Last Monday evening, BBC2 broadcast a Horizon programme with the title Science Under Attack. Both the title and the content of the programme were deeply misleading but, no doubt unintentionally, it may reveal far more about the scientific establishments confused and panic-stricken reaction to the onslaught of criticism that it has witnessed since the Climategate scandal broke just over a year ago than either its illustrious presenter or the programme makers realise or intended.
The white knight who galloped to the rescue of our beleaguered ‘community of climate scientists’ (the presenter’s words) was Sir Paul Nurse, a Nobel Prize winning geneticist and the newly appointed president of the Royal Society. His rather blokeish, seemingly modest, but relentlessly confident and avuncular style in front of the camera, together with a gift for appearing to explain complex issues in a fair-minded and easily digestible way, were more than enough to lull any audience into a complacent acceptance of anything he might have to say. So what went wrong?
Sir Paul’s primary mission was to persuade viewers that the questions posed by global warming sceptics are of no consequence, and that climate science has emerged from a traumatic year of unsavoury revelations without a stain on its good name. But there was another theme that underpinned his thesis: everyone should listen to what scientists say and then meekly accept it as incontrovertible truth. Whether his efforts were appropriate for a scientist of his distinction is very doubtful. It is not unreasonable for the public to expect the president of our national academy of science to take a well-balanced view of such an important subject as climate change, but there was absolutely no evidence of this.
The Royal Society recently attempted to dump its indefensible claims that the science of anthropogenic global warming is settled and the debate is over by drafting a new, and far more cautious, report on the present level of scientific understanding of this vexed topic. It would appear that their new president has no such doubts or concerns about the vast uncertainties that dog climate research. One wonders just how much Sir Paul knows about the present state of play in climate science, which is well outside his field of expertise. It would also be interesting to know how he has informed himself about this subject.
This Horizon programme would seem to have been part of a concerted PR campaign that was launched soon after compromising emails from the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia were released on the Internet. The narrative that the scientific community, and it’s cheerleaders in the eNGOs, the government, and parts of the media seek to implant in the public consciousness is that the scientists whose behaviour was laid bare in their correspondence were in fact innocent victims of politically motivated and unscrupulous climate sceptics, rather than the perpetrators of apparently disgraceful behaviour. This is to turn logic on its head, but if Nurse has noticed, eminent scientist that he no doubt is, then he sees no reason to comment.
For all his ‘man of the people’ delivery, one could hardly accuse Sir Paul of false modesty. Only seconds into his presentation, we were informed that “science created our modern world”, a fatuous and arrogant claim that seems to be emerging as a new mantra from the beleaguered science community. Professor Brian Cox used almost the same phrase in his Wheldon lecture last December – “science … delivered the modern world” – while attempting to justify the BBC’s lack of impartiality when reporting climate related matters.
If this is the way that scientists are now inclined to see themselves, and an endorsement of that notion from such an eminent personage as the president of the Royal Society would certainly seem to send a message that it is quite OK to do so, then that is truly terrifying. Are scientists really so hubristic now that they ignore the contributions of philosophers, engineers, businessmen, explorers, academics from a host of non-scientific disciplines, social reformers, entrepreneurs, politicians, and countless others in order to assign all accolades and glory to themselves?
A few moments later, we were treated to a clip of Sir Paul barking, ‘Are you saying that the whole community, or a majority of the community of climate scientists are skewing their data? Is that what you are saying?’ at a rather startled looking James Delingpole. The camera immediately cut away giving the impression that the redoubtable ‘Dellers’ had no response to this salvo, which seems unlikely. Not many sceptics think anything of the kind, although they are well used to hearing the worst kind of climate alarmist, who is clutching at straws, making this accusation. Why the president of the Royal Society should choose to use such a notoriously threadbare ‘straw man’ argument without allowing a reply from his victim is something that each of us must decide for ourselves. And this sets the scene for most of the rest of the programme in which Sir Paul’s views are paramount, and the arguments of climate sceptics – the attackers of the programme title – are not given any serious consideration.
The message that Sir Paul evidently wishes to get across – and there can be no doubt that this edition of Horizon was about getting a very specific message across and doing so ruthlessly – was not particularly complex. If a Nobel Prize winner chooses to lay down the law on a matter as important as global warming, there is no room for dissent from anyone outside the cosy academic world of the scientific establishment that he inhabits. The views of an acclaimed researcher, albeit in a totally unrelated field, who is the new head of the world’s oldest and arguably most respected scientific institution, and by his own estimation a creator of the modern world, are beyond criticism or challenge because they represent SCIENCE. Particularly, no one should pay any attention to the questions that global warming sceptics pose because they are not part of the SCIENTIFIC ESTABLISHMENT and must therefor be politically motivated troublemakers. In this scenario there are legions of impartial and scrupulously fair-minded mainstream climate scientists queuing up to explain everything, while the sceptics just cause trouble.
As examples of such worthy personages, it is remarkable that Sir Paul chose to interview a very complacent glaciologist from James Hansen’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) at NASA who seemed to have a less than adequate understanding of the carbon cycle and, believe it or not, Phil Jones, the researcher at the centre of the University of East Anglia Climategate scandal.
