Since I did not attend Lisbon even though invited and initially accepted, (other business and family obligations took precedence) the very least I can do is to help elevate the discussion. Here’s a report from Dr. Judith Curry, and I urge WUWT readers to read it in it’s entirety. Hopefully Mosh will weigh in here with his report once he’s recovered from the trip. I’m sure Steve McIntyre will be posting on the conference also. Since this is a new topic, and one bound to be widely discussed, I’ve added a “climate reconciliation” category to WUWT. I’ll have some thoughts later. – Anthony
Lisbon Workshop on Reconciliation: Part II
by Judith Curry (excerpts from her blog)
Here are some reactions from the Lisbon Workshop on Reconciliation in the Climate Debate. These are my personal reflections, and include some of the perspectives and statements made by others (without any attribution of names).
The first issue is what exactly is meant by reconciliation, and who actually wants it? Reconciliation is defined (wikipedia) as re-establishing normal relations between belligerents: re-establish dialogue, reinstate balance, restore civility. It is not clear that there has ever been normal relations between, say, the mainstream IPCC researchers and the skeptical climate blogosphere. Consensus building was not seen as having any part in a reconciliation. Rather there was a desire to conduct impassioned debates nonviolently, and to create an arena where we can fight a more honest fight over the science and the policy options.
So who actually wants some sort of reconciliation or an increase in civility? One perspective was that the alarmists shooting at the deniers, and deniers shooting at the alarmists, with a big group in the middle, with both the deniers and the alarmists ruining the situation for reasoned debate about the science and the policy options. Another perspective described the fight as entertaining theater. One perspective was that there is no incentive for conciliation by either side; both sides like the “war.” In the context of the “war,” the hope was expressed that more moderate voices would emerge in the public debate.
The issue of civility and nonviolence in communication was regarded as an important topic by the Workshop organizers. They brought in an expert to facilitate nonviolent communication. This frankly didn’t go over very well with the Workshop participants, for a variety of reasons. This particular group of participants wasn’t very volatile in terms of emotions running high, use of offensive language, or heated arguments. The main format of the Workshop was for groups of 7-8 to discuss various controversial topics. Each group had a different dynamic; the group I was in had some colorful personalities but not terribly impassioned positions on the alarmist-denier spectrum. One table did encompass the entire spectrum, but the dynamic of that group seemed collegial. So the issue of getting skeptics to sit down with alarmists (these were the two words that were generally used to describe the two poles of the debate) and talk politely and constructively didn’t turn out to be a problem. This is partly a function of the individuals invited, who for the most part weren’t too far out there on either extreme and expressed their willingness to communicate by actually agreeing to attend the Workshop.
…
Towards reconciliation
Some principles/strategies that were discussed to improving the scientific debate:
- Acknowledge that there are real issues and we don’t agree on how to resolve them
- Disagreement with mutual respect
- Find better ways to communicate criticism
- Find better ways to admit mistakes without damage to reputation
- Find some common ground, something to work on together
- Find where interests intersect
- Importance of transparency
- Communication engenders trust
- Search for win-win solutions (i.e. both sides work to increase the funding base to collect more paleoproxies).
==================================================================
I urge readers to read the rest in entirety here: Lisbon Workshop on Reconciliation: Part II
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bubbagyro says: January 30, 2011 at 7:33 pm – about the population change of the lynx population:
The lynx interaction with the hare has been the subject of development of predator-prey mathematics using data from the 1850s from the Hudson’s Bay Trading Company. The following short piece – there are many – shows how lynx numbers varied enormously and the obstacles presented when asserting that global warming is affecting the lynx population.
https://www.math.duke.edu/education/ccp/materials/diffcalc/predprey/pred1.html
HR says:
January 30, 2011 at 5:39 pm
“Who should fund science?”
“There is no profit in fundamental scientific research so the market won’t do it.”
____________________________________________________________
Your assumptions are incorrect. Virtually all drugs were developed by the private sector and are still today. Information technology was developed by the private sector. In the early part of the 20th century astronomy (where’s the money in that?) research was funded by private grants and foundations.
Turns out I know a thing or two about drug development. Universities do scant little actual development. That’s the purview of the “big boys” with the big labs, lots o’ money and top dollar talent. Universities usually get involved at the time of pre-clinical and clinical testing. Please let me know which universities actually developed some of these new, fancy monoclonal antibody agents.
