What does a study of 20 years of abstracts tell us about the global climate? Nothing. But it says quite a lot about the way government funding influences the scientific process.
John Cook, a blogger who runs the site with the ambush title “SkepticalScience” (which unskeptically defends the mainstream position), has tried to revive the put-down and smear strategy against the thousands of scientists who disagree. The new paper confounds climate research with financial forces, is based on the wrong assumptions, uses fallacious reasoning, wasn’t independent, and confuses a consensus of climate scientists for a scientific consensus, not that a consensus proves anything anyway, if it existed.
Given the monopolistic funding of climate science in the last 20 years, the results he finds are entirely predictable.
The twelve clues that good science journalists ought to notice:
1. Thousands of papers support man-made climate change, but not one found the evidence that matters
Cook may have found 3,896 papers endorsing the theory that man-made emissions control the climate, but he cannot name one paper with observations that shows that the assumptions of the IPCC climate models about water vapor and cloud feedbacks are correct. These assumptions produce half to two-thirds of the future projected warming in models. If the assumptions are wrong (and dozens of papers suggest they are) then the predicted warming is greatly exaggerated. Many of the papers in his list are from these flawed models.
In other words, he’s found 3,896 inconclusive, subsequently-overturned, or correct but irrelevant papers. What is most important about his study is that after thousands of scientists have pored over the best data they could find for twenty years, they still haven’t got any conclusive support.
2. Cook’s study shows 66% of papers didn’t endorse man-made global warming
Cook calls this “an overwhelming consensus”.
They examined “11 944 climate abstracts from 1991–2011 matching the topics ‘global climate change’ or ‘global warming’. We find that 66.4% of abstracts expressed no position on AGW, 32.6% endorsed AGW, 0.7% rejected AGW and 0.3% were uncertain about the cause of global warming.
Perhaps the large number that are uncertain merely reflects the situation: climate science is complicated and most scientists are not sure what drives it. The relative lack of skeptical papers here is a function of points 4, 5, and 7 below. Though its irrelevant in any case. It only takes one paper to show a theory is wrong. Who’s counting?
3. Cook’s method is a logical fallacy: Argument from Authority. This is not science, it’s PR.
The thing that makes science different to religion is that only empirical evidence matters, not opinions. There are no Gods of Science. Data, not men, is the authority that gets the last say (there is no Pope-of-The-Papers). Cook turns that on its head. It’s anti-science. When scientists explain why they’re sure gravity keeps the Earth in its orbit, they don’t argue that “97% of geophysicists voted for it”.
Cook knows this (I do keep reminding him), but he pretends to get around it. Spot the delusion: “Scientists must back up their opinions with evidence-based analysis that survives the scrutiny of experts in the field. This means the peer-reviewed literature is a robust indicator of the state of the scientific consensus.” Cook assumes that scientists opinions are based instantly and accurately, and only on the evidence, as if humans were Intel chips. He assumes that “peer review” is uncorruptible (unlike every other human institution), that two unpaid anonymous reviewers is “scrutiny”, that climate-activist-scientists don’t work to keep skeptics out of the peer review literature, and that ClimateGate never spilled out what really happened in climate science.
Don’t people who do psychological research need to understand the basics of human nature? Scientists can cling to the wrong notion for years — just look at those who thought humans would never fly (even two years after the Wright brothers’ first flight) or that x-rays in shoe stores were safe, or that ulcers weren’t infectious, or that proteins could not be contagious (then came BSE).
4. The number of papers is a proxy for funding
As government funding grew, scientists redirected their work to study areas that attracted grants. It’s no conspiracy, just Adam Smith at work. There was no funding for skeptical scientists to question the IPCC or the theory that man-made climate science exaggerates the warming. More than $79 billion was poured into climate science research and technology from 1989 to 2009. No wonder scientists issued repetitive, irrelevant, and weak results. How hard could it be? Taxpayers even paid for research on climate resistant oysters. Let no barnacle be unturned.
Sheer quantity of abstracts endorsing man-made climate change has increased, but so has the funding.
Over the same era, $79 billion was poured into climate science and climate technology related research.
The problem with monopsonistic funding models is that there is little competition. Few researchers are paid to research angles that are likely to disagree with the theory. Volunteers who want to do their own research don’t have free access to journals, may have trouble getting the data (sometimes it takes years or FOIs to get it, and sometimes it never comes). Volunteers don’t necessarily have the equipment to do the analysis, and don’t have PhD or Honours students to help. They also don’t get paid trips to conferences and suffer the impediment of having to devote time to earn an income outside of their research. When they do find something there are no PR teams to promote their papers or send out the press releases.
In the financial world we have audits, in courts we have a defense, in Parliament we have an opposition, but in science we have… whatever the government feels like funding.
In the end, there is no government funding, be it through a grant or institute that actively encourages people to search for reasons the IPCC favoured theory might be wrong.
5. Most of these consensus papers assume the theory is correct but never checked. They are irrelevant.
The papers listed as endorsing man-made global warming includes “implicit endorsement”, which makes this study more an analysis of funding rather than evidence. Cook gives the following as an example of a paper with implicit endorsement: “‘. . . carbon sequestration in soil is important for mitigating global climate change’. Any researcher studying carbon sequestion has almost certainly not analyzed outgoing radiation from the upper troposphere or considered the assumptions about relative humidity in climate simulations. Similarly, researchers looking at the effects of climate change on lemurs, butterflies, or polar bears probably know little about ocean heat content calculations. These researchers are “me too” researchers.
If a conservative government had spent billions analyzing the costs of the failed climate models and the impact of disastrous green schemes, skeptics would be able to quote just as many me-too papers as Cook quotes here. (But we wouldn’t, because analyzing the climate by doing keyword studies — it ain’t science).
6. Money paid to believers is 3500 times larger than that paid to skeptics (from all sources).
Cook seems to believe there are organized efforts running to confuse the public. Is that a projection of Nefarious Intent (NI) coupled with conspiratorial suggestions of mysterious campaigns?
Contributing to this ‘consensus gap’ are campaigns designed to confuse the public about the level of agreement among climate scientists.
Given that he is confused about what science is, he probably would think people are trying to confuse him when they give it to him straight.
His own personal bias means he is the wrong person to do this study (if it were worth doing in the first place, which it isn’t).
It has all the hallmarks of activist propaganda, not research. Cook tries to paint skeptics as doing it for the money, but blindly ignores the real money on the table. Governments have not only paid more than $79 billion in research, they also spend $70 billion every year subsidizing renewables (an industry which depends on researchers finding a link between carbon dioxide and catastrophic climate change). Carbon markets turn over something in the order of $170bn a year, and renewables investment amounts to a quarter of a trillion dollars. These vested interests depend entirely on a catastrophic connection — what’s the point of cutting “carbon” if carbon doesn’t cause a crisis? Against these billions, Cook thinks it’s worth mentioning a 20 year old payment of $510,000 from Western Fuels? And exactly what was Western Fuels big crime? Their primary goal was allegedly the sin of trying to ‘reposition global warming as theory (not fact)’ which as it happens, is quite true, except that technically, “global warming” is not even a theory, it’s a hypothesis, something with much less scientific weight.
Does Climate Money matter? Is a monopoly good for a market?
Do you think if you had $79 billion you could get 3896 papers published
7. Keywords searches may miss the most important skeptical papers.
Keyword searches are more likely to turn up “consensus” papers. Many skeptical papers don’t use the terms “global warming” or “global climate change”: eg Svensmark (1998), Douglass (2007), Christy (2010), Loehle (2009), and Spencer (2011). Were they included? Perhaps they were, but they don’t appear to match the search terms in the methods. These are just a few seminal skeptical papers that might have been missed.
UPDATE: Lucia and JunkPschology in comments confirm that these six papers listed would not have made Cooks list. So in only half an hour of random analysis I can easily turn up major papers by skeptics that fall outside Cooks primitive keyword hunt. How many others miss too?
8. Some of these abstracts are 20 years old — does two decades of new evidence change anything?
Twenty years ago the IPCC was predicting we’d get warming of 0.3 degrees C per decade. The warming trend came in significantly below their lowest possible estimate, no matter which major dataset you consult. Back then scientists didn’t know there was an 800 year lag in the ice cores (where temperatures rise centuries before carbon dioxide does). In 1992 scientists didn’t realize that warming would soon flatten out for 15 years. They didn’t know that 28 million radiosondes would show their models were based on flawed assumptions about water vapor. They didn’t know that 3000 ARGO bouys would finally measure the oceans adequately for the first time (starting in 2003) — and find the oceans were not storing the missing energy their models predicted they would be, or heating nearly as quickly as the models predicted. In other words, even if there was a consensus in 1992, it’s irrelevant.
9. Naiomi Oreskes found 928 papers with abstracts that didn’t explicitly reject man-made global warming. So? Skeptics found 1,100 papers that support skeptical views.
Skeptics don’t issue press releases decreeing that this means anything scientific. It does mean that the media and IPCC are blindly ignoring masses of evidence, and that the term “denier” is well… marketing, not science. The people who deny these 1,100 papers exist are the ones calling other scientists names. When will journalists notice?
Given how much money has been paid to find evidence, the question real investigators ought to ask is “Is that all they found?”
10. You want authority? Skeptics can name 31,500 scientists who agree, including 9,000 PhDs, 45 NASA experts (including two astronauts who walked on the moon) and two Nobel Prize winners in physics.
Skeptics don’t issue press releases saying we outnumber and outrank the believers. Perhaps we should, but skeptics prefer to argue the evidence. Cook ignores the authorities that don’t suit him. Skeptics get Nobel Physics prizes, but believers only seem to get prizes for Peace. Phil Jones is one of the most expert of expert climate scientists, but he couldn’t create a linear trendline in Excel. Some skeptics, on the other hand, got man to the moon.
No wonder the public don’t think there is a consensus. There is no consensus among scientists.
Cook makes out that the public have been fooled by a deliberate campaign, but unless devious skeptics can cover continents in floods and snow, it could be that the public can see the failure of the models with their own eyes.
11. What about Science Associations? But they are not masses of scientists — just committees of six
Most science associations never ask members to vote, (or when they do, they have bizarre rules like the Royal Society, which recently asked members to vote Yes or Yes to inviting Prince Andrew to be a fellow). When science associations do ask all their members, mostly the votes are resounding “No’s”. With billions of dollars in grants in the offing, is it any wonder than relentless activism by government departments, renewables agencies, and other academics desperate to keep the gravy train rolling managed to win over or stack the committees?
12. Cook pretty much says this is not about a scientific argument — it’s a tactic to change public opinion through repetition of the fallacy
The first sentence in both the introduction and the conclusion tell us that the point of this paper is about public perception and government policy. It is not about the science. It is to help change public opinion. There was no attempt to find out whether there was a scientific consensus — as in a consensus among all scientists. Cook pragmatically explains that if people think there is a consensus they are more likely to support a policy to mitigate global warming. We know from Cook’s previous statements that he personally favors policies to change the weather. Is the Australian taxpayer funding research to learn something new, or to change public opinion and voter intentions? (How was this paper funded? It’s not listed in the Acknowledgements?)
Cook continues namecalling and unscientific abuse of the English language
Even John Cook admits the term “climate deniers” can’t be justified, yet he keeps on using it. It’s a misuse of English that helps trick bystanders into thinking Cook has a solid case. If the evidence they have is so overwhelming, why won’t Cook and others enter a polite debate? Just show us the missing evidence. Show us relevant model predictions from 20 years ago that turned out correct. The ol’ name-call and denigrate trick isn’t working anymore.
Cook also claims each abstract was categorized by “two independent, anonymized raters”. Yet the raters came from his partisan blog, discussed their ratings with each other, and acknowledged they were not independent among themselves. So what does “independent” mean? Can we use English instead?
Science has no gods
Welcome to the last dregs of the Great Scare Campaign, where the end game strategy is merely to repeat what worked for them before, which is the abjectly false and profoundly unscientific decree that we must believe the Gods Of Science.
The sad thing is that some environment and “science” reporters are so poorly trained they fall for what is essentially marketing that poses as science.
If only The Convinced had evidence for their favorite pet theory? Then activists like Cook would be able to debate in public, speak politely, and explain their case instead of resorting to cheap smears, dodgy research, and misleading statements.
——————–
REFERENCES
Cook, Nuccitelli, Green, Richardson, Winkler, Painting, Way, Jacobs and Skuce (2013) Quantifying the consensus on anthropogenic global warming in the scientific literature, Environ. Res. Lett. 8 024024 [Abstract]
Douglass, D.H., J.R. Christy, B.D. Pearson, and S.F. Singer. 2007. A comparison of tropical temperature trends with model predictions. International Journal of Climatology, Volume 28, Issue 13, pp. 1693-1701, December 2007. [Abstract] [Discussion WCR CO2science] [PDF]
Christy J.R., Herman, B., Pielke, Sr., R, 3, Klotzbach, P., McNide, R.T., Hnilo J.J., Spencer R.W., Chase, T. and Douglass, D: (2010) What Do Observational Datasets Say about Modeled Tropospheric Temperature Trends since 1979? Remote Sensing 2010, 2, 2148-2169; doi:10.3390/rs2092148 [PDF]
Svensmark, H. (1998): Influence of cosmic rays on earth’s climate. Physical Review Letters 81: 5027-5030. [Discussion CO2Science] [PDF]
Loehle (2009) A mathematical analysis of the divergence problem in dendroclimatology Climatic Change (2009) 94:233–245 DOI 10.1007/s10584-008-9488-8
Lindzen, R. & Yong-Sang Choi, Y, (2011) On the Observational Determination of Climate Sensitivity and Its Implications, Asia-Pacific J. Atmos. Sci., 47(4), 377-390, 2011 [PDF]
Spencer, R. W.; Braswell, W.D. (2011) On the Misdiagnosis of Climate Feedbacks from Variations in Earth’s Radiant Energy Balance, Remote Sens. 2011, 3, 1603-1613. [PDF]
Brilliant take down Jo, spot on.
464
Peter H has said exactly what I am thinking.
Agreed, great work Jo.
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As always Jo has regurgitated a series of unjustified opinions that have been endlessly repudiated.
[If it’s so “endlessly repudiated” strange how you can’t list a single valid point? Bluster…. – Jo]
Cooks article refers to research amongst experts showing that the experts have for years had a very strong consensus that AGW is occurring.
He doesn’t argue that AGW is occurring, he demonstrates the consensus among the experts exists, has existed for some time, and is growing. Therefore any claim that there is not a consensus among the relevant experts is inaccurate.
You may not agree with the experts, but the evidence for consensus among them is well researched and demonstrated.
————————–
Rennie, I don’t make the claim there is no consensus among “relevant experts”. I make the claim his study is irrelevant, unscientific, and predictable. It happens to be a biased, inept survey as well. There is a consensus amongst government appointed people who call themselves “climate scientists”. It’s scientifically meaningless and reflects biased government funding, not the atmosphere of Earth. There is no consensus among SCIENTISTS. Cook claims a 97% consensus among “peer reviewed literature” which is not true. Strictly he’s found a 97% consensus amongst papers using certain keywords in the peer reviewed literature, and he’s chosen keywords that will bias his study, and it was not a study worth doing in the first place. PS: Don’t thread hijack in future unless you have a worthwhile point. – Jo
746
“Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts.”
― Richard P. Feynman
210
Feynman also said that if a hypothesis
Cook, however, believes that the number of experts is the key to science.
For analogy, which do you think should take precedence in a court of law – high quality forensic evidence, or an opinion poll?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EYPapE-3FRw
100
Who else but DavidR; here you go Dave, 1100 papers all peer reviewed, which Cook missed. All the papers show evidence against AGW.
But as Popper famously said, you don’t need a 1000 papers to disprove something, you just need one bit of contrary evidence: done.
271
SO I’ve completely at random picked a single paper from that “1100” Cohenite.
: http://multi-science.metapress.com/content/q048627878324775/
Which as I expected doe snot show evidence against AGW. It appears to be a discussion of use of GDP figures to extrapolate to emissions scenarios. What change me randomly selecting THE ONLY paper listed that does not stand up to scrutiny?
323
When a warmist says something ‘doesn’t stand up to scrutiny,’ it is a pretty fair bet that is matches Reality.
Double goes for those warmists who post here.
111
What a joy you are matty; from matty’s random ‘non proving’ AGW paper:
Yep, that sounds like a ringing endorsement of the IPCC’s methodologies.
221
Why do they do this? I assume they think that sceptics can’t read?
They must think that simply by posting a link and then going “blah, blah, blah . . ” everyone else is going to roll over and accept the cAGW nonsense.
Still, the BBC is starting to ease back on the hype and actually use the term ‘sceptic’ as opposed to ‘denier’ and although it can’t quite count as a full retreat it’s a sign of progress.
Today programme
They did cap it by giving Hansen a few minutes to do his anti-XL pipelene pitch but, hey, it’s only fair we give the New Deniers some airtime. After all, we wouldn’t want to be accused of a lack of openness to debate, would we?
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“Why do they do this? I assume they think that sceptics can’t read?”
well you’ve not read the abstract if you think I’m wrong.
012
Mattb your argument is addressed in the Rebuttals section;
It is the first Criticism / Rebuttal and people still do not read it.
50
but that’s a bullshit rebuttal, pardon my french. The paper is clearly saying that they think the IPCC economic modelling is a bit iffy. It may or may not be, but that does not make it a paper that has anything to do with the actual science of AGW, and thus should not be considered as “All the papers show evidence against AGW.”
Sorry Poptech but you’ve been called out on a paper and trying to suggest otherwise is, frankly, pretty bloody pathetic. If that is your so called “evidence based” approach then you’re full of it, mate.
15
And it is CLEARLY not what Coher’s thinks you mean… as he says “All the papers show evidence against AGW.”
full of it.
05
Where on the list does it claim that,
“All the papers show evidence against AGW.”?
Repeating the same strawman argument does not make it true. Jo, got it correct,
“1,100 papers that support skeptical views.”
You cannot “call someone out” on a strawman argument you frabricated! What sort of insanity is this?
The paper does not say that the IPCC’s emission scenarios are “iffy” but utterly wrong and should not be used to base future policy on. It was so scathing 15 IPCC authors responded to it, which was also rebutted by the original authors in the paper following that one on the list,
Economics, Emissions Scenarios and the Work of the IPCC
What Coher “thinks” is irrelevant to what reality is and is not an argument.
20
yes cohers… but not the IPCC SCIENCE!
013
Quite right. IPCC ‘science’ is real ding-a-ling.
70
What science?
10
As explicitly stated in the Preface, the list includes papers that support skeptic arguments against ACC/AGW Alarm;
In this specific case you took a paper from the IPCC section of list which support various skeptic arguments against the IPCC and here it was their Emission scenarios.
41
So how many of your “list” talks about umming and ahhing about possible economic projections. lol. Popthetic.
17
All papers on the list support skeptic arguments against ACC/AGW or ACC/AGW Alarm. You will find socio-economic papers in their appropriate categories say “Socio-Economic“.
I suggest reading the list properly before trying to baselessly attack it.
50
Cohenite,
The first paper I looked at studied the Greenland Ice sheet and stated that there was statistically significant warming in the longest records in all seasons. However some areas had experienced statistically significant cooling over shorter time periods. Nothing in the abstract suggested that the paper challenged the view that AGW was occurring.
Most of these papers no doubt provide some scientific data showing some variation from a uniformly warming planet, however AGW is not occurring uniformly. This list is rather like another one I saw where every paper that referred to the MWP was claimed as ‘proof’ that the MWP actually existed. (Meta studies have shown that the MWP did exist but the temperature variation was much smaller than today.)
016
That is a lie. AGW advocates claim that even cold weather is caused by AGW; such as the recent below average freezing conditions in Europe being blamed on the effect of AGW causing a warming Arctic; which isn’t happening over the long term, or the short term.
The point is, anywhere in the world where there is ‘bad’ weather, a hurricane, Katrina, a flood, QLD, a bushfire, Victoria, freezing cold, Europe and the US, or hotter than normal, Australia, allegedly during summer, 2012-2013 the cause is attributed to AGW.
It is therefore a disingenuous lie to say AGW is not affecting the world equally; it is according to its believers because anything bad is due to AGW.
If you believe in AGW David, own it completely, don’t do this little back-shuffle when the facts contradict; own it, it’s all wrath of God stuff, big or small, isn’t it?
141
Hello David.
Perhaps you would like to comment on the fact that there is a Freezing and Heating cycle on Earth that has a periodicity in the order of 100,000 years.
Surely you don’t imagine that a gigantic system the size of Planet Earth can change temperature with a perfectly regular transition and not have any slight bumps along the way?
People jumping up and down about the slight variations in temp and sea level over the last 150 years certainly lack the nous to talk about the science of Man Made Global Warming. The whole thing is a joke.
Except off course the theft of so much taxpayer cash which is a serious crime.
KK 🙂
60
DavidR, you need to list the paper so I can tell you why it was listed. As stated in the Rebuttals your argument is a strawman,
21
again stop using the word strawman as though you know what it means. I’d wager that based on your terms most skeptics who wave your “list” around think they are science papers and thus somehow debunk AGW.
Do you know how many of the “list” actually have anything to do with science? lol.
07
You’ve created a link full of slight quibbles with some economic impacts to bulk it up so intellectual nuffies can wave it around and say “Here’s thousands of science papers that say AGW is a crock”.
and you have the cheek to call Cook a fraud. If he’s a carnival snake oil salesman you’re his freaking monkey playing the piano.
05
I do know what it means and it was used properly. Fabricating a false representation of the list to argue against is a straw man which is what was done here.
There are an extensive number of science papers on the list and many do directly support skeptic arguments against ACC/AGW but the rest support skeptic arguments against ACC/AGW Alarm. You again need to read the Rebuttals section,
You do not have to argue against AGW to argue that AGW is exaggerated or inconsequential. There are none that deal with any “slight quibble”.
Over 1000 papers deal directly with Science.
So if someone said here is a 1000 science papers support skeptic arguments they would be correct.
Cook the cartoonist is a fraud.
40
Mattb, thank you for helping me clarify how many Natural Science papers are on the list as I have updated this specific rebuttal with the following information,
20
This is interesting. Too big a job to study right now. However, it appears that the selection criteria may explain why Cook missed these papers. Now if any of these papers actually were on Cook’s 12,000 list and didn’t make it to his 3000 list, that would be quite telling, and almost suggest fraud (it would have to be more than a handful though).
36
The internet is a wonderful place, try here: http://rankexploits.com/musings/2013/on-the-consensus/
00
Lucia’s analysis is extraordinary; when a correct analysis is done of Cook’s papers this is found:
So, Cook found no consensus.
What a little grub he is.
171
This is indeed a relevant point and goes to the heart of the issue — survey design.
03
Tommy rot!! Cook is well aware of these papers. He framed his selection criteria in such a way as to avoid them.
The guy is a fraud.
90
DavidR,
I assume you know that John Cook is a blogger, who presumably has commentators who agree with the general thrust of his hypothesis?
If that is so, has it not also occurred to you that Joanne Nova is a blogger, who has commentators who generally agree with her hypotheses?
This is his peer review. Joanne has found demonstrable faults in his paper, and thus it should be withdrawn until such time as those errors of fact are addressed.
That is the scientific approach that is adopted within climate science, is it not, so it should be applied in this case also. Would you not agree?
220
John Cook is a scientist who works in science, and the paper he refers to was published in a scientific journal. He also Blogs.
http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/8/2/024024.
Jo is a blogger with an science degree.
—-
Jo uses the scientific method. Cook doesn’t. The term you are looking for is unskeptical-scientist — Jo
015
Show me proof that only people who work in science understand science. Show me where a PhD endows one with knowledge that cannot be obtained any other way. This ridiculous idea that only people who work in a specific field with a certain degree is insulting and demeaning. It is not necessary to have a “degree” to understand how things work–as is very often seen in computer work. I know many people who “taught themselves” programming. Many started their own businesses. Without a degree.
Knowledge is knowledge–whether you got a degree at a university or you read and learned the same material at home. This is nothing more than trying to say that climate scientists are the gods of knowledge and only those who are blessed with the proper degree and occupation are worthy of being listened to. There is no proof of this. If the science can be taught to students, it can be learned by anyone. Anyone.
220
To Sheri @1.2.3.1.1
…and how many of them PhD.’s could get a job in the real world ?
(apart from writing for the Guardian).
111
Computing btw. isn’t a science, which may be why they call it Computer Science – you know like SkepticalScience.
But it is funny how people are marked out by what they studied at college, rather than all they’ve done since, unless they never left college.
70
Computing may have been a poor example but the point is valid. Many people are awarded degrees in recognition of knowledge demonstrated outside of colleges. Then again, many bogus degrees are handed out to celebrities as well. IMHO the latter diminish the value of the former. At the end of the day colleges are slaves to funding and do whatever it takes to thrive. They are not paragons of virtue, just institutions working to make a profit like every other. To suggest they are otherwise is to be demonstrably naive.
60
“Show me proof that only people who work in science understand science.”
This is completely useful and not at all the problem with this debate.
01
I’d venture to say that 97.8% (made-up number) of scientists don’t understand even one philosophy of science. How could they? It’s not (AFAIK) a part of the curriculum at school or at undergraduate study level of universities. My degree is in Engineering so I wasn’t surprised that I hadn’t even heard of Karl Popper until several decades after my graduation.
Popperian philosophy of science translates well into (from?) Engineering practice; where uncertainty is something that is managed; in machines, structures etc. by incorporating factors of safety — to allow for anticipated variations in conditions, materials and construction. Engineers need to become accustomed to working with things that they know are “wrong” and fit them to situations in which that wrongness doesn’t stop things from working. Accepting that things can always be improved; making things less-wrong should be instinctive for Engineers.
Engineering graduates are, I guess, very much the same as science graduates. They are transplanted, still wet behind the ears, into the workplace where they are first instructed on “how things are done”; implicitly “the right way”. Alas, many find too much comfort in status quo. And they will keep doing things that way until they’re told to do them another way.
20
Words have no meaning these days. Or rather their accepted definition and meaning is plastic; perhaps we are going through one of those periodic phases where changing social context redefines words.
