WSJ Hit Piece on Gore Movie Relies on Grievously Flawed Study
WSJ Hit Piece on Gore Movie Relies on Grievously Flawed Study
In today’s Wall Street Journal, prominent climate skeptic Richard Lindzen tries to make the case that “There Is No ‘Consensus’ On Global Warming.” Most of the article is, typically, invective against Al Gore and his movie, An Inconvenient Truth.
Lindzen does acknowledge that thousands of scientists from 120 countries have agreed, through the extraordinarily rigorous International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) process, that human activity is driving global warming. He also acknowledges that this consensus was recently confirmed by a report prepared for Congress by the National Academy of Scientists.
Here is Lindzen’s only substantive response:
More recently, a study in the journal Science by the social scientist Nancy [sic — Naomi] Oreskes claimed that a search of the ISI Web of Knowledge Database for the years 1993 to 2003 under the key words “global climate change” produced 928 articles, all of whose abstracts supported what she referred to as the consensus view. A British social scientist, Benny Peiser, checked her procedure and found that only 913 of the 928 articles had abstracts at all, and that only 13 of the remaining 913 explicitly endorsed the so-called consensus view. Several actually opposed it.
Peiser’s work – and Lindzen’s reliance on it — is an embarrassment. Here’s why:
1. Peizer misunderstands the point of Oreskes study. The point was not that every article about climate change explicitly endorsed the IPCC conclusions. The point is that if there was real uncertainty there would be “substantive disagreement in the scientific community” that would be reflected in peer reviewed literature. There wasn’t.
2. Peiser didn’t find any peer reviewed studies that oppose the scientific consensus. Peiser claimed that 34 papers “reject or doubt” the consensus view. Tim Lambert got Peiser to send him the abstracts of those 34 papers. The vast majority of these papers express no doubt whatsoever about the consensus view. Only one paper, by the Association of Petroleum Geologists, cited by Peiser actually rejects the consensus view and it “does not appear to have been peer reviewed outside that Association.”
Peiser has admitted that his work included errors. But ultimately, it doesn’t make a difference. The point of activity like this isn’t to be right, it’s simply to provide fodder to people like Lindzen to create the appearance of uncertainty.
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You know, they ought to create a think tank funded by oil companies, energy concerns, Republican partisan stooges, etc. to pass along strategies for supplying thin contrary evidence to the overwhelming scientific evidence. What? They already have? You mean there are several organizations doing this? Oh. Nevermind.
June 26th, 2006 at 10:51 amGore seems to have a lot of enemies again > Bush knows Al really won the election in 2000, so he has to have Gore smeared on everything he does, even on his global warming movie!
June 26th, 2006 at 10:52 am“No Scientific Consensus” needs to be added to the Billboard “Top 10 GOP Sound Bites.”
June 26th, 2006 at 10:54 amAn apt analogy would be - you’re on a ship and 9 people tell you that it’s sinking and 1 tells you it isn’t - who are you going to believe? (Of course, if that one person was GW - 35% of the people on the ship would drown… go figure)
June 26th, 2006 at 10:57 amCNN recently did a piece on the colonization of other planets that I’ve recently mentioned. If neocons really believe their own rationalizartion, then why is the Bush Regime sepnding billions of dollars on gasp - Science - to look for water and therefore habitability off the Earth? Doesn’t sound like they have enough faith in their god to rescue them from this mess they’ve fueled.
June 26th, 2006 at 10:59 amEven I have wonder what drives these single-minded Right Wing Crazies.
-LUCIFER
June 26th, 2006 at 11:01 am#3 AvengingAngel
June 26th, 2006 at 11:04 amAbsolutely! According to the neocons, there is “no scientific consensus” on global warming, genetic basis for homosexuality, evolution, family support of education as the primary factor in academic achievement, etc.
Post 5 > if the Bush Regime and the GOP make the Earth uninhabitable, then they must NOT be allowed to go to other planets > their brains are not adaptable, so best for them to remain behind to go extinct!
June 26th, 2006 at 11:04 amI always go to a social scientist when I want expertise on the hard sciences…
June 26th, 2006 at 11:05 amlooney tunes
June 26th, 2006 at 11:06 amSure is getting warm in here. Don’t seem to be as many frogs as there used to.
June 26th, 2006 at 11:06 amvalid point #9. it will be lost here
June 26th, 2006 at 11:08 amAnd these are the people that many Americans TRUST with their money?
Jesus, thank god they haven’t gotten a hold of Social Security funds like they wanted to.
June 26th, 2006 at 11:19 amYou know, they ought to create a think tank funded by cigarette companies, PR firms, Republican partisan stooges from tobacco-growing states, etc. to pass along strategies for supplying thin contrary evidence to the overwhelming scientific evidence that smoking causes cancer and other diseases and that nicotine is addictive. What? They already have? Back in the 1950s? And it failed misearbly and everybody now knows - and the cigarette companies even admit - that these things are unequivocally true?
Oh. Never mind.
June 26th, 2006 at 11:24 amAre the GW skeptics willing to apply their same high standards for ‘proof’ of GW, to the BushCo assertions of Iranian Nukes (almost ready!) and their ‘desire’ to use them on us? Cause they claimed ALL sorts of ‘evidence’, from multiple sources, in regards to Iraq’s supposed WMD, and that was enough to start an invasion, now an occupation, with no end in sight. And they were WRONG. But on GW, with World Wide consensus that it is a fact, nope, not good enough. Idiots.
June 26th, 2006 at 11:26 am#12
valid point #9. it will be lost here
Perhaps not as valid as you seem to think. While I’d never ask a social scientist to actually interpret the raw data on climate change (at least, I wouldn’t as long as I could find a reasonably competent physical scientist to do it instead), that’s not what Oreskes was doing. Rather, she was simply trying to characterize the level of debate on global warming in the scientific press. That’s not all that hard to do accurately - at least, not nearly as hard as interpreting the raw data - and is in fact something that certain types of social scientists do regularly. So as long as Oreskes had enough scientific understanding to be able to characterize a particular paper as being on one side of the global warming debate or the other, then she’s perfectly qualified to conduct this study.
