I've done tediously lengthy lawsplainers on the First Amendment rights of public employees before, here and here. Those posts have the explanations and citations. This is the cheat sheet.
When the government is an employer, it's wearing two hats: government-as-your-government and government-as-your-employer. The government-as-employer can punish employees for things it couldn't punish them for acting as government-as-government. Which things? It's complicated.
Government employee speech that is part of official duties is generally not protected. If your speech is part of your job duties, you can be fired and disciplined for it, and that's not a violation of your First Amendment rights. So, for instance, if you're a government public affairs officer, you can be fired or disciplined for what you say to the press or public as part of your job. If it's your job to run the government agency Twitter account, you can be fired or disciplined for what you put on it, and that's not a violation of your First Amendment rights. There are emerging exceptions to this rule — things professors say in their academic capacity are probably not covered by the rule — but those exceptions will probably be limited to positions that traditionally involve a high level of freedom from interference, like public university professors.
Government employee speech must be about matters of public interest to be protected: Public employee speech is only protected by the First Amendment when it is on a matter of public concern. That's a broad category, but doesn't cover merely internal matters. "This agency is destroying records the law requires it to maintain" is of public interest, "Bob in accounting is a suck-up and the Deputy Assistant Administrator lets him get away with murder" is not.
Public employee speech is only protected when the employee's interest in free speech outweighs the government employer's interest in discipline and order. If an employee is speaking on a matter of public interest and not in the course of their job, then their speech will be protected if the employee's interest in speaking outweighs the employer's interest in efficient and orderly operation. There's no bright line here. But in general, an employee's speech is most likely to be protected if it's on the employee's own time, on the employee's own platform or a platform not run by the employer, involves policy issues rather than personal attacks on people in the government workplace, and the employer can't show evidence of disruption of order or function. A letter to the editor of the local paper criticizing a government agency's policy choices is probably at the peak level of protection; an in-person confrontation in the office promoting factional disruption is probably at minimum protection.
The First Amendment isn't the only issue in play. Civil service regulations and statutes may have an impact on the ability to fire some government employees.
The First Amendment still protects government employees in their capacity as citizens. The government-as-employer can fire you for speech that would be protected if you were a private citizen, but can't, for instance, jail you for it. In other words, you still enjoy full First Amendment protection from government-as-government consequences, just not from government-as-employer consequences.
Edited to add: Speech by members of the military is completely different and not covered by this post.
Last 5 posts by Ken White
- Erdoğan and the European View of Free Speech - February 10th, 2017
- Still Annoying After All These Years: A Petty Government Story - February 9th, 2017
- Rights And Reality: Georgia Cop Jails Ex-Wife For Facebook Gripe - February 6th, 2017
- Gorsuch, Buzzfeed, and the Machinery of Death - February 1st, 2017
- Desperation For A Hero - January 31st, 2017
I tend to suspect that this post is in response to the new rules preventing folks at the EPA and such from talking to reporters. And while I worry about their dubious legal validity, I worry much more about those running government having decided that the best solution to facts that prove them wrong is to forbid people to talk about those facts. It's the standard head-in-the-sand approach, which rarely works out well for anybody (and which even ostriches, avian geniuses that they aren't, aren't dumb enough to do).
Guest Poster says:
I understand that concern and agree that it is serious and that we are at risk. But there's a second, counter concern, that politicized opinions are presented to the public as facts, even as scientific facts. Not every opinion held by a government official is based on sound facts. And not every opinion of someone billing himself as a scientist is based on science,
Pettifogger-
But the consensus of scientists you can usually count on.
Ostriches stick their heads in the sand to keep sandstorms from eroding their faces. It isn't a bad defense against that particular threat.
Case in point, Trump's speech at the CIA. But I digress.
Here's the thing… I can kind of see your general point about questionable information being taken too seriously because it has the imprimatur of the government, but if that's the principle at stake here, it's being applied incredibly unevenly. There are numerous state and federal agencies who I imagine have far more influence than some minor EPA scientist, who speak on issues that are far more immediately scary to the general public, who are equally prone to having a political agenda that might bias their telling of the facts, and yet they're not getting the blanket gag order as far as I've heard.
On a related note, whether or not it is true, enough of the public believes there is still substantial scientific debate even on the broad strokes of climate science, not to mention large chunks of the public who absolutely hate the EPA. In the case of this particular agency, I think the chances of some random employee putting out information that is complete BS, and it notbeing immediately and publicly challenged by credible experts, are highly overstated.
If President Trump sincerely believes that people in the EPA, particularly scientists, are completely wrong in their scientific assessment of a field of study that is integral to the job our taxes are paying them to do, then he should be firing them. Instead, he is keeping them on in the EPA, but seriously undermining the transparency of government. I won't assume that his motivation for doing so is anything less than noble; maybe he thinks that environmental problems are like ISIS, and that letting them know our plans will only allow them to develop countermeasures. But for someone who ran on an anti-corruption platform, this looks bad.
Case in point, Trump's speech at the CIA. But I digress.
