The Staggers

The New Statesman’s rolling politics blog

Adrift on denial

There is a danger of a permanent gap opening up between climate scientists and the general public.

By Mark Lynas Published 26 February 2010 12:17

Those who believe in climate change are losing the battle for public opinion. According to an Ipsos poll carried out in February on behalf of the advertising agency Euro RSCG, just 31 per cent of people believe that climate change is "definitely a reality", down from 44 per cent a year ago. Corrosive cynicism is increasing: 50 per cent of adults in the UK believe that "politicians make a fuss about climate change in order to distract us from other issues", while 47 per cent think that climate change is another "excuse to raise taxes".

Though it is unlikely that public confidence in climate science will slip much further, these latest figures testify to the damage done by the "Climategate" saga, with its associated (and, in my view, baseless) suggestions of fraud and impropriety. Mud sticks, and climate scientists are no longer seen as impartial.

The danger here is that a permanent gap may open up between the general public and the scientific community, distorting policy and damaging people's understanding of the world around them at a basic level. An analogy might be the debate around creationism in the US, where (according to a Pew Centre poll conducted in June 2009) just 32 per cent of adults believe in Darwinian evolution, compared to 87 per cent of scientists.

This may be a politically incorrect thing to say, but it is true nonetheless: climate-change denial, like belief in creationism, is largely (though not entirely) attributable to ignorance. Surveys show that the more a person knows about the subject of climate change, the more likely they are to agree that "human activity is a significant contributing factor in changing mean global temperatures".

One study, published in January 2009 in the American Geophysical Union's journal Eos, noted that while less than half the general public agreed with the above point, an overwhelming majority of scientists did. Specifically, 82 per cent of climatologists agreed that climate change was real, while 97 per cent of actively publishing climatologists (those involved in generating the latest data) supported this conclusion.

I accept that a sceptic might cite this as evidence of group-think. But surely the chance of statistically trained experts (whose work involves constantly examining real-world climatological data, and each other's work) getting their entire discipline wrong is vanishingly unlikely.

Instead, I think that the conclusion of Peter Doran and Maggie Kendall Zimmerman, summing up their Eos study, is far more relevant. "It seems that the debate on the authenticity of global warming and the role played by human activity is largely non-existent among those who understand the nuances and scientific basis of long-term climate processes," they write. "The challenge, rather, appears to be how to effectively communicate this fact to policymakers and to a public that continues to mistakenly perceive debate among scientists."

This is indeed a challenge, particularly in the face of a vociferous, politically motivated lobby dedicated to denying the realities of climate science. Hope, if there is hope, apparently resides with David Attenborough. According to a press release issued with the same Ipsos poll, Attenborough is "the most trusted voice in the debate on climate change among the UK population".

Sir David, please speak.

This article appears in this week's New Statesman.

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Tags: Global Warming Climate Change

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20 comments

Fri, 2010-02-26 16:50 — Sue Davies (not verified)

Mark-BLR... How do you falsify without being able to prove the criteria that you are using to justify the falsification... because the criteria might also prove to be false.... Sorry once you go down this road of nit-picking we stop seeing the issues.

Whether or not, climate change is real, the greening of the economy and the world would be good for human beings and all other species The problems are the vested interests who can see their profits being affected..... and these powerful and ruthless interests.

Fri, 2010-02-26 12:49 — Cassandra

I think there is a good analogy between the "overwhelming consensus" on WMD and that on ... let me say it: "Weather of Mass Destruction".

Aside from the pun, the point is that the public have seen many instances of apparent agreement by the experts which haven't been sustained in the face of the facts (millennium bug, swine-flu). Just as Saddam may have had WMD, so the 20th century warming may be due entirely to mankind, but the similarities are worrying. Dodgy dossiers by the IPCC including work from student projects, political parties all agreeing with each other as the little guys (Gilligan, Kelly, Jones) take the flak. And just as MI5 suffered tremendous loss of confidence which it has only just recovered from, so "science" is going to get a pounding if as the public suspect, they are found to be actively colluding with attempts to "sex up the data" for political ends. There are now several clear instances which show real credible evidence that temperature data has been distorted and the latest suggests that much of the warming can be accounted for by urban heating. Science is too important to our society to let the general reputation of science suffer because of a rogue subject, so please don't let it happen.

