lightnin'

Um… why? Why do you have to ascribe personal profit to this step, when it can be easily explained by “If we don’t do something about this, we’re all screwed”?

Sure, in some cases I have no doubts that the person or scientist pushing for this or that measure feels s/he is doing it for all the right reasons, or because s/he feels it IS the best thing. However, I equally have no doubts that a lot of them are not doing it for those motives alone…and some of them definitely have an agenda wrt the environment, man’s impact on the environment, etc…or some have anti-business/anti-consummer/anti-whatever agenda’s. Even before there was all this hoopla about GW/AGW there were plenty of folks who wanted to curb ‘big business’, to cut our consumption, to save the environment, etc…and I think a lot of these folks (and scientists) have jumped on the GW/AGW bandwagon because it looks to be the best vehicle to push through an agenda of massive and global cuts in industry, pollution and consumerism.

@Lightnin'

Again, how? How does the average scientist profit from this? Large corporations, such as Exxon, I can see profiting from denying AGW… but the average researcher? There’s not a lot of money in science as it is- how do they stand to make money on corroborating other scientists’ data?

I think your confusion is you are equating ‘profit’ with ‘money’…and in science its not (always) about money. However, other ways that DO involve money that a group of scientists could ‘profit’ by would be…increased research funds. Has it not crossed your mind that with the awareness and publicity of GW/AGW that the coffers for funding have been opened wide, not just in the US but world wide, for anyone doing this kind of research? Do you not know that scientists NEED funding to do the research and exploration they WANT to do…or that the competition for funding is fiercely competetive?

There are other reasons as well that could ‘profit’ a scientist or groups dealing with prestige and such…but I’ll just leave it here and let you think about it.

@Lightnin'

But on the other side, we’ve got large corporations which EASILY stand to profit from denying AGW. Why are they so much more believable?

They aren’t and I never said they were. You are also making some assumptions about my own stance wrt GW/AGW I think. I have few doubts that GW is real…and that AGW is a serious factor in it. My doubts come from the various ‘solutions’ being proposed…which I don’t believe are anywhere near as grounded in hard science. Couple that with the astronomical amounts of money (and the crippling of the economy and industry of not just the US but probably the world), and the rather tenuous (IMHO) predictive abilities to firmly state EXACTLY what effect those solutions WILL have (along with time tables and realistic projections of cost) and you can see (well, maybe YOU can’t :)) why I’m a bit skeptical when it comes to this aspect.

-XT

[Quartz]

Going back to the OP, I think those who currently advocate AGW will be able to point to better quality of air, less pollution assuming we switch away from coal and gas power stations, a better understanding of the planet. And they’ll appear to weasel: they’ll rightly point out about all the ifs in their work. But the public won’t see it like that; they’re not so nuanced. It will further erode the public’s trust of scientists. The public will think that the scientists lied to them. Major organisations like Greenpeace and the WWF for Nature will lose considerable support for between 10 and 20 years.

[DSeid]

@Sam Stone

First, I’m fully in agreement with the scientific consensus that A) the earth is heating up, and B) human C02 emissions are part of the reason. At this point, anyone who really disputes that is way out on a limb.
<snip>

If we want to have a REAL debate about what to do with global warming, we can start with an honest assessment of the costs of doing various amounts to prevent it - cutting the rate of increase by 10%, cutting it by 50%, eliminating manmade carbon entirely, etc.

Then we can start talking about the costs of doing nothing. An honest assessment of real risks and approximate damages to the planet. First at the low end of current estimates, then at the high end.

Only then can we make reasonable, intelligent decisions about where to expend our resources. …

Fair enough. You can start the debate with the Stern Report.

A report by economist Sir Nicholas Stern suggests that global warming could shrink the global economy by 20%.

But taking action now would cost just 1% of global gross domestic product, the 700-page study says.

