GW scientist on weather program

[cmnf]

Weather world is a 15 minute program from The Pennsylvania State University.

The segment with the climate scientist is more than five minutes in.

www.pcntv.com/streaming/streaming.html

You have to select Weather World on the right to play the clip.

It will only be up until 5pm EST. I'll try to write a transcript later.

[poitsplace]

May 27, 2009 10:14:24 GMT cmnf said:

Weather world is a 15 minute program from The Pennsylvania State University.

The segment with the climate scientist is more than five minutes in.

www.pcntv.com/streaming/streaming.html

You have to select Weather World on the right to play the clip.

It will only be up until 5pm EST. I'll try to write a transcript later.

I found his comment on the people being selected for diversity amusing (scientists should NEVER be selected based on their ethnicity, gender, etc). I also find it sad that people like him talk about an organized campaign of disinformation against AGW when the observational data (that doesn't support AGW) is often available online from its respective sources...and when there is obvious suppression by the media of data that might point to AGW being incorrect.

[cmnf]

Dr. Jon Nese: Today we are very pleased and honored to welcome back a graduate of the Department of Meteorology here at Penn State who is one of the world's leading climate scientists. Dr. Richard Somerville is Distinguished Professor Emeritus at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California, San Diego. Welcome back to Penn State Richard.

Dr. Richard Somerville: Pleasure to be here.

Dr. Jon Nese: I've enjoyed reading some of your writing. You kind of have a novel way of talking about Climate Change. The one essay called Medical Metaphors for Climate Issues really caught my eye. You kinda liken climate scientists to. to planetary physicians. Expand upon that.

Dr. Richard Somerville: Well I think it's a good parallel because, ah, you know, medicine tells you that prevention is worse than cure, better than cure and that's certainly true for global warming. I changed doctors recently as it happens and my new doctor sat me down and said, 'Let me tell you how I feel about practicing medicine. I'm competent, ah I'm not going to tell you what to do, I'm not going to order you around, I'm going to give you my best advice and when I don't know something I'm going to level with you.' That's exactly how climate scientists talk to policy and the public about climate.

The other thing is medical science is imperfect you know but you don't attack your physician when you go for you annual physical. You don't, ah, demand her that she tell you the date and hour of your next heart attack. You understand and she understands that it's worth paying attention.

And climate science is in the same position. You know haven't learned everything we need to know but we know enough to provide input to wise policy making.

Dr. Jon Nese: And you mentioned policy makers. You've testified in front of Congress, you've briefed UN climate negotiators. What do you find is the biggest challenge when communicating climate change to, to non-scientist?

Dr. Richard Somerville: I think, oh, we're often trying to overcome the, ah, disinformation campaign that's out there. There's a very professional, ah, campaign to convince people that the climate change caused by human beings is not real or serious, that the subject is controversial in the science community, which it's not, and that they, ah, can, ah, safely ignore it. It's a campaign very similar to the campaign waged by the tobacco industry, ah, decades ago, ah, where they knew they couldn't refute climate science but they could basically convey the impression that it was still controversial, still immature, not yet, ah, anything settled and, ah, that was wrong and some of the same play book and some of the same players are, are, doing us now. You have to really overcome that idea. The media also has this conviction I'm afraid that, ah, you have to hear both sides. But, ah, much of what we know about climate change in not controversial at all.

Dr. Jon Nese: And you were recently part of a debate where the proposition was that global warming is not a crisis and you argued against that notion and you started in an interesting way by sort of focusing on a definition of a crisis. Take us down that road.

Dr. Richard Somerville: Well yes, crisis is a funny word and, ah, part of the campaign against reputable climate science is to, ah, portray us as alarmist or gloom or doom or catastrophic people which isn't true at all. Crisis in the strict dictionary sense in this meaning of the word is a decision point, it's a point where the road splits where you can choose to go one way or the other. It doesn't necessarily convey any of those catastrophic notions. And I wanted to be sure in that debate, where we were frankly set up, that, ah, the audience was ah was aware of that.

