Here’s an agreeably restrained response to Brian Rudman’s repellent, unsophisticated bluster against the Coalition. The Herald declined to publish this, but we’re delighted to present it in their stead. If Rudman has the sense I think he has, or the slightest genuine interest in climate change, he’ll pay close attention to Tom’s analysis. – Richard Treadgold
Columnist sets bad example in attack on Climate Science Coalition
The September 12th column by Brian Rudman of the New Zealand Herald, “One small word, one giant setback for denial”, exemplifies how much of the climate debate has descended into a sort of murky underworld where logical fallacies, personal attacks and made up “facts” all too often replace rational discourse. While Herald editors are to be congratulated for allowing the publication of my letter to the editor correcting some of Rudman’s more obvious mistakes, his piece is worth analyzing as a sample of what other journalists must avoid if a civilized discussion about this vitally important topic is to be possible.
Rudman’s repeated references to “climate change deniers” is a particularly nasty and nonsensical phrase frequently employed by those who want to silence debate about the causes of climate change.
Denial deniers
No rational scientist denies that climate changes. As former Chairman of the International Climate Science Coalition (ICSC) earth sciences professor Dr. Tim Patterson of Carleton University in Ottawa told Canada’s House of Commons Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development, “Based on the paleoclimatic data I and others have collected, it’s obvious that climate is and always has been variable. In fact, the only constant about climate is change; it changes continually. We certainly have no chance of stopping this natural phenomenon.”
Patterson, as well as current ICSC Chief Science Advisor Professor Bob Carter of James Cook University and their scientist peers deny that they deny climate change—they are denial deniers. The “deniers” label is simply an attempt to equate those who question political correctness on climate change to Holocaust deniers. It is a rather nasty logical fallacy referred to as ad hominem—against the man, instead of the idea.
If anyone could be labeled climate change deniers, it is activists who hold the absurd view that our climate was tranquil until industrialization, at which point it started to change rapidly. They seem not to know that there have been periods as recently as 10,000 years ago when temperatures both rose and fell almost 100 times faster than what occurred in the 20th century. Climate changes, at times dramatically so, all by itself. That what climates do on planet with significant atmospheres.
Sceptics DO publish
Rudman and many others are also wrong to assert that those who do not support the politically correct view of climate change have not published their arguments in reputable scientific journals. Besides Patterson and Carter’s extensive lists of publications, one need only visit the website of the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change to view listings and summaries of thousands of peer reviewed science papers which, either directly or indirectly, contest the views that Rudman and Al Gore apparently hold dear. And, no, the scientist skeptics are not “flat-earthers”, as Rudman demeans them; they are among the world’s top science leaders trying to understand the causes and impacts of climate change.
Rudman also errs when he claims that the Heartland Institute “erected billboards across Chicago with huge mugshots of notorious criminals, the Unabomber and cult leader and murderer Charles Manson”. In fact, Heartland put up one billboard with an image of the Unabomber (only) on it and took it down immediately when people objected. Contrary to being “wackos”, as Rudman and many others glibly label them, Heartland will be seen someday as one of the few groups that had the courage to stand up to alarmist bullies and promote climate realism, an understanding that, although climate always changes and we must prepare for such changes, humanity can not stop this phenomenon.
Finally, I can assure Rudman that his speculation that the reputations of Terry Dunleavy and Carter as leaders in the ICSC will be damaged by the NIWA legal setback is completely without merit. Both have shown themselves to be exemplary leaders of our coalition and we are privileged to have the opportunity to work with such fine spokesmen.
We don’t have control of the climate
Real climate researchers understand that climate science is in its infancy. We cannot forecast climate in 50 years any better than we can forecast weather two weeks ahead. The system is too complex and our understanding of the basic science too primitive.
Trying to unravel the causes and consequences of climate change is arguably the most complex science ever tackled. Professors Chris Essex (ICSC science advisor at University of Western Ontario, Canada) and Ross McKitrick (University of Guelph, Canada) write in their award winning book Taken by Storm, “Climate is one of the most challenging open problems in modern science. Some knowledgeable scientists believe that the climate problem can never be solved.”
That may not be a comforting thought for Rudman and others who believe that we understand the science well enough to know how to control global climate. But science is often like that. While it is our best tool for trying to understand the natural world, it is not magic—it can only give us what is possible.
Rudman’s piece does have some use, however—it is a good example of how not to write about climate change.
Tom Harris is Executive Director of the International Climate Science Coalition.
