UPDATE: I’ve added a video at the end that speaks to the consensus thinking. Marc Morano’s arguments leaves the Australian Youth Climate Coalition’s Anna Rose speechless. – Anthony
Guest post by Dr. Tim Ball
Claims of a consensus was an early sign climate science was political. It was used to support official science of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in a public relations campaign to offset and divert from bad science, inadequate data, and incorrect assumptions. It’s in use again as the science of the anthropogenic global warming (AGW) hypothesis fails and people are not persuaded.
Many scientists were fooled, including James Lovelock, a central figure to environmentalism with his Gaia hypothesis. In 2007 he said,
“Before this century is over, billions of us will die and the few breeding pairs of people that survive will be in the Arctic.”
Recently he revised his view;
“The problem is we don’t know what the climate is doing. We thought we knew 20 years ago. That led to some alarmist books – mine included – because it looked clear-cut, but it hasn’t happened.”
“We were supposed to be halfway toward a frying world now.”
How could a reputable scientist be so wrong?
Some words have different meanings for the public than for professionals. For example, calling someone a skeptic is considered derogatory, yet it’s a necessity for a scientist. When warming became climate change skeptics became deniers, a nasty ambiguous word. It means you refuse to acknowledge information, but it’s specifically used for a few who deny the holocaust, arguably the most horrendous event in history.
There’s a negative implication to the word consensus. If you’re not part of it you’re out-of-step, stupid, antisocial, or all three. There’s no consensus in science. Even in politics it’s rare to assign a number to a consensus. Apparently to pretend credibility current users say there’s a 97 percent consensus about IPCC climate science.
Numerical measures of the consensus argument appeared early in climate As I recall, approximately 6000 people associated with the IPCC represented the original consensus. That number decreased to 2500 today, but they’re still the consensus according to RealClimate, the web site about which Michael Mann wrote in a 2004 email,
“…the important thing is to make sure they’re loosing (sic) the PR battle. That’s what the site is about.”
A 16 December 2004 entry asks,
“Is there really “consensus” in the scientific community on the reality of anthropogenic climate change?”
Evidence used was the now discredited study of Naomi Oreske that claimed of 928 articles selected objectively by a three word google search, 100 percent supported IPCC science.
On 22 December 2004 there’s another RealClimate insight;
We’ve used the term “consensus” here a bit recently without ever really defining what we mean by it. In normal practice, there is no great need to define it – no science depends on it. But it’s useful to record the core that most scientists agree on, for public presentation. The consensus that exists is that of the IPCC reports, in particular the working group I report (there are three WG’s. By “IPCC”, people tend to mean WG I).
This admits consensus is unnecessary in science, but necessary for climate science “for public presentation” or propaganda.
It’s another circular argument that pervade IPCC science and politics. For example, they hypothesize that CO2 causes temperature increase, program a computer model accordingly, then say the model proves that CO2 increase causes temperature increase. RealClimate says,
“The main points that most would agree on as “the consensus” are:
1.The earth is getting warmer (0.6 +/- 0.2 oC in the past century; 0.1 0.17 oC/decade over the last 30 years (see update)) [ch 2]
2.People are causing this [ch 12] (see update)
3.If GHG emissions continue, the warming will continue and indeed accelerate [ch 9]
4.(This will be a problem and we ought to do something about it)
I’ve put those four points in rough order of certainty. The last one is in brackets because whilst many would agree, many others (who agree with 1-3) would not, at least without qualification. It’s probably not a part of the core consensus in the way 1-3 are.”
So the consensus is their IPCC Reports.
Here are the facts of the consensus today.
1.The rise of 0.6°C has an error of ±0.2°C or 33 percent – which is scientifically meaningless. Phil Jones a senior member of the IPCC produced the number. The earth is not warming any more.
2.The only evidence people are the cause is in their computer models.
3. Temperature increase precedes CO2 increase in every single record anywhere, except in their computer models.
4.An application of the precautionary principle.
RealClimate said about consensus,
“In normal practice, there is no great need to define it – no science depends on it.”
But climate science of the IPCC and the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) at East Anglia was not normal practice: a political consensus was their only hope. As Michael Crichton said,
Historically, the claim of consensus has been the first refuge of scoundrels; it is a way to avoid debate by claiming that the matter is already settled.