In a perfect world we would study everything in the quest for knowledge. Sadly, studying anything is expensive and as a society we need to weigh the relative benefit of such knowledge. Some things might be fascinating to researchers but don’t do a damn thing for the taxpaying citizen. MOST of our modern innovations were developed without taxpayer money.
I find it strange that Dr. Curry would be advocating reconciliation. Reconciliation is for politics and science is not politics. Science is about the search for truth, which is about as far from politics as you can get. Anyone who read Thomas Kuhn’s book “The Structure of Scientific Revolutions” will know that irrespective of how long it takes to resolve the matter of AGW, in the end, one side will be wrong and the other will be right. The interim will be bloody (hopefully only in the figurative sense), as revolutions usually are. Warmist climate scientists are so entrenched in their position that they will never accept being wrong. The entire generation of them will have to die off before the science of climate is unshackled.
Judith, I think this fundamentally fails because it assumes the problem is lack of communication. Communication is a problem, but the biggest problem is that the climate “scientists” aren’t behaving like scientists. If you want to know when I will trust these “scientists” it will be:
1. When they stop editing Wikipedia and removing all references to e.g. the 21st century pause. An undeniable fact, and one whose absence is symbolic of the lies being spread by the climate “scientists”.
2. When people like Mann and his cohorts, cease running attack blogs like real climate. They have to make a choice: either they behave like scientists and keep to a strict code of scientific integrity being neutral observers and interpreters of the science OR they leave their government paid jobs and enjoy the luxury of being able to be partial.
3. That they never again mention “consensus”. Consensus is not part of science and any subject that has to refer to a consensus rather than the facts, is not a science.
4. That they open up to public inspection all data regarding the climate. And e.g. they comply with all FOI requests.
5. That we get an independent scientific inquiry into science of climategate and those who have failed to maintain due impartiality and broken the law regarding FOI are sacked to show that this is not acceptable behaviour.
NB. The point about theatre, is not that this is some spectacle. The point is that there are professional “players” and that there is an amateur audience. The audience are not trying to become “players” … indeed we don’t want to become “players”, we just want the players to do their job properly.
Let’s put it this way. How would you feel if you found out your doctor was not only a high profile advocate for viagra, but they were even responsible for masses and masses of spam email promoting viagra … and wouldn’t you be a just a bit suspicious if you then found that this clearly highly partial doctor … then proscribed viagra?
The problem is not the patient that suspects the doctor of being biased … it is the doctor that has behaved totally unprofessionally who is at fault
PNS is not science! it is buzzwords for con game. Any one that buys into it is a fool or a lazy thinker.
HR says;
“I’d prefer my science funded on a much stronger societal basis even if that means it’s paid for by your taxes.”
You pay for that science if you want. I pay for my own scientific research and earn a living. Maybe it is time to shut down the government gravy train. At least it will be more honest. pg
Dr. Dave says: January 30, 2011 at 12:34 pm
“Besides…MOST of this battle is political, not scientific. If it were purely scientific the skeptics would clearly have won years ago.”
Science is inherently sceptical. That’s the real irony of this whole thing. It is the climate “scientists” who should be the sceptics. As for this “improved communication”.
I once likened these events to an audience (skeptics) viewing the players (“scientists”). The audience, initially sat passively listening politely to this set of arrogant actors whose self-belief was only outdone by unbelieavability of their performance. Eventually politeness gave way to the odd murmur of discontent and soon grew to become a howl of protest from the audience.
At which point Dr Curry comes to the front of the stage and asks: “what do you want from us?” Why don’t you come onto the stage and become a player? … for free!
We may not be able to do the science ourselves (not least because we don’t get paid to devote the time to it), but we can see when other people haven’t done the work themselves to make their performance professional. (aka haven’t bothered to do the basic science!)
Worse … it’s really obvious when someone is trying to hide the fact that they haven’t bothered to do the basic work to enable them to do their job professionally. Worse still when the leading ladies (Mann, Trenberth, Jones), have no talent, haven’t put in anything like the effort to improve their performance, spend all their time trying to get publicity … and then their pathetic performances full of basic mistakes … is defended to the hilt by the rest of the cast.
BOOOOOOoooooooOOOOOOHHHHH!
Mooloo says: January 30, 2011 at 2:20 pm
“It would help if the sceptic side didn’t deny the obvious. The earth is warming, “
Mooloo, It is not a fact the earth is warming. At best you could say that the best estimate of surface temperature shows a rise in temperature in the 20th century. But it is patently wrong to say “it is warming” as the instrument record shows cooling in the last 10 years. It also not warming if you take longer time periods.
