2. Many scientists don't agree on the facts about global warming

People hear that that there are many scientists and groups who don't believe that global warming is real, so there must be good reasons to doubt it.

As you might suspect, there are many special interest groups who fear that they may have something to lose if we try to solve the global warming problem, groups such as oil companies, utilities using coal, etc. Special interest groups generally try to introduce objections so they appear to come spontaneously from the general public, or from "independent" scientists who are covertly supported by the special interests. Obviously, if the real source of the objections were known, it would cause people to be suspicious of the objections. For a long time now, special interest groups have set up front organizations, who have hired scientist whose job it is is to cast doubt on global warming findings in any way possible -- including outright lies and deceptions.

The first fake citizen's group spreading lies about global warming was set up by big tobacco!
It isn't obvious why big tobacco would have any reason to oppose the science of global warming. But at least one company -- Phillip Morris -- in fact conspired to do so more than 15 years ago. The facts of this conspiracy are well documented, and unfortunately the resulting deception campaign was very successful. In fact, it appears to form the underlying basis of the continuing campaign to discredit science in general and global warming research in particular. Since this deception campaign seems poorly known in the United States, it is summarized here.

I first learned of this conspiracy from reading the book "Heat" by British journalist George Monbiot.. Monbiot reports that in 1993 Phillip Morris was trying to figure out how to best sabotage the (correct) idea that cigarette smoke caused problems for non-smokers. They decided to set up a fake citizen's group called The Advancement for Sound Science Coalition, or TASSC. To quote Monbiot (p. 32), 'their plan was to link the tobacco issue with other more "politically correct" products and to associate scientific studies which cast smoking in a bad light with broader questions about government research and regulations, such as: Global warming, nuclear waste disposal, biotechnology. ' (Italics added.)

Their idea was to cast doubt on science and mainstream scientists in general, by labeling the actual results (by the vast majority of scientists) in these areas as "junk science" and the minority positions by (one or two oil or tobacco-funded) "scientists" as "sound science." They did not hesitate to use deliberate misdirections or outright lies.

Scientists were hired to cast doubt on global warming by all means possible.
The tactics pioneered by the TASSC have been successfully continued by other groups to this day. Their first job was to change well-founded and generally accepted scientific results as "theory." One of their most crippling tactics was to have their scientists-- those covertly funded by the special interest groups -- state loudly and strongly that they did not agree with the global warming "theory." In other words, they lied. They argued against the findings that 1) CO2 concentration was increasing; 2) global temperature was increasing as a result; and 3) the increase at least in part was due to human activities. The average American today still thinks that there are important disagreements among scientists as to these basic conclusions. In fact, a 2009 poll showed 97% of climate scientists in complete agreement on all three statements. Think about how amazing it is that such a huge percentage of a large group of independent individuals actually agree on anything!

Monbiot concludes that 'TASSC..was the first and foremost of the corporate-funded organizations denying that climate change is taking place. It has done more damage to the campaign to halt it than any other body.' The really long-term damage they have done may be that they have caused a widespread and long-lasting distrust of scientists and scientific findings in general.

TASSC initially, and the front organizations since, have accomplished this task by continuing to spread lies and disseminating misleading documents. One is an infamous letter referred to by the skeptic who wrote in below, asking why "the impressive list of scientists who have signed the following letter ... to the secretary-general of the UN" has been ignored. The simple reason is that the letter is mainly fake. Many of the scientists quoted did not sign the letter, but their names have not been removed even after they have repeatedly requested so. Many of the individuals who did sign are not "scientists" in any sense of the word. Those that are scientists are not climate scientists or anyone with any actual knowledge of the subject.

Want more proof? Read more.
Further information on TASSC and operations of other covert groups can be found in many recent books: Three books are: Stephen Schneider's "Science as a Contact Sport", George Monbiot's "Heat", and the most comprehensive book focused squarely on this issue: "Climate Cover-up: The Crusade to Deny Global Warming," by Hoggan and Littlemore..

