Talk:Scientific consensus on climate change

/Archive1

Public opinion

An interesting link which I'll put here about public opinion, from Roger Pielke's blog: http://sciencepolicy.colorado.edu/prometheus/archives/climate_change/index.html#000054

And this (2004/12/20) from the Washington Times, on Oreske.

Political section?

Just deleted a weasel worded political section which tried to compare with eugenics and nazis. Such sensational garbage is not needed. The section was added by an economics blogger who essentially has declared war on wiki climate articles. -Vsmith 02:25, 6 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I'm sorry if you think that I declared war on climate articles. I meant that only in how I thought new ideas would be received (and I'm sorry to say I was right). The example of eugenics is meant to illustrate that sometimes the scientific consensus is wrong and it's a valid point made by those who are concerned about the politizing of science. I'm open to ideas on how to make it less offensive and/or more clear.--Atlastawake 04:16, 6 Mar 2005 (UTC)

No. Don't see any new ideas just more of the same old stuff. And weasel refers to the vague some ... argue - Who are the some? Vague claims are weasel claims. As to the eugenics and Holocaust comparison - it is simply inflamatory bull****. Maybe you should write a politicians opinion article, this one is about science, and bull**** would fit better there :-). Vsmith 04:56, 6 Mar 2005 (UTC)

(William M. Connolley 10:27, 6 Mar 2005 (UTC)) Perhaps (Atlast) if you would add some actual *science* people might take it better. If you want politics, then edit political articles. Some (notably scientists, economists and politial scientists) agrue that the issue of climate change has been hijaxed.. is *weasel words* because of the some and the lack of any specific examples. Being able to spell hijacked would be good too. Regardless, though, this page is about scientific opinion primarily and it doesn't need a long political section.

Lots of things here. First, I'm very confused. You quote political agencies at length but refuse to entertain the politics of these agencies? The article is called "Scientific opinion on climate change" yet you are refusing to consider how that opinion is shaped. Second, I agree "some" is a poor choice of words and I was hoping the wikicommunity would offer ideas for better wording, not delete information out-right. Third, I fail to understand how the eugenics/GW comparison is inappropriate...no one has offered a reason beyond they don't like it. Finally, I don't see anything in the article that resembles what I added. How can you call my contribution "same old stuff?" (Added by user:Atlastawake at 22:24 who doesn't seem to know how to sign his posts.)

Your addition was full of vague they say and such. It appeared to be trying to build some kind of conspiracy theory about the players in the climate game. These kinds of vague accusations is an insult to the dedicated scientists working on the real problem and an attempt to mislead the readers. This article is about scientific opinion, not political shenanegans. Trying to link the work these scientists are doing by a vague analogy to the eugenics problem and especially by throwing in the Hollocaust reference with the unstated assumption that the science of global warming is equated to the evils of the nazis. That kind of deliberate attempted slur was totally uncalled for and has made me view any of your edits with suspicion. The material you want to add is not there for the simple reason that as presented it is irrelevant besides being insulting. -Vsmith 23:25, 7 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I've already conceeded on my "they say" language but you've still avoided my larger points. You haven't told me why the analogy is false. You haven't told me why poltics doesnt belong in an article about a scientific opinion that concerned global warming, which is politically charged.

--Atlastawake 02:03, 13 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Did you read my comments above? At least you now list your main source as a novel. That was most impressive! Novelist, journalists, economists ... ? This is an article about scientific opinion, not conspiracy theorizing by politicians and diverse other non-scientists. And your analogy from that great source is still an irrelevant insult. Vsmith 03:07, 13 Mar 2005 (UTC)

(William M. Connolley 10:29, 13 Mar 2005 (UTC)) Agreeing with Vsmith, but also... this page is about scientific opinion. Not politics. Arguing that this is a politically charged issue, so politics belongs here, would end up filling every issue with politicial stuff. Most of the politics type stuff on GW tends to end up on global warming controversy... have you looked at that?

I have and it's rather large already. My section definately belongs in this article as it offered a different take on how the opinion formed. Linking is needed, true. Exclusion is NOT. BTW, my main source isn't State of Fear (you assumed that) and the novel has factual evidence in it, which is what I exclusively used. Read the page just before the pair of quotes that kick off the book.--Atlastawake 05:35, 15 Mar 2005 (UTC)

(William M. Connolley 09:40, 15 Mar 2005 (UTC)) This page is for *scientific* opinion. And SoF is trash: http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=74.

IPCC authors paragraph

Removed paragraph - see Talk:Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change for discussion. Vsmith 02:21, 7 Mar 2005 (UTC)

The content of the paragraph has been resolved, and now a statement should be made here regarding it. This page is about "scientific opinion on climate change", and in order to properly assess the scientific opinion on climate change, the readers need to know exactly whose opinion they are assessing. For the sake of making the readers informed readers in this manner, the paragraph about the IPCC authors should be available to them as part of this page's referencing of the IPCC's view. — Cortonin | Talk 21:51, 8 Mar 2005 (UTC)

(William M. Connolley 23:03, 8 Mar 2005 (UTC)) Your position here is inconsistent. We need (you assert) to know how the IPCC authors are selected - but we don't need to know how US National Research Council are; or the AMS, or... I really don't know why you want this factoid in here, but its clear its inappropriate, though quite reasonable on the IPCC page.

Because a group whose authors are chosen by governments does not necessarilly reflect scientific opinion, but rather the scientific opinion chosen by governments. This is an important and key distinction, and clearly pertains to defining what the scientific opinion on climate change is, and the IPCC's role in clarifying that. You may disagree with this if you find the IPCC infallible, but it's worth providing for others to note and decide on. — Cortonin | Talk 10:19, 9 Mar 2005 (UTC)

(William M. Connolley 21:11, 12 Mar 2005 (UTC)) Right. In other words you're fighting tooth and nail to get that text in because you think it denigrates the IPCC. We can tell you're doing this, because you haven't bothered to do it for any of the other institutions quoted on the page. The selection process for IPCC is (briefly, but rather more fully than here) described on the IPCC page, where it should be.

