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..

Indoctrination is not higher education

I recently responded to a commentary in the National Post that was lamenting the openness of debate in academia around climate change. In the same discussion thread another academic using the moniker "scate" posted a series of comments that illustrated the wide gulf that exists between my own perspective on academia and the role of higher education, and the attitude of many within the halls of academia itself.

Scate's comments were equal part arrogance and self-serving conceit. They reflect a belief that many subjects, especially any involving science, are "tough" and "difficult for the non-expert to grasp". The corollary is that even undergraduates are incapable of understanding the nuances and subtleties of these tough subjects and thus must be "instructed" and "trained" on how to think,lest they mis-understand things. It is only after they have been "taught" how to think correctly, that they are allowed to consider material for themselves, safe in the knowledge that they too will concur with the prevailing paradigm on all matters. Then, the bright few who have shown the ability to conform well to this model are allowed passage into graduate programs where they can receive advanced "training" within the accepted parameters.

Advanced recognition and awe is reserved for those members of the academy who show a capacity for explaining "tough" subject matter in a way that is obtuse and re-inforces the internal vocabulary of the elite within any discipline. Simplicity and clarity of expression are not encouraged, especially when jargon, disciplinary dependent definitions, abbreviations and expressions may be employed to further confer an aura of authority and complexity on any aspect of enquiry.

It is within this conceited, arrogant and mis-guided perspective of "higher education" that the whole IPCC, Climategate, Himalaya-gate and ecomyth fraud resides, festered and continues to be fostered.

It is not surprising that the revelations of abuse and malfeasance were initially documented by bloggers and from those outside the world of academia. Those with the temerity to question the prevailing system from within are quickly and deeply ostracized by the academy. If an academic of the standing and accomplishment of Freeman Dyson can have his intellect suddenly besmirched solely because he allied his free thought with the "wrong" perspective, then it can happen to any academic (most of whom have nothing close to the list of academic accomplishments, awards and publications of the esteemed Dyson).

The whole point here is not whether AGW is "right" or "wrong". The question is how we as a supposedly advanced civilization utilize our best and brightest to examine such complex topics and even more profoundly, how we as an advanced civilization determine who and what constitutes our best and brightest minds.

I would contend that the ability to conform, to parrot correctly the prevailing mantra of any controlling elite, is not the desired nor defining characteristic of the best and brightest intellect. Higher education should be about the fostering and facilitation of lateral thinking, new innovations and intellectual freedom. Sadly, it has become a bastion of political correctness, conformity and intellectual compliance.

Climategate is not surprising, nor is it the exception. Something is indeed rotten in Denmark and it is not solely the science of climate change: it is the prevailing attitude of those who constitute the scientific body and are presently training their adherents.

Still think I am exaggerating? At the next ecomyth demonstration, ask any of the young, committed idealists on the front-lines of the protest what they are protesting and why. Whatever their answer, ask them "and why do you think that?". Their inability to provide a cogent, principled answer with an understanding of underlying constructs and concepts is a powerful indictment of their "training" and the inability of indoctrination to foster free-thinking individuals.

Indoctrination is not designed to produce free-thought. It produces a conformity of thought. Is today's academic training evident in the indoctrinated mantra and dogma of its converts or the insightful questioning of young enquiring minds?

Read any blog discussion thread and you will find academics like "scate" not just defending a system of academic indoctrination but blithely promoting it as higher education. You will also find many zealots who have graduated from this school and carry its message forward with fervour. 

Nothing scares a conformist society as much as a free mind that is actively engaged in the pursuit of its own learning.  What we do not understand, we fear.  What we fear, we seek to destroy.

shifting to energy policy

Perhaps now with the collapse of the Copenhagen talks, the revelations of abuse from Climategate and the knowledge that the Himalayas are not going to disappear in the immediate future, we can turn our attention to the real issue of cheaper future fuel options, particularly for developing nations.

