Talk:Stephen Schneider (scientist)/Archive 1

Discover quote

"On the one hand, as scientists we are ethically bound to the scientific method, in effect promising to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but - which means that we must include all the doubts, the caveats, the ifs, ands, and buts. On the other hand, we are not just scientists but human beings as well. And like most people we'd like to see the world a better place, which in this context translates into our working to reduce the risk of potentially disastrous climatic change. To do that we need to get some broadbased support, to capture the public's imagination. That, of course, entails getting loads of media coverage. So we have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we might have. This 'double ethical bind' we frequently find ourselves in cannot be solved by any formula. Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest. I hope that means being both." (Quoted in Discover, pp. 45-48, Oct. 1989, see also American Physical Society, APS News August/September 1996, http://cyclotron.aps.org/apsnews/0896/11592.html). (source: Bjorn Lomborg [1])

Schneider critics emphasize the first bolded passage (emphasis added for wiki talk); supporters emphasize the second one. --Uncle Ed 19:10, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

Not really. Critics tend to use the first quote out-of-context; neutral folk emphasise the full context William M. Connolley 19:30, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

I think the first bolded passage is pretty damning and speaks for itself. I don't see anything in the context that mitigates it. The second bolded passage just expresses the same thought in softer terms. It suggests that he even though he had doubts and a chance to reconsider, he chose to stand by the substance of the original thought. The ridiculously long version of the quote we now have in the article is appearently designed to bore readers with trivia so they can't focus on the relevent material. Kauffner 06:28, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

The full quote doesn't support the "scary scenario", which is why it is almost never given, and is occasionally spiced up, as in Julian Simon's version. By endorsing the use of a "simplified, dramatic" version of the quote, to avoid "boring the readers" you are adopting exactly the position which you impute to Schneider and regard as "damning". You can't have it both ways. JQ 17:17, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

The context for this is K's embarassment over at t:LIA [2] where he has just discovered that his pet sources have been using the truncated quote. Rather than blame them for misleading him, he has to blame Schneider, and would like this article to mislead too William M. Connolley 18:15, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

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(William M. Connolley 12:36, 23 Sep 2003 (UTC)) The article currently says "two decades later schneider emerged as an advocate of GW" or somesuch. Is this hearsay or sourced? Ie, did Sch start saying GW stuff in 1991? If so what? He supposedly said:

"Global warming linked to emissions of CO2, methane and other gases] is a scientific phenomenon beyond doubt. It's only a question of how much warming there will be." - Quoted by David L. Chandler of the Boston Globe, January 23, 1989 [3]

Which makes it 1989 at the lastest. Though http://www.aip.org/history/climate/climogy.htm says:

1977, one landmark for the recognition and coalescence of a scientific discipline did come with the foundation of a dedicated journal, Climatic Change. But unlike many new journals, this one did not in fact launch itself as the flagship of a new discipline. Its explicit policy was to publish papers that were mainly interdisciplinary, such as explorations of the consequences that global warming might have on ecosystems.

And adds that it was "Edited by Stephen Schneider.". So if we are to trust aip (and its been used elsewhere...) it seems S was in the warming camp by 1977.

Rubbish

This article is rubbish. I know, I'm partly to blame. its been fought over in the climate wars, and needs to go back to being mainly a biog. William M. Connolley 2005-07-05 10:56:39 (UTC).

Spot the error

I think you should, for the sake of accuracy and objectivity, to add following important sentence from Schneider's paper from 1971 (Schneider S. & Rasool S., "Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide and Aerosols - Effects of Large Increases on Global Climate", Science, vol.173, 9 July 1971, p.138-141) concerning relative significance of greenhouse warming and aerosol cooling

We report here on the first results of a calculation in which separate estimates were made of the effects on global temperature of large increases in the amount of CO2 and dust in the atmosphere. It is found that even an increase by a factor of 8 in the amount of CO2, which is highly unlikely in the next several thousand years, will produce an increase in the surface temperature of less than 2 deg. K.