The saddest irony of all is that, for all the damage that they have done, TASSC was much more effective in casting doubt on the science behind the three other issues than on their target issue, passive smoking! At least in the US, smoking is now widely banned in work places, restaurants, even bars. Meanwhile, the "debate" about the evidence for man-induced climate change continues.

Many reporters apparently feel compelled to note that the evidence for global warming is "controversial," or that it is just a "theory," rather than stating that the overall results are accepted as established fact by the vast majority of scientists in the field.

As Wikipedia dryly understates it in the section Global Warming Controversy, "The controversy is significantly more pronounced in the popular media than in the scientific literature."

A study of the unfortunate bias in the U.S. press response to global warming is found in the 2003 peer-reviewed article by Boykoff and Boykoff "Balance as bias: global warming and the US prestige press." The four newspapers included in their investigation were the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, and the Wall Street Journal.

The quality of the debate and the mistrust of scientists hasn't been improved by the recent discovery of emails from some British scientists trying to slant their presentation of data so it would be more suggestive of climate change (see "climategate" emails). One reason that they may have done this was exactly due to the presence of "scientists" paid to oppose the facts in every way possible. The real scientists were, understandably, quite tired of the loud, persistent and bull-headed activities of professional skeptics -- people paid to be skeptical of everything the scientists presented.

For more discussion on how to decide if something is true or a hoax, how scientists determine whether something is "established fact" or not, and how an established fact can be made to appear "controversial," please see the page, Controversial Finding or Established Fact?.

DETAILS

The Wikipedia section on Global Warming Controversy summarizes the suspicious backing of the few actual scientists expressing doubt about the science of global warming.

For details about the U.N. letter, see G. Monbiot, "Heat."

If you find books on the skeptics side, before buying or believing them, check the publisher and the source of support of the author. The authors are frequently "consultants" to oil or coal companies, or front organizations for these industries.. Fully 80% of these books are published directly by organizations supported covertly by special interest groups, while most of the rest are self-published by Vanity Press publishers. (Source: special panel on Sources of Global Warming Skepticism, American Association for the Advancement of Science meeting, San Diego, 2010) Finally, note if the authors have published papers on this subject in any peer-reviewed professional publications.

COMMENTS:

February 13, 2010. Anonymous said...
I particularly found the section on "climategate" amusing. It seems like you are trying to dismiss the impact it has, and justify their actions as a necessary evil. I always thought that once a scientist has been proven to actively encourage altering their results - which as you claim "real" scientists are only concerned with the data and nothing else - to favor one outcome over another, doesn't this inherently make them biased and suggest that any conclusions based on his or her findings should be taken with a grain of salt?

I find it hard to believe that the tipping point illustration wholly justifies the recent intensities in winter weather and precipitation. We've also been told that hurricane seasons are going to gradually get worse with storms occurring more frequently and a greater average intensity. In 2009, there were 9 named storms and 3 hurricanes. This number was either far below or at the bottom of almost all predictors, and slightly below the historical average. In fact, 2005 was overactive, 2006 was completely normal, 2007 was almost normal (more depressions but no more hurricanes nor major hurricanes based on NOAA and CSU averages since 1950), and 2008 was more active. The projected severity of the seasons has almost always been grossly over-exaggerated, citing el nino and global warming as justifications for increased activity. Not surprisingly, the projections for 2010 so far are for above average activity. How can a logical conclusions be based that hurricane seasons are increasing in severity with such scattered data plots? Your justification suggests that they should be gravitating further away from average. Why are 3 of the last five years almost completely normal, and only one of those five years substantially far from the midpoint? This argument is mostly made in my ignorance on the topic and simply looking at raw data, so I apologize if a simple response is all that is necessary to refute this. I also realize the timeline is relatively short when comparing it to 1.3 millions years of climatology, but I believe it is particularly relevant since only recently have these global warming discoveries been made. Going back slightly farther to 2000, 2 of the five years between 2000 and 2005 were normal, and two of the other years were slight deviations from the norm and only one substantially far from normal. I think this only strengthens my argument.

