Expert Wants to Decertify Global Warming Skeptics

Penguinisto writes "Apparently in the Senate, at least one scientist wants to put a permanent stop to any arguments over Global Warming. The Weather Channel's most prominent climatologist is advocating that broadcast meteorologists be stripped of their scientific certification if they express skepticism about predictions of manmade catastrophic global warming."

Comments

Re:So what?

[davmoo]

2006 was the warmest year ever

Not quite. You left out an important part of the sentence...2006 was the warmest year ever recorded. We only have records of weather data for approximately 400 years...not even the blink of an eye in terms of climatic change.

I'm not saying there isn't global warming taking place. I'm merely saying neither side needs to be exagerating to either extreme. And censorship is censorship, and is equally offensive and unscientific regardless of which side it comes from. A scientist who wants to censor or punish other scientists for their views is just as bad as any group of rabid "intelligent design" supporters.

Editors, RTFA

[1u3hr]

WTF does "Apparently in the Senate, at least one scientist wants to put a permanent stop.." mean? The scientist isn't in the Senate. It looks like the blog linked is by a Senator. How about linking to the actual person who made the suggestion, and not this inflammatory shit?

No one suggested a "permanent stop to any arguments over Global Warming" as the summary says.

The original article is JUNK CONTROVERSY NOT JUNK SCIENCE, posted a month ago actually.

If a meteorologist has an AMS Seal of Approval, which is used to confer legitimacy to TV meteorologists, then meteorologists have a responsibility to truly educate themselves on the science of global warming. (One good resource if you don't have a lot of time is the Pew Center's Climate Change 101.) Meteorologists are among the few people trained in the sciences who are permitted regular access to our living rooms. And in that sense, they owe it to their audience to distinguish between solid, peer-reviewed science and junk political controversy. If a meteorologist can't speak to the fundamental science of climate change, then maybe the AMS shouldn't give them a Seal of Approval. Clearly, the AMS doesn't agree that global warming can be blamed on cyclical weather patterns. It's like allowing a meteorologist to go on-air and say that hurricanes rotate clockwise and tsunamis are caused by the weather. It's not a political statement...it's just an incorrect statement.

Apparently

[Lars T.]

Apparently on Slashdot neither the Slashdotters, nor the editor, nor the submitter bother to actually RTFA. The only relation to the Senate is that the author of that BLOG entry is does PR work for the majority chairman of the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works

Re:Wrong Way

[1u3hr]

Secondly, let me point out that sometime in the 70's early 80's, can't remember, there were scientist crying about global COOLING!

Bullshit

Misrepresenting things.

[Trestran]

Let's take a look at what she actually said, shall we?

I'd like to take that suggestion a step further. If a meteorologist has an AMS Seal of Approval, which is used to confer legitimacy to TV meteorologists, then meteorologists have a responsibility to truly educate themselves on the science of global warming. ... Meteorologists are among the few people trained in the sciences who are permitted regular access to our living rooms. And in that sense, they owe it to their audience to distinguish between solid, peer-reviewed science and junk political controversy

That's a pretty darn reasonable point of view, and very much pro science. It just so happens that scientific consensus does in fact support anthropogenic global warming. Just look at the rigorously peer reviewed reports of the IPCC, and the endorsements of a vast number of scientific institutes in the world out there, and pretty much all the climatological and meteorological organizations in the US. And when looked at peer reviewed science, no real opposing scientific theory can be found at this point, see a study published by Nature, "Beyond the ivory tower: The scientific consensus on climate change".

Now, the part of her statement this controversy is about, which is making just speaking on the actual scientific work out there part of the requirements of the seal of approval, rather then spreading misinformation not based on peer reviewed science. But what is the purpose of this seal. Well, let's check their site:

The AMS Seal of Approval was launched in 1957 as a way to recognize on-air meteorologists for their sound delivery of weather information to the general public.

And they now have a specific certificate for broadcast meteorologists, which states its purpose as:

In January 2005, the AMS introduced a new program called the Certified Broadcast Meteorologist (CBM) program, intended to raise the professional standard in broadcast meteorology and encourage a broader range of scientific understanding, especially with respect to environmental issues. The goal of the CBM program is to certify that the holder meets specific educational and experience criteria and has passed rigorous testing in their knowledge and communication of meteorology and related sciences needed to be an effective broadcast meteorologist.

Hey, how about that. It's about giving accurate information on the actual scientific understanding out there, and communicating this in an accurate and effective way. Not at all about "censoring", this call is merely suggesting that people who are certified under this hold themselves to the peer reviewed science out there on climate change. Which matches remarkably well with the stated purpose of the certification.

I'm not exactly sure if it is a good idea though, but this blogger linked by the /. write up is misrepresent things and has pulled the statements out of context.

Not censorship. Not a problem.

[Kidbro]

This is not censorship. This is about single organisation, the American Meteorological Society, that apparently sometimes chooses to give their formal approval of a specific indivudual. Essentialy they're saying "we think this dude knows his shit, you can trust him". If any person who they have given this approval start sprouting complete gibberish (in their view), of course they can then say "nope, we were wrong, we don't think you can trust him".
What's the fucking problem here? They're not revoking his right to speak. They're just saying that they don't trust him any more. Are we under some damn obligation to approve of everybody's ideas, just because they're allowed to speak about them?