Dr. Jon Nese: Right. Now, most folks know a little bit about the IPCC, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change of which you were one of the twenty-two lead contributing authors for the 2007 report. Um, tell us a little bit about how that group operates, maybe somethings that folks should know that they don't know.

Dr. Richard Somerville: The IPCC which , ah, shared the Nobel Peace Prize with Al Gore in 2007 is a fascinating group. It's unique. It doesn't have any parallel in any other area where science meets policy. And it's policy neutral; it's job is simply to assess climate science, that is the published peer-reviewed technical, ah, literature and to do the assessment in a way that's relevant to policy makers but isn't prescriptive of policy. It's sometimes described as a UN agency. All the UN does, ah, this part of the UN has no money and a skeleton staff, all it does is organize groups of hundreds of scientists to get these assessments done and, ah, I loved it. Ah, I must say it took half my life for three years being a coordinating lead author for that report but you meet wonderful people. Ah, they were selected for diversity in age and in gender and in discipline and so on but, ah, they are all fine scientists, all just doing a workman like job to high scientific standards. And it's the gold standard, ah, you'll hear the dark side railing against the IPCC saying it's, ah, skewed and unbalanced and bigoted but, ah, in point of fact nothing in that report has ever been close to, ah, being refuted. It's the gold standard. We use it as a textbook for grad students.

Dr. Jon Nese: And speaking about the notion of climate change and how it's viewed internationally. You lectured internationally, I noticed you were in Singapore recently. I mean how does the public perception of climate change in other countries compare to the perception here?

Dr. Richard Somerville: I'd say that the big difference is that ah other countries take climate change seriously and it's less polarized politically. Ah, here, um, perhaps because of Al Gore in part. After all he's a polarizing political figure in the United States and yet his movie and book are good primers for introduction to the subject. But, ah, today the message in this country and the messenger get confused. If you tell me how someone voted in the 2000 presidential election I can pretty much tell you, ah, what they think of An Inconvenient Truth. And my answer to those people if you can't stand Al Gore and therefore think that his movie is bad, pretend the narrator is somebody you do like.

Dr. Jon Nese: Richard I wish we had more time. Dr. Somerville thank you for being here; welcome back to Penn State.

Dr. Richard Somerville: Thanks for having me. It's a pleasure to be here.

[donmartin]

It is disturbing to read the expressions of a modern day "scientist" which discloses articulation skills of a 9 year old; the rote product of advocacy education and skewed rewards.

[nautonnier]

I like the comparison with doctors though - and we could say that climatology is equivalent to about the 16th century in medical terms - they didn't argue with their doctors then either.

[curiousgeorge]

I have to wonder how committed people are to their position concerning the political and economic consequences of the upcoming Climate Change Legislation. Will those who oppose this legislation (for whatever reasons ) be willing to "pledge their Lives, their Fortunes, and their Sacred Honor" to prevent passage and implementation of draconian measures, when rational arguments and voting fail? In this game, the most committed wins.

[nautonnier]

May 30, 2009 16:48:08 GMT curiousgeorge said:

I have to wonder how committed people are to their position concerning the political and economic consequences of the upcoming Climate Change Legislation. Will those who oppose this legislation (for whatever reasons ) be willing to "pledge their Lives, their Fortunes, and their Sacred Honor" to prevent passage and implementation of draconian measures, when rational arguments and voting fail? In this game, the most committed wins.

A fair point - but the proponents of the legislation should do likewise.

As it happens legislation has already seen the demise of major industries or rather industries have moved to countries who do not have such draconian imposts on the industry and now the EU and the USA is having to import goods that they used to export. So everyone is being forced to pay for the 'climate change' proposals and it will only get worse.

[curiousgeorge]

May 30, 2009 17:04:26 GMT nautonnier said:

May 30, 2009 16:48:08 GMT curiousgeorge said:

I have to wonder how committed people are to their position concerning the political and economic consequences of the upcoming Climate Change Legislation. Will those who oppose this legislation (for whatever reasons ) be willing to "pledge their Lives, their Fortunes, and their Sacred Honor" to prevent passage and implementation of draconian measures, when rational arguments and voting fail? In this game, the most committed wins.

A fair point - but the proponents of the legislation should do likewise.

