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.
There still seems to be a belief here that the core reason for existence of AGW skepticism was driven by a “monolithic climate denial machine”. I don’t doubt that there is some influence there, but in all my years of following this, I’ve only seen referenced some $19 million or something paid by Exxon to dispute AGW.
Meanwhile, the “monolithic climate ALARMIST machine” has been funded by endless billions upon billions of taxpayer dollars, hundreds of environmental advocacy groups, both global and local in scale, an unquestioning media, several major Hollywood movies (including Gore’s), and on and on.
And yet somehow, the corrupt, poorly executed science has been exposed. Congrats to you Anthony for helping to expose it.
With all due respect Ms. Curry – I’m sure you are a good and decent person – but shame on you for continuing to perpetrate the myth that climate skepticism has its roots in the deep pockets of Exxon-Mobil. Instead, the skepticism is largely a grassroots rejection of: the long suspected (and now verified) perversion of the scientific method; demonstrably unscrupulous research journals; speculative and scientifically unsound climate models; and suppression of honest science by those who make their living by promoting inflated claims of pending disaster and scientific certainty.
Scientific method is evidence-based. Your evidence for the supposed roots of this movement are thin, and the now exposed evidence of instead – a monolithic climate alarmist machine – are simply undeniable.
Regardless, you are to be commended for attempting to further the dialog on the subject on forums like WUWT. The scientific community has a long way to go in regaining the trust of the public on this subject, and you are at least attempting to take some steps in the right direction.
The first sign that the terrorists have run out of ammunition is their sudden offer of a cease fire and to negotiate. The second sign is their insistance on a mediator with a known bias to their position. The third is bringing to the table a list of issues predicated on the assumption that they have done nothing wrong and are the agrieved party.
The first sign that they have new ammunition is the sudden end of negotiations.
How many rounds must we go before someone shouts Hey! Its a trick!
And lest someone be critical of me for using terrorists in the way others use denier…global warming catastrophe, mass starvation, entire countries drowning, storms that will kill millions, and all the fault of people who work hard and who must now fix it by giving all their money to those who don’t. This isn’t terrorism? This isn’t extortion?
I don’t “negotiate” and “understanding” with the likes of these while behind the scenes they are just collecting more ammunition.
OK, temper settling down again…starting to breath again…
Dr Curry,
“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.”
There is no current cost effective alternative to Oil as a transportation fuel.
Exxon Mobil still makes it’s 10 cents a gallon at the pump whether they are selling ethanol or gasoline.
So whenever I hear someone talking about some conspiracy involving oil companies I just automatically dismiss them as crackpots.
Big Coal does have a lot to lose in the Climate Debates as Does Big Steel.
Of course being against coal miners and steel workers is politically difficult, so the ‘Evil’ Oil companies get propped up by the crackpot scientists as the ‘villain’.
Is there any evidence that “big oil” has EVER funded anything that was/is not solid science leading to workable results? I mean, these people are successful businessmen (too successful apparently for some to swallow), and they would need good research and engineering to keep this up for many decades, wouldn’t they?
To me, whining about “big oil” is the same kind of argument you hear from esoteric “alternative medicine” exponents to explain away the fact that their useless therapies are not preferred to established medical practice by the general public.
Sincere apologies – I should have used Dr. Curry in my response, not Ms. Curry.
I applaud the effort Dr Curry has made here to open the door a crack.
I think she is correct in some issues, although underestimates how in a minority she is with regard to the perception of there being “settled science”. I imagine that there are a few who fit her description in climate science of :
Those who actually feel that way have a very small window of time to make that clear to the public at large and to take a stand. Those who try to dance around this issue will be assumed to fall into the “no debate needed” category and will shoulder that burden through out the rest of their professional life.
Unfortunately just a brief reading of some of the major pro-AGW blogs makes it very clear, that there is a very large block of the public and many well educated people that should know better, fully and absolutely without qualification believe the debate is over. The believe this as certainly as some believe the 10 commandments and other primary religious texts are the definitive word of a supreme being.
For that cadre of the public, body politic, and scientific – educated there is in fact no debate possible. Their minds are totally closed to the possibility that they are wrong, misinterpreting facts as they know them, or that some are intentionally manipulating the data, “science” (and I use that term in its most casual sense), for cynical and ulterior motives.
Many of us who post to this blog have personally faced people who were so sure of that assertion, that they were red faced screaming at the top of their lungs lunatics ready to commit physical violence to defend that position.