I have not a particular strong feeling about the sentence "Authors for the IPCC reports are chosen from [...]". In general I would leave it out for the reasons WMC did mentioned.

Nevertheless I would add a short explanation about the IPCC at the very beginning of the article. IMHO it is good custom to a least briefly characterize a term (here "IPCC") which is probably not known to the average reader without forcing him to open yet another link. The last version before Willams revert was: "[the IPCC], which is a panel of experts chosen by United Nations members".

IMHO the given formulation hardly discredits the reputation of the IPCC in any way (in fact I believe that the contrary is true, i.e. it improves credibility). By all means it gives the average reader at least some short information about the IPCC. -- mkrohn 21:43, 12 Mar 2005 (UTC)

(William M. Connolley 21:53, 12 Mar 2005 (UTC)) Hmmm... I see your point. But "chosen by UN members" is a probably not an accurate view of the selection process. If you want to describe the IPCC itself, why not just "a group of climate experts"? Though this is pretty well implied by its name, anyway.

For the record, whether or not we describe information should ABSOLUTELY NOT be decided by whether or not it improves or discredits the credibility of an organization, and that appears to be exactly how the above conversation is going. Make information correct, on topic, and relevant, and let the reader form opinions rather than giving opinions to the reader. — Cortonin | Talk 04:29, 13 Mar 2005 (UTC)

According to the IPCC, that is an accurate view of the selection process (although they say "governments and other organizations" rather than "UN members", but as it was formed by the UN the extrapolation can be made to fit the Marco Krohn description in order to provide more information about how it was initially formed (which was by the UN). I consider "a panel of experts chosen by United Nations members" to be more descript than "a group of climate experts." First, who decided which researchers were experts? Second, it's not a randomly selected group out of possible climate experts, but instead a consciously selected group. It would be inappropriate to imply that the group is randomly selected or a complete set of all climate experts, as it is neither. — Cortonin | Talk 04:29, 13 Mar 2005 (UTC)

(William M. Connolley 10:06, 13 Mar 2005 (UTC)) I agree to this extent: that you shouldn't be putting in info to try to discredit the IPCC. But unfortunately, you are. As for the selection process: its clear that its rather more nuanced, from the very link that you originally provided.

(mkrohn) My main argument was about giving the average reader information about the IPCC in the introduction. On the other hand it is important in which context you use information because it has influence on the reader. This means that the criteria you gave ("correct, on topic and relevant") are necessary criteria for inclusion of material, but hardly are sufficient. There are many examples for using the same information and give a different picture to the reader, e.g. after an election the same information is presented in a very different way if one looks into a liberal and conservative newspaper.

That said, it does make sense to discuss how to the average reader will perceive the information. The IPCC is probably the most important and one of the most credible organization that deals with aspects of global warming and thus it makes no sense to me to discredit the organization by emphasizing the selection procedure as you did in one of your first versions. -- mkrohn 11:35, 13 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Saying that the IPCC authors are chosen by governments is about clarifying who the position is coming from. If a pundit goes on the news, and is sent there by a government, then that news organization should reveal that the pundit was sent there by that government, or the news organization is being misleading. This is a normal part of full disclosure. If CNN does a story on Time Warner, they start or finish the story with, "a parent company of CNN", as part of full disclosure. This does not mean CNN is saying that they're biased or wrong in the story, but simply means that CNN is being up-front with its affiliations. This is just standard practice as part of informing readers, viewers, and listeners. When people violate this practice, it's considered deceptive. There were pundits that the whitehouse recently sent around to news organizations to pump up the Bush administration's new social security plan, and these were not correctly described as being sent by the whitehouse, and when this was discovered it was viewed very poorly as being deceptive, whereas the same situation would be viewed as acceptable if the affiliation would be revealed at the start. It's no different with the IPCC. They are not an independent organization which formed in a vacuum, but an organization whose authors were chosen by certain governments, and this information should be revealed up front as part of full disclosure. — Cortonin | Talk 06:08, 14 Mar 2005 (UTC)

(William M. Connolley 09:46, 14 Mar 2005 (UTC)) You (Cortonin) remain utterly unconvincing, for the reasons I gave above: for some reason you only care about the IPCC. How are the other organisations mentioned on the page formed? You don't care. Why not? The text you've written above applies to the AMS as much as IPCC. And, of course, if anyone does have a deep and overriding interest in the IPCC... they can just click on the link and find out, in more detail.

I'm dealing with one thing at a time. I don't know why you find that so odd. One does not try to edit all of Wikipedia in a single night. As for the AMS, it is an open-membership scientific society. If I so choose, I can sign up right here. This policy of openness is standard in essentially every scientific society, as you should be quite familiar with. The IPCC has no such application form, because its membership is not open. Instead, its authors are selected by governments. This is fine to do, but we should not then present it as an open scientific society, because it is instead an organization with government selected membership. — Cortonin | Talk 10:47, 14 Mar 2005 (UTC)

(William M. Connolley 12:34, 14 Mar 2005 (UTC)) Well, you're finding the IPCC section quite controversial. Why not - since you really don't mind whether you do IPCC, or AMS, or whatever first - go on and do a less controversial one? But of course, thats laughable. We all know that in fact you care nothing for the others. And your version of the IPCC author seclection is wrong.

