Talk:Patrick Michaels
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Michaels open letter re Tom Wigley
[edit]Michaels has published an [1] open letter in Forbes magazine, to the director of NCAR regarding an email from Tom Wigley, which alleges that Michaels Ph.D. work was defective Here is part of Michaels' letter:
- The revoking of my doctorate, the clear objective of Tom’s email, is the professional equivalent of the death penalty. I think it needs to be brought to your attention, because the basic premise underlying his machinations is patently and completely false. Dr Wigley is known as a careful scientist, but he certainly was careless here.
- The global circulation of this email has caused unknown damage to my reputation. Also, please note that all communications from Dr. Wigley to his colleagues on this matter were on the NCAR/UCAR server.
- The relevant email was sent to Rick Piltz, a UCAR employee at the time, and copied to Michael E. Mann, Pennsylvania State University, James Hansen and Gavin Schmidt, NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, Benjamin Santer, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory,the late Stephen Schneider, Stanford University, and several other very prominent climate scientists. The influence of these individuals is manifest and evidence of a very serious attempt to destroy my credential.
Michaels includes the text of Wigly's email, released recently in Climategate 2. It seems to me that mention of this should be made in Michael's bio. --Pete Tillman (talk) 23:55, 2 December 2011 (UTC)
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BLP noticeboard
[edit]Section = 109 BLP articles labelled "Climate Change Deniers" all at once. This article was placed in a "climate change deniers" category. After discussion on WP:BLPN and WP:CFD the category was deleted. Peter Gulutzan (talk) 17:05, 20 December 2015 (UTC)
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Assessment comment
[edit]The comment(s) below were originally left at Talk:Patrick Michaels/Comments, and are posted here for posterity. Following several discussions in past years, these subpages are now deprecated. The comments may be irrelevant or outdated; if so, please feel free to remove this section.
This article is extremely biased and partizan. |
Last edited at 14:45, 18 September 2006 (UTC). Substituted at 02:23, 30 April 2016 (UTC)
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Nuccitelli contributor status?
[edit]Hi PackMecEng The suggestion for stronger sourcing on this term seems very reasonable, and I see my error on the Huffpost source. However, I'd like to clarify your edit summary. It's unclear to me that Nuccitelli is a contributor. The RSP entry says to look for a "blogpost" tag on the article, which the Guardian article doesn't have, and doesn't mention anything about contributors. Is there something I am missing? Jlevi (talk) 00:12, 27 April 2020 (UTC)
- I was going by his description on Amazon here where he is described as
climate blogger for The Guardian
. Also other writers for the Guardian in Climate change list if they are, for example this but they did not list him working for them on his about page. PackMecEng (talk) 00:56, 27 April 2020 (UTC) - PackMecEng was right. Climate consensus 97 per cent is a blog and the wp:newsblog exception does not apply, see this WP:BLPN thread. Coincidentally Mr Nuccitelli's Guardian writing was discussed recently on the Judith Curry talk page, where it was established that other writing by him may not be considered a blog that is unacceptable for a BLP, but this is. Peter Gulutzan (talk) 02:25, 27 April 2020 (UTC)
- Huh. Maybe I'm misreading, but it seems the the consensus at the Judith Curry talk page is going the opposite direction of what you say above, Peter Gulutzan. I think you may have posted your comment above before some of the later developments in the conversation. In the post, regarding a separate Nuccitelli 97% article, Dave souza says:
- "Agree with that point, but for this context you should realise it's not a blog post. Niccitelli has contributed in the past to Climate Consensus - the 97%, which was raised at BLPN, but Humans and volcanoes caused nearly all of global heating in past 140 years | Environment | The Guardian is a direct part of the newspaper's Climate Change coverage, not a blog. In his bio Nuccitelli is not shown as a blogger. So, on both counts, I've restored the reference. . ."