Views: 449
Before today I had never heard of the International Climate Science Coalition or the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change. They sound important. A quick check on Google confirms that they are sponsored by the Heartland Institute just like the now discredited CO2Science.
Unfortunately they don’t seem to be up to date with climate science. Most climate models will be pretty accurate over a fifty year time period based on simulations of the past. I wouldn’t categorise the causes and consequences of climate change as arguably the most complex science ever tackled. It’s all there in the historical record, although the current rate of change is almost unprecedented.
“Most climate models will be pretty accurate over a fifty year time period based on simulations of the past”
This accurate?
http://curryja.files.wordpress.com/2012/07/christy-fig.jpg?w=808&h=622
Every one on the wrong trajectory.
Shh, don’t confuse him with the facts.
Almost all of the models correctly predicted positive warming anomalies for every year since 1994 (post Pinatubo volcanic event). Most the models are over-stating the short-run warming so more work is obviously required to determine why.
“Most the models are over-stating the short-run warming so more work is obviously required to determine why”
Ain’t THAT the truth?
Clues: oceanic oscillations, celestial cycles, sunspot cycles, dimming/brightening, CO2 ramping, cloud parameterization etc etc
You are right on at least one point, Simon (I won’t comment on your funding logical fallacy arguments as the identities of all ICSC donors is kept confidential to protect their privacy and safety).
“It’s all there in the historical record.” says Simon.
Right. What the record shows is that CO2 has never driven climate change. In fact, when CO2 levels were 1300% of today’s levels, 440 million years ago, we were in the depths of the coldest period in the last half billion years.
And neither is the rate of change unusual. In fact, it is much less than it was 10,000 years ago when temperatures both rose and fell almost 100 times faster than happened in the past century.
Indeed, look at historical record. That is the best way to forecast the future, and it is not supporting the climate scare at all.
I suspect you are referring to the Ordovician–Silurian extinction event. This was allegedly caused by large scale volcanism and the heavy weathering of the uplifting Appalachian Mountains, which sequestered CO2. I don’t believe your 1300% CO2 claim during the cold period, sorry.
Volcanoes and meteorites can dramatically affect climate. Changes in CO2, geology, and circulation patterns are a little more subtle. The Younger Dryas (11K years ago) may not have been global and was probably due to changes in ocean circulation. CO2 and temperature are fairly well correlated through that period.
Here are some plots of CO2 for you:
ftp://rock.geosociety.org/pub/GSAToday/gt0307.pdf – see figure 1.
Here are some others
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/76/Phanerozoic_Carbon_Dioxide.png/380px-Phanerozoic_Carbon_Dioxide.png
http://www.paulmacrae.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/06/co2-levels-over-time1.jpg
Some scientists say 1700% so I am being conservative.
It is 2 am here so I won’t be responding to questions for a while.
Bonne soir,
Tom
Tom,
You say:
I’m having trouble verifying this (although it’s only quibbling). In the Berner graph of CO2, 440 million years ago I read the CO2 level as about 4400 ppmv, or about 1100% higher than today. Is this what you’re referring to? Is there a better source?
RT, if you look at the levels on uncertainty of CO2 concentrations, going back that far is maybe a bit too ambitious of Tom.
Harris: “We cannot forecast climate in 50 years any better than we can forecast weather two weeks ahead.”
And we can’t measure climate factors from millions of years ago accurately enough to make meaningful claims that can be applied to current forcings.
I like looking at this kind of paleo record because it gives a new perspective. How many people even suspect that CO2 levels were ever ten times greater than present, yet no runaway warming has ever occurred? Gives me a good feeling, that.
Well, even James Lovelock is no longer suggesting an actual runaway GH effect.
Truth be known, I doubt warming of 2 or 3 degrees over the next 100 years in itself is a problem, even sea level rise of a couple of metres(!) doesn’t worry me much(buildings will have paid for themselves long before they’ll disappear under water). It’s those damn potential regional swings in climate when we’re using so much of the planets photosynthetic potential that worry me, and like the most tuned in people, I just don’t got anything solid about such an unpredictable change. 🙁
Tom Harris, if you’re going to make such claims, you should back them up with links.
The Ordovician–Silurian extinction event was an ice age, but quite likely not as cold as the current ice age.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paleoclimatology
Given the rise in temperature of around 0.6C over the last 50 years, I find a claim of temperature increases 100 times faster hard to believe.
