NC Media Watch

Joe Romm's attempt to trash Superfreakanomics exposed

Russ Steele

Superfreakanomics arrive in the mail yesterday. It became a must read when Joe Romm who blogs at
ClimateProgress.org trashed the book. ClimateProgress.org is “dedicated to providing the progressive perspective on climate science, climate solutions, and climate politics.”  When the left starts attacking books before they are published, you know their is something important they want to discredit, and it becomes a must read at NC Media Watch.  Joe Romm at Climate Progress:

“Error-riddled ‘SuperFreakonomics’: New book pushes global cooling myths, sheer illogic, and ‘patent nonsense’ – and the primary climatologist it relies on, Ken Caldeira, says ‘it is an inaccurate portrayal of me’ and ‘misleading’ in ‘many’ places.”

Now for the rest of the story in a New York Times article Global Warming in SuperFreakonomics: The Anatomy of a Smear by one of the authors, Stephen J. Dubner  The full story is here, but these are the money paragraphs:

Last week, a few days before Romm’s post, Caldeira sent an e-mail to Myhrvold and cc’d me as well. It included a chain of earlier e-mails between Caldeira and Romm.

The chain begins with Joseph Romm telling Caldeira that he had read SuperFreakonomics and “I want to trash them for this insanity and ignorance.” Romm adds that “my blog is read by everyone in this area, including the media” and tells Caldeira that “I’d like a quote like ‘The authors of SuperFreakonomics have utterly misrepresented my work,’ plus whatever else you want to say.”

I understand that blogging, especially advocacy blogging, doesn’t operate under the rules of journalism (where you don’t feed quotes to people), but still: that’s quite a quote to feed to someone.

Caldeira didn’t give him the quote. He did, however, respond point-by-point to a series of statements about him in the book. “The only significant error,” he wrote to Romm, “is the line: ‘carbon dioxide is not the right villain in this fight.’ That is just wrong and I never would have said it. On the other hand, I f&@?ed up. They sent me the draft and I approved it without reading it carefully and I just missed it. … I think everyone operated in good faith, and this was just a mistake that got by my inadequate editing.”

Romm still managed to get his point across, in the headline and elsewhere:
“One sentence about Caldeira in particular is the exact opposite of what he believes (page 184): ‘Yet his research tells him that carbon dioxide is not the right villain in this fight.’ Levitt and Dubner didn’t run this quote by Caldeira, and when he saw a version from Myhrvold, he objected to it.”

Except of course Caldeira did see that line, and the rest of the chapter too, not once but twice.

But that didn’t seem to matter. While Romm’s post never actually delivered the Caldeira quotes teased in the headline – that it was “an inaccurate portrayal of me” and “misleading” – the point was clear to any reader: everything SuperFreakonomics says about global warming must be wrong because the main climate scientist they write about has refuted what he said. It’s hard to blame the bloggers who subsequently repeated this story: if you didn’t know it was false, it would have seemed pretty newsworthy. It’s also hard to misinterpret what’s going on here. Now that global warming has transcended science to become a political issue, the rules of politics apply: if you don’t like someone’s position, attack their credibility.

Hey Anna, now you know why Climate Progress has no credibility at NC Media Watch, it is not longer about the science it is all about the politics. 

Book tour update

Russ Steele

We were honored with a front page story in the Reorder-Herald the local paper last Thursday, a 20 minute interview on Voice of the Valley on the local radio station on Monday, and on the way back to our trailer we spotted this marquee posted by the local Arts Council.



People are waving, saluting or greeting us like long lost relatives when we come into a store.  "Saw your picture in the paper" they say, or "saw you on the web."  Even before we arrived in Salmon potential buyers were calling our cellphone asking where they can buy of the book. This book signing is a far bigger deal than I imagined. Stay tuned the signing is on Wednesday -- all day.

The Logic of Failure in a complex world

Russ Steele

I have just completed reading the Logic of Failure: Recognizing and Avoiding Error in Complex Situations by Dierich Dorner. It was a gift from my friend George Rebane at Rebane's Ruminations. It is one of those books I should have studied a long time ago, but the information is timeless. It explains in detail how people in authority make dumb mistakes when dealing with complex issues.

