What do you think of climate change?

[LeafByNiggle]

It is pretty clear from Cook’s own data. The only legitimate conclusion regarding the 50% or greater cause is category 1 from the data – 1,Explicitly endorses and quantifies AGW as 50+%

The percentage is 1.6%

Not even Cook properly and accurately represents the only possible conclusion since he has continually misrepresented the 97% claim. That hardly makes him credible as an honest researcher.

You did not answer my question, which was how would you fill out the sentence I started where the percentage was 50% or greater? (Meaning 50% of the papers.)

 

[HarryStotle]

You did not answer my question, which was how would you fill out the sentence I started where the percentage was 50% or greater? (Meaning 50% of the papers.)

Reread your initial post.

The most plausible reading would have been humans were a 50% or greater cause of warming, as per Cook’s criteria #1

Of all the papers that expressed [i.e., explicitly] an opinion on global warming, 1.6 % of them believe 50+% of warming is human caused.

Where do you get 50% of the papers? That doesn’t even make sense given what is being discussed.

 

[Freddy]

you have moved from denying climate change to pointing out economic problems associated with the solution.

This in no way describes my position…

It doesn’t? Then why link to an article that does take that exact position?

Let’s be clear. If you post links to articles that use inflamatory language then I’m going to assume that you agree with what’s written and how it’s written. If you post links to articles that state that there is nothing inherrently wrong with renewables but incorporating them into existing systems can be a problem, then I’m going to assume that you agree with that position.

 

[LeafByNiggle]

Where do you get 50% of the papers? That doesn’t even make sense given what is being discussed.

50% is what people mean by the word “most.” I just want to know what 50% of the papers say. For example, if I said “the climate has warmed somewhat”, I am quite sure the number of papers consistent with that statement would be greater than 50%. But that would not be an interesting result because the claim is so weak. It doesn’t say anything about how much warming or even attribute any of it to man. At the other end of the spectrum, if I said “the climate is warming drastically because of human activity and nothing else” I don’t think there would be even 5% who agreed with that. That’s because the claim is way too strong. So on one hand we have a weak claim that gets more that 50% agreement, and we have a very strong claim that gets less than 5% agreement. My question is this: Based on all the survey data we have from the Cook survey and other surveys, what is the strongest statement on climate change that you think can be made and still get a valid 50% or more agreement. That’s all. A very simple question making no claim whatsoever. Can you answer it or not?

 

[HarryStotle]

My question is this: Based on all the survey data we have from the Cook survey and other surveys, what is the strongest statement on climate change that you think can be made and still get a valid 50% or more agreement. That’s all. A very simple question making no claim whatsoever. Can you answer it or not?

There are two distinct problems with Cook’s paper.

1. It isn’t clear that human caused global warming is an issue to begin with in any of the papers, even if 100% of the papers agreed that humans are responsible for 50+% of the warming. What is the extent of warming that will result and is that warming provably catastrophic or even problematic? No way of knowing, and there is no way of knowing whether the researchers consider the warming to be catastrophic or even a serious concern – EVEN IF most of it is attributable to humans. Is runaway, i.e., catastrophic, warming owing to feedbacks at all considered in any of the papers? Cook doesn’t say, because all he is looking for is whether whatever warming – whether benign or concerning – is occurring is caused by humans.
2. It isn’t possible to quantify what 50% of the papers say because the criteria used by Cook are so ambiguous. 50% of the papers would fall somewhere within level 4, and if those are ignored because they endorse “no position,” is that because they don’t consider warming to be an issue at all? Why, precisely, do they hold no position? Is it because the issue is irrelevant to the topic of the paper or is it because the paper considers warming irrelevant and a non-issue to climate science all together? We don’t know.

If it is the former, then we are left with level 3 as the determiner of 50% of the papers since level 4 can safely be dismissed (assuming it can). However, the “implicitly endorses” criteria relies on Cook and his team to determine how the determination was implicit within the research of the paper. Cook is a climate activist and so were the others on his team. The determination of “implicit” left to a team with clear bias hardly bolsters trust in the objectivity of the findings. Perhaps we ought to leave it to fossil fuel interests to determine which of the papers “implicitly” denied or minimized AGW? Would you be for that?

Of course not, because climate activists are implicitly unbiased because they are concerned about protecting the environment while fossil fuel interests are implicitly biased because they are always and everywhere against protecting the environment. Correct? [/sarcasm]

 

[LeafByNiggle]

There are two distinct problems with Cook’s paper.

I guess the answer is no, you cannot answer my question, but carry on…

Cook doesn’t say, because all he is looking for is whether whatever warming – whether benign or concerning – is occurring is caused by humans.