On the other hand maybe Orwell knew more than we thought.
John Cook is a scientist.
Anything is possible.
30
Perhaps the Mac dictionary has changed the definition of science and/or scientist!
10
To say John Cook is a scientist, seems to be gilding the lilly somewhat.
He might seem from his Profile at ABC, to have rather squandered his only qualification, a BSc in Physics.
A cartoonist(?) somewhat come lately to acadaemia, on discovering a new niche in nonsense.
Good luck to him, if he can find idiots prepared to pay for such stuff, but shame on the idiots for giving them our money to waste on it.
Experience:
Adjunct Researcher, University of Queensland 2011–present
Climate Communication Research Fellow, Global Change Institute, University of Queensland 2011–present
Adjunct Lecturer, University of Western Australia 2011–present
Education:
University of Queensland, Bachelor of Science Honours, 1989
Research Areas:
Psychology And Cognitive Sciences (17)
50
John Cook is not a scientist and never was a scientist, he was a cartoonist for over a decade when he started “Skeptical Science”,
The Truth about Skeptical Science
41
There may be flaws in the paper, but your comment is ad hominem. Why this has created a tempest in a teapot is beyond me, but if you want to take a stand on this Pork Chop Hill, then really you or some of you must download his data and do your own ‘refutation.’ Seems rather pointless to me. But that’s the way to do it.
020
“There may be flaws”? How many flaws are we to accept? Ten, twenty, a hundred? I hear this all the time. There may be flaws. A peer-reviewed study should NOT have flaws. Peer-review obviously is not worth the time and money spent since “flaws” show up all the time.
Check my blog for the proper way to do this type of research–there is a post on how Lewendosky should have done his research. Actually, Cook might have been better off doing focus groups. He would have gotten more honest answers and maybe a new idea for how to sell climate change to the government and public.
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It’s not important that I have an answer, since I don’t consider the conclusions of this ‘study’ to be implausible or relevant. But, I repeat, IF YOU WANT TO waste your time refuting this study, which is to say “identify what the TRUE percentage of climate scientists who believe in AGW is,” then the only way to do it is to perform your own study.
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You don’t care how science works? Very telling.
I am not refuting the study, I am saying Mr. Cook is trying to sell a product and does not care if the product is what he represents it to be. He should have clearly labelled his research as a marketing survey and not pretended it had any relevance to the accuracy of AGW. He is dishonest in his presentation. That is a serious problem when you claim to be a scientist–thinking it’s okay to deliberately mislead as long as it gets the result you want.
If you are arguing that selling AGW is like selling a car that fails to perform as stated is the way to go on selling AGW–no concern about truth–then you are right to consider this study valuable.
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We don’t have to because:
1 Jo has pointed out the flaws in the Cook ‘paper’
2 Jo has pointed out the unscientific nature of the consensus argument
3 Lucia has shown that Cook’s ‘experiment’ in fact shows there is no consensus.
As to the ad hom; what else am I to do; there is no substance to AGW so all that is left is to be personal; for instance you write very pompously.
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David R is so naive. This study will be reported far and wide by the believers as ‘proof’ of the bogus 97% stat. I find his casual dismissal of the the paper both disingenuous and implausible. The Cook et al paper got the treatment it deserved. The fact that papers such as these, see for further example Lewandowsky’s laughable conspiracy effort, even get published shows how far science has fallen. It is no longer the search for truth but the search for heretics of CAGW.
I pose this to David R… what’s the chances a valid rebuttal paper even gets published? Remember ‘we will keep this paper out, even if we have to redefine peer review’?
Easy to say ‘play the game’ when you are both opposition and umpire, no?
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Jo found SERIOUS flaws in Cook’s paper. THAT is why it was said that the paper should be withdrawn until the errors of fact are addressed.. THAT is attacking the errors in the paper and not the man and NOT ad hominem. The fact that you incorrectly used the concept of “ad hominem” rather makes your comment pointless because your argument is invalid.
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Only her point 7 was a serious point. Much better analysis on ClimateDepot and Bishop Hill. One of the comments in Bishop hill goes thru the criteria for categorizing all the papers and destroys (IMO) any plausibility to the claim that any buy category 1 papers lend support to AGW. How many category 1 papers were there? — 65, fewer than the 79 that explicitly denied AGW was the case.
Now that’s relevant criticism.
05
The only valid point of the 12 is point #7. Valid as to what, one might say? Well Cook’s claim seems to be that 97% of ‘climate scientists’ actually support AGW. Only point # 7 is relevant to Cook’s claim. The rest argue as to why scientists might believe in AGW, or that AGW is false(ish), or that Cook is trying to raise funds, or just plain name calling.
06
David,
What is your point?
First you argue that Jo’s argument was Ad Hominem and clearly improperly used that concept. There is no finding that Cook’s argument is invalid because of some irrelevant attribute, behavior, or prior act of Cook. Hence there was no Ad Hominem argument.
Now you complain that only argument 7 is relevant. It is relevant to only ONE of the errors embedded in Cook’s argument. However, the other 11 addressed important other flaws in Cook’s paper. In other words, not only is the core of Cook’s paper flawed, the context of that core is massively flawed.
Knowledge does not exist in atomic isolation. All knowledge exists in a context and must be understood in that context. Hence, it is not only proper but necessary to compare and contrast the issue in question in a wider context. This is exactly what Jo was doing.
Finally you complain about name calling. Please note that I called you “David” in this post. Tell me how this is wrong to do. You are a “David” aren’t you? If you are, why is it a wrong thing to do. Should I have addressed you as a nameless person?
In general a complaint about name calling is actually a complaint about someone actually identifying something and calling it what it is. Such an act is both necessary and proper – especially so if the details justifying the name are given.
It is interesting to note that you “name called” in your presenting post that Jo’s arguments contained Ad Hominem. I showed you was an improperly used name but now you are objecting to “name calling” in your current post. You seem to do both without caring about the accuracy and validity of either doing it or not.
Which is it? Are you for or against identifying what something is and naming it for what it is?
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Cook’s connection to Lewandowsky has permanently destroyed any reputation he might have had as a scientist. Lewandowsky has been given a sinecure by his fellow Trotskyites at Bristol.
However, Cook will find it very difficult when the cull of fake climate alchemy occurs, as is being planned now around the World.
You can’t take on real scientists and win, because they have a very long memory.
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More info please Turnedoutnice if you could.
Like who, where, when and how is it being planned?
Formal or informal?
Or just more of the same?
10
Great post, and every point is accurate and explained fully.
Cook’s entire premise is a straw man argument. The only issue addressed is related to atmospheric warming being caused by GHG, of which CO2 in one, and also whether human contribution of CO2 might have a role in the warming. I believe that almost everybody familiar with the subject would agree. If everybody agrees on the basics, who are the deniers?
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The only relevant point is #7.
05
This is bizarre. Who are the deniers? Yeah, that’s a big mystery.
Clearly the deniers are those who claim that this is all just a planetwide hoax perpetrated by scientists to gain funding / secure the socialist takeover of the planet via carbon taxes.
[REPLY: Note the inaccurate way he/she/they frame the debate. We say a few score scientists are inept, and being funded despite producing poor work, Cat claims all “scientists” are involved. When we point out that the billions of profits from carbon-trading and taxes and renewables favour “blind eyes” from policy makers and some in business, that’s turned into a “conspiracy” though it is an obvious systematic flaw. It’s this kind of inaccurate language which destroys public debate. Cat, you can say what you like if you write accurately. But don’t come here with pathetic inflammatory bluster. – Jo]
So there is a worldwide conspiracy among climate scientists to pretend that the phenominal spike in greenhouse gasses being graphed and the earth recording record after record for warming are just either faked data or better yet, just a random even that happened to correspond to humans generating record levels of greenhouses gasses.
Honestly, who can protest the term denier for this meme? In what way do the methods and arguments differ from, say, holocaust deniers? There are of course a small minority of historians, professional and more so amateur, that reject the overwhelming consensus of professionals in that field and instead claim that a small set of facts invalidate everything. The explanation for very few people agreeing with them is therefor a huge, implausible conspiracy. Sound familiar?
[REPLY: So Cat, this is a science debate. You may use the term “denier” again if you can name a single paper of observational evidence we deny exists or will not discuss. Otherwise, you can apologize for abusing the English language. – Jo]
Likewise, you’ll find very few references to the holocaust today in the literature which bother to make a statement that it happened and it was Germans. Most just take it as fact and move on, which should lead you to similar survey results.
Have a look around. See if you find a whole lot of discussion about the problems with the 99.3% of various, grouped findings and not mention the 0.7% of a single, relevant finding. This method look familiar? If you did encounter people set on denial, would you expect to see something different or precisely this?
Ah, there you go.
06
This is designed to inflame and denigrate, and stop people politely discussing the evidence for and against the idea that humans can change the weather. It’s worth posting as a kind of target practice. For the most part it is far better to respond to the form of debate used here, rather than the inaccurate content.
Honest people win when there is an honest discussion. The cheats win when they misuse English.
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I am always amazed that some people can’t distinguish between computer modeled predictions and actual historical events that have happened rather than being predictions. If you cannot tell the difference between bits, bytes and human beings, this is probably not the place to be. If you can’t tell history from future predictions, this is not the place to be.
30
A most comprehensive 12 point takedown, of a piece with no scientific nor analytical merit.
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That such a blatantly prejudiced and misleading paper can get published shows how far climate science has become degraded.
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Exactly. The issue remains is Cook’s ‘effort’ even worse than the previous 97% consensus ‘paper’ by Doran and Zimmerman which is critiqued here.
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Really? Doran’s consensus was 75 out of 77. And he had about the same number of data points that ACTUALLY responded (3000+). I think Doran’s was much sillier.
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Doran was much more honest. Granted they fell to the notion that active , publishing Climate Scientists know most about how the Climate works (well they would, wouldn’t they), but they did report all the data, showing how their selection bias grew their consensus from was it about 82%, as they progressively disqualified those not so dependent on it.
Doran & Zimmerman.
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Cook ‘reported all the data’ too. He reported his criteria for selection of the 12,000 papers and his list of criteria for categorizing them into 10 groups. One could read all this and discover that the only group (containing only 65 papers) that explicitly affirmed AGW was responsible for more than 50% of warming was Category 1.
12
OK, so DOZE’s work is sillier but I think Cook the person is sillier.
30
Point Number 5 is the only one that really matters, and sinks Cook’s purpose: attribution is the issue, not consequences based on an attribution.
Not the same.
Moreover, what he needs to do is determine the proportion of RESEARCHERS, (not papers) that, through the research OF the study, attribute the historical temperature rise to the IPCC CO2 causitive mechanisms at the 3.0C/doubling level. Ten papers by one warmist represent one opinion, not ten.
And what about the loudly trumpeted 97%? Didn’t Cook just invalid the 97% claim, drop it to 34%, even if you were to accept his work?
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Good point Doug. He actually demonstrates a weakening in the consensus, such as there was any, compared to the original ‘97%’ of 77 qualifying, active, & publishing , in climate science, earth scientists ( which actually appears to have been 95% of 79, from Figure 1 of Doran & Zimmerman) and more realistically 82% of responding Earth Scientists,
as well as compared to Oreske’s conclusion of 75%. It’s now just 34%. Blimey and it’s not even a contentious question.
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As Cook’s survey includes papers going right back over 20 years, it is actually a time average in consensus it measures. That , combined with the evidence it provides of a declining consensus over recent times, suggests the present position being somewhat weaker than his averaging approach indicates.
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This article is silly. Furthermore it knows its silly from a quote at the beginning: “Given the monopolistic funding of climate science in the last 20 years, the results he finds are entirely predictable.”
Yes the results are predictable, so why the big fuss over “independence” and “funding driven” etc? I dare say 100% of skeptic would say the earth has warmed [over the past 150 years or so]. I will stipulate that human activities have had some influence (how could they not?). Any scientist who claims that humans are the main/only cause of GW for the past 150 years is not speaking as a scientist because there’s no scientific theory,fact, or evidence to adjudicate such a claim. But it’s no surprise if 97% of climate scientists believe in AGW anyway. In fact it would be no surprise if AGW were indeed true anyway. The warming of the past 150 years has been an unmitigated boon to humanity and indeed all carbon-based life-forms. I doubt it man had much to do with the warming, but if he did, he should pat himself on the back and take a bow.
Why is everyone so emotional about this subject?
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Gosh you went all over the road and yet still think it was coherent.It was more like babbling that warmists are known to do when they have no valid counterpoint to offer.
Try again Mr. Russell
180
Of course it’s coherent. Coherence isn’t the issue at all. It seems your objection to me is that I wasn’t succinct. Ok. So what?
The elephant in the room is that 97% of those who ASSERTED AN VIEW THAT COULD BE DETERMINED AT ALL on AGW, actually seemed to agree that AGW is the case. I’m surprised it wasnt’ 100%. That there’s been warming over the past 150 years is IRREFUTABLE. To believe that it’s all/mostly/somewhat due to man is plausible at least, albeit not verifiable by scientific means. Scientists are allowed to have opinions not based on science, no? And who cares? Not only has the 150 years warming to date been an unmitigated boon to humanity, but as well no one would give a single hoot about climate science (outside of academe) if it weren’t for the matter of CAGW, which was not the subject of this analysis.
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Not is not because John Cook is not talking about a 150 year warming trend but about trying to claim a consensus over a highly loaded search criteria that manage to give him 32.6% as endorsing AGW.
From Johns press release:
Many are wondering how he get the 97% consensus endorsement out of the following:
32.6% endorsed human-caused global warming.
67.4% did not endorse human-caused global waming or stated no position.
That is 100%
What the hell!
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Surely you are being blinded by your “global warming skepticism theology.” The only group that matters is the 32.6% group, because only that group could be identified as having ANY VIEW on the matter of AGW. And if 97% of those surveyed who expressed view and their view was 97% in support of AGW, well that pretty much settles it: The vast majority of scientists believe in AGW.
Now you can criticize the design and the execution of the study, but the presentation of the results (97% consensus) is INDISPUTABLY CORRECT.
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97% of 32.6% is not going to support your stupid crap that “The vast majority of scientists believe in AGW.”
Wake up for a few minutes and figure this out:
32.6% pro + 0.7% against + 0.3% uncertain = 33.6%
32.6/33.6 = 0.970
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There is no “uncertain” group.
013
David says:
John Cook says:
John Cook think there is.
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You mean John Cook defined one group as “uncertain”.
40
Your point below is correct, to with there is an “uncertain group”: It’s less than 1% (.7%), not 33.6% as you assert. I should have said that the “uncertain group” was so small as to be not material.
07
This Russel Troll is a buffooon…the “vast majority” of “scientists” were never asked, only those already in the camp of “climate scientist”. Which is to say that tiny minority of the scientific population who are already professionally committed.
This is the most pathetically phoney “concern troll ” Ive yet seen.
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You aren’t very smart, are you? I am not an advocate of AGW. Yet I’m pretty sure the earth has warmed over the past 150 years. However, I think that said warming has been a good thing. I’m also somewhat sure that humans have had some impact on said warming, but not much. I have written a paper on “The Flaw of CAGW” which includes the science of CO2’s temperature impact for a doubling. It’s about 1 degree C. Humans are responsible for 3-5% of all Co2 emissions, the other 95-97% being from natural sources. So our impact from Co2 emissions has to be very modest. But there’s also land use which affects albedo. I think the fact the most humans live in cities and UHIE makes for a couple to a few degree more warmth IN SAID cities is a factor as well (not so much global warming but ‘warming-where-we-live’ warming).
Your hostility to me is based on your mistaken view that I’m a warmist. I just don’t care about that [beneficial] warming of the past 150 years or how much of that is attributable to humans. CAGW is where I take my stand. No one would care about GW or AGW, were it not for the fear of CAGW.
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DAVID!
My hostile view towards you is based on the fact that you ARE definitely a fool, a definitely one with very limited science.
Just because the Earth warmed for 150 or so years doesn’t mean that it was caused by the very first thing that popped into your mind; Lets say “Man’s Combustion of Carboniferous Fuels”.
You obviously have no clue about orbital mechanics and the many other very plausible reasons for Earth warming temporarily.
KK 🙂
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Um KK… “Just because the Earth warmed for 150 or so years doesn’t mean that it was caused by the very first thing that popped into your mind; Lets say “Man’s Combustion of Carboniferous Fuels”.”
Um that’s what David said too?
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David Russel…I havent read your reply and I wont listen to anything you say unless you come say it in person.
41
Scepticism as a theology – certainly a novel idea!
00
“67.4% did not endorse human-caused global waming or stated no position”
Um I think you mean 66.4% stated no opinion, and 0.7% rejected and 0.3% stated uncertainty. There is no valdidity at all, even less than cook’s paper, in lumping them all together to make it look as though the 66.4% said anything relevant at all.
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sunsettommy,
“argument from ignorance”, the fact that 66% of the papers do not state an opinion on the existence of AGW DOES NOT imply that they disagree with it.
Cook’s paper not only assessed the abstracts but also asked the authors of all the papers whether the accepted the evidence that AGW is occurring. More authors, (extremely marginally), accepted that AGW was occurring than the abstracts indicated.
15
We care David Russell because the conventional wisdom loving monster called the media eats this stuff for breakfast and it gives more life to the fallacy that AGW is real. This causes the vote catching politicians to legislate stupid climate change policies in an utterly feeble attempt to change the weather and appease what the media has told it is the zeitgeist. These policies cost money and divert scarce government funds (my and your taxes) away from looking after the health and well being if its citizens, as well as increasing the cost of living for its citizens via energy rises, and making the country’s exporters with high energy inputs less competitive. We care David Russell and moreover we thank Jo for tearing this spun bs apart in the off-chance that conventional wisdom media monster might think twice before pushing their interpretation of the zeitgeist.
170
Well, ok. But I think Jo and most here are making a tactical mistake. I posit that a dispassionate observer would view Jo’s response as strident and ad hominem in many instances. Also I posit that by giving the Cook paper more attention than it deserves, you may be acting in a counter productive way.
The only dispositive way of refuting Cook is to do your own study, possibly to show that Cook misjudged/mis-characterized some of the ‘no opinion’ papers, or that his ‘paper selection’ criteria produced a skewed sample.
Personally, I would have just left it at: “What do you expect? I’m surprised it isn’t 100%. But what they believe is irrelevant. It’s their arguments that count.” And go on from there.
218
Hi David
The following blog gives a really good breakdown on how survey results are collated into a two item pie chart.
http://www.staatvanhetklimaat.nl/2013/05/17/cooks-survey-not-only-meaningless-but-also-misleading/
Essentially survey collates an answer from 1 to 7. 1 = CAGW. 7 = No AGW at all. 4= neutral/off topic. How you combine these into two data sets is where John’s ‘trick’ lies. John takes ratio of 1+2+3 compared to (5+6+7), gets 97%, allows the media run with it and allow everyone assume we are talking about CAGW here.
I am a lukewarmer. I could take ratio of luke warmer positions (2+3+5+6) compared to outliers (1+7). Result = a lukewarmer concensus of 98%. If I consider lukewarmer positions to be 3+5, result is still 75%.
Of course the data is has a strong skew to CAGW, so by doing this I am being misleading. But it is this very statistical skew that John is exploiting to get this alarming 97% figure. It’s all in how to combine survey collations.
Credit and H/T to John Cook though. This story got massive legs. Very impressive PR outcome for CAGW activists. Especially how Cook managed to pass himself off as a bona fide researcher.
60
This is indeed relevant and a much better criticism of Cook’s paper than anything I’ve see here.
01
Oh really David?
I posted that same link for YOU only 28 minutes later than Andrew did and this one too that you have ignored.
Yet you have called me names and be a jerk towards me while I make clear that I have better awareness of their babbling crap John Cook and his dishonest camp than you ever did since you keep idiotically harping that 97% consensus baloney that I had quickly discerned as being a contrived and misleading number.The two links I posted along with Lucia,Brandon and Jo’s posted articles pointed out the glaring flaws and YET you STILL could not see them as so many of us here could see.
That is because you are a warmist all the way to the bone marrow who has shown the usual warmist inability to see the deception and lies that John “cook the books” Cook spews out.Jo’s criticism was fine as well but you make unsupported attacks against it calling it silly and such,thus a major reason why you have so many thumbs down in the thread.
Cheers.
10
David Russel……you seem to have missed the show: PEOPLE ARE DYING BECAUSE OF THIS DOGMA.
Moreover, I have personally been suffering, physically, because of it.
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So this is your “liar, liar, pants on fire” argument. Very persuasive.
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Man….I have suffered bitterly this past winter because I cannot afford to foot the heating bill and the reason for that is because the price is inflated by 50% by “Green taxes”.
If you struck that attitude in my face, I would fill yours with my fist, before placing my boot firmly somewhere which I doubt you have much use for.
Man…you arent a man.
164
Green taxes? You must not be from America. What are these green taxes?
020
Im in the UK…and this forum is in Australia…and you are so patently THICK that you thought everyone here is “from America”.
Prick.
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I am very much aware that any website with “.au” is based in Australia. To my knowledge there are no such green taxes in the US. And as it turns out you are neither in the US nor in Australia. So, my question was and remains apt. I repeat, what green taxes are you referring to?
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David Russell,
You clearly know that your wrong, why not just behave sensibly and retreat unless you have facts which back up your lengthy list of claims?
60
David Russell, do you deny that the actions of the US EPA have caused the price of carbon fuels to increase?
Assuming that you aren’t that dense, what is the functional difference between a tax and a government forcing people to pay more through regulations? Then, since fuel taxes are a percentage of the price, taxes revenues do go up when fuel prices are pushed up by said regulations.
Beyond that, consider that subsidies for “renewable energy” are really tax dollars and even though the US spends in deficits, eventually it comes due does it not? Yes David that is a tax.
40
Simple answer is because of the billions of dollars/pounds/yen or whatever squandered on a fallacy.
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david russell:
You are correct in one respect. Cook’s premise is that most people believe in the basics of greenhouse warming. This in itself makes Cook’s paper a straw man argument. Since most people agree that the earth has been warming since the Little Ice Age, Cook is trying to re-invent the wheel, and offers no new knowledge.
The sample Cook used was approximately 12,000 papers, although not randomly selected, using biased search terms, and judged by non-independent and biased graders.
What I think you are saying is that out of scientists that advocate AGW, we can expect 100% of those to advocate AGW. If two-thirds of the sample is thrown away, the result will probably be a trivial conclusion like Cook’s. Cook needed good reason to trash most of his data, but, to my knowledge he did not offer any reasons for this action.
JoNova wrote a very good analysis of the so-called survey. Not only was the survey a disaster in methodology, it was not even needed.
The Cook survey is a straw man.
172
There’s a lot in your post. I read it twice. First time I thought you were basically right, but on second reading I changed my mind. I am prepared to stipulate that there were flaws in design and execution of this study. I also think none of this matters, because the conclusions were obvious to begin with…. but not for the reasons you state.
To put a fine point on it, if all the flaws in design/execution were addressed, I am confident that the result would be the same, namely showing that “the vast majority of climate scientists believe in AGW.” I don’t know this to be the case, but I’d bet money and give good odds that that would be the result.
There is no straw man argument that I can see. This was just an attempt to ascertain what climate scientists indeed thought about AGW. Nor was there any presumption that any of these scientist had a position pro or con from the selection criteria or from the analysis criteria. Certainly nothing Jo Ann Nova says impinges on this. Nor was there any presumption that 2/3 of the articles would be mute on the matter. It just turned out that way.
IMO this survey for all its flaws demonstrated what it set out to do, namely what climate scientists actually though about AGW.
216
If we are to include all the peer reviewed papers that refute AGW we would still get the same result?
I think not…..
40
We’ll never know until someone actually does the study.
13
We’ll never know if we don’t have even half a brain, yes.
10
david russell:
Now that I have read all the comments in the thread, I learn that I really agree with most of what you say.
Where I do not agree are the following points:
1. Jo’s article is not silly. This stuff needs to be explored.
2. I don’t agree with your view of the data analysis.
I am a skeptic of all things CAGW, believing that it is looney tunes stuff worthy of Al Gore. However, I am not stupid and know that there is a greenhouse effect, and CO2 plays a part with that portion contributed by humans probably having a role in the late 20th century warming.
120
I still think Jo Ann’s points are silly. She may have political/advocacy objectives to fight Mr. Cook. But I think Mr Cooks conclusions are both true and vacuous. And that’s why I (as a side-line player) find the article silly. Her arguments aren’t really relevant, but she’s preaching to the choir and performing a cheer-leading role. I get that. No problem. Just not important…to me.
I don’t know what you mean on your second point. What data analysis? Surely to report that “97% of the people surveyed who expressed a discernible opinion supported the AGW thesis” is the correct and only way to analyze the data, no? And it’s the way Cook expressed it, no?
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+1 from me d.r but I think we a priori share a very similar viewpoint so no surprise. When I read the paper I actually had exactly the thought of which blogger would be first express concern about the 97% sub set value, as though subsets of larger data sets are not also complete sets of data in themselves. very poor.
18
@david russell May 17, 2013 at 2:00 pm · Reply :
I understand your position on Cook’s data, and even agree that he would have never arrived at a different conclusion. Indeed, given the subset of data he used for this conclusion, there is only one conclusion.
However, that’s not the way he structured the study.
1`. There were no invitations to participate in a survey. All the papers (11,944) in his sample were there because of his definition in his search terms, “climate change, global warming”. He defined the data as being acceptable.
2. When Cook was incapable of reading the papers and judging the contents (pro or anti AGW), he discarded 2/3 of his pre-approved data.
3. Instead of re-considering the design of the study, he stuck with his original poor design and ignored about 8,000 of his selected data points.
I am sure you would agree that in those 8,000 papers there are authors who agree with the AGW premise,and some that don’t. Also, maybe there’s an overwhelming number that advocate AGW, and the conclusion of the study would not have materially changed. Even so, the numbers would probably not have been the same, and that underlines the defect in the design.
Maybe it is fine by you that people throw away 2/3 of their defined and accepted data and express no reason. In the big picture it would be news if the media advertised the conclusion of the study as 30% of climate studies support AGW, and 70% have no opinion. That makes for a different story.
