The Island of Doubt

George Will gets something right

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 09:36:44 -0500

In an otherwise typically error-dominated Newsweek column, George F. Will spelled "minuscule" correctly. So I don't want to read any complaints that Will gets everything wrong each time he writes about climate change.

Of course, that doesn't mean we can't correct his myriad other mistakes. Here's one paragraph, with some necessary edits, just to get us started.

There is ~~much~~ an unremarkable level of debate about the reasons for, and the importance of, the fact that global warming has ~~not increased~~ continued for that long [11 years]. What we know is that computer models ~~did not~~ did predict this. Which matters, a lot, because we are incessantly exhorted to wager ~~trillions~~ uncertain sums of dollars and ~~diminished~~ increased freedom on the proposition that computer models are correctly projecting catastrophic global warming. On Nov. 2, The Wall Street Journal's Jeffrey Ball reported some ~~inconvenient~~ data that is entirely consistent with the prevailing consensus on the theory of anthropogenic climate disruption. Soon after the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change--it shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with the Thinking Man's Thinking Man [George: who calls him this, other than you? -- ed ]--reported that global warming is "unequivocal," there came evidence that the planet's temperature is ~~beginning to cool~~ continuing to rise. [George: temperatures rise or fall, they don't cool or warm; only the subject of measurement warms or cools -- ed] "That," Ball writes, "has led to one point of agreement: The models are imperfect," although climatologists confirmed that the models are performing as well as expected."

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Climate Cover-Up

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 12:22:26 -0500

Climate Cover-Up
The Crusade to Deny Global Warming
Greystone Books, 250 pages

Canadian public relations agent James "DeSmogBlog" Hoggan has assembled a comprehensive history of corporate efforts to stall action on climate change in a modest little book that should shock and appall anyone who's been living under a rock for the past three decades. For the rest of us, Climate Cover-Up offers few new details. It still serves, however, as a convenient hard-copy reference manual for when the Internet is down and you need a rejuvenating jolt of outrage to help you decide which companies to boycott this week.

That might sound like a dismissive review, but it I don't mean it to be taken that way.

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Bjorn Lomborg launches campaign against logic

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 13:54:33 -0500

(Pseudo)-Skeptical Environmental Bjorn Lomborg advises in the Wall Street Journal that spending money on anti-malarial campaigns makes more sense than, and by implication is morally superior to, spending money on cutting carbon emissions. But to make his case, he has to abandon all hope of ever being invited to join the Vulcan Science Academy.

It may be true that every dollar we spend combating the vectors of malaria and the treatments for it will save more lives than those who would be spared the disease if we spend it instead on avoiding catastrophic global warming. But Lomborg is abandons all logic when he writes:

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The link between the climate denial and anti-vaccine crowds

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 07:43:49 -0500

Rarely does a blogging day pass that I don't stumble upon some post or comment or email that champions the value of skepticism of anthropogenic global warming and the need for scientists to answer their critics. So it's refreshing to read a concise and cogent reminder of why such attacks are misguided. From UBC's Simon Donner we get this rejoinder, made in reference to demands that real-climatologist Michael "hockey stick" Mann answer the criticism of non-climatologist Steve McIntyre

Think of it this way: wouldn't you rather that doctors spend their time actually developing treatments for autism, rather than refuting the crazy theory that MMR vaccinations cause autism?

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Climate control in Canada: And now the good news

Thu, 29 Oct 2009 09:44:41 -0500

The costs of doing something about climate change are the subject of much debate these, and Canada is no exception. The federal government, like the ones before it, has shown little interest in honest analysis, so one of the country's biggest banks, TD Bank, decided to pay for a study all on its own. The results, which the bank's economists call "robust," represent perhaps the most comprehensive effort to nail down those costs, at least for one country. And what did the consultants they hired to write the report find? Good news, actually.

Unless, of course, you happen to own a piece of the fossil-fuel industry.

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Another nail in the Superfreakonomics coffin

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 09:24:43 -0500

By now, I'd expect the authors of Superfreakonomics are having mixed feelings about their new book. On the one hand, they're making good money as the book enjoys healthy sales. On the other, just about every actual expert in the field to which Chapter 5 is devoted -- climate change -- has savaged their take on the subject.

This week comes perhaps the most devastating criticism, from four statisticians whose analysis of global temperature trends demonstrates just how wrong Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner got the numbers. And an AP story on the statisticians' analysis raises some serious questions about the sincerity of the duo.

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Is 350 the right target for atmospheric CO2?

Mon, 26 Oct 2009 10:48:31 -0500

For those who really grok the precautionary principle, aiming for a lower, and therefore inherently safer, maximum atmospheric carbon-dioxide concentration is the logical choice. Civilization arose over the last 10,000 years in a world in which CO₂ represented just 280 of every million atoms we and every other respiring organism inhaled. Given the uncertainty over what level of the trace gas leads to dramatic changes in the climate -- we know there's a relationship but haven't been able to nail down the tipping point -- the closer to pre-industrial levels the better.

But there's a problem.

