Movie Review: An Inconvenient Truth

[Alex]

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Originally Posted by donheff There is an interesting discussion on GW going on at Scientific American: http://blog.sciam.com/index.php?cat=19 I forgot how to format the url tags to link from a keyword -- can anyone remind me.

that was a very informative and eye opening article. Anyone who is not skeptical about the causes of GW should read the article.

[cute fuzzy bunny]

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Originally Posted by Nords What could possibly go wrong?

Famous last words, right up there with "hold my beer bubba...watch this!"

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I wouldn't worry about it

Yeah but I have the tendency to get distracted and stop posting here for 3-6 months at a time. You're just waiting for your moment. I might have to start breaking my posts up into 3-5 sequential brain farts...

[JB]

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It would be a feel good theory if we went ahead and spent trillions on lowering the use of fossel fuels

Maybe we don't know enough to justify such expenditures but reducing wasteful energy consumption is a no brainer. It's good for the environment and economy! When I was a kid growing up in the seventies I'd regularly see people tossing garbage out their car windows. That all stopped with the crying indian. Maybe we need another crying indian.

[cute fuzzy bunny]

How about we spend nearly nothing and mandate a 50% increase in CAFE, institute some pollution limits on diesel vehicles and a little something on coal burning plants and see how the next ten years go instead of hiding our head in the sand?

It doesnt need to be a trillion dollar spend.

[lets-retire]

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Maybe we don't know enough to justify such expenditures but reducing wasteful energy consumption is a no brainer.

Agreed.

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How about we spend nearly nothing and mandate a 50% increase in CAFE, institute some pollution limits on diesel vehicles and a little something on coal burning plants and see how the next ten years go instead of hiding our head in the sand?

The companies will have to spend money to meet these requirements, which in the end will come out of our pockets. The end result would be stagflation similar to the 70's.

[lazygood4nothinbum]

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Originally Posted by Cute Fuzzy Bunny How about we spend nearly nothing and mandate a 50% increase in CAFE, institute some pollution limits on diesel vehicles

"Diesel technology has been on a path of continuous improvement for over a decade. Since 1994, engines have been manufactured to operate smoke-free, and tailpipe emissions from trucks and buses sold today have been reduced by more than 80 percent compared to engines built in the late 1980s. Beginning in 2007, these on-highway diesel engines will produce near-zero emissions thanks to clean fuels and advanced engine technologies that will result in a 99 percent reduction of particulate matter (PM) emissions and an 87 percent reduction in nitrogen oxides (NOx) from current levels. Similarly, EPA rules issued last year for off-road machines and equipment like those used in construction, farming and mining will cut key emissions in that sector by more than 90 percent starting in 2008."~~allen schaeffer, executive director diesel technology forum

[eridanus]

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Originally Posted by lets-retire The companies will have to spend money to meet these requirements, which in the end will come out of our pockets. The end result would be stagflation similar to the 70's.

Whoa, that's a leap. Increasing CAFE would cause stagflation?

[donheff]

[Quote from: donheff on Today at 10:59:48 AM]
There is an interesting discussion on GW going on at Scientific American: http://blog.sciam.com/index.php?cat=19

I forgot how to format the url tags to link from a keyword -- can anyone remind me.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Alex that was a very informative and eye opening article. Anyone who is not skeptical about the causes of GW should read the article.

As I stated earlier I was a skeptic about GW but am recently more convinced that it is happening. I read the article above as balanced and leaning toward GW as a very real problem. The author certainly argued that the conclusion that human actions are causing measurable warming is supported.

