Bishop Hill Public understanding of climate - the evidence
Jun 12, 2013 Climate: Parliament The Science and Technology Committee have published the submissions of evidence to their inquiry on "Climate: Public understanding and policy implications". Readers are cordially invited to leave details of any interesting contributions in the comments.
Amusingly, the witnesses who are going to provide oral evidence to the inquiry are:
Dr Catherine Happer, Glasgow University Media Group, Professor Greg Philo, Glasgow University Media Group and Tom Sheldon, Senior Press Officer, Science Media Centre.
The Glasgow University Media Group is a very strange choice as the source of witnesses. Apparently they have been characterised as "a band of Marxist conspiracy theorists". And if you search their website for the words "climate change" or "global warming" you discover that they have never actually done any work in the area at all. I'm intrigued to know how they came to be invited, since they don't seem to have submitted any written evidence.[Update: it's there now. Maybe I missed it.]
I think it's fair to say that the inquiry is a bit of charade.
Bishop Hill
From Catherine Happer's bio:
Dr Catherine Happer was awarded a First in Sociology from the University of Glasgow and the Adam Smith prize as the top student of her year, then went on to complete a PhD in communications from Lancaster University. She then worked in the BBC audience research department and later as a Television Researcher/Assistant Producer before returning to the University of Glasgow as Research Associate at the Glasgow University Media Group. She is currently co-authoring a book with Professor Greg Philo called Communicating Climate Change and Energy Security: New Methods in Understanding Audiences, to be published in 2013.
Bishop Hill
They are conspiracy theorists! From their submission to the commitee:
There is evidence that...sceptics are a well organised and well funded group with the aim of discrediting climate science and downplaying the need for action.
Reader Comments (80)
Ed,
I agree with Cumbrian Lad and Jack Hughes on the subject of climate science in schools. It is anti-science as currently taught.
I also think that your Article 2.7 is either very naive or willfully disingenuous. I have a mental picture of an empty office with cobwebs across the entrance door, and a sign outside saying, "Office for super-efficient publication of corrections to your previous papers". There is a long, long list of climate science papers with known errors which are not acknowledged by the authors. There is a shorter list of papers with known errors which are not acknowledged by the broader climate science community - at least not publicly. In some instances, their peers have gathered around the authors to protect them! The idea that climate science authors are just awaiting the right mechanism to speed up their corrections and self-rebuttal seems somewhat far-fetched.
Hilary - the Met Office is collaborating with EDF Energy (the French power company) on a programme for schools:
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/education/collaboration/edf
Thanks for the comments so far on the NCAS submission.
2.7 - given my recent experience with David Rose's Daily Mail article which plagarised and misrepresented my figure I don't think this is particularly controversial. James Annan has successfully complained to the PCC about the same article and achieved a correction. Note that we state that corrections to overly zealous exaggerating articles in newspapers also need to be made. I also agree that corrections to scientific papers need to be more prominent.
2.11 - I agree with the comments about teaching fundamental science and enabling students to learn for themselves. It is a shame that climate is not in the proposed GCSE physics curriculum, but in chemistry instead. In physics, some of the more fundamental aspects could be taught.
Ed.
PS. Will see if I am free for the Oxford pub meet when the date is fixed. If someone can email me the time & date, even better! ;-)
Ed says above:
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2.11 - I agree with the comments about teaching fundamental science and enabling students to learn for themselves. It is a shame that climate is not in the proposed GCSE physics curriculum, but in chemistry instead. In physics, some of the more fundamental aspects could be taught.
//
Ed please can you tell us in a few clear GCSE standard sentences what these fundamentals are?
Ed, it looks like Monday 8th July at the King's Arms.
..and it always looked to me that your correction of David Rose was although accurate a technical quibble over something which was as broadbrush as a MoS article has to be. But as you are here and a real climate scientist of unsullied reputation, let me ask, are we going with back radiation now, or increased height of TOA. Is NCAS aboard with the heat in the ocean meme, which I would expect to cause modellers and scientists a whole heap of trouble in keeping the story straight without looking like hand-wavers?
Ed, hopefully this constitutes a constructive reply. The overall feel was fine but because 2.1 hasn’t been done yet, the rest is more of what has gone before and will probably have the same result.
