From: tobis@skool.ssec.wisc.edu (Michael Tobis)
Newsgroups: sci.environment,talk.environment
Subject: Re: Bad science
Date: 15 Dec 92 22:34:24 GMT
Organization: how do I change the default for this field?

In article <1992Dec15.195331.16086@vexcel.com>, dean@vexcel.com (Dean Alaska) writes:
|> Since it has been popular recently ti disparage environmentalists for
|> occasional misinformation that they spread, I thought I would include
|> the following article that appeared in the 12-15-92 edition of the
|> Rocky Mountain News on the editorial page:
|> 
|> 	Three thousand years before Christ, the saplings of
|> 	bristlecone pines poked through the earth and began 
|> 	recording what would become 5,000 years of climatic
|> 	changes.  In studying these trees, University of
|> 	Arizona scientists have detected no fatter outer
|> 	rings that would inevitable announce the so-called
|> 	greenhouse effect.

Well, apparently there _is_ a recent U AZ project that explicitly addresses
the question. This at least takes some of the heat off Austin @ csu-pomona.

I would still very much like to know who did the study and what they
actually concluded. The press habitually mixes up "no evidence for A"
with "evidence for not A", with A in this case being global warming. It is
entirely possible that one of the participants in the study feels that "not A"
and is pitching this angle to the press with carefully chosen words that
the press proceeds to garble. I've seen this phenomenon before.. Did the News 
mention a name or a journal for the actual study? (wishful thinking) 

I'd like to see this study since it seems it is going to be much quoted
in the debate. I certainly don't wnat to dismiss its findings, if at all,
before I know what they actually are and how they were obtained.

In particular I'd like to know whether the word "inevitabl[y]" came from
the newspaper or the researchers. I rather doubt it's the latter! Scientists
rarely use that word in public! 
 
|> 	The findings of UA`s Laboratory of Tree Rings Research
|> 	will hardly shake up most climatologists: Only one in six
|> 	accepts the apolcalyptic version of global warming.  But
|> 	pity true-believing environmentalists, the oft-mocked
|> 	"tree-huggers."  One of their major tenets is weaker than
|> 	before, thanks to the perfidy of the pine.
 
|> The subject of the applicability of a limited study of trees
|> has been thoroughly addressed in sci.env recently and the study
|> posted here a while back by Michael Tobis shows that their beliefs
|> on the opinions of climatologists is wrong (though I am not sure
|> what "apocalyptic version" they are referring to).

Of course, defining "apocalyptic version" as the version so pessimistic
that it exceeds the expectations of five sixths of all climatologists
is sufficient to guarantee that the statement is true. But really this
latter paragraph if quoted correctly and without omission constitutes an
unwarranted and irresponsible slanting of the views of the climatological
community.

And I for one am very irritated by this "true-believer" label that
someone has been spreading to journalists. I hardly think that the
law of energy conservation is particularly superstitious or irrational,
and that, rather than models or historical data or superstition is the real 
basis of the concern. The exact sensitivity of global mean surface temperature
to greenhouse gas perturbations is a scientific issue of considerable
practical importance. The tendency of the press to garble it into a question
of "belief" or "non-belief" as if it were a question of faith with only
two conceivable answers is both ignorant and insulting. (imho of course)

Can someone, maybe at Arizona, dig up a reference or a name or
an email address for these Tree Rings Research folks? Respond by email,
please to above (new) address or tobis@meteor.wisc.edu .

mt