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.
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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
JamesS says:
April 19, 2011 at 11:22 am
Kevin MacDonald and Thomas should study this graph of temps over the past 10,000 years, derived from the GISP2 ice core data, to understand why the current gentle warming trend is neither unprecedented nor dangerous. “Things were different then” is not a scientific hypothesis, either.
You should study the definition of the word global, derived from the Latin globus, to understand why a single proxy from one location tells us next to nothing about the current warming trend. “Sorry, I was just regurgitating somebody else’s idiot meme” is not a scientific hypotheses, either.
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Kevin MacDonald says:
April 19, 2011 at 6:31 am
Main doesn’t mean exclusive. Hope that solves that little dilemma for you.
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Alarmists always talk about the sensitivity of climate to CO2 concentrations when the temperature is rising, but they ignore those same CO2 concentrations when the temperature is falling. Either CO2 is the main driver, or it isn’t.
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Kevin MacDonald says:
April 19, 2011 at 7:25 am
Later observations showed changes in LW radiation being emitted into space and downward backscatter radiation consistent with CO²’s absorption bands. This explained an already observed imbalance in the planets energy budget.
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The planet’s energy budget as described in Kiehl and Trenberth 1997 (or some other similar model/diagram) requires feedback to function. If GHGs are at work, then they do their thing by absorbing energy. The atmosphere warms when this happens. Even if you ignore the tropical hotspot, the KT 97 feedback model requires the atmosphere to warm faster than the surface.
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Science being science, we must always accept that there might be a better explanation for what has been observed, but none of the known natural causes explain the current trend and where others will invoke unknown natural causes I turn to Occam: the argument that requires the most new assumptions will tend to be wrong.
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In comparisons, the atmosphere appears to be warming at a slightly slower pace than the surface. By Occam’s razor it means in the current scenario that the surface is warming the atmosphere instead of the atmosphere warming the surface.
Here’s a quote for you to chew on:
“For every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong.” –H.L.Mencken.
Jim
In the pre-1989 times of the Cold War Kremlinologists used to inspect photos of the lineup of the ususal suspects on the Kremlin wall balcony for gaping holes. Analog photoshopping did produce some amazing results but could never entirely avoid those taletelling blurred edges around the spot where the deleted (“eliminated”, if you will) person had been standing before he got sacked.
We’re now witnessing a similar process generating spots of non-content where content used to be – and this in the era of the Hot Climate War…
Hmmmm….Arctic sea ice isn’t melting as expected, I’d suggest that WUWT readers keep a close eye on this site to see if anything gets “adjusted” suddenly!
http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/
Rather inconvenient truth for some, sea ice extent is now with two S.D. of the average, and growing.
Well Andy looks like he has gone a little bush since he changed jobs; even to the point of looking seedy. i can picture him fitting in at Berserkeley, ot perhaps UC Santa Cruz.
As you say Anthony, he used to be a rather fair minded person; even if misguided. But he was always straight with me too, so I will withold criticism, and just say: Andy , wha’ happened to you ?
Kevin MacDonald says:
April 19, 2011 at 1:06 pm
You should study the definition of the word global, derived from the Latin globus, to understand why a single proxy from one location tells us next to nothing about the current warming trend. “Sorry, I was just regurgitating somebody else’s idiot meme” is not a scientific hypotheses, either.
So you’re saying the ice cores referred to above don’t contain a significant temperature signature for a long period of time? Do you have something better on a “global” scale? I submit they’re far better than a bunch of trees in Yamal (or I should narrow that down to a specific “tree”), or the fudged data Phil Jones refuses to find, or the hair-pulling climate rants of Pachuri et al because nobody takes his UN body seriously anymore due to faulty/politicized science. Just checking. I’d rather have one decent data string than junk science anyday.
Kevin MacDonald says:
“As I have already shown, there has not been a “slow, steady rise since the LIA”…
MacDonald has shown nothing of the sort. He simply cherry-picked.
To avoid cherry-picking, let’s look at the last 10,000 years; the entire Holocene, which followed the last great stadial.