That is not a figure of speech but a very real state of mind for a good number of the public. It is literally bordering on the sort of physical intimidation that could easily transition into physical violence. It is truly scary to experience.
This is the sort of mind set that burned witches at the stake for conjuring up weather during the little ice age, and drove the inquisition to commit horrifying acts of officially sanctioned violence.
All because a few academics would not speak the truth and intentionally manipulated data.
There is a very large number of people in this country who have been so thoroughly influenced (some would say brain washed), by media coverage such as Al Gores movie An Inconvenient Truth that they are simply beyond communication. They will not even tolerate open discussion of the possibility that the sea will not rise and flood major cities in their life time.
As many others on this board have related I have lost friends due to simply trying to discuss the topic.
I do think you have hit on a very important issue, that there are multiple classes of people who oppose or question AGW. Each with different drives and motivations.
Certainly there are some who are driven by profit motive and personal self interest. That is part of the human condition. Any time you have any event that drives major change and flow of large amounts of money some will take advantage of that situation and try to skim the cream off for themselves or cynically try to manipulate the game for their self interest and profit.
There are however a good number of people who you identify as the climate auditor class, who’s driving motivation is truth and quality of the science. They do not much care what the answer is they just want a trust worthy answer that will stand up to in depth analysis and audit of process and methods that arrived at the conclusion.
I like your turn of phrase when you mention the “climate auditors”, although since the debate here properly includes other issues besides just the area of climate science but also the broader world of public policy, perhaps we should define a term for all the groups in the the blogosphere that act as fact checkers and auditors for all sorts of public policy, be they tax plans, fiscal policy, climate science and policy, etc. etc.
I believe you are correct that the blogosphere has enabled and allowed the development of a whole cadre of open source audit and fact checking of all areas of public debate. Like you say people in public positions of trust ignore this new feature of a wired world at considerable peril to their professional reputation.
Unfortunately I think some in the public debate of AGW have tarnished the image and professional status of some so severely that they will forever carry a “scarlet letter” branding them as abusers of the public trust, and in the mind of many they will always be considered charlatans and snake oil salesmen and will never be trusted again in any substantive issue or debate.
Thank you for pushing the door open a bit!
Larry
vigilantfish (07:35:04) :
Dr. Judith Curry:
Strongly recommend that you read Jerome Ravetz’s post from yesterday at WUWT and read and digest all of the responses. It might help you understand your own discipline better.
Do that, Dr.Judith Curry, it’s really a good advice. We are not gods of any kind who could carelessly play with the lives of people or irresponsably think we can even alter nature, that’s presumptuous and utterly silly, however we will harm ourselves, our neighbours, our children and future generations if we allucinate we are such gods or goddesses, while we will be instead fulfilling the wishes, desires and dreams of people we do not know, who are always behind the scenes and who will be the only beneficiaries of such eventual decisions.
REPLY: I agree that she doesn’t use it offensively, my point is that she didn’t need to use it at all. -A
But as gcb at 7:55:43 pointed out, she used the term exactly twice: once in quotes to refer to what someone else says, and once to distinguish “auditors” from deniers. She uses the term specifically to show how it is misused.
As is clear from the comments of michel 07:31:14, stephen richards at 8:17:35, IsoTherm at 8:22:39, andAlexander 8:23:03, your comments before Dr. Curry’s post left the impression that she’s calling climate skeptics “deniers,” which, again she is not doing.
I wish you’d consider rewriting the Foreword.
REPLY: I wish she’d consider saying “the term deniers is distasteful and counterproductive, we need to drop it from the discussion” Then I wouldn’t need a foreword to address my issue with it. Bear in mind, she sent out a copy for review in days prior. – A
Sorry, Ms. Curry, you have completely missed the points that motivate and form the beliefs of most sceptics I know. We are not ill-informed, uneducated people. We may not be climate scientists–I suspect the number of people who fit into that category is pretty small anyway–but we are intelligent people who have science and technical backgrounds and can understand the finer points of less settled science.
We are smart enough to know that measurements come with error ranges, that temperature measuring sites have moved, that land use changes have happened, etc. etc. etc. and all these things affect the temperature databases. We are smart enough to understand how and why data sets might be manipulated and adjusted. We are smart enough to know that comparing historical data sets to current data sets is not done smoothly and easily. We are smart enough to know that reliable data over a broad part of the earth is only a luxury of the late 20th century. In other words, we are smart enough to know that the data cannot support the absolute certainty we have been fed.
When you are ready to call the New York Times and tell them that the science is not settled and no reputable scientist would say it is, let me know.
