Bishop Hill My letter in The Australian
Sep 25, 2013 Climate: other I have a letter in The Australian rebutting various aspects of John Cook's response to my critique of his "Consensus" paper. It's paywalled, so I can't see exactly what made print, but this is what I sent them.
Sir
Having no defence to my observation that the global warming consensus identified in his paper amounts to little more than the everyday observations that carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas and that it will cause some warming, John Cook (article, 21 September) seeks to find solace in an opinion poll he conducted, in which he found that the vast majority of scientists rated their own papers as supporting the idea that mankind is causing most global warming.
Readers should note that Mr Cook is making a new claim – his original paper only spoke of claims about mankind causing some unspecified quantity of global warming and my observation that the consensus it reveals is a shallow one is therefore true.
One assumes that the reason he did not make the stronger claim in his paper is that his poll of scientists is not scientifically robust. Most sceptics would surely have ignored his request, and so the results are almost certainly biased.
Yours etc
Reader Comments (14)
"HAVING no defence to my observation that the global warming consensus identified in his paper amounts to little more than the everyday observations that carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas and that it will cause some warming ("Consensus on changing climate just PR campaign", 14-15/9), John Cook seeks to find solace in an opinion poll he conducted, in which he found that the vast majority of scientists rated their own papers as supporting the idea that mankind is causing most global warming ("Hardly any experts doubt human-caused climate change", 21-22/9).
Readers should note that Cook is making a new claim - his original paper spoke only of claims about mankind causing some unspecified quantity of global warming and my observation that the consensus it reveals is a shallow one is therefore true.
One assumes the reason he did not make the stronger claim in his paper is that his poll of scientists is not robust. Most sceptics would surely have ignored his request, and so the results are almost certainly biased.
Andrew Montford, Perth, Scotland"
Apart from the reference at the end of Para 1, seems to be pretty much verbatim, Yer Grace.
The paywall can be gotten around by googling this (without the quotes): “Andrew Montford site:theaustralian.com.au”—then clicking on the relevant link. The full letter is below.
"mankind causing some unspecified quantity of global warming "
Given the reality of the greenhouse it is true. Given the other reality of computer models, it is meaningless.
That is what Pielke cleverly hides behind and in an alter ego, I would be prepared to do the same.
Your letter made it in the Wed. Sept 25, 2013 edition, p 13, in the centre of the letters page & boldly headlined, "Variations of scale in describing global warming". Cheers, Bill
Also highly effective is to go to the letters page, click on the Bish's offering, and then as soon as the page appears, press 'stop loading' in your browser. Cuts out all the subscription rubbish...works on a few other sites while the logins, ads, tweets, facebook etc links load themselves.
As mentioned above, the letter has been published in full.
We all know, the fact that the warmists consensus paper is rubbish, counts for nothing with policy makers. In fact only today I watched a Labour Party member (it might have been an MP), say, with absolute confidence, that the IPCC will tell us that the global warming problem is getting worse, etc..No mention of the global temperature hiatus. All reason has long gone out of the window.
According to the precautionary principle ( which I don't support ) 'some' could become 'most'. So 'any' increase in CO2 or warming is dangerous.
CO2 is infra-red active but If you call it a greenhouse gas you have lost the argument about warming before you start, you are part the 97% consensus.
According to the precautionary principle, one cannot apply the precautionary principle.
I'm just disappointed to find that contributing to The Australian doesn't get you at least a couple of free log-ins. I'm also disappointed at Andrew's prim demeanour on the BBC News the other night. I was expecting a scathing Scotsman.
Nice comment Bish you have it sweet.
It is interesting that there seems to be a sceptic tactical spread building on the Cook 97% critique.
I think I see this Cook paper has disparate sceptic predators not agreeing if they will let the other touch the prey, let alone if they will share ;)
I like the Bish's approach; simply emphasising the shallow claim ;)
It confuses everyone but let me say that Cook is the Judas goat of alarmists ...
Let the rest follow ;)
Looking at IPCC forcings, virtually ALL warming is due to mankind. Cook should have polled this opinion.
While it is great that you got it published, I doubt that the average reader would have had a clue what you were talking about.
It is easy to forget that at least 95% of the population do not have the kind of detailed exposure to, or interest in, these issues that (for example) commenters at BH have. And, it is not about keeping us happy, it is about reaching out.
Sorry, but a wasted opportunity IMO.
Absolutely right, Berndt (I've been saying this for decades). But you must appreciate that no Green ever applies the principle to anything other than technical change. There's no reason for this, it's just policy. Any new hare-brained political or social scheme (not too difficult to think of examples) goes through on the nod, without a qualm.
I notice there was another round of Cook and then the Bish in the Financial Post
The Bish is right to pick up on his vagueness again, but for me this little gem from Cook really stood out as a real corker of dissembling that needed commenting on:
The man is either just a plain huckster here or has some pathological self deceptive condition that allows him to just construct crap like this on the fly.
I commented on it there