Although George F. Will's article today on the supposed global cooling scare of the 1970s was fundamtentally dishonest, it turns out that Will has brushed up against the ethical boundaries a little more strongly than that. Specifically, one of his money quotes may have been taken out of context.
As a biology professor at an Eastern college wrote in to me this morning:The intellectual dishonesty of Will's article on the alleged global cooling scare of the 1970s is made stark by actually going and looking at the publications he cites. Will asserts that although there were skeptics of the global cooling scenario, ...."others anticipated 'a full-blown 10,000-year ice age' involving 'extensive Northern Hemisphere glaciation' (Science News, March 1, 1975, and Science magazine, Dec. 10, 1976, respectively)."
I would add that in addition to ignoring the article's caveat about anthropogenic [man-made] effects, Will also failed to disclose that the article was describing long-term trends "over the next several thousand years". To the extent there were concerns about global cooling in the 1970s, they were about relatively near-term effects stemming from man-made particle pollutants -- quite different from what the Science article was talking about.
Talking Points Memo has a rundown of several other claims of questionable veracity in Will's article. His batting average on this piece seems to have been a bit lower than that of his beloved Washington Nationals.
But let's not lay all the blame at Will's feet. Why is it that claims that would never have been tolerated by a competent fact-checker on the news page are okay on the editorial page? The Washington Post owes its readers an explanation -- and an apology.
2.16.2009
Will Omitted Key Context in Ice Age Quote
@ 3:51 PMThe Science magazine article he cites is a famous study of the correlation between variations in Earth's orbit and long-term fluctuations in climate, titled "Variations in the Earth's orbit: Pacemaker of the Ice Ages". Here's the final paragraph of that article, and the source of Will's quotation:
"A model of future climate based on the observed orbital-climate relationships, but ignoring anthropogenic effects, predicts that the long-term trend over the next several thousand years is toward extensive Northern Hemisphere glaciation."
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63 comments
Isn't Will a Cubs fan?
I've never really been impressed with Will. I'm a liberal, but there are some conservatives that I find to be interesting reading. Will is not one of them.
A conservative commentator omitted and distorted facts that didn't fit his agenda? I'm shocked! SHOCKED!
*
George Will = right wing David Sirota
(commentator omitted and distorted facts that didn't fit his agenda.)
Nate, you're a BAMF.
Wow Nate is really going after George Will today. Will strikes me as one of those commentators who lacks a little intellectual integrity. Maybe not as bombastic as Rush Limbaugh say, but still out of the knee jerk, naysayer stable.
Oh, it's even worse than Nate thinks. There was a significant, well publicized paper last september that addressed the myth that Will has taken to heart (Peterson, Thomas & Connolley, William & Fleck, John (September 2008). "The Myth of the 1970s Global Cooling Scientific Consensus". American Meteorological Society.)
Will has always played fast and loose with the facts so the only thing that surprises me about THIS time is his over-looking the above paper (or maybe he thinks nobody else saw it?).
coolstar, one of the authors of that paper (John Fleck) writes for the Albuquerque Journal and wrote about Will's column today.
"The Washington Post owes its readers an explanation -- and an apology."
Not a chance. If the WaPo apologized, Will would quit (being corrected in public is such an insult!). And the WaPo knows that.
WaPo was never as liberal as the right wingers ranted, but sadly, its editorial page has done a distinct turn to the right, which may be affecting its judgment in many matters. But I'd rather WaPo spent more time checking the bias in its headlines and reporting on matters fiscal and financial than trying to fact check its columnists. Let's hope WaPo's own (great) Joel Achenbach joins you on getting on G. Will's case about this serious slip. There are a few matters -- term limits being another -- about which Will is just loony.
And, Nate referenced that paper in his links, so he HAS read it also. I hadn't followed all the links (I actually rarely do) when I wrote the post with the reference. You can find the paper easily by following Nate's links.
