"Most Science Studies Appear to Be Tainted By Sloppy Analysis"

Wall Street Journal article here.

Sufjan Stevens sings "Lord God Bird"

Here.

"‘Feel Good’ vs. ‘Do Good’ on Climate"

NY Times article here.

One excerpt:

The effect of the rising temperatures is more complicated to gauge. Hotter summer weather can indeed be fatal, as Al Gore likes us to remind audiences by citing the 35,000 deaths attributed to the 2003 heat wave in Europe. But there are a couple of confounding factors explained in Dr. Lomborg’s new book, “Cool It: The Skeptical Environmentalist’s Guide to Global Warming.”

The first is that winter can be deadlier than summer. About seven times more deaths in Europe are attributed annually to cold weather (which aggravates circulatory and respiratory illness) than to hot weather, Dr. Lomborg notes, pointing to studies showing that a warmer planet would mean fewer temperature-related deaths in Europe and worldwide.

The second factor is that the weather matters a lot less than how people respond to it. Just because there are hotter summers in New York doesn’t mean that more people die — in fact, just the reverse has occurred. Researchers led by Robert Davis, a climatologist at the University of Virginia, concluded that the number of heat-related deaths in New York in the 1990s was only a third as high as in the 1960s. The main reason is simple, and evident as you as walk into the Bridge Cafe on a warm afternoon: air-conditioning.

Links to Ivory-bill papers etc

1. Fitzpatrick et al's original June '05 Science paper here.

2. Sibley et al's March '06 comment here, with Supporting Online Material here.

3. Fitzpatrick et al's response to Sibley et al's comment here.

4. Another Sibley/Fitz round (March '07) from Science is linked here.

5. Jerome Jackson's Auk letter (January '06) here.

6. A Fitz et al response to Jackson (April '06 Auk) is here.

7. More from Jackson (Oct '06 Auk) is here.

8. Jones et al paper "Similarities Between Campephilus Woodpecker Double Raps and Mechanical Sounds Produced by Duck Flocks" here.

9. Martin Collinson's paper (March '07) here.

10. Cornell's online Luneau video analysis (Feb '06) here.

11. Louis Bevier's Ivory-billed debate site here.

Letter from Robb Hamilton

Reader Robb Hamilton, who served on the California Bird
Records Committee from 1998 to 2001, emailed me this yesterday:

Yesterday I submitted the attached comments to the USFWS, and since they will become part of the public record I figure now's as good a time as any to stop lurking and add my name to the list of public skeptics. Feel free to publish this letter in any way you see fit -- maybe it will inspire others to write something to the Service before the deadline for comments.

I think you've done a real service to ornithology by keeping this story from sinking into the background of many peoples' consciousness. Your blog has been my constant source of information and updates, and without it I expect that I would have largely lost touch with the saga long ago. My only suggestion would be to consider adding one centralized page that provides links to the IbWo papers that have been published online, starting with the first one by Fitzpatrick et al. in Science (unless there are earlier ones that are relevant and that can be found on the web). I hope you'll ignore this suggestion if adding this page would entail cost or considerable work -- I just know that when I was putting this letter together it would have been great to have "one-stop-shopping" for all the relevant electronic publications (including those that the Service failed to cite in the recovery plan).

Thanks!
Robb Hamilton
Long Beach, CA

Robb attached this letter (PDF).

At Robb's request, I'll post a page of links to recent IBWO papers, etc. This will be available under "Links" at the upper right-hand corner of this blog.

Challenge to Scientific "Consensus" on Global Warming

Here.

Excerpts:

A new analysis of peer-reviewed literature reveals that more than 500 scientists have published evidence refuting at least one element of current man-made global warming scares. More than 300 of the scientists found evidence that 1) a natural moderate 1,500-year climate cycle has produced more than a dozen global warmings similar to ours since the last Ice Age and/or that 2) our Modern Warming is linked strongly to variations in the sun's irradiance. "This data and the list of scientists make a mockery of recent claims that a scientific consensus blames humans as the primary cause of global temperature increases since 1850," said Hudson Institute Senior Fellow Dennis Avery.
...
"We have had a Greenhouse Theory with no evidence to support it-except a moderate warming turned into a scare by computer models whose results have never been verified with real-world events," said co-author Singer. "On the other hand, we have compelling evidence of a real-world climate cycle averaging 1470 years (plus or minus 500) running through the last million years of history. The climate cycle has above all been moderate, and the trees, bears, birds, and humans have quietly adapted."

"Two thousand years of published human histories say that the warm periods were good for people," says Avery. "It was the harsh, unstable Dark Ages and Little Ice Age that brought bigger storms, untimely frost, widespread famine and plagues of disease." "There may have been a consensus of guesses among climate model-builders," says Singer. "However, the models only reflect the warming, not its cause." He noted that about 70 percent of the earth's post-1850 warming came before 1940, and thus was probably not caused by human-emitted greenhouse gases. The net post-1940 warming totals only a tiny 0.2 degrees C.

