Friday, May 31, 2013

James Taylor Caught Doctoring the '97-Percent Consensus' Claims

{edited 11:00pm May 31}

Heartland Institute's James Taylor is at it again with his latest Forbes article: "Global Warming Alarmists Caught Doctoring '97-Percent Consensus' Claims"

It's the usual mix of misrepresentation and smooth manipulation.  The only way to do it justice is to once again copy the whole thing, divide it by paragraph and add comments along with links to authoritative information resources that set the record straight.

Taylor is complaining about: 

"Skeptical Science Study Finds 97% Consensus on Human-Caused Global Warming in the Peer-Reviewed Literature"

Posted on 16 May 2013 by dana1981, John Cook




Taylor's words are in courier font.  
¶1     Global warming alarmists and their allies in the liberal media have been caught doctoring the results of a widely cited paper asserting there is a 97-percent scientific consensus regarding human-caused global warming. 
~ ~ ~
Right out the gate James Taylor exposes his real desire to shut down, or at least out shout, any serious discussion.

Anyone who takes the time to look at SkepticalScience.com with anything close to an objective perspective, will recognize a serious conscientious effort to present climate science.  They review recent studies and findings that offering clear explanations supported by links to original sources for the detailed story.  

SkepticalScience.com's articles are followed by very civil and often quite informative comment threads, where skeptics usual participate in a serious manner, rather than the type of politicized juvenile name calling that is so typical of Taylor's approach.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ 
After taking a closer look at the paper, investigative journalists report the authors’ claims of a 97-pecent consensus relied on the authors misclassifying the papers of some of the world’s most prominent global warming skeptics. At the same time, the authors deliberately presented a meaningless survey question so they could twist the responses to fit their own preconceived global warming alarmism.
~ ~ ~
Taylor neglects to mention that John Cook's study isn't the first to find that over 95% of actual climate scientists agree with the evolving consensus understanding.

Consensus: 97% of climate scientists agree

W. R. L. Anderegg, “Expert Credibility in Climate Change,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Vol. 107 No. 27, 12107-12109 (21 June 2010); DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1003187107.

P. T. Doran & M. K. Zimmerman, "Examining the Scientific Consensus on Climate Change," Eos Transactions American Geophysical Union Vol. 90 Issue 3 (2009), 22; DOI: 10.1029/2009EO030002.

N. Oreskes, “Beyond the Ivory Tower: The Scientific Consensus on Climate Change,” Science Vol. 306 no. 5702, p. 1686 (3 December 2004); DOI: 10.1126/science.1103618.

~~~~~~~

More importantly the impartial North Pole Ice Cap also agrees:


The Cryosphere Today

National Snow and Ice Data Center





~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
¶2     Global warming alarmist John Cook, founder of the misleadingly named blog site Skeptical Science, published a paper with several other global warming alarmists claiming they reviewed nearly 12,000 abstracts of studies published in the peer-reviewed climate literature. Cook reported that he and his colleagues found that 97 percent of the papers that expressed a position on human-caused global warming “endorsed the consensus position that humans are causing global warming.”
~ ~ ~
Here again, Taylor resorts to name calling - as stated above, please take a look at the SkepticalScience.com website - these folks work very hard to responsibly report back on the science.  

Even inviting posts from prominent "skeptics" such as 
KK Tung's:
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
¶3     As is the case with other ‘surveys’ alleging an overwhelming scientific consensus on global warming, the question surveyed had absolutely nothing to do with the issues of contention between global warming alarmists and global warming skeptics. The question Cook and his alarmist colleagues surveyed was simply whether humans have caused some global warming. The question is meaningless regarding the global warming debate because most skeptics as well as most alarmists believe humans have caused some global warming. The issue of contention dividing alarmists and skeptics is whether humans are causing global warming of such negative severity as to constitute a crisis demanding concerted action.
~ ~ ~
One only needs to look to what is happening in the Arctic with our Polar Ice Cap being transformed into a summer time oceanic solar absorption plate, which will further warm our ocean, and more immediately disrupt ancient atmospheric patterns and disrupting the jet stream.

Here's a bit more information from a recognized authority on the subject.

Dr. Jennifer Francis

Published on Mar 29, 2012
Jennifer Francis, Rutgers University, 25 January 2012.

The "Arctic Paradox" was coined during recent winters when speculations arose that the dramatic changes in the Arctic may be linked to severe snowstorms and cold temperatures in mid-latitudes, particularly along the U.S. east coast and in Europe. Recent studies have illuminated these linkages. Evidence is presented for a physical mechanism connecting Arctic Amplification -- the enhanced warming in high northern latitudes relative to the northern hemisphere -- with the frequency and intensity of several types of extreme weather events in mid-latitudes, such as droughts, floods, heat waves, and cold spells.
~~~
SkepticalScience.com also posted an enlightening educational article that reviews what's been learned:
"A Rough Guide to the Jet Stream: 
what it is, how it works and how it is responding to enhanced Arctic warming"
Posted on 22 May 2013 by John Mason

