Friday
Jan282011
by 
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill Best commentary on Nurse
Jan 28, 2011 BBC Climate: Sceptics Ben Pile has just posted up what may be the most intelligent commentary to date on Paul Nurse's Horizon programme. There is some pretty bilious stuff on this programme doing the rounds of the web, and Twitter has to be seen to be believed. This is the antidote. It makes Nurse's efforts look rather shallow.
Reader Comments (39)
Bish - I'm really pleased that you linked to this.
I was strongly tempted to do so in comments a couple of days ago, but the topic was under active discussion here and I wasn't really sure of the etiquette.
Not wishing to draw down ire, even inadvertently, I played safe and did nowt.
An excellent analysis of the Horizon programme. I suspect that either Nurse is out of his depth, or is so committed to his leftwing urges that he is blinded to the truth.
You must have seen the Headward Nurse Scissorhands thing by now?
I just posted this comment at Climate Resistance. I don’t expect Ben to agree with it. It’s probably more suited to the rowdier, public bar atmosphere here.
Here’s an extract from the Horizon programme. Sir Paul Nurse is talking to Dr Bob Bindschadler of NASA.
PN: The scientific consensus is of course that the changes we are seeing are caused by emissions of carbon into the atmosphere. But given the complexity of the climate system, how can we be sure that humans are to blame for this?
BB: We know how much fossil fuel we take out of the ground. We know how much we sell. We know how much we burn. And that is a huge amount of carbon dioxide. It’s about 7 gigatons per year right now. And natural causes can only produce - volcanoes popping off and things like that and coming out of the ocean - only produce about one gigaton per year, so there’s just no question that human activity is producing a massively large proportion of the carbon dioxide.
PN: That’s seven times more.
BB: That’s right.
PN: I mean, why do some people say that isn’t the case?
BB: I don’t know, I think that they get worried about the details of the temperature record, or the, or the carbon dioxide record but again, you need to stand back and look at the big picture, and there really is no controversy then if you do that.
Is Nurse so stupid as to think that this is a convincing argument that: “the changes we are seeing are caused by emissions of carbon into the atmosphere”? Of course not. Therefore he is a liar.
We need to get the accusation that key figures in the media and the political and scientific establishments are liars, involved in a deliberate propaganda campaign, into the media. Maybe a good libel case would clear the air.
Geoff, that is interesting.
So the vast majority of the CO2 in the atmosphere is produced by humans?
Geoff; Shub
Yes, I was somewhat surprised too. Here's me thinking anthropogenic CO2 emissions were somewhere between 1 - 3% of the total.
Seems I must have been wrong all along. Thank goodness for quality program making by the BBC.
BBD, Shub
My point was not about the proportion of man-made CO2, but about the deft way Nurse starts by claiming that the consensus is that climate change is man-made, and takes a statement of the fact that most emissions are man-made as proof of the consensus view. It’s transparent false logic. Both he and programme maker must know what they’re doing. So is it cheap propaganda, or is the President of the Royal Society really stupid enough to believe his own argument?
I’ve only seen the first 15 minutes of the programme. THe first few minutes contained these two sloppy statements:
“... and trust in other scientific theories has also been eroded, such as the safety of vaccines ..”
“Science created our modern world, so I wanted to understand why science appeared to be under such attack”.
This is awful rubbish. Did Sir Paul write it himself? Does he just not care about the opinion of critics? Most of us take care what we say in public, because we care about our reputation for rational thought, even in the eyes of our worst enemies. Sir Paul is behaving like a flightless bird on a desert island with no known predators. Does he think: “I’m President of the Royal Society, I’ve got a Nobel Prize. No-one will criticise me”? Or does he think we’re just a bunch of Tea Party flat earthers in the pay of Big Oil?
Geoff,
Apologies, I followed the link over there and made the post below, before reading the comments here (including yours). I am still stunned that Nurse put this program to air with such an obvious and egregious howler. The fact that he failed to recognise it as such demonstrates his considerable ignorance of the matter and why we should not trust his 'Science'.
My post at climateresistance:
geoffchambers, the exchange you provide demonstrates quite clearly that we are dealing with either fools or liars. Anyone familiar with the issue knows that the emissions from fossil fuel consumption contributes only 4-5% of the total annual flux.
For the President of the Royal Society to preside over such arrant nonsense as that from Bindschadler represents a new low for that once respected Society, first taken on its plunge by long-standing Malthusian Lord May. Just look at the statement – totally wrong, yet swallowed completely by Nurse:
‘natural causes can only produce – volcanoes popping off and things like that and coming out of the ocean – only produce about one gigaton per year, so there’s just no question that human activity is producing a massively large proportion of the carbon dioxide.’
