Stephen Schneider felciterad igen

År 1989 intervjuades nu bortgångna klimatforskaren Stephen Schneider i tidskriften Discover. Han beklagade svårigheterna  med att kommunicera komplexa vetenskapliga frågeställningar med potentiellt allvarliga konsekvenser i ett medialandskap där det är klatschiga rubriker och korta inslag som gäller:

"On the one hand, as scientists we are ethically bound to the scientific method, in effect promising to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but — which means that we must include all the doubts, the caveats, the ifs, ands, and buts. On the other hand, we are not just scientists but human beings as well. And like most people we'd like to see the world a better place, which in this context translates into our working to reduce the risk of potentially disastrous climatic change. To do that we need to get some broadbased support, to capture the public's imagination. That, of course, entails getting loads of media coverage. So we have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we might have. This 'double ethical bind' we frequently find ourselves in cannot be solved by any formula. Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest. I hope that means being both."

Vi har redan skrivit om det här citatet minst två gånger tidigare (2011, 2014), eftersom klimatförvillare älskar att missbruka det. Ofta återges det i kraftigt nedklippt form. Till exempel, i dag på bloggen "Klimatupplysningen (sic!)" så citerar Gösta Pettersson Schneider så här:

To capture the public’s imagination … we have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified dramatic statements and make little mention of any doubts we might have. Each of us has to decide what is the right balance between being effective and being honest.

Lägg märket till att Pettersson utelämnar viktiga bitar, som den sista meningen: "I hope that means being both."  Pettersson ger sedan Pettersson sin egen tvivelaktiga tolkning av vad Schneider menade:

Schneider har hävdat att det avkortade citatet ovan tagits ur sitt sammanhang och därför ger en missvisande bild av hans åsikter. Hans oavkortade uttalande klargör sammanhanget: Schneider vet att han som vetenskapsman är etiskt förpliktigad att vara ärlig, dvs. att med hans egna ord säga ”the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth”. Men han känner sig också etiskt förpliktigad att agitera enligt sin alarmistiska övertygelse för att befria världen från ett katastrofhot. Det är detta etiska dilemma Schneider anser att envar forskare har rätt att lösa enligt eget skön genom att inte skilja tro från vetande, utan söka vinna gehör för sin trosövertygelse genom en oärlig framställning av de vetenskapliga rön som gjorts.

 Men detta är inte vad Schneider menade. Hur vet vi det? Han skrev själv ett klargörande i ett nyhetsbrev från The American Physical Society (se sidan 5 i brevet):

"Vested interests have repeatedly claimed I advocate exaggerating threats. Their “evidence” comes from partially quoting my Discover interview, almost always – like Simon – omitting the last line and the phrase “double ethical bind.” They also omit my solutions to the double ethical bind: (1) use metaphors that succinctly convey both urgency and uncertainty (pg. xi of Ref. 3) and (2) produce an inventory of written products from editorials to articles to books, so that those who want to know more about an author’s views on both the caveats and the risks have a hierarchy of detailed written sources to which they can turn. What I was telling the Discover interviewer, of course, was my disdain for a soundbite-communications process that imposes the double ethical bind on all who venture into the popular media. To twist my openly stated and serious objections to the soundbite process into some kind of advocacy of exaggeration is a clear distortion. Moreover, not only do I disapprove of the “ends justify the means” philosophy of which I am accused, but, in fact have actively campaigned against it in myriad speeches and writings. Instead, I repeatedly advocate that scientists explicitly warn their audiences that “what to do” is a value choice as opposed to “what can happen” and “what are the odds,” which are scientific issues (e.g. p. 213 of Ref. 3). I also urge that scientists, when they offer probabilities, work hard to distinguish which are objective and which are subjective, as well as what is the scientific basis for any probability offered. For such reasons I was honored to receive, in 1991, the AAAS/Westinghouse Award for the Public Understanding of Science."

 Schneider argumenterar alltså inte för att forskare ska vara oärliga när de talar med media.

