Guest essay by Steve Goreham
Originally published in The Washington Times.
Earlier this month, a New York Times article by Andy Revkin voiced concern over a gap between “the consensus” of climate scientists and public acceptance of the theory of human-caused global warming. Revkin pointed to a study published in April by Dr. John Cook and other researchers, which claimed that 97 percent of scientific papers over the last decade “endorsed the consensus” of man-made warming. But is it a failure to communicate the science to the public, or a case of bad science?
A 2010 paper from the Center for Climate Change Communication at George Mason University recommended that advocates for activist climate policies emphasize the dangers to the health of citizens: “Successfully reframing the climate debate in the United States from one based on environmental values to one based on health values…holds great promise to help American society better understand and appreciate the risks of climate change…” So, if Americans fear for their health, then they’ll more readily accept that humans are causing dangerous climate change?
Climate science has smelled for some time. The 2001 Third Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) announced “new evidence” claiming that “the increase in temperature in the 20th century was likely to have been the largest of any century during the past 1,000 years.” This was the famous “Hockey Stick Curve” of Dr. Michael Mann, which became an icon for Climatism, trumpeted to the world and taught in schools across the globe.
But the tree-ring data used by Mann and his research team did not show a temperature rise at the end of the 20th century, so they pasted the thermometer record for the last 50 years onto the 1,000-year curve to provide the alarming hockey stick temperature rise. Later analysis by Stephen McIntyre and Dr. Ross McKitrick found that the Mann algorithm would also produce a hockey stick from input of random noise. The IPCC dropped the Mann Curve from their 2007 Fourth Assessment Report without any explanation.
Then in November 2009 came Climategate, the release of e-mails from the Climate Research Unit (CRU) at East Anglia University. An unidentified hacker or whistle-blower downloaded more than 1,000 documents and e-mails and posted them on a server in Russia. The CRU is the recognized leading keeper of global temperature data, and CRU scientists wrote and edited the core of the IPCC reports.
The Climategate emails showed CRU practices that were seriously at odds with accepted scientific procedure. Evidence of bias, data manipulation, deliberate deletion of emails to avoid sharing of information, evasion of freedom of information requests, and attempts to subvert the peer-review literature process were all used to further the cause of human-made global warming.
Based on model projections, the IPCC First Assessment Report of 1990 told the world to expect a “best estimate” rise of 0.3oC per decade in global temperatures, leading to 2025 temperatures that would be 1oC higher than 1990 temperatures. The IPCC also projected a “high estimate” and a “low estimate” rise. Today, global temperatures remain well below the IPCC’s low estimate. Contrary to model projections, temperatures have been flat for the last 15 years.
It doesn’t matter if 97 percent or even 100 percent of published papers endorse the consensus of man-made warming. One hundred percent of the world’s top climate models, 44 models in all, projected a rise in global surface temperatures over the last 15 years. And 100 percent of the climate models were wrong. The empirical data does not support the theory of dangerous man-made climate change.
Since global temperatures are not rising, proponents of man-made climate change are now reduced to weather scaremongering. In the best tradition of ambulance chasing, the recent severe tornado in Oklahoma, Hurricane Sandy, and other weather events are blamed on mankind’s relatively small contribution to atmospheric carbon dioxide, a trace gas.
But any citizen who can read can learn that today’s weather is not abnormal. Hurricane Sandy was a Category 1 hurricane that made a direct hit on New York City. But according to the National Climatic Data Center, 170 hurricanes made US landfall during the 20th century. Fifty-nine of these were Category 3 or better, with wind speeds much stronger than those of Sandy. So how is a single Category 1 hurricane “evidence” of dangerous climate change? Historical data also shows that the US experienced more strong tornados in the 1960s and 1970s than today.
The reason for lukewarm public acceptance of the theory of man-made warming is not a failure to communicate, but that the science is rotten.
Steve Goreham is Executive Director of the Climate Science Coalition of America and author of the new book The Mad, Mad, Mad World of Climatism: Mankind and Climate Change Mania.
sceptical says:
May 29, 2013 at 7:37 pm “Good article. Glad to see you agree there is a consensus.”
…Agree that there is meaningless consensus? Consensus argument from authority is a smokescreen for the CAGW socialist cabal.
Is evolution random as Darwin opined or is it guided by unknowns as the fossil record suggests.
( there simply aren’t enough fossils of evolutionary dead-ends. Randomness of evolution would create many, many unsuccessful variations.)
I’ll take the empirical fossil record.
Intelligent design.
There is a simple explanation for public distrust found in the wisdom of crowds. If you take a large jar of jelly beans and ask passersby to guess the number, their answers (guesses) will converge on the correct number. Now if a group of quarreling scientists analyzes the situation but can’t agree on whether the jelly beans unseen in the interior are the same size as all the rest and comes up with a “projection” that is radically different from what the average person on the street thinks, on average, the average people will not trust the scientists. The BS detector of the common man.
