From Dr. Roger Pielke Sr. Climate Science Weblog
There is a letter to the President published by the Cato Institute that headlines [thanks to ICECAPand Dr. Patrick J. Michaels to alerting us to it];
With all due respect Mr. President, that is not true.
The letter is signed by over 100 scientists.
Climate Science wants to comment on the specific statements of science in the letter which is reproduced below:
“We, the undersigned scientists, maintain that the case for alarm regarding climate change is grossly overstated. Surface temperature changes over the past century have been episodic and modest and there has been no net global warming for over a decade now.1,2 After controlling for population growth and property values, there has been no increase in damages from severe weather-related events.3 The computer models forecasting rapid temperature change abjectly fail to explain recent climate behavior.4 Mr. President, your characterization of the scientific facts regarding climate change and the degree of certainty informing the scientific debate is simply incorrect.”
Comments by Climate Science
- “Surface temperature changes over the past century have been episodic and modest and there has been no net global warming for over a decade now.”
This is correct using the global average surface temperature. An effective analysis of this issue has been presented at the weblog http://rankexploits.com/musings/category/climate-sensitivity/. However, using the global average upper ocean heat content changes, the warming in the 1990s and early 2000s ended in 2003, so the more rigourous metric for global warming indicated “no net global warming” for 6 years.
- After controlling for population growth and property values, there has been no increase in damages from severe weather-related events.
This is a correct statement which has been extensively discussed and summarized at http://sciencepolicy.colorado.edu/prometheus/category/climate-change; see also Chapter 2 in Pielke, R.A., Jr. and R.A. Pielke, Sr., 1997: Hurricanes: Their nature and impacts on society.
- The computer models forecasting rapid temperature change abjectly fail to explain recent climate behavior.
This is a robust conclusion both on the global scale (e.g. see) and on the regional scale (e.g see and see).
The dismissive response on Real Climate and on Grist to this letter do not provide the objective scientific rebuttal to these science claims. This is unfortunate and is misleading policymakers, but, as we have learned and reported many times on at Climate Science and elsewhere (e.g. see and see), this is the way the IPCC and CCSP community deals with solid science that disagrees with their perspective.
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Credibility? Religion?
Let’s have a look at one of the biggest names in the AGW alarmists side, James Lovelock :
“…homo sapiens, with his technological inventiveness and his increasingly subtle communications network, has vastly increased Gaias range of perception. She is now through us awake and aware of herself. She has seen the reflection of her fair face through the eyes of astronauts and the television cameras of orbiting spacecraft.”
~Sir James Lovelock, “Gaia: A New Look At Life”
Any thoughts on his credibility? His religion? It looks like his religion IS his science.
Thanx, Mike Bryant. Coming from a Texan, that means a lot!
The U.S. Marines have a simple, straightforward motto: “Kill the [effin’] enemy!” That’s my philosophy, too.
It’s them or us. But we have a big advantage: the truth. And I believe that the truth always wins in the end. In the mean time…
Whack-A-Mole!
Mark T: “Likewise, saying your religious beliefs have an impact on your credibility, therefore you are wrong, is also an argumentum ad hominem fallacy.”
That’s not my argument. There are two issues here.
1. In effect, the Cato ad is claiming that the listed scientists have sufficient expertise in climate science to be able to make authoritative and credible statements about the current climate.
In running the ad, Cato has raised the issue of credibility. Therefore, it is no ad hominem to challenge that credibility. Otherwise, we could never make a judgment about anyone’s expertise.
2. The problem with the creationist – and especially the young-earth creationist – is not his religion, but his science. The creationist attempts to fit his science into the mould of his religion. In that case, pointing out the actual age of the earth is an affront to both his religion and his science. But that’s his problem, since he insists on conflating religion and science.
In claiming that the creationist’s religious beliefs should be above criticism, you are giving him a free ride on his science. I see no reason to do that.
So the issue here is the credibility of the scientists as scientists, not their specific scientific claims or their religious beliefs.
“I should point out that the simple fact that you used a fallacious argument to discredit Blick does not mean you are wrong: Blick could be. It would be a fallacy fallacy on my part to make that assumption.”
No it wouldn’t. Logical fallacies address the form, not the content, of an argument. Whether Blick is right or wrong about climate is an empirical issue, not a matter of logic.
Brenda H:
In your “1” you state
Uh no, no they didn’t. They are merely stating disagreement with the so-called consensus. Thus your point collapses concerning the concept of ad hominems and credibility.
On “2”, I’ll give you some slack, because YEC’s are tricky as scientists, but because your 1 is based on a false assumption, it strongly weakens your points in 2.
You off the grid yet?
Brendan H.,
The issue of any scientist’s religious beliefs is a complete red herring argument, thus it fails. You are only making that argument because you can not refute the science. It is a weak fallback position that exposes your lack of a rational counter argument.
