This is a controversial topic. As usual, the guidelines on this blog are: no name calling, derogatory remarks toward individuals, or personal attacks. Uncivil comments will be deleted. Also, this is a tool review, and not an issue review. Your opinions are welcomed. But as the reviewer, I will respond primarily to comments about the tool (book) itself. It helps if you have read the book, which will make the comments more useful.

It's so disturbing to me that on this one subject we are all required to be in total, 100% agreement, so that we can rally behind some kind of enormous corrective measure, whatever the result may be. The very fact this book was written shows how upsetting dissent and disagreement is to environmentalists.

I agree global warming is taking place, but I'm a man of reason and I will not be frog-marched into a set of expensive policies of questionable benefit. I'm such a fan of Bjorn Lomborg and his Copenhagen Consensus -- of course, to environmentalists, he's no different than a Holocaust denier. LOL

"global warming has become slightly religious"...slightly ? Who are you kidding ?

"Which is a shame because many global warming skeptics are not crackpots or paid shills, but first-class prestigious scientists with a minority view." This is called "damning with faint praise".

I love your Cool Tools, but let's keep the politics out of this section please.

We're not required to be in 100% agreement. The issue isn't whether to embrace skeptics or not. This issue isn't about dissent or disagreement. It's about science and whether or not we are going to practice science.

Those characterized here as "dissenters" have been proven, over and over and over again, to simply not understand the science. They make simply outrageous claims such as that there is no such thing as global average temperature. Or they completely misunderstand such basic facts as the difference between radians and degrees. Or they spend literally years trying to get scientists to release source code to their statistical models, rather than simply using the data and coding their own (as if they had to have the precise voltmeter to measure the same data).

Take this literal bag of crap away and they have nothing.

There's plenty of "dissent" in science. What we don't need are people who simply don't understand the scientific method and are ignorant of basic mathematical and physical facts that any high school student knows.

"It's so disturbing to me that on this one subject we are all required to be in total, 100% agreement..."

There is so much wrong with the above sentence. "We" are not "all" "required" to do be in "total agreement." You, Tim, can believe whatever you like, and I would guess that you do.

It is easy to see that you are frustrated, because you think your views are not well-represented. That is correct. They are not, and that is because most people (not all people, but most of them) who've thought about these questions in a serious way have not come to the same conustions that you have. A vast majority of scientists -- and, in particular, a vast majority of the scientists who actually work in each of the relevant fields -- do happen to be in broad agreement on this issue. Not all of them. But a large majority of them.

In general (NOT universally, of course), my experince is that the less someone knows about science, and the less they know about climatology in particular, the more likely they are to oppose the consensus view on climate change.

So "we" should ask three questions.

First, do you have expertise in the specific relevant fields as substantial, or more substantial, than the people with whom you disagree? The answer on climate change is almost always (not always, but a large majority of the time) going to be "no." For me, it certainly is. I'm a biochemist, not a climatologist. I will cheerfully yield to climatologists in their area of expertise. I expect them to do the same for mine.

Second, are your arguments more persuasive than those of your opponents? So far, in the view of the vast majority of scientists both inside the relevant fields, and outside those fields, is "no."

And third, should we heed the views of the majority of scientists on any issue at all, or should every day be "Opposite Day?" I.e., should we systematically ask what the majority expert opinion in any given field is, and then do the opposite?

Or, is the issue of climate change special for some reason?

Is there something that makes this question not addressable by our normal scientific approaches and institutions? If that is to be your argument, you'll need to make it explicitly. I've seen a lot of people try to do this, but in every single case they've veered into invective, an (in an alarming number of cases) into outright conspiracy.

Again, look at what you actually wrote: "It's so disturbing to me that on this one subject we are all required to be in total, 100% agreement." That sentence contains a remarkable set of assertions, but there is no argument there to back the asertion. And that is a very, very good way to get ignored by real, working experts -- in any field, not just climatology.

A related documentary about scientific "heretics" in other issues within the community. While I don't agree with the content of your post, or this movie, I do agree with the spirit of it: that dissent needs to be heard and not "put down"

http://www.expelledthemovie.com/

@Hal said: "Those characterized here as "dissenters" have been proven, over and over and over again, to simply not understand the science."

This is incorrect. Those characterized here -- in this book -- as "dissenters" are reputable, peer-reviewed scientists working as experts in their own field. That is the surprise and why this book is a handy tool.

"About 99% of the scientists involved in climate studies, paleontology, atmospheric chemistry, and planetary ecology agree on the presence of human-caused global warming. "

This is simply untrue. It is nowhere near 99 percent. It is hard to see the value of anyone book that starts off with this as its basic assumption.

really? 99? You sure about those numbers? http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=83323

If 99% of astronomers agreed that a large asteroid would hit the planet with devastating effect to the biosphere and civilization, should we put off doing something about it until we fully explore the arguments of the dissenting scientists? Especially knowing that if the majority is right, we may not be able to prevent an impact if we wait, and the longer we wait the greater the the risks that we may not be able to prevent or even mitigate the extent of the disaster?

Yes, science should embrace its dissenters, but the issue at hand isn't a question of scientific method. It's a question of risk assessment and politics. Science can provide insight into the risks and causes, and suggest mitigating actions — but we have to act or not as a society and the costs of climate change are great enough that we're ill-advised to give any more time and resources to the scientists in dissent about anthropogenic climage change. I'm sure Big Oil and Big Coal have open checkbooks for dissenting science.

Whatever the merits of this book, I really don't see this post fitting in with the Cool Tools format.

Thanks for reviewing this, Kevin, sounds interesting. With the amount of financial impact corrective actions seek to impose, getting this issue right, no matter the outcome, is going to be a very 'cool tool' for me. Now that the chief NASA scientist on this has come out against consensus, it seems all the more relevant to our time, given opportunity costs forfeit by chosing one path or the other.

Consensus in such a very young science is overrated. The politics in this area are obvious. The fact that those who disagree have been equated to Holocaust deniers (and not, say, flat-earthers) says a lot about the religious nature of the issue. Why use the term “heretics” for those who disagree? See also the vilification of Lomberg. The misrepresentations in this area are legion (starting with the IPCC, the “hockey stick”, etc.).
Hal brings up fools as representatives of the dissent and then heaps scorn on them. What does he think of Hansen’s former boss at NASA who thought Hansen was a cheat?
Alex asks several questions. “First, do you have expertise in the specific relevant fields as substantial, or more substantial, than the people with whom you disagree?” How about “Is there anything that might lead you to question whether the experts are telling the truth?” Do I have to be an expert to not trust credentialed scientists who have a vested interest in the answer? And make sure to include the ability to get grants and desire to be in the limelight. When the media are true believers, they tend not to shower attention on the ‘heretics.’
“Second, are your arguments more persuasive than those of your opponents? So far, in the view of the vast majority of scientists both inside the relevant fields, and outside those fields, is "no." The addition of “outside those fields” undercuts Alex’s first question. The question is also a makeweight. Persuasive to whom--those who are, obviously, not persuaded?
“And third, should we heed the views of the majority of scientists on any issue at all, or should every day be "Opposite Day?" I.e., should we systematically ask what the majority expert opinion in any given field is, and then do the opposite?” Like Hal, Alex characterizes his opposition as idiots, then makes fools of them. This is not a true argument.
“Or, is the issue of climate change special for some reason?” Yes, it is, because it has extremely serious repercussions for us, both believers and non-believers. The AGW proponents want huge programs costing immense sums, and if the underlying science is wrong, that will be a mistake that all of us will have to deal with.
“Is there something that makes this question not addressable by our normal scientific approaches and institutions?” It is interesting that questions are now being raised about peer review, what gets published, etc. (not necessarily in connection with AGW). Note also how politics and other influences can affect “science”—see, for example, two relatively recent Lancet articles (one about deaths in Iraq based on unrevealed statistical methods and another on a possible cause of autism).

Is there any basis for the statement that "99% of scientists... agree it's caused by man"? You don't reference any here, and from what I understand (my own personal interaction with those in the know, reliable or otherwise) say there is NO incontrovertible proof of that fact.

I'm disappointed at the lack of credibility you just demonstrated...

> This is incorrect. Those characterized here -- in this book -- as "dissenters" are reputable, peer-reviewed scientists working as experts in their own field.

Scanning the list, as made available on the Amazon page for the book, fewer than half publish in a field related to climate change.

That does not preclude them from offering sound criticisms, but their accomplishments in other fields cannot be an endorsement of their ideas in climate change. When it comes to auto care, I make the distinction between a quantum mechanic and an auto mechanic. It is a worthwhile distinction to make.

