On Apr 9, 2007, at 10:44 PM, PvM wrote:
> Faced with overwhelming evidence and consensus, the few remaining
> global warming deniers have gone into a personal attack mode. For
> instance Gray is accusing Al Gore of being an alarmist.
>
When the latest IPCC report came in CNN had Hansen followed by Gray.
Hansen dealt with the substance of the latest report. Gray attacked
Gore while saying nothing about the report itself. Regardless of what
you think of the latest report, Gore had nothing to do with it. The
following BAMS article has an excellent look at the issue of
hurricanes, global warming and the media.
http://ams.allenpress.com/archive/1520-0477/87/8/pdf/
i1520-0477-87-8-1025.pdf
> Boykoff and Boykoff (2004) demonstrated that superficial
> balance in coverage of global warming by the
> U.S. “prestige press” (e.g., New York Times, Washington
> Post, Los Angeles Times, Wall Street Journal) can
> actually be a form of informational bias. Boykoff and
> Boykoff state that by giving equal time to opposing
> views, the major newspapers are significantly downplaying
> scientific understanding of the role humans
> play in global warming. Pitting what “some scientists
> have found” against what “skeptics contend” implies
> a roughly even division within the scientific community.
> In the media debate on global warming and
> hurricanes, greenhouse-warming deniers (which, in
> addition to scientists, includes lawyers and others
> with at best minimal scientific credentials) are set
> side by side with scientists who have actually done
> the work and published papers on the subject.
>
> In addition to debate with greenhouse-warming
> deniers, considerable debate has also occurred among
> members of the meteorological community in a variety
> of venues, including the media. In the beginning,
> we assumed that “we scientists” would collegially
> agree to disagree and continue with our research and
> see where it led, looking occasionally in amusement at
> the media as they tried to sensationalize this. That is
> not how it has played out. Acrimony generated by the
> media debate has contributed to disruption of legitimate
> debates sponsored by professional societies by
> the cancellation and removal of panel members. The
> media has played a significant role in inflaming this
> situation by reporters’ recitations of what people on
> the other side of the debate are allegedly saying. One
> reporter manufactured a personal conflict between
> the first author of this paper (including an egregious
> misquote) and a scientist on the other side of the
> debate who have had no personal contact in several
> years. This illustrates the role that the media can play
> in inflaming a scientific debate and the values gap
> between scientists and journalists.
>
This paper also included a number of logical fallacies committed by
the deniers:
> i) The central hypothesis disagrees with official
> statements from the National Hurricane Center.
> Logical fallacy: appeal to authority.
> ii) The authors are not qualified to analyze the
> hurricane data. Logical fallacy: ad hominem.
> iii) The proponents of the connection between hurricanes
> and global warming are motivated by
> obtaining funding for their research. Logical
> fallacy: appeal to motive.
> iv) Atlantic hurricane variations follow a natural
> cycle that is not inf luenced by greenhouse
> warming. Logical fallacies: hasty conclusions;
> fallacy of multiple causes.
> v) Observations of major U.S. landfalling hurricanes
> over the last 100 years show a minimum
> during the 1970s, and higher frequencies earlier
> in the century, and therefore there is no increase
> associated with global warming. Logical fallacy:
> fallacy of distribution of the compositional
> type; unrepresentative sample.
> vi) There is no relationship between global tropical
> SST increase and hurricane intensity, because
> some storms do not intensify over warm water.
> Logical fallacy: fallacy of the single cause; fallacy
> of distribution of the divisional type.
> vii) Model simulations of greenhouse warming show
> a much slower increase of hurricane intensity
> than do the data, and therefore greenhouse
> warming cannot explain the increased intensity.
> Logical fallacy: begging the question; statistically
> special pleading.
After these were dealt with the authors went on to consider the
legitimate issues. I would recommend this paper to science teachers
because it goes on to describe how science is done along with the
limits and powers of the scientific method and how the (political)
media distorts all of it. Space limitations keep me from quoting it
here. Just go out and read it.
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Received on Tue Apr 10 05:38:45 2007
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