By Christopher Monckton of Brenchley
Shock news from the Heartland Institute’s Ninth International Climate Change Conference: among the 600 delegates, the consensus that Man contributes to global warming was not 97%. It was 100%.
During my valedictorian keynote at the conference, I appointed the lovely Diane Bast as my independent adjudicatrix. She read out six successive questions to the audience, one by one. I invited anyone who would answer “No” to that question to raise a hand. According to the adjudicatrix, not a single hand was raised in response to any of the questions.
These were the six questions.
1. Does climate change?
2. Has the atmospheric concentration of CO2 increased since the late 1950s?
3. Is Man likely to have contributed to the measured increase in CO2 concentration since the late 1950s?
4. Other things being equal, is it likely that adding CO2 to the atmosphere will cause some global warming?
5. Is it likely that there has been some global warming since the late 1950s?
6. Is it likely that Man’s emissions of CO2 and other greenhouse gases have contributed to the measured global warming since 1950?
At a conference of 600 “climate change deniers”, then, not one delegate denied that climate changes. Likewise, not one denied that we have contributed to global warming since 1950.
One of the many fundamental dishonesties in the climate debate is the false impression created by the Thermageddonites and their hosts of allies in the Main Stream Media (MSM) that climate skeptics would answer “No” to most – if not all – of the six questions.
That fundamental dishonesty was at the core of the Cook et al. “consensus” paper published last year. The authors listed three “levels of endorsement” supporting some sort of climate consensus.
Level 1 reflected the IPCC’s definition of consensus: that most of the global warming since 1950 was man-made. Levels 2 and 3 reflected explicit or implicit acceptance that Man causes some warming. The Heartland delegates’ unanimous opinion fell within Level 2.
Cook et al., having specified these three “levels of endorsement”, and having gone to the trouble of reading and marking 11,944 abstracts, did not publish their assessment of the number of abstracts they had marked as falling into each of the three endorsement levels. Instead, they published a single aggregate total combining all three categories.
Their failure to report the results fully was what raised my suspicions that their article fell short of the standards of integrity that the reasonable man on the Clapham omnibus would have expected of a paper purporting to be scientific.
The text file recording the results of Cook’s survey was carefully released only after several weeks following publication, during which the article claiming 97% consensus had received wall-to-wall international publicity from the MSM. Even Mr Obama’s Twitteratus had cited it with approval as indicating that “global warming is real, man-made and dangerous”.
The algorithm counted the number of abstracts Cook had allocated to each level of endorsement. When the computer displayed the results, I thought there must have been some mistake. The algorithm had found only 64 out of the 11,944 papers, or 0.5%, marked as falling within Level 1, reflecting the IPCC consensus that recent warming was mostly man-made.
I carried out a manual check using the search function in Microsoft Notepad. Sure enough, there were only 64 data entries ending in “,1”.
Next, I read all 64 abstracts and discovered – not greatly to my surprise – that only 41 had explicitly said Man had caused most of the global warming over the past half century or so.
In the peer-reviewed learned journals, therefore, only 41 of 11,944 papers, or 0.3% – and not 97.1% – had endorsed the definition of the consensus proposition to which the IPCC, in its 2013 Fifth Assessment Report, had assigned 95-99% confidence.
Now that we have the results of the Heartland Conference survey, the full extent of the usual suspects’ evasiveness about climate “consensus” can be revealed.
Cook et al. had lumped together the 96.8% who, like all 100% of us at ICCC9, had endorsed the proposition that we cause some warming with the 0.3% who had endorsed the IPCC’s proposition that we caused most of the warming since 1950.
In defiance of the evidence recorded in their own data file, they had then explicitly stated, both in their article and in a subsequent article, that 97.1% had endorsed the IPCC’s proposition.
Amusingly, 96.8% is 97% of 97.1%. In other words, 97% of the abstracts that formed the basis of the “97% consensus” claim in Cook et al. (2013) did not endorse the IPCC’s definition of the consensus, as the article had falsely claimed they did. However, those abstracts did endorse the more scientifically credible Heartland definition.
Among the unspeakable representatives of the MSM who came to the Heartland conference to conduct sneering interviews with climate “deniers” was a smarmy individual from CNN.
He asked me, in that supercilious tone with which we are all too familiar, how it was that I, a mere layman, dared to claim that I knew better than 97% of published climate scientists. I referred him to Legates et al. (2013), the peer-reviewed refutation of the notion that 97% of scientists endorse the IPCC’s assertion that most of the warming since 1950 was man-made.
