Bishop Hill The Royal Society rewrite in the news
May 28, 2010 Climate: other Royal Society The story that the Royal Society is going to rewrite its climate change position paper appears to be making something of an impact. Here are a few relevant links:
The Royal Society's statement about the background is here. Apparently the rewrite had been, ahem, planned for some time. There's also this:
Any public perception that science is somehow fully settled is wholly incorrect – there is always room for new observations, theories, measurements, etc. However, the existence of some uncertainty does not mean that scientific results have no significance or consequences, or should not be acted upon.
Roger Harrabin covered the story from a slightly different angle on the BBC's PM show - link here, starts at 39 min. He features some good archive material of the former head of the RS, Lord May, telling everyone the science was settled and there was "no longer room for doubt", which seems to contradict today's statement from the Society. The show also features an interview with the Royal Society's former PR man Bob Ward, a man who is familiar to readers here (which doesn't, however, mean that readers should feel free to vent about him). Bob sounds slightly flustered when pressed by Harrabin. I think those on the warmer side of the debate may be unfamiliar with this sort of questioning.
Bob W turns up again in the pages of the Guardian. He takes issue with not knowing the identities of the 43 fellows who object to the Climate Controversies paper. This is rather similar to my objecting to not knowing who wrote the paper in the first place - I believe the author was Sir John Houghton, but the Royal Society have refused to clarify one way or the other. Bob also takes potshots at some of the GWPF's advisors, although he doesn't explain why this is relevant to a discussion about the Royal Society.
Reader Comments (25)
Here's what my model projects:
2010: Climate Change Position Paper 2.0
2012: Climate Change Position Paper 3.0
2015; Climate Change Position Paper 4.0
2017: Climate Change Position Paper 5.0
2020: Climate Cooling Position Paper 1.0
Pompous eggheads.
My favorite quote on this is from America's National Academy of Science:
"Climate change is occurring, is caused largely by human activities, and poses significant risks for a broad range of human and natural systems."
Climate change has been occurring for as long as the Earth has existed, and long before human activities could have caused anything. The NAS statement is as valid as sun-worshippers claiming that the sunrise is caused largely by their prayers.
There's a 2005 paper here by David Wallace and John Houghton that may be an earlier version of the 2007 Climate Controversies document.
[BH adds: The group was led by Wallace and Houghton, but it is not clear who actually wrote the text. The RS has refused to confirm]
Isn't the Royal Society simply a vehicle intended to popularize Prince Charles' beliefs in climatology, ufology, and Feng Shui?
(with all due respect to the respectable disciplines of ufology and Feng Shui).
ZT it doesn't work like that. The Royal Society is establishment through and through, and in spite of his blue blood the Prince is outside the corral, so no, they do not support his wacky ideas, only ones that form part of mainstream science whether proven or not.
Here's the take form the Guardian (as ever, as warmist as toast)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/may/28/climate-change-royal-society
These 43 irresponsible scoundrels are 'reviving confusion'. Didn't Galileo Copernicus and a few others revive confusion in their day?
From Bob Ward's piece in the Guardian that you cite:
I love it. The implication is that there are some people who dispute AGW, but they are outside climate science, and either membrs of lobby groups and, let's be honest, very old, or just plain completely wrong about basic climate science.
To the detriment of this blog by Bish, I have to say I now consider this my home in the climate change blogosphere.
My hero Steve seems to have gone off the boil and although his determination to persue truth has enabled so many people to feel able to speak out in the debate, he seems only to care about the debate and not about the real world.
My motivation for reading more about climate science than I read about anything else in my life is the huge wrong being done to the people on this planet.
If/when this wrong is righted I will have no further interest in climate science, I will just go back to living my life (whats left of it hehe).
So I ask humbly why I do not read more about what people are doing to try and change the world?
The people who post on this blog seem to me to be friendly, polite, intelligent, intelectual and basically good people but having a cosy friendly place to discuss our common beliefs achieves nothing.
What are we all doing ?
I ask this because it would help me keep fighting if I knew others were also fighting. Sorry to disturb the peace hehe.
@Dung
Why fight when "they" do all the work? Just listen to their "wind" ;)
Dung: if you find “having a cosy friendly place to discuss our common beliefs achieves nothing”, why not get over to the Guardian article referenced by O’Geary above and have a very uncosy discussion with the opposition?
I also got in a plug for the Bishop at
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/blog/2010/may/28/rightwing-group-climate-change
Say what you like about the Guardian climate change articles, they give you a streetfight.
