Greg Craven argues that we should “choose columns” rather than “guess rows” when thinking through global climate change:
This lecture seems to amount to a “Pascal’s Wager” of GCC.
What can we do to slow global warming? Steven Chu suggests that one way would be to paint our roofs white:
Professor Steven Chu, the US Energy Secretary, said the unusual proposal would mean homes in hot countries would save energy and money on air conditioning by deflecting the sun’s rays.
Think Progress has summarized current thinking by the GOP on energy issues:
Throughout the discussion on America’s energy future, Republicans have been notably absent. In March, House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) announced the creation of the House GOP American Energy Solutions Group, an effort to “work on crafting Republican solutions to lower energy prices for American families and small businesses.” The man chosen to head the committee — which includes notorious climate change deniers Reps. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) and John Shimkus (R-IL) — is none other than House Republican Conference Chairman Mike Pence (R-IN), who, just last night, refused to even admit that climate change is real. “Well, let me tell you,” he told MSNBC’s Chris Matthews, “I think the science is very mixed on the subject of global warming.” “Then why should your party believe you’re going to get serious about it, if you say the science is mixed?” Matthews asked. Pence replied, “Yeah, it’s a fair question.”
And what about the Chamber of Commerce? It MUST be walking in lockstep with the GOP, right? Wrong:
An analysis by the Natural Resources Defense Council(NRDC) found that just four of the 122 board members at the Chamber share the group’s questioning of science and stark opposition to federal regulations to reduce global warming pollution.
Illinois Representative John Shimkus knows all he needs to know about climate change. It’s all in the infallible Bible. Here he is demolishing all of that silly science with a few phrases out of Genesis. Based on his expressions, he’s a hero in his own eyes. He’s got that look that he knows he will go to heaven. Don’t worry. There’s only going to be one worldwide flood and we’ve already had it. Case closed. Proceedings from the March 25, 2009 hearing of the U.S. House Subcommittee on Energy and Environment:
If you want to learn a lot more about the nonsense Shimkus spouts, visit Progress Illinois.
George Will’s recent journalistic malpractice has inspired much discussion by many people concerned about climate change. It’s a critically important issue given that 41% of Americans currently think that the threat of global warming is being exaggerated by the media.
The intellectual energy runs even deeper than criticism of George Will, though, leading us to the fundamental issue of how journalists and readers can distinguish legitimate
science from sham (or politicized) science. The Washington Post recently agreed to publish a precisely-worded response to Will by Christopher Mooney. Here’s Mooney’s opener:
A recent controversy over claims about climate science by Post op-ed columnist George F. Will raises a critical question: Can we ever know, on any contentious or politicized topic, how to recognize the real conclusions of science and how to distinguish them from scientific-sounding spin or misinformation?
Mooney methodically takes Will to task on point after point. For instance, weather is not the same thing as the climate. The state of the art in 1970s climate science has been superseded by 2007 climate science. You can’t determine long-term trends in Arctic ice by comparing ice thickness only on two strategically picked days.
The bottom line is not surprising. If you want to do science well you have to do it with precision, measuring repeatedly, crunching the numbers every which way and then drawing your conclusions self-critically. What is not allowed is cherry picking.
Readers and commentators must learn to share some practices with scientists — following up on sources, taking scientific knowledge seriously rather than cherry-picking misleading bits of information, and applying critical thinking to the weighing of evidence. That, in the end, is all that good science really is. It’s also what good journalism and commentary alike must strive to be — now more than ever.
Mooney has given considerable thought to these topics. His byline indicates that he is the author of “The Republican War on Science” and co-author of the forthcoming “Unscientific America: How Scientific Illiteracy Threatens Our Future.”
I would supplement Mooney’s well-written points, borrowing from our federal courts. They have long been faced with the struggle to determine what is real science and what is junk science, and they have settled on what is now called the “Daubert” test, (named after the case first applying the test, Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, 509 U.S. 579 (1993)). The Daubert analysis is applied many times every day in all federal courts (and many state courts) all across America.
