The 4th International Conference on Climate Change – Chicago, Il., USA
Consensus? What consensus?
by Roger Helmer MEP
I’m writing this in the Marriott Hotel in Chicago, where I’m attending the Heartland Institute Climate Conference (and I’ve just done an interview with BBC Environment Correspondent Roger Harrabin).
Ahead of the interview, I thought I’d just check out the Conference Speaker’s list. There are 80 scheduled speakers, including distinguished scientists (like Richard Lindzen of MIT), policy wonks (like my good friend Chris Horner of CEI), enthusiasts and campaigners (like Anthony Watts of the wattsupwiththat.com web-site), and journalists (including our own inimitable James Delingpole).
Of the 80 speakers, I noticed that fully forty-five were qualified scientists from relevant disciplines, and from respected universities around the world — from the USA, Canada, Mexico, Russia, Sweden, Norway, UK, Australia and New Zealand.
All of them have reservations about climate alarmism, ranging from concerns that we are making vastly expensive public policy decisions based on science that is, to say the least, open to question, through to outright rejection of the Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) model.
Several of these scientists are members or former members of the IPCC Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
But how do 45 sceptical scientists stack up, you may well ask, against the 2500 on the official IPCC panels? But of course there aren’t 2500 relevant scientists on the IPCC panel. Many of them are not strictly scientists at all. Some are merely civil servants or environmental zealots. Some are economists — important to the debate but not experts on the science. Others are scientists in unrelated disciplines. The Chairman of the IPCC Dr. Ravendra Pachuari, is a Railway Engineer.
And of the remaining minority who are indeed scientists in relevant subjects, some (like my good friend Prof Fred Singer) have explicitly rejected the IPCC’s AGW theory. Whittle it down, and you end up with fifty or so true believers, most of whom are part of the “Hockey Team” behind the infamous Hockey Stick graph, perhaps the most discredited artefact in the history of science. This is a small and incestuous group of scientists (including those at the CRU at the University of East Anglia). They work closely together, jealously protecting their source data, and they peer-review each other’s work. This is the “consensus” on which climate hysteria is based.
And there are scarcely more of them than are sceptical scientists at this Heartland Conference in Chicago, where I am blogging today. Never mind the dozens of other scientists here in Chicago, or the thousands who have signed petitions and written to governments opposing climate hysteria. Science is not decided by numbers, but if it were, there is the case to be made that the consensus is now on the sceptical side.
Roger Helmer MEP Follow me on Twitter: rogerhelmerMEP
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The AGW believers can be summed up by the words of Leo Tolstoy “‘I know that most men, including those at ease with problems of the greatest complexity, can seldom accept even the simplest and most obvious truth if it be such as would oblige them to admit the falsity of conclusions which they have delighted in explaining to colleagues, which they have proudly taught to others, and which they have woven, thread by thread, into the fabric of their lives.’
That is the genuine believers. Some are merely deceivers.
You, dear sir, are opposing the monopoly of (state-fed) ABBCNNBCBS propaganda.
Shame, shame.
Yes, I was impressed too with the quality of the speakers in the list. I’m hoping that eventually all or most all of the presentations will be available to us who weren’t able to attend. I’d be nice if the people in charge could put together a book with transcripts of most of the scientifically oriented speeches. I’d buy it for sure.
This business with Pachuari being a “Railway Engineer” Was an Engineer who designed or did engineering for railways, or a locomotive driver? It matters.
In the first case, he came from a career of trying to get it straight. In the second it would have been to keep it on the tracks.
Either experience should have served him well.\ in his more recent endeavors and in any case should not be made fun of.
Exactly, I’ve seen the expression “thousands of scientists”…blah, blah, blah…………..I can name maybe a dozen. That’s the overwhelming consensus. I believe it is time to start naming names and start burying each individual chicken little science scam artist.
Best of luck with Chris Huhne, the LibDims(sic) and the equally hypnotised Tories.
Surely, there must be one politician with some common sense.
Keep lobbying for science.
Yes, the old consensus myth. As far as I can tell it seems to have bootstrapped itself from the original 50. With each pass of the consensus myth, more and more people hear that there’s a consensus. As these people include scientists in unrelated disciplines, when they add their voices too, the consensus gains momentum. Soon you have the boards of every learned society known to man telling you there is an overwhelming consensus that includes – every known learned society. Newspaper reporters and some bloggers can recite the names of dozens of bodies who all “agree” that “man is warming the planet and it will be a catastrophe.”
