Guest essay by Eric Worrall
The Guardian reports that discussions of climate policy are being displaced by “attacks” on climate science.
Naturally the Guardian, and the authors of the study, blame a conspiracy of climate skeptics, rather than considering other possibilities, such as legitimate doubts raised by the Climategate fiasco, and the utter inability of climate scientists to get any predictions right.
According to The Guardian;
Era of climate science denial is not over, study finds
Conservative thinktanks in the US engaging in climate change have increased their attacks on science in recent years, a study of 16,000 documents finds.
Is organised climate science denial finished?
After global heat records were continually broken over the last decade, and as sea levels rose and scientists reported the accelerated melting of polar ice sheets, you might be forgiven for thinking the debate over climate change had shifted.
No more arguing over the science? It’s more about the policy now, right?
Well, wrong. At least according to a new study that has looked at 15 years worth of output from 19 conservative “thinktanks” in the United States.
“We find little support for the claim that ‘the era of science denial is over’ – instead, discussion of climate science has generally increased over the sample period,” the study concludes.
The conservative thinktanks under the microscope are the main cog in the machinery of climate science denial across the globe, pushing a constant stream of material into the public domain.
Sadly the main study is paywalled, but the following is the abstract of the study;
Text-mining the signals of climate change doubt
Highlights
- Think-tank contrarian information has increased exponentially over 1998–2013.
- Sceptical themes are diverse and range from scientific integrity to policy.
- Science-related discourse has grown relative to policy in key sceptic organisations.
- Think-tank discourse is highly influenced by external factors.
- We generate longitudinal data on think-tank contrarian themes over a 16 year period.
Abstract
Climate scientists overwhelmingly agree that the Earth is getting warmer and that the rise in average global temperature is predominantly due to human activity. Yet a significant proportion of the American public, as well as a considerable number of legislators in the U.S. Congress, continue to reject the “consensus view.” While the source of the disagreement is varied, one prominent explanation centres on the activities of a coordinated and well-funded countermovement of climate sceptics. This study contributes to the literature on organized climate scepticism by providing the first systematic overview of conservative think tank sceptical discourse in nearly 15 years. Specifically, we (1) compile the largest corpus of contrarian literature to date, collecting over 16,000 documents from 19 organizations over the period 1998–2013; (2) introduce a methodology to measure key themes in the corpus which scales to the substantial increase in content generated by conservative think tanks over the past decade; and (3) leverage this new methodology to shed light on the relative prevalence of science- and policy-related discussion among conservative think tanks. We find little support for the claim that “the era of science denial is over”—instead, discussion of climate science has generally increased over the sample period.
Read more: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0959378015300728
Climate alarmists frequently accuse skeptics of believing in baseless conspiracy theories, but when you read something like this, it is pretty plain which side of the climate debate is living in fantasy land.
The Earth has spoken, and a “problem” which is no problem is NO PROBLEM. Anyone who made it out of the 7th grade is capable of deciding for themselves upon perusing the evidence.
Problem is, too many people who’ve surpassed 7th grade would still rather depend on others to tell them what is correct rather than doing the perusal work. Too many people graduate high school and still haven’t the capacity for critical thinking
“The Guardian reports that discussions of climate policy are being displaced by “attacks” on climate science.”
If liars do not like to be “attacked”, they should stop lying.
Basing an entire field in scientific inquiry on an increasingly more transparent series of lies, is not fertile ground for widespread and harmonious agreement.
A wee bit obsessive, are they not?
+1
“A wee bit obsessive, are they not?”
They’re trying to keep themselves convinced.
Their mental gymnastics are more impressive than anything at the Olympics. Natural variability is willfully ignored. “The Earth reached a temperature in the mid Holocene that was ‘just right’, and it would have stayed that way in perpetuity if not for human release of CO2 blah blah blah”… (quotes mine)
It’s little better than Young Earth Creationism, from a scientific point of view. In addition to willful ignorance, add some original sin and a double helping of hubris, and you get CAGW.
“We find… discussion of climate science has generally increased over the sample period.”
—————
Thanks.
Yes, Alan, good job all you long-time WUWTers!!
****************************************************
And … Anthony, HERE’S TO YOU!
“Welcome to Watts Up With That”
November 17, 2006
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2006/11/17/welcome-to-watts-up-with-that/
Now, why am I tearing up…
Just look at what a DIFFERENCE you have made!
GO, WUWT!
Go, freedom.
If you read that post by Anthony on 11/17/06, you will tear up, too, O Silent Reader.
Dear Janice, how many times do I have to tell you…” leave my eyes alone, I have enough leaks as it is ” !! LOL
I followed that link, and was surprised to find no mention of Anthony’ meteorological ineterests and skills, nor of climate change. When did climate change enter the scene at WUWT? Certainly by July 2007 when I started reading, following a link from ClimateAudit.
Anyway, we can look forward to a 10th anniversary celebration this autumn/fall.
Rich.
Say what? This is just the personal blog of some guy in Chico?
: )
I had to laugh (eventually), Janice . . reading that opening scene, knowing what was about to happen . . “So does anybody have any gee-whiz questions?”
Discussion of science has increased?
How terrible!
Such an incitement on our society!!
I conducted a study about Glo.Bull Warming and found that 97.1 % agreed with me…
{ Did I mention that I only asked myself ?? } Not sure what happened to the other 2.9 %….
Can I have some grant money to study why I am not 100% behind the GloBull Warming scam ?
That is a worry Marcus, perhaps it’s an example of split personality created by those evil Denialists. That must be worth a grant to study. What if it happens to others? Definitely a multi-year study demanding the appropriate Government support!
Actually it opens up multiple scenarios. As the fog of cognitive dissonance starts to lift, the standard keepers can commit quite abusive behavior. In today’s day and age, your likely to see variations of harassment and intimidation cases being brought to bare.
OMG Knute, I’m abusing myself….wait, that didn’t come out right !…
Bad losers.
Actually, they’re wicked losers. And wicked people act wickedly when they lose, so look out–things are going to get lots worse before they get better, IMHO.
The awakening process from cognitive dissonance can be quite traumatic.
“The awakening process from cognitive dissonance can be quite traumatic” and since it starts with massive denial of the input creating the dissonance, the AGWists are in massive denial. It’s a pity the innocent have to undergo trauma inflicted in this denial process by the AGWists upon them.
They find it impossible to see there is no evidence that climate change is caused by human activity. They are in denial that climate change is a naturally occurring phenomena – that is the core of their desperation as it would destroy their far-left goal of global social control.
contrarian information has increased exponentially over 1998–2013
=====================
what the heck is contrarian information?
Information is information. either it is true, false, or uncertain.
the reader may not like the content, but that in no way changes the information. it still remains true, false or uncertain, regardless of the reader’s opinion.
so, to be contrarian, the information must be contrary to belief. If it was contrary to fact it would either be false or uncertain.
It is contrarian when it shows a weakness of the case of the prosecutor.
For example, the girl says we was raped but she bragged about sleeping with the guy the next day, is contrarian.
For example, “flu” vaccine “works” as well against influenza as it “works” against others “flu”, and there is no known way it could actually work against anything but influenza, is contrarian.
For example, “temperature reconstitutions” cannot reconstitute the present – unless calibrated with the present, is contrarian.
These facts are “contrarian” for people who think
– that rape is so terrible it should even be prosecuted when there is clearly no rape
– that people critical of inefficient dangerous vaccines are pro-diseases (I am NOT making this up)
– that wild guesses as to how trees grow doesn’t count as science
There was a post in an Australian blog about the behaviour of a West Indian sportsman towards a female interviewer . The regular readers were mostly in complete in disagreement with the blogger and believed that it was all blown out of proportion (not that he didn’t behave like a knob). A usual ‘contrarian’ reader disagreed with the regulars and commented that more women than men get raped.
Our media is pushing us to accept such allegations as fact like they want us to be ashamed of spotting faults with AGW. No good can come of it.
What I’m trying to figure out is why they have this NEED for the world to be ending? Wouldn’t any rational person be RELIEVED if there is no environmental cataclysm incipient? They seem to want it to be true . . .
Culture has become adept at creating faux urgency. CAGW is an example of that trend. Seems to be escalating. I’m of the mind that it is a result of competing desires among people. We want this unattainable kumbayah agreement among all competing factors, yet we find ourselves elevating power via polarization.
Something has to give.
They don’t need the world to be ending, they just need for everyone to believe that the world is ending. So that we will keep giving them money and power.
“They don’t need the world to be ending, they just need for everyone to believe that the world is ending. So that we will keep giving them money and power.”
They just need us BLIND markw…we don’t even have to believe as long as we don’t look behind the curtain and expose the wizards for what they are. But times, they are a changin!
Once people look into this seriously they find lies, obstruction and hiding of evidence to back up their claims. They look behind the curtain and their eyes become very clear.
It’s a leftist lust for power, nothing more.
Yo. Team AGW. You got it. We are still out here. And that rumbling you hear is our tanks…. about to enter Baghdad… .
No, lol. You are not “weeening.”
CO2 EMISSIONS UP. WARMING STOPPED.
Game over.
Ahhh – the conspiracy is growing. Conspiracies do that. Luckily, we can foil these evil manipulators by wearing our tinfoil hats. No matter how much contrary information they produce we can go on just like before, ignoring anything we don’t like.
Gnome!!! You have fallen into their trap!! The tinfoli is
an “ANTENNA”.You are boosting the signal. TAKE IT OFF!
Ok how about a lead-lined bomb shelter?
Admittedly, I started to doubt global warming because of the source. Checking out the arguments on both sides only reenforced my initial impression. I have some experience with smelling bad arguments, as one side of the family was Birchers, and the other side was Red Diaper Babies. (or how to turn small l libertarian).
“we compile the largest corpus of contrarian literature to date, collecting over 16,000 documents from 19 organizations over the period 1998–2013”
If the result doesn’t include something 97% then hand back your PhDs.
They are losing on the science so they must attack the skeptics with all these psychology papers.
‘psychology ‘ has nothing to do with it at all. The authors ‘credentials’;
Constantine Boussalis
Department of Political Science, Trinity College Dublin
Travis G. Coan
Department of Politics and Exeter Q-Step Centre, University of Exeter
It’s ALL politics.
BruceC January 8, 2016 at 5:59 pm
“It’s ALL politics.”
Good catch on them being Political Science.
Probably just another case of publish or perish
Perhaps instead of just documenting the “Think Tank” writings they might have ah, read them? perhaps fact checked them with an open mind?
Yes silly me.
Oh and isn’t Think Tank two words?
michael
You will also note Mike, the Guardian article fails to mention their ‘credentials’.
Add the two others I saw mention on the gaurdian article..
Farrell (culture, environment and social movement, whatever that is)
McCright (socilogy)
Not ONE JOT of any real science among the lot of them.. as is patently obvious.
These people come from what we called the “do nothing end of campus” when I was an engineering student at the University of Utah.
Some things never change.
‘Think tank’ means ‘Think you are tanked yet? If not, drink some more booze.’
“Social movement” means defecating in public. Yes. He probably does that.
Dalquist,
“Social movement” means defecating in public. Yes. He probably does that.”
You owe me a new laptop and a Pepsi! ROFL
“After global heat records were continually broken over the last decade”
And tnat simply gets the elephant in the room stamping its feet and asking the question, is that with or without the daily upward adjustments?
All according to worlds best secret practice of course.
Yes, I know, I’d probably(wouldn’t) not understand them but there’s a hell of a lot of their “peers” asking the same bloody question that certainly would.
