Climate Disruption's "Confederacy of Dunces"

www.truth-out.org...

I think this is a wholesome way to look at the science surrounding the man-made climate change fracas - it is not a debate!

I will let the author explain:

Given that over 97 percent of climate scientists agree on the matter, the fact that anyone is questioning the reality of anthropogenic climate disruption (ACD) remains an amazing phenomenon.

If your child were sick, and 97 percent of doctors recommended one treatment for them, which treatment would you use?

It is truly not about absolutes. If you wait for absolute certainity, you will never act on anything. Something this pressing requires action. Fear and ignorance will waste what little opportunity we have left to address this worldwide problem. Had we listened the scientific community in the 1980s, we would not be at this juncture.

I'll leave out the 'retarded' (I use the word deliberately) comments that the author quotes and go on to this to explain those comments:

In 2008, the Republican and Democratic parties were generally seeing eye to eye on ACD, as evidenced by this commercial broadcast nationally, in which Nancy Pelosi and Newt Gingrich sat together and said that climate change needed to be addressed.

The fossil fuel industry, seeing the writing on the wall, dumped more than half a billion dollars into the coffers of their lobbyists in 2009, and the rest, as they say, is history.

The fact that there is any "doubt" about the science and reality of ACD is not happenstance - it is the direct result of a carefully orchestrated project that has included heavy lobbying, bought-and-paid-for pro-fossil fuel industry scientists and a massive amount of propaganda.

Again the article can be found at:

www.truth-out.org...

a reply to: FyreByrd

Just curious. I've seen that "97%" used an awful lot.

We’ve all been subjected to the incessant “97% of scientists agree …global warming…blah blah” meme, which is nothing more than another statistical fabrication by John Cook and his collection of “anything for the cause” zealots. As has been previously pointed out on WUWT, when you look at the methodology used to reach that number, the veracity of the result falls apart, badly. You see, it turns out that Cook simply employed his band of “Skeptical Science” (SkS) eco-zealots to rate papers, rather than letting all authors of the papers rate their own work (Note: many authors weren’t even contacted and their papers wrongly rated, see here). The result was that the “97% consensus” was a survey of the SkS raters beliefs and interpretations, rather than a survey of the authors opinions of their own science abstracts. Essentially it was pal-review by an activist group with a strong bias towards a particular outcome as demonstrated by the name “the consensus project”.

In short, it was a lie of omission enabled by a “pea and thimble” switch Steve McIntyre so often points out about climate science.

wattsupwiththat.com...


Just sayin'

a reply to: FyreByrd

The 97% consensus has already been fully refuted by an actual paper, that was peer reviewed by the Journal "Science and Education".

Here is the abstract, and I highly recommend you (and others) read it (emphasis mine):

Agnotology is the study of how ignorance arises via circulation of misinformation calculated to mislead. Legates et al. (Sci Educ 22:2007–2017, 2013) had questioned the applicability of agnotology to politically-charged debates. In their reply, Bedford and Cook (Sci Educ 22:2019–2030, 2013), seeking to apply agnotology to climate science, asserted that fossil-fuel interests had promoted doubt about a climate consensus. Their definition of climate ‘misinformation’ was contingent upon the post-modernist assumptions that scientific truth is discernible by measuring a consensus among experts, and that a near unanimous consensus exists. However, inspection of a claim by Cook et al. (Environ Res Lett 8:024024, 2013) of 97.1 % consensus, heavily relied upon by Bedford and Cook, shows just 0.3 % endorsement of the standard definition of consensus: that most warming since 1950 is anthropogenic. Agnotology, then, is a two-edged sword since either side in a debate may claim that general ignorance arises from misinformation allegedly circulated by the other. Significant questions about anthropogenic influences on climate remain. Therefore, Legates et al. appropriately asserted that partisan presentations of controversies stifle debate and have no place in education.

Source

It also goes without saying, that after this rebuttal, Cook and Nuccitelli tried to publish another paper with similar claims, and it was flat out rejected by the journal.



~Namaste

How do we know with absolute certainty that 97% of self proclaimed experts are not dunces?

a reply to: FyreByrd

I hope you are prepared to be blasted for this.



I have recently been involved in a debate on AGW and as your thread states.

it is the direct result of a carefully orchestrated project that has included heavy lobbying, bought-and-paid-for pro-fossil fuel industry scientists and a massive amount of propaganda.