I find it difficult to express what I think. Your comment is ridiculous in the extreme. It is not a scientific fact, it is part of the media PR and/or religious cult of global warming. It makes no allowance for the effect of Urban heating, for the transition from manual to automatic temperature measurement (which involved large numbers being moved closer to power sources i.e. hot buildings).
Having reviewed the evidence, I personally came up with a potential range of temperature change in the 20th century of something like -0.2 to 1C. There is a chance the world cooled in the 20th century, but there is also a change that the world warmed more than the IPCC stated.
Roberto says: January 30, 2011 at 4:14 pm
“One of the sources of confusion is the word “science.” Many speakers naturally presume this word means only hard science like physics, where hypotheses can be answered yes or no, and isolated experiments settle it all. Other speakers have a completely different concept. They are talking about a different animal, softer science, more like economics”
Roberto, there is only one form of science and that is those subjects that use the scientific method. Some subjects use the scientific method in the vast majority of their work, and other subjects like economics use the scientific method in a small amount of their work.
Whether or not a subject is a “science” may be a nebulous term, because there is a range of subjects from the hard sciences to the soft where there is more and more of the subject which is not open to exploration using the scientific method.
But even if “science” includes soft-science, that doesn’t change the nature of science and it does not allow someone (like Trenberth) try to pretend to be a “scientist” whilst advocating the denial of the basic scientific methology like the Null Hypothesis.
Curious isn’t it that its taking one person (in a world of umpteen billion) to try and actually make a difference.
I’m reminded of others who have had huge influence (Ghandi springs to mind). The road is difficult, full of people who want to derail / blow things up… and there’s no thanks to be had. But somebody needs to do it.
Appeasement
MikeD;
Further to your quote and thought, does Dr. Curry thus identify herself with those who support the policies associated with climate change? You can’t really fence-sit on this one.
The Wrexham & Shropshire axe should be applied to modern climatology.
Press Release. 26 January 2011
After just 33 months of operation, the Wrexham & Shropshire railway company is to close, with just two days notice.
Local train company Wrexham & Shropshire today announced that, following an investigation into all possible alternatives, the company will cease operations on Friday 28th January 2011.
The organisation cited the unprecedented economic environment as a contributing factor and although the company has strived to increase passenger numbers, it has been determined that the business has no prospect of reaching profitability. Wrexham & Shropshire is not insolvent nor is it being placed in administration and all outstanding financial commitments will be met. Alternative employment opportunities within the railway industry are being sought for the 55 employees, and all staff wages and full redundancy entitlements will be paid.
The company has undertaken a series of activities in an attempt to move the business into profit. In 2009 the original service of five trains per day was reduced to four. This was followed in December 2010 when two lightly used services were combined to reduce the service to three trains per day. In addition, an agreement was reached with sister company Chiltern Railways to assist with their capacity and the company investigated opportunities for operational and management synergy between Wrexham & Shropshire and Arriva Trains Wales, also owned by DB. The opportunity to generate income by serving Wolverhampton, after April 2012 when contractual restrictions are expected to be removed, was also considered.
£13 million invested at start up. 65% loadings & £2.8 million lost in 2010. It was still a far better proposal, than the ridiculous claim that CO2 is a pollutant. That falsehood has wasted billions and condemned the third world to many more years of lost opportunity.
http://www.wrexhamandshropshire.co.uk/
………………………………
As Khwarizmi wrote, when it doesn’t work, cut the losses & close down.
“When one makes a hopeless investment, one sometimes reasons: I can’t stop now, otherwise what I’ve invested so far will be lost. This is true, of course, but irrelevant to whether one should continue to invest in the project. Everything one has invested is lost regardless. If there is no hope for success in the future from the investment, then the fact that one has already lost a bundle should lead one to the conclusion that the rational thing to do is to withdraw from the project.”
Investment Fallacy, Skeptic’s Dictionary
I hate both terms sceptic and denier. I prefer realist.
Two comments worth repeating (amongst very many), and one cleverly amusing Moderator’s quip:
Dr. Dave says: (January 30, 2011 at 12:34 pm)
There is national sovereignty, entire economies and human liberty at stake. There are billions, perhaps trillions of dollars of global wealth at stake. And, as “violent” a term as it may be, we ARE fighting fraud.
