Climate Candy: The Proof

Here's a good indication of how much the SkS study means: just a day after being at the top of HuffPo's front page, it no longer appears anywhere that page or anywhere on their "Science" page.

Easy come, easy go.

Just another result that doesn't change anything.

Obama's Bull Market

And by the way, why hasn't Obama gotten any credit at all for the amazing bull market in stocks that has occurred during his administrations?

I mean, the value of all stocks, as measured by the Wilshire 5000, is up $9.2 trillion since Obama's first inaugural.

And up an amazing $2.7 trillion (18%) just since his reelection.

Many people are making huge amounts of money. If this happened under a Republican president we'd hear no end of it. So what's going on?

(By the way, stock market capitalization minus US debt has increased by $2.9 trillion since Obama first took office.)

So What Will Change Their Minds?

A long-time commenter here writes:

"David, you should explain for everyone how it should be done. It is easy to criticize, but what's the solution for the communication?"

I don't think it's really a problem of communication....

100 years of consensus on evolution hasn't changed half of Americans' minds.

So why will a decade or two of climate data?

I don't like this, but it's a fact. I really wish everyone was amenable to data and scientific papers, but in America many people are not. They aren't.

Perhaps it's because our education system is mediocre. I also suspect there is some failing in our national character, something about being independent and revolutionary and adventurous and skeptical of institutions.

Why will global warming be any different? For whatever reason, a lot of Americans simply don't care what scientists think, and this problem is getting worse, not better.

And if not worse, not clearly better.

So what will change their minds?

More warming, more heat waves, more droughts, more storms.

When grandfathers say to their grandchildren, when I was a kid it was a lot colder and snowier, and it seems like all that is gone now.... When midwestern farmers accept the seriousness of the drought they are in, and when they leave the business because of it. When snowpacks diminish enough that people actually leave the American southwest because its water can't support them any longer.

Like I said, I don't like this. But I think it's the case.

Fallout from the SkS Study

As is often the case, the hullabaloo following a paper about climate is more enlightening than the paper itself.

I've noticed two things since Cook et al Environ Res Lett.:

1. Everyone is expected to be on one side of the other.
2. People are very confused about embargoes.

Let's take the second point first: Unless you agree to accept and respect embargoed materials, you are not held to an embargo.

An arbitrary sender can't just send out material willy nilly, stamp an embargo time atop it, and expect anyone to be bound by that embargo time. So Steve Milloy and Anthony Watts did nothing unethical by publishing on the material early.

Some people are confused about this, but it's not that difficult. Journalists and writers who receive embargoed material from journals and institutions have already agreed beforehand to receive such materials before the embargo date in exchange for respecting the embargo. It's an ethical obligation, and if you violate it you will get cut off from further material. (Whether there should be an embargo system for science news is an entirely different matter.)

But if someone sends you something you didn't solicit, it's fair game, and it doesn't matter if it says it's embargoed or not. It's naive to think otherwise.

Moral: if you don't want something published before a certain time, don't send it until that time unless you have a prior agreement with the recipient.

The first issue is more troubling. I get the distinct impression that certain people are expected to accept this study without question, and accept it as important and newsworthy, just because, well, because they're seen as on a certain team, because they think carbon emissions and climate change are big problems.

Like you're part of some team and can't think for yourself.

One blogger wrote -- well, he/she is anonymous, so it doesn't count for much, but anyway, they wrote

It's hard to say which is the more fundamental fail here: that Kloor doesn't understand that replicating results is critical to science, or that he thinks that he has somehow become a scientist, whose responsibility it is to follow and critique the bleeding edge of climate science, rather than his actual role as a science journalist helping the public grasp the critical core of the field, a job that evidently has to be done by scientists, who have pulled off a massive coup of science communication, only to be sneered at by the people who are paid to perform that function themselves.

Let's be clear: journalists and writers aren't stenographers who are bound to pass on information without questioning it, without analyzing it, and without providing context. 

Nor am I "sneering." I just don't think a number like "97%" is important to the debate. It's made for cupcake sites who do cupcake journalism, and to no one's surprise the Huffington Post immediately made it their top headline. 