So, Jo’s article is not silly, at all.
82
I have on countless occasions stipulated that the design and execution of this study may have flaws. BUT it is not a flaw to represent that of those papers for whom there was a discernible view on AGW, 97% asserted “AGW: Yes.”
05
Ummmm if it is so unimportant why have you spent hours debating it? Your own actions make a mockery of your words. It seems obtuse to me that one would argue for the sake of arguing over something one considered irrelevant.
41
Good point. Obtuseness annoys me, though.
05
Are you still here?? We are all waiting for your paper.
30
david,you really are not listening.bobs comment sums the situation up very well.
your argument seems to be based on what YOUR definition of what cook attempted to acheive by creating this worthless paper.
your point is he set out to achieve a consensus amongst climate scientists.
that would be fine if that was the intention.
unfortunately for your argument he did not set out to acheive this.he set out to create an inherently biased paper to attempt to deceive the public into believing that 97% of scientists believed in cAGW. MAKE NO MISTAKE david,that is what his EXPLICIT intention was.
why ? you may say.because as the months and years roll on,it is becoming quite obvious to even the slowest thinkers amongst us (like me) that all the doom and gloom predictions were wrong,and the climate scienec community is slowly but surely descending into clutching at straws mode.
the big problem is that politicians do not like to look silly either,and many are making vast sums from the taxpayer as a result of “green” energy stupidity,so they will pronglong the agony until they are no longer in a position where it matters when they are found out.
again,MAKE NO MISTAKE david.the cAGW fallacy is over.only todays general lack of real discomfort for most people in developed countries is allowing it to run its course. in 20 years it will be all over,unfortunately todays insular society will let the guilty escape unpunsished.
10
Another argument in the same vein as “Most people believe CO2 adds warming so most people believe humans cause global warming”:
Adding additional water to a reservoir can cause flooding.
I pour 5 gallons of water into the reservoir.
The reservoir floods.
I caused the flood.
True or false?
61
You commit the error of lack of materiality. Here’s my example: “Every year cats kill millions of birds. There wouldn’t be so many cats if humans didn’t keep them as pets. Therefore, humans are contributing to species extinction.”
Your point is obscure as to this conversation. If your point is that human emissions are not material to the CO2 based warming, I believe I made this point and thus your comment is an utterance of support. If so, thanks.
16
I was pointing out an argument that I often hear from warmists: CO2 causes warming, humans add CO2, humans cause warming. Point was that this is invalid and easily seen if you look at a 5 gallon bucket dumped into a reservoir.
I have no idea what you mean by error of lack of materiality. I tried googling (and bing and info) and still have no clue what you mean. Your example is logically correct. If you said “humans are causing species extinction” in place of “contributing to species extinction”, as in the warmist example above, then it would be incorrect.
I am not supporting your point–or not completely. Humans contribute CO2 to the atmosphere. How much this effects warming, if any, is unknown. The science of climate behaviour is not sufficiently evolved to know exactly what causes what. I have not seen convincing evidence that humans are the driving force of climate at this point.
30
Quick question: Do you believe the C in CAGW?
30
You are the smart cookie, to identify the REAL issue, namely CAGW. THAT’s where I take my stand against warmism/climatism. If you read further down, I present a brief scientific case AGAINST CAGW. I suspect none here can follow it, but my conclusion is that CAGW is scientific tripe.
09
Yes David, we are all morons and you are brilliant.
20
A moron is a person who lacks mental capacity. Ignorance is not the same thing. My point was that the [my] argument was technical, not that people here are imbeciles.
Do I intuit that you followed my anti-CAGW case? What did you think? I was surprised that so many gave it a thumbs down.
05
Backslider gets confused, as he is actually an (Snipped the baseless namecalling,you know the rules Matt) CTS
05
Mattb, I am glad that I frighten you so much.
20
We are still waiting for your “paper”.
20
Tony Delroy on Nightlife, “ABC Local Radio” is one that fell completely. He used Cook’s paper as a catalyst for his talking point this morning with his pre-speal being critical of skeptics, giving 100% acceptance to Cook.
170
Jo,
Not much actual physical evidence in the climate models that just look(observe), record and the project on an extremely limited data stream.
Where is the actual science of the mechanical processes that produce temperatures and their vast variations?
What you are buying is propaganda so that the excuses for excessive spending on garbage technology that is being bought through our collective governments.
50
I for one think Cook is absolutely correct. Most climate scientists believe in AGW. How could they not? Furthermore, while you can quibble with the validity of the criteria, the objectivity of the reviewers, the skewedness of the sample, the raw facts are presented correctly: ~4000 papers who could be identified as HAVING ANY VIEW AT ALL on AGW agreed overwhelmingly to AGW. There’s no way to spin your way out of this.
If I survey 1000 people and ask “Is the sky blue” and 1/3 of them respond and they all respond “Yes”, then it is an appropriate conclusion that 97% of those responding agreed the sky is blue. And this works if the question is “IS the sky green.” If 4000 respond and they all say “Yes,” then that’s the result — 100% of reponders to a 1000 person survey believe the sky is green.” NO ONE would charactize either study as “one out of 3”. The 2/3 group expressed NO OPINION at all. They were mute. And that doesn’t mean “they expressed ‘no opinion'” nor “they expressed the opinion ‘no’.”
It’s pretty simple.
319
I see that you skipped over this part from John Cook’s paper:
just 32.6% endorsed AGW a conjecture that has yet to be validated.A conjecture that the IPCC for 27+ years based their always wrong climate models on.
Yet he says this too:
This is considered correct by you? Endorsement of a conjecture that has not been validated is not a good position to warble about it Russell.
Climate realists have long learned that anything from John Cook will be second rate garbage.
161
Yes, based on what you say here, that is the correct conclusion. Let’s use an example:
1) I send a survey to 1000 people (properly selected, whatever that means), asking “Is the sky blue?”
2) 1/3 respond
3) They all say “Yes.”
What is your conclusion:
a) only 1 out of three people surveyed think the sky is blue?
b) based on a survey of 1000 people all those who responded (100%) averred that the sky is blue?
You seem to think we have any information about those 2/3 that couldn’t be identified as having a view on AGW. That is a totally incorrect position. We neither know that they have “no opinion” nor that their opinion is “no.” Indeed the authors may IN FACT all also believe in AGW, but didn’t say so in the papers surveyed. We JUST DON’T KNOW.
418
Lets go back to what JOHN COOK stated in his paper:
He EXAMINES 11,944 climate abstracts and finds that only 32.6% of the 11944 climate abstracts stated something in favor of AGW while 66.4% did not.
That is all he wanted to say while YOU want to bring in a lot of unverified chatter about what they might really think when their abstracts themselves does not express a position on AGW at all.
Stop trying to divine what is not there ok?
182
You keep getting this wrong. You are blinded by some emotional issue that I can’t fathom. Cook’s claim is that the 2/3rds who expressed no discernable opinion, were just plain mute on the subject. We KNOW NOTHING of their views. You seem to think that these 2/3rd had the view “no to AGW.” Incorrect.
517
This is unreal since I keep quoting what John Cook wrote in his paper:
John Cook himself show based on the 11994 abstracts that NO POSITION is found in 66.4% of them.That is all.
Yet it is YOU who want to bring in something that is not there at all since your speculation on what they MIGHT believe is beyond the scope of his simple abstract based survey.
He and I never said that means they do or do not believe in AGW.It is you who is going full stupid in this because I am only repeating what John Cook found based on the abstracts and NOTHING MORE.He plainly states:
Why is this so hard for you to grasp?
173
One of us is indeed an idiot. I’ll let others decide.
527
Looking at all of your red thumbs David Russell, guess who is the idiot?
51
david russell say (#9.1.1.1.1)Cook’s claim is that the 2/3rds who expressed no discernable opinion, were just plain mute on the subject. We KNOW NOTHING of their views. You seem to think that these 2/3rd had the view “no to AGW.”
=========================================
AGW scam has long become political and relevant scientists are almost all government employees.
Government employees can not disagree openly with the government without risking their jobs and careers. Therefore a mere refusal to confirm the government position can be treated as an informal disagreement.
A good example of that is the Doran/Zimmerman study from 2008, where 70% of the relevant scientists did not find 2 spare minutes to confirm the AGW concept online. The only reason for them not to do that can be their disagreement. That means that 2/3 majority of the relevant scientists highly probable do not believe in AGW.
100
I agree with everything you say. Do you agree with everything I say?
110
Which is why we cannot say “97% of climate scientists endorse AGW”.
We can only say “97% of those who gave an opinion AND who matched our selection criteria endorse AGW”
There is a huge huge difference here….
80
Yes, you get it. As long as they say (at least) “of those who gave an opinion”, the statistic is correct. This is not about science. It’s about marketing. It’s just like “”4 out of 5 dentists recommend……”. In marketing, the actual usefulness of the product is not relevant. Only the sale is. One can even border on and sometimes cross into lying to sell products. Mostly it’s just statistical trickery and emotional appeals.
Marketing is NOT hard science where proper sampling and statistical reporting are necessary. If you want to counter this marketing, do as Jo did and call it marketing. Make sure people understand this is NOT about the truth of climate change, just about how to convince them to buy into it. Arguing over whether or not it’s deceptive is ridiculous–marketing is supposed to be deceptive.
10
”
1) I send a survey to 1000 people (properly selected, whatever that means), asking “Is the sky blue?”
2) 1/3 respond
3) They all say “Yes.”
What is your conclusion:
a) only 1 out of three people surveyed think the sky is blue?
b) based on a survey of 1000 people all those who responded (100%) averred that the sky is blue?
”
————
You clearly have no idea on how to present statistics.
The sky is actually colourless. So your sample have all given an incorrect answer. However your analogy would be expected from someone with such little knowledge of the subject but proclaim to have a greater understanding than everyone else.
A more suitable question would be along the lines; “What colour does the sky appear to be on a clear day?”
Your population would also need to take into account those that are colour blind or have some other visual impairment. So you can see that even an apparently simple survey has it’s complications.
10
david,whay are you struggling with the concept of what sunsettommy is attempting (far better than i) to convey to you ?
if cook came out and said “there is a strong climate science community agreement about the cause of climate change,contrary to public perception ” i would whole heartedly agree with your statement.
HOWEVER,what john cook did say was “Our findings prove that there is a strong scientific agreement about the cause of climate change, despite public perceptions to the contrary.”
there is a very distinct difference in intended meaning of those statements.therefore i think your position is incorrect.
00
We can say 97% of climate scientists endorse AGW from John Cook’s study, IF….
a) we accept his selection [criteria] for the 12,000 papers;
b) we accept his 10 category criteria for who believes what; and
c) we accept the competence of the paper reviewers.
d) 3000 or so is a sufficiently large samples size for the Law of Large Numbers to lend confidence that it is representative of the group as a whole.
If we accept these caveats, then the conclusion he presents follows.
05
Mr. Russell you need to ponder over this part written by Jo:
Yet despite this John Cook still find that 66.4% of what he surveyed as having NO POSITION on the AGW conjecture which is not validated.That despite the highly slanted funding stream that has for years enters the pockets of those who think the never vaildated AGW conjecture is a neat mousetrap.
You really should have grown a skeptical bone for anything John Cook puts out.
150
The quote you mention is a plausible reason for said scientists to believe in AGW. So far, so good (and so what?). Your statement that the 2/3 of papers group had “No opinion” is flawed. We just don’t know what their opinion is, because the didn’t express one on AGW ….and to not express an opinion is not the same as saying “I have no opinion [on the subject].” It is the equivalent of NOT responding to a survey…. or to being mute.
117
Ha ha ha,
Now you are being silly because according to John Cooks survey it was based on the papers ABSTRACT where he says 66.4% of them Stated NO POSITION on AGW.
From John Cooks ABSTRACT itself:
LINK
You are trying to create something that is not there.
150
Yes, well one of us is indeed acting foolishly. Let me ask you: You read a poem written by Anonymous, that expresses nothing about nuclear power, So tell me, what is Anonymous’ view on nuclear power — for, against, ‘no opinion’?
[Yes, this is a trick question]
218
You do not seem to get it David. How does 32.6% become 97% of scientists? By ignoring the rest of the data and all other earth scientists.
The only CONCLUSION this study can find in favor of AGW is that 32.6% of those studied openly endorse AGW as valid. That’s not 97% of scientists, which is a fabrication and is not a valid conclusion.
A far more appropriate study would have been to find how many believe in CAGW.
If I ask twenty guys if they like football and only ten answer and they all say “Yes”, does that mean that 100% of guys like football? No, it tells us that at least 50% of our twenty guy sample like football. It does not mean that at least 50% of ALL guys like football. That also would be a fabrication.
160
You are neglecting sample size in your example. There’s a well-accepted principle in statistics called “The law of large numbers.” The bigger the sample the more valid the conclusion.
So asking 20 guys sounds silly. But what if you ask 200,000,000 guys and [only] 100,000,000 respond, but they all say they like football. What would YOU CONCLUDE [about the other 100,000,000]?
People on this comment site presumably would conclude that 50% of males like football. The law of large numbers says here, “all males like football.”
219
200M is a large number. The number of studies we are talking about is not a large number, so your argument does not apply.
120
The law of large numbers applies to confidence, not to the result. With a sample of 2×108, we can have more confidence that the 1×108 who responded, and all said they liked football, is correct.
It still tells us nothing about the other 1×108, who did not respond, some of whom may never even have heard of football, or perhaps they got confused between soccer, rugby, and gridiron.
We can have no opinion other than 50% of those asked, said they liked something called “football”.
70
David – unfortunately many people here are displaying their ignorance of statistics and the scientific process. I can see you obviously have at least some understanding but I think you are wasting your time arguing with them. I can see some shortcomings with Cook’s paper but even if they were addressed I think his conclusions would still be the same and verified. Now.. subsequent replies will quite often denigrate statistics and the scientific process – we’ll wait and see! If so, it’s time to pull out!
211
.
Charles
So we are:
Can’t you see your attacks on people (us, not The Climate Scientist) are becoming more and more constant and irritating.
30
Nice one Charles. Yet another warmist reveals themselves.
If you can manage “statistical confidence” from several thousand records, then you only display your own ignorance.
Lies, damn lies and statistics holds true. Its not a scientific process BTW.
80
This point is just not relevant, logically. It is emotionally appealing. It may even be true. Now when I say ‘it’s not relevant’ what I mean is “to the conclusions” Cook presents, to wit, “what do climate scientist believe regarding AGW”? I guess you could say “it is relevant” because it explains WHY so many of them believe this, but WHY was not at issue in the Cook paper, so point 4 is irrelevant to Cook.
04
Mr. Russell,have you considered what John Cook left out?
Did John Cook categorize any papers as “Endorse AGW” or “No AGW position” that were written by skeptics for his survey?
110
I haven’t a clue. Do you? Does it matter?
115
You don’t?
It is right in front of you and still it ZOOOOOMs right over your head.
Amazing!
154
We all know what your opinion is. Is there no one on this thread who sees things my way?
417
Now you speak for everyone here?
It seems that people here are giving you mostly thumbs down and giving me mostly thumbs up based on our exchanges.I would think they like my “opinion” better than yours.
What is my opinion?
Careful now.
93
I have come to an epiphany. You are a lunatic.
317
Daffid.
Whereas you have: ” come to an epiphany. You are a lunatic” blah blah blah.
I must in all honesty agree with your opinion.
And I agree with it to the extent that on the face of it anyone who engaged in what they thought was a “meaningful conversation” would indeed be: “a lunatic”.
That you have apparently believed that what you were doing was having a “meaningful conversation” is exactly where you have gone wrong.
What is going on here is a scientific process of probing and investigation by the very upright members of this academy to categorise and assess your performance.
In that light we have already discovered a number of things; and while I have read very little of the discussion I would ask others to help fill out the form as usual.
Observations on rampant Spacer and Troll No. 170513a.
1. You have been seen as a “concern troll”.
2. You have completed arithmetic to 5th Class Primary level but failed the Naplan in that subject because of low marks in number manipulation which is sometimes called adding and subtracting.
3. Your writing skills are remarkably advanced in comparison with your Number skills and have done year 10 English in Space as a minimum.
4. Somebody obviously trusts you as they have let you have access to their computer and mouse thing to travel the world of the internet. While this may be true it is also true that some parents don’t see things too clearly and we advise them to encourage you to get a job and buy your own computer and access time. It’s good to encourage self reliance.
5. I suspect that you have lots of friends of your own age who share your ideas and believe that all older people are bad and will ruin the Earth we call home. I suggest that you talk to some of the older students in say years 11 and 12. If you do you will find that not all older people are bad, or misinformed or uneducated but most importantly:
THEY DON’T OPEN THEIR BRAINS IN FRONT OF PEOPLE WHO ARE OLDER. SMARTER AND MUCH BETTER EDUCATED AND SO SUBJECT THEMSELVES TO SO MUCH SELF INFLICTED RIDICULE AND LAUGHTER.
6. Because of 5 above it is obvious that you are not very smart.
Others may be able to help with observations 7 through to 33.
KK “) 🙂
134
What a charming fellow you are David who realizing that he can’t address my comment throws out a baseless personal attack:
Then this means my simple question was too hard for you to answer.
Cheers.
61
Anyhow RW I still beat you.
I got three red thumbs to your one!
KK 🙂
20
“Oh look George! There is our Tommy, marching in the parade. Isn’t it a pity that everybody else is out of step …”
91
RW
I’m very upset.
How come it took you only one line to say what took me 45 lines?
KK 🙂
40
I have a reputation for being pithy.
pithy containing much matter in a few words; concise, condensed, forcible, terse
pith the central point of an argument
pithed the essential state of being, exhibited by myself, when commentating late at night.
50
RW, an eloquent way of telling someone to PITHoff. 😉
60
“
Capturing the essence of something is very satisfying. Cutting through the c£@p & getting to the point.
You can’t summarise brilliance though until you’ve seen it.
40
Any respectable researcher can and will tell you that rating-by-abstract
is dangerous.
Research into any topic starts with a “literature search” where prominent
and important papers on the topic or relevant to the topic are sought
and read—in full. Too much is left out of an abstract for it to be at all
meaningful. It can be regarded as a wordy “headline.” For this reason, it
can take a researcher several months to read all the literature such a
search would turn up. Only a few of those papers would turn out to be
at all relevant to the researcher’s chosen topic.
I looked at the survey and was served up with ten abstracts. I must have
been unlucky because these abstracts, which I read carefully and fully,
seemed to have no relevance to anything at all. One abstract even
engaged in a brief circular argument with itself! Perhaps my grasp of the
English language is quite different from Mr. Cook’s.
I read scientific papers all the time. It’s partly work and mostly play.
I wondered at the time if the 4000 or so papers were selected purely for
their fog factor, those rating highest to be included in the survey.
Just my opinion, for what it’s worth.
A “consensus” in “science” is a contradiction in terms. Good scientists
are constantly and always sceptical. It seems a club is needed to beat
everyone with.
110
Russel guy..You didnt read it did you, only 66% OF assayed opinions were in agreement of AGW, not of the total sample but those constituting what in your version you call a “response”.
71
Sorry, but I don’t speak gibberish.
[Eff off. I’ll be snipping you soon if you continue in this tone] ED
216
Now, now Mr Russell, this is a “skeptic” blog, [snip]
[Double Eff off. Brookes] ED
315
You seem to get it.
I’m pretty disappointed with the level of discussion here. I thought warmists were irrational. I see now irrationality on the side of this issue that I’m actually on myself — the denier side. It’s not encouraging for the future of the race, IMO.
[Denier side huh? strike one towards moderation] ED
418
DO you have any idea David Russell just how often we get warmists like you here pretending to be skeptics?
We all know that if we want any kind of discussion over at the S(k)S camp that we MUST pretend to be warmists, otherwise Cookie’s brownshirts will quickly bundle us off.
You don’t have to do that here. Just quit with the insults and state your case truthfully. We really don’t care that you are a warmist.
130
You seem to be misinformed about this site. Look up 3 or 4 comments and see that the editor (in rather nasty language) threatens to cut me off. The irony of all this is that I actually am on the skeptical side of this issue, just not on the particular issue under discussion, which I consider vacuous.
[You have violated several rules for posting here. Dominating a thread, use of the “D” word, and name calling. You’ve never posted here before but feel the need to post over 50 comments making up about 20% of this thread on the work of Cook. Hmmm.
Rants about editors that actually didn’t edit you is quite troll-like behavior. I note you didn’t apologize for what you said and instead whine about my language. Come to think of it, everything about you is Troll-like. Yawn.] ED
014
That’s because you spend so much time insulting people.
You still pretend to be a skeptic, but we know exactly what you are, we are not stupid.
You come here making a squillion posts in support of Cook’s conclusions while deriding those who disagree with you.
YOU ARE A WARMIST TROLL …….. if ever we have seen one.
I see now that you have your friend Charles here to back you up. Nice team work!
60
i conclude that statistically speaking,the majority of the people in this discussion think you are wrong.
i really am tickled with the comment in relation to the moderating.go and try and have a discussion involving anything that does not involve the warming cause on skeptical science and see how long you last.
you would not have been allowed 1 post prior to moderation never mind 50.
00
That was all it took, had you not used the D word you MIGHT have been able to convince someone here you were actually skeptical of the CAGW baloney. But no, you had to do it. You people just can’t manage to make it through a day without it can you? We are NOT on “the denier side” as you put it, we are on the side of science that is done properly according to the scientific method. Not science that needs published, peer reviewed papers regardless of their quality or content to even be considered as science.
NO WHERE, ABSOLUTELY NO WHERE in the definition of the scientific method, which lays out specifically the ground rules of science, is there any mention at all of writing a paper, being published, and having it peer reviewed.
There is a hell of a lot of real science taking place on a daily basis where no paper is written, nothing gets published, the only reviews are by co-workers or management to ensure things are being done correctly. Yet per the warmists it isn’t science.
No, we are not on “the denier side” we are on the science side. But your choice to use that phrase is a pretty good indication of which side you are on.
140
You are blinded by your own prejudice. The D word as you call it is like the N word in racial politics in America. And in America, blacks can and do use it among themselves. My use of this word implies….. NOthing about my beliefs and as a matter of fact your conclusion is 100% wrong (see my refutation of CAGW elsewhere here).
211
.
So 97% of scientists among themselves also agree with this David?
31
You are the one who has come here acting like an arrogant ass. Then you want to whine and cry when we call you out for it? And you call others silly, prejudiced, etc. Dave, you are an ass. Refute that.
[Robert, we prefer Asinus lets not stoop so low as trolls] ED
24
Yeah right…… just watch my right hand….. while I down you with a roundhouse left.
We are not stupid…. you are stupid for thinking we are.
21
So my summary case against CAGW is in point 14.1 (and 14.1.1) below. What do you think of it? Are my observations there those of a warmist?
12
Naw it isn’t what you say because that is too easy for you. You say a lot- just look at the number of words here. Mostly carefully crafted crap. You can say what ever but you really don’t believe what you say.
I’d say you have a psych background with a minor in 6th grade science.
It’s how you behave that makes you a troll. You are among the worst I’ve seen.
01
Mark D–are you making a derogatory remark about people with psych backgrounds?
20
How do you feel about that?
20
What do my feelings have to do with the intent of your remark?
20
Have you always been this evasive?
10
Only when presented with the opportunity to do so.
20
I can do that! 🙂
10
None of this matters to the accuracy or lack thereof on climate change. It’s straight out trying to get people to buy into a belief. The method is problematic for science, but for marketing, maybe not so much. Marketing is about perception and using statistics is a common way to deceive people. Few people are going to ask how many people studying climate list humans as the cause of the climate change–which would bring in the need to include the 66%. Instead, you find a group that already mostly agrees with your position and use them.
Example: You are a fast food restaurant selling hamburgers. You randomly survey 1000 people on whether or not they eat beef and whether or not they like your food. Of course you leave out any vegetarians who were sent the survey. They don’t eat meat. So from your sample, 750 answer and 700 like your burgers. You can then say 93% of burger eaters, from a survey of a 1000 people, like your burger. All the numbers are accurate. However, using the 1000 surveyed gives the results more “credit” than using the 750. The 1000 number is true, when modified by “of burger eaters”. It’s also deliberately deceptive, which is common in marketing but should never be found in science.
60
Sheri,
Excellent example!
I was actually asked similar questions about pizza – in a pizza restaurant!
Of course, no bias to that survey – yeah, right!
30
Brilliant article. This is not science. It’s opinion research. When I worked in marketing, any research producing a 97% consensus on any subject whatever (eg the best flavour for a tin of dog food) would have been treated with contempt. People aren’t like that. Not even climate scientists. Not even dogs.
202
Woof!
61
You are right and you are wrong. It is indeed an opinion research effort. However 97% is not a contemptable outcome, depending on the survey. Surely 100% would agree to a great many things (how about “Did you get this survey?”)
418
97% is not an outcome….. its bunk. Only a true warmist would think it is.
41
If you want to see this near-unanimous level of agreement, you have to go and watch washing powder commercials (“99% of housewives believe that Whizzo gives a whiter wash!”) which pretty much sums up where Cook and his fellow travelers are coming from.
172
It was all over the ABC last night – it has been interpreted as the final evidence that man is guilty of destroying the planet.
150
Jo,
Please go and have a lie down – at least until your blood pressure recovers!
I think you covered the main points, though 🙂
41
The lying bed-wetting propaganda arm of the NZ MSM have already given Cook’s monstrous piece of nonsense prominence on the Science page, for Heaven’s sake.
Note the headline, Not much climate change doubt in science
120
Jo:
the hypothesis that CO2 causes global warming has been around for a long time. Arrhenius got rubbished by fellow scientists when he came up with it as causing the end of ice ages.
Callendar followed in 1938 through to 1964. He got little acceptance.
Plass claimed in 1953 that the Earth would warm 0.8 ℃ per 100 years for centuries to come.
A number took up the chant in 1969 -72.
The warming from 1979-83 prompted a whole herd to panic, including James Hansen.
