Washington Policy Blog

Mann on Climategate: Theory good, data bad

Following in the footsteps of former Washington state climatologist Phil Mote and Stanford professor Stephen Schneider, another political-scientist is arguing that the release of the Climategate e-mails is much ado about nothing. Michael Mann, author of the "hockey stick" graph weighs in on what it means to use a "trick" to "hide the decline."

Specifically he addresses the e-mail from Phil Jones where we discusses using a "trick" to "hide the decline" in the temperatures projected by tree-ring data after 1960. Temperatures went up while the tree-ring data, on which the hockey stick projections are based, indicated that temperatures should go down. He writes in the Washington Post:

In the same e-mail, Jones uses the phrase "hide the decline" in reference to work by tree-ring expert Keith Briffa. Because tree-ring information has been found to correlate well with temperature readings, it is used to plot temperatures going back hundreds of years or more. Briffa described a phenomenon in which the density of wood exhibits an enigmatic decline in response to temperature after about 1960. This decline was the focus of Briffa's original article, and Briffa was clear that these data should not be used to represent temperatures after 1960. By saying "hide the decline," Jones meant that a diagram he was producing was not to show those data during the unreliable post-1960 period.

This is more of the semantic games we've experienced on this issue already. Mann argues that "tree-ring information has been found to correlate well with temperature readings" until about 1960. The divergence at that point is "enigmatic." What is interesting, however, is that Mann and others who parrot this line, don't explain why the data after 1960 is unreliable and should be ignored. The only indication that it is unreliable seems to be that it inconveniently deviates from what Briffa and Mann projected. Given a choice between empirical data and their theory, they chucked the data and kept the theory. This is the very antithesis of scientific inquiry.

Climate alarmists like Mote, Mann and others had two options when reacting to the Climategate e-mails. They could have expressed sincere disappointment, taken a step back and worked to ensure that there was an appropriate distance between science and politics. They chose the other option, to engage in a flurry of political and semantic contrivances in an effort to "hide the decline" of their own credibility. Those trying to understand the true meaning of the e-mails need only look at the highly political and misleading excuses made after-the-fact to determine whether the language in the documents were unfortunate misunderstandings or intentional efforts to hide and suppress inconvenient science.

PlantBottle and the Economics of Environmental Sustainability

One of the best examples of how economics and the environment go hand-in-hand is the way the free market constantly pushes to reduce use of scarce resources. Plastic bottles are a good example of this trend.

Frequently I've highlighted what Nestle calls its "eco-shape" bottle, which uses "30 percent" less plastic. The purpose is quite clear -- less plastic means less weight to transport and fewer resources to pay for. Now the Coca-Cola Company, who bottles Dasani water among a number of other products, is introducing the latest version of this trend.

Called the plantbottle, Coca-Cola uses plant-based ethylene, made from sugar cane, to replace the 30 percent of a standard PET (polyethylene terephalate) plastic bottle that comes from petroleum-based ethylene with ethanol. The bottle is the same in the end but changes the materials from which it is produced. What I found so interesting about the presentation Coke made those of us who attended their Seattle presentation was how explicit they were about the role economics plays in ensuring this works. Coke didn't simply take this step in the hopes it works out, they understand that for this to be environmentally sustainable in the long run it also needs to be economically sustainable.

For instance, it was important to them that the plastic be the same as current recyclable plastic. If the bottles were different it could contaminate current recycling systems, making it more difficult to recycle. They noted that Coke is a major recycler in their own right (Coca-Cola Recycling LLC is an actual subsidiary) and that making it more difficult to recycle is counterproductive.

Second, while they say that the bottle costs more to produce today, they expect the cost to go down as the supply chain improves. It also insulates them, to some extent, from the cost volatility of petroleum.

I asked if they saw an impact on their market share by promoting the plantbottle. They have only just launched it in Denmark and are doing so now on the West Coast and in BC for the Olympics, so they don't have any market-share numbers yet. As we've seen with other "green" products, it can be a way to reach a certain type of consumer that businesses covet -- those who have disposable income and are willing to spend it to buy ideological amenities, like greenness.

Coke did a life-cycle analysis of the effect of the bottle as well to ensure that they weren't simply trading one environmental impact (use of petroleum products and CO2 emission) for another (pollution or deforestation). They found that the bottle was no worse in any area they tested and better in a few key areas. These types of analyses can be misleading and I think it is better to put a price on environmental impact. Putting a price on impact would add an incentive to reduce impact. Their analysis, however, is thoughtful and is more than many who make environmental claims are doing.

They also indicated that some of the claims being made by others sound good but may not be good for the environment. For instance, they noted that "100% recycled" bottles may not be better for the environment due to all of the design and other compromises that need to be made to get to that level. Again, price is a better metric than arbitrary standards because price is reflective of the amount of energy and materials put into a product.