June 26th, 2006 at 11:27 amreality is fast colliding with the cult of republicanism’s fantasy that global warming doesn’t exist and even it did human activity isn’t causing it. As the collision (which clearly has begun) occurs, guess which will win out: science, backed by predicted human disaster, or corporate dissembling?
As the effects of global warming changes become more pronounced and undeniable, the republican cultists will fall down drooling their end of the world babble as everyone else looks to Al Gore and science for answers.
June 26th, 2006 at 11:28 am.
Intergovernmental Panel.
June 26th, 2006 at 11:31 amThe irony is that people like this that want to shoot down the global warming debate because there is doubt, are also the first people to take BUsh’s side on stripping away rights, freedoms and the constitution because of terrorism.
It is ironic that they are willing to “play it safe” and ignore fact for safety on the terrorism issue…which barely affects Americans (despite PR efforts to the contrary). BUt on an issue that has serious, irreverisble repercussions to everyday life, they would rather ignore the “play it safe” arguement and just ignore it all together.
June 26th, 2006 at 11:32 amThe scientist at UC San Diego is Naomi Oreskes (not Nancy). I’m not sure if Lindzen or the WSJ got it wrong or if it got lost in translation. Dr. Oreskes is an award-winning earth scientist as well as an expert in the history of science.
June 26th, 2006 at 11:32 amThe Wall Street Journal has lost all it’s credibility now. They are just a Bush Tool and no one to regard as anything more. It’s a waste of time and money to bother with that rag.
June 26th, 2006 at 11:33 am#15 Cyra,
Always remember this: The opponents of GW are not trying to convince people it isn’t happening. They are only trying to convince people that there is doubt about whether or not it is happening. They feel that if they can make people think that the issue isn’t settled, then they can argue that there is no need to rush into solutions which they haven’t figured out how to make money on yet.
When non-fossil fuels become more profitable than fossil fuels, then you’ll see them changing their tunes.
June 26th, 2006 at 11:36 amS.O.P. for the Typical Corporation:
Rape, Pillage and Burn . . . . as Far as the Eye can See.
Leave no stone un-crushed and no natural habitat sucked dry.
Until there is nothing left to destroy in exchange for their holy grail . . . . record profits.
But wait . . . the know all talking heads of the oil industry and GOP politicians tell me that allowing unrestricted oil production with no limits on production pollution will lower my price at the pump !
June 26th, 2006 at 11:42 am#16 Only if you believe the hard sciences do not already have mechanisms to judge and validate their own results. They do, and these methods have been developed over centuries. A social scientist would be more qualified to judge the attitudes in the general population, not the status of a theory within the scientific process.
The truth is, the political think tanks are scraping the bottom of the barrel to find the last remaining skeptics.
June 26th, 2006 at 11:45 amThe fact that this social scientist included a non-peer-reviewed paper invalidates the results.
June 26th, 2006 at 11:47 am#15 - EXCELLENT POINT! From the Bushies’ POV, 100% agreement isn’t required when it comes to invading sovereign nations, but why bother trying to save the planet if we still have a couple of scientists (funded by oil) willing to say “We’re not sure”.
Amazing.
June 26th, 2006 at 11:51 amSo 13 out of 913 explicitly endorse the “consensus” view, and that somehow passes as a consensus? Jeepers. I’d love to see the entire body of studies involving climate change.
I wouldn’t expect that many papers to actually reject the AGW theory, I would rather expect that most scientists would point out that they are uncertain whether or not the theory is correct, and do some research to try and learn more.
How anyone can twist that into a “consensus” is beyond me.
June 26th, 2006 at 11:52 am# 22 Wayne,
Right on. We’re watching a re-run of the same movie that’s been playing for the last century:
June 26th, 2006 at 11:53 am- science proves something (cigarettes, asbestos, DDT, lead paint) is hazardous to our health or is damaging the environment;
- the swine bastards who make heaps of money off that something get together to draft a “counter-attack,” which involves hiring the country’s top PR/advertising firms and setting up “scientific” organizations which they promise will get to the bottom of the issue. The goal: not to prove that it DOESN’T cause the problems, but to muddy the waters, create a fake “debate” and sew doubt;
- the swine bastards keep raking in the dough - and people keep dying - for a few more decades until science, or the courts, or both, finally expose the liars.
[…] the WSJ, they call it the Wally. As in, “I’ll take a Wally.” God, I love L.A.) Permalink| […]
June 26th, 2006 at 12:02 pm#27 Seixon
The statement was only 13 of the abstracts “explicitly” endorsed consensus. The question is were the results of the studies confirming of a “consensus statement” which is what the Oreskes study is indicating.
As to “how anyone can twist” anything, perhaps you should do some self-study of your posts here in the past.
June 26th, 2006 at 12:02 pmI wouldn’t expect that many papers to actually reject the AGW theory, I would rather expect that most scientists would point out that they are uncertain whether or not the theory is correct, and do some research to try and learn more.
And if that is what anyone said, you might have a point. But doing research to learn more does not demonstrate uncertainty that anthrogenic climate change is uncertain.
Scientists are still doing research to learn more about gravity, and the abstracts of those papers do not explicitly say, “We are 100% certain the theory of gravity is correct.” So those political think tanks with their social scientists could really blow your world view with a study of that, couldn’t they?
June 26th, 2006 at 12:08 pmOreskes is not a social scientist.
