By Andy May
The left-wing Scientific American published a so-called review of Steven Koonin’s new book, Unsettled, by a number of prominent left-wing scientists. The article is headed by the mandatory sunset photo of steam coming out of powerplant chimneys. The article is not really a review, their substantive claims are very weak, it is really a hit piece to trash Koonin and his reputation in the best Naomi Oreskes’ and Union of Concerned Scientists’ odious style. But throwing rocks from glass houses invites them to be thrown back, and what goes around comes around. What little scientific content is present in the article is dealt with at the end of this post, their scientific arguments are as vacuous as their attacks on Koonin.
Naomi Oreskes is the senior author of the hit piece, which is no surprise, that is what she does. Oreskes was famously humiliated in court by content expert Kimberly Neuendorf (ExxonMobil, 2018a) (May, 2020c, p. 169). Oreskes and Geoffrey Supran (a co-author of the Scientific American slander piece) wrote a peer-reviewed article for Environmental Research Letters (Supran & Oreskes, 2017), that supposedly used “content analysis” to show that ExxonMobil was saying one thing about climate change publicly and another in private. However, their content analysis was sloppy, poorly done, and biased. In the words of Kimberly A. Neuendorf, the prominent expert in such analyses (she abbreviates Supran and Oreskes as “S&O”):
“S&O’s content analysis does not support the study’s conclusions because of a variety of fundamental errors in their analysis. S&O’s content analysis lacks reliability, validity, objectivity, generalizability, and replicability. These basic standards of scientific inquiry are vital for a proper content analysis, but they are not satisfied by the S&O study.” (ExxonMobil, 2018a, Attachment A)
Neuendorf’s book, The Content Analysis Guidebook, is the standard reference in this area. Most of the errors identified by Neuendorf spring from poor sampling of ExxonMobil content. S&O improperly grouped together communications that vary across time and by author and audience. They also group statements by Exxon and Mobil, before they merged, as if they were one entity. Further, S&O coded the communications themselves rather than using objective and uninvolved coders, this renders their work non-replicable and unscientific (May, 2020c, p. 169). It is hard to take either of these authors seriously.
The second author is Michael Mann, the main author of the notorious hockey stick. This very flawed “reconstruction” of Northern Hemisphere temperatures has so many problems we cannot list them all here. The best description of the problems is Andrew Montford’s authoritative The Hockey Stick Illusion (Montford, 2010). From a scientific and statistical point of view (the study contained many statistical errors), the best critiques are by Steve McIntyre and Ross McKitrick (McIntyre & McKitrick, 2003) and (McIntyre & McKitrick, 2005). For a fairly complete list of criticisms of the hockey stick, the best source is Mark Steyn’s book, A Disgrace to the Profession (Steyn, 2015). Finally the leaders of the scientific community have looked at the hockey stick and it’s generation and detailed the data and statistical problems in two reports, one from the National Research Council (National Research Council, 2006) and the other from the Congressional Wegman ad hoc committee (Wegman, Scott, & Said, 2010). However, the most damning criticism is from the U.N. IPCC AR4 report. The hockey stick was widely promoted in the third IPCC report (TAR) but dropped from AR4 due to the problems uncovered and documented. This is what Keith Briffa and other IPCC authors had to say about it in AR4:
“Some of the studies conducted since the Third Assessment Report (TAR) indicate greater multi-centennial Northern Hemisphere temperature variability over the last 1 kyr than was shown in the TAR, demonstrating a sensitivity to the particular proxies used, and the specific statistical methods of processing and/or scaling them to represent past temperatures. The additional variability shown in some new studies implies mainly cooler temperatures (predominantly in the 12th to 14th, 17th and 19th centuries), and only one new reconstruction suggests slightly warmer conditions in the 11th century, but well within the uncertainty range indicated in the TAR.” (IPCC, 2007b, p. 436)
Briffa toned this bit down a bit, but it is damning anyway. The statistical methods used to create the hocky stick were certainly flawed, as the National Research Council Report explains in plain English. Further the proxies were incompatible with one another and could not be combined with statistical techniques as explained in all the critiques of the hockey stick. The first critique of the hockey stick was by Willie Soon and Sallie Baliunas and they explain clearly why it is a bad idea to combine proxies (Soon & Baliunas, 2003).
Among the authors of the Scientific American hit piece, we find Peter Frumhoff, a leader of the far-left Union of Concerned Scientists. As explained in my latest book, Politics and Climate Change: A History, Frumhoff was one of the organizers of the ExxonKnew campaign. He, with help from various Rockefeller foundations, the Tides Foundation, Greenpeace and other wealthy liberal foundations, got many state attorneys general (AGs) and ex-tobacco lawyers to attend a secret meeting at Harvard University in 2016. Frumhoff arranged to pay travel expenses for, at least some of the AGs. It was secret because the AGs did not want to get caught conspiring with tobacco lawyers in a plot to “get” ExxonMobil. The Vermont AG, Scot Kline, fought releasing the meeting agenda for over a year, but eventually had to turn it over in court (May, 2020c, p. 167).
