At the Experimental Aircraft Association "Airventure" in Oshkosh on 29 July 2009 and 01 Aug 2009, aerospace engineer and X Prize winner Burt Rutan gave a presentation on the Anthropogenic Global Warming "hoax". It's available at http://rps3.com/Files/AGW/Rutan.AGWdataAnalysis%20v11.pdf. It's full of the usual climate change denialist nonsense.
The first part of the presentation lays out Rutan's qualifications. I won't challenge those. (Likewise, I will not challenge his ad-hominem attacks on professional climate scientists, his love affair with the petroleum industry, his lies about meteorologists, and even his nonsense about the ozone hole being a hoax.) I will challenge his statements where they are in error, I will argue with his interpretations where his facts are correct and I will point out his "selective use" of facts in the climate change debate.
What is astonishing is that he attacks the "cherry picking" of data by climate scientists, yet never cites his sources or methods.
What follows are links to pages on "How to Talk to a Climate Skeptic", a set of tutorials created by professional climate scientists which demolish each of his arguments one by one. For each slide where he makes one of the usual arguments, I'll provide the link to the refutation by climate scientists. You should read his presentation, and then the data in the links.
I don't mean to belittle Rutan, but he's clearly out of his depth here and relying on arguments which have been refuted for years. It's common for experts in one field to think that carries over to other fields.
There are climate scientists who have made searching for the truth their life's work. Who have been giving each a hard time about the data and its interpretation for the last hundred years, ever since "Svante Arrhenius first calculated that emissions from human industry might someday bring a global warming".
When the fate of the planet is at stake, I'll go with them.
The first part of the presentation lays out Rutan's qualifications. I won't challenge those. (Likewise, I will not challenge his ad-hominem attacks on professional climate scientists, his love affair with the petroleum industry, his lies about meteorologists, and even his nonsense about the ozone hole being a hoax.) I will challenge his statements where they are in error, I will argue with his interpretations where his facts are correct and I will point out his "selective use" of facts in the climate change debate.
What is astonishing is that he attacks the "cherry picking" of data by climate scientists, yet never cites his sources or methods.
What follows are links to pages on "How to Talk to a Climate Skeptic", a set of tutorials created by professional climate scientists which demolish each of his arguments one by one. For each slide where he makes one of the usual arguments, I'll provide the link to the refutation by climate scientists. You should read his presentation, and then the data in the links.
- Pages 15-16. "Natural emissions dwarf humans" (I would gladly show him how compound interest works, but I'll do it in a way that hits home. Please, Mr. Rutan, give me 3.42% of 3.62% of your income, increasing as we increase emissions on a compound basis for the next 100 years!)
- Pages 17-18. The argument here is twofold: "There is no correlation between CO2 and temperature" and "Geological history doesn't support CO2's importance." He mentions that we're close to the level 300M years ago. He neglects to mention that CO2 levels have not had this rate of increase, or been at this level, while humans have tried to scratch out a living on this planet. We don't know how to live in any other kind of climate.
- Pages 19-20. "Manipulation of CO2 data" I suppose this is also covered by "CO2 is a fertilizer." There's also a more recent "controversy" on this which was answered quite nicely by the Real Climate folks.
- Pages 21-22. "Temperature correlates with sun". This is also called the "solar forcing" argument.
- Pages 23-24. "It was Warmer During the Holocene Climate Optimum", "The Medieval Warm Period was just as warm as today", and "It was so warm 1000 years ago, Greenland was actually green". And if you're interested in what the Younger Dryas is, try Greg Laden's great explanation.
- Pages 25-26. As stated before, the medieval warming never happened. He's also playing with data here, covered by "One Hundred Years is not Enough".
- Pages 27-28. This is addressed by "There are problems with the temperature records" His statement about James "Hanson" falsifying data is just flat-out untrue, as Hansen himself explained. There's a very detailed analysis of the measurement glitch by the guy who discovered it. Rutan doesn't have enough of a commitment to accuracy or proofreading ability to even spell Hansen's name correctly.
- Pages 29-30. Pretty much a detailed ad-hominem attack on Jim Hansen. But it's full of lies. Jim Hansen did not call for the jailing of climate change skeptics. (Maybe this "Hanson" fellow that Rutan keeps referring to did.) Harrison Schmitt's degree is in geology, not in climate science. What industry do geologists usually work in...I wonder? I could equally--and as relevantly--cite Buzz Aldrin, the second man on the moon, who supports the Planetary Society's roadmap that Schmitt quit over. Rutan, if you're saying that only "Scientists" (your capitalization) have credibility, you miss one thing. You're not a "Scientist". Why should I believe you? Credentialism goes both ways. And, lastly, saying that it cooled in 2008 means you just don't understand what "climate" is.
- Pages 31-32. As stated before, the medieval warming never happened. And, since he's impugning the Hockey Stick by name, I should include "The Hockey Stick is Broken"
I don't mean to belittle Rutan, but he's clearly out of his depth here and relying on arguments which have been refuted for years. It's common for experts in one field to think that carries over to other fields.
There are climate scientists who have made searching for the truth their life's work. Who have been giving each a hard time about the data and its interpretation for the last hundred years, ever since "Svante Arrhenius first calculated that emissions from human industry might someday bring a global warming".
When the fate of the planet is at stake, I'll go with them.
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3 comments:
It seems like the people (like me) who always have the hardest time just accepting the point of view that Anthropogenic Global Warming is a serious problem are usually people trainined in statistics. When we things like a hokey stick, we tend to want to know a good deal more about the data in question. When we look into it sometimes we fnd things that don't make sense about the way the data was collected or analyzed. It doesn't make us "deniers" it makes us (rightfully so) skeptical.
I was trained as a physicist and as an engineer. I still have my copy of Bevington, the standard data analysis manual. I would suppose that as a "working scientist" for a few years I can claim as much credential hoo-hah as you can.
But that's besides the point. Look at the one thing you posted in your blog, the criticism of the tree ring data. A statistical argument demolished over at Real Climate.
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/09/hey-ya-mal/comment-page-2/
If this doesn't mirror the evolution denialism debate, I'm a monkey's uncle.
By the way, did you know the ACC denialism was first funded by the tobacco industry in an attempt to destroy the reputation of legitimate science in one area so they could attack the science linking tobacco with cancer? It's true...... Read More
http://onthemedia.org/yore/transcripts/transcripts_092906_d.html
You have been manipulated by a cynical and well-funded media campaign which put the profits of tobacco companies ahead of the welfare of the planet.
I don't know what else you've written, but I just became a huge fan of your blog. Came across this researching Ratan for a Tedx talk I'll be giving in a week. I was disappointed that such a brilliant guy could so easily fall for the same old denier nonsense.
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