Will's column does not surprise me in the least. He plays fast and loose with the facts all the time. His understanding of science and the scientific method is about as weak as his understanding of economics. It was fun watching Paul Krugman take him apart a few months ago on TV when he said FDR's policies made the Great Depression worse.
The more important question is why does the Washington Post pay him to write this dishonest drivel?
Climate science has become unnecessarily politicized. People who know nothing about it loudly proclaim such nonsense as "That so little progress has been made on climate change and sustainable energy in spite of the overwhelming economic, environmental and national security imperatives to do so is perhaps the single greatest indictment of our democracy."
Where to begin with such ignorance?
First off, if you believe Nate we have made great scientific advances in climate change given that the problem has been identified and its cause conclusively established to the point where there can be no further debate. I’d say for the followers of Al Gore that is great progress indeed. What’s Nate bitchin’ about there?
Then the segue into the prattle about "sustainable energy". What's that code for? Nuclear power? Clean coal? Hardly. Maybe it’s riding around in electric cars with ranges of 25 miles and top speeds to match. Let’s all move back into the urban jungle!
And finally, why is this failure an indictment of democracy? And assuming democracy is the culprit what then the solution? Some sort of state takeover of the political system and our lives all in the name of saving the Earth?
Some would say so. Others fear it. Charles Krauthammer wrote persuasively last year about environmentalism and global warming becoming the new secular religion and this desire to re-order society along so-called Green lines is really just a power grab on behalf of shadowy forces who want to take over our lives.
Who are these people? The same folks who tried until it collapsed under the weight of its political, intellectual and economic bankruptcy were trying to bring about the advancement of world Communism. There is no better political system than Communism for ensuring that the supposed well intentions of the few are imposed in the many.
Former astronaut and Harvard Ph.D geologist Harrison Schmitt was quoted today in the Boston Herald arguing much the way Krauthammer did saying that the "global warming scare is being used as a political tool to increase government control over American lives, incomes and decision making."
http://news.bostonherald.com/news/national/general/view/2009_02_15_Former_astronaut_speaks_out_on_global_warming/srvc=home&position=recent
Whenever science is perverted in the name of politics and a clown like Al Gore is involved so deeply, alarm bells should go off.
The geological destiny of the earth is to wind up as an icy, frozen world like Mars. Whatever warming phase we are going through is temporary and but a way station on our path to a frigid eternity. More than that, the evidence is far from conclusive that global warming is manmade. That we should re-order our social and economic (let alone our political) systems around a hypothesis that is in fact not proven is utter and complete folly.
And Nate is a wanker for suggesting it!
BTW you Libs could not have found a more pointed and piquant detractor of John McCain during the election campaign. Will did a great deal of damage to McCain among what passes for the intellgensia in the GOP.
I am happy to watch lefties like Nate trash him now and offer no defense to his scholarship, except, as noted above, to say that there reamins two sides to this global warming debate and asserting that it may not be a manmade phenomenom is not yet akin to maintaining that the Earth is flat.
George Will has distorted quoted material before. Remember how uncivil he thought Jim Webb was to the Beloved Leader: link
Editing quotes to change their context is a Will specialty. He is intellectually dishonest.
LP, thanks for the link! So, it's even worse than *I* thought. John Fleck had written Will last *MAY* about misleading quotes that Will had already used.
Nate's got some balls, picking two fights in one weekend. Personally, I kinda like Sirota and his wacky radical leftiness, but watching Will get bent over a barrel has been fucking awesome. Thanks dude.
Hey, Pete, fact check for you:
"The Gen 1 cars got 55 to 75 miles (90 to 120 km) per charge with the Delco-manufactured lead-acid batteries, 75 to 100 miles (120-to-160 km) with the Gen 2 Panasonic lead-acid batteries, and 75 to 150 miles (120 to 240 km) per charge with Gen 2 Ovonic nickel-metal hydride batteries. Recharging took as much as eight hours for a full charge (although one could get an 80% charge in one to three hours). The battery pack consisted of 26 of 12 V, 60 Ah lead-acid batteries holding 67.4 MJ (18.7 kWh) of energy or 26 13.2-volt, 77 Ah nickel-metal hydride batteries which held 95.1 MJ (26.4 kWh) of energy."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors_EV1
That's a car built in the 1970s. We have better technology now, we just need people with the gall to use it.