At no time has anyone of them, with or without the aid of the $79,000 million you mention, been able to produce scientifically acceptable proof. Their methods are shrouded in secrecy, their data isn’t made available for their peers, their statistics provoke derision from qualified statisticians. We know from their e-mails that they have resorted to denigration of their critics and trying to censor or bar them from publication.
I was going to say that they weren’t worthy of being called scientists, but I agree with Geoff Chambers above; you wouldn’t use them for dog food.
191
The science of CO2-induced [radiative] global warming has been around for a long time, it is the Stafan-Boltzmann formula:
Forcing = 5.35 X LN(ending-CO2/beginning-CO2). For a doubling of Co2 this becomes F=5.35XLN(2) = 3.7 W/M2. This is the forcing at the emission level (near the top of the troposphere) and translates at that level to 1 degree C.
This is all the “science of CO2 forcing” can show for the radiative forcing of CO2 levels. It assumes the earth is a black-body at the emission level. But while the earth is a black-body at the emission level it is also a hydrosphere and at the surface 50% of all solar radiation hitting is converted into [cooling] evaporation, not heat. So that 1 degree from CO2 forcing is reduced to 1/2 degree by the hydrological cycle.
From 1979 thru the 2007 AR4, it was believed (without ever checking) that warmer temperatures (say caused by that 1 degree of CO2-induced forcing) would be accompanied by more water vapor in the UT, which would act to amplify by a factor of 3X the warming by Co2 alone. So instead of 1 degree from just CO2, you get 3 degrees because of the extra UT water vapor. It turns out that a number of studies since 2007 (e.g, Gray ans Schwartz, Braswell and Spenser, Lindzen and Chol, nad Vonder Harr et al) have shown that during periods of global warming that UT water vapor DOES NOT INCREASE.
So more Co2-alone warming >>> no increas in UT water vapor >>>> no 3x amplification >>> only a 1 degree C warming for Co2 doubling (and that is always reduced by 50% to 1/2 degree.
612
All very nice except that there is no known mechanism whereby the puny CO2 output of humans can overwhelm that of natural processes like ocean degassing, vulcanism, organic activity in soils, plant and animal turnover above the huge soil based CO2 emitters.
IF the so called 150 year / 0.6 C rise from 1860 till now was only due to CO2 variations ( it’s not) then the Human Share of this catastrophe would be 0.00094 Celsius Degrees.
For humans there is no such animal as “too much CO2”. We need it.
The big danger is too little CO2 so never hyperventilate or breathe pure oxygen; you could die.
You should change your name to Ferdinand 11, but even he was more subtle in gulling people.
KK 🙂
71
So you are agreeing with me, right? My point is not that CO2-alone explains the past temperature record (whatever that is), but rather that from a physic/hydrology basis THE MOST CO2 COULD explain would be .5 degrees C for each doubling of atmospheric CO2.
27
No.
Fail.
Go back to year 8 and try again, Ferdy.
KK 🙂
btw Has anyone bothered to work out how many Russel guys there are?
54
The above Russel dork says doubling;
as soon as that word crops up you know that they have no idea of the Logarithmic effect.
Maybe he’s more familiar with that other term: law of diminishing returns ?
This one’s not at all subtle.
KK 🙂
52
I wonder what Lewandowsky would say if we were to pretend to be warmists in the same way that this guy pretends to be a skeptic?
40
What I said is totally consistent with the log effect of warming. You might be aware that “LN” stands for natural log, and that the formula I use is a log formula (to repeat, F=5.35 x LN(ending-co2/beginning-co2).
It’s pretty clear that none who have commented on my science know anything about the science.
29
Exactly Backslider.
They are all the same in some ways.
They are programmed by their masters , Like Cook and Lewandowsky, who have well paying jobs, to go out and attack the opposition.
Kamikazi Pro-Funding Nutters who’s only job is to help maintain someone elses funding whether it be via job or grant for an imaginary problem.
There is a possibility they are being paid or worse.
Wasn’t there a team attack here a few months ago that appeared to originate from Australian University Servers?
Maybe the taxpayer is unwittingly paying?
btw hasn’t Lewd Donky moved on?
There is a benefit in watching these Banzai turkeys because there may be new readers here who haven’t seen one in action before and it’s a good intro for them in how warmers work science: By propaganda.
KK 🙂
30
KK,
I agree, he is working to a script; or rather, a decision tree. I started to reverse engineer it last night, and then got distracted.
But I saw enough to know it was there; and the fact that it was there, indicates that it was a planned and coordinated exercise.
At least we now know the motivation for the Cook survey, which included inviting Jo and other rational commentators to participate. It was just another exercise in agit-prop.
The good news is that the attitudinal impact of these episodes is decreasing as the target audience develops more and more immunity. The messages don’t stick any more. The young professionals, who were the target of this exercise, have seen it all before, and can see it for what it is.
“David Russell” was here to “discuss” the results of Cook’s “survey” on a known skeptical blog, thereby giving it some credence in the eyes of the undecided.
As fate would have it, a) the organisers underestimated the number of working scientists and engineers (i.e. science graduates with a pragmatic view of the world), who visit this site, b) the ability of the regulars to see through the weird thinking processes that masquerades as logic in the wharmist camp, and c) the inability of “David Russell” to present a consistent and rational argument, or to keep his cool, for that matter.
All in all it was an epic fail.
The news bubble created by this theatre, will be precisely that – a bubble. It will be burst and be dissipated in days, if not hours, as public opinion moves on. Of course, they will always be able to point back to the bubble, as a glorious victory, as any graduate of the University of Pyongyang would do.
70
I post as David Russell and that alone. There seems to be a DavidR who is not me.
What to you mean by “fail?” What I state is indisputable science.
[Yes DavidR is from a different IP address] ED
16
No you are wrong. You are totally wrong. You are utterly wrong.
It is not indisputable science, for the simple reason that it has been, and is being disputed, right here and right now.
You cannot avoid that logic.
And that is the way that real science works. It is not a popularity contest, where the judges vote, and the most popular theory moves on to the next round, so even if 256% of “Climate Scientists” agree on something, that doesn’t mean they are right. But it may mean they share similar motivations to perpetuate a delusion.
We prefer to base our research on empirical evidence, and on repeatable observation, and on the sharing of data so that it can be validated by supporter and critic, alike.
So right now, your position is disputed by working scientists and engineers, many with higher degrees, who can recognise propaganda for what it is.
Your feeble attempts to evangelise here, have failed.
I suggest you go away, before you make a total idiot of yourself.
But before you do, I suggest you read KinkyKeith (below). He points out that the “Climate Scientists” are not even using models. They are using simulations. And he is dead right. Simulations can never, by their very definition, prove anything. And without true models, you have nothing.
62
RW
It is not without some reason that most of the Anti warming people I know are also graduate Metallurgists.
We have been trained in the engineering process of modelling and can instantly see fraud written all over the claim that CO2 variation will or can cause changes in the worlds temperature.
As I said elsewhere in this thread, from my viewpoint it is embarrassing for people like Team Russel to display their lack of skill in this topic while claiming to be the masters.
That doesn’t worry them because their only aim is to carry enough bodies with them to the polling booths at election time.
The abject failure of Climate Science is a scientific embarrassment.
KK 🙂
40
The equation you’ve quoted there Russel is not the Stefan-Boltzmann formula but the IPCC’s logarthmic equation for converting CO2 increments into radiative forcing increments that is generated by the HITRAN and MODTRAN radiative-transfer models.
50
Hi Richard
The very fact that he dug out that formula shows that he does’t have a clue about the CO2 log effect.
Please don’t call those “things” models.
They are technically only computer simulations.
Junk science.
Team Russell is not very good.
That Greek guy a few months a was a lot more subtle.
KK 🙂
60
Actually the logarithmic effect appears to be already taken into account in the IPCC’s equation. As Russel pointed out, the term Ln stands for ‘natural logarithm of’.
33
Yes Richard
I know all about natural logs having completed 2nd years Maths at Uni.
No doubt this is a bit more than our little Russ guy has done.
The point about Models is that they must include all factors ; not just those you particularly want in.
Whether the UN ipccccc assessments include the CO2 log factor is irrelevant when 75.2% of all relevant factors are excluded.
Just one small example: where do the ipcccc workings include Natural Sequestration of Carbon?
They don’t and neither do they include assessment of Vulcanism and the many other similar factors.
KK 🙂
43
There’s a chart right in the AR4 about the carbons cycle. From memory is shows:
750B tons of C in the atmosphere, 38,000B tons in the oceans, something line 2,300 in the various land mass stores.
It shows human emissions of 8B tons per year into the atmostphere and something like 91 tons absorbed by the oceans (92B tons emitted by the oceans) and 122B tons absorbed by the land mass and 123B tons emitted) annually. Overall one can concludes something like 210B tons going in and then out of the atmosphere every year.
14
Keith, you originally said that the equation Russel cited did not take into account the fact that CO2 behaves logarthmically. Russel explained to you that it did (which is obviously what Ln in the equation stands for) and rather than amit your mistake you forget it ever happened and say that “75% of all relevant factors are excluded”. But excluded from what? The IPCC’s equation above generated by MODTRAN merely deals with the atmospheric radiative forcing for CO2. That is all. The IPCC as far as I can make out do not ignore natural sequestration (by which I’m assuming you mean absorption). The IPCC’s own figures in AR4 show that about 788 gigatonnes of CO2 is being absorbed yearly by natural sinks.
22
Richard,
As I understand it, the point that Keith is making, is that 75% of factors that might have a bearing on results, are ignored by the computations. Therefore, the IPCC case for anthropogenic climate change is based entirely on the simulated interactions between just the 25% of the total factors.
Whether the relationships between those factors is logarithmic or linear, only applies to the 25%, and is essentially moot, because there may be contrary interactions that involve the ignored factors.
The more you look at this “science” the less scientific it becomes.
51
Rereke Whakaaro,
Thanks, and I agree – the IPCC’s climate models are infantile in their simplicity and their calculated output does not match the behaviour of the actual climate system in any proven discernible way. However, that was not my issue. My issue here was that after pointing out Keith’s mistake and that Russell had taken into account CO2’s logarithmic effect, he changed the subject completely. I think Keith needs to learn to get his own facts straight before he accuses others of ‘having no clue’. The equation that Russell cited above as I said deals with only CO2’s radiative characteristics and is generally accepted by CAGW-skeptics, including Jo, Roy Spencer and Richard Lindzen. People call it the IPCC’s logarithmic equation, but it’s generated by the MODTRAN computer-model code that is owned by the US Air Force. It produces 3.7W/sq.m of radiative forcing for a doubling of atmospheric CO2. This direct effect of CO2 is generally accepted by CAGW-skeptics.
I see nothing wrong with Russell’s argument above. He is simply arguing that the downward radiation from CO2 will not automatically produce a corresponding increase in temperature because of the way that the land and water absorb radiation differentially. This makes sense to me. Because water has such a high latent heat of evaporation and covers about 70% of the earth’s surface the major fraction of the downward radiation impinging on the surface is absorbed in the production of water vapour without raising the surface temperature at all. This is why 50% of Trenberth’s back-radiation is converted into water vapour. So, based on the IPCC’s own figures (and the empirical data showing that water vapour is a negative feedback) the 1C of warming would be attenuated to 0.5C. In the future, if I were you, I would try to make the mental effort required to understand one’s argument first before denouncing it.
41
RW I have a confession.
I LIED!
I said:
“Whether the UN ipccccc assessments include the CO2 log factor is irrelevant when 75.2% of all relevant factors are excluded”.
The truth was in fact, that the 75.2% figure was invented.
In reality, the “left out factors” or “inconvenient” items that are excluded from consideration and not analysed
amount to a figure closer to 99.9%.
Never do they explain how increasing CO2 can take up more heat from ground IR when all the heat has already been trapped.
They totally misrepresent the log effect and I must agree with part of the content, I’ll come back to this later, in that this unfortunate error or misrepresentation has been seen even in leading articles on this site.
Now back to another point.
Dick, like most warmers, likes to talk about BIG computers, in this case the USAFs Modtran Comp.
Unfortunately, computers can’t think and so I suspect the same applies to people who say “look how big MY computer is”.
Big deal; that is another giveaway because anyone doing a modelling process first isolates each and every factor and assesses them for relative effect.
In this respect CO2 is a joke. If anyone was starting from scratch to make model mimicking the Earths temperature cycles they would begin by analysing the very real and well known 100,000 year heating and freezing cycle.
THAT was the first thing they hid and excluded because it meant that orbital mechanics drove Earths atmospheric cycles.
SO.
Dick and Russ want to go onnnnnn and onnnnnn about the tiny puny little microscopic Log equation; sorry guys and gals, that’s a scientific dead end for Warmers whether you are a volunteer or one of the lucky ones on a Government Pension of $100,000 per annum based in a Climate College somewhere.
KK 🙂
13
That dosen’t make sense to me. How is all the heat radiating from the surface being trapped when we know that about 240W/sq.m is escaping into space?
I would be correct in assuming that figure has proper reasoning behing it and that you didn’t just randomly pull it out of thin air?
I’m glad you understand what’s wrong with it. Care to explain?
You disagree with the results from MODTRAN. That’s fine. But at least give us a valid explanation as to why the results are flawed. Empty statements like ‘computers can’t think’ have no persuasive power I’m afraid. And I don’t see how modelling the swings between glacials and interglacials can tell us what CO2’s atmospheric radiative forcing is. The models in question that give us the direct forcing from CO2 are based on experimental values from spectroscope experiments and satellite measurements, and is accepted by even Lindzen and Spencer. You disagree with them. Fair enough. Tell us why they’re wrong.
Can’t say I’m surprised. You do strike me as a troll. Calling me Dick is no doubt your infantile attempt at trying to provoke an emotional response out of me.
21
Richard
I agree.
I wish to apologise for having called you “Dick”.
It was totally uncalled for and that sort of provocation shouldn’t occur during a scientific discussion.
Come to think of it now, it didn’t.
If you don’t appreciate that your behaviour on this thread has been unpleasant then maybe you need to talk to your mate Russsel and he can explain it to you.
KK 🙂
KK 🙂
22
Ah, unconscious projection is a wonderous phenonemon, isn’t it? I am not the one who has been name-calling in this thread, Keith. That would be you. Just take a look at how personally abusive you became at #9.3.1.1.2.
21
Even better. More official. So I’m quoting the so-called gold standard warmist science (IPCC) and using it against them, right?
34
Question: In what way is official, gold standard, crap superior to any other form of crap?
Answer: Official, gold standard, crap makes your bank balance grow faster, and grow larger.
40
And there we have it.
In the end it was always about one thing and one thing only.
MONEY.
KK 🙂
30
Thank you. I stand corrected. I read they are from Myhre, 1998 as well. Is that the same thing?
Of course, my mis-attribution in no way detracts from the science of what I argue, right?
So of CO2-alone induced warming can only produce 1 degree C of warming per doubling of CO2, and that is further mitigaged by the hydrological cycle at Earth’s surface to .5 degrees, well there’s no CAGW problem. And CAGW is the real bogeyman, not GW and not AGW.
Indeed, since we’re only part way to doubling from pre-industrial 280ppm assumed levels, these considerations suggest that only 50% or so of this, or about .26 degrees C of the past warming since 1850 can be atrributed to CO2, FWIW.
Do you agree?
13
So how many peer reviewed papers existed for Phrenology?
Using Cooks logic, surely that must mean that phrenology is right as well?
After all, I’m sure than more than 97% of phrenologists agreed that phrenology was a science and held much relevance.
This whole argument from consensus thing is the sort of argument i expect to hear from a five year old – not an adult – let alone from a prime minister.
Mr Cook should actually learn to start thinking for himself instead or resorting to pathetic childish angles for argument.
121
100% of members of the Flat Earth Society believe in a flat earth. So what is so marvellous about 97%.
P.S. they culled the group from around 3,000 to 79. Only 75 agreed on the 2 questions (and I would have agreed with the first), that’s not 97%.
They can’t even get their arithmetic right.
90
What is your point? Maybe your point is the same as mine, to wit, INDEED 97% of climate scientist believe in AGW. I would have guessed 100% myself.
215
“INDEED 97% of climate scientist believe in AGW”
Yes.
I am curious, though, how they define “Climate Scientist”. I wonder if they defines a climate scientist as a scientist who studies the anthropongenic forcings on climate. If that was the case, of course it would be close to 100%.
40
You are a smart kitty. “Climate scientist” is an ill-defined term. Climatologists would call themselves climate scientists. That’s kind of amusing because back in the 1950s and 1960s meteorologists were the kings of climate (which back then was called weather) and they thought of climatologists rather like business owners think of their book-keepers. But no matter. Let’s say climatologists today are the climate gurus. What about meteorologists? How about physicists? … chemists, oceanographers, astronomers, biologists, computer scientists, vulcanologists, paleontologists, hydrologists, and maybe others. I can see arguments for of these disciplined to have relevancy to the science of the atmosphere. Of course the TAR says the atmosphere is ” a coupled, non-linear, chaotic system,” which to me means…. unpredictable, and isn’t the prediction part the only part that matters to anyone not in academe? Plus there are parts of the atmospheric phenomena for which there is little or no science, like cloud formation.
410
You kind of get my point. Why is it any surprise that 97% of climate scientists believe in AGW?
28
The issue lies in the fact that this fact is skewed when it hits the Media. Cook will parade around claiming that “97% of scientists agree we are going to fry and die” when this is not the case.
72
You may be right, but this study doesn’t say that or even hint at it.
19
Thank you Heywood. Finally someone has nailed it. What “he says..she says” is all rather esoteric. It is the disgraceful use by all pro AGW media to trumpet the alarmist doctrine that is the real issue!! Graham
60
Using Google Scholar I searched the term “global cooling” and got 1,150,000 returns. Why didn’t John include papers on global cooling? Did he think he would find papers on global cooling by only searching for global warming papers. Seems like a biased and flawed project.
210
Global cooling is not au courant. It may come back, but right now, “outta sight, outta mind.”
211
The weakness of Cook’s argument is not evidence that man didn’t do it. And that’s about all he’s got going for him – that and a fawning , sycophantic media, in awe of anything with allusions to being ‘Scientific’. That and scientifically illiterate and economically incompetent politicians that will gladly go along with any pretence to sponge more off the tax payer.
110
As I understand Cook’s claim, it’s that 97% of scientists (as he selected, which seems plausible to me) actually believe in AGW. That doesn’t mean AGW is true. That doesn’t mean AGW is bad. It doesn’t mean these guys have good reasons for their beliefs. Nor does it mean that their beliefs have any scientific basis (scientists are people, too, no?).
49
So, if I can paraphrase, Cook has selected a number of scientists who apparently believe in AGW, and then finds that 3% actually do not.
I am not sure what that proves, other than his original list may have included some fifth-columnists.
40
IMHO his argument is quite strong, despite flaws in design and execution. Or to put it in really stark terms, I would wager that were the flaws in Cook’s study addressed to JoAnn’s satisfaction, that a proper study would show exactly the same thing generally, to wit that the vast majority of climate scientists believe in AGW. What odds would you give me, for say a $100 bet (my $100)? would you give me 5 to 1?…. Even money?…. or do you really suspect in your heart of hearts that [however sadly] Cook’s conclusions are spot on?
213
Some points about our new friend, “David Russell”
Reading his various posts in between doses of Migral and Nurofen Plus, I’ve punched the relevant data and parameters into my latest model run, and have come to the conclusion that in spite of his faux-skeptic overtures that in fact he is:
1. A warmist, probably first order Dan, Green Belt, DSM recipient (Climate Wars 1 & 2), purple heart from wounds suffered during Climategate 1 battle.
2. Covert operative, medal of valor nominee for dangerous black ops behind enemy lines in Nova incursion 2013.
3. Psi ops Lewandowsky Troll Spacer scholarship, current active placement .
Or alternatively, he is John Cook’s doppelgänger!
As empirical evidence of the latter, the following observations:
1. Self importance and inflated opinion of belief system,
2. Large number of responses for alleged newcomer defies psych profile of genuine responder.
3. Hurried attempts to set out his skeptical credibility, then quick reversing the skepticism of his opinions once engagement with real skeptics occur.
4. Unfailing defense of Cook’s paper validity, or his agreement with his basic premise, in the face of compelling arguments to the contrary.
5. Stubborn adherence basic validity of AGW, in spite of professed concession to CAGW as lost cause, constant reinforcement of various alarmist basic GHG principles, and avoiding agreeing with potential politicization or confirmation bias among climatologists.
6. Completely devoid of any sense of humour
7. Attempts to cast aspersions on Jo and her article as “silly”, which is his prime purpose here, other than to divert the thread into circular arguments where he refuses to “get” what is being stated by opponents.
So, John, why hide behind an alter ego, we don’t bite.
82
Well, you must be using as your model one designed by the GCM folks, because all of your conclusions are false. Your post is pretty much without content and silly to boot. It is clear that you do not dispassionately read my posts. I stipulate several times that there may be flaws in the Cook paper design/execution. My only point is that the results are fairly stated, to wit, that “97% of those surveyed FOR WHOM AN OPINION COULD BE ASCERTAINED believe in AGW.” That’s a fair conclusion from the data. I say “so what?” But others (here} seem so rabid to destroy this paper that they overstep the bounds of logic and reason, and for my money do themselves a dis-service.
29
Well that takes in #’s 1, 2 and 6, with a side order of 7. You don’t do irony or self- deprecating humour, do you? Lighten up, “David”, or you will validate my hypothesis.
While my comment was actually a lighthearted riposte, albeit with some none-to-subtle jibes at some of your pretensions to objectivity, I actually think that if I were John Cook, and wanted to comment on Jo’s critique anonymously, I would pose as a skeptic just as you have, and answer very much in the vein you have also, with statements making small concessions to minor methodology errors, but agreeing wholeheartedly with the “truth” of the conclusions drawn, while reinforcing through inference the validity of the actual basis for even performing the study in the first place, rather than just a propaganda sound bite independent of any attempt at genuine scientific inquiry.
Notice that- in order for Cook’s study to be valid, someone other than a rabid warmist like Cook needs to be the “independent” arbiter of the data collected for starters, don’t you agree, Dave?
Meanwhile the study is intrinsically “silly” because:
a) it doesn’t give any real indication of consensus at all.
It is a measure instead of such factors as-
b) the difficulty of skeptical papers to pass peer review or be published regardless of merit,
c) the strength of enforcement by fear of recrimination within climate science,
d) the prolific publishing of an interrelated and colluding clique who are over-represented no doubt in the 1/3 of proAGW papers, etc, etc.
The study only says something if you make assumptions that
e) the basic science first principles in climatology is settled just because many profess to agree with it,
f) that those skeptical of AGW are encouraged to publish when they have no funding and would be risking career suicide and social isolation,
g) that climatology has no political or economic “forcings” that influences publishing frequency or the journalistic license used in how conclusions or commentary in published papers are framed,
h) that peer review is a level playing field,
i)that funding level doesn’t influence results etc, etc.
Cook’s paper is much ado about nothing. His conclusion is a semantic exercise, and a self- reverential one at that.
81
Well said Winston, I am impressed, you got him nicely bracketed.
30
Only JoAnn’s point # 7 is relevant. Much better arguments against Cook’s paper have been presented here in the comments.
02
Absolutely spot on Winston!
They really are not hard to spot are they? I think its because they lack the intelligence to do it well.
40
Excellent Winston! I especially like:
That I agree with completely. Reading here this afternoon it sure makes me think that Jo’s under organized troll attacks from the ranks of Cook’s supporters. Russell is single handedly trying to demonstrate that posters at JoNova are 97% in agreement with Cook, with him clogging up the blog by posting 97% of the time.
50
Clearly. This guy is so dumb I’m inclined to think that its Cook himself.
40
Yeh… not just a TROLL….. but also a BLOG SPAMMER
40
You guys really are paranoid.
[Ha Ha! The “paranoid” card. Strike TWO. But you don’t offer any evidence that you are qualified to make this assertion or even comment on why you say it. Troll x2] ED
06
Yeah, sure David. We are positively trembling with fear.
Really? So where is it? Where was it published. Has it been peer reviewed? What are your qualification?
30
Yes Backslider,
I am waiting also for his paper. “The Flaw of CAGW” In fact he said he’s already written it and quoted:
I searched Google and numerous search engines, you know what?
NOTHING on “The Flaw of CAGW”. Surprising, well no, because hs form is a one thread wonder.
There’s a lot of NEW Trolls bragging about nothing lately. Probably worried and rightly so. They’ll all be gone soon.
00
Read my 14.1 and 14.1.1 herein
02
That’s not a “paper”. Where is it, or were you just spruiking shite?
10
Nicely done Winston!
At least we got a few laughs out of this one.
KK 🙂
10
Jo, thanks for the article – makes for some refreshingly sane and common-sense reading.
I’m currently engaged in a rather lengthy ‘discussion’ with a ‘true believer’ who dismisses your criticisms of Cook’s survey results on the basis (he maintains) that Cook’s ‘consensus’ refers only to the 1,200-odd papers that specifically addressed the possible causes of AGW, of which Cook and his volunteers determined 97% of climate scientists were agreed that climate change (AGW in this instance) is a man-made phenomenon.
My colleague thus insists that Cook is correct to claim a consensus. I admit, as a climate sceptic myself, I find this a difficult point to navigate around as, on the surface at least, he appears to be correct in his conclusion.
Help! Is he correct?
41
Phil Ford – I’m afraid so.
Numbers from the paper:
12465 papers surveyed, remove those not peer-removed, climate related, or missing abstracts to 11944 papers. 4014 expressed positions on AGW, of those 3896 (97.1%) endorsed AGW, 78 (1.9%) disagreed, 40 (1%) were uncertain.
As to those 7930 that didn’t take a position on AGW, there was an interesting and relevant court case last summer:
You just don’t recapitulate all of science in every paper, and you certainly don’t do that in your space-limited abstract – where you need to emphasize your new work.
So yes, there is a 97% consensus for AGW among all of the papers surveyed that expressed an opinion on AGW – that’s what the published works say. Doran et al 2009 directly polled scientists finding a 97% consensus, Anderegg et al 2010 looked at public statements and found 97% consensus.
Regardless of personal opinion, it appears that ~97% of the people in the field feel that AGW is real.