Naomi Oreskes (Ph.D., Stanford, 1990) is an Associate Professor in the Department of History and the Program in Science Studies at the University of California, San Diego. Having started her professional career as a field geologist, her research now focuses on the historical development of scientific knowledge, methods, and practices in the earth and environmental sciences.
http://historyweb.ucsd.edu/oreskes/pages/profile.html
June 26th, 2006 at 12:09 pmThe right-wing non-believers are DEMANDING a consensus on Global Warming, yet their arguments are FAR from a 100% consensus:
“Fundamentally, we don’t think carbon dioxide is a pollutant, and so we don’t think these attempts are a good idea,” said John Felmy, chief economist of the American Petroleum Institute… referring to the EPA’s desire to enforce the Clean Air Act, thereby forcing reductions in CO2 emissions, which Dumbya also rejects.
No consensus here, just personal opinion, paid for by one of the largest GOP contributing industries, so the GOP will support it 100%. But when arguing against the reality of Global Warming, they DEMAND a consensus? These f*ckers are SO out of touch with reality, but very in touch with political posturing.
June 26th, 2006 at 12:09 pm[…] CNBC anchor Joe Kernen used Richard Lindzen’s grossly inaccurate column in today’s WSJ to repeatedly claim there is “no consensus” on whether global warming exists. Kernen suggests that “as old as the planet is” there is no way “puny, gnawing little humans” could change the climate in “70 years.” Watch it: […]
June 26th, 2006 at 12:16 pm#24
#16 Only if you believe the hard sciences do not already have mechanisms to judge and validate their own results. They do, and these methods have been developed over centuries.
I’m afraid I don’t quite understand your objection. We aren’t talking about actually judging and validating their results. I haven’t read Oreskes’ study, but I’d be very surprised if she tried to suggest that one side was actually correct, while the other was wrong.
Instead, we’re talking about the reporting of those results by the scientists who have conducted the relevant research (and have subjected it to peer review - which is often a brutal and unforgiving process, let me tell you) - reading the summaries of that research and taking note of on which side of the debate these articles fall.
What do the natural sciences’ methods of judging and validating results have to do with that?
A social scientist would be more qualified to judge the attitudes in the general population, not the status of a theory within the scientific process.
Why is that? Why is there necessarily a difference? Do the methods used in the social sciences - methods that you yourself admit (in the quote above) have at least some validity - somehow fail to apply to a study of the scientific community? It seems to me that the scientific community is just as valid a subject for a social scientist as, say, the Hopi Indians, or poor blacks in Detroit, or the traditional agricultural communities of rural Romania.
I suspect you may not fully understand what it is that social scientists do, or how they work.
June 26th, 2006 at 12:28 pmGlobal warming deniers take the art of lieing to an obscene level. Tell lies while your psycho cronies murder the ENTIRE PLANET?! Any normal feeling human being should be sickened by what these scumballs are doing. However, the great equalizer is here!
You can lie to the people, lie to yourselves, lie to the entire human race, but you can’t lie to hurricanes! That surface water out there is HOT boys and girls. And that means more whipped up super hurricanes crashing into the capital of global warming denial: the USA! The irony is so perfect. God’s cruel joke is totally inspired, too bad all these Repugs and corporate cronies put together don’t have enough brains to see the truth. Go Hurricanes GO! On to cat 6!
June 26th, 2006 at 12:36 pm#35 Do you fail to see how it would be impossible to validate the results without coming to a consensus? Do you think the hard sciences are unable to judge and measure a consensus among themselves? Results that can be verified independently is at the heart of the scientific method. That is scientific consensus. For a social scientist to come in and apply social theory to hard sciences is specious, to say the least. And the wording of her results is highly suspicious.
You could apply the same social science methods in her study to the field of gravity research, and come up with the same results, couldn’t you? You would be hard pressed to find a paper on Gravity Probe B that explicitly said “We support the theory of gravity,” for example.
June 26th, 2006 at 12:45 pm[…] I mentioned in the last post that there have been no peer reviewed scientific papers that oppose the idea that global warming is real and caused by human behavior. Furthermore, a study by the independent National Academy of Sciences and commissioned by congress supports climatologists’ views on global warming. So where is all this “debate” coming from? A trek through the most prominent criticisms of global warming science reveals that practically all responses are almost laughably easy to dismiss - relying often on the word of only scientists under the employment of an energy company or, in other cases, pure baloney. Today’s Wall Street Journal piece attacking the consensus on global warming not only acknowledges the support of the largest international scientific organizations in combatting global warming, but fails to provide any meaningful criticisms of their conclusions. It’s easily debunked at Think Progress. […]
June 26th, 2006 at 12:46 pm#35 and you’re right I may not fully understand social science, but it has no bearing whatsoever on the topic at hand. If a physicisist purported to “disprove” a key element of social science theory, would you buy it hook line and sinker? What if a physicist did this by looking at paper abstracts?
June 26th, 2006 at 12:47 pmDo you fail to see how it would be impossible to validate the results without coming to a consensus?
What? So are you saying that I couldn’t “validate” another scientist’s result of a single experiment unless there’s consensus? Or that my validation of that result automatically results in consensus?
Do you think the hard sciences are unable to judge and measure a consensus among themselves? Results that can be verified independently is at the heart of the scientific method. That is scientific consensus. For a social scientist to come in and apply social theory to hard sciences is specious, to say the least.
For the last time . . . SHE’S NOT APPLYING SOCIAL THEORY TO NATURAL SCIENCES.
How do you think consensus emerges via the independent testing of results? Through COMMUNICATION OF THOSE RESULTS. Other scientists read what you’ve written, test your results, and write their own papers either challenging or supporting your original results. Through that process, a consensus may slowly emerge - and if it does, it should be easy to spot in the literature for anyone conversant in the basic terms of science, which (if we judge by her CV) it seems Orsekes is.
That is why the literature exists in the first place. The process I just described, as applied to the global warming debate, and the results of that process so far, are what she’s studying. NOT THE VALIDITY OF THE RESULTS THEMSELVES.
