Guest post by Bob Fernley-Jones. (AKA Bob_FJ) 
In addition to regular readers at WUWT, those familiar with John Cook’s misleadingly named website “Skeptical Science” may be offended by the following interview with John Cook and Haydn Washington about their new book Climate Change Denial: Heads in the Sand. Some will also likely recall on WUWT that awful interview with Bob Ward of 2/Oct/2010. It resulted in strong ridicule of the ABC broadcaster, (Australia) and it went viral around the world. For instance, Robyn Williams shreds the tenets of science (200+ comments). So what’s new? Alas, Robyn Williams, presenter of “The Science Show”, remains in true form, and continues to defy the ABC’s Editorial Policies WRT impartiality etc.
The audio and transcript is available here, and at close on 19/May it had an unusually high 77 comments in rapid time, including many complaints. In comparison, the other five uncontroversial stories on that same show only attracted 8 comments in total, and that infamous Bob Ward interview totalled 38. However, early on 20/May, all comments and the facility to make comments disappeared, just as things were hotting up. Then, four days later, after I made certain enquiries, it all came back, without any explanation or apology, but the momentum of so many inconvenient comments seems to have stalled since. It subsequently creeped up to 83 comments over another four days but then no more comments were allowed, and that was without clearing at least three known critical comments from moderation. (as discussed at Jo Nova’s website) Strange that!
INTRODUCTION TO THE SHOW:
Robyn Williams says:
Authors John Cook and Haydn Washington analyse the approaches of those who deny climate science. Despite multiple lines of evidence pointing to the same conclusion, deniers continue to deny. Cherry picking is one tactic. Another is the use of fake experts or scientists who are not climate scientists. The authors explore why, as the science firms, the public view, at least in Australia, is going the other way.
KEEPING IT SHORT; EIGHT EXTRACTS FROM THE TRANSCRIPT:
1) Climategate:
Robyn Williams: …when we are talking about the East Anglia email scandal, there were three, possibly four enquiries, and each one found in favour of the scientists in terms of the scientific evidence. But that seems not to have stopped denying at all.
John Cook: Yes, there has actually been eight independent investigations into it, and they have all found the same results. So it’s almost like climate science where we have multiple lines of evidence finding the same conclusion. But conspiracy theories are very popular amongst any group that wants to deny a scientific consensus.
Robyn Williams was probably referring to the three British “independent” committees and the Penn State University so-called enquiry. I somehow feel that John Cook’s claim of eight such is an exaggeration. The so-called three or four have been very widely criticised for not asking the right questions, poor representation, (for instance, see this), and much more, too long to detail here. Mr Williams again expresses his clearly biased view by saying: “But that seems not to have stopped denying at all”.
2) Then, concerning the petition of 31,000 sceptical scientists, that was encouraged by Frederick Seitz, past president of the National Academy of Sciences (83 page pdf):
John Cook: The actual statement that they signed their name to is generally that human activity can’t cause climate disruption and in fact CO2 is a good thing, something to that effect. But when you look at all the names on the lists, about 99.9% of them are not climate scientists. So it’s this raising of fake experts, and that tactic has been used way back to the ’70s where the tobacco industry…
That’s not quite right, for instance, the petition was compiled before that new term for CAGW was invented. Also, the following breakdown of the scientists includes the disciplines which are foundation to various fields of “climate science”.
- Atmospheric, environmental, and Earth sciences: 3,804
- Computer and mathematical sciences: 935
- Physics and aerospace sciences: 5,812
- Chemistry: 4,821
- Biology and agriculture: 2,965
That is a substantial majority sub total of 18,337, but to continue, concerning the grand total:
Robyn Williams: Who are these scientists nonetheless? Are they scientists?
John Cook: Most of them probably are scientists. There are a few funny names there, I think Posh Spice might have been on there or somebody. But what they are, are mechanical engineers, medical doctors, and the point is when you have a technical and complicated subject like climate change, you want to get the opinions of climate experts. So, for example, if you were going to get a heart operation, you wouldn’t want a mechanical engineer cutting into you, you would want somebody who was an expert on that.
