Climate Dogma lets Faith Trump Facts at the NCSE

What a mess the National Center of Science Education (NCSE) has gotten into.  They abandoned their own stated objectives of encouraging good science in schools when they jumped on the Carbon Dioxide Crisis bandwagon.  They hired Peter Gleick, just weeks before his demented alarmism and fantasies about the opposition to it drove him to crime, and they had to 'let him go'.  Now they seem to have hired another polemicist in his place, a Mark McCaffrey politely described by Patrick Frank as 'not particularly trained in climate science itself, but distinctly trained to promulgate his views about it.'  Last year,  they published an article in an in-house journal which is remarkable only for its intellectual depravity.  It is by an astronomer called David Morrison, apparently quite a distinguished one.  (We have had one of those in the UK heading up the Royal Society, and what an unhinged mess of neuroses and alarmism he provided us with, - see this report about Sir Martin Rees' views  'The human race has only a 50/50 chance of surviving another century').

WUWT has a letter by Patrick Frank which he tried but failed to get published in the NCSE journal.  The WUWT guest spot also provides the background leading up to this publication.  Please see the whole post there for more details.  I think it is instructive to compare and contrast the styles and the contents of the article by Morrison (pdf) and the letter by Frank.  I reproduce some extracts from the letter here - where all the emboldening is by me:

'When is Purported Science not Science?
by Patrick Frank

In his excellent book, “Galileo,” [1] Stillman Drake points out Galileo’s very modern understanding of science praxis, writing, “In his book on Hydrostatics, Galileo remarked that the authority of Archimedes was worth no more than the authority of Aristotle; Archimedes was right, he said, only because his propositions agreed with experiments.”

...
 In a recent NCSE Reports, Dr. David Morrison wrote an essay [4] about “Science Denialism,” which was one long effort to equate evolution deniers with AGW skeptics (Anthropogenic Global Warming).  There was very little science in Dr. Morrison’s essay.  Here’s most of it: “Climate models are indeed complex, and they do not always agree on details such as the timing of future warming. However, the evidence for warming is empirical, and its future trends are anchored in basic physics, such as the greenhouse effect and the heat capacity of the oceans.”

Those cognizant of meaning in science will immediately see the weakness of Dr. Morrison’s position: he grants causal meaning to climate warming while admitting the absence of a climate theory. The evidence for warming is certifiably empirical. But the meaning of that warming can come only from a falsifiable theory that makes unique predictions about climate. Is the warming due to the extra atmospheric CO2, or not? No amount of empirical data shuffling can answer that question.

...

Let’s take a short look at climate models. They do much less than, “do not always agree on [the] details” of future climate. They do not ever agree with the realities of past climate. For example, Demetris Koutsoyiannis and his group evaluated the advanced general circulation climate models (GCMs) used in the 2007 Fourth Assessment Report issued by the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change). [5, 6] The IPCC used these GCMs to “retrodict” 100 years of 20th century climate, at all the points on a global grid. The reproduced trend in global average temperature looked great. As it should do because GCM climate models are adjusted to reproduce the known global average temperature. [7]
But the Koutsoyiannis group used the IPCC’s gridded 20th century global climate to reconstruct what these climate models said about the 20th century temperature record of the continental US. The GCM climate models got it very wrong. They also used the GCM retrodiction to reconstruct the 20th century temperature and precipitation records at 58 locations around the world. The reconstructions failed badly on comparison with the real data. This is a basic test of GCM reliability of that no one thought to carry out during 20 years of climate alarm; climate alarm ostensibly made credible by those very GCMs. Climate models cannot reproduce the known climate. Why should anyone believe they can reliably predict an unknown climate?

Dr. Morrison mentioned that climate models do not get clouds right, and then quickly dismissed this problem as irrelevant. But tropical and subtropical clouds strongly affect the amount of energy retained by the atmosphere. [8] Clouds have a net cooling effect on Earth. [9, 10] I evaluated the GCM cloud error as reported by the scientists of the “Coupled Model Intercomparison Project,” and found that the GCM cloud error, averaged over the globe, was at least ±10.1 %. [11]

This cloud error translated into a GCM error of at least ±2.8 Watts/m2 in energy. That ±2.8 Watts/m2 error equals all the extra forcing by all the extra greenhouse gases liberated into the atmosphere during the entire 20th century. That is, GCM cloud error alone equals ±100% of the increased “greenhouse effect.” It doesn’t take a very astute person to realize that when the error is as large as the effect, the effect itself becomes undetectable.

