Foreword – Below is a guest post (by request) from Dr. Judith Curry on the issues we deal with every day here. While I and other like minded bloggers were given the opportunity to have some early input into this, little of it was accepted. This I think puts it off to a bad start in light of the title. One of my issues was that it wasn’t necessary to use the word “deniers”, which I think removal of is central to any discourse that includes a goal of “rebuilding trust”. There’s also other more technical issues related to current investigations that are not addressed here.
I had made my concerns known to Dr. Curry before in this post: The Curry letter: a word about “deniers”… which is worth re-reading again.
To be frank, given that she’s still using the term even when pointed out, and had deferred other valid suggestions from other skeptics, I’d given serious consideration to not carrying this at all. But I had carried Dr. Curry’s original post (at my request) on 11/27/09, just seven days after the Climategate story broke here at WUWT on 11/20/09:
An open letter from Dr. Judith Curry on climate science
Since I had carried that one at my request to Dr. Curry, I decided it only fair that I’d carry this one she offered, but with the above caveat. Further, as Andrew Revkin pointed out yesterday, WUWT is now by far the most trafficked climate blog in the world. With that comes a level of responsibility to broadly report the issues. Readers should give their opinion here, pulling no punches, but with one caveat: make the discourse respectful and without labels or inflammatory comments. – Anthony
Guest post by Judith Curry, Georgia Institute of Technology
I am trying something new, a blogospheric experiment, if you will. I have been a fairly active participant in the blogosphere since 2006, and recently posted two essays on climategate, one at climateaudit.org and the other at climateprogress.org. Both essays were subsequently picked up by other blogs, and the diversity of opinions expressed at the different blogs was quite interesting. Hence I am distributing this essay to a number of different blogs simultaneously with the hope of demonstrating the collective power of the blogosphere to generate ideas and debate them. I look forward to a stimulating discussion on this important topic.
Losing the Public’s Trust
Climategate has now become broadened in scope to extend beyond the CRU emails to include glaciergate and a host of other issues associated with the IPCC. In responding to climategate, the climate research establishment has appealed to its own authority and failed to understand that climategate is primarily a crisis of trust. Finally, we have an editorial published in Science on February 10 from Ralph Cicerone, President of the National Academy of Science, that begins to articulate the trust issue: “This view reflects the fragile nature of trust between science and society, demonstrating that the perceived misbehavior of even a few scientists can diminish the credibility of science as a whole. What needs to be done? Two aspects need urgent attention: the general practice of science and the personal behaviors of scientists.” While I applaud loudly Dr. Cicerone’s statement, I wish it had been made earlier and had not been isolated from the public by publishing the statement behind paywall at Science. Unfortunately, the void of substantive statements from our institutions has been filled in ways that have made the situation much worse.
Credibility is a combination of expertise and trust. While scientists persist in thinking that they should be trusted because of their expertise, climategate has made it clear that expertise itself is not a sufficient basis for public trust. The fallout from climategate is much broader than the allegations of misconduct by scientists at two universities. Of greatest importance is the reduced credibility of the IPCC assessment reports, which are providing the scientific basis for international policies on climate change. Recent disclosures about the IPCC have brought up a host of concerns about the IPCC that had been festering in the background: involvement of IPCC scientists in explicit climate policy advocacy; tribalism that excluded skeptics; hubris of scientists with regards to a noble (Nobel) cause; alarmism; and inadequate attention to the statistics of uncertainty and the complexity of alternative interpretations.
The scientists involved in the CRU emails and the IPCC have been defended as scientists with the best of intentions trying to do their work in a very difficult environment. They blame the alleged hacking incident on the “climate denial machine.” They are described as fighting a valiant war to keep misinformation from the public that is being pushed by skeptics with links to the oil industry. They are focused on moving the science forward, rather than the janitorial work of record keeping, data archival, etc. They have had to adopt unconventional strategies to fight off what they thought was malicious interference. They defend their science based upon their years of experience and their expertise.
Scientists are claiming that the scientific content of the IPCC reports is not compromised by climategate. The jury is still out on the specific fallout from climategate in terms of the historical and paleo temperature records. There are larger concerns (raised by glaciergate, etc.) particularly with regards to the IPCC Assessment Report on Impacts (Working Group II): has a combination of groupthink, political advocacy and a noble cause syndrome stifled scientific debate, slowed down scientific progress and corrupted the assessment process? If institutions are doing their jobs, then misconduct by a few individual scientists should be quickly identified, and the impacts of the misconduct should be confined and quickly rectified. Institutions need to look in the mirror and ask the question as to how they enabled this situation and what opportunities they missed to forestall such substantial loss of public trust in climate research and the major assessment reports.