Fri, 2010-02-26 13:07 — Sue Davies (not verified)

Just as the American right and Tony Blair have succeeded in discedited socialism, and pushing it off the agenda. The same forces are trading on the lack of public information and actual misinformation about climate science. Our mass media then pushes it out as my father would have said "unhindered by the facts"... partly because of individual journalist's ignorance, partly because of their owner's political agenda, largely because the 'controversy' is a good story and in the BBC's case, because of some complacent notion of objectivity.

The truth is that we should be living sustainably, because there are bound to be highly negative unintended consequences of present and future human activity unless we change... and we have a perfect example with the exploitation of oil... the suppression of cheap renewable fuels keeps the developing world with their high levels of sunlight, energy poor....Afghanistan's potential for the oil pipeline, invasion of Iraq, Darfur.... religious fundamentalism in both the Islamic world and the USA, funding for madrasas...I could go on... following the oil money leads to so many of the world's problems... the credit crunch, recession... not to mention that we are reaching peak oil production and even more horrendous environmental destruction is becoming profitable.

We should be doing all the things that would reduce climate change, because they are good for human beings and the environment. I have no doubt of the disastrous reality of climate change but the arguments about it's reality are a distraction!

Fri, 2010-02-26 13:15 — 9xzulug

the average person sits back and entrust the so called experts who I'm afraid to say play a divide n conquer strategy game,which is called CONspiracy,which works with using DOUBT as the main tool,where there's doubt the game can be won.i rest my case.people like john pilger have proven on so many occasions that this game is been fought out.basically we all live in ILLUMINATI society.LIVING IN DENIAL allows the conspirators to continue their game plan at our expense.the game is won when certain quarters achieve ULTIMATE POWER by any means necessary

Fri, 2010-02-26 14:13 — Eric Worrall (not verified)

http://www.michaelcrichton.net/essay-stateoffear-whypoliticizedscienceis...

The chances of scientific groupthink is "vanishingly small", it happens again and again, often with tragic consequences. It is less than a century since 2 episodes of groupthink (Eugenics and Lysenkan biology) caused misery and death to millions.

Global warming is also causing misery and death, but it is not the change in temperature which is causing the problem - it is the "solutions", such as biofuels, which are doing the damage.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/ambroseevans_pritchard/278957...

Fri, 2010-02-26 16:30 — Mark - BLR (not verified)

You start your article with the words "Those who BELIEVE in climate change ...". One of the main functions of The Scientific Method (TSM) is to compare empirical evidence with "beliefs" (AKA "hypotheses").

"Belief without proof" = Faith, a religious concept, NOT a scientific one.

---

Many non-scientists, such as myself, have an "idealised, Popperian" view of what TSM should be, which can be summarised as follows :

1) Make a guess, or HYPOTHESIS, about the universe.

2) Calculate what would happen if your guess is correct, taking into account existing knowledge, i.e. make PREDICTIONS.

3) Perform EXPERIMENTS, in the real world (!), and collect DATA / EVIDENCE.

4a) Compare the DATA with the PREDICTIONS. If they do NOT correspond, then the HYPOTHESIS has been proven FALSE.

4b) If lots of experiments provide DATA that do not contradict the PREDICTIONS made by your HYPOTHESIS, then it can be upgraded to a THEORY (like gravity ...).
NB : A HYPOTHESIS / THEORY can NEVER be "proven true". A single (reproducible) experiment can prove it false AT ANY TIME.

5) Use the new DATA to think again, then go to step 1.

NB : An important point is that the output of computer MODELS form part of the HYPOTHESIS, NOT part of the DATA.

