LEADING SCIENTIFIC JOURNALS ARE CENSORING DEBATE
ON GLOBAL WARMING
The
Sunday Telegraph, 1 May 2005
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/05/01/wglob01.xml&sSheet=/news/2005/05/01/ixworld.html
By Robert
Matthews
Two of
the world's leading scientific journals have come under fire from researchers
for refusing to publish papers which challenge fashionable wisdom over global
warming.
A British
authority on natural catastrophes who disputed whether climatologists really
agree that the Earth is getting warmer because of human activity, says his work
was rejected by the American publication, Science, on the flimsiest of grounds.
A
separate team of climate scientists, which was regularly used by Science and
the journal Nature to review papers on the progress of global warming, said it
was dropped after attempting to publish its own research which raised doubts
over the issue.
The
controversy follows the publication by Science in December of a paper which
claimed to have demonstrated complete agreement among climate experts, not only
that global warming is a genuine phenomenon, but also that mankind is to blame.
The
author of the research, Dr Naomi Oreskes, of the University of California,
analysed almost 1,000 papers on the subject published since the early 1990s,
and concluded that 75 per cent of them either explicitly or implicitly backed
the consensus view, while none directly dissented from it.
Dr
Oreskes's study is now routinely cited by those demanding action on climate
change, including the Royal Society and Prof Sir David King, the Government's
chief scientific adviser.
However,
her unequivocal conclusions immediately raised suspicions among other
academics, who knew of many papers that dissented from the pro-global warming
line.
They
included Dr Benny Peiser, a senior lecturer in the science faculty at Liverpool
John Moores University, who decided to conduct his own analysis of the same set
of 1,000 documents - and concluded that only one third backed the consensus
view, while only one per cent did so explicitly.
Dr Peiser
submitted his findings to Science in January, and was asked to edit his paper
for publication - but has now been told that his results have been rejected on
the grounds that the points he make had been "widely dispersed on the
internet".
Dr Peiser
insists that he has kept his findings strictly confidential. "It is simply
not true that they have appeared elsewhere already," he said.
A
spokesman for Science said Dr Peiser's research had been rejected "for a
variety of reasons", adding: "The information in the letter was not
perceived to be novel."
Dr Peiser
rejected this: "As the results from my analysis refuted the original
claims, I believe Science has a duty to publish them."
Dr Peiser
is not the only academic to have had work turned down which criticises the
findings of Dr Oreskes's study. Prof Dennis Bray, of the GKSS National Research
Centre in Geesthacht, Germany, submitted results from an international study
showing that fewer than one in 10 climate scientists believed that climate
change is principally caused by human activity.
As with
Dr Peiser's study, Science refused to publish his rebuttal. Prof Bray told The
Telegraph: "They said it didn't fit with what they were intending to
publish."
Prof Roy
Spencer, at the University of Alabama, a leading authority on satellite
measurements of global temperatures, told The Telegraph: "It's pretty clear
that the editorial board of Science is more interested in promoting papers that
are pro-global warming. It's the news value that is most important."
He said
that after his own team produced research casting doubt on man-made global
warming, they were no longer sent papers by Nature and Science for review -
despite being acknowledged as world leaders in the field.
As a
result, says Prof Spencer, flawed research is finding its way into the leading
journals, while attempts to get rebuttals published fail. "Other
scientists have had the same experience", he said. "The journals have
a small set of reviewers who are pro-global warming."
Concern
about bias within climate research has spread to the Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change, whose findings are widely cited by those calling for drastic
action on global warming. In
January, Dr Chris Landsea, an expert on hurricanes with the United States
National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration, resigned from the IPCC,
claiming that it was "motivated by pre-conceived agendas" and was
"scientifically unsound".
A
spokesman for Science denied any bias against sceptics of man-made global
warming. "You will find in our letters that there is a wide range of
opinion," she said. "We certainly seek to cover dissenting
views."
