On the Value of “Consensus”
April 2nd, 2006Posted by: Roger Pielke, Jr.
The notion of a scientific consensus on climate change has become a common fixture in discussions of climate science and policy. What once may have been a useful concept has now become little more than a political touchstone used more often to advance political agendas than to support policy development. Even to discuss this issue, as I am here, is to risk being labeled a “climate skeptic” by the denizens of politically correct discourse on climate. Lest there be any confusion, as I’ve written many times, I accept the IPCC consensus on climate science, and base my readily available peer-reviewed climate policy research on the IPCC scientific consensus.
There is of course a scientific consensus on climate change. But what, exactly, does this mean? Checking in with the dictionary folks at Oxford we learn that a “consensus” is a “general agreement.” And a “general agreement” means that there is an “accordance in opinion or feeling … concerning all or most people.” But a “general agreement” is imprecise, so the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has sought to institutionalize the process of defining exactly what it is that scientists are in accordance on and with what certainty. In 2001 the IPCC issued its Third Assessment Report and in its communiqué to policy makers summarized the Working Group I consensus in 17 pages (hereafter SPM, here as PDF, and the other working groups also produced SPMs).
This is where things get tricky. Consider for example this statement from the SPM:
In the light of new evidence and taking into account the remaining uncertainties, most of the observed warming over the last 50 years is likely to have been due to the increase in greenhouse gas concentrations.
How might one interpret this statement? Fortunately, the IPCC has standardized its terminology on uncertainty (see this document in PDF). So an equivalent phrase would be:
Relevant IPCC Lead Authors judge that over the past 50 years that the majority of observed warming has been due to the increase in greenhouse gas concentrations with between 64% and 90% certainty.
But even with the quantification, it is unclear how one should interpret this statement, because the IPCC relies on “expert judgment” – an opaque, negotiated process among IPCC co-authors — to arrive at its consensus statements and levels of uncertainty. There are other methods (e.g., formal expert elicitation) to derive a consensus perspective, but none can remove the need for judgment and corresponding ambiguity (for more discussion of this point see the End Note below). Think about the following questions that one might ask about this IPCC statement:
Would it be fair to interpret this statement as indicating that anyone who is less than 64% certain that “most of the observed warming over the last 50 years is likely to have been due to the increase in greenhouse gas concentrations” is a climate skeptic?
Similarly, would it be fair to interpret this statement as indicating that anyone who is more than 90% certain that “most of the observed warming over the last 50 years is likely to have been due to the increase in greenhouse gas concentrations” is a climate alarmist?
Does the statement in fact allow for scientifically valid views outside the 64%-90% range, with the range simply representing a measure of central tendency?
I have no idea how to answer these questions in a way faithful to the intent of the IPCC, and in my experience it turns out if you ask 5 IPCC contributors you get 5 different answers. The IPCC consensus is remarkably open to interpretation, and consequently we should not be surprised to see it used in very different ways.
For instance, when I read the 2001 IPCC statement from above as a non-expert, I see that the IPCC TAR decided to use the word “likely,” rather than “very likely” (>90%) or “virtually certain” (>99%), which seems to clearly suggest that there was some considerable uncertainty in this statement, i.e., up to a 1/3 chance that the warming over the past 50 years was due to factors other than greenhouse gases. The statement would thus seem to allow a large enough amount of uncertainty to warrant scientifically valid questions about the trend and its causality. And it would also seem that at least in 2001 the climate research community would have agreed with this interpretation, having subsequently focused a considerable amount of research attention on the issues of detection and .attribution related to temperature.
Others interpret the IPCC consensus statements in a much more categorical fashion, for instance, in 2004 Stefan Rahmstorf, a climate scientist and co-host of the RealClimate blog, appealed to and restated this same IPCC consensus statement but completely dropped the references to uncertainty writing (here in PDF),
In the 20th century, global climate warmed by ~0.6°C . . . Most of this warming is due to the rising concentration of CO2 and other anthropogenic gases.”
He then labels people who have doubts about the causes of the global temperature increase – “The attribution sceptics doubt that human activities are responsible for the observed trends.” To be fair, it may be that Rahmstorf and his colleagues at RealClimate believe that the science on this particular issue has now moved from “likely” into the realm of “virtually certain,” perhaps giving us a hint of what to expect in the next IPCC, explaining that
The following scientific findings can no longer credibly be argued to be in dispute:
(1) The observed large-scale warming of the atmosphere and ocean is an entirely expected, and in fact well-predicted, consequence of the human-caused accumulation of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.
