(Update 21-06-11: Further discussion on Greenpeace and the IPCC at the economist. Steve McIntyre on conflcit of interest policy here.)
Mark Lynas- who featured on last year’s channel 4 documentary What the Greens Got Wrong- has put the cat amongst the pigeons with his recent criticism of the IPCC report on renewable energy. I know something of what this feels like.
In classic IPCC style the Summary for Policymakers was released weeks before the actual report, which means that the conclusions- that 80% of the world’s energy could be met by renewables by 2050- went round the world’s media before the study itself could be scrutinized.
Lynas explains:
Here’s what happened. The 80% by 2050 figure was based on a scenario, so Chapter 10 of the full report reveals, called ER-2010, which does indeed project renewables supplying 77% of the globe’s primary energy by 2050. The lead author of the ER-2010 scenario, however, is a Sven Teske, who should have been identified (but is not) as a climate and energy campaigner for Greenpeace International. Even worse, Teske is a lead author of the IPCC report also – in effect meaning that this campaigner for Greenpeace was not only embedded in the IPCC itself, but was in effect allowed to review and promote his own campaigning work under the cover of the authoritative and trustworthy IPCC. A more scandalous conflict of interest can scarcely be imagined.
To hardened skeptics this is nothing new, in fact it’s par for the course; what is notable is that Mark Lynas has decided to call the IPCC out despite being a climate change activist himself and author of the truly alarmist book Six Degrees (2008).
This story is discussed by Steve McIntyre, who first spotted it; here at Bishop Hill and by Judith Curry.
The actual report itself qualifies for the yawn factor according to Revkin who says:
Of course, my issue with the report from the get-go was the yawn factor. It was yet another study implying that renewable energy choices — in theory, and in the face of high costs* and other daunting constraints — could be the dominant source of reductions in emissions by mid-century.” Yes, and we could all stop driving tomorrow, but we won’t.
Effectively a report looking at the theoretical possibility of replacing fossil fuels with renewables is academic unless it provides a full cost-benefit analysis of how to get there. You might as well say, theoretically if we could efficiently capture all the sun’s energy that falls on the planet we would be grand.
Lynas has now dug his heels in and upped the ante writing
if the ‘deniers’ are the only ones standing up for the integrity of the scientific process, and the independence of the IPCC, then I too am a ‘denier’
Lynas has now agreed even to read The Hockey Stick Illusion- which I find mildly surprising, that he has not read it already I mean, I know that I have only just read it, but I am not an A-list environmental campaigner (actually I’m about triple-Z rated.)
To show how serious this has become Curry writes:
I predict that your actually reading the Hockey Stick Illusion and mentioning it on your blog will get you removed from RealClimate’s blogroll.
Curry’s post is especially interesting as she writes a message to Lynas warning him of the vilification she experienced when she first started questioning the IPCC, and that he can expect more of the same.
What she writes about her own experience, and what Lynas is now going to be faced with, strike a chord in a very small way with my own very recent coming out as a climate skeptic. (Skeptical that is about the “consensus”, the IPCC and the proposed policy of decarbonisation.)
It started at the end of last summer after seeing the film Not Evil Just Wrong which pointed to a legal judgement pointing out scientific errors in Al Gore’s film. It was then that I started looking at some skeptics blogs and discovered to my surprise that they were not all written by extreme right-wing nutters, but were very serious and impressive in their analysis.
At first, I was to be quite honest too scared to speak openly about this. I was well used to controversy and had been embroiled in numerous heated debates this and other blogs, on a variety of topics from dowsing and homeopathy to organic food and genetic engineering. This last topic had lost me a couple of long-standing friends unwilling themselves to challenge or acknowledge their ideological stance on the subject.
Climate change felt like it was on another level again however. The scientific consensus was seen as too complete, and while I had not had any strong position on most of the other topics previously, I had of course myself been a vociferous proponent on climate change alarmism myself, even once calling Pat Kenny a denialist and calling for him to resign. (Sorry, Pat.)
