Climate change and the free market of ideas

Just over two months ago, I suggested there was about to be a "correction" in the market of ideas about man-made climate change.  By that, I meant that new information was likely to emerge, which - as in any market for commodities - would reveal some positions to be over valued and others under valued.

And so it would now seem.

The leaking of large volumes of data from the University of East Anglia's Climate Research Unit (CRU) suggest that it is not only climate change sceptics who can be selective and subjectively biased in their interpretation of data.  Supposedly objective scientists who support the notion of man-made global warming appear to have preferences for some data (which reinforces their views) over other data (which does not).      

Whatever these leaks tell us about the science of climate change, they raise some disturbing questions about the approach of certain scientists.  Geoffrey Lean, hardly a climate change sceptic, talks of behaviour that is "deeply reprehensible and unworthy of science.

These leaks also have something to tell us about transparency and public policy in the digital age.  They came after a long (and unsuccessful) campaign to get the CRU to willingly disclose the data underpinning some of its supposed findings on climate change.  Not unreasonably, given that such findings inform so much of the public policy.  

As MPs have discovered, in the digital age an unwillingness to disclose information can lead to its unwillingly disclosure.  Indeed, refusal to disclose creates a demand for disclosure on its own.  How much easier it would have been to have embraced transparency from the start.  So to in science. 

Posted on 25 November 2009 by Douglas Carswell

Comments

The size of a project's research grants are directly related to the seeming importance of the project. Thus it literally pays scientists to make their research seem more important than it actually is.

When you can get power (In the form of influence) AND money out of it, how much greater must the temptation be to exaggerate claims?

Scientists are too often given the kind of regard that the Pope is given by Catholics, but scientists are just people. They do not carry the Infallible Word of Science and it's time that was recognised.

Posted on 25 November 2009 13:03 by Elliot Kane

Douglas, will you be raising the issue of continuing public funding for the CRU in the House? Surely if public funds are to be spent there, at the very least there should be a change of personnel at the top and a much better system of disclosure so we know this can't happen again.

Posted on 25 November 2009 14:15 by Alfred T Mahan

And it also shows that disclosure can drag governments kicking and screaming into making a change.

Hence onto debts, government debts.

To make a dent in the government debt mountain, in the trillions when you include pensions, we need to make sure people get information.

At the moment I've various FOI requests out there to get debt figures from the government. It's like extracting the back teeth from an elephant. Hard work and the elephant isn't cooperating.

The real step is to constantly remind people how much they are paying for these past promises. It needs a tax, and in particular a tax that appears on payslips. People read their payslips, they don't read the VAT figure of a receipt.

If they see hundreds in some cases, thousands in most cases of their money going week after week, month after month to pay for government debt, their reaction is going to be rather strong. Government won't be able to defend borrow and spend. They will have a hard job not defaulting.

Disclosure and transparency is the start.

Posted on 25 November 2009 14:42 by Nick

Exactly. Whether you believe the Global Warming lobby or not, the CRU was disregarding classical scientific method (i.e. open up your data and methods for peer review), all the while giving out the same message ("global warming is real").

Is it any wonder there were sceptics that, now the data is out, have had theirs suspicions proved?

Posted on 25 November 2009 20:35 by Mark M

http://blog.conservatives.com/index.php/2009/11/25/the-countdown-to-copenhagen/

The Blue Blog
The countdown to Copenhagen
Andrew Mitchell MP, Wednesday, November 25th, 2009 .

"The summit in Copenhagen is a historic opportunity for the world to take bold collective action to deal with the looming menace of climate change........"

You're on the right track Douglas, but unfortunately the Shadow Overseas Development Minister is still churning out the scientifically flawed, platitudinous drivel about "climate change", and shamefully using the plight of world's poor to legitimise discredited policies.

Tragic. Truly tragic.

Posted on 25 November 2009 20:57 by Yorkshireman

It would be much much cheaper to spend all this money on adapting to climate change rather than giving it to 'scientists' whose only goal is to obfuscate and bend their findings towards whatever their paymasters want to hear.

Posted on 25 November 2009 21:25 by chefdave

A week or so ago, the government was under pressure for having sacked its drug adviser and "ignoring scientific advice from experts".
Now it would seem that the scientific advice from these latest experts on a different subject has been "fiddled" to suit the result they required.
Can we believe any experts now?

Posted on 26 November 2009 09:34 by Brian E.

I hope ideas like personal carbon credits will be nipped in the bud with the recent CRU revelations

http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,646506,00.html

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1021983/Every-adult-Britain-forced-carry-carbon-ration-cards-say-MPs.html

Posted on 29 November 2009 07:50 by Jakob

Some interesting (and frightening) reading for the coming Copenhagen summit

http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/reprint/copenhagen_climate_treaty_framework_draft.html

Posted on 29 November 2009 11:13 by Jakob

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