Archive for How Science Works

Now We’re Talking!

March 8, 2010 at 5:44 pm · Filed under How Science Works, Media and the Public, News and Reports ·Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Another batch of private emails from climate scientists has been leaked/hacked/stolen/whatever. These ones, though, are very different than the last.

It’s a thread of emails from the NAS, and these guys are mad. They are mad about vested interests skewing the discussion. They are mad that journalists have sat and lapped it right up without checking their facts. They are mad that the public is suddenly more confused than ever about a field of science that is more united than ever.

They want to get hundreds of scientists to sign a declaration that yes, the anthropogenic combustion of fossil fuels is still causing the Earth to warm, and print it in newspapers like the New York Times, using only NAS money. They want to start a prime time science program on PBS. They want to have dozens of public lectures communicating climate science. They want a concise assessment report by the NAS written in layman’s terms. They want a nonprofit group to bridge communication between scientists and the public. They want “nothing short of a massive publicity campaign to educate the citizenry about what our best science is saying and why.”

“We will need funds to make something happen,” says Paul Falkowski, and by February 27th, about 15 NAS scientists had pledged $1000 each, out of their own pockets.

“How can we sit back while many of our colleagues and science as a whole is under attack?” writes Paul Ehrlich.

William Jury describes public presentations he’s given since the CRU hack, and how a common question is, “If the recent charges by anti-warming people aren’t true, why is nobody coming forth to prove it to us?”

And why not? All of us here have done our part, but it’s still not enough. I’m sure I’m not the only one who’s felt pretty powerless over the past few months. It’s incredibly obvious, to those who have all the context, that the theory of AGW is as rock-solid as ever. But truth is not enough, not when we’re up against the most effective spin machine in history. I feel like no matter how much work I put into the communication of real science, this machine will always be ten steps ahead.

Reading this string of emails gave me the most hope I’ve felt in months that we might actually be able to steer public opinion in a more accurate direction, so that we can get to work on fixing this problem. It was exhilarating to read that so many scientists are ready and willing to mobilize public communication when we need it the most. I wanted to jump up from the computer and wave my arms around and shout in joy. If I hadn’t been in the school library, I probably would have.

There has long been a stigma against communication in science – for example, Stephen Schneider faced demeaning remarks from his colleagues in the 70s for even speaking to the newspapers about his work. Couple this with the big difference between these two sides fighting for public opinion: one academic, the other political/industrial. When our academic institutions get money, they’ll spend it on research, not on public communication……while the lobby groups and oil companies are hard at work on advertising like this. (Worth a watch, it’s hilarious.)

The amount of public communication and education proposed by the NAS scientists is enormous, but it’s never been more justified than now.

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Freedom of Information

March 7, 2010 at 1:10 pm · Filed under How Science Works, Media and the Public, News and Reports ·Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

The only real issue that the hacked CRU emails brought up, the only allegation that didn’t fall apart if you were familiar with the literature (*cough cough hide the decline*), was the failure of Phil Jones to respond to some of the FOI (Freedom of Information) requests.

This looks bad on the surface, and it certainly has been spun that way – climate scientists hiding their data because they know it’s wrong and they don’t want anybody to find out. And ignoring FOI requests is a really stupid thing to do, no matter what the situation is. However, as with all the other allegations, some more context as to the nature and volume of these requests makes ignoring them understandable, if not excusable.

The Freedom of Information Act is important to a democratic society, but its major flaw is that it fails to distinguish its abuse. An article from the Sunday Times describes, in an interview with Phil Jones, what the FOI situation at CRU was.

In July 2009 alone, they received 60 FOI requests – most asking for data that was already freely available online. However, turning down a request takes 18 hours of work, and they only had 13 staff at CRU – all of which had better things to do than respond to needless FOI requests.

In another instance, over a matter of days, they received 40 FOI requests, which obviously all came from the same form letter – but each asked for data from a different 5 countries. So in total, temperature data for 200 different countries (again, most of which was already freely available) was requested, and all the forms came to CRU rather than the offices in the countries the data came from, or even the countries the authors of the FOI forms lived in. Phil Jones is sure that this coordinated attack originated at Climate Audit, which “just wanted to waste our time….they wanted to slow us down.”

Out of irritation, Phil Jones made some comments over email to his colleagues about how he wished that they could just get rid of the data rather than do all this work distributing it needlessly. This was purely a hypothetical proposition, though, as CRU doesn’t own any of the data. “We have no data to delete,” he says. “It comes to us from institutions around the world….it’s all available from other sources.”

When you are abused with FOI requests, ignoring them is not the right thing to do, and Phil Jones knows it – “I regret that I did not deal with them in the right way,” he says. His actions and words cannot be excused, but with more context, it’s obvious that his motives were not to cover up flaws in the data or hide it from critics. He just wanted to do his work.

It’s a great example of how the CRU hack compromises the professional reputations of some of the scientists involved, but it does not compromise one iota of the science. “I am obviously going to be much more careful about my emails in future, ” remarks Phil Jones. “I will write every email as if it is for publication. But I stand 100% behind the science. I did not manipulate or fabricate any data.”

CRU was not the only institution to be abused with FOI requests. The field of climate research has been grappling with this issue for the past few years. Take Benjamin Santer, for example. In a story he relays here, he describes how, following the publication of his 2008 paper, an FOI request by Stephen McIntyre asked for all the raw data used in his study so it could be replicated. Santer pointed him to the data, which was already freely available online. But then he was given two subsequent FOI requests, which asked for all of his intermediate calculations and two years of email correspondence related to the data. Obtaining this information is completely unnecessary to replicate a study, and it is certainly not normal scientific practice – the only reason you would want them would be to find material that could be framed as embarrassing and used to discredit the study and the researcher – as if Ben Santer hasn’t been through enough already. So he turned the FOI requests down, and was immediately flooded with hate mail from Climate Audit readers until he released the intermediate calculations, purely because he “wanted to continue with my scientific research…….I did not want to spend all of my available time and energy responding to harassment incited by Mr. McIntyre’s blog.”