Dr Philip
Campbell, the editor-in-chief of Nature, said that the journal was always happy
to publish papers that go against perceived wisdom, as long as they are of
acceptable scientific quality.
"The
idea that we would conspire to suppress science that undermines the idea of
anthropogenic climate change is both false and utterly naive about what makes
journals thrive," he said.
Dr Peiser
said the stifling of dissent and preoccupation with doomsday scenarios is
bringing climate research into disrepute. "There is a fear that any doubt
will be used by politicians to avoid action," he said. "But if
political considerations dictate what gets published, it's all over for
science."
Copyright
2005, The Sunday Telegraph
=========
LETTER TO
SCIENCE MAGAZINE AND THE STORY OF ITS REJECTION
e-letter
to Science Magazine http://www.staff.livjm.ac.uk/spsbpeis/Scienceletter.htm
First
Author Name: Benny J Peiser
Address: Faculty of Science
Henry
Cotton Campus
Liverpool
John Moores University
15-21
Webster Street
Liverpool
L3 2ET UNITED KINGDOM
E-mail: b.j.peiser@livjm.ac.uk
Phone: 0151 231 4338
Fax:
0151 231 4353
Type:
Letter
Letter Details: 1. N. Oreskes (2004). The scientific consensus on
climate change. Science, Vol 306, Issue 5702, 1686 , 3 December 2004
Abstract:
Letter
Text:
On
December 3rd, only days before the start of the 10th Conference of Parties of
the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP-10), Science
Magazine published the results of a study by Naomi Oreskes (1): For the first
time, empirical evidence was presented that appeared to show an unanimous,
scientific consensus on the anthropogenic causes of recent global warming.
Oreskes
claims to have analysed 928 abstracts she found listed on the ISI database
using the keywords "climate change". However, a search on the ISI
database using the keywords "climate change" for the years 1993 -
2003 reveals that almost 12,000 papers were published during the decade in
question (2). What happened to the countlessresearch papers that show that
global temperatures were similar or even higher during the Holocene Climate
Optimum and the Medieval Warm Period when atmospheric CO2 levels were much
lower than today; that solar variability is a key driver of recent climate
change, and that climate modeling is highly uncertain?
These
objections were put to Oreskes by science writer David Appell. On 15 December
2004, she admitted that there was indeed a serious mistake in her Science essay.
According to Oreskes, her study was not based on the keywords "climate
change," but on "global climate change" (3). Her use of three
keywords instead of two reduced the list of peer reviewed publications by one order
of magnitude (on the UK's ISI databank the keyword search "global climate
change" comes up with 1247 documents). Since the results looked questionable,
I decided to replicate the Oreskes study.
METHOD
I
analysed all abstracts listed on the ISI databank for 1993 to 2003 using the same
keywords ("global climate change") as the Oreskes study. Of the 1247
documents listed, only 1117 included abstracts (130 listed only titles,
author(s)' details and keywords). The 1117 abstracts analysed were divided into
the same six categories used by Oreskes (#16), plus two categories which I
added (# 7, 8):
1.
explicit endorsement of the consensus position
2. evaluation
of impacts
3.
mitigation proposals
4.
methods
5.
paleoclimate analysis
6.
rejection of the consensus position.
7.
natural factors of global climate change
8.
unrelated to the question of recent global climate change
RESULTS
The
results of my analysis contradict Oreskes' findings and essentially falsify her
study: Of all 1117 abstracts, only 13 (or 1%) explicitly endorse the 'consensus
view'. 322 abstracts (or 29%) implicitly accept the 'consensus view' but mainly
focus on impact
assessments
of envisaged global climate change.
Less than
10% of the abstracts (89) focus on "mitigation".
67
abstracts mainly focus on methodological questions.
87
abstracts deal exclusively with paleo-climatological research unrelated to
recent climate change.
34
abstracts reject or doubt the view that human activities are the main drivers
of the "the
observed
warming over the last 50 years".
44
abstracts focus on natural factors of global climate change.
