Guest Post by Bob Tisdale
It’s been almost 2 years since Cook et al. (2013) Quantifying the consensus on anthropogenic global warming in the scientific literature was published. If you’re like me, you’ve lost track of the paper’s flaws, there were just so many, and how it is misrepresented, which is most of the time. Richard Tol has published an excellent summary of Cook et al. (2013) in his blog post Global warming consensus claim does not stand up (author’s cut). An edited version appeared in the Australian on March 24, 2015.
Richard’s post begins:
Now almost two years old, John Cook’s 97% consensus paper has been a runaway success. Downloaded over 300,000 times, voted the best 2013 paper in Environmental Research Letters, frequently cited by peers and politicians from around the world, with a dedicated column in the Guardian, the paper seems to be the definitive proof that the science of climate change is settled.
It isn’t.
And it concludes:
If you want to believe that climate researchers are incompetent, biased and secretive, Cook’s paper is an excellent case in point.
The rest of Richard Tol’s post is here. It’s well worth the time. Also see Andrew Montford’s comments about it in his post The Institute of Physics is Corrupt at BishopHill.
UPDATE: Jo Nova has included parts of Richard’s article in her post The 97% Cook Consensus – when will Environ Res Letters retract it?
Cook gives an online course called “Making Sense of Climate Science Denial”.
https://www.edx.org/course/making-sense-climate-science-denial-uqx-denial101x#.VRRNpuHfAsY
The course is a MOOC – massive online open course arranged by University of Queensland. The number of MOOCs are increasing rapidly as it is an effective way for universities to reach out to the broad and interested audience.
Cook’s course starts April 2015 and anyone can enroll. Prerequisites: “Basic high school science recommended.” The course description (Copied from the edx web page):
“Making Sense of Climate Science Denial
Climate change is real, so why the controversy and debate? Learn to make sense of the science and to respond to climate change denial.
About this Course
In public discussions, climate change is a highly controversial topic. However, in the scientific community, there is little controversy with 97% of climate scientists concluding humans are causing global warming.
Why the gap between the public and scientists?
What are the psychological and social drivers of the rejection of the scientific consensus?
How has climate denial influenced public perceptions and attitudes towards climate change?
This course examines the science of climate science denial.
We will look at the most common climate myths from “global warming stopped in 1998” to “global warming is caused by the sun” to “climate impacts are nothing to worry about.”
We’ll find out what lessons are to be learnt from past climate change as well as better understand how climate models predict future climate impacts. You’ll learn both the science of climate change and the techniques used to distort the science.
With every myth we debunk, you’ll learn the critical thinking needed to identify the fallacies associated with the myth. Finally, armed with all this knowledge, you’ll learn the psychology of misinformation. This will equip you to effectively respond to climate misinformation and debunk myths.
This isn’t just a climate MOOC; it’s a MOOC about how people think about climate change.”
My recommended prerequisite would be “not for well-informed and easily aggravated persons”.
On a serious note this is problematic – a mooc isnt just any course as it serves as a advertisement for the competence and profile of the university behind the course. Quite a lot of financing are behind these courses to polish them into an appealing package. All the more reason to ensure scientific principles are followed i.e. avoid speculative, controversial and biased content. Scientists are of course entitled to voice their opinion but never in the context of teaching.
“Making Sense of Climate Science Denial”
Didn’t Al Gore start something like that in the U.S. a few years ago?
Maybe he did. Anyone could give a “course” but not anyone have the mandate to give an academic course yielding academic credentials. The point I’m making that a MOOC is a course endorsed by a university to promote the university to attract students and researchers. The number of participants are unlimited. Some popular MOOCs by prestige unis have over 100000. Hence the university better be sure the course lives up to fundamental academic principles as that is what is expected; required even; of universities as they are mandated to give academic credentials to students. It is their license to operate.
To be clear about this: a MOOC doesnt always give credentials (you may get some “diploma” as proof of that you have passed the course) but the point of a MOOC is mainly to promote and display of the ability of the university to live up to the standards required by a university. I hope for the sake of Queensland Uni that the actual content of Cook’s MOOC is more substantial and nuanced and accurate than the short course description. Then again, as the main argument is the 97%-meme, my hopes are not that high.
What facts are wrong in this MOOC?
As the course has not started yet I can only judge by the description which states:
“In public discussions, climate change is a highly controversial topic.”
This is true in many places around the world.
This sentence is followed by:
“However, in the scientific community, there is little controversy with 97% of climate scientists concluding humans are causing global warming.”
This sentence is also true in itself (more or less as the methods to obtain the figure 97% can be debated) as most scientists agree that humans have some influence on the global temperature. It does neither quality how much influence humans have nor whether it has any catastrophic consequences, which are highly debated issues among scientists.
