climatechangedispatch--2020-06-03--Peter Ridd’s Fight For Academic Freedom In Climate Science

Written by Jennifer Marohasy on .
Posted in Latest news This week the Federal Court appeal hearing took place for the case of Peter Ridd , Australian scientist , who was fired by his university after he had criticized Great Barrier Reef science .
Australian scientist and journalist Jennifer Marohasy is following the case closely and reports about the latest chapter in this sad saga : To be truly curious we must confess our ignorance .
The person who knows everything would have no reason to question , no need to experiment .
If they went in search of evidence @ @ @ @ @ @ @ what they already knew to be true .
Knowledge then would be something that conferred prestige , rather than something to be built upon .
It was because of Peter Ridd that I had to know if all the coral reefs off Bowen were dead , or not .
I went looking for mudflats with a Gloucester Island backdrop after the first judgment was handed down , which was back last April 2019 .
Of course , Peter was cleared by Judge Vasta in the Federal Court of all the misconduct charges that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the University appealed , and that appeal was heard this last week .
The university appealed because the modern Australian university can ’ t let a comprehensive win by a dissident professor go unchallenged .
The modern university is all about prestige , and they probably thought that eventually , Peter would run out of money , the money needed to defend himself in the courts .
But they don ’ t know Peter , or the team backing him .
Yesterday Peter thanked both the Union and also the Institute of Public @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
The Federal Court appeal hearing is over , and the lawyers have done their work .
We now wait , possibly for some months , for the three judges to make the decision .
In essence the appeal was about defining the limits of academic freedom , and what a university scientist can say , and how he or she might be allowed to say it .
For example , was I allowed to say that due to systemic lack of quality assurance , scientific results from Great Barrier Reef science institutions @ @ @ @ @ @ @ not , [ not ] even if I believed it to be true .
I am certainly not ashamed of anything I said , how I said it , or of my motivation .
Irrespective of the outcome of the appeal , I can now focus on other matters .
First , I will work tirelessly to raise the problem of hopeless quality assurance of the science of the GBR , including the effect of climate change on the reef .
I am hoping that the Senate Inquiry will come out of Covid @ @ @ @ @ @ @ pushing AIMS to release their missing 15 years of coral growth data , and JCU to release its buried report on possible fraud at its coral reef centre .
It is shameful the contempt with which these institutions treat the people of the region .
Second , I will work with those agricultural organisations that show a determination to fight , which is sadly far from all of them , to demonstrate that the recent unfair regulations on Queensland farmers are based on shoddy science .
Third : I will work to encourage @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to force universities to behave like genuine universities and not the glossy public relations companies that they have become .
Governments must mandate the introduction of genuine and enforceable guidelines on academic freedom such as those outlined in the Commonwealth governments ( unimplemented ) review by ex-High Court judge , Robert French .
My IPA colleague Gideon Rozner has an important article in The Australian newspaper that provides much more context .
The piece includes comment that : The Ridd case has resonated around Australia — and has attracted significant attention worldwide — @ @ @ @ @ @ @ many people have suspected for a long time : Australia ’ s universities are no longer institutions encouraging the rigorous exercise of intellectual freedom and the scientific method in pursuit of truth .
Instead , they are now corporatist bureaucracies that rigidly enforce an unquestioning orthodoxy and are capable of hounding out anyone who strays outside their rigid groupthink .
JCU is attempting to severely limit the intellectual freedom of a professor working at the university to question the quality of scientific research conducted by other academics at the institution .
In other @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a critical function that goes to the core mission of universities : to engage in free intellectual inquiry via free and open , if often robust , debate .
It is an absurd but inevitable consequence of universities seeking taxpayer-funded research grants , not truth .
Worse still , it is taxpayers who are funding JCU ’ s court case .
Following a Freedom of Information request by the Institute of Public Affairs , the university was forced to reveal that up until July last year , it had already spent $ 630,000 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ safe to assume that university ’ s legal costs would have at least doubled since that time .
The barrister who JCU employed in the Federal Court this week was Bret Walker SC , one of Australia ’ s most eminent lawyers .
Barristers of his standing can command fees of $ 20,000 to $ 30,000 a day .
And all of this is happening at the same time as the vice-chancellor of the university , Sandra Harding — who earns at least $ 975,000 a year — complains about the impact of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ are funding the university ’ s efforts to shut down freedom of speech , Ridd ’ s legal costs are paid for by him , his wife and voluntary donations from the public .
As yet , neither the federal nor the Queensland Education Minister has publicly commented on whether JCU is appropriately spending taxpayers ’ money and , so far , both have refused to intervene in the case .
Gideon Rozner is tireless and has also put together a fascinating 3-part podcast providing background into Peter Ridd ’ s fight for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ this series .
The saga will continue for the next few years , whatever the judges decide .
As will my interest in all things to do with the Great Barrier Reef .

Written by Jennifer Marohasy on Jun 3, 2020 . Posted in Latest news
This week the Federal Court appeal hearing took place for the case of Peter Ridd, Australian scientist, who was fired by his university after he had criticized Great Barrier Reef science.
Australian scientist and journalist Jennifer Marohasy is following the case closely and reports about the latest chapter in this sad saga:
To be truly curious we must confess our ignorance. The person who knows everything would have no reason to question, no need to experiment.
If they went in search of evidence, it could only be to confirm what they already knew to be true. Knowledge then would be something that conferred prestige, rather than something to be built upon.
It was because of Peter Ridd that I had to know if all the coral reefs off Bowen were dead, or not. I went looking for mudflats with a Gloucester Island backdrop after the first judgment was handed down, which was back last April 2019.
Of course, Peter was cleared by Judge Vasta in the Federal Court of all the misconduct charges that had resulted in his sacking. Yet the University appealed, and that appeal was heard this last week.
The university appealed because the modern Australian university can’t let a comprehensive win by a dissident professor go unchallenged.
The modern university is all about prestige, and they probably thought that eventually, Peter would run out of money, the money needed to defend himself in the courts. But they don’t know Peter, or the team backing him.
Yesterday Peter thanked both the Union and also the Institute of Public Affairs (IPA) for their support.
Peter also wrote:
The Federal Court appeal hearing is over, and the lawyers have done their work. We now wait, possibly for some months, for the three judges to make the decision. In essence the appeal was about defining the limits of academic freedom, and what a university scientist can say, and how he or she might be allowed to say it. For example, was I allowed to say that due to systemic lack of quality assurance, scientific results from Great Barrier Reef science institutions was untrustworthy? JCU said I was not, [not] even if I believed it to be true.
I am certainly not ashamed of anything I said, how I said it, or of my motivation. Irrespective of the outcome of the appeal, I can now focus on other matters. First, I will work tirelessly to raise the problem of hopeless quality assurance of the science of the GBR, including the effect of climate change on the reef. I am hoping that the Senate Inquiry will come out of Covid hibernation soon. I will also be pushing AIMS to release their missing 15 years of coral growth data, and JCU to release its buried report on possible fraud at its coral reef centre. It is shameful the contempt with which these institutions treat the people of the region. Second, I will work with those agricultural organisations that show a determination to fight, which is sadly far from all of them, to demonstrate that the recent unfair regulations on Queensland farmers are based on shoddy science. Third: I will work to encourage governments at both state and federal level to force universities to behave like genuine universities and not the glossy public relations companies that they have become. Governments must mandate the introduction of genuine and enforceable guidelines on academic freedom such as those outlined in the Commonwealth governments (unimplemented) review by ex-High Court judge, Robert French.
My IPA colleague Gideon Rozner has an important article in The Australian newspaper that provides much more context. The piece includes comment that:
The Ridd case has resonated around Australia — and has attracted significant attention worldwide — for good reason. It confirms what many people have suspected for a long time: Australia’s universities are no longer institutions encouraging the rigorous exercise of intellectual freedom and the scientific method in pursuit of truth. Instead, they are now corporatist bureaucracies that rigidly enforce an unquestioning orthodoxy and are capable of hounding out anyone who strays outside their rigid groupthink. JCU is attempting to severely limit the intellectual freedom of a professor working at the university to question the quality of scientific research conducted by other academics at the institution. In other words, JCU is trying to curtail a critical function that goes to the core mission of universities: to engage in free intellectual inquiry via free and open, if often robust, debate. It is an absurd but inevitable consequence of universities seeking taxpayer-funded research grants, not truth. Worse still, it is taxpayers who are funding JCU’s court case. Following a Freedom of Information request by the Institute of Public Affairs, the university was forced to reveal that up until July last year, it had already spent $630,000 in legal fees. It would be safe to assume that university’s legal costs would have at least doubled since that time. The barrister who JCU employed in the Federal Court this week was Bret Walker SC, one of Australia’s most eminent lawyers. Barristers of his standing can command fees of $20,000 to $30,000 a day. And all of this is happening at the same time as the vice-chancellor of the university, Sandra Harding — who earns at least $975,000 a year — complains about the impact of government funding cuts. While Australian taxpayers are funding the university’s efforts to shut down freedom of speech, Ridd’s legal costs are paid for by him, his wife and voluntary donations from the public. As yet, neither the federal nor the Queensland Education Minister has publicly commented on whether JCU is appropriately spending taxpayers’ money and, so far, both have refused to intervene in the case.
Gideon Rozner is tireless and has also put together a fascinating 3-part podcast providing background into Peter Ridd’s fight for academic freedom. He interviewed me for this series.
The saga will continue for the next few years, whatever the judges decide. As will my interest in all things to do with the Great Barrier Reef.
Read rest at Clintel
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climatechangedispatch--2020-06-03--Climate Wars: David Vs. Goliath In Cyberspace