De klimatförvillare som missbrukar Schneiders citat är däremot oärliga, eller möjligen så sprider de ovetandes vidare någon annans förvanskningar. Det finns en kärna av sanning i och med att orden faktiskt kommer från Schneider, men sedan klipper och vinklar man för att ge intryck av att Schneider menade något helt annat och värre än vad han egentligen gjorde. Man kan säga att klimatförvillare ställs inför följande avvägning:

"Å ena sidan vill vi förvilla om klimatvetenskapen, smutskasta klimatforskare och sprida konspirationsteorier så mycket vi bara kan. Å andra sidan får vi inte verka alltför tokiga  eller rabiata eller vara alltför lätta att avslöja. Detta är ett oetiskt dilemma och vi måste var och en bestämma var balansen ligger mellan att förvilla och att upprätthålla ett sken av trovärdighet. Man hoppas att det går att göra båda. "

Jag tycker att Gösta har lyckats med att göra båda sakerna i sitt inlägg.

"Global Warming Policy Foundation" tries to write about ethics...

...and it doesn't go very well.

This story starts in 1989 when climatologist Stephen Schneider (who sadly passed away in 2010) was interviewed for the Discover magazine. Schneider was discussing the difficulties and contradictions inherent in communicating complex scientific issues with serious implications within a media favoring soundbite reporting:

"On the one hand, as scientists we are ethically bound to the scientific method, in effect promising to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but — which means that we must include all the doubts, the caveats, the ifs, ands, and buts. On the other hand, we are not just scientists but human beings as well. And like most people we'd like to see the world a better place, which in this context translates into our working to reduce the risk of potentially disastrous climatic change. To do that we need to get some broadbased support, to capture the public's imagination. That, of course, entails getting loads of media coverage. So we have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we might have. This 'double ethical bind' we frequently find ourselves in cannot be solved by any formula. Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest. I hope that means being both."

Schneider's statement was almost immediately misrepresented by anti-environmentalist individuals (in Detroit News), and he therefore felt compelled to clarify his position:

"I never have, and still do not believe or say that ends justify the means or that truth should be abandoned for a good cause – and what cause is more compelling than making nuclear war and its horrors more publicly known?
What I mean by the “double ethical bind” was not even represented in the Discover quote, which only provided a partial snapshot of my views. The “bind” that scientists face is that it is impossible to expect a complicated issue to be fully elaborated on in the public and popular media and thus a scientist who tries to explain to non-specialists the nature of controversial science, particularly that with policy implications, has to find a means to communicate effectively and honestly. To me that means using familiar metaphors." 

Unfortunately, that wasn't sufficient to stop the disinformers. Hence in 1996, Schneider wrote in the newsletter of The American Physical Society (page 5):

"Vested interests have repeatedly claimed I advocate exaggerating threats. Their “evidence” comes from partially quoting my Discover interview, almost always – like Simon – omitting the last line and the phrase “double ethical bind.” They also omit my solutions to the double ethical bind: (1) use metaphors that succinctly convey both urgency and uncertainty (pg. xi of Ref. 3) and (2) produce an inventory of written products from editorials to articles to books, so that those who want to know more about an author’s views on both the caveats and the risks have a hierarchy of detailed written sources to which they can turn. What I was telling the Discover interviewer, of course, was my disdain for a soundbite-communications process that imposes the double ethical bind on all who venture into the popular media. To twist my openly stated and serious objections to the soundbite process into some kind of advocacy of exaggeration is a clear distortion. Moreover, not only do I disapprove of the “ends justify the means” philosophy of which I am accused, but, in fact have actively campaigned against it in myriad speeches and writings. Instead, I repeatedly advocate that scientists explicitly warn their audiences that “what to do” is a value choice as opposed to “what can happen” and “what are the odds,” which are scientific issues (e.g. p. 213 of Ref. 3). I also urge that scientists, when they offer probabilities, work hard to distinguish which are objective and which are subjective, as well as what is the scientific basis for any probability offered. For such reasons I was honored to receive, in 1991, the AAAS/Westinghouse Award for the Public Understanding of Science."

