http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,2031455,00.html">Climate scientist 'duped to deny global warming'
Ben Goldacre and David Adam
Sunday March 11, 2007
The Observer
A Leading US climate scientist is considering legal action after he says he was duped into appearing in a Channel 4 documentary that claimed man-made global warming is a myth. Carl Wunsch, professor of physical oceanography at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said the film, The Great Global Warming Swindle, was 'grossly distorted' and 'as close to pure propaganda as anything since World War Two'.
He says his comments in the film were taken out of context and that he would not have agreed to take part if he had known it would argue that man-made global warming was not a serious threat. 'I thought they were trying to educate the public about the complexities of climate change,' he said. 'This seems like a deliberate attempt to exploit someone who is on the other side of the issue.' He is considering a complaint to Ofcom, the broadcast regulator.
The film, shown on Thursday, was made by Martin Durkin. In 1997, he produced a similar series for Channel 4 called Against Nature, which attacked many of the claims of the environmental movement. Durkin said: 'Carl Wunsch was most certainly not "duped" into appearing in the film, as is perfectly clear from our correspondence with him. Nor are his comments taken out of context. His interview, as used in the programme, perfectly accurately represents what he said.'
Channel 4 said: 'We feel it is important that all sides of the debate are aired. If one of the scientists featured now has concerns about his contribution, we will look into it in the normal way.'
It is worth noting that this is
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/27/opinion/27doran.html?ex=1311652800&en=8749569e24bf5101&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss">not the first time a scientist has spoken out about the distortion of their research by these people. Peter Doran, associate professor of earth and environmental sciences at the University of Illinois at Chicago, wrote an op-ed for the New York Times about the distortion of his work by the likes of Coulter and Limbaugh:
Op-Ed Contributor
Cold, Hard Facts
By PETER DORAN
Published: July 27, 2006
IN the debate on global warming, the data on the climate of Antarctica has been distorted, at different times, by both sides. As a polar researcher caught in the middle, I’d like to set the record straight.
In January 2002, a research paper about Antarctic temperatures, of which I was the lead author, appeared in the journal Nature. At the time, the Antarctic Peninsula was warming, and many people assumed that meant the climate on the entire continent was heating up, as the Arctic was. But the Antarctic Peninsula represents only about 15 percent of the continent’s land mass, so it could not tell the whole story of Antarctic climate. Our paper made the continental picture more clear.
My research colleagues and I found that from 1986 to 2000, one small, ice-free area of the Antarctic mainland had actually cooled. Our report also analyzed temperatures for the mainland in such a way as to remove the influence of the peninsula warming and found that, from 1966 to 2000, more of the continent had cooled than had warmed. Our summary statement pointed out how the cooling trend posed challenges to models of Antarctic climate and ecosystem change.
Newspaper and television reports focused on this part of the paper. And many news and opinion writers linked our study with another bit of polar research published that month, in Science, showing that part of Antarctica’s ice sheet had been thickening — and erroneously concluded that the earth was not warming at all. “Scientific findings run counter to theory of global warming,” said a headline on an editorial in The San Diego Union-Tribune. One conservative commentator wrote, “It’s ironic that two studies suggesting that a new Ice Age may be under way may end the global warming debate.”
In a rebuttal in The Providence Journal, in Rhode Island, the lead author of the Science paper and I explained that our studies offered no evidence that the earth was cooling. But the misinterpretation had already become legend, and in the four and half years since, it has only grown.
Our results have been misused as “evidence” against global warming by Michael Crichton in his novel “State of Fear” and by Ann Coulter in her latest book, “Godless: The Church of Liberalism.” Search my name on the Web, and you will find pages of links to everything from climate discussion groups to Senate policy committee documents — all citing my 2002 study as reason to doubt that the earth is warming. One recent Web column even put words in my mouth. I have never said that “the unexpected colder climate in Antarctica may possibly be signaling a lessening of the current global warming cycle.” I have never thought such a thing either.
Our study did find that 58 percent of Antarctica cooled from 1966 to 2000. But during that period, the rest of the continent was warming. And climate models created since our paper was published have suggested a link between the lack of significant warming in Antarctica and the ozone hole over that continent. These models, conspicuously missing from the warming-skeptic literature, suggest that as the ozone hole heals — thanks to worldwide bans on ozone-destroying chemicals — all of Antarctica is likely to warm with the rest of the planet. An inconvenient truth?
Also missing from the skeptics’ arguments is the debate over our conclusions. Another group of researchers who took a different approach found no clear cooling trend in Antarctica. We still stand by our results for the period we analyzed, but unbiased reporting would acknowledge differences of scientific opinion.
The disappointing thing is that we are even debating the direction of climate change on this globally important continent. And it may not end until we have more weather stations on Antarctica and longer-term data that demonstrate a clear trend.
In the meantime, I would like to remove my name from the list of scientists who dispute global warming. I know my coauthors would as well.
