Bishop Hill Hulme slams 97% paper
Jul 25, 2013 Climate: Hulme Climate: Sceptics The prominent climatologist Mike Hulme has slammed the Cook et al 97% "nonsensus" paper in a comment at the Nottingham University Making Science Public blog.
The “97% consensus” article is poorly conceived, poorly designed and poorly executed. It obscures the complexities of the climate issue and it is a sign of the desperately poor level of public and policy debate in this country that the energy minister should cite it. It offers a similar depiction of the world into categories of ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ to that adopted in Anderegg et al.’s 2010 equally poor study in PNAS: dividing publishing climate scientists into ‘believers’ and ‘non-believers’. It seems to me that these people are still living (or wishing to live) in the pre-2009 world of climate change discourse. Haven’t they noticed that public understanding of the climate issue has moved on?
This is an interesting development since nobody is going to finger Hulme as any kind of a sceptic.
Reader Comments (102)
Not only did Ed Davey lean forward to hammer home the '97%' figure tio Andrew Neil - but I have issue with the Department of Energy and Climate Change.
Why is it not living up to the second part of its title, and changing the climate..? I mean - all these wind farms - and not enough wind to power them - surely the Department should be changing the climate so that there is more wind..? Otherwise - what is the point of a) the Deparment and b) wind farms..?
Jonas N
'Why is this laughable 97% figure so important for the narrative?'
Because it entered the place that cannot and should not be questioned nor challenged, warmest dogma. Its meaningless figure from poor research but for the AGW faithful so extreme is their outlook that they cannot accept even minor change it to less than 90% , its 97% now and forever and death before dishonour .
Thank you for this thread Bish. I never expected this much enlightenment to arise from the ashes of the Cook paper.
Isn't it strange what one learns about academia - about the weaknesses of academia, to be brutally frank - through the agonies of the climate debate? I feel I will always view my own understanding from now on as pre-Tol and post-Tol - meaning the economist's observation on this thread. Because Richard's credibility is high this could not help but increased my rating of Mike Hulme. Reading his original and Ben Pile's perspectives since has only added to the new-found respect.
Ed Davey needs to grasp how much of chump this part of the Andrew Neil interview has made him look. This can only add to the pressure for a rethink. Much appreciation to Ben and Warren Pearce.
Large number of troll comments and follow-ups removed. DNFTT It is a waste of everyone's time and effort.
Quote "It seems to me that these people are still living (or wishing to live) in the pre-2009 world of climate change discourse."
Pre-2009? What the hell is this guy talking about SPECIFICALLY?
Jul 25, 2013 at 1:07 PM | Brute Unquote
I would humbly suggest that the reference was to Climategate as the first e-mails were released in 2009.
In other words "strong arm" tactics should no longer be used.
Personally I think it is good that troll-labelled commenters too can show their best arguments here. And in this case I think the label is somewhat undeserved. It is incapable of arguing its own positon, and throws around the D-term of course. But then, such has never impressed anybody exept the more gullible faithers. I think it should be allowed to show its best efforts here.
BTW Has anybody seen BBD here, or knows why he fled? I hope not for the same reasons. Although he could be as ignorant and anoying as that other three-letter nuisance.
knr
(I have plenty of ideas about why the warminista behave like they do. And God knows there are plenty of MOs among the wast masses and motives and alleged objectives among them. But:)
I wanted to hear this particular Warmist-faither's reason for so vehemently defending undefensible garbage metrics ...
Why stick it's own neck in that particular noose ... so to speak?
I can agree with Ben Pile's reading of Hulme as saying that:
and even that The problem is not with Hulme’s honesty, but with the direction in which he wants to direct the debate around man-made climate change, and why.As BernieL’s post (Jul 25, 2013 at 11:41 AM) makes clear, Hulme demonstrates, if not post-modernist relativism, at least a fantastic woolly-mindedness when he excuses the apocalyptic discourse and other “myths” surrounding AGW by saying they: We’re surprised at such open-mindedness from someone at the centre of climate science, and naturally suspicious as to his motives.