The problem facing judges is that the parties to law suits often produce experts who express scientific theories and explanations that are never heard outside of courtrooms. This justifiably makes judges suspicious. Is the witness doing “real” science or his he/she doing sham science to further the interests of the party paying his/her bills? The Daubert test asks the judge to serve as gatekeeper, to make sure that only legitimate science sees the light of day in courtrooms. Here are the relevant factors:
Positive answers to each of these factors suggests that the witness is doing real science. Astrology would fail this test miserably.
Applied to climate science, the Daubert test would require that we listen carefully to what the scientists talk about with each other, in person and in their peer-reviewed journals. Daubert would require that we know enough about the techniques of climate science to know how it makes its measurements and conclusions. Daubert would certainly require that we know the difference between the weather and the climate.
Applying Daubert is not simply a matter of listening to the scientists. Quite often, the scientists are bought and paid for (e.g., scientists working for tobacco companies and corrupt pharmaceutical companies). Applying Daubert requires taking the time to understand how the science works to solve real-world questions and problems and then taking the time to see that its methodology is being used with rigor in this application. There are no shortcuts, expecially for outsider non-scientists.
No shortcuts. No cherry-picking.
George Will has written an irresponsible article denying climate change (AKA global warming). Here’s the basic problem with George Will’s writing, as stated succinctly by The Wonk Room:
In “Dark Green Doomsayers,” Will attacked Secretary of Energy Steven Chu for discussing a worst-case scenario of California drought caused by the decimation of Sierra snowpack, falsely claiming Chu predicted this will come to pass “no later than 10 years away.” Will also incorrectly claimed that “global sea ice levels now equal those of 1979″ — based on a 45-day-old blog post by Daily Tech’s Michael Asher, one of Marc Morano’s climate denial jokers.
Will’s article is riddled with falsehoods. The radically untrue nature of Will’s article is beyond dispute.
Confronted with Will’s cauldron of conservative climate denial propaganda, the Washington Post was faced with a stark choice. It could either A) confess that it failed to do any competent fact-checking or B) compound Will’s lies with its own by claiming that it did real fact-checking. It chose “B.”
I thought it was just me.
Over the past few months, while reading some of the comments here at DI and at several forums that I frequent, I’ve been noticing that there seems to be LESS consensus on the hot topics of our time rather than more.
That doesn’t seem right. With the wealth of information on the internet literally at our fingertips shouldn’t we all be better informed than ever before?
Not so, says Clive Thompson in a recent issue of Wired magazine. In fact he has the stats to back it up!
Yes, science is back! In Obama, we will have a President who appreciates the power of science to understand the world and fix the world, not merely to spy on the world or to blow up the world. That’s the report from Think Progress:
SCIENCE IS BACK: The choice of Chu, a Nobel Prize-winning physicist, is a [...]
Climate scientist James Hansen has recently argued that “fossil fuel “CEO’s should be tried for high crimes against humanity and nature”. Why? Because they know exactly what they are doing. They are profit-fueled deniers, just like those big corporations who still push cigarettes while denying the well-known strong link between cancer and smoking.
Here are some [...]
If you stop to listen to the “solution” to the energy crisis, you’ll hear millions of people (including most politicians) reassuring themselves that coal will be the new oil, because the United States has plenty of it and because there is now a way to burn coal “cleanly.” This last claim is pure fantasy. [...]
I read quite a few textbook quotes from this report and I must agree: they are shockingly inaccurate. This book repeatedly pushes the conservative line, even when the facts don’t support it–just like the Bush Administration. The existence of this high school textbook is yet more evidence that we are living in a post-fact era. [...]
I’m in Chicago with my nine-year old daughter and Shedd Aquarium was an important destination for us. We spent much of our Aquarium time at the Wild Reef exhibit.
The coral reefs of the world support about a quarter of our sea life, so they are immensely important, yet humans are destroying them in a wide variety [...]
