Richard Lindzen: Climate skeptic or Conspiracy theorist?

Last week, I had the distinct pleasure of spending almost three hours with world renowned climate skeptic Dr. Richard Lindzen.  Dr. Lindzen is charming, intelligent, and incredibly interesting.  He could just as easily teach history as meteorology at MIT – the man is a fountain of knowledge.  He is, in fact, so intelligent and knowlegable that he can be very intimidating.  He gave an hour long talk to a group of primarily non-scientists (myself included) and in the end most people were afraid to ask questions.  Well, I guess I don’t have the same fear of public humiliation – so I decided to ask some questions.  Before I divulge with the fireworks, let me back up a little.

Richard was invited to my campus (Washington and Lee University) last week to give a public talk about “Global Climate Change.”  His talk was titled Climate Alarmism and Scientific Illiteracy.  He spent a good hour reading directly from his 50+ Powerpoint slides.  I spent the hour taking notes so I could revisit some points with him.  His talk started with the theme of scientific illiteracy and how this enables the media to exploit the public and create what he calls climate alarmism.  In the end he concluded by saying the only way to restrict CO2 emissions was to restrict wealth creation – which is NOT correct -   and he finished with an unequivocal conclusion – nothing should be done to reduce CO2 emissions and any policy with this objective is too costly because there are no benefits to doing so. 

At the end of his talk he thanked the audience and asked if there were any questions.  I was sitting in the front so I turned to see if anyone had a hand up – no one did – so I raised my hand.  Richard acknowledged me and I proceeded to thank him for joining us.  Then I asked if he thought Dan Schrag (Harvard) was scientifically illiterate.  I read some direct quotes from Dan that were in direct opposition of what Richard had just told us.  Then, I asked him how I was supposed to make sense of these diametrically opposed statements made by a scientist from MIT and another from Harvard?  His answer: Dan is a Marine Scientist, not a Climate Scientist.  I also wanted to know how I could remain scientific and weigh the evidence on climate change – this is where it starts to get interesting.  I do not have the space here to get into all the details, but my conclusion from Richard’s comments is that every scientist, policy-maker, and news media person who claims to believe that we need to limit CO2 emissions is part of the largest conspiracy ever – Climate Alarmism! 

Later that evening in a semi-private conversation (there were two other persons present) I asked him what journals I could read to learn more about climate change.  Based on my interpretation of Richard’s comments - I can not trust Science, or Nature and The Journal of Climate is “o.k.” Richard did not suggest another journal.  Apparently there is only one journal in the entire world that objectively disseminates scientific evidence on climate change. 

We then moved to the question of who will benefit and who will bear the costs of any carbon mitigation policy – I learned that the petroleum industry has no vested interest in whether or not we have a policy to limit CO2 emissions and perhaps even more shocking it is the powerful and well-funded environmental movement that dictates policy decisions.  Let me repeat – the environmental lobby has unlimited resources and power and the oil industry has no vested interest in whether we have policies to limit carbon emissions. 

I also asked him if every scientist writing that climate change is real and potentially dangerous and thinks we should have limits on CO2 emissions had abandoned their code of ethics – had every single scientist in the world who thinks this is a real problem sold out for the money – his answer – they never had any ethics.

So, I am left to ponder - who do I trust?  What should I read?  How do I weigh the evidence?  My conclusion - I can only trust Richard Lindzen and others who agree with him, I can only read the Journal of Climate and I am supposed to give zero weight to the side of the argument with most of the evidence and all the weight to the side with little evidence.  Does that sound like science?  In closing, yesterday’s Christian Science Monitor had an article where I learned “a 2004 Science magazine survey of all peer-reviewed scientific studies of climate change showed 928 papers supporting man-made global warming. None denied it.” - must be a conspiracy.

Comments

[gmoke]

S Fred Singer spoke at MIT a few years ago and had a similar take on global climate change. I asked him about the reports from glaciologists that they report the melting of glaciers all around the world. Singer said he wouldn't go to glaciologists for atmospheric science. I was not quick enough to say that I wouldn't go to a rocket scientist, Singer's field, for the same.

My feeling is that we should be doing at least the thought experiment of imagining a zero emissions industrial system where zero emissions is like W Edwards Deming's zero defect through statistical quality control on a production line. Seems to me that such an exercise would both reduce many kinds of pollution and result in many small and perhaps some large new efficiencies. But then I didn't even finish college so I have no standing at all.

[ralph]

Holy cow. S'all I can say right off....

[Dano]

Excellent post. Well done.

Best,

D

[joshua corning]

Hey General who are you and who do you work for??

actual quotes would be nice also...you know real support for your characterization.

:)

[Background researcher]

Joshua,

The General's first name is Jim. His last name is either Casey or Kahn. At least these are the only two contributors to this blog, who hail from Washington and Lee University.

In either case, General Jim is an economics prof, presumably with some consulting projects on the side, but most likely without any blood ties to either Environmental Defense or Exxon.

Great post!