Climate change felt like the last sacred cow of the environmental movement, and I was not going to jump that shark without careful consideration. There were however a couple of things that had already perhaps paved the way for me to do so: firstly, because of my Peak Oil doomerism I was suspicious of the policy response being advocated: I had had a good look into renewable energy and already understood that there was no easy way to replace fossil fuels with renewables, and that any alternative would mean effectively collapse of industrial society; for a peak oiler, this was may inevitable in any case, but why couldn’t the climate change activists see that? It didn’t make any sense to be calling for international treaties in a world already going down the tubes and reverting to localism.
Secondly, having closely examined the claims of the alternative health industry, the organic industry and the anti-GE lobby through our Skepteco podcasts, another curious contradiction, in an otherwise predominently anti-science milieu, man-made climate change appeared to be the only major activist cause that actually claimed to be supported by the science.
It felt daring but I decided to test my newly discovered arguments on a skeptics blog. I went to the Bad Science Forum and started posting on this discussion under the Avatar Deodar. I wanted to remain anonymous, I was not yet prepared to come out publicly with my concerns, and fully expected a reasoned and science-based discussion on such a forum.
I was bitterly disappointed. The very first response I got said
Lets face it, you don’t care about the science, rather about the percieved damage to your politics.
This seemed hilarious, but also disconcerting, and unfortunately I began to dig a hole for myself by protesting that
I have been an environmental campaigner and back-to-the-lander for over 20 years; I live an extremely low-impact semi-self-sufficient off-grid lifestyle, and have no political affiliations.
The “environmental campaigner” bit was a slight exaggeration: I had certainly campaigned for traditional things like anti-nuclear when at college, and CND before that even; and the past few years campaigned for climate change and peak oil awareness and action, but was not a serious “activist” in the conventional sense of the word beyond that. However, this was immediately seized upon as being a lie and I was compared to Lomborg who apparently was lying when he claimed he had been a Greenpeace supporter. So the climate change issues rather got lost as the debate degenerated into the other regular posters trying to “out” me when I had clearly stated that I wished to remain anonymous; I was accused of lying therefore without evidence- an attack which i ironically labelled “clairvoyance” in a nod towards the supposed skeptical nature of the forum.
Moral: don’t go onto unknown forums under an Avatar on highly controversial topics unless you know what you are getting yourself into. However, I learned a much more serious lesson about how the environmental movement behaves, and I was genuinely shocked at the response and ad hominem attacks: I had expected a lot better from skeptics who up until then I had admired.
It was only when I read Nonsense on Stilts, a supposedly skeptics book, and realized Piggliucci was just not being very skeptical about the rather obvious scientific flaws in AIT that I felt emboldened enough to write about climate change here, and ready enough for the inevitable flack that I would be receiving when I posted on Think or Swim.
What now seems to be happening in response to Lynas is that the IPCC defenders are circling the wagons and the backlash is beginning. I know something of what he will be going through.
Hi Graham,
I got to your site via a link from Bishop Hill.
I have been reading you for the past few days and find your journey and conversion fascinating. It parallels a journey I also took. I may not live off grid, but I am an instinctive green to the extent that I abhor waste of any kind and particularly energy.
I have come to the conclusion that the CAGW (Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming) scare is going to die off soon. However, I have always believed that the biggest problem with it was that it deflected attention from real environmental issues.
The best example of this is that I do not know what is the “second” most important environmental issue that needs to be tackled. I have a suspicion it is bees, but I would like some guidance.
Perhaps you could post up your thoughts on this at some time and if you could highlight some links for reading it would be great.
40 Shades
Graham, have you seen the Potholer54 series of videos about Climate Change on YouTube?
http://www.youtube.com/user/potholer54
Yes, thanks Arthur, I have. Wonder why he hasn’t done one exposing Al Gore’s incredibly well funded propoganda film, in which he lies about climate science to scare people into accepting emissions reductions policies that do nothing for the climate but funnel large sums of money towards advocacy groups, corrupt scientists and members of the global elites like… Al Gore? Do you think Potholer might be biased?!