Gavin Schmidt, a climate modeler at NASA, adds to the list of instances of FOI abuse in climate science. He remarked that “In my previous six years I dealt with one FoIA request. In the last three months, we have had to deal with I think eight…..These FoIAs are fishing expeditions for potentially embarrassing content but they are not FoIA requests for scientific information.”

James Hansen, the director of GISS at NASA, has similar opinions. Following the CRU hack, he writes, “I am now inundated with broad FOIA requests for my correspondence, with substantial impact on my time and on others in my office. I believe these to be fishing expeditions, aimed at finding some statement(s), likely to be taken out of context, which they would attempt to use to discredit climate science.”

The broad abuse of the Freedom of Information Act in the field of climate science is worrying, and it calls for some kind of caveat that will distinguish it from legitimate use of FOI. Research into climate change is vital at this point in human history, but if top researchers are forced to spend their time filling out needless paperwork instead, the field will suffer. The past few months have shown us that institutions of climate science are in need of representatives specialized in media relations. Perhaps they also need to employ dozens of students to fill out FOI forms, or lawyers to defend them from the constant attack they are under.

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IPCC Reform

February 24, 2010 at 4:50 pm · Filed under How Science Works, Media and the Public ·Tagged , , , , , , , ,

The IPCC is far from ideal, and we knew this even before word got out that WG2 had made several minor mistakes. I’ve written about this before – here I discuss how the IPCC is naturally biased towards understating climate change: being too optimistic in its results. And here I discuss the difference in public attention when the IPCC understated central claims (such as sea level rise, Arctic sea ice melt, and emission scenarios) to when they overstated a detail that didn’t even make it into the technical summary – exactly how fast the Himalayan glaciers would melt.

Several British journalists have managed to construct several other “scandals” in the IPCC claims, which have little to no merit. Tim Lambert has spent the past few weeks investigating the legitimacy of these allegations, and one thing stands out above all others: facts do not matter in the way the media reports alleged IPCC mistakes or misconduct. One journalist in a minor British paper can make an erroneous claim that shouts “IPCC scandal”, and even after scientists have patiently explained, multiple times, why it is untrue, the claim is repeated in every major newspaper in the world. Consequently, even though virtually all of these “scandals” have to do with the WG2, the opinion pages use it as an excuse to vehemently question the idea that humans are causing the Earth to warm. This is obviously WG1 material, which is based on the laws of physics and decades of peer-reviewed science – but that doesn’t matter to the media, does it?

For people like us, who are so intent on scientific accuracy, it is incredibly frightening when accuracy becomes irrelevant in the sources that virtually everyone else relies on for climate change information. Even after factual errors that fundamentally change the message of the story are pointed out, no retraction is printed, and the authors are dealt no consequences. As scientists and concerned citizens, our greatest weapon is truth. But that can no longer be enough – not when our fourth estate drops its responsibility to truth, at least for this issue.

The IPCC was formed in the late 80s, and the relationship between climate science and the rest of the world has changed fundamentally since then. We have gained much more understanding of what climate change could mean for the world, so creating a document that encompasses absolutely everything we know is longer and more tedious. Governments fearful of climate change action have abused their powers of IPCC editing and review, as Stephen Schneider describes in his excellent book Science as a Contact Sport. Special interests muddled the lines of communication between scientists and the public, and when, due to the Internet, this communication became impossible to stop, the special interests decided to smear the reputations of scientists, scientific organizations, and science itself. The media and the public fell willingly to this muddling and smearing, so these special interests have gained far more influence than truth should allow them.

Is it necessary, or even desirable, to reform the structure of the IPCC to better suit its communication with the public? In terms of producing the most accurate science, I feel that it’s doing just fine the way it is, with the exception of needing some new WG2 review editors, and a delayed deadline for the WG2 and WG3 publications (instead of having all three reports released simultaneously).

Nature recently published recommendations from five diverse climatologists as to how to reform the IPCC. Subscription or payment is needed to read the full article, so I’ll give a quick summary here:

Mike Hulme wants to split the IPCC into three – a Global Science Panel that frequently publishes smaller reports about WG1 topics, five or ten Regional Evaluation Panels that report on region-specific WG2 topics, and a Policy Analysis Panel that frequently publishes examinations of different policy options.

Eduardo Zorita wants the IPCC to employ full-time scientists, instead of doing all the work on a volunteer basis.

Thomas Stocker wants the IPCC to stay the way it is, but to pay extra attention to following their self-imposed rules.

Jeff Price wants to select more lead authors to produce “short, rapidly prepared, peer-reviewed reports” instead of a set of massive ones every six years.

John Christy wants the IPCC to be removed from UN oversight and adopt an open, continually updating “Wikipedia” structure. I think a more accurate allusion to Christy’s proposition is the Encyclopedia of Earth, which has lead authors and a basic review system.

Personally, I agree with Jeff Price’s proposal. Mike Hulme’s seems to be very similar, and I like the way he separates and organizes the different panels. John Christy’s idea of a continually updating report intrigues me, but the more open approach to peer-review and a policy to “hear all sides” could easily be abused through artificial balance – equality over accuracy.

Any thoughts, further suggestions, background information to share? What changes, if any, should be made to the IPCC? And how can we possibly immunize the public to this incredible excuse to be misled?

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How to Prove Global Warming Wrong

February 16, 2010 at 9:19 pm · Filed under How Science Works, Science Lessons ·Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Over the past twenty years, vested interests and political lobby groups have done a fantastic job confusing the public about anthropogenic climate change. To many, they seem to have proven the whole theory wrong.

But how could you actually prove global warming wrong – not just in the minds of the public, but through the established scientific process? What scientific discoveries – if they held up through peer-review, further criticism, and replication – would render climate change a non-problem?

