Statistics: Scientific Consensus on Climate Change?
One of the memes I’ve heard recently in the climate debate is that there is no scientific consensus — that there is actually strong disagreement.
The main basis of this argument is that 31,486 dissenting scientists have signed a petition against the belief that Global Warming is man made at the PetitionProject.org.
I don’t want to debate climate change; rather, I want to look at that argument to see if there are any statistical flaws in it.
My problem is whenever anyone uses a single, out of context, data point. What does this number actually mean? Is 31,486 alot or a little? How many scientists are there in the US? etc.
I heard this argument the other day, and went hunting down a visual way to express it, and found this via Information is Beautiful:
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This does not resolve the debate — there are more variations (Climate Change: A Consensus Among Scientists?) — at but it demonstrates an obvious flaw in the “dissenting scientist” argument.
Here is the breakdown of skeptics, by field:
Interesting stuff . . .
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December 31st, 2009 at 3:30 pm
Attention morons, asshats, trolls, and dipshits:
Please READ what this post is about before responding. It is not about Climate Change. Its is about statistics. Please take the knee jerk arguments elsewhere.
December 31st, 2009 at 3:43 pm
The earth was once molten then there was an ice age and now it is both cooler and warmer than it once was. Man had no influence on those events. Earth is warming and it is cooling. It depends on your reference point and time frame.
~~~
BR: Right on queue . . .
December 31st, 2009 at 3:49 pm
Great graphic!
Incidentally, a housemate of mine last year was a PhD student in physics, a strong Republican, a lifetime member of the NRA, and even he was disgusted by the GOP’s appeal to faith over science when it came to the issues of climate and evolution.
December 31st, 2009 at 3:51 pm
while i suspect we have had some impact, and considering its always been a balancing act for nature to keep what ever climate we have lived in, so that we could upset that balance isn’t that far fetched. i suspect that it won’t matter as its probably to late to stop the climate change and that we will have to deal with it as it happens.
December 31st, 2009 at 3:59 pm
f411-
it is interesting that you lump climate and evolution together- someone can be a devout Christian and still believe in climate change-
but you’re not too bright- so what does it matter
BR-
the better analysis would be to NOT look at all scientists- just those who believe in AGW-
or is your assumption that all the other scientist are firmly in the AGW camp if the did not sign the petition?
December 31st, 2009 at 3:59 pm
Barry, the number of scientists argument is a poor one, and it shows that there is no data to back up what those pushing their climate change/ global warming (the switch was made because there is no more global warming) agenda.
Any fool can look at CO2 levels from the Mauna Loa Observatory and see that CO2 levels were rising when Time Magazine infamously predicted the next ice age in the early 1970s. See the link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mauna_Loa_Observatory
The scientists’ excuse for this data was CFCs were causing the cooling which begs the question the authors of Super Freaknomics bring up, if global warming does exist and can be treated with geoengineering that these same scientists admit works, why not pursue that strategy as opposed to limiting carbon emissions which has never been shown to work?
Probably the funniest story I have with regards to poll numbers were the use of the drugs flecainide and encainide that were used to treat abnormal rhythms of the heart. The idea was the suppressing abnormal heart rhythms would prevent sudden cardiac death, and if you polled cardiologists at the time, there would have been wide spread support for doing so.
Then the CAST study comes out, and it turned out that people who were on flecainide and encainide were two and a half more times likely to die than those on placebo. Apparently, the authors of the report made their final statements to a nearly empty room as cardiologists were running out of the auditorium , calling their offices, and screaming to get their patients off those damned drugs.
The bottom line is that anyone who relies upon polling for truth is not a scientist. By definition, such a person is a politician.
December 31st, 2009 at 3:59 pm
@willid3
Well, regardless, I think it’s utter insanity that Americans can’t agree that carbon is a valuable commodity, and reducing waste is just plain smart business.
December 31st, 2009 at 4:06 pm
It seems pretty logical that CO2 levels influence surface temperatures and there is no debate on that. That humans activities are raising those levels is also without a doubt. It seems hard to argue that man is not a major contributor to climate change unless one wants an excuse to continue what we are already doing – which is human nature, I suppose. And that human nature ties in to why so many want to subscribe to the idea that maybe man can just do what we want and it won’t matter.
I would love to believe that, but it doesn’t make much sense. And there is a general consensus among climate scientists – the debate among them seems to mostly be at what rate are man’s activities affecting surface temperatures.
As willid3 says it may be too late but that’s mostly because after so many years of us and other developed nations being the primary contributors to whatever changes are occuring, it gets tougher to tell developing nations that it’s they that have to restrict their development for the benefit of the rest of us.
December 31st, 2009 at 4:07 pm
If one goes to the original article, http://tigger.uic.edu/~pdoran/012009_Doran_final.pdf, to be found when one follows the link provided by Barry, the discrepancy between the perception of the matter by the public and the very strong consensus among climate scientists who actually work on the subject is quite striking.
rc
December 31st, 2009 at 4:15 pm
Climate change skeptics have succeeded in convincing much of the public that global warming is a live issue of contention among climate scientists. The facts tell us otherwise. For example, in December, 2004, Science Magazine (AAAS) reported:
The American Meteorological Society, the American Geophysical Union, and the AAAS all have issued statements in recent years concluding that the evidence for human modification of climate is compelling.
… [While these reports] might downplay legitimate dissenting opinions, [that] hypothesis was tested by analyzing 928 abstracts, published in refereed scientific journals between 1993 and 2003, and listed in the ISI database with the keywords “climate change.”
… Of all the [928] papers, 75% .. either explicitly or implicitly accept[ed] the consensus view; 25% dealt with methods or paleoclimate, taking no position on current anthropogenic climate change. Remarkably, none of the papers disagreed with the consensus position. (My emphasis, EP).
December 31st, 2009 at 4:15 pm
Party like it’s 1999.
December 31st, 2009 at 4:16 pm
thfiv Says:
Wow, an astonishingly silly and useless argument. You can substitute ANYTHING for that and still end up with “depends on your reference point and time frame” as an answer.
December 31st, 2009 at 4:20 pm
An interesting related link from Yves Smith’s Naked Capitalism, this morning:
http://www.truthout.org/1229093
Not that it will influence anyone’s thinking on the matter.
December 31st, 2009 at 4:21 pm
http://www.crichton-official.com/speech-ourenvironmentalfuture.html
December 31st, 2009 at 4:22 pm
C’mon, ahab. You can accuse F411 of painting with a broad brush. But, yes, climate “skepticism” and evolution “skepticism” are more correlated than they are not. Pointing out that they aren’t 100% correlated does not make F411 “stupid”.
December 31st, 2009 at 4:23 pm
thfiv Says:
The earth was once molten then there was an ice age and now it is both cooler and warmer than it once was. Man had no influence on those events. Earth is warming and it is cooling. It depends on your reference point and time frame.
_________
Thus, any other scenario is impossible and should be discounted and railed against, regardless of supporting evidence.
Oy.
December 31st, 2009 at 4:24 pm
The engineers, computer scientists, code writers, and healthcarte professionals included in that graphic are hardly meaningful to make the point that a consensus is overwhelming. phew! (HMN)
I don’t have an opinion on warming other than to note that we get less snow in the northeast since I was a boy even if the first storm this year was big. I will however point out that the concept of social mood is all about how we (collectively) perceive the always uncertain events of the future with a sense of pessimism or optimism and through this shared state we create our own perceived reality. When we correct as a society we are expressing shared pessimism as we look out and ahead. And if you consider 2000 was the actual peak and that we have been “correcting” ever since, then most of the progress in the green movement is simply in keeping with social norms expected during such a period of social mood.
The earth may actually be about to go over the falls for all I know but opinion polls that include health care professionals get us no closer to informed decisions about how to commit very precious social resources these days. Why hasn’t the argument been distilled effectively? Is it maybe owing to populist sentiment a little too much? I think so….even if the science is right, which seems impossible to prove, why don’t we get more arguments that are less emotional?
December 31st, 2009 at 4:28 pm
Science has nothing to do with consensus.
Consensus is politics.
Science requires one investigator to be right.
Results that are verifiable by reference to the real world.
In science, consensus is irrelevant.
What is relevant is reproducible results.
The greatest scientists are great because they broke away from consensus.
Consensus of scientists has frequently been wrong.
They believed continents did not move.
Mark Twain said, “Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.”
December 31st, 2009 at 4:29 pm
I call bullshit on Information is Beautiful. They’re just as bad as either side of the climate debate in stretching their own statistics to make their point.
Total workforce is only 151M, so they’re saying that almost 1/12 is a scientist? Saying that anyone with a degree in any field somewhat resembling a “science” is not the same as trying to put it in perspective. Who knows, there may be an undecided majority of 149M who just haven’t reviewed the underlying data.
And, it has been proven that there was substantial upward-biased “normalization” of the data on the reviewed data. It would take a decade to unwind what pro-climate-change “scientists” have done to the data and look at it with a non biased approach. That’s not an insignificant task.
We may be looking at the modern day equivalent of trepanning. In case you don’t remember, the scientific consensus of the 1500′s was that fevers were caused by bad spirits invading the mind. Letting them out was the only logical choice. To read a few biased papers and claim to know what’s happening is only logical for megalomaniacs like Al Gore. We should take a more reasoned approach and allow peer-reviewed analysis of the base data and access to statistical models and extrapolation equations. There’s too much money at stake here to get this wrong. On both sides.
Chuck Ponzi
December 31st, 2009 at 4:29 pm
It boggles my mind that “is it man-made or isn’t” is even a debate.
Question: If you are driving down the road and a another car is coming straight at you, do you get out of the way?
Most likely answer: You would definitely try. Yes.
Question: If you are driving down the road and a pile of huge rocks and dirt start to slide down the hillside towards your car, do you get out of the way?
Most likely answer: You would definitely try. Yes.
Question: If you pull in to your driveway, see that your house is on fire, and someone is running out of your garage with an empty gas tank and a butane lighter, would you try to put out the fire, call 911?
Most likely answer: You would definitely try. Yes.
Question: If, as you pull in to your driveway, lightening strikes your house and sets it on fire, would you try to put out the fire, call 911?
Most likely answer: You would definitely try. Yes.
The point is, I don’t give a shit if the problem is 100% man-made or not. Man, tree, cyborg, who cares. There is more that enough reasonable, scientific evidence indicating that we can, at least to some degree, alter the speed at which climate change occurs. Climate change is a problem. How is whether or not we do something (which is the real reason this debate is even happening) a debatable point?
Let’s add some other reasons as to why we just might want to do something: the possibility of peak oil (or political events causing economically crippling high prices), the need for new technologies to drive further economic growth (the consumer sure as hell won’t do it), the wasteful use of our limited clean water (how do you think oil is forced out of the tar sands), profit, first mover advantage, not wanting to live in a waste land, etc, etc….
December 31st, 2009 at 4:35 pm
imho, it’s all pretty much a moot point unless you talk about not driving cars, or doing something substantial about mpg’s of cars, otherwise it’s like saying too an alchoholic if you don’t eat sugar on halloween you will be better, totally illogical, thus, i pay zero mind to it all
December 31st, 2009 at 4:36 pm
@cym
you are God
December 31st, 2009 at 4:37 pm
DM RTA
“. . . why don’t we get more arguments that are less emotional?”
________
Because emotional arguments are easier for entrenched, big money interests to foist on those who don’t, can’t, or are unwilling to understand science or the scientific method. See the link I posted, above.
Other examples:
Obama isn’t an American
Our country was founded on Judeo/Christian religious principles
Saddam Hussein was responsible for 9-11
Intelligent design is valid science
Sub-prime loans caused our current economic crisis
There will be “death panels” if we move to universal healthcare
December 31st, 2009 at 4:37 pm
This discussion is why you could make money if you were long stupidity.
December 31st, 2009 at 4:38 pm
@ thfiv
Thanks. I’m going to show this to my wife.
December 31st, 2009 at 4:39 pm
Unless a scientist is working in the specific field, their opinion is at best equivalent to that of a well-informed non-scientist. A scientist who tries to use the fact that they are a scientist to lend credibility to their views on ANY subject in which they are not professionally competent is misleading the public.
December 31st, 2009 at 4:48 pm
@krice… see http://www.middlebury.net/op-ed/global-warming-01.html for a qualified comment on CO2, f411…only wall street as carbon market makers and the U.S.G. see carbon as wealth and revenue generators, for the rest of the common man it is another way to redistribute wealth and burden the already over burdened middle American taxpayer. Global warming is another “state of fear” hoisted upon us by bufoons such as Al Gore, et.al. What is clear is that one side of the debate has greater access to the msm in pushing their agenda and thus influences the sheeple, public opinion and social policy. Damnit, don’t we have anything better to do with our time!?
December 31st, 2009 at 4:50 pm
True conservatism seeks to mitigate perceived risks. We’d be smart to start addressing the risk that the scientific community is correct in their assumptions, as the alternative — maintaining the status quo — results in a dire outcome for our kids in a worst case scenario if the scientists are correct, and little benefit from a best case scenario if they are wrong.
December 31st, 2009 at 4:51 pm
@GeorgeBurnsWasRight:
“Unless a scientist is working in the specific field, their opinion is at best equivalent to that of a well-informed non-scientist. A scientist who tries to use the fact that they are a scientist to lend credibility to their views on ANY subject in which they are not professionally competent is misleading the public.”
Yeah, but you forget that most climate scientists who work on the subject are just part of a great conspiracy of hundreds or thousands of scientists from all over the world who have created the climate hoax, forged all the data and brainwashed the public for their sinister goals, for personal wealth and power. They have been pursuing their master plan for decades now. Thus, these scientists are the least reliable references regarding the matter of global warming.
Just read some of the comments here.
rc
December 31st, 2009 at 4:54 pm
Marcus Aurelius…that was a good read and seemingly convincing to consider that very stuff I am hungry to read in another 10 pages or so. Someone has to be able to explain the important determinants in a reasonable read. I am tired of skinny polar bears.
December 31st, 2009 at 4:56 pm
What’s with the “overburdened American taxpayer” schtick? US taxes are low when compared to both historic and global tax rates. We have lived beyond our tax revenue for years, and we will never pay the debt we already have. Where’s the burden? We bought this on ourselves precisely by not paying for what we have.
If you want the smallest, weakest government and lowest taxes, Afghanistan might be the place to go.
