Lots of links over at Glenn’s.
My two cents as a professional programmer: it’s pretty clear from the code comments that the CRU dataset is both junky and deliberately manipulated to produce a warming trend. This is devastating to the credibility of the entire field, because CRU is the most widely cited dataset in climate science, and GCMs are modelled against it. Worst of all, the damage can never be repaired, because CRU has lost their raw data and after this no one is going to trust their “value-added data,” especially when they’ve been caught deleting data that was, shall we say, inconvenient.
It’s interesting how this meme is evolving. Megan McArdle, a self-described “confirmed believer” in AGW, has said her basis for belief comes from the claims of consensus among scientists, and I think that’s true for a lot of intelligent people. It’s a fair cop — after all, you can’t spend your whole life personally verifying every scientific claim. We all have to rely on what amounts to a priori knowledge to a large extent.
Of course, we generally assume pretty strictly in the cases of scientists that our a priori knowledge is a fair representation of their a posteriori knowledge: we reason we can trust their claims because they are objective scientists whose work is carefully reviewed by other objective scientists.
That’s why this is so damaging: the consensus is increasingly being shown to be politicially driven by activists who put their agenda ahead of their science. When your primary epistemological basis for costly political action is a consensus of experts, it’s problematic when your experts have a clear political slant that compromises their objectivity (or in the case of James “Coal trains are Auschwitz! War crimes trials for skeptics!” Hansen, a fervent crusade that involves getting arrested outside coal plants). It’s even more problematic when your experts are exposed conspiring to silence dissenting opinions.
I was mostly convinced of AGW in 1998, when I didn’t know much about it beyond MSM coverage and temps were clearly going way up. After a graduate degree in Information Systems, I was considerably more skeptical they could actually predict anything accurately out to 2100 when so many variables were involved. Of course, all that was before bristlecones, Yamal, inverted datasets, a decade of flat temps, and now this…
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I have always believed global warming was caused by the sun, ditto global cooling. I have also always been a skeptic on this particular science because very long ago I read the “How to Lie with Statistics” book and have been married to a scientist for 51 years. There is absolutely no way to get all the factors and variables of global climate into a computer model.
I have seen scientific fads come and go. There has always been a “good ole boy” system among the grantors and the grantees and who gets published in what journals. What is new about this is the politics that picked and it up used for an ideology.
Scientists are human, having the right politics meant power and grant money. Anytime I see an announcement of a “break through” in a newspaper I can only think grant money. I know I discussed this with Dean online in this blog many times since the inception of his Dean’s World, more in the early days than lately. I am a total cynic when it comes to the scientific world.
You can always spot junk science when the proponents of the dominant majority viewpoint state:
1. The debate is over;
2. The overwhelming evidence says X, therefore we refuse to listen to dissenters.
3. The scientific consensus says, X, therefore we refuse to listen to dissenters.
3. The dissidents are now endangering the planet, if they refuse to adopt our view.
4. You’re a Denier
Science, unlike a gov’t program, is always provisional, always somewhat tentative, because new facts or new interpretations of old facts can change the entire game.
Also, from Watergate, always follow the money. The side with all the money, all the research grants, all the non-profit advocacy groups, all the tenured professors, usually is the one jiggering the data and/or controlling the message flow, because they have an entrenched agenda.
–HB
“Also, from Watergate, always follow the money”
Two problems with that:
1. With respect to Watergate, the term “follow the money” refers to determining who is paying for something, not who is profiting.
2. Even if your usage was correct, profits in the oil, gas, and coal industries dwarf the grant money going into this issue.
I agree with the rest of your reasoning, and I’m pretty sure AGW isn’t happening, but I wouldn’t fall back on leftist tripe like “follow the money”, particularly in cases where it clearly doesn’t apply. Scientists who promote AGW are not in it for the money – they’re promoting a religious belief.
I’m afraid I have to backtrack on myself: previously, I have taken issue with people who whipped out the word “conspiracy” when it came to the man-made global warming theory (Anthropogenic Global Warming, or AGW). I got angry because that seemed both unnecessary and provocative. People don’t have to be in conspiracy to be wrong, misguided, foolish, or caught in the herd mentality.
But, a small clique of mutually supporting people who knowingly fudge and hide data, who have a vested financial and personal stake in the issue? I’m afraid that is a conspiracy.
It is a far deeper conspiracy than I ever imagined. I thought there was an agenda; cooked hockey sticks; Al Gore dreaming; overall a new religion, but I could never have imagined it was actually a conspiracy. I am an admitted skeptic, but this goes beyond it all. I believe there is too much political and actual investment in man caused climate change that this will only be a blip on the screen. I hope I am wrong.
2. Even if your usage was correct, profits in the oil, gas, and coal industries dwarf the grant money going into this issue.
That is absolutely true, and a stellar point.
The problem is that we already know Exxon’s agenda. It is to sell as much oil as possible to as many people as possible. It is rapacious capitalism.
But, it’s not claiming the mantle of science.
The solution to the “Exxon problem” (if it requires one) is to stop driving as much, and convince others to join you. The solution is not to create a global warming scam based on junk science.
–HB
I am noted on these pages and elsewhere as believing in nothing whatsoever. But I think about a wide assortment of ideas. I never was aboard anybody else’s bandwagon, either for or against the idea of anthropogenic global warming.
My opposition to listening to opinions of oil producing commercial operators is the strong evidence I have seen that world peak oil already has begun about four years ago. And that is what I continue to think, unless and until someone shows me a whole new world of oifields to replace all the better known ones that are drying out.
