What debate?


Why the global warming arguments look more and more like propaganda
Nick Schulz puts his finger on a problem.

The newspaper levels a serious charge - in effect that scientists were offered bribes by AEI. Any time a news organization levels an accusation this grave, it is incumbent upon it that the claims are fair and accurate. But the inaccuracies in this article appear right off that bat.

For starters, the article claims that AEI is a "lobby group." But it is no such thing. It is a research organization that is expressly prohibited by law from lobbying.

The author of the article, Ian Sample takes several quotes out of context. He claims the scientists were "offered... payments for articles that emphasise the shortcomings of a report from the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)." I know many of the folks at AEI and write a column for a magazine they publish and was surprised to hear this charge. So I asked around and received a copy of the letter containing the offer. As it turns out, this claim is wildly off base.

The call for papers by AEI explicitly states that "The purpose of this project is to highlight the strengths and weaknesses of the IPCC process, especially as it bears on potential policy responses to climate change." Nowhere does Sample mention AEI asks participants to speak of the IPCC's strengths.

Sample also writes that AEI sought "essays that 'thoughtfully explore the limitations of climate model outputs.'" That makes it sound like they are offering money to undermine the IPCC's reliance on climate models. But in a letter to one of the scientists interviewed by the Guardian, the call for papers said "In particular, we are looking for an author who can write a well-supported but accessible discussion of which elements of climate modeling have demonstrated predictive value that might make them policy-relevant and which elements of climate modeling have less levels of predictive utility, and hence, less utility in developing climate policy." Sample does not mention the requests also sought to highlight the predictive value of the models. The letters are available online here and readers can assess them for themselves.

Sample rounds out his attack by publishing a quote from a Greenpeace activist who likened AEI to "Cosa Nostra." This characterization follows on the heels of other green groups suggesting those participants in the climate change debate with whom they disagree should face Nuremburg trials.

The now frequent resort to ad hominems - calling people with differing views mobsters and Nazis - is a hallmark of ideological thuggery. 

This latest attack fits into a pattern, one that is part of a creeping climate of hostility to free inquiry over questions of science and public policy. This should be troubling to scientists, journalists and politicians. The attempt is to cut off debate by questioning a person's motives. It's an example of what economist Arnold Kling calls "Type M" as opposed to "Type C" arguments. Type M arguments aren't really arguments at all - they are attacks on a person's alleged motives. Type C arguments are genuine as they wrestle with the consequences of certain policies. At the intersection of science and public policy, we are seeing more instances of people resorting to Type M arguments to cut off questioning and inquiry.

For all the noise about "the debate is over," I haven't seen any real answers to my four questions. All I have seen time and time again is attempts to discredit the critics.

The science isn't even in the debate. As this article from the Boston Globe shows.

By every measure, the U N 's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change raises the level of alarm. The fact of global warming is "unequivocal." The certainty of the human role is now somewhere over 90 percent. Which is about as certain as scientists ever get.

I would like to say we're at a point where global warming is impossible to deny. Let's just say that global warming deniers are now on a par with Holocaust deniers, though one denies the past and the other denies the present and future.

<snip>

This great divide comes from the science-be-damned-and-debunked attitude of the Bush administration and its favorite media outlets. The day of the report, Big Oil Senator James Inhofe of Oklahoma actually described it as "a shining example of the corruption of science for political gain." Speaking of corruption of science, the American Enterprise Institute, which has gotten $1.6 million over the years from Exxon Mobil, offered $10,000 last summer to scientists who would counter the IPCC report.

Odd how the associations of the critics are vitally important, while the "good guys" are never questioned.

I still want to see the science debated.

— NeoWayland

Posted: Fri - February 9, 2007 at 03:01 PM  Tag


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