In fact, let’s go back even farther: 50,000 years back. Seen in perspective, it is obvious to any but the most cognitive dissonance-afflicted alarmist that the extremely *mild* 0.7°C natural warming cycle over the past century is insignificant, and that the great danger is falling temperatures.
The fact that the minor rise in temperature was [until recently] coincidental with the rise in harmless, beneficial CO2 gave the warmist crowd the ammunition to trumpet to a scientifically illiterate population the “carbon” canard that human emissions are causing runaway global warming. They are not.
Global temperatures have declined recently, while CO2 continues to rise. If CO2 had any significant effect on temperature, that could not happen. The real world is falsifying the CAGW conjecture. So who are we gonna believe? MacDonald? Or planet earth?
Anthony — If you don’t use it for your archived pages, someone else will — there’s too much of this “disappearing” going on nowadays…
The Winston Smith Archives
Also, I think many find it remarkable that not only did they “disappear” all things that disagreed with their (current, up to the moment) orthodoxy, but that the government pushed propaganda through the view screens, with the news anchors encouraging everyone to get red in the faced, shrieking livid over their pet political talking points of the day (sounds like it could be any of CNN, MSNBC, or Fox).
The Winston Smitch Archives. The tube stops here.
RockyRoad says:
April 19, 2011 at 4:03 pm
So you’re saying the ice cores referred to above don’t contain a significant temperature signature for a long period of time?
No, I made no mention of the timescale mentioning only the very limited spatial resolution and can’t imagine how a rational person could interpret that point this poorly.
RockyRoad says:
April 19, 2011 at 4:03 pm
Do you have something better on a “global” scale?
Instead of cherry picking tiny bits of data that support my preconceptions, I prefer to refer to multi-proxy data sets. The hallmark of any true skeptic is looking at all the data.
Steve from rockwood says:
April 18, 2011 at 8:24 pm
Crosspatch, what is more accurate? The Internet or the Bible?
My guess is that “The Bible” has changed far less since the Fourth century than Wikipedia has changed since the Fourth of this month. Of course we’re talking apples and oranges here.
Smokey says:
April 19, 2011 at 4:53 pm
To avoid cherry-picking, let’s look at the last 10,000 years; the entire Holocene, which followed the last great stadial.
Do keep up, that particular cherry has already been popped. A single proxy, from a single geographic location tells as almost nothing about the global trend.
Okay, this “study” is idiotic and designed to produce a desired result. Riddle me this: I believe the earth has warmed since the LIA and that all other things held constant rising CO2 levels will result in some warming. And even considering feedbacks, that are a big unknown, rising CO2 should result in some warming. I also believe that there is mounting evidence that these feedbacks are likely negative and any warming due to CO2 will be harmless to beneficial for life on earth. Okay so what am I……….Alarmed, Concerned, Cautious, Disengaged, Doubtful, or Dismissive.
The “study” also assumes its own answers are correct. If you believe that global warming is mostly due to humans then you are right……….otherwise you are wrong. There are other examples of this in the report under the heading of “Understanding of Climate Change” on page 2. This study is a disgrace. Perhaps the most telling revelation in the Executive Summary is that 63% of the alarmed and 49% of the concerned believe the ozone hole contributes to global warming……many of those most concerned don’t even understand environmental science in general let alone global warming science. Show me a study that asks questions about the science…this is useless.
Do not remove a fly from your friend’s forehead with a hatchet.
Something more modern perhaps?
And you’ve conveniently ignored someone else’s mention of the most influential tree in the world. I might include Mann’s stripbark pines as another example. Without these questionable proxies, there is no hockey stick, no unprecedented modern temperatures.
And of course, we have the fact that the concepts of a global temperature or GT anomaly are meaningless.
In response to eadler’s April 19, 2011 at 2:45 am posting:
In spite of eadler’s vituperative and personal attack I will endeavor to reply in a civilized manner.