PlantBottle is a good example of the principle that businesses are more creative and effective at promoting environmental sustainability than politically-motivated policymakers and government workers. Those from government agencies who attended the event could only raise concerns about the label, the logo, etc. and finished by asking Coke for money to support their agency's efforts. It dramatized the reality that government is behind in efforts to make real environmental improvements and is primarily involved in trying to grab the coattails of those who are making real improvements.

The Environmental Honesty of Brian Baird

Third District Congressman Brian Baird has announced that he will retire from Congress next year. Certainly people will begin assessing his tenure on the issues of import to them. As for some key environmental issues, I appreciated his intellectual honesty.

The emblematic moment of his intellectual and scientific honesty was his willingness to take on an incomplete and misleading article about salvage logging that appeared in Science. The piece, written by a Masters candidate at Oregon State University, argued that salvage logging after a fire did more damage to the forest than leaving the area alone. The article was quickly seized upon by environmental groups, touted in Congress and used as a tool in the effort to end post-fire logging.

Despite the fact that many in his own party were breathlessly waving the report around, he challenged its science head on and even held a hearing. He demanded the data behind the study. Interestingly, the authors refused to provide it. We wrote at the time:

Despite saying their purpose was to influence the discussion of his bill, the authors refused to release their data to Congressman Baird. The authors did not say there was not enough time to collect the data, only that they were not required to. This not only violates a key tenet of scientific inquiry, but is an ironic suppression of their own data.

In the end, the authors backed off their conclusions, admitting they were incomplete and ultimately did not apply to most salvage projects.

This isn't the only time Baird expressed an intellectually honest opinion about an environmental issue that contradicted the party line. The environment will be much better off when there is more honesty about environmental issues -- highlighting those things that don't work and being willing to follow the science where it leads even when it is uncomfortable. On more than one occasion, Baird did just that.

Science that Depends on Your Values

As is often the case, the reaction to a scandal is often more illuminating than the scandal. Such is the case with Climategate. We noted recently that former Washington state climatologist Phil Mote played semantic games trying to downplay the language of some of the e-mails. Now, Dr. Stephen Schneider of Stanford demonstrates another example of this.

The clip below shows a PR person attempting to stop Dr. Schneider from answering a question about the Climategate e-mails and the UN security tossing Phelim McAleer, who asked the question, despite the fact that he has valid credentials.

What is more interesting to me is what Dr. Schneider does say. At one point he says (or rather, spits out), "I don't make comments on redacted e-mails presented to me by people whose values I don't trust." Phelim notes quickly that everyone has confirmed that the e-mails, which are not redacted, are real.

I thought it was interesting that rather than arguing the science, Dr. Schneider goes immediately to "values" and discounts anything from people he doesn't trust. He represents himself as a scientist, but clearly his position is influenced tremendously by whether he shares the values of those who disagree with him. That isn't a scientific approach. That is the very definition of politics and it actually reinforces the claim that the Climategate e-mails show that many who claim to be making scientific judgments free of political influences are quick to turn to politics when it suits their purposes.

Also, University of Washington climate scientist Cliff Mass writes an excellent piece about the Climategate e-mails. The whole thing is worth reading. He addresses the "trick" that Mote tried to dismiss, noting that the approach used by the East Anglia scientists wasn't very scientific. Mass explains this:

In the famous "trick" email the east Anglia emails talk about replacing the proxy tree ring records with instrumental records for the past several decades (because the tree ring records disagreed with what the instrumental records were saying)--instead of just showing those records and noting the difficulty. Not quite open.

An honest approach to science means highlighting uncertainty where it exists and encouraging further research. Unfortunately, too many are trying to fill the knowledge gap with politics and values.

Businesses, Taxpayers and Environment; All Part of New Storm Reponse Policy

The Seattle Times is reporting that the City of Seattle has done a complete 180 regarding the City’s policies to use sand when ice forms on roads.  The City is now using salt as part of a proactive approach, keeping streets free and clear of ice.

Last year we noted that the City’s decision to avoid salt, based on environmental concerns, was not supported by the facts.

A point that the City’s new director of street maintenance, Monty Sedlak, seems to get.  He told the Seattle Times that, “his former employer, suburban Arapahoe County south of Denver, switched to salt in 2001… ironically, that was for environmental reasons — flying sand created brown clouds over the valley.”

But perhaps most noteworthy of Sedlak’s comments came in response to a question about the department overusing the salt during this past week when dryer weather has prevailed.  Sedlak replied:

“Frost did form on car windshields Thursday, a harbinger that pavement could freeze, too. The relatively low cost to spray brine is weighed against the enormous cost if the roads do ice, causing accidents and economic loss.”

