Remember the Republican "war on science"? The Bush Administration was repeatedly accused of manipulating and suppressing scientific conclusions for scientific gain. While I thought this was politics as usual, others believed this was a concerted attack on scientific inquiry -- a "war on science." (See this chain of posts.) The Obama Administration has expressed concern about science politicization, but it is has been difficult to stop.
Two widely cited examples of this alleged war were revisions made to a government climate report by a former industry lobbyist and a NASA official's ham-handed efforts to prevent noted climate scientist James Hansen, a NASA employee, from commenting publicly on climate change policy. Could the Obama Administration be guilty of equivalent science politicization? Perhaps. Two weeks ago, Roger Pielke Jr. marshaled evidence that a government contractor with substantial industry ties may have been responsible for misrepresenting the relevant peer-reviewed scientific literature in an important government report on climate change. This past week, the EPA was accused of suppressing an agency's employee's comments on the EPA's proposed greenhouse gas "endangerment finding" (the official finding that greenhouse gas emissions may threaten public health and welfare). Here again, Pielke finds the parallel with the Bush Administration's conduct instructive.
And we should not be too quick to let Congress off the hook either. A key component of the last-minute compromise that enabled passage of the Waxman-Markey bill was the transfer of authority to evaluate carbon offsets from the EPA to the Department of Agriculture. Why was this done? Because farm-state Representatives believe the USDA is more likely to reach farmer-friendly conclusions than the EPA. As is so often the case in politics, it's more important to reach the "right" answer than for the answer to be right.
Thank you for allowing comments.
What exactly is your position re what took place`during the Bush years? Is this one of those Bush was accused of it but didn't do it but Obama is bad because he actually is doing it posts? Please clarify.
As for evolution, it's an easy way to score points with the base, but it doesn't offer substantive support to the primary charge from the left: that republicans used government to attack or suppress scientific inquiry. Other than a few local school boards, there is no case that the government was brought to bear to attack evolution. These are really two separate issues.
The next, step, as currently before the UN, is for that tax ( or one added on top of it ) to be payed directly to the UN in the name of 'energy fairness'.
'Global Warming' is a complete hoax, from top to bottom.
And government's attempt to make us believe that 'it can be fixed or ameliorated' by paying them more money is nothing but pure snake-oil.
Not sure why we've moved to having the Department of Agriculture be responsible for the regulation of this extremely dangerous pollutant CO2, rather than, you know, the Environmental Protection Agency, but that appears to be what the recent circus has brought on.
Must not be that dangerous of a pollutant, eh?
Or more likely, this is all just a game, for show, and isn't going anywhere.
There is no shame in Washington. None.
The criticism of the Bush Administration's handling of James Hansen (which I also criticized in print) was not that Hansen's policy pronouncements were correct, but that it was inappropriate to prevent him from sharing his views publicly. Similarly, the substance of Alan Carlin's report is irrelevant. If RealClimate is correct (and I will assume they are for the sake of argument), the proper course would have been for the EPA to allow Carlin's comments and to refute them, but that's not what they did.
JK --
I certainly agree that politicians who attack evolution or promote so-called "intelligent design" are anti-science. George Deutsch, the Bush appointee who soughtto muzzle James Hansen, also sought to edit references to the Big Bang on NASA's website so as not to conflict with "ID" and anti-evolution fundamentalism.
Psalm91 --
This is one of those posts that reinforces an argument I've made before that politically motivated science abuse is something that politicians do. As my prior posts linked above indicate, some of the accusations against the Bush Administration were valid, others not. By the same token, Democrats and those on the left have been guilty of science politicization as well.
Donny --
Bald assertion sans argument is the lazy commenter's favorite tool.
JHA
Well, yeah, and Holocaust Denial has few, if any, policy consequences either.
The teaching of evolution itself is pretty damn important in a world which, you know, has that as a fundamental operating principle.
I disagree, because it is not merely an attack on evolution, but an attack on the scientific method.
Creationism is not merely "another theory" to be taught alongside evolution; it is based on assertions that are untestable and unverifiable.
