The Climate Wars’ Damage to Science

http://quadrant.org.au/magazine/2015/06/climate-wars-done-science/

by denzil_correa • 11 years ago

37 56 11 years ago

quadrant.org.au

taylodl• 11 years ago

"These huge green multinationals, with budgets in the hundreds of millions of dollars, have now systematically infiltrated science,"

The energy companies denying anthropomorphic climate change have much larger budgets and a vested interest in convincing everyone everything is fine, there's no need to change anything, so they can continue on with their current business model. Not that that's necessarily a bad thing - after all the global climate change advocates have done a pretty good job of convincing everyone the climate is changing but what they haven't done is looked at whether the change will be net positive or net negative. The confirmation bias here is they appear to be only looking for the negative since it's assumed change is bad.

Finally, the author of this article forgot to mention one anecdote not supporting his claim - the link between smoking and cancer. The omission leads me to believe he has his own agenda he's pushing, or to be polite, has his own confirmation bias.

jayess• 11 years ago

I think you mean to use the word anthropogenic, not anthropomorphic.

MCRed12• 11 years ago

Anyone who disagrees with him is a "Denier". Because those who know science gain credibility by presuming their hypothesis are facts.... therefore his assertion of anthropomorphism is undeniable!

Justsignedup• 11 years ago

He makes an excellent point in the beginning, to gain some trust, then follows the exact formula he describes.

johnchristopher2• 11 years ago

I can't tell if you are referring to parent's message or the article.

tim3332• 11 years ago

I'm not sure which "exact same formula" you are referring to but my take was he agrees the possible outcomes cover a

"huge range, from marginally beneficial to terrifyingly harmful, so it is hardly a consensus of danger, and if you look at the 'probability density functions' of climate sensitivity, they always cluster towards the lower end."

And he opposes people who will only countenance an extreme position, either being alarmist or denying everything.

He doesn't really seem to deviate much from that position throughout the article. I have a lot of sympathy for this - the probabilities density functions clustering towards the lower end isn't the most snappy of slogans but seems to be the truth unlike more extreme viewpoints.

mikeash3• 11 years ago

Are you sure that it's confirmation bias causing everyone to focus on the negatives, rather than climate change actually being mostly negatives?

johnchristopher2• 11 years ago

I believe it's the next line of defense after "there is not climate change", "it's not that much", "it's not caused by humans".

ocschwar6• 11 years ago

"The energy companies denying anthropomorphic climate change have much larger budgets and a vested interest in convincing everyone everything is fine, there's no need to change anything, so they can continue on with their current business model."

It's pretty telling that these companies have spent well over 100 million in recent years for propaganda, and a grand total of ONE grant of 200K for scientific research.

And when that grant concluded global warming is real and anthropogenic, that was the end of industry funded research. Now it's nothing but propaganda.

aetherson• 11 years ago

Doesn't that kind of imply to you that energy companies or whoever have not systematically infiltrated science, as the author of this article says that green organizations have?

I feel like this thread goes:

Original author: "Green movements with deep pockets have infiltrated science!"

Poster: "Yeah, but energy companies have even deeper pockets [so it's okay if people with obvious financial incentives to believe that climate change deserves drastic action are given gatekeeper positions in science.]"

Another poster: "Yeah, and check it out! The deep-pocketed energy companies don't even get involved with science!"

...

MCRed12• 11 years ago

" these companies have spent well over 100 million in recent years for propaganda, and a grand total of ONE grant of 200K for scientific research."

Prove it.

Prove they have spent that much on "propaganda" and that they have spent no more than 200k for research.

Now prove that the government has spent more on research, and that ALL of that research was of the "free inquiry" type (Eg: without a required outcome predetermined. Remember government has pressured scientists to reach certain conclusions, and journals have set out a particular hypothesis as fact for all articles, etc. Suppression of scientific inquiry is at a shocking level these days.)

Also, please tell me how much has been spent on propaganda by proponents of AGW.

I know just a few of Obama's and Gore's efforts alone were more than 200M (Obama spends 200M on a week long trip oversease-- every time he's gone overseas to promote the global warming theory he's spent more in propaganda than you claim the whole industry opposing him has.)

j_baker• 11 years ago

I'll say one thing: I think that there really are a number of business groups with vested interests in skewing the science one way or the other. On one hand, you have the Koch brothers who want you to believe global warming is a non-issue and that everything will be fine so keep burning all the fossil fuels you want. On the other hand, green energy companies such as Solar City who have a vested interest in convincing everyone that the world will end unless you install their solar panels on your roof.

I'm not certain I really agree with either end of the spectrum.