In their misguided war against the skeptics, the CRU emails reveal that core research values became compromised. Much has been said about the role of the highly politicized environment in providing an extremely difficult environment in which to conduct science that produces a lot of stress for the scientists. There is no question that this environment is not conducive to science and scientists need more support from their institutions in dealing with it. However, there is nothing in this crazy environment that is worth sacrificing your personal or professional integrity. And when your science receives this kind of attention, it means that the science is really important to the public. Therefore scientists need to do everything possible to make sure that they effectively communicate uncertainty, risk, probability and complexity, and provide a context that includes alternative and competing scientific viewpoints. This is an important responsibility that individual scientists and particularly the institutions need to take very seriously.
Both individual scientists and the institutions need to look in the mirror and really understand how this happened. Climategate isn’t going to go away until these issues are resolved. Science is ultimately a self-correcting process, but with a major international treaty and far-reaching domestic legislation on the table, the stakes couldn’t be higher.
The Changing Nature of Skepticism about Global Warming
Over the last few months, I have been trying to understand how this insane environment for climate research developed. In my informal investigations, I have been listening to the perspectives of a broad range of people that have been labeled as “skeptics” or even “deniers”. I have come to understand that global warming skepticism is very different now than it was five years ago. Here is my take on how global warming skepticism has evolved over the past several decades.
In the 1980’s, James Hansen and Steven Schneider led the charge in informing the public of the risks of potential anthropogenic climate change. Sir John Houghton and Bert Bolin played similar roles in Europe. This charge was embraced by the environmental advocacy groups, and global warming alarmism was born. During this period I would say that many if not most researchers, including myself, were skeptical that global warming was detectable in the temperature record and that it would have dire consequences. The traditional foes of the environmental movement worked to counter the alarmism of the environmental movement, but this was mostly a war between advocacy groups and not an issue that had taken hold in the mainstream media and the public consciousness. In the first few years of the 21st century, the stakes became higher and we saw the birth of what some have called a “monolithic climate denial machine”. Skeptical research published by academics provided fodder for the think tanks and advocacy groups, which were fed by money provided by the oil industry. This was all amplified by talk radio and cable news.
In 2006 and 2007, things changed as a result of Al Gore’s movie “An Inconvenient Truth” plus the IPCC 4th Assessment Report, and global warming became a seemingly unstoppable juggernaut. The reason that the IPCC 4th Assessment Report was so influential is that people trusted the process the IPCC described: participation of a thousand scientists from 100 different countries, who worked for several years to produce 3000 pages with thousands of peer reviewed scientific references, with extensive peer review. Further, the process was undertaken with the participation of policy makers under the watchful eyes of advocacy groups with a broad range of conflicting interests. As a result of the IPCC influence, scientific skepticism by academic researchers became vastly diminished and it became easier to embellish the IPCC findings rather than to buck the juggernaut. Big oil funding for contrary views mostly dried up and the mainstream media supported the IPCC consensus. But there was a new movement in the blogosphere, which I refer to as the “climate auditors”, started by Steve McIntyre. The climate change establishment failed to understand this changing dynamic, and continued to blame skepticism on the denial machine funded by big oil.
Climate Auditors and the Blogosphere
Steve McIntyre started the blog climateaudit.org so that he could defend himself against claims being made at the blog realclimate.org with regards to his critique of the “hockey stick” since he was unable to post his comments there. Climateaudit has focused on auditing topics related to the paleoclimate reconstructions over the past millennia (in particular the so called “hockey stick”) and also the software being used by climate researchers to fix data problems due to poor quality surface weather stations in the historical climate data record. McIntyre’s “auditing” became very popular not only with the skeptics, but also with the progressive “open source” community, and there are now a number of such blogs. The blog with the largest public audience is wattsupwiththat.com, led by weatherman Anthony Watts, with over 2 million unique visitors each month.
So who are the climate auditors? They are technically educated people, mostly outside of academia. Several individuals have developed substantial expertise in aspects of climate science, although they mainly audit rather than produce original scientific research. They tend to be watchdogs rather than deniers; many of them classify themselves as “lukewarmers”. They are independent of oil industry influence. They have found a collective voice in the blogosphere and their posts are often picked up by the mainstream media. They are demanding greater accountability and transparency of climate research and assessment reports.