However, the effect on surface temperature of an increase in the aerosol content of the atmosphere is found to be quite significant. An increase by a factor of 4 in the equilibrium dust concentration in the global atmosphere, which cannot be ruled out as a possibility within the next century, could decrease the mean surface temperature by as much as 3.5 deg. K. If sustained over a period of several years, such a temperature decrease could be sufficient to trigger an ice age!

http://www.john-daly.com/schneidr.htm —Preceding unsigned comment added by Djovani (talk • contribs) 20:45, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

You have made at least one characteristic and revealing error in the above, for which I will give you a little hint: try the word "rasooled" in google William M. Connolley 20:52, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

It is found that even an increase by a factor of 8 in the amount of CO2, which is highly unlikely in the next several thousand years, will produce an increase in the surface temperature of less than 2 deg. K.

It seems that this denialist, Big Oil funded claim aimed at "Destruction of Creation" could be the only error contained in my post, and I suppose that claim was omitted from your citation in article for that reason. I didn't know previously what a denialist Schneider was... --Djovani 19:27, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

You fail; but you can have one more go. Take my hint, it won't take you more than a moment and you might learn something William M. Connolley 21:04, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

I am not interested in your "lessons". This is about your biased selection of citation, not about my ability to resolve your nonsensical puzzles. Fact that you omitted inconvenient fact on Schneider's denialist claim is enough. Simply, give the reader complete citation including assertion that 8X increased CO2 concentration will result in 2 deg temperature increase, if you wanna be objective and non-biased. Do not try to change the subject by cheap tricks. --Djovani 21:38, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

OK, you fail, sorry to see you're uninterested in learning, I'll have to tell you: your citation is wrong. Schneider is not the first author. Unimpressive, given that the article says this already... And the article already says Carbon dioxide was predicted to have only a minor role William M. Connolley 20:54, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

Look, this is silly - is someone's being the second author is the reason to not attribute to him particular view in that paper, then ok, don't even mention the paper. But if you, despite Rasool being lead author, decided to cite that paper in wikipedia entry on Schneider, then please don't hide full citation on carbon-dioxide from your reader. Either this paper is Schneider's or it is not: it cannot be his in general, but become exclusively Rasool's when it comes to inconvenient fact of 8xCo2 that leads to 2 deg temperature increase.

Also, what is wrong with my citation? I cited correctly the abstract of the paper, unlike you, who tried to hide the fact that Rasool and Schneider argued in the abstract that 8-fold increased CO2 could not inflict much harm, by omitting original author's assertion and inserting your own ambiguous and whitewashing explanation: "carbon dioxide was predicted to have only a minor role" . Problem is quite straightforward: do insert omitted sentence about CO2 in citation, and than, if you like, give any whitewashing or "clarifying" comment you consider appropriate.

--Djovani 09:40, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Whats wrong with your citation? You've just admitted whats wrong with it: you got the order of the authors wrong. Its a characteristic error of the skeptics. This page badly needs a re-write: it already gives far too much prominence to his early work in relation to more recent stuff William M. Connolley 10:03, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

"This page badly needs a re-write: it already gives far too much prominence to his early work in relation to more recent stuff".

Oh, I understand. Whitewashing and fine-tuning of early work of prof. Schneider are not sufficient: that work should be completely eliminated from wikipedia, to avoid disturbing of Believers. NPOV in flagranti.

Your comment about my citation is cynical one, isn't it: you would inserted citation, but you couldn't, because orders of authors was wrong in my post. By this I confirm your assertion that authors are Rasool and Schneider, and not Schneider and Rasool. Correct now citation, if the order was problem previously.

