We are all aware of a claimed consensus on climate science, although what the consensus actually is and how far it goes has yet to be defined, in my view. That is not the issue raised here. A book authored by Janis, I. L. & Mann, L. (1977) Decision-making: A psychological analysis of conflict, choice, and commitment (New York Free Press), explores the concept of ‘Group Think,’ which shows a remarkable parallel with the way the climate science consensus is operated and protected.
Eight symptoms of Group Think are listed below:
1. Illusion of Invulnerability: Members ignore obvious danger, take extreme risk, and are overly optimistic.
2. Collective Rationalization: Members discredit and explain away warning contrary to group thinking.
3. Illusion of Morality: Members believe their decisions are morally correct, ignoring the ethical consequences of their decisions.
4. Excessive Stereotyping: The group constructs negative stereotypes of rivals outside the group.
5. Pressure for Conformity: Members pressure any in the group who express arguments against the group’s stereotypes, illusions, or commitments, viewing such opposition as disloyalty.
6. Self-Censorship: Members withhold their dissenting views and counter-arguments.
7. Illusion of Unanimity: Members perceive falsely that everyone agrees with the group’s decision; silence is seen as consent.
8. Mind guards: Some members appoint themselves to the role of protecting the group from adverse information that might threaten group complacency.
I can certainly see how ignoring the dangers of concentrating all of our efforts on futile CO2 reduction, ad hominem attacks, personal smears, US State Climatologists losing their jobs, and the likes of RealClimate plus some media outlets as ‘Mind guards’ fits into this framework. No doubt some blog readers will agree and can think of other examples. Others, of course, will disagree.
Thanks to John McLean for alerting me to the concept of ‘Group Think.’
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
Sums up deniers quite nicely.
cool comment , SJT. My guess is most science communicators had heard and even observed the at least 30 year old term ‘Group Think’, but Paul has now learnt that it is a two edged sword. Actually when I re read the criteria , it looks a bit why the Poms done the Wallabies. So group think/peer review aint perfect, but it sure beats having sceptical control freaks and other self serving traducers running the shop. The point is Paul, even those forced to attend even half day management workshops have learnt about group think, so would not that neutralise it a wee bit, or of course you could try exploit it.
That must come under number 4.
Sums it up completely.
The attack dog commentary by the faithful in particular.
SJT nailed it in one.
It’s very amusing that John of all people would write this. Examine his response to the CSIRO report – so emotional. This is not how you write science. So much of the contrarian stuff is full of this sort of gunk. Any serious science editor would red ink all of that. If you’re going to write science – strip all the emotion out of it. But so many of these documents aren’t about science – they’re about science politics.
So sceptics have been poorly served by pseudo sceptics. Pseudo – sceptics diverted excessively on what Al Gore thinks instead of getting on with it.
And do we see pseudo-sceptics critiquing their colleagues work with rigor. Nope – it’s any old iron – any bilge will do.
As the NZ Coolition says – we just publish this stuff – it’s caevat emptor on you guys to sort wheat from chaff. How slack is that?
All concern and no care.
And so all this leads to trash journals like E&E publishing utter junk like the Archibald paper. Doesn’t fool anyone except the gullible.
So the 8 points above are quite good. Pseudo-sceptics and denialists should take heed !
John didn’t write it – I did – he found the ‘Group Think.’
Number 4 again Luke for the consensus.
What was the CSIRO report? – alarmist garbage. Non-peer reviewed alarmist garbage.
There is also the possiblity that ‘opinion’ ‘cascades’ to a mistaken consensus:
“We like to think that people improve their judgment by putting their minds together, and sometimes they do. The studio audience at “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire” usually votes for the right answer. But suppose, instead of the audience members voting silently in unison, they voted out loud one after another. And suppose the first person gets it wrong.
If the second person isn’t sure of the answer, he’s liable to go along with the first person’s guess. By then, even if the third person suspects another answer is right, she’s more liable to go along just because she assumes the first two together know more than she does. Thus begins an “informational cascade” as one person after another assumes that the rest can’t all be wrong.
Because of this effect, groups are surprisingly prone to reach mistaken conclusions even when most of the people started out knowing better, according to the economists Sushil Bikhchandani, David Hirshleifer and Ivo Welch. If, say, 60 percent of a group’s members have been given information pointing them to the right answer (while the rest have information pointing to the wrong answer), there is still about a one-in-three chance that the group will cascade to a mistaken consensus.”
from John Tierney, October 9, 2007
Diet and Fat: A Severe Case of Mistaken Consensus
The New York Times
I thought the group think piece rang painfully true. I am sure there are group thinkers on both sides of this issue. Though why there would be group think on the sceptics side is a little hard to see. It is never fun to be alone on the school yard and be teased.
I can see there might be incentives to be a group thinker from the Green House Gas point of view.
We have all observed it’s easy to be a group thinker if there is money involved. There is unquestionably money involved at the UN. Between salaries, pensions, boarding school fees, travel and per diem, and other perks there are significant money incentives. For the scientist the climate research budgets have been enormous since 1988. For bureaucratic institutions its been a wonderful period of meetings, policy formulation, travel, and conferences. It would be naive to assume that group think would not become a real possibility if there was a smidgin of a chance that questioning the paradigm would endanger all that funding.
Secondly I have observed that there are many people who honestly believe that this issue is so important that they can justifiably attack individuals who are genuinely trying to participate in the scientific process.
I have also observed a number of people in the field really appreciate the publicity attached with making statements forecasting catastrophic climate change.
When I have asked my colleagues why they believe climate change they often say:
“Because there is a consensus.” I rarely get detailed technical reasons why they believe it.
I guess my take on this is if the next ten years are colder due to reduced solar activity or some other factor the paradigm will be severely challenged.