Written by ccdeditor on .
Posted in Latest news In his 2007 book , An Army of Davids , Glenn Reynolds , the founder of Instapundit , wrote optimistically that an army of ordinary people ( “ Davids ” ) could use technology and the market to beat the Goliaths of “ Big Media , Big Government , and Other Goliaths.
” Thirteen years later , big media is on the ropes but the Silicon Valley Goliaths , using the technology and market forces at their disposal , have shut out of the marketplace Davids opposed to their preferred opinions @ @ @ @ @ @ @ views has been the notion that we are in an existential crisis of climate change for which the only remedy is killing reliance on traditional energy sources .
Last week , in an effort to curb the manifest bias in social media platforms , President Trump signed an executive order preventing online censorship .
The justification for now treating social media as “ publishers ” responsible for the content — instead of “ platforms , ” which are not — stems , inter alia , from their behavior in stifling the free exchange @ @ @ @ @ @ @ owners and staff .
“ The growth of online platforms in recent years raises important questions about applying the ideals of the First Amendment to modern communications technology .
Today , many Americans follow the news , stay in touch with friends and family , and share their views on current events through social media and other online platforms .
As a result , these platforms function in many ways as a 21st century equivalent of the public square .
Twitter , Facebook , Instagram , and YouTube wield immense , if not @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of public events ; to censor , delete , or disappear information ; and to control what people see or do not see .
As President , I have made clear my commitment to free and open debate on the Internet .
Such debate is just as important online as it is in our universities , our town halls , and our homes .
It is essential to sustaining our democracy .
Online platforms are engaging in selective censorship that is harming our national discourse .
Tens of thousands of Americans have reported @ @ @ @ @ @ @ platforms “ flagging ” content as inappropriate , even though it does not violate any stated terms of service ; making unannounced and unexplained changes to company policies that have the effect of disfavoring certain viewpoints ; and deleting content and entire accounts with no warning , no rationale , and no recourse.
” The website Wattsupwiththat greeted the President ’ s move as an opening for climate change skeptics who ’ ve been abusively treated by these outfits .
I anticipate the order ’ s enforcement will meet with significant challenges along @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the president ’ s claim , there is ample evidence of both the abusive treatment of climate change skeptics and the impact this has had on public debate and policy .
Examples abound of censorship by Google , Twitter , Microsoft , Apple , LinkedIn , Wikipedia , and YouTube .
Apple no longer allows its iPhone to access an app called Inconvenient Facts which challenges Al Gore ’ s views on dangerous climate change .
Reddit moderators have banned climate skeptics from the “ /r/science ” feature which has millions of monthly @ @ @ @ @ @ @ social media censorship by Google , Twitter , and Microsoft .
Twitter is the worst in its view .
It bans tweets whose content it omnisciently determines is “ inaccurate .
“ At the same time , it runs and sometimes promotes ads without marking them as paid ads or putting the word “ promoted “ in tiny font .
Google is only slightly better , censoring and banning messages , including ads “ in the middle of a run , ” none of which contain misrepresentations , but conflict with the views @ @ @ @ @ @ @ skeptic ads , even after approval , seemed significant just prior to the Paris conference re-enactment .
Microsoft and LinkedIn banned messages , sometimes at their onset and other times in the middle of ad campaigns .
Sometimes they did not outright ban them , but kept them in review “ indefinitely.
” Is the simultaneous banning by multiple big social media companies evidence of marketplace monopolistic collusion , the author asks , noting these companies did enter into various agreements with the European Commission and German government to suppress some content ?
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ is the fact they often hire the very same “ fact-checkers ” and censors .
If so , such collusion could subject the firms ’ officers to prison sentences under 15 U.S. Code Sec .
24 .
And then there ’ s YouTube ( owned by Google ) .
It is the “ platform ” that carries videos on everything from White House pressers to how to trim and tie a beef tenderloin or make your own silly putty .
“ 1,300,000,000 use YouTube .
300 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube @ @ @ @ @ @ @ are watched on YouTube every single day.
” YouTube is adding “ fact checks ” to videos that dare to question the climate change credo .
Wikipedia is the recipient of a significant grant from Google , so if you see collusion in the fact that YouTube will tag some climate change skeptic videos with text from Wikipedia , stating “ multiple lines of scientific evidence show that the climate system is warming ” you may not be off the mark .
Adding to the injury to YouTube viewers seeking information and posters @ @ @ @ @ @ @ which the policy was made effective .
“ The Heartland Institute , for example , a conservative think tank that posts videos of its staff and others questioning climate change , told BuzzFeed News that it noticed the change a few weeks ago and had not been notified by YouTube .
Spokesperson Jim Lakely declined to comment on the policy or its impact .
PragerU , a nonprofit online “ university ” that made some of the other affected videos , says YouTube ’ s policy shows its political bias .
“ Despite @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a platform open to all , YouTube is clearly a left-wing organization , ” Craig Strazzeri , PragerU ’ s chief marketing officer , said by email .
“ This is just another mistake in a long line of giant missteps that erodes America ’ s trust in Big Tech , much like what has already happened with the mainstream news media.
” YouTuber Tony Heller , who also makes climate denial videos , described the policy on Twitter as YouTube “ putting propaganda at the bottom of all climate videos.
” ( @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for comment . )
It ’ s not just misleading climate videos .
The same climate blurb was appended to dozens of videos explaining the evidence and impacts of climate change .
This access-point censorship not only hurts those censored persons and messages .
Since Google controls 92.2 % of all online searches , and clearly considers views other than its own on climate “ disinformation , ” it is able to keep alternative views and evidence out of educational and public discussion and consideration .
It ’ s rather circular , the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ various ways these online giants promote ) get linked , the more authoritative these same giants consider them and place them at the top of the search results .
Also rigging higher authority-based search algorithm results are negative attacks on skeptics , including suggestions that the source of their funding influenced their work , while never making such a connection between “ funding of alarmists by self-interested government agencies , renewable energy companies , far-left foundations or Tom Steyer.
” Wojick ‘ s investigation into Google ’ s censorship concludes : “ No @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the dominance of human factors in climate change , the near-apocalyptic effects of predicted climate change , or the value and validity of climate models are routinely ignored by Google ’ s algorithms .
”

