@366
John, you funny twat. I have never claimed not to read scientific papers. On the contrary, I do. But guess what. I'm not a member in the Climate Scientology Church. I really hate to read religious crap. The bible, IPCCs science, same shit.
Man, you are stubborn, thick, or both. Do you think before you write?
The ignorance is in your belief that somehow Gleick's life is all honky dory and this has no effect on him. You want to believe that is melodramatic, so be it. I call it reality. If I stuck my foot so far down my throat that I was potentially on the hook for federal charges, I would consider that a pretty big, lifetime achievement style, fuck up. One which would throw both my personal and professional life in the trash.
But, apparently in your world, forced resignation from presumably well paid positions of status and public disgrace are just fine personally, financially, and professionally. OK, if you say so. Clearly you are far more proud of his actions than he is by his own admission.
As for Heartland, if you are commenting on and reading this blog, or Curry's, or Watts, or Eli, or DC, or any other on the topic, yes, you would have to be pretty lacking in attention to miss what Heartland is. They come up pretty often. So, nothing released is, in my opinion, the least bit surprising. Not even that they flirt with IRS trouble concerning their tax status. In that respect, Gleick gave up a great deal for very little. Even if Heartland disappeared tomorrow, little to nothing would change. Still plenty of money to go around on both sides.
You can return to fantasy land now Chris. I'm going skiing for the weekend.
Today's Daily Telegraph has a beauty from Bolt titled "Global warming nonsense gets a true cold shoulder". He states "the planet hasn't actually warmed for a decade - or even 15 years - according to new temperature data released by Britain's Met Office."
The Met Office instead says "The period 2000-2009 was warmer than the 1990s that, in turn, were warmer than 1980s. In fact, the average temperature over the first decade of the 21st century was significantly warmer than any preceding decade in the instrumental record, stretching back 160 years." (http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climate-change/policy-relevant/evidence)
Has the Murdoch press no standards whatsoever?
Meaning no, it doesn't. It doesn't have to be true, it just has to slop around in the back of the readership's minds that some idiot somewhere has 'proved' something...
This latest from SkS is rather entertaining. As we know from bitter experience, all the regular Doofuses of Denial constantly cite figures 1 and 2, though they don't necessarily know it...
"[Pliemer's] views are shared by Mrs Rinehart, who has also publicly criticised the idea that human activity is contributing to global climate change... He is also listed as a member of Mrs Rinehartâs Australians for Northern Development and Economic Vision (ANDEV) lobby group, which has taken strong positions on corporate taxation and climate change initiatives
You can almost read thye script on how this will pan out over the next 5 years from here.
And of course every Limited News outfall outlet will be overjoyed. But if anyone still entertains the notion that Failfax would behave any differently, Rinehart's bid for 15% and a seat on the Fairfax board should make them stop and think.
Around October last year I was watching the Bolt Report. One of the guests was Donna Lafranboise, a Canadian journalist and author of "The Delinquent Teenager Who Was Mistaken For The World's Top Climate Scientist." Bolt beamed as Lafranboise described how her research and book exposed the IPCC's processes and procedures, as sloppy at best,and at worst, maybe even fraudulent. Alan Jones also had her in for a chat.
Now these are serious allegations against a body, whose reports, underpin so much of the scientific consensus on anthropogenic climate change. So naturally I expected some kind of assessment or critique of the book from science blogs such as this one, or Skeptical Science,or Real Climate. How about Desmog, Lafranboise is after all a Canadian. Doing a search of the author or book title at any of the blogs just mentioned draws a blank. However, a Google Search produces a deluge of denialist propaganda praising the book. I have not read the book, but have read a summary of its main points, many of which are open to challenge. Some of the commentry also reveals, the author uses outdated or dubious sources of information, and has a poor grasp of the science.
This does not mean the IPCC is some kind sacred cow, beyond criticism, and cannot improve its processes and procedures. The IPCC recognised this itself, which is why it beat Donna Lafranboise to punch by nearly a year. In October 2010 the IPCC accepted a review of its structure and procedures by the Inter Academy Council, and committed itself to implementing the IAC's recommendations.
So how about someone with some climate science credentials, and some knowledge of the workings of the IPCC, putting this book and its author under some long overdue scutiny.
^ A book that says the World Wildlife Fund has "infiltrated" the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change because the WWF asked IPCC scientists to join their Climate Witness project. According to the WWF:
"The role of the Science Advisory Panel is to establish if the impacts observed by Climate Witnesses are consistent with current scientific knowledge of human-induced climate change events in a particular region. The scientists who are members of our Science Advisory Panel will give their expert opinion on submitted Climate Witness stories."
So a teenager in Peru writes and asks why her local river has flooded for the 7th time in 3 years, wondering if it's climate change. The WWF then select a scientist with relevant expertise to respond. Understand that the WWF approached these scientists AFTER they had been selected to work on assessment reports.
Donna Lafranboise flips this around (AFFIRMATION OF THE CONSEQUENT) to argue that the IPCC fourth assessment report was written by a bunch of WWF hippies. Like saying umbrellas cause rain, because every time it rains... "Look, they're everywhere!"
Richard McGuire: you do not need to be a climate scientists to shoot the book down. All you need is some proper skepticism.
For example, when I was a bit skeptic, I looked into the claims by Laframboise and her Citizen Auditors about the peer reviewed publications used in the IPCC report. Problem one I encountered was a muddied conflation of peer review and gray literature. As a result (I guess), only journal articles were counted as peer reviewed. IPCC reports, books and book chapters, reports from governments and government organisations, and also NGOs were put in the gray literature and *thus not peer reviewed* category! Well, I guess even some of the pseudoskeptics will wonder what happened, proudly calling themselves peer reviewers for the IPCC reports...Also, the authors who sent me book chapters over the last year will wonder why they received comments about the content of their chapter. Books aren't peer reviewed, didn't I know that?
One admission: I became especially skeptical about this "audit" when LaFramboise in all earnest gave PNAS the benefit of the doubt as a peer-reviewed journal.
Another example is the hilarious focus on people connected in some way to certain NGOs. Bad, bad IPCC! The WWF and Greenpeace have infiltrated the IPCC! In another chapter she then complains certain "experts" (I'll get back to that) were not asked to participate. "Experts" like Paul Reiter and Roy Spencer. Apparently being connected to an ideological thinktank like the George Marshall Institute (Roy Spencer) or the Annapolis Center for Science-Based Public Policy is not a problem.
Regarding "experts", one would almost think Paul Reiter is the world's most important expert on malaria. Problem is, he has hardly a single publication on malaria, beyond an opinion letter and a history of malaria in the UK. field work? As far as I can determine none. Another "expert" mentioned is Nils-Axel Mörner, the man who rotates sea level rise graphs by 45 degrees to make them flat. I'll leave the comments on Roy Spencer out, I think plenty of people know how much of an expert he really is (not).
And next you read another chapter in the book, in which she complains that...wait for it...an expert was in charge of the chapter! Apparently, you cannot have any critical assessment when a convening lead author is working in the field. So, the problem is not just the use of biased experts and the wrong experts, no, it's the actual use of experts in the field!
These few thinks I already noticed by just reading the "highlights"...no wonder Judith Curry liked it!
Another "conflation issue" can be seen in the failure to distinguish between the three working groups, only one of which (WG1) deals primarily with physical science.
Even using Laframboise's improper "gray literature" classification, WG1 still scored very high, chapter by chapter, for percentage of "peer reviewed" sources.
The book was discussed a fair amount at DC open threads, but I agree a proper takedown is in order.
Ditto for Steve McIntyre's latest braying about IPCC efforts to quite properly limit drafts to registered reviewers, without citation or transmission to the general public, at least until the final report is released.
McIntyre claims that this runs counter to IAC's call for more openness at the IPCC. But in fact, IAC's *own* process calls for just such limits on review drafts, as plainly seen in their report on the IPCC; in fact, the IAC doesn't release drafts even after the final version is released to the public. I'll be getting to that one sooner or later.
Recently I noted that planned expansion of the Alberta oil sands can not possibly be reconciled with the Harper governmentâs promises to reduce greenhouse gas emissions over the next few decades. (And Simon Fraser climate policy researcher Mark Jaccard apparently agrees). And I also exposed the ever mounting number of evident links between the Conservative government, including Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver, and the pro-oilsands EthicalOil.org PR group (a.k.a the Ethical Oil Institute).
Now Oliver has upped the ante on both contentions spectacularly. Answering questions from NDP environment critic Megan Leslie in the Canadian Parliament today, Oliver repeated a previously debunked claim that oil sands emissions (not intensity, but actual emissions) have fallen. And he implied that emission intensity (i.e. GHGs per barrel) continues to fall. Those same mistaken assertions were also made by former Ethical Oil executive director Alykhan Velshi in the ironically titled âMyths and Liesâ section of EthicalOil.org, albeit with incomplete hasty corrections later on. And Oliver never did come clean on his understanding of climate science, doing little to reverse the impression that anti-science contrarians have gained a significant foothold in Ottawa, and that Stephen Harperâs Conservatives have no intention of meeting their climate commitments.
It's an open thread, so I don't feel too bad engaging in shameless self-promotion.
I came across an editorial piece in the Financial Post (part of Canada's National Post newspaper) consisting of an excerpt from Laframboise's book and took a crack at rebutting it (the excerpt, not the book - I'm hardly going to pay money for that kind of rubbish) on my own blog (link in my 'nym).
Ah, Donna Laframboise. The following excerpt from Chapter 24 should give you a good idea of where she stands:
> No matter what they said the problem of the moment was â over-population, ozone depletion, acid rain, global warming â environmentalists have long advocated the same basket of solutions.
These solutions amount to humanity forsaking industrialized society and a good measure of individual freedom. Apparently the answer is a return to Eden â to a slower, greener, more, ânaturalâ pace of life that embraces traditional values rather than mindless consumerism.
// "the planet hasn't actually warmed for a decade - or even 15 years - according to new temperature data released by Britain's Met Office." //
The Daily Mail had this too. They didn't get around to identifying the article in question, but the particular period mentioned "since 1997" or "the past 15 years" has an interesting apect. In 1998, there was a very strong el Nino which increased the temperature beyond any increase from AGW; in contrast 2011 was a la Nina year so atmospheric temperatures were lower than the trend.
So drawing a line from a maximum to a minimum will http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/news/releases/archive/2011/2012-global-temp… reduce the slope of temperature increase or make it negative. [see table at bottom]
Some interesting comments re The Delinquent Teenager ect....The fact is the average punter often goes first to Google to check on the bona fides of an author or book. A Google search of Donna Lafranboise or The Delinquent Teenager will find opinion on the first two Google pages favourable to the book and author by a ratio of nearly twenty to one. A coherent assessment or critique of the book is nowhere to be found. It is not enough to dismiss Donna Lafranboise as a "silly woman." The reputation and credibility of the IPCC is too important.
Can you see the substantive response to valid critiques buried amongst reiterations of debunked talking points (mostly ClimateGate and "the Hockey Stick is broken, and without it there's no cause for concern"); at least one apparently libellous accusation; and egregious violations of basis statistics and logic?
The funny thing about Laframboise being a torch-bearer for 'skeptic/libertarians' is that her soft liberal/arts qualifications are exactly the kind usually derided by 'skeptic/libertarians'.
Her book is a predictable combination of paranoia,poor research and ignorance of science and science procedure.
It's sadly the case that the denialists will publish cheap lo-rent books - no matter how trashy e.g. Donna The Raspberry (really???) and Bishop Montford) - but neither will never publish a paper. They are unable to provide a rational, meaningful case.
Conspiracy and innuendo, no matter how expertly confected, just doesn't withstand scutiny. And that's all they've got in lieu of actual evidence.
Chek @ 25 "Conspiracy and innuendo, no matter how expertly confected, just doesn't withstand scrutiny" My point Chek is, that as yet, there has been no scrutiny. Certainly nothing credible enough to counter balance the denialist rubbish on the Google pages.
I'm also surprised that nobody seems to have responded to Laframboise's book smear tract, especially Ove Hoegh-Guldberg, who was mentioned specifically in the Oz's [predictable glowing endorsement](http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/opinion/ipcc-warming-assessments-a…) of it a few months back. The sad fact is that real scientists like Ove, Trenberth, Mann, Jones, Santer etc. are paid to advance humanity's knowledge of their respective fields, not to spend countless hours refuting lies about them in the media. Meanwhile, the Bolts, the Roses, the Codlings, the Laframboises of the world are able to make a living out of propagating those lies.
@1. While the Murdoch Press isn't renowned for it's razor sharp accuracy, Andrew Bolt is, well, just kinda stupid. Memorable pieces of complete brainlessness from his article:
"Sea levels have recently dipped" (only if you ignore every other piece of data except the El Nino-La Nina changeover Andrew)
"Oceans have lately cooled" (not globally Andrew)
"Arctic ice has not retreated since 2007" (from which planet did you get that data Andrew? It sure wasn't Earth!)
Then he craps on about rain as if the heavy east coast rainfall this summer is proof it must be globally cooling. La Nina, Andrew? La Nina?
He is a moron. What's even more disturbing is that, looking at his blog comments, moronism seems to be a transmissible disease. This has me deeply concerned that I should be vaccinated against it.
It grieves me to find a real national asset, aerospace icon and America's Cup defender Burt Rutan dragooned into signing the WSJ piece , but Pat Michaels has been using his Forbes column to ballyhoo it and Watts as well, adducing the remarkable claim that WUWT doesn't ban critical commenters.
Russell Seitz says:
January 31, 2012 at 10:25 pm
[snip I'm sorry Dr. Seitz, you've been banned for abuse of WUWT policy long ago (like shape shifting with multiple email addresses) and you know it, and for continuing to plaster your "weapons grade vitriol" about everything and anyone who happens to post or comment here. If you don't like Mr. Rutan, please do take it up with him, perhaps you and he can argue about whether aliens wear bow ties.
In the meantime, please do be as upset as you wish. I'm done with you and your prickly condescending attitude towards people you disagree with.
Such a fine example for Harvard you set, sir. - Anthony Watts] ">
Odd as it may be to see Wiredâs direct quotes from Burt styled"âweapons grade vitriol â, it's wonderful that Yosemite Sam has found a new lease on life as a role model for retired TV weathermen.
I returned to my high school this week and found a letter from the Institute of Public Affairs in my pigeon hole. It informed me that teachers were not presenting both sides of the story, that two Nobel laureates did not agree with the AGW thesis, that science had previously asserted that the Earth was flat and the universe revolved around us therefore scientists could also be wrong about global warming, that unnamed scientists were now critical of other unnamed scientists of being political, that the IPCC had recently debunked Al Gore and that Roger Pielke Jn agreed about something, possiby Gore, and that Ian Plimer would be able to set all the kiddies straight by reading his book, a copy of which was kindly included for our library. It was signed by Director John Rostrum, Professor Ian Plimer himself and Newcastle property developer who doesn't much like Lake Macquarie Council's take on building close to sea level, Mr Jeff McCloy. Anyone else in school get one of these?
'...a Google Search produces a deluge of denialist propaganda praising the book.'
I don't know if you have ever tried looking at customer reviews of books by the usual suspects, Montford, Booker, etc. on Amazon. It would be a momentous and depressing task to take on all of these at both Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk (and other applicable zones). I think that an effort is required. Sadly, due to health and disability issues, I am finding it extremely onerous.
This is a real Dunning-Kruger example that should be countered.
Richard McGuire @ #9
The book you are talking about is easily debunked in a few minutes. If you haven't found an article debunking it, maybe you could write one yourself and put it on a friendly blog somewhere (if you don't have your own). It doesn't need a climate scientist to do the debunking.
For example, you could check her count of grey literature against the actual references (she's got it all listed and categorised on her blog).
You'll find that, as someone else mentioned, the grey literature is not only completely acceptable, the reports could not have been prepared without them. Her count of grey literature even includes references to previous IPCC reports as well as references to meteorological data and data from industry organisations, UN and similar policy statements etc.
You could also check the bios of the scientists she criticises.
I'm not surprised it's not debunked - reading the language she uses and doing a five minute check of her 'facts' is all it takes.
One other thing - her findings were well and truly debunked before she put them in book form - including by some commenters on WUWT as I recall.
Another piece of idiocy from Laframboise's book, chapter 7:
>The IPCC may claim that the world's top scientific minds and climate modelers are one and the same.
But I think that's a stretch. In July 2007, five IPCC authors wrote an article for Scientific American in
which they equated climate models with a fortune-teller's crystal ball.
On the one hand, they declared it a certainty that people, plants, and animals would all be living with the
consequences of human-induced climate change "for at least the next thousand years." On the other, they said:
>>Unfortunately, the crystal ball provided by our climate models becomes cloudier for predictions
out beyond a century or so.
>Each of us has to make up our own mind regarding whom to trust and what to believe. But when I became a grownup, I stopped believing in crystal balls.
The book you are talking about is easily debunked in a few minutes. If you haven't found an article debunking it, maybe you could write one yourself and put it on a friendly blog somewhere (if you don't have your own). It doesn't need a climate scientist to do the debunking.
That 'shameless self-promotion' was much appreciated and well worth the time reading through. 'Climate Bible' indeed! This is just another variant of the denier accusation of climate change study being a religion.
The take down of the three scientists by Laframboise reveals how much the likes of Laframbois cannot grasp how many thousands of scientific strands come together, thus how many scientific sub-disciplines are involved in supporting our level of understanding about the cause of the warming trend and the increasing related dysfunction of natural earth systems. Of atmospheric and ocean currents and the biosphere. Small minds are not capable of enlightenment.
Either that or Laframbois is being duplicitous by trying to deny AGW in public whilst realising only too well that '...the times they are a changing'.
I read an newspaper artricle by LL flacking her book. What seemed to bother her the most was that Africans were allowed a voice by the IPPC. China having scientists also enraged her.
Her world seems to be a racist swamp where only white people should participate. Does she think the no African or Chinese has ever gone to school?
Sou @36 If the book is so easily debunked why hasn't a blog like this one done so ? After all it is only the reputation and credibility of IPCC that is being questioned. The issue is too important to be left to enthusiastic amateurs like myself, who are limited to asking questions and initiating discussions on forums like this one.
Richard, you are starting to sound like Judith Curry, who demanded Montford's book was rebutted. It's giving attention to something that does not serve attention. Those who are even remotely skeptical in the proper meaning of the word will have no problem seeing the problems in the booklet. Only those that are already 'converted' will believe it, and no take down will ever make a change. Just see how Judith Curry, who should have the ability to see what a bunch of trash it is, touted the book.
She wasn't open for reason when people pointed out issues with Montford's book (au contraire, she went off on a hissy-fit when the mistakes were pointed out), so who would one write for? Not for the rational, sane people, who can easily see the ideology shining right through, and not for the deniosphere, which has already decided that no facts will ever change their mind.
Judith Curry's reaction is fascinating. I once read a book, as a naive and impressionable teenager, that said JFK was assassinated by the CIA. The author presented facts in a manner that made a plot seem plausible. Such was my uncritical acceptance I thought âGosh, the real killers roam free!â When people pointed out the book was highly selective and misleading, I reacted badly, defending the thesis that CIA whacked Kennedy. This episode ran through my head witnessing Judith Curry's reaction to Andrew Montford's book. She made a big scene before seeking alternative answers and explanations, thus, when colleagues informed her that Montford's account was wrong and misleading in many ways, instead of processing new information, Judith resisted because she wasn't properly sceptical to begin with. To compound matters, her schooling happened in a very public manner (whereas I only looked silly in front of friends and family) and she could not accept people knowing her critical thinking skills were underdeveloped. Much of her output is geared toward rationalising her foolishness and she shows no signs of throwing down the shovel.
Yeah, I'm curious; the world is over-run with absurd critiques - John Cook from SkS was confronted with some new publication denouncing Tim Flannery at a public meeting recently as though this was somehow his problem - do we have to get excited about all of them, and spend 6 months running around meticulously identifying their errors, or what?
Laframboise's thing came out a while ago - I recall the angry reaction at the time to her absurd notion that somehow the IPCC was run by undergrads ('surly teenagers' IIRC) because, would you credit it, they were doing the actual leg-work on many of the papers (I mean! Really!). She thinks the IPCC has been 'infiltrated' by the WWF! That website of hers is just another tedious pile of shopworn Denialist memes for rechumming back into the system.
Who cares?
I mean, why bother to credit it at all? Gee, the Deniers have whipped themselves into an lather about another wannabe Ann Coulter. We must respond! We must sue! If we don't we have admitted the charges! Aha!
It's like saying that since NASA scientists won't engage with people who believe the moon landings were faked, then it's proof the moon landings were faked. Their claims are ridiculous to anyone with an actual *skeptical* mind.
What a silly troll you're being, Richard. Monckton has been refuted well and good, and yet he's still plying his propaganda ... if anything, that's an argument for not paying attention to Montford. The fact is that you have been rebutted in `#`43-`#`47, but rather than addressing any of the points made you offer up ad hominem BS about an echo chamber. But merely because several intelligent and knowledgeable people share similar views, that doesn't make them an echo chamber.
@ Richard McGuire #42 - this blog is run by an 'enthusiastic amateur' - he has given you a platform to debunk the book, not complain that not enough people have debunked it.
No-one gives it any credence and only the most entrenched deniers quote it. It was a 5 minute wonder in the deniosphere. At $4.99 or whatever she wants you to pay it's overpriced by at least $1,000.
Scientists and enthusiastic amateurs have to prioritise their 'leisure' time. Tim does an excellent job - particularly trying to keep the media honest and pointing out where they are not.
If you want to play a part in informing the world of the risks of AGW, then don't just wait for someone else to do all the work - why not have a go yourself.
In this case though, Composer99 has done it for you - and twice in this thread has given you link that you can point people to.
Richard, Monckton presents *technical* arguments, something 99.9% of the population cannot follow, which you can't blame them. In such a case a rebuttal is useful to at the very least cast doubt on his claims ("but experts say you are wrong")
Anyone reading Laframboise's book will have no trouble seeing the conspiracy nuttery.
Note also that despite all the times Monckton has been rebutted, he is still hailed on WUWT as their savior, and is still happily invited to act as a front figure by several organisations.
I found this via the Wikipedia article on The Hockey Stick, linked to by the Wikipedia article on Andrew Montford ... you could have yourself, Richard, if you weren't such a lazy troll out to bash people for not spending even more of their lives addressing the lies of deniers.
Wait, we're talking about Donna Laframboise's book? Sorry, I misread and misunderstood the comment in `#`43 about Judith Curry and Montford.
Well, that changes things entirely, because Donna Laframboise is a blithering idiot and you have to be close to being one to think that her book merits any attention ... but if you really really need someone to do that, see http://nittygrittyscience.com/2011/11/03/an-open-letter-to-donna-lafram… (the fourth hit on her name on google ... too far down for lazy trolls who can't even spell her name right to look, I guess).
The trouble with all the cranks and the conspiracy theorists is that although they might "just" be fools and febrile ignorants apparently not worthy of rebuttal, they have already won the propaganda war.
Had the Denialati not been active I suspect that the international community might actually now have a coordinated and enacted plan for decarbonising. As it stands, such a program will not exist for at least another decade.
Many folk (rightly) compare the delaying tactics of climate deniers with those of the tobacco lobby. The recent movement of Gina Rinehart into the Australian media context should produce more of the same. There is one critical difference however: where denial of tobacco carcinogenicity 'simply' resulted in more tobacco-related deaths mostly restricted to (essentially voluntary) smokers than would have otherwise occurred, the delay of action on carbon emissions will seriously and detrimentally affect the climate, the ecology, and the food-productivity of the whole planet for billions of humans currently living, and yet to be born, and not actually impact too much on those relatively few actually braying for the delay.
Oo, and the biodiversity of the Earth will cop a beating too...
As much as it might gall those who understand that refutations are mostly an exercise in casting pearls before swine, it is nevertheless worth recalling some sage advice from a well-known children's author:
>Uncle Tim always said that a good farmer looks every day at his roofs, gates and fences. He said that a nail in time saves nine, and a tile in time saves a hundred!
The potential worth of a political argument is very different to the (sometimes apparently low) worth of an intellectual argument. That makes Richard McGuire's point quite important, and it is in fact why we have Skeptical Science, Deltoid, Rabbett Run, Open Mind, Climate Crock, and so many other fine sites in the first place.
The extent to which advocates of rational science step in to counter the propaganda machine will determine the extent to which humans ameliorate (rather than negate) the eventual final cost of losing the climate war.
The trouble with all the cranks and the conspiracy theorists is that although they might "just" be fools and febrile ignorants apparently not worthy of rebuttal, they have already won the propaganda war.
Yes, but rebutting them isn't the way to win it, something that folks like you have a lot of trouble grasping. And even if it were, it doesn't apply to Donna LeFramboise, both because she's so transparently whacked and because her book isn't about climate science, it's about her extraordinary ignorance about how science is done.
That makes Richard McGuire's point quite important, and it is in fact why we have Skeptical Science, Deltoid, Rabbett Run, Open Mind, Climate Crock, and so many other fine sites in the first place.
You seem very confused. Richard's point is that when he googles LeFramboise he mostly gets denialists lauding her ... the existence of those sites doesn't change that, nor would it if one or more of them had covered LeFramboise's book. Now, if you can convince Rupert Murdoch, the Koch brothers, Richard Mellon-Scaife, ExxonMobil, etc. to fund propaganda sites, then perhaps you could begin to turn around the propaganda war.
>Richard's point is that when he googles LeFramboise he mostly gets denialists lauding her ...
That was one of Richard McGuire's points - we need to be careful not to fall for the logical traps that catch the Denialists.
Still, it's true that many search queries return a string of crackpot hits first. That's one of the many factors that have helped to scuttle effective response in reducing carbon emissions. Sensible searching would mitigate against this, but unfortunately sensibility is not a character trait of our species.
Anthony Lonergan @ 33, I think that publication should go in to the fiction section of the library along with EIS's for coal mines and, well, maybe, power substations in salt patches (if you are who I think you are you'll get this reference), or, as has been suggested elsewhere, use it for teaching critical thinking, find a claim, examine it, see if it stacks up. But please, don't put it in the compost, you'll give the worms a stomach ache.
When climate scientists are picked up by the Drudge Report and are interviewed by Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh and Lou Dobbs and are invited to speak at the Heartland Institute like these weathermen are, things will change. Cranks like Coleman get wide coverage, with a little help from right wing billionaires; folks like Tamino, and Rabbett don't. Much as we value them, they don't make much difference in the greater world because very few people ever read anything they write.
That was one of Richard McGuire's points - we need to be careful not to fall for the logical traps that catch the Denialists.
Don't play dishonest games with me. You're the one who referred to "Richard McGuire's point", as if there were only one, and failed to identify just what point you meant ... so I did it for you.
Still, it's true that many search queries return a string of crackpot hits first. That's one of the many factors that have helped to scuttle effective response in reducing carbon emissions.
With all those points and factors, you're pretty safe in avoiding the logical trap of implying that you're focusing on the ones that matter.
It looks like your the denier, global temps are currently down to the 1980 temperature, how odd, sorta make's people stop and think about what science has been shoving down their throats.
@49 ianam , whoever you are ? You call me "silly old troll" then accuse me of ad hominem B.S. ?
@ 50 sou "This blog is run an enthusiatic amateur" who is a computer scientist. Sou I am not in same league. I do appreciate the fact he provides this open forum, which being an "Open Thread" I assume gives me the right to complain about a book not being debunked. If Composer's "shameless self promotion" @ 38 were to make it to the Google pages it might make a difference.
@ 51 marco Monckton not only presents technical arguments, but more importantly, tells people what they want to hear, just as Lafranboise is doing. Monckton may still be the darling of the denialosphere, but his reputation and credibility has been greatly diminished, thanks to blogs like this one. Just google Monckton, and you will find many unflattering comments on the man, including an entry by Deltoid "Monckton debunks Monckton." Google Lafranboise or her book title and see what you get.
Bad show, chaps, you've let me down! One of the mildest winters on record and I was beginning to think those chaps at Deltoid really have done the business and warmed things up - which is, of course, "A Good Thing" not "A Bad Thing" considering the alternative, although you haven't quite worked that one out. However, no sooner do I start hunting for last Summer's sun cream than the bloody Russians send their arctic Siberian weather over here! They say frozen birds are falling out of the sky! Even worse, because I believe everything you say on this blog, I had given my Long Johns to charity and I have been forced to go and buy some more!
And talking of believing things on this site, I do recall some mentions in the past concerning DDT and malaria. I avoided the topic not so much because I know very little of it (but when did that ever stop me - heh, heh?!), but mainly because I don't care given that malaria is non-existent in south west England. According to The Guardian (no less), deaths by malaria have doubled and according to 'Dellers' it is directly due to the virtual ban on DDT. He reckons "the Greens have been responsible for killing more people than Hitler."
Crikey! You lot have much to answer for! Not only putting us all at risk by failing to warn of global cooling but also letting those pesky 'Mozzies' fly free. You should all be ashamed of yourselves. Now get a grip!
> Monckton not only presents technical arguments, but more importantly, tells people what they want to hear
You have that right.
I believe your watch stopped.
> I assume gives me the right to complain about a book not being debunked.
Oh, yes. But no right to expect anyone to bother to do anything about it. Do it yourself. Or live with it. You have the right to choose those and any others you wish.
Not only putting us all at risk by failing to warn of global cooling but also letting those pesky 'Mozzies' fly free. You should all be ashamed of yourselves.
Duffer you dumb old coot - there is no global cooling. You've fallen into the trap (as you do every single time) of believing idiots with no evidence except their own ignorant application of the data. This is chiefly your own fault because despite every encouragement you choose to remain an ignorant git who refuses to educate himself.
You might also like to acquaint yourself with the proven effects of blanket application of pesticides like DDT. What happens is that there are always colonies with slightly different genetic variations who are immune. These immune colonies then breed without competition from the wiped out colonies until you're back at sqauare one with an ineffective chemical suppressant that doesn't suppress.
The merest smidgin of background reading would inform you - if you were interested, which you're not.
Instead you prefer joining in with the moron's groupwank of ignorance with political deadend idiots like eureferendum who know and care for nothing except their own geriatric prejudices. Then for an encore you come and jerk off your swivel-eyed ignorance over here as if you're being clever. If only you could see yourself the way others see you.
Richard, as you correctly point out, Monckton appeals to those already wanting to hear the message he spreads. The technical rebuttal of Monckton is useful for those who cannot see through his manipulation and mistakes, because they lack the basic skills to see where he goes wrong.
This is different with Laframboise. The language she uses is enough for just about all human beings to see this is ideology speaking, not a discussion of facts. It is, in short, a very clear narrative. Providing a rebuttal does not help, because those convinced will believe her regardless of the facts, and those in doubt will smell the stench of the ideology.
I'm sorry if my phrasing isn't always so precise that it covers all contingencies.
Nevertheless, the fact remains that I have a lot of sympathy for the sentiment of Richard McGuire's initial post here. Blogs such as [those I listed previously](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2012/02/february_2012_open_thread.php#c…) are all about deconstructing the rubbish that denialists promulgate and promote. If they're not coming to the fore in search results when non-scientists are looking for answers then there is a problem, whether large or small.
Yes, the most scientifically 'credible' propagandists need to be addressed with priority, but this does not preclude also attending to numpties in the vein of LeFramboise who gain considerable traction amongst both rusted-on denialists and in the more general public sphere.
And yes, it's a bitch that Google doesn't filter on credibility, but rather via sites' traffic (or via paying inducements...). To this end having organised rebuttals of folk such as LeFramboise is useful, even if their arguments are entirely specious. The important fact here is that they are popular amongst the lay public who don't know how to filter information, but who eventually have such great sway with the politicians for whom they vote.
I don't resile from either point, and I'm a little bemused that others have given Richard McGuire a toasting for his original comment. In my experience he is most certainly not a troll, concern or otherwise, and if the blather of people such as the seriously facile LeFramboise is slipping under the radar and scoring unwarranted credibility with the general public then McGuire's point (or "points"...) is a surely valid one (or are valid ones...).
Perhaps one unintended consequence of this little enchange will be to promote the thread higher in the Google rankings - Deltoid often (and sometimes surprisingly) seems to shoot to the first page of certain Google searches. I hope so: people will then have at least [two decent links](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2012/02/february_2012_open_thread.php#c…) to access in their journey to understanding LeFramboise's purile nonsense.
For what it's worth, I agree that LeFramboise's idiocy is plainly transparent - to intelligent and educated folk.
The problem is that it doesn't seem to be plainly transparent to enough people. I once wasted hours on a (non-science) forum trying to educate over a dozen people about the inadequacies of her book. For my pains I was flooded to exhaustion with links to Plimer, Monckton, Watts, Bolt et al, et al, et al.
Ignorance, stupidity, and denial of reason are the intellectual equivalent of matches. Their memes are quick to light, and in-and-of themselves are puny little flickers, but they can ignite raging forest fires of factual obfuscation that are beyond the resources of whole armies of people to quell.
LeFramboise may be a dim spark, but she's still one worth stamping on whilst directing the hoses to more blazing scientific bastardry.
One way to get refutations of Laframboise higher up in the rankings of the Almighty Google is to share them online, link to them in discussions, that sort of thing.
"Duffer you dumb old coot - there is no global cooling."
Possibly, Chek, but there ain't no warming either, at least, for the last 10 years and maybe longer. And you (the collective 'you') promised me endless Summers for the lat years of my sainted life. What's gone wrong? And I want my money back!
And as for 'buggaboos' building up biochemical resistance to DDT, well of course they will over time, but meanwhile, as they get around to it, hundreds of thousands will live. You might as well apply your argument to anti-biotics which have saved millions of lives even if the 'buggaboos' are now beginning to dodge the bullet. Anyway, your preferred methods don't seem to have worked at all with the number of deaths doubling!
Sorry, Chek, but you and the rest of the class 'Must Do Better' or you will all have to stay behind and copy out 'What's Up With That'!
You might as well apply your argument to anti-biotics which have saved millions of lives even if the 'buggaboos' are now beginning to dodge the bullet.
The argument is not only applied, but practised, efforts have been made to reduce the overuse of antibiotics for a couple of decades now.
And as for 'buggaboos' building up biochemical resistance to DDT, well of course they will over time, but meanwhile, as they get around to it, hundreds of thousands will live.
The mosquitoes became resistant to DDT years ago you stupid ignoramus. Why don't you either just shut up so you don't let everyone know how stupid you are or at least do a bit of reading in areas you choose to comment on?
I *strongly recommend a brand-new book on tobacco, which occasionally mentions the weird connections with climate anti-science, by Stanford Professor of History Robert Proctor, a world-class expert in this turf. I have a review there.
I will note that besides killing children, slowly, the tobacco business:
a) Occupies land that might grow food.
b) Causes trees to be cut to grow tobacco.
c) Causes more trees to be cut to burn to cure tobacco.
Of course, he other connection is that most US thinktanks that do climate anti-science learned the tactics by doing it for tobacco. The tobacco archives are fabulous resources.
However, no sane government on Earth is going to ask the opinions of those cracker-barrel idealogues once out-of-the-box effects (such as the AGW predicted outgassing of methane from the permafrost) start occurring, as they have, in the real world. The think tank puppets just haven't had the memo yet. The next El Nino at the height of the solar cycle with its attendant effects, will wipe them out.
IIRC DDT resistance was first noted in the 1950's. Antibiotic resistance was predicted shortly after widespread use of antibiotics began, and unsurprisingly showed up in a decade or less. Duff shows that once again he is here only to annoy people.
Thank you for your patronization, but I don't think much of nice; I'm much more interested in truth, and the truth is that he trolled here, regardless of past behavior -- Bernard's irrelevant "experience": talk about a logic trap!
For what it's worth, I agree that LeFramboise's idiocy is plainly transparent - to intelligent and educated folk.
Ah, yes, but I'm sure that a careful and precise rebuttal posted at, say, SkepticalScience.com or that even more widely read location, Deltoid, will turn them all around.
You really really do not get it, and your metaphor of stamping out sparks is truly dim.
It's more complicated than a simple issue of a "logic trap", Ianam.
Yes, folk who post sensibly most of the time can sometimes hit a sour note. I have done so on occasion, and I'm not Robinson Crusoe. However, people can also appear to some folk to be saying one thing, but mean something else simply because the subtext and the context are obscured by the lack of finesse that accompanies written communication. Heck, that's why emoticons were spawned.
I've seen Richard McGuire post elsewhere. Many of those posts were about the effectiveness - or otherwise - of science communication, IIRC. Given my prior familiarity with Richard, it seemed (and still seems to be, to me) reasonable to assume his genuine intent, rather than any concern-troll motivation.
The underlying issue is that if Richard had difficulty locating refutations of Laframboise, people with even less familiarity and capacity for matters climatological will likely have even more difficulty. However, this can be remedied.
I'm not quite sure why this has caused the minor conflagration that it has, but it should certainly help to bring one step closer to the truth, seekers of an answer to the question of the reliability of Laframboise. Or should we not bother to do so, whenever we are able? If the answer to that last is that we should not bother, then should we not bother to refute Bolt, or Watts, or Monckton?
Frankly, I'm glad of this kerfuffle. It's flushed out Composer99's link, and that's a useful one for my bookmarks. Which in the end was essentially Richard McGuire's desired point (or "point").
[* And on the topic of linking, I use backupURL.com for exactly the opposite reason - to avoid giving denialist sites a leg-up on search engines. And it's good for preserving for posterity contentious comments.]
ianam, react how you will, but you really, really need to have a bit of a think about whether your omni-directional blowtorch style is always benefiting the cause* . Sorry, but the mood here is definitely such that I'm confident I'm not the only one who feels it doesn't. This needs saying.
The ever-irrelevant windbag Duff is fair game. Richard McGuire is a horse of a completely different colour. I've responded to him above about not seeing that we were obliged to take time out to respond to every shibboleth the Deniers spit up, but I don't believe he's playing the troll.
He has taken it all rather well, but I would not have been surprised if he hadn't. And Bernard is being very diplomatic and respectful in his responses to you. The reverse, sadly, cannot be said.
(*yes David, 'the cause'. You screech 'Aha! and carry on like the proverbial porkchop; I say 'bite me.')
Andrew Bolt is scheduled to be on the box again tomorrow - 'The Bolt Report' screening 10.30 am and repeated at half four. If folks can bear to watch it.
Read [this](http://climatecrocks.com/2012/02/01/scientists-answer-the-wall-street-1…) in The Australian newspaper the other day (2012 Feb. 3rd) â it was on page 14 â located directly opposite it was the regular "Cutân'paste" column headlined âPlagued by Climate doubt? Concerned about cooling?Suffering from an open mindâ pushing the climate contrarian line. Sigh.
@87 Thank you Bernard J, for first, not regarding me as some kind of alien invader. You have argued a case better than I could have. It is now up to others to judge what happens next.
Monckton suggesting that some of Australia's super-rich should buy up or create a TV channel to serve similar purposes as Fox News does in the US. (Gina Rinehart buying up a portion of Fairfax, anyone?)
Fox News is already in Australia on Pay TV. The trick is getting news that she can influence on free-to-air TV.
You must be a glutton for punishment! This blog is a nest of fundamentalist global warming believers. And, instead of defending their beliefs with argument they resort to abuse.
Have you tried asking their views on the relative importance of CO2 and the sun on climate?
>Have you tried asking their views on the relative importance of CO2 and the sun on climate?
Of course he hasn't because that would take him far out of his comfort zone which, to date, has revolved around making snide assertions that the AGW theory is finished (a claim he's been making for two years now, in which time the evidence has grown stronger) and it's cold in Winter so how can global warming be happening?
The only time Duff has tried to argue science he threw his support behind dowser and conspiracy peddler Nils Axel-Morner and his infamous tilted graph, before announcing that biology wasn't a science. When backed into a corner he chucked a sobbing wobbly and flounced off promising never to post again, only to return days later spamming the usual assortment of right-wing memes and not engaging with any responses.
So perhaps instead of asking why we won't engage with Duff on the science, you should ask why he is too afraid to engage with us?
I gather I have been missed! Well, apologies and all that sort of thing but you must realise, mes enfants, that popping down here to the junior school, so to speak, and beating up a few of the kiddies, is only a part, a very small part, of my life. Even so, John, above, is eager for some, er, 'science', so here goes, although it is from the Met Office and I trust them about as far as I can piss into a gale:
"âOur records for the past 15 years suggest the world has warmed by about 0.051C over that period,â said the Met Office. In laymanâs terms that is 51 thousandths of a degree."
Is that it?! 0.051C? Over 15 years? With the Chinese opening coal-fueled powers stations at the rate of one a week? To say nothing of the Indians! And all the Greenies howling that we're not cutting our emissions anywhere near enough! So why only a measley 0.051C? What about all those dire predictions from Hansen et al? Come on, boys and girls, something's not right here and you keep telling me how, er, scientific you all are, so tell me (or teh Met Office) where the missing heat went!