Your tendency to view every single edit as a "my side versus your side" war is extremely annoying. It makes talking to you very difficult, and makes finding a compromise with you extremely difficult, because you take every edit as either supporting your side or attacking your side. IT'S NOT LIKE THAT! Please stop treating this place as a petty warzone. Assume good faith Assume good faith Assume good faith Assume good faith Assume good faith Assume good faith — Cortonin | Talk 18:27, 14 Mar 2005 (UTC)

(William M. Connolley 20:08, 14 Mar 2005 (UTC)) I began by assuming your good faith, but you have long since eroded that, by your POV edits. Please stop your patronising remarks.

Perhaps you missed the part of Wikipedia policy that clearly explains that EVERYONE has a POV. That means I have one AND you have one. The people who think they don't have a POV are the ones who have the most difficulty accepting and including other POVs, and this is why we are encouraged to recognize our own POV. Good faith has to be applied regardless of whether someone supports your view or opposes it, otherwise it misses the entire point of good faith. — Cortonin | Talk 22:22, 14 Mar 2005 (UTC)

The IPCC author selection is, literally by quote, "from those experts cited in the lists provided by governments and participating organisations, and other experts as appropriate, known through their publications and works." [1] If that doesn't say to you that there is a government list selected with consideration of the views they have expressed in the past, then I'm sorry, but that's certainly what it says to me. It's an organization formed by a political body with government influence over the author list which writes down its views. It's necessary to mention that as part of full disclosure about the IPCC. — Cortonin | Talk 18:27, 14 Mar 2005 (UTC)

(William M. Connolley 20:08, 14 Mar 2005 (UTC)) Once again you are reading what you want to from a document, rather than whats in it. For one thing, the text you cite is for Coordinating Lead Authors and Lead Authors - not all authors. In fact, numerically, its for a minority of authors. Now lets read the full quote:

Coordinating Lead Authors and Lead Authors are selected by the relevant Working Group/Task Force Bureau, under general guidance and review provided by the Session of the Working Group or, in case of reports prepared by the Task Force on National Greenhouse Gas Inventories, the Panel, from those experts cited in the lists provided by governments and participating organisations, and other experts as appropriate, known through their publications and works. The composition of the group of Coordinating Lead Authors and Lead Authors for a section or chapter of a Report shall reflect the need to aim for a range of views, expertise and geographical representation (ensuring appropr iate representation of experts from developing and developed countries and countries with economies in transition). There should be at least one and normally two or more from developing countries. The Coordinating Lead Authors and Lead Authors selected by the Working Group/Task Force Bureau may enlist other experts as Contributing Authors to assist with the work.

It becomes quite clear that the truth is far more nuanced than your bald "selected by govts"; and I shall continue to resist your crude attempts to politicise the article. Its actually quite unclear what role, in practice, govts have in selecting authors. For any outsiders reading this private spat, I'll point out that I have no objection to the info being in wikipedia: in fact, its in IPCC, and I've recently moved it up into the intro there. What I object to is Cortonins inaccurate paraphrase.

While we're in the business of quoting, lets keep going:

At the request of Working Group/Task Force Bureau Co-Chairs through their respective Working Group/Task Force Bureau, and the IPCC Secretariat, governments, and participating organisations and the Working Group/Task Force Bereaux [sic] should identify appropriate experts for each area in the Report who can act as potential Coordinating Lead Authors, Lead Authors, Contributing Authors, expert reviewers or Review Editors.

In other words, the whole team (not just lead authors) is restricted to those approved by the corresponding governments. It doesn't get much more clear. This is a government chosen team, not an independent or open research team. — Cortonin | Talk 22:22, 14 Mar 2005 (UTC)

(William M. Connolley 22:50, 14 Mar 2005 (UTC)) Good grief: you can quote it, but you can't read it!

?? It says what I said it says. — Cortonin | Talk 23:41, 14 Mar 2005 (UTC)

On a side note, is that how you really think politically controversial science should be conducted?? In times past we had a lot of trouble when powerful religious influences dictated who were acceptable authorities to speak on science, and religiously controversial science suffered. It's not much better when powerful political influences do the same. I'm not the one who politicized the issue, I'm simply pointing out that it already is politicied, and needs to be openly so rather than silently so. — Cortonin | Talk 22:22, 14 Mar 2005 (UTC)

(William M. Connolley 22:50, 14 Mar 2005 (UTC)) Your tireles *assertion* of IPCC politicisation is tiresome. You would do far better to learn something about the science, and then try and write about that. The almost total lack of science input in your contributions is obvious. Alternatively, if politics is what interests you, write on political articles. But please don't put your political POV into science articles.

The IPCC is a body chosen and guided by governmental bodies. The politics is intrinsic in the issue, and I'm sorry that you can't seem to see that. — Cortonin | Talk 23:41, 14 Mar 2005 (UTC)

As for my contributions, I have contributed plenty of scientific information to Wikipedia (and I would kindly ask you to refrain from personal attacks if your horse-blinders cause you to feel otherwise), I'm just not of the view that you can pick one scientific conclusion and define it as true without acknowledging the other reasoned conclusions and the humanities and conflicts of the scientists involved when these show up as relevant issues. You clearly have a very different view on this, and think that once you have made a conclusion about a scientific topic, it is factual, and no one should dispute it, or else they are clearly wrong. Every single person in the past who has ever taken that view has been proven wrong, but maybe you're the first one. But whatever your view, you need to respect the other views on here, even on scientific topics. Because news flash: Science is not done, and its conclusions are not unchangeable. — Cortonin | Talk 23:41, 14 Mar 2005 (UTC)

1992 Gallup poll

Sheldon Rampton 06:31, 3 May 2005 (UTC) The figures cited by Joe Bast et al regarding a 1992 Gallup poll are wrong. I took the trouble to do a Nexis search and found two reports from 1992. The first was a March 6, 1992 news release distributed by Greenwire and headlined "66% of climate scientists see greenhouse effect." I'll quote the relevant excerpts:

The Gallup Organization interviewed 400 scientists with memberships in the American Geophysical Union and/or American Meteorological Society by telephone 10/14-25, 1991. Margin of error +/- 5%. The poll was commissioned by the Center for Science, Technology and Media, which describes itself as "a nonprofit organization devoted to clarifying the dialogue between scientists and engineers, and the general public." The Center is funded by grants from the Sarah Scaife Foundation, the Richardson Foundation and the Philip McKenna Foundation.