2.1 “a key aspect of improving public understanding about climate change is appreciating, understanding and addressing the man different reasons why members of the public are sceptical.”- yes, this is very important and cannot necessarily be done with tick box surveys. It would also be useful to examine those who claim not to be sceptical, exploring their understanding of the science and a measure of how their concern relates to action on cutting CO2.
2.3 “It is not the role of publicly funded climate scientists to advocate any specific policy responses”. This I completely disagree with. It is considered very unsafe to shout ‘fire’ in a crowded theatre. At the moment, climate scientists are delivering their open ended predictions of doom without accepting any responsibility for the people who might be trampled in the rush for the exits. Eg those scientists who warn against rising global populations need to consider to what lengths they would go to reduce population – genocide, removing medical aid, removing food aid, etc. In reality most would only suggest a free supply of contraceptives and a forest load of leaflets. At the one end the response is wild panic/madness and the other is vague concern and a fingers crossed approach. Climate scientists can’t claim that ‘fire!’ is merely an observation and what theatregoers do with that potentially incorrect data is up to them.
2.4-2.6 Desperation has led to the theory that if climate scientists themselves communicated the science then their added credibility would swing public opinion. This is wrong. What they currently have on offer is unlikely to sway the public because better communicators than them have already failed with it. The difference in credibility levels is a minor effect. It would be better to introduce some of the safeguards that we impose on industry to ensure that good practice is not just followed but seen to be followed. I cannot stress enough that peer review is for academics not real life.
2.7 Yes, there are a lot of inaccurate articles, from BOTH sides of the debate. It’s a pity there’s no flurry of activity when a pro CAGW article gets the facts wrong. One area where climate scientists could score points is by being very consistent about the facts they and others who support them, come out with.
2.9 Climate science isn’t an old science. One bit of it is oldish (other sciences have far, far older roots) but since many of the useful observations of the elements of climate are all set in the satellite age it is most definitely a new science. Of the really old sciences, none of them get a carte blanche when it comes to being trusted on the claims made. Most sciences that matter have made crippling mistakes at one time or another. We no longer leave credibility up to chance and we try to improve on human frailty with systems and external monitoring.
2.11 There is an amusing theory that if we ‘get em young’ then future generations will accept AGW like they accept flying. ROTFLMAO. Never has there been a generation that wastes more energy. They might want compensation for the Baby Boomers ruining the planet with CO2 but they’ll spend it on more stuff. A better way to educate youngsters would be to ban gadgets and designer clothes in schools and teach them thrift and thoughtfulness towards others.
2.12 Yes, public understanding is very important. However, few members of the public understand climate science better than the sceptics at Bishop Hill, do you see them becoming more accepting of government policies on CO2?
A little illustration if I may? A couple of weeks ago I was in the garden with two sixthformers who were studying for impending science AS level exams. They were wondering why the temperature on the electronic sensor I have in the garden (mounted inside a wooden shelter approx 1m above the ground, in the shade) was showing only 17C when they were 'baking' in the sun. I brought out a max/min mercury thermometer that we've had for years, and placed it in the sun with them to show the difference in temperature between the air temperature, and that in full sunlight, and discussed with them the reasons for the difference.
What struck me was that they'd never come across a min/max thermometer (which I think we did in geography, if not general science, years ago quite early in secondary school), and for all the course content covering 'climate' they, as science students, had apparently never discussed the correct ways of making temperature measurements.
It is this level of detail lacking in the courses offered to children that leads one to suppose that children are being fed platitude, not science.
"Dr Catherine Happer was awarded a First in Sociology" Who but a crypto-Marxist would want one of these?
"The Science and Technology Committee" About as oxymoronic as "the Committee for Public Safety" during the Reign of Terror after the French Revolution.
"Committe for State Sanctioned Interpretations of Science and Technology" might be a better title.
@TinyCO2 - thanks for the constructive comments. Some additional comments below.
2.3 - for many skeptics I speak to (including many here on BH), this is the key point - they want the science without any policy recommendations attached. I am happy to say something like: "under business as usual emissions, we expect to see these impacts (with associated uncertainties)" - but I don't believe that climate scientists should go further and suggest how or even whether emissions might be reduced, as that is not our expertise, and the science is only one part of any decision. I know others disagree however.