December 31st, 2009 at 4:58 pm
The latest issue of Chemical and Engineering news has an article on the debate over greenhouse gases, and some of the artifacts and specious arguments that may exist:
http://pubs.acs.org/cen/coverstory/87/8751cover.html
December 31st, 2009 at 4:59 pm
@thfiv:
Michael Crichton? You do it right. Listen to the elaborations of a fiction author, but not to the ones who actually work and publish on the subject scientifically. First one is right, latter must be wrong.
Too bad that Michael Jackson is dead. I really would have liked to know his expert view on the subject.
rc
December 31st, 2009 at 5:04 pm
Is this how we discover truth now? By taking a poll. Had a poll been taken 400 years ago regarding whether the solar system was geocentric or heliocentric, I’m quite sure geocentricity would have won. But it still would have been wrong.
December 31st, 2009 at 5:06 pm
Marcus at 4:37- wow dude- thanks- i didn’t know any of that stuff- I’m always learning (-:
Wunsacon-
I did not use the “S” word (-: and I meant it in a good way (-:
ok- maybe not
December 31st, 2009 at 5:12 pm
Barry,
Your headline is framed in such a way as to suggest there is not a consensus amongst scientists on global warming trends. For the folks that only read your headline, they are apt to see quite a few scientists (31,400) do not believe in anthropogenic forcing of global warming. They will not see the statistical flaw of a seemingly large number.
Only those that drill down and do the math will realize that 31,400 scientists argue against man-made global warming only comprise 0.25% of the population of scientists. The other 99.75% are all agreed that the human influence of global warming trends is factual. Because many scientists with biased agendas have been minimizing the threat global warming poses and the govt has been actively censoring Global warming science for the past twenty years on behalf of the lobbyists in the fossil fuel industries, and because the height of that censoring took place in 2006-07, and because we are so close to an irreversible tipping point, I suggest you do not treat this subject so lightly by panning over statistical mirages. Your headline is a disservice to the facts and findings behind global warming and an impediment to the sense of urgency towards radical change. Reversing global warming trends is imperative for the securing the safety and soundness of life on this earth and will require significant policy changes out of Washington to avoid crossing an irreversible tipping point.
The fact is, everytime the debate gets opened up by uninformed people it serves the agendas of those industries who would like to delay anything getting done about it. And we all know it will be business as usual in Washington and no chance of an effective energy policy and effective global warming policy forming if the public keeps getting mired in disinformation. Quite frankly, the clock is ticking against us.
This is a subject matter where it is time to put opinions and debate aside and get seriously informed. I would urge all readers become better informed about the facts and findings behind threatening global warming trends and the need for policymakers to address these issues now and meet this challenge head on. To get better informed, please
read Mark Bowen’s Censoring Science and sign up to NASA’s Jim Hansen’s email distribution list. To be added to the list distribution, please e-mail hansenemailserver@gmail.com with “ADD” as the subject of your message.
Thank you
December 31st, 2009 at 5:23 pm
“Too bad that Michael Jackson is dead. I really would have liked to know his expert view on the subject.”
now that’s funny
December 31st, 2009 at 5:23 pm
@marcus…you need to look beyond federal tax rates and include the increase and amounts of “fees” over time to get an accurate picture of the tax burden…while federal tax rates have declined federal, state andlocal “fees” have only increased…fees=taxes.
December 31st, 2009 at 5:27 pm
@johnbougearel…please get seriously informed at http://www.middlebury.net/op-ed/global-warming-01.html
December 31st, 2009 at 5:51 pm
@jz:
“Barry, the number of scientists argument is a poor one, and it shows that there is no data to back up what those pushing their climate change/ global warming (the switch was made because there is no more global warming) agenda.”
Right. The 97% or so climate scientists of the ones who work on the subject and who think global warming is man-made haven’t backed up this view with data published in the scientific literature. Instead, they just have made this up to support their evil agenda.
Can you present scientific studies on global warming, in which it is “proven” by using polling results? I don’t think so. There aren’t any scientific studies, which base their conclusions on global warming on polling results. To suggest polling results would be used as “scientific” proof for global warming is just another “climate skeptic” straw man argument.
The subject of the article here wasn’t to proof that man-made global warming was real. The subject was whether there is a consensus on the conclusions from the research. Do you understand the difference?
“Any fool can look at CO2 levels from the Mauna Loa Observatory and see that CO2 levels were rising when Time Magazine infamously predicted the next ice age in the early 1970s. See the link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mauna_Loa_Observatory”
Another strange argument. Because a news magazine predicted a next ice age in the early 1970s, the results from the scientific research on global warming can’t be true? Somehow I miss the logic here.
“The scientists’ excuse for this data was CFCs were causing the cooling…”
Which scientists? The misrepresentation here is the suggestion that there was some established scientific consensus on this matter. I am not aware that there was. And articles in news magazines who want to sell stories aren’t relevant.
” … which begs the question the authors of Super Freaknomics bring up, if global warming does exist and can be treated with geoengineering that these same scientists admit works, why not pursue that strategy as opposed to limiting carbon emissions which has never been shown to work?”
Bogus argument. Geoengineering isn’t such a simple matter as suggested here. There is increasing research on it, though. To claim that science says “it works” is just not based on facts.
“The bottom line is that anyone who relies upon polling for truth is not a scientist. By definition, such a person is a politician.”
I hope you don’t forget to make the same statement and also what you said in your first sentence of your comment, when the next one of your “climate skeptic”-buddies brings up the 31,000 scientists who signed the petition according to which man-made global warming wasn’t real, to argue man-made global warming wasn’t real.
rc
December 31st, 2009 at 5:54 pm
“Attention morons, asshats, trolls, and dipshits:’
don’t sugar coat it for us Barry- tell us how you really feel-
lmao- also-
feel free to delete this post at your leisure and lastly-
i would like to add that i take pride on being a complete troll :D
December 31st, 2009 at 6:02 pm
Barry,
I could get every single human on earth to believe that the earth is the center of the universe, but that would not change reality. AGW is not different.
Science is about finding objective reality, not creating consensus. The universe does not care about human consenus and the echo chambers of “intellectuals”. You cannot fool reality.
~~~
BR: I wanted to discuss statistics, not Global Warming . . .
December 31st, 2009 at 6:05 pm
QUESTION THE OPENING PREMISE.
A-L-W-A-Y-S start with the Opening Premise – in this case the NUMBER of supposed ‘scientists’.
Successfully framing the argument is half the battle in disseminating lies and propaganda.
The petition site is stupifyingly clumsy, head explodingly transparently fraudulent. http://www.petitionproject.org/
Following a four line statement for one to register disagreement with is:
1. a line for a signature.
2. a box to check if one wants more ‘petitions’
3. three boxes labeled B.S., M.S. and Ph.D. (check which one you are)
4. a line following the above labeled ‘in the field of’
Thats ALL THERE IS.
The sample contained an illegible signature, the more petitions box checked, the PhD box checked, and ‘in the field of’ filled in ith ‘physics’.
Is it even possible to contruct a more spurious, unverifiable, cheatable, transparently fraudulent ‘petition’?
There is absolutely nothing at all to prevent groups of true believers from sitting around a table filling out these petitions enmasse. There is no way to verify any part of the petition. If even that was done.
That 31,486 number is so totally and transparently bogus it boggles the mind it gained any traction whatsoever.
So the argument now revolves around disproving that 31,486 ‘scientists’ are wrong.
Sucessfully framing the argument is half the battle? … in this day and age, make that 90% of the battle.
The people of this country don’t have a snowflakes chance in a molten lake of lava of averting disaster and a police state.
December 31st, 2009 at 6:24 pm
The headwinds for all of this are;
A. People have to know what a Consensus is.
B. Have to know what a Scientist is.
Since 90+% of all people couldn’t answer those questions, It’s just a Rorschach. I mean, hell we still have Social Scientists trying to pretend they know their ass from an elbow.
The United States continues to fall behind in all engineering and science fields… WHY? because moron Christian White Assholes, wants the whole world to be just as fucking ignorant as they are, wandering around contemplating the Existence of Unicorns.
Sub prime my ass, how about decline caused by a resurgence of Christian Mythology in society and education.
For the Morons around here, How about realizing that because we don’t know exactly how the 3 toed sloth, got it’s claws, doesn’t put evolution in question.
Science is all about asking more questions, as opposed to religion, which is about “Leaps of Faith” AKA pretending you know what your talking about.
The real question is; if we are just to fucking stupid to prosper or even survive.
December 31st, 2009 at 6:55 pm
While evaluating whether or not global warming is real, you have to ignore imperfect messengers and enterprising asshats.
The enterprising asshats will probably succeed because they know that nothing will be done without a compromise that cuts them in on huge profits. In contrast, if everyone were on board with taking action, we would end up with better policy.
December 31st, 2009 at 6:56 pm
This is simply so stupid that I have to comment.
You have made a career promoting the fact that you are better because you go against the fools who make up the “consensus.”
As we have seen throughout history, stupid ideas often are supported by the consensus: slavery was widely embraced as a good idea by the consensus thinkers in many cultures and the world being flat was also a great consensus idea.
For this “logic” to be used as a reason to dispute the dissenters is really beneath you.
You are a dissenter and that is your value.
December 31st, 2009 at 6:57 pm
>> Earth is warming and it is cooling. It depends on your reference point and time frame.
Feces is found in water in varying amounts. So, if I shit upstream from your water supply, don’t make a big fuss. 1000 years ago, you’d have been drinking worse.
December 31st, 2009 at 7:07 pm
@spigzone:
This petition even has a comic aspect. They try to “disprove” global warming using an article published in the “Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons”. Perhaps the next fringe group will “disprove” quantum theory of fields in the “Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease”.
rc
December 31st, 2009 at 7:15 pm
@dr.j:
Actually, it’s the manipulative way, in which these “dissenters” make up a petition of about 31,000 scientists that say global warming wasn’t real to give the false impression to the public this subject was heavily disputed among scientists, that is disputed.
rc
December 31st, 2009 at 7:16 pm
Anyone arguing there isn’t a “consensus” is either misled or misleading. More scientists belief in human-induced climate change than dentists recommending Trident.
Since when is “over 99%” not a consensus? When you’re listening to idiots.
December 31st, 2009 at 7:19 pm
>> You have made a career promoting the fact that you are better because you go against the fools who make up the “consensus.”
He dissents when he points out flaws in their assumptions or reasoning… Not “just because”.
December 31st, 2009 at 7:25 pm
Barry,
Might as well have titled it “Statistics: Economist Consensus on No Housing Bubble” and published it back in 2005.
~~~
BR: Difference is Economics is not a science . . . In fact, you are hard pressed to provide much in the way of what economists as a group get right.
On the other hand, Scientists have given us computers, medicine, electronics, industry, the internet, transportation, technology, safe food, indoor plumbing, etc.
December 31st, 2009 at 7:28 pm
13 million scientists in the US? First of all, Barry, as a physics major, you should know this is a bullshit number. There are hardly 13 million americans who could pass trigonometry, let alone calculus. It took me one minute on google to find the following number of US scientists- 2,157,300. It’s from the National Science Foundation, and is at: http://www.nsf.gov/statistics (2001, last year available on their data).
As a practicing geologist of 35 years with four degrees (3 geology, one MBA, sad to say) I know that just because you are a scientist doesn’t mean you have expertise in anything except the narrow field of your specialty you are working in. In other words, a crop scientist for the UN doesn’t know squat about climate change. Unfortunately, climatologists are the last people to know diddly about climate change, either. Many of them are actually meteorologists (yes, there is a difference), or, God forbid, physicists
(an engineer with more math background). Geologists take a much longer look at climate, and ignore tiny time bumps and blips (your statistical outliers you mention in the article). From a geological time perspective, 50 years of snow in Miami doesn’t mean anything. Unfortunately, too many nonscientists have hijacked the climate change discussion and turned it into a naked power grab.
Finally, if you check with NOAA and the Coast and Geodetic Survey, you will see that their best guess of sea level rise in the last century is about 14 inches. And, if anyone actually READS the UN report on climate change (not the retarded executive summary for morons), their best guess on sea level rise for the entire 21st century is…..drum roll please…..14 INCHES. Go figure.
December 31st, 2009 at 7:34 pm
I’m not sure what is worse….asking 10 economists a question in which you get 11 answers, or asking 10 scientists a question and getting the same answer by all 10. Sometimes, consensus can be just as bad as indecisiveness.
December 31st, 2009 at 7:39 pm
It helps to know why 31,000 plus scientists signed. It was in response to Al “I’m not a moron” Gore suggesting the absurd notion that there was consensus on global warming by his constant noting that 2500 scientists had signed the fraudulent IPCC United Nations paper.
I’m willing to bet that the creators of this chart know that and still made this representation. I’m sorry to see that so many fall for this stuff. Talk about being led by the nose.
More 72 Nobel prize winners, which appear to be esteemed around here, have signed this petition. Here’s a breakdown of the signers to date:
http://www.petitionproject.org/qualifications_of_signers.php
1. Atmospheric, environmental, and Earth sciences includes 3,804 scientists trained in specialties directly related to the physical environment of the Earth and the past and current phenomena that affect that environment.
2. Computer and mathematical sciences includes 935 scientists trained in computer and mathematical methods. Since the human-caused global warming hypothesis rests entirely upon mathematical computer projections and not upon experimental observations, these sciences are especially important in evaluating this hypothesis.
3. Physics and aerospace sciences include 5,812 scientists trained in the fundamental physical and molecular properties of gases, liquids, and solids, which are essential to understanding the physical properties of the atmosphere and Earth.
4. Chemistry includes 4,821 scientists trained in the molecular interactions and behaviors of the substances of which the atmosphere and Earth are composed.
5. Biology and agriculture includes 2,965 scientists trained in the functional and environmental requirements of living things on the Earth.
6. Medicine includes 3,046 scientists trained in the functional and environmental requirements of human beings on the Earth.
7. Engineering and general science includes 10,103 scientists trained primarily in the many engineering specialties required to maintain modern civilization and the prosperity required for all human actions, including environmental programs.