Q. "Do you think that global average temperatures have increased during the past 100 years?"

Yes 60%

No 15

Don't know 25

Q. "In your opinion is human-induced greenhouse warming now occurring?"

Yes 66%

No 10

Don't know 24

Note: Of the 66% who said they believe human-induced warming is now occurring, 63% (or 41% of the total sample) said the current evidence substantiates the phenomenon, 32% said it doesn't and 5% didn't know.

Q. "What do you think is the percent probability of human induced global warming raising global average temperatures 2 degrees celsius or more during the next 50 to 100 years?"

More than 50% 47%

Less than 50% 37

The second Nexis report on this poll consisted of the transcript of a February 13, 1992 press conference held by the Center for Science, Technology and Media, at which they discussed the survey. According to CSTM's Mark Mills:

We found through the Gallup poll that the majority of scientists believe that the global average temperature -- 60 percent being the majority -- believe that the global average temperature has actually increased over the past century. However, the Gallup poll shows that only 19 percent of the scientists believe that this temperature increase was due to human causes, was human induced.

Now, we've done something very deliberate and specific here. We're separating out history, the historic record, from the future, from this point forward. So, what we found in the Gallup poll is that scientists essentially are rejecting the possibility that human-induced global warming has occurred, thus far.

The poll also found, though, that a large share, a majority, 66 percent, believe that global warming is now underway, human-induced global warming, which is an intriguing result. But juxtaposed against that is the same group of scientists of which only 41 percent -- a minority -- will state that the scientific evidence supports that belief or assertion.

You'll note that the 19 percent figure claimed by Mills does not appear in CSTM's actual news release, and it in fact contradicts Mills' statement that 66 percent of scientists believe that human-induced global warming is underway. I suspect that the 19 percent figure reflects some more specific question, such as "Do you believe that human causes are the sole or main cause of the temperature increase during the entire twentieth century?" You'll note that he doesn't provide the wording for the question which he says drew the 19 percent response (whereas the news release provides the exact language of each question). The Scaife, Richardson and McKenna foundations which funded this survey are all right-wing U.S. foundations with a history of funding global warming skepticism, and it's quite possible that Mills was trying to find a nugget of detail from the survey that would satisfy his funders.

Moreover, the figures that Bast cites ("18 percent thought some global warming had occurred, 33 percent said insufficient information existed to tell, and 49 percent believed no warming had occurred") cannot be found anywhere in either the news release or the transcript of the news conference. Bast is also wrong about the date when the survey was conducted. He says it was conducted on February 13, 1992. That's actually the date when the news conference took place. The survey itself was conducted from October 14-25, 1991.

In any case, the Gallup poll is now more than 13 years old, and considerable new scientific data and research have appeared since then. Given that fact, I think the reference to this particular poll should simply be dropped from this article.

Article updated. (SEWilco 17:12, 3 May 2005 (UTC))

Peisner

(William M. Connolley 19:28, 5 May 2005 (UTC)) I've removed Peisner. For a couple of reasons: firstly, his work hasn't been published: in fact, its been rejected. Secondly, there appear to be severe doubts as to whether his work has been done honestly: for more on that, and my own opinions, see http://cgi.cse.unsw.edu.au/~lambert/cgi-bin/blog/science/peiser.html?seemore=y#more. Including him before publication, or before this has settled down, is premature.

Restored. Science thinks that its being on the Internet is the equivalent to being in the journal, or that there are many similar results on the Internet. And your unsw.edu.au link only looks at the 33-34 in the "rejection" column, which still leaves quite a difference between Oreskes 75% and Peiser 38-41%. (SEWilco 20:38, 5 May 2005 (UTC))

The rejection didn't state that the work was invalid, but that the work was "not novel". (Of course, if it's "not novel", show me the other versions of this.) It's rather poor scientific practice to filter results in such a manner when they contradict earlier published results in the same journal. Rebuttal is an essential part of the scientific method, and it should not be carelessly discarded. — Cortonin | Talk 21:33, 5 May 2005 (UTC)

I agree that rebuttal is important. Wether information if filtered (as you say it) or the paper uses dubious scientific methods (as others say) is an interesting question, but it is out of the scope of Wikipedia. A work that is not published (for whatever reasons) surely does not belong here. -- mkrohn 01:09, 6 May 2005 (UTC)

It is published right here,

(William M. Connolley 21:56, 6 May 2005 (UTC)) "published" in the context of science means, in a peer-reviewed journal, not on some web site. Otherwise I'll start quoting my blog as "published".

But this is not research, it is an analysis of published research. Thus, it does not need to be in a peer-reviewed journal to count as "published". It is a secondary analysis of primary sources. — Cortonin | Talk 22:47, 6 May 2005 (UTC)

(William M. Connolley 20:20, 7 May 2005 (UTC)) Wrong. Peisner submitted it to science for publication. They didn't say: this isn't research, we won't publish it. They said it was junk, correctly. Peisner was unwise enough to reveal the 34-becoming-33 abstracts that he though rejected the consensus. Read them. Its quite plain from that that his categorisation is hopelessly wrong.

it just happens to have been rejected from the journal the original was published in. And it's not like this is new research which needs to go in a journal to count as "published", since it is an analysis of existing published research which is widely available. Go into ISI and search for yourself. Go through a few hundred yourself and you won't find the ratio that Oreskes says you will find. I called "bullshit" on that study a while ago, because the original data is right there to view, and it doesn't match what she says it should. — Cortonin | Talk 04:49, 6 May 2005 (UTC)

From your reference: "Obviously, your refusal leaves me no option than to publicise the results of my analysis somewhere else [...]". So, let's wait until it is published "somewhere else". -- mkrohn 10:15, 6 May 2005 (UTC)

P.S. by the way: the "argument" for rejecting the paper is mmh dubious to put it mildly.