Hyperbole is a useful rhetorical tool, but you should be a little more careful with it.
I'm loving this "Nate as media watchdog" thing. Totally fits. He has a good head for it.
Keep up the good work!
PK,
yes there are two sides to the climate change debate. Those who actually bother to use the science accurately, and those who don't. People add the 'manmade' argument simply to muddy the waters and confuse the discussion. Yes some climate change is natural, but some is man made. To suggest that uncertainty about the balance between the two is debate that both are happening is incredulous to anyone with any sort of intellectual credibility.
And just because Will didn't like McCain doesn't make him some sort of pseudo liberal.
@ DCLatCH - WaPo was never as liberal as the right wingers ranted, but sadly, its editorial page has done a distinct turn to the right
Sad but true. See, e.g., Bill Kristol aka Human Toilet Plunger.
MarkyMark: You illustrate my point by arguing for a sweeping conclusion that any opposition to the notion that global warming is manmade brands you as ignorant. Apparently we cannot even debate the contribution of human vs. natural contribution to the phenomenon.
You divide the world into two parts: "Those who actually bother to use the science accurately and those who don't." suggesting that those who have a different point of view from your own are inaccurate and should be dismissed.
I find that stance anti-intellectual and vaguely Stalinist.
Why is it that virtually all those who care deeply about climate change always want to foreclose debate by insisting that those who hold a contrary view or who are dubious are dishonest, ignorant or both?
This is after all about science and just as the theory of evolution can be shown to have a basis in reality one would hope that the social and economic upheaval that the lunatic fringe of the global warming movement want to impose on society can at least stand up to scrutiny.
It seems to me that the Green folks are the ones who will not tolerate discussion.
(This sentence made no sense to me: "To suggest that uncertainty about the balance between the two is debate that both are happening is incredulous to anyone with any sort of intellectual credibility." Whatever did you intend by it?)
ssmith is a perfect example of how the left will not tolerate debate or divergent opinion. Buncha Commies!
Thanks for the correction. You are right, the concern for a coming ice age was a longer term effect, not one folks worried about in the near term. That said, there was alot of discussion of particulates from volcanoes, meteors hitting earth, and just a general trend to be more worried about colling in '70's. They were dead wrong, and the earth is warming - quickly.
@ Pete Kent - Buncha Commies!
Coming from you, I take that as a compliment.
Hey PeterKent,
The geological destiny of Earth is to be engulfed by the Sun when it starts running out of fuel and expands into a red giant. Therefore, nothing that happens on Earth over the next few centuries matters at all.
That's where you were going, right?
+The geological destiny of the earth is to wind up as an icy, frozen world like Mars.+
Possibly, in several billion years.
It's interesting how much of the rhetoric on global warming (trust the captains of industry and the invisible hand of the benevolent market) sounds so much like the right-wing talking points on our financial system circa 2007. The biggest difference is that the evidence on global warming is so much more stark, absolute, and incontrovertible than was the evidence on the financial system.
Strong regulations protect - don't destroy - free choice and the thriving of freedom.
PeteKent - saying "there are two sides to every story" is a truism. Just make sure the two are not "right" and "wrong." You can certainly criticize Nate for hyperbole, but you can also criticize George Will for deliberate distortion of the facts - a very different issue. The "global climate change" debate has moved on quite decisively from "is there or isn't there" to "how much how soon and are we past the tipping point?"
I also observe that your criticisms are almost entirely political rather than scientific. You bring in Communism for no apparent reason. I assure you that many capitalists believe wholeheartedly in global warming -- including Jeffrey Immelt, CEO of GE, about as big a capitalist as you can get, judging by his major investment in greentech.