Normally, discussion of motives would be off-limits, but Hulme positively encourages it with his invitation to social scientists and others to climb on board. Since he considers such discussion of “narratives” to be on-topic, we’re fully justified in voicing our suspicions that he wants to bring into the discussion a lot of groups who he knows to be even more devout worshippers of Gaia than the climate bunch - the nudgers and winkers (no, that’s not a typo) of climate psychology and sociology.
I think worth adding some ongoing twitter exchanges here:
Seems Nuccitelli is too good for commenting with the hoi polloi wants a priviliged "opportunity to respond"
https://twitter.com/dana1981/status/360409000090664961
.@BarryJWoods I've requested the opportunity to respond to that rather awful blog post. If granted, I'll address Prof Hulme's comments too.
Ben Pile responds:
https://twitter.com/clim8resistance/status/360410035102289920
Why don't you just reply in the comments, @dana1981? After all, you wouldn't give @RichardTol RTR at Guardian. @BarryJWoods
https://twitter.com/clim8resistance/status/360410128261976064
In any case, @dana1981, the post at Nottingham isn't about you. @BarryJWoods
Greenpeace UK pipes in:
https://twitter.com/GPUKNews/status/360412972440485889
@dana1981 I admire your tenacity, but clim8resistance? If Neil replies, keep it going, but don't get diverted into debating no-marks.
Dana seems to think University of Nottinghams status cries out for his intervention:
https://twitter.com/dana1981/status/360415606991880192
@GPUKNews My concern is that it was posted on the U of Nottingham site, and thus worth responding to.
Geoff - ".... if not post-modernist relativism, at least a fantastic woolly-mindedness when he excuses the apocalyptic discourse and other “myths” surrounding AGW by saying they..."
Hulme was one of the first 'pro-AGW' climate scientists to speak out against apocalyptic environmentalism.
From: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/6115644.stm in 2006
I don't think Hulme is giving a free pass to anyone saying 'we're doomed'. I think he's saying that those meta-myths, so to speak, are part of the landscape, and should be accepted as such.
The Leopard In The Basement
like 'the Team' the one thing the cartoonist's lapdog does not lack its ego , for he thinks that all the world should be made to listen to him , while calling for others views to be restricted .
Peter Stroud - as Bishop Hill requested, please don't feed the troll.
After this humiliating put-down by Mike Hulme,will the Guardian allow Dana ANOTHER opportunity to try and defend the indefensible?
Quitting while he was behind must now be sounding like a good strategy to Dana. But it's too late for that now - Mike Hulme has hung him out to dry.
All climate scientists who wish to salvage something from the tarnished reputation of their science must surely follow Mr Hulme, and speak out against the likes of Cook and Nutticelli
@Jul 25, 2013 at 4:30 PM | Unregistered Commenterknr
It seems a common need of the Dana's and Cooks of this world that being seen to occupy authoritative podiums is the most important primary requirement *before* they can speak.
However to me that attitude actually makes them look very weak, they are not really comfortable in their skin unless they wear a mantle of authority.
It is a kind of pathetic cargo cult posture of authority; they clearly fear the threat of a loss of face very deeply, and it is too much to risk showing their inadequacy in a level debate.
This reminds of a Taleb quote I saw repeated today on twitter:
Billy Goat
The DM is the Daily Mail, an occasionally quotable, but generally scurrilous UK tabloid - a sort of Sun for people who can read.
Ben Pile
What does this mean? On the face of it he seems to be saying that a paper dividing views on climate change into ‘right and ‘wrong’ would have been OK prior to Climategate and Copenhagen, but not OK thereafter.If, as you say, Hume is saying that “those meta-myths, so to speak, are part of the landscape, and should be accepted as such”. Then it would be nice if he would say it out loud in a place where we could give our opinions.
I’m the last person to dispute the importance of “meta-myths” or whatever one wants to call pervasive irrational beliefs, or to challenge the role of the social sciences. But once you abandon the normal rules of scientific discourse (however imperfectly practiced, as Richard Tol has made clear) then it’s a free-for-all as far as interpretation of motives is concerned.
Hulme, in the passage you quote, shows himself to have been clear-headed about the counterproductive nature of much green propaganda - no more than that. We’ve been seeing this clear-headedness breaking out all over the place lately, always greeted by commenters here as the first swallow of the non-warming summer.
