Dr Judith Curry of the Georgia Institute of Technology, should read up a little on the history of anti-science, its methods, its proponents and its arguments, before throwing in her lot with the anti-science people of today : Steve McIntyre and his buddies.
To demonstrate that anti-science arguments are nothing new, she should try to work out what science the following excerpt is about, and when the events it describes took place :-
Who could have guessed that my previous post would not be the final word on “The Population Question” ?
As anybody who has ever looked at this question and its surrounding myths will know, there is layer upon layer of mis-fact, swirl around swirl of supposition and conjecture on the topic of human-to-land density in the imaginings of the newspaper-reading populace.
Over the last ten years, I have attended many public meetings centred on the topic of Climate Change. In my experience, at any one event there will usually be (a) the town madhatter (well-loved, but completely batty), (b) a court jester (the only person in the room who finds the court jester witty) and (c) somebody who deliberately asks or poses what I call “the population question”.
The basic premise of this question is – since the world’s population is rising exponentially, we’re not going to be able to prevent Climate Change unless we force the people in Asia or Africa to stop procreating. Why, already, China’s Greenhouse Gas emissions are already larger than America’s ! And on the back of the diagnosis that the population explosion will ruin our chances of Climate stability, the logical conclusion is that it is pointless for people in the Western industrialised countries to reduce their energy and fuel use, as our emissions aren’t very significant compared to those of Asia.
I’m sorry to say that my general opinion of Fred Pearce’s work has taken a sharp tumble. I found his latest New Scientist piece disappointing, and for me he has continued to be uninspiring today in The Observer newspaper, Sunday sister to The Guardian :-
https://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/jul/04/climatechange-hacked-emails-muir-russell
“Climategate was ‘a game-changer’ in science reporting, say climatologists : After the hacked emails scandal scientists became ‘more upfront, open and explicit about their uncertainties’ : Fred Pearce : Sunday 4 July 2010”
His style is robustly “journalistic” and suffers from a basket of semantic fuzziness, but I’m just going to highlight a few phrases and words here.
Christopher Booker, opinion-former, and seemingly bad-tempered seeming curmudgeon at the Daily Telegraph newspaper, has issued what looks like a threat to the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) in his weekly highly unsubstantiated rail against Climate Change science :-
“‘Climategate’, ‘Amazongate’ – when will the truth be told? : By Christopher Booker, 03 Jul 2010 : …Meanwhile, there has been a further twist to that other IPCC scandal, “Amazongate”, on which I reported last week. This centred on the claim in its 2007 report – attributed only to a paper from green activists at the WWF – that a slight reduction in rainfall caused by climate change could kill up to 40 per cent of the Amazon rainforest. After exhaustive analysis by my colleague Dr Richard North of every document cited by the WWF to back its claim, it seems clearer than ever that there is no good evidence. I have given the WWF one more chance to come up with that evidence, and will reveal its response next week. If it is unable to do so, the IPCC will again be convicted of having made a wildly alarmist claim it cannot justify. Yet this is the body on whose allegedly unimpeachable scientific authority our Government and others propose to land us with the biggest bill in history.”
Eurgh. I’m quaking in my boots. What a terrible threat. Who will fear this peerless man ?
The strongest ever professional criticism so far levelled at Michael Mann, a climatologist at Pennsylvania State University, has emerged this week.
A formal investigation into his research conduct found that his treatment of other scientists’ unpublished work was “careless and inappropriate” :-
https://openparachute.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/final_investigation_report.pdf
“The Investigatory Committee considers Dr. Mann’s actions in sharing unpublished manuscripts with third parties, without first having received express consent from the authors of such manuscripts, to be careless and inappropriate. While sharing an unpublished manuscript on the basis of the author’s implied consent may be an acceptable practice in the judgment of some individuals, the Investigatory Committee believes the best practice in this regard is to obtain express consent from the author before sharing an unpublished manuscript with third parties.”
Following the BBC Panorama “investigation” into Climategate, broadcast yesterday evening, scientists are being advised not to be interviewed alongside Climate Change sceptics and deniers.
