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Democratic theory 101: there is a scientific sphere and a public sphere, and the two are by design separate and unequal. Scientists are supposed to produce grist for the deliberative mill, answering the objective questions “what’s going on” and “how certain are we that we’re right?” Then the public uses that information as part of a much messier debate over risk: “given the costs of action vs. the impact of inaction, how certain do we want scientists to be on this issue before we pass new legislation?” That’s the deal modern democracies have with scientific institutions.

It’s not the most empowering position for scientists to be in – they’d probably prefer to issue decrees directly – but that’s why we compensate them with tens of trillions in public money. It’s also not a perfect system, though it works well enough to balance nuclear meltdowns vs. necessary power production, epidemics vs. costly mass immunizations, and so on.

And it only works as long as scientists refrain from actively manipulating the public on legislative issues, either by working journalists or by pressuring lawmakers. The leaked emails and files from the Climatic Research Unit, at the UK’s University of East Anglia, show that’s exactly what AGW partisans have been doing. There has been a widespread and systematic breakdown in how climate researchers relate to the public that funds them and the media outlets that report on them.

This is a distinct issue from internal academic questions about shoddy research or contaminated peer review. Other posts have dealt with the damage that’s been to scientific practice. I should probably add that I think the “hide the decline” email is overblown, with the caveats that they lied about grafting real temps for years and that the true scandal is how they actually don’t know anything. Separately, there are credible legal accusations being raised.

In any case, what hasn’t been unpacked is how the AGW crowd systematically undermined public debate by framing their media messages to provoke unjustifiable anxiety (a “certainty” issue), manipulating media institutions to untenably emphasize or deemphasize findings (a “what’s going on” issue), and punishing scientists who strayed from the party line in media appearances. Climatologists could be model researchers and their shilling for prosperity-killing agreements and treaties would still be wildly inappropriate. That’s not the deal we have with these people.

If these emails came from the other side, lefty magazines and academic journals would be screaming about the catastrophic erosion of contemporary democratic institutions. And they’d be right.


(1) Message framing - Two PDFs from the file dump are particularly interesting here. The first is titled “The Rules Of The Game” (subtitle – really – “the game is communicating climate change; the rules will help us win it.”) It seems to be the product of several UK governmental and non-governmental organizations and it purports to present “the principles of climate change communication”. Which means that British taxpayers funded a project on how to manipulate themselves:

These principles were created as part of the UK Climate Change Communications Strategy, an evidence-based strategy aiming to change public attitudes towards climate change in the UK. This is a ’short version’ of a far longer document of evidence that can be found at www.defra.gov.uk. There is plenty of evidence relating to attitudes towards and behaviour on climate change, general environmental behaviour change and the whole issue of sustainable development communication… At first glance, some of the principles may seem counterintuitive to those who have been working on sustainable development or climate change communications for many years. Some confront dearly cherished beliefs about what works; a few even seem to attack the values or principles of sustainable development itself.

The content reads like a topline from a bunch of focus groups and surveys: gain frames vs. loss frames, limits on cognitive dissonance, importance of social learning, emphasis on emotions and visuals, etc. I do want to quote a few of the tips specifically because they speak to how climate scientists focus on public manipulation and policy outcomes:

Linking policy and communications. These principles clearly deserve a separate section. All the evidence is clear – sometimes aggressively so – that ‘communications in the absence of policy; will precipitate the failure of any climate change communications campaign right from the start: 10. Everyone must use a clear and consistent explanation of climate change… 11. Government policy and communications on climate change must be consistent Don’t ‘build in’ inconsistency and failure from the start. 16. Create a trusted, credible, recognised voice on climate change. We need trusted organisations and individuals that the media can call upon to explain the implications of climate change to the UK public.

The second PDF is what apparently emerged from these taxpayer-funded studies, a colorful pamphlet with lots of blue and green stock photography and kid-friendly fonts about climate change. From a sheer design perspective it’s hideous – clashing colors and an intentional gradeschool “cut and paste” look, etc. These are undergrad marketing tactics packaged by an amateur. But before you think that Brits overpaid so scientists could study how to manipulate them, consider the assurance that “we also have a brand that has been created for use on government climate change communications: ‘Tomorrow’s Climate Today’s Challenge’.” So it’s not like the money was totally wasted.

