In Andrew Bolt's latest column he sort of admits that Peiser was wrong, but still misleads his readers.
As Attard reported, I'd cited research by British academic Benny Peiser, who claimed to have disproved a survey that concluded none of a sample of scientific papers doubted the theory of man-made global warming.
That was a mistake, because Peiser now says he messed up some of his checking -- even though he insists "hardly a week goes by without a new research paper that questions part or even some basics of climate change theory".
Bolt implies that only some of the checking was wrong, but he knows that Peiser has conceded that he was 97% wrong about the papers doubting the consensus. Of course if only some of his checking was wrong he still would have disproved Oreskes. Bolt makes it appear that both Peiser and Oreskes were wrong when in fact it was only Peiser.
True. Which is why my point about Gore -- that he does not tell the truth when he suggests there's no real debate over global warming -- still stands. Or stood, because to save myself I must stop noticing the dissent I'm told does not exist.
It is Bolt who is not telling the truth here. Gore didn't say there was no dissent, but that the dissent that appears in the media in columns like Bolt's does not appear in the peer-reviewed scientific literature. Gore reports the results of two studies. The first one, conducted by Naomi Oreskes, looked at a sample of 928 papers in scientific journals and found that not one disagreed with the scientific consensus: that humans are responsible for most of the warming in the last few decades. The second one, by Jules and Maxwell Boykoff, looked at a sample of 636 news stories in major US newspapers and found that 53% gave equal weight to the view that climate change is exclusively caused by natural processes.
Bolt continues with:
I must not notice, for instance, 60 experts in climate and related disciplines this year told Canada's Prime Minister to ignore claims "a climate catastrophe is looming and humanity is the cause" because "neither of these fears is justified".
Oh, the 60 scientists again. Bolt is just proving Gore's point again -- we hear from these dissenting scientists in the mass media, but there's hardly a peep from them in the peer-reviewed journals.
John Quiggin thinks Bolt is stuck in a parallel universe.
Shouldn't that be Peiser?
Oops. Fixed.
"Gore" continued with that bit about the 60 scientists?
*[Ack. OK, fixed that as well. Tim]*
Of course the 3% is the famous AAPG piece, which, as several people have pointed out, does not appear to be peer-reviewed.
Plus I notice Peiser is among the 60 scientists, but he is not a scientist, he's a social anthropologist.
As Attard reported, I'd cited research by British academic Benny Peiser
Firstly, I don't get Aussie slang so I had trouble reading the op-ed.
Secondly, surely the italicized is a joke. Hapless Benben an academic? Good 'un.
And this is convincing?
I do appear to be aging, but my aging is hardly certain. And the softness found around my middle does not appear that alarming.
This is the best they can do, folks. The best they have.
Best,
D