Executive summary (pdf) available. To be sure the Stern Report has its own naysayers, and I am not well enough versed in “social discount rates” to debate its merits. But Stern is hardly a environmentalist wacko. This is a reasoned attempt to do exactly what you requested and these are the results.

Again, none of these predictions are contingent upon Global Climate Change being primarily anthropogenic. It is a modelling of what will happen at different continued rates of emission vs abatement and their costs. How much does it cost to diminish the amount of gas we are pouring in the path of the fire and how much will it cost if we do not do that?

[DSeid]

Another economic approach is to think of mitigation as a hedge. This assumes that we will do something later to deal with it once we know more about the true costs and deals with hedging against those future possible costs under different assumptions. (Link is to the free summary; quotes from article)

It has been over a decade since Nordhaus (1) published his seminal paper on mitigation policy for climate change. His question was “To slow or not to slow?”; his answer was derived from a traditional cost-benefit approach. He found that a tax levied on fossil fuel in proportion to its carbon content, which would climb over time at roughly the rate of interest, maximized global welfare. Although many more analyses of the same question have since been published, his results are still robust if one assumes a deterministic world in which decision-makers are prescient. However, no decision-maker has perfect foresight, and the uncertainty that clouds our view of the future has led some to argue that near-term mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions would be foolish. Such policy would impose immediate costs, they argue, and have uncertain long-term benefits.

We take a different approach in this Policy Forum by assuming that decision-makers will someday become so concerned about the potential damages associated with climate change that they will take action. Even though it is impossible to determine exactly what sort of mitigation target these future policies might ultimately adopt, a “wait-and-see” approach may no longer be the best near-term policy choice. Should we move soon to intervene in global energy markets as a hedge against the expected cost of meeting a currently unknown policy target?
<snip>
It should not be a surprise that hedging is a preferred strategy in a world where a temperature target may be selected sometime in the future. People buy insurance against extreme events when the risks affect private property, and societies require insurance when potential losses are distributed across a population. It is, however, surprising that climate insurance over the near term can be so inexpensive and that an economically efficient near-term hedging policy can be so robust across a wide range of futures in comparison with doing nothing. The point is that paralysis in near-term action can make temperature targets as low as 3º impossible to achieve if the climate sensitivity turns out to be higher than 6º. Moreover, the cost of adjustment measured in terms of discounted GWP can be many times higher for lower climate sensitivities if nothing were done for 30 years. In short, taking an insurance approach to the near-term mitigation question strongly supports starting modest but persistent intervention on a global scale as soon as possible.

<snip>
Uncertainty is the reason for acting in the near term, and that uncertainty cannot be used as a justification for doing nothing.

[Little_Nemo]

Do I think all human life is going to end? No. Do I think most scientists are claiming this? No.

But I am tired of people who deny there’s a problem. Or worse yet, those who concede there’s a problem but deny we should be working on a solution.

Do 90% of scientists agree global warming is real or is it 95%? Will global warming be the worst disaster in human history or just one of the top ten disasters? Will coastal cities be underwater in fifty years or two hundred years? Will it kill off half the species in the world or just ten percent of them? Is it going to kill twenty million people or a billion people? All questions we don’t have answers to. But some people are saying that until we have the exact answers we should just maintain course.

My idea is that we admit we have a big bad problem ahead of us. We don’t know exactly how or how bad or how far ahead of us it is. But it’s there. And we should start making plans before it’s here.

[FRDE]

When I see a hysterical crowd
a) I get in there and cheer
b) I get on a car and whip them up
c) I slope off

When I see an out of control truck
a) I recommend building a barricade
b) I join in building a barricade
c) I walk out of its path

When I hear about predictive computer models
a) I clap and support them
b) I feel nervous as I’m a programmer
c) I feel very nervous as I’ve produced fakeable models
d) I revert to economist mode and distrust all models
e) I try to explain that predictive computer models just don’t work
f) I dismiss the credulous as … well a bit unsophisticated

When I hear about Global Warming
a) I believe it just as I believe anything people tell me
b) I join an organization knitting socks out of dry ice
c) I wonder about real estate in Alaska or the South Pole

Sure, planting trees is a good idea, they look nice and they prevent soil erosion.
If sea levels do rise, well it is a shame, we’ll lose some nice old buildings, but thinking about it the loss of NOLA was no big shakes - the nice bit was above sea level anyway.

