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The Consensus on Climate Change

Climate Change, Uncategorized, , , , , , ,

Sadly, a large percentage of Americans are under the impression that climate scientists do not agree on the reality of anthropogenic global warming (AGW). A lot of people are simply wrong about this. They think that there is a great deal of controversy among the scientists who study the Earth’s climate. But there isn’t. One way we know this is from a study done by John Cook, Dana Nuccitelli, Sarah A Green, Mark Richardson, Bärbel Winkler, Rob Painting, Robert Way, Peter Jacobs, and Andrew Skuce, called “Quantifying the consensus on anthropogenic global warming in the scientific literature”

In that study, the authors analyzed “the evolution of the scientific consensus on anthropogenic global warming (AGW) in the peer-reviewed scientific literature, examining 11,944 climate abstracts from 1991–2011 matching the topics ‘global climate change’ or ‘global warming’.” They learned that “66.4% of abstracts expressed no position on AGW, 32.6% endorsed AGW, 0.7% rejected AGW and 0.3% were uncertain about the cause of global warming.” Among the papers that expressed a scientific position on the topic, “97.1% endorsed the consensus position that humans are causing global warming.”

The study was actually a bit conservative, as in order to be counted as part of that ~3% not supporting the consensus position on AGW a paper did not really have to be fully against the idea. Also, since the study was done, the consensus has increased. I asked study author Dana Nuccitelli about more recent changes in consensus, and he told me, “The consensus is growing over time, and reached 98% in 2011 (the last year included in our survey). So by now the minimizers/deniers are probably in the 1-2% range in the peer-reviewed literature (contrary to the ‘crumbling consensus’ claims).”

The other day I was giving talks at a local high school, and between classes, found myself chatting with a science teacher who had just completed a module on climate change and AGW. She asked me, “Isn’t there now research that shows that the consensus isn’t really as high as previously thought? Or is that bogus? Sounds bogus to me.”

Yes. Bogus.

I’m not sure what research the teacher was referring to (it was just something she had heard about) but there is a paper just published in “Energy Policy” by economist Richard Tol, who as far as I can tell has been a naysayer of climate science for some time now. Tol’s abstract says:

A claim has been that 97% of the scientific literature endorses anthropogenic climate change… This claim, frequently repeated in debates about climate policy, does not stand. A trend in composition is mistaken for a trend in endorsement. Reported results are inconsistent and biased. The sample is not representative and contains many irrelevant papers. Overall, data quality is low. Cook’s validation test shows that the data are invalid. Data disclosure is incomplete so that key results cannot be reproduced or tested.

Nuccitelli has responded to Tol’s paper, in a post at Skeptical Science called “Richard Tol accidentally confirms the 97% global warming consensus.”

Concern Tol-ing

Tol is practicing a special kind of science denialism here, sometimes called “seeding doubt” or as I prefer it, “casting seeds of doubt on infertile ground.” In other contexts this is called “concern trolling” or the “You’re not helping” gambit. The first of two paragraphs of the Conclusion section of Tol’s paper reads (emphasis added),

The conclusions of Cook et al. are thus unfounded. There is no doubt in my mind that the literature on climate change overwhelmingly supports the hypothesis that climate change is caused by humans. I have very little reason to doubt that the consensus is indeed correct. Cook et al., however, failed to demonstrate this. Instead, they gave further cause to those who believe that climate researchers are secretive (as data were held back) and incompetent (as the analysis is flawed).

Let’s get straight that Cook et al is not flawed, despite Tol’s complaints.

Tol’s main complaint is in the coding of the abstracts. He claims that it is imperfect. Well, duh. This is, essentially, social science research, and coding of text is imperfect. Tol makes the claim that the imperfections, if corrected, might bring the consensus down to a dismal 91%. I’m pretty sure he’s wrong about that, but if he is right, we are not impressed.

Tol’s key point is that the papers that are coded as not making a claim include some that do. He then incorrectly calculates how many of of those, if coded “correctly” there would be, and using this, downgrades the consensus to 91%

Nuccitelli explains in detail, in his post, how Tol’s re-analysis is badly done (see the amazing graphic at the top of this post) (go read it) and notes:

In reality, as our response to Tol’s critique (accepted by Energy Policy but not yet published) shows, there simply aren’t very many peer-reviewed papers that minimize or reject human-caused global warming. Most of the papers that were reconciled ‘towards stronger rejection’ went from explicit to implicit endorsement, or from implicit endorsement to no position. For abstracts initially rated as ‘no position,’ 98% of the changes were to endorsement categories; only 2% were changed to rejections.