Reading this informative rich resource it will become obvious why someone like Taylor - who's main interest seem to be shutting down any attempts to seriously address our self-created problem - would resort to juvenile slander.  Could it be he doesn't have the science on his side?
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
¶4     Either through idiocy, ignorance, or both, global warming alarmists and the liberal media have been reporting that the Cook study shows a 97 percent consensus that humans are causing a global warming crisis. However, that was clearly not the question surveyed.
~ ~ ~
Taylor's juvenile name calling is the tactic of a failing student lashing out at his instructor.  

The rest of this paragraph is an appeal to ignorance.
To admit that our planet is warming, but then claiming we have nothing to worry about and worse to advocate we should continue doing nothing and simply allow this run-away geo-physical greenhouse gas experiment to continue unrestrained - completely ignores the weight of the science.

We only have to look at the North Pole... and how those changes are impacting the Jet Stream... and how those Jet Stream changes are impacting Northern Hemisphere weather today, to be able to recognize this trend is taking us into uncharted rough waters.


 ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
¶5     Investigative journalists at Popular Technology looked into precisely which papers were classified within Cook’s asserted 97 percent. The investigative journalists found Cook and his colleagues strikingly classified papers by such prominent, vigorous skeptics as Willie Soon, Craig Idso, Nicola Scafetta, Nir Shaviv, Nils-Axel Morner and Alan Carlin as supporting the 97-percent consensus.
~ ~ ~
Here we get to the infamous PopTech:



Poptech’s list of Confusion 
800 papers disputing the theory of climate change!! Can it be true, or is this an over-reaction? 
~~~ 
Poptart gets burned again, 900 times - April 19, 2011 - by greenfyre
~~~
450 more lies from the climate change Deniers - November 15, 2009 - by greenfyre
~~~
Poptart’s 450 climate change Denier lies - November 18, 2009 - by greenfyre
~~~
But more important James Taylor withholds this important information:
“Among abstracts expressing a position on AGW, 97.1% endorsed the consensus position that humans are causing global warming.”
Among self-rated papers expressing a position on AGW, 97.2% endorsed the consensus.”
So, if the scientist's self-assessment is about the same as the survey participants: what's the problem Mr Taylor?
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
¶6     Cook and his colleagues, for example, classified a peer-reviewed paper by scientist Craig Idso as explicitly supporting the ‘consensus’ position on global warming “without minimizing” the asserted severity of global warming. When Popular Technology asked Idso whether this was an accurate characterization of his paper, Idso responded, “That is not an accurate representation of my paper. The papers examined how the rise in atmospheric CO2 could be inducing a phase advance in the spring portion of the atmosphere’s seasonal CO2 cycle. Other literature had previously claimed a measured advance was due to rising temperatures, but we showed that it was quite likely the rise in atmospheric CO2 itself was responsible for the lion’s share of the change. It would be incorrect to claim that our paper was an endorsement of CO2-induced global warming.”
~ ~ ~
Craig Idso, has close ties to various contrarian think tanks: including his own "CO2Science": James Taylor's own "Heartland Institutes"; and "SPPI" plus having deep ties with the fossil fuels industry as "Director of Environmental Science" for Peabody Energy formerly known as Peabody Coal Company.

Craig has been a featured speaker for the notorious "ALEC" (Energy, Environment and Agriculture Task Force.) The leaked Heartland Institute papers show that he has received $11,600 a month for his Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change.