[cute fuzzy bunny]

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Originally Posted by lazygood4nothinbum "Diesel technology has been on a path of continuous improvement for over a decade. Since 1994, engines have been manufactured to operate smoke-free, and tailpipe emissions from trucks and buses sold today have been reduced by more than 80 percent compared to engines built in the late 1980s. Beginning in 2007, these on-highway diesel engines will produce near-zero emissions thanks to clean fuels and advanced engine technologies that will result in a 99 percent reduction of particulate matter (PM) emissions and an 87 percent reduction in nitrogen oxides (NOx) from current levels. Similarly, EPA rules issued last year for off-road machines and equipment like those used in construction, farming and mining will cut key emissions in that sector by more than 90 percent starting in 2008."~~allen schaeffer, executive director diesel technology forum

Apparently you've never followed 99.8% of the trucks that I do. Every one of them blows so much smoke non-stop I'm pretty sure the concept of "piston rings" is very, very foreign to the owner...last week I was behind one that smoked so bad I smelled it 5 miles back and had to speed a while to catch up to and pass him so I could turn the a/c back on :P

All I can think of is how my car is tested to make sure i'm only emitting 1.2 milipicofarads of hydrogoop and this guy is pouring half burned atomized diesel out the pipes at 1000CFPS... :

[laurence]

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Originally Posted by Cute Fuzzy Bunny All I can think of is how my car is tested to make sure i'm only emitting 1.2 milipicofarads of hydrogoop and this guy is pouring half burned atomized diesel out the pipes at 1000CFPS... :

Yeah, but that's what gives all that central valley lettuce it's flavor!

[samclem]

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Originally Posted by eridanus This is an oft-repeated "fact." Do you have a link? Besides the Tim Patterson quote and all the blogs and op-eds that quote from it. I can't find anything and I'm on page 4 of google. I did find it mentioned in a speech by Priem but he didn't quote sources (and, to boot, he's funded partially by Exxon). Edit: I did find a study by Scotese that indeed shows that CO2 levels were much higher (16x) then they are today. Of course the same graph shows that the average temperature was much higher as well (almost twice as warm).

eridanus,

I couldn't find a "non-Patterson" source for this "450 million year ago" info, but I did find a long piece he wrote that covers a lot of ground. So, it looks like he actually said this, and it looks like he supplied backup data. I'd say it is unlikely he would have made this up, and even more unlikely tat it wouldn't have been challenged if it wasn't true.
http://www.tcsdaily.com/article.aspx?id=010405M

in part:
"Now let's look at the geologic record. I only want you to look at a couple of things on this diagram. First of all, please note in the top chart the varying amounts of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere through the last 500 million years. At times in the past CO2 levels have been up to 16 times higher than at present."

(Nice chart--I couldn't paste it in, but it is at the linked site)

"The bottom chart shows the range of global temperature through the last 500 million years. There is no statistical correlation between the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere through the last 500 million years and the temperature record in this interval. In fact, one of the highest levels of carbon dioxide concentration occurred during a major ice age that occurred about 450 million years ago. Carbon dioxide concentrations at that time were about 15 times higher than at present."

Here's the full quote of what he said to the Canadian House of Commons:

Appearing before the Commons Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development last year, Carleton University paleoclimatologist Professor Tim Patterson testified, "There is no meaningful correlation between CO2 levels and Earth's temperature over this [geologic] time frame. In fact, when CO2 levels were over ten times higher than they are now, about 450 million years ago, the planet was in the depths of the absolute coldest period in the last half billion years." Patterson asked the committee, "On the basis of this evidence, how could anyone still believe that the recent relatively small increase in CO2 levels would be the major cause of the past century's modest warming?"

Patterson concluded his testimony by explaining what his research and "hundreds of other studies" reveal: on all time scales, there is very good correlation between Earth's temperature and natural celestial phenomena such changes in the brightness of the Sun.

Disclaimer: I don't have enough info/expertise to decide whether (weather ) CO2 levels are the underlying factor behind global warming. But, I think that there are enough questions that we should not rush into making any drastic changes before more is known.

