Local Conservative Voice vs National Unemployment Statistics

There are two ways of lying. One, not telling the truth and the other, making up statistics - Josephina Vazquez Mota

Author's Note: This is a post I was working on in April of 2013 when Robert Rees was still at the helm of Cities 92.9. For reasons that escape me right now, this post didn't make it onto the pages of facepalming. A lot has changed at Cities since that time, except of course for the bucket loads of stupidity that stream from their call letters on a daily basis. So sit back, and enjoy this look back at an earlier Cities 92.9 master of stupidity:

Robert Rees has a problem with facts and data.

Robert Rees

During Thursday's segment of The Morning Rush with Robert Rees on Cities 92.9, Robert expressed shock and dismay that anyone would point a finger of blame at anyone but Barack Obama for the unemployment numbers of the last 4 years. He claimed he had spoken with people during the 2012 presidential campaign who blamed George Bush for those numbers, and he just couldn't understand how anyone could reach that conclusion. Lucky for Robert, I happen to know why some people have reached that conclusion, and I'm happy to share that bit of information with him. But, before doing that, I need to address a comment that Robert made during the segment:

ROBERT REES: George Bush averaged 4.5% unemployment during his term.

Uh, wrong.

The average unemployment rate was higher than 4.5% in all eight years of George W Bush's presidency. Anybody that understands averages - which usually means fourth graders on up - will tell you that the average of a set of numbers will never be lower than the smallest number used to calculate that average.

Of course, accurate information begins with accurate resources, and since Robert has a pretty shaky track record in that department, it shouldn't surprise anyone when his numbers clash with reality. For those of us who live in the reality based community, there are reliable resources available for just about anything, and for labor statistics, oddly enough, we turn to places like the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

What follows is a chart showing the average unemployment rate for every month of the Bush presidency, courtesy of the Bureau of Labor Statistics:

The graph doesn't show yearly averages, or a cumulative average for the entire eight years, but those aren't hard to figure out, hell, any fourth grader could do it. I went ahead and calculated those averages myself, and assuming I can calculate averages as well as a fourth grader, I came up with the following yearly averages, and yes, I rounded up and down where appropriate:

2001 - 4.7%
2002 - 5.8%
2003 - 6.0%
2004 - 5.5%
2005 - 5.1%
2006 - 4.6%
2007 - 4.6%
2008 - 6.3%

Since the range consists of 4.6% on the low end, and 6.3% on the high end, the average must fall somewhere in between, which rules out Robert's 4.5%. To check my accuracy, you can calculate the overall average yourself. I concluded that the overall unemployment average for the Bush presidency comes out to be approximately 5.3%, which is almost a full percentage point above the 4.5% number that Robert pulled from his nether regions.

Robert then asked the following question:

ROBERT REES: How can they blame Bush for 8 + percentage of unemployment during Obama's four years? 

How can they indeed.

Well, let's take a closer look at the numbers. Prior to 2008, the highest monthly unemployment average during the Bush years occurred in June of 2003. During that month, unemployment averaged 6.3%, which, along with a few other months that year with numbers hovering around 6%, contributed to making 2003 the second worst year for Bush in terms of unemployment numbers. But again, that was prior to 2008. Answering Robert's question requires looking at the worst year for unemployment numbers during the Bush years. The worst year for Bush in terms of unemployment numbers was 2008, which not only served as the last year of Bush's presidency, but set the bar for the beginning of the Obama presidency.

Let's look again at the Bush unemployment numbers, but this time using a graph courtesy of the Bureau of Labor  Statistics:

If you look at the right side of the graph, you'll see that unemployment began to rise in early 2007, and continued unabated throughout the entire year of 2008. By December of 2008 - a month prior to Obama being sworn in as the next president - unemployment exceeded 7%, and was still rising. In fact, it was in December of 2008 that the Bush administration acknowledged for the first time that we were in a recession, but this concession only came after months of denial, and after the release of a government report that December showing the biggest month of job losses in 34 years.

