The Bipartisan Climate Project

The overwhelming consensus is that President Obama hit all the right notes in his Tucson speech earlier this week. I know I was moved and inspired by it.

On the one hand the President said, “let us remember it is not because a simple lack of civility caused this tragedy — it did not,” but at the same time he implored:

Rather than pointing fingers or assigning blame, let’s use this occasion to expand our moral imaginations, to listen to each other more carefully, to sharpen our instincts for empathy and remind ourselves of all the ways that our hopes and dreams are bound together.

That balancing act–not casting blame while also urging a civic soul-searching was underscored by this passage:

If this tragedy prompts reflection and debate — as it should — let’s make sure it’s worthy of those we have lost.  Let’s make sure it’s not on the usual plane of politics and point-scoring and pettiness that drifts away in the next news cycle.

Which brings me to today’s mishmash of a column by David Brooks, who appears to attribute our political polarization to American society’s increasingly narcissistic streak. To me, the reason for our entrenched political divisions is better explained by Paul Krugman’s column today.

But one sentence near the end of Brooks’ column jumped out at me:

President Obama’s speech in Tucson was a good step, but there will have to be a bipartisan project like comprehensive tax reform to get people conversing again.

This would seem to apply to many of our polarized debates mired in antagonism and suspicion, especially climate change.

So this got me thinking: what if there was a bloggy bipartisan project on climate change and energy issues, which brought together varied voices under one roof? Right now, all we have are mostly blog silos (I’m referring to the popular sites), where the opposing camps go for comfort food and confirmation of their views, notwithstanding the comment threads where people sometimes duke it out.

The point of a Bipartisan Climate Project on the web is that it would be a civil platform for strong and varied voices across the spectrum to co-exist and converse with one another. Given that we have a lull in the political/policy sphere regarding climate and energy issues, such a project might also help to re-energize and sharpen debate.

I have some ideas on who I would want to participate in this project. But first I’d like to hear your nominations, or if you even think this is a good idea.

95 Responses to “The Bipartisan Climate Project”

  1. toto says:

    <i>So this got me thinking: what if there was a bloggy bipartisan project on climate change and energy issues, which brought together varied voices under one roof?</i>
     
    I think Lucia’s Blackboard comes close to that . You need to filter out a lot of noise in the comments, but the signal from the posts (especially Zeke’s stuff) is often high.
     

  2. Keith Kloor says:

    One person can’t do it. And the topics have to be varied.

    The site would have to resemble the blogging networks you see at mainstream outlets like The Atlantic or Discover: a big enough tent to regularly draw in folks from across the spectrum

  3. Francis says:

    Picking up on my last comment on Raise Your Hand, sure it’s worth a try.
    First idea: respect your opponent.  Use language that does not immediately cause aggravation.  Allow your opponent to define himself/herself in their own terms and then use that term.  I propose “Skeptic” (capitalized) in lieu of “denier”.  Skeptics can come up with their own term.
     
    Second idea: There are a lot more than two sides.  Joe Romm honestly believes hell and high water is coming with business as usual.  Girma is expecting cooling.  This needs to be an Open Climate Project.
     
    Third idea: A standard time-based blog approach is probably ineffective.  Instead, what might make more sense is to use a topic-based approach, like that at Skeptical Science.  Creating the appropriate format for a simultaneous multi-topic debate is likely to be tricky but worth the investment of time.
     
    Fourth idea: Have the site hosted by non-scientists.  I’d pick you, Keith, and Lucia as co-hosts / co-moderators, but it’s not my time I’m offering so I’m hardly in a position to insist.

  4. Tom Fuller says:

    Judith mentioned something similar in an interview she did with me some months ago. I’m sure she’d play. I think it’s a great idea. I can predict with total confidence that exactly zero Tier 1 or Tier 2 warmist blogs will react positively. It’d be wonderful if I were wrong, however.

  5. Steven Sullivan says:

    Brooks is a hoot.  With his armchair sociologist hat on he alternates between two modes : 1) offering bromides with the formula ‘but despite awful thing X, the American People are at heart wise and good and can sort out truth from lies’  (one imagines ‘Simple Gifts’ playing in the background as he gets all choked up on this stuff)  , and 2) scolding us for being naughty (in this column, he notes that we’re too narcissistic and prideful and gosh darnit not aware of our ‘sinfulness’).  I do agree with him now and then, but often he’s a Beltway boob.
     
    As for a Bipartisan Blog project,  it would trip up unless the “strong and varied voices” diligently excludes the noisemaking of those who believe that AGW is a hoax…i.e., the literal ‘deniers’.  There is no point in accommodating the *entire* spectrum of voices on this.   Science certainly does not.  We do have some ‘facts’ (in the provisional, scientific sense) available to us at this late date, and that must be  acknowledged.  There would have to be a set of claims agreed upon by the participants, and these can’t be so watered down as to be meaningless.
     
     
     
     
     
     

  6. Menth says:

    @Francis Re:First Idea
     
    I am continually amazed at how many commentators and bloggers who seem genuinely interested in persuading opponents yet lob insult after insult within any given blog post/comment. Snarkyness, condescension, sarcasm all tend to override and drown out any rational element of an argument and only serve to further entrench an opponents already held opinion. Perhaps it stems from the fact that many people on both sides of the argument are in actuality trying to convince themselves or just rallying to their base rather than attempting to enter genuine dialog.

  7. TimG says:

    Why do you assume that these issues can be resolved by staking out the extreme positions and drawing a line down the middle? We are talking about fundmental beliefs on the priorities for society.

    For example, most on the right want government and regulation spending reduced. There is no compromise on the climate file that would not result in an increase in spending in regulation.

    What this means is calls for bipartisan compromise on climate are really nothing but calls for the right to give up on their desire to reduce the size of government. Why does anyone think this is a reasonable demand?