Nuccitelli also notes that a separate study indicates that Tol’s method is flawed in the sense that no matter what data are used, the consensus will be decreased as an artifact of the methodology. Nuccitelli notes “…by making this mistake, Tol effectively conjured approximately 300 papers rejecting or minimizing human-caused global warming out of thin air, with no evidence that those papers exist in reality. As a result, his consensus estimate falls apart under cursory examination.”

Amazingly, when the Consensus research team fixed Tol’s methodology but applied the same question about coding papers in the no-position category, and re-calculated the percent consensus, it went up by 0.1%. Also, as Nuccitelli points out the Cook et al paper is not alone, and there have been a number of other studies that show essentially the same level of consensus among papers and/or scientists.

So, the consensus is real and isn’t going away. As is also the case with Anthropogenic Global Warming.

A Call To Arms about Climate Change

Climate Change, Uncategorized, ,

Tens of millions of red blooded Americans, Tea Partiers, were called to Washington DC the other day to overthrow the government. A few hundreds or so showed up.

Now, Bill McKibben, of 350.org, is calling Americans to New York City, not to overthrow the government but to talk some sense into it. I’ll bet more than a few hundred people show up!

McKibben wrote an item for Rolling Stones that you should read HERE.

This is an invitation, an invitation to come to New York City. An invitation to anyone who’d like to prove to themselves, and to their children, that they give a damn about the biggest crisis our civilization has ever faced.

My guess is people will come by the tens of thousands, and it will be the largest demonstration yet of human resolve in the face of climate change. Sure, some of it will be exciting – who doesn’t like the chance to march and sing and carry a clever sign through the canyons of Manhattan? But this is dead-serious business, a signal moment in the gathering fight of human beings to do something about global warming before it’s too late to do anything but watch. You’ll tell your grandchildren, assuming we win. So circle September 20th and 21st on your calendar, and then I’ll explain.

350.org has a page devoted to the march, HERE. Please click through and get busy!

The Facebook Page is HERE.

The image above is from an earlier march, details here.

Wheel of Fortune #Fail UPDATED TWICE

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You have probably already seen the cringworthy Youtube Video of the famous Wheel of Fortune Fail in which a college student makes three awful blunders and loses the game. Well, I’m here to tell you about another Wheel of Fortune Fail that is even worse. Pat Sajak, the famous host of the long running game show, turns out to be a rabid Climate Change Science Denialist.

Here’s a recent tweet by Pat:

Here’s a screenshot of the same tweet showing some of Pat’s loyal followers telling you, dear reader, what they think of you:

Screen Shot 2014-05-20 at 10.37.18 AM

Apparently, Sajak is well known (to everyone but me, until just now, apparently) as a science denialist. Get Energy Smart has some coverage of this, including references to blog posts Sajak has written about climate change. For example (see GESN’s post for context):

  • Is it just me, or is it warm in here? which focuses on the old canard that global cooling was predicted 30 years ago so why should we trust scientists about Global Warming along with arguments that it’s all natural. (For ammo to shoot this down,Grist’s quick Sajak slapdown references two items of their great Skeptics’ Guide: Global Cooling and natural cycle arguments.)
  • Global Warming: What Are You Willing to Do? In this, with a lot of arrogance and disdain, Sajak actually strongly states an ethical and moral dilemma that faces all who believe in Global Warming. More on this one below.

    • Sajak has taken down these posts.

    No more Wheel of Fortune in my house, I can tell you that. Unless it is to watch the show to see who advertises on it. So I can not buy their products!

    WheelOfFortuneClimateChangeMEME

    UPDATE:

    Here is a petition to sign from Forecast the Facts.

    _____

    Other posts of interest:

    Also of interest: In Search of Sungudogo: A novel of adventure and mystery, which is also an alternative history of the Skeptics Movement.

    How much like Byron Smith is the average gun owner?

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    I refuse to live in fear. I am not a bleeding heart liberal. I have a civic duty. I have to do it. Burglars are not human, they are vermin. I try to be a good person, to do what I should, be a good citizen.

    Those are among the words uttered by Byron Smith shortly after he murdered two teenagers in his home last Thanksgiving. There had been numerous break-ins in Smith’s neighborhood near Little Falls, Minnesota. Byron set a trap, making his home look vulnerable and unoccupied. If the burglars were to break into his home, they would come in a certain way, and end up descending the stairs into his basement. There, he set up a sniper’s nest of sorts, with food and beverages and ammo, and waited. Eventually the trap was sprung. One of the two teenagers that had been carrying out these break-ins descended the stairs, Smith shot him dead, and dragged the body out of sight. Then the second teenager came down the stairs, and he shot her. She did not die easily, so he shot her a few times. Then he said a few words into the recording machine that had been running the whole time. Eventually, but not right away, he reported the incident. There are more details, but that is the gist of what happened.

