Keith Kloor’s thinking on climate change

Keith Kloor says that this “concisely expressed” his thinking on climate change:

I categorise myself as somebody who recognises that additional CO2 in the atmosphere as a result of man’s activities (fossil fuel burning and land use change) will have an effect on the balance of radiation coming into and leaving our atmosphere.

I do not have a confirmed view as to exactly what the impact of the CO2 will have (feedbacks etc being uncertain) but I know that it must have an effect – that’s physics.

Monckton would not disagree with any of this. This seems to be an example of The View from Nowhere.

Update: Kloor responds by misrepresenting my post, claiming “He’s equated me with Monckton.” Of course, I did no such thing. I equated his view with The View from Nowhere, because it was so vacuous that there was nothing in it that Monckton would disagree with. I wrote two sentences. They were not long sentences and they did not use any difficult words. Everyone else who commented managed to understand them, including Shub, a self-described denier, who found that Kloor’s thinking was “exactly” the same as his.

Comments

#1 ianam
December 31, 2011

if the Breakthrough Institute were keeping ahead of Kloor

Having those two in one sentence is a good opportunity to invoke Joe Romm:

http://thinkprogress.org/romm/2009/06/17/204250/the-breakthrough-institute-shellenberger-nordhaus-waxman-markey/

http://thinkprogress.org/romm/2009/11/01/204856/keith-kloor-trash-journalist/
#2 keith kloor
December 31, 2011

Nice circle jerk you all got going here. Tim, you should be proud.

As for that Romm hatchet job, Stoat shredded it (and Romm) here:

http://scienceblogs.com/stoat/2009/11/oh_no_more_snarking.php#comment-2044061
#3 iana
December 31, 2011

Ah, Keith, the man who the jerk in circle jerk. You are a dunce and a fraud.
#4 dhogaza
December 31, 2011

Leave it to Keith to add substance to a conversation …
#5 frank -- Decoding SwiftHaack
December 31, 2011

Seriously, what is friggin’ wrong with certain ‘journalists’? Do they think they’re wise Solomonic judges of truth because they can unthinkingly parrot other people with great precision?

Kloor would say, “I’m just the messenger.” So Kloor, are you still “just the messenger”, or do you suddenly see yourself as a wise judge of truth? You can’t be just a messenger and also a Solomonic judge at the same time.

– frank
#6 Bernard J.
December 31, 2011

Yes, but a substance of what nature?
#7 chek
December 31, 2011

Nice circle jerk you all got going here.

Actually Keith, if you applied some of that legendary journalistic insight, you’d perhaps realise that it’s inside your petri dish of nano-celebrity shared by that collection of self-important and self-appointed pico-personalities that the circle jerk is perpetuated.

It’s the scientists who’re rooted in the *real* world, not the shamblimg cast of one-hit-wonder P.R. hucksters.
#8 Lionel A
December 31, 2011

Not sure why I bother but:

Unmangled KK link

FWIW
#9 frank -- Decoding SwiftHack
December 31, 2011

Stoat seems to focus too darn much on tone at the expense of facts or clarity.

Of course, for someone who cares more about tone than about the facts, Stoat’s blog post is a good one to quote.

Me, I care more about facts. Take that, Keith “I proclaim myself to be a Solomonic judge” Kloor.

– frank
#10 ianam
December 31, 2011

Nice circle jerk you all got going here.

Keith says both that we are attacking each other and that we have a circle jerk going. All Keith has going is intellectual dishonesty of a very high degree.

William Connolley:

Keith Kloor who I know nothing about other than that I read Joe Romm ranting at him at some point…. Why does Romm hate Kloor so much? I don’t know.

Nice argumentum ad ignorantiam (implied: WC doesn’t know why Romm hates Kloor, therefore there’s no good reason).

what does it tell you about Romm that Morano is happy to link to him?

Less than what it tells you about Connolley that Kloor is happy to link to him.
#11 FrankD
December 31, 2011

>All Keith has going is intellectual dishonesty…WC doesn’t know why Romm hates Kloor, therefore there’s no good reason…

I think Stoat is engaging in a pretty decent line of intellectual dishonesty himself. Why would someone report that they don’t know something (as though it was a bit of a mystery) when they could just look it up an report what they find out. I mean, is it really difficult for someone to find out why Romm hates Kloor?