Let's now take a look at the unemployment numbers for the Obama presidency, courtesy of the Bureau of Labor Statistics:

Notice that at the very moment that Barack Obama was being sworn in for his first term, which occurred on January 20th of 2009, the unemployment rate had already breached 8%, and was still climbing. A huge contrast to the stable economy, and the 4.2% unemployment that ushered in the beginning of the Bush years.

Now look again - courtesy of the Bureau of Labor Statistics - at a graphical representation of the Obama unemployment numbers:

Notice the sharp increase in unemployment numbers at the very beginning of the Obama presidency - a continuation of the increase from the Bush years - that peaks in October of 2009 at 10%, and has declined ever since. It shouldn't surprise anyone that the Obama presidency registers a larger unemployment average than the Bush years. But is it fair to compare the average unemployment under Bush - who was handed a stable economy at 4.2% unemployment - with the average unemployment under Obama - who was handed an economy in free fall at over 8% unemployment?

Conservative commentators - like Robert Rees - would have us believe that Obama is to blame for the high unemployment numbers that have plagued his presidency, but to do that, Rober has to rely on his audience being completely ignorant of the fact that the Obama presidency inherited an economy in sharp decline.

ROBERT REES: Where do they get their information from?

That's easy Robert, they get their information from reality, which is not where you get your information from, obviously.

I Don't Get the Joke

The mind of the bigot is like the pupil of the eye; the more light you pour upon it, the more it will contract. - Oliver Wendell Holmes -

Aaron Halliday insists that he is not a bigot. He is the owner of Checker Cab in Bloomington, Illinois, and recently came under fire for putting up a sign containing the following quote in front of his business:

"Things I trust more than Obama a Palestinian on a motorcycle"

When asked about the sign, Halliday had this to say:

Aaron Halliday: "Now when I read this, the only thing I could think of was action movies where the hero is trying to get away and is chased on a motorcycle by a man (typically) who is wielding a knife or a gun. Picture Indiana Jones being chased through the desert. This is what I thought of when I read this. It was not meant to offend anyone. It was in my opinion, humor. It's a joke"

A protester from the group Not In Our Town (NIOT) explained the sign this way:

Protester: "Checker Cab's sign is a passive-aggressive use of a racial and ethnic stereotype to promote a political agenda. We do not care about political views. We do care about stopping the promotion of hate."

Naturally, a representative from our local Conservative News and Misinformation radio station (Cities 92.9) showed up to defend the sign:

Benjamin Yount defends bigoted quote on sign in front of local business

Yes, it's a joke, we all get that. However, when finding a joke humorous requires adherence to a negative stereotype about a specific group of people, like Palestinians for instance, then that joke is based on prejudice, and is by definition bigoted. Too bad only some of us get that.

Personally, I think the sign just to the left of Benjamin Yount's head does a pretty thorough job of describing both the Checkered Cab sign, and Cities 92.9.

Ian Bayne and Stupid Questions

"The trouble with the world is that stupid people are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt" -Bertrand Russell

Ian Bayne

Remember that Illinois Republican candidate for Congress who compared Christian bigot Phil Robertson to Civil Rights icon Rosa Parks? Of course you do. Who could forget that belly laugh.

Well, guess what? He's still at it. Still at it meaning he's still introducing more than his fair share of stupidity into our world.

After Ian Bayne garnered less than 4% of the vote in the Republican primary for the 11th Congressional District of Illinois, where pandering to the stupid vote inspired his ridiculous Robertson/Parks comparison, he took a job with our own local conservative radio station, Cities 92.9, as the host of The Morning Buzz with Ian Bayne, a 3 hour talk show that airs from 5 to 8 am on weekdays.

What a seamless transition it was from pandering to stupid voters to commanding a microphone at the Cities 92.9 studios. It was as though Cities and Bayne were manufactured together, one for the other. Cities has a long history of peddling stupidity, and who could possibly carry that torch better than the guy who thinks the anti-gay and anti-Civil Rights comments made by Phil Robertson were Rosa Parks level courageous.

In Bayne's defense, there were a lot of white people in the South who were lynched during Phil Robertson's lifetime for simply expressing their Christian views. Not!

So, what sort of stupidity has Ian Bayne been involved with since becoming a part of the Cities 92.9 family?