You negelected to give me the source of the article. Obviously you are hiding something and it took me mere seconds to find out what.
>For most climate scientists the answer is simple. âFifteen years is just too short a period over which to measure climate change,â said Peter Stott, head of climate monitoring at the Met Office. âThe world undergoes natural temperature changes on all kinds of time scales from daily variations to seasonal ones. It also varies naturally from year to year and decade to decade.â
And:
>That sounds ominous but Lockwood calculates that even a decline in activity on that scale would now have little effect because the impact would be far smaller than the opposing effects of surging greenhouse gas emissions.
Does losing, come naturally, to you? You are, completely incompetent. How, er, many times am I, er, going to give, er, you, er, a sound thrashing before, er, you stop trying?
(Although I must give you a big thumbs up for trying to slip an article from serial fabricator Jonathan Leake past me and thinking I wouldn't notice)
>that popping down here to the junior school, so to speak, and beating up a few of the kiddies, is only a part, a very small part, of my life.
That's a lie. You blog prodigiously and read this blog religiously. For a troll, you are soft and easily provoked and I was supremely gratified to watch you run screaming off instead of answering the very simple quesiton of why you believe Nils Axel-Morner's projections when his observations are wrong.
Are we still any closer to an answer on that or are you just going to spam the next big Bishop Hill talking point you will forget within a couple of hours?
Been playing with the GHCN (and CRU) raw data from time to time...
For my latest little "citizen-scientist" escapade, I tried processing data from a very small number (45 or fewer) rural GHCN stations (checked them out with Google Earth to make sure that they weren't in or near big urban areas). Got results that were surprisingly consistent with the NASA/GISS land-temperature index. Info and results posted here: http://forums.utsandiego.com/showpost.php?p=4611211&postcount=70
As you can see, the surface temperature system is quite robust -- get consistent results even when you throw out ~99 percent of the stations.
The posted results were from my "first try" -- no cherry picking of temperature stations involved. Only criteria for temp station selection was that I could compute a 1951-1980 baseline and that the temp station had the longest temperature record in its assigned grid-cell. (Grid-cells very large -- on the order of 30x30 at the Equator).
Good try, John, well done! Except, of course, that you HAFs (Hot Air Fanatics) always squeak loudly that 5, or 10, or 15 years is not long enough to establish a trend. Gotta be 30 years before you can draw any conclusions, you always say. So, tell me John, what's the trend been since the satellite measuring began which must be around 30 years ago? Shot up like a rocket, has it? Broken all records? Exceeded your best/worst fears? I mean, that's what you told us was going to happen 30 years ago - well, not you, John, because I doubt you were born then, but your, er, elders and betters, like that nice man, Mr. Hansen, who actually made some predictions to that effect in Congress, which was entirely suitable given the number of 'porkies' that get told in that place!
And John, you really must try and read more carefully. I didn;'t say I wasn't a keen blogger, only that I wasn't *that* keen on coming here too often. However, I do have a keen sense of duty!
Duff, your faux bon-ho-mie style is wearing thin, and you are still using deceptive tactics by NOT citing sources and resorting to Plimer/Monckton style arguments by mischievously mashed quotes at that.
So Duff (@99), if you trust the Met Office data as far as you could "piss into a gale", why do you then go on to quote it as evidence that the world isn't really warming?
This is some rather strange cognitive dissonance. If I wanted to retain even a shard of credibility among readers here, I certainly wouldn't quote a data source as my "evidence" in almost the same paragraph that I'd dissed it as untrustworthy. But that's just me......
It seems that you need to consult your general practitioner for a referral to a neurologist. You'll probably find that you're suffering from either senile dementia or from pathological delusions of competence.
Whichever condition is diagnosed, it is apparent that it is accompanied by blatant shamelessness.
But we knew that already! In fact, you yourself continually prove and re-prove the point for us, over and over. You little liability-to-your-own cause, you! Enjoy ;-)
[Doonesbury](http://www.doonesbury.com/) might be interesting this week. Myfacts is a service based on the assumption that everybody is entitled to their own facts. First caller is a climate change denier.
MikeM: You asked David: "why do you then go on to quote [the Met Office] as evidence that the world isn't really warming?"
Well, good science consists of trying to disprove a hypothesis, in this case the alarmist tripe that the world is getting warmer. A sceptic lends greater weight to disproofs than to proofs - does that make sense? When the accused changes from "Me? Guilty? Absolutely not!" to "OK, you got me, I'll change my plea to guilty", are you suggesting that the judge should give his revised position equal weight with his first?
If the Met Office says the "problem" is as trivial as 51 millidegrees over 15 years, I'll take it. I'm hoping that the rest of the Global Warming industry will have the good grace to admit that recent variations in temperature are well within the range of historical variation, pack up their bags and stop spouting this alarmist nonsense about boiling oceans.
Nice straw man there, climater denialist. Nobody* is saying anything about boiling oceans. The issue is with increased heat stress on humans and plants and animals; oceanic acidification, changes in weather patterns which cause more or less rainfall in areas habituated to different patterns, etc etc.
*That is, nobody concerned with the science.
And which bit of CO2 is a greenhouse gas don't you understand?
John, thanks for the link to an actual-v-forecast graph (Hansen, up to 2009).
Have you SEEN the latest UAH-MSU anomaly (we're in 2012 now, John)? Minus 0.1C! Print out the graph you linked to and plot that point on the graph.
Your global warming fantasy is about as airworthy as Concordski at the Paris Air Show.
Isn't it about time that you warmists started using humbler language, conceding that the 1975-1998 warming uptick has stalled, that there has been too much focus on CO2 as a driver of climate, that the Hockey Stick presented an oversimplified picture of temperatures in the 2nd millennium?
You could salvage some honour by fessing up and admitting that the dire predictions aren't panning out. Come, come, warmists.... show a little belated integrity.
Wow - QED! Climate Sceptic, you're a Daily Mail reader, I gather? With a sense of irony?
Um, a guilty plea is rather in the way of being a proof, isn't it? Oh, I see, the guilty man has disproved his own hypothesis! And that's what the Met Office has done? But proofs are for mathematics, and the Met Office still seems rather to find 30 year trends and the laws of physics rather more 'proofy' in the vernacular sense!
Ever looked at any charts regarding, say, glaciers, sea ice, that sort of thing? Here's one for you! Remember to only look at the circle!
"If we burn all of the coal [on the planet], there is a good chance we will initiate the runaway greenhouse effect," he said. That runaway greenhouse effect could become unstoppable, eventually boiling the oceans and destroying all life on earth in what Hansen called the "Venus Syndrome," after the conditions that exist on the planet next-closest to the sun.
*That is, nobody concerned with the science.
You ask: "which bit of CO2 is a greenhouse gas don't you understand?". This bit: the relative significance of CO2's proven greenhouse properties compared to other drivers. The IPCC says it's the biggie; that it dwarfs volcanos and solar, and that clouds and water vapour count for nowt.
The carbon monomanics' argument is like saying, "force leads to stress (fact), stress leads to failure (fact), therefore a ram can punch a loe in a dam." The radiative physics, I say, is one * aspect of a complex picture and obsessing exclusively about that single aspect can result in you getting your knickers in a twist.
If "*" = "trivial" then you and the IPCC are on a loser.
When you have Dai and Climate Idiot posting here, there's no damage to be done to the argument even when someone goes completely postal on the internet.
These two clowns, and the dribbling horde like them ensure that no reasonable censure can be made of the merely intemperate posts made on blogs in either support of the science or lambasting such idiots as are wilfully gambling their lives for their present neo-conservative ideology.
So, what you're saying is, it turns out John McLean was right, after all? Because it's been 2012 for rather more than a month? Sh!t, maybe the Mayans were right...
One common feature of all the graphs showing in your link is this: they only show the last few decades. Your grand error is this: the 1975-1998 uptick was too short a time to declare a trend. Raise your eyes, mate. Think longer term. Take the LIA and MWP into account and you'll surely agree that you've been overextrapolating.
We sceptics are not alleging that the last decade of cooling is the beginning of a 3rd millennium mini ice-age. That would be to fall into the intellectual trap you warmists fell into. Answer me this: if the 1998 peak is not exceeded, will there EVER come a time when you concede that 75-98 was just a blip? How many years can you carry on denying that recent variation is not exceptional or unprecedented? Is your faith so strong that you will believe in global warming whatever the facts in the years after you formed your worldview?
(And you were doing so well on the Hansen 'we-get-Venus-if-we-burn-all-the-coal'* thing. One post later and you've auto de-pantsed yourself! Never mind, we promise not to laugh and point.)
*That's, um, quite the qualifier. Whereas it rather seems Rose has no qualifications at all, in every sense, don't it? Oh, well, you know what they say in the Daily Mail!
Bill, nice chart. Problem is, the red line keeps going up. Almost as fast as my flippin' heating bill. Brrr! Would you agree that the red line is fake? And as for the orange line marked 'Kellogg'. He must be red-faced by now, and wondering if he's cut out for the prediction business.
Still, it could be worse. Dr. David Viner - he of the 'children will grow up not knowing what snow is' fame. He's still on the gravy train, peddling global warming propaganda at taxpayers' expense. What are the chances of him issuing a press release saying, "I made a very stupid statement in 2000, and decency demands that I acknowledge my error."?
Let me ask youse guys a direct question: Do you truly believe in global warming? Do you truly believe that the polecaps will melt and we'll all be flooded? Are you playing some cute game, such as indirect nature conservation (I can respect that), doing the wrong thing but for a very good reason? Or rolling back industrial development, harking back to some pre-industrial idyll? Most AGW sceptics see energy as blessing, a foundation of prosperity, albeit with side-effects in need of mitigation. If CO2 is eventually found not guilty, would you welcome that or be disappointed?
Bill, it's a fair cop. There are indeed AGW sceptics claiming that a new ice age is in prospect. And the claim that the Thames will again freeze over is wrong, even if the Little Ice Age is repeated - the flow rate has increased due to embankments.
Sorry to harp on about integrity, but answer me this. If there WERE such a repeat, and sea ice at Portsmouth impedes sea traffic (it coincided with the Frost Fairs), would THAT do it for you? Without wishing to be rude, I am trying to establish whether warmists on this site would concede AGW to be a fallacy, or whether your faith precludes it. Gimme a straight answer and I promise to repay the compliment. That is, in certain circumstances I'd come over to your side, albeit shamefaced at having doubted AGW.
Now you could have found that explanation if a true sceptic but no, you chose the denier tactic of cherry picking statements without a legitimate explanation of why you did so.
Lionel, I guess I could have looked up Kellogg. Thank you for posting that link with its clear-cut comparison of his forecast and a 'composite' of GISS/UAH etc. Would you agree that Kellogg's forecast is toast? Sorry to keep pressing the point, but I have yet to see any warmist say, "Yep, the more pessimistic forecasts are way off the mark, and it'll take an almighty surge in temperatures to 'recover the deficit'."
Remember Comical Ali in Baghdad, saying that the yanks would never succeed? Denial in the face of the facts (in camera-shot, fer chrissakes, with tanks in the background) is undignified. You blokes are taking a leaf out of his book. Who among you will concede that the AGW forecasts are less credible today than a decade ago? Come on, be brave. You can salvage some shred of dignity by saying, "Yes, but it's gonna," with fingers crossed for a toasty 2012-2020.
Climate Sceptic raises a fundamental point when he asks that you, the believers in global warming (let us set aside for the moment the causes), spell out your forecasts in some detail.
You now know that there is not going to be any discernable reduction in the emissions you think are dangerous for the simple reason that world-wide governments simply will not inflict the cost on their citizens. So, from your point of view, you have a worst-case scenario. You also have, you tell us, all the scientific know-how to forecast reasonably accurately where global temperatures will head in the next 30 years.
So, please, tell us, what will they be in 30 year's time?
(The advantage of this is that we do not have to argue about past, er, forecasts. The disadvantage is that, barring miracles, I will not be around to check the result. Although, as I volunteer to cut the grass in my Churchyard, Him upstairs might grant me (and you) a miracle!)
Oh, and someone up there went off on one because I used the Met Office stats. There's no pleasing some people. If I use organisation A, you rubbish them, usually because they are in the pay of Big Oil; but if I use the Met Office (in the pay of Big Government) which I thought was an ally of yours you still rubbish them. There's no pleasing some people!
The article cited demonstrates how science works by self correction. Kellogg got much wrong and that was the gist of the article, an honest appraisal. If only WUWT, Nova and the likes of Bolt could behave as honestly.
Whatever, it should be noted that Kellogs was on the ball WRT Arctic conditions as seen in this quote from the article cited:
Kellog was quite accurate in one aspect of his prediction: polar amplification. Average Arctic surface temperature has increased approximately 3°C since 1880 and approximately 2°C since 1970. This is a warming rate approximately 3.6 times faster than the average global surface warming, which is within Kellogg's predicted polar amplification range of a factor of 3 to 5.
Multiple lines of scientific investigation conclusively demonstrate that the earth is experiencing an imbalance of incoming and outgoing heat energy, producing an accumulating and accelerating warming. A warming which, in a few areas is held in check by a change in local conditions affected by disruption of atmospheric and ocean currents. You may look to checking out what is happening in the seas around the Australian SE coast.
But it is in the polar regions that the biggest changes are taking place where the volume of ice is in decline year on year. Perhaps the concept of latent heat has escaped you even though ice is used to chill your scotch (not mine BTW, I would not adulterate a single malt by such a barbaric Americanism, heck in Florida they even add ice to Cognac unless you are quick enough to intercede - distant memory, health precludes touching the stuff now).
Spend more time over at that site where the article in question appears. You may then earn the title of Climate Sceptic.
Evidence of no-warming-and-maybe-a-bit-of-cooling?
Let's not fuss about pesky data sets and dreary scientific papers.
I'll take the seed merchants and garden nursery businesses in the USA changing the recommended plant selections for the various states back to what they were last year.
Back to Laframboise; she has a group of fans who have written numerous 5 star reviews on Amazon (at her urging on her blog when the book first came out) Some also appear to have watched that website in order to attack reviewers who give one star reviews, in comments to each review.
I just looked at it again and one of the newest reviews, from Jan 19, 2012, is by "Stephen Harper." I don't know how easy it is to register at Amazon with an alias. I'm inclined to think the reviewer is not actually the Prime Minister of Canada, because I don't think he is foolish enough to write such things about the UN under his own name. But he would probably agree with them.
It does raise a question of whether a book like Laframboise's could influence policy-makers. The current Government of Canada spouts the dishonest nonsense about "ethical oil", so they are probably also gullible enough to welcome Laframboise with open arms. A blog rebuttal of her book would be unlikely to change their minds, but it might contribute in a small way to the growing opposition to their anti-environment policies.
Well, good science consists of trying to disprove a hypothesis, in this case the alarmist tripe that the world is getting warmer. A sceptic lends greater weight to disproofs than to proofs - does that make sense?
What on earth does that have to do with the fact that Duff quotes a data source to support his argument that he then immediately goes on to say he doesn't trust? Didn't they teach you in Scepticism 101 to respond directly to the context of the argument being made? In my case here, you spectacularly fail to do that.
I know exactly what a sceptic does and how hypotheses work, "Climate Sceptic". I am sceptical of many things myself. I follow my local "sceptics" organisation, am actively involved in supporting several sceptical blogs on many topics.
What I'm fairly certain of though after having read some of your posts here, is that you are confused over what a sceptic does yourself. For example, a sceptic wouldn't make a blanket authoritative statement like "this alarmist tripe that the world is getting warmer" without carefully looking at all the data first. As probably the most famous sceptic in the world at the moment, Michael Shermer, states: "it either is or it isn't" getting warmer. Up until the last decade, the surface temperature data shows the world getting warmer a lot. At the moment it shows the world getting warmer a little bit. The other (non surface) temperature data also shows it getting warmer. The response of the environment, eg the Arctic just for one, shows it getting warmer. How many sources of "the planet is getting warmer" do you want before you choose the correct one of Shermer's options? There are only two choices. You have a 50/50 chance here.
Now, let's see if you can answer my specific points here without side-tracking onto something I wasn't even talking about......
Oh Duff. I look forward to you arguing "there has been no rise since 2012!" next. You and I both know there are short term influences in the climate system and your entire argument is bogus because there is long term warming.
Duff, you *admitted* that you need at least a 30 year period to ascertain if the warming is statistically significant, and I showed you three seperate data sets that all showed a strong warming trend. By your own reasoning you are wrong!
Why do, er, you fail so much cobber!! Blimey!! Where's, er, your, er, skepticism Duff? Haw haw a black lesbian walked into a bar!
>You also have, you tell us, all the scientific know-how to forecast reasonably accurately where global temperatures will head in the next 30 years.
As do you. How about it Duff. What are your predictions for the next 30 years?
Proof that deniers can crop up in almost any corner of the media to preach their doctrine - including Building Design magazine and now The Catholic Herald:
"What has set it all off? One of the fathers of Germanyâs modern green movement, Professor Dr. Fritz Vahrenholt, a social democrat and green activist, decided to author a climate science skeptical book together with geologist/paleontologist Dr. Sebastian Lüning. Vahrenholtâs skepticism started when he was asked to review an IPCC report on renewable energy. He found hundreds of errors. When he pointed them out, IPCC officials simply brushed them aside. Stunned, he asked himself, 'Is this the way they approached the climate assessment reports?â'
And fellas, don't forget to blame the fossil fuel right wing illuminati conspiracy. :-)
There's a lot of variability, so one can't be definitive, but I would say no. The Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (detrended Sea Surface Temperature anomaly) is the key metric here, and it is currently near-zero (ie current North Atlantic SSTs are near normal, though there are local hot and cold spots, of course).
It's not a hard and fast rule, but generally extreme hurricane seasons like 2005 require a strongly positive AMO. Overall, we are in a period of generally positive AMOs and above average hurricane seasons, but the indications are that 2012 will not be particularly highly charged.
Of course, now that I've said that...;-)
But Invest 90L is certainly an odd one - once or twice a century. The last such was 1952, which also formed in a near-zero AMO, and was part of a pretty average season.
I see that ClimateDespot and Delingtroll are all over this Fritz Vahrenholt story so it looks like OP is cleaning out the bilges again.
As far as Fritz's alleged claims are concerned:
Vahrenholtâs skepticism started when he was asked to review an IPCC report on renewable energy. He found hundreds of errors. When he pointed them out, IPCC officials simply brushed them aside.
the devil is sure to be in the detail.
So come on OP, what were the 'hundreds of errors' and who were the 'IPCC officials'. Oh, and what was that 'IPCC report' EXACTLY?
OMG another final nail in the coffin of AGW. This mighty text must be written by the world's leading expert in climate science or perhaps solar physics.
However, a quick Google shows that Fritz Vahrenholt (surprise surprise ) is neither but is the CEO of a subsidiary of the German energy giant RWE AG.
Aye, chek. FV seems to be another lukewarmer who hasn't appreciated how sidelined the Lindzen/Spencer promoted low sensitivity angle is and how currently the sun cannot be the cause of continued warming and that this:
When asked why Hoffmann & Campe decided to publish âsuch a bookâ, the spokesman simply answered that the time is right â and thereâs a real audience for the book. Even the weather timing was right! Germany is now experiencing itâs worst cold snap in 26 years. That makes it hard to deny lack of warming.
makes no sense. Still, it is winter again so I guess we should expect crap such as this about now.
Thank you OP for persisting in posting these Aunt Sallies, they are just the thing to give us opportunity to make those who have not yet found reliable sources of anti-denier material aware of same.
A quick Web of Knowledge search aboout FV is helpful. He co-authored 17 papers in the period leading up to 1980. Only five of those have more than one citation. Since 1980 he has written three papers, all in the period 2001-2, with an impressive total of no citations.
The sum total of papers on climate change is zero.
In the period 1998-2001 he was on the Board of Directors of Deutsche Shell.
You denialists must be so proud of your latest poster child.
Fellas, glad to serve you some perspectives. You miss the main point though, which is that CO2-doomsayers are not in high fashion anymore. Reality is closing on you guys, and soon everybody will understand that you are worshiping and polishing a turd.
Cheek, it's a process, and you smell worse every time you hit a key. Your mind is a king Augeas' stable â it is a herculean task to clean it out, if at all possible. Its very likely that your drooling fetus position will be permanent, honors to your authoritarian personality.
More and more people realize that the mantra "science is settled" was pure crap. The break throughs to come in climate scientology will be in the sociology of religions.
I love the level of desperation among you guys. Face it, you are becoming a laughing stock. :-)
"You know, I'm not m..m..m..mad. They put me in here, they did. No reason for it. I'm not m..m..m..mad. I'll be proven right any day now. Yes sir, any day now. You believe me don't you?" says the inpatient to the psych nurse.
Vince, you might want to look up "Olaus Petri", and you'll know why our resident troll knows so much about religion: his moniker is that of a cleric...
Correct Marco, hence I seek out places where red papists are in bad need of reformation. ;-)
Some of you guys seem to have a problem with "fashion" despite the fact that politicians are loosing interest in the fear mongering quest of yours. I find it very humoring. I guess you believe the growing disinterest found in the lobbies of power is just a "hiatus" and that their passion for doomsday prevention will soon surface again. ;-)
Shorter Petri - yes, you may have almost every working climate scientist and every National Academy of Science agreeing with you, but we deniers have ... bloggers, and nutcases. And the ignorant.
The most working climate scientist you are relying on are the likes of Jeffie, in other words climate scientologists.
In the real word tough, real climate scientist still debate Co2-hyptothesis, which is good, if not being highjacked by ideology and politics. The latter is now in desertion mode, note bene.
First, just going back to the Fritz Vahrenholt issue, the main reason that the denialists seem to be frothing at the mouth is that he is claimed to be "one of the fathers of Germanyâs modern green movement". This claim, or variations of it, is trumpeted all over the denialosphere. What is the evidence to support this? I can find none.
Second, Olaus I am going to call you on this claim: "reality is closing on you guys". OK, show us your evidence to support this. Please list:
1. The peer reviewed papers in reputable journals (note Energy and Environment does not count) in the last 12 months that support your contention;
2. The national scientific academies (Royal Society or equivalent) that now unambiguously state that antropogenic global warming is not occurring;
3. The climate scientists actively publishing (lets say more than 10 papers in the last five years) in reputable, peer reviewed climate science journals (again Energy and Environment does not count) that have changed from being supportive of the AGW hypothesis to unambigously stating that it is incorrect;
If you are correct then this is a trivial exercise, right? Over to you.
Mr Duff, do feel free to contribute too (but please answer my questions of a month or so ago first, of course).
The vast majority are not "brushed aside by IPCC officials" but are received with comments like: "accepted" or "will be reviewed and rewritten" or "agree" or "good point".
Vahrenholt's corporate CV is here. 'Germany's George Monbiot', according to the interpreter of interpretations? I'm not feeling it! Definitely big in renewables, though. Any Deutsche readers who can fill in?
In the second half of the 20th century, the sun was more active than it had been in more than 2,000 years. This "large solar maximum," as astronomers call it, has contributed at least as much to global warming as the greenhouse gas CO2. But the sun has been getting weaker since 2005, and it will continue to do so in the next few decades. Consequently, we can only expect cooling from the sun for now.
Game On! Leaving behind yet another 'It's the Sun' non-story for a moment, Peter Hadfield (Potholer 54) has had his response to Monckton's response published at WUWT.
Watts hides the response in a post posted months ago where nobody but us will ever read it. What a shock. Hadfield would have been better off ignoring this attempt to control the debate and respond to Monckton in his Youtube series.
The vast majority are not "brushed aside by IPCC officials" but are received with comments like: "accepted" or "will be reviewed and rewritten" or "agree" or "good point".
Just as I suspected, and thanks for doing the digging, the claims made were a distortion of reality. Why should we expect any different especially when the likes of ClimateDespot, Delingtroll, Wishfull Thinking and JumkScience parrot through the denial echo-sphere?
If OP were an arachnid diplopoda he would have no legs left on which to shuffle.
Someone at Rogues and Scholars posted the Spiegel Online link as evidence supporting their claim that:
> It shouldnât be too surprising that a lot of the people speaking out against CAGW are people (like me) who have been working in biofuels. Weâre the ones who had to understand the issues well enough to put together business plans.
It was interesting to read the article and see that the interview and comments from the one climate scientist who previewed the book undercut that claim (never mind that it doesn't logically hold in the first place).
Meanwhile Rutan has another response on [that thread](http://www.scholarsandrogues.com/2012/01/27/open-letter-to-burt-rutan/c…). He does at least acknowledge some errors this time - but argues that engineers do that better than scientists who mostly hope that more data will exonerate their theories; that the scientific community is "fr@udulent" because various claims are being made in textbooks and other materials that they're not calling out (uncited of course); cites Vahrenholt's claims and Inhofe's short list of "scientists who changed their minds", etc. etc.
He appears to argue in the end that we can't use existing data and have to collect more and agree about the "importance" of it up front (apparently proposing a test to decide whether AGW is real or not to be evaluated against future data).
Hilarious cartoonist Josh comments the good news regarding Himalayan glaciers. The more anthropogen methane that escapes from the climate threat bubble, the better the world becomes. Odd. :-)
Ha! love the taglines too. "Who's Voodoo Now" and "It's all the doll's fault Not Mine!". Josh certainly knows how to capture the moment!
The Carrington article was very non Guardianesque. They've obviously learned how to break these reality stories to the faithful though, get a couple of Climate scientists to say their CAGW "amens" at the end and keep the story closed for comments.
Maybe pentaxZ is right about the faithful listening out for the impending Reality tsunami afterall.
"maybe the Yeti will not die from thirst after all!"
We can only hope Olaus. I'd not be able to sleep at night if I thought the impending "Biodiversity armageddon", we've been forwarned about, were to claim another victim as yet in his prime. A paper for Zoologist Jeff I think?
You're quite the master of languages aren't you Olaus, German as well!
The link meant nothing to me I'm afraid, can you help out?
I took a math, physics education trajectory rather than arts/languages - I don't quite regret this, but realise a shortcoming in my education. I did do French for 6yrs, but they were 'stu' years, if you know what I mean.
There's a smattering of Belarussian (long story), but that is about it.
For me, I think this is the biggest reality disconnect that I find impossible to relate to with wuwt denizens. It's not the hypocrisy, the misrepresentation, the smears or the vapid self-congratulatory gushing. It's not the arrogance or the inability to recognise evidence or spot a rational argument if it punched them in the face. It's not even the unwavering devotion to their cause and their relentless spouting of the same tedious guff, deaf to all reason. Nor is it the shrill caterwauling of censorship, blind to the transgressions of their vaunted leader.
There are just a lot of people out there exerting significant influence over the political debate who are totally unqualified. The dilemma is especially acute in the political economic field, where wealthy right-wingers have pumped so much money to subsidize the field of pro-rich people polemics that the demand for competent defenders of letting rich people keep as much of their money as possible vastly outstrips the supply. Hence the intellectual marketplace for arguments that we should tax rich people less is glutted with hackery.
...
A similar problem exists, perhaps to an even worse extent, with climate change denial.
I've wanted somebody to mention this for ages. Josh's cartoons are breathtakingly mediocre; his caricatures are feeble and all remarkably similar, and the jokes are so lame they are lamer than a lame thing that's not having a very good day, leg-mobility wise.
Frankly, work of this standard would usually grace 'user friendly' community service pamphlets on tenants' rights, bowel health, STD transmission and eating the required number of vegetables.
And yet they also fawn over him like... well, like he was Monckton, really. I believe there are T-shirts(?) [*shudder*]
So on top of everything else; WUWT is like some sort of convalescent home for those who've undergone a taste-bypass and humourectomy... this probably isn't a coincidence...
Sigh. I never said anything about concern-troll motivation. Try to read with your brain fully engaged instead of treating your own imaginings as fact. He trolled, in exactly the way I said -- numerous people gave him reasonable responses and he waved them all away with an ad hominem charge about "echo chamber". His past behavior, his being on the side of "the cause", is irrelevant. That sort of tribalism -- the notion that anyone on "our side" (even when our side is that of science and reality) is beyond reproach -- is intellectually dishonest, unprincipled, and a great source of error.
ianam, react how you will, but you really, really need to have a bit of a think about whether your omni-directional blowtorch style is always benefiting the cause
I've already thought a great deal about your sort of patronizing tone patrolling and your deeply intellectually dishonest notion of subsuming everything under "the cause". As Richard Dawkins himself has noted, his tone may not be optimal for winning the religious over to an acceptance of evolution, but he's not going to stop being honest because of it. And I'm not Richard Dawkins, and this forum is no platform like he has ... if you really think that my criticisms here have any bearing on the success of "the cause" you're quite the fool ... but I don't believe that you're really that dumb; or else you really really need to have a bit of a think about it.
And, instead of defending their beliefs with argument they resort to abuse.
A lot of good being polite does you folks with ignorant cretins like Climate Dunce.
Well, good science consists of trying to disprove a hypothesis, in this case the alarmist tripe that the world is getting warmer.
Good science consists of not demonizing and dismissing a hypothesis before attempting to falsify it. The world is getting warmer because more energy is entering than is leaving ... good luck with disproving that.
the relative significance of CO2's proven greenhouse properties compared to other drivers. The IPCC says it's the biggie; that it dwarfs volcanos and solar, and that clouds and water vapour count for nowt.
To determine what is causing the globe to warm, one would look to see which of these is increasing. To prove that the globe isn't warming, one would have to prove that none of them are increasing. This is basic logic, which idiots like you fail at. The question of relative size is irrelevant; it has no bearing on the increase in global temperature. There are numerous other basic facts that stupid ignoramuses like you ignore, such as that water vapor rains out, while CO2 does not, and that "over the past 20 years, all the trends in the Sun that could have had an influence on the Earthâs climate have been in the opposite direction to that required to explain the observed rise in global mean temperatures" (`http://www.atmos.washington.edu/2009Q1/111/Readings/Lockwood2007_Recent…`).
Let me ask youse guys a direct question: Do you truly believe in global warming?
Yes, along with 97% of climate scientists and everyone who is both intelligent and informed. That you imagine that it's some sort of ruse is due entirely to your own stupidity and ignorance.
There seems to be quite a buzz among the deniers recently about a report which says that the glaciers in the Himalayas have not melted for the past 10 years or so.
I think that there may be a problem with the Nature paper. Anyone who researches what is going on in that area will have found that the most immediate problem there is the quickly growing glacial lakes which threaten to flood villages down the valley if they burst. Some of these lakes are huge.
The Nature paper is based on GRACE data which measures gravity difference over time. If ice is melting but is being damned up in glacial lakes could this be another interpretation of the GRACE data. i.e. the glaciers are melting but the water is not moving to any significant extent but is staying close to where it melted thus making it seem as if the glaciers had not in fact melted.
Problem is, the red line keeps going up. Almost as fast as my flippin' heating bill. Brrr! Would you agree that the red line is fake?
The red line is measured temperature, cretin; it's your beliefs to the contrary that are fake. And as for your heating bill, it's a) seasonal, b) local, and c) economically influenced, moron.
>Sigh. I never said anything about concern-troll motivation.
I didn't say that you had. All I was saying was that I was taking Richard as being sincere:
>Given my prior familiarity with Richard, it seemed (and still seems to be, to me) reasonable to assume his genuine intent, rather than any concern-troll motivation.
>[My latter emboldened emphasis]
and hence that his issue was intended to be taken at face value. As I perceived his issue to be that there is a problem when search engine results do not easily and with priority present credible links that rebut Laframboise, I (and others, it seems) think that he had a fair point.
Yes, people familiar with the material may not experience this difficulty, but that did not appear to be Richard's issue.
Now you might not have "said anything about concern-troll motivation", but you certainly ascribed troll motivation of some sort to Richard. Those of us who know Richard know that he is most certainly not a climate change denier, so he is hardly going to be a regular troll, and thus my most generous assumption about alternative trollishness that might be being ascribed to Richard was one of him being accused of concern-trolling. If this interpretation of your intent is wrong, ianam, I apologise - but in that case I have to say that you are simply wrong in accusing Richard of trolling.
Overall, I'm still puzzled as to why Richard's comments were so controversial. Laframboise gained a lot of traction amongst climate change denialists and their sympathisers, and it would be useful to have an easily-accessible refutation for those who might not otherwise be able to locate one. Hopefully in the future links such as [yours](http://composer99.blogspot.com.au/2011/11/national-posts-war-on-science…) and [Composer99's](http://composer99.blogspot.com.au/2011/11/national-posts-war-on-science…) will become more visible to those who might benefit from reading them.
I'd just finished reading the NASA piece, and thought 'you know, given the way the media works they're going to make a big fuss about the Himalayas and forget the overall picture, which is dire', when, lo and behold, the next thing I spot is The Guardian's piece. And they're not even Stupid!
The Himalayan glaciers are apparently certainly melting at lower altitudes, but this may be being offset by accumulation at higher altitudes. The whole thing doesn't really fit with photography I'm aware for from the region, either. The authors are very clear that the satellites lack the kind of resolution that would allow them to determine what's going on on individual glaciers.
Nevertheless, the cryosphere as whole is clearly still under serious threat. The statistics are literally mind-boggling.
you certainly ascribed troll motivation of some sort to Richard
Which I just explained, again.
I'm still puzzled as to why Richard's comments were so controversial.
Because he attacked the whole "cause" for having spent insufficient time on rebutting Ms. Raspberry.
Anyway, I'm not going to waste any more time on your willful density and string of strawmen on this issue. Let me instead mention something far more important:
I managed that unbroken link with all the underscores in `#`188 simply by including it in backquotes (the little thing under the ~ on your keyboard) ... I hope that helps people here.
SkS reckon they've noticed the derailing of the issue, too (see comments below the post), and the obvious incongruity between what's happening on the ground at glacial outlets, and the idea that 'the Himalayan Glaciers have remained stable for the last 10 years'.
Apparently there's a forthcoming post in the works.
The trouble is, what most folks will remember of this is 'but they said the Himalayas weren't melting after all!'.
Rutan responded to me, but it didn't help his case much. (Surprised?)
It's largely predictable: existing surface records are useless for detecting warming trends and should be entirely disregarded; he'll only trust scientists he assesses as impartial regardless of the evidence; no impartial scientists have fairly assessed all the factors that impact climate; he'll only be concerned about warming when it becomes unprecedented on the scale of the last few hundred thousand years - and he references his PPT again which includes a bunch of classic denialist memes that could have been (and may have been in some cases) cribbed straight from Monckton - or Monckton's sources.
Reading the NASA presser give a markedly different view of things, I suspect The Grauniad got something wrong. The detail of the subcontinent clearly shows some mass loss all along the southern flank of the Himalaya and indeed the presser notes a loss of 4Gt of water/year. This is well below previous estimates (NASA notes an upper bound of 50Gt/year, but no lower bound. I was unable to find a range of estimates for this value in 4AR, anyone know what the estimates are?), but does indicate mass loss. At the same time the ice caps in the eastern Himalaya (Tibet and Bhutan(?)) seem to be roughly balancing each other out. I suspect that this last is the source of the headline claim.
The Guardian not only 'got something wrong', it seems they're determined to carry it right through to the bitter end even if it makes them the Daily Mail!
A live Q&A. Framed in such a way that glaciologist Jonathon Bamber is going to be starting well on the back foot, and will have his work cut out getting off it!
Asia's highest peaks have not lost ice over the past decade, according to new research. Glaciologist Prof Jonathan Bamber answers your questions
Notice, in the headline, how a global study of the Cryosphere is now 'the Himalaya Glacier study'! (Oh, and 2003-2010 is 'a decade', too!)
And even though the study clearly confirms that the Cryosphere is indeed melting dramatically, and incidentally there's this interesting anomaly in the Himalayas where, even though they're melting at lower altitudes, this may be being offset by accumulation at higher altitudes, they've set it up so there readers are now asking - I kid you not - if we can trust any claims regarding melting glaciers anywhere! Perhaps Jeremy Clarkson is right, after all?
The Oz could barely hope to have turned the world on its head so spectacularly! What a F U!
Has Gina Rinehart bought any shares in The Guardian recently, perhaps?
So how about someone with some climate science credentials, and some knowledge of the workings of the IPCC, putting this book and its author under some long overdue scutiny.
Since Bernard finds this uncontroversial, he ought to provide for this query/request/demand himself. And he can put it somewhere that, through some magic that only he understands, "will be easily-accessible [...] for those who might not otherwise be able to locate one" ... you know, those people who don't use google, or do but can't be bothered to look as far as four links down. And for those who simply ignore information they don't care for, perhaps it can be made "easily-accessible" by feeding directly into their brains via electrodes. This is something that so many people on "our side" seem incapable of understanding: making something "easily accessible" doesn't change anything ... what changes things is blanketing the airwaves and the newspapers and the other popular media with mimetic messages that are received passively and repeatedly. Richard says he saw LaFramboise on the Bolt Report. Well guess what? Bernard's "easily accessible" refutation won't be presented there. Richard says it should appear on "science blogs such as this one, or Skeptical Science,or Real Climate. How about Desmog" ... Well guess what? The people that we want to reach don't even know these things exist. Richard says "Certainly nothing credible enough to counter balance the denialist rubbish on the Google page". Well guess what? None of that denialist rubbish is "credible", but that doesn't stop people from sucking it up. Does Richard actually think that, if google points to a piece on LaFramboise at DeSmog, "the average punter" will go "Wow, DeSmogBlog, I know they're credible, I'll see what they have to say about her!"? This is a serious failure to understand how the world works, to understand psychology, sociology, and propaganda. When Olaus talks about what we know to be reality not being "in high fashion anymore" we can laugh at the moron for mistaking fashion for science but he's right -- it's fashion, not facts, that determine societal action. And when he says that reality is closing in on us, we can ask the moron for peer reviewed papers in reputable journals, but this misses the point -- he's right, the reality of popular opinion and the resulting reality of the failure to act are closing in on us all. We're right, but that doesn't make us effective. What makes the other side effective is an economic system in which the Murdochs and Kochs and Scaifes and Gina Rineharts and Clive Palmers, on down the line, wield tremendous power over politics and popular opinion. If you really think that the handful of science blogs and our ability to refute (but not even change the minds of) deniers actually make a meaningful difference in the trajectory of the world's climate, you're living in your own dream world of denial.
Given your reluctance to hit the carriage return in your last post, I'm finding it difficult to discern the nuances of your position. However, you seem to be confabulating a desire to see coherent refutation of climate change denialism with an apprehension that such refutations actually make a difference.
If you were familiar with my postings over the years on Deltoid and elsewhere, you'd know that I am singularly pessimistic about humanity's capacity for perception of long-term, indirect, or otherwise abstract threats. I have no doubt that denialism (of many scientific areas besides 'mere' global warming) has the upper hand, and that such a trait will have grim future repercussions for our species.
Seriously, read my comments here, or at Bart's, or at Tamino's, or at the Rabbet's. I make no secret of my opinions that humans as a species are poorly-equipped in the intellectual stakes when it comes to decision-making much beyond the level what/where to eat/root/sleep next.
This does not mean however that I believe that we should all curl up and cop it without offering any resistance. We should offer resistance. And as I said before it's why the professional climatologists are blogging and writing books and giving interviews. Should they give up too because of the overall futility of educating enough of the world's excessively self-interested numpties?
It won't stop the inevitable consequence of excessive human emissions of fossil fuels, but it might temper it to some extent. And something is better than nothing.
And if helping to make clear refutations of Laframboise a little easier to find and digest can change even one person's mind, then I'm all for the effort, no matter how puny it might be in the overall scheme of things.
In one case he defends a deceptive slide as being "structured to inform rather than deceive or scare" - unlike "The Hockey Stick" which he implies is deceptively scary.
His slide contains two graphs with a handful of proxies (Loehle, Carter, Austrian cave stalagmites, Greenland lake sediments) reaching back 11,000+ years, and circles the recent (~100 yrs) global temperature on the graph and says:
"Iâll Bet You Have Never Seen These Charts
Global Temperature, The Last 11,000 Years (current, non-glacial warm period)"
And "You havenât seen them, because they are not scary. They are not presented in an attempt to blame humans."
At least one of the graphs is sourced to joannenova.com, so you can see where he gets some of his stuff.
Clearly he wants readers to draw certain conclusions about global temperatures from a very limited set of proxies.
Bernie and namnam, let's all be friends and enjoy the possible good glacier news shall we? Or are you trying to misdirect? ;-)
@GSW, the video shows the real climate scientist Dr Schellnhuber giving the Himalayan glaciers their last sermon, sort of. Pay attention to how he lays his hands on mother Earth. A trademark of good science â deltoid style.
The more I look at Rutan's powerpoint deck and the more he comments over there, the more I think it could be worthy of a Deltoid or SkS post - especially since he was a WSJ op-ed signatory. It's almost an encyclopaedic critical mass of denialism squeezed into 98 slides...
