Pete Wehner and Climate Science Discourse
Since it came right before Christmas, I almost missed this post by Pete Wehner over at Commentary regarding the politics of climate, which has in my view a number of problems. Wehner makes a call for civil discourse on the topic, which I agree with; but he follows that call by leaning on a number of sources which give me pause.
Like all critics of those of us who disagree with alarmist policy responses to climate change, Wehner is certainly entitled to his views. But he makes the same mistake I've seen from a lot of folks who set themselves up as just "believing the science" - a disturbing degree of naivete on who they use as sources, to the exclusion of other voices.
If there's to be civil discourse in this area on the right, it has to be based in a fair evaluation of sources, not in eliding past inconvenient truths. In this case, we have Wehner’s appeal to authority in the form of Berkeley professor Richard Muller, who Wehner claims “was skeptical that global warming has taken place but has now concluded it is real.” For anyone who's been paying attention to the debate over how we respond to climate issues, that's simply absurd. While he's claimed to be a long-term skeptic, and a recent convert, it's a laughable assertion to anyone who's been paying attention for more than two seconds.
Wehner follows this up by leaning on the National Academy of Sciences as a “trustworthy” source of authority, referring to a recent report which branded global warming a crisis. Again, this just displays a disturbing lack of awareness. The report Wehner refers to was created by a small panel of people who largely had no climate science background - it's nothing more than a thinly-constructed political document, as James Taylor has outlined.
I'm assuming Wehner just doesn't know this. But if he does know all this, and thinks it doesn't change anything about the legitimacy of their claims, I'd ask: how can those who support more conservative responses to environmental challenges possibly have a civil debate with non-scientists who brand themselves as such, including a number of outspoken activists with organizations like the Environmental Defense Fund and WE ACT for Environmental Justice? How can we have a legitimate debate with those whose primary claim to fame has been the ban of DDT, costing millions of lives? Should we ignore the fact that prior recommendations from the same sources on public policy have been near uniformly opposed to free markets and human liberty and in favor of population restriction?
Of course we should have a civil debate. Who's going to argue for a more rude one? Wehner can argue for economy-killing carbon dioxide reductions, as other former George W. Bush advisors like Greg Mankiw and James Connaughton have, and other conservatives can argue against it (I'm personally glad that President Bush ignored most of this advice). But leaning on scientific sources as unimpeachable, or pretending they are unmotivated by a vision of remaking society toward particular goals, is as absurd as demanding Wehner take seriously the next report on Middle East politics authored by Cindy Sheehan and Code Pink.
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May '10
Re: Pete Wehner and Climate Science Discourse
Wehner's line strikes me as being not unlike the one you took the other day regarding Obama. It's a call for civility that is a de facto call for suppressing the truth.
May '11
Re: Pete Wehner and Climate Science Discourse
I would like to see a little civility among the warming alarmists. Their answer to everything is: "There's a consensus, so shut up. The time for debate is over. Anyone who disagrees with us is in the pockets of the oil companies." That argument is not civil, and it is certainly not science.
Jun '10
Re: Pete Wehner and Climate Science Discourse
Climate is cyclical and extremely complex. I doubt that we can even measure Man's contribution to the changes. And when the World's climate goes through one of its profound changes, as it has forever, some locations on the planet will benefit, some will not. That's not a time to panic. That's a time to move North or South. I'd tell Mr. Wehner to come back when the Chinese indicate--by their actions, not their words--that they're worried about man-made climate change. That's when I'll reexamine. Otherwise, I see it as leftwing political theater--not science.
May '10
Re: Pete Wehner and Climate Science Discourse
Yes.
1. It is always either getting hotter or getting colder. The chances that the earth's temp is constant are approximately zero.
2. No one knows what the ideal temp is.
Mar '11
Re: Pete Wehner and Climate Science Discourse
There is a difference between (1) data and interpretations that are wrong in some way but which stem from honest attempts to engage a vast and complicated subject, and (2) data and interpretations that are generated to deliberately misrepresent reality for some ulterior purpose.
In the former case (1), the process and intellectual resources that true science has at its disposal help to root out the flaws in our data and interpretations and leave us with a more accurate model. It is in this rigorous and narrow sense that modern science is a true and astonishing human achievement and worthy of defense.
In the latter case(2), the tools of true science are cast aside in the service of other ends and which threaten to destroy the intellectual environment and physical space for science to do its true work. In this sense, this pseudo-science is an enemy of science rightly understood. It is as dangerous as any kind zealotry and fanaticism.
Aug '10
Re: Pete Wehner and Climate Science Discourse
We need to add a couple of zeros to the death toll and then have a civil discussion.
outstripp
Yes.
1. It is always either getting hotter or getting colder. The chances that the earth's temp is constant are approximately zero.
2. No one knows what the ideal temp is. · Dec 31 at 7:12am
Agreed, climate change is real.
However, since the Earth has been both much warmer and much colder in the past and both extremes occurred without the influence of man I fail to see how man has influenced the current trend.
May '11
Re: Pete Wehner and Climate Science Discourse
Climate science is as dogmatic and unverifiable as economics.
1) It's virtually impossible to do controlled experiments (we can't control the weather). All you have are computer models and observation, where you hope you are considering every variable. It's difficult to establish causality under these circumstances. Just like the stimulus, it was either a failure or it averted a depression.
2) The impact of variable changes take decades, there is no instantaneous feedback.
The people who are loudest and most sure of themselves get the money and the fame, so you end up with advocacy and dogmatism.
I'm skeptical of any claims of certainty wrt climate.