So what motivated their FOIA requests of the CRU at the University of East Anglia? Last weekend, I was part of a discussion on this issue at the Blackboard. Among the participants in this discussion was Steven Mosher, who broke the climategate story and has already written a book on it here. They are concerned about inadvertent introduction of bias into the CRU temperature data by having the same people who create the dataset use the dataset in research and in verifying climate models; this concern applies to both NASA GISS and the connection between CRU and the Hadley Centre. This concern is exacerbated by the choice of James Hansen at NASA GISS to become a policy advocate, and his forecasts of forthcoming “warmest years.” Medical research has long been concerned with the introduction of such bias, which is why they conduct double blind studies when testing the efficacy of a medical treatment. Any such bias could be checked by independent analyses of the data; however, people outside the inner circle were unable to obtain access to the information required to link the raw data to the final analyzed product. Further, creation of the surface data sets was treated like a research project, with no emphasis on data quality analysis, and there was no independent oversight. Given the importance of these data sets both to scientific research and public policy, they feel that greater public accountability is required.
So why do the mainstream climate researchers have such a problem with the climate auditors? The scientists involved in the CRU emails seem to regard Steve McIntyre as their arch-nemesis (Roger Pielke Jr’s term). Steve McIntyre’s early critiques of the hockey stick were dismissed and he was characterized as a shill for the oil industry. Academic/blogospheric guerilla warfare ensued, as the academic researchers tried to prevent access of the climate auditors to publishing in scientific journals and presenting their work at professional conferences, and tried to deny them access to published research data and computer programs. The bloggers countered with highly critical posts in the blogosphere and FOIA requests. And climategate was the result.
So how did this group of bloggers succeed in bringing the climate establishment to its knees (whether or not the climate establishment realizes yet that this has happened)? Again, trust plays a big role; it was pretty easy to follow the money trail associated with the “denial machine”. On the other hand, the climate auditors have no apparent political agenda,
are doing this work for free, and have been playing a watchdog role, which has engendered the trust of a large segment of the population.
Towards Rebuilding Trust
Rebuilding trust with the public on the subject of climate research starts with Ralph Cicerone’s statement “Two aspects need urgent attention: the general practice of science and the personal behaviors of scientists.” Much has been written about the need for greater transparency, reforms to peer review, etc. and I am hopeful that the relevant institutions will respond appropriately. Investigations of misconduct are being conducted at the University of East Anglia and at Penn State. Here I would like to bring up some broader issues that will require substantial reflection by the institutions and also by individual scientists.
Climate research and its institutions have not yet adapted to its high policy relevance. How scientists can most effectively and appropriately engage with the policy process is a topic that has not been adequately discussed (e.g. the “honest broker” challenge discussed by Roger Pielke Jr), and climate researchers are poorly informed in this regard. The result has been reflexive support for the UNFCCC policy agenda (e.g. carbon cap and trade) by many climate researchers that are involved in the public debate (particularly those involved in the IPCC), which they believe follows logically from the findings of the (allegedly policy neutral) IPCC. The often misinformed policy advocacy by this group of climate scientists has played a role in the political polarization of this issue.. The interface between science and policy is a muddy issue, but it is very important that scientists have guidance in navigating the potential pitfalls. Improving this situation could help defuse the hostile environment that scientists involved in the public debate have to deal with, and would also help restore the public trust of climate scientists.
The failure of the public and policy makers to understand the truth as presented by the IPCC is often blamed on difficulties of communicating such a complex topic to a relatively uneducated public that is referred to as “unscientific America” by Chris Mooney. Efforts are made to “dumb down” the message and to frame the message to respond to issues that are salient to the audience. People have heard the alarm, but they remain unconvinced because of a perceived political agenda and lack of trust of the message and the messengers. At the same time, there is a large group of educated and evidence driven people (e.g. the libertarians, people that read the technical skeptic blogs, not to mention policy makers) who want to understand the risk and uncertainties associated with climate change, without being told what kinds of policies they should be supporting. More effective communication strategies can be devised by recognizing that there are two groups with different levels of base knowledge about the topic. But building trust through public communication on this topic requires that uncertainty be acknowledged. My own experience in making public presentations about climate change has found that discussing the uncertainties increases the public trust in what scientists are trying to convey and doesn’t detract from the receptivity to understanding climate change risks (they distrust alarmism). Trust can also be rebuilt by discussing broad choices rather than focusing on specific policies.
