At the Yale Forum on Climate Change & the Media, I ask:
Are climate skeptics less important and less influential than they — and their counterparts in the climate-concerned community — would have us believe?
In recent days, Richard Tol, an economist and “climate polymath,” has been battling Georgia Tech climate scientist Judith Curry. It started when Curry spotlighted some questionable research (two journal papers) on her blog, which contained statistical analysis that Tol initially called “sloppy.” He said the work was “published in minor journals, so that these papers had best been ignored.”
After Curry and some of her readers objected, Tol became more direct:
Judith: Statistics is a branch of mathematics. Right and wrong are strictly defined. These papers are wrong in the mathematical sense of the word. I think you have done a disservice by lending your credibility to these papers.
He also tweeted:
Skepticism is healthy, disinformation is not
I started following the exchanges with interest, tweeting some of the highlights. Curry challenged the “disinformation” charges here, and the back-and-forth between her and Tol (which got more specific) continued in that thread.
For example, Tol argued:
1. You do not post everything here. You make a selection. You therefore cannot claim that you are innocent. You made a conscious choice to publish that guest post.
2. If you know anything about statistics, you would have recognized that these papers are methodologically flawed. Using “detrended” fluctuation analysis to study “trends” was a dead giveaway that something is not quite right with these papers.
3. If you don’t know anything about statistics, you should not have published the guest post. The flip side of your academic freedom is your academic duty to keep your mouth shut about things you don’t know about.
4. This blog is widely read. You plucked two papers out of obscurity and put them in the limelight.
5. You have build up a reputation of someone who is willing to speak and listen to anyone. That is great. Climate research is complicated and uncertain and climate policy is polarized so we need people in the middle who talk to both sides.
6. At the same time, you should not be in the middle for the sake of being in the middle.
7. There is a substantial body of climate research that is credible — even if it reaches opposite conclusions — but there are also papers (left, right, and center) that are just flawed.
8. If flawed papers reach a certain prominence, they should be debunked. Prominent but flawed research does damage as it misinforms people about climate change. Publicly criticizing such research hardens the existing polarization.
9. If flawed papers linger in obscurity, they should be ignored. The papers are wrong but do no damage. Lifting a flawed paper out of obscurity only to debunk it, is no good to anybody.
10. So, by giving air time to two papers that you should have known are flawed, you deliberately spread inaccurate information.
Curry responded:
Richard, your argument is deeply flawed, but I will not accuse you of spreading “disinformation’ about me amongst the twitterati.
You give yourself away with this statement “Prominent but flawed research does damage as it misinforms people about climate change. Publicly criticizing such research hardens the existing polarization.” Yours isn’t a statement about science, but about playing politics with science, and reinforces the gatekeeping mentality in climate science that was embarassingly revealed by the CRU emails. Of course there are flawed papers that get published. Few papers are published that don’t have any flaws and stand the test of time as an authoritative and unimproved upon statement about scientific truth. I am seeing palpable frustration about not being able to control what gets published and what gets discussed. Attacking me is an interesting (but probably futile) vent for your frustration.
Most people don’t come to climate etc. to reinforce their prejudices (there are far too many echo chambers where this is much more satisfyingly accomplished). The come here to learn something by considering the various arguments.
The most interesting thing about this exchange is that I have seen little actual debunking of the Ludecke papers, mostly complaints about their EIKE affiliation. Go check what you have done these last two days against the list of 25 in the main post. You effectively hijacked the thread with the disinformation accusation, which resulted in little serious analysis of the papers.
As for me, I explore all the time things I know little about, that is why I like being a scientist.
He shot back:
Gatekeeping is a bad thing when it is used to block papers for ideological reasons. Gatekeeping is a good thing when it comes to separating methodologically flawed from methodologically sound papers.
I did not remark on the conclusions of the papers. I did not remark on the motivations of the authors.
I did remark that the papers incorrectly apply inappropriate statistical methods to uninformative data.
It is unfortunate that these papers were published. It is unfortunate that you chose to draw attention to them.
Open-minded curiosity should be tempered by critical judgement, and yours lapsed in this case.
Of course I was “playing politics with science”. Don’t pretend you are not.
Next, Curry invited Tol to submit a detailed critique of the two papers that she had highlighted. He obliged. On that thread, Steven Mosher congratulates Tol for an
…incisive demolition of these two papers. I note the absence of any credible defense of the papers and a high incidence of topic changing.. look at the sunshine.. for example.
A bad paper neatly dispatched as you did is a good teaching tool.