DN says: (January 30, 2011 at 2:03 pm)
When you’re honest and your opponent isn’t, you don’t meet him in the middle; you call him a liar, and you prove it.
dbs (January 30, 2011 at 5:39 pm)
[I’m sure you appreciate my fixing your typo, where you typed a y instead of a u in ‘trust’. ~dbs☺]
And, yes, as it was when first mooted my opinion of Lisbon: Unnecessary and potentially damaging to both truth and reason.
I wonder if Curry will come back from Lisbon, with a piece of paper which she waves, and tells us we have scientific peace in our time?
joe kafkazar;
Hear, hear!
“The Skeptic side is largely free of ideological goals, unless not fixing what isn’t broken could be called an ideological goal. Maybe you do. I don’t.”
Lindzen: “Future generations will wonder in bemused amazement that the early 21st century’s developed world went into hysterical panic over a globally averaged temperature increase of a few tenths of a degree, and, on the basis of gross exaggerations of highly uncertain computer projections combined into implausible chains of inference, proceeded to contemplate a roll-back of the industrial age”.
There is one sure way to achieve “reconciliation”. There needs to be an agreed approach on measuring “climate change” if it is happening. Both sides need to find a means to agree on how to measure the temperature of planet earth over a sufficiently long period that any climate change, if it is happening, can be detected and at what rate. It is clear that using paleo records will not ever result in reconciliation since all of the records have been dismissed by the sceptic community. Only proper accurate measurement using equipement ideally sited can resolve this argument and reconcile the two sides, and I would prefer to see tax $ spent on this process than for far more to be wasted on accomodating a science that is merely assumed to be valid.
My understanding is, at least as far as authorities in the UK were concerned, that they had taken professional marketing advice which was to proceed as if the argument/debate had been won and thus to speak as if global warming/climate change was an established matter of fact – in the same was as it is taken as a matter of fact the Earth is round.
Thus a deliberate policy of non-engagement of those who challenge this position was recommended. Dissenters had to be branded as “flat-earthers”, cranks who need not and should not be taken seriously to make sure neither they nor their arguments gained any degree of respectability in order to move the popular perception beyond any idea of uncertainty.
This is the evident strategy of the global warmists.
Global warming/climate change has the characteristics of a religion, matter of belief, an article of Faith. In such circumstances it is impossible to have a sensible, logical and productive dialogue with someone who believes there can exist no proof to the contrary of their belief, and that any evidence offered is either faked or can be turned to support the belief – for example, cold or hot = evidence of global warming.
Put the bleme on Meme, boys,
Put the bleme on Meme.
I’m with Popper, not a consensus science that has become the captive of a scientific, technical or political elite. While we can never be certain a preferred theory is ‘true,’ we may have decisive grounds for provisionally preferring one theory to another, based on evidence and tests. If we hope to make progress in knowledge, we need to engage robustly in rational criticism of our own and each others theories based the evidence presented. Civility, yes, but don’t silence ‘the heretic’.
Girma says:
January 30, 2011 at 8:50 pm
Only if the data is trustworthy. We must begin there. See my other posts.
Mike Haseler says:
January 31, 2011 at 12:33 am
My hat is off to you, Sir, for your several posts.
Tom Kennedy says:
January 30, 2011 at 9:16 pm
The “Delphi Method”
Is what I thought when I read the group was divided in three with some people rotating. Needless to say, not having been there we haven’t much to go on. Only the participants could say, if they were even able to recognize the system.
Here’s a report from Libon by Werner Krauss.
Excerpt:
Stephen Mosher is quoted as saying:
“You dont control the budgets. You argue that NASA should just return to doing normal science and they say ‘but we are doing normal science?’
and you say, no you aren’t. and they say, ‘yes we are’. And they just keep on doing what they are doing.”
Actually, we do control the budgets. We expect Republican Congressmen Issa and Sensenbrenner and others to blow the AGW propaganda arm of NASA out of the water. If that is not accomplished before 2012, it will most certainly be accomplished in 2012. We expect a lot more, including live testimony from James Hansen, Michael Mann, and others under oath.
Are you unaware of these matters? Are you an American? Wake up, Sir. I might be one of those congressmen in 2013.
DN says:
January 30, 2011 at 2:03 pm
I couldn’t agree more.
The Rodney King school of Social Science (cain’t we all just get along) holds no answers for the alarmist/denier contretemps. The alarmists don’t want communion with deniers, they want complicity.