@40 shades of green:
“I do not know what is the “second” most important environmental issue that needs to be tackled. ” well I’m not sure it is even that meaningful to grade environmental problems like this on a global scale- it will vary for each locality. But looked at from another perspective the answer is easy to give: poverty. Our number one priority needs to be bringing people out of poverty- which must be through development, technology, trade. That’s how we in the west got out of poverty. (We were all poor before the modern world came along.) As people come out of poverty they are able to care more about the environment; when poor, living from hand to mouth, they have no such choices. As people come out of poverty family size declines and population stabilizes. I recommend as a start “Dead Aid: Why Aid Is Not Working and How There Is a Better Way for Africa” by Dambisa Moyo; “Starved for Science: How Biotechnology Is Being Kept Out of Africa” by Robert Paalberg; also have a look at this talk by Hans Rosling: http://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_reveals_new_insights_on_poverty.html
“Wonder why he hasn’t done one exposing Al Gore’s incredibly well funded propoganda film [...] Do you think Potholer might be biased?!”
Graham, here is Video 4 of Potholer’s series:
http://www.youtube.com/user/potholer54?blend=1&ob=5#p/u/28/N2B34sO7HPM
“Potholer54: This video, the fourth in my Climate Change series, looks at urban myths spawned by two iconic films — An Inconvenient Truth and The Great Global Warming Swindle. Whatever you “believe” about climate change, there is no excuse for the kind of exaggerations, fallacies and fabrications we see in films like these. My aim is to cut through the junk science designed to evangelize this issue, and show what the actual scientific research shows us.”
Thanks Arthur very good, I’d forgotten Potholer covers AIT at the beginning of that one. It would be interesting to see him look at the influence Al Gore continues to have in the public perception and policy. Have you seen Lomborg’s “Cool It!” ?
Graham, I haven’t seen Bjorn Lomborg’s “Cool It”. I’m only vaguely aware of Lomborg, so will have to swat up!
OK, I wasn’t able to find Lomborg’s “Cool It!”, but I did watch an hour talk given by Lomborg in 2007.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=figJ1nrjUSk
I also took a look at an article written this month.
http://www.newsweek.com/2011/06/12/bjorn-lomborg-explains-how-to-save-the-planet.html
I saw very little that I would consider controversial. His statements on technology and human progress are hard to refute, and I agreed broadly with his position.
There’s a liberation in believing that we’re on the road to better and bolder times. It can be exhilarating. It sets us free from the ‘Secular Eden’ narrative, which has been pervasive for several decades now. The ‘Secular Eden’ version of human history has us enduring a terrible Fall from a natural state of harmony and bliss. And if only we could get back there. To a time before we took a bite of the apple of Knowledge.
Lomborg’s talk and article challenge that sometimes oppressive narrative. And rightly so.
@Arthur: Totally agree about the “Secular Eden”- it is a very powerful post-modern myth. There is also a lot of hypochondria about the benefits those in the wealthier nations have gained from the modern world. I also highly recommend Matt Ridley’s The Rational Optimist. Both he and Lomborg make the case for the world being in many key ways a lot better now than in the past- a view I find hard to ignore. But it can get a lot better- that is our task, rather than whining so much about the problems.
Graham – re: your discussion on the Bad Science forum as Deodar. I have just read this. Your claim that your statement about being an environmental campaigner “was immediately seized upon as being a lie” is just not true. It came after you made a string of provocative and inappropriately ironic comments and is much later in the discussion thread.
You joined a serious forum and lied to the members there in your third post. I’m surprised that they didn’t immediately seize upon this!
Your style implies a lack of understanding and betrays your tendency to swing like a pendulum from one extreme view to another. Rather than descending to the bottom of the snide style often found on internet forums I’d recommend trying to uphold the highest standards of precision and focus in your writing. Ignore any bait that is presented to you!