First, it is a circular argument. The fact that the premise may ultimately be proven to be true does not alter the fact that what Yale presented in the question/response I identified is a circular argument, and therefore, the argument itself can not be relied upon to prove anything. Likewise, it doesn’t disprove anything, it is just nonsensical, and, as I said, one would expect better from Yale.
Second, consensus proves nothing. Moreover, there are big problems with your claim that “two independent polls of scientists who regularly publish papers in climatology have shown that 97% of those scientists believe that global warming is happening.” First, who conducted these polls and whom was polled? Second, the climategate emails clearly show that “scientists who regularly publish papers on climatology” is hardly a fair sampling, since the “climate scientists” have acted quite vigorously to prevent non-believers from publishing. Third, your numbers are nonsense. Check out the Global Warming Petition Project(http://www.petitionproject.org/), which shows that over 31,000 scientist have rejected the alarmist view of global warming.
eadler goes on “For someone who is not an expert…”. Well, how do you know I am not an expert? Have you seen my credentials? How do you know I didn’t stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night? Instead of calling names and insulting me why don’t you challenge my arguments with facts and logic.
@Gary Young Swift, re Petermann glacier:
Revkin gives Muenchow a forum to counter Box’s blather:
http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/08/07/vast-ice-island-breaks-free-of-greenland-glacier/
Jeff Alberts says:
April 19, 2011 at 8:01 pm
And you’ve conveniently ignored someone else’s mention of the most influential tree in the world.
Yeah, that was RockyRoad, I felt it more important to address that posters inability to differentiate between geography and time.
Jeff Alberts says:
April 19, 2011 at 8:01 pm
And of course, we have the fact that the concepts of a global temperature or GT anomaly are meaningless.
You should be addressing this to JamesS and Smokey, they’re the ones that brought it up.
thanks frank
Kevin MacDonald says:
April 19, 2011 at 5:07 pm [ … ]
Using completely unreliable proxies like treemometers and contrived sources like Wikipedia result in failed arguments.
Want tree rings correlated to temperature? No problem.
Want tree rings correlated to CO2? No problem.
It’s all alarmist horse manure, and it proves nothing at all. It’s just wild-eyed arm waving.
Uneducated, uncredentialed amateurs like Kevin MacDonald don’t even understand the scientific method, much less the climate null hypothesis, so it’s no wonder they’re so easily bamboozled by climate charlatans. The Kool Aid is tasty, and that’s all that matters.
Chuck Dolci says:
April 19, 2011 at 8:08 pm
Check out the Global Warming Petition Project(http://www.petitionproject.org/), which shows that over 31,000 scientist have rejected the alarmist view of global warming.
Here is a list of scientists who reject HIV as the cause of AIDS and here is one where scientists reject evolution by natural selection. What are we proving?
Chuck Dolci says:
April 19, 2011 at 8:08 pm
how do you know I am not an expert?
Is it because experts don’t make their points by publishing meaningless lists of names?
REPLY: best argument I’ve seen against accepting scientific consensus on GW yet – Anthony
Smokey says:
April 20, 2011 at 2:04 am
Using completely unreliable proxies like treemometers and contrived sources like Wikipedia result in failed arguments.
Want tree rings correlated to temperature? No problem.
Want tree rings correlated to CO2? No problem.
It’s all alarmist horse manure, and it proves nothing at all. It’s just wild-eyed arm waving.
Uneducated, uncredentialed amateurs like Kevin MacDonald don’t even understand the scientific method, much less the climate null hypothesis, so it’s no wonder they’re so easily bamboozled by climate charlatans. The Kool Aid is tasty, and that’s all that matters.
Running out of cherries to pick, so moving on to the ad homs Smokey?
Chuck Dolci says:
April 19, 2011 at 8:08 pm
In response to eadler’s April 19, 2011 at 2:45 am posting:
In spite of eadler’s vituperative and personal attack I will endeavor to reply in a civilized manner.