Sounds familiar; the science is settled, and the debate is over because there’s a consensus.
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Added: This video showing Marc Morano trying to get an answer out of the leader of the Australian Youth Climate Coalition’s Anna Rose is telling.
“In normal practice, there is no great need to define it – no science depends on it. But it’s useful to record the core that most scientists agree on, for public presentation.”
Good to see that RealClimate has always had a correct understanding of the consensus claim and its relation to science.
The RealClimate quote also identifies that, in a complex society in particular, a consensus is desirable when science has implications for public policy, and especially where decisions may have to be made on imperfect information.
Consensus also serves other important purposes. For example, in education it’s desirable to present a body of knowledge as the “accepted” position in order that students can gain a understanding of the current state of a discipline.
And of course this will make the AGW consensus “political” in the sense that it has implications for the interests of various actors within society, and this situation is likely to provoke controversy. But these outcomes are not valid reasons to reject the conclusions of science, nor a reason to discontinue studying climate.
I went to a lecture in 2006 given by Professor Lovelock and there was certainly plenty of consensus there. Questions were opened to the audience and those asked all implicity supported the Professor’s views. Each one was greeted by “That’s a very good question”. The exception was when it came to my turn when I critisised the models for their dubious dependence on feedbacks. He scowled (he really did) and snarled “The models are good! The models are good!” Evidently not that good. But well done him for admitting it!
One of the obvious issues, which has bothered me from the start, is the correlation between UN Science and Solution Work Groups. It doesn’t take a genius to immediately see the potential problem of IPCC Work Group 3 acting on the conclusions of its own Work Group 1.
Add to this the various UN Agendas for land management and sustainability and you have the perfect basis for a great tin foil hat conspiracy theory.
I typically ignore conspiracy theories, ghost, and alien stories. They’re a complete waste of time though occasionally amusing. Yet, so many actions appear to support the growing consensus that the UN has gone completely Psychotic. Is world land management even part of the UN Charter beyond a pass down of information?
Consensus over anything other than the handful of climate science absolutes is absurd. Every survey I’ve reviewed shows pitiful response statistics. So they end up claiming 70% support for a consensus when in fact its from various degrees of agreement equal to 70% from an 8% survey response. The claims of consensus are absurd.
Clearly NGOs and Environmentalist organizations are leveraging the notion of consensus to lobby their pet projects. But to discover the US Federal government incentives to sell this rush to judgement without proper due-dilegence is very disturbing.
It looks like Arizona has recently awakened to UN intrusion on State Rights; State of Arizona SENATE BILL 1507; http://www.azleg.gov/legtext/50leg/2r/bills/sb1507s.pdf
AN ACT
PROHIBITING THE STATE AND ITS POLITICAL SUBDIVISIONS FROM ADOPTING OR IMPLEMENTING THE UNITED NATIONS RIO DECLARATION ON ENVIRONMENT AND DEVELOPMENT.
A. The state of Arizona and all political subdivisions of this state shall not adopt or implement the creed, doctrine, principles or any tenet of the United Nations Rio Declaration on Environment and Development and the Statement of Principles for Sustainable Development adopted at the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in June, 1992 or any other international law that contravenes the United States Constitution or the Constitution of Arizona.
Bold emphasis was mine. Willis did a great post on UN Agenda 21 a while back, I hope he posts an update.
In January, the Republican National Committee has already passed a resolution to EXPOSE UN AGENDA 21 AND REJECT SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT AND ICLEI. The Tea Party is now also engaged as are Democrats. (Note: someone recently hijacked the Democrat effort and launched a shortened version of the site name to point to Obama Sustainability programs os the spin is flowing).
DEMOCRATS AGAINST U. N. AGENDA 21
http://www.democratsagainstunagenda21.com/
ghost site:
Democratsagainstagenda21.com
http://www.democratsagainstagenda21.com/
Lovelock is entitled to his private opinions no matter how fascist or mendacious. He and Hansen and the rest of the Team have been shouting “fire” in the packed auditorium that is humanity for far too long to be forgiven. That Lovelock has produced valuable science in the past and that he looks like a kindly old gent and seems to speak about some pre-industrial idyll to which we must return has elevated him to mythic status in the eyes of many. There was another cuddly old uncle that sought to elevate “his” people to an idealised perfection. He achieved much in a short space of time and by his actions achieved mythic status. He was called Joe Stalin.
