As two scholars with different political orientations but common concerns, we have each worked to challenge conventional wisdom that has undermined public understanding of the climate change problem. Many Republicans have been too reluctant to acknowledge strong evidence of human-caused warming and the need for prudent policies that could reduce its harmful effects. Democrats have let their own political judgments and values infect climate science and its interpretation, often understating the uncertainties about the timing and scale of future risks, and the tremendous costs and difficulties of effective action.Read the whole thing, and please feel free to come back and discuss. I'll call any discussion to the attention of Dan and Sam, and maybe pique their interest in participating.
Yet both parties have agreed, although tacitly, on one thing: Science is the appropriate arbiter of the political debate, and policy decisions should be determined by objective scientific assessments of future risks. This seductive idea gives politicians something to hide behind when faced with divisive decisions. If "pure" science dictates our actions, then there is no need to acknowledge the role that political interests and social values play in deciding how society should address climate change.
16 December 2009
Sarewitz and Thernstrom on the CRU Emails
Dan Sarewitz of ASU and Sam Thernstrom of AEI have an excellent op-ed on the CRU emails in today's Los Angeles Times. Here is how they begin:
34 comments:
I don't have much of substance to add, but what they say makes a great deal of sense. A refreshing change from the general tone of the climate debate (particularly in the last month), which generates a lot of heat but little light.
As a scientist, one has to be constantly reminded that we are subjective creatures, and this inevitably influences our work.
Case in point, I am busy revising a manuscript for a journal now, which I have to rewrite to emphasize the methodology's broader applicability to other studies, while underplaying the original focus on findings related to the study's subject. In other words, I have to "sell" the paper to this particular journal. I think I am doing it honestly, but I can't escape the sense that a certain amount of spin is involved, particularly when one is trying to get into higher impact journals.
From the article: "Better to recognize that decision-makers, depending on their political beliefs, will weigh the evidence and risks of climate change differently when evaluating policy options."
I've been studying Jaynes book on Probability theory lately, and he has a section on how prior states of knowledge can affect how we update our beliefs based on new info:
Converging and Diverging Views
I think it is relevant to this discussion, but I think the role political / social values *should* play is in setting the cost function, not in determining the probability of particular outcomes (which is a scientific endeavour).
I'm really not interested in their opinions about the science. I'd be really interested, however, if they could point to an intelligent exposition of the claim that there is strong scientific evidence of human-caused warming.
Can't use climate models that are not verified or validated. Can't use any studies or databases for which the means for replication are unavailable. In short, the scientific method, inconvenient as it may be, has to be followed.
If the science is so strong, it shouldn't be hard to do.
Roger,
A terrific piece--thanks. Unfortunately for all of us, climate change has never been discussed rationally with the population at large. It was grossly politicized and spun (by both sides) almost from the get go. No wonder skepticism has grown, and the CRU email release has only hardened the divisions. What's needed are honest brokers and new faces.
Americans will listen to rational open debate, at least this one will--so long as the hideous expression that "the science is settled" is never again uttered.
Unfortunately, I have no candidates in mind. Do you?
"...the ideal of pure science as a source of truth that can cut through politics is false."
True, but not particularly useful in this case. The entire basis of the call to action against global warming sits on the science. If you assume the consensus projections for the future to be correct, then the science does not call for any particular action. We could, if we wanted, stand pat and deal with it as it comes. The choice to act, or how to act, are entirely political, with science offering only technological tool to respond. If, on the other hand, you argue against the models as unreliable, then you need to be proven wrong to get back to the former stage. As a result, advocates need the science to reach the point where politics take over. If the radiologist doesn't see a tumour on the x-ray, then the surgeon has no work to do..
The problem lies in the fact that the models cannot be proved or disprove in any short time span. Given that no one knows what drove pre industrial climates such as the MWP or LIA the background climate change can obscure any impact of CO2. Fifty to One hundred year predictions are impossible for anyone to comprehend nor are they believable. I keep coming back to geo engineering rather than the implausible goal of de-carbonizing the planet. At least it would create new jobs and industry. It can also provide redirected employment for climate scientists.
