Friday
Jun112010
by 
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill Quote of the day
Jun 11, 2010 Climate: Models Climate: other Claims such as ‘2,500 of the world’s leading scientists have reached a consensus that human activities are having a significant influence on the climate’ are disingenuous. That particular consensus judgement, as are many others in the IPCC reports, is reached by only a few dozen experts in the specific field of detection and attribution studies; other IPCC authors are experts in other fields.
Mike Hulme in a forthcoming paper about the governance of the IPCC.
Reader Comments (14)
Another blow to the IPCC
http://www.nature.com/news/2010/100610/full/news.2010.292.html
Global warming's impact on Asia's rivers overblown
Don't forget that Mike Hulme, like his pal Roger Pielke Jnr is an environmentalist who believes that the IPCC scam has run its course but still wants to decarbonise the global economy. He has stated that AGW can be used as lever to achieve his environmental goals. In my view, Hulme beautifully illustrates why most scientists should stay in the domain of numbers and leave words and ideas to others.
He writes
"Religion as well actually leads us to see disagreement in our discourse around climate change, because we have different ways of recognizing divine authority and the relationship between different types of revelations and the way in which our morality is constructed."
http://www.peopleandplace.net/media_library/audio/2009/6/10/mike_hulme_why_we_disagree_about_climate_change
I don't understand which way Mike Hulme is going. He is a CAGW alarmist and yet appears to disparage the political process of the IPCC. Is he trying to have his cake and eat it?
Philip, I don't know that he is a CAGWist. If he is he's on the moderate wing, I have for some time thought he's an agnostic, and doesn't believe, quite rightly, that cutting CO2 emissions is either probable, or possible. A view that I share. There are many videos of him speaking on youtube where you can see the words are carefully chosen, and the arguments framed so as to appear in support of CAGW, while at the same time questioning its provenance. Given the vicious nature of the activist climate scientists, and their bosses, that surround him he's probably just trying to keep his job.
Just a guess, for all I really know he could be the Josef Stalin of the CAGW community, but I don't think so.
This is old, old news.
What we need to know is who were involved in fabricating this idea of a scientific consensus and who did it benefit?
Name and shame, name and shame.
Well, wasn't it about a dozen who wrote the Summary for Policymakers? Proudly strutting policy spawns prats.
===================
I skimmed the paper. What a lot of twaddle. The conclusion says
During its 20-year history, the IPCC has been examined critically from a number of different standpoints: dissecting its 1980s origins; revealing its norms, practices and modes of self-governance; debating the role of consensus in its assessments; policing characterizations of uncertainty; and tracing the relationship of its institutional function and knowledge claims to emerging ideas of global environmental governance. But other questions about the status of climate change knowledge synthesized by the IPCC remain less widely investigated, questions which emerge from the agendas raised by the new geographers of science (e.g. Powell, 2007; Finnegan, 2008). As Sheila Jasanoff has shown in many of her writings (e.g. Jasanoff, 2004a,b; 2010), knowledge that is claimed by its producers to have universal authority is received and interpreted very differently in different political and cultural settings. Revealing the local and situated characteristics of climate change knowledge thus becomes central for understanding both the acceptance and resistance that is shown towards the knowledge claims of the IPCC. It is a task for physical and human geographers to take seriously, and to do together.
Hmmm. What about getting the scientists to publish their data or to stop colluding or to stop inventing dodgy statistical methods ?
Sounds like a task for a super human geographer.
http://nofrakkingconsensus.blogspot.com/2010/06/how-many-ipcc-scientists-say-so.html
Maybe he is lining himself up to " go out one door and into the next door "
http://icecap.us/index.php/go/political-climate
I'm fascinated by what people like Mike Hulme actually do for a living. I've read several things written by Mr Hulme (Dr Hulme?) and they just seem to be extraordinary exercises in complicated verbiage. What EXACTLY is the point of his writing? Who's his audience? How many other people like this are there sitting around in our universities? Who would notice if they all disappeared tomorrow? I strongly suspect that the only people who generally read papers like the one Mr Hulme has written, are other people just like him, who will write similar pieces in response. And so it will go round and round.
As Mr Hulme says in his conclusions:
"But other questions about the status of climate change knowledge synthesized by the IPCC remain less widely investigated, questions which emerge from the agendas raised by the new geographers of science (e.g. Powell, 2007; Finnegan, 2008). As Sheila Jasanoff has shown in many of her writings (e.g. Jasanoff, 2004a,b; 2010), knowledge that is claimed by its producers to have universal authority is received and interpreted very differently in different political and cultural settings."
I can't wait to hear what Powell, Finnegan and Jassanoff have to say about what Hulme has to say. Hopefully we will also shortly hear from Pugh, Pugh, Barley-McGrew, Cuthbert, Dibble and Grubb.
This was pretty much revealed in a debate between Dr William H. Schlesinger and Dr John R. Christy last year, where Schlesinger on a direct question admitted that only about 20% of the people involved in the IPCC review process had any expertise in climate science.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jcflZ8FO0I4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Faeh4eBc4qE
In other words, the claims that there exists a consensus for CAGW composed of 2500 climate scientists working for the IPCC, is complete nonsense. It’s a great lie.
This is the lie which the politicians and the media use for promoting the CAGW scam.
Mike Hulme is one of the few scientists at the heart of the 'climate change community' who is prepared to express so clearly his doubts about the process. Can you imagine RealClimate running an article along the lines of his paper? You might not agree with him but I believe he is one of the few of speak the truth as they see it.
Review of 'Why we disagree about climate change'
about this supposed “fraud” mike hulme has “exposed”…. have you read what he said? – not just the little blurb cherry-picked above? context is important. the part around now-famous “skeptic” meme “Claims such as ‘2,500 of the world’s leading scientists have reached a consensus that human activities are having a significant influence on the climate’ are disingenuous” reads:
"Without a careful explanation about what it means, this drive for consensus can leave the IPCC vulnerable to outside criticism. Claims such as ‘2,500 of the world’s leading scientists have reached a consensus that human activities are having a significant influence on the climate’ are disingenuous. That particular consensus judgement, as are many others in the IPCC reports, is reached by only a few dozen experts in the specific field of detection and attribution studies; other IPCC authors are experts in other fields.”
see that? nothing conspiratorial. nothing to hide. experts in a particular field make judgements about their particular field. that's all. he was trying to make a nuanced point (i know that’s difficult some…) which was seized upon by those who just WISH climate change would go away…
i offer this analogy: if they were reporting on the health of a patient, it’s like the heart experts arrived at a consensus about the heart, the liver experts arrived at a consensus about the liver, the brain experts reached a consensus about the brain etc… now, in this scenario, it would be disingenuous to say ALL the doctors reached a consensus about the patient’s heart, right?
that’s the same thing. mike hulme IS NOT saying there’s NO CONSENSUS, he’s just explaining how each consensus judgment in IPCC reports are made by a few dozen scientists who are experts in that particular field.
thanks. now that i’ve clarified that for you, be sure to tell all your friends about what mike hulme was really saying, not what his words were cherry-picked to appear to say.
sadly, there is still a consensus that humans are causing global warming… sorry.
Not to mention that Hulme -- who does believe that AGW is real, but whose heart bleeds for people and economies more than the ecosphere -- has now *explicity* denied
the sort of spin the denialsphere is putting on the quote BH used:
http://mikehulme.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/Correcting-reports-of-the-PiPG-paper.pdf
I await the clarification from BH, Morano, Lawrence Solomon et al. with bated breath.