מנא ,מנא, תקל, ופרסין
Verse 1: The Denier Scientists
BPSDB“you have been weighed (counted) on the scales and found wanting”
In a recent attempt to mock this site a Denier blog stated:
“My favorite part is when he links to a Wikipedia page in an attempt to convince us that there are only a “few dozen” skeptics.”
My reply was “When I make that sort of statement I include facts/evidence that show the claim is questionable, if not actually false … why haven’t you?
Since it IS Wikipedia, why aren’t you/others posting all of the names and credentials of these alleged other skeptic scientists?”
Aye, there’s the rub. The Denialosphere is constantly referring to large numbers of skeptical scientists, with more jumping off of the bandwagon all of the time. The trouble, where to find them?
First let’s clarify our terms. All scientists are skeptics by virtue of their training and to name and number the ones who are rationally poking, prodding, and challenging climate science would number into the many tens of thousands.
When the Deniers refer to “skeptical scientists” they refer to those that deny all or part of the main findings of climate science, which broadly speaking are:
- Climate change is occurring
- It is driven by CO2
- It is human caused
- It is a critical threat to humanity
- It is imminent
While most scientists may debate the details I think it is safe to say that at the level given there is agreement that this is the view supported by the current understanding of the data. Those who deny all or some of these without any credible evidence to support their claims are not skeptics, but rather Deniers.
That being said estimates of the number of Denier scientists that give high numbers have invariably turned out to be frauds and hoaxes. These would include:
Which leaves us with:
- Wikipedia: List of scientists opposing the mainstream scientific assessment of global warming : a few dozen
- The Deniers (a “skeptic” site): a few dozen
- List at RealClimate Wiki : a few dozen scientists
- Heartland International Conference on Climate Change: 19 Scientists
- Non-Governmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC): 23 individuals from 15 countries, including a handful of scientists
Of course there is Lawrence Solomon‘s The Deniers: The World-Renowned Scientists Who Stood Up Against Global Warming Hysteria, Political Persecution, and Fraud (and those who are too fearful to do so), but here again it is mostly scientists skeptical about the aspects of the details, not the core facts.
So there are only a few dozen Denier scientists, most of whom have never done any actual work on climate, many of whom work for industry funded front groups and who push ideas that have been exposed as nonsense.
Clearly the Deniers don’t expand the wikipedia list because it’s hard to add that which does not exist.
Of course reality never stopped Jame’s Inhofe, and sensing a new wind blowing in Washington he has fired off a new screed,
UN Blowback: More Than 650 International Scientists Dissent Over Man-Made Global Warming Claims
undoubtedly timed to coincide with the Poznan talks.
So where does he get his 650? He takes his 400 (already shown to be false) and promises a further 250 “within 24 hrs.” Why the delay? why not release them together? I think I fair guess would be that the list is going to be a lot less impressive than the promise of the list, and that the 650 will turn out to be the same few dozen we already know about.
The press release does note that:
“The over 650 dissenting scientists are more than 12 times the number of UN scientists (52) who authored the media hyped IPCC 2007 Summary for Policymakers.”
First, note the cherry pick choice of picking only the authors of the Summary report, not the 2,500 involved in creating the full report.
Second, anyone want to bet that after all the frauds, deceased and misrepresented names etc are removed from the list it won’t even number 52?
As further evidence they cite the attendees of the Climate Plenary debate at 33d Intl. Geology Congress in Norway based on an informal report of the mood at the event written by Charlie Hall.
According to Hall, the core of the mood seemed to be based on a misconception of the climate models and other aspects of the science which these geologists had not examined critically, and apparently did not understand fully (see also this comment by Rasmus Benestad.
I have no question that these people are fine scientists, but until they can demonstrate specific objections to aspects of the science that they are critical of, it is nothing more than uninformed grousing at a conference. That’s cheap and counts for nothing; I have participated in enough of it myself to know.
So, IF these scientists ever see fit to sign some document or make some sort of public statement to the effect that they are skeptical of one or more of the core understandings of climate science, THEN we can count them as skeptics. Until then this is just second hand heardsay about conference gossip, and probably not even the best gossip that was going around the conference either.
So Inhofe’s 650 amounts to … Inhofe’s NOT 400, ie the few dozen as listed above, plus maybe a few more names like David Evans.
Unfortunately that fact will not slow down the Denialosphere one bit. Indeed the Old Meme with New Lies is already well under way (here and here).
In contrast we have (courtesy of Jim Prall) the lead authors from “working group 1 of the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report (‘AR4’) from 2007, as well as a longer list including other active climate science researchers. The longer list is far from complete…” Keeping in mind that the basis of climate science spans many fields and disciplines, so we are talking about far more than climate scientists.
Of course there is the very real consensus on climate, whatever the Deniers like to claim. The infamous “consensus” is not a petition or opinion poll, but rather the qualified expert validation of the science as found in the peer reviewed scientific literature, both the climate journals in particular, and the scientific literature in general; an affirmation of the facts, not a statement of beliefs.
Which makes the point that numbers actually don’t matter a damn. If Inhofe had even one scientist with actual, robust, replicable science then everything else means nothing. That will be the subject of Verse 2: The Denier Science.
Oh Deniers “You have been counted and found wanting“
Note to my editors (that’s you, the readers): I have added the, The Oregon Petition 30,000, The Inhofe 400, The Heartland 500, and the Scientific Consensus pages. Any suggestions, additions etc would be much appreciated. Thanks.
We give our consent every moment that we do not resist.
Denier “Challenge” aka Deathwatch Update: Day 59 … still no evidence.