The man from NASA had some very pretty video presentations to show how satellites collect vast quantities of data about Earth’s climate, and how weather models can mimic observed data. No mention was made of the relatively short period that satellite data covers, or that GSMs that can predict weather patterns over a period of days with reasonable accuracy are not necessarily capable of telling us much about what the climate is likely to do during the rest of this century. A brief excursion into the carbon cycle lead to this amazing exchange:
Bob Bindschadler [NASA scientist]: We know how much fossil fuel we take out of the ground. We know how much we sell. We know how much we burn. And that is a huge amount of carbon dioxide. It’s about seven gigatons per year right now.
Paul Nurse: And is that enough to explain…?
Bob Bindschadler: Natural causes only can produce – yes, there are volcanoes popping off and things like that, and coming out of the ocean, only about one gigaton per year. So there’s just no question that human activity is producing a massively large proportion of the carbon dioxide.
Paul Nurse: So seven times more.
Bob Bindschadler: That’s right.
So it would appear that neither the NASA expert, nor the president of the Royal Society who has chosen to enlighten the public about the climate debate in an hour long TV programme, know that anthropogenic emissions of Co2 are generally estimated as about 5% of natural emissions into the atmosphere, not 700%.
However Sir Paul did confide, rather breathlessly, that GISS burns $2bn (no it’s not a typo) in funding for climate research each year, rather implying that any data that cost that much must be pretty darned good. The possibility that funding on this scale might be a distinct disincentive to following up on any evidence that casts doubt on anthropogenic global warming (AGW) seems not to have crossed the presenter’s mind. This is strange as, at other points in the programme, Sir Paul stresses the importance of scientists considering all the evidence relating to the research they are conducting and to testing their theories to destruction. As his programme appears to be an exercise in assessing the credibility of climate scepticism in face of the wisdom handed down by the creators of the modern world, one might expect him to follow his own excellent advice so far as methodology is concerned. It would seem that he reserves such good practices for the day job in the genetics lab.
Concerning the availability of research funding to those concerned about the climate, there is a deep irony in the fact that the Horizon programme was broadcast about the same time that Jeff Id, who has made a valuable, and sceptical, contribution to the climate debate, announced that he was closing his Air Vent blog because of business and family pressures, and Antony Watts of Watts Up With That took a decision to scale back his activities for similar reasons.
The sceptics that Professor Nurse chooses to interview, supposedly to find out what evidence climate scepticism is founded on, are James Delingpole and Fred Singer.
The former is a journalist who happily admits that he is an arts graduate who only became interested in the climate debate about a year ago, and that he can hardly be expected to be a match for a scientist of Nurse’s standing. Fred Singer, now in his mid-eighties, was introduced as ‘one of the world’s most prominent and prolific climate sceptics’ and interviewed in a crowded and very noisy Washington diner where a few mumbled remarks about solar influence on climate were hardly audible, but gave the impression – as the film makers presumably intended – that he was talking nonsense. Of the multitude of climate sceptics who could have presented arguments that Sir Paul would have had trouble sweeping aside, there was no sign, but then we were not watching that kind of programme and he was not considering all the evidence or testing his theories to destruction on this occasion.
The interview with Phil Jones, on the other hand, was conducted in the tranquil setting of the CRU library and the University or East Anglia campus, where not a syllable of the Climategate emailers responses to sympathetically posed leading questions could be missed. This was an obvious attempt to rehabilitate this still beleaguered scientist, but why should Sir Paul want to do such a thing when doubts about both Jones behaviour and his research findings still so obviously exist? The day after the programme was broadcast, the House of Commons Select Committee on Science and Technology published their review of the supposedly independent inquiries into the Climategate affair. They found that the inquiries were not independent, and that they failed to examine issues that could have proved damaging to Jones and his colleagues.
What is perhaps rather strange is that, while giving Jones and the University of East Anglia such an easy time, and claiming that the Climategate emailers have been exonerated by ‘independent’ enquiries even though these just happen to have been set up by their employers, the very institutions that would suffer most if any malfeasance had been reported, Sir Paul omits to mention that he was born (and bred :correction, see below) in the city of Norwich, where UEA is based, and that he received his PhD from UEA in 1973. Nor does he mention that Jones was a part of the Society’s climate advisory network that produced the now discredited and replaced statement on climate change referred to above. Given the degree of mistrust that exists between warmists and sceptics, those would seem to be matters that he should have been quite open about.
There is much more that one could say about this programme which, while purporting to be a dispassionate analysis of the climate debate by an eminent scientist, is just another shocking attempt to influence public opinion by being very selective in the evidence it considers. Instead of reviewing the criticisms, or in the words of the programme title ‘attacks’, that climate research has been subject to, Nurse prefers to home in on a very mild criticism that comes from those within the establishment fold who seek to defend the scientists.
Scientists may not be willing enough to publicly discuss the uncertainties in their science, or to fully engage with those that disagree with them, and this has helped to polarise the debate.
The hostile and arrogant attitude of climate scientists to anyone who may be so impertinent as to want to ask questions about their findings were displayed for all to see in the Climategate emails. Engaging with those who disagree with them and acknowledging uncertainties will not prevent a polarised debate, it will simply bring an increased deluge of embarrassing questions from sceptics, and climate scientists must know this. But the suggestion that climate scientists may merely have been a little bit reticent sounds benign and reassuring to the uninitiated when delivered with a steady gaze looking straight into the lens of the camera. The problem is that if the uncertainties that attend every step on the way to an anthropogenic climate change hypothesis were frankly discussed, then the credibility of climate science would vanish like snowdrifts in a heatwave. Too many unjustified claims of certainty or near certainty have been made in the past for researchers to publicise the true state of affairs now.
