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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Wharf Rat who wrote (187773)	5/31/2006 5:11:28 AM
From: Wharf Rat	Respond to of 281500

It is true that, as evidence that global warming is underway in accord with basic physics, the hockey stick is just one item of evidence among many, and not even the most important one. However, there is a legitimate reason for putting so much energy into defending it. The "hockey stick" is an excellent educational tool. Much of the evidence and theory is complex and hard to explain. We are short on scientifically respectable arguments that can be immediately grasped by the public. I know from my own use of Mann et al when it first came out that it was a very good aid to public education about the nature of the problem. This is what it means to be an "icon." The downside of an icon is that if it turns out to be wrong, or vulnerable, then skeptics can just try to pull down your icon and imply that everything else comes down with it. The Kilimanjaro glacier is also an icon of sorts, and Crichton's disinformation on tropical mountain glaciers has similarly started working its way into the press. (Note in passing: Skeptics have their icon's too. Remember the satellite data that was supposed to show there was no warming? Why is it that there was not as much press attention paid to how wrong skeptics were about this? It's as if they're coated with teflon; they look bad to us, but I don't think they look as bad as they ought to to other folks.) Comment by Raymond T. Pierrehumbert — 1 Mar 2005 @ 6:32 pm Raymond Pierrehumbert has provided some crucial information. I wondered why the "hockey stick" was being singled out, and his comment explains alot. This removes much of the uncertainty about the attacks on the hockey stick. The attacks are political hits on the science. This is like the "swift boat veterans" ads from the right and "Fahrenheit 9/11" from the left in the past presidential election. All three played with the facts to score political points. There is a current struggle for the support of the U.S. public. Simply put, if there is a great deal of public support climate change laws will be made. Those who oppose climate change regulation want to win the public relations game because without public support no climate change laws will be made. The first step, but definitely not the only step, is to go after the science. Ideally bring down the science that is seen as the strongest science by the general public. As Raymond Pierrehumbert very aptly notes if you can take down the public icons you can cast doubt on all the science. If the public does not support the science they will not support the enactment of climate change regulation, and the climate change opponents will achieve their goal. I think that "MM" are Canadians is also very important. They can be seen as outsiders and so not connected to the political debate in the U.S.. "MM" might not be seen as biased so will be seen as more believable by the U.S. public. Also since they are not scientists they are more likely to go to extremes that most scientists would not go. The climate change science opponents take very deliberate and calculated steps. Things that seem like convenient coincidences probably are not and are more likely to have been planned out. I must admit, as much as I dislike their tactics, that the climate change opponents are very, very good at what they do in a very machiavellian way. Raymond Pierrehumbert, you are thinking like a lawyer. This can be fairly easy to do. Just think, "If I wanted to stick it to someone what should I do?" Morals and ethics can be ignored for the purpose of this question. Comment by Joseph O’Sullivan — 2 Mar 2005 @ 9:29 am Re #24. I agree that upon analysis it seems that M&M are operating in a Machiavellian way to score political points. But on the surface, they seem to truly believe that they are honest people trying to have a positive influence on climate science and public policy. I suspect that this has much more to do with complex psychology rather than deliberate deceit. Many people will jump through pyschological hoops rather than admit to themselves and others that their views on a particular matter might be incorrect. Political and philosophical worldviews will often cause people to selectively retain only certain facts, while discarding or overlooking ones that conflict with their worldview. This is often an unconscious process rather than deliberately planned. Now consider this: to deal with greenhouse gas emissions, international agreements and national government policies and regulations are being proposed and enacted(at least in Europe and Canada). Some people automatically find such an approach repugnant, because they believe that centralized 'bureaucrats' are interfering with free market principles. This tends to colour their thinking and attitude towards the problem, including the scientific aspects. To give an example, a political science professor that I've communicated with believes that a good analogy for climate science and the 'Kyoto clique' is what happened in totalitarian communist Russia when they accepted the theory of 'Lysenkoism'. Lysenkoism was a pseudo-Lamarckian biological theory that meshed with socialist philosophy, and was accepted as scientific truth for many years in Russia, but actually was total nonsense. So by analogy he implies that scientists working within the 'global warming establishment' are not really scientists, but actually are subversive manipulators and twisters of truth who hate capitalism!!