Why would the IPCC lie to us?

After a class presentation and in the context of an extended discussion of why one would or would not subscribe to a belief in AGW, one of my students finally posed the central question that vexes many: "why would the IPCC lie to us?"

It is a question that many use rhetorically as if it is all that is required to re-assert the ascendancy of their axiomatic dogma:

• you can't possibility be questioning the authority of the IPCC?
  
• can you?
  
• the science?
  
• the scientists?

The IPCC was not established to examine climate, nor climate change.  It was established to provide a comprehensive and objective assessment of scientific, technical and socio-economic information that could lead to a better understanding of human-induced climate change.

We get the answers to the questions we ask.  The IPCC has always been a process structured and guided by the politics of environmentalism and not any science of discovery. 

Consequently, when the exaggerations, biases and mis-conducts subsumed within the IPCC process are revealed, it should not be surprising that its leading beneficiaries resort to rhetorical questions, ad hominem attacks and bluster. 

Sadly, these tactics persist and they persist at the highest levels within academia as this wonderful rebuttal by James Delingpole illustrates.

Common sense is neither skepticism, nor denial

• Perhaps we should stop accepting the term, ‘skeptic.’ Skepticism implies doubts about a plausible proposition. Current global warming alarm hardly represents a plausible proposition. Twenty years of repetition and escalation of claims does not make it more plausible. Quite the contrary, the failure to improve the case over 20 years makes the case even less plausible as does the evidence from climategate and other instances of overt cheating.

• In the meantime, while I avoid making forecasts for tenths of a degree change in globally averaged temperature anomaly, I am quite willing to state that unprecedented climate catastrophes are not on the horizon though in several thousand years we may return to an ice age.

This is the conclusion to Richard Lindzen's Congressional Testimony this week.  Earlier he states:

• The evidence is that the increase in CO2 will lead to very little warming, and that the connection of this minimal warming (or even significant warming) to the purported catastrophes is also minimal. The arguments on which the catastrophic claims are made are extremely weak –and commonly acknowledged as such.

• Our present approach of dealing with climate as completely specified by a single number, globally averaged surface temperature anomaly, that is forced by another single number, atmospheric CO2levels, for example, clearly limits real understanding; so does the replacement of theory by model simulation.

• We see that all the models are characterized by positive feedback factors (associated with amplifying the effect of changes in CO2), while the satellite data implies that the feedback should be negative. 

One would think such testimony, based on hard science would suffice: politically we would re-frame the discussion of climate towards a proper goal of understanding and comprehending the earth's basic systems, free of ideologically driven political agendas.

O.K. so that's just way too naive. But at least one would hope the basic narrative would begin to be adjusted to better reflect scientific reality.

Even that it seems may be beyond the reach of too many committed environmental activists.  

As James Delingpole commented on the mainstream media's (lack of) response to the Climategate revelations:

• Like the Bourbons, the watermelons of the global green movement have learned nothing and forgotten nothing from Climategate. For them, AGW has never been about science or objective truth. It has always been just a pretext. 

Many academics are scrambling to re-frame climate into a "new" broader meta-narrative of environmental politics in the hopes that it will somehow confirm and continue to justify their ongoing research unhindered by consideration of such pesky aspects as:

• axiomatic presumptions
• verifiable data
• empirical measurement
• open dialogue
• data disclosure 
• appropriate methodology
• good scientific practice

Sadly, what many of these academic scientists do not realize nor accept is that the opposition they have faced has never been to the science: it has always been to the excessive, unwarranted and unaccountable use of their science within an assertive and oppressive political meme.

Good climate science is not at issue.  The politicization of science, the assertion of ideology as scientific pretext and biased academic practices are at issue.  Sadly, they remain so.


From my perspective, the responsibility for addressing this issue rests with academics, not with the politicians, bloggers or the mainstream media.  It is only when the academy determines that poor conduct and expertise politics debase the science and ceases to condone such manipulation, that it will cease.  


This does not imply censorship: rather it requires academics to do what they supposedly already are doing, but do it properly.  For example:

• a review of a paper should not be cursory glance at the citations to see if they are "approved" but should be an audit of methodology, data and findings 
• more dialogue of ideas should occur in real time using blogs, and
• fraudulent behaviour and intimidation should not be sanctioned and excused by passive acceptance, academic doublespeak and an obsessive obsequiousness towards research funding.

Sadly, reading various comments this week, suggests that both the mainstream media and the majority of academics appear to be taking completely the opposite tack, seeking to re-rehabilitate those exposed by Climategate in a full-court press to re-assert the mantra of AGW dogma. 