Olaus, now that you have reappeared, please can I ask you to answer my challenge in #162. I am only asking that you justify your claims by providing evidence to support them.
If you have no evidence then your views become a faith - and you are very critical of anyone taking that path. I am sure you would not do so?
Great responses to Rutan. Reading someone of his background giving such empty replies (of the calibre one would expect from a wuwt commenter) to straightforward questioning is depressing indeed.
Lothar, to me it seems that the Himalayan glaciers have left the building.
@GWB, what's wrong with my claim? You are loosing ground. That's just about it. The CO2-hypothesis was kidnapped from its scientific milieu ending up in the hands of ideologists and politicians. And now it wants to go back home. Its tired of being scandalized by the likes of you.
His final comment before apparently storming off is inredibly annoying:
> When it becomes a religion, the non-believers have to be slain
I see this *all* the time. Someone makes a series of credulous errors, refuses to understand a logical refutation and then complains that the rebuttals amount to persecution. The very existence of strong and informed rebuttal is used as proof of the correctness of their position! It is a conspiracy mindset, and I honestly don't know the correct response. Invariably I take the view that I am no longer addressing the individual in question, but anyone that may stumble across the exchange - and this is why I find overly insulting responses in the same thread hard to tolerate. If my position is associated with abuse, it loses credibility in the eyes of a passer by.
strange that deniers only appear now on open threads. I would have *loved* to hear their explanations on, let's say, Pat Michaels's fraud ...
But I don't despair.
Oluas/Olaus, how things 'seem' to you is of little interest. No doubt the Earth seems flat to you, but the reality is very different.
You are loosing ground.
Why anyone should take seriously a bald declaration from somebody who apparently believes that the volume in the denier echo chamber is a measure of anything connected to the real world, yet is unable to get a basic verb correct is a mystery to me.
The CO2-hypothesis was kidnapped from its scientific milieu ending up in the hands of ideologists and politicians.
You've repeated that particularly stupid meme several times now. Who feeds you these scripts?
> ...of the calibre one would expect from a wuwt commenter...
He seems to get some of his material from favourite WUWT sources (check out the attributions on some of his graphs) and IIRC he has been feted over there, so it's not surprising (once you realise he's switched off his critical thinking and confirmation bias detectors when he gets onto this topic).
> The very existence of strong and informed rebuttal is used as proof of the correctness of their position! It is a conspiracy mindset, and I honestly don't know the correct response.
I reckon one correct response has already been made at that point - at least for the benefit of the onlookers who are interested in following the evidence. There's no evidence-based way to demonstrate to most conspiracy theorists that their claims are at best unsupported and at worst completely ruled out, but it is useful to demonstrate that to anyone who wants to evaluate the evidence.
As to your position "being associated with abuse", I reckon the correct response for the benefit of onlookers is to point out that the allegations of abuse *also* do not hold water (if that's indeed accurate), and that even if they do they have no bearing on the scientific evidence and conclusions - and appear to be a tactic to try and distract from their inability to justify their claims. Some of the other recent commenters on that thread were very good at pointing out the abysmal failure to provide solid evidence.
Got to give him marks for being just slightly ahead of the average denialist though - he eventually owned up to one false claim and said he'd found a few other mistakes. But that is offset by a huge wall of bullshit, self-delusion and empty bluster.
Chek, real climate science brakes through the unscientific wall you guys built. Good, me thinks.
The semi-religious self righteous belief system called CAGW isn't promoting a critical scientific mindset. It promotes authoritarian behavior and scapegoating and the only good that comes with it are boosted egos of the ones pointing fingers at those who dare raising a Q.
Now, let us enjoy the new possible wellbeing of the Himalayan glaciers. Cheers (no rocks in the drink)!
I told you what I thought of patronization. I did not read further than this other than to notice that you said something stupid about carriage returns, so you're wasting your time addressing me with your drivel.
Olaus, what is wrong with you claim is that you can provide no evidence whatsoever to support it. Therefore, it is just ideology, by your own definition.
If you disagree, stop avoiding the issue and address the challenge. After all, as a man of honour, you wouldn't say:
"You are loosing ground. That's just about it. The CO2-hypothesis was kidnapped from its scientific milieu ending up in the hands of ideologists and politicians. And now it wants to go back home. Its tired of being scandalized by the likes of you."
without any evidence to support it, would you now?
Why anyone should take seriously a bald declaration from somebody who apparently believes that the volume in the denier echo chamber is a measure of anything connected to the real world, yet is unable to get a basic verb correct is a mystery to me.
Regardless of Olaus's spelling failures and general ignorance and stupidity, it's a fact that we are losing ground in the propaganda war, and the WSJ denialist op-eds and the David Rose lies about the MET office and all the rest of it reported here is a reflection of that. (This does not mean that I'm opposed to refuting denialist claims, or any of the other stupid strawmen that have been trotted out to be trampled.)
The semi-religious self righteous belief system called CAGW
That'd be the system invented by deniers and solely propagated by them, then. Well, it's already known deniers have no evidence and therefore only rely on their beliefs.
For example your own current eager belief in press reports of the GRACE modelling of the Himalayan glaciers' health doesn't quite tally with your normal denier denigration of CO2 models as untrustworthy.
this is why I find overly insulting responses in the same thread hard to tolerate. If my position is associated with abuse, it loses credibility in the eyes of a passer by.
Do you really think that people who are that confused about what is or is not relevant to a logical argument, people who are that quick to dismiss your points on bogus grounds, will rationally evaluate yours if only everyone is so so polite? I think this is a fantasy, and that people are more likely to be truthful criticism and justified expressions of contempt.
Olaus the priest says at 214: Now, let us enjoy the new possible wellbeing of the Himalayan glaciers.
Did you even look at Rattus Norvegicus' very pertinent link (#196) to the NASA presser, which has the virtue of being one step closer to the source? As RN mentions, that reports that the Himalayan glaciers are still losing 4 billion tons of ice a year. That may be lower than previous high end estimates, but it does not even remotely justify the Grauniad subbies handiwork: "The Himalayas and nearby peaks have lost no ice in past 10 years".
Further, the Indian data is excluded from their global map! The decision to do so was based on the assumption that that Indian mass loss represents groundwater abstraction. That assumption is fair for the southern area where there are no glaciers, but not the northern area, where the highlighted areas of mass balance changes include 379 spots marking glaciers. Of those 379 spots, 70% are in regions indicating mass loss, and 30% are in mass gain areas. And when you weight those results according to the amount of mass loss, you find that the total mass loss is three times as high as the total mass gain.
Of course to establish that, you need to exercise a little actual scepticism and review the published material yourself, as I did. You should try that too sometime, Olaus. It would give a lot more credibility to your posts than simply regurgitating the latest lamestream media misreport-de-jour.
In any case, the Guardian and of course, Olaus, missed the most important finding - overall the cryosphere has lost a net of 4.3 trillion tons of ice over the last 8 years.
... a poorly thought out and uninformed rebuttal ... a pithy and short rebuttal ...
These aren't the same thing. I would note that my pithy demonstrations of hypocrisy, lying, and general bad faith by people like Alex Harvey are hard to answer. I believe that treating people acting in bad faith as if they were acting in good faith is a serious mistake, and the classic demonstration of this is debates between evolutionary biologists and folks like Duane Gish, which give the latter undue credibility.
I'm sure it will not come as a surprise to you that you (read Deltoid) are one out of many perfect mugshots of a perp responsible for hijacking the CO2-hypothesis. Narrow fanatic eyes, sloping forehead, tuberous scull, crocked nose and ill sitting yellow teeth. The evidence is the fact(s) that your doomsday preachings were not based on "science is settled". Your armageddon will end up in the same bin as the ice-age prophesy of the 70s. And its heading there â in a slow but steady pace.
And when the tipping point is reached "we" shall go back to the sources and be baffled by the ignorance of those manhandling the CO2-hypothesis for political and ideological perposes (sic). The "uncertainties" that were there all the time will be visible â again.
And let us not forget the good news regarding Himalayan glaciers!
And may I extend further thanks to Oluas/Olaus for the exceptional efforts in maintaining the image of denialism as one of rank stupidity and ignorance.
Ah Olaus, you have responded to a simple request for evidence to support your position with a stream of invective. In so doing so you have demonstrated with aplomb that: a. you have no credible position on which to base your views other than one of ideology; and b. that you when challenged you lower yourself to the level of a 10 year old failed bully in the playground.
Your demonstration of the "foundation" (i.e. lack thereof) underpinning denialism is quite masterful, for which we are all very grateful.
The problem is that morons like Olaus are a dime a dozen among the denialati ... along with people like Burt Rutan who are capable of functional intelligence but for whom the cognitive dissonance that drives denialism reduces them to lying scum no better that Olaus, so yet another demonstration by Olaus of his immense stupidity and duplicity, while it may make us feel good about being on the right side of things, doesn't actually have any benefit for humanity at large.
Lars, these kinds of prophesies are cyclic. They gain momentum, peak and then lose gravity to reappear dressed up in new clothes. The samsara of climate-doomsday is a very interesting topic. Don't you agree?
Lotharsson, thanks for engaging Rutan - I wasn't able to write my response in a timely manner. Not sure if there's a point now, however, seeing as he's stormed off again.
As for his 98 slide encyclopedia, I'm working my way through it documenting all the mistakes and trying to source many of the graphs since the sources aren't clear in most cases. It's been illuminating to do so.
Brian, I bet many of the graphs would resonate with the longtime regulars here - if you get stuck someone may know something.
Are you considering a post about the PPT on Scholars & Rogues? I reckon it would be a doozy!
Anyone want to bet on whether he'll be back? I've lost count of the archetypal dramatic exits I've witnessed followed by a return to reiterate essentially the same claims as if the exist never happened...
Brian, I wasn't sure whether I'd be getting in the way of your dialogue, so apologies if I've helped divert your intended further conversation. I got a bit fed up with the layers of crap (and avoidance tactics), but based on past behaviour wasn't expecting him to actually bother responding to my critique. And once he did I wanted to probe a bit and see how deep the denial went...
No worries, Lotharsson. I did just put up a response myself, but it's hardly the in-depth thing you did. I think the exchanges with Rutan have been very interesting, if disappointing.
Whether I do a post or not depends on everything I find and whether or not I can organize in a way that's clean. You're right, though - it would be quite a post. Probably a series of posts, actually. Maybe with my own presentation and recorded audio, even.
Brian, that would indeed be an intriguing presentation, perhaps comparable to John Abraham's supreme debunking of Monckton! I'm sorry if I spooked him by bringing up his 'ancient Egyptians casting granite' tripe, but as ever it seemed that when pressed for evidence supporting his views, he was reticent to rationally defend his point. Then again, he was probably looking for any excuse to stomp off...
I enjoyed reading your contributions, and those of Lotharsson - the difference between thorough consideration of all the data and Rutan's tired old memes was there for all the audience to see.
Not only is Rutan back, but at #229 he positively self-immolates. The depth of his misrepresentation of the history and of the science of global warming climatology is staggering.
If Rutan truly believes what he says then he has most assuredly proved to the world and to posterity that he has completely lost his marbles, and if he is conscious of the nature of his profoundly non-scientific claptrap, then he is, to use Marcel Kincaid's words at #241, a very very bad man.
I'd like to add my "hear, hear!" to that of others complimenting you (and Skywatcher and Brian Aldiss) on your engagement of Rutan. I've been itching to join the fray, but time constraints and my keeping of an eye on the [simmering exchange with David Archibald](http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/02/03/quantifying-sea-level-fall/#comme…) have stayed my hand. It's been difficult, because Rutan is a gattling gun of denialist spraying.
And on the matter of Archild, I have a question for the readership here. I seem to remember a post specifically analysing in deep statistical detail the nature of the relationship of the oscillation of sunspot numbers with sea level over time. I thought that it was either an Open Mind or a Skeptical Science piece, but I've found nothing that fits the bill beyond what I've already posted at the WWWT thread. If anyone can point me toward such an analysis before I spend a whole lot of time myself essentially replicating it, I'd be very grateful.
Having just started to dip my toes into this Rutan stuff I could not help thinking of Monckton and his manoeuvres - so many moles to whack - again. It was when I saw Rutan linking to SPPI that I realised that even clever engineers can be taken in by charlatans and start to act like them, caerbannong your calling out of Rutan in that # 136 was well due.
Thank you Brian for your perseverance in dissecting Rutan's 'research' and reporting on it and Lotharsson for continuing the pressure.
It seems that Rutan has dug himself a hole and knows not how to extract himself.
I too was once an aeronautical engineer at a mostly practical level but with qualifications. I do not have quite the cachet that Rutan has but I always have enjoyed finding out what makes things tick having primed myself by reading many of the books and other sources from the stalwarts of climate science - my library reflects the scientific bent with its growing climate science section. Perhaps Rutan could do with a 'reading list'.
It seems that Rutan has dug himself a hole and knows not how to extract himself.
I don't think he sees any need to extract himself; he considers himself entirely in the right, and treats all criticism as further confirmation that there's a massive conspiracy to promote fraud and a need to destroy him because he's working to expose it.
"I put myself in the (Those who fear expansion of Government control) group, and do not hide the fact that I have a clear bias on [ Anthropogenic global warming (AGW)]. My bias is based on fear of Government expansion ..."
Gee, what a surprise.
... and the observation of AGW data presentation fraud - not based on financial or any other personal benefit.
Of course he's never observed any such thing ... Burt doesn't seem to quite grasp the concept of "bias" and its consequences for the reliability of one's observations. As for "financial benefit", he's screaming "They're trying to rob me!" like every other whacko libertarian.
.... I became a cynic; My conclusion â âif someone is aggressively selling a technical product whose merits are dependent on complex experimental data, he is likely lyingâ. That is true whether the product is an airplane or a Carbon Credit."
I'm sorry, is someone trying to sell Burt a carbon credit?
Just because someone is good at designing airplanes doesn't mean they're smart.
Dear John, I believe that proper science and common sense will have better possibilities to reach the public. Your apocalyptic ramblings and faiblesse for distorting science are loosing ground. Good. As I have said many times before, the CO2-hypothesis is interesting and deserves something better than shaking tents and speaking tongues.
I ran across this interesting lecture today. It shows that history can learn us a lot about how little we learn from history. Many of the observations/signs that (today) have been put forward as evidence for global warming, are put forward in the lecture held in 1953.
"Many of the observations/signs that (today) have been put forward as evidence for global warming, are put forward in the lecture held in 1953."
Because it *had* been warming during the first half of the century, as is well known. What matters are the causes, and the paper you cited was very hesitant to put forth an explanation for the warming that was seen then. Nobody claims it was all due to rising GHG's during the first half of the 20th century - what I have usually seen is about half is attributed to solar foring. We can dismiss with confidence however known natural factors like the Sun as a source for the warming in the last 35 years or so, for the simple reason they are not moving in the right direction. A Sun that has slightly cooled over the last 50 years is not a likely candidate as an explanation for warming. The same goes with the oceans - they should be cooling if they are the source of a warming atmosphere. They aren't - they've gained heat.
You are the one who needs to be "learned a lot" about the history of the field you ridicule.
Alas Olaus it appears that you have much to learn not only about the causes of climate change per se but also in the history of our knowledge about same.
Here is a list of reading matter which you should take time studying:
The Discovery of Global Warming â Spencer Weart
Field Notes from a Catastrophe: Man, Nature, and Climate Change â Elizabeth Kolbert
Global warming: Understanding the Forecast â David Archer
The Long Thaw: How Humans are Changing the Next 100,000 Years of Earthâs Climate â David Archer
Principles of Planetary Climate â Ray Pierrehumbert
The Rough Guide to Climate Change â Robert Henson
Climate Change: A Multidisciplinary Approach - William James Burroughs
Burroughs is particularly useful for its, as implied in the title, multidisciplinary approach - puts GCRs and Svensmark in their place. Could do with an update though.
The Warming Papers: The Scientific Foundation For Climate Change Forecast - David Archer & Ray Pierrehumbert
That last is important for its containing papers by Joseph Fourier, John Tyndall, Svante Arrhenius, Guy Callander, Roger Revelle, Bert Bolin and others including James Hanson and thus is indicative of the historical length of our knowledge. Even the ancient Greeks had some prescient ideas on this subject.
Now it is no surprise to me that those who have been engaged in research in those fields associated with oceanography are prominent amongst the exponents of the anthropogenic signature on climate change and thus a primer on oceanography is recommended reading.
The study of such as Oceanography (ISE): An Invitation to Marine Science by Tom Garrison will reveal how wide ranging that subject is and also its tremendous relevance to the holistic study of Earth's systems - chemical, physical and biological.
The above is not an exhaustive list but here is a longer list, but still not exhaustive . It is up to those who wish to argue the case against anthropogenic climate change to familiarise themselves with relevant material and not keep regurgitating denier myths - such a habit will make you bulimic. Bulimic in the sense of wasting your credibility.
I have the books mentioned above, and have studied them as well as others, but then I have had substantial scientific education at different stages of life and delight in continuing study of the works of Feynman (and others on quantum physics/QED) as well as books on organic, non-organic and physical chemistry also Dawkins, E O Wilson and Jared Diamond amongst many others. Perhaps you should try this too.
Guys, who said anything about a non-existing warming period prior to 1953? You really try hard to misdirect. :-) The point is that the same signs/observations didn't have a politicized and ideologically manhandled hypothesis to lean on, hence armageddon wasn't a sales pitch.
Real climate science still don't fully understand what causes climate change. The uncertainties are enormous. And in the light of the warming "hiatus", the "missing heat", lack of accelerating sea levels, Himalayan glaciers again not melting as fast as the robust science claimed, etc...the potency of CO2 as a prime mover regarding the latest global warming period seem to be perhaps...well...ehrm...exaggerated?
"A trend is a trend is a trend.
But the question is: will it bend?
Will it alter its course
Through some unforeseen force
and come to a premature end?"
Alex Cairncross
âClimate is not stable â Fact.
Climate will change â Fact.
Climate change is caused by natural phenomena â Fact.
Climate has changed before and will continue to do so â Fact.
Humans are causing climate change â Lie.
We can stop climate change if we stop driving and flying â Lie.â
"Guys, who said anything about a non-existing warming period prior to 1953? You really try hard to misdirect. :-)"
Speak for yourself. You're the one who pointed to a study from the early 50's talking about retreating glaciers and implied it meant we're ignoring scientific history. It showed no such thing.
"The point is that the same signs/observations didn't have a politicized and ideologically manhandled hypothesis to lean on, hence armageddon wasn't a sales pitch."
They had only a handful of the observational data we have now. Only a small part of the puzzle was known then. It was known that if GHG's rose temperatures would rise, all things being equal, but there were a lot of things we take for granted today missing from the equation. How much CO2 was rising wasn't even know at the time. There were no temperature reconstructions going back centuries. No ice core data. No satellite data. No knowledge of a cooling stratosphere. No computer models. That's not true today. Misdirection like yours might have worked back in the 50's, but there's too much known now for scientists to take those arguments seriously now.
Olaus Petri and Peter continue to give excuses for remaining ignorant. Maybe they're afraid that their minds will become impure and polluted just by knowing what's written in the IPCC-cited scientific papers. Oh, their beautiful minds!
> > Olaus Petri and Peter continue to give excuses for remaining ignorant. Maybe they're afraid that their minds will become impure and polluted just by knowing what's written in the IPCC-cited scientific papers. Oh, their beautiful minds!
> frank, where and when have I given any excuse for ignorance?
When you cut-and-pasted quotes instead of actually trying to read the scientific literature? But I guess you're too ignorant to even realize you're ignorant.
Dear Robbie, I speak for myself, and you spoke on behalf of me. And all by yourself you made deductions, climate scientologist style, which naturally were out of line.
We know more now, but not enough. What we do know is that the CO2-hypothesis is a hypethesis â and for obvious reasons.
If the CO2-hypothetis had been kidnapped in the 1930s (by the likes of some deltoids) the result had been the same. But remember, the authoritarian minds then in power were occupied making ideology and politics of other scientific theories.
That's for sure. You certainly don't speak for science or scientists.
"And all by yourself you made deductions, climate scientologist style, which naturally were out of line."
Nope, I was right on target. Your subsequent comments confirm it.
"We know more now, but not enough."
Says you. We know enough to count out natural causes for most of the recent warming. People like you will never be satisfied with any answer except "it's not Co2!". You ignore what is known and embrace the ever decreasing uncertainty as an excuse to hide your head in the sand.
"What we do know is that the CO2-hypothesis is a hypethesis â and for obvious reasons."
Says you. Scientists call it a well tested and verified theory, which it is.
"If the CO2-hypothetis had been kidnapped in the 1930s (by the likes of some deltoids) the result had been the same. But remember, the authoritarian minds then in power were occupied making ideology and politics of other scientific theories."
Ah, the Nazi/Commie accusation. How quaint. Pulling a Godwin is no way to make an argument.
As I said, misdirection and evasion. Nothing of substance from you and your side.
Dear Frank, Lionel and Robert, I know you deltoids behave strange when they are reminded of the uncertainties in real climate science.
you reveal that you are so ignorant that you don't have a clue as to how little you know.
That is why I suggested a reading list so that you could attempt to redeem yourself but no you amply confirm how stupidly, ideologically blinkered you are. BTW. That is not an ad hominem but a statement of fact. You are the Wendy Wright of climate denial. Hint, Richard Dawkins had her measure .
Olaus, you seem obsessed with political and religious, not scientific, reasoning.
Don't you find it a bit hypocritical to accuse us of believing ideology over science when you are convinced it's all a left-wing scam but can't provide any scientific evidence? You say that Co2 hypothesis is up for debate but you haven't provided any evidence to support that. You say that the "co2 hypothesis" "deserves something better than shaking tents and speaking tongues". That's a very *religious* view that betrays an enormous understanding of what the theory actually is.
Then you cite well-known uncertainties as if they are smoking guns. That's not very scientific. That's like saying uncertainties in what we know about human evolution disprove it - again, an awfully *religious* view, wouldn't you say?
It seems to me here that only *you* are driven by ideology and relgion.
Dear Robbie, crying "says you" isn't a strong argument. :-)
Johnnie where have I claimed that the CAGW (call it what you want) is a scam or conspiracy? I'm sure there are some foul play (on both sides of the fence) but the phenomenon climate hysteria is best explained by the sociology of religions/knowledge. And that I have claimed many times.
The rest is as usual something you invent to make your imaginary dichotomous world stay intact.
Lotharsson @ 271
Rutan has had his fingers so badly burnt in his encounter with actual climate science (well done BTW) rather than the parody that he picked up from denier blogs that he has had to resort to invoking "famous" friends as his main argument.
Kind of ironic that his unknown "famous" friend invokes the old climate science = religion tripe.
Peter, but climate scientology has an answer to that â somewhere and somehow it is accounted for. :-)
Soon the vow will bring us some comforting words from his lower hemispheres assuring us that we are right wing nuts and that the CO2-hypothesis is robust, etc. Yawn....
Bernard J., Rutan bemoans the fact that no one "willing to bet on the near-term climate crisis predictions". However the way he's framed it sounds problematic - he's probably hoping for favourable weather and won't take a bet over a long-enough term to distinguish signal from noise.
Anyway I mentioned you've been looking for people to take on your science-based wagers...
John@ 272
Errr . . . You might just like to go back and watch Potholer's video again. So should anyone else who thinks he concludes global warming is a hoax. So should anyone who would like to get a clear idea of what the Jacob, Wahr and Pfeffer paper really said. As always, Potholer is accurate, edifying and amusing.
Maybe the moderator's will allow John to withdraw his comment to save embarrassment.
MikeH, apart from appealing to anonymous authority, he now seems to be re-executing the "you're religious and I'm leaving" manoeuvre that worked so well for him the time before ;-)
MikeH, there were several commenters responding to Rutan (and some of his likeminded supporters) with great points including RW, skywatcher, and of course Brian Angliss himself.
"Dear Robbie, crying "says you" isn't a strong argument. :-)"
Making claims with no evidence is worse. Your assertions that climate science is just a hypothesis mean less than nothing, as are your claims that we "don't know enough" about it. You don't, but other people do. Don't assume your deep ignorance is shared by everybody else. And of course your attempt to link climate science with Nazi and Communist regimes was a pathetic ad hominem attack. And you want to say *my* argument was weak? You "skeptics" don't know how much laughter you provide us. :)
20ppm increase over 10 years. Prior concentration 370ppm, therefore this would be a 5% increase. That's around a 0.06 doublings or 0.18C.
Given that any one year can be 0.3C different from the mean even absent an underlying trend, this means there as been no statistically significant cooling in the last 10 years.
Or to put it in terms you deniers understand: there has been no cooling in the last 10 years.
>Johnnie where have I claimed that the CAGW (call it what you want) is a scam or conspiracy?
It's implicit in the name of the website you enthusiastically comment at, "The Climate Scam". If you don't want to get fleas, don't lie with dogs.
So far in this thread you have repeatedly mocked the idea that anyone could consider the "Co2 hypothesis" established without giving any evidence otherwise. Unfortunately, I require a little more than your religious faith to establish my views.
Olaus, can you show us one study that proves the climate has a low sensitiity to Co2? Easy!
> Olaus Petri and Peter continue to give excuses for remaining ignorant. Maybe they're afraid that their minds will become impure and polluted just by knowing what's written in the IPCC-cited scientific papers. Oh, their beautiful minds!
Peter replies:
> frank, where and when have I given any excuse for ignorance?
Peter again:
> frank, the (your) problem is that the IPCC science is actually pseudoscience. So what's then the meaning reading that rubbish?
So you have zero idea what the IPCC-cited research actually says, but you 'know' that it's all wrong. What an idiot you are.
Stop giving excuses for your ignorance and actually learn something.
Dear John, apparently you are some kind of peeping Tom, monitoring my whereabouts on the net. Sorry to brake it to you, but you have a problem distinguishing between valid arguments and the sensations of euphoria you get while stalking me.
It's a rather creepy hobby you got there Johnnie. Can you please stop?
Wow, your contribution is as usual of sub-human standard. When somebody write "some kind of" s/he isn't trying to get a definition correct. I strongly suggest that you get back to your field of expertise: eating bananas and running around naked.
Dear Frankie, I read and what I find is that Deltoid/climate scientolgy isn't on par with what real climate science says. There the uncertainties exists. And the uncertainties is the future, not the opposite.
I hope you get your act together (and don't start to stalk people carrying sound skepticism (like John) or develope wow's tourettes).
> what I find is that Deltoid/climate scientolgy isn't on par with what real climate science says
And how would you know that, when you've steadfastly refused to read a single word of the scientific literature cited by the IPCC?
> I read
No you didn't.
But at least I see you realize that ignorance isn't something to be proud of (which is why now avoid talking about it). Now you just need to take a next logical step and actually read up on some actual climatology. Like, say, the abundant literature that's referenced by the IPCC reports.
OP you really have become the Wendy Wright of denial.
Go on prove me wrong by providing incontrovertible evidence that we have climate science wrong. Go on you must be able to 'provide one evidence' (a quote from ignoramus Wright btw).
Have you any idea as to how many scientific disciplines have provided their own individual lines of evidence for recognising that we have a problem with an overheating earth?
Have you dipped into that reading list yet? It would be useful if you made a start.
Olaus, I asked you to show me some evidence that the atmosphere has a low sensitivity for Co2. You responded wonderfully by making completely off-topic, ad hom attacks.
"Sorry to break it to you", but if you are so self-evidently correct, why can't you provide any evidence? I see a lot of sweeping statements filled with ideological and religious wording but no actual evidence.
>I read and what I find is that Deltoid/climate scientolgy isn't on par with what real climate science says
Then, please, share this "real climate science" with us.
>There (sic) the (sic) uncertainties (sic) exists (sic).
And you really expect these small uncertainties to be resolved in your favour when there is a mountain of evidence already supporting the consensus view?
Uncertainty? Perhaps I've missed the point (if there is one) that some people here want to make.
Don't the denialati have some issues with the concept of uncertainty? They seem to think that the error bars or confidence ranges in papers and reports mean something other than what the rest of us do. When the discussion seems to be around 'uncertainty' it eventually turns out that some people think it means doubt or even suspicion.
When it comes to climate, I thought the basic rule was not perpetual doubt, it's
Anyone who is certain of massive uncertainties, and understands what risk mitigation is, and realises that their touted uncertainties mean they can't put a reasonable upper bound on the potential negative impact of AGW...
...can only honestly conclude that we have to stop emissions right now, because we have no idea how bad their impact could be, and risk mitigation demands that we avoid unbounded risks.
I don't see the "it's so uncertain" folks touting this course of action though.
I don't know if you are familiar with Judith Curry's site, Climate Etc. She recently published about uncertainty in the Bulletin of the AMS. The issues are a little more complex than what do error bars mean?
Speaking of Curry's "uncertainty monster", she apparently [didn't give the impression of an entirely balanced or even particularly scientific commentator](http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2011/12/climate-cynicism-…) at the Santa Fe conference - and IIRC she didn't cover herself in glory in comments either.
GSW, feel free to point me to a link where Curry draws the link between her idea that uncertainties are large and a call for a heavy immediate reduction in emissions based on risk mitigation principles. Oh, wait - as far as I recall she doesn't do that because she dismisses standard risk mitigation principles as "merely the precautionary principle". That's pretty dumb. From that article:
> One colleague later remarked that her approach to uncertainty quantification reminded him of an English major who had just finished reading Kuhnâs "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions."
(And I note that her early attempt to explain where her vague issues with uncertainty lay (the "Italian Flag" concept) was intellectually incoherent and conflated two different concepts, so one hopes she's done better since.)
Even worse, Wegman and company had generated their clique diagrams differently for me and for Wegman, leaving out in Wegman's case the diagonal elements of the matrix, making it look, as one commenter put it, less "cliquey". 59
> Judy, Risk assessment is my day job, and I can say without any uncertainty that you donât understand it. First, you donât even define standard risk assessment methodology, but instead throw up your hands in the face of the "uncertainties".
[Description of risk assessment methodologies.]
> ...Unfortunately, you are claiming that the models are too unreliable to yield reliable estimates of probabilities. That means that the risk cannot be bounded.
> When a risk with severe consequences cannot be bounded, standard risk assessment prescribes risk avoidance as the only reasonable strategy, since intelligent allocation of resources toward risk mitigation is not possible for situations of unbounded risk.
> For climate change, the only way to avoid the threat is to quit burning fossil fuels and otherwise reduce CO2 emissions. Indeed, without reliable modelsâas you contendâthe only reasonable strategy is to slam on the brakes HARD.
> Judy, uncertainty is not the friend of the complacent.
So to get a better idea of what is going on, it is worth moving on to the field of heuristics and biases in the perception or risk, which has become a key area of study in economics and finance over the last 30 years. This new area of investigaton was kicked off by the pioneering work of Nobel Laureates Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky; a good and accessible summary of the work can be found in Kahnemanâs recent book âThinking fast and slowâ.
One critical finding was the distinction between âchoice from experienceâ and âchoice from descriptionâ that forms part of Prospect Theory. Experimental data show that rare outcomes are overweighted when they are described but are frequently underweighted through experience. And the less they are experienced, the less they are weighted.... Humans, as a whole, look like a teenager engaging in unprotected sex when it comes to global warming.
Pre-2010 it was "cooling". Then 2010 was the equal hottest year on record and 2011 hottest La Nina year on record. Now there is a "plateau". I see now when it warms again it will be "cycles".
(BTW Peter, whatever happened to the urban heat island effect? Are you "sceptics" no longer running that line?)
You deltoid fellas are truly amazing. The uncertainties are majestic and so are the exaggerations of the ones claiming CO2-armageddon a robust science. The scareology is full of buzz words lacking scientific support. This becomes very evident if reading the real science thread (Jonas thread) and, for instance, the Himalayan glaciers case. There the lot of you were informed that the 0.5 billion figure (people depending on freshwater from Himalayan glaciers) was a buzzword and that there was no science behind it. Nowhere to be found was real science backing the figure, just wishful thinking and dogmatic beliefs.
And now we know â again â that the glaciers of Himalaya are not melting away in doomsday pace, despite your robust climate scare science. Abominable!
I happen to know the first author of the Nature paper. In fact, he is a coworker and a friend since our PhD days in Montpellier.
I showed him your answer. He finds you ... "delusional", among other things (I am unfortunately not at a liberty to write them, moderation rules about strong words you know). He is not a climatologist, should the question arise.
Bratislava @318
Alas Petri and his equally thick mate Peter would have completely missed your reference to the "Nature paper" . They do not read science journals, they read denier blogs.That way they can get their "science" after all the science has been removed.
Unless, of course, Petri tries to do a Monckton a la Pinker and pretend that he understands the author's work better than the author does. Frankly, I hope that he tries that gambit - it would completely comfirm the diagnosis of delusionality.
Bratisla, are you addressing me? If so can you please elaborate. Are your pal claiming that there is a death spiral going on in Himalaya or that 0.5 billion people depend on Himalayan glaciers (as fresh water supplies). What's the beef?
or that 0.5 billion people depend on Himalayan glaciers (as fresh water supplies).
should of course more accurately be "..fresh water storage".
Petri, you participated in that moron Jonas' thread where that was established, so there's no excuse for you to still be propagating your stupid strawman version here.
The beef is, Olaus, that he saw right through your game of focusing on a detail of the whole map and make wide claims - since Himalaya was wrong, screw everything and let's dump CO2 as fast as possible. And don't say you didn't say it, he is unaware of your "activities" but immediatly thought that.
This is why he called you "delusional" - although the french slang was lost in translation. Yes, GRACE doesn't see mass change in Himalaya. No, the global ice balance is clearly not stable - see Potholer for the final question.
"This is why he called you "delusional" - although the french slang was lost in translation."
Are you sure you're not just making this up bratisla? It all seems a bit 'iffy' to me. Can't your mate speak for himself?
Wouldn't be the first time you lot were guilty of producing your own factoids.
Also,
"Yes, GRACE doesn't see mass change in Himalaya. No, the global ice balance is clearly not stable"
Olaus never mentioned the global ice balance (do try and follow the thread)! only the good news about the Himalaya's! - You Deltoids seem, well, a bit disappointed by it.
Peter, I didn't say anything about the MWP. I just noted the hypocrisy of the "sceptics'" constantly shifting arguments. I assume you are bringing up the MWP because it's something you feel safe arguing.
Are you saying there are other climate forcings besides Co2? Because that directly contradicts your argument that "there has been no warming for ten years" which assumes, as pointed out above, that Co2 is the only forcing on the climate as there can be no other short term forcings
Which is it?
Olaus,
>The scareology is full of buzz words lacking scientific support.
Oh, you don't like "buzz words lacking scientific support"?
By the frequency in which you throw around "scare", "doomsday", "armageddon", "apocalypse", "mantra", "scareology", "climate hysteria" and numerous other meaningless religious/ideological buzzwords while refusing to cite a single study that shows "real climate science" you lose your own argument.
I again challenge you to show me some "real climate science", and not the usual buzzwords and insults. At least Pentaxz and Duff were smart enough to admit there was no point in debating me because they'd lose.
No, why would Olaus mention that the paper found that 532 billion tonnes of glacial and sheet ice are lost each year?
Is it because the loss could only be the result of the warming that Olaus doesn't think is happening?
Or because, having been mislead by climate expert Watts, he didn't actually realise that's what the paper said?
(I'll bet the latter)
I hope you are both comforted by the discovery that there is 10% less meltwater running into the ocean each year than previously though. Phew! Scare over! We can all return home.
Wouldn't be the first time you lot were guilty of producing your own factoids.
What - you mean such as the well known but poorly produced denier factoids like 'AGW is a mirage caused by Urban Heat Islands'? Or 'the hockey stick is broken' (oh, how you wish...)?
Hint - don't try to be 'clever' here GSW - you don't have the acumen. It's like a pig in a tutu trying to pass itself off as a dancer at the Bolshoi.
Well, in case Brattisla isn't living in wonderland his pal started to bully a strawman. What a surprise...Some beef you got there. "He saw right through...bla, bla....
Nobody denies that there has been GW, nor that glacier melts. What's the matter with you folks? Why do you so desperately need to invent your on facts and (un)realities?
Why not be happy about the yet again improved status of the Himalayan glaciers?
John, I have no problems with research that refrain from buzzwording. Got it? But since you (plural) find those buzzwords scientific you have been asked how they came about. And the refs provided by you have not reached scientific standards, but opinionated ones.
Jeffie and Bernie are still leafing through the literature in search for the science behind the 90% figure. Do the math. :-)
OP as you have been shown to err by believing in the sort of spin that 'interpreter of interpretations' Delingpole spews out, on this occasion seemingly attempting an interpretation based on not studying the source at all, about the cryosphere you really need to look at this and this and this .
Where is the heat energy coming from to do all this? Do you know how much heat energy is required to raise the temperature of one gram of ice through one degree Kelvin (Centigrade if you prefer) and then how much heat energy is required to change one gram of ice into one gram of water?
Then ask yourself why water is used in central heating systems and in the cooling systems of reciprocating internal combustion engines.
Oh! And another thing wrt your #137, I see that Fritz Vahrenholt has been well taken to task over there too.
You may not be aware; The Himalayas apocalypse meme is a carry over from the Science thread. The Jeffs, cheks, stus, etc were cheerleading it over there. Olaus was only trying to give them a bit of a lift from their self imposed doom and gloom with a bit of good news.
As for the other stuff from the paper, glacial and ice sheet loss, they estimate that this contributes about 1.5mm/yr to sea level rise.
Even if this were to continue uninterrupted for the rest of the century, the net effect will be about ~ 4 inches! which is hardly of 'biblical' proportions!
Now I wouldn't want to talk you out of building your 'Arks' just yet, that's up to you.
I shall probably make do with some precautionary principle 'Wellies' for the rare occasions we visit the seaside with the kids, grandkids, great grandkids etc.
This is a lie. The comment thread of, say, Ethan Siegel's posts on climate science over at Starts With a Bang or almost any news article handily bely this claim.
nor that glacier melts
It's not like any celebrity-denialists have ever claimed that we're "not looking at a sort of long-term systematic loss of ice in the Arctic" or, specifically with regards to Himalayan glaciers, that "The glaciers are showing no particular change in 200 years. The only glacier thatâs declined a little is Gangoltri"...
Oh, wait. Someone has made such claims. So write that off as a lie, too.
Then we have senseless exhortations such as:
Why not be happy about the yet again improved status of the Himalayan glaciers
Gee, I'm so glad the Himalayan glaciers have such an improved status. I mean, Jacob et al 2012 said they were all definitely gaining mass, right? Let's see, article behind a paywall but abstract is freely accessible, and we get...
So keeping the uncertainty in mind, the Himalayan glaciers could be gaining up to 16 Gt yr-1 or losing up to 24 Gt yr-1. Yes, that's a very "improved status" indeed. /sarc
It's not like mainstream climate science has a mechanism (increased water vapour in warmer atmosphere leads to more precipitation overall) that could account for mass gain in the high-altitude glaciers, where the atmosphere hasn't warmed enough to start melting the ice, counter-acting mass loss in low-altitude glaciers.
Oh, wait. It does (increased water vapour in warmer atmosphere leads to more precipitation overall).
All we have from Olaus Petri are lies and insults. Surprise, surprise.
"Pre-2010 it was "cooling". Then 2010 was the equal hottest year on record and 2011 hottest La Nina year on record."
To my knowledge, the MWP is well documented in the scientific litterature, allthough not measured with thermomethers. So, if the 2010 was "the equal hottest year on record and 2011 hottest La Nina year on record", you now are suddenly denying empirical facts? Weird or what?
We steadfastly refuse to taint our beautiful, pristine minds with any actual knowledge of what's written in the scientific reports cited by the IPCC! All Hail Ignorance!
Dear Compost99, like GSW said above, you are free to grow a big beard and change your name to Noah, but that doesn't change the fact that some good news have come (y)our way regarding the Himalayan glaciers.
Why not be happy about it, all of us?
And still no one of you have caught me lying.
What's evident though, is that CAGW-science can only become robust if embraced by a belief system admitting the followers (read deltoids) to pin point evil and invent facts that aren't existing.
Catch phrases like "HIMALAYAN GLACIERS!!!! GOOD NEWS!!!! HIMALAYAN GLACIERS!!!! GOOD NEWS!!!! HIMALAYAN GLACIERS!!!! GOOD NEWS!!!!" are not actual "knowledge".
Why do you keep flaunting your ignorance so much?
Stop praising your own ignorance, and start trying to read and understand the scientific papers referenced by the IPCC reports.
> but that doesn't change the fact that some good news have come (y)our way regarding the Himalayan glaciers
a) what good news? Not living in the foothills of the Hmalayas, this doesn't really mean much to me
b) so what if it is? It doesn't stop AGW.
c) bad news: you're pulling your pud over this and we're getting the ejecta of it. Eeeww. Do it in private where we don't have to suffer seeing it, hmm.
