Confusing the public about global warming

If I remember correctly, the “political capital” argument above is flawed by the time frame: concern for pesticides initiated the environmental movement in the mid-60s and global warming came along quite a bit later…in the 80s?

But Bertram’s larger point is all-too correct: conservatives/libertarians try so very desperately to find their way around such environmental problems and rarely come up with anything even remotely like a credible alternative to conventional statist response (and we do need that.)

The image which sums it up for me would be of Justice Scalia standing on the deck of a sinking ship and insisting that a good salt-water bath is just what we need that day.

Andrew Northrup wrote a series of Tech Central Station parodies. My favorite is here, but there’s nothing wrong with this one, this one, this post, or this post.

I like that. The posts look authoritative but they’re actually written by (gasp!) libertarians!

What always puzzles me about people who say that they don’t belive in “global warming”, is that they say that it hasn’t been proven.
Now, while that is a legit argument in many other cases, it doesn’t make sense in this case. If we ignore the fact that there seems to be a rather strong indication that “global warming” exist, and that it is (at least to some degree) man-made, there is certainly no proof that it doesn’t exist, or that it exists because of something not man-made.
There might be other factors that influence it, but so far no one can points to any other factor that can explain the rather sudden rise.

While I know that in mostt cases the burden of proof is on the people who says that something exist, in this case, I would suggest erring on the side of caution.

There was the whole fuss about Bjørn Lomborg for instance

Well Ophelia , given the fact that Lomborg’s “science” was debunked by Danish scientists well before the book was translated into English, I never understod why he was taken serious in the first place.

Ted: Andrew’s parodies of NRO’s The Corner are also extremely funny.

Heh. It seems people are believeing what they want to believe.

This discussion is less about TCS than about the psychological concept of confirmation bias–how people tend to look for the information that confirms their beliefs and to ignore disregard, or dismiss stuff that does not. The writers at TCS may well be wishful thinkers, and may seek and latch on to contrarian eveidece on global warming, but that does not, of itself, make them wrong. (Are the writers being accused of dishonesty?) This is also not a “rightwing” thing. Perhaps the scientists who oppose Bjorn Lomborg’s results are just as biased the other way. That there is global warming has become “status quo” (yet another bias) and those who question it face considerable resistance.

This comments here are also eveident of another psychological effect–that of False Concensus. There is an implicit assumption of a scientific concensus on global warming, in spite of the fact that this very discussion is indication that there is not.

I didn’t actually check the comments to verify what you say about false consensus, but I will point out as an aside that the recognition of a bias, even confirmation bias can itself be a form of confirmation bias, particularly when it’s used as a quick and dirty heuristic rather than a theoretical entity in a study or experiment.

Well Lomborg supporters would, wouldn’t they. But does anyone else? Is it a claim with legs? Or is it just nonsense.

As far as Lomborg goes, did any of you actually read his defense against the Scientific American article?
I have yet to read anything critical of Lomborg that is based on his scientific arguments. I don’t understand why you all are attacking Lomborg as he believes in global warming.

Well, let’s see: the scientific consensus that vaccines are a safe, effective and economic way of preventing is an establishment put up but global warming is only doubted by cranky right wingers. Sure. Whatever you say. You da boss, Boss

BTW, what do you think the mass of the electron neutrino is? A heard a bunch of lefties say it was 0.012 +/-0.004 eV, but you know how they are.

IS THE MASS of the electron neutrino half an ounce? Roger Simon is on the case.

UPDATE: Jonah Goldberg asks, who profits when electron mass is misreported? It’s not who you think.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Andrew Sullivan has a letter from an anonymous physicist about the controversial electron mass issue. Hey, Scientific American, we can fact check your ass!

   Even a vegan Greenpeace member sipping shade-grown coffee from a recycled cup while on break from repopulating the spotted owl should find Scientific American’s treatment of Lomborg shameful. Under the guise of a book review, the magazine arranged a Bjorn-bashing. If you read the articles carefully, you will see little more than an ethical appeal (“trust us we’re experts, he’s not”) and ad hominem attacks. The commentary scores few direct hits, and Lomborg defends himself effectively, though denied a rejoinder as would be standard for a true discussion. That Scientific American is not a “left-wing magazine” is irrelevant. Reviews in Science and Nature were similar in content, though less editorially suspect. It is worth noting that there were well regarded scientists in well-regarded journals who defended Lomborg. The question here is why, if the case is so clear, did Lomborg’s critics need to stoop to such tacky methods.