I couldn't agree more that scientists are never "unsullied providers of truth". On the other hand, the article can be read as implying that we cannot expect anything better than what the climategate emails and program code reveal. There is good work and shoddy work in every profession; if science has no better standards than this, then many if not most other professions will seem more honorable.
What about what the IPCC has done? Twisting scientists research into saying things the scientists never said? Terrorizing us with scenarios the e-mails tell us aren't intended to be realistic? Claiming that they have ironclad evidence when they actually have considerable uncertainty? Blaming the entire warming trend on CO2 when a large portion of it is likely due to the PDO and the portion that is due to human activities is caused not just by CO2 but by other factors such as land use?
Sure, science will often have its warts, but what the IPCC is doing is propaganda.
No, I do not accept that anyone believes "policy decisions should be determined by objective scientific assessments of future risks", but rather that people should and do believe that policy decisons should be informed by objective scientific assessments of future risks.
The concern I have is that the scientists in question do not seem to be making objective scientific assessments, but rather seem to be selecting and manipulating data to support particular policy decisions.
I strongly agree with dagfinn that what has been revealed to date is not in any way an acceptable set of practices, in science or any other profession.
First, I would say I'm glad they are finally coming to the party. Evidently Climate Gate is deemed important enough for esteemed people to say, well, there is uncertainty. That's progress, I guess.
Second, the real story is the power of a small group of people to defy the political and scientific establishment.
If you go back and read Wegman's report and his reply to Stupak you'll find some incisive observations. He compares his publication network with Mann, et al. Pretty telling.
Also telling was that 2 people requested that they not be listed as reviewers of the Wegman paper because of "potential negative consequences" (interestingly, the Wegman report was dismissed in the UEA emails as not being "peer-reviewed"..when in fact it was reviewed by 9 people, 7 named. I think its fair to say that they use "peer-reviewed" as code for "agree with us").
Third, this has little to do with science. It is political theater that began 20 years ago with Tim Wirth and continued with Al Gore's Oscar and Nobel Prize. Science has been a prop all along.
Science is actually a rather plodding creature. The rich mix of assertion and falsification takes lots of time. But, per Rahm Emanuel, crisis provides us "an opportunity to do things you could not do before" But then, we have known that for centuries.
http://www.uoguelph.ca/~rmckitri/research/StupakResponse.pdf
Hmmm. Some random thoughts:
The authors appear to be essentially excusing the Climategate scientists on the basis that they are just humans and pure science is only a myth and that they should not be held to some standard of “scientific purity.” In my mind this is almost the same as saying: "truth and facts are myths." I say this is baloney.
I think our policy-makers are charged with having to TRY to base policies on truth and fact. Indeed, if they don’t we are in more trouble in the long run. As shown by Climategate (and many other science scandals) science does not work perfectly. However, science is the best way yet developed by mankind to discover the truth. And science seems to be doing a good job of finding the truth, IN THE LONGER RUN. Indeed, our whole successful civilization is based on it. Whatever happens as a result of Climategate, the leaked emails and data from CRU will rapidly lead to correcting a LOT of really, really corrupt and poor climate science! One might argue the leak was actually a part of science.
The authors say: "Such science is often not subject to replicable experiments or verification; rather, knowledge and insight emerge from the weight of theory, data and evidence, usually freighted with considerable uncertainty, disagreement and internal contradiction.” If "such science" is not subject to replicable exeriments or verification, THEN IT AIN'T SCIENCE. This lack of a falsifiable hypothesis has always been one of the biggest problems in climate science. Science is ALL ABOUT VERIFICATION!!!
They say: "“Thus, we write neither to attack nor to defend the East Anglia scientists, but to make clear that the ideal of pure science as a source of truth that can cut through politics is false.”