470 (or
42%) abstracts include the keywords "global climate change" but do
not include any direct or indirect link or reference to human activities, CO2
or greenhouse gas emissions, let alone anthropogenic forcing of recent climate
change.
DISCUSSION:
According
to Oreskes, 75% of the 928 abstracts she analysed (i.e. 695) fell into these
first three categories, "either explicitly or implicitly accepting the
consensus view". This claim is incorrect on two counts: My analysis shows
that only 424 abstracts (or less than a third of the full data set) fall into
these three categories.
It also
shows that many abstracts on "evaluation of impact" and
"mitigation" do not discuss which drivers are key to global climate
change, instead often focusing exclusively on the possible effects of elevated
CO2 levels on plant growth and vegetation. Many do not include any implicit
endorsement of the 'consensus view' but simply use certain assumptions as a
basis for often hypothetical impact assessments or mitigation strategies.
Quite a
number of papers emphasise that natural factors play a major if not the key
role in recent climate change (4). My analysis also shows that there are almost
three times as many abstracts that are sceptical of the notion of anthropogenic
climate change than those that explicitly endorse it (5, 6, 7).
In fact,
the explicit and implicit rejection of the 'consensus view' is not restricted
to individual scientists. It also includes distinguished scientific
organisations such as the
American
Association of Petroleum Geologists:
"The
earth's climate is constantly changing owing to natural variability in earth
processes.
Natural
climate variability over recent geological time is greater than reasonable
estimates of potential human-induced greenhouse gas changes. Because no tool is
available to test the supposition of human-induced climate change and the range
of natural variability is so great, there is no discernible human influence on
global climate at this time" (8)
This is
not to deny that there is a majority of publications that, although they do not
empirically test or confirm the view of anthropogenic climate change, go along
with it by applying models based on its basic assumptions. Yet, it is beyond
doubt that a sound and unbiased analysis of the full ISI databank will find hundreds
of papers (many of which written by the world's leading experts in the field)
that have raised serious reservations and outright rejection of the concept of
a "scientific consensus on climate change". The truth is, that there
is no such thing!
In light
of the data presented above (evidence that can be easily verified), Science
should withdraw Oresekes' study and its results in order to prevent any further
damage to the integrity of science.
References
1. N.
Oreskes (2004). The scientific consensus on climate change. Science, Vol 306,
Issue 5702, 1686, 3 December 2004 (http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/con
2. ISI
Web of Science (http://www.webofscience.com/)
3.
http://davidappell.com/archives/00000497.htm
4.) C. M.
Ammann et al., for instance, claim to have detected evidence for "close
ties between solar variations and surface climate", Journal of Atmospheric
and Solar-Terrestrial Physics
65:2
(2003): 191-201. While G.C. Reid stresses: "The importance of solar
variability as a
factor in
climate change over the last few decades may have been underestimated in recent
studies." Solar forcing of global climate change since the mid-17th
century. Climate Change.
37 (2):
391-405
5) H.R.
Linden (1996) The evolution of an energy contrarian. Annual Review of Energy
and the Environment, 21:31-67.
6)
Russian scientists K. Kondratyev and C Varotsos criticise "the
undoubtfully overemphasised contribution of the greenhouse effect to the global
climate change". K. Kondratyev and C Varotsos (1996). Annual Review of
Energy and the Environment. 21: 31-67
7) M.E.
Fernau, W.J. Makofske, D.W. South (1993) Review and Impacts of climate change uncertainties.
Futures 25 (8): 850-863.
8) L.C.
Gerhard and B.M. Hanson (2000) AAPG Bulletin 84 (4): 466-471
--------------------
From:
Etta Kavanagh [mailto:ekavanag@aaas.org]
Sent: 18
February 2005 18:17
To:
Peiser, Benny
Subject:
Your Letter to the Editor of SCIENCE
Dear Dr.