Public health has the same issues, although there the ability to do controlled experiments is better than with economics or climate.
I highly recommend the EconTalk podcast interview with Gary Taubes, it touches on the issues of science dogma wrt to public health, and ties it to economics (it's also great information for anyone concerned about their own health).
Sep '11
Re: Pete Wehner and Climate Science Discourse
There does NOT need to be further discussion of the "climate science" topic. This debate ended with Climategate, which deserved more global media attention than it got. Until every American can recite the particulars of that scandal, the discussion need not move on past it.
Given the state of the economy, most people do not want to hear about carbon taxes or any other "remedy" which slows growth.
Republicans running for office should continue to state loud and clear that they favor exploitation of all our domestic (and neighboring) energy resources, full steam ahead.
Often, the best response to a conversation which our political opponents want to have is no discussion at all.
Jan '11
Re: Pete Wehner and Climate Science Discourse
I read that article too, and found it disturbing, especially this passage:
If he takes the IPCC reports as serious, sober discourse, then he has not even begun to explore the matter in a systematic way.
Mar '11
Re: Pete Wehner and Climate Science Discourse
On the credibility of the National Academies: Forty-five years ago my very small group was competing for a government contract against Westinghouse. An Academy study concluded that the Westinghouse technology would, in the long run, be better. When I read the study I discovered that a W scientist had been a principal witness. We were never invited.
Our technology is now used world-wide. And, W's? A lot of government $ later, abandoned.
May '10
Re: Pete Wehner and Climate Science Discourse
I second that recommendation.
Jul '11
Re: Pete Wehner and Climate Science Discourse
I have no problem with climate science or it's scientist. Let the data take them where it does and let them come up with all the theories and scenarios their hearts and minds can find. It is just when these untried unproven unsupported theories and scenarios are used by people to bring the force of government to bear that I have issues.
Nov '10
Re: Pete Wehner and Climate Science Discourse
The only truth to be discovered on this subject will be determined by following the money.
Jun '10
Re: Pete Wehner and Climate Science Discourse
Yes, this is a diversionary tactic. Civility or its lack functions directly off of the passions engendered during the debate. It's a symptom and usually -- and as long as things are not physically violent -- then we should take it as evidence that the person suggesting it is losing the debate and wants to change the subject or blunt an advance in the opposing teams' arguments.
Jun '10
Re: Pete Wehner and Climate Science Discourse
So true and never more so than in this debate. The climate alarmist scientists are whores -- let's face it.
Jun '10
Re: Pete Wehner and Climate Science Discourse
The earth warmed after the Little Ice Age, which happened after the Medievil Warm Period. Up and down we go and Man can do nothing about it. Keep our water drinkable and our air breathable, that we can do something about. The temperture, however, I just don't think so.
Oct '11
Re: Pete Wehner and Climate Science Discourse
The case for CAGW is a manifest fraud, and Mr. Wehner is an irresponsible fool.
What little warming has or may be reasonably expected to occur is not Catastrophic, it is in fact welcome.
Any Anthropogenic component of that warming is unmeasurably tiny - literally. A lot of very smart people with a lot of money on the line have looked very hard for it. That they found nothing is directly implied by their repeated efforts to manufacture both data and consensus. Their data is not merely suspect or uncertain, it has been conclusively shown to be fraudulent in case after case.
Finally, our best measurements indicate the Globe has not measurably Warmed since 1998.
Mr. Wehner seems to hold that Nature is influenced by humans' belief. He is a child of the left, a magical thinker. Thanks for pointing me to his and Mr. Tobin's articles, Ben. It seems that every time I trouble myself to delve deeply into something new I find the mainstream voices hard at work promoting the absurd. You can't assume anyone's straight, even if they write for Commentary.
Edited on Dec 31, 2011 at 12:23pmOct '10
Re: Pete Wehner and Climate Science Discourse
I am surprised that no one is point out that he also lists as a trusted source the IPCC 4th Assessment. If anyone doesn't know, one portion claimed that Himalayan glaciers would all melt away by 2035 in order to "impact policy-makers." It turned out the date came from a 2005 World Wildlife Fund report which derived this fact from an erroneous 1999 news report - just the sort of procedure you would want people making fundamental decisions affecting the entire world to use.
Edited on Dec 31, 2011 at 1:48pmMar '11
Re: Pete Wehner and Climate Science Discourse
True science does not rely on authorities, consensus et al - it relies on experiment confirming a hypothesis - whereupon it becomes a theory until new data disproves it (we have such a situation currently with Higgs Bosons and apparently-faster-than-light Neutrinos).
In climate "science" there is no experimental data that confirms the computer models -- this is junk science.
The "greenhouse effect" has some severe problems regarding Thermodynamics -- without going into details, the Earth's atmosphere is not a greenhouse.
But, Al Gore has a Nobel Prize. And so does Mr Obama.
May '10
Re: Pete Wehner and Climate Science Discourse
Instugator, may I respectfully characterize that statement as an unsupported non sequitur? The fact that Earth’s climate has indeed been much cooler and much warmer in the past (and that atmospheric carbon has been higher and lower in the past), doesn’t disprove the greenhouse effect, or that human greenhouse gases don’t warm the climate.
In fact, the best conservative and/or honest scientists agree with what Peter Wehner accepts in his Commentary piece, that 1) the earth has warmed over the last 150 years, 2) that humans have added GHG to the troposphere at a level exceeding what would naturally be the case, and c) that some small portion of that GHG increase has likely caused a small portion of the last century warming. (con't)
Edited on Dec 31, 2011 at 4:07pm