It's a cudgel meant to end debate, not aid it. 

And it doesn't convince anyone. Answer me this: if Oreskes' 97% number still left some unconvinced, why will another 97% number?

It's nothing personal. As far as I can tell the authors did a fine job. I just don't think it's an important result.

 

Finally, a commenter here asked

"Do you think that your opinion of this paper is supported by experts on communication science who work on the issue of climate?" 

Frankly, I don't care what experts on communication science think. To be honest I don't even think what they do is a "science," let alone that they have valuable insights into the process of communicating science. I'm the one communicating science, not them.

Running *Into* Fossil Fuels

“The world has been running into fossil fuels, not away from them.”

-- Vaclav Smil, University of Manitoba environmental scientist, quoted in a Time article about the death of Peak Oil

Not Surprisingly, HuffPo Eats Up SkS Study

Like I said, the Skeptical Science study is made for people who want their science dished out plain and simple:

No thinking allowed, just get in the damn line.

The Big Stumbling Block

Keith Kloor has some pertinent and insightful thoughts on the Skeptical Science survey published in Environmental Research Letters. He links to a report showing that many Americans view global warming as a problem of the future, or for other places or species, and writes

"That. Is. The. Stumbling. Block.

"Getting past that is going to require a frank debate about future uncertainties, risks, and scenarios, and the reconciliation of competing values."

None of the latter come from putting forward a single number like "97%."

About the SkS Study That Finds a 97% Consensus

Skeptical Science has a study that greatly extends Oreskes 2004 study on consensus in the scientific literature, and find

A new survey of over 12,000 peer-reviewed climate science papers by our citizen science team at Skeptical Science has found a 97% consensus in the peer-reviewed literature that humans are causing global warming.

That's all well and good (and not surprising), and you can examine their methodology if you want to.

I'm not very keen on these kinds of numbers -- they are made for lazy journalists who don't want to examine the complexity of the science, reporters who just want a number that quickly and easily supports their position.

You'd never hear a scientist use such a number, because they know there is a wide spectrum of opinions about the statement "humans are causing global warming." Some find some parts of the science more convincing than other parts. They may see parts that aren't known well at all, and parts that are very well known. They know that some papers are good and some not so good and they aren't all weighted equally, nor are authors. (About physics, Luis Alvarez said, "There is no democracy in physics. We can't say that some second-rate guy has as much right to opinion as Fermi.")

The simple statement doesn't address questions like how much warming? What kind of warming (where)? How much are humans causing? How are they causing it? How well is this knowledge known? How good is the data? What are the consequences?

People using these kinds of numbers aren't so much interested in these kinds of questions or these kinds of debates as they are in avoiding questions and ending debates. They're for activists, not for those who want to really understand what's going on.

Pity the Poor Marina Owner on Lake Powell

This does not look to be a good time to own a marina on Lake Powell:

And this chart of the Lake's inflows and storage isn't encouraging:

If you look carefully you can see a tiny blip for 2012.

Here's one more view, no less astonishing:

Here's a local view of impacts from someone who regularly uses the Lake.

America's First Climate Refugees

Deny this:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/interactive/2013/may/13/newtok-alaska-climate-change-refugees

Live By Hype, Die By Hype

This is (partly) why the 400 ppm hype was misplaced from the very beginning:

People: Forest -- not the trees.

Desperate Lies from ClimateDepot

Of course, I don't think Marc Morano has any honor (if he ever did), so I know he doesn't care who catches him in his lies.

But normal people might. Like this one:

Lubos Motl is no more of a "Harvard physicist" than you or I are -- he was drummed out of the department, forced to resign many years ago, in the prime of his career, because he couldn't keep from insulting everyone in his presence. He has the personality of a thornbush.

Climate Depot is lying about his affiliation, plain and simple.

PS: You might remember Motl from this kind of buffonery. Though I hope not.

Global warming over the last 16 years

Here's a nice, quick visual from John Cook:

0.4 ppk