I don’t know what it is about xkcd, but they manage to hit the nail on the head every time.
See this post about how such a “compromise theory” can skew the public perception of climate change.
A subject I have written about since the very beginning.
That one needs no explanation.
A happy 2010 to everyone. I thought that the start of a new year would be an appropriate time to thank the many people who have made this blog possible.
First and foremost, thanks to the ever-patient and computer-savvy reader who set me up with a blog after months of listening to my rambles about climate change….and who continues to listen, even though I now have an outlet for my thoughts.
I never would have become interested in climate change if it weren’t for a certain geography teacher and a certain climatology prof (you both know who you are!), as well as the great folks from Climate Change Connection.
I have taken a great deal of inspiration from the work of Greg Craven, and many of my posts trace back to ideas that his videos sparked. More recently, I have relied on at least a dozen great blogs for climate change news – thanks to all of you.
Tamino and Mychaylo are each responsible for about a third of my regular readers – it’s amazing how much an influential person can help to spread the word.
And now we reach the regular readers and commenters, who are the heart of this blog. I have turned to these conscientious people for resources, answers to scientific questions, moral support, presentation editing, career advice, insights…..and they have never let me down.
Deep thanks to all of you who keep the discussion flowing and the message moving. It isn’t always easy to spend so much time on such a depressing issue, but you make it worth it.
A couple of stories that couldn’t be elaborated into an entire post:
I met Elizabeth May (the leader of the Canadian Green Party) not long ago when she came to my local university. We had a chat about their emission reduction plans – a 30% reduction from 1990 levels by 2020, and 90% by 2050. (However, they couple this with a “say no to nuclear” plan, so I’m not sure how plausible it is).
Then she said, “So are you a student here, or a professor?” And I was like, “Umm, I’m still in high school…..”
Then, today, someone asked me what I wanted to do after high school. I said that I wanted to study climate change, and followed that with, “Maybe modelling.”
Then I suddenly realized that perhaps not everyone automatically associates the word “modelling” with climate modelling like I do. Perhaps I gave her the impression that I was choosing between a career in climatology and a career as a fashion model. Definitely not my style. I tried to talk my way out of that, fairly unsuccessfully.
And finally – I will have six climate change videos posted within the next few weeks. They were a public education project that I worked on this summer, with an organization named Climate Change Connection. They’ll be posted on YouTube and then I’ll embed them here. Keep your eyes open!
It really annoys me when people treat climate change purely as an environmental issue.
I care about the environment, probably more than most people. I pick up litter so birds won’t eat it and get sick. I’m maintaining three composting systems at the moment. When I have my own house one day, I’m going to tear up the sod and let prairie grasses take over the lawn so it becomes a habitat conducive to frogs and sparrows.
But I hold climate change in an entirely different category. It hardly even overlaps with the “environment” section of my brain.
Climate change certainly will severely impact ecosystems and the environment. Wildlife will be forced to adapt, shift its range, or face extinction. Droughts will lead to lower water levels in some areas, which increases the concentration of pollutants. Habitat loss, the other major threat for species, will be aggravated in many areas: forests, coral reefs, year-round ice, and lakes – to name a few – face stress from changes in temperature and precipitation.
But it doesn’t end there. Climate change is way too complex and far-reaching to be labelled as “just another environmental issue”. Yes, it is an environmental issue. But that’s the least of it.
Consider agriculture. A recent study in Science claims that average temperatures in the tropics and subtropics – areas which are home to more than 3 billion people, the majority of whom depend on community agriculture for sustenance and income – are highly likely (>90%) to exceed even the warmest temperatures on record by the end of this century. “Experimental and crop-based models for major grains in these regions show direct yield losses in the range of 2.5 to 16% for every 1°C increase in seasonal temperature,” the report states, and “despite the general perception that agriculture in temperate latitudes will benefit from increased seasonal heat and supply food to deficit areas, even mid-latitude crops will likely suffer at very high temperatures in the absence of adaptation.”
An even more fundamental requirement for human survival is drinking water. More than one-sixth of people worldwide depend on glacial/snowpack meltwater to drink (IPCC AR4 WG2, 3.4.3), a source which could become threatened in the near future, as “many small glaciers, [especially in the Andes], will disappear within the next few decades, adversely affecting people and ecosystems.”
One of the scariest impacts is sea level rise. Nearly every major city in the world is coastal, and could be wiped out in the centuries to come. We’re only expecting an increase of 0.6 m by 2100, but there’s enough ice in the world to increase the sea level by 80 m, should sufficient warming come to pass. This would take at least a few hundred years, but consider how long some of those coastal cities, such as Amsterdam and Shanghai, have been standing, and how many years of cultural significance they contain. Imagine that we only have a few centuries left before we have to move everything in them – or lose them altogether.
