Pielke’s Comments on Houston Chronicle Story
January 22nd, 2007Posted by: Roger Pielke, Jr.
Kevin Vranes and I are quoted in a Houston Chronicle story today on the “overselling” of climate science. Kevin just posted his reactions. I have a few reactions as well.
First, I was surprised to see the following quote from NAS President Ralph Cicerone, which I had not seen before:
I think we understand the mechanisms of CO2 and climate better than we do of what causes lung cancer. … In fact, it is fair to say that global warming may be the most carefully and fully studied scientific topic in human history.
Not only is this absurd on its face, it is politically dangerous for those wanting action on climate change. Consider another similar statement along these lines from RealClimate’s Ray Pierrehumbert:
On the subject of controversy and evidence for evolution vs. evidence for CO2-induced global warming, I’d say both are well supported but that in some ways the case for anthropogenic global warming is a bit more straightforward. That’s because its mostly physical science rather than biology. We have quantitative mathematical representations of far more of the process, and ways of testing individual bits in a more straightforward way (as in laboratory measurements of infrared absorption by CO2). Evolution proceeds slowly, and while there are definitely cases where it can be observed in action, reading the fossil record presents difficulties that are in some ways more challenging than reading the paleoclimate record. There are cases where the difficulties are comparable (e.g. figuring out Cretaceous CO2 levels, or making sense of satellite measurements of tropical lapse rate trends) but on the whole, we know how to take a reductionist approach to climate better than we know how to take a reductionist approach to biology. [Emphasis added. -Ed.]
The comparisons by Drs. Cicerone and Pierrehumbert to smoking and evolution are of course political comments in the guise of science. The thinking appears to be that if you accept certain political action on smoking and evolution, then you necessarily must accept certain political action on climate change because the scientific cases in smoking and evolution are weaker than in climate change yet we take certain actions in those cases. Talk about overselling . . .
The political danger is of course that it is quite appropriate to take issue with the fundamental premise of these statements and use that to argue that we shouldn’t be taking action on climate change until the science is as certain as smoking or evolution. Then one is caught up debating . . . guess what . . . the science of climate change in relation to evolution and smoking, and not policy actions in the face of fundamental uncertainties. I don’t care if climate science is or is not more certain than evolution or smoking, it doesn;t matter one bit for the case for action.
Second, it is interesting to see Judy Curry, a frequent commenter here, offering some support for Kevin Vranes’ views about their being some tension in the community. Of course, she is well positioned to know given that the hurricane community has seen more than its fair share of such tensions.
Finally, I’m quoted at the end of the story as follows:
“I can understand how a scientist without tenure can feel the community pressures,” says environmental scientist Roger Pielke Jr., a colleague of Vranes’ at the University of Colorado.
Pielke says he has felt pressure from his peers: A prominent scientist angrily accused him of being a skeptic, and a scientific journal editor asked him to “dampen” the message of a peer-reviewed paper to derail skeptics and business interests.
“The case for action on climate science, both for energy policy and adaptation, is overwhelming,” Pielke says. “But if we oversell the science, our credibility is at stake.”
For those wanting more details about pressures I’ve personally experienced, please have a look at this post.
January 22nd, 2007 at 1:03 pm
Cicerone’s comment is not at all absurd. The basics of the greenhouse effect have been understood since 1827, and a quantative estimate of climate sensitivity was first given in 1896. Few results in any science go back as far or rely on such fundamenally understood principles. Of course there are subtleties and details to be worked out. At the same time, a great deal is already understood and it all points towards anthropogenic global warming.
January 22nd, 2007 at 1:48 pm
The remarks attributed to Cicerone and Pierrehumbert are indeed “absurd on their faces.” These remarks also strongly suggest that the speakers are abysmally ignorant of the history of science and the epistemology of science. Hubris or disingenuousness — take your pick.
Do such “spokespersons” not understand the damage they are doing to science?
January 22nd, 2007 at 2:45 pm
Now here is a question: Given the political success environmental campaigners have had in the last few years in convincing, decisively, every single government in the world to put climate change high on the international and G8 agenda (regardless of the diverse climate policies adopted) – why would climate scientists surreptitiously be alarmed about their victory? In short, what could lie beneath the apparent apprehension among climate researchers Kevin spotted at the AGU meeting?
Could it be that some climatologists are worried about a likely backlash if the most dire predictions won’t materialise in the near future? On the basis of scientific advocacy and advice, $billions – if not $trillions – are now at stake. Europe is curently faced with the reality of economic sacrifice and industrial impediment in the name of Kyoto.
http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/story.html?id=03445f57-0777-4554-ac7c-ec63cb073223
It is quite possible, that the rest of the Western world may follow suit in the not too distant future.
But if the predictions of climate Armageddon won’t come true in the next ten year or so – despite an expected, unremitting rise of CO2 emissions – the political and economic repercussions and the backlash could be dire. No wonder some guarded contestants begin to fear the ramifications of alarmism gone wrong.
January 22nd, 2007 at 5:04 pm
Benny asked: “In short, what could lie beneath the apparent apprehension among climate researchers Kevin spotted at the AGU meeting?”
Maybe they harbor the secret fear that if every country accepts the premise that AGW is real, government funding needs to be diverted engineers to do research and development and business types to get the inventions marketed and delivered to the public? That’s what we do when we focus on inventing our way out of problems and transfering the technology to the public sector.
How much funding will we really need to develop meso-scale parameterizations to incorporate the effects of aerosols on climate? Or better models for coupling the mass, momentum and energy transfer between the ocean and atmosphere? Wouldn’t the world be better off with a nice plug-in hybrid electric car?
January 22nd, 2007 at 8:04 pm
The biggest thing that I noticed here is the complete lack of any reference to feedbacks and land use changes. Without a doubt forcings are known pretty well – but the feedbacks are not necessarily “subtle”. Nor are land use changes. The public sees stories like this and they immediately confuse CO2 with all AGW. It’s not that way, and based on the evidence in the paleo record, CO2 seems to be having a very minor effect – except to the inane position “Well, CO2 *could* have made the temperature _______” There’s no evidence it has.
Not that it can’t – we just don’t know. This is what we *do* know CO2 is doing:
http://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/news/topstory/2003/0530earthgreen.html
That is, creating more food for the 6.5 billion relatives-of-the-lemming known as Homo sapiens here on Earth. Maybe the appropriate word is “reprieve”.
January 22nd, 2007 at 8:30 pm
Benny Peiser asks, “In short, what could lie beneath the apparent apprehension among climate researchers Kevin spotted at the AGU meeting?”