---

You will probably reply that most actual scientists do not use this version of TSM ... and you would be correct ! That is why I qualified the above with the word "idealised".

The "Khunian" approach, with its notion of "paradigms" which can only be overthrown by "overwhelming contradictory evidence", is a much more practical way of day-to-day working.

There is a BIG difference, however, between "temporarily discounting" contradictory evidence and actively suppressing it !

---

Always remember the basic sceptic's rules :

1) Just because YOU believe something is NOT proof that it is "true".

2) Just because I do NOT believe something is NOT proof that it is "false".

3) To settle disputed claims, falsifiable predictions and empirical data MUST be provided.

Fri, 2010-02-26 16:51 — Joseph2

The article erroneously says:
"... belief in creationism, is largely (though not entirely) attributable to ignorance."
Since "there is no natural process whereby reptiles can turn into birds, land mammals into whales, or chimpanzees into human beings"(1)
and what is observed is that the various animals reproduce "according to their kinds"(2), an ever increasing number of scientists, teachers, etc. are coming to the conclusion:
Creation ... Yes.
Evolution ... No.

Reference:
(1) Creation Doctrine
http://www.kolbecenter.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=...

(2) according to their kinds
http://www.biblegateway.com/quicksearch/?quicksearch=according+to+their+...

Fri, 2010-02-26 17:37 — Mark - BLR (not verified)

To Sue Davies :

As I said in my first post, within the context of TSM a given statement can NEVER be "proven true".

A scientist once said something like "Science is the process of replacing an incorrect idea with a less incorrect idea".

Note also that the concept of the "null hypothesis" states that by default a new idea is presumed to be FALSE. Supporting evidence MUST be provided before it can become a genuine scientific "hypothesis".

The ONLY valid test of a hypothesis is comparing the predictions for experiments that have NOT YET been performed with the actual results AFTER the experiment has actually been performed in the real world.

NB : Actual results will always include (finite) "error bars" due to uncertainties in the experimental procedure / apparatus. Science has its limits, but they can be quantified.

PS : When you say that "greening the economy" will be good for ALL other species, remember that many plants show optimal growth with CO2 levels of 800-1200 ppm (amongst other factors), roughly 2.5 to 3 times the current level ...

Sat, 2010-02-27 03:02 — The Old Man

Would it be fair to say that man-made climate change was seized upon by the left as a new suit of clothes to replace their discarded marxist hair shirts? So the state can try to micro-manage how individuals live their lives? So more taxes can be collected to employ more Labour-voting "public servants"?

Is it not a fact that left wing publications and people in general support the climate change notion, and that more right wing publications and people are sceptical?

Man made climate change is a political issue, and although the left may rail against public opinion, it is a lost cause like everything else you've ever stood for.

Sat, 2010-02-27 12:09 — Sue Davies (not verified)

The Old Man - I don't understand this line of argument. So?... what are you trying to say?... If left leaning publications support something... then you will oppose it because you are right-wing and fear a marxist takeover? I do not believe that you are that simple.

Sat, 2010-02-27 13:14 — Chris (not verified)

Good article.

The Old Man - maybe more leftwing people accept climate change as a fact because they're more intelligent, thinking, informed and concerned about everyone's lives, not just their own, whereas rightwingers only seem to care about money and power. Try opening your eyes - get out of the city and go to places where you can actually see the problems caused by climate change.

Sat, 2010-02-27 14:48 — Sue Davies (not verified)

Chris - Spot on..