ExxonSecrets.org revealed that his organization has received $100,000 from "ExxonMobil Corporate Giving"

http://www.exxonsecrets.org/html/orgfactsheet.php?id=24 
http://www.desmogblog.com/craig-idso 
http://www.desmogblog.com/what-passes-brain-trust-heartland 
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Craig_Idso 
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Center_for_the_Study_of_Carbon_Dioxide_and_Global_Change
~ ~ ~ 
In other words, Craig Idso has strong vested interests that go beyond science and into the realm of economics and political ideology focused on sustaining the economic status quo.  This contention is supported by the financial aid received from Exxon Mobil and Western Fuels Association.  In other words he is not an objective source.

Among denialist there's a tendency to think that because we have economic interests - 
those desires are supposed to trump a sober rational assessment of the available climate science.  
Life doesn't work that way - if you/us don't respect the physics and Earth processes, they will blow you/us, away.
~ ~ ~
As for Idso's scientific claims they have been roundly rejected by other experts in the field, see:

Radiative forcing by aerosol used as a wild card: NIPCC vs Lindzen 

14 Truths of Global Warming

Favourite climate myths by Craig Idso
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
¶7     When Popular Technology asked physicist Nicola Scafetta whether Cook and his colleagues accurately classified one of his peer-reviewed papers as supporting the ‘consensus’ position, Scafetta similarly criticized the Skeptical Science classification.
~ ~ ~
Nicola Scafetta is a physicist at Duke University who published a 2006 paper claiming the sun was to blame for half the warming since 1900.  

Interestingly Scafetta refused to share his computer program code with climate scientists and other researchers who wanted to replicate his results.  Why should we trust this outlier?

PS:
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn18307-sceptical-climate-researcher-wont-divulge-key-program.html
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
¶8     Cook et al. (2013) is based on a straw man argument because it does not correctly define the IPCC AGW theory, which is NOT that human emissions have contributed 50%+ of the global warming since 1900 but that almost 90-100% of the observed global warming was induced by human emission,” Scafetta responded. “What my papers say is that the IPCC [United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change] view is erroneous because about 40-70% of the global warming observed from 1900 to 2000 was induced by the sun.”
~ ~ ~
This seems like a lot of arm waving.  The point is that Scafetta's claims have been roundly debunks, another one of those inconvenient facts Taylor protects his audience from.  

To find out why most experts in the field reject Scafetta's claims see: 
http://agwobserver.wordpress.com/anti-agw-papers-debunked/
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ 
  • Scafetta & West (2003) “Solar Flare Intermittency and the Earth’s Temperature Anomalies” [Abs, Full]
  • Scafetta & West (2005) “Estimated solar contribution to the global surface warming using the ACRIM TSI satellite composite” [Abs, Full]
    • Lean (2006) “Comment on “Estimated solar contribution to the global surface warming using the ACRIM TSI satellite composite” by N. Scafetta and B. J. West” [Abs]
    • Benestad & Schmidt (2009) “Solar trends and global warming” [Abs, Full]
    • [BLOG] RealClimate
  • Scafetta & West (2006a) “Phenomenological solar contribution to the 1900–2000 global surface warming” [Abs, Full]
  • Scafetta & West (2006b) “Phenomenological solar signature in 400 years of reconstructed Northern Hemisphere temperature record” [Abs, Full]
  • Benestad & Schmidt (2009) “Solar trends and global warming” [Abs, Full]
  • [BLOG] RealClimate
  • Scafetta & West (2007) “Phenomenological reconstructions of the solar signature in the Northern Hemisphere surface temperature records since 1600″ [Abs, Full]
  • Benestad & Schmidt (2009) “Solar trends and global warming” [Abs, Full]
  • [BLOG] RealClimate
  • Scafetta & West (2008) “Is climate sensitive to solar variability?” [Abs, Full]
  • Benestad & Schmidt (2009) “Solar trends and global warming” [Abs, Full]
  • [BLOG] RealClimate
  • Scafetta & Willson (2009) “ACRIM-gap and TSI trend issue resolved using a surface magnetic flux TSI proxy model” [Abs, Full]
  • Krivova et al. (2009) “ACRIM-gap and total solar irradiance revisited: Is there a secular trend between 1986 and 1996?” [Abs, Full]
  • [BLOG] Rabett Run
  • [BLOG] Skeptical Science
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
¶9     “What it is observed right now is utter dishonesty by the IPCC advocates. … They are gradually engaging into a metamorphosis process to save face. … And in this way they will get the credit that they do not merit, and continue in defaming critics like me that actually demonstrated such a fact since 2005/2006,” Scafetta added.
~ ~ ~
This sounds like conspiracy ideation - or perhaps, back to that flunking school boy syndrome of lashing out at the professors with wild eyed accusations. 
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
¶10     Astrophysicist Nir Shaviv similarly objected to Cook and colleagues claiming he explicitly supported the ‘consensus’ position about human-induced global warming. Asked if Cook and colleagues accurately represented his paper, Shaviv responded, “Nope… it is not an accurate representation. The paper shows that if cosmic rays are included in empirical climate sensitivity analyses, then one finds that different time scales consistently give a low climate sensitivity. i.e., it supports the idea that cosmic rays affect the climate and that climate sensitivity is low. This means that part of the 20th century [warming] should be attributed to the increased solar activity and that 21st century warming under a business as usual scenario should be low (about 1°C).”
~ ~ ~
This is another example of what I call a practitioner of "science in a vacuum" - it sounds great when there are no opposing voices introducing further information.