Right now Nevada County and California are dealing with a declining economy, and the decisions that need to be made for a robust recovery are very complex.  Our political leaders have options that will lead to good decision or bad decisions. Decisions made on the moment, or decisions made on the future consequences could produce very different results.  Reading the Logic of Failure could help them understand the logic traps await them in making decisions in a very complex world.  

See thumb nail of book on the left if you would like to order your own copy.

Hot, Flat and Crowded, oh my!

Russ Steele

Thomas L.Friedman's latest arrived yesterday, Hot, Flat and Crowded, Why We Need a Green Revolution - and How it Can Renew America. I have found Friedman to have an 80 to 85 percent validity quotient in has past books. So, I could hardly wait to read chapter five in his latest book - Global Weirding. I saw Friedman interviewed on one of the NBC Sunday programs while dog sitting my daughters puppy. Friedman made some comments about human caused global warming that sparked my interest in reading his latest book. Normally, I do not watch the Sunday Talking Head Shows, but a 7 month old pup needs some close attention, and it was on the wide screen after something else was on earlier in the morning.  But, I digress.

Chapter Five, Global Weirding, is Friedman' take on Climate Change and its causes. If the rest of the chapters in the book has as much misinformation as Chapter Five then there is no reason to expend any energy to read them. Yes, I agree we need to conserve energy, we should focus on alternative energy, but there is no urgency to save the planet from runaway greenhouse gases.

Home again with some thoughts on my East Coast trip

Russ Steele

While in Boston, we went to Bar Harbor with our daughter and her new husband for a weekend of Maine leaf peeping, and saw some spectacular views of fall color in Arcadia National Park. However, on our return the colors of Nevada County were perhaps more vibrant, more crisp, with more yellows to contrast with the reds. The yellows were a bit late in Maine. I think there was more acres of color in Maine, but the assortment colors in Nevada County are very competitive.  Perhaps the recent rain cleaned off the summer crud. In contrast the price of gas in New England was about $2.55 to $2.65 a gallon, where as California it was above $3.15 to $3.20. Traveling in New England was far more fun then in California.

We visited family in Delaware and searched out some weather station for Anthony's Watts' surface stations project. My brother-in-law and I collected three stations: Dover, Greenwood, and Salisbury. The Dover station is still in question, but we are continuing to research the location of this station. During our search we stopped for lunch. While waiting in the cafe lobby for the ladies to freshen up, I spotted this interesting picture on the wall of Bill and Hill. (This copy from Zombie Time)

The plane rides to and from the East coast were nothing but a modern form of torture. United's 757s were packed to the gills, not one empty seat. No room for comfort, especially for anyone with long legs like mine.  On the return flight, to distract me from my discomforts, I picked up a copy of The Planets by Dava Sobel in Borders Books, near Legal Sea Food just outside the C concourse. I had read Sobel's Galileo's Daughter on the recommendation of my youngest daughter several years ago. I really enjoyed this account of Galileo's life and the challenges he faced in publishing his scientific findings on the solar system. The geocentric consensus was the earth is the center of the universe, around which the sun revolved.

As I read The Planets, I was reminded of Al Gores claim of a global warming consensus. Another religious position based on questionable science?

Reading The Planets one grasps the full magnitude of the Sun's position in the neighborhood, "the planet's progenitor and chief source of energy, embodies 99.9 percent of the mass in the solar system." All the planets, asteroids, and comets account for 0.1 percent.  The Sun's gravity dictates our position in the solar system not too close and not too far. When it comes closet the earth grows warmer, farther away the earth cools in fact every 40,000 to 65,000 years it gets down right glacial. It is hard to imagine a thin film of CO2, 0.0373 percent of the earths atmosphere, controls the Earth temperature.

As you read Sobel's intimate description of each of the planets, one feels connected to the solar system, as thought the planets are familiar places just down the road a bit. Learning about the planets could not be more entertaining. Highly recommended for some light science reading. Click on cover picture thumbnail on the left of this page for a copy.

Now it is time to return to the local science issues of ozone, climate change and traffic congestion.

Wikinomics, How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything

Russ Steele

What do MySpace, Flickr, Second Life, Linux, YouTube and Wikipedia all have in common?  Of course I am assuming that you know what they are.  Do you know what they are?  If not, you should read Wikinomics. They are the product of collaboration, thousands of minds working together to produce a single product. Products that are changing the landscape of economics, shaping new paradigms for a competitive advantage in the global market place. The products and services listed are the result of cooperation, information sharing, and self organization. Collaboration which produces results faster and more economically than traditional hierarchical organizations.   