  8. Keith Kloor says:

    TimG (6):

    Wow. How did you ever get that from my modest proposal. Can you point to where I said anything about “staking out the extreme positions and drawing a line down the middle.”

    I thought I was pretty specific and even vague. I wrote: The point of a Bipartisan Climate Project on the web is that it would be a civil platform for strong and varied voices across the spectrum to co-exist and converse with one another.

    Does that resemble your characterization of what I wrote?

     

  9. Keith Kloor says:

    Eric, I don’t go there (and why isn’t my blog listed as an “essential site” 🙂

    for the same reason I don’t go to Climate Desk: There’s nothing happening there.

    I’m not talking about a news aggregator or a static website that lists blog posts and articles from various outlets.

    I’m talking about a site that actually engages in the daily/weekly conversation. A site that fosters cross exchange between disparate voices.

  10. TimG says:

    Keith,

    My choice of words was inappropriate. I should not have singled you out and I should have said:

    “When people talk about compromise they often mean drawing a line down the middle…”

    It is not clear to me what middle ground exists between people who want to ‘reduce the size of government’ and people who want ‘tangible action on CO2’. A forum for civilized discussion on the issues may be most pleasent to read but it will end up being just as deadlocked because of the philosophical gap.

    If you disagree then how would you bridge that philosophical gap with something that would not represent a capitulation by one side or the other?

  11. Francis says:

    #5.  I’m not sure what I said to offend, but I apologize unreservedly.  I’m honestly trying to create an atmosphere where people can speak to each other without immediately creating feelings of animosity due to language used.  Please feel free to let me know what terms in common usage bear such an adverse connotation that they should be avoided.

  12. David Palmer says:

    I think the climate science side of things is too contested and anyway over the next 10-15 years it will be much clearer whether all the alarm is warrented.

    The bigger issue is the energy question – what are the replacements for fossil fuels that are cheap (thinking as much if not more the developing world though ourselves as well, remembering we’ve got plenty of poor people) and provide baseload 24 hour per day, 7 day per week.

    Its around the energy question that the climate alarmist lack credibility and run up against Pielke Jr’s iron law on political reality re the cost of renewable energy.

  13. David Palmer says:

    Regarding the suggestion in 2nd paragraph post #5 from Stephen Sullivan – leaving aside my own reservations, this would be exactly the wrong way to proceed.

    Excluding people “from the other side” is basically what you have at present and its not working. Post climategate, Copenhagen, cold winters, current waning public support for action means you do need to include, not exclude IPCC critics and sceptics, if you are to have any chance of cohesion.

    This afterall was what the IAC recommended when it said IPCC review editors must consider and respond to all comments on draft findings and that genuine controversies be adequately reflected ““ and this
    includes paying special attention to review comments that point out contradictions, unreferenced literature, or potential errors; and ensuring that alternate views receive proper consideration.

  14. HugeDifference says:

    I think this is a great idea — the format I suggest is based on the oldest hyperlinked textual argument format in the world, the ancient wiki-talmud:
     
    Take a look at the Talmud: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Talmud.jpg and then a blog like setting in which:
    a) the major post is centered in the page
    b) the warmists get one half the page for their arguments
    c) the skeptics get their half the page for their arguments
    d) rebuttals to b) and c) are distributed about b) and c)
    e) some amount of contributors and hoi polloi vote on the best b) and c) and d) arguments and rebuttals which influences their placement.
     
    Stick it on a wiki, but get sponsorship and software from Wolfram so that embedded into the page can be datasets, functions, graphs, and mini-climate models.  Get /. to help, they still imho do moderation best.

  15. Leonard Weinstein says:

    The hypothesis of CAGW has been proposed and supported by many mainstream climatologists, and by the IPPC summaries. The skeptics (a term that covers a wide range of positions) basically have asked for falsifiable evidence unique to this hypothesis, and that has been demonstrated. NONE HAS BEEN PRESENTED THAT IS STRONG ENOUGH TO SATISFY THAT NEED. This is a very complex problem, and the time that extensive data has been available short (with many questions even on the error bands). Many skeptics accept GW (natural variation), and even some AGW (remember, even a butterfly has some affect). The issue is FEEDBACK and the maximum extent of of probable warming. If the debate were meaningful, it would be constrained to the questions of feedback and maximum effect, and nothing else.

  16. harrywr2 says:

    Opposition to action on climate change is a function of it’s cost.
    The higher the perceived cost the more opposition their will be.
    All the utilities in the US Southeast are more then happy to phase out their coal fired plants if they can manage to get financing for replacement nuclear plants.
    Florida,Georgia,South Carolina and North Carolina burn 100 million tons of coal a year.
    It’s not hard to figure the politics.
    Coal prices in the US Southeast are the highest in the country.
    Coal prices by state
    http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/coal/page/acr/table34.html
    And wind resource is non-existant in the US South East.
    http://www.freewindsystems.com/Wind_Map.html
     

  17. MikeA says:

    Kieth, I thing to have a successful bipartisan project you would need a good format. I think a symposium would be good, in Q&A mode. Invite the symposium members, half a dozen would do. Set up a series of questions and then the moderator can frame the questions dynamically after the initial opening questions.
    This would not be quick enough to suit some, but it would encourage intelligent discussion. This would be without responses from the peanut gallery but perhaps with submitted questions to the moderator.
    It would be really nice to see a discussion without the constant noise of people questioning the basics of climate science and focusing on the meat of the problem.
    This is just a suggestion, but it would be nice to see something covering the ground in a more formal fashion than the anarchy of the blogs.

  18. cagw_skeptic99 says:

    There is no shortage now of forums where both sides could discuss the issues. There is a shortage of true believers who are also Climate Scientists (TBCS) who are actually willing to discuss the issues.

    Trying to discuss climate issues with TBCS is a bit like discussing religion with a Catholic Priest. The job of the Priest is to educate and correct false impressions. False impressions consist of any impression that conflicts with what the Priest is teaching.