But his implicit criticism of those on his “side” does nothing to stop the juggernaut from rolling on. The juggernaut can only be stopped by people with influence getting the word out to the Daveys and Obamas. Hulme is one of those people. If he thinks the apocalyptic vision is wrong, why doesn’t he say so loudly and clearly where it matters?
Mike Hulme says in his comment to your article:
Cook and Nuccitelli etc’s defence is that what they do is peer-reviewed science, just like proper climate scientists such as Mike Hulme. The only substantive point Hulme makes against them is that “public understanding of the climate issue has moved on”. In other words, the problem with Cook et al is that it’s past its sell-by date.
That doesn’t sound very scientific to me.
Hulme is quoted as saying:
"Climate change should not be seen as an environmental problem demanding a technical solution …we need to approach climate change as an imaginative idea, an idea that we develop and employ to fulfil a variety of tasks for us."
So whether it's happening – and to what extent – is beside the point?
“Half of the harm that is done in this world
Is due to people who want to feel important.
They do not see the harm – or they justify it
Because they are engaged in the endless struggle
To think well of themselves.” (TS Eliot, 'The Cocktail Party').
No doubt this applies to all of us in some degree. I shall employ the idea of global warming to fulfil the task of thinking well of myself: by rejecting it (provisionally) - and all proposals for change arising from it: at least until they satisfy the strong version of the Precautionary Principle – when it is proved that they cannot possibly do any harm.
The draw of the consensus is that it contains no difference - or so little, that the difference can be swept aside. Anyone who hates difference, therefore, would be tempted to claim a consensus where there isn't one - or to abrogate his own capacity for objectivity as a means to arriving at one (we might wonder what a consensus and a utopia have in common?). It is this same difference, of course, which is claimed to be the cause of global warming. Difference, it seems, IS the catastrophe… the only question remaining is, who - or what - is it a catastrophe for?
Mike Hulme has added a second comment, in response to a rather muddled remark from Steve Bloom
Geoff -- "What does this mean? On the face of it he seems to be saying that a paper dividing views on climate change into ‘right and ‘wrong’ would have been OK prior to Climategate and Copenhagen, but not OK thereafter. "
I don't think it's a point about right or wrong; it's question of what people's expectations and ambitions were, and what possibilities existed. It would have got more purchase pre-climategate. But the understanding of the debate -- and the debate itself -- is more sophisticated now. Cook/Dana et all, The Graun generally, and people like Bob Ward are not only completely stuck in that mode of debate -- deniers vs scientists -- they increasingly see any attempt to respond to a more sophisticated debate as a concession to that debate. They want to recreate those simple moral coordinates.
It has shocked Ward and Dana that the BBC, and to a much lesser extent, the Uni of Nottingham would dare to give time to views that might be sympathetic to scepticism. But because their projects have been strategic, rather than about the substance of debate, they don't have the knack of responding to argument.
Ward, for example, used to be able to put gold-nibbed pen to Royal Society paper, firing off missives from the oldest science academy in the world to anyone who might have tossed a penny to the sceptic cause, or to the editors of papers or magazines that might publish sceptical views. Now he's reduced to writing insanely angry articles -- for no money -- for the Huffington Post.
But it just doesn't wash any more.
Geoff:
By quoting this and interposing my thoughts I'm not of course trying to imply that Ben's aren't mightier and more influential. But a few reactions.
First, newly-minted clear-headedness from Hulme and others who were solidly in the warmist camp before Climategate tends to be saluted as first swallow only by a small subset of BH contributors. Annoying if you think that's premature but surely never at the canonical 97% level.
Second, clear-headedness is always welcome, even if it's self-interested clear-headedness.
Third, I don't know what it's going to take to 'get the word out to the Daveys and Obamas' and, with respect, I doubt you do. They are two very different cases in my book. One thing we can say for sure is that Obama has never put himself in a position to be so forensically grilled on the global warming issue on mainstream TV as Davey has. Chalk one up for the old country there, much to everyone's surprise.
Most of all, though, I agree with Paul Matthews (at 1:04 PM). If Hulme began "Ben Pile is spot on" that speaks volumes. Personalities rather than policies? Not really. But in the midst of such determined attempts to demonise and disenfranchise the 3%, us finickity untermenschen who to the fury of our overlords won't even admit we're belong in that bracket, it's enough. Welcome aboard, Mike.