“It was extremely ill-advised for Bob Watson to agree to appear in the same programme as Bjorn Lomborg” was one opinion voiced, “it creates the illusion that Bjorn Lomborg might be right. Whereas, of course, he is not.”
Bob Watson was effectively tricked. He was asked to give an authoritative opinion, which was then presented side by side with the views of the discredited Bjorn Lomborg and John Christy.
As for Bob Ward, he should never, ever have agreed to appear alongside Bjorn Lomborg. He should have realised he could not get his message across properly.
The BBC risk ending up with yet more egg on its face after broadcasting a Panorama “investigation” with more errors than you can shake a pepper grinder at at :-
https://news.bbc.co.uk/panorama/hi/default.stm
But it’s worse than merely embarrassing.
Entitled “How ‘climate-gate’ turned nasty”, it was a genuinely nasty piece of work in my view, showing images out of place, endorsing the work of non-experts, overlaying poor and inaccurate narration and editing interview comments inappropriately.
I feel that some of the mistakes made by the reporter, Tom Heap, were laughable.
I will mention just one thing here, out of all those that riled me. Several times during the programme, the “reporter” mentioned that Renewable Energy was expensive. At one point the film showed an offshore wind turbine and said that the electricity produced by wind power was three times more expensive than conventional sources.
He did not mention that the price of onshore wind power is comparable in price to fossil fuel generation but blocked by recalcitrant Planning authorities.
He didn’t mention that it is to be expected that Wind Power will be somewhat expensive at present – the investment phase in the new infrastructure is still ongoing.
He neglected to mention the high levels of return on investment, and solid asset base with continuing value, that a fully operational Wind Power network would provide, as outlined by the Offshore Valuation study :-
https://www.offshorevaluation.org
And he also neglected to mention that ongoing research and developing into Wind Power is dragging the prices down.
From this, I take it that the BBC can clearly not be trusted to provide accurate and complete information on the development of Renewable Energy.
As for the Science, I’ll probably get round to digging into this mess at some point, but one thing needs to be emphasised here : the views of John Christy and Bjoern Lomborg (a non-scientist) are at the very end of the spectrum.
Bjorn Lomborg’s work has been discredited, and he cannot be trusted in my view :-
https://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/06/the_lomborg_deception_1.php
John Christy has had to retract some of his scientific claims :-
https://climateprogress.org/2008/05/22/should-you-believe-anything-john-christy-or-roy-spencer-say/
They are in no way representative of the main caucus of Climate Change Science, and I feel it is extremely poor of the BBC to allow its viewers to be propagandised into believing that there is a serious debate about how significant and serious Climate Change is.
There isn’t. The governments of the world have invested public money in trying to find out the problems that could arise from Global Warming and the Climate Change it can cause, and the results are that we are at serious risk.
I think it is immoral and unethical to leave Panorama viewers with the idea that Climate Change might not be happening, or might not constitute a major threat to their way of life and the lives of those they care about.
In summary, I think the BBC cannot be trusted to relay Climate Change Science to us.
This bumbling attempt to cover all bases as if they were all relevant is going to confuse the public even more than they are already. The BBC is therefore complicit in mass deception, according to my analysis.
Oh, and Tom Heap, people breathing out Carbon Dioxide doesn’t add to the sum total of Carbon Dioxide in the Atmosphere – it merely recycles it. On the other hand, digging up Fossil Fuels from the ground and burning them, they do increase the amount of Carbon Dioxide in the air. How little you know about the basic science. You are in my humble opinion entirely unqualified to broadcast on Climate Change.
Once again, the Media have failed to communicate the facts.
I’ve been letting my peers know of my displeasure regarding the article in New Scientist by the BBC journalist Roger Harrabin :-
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Hi Guys,
Just thought I’d run the flag up for the fact that an allegedly sceptical journalist, Roger Harrabin, has written a poor opinion piece in the popular science magazine New Scientist.
Annoyed ? We could perhaps be :-
https://www.joabbess.com/2010/06/25/roger-harrabin-two-degrees-short-of-accuracy/
jo.
