I’m still trying to reattach my jaw after reading this op-ed published by The Wall Street Journal today. It’s shameful even by the dismal standards of that page.
In Defense of Carbon Dioxide
The demonized chemical compound is a boon to plant life and has little correlation with global temperature.
Breaking! Plants like CO2.
The numbskullery on display here was actually put best by Republican Congressman John Shimkus a few years ago:
Also, it’s false that CO2 levels have “little correlation with global temperature.”
The op-ed is written by Harrison H. Schmitt and William Happer, who are adjunct professor of engineering and a physics professor, respectively, not climate scientists.
Here are some greatest hits from their column today:
… The cessation of observed global warming for the past decade or so has shown how exaggerated NASA’s and most other computer predictions of human-caused warming have been—and how little correlation warming has with concentrations of atmospheric carbon dioxide…
There isn’t the slightest evidence that more carbon dioxide has caused more extreme weather…
For most plants, and for the animals and humans that use them, more carbon dioxide, far from being a “pollutant” in need of reduction, would be a benefit…
At the current low levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide…
Nowadays, in an age of rising population and scarcities of food and water in some regions, it’s a wonder that humanitarians aren’t clamoring for more atmospheric carbon dioxide.
War is peace and all that.
Just astonishing.
r = 0.87 for dT and ln CO2 for 1850-2011. A word to the wise. That's what correlation MEANS.
#1 Posted by Barton Paul Levenson, CJR on Thu 9 May 2013 at 04:45 PM
It is shocking to us, Ryan, but it's not to many people who don't know why the wsj is so wrong today.
And it may be a repetitve job, but someone has to explain why this disinformation is so wrong.
What is the reality, based on science, and what are the implications of that reality, based on science.
We need to be more than shocked, we need to be right and we need to be angry. If what the science says is true, we need crisis level coverage.
http://hereandnow.wbur.org/2012/11/15/wen-stephenson-climate
We need to bang that drum and repeat the facts until they become second nature.
We shouldn't be still talking about what the facts are at this point. We should be talking about "What are we doing about them?"
The reaction to the Wall Street journal needs to be "They still believe that there's no evidence that CO2 causes extreme weather? In the age of droughts, wild fires, melting glaciers, and NY hurricanes, these idiots believe that CO2 at the level they're at (highest in 650,000 years) and at the rate they're increasing (7 times faster than any previous catastrophic increases we know of) is good for us? Are they nuts?
We have to decades to get our problem under control, and we can do it, but these nuts need to be cracked. These guys, and the fossil fuel companies who pay them, aren't content to defile our oceans, rivers, and streets. They will turn the air we breath into a noose for the human species... for money."
We need to shame these people and the politians on their take. Until oil becomes an ugly word, these companies will continue to buy political support and get their people in the wsj.
They will continue to use their influence to appropriate our national heritages and crush those who get in their way:
http://ff.hrw.org/film/bidder-70?city=141
The facts are clear. The science is in. We need to embarrass the last few stragglers who've been slow to come along for believing such obvious crap.
And then we need to move on and solve the problem.
#2 Posted by Thimbles, CJR on Thu 9 May 2013 at 06:01 PM
I just read 3 or 4 of these 'Audit' columns but this Ryan Chittum person. Good grief, talk about crappy. How is this stuff considered OK for Columbia Journalism Review? If this is the future of journalism, I'm glad it's dying.
#3 Posted by Gallant, CJR on Thu 9 May 2013 at 06:25 PM
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2013/05/07/1972581/99-one-liners-rebutting-denier-talking-points-with-links-to-the-full-climate-science/
#4 Posted by Thimbles, CJR on Thu 9 May 2013 at 10:37 PM
Whoops, I was going to type more than that but I hit the wrong key.
Oh well, this gives me a chance to comment on that youtube video above and weep for humanity a little.
Christopher "Hitler Youth" Monckton (look it up) still gets hearings in front of the US government?