For the current leadership it won’t matter as they are on the verge of retirement. It will be a sad thing for the younger generation of scientists and environmentalists who have committed themselves to this idea as their funding and kudos become curtailed.
What do the psychologists say about group think behavior in that period just before a paradigm falls?
Michael Talbot, in his book The Holographic Universe, related a pyschology experiment in which individuals were asked a question alone, say such that the correct answer is “A” and the same question when in a group.
The group believed “B”, the wrong answer, was the correct one but strangely when the previous individuals who, when alone reported “A”, atended to report “B” when in the group.
From what I recall of the narrative, this was an unconscious reaction by the individuals suggesting that group pressure, or peer pressure, may well have a biological basis, rather than intellectual.
A similar behavioural response could be seen at any mass assembly of humans – whether a Billy Graham Concert, or the National Sociliast rallys at Nuremburg in Germany during the 1930’s. Football matches also are an example of the madness of crowds.
Hence the list of features associated with a consensus approach, essentially the Socratic Method, is not too dissimilar to Irving Langmuir’s catalog of features diagnostic of Pathological Science.
Group think may actually be an involuntary particiapation by many so caught up in this mode of thining, especially those who have never received training in the scientific method.
It is the principal reason (if I were a BBC journalist I would write “principle”) I don’t argue to long with global warmers – it’s really little different to trying to stop a spooked herd of Wildebeest. In the case here is is the invention of imaginary planetary emergency that is being used to spook the mass of humanity while at the same time enriching it’s prophets.
And it happens often during human history.
Strange that, I wonder if there is an underlying reason for it.
Careful Paul – you’re now accusing our national science agency of non-peer review. Do you know that for a fact yes or no. Come on – put up !
On what basis do you claim it’s garbage – that you don’t like it. Where’s you non-emotional critique that says so. Have you spoken to them about their work. Of course not.
Pathetic.
And golly NASA, NOAA, Hadley, ECMWF all putting out “garbage”. A massive interlinked global conspiracy. Wow ! Some many agencies and they’re all corrupt eh?
Now to me that sounds tad “shrill” and “emotional”. Which is why they don’t even give you guys the time of day.
Jennifer – “Because of this effect, groups are surprisingly prone to reach mistaken conclusions even when most of the people started out knowing better, according to the economists Sushil Bikhchandani, David Hirshleifer and Ivo Welch.”
Which can equally be said of the denialist group. At least AGW proponents have a measure of scientific evidence on their side.
Almost the entire case for the AGW skeptics consists of pointing out ‘errors’ in the case for AGW. There is almost no actual new scientific evidence or work that contradicts current AGW.
And yet again we only point out issues such as conflicts of interest from some of the leading skeptics because they are documented and true.
Louis – “In the case here is is the invention of imaginary planetary emergency that is being used to spook the mass of humanity while at the same time enriching it’s prophets.”
Can you prove scientifically that it is imaginary???
What about the largely imaginary global war on terror that has killed about as many people worldwide as bee stings. Who has benefited from it I wonder? Halliburton seem to be doing quite well as does Blackwater, KBH etc. Terrorism existed a long time before 9/11 and yet we are led to believe that now it is all new and we have to sacrifice all sorts of our freedoms to combat the GWOT.
Perhaps the imaginary planetary emergency is not AGW. Bit of a pity if AGW turns out to be correct after all.
Well, if AGW and its alleged disaster is an “emergency”, then someone has to explain why the ipcc Kyoto Protocols exclude countries containing 5 billion of the Earth’s 6.5 billion people from having to conform to them. [I added them up.]
Peden, it’s explained in the Kyoto Proposals.
Kyoto was seen as a two step implementation. The rich western nations would develop a functioning model for controlling CO2 production. The second Kyoto round, (due in 2012, IIRC), would then present this working model to the rest of the world, including countries who could not as easily afford the development costs.
That was the idea, anyway.
For some reason a conspiracy theory of lunatic proportions has developed around Kytoto. 🙁
SJT:
Then the AGW hypotheses, including disaster, is not an “emergency”, right?
Do you really think China, for example, is going to accede to the Protocols – which, btw, don’t even work in Europe to lower CO2 production?
Moreover, China doesn’t believe that it would be more of a disaster to itself to produce more CO2 in order to develop than it would be to not develop. China is going full bore concerning construction of coal-fired electrictiy plants = one/five days.
I’ll give you a little clue: the ipcc process is simply not scientific. It’s all about propaganda, that is, group think.
But, continue.
Luke says “Careful Paul – you’re now accusing our national science agency of non-peer review. Do you know that for a fact yes or no. Come on – put up !”
There is no evidence in the CSIRO climate report to indicate that any kind of review was undertaken . There is plenty of evidence that the authors cited their own works and many of the cited material does not appear to be subject to peer review (if that is worth much these days!) In these circumstances any wise person should view the report with some scepticism, just as they would view potentially biased material from others.
Luke then says “On what basis do you claim it’s garbage – that you don’t like it. Where’s you non-emotional critique that says so. Have you spoken to them about their work. Of course not.”
The absence of evidence in the report is a very good reason to be sceptical and dismissive.
Then Luke says “And golly NASA, NOAA, Hadley, ECMWF all putting out ‘garbage’. A massive interlinked global conspiracy. Wow ! Some many agencies and they’re all corrupt eh?”
Of course he massively overstates an argument in order to ridicule it. Not a “groupthink” matter but a sign of an inability to debate on facts and evidence. He is blind, accidentally or selectively, to notion that bad data might lead these organisations astray in their thinking.
“…Now to me that sounds tad “shrill’ and ’emotional’. Which is why they don’t even give you guys the time of day.”
This closing comment of his is an interesting response given his collection of subjective outpourings against evidence-based statements.