Well, I don’t know the reason they are apprehensive. But I definitely know the reason they *should* be apprehensive.
As I’ve pointed out (on more than one occasion
) what is almost certainly the most important “finding” regarding global warming is nothing more than blatant scientific fraud. (And not original scientific fraud either…it’s already been done for more than 30 years.)
The most important “finding” regarding global warming research is the answer to the question, “What will happen if governments don’t get involved?”
The answer, according to the IPCC (which everyone insists is the authoritative source for climate science) comes in the form of the “projections” in the IPCC Third Assessment Report, of “1.4 to 5.8 degrees Celsius” warming from 1990 to 2100.
The problem is that the IPCC makes no estimate of the probability of warming lying *outside* that range, nor any estimate of the relative probabilities of warming lying near the low, middle, or upper end within the range. Therefore, the “projections” are completely unfalsifiable, and completely invalid, as a matter of science. (They are also obviously completely worthless in assessing proper policies, since obviously policies would differ, depending on whether warming without government intervention would be below, above, in the lower end, in the upper end, or in the middle of the range.)
This is not an esoteric or trivial matter. Even high school students in Indiana learn that, for predictions to be scientific, they must at minimum be falsifiable:
http://www.batesville.k12.in.us/Physics/PhyNet/AboutScience/Hypotheses.html
Moreover, this fraud–and that is precisely what it is–is not at all new. The authors of the Limits To Growth series of books have been practicing it for more than 30 years. It’s very simple:
1) Develop a large number of “scenarios,” of which one or two are realistic, and the rest wildly unrealistic,
2) Insist that it is not possible to assess the probability of one scenario versus another, so that they must all be considered “equally valid,”
3) Point to the wildly unrealistic scenarios, and insist that since they are “equally valid,” they must be considered just as likely to occur as the one or two realistic scenarios described.
These are the scientific facts:
1) The IPCC TAR scenarios are unfalsifiable, and therefore completely invalid,
2) An analysis by Tom Wigley and Sarah Raper in Science in July 2001 estimated a 5% probability of warming less than 1.7 deg C, a 50% probability of warming less than 3.1 deg C, and a 95% probability of warming less than 4.9 deg C. This was certainly an improvement on the IPCC TAR (it could not possibly be worse), but the Wigley and Raper article assumed that all the IPCC scenarios were equally probable. This is trivially wrong, as a matter of science. (I use the analogy that it’s like assuming that a straight-A student has an equal probability of getting an A, B, C, D, or F in his or her next class.)
3) If one estimated REALISTIC probabilities for the various IPCC scenarios (i.e., based on REALISTIC predictions of CO2 emissions and atmospheric concentrations, methane atmospheric concentrations, and black carbon emissions) one would obtain a probability of approximately 50 percent that the warming will be LESS than the IPCC TAR minimum of 1.4 deg C. (That’s why the IPCC made no attempt to determine such a probability.) One would also obtain an estimated probability of less than approximately 5 percent for warming of the Wigley and Raper “50 percent probility” value of 3.1 deg C.
http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2007/1/12/111531/748#9
http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2007/1/12/111531/748#10
If the three scientific facts presented above were widely known, funding for climate change would crash. Therefore, the “climate change community” (and even journals like Science and Nature) have perpetrated or ignored blatant scientific fraud.
That’s what the members of the AGU *should* be worried about.
January 22nd, 2007 at 11:56 pm
Re. Ralph Cicerone’s comment about how well we understand the mechanisms of CO2 and climate versus how well we understand the mechanisms of how cigarette smoking causes lung cancer.
Kevin Vranes is quoted as saying: “when I hear things like that I go crazy,” and Roger writes that it is “absurd on its face,” before going on to accuse Cicerone of making political comments in the guise of science.
Putting aside the gratuitous accusation based on no evidence but what Roger thinks the President of the National Academy of Sciences “appears to be” thinking, I have no idea what you guys are talking about. Kevin, why do you go crazy? And Roger, how is it absurd on its face?
This looks to me like an objectively testable statement, so even if wrong, it is inappropriate to categorize it as “Ridiculously incongruous or unreasonable” (a definition of absurd). My knowledge of the field of lung cancer mechanisms is limited, but based on what I do know, I believe it not only to be testable statement, but also to be true.
Explain, please, what you mean, don’t just make assertions that, at least in retrospect, are clearly wrong (if it were absurd “on its face” then its meaning wouldn’t be totally obscure to at least several of us, presumably including the president of the National Academy of Sciences himself).
Thanks,
Scott
January 23rd, 2007 at 5:07 am
The Houston Chronicle article states:
“Nearly all climate scientists believe the Earth is warming and that human activity, by increasing the level of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide, has contributed significantly to the warming.”
Given that “significantly” could mean anything from 10% to 90% then this statement covers everyone from Lindzen to Houghton and is therefore meaningless, a consensus of nothing.
IMO scientists should be alarmed at the hubris of assuming we can alter future climate by tinkering with CO2 emissions.
Efforts should be focused upon adaptation and ensuring global wealth continues to expand and permeate to the lowest levels so that there are far fewer people living in poverty who are at risk to climate change resulting from any cause.
January 23rd, 2007 at 6:41 am
Kevin: The greenhouse effect is considered to be well understood, yet the IPCC are unable estimate climate sensitivity to a doubling of CO2 within a factor of 3. Other climate forcings have a poor understanding:
http://www.grida.no/climate/ipcc_tar/slides/large/06.01.jpg
I recall the paper you posted on ‘No Se Nada’ that dealt a blow to ‘positive feedback’ (along with one that supported it):
http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2006…/2005GL025393.shtml
Pielke Sr would say that land use change over the past 300 years has possibly had an effect on climate that is larger than the effect of doubling CO2, and will continue to do so.
Doesn’t CO2 stay in the atmosphere for 50 to 200 years?
Is CO2 driving climate change, or is it enhancing the greenhouse effect in a solar driven climate system?
1827, 1896? In 2006, Svensmark et al gave experimental support to the solar/comsic rays/low-level cloud cover-climate connection.
Asian transport emissions are likey to treble over the next 25 years, and Chinese emissions are about to overtake those of the USA. There is no short or medium term solution to atmospheric CO2 levels.
I can only regard a ‘climate policy’ that concentrates on attempting to manipulate atmospheric CO2 as ‘futile.’
