More critical science journalism required

Jalees Rehman, a medical professor from the US, reckons we need more critical science journalism.

Critical science journalism takes a different approach and focuses on providing a balanced assessment of the work, one that highlights specific strengths but also emphasises specific limitations or flaws. It is no big secret that the majority of research findings published in peer-reviewed scientific journals will probably not hold up when other groups attempt to replicate them. This lack of replicability can be due to research misconduct, systematic errors or other cognitive biases, which commonly occur even in the most conscientious and meticulous scientists.

Therefore, critical science journalism requires a careful analysis of all the data presented in a paper and is likely to uncover key limitations and flaws that scientific researchers themselves do not readily divulge. This form of science journalism can also encompass some degree of investigative journalism. Journalists lack the resources to check the validity of scientific data by performing experiments themselves, but they can track scientific research in a certain area over the course of months and years as multiple research groups attempt to replicate published scientific findings.

In the climate debate, critical commentary is of course par for the course, at least among the blogs. It's the newspapers that feel they have to act as cheerleaders, usually because the journalists have no scientific background and therefore struggle with any kind of critique.

Happer on CNBC

William Happer recently appeared on CNBC's Squawkbox show, discussing the 400ppm story.

Defra slashes climate change staff

Hoorah for Owen Paterson, who seems to be taking the lead in getting rid of some of the waste in his department:

The Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) is preparing to cut the number of civil servants working on climate adaptation from over 30 officials to just six, prompting outrage from green groups who have today accused the government of failing to take adequate steps to protect the UK from worsening climate impacts.

One can't help but wonder if Mr Hague is getting rid of all the FCO's network of climate change advisers too. I'm not sure that showing An Inconvenient Truth to the natives (which as far as I can tell is all they do) quite cuts the mustard as a priority for public spending.

Hansen's scandalous interview

The Today programme also interviewed James Hansen on climate sensitivity this morning (see link below). This was an extraordinary performance by any standards.

Hansen opened with the most astonishing claim about global temperatures,

In the last decade it's warmed only about a tenth of a degrees as compared to about two tenths of a degree in the preceding decade.

a claim which completely contradicts Hansen's own GISTEMP dataset (H/T Ruth Dixon).There is a suggestion that he might have been referring to a land-only dataset, but this would still be grossly misleading since he says that land-only data overestimates trends.

Hansen also spoke of the climate sensitivity, making the bizarre claim that our understanding is based on  paleoclimate rather than models and speaking of the excellence of the data in this area. This is mind-boggling, since these datasets contain so little information that they can barely constrain the climate sensitivity at all. The weakness of the constraint provide by paleo data was noted by the IPCC in the last assessment report, and they decided to base the "consensus" figure largely on models - precisely the opposite of what Hansen said was done.

He also tried to blame the standstill on aerosols, ignoring the fact that the IPCC's best estimate now finds that their effect is small, and he described heat going into the oceans as "a detail" and "a diversionary tactic".

Quite disgraceful.

Hansen Today

Update on May 17, 2013 by Bishop Hill

The Carbon Brief provides further information. Apparently when Hansen said "the trend over the last decade", he meant "the trend in the 5-year running mean over the period 2000-10".

"Sex that I woman did not have with" are the words that spring to mind.

Cook's unreported finding

I really have been struggling to summon up much enthusiasm for the inanities of John Cook's paper, but Brandon Schollenberger has written an extraordinary analysis of the data, which really has to be seen to be believed. Readers are no doubt aware that the paper involves rating abstracts of a whole bunch of research papers to see where they stand on the global warming question.

The guidelines for rating [the] abstracts show only the highest rating value blames the majority of global warming on humans. No other rating says how much humans contribute to global warming. The only time an abstract is rated as saying how much humans contribute to global warming is if it mentions:

that human activity is a dominant influence or has caused most of recent climate change (>50%).

If we use the system’s search feature for abstracts that meet this requirement, we get 65 results. That is 65, out of the 12,000+ examined abstracts. Not only is that value incredibly small, it is smaller than another value listed in the paper:

Reject AGW 0.7% (78)

Remembering AGW stands for anthropogenic global warming, or global warming caused by humans, take a minute to let that sink in.  This study done by John Cook and others, praised by the President of the United States, found more scientific publications whose abstracts reject global warming than say humans are primarily to blame for it.

I'm speechless.

Read the whole thing.