Not surprisingly, the misrepresentations continued even after that, and are still going on today. Often, the quote has been mangled, and important parts have been cut away.

Earlier this year, the Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF), a British "climate-skeptical" policy think tank¹, published an essay on Ethics and Climate Change Policy, by Dr Peter Lee, principal lecturer in ethics and political theory at the University of Portsmouth. Lee used the Discover quote as a central piece in his argument that climate science was corrupted by politics. He introduced the quote with the following lines (p 5):

Equally indisputable is the gradual merging of climate science with political concern. By 1989 the distinction between the objective pursuit of scientific knowledge about global warming and the politics of science-based climate activism had broken down to the extent that Professor Stephen Schneider, an early lead author for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), could write: ...

Note that the Discover quote wasn't about "pursuit of scientific knowledge" but about the difficulties of  communicating science in soundbite media.
Lee went on to write (p 8):

However, Schneider’s words in 1989 have served as an invitation to climate scientists to dilute or violate the ethics of scientific practice while – and this is important to grasp – viewing their actions as ethical because of a desire to make the world a better place. The irony here is that some climate scientists may be undermining their own arguments by adopting such an approach.

As Lee uses the Detroit News article as a source for the quote, he must have read Schneider's clarification: "I never have, and still do not believe or say that ends justify the means or that truth should be abandoned for a good cause ...". Thus, Lee must have known that Schneider didn't hold the position that Lee attributed to him. Yet, he wrote as he did.
So here is the great irony: it seems that Lee, by deliberately and seriously distorting the position of Stephen Schneider² when writing his essay on Ethics and Climate Change Policy for the GWPF, himself has acted in a manner which can be considered unethical by people with normal ethical standards. There is "climate skeptics ethics" for you!

¹ The GWPF received international media attention earlier this year through the Bengtsson affair.

²For completeness, let's for a moment be generous and try to find an alternative explanation to Lee's actions. Maybe he didn't believe in Schneider's explanations. Maybe he thought that Schneider lied in his responses in Detroit News and the APS newsletter. Shouldn't Lee at least be entitled to his own interpretation? Well, in that case Lee has, by omitting to mention Schneider's clarifications, left out very important evidence against his own interpretation (which by the way he does no effort to support) - something that he condemns Schneider for allegedly advocating.  In that way, Lee's essay effectively becomes self-refuting.

Tribute video Stephen Schneider: Science and Distortion

Video baserat på Stephen Schneiders tal om klimatvetenskap, förvillare, osäkerhet och riskbedömning.

AGU 2011: Santer debunkar ännu en "klimatskeptisk" mem

Ben Santer höll "Stephen Schneider Global Environmental Change"-föreläsningen under det stora höstmötet för American Geophysical Union som avslutades i fredags. Föreläsningen inleds med ett personligt porträtt av Schnieder. Därefter, ca 16 min in i föreläsningen, följer det vetenskapliga bemötandet av påståendet att klimatmodeller inte kan simulera den lilla uppvärmning som varit senaste 10 åren. Santer med kollegor inte bara visar att det är ett felaktigt påstående, de visar också betydelsen av att ha tillräckligt långa trendintervall för att skilja ut klimatsignal ur väderbrus.

 
CG43G : AGU Fall Meeting 2011 from American Geophysical Union on Vimeo.

Stephen H. Schneider Award For Outstanding Climate Science communication

I går mottog professor Richard B. Alley den första Stephen H. Schneider Award For Outstanding Climate Science communication vid Stephen Schneider Symposium 2011. Alley är känd för sin förmåga att med humor förmedla goda förklaringar inom geovetenskap och klimatvetenskap. Bland annat här på Uppsalainitiativet har vi haft glädje av hans förmåga.