Here's the thing… I can kind of see your general point about questionable information being taken too seriously because it has the imprimatur of the government, but if that's the principle at stake here, it's being applied incredibly unevenly. There are numerous state and federal agencies who I imagine have far more influence than some minor EPA scientist, who speak on issues that are far more immediately scary to the general public, who are equally prone to having a political agenda that might bias their telling of the facts, and yet they're not getting the blanket gag order as far as I've heard.
On a related note, whether or not it is true, enough of the public believes there is still substantial scientific debate even on the broad strokes of climate science, not to mention large chunks of the public who absolutely hate the EPA. In the case of this particular agency, I think the chances of some random employee putting out information that is complete BS, and it not being immediately and publicly challenged by credible experts, are highly overstated.
If President Trump sincerely believes that people in the EPA, particularly scientists, are completely wrong in their scientific assessment of a field of study that is integral to the job our taxes are paying them to do, then he should be firing them. Instead, he is keeping them on in the EPA, but seriously undermining the transparency of government. I won't assume that his motivation for doing so is anything less than noble; maybe he thinks that environmental problems are like ISIS, and that letting them know our plans will only allow them to develop countermeasures. But for someone who ran on an anti-corruption platform, this looks bad.
and yet they're not getting the blanket gag order as far as I've heard.
Memo to all executive department heads
The memo applies to all agencies where the head has not been appointed since Jan 20th,2017.
I believe that it is also going to matter if the person is speaking on their own behalf or if they are presenting themselves as speaking for the agency.
Companies normally have policies that employees don't talk to the press, all contact with the press is to go through the PR office. If other employees talk to the press, especially if they talk about internal plans and disagreements, they will face discipline (up to and including firing)
saying "everyone in department X disagrees with the policies handed down from the CEO" would definitely be something to be disciplined for.
In the case of the EPA, their new boss has not been confirmed yet, so their boss is Trump, who doesn't have time to manage the agency, so a directive to keep quiet outside of official channels seems very appropriate at this point, and is probably not a horrible idea going forward.
If people don't like not being able to talk about work details to the general public, too bad, they don't have a right to do so (outside of cases of illegal activity)
Unless Bob is literally committing murder, I assume.
GuestPoster, Pettifogger,
The EPA has a long and disgraceful history of lying, obfuscation, sandbagging, and wrongheadedness. The EPA basically cleared the local politicians actually responsible for the mess at Love Canal, while persecuting the company that had tried hard to get those same politicians to realize that buying a toxic waste site for development probably wasn't bright. The sad fact is that, as important as environmental issues are, there is a large 'Environmental Activist' culture both in and out of government (and it's sometimes hard to tell which) that is far more interested in power than in facts.
So, it's kinda hard to tell how Trump could possible make matters worse. Different, yes. Worse? That would be a stretch.
Lagaya1, I hope your post is sarcasm. These last couple of decades it's getting kind of hard to tell the difference between run-of-the-mill leftwing narrative derangement and attempts at humor. I mean Bush=Hitler? Really? Where the hell did the people making this claim get their information about Hitler?
On the off chance that you were serious, I will point out that Scientific Consensus has a spotty record. The theory of Plate Tectonics is older then I am, but for a lot of that time the Scientific Consensus was that it was about as valid as the Hollow Earth theory. Other examples abound.
All scientific progress has been a change to the existing 'consensus'
There have been many times in history when "Scientists" have declared that they basically knew everything (except some piddly details around the edges), they've been wrong every time up till now, I'm confident that they are wrong now as well.
Indeed. Who can forget the day Einstein overturned the scientific consensus of gravity. All those scientists, no longer bound by Newton's laws, floating away from Earth… They sure looked stupid.
C. S. P.
No, it was absolutely not sarcasm. But your response makes it look like I said that Trump=Hitler. I never said that at all.
All science is subject to new information upending the science. That's why it's science and not religion. That is not to say all science is wrong, just that it is constantly updated. Unless you're a climate scientist, you can be sure that they know more about it than you or I do.
I'm sure Donald Trump has done the necessary investigative work to understand the science, understand where it's flawed, and see where the Kuhnian paradigm shift that will change it is going to come.
I'm sure also that you take that attitude with you for medical treatment. "Antibiotics? They will be proven wrong, eventually!"
What's the phrase? Not even wrong.
@C. S. P. Schofield
If EPA's rules and policies are wrong they should be changed under the proper channels, not simply disregarded.
Many of the policies and responsibilities that the public hates most about the EPA are actually the law written by congress. There is some room for interpretation but the line can be very fine. Most of what politicians like Trump want to change they don't have the votes to change in congress so their ploy is to simply stop enforcing the law. That direction lies anarchy and the end of rule of law.
If these are truly bad policies at EPA the solution is to change the law, not to administratively decide to simply not enforce the law. Congress has the ability to override everything the EPA does. But in most cases you'll find when you actually try to change these laws and what they cover you'll find broad public support and an unwilling congress. Either way if these are bad policies they should change them properly, in congress as our system of government mandates.