   Part of the answer is politics. When scientific and statistical issues get politicized, the technical experts are inexorably drawn into the cycle of advocacy for thc cause. I’ve seen this happen when I worked on the Census adjustment problem and with expert witnesses on court cases.

   Another part of the answer is imprecision in what “the science” means. Consider four related claims: 1) Global temperatures have increased unusually in the 20th century relative to the past 1000 years; 2) This global warming is mostly attributable to human emission of greenhouse gases; 3) Over the next Y years, average temperatures will increase T degrees; 4) The consequences of global warming require that we do X. (There are other claims and issues, but these will do for discussion.) Number 1 is a purely scientific question; number 2 is on the boundary between science and statistics; number 3 is mostly statistical; and number 4 is political. Yet I have read scientists pushing all four claims as direct results of “the science”. This suggests that the strong consensus on #1 (and to some degree #2) applies uniformly across all four claims, which does not appear to be true. Not even the White House any longer disputes #1. Lomborg concerned himself primarily with the value of T in #3, and thus does not stand opposed to the principle scientific consensus that has developed around #1 and #2. There is huge variation among climate models on the value of T in #3 as well as some serious scientific disagreement. There is some disagreement about the meaning of “mostly” in #2.

   Which brings us to Shaviv and Vezier. I spent a fair amount of time reading their papers a few weeks ago, and it is indisputable that this is serious and credible work. That doesn’t make it right, but it does make it worthy of consideration. The basic argument is that cosmic ray fluxes change significantly as the solar system moves through and between the galaxy’s spiral arms and that these cosmic ray fluxes are strongly associated with periods of glaciation throughout the Phanerozoic Era (Cambrian period on, 540MYA to present). They also suggest that cosmic ray fluxes may explain climate variations on Earth, through for instance ionization effects modulating low-altitude cloud cover, although specific mechanisms for this have not yet been established. Within this basic argument are many detailed assumptions and models, especially concerning the timing of historical glaciations, the inference of cosmic ray fluxes from meteorite samples, and the structure of the Galaxy’s spiral arms. Are they right? More work is needed to evaluate their assumptions and to study the new viewpoint and especially to understand the mechanisms by which cosmic ray fluxes could affect climate. It could go either way. But they have produced a plausible explanation for substantial climate variability that is not included in current climate models. This is not the only such possibility. Well-reputed solar physicists Douglass Gough and Jan Christensen-Daalsgard (full disclosure: I’ve published unrelated papers with both) have described a plausible mechanism for variation in the heliosphere that would affect cosmic-ray fluxes similarly.

   If either of the mechanisms are real, then the 1/2 that Chris gives up could make a critical difference in the value of T in claim #3 above. It would also raise questions about the explanatory power of the climate models currently being used to make these predictions. The models used by Shaviv and Vezier are in many ways simpler to validate than the climate models because the physics is “easier” (meaning less nonlinear). On the other hand, their models and work have received less scrutiny and study than climate models.

   The climate models too are based on many, many assumptions about complex systems. The wide areas of agreement among models might suggest some robustness to these assumptions, but the specific disagreements among models argue that the assumptions are important. There is also the question of overfitting. New models and proposed mechanisms are proliferating faster than new time points are accruing, and the new models are being checked against existing data. The Climate Change 2001 report mentions plenty of technical details on multi-colinear regressions etc. but I didn’t see (might have missed) any discussion of accounting for overfitting in assessing prediction error. Without this, I find it hard to understand the impact of model revisions on the published predictions.

   Predictive inference is a different game than explanatory inference. Poor explanatory models can be good predictors, and explanatory models that get many key features right can still be poor predictors. A fundamental tenet of predictive modeling is “no uniqueness”, meaning that many qualitatively different models can exhibit comparable predictive performance. One way to check this would be to record and test specific and relevant model predictions over a reasonable time scale (ten years??). Even if you believe the worst case model, it’s still worth checking.

   Well enough already. I see I’ve gone on a bit long, for which I apologize. I submit that the foregoing gives very little or no information concerning my opinion about global warming (e.g., claims 1-4 above) and that a proper discussion of a complex and polarizing topic requires a little distance from the political angles. So, if an ideologue at TCS distorts the published record to score debating points, it’s fine to correct him, ignore him, or scold him, but I don’t like the idea of tying any dissent to such motives and methods. Lomborg, whether he’s right or wrong, is a case in point. Much of what is said about him is essentially equivalent to calling him “objectively anti-environment” or “idiotarian”. Does that sound familiar?