Written by Thomas Richard on Jun 3, 2020 . Posted in Latest news
In his 2007 book, An Army of Davids, Glenn Reynolds, the founder of Instapundit, wrote optimistically that an army of ordinary people (“Davids”) could use technology and the market to beat the Goliaths of “Big Media, Big Government, and Other Goliaths.”
Thirteen years later, big media is on the ropes but the Silicon Valley Goliaths, using the technology and market forces at their disposal, have shut out of the marketplace Davids opposed to their preferred opinions.
Not the least of their favored views has been the notion that we are in an existential crisis of climate change for which the only remedy is killing reliance on traditional energy sources.
Last week, in an effort to curb the manifest bias in social media platforms, President Trump signed an executive order preventing online censorship.
The justification for now treating social media as “publishers” responsible for the content — instead of “platforms,” which are not — stems, inter alia, from their behavior in stifling the free exchange of views inconsistent with those of their owners and staff.
“The growth of online platforms in recent years raises important questions about applying the ideals of the First Amendment to modern communications technology. Today, many Americans follow the news, stay in touch with friends and family, and share their views on current events through social media and other online platforms. As a result, these platforms function in many ways as a 21st century equivalent of the public square. Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube wield immense, if not unprecedented, power to shape the interpretation of public events; to censor, delete, or disappear information; and to control what people see or do not see. As President, I have made clear my commitment to free and open debate on the Internet. Such debate is just as important online as it is in our universities, our town halls, and our homes. It is essential to sustaining our democracy. Online platforms are engaging in selective censorship that is harming our national discourse. Tens of thousands of Americans have reported, among other troubling behaviors, online platforms “flagging” content as inappropriate, even though it does not violate any stated terms of service; making unannounced and unexplained changes to company policies that have the effect of disfavoring certain viewpoints; and deleting content and entire accounts with no warning, no rationale, and no recourse.”
The website Wattsupwiththat greeted the President’s move as an opening for climate change skeptics who’ve been abusively treated by these outfits.
I anticipate the order’s enforcement will meet with significant challenges along the way, but in support of the president’s claim, there is ample evidence of both the abusive treatment of climate change skeptics and the impact this has had on public debate and policy.
Examples abound of censorship by Google, Twitter, Microsoft, Apple, LinkedIn, Wikipedia, and YouTube.
Apple no longer allows its iPhone to access an app called Inconvenient Facts which challenges Al Gore’s views on dangerous climate change.
Reddit moderators have banned climate skeptics from the “/r/science” feature which has millions of monthly visitors.
Wattsup documents countless incidents of social media censorship by Google, Twitter, and Microsoft. Twitter is the worst in its view.
It bans tweets whose content it omnisciently determines is “inaccurate. “At the same time, it runs and sometimes promotes ads without marking them as paid ads or putting the word “promoted “ in tiny font.
Google is only slightly better, censoring and banning messages, including ads “in the middle of a run,” none of which contain misrepresentations, but conflict with the views of its apparatchiks.
The censoring of skeptic ads, even after approval, seemed significant just prior to the Paris conference re-enactment. Microsoft and LinkedIn banned messages, sometimes at their onset and other times in the middle of ad campaigns. Sometimes they did not outright ban them, but kept them in review “indefinitely.”
Is the simultaneous banning by multiple big social media companies evidence of marketplace monopolistic collusion, the author asks, noting these companies did enter into various agreements with the European Commission and German government to suppress some content?
Adding to this suspicion of collusive practices is the fact they often hire the very same “fact-checkers” and censors. If so, such collusion could subject the firms’ officers to prison sentences under 15 U.S. Code Sec. 24.
And then there’s YouTube (owned by Google). It is the “platform” that carries videos on everything from White House pressers to how to trim and tie a beef tenderloin or make your own silly putty.
“1,300,000,000 use YouTube. 300 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute! Almost 5 billion videos are watched on YouTube every single day.” YouTube is adding “fact checks” to videos that dare to question the climate change credo.
Wikipedia is the recipient of a significant grant from Google, so if you see collusion in the fact that YouTube will tag some climate change skeptic videos with text from Wikipedia, stating “multiple lines of scientific evidence show that the climate system is warming” you may not be off the mark.
(If the solar minimum happening right now indicates the system is in a cooling phase, will they remove the text, confess error, or just change the text from “warming” to “cooling”? It will be interesting to watch, I think.)
Adding to the injury to YouTube viewers seeking information and posters advocating their position is the secrecy with which the policy was made effective.
“The Heartland Institute, for example, a conservative think tank that posts videos of its staff and others questioning climate change, told BuzzFeed News that it noticed the change a few weeks ago and had not been notified by YouTube. Spokesperson Jim Lakely declined to comment on the policy or its impact. PragerU, a nonprofit online “university” that made some of the other affected videos, says YouTube’s policy shows its political bias. “Despite claiming to be a public forum and a platform open to all, YouTube is clearly a left-wing organization,” Craig Strazzeri, PragerU’s chief marketing officer, said by email. “This is just another mistake in a long line of giant missteps that erodes America’s trust in Big Tech, much like what has already happened with the mainstream news media.” YouTuber Tony Heller, who also makes climate denial videos, described the policy on Twitter as YouTube “putting propaganda at the bottom of all climate videos.” (He did not respond to a request for comment.) It’s not just misleading climate videos. The same climate blurb was appended to dozens of videos explaining the evidence and impacts of climate change.
This access-point censorship not only hurts those censored persons and messages.
Since Google controls 92.2% of all online searches, and clearly considers views other than its own on climate “disinformation,” it is able to keep alternative views and evidence out of educational and public discussion and consideration.
It’s rather circular, the more the liberal sites (which in various ways these online giants promote) get linked, the more authoritative these same giants consider them and place them at the top of the search results.
Also rigging higher authority-based search algorithm results are negative attacks on skeptics, including suggestions that the source of their funding influenced their work, while never making such a connection between “funding of alarmists by self-interested government agencies, renewable energy companies, far-left foundations or Tom Steyer.”
Wojick ‘s investigation into Google’s censorship concludes: “No matter how well reasoned, articles questioning the dominance of human factors in climate change, the near-apocalyptic effects of predicted climate change, or the value and validity of climate models are routinely ignored by Google’s algorithms.”
Read rest at The Pipeline
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climatechangedispatch--2020-06-03--Germany Warns: Far-Left Antifa Is Infiltrating Climate Movement

Written by Chris Tomlinson on .
Posted in Latest news German security services have warned that far-left Antifa extremists have begun infiltrating climate change groups to gain legitimacy and spread their anti-state anarchist ideology .
Germany ’ s Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution ( BfV ) and other agencies have claimed that there has been evidence of left-wing extremists attempting to radicalize more moderate climate change groups .
One such movement is Fridays for Future , spearheaded by Swedish teen activist Greta Thunberg .
Last October , the BfV labeled the group Ende Gelände ( End of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ far-left extremist scene , with Berlin ’ s head of the Office for the Protection of the Constitution , Michael Fischer , stating the group was “ agitating against our political system in the Federal Republic , ” Die Welt reported on Tuesday .
The group is said to advocate for “ system change ” and the hashtag “ System change , not climate change ” was supported by Fridays for Future on German social media .
Ende Gelände has been noted for their protests against open-pit lignite ( brown coal ) mines @ @ @ @ @ @ @ where a security agency report claims the activists engaged in violence towards police and trespassing in mines .
While some politicians have criticized the security agencies for labeling the group as extremists , the German police union welcomed the move , saying : The report is not the first time far-left extremism has been associated with climate activism .

Written by Chris Tomlinson on Jun 3, 2020 . Posted in Latest news
German security services have warned that far-left Antifa extremists have begun infiltrating climate change groups to gain legitimacy and spread their anti-state anarchist ideology.
Germany’s Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV) and other agencies have claimed that there has been evidence of left-wing extremists attempting to radicalize more moderate climate change groups.
One such movement is Fridays for Future, spearheaded by Swedish teen activist Greta Thunberg.
Last October, the BfV labeled the group Ende Gelände (End of the Land) as belonging to the far-left extremist scene, with Berlin’s head of the Office for the Protection of the Constitution, Michael Fischer, stating the group was “agitating against our political system in the Federal Republic,” Die Welt reported on Tuesday.
The group is said to advocate for “system change” and the hashtag “System change, not climate change” was supported by Fridays for Future on German social media.
Ende Gelände has been noted for their protests against open-pit lignite (brown coal) mines across Germany including in Hambach in 2018 where a security agency report claims the activists engaged in violence towards police and trespassing in mines.
While some politicians have criticized the security agencies for labeling the group as extremists, the German police union welcomed the move, saying:
“Of course, a distinction is made between peaceful and non-peaceful or violent supporters. Conversely, this also means that the ‘peaceful’ also have to actively distance themselves from the ‘violent’ and separate.”
The report is not the first time far-left extremism has been associated with climate activism.
Read rest at Breitbart
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climatechangedispatch--2020-06-03--New Study Debunks Alarmist Climatologist Katharine Hayhoe

Written by James Taylor on .
Posted in Latest news The Canadian science organization Friends of Science is taking alarmist ringleader Katharine Hayhoe to climate school , releasing a 78-page study debunking Hayhoe ’ s climate misinformation .
Friends of Science describes its study as “ a plain language document , meant to help the general public and policymakers understand the complexities of climate change and forecasting.
” The study lives up to those words .
The title of the study , “ Facts vs. Fortune Telling , ” is particularly appropriate .
Hayhoe frequently attempts to appeal to Christians @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and then attempting to make climate alarmism a Christian issue .
During a 2019 talk in Juneau , Alaska , Hayhoe , “ asked her Juneau audience how a Christian , like herself , could truly say they were pro-life if they ignored the damage being done by climate change.
” Self-righteously interjecting the abortion issue into the climate change debate is weak science , weak theology , and the type of tactic leftists frequently employ to take attention away from actual science .
Interjecting religion into science debates also divides the Christian @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Christian .
Her scientific assertions are just as shoddy as her theological assertions .
Friends of Science observes , “ Hayhoe claims that society was built on the assumption that climate is stable .
Anyone with a modicum of common-sense should be able to dispute that claim and present evidence to show that this is not supported by observation and evidence.
” Even in the absence of common sense , people need only look to the asserted “ gold standard ” of climate science , the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change @ @ @ @ @ @ @ scientific observations refute Hayhoe ’ s claims .
The chart below is a slide that Hayhoe uses in public presentations .
The slide , presented without any scientific citation or sources , asserts temperatures steadily declined for thousands of years before the warming of the 20th century .
Compare that to the chart below , presented in the UN IPCC ’ s very first climate assessment ( see pg .
202 , here ) .
The IPCC chart shows climate change is the norm , not the exception .
Temperatures are frequently warming @ @ @ @ @ @ @ warmer temperatures than today during most of human history .
This is just one of many , many examples of Hayhoe misrepresenting facts to further her agenda .
Kudos to Friends of Science for setting the record straight .