One of the surest ways to stop all this cap-and-trade discussion would be to disprove the greenhouse effect itself – the mechanism by which the Earth absorbs and emits the same energy multiple times, due to the presence of greenhouse gas molecules that “bounce it back”. This keeps the Earth substantially warmer than it would be otherwise. Additionally, if the concentrations of greenhouse gases increase, so will the temperature of the Earth. This process was first hypothesized by Joseph Fourier in 1824, and was experimentally confirmed by John Tyndall in 1856. The first prediction of eventual man-made global warming came from Svante Arrhenius, in 1896. It wasn’t a theory as much as a logical result of a theory, one that was deeply rooted in physics and chemistry.

Unless our understanding of entire fields of physical science is totally off base, we can be sure that our greenhouse gas emissions will cause climate change eventually. But hey, if you could overturn all of thermodynamics, you wouldn’t have to worry about carbon taxes.

  • Cheap-out option: Svante Arrhenius was Swedish, but his name sounds sort of Russian, and 1896 wasn’t very long before the Russian Revolution. Therefore, Arrhenius was a Communist, and none of his scientific work can be trusted.

Knowing that something is sure to happen eventually, though, is different from knowing that it is happening right now with substantial speed. We know that the Earth is warming – even if you found some statistical way to disprove three separate temperature records, the physical and biological systems of our planet still stand: 90% of observed changes in the natural world, like the blooming of flowers, the peak flows of rivers, and the spawning of fish, are in the direction expected with warming (Rosenzweig et al, 2008).

But how do we know that the warming is caused by us? Climate change has been caused many times in the past by factors unrelated to greenhouse gases – like solar influences, whether they’re direct (a change in solar output) or indirect (a change in the Earth’s orbit). How do we know that’s not happening now?

If the warming was caused by the sun, the atmosphere would warm uniformly at all levels. However, if the Earth was warming from greenhouse gases, the troposphere (the layer of the atmosphere closest to the planet) would warm while the stratosphere (the next level up) would cool. This is because more heat is getting bounced back to the surface by greenhouse gases, and is subsequently prevented from reaching the stratosphere.

A cooling stratosphere has been described as the “fingerprint” evidence of greenhouse-induced warming. And, in fact, the stratosphere has been cooling over the past 30 years (Randel et al, 2009). Therefore, if you could somehow show that something else was causing this pattern of a warming troposphere and a cooling stratosphere, and that the significant, anthropogenic rise in greenhouse gases was somehow not affecting it, you would have a case for global warming being natural.

Update (18/2/10): About half of this cooling can be attributed to ozone depletion, and the other half can be attributed to greenhouse gases (NOAA, 2006). The flat trend in stratospheric temperatures from 1995-2005 (see the Randel citation above) can be explained by the recovery of ozone, which is temporarily offsetting the greenhouse gases. Interesting how the temperature of the stratosphere has just as many factors as the temperature of the troposphere…..but in both cases, you can’t explain the temperature trends without including human activity. Scott Mandia has a great explanation here.

  • Cheap-out option: Omit the explanation of why greenhouse warming causes stratospheric cooling. Just point to the graph that goes down and say, “The atmosphere is cooling! Therefore, the IPCC is a hoax!”

Finally, even if you couldn’t disprove that global warming is expected, observed, and anthropogenic, you could still show that it isn’t very significant. The way to do this would be to show that climate sensitivity is less than 2 C. Climate sensitivity refers to the amount of warming that would result from a doubling of carbon dioxide equivalent, and 2 C is generally accepted as the maximum amount of warming that our society could endure without too much trouble. The current estimates for climate sensitivity, in contrast, average around 3 C (a range of 2-4.5), and it is very unlikely to be less than 1.5 C (IPCC AR4).

However, a climate sensitivity of less than 2 C only means that climate change isn’t a problem if our greenhouse gases stop at a doubling of carbon dioxide equivalent from pre-industrial levels. Even without taking methane and other greenhouse gases into account, this brings us to a CO2 concentration of 560 ppm, which we are well on track to surpass, even with cap-and-trade. So you’d have to argue for a climate sensitivity of even less. Seeing as we’ve already warmed 0.8 C, it doesn’t leave you with a lot of wiggle room.

  • Cheap-out option: Build a climate model that does what you want it to, without any regard for the laws of physics. ExxonMobil will probably sponsor the supercomputers. Widely publicize the results and avoid peer-review at all costs.

Daunting tasks, certainly. But if you really believe that global warming is natural/nonexistent/a global conspiracy, this is the way to prove it. If you managed to prove it, and change the collective mind of the scientific community (not just the public), you’d probably win a Nobel Prize. So it’s certainly worth your time and effort.

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Manufacturing Doubt

January 17, 2010 at 3:17 pm · Filed under How Science Works, Media and the Public, Mitigation and Policy ·Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

I recently wrote this term paper for my world issues course. Enjoy.

There are many questions which remain controversial among scientists, but the existence of human-caused climate change is not one of them. Over 97% of publishing climatologists (Doran and Zimmerman, 2009), virtually 100% of peer-reviewed studies (Oreskes, 2004), and every scientific organization in the world (Logical Science, 2006) agree that humans are causing the Earth to warm. As Donald Kennedy, former editor-in-chief of the prestigious journal Science, says, “Consensus as strong as the one that has developed around this topic is rare in science.”

However, this consensus does not extend to the general public. On a particularly cold day, the cashier at the grocery store will say to you, “So much for global warming.” Over Thanksgiving dinner, your uncle will openly wonder if the warming in the Arctic is just part of a natural cycle. Your local newspaper will print letters to the editor almost daily claiming that, as CO2 is natural and essential to life, we shouldn’t worry about climate change.

What is the reason for this disconnection between scientific opinion and public opinion? There are obviously many factors involved, but it is probable that this discrepancy exists partly because of the widespread media coverage of scientists who do not accept anthropogenic climate change. Anyone with an Internet connection or a newspaper subscription will be able to tell you that many scientists think global warming is natural or nonexistent. As we know, these scientists are in the vast minority, and they have been unable to support their views in the peer-reviewed literature. The key question, therefore, is this: Why are so many of them still publicizing their beliefs so prominently?