It gets even scarier when you start looking at climate change from a national security perspective, at its potential for political conflict and resource wars. Scientists give the best estimate; but military officials prepare for the worst possible scenario. Unfortunately, most of these documents are classified – I can’t find anything unclassified that would qualify as an acceptable source under our comment policy. However, the Center for Strategic and International Studies (a bipartisan foreign policy think tank) recently published a fairly terrifying report on this topic. I’m also reading a book called Climate Wars, by Canadian journalist Gwynne Dyer, which contains cheery scenarios such as the breakup of the European Union (due to drought in southern Europe, leading to conflict with the north for food supplies) and a “Colder War” over Arctic sovereignty.
It’s not just about polar bears. It’s about the life, security, and prosperity of our civilization. It seems radically unfair to classify climate change as one of many environmental problems – somehow implying that it is just an environmental problem, no worse than commercial pesticides or eutrophication. We can’t fix this with a single law. We need more than a change in what kinds of products we buy. This is one of the worst problems, if not the worst problem, of our time purely because its impacts are so far-reaching and it is so hard to fix.
And that’s why it takes up so much more space in my mind.
It hasn’t been long since I changed my comment policy, and already I’m getting complaints of censorship. I’m obviously not too concerned about the validity of these sources, but I thought I should address the issue regardless.
There are two reasons I will moderate a comment:
1) If you make a scientific claim which isn’t common knowledge (ie, you don’t have to cite “humans are causing climate change” or “the stratosphere is cooling while the troposphere is warming”), and don’t provide a citation from a legitimate peer-reviewed source to back up your statement, I will replace your comment with [citations needed].
For example, I would moderate comments such as these (all of which I just made up – nobody actually posted these):
Humans cannot be causing global warming. Volcanoes emit more CO2 than humans, and there have always been volcanoes and they have never changed the climate. The warming is obviously caused by the sun.
Climate sensitivity is very low – about 0.5 C. Read this post by Joanne Nova.
As Sallie Baliunas found, the medieval warm period was much warmer than today. This was very good for the Vikings and their grapes so we shouldn’t be worried about global warming.
The regular readers and commenters of ClimateSight will spend so much time debunking these common claims, which have been repeated endless times, that we won’t be able to move forward in our discussion. For example, compare the level of useful discussion on this post to this post. Whether or not you’re trying to, if you’re posting statements which claim to invalidate anthropogenic global climate change, with no scientific backing, you’re wasting our time. If you’re deliberatly wasting our time, of course we’re not going to include you in the discussion. If you’re genuinely interested and have heard these statements and want to know more, refer to Coby Beck’s How to Talk to a Climate Skeptic. It’s by far the most comprehensive list of common misconceptions on the web. We’d just be repeating similar arguments anyway….
If you’re getting into more complicated arguments with lots of math, you still have to cite your basic conclusions. Keep in mind that I am just a lowly high school student who doesn’t know any calculus. I can’t possibly assess people’s arguments on their content – so I trust the “peer-reviewed” credential more than any amount of logic.
2) If you post something which is inflammatory, aggressive, insulting, politically extreme, a personal attack on a respected scientist, a random grumble about Al Gore, etc, your comment will be replaced with [inflammatory]. Here are some examples (again, made up):
Al Gore is EVIL and he just wants to tax us all!!!!!!!!!!!! What about the ice ages where it warmed without anyone driving hummers!!!!!!!! That’s his INCONVENIENT TRUTH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Any form of liberal government will never, ever, work, and regulations should never be allowed, no matter what the threat is. All regulations should be suspected as government influence on our lives and incomes.
You are an alarmist and a quasi-religious zealot. You’re just believing what Hansen says because it fits with your preconceived conclusion. Did you know that Hansen adjusts all the temperature data before he graphs it? There’s good reason to suspect that GISS is committing fraud.
When I encounter comments like these, it’s pretty obvious that you’re not interested in having a useful discussion, and just want to yell at people. You’re not helping the quality of the discussion one bit.
There’s a difference between deleting comments like these – which waste everyone’s time and patience – and participating in what we call “censorship”. Censorship is the practice of suppressing ideas and free speech by eliminating someone’s form of communication to the world. I am in no way practicing or endorsing this. You are more than welcome to start your own blog and yell about Al Gore all you want, or to go and comment about CO2 lagging temperature on any other blog you find. A better example of censorship would be how Watts removed Peter Sinclair’s video from Youtube – how else was Sinclair supposed to get his videos out to the world?
There are lots of places to say what you want elsewhere. But here I am the editor, and I am not going to publish comments which will sabotage our discussion. I am going to cater to the requests of those who respect this blog and wish to further the discussion, not those who wish to delay it.