I'm glad you asked.

I've already blogged about one of Bayne's brilliant bouts with stupidity. This one occurred this past summer when Bayne started a campaign called Flock the Tax Hike, which was promoted as a revolt against unnecessary increases in local taxes, and which blatantly misrepresented the purpose of those tax increases. That campaign fizzled out rather quickly as support stayed confined to a small group of the most credulous listeners of Cities 92.9.

A more recent example of Bayne's stupidity occurred on November 18th, when Bayne sent a Cities 92.9 employee he calls Fistbump over to the ISU campus to question students about their position on global warming.

Why did Bayne pick the 18th?

Well, it was cold outside, and in Bayne's world, cold days aren't possible in central Illinois in mid November when the planet is warming. I kid you not, you just can't make this stuff up.

Most of the students who were questioned in the audio clip seem to accept that global warming is occurring, and most credit science for that acceptance. Bayne's reaction to the pro science responses are met with derision as he wonders aloud if science is the new god on the ISU campus. You see, in Bayne's world, accepting what 97% of the world's climate experts tell us about climate change is bad, because it's akin to faith. Ironically, what never occurs to Bayne, who regularly promotes faith on his radio show, is that this line of attack works against the concept of faith itself, not science. Way to lean into your own punch, moron!

If you thought the pinnacle of that morning's stupidity occurred with the faith comparison, brace yourself for the following exchange between Fistbump and an ISU student:

FISTBUMP: I just wanted to see if you believe in global warming or not.

STUDENT: It's hard not to with the way things are going.

FISTBUMP: You do realize it's 18 degrees out in the middle of November right? Makes it a little bit hard to believe in.

So, according to our friend Fistbump, a local cold temperature makes it hard to believe in global warming. This is what passes for stimulating, informative talk, on Cities 92.9.

Climate Science 101 for the benefit of fistbump and the rest of the Cities staff: The operative word in global warming is the word global.

Had our scientifically illiterate friends at Cities 92.9 bothered to do just a tiny bit of research that morning, prior to putting their ignorance into the form of a question, they would have discovered that the average temperature over the entire Northern Hemisphere on the 18th of November was higher than normal, as was the average temperature for the entire planet, even though approximately 85% of the contiguous United States was experiencing lower than normal temperatures.

An oft repeated phrase on college campuses across the country is that there is no such thing as a stupid question, but on November 18th, that phrase ceased to be true at Illinois State University thanks to Fistbump, Ian Bayne, and Cities 92.9.

Flock the Misinformation! A Story of Deception and Redemption

See, in my line of work you got to keep repeating things over and over and over again for the truth to sink in, to kind of catapult the propaganda - George W Bush

Have you ever known anyone to stick their foot so deep in their mouth that the sole of their shoe actually left an impression on their colon? I didn't think it was possible, but it happened recently right here in central Illinois. What follows is an accounting of this incredible incident.

The story begins with the 2014 city budget of Bloomington, Illinois, which included a proposal to help fund a new flamingo exhibit at the Miller Park Zoo. The exhibit - which is expected to increase zoo attendance by 5% - is also expected to pay for itself over a 3 year period. The up front cost to the city of Bloomington: $150,000.

Additionally, the city of Bloomington levied additional taxes on entertainment, and adopted a motor fuel tax, which they define on the city website as follows:

The Local Motor Fuel Tax was adopted by the city to tax motor fuel at four cent ($0.04) per gallon for the sale of motor fuel to raise revenue for the City's street resurfacing program.

Our story now turns to Cities 92.9, a local radio station with a documented history of spreading misinformation, and which seems to be fueled, at least in part, by a perpetual state of feigned outrage for anything government. In response to the tax increases, Cities - and more specifically morning host Ian Bayne - began a campaign called Flock the Tax Hike (an obvious double entendre), in which listeners were encouraged to place plastic pink flamingos in their yards as a form of protest.

