Debaters Behaving Badly, Part 5 - Dishonest Quotations

If you participate in debates on climate science, how often have you been told that Al Gore predicted that the North polar ice cap would be gone by 2013? How often have you been given quotes from Edenhofer "proving" that AGW is a political hoax from a socialist agenda to redistribute global wealth? These kinds of claims are everywhere in these debates, but frequently when we investigate these seemingly outlandish quotes, they turn out to be fabrications - contortions of what was actually said. In other words, they appear to be blatant dishonesty and personal attacks on the part of people who generate the fake quotes. 

To be clear, not everyone using these fake/contorted quotes know that they are fake or contorted. People frequently share and promote things without checking on their accuracy, so I thought I'd collect a few of the more prominent fake quotes here. I may add to this as time goes by, but I'll begin with these four that I think are both extremely common and representative of the lengths some people are willing to go to manipulate quotes in service of their goals.

Al Gore and the "Polarized" Cap

On December 16, 2018, Anthony Watts published a blogpost entitled, "Ten years ago, @AlGore predicted the North polar ice cap would be gone. Inconveniently, it’s still there." He describes Al Gore as saying that "the North Polar Ice Cap would be completely ice free in five years." Then he quoted Al Gore saying, “the entire North ‘polarized’ cap will disappear in 5 years.” He was kind enough to embed a video of him saying something quite different.

Here's what Al Gore actually said on Dec 14, 2009. “Some of the models suggest to Dr [Wieslav] Maslowski that there is a 75% chance that the entire north polar ice cap during some of the summer months could be completely ice-free within the next five to seven years.” Note the multiple ways that Watts' quote was a dishonest contortion of what Gore said:

1. Watts removed the "75% chance" and changed "could" to "will." What Gore said was there's a possibility it could happen within 5 to 7 years; Watts treated it as if it were definite prediction by 2013.
2. Watts failed to point out that Gore was only talking about some of the summer months.
3. Watts deliberately changed "polar ice" to "polarized."

The interesting thing about this is that Gore was probably wrong here. This sounds like he may be referring to a conversation with Maslowski, and in the absence of that conversation, it's hard to say, but but Maslowski did go on record saying that Gore did not represent him accurately. In fact, he said, “It’s unclear to me how this figure was arrived at. I would never try to estimate likelihood at anything as exact as this.” So if Watts wanted to criticize this quote from Gore, he could have done so honestly, but he chose not to do that. He decided instead to contort Gore's statement into something else and mock him. And while he did link to the video that proves him wrong, that doesn't stop people from making memes with Watts' fake quote and attributing it to Gore, then sharing that meme all over the internet.

Maslowski's published paper did contain a section that analyzed a short-term trend in sea ice loss and made what should be considered a lower-bound estimate of how quickly we could see a "nearly ice-free Arctic Ocean in summer." This estimate was 2016 ± 3 years but he also pointed out that the calculated short-term trend had a 1-sigma uncertainty much higher than the trend, so we can't put much confidence in this projection.

When considering this part of the sea ice–volume time series, one can estimate a negative trend of −1,120 km3 year−1 with a standard deviation of ±2,353 km3 year−1 from combined model and most recent observational estimates for October–November 1996–2007. Given the estimated trend and the volume estimate for October–November of 2007 at less than 9,000 km3 (Kwok et al. 2009), one can project that at this rate it would take only 9 more years or until 2016 ± 3 years to reach a nearly ice-free Arctic Ocean in summer. Regardless of high uncertainty associated with such an estimate, it does provide a lower bound of the time range for projections of seasonal sea ice cover.

It's unclear to me how anyone one interested in criticizing Al Gore's claims would pass over this opportunity to document Gore's mistake accurately and choose instead to misquote Gore. Instead of a reasoned critique of Gore, Watts mocked him for saying what he never said while at the same time linking to the video that proves he didn't say what Watts mocked him for saying. 

Hansen and Manhattan Under Water

On October 22, 2009, Watts also ran a blogpost apparently documenting "A little known 20 year old climate change prediction by Dr. James Hansen – that failed badly" According to Watts, Hansen said in an interview with Rob Reiss in 1988 that in 20 years "The West Side Highway [which runs along the Hudson River] will be under water." According to Watts, Hansen reaffirmed this position in 2001. Watts claimed that this is a documented a failed prediction from Hansen.

However, that's not quite right. Hansen was asked by Bob Reiss in 1988 what Manhatten would look like in 40 years (i.e. 2028), not 20 years, if CO2 doubled in that time frame. As I write this, it's 2023, so we're 5 years shy of 2028 and there's no chance of CO2 doubling by 2028. We've currently seen about a 50% increase in CO2. That was the context for Hansen saying the West Side Highway would be under water. This is what was published in The Coming Storm (which I haven't read). What Watts quoted, though, comes from a Salon article from 2001 in which a reporter asked Bob Reiss about the conversation. Reiss remembered it wrongly - he got the number of years wrong as well as the condition of 2xCO2 by 2028.