So if an unpublished work does not usually belong in Wikipedia, then the reason for an exception should be in the article also? However, do the various quotes from politicians and newspaper articles also not belong in Wikipedia? (SEWilco 14:25, 6 May 2005 (UTC))

Has anyone the reference to the Dennis Bray paper where the claims ("fewer than one in 10 climate scientists believed that climate change is principally caused by human activity") made in [2] are supported? I looked at his homepage and found a lot of results from a survey, but no statements like the 1 in 10 one. -- mkrohn 10:26, 6 May 2005 (UTC)

Someone deleted what may be the relevant section Scientific_opinion_on_climate_change#Bray_and_Von_Storch.2C_2003, although we don't know whether Bray was referring to this. The "Papers" link contains rejected papers which may be relevant. (SEWilco 14:25, 6 May 2005 (UTC))

Rm IPCC intro text

I've removed:

The IPCC is a panel of climate experts chosen from a list prepared by governments and participating organizations, and under the auspices of the UNEP/WMO. [3]

ts major reports are based upon material from a panel of climate experts chosen from a list prepared by governments and participating organizations. The original scientific literature is often inaccessible to the layperson (both literally, because they do not have access to appropriate libraries, and because the scientific writing style is unfamiliar), but the summaries and position statements are usually written to be intelligible to any reasonably informed individual.

It is common to see the assertion that the IPCC represents the consensus of opinion of climate scientists (such as [4]); it is also common to see this view disputed.

All this is from the IPCC page, and is unnecessary here. None of the other institutions quoted - AMS etc - are described, only linked to, where of course their descriptions are.

1991 Gallup Poll, 1990 and 1992 reports

Why are these included here? How are these relevant? I don't follow. Guettarda 18:21, 16 October 2005 (UTC)

They have been here historically. Probably they should go. William M. Connolley 19:02, 16 October 2005 (UTC).

I see. I could see them being here as part of a historical analysis of how scientific opinion has changed over the last 20 years as the science has developed...hey, that would make really interesting reading, to tell you the truth. It would also actually be a good context for the "opponents of..." page, since they people listed there disagree with different things. William? Are you old enough for that? ;) (Yeah, I know, it would be original research). Has anyone written a retrospective of how this has changed - might make an interesting case-study for the development of scientific thought... Yeah, I'm rambling. Guettarda 19:21, 16 October 2005 (UTC)

I'm not old enough, sadly. As part of a hist analysis, they could be useful. It may be in Spencer Wearts stuff, and if so wouldn't be OR. William M. Connolley 20:27, 16 October 2005 (UTC).

Given the questions raised about the Gallup polls numbers, we need a reference for the numbers before we can consider their inclusion. But the anon's edits are now headed towards vandalism anyway; I don't have much confidence left in her/his credibility. Guettarda 17:42, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

The original phrasing was awkward to search on. I did find what looks like one contemporaneous source. (SEWilco 18:10, 17 October 2005 (UTC))

House of Lords

While there are scientists in the House of Lords, it is not usually considered part of the scientific establishment. So why should it be in an article about the scientific opinion? Can you explain why it is appropriate here? Thanks. Guettarda 22:09, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

They are politicians commenting on the science produced by the process of supporting an international treaty in which they are involved. (SEWilco 23:00, 17 October 2005 (UTC))

Then their comments perhaps belong in a political opinion ... article, but not here. Vsmith 00:15, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

They are referring to the IPCC science. Their involvement with the government gives them reason to be examining things involved with a treaty such as the UNFCCC, but this text is about the science rather than the political forces involved in the UNFCCC. (SEWilco 01:46, 18 October 2005 (UTC))

I suppose all the IPCC material could be moved to the IPCC article, and the IPCC can be summarized as "A UN organization, the IPCC, has issued reports about climate." (SEWilco 02:14, 18 October 2005 (UTC))

Sadly SEW is playing an unhelpful role os mischief-maker here. This page is for *scientific* opinion. If we allow "scientific opinion plus comments from politicians" it will get swamped with gunk (which is what the HoL report was). William M. Connolley 09:10, 18 October 2005 (UTC).

Individuals

On removing Yuri I's statment, I did it because he was an individual (and not just because he is a nutter on GW...). But then I noticed we had Peter Barrett in there too, so I took him out as well. And removed the "and individuals" tag line.

This on the basis that there are probably too many individuals who can be considered to have "made a statement" (if we include YI) and the cut-off for "is too marginal to be worth including" would be too much trouble to try to make.

William M. Connolley 22:40, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

Lancet; from GW

I cut this from global warming:

according to a leading Britigh medical journal, The Lancet (Reuters, February 9, 2006, archived here), although some scientists have expressed doubt.

Maybe it belongs here. Not sure. Haven't read the original. William M. Connolley 22:09, 11 February 2006 (UTC).

GW verses AGW

I think a distinction is necessary between the scientific actuality (or otherwise) of global warming and scientific theory regarding the causes of global warming (ie anthroprogentic or otherwise). Just because a scientist identifies with evidence of Global warming (GW) it does not mean they have demonstrated or believe in anthroprogentic global warming (AGW). Although of course it is clearly possibe to believe in both.