All she did was look at the results - the scientific community’s own words and work product - to see if the people who wrote those words mostly agree with each other on the topic they wrote about. Why does it take a natural scientist to do that?
Are you deliberately trying to misunderstand my point?
June 26th, 2006 at 1:00 pmShorter Richard Lindzen: ‘there is no consensus between two studies addressing whether there’s a consensus’.
Weak as Bud Light.
June 26th, 2006 at 1:10 pmI am not trying to dliberately misunderstand your point, I am trying to deliberately state that a social scientist is not qualified to judge the scientific consensus in other fields. If she wants to tell us about the consensus of certain social theories, I’ll buy it. But the hard sciences already have methods to judge whether theories are validated by consensus (if that is the accurate term here).
Now, can you address my point? Can this social scientist make the same statement about gravity? I would imagine papers on gravity do not “explicitly endorsed the so-called consensus view” in their abstracts.
Finally, why would she include a non-peer-reviewed papers? Would that not invalidate her study?
June 26th, 2006 at 1:13 pmspencer
Look, put it this way:
All she was doing was running a comparative. It has about as much to do with accounting as it does with sociology.
That said, her findings were flawed via the fact that she was reading extracts rather then the actual papers. That said, the fact check reveals that Peiser only found one of the papers to reject global warming, and this one didn’t seem to be peer reviewed, meaning that Lindzen lied.
Further, it is probably that of all of those studies, only 13 dealt with big picture global warming directly while the vast majority simply dealt with individual elements of what is going on. In short while their findings might support global warming, their research doesn’t implicity mention global warming because they were not, in fact, all researching global warming, but rather elements related to global warming (for example, hurricanes, the effects of pollution on vegetation, the migration of animals in the Kruger park towards the cooler regions, etc…)
June 26th, 2006 at 1:14 pmThe WSJ posts unreliable, grievously flawed, patently false data?
I wonder how many people made bad investments because of misleading articles in the WSJ?
Perhaps the SEC should investigate. Seriously, I think they should.
This could be very bad for their circulation too.
June 26th, 2006 at 1:41 pmComment by Kermit the Freedom Frog — June 26, 2006 @ 1:13 pm
You incorrectly assume she lacks the mental capacity to understand scientific concepts in other fields that are outside of her scientific area of expertise.
If the conclusions are logical and scientifically sound, it makes no difference what anyone’s qualifications are.
Besides, there is such a thing as peer reviews of peer reviews. To my knowledge, no qualified scientists from any field has disputed her findings.
Therefore, you are quibbling and have no logical argument.
June 26th, 2006 at 2:00 pmhttp://politicalwire.com/ archives/ 2006/ 06/ 19/ gore_refuses_to_back_lieberman.html
Gee, I wonder if Joe went to Al’s movie yet?
June 26th, 2006 at 2:05 pmSeixon
Which part of this you don’t understand?
“Remarkably, none of the papers disagreed with the consensus position.”
http://www.sciencemag.org/ cgi/ content/ full/ 306/ 5702/ 1686
Lindzen however does. But where is Lindzen’s peer-reviewed paper which shows that the consensus position is wrong? It’s nowhere. Why? Because science does not support Lindzen’s lies. Exxon does.
This same Lindzen also claimed that tobacco does not cause cancer.
Among the scientists taking a public position sceptical of global warming, Richard Lindzen has always seemed the most credible. Unlike nearly all “scepticsâ€, he’s a real climate scientist who has done significant research on climate change, and, also unlike most of them, there’s no* evidence that he has a partisan or financial axe to grind. His view that the evidence on climate change is insufficient to include that the observed increase in temperature is due to human activity therefore seems like one that should be taken seriously.
Or it would do if it were not for a 2001 Newsweek interview (no good link available, but Google a sentence or two and you can find it) What’s interesting here is not the (now somewhat out of date) statement of Lindzen’s views on climate change, but the following paragraph
Lindzen clearly relishes the role of naysayer. He’ll even expound on how weakly lung cancer is linked to cigarette smoking. He speaks in full, impeccably logical paragraphs, and he punctuates his measured cadences with thoughtful drags on a cigarette.
Anyone who could draw this conclusion in the light of the evidence, and act on it as Lindzen has done, is clearly useless as a source of advice on any issue involving the analysis of statistical evidence.
http://crookedtimber.org/ 2006/ 04/ 23/ credibility-up-in-smoke/
The guy is a nutcase.
If you know it better than Oreskes would you tell me which of those 928 papers agrees with Lindzen that man-made global warming is an unproven theory?
Name it. And if you can’t, just shut up.
June 26th, 2006 at 2:08 pmI just did my own search in the ISI Web of Knowledge Database. My study was of the water molecules found in Greenland.
Here is their consensus:
“More of us are melting than are freezing.”
June 26th, 2006 at 2:15 pmKermit,
What’s your point, after all?
If you are so sure that Oreskes is wrong and Lindzen is right why don’t you
read those 928 papers yourself, not just the abstracts but the full papers, and point to the ones which deny that anthroponegic climate changed has been occurring since the Industrial Revolution?
That’s the issue. Go ahead and prove your case. If you can’t noone can take you seriously. Accusation alone is not enough. Doubt is not enough.
Denial is not enough.
If you want to win the argument you have to back up your claims with irrefutable facts.
June 26th, 2006 at 2:29 pmgringo,
As I said, I wouldn’t expect many scientists to come out and say “no, that is wrong”. What I would expect them to say is, “Well, I don’t know, maybe. It’s too uncertain to know either way.”
There are three positions here: no, I don’t know, and yes.
I think one will find that most of the scientists will answer that they don’t know whether or not AGW is accurate. It’s only the hacks who say no or yes because at this point, there really is too much uncertainty to say one way or the other. It just so happens that there are more pro-AGW hacks than there are against. Why? Well easy: being pro-AGW gets you research money to study this impending doom. If you are anti-AGW, then what? You’re going to get left out in the cold unless the CEI pays you, which they don’t do all that much anyways.