Well actually, the petition lists only a minority of “inferior” engineers, other scientists, and medical doctors within the 31,000:
- Medicine: 3,046
- Engineering and general science: 10,103
Furthermore, applied scientists such as engineers are arguably amongst the best at applying rational thought to scientific data, partly because they cannot in their careers be cavalier with any assumptions, as some elitist “climate scientists” seem prone to be. They are skilled at handling data, and researching the literature etc, no matter what the parameters, and are less likely to have a preconceived view on the outcomes. (I would further argue that peer review should not be via pal review, but from broader disciplines.)
3) Silly analogies of heart surgery and tobacco, both mentioned above, are certainly popular in slagging the sceptics, but the following is a real gem for me:
Haydn Washington: Yes, as far as we know maybe chimpanzees deny things too because they carry around dead babies…
He claims to be an environmental scientist so should know that chimps are biologically close to humans, including emotional stuff. Even dogs are observed to dream, and suffer badly from separation anxiety etc. Chimps clearly have not learnt societal “closure” mechanisms like us, such as burial ceremonies, so do they deny grief? I think it is far more likely that the mother does not know how to handle what’s happened, but can surely recognise, not deny, that something ain’t right. (but then I’m only a mechanical engineer).
4) On the subject of how many sceptical scientists are there:
John Cook: I could probably count them on both my hands I guess, maybe a half dozen or so scientists that actually published papers that are sceptical that global warming will be bad in the future…
However, there is a listing entitled “900+ Peer-Reviewed Papers Supporting Skepticism of “Man-Made” Global Warming (AGW) Alarm” at Popular Technology.net, that is rather difficult to count on two hands. Some of the journals employed are not popular with alarmists though, including GRL for example. (The Climategate Emails revealed plans to change the editors of GRL, for committing the sin of publishing some sceptical papers alongside with mainstream.).
5) Then there are feedbacks affecting “climate sensitivity”:
John Cook: No, I think the general sticking point among sceptic qualified scientists is they tend to hang their hat on this proposition that negative feedback will cancel out the warming that we cause, it’s like a get out of jail free card. But the main argument against that is when we look back through Earth’s history, that has never happened before, there has always been positive feedbacks of amplified warming.
Uh?
6) And, some wisdoms on proof of the effects of CO2:
John Cook: …one is that we measure the actual effect from CO2 so satellites and planes observe the heat coming from the Earth and escaping out to space, so they can compare what we simulate or what we expect with what is actually happening. So observations show that CO2 is causing warming…
Well, radiative energy fluxes are variously determined in recent times, (aka EMR or electromagnetic radiation, which BTW is not HEAT), but such spatially and temporally very complex data cannot possibly explain if increasing CO2 has caused it.
7) On the wisdom of Sir Paul Nurse’ BBC TV documentary. (not a climate scientist BTW):
Robyn Williams: …and also went to a fascinating place where they are actually showing climate models in action. You know, you’ve got a screen above and a screen below, one is the model showing weather patterns lines, streaming out according to the model, and the other one is the actual weather being shown from a satellite, and they are exactly the same. It’s quite remarkable. The models I think have been portrayed as being unsophisticated, bodgy, and computer crunching, in fantasyland, but in fact they are unbelievably exact, aren’t they.
But, the IPCC as recently as 2007, based on various models and scenarios, have forecasted global warming of ~0.2C degrees/decade for the near term, which is greater than anything in the records over the past 150 years. Unfortunately, there has actually been a slight cooling over the past decade or so, or, if you prefer, a plateau. BTW, science journalist, Robyn Williams, has claimed great knowledge by reading some 25 journals/week. This is a typical example of a Dorothy Dixer from him, and he defies the ABC Editorial Policies on impartiality etc
8) On the unprecedented recent warming:
Haydn Washington: …our civilisation evolved in 8,000 years of stable climate, so we have never had to adapt to a rapidly changing climate.
Obviously he is a non-believer in the MWP, and the collapse of some civilizations that has been strongly attributed to climate change. The most recent big one I believe was the Khmer-Angkor great city civilization drought some 500 years ago, that has been attributed to monsoonal changes whilst coming out of the LIA.
WRAP UP:
If you listen to the 17 minute audio, or read the transcript, (link repeated), there is more head-shaking stuff, but I’ve kept it brief.
An interesting aspect is that this makes the sixth book of exclusively alarmist genre that Robyn Williams has reviewed since declining to review Bob Carter’s highly acclaimed new book. (at the time of the Bob Ward attack, more info here).