If global cooling is what we want, then here it comes:
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2006/10may_longrange.htm
I’ve seen calculations for the anthropogenic contribution to global warming that equate to around one third or one half at most.
I think we are long overdue for those advocating ‘action’ on climate change to provide a calculation for how much atmospheric CO2 will be reduced, by what mechanism, over what time scale, the effect on global temperatures and ocean heat content – just for starters. Any volunteers to show us what we would be getting (and when) in return for the effect on jobs, mobility, prosperity, heating, cooling, lighting etc?
January 23rd, 2007 at 6:54 am
Scott-
Thanks for your comment.
It is indeed ironic that you target your comment asking for clarification –
“Explain, please, what you mean, don’t just make assertions that, at least in retrospect, are clearly wrong”
– on my response to Dr. Cicerone rather than on his original assertion. In my experience those making far out assertions are the ones who need to provide evidence not those who ask for it in response.
Anyway, to reply to you request for clarification.
1. Consider the role of CO2 and clouds, one of the mechanisms of CO2 and climate, which is not understood at all. See:
http://cdmc.epp.cmu.edu/survey.htm
Please point to some mechanism of lung cancer and smoking which is understood with less certainty than this mechanism.
2. Dr. Cicerone asserts that climate change may be the most fully studied topic in scientific history.
If the metric of “fully studied” is amount of money spent, number of researcher-years investigating, number of published papers, (or pick another metric), then this is just plain silly.
For a few obvious and uncontroversial examples: nuclear weapons/power, cancer, and any number of diseases easily are more fully studied than climate change, some by an order of magnitude (pick your metric).
In the US, NIH spends $28 billion/year on health research. The US has spent about $28 billion on climate research total since 1989.
Not only are Dr. Cicerone’s claims indeed absurd, they are politically unnecessary. To use an analogy, it would be a bit like the director of the US Institute for Peace testifying before Congress in 2003 that the threat from Iraq is understood with more certainty than the threat from Japan in WWII, and that no such topic of intelligence has been more exhaustively studied . . .
January 23rd, 2007 at 7:20 am
Scott — crazy for precisely the reasons Roger states. Perhaps the comparison (between levels of scientific attention lavished on different subjects) can be made, but it certainly has not (for climate vs. X) that I am aware of. So we’re left with the hidden-in-plain-sight message of the quote, which is that since we’ve acted on X and X has more uncertainty than Y, then logically we must act on Y.
January 23rd, 2007 at 8:36 am
Scott-
Here is a better way to make my point: According to the media, the IPCC is about to report to the effect that they are 90%+ certain that most of the increase in global average temperature over the past 50 years is due to human emissions of GHGs.
Now can you sit there with a straight face and say that health scientists are LESS than 90% certain that the increase in lung cancer deaths over the past 50 years is due to smoking?
January 23rd, 2007 at 9:47 am
The number of overly-simplistic statements coming from some AGW proponents is becoming somewhat alarming relative to science and engineering. Some proponents seem to be looking for a PR hook that will suck in the vast majority of people who do not have the time or inclination to try to understand the situation in depth.
“The basics of the greenhouse effect have been understood since 1827, and a quantitative estimate of climate sensitivity was first given in 1896. Few results in any science go back as far or rely on such fundamentally understood principles.” The last sentence in this statement is one of the more amazing that I’ve ever seen in science and engineering. My continuum mechanics and thermodynamics books have literature citations that go back to the 1600s and 1700s. Yes, technical societies and their journals were published and available in these time periods, at least in the 1700s. My heat transfer and fluid flow textbooks cite references back to the 1700s and 1800s. And I think Newton published well before 1827 J. Euler and Descartes, for two examples, had died well before 1827. True facts about numbers were known before written history started.
Additionally, it is a very incomplete description of the real-world physical situation. If the fundamental basis of the Global Average Temperature (GAT) rested entirely on the concept alluded to, which I think refers to Fourier and Arrhenius, and radiative equilibrium, these discussions would have ended in previous decades. The fact that the discussions continue is one indication that the statement is in fact not correct. How can the statement be correct while at the same time billions of dollars are being spent on study of the physical phenomena and processes that effect the GAT?
Recently Professor Pierrehumbert stated at Comment # 193 in this thread on RC, http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/01/calling-all-science-teachers/ states, “And, a computer model is nothing more than an embodiment of 200 years of independently tested pieces of the physical theory. If you’re going do (sic) dismiss any result that requires a computer to help with the calculations, you’re going to have to dismiss most of 20th/21st century science and technology. –raypierre]” Apparently he rounded 180 years up to 200. Plus this statement did not address the most important aspect of the situation. The use of computers has certainly not been around for 200 years, and software-engineering standards are seemingly ignored in the climate-change community. The statement, to me, also indicates that he advocates complete acceptance of all computer-calculated numbers. This is not a good position to take even in the case of software to which rigorous software-quality standards have been applied and the application areas are somewhat straightforward. And again it is certainly an overly-simplistic summary of the actual situation, especially relative to the inherent complexity of the physical phenomena and processes under investigation and the associated complexity of the computer software.
Another example is given in this publication on page 8. http://www.iop.org/activity/policy/Publications/file_4147.pdf” ( This publication might not be peer-reviewed.) There an analogy between the results of calculations of weather/climate models is made to the kinetic theory of gases. The analogy is made relative to the effects of chaos in the weather/climate models and the random motion of molecules in gases. The analogy overlooks the fact that a model of gases based on assumed random molecular motions has been validated with measured physical phenomena in certain limited cases, while taking some average of calculated results of apparently chaotic behavior from a computer code has no validated connection to physical phenomena.
I think science and engineering are starting to take a beating as some attempt to introduce overly simplistic ‘metrics’ into discussions of inherently complex physical phenomena and processes. While at the same time it is very true that some of the important phenomena and processes are not completely understood and certainly not incorporated into computer software with a sound theoretical fundamental basis. And all the while, extremely important software-engineering aspects have yet to be even begun to be addressed by the climate-change community.
And as to the introduction of an analogy with smoking, that is asking for trouble. It also seems to be another of the overly-simplistic metrics like the Global Average Temperature that has been introduced so that ‘everyman’ can ‘understand’ the totality of the ‘problem’. Smoking is a personal choice while energy use with CO2 production is not a choice. Production and consumption of energy is necessary for life. And I do not mean in the molecular/cell level sense of these words. I mean in the macro-scale staying alive sense.
