Bishop Hill The litmus test
Mar 6, 2011 Climate: HSI Some time ago somebody asked Andy Revkin if he had read the Hockey Stick Illusion, a request that was met with what I felt was a fairly silly reply: (a) he said that he was too busy and (b) he gave a pointer to Tamino's RealClimate "review". As I pointed out in my response it was odd to see a reputable journalist pointing to such a travesty of an article - I certainly can't think of many other quotations out of context quite so outrageous as the one Tamino pulled on me.
A couple of days ago, Revkin was asked exactly the same question, and interestingly he gave a somewhat different response.
I answered this awhile back. Here's Bishop Hill's critique of my answer. The reason I don't pay much attention here is that analysis of the recent (1000-year) indirect temperature record, while important, is a distraction from the established basics that I use to frame my thinking on the need for an energy quest.
Credit is certainly due for Revkin's pointing to my response, and one can wonder if he has now referred to the rebuttals of what Tamino wrote and realised that he was mistaken before to refer to it as "informed criticism". I've asked the question in the comments.
I'm also intrigued, however, by the idea that the millennial temperature reconstructions don't matter, and I wonder how often he has written about these unimportant studies in the past. Moreover, as I pointed out in the Hockey Stick Illusion the story of the Hockey Stick and its acolytes in the spaghetti graph have a great deal to tell us about the credibility of the IPCC - the same body that informs what Revkin calls the "established basics". I really wonder if Revkin might find a reading of HSI time well spent.
I'm continually amused by the effect that the Hockey Stick Illusion has on people on the other side of this debate - many respond in Revkinesque fashion - they're too busy, or I'm not credible, or it's not important or whatever. Others actually buy the book and rake through it, but most then just go very very quiet. As Judith Curry said some time ago, the Hockey Stick Illusion is a test of people's open mindedness on global warming. There are still a lot of people failing that test.
Reader Comments (45)
I know that most men, including those at ease with problems of the greatest complexity, can seldom accept even the simplest and most obvious truth if it be such as would oblige them to admit the falsity of conclusions which they have delighted in explaining to colleagues, which they have proudly taught to others, and which they have woven, thread by thread, into the fabric of their lives.
Leo Tolstoy
One would presume that among Revkin's "established basics" would be the idea that the recent warming has been unprecedented in recent history. If he considers this to be an established fact, as most of his writings indicate, refusal to even read a potential challenge to this idea (which is what HSI effectively represents) comes across as somewhat childish, head in the sand denialism.
His excuse that he doesn't have time sounds pretty hollow too - this is a professional journalist who has made a career claiming to be an expert in climate change issues, not having a few hours to read something as contentious and basic hardly washes, does it?
He won't look, because he's afraid of what he might see, like so many who call themselves journalists these days.
The reason I don't pay much attention here is that analysis of the recent (1000-year) indirect temperature record, while important, is a distraction from the established basics that I use to frame my thinking on the need for an energy quest.
Current Team response is exactly this, the HS graph has been dumped and they are falling back on 'The Physics'. Gavin Sh***t started this line last year after Steve McIntyres last exposure.
o/t but Sky news just broadcast that Gaddafi's son, who has a degree from the LSE. His "paper" for his degree written by another Libyan and not by himself
Peter
Does anyone know what Revkin thinks of scientists who '"hide the decline"?
Martin Brumby!
I agree with you (and Tolstoy).
Many years ago I was deputy secretary to a Royal Commission dealing with the future of higher education and research (Sweden). Our head secretary had a highly interlinked view of the world, where all views and facts were in some sort of logical harmony (his academic field was mathematics). For that reason he had great problems accepting new information which disturbed this coherent world view. My interpretation was that he actually dreaded the task to first check and then (if needed) change all his views and facts, where one change made it nessessary to change other views, etc. I saw before my inner eye him in bed, late in night, working with this chain of facts.
In this connection I blessed my capacity for inconsistent views.
Gösta Oscarsson
Stockholm
Indulge me, it's Sunday
...."Where is then the blessedness ye spake of? for I bear you record, that, if it had been possible, ye would have plucked out your own eyes"...
Revkin's latest response:
"The reason I don't pay much attention here is that analysis of the recent (1000-year) indirect temperature record, while important, is a distraction from the established basics that I use to frame my thinking on the need for an energy quest."
is just a duplicitous deflection to cover up that his faith in the fraudulent science at the heart of the IPPC cabal has been misplaced. Rather than admit he has been duped, he is just trying to move the goal posts by focusing on the energy issue. He owes his readers more than that; a journalist should be impartial and seek to uncover the truth, not perpetuate a political/environmental agenda. By not facing up to the reality of the hockey stick team's dishonesty -
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vN06JSi-SW8&feature=channel
he is guilty of complicity and denial (and the same goes for Richard Black, Steve Conner etc.)