As a couple very simple examples, on the 1st of January the BOM’s log on the weather station at our airport recorded a top temperature of 26.2. Less than 24 hours later that had mysteriously “jumped” to 27.4!
The 20th is particularly gauling as a new December “record was set”.
The maximum temperature recorded that day, according to the stations log was 40.9 at no stage in that log did it click over to 41, yet mysteriously overnight that had suddenly jumped to 41.6!
Miraculously surpassing the previous record of December 2005 of 41.5!
On different days right through December I noted upward adustments of between 0.4 and 1.5 degrees C.
Then they have the absolute gaul to tell me it was the “hottest” December ever!
I’m sorry for the rant but I simply cannot be payed for a mug and say nothing!
That was played not payed. All offers will be discretly considered though.
I’ve been waiting years for the Big Oil Conspiracy to send me my check…
Do not apologize! That was TERRIFIC. Their “highest ever” is so misleading it is essentially a l1e. RSS and UAH surface temps. show (given the error bars) essentially NO warming for yearly TWENTY YEARS. The fact that up on top of this 1997/98 El Nino – created plateau there are a few big boulders does change the fact: CO2 UP. WARMING STOPPED.
GO, LEIGH!
“nearly” (same finger… 🙂 )
When you point out that it has been warmer several times in the past 11,000 years…. you must be paid by the fossil fuel industry!
Really? How about “you must just be smart”?
I do like your use of ‘gaul’, given the recent climate idiocy on display in France.
You give an excellent example why it is getting to the point that even the “raw” land-based temperature record must be viewed with some doubt/skepticism. Not saying it is the case in this individual situation, but with global warming being such a political issue it is fully believable that there might be global warming “enthusiasts” who would do such a thing and think they, after all, were just helping the “cause”. In the first half of the 20th century the dedicated, diligent observers would never even considering ‘putting their finger on the scale’. And ironically, is the early data that is adjusted the most, such as in Providence, RI, where NASA satellites found a UHI effect of 22°F ( http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/heat-island-sprawl.html ), but the USHCN “adjusted” temperature lowers the annual mean temperature by over 4°F! That’s equivalent to saying that every one of the recorded max & min temperatures for all 365 days of 1900 were wrong by 4F. That’s an unbelievable claim and backwards for UHI.
In this day of technology, all ground-based data should come from fully automated weather systems such as the Oklahoma Mesonet system ( http://mesonet.org/ ), which have triple redundancy temperature sensors and automatically record and verify the data every 5 minutes and make it available to the public within 10 minutes of being acquired, has excellent real time visual graphics, and you can download the historical data going back to 1994. This system has been in operation for over 20 years.
In 2009, when I compared the 1994-2008 GISS adjusted data, the USHCN adjusted data and the Mesonet measured data for Ada, OK, the USHCN adjusted showed that the temperature had warmed at a rate of 0.31°C/decade; the GISS homogenized showed that the temperature had warmed at a rate of 0.52°C/decade; and the raw unadjusted or handled by human hands Mesonet data showed that Ada, OK cooled by 0.31°C/decade.
The current “adjustments” corrupt the land datasets. When I say they are “corrupted”, I’m not implying bad motives (may or may not be true), I am saying that the data loses its usefulness for scientific purposes and can actually be detrimental to real science and cause false conclusions to be drawn. Eg., if someone does some research examining a physical parameter and finds a physical phenomenon that suggests it should have caused significant cooling of the climate from 1940s-1970s but looks at the current data from GISS and sees no cooling of the climate,(~0.1°C) they would falsely conclude that it doesn’t, when in reality it may indeed have been a significant factor. because the contemporary temperature record showed ~0.4-0.5°C of cooling(5yr running means). This is why the original raw measured data should always be shown, with notes as to what other considerations might be given to the data. That is not what is being done today.
A look here would probably clarify mine and the “outsider” scientific community’s angst at [bureaus] of meteorologys or their equivalents around the world.
Here in Australia we had the chance to expose their dirty little “tricks” of temperature enhancements but we’re again thwarted by a global warmist in the government.
http://joannenova.com.au/2015/06/if-it-cant-be-replicated-it-isnt-science-bom-admits-temperature-adjustments-are-secret/
And don’t for one instance think the Australian public is the only ones being stonewalled by this publicly funded cartel of weather [bureaus] around the world.
Have a look at the shite fight that is ongoing in America for exactly the same reasons.
Their refusal to explain their methodology “in worlds best practice” of tricking temperature records UP!
I don’t give flying fruit who you are if the log at a temperature station records a “top” temperature not just today but a hundred years ago I want to know how and why it just got hotter or cooler than was actually recorded!
And again I’m ranting.
The numbers of denialists isn’t growing, the number of delusionals is shrinking, while the ranks of people who couldn’t care less is swelling. Including the politicos at Paris that neatly bent the greenies over the desk and went through the motions. And the greenies thought it was “true love.” Sucka’s! … lmao.
For how many years now has the Guardian been at this??? One would think they were tired of it by now. For how many more years will they continue – and for how many more years will the suckers continue buying the paper ??
Indeed,
I loooong ago became disillusioned with the G (implies I was “illusioned” of course but I’ve got over that) and now simply look on at them with astonishment and wonder just how are they going to be able to defend their attitude and behaviours when they also move on from this?
My guess is they won’t even try…..
Doesn’t this “paper” constitute “proof” that all the OTHER articles the Guardian published in the recent past about “Denialism is Dead” …were wrong? Dana Nuttybelly is wrong. Bill McKibben is wrong. Everyone on the AGW side who claimed otherwise…just got proven wrong…by AGW evidence!
You can’t fix stupid, not even with more stupid!
Unless you wear ” SNUGGIES “
Marcus…you HUSH yer mouth right now! 🙂
Hopefully with their falling circulation and continued losses, the Guardian might not be with us too much longer. If we can kill off the BBC that would put a massive hole in their circulation. Not sure if they pay for copies or it is issued to the BBC free to make sure their news output is correct and suitable bias is included in all programming – after all the head of comedy took part in the 28Gate climate change briefing.
We in Canada quite often hear the Gruniad quoted on the CBC as the source of one of their many stories, all of which support the “climate change” belief. Along with the NYT, And the WaPo.
Ian M
Perhaps to use in the toilet . . .
“in the toilet”
like the Pravda?
“Think-tank contrarian information has increased exponentially over 1998–2013.”
Yes, but contrarian food supply only increased linearly.
We are heading toward a big contrarian starvation. We need more sustainable information.
they are absolutely correct from their point of view but great news for the sane people amongst us that know what a crock of sht they have been trying to sell us.
But John, these snake oil “salesmen” are not selling and they still have their hands in taxpayers pockets right around the world.
How do we stop them?
We tried in Australia and he was politicly assassinated by a global warmist in his party.
Canada has done exactly the same thing.
Both are now going about restoring the taxpayer funding that was cut from these thieving barstards.
People will be taxed to the point where they’ll take it no longer, and then they’ll be taxed some more. Stupidity must be a synonym for tax payer.
@ AGWers:
We science realists are not your main “den1er.” You are daily being soundly refuted and defeated in your humanity-damning pseudo-science by one far more powerful than all of us put together:
Earth
(youtube by Bravo1989Tango)
The first sentence in the Abstract says that “Climate scientists overwhelmingly agree that the Earth is getting warmer and that the rise in average global temperature is predominantly due to human activity.” —
This statement itself is a faulty observation.
Human activity — there are several components of human activity.
Alarmists are using human activity to refer anthropogenic greenhouse gases emissions but deniel group says there are several other human activities that affect temperature.
Even IPCC agreed that the greenhouse effect component is more than half of the increase and the non-greenhouse effect part is less than half — a qualitative statement.
Even in the greenhouse effect component in addition to human induced anthropogenic gases, there is another component of natural effect through volcanic activity.
For quantifying the anthropogenic greenhouse gases component, IPCC is using trial and error approach in the identifying correct sensitivity factor — in each report they reduced this factor and this factor has plus or minus 50% range over the mean.
In addition to the trend, the systematic variation component plays important role. We need to take in to account all these.
To tell these, is not denial of climate science. It only brings the climate science in right perspective. Also, the temperatures are widely varied with the space and time in climate system.
Dr. S. Jeevananda Reddy
If you’re in the plurality then how can it be a conspiracy?
Indeed
minor detail eh ?
I am curious about the source of the funding for the “well funded” work by skeptics. I would like some of that funding. I think the funding goes the other way by about 1,000 to 1 or so.
+1
The IPCC budget itself was $7.5 million in 2015. Look at the amounts spent on meetings. How the hell does one spend $140,000 on a single meeting?
http://www.ipcc.ch/apps/eventmanager/documents/31/250820150923-Doc.%202,%20Rev.1%20-%20IPCC%20Programme%20and%20Budget.pdf
Dessert???
That’s easy. Invite Al Gore et al and reimburse their travel expenses.
Call Professor Lewinsky. Conspiracy theorists also tend to believe that the Earth is flat. (Actually, some models assume it.)
Excellent CG. +100
And that NASA faked the moon landing! GRAHAM READFEARN is a conspiracy theorist!
The warmists must know that almost all (pick a percentage) of dooms day climate skeptics are not paid by big oil, yet they make it sound we are all having weekly meetings to contrive some unwarranted conspiracy to overthrow a fact that is somehow in our best interest. It is funny to be on the other side of the fence just to see how ridiculous it sounds. It is inconceivable to them we have free thinking minds.
On the light side, please grant me some leeway on this science orientated site to quote a few references from the Princess Bride movie (it is Friday night after all) that could apply:
Westley: Give us the gate key.
Yellin: I have no gate key.
Inigo Montoya: Fezzik, tear his arms off.
Yellin: Oh, you mean *this* gate key.
Buttercup: You mock my pain.
Man in Black: Life is pain, Highness. Anyone who says differently is selling something.
Miracle Max: You rush a miracle man, you get rotten miracles.
Vizzini: You’re trying to kidnap what I’ve rightfully stolen.
Independent thought is what the warmists fear most. Have you noticed they belong to a collective?–one in which independent thought is not tolerated; submission to their borg-like cult is required or their house of cards comes tumbling down.
Weird how they get comfort and security out of a bunch of cards, the idiots.
Hey, save me a seat up front at this weeks meeting, eh?
Grrrh … Lewandowsky.
Or Lew an’ donkey?
“Climate scientists overwhelmingly agree that the Earth is getting warmer and that the rise in average global temperature is predominantly due to human activity.”
– Abstract
“That sector is not disputed. It’s clearly ours”
– Kor, the Klingon
The only climate deniers I know are those who deny the MWP, Little Ice Ace, Dust Bowl, Holocene Optimum, warmth of the Eemian and earlier interglacials, this week’s cold wave, the decrease in hurricanes and tornadoes, and the 20-year standstill of accurately measured global temperatures.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0959378015300728:
“We find little support for the claim that “the era of science denial is over”—instead, discussion of climate science has generally increased over the sample period.”
“Yet a significant proportion of the American public, as well as a considerable number of legislators in the U.S. Congress, continue to reject the “consensus view.”
“Highlights
•
Think-tank contrarian information has increased exponentially over 1998–2013.
•
Sceptical themes are diverse and range from scientific integrity to policy.
•
Science-related discourse has grown relative to policy in key sceptic organizations.
….”
WR: in fact, they say: “We need to take them more seriously. Science is not settled. The ‘others’ are growing, their number is significant and the number of subjects they critisize isn’t only one but is large and very diverse”.