It is asking for trouble additionally because of the false premise under the smoking-cancer -public-health-costs linkage. That is, it has not yet been determined that the public health costs of smoking have been at all reduced by the imposition of additional costs to smokers. As someone pointed out long ago, some smokers die early from cancers caused by smoking and thus in fact do not impose additional costs to the public health sector compared to those who live long but unhealthy lives that are unrelated to smoking. Finally, the cost of settlements with tobacco companies gets passed on to the people who choose to continue smoking. The cost of CO2 abatement will be passed on to everyone, especially to those who cannot afford it.
Thanks for any and all corrections and additions.
January 23rd, 2007 at 10:37 am
Dear Roger and Kevin,
I targeted my request for explanation to you, Roger, because I literally did not understand what you meant by calling Ralph Cicerone’s statement “absurd”. When I said you were “wrong” I was referring specifically to the “on its face” part, because there was nothing obvious to me about it.
I just didn’t understand why you considered Cicerone’s statement about understanding of causal *mechanisms* (note: not balance of evidence for a causal connection) to be “way out.” The statement seems eminently plausible to me, and although I would personally have to withhold definitive judgment pending a more careful comparison which I haven’t done, my a priori take is that it is in the “obviously likely” category. Pending such a personal investigation, the sterling credibility and authority of the source in this instance (Ralph Cicerone) inclines me to give the benefit of the doubt in the meantime.
Roger, your last post referencing the IPCC, however, begins to clarify that your position seems to rise from a misunderstanding of Ralph’s careful statement about understanding mechanism, which you seem to confound with a statement about degrees of confidence in the existence of a causal connection (whatever the mechanism might be).
Cicerone’s statement speaks specifically to understanding of mechanism. This is an important distinction, glossed over here on Prometheus. The cigarette smoking-lung cancer problem and the AGW problem are very different problems in this regard: because of high replicability (numerous smoking vs. non-smoking individuals) and animal models, we have high confidence that cigarette smoking causes lung cancer, even though the understanding of the biological mechanism is really rather poor. With climate, we have only one earth, so we only have limited partial replicability by going back in time on earth or by comparing a small number of only somewhat similar planets (basically three: venus, earth, and mars). On the other hand, the fundamental physical mechanisms of how GHG affect climates are well understood, even if following the details through to precise outcomes (as with the aerosol paper you cite) is complicated.
In sum, I think there is high confidence that cigarette smoking causes cancer, and similarly high confidence that increases in GHG gases cause global warming. The high confidence in the case of lung cancer derives mostly from statistical models and epidemiology, whereas the high confidence in the case of climate derives more from fundamental understanding of causal mechanisms.
-Scott
January 23rd, 2007 at 11:09 am
Scott-
Thanks. I am happy to debate this point as long as you’d like, but is it really what we ought to be discussing?
I maintain that Dr. Cicerone’s point on its face is absurd, even in the face of all of the qualifications that you offer.
Here is the real problem, “the sterling credibility and authority of the source in this instance (Ralph Cicerone) inclines me to give the benefit of the doubt in the meantime.”
When such preeminent scientists go out on a limb with silly statements like this the only thing that it can do is impinge upon their credibility. Such statements are politically and scientifically unnecessary.
Thanks!
January 23rd, 2007 at 12:29 pm
It is impossible for there to be a single mechanism that totally governs the GAT and climate change. If it is true that a single mechanism is responsible and it has been known since 1827/1896, the problem would have been worked out by 1900, at the latest.
The phenomena discovered by Fourier and Arrhenius, and radiative equilibrium, do not govern the problem alone and are a minor aspect of the complete physical picture. Radiative energy transport in the case of an interacting media is a more nearly complete statement of the radiative aspects of the physical picture. The fundamental equations for radiative energy transport through an interacting media were not worked out until the 1900s, I think. Planck’s famous article on surface radiation was published in 1901. Definitive texts on radiative transport were still being published in the mid-to-late 1900s. And computer software needed to solve the basic equations could not have been available until large-scale computing power became available. Radiative transport with an interacting media and associated software continue to be an active and fruitful research areas to this day. Finally I think the time-scale for radiative equilibrium is on the order of thousands of years. Todays AOLGCM calculations cover only a few 100s of years. If radiative equilibrium is the state of interest, then the problem has not even begun to be solved.
The materials that make up the surface of the earth also presents extremely important aspects of the complete problem. These also interact with the radiative energy transport processes in complex ways that are important relative to the thermal state of the materials that make up both the surface of the earth and its atmosphere.
The complete statement of the problem was not made in 1827 and 1896 and most certainly the solution was not given.
In a previous post I overlooked that all the Bernoulli contributors to science and engineering worked in the 1600s and 1700s and were dead before 1800.
The statement, “Few results in any science go back as far or rely on such fundamentally understood principles.” is almost beyond belief.
January 23rd, 2007 at 2:23 pm
Roger, There seem to be a range of things on which we disagree (and some things on which we agree), but on this one, I just don’t understand what you are saying.
If I thought Cicerone’s statement were silly, I might agree we ought not to bother discussing it, but I don’t think it is silly, I think it is probably true. And I would wager that many (most?) scientists who know something about both climate and cancer would agree (if not, Ralph probably would not have said it). (And, incidentally, its policy ramifications, if true, seem eminently relevant also.)
To be clear, you are not claiming (are you?) that Cicerone is simply wrong (an argument I might understand), but that his statement is incoherent or unreasonable. It is that claim I do not understand. Comparative claims about the relative degree of understanding we have of different phenomona are common in science, and sometimes vigorously debated. (Part of the process of understanding something is figuring out what it would mean to *have* an understanding.) Are you saying that all such comparative debates are meaningless (absurd) on some epistemological level (perhaps because of the incomparability of different kinds of knowledge? (that might make sense actually, but somehow I doubt it that is what you are getting at — or is it?).
To me, it is your claim of absurdity that is coming across as absurd: it is as if you were saying red was blue, and then refused to explain why, with the excuse that it was obvious “on its face.”
Of course, I may have some kind of mental handicap here, since we made a similar kind of claim in our Supreme Court Amicus brief, except we considered what was known about the health effects of lead in gasoline at the time that was regulated, emphasizing that the uncertainties there were as large or larger at the time than uncertainties about climate are now. Were we being absurd also, or does the line between rationality and absurdity fall somewhere in between lead and cigarettes?
Since I think Cicerone’s original statement is at least plausible, I of course can’t follow your lead when you claim that the statment somehow diminishes his credibility.
