[Vision2020] Climate Science Debates: Groundhog Day?

[Ted Moffett]

http://www.realclimate.org/ 7 June 2009 Groundhog
day<http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/06/groundhog-day-2/>
Filed
under:

   - Communicating
Climate<http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/category/communicating-climate/>
   - Climate Science<http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/category/climate-science/>

— gavin @ 6:21 PM

Alert readers will have noticed the fewer-than-normal postings over the last
couple of weeks. This is related mostly to pressures associated with real
work (remember that we do have day jobs). In my case, it is because of the
preparations for the next IPCC assessment and the need for our group to have
a functioning and reasonably realistic climate model with which to start the
new round of simulations. These all need to be up and running very quickly
if we are going to make the early 2010 deadlines.

But, to be frank, there has been another reason. When we started this blog,
there was a lot of ground to cover - how climate models
<http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2008/11/faq-on-climate-models/>
worked<http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/01/faq-on-climate-models-part-ii/>,
the difference between short term noise and long term
signal<http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2008/05/what-the-ipcc-models-really-say/>,
how the carbon cycle
worked<http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/04/the-lag-between-temp-and-co2/>,
connections between climate change and air
quality<http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2005/04/pollution-climate-connections/>,
aerosol effects<http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/04/aerosol-formation-and-climate-part-i/>,
the relevance of
paleo-climate<http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2008/04/back-to-the-future/>,
the nature of rapid climate
change<http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2006/11/revealed-secrets-of-abrupt-climate-shifts/>etc.
These things were/are fun to talk about and it was/is easy for us to
share our enthusiasm for the science and, more importantly, the scientific
process.

However, recently there has been more of a sense that the issues being
discussed (in the media or online) have a bit of a groundhog
day<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groundhog_Day_(film)>quality to them.
The same nonsense, the same logical fallacies, the same
confusions - all seem to be endlessly repeated. The same strawmen are being
constructed and demolished as if they were part of a make-work scheme for
the building industry attached to the stimulus proposal. Indeed, the
enthusiastic recycling of talking points long thought to have been dead and
buried has been given a huge boost by the publication of a new book by Ian
Plimer <http://www.realclimate.org/wiki/index.php?title=Ian_Plimer#Books>who
seems to have been collecting them for years. Given the number of
simply
made<http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2009/04/ian_plimer_and_the_health_effe.php>
-up<http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2009/05/ian_plimer_lies_about_source_o.php>'facts'
in that tome, one soon realises that the concept of an objective
reality against which one should measure claims and judge arguments is not
something that is universally shared. This is troubling - and although there
is certainly a role for some to point out the incoherence of such arguments
(which in that case Tim
Lambert<http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/global_warming/plimer/index.php?page=1>and
Ian
Enting <http://www.complex.org.au/tiki-download_file.php?fileId=91> are
doing very well), it isn't something that requires much in the way of
physical understanding or scientific background. (As an aside
this<http://www.youtube.com/v/XyOHJa5Vj5Y>is a good video description
of the now-classic Dunning
and Kruger <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning-Kruger_effect> papers on
how the people who are most wrong are the least able to perceive it).

The Onion had a great piece last week that
encapsulates<http://www.theonion.com/content/opinion/oh_no_its_making_well_reasoned?utm_source=b-section>the
trajectory of these discussions very well. This will of course be
familiar to anyone who has followed a comment thread too far into the weeds,
and is one of the main reasons why people with actual, constructive things
to add to a discourse get discouraged from wading into wikipedia, blogs or
the media. One has to hope that there is the possibility of progress before
one engages.

However there is still cause to engage - not out of the hope that the people
who make idiotic statements can be educated - but because bystanders deserve
to know where better information can be found. Still, it can sometimes be
hard to find the enthusiasm. A case in point is a 100+ comment thread
criticising my recent
book<http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2008/01/our-books/#Schmidt09>in
which it was clear that not a single critic had read a word of it (you
can find the thread easily enough if you need to - it's too stupid to link
to). Not only had no-one read it, none of the commenters even seemed to
think they needed to - most found it easier to imagine what was contained
within and criticise that instead. It is vaguely amusing in a somewhat
uncomfortable way.

Communicating with people who won't open the book, read the blog post or
watch the program because they already 'know' what must be in it, is tough
and probably not worth one's time. But communication in general
*is*worthwhile and finding ways to get even a few people to turn the
page and
allow themselves to be engaged by what is actually a fantastic human and
scientific story, is something worth a lot of our time.

Along those lines, Randy Olson (a scientist-turned-filmmaker-and-author) has
a new book coming out called "Don’t Be Such a Scientist: Talking Substance
in an Age of Style" which could potentially be a useful addition to that
discussion. There is a nice post over at Chris Mooney's blog
here<http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/intersection/2009/05/30/randy-olsons-forthcoming-book-dont-be-such-a-scientist/>,
though read Bob Grumbine's
comments<http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/intersection/2009/05/30/randy-olsons-forthcoming-book-dont-be-such-a-scientist/#comment-18041>as
well. (For those of you unfamiliar the Bob's name, he was one of the
stalwarts of the Usenet sci.environment discussions back in the 'old' days,
along with Michael Tobis <http://initforthegold.blogspot.com/>, Eli
Rabett<http://rabett.blogspot.com/>and our own William
Connolley <http://scienceblogs.com/stoat/>. He too has his own
blog<http://moregrumbinescience.blogspot.com/>now).

All of this is really just an introduction to these questions: What is it
that you feel needs more explaining? What interesting bits of the science
would you like to know more about? Is there really anything new under the
contrarian sun that needs addressing? Let us know in the comments and we'll
take a look. Thanks.

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Vision2020 Post: Ted Moffett
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