The authors say that they are doing a special parliamentary edition signed by two important Oz politicians, (John Hewson, Bob Carr), and seven climate scientists, to be sent to every federal member. The book also has a foreword by Naomi Oreskes.
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To be fair to John Cook, from his website…..
I have some sympathy for that opinion. The ABC, like the BBC, played a role in creating a collective consciousness and informing and unifying the Nation. This is in its charter. Sometime in the 1970’s this seemed to change and the attitude it took was anti-authoritarian e.g. ‘This Day To-night’. Feminism was discussed frequently, Corporations were all bad even after the ABC was incorporated !. This anti-consensus approach turned 180deg for AGW, which is very odd given the past history.
The Board has a role to ‘ maintain independence and integrity and to ensure news and information programs are accurate and impartial’. Well, where is the Board now ? hiding under the table with Mark Scott ?
Certain programs like ‘Bush Telegraph’, aimed at country folk can be be brilliant. The presenter Michael Cathcart (ex Uni lecturer) really gave Mike Hulme rigorous questioning recently, but this program together with ‘Counterpoint’ are islands in a sea of AGW fawning consensus.
One day the ABC will adhere to its Charter.
I forgot to add that Patrick Cook is the cartoonist.
I’ve been locked out of that Skeptic non-Science site for posting links to peer reviewed papers contradicting the site owner’s nonsense.
I would have put myself in with the reported 97%. Indeed, I would be very surprised if anthropogenic CO2 had not warmed the planet. I expect the amount is very, very small, a mere fraction of what the alarmists claim, and I expect the future effects to be trivial as well. However, I am no denier, so in the tradition of climate science, please abuse the statistics!
“The authors say that they are doing a special parliamentary edition signed by two important Oz politicians, (John Hewson, Bob Carr), and seven climate scientists, to be sent to every federal member. The book also has a foreword by Naomi Oreskes”.
I really hope those two “important politicians” are going to be “cooked”… at the next elections
[Snip. Calling others the d-word violates site Policy. ~dbs, mod.]
I gave up on the Skeptical Science website after my replies (to criticisms of my opinions) were moderatively-edited down to zero characters for being irrrelevant. I came across most of the usual epithets, despite the code of conduct asking people not to insult each other.
One phrase I didn’t see was “Climate Infidels”, but I’m quite happy to be the first….
I don’t know Mr Cook but his statements are exactly what one would expect from a malignant narcissist. These people feel they *must* be right or it challenges their very existence. Psychological projection is rampant in their writings. Smokey called this one perfectly.
The continued reference to climate scientists is absolutely hilarious. All climate scientists do is take the hard work done in other field and try to collate it into something they can sell to a journal. There is NO real science being done. They don’t do radiation physics, nor thermodynamics, nor geology, nor oceanography, nor solar science, nor astronomy, nor biology, and they sure don’t do a very good job at statistics. They take the tough work done in other fields and use it. That’s why it’s so easy for skeptics to follow the science.
That Cook does not understand this simple truth shows how smart he isn’t.
R. de Haan
Both those politicians are ex politicians, Hewson because he didn’t know when a tax (GST) was actually levied, and Bob Carr an ex New South Wales State Labor premier, who was also tossed by his own side of politics.
This is Australian politics where the unlikely get into bed with each other and think they are being highly intelligent for their enlightened way of thinking (this week!!) could change of course next week, just like the weather here!
Hence the long suffering weariness of Australian voters who are sick of the inadequate response of both sides of politics in this country. With compulsory voting politicians know they only have to appeal to either the best organised minority as those noisy groups get the attention of the media, appeal to the made to vote -can’t care less individuals that will elect a government and then complain bitterly when it wrecks the economy when true agenda is revealed.
Then revenge or anger eventually removes that government. In that sort of “climate” the good old Australian white ants can munch away in the background destroying the fabric of the country much like normal termites do to timber frameworks of houses, which is exactly what is happening, hidden away in the background of this debate. We now the extreme intellectual University left wingers and their John Cooks and also the termites, the organised extreme left wing groups hiding among the Green agendas, groups like “Get-up” who are only now being revealed as classic “green on the outside, but raging red on the inside” well funded by both government taxpayer funded sources and funded out of compulsory levies in trade union organisations, even though, the end result may be the ultimate destruction of Australian Industry and jobs.