This study is a compliment for the 19 organisations and their 16.000 documents.
Climate science is sacred. Abandon all discussion. Heretics will be punished by RICO.
I’m not “organized;” however my attacks will continue unabated.
First, I know few “contrarians” who are within organisations, so presumably their (large) contribution has not been measured.
Second, most work at this for free, so the chances of organisational funding and toeing a line are rare.
Third and most important, every scientist should take on the general science (if interested and capable) and make comments. They should not be regarded as sceptical. They are helping the science in the time-honoured manner. Science has always advanced this way.
It is the Establishment scientists and acolytes who are mostly trying to derail science from its established, proven tracks. That is what is abnormal.
Geoff.
Throughout the history of ‘science’ the rulers have always held ground wherever it is ‘orthodox’ and scientists have to go against the reigning orthodoxy and this is highly dangerous, ask Galileo about the Inquisition when he said the earth went around the sun!
The rulers love the global warming scheme because they can tax thin air that is plant food. This way, they line their own pockets and nothing real changes! A win/win for them. This is why they use some of the public tax loot to reward anyone who screams we will all die unless thin air is taxed heavily.
And that I think is why we will never be rid of it. The stakes are just too high and armed with their forever completely unfasifiable hypothesis they can sit there in perpetuity taxing the air we breathe. As time goes by and nothing much of anything happens they are reinforced in this position through the simple claim that had we not all been thoroughly taxed we would by now be running in fear from catastrophic climate change.
Bu no. Must not despair. If the combined effects of AMO, PDO and solar cycle do indeed stack up to give us a significant cooling in the nearish term then there’s going to be a lot of very angry former dupes wanting to know why their energy systems are no longer coping.
“Climate scientists overwhelmingly agree that the Earth is getting warmer and that the rise in average global temperature is predominantly due to human activity.”
– Abstract
“That sector is not disputed. It’s clearly ours”
– Kor, the Klingon
The only climate change den*ers I’ve seen are those who d*ny the climate changes of the Medieval Warm Period, Little Ice Age, Holocene optimum, the Eemian and earlier warm interglacials, the Dust Bowl, the absence of US hurricanes since 2005, the decrease of tornadoes of late, this week’s cold spell, and the 19-year standstill of accurately measured global temperatures.
Is it just me ?
Wouldn’t you want to spread freely (as opposed to paywalled ), any tome that purports to save mankind from itself ?
“Enquiring minds want to know”.
These people demand to get paid for their lies.
I’m not sure what to do with my WUWT check ? /sarc
Does WUWT qualify as a skeptics thinktank ?
What are the categories of the 16,000 documents.
This must be an example of all that new fangled big data mining.
Ugh, 35 bucks to read the study ?
I was looking forward to the read.
CNN just did a “debate” on “gun control” with the President of the USA. When will they do a debate on climate change, er global warming, with both sides being represented? The President has inferred that this is a worse problem than terrorism or gun violence, or anything. Where is the debate?
20 years from now the 8 years of this President will be ranked near the bottom or maybe a 3-way tie. (James Buchanan, Warren G. Harding, and the current guy)
No, the current guy is much worse than those other two, or any of the other presidents.
The “current guy” is the greatest enabler of radical Islamic terrorism in world history. His premature withdrawal from Iraq spawned the Islamic Terror Army, and he is planning on giving the Mad Mullahs of Iran, the biggest state-sponsor of terrorism in the world, an extra $150 billion in the next few days. That alone ought to put him at the bottom of the pack.
TA
In terms of current affairs I can think of no less defensible position than to claim CAGW as the world’s greatest threat then unleash Iran’s CO2 spewing oil fields on that same earth. It shocks the brain that his supporters neither care to recognize the clashing actions nor care to talk about it.
Knutesea, they are figuring on the post-Iran nuclear winter to cool things back down, maybe?
The NRA refused to show up for this discussion with Obama. I was thinking that the Global Warmists don’t show up at any discussion of climate change, because they know they will loose the argument. Is that true of the NRA? Do they fear they will loose the debate? Just sayin…
Nobody takes on the NRA, they know it is a losing battle.
I’m kinda surprised you don’t know that.
They were to only get ONE pre selected question . ONE ! Is that a discussion ?
A ever so slightly distrustful person who has seen this game before would wonder why gun control rises to the state of tears and town hall meeting when Daesh (if you haven’t heard, the french say ISIS is offensive)
is making progress with 1000s of trojan horse immigrants. http://theconservativetreehouse.com/2016/01/06/eye-witness-account-of-cologne-germany-muslim-refugee-violence-attacks-rapes-sexual-assaults/
The NRA was told they would get one pre-screened question.
Now, you know how that goes–they submit a question, and the WH rejects it.
They submit another question, and the WH rejects that, too.
And so it goes, question after question after question, until the WH submits a question to the NRA they’ll gladly answer, or maybe just a legacy statement they’ll agree to issue.
It will be something like: “The NRA appreciates Obama’s wonderful gun-control legacy.”
See how it works?
Even if you get a killer sound bite against the NRA, all it does is invigorate the members and the publicity brings in new members.
It is the proverbial “let sleeping dogs lie” of politics 🙂
QUESTION: If guns were confiscated and laws were passed prohibiting gun ownership, would it make us safe from gun violence?
ANSWER: Ask the people in Mexico where gun ownership is prohibited. Oh wait . . . how could 60,000 people have died (known) down there from gun violence in the last six years if was illegal to own guns? Did the criminals (who kill with impunity) somehow get their hands on guns in Mexico?
Swedish researcher Juri Lina has estimated that at least 60-100 million weaponless Russians died following the Bolshevik communist takeover in Russia circa 1917-1944..
Video: IN THE SHADOWN OF HERMES Jüri Lina (2009) https://youtu.be/oIuW-vNQsQI
Book:UNDER THE SIGN OF THE SCORPION (Updated, 3rd edition)
http://jyrilina.com/english/under-the-sign-of-the-scorpion-the-rise-and-fall-of-the-soviet-empire/
Nobel winner Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, arguably Russia’s greatest writer and chronicler of the Russian tragedy, finished two volumes about these killers more than a decade ago before he died. Both are blocked from English translation.
200 YEARS TOGETHER
http://truedemocracyparty.net/2012/05/most-banned-book-in-the-world-200-years-together-aleksandr-solzhenitsyn/
Read or hear about any of this horror in history books or classes? Or about the estimated million weaponless Irish that were either starved to death or sold as indentured servants/slaves? That the king of England tried to confiscate the colonists’ gunpowder and firearms? That more colonists died aboard British starvation ships anchored just offshore than died in the Revolution? I didn’t.
A NOTE ABOUT BRITISH PRISON SHIPS
http://longislandgenealogy.com/prison.html
Did you know the same London-headquartered international banking cartel that funded the Bolsheviks is funding “climate change?”
EMPIRE OF THE CITY
https://youtu.be/PGhl7ysL_1U
Did you know Paris had nothing to do with climate change? That it was about inking an obligatory predetermined carbon tax on all nations to shovel billions into the UN on which the foundation for a world socialist government would be built?
GLOBAL NON-WARMING WILL BE HE DEATH OF SOCIALISM
http://www.wnd.com/2015/11/global-non-warming-will-be-death-of-socialism/
Did you know criminals hate/fear lighted areas at night, dogs that bite, and an armed citizenry?
Aware that criminals now control all of Washington and Wall Street?
Thank God for WUWT.
The NRA wasn’t invited to a discussion. They were being lured into a trap. I’m sure the NRA would show up for an honest talk.
[Comment deleted. “Jankowski” has been stolen by the identity thief pest. All Jankowski comments saved and deleted from public view. You wasted your time, David. What a sad, pathetic life. -mod]
Bet you a steak dinner. I like mine medium with the bone. Asparagus on the side.
The medical field will soon be required to notify the government of anyone who seeks mental health care because it will be required as part of the background check. It’s a sticky wicket. I don’t want Joe Dude who misses his antidepressant medication packing heat, but I don’t want the medical field obliged to hand over the nation’s health care records for mental health.
No, the NRA doesn’t fear a legitimate debate. They have the U.S. Constitution backing them up (the Second Amendment), along with the vast majority of Americans, who value their constitutional rights There were a lot of NRA members who attended the CNN meeting, and some of them got to speak.
TA
And another thing. Why is it no one EVER tells me about the meetings of the Super-secret Science Realists Society???!!
I don’t even know WHERE you people meet!
Not one dividend check.
Not one notice of a meeting.
Not one copy of the minutes.
Feeling left out,
Janice
There was something in Paris, but I don’t think that’s what you mean
No, Wim Rost, it sure wasn’t. (wry smile)
I’m with you, Janice. I really wanted a badge and a decoder ring too, and maybe even a batman outfit. Got nuffing.
“Climate scientists overwhelmingly agree that the Earth is getting warmer ”
And it will certainly be interesting to watch these sp-called climate scientists as global temperatures start to drop after the current El Nino subsides. 🙂
ps.. in case anyone hasn’t done the calculations, UAH SoPol has 2015 in 35th place out of 37
UAH NoPol was somewhere around 13th iirc (my main computer died this morning, so totally from memory 🙁
The Poles are COOLING !
Actually the poles are freezing to death.
http://www.startribune.com/over-40-people-die-in-poland-due-to-cold-weather/364104891/
The winter weather is deadly for people all over the world
michael
Pole-land. Nice. Clearly global climate distruption at work. The next in series GHE, AGW, CC.
It’s getting warmer by tenths of degrees which the error margins can pretty much cancel out these claims.
The only thing holding world temperatures up, is the current El Nino.
Once that dissipates, the alarmista will have some serious questions to answer.
Like , how much divergence between a fabricated warming in GISS et al, and cooling satellite data, can be tolerated before that have to face reality or the courts.
In other words, no compelling reason to stop using fossil fuels.
Anonymous reporter
Mr Trump, what is your position on climate change and it’s impacts on the energy policy
Mr Trump
It’s nonsense, there is no compelling evidence to stop using fossil fuels and in fact, it is seriously harming our ability to make America great.
There is one significant issue with specific fossil fuels: they have been unfairly distributed by Mother Earth and they make some Islamic Arab countries insanely rich. These countries have been or are currently linked with terror group funding and anti-Occidental freedom values propaganda.
Damn Mother Earth!
Actually, Saudi Arabia is now heading towards inevitable bankruptcy. Population way up, most on ‘welfare’ including the royals and Russia has forced energy prices down while the Saudi royals pump like mad for reasons known only to themselves.
One theory, and it may be true: Both Russia and Saudi Arabia are worried about fracking in these United States. So, they are trying to drive the Frackers (it is a perfectly good word and I made it up myself!) out of business by keeping the price of oil low. Good luck on that! They may slow or stop production, at least until the price goes up again. It is a regular cycle of boom and bust that has existed in the oil business since it first started in Titusville, PA, in 1859. The oil guys know that and know how to deal with it.
If the “science denialism” is increasing that would mean that the real science deniers are getting fewer.
That would be the ones pushing fake peer-reviewed papers (PAL-reviewed papers), citing bogus temperature data, i.e adjusted to fit the narrative, lying about melting ice and sea-rise and acidification of the oceans etc.
“We generate longitudinal data on think-tank contrarian themes over a 16 year period.”
Well… most of the rest of us just simply collect data… But I guess “generating” it takes a lot less time, and aren’t we are all so busy what with the next climate conference to attend and grant applications to submit…
One question, is “longitudinal data” on the “straight and level” ?? And as a follow up question; is latitudinal data on the “up and up” ?? Inquiring minds want to know….