Google: Romm Kloor

It’s that hard.

The first link returned is [this article on Think Progress](http://thinkprogress.org/romm/2009/11/01/204856/keith-kloor-trash-journalist/) in which Romm explains exactly why he hates Kloor so much. It’s strongly worded, but it bears no resemblence to ranting – its a clearly articulated attack on KK’s style and lack of substance, only marred by the fact that updates are confusingly placed above the original article.

I found that in 15 seconds. What’s wrong with Stoat that he couldn’t do the same?
#12 Bernard J.
January 1, 2012

I have a similar take to FrankD on this.

I was bemused to read William Connolly’s statements about Romm, for the same reasons Frank put forward, but I assumed that Connolly was just being circumspect after the flak he copped from the Wikipedia editing ‘scandal’.

Whatever motivated Connolly, I don’t see that Romm is further from reality than Kloor: quite the opposite, in fact. All I see from Kloor is a limp jounalistic version of the denialist dodging merry-go-round that has been so well epitopimsed here on Deltoid recently by Alex Harvey, and by Jonas N and the Scandinavian trolls.

Sorry if that hurts your delicate feelings Keith Kloor, but I really think that the reason you have any readership at all is because you tell a large number of ideologues exactly what the want to hear, rather than telling them the truth in a well-written manner.
#13 SteveC
January 1, 2012

So let me see if I’ve got this right. The same Keith Kloor who refused above to enter any further debate here has nonetheless apparently been watching this thread very closely. Closely enough to respond to ianam’s comment where he links to Romm’s comment about Mr Kloor within a couple of hours.

And when he does come back (thus contradicting his earlier “not playing with youse mob never again” huffy fit) he deploys that tactic most beloved of only the most wise and ethical of journalists, the drive-by verbal.

Way to burn your self-awarded reputation for being an honest broker, Mr Kloor.
#14 FrankD
January 1, 2012

ianam – Stoat appears not to like snarking, but is happy to do it himself, labelling, at his place, my response (which just picked up the same link as you had earlier posted) as “disappointing” without fronting me over here.

Earlier on this thread I suggested KK was a hypocrite. Seems like you can tell someone by the company they keep.

WC’s inline response at post 50 over there is hilarious. In effect: I sometimes disagree with Romm. I don’t know anything about Kloor, so I’ll trust him because I’ve never disagreed with him.

Abject fail…
#15 Hank Roberts
January 1, 2012

Earlier, on risks of repeating myths trying to debunk them:
http://init.planet3.org/2010/03/monbiots-paradox.html#comment-21767
The Chandler and Schwartz paper is worth thinking about.
#16 Hank Roberts
January 1, 2012

See cites in the preceding posts there, though the links have mostly succumbed to bit rot since they were posted. Scholar will find them if currently available.
#17 Hank Roberts
January 1, 2012

Good news, one author of that study has a blog, and code available for replication:
http://www.dartmouth.edu/~nyhan/
When Corrections Fail: The Persistence of Political Misperceptions (pre-publication version). 2010. Political Behavior 32(2): 303-330. (with Jason Reifler)
-Replication data and code (Stata)
#18 Hank Roberts
January 1, 2012

Also worth reading, also by Nyhan, from his blog page:
Opening the Political Mind? The effects of self-affirmation and graphical information on factual misperceptions (with Jason Reifler)

It may explain why the “anything but the IPCC” folks never argue with one another over their contradictory notions, and why denier sites are chock full of graphics that, fudged or mislabeled as they often are, do have a powerful effect in successfully misleading people.

The denier crowd generally are nice to each other, likely because they all imagine they’re fighting a common enemy — whatever they may call it, they all know what they’re against (world government, the IPCC, socialism, the Second Law of Thermodynamics, taxes, whatever …).

Ironically the group that reads the science usually end up criticizing each other over matters of style.
#19 Jeff Harvey
January 1, 2012

Louise:

I could not resist replying to your comment @53. Unfortunately, this kind of comment reflects how badly scientific findings are communicated to the public through the corporate MSM, and also what a bad job the media do in linking different disciplines in Earth and environmental science.