Olaus as you have been shown to err by believing in the sort of spin that 'interpreter of interpretations' Delingpole spews out, on this occasion seemingly attempting an interpretation based on not studying the source at all, about the cryosphere you really need to look at this and this and this .
Where is the heat energy coming from to do all this? Do you know how much heat energy is required to raise the temperature of one gram of ice through one degree Kelvin (Centigrade if you prefer) and then how much heat energy is required to change one gram of ice into one gram of water?
Then ask yourself why water is used in central heating systems and in the cooling systems of reciprocating internal combustion engines.
"increased water vapour in warmer atmosphere leads to more precipitation overall" Funnily enough, Jonas made that very point over on the Science thread, you lot poo-poo'd it at the time.
Dear Compost99, If I have lied somewhere it must be an easy task enlighten me about it. So show me the money. So far the only thing/ks you guys have come up with are delturds from pink elephants. That might do in a shaking climate tent, but not in the real world.
Climate scientology is falling apart. The only thing keeping it together (in a robust way) is sheer ideology taking religious form.
If you were there, and you still have access to the thread, then you have EVERYTHING YOU NEED FROM ME. GO LOOK!
(It occurs to me that you need help understanding what the words mean. Sorry, but I'm not inclined to be that helpful. Suggest you put some effort in on your own behalf)
The thing is GSW, there's a discrepancy between your claimed memory, viz. "increased water vapour in warmer atmosphere leads to more precipitation overall" Funnily enough, Jonas made that very point over on the Science thread, you lot poo-poo'd it at the time.
and the actual thread content.
I rather think your confusing those dreams you have - you know, the ones where you come on science blogs and set all those group-thinking commie warmists straight and Jonarse gets acclaimed as the world's greatest living scientist - with the rather more mundane reality of a world infested with lyingdenierscum pulling fast ones. Plus I thought you'd be pleased to demonstrate to all that your esteemed genius may have got something at least half right, once.
But in the spirit of benefit of the doubt and all that, citation to the source of your claim - post number(s) and/or link(s) - please
Warning to Alas Petri - the following article is in the "raw" and as such has not been filtered by Watts et al. The complexity of the real world observations contained within may be hazardous to your few remaining brain cells.
...climate change has uncoupled glacial melt cycles in the Tibetan Plateauâwhich is warming up on average two degrees Celsius faster than the rest of the worldâfrom the traditional agricultural season, causing water shortages in April and May when Ladakhis typically begin sowing seeds for the summer season. If the villagers don't sow during this critical window, there is no crop that year.
>To my knowledge, the MWP is well documented in the scientific litterature
But you have boasted in the past that you don't read the scientific literature because you already know it's wrong. Weird or what?
The answer to this has already been pointed out to you. You ignored it. Weird or what?
>Oops threw and internal math exception - 1.5mm*100yrs is ~6 inches not 4!
So the argument shifts from "good news about the Himalayas!" to "the sea levels are rising but so what?". Except I thought the meme was the sea levels *weren't* rising. Keep up!
But since you admit the sea level *is* rising and we *are* warming, what happens, say, when we reach tipping points for feedbacks? Your calculations don't take into account the continuing trends for ice loss.
Whoops.
;)
Seriously though, I am glad both you and Olaus have agreed that it is warming and that there are 532 billion tonnes of ice loss each year. It's a start.
Another interesting tidbit, from near the end of the '2012 climate strategy' memo.
"and through coordination with external networks (such as WUWT and other groups capable of rapidly mobilizing responses to new scientific findings, news stories, or unfavorable blog posts)."
So Heartland has been coordinating rapid responses with WUWT.
From the 2012 Heartland Climate Strategy confidential memo:
We are pursuing a proposal from Dr. David Wojick to produce a global warming curriculum for K-12 schools. Dr. Wojick is a consultant with the Office of Scientific and Technical Information at the U.S. Department of Energy in the area of information and communication science. His effort will focus on providing curriculum that shows that the topic of climate change is controversial and uncertain - two key points that are effective at dissuading teachers from teaching science. [my emphasis]
It's revealing that they don't want science to be taught in schools, although not unexpected.
Is it just me, or did the appearance in the 'Recent comments' list of at least two members of the the Scandinavian Troll Collective occur remarkably close to each other, given their respective absences for quite a number of weeks?
Further, they all seem now to be coincidentally using the tactic of reflecting what commentary was directed to them when they initially made their own grievous errors last year. A language psychologist might infer from the nature of the postings that the STC is either a theatre* of sock puppets, or that it is a cooperative working, Borg-like, in close internal coordination to employ their acquired linguistic tools after having learned how they were previously cut off at the knees with said instruments.
One thing's for sure though. Just like the Borg they'd need to outsource for their own Locutus - they don't have that talent in their own ranks...
[* An oxymoronic collective noun for Urban Dictionary, if it's not already in there...]
For his troubles he receives $1600 per month. It is part of a $300k initiative to attack the IPCC's credibility.
If these documents are legitimate - and DeSmogBlog is claiming they are - we should be bringing these facts to light.
They clearly show:
- how they seek funding
- the projects they intend to run to sow doubt and confusion in the public's mind
- attempts to scare teachers off from talking about climate change in US schools
- funding for Anthony Watt's
MikeH, I'm sure people living close to the glacier need them as described in the article, but why telling me? Are you claiming that 0.5 billion humans are living in that remote region? Higgins: "A lot of people, when I met them in Delhi and I said I was going to Ladakh, they looked at me like I was going to the moon,â
Watching's bang on the money: DeSmogBlog's the place to be at the moment; GSW and Olaus can clamber back on their tyre-swings or just get back to preening each other for a while, while the sapiens sapiens do a spot of reading.
Yeah, sure, this won't make any difference, mouthbreathers, like John Mashey's last investigation (Wegman) didn't make any difference...
Right GSW, but it's a bad look when you consider where the money comes from and the political goals of an organisation who want to "stop teachers teaching science" and believe that opposing voices must be snuffed out.
I'm sure you don't care though, just as long as they continue telling you what you want to hear.
Having said that, nothing so far has beaten [the mendacious contortions of the Heartland sponsored NZCSC in denying their own funding statement](http://hot-topic.co.nz/puppets-on-a-string-us-think-tank-funds-nz-scept…): âSince its formation in 2007, ICSC has never received financial support from corporations, foundations or governments. 99% of all donations have come from private individuals in the United Kingdom, New Zealand, United States and Canada.â in the linked thread at Hot Topic.
Makes our visiting Scandinavian neo-feudalist contingent look like the half-wit amateur boys they are.
If GSW actually read the bloody thing, rather than cut-and-pasted the Denialati response directly into his cerebellum, he'd realise that Mashey is saying that Heartland is claiming it's not a lobbying firm, it's a friggin' tax-free public charity.
And, of course, taking down Wegman makes no difference in Deniospace, as having achieved Epistemic Closure, the outside world is safely reduced to muffled rumblings as through thick plate glass...
Petri, your gullible, childish eagerness to swallow any fantasy or item of wishful thinking is already known, but has nothing to do with the real world or science. Take it elsewhere.
Seriously, this is a full-on trainwreck. Forget contending with the inconsequential dreck, and look instead to -
Development of our "Global Warming Curriculum for K-12 Classrooms" project.
Principals and teachers are heavily biased toward the alarmist perspective. To counter this we are considering launching an effort to develop alternative materials for K-12 classrooms. We are pursuing a proposal from Dr. David Wojick to produce a global warming curriculum for K-12 schools. Dr. Wojick is a consultant with the Office of Scientific and Technical Information at the U.S. Department of Energy in the area of information and communication science. His effort will focus on providing curriculum that shows that the topic of climate change is controversial and uncertain - two key points that are effective at dissuading teachers from teaching science [my emphasis]. We tentatively plan to pay Dr. Wojick $100,000 for 20 modules in 2012, with funding pledged by
the Anonymous Donor.
Alas Petri @ 388
How boring. Do you have something that has not been through the WUWT ringer to remove the science? I know you dislike reading science journals as you never cite them - so here is a helpful tip. Get the NASA Visualization Explorer for the ipad - it has visualizations based on the satellite data. That way you can see the impact of La Nina on the global water cycle - all pictures - nothing to read.
Jonas, thanks for defending the indefensible just to remind us all just what you and your stunted little cronies are truly made of. Now just get back in your box.
He couldn't get any more illustrative if he tried. Jonas is either implicitly denying that Heartland wants to (in their own words) "dissuade teachers from teaching science", or he's hoping that if he throws out the odd stinking bone no-one will notice that they actually said that.
I can't see that working very well. "Heartland Institute" is going to be associated with "dissuading teachers from teaching science" in a lot of people's minds.
But politics and religion and climate scare are nowhere any science.(sic)
True, and yet that's precisely the domain you and your support crew inhabit.
Here's an idea - why not stop polluting this blog with your misguided zealotry. It's not as if anyone has any use except amusement for you all, and your homebase 'climatescam' is now a byword for village idiot central.
"Shouldn't this clown be put back in his own box?"
You should all take leaf out of John's #383 book,
"believe that opposing voices must be snuffed out!"
he, at least, recognizes the requirement for freedom of speech! "Snuffing out" dissenting voices is always a poor strategy. It's like conceding defeat before the game even starts.
I didn't call for you to be banned, just pointed out the that you are so rattled that you are risking being banned in order to defend "dissuading teachers from teaching science".
And you too should be reading more carefully, I very much would like the teachers to teach science
..except your weasel-words obscure that your version of science is at the fringe-quackery end of the spectrum, where you are unable to name any 'good' climate scientists because they don't accord with your primitive ideology.
Dave H, I've been in the fund raising business for 15 years. So?
Heartland has an agenda, so has Greenpeace etc. What's your point? I don't like politicized research of any kind. The amount of money coming from climate scientology NGOs is much bigger though. Heartland is little league compared to the money in saving the planet World series.
That said, disqualifying scientific work solely on funding isn't the way to do it. If, for instance, someone claimed that 0.5 billion people depended on Himalayan glaciers for freshwater, I would not reject that statement based on dubious funding. First and foremost I would like to see how that figure came about in terms of science. If no such thing (science) can be brought forward, then I might go after the funding. Could it be that this lack of substance has something to do with the research team's close ties with eg Greenpeace?
I'm beginning to see the light. $5000 per unit for 20 units for one sub-section of one school subject.!!
No wonder these people want to knock public education "into shape" if they think this is the kind of money teachers make for putting curriculum materials together.
Heartland has an agenda, so has Greenpeace etc. What's your point?
You should beware false equivalences Petri, even though you've been indoctrinated to hate 'environmentalism'.
Heartland is concerned with maximising the economic benefits for a few, any trickle-down propaganda notwithstanding, while whatever Greenpeace does in campaigning to protect the environment is for the benefit of all its inhabitants - including Heartland's funders in the longer term.
And it should not be surprising that some of the best enbvironmental scientists may actually choose to work for an organisation like Greenpeace in order to put their work into practice.
> Heartland has an agenda, so has Greenpeace etc. What's your point?
Heartland has much more power, much more money and much greater personal gain in pushing their agenda.
You're like someone watching a nerdy kid you don't like getting beaten up by a gang of bullies going "Well, he can fight back, so what's the problem?".
As with so much else that passes for thinking amongst the Denialati, Carter's rationalisations indicate that he is a master of that twisty discipline - cognitive gymnastics.
Apposite, if one thinks about it - when all is said and done, the emperors of that pseudo-intellectualism have no clothes...
'Scientist denies he is mouthpiece of US climate-septic think tank'
Carter considers that it is offensive to suggest that a US sceptic think tank is paying him monthly.
Sorry Bob, but your mangling of science is offensive and especially offensive to all those who will be adversely affected (i.e dead, after suffering) because of you and your ilk spouting BS to order. How about Australian mining interests then Bob? Can you claim freedom from their pecuniary tentacles?
He, Plimer and Michaels in particular are a disgrace for they should know better, and probably do, its just that once your up to your neck in corruption it's suicide so hard to break out.
Time to remind everyone about an earlier attempt involving Fred Singer, but not, according to an anonymous API mouthpiece, Candace Crandall (aka Candace Singer). Ha! Right!
Lest we forget, how could we, our James 'interpreter of interpretations' attends Heartland conferences and could be thought of as Fred Singer's 'right-hand man'. Bishop Hill, Andrew Montford, has been know to enthuse about Delingpole's speeches.
Is there a list of all of Deltoid's 'personal thread' winners somewhere, those who have been given (and restricted to) a single personal thread for further posting at Deltoid? 'Jonas' and Curtin and so on.
I'd like to compare how that works vs. the Plonk list at Pharyngula http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/plonk.php
-- that method lists and sometimes gives pointers but doesn't provide a platform for posting.
So, Bob Carter is happy to work with a thinktank that long took tobacco money, is still taking tobacco money ($160K from Altria and Reynolds in 2011), whose President Bast defended Joe Camel, the most successful campaign in US tobacco history to get younger kids smoking.
See Fake science..., p.45, or the whole section starting p.43.
Or to put it in terms you climate scientologists understand: there has been no warming in the last 10 years.
Yes, we understand the terms. We also understand that the claim is a lie.
"Pre-2010 it was "cooling". Then 2010 was the equal hottest year on record and 2011 hottest La Nina year on record."
To my knowledge, the MWP is well documented in the scientific litterature, allthough not measured with thermomethers. So, if the 2010 was "the equal hottest year on record and 2011 hottest La Nina year on record", you now are suddenly denying empirical facts?
The empirical facts are that, globally, the MWP was cooler that the 20th century. Which does not mean that there is nowhere in the world where it was warmer during the MWP than subsequently. But that isn't what's relevant; what is relevant is that there is an energy imbalance and the result is that the globe -- mostly the oceans -- is warming.
Stupidity and intellectual corruption like yours is valuable, Peter; you should get the Heartland Institute to pay you for it.
...correction, Morono is claim a "key document" (singular) is a forgery. Looks like his strategy is going to be to distract by making the 'forgery' the story.
Morano would likely claim the "Climate Strategy" document is a hoax ... since the others are obviously real ...
but all it does is a dd a few more details around items discussed elsewhere. For instance, the Wojick stuff is a line-item in the budget.
He also claims:
>The stolen documents were obtained by an unknown person who fraudulently assumed the identity of a Heartland board member and persuaded a staff member here to âre-sendâ board materials to a new email address. Identity theft and computer fraud are criminal offenses subject to imprisonment. We intend to find this person and see him or her put in prison for these crimes.
@ Anthony David 367 (and following) that DeSmogBlog post on the leaked Heartland Institute stuff is sheer gold (comedy gold at that). Carter, Plimer, Watts all with their snouts in the trough. A $1m campaign to "free up" the supply of non FDA approved medicines to the US public because the FDA has an "obsession" with public safety. You couldn't make it up.
Troll above: "The Heartland phrasing was bad, I fully agree."
BWahahaha! Wasn't this what was said about Jones, Trenberth and co. when CRU was hacked? How's that boot fitting now it's on the other foot? But of course the anti-science luddites led by the nose by shysters like Monckton (represented by the usual dipshits on Deltoid) will deny everything - let's face it they've had plenty of practice at denial.
From Heartland's "Expanded climate communications":
Efforts might also include cultivating more neutral voices with big audiences (such as Revkin at DotEarth/NYTimes, who has a well-known antipathy for some of the more extreme AGW communicators such as Rornm, Trenberth, and Hansen) or Curry (who has become popular with our supporters).
AVe have also pledged to help raise around $90,000 in 2012 for Anthony Watts to help him create a new website to track temperature station data
A gentle reminder to the usual trolls here - by all means hitch your wagon to the Heartland travelling circus, but don't be surprised when it leads you out into the wilderness.
If I was Bob Carter I would be outraged. No, make that OUTRAGED!!!! How dare they put him so far down the list of influencers and pay him so little compared with his compatriots.
PLease, please, have some feeling for the man.....
(Heh, Heh! Hah Hah! Ho Ho! I am so doubled over)
PS.Why can't I get on Jo Nova's blog tonight? Was it something Heartland said?
Backhandergate......nahh, thats just so Australian lobbying isn't it and the NSW Pokies industry owns it (yep, here in provincial London we know all about how the Pokies Industry has foiled Wilkie)
Egogate.......No, too obscure but dovetails well with the personalities involved
Professor Carter did not deny he was being paid by The Heartland Institute, but would not confirm the amount, or if the think tank expected anything in return for its money.
The DeSmogBlog has received no direct communications from the Heartland Institute identifying any misstatement of fact in the "Climate Strategy" document and is therefore leaving the material available to those who may judge their content and veracity based on these and other sources.
Re the parallels to Climategate. They are similar in the sense that they give us a behind the scenes peak at how the IPCC and Heartland works. In terms of moral equivalence, what Heartland is doing is not surprising; seems to be no different than what other advocacy groups do. The IPCC is a very different organization, and also the CRU/UEA, with explicit requirements for government accountability. So in terms of a scandal, I would have to say that Heartlandgate is nowhere near Climategate
Seems to me any effort expended by the Heartland Inst on recruiting Curry would be redundant since she's already volunteered.
I would have to say that Heartlandgate is nowhere near Climategate
And I would have to say that Currygate happened on Kloorgate years ago now, and that Ms. Curry's bleatings ceased to be of any interest to anyone except Wattbots and Bishop-bashers ever since.
Note to Heartland - be ruthless on the retainer. After all, Carter must be pretty sick at seeing the Idso rate, but fuck'em, eh? Marks like that come two-a-penny.
I would have to say that Heartlandgate is nowhere near Climategate
And I would have to say that Currygate happened on Kloorgate years ago now, and that Ms. Curry's bleatings ceased to be of any interest to anyone except Wattbots and Bishop-bashers ever since.
Note to Heartland - be ruthless on the retainer. After all, Carter must be pretty sick at seeing the Idso rate, butfuck'em, eh? Marks like that come two-a-penny.
Here is a search of the Heartland Institute homepage for articles on climategate. They certainly took that seriously. It's entertaining to compare their response to that act of theft with their actions when it's done to them.
Then see H.3, especially pp.63-64 and especially the money flows to unnamed entities, some labeled Asia and Pacific.
end of p.64 guesses possible uses for that money.
Then see 0.4, 501(c)(3) tutorial,
especially p.10, Grants to Foreign Groups.
Finally, see H.1, p.55, where we see
âPart 1, Line 2 â Procedures for monitoring the use of grant funds.
The organization is âfriends ofâ the grant recipients therefore no major tracking
is necessary.â IRS-7F, IRS-10F
So, it looks like Heartland sent a bunch of money to unknown friends outside the US, who may well not be charities in their home country. (For instance, does anyone know if Jo Nova is a charity? If so, and money went there, could be sticky.) Go back and read p.10
Now after they've spent years making a fuss about govt funding corrupting AGW research, these people are going to have to desperately backtrack and start claiming that who funds their research doesn't matter and it should be assessed on its own merits. You can see Idso doing it already in Jemima's link.
I'm sure they will be back once Watts and co have coordinated a response. You don't really expect them to think for themselves, do you?
Olaus
>I don't like politicized research of any kind. The amount of money coming from climate scientology NGOs is much bigger though. Heartland is little league compared to the money in saving the planet World series.
Climate scientists are being paid off to study AGW for political means? This would be exactly the kind of conspiracy theory you have been claiming you don't believe in.
Dear John, I told you some post ago that I believe foul play exists on both sides of the fence, but also that climate scientology was best explained using tools from the sociology of religions. See the diff?
Its also a big difference between "payed off" and "depended on", mind you. Its the latter that promotes group thinking and has nothing to do with conspiracies. Then add political muscles/cash cow with a dichotomous ideology and critical views and sound skepticism easily go in the bin. Got it?
Olaus, you say: "climate scientology was best explained using tools from the sociology of religions"
OK, once again I'll call you on that. The scientific underpinning of climate change has been developed through research undertaken in multiple institutions in multiple countries; published through peer reviewed literature, in journals that encourage debate and discourse; discussed at single discipline and multi-disciplinary conferences, many of which have an open submission policy for abstracts (e.g. EGU General Assembly and the AGU Fall Meeting, at which I have personally seen Steve McIntyre present, by the way); and then supported by unequivocal statements by all of the major National Science Academies around the world, each of which has examined the evidence underpinning the science and come to the same conclusion.
So I challenge you to explain clearly and succinctly in what way this resembles either religion or scientology.
I bet (as usual) you won't even try, which says it all. Prove me wrong.
>but also that climate scientology was best explained using tools from the sociology of religions.
You mean you prefer describing it in non-scientific, religious terms to avoid actually talking about the science.
>Then add political muscles/cash cow with a dichotomous ideology and critical views and sound skepticism easily go in the bin. Got it?
>And who falls into this category? :-)
Anthony Watts :-)
Olaus, you claimed you didn't believe in conspiracies, but now you're opening admitting to believing that groups like Greenpeace (an envrionmental group who do not study climate) are deliberately spending big money pushing global warming for political purposes. That sounds like a pretty big conspiracy to me!
It is clear that conversing with Wendy WrightOlaus Petri is a waste of time for it is clear that he thinks like Wendy Wright, that is 'tunnel thinking', and considers all forms of human knowledge to be based upon forms of religious belief.
OP's language gives the game away, now with 'sectarians' added to 'scientology' (which is a cult) and other religious memes.
Olaus. Go back and srudy my #253 to discover why you are so very wrong. Also consider how your life would not be what it is without the steady progress made by careful scientific enquiry. Are you aware that those developing weapons for air warfare confirmed the effects of CO2 WRT heat radiation and the development of IR guided missiles?
Any more stupidity from you deserves the sin bin, same for Jonas and his ilk. We have seen quite enough in this thread already. I doubt very much that you know when to stop of your own accord.
Petri doesn't have the ability to make his case. He just parrots second hand memes passed down by the think tanks that chime with his limited understanding. These are people, remember who laud Jonas as a genius. Enough said.
Not having noted a mention of the Heartland imbroglio on the BBC website I emailed them this message earlier today (and posted a copy at Desmog:
Is it not time that you picked up on the news about the climate change denial factory that calls itself The Heartland Institute being exposed to scrutiny.
Heartland Institute Exposed: Internal Documents Unmask Heart of Climate Denial Machine
For a good laugh see Heartless pleading with their donors for more money to pay for:
a legal defense fund to support litigation, starting immediately, to demand that false and defamatory material be removed from blogs and Web sites and publications, and that the true criminals in this case be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.
It is much more likely that the "legal defense fund" will be used to defend themselves against a number of lawsuits entered by the IRS for illegal use of the Charity provisions in income tax law.
The memo also states that their donors must be proud to donate to Heartless but how much pride if you have to remain anonymous so that intelligent people can't see how dishonest you are being in funding such a despicable outfit as Heartless?
My intent was to see if the Beeb would cover this story. They have no excuse now for ignorance.
OTOH I have noted that when climate related stories have been in the news they have not trotted ol' Benny again. Next the GWPF for exposure to daylight, now I wonder where some of their funding has come from?
Tim, what does post #472 even mean (in plain English)?
Surely, unless this preening self-obsessedphuckwit is kept strictly in his pen, this blog will lose infinitely more valuable contributions from the likes of such as Jeff Harvey whom the Jonarse collective have targeted mercilessly and personally since they alighted on this blog.
Like The Guardian this is all filed under 'Environment', as if it was not of general interest - not a limitation that was placed on their Climategate coverage, I might add (at least for CG Round 1. As we all know Round 2 died-in-the-arse even more spectacularly than Lomborg's 'Cool It' movie.)
Anyway, the provenenance issue will stay their hands for the time being. It's still all up over at DeSmog with the 'DeSmogBlog has received no direct communications from the Heartland Institute identifying any misstatement'.
>For once you are correct: If that document indeed was genuine. If the poor grammar, phrasing and punctuation, if the convoluted use of passive form and 1st person (without signature) indeed would be authentic ...
Jonas, away with you! Seriously, who'd miss you? You're only here under sufference, you've been confined to your pen, and yet here you are, carrying on like the proverbial porkchop, and swanning around as though you own the place!
Why don't you and the rest of your tedious cohort stop clogging the intertubes and go and run a cake stall to raise money for your mate Bjorn. Or something.
Good news, Heartland are going to sue the entire internet:
> We respectfully ask all activists, bloggers, and other journalists to immediately remove all of these documents and any quotations taken from them, especially the fake âclimate strategyâ memo and any quotations from the same, from their blogs, Web sites, and publications, and to publish retractions.
> The individuals who have commented so far on these documents did not wait for Heartland to confirm or deny the authenticity of the documents. We believe their actions constitute civil and possibly criminal offenses for which we plan to pursue charges and collect payment for damages, including damages to our reputation. We ask them in particular to immediately remove these documents and all statements about them from the blogs, Web sites, and publications, and to publish retractions.
> How did this happen? The stolen documents were obtained by an unknown person who fraudulently assumed the identity of a Heartland board member and persuaded a staff member here to âre-sendâ board materials to a new email address. Identity theft and computer fraud are criminal offenses subject to imprisonment. We intend to find this person and see him or her put in prison for these crimes.
"Heartland claims the documents were stolen, and that one â relating to their strategy on climate denial â was faked, even though the main points in that âconfidential memoâ are corroborated by the other documents."--Hot Topic
And from John Mashey's comment over at Hot Topic:
"Some of us have carefully read the other documents,
and the disputed one has ~zero real information not found elsewhere.Personally, I think itâs irrelevant.
When the documents surfaced, I only glanced at that, but looked hard at the others, which inter-corrobarate with mine.
The education plan is laid out in section H. of the Fundraising document, and it is perfectly consistent with Heartlandâs efforts shown in Figure W.4.1, PARENTS line, and in the articles in App. Z."
But honest disagreement should never be used to justify the criminal acts and fraud that occurred in the past 24 hours. As a matter of common decency and journalistic ethics, we ask everyone in the climate change debate to sit back and think about what just happened.
The release of these documents creates an opportunity for reporters, academics, politicians, and others who relied on the IPCC to form their opinions about global warming to stop and reconsider their position.
The journalists who attempt to spin it away and the politicians who try to ignore it will further damage their own credibility, and perhaps see their careers shortened as a consequence.
@ GSW 482, your usual thin and unconvincing stuff. Do be sure you tell your pals over at Bishop Shill to make the most of whatever amusement you can find before the IRS starts investigating Heartland's dubious activities as a tax-free "charitable foundation".
Isn't it about time "Josh" was charged for "going under false pretences"? I'd always thought cartoonists were supposed to be 1) satirical and 2) funny.
Losing the alarmist argument scribe #5 - Just asking because if looks like personal attacks going on there to me...
Still waiting timbo, for a collective apology from you guys for wasting our time and money for the global warming hoax... Any time.
Fraud!
Troll alert Tim.
Jonas has broken the Rule.
@366
John, you funny twat. I have never claimed not to read scientific papers. On the contrary, I do. But guess what. I'm not a member in the Climate Scientology Church. I really hate to read religious crap. The bible, IPCCs science, same shit.
So your are indeed pinning your hopes on that this 'Climate Strategy' document is authentic ..
Well, at least we know. Time will show ...
And once more I must fail you on your logic. I did certainly not defend what was (allegedly) stated in there, I said the contrary.
But you are now pinning your hopes to, that what you really want to believe in, was not a deliberate fraud ...
If it's any consolation: Quite a few above really hoped it to be true too ...
So your are indeed pinning your hopes on that this 'Climate Strategy' document is authentic ..
Well, at least we know. Time will show ...
And once more I must fail you on your logic. I did certainly not defend what was (allegedly) stated in there, I said the contrary.
But you are now pinning your hopes to, that what you really want to believe in, was not a deliberate fraud ...
If it's any consolation: Quite a few above really hoped it to be true too ...
PS 'Moron' is as little an argument as is 'Jonarse'. But arguments isn't really your thing, is it?
> but seriously, who gives a shit?
From what Jonearse and his boy friends say, they don't. Though they should...
burntie......you are sooooooo full of shit
@Chris O'Neill,
Man, you are stubborn, thick, or both. Do you think before you write?
The ignorance is in your belief that somehow Gleick's life is all honky dory and this has no effect on him. You want to believe that is melodramatic, so be it. I call it reality. If I stuck my foot so far down my throat that I was potentially on the hook for federal charges, I would consider that a pretty big, lifetime achievement style, fuck up. One which would throw both my personal and professional life in the trash.
But, apparently in your world, forced resignation from presumably well paid positions of status and public disgrace are just fine personally, financially, and professionally. OK, if you say so. Clearly you are far more proud of his actions than he is by his own admission.
As for Heartland, if you are commenting on and reading this blog, or Curry's, or Watts, or Eli, or DC, or any other on the topic, yes, you would have to be pretty lacking in attention to miss what Heartland is. They come up pretty often. So, nothing released is, in my opinion, the least bit surprising. Not even that they flirt with IRS trouble concerning their tax status. In that respect, Gleick gave up a great deal for very little. Even if Heartland disappeared tomorrow, little to nothing would change. Still plenty of money to go around on both sides.
You can return to fantasy land now Chris. I'm going skiing for the weekend.
Today's Daily Telegraph has a beauty from Bolt titled "Global warming nonsense gets a true cold shoulder". He states "the planet hasn't actually warmed for a decade - or even 15 years - according to new temperature data released by Britain's Met Office."
The Met Office instead says "The period 2000-2009 was warmer than the 1990s that, in turn, were warmer than 1980s. In fact, the average temperature over the first decade of the 21st century was significantly warmer than any preceding decade in the instrumental record, stretching back 160 years." (http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climate-change/policy-relevant/evidence)
Has the Murdoch press no standards whatsoever?
Bolt,, Herald Sun ?
Re#1
Yes.
Meaning no, it doesn't. It doesn't have to be true, it just has to slop around in the back of the readership's minds that some idiot somewhere has 'proved' something...
This latest from SkS is rather entertaining. As we know from bitter experience, all the regular Doofuses of Denial constantly cite figures 1 and 2, though they don't necessarily know it...
looks like an all out attack
telegraph, herald sun, advertiser in adelaide and also perth press.
Has truth put his pants on yet?
Porcine pollution princess, Gina Rhino-arse, puts pseudoscientist Pliemer (silent "p") on retainer. Link
A new update to the David Rosegate is in order I think:
http://metofficenews.wordpress.com/2012/01/29/met-office-in-the-media-2…
@ Scribe February 1, 2012 2:43 AM
"[Pliemer's] views are shared by Mrs Rinehart, who has also publicly criticised the idea that human activity is contributing to global climate change... He is also listed as a member of Mrs Rinehartâs Australians for Northern Development and Economic Vision (ANDEV) lobby group, which has taken strong positions on corporate taxation and climate change initiatives
You can almost read thye script on how this will pan out over the next 5 years from here.
And of course every Limited News outfall outlet will be overjoyed. But if anyone still entertains the notion that Failfax would behave any differently, Rinehart's bid for 15% and a seat on the Fairfax board should make them stop and think.
It's all coming together nicely.
All coming together indeed!
Then we drift even further down the road to becoming the Unlearnt Country; the land of Bolts and vacant brains...
Around October last year I was watching the Bolt Report. One of the guests was Donna Lafranboise, a Canadian journalist and author of "The Delinquent Teenager Who Was Mistaken For The World's Top Climate Scientist." Bolt beamed as Lafranboise described how her research and book exposed the IPCC's processes and procedures, as sloppy at best,and at worst, maybe even fraudulent. Alan Jones also had her in for a chat.
Now these are serious allegations against a body, whose reports, underpin so much of the scientific consensus on anthropogenic climate change. So naturally I expected some kind of assessment or critique of the book from science blogs such as this one, or Skeptical Science,or Real Climate. How about Desmog, Lafranboise is after all a Canadian. Doing a search of the author or book title at any of the blogs just mentioned draws a blank. However, a Google Search produces a deluge of denialist propaganda praising the book. I have not read the book, but have read a summary of its main points, many of which are open to challenge. Some of the commentry also reveals, the author uses outdated or dubious sources of information, and has a poor grasp of the science.
This does not mean the IPCC is some kind sacred cow, beyond criticism, and cannot improve its processes and procedures. The IPCC recognised this itself, which is why it beat Donna Lafranboise to punch by nearly a year. In October 2010 the IPCC accepted a review of its structure and procedures by the Inter Academy Council, and committed itself to implementing the IAC's recommendations.
So how about someone with some climate science credentials, and some knowledge of the workings of the IPCC, putting this book and its author under some long overdue scutiny.
@9
Haven't read the book, only the stuff on her website - awful dross. Full of basic factual errors and the quality of the writing is lamentable.
She calls herself a journalist, but that's just a bit of resume padding.
^ A book that says the World Wildlife Fund has "infiltrated" the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change because the WWF asked IPCC scientists to join their Climate Witness project. According to the WWF:
"The role of the Science Advisory Panel is to establish if the impacts observed by Climate Witnesses are consistent with current scientific knowledge of human-induced climate change events in a particular region. The scientists who are members of our Science Advisory Panel will give their expert opinion on submitted Climate Witness stories."
So a teenager in Peru writes and asks why her local river has flooded for the 7th time in 3 years, wondering if it's climate change. The WWF then select a scientist with relevant expertise to respond. Understand that the WWF approached these scientists AFTER they had been selected to work on assessment reports.
Donna Lafranboise flips this around (AFFIRMATION OF THE CONSEQUENT) to argue that the IPCC fourth assessment report was written by a bunch of WWF hippies. Like saying umbrellas cause rain, because every time it rains... "Look, they're everywhere!"
Silly woman. Silly book.
Loudly promoted by silly denialists with no discrimination or sense. And Prof. Curry.
Richard McGuire: you do not need to be a climate scientists to shoot the book down. All you need is some proper skepticism.
For example, when I was a bit skeptic, I looked into the claims by Laframboise and her Citizen Auditors about the peer reviewed publications used in the IPCC report. Problem one I encountered was a muddied conflation of peer review and gray literature. As a result (I guess), only journal articles were counted as peer reviewed. IPCC reports, books and book chapters, reports from governments and government organisations, and also NGOs were put in the gray literature and *thus not peer reviewed* category! Well, I guess even some of the pseudoskeptics will wonder what happened, proudly calling themselves peer reviewers for the IPCC reports...Also, the authors who sent me book chapters over the last year will wonder why they received comments about the content of their chapter. Books aren't peer reviewed, didn't I know that?
One admission: I became especially skeptical about this "audit" when LaFramboise in all earnest gave PNAS the benefit of the doubt as a peer-reviewed journal.
Another example is the hilarious focus on people connected in some way to certain NGOs. Bad, bad IPCC! The WWF and Greenpeace have infiltrated the IPCC! In another chapter she then complains certain "experts" (I'll get back to that) were not asked to participate. "Experts" like Paul Reiter and Roy Spencer. Apparently being connected to an ideological thinktank like the George Marshall Institute (Roy Spencer) or the Annapolis Center for Science-Based Public Policy is not a problem.
Regarding "experts", one would almost think Paul Reiter is the world's most important expert on malaria. Problem is, he has hardly a single publication on malaria, beyond an opinion letter and a history of malaria in the UK. field work? As far as I can determine none. Another "expert" mentioned is Nils-Axel Mörner, the man who rotates sea level rise graphs by 45 degrees to make them flat. I'll leave the comments on Roy Spencer out, I think plenty of people know how much of an expert he really is (not).
And next you read another chapter in the book, in which she complains that...wait for it...an expert was in charge of the chapter! Apparently, you cannot have any critical assessment when a convening lead author is working in the field. So, the problem is not just the use of biased experts and the wrong experts, no, it's the actual use of experts in the field!
These few thinks I already noticed by just reading the "highlights"...no wonder Judith Curry liked it!
Marco # 13 is bang on.
Another "conflation issue" can be seen in the failure to distinguish between the three working groups, only one of which (WG1) deals primarily with physical science.
Even using Laframboise's improper "gray literature" classification, WG1 still scored very high, chapter by chapter, for percentage of "peer reviewed" sources.
The book was discussed a fair amount at DC open threads, but I agree a proper takedown is in order.
Ditto for Steve McIntyre's latest braying about IPCC efforts to quite properly limit drafts to registered reviewers, without citation or transmission to the general public, at least until the final report is released.
McIntyre claims that this runs counter to IAC's call for more openness at the IPCC. But in fact, IAC's *own* process calls for just such limits on review drafts, as plainly seen in their report on the IPCC; in fact, the IAC doesn't release drafts even after the final version is released to the public. I'll be getting to that one sooner or later.
But first ...
Joe Oliver recycles debunked EthicalOil.org talking points on oilsands emissions, refuses to accept climate science
http://deepclimate.org/2012/01/31/joe-oliver-recycles-debunked-ethicalo…
Recently I noted that planned expansion of the Alberta oil sands can not possibly be reconciled with the Harper governmentâs promises to reduce greenhouse gas emissions over the next few decades. (And Simon Fraser climate policy researcher Mark Jaccard apparently agrees). And I also exposed the ever mounting number of evident links between the Conservative government, including Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver, and the pro-oilsands EthicalOil.org PR group (a.k.a the Ethical Oil Institute).
Now Oliver has upped the ante on both contentions spectacularly. Answering questions from NDP environment critic Megan Leslie in the Canadian Parliament today, Oliver repeated a previously debunked claim that oil sands emissions (not intensity, but actual emissions) have fallen. And he implied that emission intensity (i.e. GHGs per barrel) continues to fall. Those same mistaken assertions were also made by former Ethical Oil executive director Alykhan Velshi in the ironically titled âMyths and Liesâ section of EthicalOil.org, albeit with incomplete hasty corrections later on. And Oliver never did come clean on his understanding of climate science, doing little to reverse the impression that anti-science contrarians have gained a significant foothold in Ottawa, and that Stephen Harperâs Conservatives have no intention of meeting their climate commitments.
Related posts:
http://deepclimate.org/2012/01/06/canada-after-kyoto/
http://deepclimate.org/2012/01/13/ethical-oil-political-connections-par…
It's an open thread, so I don't feel too bad engaging in shameless self-promotion.
I came across an editorial piece in the Financial Post (part of Canada's National Post newspaper) consisting of an excerpt from Laframboise's book and took a crack at rebutting it (the excerpt, not the book - I'm hardly going to pay money for that kind of rubbish) on my own blog (link in my 'nym).
Ah, Donna Laframboise. The following excerpt from Chapter 24 should give you a good idea of where she stands:
> No matter what they said the problem of the moment was â over-population, ozone depletion, acid rain, global warming â environmentalists have long advocated the same basket of solutions.
These solutions amount to humanity forsaking industrialized society and a good measure of individual freedom. Apparently the answer is a return to Eden â to a slower, greener, more, ânaturalâ pace of life that embraces traditional values rather than mindless consumerism.
Anyone, when is the (South?) Australian robot competition Tim runs?
// "the planet hasn't actually warmed for a decade - or even 15 years - according to new temperature data released by Britain's Met Office." //
The Daily Mail had this too. They didn't get around to identifying the article in question, but the particular period mentioned "since 1997" or "the past 15 years" has an interesting apect. In 1998, there was a very strong el Nino which increased the temperature beyond any increase from AGW; in contrast 2011 was a la Nina year so atmospheric temperatures were lower than the trend.
So drawing a line from a maximum to a minimum will http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/news/releases/archive/2011/2012-global-temp… reduce the slope of temperature increase or make it negative. [see table at bottom]
In other words, they are doing this http://www.skepticalscience.com/pics/SkepticsvRealistsv3.gif .
Looks like Ian Plimer's financial interests in coal are now completely unambiguous:
"According to disclosures made to the Australians Securities and Investments commission overnight Prof Plimer was appointed to the boards of Roy Hill Holdings and Queensland Coal Investments on January 25."
(if they weren't before, he did deny that he had taken any money from the coal industry recently)
Interestingly, Murdoch appears to have launched a major offensive world wide, on the reality of real world climate science, in his various print media outlets including the [Wall Street Journal](http://online.wsj.com/article/SB100014240529702043014045771715318384213…)!
Skeptical Science's "Dana1981", did an excellent take down and debunking of this nonsensical trash [Op-Ed](http://www.skepticalscience.com/examining-the-latest-climate-denialist-…). Thank you Dana1981, for you sterling efforts.
Interestingly, another article in ["Skeptical Science"](http://www.skepticalscience.com/Climate-Policy-Peak-Oil_U-Washington.ht…) has shown that peak crude oil has come and gone in the year 2005. World wide production hitting 75 million barrels per day and has now flat lined. The alternative sources for extracting oil from fossil carbon sources, like shale and coal, is virtual climate suicide. Way back in 1956, Dr. M. King Hubbert predicted such an event as shown by this [graph](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Hubbert_peak_oil_plot.svg) and this [youtube video](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ImV1voi41YY).
Who benefits, from delaying that which is inevitable?
@9
MS Strawberry (LaFramboise) is infact a luminary for the Libertarian Denialati.