Cheers, KevinK
llol. They couldn’t remember “y axis?” shrug. lol
Exactly. Just what is “longitudinal data”, anyway? Data that goes “sideways”? East to West? And just what is this “generating” activity? I thought data was “measured”?
..Not according to Michael Mann !!
” what is this “generating” activity? I thought data was “measured”?” when you see ‘generating data” it means ‘making it up’ But they do use a computer to do so [once they figure out beforehand what sort of ‘data’ they want. It’s the difference between measured data and modelled data. The latter is what you do when the former doesn’t suit you.
“discussion of climate science has generally increased over the sample period”
– that’s a bad thing, right?
‘The conservative thinktanks under the microscope are the main cog in the machinery of climate science denial across the globe, pushing a constant stream of material into the public domain.’
Anyone seen the stream? Does it come with the paycheck from Big Oil™ – maybe that’s why I haven’t seen it?
I would say that the vast majority of the material is not generated by the conservative thinktanks. I would also say that the thinktanks are not even the most effective disseminators of the material. They are far from being the main cog.
I didn’t know WUWT is a conservative think tank. I thought it was just a bunch of folks discussing the science of climate change (or whatever it is).
A truly professional paper would not be referring to “science denial” at all. It would be a study of one viewpoint vs. another.
That’s their problem–they aren’t “professional” at all. Most professional papers I’ve read actually stick to the truth. This one? Not so much.
Yes, it is true…
““We find little support for the claim that ‘the era of science denial is over’ – instead, discussion of climate science has generally increased over the sample period,” the study concludes.”
The discussion has increasingly pointed out the failed IPCC agenda driven science models.
The scare scenarios are getting ever more dire, yet most peoples experience and the statistical study of “extreme” weather shows thi sis hype.
So to hammer the alarmists on science is true and the correct target.
Holy weasel words Batman. “Climate scientists overwhelmingly agree that the Earth is getting warmer (how much ’cause a little is good) and that the rise in average global temperature is predominantly (51 percent?) due to human activity (what kind, agriculture, clearing snow off of black roads in the winter?)”
Coined by a poster named Flynn … The WIGGLE WORM most aptly describes their propaganda style.
Deny
Deflect
Confusion
The saddest thing of all is that people like me up until now believed what scientist told us. I don’t think I am super intelligent but I’m not a complete idiot either. I have determined through years of my own research that these trough dwellers are a bunch of thieves. They are crooks, spivs, con merchants, Charlatans, a disgrace to their profession. The sooner they are shamed into submission the better.
I’m pretty sure (can’t find a reference though .. my bad) it was Bernays who taught Madison Avenue that “if a scientist says it then it must be true”.
Do the writers for The Guardian perhaps, live on a different planet?
This climate has been altered. Pray I do not alter it again. /sarc
Freeman Dyson has written the Forward to Indur Goklany’s 64 page GWPF report, Carbon Dioxide: the good news (3 MB pdf) . He writes a paragraph that grasps the central mystery of global warming hysteria. I’ve bolded the central thoughts.
“I consider myself an unprejudiced person and to me these facts are obvious. But the same facts are not obvious to the majority of scientists and politicians who consider carbon dioxide to be evil and dangerous. The people who are supposed to be experts and who claim to understand the science are precisely the people who are blind to the evidence. Those of my scientific colleagues who believe the prevailing dogma about carbon dioxide will not find Goklany’s evidence convincing. I hope that a few of them will make the effort to examine the evidence in detail and see how it contradicts the prevailing dogma, but I know that the majority will remain blind. That is to me the central mystery of climate science. It is not a scientific mystery but a human mystery. How does it happen that a whole generation of scientific experts is blind to obvious facts? In this foreword I offer a tentative solution of the mystery.
Dyson’s solution is to recall our tribal evolutionary history, which over the past 100,000 years has been overtaken by the rate of our cultural evolution. He points out that rational individualism is new to our species and most humans find it all too easy to put tribalist loyalty and group-thought over critical independence. Most humans includes most scientists.
I share Dyson’s bemusement; have done for a long time. How did it happen that the pushers of AGW alarm so easily bulldozed all the major scientific institutions, and so many scientists? An insight deep into the human psyche and its weakness to seduction lays in the answer to that mystery. The ancillary mystery is in the psyches of those who have resisted the siren call of tribal insiderness; the tyranny of palocracy. The epidemiology of natural immunity must somehow extend to brain organization.
Thinking of scientists as prone to capture by irrationalisms is a bit counter-intuitive, but the evidence is right there before us in the uncritical loyalty so many scientists, including physicists(!), give to the scientifically vacuous AGW idea.
The article Eric cites is symptomatic of how that happens, in that it couches critical skepticism as “contrarian” “science denial” promulgated by “conservative think-tanks” that make “attacks on science.”
The skeptical position is misrepresented using charged language full of disdain and dismissal, and the skeptics themselves are represented as motivated by greed and dishonesty. Believing alarmsists must include those who are frantic to avoid being so-labeled. Such people have little psychological strength.
In direct contrast, regular readers at WUWT know who the skeptics are, that very few of them are involved with think-tanks, that their personal politics are varied, that their scientific views about CO2 and climate are rationally driven and substantively defensible, and that they comport themselves with integrity.
AGW is driven purely by politically biased righteousness embedded in an atmosphere of deliberately vicious accusation. Apparently even large numbers of scientists are seduced by that and drawn away from rational integrity. Looking at these current events, we can understand the history of Medieval witch hunting.
I think many scientists have a sort of imperialistic attitude. (E.g., “Science, the Endless Frontier.”) They see Science as a bold conquistador of ignorance and irrationality, gaining territory from the lands that lie in darkness, etc. This is the attitude of members and fans of “Skeptics” organizations. Scientific agencies and trade associations are designated crusaders. Team loyalty–a sort of identity politics–kicks in when an official crusade like IGPOCC’s is launched. Since “Science” wears the white hat in this crusade, and its influence deserves to grow, its claims deserve to be over-weighted, and those of its critics under-weighted.
Also kicking in is scientism–the belief that science has, or will have, the answer to nearly everything–or nearly everything that matters. It seems impossible to many scientists and science groupies (like journalists and columnists) that there is a topic that Science in all its majesty, if given enough resources and time, can’t figure out, at least in broad outline. Climate science has had those resources and has built up a big consensus on what’s what.
Then there’s trade-group solidarity: the more credibility climate science is accorded, the more money flows to it and to other branches of science, like ecology (impacts and fixes), sociology, and even political science. It would be unfraternal to stab our brothers in the back with public objections, even if we are privately critical of them.
Finally, there’s some truth in the the stereotype of the “narrow” scientist dwelling in a mind-space of abstractions and models. The warmist case sounds very neat, abstractly. It seems crude and unscientific to a model-minded abstractionist to murder his plausible theory with ugly facts like a corrupted temperature record.
For non-scientists, there’s the universally inculcated environmental / ecological mindset that, while correct in general, has been propagated along with a belief that critics of ecologists’ claims wear black hats and have always been proved wrong (incorrect)–and that it would be disreputable–or at least socially unfashionable–to agree with them.
Next, many believers think that it doesn’t much matter if the science of warmism is correct, or if renewables are or will be cost-effective–“we” ought to be moving to renewables anyway, because that way we are having less impact on the earth, or paying for or sins against the Third World, or winning a gold star for good intentions regarding the collectivity, or sticking it to the man (the Kochs, Big Oil, etc.), or creating green jobs, or moving to a sustainable society, or being more sensitive about the environment, etc.
Another factor is that they’re in too deep to back out now–they have to stand fast, or even double down. Temporizing now would create an awkward demand for “an avalanche of answers.”
You are right on the button with your last paragraph, otherwise known as the “painted into a corner syndrome.”
To my mind the best way out is for MSM to do their job and conduct some proper investigative journalism.
Not holding my breath, though.
That’s a great summary, Roger.
Pat Frank:
You ask
The institutions were easily “bulldozed” by activists who usurped their Executive Committees. Richard Lindzen provided a shocking analysis of this in 2008 thart was published in several places in 2009. His analysis is a good read that names names.
It is not known how many scientists agree with AGW alarm: no poll has been taken. However, other than those whose funding is enhanced by AGW alarm, few scientists have supported it while tens of thousands have refuted it e.g. by signing the Oregon Petition.
Of much, much more importance was the support for AGW alarm by politicians.
AGW alarm was initiated by Margaret Thatcher for purely political reasons, and was adopted by other politcians for their own political reasons. AGW alarm has always been a purely political activity that financed science and scientific institutions for purposes of publicity.
The success of the pushers of AGW alarm has induced some observers to argue that a conspiracy has created the imagined risk of harmful AGW in the public’s perception (e.g. Böttcher, 1996). But consideration of the origins of the global warming scare deny the existence of any such conspiracy. Interests coincided and supported each other. And a coincidence of interests usually has a more powerful effect than a group of conspirators.
Richard
Pat Frank:
I deliberately omitted from my reply to you this link because it puts a post into moderation. But my reply to you went into moderation anyway, so I now add the link which explains hoe AGW alarm was a political issue from its start.
Please note that if all reference to “science” is deleted from Figure 2 of the link then AGW alarm still grows as a result of positive feedbacks with the system amplifier being political approval.
Richard
Pat Frank,
With all due respect, you have the fundamental conceptual framework misidentified when you go to the “political” meme as the fundamental source of the AGW movement.
I offer this broader context which indicates the irrelevancy of your political meme. It is a comment of mine recycled from WUWT post: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/12/11/stephan-lewandowskys-moon-landing-paper-scathingly-criticized-by-team-of-psychologists-in-a-new-book/
Pat Frank, while climate focused science has been pre-empted by pre-science premise based ideology (of the “morally motivated bias” type), the question remains “Why does one (dominate) trend in the philosophy of science accept the pre-science premises as a integral part of the scientific process?”. The reason is there is a fault in a specific school in the philosophy of science; the fault has an epistemological/ metaphysics root and not a political root.
John
Pat Frank at jan. 9 2:03 pm reacting to John Whitman at jan. 9 10:59 am
this interplay is inherently problematic with any predictive science that has to do with historic (unique) phenomena of which science itself is part, as predictive science has to to with repetition of phenomena and predictability
this is problematic to the degree that you may wonder if it would be possible to try and develop any a-political science in this historic setting, as the “act of doing science” in this field by implication has political dimensions, both internally (by the choice of subject and method) and externally (by the effect of its result)
so for this type of science to be accepted as science you cannot escape from the pre-science premise that it would be possible to do predictive science in and about a historic setting, which inevitably implies that you can do predictive science and politics in one go
which in my opinion is a false premise
the answer to this dilemma in the social or historical involved sciences is to be “ethical correct” so as to give an excuse for the political component to be acceptable – but this doesn’t resolve the intrinsic problem, in stead it creates an extra one: the “beyond dispute” attitude because of supposed “ethical correctness” veiled under a ritualistic performance supposed to be predictive science
so a false premise leads to a disastrous result as far as predictive science goes and may very well be the main reason for the havoc we see in – among else – climate science
Your writeup is a fine status report on the warnings Eisenhower gave. The problem persists with varying manifestations esp in the arena of public health. An increasingly risk adverse populace becomes the agar for correlations that are amenable to alarm. Governance generates voting blocks based on proposing solutions for the alarm. More power to control behavoir becomes centralized. We have certainty witnessed this trend since his famous speech.
