Climate science deniers take a dim view of reading science and heeding experts

The other day (was it only yesterday) Anthony Watts predicted that newly-appointed Jim Bridenstine would soon lose his job as head of NASA (pictured right).

Anthony was relying on an article by James Delingpole on a competitor site of WUWT, Breitbart. James wrote scoffingly, quoting Mr Bridenstine:

“I read a lot”?
What was Bridenstine thinking?

What indeed - reading for heaven's sake. Who in their right mind would read? Not James Delingpole, that's for sure.

Are Anthony Watts and James Delingpole claiming to be part of an "organised campaign funding misinformation"?

See Update and Update 2 below - WUWT is organising a barrage of mail for RIT.

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Anthony Watts is beginning to make a habit of reposting nonsense written by James Delingpole. Maybe he's feeling sorry for him after he got the boot from his blog on the UK Telegraph.  He's living up to his reputation as a fake sceptic.  Anthony reposted some Delingpole nonsense, apparently without reading the article James was ranting about.

First the article.  It's a piece in The Conversation by Lawrence Torcello who is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Rochester Institute of Technology in New York.  His research interests include ethics and denial of climate science. In his article he writes (my bold italics and underline):

The importance of clearly communicating science to the public should not be underestimated. Accurately understanding our natural environment and sharing that information can be a matter of life or death. When it comes to global warming, much of the public remains in denial about a set of facts that the majority of scientists clearly agree on. With such high stakes, an organised campaign funding misinformation ought to be considered criminally negligent.

Which organised misinformation campaign is Anthony Watts a party to?

There are numerous organised (some more some less organised) climate misinformation campaigns as discussed in Naomi Oreskes' book Merchants of Doubt. Which one is Anthony a party to?  The reason I ask is that in response to the article in The Conversation, Anthony Watts wrote an article under a headline (archived here):

Despicable climate ugliness courtesy of Lawrence Torcello – assistant professor of philosophy at Rochester Institute of Technology

He obviously doesn't like the suggestion that an organised campaign funding misinformation should be regarded as criminally negligent.  I also fail to see what is "despicable" about the suggestion that it should be so regarded.  Especially as the article makes it quite clear that Lawrence Torcello is talking about an organised campaign that is knowingly funding misinformation.

Is James admitting that he's funded by part of "an organised campaign".  Is Anthony Watts admitting the same.  If not, why would they protest such a suggestion?

Anthony writes:

Via Delingpole at Breitbart:

Scientists who don’t believe in catastrophic man-made global warming should be put in prison, a US philosophy professor argues on a website funded by the UK government.

Now that there is "misinformation" if ever there was misinformation.  It doesn't resemble what Lawrence Torcello wrote even if you were to stretch your imagination as far as it could go.  Let's see how many things are wrong with it:

1. Lawrence Torcello isn't just talking about scientists spreading misinformation (ie scientists acting alone), he's talking about "organised campaigns" - whoever is running them, whether it involve scientists like Fred Singer or political lobby groups like CFACT or denier blogs like Climate Depot.
2. Lawrence Torcello isn't talking about what people "believe", he's talking about organised misinformation campaigns.  Organised campaigns to fund misinformation - the desired result of which is to shape people's "belief" to something false.
3. It is misleading to describe The Conversation as being "funded by the UK government".  The Conversation was started in Australia.  (Lawrence Torcello's article appears on the Australian edition, too so I don't know which office produced it.) The UK edition is funded by all these organisations.  If you track back you'll find UK taxpayer dollars and UK government funding, but it was mainly set up by universities, which are independent of the government of the day.  Not only that, but for people who bemoan at every chance they get, the idea that free speech might be curtailed, it should be irrelevant who is "funding" a website.

Anyway, the article raises some points that have been raised by others before.  At one point he refers to the L'Aquila earthquake and the sentences handed out to six scientists and the defence Minister.  He writes:

The ruling is popularly thought to have convicted scientists for failing to predict an earthquake. On the contrary, as risk assessment expert David Ropeik pointed out, the trial was actually about the failure of scientists to clearly communicate risks to the public. The convicted parties were accused of providing “inexact, incomplete and contradictory information”. As one citizen stated:

We all know that the earthquake could not be predicted, and that evacuation was not an option. All we wanted was clearer information on risks in order to make our choices.

Crucially, the scientists, when consulted about ongoing tremors in the region, did not conclude that a devastating earthquake was impossible in L’Aquila. But, when the Defence Minister held a press conference saying there was no danger, they made no attempt to correct him. I don’t believe poor scientific communication should be criminalised because doing so will likely discourage scientists from engaging with the public at all.

But the tragedy in L’Aquila reminds us how important clear scientific communication is and how much is at stake regarding the public’s understanding of science. I have argued elsewhere that scientists have an ethical obligation to communicate their findings as clearly as possible to the public when such findings are relevant to public policy. Likewise, I believe that scientists have the corollary obligation to correct public misinformation as visibly and unequivocally as possible.

