Bishop Hill New mates
Nov 17, 2011 Climate: WG2 Richard Betts has new mates these days (;-) having been invited by Dot Earth to expand on the dangerous climate change article he wrote for this site a week or so ago.
I was struck by reading this very reasonable statement by Betts:
Some further climate change is already in the pipeline which means we are going to have to consider adapting to it. However, if our adaptation is informed by science cherry-picked to support a particular standpoint on "dangerous climate change" then this risks leading to wrong decisions on adaptation. For example, sea level rise poses very real risks, but talking-up the certainty of rapid and catastrophic rises could lead to investment in flood defenses unnecessarily early, while down-playing the risks could lead to inappropriate delays. The same is true for drought and other impacts.
And then the rather grubby footnote to the article by Revkin.
The word skeptic [referring to the Bishop Hill blog] above is in quotation marks because it’s a term that has been co-opted by those challenging science pointing to disruptive human-driven global warming, implying that those with different views are not seriously appraising evidence.
There's something about the juxtaposition of these two paragraphs that I find amusing, although I can't quite put it into words.
I'm guessing Revkin feels if he is going to link here he has to say something snide so that he does get threatened with the "big cutoff" again. Anything for a quiet life I suppose.
Reader Comments (72)
@ Anteros
you...do the same thing you accuse Hansen of - lumping all opponents into the most extreme group possible.
Well, not really; this is why I described Hansen as an eco-whackjob. By any rational analysis, that's what he is. Twenty feet of sea level rise by 2020 indeed (and of course he now denies he ever said it).
There are of course less psychotic views than his, but the loons at places like RealClimate are the main enemies of truth and reason, hence theirs are the positions that need to be exposed.
That climate alarmism comes from the Left seems to me to be beyond argument. You have only to look at the tone adopted by so many of its adherents. It is characteristic of the Left continually to applaud itself for the high-minded morality of its stance on anything you can imagine. It is another characteristic that it's constantly having to think of new Trojan horses to hide its agenda inside, because it can't get anyone to vote for it if it declares its views openly. Both are in evidence here.
There may be a few useful idiots on the other side of the political spectrum who support CAGW alarmism. But if so, it's not because it panders to some treasured tenet of right-wing bigotry. It's because it provides a pretext to establish a police state, or to get risklessly rich, or something.
Once you absorb the fact that CAGW has nothing much to do with science, then the whole consensus argument becomes obsolete. Once we get to talking about what measures are required to deal with it then the "97% of climate scientists" urban legend becomes irrelevant: it's now a political decision and scientists have the same number of votes on the matter as I do, which is exactly one.
@ mbabbitt: you sound like a #10 to me.
I'm sure the list can be extended but the alarmists want to frame the whole debate on the basis that everybody is a #1. I don't blame them, but they shouldn't be allowed to get away with it.
@Hengist
'Climate Bible' is exactly the right phrase to describe the awed adoration by some advocates for the content of the IPCC reports.
Produced by the finest minds, inspired by devotion only to God and The Truth ...it is a proselytising tome. 'We can show you the One True Way'.
Check the similarities
Original Sin &/or The Serpent = Carbon Dioxide
The Saviour = IPCC itself
Adam & Eve = Humanity
The Revelations of St John the Divine (End of the World) = IPCC Predictions
The 12 Disciples = The Lead Authors
John the Baptist = Al Gore/Patchy
Infallibility of Writing = Both
The Way to Salvation = Repentance, Reform, Poverty and Obedience
Penalties for Apostasy and/or Heresy = Smiting
etc etc.
If the IPCC reports weren't produced in conscious imitation of teh Christian Bible and (FAIK The Koran), then it is a remarkable unconscious coincidence that so many of the theme recur..just in a different context.
@ Richard Betts
Like Latimer Alder I am fairly astonished that you have only just realised that we contrarians are multi-faceted. I am a sceptic for many reasons but here's a few:
1. there is no evidence that the warming we have seen in the last 150 years has anything to do with increased anthropological CO2 emissions. FIND THE CO2 SIGNAL
2. There is a plethora of evidence for historical extreme weather events which were just as severe if not more so than the hurricanes, windstorms, floods, droughts that we have seen in the last 50 years. A short anthology of changing climate. There is also no evidence that the frequency of such events has increased in recent times.
3. I also think that the magnitude of CO2's greenhouse properties has been wildly exaggerated - Bottle reconsidered, and that the planet's refrigerant (H20) is calling the shots. Human's also have a propensity for gullibility and jumping on bandwagons The Madness of Crowds.
