Venn diagrams

The bunny hears that some folk were not pleased when John Mashey pinned the denialists to the Venn diagram. Curiously, the merchants of doubt were right fond of such stuff when Wegman dragged his student, Yasmin Said in from left field to do social network analysis, determining that Mike Mann had a lot of co-authors.

Merchants of Doubt is a forthcoming (May 25, 2010, mark your calendars little girls and guys) book by Naomi Oreskes and Erik Conway about

how a cadre of influential scientists have clouded public understanding of scientific facts to advance a political and economic agenda.

The U.S. scientific community has long led the world in research on such areas as public health, environmental science, and issues affecting quality of life. Our scientists have produced landmark studies on the dangers of DDT, tobacco smoke, acid rain, and global warming. But at the same time, a small yet potent subset of this community leads the world in vehement denial of these dangers.

Merchants of Doubt tells the story of how a loose-knit group of high-level scientists and scientific advisers, with deep connections in politics and industry, ran effective campaigns to mislead the public and deny well-established scientific knowledge over four decades. Remarkably, the same individuals surface repeatedly—some of the same figures who have claimed that the science of global warming is “not settled” denied the truth of studies linking smoking to lung cancer, coal smoke to acid rain, and CFCs to the ozone hole. “Doubt is our product,” wrote one tobacco executive. These “experts” supplied it.

Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway, historians of science, roll back the rug on this dark corner of the American scientific community, showing how ideology and corporate interests, aided by a too-compliant media, have skewed public understanding of some of the most pressing issues of our era.

Eli prefers his way of putting it, there is a real thin bench over there at denial central, but it can't be said often enough that their ability to inject doubt and dirt into the public discourse has killed an awful lot of people (tobacco), is killing more today (HIV denial, refusal to provide condom, etc.) and threatens to wipe out a lot more (climate change denial).

As far as Eli knows the denialists have never been on the side of an issue that was not harmful to health, wealth and happiness alone or in the various possible permutations. Climate change is the grand challenge, all three in one go. Several of that loose-knit group of high-level scientists and scientific advisers have made a rather good career of this (more examples available). Still the bunny is ever persuadable if you have a large enough hammer or bankroll and eagerly awaits contrary examples. Eagerly, not hopefully. OTOH, he also welcomes examples that show he is right.

Oreskes and Conway are following a path that she and Myanna Lahsen have pioneered, particularly Lahsen's Experiences of modernity in the greenhouse: A cultural analysis of a "physicist "trio" supporting the backlash against global warming, that took Seitz, Nierenberg and Jastrow apart at the seams.

Eli has heard the victim bullies cries from Princeton, Rochester and other places where the signers of the APS petition nest, but these starlings** have little to complain about. They moan that their scientific objectivity was impugned, they were slandered and how pointing out that they are closely linked is scurrilous.

Color the Rabett dubious. His milk of bunny kindness has kinda gone away this week and a short while back. This is a seriously bad bunch, and very adept at disinformation campaigns.

** a small but noisy bird
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Something interesting comes this way

Ed Darrell has found something interesting in the CRU Emails (Ed has a nice bathtub to wash in after wading in so you don't have to)

Sure enough, with just a few minutes of searching the e-mails, I found references to ethical breaches in cooking of data, and a discussion about how to talk about the data and the issue in public.

The paper involved is this one:

David H. Douglass, John R. Christy, Benjamin D. Pearsona and S. Fred Singer, “A comparison of tropical temperature trends with model predictions,” INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF CLIMATOLOGY, Int. J. Climatol. (2007). Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com) DOI: 10.1002/joc.1651

and the discussion of what to do about it

One of the e-mails is quite explicit:

I think the scientific fraud committed by Douglass needs to be exposed. His co-authors may be innocent bystanders, but I doubt it.

Fraud? Right there in front of everyone? In the climate debate?

In the end, the scientists in the discussion determined not to hold a press conference to announce a finding of fraud, but instead to hunker down and work on publishing datasets that would contradict the alleged fraudulent paper, and establish their case with data instead of invective and press conferences.