511
It would be interesting to see the spread of scientists who published the “97%” of papers endorsing AGW (of those who expressed a position, let’s not forget that a bigger % didn’t express any position at all). Is it a relatively small group of scientists who publish lots of papers?
The statistic is also very black and white. The term used was ‘endorse AGW’. There would be many different levels of opinion within this group as well, from those who conclude that anthropogenic CO2 is a very small forcing to those who conclude it will cause us to fry and die sooner than later. In my travels around several blogs and scintific sites, there aren’t too many serious sceptics who don’t agree that CO2 plays some part in the warming equation. The dispute lies in quantifying just how much effect CO2 has on the temperature, and to my knowledge, no paper exists which empirically proves a link between CO2 and CAGW anyway.
What amuses me is that The Cartoonist spends more time attempting to defend the warmist faith with argumentum ad populum and statistics than he does actually researching the subject.
This paints him as more idealogical than scientific.
81
And how many of those papers agreed, KR, that Catastrophic AGW is real?- since that is the only basis for you “action” men like yourself to put a wrecking ball through the global economy, rather than merely adapt.
111
I don’t know, Winston – I haven’t read those 12000 abstracts. Though from what I’ve seen, “catastrophic” is far more likely to be claimed by skeptic than consensus works. Personally, I believe climate change will just be extremely expensive.
If the climate changes as predicted, based on all the economic estimates I’ve seen, adaptation after the fact will cost 2-5 times more than mitigation (limiting warming) might cost. Adaptation is the more costly path – a bit of forethought is far less expensive than fixing unforced errors.
So _who_ is swinging that wrecking ball? Hmm?
414
“If the climate changes as predicted”
Predicted by whom?
There is extremely wide ranging opinion, even amongst your annointed 97%, as to the extent of the warming. As it is, actual measured temperatures are tracking below nearly all the modelled predictions. It is impossible to quantify the costs of either prevention or adaptation when we do not know the extent of the warming.
100
I generally find it reasonable to look at the median estimates, but both mitigation and adaptation scale with the amount of climate change – and both can be adjusted over time as we get more information.
But adaptation remains several times more expensive than mitigation for everything in the 2-4.5C/doubling sensitivity range, and I suspect (sorry, haven’t seen specific analyses) down to 1.5C/doubling. Whatever the sensitivity, really, fixing mistakes is more expensive than preventing them.
214
Temperatures are now outside the range of all estimates. This means that all estimates have been falsified.
Why do you believe in something that has been falsified?
71
What rubbish, KR.
The cost of mitigating against a 10cm sea level rise this century is a nice round figure less than singularity, while the cost of mitigating against an increase of 0.5 deg C would be a gross of sunscreen and an extra crate of tall glasses for drinking pina coladas by the pool.
Oh, and the “solutions” advocated to reduce CO2 emissions like EV’s and Wind farms and solar panels don’t work as advocated, and reductions in CO2 over their life span (marginal and/or illusory) will not prevent the inevitable rise in anthropogenic CO2 occuring, especially with India and China paying less than lip service to the whole ideology. We cannot control the climate, even if we wanted to- period, notwithstanding that inconvenient truth. So whatever point you are trying to make is moot anyway.
Face it- CAGW is a busted flush, KR, time to cash in your chips- poker is not your game.
92
I disagree for two reasons: 1) I think that climate sensitivity to Co2 is on the order of .5 degrees C (see my comment 14.1) and therefore there’s “nothing to fix”; and 2)there is no real engineering that I’ve seen to even describe what mitigation efforts might entail, much less cost. And then there’s Freakanomics (or SuperFreakanomics) suggestion of seeding the stratosphere with sulfur at a suggested cost of $10mm/year. That sounds pretty cheap.
03
David, the first part of your answer I agree with wholeheartedly, though I accept that that opinion re climate sensitivity is not “proven”, and may even be less than that.
The second part alarms me greatly in its ignorance and hubris, not yours but those who advocate “geo-engineering”.
The attempts by CAGW advocates and believers to attempt artificial weather control by such methods, if applied widely and aggressively enough, has the potential (I stress, the potential!) to cool the globe excessively at the wrong time, and for the wrong reasons. We know from studies conducted looking at the early Holocene “climate optimum”, that there were rapid cooling episodes/phases occurring independent of CO2 or anthropogenic influence from 9000 to 8000 yrs BP, and again at 6,000 to 5,000 yrs BP and 4,200 to 3,800 yrs B.P. By artificially attempting to cool the atmosphere without understanding the precise mechanism behind these cooling phases, and for that matter of the transitions between a bi-stable climatic system of glacial and interglacial periods, has the potential to produce an unexpected plummeting of temperatures- either rapid cooling phases marked by tropical aridity, cooling of the poles and major atmospheric circulation changes, or worse. This would compromise global food production needlessly and therefore risking a substantial human toll from hunger, disease and probably as a corollary, war. This risk is not inherent in a warmer climate with increasing CO2, as exemplified by the biosphere booming helping to (partially at least) redress a century or more of widespread deforestation, and warmer Northern hemisphere leading to greater crop yields and increases in global growing areas. So, the “logic” of attempting such manipulation (regardless of its “cost effectiveness”) is doomed to either fail due to being inadequate proportionately to overcome natural climate drivers, or if timed poorly to potentially accelerate or worsen a degree of rapid cooling and create a transition into a glacial period. I think one would term that a pyrrhic victory of monumental proportions.
31
david russell – I would have to strongly disagree with your assertion of 0.5C/doubling sensitivity: over the last 250 years we’ve gone something like 0.8C above the temperatures expected from natural influences, with only ~100ppm of CO2 added (1/3 of a doubling). And that’s with an ongoing imbalance of forcing, with continuing increases of ocean heat content indicating an ongoing energy imbalance yet to be addressed.
0.5C/doubling is long since out the window, it’s completely invalidated. 1.5C/doubling is barely possible.
03
Interesting, here we have the center being pulled left.
Russell poses a supposedly “skeptical” temperature claim and in response the well known warmist KR steps in to pull it even further to warming. Using the almost bull shit “ocean heat content” saga provided by Levitus and that team’s
imaginationsideations.This leaving the observer to believe that there is nothing outside of their two claims.
Good propagandist methodology here.
41
Isn’t it just? There is some good case study material coming from this.
And since I presume that David Russell is actually a false name, I can use it with impunity.
20
Ans: zero (better ans: we have no clue)
19
Thanks for the reply. Now I guess I got the answer I feared – on the upside, at least I was brave enough to ask the question. So my colleague was correct in his conclusion. Time for me to take one for the team. *sad face.jpg*
33
Don’t forget, that just because a majority of papers that have a position on AGW endorse it, it doesn’t mean they are accurate. 66% of papers found no reason to endorse AGW at all.
The fact remains that only 32% of the papers sampled ‘endorsed’ AGW, and I would hazard a guess that a much smaller percentage endorsed CAGW.
80
Why would you suggest or even believe that the 2/3rds papers “found no reason to endorse AGW?” You don’t know that. Cook’s rep here is “We can’t tell what they think about AGW from these papers.” For all we know all of these 2/3rds papers’ authors believe 100% in AGW. For all we know. For that matter, for all we know these articles DID express an opinion on AGW, but maybe the screeners missed it, or maybe their criteria were poorly devised and with better criteria the AGW opinion could be divined.
310
I guess what I was trying to imply was that if the evidence for AGW was so compelling, surely that 66% figure would be lower, as more papers would address it.
“maybe their criteria were poorly devised”
I suspect that this may be a factor as well. I can’t see the cartoonist wanting to include too many papers which don’t align with his views.
60
I couldn’t agree less. The issue of AGW is a straw man. The only issue that matters is CAGW, an issue not on Cook’s survey agenda. I would take the position with your colleague that [A]GW has been a boon to mankind and more warming will be more of a boon as long as it doesn’t get out of hand. Then focus the discussion on CAGW where it matters.
37
The Doran/Zimmeramn paper was a fraud — 97% turned out to be 75 out of 77 in a survey of over 10,000 earth-scientists, 3000 of which responded. Ditto with Anderegg. I have links debunking these 2 and I find the arguments compelling.
52
G’day David,
Can you share the links?
20
Regarding the 97-98% of scientist committed to the AGW thesis, there seems to be 2 sources. One is debunked here (among other places – google “98% scientists global warming “):
http://www.forbes.com/sites/larrybell/2012/07/17/that-scientific-global-warming-consensus-not/
and the other one is debunked here:
http://suyts.wordpress.com/2012/04/08/anderegg-et-al-revisited/
As a AGW skeptic you should be aware of why such unanimity claims are bogus.
34
“As a AGW skeptic you should be aware of why such unanimity claims are bogus.”
Oh I am fully aware, I just like to collect sources to bolster evidence when arguing with true believers.
I apologise if I came across as asking you to prove your statement.
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david russell says (May 17, 2013 at 11:03 am): “The Doran/Zimmeramn paper was a fraud — 97% turned out to be 75 out of 77 in a survey of over 10,000 earth-scientists, 3000 of which responded.”
==============================================
The “fraud”, as you put it, was not committed by the authors, because they stated clearly in their paper that 97% referred to 75 out of 77: “In our survey, the most specialized and knowledgeable respondents (with regard to climate change) are those who listed climate science as their area of expertise and who also have published more than 50% of their recent peer- reviewed papers on the subject of climate change (79 individuals in total). Of these specialists, 96.2% (76 of 79) answered “risen” to question 1 and 97.4% (75 of 77) answered yes to question 2.”
The possible fraud was rather in the way they accounted for 70% relevant scientists refusing to take 2 minutes to answer two simple questions (see my previous comment http://joannenova.com.au/2013/05/cooks-fallacy-97-consensus-study-is-a-marketing-ploy-some-journalists-will-fall-for/#comment-1274755)
http://tigger.uic.edu/~pdoran/012009_Doran_final.pdf
21
Gmme a break. If this Doran paper isn’t a fraud, we need a new definition of fraud. Here we actually had over 3000 responses and all of them were thrown out except 77???!!!
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david russell says (May 17, 2013 at 12:27 pm): “Gmme a break. If this Doran paper isn’t a fraud, we need a new definition of fraud. Here we actually had over 3000 responses and all of them were thrown out except 77???!!!”
=====================================
I did not say it was not a fraud, but it certainly was not a fraud with respect to those 75 out of 77, because they stated it clearly in the paper.
Your “over 3000 responses and all of them were thrown out except 77” is not correct either, because they had them on their graph.
Where there well might be a fraud, is this passage: “With 3146 individuals completing the survey, the participant response rate for the survey was 30.7%. This is a typical response rate for Web- based surveys [Cook et al., 2000; Kaplowitz et al., 2004].
If you look into those papers, they are not applicable to this special case. I can see only one valid reason for those 70% to hold their mouths shut, see my comment above.
01
I’m not sure we’re having much of a disagreement in fact. I just think it a scandal to do a survey like this one was done.
13
The papers that did not have a position on AGW were generally of the type, “We investigate the effect on ocean heat transport from the tropics of an increase in total ocean heat content” . So while it is about climate, it is not relevant to the paper where the extra heat comes from, so they don’t bother offering an opinion.
47
Thank you. Just so. You make my point much better than I.
07
…. (he maintains) that Cook’s ‘consensus’ refers only to the 1,200-odd papers that specifically addressed the possible causes of AGW, of which Cook and his volunteers determined 97% of climate scientists were agreed that climate change (AGW in this instance) is a man-made phenomenon…..
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
It is semantics, playing games with words. A physical chemist, Rich, gives an excellent example of the game playing that has been happening.
Remember that if you look at the IPCC causes of warming/climate change that WATER is conspicuous by it’s absence. see Table In AR5 this table is on page 8-39: (Stolen from link )
Rich explains why water, one of the most important forces in the climate, is not considered a ‘primary forcing’
So that is the fussy logic used to remove water as a primary factor in climate and add its effect to that of CO2. That is the KEY method for moving CO2 from bit player to a primary driver. The other method is to say TSI is constant and therefore the effects of the sun can be ignored. This skips over the fact that UV is NOT constant but changes link and UV/visible penetrates the oceans while CO2 does not link 1 and link 2.
More importantly they have the tail wagging the dog. The oceans rule CO2 and not the other way round. Graph: Arctic Osillation index and d/dt(CO2)
Other REFERENCES from WUWT that shoot down the conjecture that manmade CO2 increases water vapor and therefore temperatures will sky rocket. Without the water feedback manmade CO2 as a climate forcing is a real dud.
Stratospheric water vapor may have contributed about a third of the warming 1980-2000 but now is in decline
NASA satellite data shows a decline in water vapor
Another IPCC AR5 reviewer speaks out: no trend in global water vapor
Five Reasons Why Water Vapor Feedback Might Not Be Positive By Dr. Roy Spencer
So much for the theory that AGW increases water vapor and positive feedback
Negative water vapor feedback in plant evapotranspiration found
A new paper shows statistical tests for global warming fails to find statistically significant anthropogenic forcing
And more to the point of Cook’s bafflegab: Shredding the “climate consensus” myth: More Than 1000 International Scientists Dissent Over Man-Made Global Warming Claims – Challenge UN IPCC & Gore
90
But you are very confused Gai. Nobody in the IPCC or anywhere disputes the effect of water vapour. And it is obviously included in all the models. Its just that if you pump 100 trillion tonnes of water vapour into the atmosphere, it’ll vanish pretty soon. Or if you manage to remove 100 trillion tonnes of water vapour from the atmosphere, it will return pretty soon. The same is not true of CO2.
And quotes from WUWT don’t count, as they will publish just about anything.
313
Which only goes to show Brooksie, that if CO2 DOES cause extra evaporation
Learn this John: CO2 is only able to absorb a very narrow band of infra red radiation. This happens within a 100 meters of the earth’s surface. Because there is only X amount of this radiation, adding more CO2 to the atmosphere will do NOTHING.
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Learn this Backslider… of all the possible crank arguments against AGW that one is one of the most absurd.
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Oh goody!… another spat with Matt.
C’mon sonny, elaborate.
30
Well done Backslider.
You have described the Logarithmic effect which our Team Russel could not.
KK 🙂
10
no he hasn’t. He’s said there’s no more radiation to absorb. Completely in conflict with a logarithmic effect
03
Brookes says:
Funny, crap posted by John Brookes is even below that standard. Good own goal there Johnny Boy!
(For those that don’t know, Johnny has gotten himself banned at WUWT)
71
And quotes from WUWT don’t count, as they will publish just about anything…..
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
You did not even bother to see what the articles were about did you? They are all discussions of PEER REVIEWED PAPERS with links or pointers to the actual papers.
I used WUWT because the discussions make it easier for laymen to understand the papers. They are perfectly welcome to read the originial papers as the links are provided. Also trying to link to a PDF with my computer is a royal a$$ female dog.
10
In my experience, warmists see WUWT and refuse to even open the page. Also, the warmists expect skeptics to provide direct links because they refuse to actually read skeptic blog pages and follow the links to ascertain the truth of the blog entry (you know, like skeptics do). Think of them as two-year-olds who need everything spoon-fed to them. If they actually had curiosity and independently researched things, they might stumble upon some uncomfortable truths.
10
You are having difficulty because your colleague is right, at least in his conclusion. Why would it be a surprise that 97% of climate scientists believe in AGW? Surely 100% believe in GW (ie, that the earth as warmed over the past 150 years, say). Surely land use changes and CO2 emissions have had some impact on this warming,although there is no scientific way to arbitrate how much.
We should be clear about what’s worth “being skeptical” about. Only a fool would be skeptical about GW, although we could be skeptical about how much. Some might find it worthwhile to take a stand on “What is man’s contribution in this past .4-.8 degree warming (IPCC, AR4 range) of the past 150 years or so. It think that’s a fool’s errand personally. I take my skeptical stand on CAGW — the disaster scenarios laid out in Chap 8 of the AR4. I’ve posted my case against CAGW on this thread if you’re interested.
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david russell says (#18.3): “Only a fool would be skeptical about GW…”
========================================
Remarks like “only a fool would disagree with me” are typical for people who know that they have a weak point or no point at all.
In your particular case, “global warming” and “greenhouse effect” are 2 notions that apparently nobody can prove correct.
Creating propaganda around those 2 fictions is a different issue.
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To your first statement: You are entitled to your opinion no matter how vacuous it is.
To your second statement: GW is a matter of end points and degree. “Proof” is rarely (maybe only in mathematics) absolute. Typically it boils down to “proof enough (for some purpose or another”). Then there are matters of “to what level of precision” and “to what levels of accuracy.” The historical measured temperature record since 1850 or so is a total mess. I give it D grades for accuracy, precision, completeness and probably other considerations.
I am not an academic or a practicing scientist. I have made a judgement on where to fight this battle against warmism or climatism. It’s not on the past. The warming of the past 150 years has detectable, but the exact amount and its attribution is very uncertain.
Anyway, the warming of the past 150 years has been good for all. And we should expect that further warming will be even more beneficial to us, as long as it doesn’t get out of control. That’s the way I look at this vast subject, to wit, don’t get bogged down in GW or AGW, but focus on CAGW — the future prospect of a climate catastrophe. That’s where I focus all my intellectual horsepower are research efforts.
Frankly I think this whole thread is silly, as must be obvious both from this current explication of my approach and probably from some of the responses I’ve given.
In my life, I’ve typically been UNIMPRESSED with experts. So I don’t really care what “all scientists think”. I want to hear their arguments and facts. I’ll take things on authority if the issue is of no consequence to me (or I think so). But this is a subject which is of consequence t me, because he warmists wand to change our lives in ways no American will tolerate. I’m not going down without a fight.
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david russell (May 17, 2013 at 11:50 am): “The historical measured temperature record since 1850 or so is a total mess. I give it D grades for accuracy, precision, completeness and probably other considerations.
…The warming of the past 150 years has detectable, but the exact amount and its attribution is very uncertain. … the warming of the past 150 years has been good for all … don’t get bogged down in GW or AGW, but focus on CAGW …”
==========================================
I see, the temperature record is a mess, but the “global warming” is real… Very nice.
No proof for “global warming”, the “greenhouse effect” as presented by the IPCC (warming effect of back radiation) is absurd and physically impossible, but we should not touch it, we should just keep talking about “C” only, about how not so very catastrophic is the fictitious phenomena.
That’s a losing strategy.
51
Let me understand. Do you deny the earth has warmed over the past 100 years? I sure hope not. But if that is your position, then we are too far apart for meaningful dialogue.
Assuming you agree there’s been GW over say the past 150 years, do you think the global measured temperature record is accurate and complete and unadulterated? I hope you aren’t of this belief either, but that can be corrected.
I don’t actually follow the paragraph before “that’s a losing strategy.” Are you suggesting that the IPCC’s greenhouse effect science is absurd? If so, what is this absurd science so we can know what you are calling absurd?
27
david russell says (May 17, 2013 at 12:35 pm): “Do you deny the earth has warmed over the past 100 years? …Are you suggesting that the IPCC’s greenhouse effect science is absurd? If so, what is this absurd science so we can know what you are calling absurd?”
=======================================
To the GW, my point is that apparently not a single paper exist that proves that the calculations of GW are correct. So, I do not know, if “the earth has warmed”, as you put it, or cooled or whatever. Please, take it literally.
Secondly, there is no “absurd science”, absurd claims are definitely not science. There is no IPCC science either, by the way, just read their reports, it is like a long newspaper article or worse. Back to the IPCC’s “greenhouse effect”, what should strike anyone reading their “physical basis” is that they do not refer to a single paper and even contradict themselves (detail later, if necessary). So, reading their reports is a good starting point to suspect a scam.
Now, they present their “greenhouse effect” as a warming effect of back radiation, this includes slowing down cooling. This is exactly what is absurd. In short, back radiation can not affect the temperature of the source, it can neither warm the source nor slow down it’s cooling rate. The proof is very simple, the method is known as “reductio ad absurdum”: http://www.drroyspencer.com/2013/05/imaging-the-greenhouse-effect-with-a-flir-i7-thermal-imager/#comment-77996.
42
You below is mostly wrong or goofy. The temperature record is the source of any claim about warming over the past 150 years, not peer-reviewed science. It’s just data and its stored in several repositories around the world and there are many published charts showing the whole 150 year record. Historical GW does not depend on any ‘science of GW.” That’s the goofy part.
You are correct that the IPCC does no science. They say so themselves. Again the definition of global warming would not be in any scientific paper, but rather in the historical temperatures as reported by the various measuring stations around the globe.
You last paragraph is merely wrong. Well, it’s worse than wrong because parts of it are not comprehensible. But the physics of CO2 radiative forcing are well understood in terms of the Stefan-Boltzman black-body science. For Co2, the formula is Forcing = 5.35 x LN(ending-CO2-levels/beginning-CO2-levels). So for a Co2 doubling forcing in W/M2 that would be: Forcing = 5.35 X LN(2) = 3.7 W/M2. This translates into a 1 degree temperature at the emission level. We feel this at the surface, but in reality since we have to preserve the Laws of Thermodynamics what happens from a black-body perspective is that in fact the emission temperature remains the same (255.15 K) but the emission level rises to a higher altitude.
The important thing about all this is that the ACTUAL CO2 science that I spell out above, can only produce 1 degree of warming for every doubling of Co2 in the atmosphere. This is insufficient for the purveyors of CAGW because 1 degree is no catastrophe. Indeed, even worse for the warmists, that 1 degree doesn’t actually end up as heat at the surface, because while the earth is a black-body at the emission level, it is a hydrosphere at the surface and as it turns out (Trenberth, 2008 “Global Energy Budget”) 50% of all solar radiation hitting the surface is converted to [cooling] evaporation. So the 1 degree from CO2 alone turns into only 1/2 degree for every CO2 doubling when you combine the radiative physics with the hydrology.
28
david russell says (May 17, 2013 at 1:50 pm): “The temperature record is the source of any claim about warming over the past 150 years, not peer-reviewed science. …definition of global warming would not be in any scientific paper, but rather in the historical temperatures
…the physics of CO2 radiative forcing are well understood in terms of the Stefan-Boltzman black-body science.”
========================================
I questioned the calculations of GW, because apparently nobody has proven that the sample (records) is representative for the whole world. No paper on that. The GW claim is a pure fiction without any basis in science.
The CO2 back radiation warming assumption leads to an absurd outcome in certain cases, namely to an endless mutual warming without any additional input of energy, as demonstrated here: http://www.drroyspencer.com/2013/05/imaging-the-greenhouse-effect-with-a-flir-i7-thermal-imager/#comment-77996. This proves the assumption absurd. I even do not need to use the word “thermodynamics”. A junior high school education is sufficient to understand the explanation.
All you have is 2 fictions and a lot of propaganda, obfuscation and distraction around it.
60
Phil — you don’t need to take one for the team at all. This study is meaningless.
1. Note the circularity in this statement of yours (or theirs):“… refers only to the 1,200-odd papers that specifically addressed the possible causes of AGW, of which Cook and his volunteers determined 97% of climate scientists were agreed that climate change (AGW in this instance) is a man-made phenomenon.
“AGW” is the same thing as “man-made global warming”. So researchers who think man-made global warming is a problem, wrote abstracts using the words “global climate change” and “global warming” and were included in this study. Researchers who think the sun did it (or some other factor) used different keywords, and their papers were never counted.
2. Major skeptical papers don’t qualify — as far as I can tell from Cooks methods. Those papers I refer to above were just a few random ones I looked at and couldn’t find those keywords in. I don’t have access to the full list of included papers, but it appears easy to find papers that don’t use the right keywords, yet have content that is directly relevant to the point Cook is trying to make.
3. On top of that, thousands of papers were from models we know are wrong, or from me-too researchers. The “Me-too” crowd do studies that have nothing to do with attribution (like “carbon sequestration” — see point 5 above) and they assume the models are right. The me-too researchers never check the assumptions of the models.
4. Counting papers (even if the search terms were accurate) is social research, not science.
So Cook has whittled down thousands of papers to find ones that are likely to come from a cohort who assume CO2 causes problems. He has done a proxy study for funding.
It’s not science.
They can’t predict the climate.
191
“researchers who think man-made global warming is a problem, wrote abstracts using the words “global climate change” and “global warming” and were included in this study. Researchers who think the sun did it (or some other factor) used different keywords, and their papers were never counted.”
Personally I think it would be VERY unusual for someone to publish a paper that pushes against the consensus position without at least using some key words relating to that consensus position.
012
I disagree.
If you want policy makers (ultimately the providers of funding) to accept your position (on any topic), the last thing you do is to rubbish your opponents, especially if they are being alarmist and claiming that the sky will fall, and everybody will die, and it will be horrible.
Joining in that debate, just makes you look petty.
Rather, you state your contrary opinions using different phrases, that imply that you are the person who has the situation under control, and will ultimately have the means to save everybody in the unlikely event that the sky should fall.
So instead of global warming or climate change (now very negative terms) you talk about atmospheric reliance and moderation of extreme weather (just as meaningless, but more positive sounding).
110
RW
Are you trying for a job in the marketing of the new upgraded reincarnation of Climate Science?
You should patent the idea that humans are held in the grip of “atmospheric reliance”.
Such a wonderfully innocuous thing which has the potential for expansion in many directions in the hands of a skilled politician.
KK 🙂
10
To late KK, it has already escaped into the wild.
My usual counter is along the lines of, “What, are you saying that we can’t rely on the atmosphere being there tomorrow?”
20
Thanks for all the discussion around the question in my post. I’ve had a night’s sleep on this, and I still feel that, in the end, Cook has it. He is correct in this one thing – that 97% of climate research papers that expressed a view on AGW came out in favour of it.
For the first time, as a climate sceptic, it would appear I am defeated by the facts.
Unless anyone has a solid rebuttal..?
25
Its very simple Phil.
The selection criteria for these papers was designed to exclude papers that express a contrary view to AGW.
50
G’day Phil,
But the fact is irrelevant.
Whilst Cook found that 97% of papers that expressed an opinion supported AGW, there was no criteria mentioned as to the degree that anthropogenic forces are driving climate change. For all we know many of these papers may conclude that whilst anthropogenic forcings exist, they may be negligible in the great scheme of things.
