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An insider’s story of the global attack on climate science
- npsimons 13y agoI'm glad to see this finally being acknowledged and the funding behind these attacks being called out. In fifty years, when economies are collapsing due to rising sea levels and all the upheaval caused thereby, will we finally look back (as we did with smoking propaganda) and realize what influence malicious greed can effect over ignorance?
- joshuahedlund 13y ago> In fifty years, when economies are collapsing due to rising sea levels... Sea level rise has not accelerated in twenty years of measurement[0] (depending how you cherry pick the analysis it is actually decelerating[1]) and will add 160mm or about half a foot if the next fifty years is the same pace as the last twenty. I don't think that's going to collapse very many economies. [0]http://sealevel.colorado.edu/ http://sealevel.colorado.edu/ [1]http://climatechangedebates.com/sea-level-stats-longer.php http://climatechangedebates.com/sea-level-stats-longer.php
- scarmig 13y agoI hope you realize that choosing twenty years is itself cherry picking. Here's a fun exercise for you: what would the real second derivative have to be in order for it to be clearly positive over a mere twenty year interval?
- gretful 13y agoOr in 50 years when things are the same will we finally look back and realize what influence greed and stupidity can effect over people that reason things through rather than accepting everything printed? Remember - 40 years ago it was Global Cooling.
- scarmig 13y agoSo you're saying that climate scientists are motivated by greed and stupidity? And if you've been involved in climate debates before, you know full well that an article in Newsweek does not mean global cooling was widely accepted among climatologists. It was not.
- BrandonMarc 13y agoThere's always this adage: "No problem, no funding."
- onetwofiveten 13y agoAre you insane? If there was any credible science to contradict the climate change hypothesis, it would absolutely be funded. There are trillion dollar industries with massive vested interests in climate change not being a real thing. I can't say for certain how corrupt or not the climate science community is. I can say for certain that there isn't a lot of money in being a scientist.
- scarmig 13y agoAn irrationalist revolt against the Enlightenment and the possibility of rational debate.
- acqq 13y agoRemember: the science just improves, and the science works. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_opinion_on_climate_change http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_opinion_on_climate_c... "The scientific opinion on climate change is that the Earth's climate system is unequivocally warming, and it is extremely likely (at least 95% probability) that humans are causing most of it through activities that increase concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, such as deforestation and burning fossil fuels."
- gd1 13y agoThrough skepticism. What you're doing there is faith.
- jobu 13y agoThe title is a little misleading. The story is from one of the scientists targeted in the attack, not an insider from the attacking side (which would be very interesting indeed). Decent article, but not exactly surprising given what I've already read about on some of the attacks on climate science here in the U.S.
- __david__ 13y agoI didn't find it misleading at all. It's from exactly the viewpoint that I assumed after reading the title...
- skorgu 13y agoI parsed it wrong the first time as well. I was only confused until I got to "In 1981, as part of my PhD work," at which point all was clear.
- subsection1h 13y ago> not an insider from the attacking side (which would be very interesting indeed). This might not be exactly what you're interested in, but it was reported that the Global Climate Coalition, "a group representing industries with profits tied to fossil fuels" that "led an aggressive lobbying and public relations campaign against the idea that emissions of heat-trapping gases could lead to global warming", was advised by it's own scientific and technical experts that "the science backing the role of greenhouse gases in global warming could not be refuted". http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/24/science/earth/24deny.html?pagewanted=all http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/24/science/earth/24deny.html?...
- adwhit 13y agoThe best science says that climate change is probably going to make a large fraction of the world practically uninhabitable in less than a hundred years. Climate change is quite possibly the one and only story of the 21st century. What could be more deserving of our attention? And yet I've noticed that such news stories get a rather cool reception on HN, possibly because it doesn't fit the Whiggish philosophy that tends to prevail round here. My opinion: the future will be worse. Don't have kids.
- scarmig 13y agoNo, it doesn't say that. The best climate science predicts a rise of 3 degrees Celsius or so, which has the potential to substantially disrupt some vulnerable societies and act as a significant drag on economic growth. It would not render large portions of the world uninhabitable, though.
- crusso 13y agoThe best science says that climate change is probably going to make a large fraction of the world practically uninhabitable in less than a hundred years The best climate science is still crap. We can note some upward trends, but we still haven't created very good models that predict where things are going or how quickly. We still don't know how strong of an effect CO2 has to our climate vs solar activity and natural variability. It's been rather telling that IPCC has had to adjust its predictions significantly over the last decade because they haven't matched up with reality. Let's all step away from the hype, politics, and hollywood portrayals to figure out what's really going on. Personally, I find it very grounding to go back to Judith Curry's blog every once in a while to see what a reasonable skeptic is observing in all the political noise around the science. http://judithcurry.com/ http://judithcurry.com/
- scarmig 13y agoDid you choose to take Judith Curry's word for it over the mainstream of the scientific community because of your expertise, or because she conveniently says things that align with your pre-existing opinions? Blogs are always a less-than-ideal medium for picking out scientific truth, but compare Judith Curry's blog (which is barely better than Watts Up With That) with, say, RealClimate: http://www.realclimate.org/ http://www.realclimate.org/ The differences in scientific focus is immediately evident. Judith Curry myopically focuses on lazy "debunkings," yelling at her imagined enemies, and hyping up her own public appearances; RealClimate focuses on new scientific papers, what's going on at conferences, and a much smaller proportion of "ethics" and "meta" questions.