There is no attainment of learning for the lazy. Kauthilya.

Climategate, Copenhagen and the Collapse of Contrivance

Two years ago I was invited to speak to the Senior Alumni at my host institution, the University of Western Ontario.  I spoke on the issue of Global Warming and Other Eco Myths and my talk was enthusiastically received by the audience.  It was also extensively, and accurately, covered by the campus newspaper, which made my talk its lead story for its next edition.

Well this is where things got interesting.  Another person in my department, heavily involved in the IPCC process, by the name of Gordon McBean, took it upon himself to circulate a petition condemning both my right to speak and castigating the Western News for (a) covering my talk at all, and (b) not editing their coverage with a “corrective” message reciting approved AGW dogma.

I responded to this attempt to suppress my academic freedom with a rebuttal piece which I simultaneously published here on ecomyths.

Fast forward to Fall 2009, and the leaked Climategate emails confirm that such intimidation tactics, expertise politics and bullying were characteristic of a cadre of leading figures within the IPCC sphere.  In my own small way, I felt somewhat vindicated and recognized that McBean was my own version of a warmist zealot unable to suppress their zeal for climate conformity with any comprehension of academic good conduct.

So, why this post, why revisit old wounds?  Well ahead of my planned talk November 16 to those same Senior Alumni, McBean has not even waited for me to talk, not even bothered to see for himself the text of my presentation but has been “proactive” and took it upon himself to contact the organizers and suggest that my invitation to speak is improper and should be withdrawn.

So now I am elevated into that category of speaker on topics climatic to have their invitation withdrawn.  Except that I am not.  My invite comes from the Senior Alumni of the University of Western Ontario who do not cower before bullies, are not intimidated by blowhard windbags and do not fear people who indulge in cowardly politics.

And now for the rest of the story, (as Paul Harvey used to intone so memorably) ...what McBean did not know was that when I was invited to speak, I initially declined knowing the Senior Alumni had garnered a degree of controversy from my last talk, at which time I was informed that yes indeed the organizers were fully aware of this and that was an additional reason why their membership most expressly wanted to invite me back: they liked my talk, they liked the views I expressed, wanted to hear more and if that upset the likes of McBean, well that would be just an extra bonus along the way!

I hope you too enjoy the presentation, which is now posted along side my other PowerPoint, here at ecomyths where the truth is our friend and not a political toy for intellectual toddlers.

It is dangerous to be right in matters on which the established authorities are wrong. Voltaire


Apologies to anyone trying to download the presentation, I made some changes to correct some typos and did not copy the correct file from mediafire: all is now fixed.

you bring an academic to a tea party but you can't make him drink

Scientific American had a recent poll on the state of climate science.  The conclusions?

• With a total of 5190 respondents, a consensus of 81.3% think the IPCC is "a corrupt organization, prone to group-think, with a political agenda" and 75% think climate change is caused by solar variation or natural processes vs. 21% who think it is due to greenhouse gases from human activity.

The shift in public attitudes is not confined to the rampant right, tea drinkers or the lunatic fringe.  Indeed, attempts by scientists to impugn opposition to AGW by inferring a lack of understanding, political motive or simple denial of science, should now be passe.

Sadly they aren't.  For every Roger Piekle Jr, who comprehends the nuances of politics as they apply to science and Judith Curry, who seeks to mirror her scientific integrity with personal integrity, there remain far too many academics who, as yet, have not 

• publicly differentiated their personal ideology from their scientific pronouncements
• recognized that their expertise in some aspect of climate science does not extend to an expertise in science policy
• distinguished their personal politics from their understanding of the policy process, especially as it applies to climate, energy and sustainability
• expressed clearly and unequivocally their disdain for those scientists who have manipulated and politicized the IPCC process, and
• expressed their professional, unbiased assessment of alarmist pronouncements utilized by academics and universities to sell the public an ideologically driven message on sustainability, impending crises and environmental policies.

Sadly, my own university still reflects the fact that far too many academics remain myopically addicted to the kool-aid of environmental alarmism and stubbornly allergic to reformist qualities of any alternatives.

Why Watts Up With That? is where its at

More evidence today on why many consider Anthony Watts' blog Watts Up With That? to be the best blog.

First is his publication and discussion of the resignation from the American Physical Society by long time and prominent member, Hal Lewis.  Reason for his decision? The APS dogmatic stance on AGW and their lack of commitment to the principles of scientific integrity:

• In the interim the ClimateGate scandal broke into the news, and the machinations of the principal alarmists were revealed to the world. It was a fraud on a scale I have never seen, and I lack the words to describe its enormity. Effect on the APS position: none. None at all. This is not science; other forces are at work.