[T.R.Elliott]

Suppose we can get ahold of his presentation to review? His web site doesn't have anything like that (unlike, say, Richard Smalley, who put all his public presentations on the interenet for reading and review).

[Tim Haab]

For completeness, 'The General' is Jim Casey at Washington and Lee University. His resume' can be found here: http://home.wlu.edu/~caseyj/cv04.htm

Thanks for the post Jim, should generate a lot of discussion.

[SC]

Interestingly enough, the WaPo magazine ran a nice piece on climate change skeptics last Sunday: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/print/washpostmagazine/index.html

Thanks for the post Jim!

[Will]

Very interesting. There is a must-read article on climate change skeptics (Lindzen appears) in the Washington Post Magazine from last Sunday.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/23/AR2006052301305_pf.html

[joshua corning]

“a 2004 Science magazine survey of all peer-reviewed scientific studies of climate change showed 928 papers supporting man-made global warming. None denied it.”

this statement would be as equally true as the above quote:

all peer-reviewed scinetific studies of climate changed showed 900 papers supporting naturaly caused goobal warming. None denied it.

i subtracted the the few and flawed multi-proxy studies of the hockey team.

One may ask why would General quote (the only quote mind you from anyone) an obviously missleading statement?

anyway lindzen has never denied global warming or even that human activity contributes...his main conscern as with most skeptics is that there is little if no evideance that humans are the main cause or that the slight changes to climate over the past 100 years are particualarly worrysome...a .1 degree change per decade is not that big of deal folks...but one can wonder why some are making such a big deal over .1 degrees over 10 years...

[joshua corning]

Suppose we can get ahold of his presentation to review? His web site doesn't have anything like that (unlike, say, Richard Smalley, who put all his public presentations on the interenet for reading and review).

here is an article by lindzen that seems to hit all the points that general makes...exept they are actually his words rather then Generals interpretation of them:

http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110008220

[Jim Casey]

Mr Corning: You will notice my choice of language throughout the entire piece places all responsibility on my interpretation of his comments. I did not want to misquote Dr. Lindzen or put words in his mouth - so I intentionally chose this style. Dick has since sent me his entire presentation and I am sure if you email him directly he will share the presentation with you as well.

JC ( TheGeneral)

[Dano]

Jim, your piece is well done because Lindzen carefully uses language to dissemble, and the way you wrote it takes away that aspect of his wurdz.

I, personally, enjoy reading Lindzen's work because he's just so d*mn good at BSing.

Best,

D

[joshua corning]

JC (general),

I think you would have done better to simply take the article i posted and dissasembled that...there are plenty of sour grapes in that to make your point with all the advantages of quoting from the source.

[John Whitehead]

JC and JC,

I enjoyed reading the first person accounting of the encounter. Tim and I are already the specialists in trying to understand the world from the couch.

John

[joshua corning]

perhaps i should take John's veilded advise and hold off on all out asaults on new contributors until after they have a least posted two or three times. :)

That said it is good to get some fresh blood and i hope General doesn't take my minority yet vocal opinion here as reason to not post again.

[James F. Casey]

This is the article people should read - forget my post - thanks to Steve and Will for the heads-up.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/print/washpostmagazine/index.html

And for Mr. Corning - "and i hope General doesn't take my minority yet vocal opinion here as reason to not post again."

Remember, I went three hours with Lindzen last week and remain unfazed. And, I have posted two or three times - so fair game

Peace, JC

[Tim Haab]

Joshua,

Fresh blood? Are John and I boring you?

[John Cross]

Wow, there are a lot of JC's floating around here so I could not resist adding to the mix. However I want to take a quick look at the article that Mr. Corning refers to.

Thank you for providing a link to it - it is always good to discuss points from a common source. However I am afraid that it provides a little bit of - shall we say spin - on the topic. A couple of specific points.

To begin with he dismisses a 1C rise in temperature as "barely discernible" and asks how it can translate into "future catastrophes". I will point out that we are currently about 5C away from an iceage (or about 3C if you take feed-backs into account) so his point does not really have much creditability.

He then goes on and points out that one of the driving forces in regards to hurricanes is humidity (or the lack of it). He also goes on to say that global warming calls for more humidity and concludes that the two statements are incompatible. What he does not mention is that in fact the important quantity for driving storms is not actually the humidity but the relative humidity. And it is very possible to have an increase in temperature and an increase in humidity but a decrease in relative humidity. And he does not mention that the main driving force behind the intensity of hurricanes is sea surface temperature. There was a very good paper out recently that I would encourage you to read: Deconvolution of the Factors Contributing to the Increase in Global Hurricane Intensity

He then goes on to talk about Mr. Barton's inquiry of Dr. Mann where he was "seeking the details behind a taxpayer-funded analysis ...". If fact if you check the letter that Mr. Barton wrote it actually requests the data for every study that Dr. Mann has ever done (climate related or not) no matter how it was funded i.e. public or private. The letter is here Of course the quick way to clear up whether this was intimidation or not would be to see what has been done with the data and so far the answer is - nothing!!