First, it is a circular argument. The fact that the premise may ultimately be proven to be true does not alter the fact that what Yale presented in the question/response I identified is a circular argument, and therefore, the argument itself can not be relied upon to prove anything. Likewise, it doesn’t disprove anything, it is just nonsensical, and, as I said, one would expect better from Yale.
Second, consensus proves nothing. Moreover, there are big problems with your claim that “two independent polls of scientists who regularly publish papers in climatology have shown that 97% of those scientists believe that global warming is happening.” First, who conducted these polls and whom was polled? Second, the climategate emails clearly show that “scientists who regularly publish papers on climatology” is hardly a fair sampling, since the “climate scientists” have acted quite vigorously to prevent non-believers from publishing. Third, your numbers are nonsense. Check out the Global Warming Petition Project(http://www.petitionproject.org/), which shows that over 31,000 scientist have rejected the alarmist view of global warming.
eadler goes on “For someone who is not an expert…”. Well, how do you know I am not an expert? Have you seen my credentials? How do you know I didn’t stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night? Instead of calling names and insulting me why don’t you challenge my arguments with facts and logic.
I attacked your argument, I didn’t attack you personally.
I did not evaluate your expertise in climate science or anything else. My argument was that people who don’t have sufficient personal expertise in climate science would be smart to accept the consensus of climate scientists when it comes to taking a position on AGW. If one doesn’t have the knowledge of a subject, it is dangerous to overestimate your expertise if you come to a conclusion that is opposite to what 97% of the experts say is correct. A graduate of any good college would consider such behavior as intelligent. So the right answers to the quiz were based on what climate scientists would consider the right answer. This is what is normally done in an academic institution.
The Oregon global warming petition was sent out with a document that was designed to fool people into thinking that the National Academy of Science published it. A small proportion of people who signed it were scientists, and many have taken back their endorsements. It is not a random sample of scientists of any kind.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oregon_Petition
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oregon_Petition
Taphonomic says:
April 19, 2011 at 8:45 am
eadler says:
‘”two independent polls of scientists who regularly publish papers in climatology have shown that 97% of those scientists believe that global warming is happening.”
Which is a totally different statement from the statement that you are critiquing: “that global warming is real and caused by human activity, then you are smart.”
Most people and scientists agree global warming is happening, not all agree that it is mainly anthropogenic in nature.
One of those great studies was a master’s thesis that had to torture the data to come up with that 97% such that the 97% was based on either 79 or 77 respondents out of 3,146. How a question is asked, who is asked the question, and who is excluded when calculating percentages will all bias a study. And no, in this study it wasn’t “scientists who regularly publish papers in climatology”, it was “those who listed climate science as their area of expertise and who also have published more than 50% of their recent peer-reviewed papers on the subject of climate change”
A summary of the survey can be found here:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/01/090119210532.htm
Two questions were key: have mean global temperatures risen compared to pre-1800s levels, and has human activity been a significant factor in changing mean global temperatures.
About 90 percent of the scientists agreed with the first question and 82 percent the second.
In analyzing responses by sub-groups, Doran found that climatologists who are active in research showed the strongest consensus on the causes of global warming, with 97 percent agreeing humans play a role. Petroleum geologists and meteorologists were among the biggest doubters, with only 47 and 64 percent respectively believing in human involvement. Doran compared their responses to a recent poll showing only 58 percent of the public thinks human activity contributes to global warming.
Nobody was tortured to get the results. Seventy nine out of the 3146 earth scientists were categorized according to the quote you provided. In my opinion these are real climate scientists. Furthermore Peter Doran, who did the poll with his graduate student, does have a PHD.
http://tigger.uic.edu/~pdoran/home.htm
Classic ‘Animal Farm’ sleight of hand..
You remember..?
Notice on the gate put up by the pigs:
‘All animals are equal.’
Later:
‘All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others..’
etc…
nutso fasst says:
April 19, 2011 at 9:24 pm
@Gary Young Swift, re Petermann glacier:
Yeah, thanks. I saw that piece. It was obviously the editor of the U Del web site or some department admin person that modified Muenchow’s original statements. Muenchow is clearly not an alarmist in this case.