    Compounding the issue are statements from multiple TBCS that the best qualified sceptics (M&M) are liars and they go on to say that they will not visit their blogs or engage in give and take with anyone who has questioned their integrity or maybe even impugned the quality of their scientific work.

    Many of the most prominent TBCS have engaged in behavior, as clearly demonstrated by their own words in their own emails, that is unethical and constitutes lying as defined by most people. Their accusations against skeptics are seen by many as proof that they believe a good offense is the best defense.

    If the Hockey Team wanted to discuss the issues with qualified skeptics, they could have done so any time on CA, WUWT, CAS, Climate Etc., and probably more, and could start doing so today. Open discussion is likely to damage their professional reputations and future funding, so it isn’t really something that they want to do.

  19. #14 David Palmer: ” Excluding people “from the other side” is basically what you have at present and its not working.”
     
    Read my post more carefully.  AGW *deniers* — the ones who think AGW isn’t real, it’s all a hoax, if not merely a big mistake  on the part of science –  is the faction I would exclude from the conversation  They do not constitute the totality of the ‘other side’ — there are a great many ‘skeptics’ who at least admit that AGW is real and occurring — this includes ‘stars’ like McIntyre.  The *deniers* are a subset of ‘the other side’.  They are the extreme.  They are the flat earthers, the young earth creationists, the just-plain-wrong,  and including their voices only lowers the S/N ratio.
     
     
     

  20. Keith, it appears there’s a rogue italics tag that needs closing on this thread…

  21. Steve Reynolds says:

    “I have some ideas on who I would want to participate in this project. But first I’d like to hear your nominations…”
    How about Willis E. to represent skeptics, Steve Mc to represent auditors, Judith C and Bart V to represent moderate warmists, and Gavin S or other RC contributor to represent the more extreme climate scientists?
     

  22. mct says:

    Certainly, as an interested layman, I’d love to see / hear sensible, moderated, debate between some of the major players in each of the many nuanced positions… and it would be key to accept that there is not some false Us/Them dichotomy but rather a broad spectrum of really rather sensible opinion.

    And yes, keeping the “riff raff” out would be essential… whether that be “flat-earthers” from one side or “attack dogs” from the other! Neither add one iota of common sense to the debate.
     

  23. Keith Kloor says:

    I took out the html in one of the comments on this thread that seemed to have caused problems for some folks. Hope that helps.

  24. Barry Woods says:

    20#

    care to identify any of these flat earthers, in a year of this, I have failed to come across any blogs that would qualify.

    To keep hyping this appears to be a construct.

  25. The discussion at Climate Clash has been fascinating so far because of its premise of conducting a debate according to courtroom traditions.
     
    Admittedly, I think there is an element of naivety to the proposition which reminds me, on the UK political discussion programme “Question Time”, of when a young audience member posed a dead serious question “Why can’t politicians just agree to do the right thing?”
     
    But the project, entered into in good faith, would tell us a lot about who sits where and why, merely through the process of identifying the rules and the participants – and equally importantly, justifying reasons for rejecting them. I would be watching for things like the definition of empirical evidence, the acceptance/rejection of strict adherence to Scientific Method and many other core features of the rule-set.
     
    My first three picks for the debate would be: Judith Curry; Steve McIntyre; Willis Eschenbach. (reasons: dedication to balance and reason; meticulous attention to detail; BFG/WMD)

  26. Marlowe Johnson says:

    For the ‘skeptics’ who admit to the basics of climate change science (i.e. it is realO) and yet suggest that it is not a problem of catastrophic proportions, I have a very simple question.  What evidence and/or beliefs do you use to justify this position?  Do you believe that climate sensitivity is <1.5C? Or is it a case of technological optimism (cold fusion is just around the corner)?
     
    In the absence of a solid grounding in climate science and/or mitigation technologies how is any position other than agnoticism justified?

  27. JD Ohio says:

    I would add a discussion between experts on modelling.  The current post on Watts Up by Eschenbach on a GISS model is amazing to me.  Apparently, volcanic forcing are reduced by 60% with respect to other forcings.  There may be a good reason for this, but since the models are so important, it would be useful to have those with high skills in this area comment.
     
    Unfortunately, I realize that no one is immune from the bias of their perspective and some of it will degenerate into high tech pie throwing, but a searching analysis of the models would be useful.
     
    JD

  28. Marlowe, I see you’re attempting to adopt Trenberth’s reversal of burden of responsibility to prove a hypothesis. Did you steal it directly?
     
    I consider that adding anthropogenic CO2 at given amounts and rates is ‘more likely than not’ to have a warming effect. The trend of warming since 1850 sits at 0.4C according to the HadCRUT3 variance-adjusted record. That trend may be entirely accounted for by natural variability – exiting the LIA, for example – or may be accounted for by anthropogenic CO2, or could be 50/50, or could be any proportion in between.
     
    The burden is on you to prove that this amounts to an impending catastrophe, not for sceptics to prove that it doesn’t.
     
    If you think that the act of attempting to introduce this anti-scientific requirement will stop at just making sceptics point and laugh, you’re deluding yourself. I am absolutely confident that anyone who took a highschool science class would bork when they hear exactly how you’re contorting and perverting science to make it work for you.

  29. 0.4C/century, I should have said.

  30. Marlowe Johnson says:

    @Simon,
     
    I have no idea what you’re talking about.  I’m asking question about how people form their opinions in the absence of relevant scientific expertise that are patently at odds with the prevailing ‘consensus’ view.  This sort of thing isn’t restricted to climate science btw.  I could just as easily ask why so many people are opposed to vaccines.
     
    Let me reiterate my position.  In the absence of relevant expertise, the logical position is the consensus view, or at worst agnosticism.  To  pick an alternative position one must admit to being swayed by emotion (i.e. no liking the implications) or delusional thinking (i.e. all those climate scientists and national academies have got it wrong,  and Anthony Watts and Dick Lindzen have got it right).
     
