[Vision2020] Undermining Science

[Paul Rumelhart]

Look, I'm sorry that some nutcases on the far right have latched onto 
"climate denial" in order to further their political agendas.  However, 
there are valid reasons for doubting the validity of the current 
anthropogenic climate change hysteria, and they don't involve attacking 
the Institution of Science.

For example, the question of feedbacks.  Without feedback, positive or 
negative, a doubling of CO2 from pre-industrial times will raise the 
temperature about 1.2C, from what I've read.  I've seen numbers as high 
as 1.8C, and a bit lower than 1C.  This is far lower than the 5C I've 
seen reported elsewhere.  To get the larger numbers, you need positive 
feedbacks.  Positive feedbacks are processes that spiral out of control 
once you've pushed them past equilibrium.  The classic example is a ball 
resting on top of a hill.  Give it a small push, and it will start to 
roll, accelerating all the while.  The theory goes that CO2 increases 
will spiral out of control, causing the temperature to continue to rise 
until some other unknown process stops it, if at all.

The problem with this is that CO2 has been at far higher concentrations 
than it is currently.  In the past, without SUVs to drive climate, CO2 
would lag behind temperature changes by a few centuries.  Temperature 
changes caused by Who Knows What.  According to the AGW hypothesis, 
though, once CO2 rose high enough it should have been affected by 
positive feedback and the temperature should have continued to go up 
until it spiraled out of control.  It didn't appear to do that, however, 
so it seems safe to say that either the feedbacks aren't positive, or 
they are positive but short-lived.  Either way, there seems to be little 
reason to believe that the world will turn into a duplicate of Venus 
with it's 800F temperatures and 96% carbon dioxide atmosphere.

Another point that I don't see stressed by AGW proponents is that CO2 
temperature increases are a diminishing return, it's logarithmic.  
There's an upper limit to what CO2 can do temperature-wise, at least if 
you only look at the radiative component.  It's similar to covering a 
window with shades.  The first one stops a lot of light, the next one a 
bit more.  Eventually, it won't matter how many shades you tack up over 
the window, it won't get appreciably darker in the room.  CO2 covers a 
certain range of the infrared spectrum, and won't stop the other parts 
no matter how much you put in the air.  Look into the Beer-Lambert law 
to see why it's logarithmic.

The anthropogenic global climate change hypothesis, or whatever they are 
calling it these days, is not a slam-dunk.  There is room there for 
error.  It's not the same as denying that millions of people are dying 
of lung cancer as a fluke and are only by coincidence tobacco-users.

And I'm STILL waiting for my check from Exxon-Mobil.

