Arthur Smith: The nothing that was Climategate

The nothing that was Climategate

by Arthur Smith, Not Spaghetti blog, November 16, 2010

Joe Romm has an excellent perspective on the last year, since "Climategate" -- focusing on the developments in the science of climate that make our situation only that much more alarming. The real story of "Climategate" is not the frank discussions between climate scientists revealed in stolen emails, and at least so far not the Watergate-like computer break-in whose perpetrators and sponsors have still not been revealed (though I am sure one day that will prove a very interesting story). As Romm emphasizes, the real tragedy of "Climategate" is the media circus that chased this shiny new conflict-driven nothing of a story when there were far, far more momentous issues regarding the reality of climate at hand. If even one of the 9 scientific claims of the past year reviewed by Romm holds up under further research -- and in my judgment very likely at least 4 or 5 of these, possibly 7 or 8, are real -- the future for my children will be a far less happy place than I had anticipated even just a year ago.

Andy Revkin's coverage of the climate email hack at the NY Times (for example, this early Dot Earth post) was an unfortunate example of the herd mentality among journalists on the subject -- I've gone back and forth myself on whether Revkin was to some extent responsible for leading the herd. It was around that time I decided his "Dot Earth" blog, which largely launched my interest in climate science, was just not worth my time any more. But even the usually science-friendly George Monbiot thought what was revealed by the emails was serious. Other than the possibly illegal freedom-of-information suppression request by a flustered Phil Jones (who I'd never heard of before), it was not, as Monbiot later confessed.

The strongest lingering widespread meme raised by "Climategate" seems to be along the line of climate scientists being cliquish and "mean"-- saying nasty things about their critics. But all of science is like that "under the covers"; science is a relentlessly tough intellectual endeavor, and scientists don't waste their time being polite to people who they see as wrong. I work for research journals and see communications between scientists criticizing one another on their science, day after day; a lot of this seems very harsh, some hardly the dispassionate image we have of the objective scientist. I looked through a random sample of such commentary recently, selecting a few relatively generic comments (i.e., leaving out the criticisms that were very specific to a particular piece of scientific work) and have posted them below -- if the climategate e-mails seem overly harsh, well, we get just as bad day in, day out, around here!

Sample comments from referees (some of the papers commented on went on to be published, some not -- so far):

This paper is beyond salvaging.

The revised manuscript and the authors' reply to my report contain arguments which are clearly unphysical.

Perhaps the authors' misconception on fundamental xxxx physics is most clearly seen in their reply to my previous comments.

Equation (x) looks very suspicious and I would not trust it at all.

I have the impression that the authors do not want to explain anything.

I disagree that this somewhat trivial manipulation of xxx presented in this paper solves any important existing problem.

It is difficult for me to review the scientific merits of this work dispassionately, because I find the verbatim reproduction of sentences from other work (in the introduction) to be rather distasteful.

The paper must be thoroughly rewritten before its scientific content could be assessed. The English is indeed extremely poor, and several sentences in the text seem meaningless.

I tend to think that Author did not want to understand my main remark. In the Comment attached one can find how to obtain all Author's results in a single line.

This paper is based on very artificial and perhaps even ill-defined conceptual distinctions and terms, which furthermore seem to be quite unrelated to the proposed model.

I feel that this paper is conceptually too vague or inconsistent to be acceptable for publication.

The authors present the results of their alleged calculations of xxxxxx. My main impression of the paper is that the authors do not quite know what they are doing. The paper is incoherently written. Most importantly the text and the Figs xxx (i.e. the results) are not consistent and the results do not make much sense.

Harsh? That's pointed criticism based on the opinions of expert reviewers. Much of it questions motives and competence. And this is just a random sample -- I've seen much worse on occasion.

There really was nothing interesting about science to be found in the "climategate" controversy. Now, whodunnit? That would be a useful journalistic pursuit.

Link:  http://arthur.shumwaysmith.com/life/content/the_nothing_that_was_climategate

On the immorality of climate change denial and journalistic misrepresentations

Choice and moral reasoning

by Arthur Smith, Not Spaghetti, March 4, 2009
 

One of my purposes in starting this blog was to have a place to put bits and pieces of my own thoughts on philosophical, moral, and religious questions; things which didn't fit in with some of the more topical (science and energy) pieces I had written previously for other websites. I've read the principle texts of most of the major religions, and reread and studied more carefully those of my own. I've dabbled in reading philosophy from a variety of sources, but I am sure there is much that I have missed, and I couldn't specifically cite a source for most of what I consider to be settled within my own mind. Some of what I've concluded is based on purely subjective personal experience that I find utterly convincing, to myself at least.