That compares to Al Gore’s troupe of supposed signers:
Using the Freedom of Information Act, it has been proven that the so-called 2500 scientists the IPCC claims make up their “consensus,” are really not scientists at all. Of that total, only 308 scientists reviewed the 2007 IPCC report. Many of them disagreed, some strongly so. Not surprisingly, all of their comments were rejected and not included in the report. The remaining 2192 so-called scientists came from all walks of life; politicians, government bureaucrats, social workers, and apparently even a hotel manager. Less than 40 of the 308 scientists were generally supportive of the hypothesis, and less than 5 actually endorsed the report. Yet, the report was hailed by the media as the consensus of thousands of scientists.
rootless_cosmopolitan, apparently you don’t know much about Michael Crichton as you sluff him off as a “fiction writer”. You should have such a resume.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Crichton
…..Crichton showed a keen interest in writing from a young age and at the age of just 14 had a column related to travel published in The New York Times. [3] Crichton had always planned on becoming a writer and commenced his studies at Harvard College in 1960.[3] During his undergraduate study in literature, Crichton conducted an experiment to catch off guard a professor who he believed was giving him abnormally low marks and criticising his literary style. Informing another professor of his suspicions, Crichton plagiarized a work by George Orwell and submitted it as his own. Unaware, the paper was returned by his professor with a mark of “B−”.[6] His issues with the English Department led Crichton to switch his course to biological anthropology as an undergraduate, obtaining his bachelor’s degree summa cum laude in 1964.[7] Crichton was also initiated into the Phi Beta Kappa Society. He went on to become the Henry Russell Shaw Traveling Fellow from 1964 to 1965 and Visiting Lecturer in Anthropology at the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom in 1965.
Crichton later enrolled at Harvard Medical School when he began publishing work. By this time Crichton had become unusually tall. According to his own words, he was approximately 6 feet 9 inches (2.06 meters) tall in 1997.[8][9] In reference to his height, while in medical school, he began writing novels under the pen names John Lange and Jeffery Hudson (Lange is a surname in Germany, meaning “long” and Sir Jeffrey Hudson was a famous 17th century dwarf in the court of Queen Consort Henrietta Maria of England). In Travels, he recalls overhearing unaware doctors discussing the flaws in The Andromeda Strain while he maintained anonymity in medical school. A Case of Need, written under the Hudson pseudonym, won him his first Edgar Award for Best Novel in 1969. He also co-authored Dealing with his younger brother Douglas under the shared pen name Michael Douglas. The back cover of that book contains a picture of Michael and Douglas at a very young age taken by their mother.
Crichton graduated from Harvard, obtaining an M.D. in 1969, and undertook a post-doctoral fellowship study at the Jonas Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla, California, from 1969 to 1970
He definitely hasn’t got a clue!
December 31st, 2009 at 7:42 pm
One more piece of trivia–over 9,000 have Ph.D’s in the fields noted above.
December 31st, 2009 at 7:57 pm
As I promised myself to no longer contribute to such foolishness, I will refrain from saying that the “statistical flaw” that Barry is searching for is that the question should have been,”how many U.S. Scientists agree with human-induced climate change”? Failing to disagree, does not imply agreement, for example, I am arguably one of the “scientist” group (having a degree in engineering), yet, nobody asked me whether I agree or not.
I will also refrain from mentioning that the definition of who is a scientist, while flattering, is seriously incorrect (again, using myself as an example).
And, finally, while there are many more things I might say were I of the mind to say them, I would also opine that the “question” is insanely worded — does “disagreement with human-induced climate change” imply a desire or preference? In other words, the question seems to ask not if I believe it exists, but whether I would want it to occur?
Anyway, to everyone out there, a very Happy (calendar) New Year.
And to Barry, thank you for one final 2009 insult to my intelligence. I’d say my New Years’ resolution was to refrain from participating in such time-wasting nonsense, but as you can tell, I’ve already begun.
December 31st, 2009 at 8:04 pm
This seems a bit like the situation the Roger’s commission faced investigating the Challenger accident. They were told that opinions about the safety of the SRB seals were divided; some people opposed the launch, but many disagreed. At least one commission member knew how to get to the bottom of things, though:
“It struck me that the Thiokol managers were waffling.
But I only knew how to ask simpleminded questions.
…
…the two who were mentioned right
away as being the best seal experts, both said no. ” So this
“evenly split” stuff was a lot of crap. The guys who knew
the most about the seals—what were they saying?”
Richard P. Feynman
“What Do You Care What Other People Think?”
pp. 163-164
So the statistical flaw here is to fail to compare the group of dissenters with the group of scientists who are actually experts on climate change.
December 31st, 2009 at 8:05 pm
In light of the recent revelations concerning those promoting the warmist agenda I wonder how many scientists would sign a petition fully supporting the IPCC position and underlying science.
December 31st, 2009 at 8:07 pm
bergie (or is it Bergy)- see my 3:59 post-
http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2009/12/statistics-scientific-consensus-on-climate-change/#comment-245151
your question is the right one
December 31st, 2009 at 8:13 pm
Having just finished watching “Bull Durham”……..I think this particular quote from Crash Davis is apt here…
“If you believe you’re winning because you’re getting laid, or, not getting laid, or because you wear women’s underwear……….THEN YOU ARE………..AND, YOU SHOULD KNOW THAT!”
C’mon Barry…………dazzle me……..show me another picture……..
December 31st, 2009 at 8:15 pm
Sticking to the point of the post… the “scientific consensus” deniers (for lack of a less inflammatory term) need to identify the number of times the “scientific consensus” has been wrong and apply the same stringent statistical rules to their analysis.
Logically, any new discovery is a change in the current thinking (aka scientific consensus) however the distinction between revolutionary (yes, Virginia, the earth is not flat) versus evolutionary discoveries (we can get another million megabytes on that surface) in recent generations which extend contributions are the overwhelming cases.
Off point: I just don’t get why the Far Right in this country loves Iranian crude so much. Given the energy they put into all the recent screeching about national security, you’d think they’d buy into the energy independence idea long ago.
December 31st, 2009 at 8:15 pm
bergsten@7:57,
Dude, you stole my thunder. I was wondering the same thing. Lately, this site has become nothing more than CNBC lite with useless pretty graphs and charts. I learned a lot from this site over the year and I want to thank Barry and regular commentators. With new year I am off to interesting things and new blogs/sites. Lately I have been spending a lot of time on this blog, http://thehousingbubbleblog.com. Check it out if you have time. This site has become waste of time…. Sorry if I offended anyone.
Disclaimer: I am in no way involved with the blog mentioned above. Just a regular reader.
December 31st, 2009 at 8:26 pm
“you’d think they’d buy into the energy independence idea long ago.”
no doubt-
however- everyone has seemed to drop the ball on that- all lip service and never any action- a heavy gas tax should be the first move
December 31st, 2009 at 8:31 pm
Barry – You really do let your political views impact your data. Do you imply that if there are 13 million scientists out there, anyone who didn’t sign the petition is automatically a supporter of climate change/global warming science. Not true, unless you POLL ALL OF THEM. Truth may be beautiful but first it must be true. Have you read “How to Lie With Statistics”?
Don’t give up your day job.
December 31st, 2009 at 8:47 pm
ok. i got it that its not about climate change, but statistics. but you were interested enough to analyze a claim (admitedly weak) from the critical camp, so this makes you a target. its weak because its another appeal to experts. i am not playing my experts versus your experts….any more than i would if the issue were the existence of bigfoot….we are going to do our damndest to just laugh you off the stage…. and frankly i think its workin out pretty good.
December 31st, 2009 at 8:59 pm
Oh look there’s a bunch of comments on the climate stat post.
What a shock
December 31st, 2009 at 9:01 pm
inessence,
If you’ve got the nerve to compare middlebury.net to James Hansen…
I got 2 bridges to sell to you…for the price of a tool booth at that.
December 31st, 2009 at 9:09 pm
More interesting than the statistics is the psychology behind the rabid denialism of climate change. I see people with advanced education and seemingly good inner life transformed into rabid fanatics when it comes to deny the existence of AGW.
Makes me wonder why are they so emotionally invested in this? What is the thing they find so threatening to their sense of self, their vision of the world?
December 31st, 2009 at 9:20 pm
Hi, I’m a long time reader, first time commenter. I really enjoy and learn from the analytical nature of Barry’s posts, and of many of the commenters, as contrasted against the political viewpoint/dogma nature that seems to dominates so much of media and the blogosphere.
I haven’t seen mentioned, in the comments to Barry’s post, the very good articles on this subject on Wikipedia. Specifically “Scientific Opinion on Climate Change”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_opinion_on_climate_change.
From the Wikipedia article:
” National and international science academies and scientific societies have assessed the current scientific opinion, in particular on recent global warming. These assessments have largely followed or endorsed the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) position of January 2001 that states:
An increasing body of observations gives a collective picture of a warming world and other changes in the climate system… There is new and stronger evidence that most of the warming observed over the last 50 years is attributable to human activities.[1]
Since 2007, no scientific body of national or international standing has maintained a dissenting opinion. Some organizations hold a non-committal position.”
The last dissenting opinion was by the American Association of Petroleum Geologists, i.e., oil industry scientists and engineers, which as removed in 2007. How many of the 31K petition signers are associated with the oil industry? The oil industry connections need to be broken out of the data.
Also, this petition with 32K signers changes the question: It mentions only “catastrophic heating” and not the broader issue of global warming. (Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_change_consensus – Dissenting)
If you had a Gaussian distribution of scientist’s opinions in all the scientific organizations, how many standard deviations past mean must “The global warming observed over the past 50 years is due primarily to human-induced emissions of heat-trapping gases” be for NO scientific body to hold a dissenting position?
December 31st, 2009 at 9:36 pm
This is probably too far down to get read, but ….. I have done a lot of good, thorough statistics and seen supposed experts “use ” statistics to perform services for customers. A very great deal of it was incredibly lame. Bad. But the customer didn’t know. Buyer beware.
Causality. You can do all the statistics you want. You can’t often prove causality. Correlation yes. Causality no. AGW fits this bill. Causality proof would require a repeatable experiment. Ain’t gonna happen.
And as far as scientific consensus and group counts, in this glorious post-modern era, consensus can mean squat, on either side of an argument.
Except if you can identify the big dogs, feeding their egos and getting the power and funding, then you can safely assume their scientific integrity has been compromised. What’s in it for the vested parties?
Gore is going to become a billionaire running a cap and trade derivative exchange. Objective? I think not.
I have seen entirely, entirely too much very important science mangled by egos and power.
Once a decision is made and acted upon to alter the environment, it usually becomes impossible to prove it wrong. So, if you’re a coat-tail follower scientist hoping for some of the fairy dust to land on you, your most important scientific analysis is to make sure you’re on the right side of the decision.
Those in the minority perform the most important balancing force.
Rational, unemotional scientists. I suspect not.
Once again I am reminded of the Challenger investigations running to a politically correct decision until a particular person being denied the chance to prove his point, intentionally and unannounced, dropped sealant in a glass of ice water.
December 31st, 2009 at 10:07 pm
Cat meet pigeons. Heh.
You could start by researching the Oregon Petition at the search engine of your choice since everybody knows that Google is commies. If that doesn’t bother you start here:
http://www.google.ca/search?q=oregon+petition&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=com.ubuntu:en-US:official&client=firefox-a
A surprising number of people who signed it are dead or missing or never existed, so the number drops. Scientific American (more Marxian fascists!) said that about 200 of the signers might actually be qualified to make an informed comment on the subject. And the numbers drop some more. While you’re at it consider the source of the petition, would you buy a slightly used stock from those guys?
I don’t know how many scientists there are in America but it doesn’t surprise me that there are 12.994 million people with hard science degrees. But how is that relevant? There is one petition, thoroughly trashed, against the number of people worldwide with hard science degrees who accept AGW as a fact. No idea how many that is so we’ll just call it a metric buttload. Against which the petition amounts to a few grains of sand on Miami Beach, statistically speaking.
And one more thing. This is science. It’s facts and numbers. Anyone who talks about belief is disqualified from the argument. One can only accept/reject the facts presented, belief has no place in science. Those who accept the facts move on trying to improve their understanding of reality. (Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn’t go away. Philip K. Dick)
Those who reject the facts must refute them with facts of their own which will stand the scrutiny of their scientific peers. Let me know if that happens, I’d really like AGW to go away, but I don’t think it will.
Finally, this has been in my mind for a while now:
Barry Ritholtz! I’m calling you out. You’re a numbers guy with some serious computer horsepower. Do us all a favour and run the numbers.
They are available from Tamino (you’d like him/her, I think) here:
http://tamino.wordpress.com/climate-data-links/
Or Real Climate:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/data-sources/
How about it, big guy? Can you do it?
December 31st, 2009 at 10:41 pm
PS: So far nobody has run the numbers and come up with anything different. And nobody on the denier side has come up with any other numbers from other sources that work.
So, AGW is a fact. Moving on…
What do we do about it?
This is a moral question, not an economic one. Those of you who think it is an economic question and don’t want to pay need to answer me this: Are you willing to bet your grandchildren against the best scientific minds of our time?
If you are then I have a friendly warning for you. The internet was invented by Al Gore to gather information, including GPS coordinates, about you. The vast left wing conspiracy is preparing for the time when we need feedstock for the Soylent Green and you’re it. If I were you I’d log off and run ’cause I hear 7,000,000,000 people is the magic number and it’s coming up fast.
Bye now.
December 31st, 2009 at 11:35 pm
Rob Dawg Says:
“In light of the recent revelations concerning those promoting the warmist agenda . . .”
____________
Yes, the “warmist” agenda. Exactly what is that agenda? Is it like the “gay” agenda? The “liberal” agenda? The “vast right-wing conspiracy?” So, Al Gore has minions who collect ice cores from around the world, analyze the gasses trapped in them, and then twist their own dedication to science in order to do the bidding of their lefty mastermind? There’s no question that we can trust the “scientists” who dissent who are clearly working for low pay at publically funded and renowned educational institutions – and not for the industries with the most to lose, should carbon emissions be regulated.
Read the link I posted earlier.
December 31st, 2009 at 11:36 pm
how do you know they are scientists ? And that scientist knows a thing about global warming?
what a waste..
January 1st, 2010 at 12:16 am
The earth doesnt need any saving. It/She just is. Perhaps the best thing that humans can do for the planet is leave fast and let her be…
January 1st, 2010 at 12:29 am
More interesting than the statistics is the psychology behind the rabid denialism of climate change.
Funny how it’s the skeptics that get tagged as “rabid”.
January 1st, 2010 at 12:55 am
eren:
How do you know they’re not and they don’t?