    Unless you want to argue that there is no consensus view of climate change and likely future impacts, then the burden is on you to prove why the consensus is wrong.  To pretend otherwise is ludicrous.

    “I consider that adding anthropogenic CO2 at given amounts and rates is “˜more likely than not’ to have a warming effect.”
     
    That’s it?  Doesn’t basic radiative physics suggest that the odds on that particular score are greater than 99%?  Let me know the next time you want to make a wager.  I’m sure Connelly and Brian Schmidt would be interested….
     

  31. willard says:

    Keith,
     
     
    Due to impopular demand, take a look at this:
     
     
    http://mathoverflow.net/
     
     
    A tool like this might be helpful for what you’re suggesting.
     
     
    Of course, we’d have to adat it a lot.  Perhaps even mitigate it.

  32. kdk33 says:

    “In the absence of relevant expertise, the logical position is the consensus view…”

    It would seem fair to ask what expertise is actually relevant. 

    When assessing demands for decarbonization to forestall looming climate catastrophe, one ought consider a number of non scientific factors.  Human nature and the need to explain the unkown, various financial incentives at play, the global politics of decarbonization, the credibility of the scientists….  All of these (and more) are releveant but non-technical. 

    I’ve no knowledge of tarot Cards, but am perfectly unwilling to act on a tarot reading.

    Otherwise, it seems you are arguing for a priestly class:  we are preists, we say X, anyone who says not-X is not a priest, only priests are qualified to know.  Which is rather silly.

  33. Marlowe Johnson says:

    @kdk33,
     
    No.  I’m arguing that if you don’t have the expertise to say whether or not a problem exists, you don’t get to participate in that particular debate.  Sorry but science isn’t a democracy.
     
    Where you do get to participate is in the discussion about responses to said problem.  When the discussion moves to this terrain expertise is helpful but not strictly necessary.  The policy response to climate change is ultimately political not scientific.  Does that mean that science (i.e. climate science and economics) can’t/shouldn’t contribute?  Of course not.  But it is precisely because such decisions are ultimately informed by normative considerations (e.g. concern for future generations, risk tolerance, etc) that the broader public needs to be engaged on this aspect of the problem.

  34. Marlowe, I can’t speak for anyone else but in the absence of climate science expertise what I am seeking are falsifiable hypotheses in support of catastrophic climate changes to properly address the null hypothesis that business is as usual. The “consensus” is meaningless to anyone who rejects logically fallacious arguments from authority, and cannot anyway compete with the demand for a falsifiable hypothesis.
     
    You say “Unless you want to argue that there is no consensus view of climate change and likely future impacts, then the burden is on you to prove why the consensus is wrong.  To pretend otherwise is ludicrous.”
     
    I do argue that there is no scientific consensus that anthropogenic CO2 will have catastrophic impact. I see no evidence of such a thing, only unsupported claims that such a thing exists. The only consensus that appears to exist is in support of my own position, which is that there is likely a warming effect and that the extent of that warming is somewhere between negligible and potentially detectable. I don’t recognise model projections as observations or their runs as admissible evidence.
     
    That there is so little to go on, Marlowe, is a failing in climate science to make its case using traditional scientific methodology, rather than a failing in sceptics to make a counter-argument. Make your propositions falsifiable and then we’ll see where we are.
     

  35. Marlowe #34: “The policy response to climate change is ultimately political not scientific.  Does that mean that science (i.e. climate science and economics) can’t/shouldn’t contribute?  Of course not.”
     
    On the contrary, the burden on scientists is to do the science. It is the responsibility of policy makers to do the policy. Scientists are obliged to provide a dispassionate appraisal of the current state of scientific knowledge. Dispassionate, not policy-steering. Scientists don’t HAVE a mandate to do that. They’re funded to be scientists, not policy makers, and I know this because I didn’t get the option to vote for a single one of them.

  36. Marlowe #31: “all those climate scientists and national academies have got it wrong,  and Anthony Watts and Dick Lindzen have got it right”

    Last I checked, Marlowe, 50% of your examples of non-scientists was a professor at MIT. The other 50% is a meteorologist and AMS seal holder. Derogatory doesn’t sufficiently cover your pitch, Marlowe.

  37. Marlowe, so that we can be sure we’re all on the same page, can you tell me where the “consensus” is derived from, explicitly what the consensus states, and how it comes to the figure “97%” please. I’m not suggesting that it’s meaningful, because any appeal to/argument from authority is obviously a logical fallacy, but I do think it would be useful to know where you believe this thing is coming from and to compare it with where I think it’s coming from.

  38. Marlowe Johnson says:

    Simon I give up.
     
    I tried Keith, I really did but I’m at a loss of how to have a meaningful conversation with the likes of Simon on this issue….

  39. What? What’s the problem, Marlowe? What have I asked that is unreasonable?
     
    Is asking for a falsifiable hypothesis too much to ask?
     
    Is asking for an explanation/definition/source of the “consensus” too much to ask?
     
    Is acknowledging that climate models do not produce empirical evidence too much to ask?
     
    Did my pointing out that Dick Lindzen is an academic push you over your tipping point?
     
    I don’t see the problem with any of the above, nor do I see how answering my questions could NOT be meaningful. On the contrary, there was an opportunity to advance the debate by leaps and bounds. Sceptics have been frustrated for a long time because we can’t seem to get answers to fundamental problems similar to the ones outlined in my recent posts.

  40. Marlowe Johnson says:

    “The only consensus that appears to exist is in support of my own position, which is that there is likely a warming effect and that the extent of that warming is somewhere between negligible and potentially detectable.”
     
    At this point Simon I can only conclude that you’re either willfully ignorant or delusional. If the position statements by the IPCC and virtually every national academy in the western world doesn’t constitute a consensus then I can’t imagine what does.  Now really all you have left to quibble about semantics.  What is meant by catastrophic? is it 2% of GDP, or 10%? What timeframe? 2050 or 2100?
     