Today does climate sensitivity

BBC Radio's flagship Today programme covers climate sensitivity and features, among others, yours truly. I haven't heard it yet, but this is a holding post until I can find the audio.

Update on May 17, 2013 by Bishop Hill

The audio is here.

What goes around...

It has long been noted that country landowners are using wind farms to make small (and large) fortunes at the expense of the poor. The big political parties are relaxed about this of course, and no doubt the landowners are pretty pleased about it too. However, things may be changing:

THE leader of the Scottish ­Government review of landownership yesterday pledged to examine ways of redistributing the cash wealthy lairds make from wind farms to benefit the less-advantaged.

Alison Elliot, chair of the Land Reform Review Group (LRRG), said the issue would be investigated amid concerns that aristo­crats are benefiting from the renewables revolution while the poor grapple with fuel ­poverty.

This will be interesting. The poor will still be fleeced for the fuel bills, and then the money will be clawed back in some way and handed out, no doubt to "community groups" or other politically connected bodies.

The winners will be the bureaucrats, as ever.

Hefce misuses public funds

I read today with interest that Australian website The Conversation has started up a UK edition (see here), with funding provided by, among others, the higher education funding councils for England, Scotland and Wales.

We know the general theme of Conversation editorial - unadulterated left-wing activism - and the UK edition looks as though it's going to be just the same. For a start, look at the editorial team:

• Stephen Khan, ex-Guardian, Independent, Observer and Sunday Herald.
• Megan Clement, ex-Conversation Oz
• Will de Freitas, ex-Guardian
• Jo Adetunji, ex-Guardian
• Jonathan Este ex-Independent (as well as The Australian - wayhay!)
• Arshat Rathi, ex-Economist, The Hindu and Ars Technica

Click to read more ...

Write in haste, repent at leisure

When the PM received a briefing on shale, Cuadrilla was excluded.

Peter Lilley in the Spectator last week

...bizarrely, [Lilley] claims that Cuadrilla were excluded from an inquiry on shale gas conducted by the select committee of which he is a member.

Will Straw, letter to the Spectator today

The reason Will Straw has gone astray is that Lilley's next sentence was "The select committee instead had to listen to an array of bodies from the Committee on Climate Change to the WWF". You can see how confusion would arise. But I think Straw can be taken to task for firing off a letter without checking his facts.

Update on May 16, 2013 by Bishop Hill

Anybody notice the other letter about Lilley's article? Here's Lilley:

...state bodies are egged on by powerful environmental NGOs, which are heavily financed by the EU (WWF receives €600,000 and Friends of the Earth Europe €1.2 million) and our government (we pay WWF £4.1 million) to create the semblance of popular support.

and here's David Nussbaum of WWF:

Peter Lilley is incorrect when he implies in his recent article that WWF-UK receives funding from the UK government for public lobbying

 Also hugely amusing that Nussbaum would claim that the LSE isn't in the pay of big green. Grantham Institute, anyone?

Cosmic-ray effect small?

A new paper in Meteorology and Atmospheric Physics says that the effects of galactic cosmic rays on clouds is small:

The problem of the contribution of cosmic rays to climate change is a continuing one and one of importance. In principle, at least, the recent results from the CLOUD project at CERN provide information about the role of ionizing particles in ’sensitizing’ atmospheric aerosols which might, later, give rise to cloud droplets. Our analysis shows that, although important in cloud physics the results do not lead to the conclusion that cosmic rays affect atmospheric clouds significantly, at least if H₂SO₄ is the dominant source of aerosols in the atmosphere. An analysis of the very recent studies of stratospheric aerosol changes following a giant solar energetic particles event shows a similar negligible effect. Recent measurements of the cosmic ray intensity show that a former decrease with time has been reversed. Thus, even if cosmic rays enhanced cloud production, there would be a small global cooling, not warming.

It will be interesting to see if Svensmark has anything to say.

New Newsnight editor eulogises 10:10 campaign

Ian Katz, the deputy editor of the Guardian, has been appointed the editor of BBC's flagship current affairs programme Newsnight.

You can probably work out where he stands on climate change issues, but if you were in any doubt here's his eulogy to the "beauty" of the 10:10 campaign, of exploding children notoriety.

A always think it's interesting to analyse where the BBC recruits externally and where its staff go to when they leave. I'm thinking of Polly Toynbee's departure for the Guardian for example. Perhaps readers can suggest other examples of revealing departures and arrivals.