Cheers,
Scott
January 23rd, 2007 at 2:37 pm
Kevin, you wrote:
“So we’re left with the hidden-in-plain-sight message of the quote, which is that since we’ve acted on X and X has more uncertainty than Y, then logically we must act on Y.”
Yes, if the scientific premise is correct (which may still need to be debated), that would seem to be the logical implication, wouldn’t it?
Is there a problem with that?
Best,
Scott
January 23rd, 2007 at 2:42 pm
An addition for a pending post of mine. From the AIP, no less:
http://www.aip.org/history/climate/Radmath.htm
January 23rd, 2007 at 3:24 pm
In addition to the questions enumerated by Paul Biggs — how much atmospheric CO2 will be reduced, by what mechanism, over what time scale, the effect on global temperatures and ocean heat content, etc.– the all-important question is the following: “Is reducing CO2 emissions/concentrations the most effective and efficient method of reducing the risks associated with climate change in the short, medium and long term?”
The premise behind this question is that emission/concentration reductions are a means to the end of reducing risks from climate change, rather than an end in itself.
One answer to the above question is outlined in the paper, “A Climate Policy for the Short and Medium Term: Stabilization or Adaptation?” Energy & Environment 16: 667-680 (2005), also available at this link: http://members.cox.net/igoklany/ This paper is based on an evaluation of the so-called Fast Track Assessment of the global impacts of climate change sponsored by UK’s DEFRA., and which formed the basis of David King, HMG’s Chief Scientific Advisor’s statement in the journal Science that, in his view, “climate change is the most severe problem that we are facing today—more serious even than the threat of terrorism” [see: King, D.A. (2004). 'Climate change science: adapt, mitigate, or ignore?' Science 303, 176-177.]
The abstract of the above-linked paper reads: “An evaluation of … the global impacts of climate change under various mitigation scenarios (including CO2 stabilization at 550 and 750 ppm) coupled with an examination of the relative costs associated with different schemes to either mitigate climate change or reduce vulnerability to various climate-sensitive hazards (namely, malaria, hunger, water shortage, coastal flooding, and losses of global forests and coastal wetlands) indicates that, at least for the next few decades, risks and/or threats associated with these hazards would be lowered much more effectively and economically by reducing current and future vulnerability to those hazards rather than through stabilization. Accordingly, over the next few decades the focus of climate policy should be to: (a) broadly advance sustainable development (particularly in developing countries since that would generally enhance their adaptive capacity to cope with numerous problems that currently beset them, including climate-sensitive problems), (b) reduce vulnerabilities to climate-sensitive problems that are urgent today and might be exacerbated by future climate change, and (c) implement “no-regret” emission reduction measures while at the same time striving to expand the universe of such measures through research and development of cleaner and more affordable technologies. Such a policy would help solve current urgent problems facing humanity while preparing it to face future problems that might be caused by climate change.”
A fundamental reason why the above approach to vulnerability reduction is more cost-effective than mitigation in the near-to-medium term has to do with the fact that the contribution of non-climate change related factors to the above-named hazards generally outweighs that of climate change, that is, the “co-benefits” of such vulnerability reduction are very high.
There are other reasons as well, but one doesn’t need to get into that here.
Since that paper was written, a new Fast Track Assessment (FTA) has become available (published in a special issue of Global Environmental Change in 2004 edited by Martin Parry). Results from this version, which employed various SRES scenarios, figure prominently in the Stern Review’s assessments of climate change impacts. I review the new FTA results in a forthcoming peer-reviewed chapter in a book on environmental policy which should be available in a few weeks time. I am happy to report that the bottom line on the mitigation versus adaptation issue remains unchanged.
January 23rd, 2007 at 4:26 pm
The problem with the smoking/lung cancer analogy was it’s irrelevance. The link between smoking and lung cancer was demonstrated, not through any empirical understanding about the exact physical processes by which cigarette smoke caused cancer, but through statistical epidemiological studies showing a probability of a causative link, i.e. comparisons of cancer rates in sample populations of smokers versus cancer rates in control groups. In other words, when showing a causative link, the ability to examine a sufficiently large numbers of samples (smokers) against the background population compensated for the lack of an empirical understanding of “how” smoking caused cancer.
This “fallback” methodology does not exist with respect to climate science. There is only one Earth; it’s climate is unique and it can be neither duplicated nor experimented on in a controlled fashion to either directly measure the effects of CO2 emissions, or to verify the validity of modeled assumptions of those effects. Thus, the implied assertion that we can put more faith in climate science because we understand (some) of the physical processes of the earth’s climate system better than we understood the process by which smoking causes cancer is asinine. By that logic, even the crudest understanding of the only the most trivial components of the earth’s climate would nonetheless mean that we have more confidence in climate projections than we do the link between smoking and cancer, because after all, we knew nothing about the mechanisms by which smoking caused cancer at the time that link was statistically demonstrated.
January 23rd, 2007 at 5:52 pm
Scott, you say:
“In sum, I think there is high confidence that cigarette smoking causes cancer, and similarly high confidence that increases in GHG gases cause global warming.”
As far as I know, virtually all scientists agree that GHGs warm the planet. But that is not the question. The question is, how much does a small change in current GHGs warm the planet, particularly in comparison with other forcings.
There is no high confidence about this number (the “climate sensitivity”) at all.The IPCC says a doubling of CO2 will change the temperature by 1.5-4.5°C. Since this is a 300% range, I think you’d agree that confidence in the understanding of that must be low. Nor is this the full range, there are valid arguments for lower values.
For example, currently about 325W/m2 of downwelling longwave radiation warms the earth about 33°. This means that a 3.7 W/m2 from a CO2 doubling would warm the world at most about 0.4° …
And this is just the beginning of the uncertainties. The IPCC rates our scientific understanding of 9 of the 12 forcings they recognize as “Low” or “Very Low”. And it does not include some known forcings, such as cosmic ray forcing of clouds.
Finally, Cicerone’s statement is about “the mechanisms of CO2 and climate”. While he may have been speaking about the narrow interpretation you give above, most everyone will walk away thinking “CIcerone says we understand the mechanisms of climate as well as those of cigarettes/lung cancer”. This, whether intentional or not, is very deceptive.
His statement that this is “the most carefully and fully studied topic in human history”, on the other hand, is either deliberate deception or woeful ignorance.
w.
January 23rd, 2007 at 7:43 pm
Just to muddy the waters a bit more, just how certain are we that smoking causes lung cancer?