Presenters at this secret meeting included Naomi Oreskes and Peter Frumhoff. All their efforts to “get” ExxonMobil failed miserably, there was nothing to sue ExxonMobil for. They talked Michael Bloomberg into funding and placing private lawyers, charged with going after fossil fuel companies, into the AG offices of several states. Bloomberg laundered the money for this through NYU law school, who the private lawyers reported to. These lawyers were called “Special Assistant Attorneys General” and were given some prosecutorial powers, but were not there to prosecute criminals, they were there to harass specific companies. It doesn’t get more corrupt than that, these are not nice people.
The Scientific American hit piece claims that temperatures have risen rapidly since 1979 and are the warmest in 1,500 years. If one digs into the hockey stick, and into temperature reconstructions in general, it is easy to see that no one can possibly say that, if they are honest. Since 1979 surface temperatures have been measured in the lower two meters of the atmosphere and in the upper meter of the oceans in thousands of places around the world with accurate thermometers. Then these measurements have been extensively processed to form records of global average temperature. The various records do not agree with one another, and all are criticized. Below, Figure 1 is a plot of the widely used HadCRUT5 temperature records for the Northern and Southern Hemispheres.
The record claims that the Northern hemisphere surface is warming at a rate of 0.28°C/decade and the Southern Hemisphere is warming at a much lower rate of 0.11°C/decade. Given that CO2 is a well-mixed gas, this is hard to explain, if we assume CO2 is causing the warming. But Earth’s surface is unstable, we live on the surface and all our weather occurs there, the measurements may be a little wonky. Also, most of the land is in the Northern Hemisphere, which doesn’t help, elevation changes things, especially temperature. What about the satellite data? Below we see the Northern and Southern Hemisphere warming rates for the entire lower troposphere, not just the chaotic lower two meters:
Hmmm, quite different. The Northern Hemisphere is still warming more rapidly than the Southern, but the difference is much less than in the HadCRUT5 record. Notice the Southern Hemisphere UAH satellite rate is nearly the same as the HadCRUT5 Southern Hemisphere rate. The anomaly is the extraordinary HadCRUT5 Northern Hemisphere rate. Is this real? Unlikely.
So, it appears we do not know the warming rate since 1979. Makes it pretty difficult to say the rate or the current temperature is unusual. What do we know about temperatures prior to 1979? We have no reliable satellite data prior to 1979, and all ocean surface temperatures are from ships. Prior to World War II, the ship temperatures are from buckets of water brought up to the deck with a rope. Those measurements must be very accurate! Not! (Kennedy, Rayner, Smith, Parker, & Saunby, 2011) and (Kennedy, Rayner, Smith, Parker, & Saunby, 2011b).
Prior to 1900, what do we have? Mostly proxies, tree rings, sediment, and ice cores. The tree rings are well dated, and we have one ring per year. Unfortunately, if you look into the hockey stick articles I list of above, you will see that tree rings are affected by the atmospheric CO2 concentration, which means modern tree rings are not comparable to ancient ones, oops! The other proxies are poorly dated (±50 years or so). How long has it been since 1979, 41 years? Further, most proxies are not annual, many represent several decades of temperatures. The temperature accuracy of the proxies is also suspect. In short, there is no way anyone can honestly compare today’s temperatures to the past 1,500 years. The data doesn’t exist. The following plot of temperature reconstructions is presented in AR5 (page 409):
Some are reconstructions of global temperatures (dark blue), some are land only (red and orange), some are land and sea extratropical (light blue), etc. The point is, climate is regional, the global average surface temperature we are trying to estimate in modern times, may or may not be a meaningful measure of climate change. We just don’t know. Given these three plots, how can anyone say modern warming is unusual with a straight face?
They also claim that Hurricane Sandy, which hit New York City in 2012, is due to human-caused climate change, which is pure speculation. Even Scientific American makes this point in an article trying to blame weather events on climate change, they write:
“Today, scientists still generally agree that it’s impossible to attribute any individual weather phenomenon solely to climate change. Storms, fires, droughts and other events are influenced by a variety of complex factors.” Scientific American
They remind me of Karl Popper’s anecdote that when a Marxist opened a newspaper every article was “proof” that Marx was correct (May, 2020c, p. 247). One of the ways to spot a pseudo-scientific hypothesis is that everything that happens is “proof” the hypothesis is correct (Popper, 1962). More on extreme weather and climate change can be found here.