Dung
I have felt like that in the past, but I have changed my tune. Out of the cosy conversation here comes an understanding of the truth. Influential people follow the postings here, many of which are based on that understanding. So we change people's minds.
The thing that has been most curious about the AGW phenomenon is the way its adherents have moved into what we might ironically call 'denial mode'.
In this mode, once the subject becomes converted, cognitive dissonance seems to take over, and all contrary evidence is rejected, and any dissenters offering it are felt to be threatening and unpleasant.
The thing that is so hard for those outside what has now become a sort of cult to see, is that to those on the inside, what they believe, and the social reality they are participating in, has become received and obvious truth. Anyone questioning it is really a little or more than a little nutty. Or perhaps, as in some of the more extreme pronouncements by cult members, positively dangerous to humanity.
It does most powerfully remind one of the mania about autism and MMR vaccine which similarly managed to secure many anxious true believers and do much damage before finally being discredited. Or indeed, the manias which have characterized extreme political and religious sects of the 20C.
It seems to be that this element of extreme hostility to questioning is, very oddly, a defining characteristic of these mass delusions of infallibility. After all, there are things which are fairly certain, but to question them does not provoke masses of people to suggest one should be stifled or jailed. One can question the basis of calculus all day, to nothing but yawns. Even questioning of evolution does not provoke such howls of rage. One can assert that the earth is flat, and that the sun rotates across it, and be greeted with no more than amused stares.
On the other hand, in the dot com mania, there were circles in which to question the financial basis of the whole thing was to receive very real and aggressive hostility. I knew an unfortunate who was nearly fired from a responsible position back then, because he kept arguing that the PC and the Internet was going to be the vehicle of the future, rather than the TV. His group was at the time involved in investing vast sums in interactive TV services....
Oh well. 'Mock on, Voltaire, Rousseau, 'tis all in vain...."
Dung,
Bishop says "Influential people follow the postings here, many of which are based on that understanding. So we change people's minds."
I would say that the "Influential People" who follow the postings want/need votes and observe the huge swing to the sceptical side. To continue the fight against the pseudo science and downright lies simply chat to people about what you have found out. Do not waste your time with the guardianista types, they will continue with their eco-fascist religion no matter what you say.
My own efforts have been met with disbelief, ridicule and threats but the pleasure I get when one person comes back to me after they have done their own research and now see what has gone on....well, words cannot do the feeling justice and we have the likes of Bishop, Steve M, Anthony Watts Jo Novva etc for giving us the platforms to voice our discontent.
This thing with the Royal society is part of a repositioning that will eventually see warmers try to secure sceptic territory.
The CAGW side broke the credibility threshold when they started saying ‘the debate is over’, ‘the science is settled’, ‘most scientists agree’, ‘we can predict 100 years ahead but not next week’, never emphasising the most likely outcome when the extreme version gets more press coverage, etc. You know, like psychometric testing where they ask key questions and see if you give an impossible answer in order to impress. In their eagerness to push governments and the public, AGW proponents have… well… lied. Ok, lets call them ‘tactical exaggerations’ (TEs). Initially, only the observant picked up on these TEs but the wider public felt uneasy about the confidence levels of the same people who can’t get a seasonal forecast right. Post Climategate, we now see outright rebellion amongst the average citizen and it’s worrying the grand wizards of AGW.
So they’re beginning to look at their own TEs and realise they’ve shot beyond the credible into science fiction. They know they need to retreat to something more sensible but turn to discover that sceptics have occupied the middle ground. To win they will need to push sceptics back into denier territory.
What will they do? They’ll gradually move back and say that that was always their position. They’ll pretend that they intended to improve the global temperature records all along; that more openness and honesty was their goal; that even tiny rises in temperature due to CO2 or falls due to natural forcings were well within their predictions; that they never considered Al Gore’s movie an accurate assessment of the science; that the most recent statement on AGW was their true position from the start; etc.
Whatever the climate does, they’ll try to rewrite history and claim that they got the predictions right. Pity the internet will prove them wrong.
Pete Hayes
In your advice to dung, you say “Do not waste your time with the guardianista types, they will continue with their eco-fascist religion no matter what you say”.
If you read the comments threads on Guardian Environment, and particularly the number of times a comment is recommended, you’ll see that sceptics outnumber believers (not ecofascists, please) by a fair margin, even in the holy inner sanctum of the global warming church.