[mickj]

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Originally Posted by Cut-Throat I remember all of the lame arguments in the 1960's and 1970's against cleaning up the environment. Very similiar to the ones here. 'Impossible' to do, 'will cost trillions', 'not worth it', 'the air will always be polluted', 'the water's not that dirty'. 'it will hurt business' Aren't you glad we didn't listen to the naysayers back then? You have cleaner water to drink, cleaner air to breath. The Bald Eagle thanks us for banning DDT. Yup, just a bunch of 'Envir-Wackos' saving your ass in spite of yourselves.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,202447,00.html

Bald Eagle-DDT Myth Still Flying High
Thursday, July 06, 2006
By Steven Milloy

Pennsylvania officials just announced success with their program to re-establish the state’s bald eagle population. But it’s a shame that such welcome news is being tainted by oft-repeated myths about the great bird’s near extinction.

In its July 4 article reporting that the number of bald eagle pairs in Pennsylvania had increased from 3 in 1983 to 100 for the first time in over a century, the Associated Press reached into its file of bald eagle folklore and reported, “DDT poisoned the birds, killing some adults and making the eggs of those that survived thin. The thin eggs dramatically reduced the chances of eaglets surviving to adulthood. DDT was banned in 1972. The next year, the Endangered Species Act passed and the bald eagles began their dramatic recovery.”

While the AP acknowledged the fact that bald eagle populations “were considered a nuisance and routinely shot by hunters, farmers and fishermen” – spurring a 1940 federal law protecting bald eagles – the AP underplayed the significance of hunting and human encroachment and erroneously blamed DDT for the eagles’ near demise.

As early as 1921, the journal Ecology reported that bald eagles were threatened with extinction – 22 years before DDT production even began. According to a report in the National Museum Bulletin, the bald eagle reportedly had vanished from New England by 1937 – 10 years before widespread use of the pesticide.

But by 1960 – 20 years after the Bald Eagle Protection Act and at the peak of DDT use – the Audubon Society reported counting 25 percent more eagles than in its pre-1941 census. U.S. Forest Service studies reported an increase in nesting bald eagle productivity from 51 in 1964 to 107 in 1970, according to the 1970 Annual Report on Bald Eagle Status.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service attributed bald eagle population reductions to a “widespread loss of suitable habitat,” but noted that “illegal shooting continues to be the leading cause of direct mortality in both adult and immature bald eagles,” according to a 1978 report in the Endangered Species Tech Bulletin.

A 1984 National Wildlife Federation publication listed hunting, power line electrocution, collisions in flight and poisoning from eating ducks containing lead shot as the leading causes of eagle deaths.

In addition to these reports, numerous scientific studies and experiments vindicate DDT.

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service biologists fed large doses of DDT to captive bald eagles for 112 days and concluded that “DDT residues encountered by eagles in the environment would not adversely affect eagles or their eggs,” according to a 1966 report published in the “Transcripts of 31st North America Wildlife Conference.”

The USFWS examined every bald eagle found dead in the U.S. between 1961-1977 (266 birds) and reported no adverse effects caused by DDT or its residues.

One of the most notorious DDT “factoids” is that it thinned bird egg shells. But a 1970 study published in Pesticides Monitoring Journal reported that DDT residues in bird egg shells were not correlated with thinning. Numerous other feeding studies on caged birds indicate that DDT isn’t associated with egg shell thinning.

In the few studies claiming to implicate DDT as the cause of thinning, the birds were fed diets that were either low in calcium, included other known egg shell-thinning substances, or that contained levels of DDT far in excess of levels that would be found in the environment – and even then, the massive doses produced much less thinning than what had been found in egg shells in the wild.

So what causes thin bird egg shells? The potential culprits are many. Some that have been reported in the scientific literature include: oil; lead; mercury; stress from noise, fear, excitement or disease; age; bird size (larger birds produce thicker shells); dehydration; temperature; decreased light; human and predator intrusion; restraint and nutrient deficiencies.

