Denialism Bad - Peer Review Denialism Good - More Qualified

Denialism Bad - Peer Review

Denialism Good - More Qualified

Global warming alarmists often accuse skeptics of being “anti-science,” but a newly published peer-reviewed study finds skeptics are more scientifically knowledgeable than the alarmist name-callers. The study, published Sunday in Nature Climate Change, documented that global warming skeptics scored better on a test of 22 scientific and statistical questions than people who are worried about global warming. A team of researchers, led by a professor at Yale University, tested more than 1,500 U.S. adults on their scientific literacy and technical reasoning capacity, and then asked them to assign a numerical value to how concerned they are about climate change. According to the study, “Members of the public with the highest degrees of scientific literacy and technical reasoning capacity were not the most concerned about climate change.” “As respondents’ science literacy scores increased, their concern with climate change decreased,” observed the study, which was funded by the National Science Foundation.

Denialism Good - Political Incentives

Claims of warming are politics, not science – the IPCC reports are riddled with errors and should not be used to justify policy

Armstrong, Green, and Soon 11 (J. Scott Armstrong is a professor of marketing at the University of Pennsylvania, Kesten C. Green is a Senior Research Fellow with the Business and Economic Forecasting Unit at Monash University, Willie Soon is an astrophysicist and geoscientist at the Solar and Stellar Physics Division of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, 2011, “Research on Forecasting for the Manmade Global Warming Alarm” Energy & Environment, Vol. 22 Issue 8, Ebsco)

The validity of the manmade global warming alarm requires the support of scientific forecasts of (1) a substantive long-term rise in global mean temperatures in the absence of regulations, (2) serious net harmful effects due to global warming, and (3) cost-effective regulations that would produce net beneficial effects versus alternatives policies, including doing nothing. Without scientific forecasts for all three aspects of the alarm, there is no scientific basis to enact regulations. In effect, the warming alarm is like a three-legged stool: each leg needs to be strong. Despite repeated appeals to global warming alarmists, we have been unable to find scientific forecasts for any of the three legs. We drew upon scientific (evidence-based) forecasting principles to audit the forecasting procedures used to forecast global mean temperatures by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) — leg “1” of the stool. This audit found that the IPCC procedures violated 81% of the 89 relevant forecasting principles. We also audited forecasting procedures, used in two papers, that were written to support regulation regarding the protection of polar bears from global warming — leg “3” of the stool. On average the forecasting procedures violated 85% of the 90 relevant principles. The warming alarmists have not demonstrated the predictive validity of their procedures. Instead, their argument for predictive validity is based on their claim that nearly all scientists agree with the forecasts. This count of “votes” by scientists is not only an incorrect tally of scientific opinion, it is also, and most importantly, contrary to the scientific method. We conducted a validation test of the IPCC forecasts that were based on the assumption that there would be no regulations. The errors for the IPCC model long-term forecasts (for 91 to 100 years in the future) were 12.6 times larger than those from an evidence-based “no change” model. Based on our own analyses and the documented unscientific behavior of global warming alarmists, we concluded that the global warming alarm is the product of an anti-scientific political movement. Having come to this conclusion, we turned to the “structured analogies” method to forecast the likely outcomes of the warming alarmist movement. In our ongoing study we have, to date, identified 26 similar historical alarmist movements. None of the forecasts behind the analogous alarms proved correct. Twenty-five alarms involved calls for government intervention and the government imposed regulations in 23. None of the 23 interventions was effective and harm was caused by 20 of them. Our findings on the scientific evidence related to global warming forecasts lead to the following recommendations: 1. End government funding for climate change research. 2. End government funding for research predicated on global warming (e.g., alternative energy; CO2 reduction; habitat loss). 3. End government programs and repeal regulations predicated on global warming. 4. End government support for organizations that lobby or campaign predicated on global warming.