And finally, the blogosphere can be a very powerful tool for increasing the credibility of climate research. “Dueling blogs” (e.g. climateprogress.org versus wattsupwiththat.com and realclimate.org versus climateaudit.org) can actually enhance public trust in the science as they see both sides of the arguments being discussed. Debating science with skeptics should be the spice of academic life, but many climate researchers lost this somehow by mistakenly thinking that skeptical arguments would diminish the public trust in the message coming from the climate research establishment. Such debate is alive and well in the blogosphere, but few mainstream climate researchers participate in the blogospheric debate. The climate researchers at realclimate.org were the pioneers in this, and other academic climate researchers hosting blogs include Roy Spencer, Roger Pielke Sr and Jr, Richard Rood, and Andrew Dessler. The blogs that are most effective are those that allow comments from both sides of the debate (many blogs are heavily moderated). While the blogosphere has a “wild west” aspect to it, I have certainly learned a lot by participating in the blogospheric debate including how to sharpen my thinking and improve the rhetoric of my arguments. Additional scientific voices entering the public debate particularly in the blogosphere would help in the broader communication efforts and in rebuilding trust. And we need to acknowledge the emerging auditing and open source movements in the in the internet-enabled world, and put them to productive use. The openness and democratization of knowledge enabled by the internet can be a tremendous tool for building public understanding of climate science and also trust in climate research.
No one really believes that the “science is settled” or that “the debate is over.” Scientists and others that say this seem to want to advance a particular agenda. There is nothing more detrimental to public trust than such statements.
And finally, I hope that this blogospheric experiment will demonstrate how the diversity of the different blogs can be used collectively to generate ideas and debate them, towards bringing some sanity to this whole situation surrounding the politicization of climate science and rebuilding trust with the public.
Open science is the only science that survives politics. And that means everything is open for anyone who wants to participate, of course there should be gatekeepers, but they should operate publicly, not behind closed doors, and not from on high.
I think the ‘crowd’ on WUWT has developed the best set of science available on climate earth, it’s not biased, it’s truth. What science should be. There is an old theory “the wisdom of the crowds”, the many is smarter than a few, which makes clear the best outcome is the one developed with willing knowledgeable people contributing openly.
Somehow, we need to drop the political agenda(s) and start fresh … Seek the truth.
Why is the response ‘Call off the dogs’, instead of ‘Let’s sniff out the truth’?
========================================
Kudos JC and AW.. nice to see balance and a call for an open and transparent re-assesment of the ‘science’.
Hot Rod, Did not understand your point…’the science is IN’
This is a well written discussion of the topic, but leaves out an important point, that being the research money clearly favors the point of view of AGW by billions of dollars. If one is going to discuss historical support of anti AGW Big Oil financing, to be consistent, one must discuss the money from government to fund AGW research. Do you really believe that if a research project requested funding that if the thesis was proven would tend to disprove AGW, that it could obtain funding.
Finally, there is one question I would love to see an answer from an AGW proponent: What, if anything, would disprove that AGW is real.
“The failure of the public and policy makers to understand the truth as presented by the IPCC is often blamed on difficulties of communicating such a complex topic to a relatively uneducated public…”
Yep. Excellent scientific method there. Good people skills too.
Judith’s Walloftext hits you for 15,000. Sheesh.
—
‘No one really believes that the “science is settled” or that “the debate is over.” ‘
Then you need to make a call to Al Gore, please, and tell him to shut the hell up…
—
^^ this.
From the perspective of scientific truth, it is irrelevant where a researcher’s funding comes from — whether from Big Oil or Big Government or Big NGOs. The only relevant question is: Are the researcher’s data and arguments valid? If this cannot be determined because the researcher does not share the data, does not share the analysis code, or does not answer reasonable criticism, then the reasearcher’s claims have no scientific standing and deserve to be dismissed.
Judith, I completely agree except I beg to differ that most of the skeptics are NOT qualified. I can start a very long list of highly qualified scientist… Lindzen, Singer, Pielke apparently 40% meteorologists etc. My deceased father put most of the weather stations up in Bolivia and Paraguay for the WMO and even 10 years ago he thought it was just a tax grab. He would be shocked to find out that Giss is extrapolating Bolivias temps to one location close to Lima Peru. What a farce. BTW I have published myself 27 refereed articles using complex statistics in biology I am not convinced at all. According to my Dada Climate statistics were evn much less significant. However I am open to being convinced. In my view the data which is the most important part does not support. The additional climategate and NCDC, NOAA stuiff really makes it an impossibility. You are a fresh open minded person with which both sides could communicate through.
If … IF … this author does not believe that the scientests at the heart of the “crisis of trust” are not held accountable and strongly reprimanded, including job termination and stripping of funding where appropriate, THEN there is no meaning to this essay. I’m all for open debate, but lets clean house first.
The field of science has to be held a higher standard. Not just a higher standard in the nature of discourse or allowance for personality conflicts, but FIRSTLY in not purposely misleading colleagues, peer reviewers, those of different political persuasion, or the public.