Just imagine the vast wealth the oil companies have. If they were really intimidated by the AGW scientists, wouldn’t they funnel a LOT more money into debunking AGW? Yes, they would. However, the oil companies don’t give a damn. They are going to be able to sell all their oil at whatever price they want in the future anyways. It’s not like the world is suddenly going to stop using oil. Al Gore and his henchmen, although they think they are Captain Planet, will not manage to make any blip on the radar of the oil company profits.
Not to mention that most oil companies also deal with other products such as natural gas, which it seems Al Gore and his friends have nothing against. Either way, the oil companies are going to be making oodles of money no matter what Al Gore or Richard Lindzen say.
My basic conclusion is that anyone who either asserts that AGW is accurate, or those who assert it is not are both lying or wrong. The only honest folks left are those who don’t think there is any convincing evidence of AGW yet, but will also not take the opposite position.
I think it is becoming abundantly clear that most scientists fall in the “maybe” category and not the “WE’RE ALL GOING TO DIE” category.
June 26th, 2006 at 2:42 pmI’m noticing a pattern in Seixon’s posts. Seixon follows three cardinal rules:
1. Never pass up the opportunity to make a purely semantic argument.
Example: “CO2 is not a pollutant.”
Call CO2 whatever you want. It has no bearing on how it behaves.
2. Ignore, at all costs, the context of any evidence that might support your position. Make sloppy, unsustainable arguments that require your opponents to do your research for you. Then, when they’ve done the research you should have, throw up another unsustainable argument to see if it sticks. Repeat ad nauseum.
Sooner or later you will be able to push things into a purely semantic argument (#1), argue that an irrelevant uncertainty debunks an entire body of evidence (#3 below), or make your opponents (who tend to be unpaid) lose interest in the argument.
Example: “There are no scientists who would tell you that Gore’s presentation of the sea level rising 20 feet was in any way accurate.”
I had to do Seixon’s research for him.
Gore’s movie states:
“Global sea levels could rise by more than 20 feet with the loss of shelf ice in Greenland and Antarctica”
In an interview, Gore Says:
On 11/20/05, the UK Independent reported:
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/1120-03.htm
Seixon’s endless capacity to ignore context allows him to make statements like “IPCC and the national science academies of 11 nations stands on my side” and have no sense of the irony of that statement whatsoever.
3. Any uncertainty, no matter how irrelevant or tangential, always debunks the entire body of evidence no matter how voluminous or rigorously reviewed that evidence is. This is a species of both 1 and 2 above. This is reminiscent of the tobacco industry’s campaign against the scientific consensus against smoking. It’s an easy rhetorical tactic. It’s very easy to say there’s some sort of raging debate somewhere and therefore the whole thing’s uncertain. It’s a strategy designed to confuse, not clarify things for the public. Maximum doubt, maximum uncertainty, maximum debate. It doesn’t matter how sloppy your arguments, just keep giving the situation this kind of appearance.
Example: Seixon says of Mann’s study “Basically everything from before 1600 and especially 900 was seen as unreliable.”
Mann drew attention to the limitations of his own study, and in spite of those limitations, still drew conclusions that the NAS found “plausible”. But most importantly, as Realclimate reports:
http://www.realclimate.org/ index.php/ archives/ 2006/ 06/ national-academies-synthesis-report
But Seixon runs roughshod over all of this, saying misleadingly, “Basically everything from before 1600 and especially 900 was seen as unreliable.”
As if small uncertainties in a seven year old study were the only thing that mattered. As I said before, the hockey stick is a red herring. Uncertainties present in a 1999 study do not put a dent in the larger body of evidence we now have.
June 26th, 2006 at 3:01 pm(This was post 276 in the previous thread, I thought I’d give it more prominence here.)
June 26th, 2006 at 3:06 pmAlso, Seixon has never heard of the precautionary principle. Indeed, nothing like risk ever enters his discussion of uncertainty:
http://www.sciam.com/ article.cfm?colID=18&articleID=000C3111-2859-1C71-84A9809EC588EF21
June 26th, 2006 at 3:08 pmThere is no reasoning or arguing with the Bush administration. They are never wrong and they never reconsider their position on anything. If they say there is a debate on global warming , that is how it is going to be as long as they are in office. Our only hope is that we have still have a world left to be saved in 2008 and then hope that enough people can see the light to vote the Republicans out of office.
June 26th, 2006 at 3:17 pmLindzen in WSJ…
Judd Legum has already debunked Richard Lindzen’s repetition of Benny Peiser’s discredited study, but I want to add one point. Lindzen wrote (subscription only): More recently, a study in the journal Science by the social scientist Nancy Oreskes clai…
June 26th, 2006 at 3:23 pmHey #9 and #12 Perhaps you could impress us all with your definition of hard science and soft science. Then perhaps you could explain why you get your science from a WSJ collumnist. Or maybe that will be lost here too.
June 26th, 2006 at 3:39 pmSeixon: If they were really intimidated by the AGW scientists, wouldn’t they funnel a LOT more money into debunking AGW?
They have:
http://www.heatisonline.org/ contentserver/ objecthandlers/ index.cfm?id=4380&method=full
“ExxonMobil Emerges As Chief Patron of Skeptics”
http://www.heatisonline.org/ contentserver/ objecthandlers/ index.cfm?ID=4458&Method=Full&PageCall=&Title=ExxonMobil%20Emerges%20As%20Chief%20Patron%20of%20Skeptics%20%28Nov%2E%202001%29%20&Cache=False
And the Bush admin has been concerned enough to muzzle scientists:
http://www.heatisonline.org/ contentserver/ objecthandlers/ index.cfm?ID=5890&Method=Full&PageCall=&Title=White%20House%20Keeps%20Lid%20On%20Climate%20Scientists&Cache=False
And also they’re trying to block California from enacting GHG emissions laws.