Every link, page, source that was thrown at me that stated that there was no warming or AGW was not real could be traced back to fossil fuel financiers. For example WUWT receives financing from Heartland institute which in turn is financed by polluting industries. Climate Depot a site which if you even post on it suggesting people to look into the definition of "low max" a thing they were trotting out to make it look like cooling will get you immediately post banned and your comments deleted within 5 minutes. They claim to be a balanced source but don't even want people to know what it is they are looking at oh and by the way they have been funded by ExxonMobil and CFACT a lobbying group.

But hey those are just a few examples. I learned a lot in my last debate on the issue chasing rabbits down their holes.

originally posted by: xuenchen
How do we know with absolute certainty that 97% of self proclaimed experts are not dunces?

That is true, but they get paid to be dunces so at least they are rich dunces.

P

a reply to: Grimpachi

and by the way they have been funded by ExxonMobil and CFACT a lobbying group.

What if the CO2 scare turns out to be a clever financial scam hoax?

What if those companies involved in debunking the claims are correct afterall?

Maybe they are actually protecting themselves from attack?

Rival companies have vested interests in businesses as well, and perhaps that's why they seem to be funding the CO2 mania.

Fuel for thought.

a reply to: xuenchen

97% of climate scientist would agree that too much Oxygen was causing global cooling if that is where the grant money was.

The "credit" scam for the financial middlemen and regulators has been a solution waiting for a problem for 2 decades. Too bad they chose such a poor candidate to try and implement their scheme.

Show me a solution that doesn't involve a huge financial scheme and falsified data and incorrect alarmist climate models that never came to pass an maybe some more people might believe them.

They should have went with mine!

www.abovetopsecret.com...

“In a country where the sole employer is the State, opposition means death by slow starvation. The old principle: who does not work shall not eat, has been replaced by a new one: who does not obey shall not eat.”
― Leon Trotsky
www.goodreads.com...

Most of the pro AGW supporters work for the State, either directly or indirectly, and all of the pro AGW data comes from the State, and all of the power from the AGW solutions goes to the State.

The AGW argument is possible, but so are honest disinterested politicians.

What are the odds of that?

Less than 3%

So if I burned a pile of garbage in your house it wouldn't effect the atmosphere of your house? Whether global warming is real or not is questionable. Whether humans affect planet earth is not. Whether global warming, if it exists, can be caused by human effects is debatable. Whether the greenhouse effect exists is not.

Fossil fuels are stored solar energy. They are formed from the decomposition of organic material under high pressure.

en.m.wikipedia.org...

If we are using this solar energy which was formerly locked under earth and releasing this energy into our atmosphere doesn't logic suggest we are adding more energy to the system than should be there? We are taking energy from the sun stored over millions of years and just using it willy nilly

If you want to see the effects of runaway greenhouse effect just look at Venus. All research suggests it was one earth like but the greenhouse effect caused it to be what it is today. It is hotter than Mercury even though Mercury is closer to the Sun.

www.universetoday.com...

The forces which regulate our planets climate are vastly complex and we clearly do not fully understand them. We probably won't for a long time.

Elementary school science suggests global warming is possible and plausible. Even if humans are not the cause, even if it's all completely natural is it so crazy to suggest that we change our model from endless growth to sustainability? Should we charge blindly forward on the assumption that Mother Earth cares about us.

Earth will be here for a very very long time but it's unlikely it will be permanently habitable by humans. Totally natural processes have had drastic effects on habitability for living creature throughout Earth's history. Isnt even the slightest chance that we might ruin the earth for literally all humans and complex creatures forever, worth changing our ways for? Isnt the future of the human race worth more than Jay Leno getting a new sports car or you buying that 2nd IPad so you never have to share it with your sibling?

End of the day the system of endless growth that Western civilization has forced on the world is unsustainable. That sentence is non debatable. How can endless growth possibly work forever. The planet Earth is not infinite. We know how big it is so by definition the Earth is finite.

What's the end game of infinite growth economics? Is the goal to leave a barren planet behind as we become the aliens from independence day, a plague of galactic locusts? If that's the case why do we spend more on making Hollywood movies than our space program?