It's only because of Murdoch that anybody knows of her.....
http://www.libertarian.to/NewsDta/templates/news1.php?art=art2512
Some interesting comments re The Delinquent Teenager ect....The fact is the average punter often goes first to Google to check on the bona fides of an author or book. A Google search of Donna Lafranboise or The Delinquent Teenager will find opinion on the first two Google pages favourable to the book and author by a ratio of nearly twenty to one. A coherent assessment or critique of the book is nowhere to be found. It is not enough to dismiss Donna Lafranboise as a "silly woman." The reputation and credibility of the IPCC is too important.
Burt Rutan ...er, [triples down](http://www.scholarsandrogues.com/2012/01/31/climate-science-discussion-…) (see "from comment #150").
Can you see the substantive response to valid critiques buried amongst reiterations of debunked talking points (mostly ClimateGate and "the Hockey Stick is broken, and without it there's no cause for concern"); at least one apparently libellous accusation; and egregious violations of basis statistics and logic?
No, me neither.
Comments are still being directed to the [original thread](http://www.scholarsandrogues.com/2012/01/27/open-letter-to-burt-rutan/), and responses to Rutan's latest start at #152.
The funny thing about Laframboise being a torch-bearer for 'skeptic/libertarians' is that her soft liberal/arts qualifications are exactly the kind usually derided by 'skeptic/libertarians'.
Her book is a predictable combination of paranoia,poor research and ignorance of science and science procedure.
[Richard @ 22](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2012/02/february_2012_open_thread.php#c…)
It's sadly the case that the denialists will publish cheap lo-rent books - no matter how trashy e.g. Donna The Raspberry (really???) and Bishop Montford) - but neither will never publish a paper. They are unable to provide a rational, meaningful case.
Conspiracy and innuendo, no matter how expertly confected, just doesn't withstand scutiny. And that's all they've got in lieu of actual evidence.
Speaking of the Daily Mail, "[Do the weather forecasters quoted by the Daily Mail actually exist?](http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/georgemonbiot/2012/jan/26/weather…)"
Oh yes, they have standards, and you're seeing the implementation of them.
Chek @ 25 "Conspiracy and innuendo, no matter how expertly confected, just doesn't withstand scrutiny" My point Chek is, that as yet, there has been no scrutiny. Certainly nothing credible enough to counter balance the denialist rubbish on the Google pages.
@ Richard, 22
I'm also surprised that nobody seems to have responded to Laframboise's book smear tract, especially Ove Hoegh-Guldberg, who was mentioned specifically in the Oz's [predictable glowing endorsement](http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/opinion/ipcc-warming-assessments-a…) of it a few months back. The sad fact is that real scientists like Ove, Trenberth, Mann, Jones, Santer etc. are paid to advance humanity's knowledge of their respective fields, not to spend countless hours refuting lies about them in the media. Meanwhile, the Bolts, the Roses, the Codlings, the Laframboises of the world are able to make a living out of propagating those lies.
@1. While the Murdoch Press isn't renowned for it's razor sharp accuracy, Andrew Bolt is, well, just kinda stupid. Memorable pieces of complete brainlessness from his article:
"Sea levels have recently dipped" (only if you ignore every other piece of data except the El Nino-La Nina changeover Andrew)
"Oceans have lately cooled" (not globally Andrew)
"Arctic ice has not retreated since 2007" (from which planet did you get that data Andrew? It sure wasn't Earth!)
Then he craps on about rain as if the heavy east coast rainfall this summer is proof it must be globally cooling. La Nina, Andrew? La Nina?
He is a moron. What's even more disturbing is that, looking at his blog comments, moronism seems to be a transmissible disease. This has me deeply concerned that I should be vaccinated against it.
It grieves me to find a real national asset, aerospace icon and America's Cup defender Burt Rutan dragooned into signing the WSJ piece , but Pat Michaels has been using his Forbes column to ballyhoo it and Watts as well, adducing the remarkable claim that WUWT doesn't ban critical commenters.
To test that hypothesis, as adduced by Pat's sidekick, Robert E. Phelan
http://www.forbes.com/sites/patrickmichaels/2012/01/27/watts-up-who-kil…
I posted this test piece on Watts blog :
I returned to my high school this week and found a letter from the Institute of Public Affairs in my pigeon hole. It informed me that teachers were not presenting both sides of the story, that two Nobel laureates did not agree with the AGW thesis, that science had previously asserted that the Earth was flat and the universe revolved around us therefore scientists could also be wrong about global warming, that unnamed scientists were now critical of other unnamed scientists of being political, that the IPCC had recently debunked Al Gore and that Roger Pielke Jn agreed about something, possiby Gore, and that Ian Plimer would be able to set all the kiddies straight by reading his book, a copy of which was kindly included for our library. It was signed by Director John Rostrum, Professor Ian Plimer himself and Newcastle property developer who doesn't much like Lake Macquarie Council's take on building close to sea level, Mr Jeff McCloy. Anyone else in school get one of these?
Richard McGuire @ #9
I don't know if you have ever tried looking at customer reviews of books by the usual suspects, Montford, Booker, etc. on Amazon. It would be a momentous and depressing task to take on all of these at both Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk (and other applicable zones). I think that an effort is required. Sadly, due to health and disability issues, I am finding it extremely onerous.
This is a real Dunning-Kruger example that should be countered.
>"Arctic ice has not retreated since 2007" (from which planet did you get that data Andrew? It sure wasn't Earth!)
Take one guess
Richard McGuire @ #9
The book you are talking about is easily debunked in a few minutes. If you haven't found an article debunking it, maybe you could write one yourself and put it on a friendly blog somewhere (if you don't have your own). It doesn't need a climate scientist to do the debunking.
For example, you could check her count of grey literature against the actual references (she's got it all listed and categorised on her blog).
You'll find that, as someone else mentioned, the grey literature is not only completely acceptable, the reports could not have been prepared without them. Her count of grey literature even includes references to previous IPCC reports as well as references to meteorological data and data from industry organisations, UN and similar policy statements etc.
You could also check the bios of the scientists she criticises.
I'm not surprised it's not debunked - reading the language she uses and doing a five minute check of her 'facts' is all it takes.
One other thing - her findings were well and truly debunked before she put them in book form - including by some commenters on WUWT as I recall.
Another piece of idiocy from Laframboise's book, chapter 7:
>The IPCC may claim that the world's top scientific minds and climate modelers are one and the same.
But I think that's a stretch. In July 2007, five IPCC authors wrote an article for Scientific American in
which they equated climate models with a fortune-teller's crystal ball.
On the one hand, they declared it a certainty that people, plants, and animals would all be living with the
consequences of human-induced climate change "for at least the next thousand years." On the other, they said:
>>Unfortunately, the crystal ball provided by our climate models becomes cloudier for predictions
out beyond a century or so.
>Each of us has to make up our own mind regarding whom to trust and what to believe. But when I became a grownup, I stopped believing in crystal balls.
Re: Richard McGuire's inquiry @9:
Further so Sou's response @36:
Once again, let me indulge in some [shameless self-promotion](http://composer99.blogspot.com/2011/11/national-posts-war-on-science-bo…).
Composer99 @ #38
That 'shameless self-promotion' was much appreciated and well worth the time reading through. 'Climate Bible' indeed! This is just another variant of the denier accusation of climate change study being a religion.
The take down of the three scientists by Laframboise reveals how much the likes of Laframbois cannot grasp how many thousands of scientific strands come together, thus how many scientific sub-disciplines are involved in supporting our level of understanding about the cause of the warming trend and the increasing related dysfunction of natural earth systems. Of atmospheric and ocean currents and the biosphere. Small minds are not capable of enlightenment.
Either that or Laframbois is being duplicitous by trying to deny AGW in public whilst realising only too well that '...the times they are a changing'.
I've added another response to Burt Rutan here. Scroll down to "Brian Anglissâ response, from Comment #173"
I read an newspaper artricle by LL flacking her book. What seemed to bother her the most was that Africans were allowed a voice by the IPPC. China having scientists also enraged her.
Her world seems to be a racist swamp where only white people should participate. Does she think the no African or Chinese has ever gone to school?
Sou @36 If the book is so easily debunked why hasn't a blog like this one done so ? After all it is only the reputation and credibility of IPCC that is being questioned. The issue is too important to be left to enthusiastic amateurs like myself, who are limited to asking questions and initiating discussions on forums like this one.
Richard, you are starting to sound like Judith Curry, who demanded Montford's book was rebutted. It's giving attention to something that does not serve attention. Those who are even remotely skeptical in the proper meaning of the word will have no problem seeing the problems in the booklet. Only those that are already 'converted' will believe it, and no take down will ever make a change. Just see how Judith Curry, who should have the ability to see what a bunch of trash it is, touted the book.
She wasn't open for reason when people pointed out issues with Montford's book (au contraire, she went off on a hissy-fit when the mistakes were pointed out), so who would one write for? Not for the rational, sane people, who can easily see the ideology shining right through, and not for the deniosphere, which has already decided that no facts will ever change their mind.
Judith Curry's reaction is fascinating. I once read a book, as a naive and impressionable teenager, that said JFK was assassinated by the CIA. The author presented facts in a manner that made a plot seem plausible. Such was my uncritical acceptance I thought âGosh, the real killers roam free!â When people pointed out the book was highly selective and misleading, I reacted badly, defending the thesis that CIA whacked Kennedy. This episode ran through my head witnessing Judith Curry's reaction to Andrew Montford's book. She made a big scene before seeking alternative answers and explanations, thus, when colleagues informed her that Montford's account was wrong and misleading in many ways, instead of processing new information, Judith resisted because she wasn't properly sceptical to begin with. To compound matters, her schooling happened in a very public manner (whereas I only looked silly in front of friends and family) and she could not accept people knowing her critical thinking skills were underdeveloped. Much of her output is geared toward rationalising her foolishness and she shows no signs of throwing down the shovel.
Yeah, I'm curious; the world is over-run with absurd critiques - John Cook from SkS was confronted with some new publication denouncing Tim Flannery at a public meeting recently as though this was somehow his problem - do we have to get excited about all of them, and spend 6 months running around meticulously identifying their errors, or what?
Laframboise's thing came out a while ago - I recall the angry reaction at the time to her absurd notion that somehow the IPCC was run by undergrads ('surly teenagers' IIRC) because, would you credit it, they were doing the actual leg-work on many of the papers (I mean! Really!). She thinks the IPCC has been 'infiltrated' by the WWF! That website of hers is just another tedious pile of shopworn Denialist memes for rechumming back into the system.
Who cares?
I mean, why bother to credit it at all? Gee, the Deniers have whipped themselves into an lather about another wannabe Ann Coulter. We must respond! We must sue! If we don't we have admitted the charges! Aha!
Richard, anybody who believes conspiracy theories about the evil Communist WWF-infiltrated IPCC isn't properly skeptical to begin with.
It's like saying that since NASA scientists won't engage with people who believe the moon landings were faked, then it's proof the moon landings were faked. Their claims are ridiculous to anyone with an actual *skeptical* mind.
I hear the gaffaws ricocheting around the echo chamber. I mean who would ever have taken any notice of Monkton ?
What a silly troll you're being, Richard. Monckton has been refuted well and good, and yet he's still plying his propaganda ... if anything, that's an argument for not paying attention to Montford. The fact is that you have been rebutted in `#`43-`#`47, but rather than addressing any of the points made you offer up ad hominem BS about an echo chamber. But merely because several intelligent and knowledgeable people share similar views, that doesn't make them an echo chamber.
@ Richard McGuire #42 - this blog is run by an 'enthusiastic amateur' - he has given you a platform to debunk the book, not complain that not enough people have debunked it.
No-one gives it any credence and only the most entrenched deniers quote it. It was a 5 minute wonder in the deniosphere. At $4.99 or whatever she wants you to pay it's overpriced by at least $1,000.
Scientists and enthusiastic amateurs have to prioritise their 'leisure' time. Tim does an excellent job - particularly trying to keep the media honest and pointing out where they are not.
If you want to play a part in informing the world of the risks of AGW, then don't just wait for someone else to do all the work - why not have a go yourself.
In this case though, Composer99 has done it for you - and twice in this thread has given you link that you can point people to.
Richard, Monckton presents *technical* arguments, something 99.9% of the population cannot follow, which you can't blame them. In such a case a rebuttal is useful to at the very least cast doubt on his claims ("but experts say you are wrong")
Anyone reading Laframboise's book will have no trouble seeing the conspiracy nuttery.
Note also that despite all the times Monckton has been rebutted, he is still hailed on WUWT as their savior, and is still happily invited to act as a front figure by several organisations.
P.S. Bob Ward wrote a rebuttal to Montford at http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/cif-green/2010/aug/19/climate-sce…?
I found this via the Wikipedia article on The Hockey Stick, linked to by the Wikipedia article on Andrew Montford ... you could have yourself, Richard, if you weren't such a lazy troll out to bash people for not spending even more of their lives addressing the lies of deniers.
Wait, we're talking about Donna Laframboise's book? Sorry, I misread and misunderstood the comment in `#`43 about Judith Curry and Montford.
Well, that changes things entirely, because Donna Laframboise is a blithering idiot and you have to be close to being one to think that her book merits any attention ... but if you really really need someone to do that, see http://nittygrittyscience.com/2011/11/03/an-open-letter-to-donna-lafram… (the fourth hit on her name on google ... too far down for lazy trolls who can't even spell her name right to look, I guess).
The trouble with all the cranks and the conspiracy theorists is that although they might "just" be fools and febrile ignorants apparently not worthy of rebuttal, they have already won the propaganda war.
Had the Denialati not been active I suspect that the international community might actually now have a coordinated and enacted plan for decarbonising. As it stands, such a program will not exist for at least another decade.
Many folk (rightly) compare the delaying tactics of climate deniers with those of the tobacco lobby. The recent movement of Gina Rinehart into the Australian media context should produce more of the same. There is one critical difference however: where denial of tobacco carcinogenicity 'simply' resulted in more tobacco-related deaths mostly restricted to (essentially voluntary) smokers than would have otherwise occurred, the delay of action on carbon emissions will seriously and detrimentally affect the climate, the ecology, and the food-productivity of the whole planet for billions of humans currently living, and yet to be born, and not actually impact too much on those relatively few actually braying for the delay.
Oo, and the biodiversity of the Earth will cop a beating too...
As much as it might gall those who understand that refutations are mostly an exercise in casting pearls before swine, it is nevertheless worth recalling some sage advice from a well-known children's author:
>Uncle Tim always said that a good farmer looks every day at his roofs, gates and fences. He said that a nail in time saves nine, and a tile in time saves a hundred!
The potential worth of a political argument is very different to the (sometimes apparently low) worth of an intellectual argument. That makes Richard McGuire's point quite important, and it is in fact why we have Skeptical Science, Deltoid, Rabbett Run, Open Mind, Climate Crock, and so many other fine sites in the first place.
The extent to which advocates of rational science step in to counter the propaganda machine will determine the extent to which humans ameliorate (rather than negate) the eventual final cost of losing the climate war.
Considering just how blatantly silly she is, yes it is.
Non sequitur, you silly man.
Yes, but rebutting them isn't the way to win it, something that folks like you have a lot of trouble grasping. And even if it were, it doesn't apply to Donna LeFramboise, both because she's so transparently whacked and because her book isn't about climate science, it's about her extraordinary ignorance about how science is done.
You seem very confused. Richard's point is that when he googles LeFramboise he mostly gets denialists lauding her ... the existence of those sites doesn't change that, nor would it if one or more of them had covered LeFramboise's book. Now, if you can convince Rupert Murdoch, the Koch brothers, Richard Mellon-Scaife, ExxonMobil, etc. to fund propaganda sites, then perhaps you could begin to turn around the propaganda war.
Richard McGuire.
Having [said that](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2012/02/february_2012_open_thread.php#c…), [Composer99's post](http://composer99.blogspot.com.au/2011/11/national-posts-war-on-science…) and [ianam's link](http://nittygrittyscience.com/2011/11/03/an-open-letter-to-donna-lafram…), amongst others, are already out there, so an organised rebuttal of Laframboise need not reinvent the wheel...
>Richard's point is that when he googles LeFramboise he mostly gets denialists lauding her ...
That was one of Richard McGuire's points - we need to be careful not to fall for the logical traps that catch the Denialists.
Still, it's true that many search queries return a string of crackpot hits first. That's one of the many factors that have helped to scuttle effective response in reducing carbon emissions. Sensible searching would mitigate against this, but unfortunately sensibility is not a character trait of our species.
All that's left is to do the best that we can.
Anthony Lonergan @ 33, I think that publication should go in to the fiction section of the library along with EIS's for coal mines and, well, maybe, power substations in salt patches (if you are who I think you are you'll get this reference), or, as has been suggested elsewhere, use it for teaching critical thinking, find a claim, examine it, see if it stacks up. But please, don't put it in the compost, you'll give the worms a stomach ache.
To get some insight into how the propaganda machine works, read `http://www.cjr.org/cover_story/hot_air.php`
When climate scientists are picked up by the Drudge Report and are interviewed by Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh and Lou Dobbs and are invited to speak at the Heartland Institute like these weathermen are, things will change. Cranks like Coleman get wide coverage, with a little help from right wing billionaires; folks like Tamino, and Rabbett don't. Much as we value them, they don't make much difference in the greater world because very few people ever read anything they write.
Don't play dishonest games with me. You're the one who referred to "Richard McGuire's point", as if there were only one, and failed to identify just what point you meant ... so I did it for you.
With all those points and factors, you're pretty safe in avoiding the logical trap of implying that you're focusing on the ones that matter.
inaman,
Have you seen this ?
( http://www.drroyspencer.com/2012/02/uah-global-temperature-update-for-j… )
It looks like your the denier, global temps are currently down to the 1980 temperature, how odd, sorta make's people stop and think about what science has been shoving down their throats.
And just to rub it in
( http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/02/02/wuwt-and-other-climate-blogs-are-… )
You know that the satellite isn't measuring temperature, right, Chuckles? It's measuring brightness. Of the atmosphere. All of it.
And absolutely none of the atmosphere is the earth's surface. This isn't Jupiter, you know.
@49 ianam , whoever you are ? You call me "silly old troll" then accuse me of ad hominem B.S. ?
@ 50 sou "This blog is run an enthusiatic amateur" who is a computer scientist. Sou I am not in same league. I do appreciate the fact he provides this open forum, which being an "Open Thread" I assume gives me the right to complain about a book not being debunked. If Composer's "shameless self promotion" @ 38 were to make it to the Google pages it might make a difference.
@ 51 marco Monckton not only presents technical arguments, but more importantly, tells people what they want to hear, just as Lafranboise is doing. Monckton may still be the darling of the denialosphere, but his reputation and credibility has been greatly diminished, thanks to blogs like this one. Just google Monckton, and you will find many unflattering comments on the man, including an entry by Deltoid "Monckton debunks Monckton." Google Lafranboise or her book title and see what you get.
Bad show, chaps, you've let me down! One of the mildest winters on record and I was beginning to think those chaps at Deltoid really have done the business and warmed things up - which is, of course, "A Good Thing" not "A Bad Thing" considering the alternative, although you haven't quite worked that one out. However, no sooner do I start hunting for last Summer's sun cream than the bloody Russians send their arctic Siberian weather over here! They say frozen birds are falling out of the sky! Even worse, because I believe everything you say on this blog, I had given my Long Johns to charity and I have been forced to go and buy some more!
And talking of believing things on this site, I do recall some mentions in the past concerning DDT and malaria. I avoided the topic not so much because I know very little of it (but when did that ever stop me - heh, heh?!), but mainly because I don't care given that malaria is non-existent in south west England. According to The Guardian (no less), deaths by malaria have doubled and according to 'Dellers' it is directly due to the virtual ban on DDT. He reckons "the Greens have been responsible for killing more people than Hitler."
Crikey! You lot have much to answer for! Not only putting us all at risk by failing to warn of global cooling but also letting those pesky 'Mozzies' fly free. You should all be ashamed of yourselves. Now get a grip!
http://eureferendum.blogspot.com/2012/02/watermelons-kill.html
> You call me "silly old troll" then accuse me of ad hominem B.S.
You need to work out what ad hominem means.
> One of the mildest winters on record
Aaaww. Look Dai is calling weather climate again. Just like he whines about all the climate realists doing at SkS and RC...
> Monckton not only presents technical arguments, but more importantly, tells people what they want to hear
You have that right.
I believe your watch stopped.
> I assume gives me the right to complain about a book not being debunked.
Oh, yes. But no right to expect anyone to bother to do anything about it. Do it yourself. Or live with it. You have the right to choose those and any others you wish.
Duffer you dumb old coot - there is no global cooling. You've fallen into the trap (as you do every single time) of believing idiots with no evidence except their own ignorant application of the data. This is chiefly your own fault because despite every encouragement you choose to remain an ignorant git who refuses to educate himself.
You might also like to acquaint yourself with the proven effects of blanket application of pesticides like DDT. What happens is that there are always colonies with slightly different genetic variations who are immune. These immune colonies then breed without competition from the wiped out colonies until you're back at sqauare one with an ineffective chemical suppressant that doesn't suppress.
The merest smidgin of background reading would inform you - if you were interested, which you're not.
Instead you prefer joining in with the moron's groupwank of ignorance with political deadend idiots like eureferendum who know and care for nothing except their own geriatric prejudices. Then for an encore you come and jerk off your swivel-eyed ignorance over here as if you're being clever. If only you could see yourself the way others see you.
Weaker than usual Duff. "It's cold in Winter" really the best you have?
I am chuffed that you brought up biology since, according to you, it isn't a science (that is unless you can use it to blame your enemies for things!)
Look forward to you ignoring this post you gormless coward!
Chek, don't bother. He knows he's lying. He does it to get a reaction. It's his "cause"
Richard, as you correctly point out, Monckton appeals to those already wanting to hear the message he spreads. The technical rebuttal of Monckton is useful for those who cannot see through his manipulation and mistakes, because they lack the basic skills to see where he goes wrong.
This is different with Laframboise. The language she uses is enough for just about all human beings to see this is ideology speaking, not a discussion of facts. It is, in short, a very clear narrative. Providing a rebuttal does not help, because those convinced will believe her regardless of the facts, and those in doubt will smell the stench of the ideology.
ianam, cutting down on the vitriol might be nice.
[Ianam](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2012/02/february_2012_open_thread.php#c…).
I'm sorry if my phrasing isn't always so precise that it covers all contingencies.
Nevertheless, the fact remains that I have a lot of sympathy for the sentiment of Richard McGuire's initial post here. Blogs such as [those I listed previously](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2012/02/february_2012_open_thread.php#c…) are all about deconstructing the rubbish that denialists promulgate and promote. If they're not coming to the fore in search results when non-scientists are looking for answers then there is a problem, whether large or small.
Yes, the most scientifically 'credible' propagandists need to be addressed with priority, but this does not preclude also attending to numpties in the vein of LeFramboise who gain considerable traction amongst both rusted-on denialists and in the more general public sphere.
And yes, it's a bitch that Google doesn't filter on credibility, but rather via sites' traffic (or via paying inducements...). To this end having organised rebuttals of folk such as LeFramboise is useful, even if their arguments are entirely specious. The important fact here is that they are popular amongst the lay public who don't know how to filter information, but who eventually have such great sway with the politicians for whom they vote.
I don't resile from either point, and I'm a little bemused that others have given Richard McGuire a toasting for his original comment. In my experience he is most certainly not a troll, concern or otherwise, and if the blather of people such as the seriously facile LeFramboise is slipping under the radar and scoring unwarranted credibility with the general public then McGuire's point (or "points"...) is a surely valid one (or are valid ones...).
Perhaps one unintended consequence of this little enchange will be to promote the thread higher in the Google rankings - Deltoid often (and sometimes surprisingly) seems to shoot to the first page of certain Google searches. I hope so: people will then have at least [two decent links](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2012/02/february_2012_open_thread.php#c…) to access in their journey to understanding LeFramboise's purile nonsense.
For what it's worth, I agree that LeFramboise's idiocy is plainly transparent - to intelligent and educated folk.
The problem is that it doesn't seem to be plainly transparent to enough people. I once wasted hours on a (non-science) forum trying to educate over a dozen people about the inadequacies of her book. For my pains I was flooded to exhaustion with links to Plimer, Monckton, Watts, Bolt et al, et al, et al.
Ignorance, stupidity, and denial of reason are the intellectual equivalent of matches. Their memes are quick to light, and in-and-of themselves are puny little flickers, but they can ignite raging forest fires of factual obfuscation that are beyond the resources of whole armies of people to quell.
LeFramboise may be a dim spark, but she's still one worth stamping on whilst directing the hoses to more blazing scientific bastardry.
IMHO.
[Richard:](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2012/02/february_2012_open_thread.php?u…)
One way to get refutations of Laframboise higher up in the rankings of the Almighty Google is to share them online, link to them in discussions, that sort of thing.
Just sayin'.
"Duffer you dumb old coot - there is no global cooling."
Possibly, Chek, but there ain't no warming either, at least, for the last 10 years and maybe longer. And you (the collective 'you') promised me endless Summers for the lat years of my sainted life. What's gone wrong? And I want my money back!
And as for 'buggaboos' building up biochemical resistance to DDT, well of course they will over time, but meanwhile, as they get around to it, hundreds of thousands will live. You might as well apply your argument to anti-biotics which have saved millions of lives even if the 'buggaboos' are now beginning to dodge the bullet. Anyway, your preferred methods don't seem to have worked at all with the number of deaths doubling!
Sorry, Chek, but you and the rest of the class 'Must Do Better' or you will all have to stay behind and copy out 'What's Up With That'!
"but there ain't no warming either"
Unfortunately, that dastardly liberal called "reality" says you're wrong.
"at least, for the last 10 years "
Where are the error bars on that? You aren't a scientist unless you can give error bars.
The argument is not only applied, but practised, efforts have been made to reduce the overuse of antibiotics for a couple of decades now.
duffer the puffer shows his ignorance once again:
The mosquitoes became resistant to DDT years ago you stupid ignoramus. Why don't you either just shut up so you don't let everyone know how stupid you are or at least do a bit of reading in areas you choose to comment on?
Duff, so you are Still Going Down the Up Escalator . What a cross-grained duffer of an old buffer you are.
re: 54
I *strongly recommend a brand-new book on tobacco, which occasionally mentions the weird connections with climate anti-science, by Stanford Professor of History Robert Proctor, a world-class expert in this turf. I have a review there.
I will note that besides killing children, slowly, the tobacco business:
a) Occupies land that might grow food.
b) Causes trees to be cut to grow tobacco.
c) Causes more trees to be cut to burn to cure tobacco.
Of course, he other connection is that most US thinktanks that do climate anti-science learned the tactics by doing it for tobacco. The tobacco archives are fabulous resources.
Meanwhile the deniers have opened up another front against Michael Mann [here](http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/blog/2012/feb/03/penn-state-faceb…).
They never stop do they.
Unfortunately no they don't - it's their job.
However, no sane government on Earth is going to ask the opinions of those cracker-barrel idealogues once out-of-the-box effects (such as the AGW predicted outgassing of methane from the permafrost) start occurring, as they have, in the real world. The think tank puppets just haven't had the memo yet. The next El Nino at the height of the solar cycle with its attendant effects, will wipe them out.
IIRC DDT resistance was first noted in the 1950's. Antibiotic resistance was predicted shortly after widespread use of antibiotics began, and unsurprisingly showed up in a decade or less. Duff shows that once again he is here only to annoy people.
Thank you for your patronization, but I don't think much of nice; I'm much more interested in truth, and the truth is that he trolled here, regardless of past behavior -- Bernard's irrelevant "experience": talk about a logic trap!
Ah, yes, but I'm sure that a careful and precise rebuttal posted at, say, SkepticalScience.com or that even more widely read location, Deltoid, will turn them all around.
You really really do not get it, and your metaphor of stamping out sparks is truly dim.
It's more complicated than a simple issue of a "logic trap", Ianam.
Yes, folk who post sensibly most of the time can sometimes hit a sour note. I have done so on occasion, and I'm not Robinson Crusoe. However, people can also appear to some folk to be saying one thing, but mean something else simply because the subtext and the context are obscured by the lack of finesse that accompanies written communication. Heck, that's why emoticons were spawned.
I've seen Richard McGuire post elsewhere. Many of those posts were about the effectiveness - or otherwise - of science communication, IIRC. Given my prior familiarity with Richard, it seemed (and still seems to be, to me) reasonable to assume his genuine intent, rather than any concern-troll motivation.
The underlying issue is that if Richard had difficulty locating refutations of Laframboise, people with even less familiarity and capacity for matters climatological will likely have even more difficulty. However, this can be remedied.
As [I implied](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2012/02/february_2012_open_thread.php#c…), and as [Composer99 explicitly explained](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2012/02/february_2012_open_thread.php#c…), repeated and consistent linkings to such debunkings rapidly shifts useful material closer to the top of Google searches: it's one reason why I often post links on Deltoid*. It's up to people who know where the resources are to centralise (to some extent) the access to them, so that people who might not otherwise locate these resources have an easier time of it.
I'm not quite sure why this has caused the minor conflagration that it has, but it should certainly help to bring one step closer to the truth, seekers of an answer to the question of the reliability of Laframboise. Or should we not bother to do so, whenever we are able? If the answer to that last is that we should not bother, then should we not bother to refute Bolt, or Watts, or Monckton?
Frankly, I'm glad of this kerfuffle. It's flushed out Composer99's link, and that's a useful one for my bookmarks. Which in the end was essentially Richard McGuire's desired point (or "point").
[* And on the topic of linking, I use backupURL.com for exactly the opposite reason - to avoid giving denialist sites a leg-up on search engines. And it's good for preserving for posterity contentious comments.]
I agree; the Composer99 link was great.
ianam, react how you will, but you really, really need to have a bit of a think about whether your omni-directional blowtorch style is always benefiting the cause* . Sorry, but the mood here is definitely such that I'm confident I'm not the only one who feels it doesn't. This needs saying.
The ever-irrelevant windbag Duff is fair game. Richard McGuire is a horse of a completely different colour. I've responded to him above about not seeing that we were obliged to take time out to respond to every shibboleth the Deniers spit up, but I don't believe he's playing the troll.
He has taken it all rather well, but I would not have been surprised if he hadn't. And Bernard is being very diplomatic and respectful in his responses to you. The reverse, sadly, cannot be said.
(*yes David, 'the cause'. You screech 'Aha! and carry on like the proverbial porkchop; I say 'bite me.')
Monckton suggesting that [some of Australia's super-rich should buy up or create a TV channel](https://www.getup.org.au/campaigns/mining/monckton/monckton-speaks-to-m…) to serve similar purposes as Fox News does in the US. (Gina Rinehart buying up a portion of Fairfax, anyone?)
Monckton touts Jo Nova and Andrew Bolt as commentators who should be on every day...
And there's [an article at The Drum](http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/3807130.html) about it from a couple of days ago, complete with more links.
Andrew Bolt is scheduled to be on the box again tomorrow - 'The Bolt Report' screening 10.30 am and repeated at half four. If folks can bear to watch it.
Read [this](http://climatecrocks.com/2012/02/01/scientists-answer-the-wall-street-1…) in The Australian newspaper the other day (2012 Feb. 3rd) â it was on page 14 â located directly opposite it was the regular "Cutân'paste" column headlined âPlagued by Climate doubt? Concerned about cooling?Suffering from an open mindâ pushing the climate contrarian line. Sigh.
> Andrew Bolt is scheduled to be on the box again tomorrow...
And IIRC on a channel that Gina Rinehart bought a piece of a while back...
@87 Thank you Bernard J, for first, not regarding me as some kind of alien invader. You have argued a case better than I could have. It is now up to others to judge what happens next.
David Duff,
You must be a glutton for punishment! This blog is a nest of fundamentalist global warming believers. And, instead of defending their beliefs with argument they resort to abuse.
Have you tried asking their views on the relative importance of CO2 and the sun on climate?
> And, instead of defending their beliefs with argument they resort to abuse.
LOL - what a wonderful Poe!
Delingpole get put in his place:
http://zelo-street.blogspot.com/2012/02/commons-totty-no-more.html
>Have you tried asking their views on the relative importance of CO2 and the sun on climate?
Of course he hasn't because that would take him far out of his comfort zone which, to date, has revolved around making snide assertions that the AGW theory is finished (a claim he's been making for two years now, in which time the evidence has grown stronger) and it's cold in Winter so how can global warming be happening?
The only time Duff has tried to argue science he threw his support behind dowser and conspiracy peddler Nils Axel-Morner and his infamous tilted graph, before announcing that biology wasn't a science. When backed into a corner he chucked a sobbing wobbly and flounced off promising never to post again, only to return days later spamming the usual assortment of right-wing memes and not engaging with any responses.
So perhaps instead of asking why we won't engage with Duff on the science, you should ask why he is too afraid to engage with us?
He also staged a highly convenient disappearance here. 102 posts, and not-a-one from our very own Colonel Blimp.
Proving that even Duff can occasionally recognise a truly blatant train-wreck when he sees one.
I gather I have been missed! Well, apologies and all that sort of thing but you must realise, mes enfants, that popping down here to the junior school, so to speak, and beating up a few of the kiddies, is only a part, a very small part, of my life. Even so, John, above, is eager for some, er, 'science', so here goes, although it is from the Met Office and I trust them about as far as I can piss into a gale:
"âOur records for the past 15 years suggest the world has warmed by about 0.051C over that period,â said the Met Office. In laymanâs terms that is 51 thousandths of a degree."
Is that it?! 0.051C? Over 15 years? With the Chinese opening coal-fueled powers stations at the rate of one a week? To say nothing of the Indians! And all the Greenies howling that we're not cutting our emissions anywhere near enough! So why only a measley 0.051C? What about all those dire predictions from Hansen et al? Come on, boys and girls, something's not right here and you keep telling me how, er, scientific you all are, so tell me (or teh Met Office) where the missing heat went!
You negelected to give me the source of the article. Obviously you are hiding something and it took me mere seconds to find out what.
>For most climate scientists the answer is simple. âFifteen years is just too short a period over which to measure climate change,â said Peter Stott, head of climate monitoring at the Met Office. âThe world undergoes natural temperature changes on all kinds of time scales from daily variations to seasonal ones. It also varies naturally from year to year and decade to decade.â
And:
>That sounds ominous but Lockwood calculates that even a decline in activity on that scale would now have little effect because the impact would be far smaller than the opposing effects of surging greenhouse gas emissions.
Does losing, come naturally, to you? You are, completely incompetent. How, er, many times am I, er, going to give, er, you, er, a sound thrashing before, er, you stop trying?
(Although I must give you a big thumbs up for trying to slip an article from serial fabricator Jonathan Leake past me and thinking I wouldn't notice)
>that popping down here to the junior school, so to speak, and beating up a few of the kiddies, is only a part, a very small part, of my life.
That's a lie. You blog prodigiously and read this blog religiously. For a troll, you are soft and easily provoked and I was supremely gratified to watch you run screaming off instead of answering the very simple quesiton of why you believe Nils Axel-Morner's projections when his observations are wrong.
Are we still any closer to an answer on that or are you just going to spam the next big Bishop Hill talking point you will forget within a couple of hours?
Why are you so weak, Duff?
Been playing with the GHCN (and CRU) raw data from time to time...
For my latest little "citizen-scientist" escapade, I tried processing data from a very small number (45 or fewer) rural GHCN stations (checked them out with Google Earth to make sure that they weren't in or near big urban areas). Got results that were surprisingly consistent with the NASA/GISS land-temperature index. Info and results posted here: http://forums.utsandiego.com/showpost.php?p=4611211&postcount=70
As you can see, the surface temperature system is quite robust -- get consistent results even when you throw out ~99 percent of the stations.
The posted results were from my "first try" -- no cherry picking of temperature stations involved. Only criteria for temp station selection was that I could compute a 1951-1980 baseline and that the temp station had the longest temperature record in its assigned grid-cell. (Grid-cells very large -- on the order of 30x30 at the Equator).
Good try, John, well done! Except, of course, that you HAFs (Hot Air Fanatics) always squeak loudly that 5, or 10, or 15 years is not long enough to establish a trend. Gotta be 30 years before you can draw any conclusions, you always say. So, tell me John, what's the trend been since the satellite measuring began which must be around 30 years ago? Shot up like a rocket, has it? Broken all records? Exceeded your best/worst fears? I mean, that's what you told us was going to happen 30 years ago - well, not you, John, because I doubt you were born then, but your, er, elders and betters, like that nice man, Mr. Hansen, who actually made some predictions to that effect in Congress, which was entirely suitable given the number of 'porkies' that get told in that place!
And John, you really must try and read more carefully. I didn;'t say I wasn't a keen blogger, only that I wasn't *that* keen on coming here too often. However, I do have a keen sense of duty!
Duff, your faux bon-ho-mie style is wearing thin, and you are still using deceptive tactics by NOT citing sources and resorting to Plimer/Monckton style arguments by mischievously mashed quotes at that.
And, you are still Going Down the Up Escalator, Part 1
You are a tired joke(r)!
So Duff (@99), if you trust the Met Office data as far as you could "piss into a gale", why do you then go on to quote it as evidence that the world isn't really warming?
This is some rather strange cognitive dissonance. If I wanted to retain even a shard of credibility among readers here, I certainly wouldn't quote a data source as my "evidence" in almost the same paragraph that I'd dissed it as untrustworthy. But that's just me......
Fixed it.
>So, tell me John, what's the trend been since the satellite measuring began which must be around 30 years ago?
Up
>Shot up like a rocket, has it?
Yes
>Broken all records?
Yes
>that nice man, Mr. Hansen, who actually made some predictions to that effect in Congress
Pretty accurate predictions as it turns out, especially when "B" is adjusted for c02 emissions.
If you are trying to disprove AGW, bringing up long term warming trends probably isn't the way to do it.
Speaking of predictions Duff, how is your prediction of no sea level rise going?
Badly, I see.
David Duff.
It seems that you need to consult your general practitioner for a referral to a neurologist. You'll probably find that you're suffering from either senile dementia or from pathological delusions of competence.
Whichever condition is diagnosed, it is apparent that it is accompanied by blatant shamelessness.
Hey David - just for you. From one of your favoutite sources, and all.
Right wingers are less intelligent than left-wingers.
But we knew that already! In fact, you yourself continually prove and re-prove the point for us, over and over. You little liability-to-your-own cause, you! Enjoy ;-)
[Doonesbury](http://www.doonesbury.com/) might be interesting this week. Myfacts is a service based on the assumption that everybody is entitled to their own facts. First caller is a climate change denier.
MikeM: You asked David: "why do you then go on to quote [the Met Office] as evidence that the world isn't really warming?"
Well, good science consists of trying to disprove a hypothesis, in this case the alarmist tripe that the world is getting warmer. A sceptic lends greater weight to disproofs than to proofs - does that make sense? When the accused changes from "Me? Guilty? Absolutely not!" to "OK, you got me, I'll change my plea to guilty", are you suggesting that the judge should give his revised position equal weight with his first?
If the Met Office says the "problem" is as trivial as 51 millidegrees over 15 years, I'll take it. I'm hoping that the rest of the Global Warming industry will have the good grace to admit that recent variations in temperature are well within the range of historical variation, pack up their bags and stop spouting this alarmist nonsense about boiling oceans.
Nice straw man there, climater denialist. Nobody* is saying anything about boiling oceans. The issue is with increased heat stress on humans and plants and animals; oceanic acidification, changes in weather patterns which cause more or less rainfall in areas habituated to different patterns, etc etc.
*That is, nobody concerned with the science.
And which bit of CO2 is a greenhouse gas don't you understand?
John, thanks for the link to an actual-v-forecast graph (Hansen, up to 2009).
Have you SEEN the latest UAH-MSU anomaly (we're in 2012 now, John)? Minus 0.1C! Print out the graph you linked to and plot that point on the graph.
Your global warming fantasy is about as airworthy as Concordski at the Paris Air Show.
Isn't it about time that you warmists started using humbler language, conceding that the 1975-1998 warming uptick has stalled, that there has been too much focus on CO2 as a driver of climate, that the Hockey Stick presented an oversimplified picture of temperatures in the 2nd millennium?
You could salvage some honour by fessing up and admitting that the dire predictions aren't panning out. Come, come, warmists.... show a little belated integrity.
Wow - QED! Climate Sceptic, you're a Daily Mail reader, I gather? With a sense of irony?
Um, a guilty plea is rather in the way of being a proof, isn't it? Oh, I see, the guilty man has disproved his own hypothesis! And that's what the Met Office has done? But proofs are for mathematics, and the Met Office still seems rather to find 30 year trends and the laws of physics rather more 'proofy' in the vernacular sense!
Ever looked at any charts regarding, say, glaciers, sea ice, that sort of thing? Here's one for you! Remember to only look at the circle!
Better trolls, please.
"And which bit of CO2 is a greenhouse gas don't you understand?"
The bit where it proves him wrong.
Or, worse *in* the wrong.
It's NEVER their fault, you see. If you could blame AGW on hippies and liberals, there would be no denial.
