A Chemist in Langley

 I had a fascinating discussion today with an anonymous academic who reports himself (my bias? the commentor may be female but for the purposes of this discussion I will use male pronouns) as being “a professional and active scientist who teaches and carries out research at a university“. During the course of the discussion I was reminded about a very important difference between members of the academic community and those of us referred to as “professionals” in the private sector (ignoring tenure which is another kettle of wax). In the private sector, the use of the word “Professional” includes a requirement for a revocable professional designation.

For those of you not familiar with the topic let me provide some detail. I attended university, completed and successfully defended my thesis and was awarded a PhD. Once awarded a PhD, it is mine for life and can only be removed through processes that take the word “onerous” to another level. In essence a PhD is an irrevocable designation, and mine, regardless of any further achievements or infamies. The essentially irrevocable nature of a PhD makes it a pretty useless degree for compliance and regulatory purposes.

As described elsewhere, I have an Interdisciplinary PhD in Chemistry and Environmental Studies and an undergraduate degree in Biology and Chemistry. If, I meet someone on the street and they ask me what I do, based on my degrees I can reasonably refer to myself as a “chemist”, a “biologist” or an “environmental scientist” and not be too far off-side. However, in British Columbia (where I live and work) the College of Applied Biology Act reserves the right to award the titles “Professional Biologist” and “Registered Professional Biologist” to the College of Applied Biology (CAB). Similarly, the “right to title” for a “Professional Chemist” has been awarded to the Association of the Chemical Profession of British Columbia (ACPBC). If I were to try and sell my services as a Professional Biologist (R.P.Bio) or a Professional Chemist (P.Chem) without having been authorized by the CAB or ACPBC, respectively I could be prosecuted and risk serious legal and financial consequences. Under the Act, the CAB is a self-regulating body. As described by the College:

(s)elf-regulation requires the establishment of an organization, governed by elected members and supported by a professional staff complement, who set standards for entrance into the profession and for the conduct of members and their practice. Membership confers title and the status that the title affords. It is also an assurance of accountability to their peers and the public for their actions.

In order to become an R.P.Bio., I was required to demonstrate my professional qualifications via a process that examined my academic training, work experience and professional reporting. In order to maintain my status, I am required to meet a requirement to take ongoing ethics training and to read and understand the Code of Ethics for the College. On a yearly basis, I am required to demonstrate that I have met the College’s continued professional development requirements and attest that I have read, and agree to be governed by, our Code of Ethics. One component of the Code of Ethics is a proactive requirement to protect the reputation of the College. Of particular interest to my discussion is item 9 of the Code, which states that as an R.P.Bio, I:

(r)ecognize the duty to address poor conduct and/or practice of another member in order to protect the public interest, the profession, and the reputation of the College.

This proactive requirement means that not only am I accountable for my actions as an R.P.Bio (and as a P.Chem), I am also accountable for those of my peers. This positive obligation recognizes the fact that as an organization our reputation is only as good as the reputation of our ethically weakest members. A failure to maintain the highest ethical standards of the organization hurts not only the individual involved but every individual certified by the organization. As such a single ethical lapse can be enough to cause the loss of one’s professional designation and often one’s ability to earn a living. This is consistent with the expression: a chain is only as strong as its weakest link.

So how does this relate to my discussion? Well when I questioned the Physicist about hypothetical ethical lapses in his field, his responses were very telling:

Me: hypothetical question: How would you, in your peer community, address failings like those identified during “climategate”?

Me: because in my peer community we are governed by an enforceable code of ethics. To fail to meet the code results in expulsion

He… I’m not responsible for the behaviour of someone at a different university or from a different country.

Me: you are responsible for the behaviour of the members of your peer community. That is how Professional organizations work!

He: I don’t belong to a formal professional organization. That’s kind of the point I was getting at. So, no, I’m not responsible!

Me: That is where you are so wrong. You are part of a bigger more important organization. That of academic science.

Me: you are responsible for molding the minds of our next gen. and you appear to not understand the basic ethics of your calling

He: I’m neither a priest nor a politician.