Two plausible outcomes exist. Firstly, a scientist who could not prove a hypothesis could still feel that it was an idea worth consideration, and would want to capture the imagination of other scientists so it would be studied more closely. Alternatively, a scientist might be willing to keep the public confused about climate change. For example, scientists employed by the fossil fuel industry, or by organizations with strong laissez-faire agendas, could be motivated to spread rumours about weaknesses in the anthropogenic climate change theory. So, do these skeptics honestly doubt the integrity of climate science? Or are they being paid to manufacture doubt?

To distinguish between these two motives, it is important to understand a distinct difference in the formation of scientific opinions and political opinions. In science, one should examine all the evidence and then develop a logical conclusion. However, it is all too common in politics, lobbying, and the media for one to choose a convenient conclusion, then build evidence around it. This process is akin to an “ends justify the means” approach. The means (evidence and methods) are justified as long as they support the ends (a preconceived conclusion). In contrast, science, which is continually striving for a hypothetical physical truth, works the other way around – the means justify the ends. The conclusion is less important than the evidence and analysis used to reach it. Therefore, to tell the difference between an honest scientific argument and one that was constructed for political means, one simply has to distinguish between the ends and the means, and decide which is more central to the structure of the argument.

Let us now apply this strategy to the arguments of three of the skeptics who are most visible in the media. In articles from the popular press and news segments from major television stations, the names of these skeptics appear more than any others. Firstly, S. Fred Singer is an atmospheric physicist and retired environmental science professor. He has rarely published in scientific journals since the 1960s, but he is very visible in the media. In the past five years, he has claimed that the Earth has been cooling since 1998 (Avery, 2006), that the Earth is warming, but it is natural and unstoppable (Avery and Singer, 2007), and that the warming is artificial and due to the urban heat island effect (Singer, 2005).

Richard Lindzen, also an atmospheric physicist, is far more active in the scientific community than Singer. However, most of his publications, including the prestigious IPCC report to which he contributed, conclude that climate change is real and caused by humans. His only published theory that disputed climate change was met with vigorous criticism, and he has publicly retracted it, referring to it as “an old view” (Seed Magazine, 2006). Therefore, in his academic life, Lindzen appears to be a mainstream climate scientist – contributing to assessment reports, abandoning theories that are disproved, and publishing work that affirms the theory of anthropogenic climate change. However, when Lindzen talks to the media, his statements change. He has implied that the world is not warming by calling attention to the lack of warming in the Antarctic (Bailey, 2004) and the thickening of some parts of the Greenland ice sheet (Beam, 2006), without explaining that both of these apparent contradictions are well understood by scientists and in no way disprove warming. He has also claimed that the observed warming is minimal and natural (Fox News, 2006).

Finally, Patrick Michaels is an ecological climatologist who occasionally publishes peer-reviewed studies, but none that support his more outlandish claims. In statements to the media, Michaels has said that the observed warming is below what computer models predicted (Chatterjee, 2009), that natural variations in oceanic cycles such as El Niño explain most of the warming (Knappenberger and Michaels, 2009), and that human activity explains most of the warming but it’s nothing to worry about because technology will save us (Miller, 2009).

While examining these arguments from skeptical scientists, something quickly becomes apparent: many of the arguments are contradictory. For example, how can the world be cooling if it is also warming naturally? Not only do the skeptics as a group seem unable to agree on a consistent explanation, some of the individuals either change their mind every year or believe two contradictory theories at the same time. Additionally, none of these arguments are supported by the peer-reviewed literature. They are all elementary misconceptions which were proven erroneous long ago.

With a little bit of research, the claims of these skeptics quickly fall apart. It does not seem possible that they are attempting to capture the attention of other researchers, as their arguments are so weak and inconsistent. However, their pattern of arguments does work as a media strategy, as most people will trust what a scientist says in the newspaper, and not research his reputation or remember his name. Over time, the public will start to remember dozens of so-called problems with the anthropogenic climate change theory. From this perspective, it certainly seems that prominent skeptics are focusing on the ends, rather than the means. They are simply collecting as many arguments as they can to denounce global warming, and publicizing them vigorously. But why?

Earlier, we identified that organizations with a laissez-faire agenda would have reason to spread doubt on climate change, as the most effective form of mitigation would involve government regulation of fossil fuels. Many of these organizations, known as conservative think tanks, exist. Think tanks are supposed to be centres of independent, policy-related research, but conservative think tanks have migrated into an entirely new category. Over the past forty years, they have evolved into lobby groups that denounce any threat to the free market or laissez-faire economics. This objective often leads to the denial of established science, such as the relationship between smoking and cancer (which, if accepted, would lead to government regulation of tobacco and controls on where people could smoke), the destructive effects of CFCs on ozone (which could ban the products of an entire chemical industry), and, most recently, the climatic forcing of fossil fuel combustion, and the attribution of late-20th-century warming to this forcing.

The tactics that conservative think tanks (CTTs) use to manufacture doubt on climate change are often questionable and dishonest. On the rare occasion that their citations are peer-reviewed, they are discredited, cherry-picked, or misrepresented. For example, CTTs repeatedly cite data that shows slight cooling of the Earth – but only from before mechanical flaws in the satellites were corrected and the data began to show warming. They also cite a 2003 study by Sallie Baliunas and Willie Soon, claiming that the recent warming is attributable to sunspots. What CTTs don’t say is that, following the publication of this paper, 13 of the authors of data sets it incorporated refuted Baliunas’ interpretation of their work, and half of the editorial board resigned in protest against failure of the peer-review process. Additionally, CTTs argue that the wavelength band of CO2 absorption is already saturated, so adding more CO2 to the atmosphere wouldn’t cause any more warming – a theory that scientists proved wrong when spectroscopes improved in the 1950s.

Again, note the inconsistency of these statements, all of which were present at the same time on the Heartland Institute’s website. This CTT simultaneously claims that the world is cooling, that the world is warming naturally, and that the world is warming anthropogenically, but has maximized its potential. Evidently, these arguments were chosen because they fit with a preconceived conclusion, not with our understanding of science.