In fact, whether global warming is being politicized is irrelevant to whether the science is good. It is good, and getting better. If anything, we are finally getting politics _out_ of the discussion, which Bush firmly place in it by his _political_ toadies editing _scientific_ documents without benefit of credentials, let alone data.
Pk,
Well if you wanna play the game lets do it. Produce a link to a peer reviewed scientific paper that concludes that global climate change either isn't happening or is not added to by humans.
The anti intellectual part of this is you clinging to the same out dated and out moded science as George Will and using that to challenge a large and growing scientific consensus on climate change. And you claim the left is politicizing the issue.
David,
My point was somewhat more abstract and that is that folks talk about the inexorable nature of global warming without really knowing enough about the cosmos and our place in it.
Heating and cooling trends take 100s if not 1000s of years to develop and I suspect that much of the variation we are seeing has to do with imprecise and varying forms of measurement that are introducing bias into the equation.
Your point is about the future of the solar system; I was talking about our own destiny given the inexorable rate of cooling of the earth's molten core which serves as the furnace for our planet. Once that fire goes out we will freeze -- until the Sun envelops us.
None of that argues for complacency in our stewardship of the Earth. We have a duty to keep our world clean and productive. Yet, I think the jury is still out as to the impact of man on climate change.
Bear in mind that the Earth's livestock gives out more greenhouse gasses than all forms of transportation combined. Some in the UK have seriously argued that we should ration meat and cheese so we can make do with fewer heads of cattle.
I think we are a long way off from making the kinds of sweeping conclusions that would have us all re-ordering our lives and cutting back to a max of one liter of milk a week in the name of "global warming".
It was said that when Mount Pinatubo erupted in the Philippines in the 80s that it gave off more pollutants in that one seismic event than man had contributed in all of our checkered eternity.
Some humility is in order here!
The brilliance in the Global Warming argument is that it has been constructed in such a way that no scientist will ever be held accountable for it. A lot of scientist say what will happen in 100 years from now, but none (that I have ever heard) will say what will happen in 5 or 10 years from now. If this is in fact science, we should know what the climate will be like in 5 years.
Liberals are using a similar argument in the new spending bill. Obama says it will save 4 million jobs. The key word is "save" because no one can ever compute how many jobs were "saved". Just because something is impossible to be proven wrong, doesn't mean it's right.
Intellectual honesty? C'mon.
PeteKent, you know what IS anti-intellectual? Branding your intellectual opponents Stalinist instead of furnishing evidence to support your argument.
Coustrol: The hegemony of semolina grains, mainly practiced by the militant group Hummus.
@PK "Heating and cooling trends take 100s if not 1000s of years to develop and I suspect that much of the variation we are seeing has to do with imprecise and varying forms of measurement that are introducing bias into the equation."
Climate change takes however long the particular cause makes it take. At the rate we're emitting CO2, very serious change will occur in several decades.
And we're glad to have your deep technical critique of our measurement systems. Gosh- gotta get right on those problems you spotted.
This is not politics PK. All that crap about long-term destiny, red giant sun, heat death of universe. Hey, maybe there will be a phase change of the Calabi-Yau vacuum state in the next trillion years. So who cares about disaster in 30 years? You don't have kids?
"This dense atmosphere [ mostly CO2]produces a run-away greenhouse effect that raises Venus' surface temperature by about 400 degrees to over 740 K (hot enough to melt lead). Venus' surface is actually hotter than Mercury's despite being nearly twice as far from the Sun."
How does Kent know that the Earth will end up cold like Mars instead of hot like Venus? He doesn't -- he's making stuff up.
Nate Silver has apparently been educated a little about George Will. Now he needs to educate himself about the Washington Post. I recommend reading Brad DeLong daily for a month.
He's making "rational progressives" look bad.
GROG,
actually you are wrong. Many in the climate change debate have suggested what might happen to the global climate over short term periods, and have often been proved correct, or have made predictions over longer periods that have been proved correct
http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/books/article1984755.ece
gives some examples.