‘volcanoes popping off’ might produce only a GT pa or so, but other ‘things like that coming out of the ocean’ amount to around 332 GT pa, not to mention the 439 GT pa coming from terrestrial sources.
If Nurse understood the basic facts of The Science of climate change, he would have known that was wrong. That Nurse swallows such nonsense shows in a single vignette why ‘Science’ as represented by the Royal Society is in such disrepute.
If he was interested in science as being driven by evidence, Nurse might have pondered the evidence for key predictions generated by climate science (like the evidence for rising water vapour and therefore positive feedback, the missing ‘hotspot’, etc) and understood that most critics of climate science do not ‘deny’ climate science, but question its more exaggerated claims based on analyses that too often confuse model results for ‘evidence and observation.’
Geoff
Well, it sounds worse the more context you provide ;-)
In round numbers:
Total atmospheric CO2 - 720 Gt
Annual anthropogenic CO2 emissions - 7Gt
So roughly 1% then. Not seven times the natural component.
Enthusiasts (you know who you are) I am aware that CO2 accumulates. I am aware of the imbalance between natural sinks and human emissions. I know this means that the fraction of atmospheric CO2 is higher than 1%.
But that isn't what Dr Binschadler said:
Also, when looking at a projection of real weather and its computer generated equivalent he indicated how impressed he was. However, weather is not climate. Where was the question: Can you do that with temperature and precipitation?
Nurse disqualified himself from the debate, even at the simplistic level of the programme, due to a lack of understanding of the basics. It was not Delingpole that looked foolish, but Nurse and by association, the RS.
Sorry - garbled above at 9:07pm:
So what are the true annual emissions from natural sources? I'm assuming that plants must be a net zero over the year? Could we be comparing two different things?
BBD -
Dr Binschadler's value of 7 Gt per year of anthropogenic CO2 emissions actually underestimates the case. According to Figure 7-3 of AR4, it's about that much carbon; assuming all of that carbon was bound up in CO2 -- and most of it is -- the CO2 emission rate is 44/12 as much, so around 25 Gt/year. [ I note that most advocacy groups nearly universally use CO2 values, presumably because the numbers are so much larger and therefore scarier. This is one case at least in which the IPCC didn't go with the more scary numbers, but with the units which make more sense from the point of view of balancing chemical reactions. Got to give the devil his due. ]
That inaccuracy, which is perhaps understandable from the informal format, aside, I fully agree with you that his characterization of anthropogenic emissions as comprising the vast majority of CO2, is way off the mark. From the same IPCC figure, we see that the total carbon flux is of the order of 200 Gt / year, of which 6.4 are from fossil fuel use making that around 3%.
I've got no idea what Dr B. meant to include in his "natural causes" producing 1 Gt/year, but AR4 Table 7-1 estimates all of the relevant fluxes. To me, the key point of Table 7-1 is that atmospheric accumulation of carbon is only half of the anthropogenic emission. I read this table as showing that a quarter goes into the ocean and a quarter is taken up by increased plant growth -- actually more, as the net flux of carbon into the "land reservoir" has to overcome effects of deforestation etc. which would, all things being equal, tend to reduce the amount of carbon being taken up by plants.
Nurse's analogy is also ridiculous. Anyone , these days, with a medical issue who takes one doctors view as absolutely correct and thinks all doctors will give the same view is STUPID. All health professionals often disagree over diagnosis and treatment --just like other professional people
( lawyers , accountants, engineers etc ) disagree over aspects of their profession
Paul Nurse is a geneticist not a scientist.....
http://motls.blogspot.com/2011/01/bbc-horizon-president-of-royal-society.html
"Zwei Dinge sind unendlich, das Universum und die menschliche Dummheit, aber bei dem Universum bin ich mir noch nicht ganz sicher...."
Albert Einstein
Well worth noting if you're a wannebe climate scientist
BH
I see what you are getting at, but I don't think there's a problem.
IIRC AR4 gives the figures (in Gt) as:
Oceans
CO2 emitted: 332
CO2 absorbed: 338
Land
CO2 emitted: 439
CO2 absorbed: 450
So collective natural emissions p/a are 771Gt
HaroldW
Thanks for the clarification above and apologies if I mixed up Gt of carbon with Gt CO2. But as you say, we are in agreement that the exchange as quoted by Geoff is grossly inaccurate and misleading.
I stand corrected. A far more appropriate quote for a wannabe climate scientist
Es ist schwieriger, eine vorgefasste Meinung zu zertrümmern als ein Atom.
Albert Einstein
Harold W; BH
Sorry, don't know what's the matter with me tonight.