Apparently, I had made two mistakes. My first mistake was to assume that when a scientist describes himself as a “professional” in his “About Me” that he/she might not actually be a “Professional” but simply someone who is paid to carry out a job. My second mistake was that until this discussion I had completely forgotten that academics can choose, if they wish, to live in an ethical void. Historically, academics considered themselves bound by the nature of the collegial endeavour. After all the etymology of the word “collegial” pretty much describes the behaviours one would expect from academics. Unfortunately, in recent years the bonds of collegiality have disappeared. There is no group capable of controlling the bad actors. I recognize that the limitations of the tenure system precludes enforcing ethical behaviours, but I am horrified to realize that for some modern academics what was once considered typical ethical behavior is now considered a thing reserved for a “priest or politician”. On a lighter note, I can’t help but notice that in a battle of ethics this academic views politicians as more ethical than academics?

Once again, I have written a long discussion and it appears to be hanging there, waiting for a conclusion. Well in this case the conclusion is simple. In a field where there is no mechanism (nor apparently desire) to enforce ethical behavior, no enforceable codes of ethics and no revocable professional designations it is contingent on outsiders to not blindly trust what you are told. In the wake of “Climategate” that chain I talked about earlier, appears to be mighty weak for some groups.

Please note, as, I have written elsewhere, two of the most ethical academics I have had the pleasure to work/study under are considered “climate scientists”. I also recognize that the vast majority of the community are highly ethical. I remain amazed, however, that bad actors in their midst can continue to behave like they have with so few repercussions.

As an addendum to my last post, I would like to remind readers to read what I write not what you want to believe I wrote. In my previous posting I was careful to not use the word sceptic (or skeptic) nor do I discuss any “skepticism” in the post. There is a good reason for that, it is simply because that is not what the posting was about. I deliberately chose the term “trust” in my discussion. I indicate that following “Climategate” I ceased to “trust” the actors involved. I no longer trusted that they had the best interests of the scientific endeavour in their minds. I am careful not to conflate “trust” and “skepticism”. Like all trained scientists, I try to maintain a healthy level of skepticism typical of scientific norms. Following “Climategate” I did not suddenly become “skeptical”, I specifically indicated that I became “less trusting”. I no longer “trust” that the actors involved are behaving in a manner consistent with the ideals of the scientific endeavour. This is not about skepticism, this is about trust.

In the comments section of an earlier posting I have been in discussion with a prominent former modeller (Dr. Michael Tobis) and the author of a blog on climate science (…and Then There’s Physics). My initial posting included the following line

The show me crowd looks at the “good science” and points out that many historical predictions of doom and gloom (that previously met the test of good science) have been shown to be overheated or just plain wrong.

Dr. Tobis responded by suggesting that:

I read the assertion implictly as a claim that **formal predictions** were made by in **peer reviewed articles** regarding **physical climatology** climate that have **proven false** [his emphasis].

In reading his words I can see that my language could have been cleaner in that it could be inferred that the “doom and gloom” refers only to the very distinct field of climate modelling rather than to my intended target, the more generalized field of activist scientists who have made a living predicting doom and gloom in the climate and/or human ecology fields. I am talking about well-known scientists like Dr. Paul Ehrlich who has made a career of predicting disaster 10 -15 years down the road. For a really detailed look at the general condition, I can recommend two truly excellent books by a Canadian journalist with a strongly scientific bent named Dan Gardner. His two books Future Babble: Why Expert Predictions Fail – and Why We Believe Them Anyway and Risk: The Science and Politics of Fear are must reading for anyone interested in science policy and how we currently communicate science and complexity to the public. Both emphasize how important it is not to torque your message if you want an effective long-term (rather than immediate and temporary) response.

So you may ask why I concern myself with the failure of good scientists to renounce bad behaviours by activist scientists and to correct poor messaging? Well on a personal level, it is what drove me away from a trust in the peer reviewed science to my currently more nuanced (read less-trusting) mode. Essentially it was responsible for my transition from the community of “trust me” to the community of “show me”.

