Tag Archives: credibility

Skepticism and Denial

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Skepticism and denial are two words that many climate change activists throw around. What is the difference between them? What is the appropriate usage for each? And which camp do most of so-called “global warming skeptics” fall into?

A skeptic is someone in doubt. The key word here is “doubt”. They are willing to listen to evidence from all sides because they haven’t formed an opinion yet. However, it will take very strong evidence for them to accept a theory or belief.

All scientists are taught to be skeptical – to never make assumptions, jump to conclusions, or accept a theory without asking further questions. Skepticism is scientific nature. It is a way of saying, “I don’t know enough about the topic to make a decision.” Skepticism shows inherent objectivity.

A denialist will adamantly reject something, no matter how much evidence supports it. They will only listen to evidence from the side of the debate they support. Unlike a skeptic, who will accept a theory when strong evidence arises, a denialist will never accept a theory. Denial shows inherent bias.

Applying these definitions

In the context of climate change, I feel that denial, in a way, is opposite to skepticism. All over the Internet there are people claiming that climate change is nonexistent/natural/a global conspiracy. They say that they are “skeptical” of the evidence that humans are causing the Earth to warm. Let’s look at a rather tragic story and see if it sheds some light on whether they are actually skeptical, or if they are, in fact, in denial.

In The Great Global Warming Swindle – as well as countless other sources – a graph is presented which shows the Medeival Warm Period to be slightly warmer than the present day.

ipcc1This graph is from the first IPCC report, dated 1990. The film is adamant that this graph is correct. However, in the years following 1990, the IPCC did more research on the Medeival Warm Period, as almost all of their historical temperature data was from Europe. They looked at data from other parts of the world and discovered that the warming was confined to Europe. The Earth, as a whole, hardly warmed at all. By the third IPCC report, the graph had advanced dramatically, to what is known as “the hockey stick”.

ipcc2

This graph prompted a lot of yelling and screaming, and a lot of claims that the IPCC was forging data. But, in actuality, their data set had just improved. And it was continuing to improve. By its fourth report, the IPCC had not just a hockey stick, but a whole hockey team.

ipcc4

This graph, the most recent, was created by the same source as the first graph, which showed the Medeival Warming Period to be warmer than today. It was 17 years more recent. It had advanced dramatically. However, the Great Global Warming Swindle et al continued to use the graph from 1990 and claim that it was credible. Do they hold valid scientific concerns regarding the stastical methods used to create the more recent graphs? Or are they simply cherry-picking data?

There are other, similar, stories. Many skeptics put incredible faith on the idea that other planets might be warming – a dubious area of research we’re just starting to explore – and then turn around and say that the Earth’s temperature record, which has been going strong for a century, is flawed. They say that the 1970s theory of an impending ice age – which was mentioned by a single, discredited paper – held complete consensus in the scientific community, whereas there is apparently “no agreement” over the idea of human-caused warming.

They call themselves “skeptics”. But how can they really be of skeptical nature when they are clinging to certain pieces of evidence in a way that’s not skeptical at all? How can they claim that they hold logic, rationality, and common sense when they are advocating – without analysis, investigation, or statements of uncertainty – for all evidence which supports their pre-conceived conclusion?

Does this show inherent objectivity – skepticism?

Or does it show inherent bias – denial?

When Authority is Relevant

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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.

Ignore the Petition Project

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Many of you have probably heard of Ron Paul’s recent statement in Congress regarding a petition signed by thousands of scientists claiming that there was no scientific evidence for anthropogenic climate change, no evidence that burning hydrocarbons was harmful, and, in fact, evidence that burning hydrocarbons would be beneficial for the Earth. The purpose of this statement was to persuade the American people to reject the cap-and-trade bill being negotiated in Congress.

I was skeptical of this petition. I did a little research to find out its legitimacy. Before long I discovered that it was an updated edition of the Oregon Petition, which was created to persaude America to reject Kyoto.

