At this point in the debate over climate change, I doubt that any standard process of argument (reference to scientific research, analysis of data, refutation on Internet-derived talking points and so on) is likely to shift the views of those who accept some version of the anti-science position on this topic. Certainly, I don’t intend to try any further.
But, it seems useful for a number of reasons to try to understand why people take and hold such positions. In some cases, it may be that, where rational debate on the scientific merits has failed, some other mode of argument or persuasion might work. More generally, in any political process, it’s useful to understand the opposition.
Here’s a first attempt at a taxonomy, which I started in this Tim Lambert thread
. Looking at those who have either propounded or accepted anti-science views on this topic, nearly all appear to fit into one or more of the following categories
* Tribalists
* Ideologists
* Hacks
* Irresponsible contrarian
* Emeritus disease
Update John Mashey has a related taxonomy here
Further update The discussion has convinced me that I need to add a further category, that of irresponsible contrarian. I’d previously applied this to Richard Lindzen, see below, so it was a mistake not to have this category.
Tribalists are probably the biggest group, with two main subcategories.
First, there’s a group of people who really dislike environmentalists and can’t bear the thought that they could be right about something as important as climate change. This group is strongly represented among (though still a minority of) engineers and mining geologists, groups that appear to make up most of the rank-and-file membership of the Lavoisier Group, for example.
Second, there are rightwingers in the US and other countries (including Australia) where the political right derives most of its thinking from the US. The basic motivation is the same, except the animus is directed towards liberals (in the US sense) and leftists in general, rather than environmentalists specifically. Members of this group are notable for an obsessive focus on Al Gore: some seem to think that an An Inconvenient Truth and not, say, the thousands of pages of IPCC reports, is the primary document in the case for action on climate change.
There’s nothing much that can be done about the political right, which is wrapped in impenetrable layers of delusion, but there’s a lot that can be done (and is being done, to some extent) to bridge cultural gaps between environmentalism and professions like engineering and geology. Younger members of these professions tend to be lot more concerned about sustainability, while the spread of suits, haircuts and a generally pragmatic approach among environmentalists has done its bit also.
Ideologists overlap significantly with tribal rightwingers, but are potentially more amenable to argument. These are people with a libertarian, or more generally pro-market outlook, who have convince themselves that doing something serious about climate change involves a major step towards socialism (a view shared by a few hopeful socialists). Given this conviction, wishful thinking inclines members of this group towards scientific delusionism. For most of these people, the fears they have are groundless. The standard measures proposed to deal with climate change, emissions trading and carbon taxes, are minimally interventionist, both in scale (maybe $10 billion a year for Australia to start with, and not much more even in the long run) and form (these are market-based methods of correcting externalities).
There are, I guess, a handful of extreme libertarians whose ideological position depends on the non-existence of global public goods requiring global policy solutions. To this group, I can only say that if your political views are inconsistent with the existence of the atmosphere, perhaps you should revise those views rather than trying to adjust reality to fit them.
The third group, not large in number, but important as opinion leaders, are hacks, who argue against science for a living. This group can easily be recognised by their past track record. Since there aren’t many people prepared to do this kind of thing, the same individuals and institutions have pushed the corporate line on tobacco and passive smoking, the ozone layer, DDT and climate change, among many others. In Australia, the IPA has played the leading role in this respect, running hard on passive smoking before shifting to climate delusionism.
The individual who most exemplifies this group globally is Steve Milloy, an all-purpose compendium of hackery, who spent years presenting himself as a scourge of “junk science” while secretly on the payroll of tobacco and oil companies. He’s now the official Science expert for Fox News, which says it all I guess. People who have paid little attention to th issue and have accepted Internet factoids as trustworthy can often by persuaded by pointing out their origin with people like Milloy. But at this point the majority of delusionists have well-established mental defences for their own delusions; many have convinced themselves that it’s the real scientists who are spouting lies for money and that corporate funding for the likes of Milloy is just self-defence.
The best hope of dealing with this group has been making life hard for their paymasters. After being outed as the money pump for a string of front groups, Exxon has largely given up paying. For anyone old enough to have been in the game before the mid-1990s, it’s always useful to check the Tobacco Archives, which document every corrupt payment made by the tobacco industry to its legion of hired guns.
Fourth, there are irresponsible contrarians, exemplified by Richard Lindzen. The typical contrarian is skilled enough in argument to maintain a weak position, and successful enough in their own field (often tangentially relevant to the issue at hand) to have an inflated view of their own intelligence. And they prefer confuting the conventional wisdom (to their own satisfaction) to giving serious consideration to the views of experts on subjects where there own knowledge is limited. The type is most clearly illustrated by a 2001 Newsweek interview of Lindzen that I’ve quoted before
Lindzen clearly relishes the role of naysayer. He’ll even expound on how weakly lung cancer is linked to cigarette smoking. He speaks in full, impeccably logical paragraphs, and he punctuates his measured cadences with thoughtful drags on a cigarette.
Anyone who could draw this conclusion in the light of the evidence, and act on it as Lindzen has done, is clearly useless as a source of advice on any issue involving the analysis of statistical evidence. But, I imagine, he could hold up his side of this argument just as well as he does on climate change.
Finally, and most unfortunately, there is Emeritus disease, a problem that is found in every area of academic controversy. The typical sufferer is an older male, with the archetypal case being the holder of an emeritus position. Unfortunately, aging tends to go along with both a hardening of intellectual arteries and an unwillingness or inability to keep abreast of recent developments in the field in question, with the effect of dogmatic attachment to views formed long ago. Having taken a view of an issue on the basis of very limited consideration, they remain dogmatically attached to it until the end of their days.