Your ad hominem attack on me as "skeptic" is senseless and cannot hide lack of any serious argument from your side on this matter. --Djovani 11:39, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Of course you're a skeptic, are you trying to pretend otherwise? As I said, you error is characteristic. Who but a skeptic would use Daly as a source? Meanwhile: I've no objection to including his early work... but it takes up far too much space at the moment and should be cut. Its as silly as having an Einstein article giving more prominence to papers from 1905 than his mature deliberations after WWII! But until someone cares to write up the later stuff I doubt this will be fixed William M. Connolley 14:55, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Now we have the third reason for not including correct citation - early work should be eliminated altogether because it "takes up to much space". Are you serious? Why did you included section on early work in the first place? Now, when it is clear that early record cannot be easily whitewashed,it must be deleted.

In the last post you cited order of authors as a reason for the rejection of correct citation. Your cynicism is embarrassing: you reminded me on Rajendra Pachauri who,as a chairman of IPCC told the journalists that he hoped new report will "provide scientific reasons for governments willing to decrease CO2 emissions" and that he hopped "IPCC will be able to do this in the future". Chairman of "leading scientific authority in climate change"! Your claiming NPOV while shamelessly spreading pure propaganda, hiding inconvenient facts and whitewashing records of saints, while vilifying heretics is quite similar. You actually underestimate the public. --Djovani 18:06, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Site down

As of right now, the bio page changed at Stanford, which I've updated. However, the personal site at http://stephenschneider.stanford.edu/ isn't coming up right now. Sln3412 17:11, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Criticism of Schneider in the national press by fellow scientist

quotation of Craig Bohren in USA today. http://www.usatoday.com/tech/columnist/aprilholladay/2006-08-07-global-warming-truth_x.htmJG17 (talk) 14:25, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

Cooling, again

I too this out [4] cos there is no source, and this stuff is very frequently misinterpreted William M. Connolley (talk) 11:28, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

More: the In_Search_of..._(TV_series) says "An inquiry into whether the dramatic weather changes in America's northern states mean that a new ice age is approaching" which is not the text added to this page. And we would need to know what position SS took William M. Connolley (talk) 11:31, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

A good source for whether a person appeared on TV programme or not would be the cast list shown at begining/end of episode. See for yourself whether he "appeared as one of the scientists warning about climate cooling" as I put, or not - Unearthed video: Global warming alarmist Stephen ‘we have to offer up scary scenarios’ Schneider caught on a May 1978 episode of the TV show In Search Of…The Coming Ice Age Three videos for that episode (now appearing on youtube) are linked - he appears in part 3. Or if you want to see it direct on youtube - youtube link to that episode. A transcript of what he says:

Can we do these things? Yes. But will they make things better? I’m not sure. We can’t predict with any certainty what’s happening to our own climatic future. How can we come along and intervene then in that ignorance? You could melt the icecaps. What would that do to the coastal cities? The cure could be worse than the disease. Would that better or worse than the risk of an ice age?

It’s the interaction between people and climate that worries me the most, because with everyone jammed into countries, locked into national boundaries, a change in climate means a redistribution of where the rain is, where the growing seasons are. My worst fear is that the climate could induce a change in some country that could be devastating to their local survivability, and that would lead them to desperate acts that can drag everybody else down.”

I think that the information I put in should be there, if not with the same wording.163.1.147.64 (talk) 17:40, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

In the third video he is introduced by name at 6:05.--163.1.147.64 (talk) 17:50, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

Given the quote above, the original text appeared as one of the scientists warning about climate cooling now looks quite inaccurate. The text We can’t predict with any certainty what’s happening to our own climatic future would fit rather better with the state of knowledge at the time William M. Connolley (talk) 18:54, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

Prefer not to cherry pick quotes, although if one has to be picked, that one does nicely (as it also shows he doesn't always hold the same argument lines). He was one of the scientists on the programme, the entire show was about climate cooling, he was making warnings, ergo he appeared as one of the scientists warning about climate cooling seems to be pretty accurate but I'm not going to lose sleep over it - as I said "I think that the information I put in should be there, if not with the same wording." Ok to put back in with the quote as you suggest William?163.1.147.64 (talk) 08:35, 23 September 2009 (UTC)