There is, to them, no potential that increasing CO2, the base of the food chain, could be a good thing – indeed cherry picked studies denying that abound and are freely quoted.

All that matters to them, realistically, is that a centralized government is formed to literally control power.

There is consensus – consensus that CO2 affects the lapse rate. Beyond that all claims of consensus, including other forcings, feedbacks (especially clouds), effects, etc. are propaganda.

Thanks. Sounds just about right.

———-

Jim-

You ask, “Who is demanding proof before action?”

Answer: Everyone who invokes “consensus” (“debate is over, all scientists agree, etc.) as justification for action. And conversely those who deny a consensus are the basis for other actions. In short, just about everyone in the climate debate;-)

Thanks!

——-

Tom-

Thanks. (Note that it is “Oreskes”).

You write: “We definitely should be openly discussing what policies are justified by our scientific understanding of AGW, but that is ultimately a political, and not a scientific, matter.”

The relationship of various policy options and their expected outcomes is in large degree a scientific matter, in the sense that we believe that we can gain some insight as to that relationship beyond guesswork or hope. In the discussion of policy alternatives science and values are inextricably integrated.

Orestes offers no prescriptions about how the science is used by policy makers, but merely observes that those whose ox may be “Gored” can be expected to oppose policy changes, including by “attacking, impugning, or otherwise seeking to question the science” and by arguing that the science is “uncertain, unreliable, and, fundamentally, unproven.”

I think that this is a fair observation, but one that does not itself deny the legitimacy of the interests of those who oppose policy changes or argue that the scientific understanding is insufficiently complete to justify policy changes.

We definitely should be openly discussing what policies are justified by our scientific understanding of AGW, but that is ultimately a political, and not a scientific, matter.

I fail to see the relevance of your anecdote to climate change policy – but perhaps you were not trying to draw any.

In the human health risk assessment area, the shoe is on the other foot. Irrespective of scientific advancement, regulatory agencies refuse to update their risk assessments (or their methods) if new science yields a lower risk estimate. Denials are based on one of the following three arguments:

1. When we reanalyze the new data enough times we can find a contradictory result.

2, We can’t find an error in the science, but we can’t be sure there isn’t one.

3. The new science raises new concerns we didn’t have before.

In addition to these three substantive grounds for denial, there is always denial by procedural defect (e.g., not peer reviewed; peer reviewed but not published in a good enough journal; published in a good enough journal but too late; based on data we deem unethically obtained; funded by third parties we don’t like).

It is the regulatory agency that uses uncertainty as a tool to prevent change. The existence of a genuine scientific consensus that the agency is scientifically wrong is insufficient.

Who is demanding proof before action?

Oreskes conclusions are true enough. If you want to get philosophical, nothing can be proven. Science, however, can supply substantial evidence.

Is it unreasonable for those who will ‘pay the price’ or ‘be restricted’ to require that the there is real evidence of the problem, that the problem is quantified and that the proposed solution will do more good than harm?

There is a big difference between demanding proof and demanding evidence. Oreskes seems to equate the two as an excuse for not requiring real-world evidence for more environmental regulations.

Scientific proof is not possible.
Those demanding proof are irrational.
Therefore, solid evidence is not required to impose my desires.

It is not a very logical or solid argument.

Thanks for your comments. I agree that Oreskes is quite open about her ideological predispositions. But even if you don’t share these views, look past them at her analysis of the role of scientific proof in environmental policy — this is what makes her conclusion all the more strinking:

“But the idea that science ever could provide proof upon which to base policy is a misunderstanding (or misrepresentation) of science, and therefore of the role that science ever could play in policy.”

And

“There is no need to wait for proof, no need to demand it, and no basis to expect it.”

I agree with a lot of what Jim Clarke said. While there is no room here for a detailed critique of Oreskes’ article, let me raise a couple of points.

1) While Jim Clarke disagrees with the opening sentence, I find the closing sentence even more outrageous: “there is no need to wait for proof, no need to demand it, and no basis to expect it.” In other words, what we have been told about AGW over the past 20 years (that it was proven beyond doubt, that the science was settled, etc.) was in the end not necessary. We should act without proof, based on suspicion alone.

2) It is ironic that she defends Rachel Carson’s book, saying it was “not written as a scientific paper to be published in a refereed journal; it was written as a popular book, indeed, a polemic.” But then, cannot the same be said of Bjorn Lomborg’s book? Yet he was accused of all evils, including scientific fraud. It seems double standards are not a problem for environmentalists.

3) About DDT, she makes it look like the banning of DDT was the result of a cool-headed, objective assessment of the associated potential danger. She overlooks all the political aspects involved in the decision, and the influence of environmental activists. By the time DDT was banned, the american industry had had time to adapt, so they suffered no harm. It was then easy and politically rewarding to please the environmentalists with the ban.

4) In the end, she doesn’t say whether the decision was “right” or “wrong”, and seems to imply that it doesn’t matter. But it does matter a lot! If a policy decision turns out to have been bad, or not to have produced more good than harm, then it should be reviewed, as well as the process that led to it.

5) She criticizes Lomborg on the fact that his focus is “on dimensions that can be quantified in terms of individual human lives lost (or saved)”, as opposed to “the quality of those lives”. But quality can also be “quantified”, something that a lot of environmentalists refuse to do. Quality of life may mean “purer air”, “less” stress, “closer to home” sources of drinking water, “less” sickness, “more” trees. By refusing to quantify, environmentalists ensure that all issues have the highest priority. But policy makers need to prioritize issues.

6) It would be too long to comment on her assessment of the continental drift debate. However, she deliberately avoids talking about how the geological scientific establishment, especially in the U.S., used its position to thwart the debate on Wegener’s theory, effectively making it dangerous for, say, a young scientist, to adhere to it. They, of course, had the right not to believe in it, even if they did so for non-epistemic reasons. Where they were wrong was in the way they put a lid on the scientific inquiry, for almost 40 years, until a new generation of earth scientists took power. In fact, the early “cracks” came not from geology, but from a physicist (P. Blackett) who, armed with a Nobel prize, and being outside of the field, had nothing to fear by supporting continental drift. That kind of ideological dictatorship has many similarities with what we see today in climate science, where it is dangerous for one’s carreer to openly investigate aspects that go against the “consensus” (for example the potential large influence of solar forcings). I have commented here before that it is not so much the fact that scientists have ideological or philosophical opinions that is dangerous. It is when a field (as a social institution, including the publication and grant system) is dominated and controlled by one such ideology promoted by a few influencial individuals. When that happens, the scientific standards are in danger of being relaxed in favor of one view of the world. What happened in paleoclimatology is symptomatic of that state of fact, and has been well documented in the “hockey stick” debate.

7) There is a lot of confusion about the meaning of a scientific “consensus”. That confusion is unfortunately maintained by environmentalists. There is a fundamental difference between scientists adopting a theory or a paradigm as a basis for a fruitful research program, and scientists agreeing on the results of a specific inquiry (like how much the Earth will warm if we double CO2). The former is just the beginning, while the latter is an end. Furthermore, scientists never establish panels to determine if, for example, plate tectonics is “true” or not. The research program based on the theory of plate tectonics is adopted by more and more scientists as it proves more fruitful than competing programs, until it becomes, de facto, the only one. AGW is not a research program.

This post is too long already, so I’d better stop. There would be much more to say about Oreskes’ infamous “survey”. Let’s just say to condlude that she clearly states her ideological position in the “proof” paper. She adheres to the environmentalist philosophy, and has no problem if science is distorted in favor of that point of view. That’s where she is clearly wrong.