If those energy efficient ligtbulbs really contain as much mercury as I’ve heard, I’m going to stockpile tungsten filament bulbs and wait until LEDs are cheap.

Anyone want to buy some carbon offsets ?

[Kimstu]

@FRDE

If sea levels do rise, well it is a shame, we’ll lose some nice old buildings, but thinking about it the loss of NOLA was no big shakes

I don’t see how anybody who could make an assertion like this could ever expect to be taken seriously when discussing the economic impact of global warming and/or global warming mitigation. I mean, did you even bother to look up any data on the cost of Hurricane Katrina and the destruction it caused? For example:

Insured losses from Katrina alone totaled more than $40 billion, according to the Insurance Information Institute. That was nearly double the amount of damage caused by the previous record holder, Hurricane Andrew, in 1992. […]

A study conducted by James Richardson, an economics professor at Louisiana State University, found that after Hurricane Katrina 11 percent of homes were destroyed or deemed uninhabitable in the New Orleans area alone. Throughout the state of Louisiana, nearly 18 percent of businesses were in a similar state. […]

In his study, Richardson concluded that New Orleans lost 190,000 jobs and employment fell by more than 30 percent from August 2005 to December 2005. Statewide, Louisiana lost 214,000 jobs, or 12 percent of the state’s total.

In the Biloxi-Gulfport area of Mississippi, employment dropped by 26,900 jobs — a loss of more than 23 percent of jobs in the region.

Without jobs and with uninhabitable homes, many homeowners stopped paying their mortgages, and their loans quickly became delinquent.

“The impacts of Hurricane Katrina on Louisiana and Mississippi caused the U.S. mortgage delinquency rate to rise significantly in the third quarter of last year,” wrote Doug Duncan, chief economist at the Mortgage Bankers Association. […]

The short-term shutdown in refining capacity led to shortages of gasoline throughout the nation and spikes in gas prices at the pump. On Sept. 5, 2005, the average U.S. price for a gallon of gasoline set a new record at $3.07, according to the Energy Department.

“The spike in energy prices due to the loss of refining capacity pulled money out of consumers pockets and slowed the economy slightly in the fourth quarter,” said Dean Baker, economist and co-director at the Center for Economic and Policy Research.

The impact of Katrina on the US economy as a whole was fairly short-term, but regional economies and communities are still suffering severely from it. And that was just one Category 5 hurricane, with no definite connection to anthropogenic global warming.

If, as scientists predict, AGW starts producing systematically more severe weather as well as other long-term changes like rapidly rising sea levels, it’s simply insane to try to imply that the effects will be “no big shakes” and nothing worse than “a shame”. Have you really not noticed that the destruction of built environments by natural disasters costs serious money?

[pizzabrat]

@Lightnin'

The thought process behind this supposed conspiracy appears to be:

1. Publish a paper which corroborates anthropogenic global warming
2. ???
3. Profit

You got it switched around a bit. Here you go:

1. Receive a grant to research the effects of human activity on global warming
2. Publish a paper which corroborates anthropogenic global warming
3. Profit

Alternatively:

1. Receive grant money to research the effects of human activity on global warming
2. Find inconclusive evidence of anthropogenic global warming
3. The hell was the point of that?

[Kimstu]

@erie774

What if the anthropogenic global warming (AGW) people are wrong?

Depends. In your hypothetical scenario, what is the real cause of the current comparatively rapid global warming trend? How long will it continue, and how fast will it proceed? Is it reversible? Is there something humans can do to mitigate it?

