Josh writes:
I have been musing for some time about a way to show the range of sceptic views compared to non-sceptic views and I think I have come up with something simple that could be useful and fun.
Below is an example of a two part scale showing Science in one band going from Certainty to Uncertainty and a corresponding Policy band below showing policies that cost more or cost less. I have added some possible examples of ranges of opinion and people from around the climate blogosphere.
Click the images to get bigger versions.
As it is only an example, I may well have put people in the wrong place or got the ranges wrong – my apologies. Also let me know what improvements could be made and I will post new versions.
If you would like to print out your own version here is the scale on its own:
And here are some people:
Have fun and let me know what you think.
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We need a pic of Willis.
Josh, we need some climate playing cards based on this!!
PS, we all know who the joker would be…..
While I disagree with many (but not all) of the sky dragon positions, I do not consider them to have no faith in science. They have a diverse set of views, some of which may turn out to have some validity. Lumping all in that group together as having a single position is as bad an error as lumping all skeptics of any degree as being deniers.
No uniforms on the SKS boys? They toned down their stridency or militancy recently or something?
Could use a pic for Mr Lomborg with all those actually 🙂 .
In all seriousness, I don’t think “certainty”, and “skepticism” are necessarily on the same scale. This comes back to the old problem that climate sensitivity has never been measured. Should climate sensitivity ever be actually measured, we would be certain what the value was, and there would be no uncertainly as to whether CAGW made sense scientifically.
Personally, I am certain that CAGW is NOT a problem. So I am certain and skeptical at the same time.
My immediate though was it would be interesting if it was active. Puts some #s to the ratings, figure out how to objectively rate each individual’s scale position and see where the curve actually ended up. Nice normal curve? skewed left? Right ? Might allow an # be put to actual opinions out there and get rid of that stupid “97% of scientists believe . . . “
Two suggestions: 1) increase the pool of people, and 2) take a poll that ranks them.
As Gary says, plus ask the people depicted to rank themselves.
Surely RET Ward should be purple with his normal rage? He looks more like The Mekon (qv) in your representation.
You also need from UK (inter alia) Chris Monckton, Piers, Rog Tallbloke, Flimsin, Jonathan Jones, Omnlogos, David Bellamy, JS Beefburger (Lord Deben), Ed Davey, Chris Huhne, Paul Nurse etc etc
Hi Josh
Much appreciate your witty insightful cartoons and exploring the issues involved.
May I encourage you to dig deeper. e.g., to separate “uncertainty” from “belief in science” from “belief in the accuracy of climate models”. I am a scientist/engineer with a strong understanding/-belief in the scientific method (aka “science”). Yet I find that the “uncertainty” in global climate models is very high based on comparison against the evidence – i.e. much higher uncertainty in the model predictions than what Mann or IPCC express. I see Judith Curry having a similar perspective.
Suggest a ranking on the range of anthropogenic warming expected. i.e. from strong warming CAGW “catastrophic” warming +6 C on the “alarmist side” to eventual cooling on the Nature dominates side. e.g. -2C?
“Uncertainty” is a foundational tool in science for quantitatively evaluating the magnitude of the “accuracy”. See NIST on Uncertainty Guidelines or TN1297. For the international standard see Guide to the Expression of Uncertainty in Measurement JCGM 100:2008 by BIMP (Few climate scientists appear to have read either of these from the very rare mention of Type B errors.)
On Policy, the two extremes are:
Control nature versus care for the poor.
Expensive mitigation versus wise stewardship with adaptation.
See the Cornwall Alliance for scientists and others with a strong belief in the scientific method who see climate model predictions as having much higher uncertainties than IPCC, while focusing on wise stewardship of resources and caring for the poor.
I recommend adding The Right Climate Stuff to your array. See TheRightClimateStuff.com. From their evaluation of the data they are expecting 1.2 C total global warming max.
Perhaps this would work better as a graph with science on the x axis and policy on the y axis. I would also say that the science scale could be tweeked: is activism really the opposite end of the spectrum to no faith in science? I would simply leave the science scale labelled as science and rank people on the quality/rigour of the work they do. Thus the SKS and Skydragons would be somewhat closer together, for example.
Well done, and fun.
Sure a few tweaks are possible. However, the concept is multi-dimensional and taking it to even 3 would be cumbersome and require considerable work to create and interpret the result.
On the “spend more” side Al Gore is well known. Joanne Nova is a believer in science and reason (adaptation).
Remember the KISS rule.
This is great Josh but what we also need are CAGW games that are fun for the whole family. How about “CAGW Bingo” or a “CAGW Crossword Puzzle” or “match the quote to the person game” printed on paper placemats for diners and restaurants?
Along those lines, please add some political figures to the cast of cranially compromised climate characters such as John F’n Kerry, Henry Waxman, Rajendra Pachauri, Hank Johnson, etc.
Keep up the good work, we’re all count’n on ya!
You could embellish the SKS kids with matching forehead Tattoos “SKS” with the familiar Lightning Bolt S’s
Also. Mann could use a Tree Ring Lollypop
Josh an excellent job! I think adding James Hansen and Al Gore (maybe Holdren and Obama) might be appropriate. Another meaningful metric might be to show the relative number of the followers for each grouping. That ole bell shaped curve might apply
In a sense, nobody is certain, because climate sensitivity is so uncertain. If I recall correctly, the fifth IPCC report had a very wide range of 1.5 to 4.5 deg. C, and with a possibility that sensitivity might be below or above this range. Some warn of sensitivity of 6 deg. C or more, Other models show a sensitivity below 1 deg. C. So, what is it that the “certain” group are certain of?
