[hzzn]

It's odd to hear all this victory hooting over a single hyperbolic prediction with so many glaciers in retreat all over the world (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retreat_of_glaciers_since_1850). Ah, but I suppose every claim on the page linked above is also attributable to equally bad science, or perhaps the citations were merely planted there by members of the Shadowy Underworld Global Climate Change Cabal.

[alexgartrell]

I feel that, if this were the only article showing failures on the part of climate scientists, there would be no victory hooting. However, every week there's a new story about these scientists employing suspicious science to arrive at more profitable [1] conclusions. I don't know that victory hooting is necessary here, but a certain amount of "WTF?"ing is definitely called for. Whether or not global warming is a real and man-made phenomenon (vs. a natural cycle or just overinflated numbers), it's important to call attention to the fact that someone is more or less pissing on our leg and telling us it's raining.

I maintain though, as I always have, that the reduction of carbon dioxide waste is a POSITIVE aim as is anything seeking to minimize the effect of ourselves on our environment. The only things I'm calling into question are the tactics currently being employed. If this data-munging is a universal thing, I'd argue that the ends do not warrant the means. This should be a scientific debate, not an emotional one (as it has become).

[1] I say profitable because it's hard for contrarians to get grant money as they are generally believed to be 'quacks'.

[Padraig]

>Whether or not global warming is a real and man-made phenomenon

Well, hang on, the article identifies an an erroneous prediction about the impact of man made climate change. It's a bit of a jump you're making from there to "global warming isn't real" or "the tons of carbon we're emitting aren't what's causing the raise in temperature we're seeing".

[dejb]

> I say profitable because it's hard for contrarians to get grant money as they are generally believed to be 'quacks'.

The energy sector and other carbon emitters would have enough available money to make the government grant money look like small change. Imagine how much it would be worth to them to discredit man made global warming. I'm sure they do fund many of the contrarians one way or another. But the fact that they aren't able to fund reputable research that supports their position really does say something about how quacky the contrarians are regarded as being.

[Padraig]

Indeed. Here's an example of it:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2007/feb/02/frontpagen...

[alexgartrell]

The difference is one is ethically shady (ignoring tree-ring data from 'arguably invalid' time periods), and the other is morally reprehensible (being paid off by corporate goons).

[Tichy]

A lot of people are involved, so some of them make errors from time to time. So far I haven't really heard anything shocking, just nitpicking about details.

[dschobel]

The issue is not that a few people are making innocent mistakes, it's the organizations (the UN in this case) which are entrusted to lead research into this which are doing it.

These are the same organizations who are cited as the "scientific consensus" to deflect criticism and debate.

[Tichy]

Even so I am not convinced it is so shocking. Take the guy who dismissed questions about the melting of the glaciers. Was he involved in actually writing the report? When was the question posed to him? Perhaps it was just some inpatient moment when he was tired of silly questions, so he dismissed whatever was thrown at him. Maybe he just decided to trust his staff, and was let down. Or whatever.

Were the glaciers the main point of the report, or just a footnote? Probably there was a lot of information in it, so the people who wrote it eventually got sloppy with fact checking.

Also, isn't science about double-checking? I would have thought that melting of glaciers would be easy to measure via satellite imagery.

Errors always happen - they should be corrected, maybe even organizations and procedures should be restructured. But it isn't shocking.

Maybe I just don't have some grand illusions about science, as others seem to (still) have. But somehow the whole thing still lurches forward, just like the big corporations that seem as if nothing should ever be possible to get done.

[dschobel]

Why are you focusing on whether or not it is shocking?

It is deceptive and wrong, regardless of your emotional reaction to it.

[Tichy]

Shocking as in not such a big deal, in the greater scheme of things (this subthread was about victory hooting).

Not that I want to excuse sloppyness (was it deception, really). Maybe heads should roll. But still I am not sure why I should care much?

[randallsquared]

members of the Shadowy Underworld Global Climate Change Cabal.

...because pretending that a group you don't like are conspiracy nuts makes them wrong.

If you're trying to correct misinformation, it's probably not most effective to make some more up and throw it into the fray.

[ubernostrum]

Unfortunately, to draw an admittedly-loaded parallel, the anti-AGW movement is basically running the playbook of Holocaust deniers, whose preferred methodology is, in a nutshell, to drag some 90-year-old's memories out, say "AH-HA! You said this happened at 3:30 on April 12, but the camp's log says it happened at 3:42! Therefore the entire Holocaust never happened and was made up by the Jewish banking conspiracy!"

It's not any prettier when it's used to argue against climate change.

[varjag]

To quote the article:

"Rajendra Pachauri, the IPCC chairman, has previously dismissed criticism of the Himalayas claim as "voodoo science".

You have to give it to him though, he didn't play Holocaust denier card at least.

[ubernostrum]

The article also points out, though it's lost in sensationalism, that the core of the dispute is not whether the glaciers are melting, but how quickly they're melting. The anti-AGW folks will probably turn this on its head into a claim that no glaciers are melting, which is -- as I've noted -- the same methodology used by a known-dodgy group and just as invalid in this case as it is in others.

[tokenadult]

the core of the dispute is not whether the glaciers are melting, but how quickly they're melting.

Most glaciers melt at the margins, seasonally. Most glaciers refreeze somewhere, seasonally. Glaciers don't form at all at sea level at the equator, and haven't for a long, long time, but that hasn't stopped glaciers from forming elsewhere. As I experience an exceptionally snowy and gelid Minnesota winter (I have lived in temperate Minnesota or Wisconsin every winter of my life but for about six when I lived in subtropical Taiwan), I'm not seeing any radical climate change here yet, and the current weather pattern could hardly be called "warm" even on the historical pattern observed in my lifetime.

Weather varies all over the world. Climate change over broad historical time and especially over deep geological time is an established fact, but also has nothing to do with human activity. It's not entirely clear that the trade-offs of anthropogenic global warming, a phenomenon I accept as a fact, are all harmful trade-offs or even mostly harmful trade-offs for the majority of the human population.

[varjag]

Thing is, that crowd is not some cookie-cutter denier as often portrayed by their opponents. You have everything from cranky old farts to industry lobbyists (tobacco-company style) to actual scientists with substantial arguments. Just as the pro-GW side is also actual scientists, industry/political lobbyists and a bunch of tree-hugger liberal arts students who'd be hard pressed to name a difference between CO2 and H2O :)

[davidw]

We have a Godwin here!

Does that mean we can get rid of the stupid climate change articles and talk about something we actually know about and participate in, like hacking and startups?