Daishiman8• 11 years ago

The difference is that Solar City dudes are basing their claims on published, respectable research.

Very likely, they're being too optimistic.

MCRed12• 11 years ago

The government has a much larger budget and a vested interest in convincing everyone that things are not fine. Both the UN, which is seeking the ability to impose a global carbon tax-- the first step to being a world government-- and local governments such as the US Federal government which seeks the ability to have further control over the economy.

Al Gore invested a great deal of money in a carbon trading exchange that would have made him billions if the US Government had passed the legislation he was trying to get passed during the height of the "Inconvenient Truth" era.

The idea that only those with results that disagree with AGW have large budgets and vested interests is manifestly false.

And silly.

Edit: You can't have a discussion on hacker news of an intellectual nature because people use the down vote button to bury and silence those who disagree with their political dogma.

As a result, Hacker News, day by day, becomes more of an echo chamber, and as a result will likely end up like slashdot.

IS that what you want?

Are you really so insecure that you cannot tolerate well made arguments that you disagree with?

ocschwar6• 11 years ago

"The government" ?

There are over 40 developed countries whose governments fund scientific research.

Several of them have heads of state who would love to find evidence against AGW: Canada and Australia come to mind. Angela Merkel would love to find evidence that the coal mining way of life in East Germany isn't a problem. (But she knows not to fight against scientific evidence.)

Our own government had a republican president not so long ago.

Again, if there was any avenue of scientific research that could find evidence against AGW, there would be money to fund it, be it from governments or corporations. Deniers have spent over 100M on propaganda in recent years. That's a lot of money that could have gone towards research if there was any to be done.

There was exactly one attempt to do that, with the grant given to Richard Muller at Berkeley. That blew up in the denier's faces, and they're never doing that again.

[update] "When you resort to calling people who disagree with your hypothesis "deniers" then..."

I am calling them deniers because they have ample funds with which to find evidence for their case, and they are refraining from doing so.

[update]

"Thanks for conceding that there are 40 governments putting money"

I did not say "40 governments putting money into the other side." I said "40 governments funding science." And as I pointed out, the governments of Australia and Canada would love to find evidence against AGW. And yet government funded scientists in both countries continue to find evidence for it. Our own government under George W. Bush would have loved to find evidence against AGW. And yet our scientists in NASA, NOAA, and academia, were finding evidence for it the entire time.

zzalpha2• 11 years ago

but what they haven't done is looked at whether the change will be net positive or net negative.

That's actually quite rational.

From a government policy perspective, what matters is the negatives, because it's the negatives that will require human action to cope.

The most notable example, of course, is rising sea levels as a result of melting polar ice and general thermal expansion, which threatens billions of people who live in coastal areas. Whether or not northern Canada turns into a breadbasket doesn't help a Malaysian or Miami resident when the land their homes are built on becomes the new seafloor.

MCRed12• 11 years ago

.... and now you see their motive. "Human Action" means Government Action which means power.

Daishiman8• 11 years ago

Which completely invalidates his perspective because people have looked at the positives and it's still a huge clusterfuck.

ZeroGravitas• 11 years ago

Worth noting that not only don't the 6 largest energy companies in Europe deny anthropogenic climate change, they're actively calling for a carbon tax to combat it.

They claim that the oil and gas companies in the US would join them if the coal lobby wasn't so strong in the US.

Daishiman8• 11 years ago

This article is a fucking damage to science.

coldcode• 11 years ago

The worse problem these days is knowing what articles or even research to believe, because it is so damn easy to write anything on the internet that recognizing BS or truth is becoming almost impossible. When the web appeared many of us thought that truth would be easier to see, but in reality it just meant that the noise was more easily generated.

merpnderp2• 11 years ago

I just downloaded the RSS data and wrote an R script to find the trend. It's fun to play with the numbers yourself and get an idea of the only hard temperature numbers we have.

The web allowed me to get the data in a matter of seconds.

https://gist.github.com/merpnderp/91646625546cba7a1e70

MCRed12• 11 years ago

How do you get access to numbers that are not corrupted by the Mann "Algorithm" which applies "corrections"? (these corrections force growth in temperature results starting in the industrial era... which, it so happens to turn out, account for the warming.)

If your data is really hard numbers (and from sources not subject to the heat island effect) I'd guess you'd find no warming. (Well other than solar cycles, etc.)

Edit: Yes, yes, please down vote this comment talking about actual science stuff. Keep up the brigade. I'm not spamming, I'm just making points that make you unhappy because they disagree with your political dogma. I'm not sorry. You are being anti-intellectual.