But if all else fails, one can always blame the media for any woes. This seems to be a very strange line for Sir Paul to take. In an age when ‘churnalism’ (journalists regurgitating undigested press releases, stories from wire services, and PR packages without checking them) assures any sensational story about imminent environmental catastrophe a place in the headlines it is hard to know what climate scientists have to complain about. But Sir Paul says:
It’s not surprising that the public are confused reading all of this different stuff. There’s these lurid headlines and there’s political opinions, I think, filtering through, which probably reflects editorial policy within the newspapers, and we get an unholy mix of the media and the politics, and it’s distorting the proper reporting of science. And that’s a real danger for us, if science is to have its proper impact on society.
He seems to be referring to the Daily Express, Daily Mail and Sunday Telegraph where climate scepticism is freely reported, but not of course to the Guardian, the Independent, and very often the Times and Sunday Times, which seem to be prepared to print any scare story about ‘new scientific research’, however ill founded and preposterous it might be. And Sir Paul certainly doesn’t address what Steve McIntyre has called ‘the silence of the lambs’: the failure of the climate science community to criticise or correct inaccurate and exaggerated reporting when it stirs up alarm about human impact on the climate.
Indeed there are moments of pure unreality in Sir Paul’s diatribe against those who attack science.
There’s an overwhelming body of evidence that says we are warming our planet. But complexity allows for confusion, and for alternative theories to develop. The only solution is to look at all the evidence as a whole. I think some extreme sceptics decide what to think first and then cherry-pick the data to support their case.
Of course the possibility that climate scientists might be victims of precisely the same affliction is not addressed. As for the so-called consensus view of climate science, he has this to say:
“Consensus” can be used like a dirty word. Consensus is actually the position of the experts at the time, and if it’s working well – it doesn’t always work well – but if it’s working well, they evaluate the evidence. You make your reputation in science by actually overturning that, so there’s a lot of pressure to do it. But if over the years the consensus doesn’t move, you have to wonder: is the argument, is the evidence against the consensus good enough?
It is this utterance, perhaps more than anything else in the programme, which suggests that Sir Paul is way out of his depth where climate science is concerned. The idealised scenario that he proposes may be possible in mathematics, chemistry, physics or genetics, but in climate research it would be professional suicide, as the Climategate emails show. In this field, if no other, dissent is viewed as heresy pure and simple, regardless of how well founded it might be.
And while we are on the subject of the scientific consensus on climate change, it is very strange that Sir Paul has omitted any mention of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change from this programme about the inviolable authority of climate science. I wonder why?
Controversy surrounding AIDs and GM crops are touched on briefly, but the programme’s focus is relentlessly on climate change. A sequence dealing with aids includes a long, and very sympathetic, discussion with a man called Tony who does not believe that HIV causes AIDs because, although he was diagnosed HIV positive years ago, and has not taken any of the medication he was prescribed, he is still alive and apparently healthy. This would seem to have been included for no other purpose than to suggest that climate sceptics are no different from HIV sceptics, and therefor totally irrational.
Controversy about GM food crops is also given a brief airing, but Sir Paul seems to be oblivious to the irony that the green activists who trash fields of GM maize, and therefore science must be scientific ignoramuses because they do not listen when researchers say there is no danger, are likely to be the very same people who will turn out for anti fossil fuel demonstrations and presumably fully accept all that the climate science community has to say on that subject.
This episode of Horizon begins and ends in the archives of the Royal Society with Sir Paul admiring – almost worshiping – the early minutes of the Royal Society’s meetings and works by Newton and Darwin. No one can doubt the outstanding record of scientific achievement of the Society in the past, and Sir Paul is obviously thrilled to be at its head, but the inclusion of these sequences seem to say to the audience, don’t you dare question what I, the successor of these great men, am telling you.
In the eyes of many scientists, it seems to be becoming as unacceptable to challenge scientific dogma today as it was to question the theology of the medieval church, although it is not yet quite so dangerous. Yet anyone who has read the Climategate emails must know that in climate science a reformation is long overdue: this branch of science definitely needs a spring-clean. In the emails we see a world of people whose sole preoccupation seems not to be curiosity and discovery, but keeping one jump ahead of their critics. And how do they view those critics? As politically motivated ignoramuses of course, while Sir Paul describes, the CRU in the following terms:
‘The unit’s headquarters are [sic] tiny, yet Dr Jones and his colleagues have had a truly global impact’.
Why should such titans of the scientific world be concerned about sceptics who want to check their research? What could they possibly have to fear? And why, in the wake of the Climategate scandal, did the University of East Anglia promise a review of the research that has come out of the CRU, and then quietly drop the idea? And why is asking questions about such matters considered to be an attack on science? Indeed why, if there isn’t any problem really, has such controversy triggered an hour-long programme from the BBC starring the president of our national academy of science?
No one could possibly expect the scientific world’s new chief representative (and shop steward?) to say anything that might stand in the way of concern about global warming providing billions of pounds of research funding, but the subject did deserve something rather better than a tedious and often confused defence of the establishment view; just leave it all to the scientists Sir Paul seems to be repeating endlessly, like Phil Jones, who understand all these things and cannot possibly be wrong.
But how can any fair-minded person, inside or outside the scientific establishment, be indifferent to demands that climate scientist, who have so much influence on public policy at present, should be subject to intense scrutiny, and particularly by those who are most hostile to their views. Only then can their research findings be fully tested and finally trusted. Although Sir Paul says he is keen on scientists testing their ideas to destruction, he seems terrified if that process is instigated from outside the scientific establishment and applied to climate science. And therein lies the real thrust of his programme.