"particular concern for the potential presence " of the IBWO

An article about a proposed Arkansas power plant is here.

An excerpt:

The Ecological Conservation Organization, which bills itself as “...an Arkansas based 501 (c) 3 environmental nonprofit organization that focuses on research, restoration, and education” expressed particular concern for the potential presence of the Ivory-billed woodpecker in the Grassy Lake area.

“The area is also prime habitat for the recently rediscovered Ivory-billed woodpecker, which has yet to be explored for survey in this area,” Rob Fisher, executive director of ECO writes.

More IBWO links

1. John Arvin will be speaking about the Texas IBWO search tomorrow in Houston. Chapter 7 (dated May 2007) of his IBWO Chronicles is here.

Arvin seems to have lost some enthusiasm since Chapter 1 (January '06).

2. A post about the IBWO appears on the Black Bear Blog here.

3. "IBWO" in Michigan here.

More on those dying bees

Here.

Some earlier coverage is here.

"Just too tantalizing to ignore"

IBWO article here.

State of the blog

As of today, 9/10/07, I'd like to publicly declare that I'm quite bored with the current Ivory-bill hysteria.

If you've been paying attention (and if you have a brain in your head), it should be obvious by now that the announced 21st-century IBWO rediscoveries were mistakes, and that we're almost certainly facing endless years of intriguing glimpses, noises, bark scaling, etc, but never ever any confirmation of a living, breathing Ivory-bill.

This situation is not going to hold my attention indefinitely.

Right now, I'm much more interested in the scientific debate about catastrophic anthropogenic global warming (AGW).

A big difference between the IBWO debate and the catastrophic AGW debate:

1. The IBWO rediscovery claims were almost certainly completely untrue (there were zero living IBWOs in 2004), while the AGW debate is based on some scientific truth (ie, anthropogenic greenhouse emissions are almost certainly warming the earth a bit).

The crux of the catastrophic AGW debate is the magnitude of "a bit" in the above sentence.

From my perspective, the current AGW debate is strikingly similar to the IBWO debate as it was a couple of years ago:

1. If you suggest that AGW fears are likely to be vastly overblown, you still run the risk of being treated as a heretic. This will change.

2. I've heard several otherwise-intelligent people argue that deliberately stoking overblown AGW fears may be disingenuous, but "the end justifies the means" if it results in people living a more "green" lifestyle. We heard similar arguments from people who would promote a non-existent Ivory-bill population for the "greater good" of local forest conservation.

In both cases, I believe a "crying wolf" policy is counterproductive in the long run. People will be less likely to listen to your real environmental concerns if you deliberately mislead them with imaginary or overblown ones.

3. In my view, a very large portion of catastrophic AGW believers are reasonably smart folks that simply haven't taken the time to look at the facts for themselves. They remind me very much of Tim Allwood of a couple of years ago, who was an IBWO TB until he took the time to look at the flimsy evidence for himself.

4. The media bought heavily into the catastrophic AGW story just as they bought into the ridiculous IBWO rediscovery story. They're not part of any "conspiracy"; they just know a big story when they see one, and they're mostly incapable of or unwilling to do basic scientific fact-checking for themselves.

5. Both stories have a high-profile visual that has been largely discredited (the Luneau video and the "hockey stick" graph respectively).

6. James Hansen in the catastrophic AGW story is probably the best counterpart for the John Fitzpatrick role in the IBWO fiasco.

7. Lubos Motl's blog is one of many blogs filling a niche somewhat like this blog's small role in the IBWO debate.

Don't forget--like me, you could become skeptical of catastrophic AGW predictions and yet still be in favor of things like these: research for alternate fuels, recycling, forest conservation, carpooling, a brighter future for your children, etc etc.

After examining the situation for the better part of a year, here's my prediction of how the catastrophic AGW debate will play out: Just as in the IBWO debate, over time, more and more prominent scientists will publicly join the side of the skeptics. Eventually, the media will tire of the story, and like the IBWO debate, the whole thing will end not with a bang but with a whimper.

It may take years, but I believe most of you will eventually come around to my skepticism on this topic for a simple reason: you're smart and I'm right. :^)
----

In the IBWO debate, I ended up spending quite a lot of time debating with the TBs, and I don't intend to let that happen this time around.

For now, I've changed this blog's name from "Ivory-bill Skeptic" to "Tom Nelson". With this name change, I'll feel more free to post about anything that interests me.

I have no idea how the next year will play out. I still plan to post Ivory-bill links, but I may choose to go completely silent here for long periods.

No doubt many current readers will no longer be regular visitors to this blog. Thanks for reading; it's been fun!

Do SUVs necessarily cause catastrophic droughts?-OT

Here.