As it happens legislation has already seen the demise of major industries or rather industries have moved to countries who do not have such draconian imposts on the industry and now the EU and the USA is having to import goods that they used to export. So everyone is being forced to pay for the 'climate change' proposals and it will only get worse.

Indeed. And if both factions are equally committed to their positions? Wars ( civil and otherwise ) begin this way. So the question becomes: Who will admit to not being committed to their position, when such admission is a defacto surrender? The reason I ask, is that it seems to me that reasonable compromise ( which seems to be the goal of those opposing the legislation and related measures ) has been ruled out by the Pro faction.

[nautonnier]

Let's compromise - do it my way.

I think that the problem is that there is huge money to be made in the AGW carbon cap and trade - and Al Gore and the EU are there all ready and able to milk it for all they can get. Supported by climate and allied scientists who cannot believe how much funding is falling into their laps. Of _course_ these people will support it.

On the neutral side the public are going to see huge tax rises - in the US they are estimating anything from $1500 - $3000 pa per household in 'carbon taxes' regardless of their point of view on AGW. I have no doubt that the social democracies in the EU will make this US tax rise pale into insignificance.

The anti-AGW groups are not 'in the pay of big oil' who will make money regardless as the reality is that even AGW people need fuel for their Toyota Priuses. But they seem (to me) to be made up of people who often started as AGW supporters and who have (rightly or wrongly) decided that AGW is not supported by real world evidence.

All this is clouded by AGW proponents pointing at a warming world and trying to make the argument about whether it warmed in the 1990's or not rather than did CO₂ cause the warming. And an allied argument about world resources and pollution rather than about CO₂ causing warming.

Just to muddy things further - there are those (and some on this board) who are not convinced that high CO₂ and a warmer world is bad. Especially now the frothing at the mouth tipping point alarmists are not as visible - as their claims of mega-hurricanes and 6 metre sea level rises have in the main been discounted.

Its not quite so simple as a 'little endian vs big endian' argument.

[curiousgeorge]

May 30, 2009 18:35:25 GMT nautonnier said:

Let's compromise - do it my way.

I think that the problem is that there is huge money to be made in the AGW carbon cap and trade - and Al Gore and the EU are there all ready and able to milk it for all they can get. Supported by climate and allied scientists who cannot believe how much funding is falling into their laps. Of _course_ these people will support it.

On the neutral side the public are going to see huge tax rises - in the US they are estimating anything from $1500 - $3000 pa per household in 'carbon taxes' regardless of their point of view on AGW. I have no doubt that the social democracies in the EU will make this US tax rise pale into insignificance.

The anti-AGW groups are not 'in the pay of big oil' who will make money regardless as the reality is that even AGW people need fuel for their Toyota Priuses. But they seem (to me) to be made up of people who often started as AGW supporters and who have (rightly or wrongly) decided that AGW is not supported by real world evidence.

All this is clouded by AGW proponents pointing at a warming world and trying to make the argument about whether it warmed in the 1990's or not rather than did CO₂ cause the warming. And an allied argument about world resources and pollution rather than about CO₂ causing warming.

Just to muddy things further - there are those (and some on this board) who are not convinced that high CO₂ and a warmer world is bad. Especially now the frothing at the mouth tipping point alarmists are not as visible - as their claims of mega-hurricanes and 6 metre sea level rises have in the main been discounted.

Its not quite so simple as a 'little endian vs big endian' argument.

The upcoming Copenhagen meeting should be very entertaining . Kofi has already begun to prepare the battlefield. www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article6387208.ece

Excerpt: “Copenhagen needs to be the most ambitious international agreement ever reached,” he said. “As this report shows, the alternative is greater risk of starvation, migration and sickness on a massive scale.”

PS: The one thing that irritates me more than any other, is the tendancy of people to interpret, and act on, probability statements as if they were Delphic prophecies. Especially when the foundation for those probability statements is admitted to be full of uncertainties. www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar4/wg1/ar4-uncertaintyguidancenote.pdf . From the WG1 report at : www.ipcc.ch/ipccreports/ar4-wg1.htm particularly the Technical Summary (18mb pdf ).