To what end ?
What reins it in ?
Jurgen, your position, if I may combine the two elements separated within your reply, that the “historic (unique) phenomena of which science itself is part’ require that“the “act of doing science” in this field by implication has political dimensions, both internally (by the choice of subject and method) and externally (by the effect of its result),” ignores the decisive point that physical phenomena are completely independent of method.
Physical phenomena themselves determine the choice of observational method. Such phenomena necessarily have no political dimension. Therefore, neither do the methodological choices of scientists.
Choice of study subject may be politically driven, e.g., the war on cancer or the vagaries of climate, but the phenomena under study again are free of any political content, and the methodological choices necessary to their study are again likewise free.
Therefore, your first political dimension, ”choice of subject” is irrelevant to the content of scientific knowledge, and your second, “[choice of] method” is incorrect.
The external political dimension of science that exercises you, namely the use to which scientific knowledge is put, depends only on external choices. Scientists are not responsible for any bad or good choices made by independent political or economic actors. Their choices are separately driven and are not part of science.
Therefore, science is indeed a-political in the sense you deny because its internal meaning is free of political content.
It is true that science is embedded in history, in the sense that it emerged over the course of human cultural evolution; such being the subject of historical study. However, emergent in history does not imply constrained by history. E.g., nothing of history is known to have required Cavendish to invent the min-max meteorological thermometer in 1757. The same is true of any emergent scientific insight.
With respect to the historical sciences themselves, such as Evolutionary Biology, the theory itself makes predictions that can be tested in the present — such as correlation of gene frequency with observable traits. Although the evolutionary trajectory of species is historically contingent, and thus non-replicable, both the fossil evidence itself and such genetic material as has been available from recovered fossil remains, are capable of falsifying the theory and in the event of their study have instead validated it.
Analogous lines of evidence can be adduced, e.g., to the historical science of astrophysics and its projections of stellar and galactic evolution back into very deep time, and indeed to the evolution of the universe itself.
Therefore the historical sciences can make predictions, they can be tested, and the theories are vulnerable to falsification. Even their contingent trajectories can be observed closely enough to decide consistency, or not, with the theoretical structure.
Interestingly, I just critically reviewed a book-length historical manuscript. Rather than “ethically correct” it spoke to being morally correct. So did the sociological sources I consulted — adducing morality not ethics. The difference is critical, as morals are socially normative whereas ethics are principled.
The problem with consensus climate science is that it has been driven by the normative morals of environmental extremism. It is this morally correct drive that has corrupted climate science. Anyone with principled ethics sees their error. It is evident in the climategate emails.
Likewise, anyone who understands science sees that to follow their environmentalist morals, consensus climatologists have abandoned the scientific method.
Finally, your qualm about “historic (unique) phenomena of which science itself is part, as predictive science has to to with repetition of phenomena and predictability,” implies that science is entangled in history. This idea, to have any supervening impact, requires that physical phenomena be historically determined.
No evidence for this exists. Your premise is therefore without foundation. I’d warrant it will ever remain so.
rogerknights, as someone who has spent most of my adult life in academic science, not as faculty but as research staff, your description of people and practice does not strike me as accurate.
Describing as “imperialistic” the attempt to bring knowledge where ignorance exists is an abuse of terms. The territory chiefly defended by scientists consists of their own personal ideas. But the ideas stand or fall by way of evidence, not opinion. I.e., survival of their ideas is ultimately out of their hands. “Team loyalty” therefore doesn’t extend beyond the boundaries of an individual research group.
I see “scientism” as a term invented by philosophers and theologians (the same thing, really) to disparage the threat posed by the fact that science has seriously impacted questions over which they had argued for centuries.
It remains true that scientific methodology has been our only route to objective (culture-invariant) knowledge. To the extent that the physical universe is continuous, I don’t see any natural boundary to the limits of knowledge.
Climate science these days is driven by climate modelers. I’ve shown that climate modelers are unqualified to evaluate their own models; also here. Unfortunately, most physical scientists have extended to them the same courtesy they extend to one another: the default grant of competence. However, climate modelers are scientifically incompetent, and AGW will remain widely accepted among scientists until that realization becomes general knowledge.
The rest of your analysis is reasonable, referring as it does to the righteous moralism of environmentalism. I’ve actually heard from one person that environmentalists must be truth-tellers about pollution because they have no stake in the outcome. This is the same logic that would insist clerics are truth tellers about sin because they have no stake the outcome. Both of these ignore the psychological currency of inner righteousness sustained, and the real currency of donations by the credulous.
That they are all in too deep to back out now also rings true. Like you and everyone else here, I look forward to the crash.
The major scientific institutions were all on board the AGW bandwagon well before NOAA and the rest seriously re-adjusted the surface temperature record, TA. It was the climate modelers, their insistence that their CO2 explanation was accurate, and the array of physics and mathematics they deployed, that brought everyone else into line. Tim Ball has discussed this.
In my experience, physical scientists including physicists, accepted the modelers’ claims without themselves doing any detailed assessment. Science typically works that way, with the grant of competence until proven otherwise. And that grant is fine so long as professional standards (and integrity) are maintained.
For climate modelers the grant of scientific competence was misplaced. For certain others, the grant of integrity was also misplaced.
Combine that with ecoNGO lobbying, their fiercely biased propagandizing, the willful collusion of journalists and newspaper editors, and the incredible editorial censorship of Science and Nature, among other specialist journals, and the explanation is there in the accidental confluence of human idiosyncrasies. Richard Courtney’s “coincidence of interests” is very central to all this.
@Pat Frank. You mentioned, “the incredible editorial censorship of Science and Nature, among other specialist journals,” and called it a human idiosyncrasy. But it’s not plausible for a mere “idiosyncrasy” to be strong among scientific bigshots of many different temperaments (including over 100 Nobelists who endorsed the warmist case about a decade ago), different disciplines, from many different countries, and to persist for decades.
But the scientific establishment has been made aware of the weakness of the modelers’ case since the NIPCC documents long ago; the APS hearings under Koonin last year were the best organized compact collection of critiques. The reaction of the APS board was suppression—in effect, d*nial.
Neither “idiosyncrasy,” which by definition applies to only a few members of a group, nor a default initial “courtesy” period of acceptance, can be stretched to explain the establishment’s continuing gullibility and collaboration. The establishment strongly wants to believe. Some set of habits, beliefs and assumptions common in some degree to many or most scientists must therefore play a role in this predisposition.
I guess that one factor in this will to believe is a strong belief that Science wears a white hat (as the liberator of mankind, etc.) and that therefore any strong scientific consensus is not to be scrutinized too closely—especially if its critics can be assumed not to have adequate expertise to do so competently, or not to have motivations as impersonal and noble as those presumed to motivate the consensus.
But what is on display in the behavior of the mass of scientists (70%, I’d guess) and their organizations (97%) refutes that claim. There is dogmatic adherence to a party line in defiance of scientific norms. There is crowd psychology at work, along with an underlying bias in favor of anything labeled scientific, whether it actually is or not. I figure that part of the reason for thinking this way is an unconscious belief that science should be encouraged to expand its claims to command new fields. This is expansionist psychology is “a sort of imperialistic attitude.”
But, in the form of pseudo-science, scientific methodology has been a royal road to error. Examples abound in the field of the soft sciences: economics (scientific socialism), psychology (psycho-analysis, behaviorism), sociology, and medicine.
(E.g.,, multiple sclerosis was called “pseudo-sclerosis” (it’s all in your head), because medicine couldn’t find its cause for decades, so it couldn’t really exist. Medicine is repeating this arrogance with its haqndling of the chronic fatigue syndrome—it’s all in its victims’ heads, because medicine can’t yet find a cause. The CDC declined to spend $20 million earmarked for its study because its scientists knew better than to pay attention to ignorant patients and the ignorant politicians they had pressured into providing that money—they knew better. Very narrow and arrogant.)
That methodology is liable to lead its practitioners astray when they bite off more than they can chew, not recognizing any limits on their ambitions to get one-up on every aspect of nature. Despite awareness of the existence of chaos theory and nonlinear systems, and awareness of the existence of unknown unknowns, the scientific mainstream hasn’t looked skeptically at the over-ambitiousness implicit in claims of climatology to have the enormously complex, incompletely known, and tricky climate system essentially figured out.
One partial explanation for this acquiescence is hubris, which can express itself in an arrogant, “imperialistic” stance. Another is trade-group solidarity, also unscientific.
“philosophers and theologians (the same thing, really).” That’s logical positivism. Do you really believe it?
According to Wikipedia, the term is also used by social scientists, philosophers of science like Karl Popper, historians, and cultural critics. Here are a few quotes from Wikipedia’s entry on that topic, at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientism:
You wrote:
Yes, but my point about their ignoring and d*nying the possibility of “corruption of the temperature record” is something they engaged in thereafter, up to the present.
Pat wrote-“It remains true that scientific methodology has been our only route to objective (culture-invariant) knowledge.”
You wrote-“But, in the form of pseudo-science, scientific methodology has been a royal road to error. Examples abound in the field of the soft sciences: economics (scientific socialism), psychology (psycho-analysis, behaviorism), sociology, and medicine.”
The problem is, that some scientists, not all, are not using the scientific method at all! The minute a paper states anything like “we created a method” or “we developed a new methodology for”
we need to become immediately suspicious. If scientists cannot come to a conclusion using the empirical evidence and testable, repeatable standards of the scientific method, whatever they conclude, is by definition, NOT SCIENTIFIC.
We need to state that over and over and over again until it goes viral.
+ 100
By it’s very nature it should be HARD to develop a causation.
Science (I dont think engineers get a pass btw) has been co-opted as a marketing tool.
You can tell that the public is NOT that stoopid because they are learning to hear expertise with a grain of salt.
Fascinating times.
You said-“By it’s very nature it should be HARD to develop a causation.Science (I dont think engineers get a pass btw) has been co-opted as a marketing tool.You can tell that the public is NOT that stoopid because they are learning to hear expertise with a grain of salt.Fascinating times.”
And I honestly think that there are a LOT of good, ethical, honest scientists out there. Their conclusions are filled with words that indicate it is scientific-words like if, should, possible, might, could etc. But here’s the rub, even their opponents are smart enough to do the same thing. They ALSO couch their findings in indefinite and scientific terms.
What the BAD ones do is corrupt THE SCIENTIFIC METHOD. They create what they call “new” methods, “new” technologies, “new formulas” for “calculating, dissecting, examining, processing” the data…and THAT PART they can HIDE deep inside the box of “science” where hardly anyone looks. Not laymen, not the public, not the press, and SADLY ENOUGH….it is my theory, not even other scientists!!!
I think we can stop this. I really do. I’m working on something right now. I think it’s not only possible to “save science”, but in a way that is easier than I ever personally thought was possible, and beneficial to ALL involved-except the BAD ONES. I’ll keep you posted. 🙂
Good.
I read your stuff.
My impression is as follows:
1. you know how to identify fallacies
2. your disciplined in figuring out what you don’t know
3. you don’t shy away from confrontation but use it to teach yourself the art of succinct comms
4. you have an appreciation for the dance that the human mind does when the subconscious is in full force
5. you are ethically grounded
Make sure you subject what you are crafting to the best objective observers you can secure. I once tried to raise money for a joint venture software that scanned documents for fallacies, weasel words and pattern styles of typical imbalance (we reduced it to 4 categories). I just didn’t have the resources to bring it to fruition. What I found out later was that a smart egg that I showed it to was so intimidated by the concept that they assigned one of their eggs to develop counter strategies to being revealed.