June 26th, 2006 at 3:40 pmAny uncertainty, no matter how irrelevant or tangential, always debunks the entire body of evidence
This is the key method being used to attack the entire basis of sceince in America. It’s an easy target, because most people feel it’s fair that “both sides” be heard. Even in one side is consistently and demonstrably wrong.
Why are school text books always 15 years out of date? Because that’s at least how long it takes for consensus to be built for new sceince. Republicans consistently use the scientific method as evidence against science. How depressing that people are foolish enough to buy it:-(
June 26th, 2006 at 3:53 pmOK, who is this Benny Peiser?
Unlike Oreskes he has no scientific training nor did he study the issue of anthropogenic climate change for decades as for example Gore has done it since the 60s.
Still he think he is perfectly qualified to say things like this:
“Of course, there is no evidence whatever that an increase by say another 1 or 1.5 degree Celsius would trigger mass extinctions, the runaway melting of the ice-caps and or the shut-down of the Gulf Stream. It is just hyperbole - pure alarmism.”
http://www.staff.livjm.ac.uk/ spsbpeis/ OxfordUnionDebate.htm
No evidence. Sure. He must know it.
Nevermind that after an increase by 0.8 Celsius here’s what you got:
Greenland’s Ice Sheet Is Slip-Sliding Away
The massive glaciers are deteriorating twice as fast as they were five years ago. If the ice thaws entirely, sea level would rise 21 feet.
By Robert Lee Hotz, Times Staff Writer
June 25, 2006
JAKOBSHAVN GLACIER, Greenland Gripping a bottle of Jack Daniel’s between his knees, Jay Zwally savored the warmth inside the tiny plane as it flew low across Greenland’s biggest and fastest-moving outlet glacier.
Mile upon mile of the steep fjord was choked with icy rubble from the glacier’s disintegrated leading edge. More than six miles of the Jakobshavn had simply crumbled into open water.
“My God!” Zwally shouted over the hornet whine of the engines.
From satellite sensors and seasons in the field, Zwally, 67, knew the ice sheet below in a way that few could match. Even after a lifetime of study, the raffish NASA glaciologist with a silver dolphin in one pierced ear was dismayed by how quickly the breakup had occurred.
http://www.latimes.com/ news/ science/ la-sci-greenland25jun25,0,1308610.story
Zwally et al of course are just alarmists for saying My God!
Climate experts have started to worry that the ice cap is disappearing in ways that computer models had not predicted.
What an arrogant idiot! He says increase by say another 1 or 1.5 degree Celsius would be actually good for the world. Greenland’s ice sheet doesn’t give a shit about the opinion of people like Peiser. It is melting and destabilizing.
And that’s just one of the effects Peiser thinks are simply not happening.
If you had told Peiser on Sept 10, 2001 that 19 Arabs could kill 1000s of people in the US by crashing commercial jets into big buildings he would have called you an alarmist. Especially if you had told him that airline security should be federalized and government spending should be increased to combat terrorism.
June 26th, 2006 at 3:54 pmto create the appearance of uncertainty
That pretty much sums up the whole bush administration and the Fox, Regent, Monarchial, Newscorp, Standard Weekly, Murdoch propaganda for Bush media outlets.
June 26th, 2006 at 3:54 pm#15 - EXCELLENT POINT! From the Bushies’ POV, 100% agreement isn’t required when it comes to invading sovereign nations, but why bother trying to save the planet if we still have a couple of scientists (funded by oil) willing to say “We’re not sureâ€.
Amazing.
It truly is a staggering example of compartmentalisation. Practically the entire world advised against the Iraq invasion and they did it anyway. Practically everyone is advising that action must be taken on global warming, and they are ignoring it.
Truly boggles the mind.
June 26th, 2006 at 3:58 pmHow depressing that people are foolish enough to buy it:-(
Comment by Brian Coughlan — June 26, 2006 @ 3:53 pm
I’m beginning to think lazy too… I mean, more than ever it’s easy to have a variety of resources via the internet. And still people choose ignorance…
June 26th, 2006 at 4:11 pmI guess the bankers have alot tied up in the oil industry too.
June 26th, 2006 at 5:11 pmRead more about liar coward Peiser:
http://timlambert.org/2005/05/peiser/
June 26th, 2006 at 5:27 pmGW = Global Warming
GW Bush = …. you figure it out …
June 26th, 2006 at 5:52 pmWell the WSJ has printed a bogus story. Wow that’s a first. Now in a competitive media world you would expect other news organizations to take advantage of this failure and point out what an inferior product the WSJ is. That should be happening really soon.
June 26th, 2006 at 6:03 pmI thought Kos said you guys debunked the WSJ article? This is nothing but a “Oh no you didn’t” response.
June 26th, 2006 at 6:04 pmCongratulations to JJ post # 51 for his clear explication of the rhetoric of doubt creation. In other fora, those who argue with Seixon have taken his bait for repeated ad hominem and end up undermining their own credibility, however well informed. Note that Seixon is quiet now.
June 26th, 2006 at 6:12 pmSeixon,
“I think one will find that most of the scientists will answer that they don’t know whether or not AGW is accurate.”
Well, we’ll just put your profoundly, willfully uninformed opinion on one side of the scale & a bag of chips on the other… chips wins!
Have you
1)interviewed or discussed the matter with many (say, enough to make a representative sample) climate scientists? Or
2)Read enough peer-reviewed literature that you can point to where this conclusion is explicitly stated by many scientists working in the field (ie not weather forecasters and astronomers) etc?
Or are you just full of shit again, making up crap and pretending it’s considered opinion by prefacing it with “I think” instead of the more accurate “I really really wish really hard”?
June 26th, 2006 at 6:58 pmWait… chips wins again!