It also is evident, based on other comments on this thread, that Cook msy have missed quite a few skeptical papers in his ‘research’
30
That would be my position. Indeed it is my stated position herein, to wit, that human influence is plausible, but likely minimal….hardly making me a warmist.
01
phil,start digging around various blogs.most of them have done a partial dissemination of the papers that contributed towards the 97% “consensus”.
there are some surprising results,there are many that have misrepresented the scientists that produced them http://www.populartechnology.net/2013/05/97-study-falsely-classifies-scientists.html
i have seen excerpts from others that had nothing to do with a position on AGW at all
00
Jo , Great piece. I’d strongly suggest you don’t just leave it on this site. There has to be a way to disseminate it via email ( or some other means) to the MSM journalists, if you have not already done it. Even if only one picks it up, it is worth it.
Even better would be to see if the Australian would let you do a article for them based on the above.
150
Good plan, they need a wake up call
40
JOHN COOKS ANOTHER GOOSE
Agreed Ross.
ABC environment reporter Sarah Clarke – and MEDIA WATCH – should be at top of the list.
Note her uncritical promotion of the 97% goose cooked up by John and his colleagues, one of whom hails from the UWA School of Psychology:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-05-16/overwhelming-consensus-for-manmade-warming-says-review/4693016
Naughty to write that “just over 97 per cent of the scientists agreed that man-made warming was a reality,” without making it clear this was 97 per cent of only 32.6 per cent, etc.
One wonders, too, about the timing of Clarke’s release. Was it concidental that it made national headlines just hours before Opposition Leader reaffirmed his intention to dump the “carbon” tax?
80
Cook is making a grab for funding … he has a bleak future ahead of him. I’d suggest he polish up his cartooning skills.
110
Is this a case of “Cook”ing the books.
100
They won’t learn. They have nothing left, they’re running scared now.
100
Excellent reply Jo. I’ll bet Cook was a real smart-@r$e at school…..I’m assuming he went to school
90
Thanks for all your work, Jo. I appreciate it.
100
Actually the last paragraph “Science has no gods” makes the best summary of Mr Cook’s scientific approach, if you were to discuss anything scientific with a true believer of any religion ultimately they will have to say their particular creator made it so.
This is the ultimate oxymoron that has become opposed to the scientific method in this climate debacle and unfortunately people like Cook have been so far successful, and maybe the biggest oxyMORON of anyone.
I believe “Recursive fury” was a massive self projection and perhaps a deliberate preemptive strike to counter claims as mine above, firstly we have to work out what type of psychopath we’re dealing with and go from there.
70
Who care how the books are cooked, as long as the message is catastrophe, the MSM have already shown they love him for it.
But, and it’s a big but, the MSM have totally underestimated how insulting they are to their readership base, in this era of the internet they harm and isolate themselves by running this garbage that 97% of the population know is pure tripe. MSM mow caters for 3% of the population.
70
Ten failures of consensus science.
“We had brainstormed 30 such failures but wrote up the first ten,” said Joe D’Aleo.
It seems we have another contender, Joe!
.
Above link from NoTricksZone page:
Robust Science! More Than 30 Contradictory Pairs Of Peer-Reviewed Papers
.
~More failed “scientific” consensus
1950 : 97% Of Scientists Agree That Continents Do Not Move
.
Further evidence the gullible ignoramuses are in charge:
Obama campaign cites bogus new climate survey
70
Cooks script barfed up the whole database from time to time. I have 12,000+ abstracts. Tell me the title and I’ll look.
90
I agree. I read a paper about sea level rise in Sydney vs the La Nina/El Nino cycle a few years back which was actually quite a good paper and established a link. The last phrase of the last sentence of the last paragraph of the discussion said something like ‘and including anthropogenic global warming’. My reaction at the time was the phrase was slotted in to get a search engine hit, or to tick the box for funding.
90
I’ve downloaded the 12,000 barfed-up titles from Lucia’s site.
A quick search for the articles that Jo cited at the end of the post (minus Cook et al., 2013, of course) turns up none of these titles:.
Still more questions to be asked about Cook’s methodology…
120
Thank you Lucia and JunkPsychology!
That confirms I followed his methodology (as much as was possible without his database). I randomly checked my top list of major skeptical articles and had no difficultly coming up with those 6 papers. I could have come up with many more if I bothered to keep opening papers and searching for keywords.
He has missed many skeptical articles.
And that would matter if the study was worth doing in the first place.
120
letter to the journal editor then.
22
Perhaps we’ll have to redefine peer review, Gee?
30
If the actual data is misdescribed in a paper and that this can be demonstrated, an editor is obliged to inform the authors and if they cannot account for the difference then publish a correction, and if the correction is significant, withdraw the paper.
22
I’m glad you agree that that is what should happen.
40
yes. happy to help draft it so long as I can see the evidence.
22
They do not show up because they only searched the title and abstracts for the key phrases. This “study” only tells you who is more likely to use the key phrases (“global warming” and “global climate change”) in their abstracts and titles. It is not representative of the climate literature or of any consensus.
20
Climate Change has and always been about big government.
Faked climate science is the stick to beat the masses down and make them pay for big society.
There is no better feeling for a leftie than the knowledge of knowing a person is being beating down by their fraudulent science and that that fraudulent science pays their salary as well. Fraudulent climate documentation is the means to commit mass financial rape of the people through their energy bills. Most climate scientists are now white collar extortionists.
81
3896 “inconclusive, subsequently-overturned, or correct but irrelevant papers” or in other words LPU’s ( Least Publishable Units), a unit of fundable academic commodities. Hack work that an academic is required to do to keep tenure. McDonalds research with apologies to McDonalds for the smear.
30
Quote: “Cook may have found 3,896 papers endorsing the theory that man-made emissions control the climate, but he cannot name one paper with observations that shows that the assumptions of the IPCC climate models about water vapor and cloud feedbacks are correct.”
========================================================
My guess would be that neither he nor anyone else can name any paper that shows that the assumptions of the IPCC reports about “global warming” and “greenhouse effect” are correct either.
Anyway, the IPCC reports do not contain any direct links to such papers. My natural conclusion would be: apparently, those papers do not exist. Otherwise the would have included the references.
Of course, there are many papers supporting the claim, but again, there is apparently none proving that the claim is correct.
I do not see any need to restrict the skepticism to water vapor and cloud feedbacks only.
42
If I walked into a Melbourne street at mid-day and selected 100 people at random, and was able, by means of fairy stories, voodoo science, the threat of pseudo religious apocalypse and the promise of fame and fortune, to convince 97 of those people, that was indeed midnight, I would have consensus.
But alas and alack, in reality it would still be mid-day
20
THis website being a perfect example of the ability to convince people that night is in fact day, or vice versa.
219
Now you are in deep shit Mattb. Explain yourself!
50
no you are right this is hardly a random sample.
18
I disagree, Matt- you are a very random sample- don’t sell yourself short.
40
The thing is this Mattb: You believe in a whole bunch of stuff that has been thoroughly falsified. Because you cling to these beliefs (your religion), to you night seems like day.
You are in darkness, thinking you are in the light.
71
“that has been thoroughly falsified”
ORLY?
07
Yes, really
30
so you think “the science is settled” then?
16
What science is settled?
All that I have said is that when a hypothesis has been falsified it may be discarded.
You do not discard.
40
Is there a prat in the house?
71
“Perhaps the large number that are uncertain merely reflects the situation”
What… 0.3%?
19
No Matt. of the 66% which Cook says had “no position” we cannot know how many had zero thoughts about the level of man-made attribution and how many actually took a very considered position that they think man-made effects are not quantifiable yet, or are probably real but small (which would include me).
Cook pretends that those 66% had “zero thoughts” when most probably many have some opinion which did’t fit the All or Nothing box.
It’s as if a market researcher offered people the Agree, Maybe, or Disagree choice then chucked out all the Maybe results as if those people did not exist and had not made a choice.
142
But they may agree, disagree, or not care, or it just not be relevant. The point is whether the paper had anything to say about it. I think it is reasonable to say “of the papers that stated an opinion, x% thought this and Y% thought that.
“we cannot know how many had zero thoughts about the level of man-made attribution and how many actually took a very considered position that they think man-made effects are not quantifiable yet, or are probably real but small (which would include me).”
Which is why he says “no position”. There is no implication why they took “no position”.
If a paper had said “maybe” then that would have been recorded as “uncertainty” not “no position”.
410
Note I don’t disagree with the general theme of the criticism. A science paper either contains results that are relevant to the actual science of AGW or it does not. Whether or not an author made an unrelated comment on their position on the causation of climate change is neither here nor there.
One would rightly assume that many many science papers examine issues based upon previously accepted science… i.e. This is what will happen to Polar Ice caps IF AGW is happening… and it may well state it as though AGW IS happening when in fact it is just an assumption.
17
One would rightly assume that if no scientists are paid to find that the climate is driven by non-CO2 factors or that the IPCC is wrong, then there won’t be many scientists working for free to publish papers on that.
134
That’s changing the argument mid-debate.
57
A politically-motivated think-tank may want to “pay scientists to find X”.
Governments and science institutions on the other hand tend to, “fund scientists who are studying X”.
And if there are any outside influences skewing funding towards certain types of research, it’s commercial influences, not political ideology. There’s not a lot of money in ideology. In fact, there’s none. Compare the salary of the PM with the salary of any oil company CEO.
(IOW, CCC doesn’t get a lot of funding, while petroleum and minerals *do*).
If somebody can think of a good line of research, they can apply for the relevant research grant.
Now, a pattern of rejected research grant applications could be something worth looking into, but Government is only a fraction of the source of research funding, so the idea such a pattern could exist would be a bit kooky. Plus, BEST got their funding, so I don’t think anyone would find much along those lines.
——————
REPLY: Of course, government funded workers are angels who aren’t working for the money (I don’t know why we pay them). So what happens when they leave the public service for the private sector? – Jo
35
Margo–the only way you could claim science research is not affected by money is if ALL money from all sources, including government and private industries, went into a research pool. Research groups could then submit proposed research (on AGW, animal studies, etc, etc.). Reviewers could sort out any studies that are not correct in methodology or on a subject that is outside of science or has no value to society (reviewers would be rotated every three months to avoid creating a group of researchers that begin to suffer from group-think). The remaining grant/research money requests would then be assigned random numbers. These numbers would be used in a “lottery” for funding. When the amount of funding available is reached, the remaining studies return to the pool. A lottery could be conducted three or four times per year. It’s not a perfect solution, but in trying to figure out how to make sure we don’t get government or industry meddling in science, this was the fairest method I could come up with.
(Even many warmists admit that politics is now entwined in the AGW debate and that can skew the results of studies. Anything politics gets in with is skewed.)
51
Margot, Sheri,
The focus on money is actually a red herring. The real motivator, for most people, is security. Money is merely one means of obtaining security.
As Margot points out, public servants tend to earn less that somebody doing the same job in the private sector, but public servants have the intangible benefit of security, or at least the illusion of security of not being thrown out on a whim. Prime Ministers generally have at least one term of Parliament. CEO’s can literally, “be out by lunchtime”. So who is better off, from a security standpoint?
So when looking at the motivations behind those with an interest in AGW, we need to look at how people stand to gain or loose security, from their current employment, rather than assume that everybody is just in it for the money. If climate change just went away tomorrow, scores of people, in both the private and public sectors, would be out of a job.
That, of itself, is a great motivator to keep the story of climate change alive.
21
And now.
Margot is back.
So we have five green ticks for the mat.
Team Russel
gee disappointment
KR
DaveR
?The Mystery Lurker
KK 🙂
10
Rereke Whakaaro–I understand that security is a goal more important than money. However, in science research, I could not find any way to actually have that happen. Whether a company pays for a study or an industry pays for a study, there will be gaps in funding and the need for certain studies. There are many people who work for years getting grants and hoping the grants keep getting funded. They don’t have security, but they work the job anyway.
I agree that if climate change were revealed to be a scam, thousands of people’s livelihoods would end. That is true of many occupations. If we cure cancer, how many people are out of work? There are many occupations where success means working yourself out of a job. The real need here is to educate people on how to work oneself out a job in these fields and then go on to a new field.
21
does this mean they need to DOUBLE THE FIXING?
EU says CO2 market permit surplus doubled in 2012
LONDON, May 16 (Reuters Point Carbon) – Emissions of carbon dioxide regulated by the EU Emissions Trading Scheme fell 2 percent in 2012 compared with the previous year, doubling the scheme’s carbon permit surplus to 2 billion allowances, the EU Commission said on Thursday…
http://www.pointcarbon.com/news/1.2376196
20
Price collapse wipes $66 billion off value of CDM market: report
LONDON, May 16 (Reuters Point Carbon) – A 99-percent collapse in the price of U.N.-backed carbon credits has wiped $66 billion off the value of investments made under the Clean Development Mechanism, according to a report published Thursday by Madrid-based advisory firm CO2 Spain…
http://www.pointcarbon.com/news/1.2376537?&ref=searchlist
Barclays breached Chinese walls to buy Tricorona, court hears
LONDON, May 16 (Reuters Point Carbon) – Barclays broke a contractual agreement and misused confidential information to buy a Swedish company that invests in carbon credits, lawyers said on Thursday, presenting opening arguments in an 82-million euro ($105 million) lawsuit on behalf of a former client of the British bank…
http://www.pointcarbon.com/news/1.2376798?&ref=searchlist
50
John Cook outright lies, here is what he says on his website..
“Several independent studies have shown that 97% of climate scientists agree that humans are causing the climate to change, that CO2 is causing global changes to the climate, and that the consequences could be catastrophic. These views form the scientific consensus on climate change.”
None of the 97% consensus studies claim the consequences could be catastrophic.
121
John Cook has already served his purpose in creating a discussion over such pointless drivel. He is lauded by MSM and various articles have been written citing his paper. Yes, I am flabbergasted. Why do we have to only read thoughtful rebuttal on sites likes Jo’s? Why isn’t Jo’s article taken up by the MSM. THIS is a question I’d really like to understand. Just having a prepondernance of leftie-pinko etc. etc. just doesn’t seem to be enough?
David Russell: You made me think of the Monty Python sketch: Is this a 5 minute or a 10 minute argument? Hope you enjoyed it, I had to skip past your comments to stay sane.
70
look at the url, which is from bloomberg’s sustainability page for a story with the same headline:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-05-16/merkel-parties-block-carbon-fix-talks-on-election-year-split-1-.html
if u click the link, u will find the story u get now is headlined
– Merkel Says U.K. Is Important Partner That Should Stay in EU” – & has nothing to do with the original story headline.
glad to see SMH has carried the original, which has the usual attempts by bloomberg to spin the story as maybe just a tactic til the election is over:
17 May: SMH: Bloomberg: German split may delay EU carbon fix
Chancellor Angela Merkel’s coalition blocked an opposition move to debate and vote on Europe’s carbon market, highlighting the government’s reluctance to take a stance on a proposed fix before Sept. 22 elections.
Lawmakers from Merkel’s coalition parties rejected a Social Democratic motion in the Environment Committee of the lower house in Berlin yesterday calling on the government to support European Commission plans to curb the oversupply of carbon permits, said Eva Bulling-Schroeter, the panel’s head. The lawmakers requested the motion be delayed to an unspecified later date, she said.
With the lower house due to go into summer recess on June 28 and not reconvene until after the election, time is running out for Merkel’s government to adopt a position on a stopgap plan to bolster prices in the world’s biggest carbon market…
EU carbon permits have plunged 47 per cent this year amid the oversupply, cutting the cost of polluting. The active contract lost 2.8 per cent to 3.54 euros on the ICE Futures Europe exchange in London today. That compares with 25-30 euros expected by European lawmakers when they set up the emissions-trading system, which started in 2005…
“Germany is a stumbling block for European climate protection” because of the government’s failure to fix the carbon market, Baerbel Hoehn, a lawmaker with the opposition Greens, told Altmaier.
“The delay on a vote in the Bundestag’s Environment Committee highlights how split Merkel’s coalition is on backloading,” Itamar Orlandi, an analyst at Bloomberg New Energy Finance, said by e-mail. “The invite for a second hearing indicates that many coalition lawmakers could consider support for backloading once the election campaign is over.”
Calling for another hearing is not a delay tactic, Georg Nuesslein, a lawmaker with Merkel’s Christian Democratic-led faction, said by telephone late yesterday.
The coalition sees the “additional need for talks, also internally, how to deal with the situation,” Nuesslein said. While some coalition lawmakers support backloading, others see it as an unnecessary intervention in a functioning market system, he said.http://www.smh.com.au/business/carbon-economy/german-split-may-delay-eu-carbon-fix-20130517-2jpzs.html
00
Can you not spot your own hypocrisy?
You have not afforded the same ‘critical’ analysis of these papers as you have done with the list you dismiss.
(If you went to the link she provided you will find the “Critical analysis of the papers in some detail) CTS
Curious, do papers like Climate Change Winners: Receding Ice Fields Facilitate Colony Expansion and Altered Dynamics in an Adélie Penguin Metapopulation fall under your ‘believers’ or ‘skeptics’ funding category?
No, they are not all ‘scientists’. In fact ~30% are engineers. ~10% study medicine. Just 1.8% claim to study “atmospheric science” which includes a measly 0.12% that study climatology.
Not unlike this blog, no?
416
And Mr halfacow, I haven’t and won’t analyze either Cooks list or poptechs list of 1100 papers to the nth degree either, because I don’t use it to claim skeptics are right about the climate. I use poptechs excellent and well categorized list as a way of showing how pointless and foolish Cooks list is.
Who cares if the AGW fanclub paper quantity is greater than the skeptics one, it’s argument from authority. What matters is the quality of the papers. Skeptics have observations, alarmists have computer simulations. The number of papers is determined by the funding, not by the climate.
If you have a point about the penguin paper, why not make it?
A scientist is someone who uses the scientific method, and arguably most engineers and doctors are scientists, while many “Climate Scientists” are not. You tell me which modelers corrects their model when the observations don’t fit. A real scientist doesn’t need to be indoctrinated in “post modern climate science” at university to spot the fallacies that pretend-scientists make when they explain why their models are right and 28 million weather ballons and 3000 ocean buoys are wrong. Any real scientist can see that “climate scientists” aren’t using the scientific method.
215
Well, at least we know which half of the cow we got.
90
sorry but this is all rhetoric. Both sides do this by the way.
“My papers are quality and yours are not”!!!
Which side claims this?
Oh yeah, both. And do either bother to step outside the rhetoric?
Rarely.
Jo. Your 39.1 is an exemplar and if you can’t do better than this, why bother having a blog like this?
27
do you mean the part about cows?
10
Jo’s 39.1
Gee Aye I am disappointed at your comment.
Many of us, and I certainly include myself in this, are very well equipped academically to deal with the claimed issue of Man Made Global Warming via CO2 rise.
Not only are we well equipped , the opposition, although that is not a relevant term in science, the “Climatologists”, are definitely NOT equipped to deal with the Mass, Heat and Momentum transfer that is occurring within the Earths Biosphere.
They are little more than glorified, opportunistic leaches attached to the topic simply because their name, “The Big Cs” sounds like it might be relevant.
Climatologists are not capable of handling this as they have very competently demonstrated.
They are very useful politically and that is all.
This mob, Team Russels, seems to be a nastier version of yourself.
Commenting on grammar and clear expression has a place, stick to it, that’s what you do well.
KK
11
16 May: Daily Mail: Daniel Martin: Green energy ‘folly will put £600 on bills’: Annual charges to hit living standards, says report
Pressure group warns cost could lead to first long-term decline in living standards since the Industrial Revolution
The cost to consumers of green energy subsidies will exceed £16billion a year within seven years, according to a leading industry analyst…
He estimates that a third of the £600 annual cost will land on energy bills.
The rest will be borne by businesses who will pass on the costs to consumers by charging higher prices for their goods…
Under EU laws, Britain’s energy consumption from renewables needs to reach 15 per cent by 2020 – one of the largest proportional increases in Europe. It is currently around 6 per cent…
The Carbon Price Floor policy, which is a charge on businesses for every tonne of carbon dioxide they emit, will cost an additional £1billion.
Experts say this will make Britain’s firms uncompetitive and force them to pass on costs to consumers.
Additional charges to help fund wind farms are likely to add around £5billion a year, the report claims…
Matthew Sinclair, chief executive of the TaxPayers’ Alliance, said: ‘With many families struggling to make ends meet in these tough economic times, taxpayers will be disgusted at how much of their cash is subsidising green energy…
‘Ministers should be looking to reduce the burdens they are placing on people by scrapping expensive green taxes and subsidies which are unnecessarily pushing up our energy bills.’…
***Last night a Department of Energy and Climate Change spokesman said: ‘We don’t recognise these numbers. The costs of renewables are coming down.
‘We’ve already cut the subsidies for onshore wind and solar and in future all green technologies will have to compete to deliver the best bang for the buck.
‘Renewable energy is helping support growth through jobs and investment.’
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2325840/Green-energy-folly-600-bills-Annual-charges-hit-living-standards-says-report.html
10
I expect that the next chapter in this comedy will go something like this:
“I did a survey of people abducted by Aliens. I got 100% consensus that UFO’s are real, and that Earth is visited by aliens. I consider this proof that Earth is under regular surveillance of extraterrestrials.
There is concrete evidence for this contention. Anxiously anticipating their return, she is certain that she was taken aboard and alien craft and that on that craft she was violated.
This survey is empirical evidence and indisputable proof that Earth is regularly visited by non-earthly beings and that they travel here in unusual craft.”
J. Cook and S. Lewandowski
102
Bloody hell Rod!
Have you got any more information on this impending threat?, after all if those two say it’s happening there’s a 97% chance there correct and all us “alien deniers” will just stuff it up for humanity.
Does Tom Cruise know about this?
60
Let me put it this way, it would be surprising to not find that 97% of papers published in psychoanalytical journals on psychoanalyticl topics is supportive of the field. The problem is that nearly everyone outside the field views it as junk science.
90
Too much Cook spoils the Blog
As you’ve displayed over and over again Jo, this gentleman is as rational as Loo, as accurate as ScooterBoy and as amenable to debate as is our dear Gavin.
His main claim to fame is with preaching to an unshakeable choir of catastrophists or antagonising a growing assembly of climate-realists.
Every time you feature him in a debate he gets a kick I suspect. Logic never wins over blind faith but enhanced Google ratings are all he and his buddies need for the next round of tax-funded teat-sucking.
Jo, it’s your blog and I’ll continue to visit it every day but sometimes it’s better to bite one’s tongue and ignore attention-seeking irritants as epitomised by the SkS brotherhood.
He seeks acclaim by stirring the emotions of those who oppose the gospel to provoke them and gain sycophantic applause from his fellow acolytes.
No need to swat a wasp that buzzes but has no sting!
90
RoyFOMR
But he does have a sting.
His “fellow acolytes” include ABC environmental reporter, Sarah Clarke.
Witness how he featured on ABC News from morning to night.
Thank you, Jo, for getting such a powerful critique into the blogosphere so quickly.
Alice
90
Can anybody suggest a reason why the fossil fuel industry doesn’t fund an alternative study to challenge this information? (Or have they?) It would be small change for them to hire a team of scientists and statisticians of the highest calibre to do a proper analysis and survey to present in order to present clearer picture of scientific consensus. Given what they could potentially loose as a result of reductions in the burning of fossil fuels, I would have thought this would be of the utmost importance to counteract the aggressive AGW lobbying.
25
What reduction in the burning of fossil fuels? No such animal…. won’t happen, thus they do not care.
Many of them have invested in “renewables”, so they get their cake and to eat it too.
The truth however is that we are all funded by BIG OIL ….. just ask any warmist.
51
But there are significant reductions in fossil fuel burning in many countries happening now and many countries have set targets (easy enough to get the data). Is this not of sufficient concern to the industry, given that renewables will only bring in a fraction of the revenue? SO I’m not sure what you mean. I am still baffled why this industry with unlimited resources is not fighting to dispel this AGW misinformation that is going around? It just beggars belief! Or am I missing something?
25
And this is the kicker- if they invest in technology that doesn’t work, they get paid billions for producing rubbish technology for profit, yet they are under no threat to their pre-existing market because this rubbish (ie. wind and solar) they know can never compete effectively to make more than a tiny dent in their market share. They still get to profit from fossil fuels indefinitely while effectively DEFERRING effective innovations from actually being developed that might one day out-compete them.
So Big Oil is all over renewables, they know the truth and are happy to scam it for as long as it works, profit by our collective stupidity and run up profits both coming and going, knowing that a real alternative cannot happen while malinvestment is encouraged.
61
Just wondering where you get your information from. The OECD countries in Europe have reduced their CO2 emissions by an average of 12.6% in the last 10 years (Spain and Portugal have reduced them by around 50%), mainly through the use of windpower. Costs for wind generation have fallen over time and are now less than new coal and new gas (even without subsidies). Is this what you mean by technology that doesn’t work?
313
Not a single mention that they have no money so their energy usage will always go down when you can’t afford it.
/sarc Not saying that being able to use energy when the wind or sun is blowing or shining just right is the way to go though. /sarc
50
Shevva
It’s nothing to do with how much money they have or how much they use – cost comparisons are on a per KwH (Kilowatt-Hours) basis.
Windpower (as well as solar) systems include technologies to provide continuous power.
(Either I misunderstand you or there are some gaps in your knowledge.)
28
Charles,
The really scary thing is you actually believe the drivel you have written in the above two comments. For the record:
The OECD countries have not reduced their CO2 emissions by 12.6% in the last ten years.
Spain and Portugal have not reduced their CO2 emissions by 50%.
Wind power generation is not cheaper than coal or gas.
Neither wind nor solar generation can provide continuous power.
Now, I can back up the previous four statements with hard facts, which I am happy to do, just as soon as you provide some kind of verifiable evidence to substantiate your outrageous claims.
92
Themm
Why do you lower your credibility by the use of the term “drivel”? Are you attempting to be provocative? I do not participate in discussions with someone who operates on such a base level and is deliberately intending to be offensive, so I will not be replying again. However, you may be interested in knowing where I have obtained these figures.
http://www.awea.org/blog/index.cfm?customel_dataPageID_1699=21688
Please feel free to point me to other references that may have valid information on this.