Sir Paul is now at the pinnacle of the scientific establishment. His views on climate science matter, regardless of whether he really knows anything about the controversies that have engulfed this subject or not. Although he purports to be considering whether the attacks that have been made on climate science during the last year can in any way be justified, it seems evident that his mind was closed to any such possibility from the outset. Had this not been the case he would have chosen very different climate sceptics to talk to and would have attempted to establish just what their concerns are.
The title of the programme, Science Under Attack, points to a fascinating sidelight on the way that the scientific establishment now view the climate debate. As I have said, what controversy exists over GM crops and the cause of AIDs is of a very different type and order from that concerning anthropogenic global warming, and their inclusion in this programme is ancillary to the main theme. So far as I am aware, mathematicians, physicists, chemists and astronomers are not conspicuously under attack. Only climate science and climate scientists are in the cross hairs of public condemnation at the moment. So why was this programme called Science Under Attack? Is this meant to imply that anyone who fails to embrace the consensus view on climate change is challenging science, and the scientific method, in its entirety? If so that would seem to be a very dangerous position for Sir Paul and the scientific establishment to adopt.
If the Royal Society is prepared hold up climate science as the poster child of science as a whole, then the credibility of science is being linked to just one discipline that has a distinctly short and chequered record. This leads to two serious pitfalls. In the first, the old established disciplines – maths, physics, chemistry, astronomy etc – are likely to resent the hype and razzmatazz surrounding their junior colleagues, and become hostile and inquisitive. It would seem unlikely that climate science would come out of such scrutiny by other disciplines smelling of roses.
The second is that the public may come to judge science as a whole by the performance and behaviour of one high profile discipline; climate science. This would seem to be a most ill advised and offering a hostage to fortune. At the moment the frenetic revelations of last year have quietened down, but it would be quite unjustified to assume that all the skeletons have tumbled out of the climate science cupboard and that more will not follow.
Added to these considerations, it seems that criticism is something that the scientific establishment now finds impossible to cope with in an open and constructive way. Hence the rather hysterical title of Sir Paul’s programme and its utter failure to acknowledge and address the origin of the problems that climate scepticism are causing to those who seek to promote and defend science. As I have said, it would be unreasonable to expect the president of the Royal Society to express any outright scepticism about global warming in a popular television series, but one might expect him to acknowledge that doubts exist when it is so manifestly obvious that uncertainties in the science have not been acknowledged in the past. In fact, he does no more than acknowledge that some uncertainties exist, but in a dismissive way that suggests that this need worry no one.
There are various possible explanations for this obtuse behaviour.
It is of course possible that Sir Paul is simply being disingenuous, but this would seem unlikely. Then there is the possibility that, when assessing a controversy in a discipline that he is not familiar with, he has been credulous and willing to retail uncritically the views of his cronies in the scientific establishment. But perhaps the most likely explanation, based on Sir Paul’ own words, is that an overweening arrogance has seized the world of science. Here is part of Sir Paul’s peroration:
I’m here in the Royal Society,[which represents] 350 years of an endeavour which is built on respect for observation, respect for data, respect for experiment. Trust no-one, trust only what the experiments and the data tell you. We have to continue to use that approach, if we are to solve problems such as climate change.
It’s become clear to me that if we hold to these ideals of trust in evidence, then we have a responsibility to publicly argue our case. Because in this conflicted and volatile debate, scientists are not the only voices that are listened to. When a scientific issue has important outcomes for society, then the politics becomes increasingly more important. So if we look at this issue of climate change, that is particularly significant. Because that has effects on how we manage our economy and manage our politics. And so this is become a crucially political matter, and we can see that by the way that the forces are being lined up on both sides. What really is required here is a focus on the science, keeping the politics and keeping the ideologies out of the way.(Emphasis added)
This would appear to be a plea for acceptance of scientific hegemony on a scale that brooks no dissent, but at the same time it is contradictory. The climate sceptics who precipitated the Climategate scandal were, in fact, attempting to establish that trust in the experiments and data is justified. Why hinder them? Concern that only the voices of science should be listened to from someone with Sir Paul Nurse’s influence sit very uneasily with the plea that the evidence for AGW is overwhelming. If this is the case, what does scientific establishment have to fear? And anyway, why should the voice of climate science be unchallengeable? As for the importance of not trusting anyone other than climate scientists when assessing the evidence of AGW, it is necessary for most of us to do so, and not least the audience that has spent an hour soaking up Sir Paul’s anything but objective views on the climate controversy, even though he is a geneticist. Is the title ‘scientist’ really enough to convey the ability to pontificate on any branch of science with authority?
Finally lets look at what a couple of commentators who can definitely not be described as climate sceptics had to say about Science Under Attack. Here is Fiona Fox of the Science Media Centre, one of the most influential climate alarm advocates, writing on the BBC College of Journalism website :
Many, including colleagues in the science communication world, felt that it [Nurse’s programme] was a classic example of ‘scientism’, a growing tendency to demand that science should trump everything else as the only sound basis for good public debate and decision-making.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/journalism/blog/2011/02/when-does-the-vigorous-defence.shtml
And Mike Hulme, former director the Tyndall Centre at the University of East Anglia
In this programme from BBC’s Horizon team, the incoming President of the Royal Society, Sir Paul Nurse, offers a vigorous defence of the trustworthiness of science. He also reveals an exalted view of the normative authority of science: both in the world of political decision-making (e.g. the cases of climate change and GM crops which the programme selects) and in the private lives of citizens. I suggest that he betrays an underlying adherence both to the linear view that science should drive policy-making and, to a lesser extent, to the deficit model of science communication.
http://mikehulme.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/Science-under-attack.pdf
If concerns such as these are being expressed from the heart of the warmist community, then Sir Paul’s tenure at the Royal Society is likely to be an interesting one. As he acknowledges in Science Under Attack, public belief in anthropogenic global warming is steadily declining in spite of all the efforts by scientists, politicians, the eNGOs and a large part of the media. Evidently it is not enough for scientists to shout ever more kindly that they are right and everyone else is not only wrong, but is not even capable of having a valid opinion.