Thanks osseo and PeterS for those thoughtful comments. Mike Hulme wrote a whole book welcoming such contributions from far outside the boundaries of science, but I somehow don’t think he’ll be along to participate.
PeterS’s comment reminds me that the most profound commentary I’ve seen on the subject of consensus is Elias Canetti’s “Crowds and Power”. As a refugee in the thirties from a real catastrophe he knew a thing or two about the force and the meaning of the urge towards unanimity.
Ben Pile
In speculating on what purchase the Cook/Nuccitelli approach might have had pre- or post climategate, Hulme is indulging in the same kind of harmless speculation that I and lots of others like to practice. It will become interesting when he does it in a forum or a manner which allows for free debate. All I see so far is a venerable figure “on one side of the debate” rapping the knuckles of a couple of incompetent and therefore embarrassing allies. What’s he saying other than: “A fine mess you’ve got us into, Nucci”?
I didn’t know Ward was now at Huffington Post. He’s reaching more hearts and minds there than he ever did at the Royal Society, that’s for sure. And he’s still got his hedge-fund financed job at the LSE I imagine. And Nuccitelli’s position at his Big Oil job is secure, now he’s been outed. No-one would ever dare sack him should he be found to have been writing Guardian Environment articles in working hours after all the publicity.
Which is not to say that you’re wrong in detecting a wind of change in the warmist movement. Hulme is absolutely right in his basic insight that the warmism needs to be treated as a complex social and political fact, which means it requires the contributions of people far outside the world of climate science. But we know who those people are, and what “side” they’ll come down on.
Of course, Hulme would dispute my use of the word “side”. Well, he would, wouldn’t he?
Richard Drake
Sorry if I gave the impression that I see Hulme as a kind of snake in the grass out to seduce innocent BH commenters. I know it’s not like that. My target was rather a general tendency (entirely understandable) to shout “we’ve won” at every bit of good news, whether it’s a bit of good sense and honesty from a “warmist”, or a sceptical article in the Graun, or a new, lower estimate of climate sensitivity.
Following Chris Goodall’s surprising demolition of Stephen Emmott’s doom-mongering at Guardian Environment I commented postively on his Carbon Commentary blog, which led to a private exchange in which I suggested a dialogue on subjects we could agree on. No response. Same thing with Martin Lack, who has commented on Ben’s article. Maybe Ben could initiate something with Mike Hulme. Now that would be worth reading.
"I didn’t know Ward was now at Huffington Post. He’s reaching more hearts and minds there than he ever did at the Royal Society, that’s for sure. "
It's quite a riot:
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/bob-ward/huge-blow-to-campaign-by-_b_3645347.html
More hearts and minds? Perhaps. But fewer editors and ministers. Even environmentalists would recognise that he's not a full deck of cards.
"Even environmentalists would recognise that he [Bob Ward]'s not a full deck of cards."
A joker perhaps. Or the Queen of Hearts yelling "Off with their heads!"
Geoff: I entirely see your point about the lack in Lack and others not entering fully into open dialogue. You're in the front line in many of those encounters and your evaluation counts double in my book as a result. Perhaps my most fundamental point is agnosticism about how power finally changes its mind. Speaking truth in that direction is lots of fun in a culture where one doesn't get killed for one's troubles but some don't seem to get this. Which straw will do for this particular camel? I think it's because we don't know that we tend to cheer every good move, from whichever player and wherever it occurs on the pitch. It's not wrong for the "twelfth man" to make his (and her) contribution in this way.
I think you've mentioned that before but thanks a lot for the reminder.
An earlier post fell victim to His Grace' troll-hunt.
The 97% consensus paper finds no such thing.
1. The number is not 97%. I reckon that the data actually support around 90%. There are so many issues with the data that I have been unable to put a standard deviation on that estimate. Cook et al. do not survey the literature. They sample the literature. Their sample is unrepresentative. Whatever the number in the sample, it is not the number in the literature.
