He’s Got a Point
It isn’t often that I agree with Eugene Robinson but this time, I agree with him. His column E-mails Don’t Prove Warming is a Fraud is actually right, though not for the reasons he says.
Stop hyperventilating, all you climate change deniers. The purloined e-mail correspondence published by skeptics last week, portraying some leading climate researchers as petty, vindictive and tremendously eager to make their data fit accepted theories, does not prove that global warming is a fraud.
He’s right in that the e-mails alone don’t prove that AGW is junk science. The fact that they’ve had to delete emails with contradictory information proves that AGW is junk science. The fact that John Holdren first discredited, then admitted that Sallie Baliunas and Willie Soon were right that Michael Mann’s infamous Hockey Stick Graph is wildly inaccurate is proof that AGW is junk science.
Mr. Robinson’s column is predictable. He’s one of the most reliable, and brain dead, shills within the progressive movement, rivalling even Eleanor Clift, Paul Krugman and Maureen Dowd in that respect. That reliability is how he can say this without hesitation:
To plot temperatures going back hundreds or thousands of years, long before anyone was taking measurements, you need a set of data that can serve as an accurate proxy. The width of tree rings correlates well with observed temperature readings, and extrapolating that correlation into the past yields the familiar “hockey stick” graph, fairly level temperatures for eons, followed by a sharp incline beginning around 1900. This is attributed to human activity, primarily the burning of fossil fuels and the resulting increase in heat-trapping atmospheric carbon dioxide.
While it’s true that scientists weren’t recording temperatures and patterns in 1000 A.D., when the Hockey Stick Graph starts, other data exists to prove that there have significant fluctuations in the earth’s temperatures. The Medieval Warm Period didn’t happen if you trust Dr. Mann’s Hockey Stick Graph. The MWP was followed by the Mini-Ice Age, which doesn’t exist according to the Hockey Stick Graph, either.
Considering the fact that Dr. Mann, Dr. Jones and others propose shutting out scientists that disagree with their analyses from the peer-review process isn’t dissimilar from Al Gore’s wild allegations, then his refusal to debate serious people on the subject. The people that suggest that they know more than other accredited scientists are blowhards and political ideologues.
Had Dr. Mann and Dr. Jones not used such extravagant trickery, they still would’ve been ridiculed. There are wild inaccuracies in their studies, inaccuracies that still haven’t been explained to anyone but the most devout AGW believers.
It would be great if this were all a big misunderstanding. But we know carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas, and we know the planet is hotter than it was a century ago. The skeptics might have convinced each other, but so far they haven’t gotten through to the vanishing polar ice.
What we don’t know is whether one has to do with the other. Until there’s proof that one is caused by the other, we don’t have anything. Just because a group of ideologically-driven scientists say so doesn’t mean anything to John Q. Public.
Until these scientists start making decisions based SOLELY on proof, not politics, people will be justifiably skeptical.
Technorati Tags: Science, Michael Mann, Hockey Stick Graph, Phil Jones, John Holdren, Al Gore, Ideologues, Sallie Baliunas, Willie Soon, Mini-Ice Age
Cross-posted at LetFreedomRingBlog
November 28th, 2009 at 9:34 am
I wonder if it ever occurred to the AGW genii that do things like check ring width in trees that it takes several decades for the rings to be compressed? Again, a classic ignoring of facts inconvenient to an “inconvenient truth.”
November 28th, 2009 at 3:24 pm
Thing is Carlos, they have two sets of data.
One showing elevated levels of CO2
Another showing elevated temperatures.
OK: one of three things is happening - there either is or is not a causal relation between the two,
if there is;
1. either increased levels of CO2 are causing increased temps, or
2. increased temps are causing increased levels of CO2,
OR
if there is not,
3. both sets of data are just coincidental, and just happen to be rising at the same time.
Yet, I have not heard at least of one these bloated “academic” egos lay it out that manner. Thats all they have to do. We dont need books, movies and Nobel prizes to tell us that.
But noooo, we have to be educated you see, they have to impress us with their great knowledge first, like a bunch of Pharisees.
November 28th, 2009 at 10:09 pm
And, of course, the way to impress us with their great knowledge is to inundate us with tremendous amounts of provably junk science, right? And make fun of us yahoos behind our backs (in e-mails), and prevent anyone with a shred of ethical standards from being published.
Yeah, impresses the daylights out of me, that’s for sure.
I’ll tell ya what: I’d believe the northern spotted owl is really endangered before I’d believe any of the AGW clowns. At least the owls are honest.
November 29th, 2009 at 9:02 am
And this type of public be damned attitude has happened before, in France in the late 1700’s.