We must not let the alarmists role in this disaster be forgotten, the direct casualties of the policies of the Soviet Union were obvious and yet are still questioned by historians (10, 20 million deaths?). The subtle effects of food and fuel price hikes, energy market manipulation and fixing, fuel rationing and unpreparedness for natural cold events (Romania this winter) and diversion of public funds from rational allocation and effective poverty relieving solutions are piecemeal and ignored by the MSM.
A recent survey (see The Journal of The Royal Society for the Promotion of Health. January 2005 Vol 125 No 1) recored 51,000 excess winter deaths in Scotland alone – from 1989 to 2001- the report concluded that fuel poverty and poor housing for the poor were the chief contributors to the excess death rate. The SNP is committing the tax payers of Scotland to pay for the infrastructure to produce 100% of its energy from renewable means by 2020. I don’t expect it can all be Hydro. There is a cable across the English Channel to import nuclear electricity from France (if the English, Dutch and Germans don’t buy it first) so all is not lost.
Peter George perhaps, and many others, should look at the origins of the current public policy monster that is corrupting science, ethics and government. It never was based on science. The science was always driven by politics, by people like Lovelock and Hansen. Do not give them the benefit of the doubt – that Lovelock expresses doubt now when the politics and policy has already been “fixed” at the UN, the EU and most English speaking countries (thank God not the US or China) is irrelevant, meaningless and frankly too bloody late. It will take a generation or more to unwind the effects of AGW alarmism from public policy even if Western governments pulled all AGW related policy today. The precautionary principle is the last hand-hold of AGW, “we thought it was all true” “we were just following orders”. The facts have always been in the public realm, the MSM has chosen to ignore them. People have been deluded. James Lovelock.
It is ironic that during the period when Hansen insists we have witnessed “accelerating” global warming, the poor and elderly in Scotland were still dieing in their thousands due to the want of a few pounds-worth of heating. Mr. Lovelock and agencies of the UN publically and confidently predicted a billion excess deaths due to “global warming” whilst thousands were already dieing of cold and neglect. Who is counting the deaths of the poor, outside the West, from fuel poverty and food price inflation? The UN, whose policies promote this? Thousands have already died, Lovelocks’, opinions have promoted an agenda that will kill thousands more. Lovelock and all the other alarmists deserve no relief from the criticism of their opinions, omissions, mendacity and actions.
Reblogged this on TaJnB | TheAverageJoeNewsBlogg.
Recently Lovelock revised his view;
“The problem is we don’t know what the climate is doing. ..”
Lovelock apparently still speaks ambiguously. When he says, “We do not know….” So he is a skeptic, denier or whatever, it doesn’t make any difference.
So far no one has presented calculations upon which we can clearly say:
1. If the scientists have a consensus about global warming, in this case, the risk of the IPCC’s theory is 20%( XX%),
2. And if the IPCC’s theory is rejected, then the risk factor is 10%(YY%),
However, the solutions with less risk, seems to be preferred.
The scientists are very similar to basketball and football players. They may play in different clubs.
Lovelock says, “We do not know….” So the deficit problem is necessary and sufficient information.
Incomplete theories, premature conclusions, inexperience, with the impression that this is the final theory, unhealthy competition, sometimes feel irresponsibility, unavailability of sufficient information, being faced with large variables, need for teamwork with the necessary expertise, individualism, sometimes misuse of public position, eventually entering politics, all contribute to a scientist with misconceptions still make mistakes. I am sure just in one case; if any decent scientist discovers the mistake, he will deviate from it. Lovelock did it.If Lovelock discovers that the Chimera has dropped its previous comments, all who know him, again but this time more advanced, he will come back to the field.
………………………………………………….
PeterGeorge says:
April 30, 2012 at 8:59 am
______________________________
I agree with you. Please watch this video carefully to the end of it.