There are no more 'reputable journalists' than there are idealistic mercenaries. Revkin is a paid advocate for his employer's world view. As the credibility of climate science has crumbled, so has his veracity.
So, in the near past we have had Professor Jonathan Jones, a physics professor at Oxford University, visit Bishops Hill and saying,
"This is not a complicated technical matter on which reasonable people can disagree: it is a straightforward and blatant breach of the fundamental principles of honesty and self-criticism that lie at the heart of all true science"
Pop over to the Donna Laframboise blog and you have Physics professor Richard Muller of the University of California Berkeley saying
"Quite frankly, as a scientist, I now have a list of people whose papers I won’t read anymore. You’re not allowed to do this in science. This is not up to our standards.
Does Andy Revkin have an open mind or has he not realised that the ships is actually sinking?
Andy, get the book! I am only up to page 98 but trust me, A.W.H. makes it simple enough for even me and you to understand that there has been some very dirty pool played!
Unfortunately, the old fellow won't deign to answer you. I would put a supportive comment but my last comment took two days to be approved. Which I can understand, being a Mad Hatter and a March Hair, except my comment was a rather reasonable debunking of the oft repeated nutcase fallacy, nowadays, of 'revolutions are caused by climate change'. What!?? Needless to say, my input was by then lost to the smokeless aether.
I think that he may well have read HSI but will not admit to it because this would lead to discussions about the contents.
Sorry Errata: 'hair' meant 'hare' but I'm having a bad hair day!
It's a disappointment but it's Andy's choice- at the end of the day he may simply be a little less informed than some people who have taken the time to look at this case in more depth than he has. The problem for me was that his first comment on the HSI came whilst writing about trust in science (and climate science)- surely the HSI would have been a very relevant read at the time.
The responses that you point out are typical of incumbents when they are faced with an innovative idea. These ideas are disruptive to the "value chains" with which they interpret the world. There is an entire literatures in management studies on this. There are special techniques required to both nurture and protect innovation within organizations from responses that you have noted. Christensen's "The Innovator's Dilemma' is one account that I have read of how people react to to innovation. Peter Drucker's books also describe these reactions
I would not blame these people too harshly. These are just typical defense mechanisms used to confront ideas that challenge one's value chains. One thing the research has found out is that these incumbents will not change their views. it is too much of a challenge fro them. They have to be replaced or the business will not be able to accept the innovative idea. They are usually sent to a highly specialized area in which their older skills are still useful.
Anoneumouse
Apposite, but you missed out the punch-line:
It is what pesadia said.
A couple of days back, there was a thread at Collide-a-scape (run by US journalism professor), Keith Kloor. In his post, Kloor firstly declared that Randy Olson (scientist-turned-communicator/marketing specialist) had dared to 'defy' the 'convention' by pointing out that the main media outlets almost played no role in the Climategate debacle. (His prescription is that they should have played a role, - that of telling the public 'loudly', that the scientists did nothing wrong).
Well, it was just recently that Simon H and Barry Woods made (yet) another (valiant) attempt to point out to Kloor that the Guardian, the BBC, the NYT, etc etc remained silent for weeks on end after Climategate.
It had no discernible effect whatsoever on Kloor.
How is it that, if you are a member of a group that makes money doing what you do, your insights are something special, even if these 'convention-defying' insights are the same as what bloggers and interested observers have been noting for over a year now?
My comment was:
How can it be, at the same time, that Climategate was so unworthy of mainstream media attention and news cycles, 'a storm in a teacup', 'cherry-picking by the denialists', 'smear-campaign' etc, and yet warranted not one but five investigations, and the results of which are however so important that the same mainstream media should give it wide publicity?
The answer is obviously simple - how can you make a big deal about the importance of an investigation report when you made every effort to bury the importance of the thing the investigation was investigating?
@ BBD
2co 12:7
Small minds, big egos.
Other than the initial "thank you", I have not heard a peep from the two warmists that I sent copies of HSI. :)
Anoneumouse
You're being a bit harsh, I think ;-)
Bishop Hill
I'm now on my third router re-boot of the afternoon thanks to 'Connection re-set' errors. Just so you know, this BS is still going on.
On top, Tamino does not do Time Series Analysis
Or when he tries it , it is all wrong ..
His swearing needs to balance his incompetence I think
BH says
Yes. That's been my impression too.