Quite a few people have disagreed that it does. And many of them can be found in this judicial Opinion in the 2005 case of McTear v. Imperial Tobacco, a small sample of which is appended:
http://www.scotcourts.gov.uk/opinions/2005CSOH69.html#crosssirricharddoll
[5.241]… “In their 1971 report, the Royal College of Physicians stressed:
‘Many countries have set up authoritative committees and commissions to study the cause of this modern scourge [lung cancer]. All have concluded that it is almost entirely due to cigarette smoking.’
On the other hand, the late Sir Ronald Fisher, who has been described as the greatest statistician who ever lived, feared that this conclusion would be seen in retrospect to be a ‘catastrophic and conspicuous howler’.”
January 23rd, 2007 at 8:04 pm
Paul Biggs writes, “The greenhouse effect is considered to be well understood, yet the IPCC are unable estimate climate sensitivity to a doubling of CO2 within a factor of 3.”
Well, the most common estimate is 1.5 to 4.5 deg C per doubling, so that would be 3.0 +/- 50 percent.
But as you point out with land use changes, the actual sensitivity may even be out of that range.
Take black carbon, for example. Black carbon is not even included in the Kyoto Protocol, so no one gets credit for reducing black carbon emissions, the way they do for reducing CO2 or methane emissions.
However, in the last 3 decades, warming as measured by satellites and surface measurements has been confined almost exclusively to the Northern Hemisphere. That is, the Northern Hemisphere has warmed, but the Southern Hemisphere has not.
Such a result is not what one would expect if CO2 and methane (gases covered in the Kyoto Protocol) were important in warming…because CO2 and methane are well mixed in the atmosphere.
So it’s plausible that we (humanity) have a treaty that’s addressing gases that haven’t even been significantly responsible for the recent warming, while the treaty ignores black carbon particulate, which may have been more significant in the recent warming.
January 23rd, 2007 at 8:09 pm
Paul Biggs writes, “The greenhouse effect is considered to be well understood, yet the IPCC are unable estimate climate sensitivity to a doubling of CO2 within a factor of 3.”
Well, the most common estimate for sensitivity is 1.5 to 4.5 deg C per doubling. So that would be 3.0 +/- 50 percent.
But as you point out regarding land use changes, the actual climate sensitivity may be even less well known than anticipated.
Take black carbon, for example. Black carbon is not even included in the Kyoto Protocol, so no one gets credit for reducing black carbon emissions, the way they do for reducing CO2 or methane emissions.
However, in the last 3 decades, warming as measured by satellites and surface measurements has been confined almost exclusively to the Northern Hemisphere. That is, the Northern Hemisphere has warmed, but the Southern Hemisphere has not.
Such a result is not what one would expect if CO2 and methane (gases covered in the Kyoto Protocol) were important in warming…because CO2 and methane are well mixed in the atmosphere.
So it’s plausible that we (humanity) have a treaty that’s addressing gases that haven’t even been most responsible for the recent warming, while the treaty ignores black carbon particulate, which may have been significant in the recent warming.
January 23rd, 2007 at 8:27 pm
“So we’re left with the hidden-in-plain-sight message of the quote, which is that since we’ve acted on X and X has more uncertainty than Y, then logically we must act on Y.”
Yes, Lt. Commander Spock would blow a gasket at the illogic of that. It’s even more illogical when one considers that global warming–at least as experienced to this point and for the near future–may even be a *good* thing.
So I could use Dr. Cicerone’s “logic” to say:
“We know CO2 causes global warming as well as we know milk causes strong bones. Therefore, we should lower emissions of CO2 and drink less milk.” (Or would it be “Raise emissions of CO2 and drink more milk”?)
And while probing the edges of logic and humor, is Dr. Cicerone equating global warming to lung cancer? If his medical doctor told him, “You have a bit of lung cancer,” would he consider it the same as if his state climatologist said, “You have a bit of global warming”?
January 23rd, 2007 at 9:58 pm
Scott-
Let me be absolutely clear: Dr. Cicerone is wrong.
I have noting against Dr. Cicerone. In fact I working in the Atmospheric Chemistry Division at NCAR as a FORTRAN programmer in the late 1980s while he was in the division, and he was always willing to spend time with a student assistant.
But his assertion is wrong. I am happy to explain why.
What is a “climate mechanism”? According to the IPCC it is a a “climate feedback” as described in the IPCC glossary here:
http://www.grida.no/climate/ipcc_tar/wg1/518.htm
How well do we understand climate forcings and feedbacks?
Well, according to the US NRC in 2004, there are a lot of uncertainties in forcings and feedbacks:
“The radiative forcing since preindustrial times by well-mixed greenhouse gases is well understood. However, there are major gaps in understanding of the other forcings, as well as of the link between forcings and climate response. Error bars remain large for current estimates of radiative forcing by ozone, and are even larger for estimates of radiative forcing by aerosols. Nonradiative forcings are even less well understood.”
http://books.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=11175&page=7
The earlier IPCC 2001 that the NRC 2004 was seeking to build upon also admitted considerably uncertainties:
http://www.grida.no/climate/ipcc_tar/wg1/261.htm
Note that aerosols are not an “outcome” of climate mechanism, as you suggest, but they are in fact a key mechanism.
Now Dr. Cicerone did not say the mechanisms of CO2 and global average temperature. He said mechanisms of CO2 and _climate_.
The mechanisms of CO2 and climate are not better understood than the mechanisms that cause lung cancer.
That is my story and I’m sticking to it;-)
Thanks!
January 23rd, 2007 at 10:47 pm
Willis,
“The IPCC says a doubling of CO2 will change the temperature by 1.5-4.5°C. Since this is a 300% range”
Actually, it is an expected change to an average global temperature of 16.5-19.5oC, so the error range is 15%. No wait, it is a change to a temperature between 290K and 293K, so it is an error range of 1%.
No wait, again! It’s all meaningless.
January 24th, 2007 at 12:05 am
I am on board with Jeff Norman posting above at January 23, 2007 05:07 AM:
“IMO scientists should be alarmed at the hubris of assuming we can alter future climate by tinkering with CO2 emissions.”
It’s funny that people sponsoring computer projections with high uncertainty factors don’t seem to be uncertain about the remedy; they jump right to it, ‘change your lightbulbs and build windmills.’
Well, here is my ‘jump to it’ take on what it would take:
Burning of fossil fuel would have to stop completely. This would require a world dictatorship to enforce, or voluntary world suicide/return to the primitive. It is not going to happen. We (esp. India/China) are going to burn the oil, the gas and the coal. And the wood and the peat and the methane. Get used to it.