Inflammatory statements are quite obviously inappropriate in a useful discussion. Additionally, keep in mind that science is not built around the pillars of completely free and unrestrained speech, as Brian pointed out. If it was, Nature and Science would have to publish absolutely every submission they received, whether or not it was correct or legitimate. In the real world, however, if a study were to make unusual claims without appropriate evidence or citation, it would go right out the window.
You can say whatever you want. But if it’s inflammatory or lacks citations, and you try to publish it here, don’t complain if it gets deleted.
(Making up all those moderation-worthy comments was kind of fun, though!)
Update: RealClimate has a great quote which sums up my feelings on this issue:
“Comments that accuse as of bad faith, fraud and dishonesty are not ways to move forward any conversation – how can you have a dialog with people who don’t believe a word you say? We choose to try and create a space for genuine conversation, which means weeding out the trolls and the noise. This is an imperfect process, but the alternative is a free-for-all that quickly deteriorates into a food fight. There are plenty of places to indulge in that kind of crap. There are only a few places where it’s not and we are not embarrassed to try to make this site one of them.”
Many advocates of anthropogenic climate change are also advocates of the theory of evolution. The two are often used in analogy in many different ways. In particular, skeptics of the two theories are often alleged to be either the same people or using the same tactics to spread public confusion.
I am not strongly religious, and I fully accept evolution. I understand that some others do not as it conflicts with their spiritual beliefs. I understand that alternative theories have failed to stand up to scientific scrutiny in the peer-reviewed literature. It is my opinion that these theories of creation or intelligent design should remain religious beliefs, and not attempt to be passed as objective science.
But I really don’t mind if people out there don’t believe in evolution. I couldn’t care less.
My feelings are exactly the opposite on anthropogenic global climate change. Why?
The difference between the evolution debate and the climate change debate is that the latter has consequences for the real world. Endless public debating and alternative theories about climate change could easily spread confusion and delay action to mitigate the threat. Indirectly, public debating on climate change, rather than leaving the debate to the scientists and taking action based on their conclusions, poses a threat to our future and our way of life.
Debating on evolution, in contrast, isn’t like that. At worst, it could slow down scientific progress in the area of biology. It could offend people. But could it wipe out our civilization? Of course not. Could climate change? Even the most skeptical person has to admit that it is a possibility.
In response to a very drawn-out debate regarding complex scientific topics, I have changed the comment policy of ClimateSight. Thanks to the many commenters who helped shape this new policy, in particular Hank and Richard.
The new policy is as follows:
If you have something to say, you are more than welcome to leave a comment. However, if you make a scientific claim, like “modern times are warmer than any other period in the past millenium”, or “bristlecone pine data is unacceptable for use in proxy reconstructions”, you must provide an acceptable reference.
For our purposes, an acceptable reference must be peer-reviewed, whether it was published in a journal (but not Energy and Environment!) or is a statement from a professional organization like the NAS. The source cannot have been discredited since its publication.
Blogs don’t count. Reputable blogs will always reference their scientific claims, so all you have to do is take the extra step of checking out their citations. (If they don’t have any citations, what does that tell you?) This requirement eliminates a lot of the misrepresentation and drawn-out debates which are all too common on climate science blogs.
How does that sound? Any suggestions for further improvement?
You know, collaborating with others like this really helps me understand why peer review works. There’s no way I could make such improvement on ClimateSight without the help of our commenters.
Update: Thanks to all of your suggestions, I’ve altered the policy yet again. We’ll see how many revisions it’ll have to go through before it’s finalized. Peer-review at its finest. I’ll also put this comment policy in the sidebar so it’s visible on every post.
If you have something to say, you are more than welcome to leave a comment. However, if you make a scientific claim which is not already common knowledge – like a new theory or a recent statistic – you must reference a legitimate peer-reviewed source (ie, not Energy and Environment!). The source cannot have been recently discredited (ie, don’t reference the 1000-year temperature reconstruction by Sallie Baliunas).
Blogs don’t count. Most reputable blogs will reference all of their scientific claims, so all you have to do is take the extra step of checking out their citations. If they don’t have any citations, what does that tell you?
Any failures to comply with this comment policy will be deleted.
“Although the most extreme environmental zealots may be relatively few in number, they have managed to gain undue influence by exploiting the gullibility of scientifically illiterate people who are only too willing to believe the planet needs saving from man’s excesses. Perhaps this phenomenon is a psychological throwback to earlier civilizations that offered human sacrifices to the gods to assuage their sins and spare them from punishment in the form of drought, flood, famine, or disease. There are certainly many parallels between modern environmentalism and ancient religions.”
I have had very little scientific training, and no formal education in climatology. If you’ve read my About the Author page, you’ll know that I’m a student and aspiring climatologist. You might think I’m a university student, probably in my undergrad.