As Watts points out, the resignation and its rationale are significant for all scientists and those interested in the implementation of effective policy and should be read in their entirety.

The second example is this wonderful graphic: 

and the accompanying post on the latest peer-reviewed publication which concludes:

• It is at present impossible to accurately determine climate sensitivity (defined as the equilibrium warming in response to a doubling of atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations) from past records, partly because carbon dioxide and short-lived species have increased together over the industrial era. Warming over the past 100 years is consistent with high climate sensitivity to atmospheric carbon dioxide combined with a large cooling effect from short-lived aerosol pollutants, but it could equally be attributed to a low climate sensitivity coupled with a small effect from aerosols. These two possibilities lead to very different projections for future climate change.

Taken in conjunction, the two posts confirm both the position of WUWT as one of the best sources of emerging information and perspective on the web, and the rapidly changing status of climate alarmism one year after ClimateGate and the collapse of the Copenhagen conference.

No longer is climate alarmism the default, nor the defining paradigm of accepted science.  It is still a prominent perspective but it is no longer an un-questioned, axiomatic construct.  

Increasingly critics of AGW are described as skeptics, and no longer demonized as "deniers".  The tenor has changed.  The politics has morphed into a wider promotion of a more nebulous and still emerging concern for "energy" -- still embracing the familiar narratives of limits; anti-consumption; anti-capitalism; soft green, warm and fuzzy ecology, and; centralized, elite planning -- but a notable absence of global warming or climate change embedded within its central imperative.  

AGW has become global warming, has become climate change, has become climate disruption, has become the albatross of science.

how not to win friends and influence people...

Well the bar for tasteless, stupid and offensive eco-hype has been set at a new low with the heavily promoted but disastrous release of the 10:10 No Pressure film, excellently dissected by James Delingpole.

Characteristic of the all-time box office failures, No Pressure may be the Ishtar, Gigli or Heaven's Gate of the environmental movement.  Huge hype, major talent, big budget and no one with enough common sense or courage to say "no", this is not satirical, not funny, not good communications strategy. 

Why?  Sadly it appears those involved in the production felt justified that their message was so significant that their ends justified the means.

This attitude characterizes the  Teflon Doomsayers, the professional fear mongers who  direct the eco-myth disinformation program: get them young, keep them dumb and instill them with fear!

As Budiansky summarizes:

• ...while the entire presumable goal, purpose, and raison d'être of applied environmental science is to solve environmental problems, any environmental scientist who dares to suggest that problems are being solved is asking for trouble... we have arrived at a state where even the most wildly irrational pessimism is treated with reverence, while the most cautiously sober optimism is ridiculed.

• What I find almost inexplicable in all of this, however, is how the scientific doomsayers get away over and over again with making predictions that are fabulously, ridiculously — and demonstrably — incorrect, without the slightest repercussions upon their credibility or careers. Predictions of impending doom are published based on absurd methodologies and threadbare evidence of a kind that in the normal course of scientific affairs would be sufficient to ruin careers ten times over, and the authors walk away from them without a scratch.

Just another example of how the unbelievable can become the accepted.

Or perhaps this time, this is a Myth Too Far and just as with climategate, the greater mass of public will say enough already.

Update:

This insightful conclusion:

• Rather than an isolated aberration, then, the 10:10 video can be seen as the end result of years of ad hominem attacks meant to marginalize skeptics and make it unnecessary to actually address their concerns about the science.  Perhaps this video will mark a turning point where we can finally start talking about the science rather than attacking motivations.

Even social democracy is changing

Change is inevitable, even in politics it seems.  As the US braces for a big Tea Party in November, other democracies have seen traditional centrist, parties of ordained power for life, suffer significant losses.  This year, it has happened in Britain and in Australia. Now even the social democratic haven of Sweden has seen a massive change in its prevailing political landscape.

As Nathalie Rothschild discusses:

• ...the problem is that the Social Democrats, along with their opposition in the centre-right alliance, have lost any real connection with the electorate and increasingly treat politics as a technocratic, managerial job.
• ...all of the major mainstream parties demonstrated their belief that debate about big ideas should be erased from the political process.

When Fidel Castro finally admits what has been evident to everyone, especially Cubans, for several decades, that the socialist economic model of Cuba is not a sustainable economic system, people everywhere look at their politics and ask, when are they going to change?  Realization is beginning to set in for the majority, that big spending only produces bigger government.  Moreover, not only does government spend inefficiently, it does so ineffectively.

