“A Headline That Will Make Global-Warming Activists Apoplectic”

I saw this article in the newspaper today, “2020 Ties 2016 as Hottest Yet, European Analysis Shows,” and accompanied by the above graph, and this reminded me of something.

A few years ago there was a cottage industry among some contrarian journalists, making use of the fact that 1998 was a particularly hot year (by the standards of its period) to cast doubt on the global warming trend. Ummmm, where did I see this? . . . Here, I found it! It was a post by Stephen Dubner on the Freakonomics blog, entitled, “A Headline That Will Make Global-Warming Activists Apoplectic,” and continuing:

The BBC is responsible. The article, by the climate correspondent Paul Hudson, is called “What Happened to Global Warming?” Highlights:

For the last 11 years we have not observed any increase in global temperatures. And our climate models did not forecast it, even though man-made carbon dioxide, the gas thought to be responsible for warming our planet, has continued to rise. So what on Earth is going on?

And:

According to research conducted by Professor Don Easterbrook from Western Washington University last November, the oceans and global temperatures are correlated. . . . Professor Easterbrook says: “The PDO cool mode has replaced the warm mode in the Pacific Ocean, virtually assuring us of about 30 years of global cooling.”

Let the shouting begin. Will Paul Hudson be drummed out of the circle of environmental journalists? Look what happened here, when Al Gore was challenged by a particularly feisty questioner at a conference of environmental journalists.

We have a chapter in SuperFreakonomics about global warming and it too will likely produce a lot of shouting, name-calling, and accusations ranging from idiocy to venality. It is curious that the global-warming arena is so rife with shrillness and ridicule. Where does this shrillness come from? . . .

No shrillness here. Professor Don Easterbrook from Western Washington University seems to have screwed up his calculations somewhere, but that happens. And Dubner did not make this claim himself; he merely featured a news article that featured this particular guy and treated him like an expert. Actually, Dubner and his co-author Levitt also wrote, “we believe that rising global temperatures are a man-made phenomenon and that global warming is an important issue to solve,” so I could never quite figure out in their blog he was highlighting an obscure scientist who was claiming that we were virtually assured of 30 years of cooling.

Anyway, we all make mistakes; what’s important is to learn from them. I hope Dubner and his Freaknomics colleagues learn from this particular prediction that went awry. Remember, back in 2009 when Dubner was writing about “A Headline That Will Make Global-Warming Activists Apoplectic,” and Don Easterbrook was “virtually assuring us of about 30 years of global cooling,” the actual climate-science experts were telling us that things would be getting hotter. The experts were pointing out that oft-repeated claims such as “For the last 11 years we have not observed any increase in global temperatures . . .” were pivoting off the single data point of 1998, but Dubner and Levitt didn’t want to hear it. Fiddling while the planet burns, one might say.

It’s not that the experts are always right, but it can make sense to listen to their reasoning instead of going on about apoplectic activists, feisty questioners, and shrillness.

Cute contrarian takes and “repugnant ideas” can be Freakonomically fun, but they don’t always have much to do with reality.

P.S. Yes, this has come up before.

P.P.S. At this point you might ask why are we picking on Freakonomics? Nobody cares about them anymore! Shouldn’t we be writing about Al Sharpton or Ted Cruz or whoever else happens to be polluting the public discourse? Or recent Ted talk sensations? Sleep is your superpower! Or we could see what’s been published lately in Perspectives on Psychological Science . . . that’s always always good for a laugh, or a cry. Or maybe the pizzagate guy or the disgraced primatologist are up to no good again? Well, we do pick on all those people too. But I don’t want to forget Freakonomics, as it’s been a model for much of the coverage of science and economics in the prestige media during the past fifteen years. And, yeah, I’m angry when they unleash their corporate-populist shtick to promote fringe science and when they don’t take the opportunity to confront their past errors (a problem that is not unique to them). I hate that this sort of drive-by commentary is a template for so much of our science and economics reporting, and one reason I pick on the Freaknomics people is that They. Could. Easily. Do. Much. Better. If. They. Only. Felt. Like. Doing. So. But, hey, instead they can “make global-warming activists apoplectic”! Why promote science when you can instead be a “rogue” and own the libs? Let’s keep our priorities straight here, guys.

P.P.P.S. There’s some discussion in the comments about climate change denial. Let me emphasize that the Freakonomics crew are not climate change deniers. They’ve explicitly stated their belief in climate change. For example, as noted above, they wrote, “we believe that rising global temperatures are a man-made phenomenon and that global warming is an important issue to solve.” If Dubner and Levitt were climate change deniers, I’d say that’s too bad, but it makes sense that they will promote whatever headlines they can find that push their agenda. But, no, they’re not deniers and they’re still promoting the junk. That’s what makes all this so sad. For them, triggering the libs appears to be more important than science or policy.

from Hacker News https://ift.tt/35uvya2