    And since you keep bringing up ‘falsifiable hypotheses’ could you elaborate on what exactly you’re looking for?  Given that you have no idea what your talking about (or do you have a degree in atmospheric physics by chance?), I can’t imagine what would do it for you.
     
    “can you tell me where the “consensus” is derived from, explicitly what the consensus states, and how it comes to the figure “97%” please. “


    Undergraduate physics.  On a side note, what sort of odds would you give someone who said that gravity didn’t exist and that they’d prove it by jumping off their roof?
     
     

  41. Stu says:

    @41


    “Undergraduate physics.”


    Heh… as soon as I read that, an old Futurama dialogue popped into my head. No prizes for guessing which character’s line I had in mind for the quote above…


    Fry: Usually on [Star Trek], they came up with a complicated plan and explained it with a simple analogy.

    Leela: Hmm, if we can re-route engine power through the primary weapons and configure them to Melllvar’s frequency, that should overload his electro-quantum structure.

    Bender: Like putting too much air into a balloon!


  42. Stu says:

    (Keith- didn’t mean to bold my text in the post above)

  43. kdk33 says:

    “No.  I’m arguing that if you don’t have the expertise to say whether or not a problem exists, you don’t get to participate in that particular debate.  Sorry but science isn’t a democracy.”

    We can certainly agree that science is not a democracy; I am wholly unswayed by appeals to consensus.

    It still seems to me that you are arguing for a priestly cast.  Perhaps you could clarify by telling me what qualifications are required before one can advance an opinion on the climate sciences:  a college degree? a technical degree? an advanced degree? a certain number of publications? 

  44. Marlowe Johnson says:

    start here for more on the equations and what atmospheric physics majors learn in undergraduate classes.  But of course if y’all were really interested in these questions you’d know this already.  It’s not like information is top secret.

  45. First up, Marlowe, the consensus you’re describing is a consensus of opinion, not a consensus of scientific evidence. An academic institution’s published position statement means precisely bugger all in science, being an assertion by the academy masquerading (when YOU use it) as the opinion of its membership. Apparently you think that “professional opinion” is a substitute for scientific discovery. Where I’m from, that’s what we call “a joke”.
     
    FYI, the “97% of the world’s climate scientists” consensus is from the master’s thesis of University of Illinois’ Maggie Zimmerman. Surveyed were over ten thousand earth scientists. The 97%, however, is the result of cherry picking a subset of just 77 of those respondents (an impressive 1/133rd of earth scientists surveyed). Of the 77 respondents selected, 75 believed humans contributed to climate change.
    http://probeinternational.org/library/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/012009_Doran_final1.pdf
     
    You write: “And since you keep bringing up “˜falsifiable hypotheses’ could you elaborate on what exactly you’re looking for?”
     
    Let’s start with something simple. Say “The 0.4C/century increase in global mean temperatures since 1850 can be directly attributed to anthropogenic contributions to atmospheric CO2 rather than natural variability.” The null hypothesis would, of course, be “The 0.4C/century increase in global mean temperatures is in accordance with observed historic natural variability.”
     
    I think that’s a reasonable starting point, and should kill off the “deniarrrs”. I thoroughly expect this is achievable.. if not, I’ll have to call into question my own position which is essentially mirrored by this falsifiable hypothesis. Once we’ve got this down, we can move on to catastrophic effects, floods in Pakistan, heatwaves in Russia and so on – all of which have been attributed to CAGW by climate science spokespeople in the media.
     
    Note that “simple physics” or some such doesn’t cut it as a response. We’re talking about a complex chaotic system with lots of forcings and feedbacks about many of which we lack proper understanding. Barry Woods had a good post about this on WUWT recently. “In reality my feather blew up a tree”, or something like that, I forget exactly.

  46. Oh.. spotted something, Keith. The “Catastrophic” in CAGW denotes an imperative. AGW is AGW, but CAGW demands action – whether that be free air conditioners for all, new 20 metre sea defences for every coast, carbon mitigation/sequestration, a ban on road transport/night-time road usage curfew or an energy-efficient lightbulb or taxing to a doubling of energy bills.

  47. Sorry.. Marlowe, not Keith.

  48. Keith Kloor says:

    Well, this thread is deceptive, since more than half of it has nothing to do with the actual post.

     

  49. Keith, fair enough. I wandered off-topic after my post #26.

  50. Marlowe Johnson says:

    Keith,
     
    Unless you mean an anti-RealClimate site — by which I mean a site/conversation devoted to climate policy rather than climate science, I’m pretty skeptical of any ‘bipartisan’ climate outreach that you might envision.  As you can see from my exchange with Simon and others on this thread, there really isn’t common ground.  From my POV they’re in tinfoil hat land…
     
    I realize that this may come across as less than diplomatic but that’s how it looks from here…

  51. Steven Sullivan says:

    #22:
    If RC is going to be counted as ‘extreme’ then I think we have a fail right there, because then the scientific mainstream has been relabeled ‘extreme’.
     
     
     
     

  52. FWIW, Marlowe, I’m happy for you to consign me to the tin foil hat brigade if that’s what makes you feel better. Meanwhile, I’m entirely satisfied that my questions are not unreasonable, that my requests are the stuff of established scientific practice and that my assertions are qualified and sound. That this discussion is unacceptable to you is disappointing but it is not unexpected.
     
    From my point of view, I don’t feel the need to be undiplomatic.

  53. Steve Reynolds says:

    Marlowe: “What is meant by catastrophic? is it 2% of GDP, or 10%?”
    Even 10% by 2100 is not catastrophic, especially if you compare to the cost of mitigation. 10% is less than 4 years of average world GDP growth.