    Byron Smith was convicted of homicide. It turns out that setting a trap for possible home invaders and then killing them is not considered one’s right. Or, as Smith might put it, one’s duty.

    There are two things about this incident I’d like to point out, one pretty straight forward, the other likely to be controversial. Let’s start with the straight forward one.

    The chances of this working are slim. If there are burglaries happening in your neighborhood, and you set up a trap like Smith did, the chances that the trap will work are not high. But the trap did work for Smith. I know this is only a single incident, but think about this for a second. It is safe, though not statistically provable by any means, to assume (or at least, guess) that for every trap-setting Byron Smith there is a large number of others doing the same thing but not getting results. In fact, there are probably a few people who have actually managed to trap people this way, but did it differently than Byron, less overtly, and that we don’t know about. My point is simply this: Among the gun owners in this country who feel it is OK to arm themselves with the expectation of killing one or more intruders, it is likely that a non-zero percentage of them are just like Byron but maybe a tad smarter, or a tad less interested in falling on the proverbial sword once the deed is done.

    The second point is that anyone who decides that it is OK to arm themselves with the expectation of killing an intruder is at least a little like Byron Smith. Oh, no, you may say, a person arming themselves is simply trying to protect themselves and their families from danger, they are not attempting to kill someone. But that does not really make a person that different from Smith. There are multiple alternatives to killing intruders. One set of alternatives has to do with keeping intruders out to begin with. Smith made it easy for the intruders to enter his home. What about a person who has $350 to spend on protecting their home, and has the choice between reinforcing the possible entrance ways vs. purchasing a firearm? If one purchases the firearm and keeps it loaded and handy, but has easily broken doors or locks, that is a little like setting a trap, because it is relatively easy for someone to break into your home and, once they’ve broken in, relatively easy to shoot them. That is a passive setting of a trap.

    Think about all the different aspects involved here, most of which can be ascertained from looking at the Smith case. Do you feel that taking a life is equivalent to protecting your home? Are you prepared to own a dangerous weapon? Are you prepared to keep the weapon ready and loaded? Did you spend money and effort on arming yourself instead of securing your home better, under the false assumption that you can’t really stop a determined burglar? Did you avoid making it clear someone was home? Do you find yourself checking on your firearm and making sure it is extra handy, instead of taking other action, when you hear about break-ins in your neighborhood? Just how much like Byron Smith are you?

    I suspect that the majority of people who arm themselves are not a lot like Byron Smith. But is it OK to be half like him? 10% like him? 1% like him?

    If you want to contemplate these questions, I ask you do do one thing as part of that process. Listen to the tape Smith made. Listen to the whole thing, and do so along with reading about descriptions of what happened, what he confessed to, what he was convicted of.

    Here is one of the many available descriptions of the event.

    Here is the tape. Listen to all of it and imagine yourself being a little like Byron Smith. Or, perhaps, ask yourself how much like Byron Smith is your neighbor, friend, relative, or enemy?

    Google Search Terms That Would Also Make Good Song Titles

    Uncategorized

    The following is a selection of Google search terms that brought people to my sit today that I think would make good song titles, or perhaps, in some cases, a good name for a band.

    • what happens if you eat mold
    • vocal fry
    • fish bigger than a whale with a m
    • witches in europe
    • if you hit a brick wall at 45
    • killing spiders
    • indian women doodh feeding child with boobs
    • is blood blue
    • a bittersweet history
    • things the same in every culture
    • do we have blue blood
    • holocene brain shrink
    • richest man in d world
    • smiling chimp
    • killed by grizzlies
    • boobs word origination
    • what can cause green poo?
    • nude nuns
    • i dumped alittle spaghetti sauce that had mold on it
    • what did it feel like when the pompeiians died
    • how to get rid of fungus under my feet
    • how were witches killed
    • what are the perissodactyla primate predator?
    • bears eating humans
    • should the nitrogen tank be laid when empty
    • i keep finding spiders in my house
    • squirrel trap bait best
    • i ate a bun with green mold on it
    • green poop and lime sherbet
    • the bear man
    • what does the fox say blog
    • white spider in house
    • can your baby get pregnant if you have while pregnant
    • vocal fry wiki
    • ate mold
    • image of a chicken
    • stromatolite mn
    • why do i have so many spiders in my house
    • origin of the word boobs
    • converging snakes
    • how to trap a red squirrel
    • correx tanic medicine india
    • a female student who is afraid she will not do well on a math test and therefore reinforce the sterotype that “women are not good at math” is experiencing a type of “stinkin thinkin” called?
    • why do spiders get in basement
    • anti atheist
    • voyeur japan
    • does google hate linux
    • mold food make you sick
    • frankenmuth racism
    • how long is a genefation
    • why is my poop green if i didn’t eat anything green
    • cat girl pregnant
    • wildlife man gets eaten by bears
    • if you do a copy paste article will your teacher find out
    • how to restore qpe in linux after deleting it
    • indian daily sex motion
    • reproductive fitness
    • what causes spiders to come
    • i think i ate some mould
    • fitness naked
    • almost eating mold
    • will a science teacher get mad if i didnt cite properly?
    • eat eatan filam com
    • blogger voyeur
    • what would make your waste neon green
    • voice fry
    • naturalist fallacy same sex marriage
    • penile vagina copulation
    • who is who in the world
    • very graphic explanation gspot
    • what dog would catch spiders
    • king cobra and python, who is stronger?
    • gconfd
    • why are aliens here