I was actually surprised to see that James Hansen from NASA didn’t appear more prominently in threads about message framing and media manipulation. Back in December 2005 he trotted out his “hidden tipping point” meme, suggesting that slow and adaptable observed warming was actually really fast. A month later the Washington Post declared on A1 that “[t]his ‘tipping point’ scenario has begun to consume many prominent researchers in the United States and abroad.” That was news to actual scientists – they had yet to commit their consuming interest to published research beyond three mentions in one paper – but it definitely sounded good. Really good in fact, almost as if Hansen had keyed into the phrase in consultation with scholars who study public scientific communication.

Hansen made sure “tipping point” appeared in his soundbites, in his Goddard press releases, and in the discussion sections of journal articles where science journalists go to learn what they’re supposed to write. And yet it shows up only once in all the CRU emails, as a Hansen quote in a huge article roundup. It’s almost as if Hansen’s colleagues don’t think the meme is defensible.

If there was a transcript of Hansen brushing off a peer reviewer who didn’t think “tipping point” was technically true, that would be really suggestive. If Hansen’s justification for lowering the scientific bar was to sell the public on AGW, that would be close to conclusive:

“Tipping point”, although objectionable to some scientists, conveys aspects of climate change that have been an impediment to public appreciation of the urgency of addressing human-caused global warming. It is a valid concept: as climate forcing and global warming increase, a point can be reached beyond which part of the climate system changes substantially with only small additional forcing.

Of course it’s a valid concept. It certainly might exist. The problem is that there’s insufficient data to indicate that it actually does exist. But apparently the drive to instill anxiety in the public was more important than the “objections” of “some scientists.” After all, those scientists didn’t even have Washington Post reporters in their Rolodex. So what good were they? Physicist Freeman Dyson on Hansen: “the person who is really responsible for this overestimate of global warming is Jim Hansen. He consistently exaggerates all the dangers… Hansen has turned his science into ideology.”

(2) Institutional manipulation - This category is a little tough to untangle from the message framing stuff – the whole point of framing is to ensure that alarmism gets public traction – but there’s a separate institutional element where climatologists play on journalism as an institution. I already flagged a little of that with how Hansen made sure “tipping point” would get picked up – talking points, journal discussion sections, and easily-quoted press releases. These all interact with how journalists do their work, combining the challenge of a complicated and politically charged subject with a hard print deadline. The proper crafting of press releases was apparently a consideration across the board, all the way down to PR layout:

From: Ben Santer – Peter Thorne suggested that it might be useful to delete the explicit reference to the UR/UAH group, and instead refer to the Douglass et al. IJoC paper in a footnote. After some internal debate, I have not done that. Anne Stark advised me that footnotes are not often used in press releases (they tend to get ignored by reporters). Furthermore, I couldn’t see an easy way of getting rid of the “UR/UAH” acronym, yet still making a clear distinction between their results and our results, their test and our test, etc., etc… please let me know as soon as possible if there’s anything you can’t live with in the press release.

Not that the attention to detail was really necessary. Per Phil Jones, AGW scientists have a well-oiled “publicity machine” at their disposal. In one thread Michael Mann – creator of the Hockey Stick curve – was organizing climatologists to push back against some inconvenient astronomical data. His plan involved “a piece… co-authored by 9 or so prominent members of the climate research community.” Chimed in Jones:

Count me in. I’ve forwarded you all the email comments I’ve sent to reporters/fellow scientists, so you’re fully aware of my views, which are essentially the same as all of the list and many others in paleo. EOS would get to most fellow scientists. As I said to you the other day, it is amazing how far and wide the SB pieces have managed to percolate. When it comes out I would hope that AGU/EOS ‘publicity machine’ will shout the message from rooftops everywhere. As many of us need to be available when it comes out.