(Looking at the description, I’m obviously a high-risk candidate for going emeritus myself. That’s one reason I try to engage in discussion with people holding a range of views from which I might learn something, most recently economists of the Austrian school).
Unfortunately, Emeritus disease has a bad prognosis. As Max Planck observed long ago
a new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it.
I’ll lay down a few rules for discussion on this post. I’m not interest in rehashing delusionist talking points (GW stopped in 1998, Al Gore is fat and so on) and comments containing such points will in general be deleted. On the other hand, I’d be interested in anyone claiming to have reached a sceptical position who doesn’t fit into one or other of the categories I’ve mentioned (to be credible, you may have to forgo anonymity). And, obviously, I’m interested in refinements of the classification, better targeted counterarguments and so on.
John Quiggin 
Vern, you mean articles like this
https://johnquiggin.com/index.php/archives/2006/08/23/is-peak-oil-here-already/
or my piece in last week’s Fin attacking the Qld fuel subsidy. That reminds me that I didn’t get around to reposting it.
Anyway, glad to have your support on this.
Vern,
Sometihng that has bothered me over the last few years is the way that action on global warming has been tied so strongly to individual responsibility and morality.
The focus has been on voluntary, individual action – fly less, buy solar, turn off the a/c, drive less etc, and if you don’t do these things, then you are a hypocrite (this is the argument given my people such as Andrew Bolt e.g. when he criticises Al Gore for flying about).
However, I dont think it makes sense to try and deal with a *global* problem by trying to cajole individuals to take voluntary, individual action. I think that is as senseless as making income tax voluntary (do it for the good of the nation!) and as senseless as hoping that appeals to individual morality are the solution to online piracy.
Most people are ok about contributing some of their income/effort to solving a problem *if they think that all is fair, and everyone else is also making their contribution*.
So we are happy to pay tax because its a law, and we hate – with a passion – people (esp rich people) who find loopholes and avoid paying tax – its not fair.
We support green energy, but are wary of voluntarily buying Green Power because our individual contribution isn’t enough and nobody else is doing it so why should I?
If there was umbrage at petrol prices, it was more to do with the worry that we were being screwed by the petrol companies or else the government unfairly (for the record, I read many articles all stating that to reduce excise would be a terrible thing to do, in contrast to what you suggest everyone was thinking).
So the focus shouldn’t be on individual action and how to convince individuals to voluntarily act, it should be on broad but fair legislation.
Like the GST, I think that once a government just takes the plunge and implements a broadly covering, reasonably fair policy, everyone will be ok about wearing it.
The hard part is in determining what is fair.
The outright panic of a certain category of sceptic is too often because their real fear of AGW is that it involves governments; more specifically, it involves international cooperation not dissimilar to that of the UN. This small but loud group no doubt contains some people who think AGW is real and a serious risk – but their fear of government, especially an “international” government construct, outranks their concerns about AGW. Therefore, international decision making and action taking must be resisted by any means necessary.
When a spotlight is shone in the right nooks and crannies, these critters may be quite easily identified. For example, in Australia they typically know Ray Evans and are members of Lavoisier, some also join IPA and even the Bennelong Society. Others are members of the HR Nicols Society. The more mobile ones are also involved in various international societies and coalitions (and yet they fail to see the irony of this in light of their zeal to prevent international goverment forming); for example they are members or contributors to the Marshal Institute, or the Climate Coalition (or is it the Coalition of Climate Scientists, or something similar), or IceCaps – see the website, or SEPP, and on it goes. Back in Australia they typically are given entire pages of the Australian in which to impart their “Opinion” piece.
International cooperation shouldn’t be feared; indeed, it should be encouraged. With almost 7 billion people and counting, I may live to see the population triple well within my lifetime. We need cooperation if we are to avoid a terrific intersection of population size and volatile food production.
Donald re the critters (them maoist denialists.). I think JQ needs another category.
* Tribalists
* Ideologists
* Hacks
* Emeritus disease
* Spinmeister angleworms
Pr Q says:
The main cause of Greenhouse denialism lies in the crucible of late-sixties through early-seventies politics, when the template for so much post-modern day politics was laid down. Most political attitudes amongst opinion makers and takers were formed in this critical decade of 1969-79. It was about that time that the Greenie movement started to gather momentum.
The Greens were identified with the most extreme and irrational forms of Leftism. So its hard to believe that they are now identified with the most the CW of established science.
Sheer pyschological inertia explain the prevalence of denialism amongst cranky men of a certain middle-age. Planck’s Law applies more to ideology than epistemology.
JQ you missed a few:
Shills: Will say anything for a few quid. Paid by industry groups, etc. Heaps of them. Pay them and they would all have worked for Goebel quite happily, or Stalin, etc.
Idiologues, basically religeous (or heavily influenced, e.g. Spengler in the Asia Times) types: Have an idiological bent towards “Man has mastery over the Earth given by God”. Often population nuts as well.. in the sense they think there is not enough (of our white Christian/Zionist types of course).
Western Supremacists: “So what of a few fuzzy wuzzies go to the wall, we’ve burned coal and oil forever and we will keep doing it even if we have to take it from them by force”.
Incredulists: Basically people who, sometimes know a little, but simply cannot accept that what we do can have such global impacts. “A few % of CO2 what effect can that have” they cry. They all missed the basic physics courses at school. They nearly always also deny running out of food, fish, oil and other resources.
Modern politicians: who believe nothing, except that they have to win the next election. Will do anything to achieve that, say anything, deal with anyone (anyone remember Garath Evans dealing with Pol Pot?). They need lots of money to achieve that .. and where does a lot of that money come from .. and that’s why we have killed the solar industry in Australia .. and it will stay killed.