This is a non issue. Go get upset about the rights that are actually being taken away from you, not about this triviality.

A troll basically .. or a political smear campaign

[golodh]

Of course not ... and I don't need to be told. In addition, real scientists aren't in the habit of advocating gag orders on opponents. Ever. So what's up?

It seems that somebody (opposed to the idea of a man-made impacy on climate) seems to have worked out how to evoke a popular (knee-jerk) response from Slashdot.

The secret is that ... most slashdotters simply don't read the article referred to, let alone the articles referred to by that article. They take the position that they can rely on whoever wrote the slashdot newsflash to do that for them. Instead they are happy to comment on the post and the previous comments (much more fun, and less work). So ... if you can insert any statement to excite slashdotters in your newsflash, you can pretty much lead them to endorse (or condemn) whatever orginal article you like.

So ... what is actually going on?

Q: Did those experts cited really propose to end scientific discussion by silencing those who oppose the idea of a man-made impact on global warning?

A: No! (see the original blog by Heidi Cullen at http://climate.weather.com/blog/9_11396.html )

Q: So if that wasn't the case, then where did the idea come from?

A: The idea came from a certain Marc Morano (marc_morano@epw.senate.gov) who's blog was cited by slashdot. See the blog referenced by the slashdot newsflash at http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction= PressRoom.Blogs&ContentRecord_id=32abc0b0-802a-23a d-440a-88824bb8e528)

Q: So if there was no question of the experts proposing to stifle discussion by de-certifying opponents then where does all the hoopla come from?

A :I think we are witnessing a rant by Marc Morano which received disproportionate attention by it's referral on slashdot. In case this referral was deliberate, we are witnessing a political mear campaign. Live and in colour

Re:Thoughtcrime

[DCFC]

I'm not disagreeing with your basic point, but in the case of Solar cycles, by the time we've reduced our nice warm blanket of greenhouse gases, the cycle may be on a down turn, when we've just spent trillions making the Earth colder. Ooops.
It's easy to suspect that fertiliser and pesticide run offs are altering which microbes prosper and thus affect climate. Bio-fuels require yet more intensive agriculture, and so may make the problem worse, or not. Again a focus on CO2 may be doing more harm than good.
Also, there is the random "background noise" of vulcanism. This can be a big term. In the last couple of centuries we've seen at least one event that lost our planeet an entire summer, and for a while entirely overwhelmed any possible human effect. A few big volcanoes randomly going off could make the most hysterical predicitons of arts-graduate Greens look like a rainy afternoon.
The nature of climate variation affects deeply how we should respond. We can't do much about volcanoes, except maybe set one off as a frantic reaction to short term global warming :) If the forces are outside our control, like Solar, or Chinese industralisation then the optimum may be to make it less bad and not spend money on trying to slow it down. I'm not saying this is the case, I'm saying that a religious belief in a single monolithic truth is extravagantly unlikely to deliver the best choices.

Re:Don't commit a thoughcrime in Austria

[heroofhyr]

The "liberals" didn't come up with the law. In Germany and Austria it was a postwar requirement of the Allied forces that among other things denying the Holocaust be a punishable offence, in order to prevent former Nazis from regaining any public support once the Allies left. If you had bothered to actually do any fact-checking before making a statement like that, you'd know that the law was passed in 1947 under the ÖVP, which is the conservative party of Austria. They held the chancellorship (under Figl) and majority in Parliament until the "Socialist revolution" under Kreisky in 1970.

Irving didn't go to jail for denying the Holocaust. He was put on trial because the Austrian government warned him not to enter the border because they knew who he was and what he would say. The Burschenschaft, a secret society of right-wing students who swordfight and wear weird costumes (I am not making this up, you can look it up if you want), invited him to speak and he was stupid enough to go and was subsequently arrested at the airport. We have a lot of problems right now, especially in Vienna, because so many Turkish people are coming and certain far-right parties are using it as the new scapegoat to gain support. The last thing Austria needs is some douche like David Irving fanning the flames.

Crack open a history book and an atlas sometime before writing flamebait about countries you know nothing about and have probably never been to.

Re:Wrong Way

[Darth Daver]

Unlike many readers on Slashdot, I remember the 1970's. After a couple of severe winters involving blizzards, news reports extensively covered the coming of the next ice age. It was featurd in time magazine ( http://newsbusters.org/node/6546 ), where they stated, "However widely the weather varies from place to place and time to time, when meteorologists take an average of temperatures around the globe they find that the atmosphere has been growing gradually cooler for the past three decades. The trend shows no indication of reversing. Climatological Cassandras are becoming increasingly apprehensive, for the weather aberrations they are studying may be the harbinger of another ice age." I remember being worried about it, which is why I am not worried about global warming now. Don't tell me it never happened. By the way, it snowed in Malibu yesterday. ( http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/2/story.cfm?c_id =2&objectid=10419760 )

Re:A troll basically .. or a political smear campa

[Gorshkov]

Q: Did those experts cited really propose to end scientific discussion by silencing those who oppose the idea of a man-made impact on global warning?