January 1st, 2010 at 1:04 am
Interesting how smug and condescending people can be about there beliefs (lol) yet the responses to the comment by {TerryC December 31st, 2009 at 7:28 pm} ..an actual scientist (geologist 3 degrees ect) ..was incredibly SILENCE …
also the interesting post right after by {Patrick Neid Says: December 31st, 2009 at 7:39 pm}
so when a point you dont like comes up ..dont address it ..just act like no one said it …
Further Barry sorry to say the quality ..and dare I say my bet.. outright manipulation of the question is an insult to intellience…
you are becoming the asshat ..get back to objective debate ..this won’t win you entry into upper stratophere of media bigwigs ..but it will keep you from becoming a partisan hack..
January 1st, 2010 at 1:42 am
Funny, I didn’t read all the comments, but correct me if I’m wrong. I just wanted to say our own President Carter had it right, way back when. It’s funny that noone has noticed that.
January 1st, 2010 at 1:52 am
Also wondering why plot of US Climate skeptic scientists wasn’t ranked in order of increasing skeptics. Someone had some bias in that arbitrary assemblage. I wonder who and why?
January 1st, 2010 at 2:03 am
Barry the dentist ads are kind of gross, what are they trying to sell there?
Is that allowed in a Blog? criticisms of the ads that popup on the sides of the blog?
I realize they are transient and what I see may not be what you see, but still gross teeth and gums with wires attached using a variety of I’m sure new techniques, is just not that appealing.
Happy New Year All!
January 1st, 2010 at 2:20 am
>> BR: Difference is Economics is not a science . . . In fact, you are hard pressed to provide much in the way of what economists as a group get right.
>> On the other hand, Scientists have given us computers, medicine, electronics, industry, the internet, transportation, technology, safe food, indoor plumbing, etc.
Amen.
January 1st, 2010 at 2:39 am
>> Causality. You can do all the statistics you want. You can’t often prove causality. Correlation yes. Causality no. AGW fits this bill. Causality proof would require a repeatable experiment.
There ARE repeatable experiments:
(a) Measure the transparency of a certain thickness and density of CO2 to high-frequency radiation (e.g., gamma rays).
(b) Measure the transparency of a certain thickness and density of CO2 to low-frequency radiation (e.g., radio waves).
What you’ll find is that there is a delta. The delta means that the CO2 allows more high-frequency energy from the sun into the atmosphere than it allows lower-frequency energy reflected off the earth back into space.
Now:
(c) Using math and published fossil fuel consumption data, calculate how much extra CO2 we release each year from burning a known quantity of fossil fuels.
(d) Using math and data regarding the volume and composition of our atmosphere, calculate how much extra CO2 density we add each year.
(f) Using math, calculate how much extra heat we’ll trap thanks to that extra CO2 density. Each year.
What experiments do you want to repeat at this point? So far, this isn’t nearly as complicated as calculating next week’s weather. This is a calculation of net energy retained by a sphere in space.
The complicated part is figuring out (a) whether there are some carbon sinks (like the ocean swallowing up a percentage — but not all — of the carbon released from fossil fuel) and ultimately (b) just how dramatic a change it will make and when. Especially since there are tipping points. Yeah, that’s challenging. But, if they get anything wrong, it will most likely be a matter of timing but not trend. The increase in retained energy is real. Do you dare be so cavalier with the planet’s climate?
…
By the way, do you know the surface temperature of Mercury and Venus? Which is closer to the sun? Which is hotter? And why?
January 1st, 2010 at 2:50 am
Some people don’t recognize the difference in complexity between calculating “climate” and “weather”.
Think about the stock market:
- In the short run, it’s a voting machine. In the long run, it’s a weighing machine.
- In other words, in the short run, the probability distribution is spread wide. In the long run, the probability distribution gets tighter, as fundamentals slowly become inevitable.
Calculating climate is a little more like weighing (were it not for possibilities of runaway problems like melting Canadian/Russian permafrost or melting Greenland ice sheet — but those possibilities if realized will prove the scientists were not pessimistic enough). Whereas calculating weather is like calculating where the S&P will be in 3 months.
January 1st, 2010 at 3:01 am
BR, I used to stop by this website on a daily basis and in fact purchased a copy of your book. Recently though I have not found much to challenge the consensus view on much of anything. Asking for comments about these statistics does not seem very serious to me and is frankly quite meaningless. Also, BR, your arrogance is starting to wear thin. Quit call people trolls and ass hats as it is tiresome. Also, please do not write anything on Climate Change until you actually look at the data and facts for yourself and are able to write intelligently about it without the false argument of appealing to authority.
January 1st, 2010 at 3:19 am
Memes? Seriously? I’ve been trying my best to avoid this word of the day, but it’s becoming harder and harder. While I’m sure Wikipedia explains what a meme is ever so astutely, I am going to officially pass on ever even attempting to understand what a meme is.
January 1st, 2010 at 3:59 am
The irony is that this article proves the inherent futility in the endless argument that is global warming. Maybe I am missing the point–if only 31,486 out of “12 million scientists” disagree with human-induced climate change, then clearly we have a winner. With such a consensus, there is no debate. While I’m not sure what the threshold cutoff is, obviously there are more than enough scientists who agree with human-induced climate change–thus, it is a scientific fact. While I am not certain, I would bet money that Einstein had far less than 11,968,514 scientists on his side when general relativity was considered scientifically legitimate. I for one am convinced–you had me at the hockey stick graph. It doesn’t take much–prove to me that carbon emissions have increased over the same time period that human industrial activity increased, and I am blinded by the light which is causality.
For all those who believe in human-induced climate change, we need to stop wasting our time trying to convince such a small dissent. Instead, we need to start doing something about it. A good start would be to rid our country of dogs (they produce twice as much of carbon footprint over than does an SUV during their respective lifespans). Not sure about other pets, but my guess is cat poop has got some of that nasty methane in it too. So no more cats. Another step we need to do is get China to stop releasing so much carbon. This should be rather simple. And another step we should do is stop using fossil fuels–while alternatives are much less efficient (i.e., much more expensive), we can tax the rich people like Bill Gates (who just hoard their money anyways) to make up for the costs. However, we need to be careful here to not tax too much–don’t get me wrong, I say tax the everloving crap out of the rich people, but remember we all know communism doesn’t work, so we need to make sure to find that perfect medium where we tax a lot but not so much that we become communist. A final step we should do is invent an alternative energy that is as good as fossil fuel. Clearly something is stopping companies from inventing this–why else would no one invent something that would be worth trillions of dollars. Thus, we need to stop whatever is stopping our 12 million scientists from developing an efficient alternative fuel source.
That should do it.
January 1st, 2010 at 6:57 am
Interesting is the one thing this scientific consensus BS isn’t. Einstein was asked about the many scientists who were skeptical about his theory of relativity when it first came out. His response was “It only takes one to prove me wrong.” Scientific consensus once held that eugenics was respectable science. It means nothing to hear 7 papers predicted global cooling while 44 predicted global warming. This is the kind of thing that impresses non-scientists. The less you know the more you rely on “consensus.”
Barry – you have been the very best predictive blogger on the financial markets of the ones I follow this year. Drop the consensus crap. Get your head around the carbon ETS market instead and let us know your thoughts on this. Despite the failure of Copenhagen, this market is set to expand, and become quite massive, yet is already riddled with fraud, doesn’t seem to deliver the objectives it is supposed to (reduced CO2 emissions) and may be a vehicle to deindustrialise the West with subsidies paid for by Western taxpayers (see the Corus/ Redcar/ Mittal case). Your thoughts on this market would be much more interesting than this consensus malarkey
January 1st, 2010 at 10:47 am
I think a better approach would be to look at the peer-reviewed literature on the subject. What the percentage of papers published that do not support global climate change? Here’s what one study of the peer-reviewed articles found:
“The 928 papers were divided into six categories: explicit endorsement of the consensus position, evaluation of impacts, mitigation proposals, methods, paleoclimate analysis, and rejection of the consensus position. Of all the papers, 75% fell into the first three categories, either explicitly or implicitly accepting the consensus view; 25% dealt with methods or paleoclimate, taking no position on current anthropogenic climate change. Remarkably, none of the papers disagreed with the consensus position.”
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/306/5702/1686
There has been a critique of the approach used in this paper – highlighted here in another attempt to quantify scientific opinion:
“Yet Oreskes’s approach has been criticized for overstating the level of consensus acceptance within the examined abstracts [Peiser, 2005] and for not capturing the full diversity of scientific opinion [Pielke, 2005].”
http://docs.google.com/viewer?url=http://tigger.uic.edu/~pdoran/012009_Doran_final.pdf
This paper also attempted to measure consensus by a simple poll sent out to different groups of scientists – asking two questions:
1. When compared with pre-1800s levels, do you think that mean global temperatures have generally risen, fallen, or remained relatively constant?
2. Do you think human activity is a significant contributing factor in changing mean global temperatures?
The conclusion from the piece (which is a short, interesting read):
“Results show that overall, 90% of participants answered “risen” to question 1 and 82% answered yes to question 2. In general, as the level of active research and specialization in climate science increases, so does agreement with the two primary questions.”
Can consensus be wrong? Absolutely – but I would argue that the number of scientists and scientific papers published (across a number of different scientific fields/areas) make this statistically unlikely.
The Heartland Institute, which receives money from Exxon, published a list of 500 scientific papers and scientists who do not agree with global climate change. However, many scientists were horrified to be included in the list:
http://lippard.blogspot.com/2008/05/heartland-institute-publishes-bogus.html
Skeptics will, of course, attack the peer review process, but in my mind if we throw out peer review as not being scientifically valid, we might as well throw out all of science. It is not perfect – but no system is.
Finally a few general comments:
- If conservatives (and particularly the neo-cons) believe in the 1% doctrine – that is that even a 1% chance of a terrorist event warrants throwing anything at the problem, then why would they not support research and action on global climate change – which probably has a greater than 1% chance? And if renewable energy can help reduce the power of nations which harbor terrorists, then why would we not seek to gain energy independence? Granted, the issue of energy independence is a separate, yet connected issue.
- I’ve always been puzzled by what would be the reason for a mass conspiracy among scientists around global climate change – usually the argument comes down to either increasing their funding (somewhat valid) or that is that the scientists want to create some massive Marxist redistribution of wealth (which seems pretty ridiculous – something out the John Birch society.) Meanwhile, it is easy to see why the oil and gas industry would seek to undermine the global climate change thesis.
- My own opinion is that it does not matter what scientific opinion is – the world is clearly unwilling to do anything meaningful about it, and the most likely outcome is that it will continue to be debated until it reaches a crisis. The raging, now year-round forest fires in California has not moved the debate – so it will likely take a crisis that involves millions of people to see any effort at real change.
Comments welcome.
January 1st, 2010 at 10:47 am
Let me point out that the petition is being used a bait and switch manner to support people questioning the influence of human activity on global warming. The actual language is about “….causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating and disruption of earths climate”. This is not a denial of human caused global warming but a questioning of the claims of an imminent climate Armageddon. Within the scientific (fact based) debate about human induced climate change there is a valid discussion about how severe the consequences of human induced global warming will be – some of those “Armaggedon sceptic” scientist may be naïve enough to sign the petition not understanding how/why someone would use it to misrepresent their opinions.
The biggest flaw in the “no scientific consensus” argument is not the number of scientists signing this “soft question” petition; it is that there are no scientific basis for questioning the models that explain the observed global warming by the known release of green house gases. The deniers have reduced themselves to the equivalent of little children putting their fingers in the ears and screaming NO, NO, NO. They cannot present models that explain the observed world temperatures by natural phenomena, nor can they point to flaws in those models that explain it by the documented human release of green house gases. Without that, the denial will be no more credible than other pshycological/ideological based denial (Holocaust, moon landing, 911, etc.).
January 1st, 2010 at 11:00 am
Statistics? Expressing a numerical relationship in frational terms isn’t statistics. It’s 4th grade math.
The most elementary and fundamental principle of statistics is that observations are drawn RANDOMLY from the universe to create a sample. If the observations included in the sample are truly random, and the sample size is sufficiently large, then the statistician can make inferences about the characteristics of the total universe. With a large, random sample, the statistician can define characteristics about the universe within a desirable confidence level, generally 90%, 95%, or 99% confidence.
That is what I remember about statisitcs from an elementary statstics course taken over 20 years ago.
The dataset is a petition. It isn’t a random sample. People CHOSE to sign it. And just because someone chose not to sign it, doesn’t mean they agreee with man made global warming. Almost certainly the vast majority of the non-signers felt they didn’t have the knowledge to opine on the merits, or didn’t know about the petition, or just didn’t felt compelled to sign it.
The only thing you can say is that of the presumed number of 12 million U.S. scientists, 30K decided to sign a petition. That’s it. It’s an elementary fractional math problem. It has nothing to do with statistics. One can’t test a hypothesis from a non random sample of petition signers.
January 1st, 2010 at 11:56 am
Just because only ~32000 signed the petition does not mean that the balance of >12M believe there is man-made global warming. The individual presenting this statistic as though it does is a fool’s fool.
If anyone cares, I have a couple graduate degrees in engineering and believe there is man-made global warming, but that its magnitude and consequences have been way over-estimated.
It’s the sun stupid!
January 1st, 2010 at 12:17 pm
@rockitz:
“If anyone cares, I have a couple graduate degrees in engineering and believe there is man-made global warming, but that its magnitude and consequences have been way over-estimated. It’s the sun stupid!”
Exactly. The exclamation mark proves this.
rc
January 1st, 2010 at 12:17 pm
@FrancoisT Says… I did not compare Middlebury.net to Hansen, you did. Hansen has an opinion just like the rest of the “scientists”…if you choose to take his opinion as gospel, it is no different than the sheeple that believe in Al Gore. I will see you the two bridges and raise you a toll booth.
January 1st, 2010 at 12:36 pm
@ Groty “Almost certainly the vast majority of the non-signers felt they didn’t have the knowledge to opine on the merits, or didn’t know about the petition, or just didn’t felt compelled to sign it.”
Or another reason (and perhaps the most obvious reason) – they don’t agree with the petition. Why is that not an option?
January 1st, 2010 at 12:54 pm
It continues to surprise me ..We are not to be able to look at or discuss this issue (or most any issue) without embracing the other sides point of view as legitimate and worthy of discussion.
“The root of all conflict is division” (Krishnamurti)
Which leads me to – the mind can be a cunning shallow merciless liar, and statistics don’t help the cause. For me, it comes to credibility over and over and over ..politics on a grand scale to solve problems is obsolete.