2.7 - I agree that more criticism of exaggerated climate science in the media would be useful. In a recent public talk, I criticised a Guardian article for precisely this (Barry Woods was there, if he remembers!). Also, the Met Office have recently criticised the Arctic Methane Emergency Group for similar reasons. More examples are required however.
2.9 - Climate science started with understanding the basic physics with Fourier in 1824, Tyndall in 1861, Arrhenius in 1896 etc etc. The first observations of a warming planet were made by Callendar in 1938. I think emphasising this is very important - the basic science predates more modern environmental activism.
2.12 - again, we (try and) communicate the science, and others decide the policies!
cheers,
Ed.
@Rhoda:
NCAS is actually involved in work examining the recent hiatus in detail, and to try and determine the causes. Ocean heat uptake is one leading candidate, but not the only one! We are not trying to avoid trouble - just trying to get at the answers!
@not banned yet:
I think the basic absorption of infra-red radiation by CO2 would be a good start! Students could even do Tyndall's original 1861 experiment in the lab!
Ed.
Ed, would you characterise absorption of IR by CO2 (undisputed by anybody) as 'CO2 trapping heat' which we have from the Met Office'. Isn't it more complex than that? Doesn't CO2 re-emit, and not trap anything? Do we know to what extent it thermalises neighbouring molecules of N and O? If so, how?
(You seem to have missed the back-radiation vs TOA question. What I am trying to do is complete the chain of logic which links the IR absorption/re-emission to actual atmospheric temperature increases, a bit that most alarmists leave out.)
Ed, your submission seems mostly OK.
2.1 raises an excellent question, but you guys are the wrong people to be trying to answer it. You know perfectly well that the main reason for scepticism is the exaggerated claims made by your own activist wing. It's a pity that you can't bring yourselves to acknowledge this.
2.7 starts well, and can be read both ways, but goes seriously of the rails at the end with the recommendation of the Science Media Centre. These activist lobby groups are another part of the problem. Their leader Fiona Fox has no science background, and is "a former leading member of the Revolutionary Communist Party." She also gave false evidence to the Leveson inquiry (explaine in Andrew M's submission to Leveson)
I'm going to assume you didn't know all this. But it does show a lack of awareness.
I want to see the evidence that... "sceptics are a well organised and well funded group".
EVERYONE WANTS TO SEE THE EVIDENCE.
Please provide the evidence. I beg you. Please make the evidence public. Please, please, please.
Just received this:
From: Science & Technology Committee <scitechcom@parliament.uk>
SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY COMMITTEE
Select Committee Announcement
No. 11 (13-14): 13 June 2013
ORAL EVIDENCE SESSION ANNOUNCED
Climate: Public understanding and policy implications
The Science and Technology Committee will hold the following oral evidence session in
its inquiry into ?Climate: Public understanding and policy implications?:
Wednesday 19 June 2013
Thatcher Room, Portcullis House
At 9.15 am
· Dr Catherine Happer, Glasgow University Media Group
· Professor Greg Philo, Glasgow University Media Group
· Tom Sheldon, Senior Press Officer, Science Media Centre
Further evidence sessions will be announced in due course.
Follow the Committee's business on Twitter @CommonsSTC
...
The session is open to the public on a first come, first served basis. Portcullis
House is the building directly above Westminster Station, entrance to which is via
Victoria Embankment. There is no system for the prior reservation of seats in
Committee Rooms. It is advisable to allow about 30 minutes to pass through security
checks. Committee rooms and the timing of meetings are subject to change.
Specific Committee information: scitechcom@parliament.uk / 020 7219 2793
Media information: Nick Davies daviesnick@parliament.uk / 020 7219 3297
Committee website: www.parliament.uk/science
Ed:
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@not banned yet:
I think the basic absorption of infra-red radiation by CO2 would be a good start! Students could even do Tyndall's original 1861 experiment in the lab!
Ed.
//
Is that it Ed? That is climate science for GCSE?
I want to see the evidence that... "sceptics are a well organised and well funded group".
EVERYONE WANTS TO SEE THE EVIDENCE.
Please provide the evidence. I beg you. Please make the evidence public. Please, please, please.