One result is voter anger and the rise of Tea Party protest style movements.  As Codevilla's seminal article discusses, there is widespread push back to the "ruling class"  in every democracy, fueled by a growing resentment to perceived entitlement, intellectual snobbery, imposed green moralism and the imposition of patently unsustainable "sustainable" programs, which reflect the poverty of political thought and moral imperative within those same detached, political elites.

Another reaction is the broader abandonment of politics itself -- as voters look at their choices, they see a plethora of political taupe -- bland, easy to look at, passive, innocuous, not offend anyone, meaningless,background.  No foreground leadership. No bold statement of intent, of policy, of originality.  Just oceans of taupe.

And the political establishment's response when the intellectual poverty of their politics is revealed?  Add a bit of lipstick and trot the same stuff back out there again.

As discussed here on many occasions, sustainability is not precluded by, nor a function of, science.  Sustainability is entirely a question of political implementation.  Slowly, inexorably, the change is going to come. 

Sing it Otis.

changing perspective

Facts don't change your perspective, your perspective changes your facts.  Seems so axiomatic to me, that I use it to summarize the defining mantra for this blog.

Not surprisingly, when I use this statement in class with my students, I discover that it is both a mantra and not axiomatic.   The irony being that the blog exists to both challenge prevailing mantras in environmentalism and to examine all things axiomatic.

So let's examine the construct of data and changing perspective.

Bjorn Lomborg provides an excellent starting point and example.  Recently, the media was quick to point out that Lomborg had undergone a road to Damascus conversion and one of the world's leading deniers was suddenly a believer in AGW.

Notwithstanding the fact that Lomborg has never denied climate change, nor human agency (not a denier then) but merely had the temerity to point out that climate change is

• not a pressing issue,
• not our most important issue
• nor anything we can do anything about (an economic pragmatist maybe?)

the media and warmist, alarmist activists of all stripes gleefully sent emails quoting his conversion as smug proof that an Icon of contrariness had recanted.  (Not enough to be admitted into their inner sanctum of smug self-righteousness of course, but enough to vindicate their vilification of him since his landmark refutation of the Litany).

Well. I  still haven't read his new book for myself but it appears Lomborg has published an op-ed to clarify the remarks in the Guardian.  Apparently, it appears comments by Lomborg that climate change is real and human agency is a factor, were, how shall we say, embellished?

All that has changed in Lomborg's view is that we now have the possibility and the capability of addressing climate change not through taxation nor carbon trading by government's (a delusional prospect fraught with fraud, self-interest and unsustainable suppositions) but, rather, by technological innovation and advancement in new energy -- not just alternate fuels but new means of energy generation.

This is a lot closer to my understanding of his views -- and if he is echoing Schellenberger and Nordhaus, he is reflecting a strong emerging, adaptive management approach to climate policy also advocated by Pielke Jr. which does much to shift the policy debate to energy policy and seeks to leave the ideological debate over climate policy behind.  Again, all of these are policy people discussing how the climate science has been politicized within public policy.
 
The distinction between science research and public policy has been a subject of high contention within environmentalism for some time: the debate over climate change has served to both polarize and exacerbate viewpoints.  Post Copenhagen and post-Climategate, there is now considerable movement to move beyond the ideological posturing -- sadly not all parties are embracing this shift in dialogue as being constructive.

Which brings us to the central issue: why don't facts change people's perspective, whereas a change in perspective can cause a change in the "facts" as we know them? 

The answer is in our ideology, which in turn is a function of how we think and why.  Luckily, there are those who seek to improve our understanding of how and why we think like we do and why we do or do not act rationally in response to facts that accord or contradict our perspective. 

Resonance and dissonance.  Leadership is resonating with people.  Good leaders empower people to make changes by visioning a perspective that resonates with their ideas, fits the facts as people understand them and, offers them hope for improvement.  

The problem with environmentalism is it does none of these things.  Instead it evokes:

• an elitist mantra
• enforced by appeals to authority
• requiring conformity with dictated changes 
• that fit the facts of those enforcing the change and
• not the reality of those suffering the imposition of change.

Junk Science: the basis for all Ecomyths

At the heart of all ecomyths is a mis-use of science.  Sometimes it is a mis-representation of data, sometimes it is a lack of proper context, sometimes it is an inappropriate study protocol, poor study design, bias in variables or method, or just suspect interpretation.  Sometimes it is the subservience of science to ideological presumption, sometimes it goes beyond manipulation and exaggeration and constitutes lies.  All are possible within Junk Science.

