In a previous “debate” on this blog he literally fabricated a quote from scratch to support his claim that climate change “deniers” also deny the link between smoking and cancer.

I asked him to provide a link to the quote and all I got was a barrage of insults.

When I demonstrated through a google search that he definitely fabricated the quote he went silent and moved onto this page.

You can read all about it here:

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/intersection/2009/12/09/how-the-global-warming-story-changed-disastrously-due-to-climategate/

You forgot the part about where you are willing to beggar them in process… just sayin.

Thanks for confirming that. I know you have a lot of company, but it would take too long to explain my surprise.

I was interested by your “the world has seen it so often” argument. We have indeed seen many such arguments. Take for example the overpopulation consensus of the 1970s. The prediction was standard Malthus: population expanding faster than resources, massive famines in the 1980s, Western civilisation could collapse by 2000, no point in trying to save the developing world, apparently brutal decisions necessary to prevent even worse to come, population control, sterilisation programmes tied to aid, all sorts of stuff.

It was serious – wars, famines, plagues: global disaster was predicted. It was urgent – only a few decades to spare. The logic was inescapable – resources are finite, and the population is booming. And the damaging decisions we were called upon to make were less costly than what was otherwise inevitable.

So should we have set out on a programme to impose involuntary population control measures on the poor but fecund, as governments were asked to, and a few actually did? What do you think?

Because in the end governments by and large didn’t. They ignored the message. And unless we all died about 15 years ago and I didn’t notice, they were completely wrong. But what, I ask you, if the doomsayers had been right?

I am on the other hand less interested by the ‘big oil’ conspiracy theory. Funding available for pro-AGW research is about a thousand-fold what any of the sceptics have got, and the vast majority of sceptics have no connection to industry whatsoever. You presumably know about Al Gore’s historic connection to the tobacco industry, and Phil Jones’ connections and funding from the oil giant Esso, revealed in Climategate. You presumably also know of the billions of public money to be made in the new carbon credit markets, and who their investors are backing. To suggest that this sort of thing constitutes an argument is ridiculous.

I have no idea if Fred Singer has any real connection to these oil Illuminati, and no interest either, but given the sort of people pushing the story I’m inclined to doubt it.

(I do know of one world leader who reportedly said “Copenhagen was just the first step towards a New World Climate Order” but I assume she wasn’t who you were talking about.)

As for my own views – I don’t dispute the science at all. Over the past century the CO2 level has risen by about 40%, and the global mean temperature anomaly has risen about 0.8C +/- 0.5C, part of which will be due to CO2. That fits perfectly with radiative balance calculations of CO2′s (pre-feedback) effect. Assuming an exponential rise (although the past data looks quadratic), one might therefore logically project a 40% rise over the next century, with something like a 0.5C rise due to the CO2. On a planet that varies between +50C in the African desert to -90C in Antarctica, that varies 10 or 20C day to night, summer to winter, it isn’t immediately obvious that it’s going to be a disaster.

Everything else is speculation. It might be true. There might be mysterious yet-undetected feedbacks that magnify the effect, and there might be other effects that simultaneously mask its occurrence in the 20th century. There might be some reason why it would be a disaster, rather than just another minor and maybe even beneficial fluctuation. The Earth has had warmer climates before. (Holocene optimum, Eemian, Dansgaard-Oeschger/Bond events, etc.) It has also had disasters before. I don’t know.

But I *do* know that I’m not about to believe in stuff for which I can’t find any actual empirical evidence.

The honesty quotient appears in the first and last statement – I believe strongly that the probability that the consensus is backed by honest (albeit not infallible) science is large. I believe strongly that the probability that the collection of contrarian views is backed by dishonest science is also large. I say this because the world has seen it so often. One need go no further than the evolution/creationism/ID wars to see it in action. Also, the affiliations of so many contrarians to dishonest right wing think tanks and big oil simply cannot be dismissed. Singer is a perfect example.

Urgency plays into this too. The current thinking (by the consensus) is that worst case climate scenarios are not that improbable based on the GCM’s and real observations. I suspect had the perceived urgency been low, the calls for action and the conclusions reached so far might be delayed until more uncertainties were eliminated. Heck – Hansen has been chomping at the bit for years now, and he has had to endure being reigned in by his own field (not to mention the Bush administration…). Climate science is walking a tightrope – they see the potential and it’s scary, but to go off half cocked can perhaps unnecessarily impact the world economies. It’s a tough spot – what should the timing be….

Of course there are theories about climate science being in collusion with a new world order to further clamp down on personal liberties, or merely trying to perpetuate grant money and their own jobs, or influencing green energy investments. The odds of those ideas being true can be compared to the odds of contrarians having big ideological and/or religious problems with the concept of AGW, and/or being paid by industry to obstruct progress. I think I know which I would pick assuming it’s time to pick. And I think it is.