I wrote my own views before reading your comment. I added a part of your comment here that I enjoyed it. Our opinions are somewhat closer. We’re both concerned.
“But when, in an immature field of science, there is a plausible argument and some evidence for an effect that will destroy us and everything we care about if we don’t act immediately, what SHOULD we do if we don’t allow ourselves to use heuristic reasoning?”
Nick in Vancouver says:
“Peter George perhaps, and many others, should look at the origins of the current public policy monster that is corrupting science, ethics and government.”
It is all part of the same mindset.
The science always was and will be political, since the public money has been spent by politician leaders for science…
Brendan H and others who are similarly muddle-headed:
The Free Encyclopedia defines consensus as follows.
“con•sen•sus (kn-snss)
n.
1. An opinion or position reached by a group as a whole: “Among political women . . . there is a clear consensus about the problems women candidates have traditionally faced” (Wendy Kaminer). See Usage Note at redundancy.
2. General agreement or accord: government by consensus.”
Science is about a constant seeking to gain a closer approximation to ‘truth’.
That search to get closer to ‘truth’ requires that any “opinion or position” must be constantly challenged. Therefore, consensus does not play any part in science. Indeed, adoption of consensus prevents the conduct of science because a consensus ossifies knowledge at its existing position in relation to ‘truth’.
Of course, an apparent consensus will exist concerning issues in a mature science because most practitioners will agree on the interpretation of the totality of existing evidence. But the conduct of science stops if a true consensus occurs.
Importantly, science does not advocate anything: it only seeks to get closer to a true understanding of reality. In other words, science creates new or different or improved knowledge, and it ONLY uses that knowledge for the conduct of more science.
Politics uses selected evidence (n.b. NOT the totality of evidence) to advocate or to justify policies and/or actions. And consensus is an important objective of politics because it encourages people to accept the desired actions and policies.
Being a scientist does not preclude a person from also being a politician (e.g. Benjamin Franklin). But a person cannot act simultaneously as a scientist and act as a politician: the two activities are mutually exclusive BECAUSE
(a) attainment of a consensus prevents the conduct of science
but
(b) attainment of a consensus is an objective of politics.
Richard
PeterGeorge says:
April 30, 2012 at 8:59 am
There is an important difference between science for its own sake, where I agree consensus is irrelevant, and science used to inform public policy. I also agree that with respect to climate science and a number of other fields public policy debate becomes politicized and highly unscientific – downright ugly as a matter of fact. It is easy to criticize all of this; I do it myself all the time. But when you get right down to it, what choice do we have?
Science for its own sake can afford to wait generations to get a “right” answer. In fact, science for its own sake NEVER has to decide on a right answer; science should always be prepared to discover that some widely believed theory, say Classical Dynamics, is incorrect in some important way.
But when, in an immature field of science, there is a plausible argument and some evidence for an effect that will destroy us and everything we care about if we don’t act immediately, what SHOULD we do if we don’t allow ourselves to use heuristic reasoning?
Forget the climate debate for a moment. If there were a 50% chance that the world would be destroyed if we didn’t act quickly on some plausible, but un-settled scientific hypothesis, and if it would only cost a little to act and avoid the risk, would it be reasonable to reject action on the grounds that the science is un-settled? If 70-80% of scientists agreed that the hypothesis was probably correct, would it really be reasonable to argue that the “consensus argument” is not scientifically valid and so reject action?
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
We’re not talking a genuine consenus among scientist that, say, a nuke at the North Pole would wake up Godzilla.
Mann and company put forth a hypothesis years ago based on faulty data that they are still trying to hide. The computer models made from such things have proven to be WRONG.
And, REMEMBERING the climate debate, we’re not talking “it would only cost a little to act”. The cost is HUGE in money and freedom.
But I do agree, the actions of Mann and company is immature.
“Michael Mann wrote in a 2004 email,”
…the important thing is to make sure they’re loosing (sic) the PR battle…
“the (PR) hounds have been loosed”.
Lovelock wasn’t fooled, he knows exactly what the game is and uses it to his own advantage.
A vain man with an overblown sense of self importance, it was listening to him on a BBC News hardtalk program some years ago that converted me to a sceptic.