Written by James Taylor on Jun 3, 2020 . Posted in Latest news
The Canadian science organization Friends of Science is taking alarmist ringleader Katharine Hayhoe to climate school, releasing a 78-page study debunking Hayhoe’s climate misinformation.
Friends of Science describes its study as “a plain language document, meant to help the general public and policymakers understand the complexities of climate change and forecasting.” The study lives up to those words.
The title of the study, “Facts vs. Fortune Telling,” is particularly appropriate. Hayhoe frequently attempts to appeal to Christians and conservatives by self-identifying as a Christian and then attempting to make climate alarmism a Christian issue.
During a 2019 talk in Juneau, Alaska, Hayhoe, “asked her Juneau audience how a Christian, like herself, could truly say they were pro-life if they ignored the damage being done by climate change.”
Self-righteously interjecting the abortion issue into the climate change debate is weak science, weak theology, and the type of tactic leftists frequently employ to take attention away from actual science.
Interjecting religion into science debates also divides the Christian flock, which should concern a true Christian.
Her scientific assertions are just as shoddy as her theological assertions.
Friends of Science observes, “Hayhoe claims that society was built on the assumption that climate is stable. Anyone with a modicum of common-sense should be able to dispute that claim and present evidence to show that this is not supported by observation and evidence.”
Even in the absence of common sense, people need only look to the asserted “gold standard” of climate science, the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), to see how scientific observations refute Hayhoe’s claims.
The chart below is a slide that Hayhoe uses in public presentations. The slide, presented without any scientific citation or sources, asserts temperatures steadily declined for thousands of years before the warming of the 20th century.
Compare that to the chart below, presented in the UN IPCC’s very first climate assessment (see pg. 202, here).
The IPCC chart shows climate change is the norm, not the exception. Temperatures are frequently warming or cooling, with humans thriving under warmer temperatures than today during most of human history.
This is just one of many, many examples of Hayhoe misrepresenting facts to further her agenda. Kudos to Friends of Science for setting the record straight.
Read more at Climate Realism
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climatechangedispatch--2020-06-04--New Analysis Confirms Extreme Weather Not Getting Worse

Written by Dr. Benny Peiser , guest post on .
Posted in Latest news A new review of the scientific literature on extreme weather events published today by the Global Warming Policy Foundation ( GWPF ) confirms what IPCC assessment reports have concluded : There is little evidence of any significant changes in most indices .
The paper , by physicist Dr. Ralph Alexander , looks at trends in hot and cold weather extremes , floods and droughts , hurricanes , and wildfires and finds only a minor increase in cold weather extremes .
According to Dr. Alexander , weather @ @ @ @ @ @ @ has been reasonably empirical and scientific in recent years .
“ The IPCC stands out , among those who believe that global warming is primarily due to human activity , as a voice of restraint on the issue of extreme weather .
My review is in broad agreement with their position : there is little sign things are getting worse.
” In particular , Dr. Alexander points to the underreported global reductions in floods , wildfires , and hurricanes , but he cautions that many of the changes are likely to be cyclical @ @ @ @ @ @ @ weather extremes is natural ocean cycles like El Nino and the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation .
Eventually , these cycles will turn , and we should be ready .
But we shouldn ’ t be under any illusion that we can prevent extreme weather by changing our lifestyles ” .
Weather Extremes : Are They Caused By Global Warming ?
( pdf )

Written by Dr. Benny Peiser, guest post on Jun 4, 2020 . Posted in Latest news
A new review of the scientific literature on extreme weather events published today by the Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF) confirms what IPCC assessment reports have concluded: There is little evidence of any significant changes in most indices.
The paper, by physicist Dr. Ralph Alexander, looks at trends in hot and cold weather extremes, floods and droughts, hurricanes, and wildfires and finds only a minor increase in cold weather extremes.
According to Dr. Alexander, weather extremes are one area where the IPCC has been reasonably empirical and scientific in recent years.
As he explains:
“The IPCC stands out, among those who believe that global warming is primarily due to human activity, as a voice of restraint on the issue of extreme weather. My review is in broad agreement with their position: there is little sign things are getting worse.”
In particular, Dr. Alexander points to the underreported global reductions in floods, wildfires, and hurricanes, but he cautions that many of the changes are likely to be cyclical.
“The key driver for many weather extremes is natural ocean cycles like El Nino and the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation. Eventually, these cycles will turn, and we should be ready. But we shouldn’t be under any illusion that we can prevent extreme weather by changing our lifestyles”.
Weather Extremes: Are They Caused By Global Warming? (pdf)
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climatechangedispatch--2020-06-04--Ignore The Green Puffery: Fossil Fuels Are Here To Stay

Written by Frank Clemente on .
Posted in Latest news The easy thinking flies smoothly off the keyboard : “ Fossil Fuels are Done ” ; “ End of the Oil Era ” ; “ The Inevitable Death of Natural Gas ” ; “ The Demise of King Coal ” ; On and on , a parade of abstractions unconnected to the empirical world but sounding good , nevertheless .
Preying on everyone ’ s wish for a clean , healthy environment , special interest groups push their rhetoric far beyond the reality of what is happening in energy and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ coming decades .
Far from being dead , dying , or moribund , fossil fuels are steadily expanding their contribution and keeping billions of people alive all over the world .
More people , living longer , living better through fossil fuels .
The hard data tells the tale , and these data are readily available in the latest World Energy Outlook ( WEO ) by the International Energy Agency ( IEA ) .
And by “ hard data , ” I mean absolute numbers , not the growth percentages frequently used to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ wind and solar .
Here is the reality : • Over 81 % of global energy demand is met by fossil fuels , which provide the equivalent of 11,595 million tons of oil ( Mtoe ) • 64 % of electricity generation comes from fossil fuels , including 38 % from coal and 23 % from natural gas • Liquid fuels from oil provide some 95 % of global transportation—moving people , raw materials , finished products , and agricultural goods .
More than one writer has hyperbolically averred that the COVID-19 crisis @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and the recent trajectory of onward and upward will never return .
But the coronavirus notwithstanding , energy demand will resurge and continue to increase for decades to come .
China ’ s gasoline and diesel consumption are already back to pre-virus levels and daily coal burn at power plants is on the rise as factories reopen .
India ’ s fuel demand “ is set to reach pre-coronavirus levels in June , ” stated Indian Oil Minister Dharmendra Pradhan .
Meanwhile , the IEA recently affirmed its projection that peak oil demand @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , Fatih Birol , Executive Director of the IEA , puts the situation in perspective : “ American business consultants using Zoom will not compensate for 150 million new urban residents in India and Africa traveling , working in factories and buying products transported by trucks.
” This is the shape of things to come .
Here are some numbers from the latest IEA “ Current Policies Scenario ” regarding the future role of fossil fuels : • In 2030 , fossil fuels will provide 79 % of global energy demand and 13,398 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ will provide 78 % of global energy demand and 14,952 Mtoe For the record , even in the more ambitious “ Stated Policies Scenario ” of the IEA , fossil fuels still steadily increase , albeit at a slightly lower rate .
Nevertheless , in this alternative scenario , in 2030 , 77 % of energy demand is met by fossil fuels , and in 2040 , the number is over 74 % .
It is no surprise that these data receive little or no play in the media .
It is much @ @ @ @ @ @ @ dog ” stories than simply compose the same old , same old , pieces on continuity .
Stability and normality do not generate clickbait and obviously do not fit the agenda of those seeking dramatic change , however infeasible it may be .
Given this penchant toward hyperbole , it is easy to lose perspective on the role fossil fuels play and will continue to play , in virtually every society across the world .
The short-term perspectives of the media belie this fundamental fact , but Demography always wins in the end @ @ @ @ @ @ @ be added to the global population this year—upwards of a quarter-million today alone or a new Philadelphia every week .
By 2025 , the global population will have increased by over 400 million .
If these people were a country , it would be the third-largest nation on earth .
President Obama was correct in his assessment of needing “ all of the above ” even though his policies belied the mantra .
Consider oil—the overwhelming fuel for automobiles , tractors , trucks , airplanes , ships , etc .
Demand was about @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 2025 is projected to reach over 105 million .
These increases in oil consumption will be the pattern for years to come .
The IEA has stated , “ there is no peak demand on the horizon.
” In the next two decades , billions of people will seek to enter the global middle class .
The transportation sector will drive more than half of liquid fuel demand and trucks alone will consume 30 million b/d by 2050 .
Petrochemical demand will add 7 million b/d .
Few people other than Mark Mills @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the number of electric vehicles to 400 million on the roads by 2040 would displace only 5 % of global oil demand .
Oil is here to stay .
And now electricity—an area where assumptions about the death of fossil fuels follow the Mark Twain pattern of being “ greatly exaggerated.
” Electricity is the lifeblood of modern society and global demand for electric power has increased over 125 % in the last 30 years , from 11,731 terawatt-hours ( TWh ) in 1990 to 26,603 TWh now .
Yet , despite this @ @ @ @ @ @ @ do not have any electricity whatsoever and another two billion have severely limited access—e.g .
two or three days a week or several hours a day .
Electricity poverty is rampant and for three billion people food is cooked on fires fueled by biomass—e.g.
, wood or dung .
Estimates are that over four million people die prematurely each year from diseases related to indoor air pollution .
Given the energy density of fossil fuels , they are the only sources that can scale up to meet this latent demand and pull billions @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , especially coal , have already been the savior of billions of lives by providing electricity for clean water , sanitation , cooking , refrigeration , communication , and illumination .
China ’ s dramatic surge of electricity from coal is the best example and why the IEA called coal-based electrification an “ economic miracle.
” Coal-based electricity was the foundation of this great leap forward not only for China but countries stretching back to the industrial revolution in England .
More recently , global coal generating capacity grew every single year between @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 1,066 GW to 2,079 GW .
Further , about 500 GW of new coal capacity is either being built or planned .
The Current Policies Scenario of the IEA projects that in 2030 , 11,464 TWh of electricity will be produced by coal—a 13 % increase .
To be sure , the construction of coal plants is slowing down throughout much of the world , but the plants that have been put in place over the last decade , as well as those that will be become operational in the next decade , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ core coal fleet that will last throughout the lifetime of many readers of this article .
In other parts of the world , natural gas , coal ’ s power generation counterpart , is on the dramatic upswing .
Gas currently accounts for 6,118 TWh of electricity and by 2030 is projected to account for 8,086 TWh—an increase of 32 % .
In other words , by the end of the present decade , the combined total electricity generation of coal and gas will be over 19,550 TWh—the equivalent of four times the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Russia .
Some critics may complain that I use the Current Policies Scenario of the IEA rather than the Stated Policy Scenario .
A point well is taken , but it is dangerous to deal with political hypotheses stretching out 10,20 or 30 years when the architects of those hypotheses will be long gone and never have to answer for their unfounded exuberance .
In fact , the IEA itself cautions that the Stated Policy Scenario merely describes “ the direction in which today ’ s policy ambitions would take the energy sector.
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ fair play , let us note that even in the Stated Policy Scenario coal generation will still increase by 2030 and pretty much plateau by 2040 but certainly not decline .
Growth of natural gas-based generation in this Scenario will still be dramatic , increasing from 6,118 TWh now to 7,529 TWh ( +23 % ) by 2030 and 8,899 TWh ( +45 % ) by 2040 .
Although these data do not fit the preferred storyline of many pundits , it is abundantly clear that fossil fuels have been , are now @ @ @ @ @ @ @ component of energy systems throughout the world .
Note : The IEA also presents a “ Sustainable Development Scenario ” that some may embrace as feasible .
Not me .
If one feels that in just 20 years , we can reduce fossil fuel consumption more than 30 % while adding 1.5 billion people to the population without condemning several billion children , women and men to permanent energy poverty , our interpretations of the global energy situation are so far apart any interaction is meaningless .
Dr. Frank Clemente is Professor Emeritus @ @ @ @ @ @ @ where he was the Director of the Environmental Policy Center .