Putting the two sentences clearly linked together like this with the antagonizing “However, …” provides the message that 1) almost all scientists agree on any issue of importance regarding climate change and 2) there is only in ‘non-scientific’ public discussions that human influence on global warming is debated, both 1 and 2 are false.
Furthermore, the repeated use of the d-word, provides a message that anyone who do not think AGW is a serious threat deny science. This is false as there are several scientific publications with results supporting this conclusion. As the d-word is strongly associated with rejecting the existence of the holocaust, totally unrelated to the climate subject, this choice of word is also a baseless, i.e. false, attempt to smear non AGW proponents.
Actually the near-consensus(97%) you refer to is that more than all the warming since 1800 (1.6F) is due to Man, since without the increased greenhouse effect of elevated CO2 levels caused by the burning of fossil fuels, the Earth would have been cooling slightly, as was the natural trend just prior to the industrial age.
@warrenbot:
NAME those 97%.
‘K? Thx. I’ll wait…
[…probably forever.]
warrenlb March 28, 2015 at 5:11 pm
Actually the near-consensus(97%) you refer to is that more than all the warming since 1800 (1.6F) is due to Man, since without the increased greenhouse effect of elevated CO2 levels caused by the burning of fossil fuels, the Earth would have been cooling slightly, as was the natural trend just prior to the industrial age.
————————
Eh ?? I think the percentage of climate scientists that would agree with that statement is probably 0.00%. Show me one name, and I’ll show you one loony.
@philincalifornia:
You apparently have no idea what global average temperatures have been doing for the last 5000 years — i.e., slowly decreasing until the industrial age and CO2 emissions began in earnest: http://www.skepticalscience.com//pics/Shakun_Marcott_HadCRUT4_A1B_500.png
Are you going to address my comment, or stay in deflection mode for all to see ?
philincalifornia,
warrenbot appears to be formulating his response, which will begin: “All the World’s Scientific Institutions, and all the Universities, and all the Governments, and every possible peer-reviewed journal on Planet Earth is in total agreement that MMGW must be true, true, true! It’s a factoid that I teach, it’s true I tell ya, it’s true!”
Or something very similar.
Anything but debate facts and evidence, and anything except answer questions.
That’s the warrenbot M.O. All appeals to corrupt authorities, all the time; he’s a real one-trick pony.
So I think we’ll be waiting until there’s ice-skating in hell before the warrenbot produces the names of his mythical “97%”.
Even if the warrenbot produces a name or two (doubtful), that will start the fun. Because we can produce more than 32,000 names. So, let the games begin!
Yeah, it’s taking a long time to type two words – a name, isn’t it ?
The hilarious thing is that if he was correct, it would have been quite possibly the most fortuitous positive thing that humanity ever did for itself. Pity the evidence says no and, when the next ice age is upon us, no amount of CO2 with its pathetic “warming” effect will help us, although with vastly reduced water vapor levels, maybe I’m wrong. I hope so, but I don’t look to Antarctica for any warm and fuzzy feeling on that !!
@philincalifornia.
Did you even look at the graph? If earth was slowly cooling beginning about 5000 years ago, and then the AGW-driven temperature spike occurs in the industrial age, overlaying a slow natural cooling, what do you think that says about the magnitude of man-caused temperature change vs total warming? To make it easy for you, a multiple choice: Less than, Same as, More Than.
Eh ?? I think the percentage of climate scientists that would agree with that statement is probably 0.00%. Show me one name, and I’ll show you one loony.
…. is what you are unable to answer. Thank you.
Two days later, and I’m still waiting for the warrenbot to post the names of that mythical ‘97%’.
Also, warrenbot’s Chicken Little concern about the big rise in global temperature is actually over a mere 0.7º rise — in a century and a half!
Hardly anything to be worried about.
@philicalifornia. You haven’t acknowledged that you looked at the graph I posted. Have you? Do you understand what it means?
This 97% thing is like the “Hands Up. Don’t Shoot” of the AGW movement. It was accepted as fact and spread around by millions of people without first investigating the underlying validity. It became accepted and part of the narrative. Once it was demonstrated as being false, people were still treating it like it actually happened.
It’s a false dichotomy. Lukewarmers fit those 97% constraints and most skeptics (the great majority in the journals) are lukewarmers. The surfacestations paper would have to be be interpreted as a 97%-er, too, for that matter.
It is a welcome challenge for people as disparate as movie actors, politicians, radio disc jockeys, day time show hosts, activists to come up with slogans. A good slogans have the extraordinary ability to enter a societies sub-consciousness and stick. Clint Eastwoods “Make my Day”, “Flip-Flops” used against Kerry in the presidential campaign, the “99%” in Operation Wall Street and TV/radio/news show promos are all examples.