Where is the very fuzzy line you draw between one type of religious belief and another? Are Episcopalians more correct, and therefore better scientists, than Baptists? Do Scientologists make better scientists than Lutherans? Are Atheists better scientists than Agnostics? Than Buddhists? Than Muslims? If so, why exactly? Give us your reasoning.
Creationists really bother you for one simple reason: you can not disprove the possibility that the entire universe began ten milliseconds ago in its current state. You can not provide any evidence whatever that the universe was not created that way.
Many, and probably most of the great Western scientists [which is to say most of the world’s great scientists] were/are religious. Their personal beliefs did not keep them from performing great science.
Tarring the reputations of all religious scientists [which is exactly what you’re doing] is unethical. It is nothing but a weak attempt to find any possible argument to attack highly educated individuals who don’t think like you do. What makes your very limited version of reality better than, for instance, Albert Einstein’s? Who are you to judge?
Your argument is also weak because it can apply to almost any situation. “That cop had no right to give me a ticket. He’s a creationist!” “The bank turned down my loan because it’s run by creationists!” “That scientist can’t be right because he’s a creationist!” If a creationist says 2+2 = 4, and an Atheist says 2+2 = 5, which one is right? And how does their religious belief enter into it? [And make no mistake: Atheists have just as strong a personal belief system as the others that you ignorantly disparage. And so do plenty of Al Gore’s followers.]
You are simply a bigot. Either answer the scientific arguments presented, or run up the white flag. Because if you continue to mix in the religious argument to deliberately cloud the science issue, it will be clear to everyone that you have no way to refute the science. All you have left is a red herring to drag across the path of the bloodhounds on the scent of the truth.
Because you say they’re false doesn’t make them so. Prove them false. I can provide links to the contrary if you like. Of course, I did not claim the RWP or MWP were “global” I said they were at least as “global” as today’s “global warming”, which is far from global.
wild claim. so you have proxy records, showing temperature as global as satellites do?
i am impressed!
i would really love to see a study, that shows the MWP to be warmer than today. mind to provide a link?
If a creationist says 2+2 = 4, and an Atheist says 2+2 = 5, which one is right? And how does their religious belief enter into it?
your example doesn t fit the situation. your religious believe doesn t have an effect on those calculations.
bringing on their religious believes to counter their argument, would be ad hominem.
if the person doing the calculation on the other hand belonged to a weird mathematical sect, that believes that integers don t exist and that the results of calculation are only given to certain priests after long periods of praying under drug influence, it would make a difference.
in that case, dismissing their results as pure randomness is NOT ad hominem.
“if the person doing the calculation on the other hand belonged to a weird mathematical sect, that believes that integers don t exist and that the results of calculation are only given to certain priests after long periods of praying under drug influence, it would make a difference.”
HUH?!?! That sounds like the current state of climate science…
sod (12:22:32) :
both your claims are false, of course. the MWP was NOT as warm as “today”, and the claim that it was global is weak at best.
Medieval Warming Period was warmer than the last recent warming and it was global. From Science Magazine this week:
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/324/5923/78
Medieval Warming Period was warmer than the last recent warming and it was global. From Science Magazine this week:
i can t access the article, but the abstract says:
The Medieval Climate Anomaly (MCA) was the most recent pre-industrial era warm interval of European climate, yet its driving mechanisms remain uncertain.
http://science-mag.aaas.org/cgi/content/abstract/324/5923/78
the support material alos focuses on europe. and it shows the “late” MWP.
sod‘s understanding is surpassed by his spelling, his punctuation, and his screen name. It’s a hat trick!
Sorry for that… There is a graph in the article, Figure No. 1, where the MWP is shown in comparison with the recent WP. Besides, the authors are trying to explain the causes of the Medieval Warming Period.
From the same abstract:
“The Medieval Climate Anomaly (MCA) was the most recent pre-industrial era warm interval…
Further in the article, the authors point on the fact that the Medieval European Climate coincided with other locations in the world.
It would be good for you to buy the article and read the full version.
Smokey…
I’ll take your advice into account. Just let me finishing my interventions on this issue:
From graph No. 4 on the same article, the MWP has been confirmed in US, Canada, Mexico, South America, North Africa, North Atlantic and European sector and extra-tropical Northern Hemisphere…
Brendan H (23:00:50) :
No it wouldn’t. Logical fallacies address the form, not the content, of an argument. Whether Blick is right or wrong about climate is an empirical issue, not a matter of logic.
I never said Blick’s views were a matter of logic. I said it would be a fallacy on my part to assume that you were wrong because of a fallacious argument.
Please, try to read and understand what it is you are debating before opening your mouth (keyboard) and proving you haven’t.