Knute…is there any way I can contact you that you’re willing to post here? If not, maybe Anthony could give you my contact info or vice versa. I think we have the exact same end goal in mind,just different methods of getting there. (mine requires very low, if any, tech)
I’ll ask the mods to send you my email address.
Honored to help where I can.
rogerknights, if the idiosyncrasy is rooted in the way humans think — meaning the idiosyncrasy is of the human species — then it can be widely shared.
See the thought here, where Dyson’s idea is discussed. This is the meaning I tried to convey. Sorry if it was unclear.
You discussed the scientific establishment and their willful belief in AGW and rejection of the NIPCC report. It appears to me the main culprit has been the politics of defamation. It has seriously influenced the thinking of those scientists, so that contrary evidence is for them immediately dirtied. It is then dismissed without any examination. This means that even physical scientists get pushed around by politics, so that their rational sensibilities are distorted.
On seeing this, we can realize that many, if not most, scientists are vulnerable to the same socially-induced prejudices as everyone else, high intelligence notwithstanding.
You described team loyalty of scientists as extending to all of science. It appears now, that you meant scientists’ general confidence in the status of the profession, i.e., of science as a way of knowing, rather than loyalty within a team of researchers. I’ve no idea what IGPOCC is, so can’t comment on it as an example.
It is true that scientists defend science. It may be true that some scientists defend climate science in that regard, if they have swallowed the defamatory politics that claim AGW skeptics are attacking science as such.
I don’t believe that reason explains the position of most, though. My impression is that scientist AGW-believers really truly think that AGW has a solid base of scientific evidence. In my experience, they do so without ever having deeply assessed that evidence. Mostly I expect they look at the graphics and notice the equations, and all of that looks properly analytical.
Next, are you suggesting that the view of philosophers and theologians as analogous, in itself (i.e., the view itself), is logical positivism? Maybe you meant something else, but your meaning seems very obscure to me.
I don’t see anything in your Wikipedia quotes that gainsays my view that, ““scientism” [is] a term invented by philosophers and theologians to disparage the threat posed by the fact that science has seriously impacted questions over which they had argued for centuries.”
Finally I do agree with you that believing scientists have ignored the corruption of the temperature record. Even here at WUWT, we commonly see posts that discuss the surface air temperature record presented without any error bars.
Had to jump in and spout.
Shame on them.
Fine, look at the pretty pictures and the fancy equations.
Perhaps its natural.
But, really come on now … you let them off the hook far too easily.
18 year pause in temperature.
Only someone without shame keeps plodding on like there is nothing to question.
I agree knutesea. I can’t logically conclude that ALL of them are just stupid and uninformed. At least some of them HAVE to know what they are doing is wrong. Maybe they think the ends (saving the world) justify the means. Maybe they are just plain evil and have other motives. But for ALL of them have been infected with the exact same virus….I’m not buying it.
@Pat Frank—you wrote:
OK
Inter-Governmental Panel On Climate Change
I think it was pretty clear from the start what I meant, when I wrote: “many scientists . . . see Science as a bold conquistador of ignorance and irrationality, . . . Scientific agencies and trade associations are designated crusaders. Team loyalty–a sort of identity politics–kicks in when an official crusade like IGPOCC’s [IPCC’s] is launched. Since “Science” wears the white hat in this crusade, and its influence deserves to grow, its claims deserve to be over-weighted, and those of its critics under-weighted.”
But that only explains mainstream-science’s acceptance of warmism as being due to its sincere acceptance of it! That circularity begs the questions: Why has it accepted something so flimsy, sincerely or not, and Why it has concurrently accepted the defamation of warmism’s critics as “attacking science as such.”
A good explanation is the one I proposed: that, in principle, “many scientists” “have a sort of imperialistic attitude.” They like the claim of any branch of science to understand what’s what in a new territory, and resent, in principle, objections to this flag-planting as unwarranted expansionism, seeing sun objectors as “attacking science as such.” (Objections, for example, that the climate system cannot be understood wholly or mostly in terms of “forcings” and radiative physics, even in the long term.)
You initially wrote, “philosophers and theologians (the same thing, really).” I responded, “That’s logical positivism. Do you really believe it?” What I meant was that logical positivists are the only ones I know of who equate philosophy and theology and dismiss both in the same breath. Here’s a quote to that effect from Wikipedia’s entry on logical positivism, at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logical_positivism :
You wrote:
What you wrote carries the suggestion that those two groups are the primary or only employers of the term. But Wikipedia stated that the term is used by social scientists, philosophers of science like Karl Popper, historians, and cultural critics—not just theologians and philosophers. Take a look at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientism. Here is one paragraph from it:
As for who invented it, that was not stated, but surely its use hasn’t been restricted to the two professional categories you mentioned, and hasn’t been motivated by mere turf-defense, as you implied.
Roger, let’s leave it at that. You get the last word.
richardscourtney, thank-you, I am familiar with Richard Lindzen’s paper. You’re right its message is shocking, even damning, and does name names.
The published version is in (2012) Euresis Journal 2, 161-192, here (pdf). The link is to the entire journal issue, but it’s worth the download.
I believe that Lindzen’s description of the Climate Action Network in note 8 of his paper does lend an element of conspiracy to the behavior of environmental NGOs. It’s worth quoting in part, “In 1989, following the public debut of the issue in the US in Tim Wirth’s and Al Gore’s famous Senate hearing featuring Jim Hansen associating the warm summer of 1988 with global warming, the Climate Action Network was created. This organization of over 280 ENGO’s has been at the center of the climate debates since then. The Climate Action Network, is an umbrella NGO that coordinates the advocacy efforts of its members, particularly in relation to the UN negotiations.”
The resulting uniformity of their political lobbying would tend to corral politicians into a coherent stampede. Margaret Thatcher notwithstanding, the “global warming” issue would not have risen to its current international status of sacred truth without that intense lobbying and the willful collusion of journalists, who seem widely and like mindedly prejudiced.
Thank-you for the link to your very informative article. I intend to read through it.
John Whitman, I credited the problem to the seductive power of feelings of inner righteousness, which is expressed in a political milieu. The foundational problem is then the inherent evolutionary psychology, the driver is inner righteous passion, and finally the vehicle of expression is merely opportunistic.
I’ve read through all your replies at the Lewandowsky moon-landing post, starting here, and generally agree with your take.
Your posts are always critically thoughtful and so I expect you’ll agree that there is only one legitimate methodology within science — the interplay of theory and result.
Popper got his falsification insight after hearing of Einstein’s comment that disconfirmation of his gravitational red shift prediction would disprove Relativity theory (described in his autobiographical “The Unended Quest,” p. 38). This means that falsification has an empirical root, and Popper’s further development is an extended commentary on the implications. That puts Popper’s falsification corpus outside of the bound of Philosophy, because its deductions are empirically based rather than axiomatic.
You’re right that the problem is epistemological, but it doesn’t lay in a specific school of the philosophy of science. It lays in the setting aside — the active subversion — of scientific methodology in the interests of a passionate righteousness; one that ostensibly serves a political goal but in reality serves only itself.
Pat Frank
January 8, 2016 at 8:09 pm wrote:
“How did it happen that the pushers of AGW alarm so easily bulldozed all the major scientific institutions, and so many scientists?”
I think the blame lies squarely at the feet of NASA and NOAA climate scientist charlatans who altered the historical surface temperature data to create a graph that makes it look like the atmospheric temperature is getting hotter, and hotter, and hotter over the decades. Unprecedentedly hotter.
If you took the altered NASA-NOAA temperature charts as legitimate, and why wouldn’t you, since these are highly respected public science institutions, then a reasonable person should be alarmed at the temperature trend and would think that climate change alarmists had a point.
Some unscrupulous scientists at NASA and NOAA have falsified/altered temperature data and foisted this false reality on the world. Everyone else is just jumping on the bandwagon.
The good news is they can’t alter the satellite temperature data, and that data is putting the lie to all their claims about human-caused global warming/climate change.
TA
Succinctly put +1
Possibly they were unaware of the siting changes that exaggerated the warming trend at most of their weather stations. (Or they didn’t want to rock the boat by investigating the matter.) So they could be innocent–or anyway have plausible deniability.
Climate is not measured by weather cycle observations. And a ‘climate scientist’ who if found alluding to or claiming that it is, is a professional crank and a crook to begin with, and then there’s the media, who live off the manufacture and dissemination of brazen fantasies, for profit.
A ‘climate scientist’ and any related professional organization which fails to point out clearly in the media that weather cycle observations are not climate change, or indicative of climate trends, is at best a latent bunch of cranks and a crooks deceiving to capitalize.
They’re just corrupt people. China has its appalling number of “corrupt government officials”, and the West has its “climate scientists”, and a pet media lie-fabrication propagation mechanism.
Climate changing trends are measured RELATIVELY and INDIRECTLY with poor confidence and high error.
Climate changing trends are never ABSOLUTE or DIRECT, or measured with high confidence or low error.
Climate ‘changing’ has a data resolution of about 500 years, per ‘pixel’, and about 250 years if it’s in those new-fangled HD datasets which have a really, reeeaaly high refresh-rate in their observations.
Climate changing is of course the planetary norm, it is either going UP, or it is going DOWN over the time scale of those ‘pixel’ resolutions.
The pixels do not get smaller than about 250 years wide for showing a valid established climate ‘changing’ trend.
Watching “climate-change scientists” claim to be watching the ‘climate changing’, via weather cycle observations, is like watching a snail in a Grand Prix, hitting speed bumps, at a fearsome pace.
i.e. wholly imaginary.
If global weather temperature were going a consistent DOWN trend over decades … instead of … hmm, well, nowhere much really (hard to tell with snails), then the “climate scientists” would be throwing fits of hysteresis in media about the carbon dioxide cooling off the planet, and the growing hidden cold pools in the deep oceans, caused by coal and photo-chemical smog particulates, nucleating too many clouds, and shading us into popsicles, … like, … any day now.
There would be a general seriousness-ism with gratuitous prancing. There would be models, projections, cloud chamber experiments, papers stacked to the rafters (as insulation and a potential heating source), animated models of Mammoths snap-freezing, and a very pervasive consenselessness.
At least a 93% consenseless.
And a whole UN ‘industry’ would be involved using its unscrupulous corrupt frauds (called media), to concoct and spread fantasies, for a living.
And thus sally forth to warn humanity, every time winter approacheth, “This is it folks! Over the top!”. We need to disassemble evil-energy – now! Or we’re doomed to cloudiness … and … and … to … “The Fog” …
We need more money please, so we can be sure of our weather observation based consenseless about the pixels that we can’t see, but must infer from looking up and looking for pattern of dogs in fluffy clouds.
Such cloud pollution levels have never been seen before! The number of doggies we see is off the charts!
So we must urgently exercise the precautionary principal, and make a-scientific imaginary consenseless-driven globally applied policies, that eliminate evil-energy use … for the sake of the children’s cold rosy little cheeks … oh don’t weep so, little children … we will make it warm once again … once we eliminate evil cold producers.
—
So as you see, it would work, weather (not a typo) the climate consenseless was UP, or it was DOWN.
Direction of delta-T is irrelevant.
As are all the weather observations of decadal cycles.
All that actually matters are the climate data ‘pixels’, and they take half a millennium to appear, adn you need to draw a line between at least two such pixels.