(2) There is no other reasonable scientific explanation for the observed warming.
But until the next IPCC process actually is completed and guidance is formally provided to policymakers, non-experts like me have no choice but to rely on the 2001 IPCC as the most recent authoritative consensus statement of the scientific community. The only alternative that we non-experts have is to pick and choose among more recent science and interpretations of that science according to whose views we trust or feel more politically comfortable with. Preventing this sort of cherry picking through a comprehensive community view was one of the main reasons for the creation of the IPCC in the first place.
In practice, the notion of “consensus” is typically portrayed in pure black and white. You are either with the consensus or you are one of those skeptics, who Rahmstorf characterizes as “frequently dishonest.” And we see this pattern whether the issue is temperature trends as discussed above, or a seemingly even more uncertain issue like hurricanes and climate change. Consider this quote from a recent ABC News story which focuses on the nefarious intentions of the oil industry-funded climate skeptics, “But some continue to promote the idea there are “uncertainties in the science”.”
Such characterizations by scientists and the media can have a chilling effect on scientific discourse because they create powerful incentives to avoid research which may be somehow critical of the consensus, leaving such research primarily to those seeking to challenge the consensus. So as a result, some chose to focus on critiquing the hockey stick, others choose to critique the satellite temperature record, still others focus on critiquing the role of the sun in the climate system, and so on. It seems clear that the orientation that each of these researchers take to the subject of study is profoundly shaped by an interest in either consolidating or expanding the “consensus,” with trans-scientific agendas shaping more than a few perspectives. As a result, many climate scientists have become much more tactical in how they select research topics. If this interpretation is anywhere close to the mark then climate science as a whole suffers because of an adversarial orientation in which scientists pick and choose research topics and stances according to what they want to (dis)prove, not simply what they want to learn.
Underlying much of the tactics of climate science are of course political perspectives. What the ABC News article cited above really means is that some assert that there are “uncertainties in the science” as a rationale for business-as-usual policies on climate change, and it is this sort of characterization of uncertainty that is unwelcome. At the same time, it seems that the mentioning of those very same uncertainties in climate science is OK, so long as one also accompanies that with an appropriate qualification about the need for political action.
Consider that among much of the environmental and scientific communities it is appropriate for James Hansen to state: “Climate models suggest that doubled CO2 would cause 3ºC global warming, with an uncertainty of at least 50%” (PDF). But among many of the same people, the following statement by George Bush is inappropriate, “We do not know how much our climate could, or will change in the future. We do not know how fast change will occur, or even how some of our actions could impact it.” Both statements seem to me to be obviously scientifically consistent the knowledge represented by IPCC. The difference is that James Hansen has openly advocated one political agenda and George Bush another. The defining characteristic of a “climate skeptic” does not seem to be only how one views climate science, but how one orients climate science in political context. This explains why it will be extremely unlikely to see Ted Nordhaus and Michael Schellenberger labelled climate skeptics, even though they wrote in Saturday’s New York Times a statement entirely consistent with Rahmstorf’s “attribution skeptics”:
Environmentalists and their opponents have spent far too much time debating whether global warming is caused by humans, and whether the transition to cleaner energy sources will be good or bad for the economy. Whatever the causes, warming is a genuine risk.
They won’t be called skeptics because they also advocate a “Global Warming Preparedness Act.” Politics manifests itself in how various people choose to interpret the notion of “consensus” and use it in politically convenient ways.
In its efforts to precisely delineate a “consensus” the IPCC and those who incessantly cite a universal consensus may be leading us astray. The focus on consensus diverts attention from policy development to endless scientific debates with the pockets of remaining resistance to the consensus, and in the process creates a false impression that securing total conformance to the “consensus” is a prerequisite for action.
As M. Granger Morgan and colleagues remind us, the exact definition of a scientific consensus can be a function of the method used to elicit scientific perspectives. For example, they find that the consensus view on uncertainties associated with aerosol forcing reported by the IPCC in 2001 dramatically underestimated the uncertainties actually held by the relevant experts, they conclude,
The range of uncertainty that a number of experts associated with their estimates, especially those for total aerosol forcing and for surface forcing, was often much larger than that suggested in 2001 by the IPCC Working Group 1 summary figure.