Ender,
The observed empirical facts support my position. Yours by computer modelling predictions based on the unproven assumption of climate sensitivity.
Mine is based on empirical science, and just because most of your side assert it is science,that does not make it so.
And I see you are in the thrall of the military industrial complex syndrome – goodness you lefties really have vivid imaginations. Standard lefty technique of deflecting the argument by raising the red herring.
Obviously you are not like Lord Keynes who, when confronted with a change in facts, changed his mind. Religious minds are incapable of change.
I still haven’t worked it out…Could all the wack jobs on this site please answer the following – explaining all answers.
Do you think CO2 causes warming?
Do you think warming, natural or human caused is an issue?
At what point would warming of the planet become an issue (if at all)?
2 ,3 & 4 are certainly traits consistently utilised here by the AGW consensus lot.
Another very interesting essay on this –
“Learning from the Behavior of Others: Conformity, Fads, and Informational Cascades”
by Sushil Bikhchandani, David Hirshleifer, Ivo Welch in The Journal of Economic Perspectives, Vol. 12, No. 3 is unfortunately only available by subscription.
It refers to “herding” behaviour and notes that humans are predisposed to imitate or gravitate towards fashionable fads.
As dangerous AGW is now the dominant scientific and political establishment position, it’s more important than ever that alternative views/theories are heard though the exact opposite seems to be the case unfortunately.
Paul, excellent on the pickup of group think. When I blogged about groupthink in November of last year (http://gmroper.mu.nu/group_think_-_the_democrats_and_their_allies) I referenced Democrats and to a lesser extent Republicans. I didn’t think of tying it to the GW crowd. Again, great pickup.
Given that the ipcc very pointedly does not study the “costs” of the Kyoto Protocols, perhaps we should be somewhat concerned that the alleged cure to the alleged disease might be worse than the alleged disease?
Or does that idea run too contrary to the thinking of the Group?
The IPCC keeps dropping the range of sea level and temperature rise every three years. Is that because of measured scientific consensus, or is everyone tweaking their GCM’s and papers to get into lockstep so they aren’t vulnerable outliers upon whom scorn is leaped by their compatriots, resulting in their research funding shut down?
The same old questions have been bandied about for 15 years. Is the warming since the Little Ice Age entirely or only partly anthropogenic? If only partly, then isn’t the potential effectiveness of the human reactions proportionately reduced, though the costs are fixed. If any developed world action be dwarfed by the massive increases coming from the developed world, will developed world populations be willing to pay the mind-boggling price for small returns, or will they use their political muscle to push for adaptation alternatives?
Remember, the developing world has seen the wealth and per capita power of the developed world, and they fully intend to get it. If that means the developed world becomes impoverished while the developing world leapfrogs past them in per capita economic wealth even at the cost of massively greater destructive AGW impacts, then so be it (with developing world high fives all around).
As for financial conflicts of interests, there are two points here:
First,the MSM, Gore, Hansen, Schmidt, etc. are horrified that skeptics have sold their souls for the piddling $2 million per year that they receive through filthy lucre from the oil and gas industry and free market right wing neocon think tanks. At the same time, the MSM, Gore, Hansen, Schmidt, etc. are quite comfortable with the massive $5,000 million that’s pouring every year into research within the AGW camp, which, of course, they assure us would never taint the purely objective scientists that would never salivate at the thought of landing grants which would continue to justify their academic existence.
Second, everyone should admit that there’s an idiological divide here. The Green Movement (WWF, WDF, Greenpeace, yadda yadda) as well as the far moderate left see humans and their insitutions as a scourge upon the land creating disparate economic results and inequities, all as a result of the greed of those institutions and their politic partisan cronies. I.e., institutionalized rape of the land and its people. To prevent that, price is no object and the negative consequences on productive, free societies be damned (and in some cases gleefully welcomed).
On the other side, you’ve got “skeptic” protagonists who simply want to make a living and rely on institutions to address problems gradually with advancing technology. They’ve been forced by obvious environmental damage they’ve caused through industrial development to clean up that damage on an incremental, and progressively effective, basis. But faced with the current castrophy-avoidance immediate massive reaction AGW crowd, they crunch reality-based numbers for cost/benefit analyses and see that the books won’t balance, ever. We get so little response for such huge damage prevention cost penalties. So what do you want them to do – not make their case and not put their advocacy money where their brains are? Or just kowtow to an overwhelming PR onslaught where they are being outspent 2,500 to 1 in research, and face an MSM PR machine that has virtually cornered the entire pro AGW-focused MSM and blog market, leaving only a handful of small print publications and independent blog operations that question the AGW juggernaut?
So, finally, I’ve come to realize that Gore’s Nobel Peace Prize may end up an albatross on the AGW crowd. The UK High Court basically called Gore a liar in his AIT film for its grossly exaggerate, and consensus-debunked, assertions, and has provided guidelines that require educators to state as such before showing the film to children. The Internet is abuzz with the skeptic’s positions and is disemminating peer-reviewed papers that are questioning the AGW consensus. Expect the AGW crowd to face similar challenges here.
We have an empty auditorium that can seat 2000 people. Its temperature is 18 degrees Celsius. Al Gore is scheduled to lecture an assembled audience, each paying $25,000 for the event. The event is scheduled to start at 8:00 PM. (This could gross Al Gore a cool $50,000,000 but minus expenses, who knows what the net take could be).
By 7:30 PM the auditorium is full. The caretaker notes that the body heat from 2000 members of the audience has raised the temperature in the auditorium, necessitating the turning on of the air conditioners. This is, of course, a politically incorrect action given the identity of the speaker and his audience.
An astute biologist observes that the local CO2 levels, derived from the exhalations of 2000 members of the audience, has also suddenly increased.
