News Weekly publishes our letter

So, my letter to News Weekly got published. Read our post here.

Unfortunately, Mr Westmore does a very good job at failing to address my central point re: the use of statistics in the proper fashion.

He also mentions two Danish physicists. Quelle horreure! TWO!! Well ok, he does mention 31,000 thousand more (source, please), but my point remains.

Andrew Glickson - Earth paleo-climate scientist at the ANU - has written this article here which pretty much refutes Westmore's claims. I could link hundreds more articles, but I won't. They're pretty easy to find.

Besides, plenty of people thought the Earth was flat and the Sun revolved around the Earth. Hmm, that old chestnut. A prescient quote from John Maynard Keynes: "When the facts change, I change my opinion. What do you do, sir?"

He also missed my point that if he didn't wish people to link Arctic Ice Levels to his article, or to the point of it, perhaps using those on the front cover with "Global Cooling?" wasn't the smartest move. Readers making links between headings and images.

He also makes the emotional connection between the poor and the current efforts to mitigate carbon pollution; a long, long bow to draw. If we don't act on this long term issue, there might not be any poor. There might no be any anyone. And despite what we do, there'll probably always be rich, and always be poor. As long as there's a power dynamic in the world this will most likely exist.

So to say we should be focusing on the poor instead of the environment, that's a poor argument. How about we do both?

Sea Ice Levels

Those guys over at News Weekly make me mad. In their August 30 issue, they wrote an article implying that the Climate was Cooling. The way this article was written was intellectually dishonest, so much so, that I was compelled to write a response, which you can read below.

Sir,
regarding your cover story Aug 30, 2008, titled "Global Cooling?".

Regardless of the existence of AGW or non-AGW, your front cover illustration, and the implied conclusion of cooling, is misleading and potentially intellectually dishonest.

Despite the fact that this year in fact now looks like presenting the lowest Arctic sea ice levels for many years (and worse than last year's record low), you simply cannot take a 2 year sample and declare a trend, without considering previous years data. If I have a dataset of 20 (or 50, or whatever) years, showing a steady decline in a metric, year on year, but then have one year that increases, it is dishonest to now claim that the trend has finished, and even worse, has swung in the opposite direction, simply because of an non-trend datum point. This is analogous to claiming a reversal in share market trend from one data set - clearly erroneous statistically.

Further, I find your narrow concentration on sunspot activity - which many scientists agree has little effect on this GW cycle (and some think do have an effect) - also misleading as many other factors disprove your theory.

Although I concede your right to present quotes and facts that strengthen your desired position, it is also dishonest not include dissenting opinion in order to allow the reader to reach an opinion based on all the facts. For every climate change sceptic you present, I could probably present ten well credentialled CC supporters.

Whilst I acknowledge your alignment in such issues as generally being to the Right, surely such an important topic deserves balanced and considered discussion and scientific debate, without the use of such terms as "bandwagon" and so on. It is simple not right to focus solely on narrow presentation of facts that agree with your desired outcome - that is poor science.

Moreover, I think you would do well to consider the cost of the Iraq conflict and the mooted cost of the Wall St bailout (some US$700 billion and counting), and ask whether that money would be better spent in lifting many people out of entrenched poverty, rather than socialising the capital market's losses - I think linking the world's poor to the costs associated with lowering CO2 emissions is a long bow to draw, and also intellectually base. Emphasis on cheap fuel is also counter-productive to ensuring we have adequate oil for many years to come as well as reducing our use of fossil fuels to power today's society.

I think you also fail to consider the strong benefits in encouraging a low CO2 economy; innovation will blossom as companies find ways of meeting required standards, and new industry (and thus jobs) will spring up overnight. Your arguments are reminiscent of the US coal industry when forced to improve their emission standards - they cried foul claiming widespread job losses and business failure. Instead, as they were forced to innovate, their profitability increased and more jobs across the sector were created. Surely a positive outcome.

Yours,
Tim Marsh

Whether you agree with GW or AGW or not, clearly the article was misleading in its nature. Boy oh boy.

You can go read this article by The Daily Green or this one by Tree Hugger which both contain data and images from scientific organisations which clearly refute the News Weekly's assertions and implications.

How these people get away with this is maddening. As I say in the letter, regardless of whether you believe in AGW or not, from a scientific empirical basis, not to mention from a mathematics/statistics basis, their article was poor form.