I am not entirely against your viewpoint. In fact, quite the contrary. I have not seen enough convincing evidence to certifiably say that global warming does exist and our planet will be destroyed in 150 years if we do not stop. I do believe that we should actively pursue cleaner sources of energy and attempt to cut down on harmful emissions. That is where we both agree and I fully believe that anyone who disagrees is simply ignorant. I thoroughly enjoyed your discussion and hope to have some productive dialogue in the future.

Disclaimer: I am far from a eloquent writer. Add on top the fact that I am writing this as the time approaches 2 AM and I am sure my spelling and grammar has completely vacated the premises. My apologies ahead of time because I am simply too tired to reread and make sure my arguments are fluid and coherent. If one is incoherent, I fully encourage you to dismiss it as erroneous and not relevant.

Cheers

An Atypical Harvard Graduate

March 14, 2050. David Mills replies...
As a result of some of your legitimate comments and questions, I have since modified several of the relevant sections of the blog. It is now made clearer that it is the CO2 concentration that is the main element of concern, not the temperature per se. However, a recent map from NASA is now included which illustrates that the planet has been warmer the last decade than in previous decades. Another section makes it clearer that no single weather event -- hot or cold -- says anything at all about global warming. It takes years to establish a clear trend in the average temperature, while establishing a trend in the occurrence of extreme weather -- the variance of the weather around the average trend -- is much more difficult. The discussion of the reasons that global warming may lead to more extreme weather has been re-organized to eliminate the perception that it has anything essential to do with tipping points.

BTW. I apologize for failing to reply earlier. I am doing so now because it appears that a Cornell graduate has just posted a comment (below) possibly in reply to you, and this reminded me that I had not yet responded to your thoughtful comments.

Nice to know that you come from what we call out here the Stanford of the East -- from which you may guess where I got my Ph.D. in physics.

Feb. 13, 2010. Anonymous writes:
I certainly appreciate your views on the matter. I feel that your claim that the majority of the controversy is caused by the media and that a general consensus exists amongst scientists that global warming does exist seems slightly suspect. As I'm sure you know, using a wikipedia article as your main (and only) source of information to validate a claim such as that is preposterous. Paper-writing 101 teaches that. I do not mean to attack you personally because I believe that is incredibly counter-productive.
How would you respond to the claims of the NIPCC? Or the impressive list of scientists who have signed the following letter (found at http://www.copenhagenclimatechallenge.org/) to the secretary-general of the UN that has as of the last update fallen on deaf ears? In this letter they request observable evidence, rather than untested and unprovable computer models.
I've noticed several times you have criticized posters for "only seeing one side of the evidence". Isn't that exactly what you have done here? It seems that most of your opinions are based on one side of the information and any opposing papers are dismissed as "the media's fault", "oil-funded conspiracy theories", or something else of the like. Using your smoking analogy, you completely dismiss one of the major reasons smoking has been prohibited. It was mostly banned from establishments due to personal preference rather than other issues. While health concerns certainly played a role, it is questionable at best whether it was the driving factor of the ban.
You also blindly accuse most opposition as scientists for hire. That goes both ways. How many scientists have made a fortune doing global warming research? How many politicians have made their career advocating global warming? The most recent meeting in Copenhagen has to be the largest farce of all. 10,000 attendees flew in on their private jets and were driven around in limousines to discuss a pending disaster based on CO2 emissions. How much damage did all of those private planes and limousines do? There is a reason why the best that could be negotiated was a three page non-binding suggestion. If the evidence was overwhelmingly abundant in favor of global warming, more would have been accomplished. I realize politics plays a major role, but if the science was so matter-of-fact and our planet was going to be uninhabitable in 100 years as some of the projections suggest, there would be no choice but to change no matter the cost. Since that is not what happened, either the politicians are completely ignorant (which could be the case - they are politicians after all!) or there is enough doubt in the literature to suggest it may be a phenomenon that has been blown way out of proportion by politicians trying to make a name for himself or herself. Quintessential example: Mr. Carbon Billionaire himself - who is making a fortune off the policies he is advocating AND who's findings were challenged by the High Court of Justice (9 of them if I'm not mistaken) - flying around in his private jet by himself going from one environmental conference to another? If that isn't hypocrisy, I don't know what is.

