Nobel winner: AGW debate damages science

Australian winner of the Nobel prize for physics, Brian Schmidt is going to set the cat among the pigeons with these remarks:

“I think that [the carbon debate] has, maybe in the short term, diminished in some people’s minds the standing of science but to my mind it is part of the scientific debate,” he said at a press conference in Canberra this morning.

“I think that science should inform public policy. Public policy needs to take it as an input. It doesn’t mean it’s the only input.

Update on Oct 5, 2011 by Bishop Hill

Schmidt has a Twitter account it seems, and has just tweeted this:

The biggest day of my life, I am trending on the Australia twitter... but I am still behind Happy National Taco Day? I have a lot to learn.

Comments

[marchesarosa]

Interesting that Brian Schmidt used his 15 minutes of fame to mention the harm done to real science by pseudo-science.

[Maurizio Morabito]

Has anybody resigned yet, from the Nobel Prize committee?

[Nicholas Hallam]

“The science behind climate change predicts there should be a little change right now but in future, the prediction is it will be much more. I think we are going to do that experiment, so in 20 years from now we will see how good those models are.”

Quite so. Here we have what would seem a potential refutation of AGW, but possibly Professor Schmidt is unaware that climate science is already looking for a plausible ad hoc immunizing hypothesis (e.g. involving aerosols). Furthermore can we trust them on the "raw" data itself?

[TS]

This seems quite a significant statement from a newly minted laureate, he is by no means debasing the currency of science in order to win policy issues here, but making a very a very powerful (yet understated) point about those who do.

We will have to see if his Nobel status can protect him from the alarmist pigmies.

[Maurizio Morabito]

I know it's late in Oz but can't we even get a statement about the need to curb dangerous CO2 emissions? Tsk tsk...

[Rick Bradford]

The AGW team is turning cartwheels trying to keep their scam alive.

The latest effort is to attribute falling sea levels to the large quantities of rain that have been falling worldwide. And of course it is AGW that is causing the rain to fall.

So now, AGW causes falling sea levels as well as rising sea levels. Neat, eh?

[Mac]

A honest admission that climate science has damaged all science in the public mind.

I suspect such honesty will not be well received by the Team.

Expect a different interpretation of the words spoken, and perhaps 'clarification' by Schmidt himself.

[Nicholas Hallam]

"The latest effort is to attribute falling sea levels to the large quantities of rain that have been falling worldwide. And of course it is AGW that is causing the rain to fall."

You got a link for that, Rick?

[Sandy]

So much rain the sea-level fell!!!
http://www.vancouverobserver.com/blogs/climatesnapshot/2011/09/27/nasa-it-rained-so-hard-oceans-fell#comment-59240

[marchesarosa]

Here is the story, Nicholas Hallam
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2011-262

The fall in sea level is due to the large amounts of rainfall on the land, caused by La Nina, so it is only a temporary blip!

Pull the other one, NASA!

After discovering isostatic rebound a few months back, the sea level alarmists now discover RAIN is part of the hydrological cycle?

[Latimer Alder]

Just for moment I thought that Gavin Schmidt had tweeted that he had a lot to learn. But then reality reasserted itself and I was able to pick my jaw up from the floor. It was Brian Schmidt who had made the remark.

Brian Schmidt has a lot to learn...as befits one who only has a Nobel Prize in Physics shared with two others.

Gavin Schmidt however has nothing to learn. He is the tr e master of aggressive certainty about everything. We know this from his blog where he ferquently asserts it.

[The Pedant-General]

"I think that [the carbon debate] has, maybe in the short term, diminished in some people’s minds the standing of science "

Bear in mind that this guy lives in Oz: my understanding is that there is a substantial majority who are livid about the imposition of the Oz Carbon Tax. It is more than likely that this statement relates to that specific debate, rather than the wider AGW issue.

[disclaimer: sister lives there and has married an Aussie and they are indeed two of that livid majority]

[Shub]

"Expect a different interpretation of the words spoken, and perhaps 'clarification' by Schmidt himself."

Counting, starting ....now.

From the author of the piece Sunanda Creagh:

Australian climate scientists said earlier this year they have been the target of hate mail...

I thought this new category of crime "hate crime" was used for racially-motivated attacks/slurs. It looks like just hating someone might be a crime now?

Australian citizen: You, climate scientist, ... I hate you
Australian climate scientist: Nyahhaha!! He sent me hate mail.