And as well, science advances with surprising findings, new discoveries, and unexpected results. For all of these reasons the precise details of a scientific consensus are always in flux, seeking to pin it down precisely in for it order to sit untouched for 5 or 6 years does not faithfully represent how science works, and more importantly, it does not effectively inform the needs of policy making. For these reasons I wrote last year:
So in addition to arguing about the science of climate change as a proxy for political debate on climate policy, we now can add arguments about the notion of consensus itself. These proxy debates are both a distraction from progress on climate change and a reflection of the tendency of all involved to politicize climate science. The actions that we take on climate change should be robust to (i) the diversity of scientific perspectives, and thus also to (ii) the diversity of perspectives of the nature of the consensus. A consensus is a measure of a central tendency and, as such, it necessarily has a distribution of perspectives around that central measure (1). On climate change, almost all of this distribution is well within the bounds of legitimate scientific debate and reflected within the full text of the IPCC reports. Our policies should not be optimized to reflect a single measure of the central tendency or, worse yet, caricatures of that measure, but instead they should be robust enough to accommodate the distribution of perspectives around that central measure, thus providing a buffer against the possibility that we might learn more in the future.
Until we have a consensus on the diminishing value of the notion of consensus as the keystone of the climate debate, we’ll continue to see the politicization of climate science and the continued gridlock on climate policy. Climate researchers will continue to array themselves tactically with respect to the consensus, ensuring a continuous stream of research results that shade the consensus to and fro. But the reality is, scientists are in general agreement, and at this point effective action on climate change does not depend on either strengthening or more precisely measuring that agreement. The important questions instead are what actions, when, by whom, at what cost, to whom, how, and why?
***End note: From Reilly et al. 2001:
Expert judgment was widely used in preparing the TAR, but the organizers were not able to impose a consistent procedure across the various components. The likelihood terms above were variously assigned on the basis of “judgmental estimates” in the discussion of the science of climate (1) and on using “collective judgment” when discussing the effects of climate change (2). However, little or no documentation is provided for how judgments were reached or whose estimates were reflected. In discussion of mitigation measures (3), the TAR did not report any analysis using these concepts. The TAR states that many hundreds of scientists contributed to the report. In the absence of documentation, readers could easily conclude that reported likelihoods represent a consensus among them (7). This is not necessarily the case (8). Many of the scientists listed as contributors were never consulted about these probability judgments.
April 2nd, 2006 at 7:27 pm
Roger, you state that:
“Others interpret the IPCC consensus statements in a much more categorical fashion, for instance, in 2004 Stefan Rahmstorf, a climate scientist and co-host of the RealClimate blog, appealed to and restated this same IPCC consensus statement but completely dropped the references to uncertainty writing (here in PDF),”
You have erected a strawman. You cast the TAR as the point at which the science stood still and extrapolate from that with a bit of flim flam about 64% and 90%.
Rahmsdorf’s writing relied on many other statements of consensus from learned society’s which occured after the TAR statement was drafted and much more research, essentailly all of which reinforced the consensus position he enunciates. Rahmsdorf specifically says:
“5 Most of this warming is due to the rising concentration of CO2 and other anthropogenic gases; a smaller part is due to natural causes, like fluctuations in solar activity.”
“These findings are based on decades of research and thousands of studies – it is almost inconceivable that they could be overturned by a few new results. The extraordinary consensus is seen in the statements of many international and national professional bodies which have extensively and critically assessed the scientific evidence. In addition to the well-known reports of the IPCC, there are public statements of the American National Academy of Sciences, the American Geophysical Union (AGU – the world’s largest organisation of Earth scientists), the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO), the meteorological organisations of many countries (e.g. a joint declaration by the German, Austrian, and Swiss meteorological societies), the scientific Advisory Council on Global Change (WBGU) set up by the German government, and others. All of these bodies have again and again arrived at the same key conclusions.”
Rahmsdorf continues:
“Anyone relying on the media for information, however, could get a completely different impression: namely that the above core conclusions of the scientific community are still disputed or regularly called into question by new studies. This is mainly due to the untiring PR activities of a small, but vocal mixed bag of climate sceptics (or “contrarians”) who vehemently deny the need for climate protection measures.”