Benjamin Yount

I didn't personally pay much attention to this silly campaign in the beginning, but that changed recently when Benjamin Yount, the self proclaimed Illinois watchdog, made a big deal over an email the station had received from Nora Dukowitz, who works as the Communications Director for the city of Bloomington. Nora's email rattled the watchdog so much, that he decided to read it on the air in its entirety. Before reading it, Benjamin asked his listeners to "find the tone. Tell me what you hear when I read this email". So, as Benjamin read Nora's email, I did exactly as he asked, and I listened for the tone. Here is that email in its entirety:

Cities 92.9,

In response to the Cities 92.9 Flock the Taxes Campaign, I would like to address the misleading and incorrect information regarding the city of Bloomington and Miller Park Zoo.

First, your campaign implies that the recently passed local motor fuel tax will fund Miller Park's flamingo exhibit. In fact, funds generated from the motor fuel tax are earmarked for road repairs and improvements. Your campaign also suggests that funds produced by the amusement tax are devoted solely to the zoo's flamingo exhibit. Funds from the amusement tax are one income stream of many that funnel into the city's general fund. The general fund pays for a wide variety of items including police and fire protection, planning and economic development, and general administration of the cities activities, among other things. Of the city's 91.8 million dollar general fund budget, approximately $150,000 or .16% is budgeted for Miller Park's flamingo exhibit.

In the spirit of true public private partnership, the Miller Park Zoological Society is also contributing $100,000 of its own funds towards the exhibit. The flamingos themselves are funded by the Ewing Zoo Foundation. This separate private foundation has partnered with Miller Park Zoo since 1967 to fund the acquisition and shipping costs of new animals for the zoo.

This exhibit is the initial project outlined in Miller park's zoo master plan adopted in 2012 and strategically phased to improve both the physical aspect of the zoo and its financial sustainability. The flamingo exhibit is expected to  increase zoo attendance by 5% or 6,000 guests and  generate interest from the community for an additional private philanthropic support. The improvements at the zoo make it more sustainable and are anticipated to lower the subsidy received by the zoo from the city of Bloomington.
Following the completion of the flamingo exhibit the zoo will begin work on a 700,000 dollar entrance improvement project funded entirely through the Illinois Public Museum Capital Grant program . The improvements include a new De Brazza's monkey exhibit, renovations to the zoo's entrance, and an additional parking lot to serve all of Miller Park.

In light of these facts, I hope you will immediately correct the misleading and incorrect information on your Flock the Taxes Campaign.

What I heard as far as tone goes was a polite, mild mannered, fact filled request for Cities 92.9 to stop spreading misinformation about the new taxes and their relationship - or lack thereof - to the upcoming flamingo exhibit at the Miller Park Zoo. I had been exposed to misinformation from Cities 92.9 before, so the accusation that they were now misinforming listeners certainly didn't seem out of line. Of course, Benjamin wasn't having any of it:

Benjamin Yount: Nora, thank you for the email. You are wrong, and I don't care if you think we are misleading people. We are telling people the truth .Gas taxes are going up 4 cents a gallon.  The city has raised taxes on entertainment and utilities among other things. The city has decided that its priority is $150,000 for flamingos. All of those things are correct. Because it hurts your feelings or doesn't carry the company line? That's a you problem, not a me problem.  By the way Nora, I don't see how someone whose getting a 100 grand from the city, maybe we'll do this, maybe we'll fire you and then we can pay for the flamingos. How about that? So, between your salary of $100,000 and the flamingo money of $150,000, what's the total percentage there Nora? The tone of this email, and correct me if I'm wrong - the cities 92.9 text line 309 807 1600 - is essentially, stop being mean to us. Just stop being mean! Just no! (lots of huffing and puffing and pouting sounds) No come on, don't be mean, people won't like the zoo! And big government is good. Look, the state is giving us $700,000 for monkeys, why are you jumping on us for the flamingos! Nora, it's the same damn thing.

So, according to this story's protagonist, Cities 92.9 has not misled anybody about the new taxes, and anybody who accuses them of doing so is acting like a petulant second grader. For those of you who are familiar with literary elements, such as foreshadowing, then you already know where this story is leading. But before we get to that a-ha moment, sit back and watch how a fisherman reels in a really big fish:

Benjamin Yount:   We've gotten to the point where you can't even object. People send me texts and emails and they say Ben, there are people at city hall who are really mad about this flamingo thing, to which I say, grow up. You're mad about little plastic birds?

