Adjudicating the future: silencing climate dissent via the courts

Posted on October 11, 2015 by | 142 comments

by Judith Curry

A British academic wants an international court to declare climate skeptics wrong, once and for all.

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142 Comments

Posted in Consensus, Policy

A perspective on uncertainty and climate science

Posted on October 11, 2015 by | 155 comments

by Marcia Wyatt

This past summer I was asked to give a presentation on science and ethics. The person who asked me was motivated by the Pope’s encyclical, the comments regarding climate change.

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155 Comments

Posted in Uncertainty

Structured expert judgment

Posted on October 7, 2015 by | 176 comments

by Judith Curry

Any attempt to impose agreement will “promote confusion between consensus and certainty”. The goal should be to quantify uncertainty, not to remove it from the decision process. –  Willy Aspinall

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176 Comments

Posted in Consensus, Uncertainty

Global climate agreements could be counterproductive

Posted on October 6, 2015 by | 148 comments

by Judith Curry

International climate agreements like the Kyoto Protocol may discourage much-needed investment in renewable energy sources, and hence be counterprodutive, according to new research.

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148 Comments

Posted in Policy

On Trial: Social Cost of Carbon

Posted on October 5, 2015 by | 160 comments

by Judith Curry

The Social Cost of Carbon is on trial in Minnesota.

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160 Comments

Posted in Energy, Policy

Why is the Arctic climate and ice cover so variable?

Posted on October 4, 2015 by | 159 comments

by Judith Curry

A discussion of Section 8.3 of Alan Longhurst’s book Doubt and Certainty in Climate Science.

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159 Comments

Posted in Oceans, Polar regions

The uncertainty of climate sensitivity and its implication for the Paris negotiations

Posted on September 30, 2015 by | 649 comments

by Judith Curry

A burning question for the Paris negotiations: Are the INDCs sufficient to prevent 2 degrees of warming?

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649 Comments

Posted in Sensitivity & feedbacks

Confluence (not conflict) of interest

Posted on September 30, 2015 by | 69 comments

by Judith Curry

The term conflict of interest is pejorative. It is confrontational and presumptive of inappropriate behavior. –  Anne Cappola and Garret FitzGerald

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69 Comments

Posted in Ethics, Sociology of science

My Fox News op-ed on RICO

Posted on September 28, 2015 by | 462 comments

by Judith Curry

A new low in science: criminalizing climate skeptics.

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462 Comments

Posted in Ethics, Politics, Sociology of science

Regional anomalies in the evolution of surface air temperature

Posted on September 27, 2015 by | 138 comments

by Judith Curry

A discussion of Section 6.1 of Alan Longhurst’s book Doubt and Certainty in Climate Science.

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138 Comments

Posted in Uncategorized

Carbon mandate: an account of collusion, cutting corners and costing Americans billions

Posted on September 25, 2015 by | 205 comments

by Judith Curry

Senate Environment and Public Works Committee Releases Oversight Report: Obama’s Carbon Mandate: An Account of Collusion, Cutting Corners, and Costing Americans Billions

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205 Comments

Posted in Politics

Ocean acidification discussion thread

Posted on September 23, 2015 by | 223 comments

by Judith Curry

This thread discusses sections 10.3 and 10.4 in Alan Longhurst’s new book Doubt and Certainty in Climate Science.

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223 Comments

Posted in Oceans

New book: Doubt and Certainty in Climate Science

Posted on September 20, 2015 by | 561 comments

by Judith Curry

Doubt and Certainty in Climate Science is an important new book that everyone should read.  And its free.

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561 Comments

Posted in Attribution, Uncertainty

RICO!

Posted on September 17, 2015 by | 632 comments

by Judith Curry

You have signed the death warrant for science. – Peter Webster

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632 Comments

Posted in Ethics

Hiatus revisionism

Posted on September 17, 2015 by | 280 comments

by Judith Curry

Some interesting new papers on the hiatus in global warming.

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280 Comments

Posted in Attribution, Data and observations

Heterodox Academy

Posted on September 15, 2015 by | 399 comments

by Judith Curry

I don’t agree that you, when you become students at colleges, have to be coddled and protected from different points of view. I think you should be able to — anybody who comes to speak to you and you disagree with, you should have an argument with ‘em. – President Obama

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399 Comments

Posted in Sociology of science

Has the AMO flipped to the cool phase?

Posted on September 11, 2015 by | 119 comments

by Judith Curry

Klotzbach and Gray ask whether the active Atlantic hurricane era has ended, owing to the negative values of the AMO.

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119 Comments

Posted in Oceans

The Urgenda ruling in the Netherlands

Posted on September 9, 2015 by | 326 comments

by Lukas Bergkamp

The Dutch government has decided to appeal the widely publicised “Urgenda” ruling from the district court in The Hague, ordering the Netherlands to step up its climate change actions. There are good reasons why we should hope that the court of appeals will overturn the ruling — it sets a dangerous precedent for judicial activism, is inconsistent with European law and will even undermine international climate negotiations.

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326 Comments

Posted in Policy

Managing uncertainty in predictions of climate change and impacts

Posted on September 7, 2015 by | 169 comments

by Judith Curry

Climatic Change has a new special issue:  Managing Uncertainty Predictions of Climate Change and Impacts.

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169 Comments

Posted in Uncertainty

Ins and outs of the ivory tower

Posted on September 3, 2015 by | 440 comments

by Judith Curry

This is the strongest, and most cogently made, argument that I’ve seen against political advocacy by academics related to their subject of expertise.

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440 Comments

Posted in Ethics

Hurricanes and global warming: 10 years post Katrina

Posted on August 30, 2015 by | 237 comments

by Judith Curry

We anticipate that it may take a decade for the observations to clarify the situation as to whether the hypothesis has predictive power. – Curry et al. 2006

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237 Comments

Posted in Hurricanes

The conceits of consensus

Posted on August 27, 2015 by | 501 comments

by Judith Curry

Critiques, the 3%, and is 47 the new 97?

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501 Comments

Posted in Consensus

JC’s conscience

Posted on August 25, 2015 by | 326 comments

Quotations that serve as a conscience of a profession. – Tom Nelson

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326 Comments

Posted in Ethics

Climate Change, Epistemic Trust, and Expert Trustworthiness

Posted on August 24, 2015 by | 602 comments

by Judith Curry

Among the best indirect indicators available to nonexperts is the overwhelming numbers of scientists testifying to anthropogenic climate change. Yet the evidential significance of such clear numbers turns substantially on our nonexpert assessment of these scientists’ trustworthiness. Absent trust, even without active distrust, the numbers’ evidential weight drops considerably. – Ben Almassi

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602 Comments

Posted in Consensus

Industry funding: witch hunts

Posted on August 18, 2015 by | 525 comments

by Judith Curry

There is a remarkable and disturbing story playing out in the biotechnology academic community over industry  funding related to genetically modified food.

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525 Comments

Posted in Communication, Ethics