Fossile Fuel company top executives: “My company, I get lots of money (and want more), even if I believed that it is not in my personal interest. I get enough money that it wont affect me .. sorry peasants .. not”. Will pay anyone to push their agenda, shills, politicians, nut job grups, etc (do you know how many new coal projects there are on the drawing books in just NSW alone?), will lie (of course), will kill of course though they usually (but not always) rely on polticians to to organise that though the armed forces (and why are we in Iraq and Aghanistan?).
Their greatest sucess was to kill fission nuclear power in many countries utilising the ‘useful idiots’ in the green groups (and they were cheap as well, other groups doing their bidding usually ask for some reasonable money).
Naturally there is a lot of interconnection between these clowns.
jquiggin #84:
Isn’t JJ’s equation at #83 correct? X is the increase in forcing (Watts per meter squared) from a doubling of CO2 (suitably scaled to account for natural rather than base-2 logarithm) and Y is the sensitivity parameter in degrees Celsius (Kelvin) per Watt per meter squared.
AFAIK X is uncontroversial: about 5.33 W/m2. With no feedback Y is 0.3C/w/m2 (the Stefan-Boltzmann value). Most of the controversy and uncertainty seems to be around how much bigger Y is than 0.3 due to positive feedbacks. There are some (albeit not many) reputable scientists who think it may even smaller than 0.3 due to negative feedbacks, primarily clouds. This is not without foundation: there is some satellite evidence supporting that case, but I am not convinced (I personally think Y is greater than 0.3 but I haven’t seen a convincing argument for the 3 or more multiplier needed to support the alarmist case).
If you plug the no-feedback numbers and a doubling of CO2 into JJ’s formula you get TempC increase ~ 1C.
I don’t know what interpretation of JJ’s post you had in mind, but none of what he said is particularly controversial, let alone delusionist. This wouldn’t even rate a mention over at CA.
I understand there are “delusionists” who parrot crackpot theories. But there are plenty of those on the pro-AGW side of the argument too. However, there are also plenty of honest skeptics who have good, solid reasons to doubt the alarmist position (and by that I simply mean the scientific case for alarm has not been made. The alarmists could be right. The feedback could be large and positive. But the evidence doesn’t point that way at present, at least not on my reading).
OK, JB, I’m convinced. You’re a Tribalist. Thanks for playing.
As regards “honest skeptics” you said a lot of comments ago that you weren’t fazed in any way by the fact that the people on whom you rely are demonstrably dishonest ideologues and hacks. So, it’s a bit late to be making this kind of statement.
For anyone seriously interested in the science on feedbacks, read the IPCC reports and the peer-reviewed literature. If you can find errors, write your own article. Don’t debate this kind of thing in blog comments.
Olskeptic….we were born thinking the same way..and on the matter of a certain “guess this number?”.
It goes down after elections and up just before. It can be anything less than but is rarely more than before. It includes only some but never all and if it threatens to grow it immediately falls. It can be lessened indefinitely and recreated infinitely to suit any political situation at all. Ladies and gentlemen…the amazing “unemployment” rate.
jquiggin #108
??
I just pointed out that JJ’s physics was correct, and you respond with that level of aggression?
Nothing I said was controversial. The multiplier for sensitivity is *the* big issue. Even the IPCC accepts there is a wide range of uncertainty in the multiplier (1.5 times to 4.5 times). Having read a lot of the literature, I believe the true value is toward the low end of that range, but honest people can differ on that.
If that makes me a tribalist then I can only hope the tribe lives long and prospers.
John Mashey – I am not at all convinced that the last statement in curly brackets is accurate. We can statistically correlate smoking with lung cancer across millions of individual human bodies. However we can’t do any such statistical analysis on the fate of planet Earths that burn fossil fuels simply because we only have a sample space of one. Given that the evidence linking smoking to lung cancer is founded on statistical evidence I don’t think the analogy with causal explanations of global warming stacks up very well at all.
Given the poor fit of the second category within tribalism this implies that I can be explained as being a part of:-
However I’m not really feeling much at home in this box either. Whilst I do move in circles that include people who really disliking environmentalists, I also have very dear friends who have at various times been environmental activists. I’m not sure why loyalty to tribe should imply more affinity for the first group over the second. Of course I’m not at all a fan of the socialist aspects of the Greens but that’s more ideological than tribal.
If I were J Baxter I’d be mighty dissatisfied. Avowing he approaches this issue with rigour, he’s asked to demonstrate it. When he tries, he is told he’s not allowed to.
Baxter, when you say your views are strictly scientific don’t then talk politics.
I find it impressive how some people, which are supposedly rational very easily fall on ad-hominens and things like that.
Stating in a forum like these that one doesn’t believe in some part of the cultural dogma of the local tribe will get the exact same effect of doing the same in a religious/conservative fora: some trolls (not all people, of course) will immediately excommunicate you.
That is one of the reasons that I don’t use my real name (but I am a published scientist, something that John can easily verify by putting my real email address – Which I supply – on google).
There were actually some good arguments made here (like an interesting discussion on prediction or comments on the butterfly effect), but I think that the main issue is how difficult it is to have a sincere, straightforward discussion on hot topics when some of the participants engage in ad-hominens, weasel wording and things like that.
I stand to believe that the biggest difference is not between liberals/conservatives, but between people that are open-minded enough to enter a discussion when their most profound beliefs are questioned and those who will try to outcast any antagonists.
Regarding the discussion itself, it would be laughable if it was not tragic.
1. I am currently reading a paper, in the area of infectious diseases, where one of the most known scientists in the area predicts that malaria will be eradicated if his policies are enacted in 4 years (to make it even more believable, the article even gives confidence intervals to the month). Cool, according to it malaria in SE Asia can be a solved case. Laughable if not tragic.