Jun 13, 2013 at 2:14 PM | Unregistered CommenterBrute
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FORGET the evidence... I just want a cheque. (sarc off)
sorry Ed, I forget which meeting you were talking about.
if scientists call out the activists amongst them, and tell the NGO's to stop exaggerating, there would not be any sceptics.
One thought, if by 2020, temps are no more than say 0.1C higer or less.. how do the models come out of that scenario?
@Rhoda - yes it is more complicated. The key point is that the re-emission of the radiation by carbon dioxide occurs in all directions & happens at higher altitudes and lower temperatures than the surface, therefore effectively trapping heat.
Ed.
"I want to see the evidence that... "sceptics are a well organised and well funded group".
Brute.
Lord Donahue, Peter Lilley, George Stringer and Doug Keenan are showing a considerable degree of coordination. That's the well organised part.
Who's paying them? Hopefully, nobody.
If payment is occuring, the only one legally able to accept it is Doug Keenan. GWPF have paid Andrew Montford fees for professional services in the past; perhaps Nigel Lawson is paying Keenan's fees.
So is that just 4 people you are making insinuations about there, Entropic Man?
Perhaps we should try and get Arlo Guthrie to change his famous lyrics....
"Shrink, You can get anything you want, at Alice's restaurant." [..]
You know, if one person, just one person does it they may think he's really sick and they won't take him.
And if two people, two people do it, in harmony, they may think they're both faggots and they won't take either of them.
And three people do it, three, can you imagine, three people walking in singin a bar of Alice's Restaurant and walking out. They may think it's an organization.
And four people.... they may think it's a bunch of big-oil-funded climate sceptics.
EM
I think what you are trying to say is that you have no evidence re "well-funded" and only some speculation about "well-organised"
EM gives four names and gets two of them wrong.
Bishop Hill
Actually, I think they're badly organised. So far their questions have been poorly designed and asked in random order. The answers they received have been routine, uncontroversial and could have been predicted by any intelligent observer. The impact has been minimal beyond the sceptic propoganda sites.
The Heartland Institute would have done a much better job.
You have just contradicted yourself then.
Bishop Hill
I'm just throwing out ideas. You are the ones in the know, not me.
I have is a few snippets from the Parliament website and what you write here, which suggests a coordinated attack on the Met Office by a sceptic statistician and a couple of Parliamentary sock puppets.
One man's co-ordinated attack is another man's holding to account in parliament. Don't you think the Met should be required to clarify what look to some like dodgy statements? Do you think it has never been warmer than now? If they think they have proven the range of natural variation should they not explain that other than by the use of models?
Ed, you are playing a dead bat here. In your last comment the 'trap heat' bit does not follow from the first part. Or, it may be obvious to you, but I'd want to see a proposed mechanism and some observations. Maybe you have that, with all the budget and planes and what-all. Don't hold back, give it to us straight.
Many warmists, the kind who believe there is a consensus and that all those scientists must know what they are talking about, can accept the superficial 'radiation is absorbed so it must end up trapped, that's conservation of energy' but sceptics ought to ask a few more questions. The kind I ask here time and time again and never get a decent reply.
Rhoda
You put forward a logical fallacy. At various times in the past it has been warmer than now, for a variety of reasons. This does not invalidate the argument that the most recent warming is down to us.
Producing good quantitative evidence that natural forcings provide enough energy to drive the observed changes in the temperature record would be sufficient.
EM, are you saying the previous temp excursions were NOT natural? Clearly they were, as there can be no man-made effects in that timescale. That establishes a range for natural variations. For whatever reason. We are currently within that range, so we are within the range of natural variations. There is no logical fallacy or contradiction here. Now if the Met Office or anybody else can explain the reason for the range of natural variation (which may not even be the LIMITS to natural variation). I made no argument about forcings. I don't even really accept the concept of forcings as the climate folks use it. What you are trying to do here is extend my original statement into areas which it did not enter. Which I regard as a trick of argumentation inappropriate for our little well-mannered discussion here.
Rather late correction to the Bish’s article above. Happer and Philo of The Glasgow University Media Group did a large scale survey of public opinion on climate change and energy security last year for the UK Energy Research Centre. It can be downloaded at
www.ukerc.ac.uk/support/tiki-download_file.php?fileId=2900