[Shub]

Did you notice something?

Scientists start speaking out against this nonsense as soon as they retire, or win a Nobel prize.

It's just professional courtesy,..you don't go bashing your fellow scientists and speaking generalized philosophical stuff about "the science of science" when your livelihood depends on it. Does that mean you are not seeing what is being done in the name of science? Absolutely not.

I am thinking of the cranks who claim that "90+% of scientists" (what an idiotic concept, in itself) support the IPCC.

Now the next thing is for Robert Laughlin to fully break out and speak up. In his latest book, the stuff is a bit jumbled up, as Matt Ridley points out in his review. The book reads as though a bunch of his Wall Street students ambushed him and brainwashed him with green ideas.

[Maurizio Morabito]

Hey Shub if you could be in next year's Nobel Prize's sights, would you really rock the boat for the sake of the integrity of climate science?

Imagine also if Spencer got to win the prize in Physics, Mann and Trenberth would go nuclear...literally I mean, against Stockholm...

[Rick Bradford]

Now some tiny Pacific islands are attributing fresh-water shortages, in part, to inundation of supplies by rising sea levels. Too bad NASA says sea levels are falling, and tide gauges on the islands show no rise in sea level.

Wherever you look in the AGW movement, from the poles to the Equator, there is the unmistakable whiff of rattus rattus.

[pesadia]

•rattiest
•rattle
•rattan
•rattles
•rattier
•rattled
•rates
•rattler
•ratty
•ratios

Ok, I give up, please explain Rattus Rattus

[GrantB]

He was interviewed on the ABC tonight. Naturally 1/3 of the time was spent by the female interviewer asking his opinions on Climate Science as you would expect when interviewing a Nobel Prize winning cosmologist. Not a lot of interest in the accelerating expansion of the universe presumably because it's not mentioned in her text by Wisner, Thorne and Wheeler (maybe it's in the latest edition, it's not in my (very old) one).

He appeared to be equivocal on the consensus and talked about scepticism in science, but who knows, once the usual suspects lob up with some "guidance", things may change. Originally American, he met an Oz economist when doing his PhD at Harvard and made the decision to come to Oz in 1999, became naturalised and is an Australian citizen. Bloody good for him. And us.

However if he only knew the fate that was awaiting him I don't think he would have ventured south. Jeff Goodall, just yesterday, in Rolling Stone Politics paints a terrifying picture of our future down here -

- the sense that Australia – which maintains one of the highest per-capita carbon footprints on the planet – has summoned up the wrath of the climate gods is everywhere

- computer models project that Australia will look like a disaster movie.

- The oceans are getting warmer and more acidic, leading to the all-but-certain death of the Great Barrier Reef within 40 years. Homes along the Gold Coast are being swept away, koala bears face extinction in the wild, and farmers, their crops shriveled by drought, are shooting themselves in despair.

He at least points out that things are not too bad at the moment, however his conclusion is chilling -

We walk for a while, watching all the happy people strolling along the boardwalk and drinking wine in cafes and surfing the waves. The sun is shining, and everything is lovely. Too bad that it all has to go.

And they wonder why the average bloke and blokette in the pub reckon it's a load of BS.

[Phillip Bratby]

From the BBC about this year's chemistry Nobel Prize winner, Daniel Shechtman, from Technion - Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa (see http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-15181187):

Dr Shechtman had to fight a fierce battle against established science to convince others of what he had first seen in his lab on an April morning in 1982.
There's nothing like a good old-fashioned scientific consensus.

[Phillip Bratby]

Ooops, got the tabs wrong.

Dr Shechtman had to fight a fierce battle against established science to convince others of what he had first seen in his lab on an April morning in 1982.

There's nothing like a good old-fashioned scientific consensus.

[Mac]

See verdicts on The Ecocide Trial

http://www.thehamiltongroup.org.uk/common/ecocide.asp

The indictments that the two CEO's, Mr Bannerman and Mr Tench, were charged with can be seen here: "The Ecocide Trial indictments".

Mr Bannerman was found "Not Guilty" of the first count and "Guilty" of the second count. Mr Tench was found "Guilty" of the third count.

The Lawyers

Prosecuting team

Leader: Michael Mansfield QC, Tooks Chambers
Jane Russell, Tooks Chambers
Junior: Steven Powles, Doughty St Chambers

Defending team

Christopher Parker QC, 3 Paper Buildings Chambers
Adam Hiddleston, 3 Paper Buildings Chambers.