So if AGW is accepted as fact by 99% of scientists (for arguments sake) and any question of it ..puts you in a social minority that belonging to has negative consequences..why is it a surprise everyone supposedly agrees. More importantly wouldn’t the development of real solutions actually embrace …all challenges.. in an effort to
1) build a political consensus to take actions that produce results
2) produce those results.
If I break it down like this and am just dying hoping praying to be converted to the 99% of all scientists side, so that then I as a common everyday guy can and will take action. Wouldn’t you need to address the following common sense questions.
1) How does calling names, acting pompous, feigning intellectual superiority help get me on board? Insults dont make me feel like joining and knowing that in all these grand schemes the little guy gets left holding the bag.
2) How does being on the side of angels – supposedly good causes – not address the obvious hypocrisy of the people on the angels side – private jets, lifestyles of extravagance especially as they pretend Mother Teresa or Gandhi like devotion. And as they are the face of the movement..Al Gore , Hollywood ect
3)What about the many many times in history that the best brains out there …have been wrong..?
4) What about the questions of the actual data taking activity and the claims of data manipulation? desired result data, micro view point of geologic history
5) What about the questions of carbon credits ect as a financial scheme?
6) What about the political manipulation of the Copenhagen meeting itself ? grand success ect ..the willingness to spin absolute failure into some acceptable PR ..gravity doesn’t need a PR dept by the way
7) Do you really expect China Russia India and Brazil to forgo economic growth as they are gaining traction economically and politically? During a possible extended recession – depression world wide? How are we going to get them on board …bribes? Politics ..First hand I watch sugar cane field burnings here in Brazil weekly
8) What are the real consequences of non action… ocean sea levels rising 14 inches doesn’t scare much
9) What about the changes in the ultimate power source itself..the Sun..?
10) What about volcano’s?
11) Who wants to be publically on the side of energy producers..? obviously no one yet all modern society depend on them ..and demand cheap prices to boot
Since that list of questions is much to daunting to address and both sides seem to have taken the much easier route of emotional propaganda…coupled with the stunning historical failures of 99% of these big govt schemes ..I define succes as achieving a desired result at an economic price… it is no wonder most people aren’t brimming with optimism. The average person feels bamboozled.
January 1st, 2010 at 1:04 pm
Deny, Distort, Destroy.
It is like Barry has never witnessed what conservatives do on a daily basis.
First deny the facts
Then distort what people say
Finally question the integrity of the people involved.
January 1st, 2010 at 1:12 pm
@brasil61 “It continues to surprise me ..We are not to be able to look at or discuss this issue (or most any issue) without embracing the other sides point of view as legitimate and worthy of discussion.”
And yet, you present only a picture from the skeptics point of view – thus putting you in the camp of the intellectually dishonest. The argument that the actions of people on both sides of the debate are morally or intellectually the same just doesn’t hold water for the most part. That is a false equivalence.
January 1st, 2010 at 1:39 pm
Looking at the breakdown, I guess you can suspect 12% of the total number of skeptics know a little about the issue.
What does a computer “scientist” know about climate change?
But we can sleep soundly though, congressmen will make the right choices depending on who pays them most and the media will not waste their precious time investigating the issue.
It will all be about patriotism and how much money Al Gore makes.
Humans are special, very special.
http://www.ateliersante.ch/ateliersante_fichiers/corse.jpg
http://personal.georgiasouthern.edu/~jz00115/coal%20plant.jpg
January 1st, 2010 at 1:53 pm
Its amazing how some good research and a graph puts it all in perspective. The key is to have a credible trustworthy source, because there’s alot of BS out there. Thank Heaven for Big Picture. I think the small fraction of climate change naysayers cited does in fact help the green argument, not call it into question.
One post by Chuck Ponzi looks at work force 149 m, and then says 12% are scientists? If so, that’s a very good thing, in my opinion. And whether or not they’re meteorologists isn’t any reason to discount their opinions on the data. Scientists are trained to look at data, and overall better equipped than laymen to understand what the data is and what it means. Many people don’t know what Fourier analysis is- scientists do.
Chuck Ponzi says he wants to know, because there’s alot of money riding on the answer. True that. There’s also the future of humanity involved, so lets get started.
If we are ruining the Earth’s atmosphere, that spells disaster for humanity, for our children, or grandchildren. Look at this image of Earth taken from space:
http://space.about.com/od/pictures/ig/Earth-Pictures-Gallery/Planet-Earth—1995_02395l.htm
Can you see how thin the atmosphere is? The atmosphere is very delicate. For anyone who’s been to Tokyo, Los Angeles, or any smog bound metropolis, there is no doubt we can overwhelm our environment. And if theres even a small possibility of ruining our atmosphere, we would be piss poor individuals if we didn’t look for a better way. This to say nothing of the effects on our ocean. That’s food, and the ocean is connected to the atmosphere. 70% of our earth’s surface is water. Thats my opinion.
Is greening our society, replenishing our ocean and saving our planet economically feasible? On this, there is no question. Where there is demand, there is profit. Green is very profitable. A great salesman once told me, “Robert, if you can convince someone that something is good for their kids, they’ll spend any amount.”
Lets have a look at what US Green has to offer:
We’ll start with the General Electric Evolution locomotive. Its the worlds best, its up to 20% more fuel efficient than others. That saves money, big money, and it helps the environment. GE recently moved 80 of these bad boys to Egypt, and as the economy improves, GE will move a bunch more. That’s putting people to work in good jobs, not flipping burgers, saving the buyers money, helping our environment and smoothly transitioning our global economy. Here she is:
http://www.ge.com/innovation/timeline/images/innovation/2007_in_evolution-hybrid_m.jpg
This beauty has hybrid drive. Rail transportation costs just 25% compared to trucking. We need both. Maybe that’s why Warren Buffett went all in on rail transportation.
Looking to fly from A to B? US Green has a new generation jetliner, the Boeing 787 Dreaminer. Designed in tandem with Russian engineers, the Dreamliner took her maiden flight in December, 2009. Intensive round the clock flight testing begins in February, and first deliveries to Nippon Airlines begin 4Q 2010. Boeing has over 600 orders for the Dreamliner. Why? Because not only is it far and away the most fuel efficient jetliner ever conceived of, its also far more comfortable than any other jetliner now in existence. Its passenger cabin pressurizes to 80% of sea level atmosphere, not just 60% like the ones we fly in now.
The Dreamliner sports a new generation composite airframe that doesn’t inflate and deflate like contemporary aluminum airframes. Have a look at this beauty:
http://www.inhabitat.com/wp-content/uploads/boeing1.jpg
Finally, Global Auto is going green in a big way. Renault announced last month it will focus strongly on electric drive. Nissan is coming out with a hybrid electric with interchangeable battery, at a strong low $20s k price point. Fords 2010 Focus hybrid gets 41 mpg highway, and it moves out. Ford delivers Focus police cars in Mexico and elsewhere, so you know they go. Ford has an agreement to improve lithium ion battery technology with General Electric. The Toyota IQ, a sub compact super green vehicle will be unveiled in Detroit very soon.
Then theres the Chevrolet Volt, coming out early 4Q, this year. Just $40 k will get you the best car in the world. It moves out like an American muscle car, and gets 230 mpg. You’ll pay a little more than the gas, because it plugs into your home electric socket to recharge, but the fuel savings will be enormous. Its internal combustion engine will charge the battery on the fly if you run low on juice, and its just as reliable as any normal internal combustion car.
Chevrolet- An American Revolution.
Here she is:
http://blogs.rnw.nl/knowingknowledge/files/2009/08/800px-chevrolet-volt-dc.jpg
People, forget about climate change for a moment, and ask yourself- ‘Why bother with peak oil and feeling guilty about having it all?’
January 1st, 2010 at 2:18 pm
Clarification
The Chevy Volt will get 230 mpg for the first 40 miles it is driven per day. After that, the IC poewerplant will burn more gas. It can go 40 miles a day on pure electric, with an eight hour overnight recharge, but has to burn some gas it or the gas will go stale.
Yes, you can pre-order the Volt now, for $4o -$45 K. Don’t forget, the new Camaro sold 28,000 plus on pre-order, and was hard to find once deliveries began. Don’t be shy.
Chevrolets 2009 and 2010 line ups offer more 30mpg plus vehicles than either Honda or Toyota.
On the market for a full size crossover that gets a whopping 32 mpg? The Chevy Equinox may interest.
Want a world class sedan that gets over 30 mpg? The 2009 Car of the Year Chevrolet Malibu is right up your alley.
GMs Buick LaCrosse is the new class in world class, featuring 30 gigabyte navigational system, on a Mercedes like plush Epsilon chassis. Its designed in Germany by GMs Opel division.
General Motors – May the Best Car Win
January 1st, 2010 at 2:25 pm
This is an example of negative consent. Just because someone does not sign a petition then they must agree with the “climate change” argument (used to be “global warming” until that stopped working to influence the mases). This another example of faulty data and quite a stretch.
January 1st, 2010 at 2:45 pm
12,944,000 “scientists” is an absurd statistic, but you can start to narrow this down a bit. According to the petition project website – http://www.petitionproject.org/qualifications_of_signers.php – “The current list of petition signers includes 9,029 PhD; 7,157 MS; 2,586 MD and DVM; and 12,714 BS or equivalent academic degrees.”
So how many PhD scientists are there in the US ? http://www.norc.org/NR/rdonlyres/2E87F80C-82F6-4E26-9F78-CA4C6E0B79C6/0/sed2005.pdf seems to have a comprehensive analysis of PhD statistics, and page 15 of the report shows that “science and engineering” doctorates represent 68% of the total awarded in 2005, up from 66% in 1995, 62% in 1985, and 58% in 1975. Page 12 of the report shows total number of PhD’s award by year, and since 1970, the average is in the range of 35,000 to 40,000, so call it 37,500 per year with an average of 64% going to “scientists”. That yields an average of 24,000 per year over 35 years for a total of 840,000 science PhD’s.
So for what it is worth, the Petition Project nabbed 1% of the science PhD population. It’s hard to say whether or not that is statistically significant. A more meaningful test would be for someone to have posted the Anti Petition Project which inverts the proposition – “There is convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide …”. Maybe they will nab more than 1% of the PhD population.
January 1st, 2010 at 3:08 pm
@inthe woods
I have to say your calling me “intellectually dishonest” without so much as addressing any of my questions.. actually shows part of the problem ..I am a sceptic ..true ..not a dishonest one
..I am not big oil ..a right wing guy or anything else definable by a short label other than a reasoning human being ..Describing me as dishonest for questions I have is in your eyes helpful to what end? You caught me? What …questioning … Beat me with logic? where ? ..debate? intelligence?
Pardon me for doubting human beings can control the weather or climate…would you bet all you have for or against this idea ..or not bet at all…
Most people would not bet their own money either way..it is always easy to bet society’s money ..and that is the main issue ..especially a MAJOR policy like this…
I am not expert in any scientific field so I am completely at the mercy of experts..I HAVE NO IDEA IF HUMAN ACTIVITY IS CHANGING THE CLIMATE..
…the point is society has degenerated into very few having credibility ..not addressing the questions ..controlling the terms of discussion ..and the manipulation of statistics and data doesnt help solve the supposed problem.
In an open society..and especially a scientific inquiry..a healthy debate is marked by an honest effort to get to what is true…
interesting why don’t you respond to the geologist ..why hasn’t anyone? My bet is because he actually is an expert, knows of what he speaks and most dont want to hear the answer..
January 1st, 2010 at 3:27 pm
This is an amusing little study. I wonder how many of the almost 13 million scientists (particularly those in the physical sciences) would actually sign a petition stating they unequivocally believed in man-made global warming?
In my own personal experience amongst my colleagues (I’m a PhD chemist), I have found about one in twenty to be advocates of the AGW theory. Anecdotal I know, but I’d take that result any day over an analysis such as the one presented here.
~~~
BR: Hey, at least you discussed statistics a bit — better than the rest of the numbnulls who think this is a global warming debate . . .
January 1st, 2010 at 3:33 pm
Answering my own question, and as mentioned by a couple of earlier posters, the article does refer to a survey which attempted to reach the entire population of climate scientists (10,257) in what appears to be a statistically responsible manner, and they did get 30.7% response (3,146), with close to 90% of the climatologists supporting the proposition that human activity is a significant contributing factor to changes in mean global temperature.
http://tigger.uic.edu/~pdoran/012009_Doran_final.pdf
That is a far more meaningful set of statistics that those presented by the Information is Beautiful graphic.
January 1st, 2010 at 3:44 pm
Patrick Neid
is citing from Michael Crichton’s resume and says ironically:
“He definitely hasn’t got a clue!”
An what exactly from his resume qualifies Crichton to be referred to as an expert on climate change? I didn’t see anything. Having a medical degree from Harvard doesn’t. He is still a layman in the field and his elaborations aren’t anything more than any other opinion, e.g. on any blog maintained by any nut case, of which the Internet is full.
rc
January 1st, 2010 at 3:51 pm
Those of us who are of a certain age and IQ have been watching various skits in this interminable charade for our entire adult lives. Protecting forests, lakes and streams, air quality are good things…..so is wise energy use…. But some 5 odd billion of your fellow men already have religions that they are quite happy with…. and those that aren’t laughing at you are ignoring you. Why don’t you see this reality as you sit rapt before your big TVs?…..you live in a Matrix of your own devising.
I have ready Michael Faraday’s notebooks and nowhere do I see notes to colleagues about political strategy in the US Congress….. Could this be because he was doing science?
January 1st, 2010 at 3:58 pm
garylund’s response raises an interesting question – was there anything in the Doran survey which discouraged those skeptical about climate change from responding ? If only 30.7% of the climatologist population responded, maybe the other 69.3% had reason not to express their opinions publicly.
January 1st, 2010 at 3:58 pm
@ brasil61 “I have to say your calling me “intellectually dishonest” without so much as addressing any of my questions.. actually shows part of the problem ..I am a sceptic ..true ..not a dishonest one”
No, I called you intellectually dishonest because you started off by saying that “It continues to surprise me ..We are not to be able to look at or discuss this issue (or most any issue) without embracing the other sides point of view as legitimate and worthy of discussion.”
And then the rest of message does not represent this “look at both sides” way of looking at the world – the rest of your post is a rather standard attack on the global climate change thesis. So I’m calling you intellectually dishonest because you’re not looking at both sides of the debate – only the side you agree with.