Burns writes: “As far as Lomborg goes, did any of you actually read his defense against the Scientific American article? I have yet to read anything critical of Lomborg that is based on his scientific arguments.”

I read his defense that was published in Scientific American several months after the original critical article, and I also read the responses to his defense by the authors in the original article. It appears that Lomborg’s expertise is in statistics, not in any of the relevant scientific disciplines, and the criticisms of his conclusions were based on his lack of scientific expertise. In other words, the criticism were very much based based on his scientific arguments.

The issue of global warming is a complex one. To the extent that there is global warming, some portion of it may be due to natural causes (that is, those not related to human activity), and some may be due to human activity. It is probably difficult to isolate out the two components. It is probably even more difficult to determine

(i) for the component due to human activity, what, if anything, should be done to minimize the effect–if it is determined that it is desirable to do so, and

(ii) for the component due to natural causes, what, if anything, humans might do to minimize that effect–again, if it is determined that it is desirable to do so.

Okay, I’m baffled. What is so ‘shameful’ about the Scientific American’s criticism of Lomborg? Why is it called ‘bashing’? That’s just rhetoric for disagreement or criticism.

“If you read the articles carefully, you will see little more than an ethical appeal (“trust us we’re experts, he’s not”) and ad hominem attacks.”

No I won’t, that’s not what I see at all. I see detailed, specific factual and methodological disagreements. Are those disagreements just a pack of lies? They certainly are not mere ethical appeals and ad hominem attacks.

Robert. your comment about vaccines is a good example of a very objectionable tactic used by political partisans of all stripes. The “you guys do it, too” defense is remarkably weak, because it’s a diversionary defense. When someone says that the “conservative criticism of global warming research is mostly unscientific and political”, they’re *not* making the claim that *only* conservatives are unscientific and political. They’re making a specific claim about how conservatives behave on a particular issue. That liberals behave similarly badly on other issues is completely beside the point. That people like you don’t understand this demonstrates that they see this sort of thing as a sort of a contest, a football match, that’s all about who scores the most points against the opposition.

Some of us, however, are more concerned with silly little things like the truth and actually solving problems.

For the record, even though I’m liberal, I see at least as much bad-science-based arguments from the left as I do from the right. I find it all quite objectionable.

“Some of us, however, are more concerned with silly little things like the truth and actually solving problems.

For the record, even though I’m liberal, I see at least as much bad-science-based arguments from the left as I do from the right. I find it all quite objectionable.”

Just so. The point I’ve been trying to make all along. For instance, one can find a lot of sloppy argument (or rhetoric) from the left (or ‘left’) against GM crops; we’ve been looking at some of those at B&W. But as far as I can tell the Lomborg case simply shakes out quite differently: the objections to his work in fact come from scientists, from people whose commitment to good science probably trumps (by a long way) their commitment to any particular political view. That is a possible stance, after all; a fact which is all too easily ignored.

“Okay, I’m baffled. What is so ‘shameful’ about the Scientific American’s criticism of Lomborg?”

That would require a lot of writing to give a complete answer.

But to summarize:

1) Scientific American headlined the responses, “Science Defends Itself Against ‘The Skeptical Environmentalist’.” The headline is no more than leftist BS. There is absolutely nothing in “The Skeptical Environmentalist” that is “anti-science.” In fact, Lomborg details in The Skeptical Environmentalist exactly how he originally set out to **disprove** arguments made by the late Julian Simon…but later came to agree with most of them.

2) All of the scientists chosen by “Scientific” American were scientists whose work has clearly established their opinions as being in opposition to those of Bjorn Lomborg. In fact, several of them (if not all of them) had specifically been criticized in The Skeptical Environmentalist. There was absolutely NO attempt by Scientific American to try to find any balance between scientists who agreed with Lomborg, and those who don’t.

3) Stephen Schneider’s critique of The Skeptical Environmentalist, in particular, was an absolute disgrace. It was little more than a series of personal attacks on Dr. Lomborg. NO decent, respectable editor would have allowed such garbage in his magazine. John Rennie, the editor of “Scientific” American, should have been fired.