Denalism Good - Economic Incentives

Alarmists have economic incentives to exaggerate

Jasper 12 (William Jasper, staff writer, 7/13/12, " 'Climate Science' in Shambles: Real Scientists Battle UN Agenda," The New American, http://www.thenewamerican.com/tech/environment/item/11998-%E2%80%9Cclimate-science%E2%80%9D-in-shambles-real-scientists-battle-un-agenda)

Until recently, the AGW alarmists definitely had the upper hand. For one thing, they have been organized. For another, they have been outspending the climate realists by a huge order of magnitude. In 2007, Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.), the ranking member of the Environment & Public Works Committee, showed that proponents of man-made global warming enjoyed a monumental funding advantage over the skeptics. The alarmists had received a whopping $50 billion — mostly from the federal government — compared to “a paltry $19 million and some change” for the realists. A 2009 study entitled “Climate Money,” by Joanne Nova for the Science & Public Policy Institute, found that the U.S. government had sunk $79 billion into climate-change-related activities (science research, alternative energy technology, foreign aid, etc.) between 1989 and 2009. That total does not include additional massive funding from state governments, foundations, and corporations. Similar levels of funding have been poured into “climate policy” by European Union institutions and the national governments of European nations and Japan. This super-extravagant lavishing of state funding on a new scientific field has created an instant global climate industry that is government-fed and completely political. However, these sums, impressive as they are, represent only the very tip of the mountain of “climate cash” that has the political classes panting and salivating. They smell not only tens of billions of dollars for research and technology, but also hundreds of billions for “climate debt” foreign aid, and trillions to be made in CO2 cap-and-trade schemes. The politicization and corruption of climate science is, perhaps, most clearly evident from the continuing cavalcade of shocking scandals: Climategate, Climate­gate 2.0, Himalayan Glaciergate, Alaskan Glaciergate, Amazongate, Sea Levelgate, Fakegate, Satellitegate, Antarctic Sea Icegate, Hockey Stickgate, Hurricanegate, Surface Weather Stationgate, Russiagate, etc. The Germany-based engineer P. Gosselin has catalogued 129 climate scandals at his website, NoTrickZone.com. Fortunately, each of these transgressions against the integrity of science has caused new circles of scientists to become aware of, and outraged by, the chicanery being employed by the political operatives masquerading as scientists. And the genuine scientists are stepping into the gap in increasing numbers to fight for truth and to expose the climate-change flim-flam artists who are perverting science.
The perception of consensus about global warming is merely the result of scientist’s fear to speak out because it may cost them their job and alarmism spread by those who benefit from the spending to try and curb the supposed change

Allegre et al 11 (Claude Allegre, former director of the Institute for the Study of the Earth, University of Paris; J. Scott Armstrong, cofounder of the Journal of Forecasting and the International Journal of Forecasting; Jan Breslow, head of the Laboratory of Biochemical Genetics and Metabolism, Rockefeller University; Roger Cohen, fellow, American Physical Society; Edward David, member, National Academy of Engineering and National Academy of Sciences; William Happer, professor of physics, Princeton; Michael Kelly, professor of technology, University of Cambridge, U.K.; William Kininmonth, former head of climate research at the Australian Bureau of Meteorology; Richard Lindzen, professor of atmospheric sciences, MIT; James McGrath, professor of chemistry, Virginia Technical University; Rodney Nichols, former president and CEO of the New York Academy of Sciences; Burt Rutan, aerospace engineer, designer of Voyager and SpaceShipOne; Harrison H. Schmitt, Apollo 17 astronaut and former U.S. senator; Nir Shaviv, professor of astrophysics, Hebrew University, Jerusalem; Henk Tennekes, former director, Royal Dutch Meteorological Service; Antonio Zichichi, president of the World Federation of Scientists, Geneva; 10/18/11; “No Need to Panic About Global Warming” Wall Street Journal; http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204301404577171531838421366.html)