Paul

Ron Force wrote:
> I noted a paragraph in the current Daily Howler:
>
> Last Friday, we looked at the large-scale messaging strategy described 
> by James Hoggan on /Maddow/ (see THE DAILY HOWLER, 4/2/10). If Hoggan 
> is right, a long-term effort is underway to portray the scientific 
> community as a biased liberal bloc, as was done in earlier eras with 
> journalists. (If this strategy succeeds, “the liberal media” will be 
> joined in voters’ minds by “liberal science.”) And please—don’t think 
> this effort couldn’t succeed. Their side is massively-financed and 
> technically skilled. Our side is in the hands of children, sell-outs 
> and goof-balls.
>
> Here's the message:
> http://www.dailyhowler.com/dh040210.shtml
>
> SAVVY PLAYERS AND US (permalink): On Wednesday evening’s Maddow 
> program, Rachel Maddow conducted a fascinating interview with James 
> Hoggan, author of Climate Cover-Up: The Crusade to Deny Global 
> Warming. Are we liberals the Truly Bright Smart Ones? We thought 
> Hoggan presented fascinating testimony about the way progressive 
> interests get mauled by savvy corporate players and their 
> “conservative” messaging.
>
> Maddow spoke with Hoggan about Koch Industries, a giant funder of 
> conservative causes and disinformation. Maddow asked about Koch’s role 
> in climate change/energy issues. This was the start of Hoggan’s 
> answer, although he would soon introduce a second topic:
>
>     MADDOW (3/31/10): How much influence does Koch Industries really 
> have in this—in the debate over climate change legislation in general 
> and drilling specifically?
>
>     HOGGAN: Well, back to 1997, 50—close to $50 million came from Koch 
> Foundation, the Koch Foundation, to 40 different organizations that 
> are part of a network that we call an echo chamber of climate change 
> denial.
>
>     MADDOW: So, over 13 years, they spent $50 million trying to 
> convince people that climate change isn`t real.
>
>     HOGGAN: $50 million. That’s right, through these different 
> organizations. And the fact that there’s 40 of them creates this 
> unique situation where people hear this message about, you know, doubt 
> about climate science from so many different organizations, that it 
> becomes believable.
>
> In this statement, Hoggan describes highly effective 
> disinformation-marketing. Average people hear “this message about 
> doubt about climate science” from a wide variety of sources. Because 
> they hear the message in so many places, the message becomes 
> believable. In this first part of Hoggan’s answer, Hoggan describes a 
> highly savvy disinformation machine—a machine that is simply smarter, 
> and more determined, than any entity on the progressive side. But as 
> he continued, Hoggan expanded his description of the way Koch 
> Industries works. He went way back to the early 1990s—and he brought 
> big tobacco in:
>
>     HOGGAN (continuing directly): And people in my business and the 
> public relations business have known this for a long time, back to the 
> days of Philip Morris, which is actually where some of these 
> organizations and the techniques that they use began in the early 
> 1990s. Philip Morris started a group called the Advancement of Sound 
> Science Coalition. And it was very, very carefully thought-out public 
> relations tactics that were used to shift the issues around tobacco 
> off of health issue and onto sound-science issues. And Philip Morris 
> knew they couldn’t do it by themselves, so they invited people like, 
> or organizations like Exxon and other fossil fuel companies to join 
> them. And they—it basically became the beginning of a campaign that a 
> lot of these 40 different organizations that I was talking about 
> earlier drew on to. You know, then it was tobacco, today it’s 
> greenhouse gases.
>
> Hoggan described “very, very carefully thought-out public relations 
> tactics that were used to shift the issues around tobacco off of 
> health issue and onto sound-science issues.” These tactics involved 
> more than one large company, working in more than one policy area. For 
> our money, the larger thrust of Hoggan’s point got lost in the ensuing 
> conversation. But in this next Q-and-A, he stated his point most clearly:
>
>     MADDOW (continuing directly): But you’re—but you’re saying it’s 
> the same tactic in two ways. One, that you use a lot of different 
> organizations so you can’t just dismiss the one industry-funded group 
> that’s trying to shoot down what everybody else thinks is true. But 
> it’s also taking on not only the policy issues about what the 
> implications are of the science, but attacking the science, saying 
> there’s no real problem here, trying to make that a money issue.
>
>     HOGGAN: That’s right. It basically undermines, it poisons public 
> conversations. And it undermines public confidence in science, and it 
> makes it difficult for even well-intended political leaders to 
> actually do the right thing on these issues.
>
> In that exchange, Maddow slightly misstated the point, to the extent 
> that we can parse what she said. The point is not that this sort of 
> activity undermines confidence in the science (of some particular 
> issue). As Hoggan stated, this tactic “undermines public confidence in 
> science” itself. In effect, Hoggan was describing a decades-long push 
> in which science itself is being turned into a suspect in the public’s 
> mind—in which citizens are led to view professional scientists in 
> general as a politicized interest group. We have seen this approach in 
> recent months, in the determined demonizing of climate scientists in a 
> few minor, but highly-flogged, flaps.
>
> The target here is science itself, not the particular science of some 
> particular issue.
>
> According to Hoggan, he is describing “very, very carefully 
> thought-out public relations tactics.” Over time, these tactics 
> undermine the public’s confidence in science itself. Average voters 
> hear science and scientists demonized when it comes to tobacco; they 
> hear science and scientists demonized again when it comes to climate. 
> They hear these assaults again and again, from many directions, 
> concerning more than one issue. Soon, scientists become the latest 
> incarnation of those “pointy-headed intellectuals” George Wallace used 
> to denounce.
>
> Adapting Hoggan’s language: People hear this kind of messaging from so 
> many different organizations that it becomes believable.
>
> Hoggan describes highly skilled messaging on the part of The Big 
> Interests—messaging that affects the views of the public at large. 
> What is our reaction in the progressive world? Simple! We go on our 
> web sites and tell each other how stupid those voters must be! Their 
> limbic brains must not work right! They’re just a gang redneck 
> racists! Meanwhile, we do next to nothing to generate message machines 
> which might help voters see past such deceptions. Instead, we send our 
> millionaire broadcasters onto TV to aim dick jokes at the average 
> voters who get conned by these sophisticated industry players. Our 
> leaders go on Hardball and lick the boots of a man who busted his 
> keister, for years, to put us all in this stew.
>
> Question: Who are the dumb ones in that syndrome? The Interests, or us 
> progressives?
>
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