Louise writes, *I know that sea levels will rise, that the oceans will become more acidic, that our weather patterns will be disprupted and I know that these will be caused by increased CO2 in the atmosphere – now you tell me EXACTLY (the word I used in the original comment) how this will pan out*

Sorry Louise, speaking as a scientist, I do not I wish to disappoint you, but your question assumes that contemporary scientific understanding of the link between incredibly complex biotic and abiotic processes is highly advanced, whereas it is not. You certainly spelled out the potentially dire consequences of AGW on various abiotic parameters, but these are inextricably linked with the effects of warming on the health, stability and vitality of both natural and managed ecosystems across the biosphere and, in turn, how this will affect the delivery of critical ecological services that effectively sustain human civilization (I have made this pitch numerous times before on Deltoid threads, but it always seems that it has to be repeated to newcomers).

The real crux of the problem is that our current understanding of the factors that regulate the functioning of ecosystems is still quite poor, for the simple reason that these systems function as a result of the interplay between trillions of individual organisms, billions of populations and many millions of species over different scales and in different hierarchies. We certainly know that many of the conditions that we take for grated but which enable the biosphere to function adaptively (hence the biosphere is a ‘complex adaptive system’) are generated through a combination of biotic and abiotic interactions; these interactions regulate the flows of water, the cycling of nutrients, and the regeneration of the atmosphere. A book you ought to read that captures this well is Yvonne Baskin’s “The Work of Nature” (1999) or else Gretchen Daily’s | Nature’s Services” (1999).

In order to be able to predict the extent of climate change-inflicted damage on the human material economy, it is imperative to better appreciate the effects of climate change on the natural economy and how this will rebound on human civilization. Whereas we possess some the necessary technologies to adapt to some of the symptoms of rapid warming, we certainly do not possess the technologies to deal with the effects on fraying food webs, collapsing ecosystems and ultimately on a huge reduction in supporting ecosystem services. These include: the purification of water, the breakdown of organic wastes, the cycling of nutrients, seed dispersal, pollination, the maintenance of soil fertility, and the retention of a large genetic library (which is linked with species and population richness). These services do not carry prices in economics: if they did, we would clearly see that humanity is driving systems towards a point beyond which they will be unable to sustain human life in ways that we habitually take for granted.

So in the end, the scientific community, who are in general agreement over the causes of the current warming, are still debating the potent outcomes, which range from bad to catastrophic. I emphasize this point, because as a population ecologist I study and interact with peers involved on all kinds of research on human-mediated global change scenarios. Some of my research is now based on examining the effects of alien invasive plants on recipient native ecosystems; other research in our institute examines climate change and its effects on complex trophic interactions involving trees, insect caterpillars that feed on them and birds that feed on the caterpillars. Rapid seasonal shifts in temperatures are negatively affecting many of these tightly co-evolved interactions because many of the species are exhibiting different physiological responses to warming. The net effect is local extinctions of some species, or else other forms of demographic shifts. When scaled up across larger scale communities and ecosystems, the possible consequences for systems already simplified by a range of human activities is likely to be severe.

In the end, humans are conducting an experiment on the atmosphere and its interplay with the biosphere. This is a biosphere that, as I have said, we depend upon for our survival, and yet it appears that a large segment of society appears to be quite unconcerned about the abyss that we are driving towards in effective darkness. One thing that we can expect as we continue our global assault on the biosphere is surprises, and quite nasty ones: that is the nature of the beast. More extreme weather events such as droughts, floods, heat waves etc; and the planet’s biological diversity, which, as I have said, underpins systemic stability, will also dwindle.

You are asking some good questions, but in the end you need to ask yourself if driving blindly in the dark praying from some technological miracle that will enable us to continue hammering away at natural systems is such a prudent course of action. My answer is no. For their part, I also think that there are some good scientific journalists out there, but they are overwhelmed IMHO by those who have no formal training in any relevant fields and instead are driven by the own idealogical filters. Heck, we should no by now that most corporate and establishment journalists hold views that firmly are aligned with the ruling elites and those with power and privilege. The MSM media has a filtering system that selects for certain ideas over others; thus, I don’t think that journalists are deliberately deceptive in what they write, but truly believe much of the crap they routinely spew out (this covers all fields). I am saying that they wouldn’t be sitting where they are sitting if they believed something else. This is exactly what Herman and Chomsky refer to in ‘Manufacturing Consent’.