Because if global temperatures continue to rise as currently predicted, and if the increased temperature produces the sea level rise, climate disruption, severe weather patterns, etc., as currently predicted, then it isn’t going to matter very much whether or not humans are the primary cause of it. We’ll still be up to our necks in disaster management.

If the warming trend can be mitigated by human action—even if it wasn’t human action that originally caused it—we’ll still face the same dilemmas that we currently face. How much and what kind of action should we take, what will be its environmental and economic impacts, what are the trade-offs?

IMHO, the only possible scenario that will really make a difference in the magnitude of the problems confronting us is if global warming unexpectedly turns out to be not only non-anthropogenic, but mild and very short-term. Say, a couple decades of modest temperature elevations and then, ta-da, back to our regularly scheduled pre-industrial interglacial-period climate patterns. No problem!

In that case, yes, climate scientists and environmentalists would face some severe public criticism and mockery, as well as significant loss of popular trust. Personally, I think that would be a very small price to pay for such a massive reprieve from environmental turmoil, and I would gratefully undertake to go around apologizing profusely to any climate skeptic who felt apologies were owed. I only hope I get the chance, but I’m afraid we’re very unlikely to be that lucky.

@pizzabrat

1. Receive a grant to research the effects of human activity on global warming
2. Publish a paper which corroborates anthropogenic global warming
3. Profit

“Profit”? How? In your alleged scenario, the researcher already got the grant before publishing any conclusions about AGW.

Are you suggesting that researchers who publish papers with conclusions more strongly in favor of the AGW hypothesis are for that reason getting more and/or better grants? Do you have a cite for that?

[pizzabrat]

@Kimstu

Are you suggesting that researchers who publish papers with conclusions more strongly in favor of the AGW hypothesis are for that reason getting more and/or better grants? Do you have a cite for that?

I was suggesting it could be an avenue for profit (yes, the profit comes from the subsequent grants), in answer to the question of how someone could possibly profit from exaggerating AGW.

[Sailboat]

@erie774

I’m probably going to be vilified for even suggesting this but: What if the anthropogenic global warming (AGW) people are wrong? Amidst all of the studies saying that man is a prime contributor to global warming there are others that say that he isn’t, that it is part of a natural cycle of warming and cooling, that even if man is contributing to some degree that it is not as horrific as the proponents claim. People who claim skepticism and seek further proof are lambasted and compared with holocaust deniers. Reputations and careers are jeopardized.

I keep seeing this claim advanced by people predisposed to hate the AGW theory (i.e., conservatives or those who support industry). Can you cite this (in independent media, not just right-wing blogs and the Fox News advocacy group)? Are careers being destroyed? Is there in fact a witch hunt for AGW deniers?

Bear in mind that the first scientist to come to the President with concerns about global warming (i.e., the evidence was sufficiently strong to bother the president) did so in 1963. So this consensus has been building for 44 years or so – it’s only a recent development if you’ve been ignoring it. Thus there’s an understandble reason to ridicule the “further study” crowd – they’ve had 44 more years so far.

But back to the point – is AGW orthodoxy really suppressing dissent, ruining careers, and lambasting deniers? Or is this an urban legend from the Fox News set? Educate me!

Sailboat

[Kimstu]

@pizzabrat

I was suggesting it could be an avenue for profit (yes, the profit comes from the subsequent grants), in answer to the question of how someone could possibly profit from exaggerating AGW.

Exactly how does exaggerating AGW increase one’s access to subsequent grants? Please be specific and back up your assertions with statistically significant cites that climate scientists who misrepresent their results to exaggerate the corroboration of AGW are more successful professionally than climate scientists who are reporting their results honestly.

If you’re just arguing that it’s conceivable that some kind of professional conspiracy or groupthink to foster bad science could be taking place in the way you suggest, although we currently have no definite evidence that anything of the sort is happening, then so what? The question here was why so many AGW skeptics seem to believe that there really is some kind of profit motive luring scientists to misrepresent the validity of AGW. Not whether one could imagine some possible scenario in which such a thing could happen.