Dr. Curry makes some excellent points, but mostly within the context of how it academic community feels about the recent increase outside scrutiny. Nobody likes being audited, but if you are advocating policies that would essentially tax breathing, you should expect us to want to take a look at your books — especially since, in most cases, we paid for this research with our tax dollars.
But her analysis is heavy on feelings and light on data. It would be helpful to compare the amount of money spent on studying global warming with the amount spent by the oil companies funding direct research into anti-AGW theories. Also, how does the AGW paradigm affect the funding of science? If one’s livelihood depends on AGW existing, then evidence to the contrary would tend to become the real inconvenient truth.
It would also be helpful to begin the story years earlier and see how many of the same institutions (and people!) had been on the “new ice age” bandwagon back in 70s, before making an abrupt switch in the 80s.
However, it does show hope for a civilized discussion of how best determine possible future climate based on open sources, transparency and rigorous data archiving standards — as least as soon as they stop using the term “deniers” in all of its various iterations. Unless those who support the concept of AGW want to be referred to as “Inconvenient Truthers”…
Dr Curry
A nicely written and interesting piece and you are to be congratulated for coming into the ‘enemy’ camp. Sorry to use that word, but that is how we are seen. It really would help your cause a great deal if you dropped this ‘denier’ tag, it simply doesn’t fit and many of us find it offensive because of the obvious connotations.
Early on in your post you said;
“Several individuals have developed substantial expertise in aspects of climate science, although they mainly audit rather than produce original scientific research.”
I have written a number of original articles (as have others here), to do proper justice to them-I write about climate history-it really would be nice to spend three months on each one in order to carry out the original research and cross referencing that is needed.
Time equals money (and many papers are behind paywalls) so there is only a certain amount I can do with my limited resources. Alas! Big Oil has yet to make me an offer of funding. Let’s be realistic and admit it would be simply impossible for me to find conventional sources of funding because I am disproving the notion of ‘unprecedented’ climate change, not supporting it.
If you believe in a level playing field how about pointing sceptics in the direction of funding for original research, then we wouldn’t need to audit what has gone before would we?
Once again thank you for your contribution and do please drop this silly ‘deniers’ tag.
Tonyb
Interesting post, I am unsure if the post was intended as a mea culpa for the climate change industry , a request to sit down and talk or a backhanded slap on the why do you not understand what we are doing variety .
The issue is entirly of trust, do we trust the scientists ,politician and activists involved in the climate chjange industry, and yes it as much an industry as Exon or PetroCanada is.
The original issue is ,Are the temperature changes / climate changes we have experianced over the last century and a half or so caused by human actions?
First the climate constantly changes weather and climate have been around since atmosphere, any record of climate change that we ( humans) can develope will be an inconsequentially small part of the total record. As such it is very dangerous to be formulating a thesis that predicts future actions of a multi billion year subject based on a record of less than 2 millenia.
Second we don’t know all the factors that affect the climate. Any description of climate change and future prognostications without knowing what actually causes the changes is iffy at best.
Now to the science , the temperature records based on tree rings, soil cores corral are an impressive achievement on their own , if they are correct, and there in lies the rub. Because the original data and the methods of correcting it for use are seriously obscured by the actions of the scientists concerned we just don’t know if it or by extension the scientists themselves can be trusted.
The tree ring work if correct is awesom work, if it had been me who produced it I would have published everything found myself the biggest mountain top I could find stood on top and declared
This Is What I Have Done.
Here is how I did it prove me wrong.
Unfortunatley the people concerned laid a political/personal agenda on top of everything . As a result we don’t know what we we don’t know that is a bad starting point to destroy the North American economy.
The science is complicated the computer models are intricate and yes most people don’t know how to determine the worth of either. This is the point where the scientist should be able to step up and say, I have looked at these things and yes they do actually make sense.
That ability has been lost for the present, there needs to be a totally open reconstruction of all the data , methods, computer codes and models that were developed . By totally open I do mean totally open the internet would be a good place to start, start putting the raw data and the conversion methods on line let everybody have a whack at them and post the results. Have somebody who is totally above reproach from either side and a small staff referee , again totally open .
Once the results are available and justified by people who can be trusted the trust for the scientific community will start to rebuild. I am however affraid that the days of just following the scientists word is over.
“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…”
Right, we non scientists are too stupid to read a temperature gauge or understand manipulation of data, smoothing, cherry picking, foregone conclusions in search of a data set, data sets gone missing, false proxies, ect…
The IPCC did not present truth, it presented advocacy masquerading as science. Post normal science. The 4 assessment is so riddled with inaccuracies as to be useless. The high priestess is looking down her nose at the plebeians.