I see upon second look that David Lang is not the only managing this level of idiocy.
The hypocrisy of talking about the scientific consensus being potentially wrong with regards to the environment and to climate change is that people who do that universally do not express the same skepticism with regards to the scientific consensus in any other field of their lives — not in medicine, not in stepping aboard airplanes, not in relying on computers. People are quite happy with the scientific consensus until it tells them something they don't like or that their partisan affiliation doesn't like. Then, it's wurfle wurfle Aristotle, Galileo, Kuhn, and ten minutes of wikipedia level analysis of epistemology, usually with random phrases capitalized.
You may not be aware, but the famed "97% consensus" was mostly from scientests outside the field.
remember, it only takes one fact to prove a theory wrong (it may still be "good enough for practical use", but it's still wrong). The fact that every model used fails to predict conditions even a year or two out is proof that we don't understand what's happening.
And for what little it matters, I do think we have a lot of things wrong in medicine, engineering and computer science. I don't think everything is wrong in every field, but I also don't believe that "the science is settled" in any field.
The various government agencies do create a lot of regulations that are not mandated by law, there is a lot of room for the Executive Branch to change/eliminate regulations without requiring that the laws be changed.
The EPA does not have the power to regulate a pond on a farm based on the laws granting them power over Navigational Waterways.
There are many cases where the EPA has been exceeding it's authorization, they have lost many court cases in recent years as a result. These are examples of the types of regulations that could be eliminated without requiring changes to the laws
another example of federal overreach is the bunny inspectors ( https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/watch-him-pull-a-usda-mandated-rabbit-disaster-plan-out-of-his-hat/2013/07/16/816f2f66-ed66-11e2-8163-2c7021381a75_story.html ) that is in place under the theory that it's covered by the commerce clause (allowing the federal government to regulate Interstate Commerce), but it's applied even to things that don't cross the border.
The Obama administration tried to argue that even selling something locally could be regulated because selling it locally could eliminate a sale from another state, so it could "affect Interstate Commerce". That's an incredibly dangerous opinion to let stand.
Never has a prediction:
and ten minutes of wikipedia level analysis of epistemology
been proven so quickly:
Wurfle wurfle
I saw some discussion you had on Twitter about the Streisand Effect, which may make this counter productive even if it were legal. The sense I got is that even setting aside my liberal slant on the issues, is that it's still improper in the sense that the effectiveness of government science has been the perception of some insulation between the agencies and politics.
I think even people who are overly skeptical of the EPA and other government science's results should still be worried, and that even though it might be legal, we can still call it improper because it undermines the agencies if they can't speak independently.
@harrywr2:
Damn. Just… damn. At least they get points for consistency I suppose.
@Trent:
On paper, I think the EPA has a bit more power than it should have. In practice, I think it's useful mostly as a political strawman for the right and an example of pointless government. It imposes a tremendous regulatory/reporting burden on everyone, including people who sincerely want to be green, as the kids like to say these days. However, it doesn't actually enforce much of anything, for the reasons you outlined (tacit orders from the top not to enforce) and also because the penalties allowed, the tiny probability of getting caught (even when the EPA is trying, and the high costs of compliance means that the smart play is often to roll the dice on getting caught, or even to treat getting caught and fined as an efficient breach.
I can see your point about the rule of law, and I certainly dislike the disingenuous way in which many politicians like to muzzle agencies they dislike, and then a few years later use the lack of any meaningful accomplishments by that agency to prove to reinforce their beliefs. It's certainly not good for having an informed public. I wouldn't necessarily call it as bad as anarchy, since in general this sort of thing involves the government using its discretion not to exercise a power it's been given.
For example, I think Obama executing ordering the reprieve on deportations isn't much worse than prosecutorial discretion on a wide scale–he's forcing an agency not to prosecute/enforce, but he's not really giving himself extra power. His executive orders that claim the power to confer a more permanent status for illegal aliens–status that isn't explicitly in his power to bestow without the consent of Congress and would persist after he leaves office–are a bit more offensive to rule of law because it really is a power grab.
C. S. P. Schofield says January 25, 2017 at 11:36 am:
Amen.
EPA routinely encourages and "settles" collusive lawsuits by environmental activists in order to increase EPA's power and control over ordinary peoples' everyday lives.
That was one reason the EPA just attempted to order a ban on woodburning stoves in Alaska's outback in the dead of winter. It's possible to think of a more evil thing to do , but it's very high on the scale of pure evil.
Any EPA employee who blows the whistle on the routine corrupt collusive lawsuit practice would lose his job, or even be criminally prosecuted.
But he should get a Presidential Medal of Freedom.
That's an unsubstantiated alternate fact. (The new word for lie).
You clearly don't understand how the scientific method works or what a theory is.
Every single climate model I've seen has the smallest data point as a decade. A year or two is weather, not climate. That you fail to grasp this critical difference between meterology and natural flucuations and the broad trends seen in climate science by evaluating on larger timescales demonstrates your naivete and lack of understanding..