(reminds me a bit of Chrichton's book) There seemed to be no reasoning with him to change this view-it is so entrenched psychologically that he will do anything to convince himself that global warming is a non-science. I'd also like to comment on the idea that that M&M being Canadian may have been designed purposefully to influence US policy. I find this is a bit of a speculative conspiracy theory. I think M&M are primarily concerned with the billions of dollars being spent by the Canadian federal government to meet Kyoto commitments, and that they truly have convinced themselves that this is a waste of taxpayer dollars (including their own). They have tried to loudly voice these concerns in forums such as 'The National Post', to try to spread the word among the Canadian public and scare policymakers away from the issue.(incidentally, much money was allocated towards a Kyoto strategy in the recent federal budget, but of course, it remains to be seen whether the strategy will work). I think it might help to understand these psychological aspects of loud skeptics a bit more, rather than assume that they are simply the mouthpiece of "special interests". Comment by George Roman — 2 Mar 2005 @ 6:09 pm Sorry that this thread is getting a bit political, but .... Thank you George (posting 25) -- this is considerably more insightful than the old chestnut "all the contrarians are in the pay of the fossil fuel industry". Your view coincides well with the impression I have gained from communicating with the contrarians over the past few years. A somewhat hyperbolical summary is that they are "mad not bad". Which doesn't mean to say that companies and organisations with something to gain from ignoring the "global warming story" do not make very good use of the resultant contrarian information! Comment by John Hunter — 3 Mar 2005 @ 12:44 am I thank George Roman and John Hunter for their comments. Some constructive criticism is a good thing. When I try to keep my comments brief sometimes the message does not come out the way I intended. My comment was not about M&M as individuals but really about how the hockey stick controversy and M&M's arguments fit into the bigger picture of the climate change debate. M&M could definitely be acting on their own beliefs and were not originally connected to anyone else in the climate change debate. In the U.S. there is an organized public relations campaign to dispute climate change science. What is notable about it is the sophistication and the negative tactics used. This can explain why the contrarians seem to be "coated with teflon" as Raymond Pierrehumbert notes. Maybe I will make another comment on that later. My earlier comment (#24) was really about this public relations campaign generally. When I said that the opponents of climate change science were very good but very machiavellian I meant the people involved in the public relations campaign, and not M&M specifically. I have commented against the negative tactics many times. I think Raymond Pierrehumbert very lucidly explains why the hockey stick is being singled out. The way I brought up the fact that M&M are Canadian is conspiracy theory-ish. I will try again. I think it was possibly a political rhetoric tactic. Why the climate change contrarians in the U.S. latched onto M&M could be related to the fact that since M&M are not from the U.S. they could be perceived by the U.S. public as disinterested third parties and not politically partisan. It would be like getting a second opinion from a neutral observer. The goal is to be seen by the general public as unbiased and therefore more credible and more likely to be believed. M&M are now involved in the U.S. climate change debate. They testified to the U.S. Congress after being invited by the very influential Senator Inhofe. The prestigious and widely read Wall Street Journal reported on their work and printed editorials favorable to them. The issue of M&M not being scientists is something else I would like to address. In a purely scientific debate the question generally is if a study is valid. M&M's (as an economist and mining executive) concerns are more politically, philosophically and economically motivated. They are more concerned with the economic and other effects of policy based on the science. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but it does influence the types of arguments used. M&M's criticisms of the hockey stick are not very scientifically rigorous and sometimes venture into personal criticism. This is more of a legal type of argument that would be more common in the business world. Legal arguments are more about disparaging someone or something while scientific arguments focus on disproving an idea. On a lighthearted note, maybe we should understand the psychological aspects of each other a bit more. We could have a more sensitive debate about climate change science. Maybe M&M and Dr Mann should get together and openly and honestly discuss their feelings and emotions. Comment by Joseph O’Sullivan — 3 Mar 2005 @ 10:09 am realclimate.org

To: Wharf Rat who wrote (187773)	5/31/2006 9:59:33 AM
From: Hawkmoon	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

So you can keep saying "what about", and "what if", and "why not", but the data is already there. You're just stalling. What's your agenda? My "agenda" is to avoid this "Luddism" that seems to permeate the enviromental community. My "agenda" is NOT TO WAIT until we're able to alter the attitudes of BILLIONS OF PEOPLE, especially those living in developing countries and aren't particular "eco-savvy", nor concerned with CO2 levels. My "agenda" is to explore the possibility of enhancing NATURE'S NATURAL CO2 ABSORBTION PROCESSES to mitigate the damage THAT HAS ALREADY OCCURRED. My "agenda" is to remove the "fear factor" and replace it with proactive programs aimed at restoring the ocean's capabilities to deal with excess CO2. Is that so bad?? Hawk