2. Cook does not test the hypothesis "are greenhouse gases the main cause of observed climate change over the last 150 years?" Instead, they primarily look at papers on climate impacts and climate policy. At best, they find a vote of confidence of the broader climate research community in climate science (narrowly defined). However, the incentives are wrong. If I want to publish a paper on the impact of climate change on malaria, I will not openly disagree with climate consensus. Cook thus measures a mix of confidence votes and cheap talk -- but not hypothesis tests.
3. Ratings were done by humans, only 12 of them, and self-selected ones at that. This could mean that the data are observations on the raters rather than the abstracts. Cook is fighting tooth and nail against releasing the data that would show I'm wrong.
Richard Tol: "1. The number is not 97%. I reckon that the data actually support around 90%. There are so many issues with the data that I have been unable to put a standard deviation on that estimate. Cook et al. do not survey the literature. They sample the literature. Their sample is unrepresentative. Whatever the number in the sample, it is not the number in the literature."
The highlighted point is very interesting. I was going to mention it in my reply to Martin Lack over at the Nottingham blog, but my response was already too long.
I wanted to see how some other authors got treated by the survey, and what sort of papers were being surveyed. My intuition led me to search the Consensus Project for Trenberth. Sure enough, the fourth article listed -- Modern Global Climate Change, (2003) in the journal Science -- turns out to have been recorded as "Endorsement Level: 1. Explicitly endorses and quantifies AGW as 50+%"
However, if you take a look at Modern Climate Change [PDF HERE] it is not as much 'science' as it is an op-ed. It only qualifies as 'science' by virtue of appearing in a science journal and by having been written by a scientists. It doesn't present any new findings or research of any kind.
So I wonder how many op-eds are in this survey? And more importantly, how many abstracts are counted as 'endorsing' the consensus, simply because the abstract states 'man made climate change is happening' -- which is much more a shibboleth than it is a scientific statement?
Geoff -- "Same thing with Martin Lack, who has commented on Ben’s article. Maybe Ben could initiate something with Mike Hulme."
Here's Mike Hulme at the 2007 Battle of Ideas festival, with Chris Rapley, Hans Von Storch, and Joe Kaplinsky. http://fora.tv/2007/10/28/Science_and_Politics_of_Climate_Change It's well worth a watch. I don't think Hulme does avoid dialogue -- if that was your suggestion. He certainly didn't there. And I spoke with him at some point after (though that might have been 2008), at length.
I don't know about Goodall, but the Lacks of this world seem more intent on drive-by sniping, and will resist argument with cascades of special pleading.
Ben Pile:
It's only right to make clear at this point that the vast majority of people on Bishop Hill think that man made climate change in happening. Doesn't this show that every single thread here counts as another nail in the coffin of the hated deniers, in whatever dark corner they are finally to be found?
Cook is fighting tooth and nail against releasing the data that would show I'm wrong.
Jul 25, 2013 at 7:01 PM Richard Tol
Why should he release the data when you just want to find something wrong with it? (© Phil Jones)
Absolutely spot on Geoff.
The clear evidence that this "peer reviewed paper" was dreamed up in advance by a bunch of totally unqualified activists, to achieve pre-determined conclusions, should have prevented any respectable scientific journal going within a mile of it.
In their way, the leaked discussions of the preparation of this piece of dross, by the Treehouse Mob, are almost as important as the climategate emails.
They show beyond doubt that there are simply no boundaries in the climate movement between proper science and activist propaganda. The two have been blended to the point where it is impossible to separate them.
The fact that self appointed experts like Cook and Nuccitelli, with no relevant qualifications in any aspect of the science they purport to endorse, can not only put their names on scientific papers - but invite their supporters to do the same, makes their whole "scientific literature" a silly charade.
Don't real "climate scientists" (assuming they exist) see that, every time people like Cook, Nuccitelli, Lewandowsky et al come up with one of their wizard schemes - the credibility of the whole science takes another hit below the waterline?
Can I make what seems the most obvious point?
However defined, the percentage of climate scientists, indeed any kind of scientists, said to affirm the reality of AGW means nothing if there is nothing to show that they are right.
And at the moment there is nothing. Lots of theories, lots of assertions, lots of projections. But no proof.
Cook can assert as much as he likes that 97% of climate scientists believe/assert/confirm that AGW is real. But until real evidence can be produced to show that that they are right, it really doesn't matter whether 1% or 100% of climate scientists agree with him.