Most of this evidence was available to the Environmental Protection Agency administrative judge who presided over the 1971-1972 hearings about whether DDT should be banned. No doubt it’s why he ruled that, “The use of DDT under the regulations involved here does not have a deleterious effect on freshwater fish, estuarine organisms, wild birds or other wildlife.”

Yet it’s the myths, not the facts that endure. Why? The answer is endless repetition. The environmentalists who wanted DDT banned have constantly repeated the myths over the last 40 years, while most of DDT’s defenders lost interest after the miracle chemical was summarily banned in 1972 by EPA administrator William Ruckleshaus.

Why was banning DDT so important to environmentalists?

Charles Wurster, a senior scientist for the Environmental Defense Fund – the activist group that led the charge against DDT – told the Seattle Times (Oct. 5, 1969) that, “If the environmentalists win on DDT, they will achieve a level of authority they have never had before. In a sense, much more is at stake than DDT.”

Banning DDT wasn’t about birds. It was about power. The sooner the record on DDT is set straight, the sooner the environmentalists’ ill-gotten “authority” will be seen for what it is.

[eridanus]

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Originally Posted by mickj http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,202447,00.html

Milloy and Edwards are the principal anti-eco faction and are oft-quoted.

I'll ignore the opinions expressed by the author.

The fact that bald eagles were threatened by extinction before the use of DDT has little to do with DDT.

Bald eagle population started to decline in 1947. This was, oddly, about when DDT was put into use (Broley 1958). The numbers "climbed" from 1964 to 1970 because of Carson's best selling book about eagles, which prompted more participants and more location observation areas. It wasn't only eagles that were in decline, either. Fisheaters and songbirds also declined with the advent of DDT usage.

The FWS claims, "It was determined in the later 1960's and early 1970's, that DDE, the principal breakdown product of DDT, built up in the fatty tissues of adult females. This prevented the calcium release necessary to produce strong egg shells"

http://www.fws.gov/endangered/i/b/msab0h.html

He doesn't cite the studies that conclude that thinning isn't caused by DDT. The DeWitt studies, cited by Rachel Carson, DO indicate that mortality of birds is affected by DDT. (1)

Why do we care about a 1984 publication? DDT was banned years before so of course the leading causes of death in 1984 would be other than DDT.

A 1997 study about thinning of egg shells and DDT (DDE): http://tinyurl.com/qefek

"Eggshell thinning and outright mortality are no longer visible" Smolen and Colborn 1997 [about eagles on the Great Lakes]

Other raptors affected other than eagles: Hickey and Anderson 1968
In Britain: Ratcliffe 1967

Reproduction fails in bald eagles with even a little DDT: Wiemeyer et al. 1984, 1993

Electron microscope analysis of bird shells' structural abnormalities: Bland 1990; Risebrough 1993 [from DDT]

etc., etc.


There are also plenty of studies about endocrine disruptors, i.e. DDT/DDE, and how they're bad for animals and humans alike.



(1) The anti-Carson contingent conviently ignores the second DeWitt study.


**(Porter and Wiemeyer 1969, Wiemeyer and Porter 1970) indicate that "dietary DDE produces thinner shells of kestrel eggs". Where were these studies published? Pesticides Monitoring Journal. 1970.

[ladelfina]

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Yet it’s the myths, not the facts that endure. Why? The answer is endless repetition.

Coming from FOX, this is rich, indeed..!