That appears to me a fairly good description of your post above, perhaps more subtle, but certainly moving along that track.
April 2nd, 2006 at 9:20 pm
Roger,
You ask some interesting questions about what it really means that the consensus is 64-90% certain. I have only thought about this recently because of your writings, so I must thank you for that. Surely this gets right to the heart of the communications barrier between science and public. I was quite comfortable with it before thinking about it so hard, but I have yet to decide if you are not just making a mountain out of a mole hill.
What do you think it should mean or how should it be defined and said?
This communication gap is also at the heart of a complaint I will make. I disagree that Bush’s statement is consistent with the IPCC TAR statement (much less with the subsequent developments which I believe he should be generally aware of). The reason I disagree with you is because the context of his statement is the public realm. The scientific realm needs degrees of understanding and percentages of certitude but the public understands this: “we are sure”, “we are not sure” and “we don’t know”. You can add in “we are pretty sure” and “we are not very sure” if you desire nuance.
The correct translation of the scientific statement of consensus in the TAR into the vernacular of the public realm is “we are sure”, George Bush said “we don’t know” and this is a falsehood, perhaps we can euphimise it as “spin”.
April 2nd, 2006 at 9:42 pm
Coby,
If you think “we are sure” is true, I think you have overlooked the last paragraph in this statement out of the TAR:
“Feedbacks between atmospheric chemistry, climate, and the biosphere were not developed to the stage that they could be included in the projected numbers here. Failure to include such coupling is likely to lead to systematic errors and may substantially alter the projected increases in the major greenhouse gases.”
http://www.grida.no/climate/ipcc_tar/wg1/128.htm
The key word it “substantially.”
April 2nd, 2006 at 10:45 pm
You don’t understand what they are talking about. The point is the projected increases could be substantially higher from methane release and CO2 outgassing from soil and ocean warming. Feedbacks.
Regardless, this is getting into the scientific detail where all the caveats are required, it is not directly related to the consensus statement Roger and I both focused on so you have not really addressed my point.
Politicians should be saying “we are sure the earth is warming and that human GHG emissions are the main cause”. By all means, argue about what to do and how to do it, but for god’s sake let’s put that one behind us.
April 3rd, 2006 at 12:41 am
Coby- Thanks for your comment.
You write: “The correct translation of the scientific statement of consensus in the TAR into the vernacular of the public realm is “we are sure”, George Bush said “we don’t know” and this is a falsehood, perhaps we can euphimise it as “spin”.”
I think that you are wrong here about the “correct” translation. Research into the “vernacular of the publc realm” suggests that both “we don’ know” and “we are sure” are frequent interpretations of the notion of “likely.” See Figure 2 in this paper:
http://journals.sfu.ca/int_assess/index.php/iaj/article/viewFile/126/83
and the original source is this paper:
Wallsten, T.S., D.V. Budescu, A. Rapoport, R. Zwick, and B. Forsyth. 1986. Measuring the vague meanings of probability terms. Journal of Experimental Psychology 115(4): 348–365.
If I go into the hospital and the doctor says that there is a 33% chance I won’t survive a procedure, I’d probably characterize that as “He doesn’t know whether I’ll live or not.”
Alternatively, if you say you are 64% certain Florida will win the NCAA’s, then I’d probably chracterize that as “Coby is sure that Florida will win.”
April 3rd, 2006 at 1:05 am
Coby-
You ask: “What do you think it should mean or how should it be defined and said?”
Well, ultimately I think the IPCC should return to its orientation during its FAR, with responsibility for presenting a range of policy options.
Insofar as it discusses relevant research, in all three WGs, I’d prefer that the IPCC characterize the entire scope of perspectives, including outliers, rather than seek to draw an ambiguous line between consensus and non-consensus. I discussed these isues in this short essay:
Pielke, Jr., R. A., 2001: Room for doubt. Nature, 410:151
http://sciencepolicy.colorado.edu/admin/publication_files/resource-43-2001.02.pdf
For a deeper treatment of these issues, you might have a look at our book on Prediction, the concluding chapter of which is available here:
http://sciencepolicy.colorado.edu/admin/publication_files/resource-73-2000.06.pdf
Thanks!
April 3rd, 2006 at 7:22 am
The thing I like about Roger is that no matter how unique his line of reasoning, he never fears cobbling together a disparate number of unconnected facts in order to keep a plot humming down the tracks.