How many times does a guy have to get destroyed:
http://www.stthomas.edu/engineering/jpabraham/
before his buddies on the right:
http://climatecrocks.com/2012/03/23/dear-chris-potholers-open-letter-to-lord-bonckton/
stop hanging out with him? Do they not fear embarrassment?
#5 Posted by Thimbles, CJR on Thu 9 May 2013 at 11:14 PM
Ryan, I don't know who wrote the "hits rock bottom" headline but I am in awe of the optimism reflected in it.
#6 Posted by Weldon Berger, CJR on Fri 10 May 2013 at 12:15 AM
Be sure and read the comments on the article to which Ryan provides a link.
Maybe the WSJ should be more like the NY Times, and run ditsy columns rehashing the ordeal of Mitt Romney's dog, or (as in yesterday's product) the career of Mark Sanford seen through the lens of his 'Appalachian Trail' episode.
A few years ago, NPR and House Democrats ridiculed a mathematician who testified that Al Gore's famous 'hockey stick' diagram on global warming was, mathematically, nonsense on stilts. The reason for the ridicule? The witness was a mathematician, not a 'climate scientist'. As if you had to be a climate scientist to spot math errors in a climate science dissertation, you see.
#7 Posted by Mark Richard, CJR on Fri 10 May 2013 at 12:48 PM
"A few years ago, NPR and House Democrats ridiculed a mathematician who testified that Al Gore's famous 'hockey stick' diagram on global warming was, mathematically, nonsense on stilts. The reason for the ridicule? The witness was a mathematician, not a 'climate scientist'."
"A friend of a friend heard from a guy on the bus who's a major scientist that Al Gore is fat and therefore global warming is false."
It's just too hard to give a name or a link or any context whatsoever, ain't it Mark.
#8 Posted by Thimbles, CJR on Fri 10 May 2013 at 02:22 PM
Wow Thimbles, your attack is kind of incredible. You just attacked Mark for not providing names or context. Really?
Yet you didn't make that complaint against Ryan Chittum, and Ryan, not Mark, is the one on hear claiming to be writing journalism.
Chittum went so far as to re-post what he titled the "greatest hits," then had the nerve to say "just astonishing" and leave; without making any effort whatsoever to provide facts showing why the "greatest hits" were astonishing. That sure is a cushy job.
This page has been a fabulous microcosm of why the climate deniers hang on. Alleged journalists are too unprofessional to simply provide scientific facts to inform the reader. Instead they fall on arrogant cuteness like "war is peace" or "one liners to attack climate deniers." These things have the effect that any college psychology student knows they are going to have: they drive away the readers, instead of convincing them.
To paraphrase an earlier commenter, if "attack without facts" is the future of journalism (and/or journalism schools), then I applaud its looming death.
#9 Posted by Joseph, CJR on Sat 11 May 2013 at 02:46 PM
I see Ryan Chittum is a former Wall Street Journal reporter. Could there be some tie-in between the quality of this article and his no longer being in their employ?
#10 Posted by Bob K, CJR on Sat 11 May 2013 at 05:34 PM
"Wow Thimbles, your attack is kind of incredible. You just attacked Mark for not providing names or context. Really?
Yet you didn't make that complaint against Ryan Chittum, and Ryan, not Mark, is the one on hear claiming to be writing journalism."
Actually, that was the point I was driving at with Ryan's piece. If it didn't come across, that might have been because I was going on 12 hours sleep spaced between 4 days (it's been a busy month) or it may have been because the text didn't carry the voice I was speaking with in my critique or it may have been because I softened my critique a bit since Ryan did put one link to some background information (the skeptical science link), but what prompted me to initially write was that we have to do more than list what's wrong from bad journalism/climate science, we need to explain why it's wrong and what needs to be done to make it right.
We need to inform the public about the facts, the options, and the opposition. What Ryan did was a good start, calling out the bad journalism, but more was needed than 'a list of the greatest hits'.