- and it looks like everyone is agreeing by the end. Am I misreading this? If this is so, then is there a difference between that case and this one? Jlevi (talk) 10:54, 27 April 2020 (UTC)
- Jlevi:Yes you are misreading. No I did not post the above comment before the conversation with Dave souza. Yes there is a difference between that case (which was not a Climate consensus - the 97% blog) and this case (which was a Climate consensus - the 97% blog). Look at the url: www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent. Look at the top of the page: "Climate consensus - the 97%". Peter Gulutzan (talk) 13:42, 27 April 2020 (UTC)
- I see. Thank you for clarifying. Jlevi (talk) 13:45, 27 April 2020 (UTC)
- Jlevi:Yes you are misreading. No I did not post the above comment before the conversation with Dave souza. Yes there is a difference between that case (which was not a Climate consensus - the 97% blog) and this case (which was a Climate consensus - the 97% blog). Look at the url: www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent. Look at the top of the page: "Climate consensus - the 97%". Peter Gulutzan (talk) 13:42, 27 April 2020 (UTC)
- Huh. Maybe I'm misreading, but it seems the the consensus at the Judith Curry talk page is going the opposite direction of what you say above, Peter Gulutzan. I think you may have posted your comment above before some of the later developments in the conversation. In the post, regarding a separate Nuccitelli 97% article, Dave souza says:
- As contentious as the label is, which I fully understand, it seems to have been applied to Michaels in print as well as online, such as in this recently published book from the Univ. of California Press. CoffeeWithMarkets (talk) 05:53, 27 April 2020 (UTC)
- Denier is as denier does. Michaels made his pubic career out of disputing climate change and casting shade on the motivations of climate scientists.
- To my mind, that he is a genuine scientist, calls himself a "lukewarmer," and agrees that a little warming is occurring, and some of it is anthropogenic, doesn't change the fact. Michaels is still firmly in the camp arguing that climate change is not a problem that needs to be addressed, and the vast majority of the science gets it wrong.
- Nevertheless, I agree that a reliable source should be found. That people are minutely parsing the bylines and credits of Dana Nuccitelli says to me they are looking for reasons to avoid using the denier label. So be it. That's how the editing process works. I've added to the list of his books the one where he describes so-called lukewarmism. M.boli (talk) 14:31, 27 April 2020 (UTC)
- [2]: "Hansen’s predictions have thus become a target of climate denier misinformation. It began way back in 1998, when the Cato Institute’s Patrick Michaels – who has admitted that something like 40% of his salary comes from the fossil fuel industry – arguably committed perjury in testimony to Congress."
- [3] "In addition, individuals affiliated with CTTs are especially likely to produce multiple denial volumes—most notably Fred Singer with six and Patrick Michaels with five"
- [4] "Patrick Michaels is a long time (and very effective) denier of the importance of the importance of global climate change."
- What about these? --Hob Gadling (talk) 15:33, 27 April 2020 (UTC)
- The Guardian article is talked about above and at Judith Curry, not so great. the NCBI is interesting and might be something. Is coastalcare.org a blog or advocacy group of some kind? PackMecEng (talk) 15:50, 27 April 2020 (UTC)
- He also features prominently in Merchants of Doubt (book), in Chapter 4 "The Denial of Global Warming", with Nierenberg, Singer, Seitz, Lindzen and others, but he is not explicitly named "denier" there - it is only obvious from the context. --Hob Gadling (talk) 16:02, 27 April 2020 (UTC)
- Understanding BLP concerns, it still seems to me that both the NCBI journal article and the Univ. of California Press book both together are reliable sources enough to justify the label. CoffeeWithMarkets (talk) 16:11, 27 April 2020 (UTC)
- Based on their about page, which says it is a non-profit whose mission is to "raise awareness" and "advocate" for various coastal protection and science-related topics, this does look like an advocacy group. Looks like a non-political, superficially pretty decent one, but it'd probably need some additional justification for use. The other two sources look good. Jlevi (talk) 17:04, 27 April 2020 (UTC)
- The Guardian article is talked about above and at Judith Curry, not so great. the NCBI is interesting and might be something. Is coastalcare.org a blog or advocacy group of some kind? PackMecEng (talk) 15:50, 27 April 2020 (UTC)
- Is this article in the journal Science[1] a reference we can use? It eschews the word denier, but it might be a good source for describing Michaels' positions and activities.