The Oregon Petition has some major problems. Firstly, attached to the petition was an article supporting its claims. The article was designed to look just like an article from the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, a reputable peer-reviewed journal. However, the article was created by three skeptics and was not peer-reviewed at all. The NAS was subject to a lot of inquiries and controversy following the publication of this petition. It eventually had to publish a statement saying that the NAS had nothing to do with the article.

Secondly, the petition could be signed by scientists from any discipline, even if they had no experience studying climatology. As British physics student Michael Ashcroft writes,

“The problem is that, as science is such a vast field, you can spend your entire life studying one branch of science and still know absolutely nothing about another. For example, I am a physics student, and I can honestly say that I know nothing about medicine. I also wouldn’t expect an ecologist to understand the processes behind the formation of stars, for example.This is precisely what the Petition Project does assume, though. If we look at the qualifications of the signers, we see that even medical doctors are eligible to sign. Take a look. Some of the more amusing backgrounds, that supposedly give these people enough special knowledge about global warming to deny its existence, include:

Mathematics – without a special interest in the climate, this is worthless in the field.

Physics – I have almost finished a Bachelor’s degree in Physics and there has been only one, optional course about “Environmental Physics”, so I can argue from experience that a degree in Physics does not necessarily equip someone with the information they may need to decry global warming.

Biology – unless there’s a large degree of specialisation of the effects of climate change on some biological variable (growth, change of ecosystems etc), this has no bearing on the subject.

Medicine – What?!

Aerospace Engineering – I happen to live with an Aeronautical Engineering student, who has had no training in any environmental subjects whatsoever.

Computer Science – see Aerospace Engineering

It is like asking celebrities what they think of the economy of Chad. They may be famous, and therefore carry some weight, but their opinions are nothing more than opinion. Asking “Dr X” what he thinks of the manufacture of steel may be all well and good, except that “Dr X” has a PhD in ancient history. He may be qualified in something, but it is misleading to assume that because he is a doctor of something, he must know everything about everything.”

Thirdly, the scientists who did sign may have been misrepresented. An article in Scientific American conducted a study regarding the participants.

“Scientific American took a random sample of 30 of the 1,400 signatories claiming to hold a Ph.D. in a climate-related science. Of the 26 we were able to identify in various databases, 11 said they still agreed with the petition—one was an active climate researcher, two others had relevant expertise, and eight signed based on an informal evaluation. Six said they would not sign the petition today, three did not remember any such petition, one had died, and five did not answer repeated messages. Crudely extrapolating, the petition supporters include a core of about 200 climate researchers; a respectable number, though rather a small fraction of the climatological community.”

The Seattle Times also investigated the Orgeon Petition, and found that some questionable people had signed.

“Several environmental groups questioned dozens of the names: “Perry S. Mason” (the fictitious lawyer?), “Michael J. Fox” (the actor?), “Robert C. Byrd” (the senator?), “John C. Grisham” (the lawyer-author?). And then there’s the Spice Girl, a k a. Geraldine Halliwell: The petition listed “Dr. Geri Halliwell” and “Dr. Halliwell.”

Asked about the pop singer, Robinson said he was duped. The returned petition, one of thousands of mailings he sent out, identified her as having a degree in microbiology and living in Boston. “It’s fake,” he said.

“When we’re getting thousands of signatures there’s no way of filtering out a fake,” Robinson, 56, said in a telephone interview from Oregon.”

 Finally, for a more thorough and visually appealing analysis of the Oregon Petition, including the motives and credibility of its creators, I’d encourage you all to watch this video by Peter Sinclair.

We should all assess the credibility of the Petition Project. Its first revision has some major problems. Should we trust it a second time? Can it compare with the G8 Statement, the Joint Academies’ Statments versions I and II, the survey of individual climatologists by Doran and Zimmerman, and the dozens of other organizations that have made indepent statements?

Which statements truly reflect the opinion of the scientific community?

Gambling on a Lie

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All right, here it is. A list of professional scientific organizations that have issued statements saying that humans are causing the Earth to warm. Thanks to Logical Science for helping in the creation of this list. Keep in mind that, since the list is several years old, it is probably longer today.