If you really want to point at the 'politicization of science' by this administration I'd look more at nuclear energy, ethanol and other alternative energy expectations, the comments and statements of Chu and Holdren and other issues. And I would suggest not to fall into the diatribes that Mooney made so popular that are really more apt for a thinkprogress or redstate than a more neutral arbiter.
Nominated for thread winner.
A significant change in temperature trend in an 11 year time scale easily falls into potentially being due to natural variability.
or not! Which rather makes the strong point that that there is nothing inevitable about global warming as the alarmists and Obama would have us believe
Yes, they are.
CO2 levels are rising, and temps are falling, it seems. People see this, and the political climate is becoming worse, and thus the need for the congresscritters to ram through this bill, while the gettin' was good.
I think most scientists agree that there's a chance that the decade or so period where we've seen temperature anomaly stay relatively static could be due to a leveling off trend; However most don't think the likelihood of that being true is particularly high considering the short time scale you're talking about. Even a glance at some of the graphs in that telegraph piece would suggest even a general warming trend can have short term variability which causes movement in the opposite direction. It's akin to looking at the direction of intraday trading in a major index of the stock market to gauge how the market will move over the long term.
Well, speaking of graphs, the problem for the gorebots is that, for years, the've been hysterically waving around that original ridiculous ICC curve, the one with the kerf showing us about to launch into Hades temperatures.
I think they're being hung on their own kerf, here, and it's pretty comical.
Temperatures have been falling for the past 11 years in the same sense that the U.S. stock market has been falling for the past 11 years. You have to look at longer-term trends. See this for instance. If you look at the trend from before 1979, it is even more pronounced.
I'd like to read some of your comments about Dr. Hansen and the way the Bush Administration handled him. Hansen has been quite vocal in recent years and very much an alarmist. I think that his actions have been inappropriate for a civil servant.
Dr. Hansen is a civil servant; so am I. Civil servants give up some of their freedom to speak out on issues. I would be fired if I took part in pseudo-political activities the way that Dr. Hansen does. I think it is inappropriate for him to try and influence political policy while claiming the protections of his civil servant position.
I have read that one of Sen. Inhofe's 700 scientists [!] against Global Warming is a creationist college dropout TV weatherman who says God wouldn't let civilization be harmed. If this is what is meant by the GOP's grasp of science, I wonder what ignorance looks like.
Isn't there some point at which one is entitled to ignore silliness?
Yes, there is, and I believe the American public is about ready to claim that entitlement.
It's interesting to note that polar bears survived the "Medieval Climactic Optimum" quite well. And read about the prevalence of malaria, yellow fever, cholera, and other "tropical" diseases in Boston, New York, Philadelphia in the 19th century--when average temperatures were much less than they are now--to see what malarkey the global warming nuts are peddling about epidemiology.
But I'm getting tired of pointing this stuff out to cardinals who don't want to look through the telescope.
So one of these 700 lacks credentials. If we apply the same argument to those who support the theory of man-made global warming they should all be dismissed because that idiot, Al Gore, is on their side.
- Short scale variability is a significant issue for both sides regardless of whether its a hockey stick like spike in temperatures or the appearance of a leveling off.
- Hansen is becoming more of a fringe political figure at this point. However, his scientific credentials and research are unimpeachable.
See Ricardo'a post at 9:27 PM. Follow the link, and then read the comments, like this one
"I am trying to keep an open mind on this but it’s tough. I am a chemist, not a meteorologist. But I can not help but be skeptical when organizations whose funding and very existance hinges on climate change “correct” the data set that does not support their agenda." referring to changes in calculating satellite data when the initial data did not agree with GW.
The same chemist cites a link which suggests a linkage between recorded higher temperatures and a sudden drop in the number of recording stations.
I'd also cite a WSJ op-ed piece by Kimberly Starssel HERE.
Mocking some (hopefully) small number of global warming non-believers who might be whackos does not automatically grant widespread scientific acceptance of global warming theory. At least in the U. S., I think that such acceptance is more of a political fact of life than an indisputable scientific reality. (although I must admit that many who maintain an open mind on the issue are quick to point out that Global Warming's most well-known spokesman is the same guy who invented the Internet. The Right has no monopoly on Weird.)