The CNN reporter said that the result in Legates et al. was merely my “interpretation”. So I pointed to a row of internet booths nearby and said, “If I count these booths and find that there are, say, 12 of them, and if you count them and find there are indeed 12 of them, then our finding is not a matter of interpretation. It is a matter of fact, that any third party can independently verify.”
I challenged him to go away, before he broadcast anything, and count how many of the 11,944 abstracts listed in the Cook et al. data file were marked by the authors themselves as falling within Level 1. If he counted only 64, I said, then his count would accord with mine. And our counts would not be an “interpretation” but a fact, whose truth or falsity might readily and definitively be established by any third party performing exactly the same count as ours.
He said he would check, but with that look in his eye that seemed to speak otherwise.
The results of my survey of the 600 Heartland delegates reveal that the difference between the Thermageddonites and us is far less than they would like the world to think. Like most of them, we fall within Cook’s endorsement levels 2-3. Unlike them, we do not claim to know whether most of the global warming since 1950 was man-made: for that is beyond what the current state of science can tell us.
Above all, unlike them we do not misreport a 0.3% consensus as a 97.1% consensus.
You may like to verify the results recorded in Cook’s data file for yourself. I have asked Anthony to archive the file (it resides here: cook.pdf ).
[UPDATE: David Burton writes: I’ve put the Cook 2013 data into an Excel spreadsheet, which makes it a lot easier to analyze than from that cook.pdf file. There’s a link to it on my site, here: http://sealevel.info/97pct/#cook ]
If the reporter from CNN who interviewed me reads this, I hope he will perform the count himself and then come back to me as he had undertaken to do. But I shall not be holding my breath.
davidmhoffer says:
July 13, 2014 at 6:57 pm
———————————-
“At no point sir, did I support the models.”
I made no claim you did, rather that the problems we have both observerd with the models is what caused me to try the experiments.
“Your argument rests on the oceans not being 33K above 255K. Sadly, that’s not even what the claim is, and your entire rant thus falls apart because it debunks something that wasn’t claimed.”
No, my claim is that without DWLWIR and atmospheric cooling average temperatures of the oceans would be far above, not just 255K, but 288K as well. The foundation claim of the radiative GHE hypothesis is that the average temperature of the oceans would be 255K in the absence of DWLWIR and atmospheric cooling. That claim is provably false.
“There is a marked difference between the temperature of the oceans and the surface temperature of the oceans, and if you understood Stefan-Boltzmann as it applies in this case you would understand your mistake. All your other errors are just piled up on top of that one.”
I am well aware of the limitations of the standard S-B equations and why they should never be applied to selective surfaces. But this is just what the climastrologists went and did. The treated the oceans as a “near blackbody” with an emissivity near 1. The oceans are a selective surface not a near blackbody, nor do they have an effective emissivity near 1*.
Climastrologists just used emissivity ~1, incident solar at ~240 w/m2 and came up with the 255K for the oceans in absence of DWLWIR and atmospheric cooling. This mistake lies at the very foundation of the entire radiative GHE hypothesis. It can never be hidden.
*(to tell the difference between apparent and effective emissivity you must first measure with all background IR cancelled, and this is still not good enough for water as it emits from within the first 100 microns so suffers from cavity effect.)
Aphan says:
July 13, 2014 at 7:08 pm
your behavior here in this thread is anecdotal evidence that will discredit the field of “science” far more than any “half wit” posting at WUWT can discredit a group opinion/label.
I think you are wrong on this. The field of ‘science’ will not [be] discredited by me, but by the non-scientific nonsense that poses a science. You might wonder whether my comments will discredit me in this company, but that I don’t take seriously and such personal things are really off/topic IMHO.
Aphan says:
July 13, 2014 at 7:08 pm
I wonder about a lot of things. Like how the “number” of your posts that were directed at people, and your opinions of them, compares to the number of your posts “focused on the poll”.
You may ask that question about your own comments. What are the numbers for you?
lsvalgaard says:
July 13, 2014 at 6:34 pm
____________________
lsvalgaard says:
July 11, 2014 at 12:35 pm
Bruce Cobb says:
July 11, 2014 at 12:30 pm
The word “likely” is a loaded term. It’s certainly possible that we’ve added some small, as-yet unmeausured and probably unmeasurable amount of warming.
It’s also possible there are ufos.
“So it was a lousy poll, a pure PR-stunt, no science.”
