Later …. Wait, I think I'm being too hard on Schneider who later qualified the quote below to apply only to soundbite decisions when getting interviewed… ]
He apparently did not mean it to be as broad and sweeping as it sounds below]. However, I do think the quote reflects the current behavior of many scientists who are choosing to accept alarmism because it suits their needs.
My initial post:
A great intellectual frustration for me is trying to understand why super bright, well informed people who all subscribe to the idea of rational, scientific inquiry often disagree – sometimes violently – about the interpretation of well studied phenomena. I now think the answer can be found by noting how our pesky human intellectual inadequacies combine with our "tribal" tendency to agree with our friends and challenge our enemies, especially when we are under personal attack. This in turn focuses attention on a "too narrow" spectrum of information and people, which in turn leads to faulty analysis or suspect statements – even by very competent intellects.
Stephen Schnieder is an internationally respected Stanford climatologist and biologist and a key author of the IPCC report which is the key Global Warming reference work. He's also one of the harshest critics of Bjorn Lomborg and his book "The Skeptical Environmentalist". Back in 1996 Schnieder got to the heart of the challenge of mixing science and politics in the statement below and his answer to critics who often accuse him of alarmism based on the following statement he made in an interview:
"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. [bolding added]
Yikes Dr. Schneider – please JUST SAY NO to effectiveness if it is going to compromise your honesty – that should not be an ethical bind for a scientists who should be held to a higher standard of honesty.
I sure don't like his idea that "offering up scary scenarios" somehow serves the long term best interests of the public. It sure looks like Schneider would support Al Gore's alarmism as an important part of getting the public to act on an issue many hold very dear (reduction of greenhouse gases in the hopes of stopping global warming), but I think a more functional view is that the role of science should be to offer the unvarnished truth, and to *challenge* alarmists and political or economic vested interests when they report facts selectively or inaccurately. Only with accurate analyses can we allocated resources most effectively to the myriad problems of earth.
The irony of it all is that global warming alarmists cite potential human death catastrophes from global warming, yet simply ignore the *fact* that there are many human catastrophes going on *right now* in many parts of the globe. Before you ask me to focus my attention and hundreds of billions of dollars of tax money on the (slight) possibility that global warming will rise sea levels 20 feet, I ask you to focus your precious attention, and a few dozen billion, on the easy to solve problems of the world like clean water, intestinal disease, and malaria. Deal?
Joe Duck 
Yikes Dr. Schneider – please JUST SAY NO to effectiveness if it is going to compromise your honesty – that should not be an ethical bind for a scientists who should be held to a higher standard of honesty.
I think this is fair enough under normal circumstances. More than fair enough. However the science of global warming and how it is perceived in public has been under attack from fossil-fuel companies since 1988. They have distorted, manipulated and influenced the debate to ensure the public is not getting a true message from the science, in much the same way that the scientific consensus for the link between smoking and cancer was established in the 50’s, yet obscured by big tobacco.
Given that I can choose not to smoke, but I can’t choose to migrate to a new planet, I think it is even more appropriate for global warming informed spokespeople to employ techniques to achieve cut-through so their message is finally received by the people. Why is it ok for one side to completely abandon scientific method, and then complain when people like Gore present worst case scenarios in order to get peoples attention? You live in a democracy, if you are going to be useful to that process you need to be informed.
At least it is not as murderous and outright a lie as WMD in Iraq, or that Saddam was responsible for 9/11.
And don’t forget that your taxpayer dollar goes to climate science research findings. You are a stakeholder in its outcome, and have a right to get to the truth, and have a right that your fellow taxpayers get this info. As long as the science itself is not exaggerated, and we know this is kept in check by the very trustworthy mechanism of peer-review, then it is fair enough to use any technique to get attention.
Global warming denialists don’t want scientist to step outside of their strict role of reporting their observations, because then they can take advantage of the uncertainty that feeds scientific progress and keep them boxed in and misrepresented to the public and policy makers. They live in cowards corner.
Before you ask me to focus my attention and hundreds of billions of dollars of tax money on the (slight) possibility that global warming will rise sea levels 20 feet, I ask you to focus your precious attention, and a few dozen billion, on the easy to solve problems of the world like clean water, intestinal disease, and malaria. Deal?
If you want to prevent malaria from getting worse, the most effective way is slowing global warming. It is extending the ranges of malarial mosquitos towards the temerate zones where the mass of humanity happen. Don’t forget DDT has already been tried.
But, I don’t want to ask you to focus any hundreds of billions of dollars on fixing global warming – who told you this is what is needed? You are operating under a wrong headed assumption here. I simply ask you to walk where you can avoid driving, turn-off lights you don’t use, switch to greener energy if possible, use you air-conditioner less or not at all.
All I am actually asking is that you save yourself some money by being more considered in your use of energy. Simple really. And it works – 16% of the EU’s GHG come from households – you can save the world without even leaving home. And if it turns out that global warming is a false positive, at least you will have a few dollars in your pocket for beer money.
>I don’t want to ask you to focus any hundreds of billions of dollars on fixing global warming – who told you this is what is needed?
Hold on and rewind. If you are just talking about wise use of energy, developing alternatives, etc. I'm all for it. HOWEVER, the IPCC reports suggest that to delay global warming effects a few years we'll need to take actions that will have very negative economic effects and costs – those are estimated at *trillions* over the coming decades and I think the 100-200 billion *per year* cost for Kyoto is the most widely quoted and assumed by people on both sides of the issue.
You are assigning a LOT of problems to Global warming with little or no data to support it. I know you believe there are OTHER problems, but I get the idea you think warming is so sweeping a problem we need focus on nothing else.
What are your sources for those economic estimations by the way?
Wadard the “hundreds of billions” is my understanding of the cost to implement Kyoto over the period of a few years, based on how economists evaluate recommendations of Kyoto using IPCC scenarios.
If that’s wrong, and in fact the cost to alleviate human caused emissions is far less than that, it undermines my argument which is one of priorities rather than one that says ‘there is no warming’. Of course there is warming and of course we should do *cheap* things to slow warming. But we should not do expensive things since the best estimates of ROI are so very low.