Anyone with a basic liberal arts education and any amount of ability to think for themselves knows our system is unsustainable. But no one questions it. We are all putting our children and grandchildren into environmental debt slavery just like the bankers and CEOs have already put most Westerners and much of the rest of the world into chains of debt. The difference is the imaginary play money debt we experience today will pale next to the environmental shackles we build every day for our descendants.

Here is a link to the journal you reference....

www.springer.com...

... it is for the Science & Education 'journal' in general.

Here's what I get when I look at Springer.com or rather Springer Science & Business Media, the publisher of the above refereence I find:

On Wikipedia this tid-bit: en.wikipedia.org...

In 2014, it was revealed that Springer had published 16 fake papers in its journals that had been computer-generated using SCIgen. Springer subsequently removed all the papers from these journals. IEEE had also done the same thing by removing more than 100 fake papers from its conference proceedings.[9]

the reference [9] quoted above is to:

Noorden, Richard Van (24 February 2014). "Publishers withdraw more than 120 gibberish papers". Nature News. Retrieved 1 March 2014.

Wait more from wikipedia on the recent history of the publishing house:

The academic publishing company BertelsmannSpringer was formed after Bertelsmann bought a majority stake in Springer-Verlag in 1999.[3][5] The British investment groups Cinven and Candover bought BertelsmannSpringer from Bertelsmann in 2003.[5] They merged the company in 2004 with the Dutch publisher Kluwer Academic Publishers which they bought from Wolters Kluwer in 2002,[6] to form Springer Science+Business Media.

Springer acquired the open-access publisher BioMed Central in October 2008 for an undisclosed amount.

In 2009, Cinven and Candover sold Springer to two private equity firms, EQT Partners and Government of Singapore Investment Corporation. The closing of the sale was confirmed in February 2010 after the competition authorities in the USA and in Europe approved the transfer.

In 2011, Springer acquired Pharma Marketing and Publishing Services from Wolters Kluwer.[7]

In 2013, the London-based private equity firm BC Partners acquired a majority stake in Springer from EQT and GIC for $4.4 billion.[8]

HMMM - haven't looked into the money yet.

HMMM - real reliable there fellows.....

Now to the actual points

1st - if you choose to believe one article that doesnt' (according to its abstract - I did read it) speak to the science of climate but to 1) the definition of consensus and 2) how that figure was arrived at without any investigation - you are free to do so. However, please do not pass it off as factual.

2nd - Even if the number quoted in the OP article 97.xx% percent is incorrect, lets for s&g say a more accurate number is 70% - the logic is still there. Wouldn't you believe what 70% of scienctists told you was true over the 30% that didn't.

Agruing over the particulars, when the ship is going down, kills us all.

a reply to: SonOfTheLawOfOne


Just searched a little bit on that document, and i found this.

97% Climate consensus ‘denial’: the debunkers again not debunked

On Watts Up With That (WUWT) another attempt at discrediting the scientific consensus paper by Cook et al. was made, this time by Christopher Monckton (archived here).

But what Monckton is saying here is that if you only count the papers from categories one and two (rejecting the largest endorsement category 3), then compare that to the number of papers that reject the consensus (category 5 to 7), you only get a consensus of 35.5% compared to his total of 121 papers. Which is only 1% endorsement if you compare it against all papers, which includes papers that don’t state a position. But those are not the numbers the paper states in its results.
Monckton is also the co-author of a paper that claims that the Cook et al. paper found a consensus of 0.3% based on comparing the papers that “actually” endorse that humans are the primary cause of global warming against the total amount of papers.
All these comparisons made by Monckton to lower the scientific consensus percentage are meaningless. You can’t compare papers that state no position on global warming with those that do. It’s nonsensical as the papers that don’t state a position often are researching an entirely different question/subject in climatology.

Science can't prove AGW. Science makes models, theories, which can be used to develop designs and perform tasks, when the designs and tasks happen to fall within the part of the model that is accurate.

The only proof of global warming is detected global warming.

Proof of catastrophic AGW is a lie on its face.

a reply to: xuenchen

What if the CO2 scare turns out to be a clever financial scam hoax?

What if those companies involved in debunking the claims are correct afterall?

Interesting concept but that would even be a hard sell to hollywood for a movie.



May win an award for least believable movie though.

Truthfully, it doesn't matter how many climate scientists sign up (I do believe the percentage is high), it is simply so obvious that climate change is happening that only a "dunce" could argue it's not. There are just so many things that are off-balance right now and the occurrences, headlines, data, etc., just keeps streaming in every day.