Since that is what the survey set out to do, it is entirely appropriate for the survey to do what it said. The question of whether warming is benign is a different question, and therefore a deflection.

50% of the papers would fall somewhere within level 4, and if those are ignored because they endorse “no position,” is that because they don’t consider warming to be an issue at all? Why, precisely, do they hold no position ? Is it because the issue is irrelevant to the topic of the paper or is it because the paper considers warming irrelevant and a non-issue to climate science all together? We don’t know.

This is the reddest of red herrings. Papers that take no position on global warming and its causes should be simply discarded without comment. It is question of statistical sampling, which is a well-understood subject in statistics and is covered in every college statistics textbook. The accuracy of a survey can be calculated from the number of samples involved in the statistic. In this case the number involved is the sum of all the categories except #4. Consider an analogy. A door-to-door survey is being conducted in a certain city to determine what the residents think of making a new park. The survey picks out 1000 names from the city directory and goes to those homes. At 600 of those homes there was no one to answer the doorbell. At the other 400 homes they got answers. They reported their results in terms of the 400 they talked to. It was entirely proper to discard the 600 names where no one answered the doorbell because 400 is a sufficiently high number to form a meaningful statistic.

So, let me make is easier for you. Instead of asking you to come up with both a percentage and a description of what that percentage believes, I will tell you the percentage. It is 98%, which is levels 1, 2, and 3, divided by all levels except 4. Cook and especially the media summaries of Cook have been criticized for calling this statistics “AGW is happening and is mostly caused by man”. Fair enough. I am open to an better characterization. So how would you characterize the lowest common denominator of this group that represents 98% of papers expressing an opinion on the issue?

 

[HarryStotle]

HarryStotle:

There are two distinct problems with Cook’s paper.

I guess the answer is no, you cannot answer my question, but carry on…

Like I said, Cook’s research provides no grounds for answering your question.

Do you just want me to make something up, like Cook did?

You sound disappointed in me because I didn’t read into Cook something that YOU wanted to be there.

Go ahead and propose something if you’d like. We can all then stand back and admire your creativity.

 

[HarryStotle]

HarryStotle:

There are two distinct problems with Cook’s paper.

I guess the answer is no, you cannot answer my question, but carry on…

Cook doesn’t say, because all he is looking for is whether whatever warming – whether benign or concerning – is occurring is caused by humans.

Since that is what the survey set out to do, it is entirely appropriate for the survey to do what it said. The question of whether warming is benign is a different question, and therefore a deflection.

Except that Obama and many other political leaders and warming alarmists constantly bring up the 97% consensus of scientists as the reason for acting now before it is too late.

Perhaps you ought to educate them that Cook’s paper says nothing about whether warming is an issue at all.

 

[LeafByNiggle]

Like I said, Cook’s research provides no grounds for answering your question.

Do you mean the papers counted in categories 1, 2, and 3 were terribly mis-categorized? I would need to see evidence of that before I would believe it. Or do you mean the categories themselves are meaningless? I think they carry as much meaning as one could expect from a survey.

If the Cook survey is so bad, please tell me how one would go about properly assessing the beliefs of scientists? Assume you had a sufficient budget and could hire assistants, just as Cook did. How would you conduct a fair survey of this question?

As another question, please tell me why none of the various groups and organizations and people that have criticized the Cook survey have attempted to conduct any kind of proper survey to show how it is done? Hmmmm?

 

[LeafByNiggle]

Except that Obama and many other political leaders and warming alarmists constantly bring up the 97% consensus of scientists as the reason for acting now before it is too late.

Perhaps you ought to educate them that Cook’s paper says nothing about whether warming is an issue at all.

They obviously formed their views based not only on the Cook result.

 

[HarryStotle]

HarryStotle:

Like I said, Cook’s research provides no grounds for answering your question.

Do you mean the papers counted in categories 1, 2, and 3 were terribly mis-categorized? I would need to see evidence of that before I would believe it. Or do you mean the categories themselves are meaningless? I think they carry as much meaning as one could expect from a survey.

If the Cook survey is so bad, please tell me how one would go about properly assessing the beliefs of scientists? Assume you had a sufficient budget and could hire assistants, just as Cook did. How would you conduct a fair survey of this question?

As another question, please tell me why none of the various groups and organizations and people that have criticized the Cook survey have attempted to conduct any kind of proper survey to show how it is done? Hmmmm?

Perhaps because science is not determined by consensus.

 

[HarryStotle]

HarryStotle:

Except that Obama and many other political leaders and warming alarmists constantly bring up the 97% consensus of scientists as the reason for acting now before it is too late.

Perhaps you ought to educate them that Cook’s paper says nothing about whether warming is an issue at all.