However, some wont learn and they use the bad paper as an occasion to thread jack
There’s just one problem with that logic. What if Tol (or someone else with his chops and reputation) had not taken the time to comment at Curry’s blog, much less followed up with a thorough critique? It’s not reasonable to expect every bad paper spotlighted on a popular climate blog to be debunked. (For instance, hardly anyone of repute bothers doing this at WUWT.) So the larger question is whether Curry, who has standing in the climate science community, should be more discriminating in the research she chooses to highlight at her blog?
Finally, there is amongst all this something Curry stated which strikes me as curious:
Most people don’t come to climate etc. to reinforce their prejudices (there are far too many echo chambers where this is much more satisfyingly accomplished). They come here to learn something by considering the various arguments.
I beg to differ. Judging by the voluminous comments, it appears that most Climate Etc. readers are very much having their prejudices reinforced.
Climate skeptics are all tingly over Matt Ridley’s recent speech (titled “Scientific Heresy”) to the Royal Scottish Academy. The reaction from Anthony Watts and Bishop Hill reminded me of these famous fanboys.
The speech itself is worth reading and has numerous legitimate points ripe for debate, which I’ll take up in a future post. Meanwhile, I’ll ask if Ridley and climate skeptics ever wonder if they too are afflicted with “confirmation bias”?
Elisabeth Kübler-Ross famously coined the five stages of grief:
1) Denial, 2) Anger, 3) Bargaining, 4) Depression, 5) Acceptance
Anthony Watts appears to be stuck at stage 2. Oh sure, he’s still very much in denial over this, but make no mistake, he’s also fuming and furiously spinning. It is highly doubtful that any amount of peer review–when that final threshold is crossed–will be enough to get him through the final three stages of grief.
So Watts, his WUWT minions, and the Moranos, will always be the hold-outs. As Donald Rumsfeld would say, they are the dead-enders.
Here’s the publisher promo for James Lawrence Powell’s new book, The Inquisition of Climate Science:
Modern science is under the greatest and most successful attack in recent history. An industry of denial, abetted by news media and “info-tainment” broadcasters more interested in selling controversy than presenting facts, has duped half the American public into rejecting the facts of climate science—an overwhelming body of rigorously vetted scientific evidence showing that human-caused, carbon-based emissions are linked to warming the Earth. The industry of climate science denial is succeeding: public acceptance has declined even as the scientific evidence for global warming has increased. It is vital that the public understand how anti-science ideologues, pseudo-scientists, and non-scientists have bamboozled them. We cannot afford to get global warming wrong—yet we are, thanks to deniers and their method.
Gary, one of the scholars at Ecological Sociology, explains why the “anti-denier crusade” is itself in denial over the deficit model’s failure. (Hello, Al Gore?) Moreover, Gary observes:
Powell’s rhetoric, like that of many other scientists pushing the deficit model, preaches to the choir of believers. It has little to offer in terms of the real task, engaging in active dialogue with the deniers.
That’s obviously true. But was that ever an objective? Powell’s book and, to cite another well known example, Joe Romm’s blog, have no interest in engaging with “the deniers.” Their efforts are part of a ground war. Their battle strategy is simple: crush the enemy.
Others, who share the same larger goals of AGW proponents (taking action on global warming), see this tactic as self-defeating and suggest that neutralizing climate skeptics via other means would provide better results.
Alas, as Gary notes in his post, a typical feature of the “anti-denier crusade” is
a general lack of self-reflection, particularly as it relates to the use of rhetoric.
Serious, science-based climate skeptics have a chance to separate themselves from the foaming-at-the-mouth lunacy that defines their public image. I mention this because I know that some of you skeptics chafe at the buffoonish antics of Christopher Monckton and the sweeping declarations of Republican Senator James Inhofe.
As science writer David Brin has written (which I agree with),
Not every person who expresses doubt or criticism toward some part of this complex issue [climate change] is openly wedded to the shrill anti-intellectualism of Fox News — nor do all of them nod in agreement with absurd exaggerations, e.g., that a winter snowstorm refutes any gradual warming of Earth’s atmosphere. Indeed, you are likely to know some individuals who claim not to be “global warming deniers” but rational, open-minded “AGW-skeptics.”
My blog, with its weirdly diverse audience, attracts some readers who would classify themselves in the latter category. This post is addressed to you.
I know you roll your eyes at Monckton and Morano, and that you wish Anthony Watts could restrain his partisanship. You don’t like all the “baggage” that comes with the climate skeptic label. You try to ignore it.
Guess what? Texas Governor Rick Perry has now made that impossible. For the next 15 months, he will represent the Republican position on climate change. He will be the public face of climate skeptics.
Unfortunately for you, his position on climate science (it’s all a big hoax) will be associated with all his other positions on science.
