The Goracle's Plan

I'm waiting for the second-day stories delving into Al Gore's policy prescriptions to tame global warming. I'm hoping they'll come Friday, or on the weekend, but I haven't got my hopes up . Gore made a radical proposal on Wednesday — enact a carbon tax and offset that revenue by eliminating payroll taxes. The sniggering classes in Washington no doubt dismissed the proposal as stillborn. But given the fact that this country will almost certainly commit to a carbon tax or cap-and-trade system as soon as Bush skulks back to Texas, I reckon it's worth a look by journalists.

For the record, David Roberts at Grist posted Gore's 10-point plan. But I doubt Washington correspondents will cover it in any detail, if at all. They're more interested in political theater. As glorified drama critics, that's what they do. Analyzing science and technology policy is just too complex and boring. Too much bother. Whereas the Goracle pinning the clown from Oklahoma to the mat is much more fun, and much easier to write.

According to Howard Kurtz in the Washington Post, Gore "was trailed by hordes of reporters" during his visit to the Hill. The New York Times gushed that he is "a heartbreak loser turned Oscar boasting Nobel hopeful globe trotting pop culture eminence." And as Kurtz noted, "Boy, coverage like that could have gotten him those last three electoral votes last time."

Of course, coverage like that is not how the Times usually treats Gore, as William Broad's piece last week demonstrates. And the Washington press corp's current love affair with Gore won't last long. As Kurtz notes, " . . . let's get real--it's the mere possibility that he might run for president again that is tantalizing the same media establishment that was long dismissive of Gore. In fact, many reporters seem to be rooting for Gore to jump in and ignoring his repeated denials that he has any such intention. But if he did take the leap, the honeymoon would end within nanoseconds."

I doubt that a second-day story examining Gore's policy ideas — or any other proposals for grappling with global warming — can compete with that political theater. The closest we'll get, perhaps, is yet more stories examining whether Gore got the science right in "An Inconvenient Truth."

We already got one on Wednesday. Hewing to it's usual pattern, NPR slavishly followed the lead of the New York Times with a report from Richard Harris on that subject. Harris reported that "a couple" of scientists approached him after Gore got a standing ovation at December's American Geophysical Union conference to say that "he didn't exactly get the science right." (THE HORROR!) Does any one else find it bothersome that not one of those scientists is actually named in Harris's report? In fact, not a single interview is referenced at all.

To be fair, it must be said that Harris treated Gore much better than Broad did. Overall, the report concluded that Gore did a pretty good job in "An Inconvenient Truth," and that scientists generally are grateful to have such an effective popularizer out there talking about climate change. Also, I'm guessing that Harris's editors twisted his arm to do this report — as a studio interview with Morning Edition's Renee Montagne.

Let's hear it for NPR's original and in-depth reporting!

-- Tom Yulsman

"Post-normal science," global warming, and the implications for journalism

After William Broad's silly and unsophisticated "hit" on Al Gore in Tuesday's Times, it's refreshing to read something really thought-provoking about climate change — and the very nature of science itself: this column in the Guardian by Mike Hulme. A professor in the school of environmental sciences at the University of East Anglia, Hulme is the founding director of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research in the UK.

Hulme comments on a new book by Fred Singer, a well known global warming skeptic, and Dennis Avery. The authors argue that a 1,500-year cycle in Earth's climate, driven by changes in solar energy, are largely responsible for the warming of the last 100 years. But Hulme does not take on the science offered in the book per se. Instead, he uses it as a jumping off point to discuss what has been called "post-normal" science.

Scientists traditionally are supposed to separate their work from values and cultural context. They work in tightly circumscribed disciplines, with little or no interaction with outsiders, most especially non-scientists. And the entire enterprise is "binary" in nature: With enough investigation, it can be determined whether a scientific claim is right or wrong. When enough research is done to whittle away the uncertainties, the answer can be found. If policy makers want to do something with this information, fine. That's their business. But ultimately, the purpose of the exercise is not to produce policy-relevant knowledge. It is to create new knowledge for knowledge's sake.

But with complex global issues such as climate change, Hulme and others argue that a different approach — post-normal science — is necessary. With these issues, uncertainties are great, values are absolutely relevant and in dispute, and the stakes are very high.

As a briefing paper from the Tyndall Centre puts it, action on complex, multi-dimensional issues such as climate change depends "on many value-driven decisions made in the face of uncertainty. It moves beyond traditional research, where 'truthful output' is everything to a method where the quality of the process of research is paramount." With issues like this, action has to be taken before a full understanding is gained. Research must be directed not simply at creating new knowledge but expressly to guide action. Consequently, the research must be conducted jointly by scientists and those who will have to carry out the actions. This means both experts and stakeholders work together.

The IPCC is a classic example of post-normal science. Although much of the heavy lifting is done by scientists, experts from government, business, and the policy world become involved in the process too, and ultimately the assessment reports are handed off to government officials for comment and amendment before the final drafts are published.

Singer and Avery clearly believe in the normal science paradigm. If only policy makers would pay attention to the correct science, then the proper descisions would be made — meaning policy makers would not waste time and precious resources trying to stop climate change. They, along with their opponents on the other side of the issue, frame it in this simplistic way. Pure Enlightenment science has provided an answer to the "global warming: yes or no?" question. The problem, of course, is that they have reached opposite conclusions.

William Broad's story naively fit this mold — from the journalistic perspective. Give readers enough information about the science on both sides of the debate, and they will eventually reach the right conclusion. Broad's story was an attempt to correct the scientific record by bringing to light the alleged distortions made by a politician.

Yet the debate is not driven simply by scientific facts and observations. Most important are the underlying values of the debaters. Hulme writes: "Too often with climate change, genuine and necessary debates about these wider social values - do we have confidence in technology; do we believe in collective action over private enterprise; do we believe we carry obligations to people invisible to us in geography and time? - masquerade as disputes about scientific truth and error."