More fact checking:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Greenhouse_Gas_by_Sector.png
http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/emissions/usinventoryreport.html
Again, Pete, you through around numbers that are inaccurate. Your statement that agriculture produces more anthropogenic greenhouse gasses than energy production is not born out in the government or third party documents that I can dig up.
You might be right, but it doesn't look like it.
This doesn't destroy your whole argument, but again you should probably be more careful.
I have a much better idea of what the weather will be five months from now than I do of what it will be like next week. Long term trends can be known even though the fluctuations can't be predicted.
Nate's comment threads have gone all to hell. He must be competing with Yglesias for some kind of prize.
@PeteKent: Perhaps I missed the episode when the Politburo went undercover and took over the overwhelming majority of jobs in climate-related science in order to manufacture the giant hoax called global warming. I'm glad I'm not the only one who's alarmed by the powerful shadowy political forces that want to impose a hegemonic government on our lives based on exclusive access to and control over the sources of energy that power the world's economy. Thank goodness we have you around to engage in a fair and honest debate with those "anti-intellectual and vaguely Stalinist" "buncha Commies" on the "lunatic fringe" who read the blogs of "wanker"s like Nate. I'm just surprised you haven't yet convinced the IPCC with your argument: anthropogenic global warming must not be happening because that would be, you know, communist.
Yeah, cattle are very big greenhouse problems. So when a greenhouse tax comes in, beef will be pricier. The market will shift toward pork (much less of a problem) and chicken (even less) and soy (less still). People who think this is some unacceptable sacrifice haven't gotten their heads around what's happening.
(check recent Sci. Am. again for data on these sources of greenhouse gases.)
"Bear in mind that the Earth's livestock gives out more greenhouse gasses than all forms of transportation combined. Some in the UK have seriously argued that we should ration meat and cheese so we can make do with fewer heads of cattle."-
This statement is quite simply just false. While PK does have a point that livestock does play a significant part in global warming due to the fact that methane (emitted from livestock) has a much higher global warming potential then carbon dioxide (emitted from most transportation sources), the actual amount of greenhouse gases emitted is definitely higher from transportation sources. If you have said, "the livestock industry's emissions has a higher global warming pot potential when compared to the transportation industry", you would have made a true statement.
However, this statement is still misleading. If you compared livestock sources to all fossil fuel combustion in all industries, the impact of greenhouse gases from fossil fuel combustion dwarfs the impact of the greenhouse gases from livestock by several orders of magnitude, even when factoring in the global warming potential. The important thing to take away is that we have to work to decrease greenhouse gas emissions in all industries. As someone who works as an Air Quality Scientist, motivemagus is correct. Global Warming is happening; it is simply a matter of how much & whether we will make this planet unlivable for our species.
Oh, wait, Pete! You said "transportation" not "energy production."
Well, energy production appears to outstrip cattle by a long, long shot.
I can see how it would have been imprudent of you to mention that. It would have seriously undermined that part of your argument.
Well played!
OK, here's the trick. Your original reply to this post questioned the validity of the term "sustainable energy" and then you began listing off questionable statistics and "facts" to support your disdain.
The truth is that whether or not humanity is the primary source of green house gasses and general polution, you have agreed that it's important for us to be responsible stewards for what is currently our only home. And, furthermore, if you follow any number of technical magazines you'll note that energy producing technologies are getting more economical and feasible every year.
A simple combination of something like hydrogen cells and solar panels could some day bring energy independence not only to cars and whole countries but also to neighborhoods and businesses. That's not just making them environmentally sound, but nearly economically autonomous when it comes to energy.
Unfortunately, when funding is cut from environmental programs out of fear and rhetoric that these programs are putting unnecessary regulation on poor businesses, it also tends to cut funding to the research that brings us closer to these possibilities.
Sure, given enough pressure from the market, business will get us there, maybe. But if the Government is going to be stimulating the economy, it might as well put it into a real investment in the future.