______________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________
Simply put: You are not presenting an argument here. In spite of many fools getting sucked into your false argument, there is nothing substantial here to debate, unless you start from a disingenuous “misunderstanding” of something that was PRESENTED as “a lousy poll [&] PR-stunt”. And before you start on nonsense, an eight grade class paying attention would see this without the “exact words” being shouted at them. Many here have pointed that out. No one has presented this as “science”, yet you demand that it be defended as such.
So you misrepresented the poll in order to subvert the conversation to continue to demand science from parlor polls. As in HERE :
lsvalgaard says:
July 11, 2014 at 4:17 pm
Latitude says:
July 11, 2014 at 4:12 pm
Did Leif and Mosh answer the questions?….
“My answers to this cleverly designed PR-stunt would, of course, be yyyyyy. What is wrong with the poll is that there are no numbers, no error bars, no confidence intervals, no ‘how much’. Totally useless and without any scientific value. Pure PR bullshit, by that well-known master of BS.”
_____________________________________________________________________________
In case you are confused that’s a character attack. And then you just went downhill from there. BTW thanks for the link but I sat thru 101 thirty years ago. And Wikipedia ?! really ?!
The difference between character and behavior ? Well, while it’s true that we can use behaviors to “measure” some aspects of character (personally I find any quantification of “character” to be inherently subjective and therefore suspicious) , they are NOT identical. I see a difference, I’m pretty sure that you do as well really.
Come to think of it that might be a good example of your modus operandi. Character and behavior are no more the same thing than thought and action, but perhaps, in order to “win” a debate you THINK they are for the moment. As in feigning ignorance of the “motivations” (now that’s about character, isn’t it?) of someone taking an informal non scientific poll at a conference….
and then proceeding to attack their character.
lawrence Cornell says:
July 13, 2014 at 7:43 pm
and then proceeding to attack their character.
It seems to me that you are the one attacking somebody, i..e. me. Have I attacked you?
What standing do you have to attack me? [not that I really care]
Survey science is a social science replete with bias, some of which is intentional. Anyone thinking they can measure the opinion “temperature” of the society they wish to study is walking on thin ice. Indeed, survey science is often employed like the paint color chosen for a restaurant. Its one purpose is to affect the opinions of the reader of the results of said survey. It is one thing to observe and record the behavior of humans. It is quite another to observe and record the “reasoning” of humans. But it is because of that difference that survey science is very useful in swaying public perception. The real goal is not to measure the subjects, but to influence the consumers of the measure’s results.
THIS is interesting. Appears to be a question of character AND behavior here ?
Falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus ?
lsvalgaard says:
July 11, 2014 at 7:11 pm
jim Steele says:
July 11, 2014 at 6:42 pm
did you likewise post about the 97% consensus as also being “a stunt that carried no significance”?
“No need to, as we all know it is garbage. But why must we stoop to their level? Because we think the general public is too stupid to understand anything else?”
lawrence Cornell says:
July 13, 2014 at 8:02 pm
THIS is interesting.
Have I ever attacked you?
“No need to, as we all know it is garbage. But why must we stoop to their level? Because we think the general public is too stupid to understand anything else?”
Indeed, why must we stoop to their level? If you think that we should, what does that show about your respect for the general public?
lsvalgaard says:
July 13, 2014 at 7:47 pm
lawrence Cornell says:
July 13, 2014 at 7:43 pm
and then proceeding to attack their character.
“It seems to me that you are the one attacking somebody, i..e. me. Have I attacked you?
What standing do you have to attack me? [not that I really care]”
————————————————————————————————————————–
Surely you jest. You asked me to explain my specific issue with your behavior here. I present said explaination. Essentially, you don’t seem to speak with integrity, I’ve explained that’s my observation. I’ve given examples, others have also. I like integrity, it’s a good thing. Now and then it’s good to point that out.
You don’t like my answer, so now I’m just mean ? Here’s a suggestion : If you don’t like being “attacked”, don’t be a BS bully. You just might get called on it.
lawrence Cornell says:
July 13, 2014 at 8:19 pm
You asked me to explain my specific issue with your behavior here.
But you have persistently evaded that. What MISREPRESENTATION exactly have I committed according to you.
I’ve given examples, others have also
Like
Christoph Dollis says: July 13, 2014 at 6:53 pm Leif’s right here, in other words.
davidmhoffer says: July 11, 2014 at 8:11 pm Not sure why everyone is busting Leif’s chops since he is correct
Steven Mosher says: July 11, 2014 at 3:04 pm yes leif. a nice stunt.