16
Winston. Here is some more information on the progress of wind power for you.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-02-27/wind-power-to-compete-with-fossil-fuels-by-2015-make-says.html
This does not appear to me as a failed technology. Just wondering what technologies you are referring to.
Also, “Between 2012 and 2020, the cumulative renewable installed capacity for China, India, Japan, Australia, Thailand, Indonesia and the Philippines is expected to increase at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 12.2%, from 181.7 Gigawatts (GW) in 2011 to 535.2 GW in 2020,” (GBI Research) (GBI’s very existence depends on the accuracy of its predictions)
So I am having trouble accepting these as failed technologies as well.
15
Yeah right, we just believe anything we read on the internet.
Tell me Charles, when will it be able to supply base load power?
30
CharlesG: Where would these technologies that provide continuos power from wind and solar be? I’ve been researching and writing on wind for over 4 years and know of only one or two SMALL scale uses of storage for wind power.
The fact that governments throw money at something does not indicate that it works. It only means the government has “green” lobbyists and much money. As economies collapse due to irresponsible overspending, renewable subsidies are one of the first to.
The best thing about electricity is it’s invisible. Companies saying they use wind energy are actually just paying a premium fee and using EXACTLY the same electricity that everyone else uses. Unless there is no connection to the grid, companies and individuals are not using wind power.
Turbines are shut down when there is too much electricity produced and no where to go with it. They are PAID for this electricity, even though they don’t produce it. In the northwest USA, hydro competes with turbines, which results in the turbines being shut down, because hydro is cheaper.
China has wind turbines, but they are no producing usable electricity–their grid cannot take it. So they look ecofriendly (the Chinese are the people who irradiated an entire valley refining rare earth metals for turbines and renewables). Again, invisible electricity is wonderful. You can put up a turbine and pretend you use it.
I find absolutely nothing to support the idea that wind and solar are anything other than money black holes that damage the environment, raise prices and serve as a “feel good” idols for greens.
60
CharlesG says:
Let’s see here…..twist logic: Charles expects to have a high credibility by spewing drivel? Sorry, I’m going to say fail there CharlesG.
CharlesG later says:
Where the link brings you to a news story with nothing but fluff and propaganda. Now CharlesG I’m going to have to assume that you really know nothing about what you are talking about. Clearly you have just accepted whatever you read in the MSM about wind power and not actually researched the subject. Try looking up how much energy is used to build operate and maintain a wind power system. Then look at the actual output instead of the oft quoted and extremely deceptive “installed capacity” figures. Then realize the average up time and mean time between failures of this kind of equipment. Finally understand what Base Load really means. Tell me why environmentalists decry water storage behind dams, the only possible way that wind power might be made to work better (pumped storage)? Oh and please tell me why those same environmentalists are silent about the increasing numbers of dead winged creatures found near these wastes of effort?
32
Thank you for that information people. Very useful Sheri – can you point me to some references? Mark – Unfortunately I can’t tell you why environmentalists take certain attitudes and I’m not sure why you are asking me. Your response appears to me to be a provocative rant, making assumptions about me and what I believe – I don’t play that game so I will not be responding to any of your postings from now on. But can you point me to some reliable, recent figures or references re energy required to build, operate and maintain a wind systems, MTBF, actual output etc so I may be enlightened? MSM is fine with me as long as it refers to reliable and accurate sources.
14
Charles,
Neither did the Titanic.
The rider here is “expected”, on current trend lines, if nothing else changes and assuming subsidies are maintained or increased at the current rate of increase. If we assume for a moment that wind power cannot intrinsically through its lack of predictability (Capacity range from 0-100%, actually it can even be negative, i.e. a draw on power in still conditions, but I digress) and its intermittency, then in the infancy of any failed technology there would be an initial bubble from zero to low percentages at a specific rate, that would continue until its inherent weaknesses would cause it to fail, trends to reverse and perhaps disappear in a puff of smoke. Because of government subsidies and statist central planning, such an intrinsically and inherently failed technology is allowed to rise above its capacity proportional to the effort applied to increase its uptake. And I didn’t even mention the inherent dishonesty of using % “growth rates” from something that is such a low percentage of global power provision in the first place.
Lets take an analogy, Even a balloon with a tiny hole in it can be inflated to a certain point before it pops or the hole enlarges to eventually overcome the force of inflation, and with extra force of inflation that process can be extended much longer than “common sense” would normally allow.
Now Charles, down to business. You seem to be a bright upstanding young gent, sharp as a pin and all that. I have a business proposition for you- “Balloon futures”- they’re all the rage in Europe at the moment, lots of Spanish and Portuguese customers especially. Look, since you’re a nice guy, I happen to be in a position, through I guy I know, a friend of a friend, to help you get in on the “ground floor”. Look, you have to get in quick, you know, before the others catch on. If you just wire me your bank details, I can have the certificates off to you in no time- “Gold issue: Banque de Niger” Government guaranteed, honest!
30
http://papundits.wordpress.com/2012/12/13/wind-power-fail-2012-same-as-always/
30
I have three links. I don’t know how many links are okay before this drops into moderation.
http://www.windaction.org/faqs/38348 (capacity factors)
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/02/130225121926.htm (is there a limit to wind)
http://www.isepa.com (experimental storage)
{You can click on my name and find more wind information on the list of my writings on the bottom left of the blog (there’s a website and blog) if you want more information}
30
CharlesG says:
So rather than even discuss the issues I bring up or explain where my assumptions are wrong, you just wont fess up. Frankly, that is about all I expected. Almost as funny as your troll mate Russell who can’t shut up. Maybe you should take some lessons from her about getting out of your shell? I don’t care one bit that you won’t respond to me it is just proof of your denial-you can take the truth you can’t grasp fact you just live in your little news propaganda derived world. Too bad for humanity that so many are that useless and worse, you probably vote.
11
CharlesG:
1. the paper you quote doesn’t say that emissions have fallen, only that coal tonnage has dropped (except recently in Germany). Where emissions have fallen substantially by over 12% (UK and Sweden in particular) this has nothing to do with wind power as neither had much when the fall occurred. The switch to gas in the UK was the reason there, and quite likely elsewhere.
Denmark is a special case because there was NO emission reductions with over 7000 turbines. What helped there was co-generation i.e. small neighbourhood power stations which used the waste heat to supply hot water heating to the surrounding houses. HINT average annual temperature in Copenhagen 8.5 ℃. Oddly enough these are disadvantaged by wind farms causing interruptions to their market.
You are confusing cost with selling price. Wind costs more than coal, gas and nuclear, but can be (and often has to be) sold more cheaply than them because of other subsidies. Since wind is unpredictable it has to be sold on the spot market, thus taking whatever price is available.
If wind really was cheaper then there would be no need for subsidies, carbon taxes, renewable targets etc. Try telling the owners of wind farms that you will campaign to abolish those. Their reaction may open your eyes.
30
Charles,
As I said, drivel. I asked for some evidence to back up four outrageous claims you made, and you supply two links to blog-style articles.
First link is to an article by the American Wind Energy Association – now there would be a credible, non-biased source if ever there was one. The article you offer as “evidence” of countries “reducing their CO2 emissions” actually starts off with an admission that those CO2 emissions have actually RISEN over the last two years. Way to go, Charles.
The article then largely cites the example of Germany, and claims the increase in coal is “temporary”. Yeah, right. Would that be the SAME Germany that’s in the process of commissioning SIX new coal-fired power stations, with 23 more in the pipeline?
The article then credits INSTALLED wind capacity with a claimed, calculated (not measured) reduction in coal burning. Couldn’t possibly be anything else. Maybe you and the author should try googling “ultra super critical steam turbines” sometime, for an alternative possibility.
Just for the record, the largest part of Germany’s wind generation is off-shore in the north, and it’s not even connected into the main grid feeding the industrialised south. Seems nobody thought about the 200 billion euros required for the power lines.
Moving on. Your second link cites a report by a company called “MAKE Consulting”. Who are they? Well here is what they say about themselves:
Another truly non-biased, independent source, say what? Anyway, according to them, the LEVELISED cost of wind will soon be comparable to existing conventional methods of power generation. And what exactly IS “levelised cost”? Well, we aren’t actually told, but we can buy the report explaining it for “only” 2,500 euros.
Maybe before we fork out our hard-earned to find out, we might see if we can glean how accurate it may be. This “Report” makes the following claim:
The only “geothermal” in this neck of the woods is Geodynamics little effort out Inimincka way. So far that has cost AUD 190 million to, one day, maybe, in the future, generate ONE stinking, lousy megawatt of electricity. And this very expensive “Report” claims that is cheaper than onshore wind? I think I’ll save my money.
————————————
Truth is Charles, you were raising on a busted flush right from where you claimed two countries had “reduced their CO2 emissions by 50%”. The only way any industrialised western nation could do that would be to shut down ALL fossil fuel power generation, AND get rid of about two-thirds of their cars and trucks. For starters.
————————————
Wanna try again?
And this time try and include something about wind and solar delivering “continuous power”. As someone with 30 years skin in the game of power generation, I’d love to know how that little breakthrough escaped me.
11
By the way CharlesG:
Spanish emissions ROSE from 2001 to 2007 by 19.4%, and dropped 2007 -2011 for overall drop of 3.2%, but are still up 29% since 1990.
German emissions Dropped 15% from 1990-99, 3.5% from 2000 to 2007, and dropped 3.5% 2007-2011.
So their emissions dropped most before they built lots of wind farms.
UK emissions dropped 8.5% 1990 to 2007, and dropped 10-11% 2007-2011
French emissions didn’t drop at all 1990-2007, and dropped 9% 2007-2011.
Italian emissions went up 1990-2007 but dropped 13% 2007 -2011.
It would seem that a recession has a far stronger effect than wind in reducing emissions.
http://www.civitas.org.uk/economy/electricitycosts2012.pdf reports onshore wind as costing about $135 per MWh. Compare that with coal out here at around $40, although if we put in modern stations that would rise to around $50. Offshore wind comes in around $228 per MWh.
Those costs for wind don’t allow for the extra costs associated with standby arrangements to allow for wind variations. In the UK these are dumped onto conventional generation, making it look more expensive.
I hope these figures aren’t too inconvenient for you.
20
Charles.
I’ve heard that name before in the Eco Circles of Great Brittain.
Are you perhaps related; no of course not.
Charles in the US alone there is one single field of dead windmills that have been left idele and rotting on the skyline.
There are 14,000 of them. They produce no power, they made someone in the know w bucket of money to erect and there is no money to demolish them.
The purpose of their erection was to make money.
Everyone is aware they are not able to compete with coal fired power generators.
bad news.
There is always some good news.
At least they aren’t spinning so the birds don’t get shredded.
KK 🙂
11
charles,regional consumption matters not a jot.global consumption is and always has been increasing,and will continue to do so,as the developing world is not interested in the green washing too many years of comfort has afforded the western world http://why.knovel.com/all-engineering-news/2612-fossil-fuels-expected-to-dominate-global-energy-consumption-until-2040-says-report.html
00
I only have this link:http://www.forbes.com/sites/jamestaylor/2013/02/13/peer-reviewed-survey-finds-majority-of-scientists-skeptical-of-global-warming-crisis/ The actual study is behind a paywall. I’m not sure if it’s what you are asking about.
20
The key sentence in Jo’s article is this…
“11. What about Science Associations? But they are not masses of scientists — just committees of six”
While bodies like the APS, RoySoc, CSIRO… continue to officially endorse the “consensus” the situation will continue.
Politicians and other leaders in the community have to listen to these authorities.
Thousands of skeptical bloggers count for nothing.
The commenters on this and other skeptical blogs are just talking to the choir. They should put their energy into getting the scientific authorities to change their position. How about a court case or two?
21
Hi Jo, Great blog!
One of your reference pdf links is broken, so I did a quick search of the Remote Sensing journal website for it: “Spencer, R. W.; Braswell, W.D. (2011) On the Misdiagnosis of Climate Feedbacks from Variations in Earth’s Radiant Energy Balance, Remote Sens. 2011, 3, 1603-1613.”
This revealed an article that said that this paper had been withdrawn by the journal, and actually caused the resignation of the journal editor:
“Wolfgang Wagner, Editorial: Taking Responsibility on Publishing the Controversial Paper “On the Misdiagnosis of Surface Temperature Feedbacks from Variations in Earth’s Radiant Energy Balance” by Spencer and Braswell, Remote Sens. 2011, 3(9), 2002-2004”
Recommend you check out why this paper was withdrawn, and correct your references accordingly.
20
Thanks, According to retraction watch it was not withdrawn. Oh my. How could I have forgotten that spectacular editors dummy spit in resigning. See Spencer, Pielke Jnr. Usually journals retract a paper or just publish a rebuttal. But this paper had scored a hit in the media, and because the media just ignores retractions and replies, I guess the editor had to resign. Science Journals are not about science, of course…
40
Thanks Jo… It did make me wonder! 🙂
10
it can’t get any sillier than this:
17 May: SMH: Peter Hannam: Obama gives Aussie researcher 31,541,507 reasons to celebrate
It’s the social media equivalent of hitting the jackpot: having your study tweeted by US President Barack Obama.
Australian researcher John Cook, an expert in climate change communication, was inundated with requests for interviews by US media outlets after Obama took to Twitter to endorse his project’s final report…
Bullying
While most of the interest has been positive, Mr Cook expects some negative attention from those who reject the scientific consensus – something that some academics have found to their dismay.
“Generally the level of hate you get is in proportion to the impact you have,” he said.
“There’s an increase in academic bullying where climate deniers are sending complaints to journals or the university … and this actually works.
“I’ve have anecdotal examples of academics who are scared of that kind of reaction and who are playing things close to their chest – which is a real shame,” he said.
http://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/obama-gives-aussie-researcher-31541507-reasons-to-celebrate-20130517-2jqrh.html
40
It’s good to know other country residents are as naive and easily fooled as Americans. Obama is currently involved in four scandals. His own party would not back his position on gun control or the budget. Yet people get all weepy anytime Obama speaks. It’s not like he’s doing anything besides campaigning and avoiding responsibility. Actually, I suppose that’s the kind of guy Cook would be drawn to, now that I think about it.
20
Yes BUT Pat and Sheri it turns out the Barack Obama Twitter address has nothing to do with Obama. It is run by some tax advocacy group.
( ref WUWT )
00
Wouldn’t a tax advocacy group be basically the same as Obama, only with more members? I think they are interchangeable.
10
24 Aug 2012: USA Today: David Jackson: Obama has millions of fake Twitter followers
President Obama’s Twitter account has 18.8 million followers — but more than half of them really don’t exist, according to reports.
A new Web tool has determined that 70% of Obama’s crowd includes “fake followers,” The New York Times reports in a story about how Twitter followers can be purchased.
“The practice has become so widespread that StatusPeople, a social media management company in London, released a Web tool last month called the Fake Follower Check that it says can ascertain how many fake followers you and your friends have,” the Times reports…
http://content.usatoday.com/communities/theoval/post/2012/08/obama-has-millions-of-fake-twitter-followers/1
40
how to fake a consensus with the help of the MSM:
Media Coverage of The Consensus Project
http://www.skepticalscience.com/republishers.php?a=tcpmedia
20
22 Aug 2012: NYT: AUSTIN CONSIDINE: Buying Their Way to Twitter
And it’s not just ego-driven blogger types. Celebrities, politicians, start-ups, aspiring rock stars, reality show hopefuls — anyone who might benefit from having a larger social media footprint — are known to have bought large blocks of Twitter followers…
Will Mitchell, the founder of Clear Presence Media, a marketing company outside Tampa, Fla., said that he has bought more than a million followers for his clients, which include musicians, start-ups and a well-known actress he declined to identify.
“And it’s so cheap, too,” he said. In one instance, Mr. Mitchell said, he bought 250,000 for $2,500, or a penny each.
One site, Fiverr, an online classified for cheap marketing services, has several ads offering 1,000 Twitter followers for $5…
The tool examines Twitter relationships, said Rob Waller, a founder of StatusPeople. “Fake accounts tend to follow a lot of people but have few followers,” he said. “We then combine that with a few other metrics to confirm the account is fake.”
If accurate, the number of fake followers out there is surprising. According to the StatusPeople tool, 71 percent of Lady Gaga’s nearly 29 million followers are “fake” or “inactive.” So are 70 percent of President Obama’s nearly 19 million followers…
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/23/fashion/twitter-followers-for-sale.html?_r=3&adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1345810035-hPtdwhoE1D2MaX4UUGwl9g&
10
.
Why is this important?
Mr. Cook states under this heading that:
To solve the problem – how can consensus prove the problem, what problem?
So this whole ridiculous paper is about us – the people. We don’t believe that scientists all agree on CAGW and hence won’t support the government to give them money to stop the CO2 problem.
THIS is where they are totally wrong. People (us, not them) couldn’t give a stuff if scientists cuddle each other, fight, or all agree. What we are sick of is this sort of garbage that is telling us all the time about ourselves, like this:
They tell us we are misinformed, they tell us we believe this, they tell us we believe that, they tell us we have to bow to what they tell us all the time. How wrong they all are including Mr. Cook.
What WE want is the truth from scientists not consensus.
For many years now we have been told so many lies by the CAGW crowd that we’ve switched off and labelled them all as gravy train bull shltters.
No more snow
No more rain
More severe storms
Less dry periods in wet areas
More wet events in wet areas
The sea will wipe out the coastal towns
We have to build desal plants because by 2015 we’ll have no water
Fossil fuels are dearer than windmills (Yeah right- SA is cheap?)
Glaciers will all melt by 2020
Arctic ice will disappear
The publicity of Cooks paper will only rub the egos of the existing CAGW crew, while the middle or undecided will look at it and think “here they go again, we are misinformed” – and decide to tell them to get stuffed.
The end result is that more and more people (us) are switching off this global warming scare.
They are achieving exactly the opposite to what they desire. And all because they treat and act as if they are above US. And also they are out of touch with normal everyday people (US).
Bye bye Mr. Cook and DANA in September. YAWN.
70
Forgot to add:
Their new website is going to be a cracker – it’s called
All the tradies, drivers, chippies, mechanics, retail staff, bank staff, landscapers, architects, engineers, doctors, nurses etc etc etc etc are going to come home on their computer and search for THE CONSENSUS PROJECT or THE DEBATE IS OVER or GLOBAL WARMING IS REAL ????
How WRONG can they be – they live in dream world and can’t even market their scam properly.
60
I suppose John’s grip on the science is certainly slipping, and they really can’t claim to have ever been actually skeptical, so it makes sense to concentrate on “consensus”, since that is a name that they all can agree on. And Dave, they do do a helluva lot of “projecting”!
40
I’ve said this several times around the place – flippantly, one can only keep ‘beating’ folk about the head for so long before:
1. Their crania are mush
2. They suffer from ‘noise’-induced ‘hearing’ loss
3. Habituation
4. Develop sensory and cognitive blind-spots
5. They push back
I’d like to consider we are part of (5) the ‘push-back’ crowd!
20
In finance where people subvert the audits, we get fraud, with the honest losing their savings and pensions. Examples are Robert Maxwell’s media empire and Enron.
In courts, consider where the accused are denied a defence or evidence is suppressed, or the the jury intimidated, or experienced investigators certain of the guilt of the accused fail to consider pursue other lines of enquiry. In every case, the innocent are found guilty and the guilty go free undermining confidence in the rule of law. One especially relevant to science is the case of Sally Clark. She was wrongly convicted of the murder of two baby sons in 1999 based on the statistical evidence by the leading expert in the field.
Parliamentary democracies where the opposition are not respected, but attacked and suppressed lead to dictatorships. A recent example is Zimbabwe.
20
They are still pushing the 97% claim.. from my ex-favourite site, now overrun by alarmists:
http://science.slashdot.org/story/13/05/17/133201/97-of-climate-science-papers-agree-global-warming-is-man-made
Todays’s headline. “A meta-study published yesterday looked at over 12,000 peer-reviewed papers on climate science that appeared in journals between 1991 and 2011. The papers were evaluated and categorized by how they implicitly or explicitly endorsed humans as a contributing cause of global warming. “
11
[…] Jo Nova provides some takeaways from this New Climate Denier paper, produced by Warmist John Cook […]
01
Nice article Joe. I remember one ‘97% consensus’ survey that Cook and CAGW-advocates used to cite a while ago that was based on only 79 people. It seems that particular survey dosen’t get mentioned anymore after everbody pointed out its flaws. The same will probably happen with this one I suspect.
00
[…] Cook’s fallacy “97% consensus” study is a marketing ploy some journalists will fall for. Jo No… […]
00
[…] Cook’s fallacy “97% consensus” study is a marketing ploy some journalists will fall for. Jo No… […]
00
Brandon Shollenberger and Marcel Crok have been conducting an informative exchange at
http://rankexploits.com/musings/2013/on-the-consensus/#comment-113199
Of the 12,465 abstracts employed in the Cook et al. “study,” Marcel Crok finds that
Only Category 1 is a strong endorsement of AGW (more than 50% human contribution to recent climate change). And even it doesn’t get into the catastrophicness or the calamitology.
60
It seems that several here have stumbled onto this very relevant piece. Too bad it wasn’t sourced here and it took so long for folks here to come up with something relevant (other than point #7).
01
Not true David,
Lucia herself pointed out HERE in this thread that you missed and posted 2 days ago and HERE that you never responded to.
Meanwhile Cohenite brought up this revelation that many of us knew over a day earlier:
LINK
You are lucky we are in a blog and not in a forum format where I would be able to convincingly show that you are full of mealymouth crap who is always behind the curve that almost the rest of us understood almost immediately that Cook’s dishonest and biased “survey” is deserving the scorn you never seem to give fully.
00
[…] Cook’s fallacy “97% consensus” study is a marketing ploy some journalists will fall forAustralia cuts foreign aid but sent $7b to starving European politicians in 2012Weekend […]
00
Folks, legionnaires, Ozzies……this has become the David Russel pillock Parade.
Exactly what he wants.
IGNORE HIM!
20
Whatever became of Adam Smith ?
10
Ah yes, Team Smith
KK 🙂
20
Thanks for the dose of sanity, Jo.
20
Amazing that Obama should know of this Cook nonsense (presumably his third rate science adviser told him).
And that he would tweet his approval.
We are run by knaves and fools, I fear.
40
I think you may have some numbers wrong.
The central topic of the post is a research paper, and you say that the funding available to skeptics is 3500 times smaller than that available to proponents of AGW.
That would be a total amount of about 22 million. I think this is a gross overestimation.
I am a researcher myself and while I have had projects rejected for “not paying sufficient attention to climate change”, I haven’t managed to find a single source of funding for research into climate related topics which is remotely skeptical of the establishment preferred hypothesis.
40
Huh?
00
zero
00
Check the link I added in reference. My estimate is very conservative. The total of 23m was the one Greenpeace put together — it came from Exxon. The biggest $ I could find at the time.
But if I were to limit it to government grants the number specifically related to non-GHG based warming might well be zero though there are some for solar research and other areas which turn up skeptical results. And there are a few outspoken skeptics in government or tenured positions who still hold them — but they got those positions decades ago, and won awards and prizes before this became so hot politically.
41
Amazing what you can show with school debating tactics. On both sides, that is.
As a physical scientist, though, I might add that opinion among scientists (not involved in GW projects) is close to unanimous: that climate change is happening, that it is happening at an unprecedented rate, that CO2, CH4 and soot are major contributors to the change, that our activity (in burning our planet’s quota of fossil carbon and in land clearing) is the major cause of the change. Cook’s article is right to flag the discrepancy between public opinion and scientific opinion.
—–
Not at all Enzos. Cook allows his study to be used to claim he surveyed “scientists”, when he has done nothing of the sort. He has surveyed a tiny select group called “climate scientists” — Cook keeps ignoring the thousands of scientists who are particle physicists, nuclear chemists, meteorologists, geoscientists and engineers. The public skepticism is well founded – Jo.
00
Mr. David Russell
You seem to have a grasp of this global warming issue and greenhouse gases. Now I run stock that includes cattle, sheep, Alpacas, and horses. They maintain that these animals produce greenhouse gases. But they are all different. The cattle excrete huge sloppy pies, and the horses big solid buns, and the sheep little tiny pellets all over the paddock, and the alpacas larger pellets, but all in the same place. Surely these can’t all have the same greenhouse effect? Could you explain that for me please?
Thanks
50
That’s just as I thought, David. You come on here to Joanne’s beautiful blog just to raise Hell and pretend that you are some high and mighty climate scientist, and all the while YOU DON’T KNOW SHIT!
11
It’s the methane that matters with livestock and it’s much more potent a GHG. Indeed, livestock emmissions are more GHG laden than all transportation (land, sea and air). As to why different ‘poopie’ looks different, well, that’s true of human’s too, at different times. I don’t have an explanation. However, since I don’t believe GHGs are going to create CAGW any time soon (and probably not ever), I say, “Don’t worry about s**t, man!!”
01
Hey Mr. David Russell,have you seen this where John Cook left out a few things (That was part of his draft survey) that is quite damaging to his stupid paper?
On the Consensus
EXCERPT:
“The guidelines for rating these abstracts show only the highest rating value blames the majority of global warming on humans. No other rating says how much humans contribute to global warming. The only time an abstract is rated as saying how much humans contribute to global warming is if it mentions:
If we use the system’s search feature for abstracts that meet this requirement, we get 65 results. That is 65, out of the 12,000+ examined abstracts. Not only is that value incredibly small, it is smaller than another value listed in the paper:
Remembering AGW stands for anthropogenic global warming, or global warming caused by humans, take a minute to let that sink in. This study done by John Cook and others, praised by the President of the United States, found more scientific publications whose abstracts reject global warming than say humans are primarily to blame for it.”
Still going to pursue that stupid 97% of 32.6% consensus babbling crap you have been pushing on us?
I am surprised that you have not showed up in that link to tell them it is 97% true.
LOL
40
I am very much aware of this, and have mentioned it myself herein. Of course, none of JoAnn’s 12 points make mention of this. Only her point #7 has much relevance anyway IMO.