The rest of your post is, frankly, a collection of real questions, standard climate change denier claims (in the form of a question – e.g. “what about the changes in the sun”?) and just odd statements (e.g. “What about volcanos?”), that I’d be willing to engage in, if it wasn’t obvious that you had already formed a hard opinion on the entire issue. I’ve learned from doing many of these debates that it is, frankly, pointless to debate the skeptic because no amount of data or information will change his or her mind.
And this gets back to a central point in the whole debate – the scientists are out there doing the work, the skeptics have access to the same data. It is therefore in the skeptics camp (and their power) to disprove the thesis by doing their own analysis. Yet, there is none – just vague arguments. So instead of wasting my time providing you with data that you will, by your last response, just ignore – why don’t you provide me with data that disproves the global climate change thesis?
I await your data.
January 1st, 2010 at 4:04 pm
Geez,
If you have read everything this far you must be a masochist. ;-}
The subject was statistics but the discussion has been about climate change. That shows where our fears and concerns are!
What came across to me was the tribal nature of so many of the comments. Many seem to exhibit an opinion based on a selective reading of the subject that conforms to previously held beliefs. Its similar to Republicans who never believe Democrat’s ideas are useful and vice versa.
If we are to ever develop a useful political, economic and scientifically based position on the matter, it has to begin with the premise that whatever answer we develop is based on whats good for future generations of humankind, not just Americans.
So…when reading on the subject, put biases aside and look at the data and the author’s reasoning rather than “Does this conclusion support my current belief?”
Based on the previous posts above, I recognize its a lot to ask.
January 1st, 2010 at 4:31 pm
Who are the climate change skeptics?
One of the courses I took this semester was a seminar on the human dimensions of climate change, a geography course that briefly looked at the scientific evidence for climate change and then focused primarily on the social science aspects of the problems of mitigation and adaptation. The paper I wrote for the class was about the philosophical problem of how a layman can identify relevant expertise and evaluate the debate without being an expert, by looking at features such as relevance of expertise, consensus within fields, credentials and institutions, track records, logical validity and cogency of arguments, and so forth, and then applying these criteria to the IPCC scientists vs. the climate change skeptics.
What follows is a list of some of the organizations promoting skepticism about anthropogenic climate change and some of the individuals associated with them, with some information about their credentials and activities. It’s my impression that those with the best reputations tend to agree that there is a global warming trend and that human emissions of greenhouse gases are a contributing factor to that warming, but the organizations tend to promote a more skeptical view (fairly characterized as “denial”), as exhibited by such evidence as expressions of apparent pleasure at the recent 2009 Pew survey result that showed a decrease in American acceptance of global warming.
Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC)
One comparison I made was between the scientists of the IPCC and the scientists of the NIPCC, a group sponsored by The Heartland Institute. I compared the fourth-most-cited paper of the top 83 scientists of the former to the fourth-most-cited paper of all of the 2008 NIPCC participants, using Jim Prall’s excellent website of citation counts for climate scientists. Of the 619 scientists of the AR4 (2007) Working Group 1 on the physical science basis of climate change, the top 83 each have more than 200 citations to their fourth-most-cited paper. There are only thirteen climate skeptics with that level of citation, most of whom received those citations for papers having nothing to do with climate science, and none of whom were involved with the 2008 NIPCC report. (In 2009, William Gray, who is in that category, participated in a second NIPCC meeting, but I didn’t review that for my paper.)
The top scientist of the 2008 NIPCC report with publications containing the word “climate,” the organizer and editor of the report, S. Fred Singer, has 31 citations to his fourth-most-cited paper. He’s a retired physics professor (Ph.D. earned in 1948) who is not only a skeptic about climate change but about the health effects of second-hand smoke, the link between CFCs and the ozone hole, and has received tobacco and oil company funding for his work. His name pops up frequently when it comes to attempts by corporations to block environmental regulation. There were 24 participants listed as authors on the 2008 NIPCC report, six of whom have no academic credentials or affiliations and no published academic work of relevance to the climate change debate (Dennis Avery, Christopher Monckton, Kenneth Haapala, Warren Anderson, Klaus Heiss, and Anton Uriarte). The top-cited scientist, Lubos Motl, has 150 citations for his fourth-most-cited paper, but he’s a theoretical physicist with no publications containing the word “climate.” The next guy after Singer, George Taylor, has an M.S. in meteorology and 25 citations for his fourth-most-cited paper. There are a few people on the list with relevant credentials, but none are top names in climate science. The majority with scientific credentials have little or no relevant expertise, like Fred Goldberg, with a Ph.D. in welding technology, and Tom Segalstad, a mineralogist with a Ph.D. in geology.
It should be noted that the climate skeptics with the best credentials in climate science tend to be participants in the IPCC process, such as John R. Christy, who was a lead author on the Working Group 1 reports in 2001 and 2007. Robert Balling of ASU has also participated in the IPCC process, and despite being often regarded as a skeptic, agrees that there is global warming and that it has a human component, and told me that the IPCC report is the best place for the layman to find accurate information about climate science (see my summary of his recent talk at ASU).
The Heartland Institute
The Heartland Institute, founded in 1984, was the sponsor of the NIPCC (above) and has its own category at this blog. Between 1998 and 2005, it received $561,500 in funding from ExxonMobil, 40% of which was designated for climate science opposition (see the Union of Concerned Scientists Exxon report (PDF)). In April 2008, it published a list of “500 Scientists With Documented Doubts of Man-Made Global Warming Scares” compiled by Dennis Avery, co-author of a 2007 anti-AGW book with S. Fred Singer and participant in NIPCC which attributes periodic warming to a 1500-year solar cycle. The publication of this list resulted in protests from 45 scientists on the list who stated that they are not AGW opponents and requested that their names be removed. Rather than remove the scientists from the list, The Heartland Institute changed the title of the list to “500 Scientists Whose Research Contradicts Man-Made Global Warming Scares.” The Heartland Institute’s list of 138 climate change experts contains many individuals with no relevant expertise or credentials.
Science and Environmental Policy Project (SEPP)
Singer has another organization devoted to arguing against human-caused climate change, the Science and Environmental Policy Project (SEPP), which he founded in 1990. That organization also opposes the ban on CFCs and other EPA regulations. There are nine people listed on SEPP’s board of science advisors, of which five are dead (Gerholm, Higatsberger, Mitchell, Nierenberg, and Starr). Ames is a well-known scientist in his field, molecular genetics, which has nothing to do with climate change. The others with the most citations are elderly or dead physicists (Starr, 1935 physics Ph.D.; Böttcher, 1947 physics Ph.D.; and Mitchell, 1951 physics Ph.D.). The rest have only single-digit citations to their fourth-most-cited paper.
George C. Marshall Institute
The George C. Marshall Institute was founded in 1984 to support Ronald Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative, but since 1989 has been active in opposing AGW. The current board of directors, according to its website, are William Happer (Princeton physics professor), William O’Keefe (former executive VP and COO of the American Petroleum Institute and president of a consulting company), Gregory Canavan (physicist at Los Alamos National Laboratory), John H. Moore (former president of Grove City College, former economics professor, and former Deputy Director of the NSF), Rodney W. Nichols (former president of the New York Academy of Sciences), Milan Nikolich (electrical engineering Ph.D., a nuclear weapons program consultant associated with CACI, a defense contractor), and Roy Spencer (climate scientist at the University of Alabama, Huntsville). Of these, only Spencer, who is also a Bible-believing anti-evolutionist, has a climate science background. (Happer is a highly-cited particle physicist.) The George C. Marshall Institute has published works by some of the more reputable AGW opponents with a high level of citations for their fourth-most-cited publication–e.g., Richard Lindzen of MIT (274), Roger A. Pielke, Sr. (129), Roy Spencer (124), and John R. Christy (88). Others with relevant credentials but not quite the high level of citations include Patrick Michaels (37), Robert Balling (29), and Timothy Ball (8). The George C. Marshall Institute has also published and promoted the work of Stephen McIntyre of the ClimateAudit blog, a former mineral exploration executive with a bachelor’s degree in mathematics, and economist Ross McKitrick.
Former George C. Marshall Institute executive director Matthew Crawford left the organization after five months when, he said, he realized it was “more fond of some facts than others” and that his job “consisted of making arguments about global warming that just happened to coincide with the positions taken by the oil companies that funded the think tank” (Carolyn Mooney, “A Hands-On Philosopher Argues for a Fresh Vision of Manual Work” (PDF), The Chronicle of Higher Education, June 15, 2009).
Cato Institute
The Cato Institute is a libertarian think tank founded in 1977 by Edward Crane and Charles Koch. Charles and David Koch are co-owners of Koch Industries, which is one of the largest privately owned companies in the U.S. (often #2, but has occasionally been #1). Koch Industries has major holdings in petroleum, natural gas, and coal. Patrick Michaels (already mentioned in connection with the George C. Marshall Institute) is the Cato Institute Senior Fellow in Environmental Studies and their only climate science expert on staff, though Cato has also published articles co-authored by Michaels and Robert Balling.
Science and Public Policy Institute (SPPI)
The SPPI’s chief science advisor is Willie Soon, a Harvard astrophysicist also associated with the Oregon Institute for Science and Medicine (about which more will be said below). Other science advisors include William Kininmonth, Robert M. Carter, David Legates, Craig D. Idso, James J. O’Brien, and Joseph D’Aleo, all of whom except O’Brien and Legates were involved with the 2008 NIPCC report. The chief policy advisor is Sir Christopher Monckton, an AGW opponent from the UK with no relevant science credentials, also involved with the 2008 NIPCC report. Legates, the Delaware State Climatologist, was a commenter on Patrick Michaels’ most recent climate change skepticism book at an event at the Cato Institute, and is a climate scientist whose fourth-most-cited paper has received 226 citations. D’Aleo, first director of meteorology for The Weather Channel, has a 1970 M.S. in meteorology and has not published any academic work since. Kininmonth, with an M.Sc. degree (not sure in what) was the former head of the Australian National Climate Center. Craig Idso has a Ph.D. in geography from Arizona State University and is founder and chairman of the board of the Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change; his fourth-most-cited paper has received 20 citations.
Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change
This is a small Phoenix-based nonprofit run by Craig Idso (chairman) and his father Sherwood B. Idso (president) which argues that increasing CO2 levels are beneficial. The organization has received $90,000 in funding from ExxonMobil. Both Idsos and Craig’s brother Keith have also been on the payroll of the Western Fuels Association. Sherwood Idso, a 1968 physics Ph.D. who was a research physicist for the USDA’s Agricultural Research Service at the U.S. Water Conservation Laboratory starting in 1967, has a fourth-most-cited scientific paper which has received 189 citations.
Oregon Institute for Science and Medicine (OISM)
The Oregon Institute for Science and Medicine (OISM), a private research organization run by Arthur Robinson and his two sons Noah and Zachary Robinson, was founded in 1980. The OISM faculty listed on their website are the three Robinsons, Martin D. Kamen (a deceased chemist), R. Bruce Merrifield (a deceased chemist), Fred Westall (a biochemistry professor), Carl Boehme (who has an M.S. in electrical engineering), and Jane Orient (a medical doctor). The OISM sells DVDs on “nuclear war survival skills” and civil defense, as well as a home schooling curriculum, and has taken over the publication of the late Petr Beckmann’s Access to Energy newsletter which defends nuclear energy and now also criticizes AGW. (Beckmann was a physicist who became an electrical engineering professor at the University of Colorado, and in addition to promoting nuclear energy also challenged Einstein’s relativity and published a journal for that purpose called Galilean Electrodynamics.)
The OISM Petition Project was set up to oppose U.S. ratification of the Kyoto Treaty and currently has over 31,000 signatures of Americans with degrees in a scientific subject. The initial call for signatures was sent out with a letter from Frederick Seitz while he was still president of the National Academies of Science, along with a 12-page “Research Review of Global Warming Evidence” by Arthur and Noah Robinson and Willie Soon which was formatted to look like a publication in the Proceedings of the National Academies of Science. The petition was originally billed as a “survey,” but it has not been reported how many solicitations were sent out compared to how many were returned, nor how many scientists disagreed with the statements on the petition (as pointed out by Gary Whittenberger in eSkeptic). The signature breakdown by level of education was 29% Ph.D., 22% M.S., 7% M.D. or D.V.M., and 41% B.S. or equivalent. By field, it was 12% earth science, 3% computer science or mathematics, 18% physics and aerospace sciences, 15% chemistry, 9% biology and agriculture, 10% medicine, and 32% engineering and general science. The percentage of Ph.D.s in relevant areas isn’t available, but it’s clear from the breakdown that at least two thirds have less than a Ph.D. and at least 80% do not have education in a relevant field. (Blogger Chris Colose has looked at a subsample of names on the petition, without finding any with climate-related publications.)
One of the other “faculty” at the OISM is Dr. Jane Orient, M.D., of Tucson, Arizona, whom I’ve heard speak in opposition to AGW. She is the executive director of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, a conservative organization that publishes the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons (JPANDS). This journal published an anti-AGW articles by Arthur Robinson, Noah Robinson, and Willie Soon (2007), and by Arthur Robinson, Sallie Baliunas, Willie Soon, and Zachary Robinson (1998), as well as articles opposing vaccination of children, claiming that HIV is not the cause of AIDS, that homosexuality causes crime and disease, opposing fluoridation of water, accusing the FDA of fraud for banning DDT, and criticizing the theory of evolution (see evaluations by Kathleen Seidel and Orac). The Robinson et al. (1998) article is apparently a version of the article originally distributed with the Oregon Petition, and another anti-AGW article by the same authors was published in the journal Climate Research (Soon et al. 1998). Arthur Robinson has a Ph.D. in chemistry from Caltech and was an associate of Linus Pauling. Noah Robinson also has a chemistry Ph.D. from Caltech, and Zachary Robinson is a veterinarian with a bachelor’s degree in chemistry. None has relevant climate science expertise.