Peiser,
A couple
of weeks ago, you submitted a Letter to the Editor on Naomi Oreskes' Essay
"The Scientific Consensus on Climate Change. In its current form, it is
too long for a Letter, but we would consider a shorter version if you are
willing to edit it. It should be 500 words or less, not counting the
references. A correction dealing with the mistake in the search terms
("global climate change" vs. "climate change") was
published in our Jan. 14 issue.
Best
regards,
Etta
Kavanagh
Associate
Letters Editor
SCIENCE
ekavanag@aaas.org
Department
e-mail: science_letters@aaas.org
-----------
From:
Peiser, Benny
Sent: 23
February 2005 14:13
To: Etta
Kavanagh [ekavanag@aaas.org]
Subject:
Letter to the Editor of SCIENCE
Dear Etta
Kavanagh
Please
find attached my revised letter which I have shortened below the 500 words
limit. I will submit the letter also in electronic form via your website.
With best
regards
Benny
Peiser
Liverpool
John Moores University
----------
e-letter
to Science Magazine
sent: 23
February 2005
---------
Your
Websubmission ID is 58332.
Below is
a summary of the information you have entered.
First
Author Name: Benny Peiser
Address: Faculty of Science
Liverpool
John Moores University
15-21
Webster Street
Liverpool
L3 2ET UNITED KINGDOM
E-mail: b.j.peiser@livjm.ac.uk
Phone: 0151 231 4338
Other
Authors: (none)
Information
Entered Title :
Type:
Letter
Letter Details: N. Oreskes (2004). The scientific consensus on
climate change. Science, Vol 306, Issue 5702, 1686, 3 December 2004
Abstract:
As requested by Associate Letters Editor Etta Kavanagh, I have revised and
shortened my letter below.
Letter
Text:
Oreskes
(1,2) presents empirical evidence that appears to show a unanimous, scientific
consensus on the anthropogenic causes of recent global warming. Oreskes also
claims that this universal agreement had not been questioned even once in the
peer-reviewed literature since 1993. Her assertion has been extensively
reported ever since.
I
replicated her study in order to assess the accuracy of its results. All
abstracts listed on the ISI databank for 1993 to 2003 using the same keywords
("global climate change") were assessed (3). The results of my
analysis contradict Oreskes' findings and essentially falsify her study: Of all
1117 abstracts, only 13 (1%) explicitly endorse the 'consensus view'. However,
34 abstracts reject or question the view that human activities are the main
driving force of "the observed warming over the last 50 years" (4).
Oreskes
claims that "none of these papers argued [that current climate change is
natural]". However, 44 papers emphasise that natural factors play a major
if not the key role in recent climate change (5).
The most
significant discrepancy with Oreskes' results concern abstracts that are
undecided whether human activities are the dominant driving force of recent
warming. My analysis shows that a significant number of abstracts reject what
Oreskes calls the 'consensus view'. In fact, there are almost three times as
many abstracts that are unconvinced of the notion of anthropogenic climate
change than those that explicitly endorse it (6).
Even if
there is disagreement about any of these papers, it is highly improbable that
all 34 are ambiguous. After all, the explicit and implicit rejection is not
restricted to individual scientists (7). It also includes distinguished
scientific organisations such as the American Association of Petroleum
Geologists, which formally rejects the view that anthropogenic factors are the
main trigger of global warming:
"The
earth's climate is constantly changing owing to natural variability in earth
processes. Natural climate variability over recent geological time is greater
than reasonable estimates of potential human-induced greenhouse gas changes.
Because no tool is available to test the supposition of human-induced climate
change and the range of natural variability is so great, there is no
discernible human influence on global climate at this time" (8).
Despite
this manifest scepticism, I do not wish to deny that a majority of publications
goes along with the notion of anthropogenic global warming by applying models
based on its basic assumptions. It is beyond doubt, however, that an unbiased
analysis of the full ISI databank, which comprises almost 12,000 abstracts,
will find hundreds of papers (many of which written by the world's leading
experts in the field) that have raised serious reservations and outright
rejection of the concept of a "scientific consensus on climate
change". The truth is, there is no such thing!