Guthrie:
A quote from James Hansen*
"If we burn all of the coal [on the planet], there is a good chance we will initiate the runaway greenhouse effect," he said. That runaway greenhouse effect could become unstoppable, eventually boiling the oceans and destroying all life on earth in what Hansen called the "Venus Syndrome," after the conditions that exist on the planet next-closest to the sun.
*That is, nobody concerned with the science.
You ask: "which bit of CO2 is a greenhouse gas don't you understand?". This bit: the relative significance of CO2's proven greenhouse properties compared to other drivers. The IPCC says it's the biggie; that it dwarfs volcanos and solar, and that clouds and water vapour count for nowt.
The carbon monomanics' argument is like saying, "force leads to stress (fact), stress leads to failure (fact), therefore a ram can punch a loe in a dam." The radiative physics, I say, is one * aspect of a complex picture and obsessing exclusively about that single aspect can result in you getting your knickers in a twist.
If "*" = "trivial" then you and the IPCC are on a loser.
What's your view? Biggie or trivial?
When you have Dai and Climate Idiot posting here, there's no damage to be done to the argument even when someone goes completely postal on the internet.
These two clowns, and the dribbling horde like them ensure that no reasonable censure can be made of the merely intemperate posts made on blogs in either support of the science or lambasting such idiots as are wilfully gambling their lives for their present neo-conservative ideology.
False equivalence no longer cuts any ice.
Here's another chart for you, CS.
So, what you're saying is, it turns out John McLean was right, after all? Because it's been 2012 for rather more than a month? Sh!t, maybe the Mayans were right...
Bill, nice link (look only at the circle).
One common feature of all the graphs showing in your link is this: they only show the last few decades. Your grand error is this: the 1975-1998 uptick was too short a time to declare a trend. Raise your eyes, mate. Think longer term. Take the LIA and MWP into account and you'll surely agree that you've been overextrapolating.
We sceptics are not alleging that the last decade of cooling is the beginning of a 3rd millennium mini ice-age. That would be to fall into the intellectual trap you warmists fell into. Answer me this: if the 1998 peak is not exceeded, will there EVER come a time when you concede that 75-98 was just a blip? How many years can you carry on denying that recent variation is not exceptional or unprecedented? Is your faith so strong that you will believe in global warming whatever the facts in the years after you formed your worldview?
Gee, what, none of you? At all? Where have you been?
You're funny, Climate Sceptic!
(And you were doing so well on the Hansen 'we-get-Venus-if-we-burn-all-the-coal'* thing. One post later and you've auto de-pantsed yourself! Never mind, we promise not to laugh and point.)
*That's, um, quite the qualifier. Whereas it rather seems Rose has no qualifications at all, in every sense, don't it? Oh, well, you know what they say in the Daily Mail!
Bill, nice chart. Problem is, the red line keeps going up. Almost as fast as my flippin' heating bill. Brrr! Would you agree that the red line is fake? And as for the orange line marked 'Kellogg'. He must be red-faced by now, and wondering if he's cut out for the prediction business.
Still, it could be worse. Dr. David Viner - he of the 'children will grow up not knowing what snow is' fame. He's still on the gravy train, peddling global warming propaganda at taxpayers' expense. What are the chances of him issuing a press release saying, "I made a very stupid statement in 2000, and decency demands that I acknowledge my error."?
Let me ask youse guys a direct question: Do you truly believe in global warming? Do you truly believe that the polecaps will melt and we'll all be flooded? Are you playing some cute game, such as indirect nature conservation (I can respect that), doing the wrong thing but for a very good reason? Or rolling back industrial development, harking back to some pre-industrial idyll? Most AGW sceptics see energy as blessing, a foundation of prosperity, albeit with side-effects in need of mitigation. If CO2 is eventually found not guilty, would you welcome that or be disappointed?
Bill, it's a fair cop. There are indeed AGW sceptics claiming that a new ice age is in prospect. And the claim that the Thames will again freeze over is wrong, even if the Little Ice Age is repeated - the flow rate has increased due to embankments.
Sorry to harp on about integrity, but answer me this. If there WERE such a repeat, and sea ice at Portsmouth impedes sea traffic (it coincided with the Frost Fairs), would THAT do it for you? Without wishing to be rude, I am trying to establish whether warmists on this site would concede AGW to be a fallacy, or whether your faith precludes it. Gimme a straight answer and I promise to repay the compliment. That is, in certain circumstances I'd come over to your side, albeit shamefaced at having doubted AGW.
Climate Sceptic, or should it be sceptic for spreading poison?
So let us have a closer look at that: Lessons from Past Climate Predictions: William Kellogg
Now you could have found that explanation if a true sceptic but no, you chose the denier tactic of cherry picking statements without a legitimate explanation of why you did so.
Climate Sceptic Denier you are revealed to be.
Lionel, I guess I could have looked up Kellogg. Thank you for posting that link with its clear-cut comparison of his forecast and a 'composite' of GISS/UAH etc. Would you agree that Kellogg's forecast is toast? Sorry to keep pressing the point, but I have yet to see any warmist say, "Yep, the more pessimistic forecasts are way off the mark, and it'll take an almighty surge in temperatures to 'recover the deficit'."
Remember Comical Ali in Baghdad, saying that the yanks would never succeed? Denial in the face of the facts (in camera-shot, fer chrissakes, with tanks in the background) is undignified. You blokes are taking a leaf out of his book. Who among you will concede that the AGW forecasts are less credible today than a decade ago? Come on, be brave. You can salvage some shred of dignity by saying, "Yes, but it's gonna," with fingers crossed for a toasty 2012-2020.
Climate Sceptic raises a fundamental point when he asks that you, the believers in global warming (let us set aside for the moment the causes), spell out your forecasts in some detail.
You now know that there is not going to be any discernable reduction in the emissions you think are dangerous for the simple reason that world-wide governments simply will not inflict the cost on their citizens. So, from your point of view, you have a worst-case scenario. You also have, you tell us, all the scientific know-how to forecast reasonably accurately where global temperatures will head in the next 30 years.
So, please, tell us, what will they be in 30 year's time?
(The advantage of this is that we do not have to argue about past, er, forecasts. The disadvantage is that, barring miracles, I will not be around to check the result. Although, as I volunteer to cut the grass in my Churchyard, Him upstairs might grant me (and you) a miracle!)
Oh, and someone up there went off on one because I used the Met Office stats. There's no pleasing some people. If I use organisation A, you rubbish them, usually because they are in the pay of Big Oil; but if I use the Met Office (in the pay of Big Government) which I thought was an ally of yours you still rubbish them. There's no pleasing some people!
CS - fancy that, another credulous 'skeptic'.
Climate ScepticDenier
The article cited demonstrates how science works by self correction. Kellogg got much wrong and that was the gist of the article, an honest appraisal. If only WUWT, Nova and the likes of Bolt could behave as honestly.
Whatever, it should be noted that Kellogs was on the ball WRT Arctic conditions as seen in this quote from the article cited:
Multiple lines of scientific investigation conclusively demonstrate that the earth is experiencing an imbalance of incoming and outgoing heat energy, producing an accumulating and accelerating warming. A warming which, in a few areas is held in check by a change in local conditions affected by disruption of atmospheric and ocean currents. You may look to checking out what is happening in the seas around the Australian SE coast.
But it is in the polar regions that the biggest changes are taking place where the volume of ice is in decline year on year. Perhaps the concept of latent heat has escaped you even though ice is used to chill your scotch (not mine BTW, I would not adulterate a single malt by such a barbaric Americanism, heck in Florida they even add ice to Cognac unless you are quick enough to intercede - distant memory, health precludes touching the stuff now).
Spend more time over at that site where the article in question appears. You may then earn the title of Climate Sceptic.
Troll @ 119:
>Answer me this: if the 1998 peak is not exceeded,
[It has been exceeded](http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs_v3/).
>will there EVER come a time when you concede
[Wake me up when you have the data](http://web.archive.org/web/20080727005457/http://tamino.wordpress.com/2…).
Evidence of no-warming-and-maybe-a-bit-of-cooling?
Let's not fuss about pesky data sets and dreary scientific papers.
I'll take the seed merchants and garden nursery businesses in the USA changing the recommended plant selections for the various states back to what they were last year.
http://www.suntimes.com/news/nation/10236357-418/global-warming-spurs-u…
That'd be good enough for me to have a serious look round for similar evidence.
Back to Laframboise; she has a group of fans who have written numerous 5 star reviews on Amazon (at her urging on her blog when the book first came out) Some also appear to have watched that website in order to attack reviewers who give one star reviews, in comments to each review.
I just looked at it again and one of the newest reviews, from Jan 19, 2012, is by "Stephen Harper." I don't know how easy it is to register at Amazon with an alias. I'm inclined to think the reviewer is not actually the Prime Minister of Canada, because I don't think he is foolish enough to write such things about the UN under his own name. But he would probably agree with them.
It does raise a question of whether a book like Laframboise's could influence policy-makers. The current Government of Canada spouts the dishonest nonsense about "ethical oil", so they are probably also gullible enough to welcome Laframboise with open arms. A blog rebuttal of her book would be unlikely to change their minds, but it might contribute in a small way to the growing opposition to their anti-environment policies.
Climate Sceptic @ 111
What on earth does that have to do with the fact that Duff quotes a data source to support his argument that he then immediately goes on to say he doesn't trust? Didn't they teach you in Scepticism 101 to respond directly to the context of the argument being made? In my case here, you spectacularly fail to do that.
I know exactly what a sceptic does and how hypotheses work, "Climate Sceptic". I am sceptical of many things myself. I follow my local "sceptics" organisation, am actively involved in supporting several sceptical blogs on many topics.
What I'm fairly certain of though after having read some of your posts here, is that you are confused over what a sceptic does yourself. For example, a sceptic wouldn't make a blanket authoritative statement like "this alarmist tripe that the world is getting warmer" without carefully looking at all the data first. As probably the most famous sceptic in the world at the moment, Michael Shermer, states: "it either is or it isn't" getting warmer. Up until the last decade, the surface temperature data shows the world getting warmer a lot. At the moment it shows the world getting warmer a little bit. The other (non surface) temperature data also shows it getting warmer. The response of the environment, eg the Arctic just for one, shows it getting warmer. How many sources of "the planet is getting warmer" do you want before you choose the correct one of Shermer's options? There are only two choices. You have a 50/50 chance here.
Now, let's see if you can answer my specific points here without side-tracking onto something I wasn't even talking about......
> How many sources of "the planet is getting warmer" do you want before you choose the correct one of Shermer's options?
For most "skeptics" the answer appears to be:
> Always one more than is available. No matter how that number changes.
Oh Duff. I look forward to you arguing "there has been no rise since 2012!" next. You and I both know there are short term influences in the climate system and your entire argument is bogus because there is long term warming.
Duff, you *admitted* that you need at least a 30 year period to ascertain if the warming is statistically significant, and I showed you three seperate data sets that all showed a strong warming trend. By your own reasoning you are wrong!
Why do, er, you fail so much cobber!! Blimey!! Where's, er, your, er, skepticism Duff? Haw haw a black lesbian walked into a bar!
>You also have, you tell us, all the scientific know-how to forecast reasonably accurately where global temperatures will head in the next 30 years.
As do you. How about it Duff. What are your predictions for the next 30 years?
Climate ScepticDenier, sea ice at Portsmouth could never prove anything about global warming one way or another.
Why?
See if you can figure it out......
Tropical storm Invest 90L dumps on Florida Keys .
And it is still only early February. Could 2012 be another wild ride across the globe?
Proof that deniers can crop up in almost any corner of the media to preach their doctrine - including Building Design magazine and now The Catholic Herald:
[Is the âanthropogenic global warmingâ consensus on the point of collapse?](http://www.catholicherald.co.uk/commentandblogs/2012/02/06/is-the-%e2%8…)
Oh no! The Germans are coming. Don't mention the war. :-)
http://notrickszone.com/2012/02/06/body-blow-to-german-global-warming-m…
"What has set it all off? One of the fathers of Germanyâs modern green movement, Professor Dr. Fritz Vahrenholt, a social democrat and green activist, decided to author a climate science skeptical book together with geologist/paleontologist Dr. Sebastian Lüning. Vahrenholtâs skepticism started when he was asked to review an IPCC report on renewable energy. He found hundreds of errors. When he pointed them out, IPCC officials simply brushed them aside. Stunned, he asked himself, 'Is this the way they approached the climate assessment reports?â'
And fellas, don't forget to blame the fossil fuel right wing illuminati conspiracy. :-)
Lionel A,
There's a lot of variability, so one can't be definitive, but I would say no. The Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (detrended Sea Surface Temperature anomaly) is the key metric here, and it is currently near-zero (ie current North Atlantic SSTs are near normal, though there are local hot and cold spots, of course).
It's not a hard and fast rule, but generally extreme hurricane seasons like 2005 require a strongly positive AMO. Overall, we are in a period of generally positive AMOs and above average hurricane seasons, but the indications are that 2012 will not be particularly highly charged.
Of course, now that I've said that...;-)
But Invest 90L is certainly an odd one - once or twice a century. The last such was 1952, which also formed in a near-zero AMO, and was part of a pretty average season.
Oh look!
Oluas/Olaus Petri found the next denier one hit wonder!
It's teh sun I tells ya! Again!
I wonder which denier will so much as recall his name two weeks from now?
I see that ClimateDespot and Delingtroll are all over this Fritz Vahrenholt story so it looks like OP is cleaning out the bilges again.
As far as Fritz's alleged claims are concerned:
the devil is sure to be in the detail.
So come on OP, what were the 'hundreds of errors' and who were the 'IPCC officials'. Oh, and what was that 'IPCC report' EXACTLY?
OMG another final nail in the coffin of AGW. This mighty text must be written by the world's leading expert in climate science or perhaps solar physics.
However, a quick Google shows that Fritz Vahrenholt (surprise surprise ) is neither but is the CEO of a subsidiary of the German energy giant RWE AG.
Aye, chek. FV seems to be another lukewarmer who hasn't appreciated how sidelined the Lindzen/Spencer promoted low sensitivity angle is and how currently the sun cannot be the cause of continued warming and that this:
makes no sense. Still, it is winter again so I guess we should expect crap such as this about now.
OP check out the The human fingerprint in global warming and other closely related topics. Oh, and The Escalator provides the real picture WRT warming trends.
Thank you OP for persisting in posting these Aunt Sallies, they are just the thing to give us opportunity to make those who have not yet found reliable sources of anti-denier material aware of same.
A quick Web of Knowledge search aboout FV is helpful. He co-authored 17 papers in the period leading up to 1980. Only five of those have more than one citation. Since 1980 he has written three papers, all in the period 2001-2, with an impressive total of no citations.
The sum total of papers on climate change is zero.
In the period 1998-2001 he was on the Board of Directors of Deutsche Shell.
You denialists must be so proud of your latest poster child.
Fellas, glad to serve you some perspectives. You miss the main point though, which is that CO2-doomsayers are not in high fashion anymore. Reality is closing on you guys, and soon everybody will understand that you are worshiping and polishing a turd.
I find it very interesting, is all. :-)
I seriously wish I has a penny for every time...
It's right up there with 'final nail' and 'why, just you wait...'
In other words, typical limpdick denier impotence.
Cheek, it's a process, and you smell worse every time you hit a key. Your mind is a king Augeas' stable â it is a herculean task to clean it out, if at all possible. Its very likely that your drooling fetus position will be permanent, honors to your authoritarian personality.
More and more people realize that the mantra "science is settled" was pure crap. The break throughs to come in climate scientology will be in the sociology of religions.
Chek is good for a single case study.
Ah,ha! Desperation fuelled insults now.
And 'science is settled' is a straw man
You seriously need some education and here is some on what is causing the, obvious to intelligence, warming .
I love the level of desperation among you guys. Face it, you are becoming a laughing stock. :-)
Notice Deniers just can't help themselves: religion is never far from their thought processes:
the mantra "science is settled"
Why is it a "mantra" to you, Olaus? Somerthing to do with your faith-based ideology?
The break throughs to come in climate scientology will be in the sociology of religions.
Completely meaningless. This is what happens when you base your opinions on faith-based ideology.
"You know, I'm not m..m..m..mad. They put me in here, they did. No reason for it. I'm not m..m..m..mad. I'll be proven right any day now. Yes sir, any day now. You believe me don't you?" says the inpatient to the psych nurse.
> ...You miss the main point though, which is that CO2-doomsayers are not in high fashion anymore. Reality is closing on you guys,...
Ludicrous troll apparently admits to mistaking personal perception of "fashion" for reality. Classic.
Better trolls, please!
Vince, you might want to look up "Olaus Petri", and you'll know why our resident troll knows so much about religion: his moniker is that of a cleric...
Do you do it religiously?
Correct Marco, hence I seek out places where red papists are in bad need of reformation. ;-)
Some of you guys seem to have a problem with "fashion" despite the fact that politicians are loosing interest in the fear mongering quest of yours. I find it very humoring. I guess you believe the growing disinterest found in the lobbies of power is just a "hiatus" and that their passion for doomsday prevention will soon surface again. ;-)
Shorter Petri - yes, you may have almost every working climate scientist and every National Academy of Science agreeing with you, but we deniers have ... bloggers, and nutcases. And the ignorant.
Right on the head check.
The most working climate scientist you are relying on are the likes of Jeffie, in other words climate scientologists.
In the real word tough, real climate scientist still debate Co2-hyptothesis, which is good, if not being highjacked by ideology and politics. The latter is now in desertion mode, note bene.
Oh, fer chrissakes.
Olaus, get back into you enclosure, and play on your tyre-swing or something.
Everyone else: as Mark Twain said -
No risk in your case bill. If old Mark Twain was alive he would pinpoint you right (not left) away as a Christian science fool. ;-)
Alas Petri
Mark Twain had you in mind when he wrote
More denier projection:
>if not being highjacked by ideology and politics
Says a vistor from the right-wing fringe website "The Climate Scam".
>real climate scientist still debate Co2-hyptothesis
That's interesting, because you're the one claiming the debate is over.
>CO2-doomsayers are not in high fashion
Science is about "fashion". Says it all really.
wattsupwiththat.com/2012/02/07/the-numbers-on-bad-science/#more-56114
Watts has published this graphic but it is atrributed too http://www.clinicalpsychology.net/ yet I can find nothing on their site related to this.
Curious.
First, just going back to the Fritz Vahrenholt issue, the main reason that the denialists seem to be frothing at the mouth is that he is claimed to be "one of the fathers of Germanyâs modern green movement". This claim, or variations of it, is trumpeted all over the denialosphere. What is the evidence to support this? I can find none.
Second, Olaus I am going to call you on this claim: "reality is closing on you guys". OK, show us your evidence to support this. Please list:
1. The peer reviewed papers in reputable journals (note Energy and Environment does not count) in the last 12 months that support your contention;
2. The national scientific academies (Royal Society or equivalent) that now unambiguously state that antropogenic global warming is not occurring;
3. The climate scientists actively publishing (lets say more than 10 papers in the last five years) in reputable, peer reviewed climate science journals (again Energy and Environment does not count) that have changed from being supportive of the AGW hypothesis to unambigously stating that it is incorrect;
If you are correct then this is a trivial exercise, right? Over to you.
Mr Duff, do feel free to contribute too (but please answer my questions of a month or so ago first, of course).
Pat Michaels strikes again .
Time for some serious pushback against this twerp!
GWB's Nemesis, the claim about Vahrenholt is mainly based around a book he wrote on the Seveso disaster.
It essentially claimed Seveso-like disasters could be expected anywhere and everywhere.
FV was a reviewer of the IPCC report on renewable energy sources and climate change mitigation: http://srren.ipcc-wg3.de/report
You can find his comments on the first and second order drafts here: http://srren.ipcc-wg3.de/report/srren-drafts-and-review/Drafts%20and%20…
The vast majority are not "brushed aside by IPCC officials" but are received with comments like: "accepted" or "will be reviewed and rewritten" or "agree" or "good point".
Vahrenholt's corporate CV is here. 'Germany's George Monbiot', according to the interpreter of interpretations? I'm not feeling it! Definitely big in renewables, though. Any Deutsche readers who can fill in?
Interview with Fritz "its the sun" Vahrenholt [here](http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,813814,00.html).
Already [rebutted](http://www.skepticalscience.com/solar-activity-sunspots-global-warming-…).
Given that deniers do not require their arguments to accord with the facts, the book should sell well.
Game On! Leaving behind yet another 'It's the Sun' non-story for a moment, Peter Hadfield (Potholer 54) has had his response to Monckton's response published at WUWT.
And he's offering to debate him there!
Watts hides the response in a post posted months ago where nobody but us will ever read it. What a shock. Hadfield would have been better off ignoring this attempt to control the debate and respond to Monckton in his Youtube series.
Monckton responds by .... listing the alleged "nine errors" of An Inconvenient Truth. Oh yeah. You sure showed him, Monckton.
Just for the [sheer, bizarre, internally-inconsistent cognitive dissonance of it all](http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/01/11/monckton-responds-to-potholer54/#…):
>[snip. "The use of the pejorative "denialists" violates site Policy. ~dbs, mod.]
Turboblock:
Just as I suspected, and thanks for doing the digging, the claims made were a distortion of reality. Why should we expect any different especially when the likes of ClimateDespot, Delingtroll, Wishfull Thinking and JumkScience parrot through the denial echo-sphere?
If OP were an arachnid diplopoda he would have no legs left on which to shuffle.
It was good to see that the journalist of Der Spiegel actually had read up on climate science and challenged Vahrenholt (unlike those of other newspapers):
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,813814,00.html
I note that a poster on the Skeptical Science article Book review of Michael Mann's The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars has called attention to the influx of negative reviewers on the Amazon site, an influx in response to a WUWT post.
This is just the sort of thing I was hinting at in my #34 above WRT books by Montford, Booker and Co.
Someone at Rogues and Scholars posted the Spiegel Online link as evidence supporting their claim that:
> It shouldnât be too surprising that a lot of the people speaking out against CAGW are people (like me) who have been working in biofuels. Weâre the ones who had to understand the issues well enough to put together business plans.
It was interesting to read the article and see that the interview and comments from the one climate scientist who previewed the book undercut that claim (never mind that it doesn't logically hold in the first place).
Meanwhile Rutan has another response on [that thread](http://www.scholarsandrogues.com/2012/01/27/open-letter-to-burt-rutan/c…). He does at least acknowledge some errors this time - but argues that engineers do that better than scientists who mostly hope that more data will exonerate their theories; that the scientific community is "fr@udulent" because various claims are being made in textbooks and other materials that they're not calling out (uncited of course); cites Vahrenholt's claims and Inhofe's short list of "scientists who changed their minds", etc. etc.
He appears to argue in the end that we can't use existing data and have to collect more and agree about the "importance" of it up front (apparently proposing a test to decide whether AGW is real or not to be evaluated against future data).
The DKE remains strong in this one.
Not that Himalayan glaciers have much to do with fresh water supply for half a billion people, but nonetheless good news. Right fellas?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/feb/08/glaciers-mountains
Keep you fingers crossed that the results will hold water. ;-)
Hilarious cartoonist Josh comments the good news regarding Himalayan glaciers. The more anthropogen methane that escapes from the climate threat bubble, the better the world becomes. Odd. :-)
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/02/09/not-quite-friday-but-feels-like-i…
@Olaus,
Ha! love the taglines too. "Who's Voodoo Now" and "It's all the doll's fault Not Mine!". Josh certainly knows how to capture the moment!
The Carrington article was very non Guardianesque. They've obviously learned how to break these reality stories to the faithful though, get a couple of Climate scientists to say their CAGW "amens" at the end and keep the story closed for comments.
Maybe pentaxZ is right about the faithful listening out for the impending Reality tsunami afterall.
Some amusing "spots" Olaus, v good.
;)
GSW, I'm sure Jeffie Harvey will re-surface from the climate science archives (X-files) to celebrate the good news.
What are the odds that Wow, Bernie, Lothar, Chek, Lionel, namnam, bill, cupcake, Marco etc will join the feast? :-)
Who knows, maybe the Yeti will not die from thirst after all!
Compare with what a real climate scientist says:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=aBDqCju6rSM
@Olaus,
"maybe the Yeti will not die from thirst after all!"
We can only hope Olaus. I'd not be able to sleep at night if I thought the impending "Biodiversity armageddon", we've been forwarned about, were to claim another victim as yet in his prime. A paper for Zoologist Jeff I think?
;)
@Olaus,
You're quite the master of languages aren't you Olaus, German as well!
The link meant nothing to me I'm afraid, can you help out?
I took a math, physics education trajectory rather than arts/languages - I don't quite regret this, but realise a shortcoming in my education. I did do French for 6yrs, but they were 'stu' years, if you know what I mean.
There's a smattering of Belarussian (long story), but that is about it.
The link (#180) you posted, what is it all about?
For me, I think this is the biggest reality disconnect that I find impossible to relate to with wuwt denizens. It's not the hypocrisy, the misrepresentation, the smears or the vapid self-congratulatory gushing. It's not the arrogance or the inability to recognise evidence or spot a rational argument if it punched them in the face. It's not even the unwavering devotion to their cause and their relentless spouting of the same tedious guff, deaf to all reason. Nor is it the shrill caterwauling of censorship, blind to the transgressions of their vaunted leader.
No.
It's that they think Josh's cartoons are funny.
[Jonathan Chait](http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2012/02/jonathan-chait-why-im-so-mean.html) (via Paul Krugman) explains why the arguments from the science deniers are so piss poor - it is supply and demand.
Well said, Dave H!
I've wanted somebody to mention this for ages. Josh's cartoons are breathtakingly mediocre; his caricatures are feeble and all remarkably similar, and the jokes are so lame they are lamer than a lame thing that's not having a very good day, leg-mobility wise.
Frankly, work of this standard would usually grace 'user friendly' community service pamphlets on tenants' rights, bowel health, STD transmission and eating the required number of vegetables.
And yet they also fawn over him like... well, like he was Monckton, really. I believe there are T-shirts(?) [*shudder*]
So on top of everything else; WUWT is like some sort of convalescent home for those who've undergone a taste-bypass and humourectomy... this probably isn't a coincidence...
Ah, the Petri and GSW double act resurface. Why, they're speaking in such similar voices it's almost like they're sharing the same vocal tract!
Sigh. I never said anything about concern-troll motivation. Try to read with your brain fully engaged instead of treating your own imaginings as fact. He trolled, in exactly the way I said -- numerous people gave him reasonable responses and he waved them all away with an ad hominem charge about "echo chamber". His past behavior, his being on the side of "the cause", is irrelevant. That sort of tribalism -- the notion that anyone on "our side" (even when our side is that of science and reality) is beyond reproach -- is intellectually dishonest, unprincipled, and a great source of error.
I've already thought a great deal about your sort of patronizing tone patrolling and your deeply intellectually dishonest notion of subsuming everything under "the cause". As Richard Dawkins himself has noted, his tone may not be optimal for winning the religious over to an acceptance of evolution, but he's not going to stop being honest because of it. And I'm not Richard Dawkins, and this forum is no platform like he has ... if you really think that my criticisms here have any bearing on the success of "the cause" you're quite the fool ... but I don't believe that you're really that dumb; or else you really really need to have a bit of a think about it.
A lot of good being polite does you folks with ignorant cretins like Climate Dunce.
Good science consists of not demonizing and dismissing a hypothesis before attempting to falsify it. The world is getting warmer because more energy is entering than is leaving ... good luck with disproving that.
To determine what is causing the globe to warm, one would look to see which of these is increasing. To prove that the globe isn't warming, one would have to prove that none of them are increasing. This is basic logic, which idiots like you fail at. The question of relative size is irrelevant; it has no bearing on the increase in global temperature. There are numerous other basic facts that stupid ignoramuses like you ignore, such as that water vapor rains out, while CO2 does not, and that "over the past 20 years, all the trends in the Sun that could have had an influence on the Earthâs climate have been in the opposite direction to that required to explain the observed rise in global mean temperatures" (`http://www.atmos.washington.edu/2009Q1/111/Readings/Lockwood2007_Recent…`).
Yes, along with 97% of climate scientists and everyone who is both intelligent and informed. That you imagine that it's some sort of ruse is due entirely to your own stupidity and ignorance.
There seems to be quite a buzz among the deniers recently about a report which says that the glaciers in the Himalayas have not melted for the past 10 years or so.
I think that there may be a problem with the Nature paper. Anyone who researches what is going on in that area will have found that the most immediate problem there is the quickly growing glacial lakes which threaten to flood villages down the valley if they burst. Some of these lakes are huge.
The Nature paper is based on GRACE data which measures gravity difference over time. If ice is melting but is being damned up in glacial lakes could this be another interpretation of the GRACE data. i.e. the glaciers are melting but the water is not moving to any significant extent but is staying close to where it melted thus making it seem as if the glaciers had not in fact melted.
Here is a [link](http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/oct/10/glacier-lakes-melt-hi…) to an article about these growing glacial lakes.
I'm no expert in this area but it does seem another explanation for the GRACE data. Any one care to comment?
The red line is measured temperature, cretin; it's your beliefs to the contrary that are fake. And as for your heating bill, it's a) seasonal, b) local, and c) economically influenced, moron.
Ianam.
>>rather than any concern-troll motivation
>Sigh. I never said anything about concern-troll motivation.
I didn't say that you had. All I was saying was that I was taking Richard as being sincere:
>Given my prior familiarity with Richard, it seemed (and still seems to be, to me) reasonable to assume his genuine intent, rather than any concern-troll motivation.
>[My latter emboldened emphasis]
and hence that his issue was intended to be taken at face value. As I perceived his issue to be that there is a problem when search engine results do not easily and with priority present credible links that rebut Laframboise, I (and others, it seems) think that he had a fair point.
Yes, people familiar with the material may not experience this difficulty, but that did not appear to be Richard's issue.
As to the troll context, [you did say](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2012/02/february_2012_open_thread.php#c…):
>What a silly troll you're being, Richard.
Now you might not have "said anything about concern-troll motivation", but you certainly ascribed troll motivation of some sort to Richard. Those of us who know Richard know that he is most certainly not a climate change denier, so he is hardly going to be a regular troll, and thus my most generous assumption about alternative trollishness that might be being ascribed to Richard was one of him being accused of concern-trolling. If this interpretation of your intent is wrong, ianam, I apologise - but in that case I have to say that you are simply wrong in accusing Richard of trolling.
Overall, I'm still puzzled as to why Richard's comments were so controversial. Laframboise gained a lot of traction amongst climate change denialists and their sympathisers, and it would be useful to have an easily-accessible refutation for those who might not otherwise be able to locate one. Hopefully in the future links such as [yours](http://composer99.blogspot.com.au/2011/11/national-posts-war-on-science…) and [Composer99's](http://composer99.blogspot.com.au/2011/11/national-posts-war-on-science…) will become more visible to those who might benefit from reading them.
Ian Forrester,
NASA Jet Propulsion,The Guardian, .
I'd just finished reading the NASA piece, and thought 'you know, given the way the media works they're going to make a big fuss about the Himalayas and forget the overall picture, which is dire', when, lo and behold, the next thing I spot is The Guardian's piece. And they're not even Stupid!
The Himalayan glaciers are apparently certainly melting at lower altitudes, but this may be being offset by accumulation at higher altitudes. The whole thing doesn't really fit with photography I'm aware for from the region, either. The authors are very clear that the satellites lack the kind of resolution that would allow them to determine what's going on on individual glaciers.
Nevertheless, the cryosphere as whole is clearly still under serious threat. The statistics are literally mind-boggling.
You're not being honest.
Which I just explained, again.
Because he attacked the whole "cause" for having spent insufficient time on rebutting Ms. Raspberry.
Anyway, I'm not going to waste any more time on your willful density and string of strawmen on this issue. Let me instead mention something far more important:
I managed that unbroken link with all the underscores in `#`188 simply by including it in backquotes (the little thing under the ~ on your keyboard) ... I hope that helps people here.
Ian Forrester,
SkS reckon they've noticed the derailing of the issue, too (see comments below the post), and the obvious incongruity between what's happening on the ground at glacial outlets, and the idea that 'the Himalayan Glaciers have remained stable for the last 10 years'.
Apparently there's a forthcoming post in the works.
The trouble is, what most folks will remember of this is 'but they said the Himalayas weren't melting after all!'.
Rutan responded to me, but it didn't help his case much. (Surprised?)
It's largely predictable: existing surface records are useless for detecting warming trends and should be entirely disregarded; he'll only trust scientists he assesses as impartial regardless of the evidence; no impartial scientists have fairly assessed all the factors that impact climate; he'll only be concerned about warming when it becomes unprecedented on the scale of the last few hundred thousand years - and he references his PPT again which includes a bunch of classic denialist memes that could have been (and may have been in some cases) cribbed straight from Monckton - or Monckton's sources.
Reading the NASA presser give a markedly different view of things, I suspect The Grauniad got something wrong. The detail of the subcontinent clearly shows some mass loss all along the southern flank of the Himalaya and indeed the presser notes a loss of 4Gt of water/year. This is well below previous estimates (NASA notes an upper bound of 50Gt/year, but no lower bound. I was unable to find a range of estimates for this value in 4AR, anyone know what the estimates are?), but does indicate mass loss. At the same time the ice caps in the eastern Himalaya (Tibet and Bhutan(?)) seem to be roughly balancing each other out. I suspect that this last is the source of the headline claim.
>You're not being honest.
[Ianam](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2012/02/february_2012_open_thread.php#c…), I am.
The Guardian not only 'got something wrong', it seems they're determined to carry it right through to the bitter end even if it makes them the Daily Mail!
It's now become 'What does the Himalaya glacier study mean for climate change?
A live Q&A. Framed in such a way that glaciologist Jonathon Bamber is going to be starting well on the back foot, and will have his work cut out getting off it!
Notice, in the headline, how a global study of the Cryosphere is now 'the Himalaya Glacier study'! (Oh, and 2003-2010 is 'a decade', too!)
And even though the study clearly confirms that the Cryosphere is indeed melting dramatically, and incidentally there's this interesting anomaly in the Himalayas where, even though they're melting at lower altitudes, this may be being offset by accumulation at higher altitudes, they've set it up so there readers are now asking - I kid you not - if we can trust any claims regarding melting glaciers anywhere! Perhaps Jeremy Clarkson is right, after all?
The Oz could barely hope to have turned the world on its head so spectacularly! What a F U!
Has Gina Rinehart bought any shares in The Guardian recently, perhaps?
One last thing about Richard's "statement":
Since Bernard finds this uncontroversial, he ought to provide for this query/request/demand himself. And he can put it somewhere that, through some magic that only he understands, "will be easily-accessible [...] for those who might not otherwise be able to locate one" ... you know, those people who don't use google, or do but can't be bothered to look as far as four links down. And for those who simply ignore information they don't care for, perhaps it can be made "easily-accessible" by feeding directly into their brains via electrodes. This is something that so many people on "our side" seem incapable of understanding: making something "easily accessible" doesn't change anything ... what changes things is blanketing the airwaves and the newspapers and the other popular media with mimetic messages that are received passively and repeatedly. Richard says he saw LaFramboise on the Bolt Report. Well guess what? Bernard's "easily accessible" refutation won't be presented there. Richard says it should appear on "science blogs such as this one, or Skeptical Science,or Real Climate. How about Desmog" ... Well guess what? The people that we want to reach don't even know these things exist. Richard says "Certainly nothing credible enough to counter balance the denialist rubbish on the Google page". Well guess what? None of that denialist rubbish is "credible", but that doesn't stop people from sucking it up. Does Richard actually think that, if google points to a piece on LaFramboise at DeSmog, "the average punter" will go "Wow, DeSmogBlog, I know they're credible, I'll see what they have to say about her!"? This is a serious failure to understand how the world works, to understand psychology, sociology, and propaganda. When Olaus talks about what we know to be reality not being "in high fashion anymore" we can laugh at the moron for mistaking fashion for science but he's right -- it's fashion, not facts, that determine societal action. And when he says that reality is closing in on us, we can ask the moron for peer reviewed papers in reputable journals, but this misses the point -- he's right, the reality of popular opinion and the resulting reality of the failure to act are closing in on us all. We're right, but that doesn't make us effective. What makes the other side effective is an economic system in which the Murdochs and Kochs and Scaifes and Gina Rineharts and Clive Palmers, on down the line, wield tremendous power over politics and popular opinion. If you really think that the handful of science blogs and our ability to refute (but not even change the minds of) deniers actually make a meaningful difference in the trajectory of the world's climate, you're living in your own dream world of denial.
Ianam.
Take a deep breath, please.
Given your reluctance to hit the carriage return in your last post, I'm finding it difficult to discern the nuances of your position. However, you seem to be confabulating a desire to see coherent refutation of climate change denialism with an apprehension that such refutations actually make a difference.
If you were familiar with my postings over the years on Deltoid and elsewhere, you'd know that I am singularly pessimistic about humanity's capacity for perception of long-term, indirect, or otherwise abstract threats. I have no doubt that denialism (of many scientific areas besides 'mere' global warming) has the upper hand, and that such a trait will have grim future repercussions for our species.
Seriously, read my comments here, or at Bart's, or at Tamino's, or at the Rabbet's. I make no secret of my opinions that humans as a species are poorly-equipped in the intellectual stakes when it comes to decision-making much beyond the level what/where to eat/root/sleep next.
This does not mean however that I believe that we should all curl up and cop it without offering any resistance. We should offer resistance. And as I said before it's why the professional climatologists are blogging and writing books and giving interviews. Should they give up too because of the overall futility of educating enough of the world's excessively self-interested numpties?
It won't stop the inevitable consequence of excessive human emissions of fossil fuels, but it might temper it to some extent. And something is better than nothing.
And if helping to make clear refutations of Laframboise a little easier to find and digest can change even one person's mind, then I'm all for the effort, no matter how puny it might be in the overall scheme of things.
Rutan [digs in further](http://www.scholarsandrogues.com/2012/01/27/open-letter-to-burt-rutan/c…), with the recent sequence starting at #208.
In one case he defends a deceptive slide as being "structured to inform rather than deceive or scare" - unlike "The Hockey Stick" which he implies is deceptively scary.
His slide contains two graphs with a handful of proxies (Loehle, Carter, Austrian cave stalagmites, Greenland lake sediments) reaching back 11,000+ years, and circles the recent (~100 yrs) global temperature on the graph and says:
"Iâll Bet You Have Never Seen These Charts
Global Temperature, The Last 11,000 Years (current, non-glacial warm period)"
And "You havenât seen them, because they are not scary. They are not presented in an attempt to blame humans."
At least one of the graphs is sourced to joannenova.com, so you can see where he gets some of his stuff.
Clearly he wants readers to draw certain conclusions about global temperatures from a very limited set of proxies.
Bernie and namnam, let's all be friends and enjoy the possible good glacier news shall we? Or are you trying to misdirect? ;-)
@GSW, the video shows the real climate scientist Dr Schellnhuber giving the Himalayan glaciers their last sermon, sort of. Pay attention to how he lays his hands on mother Earth. A trademark of good science â deltoid style.
The more I look at Rutan's powerpoint deck and the more he comments over there, the more I think it could be worthy of a Deltoid or SkS post - especially since he was a WSJ op-ed signatory. It's almost an encyclopaedic critical mass of denialism squeezed into 98 slides...
Rutan appears to have left the building, executing the "this argument is political and you're religious" gambit on the way out.
Olaus, now that you have reappeared, please can I ask you to answer my challenge in #162. I am only asking that you justify your claims by providing evidence to support them.
If you have no evidence then your views become a faith - and you are very critical of anyone taking that path. I am sure you would not do so?
@Lotharsson
Great responses to Rutan. Reading someone of his background giving such empty replies (of the calibre one would expect from a wuwt commenter) to straightforward questioning is depressing indeed.
Lothar, to me it seems that the Himalayan glaciers have left the building.
@GWB, what's wrong with my claim? You are loosing ground. That's just about it. The CO2-hypothesis was kidnapped from its scientific milieu ending up in the hands of ideologists and politicians. And now it wants to go back home. Its tired of being scandalized by the likes of you.
@Lotharsson
His final comment before apparently storming off is inredibly annoying:
> When it becomes a religion, the non-believers have to be slain
I see this *all* the time. Someone makes a series of credulous errors, refuses to understand a logical refutation and then complains that the rebuttals amount to persecution. The very existence of strong and informed rebuttal is used as proof of the correctness of their position! It is a conspiracy mindset, and I honestly don't know the correct response. Invariably I take the view that I am no longer addressing the individual in question, but anyone that may stumble across the exchange - and this is why I find overly insulting responses in the same thread hard to tolerate. If my position is associated with abuse, it loses credibility in the eyes of a passer by.
strange that deniers only appear now on open threads. I would have *loved* to hear their explanations on, let's say, Pat Michaels's fraud ...
But I don't despair.