The City’s new policy is not only good for the environment, but for businesses and taxpayers as well.

Do What I Want or the Economy Gets It!

Yesterday, we released a confidential briefing memo written by Governor Gregoire's current Chief of Staff Jay Manning on the likely impact of her Executive Order on climate change. The memo notes that a "benefit" of the order would be to "increase in the regulated community’s interest in getting a national program." In other words, the impacts of the order on businesses and families will be so significant that it will drive them into the arms of a federal cap-and-trade program.

This is at odds with the constant proclamations that Washington's "leadership" on climate regulation will help our economy. Internally, the Governor's Chief of Staff understands that this is not the case. That fact is not a side effect, however, it is part of the strategy. As we used to say in my computer programming days, "It's not a bug, it's a feature."

News reports today that the federal government is using a similar strategy. According to Fox News, an EPA official says that business better get on board the cap-and-trade program or the EPA will come up with rules that are far more costly and damaging to the economy. They report the unidentified official as saying:

If you don't pass this legislation, then ... the EPA is going to have to regulate in this area. And it is not going to be able to regulate on a market-based way, so it's going to have to regulate in a command-and-control way, which will probably generate even more uncertainty.

This would be a huge "deterrent to investment" for companies. The Administration understands the extremely high costs of this approach, but they see those costs as a benefit because they can be used to coerce the opposition into accepting legislation that kills jobs, but hopefully less than the alternative.

These comments demonstrate that despite the constant rhetoric claiming that the taxes and regulations associated with cap-and-trade and other climate policies will create jobs and help the economy, there is a recognition that this is not the case even among advocates of those programs. What advocates are saying, quite simply, is that they don't care if the economy is hurt because climate policy is more important. We can have that argument but it is clear that they don't really believe their own talking points about the economic benefits of more taxes and regulation.

Former Washington Climatologist Phil Mote Trades Science for Semantics

Former Washington State Climatologist Phil Mote is now at Oregon State University, but despite the change of venue, his penchant for putting politics before science remains consistent.

In the past, Phil has been called to task for fudging the numbers on warming-related snowpack decline in Washington state and committing errors with weather data and forest science when testifying before the legislature. Now he's waded into the debate about the Climategate e-mails.

Last week, Mote wrote an e-mail to colleagues at Oregon State University, trying to put the e-mails from the Climate Research Unit (CRU) at East Anglia University into some context:

The correspondence is being used to claim that CRU and other climate scientists were manipulating data to exaggerate global warming and colluding to prevent skeptics from having a voice. While some of the personal comments about skeptics are embarrassing, the incident primarily represents woeful misrepresentation of the scientists' words (e.g., where 'trick' was used to mean 'clever way to solve a problem', not 'deception') has been blown out of all proportion.

So, what was the "problem" that the scientists were trying to "solve?" Here are the words of Phil Jones, head of the CRU, in one of the e-mails:

I've just completed Mike's Nature trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years (ie from 1981 onwards) and from 1961 for Keith's to hide the decline (emphasis mine).

So, Phil is right. The "trick" is just a clever way to solve the problem of how to "hide the decline." The trick wasn't the deception, it was just a tool used to deceive. Funny that Phil didn't mention the "hide the decline" phrase that appears in the same sentence.

The e-mails from East Anglia are revealing enough, but the efforts of those like Mote who rush in with tortured explanations to downplay the seriousness of the revelations betray how much politics have become a part of the discussion about climate science. Of course just because someone who agrees with you made errors or played games doesn't mean that your beliefs are wrong by extension. There is no denying, however, that the impulse to enthusiastically engage in semantic games to defend your friends demonstrates that Phil is willing to use politics to make up for their failures to follow the scientific method.

Why I Like Sightline

Our ideological counterpart on environmental issues is the Sightline Institute in Seattle and I chat with them occasionally to test my thinking and hear what they are thinking about environmental issues. Here is one good example of why I like them.

Sightline is committed to a cap-and-trade system, but they are more realistic about it than others. And they are willing to take their fellow-travelers on the left to task when they make dumb arguments.

The latest example is a silly video, "The Story of Cap and Trade" by Annie Leonard. Leonard also made a previous video predicting the end of the planet called "The Story of Stuff" that is little more than an updated statement of the 1970sclaims about resource depletion of the kind made by the President's science adviser John Holdren. Except this time the end is truly near!

Here is what Sightline has to say about the video:

It's not just the trading part that she butchers. She comes close to flat out lying about offset programs (and I say this as a card-carrying offsets skeptic), fumbles on allocations, blinks on consumer fairness, and mangles a description of Europe's experience. In fact, so childish is the video that most of the criticisms are actually directed at "these guys," a pair of stick figures in pin-striped suits. No kidding, the critique is literally directed at a caricature.