Feb. 14, 2010. David Mills replied:
It is well-documented that the vast majority of competent scientists believe that there has been a surge of atmospheric CO2 of human origin. Monbiot, among others, has discussed extensively the list of "scientists" who appear to have signed the document you refer to, and which keeps influencing uninformed individuals. Documenting such issues is a reporter's job, not a physicist's, and I will leave that to the appropriate professionals.

I did not say that I used Wikipedia for my only source. I find it an excellent first source, however, and I tell my high school students (in physics 101) to do the same. In my fields of expertise, I find (these days) that Wikipedia provides an excellent deep review of its many subjects, and does a great job of pointing the reader to the primary references. The information you refer to was, in fact, backed up by a peer-reviewed article referenced in the same post.

Overall, I am trying, in these posts, to provide an introduction that is simpler and more focused than Wikipedia does, since it is freely available for people to follow up, but tends to be "encyclopedic" in its coverage.

In partial response to the rest of your comments: I do not think that myself, or most other people, enjoy any particular benefit from the "climate change industry." I think we would all prefer that it wasn't true, and that we could do something with our lives that was less depressing and more appreciated. Instead, we find ourselves ignored, or vilified and our motives impugned by our fellow Americans. I am, by the way, retired and do this without salary -- so I at least am not influenced by needing to please any granting organization, etc.

March 11, 2050: From his signature, it appears that Anonymous is directing his comments to the first Feb. 13 comment above, i.e., the person signing himself "an atypical Cornell grad."
As far as evidence that warming is happening -50% of the summer arctic ice pack has disappeared in the last 25 years. The data come from NASA satellites and the US Navy.

No one weather event can be pinned on climate change, its the trend in weather over time that has to be viewed. From that perspective, the predictions have been, for example, that in North America, areas that get rainfall will get more and vice versa. A couple of years back, I ran an analysis of rainfall data for the last century in Massachusetts and found that rainfall in MA has increased 10% over the last century, which is a substantial change over a very brief time period from a geological perspective. You can download the raw data yourself from the National Weather Service and analyze it in any off the shelf spreadsheet program. That's what I did.

When you look at geologic records of the amount of atmospheric CO2, you see that levels have spiked in just the last century. An instant from a geological perpsective.

The issue that has a great many scientists concerned is that we are only at the beginning of this process. The climactic system has yet to fully respond to the substantial increases in GHGs. So far, the oceans have been able to absorb CO2 but they are becoming more acidic as a result. There is a limit to how much more C02 they can absorb when that limit is reached, atmospheric levels will increase that much faster.

Climate science has predicted that warming would first appear at the poles, and that is what we see - as the arctic and sub-arctic regions warm, methane will be released from permafrost regions and the arctic ocean - and we are seeing this. It is measurable and documented.

From a geologic perspective - we are removing carbon from geologic reservoirs and deposits where it has been sequestered for the better part of 350 million years and putting a great deal of it back into the atmosphere in a matter of decades. It is not rational to think this will not have an effect on earth's climate.

At current rates of increase - levels will reach 1000 ppm in a matter of two centuries. Such concentrations have not been witnessed in the geologic record since the end of the Permian - 248 million years ago. At that time, 90% of marine life went extinct and over 70% of terrestrial life went extinct.

I think the trends are very clear and you ignore them at your peril and the peril of your children.

A typical Cornell grad.