Groupthink? It’s more like a whirlwind of self-reinforcing delusion feeding on itself – like feedback in a sound system. Sometimes one needs to step back and take a look at just what the heck is going on here.
No booths showing the famous tree rings?
You will at least admit that among climate scientists the “skeptics” are in the minority.
Whittle it down, and you end up with fifty or so true believers
Wow. A purer example of pulling-numbers-out-of-one’s-posterior you will not find.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_authors_from_Climate_Change_2007:_The_Physical_Science_Basis
That’s six hundred nineteen scientists. Real scientists, not economists or railway engineers… or weathermen. Working scientists in relevant disciplines.
Isn’t it embarrassing to have to just flat make something up to make a point?
Mike,
Money and a comfortable lifestyle drives your zealots…
Skeptics care about facts, not their career…
Wherever easy money and prestige are to be had, you will find dogmatic practitioners of pal-reviewed consensus style group thought science.
Dave Hardinger
I’d buy it too.
Mike May 18, 2010 at 2:39 pm:
“You will at least admit that among climate scientists the ‘skeptics’ are in the minority.”
Subtract the ones who are receiving grants or are otherwise employed to “study global warming,” and the best you’ll get are agnostics.
And how many “climate” scientists are there? Have you checked out the degrees they hold? Geography, chemistry, physics, astronomy, etc.
So going by that criteria, the 31,000 professionals with a degree in the hard sciences far outnumber the comparative handful who are cashing in on the bogus conjecture that CO2 drives the climate.
Almost all of those 31,000 science professionals downloaded, printed out, signed and mailed in their copy of the OISM Petition [no emails accepted; hard copies only], which states:
Generally if someone’s continued employment is dependent on showing that CO2 causes global warming, then they will show that CO2 causes global warming — no matter how many times that conjecture is debunked.
There was once a consensus that peptic ulcers were mostly caused by food, stress and / or drink. Now it is known that the vast majority are caused by a bacterium called Helicobacter pylori
Consensus in science can be a life threatening condition!
I heard Roger Harrabin on the radio this morning talking about the conference. The slant was that the conference was mainly right wing sceptics/scientists, although he did interview a left wing sceptic scientist (shock, horror). All very brief and not exactly coming out on the sceptic side. I would be interested to hear what he interviewed you about and how you thought it went. Did he ask you about being funded by the oil industry – that was another of his slants. Bah!
Mike says:
May 18, 2010 at 2:39 pm
You will at least admit that among climate scientists the “skeptics” are in the minority.
~~~~~~~~~~~
1. Prove it.
2. So what? It just takes one skeptic to destroy a theory. Science is not a consensus-driven discipline.
I was at a wedding breakfast in Edmonton on the weekend and I found myself across the table from another guest, a friend of the bride, while I was a relative by marriage of the groom. He was from Leeds, England. My wife asked him what he did and he said he was a PhD candidate in Atmospheric Science. “Oh good” she exclaimed, “my husband knows all about climate science, he reads about it two hours a day on the Internet.” (If she only knew.) So I asked him what he was doing his thesis about and he said he was a “cloud” guy and something about sulfur. I asked if he meant geoengineering and he seemed a little embarrassed and sort of mumbled some sort of denial. ( I had used the term idiocy to as a descriptor, I think). So I pressed my advantage, hoping to flatter him a bit about his specialty, and said that I thought clouds were really where it was “at” and that all the fuss over CO2 was misplaced. He bristled and said I was completely wrong. “The water budget never changes,” he said. “It’s all about the increase in CO2. The amount of water is fixed. Fixed. Fixed and so it can’t effect any change in the climate. Only CO2 is changing.” I could see that his mind was fixed, so I went back to my breakfast. There are more koolaid drinkers out there than Charles even imagines. And the universities are producing more every day, it would appear.
Paul Daniel Ash says:
May 18, 2010 at 2:45 pm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_authors_from_Climate_Change_2007:_The_Physical_Science_Basis
**That’s six hundred nineteen scientists. Real scientists, not economists or railway engineers… or weathermen. Working scientists in relevant disciplines.**
These are authors of papers that were reviewed. They are not all climate scientists and they do not all preach AGW.