The courts have disagreed in the past. The power in question is actually the power to regulate waters of the US. This power extends from pollution to flow. The courts have found you can't regulate the navigable channels if you can't regulate the flows that come to those channels. After all Congress mandated that EPA control pollution in these channels but they'd have no ability to do so without regulating pollution up channel.
EPA has over the years tried to extend this power far beyond its intent, I like you would like to see it reigned back though in my case not completely because if you take away all authority over up channel regulation it won't be long before companies can just start discharging whatever they want into the waterways because it's not a "navigable channel' and the law as written can't be enforced. The foundation of the power to regulate water pollution like this lies in the same power you want to take away. As I mentioned once the consequences of this issue comes to public attention you will see support in congress collapse. IMO to make the changes necessary at EPA caution and expert opinions need to be taken into account and the consequences weighed, not run through like a bull in a china closet and demolish the foundation of our pollution laws.
The Obama administration was arguing what has been supreme court precedence for almost 80 years. I would expect them to do nothing less. The foundation of the US drug laws, particularly with regard to Cannabis grown and consumed in a single state is that the federal government has the power to regulate commerce because it creates a market and that market will extend across state lines. I'd personally like to see this Supreme court ruling overturned, as like you I don't believe the federal government should have the power to regulate any commerce that doesn't cross state lines but you should be aware of what goes with that precedence, for example one of the pillars of support for the drug laws, and there are many other consequences that you might not like if you knew what they were.
Changing laws and regulations is never as easy as someone like you make it. Most of the people that discuss this never understand why these laws and rules were passed and what the consequences of their removal would be. There is nuance here and before making blanket changes the proper way to do it is to look at all the consequences and reasons behind it and then make an informed decision. I expect none of this thoughtful governance from the Trump administration.
Scientific consensus is not "the truth": is simply the best knowledge we have.
It may be wrong, but the alternative is believing some random crackpot, or believing someone with a very strong interest in telling lies.
Example: if your doctor tells you "you need to do X or you will die soon", you can decide to believe X, or you can ask for a second opinion. If also the second doctors tells you the same, you *can* keep looking around for more opinions, until you find some doctors telling you that you don't need to do X: but you would be a utter fool, and will probably die like one.
Lagaya1,
My sincere apologies if my post read that way to you, or anyone else did. Now that I re-read it with an eye to your interpretation, I see what you mean. The comment about the former President and a certain Austrian paperhanger was ment to highlight the absurdity of statements that are being taken at face value in certain segments of the Left. Not a specific commentary on your post.
I'm far from sure that Trump is going to improve matters at the EPA. What is clear to me, however, is that the agency operates at all times (like, I might add, most government agencies) from a combination of hubris, ideological blinkers, lust for power, lust for funding, and broad incompetence. In general, I distrust all impulses toward increased government authority, since the history of governments ranges from shoddy to revolting. Not our government. ALL governments.
Government is like fire. If you are young, vigorous, and well traned you might be able to live without it, but it would not be comfortable. Nevertheless, it must be watched fairly closely, or it rages out of control.
The Obama administration tried to argue that even selling something locally could be regulated because selling it locally could eliminate a sale from another state, so it could "affect Interstate Commerce". That's an incredibly dangerous opinion to let stand.
Perhaps you were unfamiliar with Wickard v. Filburn.
Didn't you know that BHO went back in time to 1942, lobbied the Supreme Court justices at the time to establish 75 years of established precedent, all in planning for his own administration? He was a cunning one.
Thanks, Obama.
Obama is a sneaky devil. He's also responsible for the $10k cash transfer limits on the banking system through a similar trip in time, at least according to my inlaws.
What troubles me is that the administration, by editing what comes out of the agency gets to tip the scale in the argument. Even if you concede that climate science is not absolute, you have to admit that there is no evidence that the scientists are wrong. We have conflicting evidence. Without a discussion of BOTH sides the public is unable to make its OWN INFORMED decision, and that's what we should be aiming for. What I see is the administration trying to shape the discussion by SUPPRESSING contrary ideas. The EPA is not a mouthpiece for EITHER side in this argument- it is supposed to give neutral, scientific discussion- something the administration knows nothing about. There's a big difference between balancing the discussion- a fair request- and suppressing the speech of the other side or countering with "alternative facts".
What happens when a scientist is "vetted", found to disagree with the administration's position, has a report suppressed, and is fired for making the facts public?
What seems to be lost here is that the Trump administration sets official policy. It is the job of the rank and file to carry out that policy. If they want to undermine the policy, well there's the door. Don't let it hit you on the way out.
Just like Obama's policy was to ignore immigration law and court rulings. The rank and file had no problem with that.
And they should not obstruct the official policy of the current government. If they chose to, then they deserve to be dismissed since they are not behaving in a non-partisan manner.