Shaviv claims: "What is the evidence proving that the increase in the GHGs is the cause for the temperature increase? 
The truth is that there is no real evidence for this link."

How a genuine scientist can claim such a thing is beyond me considering that even folks whom I'd sort into the "denialist" camp {that is denying that there is a problem needing immediate attention} can explain it.  
Here is a link to a critique from Jeff Condon: "Radiative Physics – Yes CO2 Does Create Warming"
http://noconsensus.wordpress.com/2010/04/19/radiative-physics-yes-co2-does-create-warming/


also see:
http://www.skepticalscience.com/does-greenhouse-effect-exist-intermediate.htm

http://www.skepticalscience.com/postma-disproved-the-greenhouse-effect.htm

Come to think of it, this is another example of contrarian refusal to allow dead-horse arguments to be buried.  Here are links to more details and reasons than most of us would ever care to know:




~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
¶11     “I couldn’t write these things more explicitly in the paper because of the refereeing, however, you don’t have to be a genius to reach these conclusions from the paper,” Shaviv added.To manufacture their misleading asserted consensus, Cook and his colleagues also misclassified various papers as taking “no position” on human-caused global warming. When Cook and his colleagues determined a paper took no position on the issue, they simply pretended, for the purpose of their 97-percent claim, that the paper did not exist.
~ ~ ~
Notice James Taylor offers no details or support for that last claim - voicing the claim is all he cares about - create confusion.

Neither does he reveal that SkepticalScience.com had the scientists themselves do a self-evaluate of their papers.  Why would James withhold these key points in the study?

“Among abstracts expressing a position on AGW, 97.1% endorsed the consensus position that humans are causing global warming.”
Among self-rated papers expressing a position on AGW, 97.2% endorsed the consensus.”
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
¶12     Morner, a sea level scientist, told Popular Technology that Cook classifying one of his papers as “no position” was “Certainly not correct and certainly misleading. The paper is strongly against AGW [anthropogenic global warming], and documents its absence in the sea level observational facts. Also, it invalidates the mode of sea level handling by the IPCC.”Soon, an astrophysicist, similarly objected to Cook classifying his paper as “no position.”
~ ~ ~
Mörner may be a scientist, but he's also a water douser and some would say even a grave robber among other eccentricities:




As for being a sea level scientist, that's a stretch - among serious scientists he's considered a crank.
As George Monbiot wrote in 
"The Spectator runs false sea-level claims on its cover"

"In his Spectator article, Mörner makes much of his research trips to the Maldives. These culminated in a 2004 paper published in the journal Global and Planetary Change. In it, Mörner uses an apparently random series of observations – including the discovery of a skeletal "reef woman" buried in a 800-year-old coral reef – to postulate that sea level rise in the Maldives is a figment of scientists' imagination. How this paper got published is a mystery that only the journal's editors can explain. 
It was comprehensively debunked within a year in the same journal by Philip Woodworth, an oceanographer based in the UK, who wrote acidly that 'reef woman' "is hardly definitive as a sea level marker" and that M̦rner's convoluted arguments Рwhich also relied on anecdotal accounts by fishermen sailing over shallow rocks Рwere "hard to understand" and ultimately "implausible". A follow-up critical comment by the Australian oceanographer Paul Kench and colleagues notes that M̦rner's paper "contains a number of unqualified and unreferenced assertions" which fail to stand up to scrutiny, does not follow carbon-dating conventions, and that "standard information is missing"."