A more fruitful public discourse about climate change would focus on these issues, not just the data. And when appropriate, I think journalists should take every opportunity to reframe climate change in these terms.

Hulme says that "in order to make progress about how we manage climate change we have to take science off centre stage." And "if scientists want to remain listened to, to bear influence on policy, they must recognise the social limits of their truth seeking and reveal fully the values and beliefs they bring to their scientific activity."

Journalists should push them to reveal those underlying factors. But that's exactly the opposite of what William Broad did in his story this week — no doubt because of his own undisclosed values and beliefs.

-- Tom Yulsman

Bill Broad to Al Gore: "cool the hype"

The blogosphere has been afire with criticism of William Broad’s story in Tuesday’s New York Times. ("From a Rapt Audience, a Call to Cool the Hype.") The story tried (and failed) to make the point that many scientists believe Al Gore not only exaggerated impacts of global warming but also got many aspects of the science wrong.

The blogofire started Monday with an item in the Drudge Report on a planned New York Times “hit on Gore.” After publication of the Times story, David Roberts at Grist weighed in, saying, “This may be the worst, sloppiest, most dishonest piece of reporting I’ve ever seen in the NYT. It’s got all the hallmarks of a vintage Gore hit piece: half-truths, outright falsehoods, unsubstantiated quotes, and a heaping dose of innuendo.”

At Deltoid, Tim Lambert wrote wrote that Broad’s article “gives global warming skeptics (who are ‘centrist’ according to Broad) free rein to say anything they want, without checking the accuracy of their claims. Worse he adds his own statement on the science that seriously misrepresent scientific reports.”

And over at Realclimate, Michael Mann and Gavin Schmidt eviscerated the scientific criticism leveled at Gore in Broad’s article. “The first rule when criticizing popular science presentations for inaccuracies should be to double check any 'facts' you use,” they wrote. “It is rather ironic then that William Broad's latest piece on Al Gore plays just as loose with them as he accuses Gore of doing.”

Not surprisingly, some bloggers are reaching exactly the opposite conclusions. Andrew Bolt, for example, writes this in his blog at the Herald Sun (an Australian newspaper):

“Far, far too late, but some journalists of the corporate left may at last be asking Al Gore some questions about his astonishing scaremongering . . . Yes, the New York Times piece airs many criticisms of Gore, but without painstakingly fact-checking each of his mendacious claims, as he deserves. But bottom line: even alarmists think he’s an alarmist.”

Don’t you just love that line! The trouble is that the people Broad quoted to suggest that Al Gore has misrepresented the science are anything but “climate alarmists.” Some actually don’t agree that human emissions of greenhouse gases are warming the planet. And at least one says there is no evidence that humans are causing climate change.

Broad writes that “geologists have documented age upon age of climate swings, and some charge Mr. Gore with ignoring such rhythms.” Then he quotes Robert Carter, a marine geologist at Australia’s James Cook University, as saying this:

“Nowhere does Mr. Gore tell his audience that all of the phenomena that he describes fall within the natural range of environmental change on our planet. Nor does he present any evidence that climate during the 20th century departed discernibly from its historical pattern of constant change.”

Well, nowhere does Broad tell his readers that Carter is a prominent skeptic of the role of carbon dioxide in global warming. He does not believe that atmospheric CO2 is a primary forcing agent of climate change. Nor does he believe that any signal of human impact on the climate has emerged from the noise of natural variability. Who knows? Maybe Carter is right and the vast majority of other climate scientists are wrong. But Broad’s readers certainly deserved to know that Carter is by no means a centrist on global warming.

Because other blogs have done a thorough job dissecting the scientific claims made in Broad’s article, I’ll say only one more thing about that — because I haven’t seen it mentioned elsewhere and it is so ridiculous that it can’t be passed over. Broad quotes this from a blog posting by Roy Spencer, a climatologist at the University of Alabama: the IPCC report shows “that all we really know is that we are warmer now than we were during the last 400 years.”

Oh really? That’s the only solid conclusion to be drawn from all 8,488 words and 21 pages of the IPCC report? Not that “paleoclimate information supports the interpretation that the warmth of the last half century is unusual in at least the previous 1300 years,” as stated in the IPCC? Or that “the last time the polar regions were significantly warmer than present for an extended period (about 125,000 years ago), reductions in polar ice volume led to 4 to 6 metres of sea level rise”?

Both of these findings, two of many described in the IPCC report, support points made by Gore — points that Broad’s sources say have no scientific backing.

What possible justification could there be for printing something so patently untrue and profoundly absurd? I can only conclude that Broad has a mission when writing about climate change: To correct what he perceives to be errors in the record and restore a sense of balance to journalistic coverage that he thinks has tilted too far in the direction of climate alarmism. Nothing wrong with trying to correct the record, maintaining journalistic skepticism, etc. But as Michael Mann and Gavin Schmidt point out in their Realclimate posting, if you’re going to do it, you’d better get your facts straight.

In the end, none of this is really about science per se. As Roger Pielke, Jr., my colleague here at the University of Colorado, told me today, “The debates about the science in the movie are yet another way to scientize political debates.”

It’s really all about politics, not science. And if some scientists are indeed uneasy about Al Gore — and I have no doubt that this is true, although not nearly to the degree that Broad claims — it’s not really because he has exaggerated the science and gotten some of it wrong. What uneasiness exists probably stems from a sense that they’ve lost control of their own science to a politician, that in the process much of the nuance and hedginess of what they do has been lost, and lastly, that Gore has cherry picked the data to make a strong case for action.

The HORROR! A political advocate is ADVOCATING!

-- Tom Yulsman