And guess what: even halting fossil fuel combustion would not stop the warming, if it is time for the earth to warm.
The reason: the hubris Mr. Norman mentions also extends to the fact that this warmup, if it is even a significant warmup, is “more likely” (irony intended) a quiver in the Holocene flucuation curve than a CO2-caused heat wave. Stick around for a few hundred years and you can start worrying about ice on the downslope.
Changing your light bulb is not going to stop a cycle like that.
Here’s my AGW non-hubris 1/2/3s
1) You didn’t cause it
2) There’s not a thing you can do to stop it
3) Warmth like in the year 1000 AD is not so bad.
Bonus: worry about Ice covering Chicago, long term.
January 24th, 2007 at 12:51 am
Roger,
OK, now that you have changed the story that you are sticking to from “Ralph Cicerone’s statement is absurd” to “it is wrong”, I understand your argument. You may be right that he is wrong, though I doubt it. I don’t know enough about lung cancer to say for sure, only enough to have the impression that he is right, and to know for certain that the answer is not obviously wrong on its face, not by a long shot.
Yes, I agree with you (and with every climate scientist on the planet) that there are a lot of uncertainties about the mechanisms by which CO2 influences climate. The magnitudes of some of the forcings have large error bars, and feedbacks are a particularly big source of uncertainty. (note, though, that you misread the definition of climate mechanisms: feedbacks are a subset of mechanisms, not the definition thereof).
But the question that was posed to Dr. Cicerone by the committee was a comparative one: how do these uncertainties *compare* to those of the biology of cancer.
With the biological mechanisms by which cigarette smoke causes lung cancer, my understanding is that we don’t even have a very clear picture molecular biology of cancer itself, let alone how this biology might be influenced by each of the hundreds of chemicals inhaled in cigarette smoke, at the doses each of them is received in. Translating back to climate science, it is as if we knew there must be something in the atmosphere that was absorbing infrared radiation to make the earth as warm as it is, we just didn’t know what it was. No error bars here, because we don’t know what to measure in the first place.
Just because we don’t know how it works doesn’t mean we don’t know with high confidence that cigarette smoking causes cancer somehow or other, we do — but its because of the statistics, not understanding of the mechanism.
Best,
Scott
January 24th, 2007 at 12:59 am
By the way, for those here who seem to find it so easy to speak with casual derision about one of the great atmospheric scientists in the world today: you may want to correct what seems to be a misapprehension about the circumstances which gave rise to his statement, given in sworn testimony before Congress. The statement was not part of Dr. Cicerone’s prepared testimony, prepared with presumed malice aforethought, it was an off-the-top-of-his-head response to a question from the Democratic side (Henry Waxman, I think), which explicitly asked him to characterize the climate problem relative to the cigarette smoking problem. Dr. Cicerone just answered the question posed to him. So whatever attribution of personal motive you want to make up about the person who originated the comparison should be manufactured with regard to Mr. Waxman (or whoever it was), not Dr. Cicerone.
January 24th, 2007 at 1:34 am
Perhaps a better analogy than lung cancer and smoking would be Iraq and WMD:
We were assured that Iraq had WMD that could be deployed in 45 minutes, we took ‘action’ and there turned out to be no WMD. Many died and continue to die.
I was one of those not convinced at the time – the plagiarism of a 10 year old PhD thesis in the report set alarm bells ringing in my head.
Now we are assured that evil CO2 will cause WMD (weather of mass destruction), we must take ‘action’ and when we get there………
January 24th, 2007 at 8:12 am
Scott- Thanks for these further clarifications.
And I haven’t changed my story. Dr. Cicerone’s comments were indeed absurd (and wrong!).
Your continued efforts to focus on “mechanisms of biology” fail to reflect what Dr. Cicerone actually said: “I think we understand the mechanisms of CO2 and climate better than we do of what causes lung cancer. . . ”
We do not under stand the mechanisms of CO2 and climate better than the CAUSES of lung cancer (not biological mechanisms).
Thanks.
January 24th, 2007 at 12:12 pm
Hi Scott — I hope I’m not coming off with derision toward Dr. Cicerone because none is intended here or when I responded to Eric Berger’s question. When Eric posed the quote it was the first time I had ever heard it and I was giving an off-the-cuff, top-of-my-head response. Maybe I need more media training or something.
But my basic argument stands: is there a way to compare our knowledge of the mechanisms of lung cancer to the mechanisms of climate change? How would you even construct a metric to find some commonality in what is quite obviously an apples-oranges comparison? Going by the most available but imperfect metric — R&D money spent on human physiology vs. atmospheric and ocean physics — cancer has received more attention. But that’s not even really the point. The point is that a real comparison between cancer and climate can’t be made scientifically in that venue, but by answering the question he is saying, “the comparison can be made, has been made, and the science leads to these policy outcomes.” As Roger has argued many times and I fully support, particular scientific outcomes do not determine which policy choices we should make.
I fully take your point about Dr. Cicerone answering a question on the spot — he should be given a lot of slack for the circumstances. When I said “crazy” I was under the same constraints.
January 24th, 2007 at 2:47 pm
Hi Roger –
The ambiguity of the newspaper quote aside, I believe Ralph Cicerone was comparing mechanisms to mechanims, at least that’s how I recall him characterizing it to me when I saw him last November in DC, and asked him specifically about this testimony.
Re: absurd vs. wrong: it seems you are now the one being ridiculous, Roger — in the english language I use, a statement cannot be both meaningless (or absurd) and false. Which story are you sticking to now?
Best,
Scott
January 24th, 2007 at 3:41 pm
Hi Kevin,
Thanks for your response. No, I don’t think I was refering to your comments. Possibly Roger’s if he meant to accuse Cicerone of being disingenuous.
On the substance, I agree with you that the question can require a subtle and nuanced comparison, and some formulations have “apples-to-oranges” problems. If we restrict the comparison to one that is arguably apples-to-apples, and that I believe is the one that Ralph Cicerone was making (e.g.., which mechanisms do we understand better), I think the answer is clear: we understand the physical mechanisms linking GHGs to climate much better than the biological mechanisms linking smoking to lung cancer. I don’t think this comparison is even close, so the conclusion is relatively obvious.
On the more problematic question of which link do we have more confidence in, then we are, I agree, getting into apples-to-oranges territory, because the basis for what confidence we have is different in each case (understanding of mechanism vs. statistics). You might be right that it would be better, if this were the question, to answer by not answering because the question is really too difficult.
