August 2012 Open Thread

Got a letter from my energy company yesterday. "Uh-oh" I thought, "Price rise time".

But no - I've had 100% green power for as long as I've lived in my current abode, and the electricity tariff has been dropped substantially. Good news!

Not such good news, the crappy piece by David Evans in The Age today. Terrible bit of writing.

Thanks, "trikeabout", comments now closed.

Clearly, a number of the Age readers called his head in arse "BS" propaganda for watt it is and will always remain.

Ah, the first of the many head in arse lies and propaganda Gina Rhinoarse, will cause to be printed in "The Melbourne Age". A tragic end is now in sight, as the editor under Gina Rhinoarses direct orders, takes up residence in "lunaticville".

David Evans, writes an interesting pile of insane head in arse logic and incoherent bull dust strawmen gish gallop of complete nonsense.

As Forrest Gump, would say "Stupid is as stupid does".

cui bono

Yeah, I got letter the other day telling me my 100% wind tariff was dropping substantially (44%)!

Rock and roll!

We have an old 1Kw SPV, and use 100% Wind to make up for what the Net Feed In Tariff hasn't paid us for. Even with such a small system and 5 adults in the household electricity bills aren't scary. In summer they're pretty-well non-existent.

I've yet to discover what the reduction in the 100% offset tariff we also pay for our Natural Gas consumption will be, but, frankly, the GBNT being the end of the world? Phhhhht... make a few changes and save money while you're saving the world... ;-)

Story on the Drum website here :

http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/4169648.html

of possible albeit grim interest.

How to be a Blog Scientist*

1) Accuse real scientists of not properly accounting for biases in their data.

2) Conduct 'analyses' wherein you do not account for any biases or systematic errors in the data.

3) Complain that real scientists do not release their data or code, even when they have.

4) Do not release your data or code.

5) Accuse others of 'improperly' releasing papers prior to publication.

6) Release your paper prior to submission for publication.

7) On releasing your paper, expect that others on the internet will do the hard (and no-so-hard) intellectual work for you.

8) Bugger it, ask your 'scientific' mates to do the work for you, but don't tell them exactly what you have and haven't done to clean your data.

9) 'Teach' yourself statistics two days before you release your first draft.

10) Add your mates as authors to your paper, without asking them, or telling them where the paper is to be sent, or with supplying authorship statement forms.

11) Disseminate a press release that is at odds with both your draft paper, your coauthors, and with the real scientific literature.

12) Dig and delve.

[* Qualifications, training,and experience not prereqisite.]

StevoR, that ABC article quotes Professor Richard Muller and his flawed study as is if it was credible ?

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/07/29/why-the-best-papers-failed-to-pas…

SteveR the reason alarmists are losing their climate propaganda war is because all of their predictions have failed miserably, yes all.

The general public are now gasping on the climate change stench and want know why they have been lied to, and screaming about the warm weather in the US while the rest of the planet froze really did look dumb.

I agree with DarylD, "As Forrest Gump, would say “Stupid is as stupid does”.

cui bono

StevoR - wow that's a depressing read. Especially the comments - the very first one I read claimed the Industrial Revolution was from 1850-1900. *sigh*

Spots, isn't Christy using the NON PEER REVIEWED and FAILED Watts paper *in front of Congress*?

How does that work?

From the thread at the Stoat, Arthur Smith writes:

Christy didn’t mention the Watts paper in his spoken testimony, but Senator Boxer (D from CA, and chair) absolutely slammed him for referring to it in writing, asking him whether it was peer-reviewed and how could he be relying on one unreviewed paper, she trusted in the many reviewed papers that supported warming. Christy looked like he wanted to crawl somewhere and hide.

Rattus Norvegicus follows up with the video:

Christy free for all begins around 120:00 or there abouts. Questions from Boxer around 130:00.

In case this gets missed by the opening of a new Open Thread reposted from the previous:

And if anybody is unsure as to which way John Christy is punting then KR at SkS has the nugget. But here is another link to Christy’s written testimony, PDF, avoiding WUWT.

Thanks for that video link, Lotharsson, and to the .pdf Lionel.
It's no surprise that Inhofe is as much an ignorant slimeball as ever. However I hadn't quite realised till now that Christy is too, So much for 'honest' denialism which, on the evidence of that pair, doesn't exist.

Very informative.

I think we all knew this Watts thing was going to be a debacle, but who could have foreseen the complete disaster that Watts would unleash upon us?