As a professor once told my class, “There is no dearth of very intelligent people.” The apologists for the researchers at scrutiny will be that they should be allowed some forgiveness for their lifetime of work, etc. I say no. That is political. Do you think if a skeptic was found to purposely mislead, obstruct, and lead a behind-the-scenes marginalization of those with legitamate data, there would be an leniancy???
So, thanks Judith Curry for gracing the blogosphere, and although it still has the air of superiority and not the appropriate distaste for the recent events at hand, it must be some great thing for you to do.
The crisis in trust of scientists is NOT what is at hand. The PROPER OUTRAGE at behavior and lies of SOME SCIENTISTS is what is at hand. The beginning of the rejection of the argument of catastrophic AGW is what is at hand, and while that may be a crisis for some, it is not for me.
Dan
New Jersey, USA.
Judith Curry asks: So why do the mainstream climate researchers have such a problem with the climate auditors? She answers: that the earliest critics were paid by the oil indistry and that Steve McIntyre and was characterized as a shill for the oil industry. This apparently justified preventing critics from publishing in scientific journals and blocking them from presenting at conferences. This raises the question: does one’s affiliations justify scientific malfeasance? Even if they were paid for by the oil industry (bad) does this justify a different treatment from other money-making sectors such as the environmental movement? Imagine if such tactics were used (and I am not sure that they are not) based on one’s political affiliations? Science should be blind to such identities. Even if Steve McIntyre were affiliated with the oil industry, his science should be allowed to enter the dialogue (not that there has been a dialogue – it has been one sided shouting until the last three months) and the science taken on its own merits. Furthermore, why do global warmist scientists still continue to accuse skeptics of being paid by the oil industry? I’ve been a skeptic since the mid-1990s, at least, and I am a history professor; most skeptics are independent thinkers with no overarching links to any industry aside from whatever job they happen to hold.
There won’t be any trust in climate scientists until the participating scientists display more regard for that old-fashioned standard in science – ‘truth’ – and stop smearing skeptics with lies and falsehoods about being funded by oil. This smear has occurred in several major news outlets in the past week alone.
The holocaust-denier connotation of ‘denier’ seems, to me, an extremely good indication that anyone that persists in slinging that particular insult is both desperate and in the wrong.
For a while there I thought I was reading another explanation of PNS….
Well meaning, urgent action, stakes high, outcomes uncertain…..
That said, I think it worth noting that AGW didn’t lose credibility with me because I read studies by sceptical scientists. It lost credibility with me because I read studies by PRO AGW scientists. The more I read, the more holes, misrpresentations and outright lies I found.
The article seems to suggest that everyone is well meaning we just have to understand each other better, communicate better, understand different points of view of different groups discussed at their specific technical levels. Oh wait, we ARE talking PNS again.
When I see a sceptic make a mistake, the heat from other sceptics is often worse than from the warmists. When a warmist makes a mistake the sceptics are barred from being critical on the warmist blog, and the other warmists leap to join the cover up.
Restore public trust? Are you kidding me? Someone short changes me on a $10 transaction at the till three times in a row, and wants to explain it was an accident and discuss it, I might sit down and listen. Someone says they didn’t steal my car (but it turns out they did) says they don’t know what happened to it (but it turns out they sold it) that they lost the money (but it turns out they spent on themselves), that they’ve never stolen a car before (but it turns out they have), that they haven’t stolen another car since (but it turns out they have), that they sent instructions to their friends on how to steal cars, that they and their friends formed a group to convince the police that no cars in the area had been stolen at all so no need to investigate stolen car reports, and that they showed up as a gang in front of the house of the guy who was trying to publish a stolen car report with actual facts and threatened to beat him to death and at the same time informing all his neighbours that he is a homicidal maniac who supports mass murder….and you want me to sit down with that someone and discuss it? Oh, and he needs a lift to the meeting, could he please borrow the keys to one of my cars?
PUHLEASE. The only thing that will restore my trust is the complete and total trashing of the UN IPCC followed by new (and public) data from new (and public) analysis by researchers with no past or present association with the current ring of thieves, bullies and miscreants. To ensure a repeat doesn’t happen, life sentences for those car thieves would be a deterent I could put some faith in.
But none of that will happen, so I’ll count my change at the till more carefully, but engage in trust building with the car thieves? LOL.
Clearly Dr. Curry is part of the solution and not part of the problem. For a respected climate scientist to openly state:
“No one really believes that the “science is settled” or that “the debate is over.” Scientists and others that say this seem to want to advance a particular agenda. There is nothing more detrimental to public trust than such statements.”