“97%” is a slogan, it is irrelevant whether a study proves or dis-proves it. That 97% is meaningless nonsensical in terms of demonstrating anything relating to reality is irrelevant. The fact that people are still pushing a slogan as proof of AGW is relevant.
Reminds me of another slogan from a presidential campaign “Where’s the beef?”, which was effective in showing that their was no substance behind the claims of a political opponent. Humorously this slogan applies well to AGW claims.
Unfortunately we end up with too many alarmingly incompetent leaders in Washington due to elections being a battle of the slogans instead of a battle of ideas and qualifications.
Excellent work Dr. Tol documenting and exposing the lengths true believers will go to in order to convince others of the truth and importance of their cause and the ease upon which even the most inane premise is celebrated if it is suitable for advocacy. Us skeptics of anthropogenically dominated, dangerous, and devoid of benefit climate change are often charged with the thought “crime” of being faux-skeptics that readily accept any off the wall hypothesis as long as it does not involve CO2 being a major influence but it is the beneficiaries of the disproportionate funding in favor of taking extensive action on climate change that not only readily accepted but lauded such “work” as Cook’s fiction with such uncritical fervor as to make it difficult indeed not to conclude that it is actually them that are “faux”.
As you have ‘lauded’ Tol’s baseless false allegations with such ‘uncritical fervour’, the term ‘faux-skeptic’ seems apt. Cook’s work is not fiction. It’s easily repeatable. It’s not rocket science. It’s just a survey of the level of consensus in the academic literature about the basic premise of anthropogenic climate change by rating abstracts, and includes a 2nd stage where scientists were emailed to self-rate their own full papers.
The fact that Tol has spent 2 years obsessing about trying to find flaws (and resorting to making up ‘flaws’ by deliberate misrepresentation) with a study whose results he actually agrees with, is rather puzzling. He could have repeated the study himself 100 times over by now.
Give it up, Ceefer. Tol destroyed Cook. Deal with reality.
Sounds like Tol’s issue is with Cook personally, rather than with the 97% conclusion, since he explicitly says he believes there is a Scientific consensus that Climate Change is caused by Man.
Dr. Tol must have more important things to do now than to continue to obsess over a cartoonists scientific joke. I said so the last few times he railed about it. There is no removing it from the minds of those who use it.
Humans have built towns and cities.
.
They are considerably warmer than the green fields they replaced.
.
Since temperatures in cities are included in the global average temperature, as cities grow the warm urban areas became a larger percentage of the Earth and make the average temperature of Earth at least slightly warmer.
.
So what if 97%, or 98%, or even 100% of scientists agree on something?
.
Throughout history, that’s been an excellent leading indicator that one or two brilliant scientists would eventually come along and prove them wrong!
.
A one degree increase in the average temperature since the late 1800s is nothing more than a meaningless random variation, being used as an ‘opening act’ by leftists to support their current boogeyman: Computer game climate astrology.
.
Of course every leftist boogeyman, from acid rain, to the hole in the ozone layer, to the latest global warming boogeyman, “requires” the same response: More government power to save the world.
.
But who is going to save the world from those smarmy leftists?
My climate blog:
http://www.elOnionBloggle.blogspot.com
“So what if 97%, or 98%, or even 100% of scientists agree on something?
Throughout history, that’s been an excellent leading indicator that one or two brilliant scientists would eventually come along and prove them wrong!”
Your data for this remarkable ‘conclusion’?
Richard Greene says:
So what if 97%, or 98%, or even 100% of scientists agree on something?
They don’t. It’s a lie.
If I’m wrong, then name those “97%”. Up to now it has been a baseless assertion.
@dbstealey. Talk to Richard Greene. I quoted him.
warrenbot:
As I said:
If I’m wrong, then name those “97%”. Up to now it has been a baseless assertion.
Deflecting to another subject doesn’t work. Either produce verifiable names, or your “97%” is meaningless carp.
@DBSteaely.
Your posts consist of intimidation and junk science, punctuated with periodic whines about ‘appeals to authority’. Whereas you reply with your own appeal to authority, except it’s junk authority — eg, the OISM. You have no credibility in the world of science, except possibly in Metrology –where you should have stayed.
The Pope is Roman Catholic.
The Roman Catholic Church is the largest Christian denomination in the world.
Rev. Billy Graham was a Christian.
