WSJ launches Luddite attack on climate scientists and Al Gore
December 5th, 2007
The bar for Wall Street Journal editorials, in the journalistic equivalent of limbo dancing, keeps dropping. In a piece titled, “The Science of Gore’s Nobel” (UPDATE: Open access link), Holman W. Jenkins Jr. of the WSJ ed board, manages to slander the media, Al Gore, the Nobel Committee, and all climate scientists — without offering any facts to back up the attacks:
The media will be tempted to blur the fact that his medal, which Mr. Gore will collect on Monday in Oslo, isn’t for “science”…. Yet now one has been awarded for promoting belief in manmade global warming as a crisis.
Why would the media blur the Nobel Peace Prize with a science prize when Gore isn’t a scientist? They wouldn’t, of course, but this imagined media blunder allows Jenkins — a journalist — to make the subject of his piece climate science.
What is especially bizarre about the WSJ piece is that Gore shared the Nobel Peace Price with thousands of scientists who form the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) — but Jenkins never mentions that fact at all. Again, that’s because he wants to attack the Nobel committee for “promoting belief in manmade global warming as a crisis.”
In fact, the award was not given for promoting “belief” — a pejorative word as Jenkins uses it — but for promoting “knowledge” — as the Committee said, the award was given for “efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change, and to lay the foundations for the measures that are needed to counteract such change.”
By omitting mention of the IPCC, Jenkins can ignore the tremendous scientific evidence for the theory of human-caused global warming and the urgent need for action. Jenkins attacks the international scientific consensus without providing a single piece of counterevidence — or any understanding of either the nature of the consensus or the difference between “belief” and “scientific knowledge.”
Because the consensus is so important, and now, so alarming, it is worth understanding what it is — and what it isn’t — since conservatives must either ramp up their attack on it — or accept the clarion call for immediate government action (something most of them cannot stomach politically no matter what the science says).
Let’s start with what the consensus isn’t — ably set out by Jenkins:
What if the heads being counted to certify an alleged “consensus” arrived at their positions by counting heads?
It may seem strange that scientists would participate in such a phenomenon. It shouldn’t. Scientists are human; they do not wait for proof; many devote their professional lives to seeking evidence for hypotheses (especially well-funded hypotheses) they’ve chosen to believe.
Less surprising is the readiness of many prominent journalists to embrace the role of enforcer of an orthodoxy simply because it is the orthodoxy. For them, a consensus apparently suffices as proof of itself.
Uhh, not even close. The scientific consensus is most certainly not established by counting heads (although, strangely enough, that is how we elect our leaders). Scientists do not devote their professional lives to seeking evidence for hypotheses they’ve chosen to believe (although that would be a good description of the people who study “intelligent design“).
In fact, scientists are paid skeptics who actually make a name for themselves disproving widely-held theories and adding new knowledge — when they do reach a strong consensus, it usually is something everyone else should start close paying attention to.
What is the consensus? In the case of global warming, the nations of the world realized the subject was so complex that they needed high-level, independent scientific advice — so they asked the top scientists in the world to examine the entire scientific literature on a regular basis, issue reports, and then summarize the state of scientific knowledge — not belief — for policymakers. That is what the IPCC does every 5 or 6 years, including 2007. In the summaries, the governments of any member country — including, say, Saudi Arabia, China, and the United States — can strike out anything they like.
So it is very safe to say that the IPCC “consensus” as reflected in the widely-read summaries typically represents a somewhat watered-down/conservative version of the state of scientific knowledge that, if anything, underestimates what we face. That was the point of my posts: Are Scientists Overestimating — or Underestimating — Climate Change (Part I and Part II and Part III).
What is stunning, therefore, about the latest IPCC summary, is how strong it is:
And 40% to 70% of the world’s species could go extinct!
The report finds that, based on observable evidence gathered by scientists, climate change is accelerating. The head of the IPCC, the normally understated Rajendra Pachauri — a scientist and economist — said
“If there’s no action before 2012, that’s too late. What we do in the next two to three years will determine our future. This is the defining moment.”
Fortunately, the IPCC synthesis report makes clear that a review of the peer-reviewed literature — and real-world experience — concludes that avoiding catastrophic outcomes is very affordable, and would slow global GDP less than 0.12 percentage points a year. In fact,
Bottom-up studies suggest that mitigation opportunities with net negative costs have the potential to reduce emissions by around 6 GtCO2-eq/yr in 2030.
Yes — a 20% reduction in global emissions might be possible in a quarter century with net economic benefits using existing or in-the-pipeline technology.
That is the consensus.