Kevin, you have done a brave thing with this post. Whatever our views on anthropogenic global warming, we shouldn't abide the mobbing of those who disagree with us. I salute you.

@manuelg: You say: "Scanning the list, as made available on the Amazon page for the book, fewer than half publish in a field related to climate change."

That is correct. In fact very few of the total number of scientists involved in the consensus view of climate change can claim they specialize in "climate change." Climate is so complex that it requires the expertise of chemists, paleontologists, meteorologists, computer scientists, statisticians, physicists, astronomers, etc. You might think, what does a computer scientist have to say about climate change, but in fact most of the conclusions about climate change are all based on computational models. So all these sub fields are vital. This is also why picking authorities is so hard.

"Consensus in such a very young science is overrated," writes Daniel.

Daniel does not, however, suggest a superior alternative for making important decisions on difficult technical issues.

"The fact that those who disagree have been equated to Holocaust deniers (and not, say, flat-earthers) says a lot about the religious nature of the issue. "

Lots of invective has been hurled by all (not both) sides on this issue. Said invective does not alter the technical issues, and it is notably absent from the professional debates.

"Like Hal, Alex characterizes his opposition as idiots, then makes fools of them. This is not a true argument."

Daniel's use of words is rather more colorful than mine. He sees scorn where there was serious criticism. Daniel needs to re-read the post that I was responding to, and re-evaluate what he wrote.

"“Or, is the issue of climate change special for some reason?” Yes, it is, because it has extremely serious repercussions for us, both believers and non-believers. "

Meaning that we should apply different standards? If that is not what Daniel means, it would be a courtesy for Daniel to specify what he does mean.

Also, the phrase "believers and non-believers" is unhelpful: it carries with it the appearance of a deliberate attempt at further polarization.

"It is interesting that questions are now being raised about peer review, what gets published, etc. (not necessarily in connection with AGW)."

Concerns and complaints about peer review are not new, in any field. Like democracy and free markets, peer review is a deeply flawed system, but no one has yet devised a better one.

> So all these sub fields are vital. This is also why picking authorities is so hard.

Why is climate science so exceptional, that a majority of publishing specialists cannot be trusted to have the definitive say?

The whole worth of the book depends on an argument showing climate science is unlike every other field of scientific investigation.

@manuelg said: "Why is climate science so exceptional, that a majority of publishing specialists cannot be trusted to have the definitive say?'

Climate science is not exceptional. That is the whole point of this book.

The problem is that because of the subject, we have to make billion dollar policy decisions on this science, so the issue of consensus and dissent are politicized.

If we had to make the same level of policy decisions on geological plate tectonics, or biological taxonomy, or the nature of the atom, we would run into the same kind of issues.

Kevin, I do have a question: it would seem that to understand the criticisms, one might prefer to first see a vigorous and clear statement of the mainstream view, and such a statement is less likely to come from the critics. So, is this the first book on climate change that you've reviewed for Cool Tools? And if so, was the decision to start with a skeptical treatment an intentional one?

Science is not done by consensus.

@Alex said "was the decision to start with a skeptical treatment an intentional one?"

Yes. I tend to review cool tools that not everyone knows about (although I am not always successful that way), but I do have a clear preference towards the little known. A contrary view,if well done, can often be helpful to both sides of an issue. If you have a particular book on global warming that is heads-above the other, or in some way moves the argument beyond "what everyone knows" I'd love to consider a review of it.

Always good to look at the outliers and critics. However, it has been my considered opinion for a number of years now that the debate over anthropogenic climate change is operationally moot. Whether or not climate change is being caused by the pollutants we pump into the environment makes no difference. We shouldn't be pumping pollutants into the environment. Period. Pollution is waste. Waste costs money and causes problems. We should stop it. Period.

About a decade ago, some mainline environmental groups were talking about a "no regrets" strategy, doing those things that make economic sense today which also reduce greenhouse gas emissions. It got absolutely, positively no traction within the policy sphere because it was so easy to wrangle around whether climate change exists or not and if it exists, whether it is caused by you and me or not. The debate trumps action every time, at least in the USA.

I want to see a zero emissions society where zero emissions is a goal the way zero defects is a goal on a production line in Total Quality Management. This may also be seen as an expression of heedfulness, the Buddhist principle of appamada. I see zero emissions within the context of Bill McDonough's ecological design principles:
waste equals food
use only available solar income
respect diversity
love all the children

Another thing that really bothers me about the current climate change "debate" is that we are concentrating on carbon. My suspicion is that it may be more effective to concentrate on methane instead as it is a more much powerful greenhouse gas and resident within the atmosphere for a shorter period of time. Managing methane may provide the margin we need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions if climate change is real, anthropogenic, and bearing down on us with increasing speed, as seems to be the case.

I would read it if they had an alternate theory that explained why 99% of scientific research on the subject is wrong. Isn't that how science works? First you come up with a theory and then you go about proving it, right?

Is there any other example in modern science of 99% of the research getting it wrong?

*When I say 99%, I know it's probably not exactly that amount, it's just a nice way of saying "the overwhelming majority".

what, no praise for the rebellious 1% skeptical of gravity?
we're not all in agreement here! come on, people!

The "heretics" are not demonized because their views go against global warming "dogma," but because they continue to run a political -- not a scientific -- campaign against the climate change consensus long after their views have been debunked. There is no conspiracy amongst climate scientists to cover up "the truth," and to suggest there is is to insult an entire scientific discipline. It beggars belief that some people think thousands of climate scientists -- who likely became scientists BECAUSE they hold evidence and facts above all else -- are staging a massive hoax, while only a handful are honest enough to come forward.

The comparison with Holocaust deniers is entirely appropriate. Holocaust deniers assert that an entire population of Jews is lying about the Holocaust. Global warming deniers assert that an entire population of scientists is lying about AGW.

waldo: The thing about gravity is there aren't any major industries with large lobbying and public relations budgets whose profitability depends on people disbelieving gravity.

And so think tanks are not endowed with grants for "scientists" to write anti-Newtonist papers; slickly-produced video press releases do not flood every television station every time they do so; no one conducts polls on the subject of gravity and puts out press releases on how skeptical the public is about gravity claims, etc etc etc. Scientists aren't forced to waste their time over and over again stating and restating the basic facts about gravity while well-funded deniers lie about evidence that's staring everyone in the face and well-meaning journalists give equal time to both sides of the "controversy".

The problem with global warming deniers isn't that they're out of the mainstream of climate science, it's that practically none of them are actually engaged in science. What they are is hacks, being paid to come up with plausible-sounding baloney to prevent anyone getting anything done.

Where do people get this idea that science is not done by consensus? Of course it is! Once enough scientists verify a particular claim, it generally becomes accepted by the other scientists in that field. That's consensus. How do you think things get into textbooks? Why is intelligent design not included in biology textbooks? It's the consensus, stupid.

With something like quantum gravity, there is only one correct theory. And yet, no proposed theories have been accepted by the majority of scientists in the field. Thus, there is no consensus. Accordingly, no textbook will claim that one theory of quantum gravity or another is the right one, even though there is a correct theory.

@ waldo: Actually gravity is the worst case you could have picked! Unlike global warming there is not even a consensus on what gravity is. Is it a wave? A field? Does it span space at the speed of light or is it simultaneous? If it is a waveitcal, what kind is it? Can it be shielded? How does it exist? It is there, but where is it? Basically we have no good scientific explanation of what gravity is. So skeptics of the cause of gravity are probably 99%.

In the 1970s these same cocksure scientists--government funded and well aware of who butters their bread--would be arguing that their mighty consensus makes them right...only about global cooling, not warming. Get real.

http://www.globalwarminghoax.com/news.php

Jon360 asks:

"Is there any other example in modern science of 99% of the research
getting it wrong?"

I'd suggest looking at the history of Aeronautics in the late 19th Century. There
you will find an overwhelming percentage of the scientists of that day concluding
that "heavier than air" flight was categorically impossible.

oops

"We should fund more of these heretics. That's science at work."

So the 1% who dissent should receive a disproportionate amount of funding (i.e. more than 1%) simply because they're maverick outliers, and therefore cool?

I doubt you really think that, at least I hope not; it would be pretty dumb. Would you argue that intelligent design should receive funding simply because it is "heresy" (your word, not mine)?

@Ian: No, I think the 1% should get 1% of the funding.

Bill types: "Science is not done by consensus."

Bill does not, however, tell us how he thinks that science *is* done, which might provide a more useful contribution.

The people posting here, who accept anthropological global warming as being a virtual certainty, do not appear to have read the book which is supposedly under discussion.

The book can be browsed and even searched online at the amazon.com site. I'm surprised that anyone would dismiss its content without even taking a couple of minutes to look at the list of scientists who are included.