Willie Soon and Sallie Baliunas (1980 Ph.D., astrophysics) are astrophysicists at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics who study solar variability, both have also been associated with the George C. Marshall Institute and the Heartland Institute; Soon is the chief science advisor for the Science and Public Policy Institute (above). Baliunas received the Petr Beckmann Award for Scientific Freedom from Doctors for Disaster Preparedness (DDP), a group associated with OISM (Jane Orient is president of DDP). In 2003, Soon and Baliunas published an anti-AGW article (arguing that warming was due to solar variation) in Climate Research that led to protests from 13 of the authors cited that their work had been misrepresented and misused. Subsequently the new editor-in-chief, Hans van Storch, resigned along with two other editors when the publisher refused to print an editorial about improvements in the journal review process. Baliunas’ fourth-most-cited paper has 230 citations; Soon’s has 68. Timothy J. Osborn and Keith R. Briffa (2006) repeated Soon and Baliunas’ methodology in a paper published in Science that did not reproduce their results. Osborn and Briffa are both climate scientists associated with the Climate Research Unit at East Anglia University; Osborn’s (1995 Ph.D., environmental sciences) fourth-most-cited paper has received 152 citations and Briffa’s (1984 Ph.D., dendroclimatologist) has received 250.
I’ve given special attention to OISM and AAPS because of the extent of crankery associated with them.
Summary
The above doesn’t demonstrate that climate skepticism is without merit, but it does demonstrate that there are reasons to be skeptical–and in many cases extremely skeptical–about some of the organizations and individuals promoting climate skepticism, independently of their arguments. In my view, the arguments for climate skepticism in most cases just increase the grounds for skepticism. I recommend the RealClimate blog and Skeptical Science blog as two good sources of information about those arguments.
To really dig into the details, read the IPCC WG-1 Report.
UPDATE: Also worthy of note is Wikipedia’s list of scientific organizations which have issued statements on anthropogenic climate change. Noteworthy for its absence is any organization with a statement arguing against anthropogenic climate change; since 2007 only the American Association of Petroleum Geologists has had a noncommittal statement. Wikipedia also has a nice list of scientists who oppose the consensus views and what their actual positions are. (Like JFK assassination conspiracy theorists, they do not have a consensus view of their own.)
I also neglected to mention a paper that I cited in the paper I wrote for my climate change class, a 2008 study that examined 141 “English-language environmentally sceptical books published between 1972 and 2005” found that over 92% of them were connected to conservative think tanks, either published by them or authored by persons directly affiliated with them (Peter J. Jacques, Riley E. Dunlap, and Mark Freeman, “The organisation of denial: Conservative think tanks and environmental scepticism,” Environmental Politics vol 17, no. 3, June 2008, pp. 349-385). In the above list, is there any organization or individual that does not come from a conservative or libertarian political ideology?
January 1st, 2010 at 5:07 pm
@TerryC:
“Finally, if you check with NOAA and the Coast and Geodetic Survey, you will see that their best guess of sea level rise in the last century is about 14 inches.”
The 2007 IPCC report states an average sea level rise of 1.7+/-0.5 mm per year in the 20th century. These are about 6.7+/-2.0 inches in the last century. It also states with high confidence that the rate of sea level rise has increased from the mid 19th to the 20th century.
(http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar4/wg1/ar4-wg1-chapter5.pdf)
“And, if anyone actually READS the UN report on climate change (not the retarded executive summary for morons), their best guess on sea level rise for the entire 21st century is…..drum roll please…..14 INCHES. Go figure.”
You suggest here you have read the IPCC report. If you really did you should know that there isn’t just one number for a “best guess” in there. The IPCC report presents an expected range (5 to 95% confidence interval) of sea level change for six different scenarios instead. The smallest value from all six scenarios of the lower 5% boundary is 0.18 m (about 7 inches), the largest value from all six scenarios of the 95% boundary is 0.59 m (about 23 inches) for the 21th century.
(http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar4/wg1/ar4-wg1-chapter10.pdf)
The largest fraction of this sea level rise is projected to come from the thermal expansion alone of the water masses in the oceans with higher temperatures and only a smaller fraction from melting polar glaciers. This makes these projections quite conservative. And they have been criticized as being too conservative.
According to the Copenhagen-Diagnosis, a compilation of new results from research on climate change since the draft of the last IPCC-report, the observed sea level change for the last 20 years have been rather at the upper boundary of the IPCC projections for the same period.
(see Figure 16 in http://www.ccrc.unsw.edu.au/Copenhagen/Copenhagen_Diagnosis_LOW.pdf)
New results from studies project higher sea level rise, about twice the values in the 2007 IPCC report.
(see Figure 17 in http://www.ccrc.unsw.edu.au/Copenhagen/Copenhagen_Diagnosis_LOW.pdf)
And the sea level rise isn’t just going to stop in the year 2100.
I’m not quite clear what the exact point of your comment was.
rc
January 1st, 2010 at 5:14 pm
JJL -
What you are describing is “guilt by association”, which is politics, not science.
That said, I have spent time in recent months trying to make sense of the actual data and associated theories, and my own personal conclusions as a practicing non-climatologist is that there is a secular warming trend that has been present for at least the past 2 centuries, but there also has been some acceleration in the warming trend since 1950.
This is not inconsistent with your “… impression that those with the best reputations tend to agree that there is a global warming trend and that human emissions of greenhouse gases are a contributing factor to that warming”. That said, the change seems to be gradual and doesn’t seem to support the various catastrophe scenarios that have been promoted by Al Gore and others with political or economic agendas. So when I see a graphic such as the above by Information is Beautiful, the first thing I wonder is whose interests are being served and what is their agenda ?
Note that all of this is a distraction from BR’s original question, which is whether the Information is Beautiful graphics had any statistical validity. As expected, very few of the above responses actual address that question.
January 1st, 2010 at 5:22 pm
JJL,
Thanks for all this valuable information.
rc
January 1st, 2010 at 5:30 pm
Great data, but would be more helpful if the two charts were combined. For example, my brother has 3 engineering degrees (including a PhD in Neuroscience), is a professor, and a researcher. However, he doesn’t know jack about climate change. So, let’s focus on the percentage of scientists actually working in the climate change field that have dissented. Anybody know that number?
Thanks,
Sean
January 1st, 2010 at 5:44 pm
@hgordon:
“What you are describing is “guilt by association”, which is politics, not science.”
I must have read another comment by JJL, since I didn’t see anything like this in it. I think it is absolutely legit to talk about the monetary, organizational and ideological affiliations of many “climate skeptics”. The more, since “climate skeptics” spend a lot of time to make unfounded, inflammatory accusation against thousands of climate scientists from all over the world with respect to their allegedly sinister motives.
“Note that all of this is a distraction from BR’s original question, which is whether the Information is Beautiful graphics had any statistical validity. As expected, very few of the above responses actual address that question.”
I don’t recall that this was Barry’s original question. Instead, I recall his intention was to put the about 31,000 “scientists” who signed a petition, in a broader context and whether this number says much about dissent with respect to the AGW theory:
“The main basis of this argument is that 31,486 dissenting scientists have signed a petition against the belief that Global Warming is man made at the PetitionProject.org.
I don’t want to debate climate change; rather, I want to look at that argument to see if there are any statistical flaws in it.
My problem is whenever anyone uses a single, out of context, data point. What does this number actually mean? Is 31,486 alot or a little? How many scientists are there in the US? etc.”
rc
January 1st, 2010 at 6:27 pm
@rootless –
Not quite – I believe BR’s intent was explore the basis of there being 12,944,000 “scientists”, in order to determine whether 31,486 petition signers was a statistically significant number. Out of 117 responses to the question, there were perhaps 5 messages that directly addressed the question. I wonder what that means statistically ?
Like JJL, I also question the motives of anyone taking a position in this debate, though my doubts extend to both sides of the issue. Given the enormous economic significance of this debate, it’s not surprising that some of the most accomplished practitioners of “How to Lie with Statistics” – http://www.amazon.com/How-Lie-Statistics-Darrell-Huff/dp/0393310728 – are engaged.
January 1st, 2010 at 6:32 pm
>>It’s the sun stupid!
An ubersmart solar physicist PhD family member chuckled when I asked him in earnest about this factor. He basically said “yeah, it’s a smallish factor but doesn’t explain the temperature increase nearly as much as AGW”.
That’s about as close as I’ll get to knowing the answer myself, since I’m not going to study the data myself but always wonder whether I’m getting correct information from newspapers.
January 1st, 2010 at 7:02 pm
I’m actually quite surprised that Barry is a man-made climate change supporter. I thought he is a supporter of the free market principle? And I thought he is a contrarian who would not be “swayed” by the consensus opinion and will not hesitate to go against the “trend”. And also, he is skeptical of the government and of powerful vested interest groups in pursuing their own agenda?
How can this simple statistic image argues man-made climate change is TRUE and that everybody should just listen to what the government say and endorse their “EXTREMELY NON-FREE MARKET” policies in an attempt to save the world?
Sorry, my government in Australia is looking to tax the hell everybody with a stupid ETS policy. Most, if not all, are against it because the amount of CO2 it will reduce is SOOO insignificant in comparison to what the developing countries will produce by simple population growth.
There are a lot of convincing argument from the “skeptic” side and I myself tend to be very skeptic about consensus view (especially when most have their own vested interests). This is especially true for the mainstream economists who all argue stimulus packages are the best way to go to solve this GFC.
On the other hand, I personally studied in a sustainability subject during my Master degree and I see a HUGE AMOUNT of benefit to implement these technologies. The reduction in CO2 is only icing on the cake, and only IF it is considered a pollutant and a threat to this planet. (the plants would say otherwise anyway)
Why not try to embrace the free market principle and let them compete with each other and come up with a truly economical sustainability technology that everyone will embrace WITHOUT ARGUMENT. I’m all for it and I believe the carbon trade scheme (another government intervention) will hinder this process. Until renewable energy costs less than non-renewable ones on a lifecycle cost basis, I will go against the “consensus” and will not support any scheme that is designed to tax the hell out of me and my country. This is a simple transfer of wealth from the poor to the powerful vested interests. No differences to Goldman Sachs in my opinion.
January 1st, 2010 at 7:16 pm
@spbutson:
Sean, you probably won’t get any answer to this question from the ones who organized the ominous petition and supporters, since it would counter the purpose, however, if one follows the link in Barry’s posting one finds another article, in which scientists where polled and which gives some numbers:
http://tigger.uic.edu/~pdoran/012009_Doran_final.pdf
According to this about 96 to 97% of climate scientists who actively publish on the subject agreed on the AGW theory. Another result was that the agreement increases the closer the polled scientists are related to the field. As I said before, the discrepancy between public opinion and expert view on the subject is quite striking.
rc
January 1st, 2010 at 7:19 pm
@hgordon:
“Given the enormous economic significance of this debate, it’s not surprising that some of the most accomplished practitioners of “How to Lie with Statistics” – http://www.amazon.com/How-Lie-Statistics-Darrell-Huff/dp/0393310728 – are engaged.”
Who are you talking about, specifically?
rc
January 1st, 2010 at 8:07 pm
Barry, the graphs were a little confusing. The pro-GW folks’ graph you first listed makes it seem that if you are not against the GW crowd, you are somehow for it. There is no don’t know or neutral opinions. That move is complete bs. Then the next one is an attack on those who don’t buy the GW argument.
It’s true that those in the medical field for example haven’t studied all the science but they are very familiar with the scientific method. Those familiar with the scientific method would question the methodology and data the climate change folks have and their plans for the future. What is the proof that their plan will work? The simple answer is there is none. If you boil it down, you get the ridiculous statement that, “Well, if we do nothing, our planet will be destroyed.”
The truth is when you get the GW folks off their talking points, they can’t even come up with what climate would be ideal. They may say cooler, but they won’t give you a number.
Then of course, there are the criteria of what makes one a “top climate scientist”. Is that a political title, an academic one, or one based on astute accuracy with climate predictions?
The reason I bring this up is this is the last sentence of the Time Magazine article about global cooling, University of Toronto Climatologist Kenneth Hare, a former president of the Royal Meteorological Society, believes that the continuing drought and the recent failure of the Russian harvest gave the world a grim premonition of what might happen. Warns Hare: “I don’t believe that the world’s present population is sustainable if there are more than three years like 1972 in a row.”
And there is the consistent blaming of man no matter what the climate does, “Man, too, may be somewhat responsible for the cooling trend. The University of Wisconsin’s Reid A. Bryson and other climatologists suggest that dust and other particles released into the atmosphere as a result of farming and fuel burning may be blocking more and more sunlight from reaching and heating the surface of the earth.”
Read more: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,944914-2,00.html#ixzz0bPUCHvO8
Those are pretty impressive titles coupled with some very, very lousy predictions.
And someone familiar with the scientific method is going to look at these charts, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Global_cooling.jpg and http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/co2_data_mlo.html
and ask how do you all come up with the idea that higher CO2 levels lead to global warming outside of being paid to do so? Do you really need to be a top climate scientist to doubt that rising CO2 levels DON’T lead to global warming?
The irony about this is that it is a rehash of the bet between Paul Ehrlich and Julian Simon. In fact, the greenhouse gas effect was mentioned back in Ehrlich’s 1968 best seller the Population Bomb. So the global warming movement is not new at all. In fact, it has been at least 40 years that the climate changers have been predicting the end of the earth. And Ehrlich’s main point was that humankind would suffer mass starvation in the 70s and 80s, and he used mathematical models to prove his point. Sound familiar?
If you used consensus as a means to determine who was right, then Ehrlich beat Simon hands down. Ehrlich’s books sold much better than Simon’s did. That Ehrlich’s predictions were laughably wrong, and Simon’s were spot on was almost besides the point. Have you ever seen a book get 27 out of 42 ratings of one star on Amazon? Well, that is what Ehrlich’s book got on Amazon.
Simon made a bet with Ehrlich about the price of natural resources. Ehrlich thought they were going up, and Simon said that they were going down, and Simon won the bet. Al Gore has wisely resisted making any bets on his future predictions.
Simon’s philosophy was laid out in the Ultimate Resource 2, a wonderful book, and he showed that raw materials have always gotten cheaper throughout time thanks to man’s ability to innovate. His theme was the ultimate resource therefore was not anything in the earth but man.
One of Simon’s disciples, John Tierney knew of Simon’s philosophy and was convinced it was right, but he knew little about the ins and outs of the oil market. Still, he ventured a bet with a man with infinitely more understandings of the ins and outs of the oil market, Matthew Simmons, the leader of the Peak Oil movement. Simmons bet that oil would be above $200 a barrel this year, and it looks like he is going to lose.
The bottom line is that I could care less who anyone is making the predictions based upon academic credentials. What does the data say? The data with CO2 and global warming don’t add up. The only thing consistent with the climate change movement is that whatever bad climate we have in the future, whether cooler or warmer, it will somehow be man’s fault.