    Energy Connections: Shocking climate change vs. shocking solar power

    Climate Change, Uncategorized, , ,

    One of the most important realizations of climate change research is exemplified in this graphic from Weather Uderground:

    Caption from original: "Rate of temperature change today (red) and in the PETM (blue). Temperature rose steadily in the PETM due to the slow release of greenhouse gas (around 2 billion tons per year). Today, fossil fuel burning is leading to 30 billion tons of carbon released into the atmosphere every year, driving temperature up at an incredible rate.:
    Caption from original: “Rate of temperature change today (red) and in the PETM (blue). Temperature rose steadily in the PETM due to the slow release of greenhouse gas (around 2 billion tons per year). Today, fossil fuel burning is leading to 30 billion tons of carbon released into the atmosphere every year, driving temperature up at an incredible rate.:

    The point is this. The PETM (Paleocene-Eocene thermal maximum, millions of years ago) was a period of high levels of CO2 in the atmosphere which caused significant warming. It is an example of both relatively rapid and intense climate change caused by CO2 acting as a greenhouse gas. The red line is, of course, our current estimated rate of change given current rates of release of fossil carbon into the atmosphere. This gives scientists pause because the rate of change in a system is often a more significant factor than the state of a system after the change. A simple example is motion. Assume you are standing on a commuter train moving at 50 km/h. If the train suddenly sped up to 100 km/h it might knock you down and even cause injury. But if the train increased its speed by 1 or 2 km/h every minute or so, you would not even notice and eventually you would be cruising along happily at double the speed.

    It isn’t just the high rate of change in climate that concerns us. It is also the fact that this rate of change has never been observed in nature; we have no record of such a rapid and large change happening in the paleo record. For many aspects of the Earth’s climate system, we simply don’t know what would happen under such rapid change because there is no point of reference, no precedent, for such a thing.

    But there is another graph that also shows a very high rate of change, in a different system, that may allow us to feel a bit better. One way to avoid such an increase in release of fossil Carbon is to rapidly transition to non-Carbon sources of energy such as solar. One way for that to happen is if solar energy become economically more viable very quickly. Ideally, the rate of change in the economic viability of solar energy would be very fast, enough to knock you off your metaphorical feet. And, apparently, that is the case. From a study described here:

    From the source: "Solar is now – in the right conditions – cheaper than oil and Asian LNG on an MMBTU basis. Yes, we are using utility- scale solar costs in developing markets with lots of sun. But that describes the growth markets for global energy today. For these markets solar is just cheap, clean, convenient, reliable energy. And since it is a technology, it will get even cheaper over time. Fossil fuel extraction costs will keep rising. "
    From the source: “Solar is now – in the right conditions – cheaper than oil and Asian LNG on an MMBTU basis. Yes, we are using utility- scale solar costs in developing markets with lots of sun. But that describes the growth markets for global energy today. For these markets solar is just cheap, clean, convenient, reliable energy. And since it is a technology, it will get even cheaper over time. Fossil fuel extraction costs will keep rising. “

    There are caveats, as noted. But solar power is, seemingly going to have its day in the sun sooner than later.

    Being a Voyeur of Religion, Politely

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    This is a post I wrote elsewhere, a while ago, and just realized was never put on this blog, so here it is. I thought of this post and the topic because of the recent data of the Ms Jesus Scroll, which does indeed appear to be old. But they are still arguing about it, of course. Post is slightly revised.

    A while ago I asked on my Facebook page whether anyone had seen the Dead Sea Scroll exhibit at the Science Museum of Minnesota. As one might expect, a couple of people, who possibly thought I was joking, noted that the Dead Sea scrolls were part of the Bible, and all that stuff was implausible stories handed down by ignorant Bronze Age shepherds over the generations, etc., etc., etc.