In light
of the data presented above, Science Magazine should withdraw Oreskes' study
and its results in order to prevent any further damage to the integrity of
science.
References
1. N.
Oreskes (2004). The scientific consensus on climate change. Science, Vol 306,
Issue 5702, 1686, 3 December 2004
(http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/306/5702/1686)
2. N.
Oreskes (2005) Correction. Science, Vol 307, Issue 5708, 355
3. ISI
Web of Science, (http://www.webofscience.com/)
4.) Of
the 1247 documents listed, only 1117 include abstracts. The 1117 abstracts
analysed were divided into the same six categories used by Oreskes, plus two
categories (#7,8) which I added: 1. explicit endorsement of the consensus
position; 2. evaluation of impacts; 3. mitigation proposals; 4. methods; 5.
paleoclimate analysis; 6. rejection of the consensus position; 7. natural
factors of global climate change; 8. unrelated to the question of recent global
climate change. While 29% of the documents implicitly accept the 'consensus
view', these papers mainly focus on impact assessments of envisaged global
climate change. 470 (or 42%) abstracts include the keywords "global
climate change" but do not include any direct or indirect link or
reference to human activities, CO2 or greenhouse gas emissions, let alone
anthropogenic forcing of recent climate change.
5.) C. M.
Ammann et al., for instance, claim to have detected evidence for "close
ties between solar variations and surface climate", Journal of Atmospheric
and Solar-Terrestrial Physics 65:2 (2003): 191-201. While G.C. Reid stresses:
"The importance of solar variability as a factor in climate change over
the last few decades may have been underestimated in recent studies."
Solar forcing of global climate change since the mid-17th century. Climate Change.
37 (2): 391-405.
6.)
Russian scientists K. Kondratyev and C Varotsos criticise "the
undoubtfully overemphasised contribution of the greenhouse effect to the global
climate change"; K. Kondratyev and C Varotsos (1996). Annual Review of
Energy and the Environment. 21: 31-67. M.E. Fernau at al. stress: "More
and better measurements and statistical techniques are needed to detect and
confirm the existence of greenhouse-gas-induced climate change, which currently
cannot be distinguished from natural climate variability in the historical
record. Uncertainties about the amount and rate of change of greenhouse gas
emissions also make prediction of the magnitude and timing of climate change
difficult", M.E. Fernau, W.J. Makofske, D.W. South (1993) Review and Impacts
of climate change uncertainties. Futures 25 (8): 850-863.
7.)
"Today, proponents of catastrophic anthropogenic climate change, again
claiming scientific consensus, threaten to create even greater energy market
distortions at large social and economic costs." H.R. Linden (1996) The
evolution of an energy contrarian. Annual Review of Energy and the Environment,
21:31-67.
8) L.C.
Gerhard and B.M. Hanson (2000) AAPG Bulletin 84 (4): 466-471.
--------
From:
Etta Kavanagh [mailto:ekavanag@aaas.org]
Sent: 13
April 2005 22:39
To:
Peiser, Benny
Subject:
Your letter to SCIENCE
Dear Dr.
Peiser,
After
realizing that the basic points of your letter have already been widely
dispersed over the internet, we have reluctantly decided that we cannot publish
your letter. We appreciate your taking the time to revise it.
Best
regards,
Etta
Kavanagh
Associate
Letters Editor
SCIENCE
ekavanag@aaas.org
Department
e-mail: science_letters@aaas.org
---------
From:
Peiser, Benny
Sent: 14
April 2005 15:37
To: 'Etta
Kavanagh'
Cc:
'dkennedy@aaas.org'
Subject:
RE: Your letter to SCIENCE
Dear Etta
Kavanagh
I am
extremely disenchanted to hear that you have decided against publication of my
letter.