In the same thread, Randy Olson says:
Well, there has been an analysis of the major investigations (the UK ones) by someone who is on top of the blogosphere discussions. Mr Olson doesn't seem to know of it at all!
Secondly, a commenter asked Olson whether he had spent time looking at the Climategate inquiries himself. His answer?
But despite the admissions of ignorance and complete lack of awareness about Climategate and the investigations, Olson is able to pronounce:
This is the standard game, my dears. Keith Kloor, Andy Revkin, Randy Olson will not read The Hockey Stick Illusion or the Climategate Inquiries, or the Climategate emails, or the investigation reports. But yet they have different lines to feed their audiences.
To the yearning and panting sceptical bloggers, the line fed in online blogs, and similar forums - 'look at you lot, you can make all the noise you want but no major news outlet reported on Climategate. There is lot of work to be done reading emails and we may not like what we see. It is a nothing, a non-entity. So just get used to it, take your petitions and protestations and sweep away back into the shadows'.
To the 'general public', in the newspapers and reports: - 'look here, y'all. Apparently, there has been a hack of climate scientists computers and their emails have been stolen. For a while, we were told that things in the emails did not look nice. But they were thoroughly investigated and cleared. Ok. Got that?'.
Back to the sceptics on the blogs: 'Look here, you plotting, lock-step marching, evil lot you. There have been five investigations. I can't even read the reports or the emails myself. But they all say the scientists are like saints. So what was that about Climategate being a big deal again? Heh.'
Just finished the worthy tome myself. I'd followed the story, bit by bit, usually as it came up on Climate Audit and your Jesus & Caspar paper.
Seeing the whole story, step by step, enraged me greatly. The way that those who call themselves "Scientists" refuse to cast a critical eye over their own and their colleagues' work, obstruct and denounce those who try to dig deeper, that's a real travesty!
I too noticed, that the great champion of the Stickists, back-pedalled on the importance of their poster child. I bet that they'll never admit to its flaws, otherwise their hypocracy would be on view to all, even their most fervant acolytes.
Over at WUWT, I asked Joel Shore (published Canadian physicist) why he hadn't read the book. His answer: "Eric: Others have already pointed out severe problems with Montford’s book. I don’t really see the purpose of wading even deeper into that abyss. Besides which, it is not clear what good it would do...."
Shub
Saw that. Also had a really long and boring exchange with 'NewYorkJ' and 'Marlowe Johnson' at KK's a couple of threads back re their refusal to look at the Problem With Wind power in the round (ie honestly).
I found NYJ particularly irritating.
In hindsight, I think we've both been wasting our time.
All Revkin saying with many words is that he refuses to examine the subject since it would interfere with his prejudice.
It will be interesting in the future to analyze why Revkin and so many of his colleagues refused to examine the evidence that their acceptance of AGW calamity/CO2 obsession could have been mistaken.
Revkin simply shows himself, when pressured, to be a polite but close-minded partisan.
Shub, as I keep saying (but will anyone listen to small me?) the 'Left' are all over the emails of the recent 'Anonymous' hack (which, I think, good for them, since the CEO of HGBarry Federal, Araan Bar, was so stupid!), that there passing around each other with the usual fake shocked 'O's for mouths, including Andy Revkin's NYT, but what happened when the CRU mails were dumped - O know we can't touch those. Can I tell you the difference between right wing and left wing hypocracy? Honesty.
the problem with retreating to the basic physics argument is that it has so little traction with respect to policy: most willingly accept and openly acknowledge that yes indeed, C02 is a greenhouse gas and the basic physics of radiation are an important element of climate. Most however, also recognize that convection, the action of the oceans and the effect of clouds, not to mention changes in solar inputs are also dynamic influences on how climate continues to change -- and has changed through time. The last point is significant because it resonates with the general public and thus politically: if climate has changed, sometimes very dramatically, naturally in the past, as most open minded people recognize and acknowledge, then there is no unprecedented, alarmist narrative.
The significance of the hockey stick was never in its science: it was in the trust, the authority and the establishment of the warmist narrative as political dogma. The HSI brilliantly lays out to anyone open minded enough to read it that the trust invested in the IPCC was mis-placed and abused. That a coterie of insiders played expertise politics and their actions, once discovered, has caused huge damage to the trust the public now places in all intellectual experts.
To stay in power, governments will have to aggressively eschew the green energy bandwagon: the public will accept energy efficiency as a new mantra but alternate energy must firs be effective before it can be efficient: both solar nor wind are neither, and climate change is no longer sufficient as a dogma to impel their imposition.