The scientists who use GCM projections to predict future climate do not take cloud error into account. Competent scientists would propagate that error into their predictions. But climate modelers do not. Neither does the IPCC. Propagating the cloud error would show that the growth of error quickly makes climate predictions no better than a random guess. [11]  GCMs can’t predict the global temperature even one year ahead, much less 10 years or 100 years. But Dr. Morrison tells us that’s irrelevant, because rising CO2 is enough all by itself to certify a catastrophically disrupted climate.

Remember the criterion of science? Only falsifiable predictions yield the meaning of observations. Climate models do not give falsifiable predictions, especially not at the resolution of CO2-forcing. Therefore, they can give no causal meaning to increased atmospheric CO2. They cannot explain the warming climate. They can not predict the future climate. The observation of rising atmospheric CO2, alone, is not enough to certify anything except a rising level of atmospheric CO2. Knowing causality and predicting outcomes requires a falsifiable theory. Dr. Morrison hasn’t one, and neither does anyone else. Those who predict torrid climate futures literally do not know what they’re talking about. But that hasn’t stopped them from talking about it anyway. Dr. Morrison’s position on climate is indistinguishable from an intuitive alarm grounded in subjective certainties.

Like the wages of sin among the believers.

....'
(See the original, linked to above,  for the complete version (well worth reading in its entirety) and for references.)

This brings me back to our very own Martin Rees, and the report (link above) on his doom-mongering which includes this:

'The Book of Revelation presents its own, hair-raising, account of the end of the world: "And, lo, there was a great earthquake; and the sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and the moon became as blood; And the stars of heaven fell unto the earth." 

His fellow knight and fellow alarmist, Sir John Houghton would have loved that.  More on his Evangelical Climate Initiative here and here and here.  The last reference includes this :

'

'But he thought little about climate change until 2002, when he attended a conference on the subject and heard a leading British climate scientist, Sir James Houghton, who was also a prominent evangelical. “You could only call the process a conversion,” Cizik said. “I reluctantly went to the conference, saying ‘I’ll go, but don’t expect me to be signing on to any statements.’ Then, for three days in Oxford, England, Houghton walked us through the science and our biblical responsibility. He talked about droughts, shrinking ice caps, increasing hurricane intensity, temperatures tracked for millennia through ice-core data. He made clear that you could believe in the science and remain a faithful biblical Christian. All I can say is that my heart was changed. For years I’d thought, ‘Well, one side says this, the other side says that. There’s no reason to get involved.’ 

But the science has become too compelling. I could no longer sit on the sidelines.  I didn’t want to be like the evangelicals who avoided getting involved during the civil rights movement and in the process discredited the gospel and themselves.”

One day during the conference, Houghton took Cizik on a walk in the gardens of Blenheim Palace, Winston Churchill’s ancestral home. It was a lovely day, sunny and bright. Houghton said, “Richard, if God has convinced you of the reality of the science and the Scriptures on the subject then you must speak out.” 

The science of alarm about CO2 is, of course, far from compelling.  But my goodness, treating it as if it were sure does suit a lot of influential people. Patrick Frank's letter is another small step on the way to exposing that faith as not only ill-founded, but in practice extremely damaging to society.  If teachers continue to push it, then it may well be left to their pupils, as they gain in wisdom and skills for critical review, to react against the conditioning they have endured for year after year after year.  Christianity has much to commend it as a religion of compassion, but it too will be damaged in the backlash over the deceptions and the sufferings imposed by those who claim to be acting in its name, and by those on the left for whom it has been a decidedly secular opportunity (e.g. see here and here), and by those more extreme still for whom it has been an ideal vehicle for their inhumanity (e.g. see here or here).

.