When their arguments are so similar, it should come as no surprise that most skeptics have ties to CTTs. Many of the most prominent skeptics write books – S. Fred Singer has written at least eight books skeptical of climate change, and Patrick Michaels has written at least five (Amazon). In 2008, a survey was conducted of books skeptical of climate change or other environmental issues, and found that an incredible 92% of the authors were affiliated with a CTT (Jacques, Dunlap, and Freeman, 2008). Additionally, some of the authors had connections to more than one CTT. For example, S. Fred Singer has been a part of ten different CTTs throughout his career. Patrick Michaels has been part of two, and Richard Lindzen has been part of three (Greenpeace USA).

It is obvious that CTTs want “experts” on their staff, because they want to sound scientific and credible. Additionally, the CTTs are willing to pay generous sums of money for expertise with a convenient conclusion. In 2006, the American Enterprise Institute offered ten thousand dollars plus expenses to any scientist who wrote a critique of the IPCC (Hoggan and Littlemore, 2009). Sure enough, a handful of scientists responded, and with good reason – they wouldn’t get a ten-thousand-dollar bonus for publishing a regular old peer-reviewed study.

What do these ties with CTTs tell us about skeptics? Have they decided to switch careers from researchers to PR representatives, trading in their scientific integrity for the promise of monetary gain? After all, if they work for a CTT, their arguments don’t have to be accurate – they just have to be effective in manufacturing doubt.

Another interesting fact about publicized skepticism is that it did not appear until governments started promising action on climate change – George  HW Bush in 1988 (Hoggan and Littlemore, 2009), Margaret Thatcher in 1990 (Thatcher, 1990), and Brian Mulroney in 1992 (United Nations). In fact, 87% of the books from the Jacques, Dunlap, and Freeman survey were published in or before 1988. Those published before likely did not even mention climate change – many of their titles suggested skepticism about toxic chemicals, the environmental concern of the 1970s. Therefore, it is very easy to pinpoint a short period of years and political events that sparked mass PR coverage of skeptical viewpoints. This trigger provides yet more evidence that skeptics are publicizing their views not to further scientific knowledge, but to manufacture public doubt and delay action.

So, when skepticism started in response to political promises, where were its roots? Unsurprisingly, the manufacture of doubt started with fossil fuel companies. In 1991, the Western Fuel Association, the National Coal Association, and the Edison Electric Institute formed a PR coalition named, ironically, the Information Council on the Environment (ICE). ICE launched a major advertising campaign denouncing the idea of anthropogenic global warming. The campaign’s objective, in ICE’s own words, was “to reposition global warming as a theory (not fact)” and “to supply alternative facts that suggest global warming will be good” (Hoggan and Littlemore, 2009). These objectives are a blatant example of manufacturing doubt, because they are based on the ends, not the means. ICE chose a conclusion that was convenient for their industry, and cherry-picked “alternative facts” to support it.

Several years later, a leaked document from another fossil fuel company, the American Petroleum Institute, gave away the organization’s entire game plan. The document laid out an ideal scenario in which the media reflected climate change as an equal-sided, unsettled debate, citizens began to accept this framing, and public support for the Kyoto Protocol fell apart. To achieve this utopia, API planned to “produce, distribute via syndicate and directly to newspapers nationwide a steady stream of op-ed columns and letters to the editor authored by scientists” (Walker, 1998). By manipulating how the media framed climate change, API could push public opinion in a predetermined direction. This document shows that fossil fuel companies such as the API have stopped caring about science anymore, otherwise the objectives would be “to publish our latest discovery that invalidates global warming in a prestigious journal”. Rather, their efforts are focused on the media, the public, and policymakers. They are consistently promoting ends that don’t have means to support them.

Over the last decade, however, fossil fuels have gradually shifted away from creating their own propaganda, choosing to fund CTTs instead. ExxonMobil, for example, has spent $20 million since 1998 funding CTTs that express climate change skepticism (Hoggan and Littlemore, 2009), and it releases annual breakdowns of its funding. Let’s look at some of the CTTs that our three major skeptics are a part of. Firstly, the Science and Environmental Policy Project, of which S. Fred Singer is president, has received $20 000 from Exxon since 1998. The Cato Institute, which has Patrick Michaels as a senior fellow, Richard Lindzen as a contributing expert, and S. Fred Singer as an advisory board member, has received $125 000. The Heartland Institute, which lists all three as “HeartlandGlobalWarming.org experts”, has received $676 500. (Greenpeace USA). At times, Exxon specifically notes that this funding is for “climate change efforts”, so it’s pretty obvious what kind of message they’re pushing.

Fossil fuel companies are some of the largest businesses in the world, and they are using their money and power to promote messages that are convenient for their further domination. Conservative think tanks – and, therefore, the experts they employ – are being paid, by vested interests, to say that global warming isn’t real. It provides yet another motive for skeptics to give more weight to the ends, rather than the means.

It seems quite obvious that these skeptics should not be trusted, as their arguments are inconsistent and unsupported, and they have potential fortunes resting on what they say, not how they prove it. However, the vested interests of CTTs and fossil fuel companies have been wildly successful in using these skeptics as their spokespeople. For example, the majority of articles from well-respected newspapers present the issue as an equal-sided debate, giving equal time to arguments for and against the idea of human-caused climate change (Boykoff and Boykoff, 2004). This framing has permeated to the public, as 39% of American adults think humans are not changing the climate (Gallup, 2007), and 42% think scientists disagree a lot about the issue (Newsweek, 2007). The constant presence of manufactured doubt in the media has taken its toll.

Additionally, since the skeptical view exploded following the near-action in the late 1980s, our society has spent 20 years without any significant plans for mitigation. The Kyoto Protocol failed in both Canada and the US. The Copenhagen summit did not lead to any politically binding targets. US President Barack Obama is finding it difficult to pass even the most meagre cap-and-trade legislation through the Senate, and the position of the Canadian government is to wait and see what the Americans do.