As is often the case, the template for discussion has been established by another article by the excellent Nordhaus and Shellenberger:

• In the end, whether or not the Senate passes a cap-in-name-only climate bill, the long-term failure of Kyoto and all other efforts to establish binding emissions caps is virtually assured and is a function of a basic technological problem. We simply do not have low-carbon technologies today that can at large scale replace fossil fuels at a cost that any political economy in the world is willing to impose upon itself. There will be no political solution to climate change, no binding international agreement to substantially reduce emissions, and no effective domestic carbon cap until low-carbon technologies are much cheaper than they are today. 
• ...Obama was following two decades of magical thinking among both greens and liberal Democrats about energy technology. In this view, energy efficiency pays for itself, solar and wind power are already nearly cost competitive with fossil fuels, and both can quickly and cheaply reduce emissions. This Pollyanna view of fossil fuel alternatives and efficiency, which makes going green seem cheap and easy -- little more than the cost of "a postage stamp a day" -- has provided the justification for green-policy advocacy that has overwhelmingly focused on pollution regulations and carbon pricing while ignoring serious investment in energy research and development. 
• Incumbent energy interests had, in short, hijacked magical climate thinking for their own uses. They took cap-and-trade legislation and turned it into an opportunity for them to raise energy prices on consumers, invest a fraction of the higher revenues in clean energy, remove existing regulatory obstacles to the construction of coal plants, and lock in their competitive advantage while crowding out energy newcomers, including clean energy firms, for decades to come. 
• Solving the technology challenge will not be easy, but in terms of our collective wealth and knowledge we are in a better position today than at any other point in our history. In the end, global efforts to address the climate challenge, if they are to succeed, must centrally focus upon the creation of a new and extraordinarily important global public good: the development of low-carbon energy technologies that are cheap, clean, and abundant. After two decades of domestic and international failure to take real action on climate change, it is time for the purveyors of magical thinking to take their exit so that the main act can begin. 

I am still far more optimistic about a free market approach to this solution than Nordhaus and Shellenberger, who prefer a contemporary Manhattan Project investment by government, but I can agree with their analysis of the the overall policy objective: eventually, we will need alternate cheap, energy sources.  Where we differ is both the approach to this resolution (free market or government directive) and the time scale.  

The role of climate alarmism has been to present the immediate need for collective de-carbonisation.  Absent of that alarmism, the developed world has substantial low cost energy sources and no real incentive to push the kind of technological advancement Nordhaus and Shellenberger identify.  The need today is for low cost energy sources to fuel developing countries: nations that also lack the capacity to independently initiate the type of technological advances cheap alternate energy requires.

So the real issue is: do we wish to view ourselves as a sustainable global community?  As much as Nordhaus and Shellenberger correctly identify the need for new energy technology, the most pressing barrier to future prosperity remains our need to reconcile the social imperative for sustainability: 

• expanding and improving our notions of community
• decreasing the specter of fear and its grip on public policy, and
• recognition that what differentiates us need not divide us.

Free market or state intervention is irrelevant until such time as we view our collective interest as our own self-interest.

live by the sword....

It is fashionable amongst some eco-activists to refer to themselves as eco-warrriors.  In deference to real troops who fight, and die, to protect people's freedom, I have a problem with the self aggrandizement that activists seek to confer upon themselves with this label.  

No matter: if its warriors they wish to be then this is what they can expect:

It appears many of the activists are quick to dish it out but appear shocked that anyone should respond in kind.  Not that hypocrisy is new to eco-activism.

Looking at the issue beyond the immediate conflict, a number of questions arise:

• how many of the lay public who give money in support of such eco-activism are aware that their money is being used so that, in the name of the environment, young people can roam the oceans of the world in a competitive power boat?
• what is the carbon footprint of the power boat? (sorry, I was forgetting that carbon is so yesterday)
• geography pop quiz: you want to make a media splash about whaling, do you get a boat and protest  (a) Icelandic or Norwegian activity in the North Atlantic, or (b) Japanese activity in the South Pacific?

Not a lot of "eco" and certainly no "warriors". 