Like other people here I wish Kevin had not led with the "99 percent" statement because a) I don't think it's true and b) no one knows what the right number is. In any case I don't think consensus should be the issue. I am more interested in the actual content of the work done by scientists who are interested in causes of global warming. But even if we are just going to argue about credentials and ignore the work, it certainly isn't true that the skeptics all lack appropriate qualifications. I am interested in this quote, for instance:

"Since I am no longer affiliated with any organization nor receiving any funding, I can speak quite frankly ... . As a scientist I remain skeptical." -- Atmospheric Scientist Dr. Joanne Simpson, the first woman in the world to receive a Ph.D. in meteorology and formerly of NASA who has authored more than 190 studies and has been called "among the most pre-eminent scientists of the last 100 years."

The quote attracts my attention not just because of her credentials, but because of the implication of the opening sentence, which is that if she were not retired, she would not feel happy about speaking frankly.

Also it cannot be overemphasized that all of the specific predictions regarding warming are based on computer models. Inevitably I am reminded of previous attempts to model very complex systems, most notably in Limits to Growth, the book from the Club of Rome which sold 30 million copies (according to Wikipedia) and predicted imminent catastrophe as a result of resource depletion, starvation, pollution, or all of the above. The Club of Rome subsequently sponsored a slightly more measured book, Mankind at the Turning Point, which supposedly modelled global economics, resources, and other relevant factors more accurately, using 200,000 equations. Still its predictions were completely wrong.

I can already hear the rebuttals, such as, "We know much more about computer modeling than we did then" or "Even if there is still some uncertainty about warming, we should take action because the penalty for failing to do so is so extreme." But I'm not convinced that computer models now are any more reliable than computer models 30 years ago, when extremely complex systems are involved, and some aspects of climate are not even understood (such as the exact mechanism of cloud formation). And Bjorn Lomberg argues very persuasively that the penalties for taking immediate action could actually be much greater than the penalties for a wait-and-see approach, because such a massive diversion of resources will be involved.

Putting it all together, I am much more interested in the work of geologists who are inferring the history of global temperature and atmospheric composition, because if CO2 levels really have been as high as they are now within the last 2000 years (as seems likely), and if previous warming trends have occurred without any human cause (as seems certain), and if ocean levels really have fluctuated by a meter or more during the last 2000 years (again without human cause, as seems possible), we have to conclude that the current warming may be only partially caused by human activity, and may not be a cause for alarm.

"I'd suggest looking at the history of Aeronautics in the late 19th Century. There
you will find an overwhelming percentage of the scientists of that day concluding
that "heavier than air" flight was categorically impossible."

In the 1800s there was no developed field of applied aeronautics , so most scientists offering such an opinion were not offering particularly informed opinions. And as always, it depends on whether the question was suitably framed in the first place. Until suitably powerful and lightweight engines were developed, the naysaying majority were (of course) correct. In the absence of such engines, powered heavier-than-air flight is impossible.

But if you'd framed the question differently -- "knowing that birds fly on fuels made of sugar, fat, and protein, and knowing the energy density of these fuels and of kerosene (all known by the mid-800s), could a powered aircraft in principle be designed, should an appropriately efficient engine become available?" -- You would surely have gotten a correct answer from nearly all physicists of the day. But ask a stupid question and the kind of answer you'll get is foreordained.

I'm a proud heretic whose cup does not runneth over with kool-aid and who emphatically denies man made global warming.

My so-called lack of intellectual curiosity pales in comparison to the over hyped spittle of those who claim to have "truth" on their side...

I'll gladly align myself with Retired senior NASA atmospheric scientist, Dr. John S. Theon who has now publicly declared himself a skeptic and who joins the rapidly growing ranks of international scientists abandoning the promotion of man-made global warming fears.

Mark, please re-read what you've just written. Do you really think that this in any way helps?

I've enjoyed cooltools for several years and other aspects of your blog. Please, please keep political hot button issues out of the cooltools section. I feel like a poker buddy just brought up a political discussion.

Adam

@KK:
"@ waldo: Actually gravity is the worst case you could have picked! Unlike global warming there is not even a consensus on what gravity is. Is it a wave? A field? Does it span space at the speed of light or is it simultaneous? If it is a waveitcal, what kind is it? Can it be shielded? How does it exist? It is there, but where is it? Basically we have no good scientific explanation of what gravity is. So skeptics of the cause of gravity are probably 99%."

What you've written in this response is in fact very close to Waldo's point, Kevin. He picked a good example. Re-read his post and see if you don't agree.

Kevin@33 ("the 1% should get 1% of the funding"): well, that makes more sense than what I thought you were saying; still, the reality is that funding is distributed meritocratically (or at least by peer review, which is the closest approximation we have); it's definitely not uniformly spread amongst all applicants. Everyone wants to encourage innovation, in theory, and to limit orthodox hegemony; the difficulty is deciding exactly what "maverick" means (it's an easy term to abuse, as the Republicans showed last November).

BTW, slightly off topic (or maybe not), but: may I ask what's happening re the All Species Inventory? www.all-species.org now seems to be advertising Japanese pre-teen apparel, or something. I thought that was a wonderful idea (I'm an evolutionary biologist working in genome sequencing: biowiki.org/IanHolmes) and I'd been meaning to get in touch with you about it. It'd be a pity if it is languishing, though I guess you've only got finite bandwidth...

BTW, to clarify my point about funding: I think funding should be (and mostly is) awarded by merit of the proposed approach. It should have absolutely nothing to do with whether or not the proposed work agrees, or disagrees, with the prevailing orthodoxy.

In other words, I think the 1% should get X% of the funding, where X is a number that is completely unrelated to how controversial their work is, and depends only on whether their methods are sound.

Not being a climate scientist myself, I'm not prepared to judge this (but I'm quite confident that e.g. Intelligent Design advocates should get 0% of available funding, having read too much of their work).

Holden Magroyne says, "In the 1970s these same cocksure scientists--government funded and well aware of who butters their bread--would be arguing that their mighty consensus makes them right...only about global cooling, not warming. Get real."

Funny you mention that. George Will the other day made the same claim in an article in the WP. Happily, Nate Silver just demolished Will's claim in two separate posts.

- http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2009/02/george-f-will-takes-on-science-loses.html
- http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2009/02/will-omitted-key-context-in-ice-age.html

Money quote: "But there was certainly nothing of a scientific consensus, as Will sneakily implies, around global cooling. How could there have been given such underwhelming evidence in the temperature record to support the hypothesis? On the contrary, this was something of an eccentric position to hold, and most scientific papers produced at that time predicted that warming would win out instead."

Thanks, Kevin. Very cool tool and reminder of the value of dissent within science. Of course, rejecting science on the whole is an entirely different issue and one that most gw-deniers appear to do. They look for dissenting scientists to affirm their anti-scientific views and therein lies the seed of vilification.

Also, very sad that some see this topic as a strictly a political issue. "Some" being the deniers.

Anon suggested that I read about the history of Aeronautics and I did. Here's a good paper on the subject: http://tinyurl.com/d8wfsc

It's true that during the early 19th century it was widely believed that flight was not possible but that was before the invention of the steam engine and the internal combustion engine.

Is there any other modern scientific examples of the majority being wrong? Something that is more comparable to the kind of research being done on climate change?

If an oil company pays a bunch of shills to spew lies into the public discourse, people don't have to be civil to those shills, nor should they feel obliged to give them equal time. If you're an outlier, you are, by definition, making extraordinary claims. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof, including all of your funding sources if people doubt your motives.

@matt: Yes, there are indeed some AGW-deniers who reject science on the whole, and others who fish for scientists who agree with their views. Those true-believers are easy to dismiss, and I have no argument about that.

But that's not who this book is about. It is about the legitimate scientists who have doubts or refutations. The question is, what do you (or we) do about their work?

One stance is to claim the scientists (the ones profiled in this book) are not real scientists, which is false and dishonest. Or you can demonize them (paid shills, not current, biased, etc.) Or ........

@Adam said: "Please, please keep political hot button issues out of the cooltools section."

OK, I agree I push this a little too far. Back to your usual scheduled programming.

Global Warming is the biggest hoax being pushed on the world in the history of mankind. I'm done with this blog. What does it have to do with 'tools'? That 99% figure is bogus too. If you'll choose to examine the 'facts', the overwhelming majority of the so-called scientists who support these theory's are looking for a bunch of our tax money to 'study' the issue. Challenge any of them to put their theory's through the entire 3 step Scientific Process. They won't do it. Good Grief.