We live in interesting times, one day we might just wonder what happened to this “Lucky Country”of easy going friendly people, and it has absolutely nothing to do with saving our lifestyle or the planet for the betterment of our children’s children.
A wake up call for all.!!
davidmhoffer says:
May 29, 2011 at 10:16 am
“I’d want someone with demonstrable skills and a succesfull track record. Beyond that they could be a stone mason for all I care. Are there any “climate scientists” with demonstrable skills and a succesfull track record?”
How about Dr. Peltier?
http://www.atmosp.physics.utoronto.ca/~peltier/long-cv-peltier.pdf
Pretty well one of the smartest people on the planet. He supports AGW.
According to these guys neither James Hanson nor the late Stephen Schneider qualify as climate scientists. Hansen was an astronomer with the Pioneer Venus project in the seventies, even had an experiment on the spacecraft. But suddenly he quit the Pioneer project, didn’t even finish his experiment, and joined GISS in 1978. His reason: “The atmosphere of our home planet was changing before our eyes.” And three years later he was in charge. Looks like it wasn’t the atmosphere but promise of fast track to management that made him change. As to Schneider, he was simply a mechanical engineer, no training for climate science.
Here’s one of the “important” politicians, he’s placed a photo up at his blog
http://bobcarrblog.files.wordpress.com/2011/05/climate-change-denial-launch.jpg
Actually Bob Carr wasn’t so bad, especially with the hindsight of how those who replaced him performed.
I had to laugh at the picture though, where was it taken? Sure looks like a ‘grass roots’ effort.
No objective criteria was presented in post 99 just a dodge. I have never received a satisfactory answer on this and when pressed to present it, the moderators shut that discussion down.
Eric, please don’t come here and post lies about something you have no knowledge of. MANY of my posts were censored and had NOTHING to do with ad-hom accusations which are allowed by anyone who attacks me and the so called “violations” amount to whatever the moderators feel like. The skeptical science moderators censor whatever they feel like whenever they feel like it, especially when you are involved in debating them in a topic and prove them wrong. They cannot be embarrassed on their own forums so they censor you. I am now banned and cannot comment there.
I refuted every lie, misinformation and strawman argument made there. Dozens of my posts were censored so it appears I did not reply and thus did not defend my position.
Name one thing I have not defended.
The list is was not created to fit your personal opinion on climate change, this was explained to you when you brought it up.
Nothing pisses me off more than liars like Eric. It is one thing to disagree with me it is another to be dishonest about their censorship.
I cannot tell you how many times I have had comments censored at skeptical science and asked the moderators why. They said because I “violated the comment policy”. So I asked what part? No answer.
Other times I re-posted the EXACT same post that was censored and asked what part of it violated the comment policy, again no answer but this time the comment remained????
It is clear the moderators there abuse their powers to censor skeptics from commenting. They apply a double standard to alarmists who can ad-hominem at will.
It is a good scam going on over there as they state the propaganda that all of the posts that were censored “violated the comment policy” whether they did or not. Then they get people like Eric to go around and spread the big lie.
John Brookes says:
May 29, 2011 at 2:59 am
…And I say thank God for Murdoch, or there would never be two sides to a story.
Robyn Williams: …”and also went to a fascinating place where they are actually showing climate models in action. You know, you’ve got a screen above and a screen below, one is the model showing weather patterns lines, streaming out according to the model, and the other one is the actual weather being shown from a satellite, and they are exactly the same. It’s quite remarkable.”
Good grief! The man cannot possibly be that naive ? Or?
In case it hasn’t been linked, John Cook has just been allowed a blog at the Australian ABC:
http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/2737050.html
The barrage of CAGWists in Australia is reaching a crescendo as the Greens-led (joke) Labor Government is attempting to push the carbon (sic) price (sic) on the unsuspecting Aussie public.
I maybe wrong but I thought Cook was NOT a climate scientist. If not then why does he not stop dispensing climate related information?
John Cook seems keen to promote hiself as a “physicist”. However, he seems to have done nothing more than study undergrad physics then become a cartoonist.