Wait you only get to work for the government if you agree with the administration? That's not how it works and for good reason. Also, we're taking about science here, not political leanings. If a scientist writes a report that says measured temperatures are rising, that's a FACT, not an alternative fact- a fact. And as a citizen I have a right to know that. Are you arguing that the administration should be able to suppress that report because it is at odds with the administrations position?
@WestCoastVoiceofReason: Please try to read and understand. You do not have to like the administration, you just have to execute their policies in a neutral, non-partisan manner. If you are unwilling or incapable of doing that, perhaps you should re-think your employment options.
That is how it is supposed to work. I did not bring in AGW for a reason. It is immaterial. It applies to election laws, espionage, foreign policy, you name it. Non-partisan application of the policies of the existing administration.
If the policy is not to fund the research, well then, find someone outside of government to fund the research.
My hope is that government employee attrition will significantly escalate over the next 4 years.
You misread what I am saying. Sure if you want to take a political stance contrary to the administration- you need to do it outside work. No problem. But if you are a SCIENTIST, you are hired to do RESEARCH AND WRITE REPORTS. You are not hired to parrot the administration's position regardless of facts. Suppression of contrary FACTS and conclusions because they fail to comport with the administration's alternative reality is NOT OK. Have you read 1984?
@ WCVOR "Wait you only get to work for the government if you agree with the administration? That's not how it works and for good reason. Also, we're taking about science here, not political leanings."
You can think whatever you want to think but if you are obstructing or in any way intentionally reducing the effectiveness of an Administration position, then no, you shouldn't be working there.
And the EPA is a political organization, not necessarily a scientific one. Yeah, they do some science but if there's a conflict between science and politics, politics is gonna win. Think of it in terms of the Justice Department – yeah they do some justice every now and again but politics usually trumps (no pun intended) justice. That's just the way our government works.
The administration gets to decide what it wants to do about facts, not what the facts are.
If Justice does an investigation that indicates a belief that there was a violation of law, say voting rights, are you suggesting that the report should not see the light of day because Jeff Sessions thinks the report draws the wrong conclusion or is at odds with an administration belief that the law should be different? NO we get to see the report and then we have a discussion about what to do about it.
Same with EPA, facts are facts. We can then debate what they mean or whether to do something about it.
That's just the way our government works.
I thought Trumpster's wanted to change how government works? To get politics out of government. What you are suggesting is politics in its most dangerous form, suppression of independent thought.
"If Justice does an investigation that indicates a belief that there was a violation of law, say voting rights, are you suggesting that the report should not see the light of day because Jeff Sessions thinks the report draws the wrong conclusion or is at odds with an administration belief that the law should be different?…What you are suggesting is politics in its most dangerous form, suppression of independent thought."
In your example regarding Sessions, I'm suggesting it won't. Should don't enter into it.
It's not politics in its most dangerous form, it's politics as practiced by both sides. If you think that there's been encouragement of independent thought in the last eight years, or for that matter the last 240 years, you're dreaming.
Here's an article that somebody alluded to earlier in this thread. It's dated and a little long, but it's an excellent fact-based article that demonstrates how politics wrecks independent thought and should serve as a reminder that anything the government does needs to be regarded with a healthy dose of skepticism – it's the EPA doing science and the Justice Department doing justice the only way they know how:
http://reason.com/archives/1981/02/01/love-canal
So your "fix" to an age old problem is more of the same?
I'm done. Don't bother replying.
"I'm done. Don't bother replying."
Okie dokie.
Actually… the scientific consensus is, by and large, more correct than the alternative. It hasn't always caught up and gotten all the details right, but very rarely is it less correct than the major opposing theory. Part of how we know this is the steady forward march of technology.
The times when the scientific consensus HAS been just totally wrong? Are usually moments when politicians start imprisoning scientists for coming to the wrong conclusions. Many times those politicians are the church, explaining that the world is flat, or the point around which the sun revolves, or that illness is actually demonic infestation. More recently they have been the oil companies, explaining that all evidence to the contrary climate change isn't happening, and even if it was it has nothing to do with carbon emissions. Now, it is Trump, explaining that alternate facts are just as good as the genuine article, so there's no need to hear from anybody on the latter.
Funny enough, those who believe otherwise, and believe that scientists have no idea what they're talking about, generally have no actual evidence to support their claims, but DO make statements like "I'm quite certain they're all wrong about X". Because who needs evidence when you have ignorant certainty to replace it?
"you have to admit that there is no evidence that the scientists are wrong. "
Actually, I don't. The 'Pause' in warming, which may or may not be over (not going to argue that), was more than a decade long, and Climate Change proponents have failed to explain it. There is serious argument as to whether historical warming follows CO2 rise or precedes it. Concern has been expressed by some experts on Solar climate that we may be entering a period of sustained cooling, possibly through 2050. Then there is the question of prescriptions, which somehow always seem to involve giving loads of additional power to the State, while State heavy societies (such as China) somehow produce the vast majority of pollution.
The debate has been heavily salted with personal attacks and general attempts to demonize 'the other guys'.
My take? The climate has been much hotter, and life did fine. The attempts to push 'alternative energy' have not impressed me with their utility, And the amount of hysteria involved does not impress me.