2. Regarding that issue with the climate model software: I know it is difficult to trust an anonymous source, especially one that looks like a denialist (I am not, I just don’t believe climate predictions). But, while I have never worked in climate models (I work in epidemiology and evolutionary biology), I happen to know people who were responsible for maintaining the software referred above.
3. In due honesty, many lab/field scientists (in medicine and biology) are very skeptic of theoretical work. They overexagerate as normally they discount all theoretical work (computationally predicative or not). But at least it serves as a protection of the excessive influence of theoretical/computational people.
4. Computational models have their uses. It is just that forecasting is not one of them.
And, John, if you believe so much in modeling that you are prepared to buy my bridge. You can actually put your money where your mouth is: Get some quantitative finance guys to run you a predicative model of the behaviour of shares and buy whatever they tell you to buy. You can only accept models that were published in reputed scientific journals. In fact this would be a solution for the problem: if the welfare of those producing predictions would be tied up to the quality of those predictions.
I’ve noticed that I’ve might have worded a few things wrongly: predictions can be ok if they can be tested/refuted in a Popperian way. As a commenter said, this can happen a lot in engineering.
It is just that it does not happen a lot in science.
But, I don’t even require refutability. It would be enough if people that predict a thing, would feel the result of such prediction on their own skin (when that is possible).
1. Name the model
2. Name the people
3. Name the optimization switches involved, and then tell us why this is a problem, given that it’s a known fact that optimizing FORTRAN compilers offer options that are documented as possibly causing loss of precision in some cases due to execution reordering etc. The offering of potentially unsafe optimizations by certain FORTRAN compilers doesn’t by itself invalidate algorithms used by modelers …
No. Arguing that someone claimed that the entire Arctic would be ice free when they simply offered 50% odds that the north pole itself would be ice free is lying. And pointing out that someone’s lying isn’t ridiculous.
#114 AnonTwo
“And, John, if you believe…”
Sigh.
EarIier here, I pointed at post at RealClimate, one of whose elements was:
“5) Financial engineers (Google: financial engineering)
Not having physics to constrain simulations yields some wild results, although at least, some people are very comfortable with risk, uncertainty, and ensemble projections.”
I also pointed at the thread whose specific post #35 for monsoonevans, includes:
“The financial modeling universe is about as far away from physics models as you get, except for the use of ensemble runs in some applications.”
and
“…the models in financial services are not physics models, even when written by physicists…
I thought all those comments were unambiguous. Can you explain why not? Your last paragraph of #114 is just inexplicable to me.
re: #115
“It is just that it does not happen a lot in science.”
Really?
You are *sure* that most science modelers are incompetent? You write with great confidence, but Darwin has relevant words on that.
Citing Popper sounds nice.
However, I’d rather have many years of experience in personal interactions with hundreds of scientists in a wide range of disciplines regarding the nature, limits, and progress in their computer models. That helps avoid over-generalization from limited examples.
This really needs a good article for non-experts, and it’s on my long TODO list, if I can’t find someone else who’s done it.
But, for anyone who wants a quick introduction in understanding the importance of modeling to modern science, I strongly recommend:
William J. Kaufmann III, Larry L.Smarr, “Supercomputing and the Transformation of Science”, 1993.
It’s a little old, but it’s clearly-written, beautifully-illustrated, and the general ideas still apply. Many libraries have it, or you can get one fromAmazon for ~shipping cost.
I asked Larry if he knew of a newer equivalent, but he didn’t, so I stick with it until I can find something better.
It’s written at a “Scientific American” level, and even the first chapter alone is a useful,reasonably nontechnical introduction, that ought to part of an educated citizen’s basic scientific literacy.
“All models are wrong. Some are useful.” – George Box (famous statistician)
Are there any people that support the AGW position for the wrong reasons? Assuming all the claims of AGW are 100% accurate, are there people that don’t understand all the science and yet still support AGW?
Are they not as ignorant as deniers? They just happen to be lucky in their guess (politics, worldview, religion) to side with you. Would they not then fit into similar categories?
Is AGW belief a starting point for becoming a climate scientist? Be realistic for a moment and not defensive. Is it practically possible to be a climate scientist without espousing the beliefs of AGW? There are many narrow fields where a “contrarian” would never make it through the vetting process.
Does anyone think JB is changing his opinion?
Or do people think that this discussion is just hardening his opinion against climate change science?
If the science hasn’t changed people’s opinions by now – it may be unlikely that further science will significantly change their views. Even clearly pointing out the existing science may not help much.
To achieve significant change on this issue – other approaches are probably required.
As #1 points out – there are a large amount of people in this country that are sceptical of the issue – and appeals to the facts of the matter may not budge them a whole lot.
Did the science of smoking cause a *significant* drop in smokers worldwide? Maybe a little.
The main impact of the science wasn’t to change smoker’s minds on smoking. It was to allow policy makers to tax cigarettes, ban their use in many places, and make right minded people shun it as socially unacceptable. This is the main focus – moving forward with CC.
Having said all that smoking rates are still pretty high.
We really need some new approaches.
AnonTwo,
What is it that you understand by “computational models”? What I mean by computational models is described at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computational_model
These models are extremely useful and remarkably accurate and the more we build the better they get – weather forecasting to give but one example. Of course computational modelling will not be “correct” because that is not the intention. The idea is to get an idea of what will happen, to know the factors that influence the model, and to watch and change factors to achieve outcomes on which there is broad agreement. (increased wealth, sustainability, better health, happier more fulfilled lives etc)
To use computational models effectively in whatever field you have to build a representation of the system and importantly you have to have instrumentation in the real system to adjust the model as the situation evolves.