GOOG GRIEF! And Al Gore hasn’t arrived and we have a planetary catastrophe! Not only has the CO2 increased in concentration in the air in the Al Gore venue but so has the temperature! And we humans are totally to blame!
Meanwhile back at Frostbite Falls, sensitive observers note that the whole town as gone to listen to Al Gore. An astute biologist notices that the CO2 has dropped, as has the temperature. Global Cooling!
PANIC! We have a PLanetary Emergency! We have an impending Ice Age! Quick – Burn oil, and Gas, and Coal to heat the planet up, (which isn’t possible as the amount of energy available to heat the mass that the earth is, is not available to humanity).
Human produced C02 is a mere 3% of the total, with Nature contributing 97%.
More humans, means more heat generated and hence more CO2.
This is considered BAD, BAD, BAD by Al Gore and his sheep, er followers.
Paul,
A good, provocative post. I wonder if singing from the same hymn sheet is a factor in binding consensual groups (choirs?) together? Singing from a different hymn sheet could polarize. I suppose the real need is for more choirs and more hymn sheets all round. Matthew Arnold said something like “Such a price the Gods exact for song, to become what we sing.” I hope this does not upset or puzzle SJT, who seems to like singing, especially that of crickets. Luke might be tempted to write a FORTRAN program, involving a neat al-gore-rhythm (haw! haw! get it?). Perhaps a do-loop for, say, J=1,1000, printing out ‘all sing the same song, or else’. When will the fat lady sing in the climate operetta? Ten or twenty years? What a rich vein of metaphor…
Louis, “Human produced C02 is a mere 3% of the total, with Nature contributing 97%”
what do the words, ‘systematically increase’ mean to you?
Yeah, Davey, it’s all a big joke.
By God, you’ve got it, SJT.
This post suggests an explanation for the momentum for action on global warming that has been building over several decades.
The explanation is that there is a simple 8-point method to explain global group behaviour, and how an illegitimate consensus can be established and maintained.
Interesting theory.
To subscribe to such a theory requires an absolutely heroic contempt for the methods and systems of contemporary, democratic western society, and complete cynicism about how our society functions.
Apparently quoting from a book of indeterminate authority published 30 years ago is sufficient to cast a pall over the operation of all western governments and societies, and most non-western governments too, all of whom publicly accept the impact of human GHG emissions on climate, and a need for mitigating action.
The IPCC is about the UN having control over energy policy, economic growth for some, and wealth redistribution. Uncertainty over climate change is presented as certainty. Who wins? – consensus scientists with jobs and research grants, water melon ‘green’ groups, the climate conference circuit, more taxation and restrictive laws from control freak Governments. Rich celebs, Al Gore, politicians continue their privileged life-styles while the masses are taxed out of their cars, foreign hoilidays, heating and lighting their homes.
Meanwhile, China, India etc. keeep pumping CO2 into the atmosphere, the King Canute Brits take punitive measures to reduce their 2% contribution to man-made CO2 emissions.
The effect on temperatures of additional CO2 in the atmosphere is miniscule – if the UN want all the above, they must prove otherwise beyond doubt.
Meanwhile, the climate is business as usual, consistent with the natural variability of the 12,000 year old Holocene.
Ice cores -LOL! The evidence in favour of AGW is pathetic – 1930’s as warm as the late 20th century, despite a large difference in atmospheric CO2 levels, cooling during the 1940’s to 1970’s despite rising CO2 levels – not explained by aerosols, warmest measured year globally remains 1998, a lack of ocean warming (ARGO) for 5 years. Even the contrived paper of Lockwood & Frohlich expects a significant fall in solar activity with an uncertain effect on climate.
Nope, the only way forward is to continue with energy efficiency, technology, and a concerted effort to develop viable new energy sources. Attempting to manipulate CO2 levels unilaterally or otherwise is a dangerous, futile and expensive distraction, that is a threat to world peace – as is Al Gore.
Paul what a load of crap. What a wad of ranting neocon wingnuttia.
A typical denialist spray that you can get anywhere. Appeals to the cheer squad here but really nobody on our side is listening.
Could spend a lot of time debating it – but why debate blatant framing and nobody is going to change their mind anyway.
Take Louis’comment – “Human produced CO2 is a mere 3% of the total, with Nature contributing 97%.” You guys know what’s wrong with that but you’re all happy enough to entertain any old shit as long as it’s putting the boot in.
So Bazza is right – you guys are ratshit – we have non-sceptical skeptics. Sckepos with 20,000 different theories. Any old iron will do. No coherent alternative theory.
All governments are now moving on this issue as is big business. It’s risk management. The whole style of the sceptics campaign has lost.
It’s left to the main science effort to be the real sceptics.
And as for global control over energy and the usual world government neo-con wingnuttyness – I seriously doubt anyone will vote for austerity, so a techno-fix is our only hope. A few greenies might want to run around naked except for the hair shirts but most of us don’t. Most of us want a bloody big plasma TV with tele-dildonics attached.
So if you don’t like things like increases in cost of energy or anything like that – vote them out.
The reality is that you guys are anti-technology, anti-new markets anti-sustainability, anti-choice and anti-capitalist. I mean even gun-toting Condelezza Rice is calling with a massive reform on how we produce energy. George and John Howard are saying the words. Even Hummer driving – don’t be a girlie man Arnie is into it. And you watch Exxon will sell you the new technology when they jump ship at a suitable profitable juncture.
Anyway back at the serious science thank heavens the modellers are keeping their heads down and ignoring all this unproductive political shit.
“The effect on temperatures of additional CO2 in the atmosphere is miniscule ” – oh well I wonder why we’re not a -33C.
Anthony
You wrote a ‘non sequitor’.
So I am at a loss what the link between your first and second sentences mean.
Or to put it more subtley, I have never really felt competent to attempt asnwering stupid questions.