They also blame fossil fuels for all our air pollution and the deaths that result from it, totally ignoring the huge health benefits that fossil fuels and modern technology have brought to the world as explained here.
They claim that climate change is already costing the United States and the world a lot of money, when leading economists have determined that the additional CO2 in the atmosphere and the recent warming have benefited the world by making it greener and by improving agricultural productivity (May, 2020c, pp. 119-121). We hear a lot about limiting warming to either 1.5° or 2.0°C, depending upon who is talking. But Nobel Prize winning Yale economist William Nordhaus states, in his Nobel Prize acceptance lecture, that the optimal economic pathway is to allow for four degrees of warming in 2135 should the IPCC worst case scenario occur (see slides 6 and 7 in Nordhaus’s pdf of his slides).
They also make the claim that the rate of sea-level rise has quadrupled since the industrial revolution. This is obvious nonsense, the measures of sea level change that exist today are not accurate enough to say that. Sea level is probably rising, but the rate moves up and down and varies from less than one millimeter per year to over three millimeters per year. Tide gauges are only accurate to several centimeters (±30 millimeters or so), so how could we possibly know if the rate had quadrupled? More on sea level “acceleration” from Anthony Watts here. Kip Hansen discusses the difficulties in measuring the rate of sea level rise here.
In any case, if sea level is rising at 3 mm/year, it amounts only to a foot in 100 years, which is hardly a disaster. One needs to remember that satellite sea-level measurements and ground-based measurements do not agree, and the difference is larger than the sea-level rise we are trying to measure!
That is the extent of the scientific arguments in the hit piece. Not much. But the article was not written to debate Koonin’s points, it was just an attempt to trash him personally and to give climate alarmists in social media something to link to.
The bibliography can be downloaded here.
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Naomi Oreskes is as brilliant as she is beautiful.
Meanwhile, a tweet by Judith Curry being slammed by Mann et al: https://twitter.com/curryja/status/1397901896380211200
And it’s being discussed on “RealClimate”: https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2021/06/unforced-variations-jun-2021/
See item #3.
Scientific American’s June issue has an article, “A Tapestry of Alternatives” subtitled, “Making peace with the biosphere will require building communities and relationships that are focused on sustaining life- human and nonhuman”. So if anyone doesn’t understand that the climate hysteria is wedded to a push for Utopia, they aren’t paying attention. The item isn’t yet available online unless you’re registered then you can download it. In the article I see the image I’ve attached. In the text next to the image showing values- it says, “Indigenous peoples and others have lived by similar values for centuries, and they are also being embraced and asserted by people in industrial societies as solutions to global ecological and social crisis.”
First of all, indigenous people have a history of war and pillage as bad as non indigenous people. I’ve read reports by anthropologists who describe ancient skeletons with skulls smashed by weapons and they are not uncommon. War and violence isn’t new. And the only reason indigenous people didn’t effect their local ecosystems as much as non indigenous people is that they didn’t have the tools to do so- other than fire which was universal. Idealizing indigenous peoples is childish. They were/are no better nor worse than non indigenous. But look at that “tapestry” of values. It’s fine to fantasize about Utopia, but in a science magazine?
The article wants us to think indigenous people were all nature loving socialists.
Ah, yes, the delusional myth of the noble indigenous peoples. There are innumerable takedowns of Rousseau’s “noble savage.”
Among them:
S.C. Gwynne’s Empire of the Summer Moon: Quanah Parker and the Rise and Fall of the Comanches, the Most Powerful Tribe in American History (2010) and
Francis Parkman’s seven-volume France and England in North America (1865-1892).
The Iroquois (a/k/a the Five Nations) completely obliterated the Algonquins in what amounted to a successful case of ethnic cleansing and genocide.
The Comanches, Iroquois and Algonquins were masterful, accomplished torturers with a well-developed ability to inflict horrific suffering. They frequently enjoyed the thrill of slowly burning their victims alive.
I could be wrong- but it’s my understanding is that slavery from Africa couldn’t have happened if it wasn’t for native, indigenous African slavers grabbing other indigenous people and selling them to the Arabs and later Europeans. The Native Americans here in central New England were terrified of the ferocious Mohawks. But by comparison, wealthy populations seem more peaceful and benign. And you need cheap, abundant energy to be wealthy.
They live in a fantasy world with no grasp of history. They’ve bought into the “Noble Savage” concept fully. They would be among the first to starve to death in their “utopia”
Scientific like Fauci is a doctor, I guess.
Since SA was sold to a German publisher, it has become neither scientific nor American.
You took the words out of my mouth (or off my keyboard).