Written by Frank Clemente on Jun 4, 2020 . Posted in Latest news
The easy thinking flies smoothly off the keyboard: “Fossil Fuels are Done”; “End of the Oil Era”; “The Inevitable Death of Natural Gas”; “The Demise of King Coal”; On and on, a parade of abstractions unconnected to the empirical world but sounding good, nevertheless.
Preying on everyone’s wish for a clean, healthy environment, special interest groups push their rhetoric far beyond the reality of what is happening in energy and what will continue to happen in the coming decades.
Far from being dead, dying, or moribund, fossil fuels are steadily expanding their contribution and keeping billions of people alive all over the world. More people, living longer, living better through fossil fuels.
The hard data tells the tale, and these data are readily available in the latest World Energy Outlook (WEO) by the International Energy Agency (IEA).
And by “hard data,” I mean absolute numbers, not the growth percentages frequently used to exaggerate the relevance of non-fossil sources like wind and solar.
Here is the reality:
Over 81% of global energy demand is met by fossil fuels, which provide the equivalent of 11,595 million tons of oil (Mtoe)
64% of electricity generation comes from fossil fuels, including 38% from coal and 23% from natural gas
Liquid fuels from oil provide some 95% of global transportation—moving people, raw materials, finished products, and agricultural goods.
More than one writer has hyperbolically averred that the COVID-19 crisis has “forever” changed energy demand and the recent trajectory of onward and upward will never return.
But the coronavirus notwithstanding, energy demand will resurge and continue to increase for decades to come.
China’s gasoline and diesel consumption are already back to pre-virus levels and daily coal burn at power plants is on the rise as factories reopen.
India’s fuel demand “is set to reach pre-coronavirus levels in June,” stated Indian Oil Minister Dharmendra Pradhan. Meanwhile, the IEA recently affirmed its projection that peak oil demand is “nowhere in sight.”
Finally, Fatih Birol, Executive Director of the IEA, puts the situation in perspective: “American business consultants using Zoom will not compensate for 150 million new urban residents in India and Africa traveling, working in factories and buying products transported by trucks.”
This is the shape of things to come.
Here are some numbers from the latest IEA “Current Policies Scenario” regarding the future role of fossil fuels:
In 2030, fossil fuels will provide 79% of global energy demand and 13,398 Mtoe
In 2040, fossil fuels will provide 78% of global energy demand and 14,952 Mtoe
For the record, even in the more ambitious “Stated Policies Scenario” of the IEA, fossil fuels still steadily increase, albeit at a slightly lower rate.
Nevertheless, in this alternative scenario, in 2030, 77% of energy demand is met by fossil fuels, and in 2040, the number is over 74%.
It is no surprise that these data receive little or no play in the media. It is much more exciting to write “man bites dog” stories than simply compose the same old, same old, pieces on continuity.
Stability and normality do not generate clickbait and obviously do not fit the agenda of those seeking dramatic change, however infeasible it may be.
Given this penchant toward hyperbole, it is easy to lose perspective on the role fossil fuels play and will continue to play, in virtually every society across the world.
The short-term perspectives of the media belie this fundamental fact, but Demography always wins in the end.
Well over 80 million people will be added to the global population this year—upwards of a quarter-million today alone or a new Philadelphia every week. By 2025, the global population will have increased by over 400 million.
If these people were a country, it would be the third-largest nation on earth. President Obama was correct in his assessment of needing “all of the above” even though his policies belied the mantra.
Consider oil—the overwhelming fuel for automobiles, tractors, trucks, airplanes, ships, etc. Demand was about 100 million b/d in 2019 and by 2025 is projected to reach over 105 million.
These increases in oil consumption will be the pattern for years to come. The IEA has stated, “there is no peak demand on the horizon.”
In the next two decades, billions of people will seek to enter the global middle class. The transportation sector will drive more than half of liquid fuel demand and trucks alone will consume 30 million b/d by 2050.
Petrochemical demand will add 7 million b/d. Few people other than Mark Mills recognize that even a 100x growth in the number of electric vehicles to 400 million on the roads by 2040 would displace only 5% of global oil demand.
Oil is here to stay.
And now electricity—an area where assumptions about the death of fossil fuels follow the Mark Twain pattern of being “greatly exaggerated.”
Electricity is the lifeblood of modern society and global demand for electric power has increased over 125% in the last 30 years, from 11,731 terawatt-hours (TWh) in 1990 to 26,603 TWh now.
Yet, despite this incredible progress, over one billion people do not have any electricity whatsoever and another two billion have severely limited access—e.g. two or three days a week or several hours a day.
Electricity poverty is rampant and for three billion people food is cooked on fires fueled by biomass—e.g., wood or dung.
Estimates are that over four million people die prematurely each year from diseases related to indoor air pollution.
Given the energy density of fossil fuels, they are the only sources that can scale up to meet this latent demand and pull billions out of electricity poverty.
Fossil fuels, especially coal, have already been the savior of billions of lives by providing electricity for clean water, sanitation, cooking, refrigeration, communication, and illumination.
China’s dramatic surge of electricity from coal is the best example and why the IEA called coal-based electrification an “economic miracle.”
Coal-based electricity was the foundation of this great leap forward not only for China but countries stretching back to the industrial revolution in England.
More recently, global coal generating capacity grew every single year between 2000 and 2019, nearly doubling from 1,066 GW to 2,079 GW. Further, about 500 GW of new coal capacity is either being built or planned.
The Current Policies Scenario of the IEA projects that in 2030, 11,464 TWh of electricity will be produced by coal—a 13% increase.
To be sure, the construction of coal plants is slowing down throughout much of the world, but the plants that have been put in place over the last decade, as well as those that will be become operational in the next decade, will form a modern, highly efficient core coal fleet that will last throughout the lifetime of many readers of this article.
In other parts of the world, natural gas, coal’s power generation counterpart, is on the dramatic upswing. Gas currently accounts for 6,118 TWh of electricity and by 2030 is projected to account for 8,086 TWh—an increase of 32%.
In other words, by the end of the present decade, the combined total electricity generation of coal and gas will be over 19,550 TWh—the equivalent of four times the electric power production of the United States—plus Russia.
Some critics may complain that I use the Current Policies Scenario of the IEA rather than the Stated Policy Scenario.
A point well is taken, but it is dangerous to deal with political hypotheses stretching out 10,20 or 30 years when the architects of those hypotheses will be long gone and never have to answer for their unfounded exuberance.
In fact, the IEA itself cautions that the Stated Policy Scenario merely describes “the direction in which today’s policy ambitions would take the energy sector.”
Regardless, in the interest of fair play, let us note that even in the Stated Policy Scenario coal generation will still increase by 2030 and pretty much plateau by 2040 but certainly not decline.
Growth of natural gas-based generation in this Scenario will still be dramatic, increasing from 6,118 TWh now to 7,529 TWh (+23%) by 2030 and 8,899 TWh (+45%) by 2040.
Although these data do not fit the preferred storyline of many pundits, it is abundantly clear that fossil fuels have been, are now, and will remain, the primary component of energy systems throughout the world.
Note: The IEA also presents a “Sustainable Development Scenario” that some may embrace as feasible. Not me. If one feels that in just 20 years, we can reduce fossil fuel consumption more than 30% while adding 1.5 billion people to the population without condemning several billion children, women and men to permanent energy poverty, our interpretations of the global energy situation are so far apart any interaction is meaningless.
Dr. Frank Clemente is Professor Emeritus of Social Science at Penn State University where he was the Director of the Environmental Policy Center.
Image by Nicole Köhler via Pixabay
Read more at RealClearEnergy
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climatechangedispatch--2020-06-04--Trump To Sign Exec Order Suspending Eco-Regs Hampering Growth