Although the number of publicly dissenting scientists is growing, many young scientists furtively say that while they also have serious doubts about the global-warming message, they are afraid to speak up for fear of not being promoted—or worse. They have good reason to worry. In 2003, Dr. Chris de Freitas, the editor of the journal Climate Research, dared to publish a peer-reviewed article with the politically incorrect (but factually correct) conclusion that the recent warming is not unusual in the context of climate changes over the past thousand years. The international warming establishment quickly mounted a determined campaign to have Dr. de Freitas removed from his editorial job and fired from his university position. Fortunately, Dr. de Freitas was able to keep his university job. This is not the way science is supposed to work, but we have seen it before—for example, in the frightening period when Trofim Lysenko hijacked biology in the Soviet Union. Soviet biologists who revealed that they believed in genes, which Lysenko maintained were a bourgeois fiction, were fired from their jobs. Many were sent to the gulag and some were condemned to death. Why is there so much passion about global warming, and why has the issue become so vexing that the American Physical Society, from which Dr. Giaever resigned a few months ago, refused the seemingly reasonable request by many of its members to remove the word "incontrovertible" from its description of a scientific issue? There are several reasons, but a good place to start is the old question "cui bono?" Or the modern update, "Follow the money." Alarmism over climate is of great benefit to many, providing government funding for academic research and a reason for government bureaucracies to grow. Alarmism also offers an excuse for governments to raise taxes, taxpayer-funded subsidies for businesses that understand how to work the political system, and a lure for big donations to charitable foundations promising to save the planet. Lysenko and his team lived very well, and they fiercely defended their dogma and the privileges it brought them. Speaking for many scientists and engineers who have looked carefully and independently at the science of climate, we have a message to any candidate for public office: There is no compelling scientific argument for drastic action to "decarbonize" the world's economy. Even if one accepts the inflated climate forecasts of the IPCC, aggressive greenhouse-gas control policies are not justified economically. A recent study of a wide variety of policy options by Yale economist William Nordhaus showed that nearly the highest benefit-to-cost ratio is achieved for a policy that allows 50 more years of economic growth unimpeded by greenhouse gas controls. This would be especially beneficial to the less-developed parts of the world that would like to share some of the same advantages of material well-being, health and life expectancy that the fully developed parts of the world enjoy now. Many other policy responses would have a negative return on investment. And it is likely that more CO2 and the modest warming that may come with it will be an overall benefit to the planet.

The IPCC had no justification for its methods of investigation and violated 81% of forecasting principles

Armstrong, Green, and Soon 11 (J. Scott Armstrong is a professor of marketing at the University of Pennsylvania, Kesten C. Green is a Senior Research Fellow with the Business and Economic Forecasting Unit at Monash University, Willie Soon is an astrophysicist and geoscientist at the Solar and Stellar Physics Division of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, 2011, “Research on Forecasting for the Manmade Global Warming Alarm” Energy & Environment, Vol. 22 Issue 8, Ebsco)

Kesten Green surveyed climate experts (many of whom were IPCC authors and editors) to find the most credible source for forecasts on climate change. Most respondents referred to the IPCC report and some specifically to Chapter 8, the key IPCC chapter on forecasting (Randall et al. 2007). Kesten Green and I examined the references to determine whether the authors of Chapter 8 were familiar with the evidence-based literature on forecasting. We found that none of their 788 references related to that body of literature. We could find no references that validated their choice of forecasting procedures. In other words, the IPCC report contained no evidence that the forecasting procedures they used were based on evidence of their predictive ability. We then conducted an audit of the forecasting procedures using Forecasting Audit Software, which is freely available on forprin.com. Kesten Green and I independently coded the IPCC procedures against the 140 forecasting principles, and then we discussed differences in order to reach agreement. We also invited comments and suggestions from the authors of the IPCC report that we were able to contact in hope of filling in missing information. None of them replied with suggestions and one threatened to lodge a complaint if he received any further correspondence. We described the coding procedures we used for our audit in Green and Armstrong (2007a). We concluded from our audit that invalid procedures were used for forecasting global mean temperatures. Our findings, described in Green and Armstrong (2007a), are summarized in Exhibit 1. Based on the available information, 81% of the 89 relevant principles were violated. There were an additional 38 relevant principles, but the IPCC chapter provided insufficient information for coding and the IPCC authors did not supply the information that we requested.

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