This, in my view, explains why corporate journalists have trouble connecting the dots. I have yet to see any meaningful media discussion on the effects of climate change on ecosystems and on the critical services that emerge from them. As I said, I think that part of the problem lies in poor training and understanding of different fields, but also a large part of the problem is the filtering system I alluded to above. If one benefits from the current political and economic system, or works in a media outlet that depends on revenue from polluting industries, or works for a media outlet that is part of a large media conglomerate, then it should be fairly obvious why there is hostility to those who speak loudly about the potential dangers of climate change. Note the how corporate media rarely if ever speaks about this touchy little issue. They may tell us of the latest findings in a Nature or Science article, but you’ll find it impossible to see them writing about the role we play through overconsumption in driving a changing climate, and certainly won’t tell us to cut back on our long haul holiday flights or to buy smaller cars or to reduce consumption. These relevant little tidbits are off the agenda.

A good discussion of this is found at the quite outstanding media watch dog site in the U.K., ‘ Media Lens’.
#20 shub
January 1, 2012

Thanks for the cheapskate underhanded compliments dhogaza. You heart must have skipped a whole lot of beats when those words came out.

SteveC’s right. After pretending to walk away in a huff from the ‘sewer’, Kloor doesn’t feel any inhibition dipping back in? He might as well have engaged in a more straightforward manner the first time around. Again, this shows how enormous an ego some journalists tend to have.

And by the way folks, has it occurred that the support you enjoy in the mass media might be precisely the sort you get from Kloor? From people who climbed on the bandwagon who did not understand much of the science, internally distrusted almost all its claims, but yet never openly admitted to it because of the inconveniences it would bring?

What about your own position? It is one of cynically ganging up with consensus journalists like Kloor and Lemonick even as you know they have minimal understanding of climate science, or even reject parts of it outright.
#21 Jeff Harvey
January 1, 2012

*And by the way folks, has it occurred that the support you enjoy in the mass media might be precisely the sort you get from Kloor?*

You’ve missed the boat, Shub. Read the last bits of my last post. The corporate/establishment media never supported the broad scientific consensus of AGW. Certainly they never spent any time on the underlying social and economic causes; this would have undermined the whole ethos of the political and economic system in which they are beneficiaries.

I recall after the 2007 IPCC report was published a major ‘liberal’ newspaper over here had articles the next day by (1) a water management expert, saying how well the country would be able to deal with rising sea levels, and (2) a climate change denier, saying that the whole thing was a myth, anyway.

That’s the kind of balanced reporting we see in much of the corporate media. I agree that many science writers think they know a heck of a lot about many different scientific fields than they really do, as most have basic degrees at most in one scientific area. But, as I said above, this means nix when the media system ‘selects’ for certain ideas at the expense of others. Call it a kind of filter, but journalists get to where they are precisely because there views positively resonate with media owners and advertisers. Buck the system and you have to go it alone. Its a simple as that.
#22 Shub
January 1, 2012

Jeff,
That was kind of a big boat there, so I missed it.
#23 Eli Rabett
January 1, 2012

Hmm, Eli and Kloor as a tag team. Boggles it do.
#24 ianam
January 2, 2012

I think Stoat is engaging in a pretty decent line of intellectual dishonesty himself.

Yes, that was my point. Note that Keith offered up that stoat piece as some sort of rebuttal because it “shredded it (and Romm)” — did Keith even read it? This “shredd”ing seems to consist entirely of stoat’s guilt-by-association smear of quoting some commenter asking what Morano linking to Romm says of Romm. OTOH, in the comments, stoat writes

Romm, who is smart and knowledgeable, is also often preachy and hyperbolic. If you’re a climate skeptic and you read Romm via Climate Depot, your worst biases about climate advocates are probably going to be reinforced. or even But if, on the other hand, you read Michael Tobis, who Morano has linked to prominently numerous times in recent weeks, then you might be pleasantly surprised to find a civil, logical, and eloquent voice. That’s certainly not the impression Morano wants you to walk away with. He always prefaces his links to Tobis by labeling him a “climate fear promoter,” in an effort to bias your reading of his post. But those Morano-directed readers have also engaged Tobis in comment threads and have found an equally civil and reasonable forum.