IMAGE CREDITS:
Garden of the senecias from Wikimedia Commons
well despite my name’s obligation 😀
I feel pelled to remind that judeo-christian culture roots actually in denial of babylon.
This leads to a historical bias and we may
discard some of the transfiguring by uhm
legal immigrants still not feeling at home.
Much like an Alaska governor’s tendency
to bitch about the United States, e.g. … 0:)
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Methinks one of the reasons denialists resist listing the scientists who dissent (in any significant way) from the consensus science is because it’s so pathetic when they all turn out to be retired professors of petroleum geology, electrical engineering,… anything but fields related to climate change.
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Choice selections from Inhofe’s recent recycling include Louis “Global Warming is Caused By Geothermal Energy And God Flipping The Earth Upside Down” Hissink and John “Five Inconsistent Denier Memes in Three Sentences” Lott (yes, the same cherrypicking John Lott who has no background whatsoever on climate (he’s an unemployed economist) but argues loudly for less gun control through fudged data). You’ll also find E.G. “Instrument Error Means Real Fluctuations” Beck, Tim “As An Economist, I Say Einstein Proves We Need To Burn Fossil Fuels” Curtain, Chris “Do you honestly believe God would allow humans to destroy the earth He created?” Allen (verbatim quote, not a paraphrase summary), and a few more common names like Christopher Monckton (“fractally wrong” may describe him well), Lubos “I came from the planet called Zetor” Motl, Ross “There Is No Such Thing As Global Average Temperature” McKitrick (along with Essex), Henrik “I Disproved My Own Hypothesis And Don’t Notice It” Svensmark (note that Inhofe links to the very paper where he does this as support for the theory it destroys!), and David “That Signature Doesn’t Count And Thus Is Missing” Evans. These people are either grossly unqualified on climate issues (or indeed any scientific issue, in some cases; no fewer than three of the people I listed here have made statements that amount to “I have overturned thermodynamics,” a claim about as silly as saying you’ve found fossil bunnies in the Cambrian), or espousing long-debunked talking points.
You’ll also note that Ray “I think global warming is real” Kurzweil is on the list, as is George “Take me off your list” Waldenberger. Neither have any background in climate science (though Waldenberger is a meteorologist). You’ll also find Gwyn Prins and Steve Rayner, who say “We face a problem of anthropogenic climate change, but the Kyoto Protocol of 1997 has failed to tackle it.” They accompany Christopher Castro, who says “The conclusion of the 2007 IPCC is reasonable given the paleoclimate record, the available empirical evidence from the observed climate record, and agreement with global model results simulating the climate of the past 100 years.” None of these folk are actual “skeptics” (as Inhofe paints them; they may remain skeptical as all scientists are, but they certainly don’t doubt the core AGW points).
As for the papers cited, one that they point to three times is Scafetta and West 2006 (they like this SO much that Bruce West is on the list himself!). They characterize this report as saying that the sun has an impact on climate. Note that this *is* consistent with AGW, which does NOT say the sun isn’t important, although that’s a common Denier strawman. Interestingly enough, read the conclusion of that paper — it says, and I quote, “since 1975 global warming has occurred much faster than could be reasonably expected from the sun alone.” Please explain to me how this supports the Inhofe position, or justifies West being on the list.
(Query: Would the misrepresentation of Bruce West and George Waldenberger amount to libel? That seemed the case with the related Heartland 500 list, which also misrepresented scientific views and refused to remove the offended names from the list. The scientists involved didn’t press charges, contrary to the Great Warmist Conspiracy Suppressing Dissent tin-foil-hatters. However, here, it’s an elected official.)
Critically *missing* from the list are endorsements from scientific bodies, and a uniform story (even among those who the list represents accurately, several say it isn’t happening, others say it is happening but it isn’t us, and still others say it is happening and it is us but we shouldn’t do anything about it — I listed folk of each type in just this short summary!).
More on this piece of regurgitated garbage can be found at Climate Progress, which attacks the list from a different perspective (including the critical distinction between “science” and “scientist”).
So riddle me this: Despite having several months to deal with these shortcomings, why is this list definitive? Why are these failures still here? Why does Inhofe have to resort to the same deceitful measures that the creationist Discovery Institute uses? (Note that the Discovery Institute was supremely confident that they would win the Dover School District trial going into it, yet none of its expert witnesses actually testified, refusing to defend intelligent design under oath despite all of their posturing. I note the parallel to Christopher Monckton, John Coleman, and similar, who repeatedly say they will sue Al Gore and James Hansen yet never do. In fact, John Coleman’s vaporware lawsuit was the take-home message of the Heartland Institute’s (yes, the same one with the libelous list mentioned above) last conference on climate change, almost a year ago; they’re organizing the next one and no hint of an actual lawsuit has materialized outside the denialist blogocave.)
Mike, before you bug me about “why aren’t you blogging yet?”, you have full permission to do whatever you’d like with this comment.
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The “International Climate Science Coalition” is now promoting this list! To come: (1) “information sharing”, and (2) “coordinated local activism”…
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Well, I want to see how far the ICSC manages to
sharespam this list in the mainstream media.This post inspired me to create a Wikipedia list of scientists who _support_ the mainstream scientific assessment of global warming.
http://www.hunterthinks.com/blogger/2008/12/list-of-scientists-supporting.html
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BTW, can you help spread the word?
Hunter: would this help you at all? It shouldn’t be too hard to write a parsing script for the text tables. Now that the page is up on Wiki it should at least be as large as possible.
Note: this is put up here because I don’t have any means of commenting on Blogger.
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