I’m not. I’m going into my last year of high school. Many of my classmates don’t even know that the theory of anthropogenic global climate change has been endorsed by anyone other than Al Gore. They’re too wrapped up in regular high school drama. Here I am spending my spare time urging political action against climate change, and I can’t even vote yet.
All of my education in climate change has been informal and independent. I stay up late reading IPCC reports. I borrow university chem textbooks so I can understand how greenhouse gases work. I direct all my questions to a climatology prof I know. In a few years, I will have the opportunity for formal training that begins to specialize in climatology. But I’m too impatient. I want to do all I can now.
If credibility is “expertise + objectivity”, my expertise is limited by my circumstances. However, I can still spend time increasing my objectivity. I check my sources. I separate science from policy. I ask myself, “What if I was wrong?”
Since I started this blog, I’ve learned that one of the best ways to pinpoint your mistakes and fix them is to collaborate with others. A lot of you have been fantastic in the comments section, helping to improve the accuracy of my posts. Because of you, I’ve learned that Anthony Watts does not have a PhD, that the same band of radiation can only be absorbed by carbon dioxide once, and that the category of “publishing climatologists”, which is more credible than scientists from other areas on the topic of climate change, should really include atmospheric physicists and radiative physicists.
Without people telling me that I was wrong, I would never have known that I was making mistakes. Without admitting that I was making mistakes, my posts would remain inaccurate.
I believe that admitting your mistakes and fixing them is one of the best ways to increase your credibility. It lets people know that you are willing to change your mind when new evidence warrants it. Basically, it shows that your quest for accurate information surpasses your ego.
Peer-reviewed journals use this tactic all the time. If one of their publications is proven erroneous, they print a retraction. Accurate, up-to-date information is their greatest priority. What else could you ask of a journal?
We all make mistakes, as Big Bird told us when we were small. Nobody is infallible, not even the folks at NASA. Since we can’t escape making mistakes, the best thing we can do is to admit to them and fix them. In a world demanding scientific accuracy, there is no room for egos.
Am I the only one out there who feels a little depressed about climate change?
A little depressed that, whether or not we have the technological capability to replace fossil fuels and lower carbon emissions, our society is so lacking in political will that the actions will never get off the ground?
A little depressed that, no matter how informed our government is, the people – whom the government can’t do anything without the support of – are still, after all these years, confused about whether or not climate change is even happening?
I have a picture in my mind of climate change rolling towards us like a huge boulder, but we’re not getting out of its path. We’re actively walking towards it.
I thought it would be a good time to write something happy on this blog.
You know you’re really interested in a topic when you start laughing at jokes about it. I’m quite well-phrased in chemistry jokes. But recently I’ve picked up a bit of climatology humour as well.
For example, not long ago, someone actually sent me a comment saying that 2005 and 1998 were not the warmest years on record after all; that the Y2K bug messed up NASA’s computers and the warmest year on record was actually 1938.
For those of you who like satire, I also have two great April Fool’s articles. The first is from the Christian Science Monitor.
“In an unprecedented move Wednesday, the Norwegian Nobel Committee rescinded the Peace Prize it awarded in 2007 to former US vice president Al Gore and the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, amid overwhelming evidence that global warming is an elaborate hoax cooked up by Mr. Gore.
A press release from the committee quotes a chagrined Rajendra Pachauri, the UN climate panel’s chair, who claims that he was the victim of a “cunning deception spanning decades”:
“I am deeply ashamed for having unwittingly perpetuated such a massive fraud on the governments of the world,” said Mr. Pachauri.
“It turns out that all that data from satellites and radiosondes, surface temperature readings, borehole analysis, measurements of rising sea levels, melting glaciers and permafrost, phenological data, and proxy reconstructions of paleoclimatic conditions were all fabricated out of thin air by my former friend, Al Gore. Now that I think about it, I suppose that we should have instituted some sort of peer-review process before publishing such alarming conclusions. Once again, I’m very sorry.”
The second is from RealClimate, and discusses the theory that global warming is caused by sheep.
“The hypothesis begins with the simple observation that most sheep are white, and therefore have a higher albedo than the land on which they typically graze. This effect is confirmed by the recent Sheep Radiation Budget Experiment. The next step in the chain of logic is to note that the sheep population of New Zealand has plummeted in recent years. The resulting decrease in albedo leads to an increase in absorbed Solar radiation, thus warming the planet. The Sheep Albedo hypothesis draws some inspiration from the earlier work of Squeak and Diddlesworth [2] on the effect of the ptarmigan population on the energy balance of the Laurentide ice sheet. Noh-Watt hastens to emphasize that the two hypotheses are quite distinct, since the species of ptarmigan involved in the Squeak-Diddlesworth effect is now extinct.”
I hope you all enjoyed this.
In desperate times, our species knows how to make the best of a situation. Even if it involves nerdy jokes.
ClimateSight 