He may have lost the narrative, but he should be admired for his bravery none the less. Please bear with me as I delicately condense his long post.
Roger, the setup: “What once may have been a useful concept [scientific consensus] has now become little more than a political touchstone used more often to advance political agendas than to support policy development.”
Roger, the foil: “Consider this quote from a recent ABC News story which focuses on the nefarious intentions of the oil industry-funded climate skeptics, “But some continue to promote the idea there are “uncertainties in the science”.”
Roger, pontificating: “Such characterizations by scientists and the media can have a chilling effect on scientific discourse because they create powerful incentives to avoid research which may be somehow critical of the consensus, leaving such research primarily to those seeking to challenge the consensus.”
Roger, buttressing his case: “As M. Granger Morgan and colleagues remind us, the exact definition of a scientific consensus can be a function of the method used to elicit scientific perspectives.”
Only one problem here. I ran into Granger a few months ago and he told me that he was advising an ABC producer for program about the skeptics undermining the consensus on climate change. Or to use Roger’s term “consensus” (Note the use of scare quotes).
He added that he was sending the guy some stuff that I had written and that the producer might be getting in contact with me. Then we had a big laugh that it had taken TV so long to figure all that the skeptics were undermining the consensus.
Now I’m sure that Roger, much like Squealer in “Animal Farm”, will start skipping from side to side and whisking his tail in the air to persuade readers that there’s nothing inconsistent with this. Roger is turning black into white, but his dance will convince us all to the contrary.
Well, Granger sits on the editorial board for my journal, and I’m going to see him this week. I’ll make sure he gets a copy of this post. Should be good for another giggle.
Dance, Roger. Dance.
April 3rd, 2006 at 11:30 am
Apology in advance for (slightly) off topic comment, but…
I see no thread regarding your article: “Science, Politics and Press Releases”. I saw it in the Albuquerque Journal Sunday, April 2. It seems a discussion on your forum would be appropriate, given this article apparently was nationally syndicated and, if taken seriously, communicates ideas I strongly dispute.
I don’t care/wish to spam or troll, and I won’t mention it in this discussion again. However, if you do open up a subject/thread, I’ll avail myself of the opportunity to say my piece.
I read your posting guidelines. I generally prefer to keep my TypeKey posts anonymous. However, in accordance w/your wishes I’ll just mention here full ID:
James McKay
Mechanical Engineer/Software Engineer
ABQ, NM
April 3rd, 2006 at 11:41 am
Roger, you write:
“As a result, many climate scientists have become much more tactical in how they select research topics. If this interpretation is anywhere close to the mark then climate science as a whole suffers because of an adversarial orientation in which scientists pick and choose research topics and stances according to what they want to (dis)prove, not simply what they want to learn.”
Why isn’t this a case of scientists choosing their research based on an expectation of improved outcomes? As you and Sarewitz have discussed, science policy academics have long focused on the tactical choice of projects as critical to improving the outcomes of the scientific enterprise. Curiosity and serendipity can only get you so far. Why is this case different?
April 3rd, 2006 at 5:09 pm
quote:
# … it will be extremely unlikely to see Ted Nordhaus and
# Michael Schellenberger labelled climate skeptics …
Nordhaus & Shellenberger Make a Crappy Argument (see http://scienceblogs.com/intersection/2006/04/nordhaus_shellenberger_make_a.php#commentsArea)
quote:
# Yeah, right. If what we’re seeing is natural that implies that
# it will go away. If what we’re seeing is human caused that means
# it won’t go away unless we clean up our act. The risk is
# therefore not the same, not by a long shot. That makes the issue
# of causation crucial–and it makes Nordhaus & Shellenberger’s
# op-ed pretty pointless.
It seems to me that Chris Mooney is offended by Nordhaus & Schellenberger’s piece precisely because they use several phrases associated with those labelled as ‘climate skeptics’ by some, and ‘denialists’ by a few (possibly I’m the only one who uses that label).
This is not equivalent to labeling Nordhaus & Schellenberger as ‘climate skeptics’, but some of us feel their argument is weak and unhelpful.
April 3rd, 2006 at 5:14 pm
The close paren on the end of the link to Mooney’s blog does not belong there.