- BTW: I put a {{reflist-talk}} so people can include citations in the usual way. -- M.boli (talk) 18:09, 27 April 2020 (UTC)
Testimony to House of Representatives on Kyoto Protocol?
[edit]Hello Peter Gulutzan, thank you for your comments. For the purposes of improving the article, I had questions about revisions. In undoing revisions, you stated that the "Cited source doesn't suggest something was hidden and later discovered". The cited source (http://www.pitt.edu/~gordonm/Pubdeb/O%27Donnell.pdf) states the following on Hansen's account: "When Pat Michaels testified to Congress in 1998 and showed our 1988 predictions, he erased the curves for scenarios B and C, and showed the result only for Scenario A. He then argued that, since the real world temperature had not increased as fast as this model calculation, the climate model was faulty and there was no basis for concern abut climate change". Since Michaels erased scenarios B and C, at the time of his presentation, the members of Congress to whom he was testifying were not aware of these scenarios; thus, it was only with later testimony and clarification that it was revealed this was the case to the members of Congress. Do you have evidence to suggest otherwise? Another matter of clarification: I am unsure what you mean by "nothing encyclopedic seems to have happened". To be encyclopedic is to be comprehensive in terms of information. Was the entry not sufficiently sourced, or was it too short? Additionally, is it not appropriate to put Michaels's testimony before the House of Representatives under the Advocacy section? If not, may I ask why? Thank you. SrirachaLimes (talk) 21:03, 15 January 2021 (UTC)
- Update. If it is because you are unsure that Hansen's account is accurate, would it be sufficient to provide a source for Michaels's testimony wherein he presents a graph that only shows Hansen's scenario A and not scenarios B/C? For example: https://books.google.com/books?id=iAMc-Ne7CvoC&pg=PA89#v=onepage&q&f=false SrirachaLimes (talk) 21:34, 15 January 2021 (UTC)
- "On Hansen's account" means "this is a direct quote of Hansen", not an independent uninvolved source. And even there all we see is a claim that Michaels showed the result for scenario A (business as usual), which is a rather obvious thing to do if the intent is to advocate carrying on business as usual. The assertion that people "were not aware" doesn't seem to come from the source, and no, I do not have to prove they were, the burden was yours. For what is encyclopedic, see WP:NOTEVERYTHING ff. Peter Gulutzan (talk) 23:27, 15 January 2021 (UTC)
- 1) Hansen's account is confirmed by Michaels's own testimony, as linked above. The graph Michaels presents only shows scenario A, not scenarios B and C; thus, he presented a graph that with scenarios B and C removed. It is thus a matter of fact, and is not contingent on Hansen's claims, regardless of whether he is independent or not. If required, I can drop Hansen's account and simply cite Michaels's own testimony along with Hansen's paper. 2) I am not sure why you state "business as usual". From Hansen's 1988 paper: "Scenario A assumes continued exponential trace gas growth, scenario B assumes a reduced linear growth of trace gases". Regardless of Michaels's desire to advocate for "business as usual", this is not relevant to the scenario presentation. 3) My burden is not to prove people were not aware, but rather that at one point Michaels presented a graph with scenarios B and C removed to Congress, and at a later point in time this was clarified and explained to Congress. The source cited confirms this. If you take issue with the word "discovered", this is a simple semantic change, and I am more than happy to change the wording. 4) Concerning "encyclopedic", the Advocacy section currently has "Expert witness for Western Fuels Association". Can you explain by what standard being an expert witness for Western Fuels Association is more relevant and appropriate to the Advocacy section than Michaels's testimony to the United States House of Representatives on the historic international Kyoto Protocol? The most relevant part of the standards you kindly provided me is "Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information" as far as I can tell. Thank you. 2600:1700:B440:ED30:E081:83B1:8C9E:7CEB (talk) 00:26, 16 January 2021 (UTC)
- 1) You're depending on Hansen for your statement, not Michaels. 2) For 'business as usual', read the source you're citing, which says it. 3) For "were not aware", read above, you said it. 4) The mention of being an expert witness doesn't look contentious to me. Peter Gulutzan (talk) 01:02, 16 January 2021 (UTC)