I would
be grateful if you could send me evidence for your claim hat "the basic
points of
[my]
letter have already been widely dispersed over the Internet." As far as I
am aware,
neither
the details nor the results of my analysis have been cited anywhere. In any
case,
don't you
feel that SCIENCE has an obligation to your readers to correct manifest errors?
After
all, these errors continue to be employed by activists, journalists and science
organisations (as I have informed you on a number of occasions since January).
A
statement by the Royal Society from March 2005, for instance, uses Oreskes'
flawed
study as
a key argument in the climate change debate:
"In
the journal Science in 2004, Oreskes published the results of a survey of 928
papers on climate change published in peer-reviewed journals between 1993 and
2003. She found that three-quarters of the papers either explicitly or implicitly
accepted the view expressed in the IPCC 2001 report that human activities have
had a major impact on climate change in the last 50 years, and none rejected
it" http://www.royalsoc.ac.uk/page.asp?id=2986
Aside
from the purely technical matter of Oreskes' factual errors, does SCIENCE
really want to stand behind her bizarre claim of a complete scientific
consensus on global warming? Are you not aware that most observers know only
too well that there is absolutely *no* consensus within the scientific
community about global warming science? If not, let me remind you:
A recent
international survey among some 500 climatologists found that "a quarter
of respondents still question whether human activity is responsible for the
most recent climatic changes."
As
Professors Hans von Storch and Nico Stehr have stressed:
"The
public statements made by well-known German climate researchers create the
impression that the scientific fundamentals of the climate problems have
essentially been solved. They claim that the scientific community has already
established the conditions for taking concerted action. This is a view that in
fact does not correspond to the situation in the scientific community. That's
because a significant number of climatologists are by no means convinced that
the underlying issues have been adequately addressed. Last year, for example, a
survey of climate researchers from all over the world revealed that a quarter of
respondents still question whether human activity is responsible for the most
recent climatic changes" (Der Spiegel, 24 January 2005;
http://service.spiegel.de/cache/international/spiegel/0,1518,342376,00.html).
Even Tony
Blair has emphasised the remaining uncertainties and ongoing scientific debates
among climate scientists:
"So
it would be true to say the evidence [on anthropogenic global warming] is still
disputed. It would be wrong to say that the evidence of danger is not clearly
and persuasively advocated by a very large number of entirely independent and
compelling voices. They are the majority. The majority is not always right; but
they deserve to be listened to" (Tony Blair, Davos Speech, 26 January
2005; http://www.number-10.gov.uk/output/Page7006.asp)
I very
much regret your decision to reject my letter using a contrived technicality as
an excuse. Obviously, your refusal leaves me no option than to publicise the
results of my analysis somewhere else (results which anyone can of course
verify) - but also to deplore the sad reality of your refusal to publish
corrections of a fatally flawed paper.
With best
regards
Benny
Peiser
Liverpool
John Moores University
Faculty
of Science
========
AND
FINALLY: MICHAEL CRICHTON ON "CONSENSUS SCIENCE"
Michael
Crichton, Caltech Michelin Lecture, 17 January 2003
http://www.crichton-official.com/speeches/speeches_quote04.html
[...] I
want to pause here and talk about this notion of consensus, and the rise of
what has been called consensus science. I regard consensus science as an extremely
pernicious development that ought to be stopped cold in its tracks.
Historically, the claim of consensus has been the first refuge of scoundrels;
it is a way to avoid debate by claiming that the matter is already settled.
Whenever you hear the consensus of scientists agrees on something or other,
reach for your wallet, because you're being had.
Let's be
clear: the work of science has nothing whatever to do with consensus. Consensus
is the business of politics. Science, on the contrary, requires only one
investigator who happens to be right, which means that he or she has results
that are verifiable by reference to the real world. In science consensus is
irrelevant. What is relevant is reproducible results. The greatest scientists
in history are great precisely because they broke with the consensus.
There is
no such thing as consensus science. If it's consensus, it isn't science. If
it's science, it isn't consensus. Period...