In 2011, Patrick Michaels wrote an op/ed for the Washington Times which promoted the Salon article version of what happened (Michaels commented on Watts' blogpost, so it could be that Michaels was alerted to the Salon article from the WUWT post). He wrote, 

In 1988, he reportedly told Bob Reiss, author of yet another apocalyptic screed, “The Coming Storm,” that in the next 20 years, “The West Side Highway [in Manhattan] will be under water” and, “There will be more police cars” in New York because “well, you know what happens to crime when the heat goes up.”

Well, there are more cops and less crime, and the West Side is high and dry. One out of three isn’t bad for baseball, but it is horrendous for science.

After this, Hansen published a correction to Michaels' claim. 

Michaels also has the facts wrong about a 1988 interview of me by Bob Reiss, in which Reiss asked me to speculate on changes that might happen in New York City in 40 years assuming CO2 doubled in amount. Michaels has it as 20 years, not 40 years, with no mention of doubled CO2. Reiss verified this fact to me, but he later sent the message: "I went back to my book and re-read the interview I had with you. I am embarrassed to say that although the book text is correct, in remembering our original conversation, during a casual phone interview with a Salon magazine reporter in 2001 I was off in years. What I asked you originally at your office window was for a prediction of what Broadway would look like in 40 years, not 20. But when I spoke to the Salon reporter 10 years later - probably because I'd been watching the predictions come true, I remembered it as a 20 year question." So give Michaels a pass on this one -- assume that he reads Salon, but he did not check the original source, Reiss' book.

Both Watts and Michaels could have detected this mistake on the part of Reiss by reading The Coming Storm, but it would appear that the initial mistake was made by Reiss and not by Watts or Michaels. And to Watts' credit, he edited the post I linked to above with a partial correction. Watts acknowledged Hansen was speaking about 40 years with doubled CO2 in his updated blogpost, but then he says this:

So I’m happy to make the correction for Dr. Hansen in my original article, since Mr. Reiss reports on his original error in conflating 40 years with 20 years. But let’s look at how this changes the situation with forty years versus twenty.

Per Dr. Hansen’s prediction in 1988, now in 2011, 23 years later, we’re a bit over halfway there … so the sea level rise should be about halfway up the side of Manhattan Island by now.

Well, actually no. Watts knew that two corrections had to be made to Reiss' statement. It had to be lengthened to 40 years (or 2028) and the condition of 2xCO2 had to be met, but we aren't anywhere near 560 ppm (as I write, we're still slightly under 420 ppm). Hansen was asked to speculate about a hypothetical situation in which CO2 doubled in 40 years - that situation is not happening, so it can't be counted as a failed prediction in 2028.

But versions of this fake failed prediction continue to circulate on the CEI website and by Tony Heller, who wrote in 2017, "NASA’s top climate expert, James Hansen, predicted that by 2018 the Arctic would be ice-free, and Lower Manhattan would be underwater." Congressional documents also cite this as a failed prediction with reference to a blogpost at WUWT from 2014 as its source. So even though Watts partially corrected this in his original blogpost in 2011, he allows the fake failed prediction to be perpetuated on his blog.

Ottmar Edenhofer and IPCC Socialism

I've seen several versions of quotes from Ottmar Edenhoffer, who was the co-chair of WG3. In a 2010 inverview, Edenhofer (here spelled as "Endenhofer") is claimed to have said that the UNIPCC redistributes wealth by climate policy. This is a very odd claim, given that the IPCC doesn't set policy and has such a small budget that it would be hard for them to make any global impact.

And here's a quote attributed to Edenhofer where he's reported to have referred to himself in the third person. This might be a tip off that this quote is not actually from Edenhofer.

The 2010 interview is publicly available in German online and has also been available in English for anyone to check on what he actually said. If you click on the English link, you can see right away that the second meme above is taken from text in bold at the top of the article. It's written by the author of the article, not from Edenhofer. You can also see that the first meme is a deliberate attempt to contort what Edenhofer actually said. Here's what Edenhofer said. I'll add some context with the interviewer's remarks in bold.

That does not sound anymore like the climate policy that we know. 

Basically it’s a big mistake to discuss climate policy separately from the major themes of globalization. The climate summit in Cancun at the end of the month is not a climate conference, but one of the largest economic conferences since the Second World War. Why? Because we have 11,000 gigatons of carbon in the coal reserves in the soil under our feet – and we must emit only 400 gigatons in the atmosphere if we want to keep the 2-degree target. 11,000 to 400 – there is no getting around the fact that most of the fossil reserves must remain in the soil.

De facto, this means an expropriation of the countries with natural resources. This leads to a very different development from that which has been triggered by development policy. 