I won't bother with the WUWT comments.  Like Anthony Watts, most of the people making comments don't seem to have read the article in question and are just using Anthony's blog post as an excuse to bash their keyboard.

Update

Now Christopher Monckton of Brenchley has put up his hand to be added to those who misinform (archived here, latest update here).  Is he part of an "organised campaign to fund misinformation" too, one wonders?  If so, he's not the most credible poster boy.  More of a potty peer.  Poor old Christopher confuses freedom of speech with freedom to tell lies.  And he confuses academic freedom with freedom to make up stuff.  He's just an utter nutter.

PS Christopher seems to be organising a hate mail campaign to the Rochester Institute of Technology in New York.  One thing though - Christopher got a bit confused and placed RIT in New York, New York instead of Rochester New York.  It looks to me that Christopher's letter, indeed the entire thread (archived here), would make a fairly easy lesson in Professor Torcello's Critical Thinking classes (see Update 2 below).

And I wonder if Christopher would finally meet his match if he ever tried to debate Lawrence Torcello?

Update 2

By all accounts, Lawrence Torcello isn't just any philosopher, he's highly regarded by his students as a terrific teacher, respectful, prepared to deal with difficult topics, easy on the eye, awesome - and "hot".  Perhaps James Delingpole, Anthony Watts and Christopher Monckton could learn some critical thinking if they took his classes.

NASA has-beens seek "an orderly market-driven transition from fossil fuels to alternatives"

A small bunch NASA has-beens who call themselves "the right climate stuff" want us to "keep on burning" till we're toast.  Well, not quite, as it turns out.  Read on...

Burning all the carbon dioxide!

Here is some of what they say, according to Anthony Watts at WUWT (archived here) who copied and pasted it from James Delingpole, interpreter of interpretations from the denialati:

Even if we burn all the world’s recoverable fossil fuels it will still only result in a temperature rise of less than 1.2 per cent.

Given that deniers like to work in kelvin, I expect they are arguing that global surface temperatures will rise by  3.5K or 3.5 degrees Celsius.  On the other hand, they might be working with the Celsius scale and arguing surface temperatures will rise by 0.18 degrees, which would be odd, given that the temperature is now 0.8 degrees higher than it was a century or so ago.

The wrong interpretation - again, and again

James Delingpole, interpreter of interpretations, gave the wrong interpretation, further down he wrote:

Using calculations by George Stegemeier of the National Academy of Engineering, they estimated the total quantity of recoverable oil, gas and coal on the planet. They then used 163 years of real world temperature data to calculate Transient Climate Sensitivity (ie how much the world will warm as a result of the burning of all the carbon dioxide in the fossil fuel). The figure they came up with 1.2 degrees C which is considerably lower than the wilder claims of the IPCC, whose reports have suggested it could be as high as 4 degrees C or more.

So, is it 1.2% or 1.2 degrees?  And what's that about "burning ... carbon dioxide in the fossil fuel"?  In any case, when you read what the NASA hasbeens write, it's not 1.2 degrees C all up.  What they are arguing is that there will be an additional 1.2 degrees Celsius - which is a rise of 2 degrees Celsius overall.  And that's just in the short term.

Wrong again!

The NASA has-beens are headed by a chap named Harold Doiron.  According to Anthony / James:

Doiron was one of 40 ex NASA employees – including seven astronauts – who wrote in April 2012 to NASA administrator Charles Bolden protesting about the organization’s promotion of climate change alarmism, notably via its resident environmental activist James Hansen.

James Delingpole and Anthony Watts can't even get that right - the April 2012 letter was signed by 49 people, only three of whom didn't list themselves as being "ex-NASA" employees, making it 46 not 40 ex NASA employees.  And the list contained signatories from eight astronauts, not seven.

The fact that they probably tried but couldn't make 50 signatories - out of all the tens of thousands of ex-NASA employees, says a lot.  It wouldn't come close to the 8% mark, which is roughly the proportion of "dismissives" in the general population.  Heck, it's only 0.275% of the current NASA workforce!

Models predicted 2160 kelvin in 35 years time? I don't think so...

Moving away from James' wrong interpretations, here is some of what the NASA has-beens themselves said. In their top twenty list, these NASA has-beens searching for a new mission go on about CO2 is plant food and other denier memes.  At one point they said:

After a 35 year simulation the models over-predicted actual measured temperatures by factors of 200% to 750%. 

Over-predicted actual measured temperatures by a factor of 750%?  Hmmm.  Again, using the scale preferred by deniers, this would mean that the models predicted a temperature for earth of 2160 kelvin in 35 years.  I don't think so.

How about using the Celsius scale - a prediction of around 112 degrees Celsius in 35 years? - again, I don't think so.

