Revkin of NYT takes back his statement that skeptics are more knowledgeable about the science
From “the Hockey Schtick”
Tom Nelson featured a surprising quote from warmist/alarmist Andrew Revkin of the New York Times in the article Climate, Communication and the ‘Nerd Loop’:
The last link is particularly important, given that it shows, among other things, that those dismissing human-driven global warming tend to have a more accurate picture of the basic science than those alarmed by it.
The quote has since disappeared, now replaced by:
10:46 p.m. | Updated I’ve removed a line I’d tacked on here that gave too simplistic a summary of the Six Amercias [sic] study.
The Yale University Six Americas study in fact states in the Executive Summary on page 4:
…this study also found that for some knowledge questions the Doubtful and Dissmissive [skeptics of man-made global warming] have as good an understanding, and in some cases better, than the Alarmed and Concerned.
see the report for specific examples.
================================================================
I’ll add that Mr. Revkin has always been fair with me, but surely he must have known that this would be noticed, particularly when it paints skeptics in a positive light?
There’s an old Chinese proverb:
Do not remove a fly from your friend’s forehead with a hatchet.
I think it applies equally well to removing things from websites. Nobody really noticed the “fly” i.e. the sentence on Dot Earth until we were presented with a gaping hole of where it used to be. – Anthony
And here I had always thought only 3rd world dictators and people who had something to hide caused data (or enemies) to disappear………
This is the problem I have with “online” journalism. The content can be changed, deleted, embellished, long after it was first “published”.
Historians will not be able to trust our current archives because they get changed. I have seen cases where the Washington Post has edited content months after stories were originally published.
You can’t “unpublish” ink on paper and “online” content is worth exactly as much as the paper on which it is printed.
another hide the decline trick …
Revkin’s generally OK. Leave him alone, he’s probably becoming a skeptic himself. He gives a fair go to WUWT and CA as a warmista. That my view anyway…..
Poor Andy every now and then he accidently tells the truth.The rest of the time its the mantra of the smug, we need to educate the public. I wonder as to the relevance of the cranial vacuum caused by a modern university education.Without getting too cynical I’m looking for the term for educated beyond ones intelligence, or the astounding arrogance common to highly papered experts who lack all common sense.
Crosspatch, what is more accurate? The Internet or the Bible?
If you click through to the report it’s interesting to see that those classified as most concerned about AGW (called Alarmed in the report) are the least knowledgeable about AGW. For example, 24% of the Alarmed think the greenhouse effect refers to the hole in the ozone layer.
I think Andy Revkin by evidence of many of his posts…is a luke-warmer.
He may be skeptical of us, but I think he really wants good science.
But now he betrayeth himself again (because he needs to keep his job) with a retracted statement….of a previously accurate assessment.
[Thank you, HockeySchtick for your vigilance.]
Back to Mr. Revkin:
Groupthink is alive and well.
Big Brother “Science” is alive and well.
The pressure of the NYT Establishment is alive and well.
Come on, Andy! Don’t give in to the pressure of The Man.
What if…The Man…is complete wrong??
Changes the equation, doesn’t it?
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA
And down the memory hole it goes!
hey, i heard an ol’ familiar voice on the radio just now and its Anthony Watts on the Lars Larson show on KXL out of Portland, OR iirc….Great job Anthony!
Whew!
I was afraid for a moment that Charlie Manson knew more about climate than me.
Steve from Rockwood:
The question isn’t about accuracy. The question is about saying one thing and then making it appear as if something completely different was said later.
It would be a completely different matter if the media outlet published the change as an errata or update, but to edit the original with no indication anywhere that a change or deletion or addition has been made is dishonest.
We have seen many cases where “inconvenient” reporting has been flushed down the memory hole when it didn’t fit the narriative. If today’s position looks poorly chosen by yesterday’s information, you remove that information and anything that contradicts today’s position. It is what the Soviets would do.
One recent example was where the NYT published an article that said the current administration’s economic policies had failed. That article lived online for about two hours before the paragraph was reworded. That lived for about another hour or two before the paragraph was completely deleted. It was almost as if the White House called the NYT and asked “whose side are you on?” and the NYT was reminded whose “side” they were supposed to be on.