Oluas/Olaus, how things 'seem' to you is of little interest. No doubt the Earth seems flat to you, but the reality is very different.
Why anyone should take seriously a bald declaration from somebody who apparently believes that the volume in the denier echo chamber is a measure of anything connected to the real world, yet is unable to get a basic verb correct is a mystery to me.
You've repeated that particularly stupid meme several times now. Who feeds you these scripts?
@Olaus,
Ah! I see, when you say 'real' climate scientist in this context, you mean the 'End of The World is Nigh!' type. Got it!.
Premature Last Rites indeed.
;)
Chek, you wonder who feeds me these scripts? Big oil and the flat earth society of misogynic racist pigs â of course. ;-)
Lighten up will ya, chek. Good news are coming our way. No need for hysteria-mode. Isn't it good if the glaciers aren't melting at warp-speed?
The real world is closing in, no matter what you believe chek. Real climate science is making progress. :-)
It's never stopped making progress, despite the best efforts of deniers to make life difficult for Mike Mann et al.
> ...of the calibre one would expect from a wuwt commenter...
He seems to get some of his material from favourite WUWT sources (check out the attributions on some of his graphs) and IIRC he has been feted over there, so it's not surprising (once you realise he's switched off his critical thinking and confirmation bias detectors when he gets onto this topic).
> The very existence of strong and informed rebuttal is used as proof of the correctness of their position! It is a conspiracy mindset, and I honestly don't know the correct response.
I reckon one correct response has already been made at that point - at least for the benefit of the onlookers who are interested in following the evidence. There's no evidence-based way to demonstrate to most conspiracy theorists that their claims are at best unsupported and at worst completely ruled out, but it is useful to demonstrate that to anyone who wants to evaluate the evidence.
As to your position "being associated with abuse", I reckon the correct response for the benefit of onlookers is to point out that the allegations of abuse *also* do not hold water (if that's indeed accurate), and that even if they do they have no bearing on the scientific evidence and conclusions - and appear to be a tactic to try and distract from their inability to justify their claims. Some of the other recent commenters on that thread were very good at pointing out the abysmal failure to provide solid evidence.
Got to give him marks for being just slightly ahead of the average denialist though - he eventually owned up to one false claim and said he'd found a few other mistakes. But that is offset by a huge wall of bullshit, self-delusion and empty bluster.
Chek, real climate science brakes through the unscientific wall you guys built. Good, me thinks.
The semi-religious self righteous belief system called CAGW isn't promoting a critical scientific mindset. It promotes authoritarian behavior and scapegoating and the only good that comes with it are boosted egos of the ones pointing fingers at those who dare raising a Q.
Now, let us enjoy the new possible wellbeing of the Himalayan glaciers. Cheers (no rocks in the drink)!
I told you what I thought of patronization. I did not read further than this other than to notice that you said something stupid about carriage returns, so you're wasting your time addressing me with your drivel.
Olaus, what is wrong with you claim is that you can provide no evidence whatsoever to support it. Therefore, it is just ideology, by your own definition.
If you disagree, stop avoiding the issue and address the challenge. After all, as a man of honour, you wouldn't say:
"You are loosing ground. That's just about it. The CO2-hypothesis was kidnapped from its scientific milieu ending up in the hands of ideologists and politicians. And now it wants to go back home. Its tired of being scandalized by the likes of you."
without any evidence to support it, would you now?
For the record, use of the invented and meaningless term CAGW immediately renders one's argument null and void.
Regardless of Olaus's spelling failures and general ignorance and stupidity, it's a fact that we are losing ground in the propaganda war, and the WSJ denialist op-eds and the David Rose lies about the MET office and all the rest of it reported here is a reflection of that. (This does not mean that I'm opposed to refuting denialist claims, or any of the other stupid strawmen that have been trotted out to be trampled.)
That'd be the system invented by deniers and solely propagated by them, then. Well, it's already known deniers have no evidence and therefore only rely on their beliefs.
For example your own current eager belief in press reports of the GRACE modelling of the Himalayan glaciers' health doesn't quite tally with your normal denier denigration of CO2 models as untrustworthy.
> The very existence of strong and informed rebuttal is used as proof of the correctness of their position!
I suggest using a poorly thought out and uninformed rebuttal and see what happens. There isn't any actual down side to it:
1) Olaf isn't listening to any informed debate, so the effort in informing is wasted
2) It's much easier to use a pithy and short rebuttal, therefore a gish gallop is no longer of any use
Do you really think that people who are that confused about what is or is not relevant to a logical argument, people who are that quick to dismiss your points on bogus grounds, will rationally evaluate yours if only everyone is so so polite? I think this is a fantasy, and that people are more likely to be truthful criticism and justified expressions of contempt.
Olaus the priest says at 214: Now, let us enjoy the new possible wellbeing of the Himalayan glaciers.
Did you even look at Rattus Norvegicus' very pertinent link (#196) to the NASA presser, which has the virtue of being one step closer to the source? As RN mentions, that reports that the Himalayan glaciers are still losing 4 billion tons of ice a year. That may be lower than previous high end estimates, but it does not even remotely justify the Grauniad subbies handiwork: "The Himalayas and nearby peaks have lost no ice in past 10 years".
Further, the Indian data is excluded from their global map! The decision to do so was based on the assumption that that Indian mass loss represents groundwater abstraction. That assumption is fair for the southern area where there are no glaciers, but not the northern area, where the highlighted areas of mass balance changes include 379 spots marking glaciers. Of those 379 spots, 70% are in regions indicating mass loss, and 30% are in mass gain areas. And when you weight those results according to the amount of mass loss, you find that the total mass loss is three times as high as the total mass gain.
Of course to establish that, you need to exercise a little actual scepticism and review the published material yourself, as I did. You should try that too sometime, Olaus. It would give a lot more credibility to your posts than simply regurgitating the latest lamestream media misreport-de-jour.
In any case, the Guardian and of course, Olaus, missed the most important finding - overall the cryosphere has lost a net of 4.3 trillion tons of ice over the last 8 years.
These aren't the same thing. I would note that my pithy demonstrations of hypocrisy, lying, and general bad faith by people like Alex Harvey are hard to answer. I believe that treating people acting in bad faith as if they were acting in good faith is a serious mistake, and the classic demonstration of this is debates between evolutionary biologists and folks like Duane Gish, which give the latter undue credibility.
Edit:
Thank you namnam. I'll tell GWB. :-)
@GWB
I'm sure it will not come as a surprise to you that you (read Deltoid) are one out of many perfect mugshots of a perp responsible for hijacking the CO2-hypothesis. Narrow fanatic eyes, sloping forehead, tuberous scull, crocked nose and ill sitting yellow teeth. The evidence is the fact(s) that your doomsday preachings were not based on "science is settled". Your armageddon will end up in the same bin as the ice-age prophesy of the 70s. And its heading there â in a slow but steady pace.
And when the tipping point is reached "we" shall go back to the sources and be baffled by the ignorance of those manhandling the CO2-hypothesis for political and ideological perposes (sic). The "uncertainties" that were there all the time will be visible â again.
And let us not forget the good news regarding Himalayan glaciers!
Ooops!
http://rt.com/news/germany-reactors-cold-weather-927/
Thank you Olaus for proving how insane you are by your cleavage to discredited 19th century ideas of appearance and criminality.
And may I extend further thanks to Oluas/Olaus for the exceptional efforts in maintaining the image of denialism as one of rank stupidity and ignorance.
Good work! Keep it up!
> I suggest using a poorly thought out and uninformed rebuttal and see what happens.
Hmmmmmmmmm. I shall ponder that suggestion.
I don't think I'm particularly good at that style though - but others are.
(And BTW - that came up in the context of the Rutan thread.)
Dear guthrie, you are so correct. Phrenology hold the scientific standards of climate scientology.
Viva la Himalayan glaciers!
Ah Olaus, you have responded to a simple request for evidence to support your position with a stream of invective. In so doing so you have demonstrated with aplomb that: a. you have no credible position on which to base your views other than one of ideology; and b. that you when challenged you lower yourself to the level of a 10 year old failed bully in the playground.
Your demonstration of the "foundation" (i.e. lack thereof) underpinning denialism is quite masterful, for which we are all very grateful.
The problem is that morons like Olaus are a dime a dozen among the denialati ... along with people like Burt Rutan who are capable of functional intelligence but for whom the cognitive dissonance that drives denialism reduces them to lying scum no better that Olaus, so yet another demonstration by Olaus of his immense stupidity and duplicity, while it may make us feel good about being on the right side of things, doesn't actually have any benefit for humanity at large.
> > ... a poorly thought out and uninformed rebuttal ... a pithy and short rebuttal ...
> These aren't the same thing
But they ARE the same thing.
(A short, poorly thought out and uninformed yet pithy rebuttal!)
Olaus Petri:
"Your armageddon will end up in the same bin as the ice-age prophesy of the 70s."
You mean in the Global Warming Policy Foundation?
thegwpf.org: [New Study: Russian Astrophysicist Predicts Global Cooling](http://www.thegwpf.org/science-news/4877-russian-astrophysicist-predict…)
Lars, these kinds of prophesies are cyclic. They gain momentum, peak and then lose gravity to reappear dressed up in new clothes. The samsara of climate-doomsday is a very interesting topic. Don't you agree?
Lotharsson, thanks for engaging Rutan - I wasn't able to write my response in a timely manner. Not sure if there's a point now, however, seeing as he's stormed off again.
As for his 98 slide encyclopedia, I'm working my way through it documenting all the mistakes and trying to source many of the graphs since the sources aren't clear in most cases. It's been illuminating to do so.
Brian, I bet many of the graphs would resonate with the longtime regulars here - if you get stuck someone may know something.
Are you considering a post about the PPT on Scholars & Rogues? I reckon it would be a doozy!
Anyone want to bet on whether he'll be back? I've lost count of the archetypal dramatic exits I've witnessed followed by a return to reiterate essentially the same claims as if the exist never happened...
Brian, I wasn't sure whether I'd be getting in the way of your dialogue, so apologies if I've helped divert your intended further conversation. I got a bit fed up with the layers of crap (and avoidance tactics), but based on past behaviour wasn't expecting him to actually bother responding to my critique. And once he did I wanted to probe a bit and see how deep the denial went...
No worries, Lotharsson. I did just put up a response myself, but it's hardly the in-depth thing you did. I think the exchanges with Rutan have been very interesting, if disappointing.
Whether I do a post or not depends on everything I find and whether or not I can organize in a way that's clean. You're right, though - it would be quite a post. Probably a series of posts, actually. Maybe with my own presentation and recorded audio, even.
We'll see.
Yeah, I'm sure that being short and being stupid are the same thing because there are short stupid people.
Oh, wait ... you just described your own rebuttal. Never mind, and well done.
Brian, that would indeed be an intriguing presentation, perhaps comparable to John Abraham's supreme debunking of Monckton! I'm sorry if I spooked him by bringing up his 'ancient Egyptians casting granite' tripe, but as ever it seemed that when pressed for evidence supporting his views, he was reticent to rationally defend his point. Then again, he was probably looking for any excuse to stomp off...
I enjoyed reading your contributions, and those of Lotharsson - the difference between thorough consideration of all the data and Rutan's tired old memes was there for all the audience to see.
> ...perhaps comparable to John Abraham's supreme debunking of Monckton!
Yep, that's what came to my mind too as I went through some of the slides.
He's baaaaaack (Rutan, at S&R)! Whodathunkit?
[Lotharsson](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2012/02/february_2012_open_thread.php#c…).
Not only is Rutan back, but at #229 he positively self-immolates. The depth of his misrepresentation of the history and of the science of global warming climatology is staggering.
If Rutan truly believes what he says then he has most assuredly proved to the world and to posterity that he has completely lost his marbles, and if he is conscious of the nature of his profoundly non-scientific claptrap, then he is, to use Marcel Kincaid's words at #241, a very very bad man.
I'd like to add my "hear, hear!" to that of others complimenting you (and Skywatcher and Brian Aldiss) on your engagement of Rutan. I've been itching to join the fray, but time constraints and my keeping of an eye on the [simmering exchange with David Archibald](http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/02/03/quantifying-sea-level-fall/#comme…) have stayed my hand. It's been difficult, because Rutan is a gattling gun of denialist spraying.
And on the matter of Archild, I have a question for the readership here. I seem to remember a post specifically analysing in deep statistical detail the nature of the relationship of the oscillation of sunspot numbers with sea level over time. I thought that it was either an Open Mind or a Skeptical Science piece, but I've found nothing that fits the bill beyond what I've already posted at the WWWT thread. If anyone can point me toward such an analysis before I spend a whole lot of time myself essentially replicating it, I'd be very grateful.
Brian Angliss & Lotharsson
Having just started to dip my toes into this Rutan stuff I could not help thinking of Monckton and his manoeuvres - so many moles to whack - again. It was when I saw Rutan linking to SPPI that I realised that even clever engineers can be taken in by charlatans and start to act like them, caerbannong your calling out of Rutan in that # 136 was well due.
Thank you Brian for your perseverance in dissecting Rutan's 'research' and reporting on it and Lotharsson for continuing the pressure.
It seems that Rutan has dug himself a hole and knows not how to extract himself.
I too was once an aeronautical engineer at a mostly practical level but with qualifications. I do not have quite the cachet that Rutan has but I always have enjoyed finding out what makes things tick having primed myself by reading many of the books and other sources from the stalwarts of climate science - my library reflects the scientific bent with its growing climate science section. Perhaps Rutan could do with a 'reading list'.
I don't think he sees any need to extract himself; he considers himself entirely in the right, and treats all criticism as further confirmation that there's a massive conspiracy to promote fraud and a need to destroy him because he's working to expose it.
From Rutan's Wikipedia page:
Gee, what a surprise.
Of course he's never observed any such thing ... Burt doesn't seem to quite grasp the concept of "bias" and its consequences for the reliability of one's observations. As for "financial benefit", he's screaming "They're trying to rob me!" like every other whacko libertarian.
I'm sorry, is someone trying to sell Burt a carbon credit?
Just because someone is good at designing airplanes doesn't mean they're smart.
Olaus, do you believe the global warming debate is over? Do you believe that your "side" has won?
Dear John, I believe that proper science and common sense will have better possibilities to reach the public. Your apocalyptic ramblings and faiblesse for distorting science are loosing ground. Good. As I have said many times before, the CO2-hypothesis is interesting and deserves something better than shaking tents and speaking tongues.
I ran across this interesting lecture today. It shows that history can learn us a lot about how little we learn from history. Many of the observations/signs that (today) have been put forward as evidence for global warming, are put forward in the lecture held in 1953.
http://www.archive.org/details/glaciervariation032833mbp
Olaus apparently did not know there was warming taking place prior to 1953...
Olaus may want to read the IPCC report, he might actually learn something.
"Many of the observations/signs that (today) have been put forward as evidence for global warming, are put forward in the lecture held in 1953."
Because it *had* been warming during the first half of the century, as is well known. What matters are the causes, and the paper you cited was very hesitant to put forth an explanation for the warming that was seen then. Nobody claims it was all due to rising GHG's during the first half of the 20th century - what I have usually seen is about half is attributed to solar foring. We can dismiss with confidence however known natural factors like the Sun as a source for the warming in the last 35 years or so, for the simple reason they are not moving in the right direction. A Sun that has slightly cooled over the last 50 years is not a likely candidate as an explanation for warming. The same goes with the oceans - they should be cooling if they are the source of a warming atmosphere. They aren't - they've gained heat.
You are the one who needs to be "learned a lot" about the history of the field you ridicule.
Alas Olaus it appears that you have much to learn not only about the causes of climate change per se but also in the history of our knowledge about same.
Here is a list of reading matter which you should take time studying:
The Discovery of Global Warming â Spencer Weart
Field Notes from a Catastrophe: Man, Nature, and Climate Change â Elizabeth Kolbert
Global warming: Understanding the Forecast â David Archer
That Archer title above has academic standard lecture support at: Open Climate Science 101
The Long Thaw: How Humans are Changing the Next 100,000 Years of Earthâs Climate â David Archer
Principles of Planetary Climate â Ray Pierrehumbert
The Rough Guide to Climate Change â Robert Henson
Climate Change: A Multidisciplinary Approach - William James Burroughs
Burroughs is particularly useful for its, as implied in the title, multidisciplinary approach - puts GCRs and Svensmark in their place. Could do with an update though.
The Warming Papers: The Scientific Foundation For Climate Change Forecast - David Archer & Ray Pierrehumbert
That last is important for its containing papers by Joseph Fourier, John Tyndall, Svante Arrhenius, Guy Callander, Roger Revelle, Bert Bolin and others including James Hanson and thus is indicative of the historical length of our knowledge. Even the ancient Greeks had some prescient ideas on this subject.
Now it is no surprise to me that those who have been engaged in research in those fields associated with oceanography are prominent amongst the exponents of the anthropogenic signature on climate change and thus a primer on oceanography is recommended reading.
The study of such as Oceanography (ISE): An Invitation to Marine Science by Tom Garrison will reveal how wide ranging that subject is and also its tremendous relevance to the holistic study of Earth's systems - chemical, physical and biological.
The above is not an exhaustive list but here is a longer list, but still not exhaustive . It is up to those who wish to argue the case against anthropogenic climate change to familiarise themselves with relevant material and not keep regurgitating denier myths - such a habit will make you bulimic. Bulimic in the sense of wasting your credibility.
I have the books mentioned above, and have studied them as well as others, but then I have had substantial scientific education at different stages of life and delight in continuing study of the works of Feynman (and others on quantum physics/QED) as well as books on organic, non-organic and physical chemistry also Dawkins, E O Wilson and Jared Diamond amongst many others. Perhaps you should try this too.
Guys, who said anything about a non-existing warming period prior to 1953? You really try hard to misdirect. :-) The point is that the same signs/observations didn't have a politicized and ideologically manhandled hypothesis to lean on, hence armageddon wasn't a sales pitch.
Real climate science still don't fully understand what causes climate change. The uncertainties are enormous. And in the light of the warming "hiatus", the "missing heat", lack of accelerating sea levels, Himalayan glaciers again not melting as fast as the robust science claimed, etc...the potency of CO2 as a prime mover regarding the latest global warming period seem to be perhaps...well...ehrm...exaggerated?
Olaus Petri, why don't you stop giving excuses to be ignorant and actually read some of the dang literature?
-- frank
"A trend is a trend is a trend.
But the question is: will it bend?
Will it alter its course
Through some unforeseen force
and come to a premature end?"
Alex Cairncross
âClimate is not stable â Fact.
Climate will change â Fact.
Climate change is caused by natural phenomena â Fact.
Climate has changed before and will continue to do so â Fact.
Humans are causing climate change â Lie.
We can stop climate change if we stop driving and flying â Lie.â
Lin Zhen-Shan & Sun Xian
Humans are causing climate change today: Fact.
You see, the NATURAL result of burning hydrocarbons in our atmosphere is CO2. And the natural effect of CO2 is to change the global temperature.
Since weather is driven by the global temperature and climate is merely the aggregate "expected" weather, this naturally causes global climate change.
Wow, yes it is. But the million dollar question is my how much. I suspect the numbers are hugely exaggerated.
Dear Frank, Lionel and Robert, I know you deltoids behave strange when they are reminded of the uncertainties in real climate science. :-)
"Guys, who said anything about a non-existing warming period prior to 1953? You really try hard to misdirect. :-)"
Speak for yourself. You're the one who pointed to a study from the early 50's talking about retreating glaciers and implied it meant we're ignoring scientific history. It showed no such thing.
"The point is that the same signs/observations didn't have a politicized and ideologically manhandled hypothesis to lean on, hence armageddon wasn't a sales pitch."
They had only a handful of the observational data we have now. Only a small part of the puzzle was known then. It was known that if GHG's rose temperatures would rise, all things being equal, but there were a lot of things we take for granted today missing from the equation. How much CO2 was rising wasn't even know at the time. There were no temperature reconstructions going back centuries. No ice core data. No satellite data. No knowledge of a cooling stratosphere. No computer models. That's not true today. Misdirection like yours might have worked back in the 50's, but there's too much known now for scientists to take those arguments seriously now.
Olaus Petri and Peter continue to give excuses for remaining ignorant. Maybe they're afraid that their minds will become impure and polluted just by knowing what's written in the IPCC-cited scientific papers. Oh, their beautiful minds!
-- frank
frank, where and when have I given any excuse for ignorance?
> > Olaus Petri and Peter continue to give excuses for remaining ignorant. Maybe they're afraid that their minds will become impure and polluted just by knowing what's written in the IPCC-cited scientific papers. Oh, their beautiful minds!
> frank, where and when have I given any excuse for ignorance?
When you cut-and-pasted quotes instead of actually trying to read the scientific literature? But I guess you're too ignorant to even realize you're ignorant.
-- frank
Hack or leak? Diagram of IP addresses known to be involved in SwiftHack 1.0 or 2.0 (except blog IPs):
http://ijish.livejournal.com/46112.html
-- frank
Peter, with one exception, your supposed quote of what Lin Zhen-Shan & Sun Xian have said is supported quite well by the IPCC.
The one exception, and something that also contradicts the papers of these two, is the claim that humans are not causing climate change.
Dear Robbie, I speak for myself, and you spoke on behalf of me. And all by yourself you made deductions, climate scientologist style, which naturally were out of line.
We know more now, but not enough. What we do know is that the CO2-hypothesis is a hypethesis â and for obvious reasons.
If the CO2-hypothetis had been kidnapped in the 1930s (by the likes of some deltoids) the result had been the same. But remember, the authoritarian minds then in power were occupied making ideology and politics of other scientific theories.
"Dear Robbie, I speak for myself..."
That's for sure. You certainly don't speak for science or scientists.
"And all by yourself you made deductions, climate scientologist style, which naturally were out of line."
Nope, I was right on target. Your subsequent comments confirm it.
"We know more now, but not enough."
Says you. We know enough to count out natural causes for most of the recent warming. People like you will never be satisfied with any answer except "it's not Co2!". You ignore what is known and embrace the ever decreasing uncertainty as an excuse to hide your head in the sand.
"What we do know is that the CO2-hypothesis is a hypethesis â and for obvious reasons."
Says you. Scientists call it a well tested and verified theory, which it is.
"If the CO2-hypothetis had been kidnapped in the 1930s (by the likes of some deltoids) the result had been the same. But remember, the authoritarian minds then in power were occupied making ideology and politics of other scientific theories."
Ah, the Nazi/Commie accusation. How quaint. Pulling a Godwin is no way to make an argument.
As I said, misdirection and evasion. Nothing of substance from you and your side.
With a statement such as this:
you reveal that you are so ignorant that you don't have a clue as to how little you know.
That is why I suggested a reading list so that you could attempt to redeem yourself but no you amply confirm how stupidly, ideologically blinkered you are. BTW. That is not an ad hominem but a statement of fact. You are the Wendy Wright of climate denial. Hint, Richard Dawkins had her measure .
"But the million dollar question is my how much."
Around 3C per doubling.
Can I have my million, now?
Olaus, you seem obsessed with political and religious, not scientific, reasoning.
Don't you find it a bit hypocritical to accuse us of believing ideology over science when you are convinced it's all a left-wing scam but can't provide any scientific evidence? You say that Co2 hypothesis is up for debate but you haven't provided any evidence to support that. You say that the "co2 hypothesis" "deserves something better than shaking tents and speaking tongues". That's a very *religious* view that betrays an enormous understanding of what the theory actually is.
Then you cite well-known uncertainties as if they are smoking guns. That's not very scientific. That's like saying uncertainties in what we know about human evolution disprove it - again, an awfully *religious* view, wouldn't you say?
It seems to me here that only *you* are driven by ideology and relgion.
Some of you will find Rutan's #253 amusing.
This is bad. Alarmist Potholer54 looks at the recent Nature of glaciers and concludes that global warming is a hoax.
Dear Robbie, crying "says you" isn't a strong argument. :-)
Johnnie where have I claimed that the CAGW (call it what you want) is a scam or conspiracy? I'm sure there are some foul play (on both sides of the fence) but the phenomenon climate hysteria is best explained by the sociology of religions/knowledge. And that I have claimed many times.
The rest is as usual something you invent to make your imaginary dichotomous world stay intact.
Lotharsson @ 271
Rutan has had his fingers so badly burnt in his encounter with actual climate science (well done BTW) rather than the parody that he picked up from denier blogs that he has had to resort to invoking "famous" friends as his main argument.
Kind of ironic that his unknown "famous" friend invokes the old climate science = religion tripe.
frank, the (your) problem is that the IPCC science is actually pseudoscience. So what's then the meaning reading that rubbish?
wow, says who? You? Strange then that the temperature hasn't risen the last decade despite a continuing, linear rise in CO2 levels. Strange indeed.
Peter, but climate scientology has an answer to that â somewhere and somehow it is accounted for. :-)
Soon the vow will bring us some comforting words from his lower hemispheres assuring us that we are right wing nuts and that the CO2-hypothesis is robust, etc. Yawn....
Bernard J., Rutan bemoans the fact that no one "willing to bet on the near-term climate crisis predictions". However the way he's framed it sounds problematic - he's probably hoping for favourable weather and won't take a bet over a long-enough term to distinguish signal from noise.
Anyway I mentioned you've been looking for people to take on your science-based wagers...
John@ 272
Errr . . . You might just like to go back and watch Potholer's video again. So should anyone else who thinks he concludes global warming is a hoax. So should anyone who would like to get a clear idea of what the Jacob, Wahr and Pfeffer paper really said. As always, Potholer is accurate, edifying and amusing.
Maybe the moderator's will allow John to withdraw his comment to save embarrassment.
MikeH, apart from appealing to anonymous authority, he now seems to be re-executing the "you're religious and I'm leaving" manoeuvre that worked so well for him the time before ;-)
we are right wing nuts who wallow in our own ignorance yet believe that [compounding that with our own stupidity](http://www.skepticalscience.com/global-warming-stopped-in-1998.htm) will somehow make climate science look bad.
Corrected that for you Oluas/Olaus.
Neil, I'm pretty sure John's comments were ironic ;-)
MikeH, there were several commenters responding to Rutan (and some of his likeminded supporters) with great points including RW, skywatcher, and of course Brian Angliss himself.
"Dear Robbie, crying "says you" isn't a strong argument. :-)"
Making claims with no evidence is worse. Your assertions that climate science is just a hypothesis mean less than nothing, as are your claims that we "don't know enough" about it. You don't, but other people do. Don't assume your deep ignorance is shared by everybody else. And of course your attempt to link climate science with Nazi and Communist regimes was a pathetic ad hominem attack. And you want to say *my* argument was weak? You "skeptics" don't know how much laughter you provide us. :)
"Strange then that the temperature hasn't risen the last decade"
Oh dear.
A trend isn't the difference between two end points, dear.
The trend over the last 10 years is positive.
The trend over the last 20 years is positive.
The trend over the last 30 years is positive.
But if you wish to proclaim that it hasn't, "Says who?" say I. You? Where are your calculations? Someone else? Where are theirs?
Lets also do the maths here.
20ppm increase over 10 years. Prior concentration 370ppm, therefore this would be a 5% increase. That's around a 0.06 doublings or 0.18C.
Given that any one year can be 0.3C different from the mean even absent an underlying trend, this means there as been no statistically significant cooling in the last 10 years.
Or to put it in terms you deniers understand: there has been no cooling in the last 10 years.
>Johnnie where have I claimed that the CAGW (call it what you want) is a scam or conspiracy?
It's implicit in the name of the website you enthusiastically comment at, "The Climate Scam". If you don't want to get fleas, don't lie with dogs.
So far in this thread you have repeatedly mocked the idea that anyone could consider the "Co2 hypothesis" established without giving any evidence otherwise. Unfortunately, I require a little more than your religious faith to establish my views.
Olaus, can you show us one study that proves the climate has a low sensitiity to Co2? Easy!
I wrote:
> Olaus Petri and Peter continue to give excuses for remaining ignorant. Maybe they're afraid that their minds will become impure and polluted just by knowing what's written in the IPCC-cited scientific papers. Oh, their beautiful minds!
Peter replies:
> frank, where and when have I given any excuse for ignorance?
Peter again:
> frank, the (your) problem is that the IPCC science is actually pseudoscience. So what's then the meaning reading that rubbish?
So you have zero idea what the IPCC-cited research actually says, but you 'know' that it's all wrong. What an idiot you are.
Stop giving excuses for your ignorance and actually learn something.
-- frank
[That](http://spp.sagepub.com/content/early/2012/01/18/1948550611434786.abstra…) seems to explain some things...
And [this](http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/political-animal-a/2012_02/further_evi…) seems to explain some more (and looks similar to earlier research some of you have no seen).
Dear John, apparently you are some kind of peeping Tom, monitoring my whereabouts on the net. Sorry to brake it to you, but you have a problem distinguishing between valid arguments and the sensations of euphoria you get while stalking me.
It's a rather creepy hobby you got there Johnnie. Can you please stop?
No, peeping tom would require viewing you in meatspace.
Please get your definitions correct. The change should do you good.
PS it's break, not brake.
Wow, your contribution is as usual of sub-human standard. When somebody write "some kind of" s/he isn't trying to get a definition correct. I strongly suggest that you get back to your field of expertise: eating bananas and running around naked.
Instead of actually reading up on climatology, Olaus Petri prefers to spend his time lobbing insults.
Why do these ignoramuses like ignorance so much?
-- frank
> Why do these ignoramuses like ignorance so much?
It's all they have. So it's either be wrong (INCONCEIVABLE!) or laud ignorance and label it "skepticism".
PS it's rather amusing to see olaf there whine about sub-human intelligence after giving so clearly an account of his inabilities...
Dear Frankie, I read and what I find is that Deltoid/climate scientolgy isn't on par with what real climate science says. There the uncertainties exists. And the uncertainties is the future, not the opposite.
I hope you get your act together (and don't start to stalk people carrying sound skepticism (like John) or develope wow's tourettes).
Olaus Petri:
> what I find is that Deltoid/climate scientolgy isn't on par with what real climate science says
And how would you know that, when you've steadfastly refused to read a single word of the scientific literature cited by the IPCC?
> I read
No you didn't.
But at least I see you realize that ignorance isn't something to be proud of (which is why now avoid talking about it). Now you just need to take a next logical step and actually read up on some actual climatology. Like, say, the abundant literature that's referenced by the IPCC reports.
Stop remaining ignorant.
-- frank
OP you really have become the Wendy Wright of denial.
Go on prove me wrong by providing incontrovertible evidence that we have climate science wrong. Go on you must be able to 'provide one evidence' (a quote from ignoramus Wright btw).
Have you any idea as to how many scientific disciplines have provided their own individual lines of evidence for recognising that we have a problem with an overheating earth?
Have you dipped into that reading list yet? It would be useful if you made a start.
It's called willful ignorance.
Olaus, I asked you to show me some evidence that the atmosphere has a low sensitivity for Co2. You responded wonderfully by making completely off-topic, ad hom attacks.
"Sorry to break it to you", but if you are so self-evidently correct, why can't you provide any evidence? I see a lot of sweeping statements filled with ideological and religious wording but no actual evidence.
>I read and what I find is that Deltoid/climate scientolgy isn't on par with what real climate science says
Then, please, share this "real climate science" with us.
>There (sic) the (sic) uncertainties (sic) exists (sic).
And you really expect these small uncertainties to be resolved in your favour when there is a mountain of evidence already supporting the consensus view?
Uncertainty? Perhaps I've missed the point (if there is one) that some people here want to make.
Don't the denialati have some issues with the concept of uncertainty? They seem to think that the error bars or confidence ranges in papers and reports mean something other than what the rest of us do. When the discussion seems to be around 'uncertainty' it eventually turns out that some people think it means doubt or even suspicion.
When it comes to climate, I thought the basic rule was not perpetual doubt, it's
Uncertainty Is Not Your Friend.
Anyone who is certain of massive uncertainties, and understands what risk mitigation is, and realises that their touted uncertainties mean they can't put a reasonable upper bound on the potential negative impact of AGW...
...can only honestly conclude that we have to stop emissions right now, because we have no idea how bad their impact could be, and risk mitigation demands that we avoid unbounded risks.
I don't see the "it's so uncertain" folks touting this course of action though.
Adelady,
I don't know if you are familiar with Judith Curry's site, Climate Etc. She recently published about uncertainty in the Bulletin of the AMS. The issues are a little more complex than what do error bars mean?
A couple of links for you. Judith's paper
http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/pdf/10.1175/2011BAMS3139.1
And Hegerl et Als response on Climate etc.
http://judithcurry.com/2011/12/15/hegerl-et-al-react-to-the-uncertainty…
Hey Lotharsson, did you realise you were cited from a comment made here - on the Wegman 'network analysis' [*cough*] - in Mike Mann's book?
And Deltoid comes up with respectable frequency, in fact!
Speaking of Curry's "uncertainty monster", she apparently [didn't give the impression of an entirely balanced or even particularly scientific commentator](http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2011/12/climate-cynicism-…) at the Santa Fe conference - and IIRC she didn't cover herself in glory in comments either.
GSW, feel free to point me to a link where Curry draws the link between her idea that uncertainties are large and a call for a heavy immediate reduction in emissions based on risk mitigation principles. Oh, wait - as far as I recall she doesn't do that because she dismisses standard risk mitigation principles as "merely the precautionary principle". That's pretty dumb. From that article:
> One colleague later remarked that her approach to uncertainty quantification reminded him of an English major who had just finished reading Kuhnâs "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions."
(And I note that her early attempt to explain where her vague issues with uncertainty lay (the "Italian Flag" concept) was intellectually incoherent and conflated two different concepts, so one hopes she's done better since.)
> ...did you realise you were cited from a comment made here - on the Wegman 'network analysis' [cough] - in Mike Mann's book?
Good grief, nope! That's amusing on some level - what was the comment?
Nah, none of us has ever heard of her.
As Joshua says in the comments:
Aha - sorry - my mistake, the quote was taken from Deep Climate, not here! There are several references to Deltoid throughout the book, though.
Mentioned in Despatches in the Climate Wars - well done!
A particularly [trenchant response](http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2011/12/climate-cynicism-…) to Judith Curry on that RealClimate thread:
> Judy, Risk assessment is my day job, and I can say without any uncertainty that you donât understand it. First, you donât even define standard risk assessment methodology, but instead throw up your hands in the face of the "uncertainties".
[Description of risk assessment methodologies.]
> ...Unfortunately, you are claiming that the models are too unreliable to yield reliable estimates of probabilities. That means that the risk cannot be bounded.
> When a risk with severe consequences cannot be bounded, standard risk assessment prescribes risk avoidance as the only reasonable strategy, since intelligent allocation of resources toward risk mitigation is not possible for situations of unbounded risk.
> For climate change, the only way to avoid the threat is to quit burning fossil fuels and otherwise reduce CO2 emissions. Indeed, without reliable modelsâas you contendâthe only reasonable strategy is to slam on the brakes HARD.
> Judy, uncertainty is not the friend of the complacent.
How ironic that Curry and Webster quote cognitive psychologist Amos Tversky without understanding how his comment applies to AGW denialists:
See http://climateandrisk.com/tag/prospect-theory/:
wow #285
"Or to put it in terms you deniers understand: there has been no cooling in the last 10 years."
Or to put it in terms you climate scientologists understand: there has been no warming in the last 10 years.
greenpiss in panic. Nice.
http://notrickszone.com/2012/02/13/germanys-war-on-skeptics-1-greenpeac…
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/02/13/german-skeptics-luning-and-vahren…
Pre-2010 it was "cooling". Then 2010 was the equal hottest year on record and 2011 hottest La Nina year on record. Now there is a "plateau". I see now when it warms again it will be "cycles".
(BTW Peter, whatever happened to the urban heat island effect? Are you "sceptics" no longer running that line?)
John, so there was no MWP?
You deltoid fellas are truly amazing. The uncertainties are majestic and so are the exaggerations of the ones claiming CO2-armageddon a robust science. The scareology is full of buzz words lacking scientific support. This becomes very evident if reading the real science thread (Jonas thread) and, for instance, the Himalayan glaciers case. There the lot of you were informed that the 0.5 billion figure (people depending on freshwater from Himalayan glaciers) was a buzzword and that there was no science behind it. Nowhere to be found was real science backing the figure, just wishful thinking and dogmatic beliefs.
And now we know â again â that the glaciers of Himalaya are not melting away in doomsday pace, despite your robust climate scare science. Abominable!
There will now be a short intermission while Peter digs up every zombie argument he can think of.
You should try actually reading at least [the abstract](http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nature10847.html) before indulging in your usual faith-based denier wishful thinking.
And then consider the cryosphere as a whole before you start crowing in your deluded way.
chek, enjoy the good news. It will do you some good. The Yeti will survive, but not your belief system. :-)
I happen to know the first author of the Nature paper. In fact, he is a coworker and a friend since our PhD days in Montpellier.
I showed him your answer. He finds you ... "delusional", among other things (I am unfortunately not at a liberty to write them, moderation rules about strong words you know). He is not a climatologist, should the question arise.
Bratislava @318
Alas Petri and his equally thick mate Peter would have completely missed your reference to the "Nature paper" . They do not read science journals, they read denier blogs.That way they can get their "science" after all the science has been removed.
Peter:
No, that's in terms deniers-of-facts understand.
There will now be a longer [intermission](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2012/02/february_2012_open_thread.php#c…) whilst Olaus Petri tries to figure out how to save face after his claims were [completely shot down by the first author of the paper](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2012/02/february_2012_open_thread.php#c…) Petri tried to misrepresent.
Unless, of course, Petri tries to do a Monckton a la Pinker and pretend that he understands the author's work better than the author does. Frankly, I hope that he tries that gambit - it would completely comfirm the diagnosis of delusionality.
> John, so there was no MWP?
There was no global MWP.
> there has been no warming in the last 10 years.
Nope, there is no evidence that there has been no warming in the last 10 years.
Gosh, it's like deniers think that only CO2 regulates the weather!!!
Bratisla,
I'm curious about this, didn't Tom find that the Himalayas where stable (no significant mass loss) over the study period?
Olaus' statement that "the glaciers of Himalaya are not melting away in doomsday pace" would seem to be consistent with his findings.
Any chance you could persuade Tom to do a quick post here?
;)
Bratisla, are you addressing me? If so can you please elaborate. Are your pal claiming that there is a death spiral going on in Himalaya or that 0.5 billion people depend on Himalayan glaciers (as fresh water supplies). What's the beef?
> This becomes very evident if reading the real science thread (Jonas thread)...
If there's one thing Olaus is good for, it's a laugh!
(As is Jonas every now and then, currently attempting to re-jump the shark over climate trends and their definition and detection). 'nough said.
should of course more accurately be "..fresh water storage".
Petri, you participated in that moron Jonas' thread where that was established, so there's no excuse for you to still be propagating your stupid strawman version here.
Might I also direct our severely challenged oafish contingent to revisit [this post](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2012/02/february_2012_open_thread.php#c…) which links to potholer54's [video explanation](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JJSA0iZ_xeA&feature=player_embedded) of the paper, which is a less mangled version of the science than denier blog regulars will be used to.
For instance they might want to think on what the symbol '屉' denotes
The beef is, Olaus, that he saw right through your game of focusing on a detail of the whole map and make wide claims - since Himalaya was wrong, screw everything and let's dump CO2 as fast as possible. And don't say you didn't say it, he is unaware of your "activities" but immediatly thought that.
This is why he called you "delusional" - although the french slang was lost in translation. Yes, GRACE doesn't see mass change in Himalaya. No, the global ice balance is clearly not stable - see Potholer for the final question.
@bratisla,
"This is why he called you "delusional" - although the french slang was lost in translation."
Are you sure you're not just making this up bratisla? It all seems a bit 'iffy' to me. Can't your mate speak for himself?
Wouldn't be the first time you lot were guilty of producing your own factoids.
Also,
"Yes, GRACE doesn't see mass change in Himalaya. No, the global ice balance is clearly not stable"
Olaus never mentioned the global ice balance (do try and follow the thread)! only the good news about the Himalaya's! - You Deltoids seem, well, a bit disappointed by it.
;)
Peter, I didn't say anything about the MWP. I just noted the hypocrisy of the "sceptics'" constantly shifting arguments. I assume you are bringing up the MWP because it's something you feel safe arguing.
Are you saying there are other climate forcings besides Co2? Because that directly contradicts your argument that "there has been no warming for ten years" which assumes, as pointed out above, that Co2 is the only forcing on the climate as there can be no other short term forcings
Which is it?
Olaus,
>The scareology is full of buzz words lacking scientific support.
Oh, you don't like "buzz words lacking scientific support"?
By the frequency in which you throw around "scare", "doomsday", "armageddon", "apocalypse", "mantra", "scareology", "climate hysteria" and numerous other meaningless religious/ideological buzzwords while refusing to cite a single study that shows "real climate science" you lose your own argument.