To recount my personal journey we start with me in the early 1990’s when I was a firmly in the “trust me” camp with regards to the field of climate change. As I have mentioned elsewhere, while a graduate student I was required to take courses in the School of Earth and Ocean Sciences at the University of Victoria. Due to their location on campus (at that time they still did not have offices on the campus proper but rather outside the main science block) I was temporarily assigned desk space in an office area shared with the grad students and post-docs working on one of the first generation climate models. I drank coffee with them, drank beer with them and listened as they worked out how to take complex natural systems and convert them to computer code. This was in the mid 1990s when computer power and memory were at a premium and the models were necessarily primitive. I was impressed by the dedication and intelligence of the people working in the field. While there the professors I met were of the highest quality and unimpeachably ethical (and to my mind still are). Meanwhile in my home department I watched my professors diligently working on their role as peer-reviewers. Each peer-review took hours and showed a dedication to an unpaid and unheralded task that I found noble.

My doubts, like those of many of my colleagues, were sown in the fall of 2009 with the release of the “Climategate” emails. Like many of my colleagues I was intrigued by their release and read avidly about and into them. The best analogy I can see for before and after the Climategate email release is the perception, through the course of the movie, of the character of the Wizard from the Wizard of Oz. At the start of the movie the Wizard is a glorious figure, trusted by all and believed to be virtually omnipotent and working for the good of the people of Oz. Based on their faith in his wisdom and honour, Dorothy and her friends were willing to go on a perilous quest and take ridiculous risks. It was only when Toto pulled back the curtain to reveal the real Wizard that impressions changed. The Wizard went from being a mystical demi-god to a badly flawed man, certainly skilled and knowledgeable in his way, but flawed and human after all. At first the viewer is angered by the flaws in the Wizard and that he put the characters through such terrible ordeals for no real reason. But by the end of the film the Wizard is, to some extent, redeemed. At the conclusion he is viewed as a flawed man, no better than any other and no worse than many. Most importantly, the story taught viewers not to trust the voice from on high but to look for the man in the corner speaking into the microphone.

So how are the two related? Well I am not going to discuss “Mike’s Nature Trick” or “hide the decline” or any of the other catch-phrases that can be argued about based on their context. Rather what got to me were the (in my opinion) egregious examples of behaviour outside the norms of science:

I can’t see either of these papers being in the next IPCC report. Kevin and I will keep them out somehow – even if we have to redefine what the peer-review literature is!

If they ever hear there is a Freedom of Information Act now in the UK, I think I’ll delete the file rather than send to anyone.

Can you delete any emails you may have had with Keith re AR4? Keith will do likewise.

and the general attempt get Chris de Freitas fired from his position at the University of Auckland.

These behaviours struck at the very core of my ideas of “good science”, where information is shared, colleagues are collegial, replication is the goal and the drive exists for incremental improvements on the knowledge-base by building on the works of others. This release was a seminal moment for the burgeoning climate field and an opportunity for the leaders of the field to demonstrate their mettle. Unfortunately, instead of renouncing the bad behaviour, they ignored it, made excuses for it or condemned Toto for pulling open the curtain. I cannot condone the actions of “the hacker” but it is not possible to go back to before the curtain was opened and Oz revealed. To completely mash up my analogies, much like Nixon at Watergate, the actions of the small number of miscreants named in the Climategate emails didn’t crush my faith in the system of “good science”; rather the attempt to cover-up their actions by the people, most trusted with protecting the integrity of the system, was what drove me fully into the “show me” community.

Having seen behind the curtain, my innocence has been lost and I no longer accept appeals to authority in this field. I need to be convinced every time a new paper comes out and that convincing means releasing enough information so that work can be replicated. What seems unclear to good people like Dr. Tobis and …and Then There’s Physics is that the only way to recover from a hit like the Climategate emails is to be cleaner than clean. To form a truth and reconciliation committee to clean out the bad and highlight the good work that has been, and is being, done. Instead, the bright lights in the field have doubled-down on their bad behaviours. A prominent scientist call his academic colleagues “anti-science” and “delayers” and I read not one person challenging him on it? I hear a lot of people say that “Climategate was in 2009″ and it is time to “get over it”. But it is hard to get over something that the perpetrators won’t even admit took place? A faith once lost is hard to find again and the leaders of this field have done nothing to help me regain my faith.