Lewis responds to Nuccitelli

Nic Lewis has left a comment under Dana Nuccitelli's astonishing article in the Guardian.

In his piece, Dana Nuticelli links to his earlier article "Climate Sensitivity Single Study Syndrome, Nic Lewis Edition" at a climate change/global warming blog he is associated with. As the author of the paper "An objective Bayesian, improved approach for applying optimal fingerprint techniques to estimate climate sensitivity" (Journal of Climate, in press) that Dana Nuticelli's earlier article is about, I would like to take this opportunity to put on record my rebuttals of a number of misrepresentations he made of my paper, to avoid any Guardian readers who follow the link being misled. I apologise in advance for the length of this comment.

Click to read more ...

All-party group on unconventional oil and gas

The All-Party Parliamentary Group on Unconventional oil and gas is holding its inaugural public meeting. From Twitter, we can learn some of the details:

Advisory panel of APPG Unconventional O&G announced: Consumer Focus, WWF, PWC, Richard Davies, Peter Atherton, IOD, Ineos, UCOG #appgUCO&G

'We are not holding back the #shale industry, our job is to create the right framework to accelerate it in a responsible way' says Fallon

Fallon stresses UK has "similarities" to the UK [sic] geological situation, and says BGS study will be published pre-recess #appgUCO&G

'Unconventional gas and oil can attract inward investment, contribute to exchequer, reduce coal usage and boost energy security' says Fallon

'Shale gas development here is part of a historic continuum of our domestic resources' says Michael Fallon #appgUCO&G

Update on May 15, 2013 by Bishop Hill

Some more:

Viscount Ridley asks: is the Govt sitting on the BGS report until Energy Bill has passed through HL? No, says Fallon #appgUCO&G

Peter Atherton asks how govt will keep industry economic, i.e costs below $12. 'Good challenge' says Fallon #appgUCO&G

How does the Govt see shale gas actually bringing down bills, asks @GreenpeaceUK? Fallon says we can't be sure it will #appgUCO&G

Eustice gets climate advisory role

According to Business Green, Cornish MP George Eustice has been handed the role of energy and climate advisor to David Cameron.

Interestingly, he is ex-UKIP, but BG reports that he is sound (from their perspective) on environmental matters, despite having opposed windfarms in his own constituency.

One source said that while he was clearly opposed to the perceived over-development of renewables in his own constituency, he was nevertheless well informed on the overall climate and energy debate and was broadly positive towards the green economy.

The penny is taking a long time to drop with Mr Cameron.

Update on May 15, 2013 by Bishop Hill

As far as I can tell, this is his only utterance in Parliament on climate change. This makes him a very strange choice as a parliamentary adviser on the subject.

His interest in energy seems to be restricted to marine power.

Update on May 15, 2013 by Bishop Hill

Leo Hickman notes a withdrawn wind turbine application at Eustice's address, although perhaps it's a neighbour.

Wolfsbane

Martin Wolf in the FT says that we're doomed. He says nobody seems to believe him (or anyone else) when they say we're going to fry. He concludes that we need a change of direction:

My view is, increasingly, that there is no point in making moral demands. People will not do something on this scale because they care about others, even including their own more remote descendants. They mostly care rather too much about themselves for that.

[It's surprising that an economist like Wolf doesn't seem to have read Adam Smith on bakers, don't you think?]

Most people believe today that a low-carbon economy would be one of universal privation. They will never accept such a situation. This is true both of the people of high-income countries, who want to retain what they have, and the people of the rest of the world, who want to enjoy what the people of high-income countries now have. A necessary, albeit not sufficient condition, then, is a politically sellable vision of a prosperous low-carbon economy. That is not what people now see. Substantial resources must be invested in the technologies that would credibly deliver such a future.

A technological fix to the problem eh? Let's dump all the windfarms and biofuels and feed-in tariffs, and all the corruption that goes with them? Let's shut down the biomass plants and dump all the climate advisers and recycling watchdogs? Let's bring back the incandescent lightbulb too?

OK, I'm interested.

Update on May 15, 2013 by Bishop Hill

The London Review of Books (H/T Leo H) has a long set of reviews of climate books. It starts with a general (and pretty ill-informed) discussion of the science before really focussing itself on tech fixes - both in terms of energy provision and geoengineering.