They even declined to rush to inform the public of the fraud after a lengthy series of attempts to duplicate the results with well-known, accurate methods on accepted data:

More at the link with links to the correspondence. Eli eagerly awaits comments from Douglass, Christy, Pearsona and Singer. Eli is a foolish, but ever hopeful bunny. You can pull the angora over his eyes.
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Bunnies have a reputation

The issue has been put before the house: Resolved acting like bunnies effects climate change. Well, to be honest, it is the negative. Yin, played by Joe Romm makes the case that consumption is much more important

For all these reasons, this blog is not going to focus on population. I have more than enough to write about on the policies and strategies that must be enacted if we are to have a chance at preserving a livable climate — even assuming I knew of and believed in viable population-related strategies, which I don’t.

While Yang, with Roger Pielke Jr. in the starring role holds forth that it is a distraction

The idea that family planning should be justified in terms of reducing emissions is, in my view, utter nonsense. Family planning policies are important in their own right, and to justify them in terms of climate change cheapens both the climate change agenda and the family planning agenda. Fortunately, this perspective is widely shared:

To give you an idea of how contentious this is, take a look at all of the links that Yin and Yang each have to people who agree and disagree with their position. In short, this is an issue that an innocent large bird might have an intelligent discussion on while the bunnies are doing, well bunny like things.

Eli starts from the observation that the four horsemen of the apocalypse, famine, disease, death, and denial have cut back on their working hours within the past century. Improved water supply, vaccination, and other public health measures as well as science based medicine have made death and disease much paler riders. Agricultural science has so weakened Famine that he has to limp along with the help of Great War, which himself has been limited after achieving great carnage in the first half of the last century, his visions of the true apocalypse being stymied with the collapse of the USSR. So badly has he been disappointed, that Great War has retired and spends his time raising tomatoes and his nephews, Asymmetric and Civil Warfare. Denial, Denial is doing well after killing millions in the tobacco wars [1] local successes against Rachel Carson and integrated pest control for malaria while pushing ineffective broadcast spraying of DDT, HIV/AIDS retroviral drug therapy [2] and vaccination [3]. In a major battle, when his son, polio was on his last legs, Denial got religious leaders in polio's last safe harbors in Africa and Asia to denounce vaccination [4]. Today, together with Delay, Denial has adapted a long term strategy for imposing climate change.

Partial, and let us hope not temporary, victories over Famine, Disease and Death coupled to a limitation on War have lead to exploding populations. With the exception of the developed countries, where population less immigration has remained roughly constant, it has exploded elsewhere. As was seen in France at the end of the nineteenth century, well being, social security, not having to worry about old age or illness, leads people to limit their families.

While wealth in the developed world has soared, major progress has been made in many lesser developed countries, especially South and Central America, China, India, Southeast Asia, and more.

The Rabett School of Climate Studies has investigated the matter and concludes, that like aerosols, there are two climate forcings associated with this progress, the direct, immediate one and the indirect, delayed forcing.

The direct effect is major land use changes as cities grow, forests disappear, water resources are stressed and more. It is somewhat unobservant of Roger Pielke Jr. to say that there are no direct effects of population on climate change, but Ethon, in Roger's defense, notes that RPJ was quite careful to say

but efforts to reduce emissions through population control are wrongheaded.

and one can suppose that he does not think that land use is related to emissions or that land use is an entirely different matter. Dad might disagree.

The second indirect effect is that as wealth increases in developing countries, so do emissions. Population growth exploded first in the developing world, as social structures provided food, water, sanitation, vaccination and medicines extending life expectancy. As this immense talent pool began to industrialize and the countries grew in wealth from zero, emissions started to increase on per capita as well as absolute levels. The emissions bomb is lagging population growth by forty to fifty years, but it is clearly seen at the leading edge in Hong Kong, Singapore, Brazil, Thailand, Eastern China, etc. and now India. More are sure to follow.

Both the indirect and the direct population forcings are significant, and require attention. Nor should one think that population in the developed world is a non-issue, as any population growth in the US, Europe and Japan have much larger climate change multipliers. But, as Eli said, Denial is having an excellent decade.
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[1] Br Med Bull. 1996 Jan;52(1):12-21. In developed countries as a whole, tobacco was responsible for 24% of all male deaths and 7% of all female deaths, rising to over 40% in men in some former socialist economies and 17% in women in the USA. The average loss of life for all cigarette smokers was about 8 years and for those whose deaths were attributable to tobacco about 16 years.