Question: since when do *social* scientists know *anything* about actual science, the scientific method, the value of abstracts vs full papers (hint: full papers with BIG time), and the enormous difference between non-peer reviewed and peer reviewed papers?
Only quacks and frauds like Lindzen would rely on *social* “scientists” to help make his uninformed, pseudo-scientific points, rather than actually relying on *true* scientists.
After all, reality trumps quackery every time.
That is why frauds like Lindzen would rather use Thrutiness instead of the Truth … sadly enough.
June 26th, 2006 at 7:46 pmoh what a surprise, seixon’s been here. seixon is enamored with himself. he likes to claim he’s a moderate, all the while politicizing global warming as “liberal dogma”. funny, all of the moderates i know don’t buy into the right-wing memes; take his quote from yesterday — “I come here to slaughter braindead liberal dogma worshippers” — yep, that sounds real moderate to me!
so sEiXXON, this one’s still for you:
anyone that spends this much time trying to debunk something that is actually worth taking action against (because of the many positive impacts for the planet and the humans that live here), has to be a monumental wanker and generally against the wellbeing of humanity.
the crux of seixon’s argument: do nothing, stay the same, don’t adapt, don’t improve. in other words, stagnate.
June 26th, 2006 at 7:58 pmPeople, people! Don’t you realize thet contentious bickering over whether the scientific view of the cause(s) of global warming is the whole truth is exactly what the bush regime wants? The same scientific method employed in these studies is what eliminated such inconvienences as polio, smallpox, drudgery and early death as a result of new products, machines, and methods of doing things, to name a few-and let’s not forget the discovery of the true vastness and glory of the universe. Does anyone seriously believe these scientists would risk their careers and reputations on whimsical statements? I’ve developed a philosophy that “if the bushies say it is or isn’t so, then the reverse is almost certainly true”. I’ll bet I’m right more than I’m wrong.
June 26th, 2006 at 8:32 pmFor some experts informed opinions on climate change see . Just be ready for some scientific “food fights” and some time to get up to spedd because the topic is big and complex.
June 26th, 2006 at 11:14 pm‘
On the plus side these guys are rather patient and know their sh*t. This site has alot of information and links.
The republicans discredit the global warming theory now but just wait until a Democrat gets into office and see how they will change their story. Flip-flop anyone?
June 26th, 2006 at 11:16 pm“Bin Laden Determined to attack United States” — August 6, 2001
Bush Admin — Old news, nothing to worry about, we have it under control.
Oops.
“Scientists agree about Threat of Global Warming ”
Bush Admin — Well, maybe not, I don’t think so, nothing to worry about.
In what universe would these Bush apologists have any credibility at all?
June 27th, 2006 at 2:28 am[…] Jeopardy expert Bob Harris: Meanwhile, Think Progress tears the Wall Street Journal a new one for their unsurprisingly dishonest “rebuttal” of Al Gore’s movie. And strikingly fierce storms in Washington, where climate change of course does not exist, have caused an elm tree to fall startlingly close to the White House. […]
June 27th, 2006 at 10:37 amWhen Mt. St. Helena erupted, in the first 4 seconds of the blast it spewed more CFCs (greenhouse gasses) into the atmosphere than mankind is capable of producing in 400 years.. Until someone can come up with a viable way to cork active volcanos, it seems to me that any attempt to curtail global warming through industrial regulation makes as much sense as building laser cannons on the moon to take out approaching asteroids.
June 27th, 2006 at 11:24 amAirgun– It’s Mt. St. Helens. Mt. St. Helena is not a volcano. At least take the time to get the name right.
But anyway, Mt. St. Helens did not increase the CO2 levels in the atmosphere by 30%. We have. By burning fossil fuels.
June 27th, 2006 at 12:10 pmFor th erecord, here’s the text of Naomi Oreskes C.V. from the UC San Diego web site:
Naomi Oreskes (Ph.D., Stanford, 1990) is an Associate Professor in the Department of History and the Program in Science Studies at the University of California, San Diego. Having started her professional career as a field geologist, her research now focuses on the historical development of scientific knowledge, methods, and practices in the earth and environmental sciences. A 1994 recipient of the NSF Young Investigator Award, she has served as a consultant to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board on the use and evaluation of computer models, and has taught at Stanford, Dartmouth, Harvard and NYU.
So, why Lindzen referred to her as a “social” scientist, implying her field of expertise to something other than what it is, is rather disingenuous at best.
A note to #9 & #12-it was ridiculously easy to check.
June 27th, 2006 at 1:28 pmA few years ago, you were trying to convince us of the reality of the coming ice age ( the first Earth Day, i.e.). Consensus of then present day scientists was that Galileo was wrong. Lately, Alar was deadly. Cafeine caused pancreatic cancer. Cell phones cause brain cancer. You are willing to believe any science spouted by the left wing of the Democratic party, and ignore any opposing view as heresy. I am old enough that Ihave seen plenty of voodoo science accepted at face value, and I will sit back and wait for the next round of lunacy. I am glad that the above posters are all credentialled climatologists. I bet not one in a hundred could tell what Milankovic cycles are and how they effect climate change. Let facts not interfere with your opinions.
June 28th, 2006 at 5:55 pmPeiser attempted to write a letter to Science that was rejected and published elsewhere (Energy and the Environment, vol. 16, p. 685, 2005). Nowhere in his letter does he say what lindzen asserts, that 900+ had no abstracts, a frankly bizarre claim. Peiser makes a rather od claim that his letter was rejected on narrow technical grounds. i suspect it was rejected because it was flawed. A letter by “strong climate change” skeptic Roger Pielke was published and responded to by Oreskes last year. Peiser claims that some 34 question the human role–but he has somehow pulled up about 200 more abstracts than Oreskes with no explanation of the discrepancy given that he claimed to use the same keywords.