Written by Christian Datoc on .
Posted in Latest news President Donald Trump will sign an executive order Thursday aimed at expediting various infrastructure projects as a means of boosting post-coronavirus economic recovery .
White House officials told the Daily Caller that the order directs federal agencies to ignore certain environmental regulations that slow construction .
Trump signed an executive order in May that declared an “ economic emergency ” allowing for the suspension of various regulations inhibiting job growth .
The order tasked agencies with both temporarily suspending regulations and identifying which rules can be permanently rescinded .
The @ @ @ @ @ @ @ living memory that a president has responded to a national crisis by deregulating instead of grabbing more power , ” White House officials told the Daily Caller .
“ Typically when our country has faced a crisis , Washington responds by grabbing more power , ” said Office of Management and Budget Director Russ Vought .
“ President Trump understands that to get the economy moving , the power needs to be given back to the people and entrepreneurs.
” The Washington Post first reported on the order Thursday morning and noted the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ January to limit the scope of the National Environmental Protection Act .
Trump has also frequently called for a trillion-dollar infrastructure push to address rising unemployment and shrinking gross domestic product .
“ With interest rates for the United States being at ZERO , this is the time to do our decades long-awaited Infrastructure Bill , ” he tweeted in May .
“ It should be VERY BIG & BOLD , Two Trillion Dollars , and be focused solely on jobs and rebuilding the once great infrastructure of our Country !
”

Written by Christian Datoc on Jun 4, 2020 . Posted in Latest news
President Donald Trump will sign an executive order Thursday aimed at expediting various infrastructure projects as a means of boosting post-coronavirus economic recovery.
White House officials told the Daily Caller that the order directs federal agencies to ignore certain environmental regulations that slow construction.
Trump signed an executive order in May that declared an “economic emergency” allowing for the suspension of various regulations inhibiting job growth.
The order tasked agencies with both temporarily suspending regulations and identifying which rules can be permanently rescinded.
The orders mark “the first time in living memory that a president has responded to a national crisis by deregulating instead of grabbing more power,” White House officials told the Daily Caller.
“Typically when our country has faced a crisis, Washington responds by grabbing more power,” said Office of Management and Budget Director Russ Vought. “President Trump understands that to get the economy moving, the power needs to be given back to the people and entrepreneurs.”
The Washington Post first reported on the order Thursday morning and noted the order expands on action Trump took in January to limit the scope of the National Environmental Protection Act.
Trump has also frequently called for a trillion-dollar infrastructure push to address rising unemployment and shrinking gross domestic product.
“With interest rates for the United States being at ZERO, this is the time to do our decades long-awaited Infrastructure Bill,” he tweeted in May. “It should be VERY BIG & BOLD, Two Trillion Dollars, and be focused solely on jobs and rebuilding the once great infrastructure of our Country!”
Read more at Daily Caller
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climatechangedispatch--2020-06-04--COVID Vs. Climate Models: Cloudy With A Chance Of Politics