  • Academia Brasileira de Ciéncias
  • Académie des Sciences
  • Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei
  • Russian Academy of Sciences
  • National Academy of Sciences
  • Royal Society of Canada
  • Deutsche Akademie der Naturforscher Leopoldina
  • Science Council of Japan
  • Academy of Science of South Africa
  • Chinese Academy of Sciences
  • Indian National Science Academy
  • Academia Mexicana de Ciencias
  • Royal Society
  • Australian Academy of Sciences
  • Royal Flemish Academy of Belgium for  Sciences  and the Arts
  • Caribbean Academy of Sciences
  • Indonesian Academy of Sciences
  • Royal Irish Academy
  • Academy of Sciences Malaysia
  • Academy Council of the Royal Society of New Zealand
  • Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences
  • Union of Concerned Scientists
  • Woods Hole Research Center
  • Intergovernmental Panel on Climate  Change
  • United Nations Framework Convention  on Climate Change
  • American Association for the  Advancement of Science
  • American Meteorological Society
  • National Research Council
  • Canadian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society
  • Federal Climate Change Science Program
  • National Oceanic and Atmospheric  Administration
  • UN Project on Climate Variability and Predictability
  • American Geophysical Union
  • Geological Society o f America
  • American Chemical Society
  • Geological Society of London
  • Institution of Engineers Australia
  • American Association of State Climatologists
  • US Geological Survey
  • National Center for Atmospheric  Research
  • NASA
  • World Meteorological Organization
  • United Nations Environment Program
  • Canadian Foundation for Climate and Atmospheric Sciences
  • International Council on Science
  • State of the Canadian Cryosphere
  • Environmental Protection Agency
  • American Astronomical Society
  • Australian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society
  • American Institute of Physics
  • Pew Center on Climate Change
  • InterAcademy Council
  • World Health Organization
  • American Quaternary Association
  • Network of African Science Academies
  • European Science Foundation
  • American Society for Microbiology
  • American Public Health Association
  • World Federation of Public Health Associations
  • Institute of Biology
  • Society of American Foresters
  • The Wildlife Society
  • European Federation of Geologists
  • European Geosciences Union
  • International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics
  • American Physical Society

As of 2007, no professional scientific organization in the world publicly disputes that humans are causing the Earth to warm. (No, the Heartland Institute is not a professional scientific organization.)

As we discussed in Making Up Your Own Science, whatever objections an individual holds to the theory of anthropogenic climate change have almost certainly been addressed by the folks metioned above. They know that the climate has changed in the past. They know that the urban heat island effect can cause regional warming. They know that volcanoes emit carbon dioxide. And yet they are still saying that humans are causing the Earth to warm. What does this tell you?

1) They could be right. They could have satisfactory explanations for all of these objections.

2) They could be ignorant. You, the average individual who thinks global warming stopped in 1998, might be smarter and more thorough than 97.4% of climatologists and all of the aforementioned organizations put together.

3) They could be lying. The entire scientific community might be composed of liberal extremists who are plotting to destroy capitalism and free trade.

Which of these outcomes seems most likely?

How sure are you? What if you were wrong?

Are you willing to gamble that the entire scientific community is incompetent or lying?

Are you willing to bet your life, your civilization, and your species on it?

Why Credibility Matters: An Example

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Has anyone ever referred you to the documentary The Great Global Warming Swindle for “the other side of the story”?

As we can see from our credibility spectrum, documentaries shouldn’t be taken too seriously – their directors are, at best, professional individuals. A documentary should never be treated like a scientific report. Just because you saw it on TV, doesn’t mean it’s true, or even the prevailing scientific view.

The Great Global Warming Swindle is an example of why documentaries should not be blindly trusted. Take a look at this video, by the ever-more-popular Peter Sinclair, to see why.

Normal Scientific Practice

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Scientists debate each other’s work all the time. In fact, they’re encouraged to do so. The peer-review process was set up so that every misconception, assumption, or source of error in a scientific article could be nailed down and corrected. Scientists look for mistakes. It’s practically in their job description.