The Copenhagen Collapse

Towards year's end and time for lots of people to comment not only on the past year but the past decade.  Based on the collapse at Copenhagen, Lorne Gunter makes this valid observation that environmentalism is just the latest manifestation of authoritarian control, of stasis incarnate:

• ...saving the planet is not what environmentalism is all about. Saving the planet is just the excuse. Controlling other people’s lives and redistributing global wealth is the true goal.
• I’m not saying there is a conscious conspiracy by old socialists meeting in secret to rebrand themselves as new environmentalists so they can revive their Cold War-era campaign for international governance and regulation.
• Rather, it’s a mindset.
• When socialism collapsed as an intellectual movement in the 1990s, the intrusive, holier-than-thou, we-know-best attitude behind it did not disappear, it merely refashioned itself in the last decade as environmentalism.
  
• To be happy, they have to be telling others what to do based on a self-assured belief in their own moral and intellectual superiority.

Change is a constant in life.  The essence of sustainability is the capability of communities to adapt to change, something current environmentalism ignores to its detriment.

Rather than embracing change as the essence of sustainability, stasist politics seeks to control change and environmentalism to direct change towards ideological pre-determinism.  They are mutually reinforcing bedmates: stasist politics supplying the tools of enforcement, environmentalism the moral imperative for intervention.

It is an ideology that neither seeks, nor values, individual empowerment. In contrast, globalization is predicated upon a massive increase in individual empowerment from information technology.  The Copenhagen collapse is evidence that stasist politics is a bankrupt ideology, and so is environmentalism.

the medium is the message

One of the most basic tenets of politics is controlling the message, spinning the information that is in the public domain and framing the way issues are viewed.  As McLuhan famously observed, the medium is the message and no where is this more true today than with the default public record of "fact", Wikipedia.

So, if you wanted to embed science within pre-dominant political consciousness, a key component would require a communications strategy to:

• bring the mainstream media on board by special access, the use of alarmist scenarios and iconic graphics that overwhelm any sublte nuances of the real scienc
• block anyone who disagreed or might disprove your ideas from publishing in normal, recognized media, say refereed journals
• establish a blog that frames your view of the "real" science and refuse to publish comments that fail to conform to your "consensus", and, lastly
• establish control over the on-line source of facts, Wikipedia.

The Climategate papers show exactly how the conventional dogma for climate utilized all of these strategies to frame and  package their perspective of the science for political consumption.

Of course, the final step was then to demonize anyone who still disagreed, questioned or otherwise objected to this force-feeding of conformity, as a denialist. It was the perfect Orwellian use of newspeak. 

Skeptic became a pejorative for the lunatic fringe, rather than a descriptor of essential scientific practice.  But since so many within the AGW fraud had already dispensed with such other scientific staples as transparency and empiricism, what was the problem?  Their reaction to the Climategate papers continues these tactics.  But authoritarian regimes only exist up until the point the public is no longer scared by the bully tactics and the fear the regime seeks to engender. 

The political wind has now changed.  Copenhagen revealed the extent to which neither the science nor the environment were ever really central to the politics.  They were a convenient contrivance.  Now their 15 minutes of political limelight is done and the realpolitik of wealth, wealth transference and corruption, sorry influence, will resume normal broadcasting.  Watch for a new round of celebrity faces to endorse the new message and whatever path to enlightenment is to be used to package and sell the politics it embraces.

Update: the Team's guy on the inside has had his status as Wikipedia administrator revoked. 
It will be interesting to discover if Wikipedia can or "can't handle the truth!". Apparently not.

burden of proof and the precautionary principle

I have always enjoyed Brian Micklethwait's writing. He has a nice economy of style and a keen insight.  Here is his latest post and take on Climategate.  He links to the Monckton video that challenges the Team to come clean about their deceit and suggests that the burden of proof in the debate on climate is changing.

Others are less convinced.  One primary corollary is the observation that climate alramism and ecomyths are vested in the precautionary principle and not the certitude of their science. 

As I have posted previously, slavish adherence to and reliance upon the precautionary principle is the very lifeblood of ecomyths.  Their zombie-like ability to morph into new parables for the demise of humanity rests on the continued acceptance of the precautionary principle as both reasonable and beneficial.  