My argument with economic modelling as it is practised is two fold. First the models that are used are based on aggregates rather than on the interactions of individual agents and the modelling appears to be modelling the model of the economy not the economy itself. Second the instrumentation is too slow in measuring as it is based on the aggregates collected after some time not on the immediate actions of agents.
So we have the unemployment rate, interest rates, housing loans etc. as the things on which we base both our instrumentation and our models.
I contend that aggregates are the emergent properties of the underlying system and are not the things that we need to worry about except as indicators that things are going the way we want them to go.
If I was in Treasury and wanted to model the economy here is what I would do. I would first of all put instrumentation into the real economy to measure what is going on. So I would want to know in “real time”, every home loan granted, the gross sales of every supermarket in the country according to the classification of goods, the sales of every farmer, and every factory and the purchases and income of every person as they happen.
This can all be done in a privacy friendly manner and for little cost (in fact it will cost the community less if we build our taxation system around immediate reporting of financial transactions)
While I am waiting for this to be built into the system I would request volunteers – both businesses and individuals – to give me their details as they happen. In other words I would Neilson Poll economic activity. (This would be quite simple and I have a design to do it).
In the meantime I would build my model of individual agents in the economy where I have types of agents that all act in a similar way. So I might have x people on aged pensions, y people employed in the retail businesses, z supermarkets, etc. and I would build in rules as to their economic activity – most of which is pretty straight forward as our expenditure year on year is much the same on much the same things.
I would turn the model loose and let it do its computations and from it I would get the aggregates as emergent properties (unemployment rate, interest rates, etc.)
I would calibrate my model by observing what actually happens (and what has happened) and I would change my models of individual agent interactions so that the model better reflects the real world.
To get my forecasts I would “run the system” with different underlying rules and see what happens. e.g. use my suggestion elsewhere on stimulating the economy by increasing the money supply by printing money not loaning it, giving it to people but requiring them to spend it on infrastructure that reduces ghg concentrations in the atmosphere. I would run x number of simulations and get the locus of results.
With complex systems this will give us reasonable forecasts – and it is not hard to do.
@jq, I’m not convinced JB is a tribalist (as I understand your term); he seems to fall more into my Incompetent category, which is similar to the irresponsible contrarian category. He seems to elevate his personal, semi-informed judgment over the consensus based on the scientific literature.
@J Baxter, it’s hard to say whether the equation in #83 is correct or not, because it’s so abstracted away from the complexities of reality. For example, there’s no time dependence, but there’s considerable lag in the temperature response to CO2 forcing. What timescale is represented in that equation? Is the change in temperature the “equilibrium” that would result from a given change in CO2? If so, why is this relevant, since humanity doesn’t seem to be on an emissions path that will lead to an equilibrium level of CO2?
@AnonTwo, you’re right, because some computational predictions are very hard, then none are possible. But maybe that’s not true. Here’s a different sort of bet. I bet that I can use a computational model to predict the location of the planets in a years’ time, or even 100 years time. Would you like to bet against me?
@still questioning, of course some lay people believe in AGW for the wrong reasons. So what? As to whether “belief” in AGW is a prerequisite for being a climate scientist, is belief in evolution a prerequisite for being a biologist? Is belief in relativity a prerequisite for being a physicist? I expect competent biologists and physicists to “believe” in those things. Same for competent climate scientists.
re: #119 still questioning
Well, I’m not sure if the reasons are “wrong”, but of course people accept AGW who do not understand “all the science”. I doubt that anyone understands “all the science”.
Consider a graph where increasing expertise is the vertical (say from 0 to 10), and acceptance of the usual AGW consensus is horizontal, from 0 to 1.0.
(8-10,.9+) fits most top climate scientists.
(0,.5) is know nothing, no strong opinion.
A classic skeptic would start there, and study enough real science to move.
(1,.9+) can be arrived at two ways, one of which makes fairly good sense.
a) For many people it is plausible *not* to study everything, but listen to experts for some things:
“What do the world’s scientific societies, (US) National Academy of Sciences, (UK) Royal Society, etc, say about this?”
They may then say “OK, good enough for me, I don’t have time to study this.”
Maybe if they are lucky, they go to a lecture by a credible top scientist.
Maybe, if they are like Peter Darbee (CEO of PG&E, big utility), they study up, but that probably gets you up to a 2 or 3. For most people, reading 1-2 good books (I usually suggest Archer’s & Ruddiman’s) ought to be enough.
b) Some people manage to get to (0-1, 1.0), that is they are really sure of AGW without much study. I have met some environmental extremists who act this way. They can be irksome in the same way that 1800s temperance movements might have been irksome, but of course, science caught up with both.
For some, if anything punctures their certainty, they flip over into (0,0). I’ve run across several examples, for which I conjecture PSYCH-4 (ambiguity intolerance). Think of flipping (in either direction) between deep religious faith and intense atheism, or between political party extremes. As I mentioned in #16, Feynman’s worldview would be terrifying to folks with that psychology.
But, in any case, unless one is an analyst of behavioral patterns, it doesn’t matter much. Anybody who cares studies “enough” science and assesses the opinions of bonafide experts. If one’s child is ill, most people will see a doctor, not their plumber.
John M. that’s a good answer.
I’ve added a contrarian category, which I think is needed. The PSYCH-4 category is another possibility, though I can’t think of obvious examples. More precisely, although this kind of dogmatism is very common (think of, say, Andrew Bolt) it has usually manifested itself in a tribal allegiance from which anti-science views are derived, rather than arising ab initio from the discovery of uncertainty in science.