This is not a popularity contest. You are entitled to disagree with me, but not to attack my character or behavior http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem [if you didn’t know]
lsvalgaard says:
July 13, 2014 at 8:08 pm
_____________________________________
My bad there. I believe in that specific case I misread your meaning. No, I don’t think we should “stoop to their level” but I don’t think calling out BS is stooping to their level, maybe a bit of a cop out on your part. As far as the general public, I live in the U.S. where the Education system … well, lets just say that is a loaded question with no simple answers.
But NO, no one should be lied to or BS’d.
Yes, that’s a “thing” with me. That’s why I call it out.
lawrence Cornell says:
July 13, 2014 at 8:46 pm
But NO, no one should be lied to or BS’d. Yes, that’s a “thing” with me.
With me too, hence my comments.
Konrad;
No, my claim is that without DWLWIR and atmospheric cooling average temperatures of the oceans would be far above, not just 255K, but 288K as well.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Your misunderstanding of fundamental physics is even worse than I thought.
Please …
Leif, Lawrence, Mark & others
a bit less of the flame war, as
it is hot enough in here already
lsvalgaard says:
July 13, 2014 at 8:39 pm
lawrence Cornell says:
July 13, 2014 at 8:19 pm
You asked me to explain my specific issue with your behavior here.
But you have persistently evaded that. What MISREPRESENTATION exactly have I committed according to you.[…]
_______________________________________________________________________
I have explained that clearly. I won’t repeat myself. You are now just providing examples for me of what I have already pointed out about your disingenious behavior here by insisting I have evaded a question that I have clearly answered for all here to see.
_____________________________________________________________________________
[…] “I’ve given examples, others have also
Like
Christoph Dollis says: July 13, 2014 at 6:53 pm Leif’s right here, in other words.
davidmhoffer says: July 11, 2014 at 8:11 pm Not sure why everyone is busting Leif’s chops since he is correct
Steven Mosher says: July 11, 2014 at 3:04 pm yes leif. a nice stunt.
This is not a popularity contest. You are entitled to disagree with me, but not to attack my character or behavior http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem [if you didn’t know]”
_____________________________________________________________________
Once again you change the subject for others distraction. I didn’t present examples of popularity, I presented examples of your argument. You’re right, it isn’t a popularity contest any more than this poll was presented as science. So why do you present examples of your “popularity” ? You argue about apples while presenting an orange as example.
I don’t disagree with your argument, as I have pointed out you have no argument except that which you’ve manufactured for the sake of instigating an argument. It’s the METHOD of your debate I have a problem with. (Already clearly explained) Therefore I disagree with your disingenuous BEHAVIOR here and will call out dishonesty where I see it.
lawrence Cornell says:
July 13, 2014 at 9:10 pm
Therefore I disagree with your disingenuous BEHAVIOR here and will call out dishonesty where I see it.
Since this is a fairly serious charge you must be specific and show where I have been dishonest. Quote my own words for that exactly as said. Don’t make things up. In particular you have to show that I believed that what I did was dishonest at the time. So, go ahead and show us.
From RobRoy on July 13, 2014 at 2:29 pm:
Now adding “RobRoy” to the “doesn’t realize” group.
http://woodfortrees.org/plot/rss/from:1979/to:2014.5/mean:13/plot/rss/from:1979/to:2014/trend/plot/rss/from:1979/to:1998/trend/plot/rss/from:1998/to:2014/trend/plot/rss/from:1979/to:2014.5/derivative/mean:13/plot/rss/from:1979/to:2014.5/derivative/trend/plot/rss/from:1979/to:1998/derivative/trend/plot/rss/from:1998/to:2014/derivative/trend/
Per RSS, we have had rising temperatures with rising atmospheric CO2 concentrations since 1979. While you say there has been no increase in temperature since 1998, temperatures have obviously risen faster from 1979 up to 2014, 1.25°C/century, than they did in the period since 1979 before the “no increase”, 0.82°C/century.
http://woodfortrees.org/plot/esrl-co2/from:1979/to:2014/plot/esrl-co2/from:1979/to:2014/compress:12/plot/esrl-co2/from:1979/to:2014/trend/
Using the yearly averages, from 1979 to 1997 inclusive was a 26.923ppm CO2 increase, with a 0.82°C/century increase. From 1979 to 2012 inclusive (Dec 2013 not yet official) was a 57.037ppm CO2 increase, with a 1979 up to 2013 increase (same source) of 1.25°C/century.
Atmospheric CO2 concentration went up, rate of warming increase went up. How does that not show atmospheric CO2 concentration does correlate with global warming?
See the first graph, I took the trends of the derivatives (the changes between adjoining months), which basically yields the rates of the rates of changes. From 1979 up to 1998 yields “slope = 0.000192138 per year”, while 1998 up to 2014 yields “slope = 0.000429044 per year”.