  54. Keith,

    I think it’s a good idea in principle. How it would work out in practice I don’t know. The degree of polarization is such that at the same time it’s highly needed but also extremely difficult to do. I’m a little skeptical to what extent people would be interested in this, given the level of animosity and the entertainment value people seem to get out of that (as exemplified by which kinds of blog posts garner most traffic). As came up in the conversation between you, Lucia and me, blogs seem to have an inherent tendency towards polarization.

    The chance of succes of such an endeavour would probably be increased by enlisting people who are new to and not known by the blogosphere. Then there’s less chance for people’s preconceived notions about personalities spoiling the whole objective. Since most vitriol usually occurs in the comments, either strict moderation would be needed, with the obvious problem of how to remain as neutral as possible, or only allow a restricted set of selected commenters or no comments at all. All options have their pros and cons. With commenters from all sides participating, precautions would have to be taken to not end up in a food fight, whcih is always just around the corner.

  55. charles says:

    In principle it is a good idea but it is hard to see how it would work in practice – just as Bart says. It would need to be organized by ‘moderates’ such as you and Lucia and JC for example.
    As you note in 49, there are certain people who ignore the focused questions in your posts, and attempt to derail every thread by turning it into the same  pointless discussion of AGW from scratch. Both sides are guilty of this, see for example #16 #27.
    So I also agree with Bart that strict moderation would be required, with deletion of anything off-topic or goading.

  56. Marlowe Johnson says:

    @56
     
    I would argue that a core question for any bipartisan effort is trust because in the absence of relevant expertise that is all most people have to go on.  Next we need to be clear about the focus of the effort.  Is it policy or science?  As I’ve said before any focus on the latter is a waste of time IMO. If people are interested in the science of climate change there are plenty of places where they can educate themselves.  If all they want to do is handwave about falsifiability and tree rings….well we know how that story goes…
     
    @53
    It doesn’t make me feel better.  It leaves me feeling pretty frurstated to be honest…

  57. Barry Woods says:

    Where would I fit in for example.. 😉  or Simon H

    Then it gets complicated, because I expect we would get different answer to that one from Keith, Marlow, SimonH, Stu, KD33, Bart, JD Ohio, KD33.

    I imagine it would be diffcult to even agree where everybody would sit…

    I want to engage, one extreme side moderates even a middle view to deletion (Romm, etc) currently. Would they be willingto come on board.

    They might find it civilised, ie the Guradian Climategate debate was very cvilised esepecially afterwards

  58. Sashka says:

    Marlowe,

    You need to understand that agnosticism in climate change means being a luke-warmer. Everything else is a form of religion.

    Keith,

    As in many other complicated issues (think of racism or women rights as very imperfect analogies), just proposing that everyone suddenly get friendly doesn’t do much good. Old grudges die hard.

    For two decades “mainstream” have been treating anyone who doesn’t believe in an impending catastrophe as a denier, flat-earther, industry shill or some combination thereof. I don’t see this attitude changing at all and I don’t believe this could be a basis for a conversation. That’s why you are getting this deafening silence.

  59. Marlowe Johnson says:

    @59
     
    If lukewarmer = 3C then I agree completely.  Anything else is a form of religion.

  60. Keith Kloor says:

    Let me clear up some false impressions about this very, very vague idea.

    I did not think of it as some sort of political “outreach” vehicle, or as a “let’s all get friendly” forum.

    I also have no fanciful goal of such a site forging some kind of elusive bipartisan breakthrough on climate change related issues. Please. I may be dumb but I’m not naive.

    Rather, what I envision is some kind of platform that facilitates a more direct and lively cross-exchange of ideas (in the political and policy realm) related to energy and climate change issues. (As much as I think it makes sense to decouple energy from climate, I don’t see that realistically happening in these debates.)

    So I’m not aiming necessarily to change the tone (but civility is certainly something to shoot for) or get everyone to hold hands. I just think there’s a better way to sharpen dialogue without having to wade through  comment threads on multiple sites, in search of a higher signal to noise ratio.

    My working title: Thedecarbexchange

    decarb being short for decarbonization.

    After all, that’s the overlapping goal of disparate stakeholders, decarbonizing our energy sources.

    More on all this later in the week….

  61. Barry Woods says:

    The IPCC have ‘projections’ of less than 3.0C, now who is it a religion for again!

    1.0C or less is entirely possible, based on current observations.

    How about where we are on sea level by 2100?

    I’m with the up to 2 feet camp (which includes 1 foot as likeley)
    before I get called a deniar, that is based on an official review, released to the press in December, which also said 2m VERY unlikely.

    Who said tha Met Office, Hadley Centre, Tyndall Centre, Grantham Institute, Walker Institute: the AVOID consortium part funded by the DECC and advices the UK government.

    I wss sufficiently interested to contact the Met Office to ask for the original document. If Keith is interested or anyone, I could email the response.

    I consider anybody pronoucing sea levels much above that as alarmism.

  62. Sashka says:

    There we go, Marlowe, I didn’t expect less from you. And what exactly is the reason that you believe in the magic number of 3C? I wonder if you can answer without mentioning IPCC and models?

    Keith, sorry that I misunderstood your intentions. I thought your site was sort of  bipartisan already which is why I choose to hang out here of all places. I very much doubt that silos’ owners would be very interested simply because they built their blogs to propagate their agenda. People who want to talk about science (like Dr. Curry) are already doing what they set out to do.

    I actually agree with you: it would be very nice (and possibly even productive) if it were possible to lure a bunch of knowledgeable people on the common ground. I just don’t see much incentive for them to live the comfort of their silos. For anyone who is on mission (or a crusade) it’d be loss of time and probably credibility as well among the followers.
     

  63. Barry Woods says:

    The name alone is contentious…

  64. Barry Woods says:

    .. decarbonisation.. why do we need to?  just because of 20-30 years of global warmism alarmism…  If we want to talk about energy gaps, peak oil, energy security, etc that is a different debate..

  65. Keith Kloor says:

    Why is it contentious? Are you inferring that such a forum might only use climate alarmism as a reason for decarbonisation? If so, you obviously haven’t been paying attention to this blog.