A democracy cannot function without an electorate that is accurately informed. We see an example of this scenario with regards to climate change legislation. Even though the scientific community is, essentially, as sure as it can get about the existence of human-caused climate change, the manufacture of doubt has prevented the public opinion from following suit, and prevented voters from demanding necessary political action. A well-funded campaign has led us astray from the ideals of democracy.

It’s not over yet, though. Climate change action is not a question of all or nothing. Even if we fail to keep the warming at a tolerable level, there is still a wide range of outcomes. Three degrees of warming is better than five, and five degrees is better than eight. We should never throw up our hands and say that all is lost, because we can always prevent the situation from getting worse.

To pull our society together in order to minimize global warming, we need the public to be better informed about climate change. This does not require everyone to know climate science – rather, all that is needed is for the public to be able to recognize whether or not they can trust an argument. Everyone needs to understand the importance of peer-review and the difference between the ends and the means. People do not need to know science – they just need to know how the system of scientific opinion works. Once this literacy becomes widespread, people will understand the urgency of action, and they will stop listening to those skeptical scientists on the news.

Works Cited

Amazon. “Patrick Michaels.” Amazon.com. Web. 7 Jan. 2010.

Amazon. “S. Fred Singer.” Amazon.com. Web. 7 Jan. 2010.

Bailey, Ronald. “Two Sides to Global Warming.” Weblog post. Reason.com. 10 Nov. 2004. Web. 9 Dec. 2009. <http://reason.com/archives/2004/11/10/two-sides-to-global-warming>.

Beam, Alex. “MIT’s Inconvenient Scientist.” Boston Globe. 30 Aug. 2006. Web. 9 Dec. 2009. <http://www.boston.com/news/globe/living/articles/2006/08/30/mits_inconvenient_scientist>.

Boykoff, Maxwell, and Jules Boykoff. “Balance as bias: global warming and the US prestige press.” Global Environmental Change 14 (2004): 125-36. Print.

Chatterjee, Neera. “Prof. says climate change exaggerated.” The Dartmouth. 24 Feb. 2009. Web. 10 Dec. 2009. <http://thedartmouth.com/2009/02/24/news/climate>.

Dennis, Avery. “Global Cooling?” Web log post. Free Republic. 30 June 2006. Web. 9 Dec. 2009. <http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1658580/posts>.

Doran, Peter, and Maggie Zimmerman. “Examining the Scientific Consensus on Climate Change.” EOS 90.3 (2009): 22-23. Print.

Exxon Secrets. Greenpeace USA. Web. 10 Nov. 2009. <http://www.exxonsecrets.org/maps.php>.

Fox News. “Global Warming: Climate of Fear?” Fox News. 25 May 2006. Web. 9 Dec. 2009. <http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,195551,00.html>.

Gallup. Environment Poll. 2007. Raw data.

Heartland Institute. Heartland Institute. Web. 13 Dec. 2009. <http://heartland.org>.

Hoggan, James, and Richard Littlemore. Climate Cover-Up. Vancouver: Greystone, 2009. Print.

Jacques, Peter, Riley Dunlap, and Mark Freeman. “The organisation of denial: Conservative think tanks and environmental scepticism.” Environmental Politics 17.3 (2008): 349-85. Print.

Kennedy, Donald. “An Unfortunate U-Turn on Carbon.” Science 291.5513 (2001): 2515. Print.

Logical Science. “The Consensus on Global Warming/Climate Change: From Science to Industry & Religion.” Logical Science. 2006. Web. 9 Nov. 2009.

Luntz, Frank. “Straight Talk: The Environment: A Cleaner, Safer, Healthier America.” Letter to Republican Party. 2002. Political Strategy. Web. 10 Nov. 2009. <http://www.politicalstrategy.org/archives/001330.php>.

Miller, Dan. “Look Who’s Talking.” Heartland Institute. 28 May 2009. Web. 10 Dec. 2009.

Miller, Dan. “Look Who’s Talking.” Heartland Institute. 28 May 2009. Web. 10 Dec. 2009.

Newsweek. Environment Poll. 2007. Raw data.

Oreskes, Naomi. “Beyond the Ivory Tower: The Scientific Consensus on Climate Change.” Science 306.5702 (2004): 1686. Print.

Oreskes, Naomi. “You CAN Argue with the Facts.” Stanford University. Apr. 2008. Lecture.

Paul, Knappenberger C., and Michaels J. Patrick. “Scientific Shortcomings in the EPA’s Endangerment Finding from Greenhouse Gases.” Cato Journal. Cato Institute, 2009. Web. 9 Dec. 2009. <http://www.cato.org/pubs/journal/cj29n3/cj29n3-8.pdf>.

Revkin, Andrew. “Industry Ignored Its Scientists on Climate.” New York Times. 23 Apr. 2009. Web. 10 Nov. 2009. <http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/24/science/earth/24deny.html>.

Seed Magazine. “The Contrarian.” SeedMagazine.com. 24 Aug. 2006. Web. 3 Jan. 2010. <http://seedmagazine.com/content/article/the_contrarian/?page=all>.

Singer, S. Fred, and Dennis Avery. Unstoppable Global Warming: Every 1500 Years. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield,, 2007. Print.

Singer, S. Fred. “British Documentary Counters Gore Movie.” Heartland Institute. 1 June 2005. Web. 9 Dec. 2009.

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Thatcher, Margaret. “Speech at 2nd World Climate Conference.” Speech. 2nd World Climate Conference. Geneva. 1990. Margaret Thatcher Foundation. Web. 9 Nov. 2009. <http://www.margaretthatcher.org/speeches/displaydocument.asp?docid=108237>.

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Walker, Joe. “Draft Global Climate Science Communications plan.” Letter to Global Climate Science Team. Apr. 1998. Web. 9 Nov. 2009. <http://euronet.nl/users/e_wesker/ew@shell/API-prop.html>.