…is a huge sign that there is room for science in this debate. I consider myself a skeptic (all scientists should), and I appreciate what “the auditors” (foremost Steve McIntyre) are doing and have done to check the runaway pseudoscience which has come to dominate this field.
I also recognize that there are advocates against AGW who aren’t viewing the issue in an unbiased way, but are simply pushing in the opposite direction as the pro-AGW advocates, regardless of any evidence. As slimy as the label “denier” is (someone please come up with a better term), Dr. Curry’s attempt at drawing a clear distinction between “auditors” and “deniers” is laudable.
Also, please take the paragraph quoted above and send it far and wide. The best way to frame this debate (if you are interested in seeing pure science prevail) is this: Don’t trust anyone who tells you the science is settled. It isn’t, and if they tell you that they are trying to push policy on you.
She seems obsessed with i) the term ‘deniers’, and ii) that sceptics are backed/funded by the oil industry.
No mention of: i) the many ‘facts’ that were taken as being gospel by the climate warmers a few months ago, which have now been shown to be a messy mix of untruths and half truths, and ii) that warmists/alarmists are almost all funded by government agencies, which need the continual generation of scare stories to preserve their funding and comfortable life styles.
The problem she faces is the fact that sceptics are now delving ever more deeply into climate science, daily uncovering more of the morass of untruths and half truths on which much of the warmist/alarmist climate industry is built. This is obviously uncomfortable and she shows it. She seems to find it abhorrent that sceptics dare use real science to prove their side of the argument.
Perhaps most important of all is that she clearly believes we should ‘invest’ trillions in battling a non-problem, which if successful, would: i) beggar the western world economies, and ii) have little or no effect on global temperatures.
She does however seem to reluctantly acknowledge that the warmist/alarmist concept of ‘climate science’ has now become a political agenda for many, without realising the enormous danger this poses.
She is certainly right about the importance of credibility, which the warmist/alarmist cause has been increasingly losing, especially in the last few months.
“Efforts are made to “dumb down” the message and to frame the message to respond to issues that are salient to the audience. People have heard the alarm, but they remain unconvinced because of a perceived political agenda and lack of trust of the message and the messengers.”
At what point could the average American, in this internet age, “drill down” to the data, though? If scientists want more public trust, stop treating us like we’re dumb and easily alarmed by dumb information. I think there would be more trust, deserved or not, if people knew they could access all the data and all the models and analyze it for themselves…and I mean ALL the data. The internet is a wonderful delivery system. It’s low cost, even free, for many. There’s no excuse for a U.N. organization (the IPCC) to make all these “alarming” statements, call it science, and then NOT make available ALL the data. Instead we hear, “these are very complex models, you wouldn’t understand. Just trust us.” Yeah. Right.
Anthony,
I am not sure what your issue is with this post. It appears to me as a real breakthrough of honest & clear-eyed communication. I am impressed and pleased with this development.
She uses the term “deniers” but she implicitly sets it apart from “skeptics” which she defines in the following, surprisingly flattering lights:
“At the same time, there is a large group of educated and evidence driven people (e.g. the libertarians, people that read the technical skeptic blogs, not to mention policy makers) who want to understand the risk and uncertainties associated with climate change, without being told what kinds of policies they should be supporting.”
Lets face it, there are those out there who “deny” out of pure political blood-lust and pandering: Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Sarah Palin are the most public of these. These people are not helping anybody and, as far as I am concerned, should rightfully be called deniers to remove any taint of association from the more science focused skeptics.
Dr. Curry concludes:
No one really believes that “the science is settled” or “the debate is over”.
This appears to me to be another very courageous and laudable entry in the debate from Dr. Curry. The only issue I see with it is that she compares WattsUpWithThat to ClimateProgress.
In my mind Watts stands apart and Climate Progess is more correctly balanced by Climate Depot. In light of the exceptional content of her post this is minor point to me, but perhaps a more personal point to you. I know I’d hate to be compared with Joe Romm.
REPLY: My opinion was formed in behind the scenes emails with Dr. Curry. Hopefully her next piece will get to the issues which most concern skeptics today. – A
Dr. Curry’s analysis is comprised mostly of ‘why can’t we all just get along’ platitudes; but is a useful starting point to build a real structure designed to force integrity and trustworthyness upon all individual scientists and researchers using any public funding on a particular study. This process cannot be voluntary. Very strict procedures need to be developed (and policed) regarding the public availability of every raw data item, and all changes made, including production of all programs and codes applicable thereto. This shouldn’t require an FOIA request. These data should be available when any public funding is expended. This may appear cumbersome to many researshers; the choice is ‘don’t use public funds’. Additionally, each research study should show the name and source of every dollar of funding.