Lets take a look at 2 of the prominent "skeptics" within the scientific/academic community who are dragged out and paraded every time these "documentaries" and other fallacies emerge from the right:
1)Richard Lindzen:
While his scientific credentials are certainly more impressive than those of many of the people trotted by the right,
http://dieoff.org/page82.htm">his neutrality on the subject is questionable (to put it mildly).
But while the skeptics portray themselves as besieged truth-seekers fending off irresponsible environmental doomsayers, their testimony in St. Paul and elsewhere revealed the source and scope of their funding for the first time. Michaels has received more than $115,000 over the last four years from coal and energy interests. World Climate Review, a quarterly he founded that routinely debunks climate concerns, was funded by Western Fuels. Over the last six years, either alone or with colleagues, Balling has received more than $200,000 from coal and oil interests in Great Britain, Germany, and elsewhere. Balling (along with Sherwood Idso) has also taken money from Cyprus Minerals, a mining company that has been a major funder of People for the West—a militantly anti-environmental "Wise Use" group. Lindzen, for his part, charges oil and coal interests $2,500 a day for his consulting services; his 1991 trip to testify before a Senate committee was paid for by Western Fuels, and a speech he wrote, entitled "Global Warming: the Origin and Nature of Alleged Scientific Consensus," was underwritten by OPEC. Singer, who last winter proposed a $95,000 publicity project to "stem the tide towards ever more onerous controls on energy use," has received consulting fees from Exxon, Shell, Unocal, ARCO, and Sun Oil, and has warned them that they face the same threat as the chemical firms that produced chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), a class of chemicals found to be depleting atmospheric ozone. "It took only five years to go from... a simple freeze of production ," Singer has written, ". . . to the 1992 decision of a complete production phase-out—all on the basis of quite insubstantial science." <#2>
2) Bjorn Lomborg:
Lomborg is a political scientist and one of those people put on air regularly by people like Glenn Beck who think that a PhD in political science apparently makes you an expert on climate science.
From the Wiki enty on the guy (yes Wiki, but this part is fairly well-known/documented):
Accusations of scientific dishonesty
After the publication of The Skeptical Environmentalist, Lomborg was accused of scientific dishonesty. Several environmental scientists brought a total of three complaints against Lomborg to the Danish Committees on Scientific Dishonesty (DCSD), a body under Denmark's Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation. The charges claimed that The Skeptical Environmentalist contained deliberately misleading data and flawed conclusions. Due to the similarity of the complaints, the DCSD decided to proceed on the three cases under one investigation.
DCSD investigation
On January 6, 2003 the DCSD reached a decision on the complaints.
The ruling was a mixed message, deciding the book to be scientifically dishonest, but Lomborg himself not guilty because of lack of expertise in the fields in question:
Objectively speaking, the publication of the work under consideration is deemed to fall within the concept of scientific dishonesty. ...In view of the subjective requirements made in terms of intent or gross negligence, however, Bjørn Lomborg's publication cannot fall within the bounds of this characterization. Conversely, the publication is deemed clearly contrary to the standards of good scientific practice.
The DCSD cited The Skeptical Environmentalist for:
Fabrication of data;
Selective discarding of unwanted results (selective citation);
Deliberately misleading use of statistical methods;
Distorted interpretation of conclusions;
Plagiarism;
Deliberate misinterpretation of others' results.
MSTI review
On February 13, 2003, Lomborg filed a complaint against the DCSD's decision, with the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation, which has oversight over the DSCD.
On December 17, 2003, the Ministry found that the DCSD had made a number of procedural errors, including:
The DCSD did not use a precise standard for deciding "good scientific practice" in the social sciences;
The DCSD's definition of "objective scientific dishonesty" was not clear about whether "distortion of statistical data" had to be deliberate or not;
The DCSD had not properly documented that The Skeptical Environmentalist was a scientific publication on which they had the right to intervene in the first place;
The DCSD did not provide specific statements on actual errors.
The Ministry remitted the case to the DCSD. In doing so the Ministry indicated that it regarded the DCSD's previous findings of scientific dishonesty in regard to the book as invalid. The Ministry also instructed the DCSD to decide whether to reinvestigate.
DCSD response
On March 12, 2004, the Committee formally decided not to act further on the complaints, reasoning that renewed scrutiny would, in all likelihood, result in the same conclusion.
Response of the scientific communityThe original DCSD decision about Lomborg provoked a petition among Danish academics.
308 scientists, many of them from the social sciences, criticised the DCSD's methods in the case.
Another group of Danish scientists collected signatures in support of the DCSD. The 640 signatures in this second petition came almost exclusively from the medical and natural sciences, and included Jens Christian Skou (a Nobel laureate for chemistry), former university rector Kjeld Møllgård, and professor Poul Harremoës from the Technical University of Denmark.Continued debate and criticism
The rulings of the Danish authorities in 2003-2004 left Lomborg's critics frustrated. Lomborg was jubilant, claiming vindication as a result of MSTI's decision to set aside the original finding of DCSD. But critics pointed out that Lomborg's work had not been declared scientifically valid, it merely had not been declared invalid.