There shouldn’t be a “side”. It should be what it is. But time and time again we see media outlets editing yesterday’s news when it no longer fits today’s reality.
Funny thing about the study:
Even the people who find themselfs to being “alarmists” in the study. Have more trust in “Sciense programs” on television then they have in scientists 🙂
Strange things can happen 🙂
Steve from rockwood says: April 18, 2011 at 8:24 pm
“Crosspatch, what is more accurate? The Internet or the Bible?’
The Bible contains a set of inaccuracies (x).
The Internet makes available a set of inaccuracies (y).
The set of inaccuracies available through the internet (x) includes the set of biblical inaccuracies (y).
If x contains y then x can never be more accurate than y.
Since x also contains “50 million climate refugees in 2010” then the set of x is at least one larger than the set of y.
The Bible therefore contains less inaccuracies then the Internet.
Severian says:
April 18, 2011 at 8:43 pm
And down the memory hole it goes!
————
1984 didn’t have Google Cache!! 🙂
But, anyway, Revkin could just have posted the ‘update’ without editing the original one…
I like Andrew Revkin, too. Remember he’s the guy that a climate scientist threatened to freeze out of further communications a year or so ago. I imagine someone yelled at his editor, who yelled at him.
As a lukewarmer, I can say it straight–a lotta you (sadly not all) are smarter than the guys hanging out on the AGW sites. Waddya want? Validation from everyone?
WOW, did you read that study! I have issues with a study that tells people they’re wrong for not believing in global warming and then using that to say that skeptics know less than warmists (mainly Q4, Q15, but I also have issue with Q1, one line from each of Q10, Q13, and Q26 (they say “contribute to global warming” not “increases CO2”, same thing with Q27). At this point I stopped reading but I’m sure that many of the future questions are just as bad).
On the survey:
Q22a. If we were to stop burning fossil fuels today, the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere would decrease almost immediately (false).
But the IPCC source provided in the answer key says; “Complete elimination of CO2 emissions is estimated to lead to a slow decrease in atmospheric CO2 of about 40 ppm over the 21st century.”
And the supposed Carbon cycle feedback has been hugely neutered since AR4:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/01/28/new-paper-in-nature-on-co2-amplification-its-less-than-we-thought/
I guess if we had no fossil fuels we’d quickly burn every tree on the planet, but still.
In climatology, no modicum of honesty goes unpunished (and/or unhidden).
For some reason I had always thought that people at Yale were supposed to be a little smarter than the average bear. But now, it would appear not to be so.
Take a look at the Yale report. On page two the report states:
“In general, the Alarmed and the Concerned better understand how the climate system works and the causes, consequences, and solutions of climate change than the Disengaged, the Doubtful and the Dismissive. For example: 98% of the Alarmed and 91% of the Concerned say that global warming is happening, compared to 12% of the Dismissive.”
Doesn’t that strike anyone as being a little odd? What the writers are, in effect, saying is that “If you believe, as WE do, that global warming is real and caused by human activity, then you are smart. If you don’t believe as we do then you are just plain dumb.” The writers are presupposing that global warming is real and that it is caused by human activity. If there is no global warming then the Dismissive are the smart ones (i.e. have a better undestanding of how the climate system works). Similarly, if there is global warming but it is just part of natural cyles, then the Dismissive would still be the better informed.
They are simply making a circular argument. Global warming is real because smart people agree that it is real. And they are smart because they believe in global warming.
Wouldn’t you expect a little better from an Ivy League college?
Another Chinese proverb is applicable here: “For every mountain, there is one higher”. Certainly Revkin doesn’t stand atop the highest mountain, at least from my vantage point. And I can’t even see Gore, Mann, Hansen, and a crowd of others way off down in the valley somewhere. Do you think they’re lost?
Andrew Revkin,
What exactly are you all about?
Tom Fuller
Did you find those pictures yet that show coal trucks caused the traffic jams in China?
chip says: (April 18, 2011 at 8:31 pm)
If you click through to the report it’s interesting to see that those classified as most concerned about AGW (called Alarmed in the report) are the least knowledgeable about AGW.
