Comment on Hiding the Decline: Part II by CMS

In the vein of what leads a non climate scientist to question the bible of climate science. I am definitely not a Republican and fact probably to the left of most Democrats. I fear the demagogues of the right make it far easier to dismiss legitimate skepticism than all the Gavin Schmidts of this world. Anyway I had spent some 12 years doing post graduate work in Social Psychology and do to my fathers death was forced to take on the family oil business, this being in 1979. Though long before Hanson’s speech in congress or Al Gore, I was familiar with the theory of global warming and gave it enough credence that I thought going into the oil business I was a bit uncomfortable with its implications. I felt I needed to be familiar with its findings. After some consideration, I deemed that “Science” was the journal that was presenting the best and most varied publication of articles of interest. This was during the era of Philip Abelson’s editorship. There were already quite a few articles in “Science” concerning global warming. While some assumed it to be a fact and extrapolated as to its effects, many were attempting to refine the theory. In fact of those examining the basic science, while most were arguments for, a healthy number were critical. Moreover the ones that were critical tended to be more empirically based while the others theoretical. My conclusion during those years was that there was definitely something going on here that warranted any concerned citizens attention, but the basic definition of variables, their weighting and the interaction was far from settled. In fact it looked like science was doing a good job of what science does best, namely carefully examining the logical and the empirical basis of the theory. It was obviously an extremely complex subject and judiciously would take many years, probably decades to get a firm grasp of the problem. I felt comfortable that things were moving along as they should. Suddenly “Science” took a screeching right turn and the articles being published were all supportive of global warming. What to a social science trained mind had seemed to be a realistic and rational progress normal to the development of any discipline, in particularly a scientific one, had been short circuited in an unnatural and disturbing way. A few months after I witnessed the change in “Science” I found that Abelson was no longer the editor. I read a report that he had claimed his lack of unquestioning support for the theories of global warming had much to do with his stepping down. Remember this was in 1984 long before global warming was more that a very occasional curiosity in the medium. I found this quite disturbing and it certainly encouraged me to look for other examples of bias in scientific reporting and in the main stream media over the years. An important example for me was the disconnect between the first IPCC report for scientists and the one for policy makers. Climate gate was only the latest in a long string. I wonder how many others have had this experience.
The questioning here initially arose out of noticing that the process itself seemed askew and was not such that would support the development of a fair hearing and balanced discussion of the theory. Such a discussion would, at least in my case, necessitate its acceptance whatever the outcome. My questioning most definitely was not the feeling that my knowledge was sufficient to question the conclusions. I continue to read articles, listen to reasonable voices such as Dr. Curry’s, and hope.