The artistry is nice aesthetically, including with personable faces.
However, does it “show the range of sceptic views” well? I’d quite say no, especially with the following 2 aspects:
1) It actually depicts a meme the CAGW movement loves, putting them on the implied high “faith in science” end, as if believing in CAGW or not is a matter of whether someone trusts science or not.
Little, if anything, has been more core to the successes of the CAGW movement in popular perception than that meme, putting on a superficial costume of science like a wolf in sheep’s clothing. But most activism has always been divorced from real science of the kind getting accurate results like correct and not absurd predictions.
For example, whether or not having a college degree (hardly special today) or calling himself a scientist, an environmental activist claiming dozens of times more coming warming in the 21st century than how now compares to the late 1930s has practically no more honesty or mathematical literacy than an environmental activist implying vast harm thousands of years from now by long-lived isotopes in nuclear waste (buried in Earth’s crust which has literally trillions of tons of natural radioisotopes from thorium to potassium-40, with ppm levels adding up over 3 * 10^19 tons mass). Just, in the former case, activists were able to reach critical mass to portray themselves as a majority and representative of a field, unlike how they failed to do so in the latter (too tied to the most reality-tested science: engineering, with predominately different kinds of people flocking to the field).
2) Another implicitly depicted meme in the image, also with issues, is treating being far on a continuum towards uncertainty or vagueness as intrinsic to skepticism. Of course, there is a partial truth in that; mainly just saying “I don’t know” is a very common skeptical position and can be honest.
Yet the CAGW movement has effective vagueness on the topics they dislike having to address at all, from CO2 fertilization impacts to the cause of loads of climate history outside the 1980s-1990s rise. In fact, a wide range of estimates especially for the future has to be maintained, so the high end can be used for misleading the public but the low end used for covering rear ends (not going to be enough for them but buy some time).
Meanwhile, in contrast, the more real science is developed and understood, the more of reality can be well explained, like http://img213.imagevenue.com/img.php?image=62356_expanded_overview3_122_1094lo.jpg doesn’t leave the LIA, the current “pause” in global warming, or the 1960s-1970s global cooling scare unexplained.
The artistry is nice aesthetically, including with personable faces.
However, does it “show the range of skeptic views” well? I’d quite say no, especially with the following 2 aspects:
1) It actually depicts a meme the CAGW movement loves, putting them on the implied high “faith in science” end, as if believing in CAGW or not is a matter of whether someone trusts science or not.
Little, if anything, has been more core to the successes of the CAGW movement in popular perception than that meme, putting on a superficial costume of science like a wolf in sheep’s clothing. But most activism has always been divorced from real science of the kind getting accurate results like correct and not absurd predictions.
For example, whether or not having a college degree (hardly special today) or calling himself a scientist, an environmental activist claiming dozens of times more coming warming in the 21st century than how now compares to the late 1930s has practically no more honesty or mathematical literacy than an environmental activist implying vast harm thousands of years from now by long-lived isotopes in nuclear waste (buried in Earth’s crust which has literally trillions of tons of natural radioisotopes from thorium to potassium-40, with ppm levels adding up over 3 * 10^19 tons mass). Just, in the former case, activists were able to reach critical mass to portray themselves as a majority and representative of a field, unlike how they failed to do so in the latter (too tied to the most reality-tested science: engineering, with predominately different kinds of people flocking to the field).
2) Another implicitly depicted meme in the image, also with issues, is treating being far on a continuum towards uncertainty or vagueness as intrinsic to skepticism. Of course, there is a partial truth in that; mainly just saying “I don’t know” is a very common skeptical position and can be honest.
Yet the CAGW movement has effective vagueness on the topics they dislike having to address at all, from CO2 fertilization impacts to the cause of loads of climate history outside the 1980s-1990s rise. In fact, a wide range of estimates especially for the future has to be maintained, so the high end can be used for misleading the public but the low end used for covering rear ends (not going to be enough for them but buy some time).
Meanwhile, in contrast, the more real science is developed and understood, the more of reality can be well explained, like http://img213.imagevenue.com/img.php?image=62356_expanded_overview3_122_1094lo.jpg doesn’t leave the LIA, the current “pause” in global warming, or the 1960s-1970s global cooling scare unexplained.
Double-post: my apologies; bad connection.
Very clever Josh !!!
And well done
Instead of the scale going from “certain” to “uncertain”, I would have it go from “belief” to “non-belief”. Belief meaning agreeing with the tenets of CAGW, however, even the idea that a doubling of CO2 will cause only 1C of warming is still just a belief. The cold hard fact remains that we can’t show that an effect from man’s CO2 exists. That doesn’t mean that there isn’t one, simply that we can’t pinpoint it. And that means that whatever the effect may be, it is very small – way too small to matter in the slightest. I guess “sky dragons” (whatever they are) would belong in the realm of the non-believers, despite whatever some think of their ideas.
Leonard Weinstein says:
March 15, 2014 at 7:52 am
> While I disagree with many (but not all) of the sky dragon positions, I do not consider them to have no faith in science.
The Sky Dragons need a scale of their own, but I don’t know what to call it or where to put them. Maybe “stubbornness”. If so, then they’d be off the scale. 🙂
Love their icon though, ditto McIntyre.