Really Benjamin, do you seriously believe that there are people at city hall who are angry because Cities 92.9 is encouraging listeners to place plastic pink flamingos in their yards? Good grief. After hearing this, I think I rolled my eyes so far back into my head that I swear I saw grey matter. Naturally, I had to respond with the following text message to Benjamin:

Arnold Facepalmer: I doubt anybody at city hall is angry about the flamingos. If anything, they're angry about the misinformation they represent.

Benjamin then read my text on the air, and in response, made the following statement:

Benjamin Yount: This is the line you're going to hear about our flock the tax hike promotion. We say simply 3 things: gas prices are going up on August 1st because of the gasoline tax, the budget includes taxes on entertainment, which includes things like bowling and movies and the city of Bloomington is going to spend more than a hundred thousand dollars on flamingos. We say those three things. We do not say the city is raising gas taxes to pay for flamingos. That's not correct. We simply say the reason you are paying more in taxes for everything is because this is a city that cannot live within its means. Here is a perfect example, a perfect visualization of the wants versus needs mentality at city hall and it's the pink flamingo. But because we don't carry the party line, city hall is taken to saying we are putting out misinformation. You get it. I get it. They can't argue that they are in any way responsible with our money, so they  have to argue the tiny well, technically you're not correct. Technically we are correct, and in the big picture we are correct.

So, according to Benjamin Yount, Cities 92.9 is not saying that the city is raising gas taxes to pay for flamingos, because of course, that would be wrong. So, maybe Benjamin would like to explain the following promotional poster located on the Cities 92.9 website:

Ouch! That's going to leave a mark. I don't believe there's any other way to interpret the statement "All to fund Miller Park Zoo's Flamingo Exhibit" than that it means the taxes were raised specifically to fund the flamingo exhibit, just as Nora Dukowitz pointed out in her letter.

And in the spirit of weapons grade irony, Benjamin followed up reading Nora's letter with this statement:

Benjamin Yount: If this community can have a discussion about flamingos, an honest discussion about flamingos, then perhaps someone could defend the zoo.

I don't think the word honest means what Benjamin thinks it means.

This may seem like the end of this story, but a good story isn't complete without an introspective moral that audiences can take away with them to improve their lives. The moral to this particular story is twofold. First, honesty is always the best policy, and by honesty, I mean real honesty, not phony appeals for honesty from people who make their living working for a dishonest enterprise. And second, if you ever do decide to double down on your misrepresentations, check that you aren't contradicted by your own promotional materials first.

And you know, this story doesn't have to end with Cities 92.9 looking bad. Yes, they have lied. And yes, they've lied many, many times. But they can still save face and salvage some of their reputation and integrity by doing two things; First, they can admit that Nora Dukowitz was correct when she called their campaign misleading. And second, offer a heartfelt apology to people like Nora Dukowitz and any other city hall employees they've shamelessly tried to bully. I know, admitting you're wrong and apologizing is not always an easy thing to do, but it is a necessary thing to do if you value the respect of others.

If you do decide to do the right thing Benjamin, I'd recommend having that foot removed first.

Update - July 26, 2014

I  checked the Cities 92.9 website today to see if it was still carrying the misleading promotional poster I posted above, and to my surprise, I found that it had been removed and replaced with this one:

Notice the change in wording. It is obvious that someone at Cities 92.9 now recognizes that Nora Dukowitz was correct when she accused the station of spreading misinformation. It's a shame that it took this write up to raise that awareness.

Now, how about that apology?

Update - August 24, 2014

I couldn't resist checking back again with Cities 92.9 to see how they might be advertising their Flock the Taxes promotion. What I found was that their poster had once again been changed, apparently this time to include one of their major advertisers, and entice people to check their facenbook page. What's funny about this poster is the glaring misspelling. Yeah, we all misspell things from time to time, but Cities is in the business of putting everybody else under a microscope, but can't be bothered to do something as simple as check the spelling on a promotional poster.

