Climate Depot - Transcript of Lou Dobbs Tonight

LOU DOBBS: Well, the extent of the threat posed by climate change is the subject of our face-off debate tonight, and, as always, it is an emotional, a controversial issue, and the emotionalism that surround it is in and of itself fascinating - at least to me. Joining me now is Phelim McAleer. He is the director and the producer of the documentary ‘Not Evil, Just Wrong’ - who you just saw, by the way, questioning Al Gore. Good to have you with us. And Fred Krupp. He is the president of the Environmental Defense Fund. Good to have you with us.

FRED KRUPP, PRESIDENT, ENVIRONMENTAL DEFENSE FUND: Good to be here.

DOBBS: I just - let’s deal with the first issue. Why is something like in climate change so emotional, such a - if you will - contentious issue. It seems there are straightforward facts that would be there for everyone to either agree upon or disagree, stay away from the ambiguous and deal with the salient and the crystal clear. Why don’t we do that?

KRUPP: Well, I think, just like a lot of things in Washington, Lou, climate change has become a bit of a partisan football. But now there is bipartisan pathway forward, and ‘The New York Times’ just on Sunday, both Lindsey Graham, the Conservative Republican senator from South Carolina, and John Kerry agreed on a market-based path forward, the same sort of cap and trade system that was used so successfully in the 1990s to combat acid rain. So hopefully we’re getting across that partisan divide right this week.

DOBBS: All right. First of all, you were working hard to get a straightforward answer from the former vice president. What drove your - your inquiry?

MCALEER: Well, as the organizers said, this was the first time in four years he agreed to take questions from reporters. That’s a disgrace. For someone who says the world is ending, the world is in crisis, that - that he wouldn’t put the facts out there and take difficult questions is bizarre. I must - I must believe that he doesn’t really believe the world is about to end.

So I went there to ask him. This documentary has been shown in schools across America and across the world to children who get scared about these scare tactics, and I wanted to say, you have a moral duty either to accept the judge’s rulings and issue corrections or reject the judge’s rulings. But you haven’t the moral - you have no right to not - refuse to answer those questions.

DOBBS: What do you think?

KRUPP: Well, Lou, first of all, the vice president takes questions from reporters routinely. He took questions on September 22nd, he took questions from reporters at the UN September 24th, he took questions at this event. So, actually, after Phelim had his say, it was in a desire to take more questions that - there are other journalists who were waiting in time (ph). So the idea that he hasn’t taken questions in three years is - is just wrong. He takes questions weekly.

DOBBS: All right. Let’s go to a couple of things. The BBC climate reporter this weekend I think probably shook up society there a bit this weekend, talking about the fact that over the course of the - of this new millennia, young though we are, nine years into it, he begins his lead, ‘You may be surprised to learn that the hottest year recorded is not 2008, not 2007, nor one of the previous - the last ten years, but rather you have to go back to 1998.’ And I have to say, I think most people would say - what? Because they’ve been led to believe that the climate is warming almost daily.

KRUPP: Well, Lou, actually if you look at the trend line, it’s undoubtedly - definitely rising up. There is year to year variability because of El Ninos. But when you plot the dots on the trend line, we’re going up. Since 2000, all eight years, 2001 to 2008, have been eight of the 14 warmest years on record, and 2009, when the data comes in, that this decade will be the warmest decade since we’ve been keeping records.

MCALEER: No. That’s - that’s just not true. And let’s be honest - the climate models, those quick climate models that say we’re all going to die by 2050, missed this cooling period. In fact, if it cools much longer, it will be cooling longer than it warmed. And the same environmentalists who are now saying it is warming, 20 and 30 years ago were saying we’re going to have an Ice Age. I’m old enough to be at school and I was told that we’re going into a new Ice Age. So - so for them to - for these people to say, for people like Fred to say that - that the facts aren’t there, it has cooled. It hasn’t warmed in 13 years, and it was warmer before. Britain was warmer. We used to grow wine in Yorkshire, in Britain, you know, (INAUDIBLE) grow wine. But if they did grow wine - you know, grapes were growing there, it has been warmer before and - and these are all part of the natural variability of climate.