Hi Latimer, Yes I can see why you like the phrase 'climate bible'. But Laframboise is suggesting that she has picked up on the phrase rather than coined the term herself. Yet she cannot or will not point to a prior use of the term.
Definition: Climate Sceptic - a person who dissents on catastrophic aspects of the AGW hypothesis, namely CAGW, arguing that although the hypothesis has theoretical scientific legitimacy it has been used illegitimately by advocates to bring about social and economic change for purely political and ideological reasons.
@hengist
Well I've seen the similarities with the bible for some time and haven't been afraid to use that term. Maybe I am the official originator. Or maybe it cropped up simultaneously in independent places. It is hardly a strikingly original insight.
But jeez, can you not find anything of more importance to argue with Donna about? This one is so trivial that it hardly even gets to the point of wondering whether it is worth applying the SFW test to. I assume that you have no other reservations about The Delinquent Teenager if this is the best that you can do.
I have plenty of other concerns. Read my review on Amazon.co.uk. Or see my blog. Donna doesnt answer me.
I don't think its trivial at all to point out that a commentator is inventing her own language to get her points across. Advocates positioned as skeptics frequently complain that 'warmists' wont debate but if you are going to invent turns of phrases that favour one side and are designed to denigrate the scientific material that one side wishes to point to then you can't expect people to debate with you. She uses the phrase "climate Bible" over 100 times in her book , it's prejudicial to holding a sensible discussion.
The IPCC would no doubt accept the the phrase as a useful shorthand for what their pronoucements are.
I would be quite happy to use it as a shorthand for how the IPCC sees its pronoucements even though I may not agree with them.
The use of the word 'bible' to indicate a publication by which or according to which people run their businesses or live their lives is so common as hardly to be worthy of mention. AR4 is the latest edition of the Climate Bible (more accurately, I think, the Climate Change Bible). The fact that I believe it is promulgating a false religion doesn't alter things.
Srop trying to dictate to other people what phraseology they are allowed to use or what meanings they are obliged (on your say-so) to apply to words. Just get on with the debate ....or, in your case, not.
@hengist
You have pointed out that she uses a metaphor that you dislike.
I'm sure that others, like me, will have given your point due weight in their thoughts about the IPCC and her book about it.
@Richard Betts, regarding "climate sceptic":
Specifically with regard to climate science as it exists in universities today - i.e. a field which is attractive primarily to students of an environmentalist ideology, which depends so heavily on the predictive prowess of climate models, and which is when all is said all about seeking signals in noise - I tend to regard climate science in religious rather than scientific terms. Climate sceptics are agnostics, deniers are atheists, while climate science is the church.
Climate agnostics are far more pragmatic about what we do and what we don't know, as well as what we CAN and CAN'T know - what is, at this time (and potentially always), un-knowable. Unlike those with ingrained ideologies (believers and deniers) we don't default to a "belief" in a future outcome (heaven or hell, catastrophe or non-event) in the absence of evidence to support it and, unlike believers and deniers, we don't (or wouldn't) ignore evidence which undermined our absence of belief in a particular aspect or direction - whichever way that would lead.
For example, whether or not we as individual agnostics will ever accept the predictive prowess of computer models in projecting future climate events will most likely depend on whether or not anyone ever creates a climate model which "understands" our chaotic climate system. It hasn't happened yet, but while the climate church of doom is heavily dependent upon faith in these fallible instruments, climate agnostics are heavily "sceptical" of them. To us they're as useful as Rune stones, but just a hell of a lot more expensive.
Almost if not every aspect of CAGW can be represented with a similar religious analogy, and climate scepticism is always analogous with agnosticism.
@ Hengist, funnily enough I borked at the term "climate Bible" in Donna's book too. But after due consideration, it's actually an accurate and succinct term to describe the output of the IPCC.
Despite AR4's many issues, it is the zealous interpretation of the text, as the equivalent of a religious last-word, which makes AR4 into a Bible, and which makes Donna's coining of the term "climate Bible" wholly acceptable.
Revkin says,
Revkin is ineffectively attempting to apply indirect gatekeeping, very much like Richard Tol recently attempted at Climate Etc. He implies that he has an authoritarian role in who can use the word 'skeptic' or failing that he wishes to be considered to have an influential role is 'framing' the argument wrt 'skeptic' validity. This is a tired old meme; the manipulation of the context (aka framing) to arrive at favorable terms for argumentation. It cannot work in an open balanced venue like BH or Climate Etc or WUWT or CA.
