Review by
Alastair McIntosh for the Scottish Review of Books
The
Hockey Stick Illusion, A.W. Montford, Stacey
International, 2010,
ISBN
978-1-906768-35-5, £10.99, 482pp.
The “hockey
stick” is a graph that suggests the Earth’s temperature was
relatively constant for the past thousand years but then,
like a hockey stick’s blade, rises sharply from about 1900.
To the vast
majority of climate scientists this suggests that the rate
at which we’re burning coal and oil is putting the planet at
risk. But according to A.W. Montford in this “definitive
exposé” of one part of the science, it’s just not true.
The captain
of Montford’s “Hockey Team” is the renowned American
climatologist Michael Mann. Montford charts out the web that
connects him to forty-two other scientists - sinister “links
of co-authorship” where “each clique is largely
self-contained” (p.254).
The Team
conspires to keep Mann’s hockey stick shaped the way it is –
flat then rising sharply. This requires weeding from the
data evidence of the Medieval Warm Period (MWP) – an era of
Vikings in Greenland and grape-growing in England that
lasted some 300 years until 1250.
According to
Montford “the flatter the representation … the scarier were
the conclusions” (p. 27). If the MWP is not filtered out the
hockey stick goes U-shaped. That would hint that maybe
today’s global warming could, like the MWP, be down to
natural causes. Maybe we don’t need to cut greenhouse gas
emissions because they’re not the problem!
Montford’s
main case is that Mann’s cronies have covered him as he
cherry-picked and statistically steamrollered his data that
used tree-rings to estimate past planetary temperatures.
Leaked East Anglia emails clinch the case. The bottom line
is that the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate has
“proven itself to be corrupt, biased and beset by conflicts
of interest…. There is no conceivable way that politicians
can justify this failing to their electorates. They have no
choice but to start again” (pp. 390-1).
So much for
Montford’s take on Mann and the IPCC. But who is Montford,
and what are his seemingly persuasive sources?
Andrew
Montford gained a BSc degree in chemistry from St Andrews
and then became a chartered accountant. His claim to fame is
as the pseudonymous blogger, Bishop Hill -
“the dissentient afflicted with the malady of thought.”
In the
book’s preface he describes how he learned about climate
science from the blog Climate Audit – the
work of Canadian mining engineer Steve McIntyre. Montford says: “While some of the
statistics was (sic) over my head … I wondered if my
newly-found understanding of the debate would enable me to
take on … a public duty to make the story more widely
known.”
He was
rapidly rewarded. Posting a summary to Bishop
Hill “briefly turned my sleepy
and relatively obscure website … into a hive of activity,
with thirty thousand hits being received over the following
three days … saying nice things about what I had written
[and] even an attempt to use my article as a source document
for Wikipedia” (pp. 13-14).
But according to the Wall Street Journal, McIntyre and his
cronies are themselves under fire. A German review revealed
“a glitch” in Mann’s work (and Mann has conceded as much),
but it “found this glitch to be of very minor significance.”
Another study, this time from the Woods Hole Oceanographic
Institution, concluded that McIntyre had overplayed his
hand: “The truth is somewhere in between, but closer to Dr.
Mann.” Mann’s own university recently completed a review
that exonerated him, not necessarily of error, but of “any
wrongdoing”.
Montford’s book is a classic case of the terrier worrying
the bull. There is no comparison in their intellectual
weight. In contrast to Mann having published more than a
hundred relevant contributions to scholarly journals,
McIntyre has produced three and Montford, nil.
Even if Mann were guilty as charged the hockey stick rests
on far more than his work alone. In particular, the MWP is
largely a red herring. Its warming effect was most likely
regional, not global. There is little serious scientific
doubt about the hockey stick’s validity.
Like most climate change contrarians, Montford writes to
persuade an audience that wants to be persuaded. Laying out
a seemingly black and white case may flatter the prejudices
of some readers. It will serve the psychological needs of
those who can’t face their own complicity in climate change.
But at the end of the day, this book is what it says it is:
a write-up of somebody else’s blog. Could it be that the
author over-rates the forensic utility of his
narrowly-informed approach? One has to ask if it amounts to
any more than an intellectual conceit.
Alastair McIntosh of the Centre for Human
Ecology is a visiting professor at Strathclyde University
and author of Hell and High Water: Climate Change, Hope
and the Human Condition.
References:
Not for publication – for my source back-up only, accessed
14-7-10
Mann’s home page with publications list: http://www.meteo.psu.edu/~mann/Mann/index.html
New Scientist – Hockey Stick not proved wrong: http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn11646-climate-myths-the-hockey-stick-graph-has-been-proven-wrong.html
Wall Street Journal – heat on Mann’s critics and 2 studies
of Mann: http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB113027943843479277-5reMaU4_37mSf3Us8BhDeHITDyA_20061026.html?mod=blogs,
Medieval warming was regional: http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn11644-climate-myths-it-was-warmer-during-the-medieval-period-with-vineyards-in-england.html
American Chemical Society’s Environmental News – on
McIntyre’s rise to fame (pp. 5-6) - http://pubs.acs.org/doi/pdf/10.1021/es053378b
Guardian on Mann cleared of science fraud: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/jul/02/michael-mann-cleared
Penn State Uni announcement on Mann being cleared: http://www.research.psu.edu/news/2010/michael-mann-decision
Penn State Uni full report into Mann: http://live.psu.edu/fullimg/userpics/10026/Final_Investigation_Report.pdf
Virginia Attorney pursues Mann: http://voices.washingtonpost.com/virginiapolitics/2010/07/the_university_of_virginia_hol.html
Union of Concerned Scientists etc. challenges Attorney’s
attack on Mann: http://hamptonroads.com/2010/05/academics-fight-cuccinellis-call-climatechange-records
Uni of Virginia defends Attorney’s attack on Mann –
academic freedom - http://www2.dailyprogress.com/cdp/news/local/education/article/uva_fights_inquiry_by_cuccinelli/56663/
See Wikipedia – not the main entries, but the “Discussion”
or “Talk” sections where editors debate what is acceptable
in entries – under Mann, McIntyre, Montford and Hockey Stick
Controversy.