"I can change your mind": if it's experts you're after, look elsewhere
[Michael Ashley] Climate scientists – I’m talking about the 97% or so that agree that humans have a considerable influence on the climate – are very uneasy with the false balance that a program such as this engenders. From the moment a climate scientist steps onto the stage with a climate denier, the audience’s default assumption will be that there is a 50:50 contest going on. It is going to be difficult or impossible for the scientist to win the argument at the 97:3 level that characterises the debate amongst experts, let alone the 99.99:0.01 level as it exists, roughly, in the scientific literature.
...For me, the most surprising part of the documentary was Minchin’s choice of experts: they were all duds who would only influence the gullible or those blinded by ideology. Although, to be fair to Minchin, there aren’t any non-dud experts on his side to choose from.For example, blogger David Evans from Perth showed Rose an aerial photo of a meteorological station near an airport, declaring that half of the world’s “official” thermometers were like this and that they were measuring warming from jet aircraft engines more than anything else.
Rose’s response was “surely you don’t think climate scientists are that stupid?”
And of course Rose is right. Climate scientists aren’t stupid – global warming is clearly measured when only the highest quality rural meteorological stations are used. [Lomborg's] solution now is to spend $100 billion a year in research and development for a magic technological fix, while keeping on burning fossil fuels.
This is like saying “let’s jump out of this airplane without a parachute, and we will research and develop ways of landing safely on the way down”.
Michael Ashley on The Conversation
Michael is also a matchmaker for the Climate Science Rapid Response Team, the aim of which is to connect journalists and government officials with experts in climate science.
Posts
1 comment:
Can someone please inform Mr. Ashley of Anthony Watts' Surface Station project and how climate scientists have indeed been using data from poorly sited thermometers without even knowing they were. Does he think climate scientists even asked if the thermometers were poorly sited?
Post a Comment