And, you know - and who’s to say that 10 years ago the climate was perfect then? Why - why are we so obsessed with, you know, the climate is warming or cooling? You know, Helsinki is one of the coldest places on the planet. It’s very rich. Singapore is one of the wealthiest places on the planet. It’s very hot. Man will adapt. But it’s not - this is not - you should not close down the American economy and drive jobs out of America and stop using fossil fuels for fake science.

KRUPP: The good news - the good news, Phelim, is it’s not fake science. If you go to the National Academy of Sciences or look at the reports from NASA - anyone on -in our audience can go to the website - you can see that this decade has been the warmest on record.

But the good news is even if we don’t convince you of that, and I hear both arguments, maybe it’s not warming, and even if it is, so what? The good news is we have a common sense plan that’s tried and tested in the United States, a market-based plan that will keep America in the driver’s seat for the economy.

Lou, you know, China - China is…

DOBBS: Well, (INAUDIBLE) keep us in the driver’s seat. I just have to interrupt you there. This is the driver’s seat we’re in right now?

MCALEER: Lou, it’s a common sense plan by a millionaire head of an environmental organization, with big business to keep smaller competitors out. It’s about regulating and keeping big business in the position it’s in by these millionaire environmental organizations.

KRUPP: Not so. You know, we have a website…

MCALEER: You know, Fred - Fred earns $500,000 a year. Do the people of America want their future and their economy to be decided by a millionaire lawyer who calls himself an environmentalist working with big business, keeping competitors out and bringing in increased regulations?

KRUPP: There is a website called More Carbon - Less Carbon, More Jobs, where a series of small businesses have come out saying pass cap and trade and the cap puts a driver in place that allows…

DOBBS: So you’re supporting cap and trade?

KRUPP: Supporting cap and trade, Lou, because it - it gives the economic incentives to energy efficiency that will reduce our dependence on foreign oil.

DOBBS: You call that a private - you call that a market solution? That is - it is extraordinarily based on government intervention in the market place. How could you call that a market solution? I’m not discussing the merits of cap and trade, but, my God, if there’s - if that’s not government intervention what is?

KRUPP: Yes, the government creates a market. That’s true. And for these tragedies (INAUDIBLE)…

MCALEER: It’s what George W. - George H. W. Bush put in place, the best of the Republican intellectual capital. It creates incentives to get new jobs for Americans.

DOBBS: All right. Thank you very much. Phil, thank you. We’re just plain out of time. I hope y’all will come back soon. We need a lot more time, obviously. Thank you so much.

Read more here.

UPDATE: See Climate Depot Report: Losing Their Religion: 2009 officially declared year the media lost their faith in man-made global warming fears

By Michael Coren

It’s truly extraordinary how every left-of-centre journalist in the country has managed to become an instant expert on the arcane subjects of global warming and the science of climate change.

Imagine, for example, if some average Canadian hack who had never studied the Middle East suddenly announced that he was an authority on Israel-Palestine, knew which side was right and knew how to solve all of the associated problems. This, however, is what we are told every day when it comes to the fashion of sounding green. The more sympathy we can exhibit for Al Gore’s polar bear or David Suzuki’s whining, the more trendy and acceptable we become.

There are, however, an increasing number of peer-reviewed and intensely credible scientific minds who believe conventional thinking on global warming is nonsense. One such being Lord Christopher Monckton, former science adviser to British prime minister Margaret Thatcher and a world-renowned scholar.

He was in Canada recently and appeared on my television show. A man of compelling wit and eloquence, he has defeated so many environmental activists—he calls them “bedwetters”—that few of them will now debate him.

“Al Gore has refused several times. Here is a man who is paid $300,000 per speech and has his staff control all of the questions that are asked. People ask why he is so committed,” Monckton said. “Simple. He was a failed politician worth $2 million; he’s now a famous activist worth $200 million!”

According to Monckton there are more than 700 major scientists who steadfastly refute the notion that the climate is changing to any worrying degree, that global warming is a reality and that the planet is in danger. “It’s all about the need of the international left to rally round a new flag.”