Front page news, a first.
http://www.theprovince.com/news/doomed+quite+Study+indicates+carbon+dioxide+affects+climate/8452188/story.html
physics geek,
Well said. As a former Christian and atheist I think you have a very good view of evolutionary theory. As you haven’t tried to twist a literal interpretation of Genesis into some kind of pseudo science it is obvious that you maintain a rational mind. Thanks for your post.
Ryan says:
May 29, 2013 at 8:10 pm
“A large fraction of the public also used to doubt the cancer-cigarette link and currently doubts the theory of evolution. Is that because the science is weak or is it because there is an organized and well-funded and/or motivated opposition to the implications of the science?”
First, I would say that “a large fraction of the public” preferred to ignore the cancer-cigarette link (and still does) and that the same could probably be said of the theory of evolution, possibly because many of its proponents use it to disparage others’ belief in God.
However, I absolutely agree with your implication that the strongly-held beliefs of most climate alarmists are due to their being “organized and well-funded and/or motivated (by) opposition to the implications of the science”.
That was what you meant, right? I mean, it’s obvious where the majority of funding has gone, and who has best organized government support, and which group could care less about the science if the science upsets their belief system, is it not?
“What, Ryan, does that have to do with anything? A scientific theory does not become valid because a theory in a completely unrelated field faces opposition.”
I’m not arguing for the validity of the science. The science speaks for itself. The title of the post asks a question. I’m answering it. The reason the public doesn’t overwhelmingly accept the science is because they are told regularly that they should not accept the science, just like they were by big tobacco a few decades back. Sometimes, even by the very same people.
“First, I would say that “a large fraction of the public” preferred to ignore the cancer-cigarette link (and still does)”
RIIIIIGHT. So tobacco spent millions funding think tanks that just happened to publish and distribute their documented lies…but it didn’t do anything. No effect whatsoever! The American people are logic-robots, immune to misinformation. When Pat Michaels goes on TV and says “The globe has been kind of cool” you guys didn’t believe it, right? Amazing.
“The reason the public doesn’t overwhelmingly accept the science is because they are told regularly that they should not accept the science”
I’m note sure that is entirely true. Might be to some extent but not entirely. The problem with climate science, I think, has been very well expressed by Feynman:
“If it disagrees with experiment, it’s wrong. That’s all there is to it”
When the predictions fail, people will know it and they will, without the intellectual prowess of Richard Feynman, apply the scientific method intuitively.
Bruce Cobb says:
You miss the point. What the evolution example shows us is that there are always people who will reject the scientific consensus when it goes against their deeply-held ideological beliefs. As a practical matter, that means that one has to come up with some way of using science to inform public policy (such as teaching of human origins in schools or taking action on climate change) even in the absence of total unanimity (which is impossible).
And, nobody has ever come up with a better way of doing this than having the scientific community summarize what they believe the current state of the science to be. In the U.S., this has traditionally be done through the National Academy of Sciences and it has served us well.
The only other alternatives is simply not to use science at all to inform public policy or to have the particular political party that is currently dominating the government choose which science and scientists to believe, neither of which seems like a very good option to me.
Steve Goreham says:
Yes…It is straightforward about what will happen over the next century. However, it does not predict that these rates of increase will be the ones seen over the next few decades. The graphs of temperature vs time were expected to have upward curvature.
JJB MKI says:
As I point out above, the lines drawn are made up under the poor assumption that the IPCC predictions were just a linear rise in temperature over the century. Furthermore, why show only the predictions of the first assessment report, which is based on this poor linear assumption, when later reports more clearly stated what they expected to see happen over the next few decades?
It is wrong to compare the models’ surface temperature predictions to the results of the satellite measurements since they don’t measure the same thing. And, Christy’s alignment is suspect since it shows the observations aligned so that they are pretty consistently below the model results in the period from 1979 to 1990. At the very least, a real skeptic would ask how the data and model results were aligned.
And, there are other falsehoods in this piece. For example, it says: “The IPCC dropped the Mann Curve from their 2007 Fourth Assessment Report without any explanation.” That is not true. The AR4 included a graph showing the Mann curve as one of many reconstructions because, in the intervening years, more reconstructions had been done: http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/figure-6-10.html And, there were lots of discussions of the Mann and other reconstructions here: http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/ch6s6-6.html
I think we need more stories about the benefits of co2 on plant life.
From joeldshore on May 30, 2013 at 9:53 am:
Your way of “using science to inform public policy” involves the forced indoctrination and acceptance of god-less evolution in the public schools, pushing the “scientific consensus” that no higher power could be involved at all, in any way possible, directly contradicting religious belief. “You have the right to believe anything you want, after you prove by my tests that you believe what I do.”