Feels odd to read an essay like this that doesn’t fire off from start that it’s all about big-oil-conspiracy and pr-war and what not.
However, the one sided stance on the big-oil conspiracy is disheartening. Most of the so called dirty energy companies was brought to heels by the greenies and is now funneling money towards renewable energy, which is quite logic since everyone follows the money to make money. So that’s that. But what about the other end? What makes it ok to include the greenies and their billions upon billions of dollars in a scientific process that otherwise should be neutral and objective? That the green fanatics thinks it’s ok is all but obvious, what with they being irrational people to boot.
What would the greenies do to the IPCC if the IPCC had included a non peer reviewed article in some big-oil mag as a reference about something as apparent wrong as the glacier debacle?
The whole IPCC process and the IPCC version of climate science falls because it’s neither neutral nor objective. It’s riddled with one sided fanatic activism, and guilt by association.
Why are people sceptical? You take a bunch of scientists, and given them a subject which is really nothing more than deciding how much the temperature changes in each ten year period and trying to explain what happened, their scientific colleagues allow them to speculate ad nosium on the causes, and then you allow the environmentalists to use this speculation to create propaganda wars, encourage the renewables industry and carbon traders to jump on the bandwagon and try to steamroller policy through to line their purses.
And then you allow these allow these “scientists” to believe they have some god given gift to predict the future … and their scientific colleagues can’t even be bothered to check whether they actually do any real science, like making predictions and testing those predictions against what really happens.
And then you allow the computer geeks, to use fear of global warming to fund their latest high-tech super-computer at the Met Office, whilst there remain weather stations on heated roofs, and in airplane exhausts. Basically massive massive funding where it isn’t needed and bugger all on the ground where it is.
And then you get a scientists flogging every bit of enviornmental research which shows any kind of population change and allow them to speculate as to how that change WAS CAUSED by global warming.
Then you add onto that third world countries who see global warming guilt in the west as a nice money spinner.
Well sooner or later the public get fed up of being treated like gullible idiots and being spoonfed “Weather of Mass Destruction” stories, and they remember the last few mass hysteria evenst: WMD, Birdflu, swineflu, MMR, Millennium bug. And they figure …. it’s snowing today, it sure don’t feel like teh world is burning up, so I guess this is just more hysteria by the press.
Oh … and add to that a fossil fuel industy worried about government intervention on depleting reserves who are all too keen for the environmentalists to be telling everyone: “there is so much oil and gas in the world that it’s actually a problem that there is too much oil and gas … and when we continue burning it will give us some nice warm weather”.
Then add to that lovely mix, the hatred of the left-leaning environmentalists by the SUV loving right and allow real science to be sidelined in the bun fight that follows.
And then create an internet which green groups work out they can manipulate through media like Wikipedia to say anything they want to say and call it science .
And a PC culture in schools and Universtities, and civil service, which allow eco-fascist PC wardens, to force their eco-fascist ideas onto teachers and civil servants in the name of “saving the planet” and make it so they dare not ask simple questions like: “where’t the evidence”.
But if I thought about it, I’m sure I could come up with a longer answer!
Very good and thoughtful article.
To orient myself to the group: I am a professional scientist, in industry, PhD chemistry. Libertarian bent, skeptical (of sketchy science, and also of public policy, since rational policy based on sound science can still end in tragedy), but interested in the details, and willing to be swayed by them. I’m more in sync with Bjorn Lomberg than James Inhofe, I guess, though I neither support nor discount their arguments, because I don’t know them well enough. I believe the details are important, and find Chris Mooney and anyone who wants to ‘frame’ or ‘dumb down’ science sort of tacky and suspect. The details may need to be explained, and some steps presented schematically, but the public that wants to know, scientific or not, should be addressed as adults.
I have been watching the debate for several years, at RealClimate, ClimateAudit, and here, mainly, with stops all over. The level of discourse is low much of the time, but to the credit of those on the auditing side, the moderators/owners of the blogs seem to be even handed, even when a bit cranky. I cannot say the same for RCs moderators, who are censorious and testy beyond what is necessary to preserve the integrity of their presentation. Nevertheless, I find most of the best on both sides very useful.
This is not my field. I follow the arguments as best I can, and learn the math and look at the data. It takes up a good deal of my time just seeing that what people claim to measure or calculate is in the revealed data, and can be calculated by the stated methods. I am not in the business of trying to provide alternative models- I can’t do it. But with enough data, R, Maple, a couple of stats books, and time, I can generally suss out what is being done. So I look at the details when possible. I think the details matter, and cannot be trusted to anyone in isolation.