November 29th, 2009 at 10:25 pm
No, he doesn’t have a point. There are many unanswered questions in the universe. The hypothesis of the existence of Global Warming (much less Anthropogenic Global Warming) is not accepted to be true until proven otherwise. The scientists who formulate this hypothesis have the BURDEN OF PROOF. That proof requires a scientific approach which takes an adequate sample of representative data, analyzes it with the benefit of any doubt AGAINST the null hypothesis, and requires statistically significant observations different from the null hypothesis to reject it.
Even then, the proper statistical methods must be used and statistical models must be free from numerous problematic violations of basic assumptions. These models must be tested for these violations and corrected for any which exist PRIOR to drawing conclusions. Errors can cause estimated parameters to be biased, inconsistent, or cause hypothesis tests to fail.
Judging from the emails, Mann et. al. violated every precept of good science. They took an inadequate sample of only a handful of trees from one region of the globe. They systematically ignored other tree data which contradicted their other data, i.e. cherry picking. They used statistical “tricks” to make the data do precisely what they wanted it to do rather than letting the chips fall where they may.
The problem gets worse from there. They apparently rigged the jury by submitting their papers to peer-reviewed journals where the “peers” were like-minded people who did the same thing they did: start from a preconceived conclusion and work the process backward (tweaking as necessary) to justify it. They identified people with different viewpoints and had them removed from the peer-review process. They systematically rejected papers from people with contrary conclusions. And they did all this while collecting billions of dollars of taxpayer money.
No, the problems with their methods and motives does not PROVE the converse, i.e. that GW or AGW does not exist. But it leaves the null hypothesis of no GW intact. We FAIL TO REJECT that there is no Global Warming.
Scientists must face two types of errors in statistical analysis: Type I and Type II.
A Type I error is rejecting the null hypothesis when it is true. Specifically, it’s concluding that Global Warming exists when in fact it does not.
A Type II error is failing to reject a false null hypothesis, i.e. concluding that GW does not exist when in fact it does.
Scientists SELECT the probability of a Type I error, called the Level of Significance, which limits their exposure to this error. They cannot know the probability of a Type II error because it relies on unknown population parameters. These probabilities move opposite one another. If you increase the probability of a Type I error, you decrease the probability of a Type II error. Both probabilities can be lowered by taking a larger (random) sample size.
When selecting the level of significance, the scientist must weigh the costs of each error. If we ignore existing global warming… well, we’ve heard all the consequences. What liberals are NOT discussing is the cost of a Type I error: the production, employment, profits, and economic benefits forgone from anti-GW measures. These costs are ENORMOUS. They will set industrialized societies back 20 years or more in terms of GDP (with a larger population).
Production is measured by GDP. Standard of living is measured by GDP per capita. Energy intensity is measured by energy usage per unit of GDP. In the short run, energy intensity is FIXED by current technology. If better, cost-effective technology existed, it would be used.
So when environmentalists use PER CAPITA measures of energy usage, the implicit consequence is that reducing energy per capita, with energy intensity fixed by existing technology, will REDUCE GDP per capita. We will have a lower standard of living! Unless they can magically reduce our energy intensity through technology TODAY, any reduction in energy per capital will NECESSARILY lower our standard of living. Countries like China and India prefer to use per capita measures because their massive energy usage is diluted by their huge populations, most of which do not contribute to nor benefit from their GDP. The CORRECT measure is energy per unit of GDP (or its inverse). That measures the energy (or emissions) per unit of production (valued by markets). A more efficient society has lower energy per unit of GDP.
This has NEVER been about the environment. Their policies from Cash for Clunkers to buying locally to alternative energy to driving a Prius all HURT the environment worse than it helps. Do a little correct math and you see that almost all their choices are not cost-effective, pollute more, or both.
Their goal has ALWAYS been to cripple capitalism, the engine of prosperity. And that is precisely why their “science” needs to be scrutinized so closely.
On another topic, I thought you would find this news article about AIDS treatment interesting:
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,577706,00.html
Gallo’s Egg is hatching.
November 29th, 2009 at 10:26 pm
Sorry, I meant to say that the benefit of any doubt is FOR the null hypothesis and AGAINST their pet hypothesis.
They have stacked the deck in their favor with rigged data.
November 30th, 2009 at 10:45 pm
You’re right, Gary. The purloined e-mails don’t prove AGW is a fraud. But they do prove that the science is junk science and needs to be hypothesized again and studied from scratch because the use of ANY material brought forth in the last 30 years is suspect and therefore of no scientific value unless reconfirmed BY UNBIASED RESEARCHERS.