BPSDB Regulars will know that I have been a huge fan of Potholer54 who has done some excellent climate science videos:
I was not at all pleased with his fourth, “Climate Change — Gore vs. Durkin” where he looks at both “The Swindle” and “An Inconvenient Truth.” Potholer seems to have fallen into a trap of attempting to seem even handed, not favouring one side of the issue or the other, see ‘Very disappointing‘ for the discussion.
I found his most recent one also somewhat disappointing even though it is mostly pretty good. “11. Climate Change — Hurricanes, atolls and coral” was also released as “Climate Change Are we all going to drown?”
You may disagree (and please comment if you do), but I get the impression Potholer is going too far in “debunking sensationalism.” Take the issue of Tuvalu as presented in his video. As far as I know he is pretty much correct in all that he says viz expanding atolls, coral etc, but he leaves you with the impression that Tuvalu and the other South Pacific Islands are therefore in no particular danger.
What’s missing is explicitly pointing out that:
- While coral has so far been able to keep up with the current rate of sea level rise, all indications are that the rate of rise is going to accelerate. How much and how soon are (as far as I know) unknowns, but if you happen to live on these islands that is an important question.
- Even if 1) were not a problem, our current emissions trajectory means the water most certainly is going to warm sufficiently to kill the coral, and/or acidify sufficiently to kill it. Either way the status quo kills the coral, and at that point the islands will begin to succumb to sea level rise.
So it is not really a question of ‘if‘ the South Pacific Islands are at risk, it’s “when“. As things stand the islands are definitely going to be inundated. Granted that is logically implicit from the video, but not the feeling one is left with. I suspect the islanders would appreciate it if it was explicit.
Then there is the alternate posting of Are we all going to drown? That is Straw Man sensationalism on his part since those who warn about the threat of sea level rise are quite clear that the threat is lost land and infrastructure, ground water infiltration, etc. Outside of Hollywood I have not seen anyone suggesting that we are going to drown.
As noted before, Climate Change — Those hacked e-mails is an excellent one on the CRU hack, and I am happy to report that
7. Climate Change – “Those” e-mails and science censorship
is also very good (bearing in mind that it was done before the various review panels did their thorough investigations). With the anniversary of the hack it is good to remind everyone that there was nothing to the emails at all.
8. Climate Change — Has the Earth been cooling?
Number 8 takes on Carter & the ‘Cooling since 1998″ myth and the Michael Andrews solar fraud. While mostly good he suggests that Carter “misunderstood” the technique for determining trends. This is nonsense in my opinion.
We are talking about a sophomoric cherry picking trick being used by someone who trained as a scientist. Further, the correct techniques are simple and freely available, so it is simple incompetence or misconduct not to have used them. I repeat, this is basic.
This was quickly followed by
8a. Climate Change – Phil Jones and the “no warming for 15 years”
which nicely debunks the “Phils Jones said” myth(s).
9. Climate Change – Meet the Scientists
Debunks the alleged credentials of John Coleman, Monckton, Carter, Chapman, and the signatories of the Oregon Petition. It then does a nice job of making a distinction between having the skills as a scientist to have studied and understood a topic area, and whether one ever actually had done so. There is also a delicious evisceration of CV fraud Tim Ball that would make it all worthwhile even if the rest were not worthwhile.
Unfortunately the apparent ongoing need to appear even handed makes him note that Al Gore, Leonard Dicaprio etc are not scientists either. Fair enough, but none of them have ever pretended to have those credentials, something many Deniers are guilty of. While none of those named are climate scientists only the Deniers claim to be; it’s an important and telling distinction.
As if that were not enough credential inflation, let’s not forget that in the Denialosphere there are only “Top Scientists”, no average working lab & field stiffs, just the creme de la creme (according to them). Well, I guess if you are going to lie about your credentials you may as well go the whole way.
Potholer then quite correctly emphasizes that what matters is the data and the research, but in my opinion then undermines it by then putting too much emphasis on having the credential of being a climatologist.
If you have done the work to understand the science and the scientific method, have mastered them, then I don’t care if you never formally finished grade 6, you are an authority. On the other hand, if you have all of the credentials, but by by malice or incompetence do fraudulent cherry picking and go around misrepresenting the real science at every turn, then you are not.
10. Climate Change – An imminent ice age debunked
This one is about the reported possible collapse of the Gulf stream and the possibility of triggering an ice age. Although not about the Denier meme about a 1970s ice age scare, it is actually an excellent resource demonstrating how the popular media create a myth of scientific consensus about something that has no basis in the scientific community itself.
So all in all Potholer54 continues to be good, but unfortunately with some caveats. Maybe I am being unfair and would definitely appreciate feedback on that. Thanks.
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Greenfyre's 
You didn’t mention that Al Gore, and Di Caprio are also not claiming to have trumped the world scientific community or the experts in the field of climate science.