But I am, politically speaking, a Crank. MY solution to most social ills starts with "Find out what the Government is doing to screw this p and get them to knock it the f*ck off". There are probably issues to which this is seriously wrongheaded, but the history of human governance strongly suggests to me that they are in the minority.
Err…. what pause in warming? The measurements show it hasn't paused – the temperature is still climbing, the ice is still melting, etc. Similarly, sure, life as a concept is continuing just fine, but certain species are already going extinct due to warming. Sure, SOMETHING will live in any given climate, but that hardly makes warming less of a bad thing for things alive right now.
But anyways, that's why climate change proponents (ie: people educated on the topic) can't explain the pause – there hasn't been one.
And here we go with the random capitalizations.
Sorry. The "adjusted" temperatures suggest warming. Not the raw data. The data are manipulated.
The problem with mathematical models for all processes is that they approximate what is happening. If they cannot predict away from the data set that was used to generate them, then they have no predictive value. Climate models are notorious for having no predictive value.
Why is that? The majority of those models treat solar inputs as a constant. In reality they are not. If temperatures are forever rising, then why is the extent of Arctic ice increasing? It does not match with reality.
I have spent the majority of the last 35 years developing mathematical models of a variety of systems, including modeling of atmospheric processes for acid rain. The supposed "science" is questionable at best, scientific malpractice at worst.
There was an article a few months ago that took one of the more popular models and did a few hundred runs of it, varying the starting conditions by 1/1000 of a degree (far below the precision of the data), the results were not just slightly different, they were wildly different, from "we're all going to roast" to "we're all going to freeze to death". If the models are so sensitive to changes in the starting conditions that are far below the accuracy of the available data, then their value is questionable.
The Climate Scientists that I know all say that the parameters of the models are tweaked until they match the current conditions given the input for the starting conditions. But that's just tweaking things until they 'look right', there isn't justification for the values other than "they make this model work" and different models use different combinations of values for the same variables. If I were to present my bosses with models that worked that way and say that they should bet the company and their jobs on the result, I'd be laughed at (if not fired).
That's because there was no pause. It was an error in the data taken from two different historical measurements which had not been properly calibrated together. A rather typical issue when trying to calibrate independent data sources using entirely different collection methods and wasn't discovered until near the end of the decade. IIRC the rise in global average temperature over the last decade (2000-2010) was 0.11C which was right in line with the predicted 0.12C (with an error bar of 0.04). This is yet another of your "alternative facts" based on years old data and no proper understanding of the science or the data behind it. This is typical of the anti-science crowd, they look at the messy debate in the scientific method and cherry pick data points to highlight while ignoring the overall conclusions and analysis behind it.
Surely the most suspicious “97 percent” study was conducted in 2013 by Australian scientist John Cook — author of the 2011 book Climate Change Denial: Heads in the Sand and creator of the blog Skeptical Science (subtitle: “Getting skeptical about global warming skepticism.”). In an analysis of 12,000 abstracts, he found “a 97% consensus among papers taking a position on the cause of global warming in the peer-reviewed literature that humans are responsible.” “Among papers taking a position” is a significant qualifier: Only 34 percent of the papers Cook examined expressed any opinion about anthropogenic climate change at all. Since 33 percent appeared to endorse anthropogenic climate change, he divided 33 by 34 and — voilà — 97 percent! When David Legates, a University of Delaware professor who formerly headed the university’s Center for Climatic Research, recreated Cook’s study, he found that “only 41 papers — 0.3 percent of all 11,944 abstracts or 1.0 percent of the 4,014 expressing an opinion, and not 97.1 percent,” endorsed what Cook claimed. Several scientists whose papers were included in Cook’s initial sample also protested that they had been misinterpreted. “Significant questions about anthropogenic influences on climate remain,” Legates concluded.
Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/425232/climate-change-no-its-not-97-percent-consensus-ian-tuttle
@David Lang: That is a consequence of highly non-linear systems and limitations of digital computing (i.e. round off errors due to the way decimal values are stored). Refer to the book "Chaos". It is also known as the "Butterfly Effect".
@Darth
I have trouble believing that we know the temperatures to 1/10 of a degree 150 years ago. I'm not sure we have temps worldwide to 1/1000 of a degree today.
If the models are so sensitive that an error of a couple thousandth of a degree results in changing the outcome of the run from "cooked alive" to "freeze to death", and our actual input data has error bars 10x that, then the models cannot be used to set policy.
Hey, did that Nazi punching thing ever get resolved?
William the stout
Yes. You can't punch them, but if you wrap them in a flag your first amendment rights allow you to burn them. At least for the time being. And as long as no noxious gases are given off.
@Total
It may shock you to learn that the reason why normal people are willing to step on an airplane, is not because they've looked up some scientific consensus on whether the plane will fly or crash. It's because many many other normal people have already done it, and comparatively few have suffered harm from it.
It other words, the theory that planes (and computers etc.) work, is really really well-tested.