We could easily stop the global warming if people ate vegan food. Read about it on http://weoverstep.com/blog/2009/01/24/go-vegan-for-the-heaven-sake/
Animal farming is 40% more devastating for the planet than the transportation (all cars, trucks, planes etc combined). However 99% of people close their eyes and deny that they could ever be vegan. They are sure that eating animal products is good. Vegetarians eating dairy are also deniers because cows are the most polluting creatures, Yes cows make more pollution than humans and there are more cows than humans. What is the meaning of those little efforts to save the environment when people deny veganism?

Whether it's a hoax, or whatever seems irrelevant. I think people don't give Earth enough credit for balancing itself out. Nevertheless, what harm is there in producing cleaner energy? What harm is there in modernizing? What harm is there is evolving as a society? Visit China's industrial cities and see where unchecked environmental policies lead. It isn't pretty.

@Peter

Veganism is all well and good but it is IMPOSSIBLE for everyone to enjoy. Face it, humans are not meant to be vegans yet. While most can get away with it, there are some people with medical issues that simply cannot live without animal based proteins. Be it milk or flesh. Look up bone diseases and you can go from there.

Also, I have never met a vegan that didn't look anorexic or gaunt. Obviously that is a generalization but it certainly is a trend. Just how some would say a lot of meat-eaters, especially red meat, are overweight. Vegetarians on the other hand...

Here is a very interesting article written by John Coleman (founder of The Weather Channel). In it, he introduces us to an oceanographer named Roger Revelle (the man who inspired Al Gore).

http://www.kusi.com/weather/colemanscorner/38574742.html

I think we should applaud Mr. Kelley's bravery in addressing the minority viewpoint of such a controversial topic, especially when he seems not to share that viewpoint. May we hope for more entries along these lines, say in considering reviled alternatives to Darwinism?

The similarities between the two are compelling: a case that mainstream science suppresses "heretics" with differing viewpoints (as revealed in eg a major motion picture by polymath Ben Stein), a lack of equal media coverage for those with the minority opinion (all opinions being of equal value), and a need for the heretics to scrape by on meager private donations -- not *directly* from oil companies, as Richard Lindzen has pointed out -- while wealthy academics fall into easy NSF grants awarded on the basis of proving what we already "know".

Surely the challengers to the Darwinist tyranny have demonstrated a mastery of say, the 2nd law of thermodynamics at least equal to the heretics' understanding of the difference between climate and weather? Or the understanding of the so-called breadth of evidence, some "reconstructed" fossils and a couple of computer models? There is a similar appreciation that a single adjustment in findings always wipes out all previous conclusions, proving the validity of opposing explanations. There are even similarities in where mainstream scientist fear to tread: irreducably complex features like flagella and eyeballs vs. the effect of volcanoes and solar radiation, subjects no self-respecting geoscientist has ever dared consider.

I eagerly wait for more neglected ideas to get a fair hearing by the open-minded, while mainstream scientists while away in their outspoken certainty.

I certainly don't know anything about climate change, and little about science. But as someone who works in the finance industry, I do know that sometimes a consensus of experts can still get things very wrong. Two years ago, 90%+ of people with a lot at take (employees, executives, equity and bond analysts, regulators, and of course, investors) thought my company was strong, creditworthy and secure. Now it has been bailed out and taken over for a fraction of its value then. My new bottom line: you have to plan based on the consensus, but don't bet everything on one view or one basket, and always keep an ear out for other possible and rational views that may cause you to adjust plans.

Carbon dioxide is not a 'pollutant', it is plant food. Henrik Svensmark has presented a compelling hypothesis that solar activity and the galactic cosmic ray environment are dominant controlling factors in terrestrial climate variations. Your assertion that there is no comprehensive alternative explanation is false.

Why must you soil an otherwise excellent site for cool tools with such a controversial topic? You have most likely alienated a good portion of your readership (including me) for what? Is it your hope to "convert" the so-called less informed? You label us "heretics" because we think independently and are not fully in compliance and in lock step with your so-called experts?

I can roll out just as many experts who can counter the debate and science. The 1% you seem to have so much disdain and disrespect possess perfectly reasonable assumptions and science as viable as those who claim absolute proof.

Your arrogance to a portion of your readership is insulating, patronizing and most definitely "not cool". If this is the mentality of "cool tools", then I have very little heartburn deleting my bookmark.

I've had an interest in climate change and renewables for some time. Recently a friend who's a director of the National Grid in the UK recommended a book called 'Sustainable Energy Without the Hot Air'. I've just finished reading it and It is by far the best text on the subject I've read. The author (a professor of physics at Cambridge University) doesn't get hung up on climate change (of which he makes a short but compelling review) but observes that whatever else we do, we will need to find an alternative to today's mix of energy sources. He then analyses energy use in an extremely accessible fashion, with a focus on the numbers, rather than emotion - extremely refreshing!

The paperback is released in the US on May 1. In the meantime its available in the UK (www.amazon.co.uk) or you can download it free under a creative commons license from the author's website www.withouthotair.com/

Several points:
1) there is hardly a 99% agreement
http://www.petitionproject.org/index.html
(there are other such groups out there). The consensus argument comes from the UN Commission on Climate Change and many who signed that document have since come out against it. Many who signed and are still in agreement are not actually scientist but UN Officials with no science training.

2) Climate Confusion and Unstoppable Global Warming are 2 great books on this topic in particular. (much of what I said above is covered in these two books and the politically incorrect guide to global warming).

3) Kicking Sacred Cows is a great book on Scientific 'Consensus' whether you agree with the author on the topics he chooses to discuss or not the result of reading the book is to learn that scientist are...human...and just as prone to prejudice and herd mentality as the rest of us. He also has a great chapter on global warming.

4) the earth has warmed and cooled many times in it's 4.5 million or so year history of which man has existed for only a few thousand of them and our addition to the earths atmosphere of anything is 1)natural as we are part of the earth and 2) negligible to the extent that throwing a fit about it is laughable.

Trouble is...

1. Much of the anti-global warming crowd is based on religious grounds – if god wanted it to happen it will and there is nothing humans can do about it

2. While we sit around and debate, we are going to pass an unrecoverable tipping point for climatic disaster – your children are going to inherit beach-front property in Los Gatos.

Peter W. Pure and complete nonsense. Anti-Global warming is not based on what God wants it's based on science and common sense. I list several books above one is written by a noted climatologist, another and engineer. I honestly am astounded when people make such attacks based on ignorance and anti-religious bigotry. My suggestion; get an education and open your mind to see those as different from you as humans who you can discuss and debate with in an honest fashion, because really right now you can go throw hood on your head and fit in quite fine with a certain clan.
I apologize Mr. Kelly and everyone engaging in intelligent debate (if i cross any lines) but I'm tired of bigots.

99% of scientists agree global warming is caused by humans. Please, throwing out a figure like that is just not even correct. It makes you seem like the true denier! Man, Gore really has made a lot of people swallow the kool-aid. Wait until we get a big volcano erupting and it throws tons of ash in the air...Gore will find someway to blame humanity for it!

Can someone tell me why empirical temperature observations show lowering temps globally the last few years?

You should cherish *scientific* dissenters---people who question the conventional scientific wisdom with *scientific* argument and evidence.

People who keep repeating misleading "talking points" that have been refuted
a thousand times over are not contributing to science. The are, or are the victims of, political propagandists. Definitely uncherishable, whichever side they're on.

The view that the "1% of deniers" should get 1% of research funding rests on assumptions I find startling coming from this source. It assumes that science is politics, and only politics. That scientists work by choosing sides and then doing research to back their assumptions. That if they find aspects of current theories unsupported by proot, or if their research/theories suggest better explanations, they are kicked out of the party and have to affiliate with a different one in order to get funding/recognition/etc. In other words, that it takes "outsiders", "outliers" to supply critical thinking that does not exist in science because "mainstream" science is not a grouping of people who want to advance knowledge, but a vast conspiracy engaged in covering up that knowledge.

Practically speaking the proposal carries more down-to-earth difficulties. It essentially opens a new route to scientific funding and support: just find a criticism that nobody else has found evidence for, and you are assured of a prosperous career.

Of course there are also the obvious extensions of the proposal. We would then have to be sure that every religious crackpot notion (most notably creationism) got equal treatment, to say nothing of faith healing, dirt eating, high colonics, and, no doubt, thousands of other interesting and profitable notions.

When I think back to my school days, I'd guess that somewhere around half the science stuff I was taught are now disproven or highly questionable -- the conventional wisdom on the dinosaur extinction, the harmlessness of pesticides, and "man is the only animal that uses tools" come immediately to mind. All came into question not because some victim-outliers defeated the a well-funded and massive conspiracy, but because science itself worked as it's supposed to. I see no reason that climate science should be assumed to work in such a different and dishonest manner that critics of the majority view need special subsidies. Sorry, but it seems to me I see a big tinfoil hat in this picture.