The #commentsArea is unnecessary.
http://scienceblogs.com/intersection/2006/04/nordhaus_shellenberger_make_a.php
is the right link. Apologies …
April 3rd, 2006 at 5:56 pm
Paul- Do you have a question or substantive comment? I remain completely in the dark about your hostility and repeated angry, substance-free posts. I do find it rather bizarre to have a member of the media engaging in open personal attacks. Care to clarify?
James- Thanks! I was unaware that this had been published. An early version was posted here a few weeks ago, and I will mention on the main page.
TSR- This is a great question. The quick answer is that there is a policy disconnect here. The notion of consensus is a proxy for debates about climate politics by explicit means.
llewelly- Thanks for this link. I’d agree that Mooney doesn’t appear too happy, but I don’t understand what he is saying. Natural changes go away? Not necessarily. I discuss this sort of logic in the introduction to my paper “Misdefining Climate Change”. Mooney appears to completely miss the point of N&S which is quite consistent with the article Dan Sarewitz and I had in the Atlantic Monthly in 2000.
Thanks all!
April 3rd, 2006 at 6:20 pm
Roger, see comments. Particularly:
http://scienceblogs.com/intersection/2006/04/nordhaus_shellenberger_make_a.php#comment-53163
# To me, and to climate skeptics, claiming the current warming is
# “natural” is tantamount to claiming that it’s nothing to worry
# about. That’s because implicit in claiming it’s natural is the
# notion that there are cycles, warming trends followed by cooling
# trends. So I don’t see what’s unreasonable about what I said.
http://scienceblogs.com/intersection/2006/04/nordhaus_shellenberger_make_a.php#comment-53220
# I could’ve been clearer, yes
My point is not that Chris did a particularly good deconstruction of Nordhaus & Schellenberger. I only meant to point out that some see Nordhaus & Schellenberger’s arguments as having a lot in common with certain ‘climate skeptic’ arguments, and so forth.
Like Chris, I could’ve been clearer …
April 3rd, 2006 at 6:44 pm
James- I can’t find the article online, but here is a link to the earlier version:
http://sciencepolicy.colorado.edu/prometheus/archives/science_policy_general/000739unpublished_oped_s.html
April 3rd, 2006 at 6:54 pm
Coby said:
“You don’t understand what they are talking about. The point is the projected increases could be substantially higher from methane release and CO2 outgassing from soil and ocean warming. Feedbacks.”
Your paradigm is showing. What makes you think feedbacks will only be positive? That comes from a simplified (modelers) assumption that climate is stagnant. It’s not. The changes of the last few years are nothing compared to natural perturbations. There are feedbacks going on right now, and have always been.
So, I would say that it’s *you* that doesn’t understand what’s going on. Your argument about consensus can’t be separated from reality. I did in fact address your point – I showed how it is irrational.
“For God’s sake let’s” find out what those feedbacks are! Without doing that we’re shooting in the dark – and it doesn’t matter how many shotguns are pointed in the same direction. How do you know the danger isn’t coming from behind? In fact, we know that it is. An *ice age* would be catastrophic. “Global warming” might be – but it could also be a good thing, or what we’re doing with CO2 could be entirely benign.
We, collectively as Homo sapiens, have no clue. Sorry to burst your bubble.
April 3rd, 2006 at 7:03 pm
Steve, where do you get the impression that modelers assume the climate is stagnant?
April 3rd, 2006 at 8:04 pm
Not “is” but “was” before any anthropogenic influence. Since we don’t know where climate would be right now if there would have been no anthropogenic influence, what would it be?
We do know that from the peak of the MWP to the valley of the LIA temperature was dropping at approximately the same rate as the temperature drop out of the Eemian. Why? Then, the temperature fall stopped. Why?
April 4th, 2006 at 12:35 am
I have been asked to clarify who I was refering to with my phrase “denizens of politically correct discourse on climate”. Apologies for being imprecise. The reference was not to IPCC, RealClimate, or folks engaged in open examination of the science or policy issues associated with the climate issue. It was focused on a few who apparently do not like my approach to raising questions about the science-policy interface on climate, and instead of openly engaging in debate, instead resort to mischaracterizations of my views and personal comments here and elsewhere. I do view this as the essence of “political correctness”. You can find a couple of such perspectives in the comments here. Apologies for any confusion!