Well that’s just plain weird and irresponsible, IMHO. The authors will not attack wrongdoing?
Also, I don't think there are many folks that struggle with "the myth of scientific purity."
It's king of disheartening that the scientific community isn't doing a better job speaking up to say that the ugly practices at CRU aren't business as usual among scientists.
And even if those practices are no worse than what you'd find in any other area of science, which I don't particularly believe, how does that make those practices defensible? Or should our expectations be no higher than the lowest common denominator?
It appears to me that an (admittedly crude) summation of that article is as follows:
'We cannot expect integrity from our scientists, so we must demand integrity from our politicians.'
That doesn't seem like a winning strategy to me. The whole reason we imbue "science" with an aura of authority is because we believe that studies are conducted according to certain protocols that ensure the reliability of the findings. If, as the Climategate scandal indicates, those protocols aren't up to the task, then it makes sense to think about how to strengthen them, not throw up our hands and say, "Oh well, scientists are people, too."
It's true that science can never be "pure", but it can darn sure be better than it is now. And I see no reason that it can't be "purified" enough to yield reliable results.
It's amazing that people are still asking for "science-based treaties" when stories like this: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8417305.stm
are running in the mainstream news.
Look at the discussion. How can anyone read that and reasonably think that science has anything to do with...anything? Is it more charitable to call people stupid, or liars these days?
My last comment has a typo and should have started, "It's kind of disheartening..."
(As opposed to, "It's king of disheartening...")
This is the worst article on AGW I have read so far. It is not only a cover up of the dirty deeds at East Anglia, but also an underhand endorsement of global warming .
It has all the feel of a commissioned piece.
Balance is not a sign of intellectual maturity when the centre position has been manufactured. In a perfect illustration of the tyranny of consensus thinking, the mutual conclusion is that something must be done about Co2. In the total absence of reliable or honest evidence.
The danger of slack minded, post modern relativism is that all points of view can be invented, bought and paid for. In this article, the conclusion justified the feeble reasoning which inevitably lead to it.
People who earn a living playing mind games won't care about the terrible deprivation which may result from carbon trading, and they will never read about it in the corporate media.
As Lou Reed famously wrote
Tramps like us, baby were were born to pay.
Something that is beginning to really irritate me about articles like this one is the way they set up straw men extremists on both sides of the political debate and then present themselves as if they are the only reasonable voices.
And something else that is really grating -- how do these guys think they deserve a presumption of credibility? Given the rampant evidence of incompetence and corruption in climate science over the years, why have so few spoken out? When Mann's work was demonstrated to be wrong, where were they? When it was obvious that he'd been embraced by the IPCC, yet had never been audited or replicated, where were they? When Watts showed that the monitoring stations were a mess, where were they? When the Pielkes pointed out repeatedly that the assessments were slanted, where were they? When it was obvious that McIntyre was being stonewalled? When Jones stiffed Hughes with his gobsmacking statement? When Jones claimed the dog ate his homework? When everyone proved that the handling of UHI was a joke?
Where were all these people then? Why weren't they standing up for science and the scientific method then? They don't have any credibility about the state of the science because they haven't earned any.
Re "It's true that science can never be "pure", but it can darn sure be better than it is now. And I see no reason that it can't be "purified" enough to yield reliable results"
I disagree. Science is an adversarial process -- just like law and politics -- and you cannot refine it (to paraphrase General Sherman :-).
What one can do is to cry foul when either side tries to delegitimize/outlaw/excommunicate the other (as Al Gore is wont to do).
Stan
These guys are probably hired hands, like the rasacals at the CRU and Realclimate.
When you set up an entire research centre (Hadley/CRU) for political reasons, staffed by those who are committed to furthering its aims, (Houghton/Jones), the end result was inevitable.