Look up the Younger Dryas period about 11,000 years ago when temperature changes of this magnitude ocurred.
Well, I’ve had a hunt for temperature data for the Younger Dryas period. Just about all of it mentions a temperature rise of 10C in Greenland, this change is most often attributed to a slowing down of the thermohaline circulation as a result of a sudden increase in melt water flows off North America.
However, I haven’t found anything claiming that the 10C temperature fall in Greenland is representative of a global fall in temperatures, in fact to the contrary, temperatures in the Antarctic actually rose steadily throughout the Younger Dryas. The explanation offered being that a slowing down of the thermohaline circulation caused the classic NH-SH see-saw effect.
All of which will reassure “warmists” not at all. If, after the disappearance of late summer arctic ice in the next few years we see enough of an increase in arctic ocean surface temperatures to cause substantial Greenland ice melt, an altering of the thermohaline circulation could be the result, causing dramatic alterations to climate globally.
I’m not betting on anything like the rate of change seen in the Younger Dryas, (which seems to have caused widespread extinctions) but then, the human population of this planet is starting to stretch its food producing capacity, and even a modest change in climate could be disastrous for the tight supply and demand balance of food supply.
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/abrupt/data4.html
There was no significant temperature decline associated with the Younger Dryas in New Zealand.
Evidence Against a Significant Younger Dryas Cooling Event in New …
http://www.sciencemag.org › 7 August 1998Share
When Tom says in his letter that 10,000 years ago temperatures fell and rose almost 100 times faster than they did in the twentieth century, he implies that present day climate change is so small that it is insignificant compared to what we will have to adapt to in future glacial periods.
While the costs of geoengineering to prevent warming are enormous and these technologies are undeveloped, geoengineering to prevent global cooling would be relatively inexpensive. There are some chemicals which are not ozone damaging, but which have very strong IR bands and have very high global warming potentials and long lifetimes. These chemicals could be used to balance the very weak forcings that cause glacial and interglacial periods. This temperature drop and rise happened in the transition from the last glacial period to the present interglacial period. It could be prevented from happening again.
Also note the the sun was about 4% dimmer back then so temperature/CO2 relationship are not directly comparable with present day.
What arrant nonsense, at least on a par with your letter in the Herald, Tom.
It was the warming from high CO2 levels that is thought to have ended “Snowball Earth” / “Slushball Earth” episodes in the distant past, as I’m sure you know.
FYI, we aren’t all gullible rubes in NZ – present company excepted.
Perhaps, Rob, you’d like to look at the graph Tom presented and show us the correlation between CO2 levels and global mean temperature over the geological timescale.
I am struggling to see any relationship there
I wouldn’t take the temperature guesses in that graph too seriously, I doubt the Earth has spent most of its time at either 22C or 12C.
Here’s a couple of other graphs one of CO2, the other of temperature, unfortunately on one time goes left to right with the reverse for the other, but eyeballing there looks a reasonable correlation between temp and CO2 for 100 million to 500 million years BP.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Phanerozoic_Carbon_Dioxide.png
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f5/All_palaeotemps.png
Great, so you deny the geological history of the earth and cherry pick a relatively small part that fits your hypothesis.
“Great, so you deny the geological history of the earth and cherry pick a relatively small part that fits your hypothesis.”
I’ll assume you’re joking.
No I am not joking. You completely dismiss the graph of global temperatures and CO2 levels with a cursory waft of the hand and think it is “unlikely”.
What possesses you to come up with this? Do you have a raft of geological textbooks on your bookshelf that refutes these claims?
Over such large time scales there has been large variations in solar output, continental land-mass, and volcanic activity. Solar output is believed to be about 4% less in the Ordovician. There is insufficient data to determine CO2 levels during the relatively short Ordovician-Silurian extinction event. The drop of temperature at the K/T boundary was due to an asteroid. Correct for all of these and a correlation between CO2 and temperature will emerge.
Correct for all of these and a correlation between CO2 and temperature will emerge.
We can’t even find a correlation between CO2 and temperature in the modern period without applying arbitrary fudge factors from aerosols
This isn’t science, it’s astrology
CO2 is a greenhouse gas. I doubt any serious sceptic denies this. I am happy to debate about how effective it is. That is where the argument lies.
Yes I agree.
“I am happy to debate about how effective it is”
No you’re not Simon. You didn’t take on the CO2 forcing challenge re IPCC curve vs Eggert/Leckner/Hottel path length curve.