Dr. Curry:
Many thanks for your thoughtful history of the climate debate. I am less inclined to believe that the key scientific actors who behaved inappropriately did so because of their naivete or some lack of institutional support or guidance. The list of scientists who actively supported destructive ideologies is shamefully long.
I think another way to think about this is to use Ronad Reagan’s notion of “Trust but Verify.” When one side fails to cooperate with the idea of verification or verification suggests that things are not what they should be, the primary consequencs has to be a profound loss of trust.
Regardless, yours is still a very valuable contribution to the ongoing discussion.
Judith…if you want to rebuild trust, transparency is the answer. All of the raw surface temperature data and related adjustments collected and performed by each of the governmental data gatekeepers must be made available to the statisticians and scientists of the world. So long as the raw data is withheld or destroyed rather than shared, AGW will rightly be labelled a religion rather than a science.
If the homogenized and adjusted temperature data shows no warming since 1995 (ref. Phil Jones), what would the raw data show? If the temperature data records are in such a state of disorder that there is substantial uncertainty that the station location data is correct (again, Phil Jones), how can there be any arguement supporting the validity of the AGW thesis?
Trust and credibility are gone because people recognize specious science when they see it. That, and the abscence of warming for the past 15 years, have created tremendous momentum in the skeptical camp.
Erik Sloneker
eric @ur momisugly 7:58:52. I agree that Andy Revkin’s latest DotEarth blog post is a positive step. He admits doubt about the relative value of the natural cycles and the role of man. He’s being nicely debated by wmar.
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More damage control attempts. That is all she is doing. She has zero credibility as long as she uses the term deniers! When she says “They tend to be watchdogs rather than deniers” exactly what is she saying? It is okay to be a watchdog for the AGW science but you cannot deny AGW?
Yes we can and yes we will. What exactly is she talking about with her term “deniers”? The fact that people deny global warming or the fact that people deny humans are the cause? If anyone is stuck in denial it is her and all those that engaged in unscientific, unethical and possibly illegal activity to promote the idea that humans are causing global warming.
Dr. Curry you are a serial denier. Admitting your problem is the first step to recovery. I suggest you take it ASAP.
Agree, Kudos for trying. But she miss the point.
-Religion needs to be Separate from the State.
-Industry needs to be Separate from the State.
-…..
-…..
And
-Research needs to be Separate from the State.
No regulations, no “New Deal”, nothing can save you from the agenda of those with Power, if you make a deal with the devil.
Hasnt the Soviet Union teached you anything?
Dr. Curry, I fear that you believe you can restore trust with the very people whose objective is to destroy trust.
How about just giving the public real temperatures, preferably in rural stations without the arbitrary, and frankly disturbing, alterations.
Dr. Curry, I do appreciate your essay, and the amount of understanding that it contains. However you did say:
No one really believes that the “science is settled” or that “the debate is over.”
Well they do – or did – a lot of non-science people I know think just that! Exaggerations like that soon lose their context, and are simply passed about as ‘facts’.
In some ways I feel sorry for Prof Jones, because I think well meaning people can get sucked into folly increment by increment, but I do think it is important to realise that these people covered up with deliberate lies.
The idea that FOI requests were being used as a tool to prevent them having time to work, was an obvious lie. Prof Jones has now admitted the true reason for not releasing the data, and it was obvious anyway that publishing the data was the solution to the FOI problem!
Likewise the IPCC clearly lied in describing the glacier goof as a mistake! Obviously scientists make mistakes, but how can you review the evidence for a claim like that, and not notice that there wasn’t any!
While the good professor finds “oil money” to have been a corrupting influence, she appears blind to the corrupting influence of government money. Something on the order of 85% of all research funding comes from governments. It got to the point where a reputable scientist couldn’t get a grant to study squirrels in the park unless he or she somehow tied it to AGW; now THAT is a seriously corrupting influence.
P.S. I am not willing to publish my full name like Charles the Moderator, but I will back up my post with my credentials. I have a B.S. in Biology and an M.S. in Environmental Engineering, both from major U.S. universities.
I wonder if the good Dr. would be upset when I refer to her as a Warmonger.
Because Dr. Curry is a Warmonger as long as she slurs climate realists with the highly pejorative term “Denier”
So Dr. Curry, how does it feel to a Warmonger?
[snip OTT]
[snip sorry, I asked that you not apply labels, while I don’t agree with Dr.s Mann and Hansen, I don’t want further such labeling]