Those of you who have been following me from the beginning know that this is not a climate science blog. To this point most of my posts have involved energy use, energy supply and renewable energy. I started this blog because of an interest in the battles in my home province of British Columbia over how (and whether) we should be transporting oil (and bitumen). I acknowledged that in order for our system to continue we need to maintain a supply of hydrocarbons for industrial and energy uses and my primary concerns were the environmental consequences of differing modes of transporting those hydrocarbons to market. I, personally, maintain a strong interest in weaning our system off fossil fuels. Firstly, because fossil fuels represent too valuable a resource to waste as energy sources when alternatives exist and secondly because while I am a “lukewamer”, I acknowledge that I might be wrong. If we can come up with a way to reduce our carbon footprint without starving or freezing a substantial proportion of our population then that would seem to be a win-win scenario.

My blog evolved through online discussions with what I describe as “science-blind” activists who informed me that renewable energy sources represented a magic bullet. In my next posts, I described the strengths, and particularly the concerns, associated with various renewable energy technologies. My intention was to explain why these technologies don’t actually represent magic bullets. I pointed out that political intransigence is strangling geothermal power in BC. That by out-sourcing our rare earth metal needs we were failing in our global environmental responsibilities. That in some cases biofuels might actually be worse for the environment than fossil fuels. My emphasis has been to demonstrate that in order to advance the development of renewable energies we need to make compromises.

My blog was initially intended to serve as a sounding board and an information hub to encourage discussion and that being said I figure I should continue the task, this time by clarifying some further misconceptions about the two most popular “memes” in the climate debate:  the “pause” and the “warmest year”. What a lot of my non-climate science readers may not understand is that these two climate memes are not mutually exclusive, both can be, and appear to be, applicable at the same time. As an analogy imagine humanity is my family having a picnic in a northern park. Anthropogenic global warming meanwhile is a very large dog that my family sees walking towards the picnic. The family watches the dog as it advances but after a while the dog appears to stop, lay down and appears to take a nap. The dog is no longer moving towards us, he has “paused” his advance. However, the dog is much closer to us than before, in fact he is the “closest” (warmest year) to us he has ever been.

Now my family is a bit of a mixed bag, which is why I chose this analogy. My eldest daughter is terrified of dogs so at this point she would be staring at the dog in horror sure that any second it was going to wake with a start and come tearing at her with the sole intention of ripping her to pieces. In this case she is our “alarmist”. My younger daughter is indifferent to dogs and as long as she has a doll in her hands would not even notice the dog. She also doesn’t really care what goes on in the minds of dogs and would assume that when the dog wakes up it will do what it wants and most likely wander away. In this analogy she is our “sceptic” (Author’s note, I despise the term denier due to its obvious link to Holocaust denial and so in this analogy use the term sceptic for people who do not accept the premise of AGW). My son recognizes that dogs will swipe food from picnics but he also knows that most dogs are trained and he is sure he can handle the dog, should it wake up, and continue its advance. The dog will probably end up costing us some sandwiches and will want a place on our blanket but a little dog fur won’t ruin his day and he is willing to give up some food rather than abandoning a perfectly good picnic. He is our lukewarmer (not the perfect analogy but play along). My wife knows a lot about dogs. She knows which breeds are more dangerous than others and that some dogs are good some dogs are bad. She got a good enough view to see that it was a big dog and figures it is some form of husky-mix but knows that we are camping in an area frequented by wolves. She thinks that at best this dog is going to ruin our picnic (since it has already terrified one child) and at worst (if it is a wolf) it could seriously hurt or kill a family member. That makes her our “warmist”. For the purpose of this scenario I end up representing the policy-maker. I was too busy setting up the picnic to look around and so did not notice as the dog was approaching and can only see what appears to be a bundle of fur asleep in the grass.

So what do I do? My eldest daughter thinks we have a dire-wolf on our hands and that we should abandon everything and run for our lives even if it means leaving our picnic (and frankly her sister) behind in the rush. My younger daughter thinks we are wasting her time and that she would really like a glass of milk. My son says that it is not a big deal, the dog could sleep all day or even if it wakes up we can mitigate the problem by offering the dog a sandwich and adapt to having it around. My wife is pretty unhappy that we are ignoring her concerns. Things are already problematic (as we have a terrified daughter ruining the picnic) and if the dog does wake and it is hungry then at best it is going to want a lot more than a sandwich and if it is a wolf then we are in serious trouble. As a policy-maker I can’t ignore a terrified child but getting this picnic set up took a lot of planning and preparation and eventually everyone is going to need to eat. I certainly can’t ignore the person most able to judge the risks (my wife) but I also know that my son has a way with dogs. Moreover, there is a chance that if it sleeps long enough we can have our meal, clean up and be on our way before it becomes an issue? So I ask again what am I to do?