As he spoke of the equipment he designed to detect atmospheric CFCs and his later surprise at finding it more sensitive than first claimed, you could see a glint in his eyes that gave me the feeling he was bullshitting. I decided to read his books and, what with his contradictory public statements, realized for the first time that scientific opinion could be bought.
As with many prominent scientists, there will be a back story to everything that he says.
rgbatduke says:
April 30, 2012 at 8:41 am
Kepler’s Laws (along with the theory of Copernicus, the observations of Galileo, and ultimately the work of Newton that derived those laws as a consequence of a sound theory of nature) overturned a primarily religious geocentric model that was not only the prevailing consensus, but was “obviously” correct and written down in the world’s most supposedly authoritative text, the Bible.
Come on now. Let’s not make unsupported claims like the IPCC. Stating the Bible teaches geocentricity is uninformed, and easy to dispute. Readers interested in the topic can perform a Google search and make up their own minds. I am not going to argue that topic here. My main point being this forum is not the appropriate place to be making those type of statements.
Taking the IPCC/RC numbers at face value… The IPCC consensus view is now held by 41% (2500 of 6000) of people that the IPCC and RealClimate considers significant? Or has the population of qualified people changed greatly from the original 6000 quantity?
After thinking about the situation Morano found himself in, I have a good comeback.
He should have told her that according to her logic no person should ever discuss climate with her. Everyone should ignore everything she says. In fact, she would be a hypocrite to discuss climate with any individual.
Paul says:
April 30, 2012 at 9:43 am
A must watch.
==============================================
Forget it. Or just ask him to prove his 2 AGW assertions in the beginning. He will probably refer to the “consensus”.
PeterGeorge:
I write to add to the response of Gunga Din which he provided in reply to your post at April 30, 2012 at 8:59 am which assereted;
“There is an important difference between science for its own sake, where I agree consensus is irrelevant, and science used to inform public policy.”
Your assertion is so wrong that it is hard to believe anybody would write it.
Information obtained by science may be used in many ways for a variety of purposes (as any engineer can explain to you). But there is no such thing as “science used to inform public policy”.
Please read my post at April 30, 2012 at 1:33 pm.
Richard
Question!
I already know that one of the ‘97%’ studies has been totally trashed – the 74 out of 77, I believe.
But I’ve had 3-4 other such studies pointed out to me- all claiming ‘97%’- (for which I call BULLS**T). I don’t have the names of the studies / researchers before me, but does anyone know if similar debunking has occured with those?
I can prove beyond a reasonable doubt that there is no scientific consensus on the “man made global warming”. Actually I can prove that the opposite is true: the vast majority of the relevant scientists OPPOSE that idea. I can prove it simply by referring to a well known study on consensus by Doran and Zimmerman: http://tigger.uic.edu/~pdoran/012009_Doran_final.pdf .
No, it is not a joke. You only need to read the study carefully. Scientists were asked to answer 2 simply formulated questions and the authors say it it takes less than two minutes to answer them online:
“To maximize the response rate, the survey was designed to take less than 2 minutes to complete, and it was administered by a professional online survey site (http://www.questionpro.com) that allowed one-time participation by those who received the invitation. This brief report addresses the two primary questions of the survey, which contained up to nine questions (the full study is given by Kendall Zimmerman [2008]): 1. When compared with pre-1800s levels, do you think that mean global temperatures have generally risen, fallen, or remained relatively constant? 2. Do you think human activity is a significant contributing factor in changing mean global temperatures?”
The funny thing is that the percentage of the positive answers is completely irrelevant, if you look at these 2 crucial passages from the study:
“An invitation to participate in the survey was sent to 10,257 Earth scientists. The database was built from Keane and Martinez [2007], which lists all geosciences faculty at reporting academic institutions, along with researchers at state geologic surveys associated with local universities, and researchers at U.S. federal research facilities (e.g., U.S. Geological Survey, NASA, and NOAA (U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) facilities; U.S. Department of Energy national laboratories; and so forth).”
“With 3146 individuals completing the survey, the participant response rate for the survey was 30.7%.”
What we see, is this: 69.3% of the Earth scientists refused to answer two simple and extremely important questions on the matter well known to them, what they could have easily done in less than two minutes.