April 4th, 2006 at 6:57 am
Roger, I was expecting you to whisk your tail through the air and write something interesting. Maybe explain why, whenever you cherry pick information, you always end up with sour grapes. Perhaps tie yourself in knots as you hopped side to side, in a valiant effort to defend yet another pointless post while attacking someone credible.
I see you’ve gone for the cheap and easy “your post has no substance” mixed with a half-hearted attempt to label dissent as hostility. How very sad. You fail to meet minimal standards.
I have long suspected, but have now confirmed that Prometheus serves no useful purpose other than as a venue for you to touch yourself in public.
This blog is dead.
April 4th, 2006 at 7:05 am
“Denizens of politically correct discourse on climate” sounds a bit like “nattering nabobs of negativism.” Also, Roger, you are aware that “politically correct” used in this way is a bit of a right-wing FUD phrase?
My snark about rhetorical overkill aside, your argumentation seems to me to boil down to two suggestions: Rename the consensus as “broad agreement” and incorporate scientific outliers into that agreement.
The first idea would accomplish precisely nothing other than create an opportunity for the fossil fuel industry and its mouthpieces to spend years engaging in triumphalism about how they forced those climate scientists to back off of claiming a consensus. This would help how? If you want to have an academic discussion about whether it would have been better to use broad agreement rather than consensus at the outset, that’s another matter, but to suggest changing it now seems poorly thought out.
Second, what outliers are you taking about? I think the IPCC takes reasonable account of outliers now. Do you mean that they should add the views of people like Singer, McKitrick & Essex, Baliunas, Soon, etc? Somehow I doubt it, although that said if any one of those people were to actually produce some legitimate research I think it would be included notwithstanding the extreme prejudice that has resulted from their prior work. Note that the journals continued to regularly publish skeptical and even contrarian work up until a few years ago, although some kind of limit was finally reached. But please do give a few concrete examples of outliers who you think ought to be included, and in what way.
April 4th, 2006 at 11:38 am
Paul- This must be some of that new-fangled “advocacy journalism.” Please recognize that readership here is of course entirely voluntary. If what you read disturbs you so profoundly, then I’d recommend visiting another website. Thanks!!
April 4th, 2006 at 11:43 am
Steve-
You ask: “Also, Roger, you are aware that “politically correct” used in this way is a bit of a right-wing FUD phrase?”
I don’t even know what this means. But I suppose it is not a complement. Isn’t there irony in saying that “politically correct” is not a politically correct phrase?
I’d encourage you to re-read the post. I asked three questions of the consensus statement I pulled out of the TAR. Do you know the answers to them?
April 4th, 2006 at 11:58 am
I will admit to some great surprise at being personally insulted and systematically misrepresented by a member of the California Executive Committee of the Sierra Club and a reporter for the magazine Environmental Science & Technology. Perhaps in expressing my acceptance of climate change science and the need for policy action on climate, I have not said _precisely_ the right things?
Although these individuals may be fairly unique (wholelly unique in my experience) for me this provides a telling anecdote on why it is that the environmental community has such dificulty getting broader acceptance!
April 4th, 2006 at 1:10 pm
Roger,
We’re all humans here with our human failings, and I certainly can easily take issue with the way you are quibbling about consensus or why some of the commenters take their postures.
But a broad-brushing of behaviors of an entire movement based on the comments of a few is a typical tactic. If you want to continue to move the climate debate forward, you can’t descend to the level of some commenters that you disparage in the comment immediately above. Typicality is not why your readership comes here.
Reposturing the debate into favorable terms is one way to go about scuffling in the public arena when resource availability is asymmetric, and ya’ll just got drug down onto their turf.
All this tail wagging stuff in this thread is maddening for a reason. Stick with showing the way on policy action and avoid making yourself a target. You were made more public from the *Nature* piece and this sorta thing is what comes with that recognition.
Best,
D
April 4th, 2006 at 1:11 pm
Oh, and Consensus in ” ” is a scare quote, not a doubt-casting quote. Too late in the game, Roger.
Best,
D
April 4th, 2006 at 3:00 pm
Roger, if you want to bone up on usage of “politically correct” I would suggest Rush Limbaugh’s site as a good place to start.