    Or it could be that you have climate alarimism on your brain every bit as much as the people you take issue with over it.

  66. “If lukewarmer = 3C then I agree completely.  Anything else is a form of religion.”
     
    Yeah, in precisely the same way that everyone who doesn’t accept Jesus Christ as their saviour is a devil worshipping religious wing-nut.

  67. Marlowe Johnson says:

    Simon,
     
    By your own admission you don’t have the expertise necessary to evaluate claims about climate sensitivity.  Therefore your only sensible recourse is to accept the claims of the various international and national scientific bodies that do have the necessary expertise.  Why is this so controversial?
     
    But whatever, let’s agree to disagree.  Let’s talk policy.  Are there any initiatives in the UK (where you are i take it?) that enjoy bipartisan support independent of views on climate science? For example:
    -vehicle efficiency standards
    -fuel taxation policy
    -building codes
    -congestion charges
    -transit funding
     
     

  68. Barry Woods says:

    Keith my point is the word decarbon….

    back to first principle why do we think we need to DEcarbon…

    I’m totally with the idea to talk alternative energiews for many reasons, including shale gas, thorium, fusion, even wind and solar if you like (not current generation technologies)

    but we are only talking about carbon, because CO2 has been (falsely?) labbelled a dangerous ‘pollutant’..

    Are we even sure we need to?

    If we decide we do… is there the urgency..
    ie the UK has it enshrined in law, to reduce emmisions by 30% by 2020…. at vast cost, there is a huge green energy gap, that wind/solar will not replace coal/gas with even the best will in the world in that timescale.

    (see he graphic of coal taken the strain, at the BBC’s Paul Hudson’s blog.)
    http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/paulhudson/2011/01/coal-takes-the-strainagain.shtml

    read his article as  wel, very sensible I hope you would agree?

    this  rushed timescale is because of the alalarmism.
    By 2015 nearly 30% of uk eelectricity generation capacity has no replecement because of end of life or new ’emissions’ reg, nothing to replace it because of the CO2 obsession.

  69. Sashka says:

    @ Marlowe

    Agreeing to disagree is easy. The harder part is to get you to understand that the gods that you worship have essentially made up the answer. There is no convincing reason to believe that 3 is a better answer than 2 or 4.

  70. Marlowe Johnson says:

    @70
    As someone with some formal training in the relevant disciplines (degrees in physical geography/atmospheric science) I can tell you that my belief is based on years of study that involved reading scientific papers.  No worship on my end, just slogging…
     
    Do I know that S=3C? No.  But neither have I seen any coherent argument or evidence which would suggest otherwise. Quite the opposite in fact. Trust me, there are a whole lot of people that would be very happy to see multiple lines of evidence pointing to S <1.5C.
     
    Course there’s still the problem of ocean acidification but I digress…

  71. “Do I know that S=3C? No.  But neither have I seen any coherent argument or evidence which would suggest otherwise.”

    Marlowe, you’re arguing in support of something you have a gnostic belief in, while concurrently acknowledging that you can’t prove it. You support that belief with the assertion that nobody’s proved it is NOT the case. This, Marlowe, is definitively a religious devotion.

    I can find you at least ten priests, vicars and ministers within an hour who can all attest absolutely that God exists. Granted they can’t prove he exists, but in EXACTLY the same way as you, they can and will use the truthful fact that I can’t prove God does NOT exist as a mainstay of their argument.

    These people are definitely MORE qualified than you or I on theological and philosophical matters. They know their subject very well, holding many PhDs and masters degrees on the subject between them. They could argue, in precisely the way you do, that you are NOT QUALIFIED to question their assertion of God’s existence.

    Your arm-wavery will not resolve the fact that your devotion is definitively religious.

  72. Marlowe: “By your own admission you don’t have the expertise necessary to evaluate claims about climate sensitivity.”

    I’m looking at a HadCRUT3 adjusted global mean temperature trend of 0.4C/century through the temperature record. What is it that you intend to trump this observational evidence with? A climate model? har har.

  73. Sashka says:

    @ 71

    I have a sneaking suspicion that you feel like you credentials (that apparently didn’t lead to even an undergraduate degree in a relevant discipline) qualify you for a judgment. Physical geography?! Please, that’s not even funny. However, I want to fair. Why don’t you lay out what you learned from scientific papers: how do we calculate the feedback?

    To summarize your impressions: you don’t know that it is 3C nor that you know that it is any other number. Is that correct? In this case, we are (miraculously) on the same page. Tell us again why do you think S=3C? I don’t see any logic.

  74. Nooo, Sashka, he DOES know climate sensitivity is 3C and, as he says, any other figure is clap-trap religious mumbo-jumbo. He can’t tell you how he comes to his figure of 3C, he just knows it. It’s a kinda divine thing. You wouldn’t understand it, being a lesser-educated, less well-blessed mere mortal and all that. Pfft!
     
    Apologies for my derision but frankly I have little tolerance for bull-headed arrogance of Marlowe’s ilk. Marlowe’s like-thinkers would assert that a jury of 12 cannot possibly find on a case involving anything they don’t have a PhD in, like for example pathology, forensics, ballistics or some such. I don’t need a degree in climatology to be able to smell bullsh*t.

  75. Marlowe Johnson says:

    @simon and sashka
     
    🙄
     
    Since when is it bull headed arrogance to suggest that the thousands of experts who spend their lives studying an issue should be given more credence than someone who hasn’t?  What is arrogant about asking you to provide evidence to support your extraordinary claim (i.e. that climate scientists don’t know what they’re talking about) but you do?  Again, you haven’t provided anything to support your claims/beliefs.  Nothing. Zilch. Zero.
     