Revkin shows he is not capable to maintain perspective on the actual reality of the incredibility of alarming/concernist AGW by CO2 from fossil fuels. So now he snipes at open discussions on a venue at BH that encourages a broader view outside of the myopic view of alarming/concernist AGW by CO2 from fossil fuels. Revkin cannot adapt.
Richard Betts, I appreciate your involvement at BH although I do not share premises with you wrt IPCC centric so-called 'consensus climate science'. If you are adapting to a more skeptical position, unlike Revkin, then I would appreciate some comment on your guidelines/processes for how your thoughts might adapt toward a less myopic view on climate science.
John
Hengist
Oh gee! Yeah, that is a classic example of the "I'm making a difference Ma!" 1 star Amazon review, how proud you must be of that!
Lets cherry pick this nugget “Dr Reiter serves on an advocacy group” you don’t say? It’s such a disturbing advocacy group that you actually "don't say". We are left to wonder if it ironically contrasts with Laframboise research, and shows her to be a hypocrite, you just leave it hanging. I had a look and couldn’t find what this advocacy group could be that demands referencing by Laframboise, could it be the World Health Organisation? The Pasteur institute? Could you give us the inside dope? BTW you’ll have to better than reference me Exxon secrets Sherlock I’m getting 404’d on all the juicy sounding links ;)
Judging by your shallow straw man critique technique I think you do well to stick with your strongest argument – the whole “climate bible” gate thing has got legs. Go get it tiger ;)
Latimer Adler: “'Climate Bible' is exactly the right phrase to describe the awed adoration by some advocates for the content of the IPCC reports….
Check the similarities”
That’s a fairly easy game to play:
• Garden of Eden: Pre-climate science
• Adam and Eve: Crispin Tickell/Margaret Thatcher
• The fall: Creation of IPCC
• Prince of Lies: James Hansen
• Prophet Jeremiah: Christopher Monckton
• JC: Richard Lindzen
• The Evangelists: McIntyre and McKitrick
• 95 theses: NIPCC reports
• Anti-Christ: Maurice Strong
• Damnation: Global government, economic collapse, mass starvation
• Eternal punishment: Reputational shame
• Heavenly host: Band of sceptics
• Satan’s minions: AGW supporters
And so on. The same could be applied to the likes of, say, economics and evolution. The analogy game is easy to play because the human mind is predisposed to analogical thinking, and because categories are broad and can be made to encompass many particulars.
Regarding the latter, the term “sceptic” is a case in point. I don’t know the etymology of the term in relation to climate science, but some people think the term is derogatory, while others seek to capitalise on its positive aspects.
Climate scepticism is often spun as not just a morally more virtuous stance, but also as implicitly a superior way of thinking.
Given that, I’m reasonably relaxed with Revkin’s pushback on the term. The battle we’re engaged in is as much about the moral high ground as about the science.
@Mike Jackson Nov 18, 2011 at 9:47 AM
Agreed. Perhaps the gotta-stop-carbon-dioxide-emissions-now crowd would be well advised to take a look at the work of Dr.Hans Rosling, who might introduce them to reality – of which their projections suggest they appear to be oblivious – and help them bring a little perspective to their pronouncements.
200 Countries, 200 Years, 4 Minutes - The Joy of Stats
Nov 18, 2011 at 1:18 AM | Justice4Rinka
Thanks for the list, very interesting. I'd say that, broadly speaking, 1-9 are scientific sceptics while 10 onwards are either policy sceptics or (going further than that) taking a political stance.
Your comment about it "coming from the Left" is one I hear a lot but I find it ironic since (as Brendan H has alluded to) Mrs Thatcher set up the Met Office Hadley Centre on her own personal initiative.
I think keeping the political stances out of the argument would go a long way towards getting an improved dialogue.
Nov 18, 2011 at 8:12 AM | Latimer Alder
Thanks for your comments.
My exclamation mark was for the second part of the sentence, about the "sceptic" label coming from other people rather than being self-applied.
I didn't really have a particular stereotype in mind before engaging here, I'd just never really thought about it. That's why I started joining the discussion here - to find out what people think.