When you set up a website (Realclimate), for purely political reasons (to defend the hockey stick), run by Hansen's underling, Gavin Schmidt, the resulting intellectual cesspit should come as no surprise to anyone.
Money doesn't talk, it swears
Bob Dylan
Stan- I think people were simply afraid to go up against the Science Establishment juggernaut. When science is what you are trained to do, and your babies and pets depend on a paycheck, you would be speaking out with great risk and with little hope of being heard.
That's why I think most people aren't speaking out about this.
Because the Science Establishment sends many (if not most, in many fields) research funds labelled as climate change, and is not particularly interested in science ethics, the fundees need to share the same principles or be excluded. The fact that relatively few members of the Science Establishment have spoken out about the importance of following laws (FOIA), making data available, and science ethics speaks volumes.
I feel about the Science Establishment as Emerson wrote “Your actions speak so loudly that I can’t hear what you are saying.”
All- I agree with others that the Sarewitz and Thernstrom piece is good but lets scientists off the hook for ethical behavior. We are no more than other kinds of people; but certainly no less, and we would not ignore the behavior of unethical lawyers, doctors, or prison guards, so scientists should not be given a pass either.
Tamino has posted Ben Santer's text of a statement he made at the recent AGU meeting. At the end of the text, Santer emplores, "We no longer have the luxury of remaining silent on these issues. We all have voices. We need to use them."
Apparently that also means silencing voices. I left a comment asking why the exclusive focus on CO2 at Copenhagen, as opposed to black carbon soot, and/or land use changes as first order climate forcings (both recently implicated in studies in the peer review literature).
My comment (as of this writing) hasn't made it through moderation.
I do think it is even more complicated than that. The data
1. Politics driving a flawed agenda - Iraq Invasion. US and UK politicians rail-roaded government agencies, legal departments, diplomats, international bodies, scientists and militarists into framing an agenda for regime change that gave us "WMD", "mushroom clouds" and a "45 minute warming". Dissenters were exposed, criticised and dealt with, i.e. "Cheese eating surrender monkeys."
Outcome: an insurgency resulting in hundreds of thousands of deaths and the ruination of a country.
2. Economics driving a flawed agenda - The Banking Crisis. We see the bankers and the marketeers railroad governments, international institutions, ordinary investers, the poor with aspirations into accepting that all debt is good debt, that all risk is good risk. No more "boom or bust" just all boom. Those on the inside who urged caution were sacked. Those on the outside who signalled a bust were abused and ignored.
Outcome: the collapse of the sub-prime mortgage market with a resultant credit-crunch, bank bail outs and a global recession.
3. Climate science driving a flawed agenda. Politicised scientists rewrite climate history. Uncertainty is turned into certainty, "Global Warming", "settled science" is established, "Climate Change", "consensus" is manufactured at the UN. Environmental bodies predict catastrophe. Governments, international bodies, scientific institutions, NGOs are railroaded into taking action. Scientific skeptics are harshly dealt with, careers are ruined, dissent is described as "holocaust denial".
Outcome: The rise of public skepticism followed by Climategate and now a failing international political process at Copenhagen.
Conclusion: Arbiters of truth are just a likely to be arbiters of untruths as all tend to be knowledgeable, expert, of authority and many.
Malcolm,
I may not agree on a lot of your "facts", but I will defend to the death your right to speak them. :)
Your overall point is solid. We put too much trust in "experts". Experts, especially today, suffer from hubris on steroids. [Note -- one of the dangers of the information age and the rise in power of the information class is the associated rise in hubris among experts.] As William Briggs points out so well on his blog, we are all too certain. He points out that climate scientists routinely make statistical errors which make them too certain, but the admonition has broad general application.
Our politicians and govt economists make statements that are far, far too certain about the future. Academics appear on the talking head shows and make statements about the future that turn out to be wildly wrong. [Michael Crichton's speech on speculation is a classic.]
The first step toward wisdom is the acknowledgement of our overwhelming ignorance. We have an abundance of educated "experts" and a severe shortage of wisdom.