Perhaps they meant to write "actual measured temperature anomaly" but they didn't specify a baseline.  Let's say instead of predicting a one degree rise, they predicted a 7.5 degree rise in 35 years time?  Again, I don't think so.

Maybe they were just talking about the rise over 35 years.  So, say, a 2.25 degrees rise over 35 years instead of 0.3 degrees? Or 3 degrees instead of 0.4 degrees? Again, I don't think so.

In any case, how do these NASA ex-whatevers know that the models have over-predicted anything?  35 years from the report is still around 34 years from now.

An orderly market-driven transition from fossil fuels

The NASA has-beens are promoting "an orderly market-driven transition from fossil fuels" - whatever they mean by that, writing:

12. A market-driven transition from fossil fuels to alternative fuels must begin by 2055 just to meet energy demand as dwindling reserves of economically recoverable fossil fuels drive up their costs. (Feb 2014)
13. Assuming an orderly market driven transition from fossil fuels to alternatives that do not emit CO2, atmospheric CO2 will remain below 600 ppm. (Feb 2014)
14. The maximum CO2 level of 600 ppm is expected to occur after 2100, probably about 2130, and will begin to decline thereafter. (Feb 2014)

But they seem to be happy enough for more than double CO2, which is extremely dangerous.  These ex NASA has-beens don't think so.  They reckon that the transient climate sensitivity is 1.6 degrees, which is in the ballpark of the IPCC estimate. The IPCC AR5 WG1 report states:

With high confidence the transient climate response (TCR) is positive, likely in the range 1°C to 2.5ºC and extremely unlikely greater than 3°C, based on observed climate change and climate models (see TFE.6 for further details).

They go on to talk about transient climate response and argue that we shouldn't worry about anything after that.  Let their children's children put up with our legacy and like it or not survive it (or both).

From the WUWT comments

As usual, some of the WUWT crowd didn't bother reading the article, they just used it as an opportunity to write crass comments.  The ones who did were not all that happy with the NASA has-beens.


Fabi says:

March 8, 2014 at 3:49 pm
Glad to see their response, although I hate to see them adopt the language of the cAGW crowd, especially terms such as the Social Cost of Carbon.

Damian is a bit upset that the ex-NASA mob didn't provide any facts or accompanying data (did I get that right?) and says:

March 8, 2014 at 3:52 pm
WOW. Reality + common sense. These guys should expect the vitriol and personal attacks to begin any minute now. And as always it will happen without any facts or accompanying data.

Aphan says:

March 8, 2014 at 3:57 pm
They are using the EPA and DOE’s terminology.

Speed, like me, doesn't know what they are basing their percentages on and says:

March 8, 2014 at 4:00 pm
… a temperature rise of less than 1.2 per cent.
What’s that in degrees?

NZ Willy can't have ever seen a scientific paper because he says:

March 8, 2014 at 4:03 pm
I like this very much, but can they, or will they, submit to a peer journal?

They just did - it's called WUWT!



garymount noticed the bit about burning carbon dioxide and says:

March 8, 2014 at 4:13 pm
The article mistakenly says the burning of carbon dioxide.

That's what you get when you rely on an interpreter of interpretations for your "science".


garymount and I got the same answer to the 1.2% and says:

March 8, 2014 at 4:31 pm
1.2 percent would be about 3.5 C (or K). Remember, temperatures start at 0K not 0C, or 0F.

Taxpayer-funded fake sceptics - public confession time

Seems that not only will Australian taxpayers be forking out for adaptation and recuperation instead of mitigation, now we're paying science deniers.  The Institute for Public Affairs - arguably Australia's number one climate science denial machine, gets subsidised by taxpayers in all sorts of ways.

It's used the taxpayer-funded ABC as its own personal free publisher and public relations organisation.  It gets a free pass on paying taxes.  And anyone who sends it money gets a tax deduction for doing so.

This, mind you, is a right wing lobby group that rants and raves about government overspending, government subsidies and urges small government.  You'd think the last thing it would be doing is wasting our hard earned tax dollars.  But no.  Apparently it's a matter of "do what we say not what we do".  They survive with the help of taxpayer's contributions and tax breaks.

Now it's got a new scam going.  On the back of a who's who of science denying shysters, the IPC is threatening offering to publish for all the world to see, the names of anyone dumb enough to send them $400 or more to chop down trees to make door stops - or loo paper if you're extra tough.

It looks as if they can't get a publisher to pay for their trashy book so they have to resort to panhandling. You can read all about it here at Renew Economy.

I can't wait to see who are the most disreputable among the Establishment, who are willing to tattoo their names on the backside of such disreputable ratbags as Andrew Bolt, James Delingpole, Donna Laframboise, Mark Steyn,  Nigel Lawson. "Jo Nova", Jennifer Marohasy, Richard Lindzen, Anthony Watts, Ian Plimer, Bob Carter and other climate science deniers from Australia and around the world.