First of all, developed countries have basically expropriated the atmosphere of the world community. But one must say clearly that we redistribute de facto the world’s wealth by climate policy. Obviously, the owners of coal and oil will not be enthusiastic about this. One has to free oneself from the illusion that international climate policy is environmental policy. This has almost nothing to do with environmental policy anymore, with problems such as deforestation or the ozone hole.

The context here is key. The issue Edenhofer is addressing is a real problem, regardless of your political persuasion. Developed nations have benefited enormously from the burning of fossil fuels, and the remaining fossil fuels would be valuable to developing nations looking to grow economically. However, much of the remaining fossil fuel supplies need to remain sequestered in the ground if we are going to make IPCC targets. That fundamentally can be seen as unfair - that policy would de facto redistribute wealth by preventing undeveloped nations from benefiting from the production of fossil fuels. The developed world has already benefitted and now is telling the rest of the world they can't have the same benefit. Edenhofer illustrates this point with a parable.

A group of hikers, who represent the world community, walks through a desert. The industrialized nations drink half of the water and then say generously: “Let us share the rest.” The others reply: “This is not possible; you have already drunk half of the water. Let us talk first about your historical responsibility.” 

The implied issue in Edenhofer's parable is that, given that developed world has already used a great deal of the carbon budget, there's an ethical dilemma that comes with telling the developed world they can't do the same. A greater proportion of the remaining carbon budget ought to go to the developed world. Edenhofer was not saying that the IPCC was set up to "redistribute wealth" as if the "we" in the quote was the IPCC alone. What he's saying is that de facto this is what happens. The developed world has expropriated the world's atmosphere - our carbon emissions benefit the industrialized world but the pollution raises CO2 levels globally, so on balance there's disproportionate harm caused to the developing world, which experiences the consequences of pollution without the benefit of fossil fuel emissions. Yet by keeping all but 400 GtC in the ground, we further limit their opportunity for economic growth. With or without climate policies, wealth is being redistributed. And Edenhofer wants to be equitable to all as we transition away from carbon-based economies. It's a fair concern that meme makers distort into something that Edenhofer didn't mean.

Club of Rome and an Agenda for an AGW Hoax

Here is an oft-quoted excerpt from page 115 of the 1973 book Limits to Growth. It looks pretty sinister, doesn't it?

“The common enemy of humanity is man. In searching for a new enemy to unite us, we came up with the idea that pollution, the threat of global warming, water shortages, famine and the like would fit the bill. All these dangers are caused by human intervention, and it is only through changed attitudes and behavior that they can be overcome. The real enemy then, is humanity itself.” 

— Club of Rome, premier environmental think-tank, consultants to the United Nations.

The book can be downloaded freely on the internet. Here's a screenshot of the page where this quote comes from.

This page ends the chapter, so it should be thought of as a concluding thought for the chapter that precedes it. Notice the way the quote has been altered:

1. The heading to the concluding paragraph is presented as if it's part of the text.
2. There is deleted text with no indication of the deletion (no ... showing it). In the above quote, after "fit the bill," the text continues, "in their totality and their interactions these phenomena do constitute a common threat which demands the solidarity of all peoples. But in designating them as the enemy we fall into the trap about which we have already warned, namely mistaking symptoms for causes."

That text had to be deleted because that shows what the "we" in the first sentence refers to. The quote begins, "In searching for a new enemy to unite us, we came up with the idea that pollution..." leaving the reader to assume that "we" is the Club of Rome, as if they are admitting to some sinister plan to manufacture AGW as a problem to solve, built on a hatred of humanity - "the real enemy, then, is humanity itself." The deleted portion of the quote makes it clear that "we" is actually inclusive of citizens of industrialized societies. Collectively we've identified problems, but the problems are essentially symptoms of a larger reality that we are own worst enemy.

The chapter is dealing with the fact that there are various threats to democracy that we are facing, but this "crisis in the contemporary democratic system must not be allowed to serve as an excuse for rejecting democracy as such" (p. 110). In other words, the larger issue here is a defense of democracy against its threats - it's easier for societies to generate problems but much more difficult for them to organize solutions for them especially when those solutions demand cooperation and "the solidarity of all peoples." And the book observes that the present situation is "vacuous" such that it can lead to "indifference" and "skepticism or outright rejection of governments and political parties," with a consequence that fewer people participate in democratic elections. The book sees this as a bad thing.

Not that any of us should really care about the opinion of a single book from the Club of Rome in 1973, but the thinking appears to work like this. If you can portray the Club of Rome as a sinister organization with extraordinary influence on the UN-IPCC, and if you can then twist a quote into evidence of this sinister plot, then you can imagine that this sinister plot has also affected the IPCC. Then if you take a distorted interpretation of Edenhofer above, you can get "confirmation" in your mind that the IPCC is manufacturing AGW as an agenda to gain the power to bring about global socialism and totalitarian control over our lives. A full-blown conspiracy theory can be birthed from this that then can be used as justification to reject anything the IPCC says. Anything they say can be viewed as just part of this manufactured agenda for global socialism.