As for your own views – I can only guess that you are doubtful enough of the science that you believe the worst case scenarios to be exceedingly unlikely. I just can’t see the logic trail there.

Let me get this straight, because I think it is a critical point.

You have concluded that the known ‘issues’ in the GCMs are not a problem because the climatologists have based their consensus of firm conclusions on them?

I’m guessing your reasoning goes as follows:
The pro-AGW climatologists are honest.
Honest climatologists would never base such a firm consensus on unreliable models.
The pro-AGW climatologists have come to such a consensus.
Therefore the models are not unreliable.
Therefore the consensus conclusion based on them is likely correct.
Therefore the pro-AGW climatologists can be trusted.
Therefore anti-AGW climatologists can, as the pro-AGW climatologists say, be dismissed as being dishonest, unsupported by the scientific evidence, and very probably wrong.

Is that right?

Because if it is, I find it a quite remarkable chain of logic that I am, nevertheless, not going to remark any further on. Please don’t take offence that I ask, but I would rather not go away believing that this is what you meant if in fact you didn’t.

“It must not be that much of an issue though”

By that I meant climatologists have formed their consensus based on a preponderance of evidence from the GCM’s, and also observing what has happened and is happening to the planet especcially in the far north and south.

Let’s all agree that this field of science is maturing and will get better as more observation is done, computing power grows, models get more stuff in them, better analysis of all that. In the mean time – and this is where we will agree to disagree I guess – the lesser risk is to start vigorous action to stop and then reverse GHG emissions. If later it is found to be largely bogus and/or ineffective, we can adjust.

I worry about my kids’ future in a potentially much more cruel world due to the effects of AGW, and am willing to risk some increased near term hardships to combat CO2 rise.

“It must not be that much of an issue though”

Why?

You don’t need to tell me about it, (although I’d love to know the reason myself,) but perhaps you should articulate for yourself exactly why it can’t be much of an issue.

“The Keenan/Jones/Wang ordeal is a big he-says-she-says thing – I doubt seriously you know the truth there. Nor do I.”

Some would say the whole AGW debate is a big he-says-she-says thing, wouldn’t they? So shouldn’t you draw the same conclusion, and reserve judgement?

Just some things to think about.
Until next time.

“There are certainly questions about how realistic those clouds are and whether they have the right sensitivity”

Well, “the right sensitivity” is what it is all about, isn’t it? The observations seem to show a climate senstivity of about 1 to 1.2C, well within variability. The models claiming disaster scenarios depend on these models in which one of the major forcings, clouds, are poorly understood. The CRU temp data is being re-analyzed and the source data made public. This also has a bearing on observed sensitivity. It will be a couple of years before we have the results of that re-analysis.

How did you conclude that it *must not be much of a problem*? Because Chris Mooney assured you? Or because you read it somewhere in the popular media? Did you read it in the AR4? because I don’t think it is in there.

I never said that the case stands or falls on clouds, I don’t doubt that there is AGW, I am just saying that these breathless proclamations that Greenland will melt in 100 yrs, or the Arctic will be ice free in five are not based on any kind of solid science, they are worst case scenarios based on poorly understood inputs and unsupported by observation.

This whole thing was based on your assertion that if we narrowed the argument down to one issue, I couldn’t bob and weave and confuse the conversation, and you would be able to disprove my point. It just ended with you giving an apology from an admitted propaganda outlet, RealClimate, (see ClimateGate emails re RealClimate) that said that the assertion that they don’t parameterize clouds is false, they do, they just don’t know if it is right or not. (I paraphrase) Not the stuff on which trillions of dollars should be spent. Sorry.

The Keenan/Jones/Wang ordeal is a big he-says-she-says thing – I doubt seriously you know the truth there. Nor do I. However the whole thing is very consistent with the famous API “victory memo” -

“Victory will be achieved when….average citizens ‘understand’ uncertainties in cliimate science…[and] recognition of uncertainties becomes part of the ‘conventional wisdom’.”

As for Fred Singer – his credentials go back to the tobacco lobby days fighting the smoking/cancer movement. Singer is a poster child for the prostitution of “expertise” to the highest bidder be it big tobacco or big oil. You are apparently well read – so you must know this. It is true that you technically cannot judge a works by the affiliations of its author. But forgive me if I am strongly suspicious for obvious reasons.

There is an honest to god fabricated controversy going on out there in our fine land, and even some other places, by those who cannot stand the idea of abandoning fossil fuels. Of that, there can be little doubt, and it has happened before many times on other “controversies”. Putting the science to the test is good as long as there are genuine reasons for doing so. I have concluded however that most of what we see is a deliberate attempt to roadblock progress, for reasons the perpetrators are not willing to admit.

Thanks for sparring – maybe we can take it up againg in another article.