As regards JB, I don’t think he was ever persuadable. The early references to Gore, alarmists, “even the IPCC” and so on, and his numerous dodges in argument make it pretty clear that he is fully embedded in the delusionist alternate universe. I agree though that the discussion as a whole suggests that contrarianism was probably the initial cause.
I think of the contrarian category as “reflexively contrarian”, as in if I say that the sun will rise tomorrow at 6am the reflexively contrarian person will immediately respond “No it won’t”. As the argument degenerates on my side due to my increasing frustration at the ludicrous resistance I’m receiving from the RC person, they will refine their argument, move goalposts, argue over the precision and accuracy of my forecast, yabba on about how all orbital models of the inner solar system are wrong due to GIGO (which is rather ironic), and so forth.
They aren’t just contrarian on the one issue, they are contrarian just for the sake of it. I reckon Richard Lindzen could be a contender.
re: #125 JQ
I haven’t encountered the transition (0,0) => (0,1), but I have several times on different blogs seen (0,1) => (0,0) comments like:
“I used to be in Greenpeace, was a strong environmental activist, believed in AGW wholeheartedly … but then I read X, and realized how wrong I’d been.” or words to that effect. Well, actually, that may be a (0,1) => (-2, 0) transition, if one allows for “negative knowledge”, which I’ve struggled to incorporate into this scale.
There’s a current discussion over at BraveNewClimate in which this possibly might apply.
I think David Bellamy might be an example. That could also be a flavor of Emeritus, although most Emeritus cases I’ve seen involve folks from fields peripheral or outside climate science, who then develop strong vocal opinions.
Bellamy was a botanist, and I think is definitely Emeritus, though in this category, each case is different. He seems to have gone bonkers when his TV career died, running for fringe political parties and reversing his views on a whole lot of topics.
Classic creationist argument, meant to establish the speaker as an authority to be believed due to being smarter than the scientists who, well, support science.
Because one who “reads the science” and agrees with science must, by definition, be more stupid than one who “reads the science” and finds themselves astonished as to how “stupid” the science is, right?
If they live long enough, they end up inventing perpetual motion machines.
Soviet Union – most poverty stricken country, before it collapsed before the socialist system can’t calculate. 🙂
Because the*
Your irresponsible category and a large part of the emeriti is better described as the rejected. Folk who never had, or have lost the respect they think they deserve of their scientific peers. Think Bill Gray as he watched outsiders push into his ball park, A companion group are the strivers. People at minor universities and think tanks trying to make a name for themselves. Benny P is a good example of the latter.
John Mashey #125
The “I used to be in Greenpeace” line is also classic Lomborg – recall the first 50 pages or so of The Denialist Environmentalist where he sets up his straw man.
JJ’s equation #83 is the simple one dimensional forcing-temperature relationship. The factor ?, which substitutes as an approximation for sensitivity is a fuzzy number with an unknown distribution. It is untrue to say that climate models are based on this relationship – rather, this relationship can be used to explain the mean global warming response in the models – it is an approximation. The real world may behave somewhat like this but if it hits a non-linear feedback, it won’t. So ? is not constant over time.
There are three lines of evidence that inform the values of ?
i) radiative transfer theory, experiment and modelling
ii) palaeoclimate
iii) twentieth century climate
In climate models, sensitivity is internally generated by the equations themselves – it is not imposed externally. In the IPCC Third Assessment Report, climate model sensitivity ranged from 1.7C to 4.2C. In the Fourth report, this range was a little larger.
Palaeoclimatic fluctuations in temperature cannot be explained without accompanying changes in greenhouse gases. One opposing AGW is then left with the argument that they are always passive and lag, not lead. However, this is not true either. There are well-documented episodes of large natural emissions that have warmed the planet. The evidence for this is growing. The atmosphere couldn’t give a rats as to whether greenhouse gases come from a smokestack, volcano or wetland. It will respond in the same way.
The century-scale sensitivity is about 3C for GHG doubling. The long-term sensitivity, following ice-albedo feedbacks may be twice that. The last time the Earth spent an extended period at ~425 ppm CO2, the oceans were about 25m above today’s sea level.
Think of albedo feedbacks (ice to rock or water will warm the planet) as the drivers of the ice ages. But CO2 and methane amplify these changes during glacials and interglacials. Think of tumblers at the circus when two people each grab the ankles of the other, then they roll around the floor. One pushes, then the other. They will move if one pushes, it doesn’t matter which. Then we have some other obstacles, some will move our tumblers faster, some slower. They are other negative and positive feedbacks which are less regular, but if they occur can change the Earth very quickly at geologically short notice. Examples are large methane outgassing events, breaches of large freshwater lakes into the oceans, even the odd meteor.
Greenhouse “theory” (I use the term in the same way evolutionary theory is used) is the best, most internally consistent scientific theory that explains past and present climate and gives us good grounds to expect potentially serious changes in the future (this depends very strongly on our behaviour over the next few decades).
It can only be overturned by a better, more internally consistent theory, and there is nothing on offer. Nit-picking, cherry picking and quoting Popper will not do it.
You lot can quibble about JQ’s taxonomy all you like, but denialism is not science – it’s psychology (much of it sociopathic). (And John, I’ve spent too much time with taxonomists, ’cause I like John Mashey’s taxonomy better 🙂 )
Sorry all, the gamma term came through as a question mark. As you were, carry on.
Didn’t get much substance back for last questions, but will plunge ahead anyhow.
Do you see any parallels between AGW efforts and propaganda?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda#Techniques
Specifically:
Ad hominem — creating names (taxonomy) which to call your opponent.
Ad nauseam — “they just don’t get it”, among others.