I think your tone and inability to keep a discussion focused on specific issues is what gets under people’s skin. If a dispassionate focus on data and evidence is really what you see as most important then it behoves you to write and debate in a mature and focused style which will help you get your points across more effectively.
I would encourage any other readers of Zone5 to read Graham’s linked discussion on the Bad Science forum and then decide for themselves if the way Graham was treated there really justifies his claim that “I know something of what he will be going through” in relation to how Mark Lynas will feel as “the IPCC defenders are circling the wagons and the backlash is beginning.” For me the use of military metaphors in this case is not helpful.
Just noticed that the ‘circling wagons’ metaphor is in Lynas’ piece here…. So not fair to criticise it’s use by yourself (I’m sure the lack of attribution was accidental).
@Tom: “Your claim that your statement about being an environmental campaigner “was immediately seized upon as being a lie” is just not true. It came after you made a string of provocative and inappropriately ironic comments and is much later in the discussion thread.”
. I gave as good as I got. As explained here in the OP I was immediately accused of not caring about the science but being political. This is tantamount to an accusation of lying/deception which went unchallenged by the other posters; I was immediately placed on the back-foot. You have failed to appreciate the context: I went on anonymously. I have explained this above. My response was to state honestly and openly where I was coming from; obviously I couldnt substantiate this without breaking my anonymity! Hence my frustration that the debate was hijacked into trying to “out” me, which as painstakingly explained was not in any case relevant to the technical issues that I had raised.
“You joined a serious forum and lied to the members there in your third post. I’m surprised that they didn’t immediately seize upon this!” They DID immediately seize upon this- although there is no possible way they could have known one way or the other. You are accusing me of lying Tom- just as Deano did. (I recently read another forum on BS -which I cannot be bothered to look for again now- in which Deano was temporarily banned for doing exactly the same thing- accusing someone of lying when, absent Tarot cards, there is no possible way he could have known that.) Yet you contradict this accusation by acknowledging my remarks were “provocative and inappropriately ironic”. So you know full well that I was being sarcastic, that I was not lying. To falsely accuse someone of lying Tom is a serious error. I am not proud of my sarcasm on this forum but several of the other posters set the tone with their own sarcasm right at the outset; only someone who is completely partisan could defend this and single me out as being at fault. In fact, Tom you come over as being extraordinarily naive, like you have never been on an internet forum before. The sarcasm and provocative slanging on this forum you can find all over the BS forums; I accepted it- naively I admit- as being part of the cut and thrust of THEIR forum. I repeat: I gave as good as I got. But I didnt call anyone a lier as Deano and you have done. In fact, for me to say “I am being paid large sums by Big Oil to be a denier on your forum” is not an entirely indefensible rhetorical response to smug, self-satisfied so-called-skeptics who seem highly vulnerable to 2-bit conspiracy theories.
You say this was a “serious forum”- again, a redundant comment. I didn’t have to link to this forum or discuss it here; the point of doing so was to show how “serious skeptics” who, as I clearly explain above, I expected to be able to have a “serious” discussion with, actually behave. On this forum we have so-called “serious skeptics” – who you are defending- defending Al Gore, and immediately- prior to any sarcasm on my part- accusing me of taking sides purely for political reasons. As to the rest of your remarks, they come over, as with other recent comments, as being smug and supercilious, like a pompous school-teacher correcting my homework. You are not above snide sarcasm yourself Tom by any means!!If you want to make a useful contribution here it would be more useful to make some specific points on data yourself, and address the actual substantive issues being raised – the politicization of climate science- yourself. And, more usefully still, maybe you could explain clearly to the z5 readership what your politics and bias are, especially your views on population control, and how they prevent you from easily accepting that the Red/Green alliance is indeed corrupt on many issues. This might be much more relevant to why you align yourself with people like woo-woo Rob rather than vague accusations of my “tone and inability to keep a discussion focused on specific issues”. I mean, wtf are you taking about?