Are you suggesting that AGW skeptics are rejecting the conclusions of mainstream climate scientists based merely on unsupported suspicions that there might be some kind of misleading scientific conspiracy or groupthink at work? Is that supposed to be credible reasoning?

[Sailboat]

@erie774

I’m probably going to be vilified for even suggesting this but: What if the anthropogenic global warming (AGW) people are wrong? Amidst all of the studies saying that man is a prime contributor to global warming there are others that say that he isn’t, that it is part of a natural cycle of warming and cooling, that even if man is contributing to some degree that it is not as horrific as the proponents claim. People who claim skepticism and seek further proof are lambasted and compared with holocaust deniers. Reputations and careers are jeopardized.

I keep seeing this claim advanced by people predisposed to hate the AGW theory (i.e., conservatives or those who support industry). Can you cite this (in independent media, not just right-wing blogs and the Fox News advocacy group)? Are careers being destroyed? Is there in fact a witch hunt for AGW deniers?

Bear in mind that the first scientist to come to the President with concerns about global warming (i.e., the evidence was sufficiently strong to warrant bothering the president) did so in 1963. So this consensus has been building for 44 years or so – it’s only a recent development if you’ve been ignoring it. Thus there’s an understandble reason to ridicule the “further study” crowd – they’ve had 44 more years so far.

But back to the point – is AGW orthodoxy really suppressing dissent, ruining careers, and lambasting deniers? Or is this an urban legend from the Fox News set? Educate me!

Sailboat

PS sorry for the double post…was trying to add the edit.

[figure9]

While reading through a very old encyclopedia (yes I was bored thanks for asking) I came across an article about the luminiferous ether. This was a substance that filled the universe and allowed light waves to travel. The ether was the established medium for carrying electromagnetic radiation. The ether was considered as enough of an accepted truth to be put in an encyclopedia. When experiment showed there was no ether, Science had to admit it was wrong. What happened? Did people give up on Science? No, the Ether Theory was abandoned and replaced with relativity and quantum mechanics. So the main theory was wrong, So what. Science is a slow self correcting body of knowledge. Science does not claim to be perfect and can best be summed up as replacing incorrect theories with slightly less incorrect theories. In short if science is wrong about AGW it will throw out or modify the theory and continue working towards a slightly less incorrect theory.

[XT]

@Kimstu

Are you suggesting that researchers who publish papers with conclusions more strongly in favor of the AGW hypothesis are for that reason getting more and/or better grants? Do you have a cite for that?

Um…are you seriously contending that the research funds are equally divided between the opposing camps? That people researching GW/AGW with an eye towards proving it (or continueing to firm the already firm conclusions) are getting no more funding than those who are researching skeptically so to speak? Really? And you want a CITE for this??

Would you like a cite that water is wet and the sky is blue? I mean come on Kimstu…you know better than that if you know the first thing about how research dollars are allocated. Even if we take into account the various Exxons and such who are dumping money (or were) into some of the fringe scientists who WERE willing to research and publish from a skeptical view point, the overwhelming funds world wide are going to those folks who are basically doing research in the main stream of the GW/AGW debate.

Not that its likely that folks who are doing staight research into GW/AGW NEED to skew the data…its pretty clear that it IS happening after all. The folks who are denying this part of the debate are pretty much in denial…the evidence, at least from what I’ve been able to puzzle out, is pretty much overwhelming. As I said above, where I get that hinky feeling is when they try and spring board from this stuff, well grounded in science, to ‘solutions’ of dubious (IMHO) worth.

-XT

[Kimstu]

@xtisme

Um…are you seriously contending that the research funds are equally divided between the opposing camps? That people researching GW/AGW with an eye towards proving it (or continueing to firm the already firm conclusions) are getting no more funding than those who are researching skeptically so to speak? Really? And you want a CITE for this??