A single tweet by Jon Huntsman, another Republican Presidential candidate, has articulated the sum meaning of this:
To be clear. I believe in evolution and trust scientists on global warming. Call me crazy.
This is a shot across the bow of the Republican party. Because of Tea Party mania, Huntsman is not expected to gain traction in the 2012 campaign. Perry, though, will likely saddle up the congealed Republican discontent, anger and culture war politics, and ride all the way to the GOP Presidential nomination.
And a little more than half the country will call him crazy and re-elect President Obama. By then, Perry will also have thoroughly established the climate skeptic position as crazy. And as scientifically illegitimate as creationism.
That is the foreshadowed meaning of Jon Huntsman’s tweet. Do you get that? If so, what are you going to do about it?
In order to support their own theories and beliefs about global warming, how likely is it that some climate skeptics would buy into this poll, hook, line and sinker?
If you liked that question, you’ll love this one from Rasmussen Reports:
In order to support their own theories and beliefs about global warming, how likely is it that some scientists have falsified research data?
That’s one of the questions from a telephone survey that provides the results that Rasmussen, Anthony Watts and Bishop Hill are headlining.
And so a central meme of the Morano/Inhofe wing (e.g., global warming is one big fraud) gets reinforced by a skewed poll.
Darn, I missed this show by just a few days. (I was in Boulder, Colorado much of last week.) I would have loved to hear from two prominent climate skeptics on how I’m part of the “brainwashed” media.
BTW, I spent much of my time in Boulder visiting with climate scientists at NCAR. I’ll let you know when the magazine story is out. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to continue with my deprogramming…
Anthony Watts, the proprietor of the well known climate skeptic blog, WUWT, seems to have a double standard on what constitutes an insult to ethnic groups.
Watts is making a big deal out of some recent comments by Timothy Wirth, a former U.S. senator and now the president of the UN Foundation, who reportedly said this during a recent conference call:
“[W]e have to–I think, again as I’ve suggested before–undertake an aggressive program to go after those who are among the deniers, who are putting out these mistruths, and really call them for what they’re doing and make a battle out of it. They’ve had pretty much of a free ride so far, and that time has got to stop.”
Watts and the right wing news outlet that is making hay out of Wirth’s comments, are disingenuously twisting the meaning of his words. Wirth is merely suggesting that climate skeptics should be more aggressively challenged on their claims, that’s all.
But Watts, a combat leader in the climate wars, puts his own spin on this for obvious partisan purposes:
Well yesterday, the former senator insulted the Jewish race with the tired old “denier” label, then set his foot on fire, then stuck it in his mouth trying to tell about half of the US population (according to recent polls) that he’s “coming after them” because they don’t share his opinion.
Please. People should be able to see through this for what it is.
Also, funny how Watts is offended on behalf of the “Jewish race” (interesting phrasing). Several days ago, Watts mentioned that he was “dismayed” by Lord Monckton’s recent use of Nazi imagery, in a post titled
Note to Lord Monckton: this isn’t helping
In that post, Watts wrote that
putting swastikas in planned public powerpoint presentations, and linking that by name to a person, is in my opinion, way over the top and in very bad form and totally hijacks and negates the important messages elsewhere in the presentation.
Evidently, such behavior doesn’t rise to the level of insult to Jewish people. It’s just “way over the top and in very bad form,” because it undermines the climate skeptic argument.
What’s very bad form is when partisan climate bloggers express phony, selective outrage.
Leo Hickman in the Guardian takes stock of some recent encouraging developments and muses:
Could peace talks ever end the ‘climate war’?
In his article, he wonders,
are there any shared goals between the two warring parties in the climate debate worth finding “peace” for?
Towards the end, he sums up:
When so much of this war is fought in anonymous online forums (see below for details!), would it be constructive to bring these two groups together in a room to begin tentative “peace talks” based on first trying to identify any common ground? Or is it hopelessly naïve of me to even suggest that this could ever bring positive results?
My immediate reaction to Hickman’s olive branch (before reading any response to it) was captured by the “BBD” commenter at Bishop Hill’s blog:
My own small experience – some of it in comments here – is that closed minds rule.
And indeed, a quick scan of the 100-plus comments on that thread bear this out. Hickman, in his comment at Bishop Hill’s, also noticed:
Thanks for responding to my Guardian article. Unless Andrew [Montford] has his own views, I’ll conclude from the reaction here that the answer to my headline question is a resounding ‘no’. It’s a shame that there doesn’t appear to be any common ground at all, but I’m glad I asked the question.
I have some ideas on why I think the hostilities between the warring camps will continue unabated, but first I’d like to hear from you.
Do you think the ‘climate war’ will grind on, irrespective of olive branches waved from either side? Or do you see some possible middle ground that can be agreed on?