Appeal to authority — this climate scientist or institution supports this idea.
Appeal to fear — sea level, drought, flood, polar bears, etc.
Bandwagon — consensus.
Big Lie — CO2 is a greenhouse gas (true), GHE warms the atmosphere (true), the earth has warmed over the last “n” years (true), if we keep putting CO2 into the atmosphere it will warm radically and threaten our existence (really?).
Demonizing the enemy, Labeling, Name-calling, Stereotyping — see “denier”. Also, any attempt at “Taxonomy”.
Half-truth — a warmer world will result in more heat related deaths (failing to mention that there will also be fewer cold related deaths in a warmer world).
Unstated assumption — the debate over AGW/CC is over.
Chris G #123:
The equation in #83 is a simplification for sure, but it is still elementary climate science. You can take it to be the definition of climate sensitivity (JJ’s Y) if you like. Search for “climate sensitivity formula” on google. Lot’s of references, eg this one, about halfway down the page:
D T2x is JJ’s “TempC Increase”. D Q2x is JJ’s
“X Watt/metre^2 * Ln (CO2-Future / CO2-280)” with CO2-Future set to 560ppm (double pre-industrial levels). And l is the inverse of JJ’s Y.
Now, JJ goes on to claim that “I think you’ll find the math doesn’t work” which I interpret to mean the equation does not support the case for global warming alarmism. Obviously, that depends on what Y (1/l) is, but as the reference above points out, Y is still quite uncertain. At the lower end of the IPCC range (Y ~ 0.45) it is probably the case that there is little cause for alarm.
jquiggin #125:
What “Dodges in argument”? Referring to the IPCC makes me a delusionist?
Clearly I was wrong to take you at your word. You are never going to be convinced that someone is an honest skeptic.
And are you not the slightest bit concerned that you dismissed
one of the simplest equations of climate science as “delusionist” nonsense propagated by climateaudit? To me it demonstrates that you have a very limited grasp of the science. Even if you are not concerned, I think your readers should be.
AnonTwo:
We don’t need computerised climate forecasts to know what could happen if we keep increasing the CO2 in the atmosphere. That’s what the climate sensitivity estimate tells us. Computerised forecast are just a refinement on that to take into account factors which have far less long-term significance e.g. aerosols, oceanic thermal inertia. Computational models are not the big picture. Climate sensitivity is. Anything else is not much more than deck chairs.
By the way, I would have thought someone who is “open-minded” would have thought beyond the notion of “computational models” as I point out above.
re: #135 still questioning
So, I ask my standard questions:
1) What books have you read by credible climate scientists?
Like I said:
David Archer, The Long Thaw, 2008 +
William Ruddiman, Plows, Plagues, & Petroleum, 2005, make a good start. See Ruddiman, Chapter 18. See the reviews.
If you want a more detailed reading list, see how to learn about science.
2) Are you able to attend credible climate science lectures? (Many universities have some, some have many). Do you know climate scientists (or other senior scientists also knowledgeable on climate) and have talked to them at any length?
I ask these questions because they are useful in distinguishing between classic skeptics (who will learn) and others who won’t.
still questioning:
Actually the unstated assumption is that the debate is not over. This assumption contradicts the observation that there are no properly reviewed papers that debate the existence of AGW anymore. This rather tends to prove that the propaganda comes from those who assume the debate is not over.
@J Baxter, I find it ironic that you chastise J Quiqqin for not understanding “one of the simplest equations of climate science”, because it’s not clear at all that you understand it. You seem to think that you can use it to make predictions about future climates (e.g., “At the lower end of the IPCC range (Y ~ 0.45) it is probably the case that there is little cause for alarm.”), but that’s a pretty bad misapplication of that equation.
re: #111 (TerjeP)
(Oh, this was a carefully chosen analogy 🙂
You believe cigarette epidemiological statistics, which is good! That usually means that:
A) DATA You understand statistics well enough to have looked at studies, for example, as in CDC’s compendium. You might or might not know anything about B), and still find the statistics strong enough.
OR
B) MECHANISM You are well-versed in tobacco smoke toxicology, an incredbily-complex subject (see later). I.e., you’re happy following an argument like this.
OR
C) PROFESSIONAL You’ve looked a little at the overall topic, maybe read a few credible books, and you’ve decided to trust the professionals.
May I ask which one(s) of these apply to you?
=====
By the way, if people understand how the IPCC works, especially in getting to the SPM, there are remarkable behavioral similarities with the 1964 Surgeon General’s report, for whose committee membership the tobacco companies had veto rights, and which started with 50% smokers. (It didn’t end that way). Luther Terry: hero!!
=====
The corresponding AGW analogy is:
a) DATA One understands trended noisy time-series and has looked at the relevant data series (CO2, CH4, temperature, TSI, aerosols) enough to accept it, without knowing very much about the underlying mechanisms, i.e., one accepts GHG behavior without knowing the molecular details that drive specific absorption spectra.
b) MECHANISM One knows enough physics (high school, or at worst, college sophomore introductory) to understand at least the basic mechanisms. At the low end, even kids understand the classic “bathtub” analogy: water in, drain getting blocked, level rises, even though it’s a big simplification.
c) PROFESSIONAL One has looked a little at the overall topic, maybe read a few credible books, and you’ve decided to trust the professionals.
So, to disbelieve AGW, one needs to:
c) Not trust the professionals.
AND
b) Not understand the basic physics.
AND
a) Not understand the relevant statistics well enough to avoid confusion from disinformation (akin to the tobaccocompanies’), or avoid “hacking at one tree while not noticing the forest burning down”, or equivalent statistics errors John Tukey used to warn against.
