I ran across an interesting Article published by Joseph Bast and James Taylor, of the Heartland Institute, entitled “Global Warming Consensus on Global Warming“.
The article is a survey of international scientists on various aspects of the Global Warming issue. It’s clear that there is little consensus on most issues. Most agree that the Earth has warmed over the past 100 years. Most agree that the media has shaped the public’s view of the Global Warming debate. Surprisingly, the survey shows roughly three of four climate scientists (72.7 percent) believe “the IPCC reports accurately reflect the consensus of thought within the scientific community.” One in five (19.8 percent) disagree.
Climate scientists were asked to score this statement: “Natural scientists have established enough physical evidence to turn the issue of global climate change over to social scientists for matters of policy discussion.” Once again, the scientific community split, this time almost exactly down the middle. Nearly half (45.8 percent) disagreed with the statement, nearly half
(44.1 percent) agreed, and the remainder (10.2 percent) were undecided. Those who say the time for debate is over are at odds with half of the scientists they claim to be speaking for.
Take a look at the survey. After you do, it’s will be hard to argue that the “debate over Global Warming is over”.
Dear Tom,
I did indeed look over the Heartland Institute’s piece, to which you allude. I came away both disappointed in the piece and a bit troubled that you seem to give it so much credence compared to (say) the much more authoritative and better-balanced Environmental Protection Agency. (See, for example,
http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/science/stateofknowledge.html
The Heartland Institute (HI) piece is not so much false (though I am dubious of the validity of some of its statistics) as it is unbalanced. The main question the HI study addresses is whether a “consensus” exists on various matters of climate change, and the main conclusion is that no such consensus exists. The Heartland Institute folks point out, for instance, that 2/3 of the scientists queried disagreed with the statement that “the current state of scientific knowledge is developed well enough to allow for a reasonable assessment of the effects of greenhouse gases.” This may be true as stated — but note that scientists who disagree with such a statement might do so *regardless* of their general views on climate change and its seriousness. To disagree with this statement, in other words, is by no means to pooh-pooh the existence or the seriousness of climate change.
The question of whether scientific “consensus” exists is, in any event, a straw man — and one often used by anti-science polemicists. Consensus in the sense of virtual unanimity is rare, and properly so, in science, which depends fundamentally on doubt and skepticism. (One rare case in which something like consensus *does* exist is the theory of evolution. Here, too, the opposition depends largely on blowing technical debates out of proportion.)
It should also be noted that the Heartland Institute has its own axes to grind, and its own full closet of skeletons, as a little Googling quickly reveals. Among HI’s important recent donors are tobacco interests (perhaps in gratitude for the HI’s industry-friendly views on second-hand smoke) and the Sarah Scaife Foundation, connected with the notorious Clinton-hater Richard Mellon Scaife.
Granted, none of this automatically implies that the Heartland Institute is evil, or even wrong on the science. But it is fair to wonder who deserves more weight—an ideologically driven think tank with ties to interests involved in the very matters under discussion, or the US EPA, hardly a left-wing bastion after years of Republican rule.
Paul Zorn
Dear Tom,
In addition to what Paul said - and I agree with him 100% (consensus!), I wanted to point out that there is another potential flaw in the Heartland question you pointed out.
You quoted “Natural scientists have established enough physical evidence to turn the issue of global climate change over to social scientists for matters of policy discussion.” Another possible interpretation of this statement is that some natural scientists don’t currently trust the “social scientists” to either understand the science of climate change or deal with it appropriately at the policy level. I have noticed with enthusiasm an increased interest among scientists to get out of the ivory tower and follow up on the results of their research in terms of policy.
The Heartland analysis also seems over-simplified in other ways. For example, the section title “Is CO2 causing climate change?” is linked to to the survey statement “the current state of scientific knowledge is developed well enough to allow for a reasonable assessment of the effects of greenhouse gases.”
First, the section title drastically simplifies and changes the impression of the survey question; my read is that Heartland has an agenda they want to fit to this question.
Second, scientists who disagreed with the survey question don’t necessarily mean that CO2 or other greenhouse gases are not part of the problem. They might well just mean that we can’t yet assess all the effects of these gases. Comparing responses that the same individual gave to this survey question against the first question (”We can say for certain that global warming is a process that is already underway”) would allow one to make a better assessment, but Heartland doesn’t use this ubiquitous statistical technique.