Sharon,
All that is true, but not everyone was powerless to do anything. Lindzen, Spencer, Christy, Pielke, Gray, Happer et al have gotten a lot of abuse, but they still have work. A lot of these silent folks had tenure. Besides, there are ways to resist which don't require putting a target on your back. Quiet conversations with trusted friends and associates would have helped spread the reality that the science was really shaky and ought to be reviewed carefully. Anonymous letters, carefully documenting the scientific failures, to news media (pro and con) and other scientists would have eventually raised some questions.
Hard to understand how 99% could be not only cowards, but unwilling to even raise the alarm anonymously. There is clearly some moral and ethical failure here. And now they, and science, will suffer because of it.
I think the argument of one set of policy makers or the other burying their heads in the sand is false.
As I understand the climate debate in general the basic scientific disagreements are about the size of the problem and timelines.
Neither set of policy makers supports doing nothing.
One side generally believes that free markets are inherently more efficient at solving problems. There are no shortage of people who are quite happy to risk their own money finding a solution to a problem when there is a potential profit to be made.
The other group of policy makers believes the government is better at picking solutions.
I personally was quite surprised when I recently looked at what is happening with wind power. It's growing at a geometric pace.
Generating capacity is now more then 30,000 Megawatts. Double what it was in Jan 2008.
It now costs about the same to build a wind farm as it does to build a coal or natural gas electricity plant of similar capacity.
Since wind is free and coal and natural gas cost money it's a no brainer from an investment standpoint.
The current debate is similar to the CFC/Ozone debate. When the debate of whether or not Refrigerators and Air Conditioning would end up killing us all it was loud and unpleasant.
As soon as some greedy clever chemist came up with an alternative refrigerant at a reasonably competitive price the shouting stopped.
It took a long time for wind power to reach cost parity with coal and natural gas. It has and wind farms are being put up at an ever increasing pace.
In terms of electricity generation...the economics have been settled. Whether the science of Climate is settled has become a moot point.
Malcolm,
In all three cases, there were enormous benefits for some parties in what took place.
A vice president of Lehman Brothers told the BBC that 10,000 employees were making money for Lehmans and 8 people were losing it at ten times the speed. The company went down with 150 billion dollars of debt and 400 billion dollars of insurance on the debt (CDS) !
Goldman Sachs brought AIG to its knees (on the insurance) and the US taxpayer has now paid out trillions as a result. It's exactly the same forces behind global warming.
Rolling Stone
Goldman took out billions of these CDS positions with Cassano, who had written upwards of $440 billion of these CDS without having even a fraction of the money he would have needed to cover that bet in the event of a disaster of the type that actually ended up taking place, specifically a downgrade of AIG’s credit rating that forced Cassano to pony up wads of cash to cover those positions.
The important thing to remember about all of this is that just because Goldman was buying “insurance” from Cassano, that doesn’t mean they were being responsible. On the contrary: Goldman was creating well over ten billion dollars worth of exposure to a guy that they must have known was an absolute idiot. Now, in a world where actual capitalism existed, Goldman should then have been highly invested in making sure that AIG did not go under. A dead and bankrupt AIG should not have been good news to a company like Goldman Sachs, which had billions of dollars riding on AIG’s financial health
http://trueslant.com/matttaibbi/2009/10/30/forget-galleon-what-about-goldmans-ex-boss/
Global warming (Goldman)
The new carbon-credit market is a virtual repeat of the commodities-market casino that's been kind to Goldman, except it has one delicious new wrinkle: If the plan goes forward as expected, the rise in prices will be government-mandated. Goldman won't even have to rig the game. It will be rigged in advance.
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/29127316/the_great_american_bubble_machine/7
"It now costs about the same to build a wind farm as it does to build a coal or natural gas electricity plant of similar capacity.
Since wind is free and coal and natural gas cost money it's a no brainer from an investment standpoint."