Mörner's sea level conjectures are dismissed by specialists actually working in the field as the following articles outline:





FYI... about that sea level




Professor Jerry X. Mitrovica, Ph.D.


In Search of Lost Time: 
Ancient Eclipses, Roman Fish Tanks and 
the Enigma of Global Sea Level Rise

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

¶13     “I am sure that this rating of no position on AGW by CO2 is nowhere accurate nor correct,” said Soon. 
¶14     “I hope my scientific views and conclusions are clear to anyone that will spend time reading our papers. Cook et al. (2013) is not the study to read if you want to find out about what we say and conclude in our own scientific works,” Soon emphasized.
~ ~ ~
Willie Soon has quite the track record too.  Below is plenty of information that adds up to a clear warning that Soon is an extreme outlier, who's science gets refuted at every turn.

Regarding his science:




Soon takes great umbrage at anyone implying his science has been compromised by his intimate ties with energy interests and their attack on science - of which he is an active participant - consider his less than honest attacks upon the IPCC. 

http://www.greenpeace.org/usa/en/campaigns/global-warming-and-energy/polluterwatch/koch-industries/CASE-STUDY-Dr-Willie-Soon-a-Career-Fueled-by-Big-Oil-and-Coal/

http://www.exxonsecrets.org/html/personfactsheet.php?id=860
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
¶15   Viewing the Cook paper in the best possible light, 
~ ~ ~
Taylor manipulates his story and withholds important information in every paragraph.  Who's kidding whom, there isn't the slightest attempt at objectivity in this latest rant.  
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Cook and colleagues can perhaps claim a small amount of wiggle room in their classifications because the explicit wording of the question they analyzed is simply whether humans have caused some global warming. By restricting the question to such a minimalist, largely irrelevant question in the global warming debate and then demanding an explicit, unsolicited refutation of the assertion in order to classify a paper as a ‘consensus’ contrarian, Cook and colleagues misleadingly induce people to believe 97 percent of publishing scientists believe in a global warming crisis when that is simply not the case. 
¶16     Misleading the public about consensus opinion regarding global warming, of course, is precisely what the Cook paper sought to accomplish. This is a tried and true ruse perfected by global warming alarmists. Global warming alarmists use their own biased, subjective judgment to misclassify published papers according to criteria that is largely irrelevant to the central issues in the global warming debate. Then, by carefully parsing the language of their survey questions and their published results, the alarmists encourage the media and fellow global warming alarmists to cite these biased, subjective, totally irrelevant surveys as conclusive evidence for the lie that nearly all scientists believe humans are creating a global warming crisis. 
¶17     These biased, misleading, and totally irrelevant “surveys” form the best “evidence” global warming alarmists can muster in the global warming debate. And this truly shows how embarrassingly feeble their alarmist theory really is.
~ ~ ~
Taylor is pulling one of those rhetorical jujitsu moves, but it's pure crazy-making.

It is not a scientist's job to claim such things!  

Serious scientists keep their pronouncements very close to their specific projects and their immediate data, they refuse to venture into such forward looking speculation when discussing their work.

That is our job.  Scientists leave it us citizens and our business leaders and politicians to digest their information and draw obvious conclusions.

Why does James Taylor ignore the writing on the wall with his smug slander and disingenuous cynical misdirection?  If global warming is real, as he admits... and if our greenhouse gases are contributing to it, as he admits... then why continue obstructing decisive action.  

Where is the sanity in the James Taylor/Heartland Institute/Forbes approach of refusing to support and participate in proactive change and adaptation now?