Jenkins and the WSJ assert, however, that action to stop global warming are “policies that the public will eventually discover to be fraudulent” (and fear of this “fraud” is supposedly what keeps Gore from running for President). But is any evidence for this stunning assertion offered? No. The piece ends with no facts being offered at all, but just these absurd claims:
Public opinion cascades are powerful but also fragile — liable to be overturned in an instant when new information comes along. The current age of global warming politics will certainly end with a whimper once a few consecutive years of cooling are recorded. Why should we expect such cooling? Because the forces that caused warming and cooling in the past, before the advent of industrial civilization, are still at work.
No, this wouldn’t prove or disprove a human role in warming, only that climate is variable and subject to complicated influences. But it would also eliminate the large incentive for politicians to traffic in doom-laden predictions — because such predictions would no longer command media assent and would cease to function as levers to redistribute resources.
Mr. Gore would have to find a new job.
Seriously. The WSJ has gotten so desperate to fight the overwhelming evidence that humans are the main cause of recent warming, that the warming is accelerating, and that it could ruin the well-being of the next 50 generations — so desperate that they simply assert that the climate will cool at some indeterminate point in the future. The science on this is very clear: Barring a series of massive volcanoes, it won’t be cooling. [Note to anyone who happens to know Jenkins: You can make and bundle of money from him betting that the next decade will be hotter than this one and that the decade after that will be even hotter.]
Why can’t conservatives like Jenkins accept the massive evidence and remarkable scientific consensus that human emissions are now for the foreseeable future the driving force behind our changing planet — overwhelming the kind of external forcings (like changes in the Earth’s orbit) that used to cause (much slower) climate variation?
The answer is found in those two key words “redistribute resources” from Jenkins’ penultimate sentence. Conservatives can’t abide the solution to global warming — strong government actions to promote clean energy solutions of the kind the Senate is considering and that have been proposed by Al Gore and Senators Obama and Clinton.
Because they can’t stand the solution, they are largely immune to scientific evidence about the problem. But while conservatives may — if they so choose — be able to block progressives and others from taking the political actions needed to stop global warming, they can’t stop catastrophic warming by mere assertions. If they stick to their obstructionist denial, it won’t be the “current age of global warming politics” that will “end with a whimper” — it will be the entire conservative movement, which will rightly be blamed for the destruction of our livable climate.
The WSJ’s journalistic limbo dancing may serve only to leave conservatives in political limbo.
December 5th, 2007 at 5:24 pm
Case Study: How Climate Skeptics Spoon Feed the Wall Street Journal - that was the title of a piece we did not too long ago. We also speculated that changes will follow when Murdoch, whose NewsCorp has pledged carbon neutrality by 2010, takes over this month. I’ve since heard that staff on the opinion pages is bloated and heads will roll.
more here http://solveclimate.com/ blog/ 20071114/ case-study-how-climate-skeptics-spoon-feed-wall-street-journal
December 5th, 2007 at 6:29 pm
“It may seem strange that THE WARMONGERING BUSH ADMINISTRATION would participate in such a phenomenon. It shouldn’t. THE WARMONGERING BUSH ADMINISTRATION hate humanity; they do not wait for proof; many devote their professional lives to seeking evidence for hypotheses (especially well-funded hypotheses) they’ve chosen to believe.”
Fixed it for him. also has to change “global warming” to “iran’s nuclear bomb program”.
December 5th, 2007 at 8:33 pm
1) I once again emphasize the separation between WSJ Editorial and News, and unfortunately, if I understand aright, Murdoch has supposedly agreed to keep his hands off Editorial.
2) We had some interesting discussion of this over on Deltoid, starting with talks about better science reporting, but generating some interesting WSJ commentary:
http://scienceblogs.com/ deltoid/ 2007/ 10/ john_mashey_what_to_do_about_p.php#more
See well-informed comment #8, which starts:
“As a former reporter and a former press secretary for a U.S. Senator who had a lot of business with both ends of the Wall Street Journal, I…”
3) I’m slightly troubled by the use of the term “conservative”, but maybe because the term might cover {John McCain, Olympia Snowe} …. {James Inhofe, WSJ Editorial}.
I also find The Green Elephant:, Republicans for Environmental Protection:
http://www.rep.org/ news/ GEvol5/ ge5.1_globalwarming.html
Big chunks of their climate policy look like they could have been taken from ClimateProgress, although some more education on hydrogen would help
http://www.repamerica.org/policy/climate.html
Their congressional scorecard is actually pretty interesting:
http://www.rep.org/2006_scorecard.pdf
Put another way, there are a bunch of people who label themselves conservatives [after all, that includes CA's Governor] who, at least on climate change issues, have views not too dissimilar to those usually called progressives.
There are of course, the subset of conservatives who would deny global warming even after Washington DC is under water ….