    My first reaction to that, as an anthropologist, was this: “Hey, Imma let you say that now, but if you diss any of my people like that I’ll kick your ass. Metaphorically, of course.”  In other words, I do find it rather condescending when western occidento-hetero-caucasoido-normative types take it on themselves to make blanket statements that some other group of people of which they know nothing are stupid. I understand the whole being annoyed at the Bible thing. I mean, it is probably the most annoying book ever written. But this is where modern-day “New Atheists” can be thoughtless when unpracticed in their philosophy and its application.

    But it was only a Facebook comment.

    My second thought was this: I never read the sports section of the newspaper, but a few years ago when I came across a large fragment of a 30-year-old sports page from the local paper, hidden inside a wall, I read every word of it. Wouldn’t you? And the Dead Sea Scrolls are two thousand years old, and about a topic that is pretty much as interesting to me as hockey scores and basketball.

    In the end, I went to see the exhibit. Twice. And I assure you, the part about the stupid Bronze Age shepherds is not only overwhelmingly outdone by other aspects of the scrolls, but in fact is rather inaccurate. The keepers of the scrolls were more like Moonies than shepherds, except when they were also tour guides. Also, it wasn’t the Bronze Age.

    So a while back I visited the Jeffers Petroglyphs site in southwestern Minnesota. That’s also a religious exhibit of sorts, if we assume (and we probably should) that the symbols pecked and carved into two-billion-year-old red quartzite played a role in various Native American cultural practices having to do with spirits, gods, afterlife, and so on. Jeffers has thunderbirds, lightning symbols, warriors doing battle with shamans, turtles, magic turtles, hands, bison (probably the extinct kind), atlatls, and more. The guides, polite and well informed caucasionormatives, describe various hypotheses about the symbols and who made them and why, play down the violent parts — maybe that one of the guy with the spear in his chest bleeding all over the place is all about the transition from boyhood to manhood? — and try to link the religious nature of the site to the presumed religiosity (or, at least, spirituality!?!) of the visitors. The prayer we make now at this site is enhanced by the thousands of years of others coming here to pray. And so on.

    And both subjects have their holocaustic contexts. The Dead Sea Scrolls were probably kept by a Jewish religious sect, or at the very least, were part of a Jewish Renaissance following an exodus of sorts, and were a big deal in a Jewish world increasingly controlled and colonized by repressive and violent outsiders known today as heroes of Western Civilization. And the next two thousand years is, as they say, bloody history.

    Jeffers is much older and diffuse in its cultural associations but was a sacred site to the Dakota (and others) at a time when the practice was to do war with the Indians, kill a lot of them, cut off some of their body parts to sell later in town as curios, or deflesh their bones, varnish them, keep them on display in your office, and to do all the killing in a way that maximized your votes, if you happen to be a politician. And, just to put this in perspective, I think we as a civilization came to abhor the Jewish Holocaust at the time it was revealed, in the mid 1940s. In contrast, most of the native body parts harvested during the Dakota Uprising (centered geographically near Jeffers) were returned decades later, between 1971 and 1990, and by force of law, not because of a sense of shame or propriety. Some still sit on mantles or in boxes in closets.

    I recommend a visit to both. But don’t be a dick about it. Your ancestors have already pretty much taken care of that.

    Here’s the Ms. Jesus papyrus fragment, in the news recently because it has been “dated” (not really) and is probably old (plausibly). (Image modified by me from Harvard Magazine). I’ve included the translation because it makes me LOL.

    Screen Shot 2014-04-10 at 9.58.14 PM

    Dear Pakistan, WTF? An eight month old baby charged with murder?

    Uncategorized, , ,

    From NBC:

    … Mohammad Musa Khan appeared in court in the city of Lahore last week, charged with attempted murder along with his father and grandfather after a mob protesting against gas cuts and price increases stoned police and gas company workers trying to collect overdue bills.

    “Police are vindictive. Now they are trying to settle the issue on personal grounds, that’s why I sent my grandson to Faisalabad for protection,” the baby’s grandfather, Muhammad Yasin, told Reuters, referring to a central Pakistani city.

    The baby is on bail and due to appear at the next hearing on April 12 but Yasin said he was not sure if he would take him to court for the case.

    …

    At his first appearance in court last week, Musa cried while his fingerprints were taken by a court official. Later, the baby sucked on a bottle of milk and tried to grab journalists’ microphones as his grandfather spoke to the media.

    “He does not even know how to pick up his milk bottle properly, how can he stone the police?” Yasin asked journalists at the court last Thursday.