They obviously formed their views based not only on the Cook result.

Well, okay and the IPCC, which doesn’t exactly exude objectivity or honesty.

 

[LeafByNiggle]

Perhaps because science is not determined by consensus.

That is no reason not to care what the experts think.

 

[PhilipJames]

That is no reason not to care what the experts think.

Unless the ‘experts’ base all their models on a fundamentaly flawed assumption: that the sun and ghe are reaponsible for current Earth temps…

 

[LeafByNiggle]

LeafByNiggle:

That is no reason not to care what the experts think.

Unless the ‘experts’ base all their models on a fundamentaly flawed assumption: that the sun and ghe are reaponsible for current Earth temps…

A non-expert is not qualified to pass judgement on the scientific validity of results from experts.

 

[HarryStotle]

HarryStotle:

Perhaps because science is not determined by consensus.

That is no reason not to care what the experts think.

What the experts think if it is well-argued and well-evidenced is one thing. What the experts think as a large group just because they are a group is something else completely. Go back to this post.

Appelbaum shows the strangely high degree of consensus in the field of economics, including a 1979 survey of economists that “found 98 percent opposed rent controls, 97 percent opposed tariffs, 95 percent favored floating exchange rates, and 90 percent opposed minimum wage laws.” And in a moment of impish humor he notes that “Although nature tends toward entropy, they shared a confidence that economies tend toward equilibrium.” Economists shared a creepy lack of doubt about how the world worked. [Kaiser-Schatzlein, bold added.]

Are you going to trust 90% of economists opposing minimum wage laws without referencing the arguments pro and con? Just accept what the economists think as a consensual group just because they consent?

Austrian, Keynesian, Marxian, or some other? 95% of Keynesians might form a consensus, but that might radically disagree with 95% of Austrian or Marxian economists. Which would you suppose is more complex economics or climate?

Doesn’t it worry you that the claim being made is that there is only one school of climatologists and that is the only school that should be listened to because they agree with a consensus of 97%. Kind of monopolistic and creepy. Makes me question what their political motives are and what they have to gain by such group-think.

 

[HarryStotle]

PhilipJames:

LeafByNiggle:

That is no reason not to care what the experts think.

Unless the ‘experts’ base all their models on a fundamentaly flawed assumption: that the sun and ghe are reaponsible for current Earth temps…

A non-expert is not qualified to pass judgement on the scientific validity of results from experts.

Sounds dogmatic. I didn’t think science was supposed to operate by dogmatism.

I would have assumed that science might have learned from the Galileo episode, plate techtonics, Big Bang Cosmology, germ theory, and a host of other cases in point, when consensus turned out to be a huge trap. This time it is different.

Funny, the “this time it will be different” seems to have come at the nexus of climate science with Green New Deal socialism. Both claiming this time things will be different. Socialism will work (it won’t be so murderous) and the consensus in science is correct (science will save the planet) – this time.

 

[LeafByNiggle]

What the experts think if it is well-argued and well-evidenced is one thing. What the experts think as a large group just because they are a group is something else completely.

I did not ask why the experts thought what they thought. I only asked what they thought. Why is this question so complicated?

Are you going to trust 90% of economists opposing minimum wage laws without referencing the arguments pro and con? Just accept what the economists think as a consensual group just because they consent?

There are plenty of examples of experts being wrong. This one here about economists is just another one such example. But experts are experts - especially in scientific fields - because they have shown that they are right more often than non-experts. Therefore a non-expert would do well to listen to them most of the time.

LeafByNiggle:

A non-expert is not qualified to pass judgement on the scientific validity of results from experts.

Sounds dogmatic.

No, it is just a true statement. Most of the time experts are more correct than non-experts.

 

[Ender]

It doesn’t? Then why link to an article that does take that exact position?

There are serious economic problems with implementing green energy. That this is true in no way means I deny climate change if for no other reason than that the term is ambiguous. If it means the climate has warmed in the last 150 years I would accept that. If denying climate change means denying the theory of AGW then, yes, that would describe my position.

If you post links to articles that use inflamatory language then I’m going to assume that you agree with what’s written and how it’s written.

The reason for linking to any citation is to use it to support the argument being made. You give way too much significance to who the author is. Deal with what is written rather than how it’s written.

 

[HarryStotle]

No, it is just a true statement. Most of the time experts are more correct than non-experts.

Except “more correct” does not translate to 97% certainty especially when the climate models and climate science, generally, are relatively nascent, haven’t borne out in reality, are fraught with data manipulation, abuse of opposition, and have other qualified experts questioning them for very good reasons. A more honest assessment would confess far more uncertainty, realism and humility from the experts than we are currently receiving.