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Effects on Aquatic Species: DDT is very highly toxic to many aquatic invertebrate species. Reported 96-hour LC50s in various aquatic invertebrates (e.g., stoneflies, midges, crayfish, sow bugs) range from 0.18 ug/L to 7.0 ug/L, and 48-hour LC50s are 4.7 ug/L for daphnids and 15 ug/L for sea shrimp (55). Other reported 96-hour LC50s for various aquatic invertebrate species are from 1.8 ug/L to 54 ug/L (82). Early developmental stages are more susceptible than adults to DDTÕs effects (82). The reversibility of some effects, as well as the development of some resistance, may be possible in some aquatic invertebrates (55). DDT is very highly toxic to fish species as well. Reported 96-hour LC50s are less than 10 ug/L in coho salmon (4.0 ug/L), rainbow trout (8.7 ug/L), northern pike (2.7 ug/L), black bullhead (4.8 ug/L), bluegill sunfish (8.6 ug/L), largemouth bass (1.5 ug/L), and walleye (2.9 ug/L) (55). The reported 96-hour LC50s in fathead minnow and channel catfish are 21.5 ug/L and 12.2 ug/L respectively (55). Other reported 96-hour LC50s in largemouth bass and guppy were 1.5 ug/L and 56 ug/L respectively (82). Observed toxicity in coho and chinook salmon was greater in smaller fish than in larger (82). It is reported that DDT levels of 1 ng/L in Lake Michigan were sufficient to affect the hatching of coho salmon eggs (3). DDT may be moderately toxic to some amphibian species and larval stages are probably more susceptible than adults (81, 82). In addition to acute toxic effects, DDT may bioaccumulate significantly in fish and other aquatic species, leading to long-term exposure. This occurs mainly through uptake from sediment and water into aquatic flora and fauna, and also fish (82). Fish uptake of DDT from the water will be size-dependent with smaller fish taking up relatively more than larger fish (82). A half-time for elimination of DDT from rainbow trout was estimated to be 160 days (82). The reported bioconcentration factor for DDT is 1,000 to 1,000,000 in various aquatic species (83), and bioaccumulation may occur in some species at very low environmental concentrations (55). Bioaccumulation may also result in exposure to species which prey on fish or other aquatic organisms (e.g., birds of prey).

http://extoxnet.orst.edu/pips/ddt.htm

Since pesticides have the "-icide" factor.. they kill things. I think you could make a case for limited DDT use provided the alternatives were worse. The problem with DDT is that it was being used more and more with less and less effect due to the emergence of resistent insect populations, even before Carson wrote her book.. in fact that was part of her argument, apparently.* This continues in India, where they still make and use DDT.

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According to a pesticide industry newsletter, DDT is obsolete for malarial prevention in India not only owing to concerns over its toxicity, but because it has largely lost its effectiveness. Use of DDT for agricultural purposes was banned in India in 1989, and its use for anti-malarial purposes has been declining. Use of DDT in urban areas of India has halted completely. Food supplies and eggshells of large predator birds still show high DDT levels.[37] Parasitology journal articles confirm that malarial vector mosquitoes have become resistant to DDT and HCH in most parts of India.[38] Nevertheless, DDT is still manufactured and used in India.[39]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DDT#Mos...ce_against_DDT

DDT is incredibly toxic to most insects, but insect species reproduce and develop resistence much more quickly than other aquatic life, fish and birds.

---
People concerned about the environment "won" when DDT was banned, not because of the specifics of the case, but because it was a complete turning-point in our awareness of the potential effects of any man-made chemicals or by-products, whether applied directly and wantonly, or whether just offloaded for disposal in rivers and streams, or in the air.

I think it would be difficult indeed to argue that, environmentally speaking, we would be better off with a 1950s mentality. Chemical companies want to sell as many chemicals as possible, and want to have to clean up after themselves as little as possible. The only thing preventing us from living in a toxic moonscape is science, public outcry and government reg.s.

FOX will never ask the question (with that insidious tone that hints of a hidden agenda) "why was defending DDT so important to the chemical industry"?

I'm sure someone here remembers "Duck and Cover".. and "Our Friend, the Atom".. etc.* *

[mickj]

"To only a few chemicals does man owe as great a debt as to DDT... In little more than two decades, DDT has prevented 500 million human deaths, due to malaria, that otherwise would have been inevitable."

[National Academy of Sciences, Committee on Research in the Life Sciences of the Committee on Science and Public Policy. 1970. The Life Sciences; Recent Progress and Application to Human Affairs; The World of Biological Research; Requirements for the Future.]


