This weekly newsletter, focused on environmental issues, highlights relevant analysis done by the John Locke Foundation and other think tanks, as well as items in the news.
1. The Muller Dust-Up and the N&O/AP’s Slight-of-Hand
Over the last few weeks there has been a great deal of cheering in the media about a so far un-peer-reviewed study by a research team out of Berkeley headed by climate scientist Richard Muller. Despite his report’s lack of peer review, Muller, to the dismay of at least one of his co-researchers (see below), decided to go public with what he sees as the conclusion of the study: namely that it provides proof that the climate skeptics are wrong. (Hmmm, "the debate is over" — haven’t heard that one before.)
As an aside, the media are portraying Muller as someone who, prior to this research, was himself a skeptic. Whether that portrait is true or not is itself an open question. References to him as a "skeptic who has changed his mind" has come from pundits and pseudo-reporters, who themselves are alarmists, or represent media outlets that have shown a good deal of sympathy for the alarmist position. The News & Observer provides an example in the headline it gave the article by Seth Borenstein, which was distributed by the Associated Press: "Skeptic finds he now agrees global warming is real."
I have been attending conferences populated by the top global-warming skeptics in the world, and I have never heard Muller mentioned. The Heartland Institute has held six international conferences on climate change over the last five years that have featured papers and talks by scores of global-warming skeptics. Indeed, anybody who’s anybody in the community of global-warming skeptics has been a part of at least one of these conferences. Muller has not been on any of those programs. Skeptic? Well, I guess the N&O knows a skeptic when it sees one.
There are several issues regarding Muller’s research that need to be addressed. At best all Muller has done is demonstrate, using surface temperature data, a point that is not in contention — that the temperature has warmed over the last 100 or so years. Note the N&O headline again, "Skeptic finds he now agrees global warming is real." Well, if Muller was a skeptic who, prior to this research, believed that global warming over the past century was not real, then I can understand why even the skeptics weren’t taking him seriously.
The fact that the globe has generally been warming since it came out of the Little Ice Age at the end of the 19th Century has never been in dispute. The debate is over what has caused it, not whether it has occurred. Muller’s work does not address that central question.
Calvin Beisner, writing on the MasterResource blog, notes that this is a classic example of what in Latin is called "ignoratio elenchi," which is "the logical fallacy of arguing for a point other than the one contended, and pretending that by arguing for the one, one has answered the other." Beisner clarifies, "other ways of putting ignoratio elenchi are ‘irrelevant conclusion’ and ‘irrelevant thesis.’" In other words, Muller at best proved a point that no one has disputed, and then concludes that proof of this point ends the debate. Now there’s intellectual honesty.
What is even more important is that one of Muller’s co-researchers, Professor Judith Curry from the University of Georgia, is taking issue with the claims he has been making regarding to the implications of the study. Curry’s perspective has been expressed in blog posts and in an interview with the UK Daily Mail.
Essentially Curry is arguing that their research, which is basically a reevaluation and reproduction of climate data, has no implication one way or another for the overall debate regarding the causes of global warming. But furthermore, she also seems to be suggesting that a graph Muller himself produced showing warming over the last dozen or so years cannot be deduced from the climate data that their research has produced. In her interview, Curry stated, "There is no scientific basis for saying that warming hasn’t stopped. … To say that there is detracts from the credibility of the data, which is very unfortunate."
On the question of Curry’s complaints, the AP/N&O report on Sunday is quite misleading. The article quotes Curry as saying that Muller and colleagues, which would include Curry, "are not hiding any data or otherwise engaging in any scientifically questionable practice." But her complaints were not related to the research itself, which she was a part of, but on the way Muller decided to handle it with the press. That is, Muller’s going forward with a strictly personal point of view regarding the implications of the data without consultation with the rest of the team. Indeed the N&O directs the reader to a blog post by Curry where, referring to the Daily Mail article, she affirms that "the direct quotes attributed to me are correct." Not surprisingly, the AP/N&O article leaves that out.
I am sure there will more to come on this issue as Muller becomes a replacement for the discredited Michael Mann in the eyes of the eco-media. To see my favorite take on this entire affair, take a look at this post by British pundit and author James Delingpole. (HT to Jon Sanders)
2. Stop the Presses: The Plot Thickens (and Gets More Confused)
Richard Muller "I never said you shouldn’t be a skeptic. I never said that."
3. Weekly Ozone Report
Each week during the summer (and most of the autumn) ozone season this newsletter will report how many, if any, high-ozone days had been experienced throughout the state during the previous week, where they were experienced, and how many have been recorded during the entire season to date. While many environmental groups express concern about air quality, the John Locke Foundation is the only organization that keeps up-to-date track of the actual ozone data and reports it in an unfiltered manner on a regular basis.
The ozone season began on April 1 and ends October 31. All reported data are from the North Carolina Division of Air Quality, which is part of the state’s Department of Environment and Natural Resources.
During the period from October 24th through October 30th there were no reported high-ozone readings on monitors across the state of North Carolina. During this season there have been 99 readings on various North Carolina monitors that have exceeded federal standards of 0.75 parts per billion. These have occurred over a period of 26 days.
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