Adding to Paul Biggs’ comment above, when Australia introduced Native Title in 1990, I mentioned to some devout ALP friends, (who remain good friends I may add) that Native Title seemed more a means by which the UN diminished the concept of private property than anything else.
My statement was met with total silence – meaning that my interpretion of the policies adopted by the Keating Government were probably on target.
Error: in my previous post a made a grammatical error – the sentence should be “So I am at a loss what the link between your first and second sentences is”.
“The effect on temperatures of additional CO2 in the atmosphere is miniscule ” – oh well I wonder why we’re not a -33C.
Luke,
Because of the presence of water vapour. By your reasoning life should be prolific on Mars with an atmospheric composition of 95% CO2. (There is life on Mars, as those who take comics seriously will tell you about Marvin the Martian) but I would be drawing a rather long bow if that meant Luke believed in comics.
And then poor old Venus, also with 90% plus CO2 in the atmosphere – no life there either, or not as we understand it at present.
And Luke, it’s -33 Degrees Celsius, or -33 Kelvin, but not -33C. No wonder you are confused over the role CO2 plays in the earth’s atmosphere when you don’t really understand the fundamental principals, whoops (sorry,I’m not a BBC journo), principles.
I am an innocent bystander in the AGW debate and it is a debate regardless of attempts to close it down.
I wouldn’t give a hoot one way or the other if phrases like “carbon taxes” were not raised.
Ideas of virtually shutting down Australia’s coal fired power generation and coal exports as well as other measures that would cripple the economy in the interest of cutting CO2 emissions are fanciful and betray childish naivety.
But the constant iteration of ‘global warming’ or ‘climate change’ as cause for practically every negative occurrence in nature and even human behavior is an insult to the intelligence and testing my patience.
The AGW theory preceded the evidence in the early 60s when temperatures were actually falling.
The origin of the present hysteria in the early 80s was not the discovery of global warming but “the possibility of global warming, it was not possible to detect anthropogenic warming in 1980”.
http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php?/site/article/3540/
AGW has been adopted by the Left as an anti-capitalist substitute for failed socialism and taken up by all manner of Utopians, crackpots, charlatans, carpetbaggers, declining Christian denominations and power hungry demagogues.
I’m put off by the AGW zealots’ almost religious fervor, their refusal to consider alternative factors in climate change and their mad scramble to counter any new evidence or theory that may challenge their cherished theory – their use of so-called ‘consensus’, ‘peer review’ as well as intimidation, personal abuse and downright bitchiness to silence dissent.
Louis – “Because of the presence of water vapour. By your reasoning life should be prolific on Mars with an atmospheric composition of 95% CO2.”
Finally you have realised this. I butted heads with you where you claimed Mars was warming and you produced this chestnut to ‘prove’ your argument that time in a completely opposite meaning. Not bad.
The combination of water vapor (65% to 85%) and other trace gases (35% to 15%) contribute to the 33° that the Earth is warmer that it would be without such a dense soup of an atmosphere. Mars is both further from the sun and has 1% of Earths atmosphere. We are increasing one of the trace gases that contribute up to 35% of the Earths heat balance. What do you think should happen with your empirical science. Yes the Earth should try to balance outgoing heat with incoming heat and increase in temperature. Pretty simple physics.
BTW I stumbled across one of the best explanations of how the atmosphere works here in all places the Australian Ultralight Federation. It is really worth a read.
http://www.auf.asn.au/meteorology/index.html
Particularly this bit:
http://www.auf.asn.au/meteorology/section1b.html#atmospheric_temperature
I am pretty sure the AUF is not in on the conspiracy.
Points 1-8 go well with the 4 corners program tonight.
Close encounters with “mind guards” (p8)in both Sydney and Tasmania are suficient background for me to make the connection.
Business as usual hey
Ender,
Traps I lay and twits I catch.
I never said Mars was warming, Nasa did and the rest of your sentence is incomprehensible.
Trace gases in which atmosphere? Earth’s? Any high school student will know that the trace gases are less that 1% (http://www.ace.mmu.ac.uk/eae/Atmosphere/Older/Trace_Gases.html), so your statement (35% to 15%) is patently wrong.
The rest of your argument relies on this falsity.
Go back and think again, little twitter, (putting on the voice of Bluebottle, of Goon Show fame).
Ender: good link on cyclones, anticyclones, fronts etc see section 5
Yeah, sure , whatever.
I dont believe none of ya.
Louis
what do you think 1% botulism will do to the human body?
“AGW has been adopted by the Left as an anti-capitalist substitute for failed socialism and taken up by all manner of Utopians, crackpots, charlatans, carpetbaggers, declining Christian denominations and power hungry demagogues.”
Oh I thought you were talking about right wing denialists – description is a dead set match – ?
“I’m put off by the AGW zealots’ almost religious fervor, their refusal to consider alternative factors in climate change and their mad scramble to counter any new evidence or theory that may challenge their cherished theory – their use of so-called ‘consensus’, ‘peer review’ as well as intimidation, personal abuse and downright bitchiness to silence dissent.”
Again I thought you were talking about denialists – description is a dead set match – denialists with their 100s of different theories.
Look in the mirror Chrisgo.
In breathless breaking news NSW minister Phil Kopperberg has blamed climate change on the erosion of sandstone walls at Fort Deniston. http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,22585586-421,00.html
And a Sydney mayor has forecast the total loss of 3 of Sydneys beaches.
http://www.theage.com.au/news/National/Sydney-beaches-under-threat-mayor/2007/09/16/1189881327680.html
Families threatened by climate change..
SJT,
1% Botulism?
Are you proposing that this pathogen is equivalent to atmospheric CO2?
This has been a beautiful column and thread. The Warmongers posting here have dutifully demonstrated the main points of the article regarding groupthink. Wonderful!