The warming of the earth is essentially non-controversial: only a tiny minority dispute that (even prez Bush accepts it). The dispute, such as it is, is over attribution, which this article concentrates on. global warming and links therefrom discusses the more basic evidence for warming. William M. Connolley 11:18, 12 February 2006 (UTC).

You left out the other aspect of the dispute, which is whether it's significant. --Uncle Ed 14:30, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

? What do you mean? In what sense? William M. Connolley 20:30, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

Breaking News

The global scientific body on climate change is expected to report soon that emissions from humankind are the only explanation for major changes on Earth.

Count Iblis 13:50, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

To avoid repeat discussion, see Talk:Global warming William M. Connolley 16:07, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

Surveys

Via Tim Lambert, I find http://www.norvig.com/oreskes.html by Peter Norvig, googles director of research. Clearly not a science source, but a person of some prestige perhaps? William M. Connolley 12:05, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

The article makes it sound like Orestes really did find scientific consensus on the global warming hypothesis. It also makes it sound like the other guy was wrong, for two reasons:

• He used a different set of abstracts
• His letter was rejected by Science magazine

Let's rewrite the section so that the reader can decide who if anybody performed a meaningful literature search. This is especially important as most laymen only have Internet search engines like Google. Is there any way they duplicate the abstract search described in the article? --Uncle Ed 14:28, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

Peiser calimed to replicate Oreskes. But, he didn't. So he was wrong. That isn't POV, its fact William M. Connolley 20:29, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

We know Peiser got it wrong, because he surveyed the wrong abstracts. Thats why he has the wrong number. Its all on TL's site. Also on TL's site are the ones P things are consensus-breaking, and its very clear he has categorised them wrongly. And (Ed) you have the cooling dates wrong too. Sigh William M. Connolley 21:09, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

Your only source for "Peiser is wrong" is a blogger. I found another blogger whose point of view is opposite. We should have both points of view. --Uncle Ed 14:25, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

No Ed, the source isn't the blogger, its the *facts*. Peiser got a different number of abstracts to Oreskes - this is a *fact*. Even he admits that. Why? Because he used a different search criterion. That by itself destroys his replication. The problem is that P didn't stop and think "err, why have I got the wrong number" he just assumed O was wrong. Secondly, from TL's website you can read the abstracts that P categorised, and see that he got it wrong. Thirdly, the objective difference in credibility between a paper published by Science, and one rejected, is very large William M. Connolley 15:19, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

There are links to her essay, Lambert's blog, his letter, etc, but not to that other blog. http://www.norvig.com/oreskes.html Nor to her rebuttal op-ed in The Washington Post. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A26065-2004Dec25.html I think links that add to the information (non-encyclopedic or not) are good, probably most of these don't belong inline, though.

In any case, I agree, the reader can connect the dots, but I also agree that Peiser did not recreate her study. So if the claim is she's wrong, but he has different material, it can't be used to do that. And while that essay reads more like an editorial, it's still in Science, although it doesn't seem they did anything but publish it, given the issues with it. So yes, he did not recreate the study and she's published in Science. But instead of focusing on what he did or didn't create, why not focus on the work?

Then, at least for the purposes of this discussion, we could ask exactly what the 34 abstracts show, regardless of where they came from. We could also ask if including science, social studies and arts&humanities invalidates the search, if all documents is better or worse than just articles, or if anything that comes out of industry research (versus government research and academic research) is 100% wrong no matter what. That might help write a better and more balanced discussion of this, rather than focusing on Peiser or what he did or didn't do. Just because he got it wrong doesn't mean that she got it correct.

On the point of the 34 abstracts, using a blog on the abstracts is fine, yes, but does a blog really constitute "an examination of the relevent abstracts" as verifyable? Or even better, what does a sample that is the opinion, of those people, that commented, at that blog, prove? (pro or con) It's not official, it's not published, it's not peer reviewed, it's a biased sample. I don't know what else to say about that.... --Sln3412 21:01, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Why is the blog less verifiable than Peiser? All is stuff is self-published. Are you arguing that P should be removed entirely? William M. Connolley 21:08, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Lastly, Oreskes' essay. It's not peer-reviewed, it's not more than an editorial, and it's very unreliable. I don't even know if it belongs here at all. Why unreliable?

• As published, the essay was incorrect 3 times on the search terms, 2 times as to what she even searched for, and 1 time about how she deleted abstracts from analysis (paragraph 5 and footnote 9).
• The study (read the entire paragraph 5) was trying to test the hypothesis dissenting opinions might be downplayed in the reports and statements of societies, and these abstracts don't do that, especially knowing now what she supposedly searched for (articles, in science, that had abstracts, that dealt with "(global) climate change", in that database.))
• The later, not in that article, correction was on the search terms. We don't know if the articles deleted from analysis had to be about which of the two phrases.
• The essay itself does not tell us what the search criteria is.
• Paragraph 8 starts out "...shows that scientists publishing..." and then "...among climate scientists..." And the last paragraph does this also.
• Paragraph 1, 6, 9 and 10 specifically mention "anthropogenic climate change" which is not what she searched for.