Two observations: To the statement by Dr. Curry:”While scientists persist in thinking that they should be trusted because of their expertise, climategate has made it clear that expertise itself is not a sufficient basis for public trust.” Nor should it be- who has not seen dueling experts in court? Scientific scandals that make headlines are rare, but they do make headlines, so why should merely being part of the guild be reason for trust? This sounds both arrogant and naive, but I suppose it might be part of academic science. In my work, if I want someone to do something based on my data, I not only have to present the data, and show my calculations, I generally have to explain it to people who are ignorant of chemistry and hostile to it because it is not their field. If it is true that scientist persist in thinking their expertise alone makes them worthy of trust, why is that? It sounds kooky to me.
Second: “No one believes the debate is over or the science is settled”? This is startling to hear. I have heard this repeated by scientific colleagues from assistant professors to NAS members, and that audits were a sideshow, probably malevolent, at best. My basic counter is that no one who wants to convince someone else to do or think something hides good data or obfuscates good methods, so if there were no chicanery, there would be no fear of an audit. I apparently am not convincing.
Thanks so much to Dr. Curry for neither treating people asking legitimate skeptical questions as trolls, nor fearing to tread into potentially hostile waters defending her own position without sugar-coating. I wish more academics were so inclined.
That was a very reasoned and reasonable essay and I don’t think anyone, other than the extremists on either side could take exception to any of the points made by Dr. Curry. What I particularly appreciated was her understanding that this branch of science has been seized upon by those with political intentions that will affect every single person on earth and so it needs to be as right as possible and for that to happen bright , inquisitive , people will need to be convinced.
It has been a long, frightening, journey for people like me who have long thought we were alone in our skepticism of CAGW but that journey has been made much more positive and rewarding thanks to blogs like this one. That has been possible thanks to the internet but here in Africa only a small proportion of the population has access to this great democratizer.
If the world really wants to help the developing world overcome threats like deforestation then providing money for electrification will be far better spent than lots of little “green” projects. Likewise the hooking up to the web of the population will result in advancing democracy and the ability of the world to tap into the knowledge of our environment here in Zimbabwe and throughout Africa.
The discourse and exchange of ideas, knowledge and opinions that Dr Curry is promoting will ensure that our planet can be a better place for all of us while ensuring economic and political development also happen equitably. Access to opinions and hence options is essential if people are to arrive at outcomes that suit them best.
Openness , accountability and skepticism will be the real salvation of this planet, not group think and a top down philosophy of big brother knows best.
Well spotted Anthony, kudos for carrying all of the points of view that you do.
By my count (i.e. by doing a search for the word using my browser’s built-in search facility), the word “deniers” is used twice in the letter – once in quotes, and once in saying “auditors not deniers”. As such, I’m not entirely sure that the criticisms levied against her for using the word “denier” are entirely warranted. The use of quotes in the first instance, by convention, indicates she’s using someone else’s words, and the second instance says that the people she’s talking about are not deniers.
Just my $0.02, but if we want the “forces of warming” to be precise, then we need to be precise as well.
Dr. Curry,
Excellent post.
Anthony,
I don’t think the use of the word deniers is so offensive here since she is trying to create a distinction between people with open minds, and people who won’t listen to evidence no matter what.
REPLY: I agree that she doesn’t use it offensively, my point is that she didn’t need to use it at all. -A
I see it more as an argument between alarmists and skeptics. AGW could be valid and still not be a threat to destroy the planet.
The tipping point was my tipping point into skepticism.
Judith. It is kinda late to have “scientists” put on an objective face and act like they are reaching out.
I do not trust you Judith. If you have at any time signed into participating as one of the “all scientists have accepted the fact that global warming and climate change is manmade” nothing has changed.
Today this. I will use an off topic analogy and ask how was Tiger woods coached to beg forgiveness for people he betrayed.
Judith, tell me if I am unfair when I associate you with folks that daily name skeptics as:
Anti Science
Deniers
polluters
dis-informers.
bought out by big oil
flat earthers
I have practiced in the field of psychology for a few decades and can see thru the message in your posting.
The tone of your little letter seems to be one of superiority. As if you know more than skeptics that Don’t believe you have proven your hypothesis.
Why were you not honest enough to condem the hindrances to FOIA requests? Where are your messages speaking against ethics violations?
How do you react, Judith when extremists in the CAGW field make simple blunt and absolutely false forcasts and claim their models predict the same? Example is Je Romm working with NOAA and claiming the drought, dustbowl effect in the southwest is permanent.