Weart, Spencer. The Discovery of Global Warming. Harvard UP, 2004. Print.

Comments (20)

Partisan

January 11, 2010 at 5:47 pm · Filed under How Science Works, Media and the Public ·Tagged , , , , , , , ,

How did objectivity itself become partisan?

I’m not quite sure how this thought came into my mind. I was angry about what Mark Steyn is regularly allowed to write in Maclean’s (Peter Sinclair, if you’re reading, you should really use his columns as case studies for your videos – this is the most popular news magazine in Canada). Then I read his Wikipedia page and discovered that he regularly appears on Rush Limbaugh, writes for the National Post, and gets awards from Fox News. Somehow that made my anger diminish, as I started to look at his articles as case studies rather than as a reporter from a magazine I’ve grown up with. His climatology arguments are easily invalidated by the cooling stratosphere as well as tracking the warming over decades rather than years – just like S. Fred Singer. Singer’s writing doesn’t make me mad anymore, because it’s a case study, not a source.

Then I got distracted wondering what would happen to the temperature of the stratosphere if the planet was experiencing an aerosol-induced cooling. That sort of energy balance mechanism fascinates me, but I couldn’t figure it out.

Eventually I got back to politics and the media, and I started wondering how climate science became a partisan issue. It’s math and physics when you boil it all down, just like any other physical science – the very subjects which are, ideally, the pinnacles of objectivity. At what point did the public perception of the objectivity of climatology fall apart?

I trust scientists, and I trust science more than any other field to guide my decisions, so maybe I’m expecting that everyone else would feel the same way. But if I was confused about the link between the ozone hole and Antarctic temperatures, my first reaction would not be to declare that both ozone depletion and climate change were “religion, not science”. My first reaction would be to assume that I did not fully understand, and that the scientists had covered all of my misconceptions long ago. Then I would go to Google Scholar, rather than writing an erroneous editorial in a major national magazine.

However, when one frames their own scientific misconceptions as a conservative viewpoint of climate science, the more informed message of those who work in the field and keep up to date with the literature is cast as “liberal”. Then the artificial balance complex of the mainstream media kicks in. Equal time is given to contrasting conclusions, rather than to the most accurate and conscientious arguments. Space is allocated based on the ends (conclusions) rather than the means (methods and analysis).

Science is so fundamentally different from everything else the media reports. In politics and religion and musical tastes, there is no right and wrong. But in science, there is a right and wrong – at least hypothetically. We know there’s a physical truth out there, and we’re always striving to come closer to it.

The fallacies of the mainstream media make it incredibly easy to create a controversy where there is none. You can get away with misconceptions or outright lies (any guesses on how Steyn finished the phrase “hide the decline in….”?), as long as you frame it as a partisan opinion.

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An Analogy

September 16, 2009 at 7:18 pm · Filed under How Science Works ·Tagged , , , , , , ,

I can’t remember where I first read about this phenomenon. It could have been here, here, or somewhere else entirely.

Whoever it was wrote a brilliant post about the widespread public belief that “the truth lies somewhere between the two extremes”. This belief was a fallacy, the author argued, as one side could easily make themselves as extreme as possible – moving their end of the spectrum so that the centre moves closer to their original position.

“The warming is natural” sounds ridiculous until you compare it to “it hasn’t been warming at all.” Someone says that “CO2 accumulation is caused by volcanoes”, but then someone else claims “CO2 doesn’t even affect the global temperature.” Little by little, the centre – the position between the two extremes, which the public is most inclined to trust – shifts.

This phenomenon reminds me of a math problem from a few years back, which, for whatever reason, stuck in my mind. It had to do with different car companies, and what form of simple averaging – mean, median, or mode – was the most appropriate to honestly convey to customers the price of a typical car.

One company had cars with prices $25 000, $28 000, $23 000, $30 000, and $21 000. (No, I don’t remember the exact numbers. Yes, I am making them up.)

Another company had cars priced $35 000, $31 000, $38 000, $34 000, and $10 000.

See the analogy?

Make one end of the spectrum as extreme as possible, and the mean average – or public opinion – will shift accordingly.

In a public debate such as climate change,  I don’t think we should use the mean. We should use the median. That way, even if the same scientists become progressively more extreme in their views, the public’s interpretation of the credible opinion will stay relatively the same. It’ll only significantly change if that minority of scientists is able to convince the others of their views.

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Science

July 13, 2009 at 5:47 pm · Filed under How Science Works

From this website I was introduced to one of the best explanations of how science works. Thanks to Brian for the link.

science

Science is an area of study where the means justify the ends. You shouldn’t start with a conclusion that you like, and then form an argument around it (that’s why I’ve never liked literary analysis). The scientifically correct procedure is to follow approved and tested methods, and see what conclusion comes out of that.

Apply this idea to your assessment of credibility. In addition to investigating the expertise and relevant education of the source, ask yourself whether they’re following the scientifically accurate method of gathering evidence first, or if they’ve started by choosing a politically acceptable conclusion to stick to no matter what.

Practice questions:

Does the National Academy of Sciences study science by starting with hard data and evidence, or by starting with a conclusion that they like?

What about the Heartland Institute?

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All Over the Map

June 27, 2009 at 2:59 pm · Filed under How Science Works ·Tagged , , , , , , ,

The climate change debate is usually categorized into two sides. One side claims that humans are causing the Earth to warm. The other claims that they are not.

But does the second side have an alternate scientific explanation for why humans are not causing climate change? When they are the extreme minority of scientific opinion, the burden of proof is really on them. So let’s look at the scientific theories of some of the more prominent skeptics.