There is much still that is not settled. And some things I perhaps think of now as being settled will become less so in future. Nevertheless there are some things I'd like to put down in fixed form for whatever they are worth to me, and perhaps to others, in future.

One of these issues is the moral impact of our decisions. I firmly believe we, as human beings, have freedom to make choices in this world, despite the apparently mechanical stuff of which we are built. Every choice we make changes the world, at least in some small way, changing at least ever so slightly the course of future history. And that means that every choice may carry with it a change in future human (or other beings') pain, suffering, perhaps even death; or on the other hand happiness, joy, and life, if one fork in the road is taken rather than the other. Only the omniscient can fully know the implications of every choice, but it is our mortal, moral duty to seek as far as we can, to make right choices as far as we are able.

Ignorance is bliss in this sense - the less we know about the implications of our decisions, the freer we can be to make those choices that are for our own benefit without moral qualms. The selfish choice at least will (we think, not being omniscient) increase our own happiness, and thanks to ignorance we have no other criteria on which to choose.

Ideology or blind adherence hold similar bliss, and therein lies much of their attraction - our decisions are made for us, with no need to think carefully and choose judiciously. Logic may tell us clearly that one choice will lead to the greater benefit of the larger number of people, even ourselves, but if that choice is forbidden by our ideology or creed, well, so much the worse for all those people. The choice of the thoughtless may or may not be a selfish choice, it may even be a good choice, but it comes from worship of a false, human-created god, not one of true omniscience, and is bound to eventually lead us astray.

The knowledgeable may choose selfishness or ideological adherence regardless of the consequences. We most often do this simply by forgetting, when the choice is upon us, that there may be broader implications of our actions. This habit of forgetting is at root immoral, but also perfectly natural for us as finite beings. Those who deliberately or repeatedly choose the wrong path, with knowledge of its wrongness, or even for that purpose, cross a line from good to evil. I have long loved Solzhenitsyn's expression of where that line lies:

[...] the line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either, but right through every human heart, and through all human hearts. This line shifts. Inside us, it oscillates with the years. Even within hearts overwhelmed by evil, one small bridgehead of good is retained; and even in the best of all hearts, there remains a small corner of evil.

True wisdom forces more measured, tempered choices upon us, when we make that effort to be moral and good. Yes, every choice could lead to pain, suffering, death. We must face that reality openly, with humility, and try our utmost to understand the real implications of our choices. When confronted by those who disagree with our choices, we must consider their point of view, and study whether the good they see in the alternate choice, or the bad they see in ours truly outweighs the good we see in ours or the bad in the alternative. The level of knowledge, understanding, and wisdom in those who are in opposition are important considerations; their apparent motivations by ideology, selfishness, or actual evil intent are also important, although perhaps harder to discern.

There are general rules of thumb that have guided good decision making through the ages. "Honesty is the best policy" - I believe that wholeheartedly. "Love thy neighbor as thyself." "Give the benefit of the doubt" where there is uncertainty. "Actions speak louder than words." But the good and moral choice always boils down to finding a way to make that choice that leads to the greatest benefit to all.

All this may sound very abstract. One motivation of mine to write on this now comes from Michael Tobis' plea for an honest discussion of the morality of various participants in public discussion of global warming and its implications. In trying to better understand what motivates Roger Pielke Jr. to continually attack climate scientists in one way or another, and what motivated NY Times reporter Andy Revkin to compare a minor (and corrected) mistake by Al Gore to continuing big picture errors from George Will, Tobis states the matter as a problem of ethics with real dimensions:

As for the scope of the ethical risk, let us consider the possibility that the behavior of the Times and the Post this year increases the chance of an extreme event with a premature mortality of a billion people by a mere part per million, a per cent of a per cent of a per cent. The expected mortality from this is a thousand people. Is that morally equivalent to actually killing a thousand people? It's not all that obvious to me that it isn't.

In practice one can and must excuse oneself behind all the myriad realistic uncertainties. We don't know, after all, which butterfly will cause the hurricane. Most likely if we do find our way to hell, we will have trodden on many good intentions along the way.