Maybe we need more precise labels, but while the second group deserves all the demonizing it can get, I think it’s counterproductive to include the first group.
As a political independent, I usually have a strong preference for having lots of moderates and good articulation of views from both sides, and do not view with good feeling what seems to be a political death-wish on the part of a big chunk of the Republican Party.
In CA, it has marginalized itself in many areas, and over the long term, that is actually Not Good.
December 5th, 2007 at 9:47 pm
One can only hope that the tide is turning somewhat when a group of influencial Evangelicals starts to question the stewardship of the earth that the power brokers - both corporate and individuals like W - have just abandoned.
BushII and his wreched mal-adminstration has wrecked the R party and just doesn’t care about the rest of the US or world citizens. Slowly, even some of those 28%’s that still support the pres-dunce are coming to realize that he has hurt many people and our earth is ways we don’t even know about yet.
Climate Change Advocates Feel A Ground Swell
By JEFF NESMITH
Cox News Service
Saturday, January 20, 2007
WASHINGTON — Evangelical leaders and climate scientists on Wednesday issued a joint “call for action,” warning President Bush and members of Congress that with problems like global warming “business as usual cannot continue yet one more day.”
The joint statement, formulated during a three-day retreat late last year at the genteel Melhana Plantation in Thomasville, Ga., was signed by 28 evangelical and scientific leaders…..
…Religious leaders signing the statement included Richard Cizik, vice president of the National Association of Evangelicals; Jim Ball, executive director of the Evangelical Environmental Network; Daryl Eldridge, president of Rockbridge Seminary in Springfield, Mo; David P. Gushee, professor of moral philosophy at Union University in Nashville, Tenn., and Cheryl Bridges Johns, professor of Christian formation at the Church of God Theological Seminary…
December 5th, 2007 at 10:47 pm
Here is an open copy of the Jenkins editorial:
http://www.opinionjournal.com/ columnists/ hjenkins/ ?id=110010947
December 6th, 2007 at 5:27 am
The WSJ and the right wing in our American politics have always gone to political war with facts that are inconvenient to them. The National Intelligence Estimate that recently came out showing that Iran stopped its nuclear weapons program in 2003 has been vilified by the right. It just does not fit with how they want the world to be, it must be an anti-Bush cabal that produced the report. Many Christian Fundamentalists in America who think that Evolution is some left wing cabal against god do the same.
The same is done with the science of human machine caused Global Warming. It’s all part of some left wing political cabal.
But we all do this to some extent. It’s our psychological nature for the things we benefit from to be true. If I were making billions and billions of dollars doing something, it would be hard for me to stop it or for anybody to convince me that I should stop it. Which is why I am not to convinced that we will ever be able to make the changes necessary to fix the problem.
December 6th, 2007 at 9:08 am
John:
Other than John McCain, the vast majority of Republicans who are ready to act seriously on warming (Snowe, CA gov) are not conservatives. But I do try to be clear I’m talking about conservatives, and not Republicans, in my critique. There are lots of GOPers who are very good on climate.
Joe
December 6th, 2007 at 10:55 am
[Well-articulated discussion from Financial Times]
http://www.ft.com/ cms/ s/ 0/ e0c1a536-a2d3-11dc-81c4-0000779fd2ac.html
Why the climate change wolf is so hard to kill off
By Martin Wolf
Published: December 5 2007 02:00 | Last updated: December 5 2007 02:00
The point of the story of the boy who cried wolf is that, finally, a wolf did appear. I feel the same way about the intellectual heirs of Thomas Malthus. Malthusians have finally found a wolf called climate change. Many now agree. But it is far away and coming slowly. “If the worst comes to the worst,” mutter the rich to themselves, “we can always let our children cope.”
This is the complacency that the latest Human Development Report from the United Nations Development Programme attacks. It does a good job, too. But does it do a good enough job to turn the Bali climate change conference into a call for effective action? I fear not. This is not because it fails to make a morally sound case. It is rather because humanity will change its behaviour only when convinced that the lifestyle the better off enjoy now - and the rest of the world aspires to - remains in reach.
This cynical view of human behaviour is fully consistent with what has happened so far. For it is as if the Kyoto treaty had never been. Is this judgment too harsh? Consider just a few of the many facts contained in this report: atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide continue to rise at a rate of 1.9 parts per million a year; over the past 10 years the annual growth rate of emissions has been 30 per cent faster than the average for the past 40 years; if the rate of emission were to rise in line with current trends, stocks of CO 2 in the atmosphere might be double pre-industrial levels by 2035; and that, argues the International Panel on Climate Change, would give a likely temperature increase of 3°C, though rises of over 4.5°C cannot be excluded. If the science is right, the world is doomed to significant climate change.