Wikinomics, by Don Tapscott and Anthony Williams, explores how individuals and corporations are using the Internet to collaborate on new products and changing the ways old products are designed, crafted, and assembled. From Boeing airplanes, new products lines at Proctor & Gamble, to discovering new gold deposits.  Wikinomics shows how masses of people can participate in the economy like they never could before the Internet.  The authors explain how people are collaborating to create news stories, videos, remixing their favorite music, designing software, finding cures for diseases, editing school books, and even building motorcycles in China. More details here.

While reading Wikinomics, I was struck by the parallels between the projects described in the book and the work being done on the Climate Audit,  a blog examining the validity of paleoclimatology research.   The blog is operated by Steve McIntyre, a savvy statistical analyst with a strong interest in paleoclimatology and the proxies used to indicate historical temperature trends.  He posts his work on Climate Audit and invites interested readers to critique his work, and offer suggestions for improving his analysis.  Sometimes he poses a problem and asks for help, which is provided by readers and fellow scientist. In come cases reader’s contributions are elevated to a dedicated thread for more detailed analysis by all participants. As a lurker on Climate Audit, it occured to me I was observing Wikiscience in progress. Multiple minds disassembling sloppy science by some well known paleoclimatologist, who are currently featured in the UN IPCC Assessment Reports.  I find this scientific CSI type investigation fascinating.   

This is a very readable and interesting book. If you would like your own copy, click on the thumbnail of the book cover in the left sidebar. Buying from Amazon will help support this blog.       

Book Review: The Future of Everything: The Science of Prediction

Russ Steele

David Orrell’s insightful book attracted my attention when it was advertised to discuss the pros, cons and uncertainties of prediction science.  Given my interest in climate change, I was most interested in reading this book. Part of my quest to understand the limitations of climate modeling, and I was not disappointed.

Orrell has a Ph.D. in mathematics from Oxford and has studied and written extensively about prediction in complex systems. His theory that modeling errors are more responsible for bad weather forecasts rather than chaos was not well received by weather forecasters. They could not longer blame “the butterfly effect.” In this book Orrell looks at more than weather forecasting, and why models of complex systems lead us astray.

Orrell concentrates on three main subjects that seem to be unrelated: the weather, human health and the economy. However, readers soon discover these three subjects share a common connection, the shortcomings of the models used to predicts the future. The author makes his point in non technical language on how modeling errors limit the ability of models to accurately predict the future. This is especially true for long range climate forecasts, which are too crude to model clouds and participation, major contributors to long term climate change. 

I found the history of science prediction, going back to the early Greek thinkers, most interesting. Orrell is a friendly and engaging writer, with few passages that need to be reread for understanding, though there are some. This is a complex subject, but the non technical reader can lean quite a bit about how forecasts are made and why they are so often wrong witout getting mired in the technical details. This book should be of interest to everyone who wants to understand modeling, especially science buffs with an interest in weather, human health and economic forecasting.  I highly recommend it to the local global warming crowd, it may open their eyes to the limits of Al Gore’s forecasts of climate disaster.

You can order a copy by clicking on the thumbnail to the left of the screen and help support this blog.

The World is Flat, the update and expanded version(edited)

Russ Steele

I just finished reading Thomas L Friedman’s The World is Flat, the update and expanded version.  I actually started the book earlier this year, but was distracted by global warming issues.  Friedman’s only reference to Global Warming is a claim that if the President Bush would put the same effort into an alternative energy initiative, as President Kennedy put in to going to the Moon, “he could dry up revenue for terrorism, force Iran, Russia, Venezuela and Saudi Arabia on to the path of reform.”  So, far the current administration has invested $12 Billion in climate change research. How much more would it take? 

The front cover promises a brief history of the 21st Century, and I was looking for a description of the future, but it was really more a catalog of trends and economic forces that are shaping our global economy today.  Some call Friedman a presentist, rather than a futurist, and I would have to agree. He is writing more about what is happening today, but the trends he writes about will have long term impacts on our local economy.  This is an important book and it should be read by our local policy makers. We are currently behind, when it comes to making sure all our local business being connected to the global supply chain. 