Dr S. Fred Singer

Dr S. Fred Singer

Dr S. Fred Singer is an atmospheric physicist and a professor of environmental science at the University of Virginia. He is widely known for his opposition to the mainstream opinion regarding climate change, and has a history of being funded by oil companies and conservative think-tanks to promote this skepticism. (He was similarly funded for his opposition to the theory of tobacco causing cancer, as well as the theory of CFCs depleting ozone.)
Dr Singer claims that the observed warming is a natural phenomenon that occurs every 1500 years. He uses data from the Greenland ice core to support this theory. The data illustrates repeating D-O events, a well-known phenomenon from the last ice age, in which ocean currents caused the Greenland ice cap to warm while the Antarctic ice cap cooled. There was no change in the energy balance of the Earth, and little, if any, change in average global temperatures. Peter Sinclair created a fantastic video about Dr Singer’s D-O theory which you should all check out here.
With the training and knowledge he has, you’d hope Dr Singer would know to always use data from both poles when addressing issues of paleoclimatology. But, given his track record, there’s a good chance he’s deliberately trying to deceive us.
Dr Richard Lindzen

Dr Richard Lindzen

Dr Richard Lindzen is an atmospheric physicist and professor of meteorology at MIT. He was one of the many lead authors of the third IPCC report. His scientific work seems to follow the mainstream opinion……but he seems like a skeptic in the media. He is just as prominent as Dr Singer – between the two of them they’ve probably written most of the skeptical newspaper editorials out there. Like Dr Singer, Dr Lindzen is known to have been paid by the oil industry to promote his views on climate change.

But what are those views? It’s hard to know. Given his publications and participation in IPCC, it seems like he agrees with the basic physical processes of climate change. In an interview with Canadian climatologist Andrew Weaver, he seemed to acknowledge that humans were changing the climate, but didn’t think the consequences would be too bad. But he also likes to claim that there is little agreement or confidence, regarding anthropogenic climate change, in the scientific community. He told the Boston News that the Greenland ice sheet was thickening, indicating cooling – while it is well known that the thickening is due to an increase in snow from warmer temperatures. He’s also claimed that climatologists made up global warming so they would get more grant money.

Richard Lindzen says so many different things – it’s hard to tell whether or not he has a consistent opinion. Again, in scientific circles, he’s working just fine with the mainstream opinion. But then he goes to the media and spews out all the contrary arguments he can think of. My best guess is that Dr Lindzen is trying to confuse the public on climate change, because he doesn’t want action to be taken. But who knows?

Dr Anthony Watts

Anthony Watts

Anthony Watts is a weather forecaster, but now spends most of his time running the websites Watt’s Up With That? and Surface Stations. He believes that temperature data stations are producing flawed data, showing a false warming trend. He spends a lot of time trying to explain how observed signs of warming, such as melting ice sheets, are irrelevant.
However, we could forget the temperature data altogether, throwing out all the GISS graphs of temperature changes. We could instead look at changes in the timing of physical and biological events, such as when birds migrate, when snow melts, or when flowers bloom. NASA recently conducted such a study, and found that 90% of the 29,500 data sets studied indicated warming temperatures.
These are three of the most prominent skeptics who are actually qualified to understand climate change. If this small community – perhaps no more than a few dozen scientists worldwide – had a consistent scientific theory to explain why humans are not causing climate change, perhaps we’d pay more attention to them.
But they’re all saying different things. Their ideas are all over the map. I don’t think I’ve even seen two skeptics who share the same theory.
They’re working as hard as they can to disprove climate change, but they can’t even agree on an alternate explanation.

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When Authority is Relevant

June 17, 2009 at 6:10 pm · Filed under How Science Works, Mitigation and Policy ·Tagged , , , , , ,

When it is appropriate to use an argument from authority?

The most common criticism of arguments such as Doran and Zimmerman’s poll or a list of statements from organizations is, “That doesn’t mean they’re right.” Just because a topic has overwhelming agreement doesn’t mean it’s true.

I agree with that criticism. But I still believe that such arguments are appropriate at times. How can this be?

Firstly, to a scientist who has relevant experience, arguing from authority is not usually appropriate. If someone understands all the technicalities of a topic such as climatology, what others say shouldn’t necessarily influence them. If there is overwhelming agreement on an issue, they should certainly examine its evidence, but shouldn’t be subject to peer-pressure. If someone understands the science behind the issue, their own experience and analysis makes the popular opinion barely relevant.

However, to the individual with no climatology training, their own analysis can’t cut it. They simply need to trust those with relevant experience – who else are they going to trust? As Greg Craven says in Risk Management,

“Ask yourself this: does the Earth go around the sun, or does the sun go around the Earth? No one even seriously questions that anymore, right? Try this sometime. Stand and point to the sun in the sky. A few hours later, stand in the same spot, facing the same direction, and do it again. Is your arm pointing in the same direction as it was before? No! Clearly, the sun is the thing that moved, and clearly, the Earth is too large to have gone anywhere, and is right where you left it.

If your senses—and your common sense—are so easily fooled, then how do you decide what to believe about the natural world? Well, why do you so firmly believe that the Earth orbits the sun, despite all evidence and common sense to the contrary? You believe it because: smart people told you so. And you trust them, when it’s their area of expertise, and enough of them agree. Of course authority matters. That doesn’t mean it’s infallible—just ask Galileo. But it’s certainly a better bet than armchair analysis.”

Additionally, to the average non-scientist, the physical truth does not matter as much as the probability of the event in question. They don’t really care about D-O events, Milankovitch cycles, or the relative strength of different greenhouse gases. The real question they are asking is, “What do we need to do about climate change?” People care about what will impact them. For scientists, that means data and conclusions, as that’s their job. For average individuals, that means risk management and mitigation, as that determines which policies they will support and what individual action they will take.

And when over 97% of the scientific community agree that humans are causing the Earth to warm, the probability of emission reduction being worthwhile seems pretty high.

It’s important that the authority used to argue the probability of a point is large and diverse, however. It’s easy to cherry-pick one of the outspoken 3% of scientists who reject climate change and say, “See, they know more than you do, so you should vote against Waxman-Marley.” Statistics such as “97% agreement” or “every professional scientific organization that has issued a statement on climate change” gives the audience a much better sense of the mainstream scientific opinion.

Therefore, to the average person, arguing from authority is appropriate, because it reflects probability and risk management. And that’s really all that the general public cares about.

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