A Dutch think tank, HAN, Heidelberg Appeal the Netherlands, published a report in which they claimed 25 out of 27 accusations against Lomborg to be unsubstantiated or not to the point. A group of scientists with relation to this think tank also published an article in 2005 in the Journal of Information Ethics, in which they concluded that most criticism against Lomborg was unjustified, and that the scientific community misused their authority to suppress Lomborg.
Kåre Fog
The claim that the accusations against Lomborg were unjustified was challenged in the next issue of Journal of Information Ethics by Kåre Fog, one of the original plaintiffs. Fog reasserted his contention that, despite the ministry's decision, most of the accusations against Lomborg were valid. He also rejected what he called "the Galileo hypothesis", which he describes as the conception that Lomborg is just a brave young man confronting old-fashioned opposition.
Kåre Fog has established a catalogue of criticisms against Lomborg on the Lomborg-errors web site. Fog maintains the catalogue, which includes a section for each page in each chapter in The Skeptical Environmentalist. In each section, Fog lists what he believes to be flaws and errors in Lomborg's work. Each alleged flaw is described in detail; furthermore, Fog explicitly indicates if there are any details which he believes support the interpretation that the particular error may have been made deliberately by Lomborg, in order to mislead. Lomborg has never stepped forward to refute any of Fog's accusations from the website, nor has he publically even commented on the existence of Fog's website. According to Mr. Fog, since none of his accusations of errors on Lomborg's part have been proven false, the suspicion that Lomborg has misled deliberately is maintained. Lomborg's supporters point out that responses to a small number of the 300 items have been put forward in other connections, and can be found at Mr. Lomborg's website at
http://www.lomborg.com/critique.htm.I would highly recommend
http://www.lomborg-errors.dk/examples.htm">Kare Fog's website on Lomborg, for a good insight into the kind of
http://www.lomborg-errors.dk/example2.htm">distortion this man engages in, since he is quite vocal these days.
The
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articleID=000F3D47-C6D2-1CEB-93F6809EC5880000"> Scientific American also weighed in on Lomborg's disgraceful and dishonest book.
Misleading Math about the Earth
Science defends itself against The Skeptical Environmentalist
Critical thinking and hard data are cornerstones of all good science. Because environmental sciences are so keenly important to both our biological and economic survival--causes that are often seen to be in conflict--they deserve full scrutiny. With that in mind, the book The Skeptical Environmentalist (Cambridge University Press), by Bjørn Lomborg, a statistician and political scientist at the University of Aarhus in Denmark, should be a welcome audit. And yet it isn't.
As the book's subtitle--Measuring the Real State of the World--indicates, Lomborg's intention was to reanalyze environmental data so that the public might make policy decisions based on the truest understanding of what science has determined. His conclusion, which he writes surprised even him, was that contrary to the gloomy predictions of degradation he calls "the litany," everything is getting better. Not that all is rosy, but the future for the environment is less dire than is supposed. Instead Lomborg accuses a pessimistic and dishonest cabal of environmental groups, institutions and the media of distorting scientists' actual findings. (A copy of the book's first chapter can be found at www.lomborg.org)
The problem with Lomborg's conclusion is that the scientists themselves disavow it. Many spoke to us at Scientific American about their frustration at what they described as Lomborg's misrepresentation of their fields. His seemingly dispassionate outsider's view, they told us, is often marred by an incomplete use of the data or a misunderstanding of the underlying science. Even where his statistical analyses are valid, his interpretations are frequently off the mark--literally not seeing the state of the forests for the number of the trees, for example. And it is hard not to be struck by Lomborg's presumption that he has seen into the heart of the science more faithfully than have investigators who have devoted their lives to it; it is equally curious that he finds the same contrarian good news lurking in every diverse area of environmental science.
We asked four leading experts to critique Lomborg's treatments of their areas--global warming, energy, population and biodiversity--so readers could understand why the book provokes so much disagreement. Lomborg's assessment that conditions on earth are generally improving for human welfare may hold some truth. The errors described here, however, show that in its purpose of describing the real state of the world, the book is a failure.
Then of course there are the more petty fallacies like
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Bjorn_Lomborg">claiming to have been a former Greenpeace supporter (ya know, the kind that saw the light about those evil environmentalists :eyes:) when the organization has no record of his ever having been a member:
Routinely, journalists reported that Lomborg had -- before he undertook the research for his book -- been a supporter of Greenpeace. Greenpeace has no record of Lomborg ever being actively involved in the organisation. When challenged on this point on ABC Radio National's Earthbeat Lomborg said "I'm a suburban kind of Greenpeace member, your stereotypical person who contributes and nothing else."
None of these things are new or surprising, but it is necessary to keep pointing them out as these people are going to get more vicious and persistent in their attacks on scientists and environmentalists, as the cold, hard facts get harder and harder to deny.
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