There seems to be a lot more writers than readers here.
Alternative theories? Read "The Chilling Stars" by Svensmark.
Read the work of Dr Jan Vieser of Ottawa U.
Deniers? Read the book on it.
An overview? Read "Unstoppable Global Warming every 1,500 Years" by Singer and Avery.
Polution? Who wants it? But let's keep our heads about us.
Clint

"As usual, the guidelines on this blog are: no name calling, derogatory remarks toward individuals, or personal attacks."

Calling those with inconvenient questions "deniers" is highly offensive.

You just fell a notch in my book, Kevin.

Wow. Such strong sentiments for a book recommendation. It's unfortunate so much bile was spewed without anyone (apparently) actually reading the book (save KK). I thought KK went to pretty great pains to couch the book in careful terms, precisely to avoid a landslide of breathless remonstrations.

If only science could develop a theory on how to please all the people all the time...

Here's to hoping we continue seeing reviews of quirky, interesting and/or useful items, regardless of how hot & bothered it may make us.

(Sorry Kevin, I re-read, and saw that you used a book title while urging a little more listening. My apologies for the false assumption; guess I was tempered by the Memeorandum mobbing of George Will last night. That term "global warming deniers" roiled my blood ever since Al Gore used it, along with "digital brownshirts", to characterize people who asked him inconvenient questions. Sorry for the mis-read!)

I don't believe in all this global warming BS, but even if it does exist, nobody has demonstrated yet to me why the hell I should care. I'm gonna die anyway. The way I look at it, if I leave a drop of oil or a lump of coal on this earth unburned when I depart, I've left something on the table. Greenie goofballs can live without, if they want. The hypocrites can go live in tents, otherwise they want their cake and eat it too. I'm going to burn all the fossil fuels I can and generate as many greenhouse gases as those fruits can handle!

@ Eye Pulp: I don't need to read the book, and neither do you.

Here is why. Neither you nor I nor (almost) anyone else on this thread will take the trouble to become intimately acquainted with the primary data and the direct analyses thereof, or to acquire the intellectual background required to do so.

Smart people know something about the limits of their knowledge. They know when they are out of their depth. Stupid people do not.

Consequently, none (or almost none) of us is in a position to evaluate these arguments in a serious way. This is true of climate change and it is true of any other extremely complex technical issue: brain surgery, cutting-edge photolithography, organic synthesis, cell biology (what I do for a living). Outside of our own areas of hard-won expertise, we must all rely on intermediaries to review, summarize, analyze, and explain the data.

Now we come to the key point. Given two experts with similar credentials, both making strong predictions, for you and me, choosing one side is a coin flip. No more and no less. We're out of our depth, and responding to rhetoric is not - ever - a substitute for deep understanding of primary data and analyses.

But in this situation we are not faced with two experts. We are faced with hundreds or thousands of them. And the vast majority of these experts are in broad agreement about what is happening to the climate.

Read the books to try to understand the arguments? Sure. But don't pretend that you're in a position to evaluate the arguments, because you almost certainly do not, and will not, take the time to learn enough that you really can do so.

Want to argue? Argue about things that you understand: things that are simple, or more complicated things about which you have acquired deep understanding.

My $0.02.

@ CT Reader: Many thanks for that Moment of Zen.

Kevin:

Would you please address those, like me, that were struck by your "99%" opener? My impression is that there are, in the first place, far too many issues and viewpoints to make a generalist claim like that with any basis whatsoever. The claim is ludicrous on its face and it undermines the assumption that you read the book with an open mind. Even a statement such as "the consensus claims a majority of scientists" would be unsupportable without some reference to a source and would even then be irrelevant.

@jb said "Would you please address those, like me, that were struck by your "99%" opener?"

99% is my impression from reading around. If someone has a better more reliable figure based on a survey or even better some research, please post it here.

This year's winner of the Weblog Award for "Best Science" site thoroughly deconstructs the AGW/CO2 hypothesis. What's that. you ask?

It is the central hypothesis of Al Gore, James Hansen, and the UN's IPCC. It states that increasing CO2 emissions due to human activity will reach a "tipping point," which will cause runaway global warming and climate catastrophe. Make no mistake, that is the AGW hypothesis that is the basis for demanding $trillions in new taxes. But is it true?

Look at this chart of rising CO2 and falling temperatures:

http://icecap.us/images/uploads/TEMPSvsCO2.jpg

There are scores of similar charts, all showing the same thing: CO2 rises, while the planet's temperature has been flat to declining for the past decade:

http://www.nationalpost.com/893554.bin

The effect of atmospheric carbon dioxide is real, but negligible.

And why would this not be the case? Believers in the AGW/CO2 hypothesis are forced to argue that a change in a very minor trace gas, from 4 parts in ten thousand to five parts in ten thousand will bring about climate catastrophe.

Not only has the AGW/CO2 hypothesis been repeatedly falsified, but its proponents fail to understand how the Scientific Method works: those putting forth a new hypothesis, such as AGW/CO2, have the burden of showing that it explains reality better than the existing theory, which is that the climate changes naturally. As the first chart above shows, they have failed.

Finally, the 1% figure regarding skeptics of the AGW/CO2 hypothesis is ridiculous. When the OISM petition was approaching 30,000 signatures, proponents of the manmade global warming argument started their own petition. The failed to achieve 800 signatures. The truth is that most in the hard sciences agree with the OISM petition, which states:

"We urge the United States government to reject the global warming agreement that was written in Kyoto, Japan in December, 1997, and any other similar proposals. The proposed limits on greenhouse gases would harm the environment, hinder the advance of science and technology, and damage the health and welfare of mankind.

There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gasses is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth's atmosphere and disruption of the Earth's climate. Moreover, there is substantial scientific evidence that increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide produce many beneficial effects upon the natural plant and animal environments of the Earth."

The global warming scare is baseless, but it continues for one primary reason: that's where the grant money and tax money flows.

Science is _not_ a democracy.

Mr. Lux et Veritas: do you really mean to argue that the case against anthropogenic climate change, and the case against evolution/common descent/natural selection are equivalent? Do you imagine that this strengthens either case?

I have a lot of trouble with your 99% figure. I think it depends on what you think the consensus is. If you think the consensus is that CO2 is increasing, humans are a significant cause or this and that this along with land use changes may be producing a small net warming of the planet... than you are probably close to right.

However, the broader public is presented with the idea that CO2 from humans alone is about to cause a sudden and catastrophic warming, raising sea level 30 feet and magically causing thousands of species like Polar bears to somehow vanish. This is not what the consensus is despite things lIke "An Inconvenient Truth". I suspect you would have difficulty finding even 1% of serious scientists to support these claims. However anyone who doesn't support this version is branded a denier.

I do know the only surveys ever taken of actual scientists would certainly put a significant majority into what many would call the denier camp.

I agree with Clint Unwin. It seems we have good scientific evidence which points to solar activity as the primary cause of global warming/cooling cycles. I fear that this mad rush to implement solutions to human caused warming will lead to more ecological disasters. Flourescent bulbs are a good example of "solutions" which have dangerous consequences to the environment.

Yes, let's take the time to find viable ways to soften our affect on the environment. But let's also look at the science of global warming and see why all the data isn't adding up.

"I agree with Clint Unwin. It seems we have good scientific evidence which points to solar activity as the primary cause of global warming/cooling cycles."

Do you really think the climatology community has not considered such a possibility? Really? Really? I mean, seriously. Really?

Because, you know, there's a lot of published work on this subject. Solar activity cycles are (of course) well-characterized, and are explicit components of the major climate models. These papers are not hard to find. A nice selection of them is even hotlinked from the relevant Wikipedia article.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_variation

Maybe you are an expert in the subject and you have substantive technical objections to how these components of the models are handled. But your comment sure doesn't read that way. If you don't have this expertise, how can you possibly justify taking a strong one-way-or-the-other position on the question, as you do?

When did aggressive ignorance become a virtue in American life, rather than merely a defining feature thereof (Cf. Barnum, Twain, Mencken, Hearst)?

Mr. Kelly,

I'm late to the discussion, but I'd like to pass on some thoughts.

Thanks for at least giving a dissenting point of view a chance to be reviewed.

Can everyone get past the "99%" (note the quotes). The proper phrase probably should have been "the overwhelming majority".

A "Cool Tool" is anything that could be useful, for any purpose. Dissent may be erroneous. But, if it forces the orthodox to examine at least some of their premises, it is definitely useful.