The report takes a temperature increase of 2°C as the threshold of “dangerous climate change”. Achieving that means draconian cuts in emissions: “If the world were a single country it would have to cut emissions of greenhouse gases by half by 2050 relative to 1990 levels . . . However the world is not a single country. Using plausible assumptions, we estimate that avoiding dangerous climate change will require rich countries to cut emissions by at least 80 per cent, with cuts of 30 per cent by 2020. Emissions from developing countries would peak around 2020, with cuts of 20 per cent by 2050.”
The one point in favour of George W. Bush’s US or John Howard’s Australia is that they were not hypocritical. For the signal feature of most of the commitments made so far has been the failure to meet them (see chart). The vaunted European emissions trading system has been more a way of transferring quota rent to a few big emitters than an effective means of emissions control. The UK government has, for example, been honest enough to admit that large electricity generators gained £1.2bn in quota rent for 2005 alone.
Can the world do better in future? Yes, but it will find it hard. If we are to understand why, we must confront the fact that the world is far from a single country. This creates three huge problems: collective (in)action; perceived injustice; and indifference.
First, not only does each country want to be a free rider on the efforts of others but none feels wholly responsible for the outcome.
Second, the contributions made by different countries to the problem have been (and remain) enormously different. Collectively, the rich countries account for seven out of every 10 tonnes of CO 2 emitted since the start of the industrial era. While China is the biggest emitter in the world, its emissions are still only one-fifth of US levels per head. India’s are one-fifteenth.
Third, as the report spells out in compelling detail, the heaviest cost will be borne by the world’s poor. Among the most frightening consequences are those for rainfall and glaciers: water shortages could become severe across large swaths of the globe. Poor people are far less able to cope with climatic disasters than rich ones. But this, if we were honest, is why the rich are unlikely to make the huge reductions in emissions the report demands. The powerful will continue to act without much consideration for the poor. This, after all, is a world that spends 10 times as much on defence (much of it useless) as on aid to poor countries.
How might this change? The answer is that we must appeal at least as much to people’s self-interest as to their morality. Yes, we have a moral obligation to consider both the poor and future generations. Yes, the fact that the changes in the composition of the atmosphere are, to all intents and purposes, irreversible makes early and effective action essential. But acceptance of these points will not be sufficient to obtain meaningful action, instead of pious aspirations and much pretence. A good example of the latter is the proposition that it is enough to lower the carbon intensity of output. Alas, it is not, unless the reduction is very large indeed.
Two things are needed. The first is convincing evidence that the true risks are larger than many now suppose. Conceivable feedback effects might, for example, generate temperature increases of 20°C. That would be the end of the world as we know it. I cannot imagine a rational person who would not seek to eliminate even the possibility of such outcomes. But if we are to do that, we must also act very soon.
The second requirement is to demonstrate that it is possible for us to thrive with low-carbon emissions. People in the northern hemisphere are not going to choose to be cold now, in order to prevent the world from becoming far too hot in future. China and India are not going to forgo development, either. These are realities that cannot be ignored.
The UNDP report argues that the low-carbon future it wants could be achieved at a cost of 1.6 per cent of global output between now and 2030. Such round numbers look attractively modest. But the question people will still ask themselves is what this might mean for their own standards of living. Advocates of change will have to persuade people that living in a low-carbon economy does not mean giving up everything they enjoy. People will not wear hair shirts, whatever they may pretend.
In short, if they are to tolerate radical change in energy use, people must first be frightened and then they must be offered a good way out. The truth, moreover, is that this will happen only if the US also takes the lead. No country will deliver radical cuts if the US does not do so, too. No leaps forward in science and technology will occur if the US is not prepared to commit its resources to those ends. The US can no longer wait for a lead from others. Either it takes the lead now or the cause, in all probability, will be lost. Our children and grandchildren will then find out whether it was a real wolf or not.
martin.wolf@ft.com
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2007
December 9th, 2007 at 9:02 pm
I must disagree with “There are lots of GOPers who are very good on climate.”
3 to 5 out of 50 in the Senate is not “lots”. There are very, very few. In the Senate, Snowe, Warner, McCain is about it. Unfortunately Warner is retiring, and Snowe is being booted out because her Republican base thinks shes a DINO for believing in “the hoax of global warming” and other librul ideas.
The easiest (no censorship) place to try and instruct WSJ luddites is its energy blog:
http://blogs.wsj.com/ energy/ 2007/ 12/ 03/ cap-and-charade/
December 10th, 2007 at 3:24 am
Congrats to Al Gore!
http://acropolisreview.blogspot.com/ 2007/ 11/ al-gores-endorsement-for-democratic.html