And their data must be comparing apples to apples, not apples to lemons.
The consenseless is just based on pretending-into-being a beaut new X-HD pixel climate technology, from these ripper new satellites, and downloadable model apps.
It’s like all totally NEW hipsters! We are advancing so fast here.
We will use our mighty anti evil-energy schtick, to save the world, in spite of the evil d@nier!
One consenseless to rule them all … mmmwwwhhaaaaawaaaaahahahhhahahaaaaaaaaaaah!
They got me. I confess. I have conspired and am conspiring to overturn the propaganda of catastrophic AGW. I have betrayed my family and friends and beg their forgiveness. I must now report to re-education camp #1984 where they will cure my depravity. See Ya! GK
Boot camp starts 0 darkthirty. Your list of tasks are as follows.
1. Squeegie solar panels in district 9 left to right 1 thru 10.
2. Man the bakery mixing bowl power bike from 0600 to 0700.
3. Eat imitation meat derived from detritus corn matter blended with soy milk and like it.
4. 0800 to 0900 inspect toilet privy users for the one sheet policy.
5. Collect the afternoon meal fowl from the duel purpose windmills.
7. Get back on the bike.
8. Watch senior management dine on the fowl you recovered.
9. Squeegie the solar panels in district 10 left to right 1 thru 10.
10. Attend the Church of Gaia services conducted by the Friends of the Pope
11. Get back on the bike.
12. Eat leftovers from management.
::: sneak some time in reading 1984 backwards :::
13. Sleep on beds weaved from cornstalks.
Shazaam… I thought I would be polishing turds 24/7… whew! GK
Why do you think you’re squeegeeing the solar panels? That white stuff isn’t dust… 🙂
Everything is a win/win in the gulag.
The only thing I’m having trouble adjusting to is the lack of humor.
“D*niers think there’s a huge conspiracy amongst scientists and government.. Laughable!”
Nek minnit:
“D*niers are in a huge conspiracy!”
Not to suggest there are any at all; just a demonstration of alarmists failure at logical thinking.
Nothing new about Guardian’s Pyongyang edition advertising totalitarianism as the basic form of government, but what was that?
Discussion increases and consensus prevails concomitantly when science is polarized politically? And academies should be in charge even in that? If yes, what’s the supreme leader for?
Despite the fudging, records for cold weather were set, sea levels started rising before humans could possibly be responsible and accelerated melting of polar ice sheets is the result of dodgey calculations. You have to love the hubris that someone who wants you to accept “The Science” could ignore the obvious problems. Its a method that requires more of your time assessing what’s wrong with your own postulate than spruiking it.
“the accelerated melting of polar ice sheets”
The AMO is just starting to decline
It will be fun watching these jackasses as Arctic sea ice levels start to climb again. 🙂
I can’t find a simply ice-volume as a function of time plot of PIOMAS anymore. Its dead flat trend since Cryosat 2 went up is probably why. It doesn’t have to climb again for it to look dodgy.
cycles similar to sine curves have a sort of “plateau” on the top.
That is where the AMO is about to drop from, Its only just over the peak.
That is why the Arctic sea ice values.has been sort of level for the last few years.
(sorry, I would post a graph to show you, but my main computer died this morning)
This old compter I’m now on has a Pentium chip (anyone remember them ?), and very little software
I have no access to anything accept the very basics until I get a new computer and get it set up.
On the contrary. It’s only natural that climate publications are privately funded:
Climate science has been settled -> research funds can be allocated elsewhere.
Paris meeting saved the world from thermageddon -> politicians can focus on more important affairs.
Political Science has always baffled me, I see lots of political “scientists”(activist) mostly employed by government.
But what is the science of politics?
Politics seems completely free of any verifiable evidence or scientific method .
Case in point, every election, if there is such a science, how come none can accurately predict the winners?
Secondly if politics are enabling the “Will of the People”, how come people are not corrupt and crazy in their private lives?
Naturally I too have come to the conclusion that any past time that has to label its self “science” probably is not.
“But what is the science of politics?”
Deception.
For a list of 20-plus things that would be happening (but aren’t) if climate contrarians were actually well-organized and well-funded, see my WUWT guest-thread, “Notes from Skull Island” at http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/12/16/notes-from-skull-island-why-skeptics-arent-well-funded-and-well-organized/
Great link … as true today as when you wrote it.
Anyone have a list of the 19 organizations?
An earlier paper (2013) by the same author here:
http://www.kenbenoit.net/pdfs/NDATAD2013/skepticism_bc2013.pdf
On the same topic and using basically the same approach lists these 15:
Organization Name Number of Documents
American Enterprise Institute (AEI) 642
Cato Institute (CEI) 301
Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) 937
Fraser Institute 63
Global Warming Policy Foundation 7,892
Heartland Institute 272
Heritage Foundation 220
Hoover Institution 24
International Climate and Environmental Change 1,784
Assessment Project (ICECAP)
George C. Marshall Institute 139
National Center for Policy Analysis (NCPA) 43
National Center for Public Policy Research (NCPPR) 386
Pacific Institute 226
Reason Foundation 159
Total 13,114
David M.–
See Table 1 of the full document. Remarkably they left off their big contributor to the previous article (GWPF). The big hitter now is CO2 Science (4500 documents,along with Heartland (2900), Heritage (1650), and CEI (1450).
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/75831381/Boussalis%20TExt-mining%20the%20signals%20of%20climate%20change%20doubt.pdf
Could they fear Lord Lawson?
They hold an annual jamboree where they throw another sceptic on the fire, when the truth chills their bones. 40,000 people in Paris, wanted posters, 21 years of negotiating culminated in perhaps and maybe.
discussion of climate science has generally increased over the sample period,” the study concludes.
+
Yet a significant proportion of the American public, as well as a considerable number of legislators in the U.S. Congress, continue to reject the “consensus view.”
Huh. The more it gets discussed, the more people reject it. Funny that. Better shut down the discussion in order for the consensus view to prevail. Apparently they can’t win with facts and logic.
The first sentence of the article (note their highly scientific references to Oreskes, Cook et al):
“Climate scientists overwhelmingly agree that the Earth is
getting warmer and that the rise in average global temperature is
predominantly due to human activity (IPCC, 2014; National
Research Council, 2010; Oreskes, 2004; Doran and Zimmerman,
2009; Anderegg et al., 2010; Cook et al., 2013).
They ignore the survey by G. Mason U. in 2007 and by von Storch a few years later, which found about an 80% consensus. There’s another one or two with similar findings, which were mentioned prominently within the past month or so here or on Climate Etc.
Since it was too much trouble to actually read the 16,000 documents, they used a computer analysis to identify 47 “topics” and the top 5 “stemmed keywords” whatever that social scientist jargon means. Topic number 26, in its entirety, is
“26 Monckton monckton graph ppmv brenchley humankind
Certainly picked out the fundamental aspects, didn’t they?
This is a strange paper abstract. On the one hand you have the “Gaurdian” article, which seems to put words in the mouths of the Authors. The only time in the abstract they use the “D” word it is in quotes.
Also do note the name of their paper.
Text-mining the signals of climate change doubt
Doubt, a good term. not insulting or inflammatory. It would be nice to read the full paper but like must others here I’m not on Big Oil’s check mailing list. sigh
michael
Oops I didn’t read
davidmhoffer January 8, 2016 at 9:53 pm
Lance Wallace January 8, 2016 at 10:45 pm
I was being too charitable.
michael
Here are their conclusions. I think they got #3 about right (increased discussion of the science of climate change). They of course do not consider the possibility that this is because climate science might be wrong–they just look with concern at how disbelief in the science might lead to inaction on the political goals.
8. Conclusion
Our study provides the first systematic content analytic update of the climate change related literature of conservative think tanks—a critical piece of the “denial machine”—since the influential work of McCright and Dunlap (2000). Specifically, using the largest corpus of contrarian documents assembled to date, we find:
1. The overall level of CTT (conservative thinktanks) information has grown rapidly over the past decade and a half, reaching a peak during late 2009–early 2010.
2. Topics questioning the integrity of individual scientists and scientific bodies appear closer (semantically) to politics than science, suggesting that claims often considered the hallmark of scientific scepticism are rooted in politics.
3. The era of climate science denial is not over. While the aggregate results demonstrate that both policy and science discussions remain stable throughout the period of study (Fig. 2), a detailed analysis of a critical CTT (Fig. 3) and a focus on climate change-specific themes (Fig. 4) reveal the increased importance of both science and scientific integrity discussions over the sample period.
4. CTTs tend to react to the external environment—i.e., they counter claims—and thus studies focusing on narrow intervals of time (or a single organization) are likely sensitive to these contextual factors.
Tsk, most not must,
I need a new key board. With this one the keys keep changing places.
Mine does that too, especially after six or seven beer !!
Kinda scary the things that pop out of the keyboard after a 36 hour binge.
Or not.
best big for me is this quote from co-author Travis Coan:
Coan: “We are currently working on a study with John Cook that looks at science and policy related themes (amongst other items) in the top 50 climate skeptic blogs through 2015. The topic structure (i.e. discourse) is very similar, and sometimes identical, to the conservative thinktanks and there is reason to think that these two time series move together. For the blogs, we find that the increase in science-related skepticism continues right through 2015. Again, these results are preliminary, but suggest that the ‘end of science denial’ – at least among these actors – might be wishful thinking.”
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/planet-oz/2016/jan/07/era-of-climate-science-denial-is-not-over-study-finds
it’s ridiculous how Cook has become part of the worldwide CAGW team.
So….study….Cook…..skeptic blogs…..science policies…didn’t Fabius Maximus JUST post a really illogical, irrelevant, random article here on WUWT trying to gain support for “climate policies” this week?
I wonder if we’ll make the paper…
Cook is probably on the shortlist for next head of the IPCC…
oops..typo…meant to write: best BIT for me is this quote from co-author Travis Coan…
It is very reassuring to read that the Warmistas are becoming so concerned over the resilience of sceptical opinions growing and Climate alarmists converting to the opposition camp. It gives real hope that people are noticing the truth about the Climate Scare. It is clear which side inhabits the fantasy land.
Much of this trend is thanks to the persistence and hard work of WUWT and Anthony.
It is also significant that the authors are Constantine Boussalis of the Department of Political Science, Trinity College Dublin and Travis G. Coan of the Department of Politics and Exeter Q-Step Centre, University of Exeter. For them the science is all politics.
People are beginning to notice that only their gullible friends still parrot the party line.
And they are noticing that their smart friends are the ones asking tough questions…
“and as sea levels rose”
Yes, as sea levels rose, on average, at a trivial and non-accelerating rate.
They have been rising for the last 20,000 years, and previous much faster than anything we are witnessing today. About 6mm/yr on average over that period. And about 3mm/yr today perhaps.
You would have thought that people who write articles about this topic would bother to find out about the very most basic aspects of the history of the climate.
Alas, such information would now be branded as “contrarian” propaganda.
We must selected erase all knowledge of a climate history containing any variations in anything whatsoever.
Change only just started and it’s caused mainly by shady right-wing industrialist types. (sarc)
But honestly, the Grauniad is becoming more and more like Pravda with each passing day.
At the heart of this is the manner in which a normal and healthy part of science, and an actually basic requirement of good science, that is critical review is seen has bad and undesirable thing for climate ‘science’ And at the bottom of this is the knowledge that honesty critical review would take their rubbish to bits , this approch is opposed because it would show the weakness of their case , hence they say ‘why should I show you the data you only want to find things wrong with it ‘
And they are right , people do because that is the way you do good science, unquestioning obedience is a religions or political stance not one that belongs in science.