The fact that volcanoes (for two consecutive years) are erupting at record numbers (and mystifying scientists to why) and spewing tons of methane gas into the atmosphere alone should be alarming.

The fact that fish die offs in massive numbers are happening so frequently in oceans, lakes, rivers and seas all over the world doesn't set off alarm bells for everyone is astonishing. Do you really think these things are common, or normal? How can this not be enough to knock some sense into people that our oceans are dying? They are becoming more and more anoxic and sea life won't survive, well, not the sea life we know today. It's not just oceans either, but rivers and lakes where algae is suffocating sea life.

The fact that there are massive floods all over the planet right now as we speak. Do a search, see for yourself the number of deluge storms pounding all corners of the globe. Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay...France...Asia (from one relentless typhoon after another)...The US in several different areas including Utah, Florida, Texas, the desert Southwest. I could go on about the flooding, but check it out for yourselves. This is due to the increased moisture and energy in the atmosphere from rising temperatures.

The fact that there are more freak hail and wind storms popping up all over the place. Once again, do the research. Turkey was just pounded by a freak storm.

I could go on about the many phenomenon, but you get the idea. I know, I know...you'll just say these things happen all the time and you're denial shall persist. But, if you can't admit things are OFF, then it's like an alcoholic who can't admit he has a problem. You're denial to what is obvious can only.....well, whatever. This whole debate is getting tiresome. The OP nailed it though. Great thread by the way. It's obvious your OP was correct in stating that oil and gas pumped billions into a well-oiled machine (pun intended) to lobby our government to do absolutely nothing...and that also created legions of die-hard fans to do their best to take away common sense from the argument. Sigh.

a reply to: beezzer

Beezer - Cook's paper is not the only one that found a 97% consensus. There was also Anderlegg et al, 2010 and Doran et al, 2009, amongst other more informal studies.

Also, virtually every major scientific institution in the world has released an official statement concurring with the IPCC's position on man-made climate change (there are zero that have a dissenting position, and only a handful that have a "non-committal" one, and they all happen to be associated with the petroleum and mining industry lol)

Lo ng list of consensusy statements and very short list of non-committal ones here


Meanwhile as for Watts' criticism - Anthony Watts is the well known king of the climate-deny-o-blogosphere. He makes a living nitpicking and publishing anything he can to try and derail pro-anthropogenic warming research. That living also happens to come from big oil via the Heartland Institute.

You are still free to read those criticisms as much as you like of course, but please take it all with a grain of salt considering this man's notorious bias and conflict of interest. I recommend at least looking at some of the rebuttals to his rebuttals:

e.g. The Cook et al. (2013) 97% consensus result is robust

Or just bear witness to how categorically full of **** he actually is:

originally posted by: Grimpachi
Every link, page, source that was thrown at me that stated that there was no warming or AGW was not real could be traced back to fossil fuel financiers.

Heheh no kidding Grim.

I've wasted a good 5 years on ATS trying to draw attention to this simple fact and yet "skeptics" here get awfully forgiving with the skepticism when it comes to their own skeptical sources.

Meanwhile above is posted a supposed "actual paper" refutation of the Cook (non-paper?), and one of its authors is Willie Soon. Aka this guy:

Climate sceptic Willie Soon received $1m from oil companies, papers show


But that's all just a coincidence of course! People like us are only bringing this up because we've got nothing better to offer and we can't handle all the REAL science these guys are doing. Nevermind that this Soon paper hilariously misrepresents the Cook study so bad it might as well be a treaty on cherry-picking.

The "actual paper" originally started out as blog post by Christopher Monckton (who is also listed as an author).

So it's clearly a toss-up. On the one side we have (allegedly) 97% of the world's climate scientists, and on the other we have...this guy:



The debate rages on.

Ok, I read the article. Amid the numerous paragraphs of the "Republicans are stupid" and "big money is behind the denial," I looked for one thing. What did the 97% of scientists propose as a solution? If they have a reasonable, common sense solution, why should anyone oppose it?

a reply to: VictorVonDoom

The solutions are out there, unfortunately they are absurdly behind schedule because of the doubt sewn. Solar should have been where it is now 20 years ago. If it had been, the graphene breakthrough would be history instead of around the corner.