On the questions, I generally agree with Eli’s response, but would add that of course the TAR had to take a very conservative approach, especially since comparatively little was known at the time regarding the magnitude of other anthropogenic forcings, mainly aerosols and land use changes. It’s a mistake to look at those numbers and imagine that the likelihood of the warming being from non-anthropogenic causes could be the complement of them. Rather, I would imagine it would be something close to or maybe even at zero. In any case, this is an odd time to have this discussion as it is obvious to everyone paying attention that the science supporting an AR4 conclusion of very near 100% anthro has been in place for quite some time. The “very near” is there only to account for a possible but clearly small positive solar forcing and an unlikely but not entirely excludable positive change in magmatic forcing.
Nuances aside, I can’t really answer your three questions directly since you substituted “most” for “majority” and I’m not sure what that means. But if you had left it at “majority,” my answers would be yes, no and no.
April 4th, 2006 at 3:01 pm
Dano- You folks have a lot of rules that I apparently am not aware of … scare quote? I put the term in quotes simply to alert the reader that the term is to-be-defined in the post. You are of course free to pick nits with semantics and such, but some engagement with the substance of the post is also most welcome. Thanks!
April 4th, 2006 at 4:36 pm
Roger – I’m likely a ‘you folks’ – + see my broad brushing comment above.
A cursory look at the public discourse will reveal the extent of the subjugation of the consensus term, and the liberal (ahem) use of scare quotes.
HTH,
D
April 4th, 2006 at 5:49 pm
Paul T – the continuing personal attacks have gone beyond the bizarre. Can you explain the source of your anger or the source of the bone you’re picking for the rest of us? RPJr. aside, I’m not sure any of the rest of us understand where you’re coming from.
With a very few exceptions, the commenters here are far and away the most substantiative commenters I’ve seen in the science blog world (even the implacable Mark B gets his props, much as it might hurt me to admit it 8-). Your comments stand out as seeming substance-free but vendetta-laden. Can you please explain the vendetta or else just play along with everybody else and add some original insights into the discussions without being catty and insulting?
April 4th, 2006 at 6:02 pm
Powering down and I see my previous comment should read:
‘Roger – I’m likely NOT a ‘you folks’ -
Crazy day, but not too crazy to notice kevin v’s spot-on comment and to write:
what kevin v said.
Best,
D
April 4th, 2006 at 6:40 pm
Well, scare quotes are a common tactic, so it is a bit of PC (pious cant) to claim that this is a “secret” rule. Comes under the heading of implausible deniability.
But to the “substance” of the post, such as it is. The statement
“The actions that we take on climate change should be robust to (i) the diversity of scientific perspectives, and thus also to (ii) the diversity of perspectives of the nature of the consensus. A consensus is a measure of a central tendency and, as such, it necessarily has a distribution of perspectives around that central measure (1).”
Is either a set of oxymorii, so vague as to be useless, or a major mistake. First of all, if something is sensitive to the ENTIRE range of a large set of studies, then it is overly broad and useless for policy purposes. It over-emphasizes outliers. The purpose of critical reviews such as IPCC is to narrow the range to the best estimates (which themselves can have a range, but a much narrower one). You can, of course, always drown policy makers or readers of a blog in a sea of references. You can actually do the same to scientists (you just need more of em). OTOH, those looking for expert guidance need to have the field narrowed so they can move on to the next thing, be it further studies or policy initiatives. The policy advocated here is merely a variation of “further study for everything we don’t want to have to do anything about” (scary quotes). By keeping everything open, nothing is ever settled. How “useful”.
April 5th, 2006 at 7:10 am
I had never heard of scare quotes before although I was familiar with air quotes and finger quotes. Here is what wikipedia says, “In spite of their pejorative label, such quotes may be used legitimately. An author who uses quotation marks in such a manner may do so in order to disclaim responsibility for the words, or to emphasize that a specialized, narrowed or historical sense of the quoted material is being suggested.” I guess I didn’t find Roger’s use of quotes all that sinister. I’ve met Roger a time or two and he doesn’t seem to be that sinister (how’s that for damning with faint praise).
BTW, I second Kevin V. comments about Paul.
April 6th, 2006 at 2:00 pm
Jim- Thanks (I think)!
April 6th, 2006 at 6:27 pm
My apologies for mis-spelling Stefan Rahmstorf’s name in various replies here
April 11th, 2006 at 3:39 pm
It’s disappointing that some resort to personal attacks instead of substantive discussion.
I, for one, enjoyed your post Roger.