For those who seem to think politics has no place here, I need to remind you that politics represents one of the most powerful tools employed by humans to manage their affairs.

Nuff said

The thing that really annoys me about climate change deniers, is that it is never really about science.
If we were talking about the speed of light in a vacuum, or the mating habits of cockroaches, everyone would just let the scientist do their jobs and prove the thesis right or wrong.

But because the current consensus result might inconvenience people, everyone and their brother wants to second guess the results. I have come to the conclusion humanity deserves the results of its shortsighted selfishness.

PS: I am a physicist, and I have looked and the data and peer review articles on the subject in question.

@Alex - I appreciate you taking a measured and thoughtful approach to reminding me that there will always be someone out there smarter than me (and you, and n-1) and that Science is for Smart People.

Science isn't a democracy, but as has been repeated ad nauseum, the way in which our citizenry deigns to have it's resources allocated is pretty unrelated to science, regardless of how compelling and accurate that science may be. It is and always will be a popularity contest, of sorts. For science to escape the lab it needs exposure and funding. It needs the unwashed masses to care about it.

Your position is that reading this book is unnecessary. Not because it may be a good or bad book, but because I (or others) won't understand it and the complex science behind it. You are likely spot on in that assessment, but you imply a binary between experts and the unfortunate set of everyone else. The inability to become an expert in any area of knowledge should not consign one to being in a vegetative state regarding it.

Science *should* speak for itself unimpeded by politics, but to expect and/or assume people at large will *listen* is a fantasy. The best we can hope for is an engaged citizenry, and that's precisely the benefit of KK presenting this book. Let them read this. Then let them read opposing or varied opinions. Get them talking about the issues. They don't need to be experts - but they do need to care. If you want people to ignore science, tell them they're too dumb to understand it.

(off to order my copy of AGW for Dummies =)

I sincerely wish that we could divide the atmosphere into halves, with no ability for one's children to switch halves.

That way we could take a Darwinian approach to the matter, and simply allow the global warming deniers to destroy their climate over the next few generations.

Sadly, I am forced to share air with radicals, who hold a religious belief that despite enormous amounts of unprecedented activity, nothing will change or be harmed.

Regarding the book: it's not a tool.

Eye Pulp,

Thank you for a very serious and thoughtful reply to my post, which was also serious but too snarky by at least half, and perhaps by more than half. I see nothing in what you say in that reply that is worth contesting; our differences are quibbles, and I was (intentionally) confrontational, to make a point about the book under discussion and its potential utility (or lack thereof).

Kevin, could you please explain what exactly about this Tool is supposed to make it Cool enough to match the usual standards of this site?

Because I'm honestly not getting it. When you've previously posted Tools that were completely outside my interests, I could still nevertheless perceive their Coolness. This one isn't outside my interests, and yet I still fail to comprehend your reasoning. How is this supposed to be at all comparably Cool?

I do have a suggestion for a genuinely Cool Tool resource that I believe would far better benefit far more of your readers, though: Dr. Robert B. Cialdini's classic work "Influence: The Power of Persuasion" ( http://www.amazon.com/Influence-Psychology-Persuasion-Robert-Cialdini/dp/0688128165 ). Its lessons are useful in evaluating the "arguments" of not only both sides of the CAGW debate but many other modern issues as well.

And I have to say that when it comes to invalid "arguments" on this particularly topic, it's the supporters of CAGW theory who end up looking much worse in terms of Cialdini's metrics than its critics.

"Consensus", for example, is merely a persuasion-oriented buzzword, not a valid argument. For example, about two hundred years ago the "consensus" held that cutting open the gums of teething infants was good for them. It wasn't, of course; it was in fact the opposite, causing increased rates of iatrogenic infection and death. Today, there is still a similar "consensus" that cutting off the prepuces of baby boys is good for them, or at least not meaningfully a human rights issue, while the opposites, inexplicably, are supposed to be true where little girls are concerned. In both cases it was and is nonsense; neither the "consensus" on the worth of gum-cutting nor on gender-discriminatory child genital mutilation had then or has now any sensible relation to the actual empirical facts.

In short, when you "argue" that the "consensus" of the majority of scientists supports CAGW theory, the only thing you prove is that you need to resort to non-scientific subjective persuasion to make your case, which further indicates that CAGW theory cannot support itself on just its own supposed scientific merits.

jon360

"I would read it if they had an alternate theory that explained why 99% of scientific research on the subject is wrong. "

Much of that research is not wrong, it is just answering the wrong question. For example: assume a certain temperature rise, what would happen to the corals on the Great Barrier Reef? The right question is 'Are the models projecting the right temperature increase and rate'. So far the models are overshooting. Therefore much of that research is not wrong, it is merely irrelevant.

The "science" that has been discussed with hushed, reverent tones above is not the "science" of the AGW discussions. Much more typical is the following, with assertions that don't comport with the data excused rather than withdrawn:
"The National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) has been at the forefront of predicting doom in the arctic as ice melts due to global warming. In May, 2008 they went so far as to predict that the North Pole would be ice-free during the 2008 'melt season,' leading to a lively Slashdot discussion. Today, however, they say that they have been the victims of 'sensor drift' that led to an underestimation of Arctic ice extent by as much as 500,000 square kilometers. The problem was discovered after they received emails from puzzled readers, asking why obviously sea-ice-covered regions were showing up as ice free open ocean. It turns out that the NSIDC relys on an older, less-reliable method of tracking sea ice extent called SSM/I that does not agree with a newer method called AMSR-E. So why doesn't NSIDC use the newer AMSR-E data? 'We do not use AMSR-E data in our analysis because it is not consistent with our historical data.' Turns out that the AMSR-E data only goes back to 2002, which is probably not long enough for the NSIDC to make sweeping conclusions about melting. The AMSR-E data is updated daily and is available to the public. Thus far, sea ice extent in 2009 is tracking ahead of 2005, 2006, 2007, and 2008, so the predictions of an ice-free north pole might be premature."

Kevin,

Could you tell us what you learned from this book? Did arguments get presented in a way that made you reconsider your views? If so, did you do any digging to back them up, say at a comprehensive mainstream site like realclimate, or with somebody knowledgeable in the field? I've seen a lot of nicely presented arguments that might cause reasonable doubt on their own -- if they weren't simply and thoroughly bogus in fact and in context.

I think sometimes you like contrarian viewpoints just for the fun of it. Without some solid support I find them as monotonous as any conspiracy theory.

My take? A heated but tempered discussion is a very cool tool. Thanks for fomenting the conversation. Getting underneath the religious nature of the debate is what we require to move forward.

PS...your captchas are the worst.

Danielr provides an excellent example of amateur argument on this topic. A for-the-broader-public summary of a series of technical questions.

Problems:

1. Danielr's source for the quote is unreferenced. Yes, the source matters.

2. The errors were caught and reported by NSIDC. This is how science works -- or should work -- in every field. Errors occur; this is inevitable, since science is an activity performed by humans. If the science is done well, errors are caught and publicly corrected. That happened here. That is not a problem; it is a model for transparency and professional conduct, in any field of research.

3. Danielr types: "Much more typical is the [quoted text], with assertions that don't comport with the data excused rather than withdrawn." Speaking of assertions, Danielr has just made a doozy in this very sentence, about what is "typical" in climatology research. His evidence? An acecdote, and (in my view) an anecdote that doesn't even substantially support his broader argument.

It's amateur hour @ cooltools. Are the drinks half-price, at least?

@Andy asked: "Kevin, Could you tell us what you learned from this book? Did arguments get presented in a way that made you reconsider your views? If so, did you do any digging to back them up?"

Yes, and I am doing that follow up now.

Andy, let me ask you a question back. Why do you assume you know what this book says without reading the book? You appear to believe to know what the arguments are in the book, perhaps arguments made in the press (by whom?), or in blogs. The assumption seems to be that all refutations or skepticisms are either identical or already known. I find that assumption part of the problem. I have no idea if these are the same arguments made on blogs or not, but it does surprise me that so many are so eager to defend the arguments or argue against them without even knowing what the arguments are!!

The only argument I am making is this: this is a book worth checking out. The only valid argument against my argument this would be one based on having read the book. A reader very well may conclude, I've read the book and these are the same arguments made in the past, and they have all been disproven. In fact, I welcome such a review.

I'm very impressed by your willingness to respond to questions from your other readers, Kevin.

I look forward with great anticipation to receiving the same courtesy myself as well.