"It took a long time for wind power to reach cost parity with coal and natural gas. It has and wind farms are being put up at an ever increasing pace."
Got any peer-reviewed numbers to support those strong statements?
Re: alternative refrigerant
1) The alternative was not as efficient.
2) Govt mandated that perfectly good a/c systems had to be scrapped and replaced at a staggering cost to businesses. Of course, Algore claimed that this reduction in our capital base was somehow good for the economy (see also cash for clunkers, green jobs, and related economic stupidities suffering from the broken window fallacy).
As for the policy arguments, we see this all the time. Any politician who points out that the free market is better is accused of not having an energy plan, or health plan, or jobs plan, etc.
Obsfucation. This entire article is an exercise in fence straddling.
"We believe the weight of scientific evidence remains sufficient to justify prudent action against climate change -- but we are equally aware that the consequences of both climate change and climate policies remain highly uncertain."
Key words: sufficient, prudent, uncertain. And am not so sure about sufficient.
Cost benefit analysis per the article below is more to the point.
http://www.masterresource.org/2009/12/tom-friedman-has-a-standing-invitation-to-my-weekly-poker-game/#more-6284
"
In summary, then, the best available models indicate that
1) global warming is a problem that is expected to have only a limited impact on the world economy and
2) it is economically rational only to reduce slightly this marginal impact through global carbon taxes.
Further, practical knowledge of the world indicates that
1) such a global carbon-tax regime would be very unlikely ever to be implemented, and
2) even if it were implemented, the theoretical benefits it might create would almost certainly be more than offset by the economic drag such a regime would produce. Other than that, it sounds like a great idea. If our scientific forecasts turn out to be precisely correct, one could not rationally justify rapid, aggressive reductions in CO2.
"
Any 'Peer Reviewed Liturature On Wind"
Private investors don't rely on 'peer review', they generally rely on what bean counters tell them.
http://www.awea.org/financing
Here is the current state of windpower and 'planned/announced' projects
http://www.awea.org/projects
One thing to remember in windpower, the projects tend to go very quickly so the 'known future projects' aren't very accurate. The time frame between 'announced' and working is in the neighborhood of a year. Way too fast for federal government bureaucrats to keep up.
The Government 'installed' numbers are currently 3,000 Megawatts of capacity behind the industry numbers.
GE just brought out a 2.5 Megawatt 'onshore' wind turbine where the previous model was 1.5 Megawatts.
6poo:
"Private investors don't rely on 'peer review', they generally rely on what bean counters tell them."
I know. Just my poor attempt at being funny and an effort to avoid references such as the ones you gave. I worked for a trade association for a long time, and the concept of "spinning" things is a part of their lexicon. Do you have any references to independent third-party reviews?
It REALLY GETS COMPLICATED, as shown by the articles here: http://www.masterresource.org/category/renewable-energy/
Malcolm,
Two rotten apples and one brusied peach don't prove all fruit is bad for you. Really, it we redirect our energy production efforts away from carbon sources its going to lead to great privation? Ha. This train has been trying to get out of the station even before climate change became the rage inducer it now has become, largely because of the denial/skeptical camp's adoption of the argumentation ala clown punditry. You think climate scientist are the same as bankers? The same as the Joint Chief of Staff? Wow, where ever did you go to school man?
Wile I agree with most of the LAT article, I came across a somewhat different statement from Dan Sarewitz. Maybe he has beeen misquoted and I would like to know if this is the case.
The British Times Higher Education of this week says:
"Daniel Sarewitz, a science policy professor at Arizona State University, said on 14 December that the emails showed "normal science politics". He said: "It is on the extreme end, but still within bounds."
Is the attempt of two coordinating lead authors of the IPCC to manipulate the peer review process for the IPCC report still within bounds?
Sorry, forgot to include the link:
http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?sectioncode=26&storycode=409629&c=1
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