I also find it hilarious that any time inconvenient facts are set under their noses (ie. 3% human contribution to annual atmospheric CO2 volumes vs. 97% natural; or any other facts such as Paul Biggs presented) they invariably say these facts have been refuted without bothering to share the details and call the line of thinking a neocon rant, or some facsimile. Then they immediately fall into their name calling as they have no substance behind their arguments. How dare any of we unwashed oil company stooges challenge them given their vastly superior morality and intellects.
Well, your posts just prove you for the fools that you are and basically validate the premise of the article. Keep up the good work.
And so on in the inverse Sam. Can simply invert all that around and say it back at ya. Re “without bothering to share the details” – perhaps read a couple years of archives. Maybe it may have been said before do you think ?
As a well known blogger said to me some months ago – you get to a point where you just treat the opposition with derision. That’s where we’re at. Good faith always met with bad faith.
So no respect and lots of piling on of shit.
So the situation in the lead post is now true – both sides locked in their confirmation biases. Nothing short of massive cooling is going to change anything – so hang on to every little wiggle in every graph. Every datum. So on the logic we’ll probbaly be back at turn on the 20th century temps real soon. Or maybe we won’t know as we all know you can’t tell the temperature with thermometer or satellite.
P.S. If you were actually convinced with “3% human contribution to annual atmospheric CO2 volumes vs. 97% natural” let’s not bother having a discussion.
Look in the mirror Chrisgo
Posted by: Luke at October 15, 2007 10:35 PM
I’m mortified.
Luke,
Please enlighten me as to what the actual CO2 volume contributions by human vs nature really are if they aren’t what I said.
Models use 1% annual growth of human emissions as a convention even though the actual is ~.49%. We’re told that the cycle time for CO2 to move from the atmosphere is hundreds of years even though 50% of the supposed atmospheric volume is missing? Where did it go? The natural sinks supposedly can’t handle all of the unnatural emissions but then this overload can’t be found empirically.
I’d really like to hear what the facts are for these emissions from your perspective. Humor me.
Since Paul has not made good on his threat to delete posts with the offensive term “denialist” in them, I will now refer to Luke and his sycophants as “warmongers”. Thanks Sam.
(In case any of the warmongers are puzzled that anyone could find being called a “denialist” offensive, it was coined to equate scepticism about the AGW circus with denial that the Holocaust actually happened. I for one find it extremely offensive to be labelled a denialist for engaging in what I once naively thought was a scientific debate).
There was a “consensus” that the U.S. would suffer a greater number and more severe hurricanes this year because of global warming. We haven’t. I guess the consensus is that the prediction hasn’t come true because of skeptics.
Louis – “Trace gases in which atmosphere? Earth’s? Any high school student will know that the trace gases are less that 1% (http://www.ace.mmu.ac.uk/eae/Atmosphere/Older/Trace_Gases.html), so your statement (35% to 15%) is patently wrong.”
Sorry I should have made is clearer as I am dealing with kindergarten sort of comprehension here. I was not referring to their atmospheric proportions but to their relative contributions to the greenhouse effect.
Paul – well you see you guys don’t notice do you – this was in retaliation for labelling us scum, turds and neo-marxists. You guys can dish it out – but not take it. Born to rule right wingers don’t like backchat. You see you unconsciously filter what your side says. Check the archives. Check the style of the denialist blogs – it IS really really nasty stuff. I object !
Woody “the U.S. would suffer a greater number and more severe hurricanes this year because of global warming” your supporting reference is??
Louis, for such a tightwad grammar nazi, I would have thought you would run your posts through spell check.
‘asnwering stupid questions’
Maybe it’s just me but I would have thought that asking what ‘systematically increase’ means to you, in the context of adding CO2 to the atmospher, woule be crystal clear. But then again, you have shown a complete inability to read between the lines.
Sam you’ve fallen for the old fluxes versus balance ruse.
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_cycle
There are some really big numbers in carbon (CO2) cycles but without any major perturbations globally it’s in balance.
Humanity has liberated vast amounts of stored carbon stored over millions of years as fossil fuels and from early and subsequent land clearing for agriculture.
The CO2 readings from the network of observing stations including the South Pole show the progressive growth well including the annual drawdown wiggle of the biosphere seasonality.
A big slug is sunk into the oceans.
How do we know – Science 16 July 2004:
Vol. 305. no. 5682, pp. 367 – 371
The Oceanic Sink for Anthropogenic CO2
Christopher L. Sabine,1* Richard A. Feely,1 Nicolas Gruber,2 Robert M. Key,3 Kitack Lee,4 John L. Bullister,1 Rik Wanninkhof,5 C. S. Wong,6 Douglas W. R. Wallace,7 Bronte Tilbrook,8 Frank J. Millero,9 Tsung-Hung Peng,5 Alexander Kozyr,10 Tsueno Ono,11 Aida F. Rios12
Using inorganic carbon measurements from an international survey effort in the 1990s and a tracer-based separation technique, we estimate a global oceanic anthropogenic carbon dioxide (CO2) sink for the period from 1800 to 1994 of 118 ± 19 petagrams of carbon. The oceanic sink accounts for 48% of the total fossil-fuel and cement-manufacturing emissions, implying that the terrestrial biosphere was a net source of CO2 to the atmosphere of about 39 ± 28 petagrams of carbon for this period. The current fraction of total anthropogenic CO2 emissions stored in the ocean appears to be about one-third of the long-term potential.
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/305/5682/367?ck=nck
And the source of atmospheric CO2 increase
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=87
“How do we know that recent CO2 increases are due to human activities?” – isotopic signature is “fossil fuel”.
So we know very very well why CO2 is rising and where it’s from.