Minimal

In a series of articles he appears to show that Earth’s sensitivity to increased atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide is minimal. “Take the example of the medieval warm period,” he says. “The bedwetters tell us that this was brief and irrelevant. Yet if we look at history we see it wasn’t brief and is certainly relevant. Climate does change but it’s minor and it has little if anything to do with man’s intervention.” A brief pause. “It’s about money and control. There is a lot of money to be made out of the so-called green economy and it allows people to tell us what to do—which is what some people relish doing.”

He continues: “Remember DDT, the pesticide used to kill mosquitoes that carried malaria. Jackie Kennedy read a book saying it was harmful, got her husband the president to bring pressure to have it banned and in 40 years 40 million people, mainly children, died. Now we’ve come to our senses and re-introduced it but only after the fashionable left did their damage.

“Global warming is similar. It makes no sense, is bad science and policies to deal with it will cause terrible problems. People are being indoctrinated and critics are intimidated into silence.” Is he annoyed at his opponents’ refusal to take him on? “Actually I’m rather delighted. It means I’m winning.” Frankly, he’s probably right.

9 minutes from his Apocalpse NO! talk to the Cambridge Union Society on the 8th of October 2007 (read more here):

Letter Jon Richfield to Dr. Benny Peiser CCNet

Dear Benny,

I followed the link from Andrew Revkin and I am not sure that I did not read more into it than Andrew intended me to.

The blog entry certainly was trenchant, and the attached threads if anything more so. All very entertaining if that is the sort of thing that entertains one. In all it vividly recalled Bierce’s definition: “CONTROVERSY, n. A battle in which spittle or ink replaces the injurious cannon-ball and the inconsiderate bayonet.” Spittle had the upper hand in that blog, I should say.

However, the point I wish to make here hardly surfaced in the blog though it is the most important theme of this entire matter. If AGW or any other form of climate change begins to bite, the question of Humanity’s continued survival eventually will assume a fascination all its own, but for the present there are more immediate concerns, in particular the question of the survival of integrity and sense in science, and the role of peer review.

Consider: “Michael Mann of Pennsylvania State University said that if Mr. McIntyre wants to be taken seriously he has to move more from blogging to publishing in the refereed literature...” and “‘Skepticism is essential for the functioning of science,’ Dr. Mann said.’It yields an erratic path towards eventual truth. But legitimate scientific skepticism is exercised through formal scientific circles, in particular the peer review process… Those such as McIntyre who operate almost entirely outside of this system are not to be trusted.”

Such stern sententiousness, irrespective of its source, should shame the most unregenerate cavillers to kennel, except those who pause slitty-eyed, to reflect on what he actually meant. “Peer review process”, hmmm...? Those operating almost entirely *inside* of this system *are* to be trusted, are they? The same system that passed all sorts of publications of the most assorted standards during the last century or so, not to mention certain particularly embarrassing examples very recently?  Publications that led to blushes inversely proportional to how effectively and for how long the parties concerned could distract attention from them? The same peer review process that has served as the most powerful tool for intimidating, quashing, and crippling the slightest dissent from the approved line? For punishing anyone who breaks the ranks of the favoured? For emasculating or deferring publication of the research of upstarts? The most powerful weapon for delaying outsiders’ discoveries to the point of loss of priority of publication, or even to fatal obscurity?

Surely not! Which is fortunate, because that is not the point that I had referred to. Plenty of abler critics have raised similar objections more bitingly than ever I could.

No, the peer review that I write to praise and not to bury is the peer review that for generations of scientists has been the sentinel and shield against erosion of standards. It has been a sheet anchor both of the elite and the merely workmanlike journal, the means of assuring the editorial staff that the work they publish is sound, non-trivial, constructive, an advance on preceding work, a stone in the edifice of growing human knowledge. It has been an aid to efficiency, speeding the selection and augmenting the quality of the product of the researchers’ labour and ingenuity; and of course (though perish the thought of any such sordid considerations crossing the mind of the authors) enhancing the kudos appertaining to the publication of the item.

Good stuff. Very good indeed. And yet I cannot rid my mind of a framed engineering degree on the wall of the office of an erstwhile young colleague of mine. It was in a large company, employing many graduates, and yet he was the only one that I remember nailing his colours to the er, wall in such a way. Any time the standard of his work or his good sense got challenged, he would point at his degree in rebuttal.  Unanswerable of course.

And yet he did not last long, strangely.