Mark, on the other hand, didn't bother putting in one link or an ounce of solid information. He made his innuendo and snuck out. We have no way of knowing exactly what he was talking about, therefore we have no means to evaluate the validity of his accusations.
Ryan's work was flawed, but at least he shared his sources. Mark likes simple stories. His worldview rests upon the simple stories uneducated people tell each other. It's up to us to demand the background we need to establish whether they're true since the people who follow Mark's world view already accept them as dogma.
They never ask for truth of their own tribe.
More later, gotta run.
#11 Posted by Thimbles, CJR on Sat 11 May 2013 at 10:01 PM
I'm back:
"These things have the effect that any college psychology student knows they are going to have: they drive away the readers, instead of convincing them."
Unfortunately climate issues are hard to communicate. There are barriers to these ideas in how we think of the natural world ("It's infinite, we're small, how can we affect the world?"), how we think of our own lives ("The earth may not like my combustion engine car, but I've got to get to work tomorrow. Sorry earth."), how we think about timescales ("We'd should do something about climate change someday, but not this year. Or the next. Or the next. We've got time."), and how we think about change ("Changing how we live is expensive and painful."). These are not hard barriers to overcome once you realize they're there and you stop tripping on them.
We are 7 billion people and growing. Our planet is not. Our current way is highly destructive to the world and the people on it. We need change.
We don't need to change your life right now to cut carbon. Start the fight at the fossil utilities. Start the fight by getting governments to invest in renewable utilities.
We need to do something right now.
We can change. It is not expensive . It is not painful. It is different.
Couple of articles on climate psychology which you should all right before bedtime:
http://www.csc.noaa.gov/digitalcoast/_/pdf/CRED_Psychology_Climate_Change_Communication.pdf
Remember, the Center for Research on Environmental decisions is hosted at Columbia U.
http://www.climateaccess.org/sites/default/files/Markowitz_Climate%20Change%20and%20Moral%20Judgement.pdf
We need to change our moral momentum before we can change our climactic one.
#12 Posted by Thimbles, CJR on Sun 12 May 2013 at 04:35 AM
To Thimbles, I'm not sitting up until 4:35 a.m. writing rambling posts with (usually irrelevant) hyperlinks. But a grand total of about 60 seconds (going to NPR's website, typing 'hockey stick' into the 'Search' field) indicated that the hearing which I remember took place in 206, and the witness was a Prof. Wegman, a statistician.
#13 Posted by Mark Richard, CJR on Mon 13 May 2013 at 12:44 PM
Sorry, typo - the hearing took place in 2006.
#14 Posted by Mark Richard, CJR on Mon 13 May 2013 at 12:47 PM
"To Thimbles, I'm not sitting up until 4:35 a.m. writing rambling posts with (usually irrelevant) hyperlinks."
So... what's your point? Got any substance in there, or are you just hoping 'Humph, check out the freak who bothers to make his case at 4 in the morning,' is enough to walk out on?
Sorry for having a life that I need to post around, I guess. Didn't know the time I get up was germane.
"Prof. Wegman"
See, before you could have been referencing anybody. And I could have said a bunch of stuff about someone specific and you would be able to say, "that wasn't who I was talking about, you 4 in the morning freak!"
But now people can look up your story and verify its details.
Ooo. And what details there are:
http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/weather/climate/globalwarming/2010-11-21-climate-report-questioned_N.htm
http://deepclimate.org/2010/09/26/strange-scholarship-wegman-report/
There's a little more to your story than "Wegman's not a paid up member of our climate club!"
You must have known that though, amirite?
#15 Posted by Thimbles, CJR on Mon 13 May 2013 at 03:09 PM
Wegman is a paid up member of Their anti-climate club., who tried to kickstart a vanity press journal to make life easier for energy lobbyists in need of a respectable peg for their press releases, but who came a cropper when his minions were caught indulging in serial plagiarism to pad its pages .
K-Street long ago discovered tabloid science , and has been commisioning cant from the pens of scientist for hire ever since.
