Can You Trust Climate Scientists?
No doubt that you have heard, seen, read reports on last week’s ‘big news’ in the climate community. By chance if you hadn’t, last week a climate research center in the UK had a hacking event take place that exposed a wide array of files including some not so flattering emails. Ordinarily we try to avoid current events that focus on speculation and opinion or that don’t provide enough information to cut through the media spin/take to give a grounded basis of information for you to build upon. However, as a professional in the climate field I have gotten lots of inquiries about this story and the most intriguing point for me is the factor of trust. So, can you, can you still trust climate scientists?
Before I answer this question directly, let’s look at a few questions that might help you answer the question for yourself.
- Do you ever have a negative feeling about a co-worker or colleague?
- Does a handful of people represent the behavior of much larger majority?
- Have you ever dressed something up to make a point, sell it, present it, overcome objections?
Now I am going to speculate a little and assume you could answer yes to each of those questions, I know I have. Since this appears to be the crux of what this story is about, you can probably guess by now my answer to our initial question is – yes. However, that does not mean that I trust each individual climate scientist or like each one, or even care for the research methods/results of each one. Like we have discussed before in posts like this one, you should also dig a bit yourself or find a source you generally trust to help you navigate through these issues.
Another thing we are not going to do here is speak to individual names mentioned in these reports, and I do feel that both reading private emails and inferring meaningful conclusions from pieces of those emails is not a wise course of action. But I have been asked about some of the larger issues related to ethics and behavior especially as it might influence decisions we all make related to projected climate change. Now ethically, I would like to think that every climate scientist realizes their work will influence the lives of others and accept that responsibility without utmost care and seriousness, but I also know that just like any profession it is filled with humans who make mistakes, use poor judgement and may even at times use questionable techniques. However, I believe the checks and balances of the large volume of active scientists, increasing sources of quality data and vast amounts of published research should will in the end minimize the influence/impact of any small group of people our their individual work.
So let’s recap lesson’s learned from this event:
- Do individuals say mean and stupid things about others? Yes
- Do some individuals cheat and/or bend the rules? Yes
- Should you believe everything you read or hear? No
- Should you be skeptical of research that is not substantiated or reasonably transparent? Yes
- Should you ever make a firm stand based on one piece of published research? No
- Should you ever write an email, letter or blog post, or leave a voicemail with information that you do not want others to find out about or hear about? No
- Should I discount the efforts of thousands of scientists because of the behavior of a few? No
- Do you we have all the answers? No
- Are most climate scientist genuinely interested in advancing our knowledge and understanding? I believe so
I genuinely hope that when you leave this website today you will feel that climate scientist deserve the same level of trust and respect you give to other professions. If you won’t, feel free to comment and we can start a dialog about what it will take.
Next time we will return to the ‘normal’ range of topics here and specifically look at ‘The Green Wave’ and what the move to a more green way of life can mean for the future world economy – is it good or is it bad?
1. Do individuals say mean and stupid things about others? Yes, and I am guilty of this myself. I think everyone is guilty of this.
5. Should you ever make a firm stand based on one piece of published research? I would agree that you shouldn’t, but the way peer review publications are working these days, once something has been published saying one thing, it’s hard to publish something else saying another. I can’t think of another article off the top of my head like MBH 1998. Whether this is due to the peer review process itself or the way the mainstream media presents the science, public opinion is usually shaped by one study at a time, instead of a broad range of studies. I think this is why the IPCC assessments are so important.
6. Should you ever write an email, letter or blog post, or leave a voicemail with information that you do not want others to find out about or hear about? I think there’s a shade of gray here. Just because I’m a scientist doesn’t mean I should be constantly vigilant because a hacker might get my emails or other personal documents. What they did was illegal, and it’s illegal for a reason.
8. Do you we have all the answers? Sure we do.
9. Are most climate scientist genuinely interested in advancing our knowledge and understanding? This is the message that I hope the public still agrees with after all of this. The scientific community should not be punished for the mistakes of a few. But something that I will say that many people aren’t saying right now: I sincerely believe that the scientists involved in the hacked documents are genuinely interested in advancing our knowledge and understanding, too. I think they are just so involved, and so tired of being harassed by the anti-AGW movement that the lines you have drawn in this post get blurred. I don’t for one second understand the “profit” agrument. Like JB has said many times “we didn’t get into climate science for the money” because there isn’t a lot of money to be had. None of us are going to get rich, but what we can do is benefit humanity with our research. That’s why I’m a scientist, and I believe that’s why they are scientists, as well.
A. Fritz, in response to your specific comments
#5 – An interesting experiment for you, when spending time with non-scientists over the holidays, ask them what they think about the ‘hockey stick paper’ and most will have no idea what you are talking about. While MBH 1999 may have brought focused attention to the topic of climate change, most folks have never seen or heard of that article. (Here is a link for anyone who wants to read it and has not before – http://www.meteo.psu.edu/~mann/shared/research/ONLINE-PREPRINTS/Millennium/mbh99.pdf). So while this paper may have brought some focus or attention, I think it is the vast efforts of many that have shaped public opinion and response.
#6 – Yes illegal, but a reminder that we do not live in a world with many secrets. Ever had a co-worker see one of your emails that should not have? The point, just remember certain avenues in which you choose to vent frustration, something in writing or recorded has a long life span.
#9 – I actually do not feel most of us can speak about the scientists directly involved as while I have met some of them and read their work, I do not know them personally, nor do most people. I agree that if you are looking for $$$, find another field, but that holds true for many professions. However, the people that fill this profession are human and have personalities, behaviors and egos. So not all the eggs in the basket are going to be good nor bad.
In the end this post was not about drawing lines, more about reminders, and mostly about the reality that a few stories, a few pieces of research, and even a few people should never be the basis of meaningful decision making.