I've worked in model development and ocean physics for several years. What I do overlaps with climatology, though I usually work at shorter (weather-ish) timescales, and I don't really have a dog in the fight, career-wise. But I'm familiar with a few of the people profiled and most of the arguments the subjects are associated with. The "hockey stick" was not "demolished", not remotely. See realclimate for why. Freeman Dyson shows remarkable lack of understanding of the field. Richard Lindzen probably has the most credibility of any of the subjects, but hasn't been backing his statements about climate (as opposed to shorter-term atmospheric phenomena), and he's been awfully squirelly about who pays him for what.

It turns out some of those I've never heard of probably because they categorically deny being a denier: Bromwich and Solanki. Actually it turns out that a couple scientists profiled in the original series demanded retractions: http://www.desmogblog.com/taxonomy/term/1672 . The same thing happened with that British documentary and Carl Wunsch.

Now, with a little Google-fu, working from the Amazon entry:

Tennekes -- thought climate modelling was bogus, though he never did any work in it. He was a short-timescale fluid modeller, which is a different beast from climate modelling. I've done a bit of both.

Reiter -- maybe he has something to say about malaria, but he seems to base that on there being no global warming, which he has apparently no expertise in.

Zichichi -- summarily dismissed climate prediction, though he worked in nuclear physics. How did he justify his position?

Landsea -- doesn't deny AGW, just disputes its effects on hurricaines. Frequency is indeed an open question, intensity not as much as it once was.

Jaworowski -- apparently publishes most of his work on climatology in a LaRouche magazine.

Segalstad -- coauthored two papers in 1992 with Jaworowski, published in what appears to be a "real" journal. Supposedly says "most leading geologists" know the U.N.'s views "of Earth processes are implausible." That's news to me.

Akasofu -- his arctic work is on aurora borealis, apparently hasn't published anything in climatology.

Allegre -- see here: http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2006/10/con-allegre-ma-non-troppo/

Abdussamatov and Friis-Christensen -- respectively claim solar variation and cosmic rays cause GW, but there been no recent trend in either, despite definite warming.

I'll go on and elaborate if you want, but is there anything I got wrong here, or didn't broadly address?

If you are interested in learning more about the methods used in climate science research and are not afraid of some math, I would recommend the http://climateaudit.org site. They provide in-depth commentary and work hard to reproduce the results from relevant climate science articles.

@Andy asked: " is there anything I got wrong here, or didn't broadly address?"

I have no idea since I have zero expertise in climate modeling myself.

@Kevin:

I meant if what I wrote addressed (more or less) the points in the book.

>> "That 1% dissent is what powers science forward. In fact, tolerating heretics is what makes science different from religion."

In this case you have to look closely at that 1 percent. Religion drives 99 percent these "one percenters". That doesn't leave you with many scientists. You'll find Brigham Young "University", Bob Jones "University", Oral Roberts "University", etc. on a lot of those right wing diplomas.

Look at the case of physicist Edward Teller, a smart guy considered "the father of the h-bomb". Now, it's not like theoretical physicists from all around weren't thinking about this, and any one of them who had run into the great mathematician Ulam would surely have come to the same conclusion. Ulam is the father of the H-bomb. Teller took credit. Later, Teller in his right-wing want of of glory stated:

"I contributed; Ulam did not. I'm sorry I had to answer it in this abrupt way. Ulam was rightly dissatisfied with an old approach. He came to me with a part of an idea which I already had worked out and difficulty getting people to listen to. He was willing to sign a paper. When it then came to defending that paper and really putting work into it, he refused. He said, 'I don't believe in it.'"

Yeah right, he didn't believe in his own idea. History won and Ulam's story was forgotten. Posturing for a defense of his own legacy, Teller then goes on to bring testimony against self made scientists to whac-nut commisisions like the "House Committee on Un-American Activities".

So here you have a guy who is willing to take credit for the intellect of others and use his unrelenting mouth to espouse intellectual achievements for himself.

Don't get me wrong, this is probably the smartest right-wing religious scientist in post world war two history (it's a very small group to chose from). But look at the inconsistencies; look at how willing he was to take credit for another person's work for fortune and fame---kinda like the Merril Lynch bonuses a month before the bailout. It reeks of a war monger like Rush Limbaugh who didn't have to go because he had a mole on his toe, yet takes credit for being a patriot whilst using his "help" to keep him delirously "happy"..

Anyway, there are no Tellers (even he had too much scientific integrity), Bohrs, Heisenbergs, Keplers, Feynmans, Oppenheimers, Plancks, Newtons,, Hooks, Huygens, Galileos, Copernicans', Rontgens, Kelvins, Fresnels, Oerstads, Boyles, Maxwells, Kirchoffs, Pascals, Becquerels, Boltzmanns, Lagranges, Clausius', Boyles, etc., in that ONE percent of "scientists" in denial.

These "one percenters" are not scientists on the level of a Kepler, or a Copernicus, who can look at evidence, no matter how painful, and accept it,. Therefore they must be looked at with a wary eye, lest we end up believing the ideas of that moron James Watt, wherein we may as well use up everything we can now because when it's all gone Jesus is coming to save "some of us" anyhow.

wow Elmer, you're all over the place.
As someone in science, i think this book sounds very interesting! I agree with #2 Time. I find the science compelling, but the politics nothing short of fear-mongering etc. Now, in the absence of proof to the contrary, it is my opinion that we do everything we can to prevent negative environmental impact, but KK (and presumably the author of this book) is right - it is the minority that tends to run the real scientific breakthroughs and revelations.

My boss, for example, had a hard time getting one of his early papers into a reputable journal. That paper ended up getting him his professor position at a top 10 university and he has received multiple Nobel Prize nominations. It's only a matter of time...

As for Global Warming - Who knows? I think the point here is not to provide ammo for the "anti-environmentalists" but perhaps a little bit of an urge towards more humility for the environmentalists themselves...

Lets not forget Schopenhauer's wisdom about the stages every truth must undergo:
First it is ridiculed. Second it is violently opposed. Third it is accepted as self-evident.

And finally, at #9 Josh - wnd.com? really?

"The "hockey stick" was not "demolished", not remotely. See realclimate for why."

Take a look at this demolishment of the insisters attempts to resuscitate the hockey stick. http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/monckton/what_hockey_stick.html

Pages 16-29 summarize eleven scientific papers that provide evidence of warming elsewhere on the planet during the MWP (along with ten papers dealing with Europe and the North Atlantic). Each summary occupies about half a page and contains a graph that illustrates key data points.

I wrote a response to this here:

http://www.sindark.com/2009/02/22/cool-tools-on-the-deniers/

This article seeks to have it both ways. The author tries to be on the side of the angels in praising dissenters and saying they have a place, but the figure of "99%" of climate scientists who support the theory of manmade global warming is not given any source at all. Obviously we have to believe the author's figure, wich itself strongly suggests we believe the "99%," I guess because a majority that large just has to be right. Also, it is easy to use the example of Galileo because he's safely dead.
Originally it was (manmade) global warming, then it was (manmade) climate change when there wasn't enough evidence for simple warming. Climate change in this context is a moveable feast meaning anything you want it to mean, but it's still interchangeble with global warming, which is one thing that gives the game away For clarity I call it HACC (Harmful Artifial Climate Change).
It would be nice if more people were aware of the astonishing truth that ice core samples from the polar regions over the last 650,000 years, show a O2 increase after, not before or during, a rise in temperature.
The fuss is about a 0.5 to 0.6 degree celsius rise in temperatures from locations that have in many cases been affected by localised UHI (Urban Heat Island) effects. Clay core analyses show no heating at all over this time, There is not enough space to list everything that's wrong with HACC, so I'll finish with a question for the true believers: Natural water vapour dwarfs every other greenhouse gas. Man is only a small source even of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, which are mostly natural. If every human being left the planet tomorrow, and cleaned up after themselves would non-human processes left i our stead contribute more, or less than we do, to global warming?
Okay, one more one more thing. It's sometimes argued that we should err on the safe side even if we don't know for sure if HACC exists.This seems like a wise policy until you remember that it cuts both ways. You could just as easily ask about the perils of taking it all onboard an giving governments and corporatins even more power, especially since it's not even, umm, true.

One, saying there is 99% agreement on man-made Global warming is an outright fabrication. That is a lie to you who dropped out of school.
Two, there can be no such thing as 'consensus' in science. Sorry, but this is one area where the Majority does not rule. Oh wait..didn't the Majority think the world was once flat? Consensus...what a joke. You mean Nonsensus don't you?

Listening to laypeople talk about global warming is like watching a stock message board. There are a lot of people who pretend to know something, some will be right and some will be wrong, but they all lack the fundamental knowledge to build even the simplest of models.

Here are your assignments; they should take an hour or so if you have a decent background of high school algebra.