    Oh and Sashka I’ve got multiple degrees including the undergraduate kind 😀 . I’d have thought that physical geography and atmospheric science would have qualified me to understand climate change but hey maybe i’m wrong…
     
     

  76. Sashka says:

    Once again: could you tell us why 3C is more likely than any other number or not?
    There is nothing extraordinary about the claim that the models don’t have skills to predict the temperature 100 years forward. To be most polite here, I’ll say that there is a lot of wishful thinking involved (even though some of the choice words from Simon’s repertoire could be more appropriate). I really don’t see how geography could help you here but  atmospheric science should have. So I am going to guess that your degrees are in something else.
     

  77. Marlowe: “What is arrogant about asking you to provide evidence to support your extraordinary claim (i.e. that climate scientists don’t know what they’re talking about) but you do?  Again, you haven’t provided anything to support your claims/beliefs.  Nothing. Zilch. Zero.”

    Right back atcha, Marlowe. As soon as I asked for.. yanno.. science stuff, like a properly formed hypothesis with trappings such as falsifiability, to support your assertions of impending doom, you hand the stage over to your mate Diddly Squat.

    I grew up in a religious household so I’m familiar with the format. I don’t begrudge people their beliefs, no matter how ill-formed they are, but I refuse to accept religion masquerading as science or attempts to assert that religion on me. For these reasons, I reject your demands to bow down to your authority, Marlowe, or to the purported authority of dishonourable scientists who refuse to adhere to time-tested traditions of the Scientific Method in the process of advancing their personal beliefs.

  78. Dave H says:

    @Keith

    Staggering back towards the topic.

    The problem with any kind of discussion around action that should (or should not) be taken is that it is incredibly difficult to have without a shared scientific basis. Why would my suggestions be accepted by someone who believed that warming was entirely beneficial and that we need to pump as much CO2 into the atmosphere as possible? The policy implications are intimately tied to the science.

    A suggestion I had was that any discussions be federated along CO2 sensitivity per doubling lines, ie “less than 1C, 1 – 2C, 2 – 3C, 3C and above”. This could be ruthlessly moderated to prevent sensitivity discussions from polluting the policy discussions – and discussion in a particular thread would be restricted to one particular sensitivy range. This could then feed into meta discussions where overlap can be identified. It would also be interesting to see where the most productive discussions take place… Unfortunately, you still have the problem of arguments over whether warming is bad at all cropping up and derailing everything, and disagreement over the scale of economic harm for a given sensitivity and emissions scenario.
    Argh…

  79. I don’t disagree with Dave H. I think we’re demonstrating, rather than discussing, the problem Dave H identifies.

  80. laursaurus says:

    @Simon #75
    Isn’t Marlowe a female?
    I guess it doesn’t matter, but I would like to know. I can’t help picturing people in my imagination for some reason.
    Sashka is male, right?

  81. Sashka says:

    I am but I don’t see how it’s relevant.

  82. Marlowe Johnson says:

    @81
    No.
    @78
    Let me know when your time machine and/or Earth 2.0 are up and running so we can run experiments.  Until then we have to rely on observations paleo and recent and, yes, models.
     
    For more on why 3 is the ‘best guess’ for climate sensitivity a useful place to start is here and here.
     
    Now can you please explain why you reject the consensus estimate in favour of an alternative value?  Again in the absence of any relevant expertise I find this baffling.  It’s one thing to say that the uncertainty in the consensus estimate is higher than typically portrayed in the media or by the IPCC.  It’s quite another to say that the consensus estimate is wrong.  Do you see what I’m getting at?
     

     

  83. Sashka says:

    Annan & Hardgreaves conclude that P(S>4.5C)<5%. How does it point to 3C as likely number?
    Knutti & Hegerl show 3C is a median of crappy model estimates. How does it make it a more likely number than any other?
    However I didn’t ask you to look for references. I am quite capabale of it myself. The question was why do you believe 3C is a better number than any other?

    I don’t reject the consensus estimate in favor of anything. I reject it period. This is my agnosticism vs. your religion. The sad truth is that we have no idea about PDF. Moreover I highly doubt that PDF can even be defined in a mathematically reasonable way.

  84. Marlowe Johnson says:

    “The sad truth is that we have no idea about PDF.”
     
    Ok so you’re a solipsist and Simon is a lukewarmer.  Got it.
     
     
     

  85. Sashka says:

    That was quick,

  86. “Now can you please explain why you reject the consensus estimate in favour of an alternative value?”


    Please define “consensus estimate”. I ran several models of a shuffled deck of cards to determine the likely 30th card drawn from the pack. The models all disagreed. However, the consensus was the Quack of Sparts. Meaningful.

  87. Marlowe Johnson says:

    S = 3 C.

  88. Sashka says:

    Don’t forget to flush.
     

  89. Sashka,

    Uncertainty is not the same as knowing nothing.

  90. Sashka says:

    I agree. I didn’t say we know nothing. I said we don’t know the PDF, we have no reasonable approach to compute PDF and, to the best of my knowledge, not even a definition of PDF in this case.

    But we do know something. For example, we know that S<100C.

  91. Marlowe Johnson says:

    How do we know S<100 but not S<20 or S>1? The only thing I know is that it’s pointless to argue with a solipsistic sophist 🙂

  92. Sashka says:

    This means you know nothing. But you proved that before.

  93. “How do we know S<100 but not S<20 or S>1? The only thing I know is that it’s pointless to argue with a solipsistic sophist”
     
    You’re right, we don’t know if God is male or female, nor if she has a white beard. All we know is that these things demand faith, in the absence of evidence.

  94. Leonard Weinstein says:

    The idea of using a “consensus estimate” to substitute for reasonably solid evidence may be a starting point for search for the “truth”, but this is not a valid value to use supporting a position. Every problem where we do not know the valid answer can have a “consensus estimate”, but that gives it no validity. For example, if we polled scientists on whether there is life on other planets, the majority may guess that it is likely, and if the majority is large enough, it would be a “consensus estimate”. However, that is still a guess, and has no real validity. CAGW is no better supported that that.

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