Also, not all logical fallacies are of form, only the formal ones are. Informal fallacies are not based on form, but rhetorical or dialectal considerations.
Mark
sod (04:34:36) :
your example doesn t fit the situation. your religious believe doesn t have an effect on those calculations.
How do you know this to be true?
bringing on their religious believes to counter their argument, would be ad hominem.
You don’t even know how argumentum ad hominem is defined, how can you be so authoritative here?
Show me where in the definition there is an exception “if it effects their results.” Please, I DARE you.
Mark
Jeez: “They are merely stating disagreement with the so-called consensus.”
The credibility issue is implicit in the choice of scientists as the cited names. Otherwise, somebody like Smokey would do just as well. But Smokey would not be regarded by Cato as an authoritative voice, so would not have been invited to sign the letter. So the issue of credibility is central to the Cato claims about climate.
“You off the grid yet?”
No. Don’t plan to either. Climate change is best tackled through large-scale, collective action. Individual initiatives might be helpful and probably make people feel good, but I feel fine, so no need.
Smokey: “The issue of any scientist’s religious beliefs is a complete red herring argument…”
As I said, the issue is creation science, not religion. Creation science is bogus science. Creation scientists can often get away with it because their beliefs don’t always impinge on their particular speciality.
But earth science is another matter. A young-earth creationist is not qualified to comments on matters that involve thousands and millions of years of climate. As for other types of religions, as long as they don’t bring doctrine or theology into science, their religious beliefs are irrelevant to the science.
Science is based on methodological naturalism, which rules out recourse to non-natural, including supernatural, explanations. If the non-natural can be studied using naturalistic methods, then by definition it is no longer non-natural. QED.
“…you can not disprove the possibility that the entire universe began ten milliseconds ago in its current state.”
I can’t disprove the existence of fairies at the bottom of my garden. Speculating on the possibility that the entire universe began ten milliseconds might make for interesting late-night conversation, but cannot be entertained as a serious scientific possibility, so why bother?
Apart from what such speculation might say about the character of the creator, a just-created universe renders science irrelevant, since there’s no point investigating an illusion. But it’s a free world, so go down that path if you wish.
“Your argument is also weak because it can apply to almost any situation.”
No. Only science. Creationism is bogus science, and bogus science has no credibility, so cannot be used to counter genuine science.
Brendan H (15:21:09) :
No. Only science. Creationism is bogus science, and bogus science has no credibility, so cannot be used to counter genuine science.
Again, can you cite any specific failure of Blick’s GW work? Your faith that he is wrong because he is a Creationist cannot be used to counter any legitimate science the man has done, either.
Just another hypocrite.
Mark
Mark T: “I said it would be a fallacy on my part to assume that you were wrong because of a fallacious argument.”
You should write more clearly. Your original comment was: “I should point out that the simple fact that you used a fallacious argument to discredit Blick does not mean you are wrong: Blick could be. It would be a fallacy on my part to make that assumption.”
This appears to mean that your assumption involves the question of who is factually right or wrong, not who is advancing a fallacious argument.
And the fact that you are able to distinguish between fallacy and accuracy implies a distinction between form and content.
“Please, try to read and understand what it is you are debating before opening your mouth (keyboard) and proving you haven’t.”
And you learn to put brain into gear before putting finger to keyboard.
Mark T (16:05:00) :
Again, can you cite any specific failure of Blick’s GW work?
I think you’re giving Brendan an impossible task- Blick doesn’t seem to have done any GW work. At least, nothing that comes up on google scholar.
It would be interesting to know how he interprets things like the 800,000 years of the Vostok ice core, and the vast amount of geological evidence for multiple ice ages over the past few million years.
It’s tough to get multiple ice sheets (each several thousand miles across and a mile thick) to form and melt within a few thousand years!
Mark T: “Again, can you cite any specific failure of Blick’s GW work?”
If Blick is a young-earth creationist he is not qualified to offer an opinion on some major aspects of climate science, since the background to today’s climate involves an understanding of paleoclimate. Someone who denies an old earth cannot credibly comment on matters that assume an old earth.
For example, take the Cato ad’s first point:
“Surface temperature changes over the past century have been episodic and modest and there has been no net global warming for over a decade now.”
In terms of geological time, the speed of the current warming is very fast. To know that you would have to know the rate of warming from previous eras, going back thousands and millions of years. A young-earth creationist cannot bring that sort of understanding to the issue.
“Your faith that he is wrong because he is a Creationist cannot be used to counter any legitimate science the man has done, either.”
It’s not a matter of faith that creationism is wrong. It’s a matter of scientific evidence. And I’m not trying to counter any legitimate science that creationists might do. Just the wingnut stuff.
Brendan H.:
I don’t know squat about creationism, other than its basic, unfalsifiable premise, which is that its adherents believe that the world began, all up and running, at a specific and relatively recent time.