P.S. Peer review is not a political or journalistic endeavor, you know. It’s not normally expected to provide ‘balance’. Balance is a completely irrelevant concept in scientific issues. This isn’t a political campaign; truth isn’t determined by noegotiation and consensus (Rorty to the contrary notwithstanding); scientists attempting to falsify another scientist’s findings are not required to be balanced. It’s an adversarial process, that’s how it works.

“As far as I could tell, there was near-unanimity among (what adjective to use? responsible? disinterested? orthodox? agenda-free? detached?) scientists in the relevant fields,…”

If you characterize Stephen Schneider as “disinterested,” “agenda-free,” or “detached,” you haven’t read much by Stephen Schneider, of the (in)famous quote:

“To capture the public imagination, we have to offer up some scary scenarios, make simplified dramatic statements and little mention of any doubts one might have. Each of us has to decide the right balance between being effective, and being honest.”

NO true scientist has to find the “right balance” between being “effective” and “honest.” The search for Truth is the very heart of science; the first duty of every scientist is to be honest. (And don’t even get me started on, “…we have to offer up scary scenarios…”!)

I think it’s a mistake to interpret opposition to Lomborg by the science community as leftist. Lomborg is opposed for heresy not for political views.

Heresy is nothing to be ashamed of in science. Often science advances funeral by funeral and young heretics just have to endure rejection for a time no matter how sensible their works.

You can play it safe, avoid incurring the wrath of the silverbacks, and so cruise to a comfortable mediocrity by holding your tongue until there’s some salt in your pepper. At that time, assuming you have not digested your brain yet, you can more safely voice heresies.

“Why it’s an ad hominem attack?”

Here are ad hominem attacks in Stephen Schneider’s review in “Scientific” American:

“On page xx of his preface, Lomborg admits, “I am not myself an expert as regards environmental problems”–truer words are not found in the rest of the book, as I’ll soon illustrate.”

“That kind of deadweight of detail alone conjures at least the trappings of comprehensive and careful scholarship. So how does the reality of the text hold up to the pretense? I’m sure you can already guess,…”

Oh I see – there are some hostile comments in Schneider’s article – ad hominems, if you like. But you said

“It was little more than a series of personal attacks on Dr. Lomborg”

Which is complete and utter nonsense. That quotation I gave is far more representative; the article is a *great deal* more than a series of personal attacks on Lomborg. So I’ve had enough, you’re just shouting, not discussing. Not interesting.

Keith M Ellis:

The “you guys do it, too” defense is remarkably weak, because it’s a diversionary defense.

I even know that the name of the argument is: Tu Quoc.

That liberals behave similarly badly on other issues is completely beside the point.

Actually it is the point. Everyone does it. Even “Scientists” do it. Believe it or not, but if “Scientists” restricted themselves to pontificating about science it would enhance their credibility and make their science less subject to attack, although they would get less ink in the dailys. One may argue, as Trish does above, that certain facts have occured and that they made lead to certain factual concequences. But, once you go into the policy thicket, you are acting as a politician, and may be attacked by people with other political agendas. Global warming may be afoot, but what do do about its a political question. One faction wants us to abandon industrial civilzation and another says buy more sunscreen and air conditioners. If there is a real problem it may be soluble. Although I have a deep suspicion that those people who claim care more about rocks and fishes than men, want to be problems not solve them.

That people like you don’t understand this demonstrates that they see this sort of thing as a sort of a contest, a football match, that’s all about who scores the most points against the opposition.

I take it that you are speaking of what we in America call “soccer,” as no one here would call a real football game a “match.” I always thought that the whole point of a “football match” was to produce a scorless tie so that the fans could get drunk and kick each other with steel-toed boots.

Some of us, however, are more concerned with silly little things like the truth and actually solving problems.

Good for you. Unfortunately that puts you in a very distinct minority.

. . . I see at least as much bad-science-based arguments from the left as I do from the right. I find it all quite objectionable.

On that much we agree.

Ophelia Benson writes, “Oh I see – there are some hostile comments in Schneider’s article – ad hominems, if you like. But you said ‘It was little more than a series of personal attacks on Dr. Lomborg’…Which is complete and utter nonsense.”

It can’t possibly be “complete and utter nonsense,” Ophelia, if you admit that there are indeed “ad hominems” in Schneider’s piece.

You may disagree with the characterization that it is “little more” than personal attacks, but it can’t possibly be “complete and utter nonsense.”