Terence Corcoran introduces the 12th Annual Junk Science Week in the Financial Post with this explanation of Junk Science:

• Our standard definition is that junk science occurs when scientific facts are distorted, risk is exaggerated and the science adapted and warped by politics and ideology to serve another agenda.
• That definition needs to be refined. It was shaped by the idea that junk science is strictly the bailiwick of scaremongers.
• But science can also be warped to promote the opposite of fear. Unscientific hope mongering may be just as prevalent as scare mongering. In some ways, the role of the media in hope mongering is more important than in scare mongering. In the hands of journalists bent on doing what they think is socially beneficial work making people aware of new developments, even good science can be twisted, distorted and exaggerated for political purposes.
  

Examples of contemporary Junk Science profiled in this year's series include:

• the absence of scientific evidence to validate the scaremongering around the amount of salt in people' diet,
• the assertion that smog is claiming thousands of deaths despite improvements in air quality and, of course,
  
• the harder to kill than a vampire continuance of climate junk despite virulent discreditation and refutation of every kind.

Not only do these profiles highlight how and why people should discount these ecomyths, they highlight the more insidious nature of ecomyths themselves.  If Junk Science is so easily disproven, why then do ecomyths continue to be embraced by governments, agencies and authorities even though the evidence of the Junk Science upon which they are based is clearly and categorically outlined?

The answer is both simple and depressing: ecomyths are a contrivance.  The issue is not people's health in the case of salt, nor people's health with smog, nor the sustainability of the environment with climate change.  These are the excuse, the contrivance upon which public compliance to policies and p[programs is required.  The focus is those policies and programs, and the control which they seek to enforce over people and their lifestyles.  Ecomyths are merely a contrivance by which power can be exerted over people, their lives and their lifestyles.  Junk Science is the authoritative assertion of "The Truth" by those whose ideology is predicated on the desire to impose control over others.

Beyond Petroleum indeed.

sustainability is change

The worst thing to happen to the concept of sustainable development was its devolution into sustainability.  The semantics are important because they belie two key points: 

• the denial of change as the central construct defining sustained growth and future prosperity,and
• the transference of a human management construct into a purely scientific measure of precautionary possibility.

The recent events in Haiti and Chile show the consequences of this shift in thinking.  


Both Haiti and Chile experienced large earthquakes: in Haiti the effects were severe, in Chile they were not.  In the past two decades, Haiti has been subjected to extensive "sustainability" thinking from NGOs and government intervention in the economy: it has neither experienced development nor is it any more sustainable than when those efforts started.  In contrast, Chile has sustained its development, experienced real economic growth and was able to sustain its population through a natural disaster.

Sustainability is a term derived from the original concept of sustainable development.  Sustainable development was predicated on the recognition that environment, economy and society had to be integrated constructs within the management of development for it to be sustainable.

Sustainability is a management construct. The central question it addresses is:

• how do we manage growth and future change so that it is sustainable?

Science might provide some measures, some indicators as to levels of sustainability but absent of the integration of environmental measurements with economic indicators and social variables, those  measurements lack interpretive meaning and become co-opted dogma within the ideology of its proponents: hence the emergence of politicized science (and the associated pre-dominance of contrived environmental imperatives for morally constructed political action).

Sustainability is not some game.  It does not have a scientifically derived end line measurement, a set of goal posts society should be shooting for.  

Sustainability is the process of capacity building that gives communities the capability to adapt to change, sustain their development and provide hope to future generations.

As Fullan states:

• Sustainability is the capacity of a system to engage in the complexities of continuous improvement consistent with deep values of human purpose. 

Capacity.  Providing individuals with the ability and skills they need, empowering them, giving them the confidence, esteem and social conditions under which they can self-actualize.

Engage.  Becoming active agents in the determination of their own futures.  Being empowered not pawns of governments, NGOs and elites exerting power over them "in their best interest".

Continuous improvement.  Leaving the world a better place, a changed place, but a more healthy, prosperous place by embracing technological advancement and improving the human condition.  Embracing change as constructive, positive and liberating.

Deep values of human purpose. Sustainability is a management construct for political decision making based on values.  Those values should reflect the community's determination of moral standards, cultural differences and preferences.  It is contextualized by community and should not be dictated by dogma and elite ideology.

Sustainability is change.  Not the denial of change, the suppression of change, nor the control of change.

To implement sustainability effectively we must address this distinction directly in the consideration of power, precaution and the perpetuation of ecomyths..