In other words, Cook's is an obviously empty claim, designed to garner headlines while missing the most basic reality: that it doesn't matter what anyone thinks; what matters is what is true.
And truth, as Cook may one day discover, is a much complicated matter than his self-righteous indignation asserts.
The fact is, it can't be manipulated. Such is the beauty of science.
Hulme, like James Lovelock is highly critical of the embarrassing nonsense of climate sensitivity (forecasts), however, he, like Lovelock is a rabid environmentalist.
Founding director of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change: ‘Time to ditch consensus’
Moreover, says Hulme, no one is even quite sure what sort of knowledge it is that the IPCC, as a “boundary organisation” – part science, part politics - actually produces. Nor how the world at large interprets that hybrid knowledge. Even more fundamentally, he says, it is far from clear that the IPCC has actually allowed us to do “better science”:
“Or has it actually narrowed the way we frame and ask questions in climate change research?" Hulme wonders
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/05/06/mike_hulme_interview/print.html
@Foxgoose "The clear evidence that this "peer reviewed paper" was dreamed up in advance by a bunch of totally unqualified activists, to achieve pre-determined conclusions, should have prevented any respectable scientific journal going within a mile of it."
ERL's Executive Board includes one Peter H. Gleick. Is that respectable?
TT
Q.E.D.
Mike Hulme, founding director of the Tyndall Centre, and Professor of Climate Change at the University of East Anglia (UEA).
Bashing Cook et al - so what?
A very busy bloke is Mike [Hulme], a man learned in weasel words and sophistry, a man who is so enamoured of his own gifts and in a fundament all of his own, that it would be difficult for him to perceive which way is up.
Are we to trust aught which emanates from his mouth?
Believe Hulme! Honestly you must be joking.
Here is a flavour of what this man is up to:
All this talk of "climate change". No! What we are talking of is, man made emissions of CO2 supposedly [according to 97% of a few] causes [somehow] increased warming of the earth's atmosphere, and aka CAGW. A fruitcake supposition - though the perfect vehicle for such climatology charlatans, the likes of Mike Hulme et al.
The climate changes - were are 100% agreed on that, on all else that Hulme utters - his ideological guff is antithetical - to my way of thinking.
Mike has always played with a different band and using his terms and terminology [climate change] plays right into his [and Davey's] hands.
Have to agree with BernieL, Geoff Chambers, Athelstan et al about Hulme.
He is very astute at surfing whatever wave will take him furthest (while keeping a sharp eye out for what is coming up behind), and applies this undoubted skill to occasionally finger-wagging at those who are going to end up in the soup. But you will seek in vain for a clearly articulated position, with reasons, on whatever he is writing about - just hints and a great deal of pseudo-philosophical waffle. A very great deal of the latter, I might add.
Geoff's point about the "post 2009" comment is quite right. He is simply berating those who are not as smart as he is at picking up trends. About the actual science, or the ethical standards of the actors, he has little or nothing to say.
That is his choice, and he is free to make it. But the rest of us are free to be suspicious of someone whose ever-floating position, conjoined (as he admits) with identifying opportunities to turn fashion into activism, points more to skilled opportunism than to principle or a genuine search for truth..
3. Ratings were done by humans, only 12 of them, and self-selected ones at that. This could mean that the data are observations on the raters rather than the abstracts. Cook is fighting tooth and nail against releasing the data that would show I'm wrong.
Jul 25, 2013 at 7:01 PM | Unregistered CommenterRichard Tol
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
What astonished me from the get-go, is that anybody could take such a "survey" seriously, and publish it. They interviewed themselves and presented it as valid research. The other surprise is that they didn't have "97%" T-shirts printed and ready to ship before publication.
Neither right not wrong, then, but truth times root minus one of feck all.
@Michael
Indeed. It is amazing that this got past editor and referees. It is amazing too that the editor is in no hurry to enforce his journal's policy on access to data.
Richard Tol (Jul 25, 2013 at 7:01 PM):
There’s nothing wrong with a survey based on sampling, if done correctly. Cook et al went wrong from the very beginning, whe they used search terms “global warming” and global climate change”, thus eliminating any article which just mentioned “climate change”. Cook pulled exactly the same trick in the Lewandowsky et al “Recursive Fury” paper when he searched for mentions of “Stephan Lewandowsky”, thus neatly eliminating all of his own comments (Cook calls him “Steve”).geoffchambers:
Yep.