Are you advocating the same way of “informing public policy”, force the kiddies to believe they must take action on climate change? Force everyone to accept they must take action on climate change, it’s the “scientific consensus” that action is required?
Are you contradicting yourself? Acceptance of evolution was by forcing that as the only allowable origin of life that could be taught in public schools. You want to pass the tests, perhaps even pass the class and graduate, you learn and know evolution. You will be punished if you reject evolution.
Thus the “better way” was forced education and the punishment of “deniers”.
And true enough, as we see right now in the public education system, it is indeed very effective at generating acceptance of taking action on climate change.
“And, there are other falsehoods in this piece. For example, it says: “The IPCC dropped the Mann Curve from their 2007 Fourth Assessment Report without any explanation.” That is not true.”
Exactly. There’s no justification for such an obvious lie. I can’t even imagine how anyone remotely interested in climate science wouldn’t know better.
joeldshore says:
May 30, 2013 at 9:53 am
You miss the point.
The point of illogical arguments such as yours is to attempt to mislead. I have called you on that, and you say I’ve missed the point?
You go on simply to attempt to bolster your illogical arguments, which is pathetic. People reject your so-called “scientific consensus” primarily because it rings false. Even the “consensus” claim rings false, and speaks to the desperation of people such as yourself to believe the dogma of Climatism.
Finally, you close with one further logical fallacy; the False Dilemma or Bifurcation Fallacy. Climate “Science” stepped outside the realm of actual science long ago. Skeptics or Climate Realists are merely attempting to correct that. Not to shock you or anything, but many people actually care more about what is true, than whether it happens to coincide with the position of whichever political party they may belong to.
We have heard it all before.
If the thing being communicated is the full and accurate reporting of the product of open / balanced /objective scientific principles and processes then the communication is a good scientific one.
The climate science communities that falsely claim CAGW consensus did not make those kind of communications.
Their communications communicated a subjective mindset focused on a mere ideological belief in being right about harmful climate change due to burning fossil fuels.
Both honest and dishonest communication about their incorrect science is the cause of their failure to gain acceptance by open cultures.
John
Ryan says:
May 29, 2013 at 8:10 pm
A large fraction of the public also used to doubt the cancer-cigarette link and currently doubts the theory of evolution. Is that because the science is weak or is it because there is an organized and well-funded and/or motivated opposition to the implications of the science?
============================
Hey Ryan ……. Can you clue in Anthony and the rest of us skeptics where we can get some of this funding? Well funded, my arse.
Take a look at the ice cores for the last 15000 years and tell me again that the modern warming is “unprecidented”.
Bruce Cobb says:
So, your short answer, as near as I can figure, to my question of how else one might use science to inform public policy is to make Bruce Cobb the arbiter of what science is correct or incorrect, instead of the scientists themselves.
The social science is pretty clear on this: Non-experts (even ones with considerable education and knowledge) tend to decide what the science is on controversial scientific issues on the basis of their ideological beliefs. This site is living testimony to this.
joeldshore says:
May 30, 2013 at 2:58 pm
So, your short answer, as near as I can figure, to my question of how else one might use science to inform public policy is to make Bruce Cobb the arbiter of what science is correct or incorrect, instead of the scientists themselves.
Now you’re just being stupid. I wasn’t suggesting that at all. There is plenty of available material here and elsewhere for you to read, but you aren’t interested, due to your ideological beliefs. Most of us here used to believe, to some extent at least, that CAGW must be true. We came by our skepticism through reading, and weighing the pros and cons. I realize this is an alien concept to you people. Perhaps it is just intellectual laziness, but there is a wilfullness and dishonesty about it. What are you trying to hide?
bueuf1 says:
May 29, 2013 at 11:53 pm
The poll results in the UK Telegraph article so far are:
Yes – completely 27.8% (3,949 votes)
Yes – but only partially 25.02% (3,554 votes)
No – it’s a natural phenomenon 47.17% (6,700 votes)
This suggests to me not only that the climateer communication strategy has not worked, but that it has actually had the opposite effect…
And in the same news site on the same day we have this irony:
Being loud ‘more important than being right’
Well as far as I’m concerned climateer journalists have certainly been loud enough. But not even that seems to have worked.
Patrick says:
May 30, 2013 at 12:51 am
“Also whales have vestigial hind structures that are understood to have been hind legs at some point in time. IMO, does not lend credence to creation theory.”
It’s not so long ago that the human appendix and tonsils were thought to be vestigial. The “understanding” you refer to may well turn out to be just the opposite.
kadaka says:
Yes, heaven forbid we should have students learning science in the SCIENCE classrooms instead of superstition and mythology. Superstition and mythology have their place in the lives of kids if the parents so desire, but not in the science classroom.
“Slacko says:
May 31, 2013 at 9:42 am”
You might be right, but lots of info here;
http://www-personal.umich.edu/~gingeric/PDGwhales/Whales.htm