I wonder how many of the 16,000 documents were supplied by Dr Peter Gleick?
great to read reports like that- going pear shaped for them.
Just remember that back in the 1960s the Guardian was assuring its readers that the Viet Cong had nothing to do with Communism. If you favour a cause you can be tempted to make all sorts of daft statements in support of it. Some people give into the temptation. (Just look at the anti-religious comments on this website.) Nothing much changes. The Guardian, or the people who write for it, just can’t help it. That’s the way the Guardian is. And probably always will be.
They are losing the Climate War, and can’t figure out why. Their weak point was always “the science”, which is why they declared “the debate is over”, mostly refused to debate, and the few times they did, they lost, badly.
The last tactic he mentions, implying that skeptics/climate realists operate “in the shadows” and need to be dragged (kicking and screaming, no doubt) “into the light of day” is both desparate and risible. There is also the vague threat of “documenting our activities” and “calling us out”. Gee, are we frightened yet? I’m just quaking in my boots over that one. Still, it means we are over the target. Their days are numbered.
Phase II is moving along with earnest. It was never about the science, so they really don’t care. In fact, face to face discussions quickly devolve into “well, we cant burn fossils forevah”.
Scientists are stuck in the science debate while warmists are conducting a Phase II end run.
Globs of wanna be energy kings are chasing free money. If they get 10 more years of this fanfare they will make most first tier nations noncompetitive.
Only real option I see that stops them is a global economic meltdown. Even the GOP extended the rebates by 5 years (ugh). A GOP president is v unlikely to roll those back. Last thing I want to see is hard economic times to right the ship.
But the report was in The Guardian so is inherently suspect. See
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/dec/17/2016-set-to-be-hottest-year-on-record-globally
for how truly shoddy the reporting there is.
Re: Climate science isn’t science.
Appending Science to Climate imports as much objectivity as appending it to Creation.
In 1620 Francis Bacon invented Modern Science when he added Cause & Effect to Aristotelian science, replacing induction with real induction, which translates today to deduction. MS is strictly objective and is practiced in industry and engineering. In the ‘30s and ‘40s, Karl Popper, discarding causation and its major consequences, deconstructed MS into Post Modern Science, where scientific models are tested by three intersubjective criteria: peer review, publication, and consensus, each by certified practitioners. Popper’s followers thrive today in academia, the “publish or perish” community, and especially in physical sciences, where Climate Science is the poster child.
I hate to harp, but it’s time for this again:
Peer review as a reliable technique for assessing the validity of scientific data is surely discredited. ¶ The mistake, of course, is to have thought that peer review was any more than a crude means of discovering the acceptability — not the validity — of a new finding. Editors and scientists alike insist on the pivotal importance of peer review. We portray peer review to the public as a quasi-sacred process that helps to make science our most objective truth teller. But we know that the system of peer review is biased, unjust, unaccountable, incomplete, easily fixed [jiggered, not repaired], often insulting, usually ignorant, occasionally foolish, and frequently wrong. Richard Horton, Editor, The Lancet, London, UK, Med.J.Au, 2/21/00.
Horton reads equally well substituting publication or consensus for peer review.
Regardless of these intersubjective criteria, Modern Science alone judges its models according to their predictive power. Modern Science and Post Modern Science occupy center stage today, but they have mutually exclusive principles. Judging climate science by the MS criteria of predictive power is unfair: PMS models need not actually work.
Jeff writes,
“Appending Science to Climate imports as much objectivity as appending it to Creation.”
Why? Why not Evolution? That’s where the “consensus science” game got going in earnest, I am quite sure. That’s the realm that first raised it’s “science denier” head above the “common folk”, and declared that those who doubted that supposed “fact” were ruining everything for the would-be wonderland of Siants, our great and glorious savior . . if we would all just believe in it’s sacred truths . .
And the very same supposed “experts” on what science really is and is not (Nye, Dawkins, Shermer (Sagan), etc) now treat “climate change deniers” with the very same condescending contempt as they did the “Evolution deniers”. Coincidence?
It’s the same basic con, kids, I warn. The bone gazers can’t really see Evolution happening anymore than the tree ring gazers can see climate change happening, but many don’t like to be skeptical of what they’ve bit on, it seems to me.
This is funny…
http://i90.photobucket.com/albums/k247/dhm1353/dhm1353140/750_zpsn38gp8jz.jpg
Somewhere around 1998, the skeptics switched from policy to the science. No schist Sherlock… That’s when the models went epic fail…
http://i90.photobucket.com/albums/k247/dhm1353/dhm1353140/Screenshot_2016-01-09-08-33-47_zpsdcoxaexq.png
‘The Guardian’, when it was ‘The Manchester Guardian’, some 50 years ago (?), was a very good newspaper. Now it isn’t fit to tear up for use in the outhouse.
That’s why they invented “Lew paper”.
Just wait until the cAGW acolytes read read Ottawa’s Carleton University Professor Michael Harts new book “Hubris”, they will go apoplectic. This book published in late 2015 is a must read.
http://www.amazon.com/Hubris-Troubling-Science-Economics-Politics/dp/0994903804
I bought it. If it doesn’t make me laugh and give me insight I’m going to install an array of annoying windmills next to your house.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=silfiTY32xo&feature=share
We can identify a couple hundred thousand $ support for sceptics vs billions for alarmists (plus all the media and most of the celebrities). We must attribute super powers to these sceptics to believe that the observed phenomena are the result of their actions.
Isn’t this an admission that skeptics have a far more convincing argument than the “scientists” do? I always read these as saying “we are losing the climate debate and it can’t be our lack of evidence and invalid predictions. It must be something else. Ah, yes, a conspiracy on the part of conservative think tanks or oil companies.” What they are really saying is the science is not convincing and people are now recognizing that.
Then assume they can’t convince because of “rhetoric” (right wing rhetoric, anti-science rhetoric…).
So they have call arguments based on real world measurement “rhetoric”. Anything they don’t like is “rhetoric”. (Doom prophecy doesn’t count as rhetoric, nor does insinuation about intent or funding.)
I wonder how many idiots use the word “rhetoric” without any understand of what it means. It doesn’t mean “assertion about the world that isn’t true”!!!
If I say the Earth is flat, that isn’t “flat Earth rhetoric”, it’s simply false. If I say at a local scale (scale of a town or a small region), the Earth is flat, that isn’t true, but a decent approximation. (Saying it’s a sphere is also an approximation.)
Ummm ahhh, its actually both. Recent culture attributes rhetoric with a negative tone.
“hey darlin, you got yourself some nice rhetorical skills there” (a compliment to her eloquence)
“hey darlin, i wish you would stop with that rhetorical nonsense” (not a compliment)
“hey darlin, i like you better when you don’t talk (not sure where that falls, but it never works out well)
Humans do influence weather stations.
Atlanta Airport C1928 vs Atlanta Airport 2015.
https://www.pinterest.com/fan63/vintage-postcards-from-around-georgia/
http://atlantadailyworld.com/2014/01/07/atlantas-hartsfield-jackson-named-3rd-worst-airport-to-get-stuck-in/
The article is available here:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/75831381/Boussalis%20TExt-mining%20the%20signals%20of%20climate%20change%20doubt.pdf
Note that ‘Climate Change Denial’ across the board is being categorized as ‘misinformation’!
(para. 7 – Discussion)
Also interesting to study their references: Most of them I never heard about, but I notice ‘Cook, Nuccitelli and Green’, ‘Lewandowsky’, and ‘Oreskes’!
The concept of denialism presupposes that challenges to textbook theory are rare. They are not, and this is, to date, one of the biggest oversights on WUWT.
Again, it would be better if Eric actually read the paper he was attempting to critique, rather than just imagining what it says.
One doesn’t have to actually ingest rotting garbage to know that it is indeed, garbage.
I’ve seen some shockingly bad reports based on big data analysis. If you think CAGW is a nightmare of misinformation just wait till society gets schooled enough to warp big data results. It’s a nightmare waiting to happen. And yes, reading the report matters if only to see how badly they bias the findings … knowing your opposition’s style and all that stuff.
I’m feisty today. Think I’ll go check the lunar effect.
A conspiracy to attack obvious fabrications? No temp anomaly has yet got anywhere near a record in a decade – actually, since mid 1998. Arctic ice is growing at an unprecedented rate and is larger than in 2005. If more people are commenting on that, terrific but it doesn’t need Koch to point out the bleeding obvious.
P R O J E C T I O N on an epic scale.
Reading the paper – the ‘discussion’ section starts with “Theoretical progress in the field of organized climate change denial, among other things, ‘‘demands the collection and rigorous, systematic examination of longitudinal data’’ on the ‘‘discourses, claims, and frames employed by key components in the denial countermovement’’
Is there any organized climate change denial?
“it is clear that the misinformation campaign has been escalating over time”
So many evidence free claims – just like the warmists know and love?
Some skepti*cs might wonder what result if this analysis were applied to Lewandoski’s “data”, or any 16,000 “peer-reviewed” Cli-Sci articles. I submit they began by searching for “robust*” and it broke their computer. Hopefully the Gradian will follow up with an article on the needed grant for computer replacement.
Sometimes I hear things that stick in my brain. I’ll never forget an investment banker who told me :
“Ya know, I can make investments in flying pigs a profitable venture if I have enough money behind me. the suckers will follow and I’ll move onto to something else.”
There are people in the world with NO conscience.
My next bank manager is going to a ‘climate scientist’. It appears they can adjust my ‘previous’ data to make my ‘current’ data more impressive …… and NOT get arrested for it.
I’m open for suggestions (Australia), shouldn’t cost much, as I’m already paying for them.
Sometimes all the pink elephants get in the room together.
Debt up to the eyeballs in most major first tier nations.
Highest energy prices in the world in Germany and Denmark.
Massive investment in real resource (not that fake green stuff) production over the past 5 years except nobody thought it would come on line just as China’s consumption started to hit the skids.
200B in notes coming due in shale gas alone.
Money has been leaving US equity markets in earnest mid last year.
Now, skeptics may have kept the flame alive for the sake of science, but nothing will put the kibosh on inefficient rebate thriving green energy faster than a deflationary global economy.
I don’t wish it on the world, but in the course of NATURAL VARIABILITY concerning economic cycles what’s brewing should not be catching people by surprise.
But it is.
Maybe we should swap out all of the climate scientists with all the Wall Street folks! Then our National debt would go away (through adjustments) and the investors would actually pay attention to the science results!
“Climate scientists overwhelmingly agree that the Earth is getting warmer and that the rise in average global temperature is predominantly due to human activity. ”
Ergo climate denialists must be wrong, must be liars, frauds etc etc
Or…
the ‘expertise’ of climate scientists as a group is actually gossamer thin, skeptics have spotted the true transparency of said ‘expertise’ and have pointed out that the climate emperors and empresses appear less than fully clothed.
Corollary:- Climate ‘scientists’ group think together in the same way that herbivores, particularly ruminants tend to flock together and exhibit a range of herd behaviours.
Naked, cud chewers going “baaaaaa” in unison.
Naw….I think there are just some black sheep in the herd making a whole lotta noise while the rest keep their heads down mowing grass and doing what sheep do. Or maybe there are just wolves in scientist’s clothing. I hate lumping all climate researchers in with the wolves. It’s not fair and it makes us look bad too.
So WUWT is conspiring to commit a crime? What crime would that be? Those