And so we finally return to the programme title: Science Under Attack. Is Sir Paul really saying that because climate scientists are being criticised, all science is being attacked and threatened? It would appear that he is, but choosing climatology as the champion and exemplar of science would seem to be illogical and very risky, so why do it? Does he really think that the reputation of scientists everywhere depends on the public image of climate scientists? He may be right, but if so, then the world of science risks being hopelessly compromised by any shortcomings that become evident in a field that is now mired in controversy and, as he admits in the programme, failing to convince the public that human activity is warming the planet.
Science has not been well served by Sir Paul’s programme. If he is right, and the image of science as a whole has suffered from the ructions in climatology over the last year, then the scientific establishment would be wise to cut climate science adrift before it inflicts any more damage on the rest of the profession. Instead, the science establishment seem to think that it can to shore up the reputation and authority of their profession with a blatantly partisan TV film fronted by a man who seems very proud to be following in the footsteps of Newton, Wren and Darwin.
H/t to Alex Cull for an excellent transcript of the programme, which can be found here.
(UPDATE 11/02/2011: I have corrected this post which originally said that Sir Paul was ‘born and bred’ in Norwich. Although he was born in Norwich, he was brought up in London)
TonyB,
There’s nothing wrong with anyone funding any science providing there are no strings attached and there is proper peer review of published work.
There’s threats of legal action in the air because the guys at Realclimate have accused Energy and Environment of dispensing with peer review, and I’ve no doubt the same would be said of ‘papers’ at the Heartland Conference.
However, Sonja Boehmer-Christiansen herself has said:
“By the way, E&E is not a science journal and has published IPCC critiques to give a platform to critical voices and ‘paradigms’ because of the enormous implications for energy policy, the energy industries and their employees and investors, and for research”
So, in a nutshell funding genuine science is not at all the same as “giving a platform to critical voices”.
PeterM
Thanks for your explanation how the “DAGW denier” conspiracy functions (vested economic interests of “big oil” and “big coal” with money flowing to anti DAGW groups, etc. plus a few corrupt scientists, who have sold out).
So you have chosen “option 3” (the secret right-wing conspiracy funded by big oil, etc.) as the most likely scenario to explain the general skepticism of the science supporting DAGW.
If this screwy explanation makes you happy, so be it.
But the real (and much simpler) explanation for this general skepticism of the DAGW premise is shown in case #4 – i.e. because the “science” supporting it is weak and, in some cases, fudged (and people have become aware of this following climategate and the other IPCC scandals).
It’s just that simple, Peter, but if you want to cling to your conspiracy hypothesis (as a security blanket), so be it.
Let’s cap this off and discuss the main topic here.
Max
Max,
You must have missed my comment “My original thought, a couple of years ago…..I’m now of the opinion that this [big oil, big coal etc] is probably a secondary issue.”
So I’m going with #1 with a small but significant contribution from #3. As I say, your #4 is just a rewording of #1.
PeterM
6 years ago I was worried about CO2 because I had read this in papers and had heard it on the news over and over again. Then the BBC did a program called, the day the earth nearly died, way back in 2006. It was about a mass extinction caused by rising temperatures, and it when through this forensic type investigation and came up with CO2 as the culprit. I won’t go into the scientific detail of the program but up to this point I personally had no reason to doubt any scientific documentary on the BBC.
However the program had some gaps that it didn’t explain and I was bothered by the notion that warming the ocean by just a few degrees would cause all the methane hydrates to melt causing within a short period of time another mass extinction. I decided to research the information in the program and it was this action that has led directly to me being a sceptic. The science of the conclusion in the program turns out to be little more than a fairy story, although there where serious scientists doing valid work in each of the sections giving the program that air of authority it did not deserve.
I believe that most rational sceptics have come to their views in a similar fashion, being curious to learn more out of genuine concern but discovering a can of worms, not to mention very little in the way of supporting science. In the last year we have seen a rapid expansion of sceptical views, the vast majority of whom do not avidly follow the science but have a view based on the political and policy reaction of governments to the perceived threat of CAGW. Many of these people have become more aware of these factors as a result of Climategate and the alarmism of the IPCC, and other due to the rising energy costs. Many of these people will not be comfortable arguing the merits of the science, but this does not diminish their position or invalidate their views.
It is important Peter that you do not fall into the trap of confusing the 2 groups, or to jump to conclusions about peoples motives based on the newspaper they read. Because this is the confused state that Paul nurse got into, thinking those who oppose GM foods were the same as those opposing CAGW. Nothing could be further from the truth, and as a result brings ridicule upon him and leads one to ask, is the establishment really that stupid, or is there a conspiracy to control energy and any sceptical view will be discredited by association with those who have already been discredited.
Sorry, Peter.