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Where potholer also goes wrong is in claiming that Tuvalu and similar islands in the Indian Ocean and Pacific are not threatened with (eventual) inundation. Yes, the coral reefs on their shores are growing and the islands are increasing in acreage — but the higher lying parts are not growing, and won’t do so until storm surges routinely sweep over them, by which time human habitation will have become precarious. [1]
The reason why these islands are sticking several m above current sea level is a phenomenon called the ‘mid-Holocene sea level high stand’ some 5000-6000 years ago in the Indian-Pacific tropics, when sea level was several m higher than today. Corals grow in order to reach the surface waters and the sunlight, and built up those islands to their present heights back then.
Click to access Woodroffe%20and%20Horton%20EAscience.pdf
Potholer usually is a thorough researcher but here he missed the ball. [2]
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One thing; a number of your links have a double “http://” so don’t work – wordpress recently undated the hyper links which might have lead to this. Feel free to delete this message – just admin stuff.
Good piece though! 🙂
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> but here he missed the ball
Wanted to add that he is in very good company, unfortunately.
Here is a brief by Arthur P Webb, lead author of the paper finding the increase in island surface area:
Click to access Island%20Vulnerability%20Arthur%20Webb%20Brief_lbedit.pdf
Quote:
Does this information change the vulnerability of the atolls to sea-level rise?
This study did not measure vertical growth of the island surface nor does it suggest there is any change in the height of the islands. Since land height has not changed the vulnerability of the greater part of the land area of each island to submergence due to sea-level rise is also unchanged and these low-lying atolls remain immediately and extremely vulnerable to inundation or sea water flooding.
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re. Meet the Scientists. I don’t know. I think I really like it. 🙂
Since the practical reality these days is that we frequently can’t do without appeals to experts and their information, Potholer54’s emphasis on both the need for information from experts with the most relevant credentials AND critical evaluation of sources and information, seems to me to go a long way in helping to explain why deniers should be ignored. [1]
It ups the ante on the complexity of the public discussion, but maybe that is exactly where we are at. It seems like a necessary evolution in the video dialogue because deniers have distorted the emphasis educators placed on the value of learning about the science for oneself, by tapping into relativism (that idea that everyone’s opinion is equally good) and dumbing down the complexity of the scientific knowledge by inflating the value of their own opinions and appealing to incompetent fringers.
The pendulum probably needs to swing back to a reasonable appreciation of expert knowledge combined with an appreciation of what the ability to critically evaluate one’s sources of information looks and sounds like. It doesn’t at all look and sound like the average denier. 😦
Potholer54 seems to apply what is already understood in any classroom that teaches logic: appealing to expertise or authority isn’t a mistake in reasoning (fallacy) unless the expert is not actually an expert (in, say, climatology) or the appeal to expert knowledge is being used to argue absolutely rather than being part of an overall critical and pragmatic approach to evaluating the quality of information.
As we already know on this blog, when we critically evaluate the information and sources, the conspiracy theories and claims of deniers are not compelling because both the information and the sources are generally found to be unreasonable, inconsistent and incompetent — even often fraudulent — despite some credentials.
The opposite is generally found to be the case regarding the evaluation of AGW information and sources. Both the information and sources are generally found to be reasonable, consistent, and competent — compelling — despite the mistakes and interests that are naturally part of all human activity, including science.
The takeaway message? When we need to appeal to expert knowledge, it is safer to appeal to sources that our critical analysis tells us are competent and reliable.
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The rule of thumb for “appeal to authority” fallacies.
Credentials are ESSENTIAL AND NECESSARY (but not sufficient). So you can dismiss a person if he has absolutely no credentials (or negative credentials), but having credentials isn’t enough to say he can get a pass without questions.
Appeal to authority can also be solved with peer review, this cuts straight past the “30,000 scientists” petition, if these scientists haven’t studied or published climate papers, their credibility is discounted to those who have.
Then there’s the REAL appeal to authority, where one cites award winners, whether Nobel Prize, or NAS recognition, or NASA achievement, as if once award, always perfect. (This can be easily seen once you ask what field the person is in).
With that said, it’s not entirely wrong to think that some people can ask smart questions and experts can be wrong, or even lying. But without SOME form of credentialism, the discussion becomes absurd, why should we trust ANYBODY?
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greenfyre, does peer review allow those who are not credentialed?
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See the comment below for an answer
> greenfyre, does peer review allow those who are not
> credentialed?
As authors, yes. As reviewers — I would hope not.
You see, competence in a science is like fluency in a language. You’re not fluent in Russian until Russian natives tell you that you are. Only then, have you become their ‘peer’.
If you don’t know Russian, you have no business judging anybody’s fluency. If you need to know, ask a Russian you trust.
http://www.uwgb.edu/dutchs/PSEUDOSC/SelfApptdExp.htm
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