@ur momisugly Paul Daniel Ash says:
May 18, 2010 at 2:45 pm
“Wow. A purer example of pulling-numbers-out-of-one’s-posterior you will not find.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_authors_from_Climate_Change_2007:_The_Physical_Science_Basis
That’s six hundred nineteen scientists. Real scientists, not economists or railway engineers… or weathermen. Working scientists in relevant disciplines.
Isn’t it embarrassing to have to just flat make something up to make a point?”
Wow Paul, I guess you probably aren’t understanding what you’re reading. Seeing how you’ve used Wikipedia as ultimate arbiter of truth, go here, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_scientists_opposing_the_mainstream_scientific_assessment_of_global_warming
Now, if you will, scroll down the list you provided and the list of names here. While I didn’t have time to do a comprehensive search, one name sticks out on both lists, John Christy. I only point that out because it shows that your list isn’t a list of the “true believers” the writer was talking about. Obviously, one can contribute to the IPCC’s report without swallowing the conclusions. But then, you knew that, right? I’ll put it another way so there may be better odds at you coming to an understanding. Just because wiki and the IPCC have a name on a list, it doesn’t mean that person is a CAGW alarmist. Further, if you do check your little list out, it does indeed include, meteorologists or weathermen, if you will.
Now, was that an attempt to troll? You’re not very good at it. Keep practicing!!!
Are we really talking about consensus again? Anyone who says that there is a consensus in science reveals that he is not a scientist. Permit me to explain. Take the C.E.R.N. project. Is there practical agreement among physicists that the project should have been undertaken? Probably. Is it a consensus? No. But here is the important point? Will there be an agreement, a consensus, among theorists as to the theoretical implications of the results and the next experimental step to take? Of course not.
Will you admit that the majority of climate scientists care about the next funding tranch? If the AGW hypothesis is shown to be wrong they are out of a job or wil have to quickly shift to another field. Many will have a big problem paying their mortgages. :o(
Charles, how would one compare the 619 scientists Paul cites in the wiki with your guesstimate? How would one verify which ones are “indeed scientists in relevant subjects”, not included in “explicitly rejected the IPCC’s AGW theory” and are considered “true believers”? If my math is ok, 50 of the population would be only 8%. If you can support your figure that would be quite sensational, I think.
To back up my “next funding tranch” statement look at the climate bandits at CRU.
http://www.eastangliaemails.com/emails.php?eid=171&filename=962818260.txt
http://www.eastangliaemails.com/emails.php?eid=156&filename=947541692.txt
http://www.eastangliaemails.com/emails.php?eid=332&filename=1056478635.txt
http://www.eastangliaemails.com/emails.php?eid=270&filename=1019513684.txt
http://www.eastangliaemails.com/emails.php?eid=1041&filename=1254832684.txt
http://www.eastangliaemails.com/emails.php?eid=204&filename=973374325.txt
http://www.eastangliaemails.com/emails.php?eid=185&filename=968691929.txt
http://www.eastangliaemails.com/emails.php?eid=159&filename=951431850.txt
http://www.eastangliaemails.com/emails.php?eid=362&filename=1065125462.txt
Also look at the bottom of the following page and see how well they did with Shell oil and BP.
http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/about/history/
Follow the money Mike and find out why there is a consensus.
I understand that 52 were the number of “real authors” of the Nbr 4 report: with 1 actually sneaking back in to the conference room after hours to re-re-edit the “Summary for Policymakers” – which is the only part actually read/publicized/propagandized – to make it even more inflamatory.
Correctomundo, Jimbo. The history of Science is filled with examples showing that the consensus was wrong, just as the [claimed] consensus that CO2 causes any measurable global warming is wrong.
In the 1840’s the majority of doctors believed that washing their hands before assisting with childbirth was an unnecessary fad practiced by midwives. Even after being proven wrong, they still continued to insist that hand washing was unnecessary.
When he noticed that a friend got a fever after puncturing himself with a scalpel, Dr Ignaz Semmelweis thought there might be a connection between cleanliness and disease. He also noticed that almost 20% of mothers in his ward died of “childbed fever” following childbirth. After he required hand washing with chlorinated water by physicians, the mortality immediately dropped to 1.3%
It is interesting that even after Dr Semmelweis died in 1865, the medical community’s ‘consensus’ still continued to reject his conclusions. Sound familiar?