It is believed that [malaria] afflicts between 300 and 500 million every year, causing up to 2.7 million deaths, mainly among children under five years.

[Africa News, January 27, 1999]


Some mosquitoes became "resistant" to DDT. "There is persuasive evidence that antimalarial operations did not produce mosquito resistance to DDT. That crime, and in a very real sense it was a crime, can be laid to the intemperate and inappropriate use of DDT by farmers, espeially cotton growers. They used the insecticide at levels that would accelerate, if not actually induce, the selection of a resistant population of mosquitoes."

[Desowitz, RS. 1992. Malaria Capers, W.W. Norton & Company]



"Resistance" may be a misleading term when discussing DDT and mosquitoes. While some mosquitoes develop biochemical/physiological mechanisms of resistance to the chemical, DDT also can provoke strong avoidance behavior in some mosquitoes so they spend less time in areas where DDT has been applied -- this still reduces mosquito-human contact. "This avoidance behavior, exhibited when malaria vectors avoid insecticides by not entering or by rapidly exiting sprayed houses, should raise serious questions about the overall value of current physiological and biochemical resistance tests. The continued efficacy of DDT in Africa, India, Brazil, and Mexico, where 69% of all reported cases of malaria occur and where vectors are physiologically resistant to DDT (excluding Brazil), serves as one indicator that repellency is very important in preventing indoor transmission of malaria."

[See, e.g., J Am Mosq Control Assoc 1998 Dec;14(4):410-20; and Am J Trop Med Hyg 1994;50(6 Suppl):21-34]

[eridanus]

Quote:

Originally Posted by mickj "To only a few chemicals does man owe as great a debt as to DDT... In little more than two decades, DDT has prevented 500 million human deaths, due to malaria, that otherwise would have been inevitable." [National Academy of Sciences, Committee on Research in the Life Sciences of the Committee on Science and Public Policy. 1970. The Life Sciences; Recent Progress and Application to Human Affairs; The World of Biological Research; Requirements for the Future.] It is believed that [malaria] afflicts between 300 and 500 million every year, causing up to 2.7 million deaths, mainly among children under five years. [Africa News, January 27, 1999]

DDT isn't actually banned for malaria control.

[ladelfina]

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The sooner the record on DDT is set straight, the sooner the environmentalists’ ill-gotten “authority” will be seen for what it is.

How exactly does this follow? Why is "the right" determined to undermine any body of science that conflicts with their agenda? Are they determined to be, at best, just as bad as those they criticize?

I have never read more ridiculous logic: DDT may not be 100% as bad as some people said it was, ergo all ecological and environmental science is highly suspect.

I'm flashing on Johnny Cochran and "if the glove doesn't fit, you must acquit.."


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I have been thinking about the DDT issue and have a difficult time answering my own questions (this is usually not a problem for me* ).

If from 1950-1970 DDT prevented 500 million deaths and had continued apace, barring other factors what would the population of the world be today? Would the problems of war/poverty/corruption/famine/AIDS in much of Africa not be multiplied many thousand-fold? People would be "saved" from malaria to face.. what? If there is neither a stable economy nor a stable ecology nor a stable political system to sustain them...

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The hot prevention tool today is an insecticide-treated net to hang over a bed. These bed nets are very effective, if people can get them. ... One survey asked rural Africans what they would buy if they had the money. A bed net was sixth on the list. The first three items were a radio, a bicycle and, heartbreakingly, a plastic bucket.

http://tinyurl.com/h6gyh

What form of charity would help people in these areas most? Food shipments? Water purification? Vaccines? AIDS drugs? DDT? Bed nets?* Or plastic buckets?

Some arguments I've seen on the board are that 1.) human life is more important than anything else and 2.) there are too many people on the planet.

Discuss.

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My own question is, what is causing all the new interest in DDT when there are any number of things we could be doing to help those afflicted by disease, war and hunger?