But the point is that we really are playing with fire here and we shouldn't be putting our own careers or our own self-worth (like a clever and easy column for the Times) ahead of the enormous scope of the problem, because mortalities on the order of a billion are by no means excluded.

Now, admittedly this presumes we are so far from coping that it is very clear which direction we should be pulling. I believe that Revkin agrees with that, which is why I am so horrified by his actions.

Roger, you say that our present policy is not commensurate with the risks. I presume this means you too accept that there are very large risks in a delayed-policy scenario. Is this so?

This in turn places a very large ethical weight on any public speech, does it not?

The science of climate has brought us to the point where the IPCC clearly finds a high likelihood of severe impacts on human and other life on our planet by the end of the present century, if we continue on our present fossil-fuel-burning path. Hundreds of millions of people will, at the least, suffer, and millions of species of life on Earth will become extinct, if the worst projected temperature scenario comes about. Those who have no knowledge of the link can continue in ignorant bliss, of course. But those who have knowledge of these conclusions, if they are truly choosing morally and not selfishly or ideologically, must either feel compelled to act to the best of their ability to limit this future devastation, or else must find some justification of greater good that comes from delaying or preventing action now.

And there certainly are such justifications. Ceasing all fossil-fuel burning immediately would leave hundreds of millions to suffer in the cold, and would starve billions as agriculture shuts down. Immediate cessation is almost certainly not the right choice to prevent the future suffering we know is coming thanks to climate change. But continuing on a "business as usual" path as if there was no such projection is also clearly immoral. Somewhere in between is the right path. Finding it is not going to be easy, and some wrong choices will almost certainly be made along the way. But taking actions that are of clear net benefit in the short term while reducing fossil fuel use is almost certainly a good start.

So yes, this really is a life and death matter, with true ethical implications on every action taken. Sometimes each of us who knows these implications may in our day-to-day lives forget, and choose wrongly. Change is hard. But it's time for it. And it is absolutely time to question the morality and values of those who know the truth, but still stand in the way.

Link:  http://arthur.shumwaysmith.com/life/content/choice_and_moral_reasoning

Arthur Smith on Keith Kloor's obsessive misrepresentations of climate scientists' research

Kloor's five strikes

by Arthur Smith, Not Spaghetti, August 17, 2010
 

Keith Kloor is a free-lance writer who reportedly now teaches journalism at NYU; during 2008-2009 he was on some sort of fellowship in Colorado. He has been blogging for a couple of years on climate issues at Collide-A-Scape, generally on meta-level issues concerning the image of particular individuals and their claims in discussions of climate, rather than any technical science questions. Some of his stuff has been mildly interesting. His best stuff has been interviews with bloggers and scientists who have had differing stances in discussions.

But he has also persisted in a pattern of what I consider deception - whether inadvertent or deliberate - in misrepresenting the views of other people. He usually does this with selective quotation in a way that almost completely reverses the meaning of the person who made the original statement. Is this the sort of thing he's teaching journalism students? I have commented extensively on several threads at Kloor's, but his latest instance of this pattern was just too much, I've committed to not returning. You can take a look and see whether my assessment of his persistent misquotation is fair or not.
Herewith 5 specific examples:

(1) Kloor's obsessive jeremiad regarding Joe Romm of Climate Progress, accumulated over many, many, many posts, but as a typical example see this one from February 2009. Here Kloor selectively quotes Romm's stated opinion that reporter Andy Revkin has gotten behind the current science on global warming impacts to declare that Romm is "hysterical or inconsistent" because previously Romm had praised Revkin. Kloor seems to have his back up on this because Revkin is a highly respected "award-winning" journalist, and Kloor seems to think Romm has no right to tell Revkin when he's wrong. But Revkin was clearly, unequivocally wrong in the article under discussion in Romm's post, which essentially equated a complete distortion of global warming science by George Will to some minor quibbles with Al Gore's movie. Yes, both sides make "mistakes." One side honestly admits them, quickly corrects them, and if you look closely, you will note the mistakes are on exceedingly minor issues that don't change the thrust of the message. The other side, well, pretty much the opposite on every count. Anyway, with Kloor's selective quote you might think Romm was just attacking Revkin and calling him ignorant or other epithets with no basis in fact - except that in that very same article Kloor quoted from, Romm stated:

"What Revkin does is what we all do, including Gore. I was not trying to accuse Revkin of journalistic malpractice, but of making the same kind of choices and honest mistakes. When such actions rise to the level of mistake or, in Gore’s case (or my case here), something between a correction or clarification, a correction or clarification should be made quickly. Now we will find out if Andy is journalist enough to realize that the widespread condemnation his article has received requires a correction and/or clarification itself.
[...]