Here is my letter to New Scientist magazine, complaining about Roger Harrabin’s opinion piece, debunked here :-
https://www.joabbess.com/2010/06/25/roger-harrabin-two-degrees-short-of-accuracy/
Dear New Scientist,
Thank you for the refreshingly challenging opinion article about Climate Change scepticism authored by Roger Harrabin (“Take the political heat out of climate scepticism”, 18th June 2010, Issue 2764).
Your publication of this piece demands me complain about Roger Harrabin’s tactics of attempting to undermine Climate Change science by his careful insertion of fudged arguments into his writing.
A journalist with a history of Climate Change scepticism writes an opinion piece for a poplular science magazine. The result ? The propagation of error.
Now, I have spoken to Richard Black at the BBC and offered to try to be more conciliatory towards Roger Harrabin in future, but I can’t let this one pass me by.
Here he is, writing in New Scientist, about his trip to the Heartland Climate Change sceptics conference :-
There are some statements of unquantifiable waffliness, and some dubious conclusions, but the one sentence that stood out for me as pernicious enough to comment on was this one :-
“Most [sceptics] agree with the scientific consensus that basic physics means [Carbon Dioxide] CO2 will warm the planet by about 1 degree C above pre-industrial levels.”
It is to be welcomed that Climate Change sceptics are finally beginning to accept that the world is warming, and that mankind’s activities are the majority factor.
What I don’t like is Roger Harrabin’s assertion that the “consensus” on Global Warming is that the planet will warm by “about 1 degree”.
I thought I’d seen enough Climate Change denial-sceptic tactics to be able to spot a payload, but no. I’ve just been sucked into the maelstrom again, by taking the time and trouble to reply to somebody that wrote a couple of e-mails – someone who appeared to be asking genuine questions – only to find that as the exchanges continued, my correspondent became increasingly agitated, incoherent and threatening.
Was it something I said ? I don’t think so. I was trying to be as helpful and polite as possible. I think the person had an agenda. So, not evil, but wrong, and sad, and quite possibly a little brainwashed.
Fortunately, we are separated by a large expanse of salt water, and differing legal systems, so I don’t regard the threats as holding any substance. And anyway, I’ve done nothing wrong, just tried to paraphrase and summarise where we are with the Science.
I checked out Ms Catherine French, using that fine search engine that is Google, and discovered her pattern of attack – rather like that of a mosquito – whining, buzzing, irritating and painful.
A lot of the things she wrote to me she has written to other people in the past, just adding the latest Climate Change denier-sceptic arguments in as they get invented/fabricated.
Baiting Climate Change web loggers is fine sport for some, but I can’t see the funny side of it. It wastes time and personal energy and it doesn’t move the public discourse forward.
Just remember this, Catherine French – you’re wrong. Wrong about the science and wrong about your tactics. Personal abuse, emotive language, false accusations and threats are not the way to conduct rational debate.
Climate Change “scepticism” is being washed away, and so you’d better be prepared to have your vision and perspective altered. You can have all the opinions you want, but you’re not entitled to contradict the facts. You are not believable, and your position is losing ground by the second.
There were some in two minds, some vehemently on one side of the argument or the other, but now, the debate is finally over : on the question of whether they have been reporting Climate Change science accurately, the mainstream media have shown themselves to be incapable :-
https://climateprogress.org/2010/06/21/pnas-study-climate-science-media-balance-deniers/
https://www.ucsusa.org/news/press_release/study-scientific-consensus-climate-change-411.html
As of this second, the report from the Proceedings of the National Academies of Sciences is not yet available to the public. But it will be, it will be…
Another chapter in the ongoing saga of the exhausting struggle to educate the mainstream media journalists to check their Climate Change stories thoroughly before publishing.
You may have heard of “Amazongate” – the Amazon would seem to be capable of withstanding more frequent drought caused by Global Warming – according to one interpretation of an isolated piece of research.
However, if you believed that take on things, you’d be very much mistaken in doing so. And the person you’re most likely to be able to have believed on this story would be Jonathan Leake, writing in The Sunday Times.