Also, not all nuclear options are necessarily offensive:
http://www.hyperionpowergeneration.com/
See? We can talk reasonably about our options without calling each other communists or fascists.
Bear in mind that the Earth's livestock gives out more greenhouse gasses than all forms of transportation combined. Some in the UK have seriously argued that we should ration meat and cheese so we can make do with fewer heads of cattle."
Obviously, they've never seen my car. It belches and farts better than any damn cow.
"Bear in mind that the Earth's livestock gives out more greenhouse gasses than all forms of transportation combined. Some in the UK have seriously argued that we should ration meat and cheese so we can make do with fewer heads of cattle."
If livestock numbers are stable the greenhouse gases they emit are irrelevant. The reason is the lifetime of methane in the atmosphere is considerably shorter than that of CO2 - due to the mechanisms by which they are removed. CO2 on the other hand hits buffers where there is a limit to how much is removed each year, so the additional from burning fossil fuels simply adds to the amount in the atmosphere.
The point about fewer cattle is that this would stabilise the methane levels at a lower amount and that cattle are very energy-intensive. But really methane is a sideshow compared to CO2.
PK said:
Your point is about the future of the solar system; I was talking about our own destiny given the inexorable rate of cooling of the earth's molten core which serves as the furnace for our planet. Once that fire goes out we will freeze -- until the Sun envelops us.
Now that's an example of made up science.
First of all the core is not just cooling: it is also being heated at almost precisely the same rate as that at which it cools. This happens by virtue of the radioactive decay of many of its element isotopes, notably uranium.
Those heat sourcing isotopes which possess short half-lives for radioactive decay have all but disappeared, long ago. The present contribution toward heating Earth's core consists primarily of the effects of long half-life isotopes. Earth had already condensed 4 billion years ago, trapping its contents. The long half life isotopes are still present, reheating the core about as fast as conduction to the surface can cool it.
Hence there exists effectively an equilibrium between those two cooling and heating processes. The deviance from stasis cannot be measured unless one is willing to keep measuring for periods of millions to hundreds of millions of years.
This internal heating process's effects on the surface temperature is dwarfed by the interaction of sunlight energy and the ability of the atmosphere to mediate sunlight passage to the surface and its re-radiation at lower wavelengths back into space.
Changes in the composition of the atmosphere dwarfs the process you were talking about. As evidence for the difference between these two groups of processes, and the preeminence of the atmospheric effects, consider the difference in temperatures between the four rocky planets, Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars.
All four of these planets have similar compositions for the elements in their core. Venus is closer to the sun than is Earth. And Mars is farther away from the sun. Mars is much colder than Earth on the surface and Venus much, much hotter, (about 1000 degrees hotter), on the surface. And Venus has about the same diamater as Earth has.
Yet they all have the same densities of radioactive elements heating up their cores. The measured differences between those planets is only secondarily determined by the intensity of the sunlight that impinges on them. But it is primarily determined by the absorption and trapping of that sunlight.
Both Mars and Venus have orbits with radii differing from Earth's orbit about equally but in opposite directions: Mars is 35 million miles further out and Venus is 25 million miles closer in. But Mars is about 75 degrees colder and Venus is about 1000 degrees warmer.
There is a reason for that discrepancy. Mars has very little atmosphere when compared to Earth. But Venus' atmosphere is loaded with greenhouse gases. Venus shows us the power of global warming due to the content of the gases in a planet's atmosphere.
Coleman-Franken circus
This is going to be off-topic no matter where I put it. Sigh! So, Nate, how about some analysis of the prospects for Coleman and Franken now that the judges have ruled out consideration of 12 or 13 of the 19 rejected absentee ballot categories. The "universe" of RABs that might be recounted is shrinking. What does this portend for the two contestants?
I have little faith in any particular climate change model, but the idea that global pollution is either neutral or beneficial seems absurd. In the short term I'm as concerned about acidification of seawater as I am about atmospheric warming, but there are plausible scenarios that are so dire as to suggest that we should do everything in our power to bring pollution levels back to 1950's levels or below, and even that might not be effective.