I doubt whether my comments there change many minds, but the odd thoughtful reply from a Monbiot or a Hickman reassures me at least that the high priests are aware that we sceptics are not all Sarah Palin clones.
The BBC is good place to have the discussion..
Whilst, many people here may well react in horror..
The BBC moderators are generally very fair and will allow civilised discussion from all sides..
Everyone, has the BBC and Roger Harrabin to THANK for that Phil Jones interview (despite limitations- which I understand, Phil Jones does appear to be very fragile) where we have recognition, that warming is not statistically unprecedented and in previous periods there were similar rates of warming. The answers may have surprised the BBC.
I have been commenting on Richard Black's Earthwatch blog since climategate...
Whilst Richard Blacks articles appear to many here to be very much on one side of AGW, the comments section are full of lively debate and the Moderators should be considered broadly neutral.
see my comments below to see what has been allowed..
(ie worthy of instant blocking/deletion at RealClimate and the Guardian)
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/profile.shtml?userid=14233293
current topic:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/richardblack/2010/05/europe_debates_climate_ambitio.html#comments
We must remember the protagonists in the media/blogs are generally all intelligent, real even nice people! Who, whilst we may disagree passionately about one specific theory, with big poltical/social and economic consequences, all have families and a real life as well.
I have commented and emails on both pro AGW and sceptical websites, and sent received emails from some of those involved
Roger Harrabin has reponded and we have occasional (and brief) email exchanges.
Roger Black and Steve Mcintyre - 1 email each (score draw!?)
James Delingpole, Thomas Fuller, Jo Nova, Richard North and Andrew Montfod have all taken the time to respond, to this rather persistant (verbose?) member of the public
and even Jo Abbess, had a brief discussion, she who received a lot of FLAK (Harrabin connection) but she is GENUINE in her beliefs. (she really believes we are all in danger)
So we need to engage, I have tried this approach because of people that I know:
my sister in law for example,
as she is a life long green, former Green parlimentary candidate, worked on GreenWorld and currently works for the Green party, 1st class degree from Oxford and a Masters in Journalism, and is an active campaigner on all things Green party, seen many a protest/riot around the EU.
Similar situation with a close friend who worked for the IPCC, a scientist in working group 1 and part of the editorial team on the synthesis report. A kyoto consensus scientist! and Met Office round robin signaturey (we both have 3 young children each, and equally care for their and the planets future)
My friend has emails to/from CRU and 'hockey stick' team IN the Climategate emails themselves, yet has never looked at any of the contents of FOIA2009.zip.
And very probably has never looked at any sceptical site and thinks it has pretty much all blown over.
An example how the climate scientists are closed off from the political an popular debate. Before I knew any of this, when I asked if she was busy post climategate, first thing my friend said, just have a look at RealClimate
These are normal, genuine, nice intellegent people, it would be good if we could engage, instead of commenting amongst our own 'tribes' about the other 'side' at respective sceptical and pro AGW websites. The majority of the general public of course are oblivious to it all.
(Bishop Hill knows who the people are, and could verify I am being genuine, no names mentioned because I don't want to land them in any awkard positions because of my views)
They both can discuss with me (and have to because they know me) without all the sceptics are deniars or similar innuendo/smear used by the likes of Al Gore, Romm, etc
It is easy to criticise or not understand each other, or fall back on cliches, regarding sceptics are this, warmists are this, or the bbc is this.
May I please raise a pedantic etymological point?
If they'd called it Climatography - and not laid claim to an 'ology' - the industry could've stayed in the shadows and annoyed nobody.
Blimey Barry I don’t suppose you do an abridged version i'm trying to make lunch:-)
Roger D [in reference to Bob Ward's piece in the Guardian] "The implication is that there are some people who dispute AGW, but they are outside climate science, and either membrs of lobby groups and, let's be honest, very old, or just plain completely wrong about basic climate science."
What I find almost incredible is that if one reads what Ward has written, or so much what the alarmist camp write, it is so evident on the face of it that it is manipulation and propaganda. It's almost as if they can't help themselves - they are acting as though they are in denial of reality. It's the same sort of stuff you still see in Chinese communist newspapers, and used to see in Iron Curtain communist newspapers. It speaks to the party faithful, to keep them faithful. But there comes a point where the man in the street starts to see it for what it is, and then the more they do it, the more he knows how rotten and corrupt they are. I think we may be approaching, or may even have passed that point. Governments, journalists, advocacy groups and scientists who write and speak in this way are simply hastening the collapse of their positions. Whenever I read or hear Roger Harrabin now, the effect is simply to reinforce how biased the man is because of the overtly biased way he reports. It will not be long before they become subject to open ridicule for being such blockheads, and then their downfall will ensue very swiftly.