Cook’s methodology would conclude that Billy Graham was a Roman Catholic.
http://opr.ca.gov/s_listoforganizations.php
They are ‘only’ 197 Scientific and Engineering Associations, representing tens of thousands of Scientists and Engineers, who have gone on record stating that human-caused climate change is real. Here is just ONE of those Associations, the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS): “The overwhelming evidence of human-caused climate change documents… extraordinary future risks to society…many people do not yet understand that there is a small, but real chance of abrupt, unpredictable and potentially irreversible changes with highly damaging impacts… around the world”
http://whatweknow.aaas.org/get-the-facts/
Looks more like 100% to me.
warrenlb is a robot. I am convinced of it.
‘He’ incessantly emits the logical fallacy of Appeal to Authority. It is his priimary argument. He has to use it, because he has no credible facts or evidence to support his belief system.
This isn’t the first time a ‘bot has commented, and unfortunately, those comments will become more and more common.
The “Scientific and Engineering Associations, representing tens of thousands of Scientists and Engineers, who have gone on record stating that human-caused climate change is real”, one of which I am, and have been a member of for over 40 years, do not necessarily reflect the views of all or possibly even a majority of the members of said organizations,
While I have received my annual dues statement with regularity, I do not recall ever being asked my opinion on anthropogenic global warming/climate change/climate disruption, or whatever name is in vogue at the moment.
Candidates for office nay have included their position on the issue when information on their background and qualifications was presented with ballots, but if so, it was only a brief mention.
Or maybe ‘only’ 97% : http://climate.nasa.gov/scientific-consensus/
Thanx for the link, warrenbot. It proves beyond any doubt that NASA is fraudulent.
The OISM Petition has withstood every attempt to falsify it. With 30,000+ verified names, it completely debunks the “consensus” nonsense, including NASA’s ridiculous “97%”.
I note that the OISM co-signers are named — every one of them. But NASA does not name a single one of their “97%”. Thus, NASA’s credibility = zero.
‘OISM’? Verified names Including the Spice Girls and Charles Darwin! Quite a high class document.
warrenbot says:
“Verified” names??
Liar.
Show us where in the OISM site you found those names: the Spice Girls and Charles Darwin.
And:
…representing tens of thousands of Scientists and Engineers…
Name them.
Or your comment is pure fiction.
I cannot find a YouTube copy of a TV segment of an Australian TV show hosted by Rove McManus, but a segment was called “Warren” and it was full of carp! A familiar theme by warrenlb it seems.
Can you rebut with facts?
“Facts” LOLOL!!
Wake me when the warrenbot emits facts.
I’d take Tol’s opinion over Cook’s about climate change any day!
So, Patrick you agree with Richard Tol’s opinion that “There is no doubt in my mind that the literature on climate change overwhelmingly supports the hypothesis that climate change is caused by humans. I have very little reason to doubt that the consensus is indeed correct.” – Richard Tol
Some have asked why I keep going back to Cook. Truth be told, the piece in the Australian is a much-delayed, much-revised version of a comment I offered first to Environmental Research Letters (and later to other news outlets). That said, prodding Cook and co often leads to additional information, like here http://richardtol.blogspot.co.uk/2015/03/ppps-cooks-missing-papers.html
#itworsethanwethought
(Another wasted effort by a banned sockpuppet. Comment DELETED. -mod)
it certainly is not supported by their analysis
(Another wasted effort by a banned sockpuppet. Comment DELETED. -mod)
(Another wasted effort by a banned sockpuppet. Comment DELETED. -mod)
@richard Tol: Did you say this? — “There is no doubt in my mind that the literature on climate change overwhelmingly supports the hypothesis that climate change is caused by humans. I have very little reason to doubt that the consensus is indeed correct.” – Richard Tol
What “missing papers” Richard? You mean gaps in the number sequence of database unique article IDs because duplicate papers were removed? Long before the ratings even commenced? Are you seriously unaware of how databases work? Or are you that obsessed with finding something, anything, anything at all, ‘wrong’ that you’ll just make things up? The irony is that you are on record as agreeing with the fact that there is a consensus in the literature.
““There is no doubt in my mind that the literature on climate change overwhelmingly supports the hypothesis that climate change is caused by humans. I have very little reason to doubt that the consensus is indeed correct.”- Richard Tol
(Another wasted effort by a banned sockpuppet. Comment DELETED. -mod)
icouldnthelpmyself,
Can’t you read?? Quit pestering the man.
[Snip. This is not the real Newt Love. This is the banned troll:
David Socrates
Gordon Ford
beckleybud
juan
Edward Richardson
Pyromancer76…
And many other fake names. Now he has started engaging in identity theft by impersonating legitimate commenters. ~mod.]
Sure they weren’t talking about the satisfaction rate of certain insurance company?