It boggles the mind that any serious reporter for the New York Times would quote such an inane point of view, let alone present it with no response whatsoever. [...]

Seriously, Andy, what purpose does the Times serve? Either there is such a thing as facts — in which case Will is a liar and you should say so — or there isn’t — in which case every New York Times reporter should just find a different job, which, I guess, It’s pretty much what’s going to happen anyway, and maybe we just shouldn’t mourn that."

I.e., Romm is holding Revkin to a high standard, one an award-winning journalist at a major newspaper should be held to; he's not accusing him of being wrong about everything, but about one specific article that was indeed egregious in its neutral "stenography" in regard to blatant misinformation.

Kloor's claim this is "hysterical or inconsistent" could only be valid in a world of personality cults, where the word of an "award-winning" reporter is not only to be respected, but never to be questioned.

There are plenty of other instances of stupidity in Kloor's attacks on Romm. I particularly liked the one where Kloor left out the "New" part of "New York Times," while attacking Romm for not saying something that he did in fact say, afterwards updated with Kloor's apology that he "speed-reads" Romm's posts because they are so long. Keith, maybe if you slowed down a bit you'd be a better journalist?

(2) In March 2009, after some discussion of the very same Revkin article by climate blogger Michael Tobis of Only In It For The Gold, Kloor gleefully attacked Tobis by quote-mining this gem:

I don’t think his dragging Gore into Will’s muck was a minor transgression of a fine point of propriety. I think it was palpably evil.

I've posted my own take on why Tobis' words regarding "evil" here were entirely justified. In any case, Kloor then goes on to quote what seems to be Tobis' blaming Roger Pielke Jr. for Revkin's mishap here. But in fact, the post in question was largely a *defense* of Pielke: the title itself suggests Pielke was being "framed" (by other bloggers) to take the blame for the Gore/Will fiasco by Revkin. Tobis instead clearly states: "As far as I can tell the blame for this particular travesty rests squarely with Revkin."

Why does Kloor twist Tobis' words around to mean essentially the opposite of what Tobis' actual blog post says? More "speed-reading" problems? Well, there are worse examples to follow.

(3) The David Brin case, this past July. Brin had written an article about distinguishing "deniers" from "skeptics," a version of which was apparently published in "Skeptic magazine." If you read Brin's article it's very clear that to qualify as a true climate "skeptic" now you have to be almost entirely ignorant of any of the scientific evidence. That evidence is now so overwhelming (see IPCC reports, etc.) that anybody who is a "Skeptic magazine"-type skeptic, seeing the evidence, would be convinced we have a very serious problem on our hands regarding climate. Keith Kloor, however, chose to selectively quote Brin to make it appear that his article was actually about distinguishing "pro-science" skeptics (such as presumably himself? Roger Pielke Jr.? Unnamed bloggers?) from anti-intellectual "deniers." It was not, as Brin himself confirmed in comments on the post. Every one of Kloor's "pro-science" skeptics is clearly in Brin's "denier" camp, if you actually read Brin's article.

That Kloor chose to misrepresent Brin this way is very strange, but again seems typical - speed-reading again, I guess. I found this case particularly bad because Kloor's selective quotes were from a *print* article, not available online (the version I linked to just now was an earlier article on the subject, though Brin later confirmed it was substantially the same).

(4) Climate scientist Gavin Schmidt of NASA and the Real Climate blog has had several forays on "Collide-A-Scape." The most recent episode involved some debate with fellow climate scientist Judith Curry. Schmidt was evidently trying to figure out what Curry was on about regarding uncertainties and complaints she had regarding models, and so was trying to get specific details on the issues she claimed to be concerned about. This was evidently a frustrating process, as perusal of that thread and linked discussions should make obvious. As Schmidt pointed out in the comment just linked, "You [Curry] brought up a series of issues which were just not relevant." He then concluded his comment with an explanation of why he was bothering at all to try to get to the bottom of this:

When smart and informed people see basically the same information but come to different conclusions, I find that interesting since there might be something to be learned. I’m not interested in winning an argument with you, I’m interested in seeing whether there are issues that might not have been considered or where there might be new information that could be brought to bear. I am not here to play games.