So if you have read this far, I’m going to guess that you think I have the answer to this problem. Unfortunately, I do not. Like many observers the only thing I know for sure is that the two extreme choices are likely the most wrong. The suggestion of the activists, like 350.org, that we essentially abandon fossil fuels immediately will cause real, immediate harm to real people both in the developed and the developing world and will cause untold harm to our natural environment. The suggestion that we ignore the problem is not an option, at least for me. My belief that Tyndall gases have an effect on the environment forces me to recognize that a laissez-faire attitude won’t cut it as well. As an observer of policy and politics, I can also suggest that any heavy-handed program run by national governments (or worse yet by pan-governmental organizations) will fail. I really think this is a “think globally act locally” sort of problem. The free market needs to be involved with incentives from government but government by decree will not get the job done.

In BC, I see us moving towards an emphasis on more geothermal and run-of-the-river power projects while using monies from our existing carbon tax to fund research into ways to move our vehicle fleets off fossil fuels.  I leave it up to my economist friends to tell me if there is a method better than a carbon tax to acknowledge the environmental costs that our carbon-dominated energy places on our planet. In other parts of the world the mix will likely include more solar and nuclear energy (an energy source I feel has been unfairly maligned). In the transition, I ask readers not to ignore the costs of renewable to the environment. Most importantly, I implore readers not to off-shore the environmental costs of your energy needs onto economies and environments that cannot handle those costs. If you want renewable energy technologies then it is contingent on you to take on the environmental challenges associated with all phases of the energy generation process, from mining and refining the natural resources to building and housing the generation units. We live on one planet and cannot destroy one part of the planet (and its peoples) in order to make it easier on ourselves.

Author’s Note: This post represents a follow-up to an earlier post on Type I and Type II Error Avoidance and its Possible Role in the Climate Change Debate. For those of you returning to this posting you will note that I have removed several technical paragraphs discussing Type I and Type II errors. In the comments thread, here and elsewhere, it has been pointed out that the introduction was overlong, potentially had issues and most importantly distracted from the topic at hand. The critical point being made was simply that Type I and Type II errors do not operate strictly in an “or” relationship because they address different hypotheses (null versus alternative) and that the tools used to avoid making Type I and Type II errors differ significantly.

The tools used in Type I error avoidance are centered around an understanding of the nature and characteristics of the populations under study and a general acceptance (by the scientific community) of what represents an acceptable risk of making an error with respect to hypotheses about those populations. The current gold standard in science is the 95% confidence level with a p-value of 0.05. In order to derive an acceptable p-value, certain characteristic of the population must be understood. Is the population best described using the normal distribution? the lognormal distribution? is the population dynamic insufficiently well understood that nonparametric statistics are necessary to generate a p-value? I know at this point of the discussion my statistician friends are pretty much writhing on the floor in agony and for that I apologize. The details of how statisticians evaluate populations involve mathematics that make my eyes bleed and for the purposes of this blog posting are excessive to the task.

The tools of Type II error avoidance are less well-refined (but are getting better every day). They depend more on process knowledge which can include providing a clearer separation between the null and alternative hypotheses and improving our understanding of the nature of the distribution that is being tested. Lacking good process knowledge an increase in sample size will increase the power of an analysis. In order to avoid a Type II error one needs to understand the nature of the problem being investigated and must have developed some reasonable body of process knowledge that allows one to be sure one is looking in the right places. Lacking detailed process knowledge Type II error avoidance depends on the brute force of replication and increased sampling density. As an analogy to my business, while not pretty, if you punch enough holes in the ground you can pretty much find any contamination that is out there.

So how does this explanation relate to my original thesis? It comes down to the nature of the communities under discussion. My initial hypothesis was not about how hypotheses are tested but rather about the nature of individuals who live and work in a world where the differing modes of error avoidance dominate risk-evaluation and resource allocation decisions.