The only reasonable explanation I can find is that their answers were NO to at least one of these questions but they did not want to face the consequences of telling the truth like getting fired, for example, or not getting promoted.
Adding those who did answer NO, we have a like 70% opposition to the notion of “man made global warming”.
This blogpost by Tim Ball is a bunch of nonsense. Here is why:
1. Lovelock’s original statement was way over the top compared to the consensus projection of the IPCC. He never represented any sort of consensus of scientists who accepted AGW. The fact that he pulled back from it is proof of absolutely nothing. In fact he is working on a book on how humans can preserve the climate, so he has not totally renounced the idea of AGW.
2. Ball’s link, to Fred Singer’s false claims about Oreskes book, doesn’t prove anything about the validity of her historical account. His representations of what Oreskes wrote were totally false and distorted. Oreskes analysis of the literature was valid, and criticisms made of it by Benny Peiser and others have been torn apart.
3.Ball’s claim, that the idea that CO2 can cause climate change is totally hypothetical, is false. It is a sound physical theory based on observations of the IR spectrum of CO2 and other GHG’s first made in 1859. It is accepted physics and has been since the theory was first proposed in 1859 by John Tyndall. The great Nobel Laureate, Svante Arrhenius was the first person to estimate the Climate Sensitivity associated with doubling of CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere.
The value of a scientific consensus is this:
1. When something that is believed to be true is actually true, the only way to make money out of the idea is by increasing efficiency.
2. However, when something that is believed to be true is actually false, then there is a huge opportunity to make money by trickery.
consensus says to me that they make a theory, then make the evidence “fit” the theory. Last time I checked on what science was suppose to do thats a very unscientific method.
Where are the, “ok new theory, lets pick this sucker apart and see whether it stands or not” crowd?
I see the, “ok new theory to control the ignorant masses, lets make all the evidence fit, then we can make the pesants do what we want while we live in massive mansions and they are all left to be nomadic gatherers, cause we won’t let them hunt” crowd.
If its a choice between stuck under a fascist/dictator/other control system and freedom, call me a denier/hick and paint me some other colour besides red or green. At least I will never be a brain dead sheeple.
Billy Liar says:
Billy,
When Einstein was awarded the Nobel Prize, the one thing that the Nobel committee mentioned specifically in the citation was his explanation of the photoelectric effect. He explained this by proposing that light (at least in its interactions with the elementary constituents of matter) behaves as if it is quantized into particles called photons. The energy of these photons is proportional to the frequency. What is important for causing the sort of effects that lead to mutations in cells (and cause cancer) is the energy of these photons…and the energy of photons at microwave & radio frequencies are several orders of magnitude too small to cause such effects.
So, yes, your cell phone can generate heat and cook things (although as you note the amount of power is very small). However, on a microscopic scale the individual photons do not have nearly enough energy to cause mutations. [Photons of ultraviolet radiation do, which is why such radiation can cause cancer.]
Tim Ball says:
I would disagree that “skeptic” is considered derogatory. As near as I can tell, “AGW skeptics” adopted the term to describe themselves. And, some of us think that they term has actually been misappropriated because most “AGW skeptics” do not practice real skepticism or anything remotely close to it. Rather, they refuse to believe things they don’t want to believe despite strong evidence and are willing to believe just about anything that agrees with what they want to believe. That is the reason why the “D” word that you so object to came into use. Another term that has sometimes been used is “contrarians”, which is perhaps less loaded than the “D” word and is more accurate than “skeptics”.
In the video with Ms. Rose, at 0:58 she states that she will only debate a climate scientist. Since Mr. Morano isn’t a scientist, she wasn’t willing to debate. But where are her climate science credentials? A quick search on Wikipedia (not known for its skeptical views on climate), none of her studies were in the sciences.. She is listed a having a Law Degree (1st in her class, good for her. Her debating skills should be up to par with Marc, so why no debate?) and an art degree. But nothing involving science or climate. So to use her own rules, she could never debate Dr. Spencer since she isn’t a climate scientist. Hypocrisy abounds on the AGW side.. She knew she’d lose in the AGW debate with Marc (IMHO). She makes general accusations about lies, but can’t list one..