AR4 gives anthropogenic CO2 emissions as 29Gt, so the human contribution is about 3.8% p/a.
Good point HaroldW. To be clear, I was using Fig. 7.3 from IPCC AR4, which is for carbon dioxide, not carbon. But it is still 'Goodnight, Nurse' as far as his credibility is concerned. This is a real howler from someone trying to make a case for the credibility of 'Science'. 'Trust me - I'm a doctor'. Will he be attacked for not being a Climate Scientist? Will any climate scientist correct his error? My bet is he'll get a free pass.
Ironically, he provides support for the fundamental principle of the (old, pre-postmodern) Royal Society - 'on the word of no-one'. He might claim that this occurred in the midst of a conversation and he didn't think fast enough. A bit like his ambush of Delingpole, really. As the younger generation would say" Epic Fail!
Interestingly, I also looked to Wikipedia for a quick reference on annual fluxes. Strangely, while the entry provides full detail on anthropogenic fluxes, there is not a word on the size of natural fluxes that would allow the uninitiated reader to put that into perspective. Must be the good work of William Connolly. (Is he still banned there?) Anyway, it seems to have worked for Nurse.
Bish
The numbers appear different depending on where you look but generally, natural emissions are around 2 orders of magnitude more than anthropomorphic. However, the carbon cycle comes into play as absorption roughly equals emission. It is the difference between those two that matters, or more pertinent, the anthropomorphic part of the difference that does.
I should add that to assume the carbon cycle is in-balance without fossil fuel burning is to deny history which shows it not to be.
The bottom line is surely that Horizon and the BBC has (intentionally or otherwise) misled its audience. Few people will understand the intricacies of the carbon cycle - what they will take away from this segment is the scary idea that humans produce seven times as much CO2 as nature does. Anyway, well spotted, Geoff!
I have made this point elseware.
I think that JD fielded the loaded question very well. He Paused, thought about the question, realized that it was a false analogy and rejected it. Had he more thoroughly deconstructed the question and destroyed it completely, it would have been edited out of the programme. 10 out of 10 for JD
I think Prof Kellow has rather devastatingly critically peer-reviewed and rejected not only the BBC, but the President of the Royal Society's latest climate science submission.
Thank you, Pharos. I think the telling (and sad) point is that Nurse has clearly relied upon the word of someone and has not bothered to read and understand The Science of climate change. Surely this is rock bottom for the Royal Society, which once stood as an emblem of Enlightenment scepticism, rationality and humanism.
Bernie Lewin's recent essay on the Royal Society under Rees (link on this page) is excellent, though it does not really make clear the role of Lord May, whose ascension to the Presidency was surely the tipping point.
Readers here might enjoy part of a lecture I gave to the Royal Society of Tasmania a couple of years back on May:
'For those who doubt that May is a Malthusian at heart, let me refer you to a paper on the environmental crisis he published in 1971. May’s paper referred to almost no social science literature and demonstrated the kind of naivety social scientists see only too often from natural scientists who wander into the social realm:
"were the population to continue to increase indefinitely at its current rate, then in 400 years there would be one square yard for each inhabitant of the globe. . . ."
he opined (p 123).
He also surveyed the resources question in an analysis largely bereft of economics, but his most remarkable and statement was perhaps his suggestion that studies of overcrowding among rats could tell us something about the human behaviour we might expect:
"Even though abundantly supplied with food and places to live, overcrowded rat communities provide a spectacle of social chaos, with, inter alia, complete disruption of maternal behaviour, sexual deviations including homosexuality, hyperactive and totally withdrawn individuals: in short, all the forms of aberrant behaviour one finds in say, New York City."
(May, Robert M. (1971) ‘The Environmental Crisis: A Survey.’ Search 2: 122-131; p124).
Perhaps he’d seen Midnight Cowboy a few too many times.'
Source:
Aynsley Kellow 'Stern Warnings and Convenient Truths: How Can Economics Better Inform Climate Policy?' Lecture Delivered To The Royal Society of Tasmania, 16 October 2007
Has Laureate Nurse or Horizon published their "Mea Culpa" about the faulty C/CO2 statement yet?
As I pointed out in an earlier thread that single claim shook me to the core.
When I heard it said, I almost turned Believer.
Don't like it when the BBC tries to Monkee with my head!
The "Climategate" discussion has become one surrounding the emails. The code and the "Harry Read Me" files seem to have disappeared from the discussion which is unfortunate. These files seem to me to be equally of even more damaging to the alarmist position than the emails themselves. The argument that these are just human beings expressing their all to human frustrations is easier to sell than any attempts at refuting the "Harry" files. We are letting them off of the hook all to easily.