What is the point of waiting until all scientist are absolutely certain and all the graphs show clear and unequivocal extreme trends breaking free from the background noise? 

Don't you folks realize, by then it will be way too late?  

Meanwhile current trends of disasters and extreme weather disruptions keep ticking by with increasing tempo while the James Taylors of the world fiddle away.  
Shame on them all. 




Turn Down The Heat - Why 4°C degrees Must be Avoided - The Worldbank

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

James Taylor states: "The issue of contention dividing alarmists and skeptics is whether humans are causing global warming of such negative severity as to constitute a crisis demanding concerted action."

This claim is not support by an objective appraisal:


http://www.insurancejournal.com/news/national/2013/01/04/276178.htm

http://theextinctionprotocol.wordpress.com/2011/02/26/extreme-weather-patterns-may-worsen-in-2012-says-nasa-scientist/


http://www.weather.com/news/noaa-state-of-climate-2011-report-20120710

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=noaa-makes-2011-most-extreme-weather-year
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~


13 comments:

Andrew said...

You can find rebuttals to all the links you posted against my list in the 'Rebuttals to Criticisms' section of my list,

Rebuttal to "Poptech's list of Confusion" #2:

"An alarmist spammer who comments at Jo Nova's site by the screen name "Blimey" and around the Internet as "itsnotnova" continues doubling down on his insanity. After having his original blog post completely refuted he decided to add new lies, misinformation and strawman arguments to it. He is so incompetent that he did not even read the list correctly (Lie #4) or understands that "Letters" is a term used to describe a type of peer-reviewed scientific document format in certain scholarly journals such as Nature (Lie #13)."

Rebuttal to Greenfyre - "Poptart gets burned again, 900 times"

"Greenfyre continues his dishonest and desperate attempt to attack the Popular Technology.net peer-reviewed paper list with the same lies, misinformation and strawman arguments that have all been refuted ad nauseam. He is so dishonest he refuses to even make corrections to things that have been shown irrefutably not be true."

Rebuttal to Greenfyre - "450 more lies from the climate change Deniers"

"Greenfyre's rambling blog post of lies is something alarmists find when they desperately Google for anything to discredit the list. They ignorantly believe that because a criticism is posted online it must be true. As demonstrated below, absolutely nothing in his post is factually accurate. Many of these corrections to his nonsense were made in the comment section to his blog post but Greenfyre dishonestly refused to make any corrections. Instead he hopes people will reject the list based on his propaganda."

Rebuttal to Greenfyre - "Poptart's 450 climate change Denier lies"

The Truth about Greenfyre

"Greenfyre is the Internet blog and screen name for a radical environmental activist, Mike Kaulbars from Ottawa, Canada. He is a founder of the Earth First! chapter in Ottawa, Canada, an eco-terrorist organization with a long history of violence and sabotage."

ect...

citizenschallenge said...

Like I said with Science in a Vacuum you can claim anything you want... present it to your ideological peers and feel smug about it.

You make a lot of claims above - but until you can take that and stand up to actual peer review by the experts who have studied and trained and practiced their various science, you just have inflammatory words.

Though I'll post your list and take a look when I can.

Anonymous said...

James mentions that the name Skeptical Science is a misleading name.

So how much Popular Technology does Popular Technology write about?

citizenschallenge said...



It's interesting how folks like Andrew despise anyone who advocates on behalf of nurturing our planet - as opposed to the more general attitude that the Earth is there to be plundered with no consideration for tomorrow or future generations.

Mike Kaulbars actually seems like a decent guy. Check out his own words rather than someone else's hatred driven one sided prosecution.

http://greenfyre.wordpress.com/about/

I don't have much time, but did sample Poptech's rebuttals - quite the mixed bag. But one thing I do notice - getting to the climate science and trying to learn from what we know is the last thing Poptech seems interested in. For him it's about a political battle and hyper-inflating small flaws (which are present in ALL human science and industrial endeavors!) while ignoring what is solidly known. In those rebuttals I don't see any interest at all in actually learning about what's happening to our planet.

Another example of believing our desires are supposed to trump planetary physics. So sad.

citizenschallenge said...

Andrew - I'm not printing that thing you sent me - you better take a chill pill.

If you want me posting your comments - make them coherent. Also flaming attacks like that I'm not going to tolerate.