That's going to be the epitaph for this Congress.
Except English wine production is presently at a state more productive than any time in recorded history.
In a survey dated 1087 there was a maximum (counting unsourced claims) of 52 Vinyards in England. Winemaking never completely died out, but there was a resurgence in the 70's, to 124 Vinyards, since then another 200 have been built.
What does this tell us? well 1, if you like english wine, maybe warmer temperatures aren't all that bad. It also doesn't necessarily tell us it is warmer than it was during the medieval warm period, But it definitely does tell us that any claim using grape cultivation as a proxy for temperator shows it's at least as warm (grapes grew than, grapes grow now) as it was then.
Same argument that was discredited in response o the first quote, but if you want more.
"The idea of a global or hemispheric "Medieval Warm Period" that was warmer than today however, has turned out to be incorrect." - NOAA
This is just plain false. There is a very remarkable correlation between Co2 levels and temperatures in the historical record. And analysts generally agree that although feedback loops do make the correlation tight time wise, that Co2 does in fact lead and not lag.
"quite well?" I assume you have more evidence for this than simply saying that polar bears are also alive today?
Which is exactly what skeptics have been saying every time an AGW alarmist points to a particular event and says "that was caused by man made global warming."
However, that 11 year trend does in fact invalidate the climate models used by the IPCC, in that they do not forecast such a trend and in fact forecast a significant rise.
His research is most certainly NOT unimpeachable. See one of many examples.
I don't think that substantively alters any of Ben P's post though it may give the end of the graph a bit of a bump at the end.
Saying Hansen's climate pedigree and research is unimpeachable doesn't mean that he may not be wrong in some papers (though I need to look at that post to see whether that is the case here) but rather that he's clearly an expert who typically posts important and relevant papers in the field.
I don't know that the 11 year trend invalidates any of the models you're taking about. There's a miniscule chance that there's some enormous systemic error in the models and youre right but more than likely some of the models have to adjust certain assumptions to account for the variability. Other models probably aren't even that effected by such short scale variability. It'd be helpful to know which specific models you think it invalidates.
I don't disagree that politicizing short term temperature spikes is also a problem.
I take it you don't want to press any further on your argument that the fact that there was a temperature spike in 1998 disproves global warming. I don't blame you.
Now, about the past 1000 years, what primary data source are you using to make your claims? Other people who have responded to you have paid you the courtesy of citing and linking the data they rely on.
@Pro Natura
AFAICT, the graph I linked to is some of Dr. Hansen's raw data. It isn't part of a hockey stick "model"; it's raw data.
The controversy regarding the "hockey stick" feature (it wasn't a model) was due to a claim that it was a feature of the reconstruction method independently of the raw data (and hence the historical record). Specifically, it was claimed that feeding the reconstruction method simulated raw data which should not have indicated warming (chosen at random) also led to a "hockey stick" feature in the temperature plot.
The chart you linked to is not raw data either, however. It is quite possible that the "raw data" underlying this chart are actual temperature measurements. However, this raw data is not very different from tree rings -- a theoretical model is still required to derive an "average global temperature" from this data. Here are two effects you need to account for:
1. Calibration: do you know what the temperature numbers from 1930 mean? Were the measurements done at the hottest time of day? At a fixed time of day? Did the time of day depend on the season? How accurate were the thermometers then? Did they have biases?
2. Averaging: the thermometers used were probably not distributed uniformly either in space (over the globe) or in time. Thus to give an "average global temperature" for a particular time period requires a model relating the known information (results at the space-time points where measurements were taken) to the desired information (average temperature over the whole globe).
That's also not a great graph to make the point Andrew or Krugman want to make. Because its normalized to the 1951-80 avg it makes it look like an exponential increase which overemphasizes the shorter period at the end (and the end of the graph is plateauing a bit as we add the next couple years). The claim of 'short term variability' would look pretty possible with respect to the graph. The raw temperature anomaly is more helpful in seeing the long term trend GISS Graph though not as convincing as the reconstruction based graphs which map the temp increase since the little ice age.