Recent changes

I'm not going to revert again today, unlike Ed "pushing the 3RR" Poor. However, I think the current version [5] is badly flawed:

1. since the 1970s, when most discussion focused on natural global cooling - this isn't really true. For a start, as the GC article makes quite clear, there was no scientifc consensus re warming or cooling - indeed, people made it wuite clear they didn't know. Also, unlike now, the level of public awareness was very low.
   • Good point. Perhaps we should make a Public opinion on climate change article. Then we can include all the loudmouths and blowhards who predicted a new ice age in the late 60s to mid 70s. --Uncle Ed 20:46, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
     • You're still missing the point. There just wasn't the level of scientific or public interest in climate then as there is now. Every week - practically every day - there is an article in the paper about GW. That wasn't true in the 70's. William M. Connolley 21:24, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
2. Since the early to mid 1990s, prominent climatologists and scientific bodies have asserted that there is a "scientific consensus" on global warming - no, this isn't true. Concern over GW has grown, but assertions of consensus were thin on the ground in the early 1990's. Everyone knew that inc CO2 would inc T, of course; but thats not the same thing.
3. This isn't the place to give the sponsorship of the IPCC - thats black-helicopter stuff. Also, why give its remit here? There is an entire IPCC article to do that
   • Sponsorship is crucial, so readers can determine whether IPCC is an objective body or not. --Uncle Ed 20:46, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
     • Then they can follow the IPCC link. You are, I fear, still on the black-helicopters. William M. Connolley 21:24, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
4. Kyoto was the result - sez who?
   • I didn't put that in (although I don't dispute it)

In short... why is the current version an improvement? William M. Connolley 18:45, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

Intro reversion

What part of this is so bad that it must be reverted to your previous version, doc?

The scientific opinion on climate change has changed considerably since the 1970s, when most discussion focused on natural global cooling. Since the early to mid 1990s, prominent climatologists and scientific bodies have asserted that there is a "scientific consensus" on global warming. ["The evidence became more and more compelling—it wasn't a coincidence that the scientific community reached a consensus on the issue in the mid-1990s.... By the late 90s, what skepticism remained generally amounted to misleading arguments that may have made for good sound bites on Crossfire but which didn't stand up to any bit of scientific scrutiny." [6] --Michael Mann, climatologist, University of Virginia]

Your buddy MM says that it wasn't untly the mid-1990s that "the scientific community reached a consensus on the issue". Surely you don't abjure his word? --Uncle Ed 16:01, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

I'm baffled. Why have you started a new section to discuss *exactly the same thing* as the section above? The answer to your Q is in the section above. William M. Connolley 17:18, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

I've reverted again per William's reasoning above. I don't see how that version is an improvement, particularly the part that implies a consensus 180 from cooling to warming, where the former had relatively no certainty at all. EWS23 (Leave me a message!) 17:32, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

Survey of US state climatologists

There's been a little back and forth on this, so I figured I would clarify some of this.

I replaced the arbitrary and insufficient designation of CSE as "an organization that lobbies against the adoption of policy measures to slow global warming" with words from the horses mouth (with "a grassroots lobby whose aim is "to fight for less government, lower taxes, and more freedom" from http://www.freedomworks.org/know/index.php). Before the change, it was like calling the UN--in its first mention in an article--"an organization that pushes for the adoption of policy measures to slow global warming." I realize that the intent is to give context to the survey, but it is colored with subjectivity. To quote a fellow editor, it smacks as "black-helicopter stuff." Since we're linking to the survey questions, surely the reader can be trusted to assess its value without our adding "color". Maybe find a better way to say it?

I also monkeyed with William M. Connolley's changes, which had the second sentence "The organization surveyed America's 48 official state climatologists of whom 36 responded" Sorry, but that's just unnecessarily awkward wording. It now reads "The organization surveyed 36 of America's 48 official state climatologists . . ." Among other things, I believe (I might be wrong) that one is not considered as having been "surveyed" if they don't respond; that would make his wording redundant. The edit I made works well.Edbanky 04:41, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

Calling them a "grassroots" organisation contradicts what their Wikipedia article says; in addition, sourcewatch calls them "a powerful industry-funded think tank, promoting deregulation...founded by Koch Industries interests and continues to maintain strong links". Their current incarnation is chaired by Dick Armey, hardly a "grassroots" activist.

Regarding the 36/48 issue - as originally phrased, the article said that they surveyed 48 state climatologists, 36 of whom replied. The current wording says that they surveyed 36 of the 48 climatologists - which means that they did not survey 12 of them. Your own wording here suggests that they surveyed all 48. Which is accurate? (And yes, if someone doesn't reply to your survey, you still surveyed them.) Guettarda 04:47, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

I can see that the "grassroots" thing might bother some. Maybe remove that, but the group's own classification as set up "to fight for less government, lower taxes, and more freedom" is accurate, and isn't as loaded. Or maybe delete the whole description of the organization. The problem is, it's inconsistent with other mentions of sources of scientific opinions, where no "qualifiers" are tacked on as color commentary. Sourcewatch as an objective source? an arm of an organization founded by "environmentalist writer and political activist John Stauber"? This is precisely why the link to the survey should stand on its own. We can play the he said/she said thing. I know the CSE isn't lobbying behind Greenpeace; the point is, the RELEVANT content is already there.

My wording suggests that they surveyed all 48? My wording says "they surveyed 36 of the 48". Can it be any clearer?Edbanky 05:44, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

I'm restoring my wording; surveyed 36 of... does indeed imply that 12 were deliberately left out, and is inexplicable. William M. Connolley 07:39, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

The "48 of whom 36 responded" is still awkward. I will try to come up with something mutually agreeable. Meanwhile, I removed a semicolon and repaired some formatting.

Part of the question is that we seem to be assuming that all 48 were interviewed, but 12 of them didn't answer questions, or something of that nature. Could someone direct us to a reference that explicitly explains that "surveyed" means "asked to participate in a questionnaire" or something similar? This is simply elementary thinking--but if I leave a shopping mall survey situation with 1 completed survey, having asked 100 people to participate, do I tell my sponsor, "Yeah, I surveyed 100 people"? I doubt it. Frankly, if that were true, wouldn't a "conservative think tank" like CSE claim that they surveyed all 48?