The theory of AGW isn't, and inherently cannot be, experimentally tested.
Now, as I've made clear in a comment below another Popehat article, I do accept that the "climate consensus" represents the best available knowledge on the topic to date, and it would be rational for politicians, civil engineers, insurance companies etc. to assume that it is true, for planning purposes.
But it really irks me the wrong way how many alarmists oversell the climate consensus by claiming it is just like the scientific consensus on gravity and aerodynamics and electromagnetism, which are empirically falsifiable theories which have been tested thousands of times in rigorous experiments by scientists, and billions more times by people in every-day life.
AGW isn't like those areas of settled scientific knowledge. It is largely based on computer models (that are constantly being adapted btw.), to an extent that no other prominent area of scientific knowledge has been – and it is not testable in a controlled experiment.
It is therefore not hypocritical as you suggest, but entirely common-sense, for normal people to be more skeptical of AGW than they are of a plane of computer. Yes, some have political motivations for being too skeptical. But this is not helped by overselling and exaggerating in the other direction.
It's impressive how, in a very short sentence, you reveal that you don't really know much about 1) gravity, 2) aerodynamics, 3) electromagnetism, and 4) empirical falsification.
By my chosen measure in this discussion:
Then, it's wurfle wurfle Aristotle, Galileo, Kuhn, and ten minutes of wikipedia level analysis of epistemology, usually with random phrases capitalized.
You avoided the name dropping and the random phrase capitalization but managed the wurfle wurfle and the wikipedia level analysis. So that's 2 out of 4. Well done.
@Total:
Yeah, I could have worded that better at the expense of brevity. Obviously, a field like aerodynamics (for example) isn't "a theory", it is a whole area of research that has offered us many theories and insights, and those relevant to designing an airplane (your example!) have been well tested, and the end product (air plane) has also been extremely well tested.
Of course, you knew that's what I meant.
So, are you going to at all acknowledge the main point of my reply, that AGW is not the same 'kind' of knowledge as "airplanes can fly" and "computers work", and that your suggestion that only partisan prejudice could explain why many non-scientists are more skeptical of one than the other was rather baseless?
Or is smug condescension all you have to offer…
The chatter about the accuracy and predictive power of climate models is a distraction. Anthropogenic global warming comes down to basic physics, as simple as adding another blanket will keep you warmer in bed. The physics was known in the 19th century and the connection to earth's temperature was made by Arrhenius around 1890. It goes like this: the earth's surface is heated by solar radiation (and some core heat coming up) and cools ONLY by emitting infrared radiation to space. A freshman physics student, ignoring the trapping of infrared radiation by greenhouse gases, can calculate the equilibrium temperature of earth's surface and will find it to be about 40° below what it actually is. The greenhouse gases such as water vapor, carbon dioxide, methane, etc., allow solar radiation to freely pass through the atmosphere and heat the earth's surface, but absorb the infrared radiation emitted from the surface, effectively trapping it. This is the cause for the 40° difference. So adding more greenhouse gases, just like adding another blanket, will cause the surface temperature to go up. Basic physics.
The climate models try to predict the details of the increase – how the heat is partitioned between sea and air, how melting ice caps will increase absorption of solar radiation, how increased temperature will increase water vapor, how increased water vapor and temperature will change cloud cover, which areas will see desertification or flooding, more or fewer forest fires, changes in ocean currents., etc., etc. Some of these factors contribute positive feedback, increasing the temperature rise, others are negative feedback tending to moderate the increase, and some can be both. For example, clouds reflect solar radiation (negative feedback), as well as trap terrestial infrared (positive feedback). Which predominates depends on where, when, and what kind of clouds. And of course, by 'the details of the increase', I'm not referring to the temperature in London this year, but rather to an average over many years and large areas, AKA climate.
As I said, anthropogenic global warming comes down to basic physics established for over a hundred years – increase the greenhouse gas concentration (which we are) and you WILL increase the earth's (globally averaged) temperature.
SB
(For a good article on temperature equilibrium on planets, see "Infrared radiation
and planetary temperature", Physics Today, January 2011, p.33. http://physicstoday.scitation.org/doi/full/10.1063/1.3541943)
And a simple calculation of changing the PPM concentration of CO2 from the historical average that's been in place for half a million years of 220-260ppm to the current >400ppm is the addition of 2Watts of additional heart energy per square meter of earth surface per year being absorbed. Even if we leveled off and stopped adding CO2 today it's going to take more than a 1000 years for the earth to equalize that heat trapping among it's various inputs. The changes that were seeing right now are just the beginning of what's gong to happen.
The scientific consensus has been wrong in the past, though much of what some people count as "wrong" is really the development of a new theory in which the old one was an approximation accurate for certain ranges of phenomena. But if the scientific consensus on something is eventually shown to be wrong, it will be overturned by a new scientific consensus, made up of genuine experts, not politicians, publicists, and pundits.
@David Lang
I was going to comment on the Wickard wheat case, but clearly you've already realized your mistake in making a comment that so obviously betrays an ignorance well-known case law in a forum frequented by so many lawyers.