What I want a cite for, as I said, is the contention that researchers are getting more money simply because their results support the AGW hypothesis, even if they are exaggerating or misrepresenting the science.

Yes, I know that published research supporting the AGW hypothesis is far more abundant than published research significantly undermining it. But I’ve seen no convincing evidence to suggest that that’s the result of some kind of scientific conspiracy or groupthink, rather than because the AGW hypothesis simply appears more scientifically valid so far than rival hypotheses attempting to explain global warming.

Therefore, if somebody’s claiming that pro-AGW research is getting more funding than anti-AGW research for reasons that are not scientifically valid, yes, I want to see a cite.

@xtisme

Would you like a cite that water is wet and the sky is blue?

No, but if I did, it would be easy to find one. Because there exists lots of actual, you know, evidence that water is wet and the sky is blue, as well as solid physical theory to explain why this is so. Any assertion that is equally well-established should be equally easy to find a cite for.

@xtisme

Not that its likely that folks who are doing staight research into GW/AGW NEED to skew the data…its pretty clear that it IS happening after all.

Okay, then you agree with me that there’s no evidence that climate change research or funding is being significantly distorted by pro-AGW bias. So if somebody asserts otherwise, they will need to provide a cite. Right?

[Lightnin]

@xtisme

Even if we take into account the various Exxons and such who are dumping money (or were) into some of the fringe scientists who WERE willing to research and publish from a skeptical view point, the overwhelming funds world wide are going to those folks who are basically doing research in the main stream of the GW/AGW debate.

One the one hand, we’ve got conspiracy theories which state that the scientific community wants the world economy destroyed. Presumably they’ve invested well, and will profit when the world economy goes to hell as the various governments force all sorts of shady environmental restrictions on the noble petroleum providers. For this reason, researchers who corroborate AGW benefit from nice, fat grant checks, and continued employment. Those scientists who bravely fight against The System and try to prove that global warming is natural, end up penniless and unemployed in the gutter.

On the other hand, we know Exxon has attempted to pay researchers for data which discredits AGW.

Hmm.

Pizzabrat has posited a way in which researchers can profit from continuing the AGW “fraud”- they preferentially receive grants from the scientific establishment. Okay, fine. We’ve no proof of this, of course (while we do have proof of Exxon doing the opposite).

However… why does the scientific establishment (or anyone, for that matter) want to further the AGW “hysteria”? They won’t be making any money off of this- hell, if what the anti-AGW people say, the economy will be destroyed. So what’s in it for them? Have they invested in potential new beachfront properties?

[SUB]Sorry, mixed up Kimstu and Pizzabrat[/SUB]

[Kimstu]

@Lightnin'

On the other hand, we know Exxon has attempted to pay researchers for data which discredits AGW.

Although I certainly hold no brief for the overall integrity or responsibility of Exxon-Mobil’s PR activities over the course of the whole global warming flap to date, I think that this particular claim may be overstated and/or misleading. See this recent article in the environmental blog Grist for a more detailed analysis:

The brouhaha began on Feb. 2, when the U.K. newspaper The Guardian published an article by Ian Sample claiming that the Washington-based American Enterprise Institute was paying scientists $10,000 a piece to “undermine” the just-released report from the Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change. AEI was described as a “lobby group funded by one of the world’s largest oil companies” and an “ExxonMobil-funded think tank with close links to the Bush administration.” […]

Sample reports that ExxonMobil has funded AEI to the tune of $1.6 million, without noting that the figure is an aggregate over seven years; DeMuth claims that no corporation’s donations represent more than 1 percent of AEI’s annual revenue. ExxonMobil denies being aware of AEI’s project on climate-change policy, and says it accepts the IPCC’s findings. […]