@ScientistForTruth: I fully agree, and I think Michel too makes some good points above in reference to warmists being in "denial mode". Funnily enough, the warmists are saying the same thing about the sceptics! For example, the last New Scientist had a special section on denial, asking the question: “From climate change to vaccines, evolution to flu, denialists are on the march. Why are so many people refusing to accept what the evidence is telling them?” But overall, I supect that we see the same amount of disingenuity from both sides of the debate.
Dung: You ask "What are we all doing?" in this great debate.
I think there are two battles going on, one scientific and one political.
The scientific battle, as far as a nonspecialist like myself can make out (I'm an engineer), seems to depend on two principal claims in the IPCC oeuvre. These are (i) that the world's temperature changes are governed ("forced") primarily by CO2, whose effect dwarfs that of other known drivers such as solar and volcanic and (ii) that the climate is governed by unstable equilibrium (or positive feedback) where small deviations lead to further and greater deviations in the same direction. If, say, the sun's variations have a greater effect than the IPCC claims, or stable equilibrium rules (the earth's 4 billion year career suggest this to me) the apocalyptic forecasts will evaporate like previous end-is-nigh tales. We laymen can have little effect here, but we are jolly well entitled to take a view on the experts' pronouncements.
The political battle, on the other hand, is where the public can score. Western governments have been diverting staggering amounts of our money to combat a chimera. The cheerful vivisection of the AGW case on sites like this is, I think, helping to shift public opinion. When the blokes down the pub burst out laughing at the mention of Global Warming, politicians must change tack, especially if the Royal Society and its overseas counterparts equivocate.
As the Hockey Team's dire forecasts fail to materialise, the man-in-the-street's perception is that li-li-li-li-life goes on. No need to besiege the castle with our pithforks; our laughter will bring them down.
Roger, I don't think we see the same degree of disingenuousness on both sides of the debate.
From the moment I began to research the CAGW question for myself, I found it striking that proponents of the hypothesis engaged in claims which didn't hold water, sometimes in hysterical tones.
By contrast, the realists tended to be sober, pointing out the holes in their opponents' arguments. Sometimes they were angry, but by the time I had satisfied myself that CAGW arguments were mistaken at best, and a colossal hoax at worst, I was raging myself.
Currently, over at Jo Nova's place there is a post listing a selection of the threats and intimidation levelled at the realists and sceptics over the years, and it doesn't make pretty reading. Add the celebrations over the deaths of John Daly and Michael Crichton, and it gives you a flavour of the mood of one side.
The realists mostly celebrate life, humanity, the natural world, and scientific truth. Just possibly, they may be mistaken in some respects: the other side certainly are, and their reasons and reasoning, and their conduct, do them no credit.
@Jeff : I suspect it depends where you look. Anti-warmist comments on blogs over at the Telegraph or the Spectator can be pretty extreme too. Also you cannot deny that some pretty high profile 'sceptics' do use some pretty dodgy arguments (Ok, I won't use disingenuous). For example, In Christopher Booker's (mainly excellent) "The Real Global Warming Disaster", the argument about the earth not warming up in the last decade is trotted out, using as a start date 1998. Everyone knows this was a positive el Nino blip, so it is fairly preposterous to base the argument using it as a start date. On the other hand I did try to engage with one thread over on realclimate - one has to be ready to take a lot of serious abuse if one does this. In the end, the moderator wouldn't post my comments which were only quoting people - statisticians mainly - involved in expert panels (NRC, etc.) becvause I suspect they were too telling. However they kept on publishing the other side's comments on my previous posts. I don't think this sort of censorship happens on the sceptic sites fortunately.
Roger, I too haven't found censorship on the sceptic sites.
I am sure one has to be careful, when asserting a trend or lack of one, to choose a reasonable starting point. Warmists tend to choose the end of the Little Ice Age as theirs.
On the other hand, your mention of 1998 reminds me that Phil Jones recently admitted that there has been no "statistically significant warming" since 1995. I have not read Booker's book, but on the face of it his claim may be reasonable.
Best wishes...
In fairness to Phil Jones, as I recall, I think he was making a very careful statement; a statistically significant increase has to be quite big given the inherent variability of the series; the actual increase was close but not quite big enough.