Usually whenever there's a beatup in the denialosphere you'll find one of our erstwhile fake skeptics here gloating all about it (and ignoring the fact it's the opposite of what they said before). This week - not a peep. Nobody wants to be tainted by this thing. Nobody wants to be the person who stands up for Watts and his "methods".

'Karen', for the benefit of complete idiots - e.g. you - all Muller's 'discredited' paper did was reinforce what we already knew from the rest of science.

Whereas Watt's discredited pile of 'paper' has turned out to be an extraordinary, Joe Bast level, own-goal.

That's why it's only you and the other brainless prat still here - your fellow-travellers may well be as thick as something very thick indeed that's having a particularly dense day, but even they can recognise this trainwreck as something to avoid.

Not you, of course, but then things like you can only gum up the works for everyone else by congealing on things in numbers...

Nobody wants to be tainted by this thing. Nobody wants to be the person who stands up for Watts and his “methods”.

Except for Karen of course who struggles to rise to the level of being merely clueless.

Wasn't Anthony Watts going to stand by the results of the Muller's group even if they contradicted his views?

As the SS Wattsupwiththat slowly keels over and slides stern first beneath the waves with its former staunch sceptical and scientifically qualified supporters taking to the lifeboats, I see Anthony and his remnant not-so-bright followers huddled together on the bow railing reassuring each other: "Nothing to see here. It's all fine. The alarmists have lost. The band is still playing. We'll all have a lovely evening."

"the crappy piece by David Evans in The Age today"

And what a dog's breakfast it is. Let me see if I can follow what he says.

The "serious" skeptics accept that CO2 rise itself causes some warming, which would be about 0.6 deg C out of the existing 0.8 C. this leaves a lot of warming which requires an explanation which is that the Sun's magnetic field is reducing Cosmic rays (which hasn't been measured BTW) so there is less cloudiness and more sunlight reaching the surface of the earth. (Never mind that this is falsified by nights warming more than days.) Because warming is completely explained by these two processes, there are no other processes occurring such as water vapor feedback, sulphate aerosols, or oceanic heat absorption. There is no water vapor feedback even though water vapor is the strongest greenhouse gas and it increases as it gets warmer. Sulphate aerosols are insignificant because their effect is difficult to measure. There is no oceanic heat absorption because it is difficult to measure. Also, the warming which is explained by CO2 rise on its own and (yet to be measured) declining Cosmic rays didn't actually happen anyway, it was just low flying passenger aircraft over the Arctic Ocean causing it to melt faster in Summer. (OK, he said it was thermometers sitting outside air-conditioners and in aircraft exhausts at airports. He also forgot to mention the aircraft exhausts hitting the satellites.)

As I said, a dog's breakfast.

Wasn’t Anthony Watts going to stand by the results of the Muller’s group even if they contradicted his views?

Googling "I’m prepared to accept whatever result they produce, even if it proves my premise wrong" produces about 27,000 results. Not bad for an exact quote this long.

@ Chris

Yeah I figured that'd be the case. But let's face it......we all knew he was full of crap and there was absolutely no way he was ever going to accept any scientific evidence of a warming planet due to greenhouse gas emissions, even if he ends up the last man standing.

To be so caught up in denialism and conspiracy theories that there's simply no way out, you have to have a very tenuous grip on sanity.

Muller and then McKibben, interviewed today on DN!

McKibben, like Romm, knows how to frame things.

http://www.democracynow.org/2012/8/2/bill_mckibben_of_350org_even_indus…

Shame that Muller hasn't figured out that anthropogenic climate change is affecting the kinds of weather events he cites as "not caused by global warming". (At the end of the interview he rejects the term "climate change".) And he's still touting his book claiming that "...essentially 90% of what [An Inconvenient Truth] presented was exaggerated or distorted or just false".

Then again, he's only caught up to climate science circa 1980. Maybe he'll have further re-evaluations of his own opinion as he catches up another few decades.

I also wonder if he can actually point to "clean non-earthquake fracking" technology, or whether he's not quite up to speed in that area either. I remember reading about a minor scandal a few days ago where a professor analysing fracking turned out to have fairly direct financial interests in companies engaged in fracking. I'm also not up to speed on that area myself - anyone know more?

He also seems to be woefully out of touch with the latest research on the level of warming that will start to have dangerous impacts when he insists "Global warming, so far, has not been very much."

Muller also reiterates his early insistence that Mann is wrong on a number of points, and given the issues with some of his previous (and apparently less-informed) pronouncements, I wonder how well those claims stand up to scrutiny by those who know what they're talking about.

Methinks there's a touch of Dunning-Kruger going on, but maybe it's just plain hubris ;-)

“…essentially 90% of what [An Inconvenient Truth] presented was exaggerated or distorted or just false”.