Stop being so paranoid that everyone who cares about our Earth is some arch villain. It really ain't that way.

Go out for a walk and smell the roses.

citizenschallenge said...

Dear Andrew Poptech,

I'm not defending Mike Kaulbars (http://greenfyre.wordpress.com/about/), although I don't think he's half the devil you try to paint him as.

And I am certainly not going to support your campaign of internet flaming and misdirection.
~ ~ ~

For example in your comment to me -- you claim:
"I don’t despise anyone that advocates on behalf of nurturing the planet."

Then you go off on the Earth First chapter in Ottawa, Canada, as eco-terrorists with a long history of violence and sabotage - with not a hint of specifics or examples.

Then when I try searching the internet I can't find anything - except for you Poptech flooding the internet - with the same repetitive story.

Curious me thinks.

About Earth First, here's some info:
http://www.earthfirstjournal.org/section.php?id=1

=======

For the record Andrew: I am not going to post your last attempted comment either.

Because my interest is in constructive engagement, not in supporting yet more dog chasing tail hysteria, which is what your past two comments and apparently your internet presence has been all about.

If you got something serious > supported with evidence = you are welcome to post here.

If you want to share your opinion, even your anger > in a thoughtful constructive manner = you are welcome to post here.

But, if you just want another wall to cut'n paste your SPAMMING campaign onto, forget about it. I showed you that courtesy once... now you gotta start getting original.

Valentina said...

This is cool!

citizenschallenge said...

Mr. "Sorry there is no consensus" - (anonymous 7:10am),

It won't fly.
A list of paid contrarians ain't gonna cut it.
That list of political performers you offered has been trashed.

I (we) are talking about a consensus of trained experts in Earth and Climate sciences.
You know, people who are interested in understanding how our global heat and moisture distribution engine operates!

Your paid political operatives are paid bullshitters who couldn't care less about the science
or about what's really happening to our one and only planet Earth.
... too wrapped up in a bubble of their own self-interest and hubris.

Anonymous 7:10am
,
I challenge you to show your integrity by taking issue with something specific that I've claimed in the above !

Rather than waving around labels let's talk about the facts and try to understand what's actually happening?



I challenge you with a rational conversation.

Unknown said...

John Cook's 97.1% consensus paper is fraudulent on multiple levels

http://www.joseduarte.com/blog/cooking-stove-use-housing-associations-white-males-and-the-97

citizenschallenge said...

Chad,
that is not a rational conversation, and Duarte is no example of rationalism in action. He's shown in his writing to be an extreme ideology in his own right, and he spends so much time insulting studies he doesn't like, that he never gets around to actually describing the details of where his despicable problems can be found in his targeted paper.

I'll let Sou take it from here:

" Science rejected on political grounds

Most HotWhopper readers know that deniers who frequent fringe conspiracy blogs like Anthony Watts' WUWT are utter nutters. They'll do and say anything to reject science. It doesn't have to make sense or be consistent.

The quotes above are from abstracts that were collated by John Cook and his colleagues in their search of the Web of Science database to see what was in the research papers about climate change and global warming.

Anthony has found some wacky PhD candidate from somewhere in Europe the USA, who's supposedly studying psychology, and who is an ideological denier of climate science (archived here). José Duarte is an extremist right wing ideologue. Not just a libertarian but a nutty libertarian. He quotes a bunch of papers, including the above, and cries "fraud", "retraction" (archived here).

José's excitable and irrational. He was most irate that "The editor of ERL, Daniel Kammen, personally promoted the paper [Cook13] on his blog". He hilariously claimed that "The people doing the reading were militant political activists on the issue of AGW". Militant...political...activists. What a nutter. Here are the affiliations of the authors of Cook13:

Global Change Institute, University of Queensland, Australia
Skeptical Science, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia
School of Psychology, University of Western Australia, Australia
Tetra Tech, Incorporated, McClellan, CA, USA
Department of Chemistry, Michigan Technological University, USA
Department of Meteorology, University of Reading, UK
Department of Geography, Memorial University of Newfoundland, Canada
Department of Environmental Science and Policy, George Mason University, USA
Salt Spring Consulting Ltd, Salt Spring Island, BC, Canada

Not an army, navy, or airforce affiliation among them :) I'll venture to guess that to the young denier activist Jose, it's not just every climate scientist on the face of the earth who is a "militant political activist", it's everyone who accepts science - that is the majority of people who know anything about the subject are all "militant political activists". (If only there were more people taking action to mitigate global warming.)