It reminds me of Orwell's 1984, where the government attacked the enemy with caricatures of capitalists in "top hats."

Given all of the problems with cap-and-trade, I wish Sightline would abandon it altogether for the right reasons, but I am glad that they reject the extreme leftism that sees cap-and-trade as too flexible and too little government intervention.

Sigthline is subject to giving in to populist impulses that are fundamentally anti-prosperity and they often argue that with the right kind of government regulation we can achieve anything without conceding that unintended consequences make that approach costly and ineffective. I do appreciate their willingness, however, to call out those on their side of the spectrum for arguments that are more about reflexive opposition to the free market and trying to control people's lives than reality.

"Beat the Crap Out of Him" is Scientific Jargon

The keynote speaker at our annual environmental luncheon is featured prominently in the current scandal involving the e-mails hacked from the University of East Anglia's Climate Research Unit (CRU). The e-mails, from some of the most outspoken global warming alarmists, show how deeply politics has influenced the "science" they produced for the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

Pat Michaels, a Past President of the American Association of State Climatologists, is mentioned in one of the e-mails in a rather unscientific tone. Michaels raised alarm bells that scientific data used by Phil Jones of the CRU had been destroyed rather than shared as is required by the scientific process. Despite that destruction, the EPA used Jones' conclusions as part of their justification for decision to regulate CO2 as a pollutant under the Clean Air Act.

One of Jones' colleagues offered his sympathy to Jones that he had to deal with the unreasonable demand that his science be transparent:

From: Ben Santer

To: P.Jones

Subject: Re: CEI formal petition to derail EPA GHG endangerment finding with charge that destruction of CRU raw data undermines integrity of global temperature record

Date: Fri, 09 Oct 2009 11:07:56 -0700

 

I’m really sorry that you have to go through all this stuff, Phil. Next time I see Pat Michaels at a scientific meeting, I’ll be tempted to beat the crap out of him. Very tempted.

You can listen to Michaels discuss these revelations on the Laura Ingraham show here.

The e-mails also discuss efforts to prevent science that contradicts their own from being published and efforts to punish journals that did publish alternative science.

The great philosopher of science Thomas Kuhn wrote fifty years ago that "One of the strongest, if still unwritten, rules of scientific life is the prohibition of appeals to heads of state or to the populace at large in matters scientific." The reason for this rule was to prevent politics from corrupting science. Despite loud claims that the IPCC and global warming alarmists are simply "following the science," these e-mails demonstrate that they were eager to use politics to fill in the gaps of their own science and silence others

Small businesses rank top policy priorities

Small business owners, legislators, and policymakers from all over Washington gathered in SeaTac this past Tuesday to discuss the state's business climate at WPC's 2009 Statewide Small Business Conference. During several interactive issue breakout sessions, business owners suggested and discussed solutions to improve the climate for small businesses in Washington. This was the fourth statewide small business conference hosted by WPC since 2003.

The result is a list of priority solutions, selected by small business owners, for solving the major problems with the state's business climate. The top recommendations from each breakout session are below.

Health Care
1) Reform medical malpractice laws
2) Allow individuals and businesses to purchase health insurance across state lines
3) Focus on increasing the patient's role in health care decisions

Workers' Compensation Reform
1) End the state monopoly: WA should join 90% of the country and open the system to private competition
2) Provide a compromise and release option
3) Enact better, more aggressive claims management

Technology
1) Adopt a market-based approach to dealing with the Net Neutrality issue
2) Solicit and incorporate more small business input on the Net Neutrality issue
3) Exempt small businesses from the digital goods tax legislation

Environmental Regulations
1) Don't add or expand federal regulations to existing or new state regulations
2) Encourage market-based solutions for stormwater and other regulations
3) Simplify environmental regulations, make more objective and apply cost/benefit analyses

Unemployment Insurance Reform
1) Eliminate the liberal construction of cases
2) Freeze the voluntary quit option
3) Keep UI benefits the same over the next calendar year

Regulatory Reform
1) Sunset rules after a certain number of years
2) Support better legislative oversight and accountability of major agency rule-making
3) Put apprenticeship programs in Technical and Community colleges

Competitiveness Issues
1) Reduce the overall tax burden on businesses
2) Adopt an hourly wage rate for low-skill, new workers
3) Do not enact an employer gag rule

Tax Issues
1) Level the playing field with respect to gaming, cigarettes, etc.
2) Do not increase taxes
3) Continue with thorough performance audits of government agencies

Washington Policy Center will publish a detailed analysis of the conference results in a report prior to the 2010 Legislative Session.