There's been a subtle shift lately from the True Believers. At first, they argued that "the science" should be the sole criteria for establishing public policy and that the science is 'settled'. This assertion later gave way to the idea that even if the science isn't settled, the precautionary principle mandates that we make public policy as if the science were settled. Now, Revkin is, in effect, saying -- " lets stop talking about whether the science is right or wrong, lets just get on with implementing my public policy preferences".
Andy's latest pronouncement is his most honest. For the left, the 'science' was merely a tool to be used to achieve long standing policy preferences. The left expects that, in return for public sector funded of science, that the scientists will manufacture the science that the left needs to promote it policy agenda. Now that the science has become bogged down by its proponents inability to answer basic questions, Andy wants to move on.
Having said all of that, if the public policy debate shifts to one of 'clean energy', I think the debate will be more honest. Both the left and the right agree that we need to move away from fossil fuels. The left sees energy policy as a way of reducing consumerism and promoting a larger public sector. The right sees energy policy as a route to clearer, cheaper energy which will promote prosperity and a larger private sector. But at least both sides agree that we need to move away from fossil fuels.
bob
Re your last paragraph, you are in for an unpleasant surprise.
You will find absolutely no honesty whatsoever in any debate about clean energy/renewables.
Unless you uncritically accept that windmills will save the planet, you will be treated with condescension and contempt by the believers. Who, for the most part, use renewables (mainly wind) as a screen behind which to pursue their ideological and fanatical opposition to nuclear.
It's just more of the same.
Mar 6, 2011 at 5:33 PM | bob
I don't think that's true, at least in the US. Even the Obama administration concedes that natural gas is at least "half clean", and if the debate shifts towards "energy independence", expect domestic fossil fuels to be a huge part of that argument by the right.
Fortunately, despite the best efforts of enviros to demonize shale gas, it's serving to moderate our costs of electricity (at least compared to transporation fuels) and is leading to a resurgence in US energy exploration.
Shale gas may very well be the cornerstone of Obama's "clean energy" going forward.
If one goes to Andy Revkin's NYTimes column at http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/tag/climate-change/ and look just below the top line, you will see the masthead which reads "The New York Times The Opinion Pages." I interpret this to mean that Mr. Revkin has ceded any claims that he is a journalist. He writes an opinion column that all too many readers believe is the work of a journalist who is striving to present unbiased reportage. To his discredit, Mr. Revkin does little to dissuade this view.
I don't agree we need to move away from fossil fuels. Drill baby, drill!
Andrew, you should send him a complimentary copy to read.
Once he picks it up, he won't be able to put it down.
Let me try to put you all right:
1. if you don't know where you are, then you're lost
2. I know when I'm, so I'm not lost OK so far?
3. WELL, let's acept that we don't know if this is the hottest period in the last 1,000 years
4. and while we're at it, let's accept that while we understand the physics of CO2, we don't know how that interacts with the other factors affecting the climate
5. SO - we have no evidence that humans are influencing the climate in any significant manner.
6. Having proved all that, I repeat that I know where I am.
7. And conclude that CO2 MUST be banned, FORTHwith, by at least 4pm tomorrow afternoon GMT.
Nex question?
/sarc off
a coterie of insiders played expertise politics
Worse than that, is that this has the blessing of (most of) the rank and file of climate science, as indicated by their deafening silence on the matter.
Hokey Sticks
An answer I've seen elsewhere, is that other paleo studies that do not use dodgy trees (ice-cores, speleothems etc), nor dodgy Principal Components Analysis, come up with hockey sticks similar to the said illusory one.
Anyone have pointers on this one?
Punksta
Yes, they do - because they all use either Yamal or bristlecones (tree ring paleoclimate proxies). Both are atypical. Both yield hockey sticks with the characteristic suppression of the MWP (straight handle).
Get rid of the iffy proxies and the MWP re-appears. There's a really good book about this... ;-)
E Smith: There are no more 'reputable journalists' than there are idealistic mercenaries.
Oi, moosh! I'm an idealist mercenary. I'll let you in on my ideals for the usual considerations.
It's always telling when a literary figure, a major journalist, tells you in so many words that he wont read something.
Shouldn't journalists, of all people, be so well read as to be fairly impervious to major swings of faith from a single book?
Jeremy
I wouldn't describe Revkin as either a litereary figure or a major journalist. Certainly not as viewed from outside the climate goldfish bowl.
Certainly true, BBD. If you observe Revkin or Kloor carefully, most of their contributions consist of parasitizing their own commenters' material and playing off one faction against the other for cheap thrills. What's more: Kloor and Revkin fancy themselves as running blogs where they attempt to pull people out of their 'comfort-zones'. Ask them two questions that puts them out of their comfort zones, and you can see the mood crash!