It's somewhat correct. What AID presented HAS been exaggerated, distorted or just false.

Like, for example, the claim that Al Gore says in it that there will be a 20ft increase in sea levels by 2100.

A false claim people have made about AIT. He doesn't do that. Nobody can find where he does. Transcripts don't show it and even denialists who INSIST it is there can only point to some other denialist saying it said it (at best, many can only point to people saying people said that people say he said it...).

AIT, not AID.

McKibben's article at Rolling Stone.

Muller argues that about 0.8C of warming to date is "not very much". The article suggests otherwise (which matches other published research I've seen):

"Any number much above one degree involves a gamble," writes Kerry Emanuel of MIT, a leading authority on hurricanes, "and the odds become less and less favorable as the temperature goes up." Thomas Lovejoy, once the World Bank's chief biodiversity adviser, puts it like this: "If we're seeing what we're seeing today at 0.8 degrees Celsius, two degrees is simply too much." NASA scientist James Hansen, the planet's most prominent climatologist, is even blunter: "The target that has been talked about in international negotiations for two degrees of warming is actually a prescription for long-term disaster." At the Copenhagen summit, a spokesman for small island nations warned that many would not survive a two-degree rise: "Some countries will flat-out disappear." When delegates from developing nations were warned that two degrees would represent a "suicide pact" for drought-stricken Africa, many of them started chanting, "One degree, one Africa."

Which is a real problem, because:

... computer models calculate that even if we stopped increasing CO2 now, the temperature would likely still rise another 0.8 degrees, as previously released carbon continues to overheat the atmosphere.

And that's before the article analyses our emissions trajectory and concludes that (a) we'll emit enough in about the next 16 years to ultimately breach 2C, and (b) we're on course for 6C if nothing much changes.

The article discusses a report that says that proven fossil fuel reserves are about 5 times as much as we can afford to burn if we want to limit ourselves to a 20% chance of exceeding 2C, and committing to not burning the 4x excess would mean writing off about $20 TRILLION of current market value.

Also, nice use of radical free-market worshipper rhetoric to make a point:

You could argue that this is simply in the nature of these [fossil fuel] companies – that having found a profitable vein, they're compelled to keep mining it, more like efficient automatons than people with free will. But as the Supreme Court has made clear, they are people of a sort. In fact, thanks to the size of its bankroll, the fossil-fuel industry has far more free will than the rest of us.

Go read the whole thing.

Methinks there’s a touch of Dunning-Kruger going on, but maybe it’s just plain hubris

More like, 'Walking back to Kochiness. Oompah! Oh yeh, yeh, yeh!' Apologies to Helen Shapiro.

So Gina 'no heart' Rinehart doesn't give a toss about the Great Barrier Reef

Strange as it sounds, it pays to comment at WUW T, Curry's etc., maybe with less snark, but to establish reputation.

But what if the reputation you are shooting for is snark?

James Hansen lays it out in the Wa' Po'

An El Nino's (probably) coming</a., which gives the deniers a few months to work out how they are going to spin it. I suspect we won't hear much from Bob "global cooling" Carter. Perhaps they will blame it on weather stations being close to air conditioners in the US. Yep, that one.

curse my sticky keys

Karen says the rest of the planet froze....hmmm.
NOAA says 4th warmest June globally. Northern Hemisphere land and ocean average surface temp warmest June on record. And the globally averaged land temp was warmest June on record too.

http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/global/2012/6

Heh, so TD Securities' and the Melbourne Institute's latest survey indicates that the carbon tax has had no effect on food, transport or anything else other than utility prices. Further, inflation is bordering on a three year low.

No, the sky is not falling, No, cats and dogs are not living together. So much for the GBNT...

On the other hand, if Australia and the world can continue forward with addressing the human emissions that are affecting the planet's climate, we might actually be able to mitigate some of the worst effects in that area, that we are otherwise putting in train.

Apologies, if folks have beaten me to it and linked this already but y'all might wish to check out this :

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/global-warmings-terrifying-ne…

great online article by Bill McKibben via Rolling Stone magazine. Some powerful stuff and facts there.

Recently I brought to light some anti-Semitic comments by my favourite group of elderly cranks, the Galileo Movement.

Suddenly Andrew Bolt, a man they have longed claimed is their advisor, is none too happy to be associated with these artless frauds. Funny, I didn't see him decrying the association before.

I wonder where the Galileo Movement appropriated their anti-Semetic conspiracy theory from?