Sat, 2010-02-27 18:35 — GeorgeinFrance

Mark Lynas, author of ‘Adrift in Denial’, you should be far more careful when quoting some American survey. You are scaring people, unnecessarily, by suggesting that there are so many Creationists in the United States. It’s just not true.
The Pew Center is a crypto-creationist outfit, pretending to do surveys that show that many scientists believe in gods. You should check Pew out on the internet. A greater part of the Pew organisation is a creationist outfit that seems to field bogus journalists to approach newspapers, and pretend to be reviewing Pew Surveys. And, about those misleading surveys. They have all the appearance of impartiality, except those cunning survey questions. I cannot remember exactly, but a question sent to American scientists asked something like…
‘Do you believe that planet earth may run on some hidden and unifying, principles, regulating carbon-dioxide levels, climate, oxygen-levels, and so forth?’
Most scientists know of the Gaia Principle, and would be tempted to say ‘Yes’, to that question. And so Pew Surveys list them as a believer in gods.
And so to those bogus journalists. They pretend to be freelancers, when, in fact, they work within Pew. I found one of their articles in The Los Angeles Times, deliberately distorting the results of a Pew Survey to suggest that almost half of scientists believe in gods. It was calumny. I believe that this kind of tactic is called ‘Lying for Jesus’.

Another thing; I lived in The States for many, many years. There is still a strong frontiers spirit, and a dogged individuality. It is common for Americans to have bizarre beliefs, and to hold those beliefs, knowing that they conflict with reality!! For example, so many Californians will claim that they are Aliens, or have been abducted in the past by Aliens. Whereas Europeans tend to equate ‘beliefs’ with objective reality, Americans have no such constraints. For example, I have met several young Californians who talk of their holocaust experiences in Auschwitz. Should you confront them with the impossibility of this, they will get angry, and accuse you of ‘denying their reality!!!’
For so many Americans, there is no such thing as objective truth, and, all facts are simply a matter of opinion; yes, even scientific facts. And so many Americans, listed as Creationists, may frequently claim a religious belief, while they admit that it is simply a belief and not related to the objective world of reality. It is really a kind of careless wishful thinking, that aligns them with others in their community.
I have written a massive book, called ‘Principia Humanitas’; a twelve hundred-page book that reveals a new theory outlining the true roots of human belief and behaviour. It is called ‘Human Sub-Set Theory’ and this theory may come to dominant human discourse in the future.
In Darwin’s day, it would seem that publishers were all too keen to take-on controversial material, but no publisher will even glance at a precis of my book. We are at the limits of human intellectual development, when the truths about human beliefs and behaviour remain in an unpublished book. But please do remember the phrase, ‘Human Sub-Set Theory’, because it explains so many mysteries of human intellectual life.

Sat, 2010-02-27 21:24 — mike-c (not verified)

It is good to see that Mark Lynas has found the courage to say "a politically incorrect thing", but sadly it's an anti-climax:

"climate-change denial... is largely (though not entirely) attributable to ignorance".

The belief that those who disagree with us do so from ignorance (or wickedness etc) can be very comforting. Most of us are familiar with that belief at first hand because we have held it passionately and sincerely ourselves. When we begin to see what is wrong with that belief, we start behaving like balanced grown-ups.

Mark Lynas seems incapable of understanding that there are educated and informed people, fully capable of assessing strengths and weaknesses of arguments and evidence, who found the AGW theory alarming and plausible enough to take very seriously, looked into it in detail and concluded that it does not really seem as convincing and "settled" as its supporters would have us believe.

If Mark could bring himself to consider that such people might exist, and that it may simply be wrong to pigeonhole them as right-wing deniers, or as "part of a politically motivated lobby", would he still regard them as ignorant?

Sat, 2010-02-27 21:43 — gnuneo

the old man: actually, you are half right, although the appellations "left" and "right" are irrelevant.

there are many on left and right who are looking to jump on the AGW bandwagon for their own ends - corporations to profit from Govt investment, from "carbon taxes" etc, politicians to gain ever greater powers over our lives.

these people are better referred to as "high modernists", which is a political-philosophical position that believes in centralised control, non-transparency, and it opposed to real democracy to its utmost.