Dennis Bray and Hans von Storch have published what is ostensibly a direct survey of climate scientists that reveals majority support for human induced warming but not high consensus. What is not clear is who these climate scientists are-the survey was accessed voluntarily and the geographic distribution changed markedly between their initial 1996 and final 2003 survey. I fail to see that they provided security against potential “ballot box stuffing”. This said, there is a clear shift of responses towards the above statement between 1996 and 2003.
Lindzen’s willingness to post crappy opeds on the notoriously biased WSJ pages undercuts his notable and singular credibility among `skeptics’.
June 29th, 2006 at 3:36 amThe WSJ is notoriously biased, but Algore and Think Progress are not.
June 30th, 2006 at 7:23 pmJJ says in #78
“…Mt. St. Helens did not increase the CO2 levels in the atmosphere by 30%. We have. By burning fossil fuels.”
Oh my goodness, we’ve taken something very, very small and increased it by 30%!!!
July 1st, 2006 at 10:06 amThat’s amazing!!! Look! CO2 concentration in the atmosphere is still very, very small! (
Since the earth’s temperature fluctuates - just like the business cycle does - there will always be politicians clamoring for credit for the ultimate and predictable corrective course change, when it occurs. “My [legislative] bill caused the sea change and saved the day. Vote for me.”
“Scientists” have discovered - through empirical and reproducible experimentation - that they get more research funding when they predict the sky is falling. Warming advocates cleverly omit weather trends of the middle ages that skew their hockey-stick graph. They rely on erroneous or speculative assumptions for their computer models and then accept the predictions as gospel. They respond to dissent with ad hominem attacks, and try to marginalize the dissenter, no matter his credentials. They forget they, in lock-step consensus, just as histrionically warned of global cooling in the 1970’s, unless “something [drastic - as usual] was done” [by big government, of course] immediately to reverse the trend, which, we now see, apparently reversed itself.
Each citizen must decide if he wants to be taxed to the tune of $4000/yr per family [for starters plus or minus (OK, plus) a factor of 10] to respond to a natural cycle, that - even if manmade - we wouldn’t be able to control anyway. This whole thing is a left-wing power grab. I’m still waiting for global cooling and the population bomb to materalize. Advocates can now explain why cooling didn’t happen after all, but they were unequivocal at the time in their predictions of annihilation. How soon we forget.
July 5th, 2006 at 5:27 amRe: #2: “Gore seems to have a lot of enemies again > Bush knows Al really won the election in 2000, so he has to have Gore smeared on everything he does, even on his global warming movie!”
The highly partisan [in favor of Gore] New York Times investigated the Florida Presidential race of 2000 and concluded Bush won. “Global warming” and “Gore won” - 2 fraudulant claims in one blog! Very efficiently done!
July 5th, 2006 at 5:46 am[…] There is a scientific consensus (not a “small chance”) that global warming is real and driven by humans. Even most skeptics (maybe even Cheney) would acknowledge, if the earth is going to keep getting warmer and warmer, we are in for serious trouble. […]
July 5th, 2006 at 4:21 pm[…] Certainly, Our Poopypanted Hero of Blog would have examined Herr Lindzen’s statements for scientific merit, not just that they sounded, er, sound. I mean he would have searched for responses/critiques such as this and this and this. […]
July 6th, 2006 at 12:11 am[…] Actually, “all of the recent science” — without exception — accepts that global warming is real and caused by humans. The IPCC didn’t involve “one scientist.” It involved thousands of scientists from over 120 countries, including so-called “climate skeptics” and industry representatives. The National Academy of Sciences concluded that the one study singled out by Inhofe for criticism, which was authored by Michael Mann, “has subsequently been supported by an array of evidence.†[…]
July 21st, 2006 at 11:30 am[…] FINALLY! Someone who can tell their butt from a hole in the ground. Needless to say, the left-wing looneys over at Think Progress(trackback) seem to have other ideas. Their article states: Actually, “all of the recent science†— without exception — accepts that global warming is real and caused by humans. The IPCC didn’t involve “one scientist.†It involved thousands of scientists from over 120 countries, including so-called “climate skeptics†and industry representatives. The National Academy of Sciences recently concluded that the one study singled out by Inhofe for criticism, which was authored by Michael Mann, “has subsequently been supported by an array of evidence.†[…]
July 22nd, 2006 at 5:08 pm[…] Think Progress: WSJ Piece on Gore Movie Relies On Grievously Flawed Study […]
July 26th, 2006 at 7:27 am[…] But there sure are some Americans who disagree. And for some reason, they’re all on the right wing. As if global warming was a political issue. Last month, it was the Wall Street Journal going at it as strongly as if all the scientists had been working for Chirac. Bush also thinks “there is a debate over whether it’s manmade or naturally caused.” […]
August 4th, 2006 at 8:53 am[…] La stratégie est la même que dans le cas de la théorie scientifique de l’évolution, insinuer le doute dans l’esprit du peuple américain. Sans doute pour qu’il continue à s’abreuver aux pompes à essence et ne remette pas en cause certaines opérations militaires. […]
August 9th, 2006 at 6:02 pmIf it is truly a problem, then it wouldn’t cost a thing to change it.
February 14th, 2007 at 3:59 pm(Eg.Having to buy or rent the Inconvenient Truth tells me that it is only a money grabbing thing.) We are still making huge cars and trucks and still buying junk! If we all stop buying into this and start thinking about what really is living than it would all come together. ie. If we just start living a simple life and buy only what we need and believe that there is move value with people in our lives instead of materials then and only then we will survive this so called global warming.
Global warming does exist. That is wonderful news! A warmer world is better for humanity than a cooler world. The amount of warming actually predicted for the next century is not alarming. Man’s contribution to the total global greenhouse effect is .28%. That means that 99.72% is natural. If the U.S. were to sign onto and follow the Kyoto Accords, we would expect a reduction in that total of .0335%. That is less than natural variability and definitely not worth crippling the global economy!
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