The heart of the matter, of course, is whether the honorarium was meant to insure conclusions that would “undermine” the IPCC. Was AEI acting in the spirit of critical inquiry or offering a thinly disguised bribe? That depends entirely on one’s interpretation of AEI’s motives. […]

Based on the balance of evidence, it’s reasonable to believe that AEI’s project was always meant, as its architects claim, to focus on climate policymaking and not on disputing basic science. […]

If a conservative think tank seeks to fund responsible criticism on climate science or policy, it would do well to tread carefully, making explicit its acceptance of the core IPCC consensus and reassuring potential participants that their work will not be drafted in service of an ideological attack. […]

Those who favor action on climate change can learn something from this episode as well, and not just the wisdom of bringing heightened skepticism to favorably biased news stories. Too many activists and commentators are fighting the last war, pounding away on any sign of doubt about basic climate science, even where no such doubt exists. The debate over the existence of anthropogenic climate change, despite some noisy rear-guard skirmishes, is largely over.

The policy debate is going to be more messy and politicized than the science debate ever was – after all, science will not be there to settle it. It will turn on risk assessment and the untidy art of balancing competing interests.

[Slypork]

@Sailboat

I keep seeing this claim advanced by people predisposed to hate the AGW theory (i.e., conservatives or those who support industry). Can you cite this (in independent media, not just right-wing blogs and the Fox News advocacy group)? Are careers being destroyed? Is there in fact a witch hunt for AGW deniers?

Bear in mind that the first scientist to come to the President with concerns about global warming (i.e., the evidence was sufficiently strong to warrant bothering the president) did so in 1963. So this consensus has been building for 44 years or so – it’s only a recent development if you’ve been ignoring it. Thus there’s an understandble reason to ridicule the “further study” crowd – they’ve had 44 more years so far.

But back to the point – is AGW orthodoxy really suppressing dissent, ruining careers, and lambasting deniers? Or is this an urban legend from the Fox News set? Educate me!

Sailboat

PS sorry for the double post…was trying to add the edit.

OK:

National and Local Weather Radar, Daily Forecast, Hurricane and information...

http://www.delawareonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070201/NEWS/702010363/1006/NEWS
http://www.kgw.com/news-local/stories/kgw_020607_news_taylor_title.59f5d04a.html
And an editorial comparing them to Holocaust deniers
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2007/02/09/no_change_in_political_climate/
No Fox or right wing blogs.

[Kimstu]

@erie774

http://climate.weather.com/blog/9_11396.html

Bzzzt. This is a climate scientist opining that receiving the American Meteorological Society’s Seal of Approval confers on TV weatherpeople a responsibility to educate themselves on the science of climate change. At the very least, they shouldn’t get “weather” and “climate” mixed up when speaking to the press. There is no suggestion, however, that meteorologists who are skeptical about AGW should have their dissent suppressed or careers ruined.

@erie774

http://www.delawareonline.com/apps/...10363/1006/NEWS

Bzzzt. This is a news article about Delaware’s state climatologist, a climate skeptic, disagreeing with Delaware’s position in a court case about emissions reductions. There is no suggestion of any attempt to suppress the climatologist’s dissent or ruin his career.

@erie774

http://www.kgw.com/news-local/stori...e.59f5d04a.html

Bzzzt. This is about the governor of Oregon wanting to take over the position title “State Climatologist”, which was applied by Oregon State University to the head of the Oregon Climate Service (who is currently a climate skeptic named George Taylor), and apply the title to a new governor-appointed position. Nobody is attempting to suppress Prof. Taylor’s dissent or ruin his career.

@erie774

And an editorial comparing them to Holocaust deniers
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/ed...itical_climate/

This is the only halfway-valid cite in the bunch. Yes, in this article we do have an Op-Ed journalist stating that “global warming deniers are now on a par with Holocaust deniers”. Are you equally upset about political commentators on the other side of the debate referring to environmentalists and climate scientists as “socialists”, “neo-Luddites”, “environazis”, and the like?