Here's the poster, see if you can spot the error:

If you didn't spot the error, it will become more evident if you try looking on the internet for the Cities 92.9 Facenbook page.

That Explains Everything

What He Said

Local Conservative Voice and Misinformation about the Global Warming Consensus

"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former" - Albert Einstein

If Cities 92.9 practiced truth in advertising, their promos for The Morning Rush with Robert Rees would have to include stupidity and misinformation as two of their primary features, rather than just "news and talk".

Case in point is the consensus view among climate scientists regarding climate change.

Based on extensive reading, I take the position that among climate scientists who are actively engaged in studying the climate and publishing their results in peer reviewed scientific journals, the consensus viewpoint is near unanimous that the earth is warming, and that warming is mostly due to human activities. So about a month ago, I was a bit surprised to hear Robert Rees make the following claim on his morning show:

ROBERT REES: "The left calls Republicans, or basically anybody who believes that global warming - if it exists - is not man-made, then they call them a science denier, even though the science is pretty much split on that issue, and more and more people are coming on the side of, yeah, ok, maybe man isn't creating global warming. Even though more scientists are going that way more and more, and the science is split on it, you're a science denier."

After hearing this comment, I immediately sent the following text message to the show:

The science isn't split. Among published climate scientists, 97% agree that global warming is mostly due to human activities which include the burning of fossil fuels and land-use changes. 97% isn't a split, it's a landslide.

I regularly send text messages to the show, and Robert always reads and responds to them immediately, except in this instance. For this text, the response came about 30 or so minutes later, which was after I had left for work and was no longer listening. I finally caught the response later in the week from the podcast for that particular day:

ROBERT REES: "And you my dear sir are reading very old outdated data. That study came out a long time ago and has been more than once debunked. That study that you're referring to is a study from a University of Illinois professor where he says uh, 97% of climate scientists say that global warming is man-made."

The reason Robert didn't respond immediately was now obvious, he wanted to first look into the matter before responding, which is fine, but his response raises two questions:

1. Does the 97% claim come from a single study, as claimed by Robert?

2. Has this study been thoroughly debunked, as claimed by Robert?

The short answer to both questions is no.

It turns out that Robert is the one using bad data, and as you'll see later in this essay, the bad information appears to be coming from a well known misinformation outlet known as the Heartland Institute.

To address the first claim - that the 97% number comes from a single study - let's take a look at some of the history of scientific attempts to quantify the scientific consensus on climate change:

Oreskes, 2004

In 2004, Naomi Oreskes published a paper in the peer reviewed science journal Science which was titled The Scientific Consensus on Climate Change. In the paper, Oreskes explains that a search of the  ISI database for scientific papers published between 1993 and 2003 using the keywords "global climate change" returned 928 scientific papers. The paper itself lists only climate and change as the search keywords, but this was an error at the time the paper went to print and has been corrected after the fact. From the paper:

"The 928 papers were divided into six categories: explicit endorsement of the consensus position, evaluation of impacts, mitigation proposals, methods, paleoclimate analysis, and rejection of the consensus position. Of all the papers, 75% fell into the first three categories, either explicitly or implicitly accepting the consensus view; 25% dealt with methods or paleoclimate, taking no position on current anthropogenic climate change. Remarkably, none of the papers disagreed with the consensus position."

So, in 2004, the Oreskes study looked back over a decade of climate science, and did not find any significant disagreement with the consensus view point that humans are significantly affecting climate change.

Doran et al., 2009

In 2009, Peter T. Doran and Maggie Kendall Zimmerman of the University of Illinois at Chicago published a paper called Examining the Scientific Consensus on Climate Change which describes the results of a survey sent to 10,257 earth scientists asking the following two questions;

1. When compare with pre-1800s levels, do you think that mean global temperatures have generally risen, fallen, or remained relatively constant?

2. Do you think human activity is a significant contributing factor in changing mean global temperatures?

This is the study that Robert Rees referred to while responding to my text message, and now speaks of regularly on his show. First I'll let the authors describe their study, then I'll present the explanation the Heartland Institute supplied to Robert.