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Explaining plummeting belief in anthropogenic climate change

Fri, 23 Oct 2009 11:29:32 -0500

Another depressing poll result from one of the more reputable sources:

The latest national survey by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, conducted Sept. 30-Oct. 4 among 1,500 adults reached on cell phones [excellent!] and landlines, finds that 57% think there is solid evidence that the average temperature on earth has been getting warmer over the past few decades. In April 2008, 71% said there was solid evidence of rising global temperatures.

Why the drop?

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Science is not a religion

Fri, 23 Oct 2009 10:29:07 -0500

Before criticizing our newest ScienceBlogger, David Sloan Wilson, who has moved here from the Huffington Post, let me add my voice to those who are welcoming the move. It is a good thing to have such an esteemed and accomplished scientist among our ranks. But like fellow blogger Eric Michael Johnson, I found David's first post in these parts is more than a little unsettling.

Under the headline of "Goodbye HuffPost, Hello ScienceBlogs: Science as a Religion that Worships Truth as its God," he provocatively writes:

Science can even be regarded as a religion that worships truth as its god. It might seem provocative to put it this way, but I find the comparison compelling and challenge my readers to show what's wrong with it.

Well, he asked for it.

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Limbaugh listeners need to do some soul-searching

Thu, 22 Oct 2009 09:20:06 -0500

Not being a regular, or even occasional, listener of Rush Limbaugh, I have no idea if this week's obscene call for New York Times climate reporter Andy Revkin to commit suicide was simply par for the course. We all know that Limbaugh is an entertainer who is just doing what he needs to do to attract attention, maintain audiences and retain advertiser support. It's a free country (for most of us). But I'm a journalist and I cover climate change, too. So this hits too close to home to ignore.

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Superfreakonomics: How did they get climate change so wrong?

Tue, 20 Oct 2009 09:22:46 -0500

In which your humble blogger makes a desperate attempt to write something original about the latest affront to reasonable discourse in the global warming crisis.

There's little point in duplicating the devastating criticism that has been leveled at Superfreakonomics, the sequel to the wildly popular book, Freakonomics, by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner. I will point to just two examples: Gavin Schmidt's take-down at Real Climate, and Joe Romm's series at Climate Progress. But there are plenty more.

Even NPR couldn't run an interview with one of the authors without including a postscript that qualified the item by noting "many scientists have come out against some of the view and conclusions in this book." So that leaves trying to explain just why it is the authors got it so incredibly wrong.

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Isn't that special?

Fri, 16 Oct 2009 09:41:51 -0500

Every now and then a commenter at this or any number of other climate-oriented blogs spews out the phrase "the height of arrogance" and uses it in a way that defies logic. For example, one "Bruce" recently wrote

"It is the height of arrgoance [sic] to suggest a trace gas like CO2 has anything to do with the climate cycles."

No, Bruce, it's not arrogant to accurately portray the chemistry and thermodynamics of climatology. This morning, however, I did find a case to which the phrase might be applied with some degree of accuracy:

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What good are the ScienceBlogs anyway?

Thu, 15 Oct 2009 08:43:02 -0500

Some group of bloggers has decided that today, Oct. 15, 2009, is "Blog Action Day." And this year's theme is climate change. Excellent, Smithers.

My instincts are to ignore such declarations. It's always an International Year of This or National X Awareness Month, or World Y Day. Community newspapers take advantage of free copy and extra revenue by organizing special advertising supplements around them. I've always thought that they interfere with genuine news values by wasting space and resources on what are more or less abritrary pet-project campaigns.

But I've been planning on writing a blog post about blogging for a few weeks now, so I'm going to exploit the probably increase in traffic that might result from the inclusion of the phrase "Blog Action Day" in this post. What I find remarkable is the relatively low profile that my particular pet project -- climate change -- enjoys at ScienceBlogs. Giving the importance of the subject, why, of more than 75 bloggers in this collective, am I the only one who writes frequent and lengthy pieces on the subject?

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A climate change ad with a difference

Wed, 14 Oct 2009 09:50:03 -0500

Hmmm. Not sure this will accomplish what the British government hopes it will.

On the other hand, the U.K. is far ahead of most of the rest of the world when it comes to getting serious about greenhouse-gas emission legislation -- no one else has binding targets, and 34 per cent below 1990 levels by 2020 is among the most ambitious around. So maybe they do know what they're doing. Probably not, but still...

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Et tu BBC?

Mon, 12 Oct 2009 12:08:19 -0500

Most observers of climate change media coverage long ago stopped wringing their hands every time Fox News reported that global warming has stopped and that humans are responsible anyway, mostly to avoid calluses. A while back it seemed like Fox might be ready to embrace the actual science, but old habits die hard. For example, Fox took a Sky News story back in August that suggested we may be on the verge of returning to record warm years and gave it the headline of "Natural Factors Could Cause Global Warming."

Yes, the story was about solar activity, but here's the nub of the science that was being reported:

... the relatively cool years since have prompted some to suggest global warming is not happening. The new study, carried out by Judith Lean, of the US Naval Research Laboratory, and David Rind, of Nasa's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, says the opposite may be true.

Same old disingenous treatment. Again, nothing new under the Fox News sun. So to speak.

But when the once-venerable BBC does something similar, it's time to worry.

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