As noted previously, the scientifically acceptable p-value is a feature of a scientific consensus. It involves a degree of cooperation and acceptance of scientific norms that is a part of the DNA of the academic community. In the general academic community there is an inherent trust in the process. Academics trust that the scientific process, when carried out according to the norms of science, will result in the most reliable outcome/predictions. Perfection is not possible but once you reach a certain level of certainty, perfection is not necessary. This level of internal trust (trust that has been tested through peer review) results in a habit of trusting in a group consensus and, some might argue, insular thinking. It unfortunately also can accommodate individuals who take on the mantle of authority from the group to make predictions, even when the predictions may not be fully supported by the findings of the group. In essence the group will often protect their own and keep their arguments behind closed doors (or between the editor and writer). I readily admit that I am painting with a very broad brush and there are mavericks in every group but my observations are based on general characteristics of the community.

Sceptics, on the other hand, work on the underlying Type II error avoidance ethos that says that until you have a good grasp of process knowledge then you had better have a lot of data to back up your pronouncements. They are averse to trusting any process where they cannot see the sausages being made. They need to be able to test the ingredients and even then will want to evaluate the outputs. They view global climate models as “black boxes” into which data are fed and out of which predictions are made. Not being able to assess the contents of the black boxes they demand “more data” in the form of outputs that reflect actual conditions in the world. As we know, in the recent past the models’ predictions have been on increasingly shaky ground. This has triggered a risk-aversion response in the Type II community to ask for the collection of more data and not to act precipitously.

A colleague at work describes the difference as roughly the “trust me crowd” versus the “show me crowd”. The trust me crowd can show that some anthropogenic climate change has happened in the past and that models suggest that future conditions are going to get worse. They produce their documentation via the peer reviewed press and in doing so address all the touchstones of the scientific method. Having met the high bar of “good science” they anticipate that their word will be taken as good.

The show me crowd looks at the “good science” and points out that many historical predictions of doom and gloom (that previously met the test of good science) have been shown to be overheated or just plain wrong. They also point out that the best models have not done a very good job with respect to the “pause”. Given this they ask for a demonstration that the next prediction is going to be better than the last one. This does not mean that they deny the reality of anthropogenic global warming. Rather they are not comfortable with cataclysmic predictions and calls for immediate action prior to a demonstration that those predictions can be supported with something approaching real data.

So once again it comes down to communication. The groups have to step out of their comfort zones and start re-learning how to communicate with each other. Warmists have to emerge from their back rooms and acknowledge publicly what they have been acknowledging privately all along. That these predictions represent just that: predictions. The best predictions possible given the limitations of the system and tools available, but not the certain outcomes suggested by many. They have to make a case why in a world with finite resources, that substantial resources should be allocated to prevent low-probability, high-cost outcomes. Sceptics on the other hand have to trust that fairly reasonable predictions can be made of a complex and chaotic system. They have to listen to the case made by the warmists and maybe even give them the benefit of the doubt. Having read the comments at a number of blogs, that last part may well be the hardest but it is necessary if we are going to re-establish a reasonable dialogue and seek to address this impasse.

As I mention in my “about me” section, I have been reading the climate change literature since the early 1990’s. In doing so I have developed my personal views on the topic that are loosely defined as those of a “lukewarmer”. It has been pointed out to me that my definition may miss a large community of lukewarmers but that is the source material for a whole new post. Instead, having worked both in the academic sector and the private sector (for both communities so to speak) I would like to write today about the divide between the skeptical community (mostly made up of engineers and non-academic scientists) and the warmists (primarily made up of academic scientists). I am deliberately not addressing activists for either side as their motivations are not cogent to this discussion. In this post I will consider whether cultural tendencies associated with efforts to avoid Type I versus Type II errors might be a consideration in this inability to communicate effectively.

For those of you who are not familiar with the language, science identifies two major potential types of errors (okay there are at least three types but I will not go that deep today). A Type I error, which represents a false positive, involves claiming that an observed hypothesis is correct, when in reality it is false. A Type II error, which represents a false negative, involves claiming that an observed hypothesis is incorrect when it is actually correct. In my opinion, the best visualization of the difference between the two is this graphic: (which I have seen in numerous locations and whose origin I have been unable to confirm although I believe it comes from the “Effect Size FAQ“).

