We have quite a show for you on Media7 this week. We're looking at climate change and the media, and I'll be speaking to Professor Sir Peter Gluckman, the Prime Minister's chief science advisor, a few hours after his lecture tomorrow -- The New Zealand Science System – into a brave new world -- which will, according to its billing, "discuss the challenges scientists have faced as the integrity of the science system has been recently challenged, particularly by the skeptics of climate change."
Then I'll speak, by satellite, to James Randerson, editor of The Guardian's Environment website, about his paper's prodigious response to the so-called "Climategate" controversy subsequent to the hacking and release of emails and documents from a server used by the University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit.
The Guardian, which orchestrated the "global editorial" calling for action to limit climate change at the Copenhagen summit, didn't flinch from scrutinising the CRU emails. Indeed, Randerson hired a veteran science journalist, Fred Pearce to write more than 28,000 words on the topic, in 12 parts.
While he clearly and emphatically found no weakening of the science as a result of the affair (and that, frankly, has been the finding of multiple reviews of the same matters) – and was furiously critical of the way the "sceptical" lobby misused and misquoted the contents of the emails – Pearce also found the CRU scientists wanting for openness, and questioned some of their actions.
Even this was too much for many in the field, and Randerson found himself defending the Guardian coverage.
So there's plenty to discuss there. We'll round out the show by talking to Annabel McAleer, the editor of Good magazine, whose job it is to communicate practical ideas of sustainability.
If you'd like to join us for tomorrow's recording, we'll need you at TVNZ from about 5pm. Click "Reply" to let me know and I'll give you the details.
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The show will not feature a debate over whether anthropogenic climate change is taking place. Indeed, it will proceed on the assumption that it is highly likely to be a fact. This places us alongside the science academies of the major industrialised countries, relevant expert bodies and journals, and our own specialist agencies.
This isn't to abandon scepticism, it is to properly and reasonably acknowledge authority.
I may simply end up quoting Keith Hunter's elegantly-written statement for the Royal Society, Science, Climate Change and Integrity. It reiterates a clear scientific position:
Science has not “proved” beyond all reasonable doubt that human activities are changing the climate, but it has clearly shown that there are multiple lines of evidence all pointing in the same direction, and that this view is supported by theories that are well-founded in fundamental sciences like physics.
Hunter also acknowledges that:
… lessons can be learned from “Climategate”. If the intensity of the personal attacks on climate scientists over recent months are to have any positive effect, it will be the adoption of a more transparent approach to the dissemination of information. In this regard, the Royal Society of New Zealand intends to play its part by developing a Code of Practice for Public Dissemination of Information that it hopes will assist the various New Zealand science organisations in improving their practices.
At the same time, of course, it is only fair to expect the critics of the mainstream scientific views on climate change (and other contentious areas of science) to adopt an equally transparent approach with their own information, and with their own use and re-analysis of data entrusted to the public domain. They should also subject their findings to rigorous peer review. Opinion, however forthrightly expressed, will not change the laws of basic science.
On the heels of this measured assessment, it seems almost cruel to offer the opening lines of Ian Wishart's yapping response, but here they are anyway:
The Royal Society of New Zealand has again nailed its sorry little tail to the mast of a sinking global warming ship, with a statement designed to convince news media, politicians and the public that the science behind climate change is sound.
A Hot Topic post addresses the various scientific claims of Hunter's critics. It feels a little like pig-wrestling.
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In a sense, the Climategate flap was a story of two blog sites: RealClimate, which is run by a group of climate scientists including the creator of the original "hockey stick" graph, Michael Mann; and Climate Audit, the site of Stephen McIntyre, a retired mathematician and policy analyst with a background in the extraction industries.
Here, the customary styles are reversed. The RealClimate writers aren't shy of invective, and are frequently accused of quashing awkward comments. McIntyre is, on the other hand, quite measured and specifically forbids ad-hominen argument on his site.
But it's not actually about how nicely people run their blogs. McIntyre's criticism of the work of Mann et al, and their use of historical temperature reconstructions, is made in good faith; it is credible as criticism. A group of statisticians reviewing McIntyre's paper for the US Congress found its contentions "valid and compelling". But the US National Academy of Sciences review did not, and upheld the hockey stick with minor criticisms. (The American Statistical Association later also officially endorsed IPCC conclusions embodying Mann's work.)
And this is where it can get odd. Earlier this year, I found myself at a talk where the speaker told the room that the NAS had emphatically upheld McIntyre's critique. I felt I had to respond, and pointed out that that simply was not the case, and read some lines from the report in Nature on the NAS' finding.
"Oh, but you can't trust Nature," the speaker replied.
"You can't trust the pre-eminent science journal?" I gasped.
No, apparently you could not. And, from there, what had begun as a reasonable discussion unwound to the point where, it seemed, almost no authority could be trusted if it did not conform to the critique of a retired mathematician with a blog. Scepticism, if it was ever present, had been replaced by something else.
The speaker described all, or nearly all, active climate researchers in terms in which a reasonable person would conclude suggested they were either wholly incompetent, or actually dishonest. This blithe, almost mild-mannered, assault extended to our own National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research, and its alleged manipulation of temperature records. The NIWA employee sitting next to me blurted a defence of his colleagues at one point, but otherwise held his peace and seethed. Presumably, it wasn't worth it.
And this is a problem. Earlier this year, John Boscawen used Act's week's supply of Parliamentary questions pursuing this same, stupid conspiracy theory about NIWA. A man who didn't know what he didn't know was happy to accuse scientists of something approaching criminal behaviour.
NIWA has pretty much shut down now in a media sense. We approached them to get someone to appear on our programme, and they're simply not speaking in any informal setting. I can understand why.
I can also see what happened at the University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit. A small group that has been making climate measurements and conducting research for two decades increasingly found itself at the sharp end of a big argument and frankly did not cope. The CRU did not simply receive Freedom of Information Act requests for its data, it was (at McIntyre's urging) bombarded with them. The CRU chief, Phil Jones, put up the shutters and doesn't seem to have delegated well. His university didn't provide the communications resources the situation demanded.
But the CRU does not ever seem to have responded well to FOI requests, even before the deluge. I agree with Randerson, and with Hunter, that openness as a matter of practice, is the way forward. At best, it would allow reasonable criticism to proceed; at worst, it simply reduces opportunities for unreasonable criticism. But one thing it won't do is revise the laws of physics.