Very telling observation, chip, and worth highlighting. With this level of misconception (more extensive than your comment notes) I do not think it possible to have a real debate in the (American in this case) community. This belief error would be an excellent target for those wishing to see the reality of the whole AGW debate opened up to common sense and scientific fact; rather than ignorant fear and flight.
Actually; I am quite stunned such ignorance of a matter of major import to the world exists.
Here is the link to the report chip notes:
Common Misconceptions :Many Americans confuse climate change and the hole in the ozone layer.
I think the term “luke-warmer” is rather a bad one to begin with. I understand the distinction between an alarmist and a luke-warmer, but to be honest, almost every sceptic believes CO2 does warm the planet to some extent.
The difference between a sceptic and luke-warmer is simply put: how much?
In any regard, I think anyone who studies the science to a certain extent comes to the same conclusion that the effects of CO2 are over-stated and that just because we can not explain the warming does not mean its not natural until proven otherwise.
Anything past that is just a gut feeling or an educated guess. As a sceptic I appreciate that my guess of roughly 0.1C of “human-caused” warming is probably nothing more then that. When I say human-caused I also include land-use changes which at this point I believe has a larger impact then a trace gas…but I digress. I do realize CO2 is a greenhouse gas and that undoubtably humans are influencing this to some extent. But no study can even come close to figuring out this within what I would call comfortable margins without resorting to wild guesses (as they are called educated I would disagree).
The problem with the alarmist position to begin with is that most of us sceptics started out as alarmists and moved into the luke-warm category or the sceptic camp due to self-education in this field.
To Tom Fuller: No, I do not need validation, its a simple statement of fact that if he had left it up we would have not cared. The entire process of disappearing previously (wrong) predictions and other shannanigans means that anything they do is rightly so put under a microscope. This unfortunatly tends to effect work done by luke-warmers as well, which I do concede are also rather educated on this process…..but that is the price to pay to have alarmists screaming and sounding shrill everyday of the week. It might be wrong, but its what we have been reduced to as a society.
There is no easy solution to any problem in society, and I think the luke-warmist position so to speak is much stronger and more backed-up then the catastrophic position of the alarmist, but the problem I have seen from anytime I try to dialogue with a luke-warmer is that they are stuck in a similar vein of group-think. I don’t say this as an insult, I have a lot of respect for the amount of information most luke-warmers are aware of, but I don’t think they traditionally ask the correct questions and do make assumptions.
They do ask questions about solar effects to some extent, but they are more (and I should add rightly so) after cloud effects on CO2. But the fundamental problems with the theory are also not asked by luke-warmers.
If AGW was happening on the Earth (besides the simple greenhouse component of CO2 as in the forcing) we would have seen warming oceans and a very distinct troposphere hot spot in addition to not having 15 years of either very little warming or no warming depending on how you read the last 15 years of data. The absense of either points towards either VERY weak feedbacks or even negative feedbacks in our actual atmosphere.
I have also not seen good answers to the questions about the oceans and their effect on CO2 concentrations. Even the most fundamental question is not answered there to any extent, and the amount of sureness that goes with it is rather in my mind bad.
Scientists should be sceptical of any theory that never validated the null hypothesis in the first place. Its actually possible that the CO2 component is negative after feedbacks. That in itself should point to a rather direct question: since it appears that in the past CO2 increases after temperature increases, is this possibly what we are seeing? If that is not the case, what effect is putting long-sequestered CO2 into the atmosphere actually going to have?
We all know that the IPCC says 100 years for CO2’s life in the atmosphere, but most work points towards a half-life of around 9-15 years depending on the study. The 100 years comes from the theory that the atmosphere is saturated with too much carbon dioxide and that natural processes can not cope with the extra CO2 that was in the past sequestered. This is rather glossed over without much study. How do the scientists know that the plant-life will not adapt and eventually sequester more by themselves? Its just as good of a theory as stating that CO2 will start residing in the atmosphere longer with no proof of that matter.
Until we are more sure on this to begin with, measuring warming from even a simple doubling of CO2 which tends to make the math easier is still fraught with uncertainty since for one we are not even sure the dog is waging the tail so to speak…and even if the dog is waging the tail to some extent, could it be possible that the tail is also waging the dog to an extent? These questions go towards the heart of the matter.