You probably would be able to get away with fewer than 10,000 papers if you sampled it properly. The 10,000+ number was due to their efforts to survey the entire population, which as you pointed out, which they failed to do, owing to poor search terms.
Incidentally the IPCC would probably say "no" to this question "are greenhouse gases the main cause of observed climate change over the last 150 years?" According to the IPCC AR4, greenhouse gases are the main cause only from 1970 - current (more than 50%).
It's interesting how difficult it is to get the right nuance on questions so you're actually polling for what you think you're polling for...
@carrick
Sampling is fine if you know how to do it. If not, get one of the many textbooks.
There are textbooks on questionnaire design to. They invariably tell you to pre-test your questions. The leaked/hacked/whatever SkS discussions show that they failed to do so, which may explain the drift in the results (mistaken for a trend by Cook). This may in turn explain why Cook refuses to release time stamps.
As pointed out by multiple people it is really the Why? the X% on both sides of the question believe what they do that is the interesting bit. I see very, very little why on the warmist side of the debate and I'm very willing to listen to all the scientific arguments.
Whether or not I agree with Mike Hulme it is reassuring to see bad science being called bad science. However, Hulme's comment about public understanding changing after 2009 ignores a critical factor: By that time legislation was enacted or on the way to being enacted that would see policies presented as tackling climate change become hard wired into many governments and economies. Climategate did nothing to stop that. The public may now see that the science was always unsettled but the legislation rumbles on.
I am also interested in the various excerpts of Mike Hulme provided here. In particular climate change being "... an idea that we develop and employ to fulfil a variety of tasks for us". Who would set those tasks and who would be required to fulfil them? On an individual scale that would be largely benign but as you scale it up through various sizes of population the potential for mischief becomes ominous. Hulme appears to want climate change to take on the shape, language and standing of a religion. In that I agree with osseo's comment earlier and add that Hulme's apparent wishes can only be possible now because the science was previously and dubiously presented as settled.
In a 2010 piece for the Guardian Mike Hulme wrote about the perceived shift but the three principles he highlights do not give me any confidence in that being accurate.
All three remain in the direction of 'something must be done'. The first two points are along the lines of 'even if we are wrong about climate change itself there are additional benefits' and this has long be one of the many arrows in the alarmist quiver. So why not get on with policies that would tackle those issues without invoking climate change? The third point suggests that a global co-ordinated effort is still required but that the UN brand is damaged. The song remains the same.
carrick, as was exhaustively discussed on multiple blogs, with inputs from people (including me) who have conducted surveys for a living, this was so bad it would not have passed a first year undergraduate course on how to design and conduct a survey of the literature or anything else.
In fact, I think that analysing "climate change" papers would be a lengthy, complex and expensive exercise, and is well out of the reach of Cookie and a few enthusiastic elves. Nor am I sure what it would achieve.
A decent literature survey and analysis necessarily discards and/or discounts a lot of material, and therefore qualitative judgements must be made. As a look at Numberwatch's List of Things Attributed to Climate Change shows, there are thousands of papers out there which are too soggy even to be used in the dunny (err ... loo for UK readers).
Few people have the skills to do this (Steve Milloy comes to mind) and even fewer of them could be bothered trying to swim through treacle for many months to do it.
It is telling that someone (Hulme) who has resisted tribalism and tried to keep the discussion substantive may be considered a heretic / traitor / convert while partisan zoons who imagine a CO2 sensivity figure of 5.0 regard themselves part the 97%.
I think Hulme also coined the phrase "climate porn" regarding the tiresome use of improbably disaster scenarios to compel ideological loyalty. It is a tragedy that the Tyndall crowd (like Hulme and Pielke, jr. ) could be considered marginal while the freak show purveyers claim the mainstream mantle. What a waste.
Old Hoya, he didn't resist tribalism, he rode (and rides) on the crest of a wave while not engaging with it directly. He describes it in the way that social "scientists" of no particular merit but a certain verbal facility do so. He uses "post-modern science" as a way of blurring clear reasoning.
He is no Max Weber.