You have not shown evidence on this site that you are someone who changes his mind easily.
And you have alluded to the big coal conspiracy several times, including linking Ian Plimer with mining interests.
You can’t have it both ways, Peter. Either you believe in a conspiracy or not.
To get back on topic, Paul Nurse made the silly mistake of getting into a discussion of the “science” supporting AGW, a field in which he is obviously not knowledgeable, based on his CO2 groaner. Why should he be more knowledgeable than you or I? (He isn’t – it’s not his field of expertise, and he has most likely spent much less time looking at the studies out there than you or I have, since he was busy doing the work for which he received a Nobel Prize.)
Did he make this mistake out of “scientific conviction” (the highly educated “colleagues” over there at UAE and elsewhere must be right), or was his position politically motivated (as the political head of the RS)?
Who knows? I have my opinion on this, but it is immaterial.
At any rate, Peter, it is the science that counts here, as Peter Geany has outlined above.
BTW, his experience was similar to mine, except for me the final straw was IPCC SPM 2007 and the media ballyhoo that followed it in February 2007. In a discussion over dinner, a scientist friend of mine pointed out that there were many flaws in this report, in particular with the model forecasts for the future, which were getting so much press attention.
So I started checking out the claims being made. As I did, I found more and more holes in the “science” supporting the message IPCC was trying to sell, i.e. accelerating rates of temperature and sea level rise (which were not really happening), exaggerated forecasts of atmospheric CO2 growth (which were implausible), flat-out untruths about mass loss of Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets (which were not borne out by 24/7 satellite readings over a 10+ year period), false claims that the discrepancy between the satellite and surface temperature record had been largely reconciled, etc. It seemed that the more I dug into the literature, the more discrepancies I found. And they ALL went in the same direction: to make AGW look more alarming.
I started lurking on blogsites, to see what was being said there. I found that there was already a heated debate underway regarding the validity of the IPCC “science”, with bloggers divided pretty equally. I’m not talking about the extreme political ideologues on both sides (of which there were plenty), but the bloggers who had a scientific or technical background, like myself, and understood the overall issues and principles involved and were truly interested in discussing the many open questions regardin the “science”.
The discussion moved back and forth from the “science” to the proposed “mitigating actions”, “carbon taxes”, etc.. but the key issue behind everything was the validity of the underlying science. I saw that this was flawed.
Since then there have been the climategate and IPCC revelations, the failures at Copenhagen and Cancun and the lack of warming of our planet for a decade now.
Yet over these four years there has been NO empirical evidence presented, which would tend to validate the “dangerous AGW” hypothesis – zero, zilch.
And the most recent decadal lack of warming of both the atmosphere and the ocean despite record increase of CO2 has tended to falsify the hypothesis that AGW is the principal driver of our climate, as Roger Pielke, Sr. has pointed out. And, more importantly, there has been a lot of arm-waving, but no one has as yet refuted Pielke scientifically.
Feeble attempts to link the recent harsh winters across the northern hemisphere to man-made global warming have been so ludicrous that they only harm the DAGW cause.
So I have witnessed in the four years since I started to become skeptical of the DAGW premise, that more and more people (including serious scientists) are beginning to have serious doubts.
Will this trend reverse itself?
I hardly believe so, Peter.
But, then again, that’s just my opinion.
Max
PeterG,
It’s certainly not a fairy story about the dangers of raising of Ocean temperatures by “just a few degrees”. There is serious science behind the concerns. A few degrees do matter – more than you obviously think. Have you calculated the amount of sea level rise due to that thermal expansion? You’re an engineer. You should be able to do that. Let’s see you have a try.
http://www.skepticalscience.com/few-degrees-global-warming.htm
Generally speaking I would say that those who oppose GM foods are a different group of people from those who oppose AGW theory, but it’s true that Paul Nurse was essentially saying they both were anti-science. No-one is saying that its only you right-wing types who have a problem when scientific evidence clashes with religious or political convictions. The left are just as bad over over nuclear power, and if that’s going to be ruled out, as option for the future, then I do believe human civilisation is seriously stuffed!
You’re right when you say “Many of these people will not be comfortable arguing the merits of the science” Of course not. I’m not comfortable arguing the merits of various theories regarding the workings of the DNA molecule, or genetic theory generally, either. And then “but this does not diminish their position or invalidate their views.” Really? Not even when they are talking crap? Its hard not to talk crap when speaking about something you don’t understand.
Max,
I’m not a conspiracy theorist as such. I’ll leave all that sort of nonsense to others. However, if you are asking me if the oil, coal and mining companies fund groups like Heartland and the CEI – I’d have to say yes they do. There’ll be a money trail which starts with a big coal company and ends up in the hands of a particular well known denialst spokesperson like Fred Singer or, a politician like, Sen Inhofe. However, Fred Singer will be able to put his hand on his heart and say that he doesn’t receive any money from coal companies and the coal companies will say they don’t give money to Fred Singer either. That’s all taken care of by the middlemen in the chain.
Of course, all these transactions are kept highly confidential and security will be tight. I’d expect that Heartland aren’t quite as naive as the CRU about the dangers of being hacked! Is it a conspiracy? You could say it was, but then that’s just the way politics works. Especially in America. Just ask Brute about that.
Peter said
‘It’s certainly not a fairy story about the dangers of raising of Ocean temperatures by “just a few degrees”. There is serious science behind the concerns. A few degrees do matter – more than you obviously think. Have you calculated the amount of sea level rise due to that thermal expansion? You’re an engineer. You should be able to do that. Let’s see you have a try.’