Getting back in the swing of answering my own questions: the new interest is caused by the sole fact that conservatives think they can use DDT politically to beat "environmentalists" over the head. Nothing more. I doubt they are truly concerned about the fate of the world's poor.

[lazygood4nothinbum]

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Originally Posted by Cute Fuzzy Bunny Apparently you've never followed 99.8% of the trucks that I do.* Every one of them blows so much smoke non-stop I'm pretty sure the concept of "piston rings" is very, very foreign to the owner...last week I was behind one that smoked so bad I smelled it 5 miles back and had to speed a while to catch up to and pass him so I could turn the a/c back on :P All I can think of is how my car is tested to make sure i'm only emitting 1.2 milipicofarads of hydrogoop and this guy is pouring half burned atomized diesel out the pipes at 1000CFPS... :

ya. i know this is still a problem and it is also one of the reasons i keep 300-hp under the hood which allows me to burn up more than my fair share of fuel to get away from the old diesel trucks. also it helps for weaving in & out of suv's driving too slow and hogging up the road as their owner's try to get to the bank without breaking it.

the new electronically controlled diesels are already being installed, i know, in boats and i would imagine also in trucks. these engines burn fuel much more efficiently than the older variety which, as diesels tend to be robust, will be with us for a while. still, you should start to notice a difference within a few years.

for a few years florida tested cars for emission standards and during that time i noticed pollution decrease here. our air is actually fairly clean as we get a pretty constant sea breeze and no high elevations of land to create temperature inversion which can trap pollution. also with all the money (& over extended credit) here most of the cars on local roads tend to be newer and less polluting. i suspect though that we've a problem with cruise ships coming in & out of port which produce mega amounts of pollution. when i first came to florida in the 70s you could wash your car and it would stay clean for a week or more. now it is dirty again in a day or two.

oh yeah, i forgot to mention: once the bush family got its claws into our governor's seat in florida, they dismantled the vehicle emissions testing program.

[mickj]

http://www.ericdsnider.com/blog/2006...og-entry-ever/

Absolutely the last ‘Inconvenient Truth’ blog entry, ever

By Eric D. Snider on General

Diligent, long-suffering readers of this blog will recall that one of the strengths of Al Gore’s global warming documentary “An Inconvenient Truth” is a study he cites that supposedly demonstrates how the vast majority of scientists are in agreement about global warming, and that the debate should therefore be over.

The study was by Nancy Oreskes. According to Gore, she randomly chose 928 global warming-related articles published in science journals between 1993 and 2003 and found that ALL of them supported the majority view — i.e., Gore’s position, that global warming is real, bad and preventable.

I said in a previous blog entry that I have no choice but accept that study as legitimate. I don’t have access to all the science journals, nor the resources to duplicate the study. I said someone who did have the resources was probably already working on either refuting or supporting it.

And I was right! And it turns out Oreskes’ study — and thus Gore’s support of it in his film — was deeply flawed.

A reader named Keryn (I offer no comment on that spelling) pointed me toward an article by Iain Murray published in the National Review. Now, the National Review would sooner open an abortion clinic in its conference room than say anything positive about Al Gore, and much of what Murray says boils down to nothing more than “my scientists are better than Gore’s scientists.” But he does offer a key insight, found in item #24:

On the supposed “scientific consensus”: Dr. Naomi Oreskes, of the University of California, San Diego, did not examine a “large random sample” of scientific articles. She got her search terms wrong and thought she was looking at all the articles when in fact she was looking at only 928 out of about 12,000 articles on “climate change.” Dr. Benny Peiser, of Liverpool John Moores University in England, was unable to replicate her study. He says, “As I have stressed repeatedly, the whole data set includes only 13 abstracts (~1%) that explicitly endorse what Oreskes has called the ‘consensus view.’ In fact, the vast majority of abstracts does (sic) not mention anthropogenic climate change. Moreover — and despite attempts to deny this fact — a handful of abstracts actually questions the view that human activities are the main driving force of ‘the observed warming over the last 50 years.’”