Written by Eric Felten on .
Posted in Latest news COVID-19 has proved to be a crisis not only for public health but for public policy .
As credentialed experts , media commentators , and elected officials have insisted that ordinary men and women heed “ the science , ” the statistical models cited by scientists to predict the spread of contagion and justify the lockdown of the national economy have proven to be far off-base .
Gov .
Andrew Cuomo of New York complained this week about the “ guessing business ” experts had presented to him dressed up @ @ @ @ @ @ @ early national experts [ said ] : Here ’ s my projection model .
Here ’ s my projection model , ” Cuomo said .
“ They were all wrong .
They were all wrong.
” A computer model produced by statisticians at Imperial College London had an outsized effect on government policy , predicting up to 2.2 million American deaths from the new coronavirus and as many as 9.6 million people requiring hospitalization .
Instead , emergency rooms and hospital beds in all but the few hardest-hit cities remained empty ; rather @ @ @ @ @ @ @ doctors and nurses found themselves out of work .
As the staggering social and economic costs of the shutdown have become painfully clear , the failure of the models to accurately anticipate what would happen is raising questions about their use to justify life-altering public policies .
If computer models projecting the near-term future of an epidemic were so wrong , what does that mean for the far more complicated computer models predicting the far-off future of the entire planet ?
As Texas Sen. John Cornyn tweeted : “ After # COVID-19 crisis @ @ @ @ @ @ @ discussion about the uses and abuses of ‘ modeling ’ to predict the future ?
Everything from public health , to economic to climate predictions .
It isn ’ t the scientific method , folks.
” Scientific American sought to dismiss such concerns in an April 15 article headlined “ Climate Science Deniers Turn to Attacking Coronavirus Models.
” While not exactly defending the methodology used in the models , the article said they were wrong “ because millions of Americans responded to pleas for social distancing.
” It then invoked newer models @ @ @ @ @ @ @ – forecasting only 60,000 U.S. deaths ; there are now more than 107,000 – before defending the original alarmist numbers with what almost sounds like an argument for the politicization of science from the coronavirus to climate change : Building complex models is both a science and an art .
It requires vast amounts of data representing a range of factors that might influence a particular question .
To predict the spread of COVID-19 , for example , researchers need reliable data on a wide range of factors including how infectious the virus @ @ @ @ @ @ @ how much of the population is susceptible to the worst outcomes .
They have to assign a weight to each factor in the model , and then crunch the numbers with powerful computers to produce probabilities of possible outcomes .
Models may be helpful in thinking about the results of various policies .
But they are easily oversold as providing answers with mathematical certainty .
Writing in the BMJ ( formerly the British Medical Journal ) , Devi Sridhar , a professor of public health at Edinburgh University , and Maimuna Majumder , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ School , chide the “ modeling community ” for failing to make the limitations of models clear .
Sridhar and Majumder call for transparency about the assumptions modelers make and clarity about how much the predictions shift when even small changes are made to the assumptions .
Most of all , they urge humility about just how uncertain such models are .
In an article in the Annals of Internal Medicine – “ Caution Warranted : Using the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation Model for Predicting the Course of the COVID-19 Pandemic @ @ @ @ @ @ @ researchers warned against thinking computer calculations could replace sound data and independent judgment .
“ This appearance of certainty is seductive , ” they wrote .
That false sense of certainty is particularly seductive “ when the world is desperate to know what lies ahead.
” Their critique was withering .
The flaws they found in the model from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington included several dubious assumptions : that social distancing would play out the same way everywhere , for one , and that curves @ @ @ @ @ @ @ general patterns from country to country .
Evidence of how the disease had spread – the essential data – was sketchy , plagued by “ inconsistent and poor reporting.
” When the projections were revised , the magnitude of the changes revealed “ substantial volatility.
” Volatile predictions are inherently uncertain .
But model-makers have presented their work with the impression of specificity .
On March 27 , for example , IHME predicted the number of COVID-19 deaths in New York would very likely be between 5,167 and 26,444 .
A rounded number @ @ @ @ @ @ @ conveyed the ballpark nature of their guesstimate .
Instead , the number the University of Washington group published was the very exact 10,243 .
As one statistician told RealClearInvestigations , the IHME projections suffer from the “ fallacy of misplaced concreteness.
” The Imperial College London model also suffered from uncertainty over what factors cause the disease to spread .
Consider musical concerts .
As states , counties , and cities in the U.S. attempt to reopen gradually , the last on the list to be liberated is likely to be live performances @ @ @ @ @ @ @ yet , go back to the Imperial College London study – from the “ response team ” that did so much to stampede the U.K. into lockdown – and one finds this assessment of the danger of crowds : Respected scientists questioned not only the epidemiologists ’ efforts but the very value of such models .
“ I ’ ve spent a lot of time on the models , ” Dr. Anthony Fauci reportedly told his colleagues on the White House ’ s pandemic task force .
“ They don ’ t tell @ @ @ @ @ @ @ really rely upon models.
” And yet we do .
We are impressed with models in part because of their intellectual provenance : They are “ created by some of the cleverest people and often rely on some of the most advanced monitoring or simulation technologies available to us , ” according to Mike Hulme , a professor at the University of Cambridge and editor of last year ’ s “ Contemporary Climate Change Debates : A Student Primer.
” If one is in need of an oracle , models “ appear to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ future , ” he says .
“ This is as true for climate change as it is for a pandemic.
” Climate modeling and virus transmission modeling have certain similarities , says Hulme .
“ In both cases , models are alluring , claiming to offer a glimpse of the future denied to mere mortals , ” he told RealClearInvestigations .
“ Politicians easily get dazzled by them .
People easily confuse precision — models are good at that !
— with accuracy — models are rarely accurate.
” Which is why Hulme @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ t “ sucked into the gravitational force fields of models.
” There are also differences : Climate models have a leg up on the COVID models if only because they ’ ve been tested for 20 to 30 years , and revised and adjusted accordingly , says Hulme .
The COVID modelers have been working with inconsistent , “ gappy ” data and untried assumptions .
And yet even with the decades of effort that has been put into climate , modelers struggle to predict phenomena such as regional rainfall .
The @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , is not to “ mistake model-land for the real world .
They are two separate places.
” All models are wrong , he says , but some are useful .
“ Models are far better as tools to help us think with than they are as truth oracles .
We must not think that models have some privileged access to ‘ the future.
’ That would likely lead to some very poor decisions.
” A core challenge for models is the sheer number of variables that must be taken into account .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide , nitrous oxide , and methane , but also soot and sulfur aerosols and the activity of the sun .
And then there are interactions to be accounted for .
Not only do aerosols themselves affect how much sunlight reaches Earth , but they also affect the formation of clouds , which in turn reflect sunlight out of the atmosphere .
If it is hard to model a single phenomenon , it is exponentially more difficult when a given model contains submodels , each with its @ @ @ @ @ @ @ add a new submodel , you are adding new degrees of freedom to the system with new feedbacks , ” says Judith Curry , former chair of the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at the Georgia Institute of Technology .
“ Then when you couple the new submodel to the larger model , you add additional degrees of freedom to each variable that the new submodel connects with.
” In other words , with every submodel added the possibility of error compounds , multiplying the chance that the main model veers off @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Curry says , “ remains at the heart of many of the problems and uncertainties in global climate models.
” The accuracy of climate model predictions also depends on assumptions made about future human behavior .
If a model is alarming , it ’ s worth checking whether it has built-in an unlikely eventuality , such as that by the end of the century industry will be burning five times the coal it is now .
But predictions of human behavior are inherently uncertain .
Whether disease or climate , a modeler has @ @ @ @ @ @ @ into play .
Did sudden mass joblessness and government-enforced social isolation help create tinderbox conditions leading to nationwide rioting , looting , and arson ?
Crowds in the streets don ’ t maintain social distancing , which means that mass protests could affect the number of people who become infected by COVID-19 .
There is no one climate model .
The range of models used by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change rely on different assumptions but have been in the ballpark of observed warming .
But there is regional variation @ @ @ @ @ @ @ rising temperatures in Antarctic waters and loss of sea ice there .
Some climate scientists deny that COVID-19 models and climate models are anything alike .
They stand by the rigor of climate simulations while agreeing the disease projections are flawed : “ There are fundamental differences between epidemiological models and climate models , ” George Mason University climatology professor Jagadish Shukla told RealClearInvestigations .
“ The former are empirical models driven by incomplete data ; climate models are based on fundamental laws of physics and thermodynamics.
” But many researchers vigorously defend @ @ @ @ @ @ @ are not what epidemiological models are for , ” Zeynep Tufekci wrote in The Atlantic .
“ When an epidemiological model is believed and acted on , it can look like it was false.
” What matters in this view is that a model spur action to change the outcome , not that it does anything so mundane as describe the real world .
Neither epidemic nor climate models attempt merely to predict what will happen .
Instead , they set out to project what will happen if people do or don ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the models .
Modelers aren ’ t exactly incentivized to be modest about the worst-case scenarios .
As one accomplished academic statistician told RealClearInvestigations , “ Part of the process is to scare people to get them to take things seriously.
” Physicist Lenny Smith , professor of statistics at the London School of Economics , says that many climate models operate on time frames beyond the lifespan of the modelers .
Often , he says , “ we can ’ t see the outcome being modeled for 150 years.
” By contrast @ @ @ @ @ @ @ being used to predict what will happen the next day .
A group of Australian and American data scientists has been comparing the real coronavirus data of a given day against the IHME predictions made the day before .
Put to the test , the model has proved to have little predictive value .
“ COVID models are more easily evaluated since they are making short-term predictions , ” says Judith Curry .
“ Climate models are making predictions for decades into the future , ” she says .
“ By the time @ @ @ @ @ @ @ there will have been several generations of new climate models.
” In other words , the models get adjusted along the way , creating an appearance of accuracy .
It ’ s not done chaotically , as the epidemic model revisions have been , but rather in a systematic way that has been kept somewhat undercover .
The climate model revisions are called “ tuning , ” and were discussed in “ The Art and Science of Climate Model Tuning ” by Frédéric Hourdin and a dozen other climatologists in the Bulletin of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ [ T ] uning is often seen as an unavoidable but dirty part of climate modeling , ” they write , “ an act of tinkering that does not merit recording in the scientific literature.
” The tinkering consists of “ adjusting the values ” of the submodels after the fact , bringing “ the solution as a whole into line with aspects of the observed climate.
” The tinkering is not advertised , the scientists admit , because of “ concern that explaining that models are tuned , may strengthen the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ validity of climate change projections.
” To make those adjustments , climate modelers follow theories ; some use observations ; some just make a “ back-of-the-envelope estimate.
” But it isn ’ t done randomly : Hourdin et al .
write , “ [ S ] ome models are explicitly , or implicitly , tuned to better match the 20th-century warming.
” Whether it ’ s epidemiology , climate , or economics , says Sally Cripps of the University of Sydney , modelers need to “ acknowledge and explain the uncertainty ” in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ community in particular needs a little more humility , ” she says .
“ It needs to hose down claims about Big Data being a crystal ball , and instead use the data to understand what we don ’ t know .
That is the way forward .
”