[2] From the Wikipedia: Public health researchers in South Africa and at Harvard University have independently investigated the impact of AIDS denialism. Their estimates attribute 330,000 to 340,000 AIDS deaths, 171,000 HIV infections and 35,000 infant HIV infections to the South African government's former embrace of AIDS denialism.^[11][12]

[3] Ben Goldacre's Bad Science and Orac's Respectful Insolance are places to start learning about the harm vaccination denial is bringing.

[4] From the Center for Disease Control: Two decades later in 2008, a total of 1,625 children contracted acute flaccid paralysis caused by poliovirus infection (1). This finding represented a 150% increase over the number of cases in 2007 (1) and resulted in the reemergence of polio as one of the world’s deadliest infections. As of 2009, polio remains endemic to 4 countries (India, Nigeria, Pakistan, and Afghanistan); in 2008, cases were also detected in 14 other countries.
Religious opposition by Muslim fundamentalists is a major factor in the failure of immunization programs against polio in Nigeria (2), Pakistan (3) and Afghanistan (4). This religious conflict in the tribal areas of Pakistan is one of the biggest hindrances to effective polio vaccination.

Cartoon an adaptation from one by Mike Luckovich

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No honor among bloggers

While Wm was doing his grumpy young man bit over at Stoat, grousing about the APS Climate Change Statement that it added nothing new, Arthur Smith has something interesting to say. Arthur did not put it on his blog, so Eli thought he would "borrow"

No, the statement certainly doesn't add anything to the scientific discussion of the matter; it's relatively conservative compared to AGU and AAAS etc. But it does put the reputation of yet another well-respected scientific organization on the line in essentially an endorsement of the IPCC.

The only way our honest "sceptic" friends can maintain their belief system is to also believe in the corruption, mal-intent or incompetence of all those scientists who have been pointing out the real serious problems with our fossil carbon emissions. They have to pretend that the numbers on the "pro" side are small, that the numbers on their side are large. The effect of statements such as this from the APS is to tear away at that belief system - or else to succumb to an ever-expanding conspiracy. Which you can see in the various reactions out there.

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Around the Coffee Pot

On the one hand here is a continuation of Eli's post just the other day on the Climate Concern Troll Twins vs Climate McCarthy, on the other a comment on recent general going ons featuring a cast of tens, the freakynomics follies, Klotzbach and colleagues and more.

The question before the assembled long ears is how to discuss stuff, and no, Eli is not really very interested in the civil discourse thing. The kids read, or hear something. They think about it (maybe) and then talk to others around the carrot juice bar. Some bunny throws out a half baked comment, if you are lucky. Another sneeringly points out that it "needs more work" and finally, after a while, sometimes after dad shows up, the issues become a lot clearer.

This is what is happening on a number of blogs. The problem comes when the originators dig in. Then it gets, very rough and very dumb.

The real issue is how do you incorporate the discussion into the original post. Eli's solution is to use UPDATE to mark where the changes are, and to move important things up from the comments. YMMV. Some favor the memory hole, others leave it buried in the comments and move on. There is no best solution. Others, well there is a reason they are called denialists.

Frankly tho, we are not amused.

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Best Suggestion of the Month

How to deal with denialists, from the comments at Gin and Tacos, in a post on Ayn Rand

I think scientist should “go Galt” and call it “Einstein Shrugged”

Where will all the Creationists and science deniers be then?

That's Beyond Belief. Snark fans should read the whole thing. Eli gives you a taste:

My opinions about Ayn Rand have been stated unambiguously. There is no silver lining to anything Rand, not her infantile “philosophy”, sub-Twilight writing skills, or legions of socially retarded acolytes who devote their “lives” to annoying the living shit out of the rest of the world and wondering what it would be like to talk to a woman. The great thing is that I don’t have to pretend differently. It is perfectly acceptable in the academic world to treat Rand’s Objectivism like the intellectually bankrupt farce it is. If I say Catholicism is a big pile of bullshit, I will get fired or at least seriously disciplined. If a student makes some Ron Paul argument about abolishing the Fed I am not allowed to laugh at him. But Ayn Rand? She is taken as seriously as astrology. If a student complained I think the people in the Dean’s office would hit him with pies.