Fundie!
Try something along these lines.
A brief overview of the methodology behind the data is here.
Read the whole thing: they explain exactly what I was referring to in my answer to Andrew. The "raw data" is indeed temperature measurements, but non-trivial analysis is required to get to the temperature reconstruction. The quotes are about the model relating the local measurements to the global temperature. There is also discussion of dealing with biases in the raw data — for example, they adjust the raw data from stations located in urban areas to account for the "heat island" effect.
Secondly, the fact is, only a very few people actually understand anything about the functioning of the climatalogical models. I have a graduate degree in Earth and Planetary Science (different subfield) and I admit I have not more than the vaguest notion as to how those models work. The best we the general public and the government can do is accept the scientific consensus on such matters. Yes, the scientific consensus is sometimes wrong- but usually not, and it is ludicrous to think that the either the general public or the government can reasonably assess the quality of the science. So, all we can do is accept what the vast majority of trained scientists are telling us- keeping in mind that there is always a chance they are wrong.
Actually, it isn't.
Venus's surface pressure is roughly 90 times that of Earth.
Check the temperature of Venus's atmosphere at the 1000mb level -- the same pressure as at sea level here on Earth.
At that pressure altitude, Venus's temperature is around 100 degs F. And Venus is a lot closer to the sun.
First paragraph: right on.
Second: the road to Theocracy.
The first: the Dr. Jekyll of your conservative mindset
The second: the Mr. Hyde
If you are going to lecture about what we should accept, perhaps you should review at least a bit of the science:
E.g., Eldrett, J.S., Greenwood, D.R., Harding, I.C., and Humber, M., Increased seasonality through the Eocene to Oligocene transition in northern high latitudes. Nature 2009; 459:969-973. Editor's summary here. Nutshell: Using fossil evidence from a Shell Exploration drilling site, a change in CO2 from >1000ppmv to ~560ppmv resulted in cooling of only about 5 deg C. In other words, the Earth had far higher CO2 levels in the past, and far larger changes than are attributable to man by GW advocates caused a smaller change than many GW models predict.
For problems with climatic models that that even an undergraduate engineering student could understand, see Amy Bower, A.S., Lozier, M.S., Gary, S.F., and Boning, C.W., Interior pathways of the North Atlantic meridional overturning circulation, 2009 Nature, 243-47. Editors summary here. Nutshell: Atlantic heat flows are significantly different that previously believed. In other words, scientists don't have even a basic grasp of major oceanic heat flows.
Desiderius responded: the road to Theocracy
I disagree with both. It is an oversimplification to say that lay people cannot understand the scientific consensus. There are enough articulate scientists and enough competent science journalists (well maybe we could use more of these) for average people, if they have the desire, to attain a basic and reasonable grasp of the science.
And, Desiderius, you exaggerate, as usual. :^)
Yes, it was a silly phrase used by ignorant leftists in a futile attempt to score cheap political points.
Um, and then what?
Note that you can't refute a single thing the 700 scientist are saying, you're just making irrelevant personal attacks.
And there is a reason for that...
The problem is, there is no "consensus" and there never was on this issue.
Ever.
Further, I remember people like you accepting the "scientific consensus" that being a homosexual was a mental disorder.
And more will blocked from ever entering the earth system, meaning that an energy balance analysis is required, not just a simple statement of fact defining one side of the balance.
hs, best to remove the "concensus" descriptor from your discussion. That sorta thinking is what's driving the alarmists' recent freefall, if you notice. The hubris of a self-chosen cleresy will always tend to bring this on.
After reviewing the scientific literature that the EPA is relying on, Carlin said, he concluded that it was at least three years out of date and did not reflect the latest research. "My personal view is that there is not currently any reason to regulate (carbon dioxide)," he said. "There may be in the future. But global temperatures are roughly where they were in the mid-20th century. They're not going up, and if anything they're going down."