It also seems that when you say "The Obama administration tried to argue," you really mean that they're making an implicit argument in the court of public opinion, or maybe an explicit one in their internal memos. Which is absolutely a bad thing, but not as bad as when the previous administration actually argued that very point before the Supreme Court. (Raich v. Gonzales) So if you've still got all that sexy outrage, you may want to direct it against George W. Bush's two AGs.
I would also point out that the Wickard v. Fillburn ruling that Obama traveled back in time to cause is the sole basis of authority for a lot of federal powers and agencies. Even some federal law enforcement powers are rooted primarily in the expansive reading of the Commerce Clause upheld by Wickard. While the more hardcore libertarians wouldn't mind if these programs and laws vanished, the vast majority of politicians in both parties, and also the general public, seem to accept these programs as necessary (or at the very least, are literally taking zero action to get them abolished.)
I personally would like to see Wickard and it's children overturned. It's pretty much been a crutch because we decided that practical considerations of the modern world demand that the federal government have certain powers the Founding Fathers didn't think it would ever need, but we don't want to explicitly call them wrong on the subject. I would rather we try to reach some consensus on precisely what law enforcement and regulatory powers require action on the federal level and then explicitly and narrowly give those powers to the federal government with the consent of the states.
As it stands we rely on Wickard (and the prior but less extreme Commerce Clause cases) to let the federal government make a power grab whenever there's enough popular support for it, after which the power grab succeeds or fails largely based on who the party in power is, and which party SCOTUS is leaning towards.
@ineth
I don't think you can create a scientific theory to predict the answer with reasonable certainty, but if you spend enough time on Popehat, you can probably find enough relevant empirical data to construct a probabilistic model with some predictive value.
@ineth When your comments deserve more than smug condescension, you'll be the first to know.
Others have cited Wikard vs Filburn, which, IMHO, was decided as badly as Dredd Scott. I'd personally like to see this ruling overturned, and the feds stripped of the power to regulate drug laws beyond the FDA regulations for purity and effectiveness (the "standards and measures" clause of the Constitution). Prohibition 2.0 is an even bigger, more ruinous failure than Prohibition 1.0 was, because racist morons couldn't learn from history, but were and are determined to repeat it over and over and over.
I agree, Wickard v. Filburn, 317 U.S. 111 (1942), is an incredibly dangerous opinion. There, the government argued, successfully, that Filburn's growing wheat for his own use meant that he was not buying it through the channels of interstate commerce.
The rationale of that case essentially allows the Federal government to regulate anything it can imagine. I cannot easily come up with something, even in the home, which would not fall under that rationale. Scratch the wife's back, and I have not used the telephone to call in a professional massage expert. A home-grown pepper means I did not buy one from South America. Home-made ginger ale means I did not purchase a canned soda from Tennessee. Sleep, and maybe I did not buy enough coffee from New Orleans; stay awake, and I am not using a mattress from New Jersey.
It was fiendishly clever of Bush and Obama to get together, go back to 1942, and lobby such a result in the Supreme Court. Because surely people now would be smart enough to resist such an expansive view of Federal power.
WestCoast wrote
"What troubles me is that the administration, by editing what comes out of the agency gets to tip the scale in the argument. Even if you concede that climate science is not absolute, you have to admit that there is no evidence that the scientists are wrong. We have conflicting evidence. Without a discussion of BOTH sides the public is unable to make its OWN INFORMED decision, and that's what we should be aiming for. What I see is the administration trying to shape the discussion by SUPPRESSING contrary ideas. The EPA is not a mouthpiece for EITHER side in this argument- it is supposed to give neutral, scientific discussion- something the administration knows nothing about. There's a big difference between balancing the discussion- a fair request- and suppressing the speech of the other side or countering with "alternative facts"."
Excuse me, where have you been for the past 8 years, where the EPA and the rest of the Obama administration has done exactly that to AGW skeptics? And remember the recent attempt by states AGs to suppress skeptical views?
Regardless of your position on the science itself, the behavior of the climate "consensus" has not been that of honest scientists who share their underlying data and allow opposing voices to debate, but that of a political movement that has suppressed and demonized skeptics, refused FOIA requests for underlying data, closed ranks in peer-reviewed publications to block dissenting voices, driven skeptics out of the field, and generally behaved in ways that legitimate scientific fields do not. And with a war chest that dwarfs that of the skeptics, they have fielded an army of credulous, even activist, reporters and celebrities (real science experts, every one) to spread the word via the aligned media.
That behavior is unscientific at the most basic philosophy of science level and a tell that they are not honest. The fact that every defense of CAGW starts with appeals to authority, credentialism and consensus is a major reason to be skeptical, completely independent of the quality of the science.
Everyone remembers Ike's military-industrial complex threat prediction, but few remember the following paragraphs about a government-scientific one. Check it out. Sorry I can't get the link to post, but a search on Eisenhower Farewell Address will get you there.