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.
Thank you, Dr. Curry, for your thoughtful remarks.
I fear, however, that you miss a big piece of what the uproar is about, when you say that ” No one really believes that the “science is settled” or that “the debate is over.””
Unfortunately, perhaps, that is exactly the problem for that precise phrase is indeed invoked by very influential speakers in the policy debates, including by current as well as former government officials; and the basic thought runs through a great deal more of the policy-related materials. See e.g. former VP Gore at: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=9047642 (“The science is settled, Gore told the lawmakers.”) (March 2007); and EPA, “Statement on Litigation on EPA Endangerment Finding” (posted February 22, 2010) (http://blog.epa.gov/administrator/) (“The question of the science is settled.”).
This is why Dr. Jones’ recent statement to the BBC to the effect that he didn’t share that view is likely to echo so loudly in legal and policy circles in coming months. . . . . He may have thought his statement unexceptional, but in the policy world it is jarring, to say the least, because it is so directly inconsistent with the underlying positions cited above.
There may well be a political basis for an eventual political consensus that emitting less CO2 is better than emitting more. But such a political (not “scientific”) consensus will require restoration of trust, as you rightly point out. For me, this recalls some of the debates of the early 1970s over whether or not there was a real or contrived natural gas “shortage”. There was a huge trust gap where the only good data came from the various participants in the energy industry and the trade associations (e.g. the American Gas Association, the API, etc.) and many involved in the natural gas policy debates did not trust those data. One of the first steps for rationalizing energy policy was to create a neutral and independent data source that was not part of anyone’s particular policy agenda. This is what became the Energy Information Administration in 1977 (as part of the DOE Organization Act). The EIA provides data that are used by all participants in various energy policy debates arguing for various — and often diametrically opposed — policy outcomes. Significant debates about the integrity of the underlying energy data disappeared decades ago.
The creation of the EIA went a long, long way to allowing for analytic arguments to replace ad hominem arguments (though the ad hominen attack will remain as long as we have hominems I fear . . . . :)). Similarly, the old Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) was broken up in significant part to separate out the nuclear power support efforts (R&D, etc.) — the promotion or “advocacy” function — from the safety regulation function. Hence we got ERDA (subsequently folded into the DOE in 1977) and the intendment Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), which remains outside of DOE. There are surely countless other examples within government.
The underlying problem revealed by the Climategate materials was the extent to which the data gatherers served also as policy advocates. No one should expect that researchers don’t have their own views on a host of policy issues, of course. They would be less than human if they didn’t have their own views and beliefs. But from a governmental standpoint, it was a terrible error to allow a system to evolve in which the researchers were in effective control of significant aspects of the policy development and policy recommendation apparatus, but without the kinds of public oversight and public accountability that normally go with the exercise of that kind of responsibility and power. The extent to which these factors taint the basic conclusions of the IPCC reports and the extent to which EPA acted appropriately or inappropriately in relying on the IPCC (and others) in exercising its own governmental powers are issues likely to be decided by the courts over the next year or two.
Ah, me! I think of Darwin sitting on that mountain peak, thousands of feet above the Pacific staring at the fossilized fishes in the rock outcropping, confronted by the raw facts before him and trying to fit the data to the prior paradigm and coming up short until he had to go back and start over on a new approach. But I also think of the researchers who tried to use Copernicus’ theory to account for the perceived data and coming up short because Copernicus was wrong — conceiving that the earth revolved around the sun in a perfect circle. Copernicus was trying to cram elliptical orbits into round holes as it were, when Kepler was not yet born to tell him what the problem was.
Those initial post-Copernican researchers may have been tempted by the simplicity and elegance of the heliocentric view, but if they wanted to be accurate the old Ptolemaic system was still more accurate — according to Kuhn at least — even though based on a completely incorrect theory. Copernicus was only approximately right, while the Ptolemaic researchers were more accurately wrong. . . It took nearly a century to sort things out.
Facts, analysis, theory; theory, analysis facts: Critical, skeptical thinking, revisiting the received wisdom — these should be the hallmarks of science. How the terms “skeptic” or “critic” (not to mention “denier”) ever became derogatory is a source of wonderment for me. Einstein denied the universal applicability (or “truth”, if you will) of Newton’s laws; Darwin denied a literal reading of Genesis; Lavoisier denied phlogiston, etc. etc. etc. All of which was made possible by observing and developing relevant facts, by thought and hard work — and by Edison’s one percent of inspiration or imagination that breathes new life and new insights into stale piles of data.