A: No! (see the original blog by Heidi Cullen at http://climate.weather.com/blog/9_11396.html )

Are you sure about that?
From the TFA:

Meteorologists are among the few people trained in the sciences who are permitted regular access to our living rooms. And in that sense, they owe it to their audience to distinguish between solid, peer-reviewed science and junk political controversy. If a meteorologist can't speak to the fundamental science of climate change, then maybe the AMS shouldn't give them a Seal of Approval. Clearly, the AMS doesn't agree that global warming can be blamed on cyclical weather patterns. It's like allowing a meteorologist to go on-air and say that hurricanes rotate clockwise and tsunamis are caused by the weather. It's not a political statement...it's just an incorrect statement.

Re:Thoughtcrime

[What'sInAName]

Just a correction. Membership in the AMA is not a requirement for a medical doctor. The AMA is a professional/lobbying organization, not a certifying authority.

Just mentioning this because I thought the same as you, but only found this out recently.

Re:Thoughtcrime

[TapeCutter]

"how on earth does a view on climate change affect whether you can accurately predict tomorrow's weather?"

Excellent question since we all know by now that weather != climate. The point is that the AMC have a body of science that says XYZ about the climate, they do not want someone giving the impression that they endorse a diametrically opposed view that they have investigated ad-nauseam. A weather presenter has every right to an opposing view but whilst a member of that organisation s/he should be clear their view is personal and unpublished. Perhaps a surgeon who refuses to wash thier hands but is still allowed to practice is a better analogy.

"What is motivating her to suggest this? You kick doctors out of the AMA because you're concerned about patients."

Climate predictions are like a medical diagnosis for the progression of a "cancer" known as the population explosion. The "cancer" is literally eating and befouling the biosphere at (dare I say) an "alarming" rate. The main symptoms of this "cancer" are climate change, habitat destruction, peak oil and the sixth great extinction. Nobody can say if or when the biosphere will collapse around us, it's like a game of kerplunk, everyone knows we can't keep removing straws indefinitely.

Re:Thoughtcrime

[Zenaku]

Doctors have to be licensed here too, of course, it just isn't done at a national level, so far as I know. I think they have to be licensed by the state medical board in the state(s) in which they practice, and those boards are run by the state's department of health, which complies with rule and guidelines made by the federal department of health.

But I am not a Doctor, so this is mostly just guessing.

Re:Thoughtcrime

[electroniceric]

A weather presenter has every right to an opposing view but whilst a member of that organisation s/he should be clear their view is personal and unpublished.

Thanks you, very well put. This AMS has published a statement in support of anthropogenic influence climate change, and many meteorologist speak in direct contradiction to that statement. In that vein, if you read the post on Dr. Cullen's blog, she's got a different message. She's saying that meteorologists are not bothering to understand what scientific organizations, including their own are saying about climate change, and instead are speculating based on what they hear elsewhere (and hence end up repeating assertions that are not scientifically sound). That's an issue of basic credibility - every scientist making claims about the state of scientific understanding of an issue needs to be well grounded in the literature and consensus of the community. Meteorologists are not doing this, yet they are assuming the mantle of climate scientists. That's deeply irresponsible, and if it occurred in another field would indeed be subject to sanction, much like you analogy of a surgeon not washing his or her hands. Really, read her post - she's put it much better than me, and it's not aimed as censorship at all.

As for how the loaded word censorship got introduced here, note that this press release is really from James Inhofe's office (Morano is Inhofe's communications director).
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Marc_Mo rano

Inhofe has consistently misrepresented the evidence for climate change and included testimony from non-experts. So whatever the merits of whether and how meteorologists should be permitted to publicly disagree with the science endorsed by their organizations, this press release (and its histrionics about censorship) does not originate from the climate science community - it originates from a Senator with a track record of scientific disinformation. Know thy sources and their modus operandi.

Re:Manmade being key here...

[shma]

They tried that one years ago. Noone took them seriously back then, and noone does now. The problem with that argument is that it fails to account for Venus being closer to the sun. When you sit on the electric heater, CO2 is not the reason your ass gets hot.

Sorry AC, you're full of shit.

From wikipedia:

Venus has an extremely thick atmosphere, which consists mainly of carbon dioxide and a small amount of nitrogen. The pressure at the planet's surface is about 90 times that at Earth's surface--a pressure equivalent to that at a depth of 1 kilometer under Earth's oceans. The enormously CO2-rich atmosphere generates a strong greenhouse effect that raises the surface temperature to over 400 C. This makes Venus' surface hotter than Mercury's, even though Venus is nearly twice as distant from the Sun and receives only 25% of the solar irradiance.

In fact, if we ignored the greenhouse effect, and made a simplyfying blackbody assumption, the increase in temperature due to distance D from the sun goes like 1/sqrt(D). So Venus, being 71% of the distance from the earth to the sun, would be only at 64 C without it's greenhouse effect (albeido plays a role as well, but that in turn is related to the atmospheric content).