I suppose someone who wants to tells other who is and is not qualified to speak on these matters is right to keep his true background a little hush hush.
http://wiki.sev.com.au/About-Us
“A cartoonist working from home in Brisbane, Australia, John is currently juggling the tasks of taking care of his daughter Gaby, drawing new Sev Space cartoons, continually developing and programming the Sev Wide Web, developing a new cartoon series Terrible Twos, posting regular updates in his cricket blog as well as obsession about past and future Ashes series, dabbling in screenwriting, programming for PaperWeb Design and consequently getting nothing done!”
Dr. James Hansen is not a climate scientist. Al Gore, Nobel Prize winnner, is not a climate scientist. I won’t even talk about the railway engineer Pachauri, head of the IPCC. Though Pachauri is in cahoots with BIG OIL. Read….
http://www.glorioil.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=7&Itemid=10
In the years to come Mr. Cook will have come to represent everything that is bad about climate science today. His sceptical faculties have been erased – something that is anti-scientific.
Bulldust;
The Oz gov only has to defeat and sideline science and the public. No worries!
Poptech, hello? Nothing frustrates moderators at Skeptical Science like what you did above, yammer twice with the same whine, the latter being simply ad hom and censor worthy. I didn’t lie about what they said, I pointed out that your question was not censored. Yes, you are right they dodged the answer, but that’s not what you posted at the start of this thread. I am not a “liar”, you should withdraw that.
You are not able to mount a rigorous defense of your list and the simple reason is that your list lacks rigor. It is a hodge podge of contradictory stuff, some very good, some junk. That is also true of the other side but that doesn’t give you a pass. You are shifting responsibility, accusing the other side of not defining climate science while quite obviously shredding the definition yourself. I suggest that you organize your list and flesh out coherent set of counterclaims to CAGW, organized around models, trends, paleo, etc. Each CAGW claim (e.g. hasn’t happened before) has dozens of papers debunking it.
You have a choice: you can yell and scream at me some more, call me a liar for pointing out facts. Or you can start to make a rigorous argument against the CAGW trolls at Skeptical Science and shut them down.
Concerning the eight investigation, two of the unidentified could be Norwich Police, who have still not concluded, and the Information Commissioner, who concluded there was prima facie evidence of a crime having been committed, but he was time limited by statute in pursuing it.
How does that square with “and each one found in favour of the scientists in terms of the scientific evidence”? Well, that’s climate science reporting for you.
Eric (skeptic), “Poptech, hello? Nothing frustrates moderators at Skeptical Science like what you did above, yammer twice with the same whine, the latter being simply ad hom and censor worthy. I didn’t lie about what they said, I pointed out that your question was not censored. Yes, you are right they dodged the answer, but that’s not what you posted at the start of this thread. I am not a “liar”, you should withdraw that.”
Sorry but that is not what I did and the censored posts were not “ad-hom and censor worthy” as I am very careful about how I phrased posts there.
Strawman, where did I say the question was censored?
You claim to magically know that my censored posts included ad-hominems or violated the comment policy – they didn’t. Their own moderators could not even answer why they were censored yet when they falsely state that they “violated the comment policy” you come over here and repeat the big lie. Pathetic.
Where does the list say “papers that only Eric (so-called skeptic) approves of?” No one gives a damn what you “think” is “junk”. Don’t you get it? No one cares about your personal opinion on the issue. Yet you seem to think everyone should.
What part of the list is a resource and not a unified theory do you not understand?
Where the hell did I shred the definition of “climate science”? I don’t define it anywhere let alone attempt to redefine it. What I am doing is stating an irrefutable fact – it is not possible to objectively define who is a “climate scientist”.
The list is organized, simple categories exist. It is a basic resource of peer-reviewed papers nothing more and does not claim to be. I already told you I am not interested in your useless suggestions of turning the list into one that is “Eric approved” – GET OVER IT.
You don’t point out facts, you repeat lies and propaganda. It is dishonest and you should know better.
Go make the rigorous argument! Go do it! Why aren’t you? The reason is because you have no intent to, you just baselessly attack someone who is spending an incredible amount of time compiling resources for real skeptics to use.
I know, I know people should listen to you because you are the “moderate” one, you are the “reasonable” one. I know this game, get someone who pretends to be a skeptic to seem “rational” so I will remove papers off the list. That is why you include the word (skeptic) in your name so people know you are a “skeptic”. It is a bunch of BS.
You don’t fool me with your BS though I am sure you think in your own mind you are fooling others.
[Please everyone, play nice. ~dbs, mod.]