The way it went down was, Oreskes’ study was published Science Magazine on Dec. 3, 2004. In it, Oreskes said she had done an Institute for Scientific Information (ISI) database search for the keywords “climate change” and had come up with 928 abstracts published between 1993-2003, and that not one of them rejected the consensus position.

When Dr. Benny Peiser did the same search, however, he came up with some 12,000 papers, not 928. Confronted with this information, Oreskes confirmed she’d screwed up: She hadn’t searched for the keywords “climate change,” as her article said, but for “global climate change.” That search brings up only 1,247 documents. (Where she got the number 928, who knows.)

Seeing that Oreskes’ study was flawed from the get-go, Peiser did his own. He used the same keywords — “global climate change” — for 1993-2003 and came up with 1,247 documents, as just mentioned. Only 1,117 of those had abstracts (you know, the paragraph that summarizes the whole paper). He analyzed those 1,117 abstracts and found that only 13 explicitly endorse the consensus view; 322 implicitly accept it but focus on other aspects; 44 focus on natural factors of global climate change; and 34 reject or doubt the Al Gore view altogether. (Oh, and 470 of the 1,117 articles include the keywords “global,” “climate” and “change” but don’t actually have anything to do with the matter at hand.)

Science Magazine ran a brief correction a few weeks later, but refused to published Peiser’s more detailed study on the grounds that the information he was presenting was already widely disseminated on the Internet. (In other words: “Yeah, we screwed up when we ran Oreskes’ article. Quit rubbing it in.”)

Peiser recounts the whole thing, including his exchanges with Science Magazine, here. It’s good reading.

Several readers also brought to my attention an article from the Wall Street Journal that argues with some more of Gore’s points. This article also mentions the Oreskes/Peiser studies.

The inaccuracy of the Oreskes study hurts part of Gore’s case: the part where he says scientists all more or less agree with him. In truth, while there is a majority opinion (MOST scientists seem to be onboard with it), it’s far from being an overwhelming consensus. I suspect average non-scientist citizens will decide what to believe the same way they usually do: They’ll agree with Gore if they’re Democrats and disagree with him if they’re Republicans. Ta-da!

Final side note/tangent: Many conservative pundits, including my occasional employer Glenn Beck, insist on declaring Gore’s film a box-office failure and mocking him for it. They say this because they wish it to be so, not because the facts support it.

(Glenn Beck has compared the film to Hitler’s propaganda. I suppose it’s his job to stir up controversy by making extreme statements, thus ensuring more attention for himself. Hitler, I mean. Oh, and I guess Glenn, too.) (But I kid.)

The film has grossed $13.6 million to date, making it the fifth most successful documentary of all time. It will be in fourth place by the time it’s finished. (It needs just another $1.5 million to overtake “Madonna: Truth or Dare,” but probably won’t muster the $7 million it needs to kick “Bowling for Columbine” out of the No. 3 spot.)

Yes, $13.6 million is nothing compared to the top grossers of the day. But no reasonable person would compare a documentary to a wide-release Hollywood blockbuster. By any sane system of measurement, $13.6 million for a documentary is fantastic. You can argue with the movie’s facts, agenda or presentation, but on the matter of its box office, there IS a consensus and the debate IS over.

[cute fuzzy bunny]

Quote:

"In truth, while there is a majority opinion (MOST scientists seem to be onboard with it), it’s far from being an overwhelming consensus."

Seems the data and the conclusion drawn here dont exactly match.

Out of 1247 documents found with a simple google search (a finely detailed and authoratative information gathering process...NOT!), 335 fully support or accept the theory and 34 reject or 'doubt' it, with no explanation as to what consists of 'doubt'.

So with ~90% of the pertinent reports supporting or accepting the theory, this author declares the study used by gore to be wrong and that consensus does not exist.

Bet that guy has a lot of "special" credit cards...