So Romm is smart and knowledgeable, and being linked to by Morano doesn’t say anything bad about someone. I’m glad we have that cleared up.

What about your own position?

Our own position is based on the science.

consensus journalists like Kloor

How quickly you forget your own claim that Kloor is a skeptic, just as he forgot his claim that we’re attacking each other. The two of you have something fundamental in common — you’re unprincipled.
#25 ianam
January 2, 2012

ianam – Stoat appears not to like snarking, but is happy to do it himself, labelling, at his place, my response (which just picked up the same link as you had earlier posted) as “disappointing” without fronting me over here.

Earlier on this thread I suggested KK was a hypocrite. Seems like you can tell someone by the company they keep.

Yes, WC’s position that, when Keith Kloor posts a link to WC’s two year old thread here, you should respond about it there, else you are talking about him behind his back, is quite astounding. In addition to being hypocritical, he is arrogant, self-serving, dishonest, and with his intercepting every comment so he can insert his snarky responses, cowardly. These comments are not “behind his back” — he can read them here, and he can respond to them here.
#26 Shub
January 2, 2012

ianam,
You are living in a fairytale world where there are clear categories of people. Kloor is a skeptic and so am I. Kloor doesn’t have the courage to admit it, not the ability to explain why he is skeptical. I know that I am a skeptic, why I am of that orientation, and precisely to which claims I direct my inquiries at.

You probably mistake your sputtering rage as a manifestation of an inner principled core. I wonder what you mean by “Our own position”. Do you fancy yourself as part of a group that stands ‘for the science’ etc etc? Well, ‘science’ doesn’t give a damn. That is how it is.

We can check our premises, I would guarantee that as far as ‘the science’ (whatever the crap that it means for you) is concerned, there are hardly bound to be any major differences. I get called a denier because people like Kloor get a free pass and the alarmist cadre of ecologically-conscious, scientifically-minded Harold Campings need to stroke their egos all the time.
#27 ianam
January 2, 2012

It’s not a fairytale world where someone claims in one breath that Kloor is a skeptic and in another that he’s a “consensus journalist”, it’s the real world that dishonest assholes like you occupy.
#28 ianam
January 2, 2012

I wonder what you mean by “Our own position”.

Another dishonest dick move on your part, since you’re the one who referred to it. But “cynically ganging up with consensus journalists” is not a “position”, and is certainly not what this thread is about.

Sorry, Shub, but you have no friends or allies here, nor a chance in hell of swaying anyone about anything, even if you were 100% right about it — the only thing you have going for you is that Kloor doesn’t like you either. You’re a loser and a jackass, and you would do a better job of defending your position by remaining silent.
#29 ianam
January 2, 2012

Finally,

I get called a denier because people like Kloor get a free pass

You would not look like such a whiny twit and a complete and utter moron if you had posted that in some thread that is not devoted to criticizing Kloor.
#30 ianam
January 2, 2012

the alarmist cadre of ecologically-conscious, scientifically-minded Harold Campings

Analogy fail.
#31 Shub
January 2, 2012

If I am clubbing a whole bunch of you guys together, it is to attack. If you seek the company of your guys, it is to draw support. There is a difference.

I know who my friends are. I am not here, to make ‘friends’. All the adjectives you are throwing at me, are properly applied to you. As an alarmist, you have lost a lot, and I wouldn’t expect anything other than desperation from you. And perhaps calls for even greater purity.

“It’s not a fairytale world where someone claims in one breath that Kloor is a skeptic and in another that he’s a “consensus journalist”…”

You heard that right. Sit tight, read more of my posts above, and think – you might figure what out I said. Don’t waste all your breath just spraying your spittle.
#32 ianam
January 3, 2012

Shub = FAIL.
#33 BBD
January 5, 2012

What’s so demoralising about Shub is that he genuinely believes himself to be an intellectual. This is amusing for a very brief while, then it slowly begins to leach away the soul.