The precautionary principle exploits the possible, the "what if?"  angst of cultural fears and societal anxieties: it neither requires nor respects the probabilities of scientific observations.  

The most damning indictment arising from Climategate is the arrogance and conceit of the scientists involved who thought they could control the politics of precaution they embraced.  Little do they realize the speed with which those politics will dispense with them now they are an embarrassment to its cause.

Mind you, nothing seems to be a political embarassment to climate nihilism.

climate nihilism

Over at Breakthrough, Shellenberger and Nordhaus have posted a provocative commentary on the Contrivance in Copenhagen.  Their preface:

• From the opening ceremony's video of a little girl running from an earthquake to the promises of emissions reductions, everything taking place in Copenhagen is contrived. The outcome of climate talks -- no treaty, no emissions reductions -- was known in advance. And yet participants pretend there is an unfolding drama. As such, Copenhagen is history's first completely postmodern global event. It's a festival of phoniness. With the ambitions of Versailles but the power of Davos, Copenhagen creates a cognitive dissonance for its creators, which results in ever-more manic displays of apocalypse anxiety and false hope. In the end, Copenhagen tells us more about ourselves -- our post-American world, our fragmented media environment, and our hyper-partisanship -- than about any attempt to slow global warming.

After setting the stage by delineating the post-modern realities and politics of the global  political climate, they suggest that:

•  Lacking any power to effect reality, Copenhagen has thus become a kind of spiritual pilgrimage. But the pilgrimage is postmodern and the faith is bad.

• Nihilism is the phenomenon of going to church, saying confession, and sometimes even praying to God, even though you no longer believe that God will do anything for you.

• Climate nihilism is the phenomenon of going to Copenhagen, promising to reduce emissions and pretending to believe the promises, even neither though you nor anybody around you has any intention, plan or funding to do so.

• Copenhagen is what you get when science lacks the power to re-shape economies, rich nations cannot tell poor ones what to do, and a supposedly common global threat divides rather than unites the world. Copenhagen represents the twilight of modernist idols.

It is a brilliant and incisive piece.  It reveals the realpolitik challenges of post-modernism and the failings of post-modernity to create positive, viable narratives for sustainability and future prosperity.

The present generation of youth have never not known environmental awareness.  They are immune to protests, posters and placards, the staples of an environmental ideology external to the locus of power. If nothing else, Copenhagen establishes the very political correctness of contemporary environmentalism.  It is no longer radical, chic and daring.  It is the bureaucratic mainstream of inactivity and broken promises. Its zenith is climate nihilism.

It is in response to this reality that the present generation seeks leadership and empowerment.  The Copenhagen conference offers symbolism, not integrity.


Nothing fuels a revolution quite like the discovery that the information you have been fed is dogma, not the truth.

something is rotten in Denmark

From todays National Post:

• Sunday marked the coldest Dec. 13 in Edmonton’s history.

• Environment Canada recorded a frigid -46.1 C, or -58.4 C with wind chill, at the Edmonton International Airport at 5 a.m., Environment Canada meteorologist Pierre Lessard said.

• The old record of -36.1 C was set last year, he said.

• “To break a temperature by 10 degrees is very exceptional,” said Lessard.

Elsewhere, in Copenhagen:

• Countries like China and India say the industrialised world must make bigger cuts in emissions and help poor nations to fund a shift to greener growth and adapt to a warmer world.

• Richer countries say the developing world's carbon emissions are growing so fast it must sign up for curbs in emissions to prevent dangerous levels of warming.

It appears there is a disconnect between the virtual, modeled world of AGW and the reality of observed, global climate temperatures.  Perhaps we just need to start modifying the data sooner, like at the thermometer.  Perhaps some university somewhere can get a grant to do this.

Update:

Three must read posts from today: the first characterizes environmentalism as zombie politics; the second has some interesting conjecture on the likelihood that Climategate is the product of an insider leak and why; and the last is a glimpse into the Copenhagen fairy tale.