Finance: Estimate the present value of a company with a constant profit given a discount rate

Climate: Build a black body temperature model of the earth with sun

If you can't do this, which explains why the earth is closer to 280K than 100K, how are you going to evaluate a model that is talking about a 1K/decade change? If you do not actually understand the work, then your arguments end up being whatever punditry you find on the internet, where first you decide what conclusion you want to reach then cherry pick evidence that supports it. That is the most anti-science of all, but it is what 99.9% of internet discussions of climate change are.

Climatologists can have reasoned discussions with other climate modellers who have differing opinions, because they share the same language of math and fundamental science. They cannot have reasoned discussions with the average person about climate simply because they do not speak the same language of climate models.

On a site like cool tools, I'd rather see a review of a book that describes the basics of climate and climate modeling rather than simply fueling the fire on this topic.

@ Andrew: yes, precisely!

------------

@ RobitJ: "Two, there can be no such thing as 'consensus' in science. Sorry, but this is one area where the Majority does not rule."

Where do people get ideas like this?

Consensus among scientists is a major part of how science progresses. Why do you think that in our undergraduate courses we teach Newton's mechanics, and Maxwell's equations, and plate tectonics, and quantum mechanics, and molecular orbital theory, and the neodarwinian evolutionary synthesis, and the Watson-Crick model of DNA structure, and Mitchell's chemiosmotic coupling hypothesis, etc., etc?

The answer is that large majorities of scientists in the relevant areas found these concepts to have utility in describing phenomena and in predicting new phenomena.

Here are just a few ideas that are now regarded as historical curiosities, because they did NOT survive repeated cycles of scientific consensus-building: alchemy; lamarckian adaptationism; pre-plate tectonics geology; the need for an aether to conduct light; blending inheritence in genetics; direct chemical coupling in oxidative phosphorylation; and vitalism.

These ideas are no longer found in textbooks (except as examples of historical error), because the majority of experts in the relevant fields concluded that they do not provide good explanations of natural phenomena, or that other ideas provided better explanations.

Why do you think that Peter Mitchell had a map on his wall with pins representing all the people in his field , the color of the pins representing whether they agreed with his chemiosmotic hypothesis or not? Why do yo think he was in constant communication with his opponents? Why do you think that he was aggressive about doing experiments that would challenge his own hypothesis as strongly as possible? The answer: he was trying to build consensus for his rather radical (and largely correct) theory of bioenergetics. In the end, he was vindicated.

The turning point was not when a few of his friends were persuaded. It was when his *field* was persuaded:

http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/chemistry/laureates/1978/ .

@Andrew S said: " On a site like cool tools, I'd rather see a review of a book that describes the basics of climate and climate modeling..."

Great idea. I'd love to see a solid one recommended and reviewed too! If you have a candidate for educated lay readers, please send a review.

@Kevin:

I'm not confident to give a full critical review of books on the subject, but the following seemed worth reading and jibe with my semi-specialist understanding:

Field Notes to a Catastrophe by Elizabeth Kolbert -- from the perspective of a diligent journalist, and originally published in the New Yorker (of the crazy fact checkers).

The Discovery of Global Warming by Spencer Weart -- this is a historical recounting of how understanding of the problem evolved, starting in the mid-1800's IIRC. Deals honestly with the problems and uncertainties encountered on the way, though it can get a little dry and monotonous. Also from 2003, so out of date.

What We Know About Climate Change by Kerry Emanuel -- this was originally a long article in the Boston Review. Useful not least because he was initially a skeptic, though in the article he kind of rode off the rails by more or less blaming it all on environmentalists' iron grip on energy policy (really). Here's a real review:
http://www.nature.com/climate/2008/0801/full/climate.2007.77.html

@Andy: Thanks for the tips and pointers.

It's scientific debate if, you know, scientists are involved. Oh, and there's a need for the "scientist" to have a relevant background in the science involved; it is NOT scientific debate about climate change if the denier has a) no scientific background whatsoever (which is the vast majority of deniers) or b) have some notional scientific background in a completely unrelated field.

Scientific debate occurs in scientific circles. To be have any significance, you need to pull out examples of deniers who are published in peer reviewed publications -- not hacks who write op-ed pieces for the New York Post or TV Guide. They must have demonstrable credentials and disclose who pays their rent.

There always seems to be a 'great number of scientist' who confirm blah,blah blah. Al Gore lied about his number of scientists (2500 mentioned which turned out to be only about 51) There is a website with 30,000 (scientists) names on it who do not support anthropgenic warming. They have all signed a petition of some sort to that effect. Who can believe anything? The truth is there for all to research. If you have any knowledge of the english language you should be able to read and understand a scientific report. If you watch national geographic and you believe them--then the oceans have cooled about 1 degree in the last decade. I like to see the positive side of things. The warming experienced where I reside has been a welcome change although this past summer and winter have been terrible wet and cold. When I look back at records of this area, it has been up and down since it has been recorded. If the ice melts and the ocean rises -- so what?? You or I cannot change that. All the people on the planet cannot change that. the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere cannot be controlled by you because CO2 is much less than 1% of the total volume of atmosphere. Mt St Helens provided a bit of CO2 and there are countess volcanoes on earth and under the oceans giving off CO2. Every dead tree rotting in the bush gives off CO2. Without greenhouse gases we would be frozen globs of flesh and bone. Stop trying to be a GOD. Adapt - - - quit bitching about things you cannot control. Tell your sons and daughters that the climate changes on this planet and sometimes dramatically. That is a hell of a lot more positive than fear mongering and a whole lot better for our children and future.

Lawrence Solomon, editor of "The Deniers," describes how he is often disinvited to debate with AGW proponents:
http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fpcomment/archive/2009/02/27/lawrence-solomon-the-art-of-the-green-disinvite.aspx

@mike hawryluk

" If you have any knowledge of the english language you should be able to read and understand a scientific report."

The above sentence, and much of the verbiage within which it is embedded provide a nearly crystalline specimen of the view that ignorance is a Virtue.

The only reasonable reply to such blather is overt ridicule, since the author has already ruled out any possibility of serious discussion by people who actually know what they are talking about.

Here's a more accessible summary of the hockey stick controversy touching on McIntyre and McKitrick's critique:
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg18925431.400-climate-the-great-hockey-stick-debate.html?full=true

Here's a more recent critique of the hockey stick theory, by a prominent British denier, Monckton:
http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/monckton/what_hockey_stick.html

Pages 16-29 summarize ten scientific papers that provide evidence of warming during the MWP in Europe and the North Atlantic (along with eleven papers dealing with warming elsewhere on the planet in that period). Each summary occupies about half a page and contains a graph that illustrates key data points.

Here's a link to the 52-page denialist paper, "The Recovery from the Little Ice Age and the Recent Halting of the Warming (The Multi-Decadal Oscillation)":
http://people.iarc.uaf.edu/~sakasofu/pdf/recovery_little_ice_age.pdf

Here is its Abstract:

"Two natural components of the presently progressing climate change are identified.

"The first one is an almost linear global temperature increase of about 0.5°C/100 years (~1°F/100 years), which seems to have started at least one hundred years before 1946 when manmade CO2 in the atmosphere began to increase rapidly. This value of 0.5°C/100 years may be compared with what the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) scientists consider to be the manmade greenhouse effect of 0.6°C/100 years. This 100-year long linear warming trend is likely to be a natural change. One possible cause of this linear increase may be Earth’s continuing recovery from the Little Ice Age (1400-1800). This trend (0.5°C/100 years) should be subtracted from the temperature data during the last 100 years when estimating the manmade contribution to the present global warming trend. As a result, there is a possibility that only a small fraction of the present warming trend is attributable to the greenhouse effect resulting from human activities. Note that both glaciers in many places in the world and sea ice in the Arctic Ocean that had developed during the Little Ice Age began to recede after 1800 and are still receding; their recession is thus not a recent phenomenon.

"The second one is the multi-decadal oscillation, which is superposed on the linear change. One of them is the “multi-decadal oscillation,” which is a natural change. This particular change has a positive rate of change of about 0.15°C/10 years from about 1975, and is thought to be a sure sign of the greenhouse effect by the IPCC. But, this positive trend stopped after 2000 and now has a negative slope. As a result, the global warming trend stopped in about 2000-2001."

Here's a fascinating thread, "A Peek behind the Curtain," on Climate Audit:

http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=5416

These people are not 'heretics', or 'mavericks', or anything of the sort. They are corporate shills, selling anything left of their morality for a couple hundred thousand dollars in the bank. Their aim is to distract and misdirect for as long as possible, for billionaires who are looking for yet another way to buck responsibility for the destruction of the planet. Some nerve, calling themselves heretics!

At the end of the day, if global warming isn't real, what was the harm? Cleaning up the environment 'for nothing?'