(3) Intimidation of Journalists and Scientists - The CRU emails reveal an obsessive focus on media coverage that went all the way down to tracking individual journalists and scientists. The way individual scientists were publicly roughed up is more concerning than media manipulation, but just to give you an idea of the AGW media war room:

You may be aware of this already. Paul Hudson, BBC’s reporter on climate change, on Friday wrote that thereâs been no warming since 1998, and that pacific oscillations will force cooling for the next 20-30 years. It is not outrageously biased in presentation as are other skepticsâ views.

Mann:

Extremely disappointing to see something like this appear on BBC. its particularly odd, since climate is usually Richard Black’s beat at BBC (and he does a great job). from what I can tell, this guy was formerly a weather person at the Met Office. We may do something about this on RealClimate, but meanwhile it might be appropriate for the Met Office to have a say about this, I might ask Richard Black what’s up here?

That’s the same thread where someone later posted “the fact is that we can’t account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can’t,” which prompted a beatdown by Hansen coworker Gavin Schmidt, which in turn prompted a third scientist to weakly suggest: “I just think that you need to be up front with uncertainties and the possibility of compensating errors.” Apparently that’s not taken for granted in this community.

Throughout the emails Mann figures prominently as an enforcer, keeping everyone on message via various pleasantries and the opposite. One example: a paper that had first been very pro-AGW but had been changed after reviewer comments. You’d think bringing a paper in line with peer reviewers would be a good thing (certainly Mann’s paeans to the review process would suggest as much).

But not in this case. Media coverage in particular became an issue, prompting some faux hand wringing. Mann’s cartoonish mafioso-esque expressions of regret – “very disappointed indeed” and “you should have known better” – were a particularly nice touch. They give the feel that he’s shaking down a pawn shop owner who’s late on protection money, except in this case it’s a scientist who tried to produce the best work he could:

Sadly, your piece on the Esper et al paper is more flawed than even the paper itself. Ed, the AP release that appeared in the papers was even worse. Apparently
you allowed yourself to be quoted saying things that are inconsistent with what you told me you had said. You three all should have known better… This will be all be straightened out in due course. In the meantime, there is a lot of damage control that needs to be done and, in my opinion, you’ve done a disservice to the honest discussions we had all had in the past, because you’ve misrepresented the evidence. Many of us are very concerned with how Science dropped the ball as far as the review process on this paper was concerned.

… and …

I’m really sorry I couldn’t be more supportive of the final version of the manuscript… I was frankly very disappointed when I saw the final version–it is overwhelmingly different from the version you shared with us originally. Sadly, it seems to have suffered, and not benefited, from the review process–a very odd scenario. I fault the reviewers as much (in fact more) that I fault you for this… I’m trying to be as diplomatic as I can be in my discussions w/ reporters, etc. but I really wish you hadn’t sprung this on us w/ no warning of the dramatic changes that were made. I’m forced to be somewhat critical, because the flaws in some of your conclusions need to be pointed out, or they will be exploited by those w/ alterior motives. You certainly must have foreseen this, as must have the reviewers. I’m very disappointed, very disappointed indeed. I’m sharing my comments w/ Keith, Phil, Tim, Tom, Ray, and Malcolm. I am resisting the temptation to write a letter of response to Science, although my better judgement dictates that I should…

Once scientists shift from producing knowledge to circling the wagons in public against “those with alterior [sic] motives,” they’re no longer holding up their end of the science/public bargain. They’ve become an activist tribe. They might be a very impassioned activist tribe, but that doesn’t get them back to being good scientists.

That’s before we even get to the part where Mann might – or might not – have written a letter to Science. It’s really difficult to balance “presenting a united public front” with “engaging in scientific debate” but that’s not supposed to be a consideration for scientists.

References:
* Curry: On the credibility of climate research [Climate Audit]
* Willis Eschenbach’s FOI Request [Climate Audit]
* Data horribilia: the HARRY_READ_ME.txt file [Devil's Kitchen]
* Replicating the “Trick” Diagram [Climate Audit]
* The tipping point trend in climate change communication [Global Environmental Change]
* The Civil Heretic [NYT]

Related Mere Rhetoric Categories:
* Academia
* American Politics
* Democratic Politics