I've listed below the papers José complains about, together with the category they were put in and the level of endorsement. The link goes to the paper in each case. The details are from the page on SkepticalScience.com that has the abstracts and other details about the papers.

Remember, the researchers were only categorising the abstracts of the paper and did not see the title, the authors, the journal name or the full paper. [Fixed: I'm told by a very reliable source that the researchers did see the title. Sou 31 Aug 14] Therefore, before you decide whether you'd agree with the category or the endorsement level, read the abstract in isolation of everything else. I've added a link to the paper after the title in each case. …"

citizenschallenge said...

For those who want to seriously understand the Cook et al "consensus paper". . .
SkepticalScience - 97 percent consensus is robust because . . .

What the science says...
The 97% consensus has been independently confirmed by a number of different approaches and lines of evidence.
Climate Myth...
97% consensus on human-caused global warming has been disproven
Cooks ’97% consensus’ disproven by a new peer reviewed paper showing major math errors (Anthony Watts)
_______________________________________
Communicating the expert consensus is very important in terms of increasing public awareness of human-caused climate change and support for climate solutions.  Thus it's perhaps not surprising that Cook et al. (2013) and its consensus result have been the subject of extensive denial among the usual climate contrarian suspects.  After all, the fossil fuel industry, right-wing think tanks, and climate contrarians have been engaged in a disinformation campaign regarding the expert climate consensus for over two decades.  For example, Western Fuels Association conducted a half-million dollar campaign in 1991 designed to ‘reposition global warming as theory (not fact).’
__________________________________________

Analyze the papers for yourself.

"Search through the title and abstract of the 12,464 papers analysed in Quantifying the Consensus on Anthropogenic Global Warming in the Scientific Literature. You can restrict your search to different categories or endorsement levels."
____________________________________________

citizenschallenge said...

Also important for folk interested in Duarte's malicious dog and pony show would be:

Reply to Comment on “Scientists’ Views about Attribution of Global Warming”
Environmental Science and Technology, November 18, 2014

Opens with:
"We thank José Duarte for his interest in our paper. The criticisms in his comment are 3-fold: (1) he claimed we included an unknowable number of “non-climate scientists” in our survey; (2) the inclusion of impacts and mitigation researchers biases our results on the level of consensus upward; and (3) there is pressure to abide by the consensus, precluding any conclusions to be drawn from its existence.

In response, we argue that the number of “non-climate scientists” in our survey is known to be small and their in- or exclusion does not change our conclusion that the level of consensus increases with increasing expertise.
With respect to point 2, we reiterate that we intended to survey the wider scientific field that works on climate change issues.

This has actually led to a slightly lower level of consensus than if we had only surveyed physical climate scientists.
Finally, Duarte’s characterization as if a scientific consensus is somehow enforced by nefarious means lacks substantiation."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Duarte describes how psychological drivers - fear of ostracism - could lead scientists to pay lip-service to the consensus, even if they do not fully agree. However, making a Type I error (false positive or false alarm) is probably more damaging to a scientist’s reputation and credibility than making a Type II error (false negative or missed opportunity).1,2

This causes a tendency toward scientific reticence rather than exaggeration. This is exacerbated by widespread accusations of alarmism made against mainstream scientists. The opposite of what Duarte claims may be closer to the truth: scientists may express themselves in an increasingly reticent manner in order to avoid being labeled alarmist or activist.

There is another important incentive in the other direction than Duarte describes. You do not become a famous scientist by confirming or repeating what everyone already knows. Rather, as Anderegg et al.3 wrote, “a scientist with a wealth of robust data from well-executed research would become famous by overturning a part of a consensus paradigm. Every young scientist dreams of being the next Darwin or Galileo.”"
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citizenschallenge said...

Zara at 7:25 AM

Thanks for the sweet comments.
But I'm not going to allow spam over here, no matter how pretty you make it sound.

Thank you.