Felicity Enders
Tom – A student alerted me to your blog. I am pleased to see that you are putting effort into thinking about global climate change, however, I am concerned about your sources.
As a voter and I scientist, I hope that you would use the best data available for your decisions. The chief flaw in the Heartland report is that the most recent survey it cites was conducted in 2003. Global change research is an incredibly dynamic field and so using our state of knowledge in 2003 is as foolhardy as setting agricultural policy for next year using 2003 corn prices. Climate science continues to pour fourth new results, many of which have cleared up areas which I had previously regarded as important discrepancies.
A study by Naomi Oreskes in 2004 (which unlike the Heartland/Bray study, was peer-reviewed in a good journal and free of potentially loaded questions) found that, in a large, random sample of the scientific studies that mentioned “global climate change” in the peer-reviewed literature, none of them disagreed with the view that global warming is real and human-induced.
However, even more appropriate are the latest reports by the IPCC, issued this year. As you note in your post, the vast majority of scientists believe the IPCC to be a good guide to the current state of the science. The most recent IPCC report states:
“The understanding of anthropogenic warming and cooling influences on climate has improved since the Third Assessment Report, leading to very high confidence that the globally averaged effect of human activities since 1750 has been one of warming…” They later add:
“Warming of the climate system is unequivocal, as is evident from observations of increases in global average air and ocean temperatures, widespread melting of snow and ice, and rising global mean sea level.”
These statements represent the hard, peer-reviewed work of hundreds of actively practicing scientists at top institutions. (Many of the scientists you cite in other parts of your blog are either retired and/or not publishing peer-reviewed research.) As for the 20% of scientists in that 2003 survey that don’t believe that the IPCC is a good guide to the consensus view, I can tell you from firsthand experience as someone who actually studies these issues that a large portion of those upset with the IPCC are troubled by political interference at the last stages which tend to make the reports, if anything, more conservative.
Scientists, by their nature, are skeptics and you will never find total agreement, just as there was never “total consensus” that smoking caused cancer. Nor will you ever see them “turn things over” to policy makers as climate change will continue to be an active area of research throughout this century. However, the best available science shows that our emissions of greenhouse gasses are rapidly changing the planet, will have worldwide repercussions which strike the poor hardest, and that these changes will last not just our lifetimes but for centuries.
I would be happy to meet with you sometime in Northfield if you’d like to discuss the certain and uncertain areas of climate research further.
Alex Barron
Visiting Lecturer, Carleton College
Tom: There was an article in USA Today back in January about how Exxon (among others, actually) were making tax-deductible contributions to certain consertative groups (like the Heartland Institute, though I don’t know if it was among the 48 groups) to promote global warming skepticism:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2007-01-03-exxonmobil-global-warming_x.htm
Here’s how the Exxon contributions of $16 million to 48 groups works: If they wanted to run an ad campaign, it wouldn’t be tax deductable, and would only reach certain people. But if they contributed to groups like the Heartland Institute (again, I don’t know if it was one, but there are 48 others like it to which they did contribute), these have web sites and email lists, and if they make a tax-deductable contribution, they reach a sympathetic audience, and get a tax break besides, while promoting global-warming skeptism (and trying to preserve their profits).
Here’s more recent article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/15/us/15warm.html?_r=1&ref=us&oref=slogin
It’s regarding the security risk of global warming. This study doesn’t seem to trust the sort of point of view advocated by “free market” groups like Heartland Institute and the Pacific Research Institute, both of which you cite on your blog on the topic of global warming. Instead, it assumes that the scientists whose published work is peer-reviewed, and who warn of the dire consequences of ignoring global warming, are correct.
Tom:
In my previous reply, I mentioned the USA Today story. Here’s a better, longer (2 pages)treatment by ABC News:
http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/Business/story?id=2767979&page=1
They also reference a bipartisan effort by US Sen. Olympia Snow R-Maine and US Senator Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., asking Exxon to come clean about disinformation campaigns:
http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/story?id=2612021&page=1
The ABC story includes a link to a full copy of the report by the Union of Concerned Scientists, with a list of organizations to which Exxon contributed:
http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/story?id=2612021&page=1
This list includes the Heartland Institute, the Pacific Research Institute, the Heritage foundation, the Cato Institute, and funding of Fred Singer and others. You’ve provided links to some of these organizations in your discussion of global warming in this and past blog posts.