But a prerequisite for that is freedom. The free inquiry of free minds; free from the fear of losing the next grant because of a lack of perceived support for today’s conventional wisdom; free to disagree and dispute, to strive and to fail. “La pensee unique” is one French term for “political correctness” that captures nicely the view that only a only a single way of thinking is acceptable — the anathema of science.
If there a silk purse can sill be made of the sow’s ear of Climategate, let it be a return to the shared values of free thought by free minds, made possible by free speech and the free press of the blogosphere and beyond!
Thank you again for your essay. (And thanks to Anthony for what your site has become!)
Dr. Curry is right about climategate having ramifications beyond the immediate issue of AGW. I wrote an article about this (short, I swear) at
http://climaterealists.com/index.php?id=5221
I have just been to Real Climate to see if this essay is posted there. Perhaps it is and I didn’t look hard enough but judging by the comments on a post about some articles in The Guardian I don’t think they are going to change their stance anytime soon.
“We highlight issues with three of the articles below, which revisit a number of zombie arguments that have been doing the rounds of the sceptic blogs for years.”
The spirit of reconciliation, eh?
Thank you Dr Curry. It is a pity that relatively lay people have had to become climate auditors because they could not trust research scientists in the key instutions to do their work objectively. Perhaps a guest post from a psychologist might be appropriate next, to review the origins of groupthink and the beliefs that have become like a religion to the proponents of AGW – believe, believe, despite the evidence, and if that doesn’t work, adjust reality or deny it, until it fits your world view.
The reason for this is money and status; as good primates, we care what the troupe thinks of us, and we try to please the alpha males. I see it in corporate life all the time. The connection between climate scientists and grant money, tenure and speaker opportunities at prestigious conferences, the attention paid to them by government – and in some cases Royalty – have overwhelmed their objectivity.
We just want our truth back. Tell us what is really happening to the planet, and help us respond accordingly. The incredible gross exaggeration of Hensen et al have made the whole AGW thing look like the Emperor’s new clothes. Anthony and other “climate auditors” have pointed out that the king hasn’t got anything on. It’s a pity this has been needed but it turns out to be a service to humanity.
Dr Curry, retain your scientific integrity and tell the truth about the data.
Incidentally, as oil companies turn themseelves into energy companies, we will see them play both sides of this game, its no surprise that they can back the IPCC, fund “denier” websites, drill oil wells and build wind turbines, all at the same time. It’s called hedging your bets, and it’s all the rage.
Now that many of us have posted some form of polite comment, let’s get back to reality.
Exactly when do you expect the likes of Obama, Gore, Brown, Schmidt, Mann, Karl, Serreze, Chu, Holdren, Romm, Foster (tamino), etc., etc to come forward and state that they were wrong or the that claims have been exaggerated?
I won’t be holding my breath.
Is it just me, or does that read like someone thinking they are addressing the UN? Long, self important, long, repetitious, long, meatless, and long.
“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.”
Umm, that isn’t how it works. You post stuff, if others find it interesting they link or repost. That is the filter, that is the ‘peer review’ if you like. Attempting to short circuiting this process only demonstrates hubris. Setting up an experiment to see if blogs can be used to “generate ideas and debate them” demonstrates you may be a bit out of touch with the animal you are trying to tame.
Dr. Curry,
Thanks. But you still have the same problem that got this whole mess started. You are still in the Us vs Them club. As pointed out above, you still have the club mentality and are addressing the folks in the bunker. In tone, you imply that only those in acedemia have anything to contribute and all others, at best, can be auditors. Remember that it was a monk that was the father of modern genetics. A layman. OMG.
I am not a ‘skeptic’ or a ‘denier’. My focus before I left grad school for a once in a life time job opportunity was econometrics. I thought there was something to this whole thing until I saw McIntyre’s analysis of the MM hockey stick. I know a null hypothesis when I see one.
Maybe that is what the club has forgotten in their models. The statistics students can tell you this (if anyone bothered to ask). “Will I fail this class because I incorrectly think a variable is a valid part of this model?” “Have I identified the real knowns?” “What can I possibly have not accounted for?” Some folks are too sure of themselves, and it shows. Others clearly and demonstratively have an agenda to promote CO2 as the source of climate change. Failure to assume you are wrong and work from there is the problem. You must try harder to refute your own assertion. I sure don’t see any of that going on over in the bunker.