When Friedman says the the world is flat he really means connected, and lowering of trade and political barriers and the exponential growth in Internet connectivity.  This connectivity allows users to connect with billion of others, almost instantaneously for collaboration and leading edge business deals. 

I found the supply chain discussion helpful in understand how components can be built around the globe, coming together at a just-in-time factory,  where they are assembled ,  tested, and shipped over night to the customer.  Friedman used his new Dell laptop as an example, tracing where all the parts came from and where they were assembled.

This raises the question, where will Nevada County fit into this global  supply chain in the future?  I recommend that local policy makers read the World is Flat and ask where does Nevada County businesses fit?  How should we fit?  What is our economic role?  I think our role is at the every head end of the chain, innovating and creating new products, then leveraging the strength of the global supply supply chain to produce the final product. But, we will need increased levels of connectivity to remain competitive, and culture and business environment that fosters innovation.

If you would like your own copy, click on the thumb nail in the left side bar and order form Amazon.   

Unstoppable Global Warming: Every 1,500 Years

Russ Steele

I just finished reading Unstoppable Global Warming: Every 1,500 Years by Dennis T. Avery and S. Fred Singer. This important paperback book arrived a couple of weeks ago in the mail from Amazon.   My reading was interrupted by work on several projects, including new kitchen lighting and a global warming video project at NCTV Ch-11.  But, back to this very interesting and well document book. 

I have found Unstoppable Global Warming to be a invaluable resource on the topic of global warming for the NCTV Ch-11 project. The book includes a vast amount of scientific research which is documented in the Notes at the end of each chapter.  A wide variety of scientific journals indicate natural sunspot activity is the cause of our recent warming, starting with a 1,500 year cycle first identified in the Arctic and Antarctic ice cores.

Avery and Singer, are clear that human generated carbon dioxide has very little effect on the earth's climate. They go even further and provide an in depth expose of the fallacious research that allegedly supports the claim to man made global warming.

The authors provide and in-depth look the hockey stick which became the signature icon for global warming and the core hypothesis of unprecedented warming widely enunciated in the UN's climate change panel report.  The “hockey stick” hoax was first exposed by two highly skilled Canadian researchers - McIntyre and McKitrick in several peer reviewed papers. Steve McIntyre continue to expose of those claiming to replicate the “hockey stick” on his Climate Audit blog.

The authors also offer alternative explanations for the increased warming and past cooling. The sun cycles and how it’s magnetic fields modulates the arrival of cosmic rays. Cosmic ray which help form highly reflective low clouds. Clouds that reflect the sun’s heat back into space. You can find a summary paper I wrote on this process here.  Look for Cooler Temps - Dalton Minimum Returns?

Environmentalists, EU carbon traders, UN bandits, and others with a vested interest in controlling the global economy by creating unreasoned fear of warming will not like this insightful book. However, readers concerned with human welfare and sustaining economic growth will find this book worth reading. This easily understandable book, supported by well documented science, should be read by all Americans. Once you read the book you can easily explain why the recent published UN IPCC Report, and Al Gores boring movie, are based on CO2 junk science. 

(You can order the book by clicking the thumb nail cover on the left side of this page.)

Myth busting for fun and profit

Russ Steele

I just finished reading John Stossel’s Myths, Lies and Down Right Stupidity. Actually a more accurate descriptions would be I have finished perusing this interesting book, a compilation of myth busting stories that John produced for ABC’s 20/20.  It is easier to pick your subject, then read the myths that surround it rather than read cover to cover. Stossel’s format is to present the Myth, then offer his version of  the Truth for the reader to consider, backed up with direct quotes and a chapter of end notes.

Some of the subjects covered in twelve chapters:
Clueless Media (Yes)
He and She  (Since the beginning of time)
Bashing Business (Democrats will not like this chapter)
Monster Government (And we pay for this stupidity)
Stupid Schools (This is the scariest chapter)
Consumer Cons (Help for your pocket book)
The Lawsuit Racket (It is an industry)
Experts for Everything (Professional delusion)
The Power of Belief  (Global warming?)
Our Health (Mostly under our control)
Perils of Parenting (Tough job)
The Pursuit of Happiness (Being in control works)

While the subjects can be heavy, Stossel writes with a light humorous touch.  Myths, Lies and Downright Stupidity is a fun read, and you come away with a new appreciation for why we should question common wisdom. It is often wrong.

If you would like to order a copy online from Amazon, click on the image at the left.