First, regarding the number of responses.

"With 3,146 individuals completing the survey, the participant response rate for the survey was 30.7%. This is a typical response rate for web-based surveys [Cook et al., 2000; Kaplowitz et al., 2004]."

Next, regarding how the respondents were categorized based on areas of research.

"With survey participants asked to select a single category, the most common area of expertise reported were geochemistry (15.5%), geophysics (12%), and oceanography (10.5%). General geology , hydrology/hydrogeology, and paleontology each accounted for 5-7% of the respondents. Approximately 5% of the respondents were climate scientists, and 8.5% of the respondents  indicated that more than 50% of their peer-reviewed publications in the last 5 years have been on the subject of climate change. While respondents names are kept private, the authors noted that the survey included participants with well-documented dissenting opinions on global warming theory."

And finally, the study's conclusions.

"Results show that overall 90% of participants answered "risen" to question 1 and 82% answered yes to question 2. In general, as the level of active research and specialization in climate science increases, so does agreement with the two primary questions (figure 1). In our survey, the most specialized and knowledgeable respondents (with regard to climate change) are those who listed climate science as their area of expertise and who also have published more than 50% of their recent peer-reviewed papers on the subject of climate change (79 individuals in total). Of these specialists, 96.2% (76 of 79) answered "risen" to question 1 and 97.4% (75 of 77) answered yes to question 2."

And now, behold the description of the study that Robert Rees read to his listening audience. This is exactly the type of description one would expect from the weapons grade misinformers at the Heartland Institute. I'll address the spin and the falsehoods as they present themselves.

ROBERT REES: "Here's the thing, and this comes from the Heartland Institute, he says a graduate student asked the following questions to 10,000 earth scientists working for universities and government research agencies. So, ten plus thousand earth scientists were asked these questions: 1) When compared with pre-1800 levels, do you think that mean global temperatures have generally risen, fallen, or remained relatively constant? Question 2) Do you think human activity is a significant contributing factor in changing mean global temperatures? They only received responses from 3,000 individuals which is only 5% of self identified climate scientists. So they sent out the question to 10,000. Only got responses from 3,000."

Notice the attempt at downplaying the number of respondents, even though according to the study, it falls within the range of what is expected for these types of surveys.  

ROBERT REES: "But, to get to the magic 97% in the affirmation of both questions, you know, saying yes to both questions, the study's authors had to whittle down the survey to 79 climate scientists. Those are individuals who published more than 50% of their recent peer reviewed papers on the subject of climate change. So, [laughing] they took out of 10,000 earth scientists who worked for universities and government research agencies, they whittled down their questionnaire down to 79 individuals. That's how you get 97%."

The survey wasn't whittled down to just 79 scientists, as anyone can plainly see by following the link I provided to the actual paper. All respondents are accounted for in the results, but are categorized by level of climate science expertise. The 79 individuals that reflect the 97% number are those who were categorized as both climatologists, and active publishers of climate science. In other words, those with the highest level of expertise. It wouldn't make sense to include earth scientists who don't study climate along with earth scientists who do when considering the consensus view, as those who don't study climate are not considered climate experts. When I want an opinion on a technical subject, I'll take that of an expert over a non-expert every single time.   

ROBERT REES: "In fact, this study that showed the 97%, when you look at the entire study, it shows that out of the people that responded, which was once again only 30% of the individuals who responded, 3,000 out of 10,000 that responded. Out of those 3,000, 66% of those guys who responded, or gals, actually had papers that said man-made global warming was not, or man's involvement was not the cause of global warming. So actually, the science isn't split, you're right, most of them actually say it's not man-made global warming, according to the same study that you're citing."

This is the point where I facepalm so hard that I nearly knock myself from my chair. Nowhere in the study does it say that 66% of the respondents published papers showing that man is not the cause of global warming. I don't know if the Heartland Institute provided Robert with this phony statistic, or if he simply pulled it from his bottom end, but that number makes no sense in light of the fact that 82% of all the respondents agreed that humans are significantly contributing to global warming. With that being the case, how could one explain that 66% also published papers showing that humans are not contributing? It simply defies basic logic. This facepalm is definitely going to leave a mark.