Apologies for sounding like a pompous school teacher! I learned the technique on the Bad Science forum where you awarded them 5 out of 10. Oops, slipped into sarcasm there – you’re right – it’s so hard to resist
With regards to making a useful contribution by making ‘specific points on data’: This blog post is not about data. Correct me if I’m wrong – but it’s about a very surprising conflict of interest that is deservedly getting air time. Pretty simple really. Quite important but not really earth shattering. Mark Lynas has a book to sell and is known for his alarmist quotes – “if the ‘deniers’ are the only ones standing up for the integrity of the scientific process, and the independence of the IPCC, then I too am a ‘denier’” seems to be working very well for him!
On the internet this is known as link bait. It makes people lots of money. Zone5 doesn’t make money from sensationalist quotations – hence my encouragement for a more moderate style of discourse. But I agree it’s a bit presumptuous so after this comment I will take on board what you say and not be critical of style.
You then chose to surmise what might now happen to Mark Lynas by explaining that you “learned a much more serious lesson about how the environmental movement behaves”. This is a whopping generalisation given that you were debating with about 4 other people on a specific web forum, but I was still intrigued to see how the people on the Bad Science forum had treated you. All I can say is that if I had employed the tactics, style of discussion and failure to be clear that you did then I would not have been ‘bitterly disappointed.’
“To falsely accuse someone of lying Tom is a serious error. I am not proud of my sarcasm on this forum but several of the other posters set the tone with their own sarcasm right at the outset” – but they never outright made things up even in sarcasm. I used the word ‘lied’ above because that is how they saw it – they didn’t know you, you were new there. Common sense would say to me – let’s tread carefully here and be cautious while I gain their respect. It is clear that regular posters there know each other well. They have built up a relationship over time. Sarcasm works best between friends when we have established common ground so that the joke can be easily recognised.
“In fact, Tom you come over as being extraordinarily naive, like you have never been on an internet forum before.” Excellent – thanks for that – it’s possibly the funniest thing I’ve heard in a couple of months! (NB This is not sarcasm.)
A few corrections to your work before I award you a C+ for trying:
Finally – “maybe you could explain clearly to the z5 readership what your politics and bias are” – aha now we’re getting somewhere – this is where I would like to see Zone5 go next – I want to know what your politics and bias are. I don’t have the time to try and articulate my politics here right now – but I certainly would not describe myself as ‘Red’ or ‘socialist’. Give us a post on your political beliefs and I promise to take some time to respond in detail.
Yawn. So Lynas has only written his comments about Greenpeace influence on the IPCC process to make money. That is the sum total of your useful contribution. Your advice on my engagement on the BS forum is redundant- I had already clearly explained what lessons I had learned. My response was reckless- but you are still ignoring the significance of the first response to my first comment: many “warmists” simply cannot accept any challenge to the IPCC “consensus” without assuming a corrupt political position. “You then chose to surmise what might now happen to Mark Lynas by explaining that you “learned a much more serious lesson about how the environmental movement behaves”. This is a whopping generalisation…” You ignore all the other evidence presented here for this common behaviour of circling the wagons (which was already happening to Lynas if you had bothered to look into it at all)- I didnt link to everything in the post, but I think you should have found these yourself via Bishop Hill etc if you had the interest to comment here at all: -Joe Romm Climate scientists who wont muzzle themseleves The I also linked to Judith Curry who tells her story; I also linked to what happened on Think-or-Swim a while back; I have also recently reviewed Virtuous Corruption which details the attacks on Lomborg. You are not paying attention and you are in denial about what all this is about; you dont seem at all clued into what the climate change issue is about. What makes you think it is appropriate to keep telling me what to write here is beyond me. I do enough, and there is plenty of politics included in many posts I write, clearly expressed. Write your own political blog.
Graham
Thanks for your reply.
You may not realise it but your answer was very profound.
Of course poverty is the number one environmental issue when you think about it.
40 shades