Why would the most widely cited scientific journal go there? And what does that tell us about its editorial judgment? Is it aloof, separate, and above politics?

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/02/09/climategate-plausibility-and-the-blogosphere-in-the-post-normal-age/
and
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/02/22/jerry-ravetz-part-2-answer-and-explanation-to-my-critics/

Jerome’s contribution is interesting in that he can see a problem with climate science but is still wedded to Post Normal Science, which some would say is a cause of the mess in the first place.

8%+ extinction rates, even if they be local extinctions of endemic species, is still a major disruption, like it or not.

The point is, it’s science, and it’s in the IPCC report. You’re article pretends that it’s not.

BTW. There’s plenty more of it too, with some much higher numbers. Here’s a whole table full of it:
http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg2/en/ch4s4-4-11.html#table-4-1

I would note that most of the scenarios reference in that table are based on the relatively conservative estimates of temperature increases – which we are not at all on track to achieve.

There are a great many more than 69 plant species.

“species extinction in Mexico could sharply increase: mammals 8% or 26% loss of species”

That’s not quite what it says.

“… that species extinction in Mexico could sharply increase: mammals 8% or 26% loss of species (with or without dispersal), birds 5% or 8% loss of species (with or without dispersal), and butterflies 7% or 19% loss of species (with or without dispersal).”

“Dispersal…” The species can move, but the study counts them as “extinct” if they’re “dispersed”. And it counts them as extinct just from Mexico. So if they hop over the border… they’re still “extinct”.

The number of species studied in Thomas 2004 was: mammals 96, birds 186, butterflies 41. So Thomas 2004 talks about the extinction of between 8 and 26% of 96 mammal species – so between 7.6 and 25 species of mammals; and between 5 and 8% of 186 bird species – so between 9 and 15 bird species; and between 7 and 19% of 41 butterfly species – so between 2.9 and 6.15 butterfly species.

Thomas 2004 continues…

“Many unknowns remain in projecting extinctions, and the vlaues provided should not be taken as precise predictions. Analyses need to be repeated for larger samples of region and taxa, and the selection of climate change scenarios need to be standardized. ”

It’s definition of “species” is: “Within each region we use only data for endemic species”.

So, the study is already confined to looking at rarer species.

There are many reasons not to take Thomas 2004 at face value.

Well, firstly “life on earth hangs in the balance” appears to be words, not Oresek’s, although I could be wrong – it’s certainly not what you quoted in your article.

Orsekes’s quote (itself just a quote of a survey):
“…that life on Earth will continue without major disruptions only if society takes immediate and drastic action to reduce global warming”

After 20 seconds of Googling the IPCC’s WGII I find things like:
“By the end of the century, 43% of 69 tree plant species studied could become extinct in Amazonia”

“Thomas et al. (2004) show, for the year 2050 and for a mid-range climate change scenario, that species extinction in Mexico could sharply increase: mammals 8% or 26% loss of species”

…these certainly seem like ‘major disruptions’ to ‘life on Earth’ to me…

And after another quick scan, I find table SPM.6 from the Synthesis which says emissions would need to peak sometime before the middle of the century to limit temperature rises to under 4 degrees (with a peak by 2015 to achieve less than 2 degrees warming)… I think most would agree that some degree of ‘drastic action’ is going to be required to achieve a peak in emissions within this time frame, particularly while we have guys like you running around, would you not? Or perhaps you have some proposal in your blog archive whereby ‘non-drastic’ action could achieve such a reduction?

This probably explains the difficulties they are having.

Lotharloo. We thought what Oreskes left out was interesting. On your second point, Orsekses was not using the word “consensus” refer to research, but instead to agreement between scientists. Your complaint is pretty feeble.

So too is cbp’s. Thatns for the link. It does speak about species loss. But it doesn’t talk about it in anything like the terms necessary to make the claim that “life on earth hangs in the balance”.

An answer to Oreskes new bedtime story will be here soonish.

You say:
>> Because the message that “life on Earth” hangs in the balance, such that it faces
>> “major disruptions” unless we take “immediate and drastic action” is not a
>> scientific one. You certainly won’t find it in any IPCC reports.

What nonsense – this is all over the IPCC reports:
http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg2/en/ch13s13-4.html

Britain desperately needs more housing, roads and railways, but these aren’t being built because it would be political suicide. Millions of NIMBYs (many of them in marginal constituencies) are hell-bent on preventing any development that could reduce the value of their houses. Perhaps the politicians use environmentalism as an excuse to block development, because it sounds better than admitting that they are just serving the narrow selfish interests of current homeowners…

When Oreskes quotes, ““Human activities… are modifying the concentrations of atmospheric constituents … that absorb or scatter radiant energy … [M]ost of the observed warming over the last 50 years is likely to have been due to the increase in greenhouse gas emissions”, her quotation is accurate and she actually emphasizes the word likely. She then goes on to say that the result of the decades of research was essentially the change from the word “likely” to stronger words.

Next, you say, “See what she did there? The fact that a 1979 press release used the word “consensus” (or more specifically, the words “indicates a consensus”) means that, in 1979, there was a consensus. Hey, it’s easy this history of science.” which is another misleading statement. She was demonstrating that the scientists were actively researching global warming for decades and she was right. You cannot dispute that claim so you make up a strawman that she claimed there was a consensus on global warming.