Written by Eric Felten on Jun 4, 2020 . Posted in Latest news
COVID-19 has proved to be a crisis not only for public health but for public policy.
As credentialed experts, media commentators, and elected officials have insisted that ordinary men and women heed “the science,” the statistical models cited by scientists to predict the spread of contagion and justify the lockdown of the national economy have proven to be far off-base.
Gov. Andrew Cuomo of New York complained this week about the “guessing business” experts had presented to him dressed up as scientific fact: “All the early national experts [said]: Here’s my projection model. Here’s my projection model,” Cuomo said. “They were all wrong. They were all wrong.”
A computer model produced by statisticians at Imperial College London had an outsized effect on government policy, predicting up to 2.2 million American deaths from the new coronavirus and as many as 9.6 million people requiring hospitalization.
Instead, emergency rooms and hospital beds in all but the few hardest-hit cities remained empty; rather than being overwhelmed by cases, many doctors and nurses found themselves out of work.
As the staggering social and economic costs of the shutdown have become painfully clear, the failure of the models to accurately anticipate what would happen is raising questions about their use to justify life-altering public policies.
If computer models projecting the near-term future of an epidemic were so wrong, what does that mean for the far more complicated computer models predicting the far-off future of the entire planet?
As Texas Sen. John Cornyn tweeted: “After #COVID-19 crisis passes, could we have a good-faith discussion about the uses and abuses of ‘modeling’ to predict the future? Everything from public health, to economic to climate predictions. It isn’t the scientific method, folks.”
Scientific American sought to dismiss such concerns in an April 15 article headlined “Climate Science Deniers Turn to Attacking Coronavirus Models.”
While not exactly defending the methodology used in the models, the article said they were wrong “because millions of Americans responded to pleas for social distancing.”
It then invoked newer models that would also prove to be wrong – forecasting only 60,000 U.S. deaths; there are now more than 107,000 – before defending the original alarmist numbers with what almost sounds like an argument for the politicization of science from the coronavirus to climate change:
“Health experts say the models worked the way they were supposed to — by providing a glimpse into a dire future that was partially averted because of collective action.”
Building complex models is both a science and an art. It requires vast amounts of data representing a range of factors that might influence a particular question.
To predict the spread of COVID-19, for example, researchers need reliable data on a wide range of factors including how infectious the virus is, how it is transmitted, how much of the population is susceptible to the worst outcomes.
They have to assign a weight to each factor in the model, and then crunch the numbers with powerful computers to produce probabilities of possible outcomes.
Models may be helpful in thinking about the results of various policies. But they are easily oversold as providing answers with mathematical certainty.
Writing in the BMJ (formerly the British Medical Journal), Devi Sridhar, a professor of public health at Edinburgh University, and Maimuna Majumder, a computational epidemiologist affiliated with Harvard Medical School, chide the “modeling community” for failing to make the limitations of models clear.
Sridhar and Majumder call for transparency about the assumptions modelers make and clarity about how much the predictions shift when even small changes are made to the assumptions. Most of all, they urge humility about just how uncertain such models are.
In an article in the Annals of Internal Medicine – “Caution Warranted: Using the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation Model for Predicting the Course of the COVID-19 Pandemic” – three prominent British and American researchers warned against thinking computer calculations could replace sound data and independent judgment.
“This appearance of certainty is seductive,” they wrote. That false sense of certainty is particularly seductive “when the world is desperate to know what lies ahead.”
Their critique was withering. The flaws they found in the model from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington included several dubious assumptions: that social distancing would play out the same way everywhere, for one, and that curves could be expected to follow the same general patterns from country to country.
Evidence of how the disease had spread – the essential data – was sketchy, plagued by “inconsistent and poor reporting.” When the projections were revised, the magnitude of the changes revealed “substantial volatility.”
Volatile predictions are inherently uncertain. But model-makers have presented their work with the impression of specificity.
On March 27, for example, IHME predicted the number of COVID-19 deaths in New York would very likely be between 5,167 and 26,444. A rounded number – say, 10,000 – would have conveyed the ballpark nature of their guesstimate.
Instead, the number the University of Washington group published was the very exact 10,243. As one statistician told RealClearInvestigations, the IHME projections suffer from the “fallacy of misplaced concreteness.”
The Imperial College London model also suffered from uncertainty over what factors cause the disease to spread. Consider musical concerts. As states, counties, and cities in the U.S. attempt to reopen gradually, the last on the list to be liberated is likely to be live performances that entail “mass gatherings.”
And yet, go back to the Imperial College London study – from the “response team” that did so much to stampede the U.K. into lockdown – and one finds this assessment of the danger of crowds:
“Stopping mass gatherings is predicted to have relatively little impact because the contact-time at such events is relatively small compared to the time spent at home, in schools or workplaces and in other community locations such as bars and restaurants.”
Respected scientists questioned not only the epidemiologists’ efforts but the very value of such models. “I’ve spent a lot of time on the models,” Dr. Anthony Fauci reportedly told his colleagues on the White House’s pandemic task force. “They don’t tell you anything. You can’t really rely upon models.”
And yet we do.
We are impressed with models in part because of their intellectual provenance: They are “created by some of the cleverest people and often rely on some of the most advanced monitoring or simulation technologies available to us,” according to Mike Hulme, a professor at the University of Cambridge and editor of last year’s “Contemporary Climate Change Debates: A Student Primer.”
If one is in need of an oracle, models “appear to offer authoritative and quantified predictions of the future,” he says. “This is as true for climate change as it is for a pandemic.”
Climate modeling and virus transmission modeling have certain similarities, says Hulme. “In both cases, models are alluring, claiming to offer a glimpse of the future denied to mere mortals,” he told RealClearInvestigations. “Politicians easily get dazzled by them. People easily confuse precision — models are good at that! — with accuracy — models are rarely accurate.”
Which is why Hulme praises as wise the decision-maker who isn’t “sucked into the gravitational force fields of models.”
There are also differences: Climate models have a leg up on the COVID models if only because they’ve been tested for 20 to 30 years, and revised and adjusted accordingly, says Hulme.
The COVID modelers have been working with inconsistent, “gappy” data and untried assumptions. And yet even with the decades of effort that has been put into climate, modelers struggle to predict phenomena such as regional rainfall.
The key message,” Hulme tells RCI, is not to “mistake model-land for the real world. They are two separate places.” All models are wrong, he says, but some are useful.
“Models are far better as tools to help us think with than they are as truth oracles. We must not think that models have some privileged access to ‘the future.’ That would likely lead to some very poor decisions.”
A core challenge for models is the sheer number of variables that must be taken into account. With climate, that includes the amounts of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide, and methane, but also soot and sulfur aerosols and the activity of the sun.
And then there are interactions to be accounted for. Not only do aerosols themselves affect how much sunlight reaches Earth, but they also affect the formation of clouds, which in turn reflect sunlight out of the atmosphere.
If it is hard to model a single phenomenon, it is exponentially more difficult when a given model contains submodels, each with its own uncertainties.
“Each time you add a new submodel, you are adding new degrees of freedom to the system with new feedbacks,” says Judith Curry, former chair of the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at the Georgia Institute of Technology. “Then when you couple the new submodel to the larger model, you add additional degrees of freedom to each variable that the new submodel connects with.”
In other words, with every submodel added the possibility of error compounds, multiplying the chance that the main model veers off target. “This issue,” Curry says, “remains at the heart of many of the problems and uncertainties in global climate models.”
The accuracy of climate model predictions also depends on assumptions made about future human behavior. If a model is alarming, it’s worth checking whether it has built-in an unlikely eventuality, such as that by the end of the century industry will be burning five times the coal it is now.
But predictions of human behavior are inherently uncertain. Whether disease or climate, a modeler has to anticipate the social issues that come into play.
Did sudden mass joblessness and government-enforced social isolation help create tinderbox conditions leading to nationwide rioting, looting, and arson?
Crowds in the streets don’t maintain social distancing, which means that mass protests could affect the number of people who become infected by COVID-19.
There is no one climate model. The range of models used by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change rely on different assumptions but have been in the ballpark of observed warming.
But there is regional variation in warming and many models have predicted rising temperatures in Antarctic waters and loss of sea ice there.
Some climate scientists deny that COVID-19 models and climate models are anything alike. They stand by the rigor of climate simulations while agreeing the disease projections are flawed:
“There are fundamental differences between epidemiological models and climate models,” George Mason University climatology professor Jagadish Shukla told RealClearInvestigations. “The former are empirical models driven by incomplete data; climate models are based on fundamental laws of physics and thermodynamics.”
But many researchers vigorously defend the coronavirus models. “Right answers are not what epidemiological models are for,” Zeynep Tufekci wrote in The Atlantic. “When an epidemiological model is believed and acted on, it can look like it was false.”
What matters in this view is that a model spur action to change the outcome, not that it does anything so mundane as describe the real world.
Neither epidemic nor climate models attempt merely to predict what will happen. Instead, they set out to project what will happen if people do or don’t change their behavior in response to the models.
Modelers aren’t exactly incentivized to be modest about the worst-case scenarios. As one accomplished academic statistician told RealClearInvestigations, “Part of the process is to scare people to get them to take things seriously.”
Physicist Lenny Smith, professor of statistics at the London School of Economics, says that many climate models operate on time frames beyond the lifespan of the modelers.
Often, he says, “we can’t see the outcome being modeled for 150 years.” By contrast, some of the COVID-19 models are being used to predict what will happen the next day.
A group of Australian and American data scientists has been comparing the real coronavirus data of a given day against the IHME predictions made the day before. Put to the test, the model has proved to have little predictive value.
“COVID models are more easily evaluated since they are making short-term predictions,” says Judith Curry. “Climate models are making predictions for decades into the future,” she says. “By the time the climate change is actually realized, there will have been several generations of new climate models.”
In other words, the models get adjusted along the way, creating an appearance of accuracy. It’s not done chaotically, as the epidemic model revisions have been, but rather in a systematic way that has been kept somewhat undercover.
The climate model revisions are called “tuning,” and were discussed in “The Art and Science of Climate Model Tuning” by Frédéric Hourdin and a dozen other climatologists in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society in 2017.
“[T]uning is often seen as an unavoidable but dirty part of climate modeling,” they write, “an act of tinkering that does not merit recording in the scientific literature.”
The tinkering consists of “adjusting the values” of the submodels after the fact, bringing “the solution as a whole into line with aspects of the observed climate.”
The tinkering is not advertised, the scientists admit, because of “concern that explaining that models are tuned, may strengthen the arguments of those claiming to question the validity of climate change projections.”
To make those adjustments, climate modelers follow theories; some use observations; some just make a “back-of-the-envelope estimate.” But it isn’t done randomly: Hourdin et al. write, “[S]ome models are explicitly, or implicitly, tuned to better match the 20th-century warming.”
Whether it’s epidemiology, climate, or economics, says Sally Cripps of the University of Sydney, modelers need to “acknowledge and explain the uncertainty” in their enterprise.
“The data science community in particular needs a little more humility,” she says. “It needs to hose down claims about Big Data being a crystal ball, and instead use the data to understand what we don’t know. That is the way forward.”
Read more at RealClearInvestigations
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