If a giant meteor were headed towards earth, would we be arguing that dealing with it would be bad for the economy?
Curbing pollution is so clearly a good idea that we shouldn't need a crisis to do it. That we may have waited too long is a notion that is too horrific to fully comprehend. I suspect that "nonbelievers" in the possibility of climate catastrophe are simply unable to entertain the idea at all, and just in denial.
Nothing would please me more than being wrong on this issue, but that still doesn't constitute an argument in favor of pollution.
PK Said:
"Maybe it’s riding around in electric cars with ranges of 25 miles and top speeds to match. Let’s all move back into the urban jungle!
How about this? http://www.teslamotors.com/roadstersport/
288 hp, 100 mph, 220 mile range, all electric.
It is not possible to underestimate the vested interest dirty tricks department on this issue, although there are a few genuine skeptics out there. George Will is just toeing the line (Republican stand is clear in Inhofe's minority environment senate site) - Exxon Mobil gave Inhofe's campaign about $2 million (I'm not making this up!). The argument that there has not been a debate ignores the fact that science itself is a continuous debate. There's a pretty good history of the varied issues (starting with big tobacco, including creationism, how abortion causes cancer, etc.) in Chris Mooney's Republican War on Science (prefer paperback updated edition). The denialist cause has been well supported, directly or indirectly, by the same old vested interests we find everywhere. Common places to find talking points and slanted information are Wattsupwiththat; there are two discredited lists of deniers: the Oregon study (30,000 "scientists" (sic)) and a list of 651 (a friend was included without his knowledge, agreement, or consent).
For a pretty good list of the worldwide organizations in consensus about global warming, try this:
http://www.logicalscience.com/consensus/consensusD1.htm
Grist has an excellent list of answers to all the tired old tropes. Global cooling is a favorite, so is the sun, and the past year is claimed to represent a trend that cancels all that went before.
The idea is to delay and distract, and the continuous insistence on equal time and a "debate" are decades old.
I forgot, this is much more fun than all that went before, a little black humor in cartoons:
www.throbgoblins.blogspot.com
If you're interested, it also provides a variety of links to current news; today's a whopper which includes the massive amount of CO2 that will be released with Arctic melting, the stuff about animal poop, etc. etc. The IPCC, because of its political context, is a conservative document. This bias is claimed to be the opposite, but that's nothing new.
Bear in mind that the constant insult stream flowing towards Al Gore and Jim Hansen is part of a "kill the messenger" strategy, meant to make people ignore or discredit their attempt to bring information to the public.
@John Emerson:
"Nate's comment threads have gone all to hell."
The comment threads aren't so bad. You just have to strip them bare. I do so by ignoring any posts related to Pete Kent. It saves me a lot of time...and thereby I kinda almost can have a life!
Almost.
Ignore the trolls.
See www.realclimate.org
O/T, but check out what the Oracle of Chicago has been up to lately:
Oscar Predictions You Can Bet On!
From the article: Formally speaking, this required the use of statistical software and a process called logistic regression. Informally, it involved building a huge database of the past 30 years of Oscar history. Categories included genre, MPAA classification, the release date, opening-weekend box office (adjusted for inflation), and whether the film won any other awards.
Thanks Nate - this should help mitigate my losses from last year's March Madness office pool.
Nate, good job laying the smackdown on these propagandists. Global warming denialism is a political campaign, not a scientific argument, and it's up to us in the political sphere to help scientists combat this misinformation, because scientists are awfully busy doing what the denialists should be doing. You know--science.
You should check out Pat Michael's testimony to the Senate EPW committee on Thursday for some egregious use of statistics to claim that "the models are failing". (basically, he used a methodology that made it _look_ like the result wasn't dependent on 2008 being a single, cold year, but in fact it was _completely_ dependent on the temperature in 2008).