Regarding the single paragraph you chose (your post of September 9, 11:30 PM):

1) Have you ever actually even read The Skeptical Environmentalist? If not, don’t you think should?

2) Stephen Schneider wrote, “First, most of his nearly 3,000 citations are to secondary literature and media articles.”

This is nothing more than a personal attack on Dr. Lomborg, because Dr. Lomborg explained, in detail, in his book, why he chose to cite “secondary literature” and “media articles.” The “media articles” were chosen to demonstrate how environmental problems were signifantly exaggerated in the popular press. The “secondary literature” references were sources such as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports, and publications from the U.S. EPA. Dr. Lomborg made the point that he was including them because they were: 1) authoritative, and 2) generally readily available at no cost (where professional journal articles are typically not available at no cost).

For Stephen Schneider to not include mention of the REASON for Dr. Lomborg including those citations demonstrates that Stephen Schneider is either an extremely careless reviewer, or dishonest, or both. (For John Rennie, the editor of “Scientific” American not to catch and correct Stephen Schneider demostrates that Mr. Rennie is either a lousy editor, or dishonest, or both.)

3) Stephen Schneider also wrote, “IPCC authors, in contrast, were subjected to three rounds of review by hundreds of outside experts. They didn’t have the luxury of reporting primarily from the part of the community that agrees with their individual views.”

This is also a dishonest slur against Dr. Lomborg. Stephen Schneider ought to know that the IPCC scenarios (“stories”) in the IPCC Third Assessment Report (TAR) that had the highest greenhouse gas emissions and temperature increases were added ***after peer review*** by Robert Watson, the former head of the IPCC. They were therefore NOT subject to “three rounds of review by hundreds of outside experts.”

Ms. Benson concludes, “So I’ve had enough, you’re just shouting, not discussing.”

I haven’t shouted at all, Ms. Benson. You asked to be corrected if you were wrong in saying that Scientific American is not “leftish” or “politically biased.” I was correcting you; Scientific American is “leftish” and “politically biased.”

Please don’t get me wrong; I subscribe to Scientific American, and it has many good articles. But it is “leftish” and “politically biased”…and the “Scientific” American review of Bjorn Lomborg’s book was a disgrace.

A few thoughts from a know-nothing in the peanut gallery? But one who did read the Lomborg, and who followed the debates about it closely?

* A point no one seems to have made in this thread is that Lomborg never claimed to be doing any original science. He was deliberately confining himself to what he knows, which is statistics. He was examining the scientists’ own figures — that (as I recall) was the whole point of his book: that, using their own figures, very different conclusions could easily be drawn than were usually being drawn.

* So criticizing him for not being a true environmental scientist (which, again as I recall, was the gist of a lot of the SciAm pans of him) seems to be rather willfully missing the point of the book. He wasn’t questioning the science, he was questioning the use that’s made of their figures.

* Just a proof-less impression here, but SciAm often strikes me as terribly PC these days. I read it years ago, dropped it for a long time, came back to it, and found that it had become quite a different magazine than it once was.

* I’ve got no science myself to call on, but I did spend some years hanging out on the farther ends of the eco movement, and was finally appalled by much of what I saw — exaggerations and misrepresentations by management (who were often hippie scientists playing politics), and naive credulousness on the part of the followers, for whom environmentalism was clearly a secular religion. So, much of what Lomborg — who, for all I know, is wrong wrong wrong himself — wrote about the kinds of misuses eco-people sometimes make of science rang true to me.

* I recall seeing Lomborg speak to a conservative audience, and he tweaked and teased them quite a lot, making the point many times over that he considers himself an environmentalist and that he himself dislikes Bush. He was quite the provocateur, really, and clearly enjoyed raising their ire a bit. He also stated over and over that he wants to see steps taken to protect and improve eco-conditions and that the goal of his book wasn’t to question anyone’s science; or to let anyone off the hook. Instead, it was to help people see how and where to get the most eco-improvement for their buck and effort.

All very subjective and anecdotal, I know. But offered in a FWIW spirit.

I was a frequent contributor to the feedback section of TCS, now removed.

It was an easy thing to find where the Think-Tank employees posing as authorities cherry-picked journal articles to push their point of view.

The mendacity and tendention on that site is both blatant and disturbing.

The extraction industry ads on the site are a big clue as to the ideological bent.

Dano

By the way, the new URL for my article is

http://www.techcentralstation.com/071403C.html

Also, Dano, comments at TCS are open again. Hope you come back.