Marta left a comment on an old post of mine referring to an interview of Bjorn Lomborg and his thoughts on Global Warming. The text of her comment is as follows:
After reading your book I realized that you are not from this planet....how can you even publish a book like where did you get all your data. As far as I know you have no background in the areas you discussed in your bookUnnnhhh -- Marta, Bjorn doesn't read the blog, this is my blog. Anything written was written by me and nobody else. I do quote from other people's writing (these quotes are indented from the main body of the text to set them off) I posted a link to Lomborg's own website here. Going back to Marta's comments (they are from Canada):
As far as I know you have no background in the areas you discussed in your bookFrom Lomborg's website:
M.A. in political science (Cand.scient.pol.) 1991. Ph.D. at the Department of Political Science, University of Copenhagen. 1994. Assistant professor at the Department of Political Science, University of Aarhus, 1994-1996. Associate professor 1997-2005. Director of Denmark's national Environmental Assessment Institute February 2002-July 2004.Gee -- it looks like he might know what he is talking about. Marta again:
Bj�rn Lomborg is an associate professor of statistics in the Department of Political Science at the University of Aarhus. In 1998 he published four lengthy articles about the state of our environment in the leading Danish newspaper, which resulted in a firestorm debate spanning over 400 articles in major metropolitan newspapers. The articles lead to the publication of The Skeptical Environmentalist in 2001, which has now been published in Danish, Swedish, Icelandic, German, Portuguese, Spanish, Italian, French, Korean and Japanese.
how can you even publish a book like where did you get all your data.Boy they sure do teach English good up in Canada... As for his data -- when the book first came out, a case was lodged against him by the Danish (He's Danish) Committees on Scientific Dishonesty. Here is the result of their findings:
The Danish Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation has December 17 2003 repudiated findings by the Danish Committees on Scientific Dishonesty (DSCD) that Bj�rn Lomborg�s book �The Skeptical Environmentalist� was �objectively dishonest� or �clearly contrary to the standards of good scientific practice�Hey Marta (you still here?) -- how about you getting your facts into order before launching a blind incoherent spew...
The Ministry, which is responsible for the DSCD, has released a highly critical assessment of the Committee�s January 7 ruling. The Ministry finds that the DCSD judgment was not backed up by documentation, and was �completely void of argumentation� for the claims of dishonesty and lack of good scientific practice.
The Danish Committees on Scientific Dishonesty (DSCD) have finally ended their case March 12, 2004, rejecting the original complaints. They have decided that the original decision is invalid and has ended any further inquiry.
"Argument from authority" never sways the outraged people. There's always an authority willing to state the counterpoint for reasons of ideology, money, sex, or power.
When logic prevails, you have fall out like the Cold Fusion fiasco. But when someone manages to publish something like the Mann hockey stick - the dogma props up the illusion.
If Marta's still listening, the short version of the story is that Mann used a _tremendous_ amount of data from a wide array of sources and plugged them into a complex model. The 'shaft' of the stick has a very slow rise of 1 degree or so since 1900. But then you reach the 'blade' and the temperature starts climbing very fast. (10 degrees a decade or so).
_IF_ the model holds, then humanity is going to have a rough century.
What Mann neglected to point out is that if you put in perfectly flat data, or even a 1 degree _drop_, you STILL get that rising 'blade'.
This is one of the cardinal sins in extrapolating data. Finding a formula that fits the existing data is NOT tough, it is extending it to the future that gets dicey. Normally you test any such predictive model by 'ignoring' some of your most recent data and seeing how that data gets predicted by the model. So let's ignore the 1950-present data. The Mann model predicts... wait... a hockey stick! With a 10 degree rise by 1970!
I have a Ph.D. in Chemical/Environmental Engineering, focused on gas-phase reaction kinetics. No, I'm not an atmospheric scientist. Yes I do read Science weekly. Yes, I have used Halliday & Resnick in several editions. A study of the pre-life earth atmosphere might be of interest if you are worried about us becoming Venus also.