I don’t know enough to comment Richard beyond what I have said in the past. I am happy to defer to the experts when outside of my area of expertise. Judges do that too 😉
“I don’t know enough to comment Richard”
Then why are you commenting?
And why did you indicate “I am happy to debate about how effective it is”?
“I am happy to defer to the experts when outside of my area of expertise”
Radiative heat transfer experts?
“Judges do that too”
Yes they do. J Venning didn’t.
Being climate scientists (by what qualifications?) does not – as of right – make them all radiative heat transfer and statistics experts.
Dr Mullen is one such climate scientist.
Furthermore, the skills of a statistician to apply the principles and techniques of break-point analysis are transferable across domains e.g. econometrics, financial trading …..and climatology.
The 7SS contest is now in the statistics domain, climatology is subordinate to that. Given station adjustments are the result of break-point analysis, this calls for specialist break-point skills within the statistics domain.
In that regard, NZCSET is a long way ahead of NIWA in that contest at this stage
“Dr Mullen is one such climate scientist”
Begs the question: why and on what basis, were Dr Mullen’s statistics credentials (never addressed by J Venning I don’t think) viewed by J Venning as superior to Bob Dedekind’s?
So much for the Judicial Oath “without favour”.
The temperature graph is from here:
http://www.scotese.com/climate.htm
It’s not a peer reviewed paper, and as far as I can determine, is simply an attempt to illustrate that there have been ice free and glacial periods in the paleoclimate.
And today, in the House of Representatives, that self important fool Kennedy (“I’m a watermelon”) Graham, PhD (Fletcher School in Diplomacy) repeated the canards that Simon has postulated.
Pray tell us Simon, how your AGW BS differs from the Club of Rome’s rubbish circa 30 years ago?
Tom Harris provides a factual, gentlemanly and dispassionate counter to Rudman’s windy nonsense. Sadly, Auntie Horrid no longer has an editorial policy that supports good journalism but instead encourages ignorant rants that do nothing to provide the reader with verifiable facts.
And it’s very interesting that the first response on this thread is from someone who demonstrates their own belief in an idiotic conspiracy in their first sentence, a conspiracy which so thoroughly misrepresent the Heartland Institute as one of the sources of the entirely mythical funding for those who express their doubts that ‘climate science is settled’.
Hardly a conspiracy. More a bunch of enthusiastic amateurs with important sounding but misleadingly named organisations and websites who survive principally on minimal funding from US lobby groups.
How does the average reader discern between the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change and the International Panel on Climate Change? How many scientists actually make up the International Climate Science Coalition?
Just click on “About us” on http://www.climatescienceinternational.org to see who we are, Simon (if that is important to you).
In his first para above, Simon provides a good example of what I was speaking about in my article. There is no way Simon or anyone else can know that we “survive principally on minimal funding from US lobby groups.” That is simply made up since all our donors are kept confidential.
I will say, however that only about 10% of our funding comes from the U.S. in any form. Most of it is from Canada, although donors hail from seven or eight countries (I haven’t checked the list recently). The support we get ranges from $10 to $10,000 per individual. We have no funding from corporations, government or foundations.
The funding arguments are irrelevant to the debate for two reasons:
1 – nature cares not one whit about who funds whom (which is why we say nothing about how climate campaigners such as the David Suzuki Foundation have accepted very large donations from corporations, even energy organizations) . It simply does what it does and it is our job as scientists and interested lay people to do our best to try to understand it. Intelligent people realize that that is all that counts.
2 – ICSC’s funding is so tiny that almost everyone doing anything on this project are doing it for free, even covering their own expenses. If you check into the funding of our opponents, you can see that there are orders of magnitude more money being poured into the climate alarmist movement than those of us who are promoting climate realism. For example, one organization alone, Climate Works Foundation, had 1/2 billion dollars in start-up funding in 2008 and they continue to get many millions to keep them in the green. If anyone on our side had even 1/10th that amount of funding, the climate debate would be over long ago since, as ordinary citizens come to appreciate the uncertainties and outright mistakes in climate alarmism, we make progress.
Tom Harris
http://www.climatecienceinternational.org
Thank you Tom, very enlightening. I hadn’t realised that Owen McShane had passed away. I used to enjoy his articles on urban planning even though I sometimes disagreed with his views on public transport.
I was also unaware of Owen’s passing, truly sad, I crossed swords with him several times on the old NZCSC web site and on Kiwiblog.