An article that he wrote, published on 31 January 2010 has been retracted after a submission to the Press Complaints Commission by Dr Simon Lewis. The link to the original article has been removed from the Times Online website :-
https://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article7009705.ece
“UN climate panel shamed by bogus rainforest claim”
Searching for this article title using Google produces thousands of pages that refer to the original publication :-
https://www.google.co.uk/search
The retraction is apparently published here, but I have no access to it, because it requires subscription, which I will not register for, so I do not know what it says :-
[ Left to Right : Dr David Adam (The Guardian), Ben Stewart (Greenpeace), Tooki the Toucan operated by George Marshall (ClimateDenial.org) and Marina from Campaign against Climate Change]
On Wednesday evening, at the “Sceptic Backlash” public event, hosted by the Campaign against Climate Change, communications researcher George Marshall introduced the meeting to an unusual commentator on Climate Change…
https://www.campaigncc.org/scepticsmeeting
https://www.joabbess.com/2010/04/15/ben-stewart-greenpeace-stalking/
https://www.joabbess.com/2010/04/15/david-adam-liberal-pacifier/
Here is a transcript of what George Marshall said (as I have it) :-
– I do a lot of work around Climate Change communications and information.
– Climate Change is a large and technical issue. No one has the time to get totally on top of it. Even within the Science the specialists only look at their specialist areas.
– The average Media “punter” (somebody looking for information) is looking for a shortcut – their “ask” is “just tell me what’s going on”.
– Most people ask “Dave” down the pub (public house, bar). Friends and acquaintances in bars are the most important people in your social network, no doubt.
– And Dave says he saw this thing on telly (television)…
– The average person is just looking for a source of information that has some kind of authority…
If you’re looking for a dose of sheer entertainment, then hop on down this Wednesday to Bloomsbury in London, for a public meeting about the dreaded, sharptoothed, hairy, boogle-eyed, Ye Olde Skeptik Backlash :-
https://www.campaigncc.org/scepticsmeeting
There you should find Dr David Adam, esteemed and seriously reputable journalist from The Guardian newspaper, and an itchy-and-scratchy, rabble-rousing Ben Stewart from Greenpeace and George Marshall (no, not that George Marshall) of pork-pie-eating, Trilby-wearing-whilst-cycling and Climate anti-denial fame :-
Why do people deny the facts coming from Scientists on Global Warming ?
“Well-financed conservative think-tanks”
“Unduly weighted outlier views”
“Scientific illiteracy”
“Our message hasn’t gotten through to the American people”
“Organised and systematic campaign”
https://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/04/science_show_on_climate_change.php
https://mpegmedia.abc.net.au/rn/podcast/2010/04/ssw_20100403_1205.mp3
Mentioned by Naomi Oreskes in the audio presentation :-
Count it all joy, my brothers and sisters (and those who are hermaphrodite, or in other ways gender-alternative) when you face trials and tribulations of many kinds, from those who have not recognised in you the Light, the Truth and the Way.
James Delingpole is doing his very best-worst to be annoying, or even insulting, I’m not sure, by levelling some personally negative comments towards me. But I have responded in friendliness and lovingkindness, although I might get moderated off the comments page, so I’ve included my words here :-
The Climate Unscience Rapid Response Unit would like to ask anybody out there with a few spare minutes and a reliable contact with the Daily Telegraph to have a little chat with them about this, their latest “Horrible Headline”, headlighted on their Science page thusly :-
“Will it really be a ‘barbecue summer’? : Forecasts for a barbecue summer are as uncertain as predictions of climate change, argues Roger Highfield : 23 Mar 2010”
They appear to have already bowed to some sort of internal or external pressure to change it from its original form, which appears to have had its datestamp set back to the year 2000, for some unknown reason :-
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/7499524/You-cant-predict-the-weather-or-climate-change.html
“You can’t predict the weather; or climate change : Our weather forecasts will always be as unreliable as our predictions of climate change. : By Roger Highfield : Published: 7:00AM GMT 23 Mar 2000”
