Last week on Friday August 1st you may recall that I commented on the release of the Draft report Global Climate Change Impacts in the United States
In that post I mentioned that “The draft document reads more like a news article in many places than it does a scientific document, and unlike a scientific document, it has a number of what I would call “emotionally based graphics” in it that have nothing to do with the science.”
One of those graphics that tug at your heartstrings turns out to be a fabrication, pure and simple. Here is page 58 of the NCDC authored report:
Click for a larger image. Note the arrow pointing to this photo:
Image above taken directly from the CCSP report.
There’s been a discussion on Climate Audit about this photo, namely that it has the flood waters “photoshopped” in.
When I showed it to my graphic artist at my office he said, “no problem, I can recreate that using any house photo and a Photoshop filter.
I had contemplated having him do just that, but it turns out proving this photo to be a digital fabrication is a lot easier.
Simply go to IstockPhoto.com, where you can buy this photo online:
Click image for original source location
But apparently, the lead authors of the report didn’t see the caveat that comes with the photo:
Here’s another graphical rendering of water by the same photographer/photoshopper. Doomsday in Seattle or as the caption describes it: “An apocalyptic view of Seattle sunken into Puget Sound.”
But the real question is, with so many different photos of real flooded houses available, why did they choose one that was not real? Surely they know such a report will be highly scrutinized?
As I said last week, the use of graphics in the report makes it look more like a news article than a scientific paper, and if principal National Climatic Data Center authors Dr.’s Thomas Karl and Peterson can’t even bother to check if the photos they use are real or not, or even spot such obvious fakes, it makes one wonder just how much fact checking went into the other parts of the report.
Do you think our policy makers, for which this report is intended, would be smart enough to catch such things?
Hat tip: various contributors on this Climate Audit thread
The sad part is it isn’t fraudulent in the legal sense. The paper points toward its sources. The use of a graphic is not out of line for a Report to Congress. Think of it as a giant PowerPoint presentation. The paper isn’t meant to be a scientific treatise. It’s more like the IPCC Summary for Policy Makers.
The photoshopped flood scene was likely chosen because it was easier to obtain and license than an actual photo.
The part that’s frustrating is the repetition of AGW vs. GW theme. Without looking I’m quite sure that viewpoint can be derived from many of the referenced papers, many of which blithely state or assume AGW as fact.
This paper, just like the IPCC SPM, is going to be a real nuisance. Unfortunately, not much can be done about it. The authoring board can likely defend it six ways from Sunday. The best anyone can do is point to the likely bias in the text. The fact that they used a graphic instead of an actual photo is pretty much beside the point . The point, of course, is the bias of more flooding from AGW message, more specifically, the AGW part.
“He’s dead wrong, of course, in almost every particular , like all these populist pessimists…” Evan
Maybe in his pessimism but there is something wrong in our economic system. It isn’t the free market, it isn’t honest greed, it isn’t just Congress. It is the Fed and your local neighborhood, “respectable” member of the government-backed banking cartel.
“Respectable”, hah! The only difference between them and counterfeiters is they are legal and don’t require a printing press.
Anthony, feel free to explain what the significance of using a stock photo is in a report like this. You’ve been in the position of having to find an illustration, surely, and one that you can get the rights to duplicate. Since the photo only purports to show a flooded house, since it makes no difference — what is the significance of using a stock photo?
Sorry I missed it in the original post — I don’t think you said why it’s significant, did you?
While you’re at it, you might try to explain the significance of the Mars stuff, too. I had assumed you were aware that Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, Jimmy Carter and others got these briefings from NASA as standard operating procedures. OF course, they were all intelligent, engaged people who were genuinely interested in the space program.
The question is why Bush didn’t get it. But that’s not what you highlighted.
So tell us – what is the significance of Bush sending a proxy to get his information when past presidents have done it themselves as a point of national pride?
Both posts are trivial, IMHO. You’re getting different mileage? Tell us how.
REPLY: Well I suppose the concerns you raise are equally significant to posts about Millard Fillmore. Prove to me that 1) Bush specifically sent a proxy, instead of the process being normal chain of information handling, i.e., show that he consciously ignored it, told somebody else to handle it, and doesn’t know anything about it, and 2) Fabrications aside, why it’s OK to put loads of carefully chosen disaster photos that are mostly emotional in nature into a report on science that should be factual, not emotional.
Then I’ll consider it worth my time to respond further. Otherwise I think you are simply harping on things that only interest you, and not the majority of readers here.
LOL
Checking the masthead, I see this is your blog, Anthony. If your readers aren’t interested in the stuff, why did you post it?
[…] after that, we had a post outlining how NCDC had used a photoshopped image to illustrate flooding. Something of a no-no in “science” […]
Wow, thank you everyone for the free publicity and links to my portfolio! For those of you who understand what royalty-free stock imagery is, you can find thousands more great images in my porfolio. Please visit http://www.istockphoto.com/jhorrocks. Thank you and have a great day! 🙂
Reply: Don’t thank us, thank the NCDC!
Other moderators…I de-spammed this comment because it is Justin’s photo that is the topic of this post.