In the academic community a Type I error is a very big deal. Making an incorrect claim is the sort of thing that gets academics in very hot water. A Type I error leads to retractions of academic papers and a significant loss of prestige. As a consequence, the academic community has developed an extremely detailed process to avoid Type I errors involving confidence limits, acceptable p-values, peer review etc.. In the academic community a Type II error is by far less an important concern. Since science is theoretically a collegial affair (many colleagues are working on similar problems at the same time) all a Type II error represents is that you didn’t identify the effect “this time” which means you still have another shot tomorrow, no mess no worry.

In the private sector, it is almost completely reversed. Consider my personal area of expertise “contaminated sites”. If I am leading an investigation at a contaminated site and make a Type I error, all that means is that I have inferred the presence of contamination where it doesn’t actually exist. The outcome of this error involves the need for further investigation to characterize and/or delineate the contamination. The further work will either confirm the contamination exists or provide further data to rule it out. This may entail some additional cost, and if wrong some minor loss of face, but it is not the sort of thing that gets one fired (if it is an isolated event). A false negative, on the other hand, is a much more serious issue as private sector scientists typically work in smaller groups with less cooperation within the wider community on individual project (there is limited oversight due to the the limited scopes of the problems and issues around sharing of proprietary information). Thus errors are less likely to be caught before the consequences become critical.

Imagine telling a property owner that a property is clean when it isn’t. The owner, acting on your advice, then sells the property to be developed for another use. If, in the course of the development, the contamination is found then the development stops. The new owner will need to clean the contamination and the costs associated with the clean-up and delays in the development (mortgage cost, permitting, subcontractor costs, etc..) will get passed on to your client. Lawsuits almost always ensue and someone (usually the consultant who missed the contamination) is going to pay a heavy cost. An even worse scenario happens if the contamination is not uncovered until after the development has been built because then human and ecological health could be put at risk. The term “Love Canal“, or some similar local example, is burned in the memory of every environmental consultant early in their careers to avoid any repeats. The only effective ways to avoid Type II errors consists of either increasing your sampling data density or developing additional “process knowledge”. Process knowledge in this case is an understanding of the sources of the contamination and the processes that govern the movement of the contaminants in the subsurface. Without detailed process knowledge (or a good conceptual site plan) an effective investigation plan cannot be accomplished.

So why is this difference important? Well as discussed, the vast majority of the warmist community have a worldview that stresses Type I error avoidance while most skeptics work in a community that stresses Type II error avoidance. Skeptics look at the global climate models and note that the models have a real difficulty in making accurate predictions. To explain, global climate models are complex computer programs filled with calculations based on science’s best understanding of climate processes (geochemistry, global circulation patterns etc) with best guesses used to address holes in the knowledge base. The models are “trained” by looking at historical data and seeing whether they can replicate what has occurred in the past. In a simplistic description they are trained to interpolate data and once they get good enough at interpolating data they are then used to extrapolate future conditions. Since the global climate models are works in progress they still do not do a great job at extrapolating, yet. In particular, these models have failed to predict the “pause” in the surface temperature data that has lasted for (depending with whom you talk) somewhere around 15 – 18 years. Essentially the model predictions and the measured temperatures have diverged.

Skeptics see the poor extrapolations and suggest a need to refine the models to address the divergence. From a Type II error avoidance viewpoint, given the relatively poor quality of the model predictions, putting limited resources into addressing potentially faulty predictions seems like a poor choice. Instead, resources should be allocated to improving the models and any additional monies spent on other “demonstrably real” problems out in the world. Warmists, on the other hand, point out that the models are the best tools we have to date and to ignore their predictions, just because they are imperfect, is a big mistake. Warmists point out there is a real risk that a lack of action now could result in a low-probability, high-cost outcome (a fat tail on the uncertainty distribution of the outcomes). So monies should be spent on avoidance immediately while we continue to refine the models.

So where are we today? In 1990’s parlance, skeptics are from Mars and warmists are from Venus. Like in the book, the two sides are not speaking to each other but rather are speaking past each other. Until the two communities can learn to speak each other’s language and acknowledge the underlying differences, but ultimate validity, in both world views, we are not going to advance the discussion. The frustrating part, from someone who has worked on both sides of this intellectual chasm, is that neither side is “wrong”. Each lives in a world where risk avoidance decisions are made and feel their approach is “right”. We need to develop a “consensus” that acknowledges that both sides have legitimate concerns and that any acceptable compromise has to recognize the validity of differing points of view.