====
Although climate science certainly uses statistics, it isn’t based in the same way as epidemiology, and it is *not* based on purely on statistical analyses of past behaviors, but on physics. The basic physics ideas for AGW have been around for a century, Weart, even if there are many mechanisms yet to be better calibrated and understood in more detail.
Do you not accept Conservation of Energy or radiation/emission properties of greenhouse gasses? (b)
Cigarette smoke (B):
1) Has thousands of chemicals, of which some are known to be carcinogens. This says 4,000 chemicals, 43 known carcinogens. Other sources say 6,000 or 3,000, and sometimes 60 carcinogens. (It’s also hard to tell, because cigarette vendors are always changing *additives*.) Here’s an example.
2) Do we know that none of the others are carcinogens in humans? (no, how do we test that in the lab? Not as easy as it might be. Some things take 40 years to manifest their effects. There are serious ethical issues.)
3) Do we know the exact biochemical mechanisms by which all 43 influence cancer growth? and why they have different effects in different people? (no)
4) Toxicologists know a lot, but there are numerous questions:
“Given the immense deleterious health effects of cigarette smoking, there is a stark paucity of experimental data on the developmental toxicity of smoke constituents, of which there are more than 3000.”
So, underlying MECHANISM is very difficult; they don’t have well-known Conservation Laws driving them; many of the mechanisms are not yet well-understood, and human variability complexifies the problem enormously.
“Unstated assumption?” I thought this was pretty clear in the post
I’ve been a bit slack about this, but I’m calling a halt to any more discussion of talking points about the science. For anyone who wants to “debate” this, the standard option of doing your research and submitting it to a peer-reviewed journal is readily available. If you don’t feel like doing this, blogs like RealClimate will respond to debating points on science, I think.
What I’m interested in is the question of how JB and others came to hold these views. JB, you say you’re not a tribalist, by which I assume you claim that you are not on the political right or hostile to environmentalism in general. And, presumably, you accept the standard scientific position on most issues you haven’t researched for yourself. So, can you say how you came to hold the views you do on AGW?
Where does Cardinal Pell’s endorsement of Plimer fit? Tribalist or ideologue? Emeritus? Doctrine from above, the short term interests of the church or personal views finding their way into church pronouncements? Lots of coal miners are devout Catholics? New Ager Greens are the enemy of the Church and an enemy of an enemy is an ally?
I do wonder how many devout Catholics will put aside science in favour of such views coming from high up the church ladder, perhaps believing someone in Pell’s position would have high standards of intellectual integrity and would never tell lies for God. Ha.
It’s clear that Pell has taken sides and the reasons can’t be the underwhelming nonscience coming from Plimer. If the Catholic church endorses Plimer’s scholarship with Heaven and Earth, does that imply endorsement for his other not-for-peer-review writings? Strange bedfellows
144
Ken
Cardinal Pell’s enorsement of Plimer fits perfectly here in one of Oldskeptics categories..(106)
“Idiologues, basically religeous (or heavily influenced, e.g. Spengler in the Asia Times) types: Have an idiological bent towards “Man has mastery over the Earth given by God”. Often population nuts as well.. in the sense they think there is not enough (of our white Christian/Zionist types of course).
John Mashey’s taxonomy included
“ECON-4 fear (reasoned or unreasoned) of personal economic impacts from CO2 regulation
Many people in the public.”
but does not appear to include fear of the personal/family impacts of global warming itself.
So to state the obvious: some people deny the science because they are “in denial” in the psychological sense. Who wants to accept the risk of the terrible consequences of AGW.
Alan #1, said something similar but about people over 40 who build things. I think it is more widespread.
Furthermore it could be argued that some people accept AGW but are in denial about the irreversibility,rate, non-linearity and extent of temperature change and the human impacts.
The “Taxonomy of Delusion” blog discussion is in my opinion one of JQ least productive blog commentaries. Its attempt to label those individuals that do not allign themselves with the consensus into a psycological/age/affiliation/education etc categories is reminisce of the DSM and ICD classification in psychiatry.
I suggest rather than target the individual you should target/categorise the rhetoric. Chris Hoofnagle does a reasonable job of this in his paper titled
“Denialists’ Deck of Cards: An Illustrated Taxonomy of Rhetoric Used to Frustrate Consumer Protection Efforts”
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=962462
he suggests the following:
“The Denalists’ Deck of Cards is a humorous illustration of how libertarian policy groups use denialism. In this context, denialism is the use of rhetorical techniques and predictable tactics to erect barriers to debate and consideration of any type of reform, regardless of the facts. Giveupblog.com has identified five general tactics used by denialists: conspiracy, selectivity, the fake expert, impossible expectations, and metaphor.”
Despite being critical of Libertarians he manages to avoid using his Taxonomy to target individuals but rather the arguments they use to stifle the debating points of the “consensus”.
Surprisingly yet another blog post has failed to resolve the AGW debate.
For everyone out there. What levels of temperature change would cause you to change your beliefs?
If temperatures stay flat for the next 10 years will AGW proponents recant? If temperatures go up by some level will skeptics recant?
Write down your answer, email it to youself and wait.
In the meantime, continue the name calling!
Chris G #141:
If we know Y with certainty we can use that equation to predict temperature increase, which is the main concern. That is why so much effort has been invested in determining Y.
No, because the basic physics will be unchanged. Rather than “recant”, we’ll be looking for those huge volcano explosions, or for new mechanisms causing the additional energy in the system to pushed into the ocean rather than atmosphere (i.e. changes in circulation patterns or whatever), etc etc.
We will look to *add* to our existing knowledge.
150 year-old physics won’t be overturned.
Sorry to disappoint you.