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The grand master of pie throwing, Soupy Sales, has recently left us and gone to the bakery in the sky.
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Much Toodaloo About Climate McCarthyism

The Climate Concern Troll Twins have declared war on Joe Romm, finger painting him as the Climate Joe McCarthy. Romm is not everyone's cup of tea, but as Hank Roberts put it

But, man, I remember Joe McCarthy. Joe Romm is no Joe McCarthy.

Not even close, not even comparable. You look at that video, and look at the videos of some of the really slick, sophisticated, anti-environmental spokespeople.

You’ll see a similarity, for sure. Joe Romm’s not one of those. He’s maybe trying to be that smooth and organized, but he’s just never got the self control to be the kind of sleaze that McCarthy was, and he’s never had anything remotely like the power McCarthy had.

Get real, kids. You’re not repeating history here.

Hank and Eli are old guys, most of these guys, the Pielkes, Kloor and Nordhaus and Schnellenberger, are too young to remember Tail Gunner Joe, and the more effective bomb throwers on the House Un-American Activities Committee with their local affiliates.

Further, close reading by the Rabett Labs team has raised issues about how Nordhaus and Schellenberger go after Romm. For example, they write

Earlier this year Romm attacked two of the world's leading environmental economists, Richard Tol and William Nordhaus (the co-author's uncle). Their crime? They were thanked in the acknowledgements of a study by economists from MIT, Northwestern and the National Bureau of Economic Research, which was subsequently touted by the conservative Heritage Foundation.

When your mice direct you to the link you find that it is a part of a series about how Joe was not very happy in a Joe like way with economists, and particularly on a report from three MIT economists (not Richard Tol or William Nordhaus) that was being touted by AEI. He titled the post:

“Voodoo Economists, Part 3: MIT and NBER (and Tol and Nordhaus) — the right wing deniers love your work. Ask yourself “why?”

A thought that has occasionally occupied the space between Eli's rather large ears. Parenthetically the shift among economists on climate change driven by the Stern report has been encouraging. When the Stern report first appeared the sour response from economists filled the air, but as Stern's warnings on the costs of inaction sunk in, first Weitzman and then the rest changed their tune while holding on to their distaste.

Still, the only Rommian mention of the above mentioned two in the text is

What makes the paper especially noteworthy, however, is not merely the credentials of the authors, but that they thank such climate economist luminaries as William Nordhaus and Richard Tol for “helpful comments and suggestions.” The only helpful comment and suggestion I can think of for this paper is “Burn the damn thing and start over from scratch.”

which is not an attack on Uncle Bill and Richard Tol, but a note that they were acknowledged as having offered comments and suggestions. Richard Tol responded:

Dave is quite right. I read and criticised the paper, and so they put me in the acknowledgements. This is common practice. It is the polite thing to do and it signals to editors and referees that they did discuss their ideas with others.

It for sure is not an endorsement. Indeed I did tell them that their estimates are suspiciously high because their model is underspecified.

In other words, BAU for papers. That became part of another post on Climate Progress entitled

“Voodoo Economists, Part 3.5: Richard Tol says wildly optimistic MIT/NBER study, beloved of deniers, is “way too pessimistic””

which apparently got Nordhaus and Schellenbergered into

In another post attacking Tol, Romm wrote:

"Tol's work is a beloved of the right wing global warming deniers."

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UPDATE: Deep Climate points out that this is a condensation of the statement in Romm's post of

"It was and is my intention to discuss Tol’s work, which itself is a beloved of the right wing global warming deniers, in Part 5."

and he finds them "not guilty on the lesser charge".
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Young and innocent readers, there may be some place, somewhere, where that odd construction was written by Joe Romm. No link was given, none found with Google. Perhaps there will be others, certainly not Eli, the Rabett hastens to add, who will consider this to be a bit of slightly sly creative editing. Others, not Eli, he hastens to add, would greatly appreciate a link to remove all doubt in the matter. Recent experience with the Twins, has perhaps indicated to Eli that they do not have the funding for needed extra letters, and some must be dropped. Is it, he asks, time for a blogger ethics panel?

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As expected

From the NY Times

SINGAPORE — President Obama and other world leaders have decided to put off the difficult task of reaching a climate changeagreement at a global climate conference scheduled for next month, agreeing instead to make it the mission of the Copenhagen conference to reach a less specific “politically binding” agreement that would punt the most difficult issues into the future.

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