Both 3PB and Tooks help sponsor the event.

Wouldn't it have been fairer if both the prosecution and defence teams where truly independent and not interested parties.

More show trial than mock trial methinks m'lud.

[tutut]

[O/T]

[Ripper]

He was interviewed on the 7.30 report. http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2011/s3333200.htm

"LEIGH SALES: How have you viewed the climate change debate and the way science has been politicised around that?

BRIAN SCHMIDT: Well, I think it's kind of unfortunate how we've been mixing the science and the politics, and I think we can look at science to blame for that and we can look at the politicians to blame. I think it's a lot of problems there that can be shared across. From my perspective, I really want to see science ask the hard questions: is the science right, how can we improve, what are the uncertainties, what do we know? And have that within a scientific forum. And then we need to... science is never absolute, there's never absolutely an answer. Everything we do always has uncertainties. But on the policy side, I think it's really important for the politicians and the policymakers to look what the scientists come up as a consensus. So, I offer up the Australian Academy of Science, who's gone through and tried to summarise where we are in the climate change science debate, and I think that's a very good document that the Academy of Science has put out. I think the politicians and policymakers need to reflect on that and make sensible policy based on that."

[GrantB]

Correction - I've just got it out of the bookshelf. It's Misner, Thorne and Wheeler.

tutut - (-:)

[Maurizio Morabito]

http://www.science.org.au/reports/climatechange2010.pdf

Seems the new heresy is strictly about the science, not the policy

[HaroldW]

pesadia - "Ok, I give up, please explain Rattus Rattus"
In case you're still puzzled, Rattus is a genus of common rats. [Rattus rattus in particular is the black rat.] Rick Bradford merely stated that he smells a rat in those islanders' claims of externally-caused damage.

[Peter Dunford]

I have to admit that, despite having seen images of Gavin several times, whenever I read the name Schmidt I get a picture of Andy Hamilton in mind.

[Aynsley Kellow]

Ripper,
I think Schmidt is a decent, well-meaning scientist of the highest quality. For example, he says that when they first got their results, they thought they must be wrong. No torturing the data for the right answer there. But, in putting his faith in the AAS document, he fails to realise that it is - of necessity - a political document, and (like IPCC documents) heavily dependent on who was on the panel, what their motivations were, what the decision processes were, etc. We know something about the production of this document from Garth Paltridge, who was on the panel. (That is, of course, in addition to Spencer Weart's point that, as a collective undertaking, climate science is at least in part - though not only - a social construction).

He probably also fails to realise that the decision that we need a consensus document, right from the origins of the IPCC, has been predicated on the belief that , without a scientific consensus, there will be no political action. (This goes back to Mustapha Tolba as UNEP Director and his intended negotiating path for a convention in the mid-1980s). There is therefore a 'value-slope' across all consensus processes. If you think there is no need for substantial, immediate action (or even modest, precautionary action) a lack of consensus is not a problem.

[Trucker Bob]

Brian Schmidt:
“I think that science should inform public policy. Public policy needs to take it as an input. It doesn’t mean it’s the only input.

While Prof Schmidt at first encourages skepticism he also recommends we look to a concensus organisation for climate changs science.

On Australian ABC tv Prof Schmidt said, "science is never absolute, there's never absolutely an answer. Everything we do always has uncertainties. But on the policy side, I think it's really important for the politicians and the policymakers to look what the scientists come up as a consensus. So, I offer up the Australian Academy of Science, who's gone through and tried to summarise where we are in the climate change science debate, and I think that's a very good document that the Academy of Science has put out. I think the politicians and policymakers need to reflect on that and make sensible policy based on that".

This from the Academy of Science.

Summary of the IPCC Fourth Assessment Synthesis Report (20 November 2007)
The National Committee for Earth System Science has prepared a summary of the most recent IPCC assessment. The IPCC had prepared a synthesis of the conclusions of the three Working Groups. Each Working Group released their major reports earlier in 2007 summarising the worldwide research findings up to 2006. These reports cover the physical science of climate change; impacts adaptation and vulnerability to climate change; and mitigation of climate change.

Verdict remains the same: the CO2 is guilty (12 July 2007)
The Australian Academy of Science maintains the view that recent global warming is caused by unprecedented CO2 levels in the atmosphere, despite claims made in a recent documentary.( the great global warming swindle).

http://www.science.org.au/policy/climatechange.html