</blockquote>
This was the clown the EPA "suppressed"? That wasn't a suppression - it was a mercy censorship. Carlin doesn't even get that anyone with half a brain can plot a trend line through the wavy noise and draw the obvious conclusion about anyone who can't. He could at least have admitted the warming trend's existence and exhibited a slightly more subtle and obfuscatory brand of denial by disputing anthropogenesis. If I was a lobbyist for a coal company, I wouldn't touch this pathetic simpleton with a barge pole.
Unfortunately, your wise caveats above are not under consideration. It is being proposed that we make profound structural adjustments to our entire ecomony, with little knowledge of those pesky unintended consequences that seem to always derail the best intentions of men. And this based on an extremely hubristic belief that we already understand all we need to know about how "climate" really works.
What if we really are just on the cusp of a turning point where the climate may turn much cooler all by itself, and our efforts magnify those effects? A lot more people will die if there is suddenly a major reduction in the area available for farming than if the frozen wastelands of Alaska, the Yukon, Greenland and Siberia become breadbaskets, no?
And, if we don't find alternate sources of energy first, there is also a strong chance of economic disaster on an unheard of scale if we try to go to solar and wind power, which so far have proven totally inadequate, without even a transition plan in place. Note that the same people advocating these massive disruptions in the present structure are also the same ones preventing us from using nuclear, hydroelectric, natural gas, coal and our own oil resources during that transition.
This is insanity, and does not even consider what happens if indeed, all those trained scientists are wrong.
Clearly you didn't use enough hyperbole and name calling in your post.
Try again.
Or not,
And of course he is 100% correct.
it comes from 699 possible scientists and one ignoramus
As opposed to you, silly Internet commenter...
No, your comments are actually silly.
Until there is an alternative supply of abundant sources for energy on par with petroleum, human involvement via the state into the economic engines of prosperity seems unwise.
@AlanDownunder
The guy's report is being pretty widely acknowledged (even on skeptics sites) as being based on pretty poor science so I wonder why the EPA did suppress it. Anyone familiar with this debate knows there's no such thing as mercy that would be at play here. The EPA report could have just easily rebutted Carlin's addition or let it stand as a ridiculous counterpoint/criticism and have tagged it as the wacky dissenter.
If you look at the trend from 8:00am to 3:00pm it certainly points to everyone and everything bursting into flames by the end of next month. Drawing climate conclusions from a 30 year window has just about the same validity.
Until it warms enough to resume agriculture in Greenland, we are still in the natural cycle.
Adjusting the data can make a trend appear as well.
Heresy.
The reeducation camps will complete construction shortly, and you my friend will be included with the first batch of inductees.
Let's see what 18 hour days spent memorizing and reciting ICC reports does for you.
Given the strength of the countervailing forces (you know, those 3 billion who haven't gotten their industrial revolution yet, for starters), forging that consensus will require a reboot from present practice. Step one would seem to be acquiring a more accurate picture of the motives of those involved in the debate. Assuming that climate skeptics have a hard-on for frying the earth ASAP strikes me as particularly unpromising.
"And, Desiderius, you exaggerate, as usual. :^)"
I'm not so sure...
Simply pointing out adjustments doesn't make them wrong. Adjustments are correctly used in just about every quantitative scientific field.
And the Krugman graph is an awful one to point out a long term heating trend when the NOAA reconstructions make that more clear.
Did you READ the article (Timing of Atmospheric Co2 and Antarctic Temperature Changes Across Termination III) you linked to in your post to prove the "...remarkable correlation between Co2 levels and temperatures...and...that Co2 does in fact lead and not lag [tempetures]...?" I mean the article states that "...However, Fig. 3 indicates that Co2 increases and peaks at a shallower depth in the core than [Argon 40]...indicating that the inicrease in Co2 lags Antarctic warming by 800 +/- 200 years. ....This confirms that Co2 is not the forcing that initially drives the climatic system during a deglaciation...This sequence of events is still in full agreement with the idea that Co2 plays, thorugh its greenhouse effect, a key role in amplifying the initial orbital forcing...." I mean, jeez...