On the different question of which problem has had more resources devoted, this seems easier, certainly if you choose a metric like funding. I am not sure what metric Cicerone was thinking about when he said that global warming may be the most carefully and fully studied scientific problem in human history, so I don’t think I can help there.
I certainly agree with you and Roger about the general science and policy point: the refrain that I have gotten in the habit of repeating (I think since I was an undergraduate at MIT) is that “science by itself contains no moral imperative and compels no particular policy outcome.” But I don’t agree that by making the statement he made, Cicerone was arguing for any policy outcome, he was answering a question about science which may have policy relevance. Whether his answer is factored in to a policy decision is up to those who asked the question in the first place (in this case, the Congressman). (and of course, also up to any human being, be they scientist or not, about what they think we, as a human society, should do about the risks posed by AGW).
Maybe I misunderstand your position, but it seems to me its logical conclusion is that scientists should not make statements about science if they have policy implications, for fear this will somehow get misused in the debate, or that their own motives will be suspect. Certainly that is a risk (in a politicized environment, scientists motives are often called into question, as Prometheus well illustrates in this case!), but most practicing scientists that I know, when immersed in the science, have the opposite attitude: go where the science leads, and don’t worry about the policy consequences.
Best,
Scott
January 24th, 2007 at 3:50 pm
Kevin,
Thank you for saying I didn’t misquote you…
If anyone is curious, I found the Cicerone quote on page 30 of the UCS report released earlier this month on the antics of Exxon Mobil in regards to climate change:
http://www.ucsusa.org/news/press_release/ExxonMobil-GlobalWarming-tobacco.html
Eric
January 24th, 2007 at 4:56 pm
Scott- Thanks, if our discussion is now about the finer points of the English language, then I think we’ve exhausted this subject!
Eric- Thanks for the comment and the reference. Anyone know what was in the ellipses?
January 24th, 2007 at 5:05 pm
Scott-
On another subject . . .
You write: “most practicing scientists that I know, when immersed in the science, have the opposite attitude: go where the science leads, and don’t worry about the policy consequences.”
I don’t think that this sort of willful lack of worry about policy consequences is tenable anymore. At least it is not good advice. In my new book (plug) I argue that science needs to be more fully engaged in policy discussions. It is important to recognize that such engagement can take many forms, and scientists need to be aware of their options and their consequences.
Not worrying about policy consequences is not among these options, if scientists want their knowledge to contribute to decision making.
Thanks!
January 24th, 2007 at 5:08 pm
Roger,
As you wish, but whether something is thought meaningless or wrong is not a fine point, it is fundamental.
To claim it is is both is itself an absurdity, and so if you stick with that, we are back to the beginning, where I had no idea what it was you were saying.
And here I thought we had made progress, at least to the point where we had achieved disagreement! Oh well….
-Scott
January 24th, 2007 at 6:35 pm
Roger,
Re: “Go where the science leads, and don’t worry about the policy consequences.”
I meant that most scientists feel they should not let their scientific findings be influenced, hedged, or moderated because of concern about what policy implications people might take from that science. In other words, there is a feeling we should be uncompromisingly honest about the scientific content, even if it might lead some to say it supports policies that we, as individuals, might not like.
I assume that you don’t object to that, but think that more scientists should go the next step, i.e., get deliberately involved in the discussion about how that science might (or maybe shouldn’t) inform policy formulations.
If so, I agree.
-Scott
January 24th, 2007 at 7:54 pm
Scott- Agreed, 100%!
January 24th, 2007 at 8:08 pm
“because of high replicability (numerous smoking vs. non-smoking individuals) and animal models, we have high confidence that cigarette smoking causes lung cancer, even though the understanding of the biological mechanism is really rather poor.” Posted by: Scott Saleska at January 23, 2007 10:37 AM
Contrary to popular mythology, there are no animal studies that have shown that smoking causes lung cancer. I would like to refer you to my earlier posting of the judicial Opinion in the case of McTear v. Imperial tobacco.
“[2.63] Running in parallel with the animal skin-painting experiments, researchers have begun to conduct studies in which laboratory animals were exposed to whole cigarette smoke by inhalation. The objectives of that research were to determine whether or not evidence could be produced that cigarette smoking could cause lung cancer in animals, and thereby investigate a possible relationship between human lung cancer and cigarette smoking. The research was unsuccessful. The evidence was that laboratory animals exposed to whole cigarette smoke by inhalation did not develop squamous cell carcinoma of the lung. Other laboratory work designed to discover a causal link between smoking and lung cancer failed to do so. Today the belief that cigarette smoking could cause lung cancer rested primarily on the statistical association.”
January 24th, 2007 at 10:19 pm
Roger Pilkie: “…science needs to be more fully engaged in policy discussions.”
Scott Saleska: “…more scientists should go the next step, i.e., get deliberately involved in the discussion about how that science might (or maybe shouldn’t) inform policy formulations.
With due respect to both, hopefully you mean “contribute facts” to policy discussions; as would seem to be indicated by ‘engage’ and ‘inform.’ However, isn’t that actually an understatement? Policy NOT informed by factual information supplied by science fact professionals would be just plain mystical edicts based on superstition, right? Policy had BETTER by informed by facts validated by rational science. Just facts. Proven facts.
On the other hand, if you mean scientists should give their opinions about what political actions should be taken to enforce (for instance) carbon caps, then I say wrong wrong wrong!
Scientists are unqualified to give opinions on public policy. Just as the famous AGW consensus and peer review coterie gets upset when Senators and ordinary rational people want to play fair devil’s advocate to THEIR field and vet their methods and data, I do not want a scientist to be mucking around in public policy — they are not qualified.
January 25th, 2007 at 6:10 am
Roger,
I recall you saying that all the back and forth about the hockey stick devolved into constant bickering that was a distraction from high level policy discussion.
Isn’t your regular micro-parsing of scientists’ and environmentalists’ comments on blogs, statements to the press, op-eds and web pages doing the same thing?
January 25th, 2007 at 7:40 am
Joseph- Thanks for your participation … my critique of the hockey stick debate was that it hid a political debate in the guise of science. And when we pushed both sides to explain what they thought the policy relevance of their debate was, they had little to say!
My interest in in the role of scientists (and science) in policy and politics. Judging by the comments and discussions here (and in my inbox), this complicated topic is a welcome subject for many scientists trying to figure out what sorts of actions make sense in the highly politicized world of modern science.
My forthcoming book is about this subject …
If you have another answer to your own question, you are welcome to share it!
Thanks.