If others still object to the "36 of the 48" wording, perhaps I'll come up with something in the realm of "surveyed the 48 official US state climatologists. Of the 36 respondents, . . ." Really, either they surveyed 48 or 36. If 48, then we say they surveyed 48; if 36, then we say 36.Edbanky 14:52, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

Please see changes and comment.Edbanky 15:14, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

Current version is OK by me. What makes you think they were interviewed? Rather than by-post William M. Connolley 18:54, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the OK. They were contacted directly (presumably by phone), per the linked survey, which includes script instructions, such as:

(IF RESPONDENT SAY HE/SHE DOESN'T HAVE TIME, SAY: Because you are among a select group, your confidential opinions are very important to this study. When is a good time to call you back? This should only take about 15 minutes.) Edbanky 19:18, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

What about Mars?

It appears that there's data showing global warming on Mars... How much of that is due to human activity? Does Halliburton have some secret Mars base in the Face on Mars or something?

See the RC article linked from Mars William M. Connolley 20:17, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

Literature search

There's a big discrepancy between the 75% claimed by historian Oreskes and the 1.4% of scientist Lindzen.

Also, the section on Peiser is mixed up with retorts by Lambert:

Soon after, Benny Peiser, a social anthropologist, claimed to replicate the Oreskes study (but actually used a different set of abstracts [7]) and to have falsified it,[8] writing a letter to Science [9] that was rejected for publication because "the basic points of [his] letter [had] already been widely dispersed over the internet." The letter stated that only one percent of the papers explicitly endorsed the "consensus position," and that less than a third -- not three-quarters -- accept it implicitly. He also identified 34 articles which "reject or doubt the view that human activities are the main drivers of "the observed warming over the last 50 years". Critics respond that an examination of the relevant abstracts [10] shows that they do not support Pieser's claim.

It should be:

1. Peiser's findings, followed by
2. Lambert's rebuttal

What I've read about the historian's literature search indicates that she is the one who "used a different set of abstracts". Science had to publish a correction about that.

It is not clear why Science refused to publish Peiser's objections. Something about it being too long for a letter, at first. But then when he finally got it trimmed down to size, their objection changed to "No fair! You already published your objections, and we only print Original Unpublished work" (paraphrasing for discussion page)

Some advocates (not here at WP, of course) cite the refusal of Science to publish Peiser's objections as PROOF that his objections are spurious. However, if Science has a pro-GW bias, then their refusal simply provides additional evidence of their bias.

Lindzen seems to agree with Peiser, anyway.

As far as Evolution and Intelligent Design go, an argument can be made that no "serious" journal has ever published an anti-Evolution or pro-ID paper. But that makes sense, since ID objects to the materialism inherent in the Theory of Evolution.

But no such issue is involved here. --Uncle Ed 15:55, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Well Ed, thats a nice start "historian oreskes and scientist lindzen" - not trying to get in any subtle digs are you? But in fact, for literature analysis, you might be better off with a historian. Meanwhile, we're not actually relying on L - just L paraphrasing Peiser. The page here should reflect the difference between something published in Science, and something rejected, and give far greater weight to the published. Science was probbaly being polite. Look at the Lambert link, and its perfectly clear that Peisers assessment is junk - many of the 34 abstracts he claims reject the consensus do no such thing. Peiser also got the wrong set of abstracts - if he ever corrected that mistake, I haven't seen the update. Have you?

Some advocates (not here at WP, of course) cite the refusal of Science to publish Peiser's objections as PROOF that his objections are spurious. Its just a matter of verifiability, really, which is wikis criterion (not truth...). Published stuff scores higher than rejected.

William M. Connolley 16:16, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

If many of the 34 abstracts he claims reject the consensus do no such thing (but not all), that means some reject the consensus. Would you please identify these for me? If it's more than 0, this means that the historian was incorrect. --Uncle Ed 16:19, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

I guess its too much trouble for you to follow the Lambert link? As I recall, only a few could be considered as "reject", and those were all from the wrong database - Peiser included ?the social sciences? in his list of abstracts. One was an op-ed from the american petroleum geologists, who oddly enough think there is no problem. But it wasn't a paper William M. Connolley 16:30, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

I assumed the abstracts were only in a database accessible to real scientists like, you, Dr. Connolley. But I found a link here which mentions:

• Review and Impacts of Climate-change Uncertainties
• Fernau ME, Makofske WJ, South DW
• Futures 25 (8): 850-863 Oct 1993

  "More and better measurements and statistical techniques are needed to detect and confirm the existence of greenhouse-gas-induced climate change, which currently cannot be distinguished from natural climate variability in the historical record."

Tell me, do you think this is an endorsement, a "go along", or a rebuttal of the standard GW theory? --Uncle Ed 17:00, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

This is an example of an abstract that Oreskes didn't consider because it appeared in a social science journal. As previously noted, Peiser's sample was larger by about 200 abstracts as a result of including social sciences / humanities publications and non-peer reviewed materials. Dragons flight 17:29, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Also... that was 1993. It was completely consistent with the 1993 consensus anyway. For example, the 1992 IPCC supplementary report says, in the overview: ...the size of this warming is broadly consistent with predictions of climate models, but is also of the same magnitude as natural cliamte variability. Thus the observed increase could be largely due to this nat var... William M. Connolley 20:39, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, DF. That's the kind of information I can't find by googling. I assume that a climate science journal would be more interesting to our readers than a social science journal, if they're trying to get to the bottom of the GW debate. --Uncle Ed 17:45, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Why are Benny Peiser's unpublished claims discussed in this article? What makes them notable? --Denis Diderot 18:24, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Interesting point... William M. Connolley 20:39, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Ah, not all that notable, but notable. They're discussed in great detail multiple times on multiple blog sites, they've been in a number of news stories, they are a huge subject of debate here, and Dr. Oreskes even tackles this subject herself in a Washington Post op-ed. --Sln3412 21:09, 27 July 2006 (UTC)