Further, while NOAA press releases may say that "The idea of a global or hemispheric "Medieval Warm Period" what was warmer than today, however, has turned out to be incorrect", they can't prove it. The National Academy of Sciences report you linked to (Surface Temperature Reconstructions for the Last 2,000 years says "...Very little confidence can be assigned to statements concerning the hemispheric mean or global mean surface temperature prior to about A.D. 900 becuase of sparce data coverage and because of uncertainties associated with proxy data and the methiods used to analyze and combine them are larger than during the more recent time periods." The only thing the National Academy of Sciences was willing to say was that '...It can be siad with a high level of confidence that global mean surface temperature was higher during the last few decades of the 20th. century than during any comparable period during the preceeding four centuries." Well, DAH! 400 years less 2000 is 1600 -- the middle of the "Little Ice Age!" The real question is: Why were we warmer in 1900 than in 1600? and why should we not assume that a trend which was 300 years in the making in 1900 would not continue for another 100 or 200 years, Co2, or no Co2?
As to the criticisms that replying on experts is equivalent to a theocracy, two points: 1) Who else should we rely on? We have to decide on a policy somehow. 2) Science is different from religion in that individuals in science have a high incentive to question the staus quo: no one ever made their scientific reputation by saying that everyone else what right. Yes, there are sometimes costs to thinking too much “outside of the box”, but there is this great thing called data that in the long run does validate the correct answer. In this case, while a climate change skeptic may pay some cost in professional respect, they gain a heck of a lot of conservative funding- so it’s not too surprising there are a good number of skeptics out there.
geokstr – the predictions of economic catastrophe I think are rather silly. If we were really having massive blackouts or somesuch, isn’t it more likely we’d relax the carbon cap or whatever? The idea now is to get an economic incentive in place so that alternative sources can compete and are developed.
BillW makes a good point. Still, even the “without feedbacks” approximation would result in significant warming in the next century at projected no-action rates of CO2 emissions. And when the simpler models predict positive feedback loops outweighing negative feedback looks, it seem reasonable to start with that as a baseline and then refine.
"Science is different from religion in that individuals in science have a high incentive to question the staus quo: no one ever made their scientific reputation by saying that everyone else what right. Yes, there are sometimes costs to thinking too much “outside of the box”"
Shirley you can't be serious. You can't get any more inside the box than going along with the Warming consensus - lock, stock, and barrel. In fact, it is the overweening power of those advocating risk-mitigation that leads us to foolishly take on so many side issues to further exert our dominance.
All that needs be said is that it might not be the best idea to dig up a few hundred million years worth of carbon and chuck it all up in the air at the same time. The rest is answering the very serious concerns about the impact of mitigation and/or which measures best address those concerns, and answering them respectfully and in full cognizance of our own dominance, not least vis-a-vis those 3 billion.
In a word, what is called for is evangelism. Evangelism via insult and persecution doesn't have the proudest, or the most productive, history. Maybe we should get some tips on how to do it right from our local megachurches.
To put things another way: In Iraq, hard power discovered that it needed soft power to attain the unambiguous victory it sought. Likewise, significant risk-mitigation on the carbon front will likely require hard power in the long run to supplement the soft power it already enjoys. The current approach is unlikely to secure it.
It isn't the "one paper" that's at issue. Because I don't routinely read other journals, I can only speak regarding Nature, but examples of "one paper" that is problematic for current theories of AGW seem to crop up fairly frequently. Given that Nature isn't exactly known for publishing research of minor importance, I - in my unstudied ignorance - consider the frequency such papers to be significant in of itself.
I also note that you didn't respond to the Bower article. If we are going to talk "burden of proof" and "fundamental physics", I would expect those arguing grand theories of GW to have very complete knowledge of oceanic heatflows that dwarf anything in the atmosphere. One doesn't need to "understand anything about the functioning of the climatalogical models" in order to see the problem in relying on a "model" lacking such basic information. Forget expertise, I'd expect a kid to see that after two weeks of an introductory thermo course at Shitty State U. School of Engineering.
My intent isn't to discuss the specifics; it's to point out that I routinely come across this stuff.
I can't believe no one caught this howler from rosetta's stones.
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