Your anti-intellectualism doesn't shame me. It should shame you.

MCRed12• 11 years ago

You can tell truth by looking at the tactics.

The global warming proponents changed the name of the movement to "Climate Change" because, as the earth got cooler despite rising CO2 levels after the end of the recent solar maxima, it was undeniable that the plant wasn't warming. But you can't deny the climate is changing!

In fact, look at their use of the word "denier". Calling your opponents names-- and all the other demonization tactics you see in this thread-- tells you that they know their position is completely political and not scientific.

If the science was on their side, they wouldn't need to call people names (And censor those who disagree, which on this site means down voting into invisibility.)

Notice how this article barely made the front page, while the most spurious pro-global warming article makes it to the top 10. (not to mention anything about Basic Income or other pro-marxist propaganda.)

tim3332• 11 years ago

You can tell truth by looking at the tactics.

You can't really in this case. Both sides have iffy tactics. You really need to look at the scientific evidence.

Daishiman8• 11 years ago

Yes, the stuff that doesn't fit your political agenda and with which most people disagree with is purposely hidden because of some conspiracy.

Or you should consider your position to be blidingly, obviously wrong in the face or evidence.

isho• 11 years ago

Recognizing BS from truth has always been difficult. The only way I know of is to take the time to think for your self and come up with your own opinions, get information from different sources and contemplate the arguments from both sides before forming your own opinions.

Personally the article seems like a bunch of BS to me. The author is basically saying that climate scientists are wrong because they have been corrupted by the multi-billion dollar green industry. With out providing any evidence of corruption or any new scientific evidence against global warming. The author then adds a whole bunch of other distracting bits of information that don't really support his core thesis. For example specific climate change research that turned out to be flawed doesn't really make a difference since there's already a huge body of evidence stretching back over half a century. It's basically just a straw man argument.

mikeash3• 11 years ago

This article follows a common tactic of focusing on nutcases on the extremist fringe of global warming "believers," and attempting to use false equivalence to make climate change deniers look reasonable by comparison.

Of course there are nutcases on the "believers" side just as there are on the "deniers" side. The difference is that the nutcases on the "deniers" side are actually mainstream in the political world. On the "believers" side, the fringe is ignored or tolerated, while the mainstream talk is measured and based on fact. On the "deniers" side there's nothing but fringe.

MCRed12• 11 years ago

First it was called "Global Warming", then when the planet cooled after the end of the local solar cycle they started calling it "Climate Change" -- because you can't deny the climate changes. And anyone who disagrees with AGW is labeled a "denier".

I think that even AGW proponents know the science is not on their side-- they just don't care, because they want more government power over the economy.

Demonizing a substance created by your very breath easily leads to pretty much the ultimate in tyrannical power.

jacobolus2• 11 years ago

That’s a load of crap.

International organizations call it “climate change” because the effects are much broader than increased temperature, but also include changes to air and ocean currents, precipitation levels, sea level rise, and a rise in average global temperatures isn’t uniform over the globe.

The term “climate change” has been in use by scientists since the 50s, and the term “global warming” was introduced in Broeker’s 1975 paper “Climatic Change: Are We on the Brink of a Pronounced Global Warming?” http://blogs.ei.columbia.edu/files/2009/10/broeckerglobalwar...

Both terms have been in wide use since that time. No one has abandoned the term “global warming”, which is still an apt description of the fundamental change.

MCRed12• 11 years ago

Sigh. Yeah, sure. You want to do an analysis of newspaper headlines over the past 30 years? You think they will agree with you? Cause I know they won't.

Also, calling people denier is proof positive of my point. The down vote brigades are just icing on the cake.

You guys don't care about science, you reject the scientific method completely, and you rely on propaganda, demonization and silencing your critics.

If the science was on your side, why the need for such dishonesty?

kansface• 11 years ago

AGW is labeled a "denier".

And rightly so, when the overwhelmingly vast consensus, among scientists, is that the thing exists.

I think that even AGW proponents know the science is not on their side

Outlandish claims require proof.

they just don't care, because they want more government power over the economy.

as do global conspiracy theories involving the implicit cooperation of the entire scientific community and multiple governments.

Demonizing a substance created by your very breath

This is not relevant to the discussion, at all.

ocschwar6• 11 years ago

"I think that even AGW proponents know the science is not on their side-"

Of the scientists who discovered the AGW problem, a substantial portion was made up of right wingers:

John Tyndall: British Tory. Svante Arrhenius: Swedish aristocrat and pro-marketeer. Charles Keeling: staunch Republican.

Those are the big names.

The Climate Wars’ Damage to Science

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