Dear Judith,
how nice of you to see both sides of the story and realize that the skeptics aka deniers aka liberians aka technical people outside academics aka . .
might have a point.
Whereas “The climate researchers at realclimate.org were the pioneers in this..”
(there are more hymns about the greatness of the average climate researcher in the text) “have been defended as scientists with the best of intentions”.
Do you really believe to present both sides in a fair manner?
RC was created with one reason only: Trying to shut up Steve McI.
“Some blogs are heavily moderated”, well which one could you possibly mean by that? Heavy moderation is evil and every blog, which is driven by an agenda should be labbeled clearly, we need an open debatte!
PJP (07:37:47) wrote:
“[..]We see cherry picking of data to get the desired result. We see these same results disagreeing with current reality. Even though unable to explain why the divergence with current measurements, the “experts” absolutely insist that although they are completely ignorant of why the divergence, that that are completely justified in ignoring this discrepancy between theory and practice for current data, but absolutely insist on its integrity for 1,000+ years prior [..]”
You should take a stand, if some one pulishes wrong results knowing better or obstructs a FOI request because the archive is desolate should his head roll or not? Should institutions which fail to succeed in their mission be cut in founding or not?
I hear a loud silence and see many words not written in your statement.
Ask the question for all to see, why the people which found the errors and made the FOI requests are not represented in the so called independent reviewing.
Your letter is a nice read without any consquences and not a single fact or statement relevant for an improvement of the situation in it.
All the best,
LoN
Anthony,
Dr. Curry did not use the word denier to describe us, but “denier” to describe what the AGWers call us. I thought she wrote a good essay for those that had not been following the debate. Probably could not write it as we would and still get it published or read in AGW circles.
What could have been covered better was the disparity in funding between the researchers and the skeptics. Big oil money was always propaganda (wish I could get some.) The politics of the gatekeepers, who grant the research funds, has not been discussed. This is the key issue.
I talk to & email my local legislative person frequently. He refuses to look at the data, saying he is non technical and that he has to rely on the expert advice he is given about climate warming. I don’t know where Dr. Curry gets her information, but he is still being told that the science is settled.
The world has been warming about half a degree per century since the mid 1800s. Well described by Dr. Akasofu. That needs to be subtracted from the dodgy current temperature record before claiming anything new.
The missing information is how the AGW crowd come up with the CO2 forcing number used in the models. The range is enough to make one suspicious that no one really knows. I won’t hold my breath waiting for an answer.
REPLY: My point is that she could have simply left it out or made a stronger statement against its use. – A
The public will now not make any difference between skeptiks and AGW alarmists, climatologists and rocket scientists.
It is Science as a whole that has failed by entering the political circus, playing the role of the king’s astrologer. In this arena, there is no pardon, no trust to be restored, just blood waiting to be spilled in the yard so that anger be quenched.
I do not see any issue to this crisis other than quick and massive self-amputations for the sake of the whole body… because you can be sure someone will come that you do not like to cut into this roting corpse.
The most awsome statement is, “Science is ultimately a self-correcting process…” This might explain why a handful of honest people, including, but not limited to, Steve McIntyre, Anthony Watts, Jeff ID, E.M.Smith, Bishop Hill, Joe D’Aleo, Steve Mosher and Tom Fuller, can halt and reverse the “unstoppable juggernaut” of global warming alarmism. The “scientific” research was funded by tens of billions of dollars of public and private funds. Al Gore bragged that he had raised $300 million to fund advocacy. The politicians (except for a few), media and Hollywood were all in support of the cause. Yet this was reversed. Yes, here science has shown to be a self correcting process. The truth is winning out in the end. Judith Curry’s biggest misconception is she thinks that it is a public relations issue.
I have yet to see anye real scientific evidence from testing that show CO2 is a cause of warming. So indeed we can say that the science is not settled”. I see that advert of the church of scientology is back here again. I hope that WUWT has nothing to do with this church?
Well, this is a good start, and I must give Dr. Curry a certain amount of credit for embracing this standpoint. But the post still contains (unconsciously, perhaps) remnants of the thinking that got us here.