Denialists are willing to spin, lie, and cheat to get their way... given that I tend to be an optimist about human nature, I am confused as to their motives - maybe they have a gut instinct that climate won't be bad, but can't find anything better than cheap cherry-picking in order to argue against it?
Hey PeteKent,
Good to have you back. Weren't you the one who said McCain was a lock to win the election? What was your explanation for how badly you missed the boat on that one?
As for climate change, what's your explanation for why all pier-reviewed scientific studies say the same thing?
Nate - He's written many articles like this one. He casually omits surrounding text and purposefully misinterprets scientific data. Many of the scientists he has quoted in the past have spoken out against his misuse - but they're not writing for WaPo, so none of the readers are the wiser.
Nate ( & Sean, too) ..
I'm about as anti-Bush Republican as anybody with 2 eyes and a pulse could be. But I was enjoying this blog much more when it preserved some semblence of objectivity. These sly little digs (like "any non-Republican would say ...") are getting a little tiresome to read, regardless of their degree of veracity.
"Denialists are willing to spin, lie, and cheat to get their way... I am confused as to their motives."
Perhaps I can enlighten you by analogy, Marcus. Suppose you are anti-Israel and believe that the Jewish residents of that country should be replaced by Arabs. You may have heard that the opinion that a Jewish state was a reasonable way for the world to respond to what happened in World War II. Well, you can try to argue that such a response was actually inappropriate and destructive to world Jewish interests and security in the long run...or you can argue that the Holocaust never happened in the first place. The latter is a less productive argument, but to the intellectually lazy, who don't want to deal with the question "If a Jewish state is NOT the answer to the Holocaust, then what IS?" it has some appeal.
Flash forward to climate change. The burning of fossil fuels has increased the atmospheric CO2 levels by 40% in a century and a half. In order for this NOT to be warming the planet, one or more of the following must be incorrect:
- first law of thermodynamics
- Kirchhoff's law of radiation
- Planck's law
- Stefan-Boltzmann law
- measured absorption spectrum of CO2 and other atmospheric gases.
Add to this the massive amount of data showing that the planet indeed warming up, just as Svante Arrhenius predicted a century ago, and it's really tough to argue that the global warming isn't happening.
Yet to some, that's easier than answering the question "What do we do about it?" Although I have no doubt that the laws of physics haven't changed recently, I don't believe we should do much SOLELY to try to slow down global warming, and I'm willing to engage anyone in a debate on that topic. That's the discussion we SHOULD be having...NOT whether man-made global warming is occurring at all.
But just like the Holocaust deniers, the global warming deniers are threatened by what has been proposed as a solution to a very real problem (Israel = carbon footprint reduction). Rather than make the difficult argument that this is not the best solution, they choose the easy but dishonest one that the problem doesn't actually exist.
My guess is PeteKent, George Will and their ilk have only adopted his anti-science position become some have advocated an irresponsible and draconian response to climate change. If everyone else said "well, the planet seems to be warming up and we should do nothing but buy more short pants" my guess is they would be accepting the science as well.
LoL @ Consensus Science & Groupthinking Lefties.
Here's a global warming misrepresentation you can see all over the place. Here's lots of people quoting the phrase the observed change may be natural from an IPCC report, using it to imply that they meant to cast doubt on AGW where they say that. Now read the quote in context.,,
The gold standard for refuting the "global cooling consensus" myth is the Peterson et. al. paper cited earlier.
http://ams.allenpress.com/archive/1520-0477/89/9/pdf/i1520-0477-89-9-1325.pdf
For a shorter version, I have a "Layman's Guide" here, which you can read or watch the narrated presentation (~18 minutes).
http://cce.890m.com/a-new-ice-age
[For the record, Will last trotted out these talking points about 3 years ago]
Also, someone mentioned the old chestnut, "Mount Pinatubo more polluting than mankind." For the nutty history of that factoid, go here:
http://cce.890m.com/intro
I know its a bit yesterdays news, but thought the deniers out there should read this.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/georgemonbiot/2009/feb/18/climate-denial-george-will
You won't enjoy it!
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