- 1) For clarification, we are talking about possible revisions. The following source (https://books.google.com/books?id=iAMc-Ne7CvoC&pg=PA89#v=onepage&q&f=false) is not contingent on Hansen's 1998 claim. As we can see on page 89, Michaels's presentation of Hansen's work excludes scenarios B and C. I do not require Hansen's statement to notice this fact. 2) Yes, but your understanding is that, because Michaels wants to continue emitting CO2 at an exponential rate, it is thus not unusual for him to only present scenario A to Congress. This is misunderstanding the situation. Michaels's conclusion is that Hansen's projections were inaccurate, but this is not true, because he only showed Congress scenario A and not scenarios B and C. Regardless of what Michaels wants to be the case is not relevant in assessing the quality of Hansen's work. 3) Yes, but we are talking about edits to the article. Not the talk section. For the article, I would simply like to add a section on his testimony that notes his presentation of a graph with scenarios B and C removed. I do not feel the need to do anything else. 4) Your stated reasoning for removing the section I added was that it was not encyclopedic, not that it was contentious. I am asking by what standard the expert witness section is encyclopedic, but the section I added is not encyclopedic. It would seem that testimony before the United States House of Representatives on the historic international Kyoto Protocol is more relevant for a summary of his advocacy than him being an expert witness to the Western Fuels Association. SrirachaLimes (talk) 01:10, 16 January 2021 (UTC)
- Since all you now want is something that "notes his presentation of a graph with scenarios B and C removed" and won't "do anything else", I don't object. Peter Gulutzan (talk) 01:32, 16 January 2021 (UTC)
- 1) For clarification, we are talking about possible revisions. The following source (https://books.google.com/books?id=iAMc-Ne7CvoC&pg=PA89#v=onepage&q&f=false) is not contingent on Hansen's 1998 claim. As we can see on page 89, Michaels's presentation of Hansen's work excludes scenarios B and C. I do not require Hansen's statement to notice this fact. 2) Yes, but your understanding is that, because Michaels wants to continue emitting CO2 at an exponential rate, it is thus not unusual for him to only present scenario A to Congress. This is misunderstanding the situation. Michaels's conclusion is that Hansen's projections were inaccurate, but this is not true, because he only showed Congress scenario A and not scenarios B and C. Regardless of what Michaels wants to be the case is not relevant in assessing the quality of Hansen's work. 3) Yes, but we are talking about edits to the article. Not the talk section. For the article, I would simply like to add a section on his testimony that notes his presentation of a graph with scenarios B and C removed. I do not feel the need to do anything else. 4) Your stated reasoning for removing the section I added was that it was not encyclopedic, not that it was contentious. I am asking by what standard the expert witness section is encyclopedic, but the section I added is not encyclopedic. It would seem that testimony before the United States House of Representatives on the historic international Kyoto Protocol is more relevant for a summary of his advocacy than him being an expert witness to the Western Fuels Association. SrirachaLimes (talk) 01:10, 16 January 2021 (UTC)
- Dana Nuccitelli documented Michaels' deception clearly and simply in his book, on page 38, with quotes from Michaels' testimony. In his 1998 testimony Michaels erased Hansen's two lower predictions so he could tell Congress that Hansen had estimated too high.[2] See also Nuccitelli's SkS article describing that incident plus two more examples where Michaels erased parts of graphs in order to claim warming is less than scientists predict.[3] Michaels' deceptions do not need OR or synthesis in order to document them. I wonder if people might object to relying on SkS, it could be a blog reference. But I think the book should be OK. – M.boli (talk) 01:48, 16 January 2021 (UTC)
- WP:BLPSPS forbids blog posts unless written by the subject. In other words, this refutation of Mr Nuccitelli is allowable: A Response to Skeptical Science’s “Patrick Michaels: Serial Deleter of Inconvenient Data”. But since Mr Nuccitelli is not important to the article, there is no reason to bring it in. Peter Gulutzan (talk) 22:40, 16 January 2021 (UTC)
- Had not seen Michaels' response. Thank you! Here is what Nuccitelli wrote in his book. (Pardon the formatting, I tried to roughly duplicate the original.)