We went through this over at the other thread. ‘Serious sceience’ consists mostly of throwing a bucket over the side of a ship. The truth is that we do not have the faintest idea what the historic ocean temperature was. According to the Argo buoys temperatures are currently falling.
Sea level rise was greater in the first half of the last century than in the second half-again we went through Holgates paper on this but you just refuse to believe anything that contradicts your pre conceived notions.
tonyb
The most astounding finding for me is that climate science is built on a skeleton of assumptions, and that sceptics are sceptical of these assumptions and are intelligent enough to understand the importance of trying to prove an assumption to be right or wrong, something which is missing in climate science. For instance the best way to calibrate CO2 warming is to use the Atmosphere of Mars. Starting with the scientific paper (Greenhouse effect in semi-transparent planetary atmospheres, Ferenc M. Miskolczi, 2007) it was found that it gave an insignificant 0.015 Kelvin for Anthropogenic warming which is confirmed by (Jaworowski, 2007) using a different method, although Jaworowski gives a lower figure, probably because of the inability to differentiate between man-made and volcanic CO2. The IPCC uses an assumption that can be correct 50 percent of the time, but does not try to prove whether their assumption is correct or not by using data from Spectroscopy, Atmospheric Chambers or the Atmosphere of Mars. As well as an assumption that 100 percent of the increase in CO2 in the last 100 years was caused by man, and then makes the carbon cycle fit this assumption, again without trying to prove whether the assumption is right or wrong. It is wrong if you include Henrys law.
Richard Pinder,
I think if you check the book “Heaven and Earth” by Ian Plimer, not himself known to be without criticism of the mainstream scientific position, you’ll find that he says the world would be 18 deg C cooler if there were no CO2 in the atmosphere. The best estimate according to the IPCC is that doubling it from pre-industrial levels will cause an additional 3 deg C of warming. We are lucky the effect on temperature is approximately logarithmic rather than linear.
The existence of the GHE has been known and accepted since the middle of the century before last. Its nothing new. Neither is it an assumption. Everything is tested as being the best rational explanation of what can be observed.
I don’t often quote Roy Spencer but he’s quite right in saying that the evidence for the GHE is solid.
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2010/08/comments-on-miskolczi%E2%80%99s-2010-controversial-greenhouse-theory/
” I have not yet seen any compelling evidence that there exists a major flaw in the theory explaining the basic operation of the Earth’s natural Greenhouse Effect.I would love for there to be one. But I don’t see it yet.”
TonyB,
I’m just wondering why you say “we do not have the faintest idea what the historic ocean temperature was.”
Its not as good as we would like it to be that’s for sure. However, we know, for instance, that the Mediterranean sea wasn’t frozen in Roman times – so that’s obviously a slight overstatement on your part!
Human nature being what it is, there is always a tendency to exaggerate in the direction of what we would like to be true rather than what we know to be true.
Which raises the question of why would you like the historic temperature record to be worse than it actually is?
The only rational explanation is that you are indeed a denier rather an a sceptic. A rational sceptic would be slightly disappointed, rather than gleeful, that it wasn’t better. Whereas a denier doesn’t care about the truth of the matter. The only interest of a denier is to try to undermine the available evidence, in an attempt to support a pre-conceived point of view.
Richard Pinder
Watch out. Tempterrain (Peter Martin) is trying to feed you a red herring (109) with:
This topic has been discussed with Peter on the NS thread here ad nauseam. Plimer (a geologist) obviously got it wrong with his 18C estimate (the range usually cited is between 5 and 7C).
The 2xCO2 climate sensitivity for CO2 is estimated to be slightly under 1C by IPCC (Myhre et al.).
Everything above this is based on model assumptions on feedbacks and hype, so don’t let Peter fool you on this point.
Max
PeterM
I got it (106).
You are “not a conspiracy theorist as such”, but you believe in a conspiracy between
“oil, coal and mining companies”, which “fund groups like Heartland and the CEI”, with “a money trail which starts with a big coal company and ends up in the hands of a particular well known denialst spokesperson like Fred Singer or, a politician like, Sen Inhofe”.
I got it earlier, Peter. You believe in “option 3”:
while I (as a “rational skeptic”, myself) am convinced that it is “option 4”:
Our difference on this matter is crystal clear to me.
Max
Max,
If the they really did say 1 deg C, or less, then you’d be an ardent IPCC supporter!
You know very well that IPCC Fourth Assessment Report (AR4) say it is “likely to be in the range 2 to 4.5°C with a best estimate of about 3°C”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_sensitivity
Max,
I might just point out that a prerequisite of being a ‘rational sceptic’ would be that you yourself were a rational person.
You don’t think you might have a bit of a problem in that regard?
Peter 110
Nice try Peter, but yet another of your famous and frequent red herrings. We were-and have been-talking about historic SST’s. According to Hadley they know wjat has been happening since around 1860 over an increasingly parge part of the oceans.
As a scientist do you REALLY think that parsing the results of a bucket of water to fractions is good science? It is you who are the ‘denier’ in not accepting the evidence in front of your nose.
tonyb
PeterM
I was referring to the fact that this later group is in the main sceptical of the policy response of our politicians rather than the details of the science. This why their opinion is valid and they are not talking “crap” as you put it.
Watch your tongue, Peter (114).
You may end up stepping on it.