Unscientific Americans
In figure 2, I’m glad to see a linear regression, however no R-square value reported, which is a guide to tell how much the data fits the straight line; at least I didn’t see it upon quick browsing. This is what I was inviting you to do Anthony; on my side, both in research and in pharmaceutical data for quality control and validation processes, I use further analysis to study trends in data through more geometrical analysis; I adapted the method from math analysis of chemical reactions and have proven it useful in an unpublished study that I conducted with brainwaves to differ normal behavior versus sick.The mere observation of wave patterns as in a simple regression from the raw data, as in figure 2, or even simpler observation of frequency/wavelength as it happens for EEG, is NOT the most accurate/best approach to address the interpretation of the data; a more rigorous analysis re-organizing the data, and rather than observing the trend of the raw data, it is order in such a way that more options beside linear, such as quadratic/power/logarithmic/exponential behavior can be more appropriate to study normality versus deviations. I don’t see that sort of more profound studies whenever I see environmental/economical/political data, and this is for me another source of incompleteness in the conclusions of whatever they call significant warming and CO2 emissions/concentrations; I still agree with the valid scientific questions of “CO2 causing permanent warming” that have been put forward by many scientists; the claim appears
to me that they are giving CO2 properties beyond its capabilities based on molecular structure, as compared to the biological world of substances like steroids, which are relatively small, but do have the capability of causing permanent and significant changes at very low concentrations. I’m also still awaiting for a definite consensus of independent scientists that can make the so-called climate change qualify for a Nobel Prize recognition, the ultimate scientific acceptance of an issue. In pharmaceutical science, FDA requires us to ensure the cleanness and safety of drugs to have in place quality control analyses and validation tests, which are tests to ensure that the tests are suitable for the conclusions; we have to implement 2-3 levels of testing to prove our findings true with very complex math/statistical approaches that many make a living as consultants for the industry, using certifications such as Sigma Xi. Now, why is the government pushing us to ensure the veracity and validity of drug testing through layers of testing and expensive costs to do so, but we in return cannot ask the government to adapt their same approach to the issues such as climate change/political conspiracies?? It’s called double standard!
Thanks. JBVigo, PhD
Sorry I meant to refer to Figure 1
Jimmy, R^2 is a test of linearity. The purpose of the line was simply to derive a trend. I knew the data were not linear already.
Twelve authors to write the bogus SA review of Koonin’s book.
Forty years ago, SA was an enjoyable read and informative. Can not remember the last time I read anything in SA.
Twelve? If he were wrong, one would have been enough.
Anything that starts with the obligatory photo of black steam coming out of a stack I automatically discount.
We stopped subscribing to Scientific American years ago when they ran that special issue on GMO food and printed only what the companies producing the GMOs claim publicly. They even lied and said the FDA had tested these foods. The FDA never tests anything themselves. There were quite a few untruths like that which would have been apparent to anyone who fact checked. They devoted an entire issue to promoting GMO foods whit nothing other than material issued by the companies that produce them.
They have done similar with Warming and Climate Change propaganda. They slip little insinuations and false factoids into articles which are irrelevant to the subject of the article but promote the belief in the Climate Warming Theory.
It is no longer a magazine of science.
Andy,
While reading “Unsettled”, I was particularly interested in the conversation with Hans Joachim Schellenhuber who seems to have invented the 2 degrees C warming.
It led me to think about the issue of “carbon pollution”.
In “Green Zero”, his recent 2021 Quarterly Essay contribution,the just retired Chief Scientist of Australia Dr.Allan Finkel has firmly stated that carbon dioxide is not a pollutant nor is it toxic although it is a greenhouse gas.
In his terms it all comes down to the enhanced greenhouse effect.
In Australia since 1996 we have had a list of pollutants the National Pollutants Inventory(NPI) with 93 elements and compounds declared pollutants, not including C or CO2.
In 2018, the Department of Science carried out a review of the NPI.
It showed there are now 2 categories of pollutants being “non-greenhouse pollutants” ( namely the original 93) and “greenhouse gas pollutants”.
The latter seem to originate at the UN pursuant to Kyoto and the Paris international covenants.
My question is, who determined that CO2 is a pollutant and when?
I appreciate that the EPA has its endangerment finding and that the phrase ‘carbon pollution’ appears no doubt in various UN reports.
Any answer?
Herbert, This is described in detail in my latest book, Politics and Climate Change: A History. But two events caused the endangerment finding. First the Supreme Court made a very faulty ruling in 2007 that said the EPA decides what is a pollutant and what isn’t, no checks no balances. Then Obama was elected, and they ordered the EPA to say CO2 was a pollutant. It was done, and it has not been undone to date. But it is obviously wrong.
Andy,
Thanks.
In the last two weeks I have bought your book on Kindle but yet to read beyond early part.
I have got caught up in reading “Unsettled” and other trivia like exercise, housework and gardening.
It’s amazing what you can find if I use the Index to your book!
Pp152-153.
Off now to read the book and answer my own question.
Thanks again.