Michaels grossly misrepresented Hansen's global warming projections from 10 years earlier, claiming:
"Ground based temperatures from the IPCC show a rise of 0.11 °C, or more than four times less than Hansen predicted.... The forecast made in 1988 was an astounding failure."
... In the graphic he presented to Congress to illustrate Hansen's 1988 global warming projectings, Michaels presented only Hansen's Scenario A, even though this was the scenario furthest from reality. The global temperature change from 1988 to 1998 was very close to the Scenario B projection. Not coincidentally, Scenarios B and C were also the most representative of actual emissions and the global energy imbalance. By erasing the most accurate scenarios in Hansen's study and presenting the least representative as his "prediction," Michaels committed borderline perjury and certainly misinformed our policymakers in the process.
- I propose forget talking about graphs and erasures etc. I propose we add a paragraph to this effect:
- In 1998 Congressional testimony Michaels testified that predictions in Hansen et al.'s 1988 seminal paper modelling global warming had been wrong by a factor of 4. In fact, the prediction Michaels attacked was the worst case of the paper's several scenarios. Michaels ignored Hansen's more accurate predictions which were more representative of the reality of greenhouse gas emissions.[Cite Nuccitelli book] Michaels defended his testimony by noting the prediction he attacked had been labelled "business as usual."[Cite Nuccitelli blog]
- What do people think? -- M.boli (talk) 03:11, 17 January 2021 (UTC)
- For the first sentence: I don't know why you say "predictions" (aren't we only talking about one?), why you say "et al." (who were the alii?) why you say "seminal" (is it just puffery?). For the second and third sentences: you'd have to leave it out unless there is some evidence that the cite is to a reliable source, for example that this is a scholarly publication with peer review, and that Mr Nuccitelli is qualified to decide what is accurate and significant, and that in context it's clear that the allegation is based on something other than his opinion, and that using him with wiki voice is not a violation of WP:ATTRIBUTEPOV. For the last sentence: I think you must mean "[cite Michaels blog]" not [cite Nuccitelli blog] since Mr Nuccitelli left out that Mr Hansen had labelled the scenario "business as usual" (though I don't suggest that leaving this fact out is "borderline perjury"). Peter Gulutzan (talk) 16:29, 17 January 2021 (UTC)
- WP:BLPSPS forbids blog posts unless written by the subject. In other words, this refutation of Mr Nuccitelli is allowable: A Response to Skeptical Science’s “Patrick Michaels: Serial Deleter of Inconvenient Data”. But since Mr Nuccitelli is not important to the article, there is no reason to bring it in. Peter Gulutzan (talk) 22:40, 16 January 2021 (UTC)
- To answer Peter Gulutzan (talk · contribs)'s questions:
- Hansen et al. 1988 paper[4] is what made Hansen and climate modelling famous, in part because it was a good part of Hansen's 1988 Congressional testimony.
- I agree not needed to say "seminal."
- The paper addressed three hypothetical scenarios of future greenhouse gas emissions, and predicted temperature rise for each scenario. I suppose one could call that one prediction with three contingencies. Making predictions for several hypothetical emissions scenarios is the same practice that the IPCC has followed.
- That CO2 concentrations in the decade after Hansen et al. more closely followed the B and C scenarios of the paper and not the A scenario is hardly a controversial statement. The A scenario was that the annual increase would keep getting larger at 1.5% per year, the others showed the increase slowly decreasing over time period in question. The yearly increase in CO2 concentrations was actually somewhat less in the 1990's decade than the preceding decade.[5] I see no reason to challenge Nuccitelli's statement on this point, I doubt one can find an expert who disagrees.
- Nuccitelli writes for Yale Climate Connections and the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, in addition to the SkS blog and the popular press. He also wrote an authoritative book on climate denialism, which is the cite I used, and has published peer-reviewed papers in the field. But as an active Wikipedia editor who works on the climate change articles one suspects you know all that, and I don't understand why you would question him on the facts.
- Of course I chose not to include Nuccitelli's judgement of "borderline perjury," and stick to the facts.