I våras guidade Alley tittarna i Earth: The Operators' Manual. I programmet speglas klimat- och energifrågor med tyngdpunkten på fördelar och möjligheter med förändrad energiförsörjning.
Hela programmet kan ses på programmets hemsida och även på YouTube.

Grattis Alley!

Minnet av Stephen Schneider lever vidare

Stephen Schneider var en av de riktigt stora klimatforskarna. Han avled i juli 2010, 65 år gammal. Den enastående bredden i hans forskning betonas av Chalmersforkaren Christian Azar i en minnesruna i tidskriften Climate Policy:

Steve Schneider was an outstanding scientist whose work covered a broad range of topics. He was one of the first to look at the possible climatic effects of nuclear war; in the 1970s he worked on the transient response to increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases; and, since then, he has looked at everything from the role of carbon taxes in promoting new energy technologies, to integrated assessment models and the ecological fingerprints of the climate changes that have occurred so far.

På Uppsalainitiativet har vi tidigare uppmärksammat Schneider och några enstaka av hans gärningar här, här, här, och här. Av dessa nedslag förstår man att Stephen Schneider inte var det slags forskare som nöjde sig med att, högt uppe i elfenbenstornet, fördjupa sig i sina specialiteter. Att dessutom kommunicera klimatvetenskapens landvinningar med beslutsfattare och allmänhet såg han som angeläget och högprioriterat. Detta tog sig många uttryck, varav ett var hans ambitiösa webbplats ClimateChange.Net, med pedagogiska sammanställningar om klimatvetenskap, klimatförändringar och policyimplikationer.

En grupp vänner och lärjungar till Schneider har fortsatt att underhålla och utveckla denna utomordentliga webbresurs efter hans död. Nu senast har tillfogats en avdelning Steve-in-action med videoklipp från framträdanden och föreläsningar han gjorde i olika sammanhang. En guldgruva!

Låt mig avsluta med ytterligare ett klipp från Christian Azars minnesord om Schneider, rörande dennes utåtriktade verksamhet i IPCC:

In his role as a convening lead author of the IPCC, Steve emphasized the issue of uncertainty and how it should be communicated. I can still hear him saying that we cannot focus only on the most probable outcomes. No, we must look at the entire range of possibilities. It may turn out that climate sensitivity is low; we cannot rule this out. It may also be high. The full range of outcomes has to be considered when developing global and national policy responses. These uncertainties do not justify inaction, as some seem to argue. On the contrary, the less we know about the consequences, the more reason we have to be cautious. The low-probability, high-impact events may offer the strongest reasons for near-term abatement.

Steve is no longer with us. But his voice will remain a source of inspiration for everyone who works on climate change and science–policy interactions, as well as for everyone who is trying to help shape policies for sustainable human interaction with our planet.

Hesslow beklagar förvillarpris - och slaktar Schneider-citat

Germund Hesslow har idag en Newsmill-artikel där han kritiserar Föreningen Vetenskap och Folkbildning (VoF) för att de har givit Stockholmsinitiativet VoFs årliga förvillarpris. Där tar Hesslow bl a upp ett citat av den nyligen bortgångne klimatforskaren Stephen Schneider:

Och vem har gjort sig mer förtjänt av ett förvillarpris än Stephen Schneider, en annan av AGW-rörelsens galjonsfigurer: "Vi vill förbättra världen … För att göra det måste vi fånga allmänhetens uppmärksamhet … få mycket uppmärksamhet i media. Så vi måste måla upp skrämmande scenarier, göra förenklade, dramatiska påståenden och förtiga våra eventuella tvivel … Var och en av oss måste bestämma den rätta balansen mellan att vara effektiv och att vara hederlig."

En viktig regel för varje skeptiker är att när man ser ellipser (...) i ett citat så bör man kolla upp ursprungscitatet. Så låt oss göra det:

On the one hand, as scientists we are ethically bound to the scientific method, in effect promising to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but — which means that we must include all the doubts, the caveats, the ifs, ands, and buts. On the other hand, we are not just scientists but human beings as well. And like most people we'd like to see the world a better place, which in this context translates into our working to reduce the risk of potentially disastrous climatic change. To do that we need to get some broadbased support, to capture the public's imagination. That, of course, entails getting loads of media coverage. So we have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we might have. This 'double ethical bind' we frequently find ourselves in cannot be solved by any formula. Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest. I hope that means being both.