What that means, is with the additional atmospheric CO2 the size of temperature increases is going up more than double in the later period what it was in the earlier period.
Again, how does that not show atmospheric CO2 concentration does correlate with global warming?
Of course that is using the 1979 and 1998 years you mentioned. Maybe it looks different with other years…
First, I don’t HAVE to do anything. But I will try to explain to you now what dishonesty means here.
– An informal poll was taken at a conference
– Said informal poll was presented here clearly as a non scientific poll in order to SIMPLY make a point.
– I have quoted you, here, demanding that said poll be defended AS science when NO ONE here ever said it was remotely scientific.
– There is NO appeal to scientific proof here, you are creating a conflict that does not exist. For what purpose ?
– Now, in order to “misunderstand” this one would have to be either stupid or dishonest or perhaps a hormonal preteen just not paying attention.
– I don’t know you enough to know whether you are a hormonal preteen and nobody here would accuse you of being stupid, at least not me.
– I contend that you didn’t “misunderstand” at all, that your demands to have it explained in a way that was knowingly never intended were basically contrarian in nature and in essence, dishonest.
None of this is new. You KNOW the truth here. Everyone here can read and comprehend. And so can you. Your game playing here and childish demands for yet more of this and clearer that and “why ya gotta be like that ?” is just more distraction and subtrifuge … and dishonest.
davidmhoffer says:
July 13, 2014 at 8:51 pm
Konrad;
No, my claim is that without DWLWIR and atmospheric cooling average temperatures of the oceans would be far above, not just 255K, but 288K as well.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Your misunderstanding of fundamental physics is even worse than I thought.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Konrad,
I’m going to try one last time to actually help you. Not by telling you what I think the answer is, but by suggesting you research two things:
1. What the meaning of effective blackbody temperature is in the context of a planet with an atmosphere, and;
2. What the temperature of earth is as seen from space.
Either you’ll have an aha! moment, or you won’t.
lawrence Cornell says:
July 13, 2014 at 9:58 pm
– Said informal poll was presented here clearly as a non scientific poll in order to SIMPLY make a point.
The posting did not say that the poll was non scientific. Show where it said that.
– I have quoted you, here, demanding that said poll be defended AS science when NO ONE here ever said it was remotely scientific.
Quote my exact words here and now as to your claim.
Since those first two points are not true, the rest of you comment becomes moot.
@ur momisugly lsvalagaard
Congratulations on trolling this thread to the bitter end. Laughable how Monckton messed you up.
lsvalgaard says:
July 13, 2014 at 10:04 pm
Since those first two points are not true, the rest of you comment becomes moot.
I have said a couple of times that there was no science in the poll [I think you agree with that]. other people have talked about ‘science’ galore. There are 200 instances of science, scientist, or scientific.
Richard D says:
July 13, 2014 at 10:12 pm
Laughable how Monckton messed you up.
To his detriment.
lsvalgaard says:
July 13, 2014 at 10:04 pm
lawrence Cornell says:
July 13, 2014 at 9:58 pm
– Said informal poll was presented here clearly as a non scientific poll in order to SIMPLY make a point.
The posting did not say that the poll was non scientific. Show where it said that.
– I have quoted you, here, demanding that said poll be defended AS science when NO ONE here ever said it was remotely scientific.
Quote my exact words here and now as to your claim.
Since those first two points are not true, the rest of you comment becomes moot
——————————————————————————————————————–
I HAVE ADDRESSED ALL OF THIS REPEATEDLY AND CLEARLY. ARE YOU A CHILD, SERIOUSLY ? BECAUSE YOU ARE NOW ACTING LIKE ONE. REVIEW THE THREAD … COMPLETELY AND CAREFULLY… BOTH POINTS HAVE BEEN ADDRESSED, ARE TRUE AND PROVEN TO BE TRUE. IF YOU CAN’T READ, COMPREHEND, OR REFERENCE WRITTEN WORDS ON A PAGE I CANNOT HELP YOU. I AM SORRY, I AM RETIRED AND CAN’T HELP YOU WITH YOUR EXTENSIVE EGO ISSUES. YOU MUST SEEK VALIDATION ELSEWHERE. IT’S 1:30am HERE AND YOU HAVE DEVOLVED INTO SILLINESS. I WON’T PARTICIPATE. GOODNIGHT.
lsvalgaard says:
“To his detriment”
+++++++++++++++++++
Likely Monckton is snug in bed in his castle in Scotland and here you are LMAO….