yet some on both left and right believe that a switch to a localised economy, based upon Green Co-operatives, with the view to securing Energy Independence as well as making complete economic and social sense, will also be dramatically reducing the UKs pollution production, giving our children a safer, cleaner, more democratic - ultimately, a far better - future. And this also goes for some on the left and right.

ignorance, greed, narcissism, corruption and plain just being wrong are not limited to one 'side' of politics.

in fact, the only Party i have not seen this behaviour in IS the Greens - they may be wrong about AGW, but it is indisputable that they are at least genuine, honest and committed in their platform and behaviour.

mark: even *i* am beginning to wonder, i look forward very much to the research announced recently on the news, that will take back the data sources to around 150yrs ago to gain a more complete picture. (i think thats what they said). Once that data is available, and has been correlated with the sun-spot cycles (a 7yr cycle of which we have just ended, btw), then it should put all the data/research/hypothesis on a much stronger footing. I still regard AGW as more likely than not to be occurring, and although i totally reject this "Climategate Conspiracy" (the fact that the 'leak' originated from out of the FSB offices in Russia should have given some pause), i have also found myself wondering.

am i also therefore "ignorant"?

how arrogant!

in the US right now, the piggy-brained far-right conservative christians are busy building a coalition and election platform for Palin - and their biggest boost is that the american 'liberals' (sorry whilst i fall over laughing) are constantly attacking Palin and her followers for being "ignorant and stupid".

whilst most probably are, that's not the point. The point is that the debate becomes only two sided, and anyone who disagrees with 'you', even slightly, even momentarily, will be driven into the 'other camp'.

people are being systematically and deliberately lied to - just as in Iraq/Afghanistan/9-11/Kennedy. That doesn't necessarily make them ignorant and stupid - it makes them lied to.

i have found that insulting people rarely gets them into a mood to engage positively. I have however discovered that insulting people can give a nice personal glow. You have to decide which is more important to you.. :D

Sat, 2010-02-27 23:12 — Claddach

One comment on Mark's remark on Climategate, and, in his view, baseless "suggestions of fraud and impropriety." This from the Memorandum submitted last week to parliament by the Institute of Physics on the disclosure of climate data from the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia.

" The CRU e-mails as published on the internet provide prima facie evidence of determined and co-ordinated refusals to comply with honourable scientific traditions and freedom of information law. The principle that scientists should be willing to expose their ideas and results to independent testing and replication by others, which requires the open exchange of data, procedures and materials, is vital…

It is important to recognise that there are two completely different categories of data set that are involved in the CRU e-mail exchanges:

· those compiled from direct instrumental measurements of land and ocean surface temperatures such as the CRU, GISS and NOAA data sets; and
· historic temperature reconstructions from measurements of ‘proxies’, for example, tree-rings.

The second category relating to proxy reconstructions are the basis for the conclusion that 20th century warming is unprecedented. Published reconstructions may represent only a part of the raw data available and may be sensitive to the choices made and the statistical techniques used. Different choices, omissions or statistical processes may lead to different conclusions. This possibility was evidently the reason behind some of the (rejected) requests for further information.

The e-mails reveal doubts as to the reliability of some of the reconstructions and raise questions as to the way in which they have been represented; for example, the apparent suppression, in graphics widely used by the IPCC, of proxy results for recent decades that do not agree with contemporary instrumental temperature measurements.

There is also reason for concern at the intolerance to challenge displayed in the e-mails. This impedes the process of scientific ‘self correction’, which is vital to the integrity of the scientific process as a whole, and not just to the research itself. In that context, those CRU e-mails relating to the peer-review process suggest a need for a review of its adequacy and objectivity as practised in this field and its potential vulnerability to bias or manipulation.

Fundamentally, we consider it should be inappropriate for the verification of the integrity of the scientific process to depend on appeals to Freedom of Information legislation. Nevertheless, the right to such appeals has been shown to be necessary. The e-mails illustrate the possibility of networks of like-minded researchers effectively excluding newcomers..."