Note added later on 27 March 2012.  I just came across this comment on a blog post by 'klem', whichsupports the notion of a backlash led by children:

'This is typical of teachers, they are major contributors to ACC alarmism. They don’t realize that it is backfiring. I know a lot of children in their early teens and pre-teen age that completely reject ACC. They accept climate change but not the anthropogenic version. You might think that they have been indoctrinated perhaps at school, but nope, you’d be wrong. All of them go to liberal public schools which have been showing “An Inconvenient Truth’ over and over with no opposing films or opinions, the teachers openly blame humans for climate change, they ridicule any opposing views from their students, as a result most of the students have had enough and reject it all. I have been an environmentalist since 1970, and I have never seen anything like this. I have been saying for years, ACC will kill the environmental movement in the end. And now I’m seeing how. There is a whole new generation of kids who will not fill the ranks of the green movement in the future. They reject environmentalism. This is a disaster in the making. And teachers are going to take the blame.'

Memo to Education Scotland: Stop Brainwashing our Children with One-Sided State Propaganda on Climate Change

 Quote 1 'Children should not be overfed with one particular view of this ['climate change'].  It is far too complicated for that.'

Quote 2 ' ...it is brainwashing our children.'

Quote 1 is by Professor Tony Trewavas of Edinburgh University.  Quote 2 is by Martin Livermore, of the UK Scientific Alliance.  Both quoted in this article in the Scottish Daily Mail on 24th March, 2012 (hat-tip: Stuart Crawford, media commentator):

Education Scotland is an agency of the Scottish Government, a government which has produced absurd legislation on climate, and committed to absurd targets on renewable energy, thereby leading the way in sub-scientific foolishness.  The facade of scientific justification is easily exposed, but not by children.  They tend to trust what the adults tell them, and hence have long been a clearly identified target for eco-propagandising by the zealots who are intent on telling others how to live.  The Royal Societies of Edinburgh and London have failed to defend the wider society from such manipulation and shoddy extrapolation from unconfirmed speculations about the importance of CO2 in the climate system, and so it is all the more refreshing to see a member of the Edinburgh Royal Society taking a more informed, a more independent, and indeed a more civilised approach on climate matters.

This is especially encouraging and important given the recent announcement of a concordat amongst the major political parties in Scotland in support of the preposterous 'climate change targets' of the Scottish government.  This announcement has been noted and commented upon at Bishop Hill , where it is deemed 'somewhat reminiscent of the Soviet Union'.





Note added 20 Mar 2019.  Education Scotland being noticed internationally for their shameless promotion of junk science and scare stories in schools:
'Educational materials often don’t help, either. One officially endorsed geography textbook in the United Kingdom suggests that global warming will be worse than famine, plague, or nuclear war, while Education Scotland has recommended The Day After Tomorrow as suitable for climate-change education. This is the film, remember, in which climate change leads to a global freeze and a 50-foot wall of water flooding New York, man-eating wolves escape from the zoo, and – spoiler alert – Queen Elizabeth II’s frozen helicopter falls from the sky.'
https://www.interest.co.nz/opinion/98628/decades-climate-change-exaggeration-west-have-produced-frightened-children-febrile?page=1

Earth Day Climate Propaganda: Stuff the Data, Stuff the Science, Stuff the Panda - hey kids, look at that cute Panda!

Ross-Shire Journal

These children from a rural school in Scotland have been encouraged to switch lights off on 31st March, in order to 'support people and wildlife threatened by climate change'.

It is not difficult to spot the political campaigners who are coaching them in this nonsense.  And a regional council is on-board too, claiming that it 'hopes the effort will make people think about the energy they use, where it comes from and the impact that has on the environment and climate change.'
 (Source: Ross-Shire Journal)


Of course, the council and WWF are busy scheming to make that energy more expensive and less reliable thanks to the windfarms that are popping up in their territory to destroy wildlife, industrialise wild places, and discourage visitors and sensible industries from going anywhere near there.  Meanwhile, it is quite disgraceful that wealthy, un-accountable, biased, scaremongering, self-serving schemers like WWF have been allowed such access and influence on those youngsters.