#16 Posted by Russell Seitz, CJR on Mon 13 May 2013 at 05:40 PM
How climate progress handled this:
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2013/05/13/1994871/not-the-onion-wall-street-journal-hits-rock-bottom-with-inane-op-ed-urging-more-atmospheric-carbon-dioxide/
Sure the Journal‘s editorial page has long been part of the effort to advance the pollutocrat do-nothing agenda (see Scientist: “The Murdoch Media Empire Has Cost Humanity Perhaps One or Two Decades in Battle Against Climate Change”).
But this piece is a new low. “It’s shameful even by the dismal standards of that page,” as Columbia Journalism Review puts its in their piece, “The WSJ editorial page hits rock bottom.”
The entire piece is devoted to one of the most risible logical fallacies pushed by the deniers — that because CO2 stimulates plant growth, lots more CO2 must be great for plants. It’s like arguing that because humans need water to live, floods must be a great thing."
I like the flavor of this piece, and there's a lot of good science discussed and linked to for you to digest.
That's the kind of response we need to see out there.
#17 Posted by Thimbles, CJR on Mon 13 May 2013 at 08:46 PM
"A few years ago, NPR and House Democrats ridiculed a mathematician who testified that Al Gore's famous 'hockey stick' diagram on global warming was, mathematically, nonsense on stilts."
Well now we know Wegman is worthy of ridicule since he can't seem to write a paper without copy/pasting Wikipedia - basic errors and all within.
So let's talk about Al Gore's "nonsense on stilts" chart, which is actually Michael Mann's but hey... details.
http://grist.org/climate-energy/the-most-controversial-chart-in-history-explained/
The hockey stick was repeatedly attacked, and so was Mann himself. Congress got involved, with demands for Mann’s data and other information, including a computer code used in his research. Then the National Academy of Sciences weighed in in 2006, vindicating the hockey stick as good science...
In the meantime, those wacky scientists kept doing what they do best — finding out what’s true. As Mann relates, over the years other researchers were able to test his work using “more extensive data sets, and more sophisticated methods. And the bottom line conclusion doesn’t change.” Thus the single hockey stick gradually became what Mann calls a “hockey team.” “If you look at all the different groups, there are literally about two dozen” hockey sticks now, he says...
http://youtu.be/HZWQtjrgcqg
Indeed, two just-published studies support the hockey stick more powerfully than ever. One, just out in Nature Geoscience, featuring more than 80 authors, showed with extensive global data on past temperatures that the hockey stick’s shaft seems to extend back reliably for at least 1,400 years. Recently in Science, meanwhile, Shaun Marcott of Oregon State University and his colleagues extended the original hockey stick shaft back 11,000 years. “There’s now at least tentative evidence that the warming is unprecedented over the entire period of the Holocene, the entire period since the last ice age,” says Mann."
#18 Posted by Thimbles, CJR on Tue 14 May 2013 at 12:27 AM
Some information on the effects of increased CO2 on plant growth. This is extracted from the popsci New Scientist; Hogy and Fangmeir (both University of Hohenheim) ...changes in the wheat grains, including an 8 per cent drop in iron and a 14 per cent increase in lead...drop in protein...wheat grown under high-carbon conditions was worth less money, with smaller grains that are harder to sell for good prices and different dough properties due to the changed protein composition... Ros Gleadow of Monash University in Melbourne, Australia, who recently reported rising cyanide levels in cassava, says that plants such as eucalyptus respond to rising CO2 levels by making more defensive chemicals, which may make the plants a worse food source for farm animals and wildlife...
#19 Posted by Anonymous, CJR on Sat 18 May 2013 at 06:49 PM
Some good info on CO2 versus temperature: an AGU lecture by Dr. Richard Ailey. Warning: it's full of science, so if your climate views are based on talking points you might find it uncomfortable to watch.
http://www.agu.org/meetings/fm09/lectures/lecture_videos/A23A.shtml
#20 Posted by garhighway, CJR on Mon 3 Jun 2013 at 06:32 PM