I again challenge you to show me some "real climate science", and not the usual buzzwords and insults. At least Pentaxz and Duff were smart enough to admit there was no point in debating me because they'd lose.
>Olaus never mentioned the global ice balance
No, why would Olaus mention that the paper found that 532 billion tonnes of glacial and sheet ice are lost each year?
Is it because the loss could only be the result of the warming that Olaus doesn't think is happening?
Or because, having been mislead by climate expert Watts, he didn't actually realise that's what the paper said?
(I'll bet the latter)
I hope you are both comforted by the discovery that there is 10% less meltwater running into the ocean each year than previously though. Phew! Scare over! We can all return home.
What - you mean such as the well known but poorly produced denier factoids like 'AGW is a mirage caused by Urban Heat Islands'? Or 'the hockey stick is broken' (oh, how you wish...)?
Hint - don't try to be 'clever' here GSW - you don't have the acumen. It's like a pig in a tutu trying to pass itself off as a dancer at the Bolshoi.
Well, in case Brattisla isn't living in wonderland his pal started to bully a strawman. What a surprise...Some beef you got there. "He saw right through...bla, bla....
Nobody denies that there has been GW, nor that glacier melts. What's the matter with you folks? Why do you so desperately need to invent your on facts and (un)realities?
Why not be happy about the yet again improved status of the Himalayan glaciers?
John, I have no problems with research that refrain from buzzwording. Got it? But since you (plural) find those buzzwords scientific you have been asked how they came about. And the refs provided by you have not reached scientific standards, but opinionated ones.
Jeffie and Bernie are still leafing through the literature in search for the science behind the 90% figure. Do the math. :-)
OP as you have been shown to err by believing in the sort of spin that 'interpreter of interpretations' Delingpole spews out, on this occasion seemingly attempting an interpretation based on not studying the source at all, about the cryosphere you really need to look at this and this and this .
Where is the heat energy coming from to do all this? Do you know how much heat energy is required to raise the temperature of one gram of ice through one degree Kelvin (Centigrade if you prefer) and then how much heat energy is required to change one gram of ice into one gram of water?
Then ask yourself why water is used in central heating systems and in the cooling systems of reciprocating internal combustion engines.
Oh! And another thing wrt your #137, I see that Fritz Vahrenholt has been well taken to task over there too.
Apologies John,
You may not be aware; The Himalayas apocalypse meme is a carry over from the Science thread. The Jeffs, cheks, stus, etc were cheerleading it over there. Olaus was only trying to give them a bit of a lift from their self imposed doom and gloom with a bit of good news.
As for the other stuff from the paper, glacial and ice sheet loss, they estimate that this contributes about 1.5mm/yr to sea level rise.
Even if this were to continue uninterrupted for the rest of the century, the net effect will be about ~ 4 inches! which is hardly of 'biblical' proportions!
Now I wouldn't want to talk you out of building your 'Arks' just yet, that's up to you.
I shall probably make do with some precautionary principle 'Wellies' for the rare occasions we visit the seaside with the kids, grandkids, great grandkids etc.
;)
The faithfull
@ Wow 322
And you base that belief on what?
This is a lie. The comment thread of, say, Ethan Siegel's posts on climate science over at Starts With a Bang or almost any news article handily bely this claim.
It's not like any celebrity-denialists have ever claimed that we're "not looking at a sort of long-term systematic loss of ice in the Arctic" or, specifically with regards to Himalayan glaciers, that "The glaciers are showing no particular change in 200 years. The only glacier thatâs declined a little is Gangoltri"...
Oh, wait. Someone has made such claims. So write that off as a lie, too.
Then we have senseless exhortations such as:
Gee, I'm so glad the Himalayan glaciers have such an improved status. I mean, Jacob et al 2012 said they were all definitely gaining mass, right? Let's see, article behind a paywall but abstract is freely accessible, and we get...
So keeping the uncertainty in mind, the Himalayan glaciers could be gaining up to 16 Gt yr-1 or losing up to 24 Gt yr-1. Yes, that's a very "improved status" indeed. /sarc
It's not like mainstream climate science has a mechanism (increased water vapour in warmer atmosphere leads to more precipitation overall) that could account for mass gain in the high-altitude glaciers, where the atmosphere hasn't warmed enough to start melting the ice, counter-acting mass loss in low-altitude glaciers.
Oh, wait. It does (increased water vapour in warmer atmosphere leads to more precipitation overall).
All we have from Olaus Petri are lies and insults. Surprise, surprise.
@ John 331
"Pre-2010 it was "cooling". Then 2010 was the equal hottest year on record and 2011 hottest La Nina year on record."
To my knowledge, the MWP is well documented in the scientific litterature, allthough not measured with thermomethers. So, if the 2010 was "the equal hottest year on record and 2011 hottest La Nina year on record", you now are suddenly denying empirical facts? Weird or what?
John and All,
Oops threw and internal math exception - 1.5mm*100yrs is ~6 inches not 4!
Shorter Peter T, pentaxZ, GSW, Olaus Petri:
We steadfastly refuse to taint our beautiful, pristine minds with any actual knowledge of what's written in the scientific reports cited by the IPCC! All Hail Ignorance!
-- frank
s/Peter T/Peter/
Composer99
"increased water vapour in warmer atmosphere leads to more precipitation overall"
Funnily enough, Jonas made that very point over on the Science thread, you lot poo-poo'd it at the time. Strange you should resurect it now.
Your post made me think of John's #331 comment earlier.
"I just noted the hypocrisy of the "sceptics'" constantly shifting arguments"
You guys run around in ever decreasing circles, headless chickens isn't the half of it.
;)
Dear Compost99, like GSW said above, you are free to grow a big beard and change your name to Noah, but that doesn't change the fact that some good news have come (y)our way regarding the Himalayan glaciers.
Why not be happy about it, all of us?
And still no one of you have caught me lying.
What's evident though, is that CAGW-science can only become robust if embraced by a belief system admitting the followers (read deltoids) to pin point evil and invent facts that aren't existing.
Hold your horses Frankie #341, we all admit that there are some good news regarding Himalayan glaciers. That's actual knowledge right there for ya.
Olaus Petri:
Catch phrases like "HIMALAYAN GLACIERS!!!! GOOD NEWS!!!! HIMALAYAN GLACIERS!!!! GOOD NEWS!!!! HIMALAYAN GLACIERS!!!! GOOD NEWS!!!!" are not actual "knowledge".
Why do you keep flaunting your ignorance so much?
Stop praising your own ignorance, and start trying to read and understand the scientific papers referenced by the IPCC reports.
-- frank
> but that doesn't change the fact that some good news have come (y)our way regarding the Himalayan glaciers
a) what good news? Not living in the foothills of the Hmalayas, this doesn't really mean much to me
b) so what if it is? It doesn't stop AGW.
c) bad news: you're pulling your pud over this and we're getting the ejecta of it. Eeeww. Do it in private where we don't have to suffer seeing it, hmm.
I'll try this again with fewer links.
Olaus as you have been shown to err by believing in the sort of spin that 'interpreter of interpretations' Delingpole spews out, on this occasion seemingly attempting an interpretation based on not studying the source at all, about the cryosphere you really need to look at this and this and this .
Where is the heat energy coming from to do all this? Do you know how much heat energy is required to raise the temperature of one gram of ice through one degree Kelvin (Centigrade if you prefer) and then how much heat energy is required to change one gram of ice into one gram of water?
Then ask yourself why water is used in central heating systems and in the cooling systems of reciprocating internal combustion engines.
Ah! That is why my first attempt went into moderation, so here is part 2.
Oh! And another thing wrt your #137 I see that Fritz Vahrenholt has been well taken to task over here too.
Not doing so well are you?
I suggest that you stop grasping at the straws blowing from exploded straw men.
Frank, good that we are on the same page.
Citation very much needed.
Curiously enough, an anti-vaccine denialist distorted my 'nym in the exact same way a couple of years ago.
As I said then, and will repeat now, at least compost serves a useful purpose in human affairs, unlike mendacious denialists such as Petri.
Also: I don't slum in the Jonas thread and based on your obvious dishonesty so far this thread I'm not taking your word for it. Cite, please.
By the way, this below:
is yet another lie.
> Frank, good that we are on the same page.
In your own mind, that is.
When will you stop your string of excuses and catchphrases, and actually start reading the IPCC-cited literature?
-- frank
Chek #351,
What are you on about? You were there weren't you? You're not a different chek?
It's all over the thread - if you could only be bothered to go and look!
JHC. It's like 50 first dates!
Dear Compost99, If I have lied somewhere it must be an easy task enlighten me about it. So show me the money. So far the only thing/ks you guys have come up with are delturds from pink elephants. That might do in a shaking climate tent, but not in the real world.
Climate scientology is falling apart. The only thing keeping it together (in a robust way) is sheer ideology taking religious form.
OK, folks, Petri has been shown blatant examples of easily-verifiable lies not 20 comments ago, and responds with
I can only conclude either supremely powerful self-delusion or supremely arrogant dishonesty on Petri's part.
I guess when Olaus is told of his mum's death, he'll say "Well, you brought me some good news: I'll get a day of work!".
Compost99, I can't find it, and neither can you, hence your pathetic #356.
[GSW @ 354](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2012/02/february_2012_open_thread.php#c…)
Yes GSW I was there, which is why I'm requesting the citation. Links and/or post numbers ASAP please.
@goldfish
If you were there, and you still have access to the thread, then you have EVERYTHING YOU NEED FROM ME. GO LOOK!
(It occurs to me that you need help understanding what the words mean. Sorry, but I'm not inclined to be that helpful. Suggest you put some effort in on your own behalf)
;)
The thing is GSW, there's a discrepancy between your claimed memory, viz. "increased water vapour in warmer atmosphere leads to more precipitation overall" Funnily enough, Jonas made that very point over on the Science thread, you lot poo-poo'd it at the time.
and the actual thread content.
I rather think your confusing those dreams you have - you know, the ones where you come on science blogs and set all those group-thinking commie warmists straight and Jonarse gets acclaimed as the world's greatest living scientist - with the rather more mundane reality of a world infested with lyingdenierscum pulling fast ones. Plus I thought you'd be pleased to demonstrate to all that your esteemed genius may have got something at least half right, once.
But in the spirit of benefit of the doubt and all that, citation to the source of your claim - post number(s) and/or link(s) - please
chek,
Sorry me bad. I take some comfort in the fact that I've never found you that predisposed to be helpful either.
;)
The not-very-bright GSW:
You should ask the writers of Futurama to put that in an episode, i.e. Farnsworth says:
"Good news everyone, the Himalayas are not melting like most other ice-caps."
Should be good for a few laughs.
Warning to Alas Petri - the following article is in the "raw" and as such has not been filtered by Watts et al. The complexity of the real world observations contained within may be hazardous to your few remaining brain cells.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2012/02/120214-artificial-glaci…
>To my knowledge, the MWP is well documented in the scientific litterature
But you have boasted in the past that you don't read the scientific literature because you already know it's wrong. Weird or what?
The answer to this has already been pointed out to you. You ignored it. Weird or what?
>Oops threw and internal math exception - 1.5mm*100yrs is ~6 inches not 4!
So the argument shifts from "good news about the Himalayas!" to "the sea levels are rising but so what?". Except I thought the meme was the sea levels *weren't* rising. Keep up!
But since you admit the sea level *is* rising and we *are* warming, what happens, say, when we reach tipping points for feedbacks? Your calculations don't take into account the continuing trends for ice loss.
Whoops.
;)
Seriously though, I am glad both you and Olaus have agreed that it is warming and that there are 532 billion tonnes of ice loss each year. It's a start.
Reverse "Climategate" breaking at Desmogblog: Internal Heartland Institute documents. Big difference between this and the CRU emails is there is no need for quote-mining or fact-distortion.
Heartland Foundation paying Watts $90,000 to build a website.
Snort.
Bob Carter also paid by Heartland Institute...
Another interesting tidbit, from near the end of the '2012 climate strategy' memo.
"and through coordination with external networks (such as WUWT and other groups capable of rapidly mobilizing responses to new scientific findings, news stories, or unfavorable blog posts)."
So Heartland has been coordinating rapid responses with WUWT.
#368 His price is very low for what he has given up.
THI has funding for something called "Operation Angry Badger".
Greg Laden has something up about this, but it's probably worth sharing here: Heartland Institute documents leaked by an anonymous donor.
Oops, cross-posted to the wrong thread.
From the 2012 Heartland Climate Strategy confidential memo:
It's revealing that they don't want science to be taught in schools, although not unexpected.
Is it just me, or did the appearance in the 'Recent comments' list of at least two members of the the Scandinavian Troll Collective occur remarkably close to each other, given their respective absences for quite a number of weeks?
Further, they all seem now to be coincidentally using the tactic of reflecting what commentary was directed to them when they initially made their own grievous errors last year. A language psychologist might infer from the nature of the postings that the STC is either a theatre* of sock puppets, or that it is a cooperative working, Borg-like, in close internal coordination to employ their acquired linguistic tools after having learned how they were previously cut off at the knees with said instruments.
One thing's for sure though. Just like the Borg they'd need to outsource for their own Locutus - they don't have that talent in their own ranks...
[* An oxymoronic collective noun for Urban Dictionary, if it's not already in there...]
Don't know if anyone is following DeSmogBlog's coverage of leaked Heartland Institute documents:
http://www.desmogblog.com/mashey-report-confirms-heartland-s-manipulati…
It would appear the Bob Carter is on their payroll, involved in a project to specifically undermine the IPCC:
http://watchingthedeniers.wordpress.com/2012/02/15/follow-the-money-bob…
For his troubles he receives $1600 per month. It is part of a $300k initiative to attack the IPCC's credibility.
If these documents are legitimate - and DeSmogBlog is claiming they are - we should be bringing these facts to light.
They clearly show:
- how they seek funding
- the projects they intend to run to sow doubt and confusion in the public's mind
- attempts to scare teachers off from talking about climate change in US schools
- funding for Anthony Watt's
MikeH, I'm sure people living close to the glacier need them as described in the article, but why telling me? Are you claiming that 0.5 billion humans are living in that remote region? Higgins: "A lot of people, when I met them in Delhi and I said I was going to Ladakh, they looked at me like I was going to the moon,â
Whats next? Shangri La?
Here some more on the topic "when its cold its weather and when its warm its climate": http://www.metro.co.uk/news/world/889954-europe-shivers-while-snow-hits…
watching
Your child-like naivety as to how the real world works is quite charming.
Guess what? When policy/lobby/advocacy groups use consultants, they pay them! Who'd have thought it!
I'm going to enjoy this.
;)
Watching's bang on the money: DeSmogBlog's the place to be at the moment; GSW and Olaus can clamber back on their tyre-swings or just get back to preening each other for a while, while the sapiens sapiens do a spot of reading.
Yeah, sure, this won't make any difference, mouthbreathers, like John Mashey's last investigation (Wegman) didn't make any difference...
GSW, its hilarious isn't it? Someone got payed....The conspiracy theorists of Deltoid pedal on with dear Bernie in the yellow jersey.
I liked the description by THI of the readership of Forbes Magazine as "reliably anti-climate"......
Right GSW, but it's a bad look when you consider where the money comes from and the political goals of an organisation who want to "stop teachers teaching science" and believe that opposing voices must be snuffed out.
I'm sure you don't care though, just as long as they continue telling you what you want to hear.
bill
"Yeah, sure, this won't make any difference, mouthbreathers, like John Mashey's last investigation (Wegman) didn't make any difference..."
Agreed.
The Heartland story is hitting the MSM, although only the Guardian in the UK AFAIK.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/feb/15/leak-exposes-heartlan…
Having said that, nothing so far has beaten [the mendacious contortions of the Heartland sponsored NZCSC in denying their own funding statement](http://hot-topic.co.nz/puppets-on-a-string-us-think-tank-funds-nz-scept…): âSince its formation in 2007, ICSC has never received financial support from corporations, foundations or governments. 99% of all donations have come from private individuals in the United Kingdom, New Zealand, United States and Canada.â in the linked thread at Hot Topic.
Makes our visiting Scandinavian neo-feudalist contingent look like the half-wit amateur boys they are.
If GSW actually read the bloody thing, rather than cut-and-pasted the Denialati response directly into his cerebellum, he'd realise that Mashey is saying that Heartland is claiming it's not a lobbying firm, it's a friggin' tax-free public charity.
And, of course, taking down Wegman makes no difference in Deniospace, as having achieved Epistemic Closure, the outside world is safely reduced to muffled rumblings as through thick plate glass...
Aha! Full marks to SkS for calling it Denialgate. The grating 'gating' can be turned about, it seems...
Is there a new promising hiatus coming up?
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/02/14/sea-level-still-not-cooperating-w…
Fingers crossed, right?
Petri, your gullible, childish eagerness to swallow any fantasy or item of wishful thinking is already known, but has nothing to do with the real world or science. Take it elsewhere.
... and furthermore, FYI, the answer to such rhetorical tabloidish questions is invariably 'no'. Hence the question rather than a statement.
Seriously, this is a full-on trainwreck. Forget contending with the inconsequential dreck, and look instead to -
Darn! All the scientific arguments you throw my way. Where did all the emotions and hatred go? ;-)
I'll hope for the best, that is a hiatus wrt rising sea levels. Care to join?
Alas Petri @ 388
How boring. Do you have something that has not been through the WUWT ringer to remove the science? I know you dislike reading science journals as you never cite them - so here is a helpful tip. Get the NASA Visualization Explorer for the ipad - it has visualizations based on the satellite data. That way you can see the impact of La Nina on the global water cycle - all pictures - nothing to read.
Jonas, thanks for defending the indefensible just to remind us all just what you and your stunted little cronies are truly made of. Now just get back in your box.
Jonas N is trying out a few lines for when Heartland becomes synonomous with "dissuading teachers from teaching science".
I give that one a F-
He couldn't get any more illustrative if he tried. Jonas is either implicitly denying that Heartland wants to (in their own words) "dissuade teachers from teaching science", or he's hoping that if he throws out the odd stinking bone no-one will notice that they actually said that.
I can't see that working very well. "Heartland Institute" is going to be associated with "dissuading teachers from teaching science" in a lot of people's minds.
Shouldn't this clown be put back in his own box?
It's tiresome enough to hear his lovers on here singing hosannas to his greatness without his ego spewing over the threads.
True, and yet that's precisely the domain you and your support crew inhabit.
Here's an idea - why not stop polluting this blog with your misguided zealotry. It's not as if anyone has any use except amusement for you all, and your homebase 'climatescam' is now a byword for village idiot central.
> Or to put it in terms you climate scientologists understand
There is no proof of anything in only 10 years of data.
You, know, statistics. That stuff that McIntyre says he's dead set on seeing set straight in the discussion about climate and trends.
Jonas must be rattled. After months of adhering to the conditions of being allowed to continue to use Tim's blog, he breaks those conditions:
[Dear Jonas, if you ever post to any thread other than this one (the Jonas thread), you will be banned.](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2011/09/jonas_thread.php#comment-5196151)
"Shouldn't this clown be put back in his own box?"
You should all take leaf out of John's #383 book,
"believe that opposing voices must be snuffed out!"
he, at least, recognizes the requirement for freedom of speech! "Snuffing out" dissenting voices is always a poor strategy. It's like conceding defeat before the game even starts.
;)
I didn't call for you to be banned, just pointed out the that you are so rattled that you are risking being banned in order to defend "dissuading teachers from teaching science".
Jonas
This may surprise you, but I did read your #393 & #398.
Ah yes, the familiar Jonas trolling tactic of paying someone a half compliment in an effort to snare into a time wasting non-discussion.
Heartland said "two key points that are effective at dissuading teachers from teaching science".
Jonas, given that you say "I very much would like the teachers to teach science" do you agree or disagree with Heartland's approach? Yes or no?
Olaus, what about you - do you think it is legitimate to pay $100k in an effort at "dissuading teachers from teaching science"?
"believe that opposing voices must be snuffed out!"
Nope, I'm not suggesting that a hit be contracted on Jonearse.
However, he's not an opposing voice, he's a trollidiot wasting everyone's time.
He's completely free to pop over to WTFUWT and talk there.
Oddly enough, your Heartland friends want climate scientists shut down, locked away or even killed.
Odd that you don't care about that, though.
Oh, and Olaus:
> GSW, its hilarious isn't it? Someone got payed
Brilliant. Any time you or anyone else makes a dimwitted claim about scientists seeking funding, I shall link to your comment there.
..except your weasel-words obscure that your version of science is at the fringe-quackery end of the spectrum, where you are unable to name any 'good' climate scientists because they don't accord with your primitive ideology.
You're a joke.
Dave H, I've been in the fund raising business for 15 years. So?
Heartland has an agenda, so has Greenpeace etc. What's your point? I don't like politicized research of any kind. The amount of money coming from climate scientology NGOs is much bigger though. Heartland is little league compared to the money in saving the planet World series.
That said, disqualifying scientific work solely on funding isn't the way to do it. If, for instance, someone claimed that 0.5 billion people depended on Himalayan glaciers for freshwater, I would not reject that statement based on dubious funding. First and foremost I would like to see how that figure came about in terms of science. If no such thing (science) can be brought forward, then I might go after the funding. Could it be that this lack of substance has something to do with the research team's close ties with eg Greenpeace?
;-)
I'm beginning to see the light. $5000 per unit for 20 units for one sub-section of one school subject.!!
No wonder these people want to knock public education "into shape" if they think this is the kind of money teachers make for putting curriculum materials together.
You should beware false equivalences Petri, even though you've been indoctrinated to hate 'environmentalism'.
Heartland is concerned with maximising the economic benefits for a few, any trickle-down propaganda notwithstanding, while whatever Greenpeace does in campaigning to protect the environment is for the benefit of all its inhabitants - including Heartland's funders in the longer term.
And it should not be surprising that some of the best enbvironmental scientists may actually choose to work for an organisation like Greenpeace in order to put their work into practice.
Scientist denies he is mouthpiece of US climate-sceptic think tank
> Heartland has an agenda, so has Greenpeace etc. What's your point?
Heartland has much more power, much more money and much greater personal gain in pushing their agenda.
You're like someone watching a nerdy kid you don't like getting beaten up by a gang of bullies going "Well, he can fight back, so what's the problem?".
Be nice if they were taught what a strawman is too. Heaven knows some people around here could do with learning that.
[Scribe](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2012/02/february_2012_open_thread.php#c…).
As with so much else that passes for thinking amongst the Denialati, Carter's rationalisations indicate that he is a master of that twisty discipline - cognitive gymnastics.
Apposite, if one thinks about it - when all is said and done, the emperors of that pseudo-intellectualism have no clothes...
And what ad hominem is.
Heck, what "fallacy" means.
Scribe, nice one, but fixed
'Scientist denies he is mouthpiece of US climate-septic think tank'
Carter considers that it is offensive to suggest that a US sceptic think tank is paying him monthly.
Sorry Bob, but your mangling of science is offensive and especially offensive to all those who will be adversely affected (i.e dead, after suffering) because of you and your ilk spouting BS to order. How about Australian mining interests then Bob? Can you claim freedom from their pecuniary tentacles?
He, Plimer and Michaels in particular are a disgrace for they should know better, and probably do, its just that once your up to your neck in corruption it's suicide so hard to break out.
Time to remind everyone about an earlier attempt involving Fred Singer, but not, according to an anonymous API mouthpiece, Candace Crandall (aka Candace Singer). Ha! Right!
Once more, I'd like to bring up this non-leaked diagram from Heartland:
http://ijish.livejournal.com/29235.html
-- frank
Lest we forget, how could we, our James 'interpreter of interpretations' attends Heartland conferences and could be thought of as Fred Singer's 'right-hand man'. Bishop Hill, Andrew Montford, has been know to enthuse about Delingpole's speeches.
Is there a list of all of Deltoid's 'personal thread' winners somewhere, those who have been given (and restricted to) a single personal thread for further posting at Deltoid? 'Jonas' and Curtin and so on.
I'd like to compare how that works vs. the Plonk list at Pharyngula
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/plonk.php
-- that method lists and sometimes gives pointers but doesn't provide a platform for posting.
Another (I use that word advisedly) escapee from the pen.
There's the rub, Peter.
There is something weird about the lack of intellectual integrity and competence shown by deniers.
So, Bob Carter is happy to work with a thinktank that long took tobacco money, is still taking tobacco money ($160K from Altria and Reynolds in 2011), whose President Bast defended Joe Camel, the most successful campaign in US tobacco history to get younger kids smoking.
See Fake science..., p.45, or the whole section starting p.43.
Morono's Climate Depot site is claiming the documents are a forgery. Looks like they forgot to tell Bob Carter.
Yes, we understand the terms. We also understand that the claim is a lie.
The empirical facts are that, globally, the MWP was cooler that the 20th century. Which does not mean that there is nowhere in the world where it was warmer during the MWP than subsequently. But that isn't what's relevant; what is relevant is that there is an energy imbalance and the result is that the globe -- mostly the oceans -- is warming.
Stupidity and intellectual corruption like yours is valuable, Peter; you should get the Heartland Institute to pay you for it.
...correction, Morono is claim a "key document" (singular) is a forgery. Looks like his strategy is going to be to distract by making the 'forgery' the story.
Morano would likely claim the "Climate Strategy" document is a hoax ... since the others are obviously real ...
but all it does is a dd a few more details around items discussed elsewhere. For instance, the Wojick stuff is a line-item in the budget.
[Lionel A](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2012/02/february_2012_open_thread.php#c…): Delingpole's question around the two-minute mark is now rather apposite.
Heartland's Jim Lakely [claims](http://heartland.org/press-releases/2012/02/15/heartland-institute-resp…) that at least one of the documents is a fake.
He also claims:
>The stolen documents were obtained by an unknown person who fraudulently assumed the identity of a Heartland board member and persuaded a staff member here to âre-sendâ board materials to a new email address. Identity theft and computer fraud are criminal offenses subject to imprisonment. We intend to find this person and see him or her put in prison for these crimes.
@ Anthony David 367 (and following) that DeSmogBlog post on the leaked Heartland Institute stuff is sheer gold (comedy gold at that). Carter, Plimer, Watts all with their snouts in the trough. A $1m campaign to "free up" the supply of non FDA approved medicines to the US public because the FDA has an "obsession" with public safety. You couldn't make it up.
Troll above: "The Heartland phrasing was bad, I fully agree."
BWahahaha! Wasn't this what was said about Jones, Trenberth and co. when CRU was hacked? How's that boot fitting now it's on the other foot? But of course the anti-science luddites led by the nose by shysters like Monckton (represented by the usual dipshits on Deltoid) will deny everything - let's face it they've had plenty of practice at denial.
From Heartland's "Expanded climate communications":
A gentle reminder to the usual trolls here - by all means hitch your wagon to the Heartland travelling circus, but don't be surprised when it leads you out into the wilderness.
If I was Bob Carter I would be outraged. No, make that OUTRAGED!!!! How dare they put him so far down the list of influencers and pay him so little compared with his compatriots.
PLease, please, have some feeling for the man.....
(Heh, Heh! Hah Hah! Ho Ho! I am so doubled over)
PS.Why can't I get on Jo Nova's blog tonight? Was it something Heartland said?
Paymentgate anyone?
Feeding Troughgate?
Backhandergate......nahh, thats just so Australian lobbying isn't it and the NSW Pokies industry owns it (yep, here in provincial London we know all about how the Pokies Industry has foiled Wilkie)
Egogate.......No, too obscure but dovetails well with the personalities involved
Bottomgate?
Cunning plangate?
Roaches scurrying away from sudden light gate?
Nope, Jo Nov's site is still down...........
From the WAToday.com.au piece
Heartland Confirms that it Mistakenly Emailed Internal Documents
@434
Discount Carter can now claim parity with Monckton.
Paymentgate anyone?
Cash for Clunkers.
Meanwhile in CurryWorld...
Seems to me any effort expended by the Heartland Inst on recruiting Curry would be redundant since she's already volunteered.
Locally, Cash for Carter
And I would have to say that Currygate happened on Kloorgate years ago now, and that Ms. Curry's bleatings ceased to be of any interest to anyone except Wattbots and Bishop-bashers ever since.
Note to Heartland - be ruthless on the retainer. After all, Carter must be pretty sick at seeing the Idso rate, but fuck'em, eh? Marks like that come two-a-penny.
And I would have to say that Currygate happened on Kloorgate years ago now, and that Ms. Curry's bleatings ceased to be of any interest to anyone except Wattbots and Bishop-bashers ever since.
Note to Heartland - be ruthless on the retainer. After all, Carter must be pretty sick at seeing the Idso rate, butfuck'em, eh? Marks like that come two-a-penny.
> How dare they put him so far down the list of influencers and pay him so little compared with his compatriots.
Indeed - Carter looks positively cheap.
Any flies on the virtual walls must be finding the post-revelation non-public communications between the various players quite fascinating.
Here is a search of the Heartland Institute homepage for articles on climategate. They certainly took that seriously. It's entertaining to compare their response to that act of theft with their actions when it's done to them.
Stinking hypocrites.
I urge Aussies here to download the PDF at Fake science, fakexperts, funny finances and free of tax.
Read the first 3 pages to see what's there, noting the left side of the flow diagram on p.3.
Then see H.3, especially pp.63-64 and especially the money flows to unnamed entities, some labeled Asia and Pacific.
end of p.64 guesses possible uses for that money.
Then see 0.4, 501(c)(3) tutorial,
especially p.10, Grants to Foreign Groups.
Finally, see H.1, p.55, where we see
âPart 1, Line 2 â Procedures for monitoring the use of grant funds.
The organization is âfriends ofâ the grant recipients therefore no major tracking
is necessary.â IRS-7F, IRS-10F
So, it looks like Heartland sent a bunch of money to unknown friends outside the US, who may well not be charities in their home country. (For instance, does anyone know if Jo Nova is a charity? If so, and money went there, could be sticky.) Go back and read p.10
The Age in Australia calls it "cash for climate". Australians would be familiar with that terminology.
Revkin's comments and correspondence with Craig Idso are worth a look or laugh.
http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/02/15/documents-appear-to-reveal…
Now after they've spent years making a fuss about govt funding corrupting AGW research, these people are going to have to desperately backtrack and start claiming that who funds their research doesn't matter and it should be assessed on its own merits. You can see Idso doing it already in Jemima's link.
They're moral pygmies.
ARCTIC EMERGENCY Global Threat
I thought the Fairfax 'Cash for Climate' take was rather good!
> Cash for Clunkers.
How about cash for clinkers. The quality of output is, um, very similar...
Funny how the Scandinavian Troll Collective have suddenly gone very quiet, in'it?
I understand they're all off running a cake stall to raise funds for Bjorn Lomborg...
And, over at The Guardian - Heartland don't do irony:
I'm sure they will be back once Watts and co have coordinated a response. You don't really expect them to think for themselves, do you?
Olaus
>I don't like politicized research of any kind. The amount of money coming from climate scientology NGOs is much bigger though. Heartland is little league compared to the money in saving the planet World series.
Climate scientists are being paid off to study AGW for political means? This would be exactly the kind of conspiracy theory you have been claiming you don't believe in.
Dear John, I told you some post ago that I believe foul play exists on both sides of the fence, but also that climate scientology was best explained using tools from the sociology of religions. See the diff?
Its also a big difference between "payed off" and "depended on", mind you. Its the latter that promotes group thinking and has nothing to do with conspiracies. Then add political muscles/cash cow with a dichotomous ideology and critical views and sound skepticism easily go in the bin. Got it?
And who falls into this category? :-)
I note that in quoting me Jonas edits out his name and the specific tactic he employs.
The septic tank over at Jonas's thread has filled up and some of it has overflowed here. It does'nt half pong of regurgitated tripe from denier blogs.
Olaus, you say: "climate scientology was best explained using tools from the sociology of religions"
OK, once again I'll call you on that. The scientific underpinning of climate change has been developed through research undertaken in multiple institutions in multiple countries; published through peer reviewed literature, in journals that encourage debate and discourse; discussed at single discipline and multi-disciplinary conferences, many of which have an open submission policy for abstracts (e.g. EGU General Assembly and the AGU Fall Meeting, at which I have personally seen Steve McIntyre present, by the way); and then supported by unequivocal statements by all of the major National Science Academies around the world, each of which has examined the evidence underpinning the science and come to the same conclusion.
So I challenge you to explain clearly and succinctly in what way this resembles either religion or scientology.
I bet (as usual) you won't even try, which says it all. Prove me wrong.
Dear MikeH, I gather that's why you sectarians always are invoking 'us" in this thread then â all by yourself. :_)
>but also that climate scientology was best explained using tools from the sociology of religions.
You mean you prefer describing it in non-scientific, religious terms to avoid actually talking about the science.
>Then add political muscles/cash cow with a dichotomous ideology and critical views and sound skepticism easily go in the bin. Got it?
>And who falls into this category? :-)
Anthony Watts :-)
Olaus, you claimed you didn't believe in conspiracies, but now you're opening admitting to believing that groups like Greenpeace (an envrionmental group who do not study climate) are deliberately spending big money pushing global warming for political purposes. That sounds like a pretty big conspiracy to me!
Friends.
It is clear that conversing with Wendy WrightOlaus Petri is a waste of time for it is clear that he thinks like Wendy Wright, that is 'tunnel thinking', and considers all forms of human knowledge to be based upon forms of religious belief.
OP's language gives the game away, now with 'sectarians' added to 'scientology' (which is a cult) and other religious memes.
Olaus. Go back and srudy my #253 to discover why you are so very wrong. Also consider how your life would not be what it is without the steady progress made by careful scientific enquiry. Are you aware that those developing weapons for air warfare confirmed the effects of CO2 WRT heat radiation and the development of IR guided missiles?
Any more stupidity from you deserves the sin bin, same for Jonas and his ilk. We have seen quite enough in this thread already. I doubt very much that you know when to stop of your own accord.
>And who falls into this category? :-)
SPPI?
;)
I agree with Lionel A and John.
Petri doesn't have the ability to make his case. He just parrots second hand memes passed down by the think tanks that chime with his limited understanding. These are people, remember who laud Jonas as a genius. Enough said.
Gack, the projection in here is so thick lately someone's probably filed patents for holographic technology already.
What are the highest taxed commodities ?
Fuel ?
Cigarettes ?
I suppose government funded climate research is funded by big oil and big tobacco after all.
Since fuel get big breaks and several companies in the oil industry got a TAX REFUND, they aren't funding climate research.
Your use of it (you pay that tax on fuel, and it's a pittance, by the way) pays for some things. Please show evidence it pays for climate change.
Not having noted a mention of the Heartland imbroglio on the BBC website I emailed them this message earlier today (and posted a copy at Desmog:
For a good laugh see Heartless pleading with their donors for more money to pay for:
It is much more likely that the "legal defense fund" will be used to defend themselves against a number of lawsuits entered by the IRS for illegal use of the Charity provisions in income tax law.
The memo also states that their donors must be proud to donate to Heartless but how much pride if you have to remain anonymous so that intelligent people can't see how dishonest you are being in funding such a despicable outfit as Heartless?
oops, the link for the quote in my previous post is:
http://motherjones.com/blue-marble/2012/02/heartland-institute-document…
Lionel, the BBC are too afraid of being called partisan, they won't do a thing until at least one of the major right wing papers picks it up.
Tony managed to emasculate them pretty effectively.
Wow
My intent was to see if the Beeb would cover this story. They have no excuse now for ignorance.
OTOH I have noted that when climate related stories have been in the news they have not trotted ol' Benny again. Next the GWPF for exposure to daylight, now I wonder where some of their funding has come from?
Tim, what does post #472 even mean (in plain English)?
Surely, unless this preening self-obsessedphuckwit is kept strictly in his pen, this blog will lose infinitely more valuable contributions from the likes of such as Jeff Harvey whom the Jonarse collective have targeted mercilessly and personally since they alighted on this blog.
The Beeb did cover the story.
Like The Guardian this is all filed under 'Environment', as if it was not of general interest - not a limitation that was placed on their Climategate coverage, I might add (at least for CG Round 1. As we all know Round 2 died-in-the-arse even more spectacularly than Lomborg's 'Cool It' movie.)
Anyway, the provenenance issue will stay their hands for the time being. It's still all up over at DeSmog with the 'DeSmogBlog has received no direct communications from the Heartland Institute identifying any misstatement'.
Graham Readfearn's piece - focusing on Carter - is very interesting.
Oh, and speaking of hypocrisy - this got caught in moderation (damn the 3 strikes rule!) yesterday - Heartland tells The Guardian:
Well, lookee here!
There is no limit to this guy's projection.
Bill,
Well I missed that Beeb piece yesterday and saw nothing prominently displayed in any of today's BBC pages.
I note that Black refers to the GWPF also - good. Now the Beeb need to follow up, considering the fuss made of the CRU hack.
That carefully inserted 'apparently' rather torpedoes the remainder of your statement, if you hadn't twigged that, moron.
>For once you are correct: If that document indeed was genuine. If the poor grammar, phrasing and punctuation, if the convoluted use of passive form and 1st person (without signature) indeed would be authentic ...
>.. then my point would be void, wouldn't it?
*Touche*!
Jonas, away with you! Seriously, who'd miss you? You're only here under sufference, you've been confined to your pen, and yet here you are, carrying on like the proverbial porkchop, and swanning around as though you own the place!
Why don't you and the rest of your tedious cohort stop clogging the intertubes and go and run a cake stall to raise money for your mate Bjorn. Or something.
At any rate, sod off.
Good news, Heartland are going to sue the entire internet:
> We respectfully ask all activists, bloggers, and other journalists to immediately remove all of these documents and any quotations taken from them, especially the fake âclimate strategyâ memo and any quotations from the same, from their blogs, Web sites, and publications, and to publish retractions.
> The individuals who have commented so far on these documents did not wait for Heartland to confirm or deny the authenticity of the documents. We believe their actions constitute civil and possibly criminal offenses for which we plan to pursue charges and collect payment for damages, including damages to our reputation. We ask them in particular to immediately remove these documents and all statements about them from the blogs, Web sites, and publications, and to publish retractions.
> How did this happen? The stolen documents were obtained by an unknown person who fraudulently assumed the identity of a Heartland board member and persuaded a staff member here to âre-sendâ board materials to a new email address. Identity theft and computer fraud are criminal offenses subject to imprisonment. We intend to find this person and see him or her put in prison for these crimes.
About that potentially fake document....
"Heartland claims the documents were stolen, and that one â relating to their strategy on climate denial â was faked, even though the main points in that âconfidential memoâ are corroborated by the other documents."--Hot Topic
And from John Mashey's comment over at Hot Topic:
"Some of us have carefully read the other documents,
and the disputed one has ~zero real information not found elsewhere.Personally, I think itâs irrelevant.
When the documents surfaced, I only glanced at that, but looked hard at the others, which inter-corrobarate with mine.
The education plan is laid out in section H. of the Fundraising document, and it is perfectly consistent with Heartlandâs efforts shown in Figure W.4.1, PARENTS line, and in the articles in App. Z."
The [Heartland statement](http://blog.heartland.org/2012/02/heartland-institute-responds-to-stole…) on the document release.
Feb 15 2012, Jim Lakely
The [Heartland statement](http://heartland.org/policy-documents/climategate-opportunity-stop-and-…) on the CRU stolen emails.
November 23, 2009, Joesph Bast
For those with a sense of blackish humour, don your head-vice, and toddle on over to Heartland's blog...
Truly, you couldn't make it up.
For those of you interested in a name for the event, Dellers and others have decided for you, it's "FakeGate".
Josh, as always, captures the moment perfectly,
http://www.bishop-hill.net/blog/2012/2/16/heartfelt-but-not-heartland-j…
;)
> Heartland are going to sue the entire internet.
I suspect they took "You win the Internet" a bit too literally...
Josh's work is, as usual, poorly drawn and unfunny.
But, let's face it, there's something second-rate about your entire enterprise!
> Josh, as always, captures the moment perfectly,...
Josh, is that you under there? ;-)
Actually, I think the phrase "Money used to explain science" was quite funny, although not in the way Josh intended.
GSW, Josh is right on the money, as usual. FakeGate...:-)
Who you gonna call?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wKB7zfopiUA
:-)
@ GSW 482, your usual thin and unconvincing stuff. Do be sure you tell your pals over at Bishop Shill to make the most of whatever amusement you can find before the IRS starts investigating Heartland's dubious activities as a tax-free "charitable foundation".
Isn't it about time "Josh" was charged for "going under false pretences"? I'd always thought cartoonists were supposed to be 1) satirical and 2) funny.
Olaus, given that you have reappeared please can you address my challenge of #456.
I predicted that "you won't even try." It is no surprise that I was right.
SteveC
There is a third requirement steve, they guy reading the cartoon also needs to have a sense of humour.
Olaus, how do you keep finding these things? the Ghostbusters video was excellent!
;)
@ GSW, how predictable of you to say that. But nope, I've definitely got one of those, someone my age has to or I'd never get out of bed.