01
Speculators main buyers in EU carbon auctions -report
LONDON, May 17 (Reuters Point Carbon) – Banks and trading houses bought more than two thirds of the 138 million carbon permits sold by 25 European governments between Nov. 2012 and Feb. 2013 to help power plants and factories comply with the EU Emissions Trading Scheme, an EU Commission report published Friday showed…
http://www.pointcarbon.com/news/1.2378205?&ref=searchlist
17 May: Bloomberg: Alessandro Vitelli: EU Ban Leaves Buyers Holding 144 Million Homeless Carbon Credits
Companies holding United Nations carbon offsets equivalent to 7 percent of the European Union’s annual emissions cap risk losing their investment unless they find a buyer for the credits the bloc banned earlier this year.
Power stations and factories in the EU’s emissions-trading system still hold 144 million of the UN offsets after surrendering 552 million in the five years through 2012, EU data compiled by Bloomberg show. The bloc banned the use of credits awarded to projects that destroy nitrous oxide and hydrofluorocarbon-23, two powerful greenhouse gases…
The banned credits, known as grey CERs, will “either end up in the hands of the sovereigns, or they become worthless,” Trevor Sikorski, an analyst in London at Energy Aspects Ltd., said by e-mail May 16. “With market prices where they are, one should be able to pick up an issued grey CER spot for 10 euro cents or so.” …
Front-year CER futures have plunged 98 percent from their peak in July 2008 to 39 euro cents a metric ton on London’s ICE Futures Europe exchange…
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-05-17/eu-ban-leaves-buyers-holding-144-million-homeless-carbon-credits.html
00
Here is another website for you Mr. Russell to crash and post your 97% gibberish but beware that Marcel Crok explains how the bogus 97% was created in detail:
Cook’s survey not only meaningless but also misleading
EXCERPT:
30
Yes, this is a relevant article. A few others here have picked up on it and I have also pointed out to them this is relevant. OF course, none of JoAnn’s 12 points make mention of this.
10
mafia tactics as always:
18 May: South China Morning Post: Chinese airlines defy Europe over emissions rules
by Charlotte So and Agence France-Presse
Mainland air carriers will continue to defy the European Commission’s order to comply with its carbon emissions trading scheme and provide flight data to and within Europe.
An executive from China Southern, who did not want to be named, said: “We will strictly go by what the State Council and Civil Aviation Administration of China has told us to do, that is, not to comply with the European Commission’s emissions trading scheme. We have no say on this matter, as it’s a diplomatic issue and beyond our reach.”…
***The E(uropean) C(ommission) yesterday said it could fine eight Chinese and two Indian carriers for not paying for their greenhouse gas emissions as a result of flights within the European Union, AFP reported…
The EC’s move reverses a stance in November, when it decided to keep non-EU airlines out of the European emissions trading scheme for a year.
Air China, which is on the penalty list, decided to order 100 Airbus aircraft this month…
http://www.scmp.com/business/article/1240184/chinese-airlines-defy-europe-over-emissions-rules
00
Wow! I mean Wow, oh Wow!
I understand this is way off the topic, but hey, when you see something like this, the hairs on the back of your neck prickle right up.
The link is to the AEMO spot electricity prices for Australia just for yesterday, Friday 17th May 2013.
AEMO Average price Tables
You know how we’ve been hearing how Wind Power is so cheap, and how South Australia is so proud of their wind power, and how much it covers the State’s supply.
Look at that chart and note the prices for Yesterday, especially for S.A.
Note the costs for all the other States. and then note S.A.
Here, RRP (Regional Reference Price) covers the cost per MWH for the full 24 hour period. Peak RRP covers the cost for the Peak consumption which lasts from 7AM until 10PM, you know, when people are actually awake, consuming power in their homes, and also at work, and for every shop and the roads, and the hospitals etc etc.
Now note the price for that power, and wait for this….. $462.97 per MWH.
That’s more than 7 times higher than the next highest.
Why?
Because the wind wasn’t blowing and the more than 1200MW (Nameplate Capacity) of wind power averaged less than 40MW power delivery over the whole day, and for two hours, NOT ONE of those more than 560 wind towers was actually turning.
I’m running up an explanation Post at my own site for an in depth analysis of this, and hopefully, it should be ready for tonight, if there’s an Unthreaded Weekend Post here at Joanne’s site, I’ll link into it for you, because this is indeed something people should well and truly see.
Wind’s dirty little secret.
They say their wind power is so cheap. What they neglect to tell you is that when there is no wind, desperate grid controllers have to pay top whack for any power they can find. THAT is the true cost of wind.
This is absolute insanity.
Tony.
30
Tony:
you would probably find the same for Monday to Thursday as well.
Also, solar generation has been way down all this past week in and around Adelaide where most panels are installed.
Dates 5 day total (kWh exported)
April 1-5 49.1
April 8-12 57.6
May 6-10 35.4
May 12-17 30.2
So there has been a simultaneous drop in both wind and solar. So much for one covering the other.
30
Graeme No.3,
I know it’s off topic, and the others are still discussing the main topics up the list of Comments here, but this is of real importance.
The average for Wind during the period of time AEMO calls the Peak period (7AM to 10PM) was 32MW, from a Nameplate Total of 1223MW from 15 Wind Plants, for around 560 huge towers.
That average power delivery of 32MW means that for all those 560 towers, barely 16 of them were turning at any one time throughout those 16 hours of Peak power requirement.
Consider that the power retailers were having to purchase their power for that equivalent wholesale cost of 47 cents per KWH, and then they could only sell that power at retail for around 30 cents per KWH.
Do not ever tell me wind power is cheap. Cheap on specially constructed and manipulated costing models but horrendously expensive in actuality. Some might say that hey this isn’t wind power they’re purchasing because there isn’t any, but the lack of wind is the direct cause of power being so expensive. Even so, go to that same AEMO chart and pick any day and compare the costs. S.A. is still (far and away) the highest costing power in Australia.
This is what we should be pointing to when wind supporters claim their power is so cheap.
And CharlesG further up this Comment list at #44, I hope you are still around to take notice of this.
Tony.
40
But Tony,
think how much emissions are “saved” by using brown coal fired power to help out the wind farms,
(sarc off if that is necessary)
Only slightly more emissions that way than from a black coal fired station (old style) and it increases the cost ONLY 60%.
Still, our Premier favours building a big new wind farm on Yorke Peninsular. There is no actual proof that he was repeatedly dropped on his head while a child, but one wonders.
30
What ever happened to “the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth”? It seems that these days, if something, even one thing, in a long rambling, incoherent word salad is true, the speaker told “the truth.”
It should be well known that if many someones say many things about even more topics, sometime someone will say something that actually is true. I propose a truth coefficient that would be something like “the number of words that represent the truth” divided by “the total number of works spoken/written”.
The closer the truth coefficient is to one, the more credibility the speaker/author has attained. The closer the truth coefficient is to zero, the more the speaker/author is a fraud. Any ratio significantly less than one and significantly greater than zero is generally a mixture of BS, lies, and accidental truths. The accidental truths don’t count.
20
Except when people are blinded by emotion, which is typically the case in controversial matters. Also “truth” is often not the point. Power is.
01
Niff @ May 17, 2013 at 11:37 am
…. Why do we have to only read thoughtful rebuttal on sites likes Jo’s? Why isn’t Jo’s article taken up by the MSM. THIS is a question I’d really like to understand. Just having a prepondernance of leftie-pinko etc. etc. just doesn’t seem to be enough?….
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
It is simple, the printing presses are OWNED by the banks and the bankers/financiers want a carbon tax and all the subsidy money going to wind mills, solar panels, smart meters….
It is a brand new industry and new industries are where lots of money is made espcially when purchase of the new equipment is mandated by law and subsidized by tax money.
Hear that loud sucking sound? That is all the wealth being vacuumed up by the financiers/bankers.
SEE: http://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2012/12/24/martin-cohen-new-york-times-has-vested-interest-in-climate-alarmism/#more-10301
30
THE EFFECTS PRODUCED BY CLIMATE ON THE DIFFERENT FORMS OF GOVERNMENT.
The Sydney Herald, thursday 2 April 1835
http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/12851824?
“……..When South America was first discovered by the Europeans, the hereditary tyranny of their kings was regularly organized ; and the whole adherents of royalty were luxuriantly supported by taxes laid on the people.
What a contrast was the situation of the Indians in North America. Free as air, under no control but that authorized by themselves ; their chiefs all elective, and hunting and providing for themselves after they became chiefs, as there was no taxation or revenue to keep them.
But in North America, the presence of a winter, more or less long, placed many difficulties in the way of procuring a surplus produce necessary to maintain hereditary chiefs or kings, while at the same time the winter rendered foresight and reflection necessary, to provide for the time that the earth did not produce ;
whereas the climate of South America, a perpetual summer, rendered the production of the necessary surplus easy, and obtained with little labour, and therefore given with equal facility by the thoughtless inhabitants to their rulers; which enabled them to hire troops and embody crowds of servants to keep the mass of the people in subjection, and establish tyranny, by making it the interest of a part to domineer over the whole…………”
30
Why do we consider false information, why not seek the truth, politics aside, greed aside?
We share a planet. We need the truth.
30
But it is clear to me that the truth never comes from the left side of politics and mostly comes from the right side, extreme left and right never so, left forget and provide them with no oxygen
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Left and Right don’t understand the same thing by ‘truth’.
To the Left truth is relative and so inconstant & changing.
Anything with such an unsound basis it can be tempting to try changing.
Their truth is what they believe, or what they can be duped or coerced into believing.
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It is worse than you think. By Post Modern Philosophy, there is no such thing as a knowable truth because you can’t know it without senses, mental processes, or logical thought. This is Kant’s “pure reason”. Hence the only kind of truth you can really know, is that produced in the mind without contact with reality – ie. a priori truths.
Then there is the notion that social truths exsit that can be known by public polls. That this requires contact with the reality of other people’s minds as well as their responses to the polls and the questions asked by the polls, presents a contradiction they don’t allow themselves to consider.
Since, they have already concluded that they can’t know anything about reality, they cannot know that contradictions cannot exist in reality. Unfortunately, it is quite easy to hold multiple contradictory ideas and assumptions at a time in their minds. Hence, they are quite comfortable working with contradictions and other such absurdities.
Now if this isn’t bad enough, it gets worse. The words used to express their internally confused miasma refer only to that internally confused miasma as it was at the time they expressed the words. If that miasma changes by chance or by reference to significant others, then all words they ever uttered change their meaning as well as the words they currently utter (this is 4D equivocation). Attempting to get a clear, objective, and consistent meaning out of their words is like trying to grab a particular particle of smoke in a wind driven forest fire using a burning butterfly net.
You say “all of that is insanity”. Yes I agree. Yet, that is the world they want us to live in by force of the government gun. Their hope is that we do what we do by magic and that we can be coerced to deliver to their whims by that magic. If we don’t, it is because we are uncooperative and deniers rather than that it is their wishes and methods to achieve their wishes being stark raving mad beyond all madness.
Can there be a meeting of minds, a middle ground, or a third way with such ilk? No. Any compromise is deadly because it eliminates any contact with reality with regard to that compromise. It is either them or us. If not us, then sooner rather than later it will be not them. The interesting thing is THAT is and always has been their goal: not us, not them, not anyone nor anything.
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I think I follow you Roy. Getting us to accept that reality is unknowable is just softening us up , to accept anything.
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A fellow philosophy major, I presume!!!
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Philosophy is simply one of the many disciplines I have studied outside of the academic environment. As an undergrad student it was Physics, Chemistry, and Math. As a grad student it was Physiology and Pharmacology. As a professional I have been variously a Biomedical Engineer and a Software Engineer. A correct and clear philosophy forms a very necessary foundation for all of the above.
I found academic Philosophy mostly a waste of time and effort. That you didn’t come close to using the concept Ad Hominem correctly indicates it was a waste of time and effort for you as well. Perhaps it was not Philosophy you studied, it was more likely Sophistry and its associated disciplines.
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I will agree that academic philosophy is mostly a waste of time and effort. The only useful part was logic–learning to formulate a clear, valid argument and to recognize the absence of such an argument. Beyond that, it was a fun exercise to sit in the dorm hallways at 3 am coming up with all kinds of ethical and religious questions but realizing there was no real value in the exercise. For the most part, philosophy only asks questions, it does not answer them. (By the way, it’s also interesting for a short period to play with the idea that reality is unknowable. If it is, we are wasting our time here. AGW is just a figment of our current “reality”.)
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It is the Postmodern Plato/Kant non objective forms of academic philosophy that are totally worthless. Just take them at their word, for they assert they know that knowledge is impossible to acquire and thus require you to investigate all the ways it is impossible to do, receive a salary for doing it, and give out grades to those who know the greatest number of ways they cannot know. If this sounds absurd, it is because it is absurd.
Now I suggest you not question something that is clearly absurd. Simply identify what the absurdity accomplishes. You will then know why it exists. What the academic philosophy accomplishes is the destruction of the ability to know and ultimately causes the destruction of human life. You need no more than that, to understand why almost the entire cadre of academia, media, government, and wannabe dictators are so enamored of the absurdity: enslavement and eventual extinction of the masses.
However, acquiring knowledge about reality is quite possible. Note we are not living in caves eating rotten flesh stolen from a sleeping lion. Neither are we totally unprotected from weather. Even knowing that a cave is better than living under a tree consists of a vast amount of acquired knowledge about what is. Every step of the way from a naked ape to the existing modern civilization REQUIRED the acquisition of reliable knowledge of reality and its application. Hence it is possible to acquire knowledge from reality. The real question is how to acquire it in the most effective and reliable way?
That method can and has been answered but not by academic philosophers nor their exact counterparts: the religious priesthood who teach that one must live by faith and that only they know the one true way. What is it? The best they can come up with is “somehow” (aka god did it). That is not good enough for us to stay alive let alone to thrive.
The bottom line is that you cannot avoid having an living according to a philosophy. The issue is, did you choose it and validate it yourself, or did you simply absorb it without question from those around you who did exactly the same thing?
I chose mine and validated and extended it. I did have some help. Aristotle for one. A long line of pioneer scientists for another. Then a very small number of independent clear thinking individuals in the 19th and 20th century. Yet, with all that help, I had to do the heavy lifting intellectual work for myself.
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Interesting revisiting this Lionell, as a recent post on WUWT just brought me back here. I’m just completing a short course in Philosophy btw. Quite an eye opener, and particularly in light of your comments here. It does indeed appear to be mostly self-indulgent clap trap. And no mention of the only really useful Philosophy , that I picked up from LM btw. who is such a fan of Aristotle’s Sophistical Refutations.
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Note that Cook is spreading his message via The Conversation …
https://theconversation.com/its-true-97-of-research-papers-say-climate-change-is-happening-14051?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Latest+from+The+Conversation+for+17+May+2013&utm_content=Latest+from+The+Conversation+for+17+May+2013+CID_12ac64e3cf1067c9c5dc806ffc729c49&utm_source=campaign_monitor&utm_term=Its%20true%2097%20of%20research%20papers%20say%20climate%20change%20is%20happening
I think his new website, The Consensus Project – http://www.theconsensusproject.com/ – is as low as Australia’s academia can sink in this AGW debate. What a headline … THE DEBATE IS OVER.
The Consensus Project partly explains its Mission by highlighting the outrageous fact that “34% of US media coverage gives sceptics a voice”, which “gives the very small number of sceptics a disproportionate amount of media attention”. That very small number apparently is the 55% of the public “who think the science is unsettled or don’t know” – aka sceptics who as a result are “confused and misinformed”.
The 34% US media coverage cites a 2007-10 paper (http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/7/4/044005/pdf/1748-9326_7_4_044005.pdf) that found in the six countries surveyed, a whopping 12% of media articles during 2009/10 contained “a sceptical voice”.
Wow, a tide of objective media at 12%.
Cook presumably doesn’t accept that “the very small” 55% of people who are sceptical might have done their research and concluded that the science most definitely isn’t settled. The surveys actually show that only 30-40% of people are dubious about AGW but that’s about the proportion who have the skills or bother to research instead of watching MSM for their scientific knowledge.
A search for “climate change” at The Conversation comes up with 94 articles published since 2011, none of them containing sceptical views or data. The Conversation topic link points to 486 “climate change” items, none containing sceptical views, and 63 “climate change scepticism” items, all dismantling sceptics.
The Consensus Project states its mission is “to communicate the overwhelming scientific agreement on anthropogenic (human-caused) global warming to the public at large”, but its targeting of 12%/34% sceptical media content suggests its Final Solution is 0% media reporting of sceptical news, fact or opinion.
There’s a line in the project’s FAQ philosophical section that uses a quote to answer whether science is decided by evidence … “Science isn’t a democracy. It’s a dictatorship. Evidence does the dictating.” I fully understand the noble ideal but on a website declaring THE DEBATE IS OVER – i.e. ignore or silence contradictory evidence – I think The Consensus Project can shove its philosophy.
Australia’s vanguard academic website only publishes posts supporting AGW such as the latest by Cook, who in turn has a project that aims to let everyone know a claimed 97% of scientists support AGW, apparently so that the media reduces or stops all reporting that doesn’t support AGW. Something’s not right in our universities.
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So when can we get “The Consensus Project–NOT” website going?
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Looking at those Pie Charts, doesn’t it make you wonder which group is the smarter ?
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Eddie,
I don’t think it’s a matter of who is the smarter. The question is, who is the wiser?
A lot of those in the warmist camp are smart. They simply don’t have or don’t want to have the critical thinking ability that should go along with being smart. And it gets worse when they get caught up in a “cause” that will let them feel important.
Bottom line — the human brain is both our best friend and our worst enemy.
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To be fair to the overwhelming majority of Climate Scientists, they are smart enough to know what side their bread is buttered, but the rest of us are wise enough not to be entirely taken in by their appeals noble cause, though they don’t seem wise enough to understand it.
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That’s about it!
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[…] Australian science reporter Jo Nova has some other choice comments in her post, “Cook’s fallacy ‘97% consensus’ study is a marketing ploy some journalists will fall for.” […]
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[…] Australian science reporter Jo Nova has some other choice comments in her post, “Cook’s fallacy ‘97% consensus’ study is a marketing ploy some journalists will fall for.” […]
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[…] Australian science reporter Jo Nova has some other choice comments in her post, “Cook’s fallacy ‘97% consensus’ study is a marketing ploy some journalists will fall for.” […]
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Pierre Gosselin reports at NoTricksZone that Germany’s Spiegel magazine also finds Cook’s 97% to be a dubious value … the magazine indeed points back to prior research by direct (anonymous) survey of German climate researchers by Senja Post.
If the (misplaced) faith in models is already weak with less than 20% of climate researchers believing that there are sufficient empicrical and theoretical bases to allow modelling; an attribution of CO2 as the cause of AGW isn’t logical. The Arrhenius/Callendar/Keeling hypothesis of anthroprogenic CO2 emissions leading to global warming finds its only “support” in those models. Models aren’t the real world. They only portray the outcomes of the calculations and assumptions included by their authors and as such, only give a picture to what is in the minds of those people.
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The only true consensus on climate change is the one in which scientists commit in writing that they either agree or disagree with AGW orthodoxy
The only document in which accredited scientists put their name to a statement that: “The 2007 IPCC report, compiled by several hundred climate scientists, has unequivocally concluded that our climate is warming rapidly, and that we are now at least 90% certain that this is mostly due to human activities.” was the 2007 Bali Declaration by scientists signed by just 212 of the 10,000 delegates which is only a 2.12% consensus of those in attendance.
http://www.climate.unsw.edu.au/news/2007/Bali.html
By contrast 31,487 accredited scientists signed the Oregon petition stating that: “There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gasses is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth’s atmosphere and disruption of the Earth’s climate.”
http://www.petitionproject.org/
From the total of 31,699 only 212 signed the Bali Declaration and them 31,487 signed the Oregon petition which is a 99.33% rejection of AGW dogma by accredited scientists rendering the 97% claimed consensus nothing more than an attempt to obfuscate what scientific data actually shows
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[…] http://joannenova.com.au/2013/05/cooks-fallacy-97-consensus-study-is-a-marketing-ploy-some-journalis… […]
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And yet another marketing ploy:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/toddessig/2013/05/19/will-angelina-jolie-help-end-climate-change-denial-and-help-the-republican-party/
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It could just as easily be argued:
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[…] Cook study. Australian researcher/blogger Jo Nova, as usual, provides a very incisive column, “The twelve clues that good science journalists ought to notice,” that fairly eviscerates Cook — and the media mavens who unquestioningly accepted his deceptive […]
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97% Study Falsely Classifies Scientists’ Papers, according to the scientists that published them
The paper, Cook et al. (2013) ‘Quantifying the consensus on anthropogenic global warming in the scientific literature’ searched the Web of Science for the phrases “global warming” and “global climate change” then categorizing these results to their alleged level of endorsement of AGW. These results were then used to allege a 97% consensus on human-caused global warming.
To get to the truth, I emailed a sample of scientists who’s papers were used in the study and asked them if the categorization by Cook et al. (2013) is an accurate representation of their paper. Their responses are eye opening and evidence that the Cook et al. (2013) team falsely classified scientists’ papers as “endorsing AGW”, apparently believing to know more about the papers than their authors.
“It would be incorrect to claim that our paper was an endorsement of CO2-induced global warming.” – Craig D. Idso
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Wow! Great find!!
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[…] JO NOVA Cook’s fallacy “97% consensus” study is a marketing ploy some journalists will fall for May 17th, 2013 http://joannenova.com.au/2013/05/cooks-fallacy-97-consensus-study-is-a-marketing-ploy-some-journalis… […]
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[…] analogy shows. John Cook’s latest paper promoting the ‘consensus’ has been critiqued by Jo, Watts, some German guys and by Lucia. Lucia and Brandon Schollenberger analyse Cook’s […]
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Did Cook’s study claim that the 97% consensus proved the claims about climate change being human induced, or simply that there was overwhelming consensus on the issue, proving only that most studies are in agreement? There is a big difference.
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His study said that 97% of papers that took a position on AGW agreed it was real. There is no mention of the actual theory being accurate or not, only that the scientists whose papers took a position overwhelmingly agreed.
There does not seem to be mention of that proving anything–he knows most people will just think that if the scientists agree, it must be true. Of course, this only works on people with little understanding of science (there was a study on that) and who are easily swayed by authority figures. Also, the inference is clear–you dare not question the scientists or you are a bad person, very bad person. It’s all about psyching out your audience to get them to agree with your position.
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Just in case you missed this, here is a marketing campaign to sell you down the river. (You may have to save the PDF to your desktop and open it with Adobe Reader.)
Futerra. “Rules Of The Game.” Marketing. Futerra, October 14, 2005. http://www.futerra.co.uk/downloads/RulesOfTheGame.pdf
“Why were the principles created?
The game is communicating climate change; the rules will help us win it.
These principles were created as part of the UK Climate Change Communications Strategy, an evidence-based strategy aiming to change public attitudes towards climate change in the UK. This is a ‘short version’ of a far longer document of evidence that can be found at http://www.defra.gov.uk. (Now missing)
There is plenty of evidence relating to attitudes towards and behaviour on climate change, general environmental behaviour change and the whole issue of sustainable development communication. As we reviewed the research for these principles, one ‘überprinciple’ emerged:
‘Changing attitudes towards climate change is not like selling a particular brand of soap – it’s like convincing someone to use soap in the first place.’”
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Good analysis Jo, and you could extend the view on skeptical papers to even be included in the 97% endorsing, like:
At least Svensmark agree that AGW exists, just isn’t the major cause, so some of his papers would be among the “endorsing” ones. I think also a lot of those just agree the same way, there is a sertain global warming caused by humans, without stating how much. Maybe most of them.
Another important fact, that may have made a lot of endorsers to change their minds, is that the date of included abstracts ends 2011, while the fact that warming stopped before 2000 hasn’t been official, like UK Met Office Admitted recently.
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[…] To debunk the latest “97% of Scientists…” claim, see this. […]
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[…] Beat, batter and torture whatever data you get until it fits said phrase; […]
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[…] Australian science reporter Jo Nova has some other choice comments in her post, “Cook’s fallacy ‘97% consensus’ study is a marketing ploy some journalists will fall for.” […]
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It is so funny, all you need to refute this article is a little common sense. First, their is no industry that is harmed by AGW research than the oil and gas industry and they have more than enough money to fund this research. Yet, the author would have you believe that the reason that the overwhelming research is in favor of AGW is that the funding opposing AGW isn’t there!! Really? Also, if thousands of scientists are selling their integrity? If their integrity was for sale, it would go to the highest bidders, and I imagine the petro companies could easily outbid the issuers of grants. Or at least hold their own, not be losing 97%- 3%. Second, ice cores are definitive, long-term, undeniable proof that over the last 500,000 the CO2 levels have been relatively constant. Yet, you would have me believe that the exponential increase in CO2 emissions in the last 100 years is a natural phenomenon? Really?
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Bill, Big-Government has poured in 3500 times as much as Exxon. Shell Oil are lobbying for carbon trading because they profit from carbon capture. Renewables investment was a $250 b industry, carbon trading is $176b. HEartland is the largest most well funded skeptical organisation. It gets around $6m. Amazing what a bunch of volunteers and dedicated writers can achieve eh?
And the ice cores definitively show that carbon follows temperature some 800 years later.
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UPDATE:- The real truth behind the originally contrived 97% Consensus claim by Doran & Zimmerman is exposed by David Burton doing some digging, over at WattsUp… .
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(& wadaya know! I just got Comment Nr. 97 btw. How spooky is that ?)
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[…] use the terms and would so be excluded. It is NOT a scientific claim. Joanne Nova does an excellent tear down. Previous claims that echo similar claims are debunked elsewhere. The number itself should be an […]
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[…] Australian science reporter Jo Nova has some other choice comments in her post, “Cook’s fallacy ‘97% consensus’ study is a marketing ploy some journalists will fall for.” […]
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[…] I’ve also pointed out the 12 reasons the paper fails, including that the number of papers is merely a proxy for funding, not evidence about the climate; […]
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[…] who you ask and the conclusions you draw from their answers. And even then you end up with a consensus only on the most trivial […]
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