Nov 18, 2011 at 2:47 PM | Simon Hopkinson
Interesting to hear your comments about climate science attracting students of an environmentalist ideology. I think that may apply more to climate change science rather than climate science (see my distinction in the Dangerous Climate Change thread). Most people we take on in the Met Office Hadley Centre are qualified in physics or maths, and often come from areas such as particle physics, plasma physics, astrophysics or astronomy. Their motivation is generally to do some hardcore number crunching-type science. Applicants with an "environmentalist ideology" as you put it tend to come more from (without wishing to sound like a physics snob) the "softer" science areas such as geography. Generally they don't get in because we need people with very strong analytical skills more than anything. We do sometimes take people from other disciplines when the jobs demand it, but the motivation still has to be about finding stuff out rather than advocating anything.
Thanks to everyone else too for your comments, it's helped my understanding a lot!
(BTW John Whitman, I guess my strategy is simply to do more of this!)
Glad to be of service, Richard.
Personally I'm a 7 to 11 and a bit of 13, 14 and 16. But 7 especially: the assumptions embedded in or implied by models predicting disaster in 100 years' time are either silly (no new technology will come along to alter projections), unverifiable (oil will continue to be consumed at the present rate) or tend themselves to suggest the answer (we'll all be so rich in 100 years' time that we can solve the problem, if it has actually arisen).
There are no plausible forecasts of energy price or consumption over the next 100 years, for example; in fact, there's not a lot out there that looks even 100 days forward and succeeds also in being right more often than not.
Given this, all the assumptions in models about emissions from fossil fuel can have no merit whatsoever. Nobody knowledgeable about the matter has endorsed such assumptions, so a major input to the forecast is simply a wild guess. When you factor in that population and technology are also wild guesses based on no facts, then any attempt to model the future is simply multiplying wild guesses together, or as it sometimes called, "ignorance". It's not a great basis on which to argue we should spend trillions.
Simon Hopkinson, you say -
"Almost if not every aspect of CAGW can be represented with a similar religious analogy, and climate scepticism is always analogous with agnosticism"
I have to disagree with you that scepticism is ALWAYS analogous with agnosticism. That is simply not true. Perhaps it is what YOU mean by scepticism, but I think only one or two percent of self-identified sceptics would say the same thing - they are not agnostic about the catastrophe in CAGW, they clearly and simply do not have a belief that a catastrophe will occur. It is not about thinking - it is about belief.
Nov 19, 2011 at 1:30 AM | Justice4Rinka
Just to clarify - climate models, by which I mean general circulation models (same as weather forecast models but run further into the future) do not include any modelling of the source of emissions. The emissions scenario is merely an input, and we look at a whole range of scenarios as inputs, including some in which global emissions are assumed to peak in the next few years and then decline thereafter. How these particular emissions scenarios may actually come about is something for the Integrated Assessment Modellers like Richard Tol to worry about.
Although having said that, a new approach adopted for AR5 is to provide "what if" scenarios of changes in atmospheric CO2 concentrations (again including a scenario of very low stabilisation of CO2, as well as scenarios of ongoing rises at various rates) and then we use the GCMs to estimate what these might mean for climate. In parallel with that, Richard T and co then work out the scenarios of emissions that might give rise to those changes in concentrations. As you say, it is possible that a scenario of relatively early peak and decline in emissions might come about as a by-product of technological improvements etc, without climate policy. However, that's not my area.
All that climate modellers do is take someone else's scenarios of emissions and see what they might mean for climate. How plausible those scenarios are from a socio-economic perspective is Somebody Else's Problem. :-)
Richard:
That's a distinction I'll happily concede. At its heart, much of the furore over projections of climate impacts is sourced in softer sciences masquerading as hard science. Softer sciences tend to be less objective in their data analyses, less stringent in their adherence to traditions of the scientific method, respect from the null hypothesis etc., and frequently all too confident in their conclusions and assertions.
In order to make the types of assertions about future impacts that we see underpinning the "science" of CAGW, it is necessary for academics to ignore or abandon the "tenets" of hard science and embrace a much more woolly soft-science approach. This shift is away from science and towards belief systems.
Anteros:
As we all know, 98.2% of all statistics are made up on the spot.
I know very few people who assert that CAGW will not happen. None, actually. I know lots of people who assert that CAGW is unsupported in the evidence and/or that the case for CAGW has not been sufficiently made, which I think is fair to state, but that's like saying that evidence for the existence of God is insufficient to make a compelling scientific argument in support of his existence.
To go on, then, to state "therefore, god does not exist" is not agnosticism, just as stating "therefore there is no risk of catastrophe" is not scepticism. Both of these assertions are belief-based, and are thus definitively not agnostic or sceptical - acknowledgement of the absence of particular knowledge.