Creationism is a religion, get it? It is not science, even though evolutionists just love to get creationists into science debates where [surprisingly to me] creationists often hold their own and give better than they get.
By falsely labeling creationism as a science rather than what it is — a Bible-based religion — duplicitous climate alarmists are attempting to frame the argument their own way. But as stated above, if this is what the alarmists’ argument has devolved into, then they’ve got nothing but ad hominem attacks left in their arsenal of dirty tricks. Sucks to be them, huh?
Creationism is a religious belief system; it is not any more science than what the True Believers in the AGW/CO2 globaloney scam are trying to sell to the public.
Creationism can not possibly be science [no matter what some agenda pushers claim], because creationism is not falsifiable: so QED yourself. Creationism can not, by the definition of the Scientific Method, be called “science.”
Are Christian Scientists really a science-based discipline? Or are they a religion? Are Scientologists a science-based discipline? Or are they a religion? Same answer as for creationists: All of these groups are 501(c)3 tax exempt religions. So your false claim that creationists are a scientific discipline fails. If you don’t like it, go argue with the IRS.
You set up your straw man argument only so that you can be seen as a brave straw man killer. What a guy. Sorry to bust your bubble.
In reality, you are nothing but a religious bigot with no credible answers to the questions skeptics ask — and you obviously have a personal problem with freedom of religion. Why is that? What’s your personal problem with another man’s religion?
The 1st Amendment was made for out-of-control bigots who, if it were up to them, would not even allow scientists to practice any religion. Unless, of course, their religion was that of the politically correct AGW/CO2 True Believer.
Smokey (18:08:07) :
But Blick DOES think that creationism is science:
http://www.icr.edu/home/
He’s on the board of the Institute for Creation Research Graduate School, which offers a degree in “science” eduction. (down load the catalog and see for yourself).
They even teach a course in paleoclimatology!
Smokey: “Creationism is a religion, get it?”
In its modern guise, the term “creationism” has come to mean “creation science”.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creationism#Creation_science_and_intelligent_design
[snip–this post would have required so much snipping that it wasn’t worth it to preserve it. Not my job to rewrite ~ charles the moderator]
Further in the article, the authors point on the fact that the Medieval European Climate coincided with other locations in the world.
i saw that i the online support material.
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/data/324/5923/78/DC1/1
i ll try to get hold of the article.
sod’s understanding is surpassed by his spelling, his punctuation, and his screen name. It’s a hat trick!
thanks for posting this classic ad hominem.
instead of countering my points (what is wrong with my understanding of a decade, for example?), you bring up spelling errors and screen name.
if on the other hand, you would point out that my punctuation errors make it impossible to understand my arguments, then it would NOT be ad hominem. it would be a legitimate argument.
this is part of the definition of the term:
argumentum ad hominem (Latin: “argument to the man”, “argument against the man”) consists of replying to an argument or factual claim by attacking or appealing to a characteristic or belief of the source making the argument or claim, rather than by addressing the substance of the argument or producing evidence against the claim (wiki)
pointing out a belief or characteristic that has an effect on the discussion, is not ad hominem, as it does not address this part “rather” than the substance. it is part of the substance!
Since we are so OT in the later half of this thread, I will just stick with the OT conversation!
Smokey, I am glad that you, like me, can recognize that creationism IS a religious belief, and could never be science because it lacks any tests that could falsify it. However, many of the folks who adhere to creationism do in fact believe it is a “science” which is unfortunate. That’s why we have the school boards pushing to have Intelligent design and other creationism ideas taught as an “alternative theory” to evolution in our public school systems.
This weakens our scientific literacy as a nation, and its evident that we have a long ways to go with scientific literacy in this nation since we are having the conversation in the first place.
I think the point that sod and others (and myself) are making is that its difficult for us to take a creationist serious when they comment on climate science since they believe the earth was not even around the last time glaciers covered the midwest.
I am not saying that the folks at CATO have no argument because their list of PhDs has a creationist, I am just saying that I find it difficult to take folks who are creationists serious when they speak on maters of Earth science.
Again, I am not a “death is around the corner” AGWer, but I do think that humans can influence their climate, and help to amplify (or weaken) natural variations.
Charles: “[snip–this post would have required so much snipping that it wasn’t worth it to preserve it. Not my job to rewrite ~ charles the moderator]”
I didn’t start this. In the last couple of days I have been called a “hypocrite” and a “religious bigot”. So where were you when this was happening? You’re supposed to be a “moderator”. Or do sceptic insults get a free pass?
Reply: Sorry about that. They wouldn’t have gotten by me. We have a team of moderators and I don’t check posts once they’re approved, unless I’m researching some sort of dispute to get to the bottom of it. And I never care who starts it. I just try to stop it. ~ charles the moderator