Schmidt is clearly showing frustration at the lack of any "learning" so far from their discussion. This is not a complimentary or conciliatory comment, it is a highly critical one. So what does Keith Kloor do with it? Why pull out just the seemingly conciliatory part and highlight it in his next post. The post itself had very little commentary from Kloor, but it was immediately seized upon by Curry with Kloor's support in the comments... as I pointed out later in the thread:

As usual Keith leaves out the damning context of the apparently conciliatory quote – the one this “chasm” is centered on was preceded by:

“I have merely been trying to see whether you have any actual basis for your complaints about a specific statement in AR4 (which I think was (and is) a justified conclusion). You brought up a series of issues which were just not relevant.”

The problem here is exactly what I stated in that same thread:

“the one thing we really can learn … is the need to be extremely careful and precise in the things we say and claim. Scientists should exercise greater care in their work, and those criticizing the science should also be precise and exact in their statements.”

Dr. Curry has made many statements in these threads that have almost all been of a very vague character, made in a careless manner that led either to confusion or frustration on the part of people trying to respond (for example, Gavin’s continued attempt to respond to the IPCC AR4 attribution question regarding post-1950 change, while Dr. Curry kept talking about pre-1950 issues), or in cases where she actually was specific (that the latest GISS model sensitivity had dropped, that models were tuned to temperatures, that no-feedback sensitivity was much more uncertain than radiative forcing), at face value these statements were all clearly wrong. Dr. Curry responded to many of these with “clarifications” of one sort or another, but why not be specific and precise at the start about what you’re claiming, if what you’re actually saying is not what the rest of us interpret by it at face value?

Clarity in communication is the real problem here. Gavin seems to have been trying to be very precise in his statements and responses. Dr. Curry, not nearly so much. There’s a real issue here, and it’s not a “both sides do it” problem. The confusion is fostered by only one side here.

Kloor is playing the Revkin stenographer game writ small, with selective quotation to distort the truth of one-sided misbehavior.

(5) The worst case, though, is Kloor's recent return to attacking Michael Tobis.
At least one notable thing about this August 14th distortion is Kloor's technique is so blatantly obvious this time around. Kloor calls Tobis (and Romm for good measure) a hypocrite for making moral arguments regarding climate, while pointing out that "mitigation (curbing carbon emissions) has to take precedence over adaptation, and that in any event, adaptation [is] largely a local matter." which Kloor interprets to mean Tobis is downplaying "adaptation," i.e., helping people handle the consequences of climate disruption. But reading the original comment you can see it starts with the clear statement: "Adaptation is crucial. It is necessary, but it is not sufficient." Tobis' point regarding precedence is simply that, if you don't mitigate, the amount of adaptation needed just keeps getting bigger and bigger and bigger. And worse than that, because we can't readily model all the regional responses but we know that some of them will involve significant changes in, for example, precipitation patterns, we can't even know in advance what adaptations are needed! Do you prepare for 1000-year drought, or 1000-year flood, or one after the other??

The best comment I've seen on this question is this quote from John Holdren:

We basically have three choices: mitigation, adaptation and suffering. We’re going to do some of each. The question is what the mix is going to be. The more mitigation we do, the less adaptation will be required and the less suffering there will be.

That is exactly the point. Kloor completely misses it. Perhaps he was speed-reading his own comments? But he still has not corrected his post on Tobis. And I have no intention of writing any more about Keith Kloor, or visiting his blog again. Sorry Keith, your 15 minutes is over.

Link:  http://arthur.shumwaysmith.com/life/content/kloors_five_strikes

Infamous climate denier, Lord Monckton, after he labelled climate advocates, "Hitler Youth," is confronted by the International Youth Climate Movement

Dear Readers,

I hesitate to post yet one more video of Viscount Monckton, the Potty Peer, but this was such a good job by the young people who made the video, and once in a while we must try to smile, even about a subject as serious as this one.

For a thorough debunking of Monckton's attempts to re-write the laws of physics, see RealClimate (http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/05/moncktons-deliberate-manipulation/) and Arthur Smith's (http://www.altenergyaction.org/Monckton.html) most excellent deconstructions.

Enjoy!



Link to YouTube video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PDubnFU3BXE