Normal scientific practice states that, should a scientist find a mistake in someone else’s work, they approach them about it, either directly or through the journal which published the article. If the criticism is deemed to be valid, the author will make any necessary changes and/or the journal will publish a retraction.

That’s what happened when the “hockey stick graph” attracted some criticism. The graph was sent to the National Academy of Sciences, who had some concerns about the way the graph was used, but generally found it to be legitimate. The IPCC revised its data, and came out with a new graph – a whole hockey team. The criticism lead to revision which led to further advancement of knowledge and data.

Directing concerns to the authors is probably the best way to fix any scientific errors as it leads to superior data. It is accepted and encouraged.

So, then, why do so many climate change skeptics turn to the media or the Internet instead?

It’s hard to watch Fox News, visit the website of a conservative think tank, or browse the blogosphere without finding someone who claims that climate change is false and they can prove it.

If you really can prove it, I’d like to say to these people, tell the scientists about it. Find specific mistakes in their methods and ask them to change them. If they don’t, it doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re biased against any data that contradicts their theory. You might just not fully understand climatology and why the scientists use the methods they do – especially if you’re not trained in climate science.

Ranting about the inaccuracies of climatology online or to a journalist isn’t going to fix those inaccuracies. All it’s going to do is confuse the public. If confusing the public is your goal, please stop, because our children’s lives are at stake here. If you really do believe that you can prove that climate change is false, direct it to the people who study this issue. For the betterment of human knowledge, please approach the scientists, not the media.

The Source of the Ice Age Claim

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An all-too-common claim people use to justify ignoring the widespread scientific agreement on climate change is, “The scientists were all predicting an ice age in the 70s, and that didn’t happen.”

Last year, a publishing climatologist, the highest category for an individual on our credibility spectrum, decided to investigate just how valid this claim was.

Dr Andrew Weaver is a Canadian climatology professor at the University of Victoria, the chief editor of the peer-reviewed Journal of Climate, a lead author on the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th IPCC reports,and the Canada Research Chair in Climate Modelling and Analysis. I think we can establish strong credibility for Dr Weaver’s statements.

In a 2008 article in the Ottawa Citizen, Dr Weaver explains how he searched through the enormous ISI Web of Science database for peer-reviewed studies claiming the world was heading into an ice age. He discovered that “there is not a single peer-reviewed original scientific study that argued this to be the case.” Only one paper mentioned the idea at all.

“The only paper that came close was one written by NASA scientists Ichtiaque Rasool and Stephen Schneider in 1971. A throwaway sentence at the end of their abstract noted:  “An increase by only a factor of 4 in global aerosol background concentration may be sufficient to reduce the surface temperature by as much as 3.5° K. If sustained over a period of several years, such a temperature decrease over the whole globe is believed to be sufficient to trigger an ice age.” Of course this statement is riddled with weasel words, assumptions and the hypothetical. Nevertheless, its scientific shelf life was only a few months before the assumptions underpinning the study were shown to be questionable.”

The peer-review process worked. The insufficient study was retracted. The idea of an ice age held hardly any agreement whatsoever in the scientific community, compared to the widespread agreement regarding the current climate change. Read the rest of Dr Weaver’s article if you’re interested in how scientists determined the cause of the slight drop in global temperatures post-WWII, despite the increasing levels of greenhouse gases.

Sadly, sources such as Time magazine, Newsweek, and the Globe and Mail (a major Canadian newspaper) got a hold of the recently discredited study. They liked the idea of controversial, attention-grabbing headlines that would engage their readers and, ultimately, bring money and attention to their writers. They published stories with titles such as, “Does man trigger trouble in the world’s climate cycle?” and “Another Ice Age?”

The public ate it right up. And now, 30 years later, this media-induced theory still persists.