Am I the only one to see this anecdote as relevant? Sorry. . .

Peer review as it should be used in a perfect world should not be a major concern of the author (except when a generous reviewer offers assistance or admonition, typically anonymous).

Peer review also should not be a major concern of the reader. If I read material dealing with a field I am so unfamiliar with that I cannot even follow the train of logic, then I act in bad faith and bad sense if I accept or condemn it on the grounds that it was or was not peer-reviewed.  If however I can follow the logic, but without being able to challenge actual facts or observations, then I am able, with appropriate reservations, to accept, challenge, or reject the logic in good faith, but I still cannot justify my opinion by reliance on any peer review process. If I can claim to be fully conversant with the field, then I can accept, challenge, or reject any part, context or aspect of the work. If in doing so I need to defer to the dread dignity of peer reviewers, than how can I claim competence in the field at all? If I need to ask how it was reviewed before I consent to trust the work, then why am I reading such stuff, when there are plenty of Mills & Boone books to challenge my intellect?

Peer review or no review, it is for all readers to accept or reject research results according to what they find personally convincing. In good sense or good faith no research worker can justify a decision to accept or challenge work according to whether it had been peer reviewed.

*That is not what peer review is for.*

To criticise or praise a *journal* because of its eschewal or quality of peer review is reasonable in suitable contexts; even if one assumes that the editor is omniscient, it may be comforting to reflect that independent review guarantees lack of bias. However, to challenge the work of an *author* because it had not been favourably peer reviewed, is the most breathtakingly abject tactic I have seen, short of running to mummy because these nasty people had been disagreeing with ums. The more I contemplate it, the less it makes sense.

Consider what such justification for rejection amounts to: some third parties somewhere, who hadn’t been asked to vet the work, but who might or might not have approved it if they had been asked, had not actually said anything about the work. Right? So because the work was not considered by those third parties, it thereby is errr. . . to be neglected without rebuttal by those in response to whose work it had been presented? Why should we respect authors who had been unable to assess the merits of criticism of their work or defend their work independently of peer reviewers? In the example under consideration, the criticism after all, did not involve novel work or novel techniques, but a critique of (peer reviewed) work. What role is peer review of the critique to play in such a case? What sort of peril would such peer review be intended to avert? Even in the top scientific journals, letters to the editor in response to peer reviewed articles are not in general peer reviewed.  Right?

Never mind! Let’s get back to the real world.

This much at least should be clear: science is passing through a most painful phase. (At least I hope that “passing” is not too optimistic a word!) As scientists we have a century or so of frequently (not invariably) inappropriate reliance on a cumbersome system. We have to deal with problems of ethics, politics, information explosion, population explosion, and technology explosion. In my opinion the peer review system *in its current form* has outlived its usefulness, in many respects even its viability. Whether the next generation is to rely on something totally new or on an amended review system, I cannot say, but what served for say the 1950s is hardly likely to serve for the 2050s. Some developments apparently in process within some Internet publications, in which pre-publications are exposed to public execration or appreciation before the final editing, may point the way to the future, but whatever form it takes, something new is needed.

Whether it turns out to be in the interest of the editorial staff, the author, or the reader, the fact remains that peer review as she currently is spoke, notionally is primarily for the benefit of the editorial staff, only contingently for the benefit of the author, and usually irrelevant to the reader, whether friend or enemy.  But those who appeal to the process for shelter from unwelcome assessments of their work, or their duties to their readers; for some reason recall to me two lines of Burns written in a slightly different context:

From Envy and Hatred your corps is exempt,

But where is your shield from the darts of Contempt!

In case that strikes you as insulting, I invite you to consider it in the perspective of the insult to the reader at whom certain helpful remarks were directed—remarks of the form: “Those such as McIntyre who operate almost entirely outside of this system [of the peer review process] are not to be trusted.” We readers apparently are seen as stupid enough to swallow the hockey stick without choking on the mediaeval optimum or little ice age, but too stupid to gag at the implications of the physics of photon absorption, the history of volcanic influences on the climate, the principles of sample significance, or the implication of withheld data—and far, far too stupid to read a statistical argument?

*Unless it is peer reviewed?*

No wonder Mann’s best friends turned on him and bit him.

Jon

See PDF here.