Hewitt again

I'm still can't take the smile off my face at the ridiculousness of Nick Hewitt's 'review'. It's just so hard to comprehend how one can reach the rank of full professor and still be unable to put together a coherent argument (although who knows, perhaps this is normal at Lancaster, Phil Jones' alma mater). Come to think of it, it's hard to comprehend how one can become a full professor without being able to spell 'practice', but that's probably just me being pedantic again.

And once again, we have a review that could have been written without actually reading the book at all. Not a single quote from the book, not a single fact disputed. I'm wondering if I should christen this kind of thing a "Hewitt", in honour of Professor Nick.

How many more Hewitts do you think there will be before next week?

Update on Sep 3, 2010 by Bishop Hill

Doug Keenan in the comments:

Suppose that the arguments presented in HSI are valid. Then a scientific conclusion that was major for global-warming science, and was published in the top scientific journal, and had been considered established for years, was not just wrong, but unfounded and rubbish. And the discovery of this came from an outsider. What would that say about global-warming science?

HSI brings global-warming science into disrepute, to some extent. And the global-warming scientists do not want to accept such a thing—because their self-images are founded on the glory of their science. In other words, from Hewitt’s perspective, HSI is an attack on his identity.

This is not about science, but about the self-images of the scientists.

Another review

Chemistry World is the latest magazine to review the Hockey Stick Illusion. This is another critical one...

Here, one small part of the body of evidence that shows the Earth is warming is examined in tedious detail, with a focus on the actions and words of its protagonists. Undoubtedly there have been shortcomings in working practises, many a result of the sustained pressure these individuals have been under from a small but determined group of sceptics (most recently in the UK through the repeated use of freedom of information requests), but this polemic does absolutely nothing to alter the physics of the Earth system. Andrew Montford declares he studied chemistry - with the benefit of his scientific education one would think he should know better. Readers of Chemistry World will have far better things to do than read this pedantic book.

Another critic who does not dispute anything I say! Looking good...

Update on Sep 2, 2010 by Bishop Hill

I haven't stopped laughing since I first read this review. Professor Hewitt should be on the telly.

Revkin on the HSI (or not)

In the comments to one of the DotEarth threads Andy Revkin pointed out yesterday, the great man has this to say when asked whether he had read the Hockey Stick Illusion.

Others have far more capacity/time to dissect climate books than I do (given that this is not a climate blog, but tracking issues ranging from wildlife trafficking to population growth). I recommend folks go to Realclimate for some informed critiques of that book.

I wonder if he missed my response and Steve M's evisceration of the Stahle thing, which left Tamino looking, ahem, less than straightforward.

Revkin on retractions and apologies

Andy Revkin at the New York Times has picked up on the Guardian's apology to yours truly and also on the non-apology that the Telegraph made to Rajendra Pachauri.

Update on Aug 27, 2010 by Bishop Hill

Revkin also has this piece today, looking at trust in scientists, particularly climate scientists.

More from the Guardian

The Guardian has made further changes to Bob Ward's article. The title previously referred to sceptics having misled the public over the Climategate inquiries. This was unfortunate since the article below was about my book, which predates the Climategate inquiries by some weeks.  The revision now speaks about the "hacked emails". They've also made it into a question.

More to come.

Signed copies of HSI

Stairway Press is now offering North American readers signed copies of The Hockey Stick Illusion. Get them here.



Message from the Guardian

This article was amended on 20th August 2010 following a complaint from Andrew Montford to make it clear that we did not mean to imply that Andrew Montford deliberately published false information in order to support the arguments made in his book. We apologise if such a false impression was given. 

See it here.

Cleaning coffee from PC screen

Jo Abbess has complained about me to Newsnight. This is too funny. As Ms Abbess puts it:

I don’t expect much from it in terms of any kind of sensible, relevant reply...

No indeed.

Prospect on the Hockey Stick (again)

There's a new review of the Hockey Stick Illusion at Prospect Magazine's blog. Two reviews from the same magazine!

This one is a critique, by Professor Richard Joyner of Nottingham Trent University.  He hasn't really got anything to say apart from saying he doesn't like it. It's good though to see that he has no issues with the facts as presented, just like several  of the other critiques. I think we can probably say that there is now a "consensus" that the facts are accurately presented in the book.

Click to read more ...

Wiki wars

A correspondent writes to tell me that Wikipedia's Arbitration Committee are currently examining the conduct of people involved in the ongoing saga of edit wars over climate change articles. The allegations and counter-allegations over who did what and when can be seen here.

There has now been a draft decision issued and it looks as though, hot on the heels of losing his SysOp privileges, Dr Connolley may be up for a ban. He will be accompanied by at least one sceptic.

(As always with Wiki, please don't get involved if you are not already)

Newsnight reactions

Mixed reactions to my performance last night, and I guess from a sceptic point of view I was probably slightly off-message. A few thoughts though. Firstly my main objective last night was not to cock up. Ahead of the GWPF report that would have been a disaster. So to that extent I was successful.

In terms of the content of the Newsnight report, the whole thing was covered in what I thought was a reasonably nuanced way that was difficult to take umbrage with. In terms of getting the message over - that you can't point to the Pakistan floods and say they were caused by climate change, I think commenters here agree that everyone on Newsnight seemed to concur that you can't say this, so to that extent it went well. If the BBC and other media outlets are now going to eschew climate porn because everyone is saying it can't be attributed then that's quite an important victory. I would have liked to take a pot-shot at the "consistent with global warming" argument but they moved on so quickly I didn't get a chance.

The second question, on what to do about it was slightly odd - a bit of a no-brainer really. If you are prone to flooding, then, yes, take mitigation steps - provided they are economically sensible of course.

And finally the inevitable sceptic/denier question. I'd growled at the BBC researcher earlier in the day when he was doing the rehearsal. Then, he put the question in terms of something like "it must be hard being a denier". I think he was slightly taken aback when I (very gently) put him right on his terminology. So when it came to the question at the end, they had everything fixed and just asked whether I acknowledged that mankind was affecting the climate. This again is a pretty easy question, because of course mankind has always affected the climate. If I had my time over again, I would have made this point more clearly. I don't think you can get away from the radiative physics arguments for AGW. It seems likely to me that it has some effect, but as I tried to make clear in my 10 secs, we just don't know how big.

Newsnight

I've been invited to appear on Newsnight tonight to talk about the Pakistani floods and climate change. Should be interesting.

Update on Aug 23, 2010 by Bishop Hill

Well that was OK, I think. I'm pretty sure it was cut short - there was a delay on the line to Seattle which made things quite difficult for everyone. I did half wonder if the lack of hyperbole didn't make for very good telly, but in terms of the science I agree with commenters that the whole thing portrayed a pretty good balance.

Enjoying Wiki

I'm thoroughly amused by the latest contribution to the Wiki talk page on the Hockey Stick Illusion. As previously, please don't get involved. Leave this to those who are already there. This avoids trouble with Wiki's canvassing rules.

Just get some popcorn and have a good giggle.

Progress...

Some changes have been made to Bob Ward's article.

More news soon, I hope.

Glaring inaccuracies and misrepresentations

...but not mine.

Firstly, one should always accentuate the positive first, so I am going to praise Bob Ward for eschewing the words "denier" and "denialist". This is a good thing and will help elevate the tone of the debate. I assume this was his idea rather than something that was forced upon him by the Guardian.

Click to read more ...