- crazy1van 13y agoThis has really become more of a religious argument than a science argument. Some people will never be convinced man made climate change is real. Others will never be convinced it isn't. The rest of the people don't care.
- MaysonL 13y agoThe rest of the people don't care. Except that they will, as the consequences become evident.
- acqq 13y agoIt would be a clear science argument if there weren't groups that are very motivated (money, power) to misdirect the public by making "doubts" for their own gains, as the article clearly illustrates. There is a practical scientific consensus that the current global warming is real and caused by the human activity. The illusion of "maybe yes maybe no" (quasi-religious doubts) can come only from the media who give the equal attention to the one doubter and to the group of almost all world's scientist. In the internet speak, the deniers are successfully trolling the public.
- seehafer 13y agoI'm not unsympathetic to the exasperation of scientists concerning that their work is being dismissed by people who don't have the expertise to evaluate it, but all this talk about a "consensus" is where they shoot themselves in the foot. Science doesn't advance by "consensus". And using that as the defense is just a different type of faith (faith in the omniscience of the group). Prior to the 80's the 'consensus' was that stomach ulcers are caused by stress and spicy foods. Two lone Australian medical researchers thought a bacterium was the causal agent, and so one of them actually swallowed a petri dish to prove his point. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barry_Marshall http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barry_Marshall
- acqq 13y agoThe problem is that deniers don't advance the science. They are just trolling, effectively obstructing the possible improvements. Please read the article for an example of a huge trolling action. The consensus just means that the different scientists can independently reproduce the similar results. You can do the calculations yourself too.
- konradb 13y agoI thought that picture of an advert from the 'Heartland institute' near the bottom of the page was a hilarious albeit overdone joke. "I still believe in global warming. Do you?" - Ted Kaczynski, The Unabomber So I assumed it was a joke, and such transparent and patronising adverts could never have been dreamed up. However it does look like that was a planned advert, luckily the campaign was canned. I'm still kind of amazed!
- Tycho 13y agoDo climate scientists have #skininthegame?
- andrewflnr 13y agoDon't both sides claim this kind of thing has happened to them? So again, who do we believe?
- jeremyt 13y agoGlobal warming is one of those tough issues for me. I guess you could call me a skeptic, but I try very hard to be a thoughtful skeptic. What makes the whole conversation unproductive is there appears to be two sides: one which argues there is no problem and we must do nothing, and the other side says that the problem is going to end the world as we know it and we must change our entire way of living and make it our number one priority. For me, there is a progression of questions that I must answer before I can sign on to the latter's assertions., And they look something like this: 1. Is the world warming? I think it most certainly is, but I would also note that it appears that the warming trend has halted for the past 10 to 20 years. From what I can gather, scientists have reasons why that might be the case but have not explained it. 2. Is the warming man-made? To a large degree, I believe that it is. However, there are a lot of things that we don't understand about climate (solar cycles, effects of water vapor, ocean CO2 sequestration, etc.) If I had to put a number on it, I would say 50 to 60% man-made. 3. Can we do anything about it? This is where I begin to separate from the global warming crowd. Theoretically, we can certainly do something about it, but having worked in government I just don't see any practical way that we can reduce greenhouse emissions to such an extent that it's going to make a great difference. Further, china and India are ramping up their CO2 emissions, and there's nothing that the developed countries can do about it. Finally, I have ethical objections to telling developed countries that they have to use less energy which will inevitably result in more lives lost due to starvation or simply just malnutrition and poverty. 4. Should we do anything about it? I believe this is a cost-benefit analysis. And I haven't done the analysis myself, but sometimes I question whether spending the enormous amounts of money today is worth putting off an uncertain disaster tomorrow when we have actual problems today that we could be working on instead. We have millions of people every year dying from malnutrition, poor water supplies, malaria, HIV/AIDS, etc. Why not save those actual lives instead of spending the money saving hypothetical lives in 100 years. And indeed, won't we be more suited to save those lines in 100 years than we are right now, meaning that the mitigation effort could be a lot cheaper?
- yongjik 13y ago> ...but having worked in government I just don't see any practical way... Yeah, in the same way that scientists discovered that CFGs are eating away ozone layer, but the world's governments were too incompetent to meaningfully reduce CFG production, and now we end up with all the Penguins dying in Antarctica and people dying of skin cancer in New Zealand? Or in the same way scientists discovered sulfur emissions caused acid rain, but the US government implemented a piss-poor version of "cap and trade" program[1] that was doomed to failure, and much of the Rocky and Appalachian mountains is now barren wasteland? Never mind the science (which has literally ocean-ful of evidences now). Even the economics of reducing emission is proven to work. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acid_Rain_Program http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acid_Rain_Program
- JackFr 13y agoI'd take the climate scientists more seriously if they could offer a comprehensive theory on ice ages. As far as I can tell, over the past 250 years the best they've been able to come up with is 'multi-factor', which of course means they have candidates, but no winner. That, for me, would be some real science -- not politically charged, not funding-driven, not in the pocket of a lobby or an industry and frankly fascinating. It kills me that there is this fatuous back and forth when the most interesting question of the the planets climate goes effectively unanswered.