Just one example: ecopolitical scientists have used the “big oil” boogey man to draw attention away from their own billion dollar politicised research budgets. This ad hominem argument was not only fallacious from the outset, but has been the epitome of hypocrisy for decades.
Dr. Curry doesn’t seem to have absorbed the full import of the Climategate papers, NOR the fact that those emails are just the tip of a very deep and very evil iceberg, one whose existence was foreseen almost fifty years ago:
“The prospect of domination of the nation’s scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present and is gravely to be regarded. Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite.”
–Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1961
I totally agree with Francois GM. I know nothing of the actual science regarding climate, but I did science at school, a long time ago and I can remember being told that nothing in science is settled . When I read, about five years ago that ‘the science is settled’ and a ‘consensus of scientists’ agreed that global warming was man made, I knew it had to be nonsense. It was this insistence that got my interest and put me on the path of a skeptic. At times I despaired that the mould of AGW could ever be broken but, thanks to the unknown hero who leaked the emails, it happened, and now its all downhill. More and more scientists have taken courage and started publishing anti AGW papers. Its just a matter of time.
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. (my emphasis)
With all due respect to Dr Curry, the political agenda of the “alarmists” is not a question of perception my perception of their activities – it is a matter of fact, evidenced by their participation in the explicitly political activity of recommending and setting public policy. This activity is not an inevitable outcome of scientific research – it was a deliberate choice by those such as Hansen or Schmidt to become advocates. Through the article Dr Curry expresses concern with the politicization of science, and warns that climate scientists are not well prepared for “political” conflict. I find that more than a little disingenuous, when it was the alarmist camp that made the science political, and used the most primitive ‘political’ tools (clubbiness, withholding data, subtle and not-subtle loyalty tests) to prevent open examination of their work.
Lubos wins.
Mark
Anthony
I completely agree with post above by Paul Daniel Ash. Dr. Curry used the term denier “specifically to show how it is misused.” It doesn’t matter to those of us reading this blog what she may have emailed to you in private, that is not the information we see. If you got her to modify her use of the word “denier” then more power to you but you don’t need to bring your personal communication with her to light. I find that less than honest and if I was her I would be hesitant to continue private conversation with you for fear it would become public.
I have been a skeptic since I first became acquainted with this issue and as a television meteorologist, I wrote a blog on global warming for several years but I have become somewhat embarrassed by what, at least I perceive, as an increasingly defensive tone on your part. An example would be your responses to Herman L. in your post about the Slimy Essay from the Guardian and Columbia University. Had I responded to someone on that level, my blog would have been shut down.
You have been blessed with one of the most popular sites on the web. Please do not tarnish it with comments I feel I would more likely find on RealClimate. What Judith Curry has done here took great courage on the part of an academic. We may not agree with everything she says but she will indeed take flak from the other side for saying it. Applauding her efforts may encourage others to start a dialogue. Becoming prickly over her use of a word in private correspondence in not helpful to dialogue in any way.
Just my opinion. In general this is a great blog. Maybe you just need a vacation.
Bravo to Anthony for posting this and bravo to Dr. Curry for writing it. By and large, I think her essay is pretty objective and a forthright analysis of the situation. I particularly applaud her recognition that many of us who peruse Climate Audit and Watt’s Up With That are in fact technically trained, not anti-science nor funded by any particular industry as is so often charged by AGW proponents.
I take two exceptions. First and most important is this idea of dueling blogs. I’m not sure the public is interested enough to bounce back and forth between blogs — especially when some of the ones she cites (RealClimate for example) are the worst at editing out dissenting opinion. I stopped visiting RealClimate when it became apparent that it was more interested in agit-prop than discussion. I have seen no similar suppression of opinions at Climate Audit or Watt’s Up With That. If you want to build trust in these so-called climate science institutions, you first have to start with them earning that trust by allowing reasonable debate and getting rid of the shrill emotional tone.
My second exception is in her characterization of the “climate establishment”. She seems (understandably) to still have a very favorable opinion of the self-appointed climate establishment but this colors her perception or characterization of their actions. She talks about a “misguided war against the skeptics” and “misinformed policy advocacy” as if the climate establishment were poor naive scientists caught up in a political and media firestorm they were ill-prepared to deal with. On the contrary, it has become quite apparent that the war by Mann/Jones/et al was not misguided but deliberately deceitful and malicious. Hansen and Mann were anything but naive — they appear to have in fact approached the whole affair for years with deliberation and quite intentionally manipulated the political processes, including Hansen’s phony claims of being muzzled.