Anyway, since this is my first post on the blog I am not sure what the accepted norms for length etc are so I shall close here.

regards,
JC

[joshua corning]

What the heck!?!? a reasoned post as to why agw skeptics are wrong without invoking exxon or consensus??? or the myrid of other side topics like Lindzen is crazy paraniod??!?!

john cross...if you keep this up you might actually convince someone that global warming is real.

[Steve]

In closing, yesterday’s Christian Science Monitor had an article where I learned “a 2004 Science magazine survey of all peer-reviewed scientific studies of climate change showed 928 papers supporting man-made global warming. None denied it.”

All 928 of those papers also support cow-made global warming. And none deny it because is hard to prove a negative.

[R.A>Bell]

The comment by John Cross that no use had been made of Mann's data obtained at the behest of Congressman Barton is quite wrong.
Steve McIntyre has used the data to show that Mann's analysis is fatally flawed This is discussed in detail at climateaudit.org.
Scientific work which has been funded by public money should be published in detail, not kept in some dark cupboard. Would MrCross like yet more money to be spent on someone else obtaining the same data?

[Dano]

Steve McIntyre has used the data to show that Mann's analysis is fatally flawed This is discussed in detail at climateaudit.org.

Who cares.

I have a blog that uses data to prove you are a fatally flawed poopy-pants. The value of information in both blogs is equal.

The fact that your 'used data' can't stand auditing from people who do the work for a living means the cheer squad has to trumpet something, anything to get play. Then the trumpeting gets disseminated by cheer squad bots far and wide for consumption by rubes and the chronically underinformed.

Would Mr Cross like yet more money to be spent on someone else obtaining the same data?

Absolutely not.

I'm sure he'd like the shills and denialists to collect some of their own data to back their statements.

When's that going to happen, BTW? Any idea? No? Huh. If Stevie won't do it, that's a big fat clue for you.

It would be far, far more preferable for denialists to actually do something other than their current cherry-picking, quibbling, and obfuscating.

And, sorry to point all this out in such a way, but the rest of your comment is of similar value, cobbled together from Indy-funded stories containing half-truths, obfuscation and mendacicization.

Hope this gives some context for everyone,

D

[e. ou]

There is a big difference between climate change and global warming. The main problem is the interchangeable use of the two terms in the media. The climate has always been changing, is changing and will be changing. Back in the 1950s, scientist looking at the rough pattern between warm periods and ice ages, felt the world is due for another ice age. Today with the retreat of the glaciers, global warming is the major concern. With the advent of huge and fast computers, scientist tries to project the future climate using computer models. A large number of scientist felt with more funds, more sensors, larger computers, and more researches the computer models could be fined tune to give a realiable predictions of the future climatic conditions. One the other hand there is an emerging group which notes that radiation from the sun, the absorption and radiation of the solar heat, the movement of the earth around the sun, the earth own motion, the impacts of the large planets and the moon on the earth's motion, the movement of the fluid (ocean and atmosphere) are highly non-linear and even subject to instability or chaos making computer long term prediction of climate change unrealistic.
The second issue is abrupt climatic chnage and the inability of the present ecosystem to adjust to sudden changes. The "hockey stick" debate is really around this issue. The pro-hockey team premise is a relatively mild fluctuation in temperature in the last 1000 years and the past century has shown the most rapid increase in temperature to the present level which is higher than any temperature level experienced in the last 1000 years. The recent increase in global temperature is very unusual. The anti-hockey stick team contends in the last 1000 years, the global climate have changed dramatically from the medieval warm period which is warmer than the present period to the little ice age. The recent increase in global temperature is just part of the natural cycle. However, thermometers have only been around recently and the location of temperature measuring stations in the past did not consider the present debate. The thermometers are located for convenience in reading ( along asphalt roads), close to the city center or no provision was taken in planning the cities to protect the integrity of the measuring stations from buildings, and trees. Hence, the big battle on the "hockey stick".
Aside from ethics, I think individuals involved in the debate should be concerned with the judgement of history. The truth will come out in the future. In science the number of papers and scientists, awards the scientists have received in supporting a particular position is immaterial. In fact the great discoveries in science were often done by scientist who went against the conventional wisdom of the day. Global warming has polarised a number of scientists into the skeptics and the proponent. I find it really sad for science when criticism of the scientists degenerates to the person's religion, decorations and sometimes the use of adjectives we dont expect from educated parties. The judgement of history has not been kind on the inquisition and even recently on the Nazi scientists criticising the theory of relativiity.
I would propose, that the media, policy makers and the scientific community should rally for openness. Raw date, computer programs, and other important information should be open to the public for scrutiny. Scientists who hides information based on some legal rights should not be taken seriously. The debate is an important debate for the whole of humanity and it is too selfish for any scientist to hide his data, computer programs, and other information from public scrutiny.

[Dano]

The thermometers are located for convenience in reading ( along asphalt roads), close to the city center or no provision was taken in planning the cities to protect the integrity of the measuring stations from buildings, and trees. Hence, the big battle on the "hockey stick".

Here's your clue that this is a cut-paste from a Googler, not someone arguing from knowledge.

Best,

D