At the same time that climatologists were studying the drop in temperatures, many of them were worried that the positive forcing of greenhouse gases would eventually outweigh the negative forcing of aerosols, volcanoes, and the solar minimum. Sources such as the National Academy of Sciences and science advisory committees to the President of the United States held this opinion. Check out this video by Peter Sinclair to see their exact statements (as well as a great clip from a 1958 Bill Nye-esque science show!). Dr Weaver’s article also mentions a 1975 article in the journal Science by Wally Broecker of the Lamont Doherty Earth Observatory.

With the ISI search tool, Dr Weaver was able to find one discredited study that mentioned an aerosol-induced ice age. When he searched the phrases “climate change” and “global warming”, he found 30 913 studies from the period 1965-2008. He speculates,

“That’s a lot of science and you can bet that if there were an Achilles heel to the theory of global warming it would have been discovered long ago.”

The 70s theory of an ice age simply cannot be compared to the current theory of anthropogenic warming. Their levels of support are completely opposite. The ice age theory was held by the extreme minority of publishing climatologists; the current climate change theory is held by the extreme majority.

In the 70s, the media misrepresented the science by overstating an almost non-existent theory. Currently, they are misrepresenting the science by suppressing an overwhelming theory and overplaying the opposition to it.

Personally, I’m going to refrain from basing my knowledge of climate change on the popular press. I suggest you do the same.

The Third Side of the Debate

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We know about the majority of scientists  who have stated that 1) the Earth has been warming since post-industrial times, 2) the driving force is human activity, 3) it’s going to have major consequences for human civilization, and 4) action is necessary as soon as possible to fix it.

We also know about the minority group that gets a disproportional amount of air time and, at least in part, appear to be actively trying to disprove every conclusion the scientists come to. This minority group has been able to publish little to no peer-reviewed science supporting their theories. Their ideas have not been accepted in the scientific community, so they spend their time in the media instead.

But there are also some people, with more noble motives, who simply know “climate change is a problem and we need to fix it” and don’t really know much about the science behind it. That much is fine. But then they go around telling people oversimplified or totally wrong pieces of data that they make up on the spot. That CO2 levels are now around 600 ppm. That the warming will lead us into another ice age. That the world will end.

Or then there’s the Al Gore phenomenon, where their scientific explanation, even if largely correct, is so grossly oversimplified that they are shot down by the first critic and the observers go back to disregarding the problem. (Keep your eyes open for a post all about the Al Gore phenomenon – I’m just waiting until I can find a copy of An Inconvenient Truth.)

I admire the cause of these lobbyists. But, as they are calling for action just like the scientific community is, the weakness of their scientific arguements ends up hurting their cause.

We can’t afford any more confusion on this topic. We can’t afford public distrust towards the organizations at the top of the credibility spectrum.

Leave the science to the scientists. As citizens and voters, let’s use our efforts to look at action and risk management instead, which you don’t need a PhD to understand.

Discover Magazine, June 2009

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I just read the most recent (June 2009) issue of Discover magazine, which is not peer-revewied but generally writes about stuff that is. There was a fantastic article you all should read, entitled “The Big Heat”. It was an interview with three publishing climatologists – Robin Bell, Bill Easterling, and Stephen Schneider (please, people, stop it with that seemingly scandolous quote of his) – and one publishing Earth scientist, Ken Caldeira.

The article covered common questions such as “is it natural?”, “what problems will it cause?”, and “what do we do about it?” in a more in-depth, cited fashion than your average middle-school science unit. They talk about things like D-O events, rate of warming, credibility, and risk management. Fascinating stuff. I danced around a little as I read it.

A small excerpt:

“When we entered into the computer all the various things that forced the climate to change, we were able to faithfully reproduce the temperature record of the past 100 years globally. When you take out the component of human-generated carbon dioxide, the models don’t work at all. There are all these people who say, “Well, what about the sun? Why don’t they think about solar variability?” Of course we think about the sun. The models think about all these things, but the models work only if you put all the components in, and one of the big components is us.” – Bill Easterling

I’d expect that Discover would be available at most libraries in North America. Definitely worth a read.