I don’t even want to get into the follow-the-money arguments other than to say they are truly comical when you actually look at the numbers on both sides.
If other climate researchers want to rebuild trust, they need to start by recognizing the large number of scientifically and technically trained people who want the same kind of discussion that we’d have over a new cancer treatment, new aircraft design, dinosaur evolution theory, cold fusion, etc. That includes full and open disclosure of data and methods, acknowledgment of uncertainties and separation of advocates/advocacy from research and development. I’ll believe the climate establishment is really concerned about rebuilding trust when RealClimate, ClimateProgress and Tamiko admit the science isn’t settled, outline the uncertainties and engage in real dialog to understand and analyze the data instead of acting like the Wizard of Oz and telling us to pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.
I truly think Al Gore’s exaggeration of the findings made it easier for people to doubt the science. When two third is covered by water on earth, and the a fraction of the third melts completely, it’s really hard to imagine 20ft rise. Then IPCC claims more modest 2ft and it seems believable, but that change happens everyday in some places just with high tide and low tide. So it becomes insignificant. Doubt then becomes skeptic. This is without any knowledge of science. But these nonscientist are performing observation, a legitimate first step of scientific method. And some with curiousity will do some research making their own case. For those who invesitigated on their own builds confidence in their knowledge than what’s been feeded. It is therefore harder to change their mind.
Something off topic. You know how the temp drops in 1940, but never hear why it dropped. Could it be due to nuclear testing? First test was in 1945 and the last atmospheric test was performed in 1976 and temp goes back up in 1980. Could it cause a drop and contribute to the rise?
While I find it interesting and potentially helpful to read Dr. Curry’s perspective and thoughts, such is not what strikes me.
What strikes me is the sheer volume of thoughtful and eloquent comments above. It’s a testament to the quality of this site, its admin and moderators, and the character and quality of this community.
I just felt compelled to express my appreciation.
Wow.
Mark
1. Curry wrote “The climate researchers at realclimate.org were the pioneers in this [the blogospheric debate]…”
Nonsense, Realclimate is a one sided debate which is heavily moderated to show only one side of the story.
2. Curry wrote “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…” Perhaps the answer is that “The scientists involved in the CRU emails” know that their science is so weak that it will not stand up to objective inquiry. That may also be why there is no public debate. If the science is strong, then the data and the code would speak for itself.
3. Compare and contrast Feynman’s “Cargo Cult Science” ( http://www.lhup.edu/~DSIMANEK/cargocul.htm ) with modern climate science and then ask why the climate scientists are not trusted. Feynman wrote
“We’ve learned from experience that the truth will come out. Other
experimenters will repeat your experiment and find out whether you
were wrong or right. Nature’s phenomena will agree or they’ll
disagree with your theory. And, although you may gain some
temporary fame and excitement, you will not gain a good reputation
as a scientist if you haven’t tried to be very careful in this kind
of work. And it’s this type of integrity, this kind of care not to
fool yourself, that is missing to a large extent in much of the
research in cargo cult science.” and I would add IPCC climate science.
Sorry but i see this your way of “hide the decline”.
Expertise and trust, “the general practice of science and the personal behaviors of scientists”, are as church and state or as apples and oranges.
We can start with a bit less window dressing; ” 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 “.
We can start with; ” greater transparency, reforms to peer review ” and provide a context that includes alternative and competing scientific viewpoints…
Ever realizing that Science by way of political proxy (i.e. prefaced financial support) took time to foment and will not go away quickly nor easily~
It is clear that we would not be reading anything from Dr Curry had “Climategate” not occurred. Interesting how its all about calming things down now that their pants are down.
On reflection, I think Anthony’s initial reaction to deny Curry’s post was correct. First, it’s just self aggrandizing blah, blah, blah. Secondly, I think the AGW crowd has woken up to the tremendous power of the blogosphere and is now trying to catch up and grab its share. Let Curry run her own blog.
On a completely different note (snip if appropriate), a commenter (I think this blog) recommended some kind of remembrance/memorial for Michael Crichton. Great idea, IMO. Like many, it was reading State of Fear that got me first interested in this topic.