Paul Nurse has been waffling on again about scepticism and the scientific method. He just can’t leave it alone and contradicts himself. Oh well he is an academic after all. read all about it here
PeterG,
You mention that its OK to be “sceptical of the policy response of our politicians rather than the details of the science.”
Sure, there’s no disagreement there. Furthermore, we can expect that those with different shades of political opinion will have different opinions on the best way to tackle the problem.
But are you saying that is as far as it goes? Paul Nurse’s interview with James Dellingpole, and the many postings on blogs like this one, the editorial line of the Right wing press etc, shows that it does go much further.
PeterGeany
Yeah. I’ll agree that the latest Paul Nurse statements were pretty embarrassing, but I’m just curious: why does a renowned Nobel Prize scientist in a totally different field of scientific expertise start pontificating about the climate science debate, a field in which he is a total amateur?
I believe this whole “consensus” crap is purely political.
As a scientist, he surely knows that it only takes one skeptic to bring evidence to falsify a hypothesis that represents the current “consensus”, resulting in a paradigm shift, whereby the old “consensus” paradigm get tossed into the garbage can and is replaced by the new paradigm (Wegener is one good example of this – but not the only one).
Will Svensmark be a new Wegener? Who knows? Certainly not Paul Nurse, who may not even be aware of the CLOUD experiment at CERN.
He also makes himself look elitist and arrogant by denigrating the blogosphere (Judith Curry has “seen the light” in this regard; she “mixes it up” with the “unwashed” and we all benefit).
As a serious scientist, Nurse should stay away from such political interviews (where he only makes himself look silly) and concentrate on his field of scientific expertise, where he has undoubtedly made some real contributions.
Max
Max,
Paul Nurse is speaking in his role as President of the Royal Society which includes Medicine, Engineering and all the Sciences not just in own particular field of Human Genetics.
True, if he’s speaking outside his own field he may get details wrong from time to time. But if there are any serious cockups like saying that Humans evolved from Chimpanzees, as many people do believe, then there would be no problem in correcting any mistakes.
If I would make one criticism of the scientific community, it would be that they aren’t worldly wise. Politically they are as naive a group as is possible to imagine. They would never have expected that any group would stoop so low as to hack their email accounts. When faced with criticism of their science their first reaction is to try to explain it better. But, when those explanantions fall on deaf ears they get flustered. The same objections do get raised over and over again and ‘scepticalscience’ have done an extremely good job in categorising them all.
http://www.skepticalscience.com/
But no matter what explanations are given, they are never accepted. So why not? Simply because climate deniers don’t want to accept them. They are attached to their objections which they see as useful in undermining the scientific consensus even when they aren’t true. They complain that the tree ring record or the Sea Surface temperature records aren’t accurate. Any additional defect found makes them happy. Any resolution of previous uncertainty has the opposite effect and they try to find ways of arguing that uncertainties in records are much greater than they actually are. Are these the actions of genuine sceptics -rational or otherwise?
I’m not excepting myself from this criticism. Initially I felt that the objection to AGW theory was from people who didn’t understand it. That’s true, but neither do they want to understand it, and that’s a hard concept for people like Paul Nurse to grasp.
PeterM
That’s even more reason for him not to spout off on something he has no real knowledge on.
Max
Unlike climate change deniers who would never dream of doing such a thing?
But Paul Nurse does have to speak for all science and so far he’s doing a pretty come job. He’s hit the ground running in his new post and I guess that why you guys have a problem with him eh?
PeterM Its hard to know where to go when responding to one your posts as you go around in circles.
Let’s get one thing established. Climate science is the only area of science where you have a small cadre of scientists extolling us to spend trillions of dollars to save the planet. In no other area of science does this happen so climate science attracts a huge amount of attention from all parts of the community, and quite rightly so. Peter you just cannot compare any other branch of science with what is happening today with climate science and your analogies just don’t work. Climate science as of today is a unique beast. Paul Nurse conveniently ignores this fact, which makes his statements all the more embarrassingly childish.
In my posts above I put forward that expert scientists were not the best at advising governments or in developing policy responses. In just the same way very often a brilliant engineer is not the best person to decide how to manufacture a product. There are many different skills required. You Peter give scant recognition to all of those who possess many of these additional skills just because they are not climate scientists. Well that is rubbish because all of us on the blog know what a temperature is and it doesn’t take a PhD to work out that there has not been much of an increase over the last 40 years and that what we are being feed by the experts is a sham. It’s more common sense than climate science, which makes Paul Nurse’s ramblings all the more bizarre.
Take it further and the fact that the sun is completely ignored as the primary climate driver defies logic. But fear not all the chickens are coming home to roost. Another major earth quake today with devastating consequences, further evidence that the change in the suns magnetic field effects life on earth in ways we just don’t know about. Look out now for an increase in volcanic activity which has been low over the last 150 years or so. I wonder what Paul Nurse has to say about that.
Peter Geany #124
You’ve brilliantly identified Nurse’s (and PeterM’s) blind spot when you say:
Nurse seems to believe that since he as a biologist knows all about biology, climate scientists must know all about climate, ignoring the inconvenient fact that climate is what happens to weather after several decades, and what climate scientists claim to know is what the weather will be like in 2050+. He wouldn’t claim to know what biology will be like in 2050, would he?
Climate science has got to be the “unique beast” it is by claiming to know the future. Economics and demography (and all the social sciences, to some degree) dabble in prophesy, but they’ve been around longer, so we’ve got wise to them. (“Neither Marx nor Malthus” would make a nice slogan for a social science sceptic).