This tiny example can no doubt be replicated in many thousands of locations worldwide, and this gives us a hint as to the extent of the  targeting of children by ruthless campaigners who will no doubt claim that they are protecting 'the world', or at least the Pandas if not the People.

The campaigners may well protect their Pension Plans by such actions, but I fear they may be bringing nought but harm to both People and Pandas, and for that matter, to Progress itself.

Note added 27 March 2012.  Earth Hour is no piece of fluffy symbolism dreamt up by nice but ill-informed people.  Instead
'Earth Hour was brought into this world by corporations
Launched in Sydney, Australia in 2007 there was never anything grassroots or shoestring about it. There’s no history of penniless activists toiling in obscurity, working their fingers to the bone, hoping against hope to attract attention to their cause.
Earth Hour is, instead, the brainchild of two large corporate entities – the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and Fairfax Media Limited.'   Donna Laframboise
Note added 28 March 2012.  Donna explains the differences between Earth Hour and Earth Day: In any case, whereas Earth Day was the brainchild of a politician, Earth Hour (as I explain here) was brought into this world by wealthy corporations.http://nofrakkingconsensus.com/2012/03/27/earth-hour-corporations-preaching-morality/

A Climate Book for Children - the cover alone deserves our contempt

Produced and published by what kind of people?  Sadists?  Sociopaths?  Dupes?  Fools?  Profiteers? 

Pic found on a blog hosted here, the AGU, home of an ethics committee once chaired by Peter Gleick, a man made decidedly un-ethical by his disproportionate alarm about CO2 and climate: http://blogs.agu.org/georneys/2012/01/26/global-warming-is-scary/  'Un-ethical' is also applicable to the cover of the above book.  As are a great many other adjectives conveying dismay, displeasure, distaste, and damnation.

The publishers are Dreamland, an Indian company describing itself thus:

If any reader in India or elsewhere can get this book and send in more details of it, I would be grateful. 

Teaching Point on Climate Data Analysis: for rigour and thoroughness, look to the outsiders, not the ‘authorities’.

Teaching materials, and guidance for teachers, can readily be found which defer to such authorities as the IPCC and the Royal Society and Met Offices and other government agencies around the world.  But, sad to say, none of these are to be trusted these days. 

They have all bitten the apple of political temptation, and the resulting lust for power has deflected them from paying adequate attention to details.  Such as how the hockey stick was constructed (see Montford’s masterpiece, 'The Hockey Stick Illusion', for how this was exposed by climate establishment outsiders as shoddy and indefensible).   The IPCC has also been exposed as an organisation careless of its own integrity (see Laframboise’s jaw-dropper 'The Delinquent Teenager' for chapter and verse).  And Montford has more recently described in a GWPF report the recent descent of the Royal Society from the high ground it might once have had a claim, indeed a responsibility, to occupy.  The UK Met Office has been saddled with an ex-WWF climate zealot as Chairman, and a deference to biased computer models which have made a mockery of its short-term climate predictions, both formal and informal. 

In New Zealand, amateurs exposed the official temperature records as being so unsatisfactory that no one ‘in authority; would subsequently take responsibility for them.  A recent summary was published on WUWT.

In the States, several commentators are challenging the temperature history adjustments being made by GISS and other agencies.

In Australia, a new report is out which exposes severe quality problems with the official temperature records there.

In each case, the ‘errors’ or the ‘adjustments’, just like the blunders of the IPCC, all happen to favour exaggeration of warming or its effects during the last 100 years or so.  And note that in each of these three cases, my links are to 'outsiders'.

So, teachers, the rug of authority is being pulled from under your feet.  You will fall too when that process speeds up, if you have been conscientiously urging your pupils to trust the IPCC, the Royal Society, the ‘97% of climate scientists’ (another deceptive statistic), and such like.  As Christopher Monckton has recently said in a related context, ‘Never do that again, even for the sake of appeasing authority. In science, whatever you may personally believe or wish to be so, it is the truth and only the truth that matters.'

Now it is clear that the truly conscientious teacher must hold the claims of such bodies within metaphorical tongs for his or her pupils to review and compare with other sources.   It is a sad thing that we have come to this.