Msrk Lynas may for whatever reason see all this, and much other eveidence, as "baseless "suggestions of fraud and impropriety." I'm certain for many onlookers it looks more like a rapidly developing scandal.

And efore the ad hominen attack dogs run loose.

The Institute of Physics has a worldwide membership of over 36,000 and is a leading communicator of physics-related science to all audiences, from specialists through to government and the general public. Its publishing company, IOP Publishing, is a world leader in scientific publishing and the electronic dissemination of physics.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institute_of_Physics

Sat, 2010-02-27 23:20 — jeremiah

I think it is interesting that you choose David Attenborough as the picture. Ol' Dave recently made a programme about overpopulation and the effects it is having on the world. It is probably the first and only show he has made about people instead of animals.

I think climate change is happening. However the best argument sceptics have is not to deny it but ask how much the fault of humanity.

Climate change is a symptom of the larger and utterly intractable problem of overpopulation.

Dave is respected and has spoken about this issue. I dare any of our politicians to do likewise...

Sat, 2010-02-27 23:30 — jeremiah

PS. Catch Doug Stanhope's bit on Youtube about overpopulation. He has a hilarious and graphic argument that is better than any academic thesis!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YkgDhDa4HHo

Sun, 2010-02-28 01:12 — gnuneo

the usual problem with the "overpopulation" argument (and i am not denying its basic soundness), is that it is used without any reference as to *why* this overpopulation took place, let alone any suggestions to ameliorate the problem without becoming worst monsters than Humans have ever been before - and that is saying something.

the main cause of overpopulation is lack of development in all its forms, especially for women. Population rates start to fall once a certain threshold of development has taken place, because it is rational behaviour to do so under those conditions.

there is no longer any need to have 15 children, when 13 of them don't die during childhood. When women have liberty to become financially independent, they no longer need to get married and have children to "have a life". When women gain political power, they grant freedoms of contraception and abortion, both tools to break patriarchal dominance and control over their lives.

it is still the legacy of the destruction of the Colonial years, and the perhaps even more cynical and inhumane current Corporate "Post-Colonial" period, that most countries in the 3rd World have failed to develop as we in the Developed World like to imagine we have. It is our Corporations that suck the wealth and profits from these powerless countries, preventing the natural development that would slow the birth-rates. It is our Govts who collude with them in this.

there, in a nutshell, is why "over-population" is occurring, yet from Malthus onwards, it is always the powerless who are asked to make the sacrifices when the time comes for 'solutions'.

i dont, btw, know David Attenborough's position on this, i haven't yet seen that programme. Hope we agreed... :)

Sun, 2010-02-28 17:02 — GeorgeinFrance

The Pew Center is a crypto-creationist outfit, pretending to do surveys that show that many scientists believe in gods. You should check Pew out on the internet. A greater part of the Pew organisation is a creationist outfit that seems to field bogus journalists to approach newspapers, and pretend to be reviewing Pew Surveys. And, about those misleading surveys. They have all the appearance of impartiality, except those cunning survey questions. I cannot remember exactly, but a question sent to American scientists asked something like…

‘Do you believe that planet earth may run on some hidden and unifying, principles, regulating carbon-dioxide levels, climate, oxygen-levels, and so forth?’
Most scientists know of the Gaia Principle, and would be tempted to say ‘Yes’, to that question. And so Pew Surveys list them as a believer in gods.
And so to those bogus journalists. They pretend to be freelancers, when, in fact, they work within Pew. I found one of their articles in The Los Angeles Times, deliberately distorting the results of a Pew Survey to suggest that almost half of scientists believe in gods. It was calumny. I believe that this kind of tactic is called ‘Lying for Jesus’.

For so many Americans, there is no such thing as objective truth, and, all facts are simply a matter of opinion; yes, even scientific facts. And so many Americans, listed as Creationists, may frequently claim a religious belief, while they admit that it is simply a belief and not related to the objective world of reality. It is really a kind of careless wishful thinking, that aligns them with others in their community.