Citatet är från en diskussion i Discover Magazine, som handlade om problemet med vetenskaplig kommunikation i dagens (1989) soundbite-media. Schneider hoppades att det skulle gå att vara både effektiv och uppriktig. Hesslow delar tydligen inte den uppfattningen.

Uppdatering 2011-01-12: För dem som inte vill klicka på den sista länken så kan jag avslöja att Schneider förklarar sin ståndpunkt så här:

Vested interests have repeatedly claimed I advocate exaggerating threats. Their “evidence” comes from partially quoting my Discover interview, almost always - like Simon - omitting the last line and the phrase “double ethical bind.” They also omit my solutions to the double ethical bind: (1) use metaphors that succinctly convey both urgency and uncertainty (pg. xi of Ref. 3) and (2) produce an inventory of written products from editorials to articles to books, so that those who want to know more about an author’s views on both the caveats and the risks have a hierarchy of detailed written sources to which they can turn. What I was telling the Discover interviewer, of course, was my disdain for a soundbite-communications process that imposes the double ethical bind on all who venture into the popular media. To twist my openly stated and serious objections to the soundbite process into some kind of advocacy of exaggeration is a clear distortion. Moreover, not only do I disapprove of the “ends justify the means” philosophy of which I am accused, but, in fact have actively campaigned against it in myriad speeches and writings. Instead, I repeatedly advocate that scientists explicitly warn their audiences that “what to do” is a value choice as opposed to “what can happen” and “what are the odds,” which are scientific issues (e.g. p. 213 of Ref. 3). I also urge that scientists, when they offer probabilities, work hard to distinguish which are objective and which are subjective, as well as what is the scientific basis for any probability offered. For such reasons I was honored to receive, in 1991, the AAAS/Westinghouse Award for the Public Understanding of Science.

Det här skrevs för 15 år sedan, och likväl fortsätter klimatförvirrarna att missbruka citatet.

Gott Nytt År!

Vi vill passa på att önska er alla ett Gott Nytt År!

Och minnas en stor klimatforskare som tyvärr gick bort 2010 genom ett av hans bidrag:

En klimatforskare och 52 "klimatskeptiker"

Den nyligen bortgångne klimatforskaren Stephen Schneider mötte i slutet av juni i år en publik bestående av "klimatskeptiker". Mötet var en inspelning av det Australiensiska debattprogrammet Insight och programmet sändes i tisdags. Hur gick det?

"Global Warming" 35-år

The fact that the mean global temper-ature has been falling over the past several decades has led observers to discount the warming effect of the CO2 produced by the burning of chemical fuels. In this report I present an argument to show that this complacency may not be warranted.

Så inleds Wallace Broeckers artikel i Science den 8 augusti 1975. Artikeln har titeln Climatic Change: Are We on the Brink of a Pronounced Global Warming? och är troligen den första vetenskapliga artikeln där uttrycket global uppvärmning används. I artikeln kvantifierar Broecker hur koldioxidutsläppen och den där med ökande mängden koldioxid i atmosfären ger en ökande uppvärmning under kommande decennier. RealClimate publicerade nyligen en genomgång av Broeckers artikel.

Som vi skrivit tidigare om var 70-talet det decennium då insikten om global uppvärmning slog igenom inom klimatvetenskapen. Se även nedanstående intervju med den nu nyligen bortgångne Stephen Schneider från 1979

Stephen Schneider

Stephen Schneider, en framstående klimatforskare, har nyligen gått bort. Stephen var en person som gjorde mycket för att föra ut fakta i klimatfrågan till en bredare publik. Här nedan kan ni se ett av Stephens sista bidrag.