January 1st, 2010 at 8:11 pm
“Answering my own question, and as mentioned by a couple of earlier posters, the article does refer to a survey which attempted to reach the entire population of climate scientists (10,257) in what appears to be a statistically responsible manner, and they did get 30.7% response (3,146), with close to 90% of the climatologists supporting the proposition that human activity is a significant contributing factor to changes in mean global temperature.
http://tigger.uic.edu/~pdoran/012009_Doran_final.pdf
That is a far more meaningful set of statistics that those presented by the Information is Beautiful graphic.”
“I believe BR’s intent was explore the basis of there being 12,944,000 “scientists”, in order to determine whether 31,486 petition signers was a statistically significant number. Out of 117 responses to the question, there were perhaps 5 messages that directly addressed the question. I wonder what that means statistically ?
Like JJL, I also question the motives of anyone taking a position in this debate, though my doubts extend to both sides of the issue. Given the enormous economic significance of this debate, it’s not surprising that some of the most accomplished practitioners of “How to Lie with Statistics” – http://www.amazon.com/How-Lie-Statistics-Darrell-Huff/dp/0393310728 – are engaged.”
hgordon, nice points..
also, thank you for the answers, to my Q:s, on the other thread..
January 1st, 2010 at 8:51 pm
jz is correct- science does not work by consensus; one has to consider the argument based on its merits- meaning its consistency with the entire available body of knowledge.
It’s important to note that the premise of the graphic is intrinsically flawed, and no amount of survey redesign would fix it.
In this case, observations of climate change are consistent with what we would expect if the changes were human-caused. Don’t look at the scientists, look at the data: compare global temperature history with the best predictive model you can find. You’ll find a close correlation of temperature with CO2. One can argue this correlation isn’t causal, but that’s missing the point- when the evidence is this close to expectations for a causal effect, for something this important and with no possibility of a controlled experiment to demonstrate pure causality, to do nothing would be folly.
There is no shortcut for the layperson here. If you want to know if something is true or false, you must find the predictive explanation that best fits the data you accept or observe. It’s suggestive that virtually no one who has seen the data and helps improve the models argues against anthropogenic change, but it shouldn’t lead anyone to a conclusion about climate change- only to a conclusion about whether or not the hypothesis is worth a test.
The data and models I’ve seen were compelling enough to convince me, while the arguments to the contrary have not provided a compelling alternative. A discussion without the data is irrelevant to the primary question.
January 1st, 2010 at 9:04 pm
This remains a bizarre entry. I don’t believe people come to this blog to learn about the truth via consensus. Barry, and to varying degrees the people he links to (like Volcker), are respected irrespective of the ‘consensus’. If the same standards were applied to financial markets analysis as barry’s applying to science here back in 2007, this blog would have died a long time ago. Who here would have been interested in a self-selecting poll of ‘misleadingly consensual economists’ reduced to a pretty picture?
And insulting much of your readership as ‘numbnulls’ (whatever the hell that is) – why? The stats and the polling methodology of the article you reference are shit. This opinion comes from a former consultant in strategic market research.
January 1st, 2010 at 9:27 pm
For rootless_cosmopolitan:
The point I was making about the 14 inch sea level rise in the last century, and the “best guess” (meaning average of the ‘guesses’ for the next century in the UN report) of 14 inches (yes, I know it contains several different scenarios, which each depend on many different variables taking place) is that they are STATISTICALLY (like that, Barry) a DEAD HEAT (no pun intended). I know Al Gore likes to show the coasts of the world all flooded, but even the UN doesn’t think that is going to happen. However, it makes a better scare tactic for people than a polar bear out on a chunk of ice a few miles from shore (they are GREAT swimmers). I am also glad that, of all the commenters here, you actually looked up the data I was talking about.
On another, slightly statistical note: only chemistry and physics are highly empirical sciences (mostly). The earth sciences, biology, medicine, etc. are not so easily reproducible in controlled experiments, where there is only one variable being tested. We live on a DYNAMIC EARTH. If you read this and do not know what I mean, please look it up, as everything being said about climate change is included in those two words. In other words, weather, climate, oceans, tectonic activity, etc., are constantly changing. The Copenhagen accords are for GLOBAL COOLING. Yes, that’s what I said, GLOBAL COOLING. Because, you can only have one of two scenarios- global cooling, or global warming. There is no such thing as global climate status quo. The last time we had global cooling, in the Little Ice Age, from about 1300 to 1850, we also had the Bubonic Plague, half the population of Europe dying, and the Muslim nations almost completely overrunning Europe. We are also feeding almost 7 billion people on the planet right now. Ask yourself what happens if we have a few degrees of cooling in the Northern Hemisphere, crops fail in Canada, the US, and Russia……how many billions of people on Earth will starve to death?
Lastly, 12,o00 years ago sea level was about 350 feet lower than it is now. Ice melted. Sea rose. Blame the cave man? Or cave oilman? Shit happens, and so does climate change. I think the sooner we kill about 4 billion people (or, bring them ALL up to a scientific, civilized, decent standard of living) the sooner our science and technology will be able to handle a few feet of sea level rise, and the other uncomfortable things that come along with all people having a decent standard of living (unless you have a beach house 3 feet above high tide). One of my first geology professors told me in 1971 “If you build on a flood plain, you have to expect to get flooded”.
January 1st, 2010 at 11:34 pm
@jz:
“Read more: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,944914-2,00.html#ixzz0bPUCHvO8
Those are pretty impressive titles coupled with some very, very lousy predictions.”
Now you refer again to some sensationalist story in Time Magazine from the 70s and you apparently believe this story contradicts the global warming theory, which is generally recognized among climate scientists today. Do you have any clue what the difference is between a story in a commercial news magazine, a scientific speculation, a scientific hypothesis, and a scientific theory as a result from accumulated, published research in scientific publications? It seems to me you don’t.
“And someone familiar with the scientific method is going to look at these charts, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Global_cooling.jpg and http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/co2_data_mlo.html and ask how do you all come up with the idea that higher CO2 levels lead to global warming outside of being paid to do so?”
Once more an inflammatory accusation at the end of your sentence. As for the two graphics. Please explain, why the two graphics, which, btw., only overlap for a time period of about 10 years, are supposed to contradict the theory, according to which an increasing CO2-concentration in the atmosphere would significantly contribute to an increasing global mean temperature?
Not that I didn’t have any idea what you try to do here. You try to state, that a decrease in the global mean temperature and an increase in the CO2-concentration in the same time period couldn’t happen, if the AGW theory was correct. You would be right, if it was claimed that CO2 was the only factor that determines the global mean temperature in the climate system. However, no one has been saying this. There are other factors, like solar activity, aerosols, land use, last but not least internal climate variability, which also have an effect on the temperature. Therefore, what you refute here is just a straw man argument of your own creation or copied from somewhere else.
BTW: If you had bothered to actually read the wikipedia-entry about “global cooling”, from which you got your first graphic, you might have noticed that it refutes your claims about what climate scientists allegedly predicted back then.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_cooling)
“Do you really need to be a top climate scientist to doubt that rising CO2 levels DON’T lead to global warming?”
No, of course not. Has anyone said this? To be a nut case, to be gullible, or just too lazy for getting informed and for thinking is fully sufficient to doubt anything, any scientific theory, however comprehensive the evidence is in support of the theory.
“The data with CO2 and global warming don’t add up.”
Perhaps, if you and your “climate skeptic”-buddies repeat this baseless claim again and again, reality will change so it will agree with your wishful thinking, eventually.
rc
January 2nd, 2010 at 12:30 am
@TerryC:
“The point I was making about the 14 inch sea level rise in the last century, and the “best guess” (meaning average of the ‘guesses’ for the next century in the UN report) of 14 inches (yes, I know it contains several different scenarios, which each depend on many different variables taking place) is that they are STATISTICALLY (like that, Barry) a DEAD HEAT (no pun intended). I know Al Gore likes to show the coasts of the world all flooded, but even the UN doesn’t think that is going to happen.”
Why “even the UN”? Didn’t you present the scientist, whose work was compiled in the IPCC report as clueless in your previous comment, because they were only crop-scientist, meteorologists, or physicists, who didn’t know about what they were talking regarding climate, in contrast to wise geologist like you?
Even assuming the 14 inches (about 36 cm) sea level rise until 2100 (as if it stopped there) wasn’t a significant number, you just ignored what else I wrote, about the observations are already at the upper boundary of the IPCC-projections, which continued would result in a sea level rise of about 60 cm in 2100, and that more recent studies, the ones that base on dynamic ice sheet models, project a sea level rise about twice the value in IPCC (with an uncertainty range around it).
“I am also glad that, of all the commenters here, you actually looked up the data I was talking about.”
Not that double checking and refreshing my memory isn’t a good thing, but I know the data in principle and I like to believe that I know relatively well, above the average person, what I am talking about regarding the subject.
“We live on a DYNAMIC EARTH. If you read this and do not know what I mean, please look it up, as everything being said about climate change is included in those two words. In other words, weather, climate, oceans, tectonic activity, etc., are constantly changing.”
Duh.
This makes a nice meta-argument, but actually doesn’t say anything about the validity of the AGW theory and whether humans should be wary of the consequences of man-made global warming, and, perhaps, do something to limit it.
“The Copenhagen accords are for GLOBAL COOLING. Yes, that’s what I said, GLOBAL COOLING. Because, you can only have one of two scenarios- global cooling, or global warming.”
Of course, there is also the possibility of limiting man-made global warming to prevent the more dire consequences that could follow from it, different to your binary view. That would be the most optimistic outcome. I don’t expect that even this will be achieved.
And I don’t have any idea, anyway, how you got to the conclusion, the consequences of Copenhagen would have been global cooling. Just saying that Earth was “dynamic” doesn’t do it. I am also missing the logic behind the argument, that one shouldn’t be concerned about global warming, because a “global cooling”, about which you just speculate, could have severe consequences. The consequences of man-made global warming will probably much more severe than any naturally caused global cooling on the same time scale, assuming there wasn’t any anthropogenic warming. Particularly, if those scenarios realize according to which there will be a stronger temperature increase (up to 6 K until 2100). This doesn’t even include any abrupt climate change, which possibly could be triggered.
rc
January 2nd, 2010 at 1:03 am
Barry:
Re the statistics represented in the two graphs: The first can be expressed as the ratio:
(# of “people” worldwide who voluntarily “signed” an anti-AGW web petition, as claimed by the website)/
(# of people who ever lived in the USA with community college (or better) degrees in agriculture-, science-, or health-related majors, according to an unknown source, which appears to disagree greatly with at least one other reputable source).
The question is not “are there any statistical flaws” in this ratio, the question is why would anyone with the slightest knowledge of statistics give it any credence whatsoever? To help you see this, let me present a similar ratio:
(the number of people worldwide who love blue shag carpeting)/
(the number of people in Texas who have ever seen a horizontal surface)
This ratio can be represented in a graph similar to the first in your OP, but I there are zero valid conclusions that could be drawn therefrom, because the numerator and denominator are not commensurable.
I am an engineer, I had been reading your blog in the hopes of gaining some insight into Capital markets, etc — Thanks for revealing that I’ve been wasting my time.
January 2nd, 2010 at 1:59 am
The last sentence of my 2Jan10 01:03 comment was really low-rent; and I apologize for writing it. Can you please delete it from my post?
Sincerely,
Jack L. Mitchell
January 2nd, 2010 at 3:31 am
@inthewoods
Calling me dishonest ..again I dont think you understand my point
There is no data I need to produce..you know why..because I am not trying to CHANGE THE ENTIRE GLOBAL ECONOMIC SYSTEM…on a theory with questionable data, statistics, hypocrisy and a propaganda campaign no matter how well intentioned.
I am fine with the status quo
To change the status quo ..research predictions political activity are needed..
However I am fine with the following and would be willing to start here:
elimination of all motorized yachts, country clubs and private jets
elimination of all big budget movies anything over $10 million including the cost of actors
elimination of all TV shows with a budget over $1 million per year
elimination of all pro sports
elimination of the UN, federal govt, and all other centralized large govts everywhere
Most of this is un- necessary superflous activity ..I believe we have a better chance ..and my statistics prove it in fact… that human beings have 1000% higher chance of changing things they can actually control ..than changing things they have NO CONTROL over like the weather.
you get it .. it’s a joke ! my question for you ..is it a dishonest one..lol
January 2nd, 2010 at 6:25 am
@brasil61:” There is no data I need to produce..you know why..because I am not trying to CHANGE THE ENTIRE GLOBAL ECONOMIC SYSTEM…on a theory with questionable data, statistics, hypocrisy and a propaganda campaign no matter how well intentioned.”
Actually, you do have to present data. That’s the way science works. That is also true if you’re going to question the data or question the statistics. This is why it is pointless to argue with a global climate change skeptic/denier – first, you won’t look at the data. Then, if you do look at the data, you’ll decide that all the scientists are corrupt. Then you’ll find some other reason. It really doesn’t matter – you don’t believe in it. Fine – like I said, I’m not here to convince you.
But if you are going to stand up and say that this isn’t happening to, say, a government body, then yes, you need present data. If water is predicted to rise in Florida to the point that they need to alter their building codes to raise houses higher based on the water data, then I expect that if someone is going to say we don’t need to change the building codes they would need to present data to show this is not going to happen. But the deniers never do this – why? Well, there seem to be only two reasons: the data isn’t on their side, or two, they don’t have the skills or are too lazy to produce it.
But I expect, once again, that you’ll just make some more wild statements and ignore a basic fact – you don’t have any data on your side at the moment.
January 2nd, 2010 at 5:14 pm
Well that didn’t take long – there it is – the entire world of science is corrupt and working together together to create the grand conspiracy. First, the data wasn’t released because they didn’t have the rights to release it. I’m not even going to bother with the rest – suffice to say it is just a rather standard list of attacks.
Here’s the thing you’re missing – it is not one single agency that controls the data or does the research. It is not one single agency that puts out the research. Multiple agencies, based on separate, independent research have had similar findings.
Here’s a list of the organizations that agree with the global climate change thesis:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_opinion_on_climate_change#Statements_by_concurring_organizations
And it is not one set of data that tells this picture. There are multiple sources of data that tell the same story.
So you are judging an entire scientific category on the basis of just flat lies (“they won’t release the data!) and some stuff I think is somewhat credible – such as the hockey stick argument you make. But somehow I don’t think any of this will change your mind.
January 2nd, 2010 at 6:00 pm
Comments are now closed
Thanks to those of you who participated in this and somehow managed to stay on topic (i.e., statistics)