So you see Sam the old flux ruse! I mean really. This is the last stuff you’d be arguing about. But nutters like Louis and Schiller will. Well Louis actually knows better – he’s not that stupid – but the means justifies the end in war eh?
Remember this is the “I get fed some ideas to then throw them as intellectual hand grenades into the blogosphere” person.
http://web.archive.org/web/20060403033506/http://lhcrazyworld.blogspot.com/ Note the tag under his profile from his now decommissioned blog.
Now did we have to revisit that one !! ARGH !!
Luke, a bit of framing there, my warmongering friend.
Luke, you try the typical liberal (U.S. style) scheme of avoiding an inconvenient truth offered by a conservative (U.S. style) by asking for references ad nauseum and never being pleased with any of the references provide, because any that disagree with your prejudices cannot be authoritative. Why should I waste my time?
I’ve read about more and stonger hurricanes for 2007 in the news and heard it repeated on the air over and over by “knowledgeable” weather commentators, conforming to propaganda previously spread. You would know it, too, if you lived in the U.S. But, you might consider one source–His Holiness Al Gore.
Qualified scientists are finally being more careful with annual predictions, having been proved wrong in the past, but the global warming hysteria that they stirred with Katrina took hold and gets repeated and was enhanced for 2007.
Check the effect on public attitudes and pay attention to the related articles to see why.
http://news.mongabay.com/2006/0821-nwf.html
What have the global warming supporting scientists done to discredit incorrect public perceptions for which they are responsible? Nothing. Instead, they try to divert the subject whenever hurricanes come up, because it shows them for the frauds that they are.
Luke – “Check the style of the denialist blogs – it IS really really nasty stuff. I object !”
Completely agree here – try Tim Blair for instance – never going there again.
Woody – “I’ve read about more and stonger hurricanes for 2007 in the news and heard it repeated on the air over and over by “knowledgeable” weather commentators, conforming to propaganda previously spread. You would know it, too, if you lived in the U.S. But, you might consider one source–His Holiness Al Gore.”
No it comes from Kerry Emmanuel:
ftp://texmex.mit.edu/pub/emanuel/PAPERS/downscaling_2006.pdf
ftp://texmex.mit.edu/pub/emanuel/PAPERS/EOS_mann_emanuel_2006.pdf
ftp://texmex.mit.edu/pub/emanuel/PAPERS/NATURE03906.pdf
http://www.oup.com/us/catalog/general/subject/AtmosphericScience/Meteorology/~~/dmlldz11c2EmY2k9MDE5NTE0OTQxNg==
And it is possible that he knows a little about hurricanes certainly more that you or I. Gore used Emmanuel’s work for that part of his documentary. Perhaps if you read some of this and the link to how the atmosphere works you could at least have a more informed view.
Sam – “We’re told that the cycle time for CO2 to move from the atmosphere is hundreds of years even though 50% of the supposed atmospheric volume is missing? Where did it go? The natural sinks supposedly can’t handle all of the unnatural emissions but then this overload can’t be found empirically.”
Into the oceans thank goodness. However therein lies a problem. As oceans warm they cannot absorb as much CO2 – big problem.
Have you not heard of the acidification of the oceans – we can measure it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocean_acidification
Good stuff there on the carbon cycle as well – have a read.
Nice try Woody – you’re bunging it on !
You don’t have it do you – the usual misquoting continues. You should waste your time as by not checking source you’re spreading crap. Which is the usual denialist tactic.
A seasonal forecast for hurricanes is not AGW. The science on whether AGW will affect hurricane strength is divided. AGW does not predict numbers of hurricanes in any season.
Come on mate – you know all this by now.
Wow – I never knew the extent of the conspiracy – so many leftie liberals needing to be converted to neocon Islam. It’s a damn plague.
http://www.logicalscience.com/consensus/consensusD1.htm
“1% Botulism?
Are you proposing that this pathogen is equivalent to atmospheric CO2?”
I’m saying that just beacuse something is only present in trace quantities has nothing to do with it’s effect on it’s environment. You can have large quantities of a substance that are inert, and small quantities that are highly significant. But I don’t know why I am telling you that, since you know that already.
Sam – I have provided an answer to your question but the blog software grabbed it. It may appear later.
Justice Kirby recently spoke on how the consensus can be wrong and how dissent is vital.
Sam – my answer has now appeared above. More than 3 https and the machine sin-bins the post.
Luke and Ender, I provided an example of where alarmists were claiming the direct connection between hurricanes in a year with global warming.
It was only after they lost that battle that they started to back off. In fact, I saw one alarmist site which said to be careful not to bring up hurricanes in discussions with “deniers.”
If alarmists had not made such an issue out of the gw & hurricane connection, especially during Katrina when the political hay and grants were ready to be harvested, the general population in this country would not have responded to the poll, that I provided, as they did. The majority of people in th U.S. are now convinced that every hurricane is caused by global warming and that they will get worse this year and each subsequent year for that reason.
You can tell me that some scientists have backed away from that contention, but they forgot to go back and tell the people that they caused to become alarmed. They forgot to tell the weather forecasters on our local channels, who are all now experts on why global warming worsens hurricanes.
Those scientiest and Al Gore can’t do anything to let someone consider for a moment that the skeptics might know more than the alarmists.
Those are the facts, and those facts support the claim about misinformation from the alarmists and how the rumors that they started have taken on lives of their own. Yes, your side clearly predicted more and worse hurricanes.
And, quit providing multiple links to your favorite sites in your comments, as I barely have time to read the comments without taking another ten or twenty minutes to read the articles that you provide. Just say what you have to say and leave it there.
Rog
show dissent, by all means. As someone has pointed out already, why is the dissent of such poor quality?
Can it at least get it’s story straight. Is the earth warming or not?
“It was only after they lost that battle that they started to back off. In fact, I saw one alarmist site which said to be careful not to bring up hurricanes in discussions with “deniers.””