ROBERT REES: "When you whittle it down to 79 particular individuals, yep, 97% of them said it's man-made global warming. I didn't want to talk about that but when I saw the text I was like, oh give me a break. Using way old outdated data, data that was skewed in the first place."

2009 wasn't that long ago, and obviously the only one skewing the numbers is Robert Rees; science denier, and statistics manufacturer extraordinaire.

For more entertainment, and facepalming, here's Robert talking again more recently about this same study:

ROBERT REES: "Oh, the science is settled, really? According to one study the science is settled? 97% of scientists agree? Once again, that study was sent out to thousands and thousands of climate scientists, and they narrowed down the results to like 70. Oh, we don't like all these thousands of people's other answers, we're gonna take these 70 people's answer and finish out the study, and say the science is settled."

This statement completely misrepresents the Doran study. The study was sent out to earth scientists, of which a small percentage were actual climate scientists. Overall, 82% of those who responded agreed that humans are significantly contributing to climate change, and of those respondents who are actively publishing climate scientists, 97% agreed that humans are significantly contributing to climate change. Either way you look at it, even if you ignore the 79 climate scientists in the sample, earth scientists as a whole, according to the study, overwhelmingly agree that humans are significantly contributing to climate change.

So once again, in 2009, we have a study that finds a strong consensus view among earth scientists, and like the Oreskes study, an even stronger consensus among actual climate scientists.

Anderegg et al., 2010

In 2010, a study titled Expert Credibility in Climate Change was published by the National Academy of Sciences, a prestigious organization begun in 1863 by then president Abraham Lincoln. I'll let the abstract speak for itself:

"Here, we use an extensive dataset of 1,372 climate researchers and their publication and citation data to show that 97-98% of the climate researchers most actively publishing in their field support the tenets of Anthropogenic Climate Change (ACC) outlined by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and the relative climate expertise and scientific prominence of the researchers unconvinced of ACC are substantially below that of convinced researchers."

So, despite Robert's claim to the contrary, three studies, and no indication whatsoever of a split in the science. And the Anderegg study actually corroborates the Doran study's 97% number. So much for Robert's claim that the Doran study was debunked.

Cook et al., 2013

Just last year, a consensus study titled Quantifying the consensus on anthropogenic global warming in the scientific literature was published in the peer reviewed scientific literature. Like the Oreskes study, it looked at published climate research over a period of time. Whereas the Oreskes study looked at a decade of research, the Cook study looked back over two decades (1991-2011). Cook and his team identified 11,944 papers related to "global climate change" or "global warming" over the 20 year period. They then reviewed those papers and categorized them as to whether they endorsed human caused global warming, were neutral, rejected it, or stated that they were uncertain. They also contacted the authors to allow them to rate their own papers, so as to reduce the possibility of falsely attributing an incorrect viewpoint to a paper. What they found was that of those papers that did in fact take a position on the cause of climate change, 97.2% endorsed the view that humans are significantly contributing to climate change.

So again, contrary to the viewpoint expressed by the Heartland Institute via Robert Rees, here is yet another study that corroborates the results of other studies, thus demonstrating a strong consensus view on the part of publishing climate scientists that humans are a major contributor to climate change.

What should be obvious to anyone reading this far, is that Robert's claim that the 97% consensus number is derived from a single study is false. As I've shown throughout this essay, there are multiple studies that have been undertaken in an attempt to quantify the scientific consensus on climate change.

What should also be obvious is that Robert's claim that the Doran study has been debunked is also false. Independent studies that converge upon very similar results, despite using completely different research methods, provide a compelling reason to accept that those studies - each of them - is an accurate reflection of reality.

As a final thought, take a look at how Cities 92.9 chose to describe the segment in which Robert made his false claims about the scientific consensus:

"Studies are showing that scientists don't believe climate change is man-made, and yet that's not what is reported."

That's not what gets reported for a very simple reason; it isn't true. But that doesn't stop Cities 92.9 from reporting it.

The misinformation that comes out of this station on any given broadcast day is absolutely staggering.