Third line should read "...equally OR even more damaging..."
According to http://royalsociety.org/How-our-money-is-spent/, "The Royal Society receives approximately £45 million per year from the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) as Parliamentary Grant-In-Aid (PGA).".
Given that The Royal Society gets substantial public funding, shouldn't the fact that the head of The Royal Society is producing propaganda be an issue that should be raised to the Department for BIS or in Parliament?
But this is delicious. Say you were seriously overweight, or you were a woman at risk of heart disease? From the late 'Seventies up to a handful of years ago there would be a consensual position on the sort of diet you should adopt. We all know what that consensus position was - basically, cut down on fat and meat and count your calories - and how impressively it was supported by governments, academia, the medical profession, industry and so on. Unfortunately it now seems that it wasn't impressively evidenced, and may even have been dangerously incorrect. Gary Taubes' Good Calories, Bad Calories gives an account of what happened: there's a synopsis available online. I can't vouch for Taubes' accuracy, but I do note that a large number of medical eminences have now come around to a similar position on diet. And my goodness, does Taubes' account of how the old consensus was formed and then defended ever sound familiar! See in particular the synopsis of Part 1 ("The Fat-Cholesterol Hypothesis") and Chapter 23 ("The Fattening Carbohydrate Disappears").
Sir Paul totally failed to examine Phil Jones with any degree of rigour. His acceptance of Phil's explanation of the "trick to hide the decline" was unbelievable.
To persue his own "cancer treatment analogy". If Sir Paul discovered that a drug company used "a trick to hide" some results from a cancer study because they showed a "decline" in the drug's efficacy. Would he take the drug?
All readers of this blog should leave comments on the Royal Society web site expressing concern over the programme
Ray G
I agree. If I had the time and expertise I'd be looking at them myself, but I have enough on my plate already. If you fancy doing an analysis as a guest post, I'd welcome it (wheedle, wheedle....).
All
I've emailed Dr Bindschadler to see if he can come and clarify things for us.
From BBD
Oceans
CO2 emitted: 332
CO2 absorbed: 338
Land
CO2 emitted: 439
CO2 absorbed: 450
If we add in a fudge factor of "volcanoes popping off" CO2 emmitted 18
NET CO2 Emitted from natural causes 1GT
Could this be the explanation?
Thanks for the link. It's a terrific article.
Steve Koch, thanks for the suggestion. We should be writing to our MPs. I'm a cynic, descended from many generations of cynics, but I'd really like to hear MPs answering well-aimed questions themselves about "climate change", rather than bowling very soft ones to favoured "experts".
Many thanks to Aynsley for pointing out the very basic errors in what Nurse was told about the carbon cycle. And thanks geoffchambers for this extract from the programme.
It sounds a fair question. But there are much more important questions, such as "Are the changes we are seeing dangerous?" The consensus on that is a resounding NO (as Roger Pielke has put it, there's no stronger consensus in the whole of climate science). Another key questions is "Does dangerous warming in the future depend on strong positive feedbacks from water vapour and clouds?" The consensus answer is YES, meaning that the central question is "How can we be sure that the climate system includes strong positive feedbacks from water vapour and clouds given additional CO2?" There is no consensus answer to that at all. In fact there are very good reasons - notably the relative stability of the earth's temperature over 4 billion years - to think that feedbacks must be negative. The massive gap in the story must be hammered home again and again.
Yet Bindschadler says
No, the big picture is the claim that future warming may be dangerous and there is loads of controversy about that, at the heart of the science, long before one gets anywhere near the policy implications.
Bish In amongst all the numbers on the CO2 flux you have to ask yourself why when there are natural emissions in excess of 770Gt (this number being itself a guesstimate) plus those from human causes it is just our emission from the burning of hydrocarbon fuel that are totally to blame for the so called year on year increase in atmospheric concentration.
My guess is that if those that are cleverer than I where to turn their collective magnifying glass on this area we would find just as many glaring "consensus mistakes" as we see with the temperature record or the feedback theory itself.
All these bits that go into making up the whole AGW theory are near on impossible to measure with any certainty, yet people like Paul Nurse ask us to accept what a small cadre of scientist say without question. The man is deluded, and the BBC should be ashamed of itself. (I know I'm deluded for thinking the BBC could be self critical)
Neil Hampshire says:
I don't think so, but given the hash I made of the numbers yesterday I am being more than usually circumspect ;-)
I will however repeat that most sources agree that anthropogenic emissions contribute about 3% of the atmospheric total - the other 97% is natural. So what Dr B said is (on the face of it), bizarre.
Let's see if he can offer any clarification now that BH has emailed him...