That’s why you are better off sticking with the scientists. Stronger hurricanes seems to be the expected result.
No no no – what you have said is completely imprecise. AGW theory and observational data predicts more intense systems will be experienced. NOT more systems. Kerry Emmanuel has shown the power dissipation index – peak storm speed and storm lifetime has increased in many ocean basins. The Atlantic situation is complex as the multi-decadal oscillation contributes to the effect. All manner of other phenomena can put shear forces and even dust clouds across hurricane formation regions can wreck naive predictions in individual years.
However despite all this the trend to faster storms will in IMO opinion continue. This effect is compounded by vastly increased urban development in harms way.
Links are provided as formal substantiation vis a vis opinion or heresay. Science style – reading is optional. I do not accept your unsubstantiated gossipy opinions
Luke – “AGW theory and observational data predicts more intense systems will be experienced.”
You beat me to it Luke. I don’t think Woody reads things critically however. I am sure that we have posted enough links though – there is hope.
Interesting – RC utterly utterly unrepentant on AIT.
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=483
SJT,
If you only exercised a modicum of thought you woul have worked out that trace amounts of botulism may well be pathogens but what animals exhale botuli as part of their normal metabolism?
None.
CO2 is part and parcel of life as we know it. Branding it as a pollutant is the height of folly and stupidity.
But the you would have known that.
What happens when living matters dies and decays like your brain Louis. It produces CO2. Duh !
‘Group think’ also applies to panels and committees such as the US CCSP reports.
Luke and Ender, sorry for the long delay in response – other side of the world and all that.
I don’t think the isotopic fingerprint as proof of human-generated CO2 is a valid claim. CO2 generated from human activity is indistinguishable from that generated by underground coal fires, forest fires, et. There may be differing isotopes found in CO2 but it isn’t as straight forward as you are stating.
As oceans warm they release CO2 into the atmosphere – this is the real correlation between CO2 and temperatures and why CO2 volume increases lag behind temperature increases. As oceans cool, CO2 is absorbed back into the ocean. This feedback mechanism feature makes a great deal of sense if you consider that nature is providing increased amounts of atmospheric CO2 to be available for aerial fertilization during warmer periods conducive to photosynthesis and plant growth.
Luke, you still haven’t indicated what you believe the relative human/natural CO2 contribution is since you claim the 3%/97% ratio is incorrect. I have never seen anything else claimed other than small variations in this ratio.
Sam – “There may be differing isotopes found in CO2 but it isn’t as straight forward as you are stating.”
Why?? Reference??
“As oceans warm they release CO2 into the atmosphere”
Whats causing them to warm??? Reference?????
“CO2 is part and parcel of life as we know it. Branding it as a pollutant is the height of folly and stupidity.”
Good, so if you try to breathe in pure CO2 what happens?
Sam – the ratio may correct but it’s totally irrelevant. It’s a ruse argument.
again:
There are massive natural CO2 fluxes – see the wiki diagram. But without us it’s roughly in balance. The natural cycle of seasons will make it wiggle. A big volcano blast may cause a little wiggle.
The CO2 is going up and up and up in the atmosphere. The origin from clever isotopic fingerprinting confirms it’s from burnt fossil fuels. Similar chemistry shows the oceans have sink large amounts of CO2 in the surface waters. Recent research however shows the major sink – the Southern Ocean is starting to saturate.
Le Quere C, Rodenbeck C, Buitenhuis ET, Conway TJ, Langenfelds R, Gomez A, Labuschagne C, Ramonet M, Nakazawa T, Metzl N, Gillett N, Heimann M
Based on observed atmospheric CO2 concentration and an inverse method, we estimate that the Southern Ocean sink of CO2 has weakened between 1981 and 2004 by 0.08 PgC/y per decade relative to the trend expected from the large increase in atmospheric CO2. This weakening is attributed to the observed increase in Southern Ocean winds resulting from human activities and projected to continue in the future. Consequences include a reduction in the efficiency of the Southern Ocean sink of CO2 in the short term (~25 years) and possibly a higher level of stabilization of atmospheric CO2 on a multicentury time scale. 10.1126/science.1136188
So who cares what the ratio is. The CO2 is going up. Why – largely from our combustion of fossil fuels.
Those emissions recycle more longwave radiation back to Earth and change the world temperature.
We’re changing the balance with known effects on the associated radiation flux.
The code is called MODTRAN.
http://forecast.uchicago.edu/Projects/modtran.html
So all in all the ratio is a ruse argument based on ridicule for effect. e.g. but it’s a “teensy weensy” amount. Which is why SJT has said so is botulism in ridiculing rebuttal.
CO2 is part of life but also death. Dead things decay to CO2 so being romantic doesn’t work. Yes it’s not a “pollutant” in the classic sense of a poison. It’s an emission – a side effect of our energy use. It’s a greenhouse gas unfortunately – if was O2 or N2 which are not greenhouse gases it wouldn’t be an issue.
However a warming planet will also cause feedbacks – ocean won’t sink as much CO2, soil carbon will be “burnt off’ more quickly by microbes, vast amounts of carbon in tundra and peat bogs may be liberated further jacking up the CO2 and temperature. Some have said there’s a whole 300ppm out there if it all went up ! If the Amazon lost rainfall vast amounts would be liberated from tree death etc.
Anyway you can dream about it or read some science which I have listed here and above.
Really this is almost the last thing we should be arguing about.
P.S. The CO2 fertilisation story is more complex than you think (and a minor sideline) – will it go into yield or lignin? Doesn’t work without rainfall. Will cause big ecosystem changes as C3 and C4 plants compete.
The question remains – what will be the increase in global average temperatures for a doubling of CO2?
Maybe what it was in the past. Royer.