He was always polite and practical, and though we had differing opinions on global warming, I was almost always in agreement with him on other matters.
I don’t know if it’s still true, but several times he made the point that the NZCSC was at that time mainly financed from National Superannuation.
Andrew W,
I find that hard to believe.
Several of the members were over 65
Ah, funny. I suppose they still are so it still is. Not that it spends any money…
Actually, Owen McShane was the bagman for Exxon cash laundered through the Heartland Foundation:
http://hot-topic.co.nz/puppets-on-a-string-us-think-tank-funds-nz-sceptics/
It’s perfectly tasteless to say that of a man who passed away only in March, and an odious description of an honest man.
It’s interesting that Renowden’s poison-pen article, while casting aspersions on all manner of innocent business with weasel words, unconsciously highlights the huge discrepancy in funding between so-called “fossil-fuel-funded” sceptics and Greenpeace, WWF, etc., who spend billions each year. He makes me laugh.
Sad that people like Rob can say this sort of thing. Complete rubbish of course, but they have no respect.
A trip to a conference was funded, and they’re all trying to fabricate a conspiracy, like breathless adolescents thinking they’ve “found something”. In comparison, we have the climate change cabal wasting millions of taxpayer dollars annually on reports like the recent Kapiti Coast garbage. This year’s allocation for 2013: over $20m, just in direct research grants.
Fine, they can make fools of themselves, but they should leave Owen out of it, he can’t defend himself against this nonsense.
Yeah, right, Tom, you just do it for love!
FYI, the annual revenue of the top 8 fossil fuel companies is in excess of US$ 2,560 billion
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_companies_by_revenue
That is serious money that will buy you a lot of conservative think tanks, commentators and “skeptic” websites such as yours.
http://www.greenpeace.org/usa/en/campaigns/global-warming-and-energy/polluterwatch/koch-industries/
Rob
Do you have the figures handy for the annual revenue of the Governments represented on the IPCC Bureau?
Quoting large, irrelevant numbers is lazy and/or deceptive, Rob.
Go do your homework and find out how much money they have actually spent on funding sceptics and then come back and tell us. When you do, make sure that you include the funds that they spend on renewable energy, get in subsidies for renewable energy and how much they fund organisations like the Climactic unit at the University of East Anglia (Shell was a founding funder).
Rob
I’m fascinated that you are convinced that scientific research always follows the views of whoever funded the work.
From your comments here, I presume you are a science student and I’m disturbed you haven’t been taught that the test of of a scientific paper is its intrinsic merit. It doesn’t really matter what the Dean says or who paid for it or whether it is popular or how many column inches it garnered.
Your peculiarly tribal approach to science does a disservice to those who are alarmed. All of their work was funded by politicians – and politicians are all publicly bound by the UNFCCC their predecessors signed 20 years ago.
Does this mean the repeatedly repeated claim that “skeptics can’t get their papers published because “The Team” controls the journals” has finally been put to bed?
That depends, Andrew, on your definition of “reputable”….
http://hot-topic.co.nz/put-it-there-pal/
Simon, you are doing the conspiracy thing again.
“an odious description of an honest man.”
Oh, the irony!
Owen was a serial plagiarist who, unlike Michael Mann, was never exonerated by multiple enquiries.
Of the two, I wonder who you lot continually slander for being “dishonest” and “fraudulent”??
Rob,
I haven’t the slightest idea what you’re talking about. I guess some kind of reference is called for?
I see no connection between the two men, and by all accounts Mann was exonerated in incompetent investigations by committees hopelessly compromised by self-interest.
The key difference is that Michael Mann is still alive. Owen McShane is no longer with us, yet you and your fellow travelers at Hot Topic were publicly celebrating Owen’s passing with glee before he’d even been buried.
GR did actually delete your initial comment along these lines, which I thought was wise of him. However, you continued to rub it in.
Language and feelings may get strong on these blogs, but at least I’d hope that I would feel some compassion for a man who had recently died, even if I disagreed with everything he said.
Unlike yourself, Andy, I actually knew Owen and regularly debated these issues directly with him. Of course I am sorry for his untimely death, but his views on AGW were both toxic and wrong, and he was paid to disseminate them.
Five-year-old email from Taylor deleted. Bloody hell, Rob Taylor! This accusation has no possibility of rebuttal, and the man’s dead, for God’s sake! This comment is off-topic. It just isn’t our cup of tea, nor is your method of conversation. Please go away. – RT