And I continue to advocate speedy development of electrified interurban rail transit and stopping urban sprawl in metropolitanizing american counties, even if the earth were awash in newly discovered tides of petroleum and natural gas. My stance, of course, has little to do with environmental protection per se, but much to do with appropriate urban and regional planning.
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI
Arnold: We have not yet even begun to seriously harness oil sands and shale deposits, so, no, I don’t believe we’re at anything like “world peak oil” – nor the sort of peak the hysterical Hubbert-Peak pushers want me to believe in.
(IE, a rapid, nearly hyperbolic descent in production rates after the “peak”. But then there’s always been a huge problem when they moved from the per-field (and at-technological-and-extraction-price-parity) Hubbert model to a lumping together of all the world’s production and assuming it would have the same curve shape.
Adding together bell curves with different non-random centers doesn’t get you one big bell curve, and in the real world, the tail is much less steep, because of both technological change and price changes enabling previously “unpumpable” oil to be extracted economically.)
I must personally oppose “urban and regional planning” for the same reason I oppose all technocratic centralism. (Not only do they lack, ala Hayek, all the information that the myriad individuals who are “sprawling” possess, but they have a terrible track record.)
Suburbs are good, I say. There’s a reason people freely and deliberately choose to live in them, rather than in urban cores, with great regularity. (Which is what prompts the urbanite and the planner to Stop That, With Planning.)
The release of these stolen emails and other files is clearly a field day for those inclined to deny global warming or deny that human activity has anything to do with it.
Climate science has clearly been highly politicized by both sides. The big energy companies have funded public relations efforts to discredit the idea that human activity is causing climate change. It is not surprising that climate scientist that believe climate change is at least partially caused by human activity are trying to fight the energy company public relations effort rather than be run over by it.
Traditionally, science journals have somewhat liberal publication standards. Refereeing standards vary. Scientist sometimes use the referee process to try to block papers critical of their own work. Good editors will make a judgment. If the paper is clearly junk, it will not get published. If the editor feels the paper will bring issues into public discussion, the editor may publish it even if he suspects the paper is seriously flawed. The paper may make other scientist re-evaluate work in the area. Even if the paper turns out to be in error, science in the abstract sense is advanced by its publication.
In a highly politicized field like climate science, where politicians and energy companies jump on every refereed paper critical of global warming, and use those papers try to convince the general public that global warming does not exist or is not caused by human activity, scientist may be much more reluctant to let these kind of critical papers be published.
Apparent now only 56% of self identified conservatives believe that the earth has warmed in the last 100 years, and 41% say it has not. I don’t think anyone who has seriously looked at the temperature data disputes that the earth has warmed in the last 100 years. So that is 41% of conservatives have been so mislead by the public relation efforts of energy companies and politicians that they are totally ignorant of even the basic facts on the issue.
mikeca,
Thank you so much for your gracious insight and for pointing out that the ugly tetra-headed monster, Global Warming currently known in some circles as ‘climate change ‘ on the whole is a political movement, not a scientific discipline.
For the moment, just one question, please :
Can you offer any of the 56 % of the self-inflicted conservatives, any statistical datum (s) that the upcoming Obama job summit will improve or not improve the current economy ?.
Can you offer any of the 56 % of the self-inflicted conservatives, any statistical datum (s) that the upcoming Obama job summit will improve or not improve the current economony ?
I have no statistical data, but have heard from an unnamed source that jobs will be created for at least 5 more conservative talking heads to explain that government employees do not have jobs and the government can never created jobs. Climate models indicate that the resulting increase in global CO2 caused by all the right wing talkers blowing their gaskets will raise the average global temperatures this winter by 0.0001 degree centigrade.
mikeca:
Things are not trending well for global warming, and with the release of the emails, I think that’s a very good thing. I became relatively certain that the hype was overblown about a year ago. Up until that time, I had a little more respect for science, but something didn’t seem right. As I dug further into it and discovered the behavior of these so-called “scientists”, it became relatively clear they were hiding something. Now we know why.
“Most Democrats (51%) still say humans are to blame for global warming, the position taken by former Vice President Al Gore and other climate change activists. But 66% of Republicans and 47% of adults not affiliated with either party disagree. ” – from Rasmussen’s August 20th poll.
It’s a pretty slim majority of self-described Democrats who believe in AGW, and I would expect that after these emails are fully disclosed, that number will go down. Here’s hoping that those involved meet justice for avoiding FOIA requests.
Has the earth warmed in the last 150 years? Yes, especially since the 1960′s. Can increased CO2 cause an increase in temperature? Yes, if enough is added to the atmosphere. What is really in debate is the magnitude of these effects and their associated cost/benefit. The Left, in my opinion, has painted a terrible picture where temperatures increase by 5-7 degrees Celsius causing all sorts of calamity. They have no observable system from which to draw this conclusion, so they rely on computer models which themselves are hacked to get warming conclusions (see the emails, code included).
Why would such psuedo-science be used in this way? It’s no surprise really, it’s all about the money. Al Gore is worth FAR more now than he was in 2000, largely on his investments in so-called “green” technology, sold by his fear-mongering film. He is a crook, plain and simple. Anyone who buys into his crap deserves what they get when they lose their money. For the politically active Left, it’s a justification to increase taxes and invade the public’s private spaces with new regulations and monitoring. For all the wind liberals spend on civil rights, they sure don’t complain when it comes to invading your lifestyle.
And you’re right about one thing, mike. The very gas you exhale has been labeled a pollutant by the EPA. I know you trust your government, but how long do you think it will be before they find a way to regulate your breathing? Perhaps they’ll tax you for having a CO2 spewing pet or child.
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