- Yep, my bad. The last cite would be Michaels' blog post.
- The prediction in Hansen et al 1988 has been evaluated in the light of history and shown to be rather good. Michaels' deceptive claim that it was an astounding failure can be compared to other, subsequent, evaluations.
- Looking at my proposed language again, it seems to me it was not a model of clarity. Better language would be needed. But there shouldn't be any question that Michaels was not being forthright when he said that Hansen et al. prediction was an astounding factor-of-four failure, and I fail to see why Nuccitelli's book is not a reliable source as to the problems in Michaels' presentation. – M.boli (talk) 03:28, 18 January 2021 (UTC)
- I disagree and will reply at length if necessary. But first: do other editors care about this debate, and agree/disagree so far? Peter Gulutzan (talk) 15:04, 18 January 2021 (UTC)
- I do agree this is not so important. I won't push it further. -- M.boli (talk) 06:30, 19 January 2021 (UTC)
- I disagree and will reply at length if necessary. But first: do other editors care about this debate, and agree/disagree so far? Peter Gulutzan (talk) 15:04, 18 January 2021 (UTC)
- I think it is an interesting illustration of denialists' standard method of sweeping under the rug those data that contradict their desired conclusion. Dismissing actual scientists like Hansen as sources because what they say contradicts the denialists ("
not an independent uninvolved source
") is just another example of the same standard method. --Hob Gadling (talk) 09:28, 19 January 2021 (UTC)- To respond to your point directly: it does indeed seem like an odd result of wiki-lawyering. In re Hansen vs. Michaels, Hansen's complaint is off limits but Michaels' response is a reliable source. -- M.boli (talk) 18:03, 19 January 2021 (UTC)
- I think it is an interesting illustration of denialists' standard method of sweeping under the rug those data that contradict their desired conclusion. Dismissing actual scientists like Hansen as sources because what they say contradicts the denialists ("
- I think in the big picture, cherry-picking is necessary for climate denialism. The problem is there are many of lines of evidence which tell a broadly consistent story. There is rising ocean heat content, shifting patterns of species habitats, tree rings, paleoclimate evidence, as well as physics principles and modelling. Deniers are reduced to attacking a few items out of one line of evidence, or finding a moment where two lines of evidence seem inconsistent, or attacking credibility of scientists. All of these tactics are cherry-picking. When deniers consider whole mass of evidence they have to shift their arguments to Lomborg-style denialism, viz: climate is changing but it isn't worthwhile to address it.
- Hansen had made a huge splash in 1988 with his paper and testimony. Lot of news coverage. Michaels spent the subsequent decade as one of the go-to people for attacking Hansen and his work. No surprise that Michaels erased most of the paper and cherry-picked something to attack. That he literally erased most of a graph is an arresting detail.
- But my gut feeling is that this isn't encyclopedia-worthy history. I think the article correctly and sufficiently shows that Michaels is an advocate for his side. -- M.boli (talk) 17:41, 19 January 2021 (UTC)
- It looks like It won't be necessary for me to reply at length. Thanks. Peter Gulutzan (talk) 02:06, 21 January 2021 (UTC)
References
- ^ Waldman, Scott (2019-05-29). "U.S. think tank shuts down prominent center that challenged climate science". Science | AAAS. Retrieved 2020-04-27.
- ^ Nuccitelli, Dana (2015). Climatology versus Pseudoscience: Exposing the Failed Predictions of Global Warming Skeptics. p. 38. (I read this using the Amazon.com "look inside" feature, I don't know how to construct a URL which lands on the desired page number for Amazon or Google Books.)
- ^ Nuccitelli, Dana (January 17, 2012). "Patrick Michaels: Serial Deleter of Inconvenient Data". Skeptical Science. Retrieved 2021-01-16.
- ^ "Global climate changes as forecast by Goddard Institute for Space Studies three-dimensional model". J. Geophysical Research. 93: 9341--9364. 1988. doi:10.1029/JD093iD08p09341.
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ignored (help) - ^ "Annual Mean Carbon Dioxide Growth Rates". US Department of Commerce, NOAA Global Monitoring Laboratory. Retrieved 2021-01-18.
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