Why, it would be Christopher Monckton, of course!

The same Christopher Monckton who appeared on the Bolt Report.

Double standards, my friend.

Double standards.

And a special mention must go to the long, rambling, conspiracy filled rant from Malcolm Roberts in the comments section of Bolt's blog.

Was Roberts' citing of the carpet-chewing Glenn Beck meant to add a shedload of irony, letting us all into the obvious big joke that the Galileo Movement really is, or ... doesn't he do irony?

A few months ago I fruitlessly tried to convince a contributor to WUWT that radiation from a cooler upper atmosphere to a warmer earth surface does not violate the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics. It's just occurred to me that if it is impossible for radiation to proceed from a cooler object to a warmer one, then it would be impossible for the human eye to see anything that is cooler than body temperature. Perhaps I'll try that argument next time, although I doubt it will make anyone switch on their brain.

RS

WRT 2nd Law of Thermodynamics and radiation your protagonist would not have been named Tim Curtin by any chance?

Gone a bit quiet around here?

Question. I just saw the news report of a new paper that found ocean acidification affecting shells. What I am unable to tell though is if the study occurred in the lab or field. Here is the link to the <A href=" http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1365-2486.2012.02755.x/abs…

I’ll try that argument next time, although I doubt it will make anyone switch on their brain

Denier brains have a special valve that only lets through arguments that support their ideology. You may be able to to make a dent here or there, but the system is self-healing.

@Trent

Not read the paper, just quickly scanned the abstract. I'd say it would have to be the field. "Latitudinal" suggests, polar regions tropics etc. Any artificial environment replicating these would necessarily be flawed, ie by definition artificial.

Think what they have done is collect a number of specimens of the same species over a wide area and tried to establish some phenotype benchmarks based on latitude (shell thickness etc).

Don't know if that helps.

WRT 2nd Law of Thermodynamics and radiation your protagonist would not have been named Tim Curtin by any chance?

No. It was Theodore White, 'astrometeorologist'. He kept on citing authority for his claims, but could not progress beyond that.

What I've never been able to get is how anyone - even the kind of epic dill that embraces Denial - can not have seen through the likes of Monckton from the off.

Let us not forget his recent espousal of 'freedom loving' parties, his Birtherism, as well as the continual - and ludicrous - Marxist / Bankster one-world-government raving.

I suspect that the lack of reaction is the result of two factors, in various combinations: one; being very thick indeed, and two; being sympathisers / equivalent conspiracy nuts.

It really is all unravelling quite spectacularly for them, isn't it?

@Trent. Confirming @GSW's response. The methods section of the paper commences with a 'Sample collection' subsection: "Twelve sites were investigated across tropical, temperate, and polar latitudes .."

You may be interested in the
Free Ocean Carbon dioxide Experiments which is creating a "natural laboratory" varying CO2 concentrations and measuring actual reef responses.

Hmm. That should have linked to http://phys.org/news/2012-07-field-effects-ocean-acidification-coral.ht… The lack of preview is annoying.

Thank you Anthony David and GSW.

Denier brains have a special valve that only lets through arguments that support their ideology.

A.k.a. Morton's demon.

Or for those that prefer cartoons:
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3

Ah - 'preconceptual science'; there's a term that could catch on!

Richard Simons Aug 6th 6.10pm. comment.
You've obviously got a brain with lights switched on but nobody home, unless you have a special AGW brain with eyes that can see long wave IR radiation. Boy we have a right one here.!
Aaahahahahahahahahahahaha

Gosh, karenmackspot, do you think that the scientists use their EYES to record the IR radiation?

Or did you just not know that SSDs are used for that?

PS there's this new idea that light is pacelled up into discrete packets rather than emitted as a continuous wave. You may want to read up on this new idea.

Mack, we're really going to have to preserve your brain - well, at least the squishy object you keep in your skull - for science and posterity. This persistent thing where you gloat even though it's clearly you that's the idiot is really quite extraordinary and merits examination...

And Wow, Mack doubtlessly assumes 'discrete packets' to mean things from under the counter at the Newsagents... don't forget that Professor Tim C pointed out that they're imaginary anyway!

There it is again that inane, insane cackle of a Mackookaburra Aaahahahahahahahahahahaha, swept up in the wake of that Pied Curtin.

PS. The original record was released in 1966, I recall where I was at the time, curiously the B side was the same dirge but recorded backwards.

And,of course, Einstein's description says specifically and clearly that light does not fall as discrete corpuscles. Because "Does" "Not" "Fall" "As" "Discrete" and "Corpuscles" all appear in his paper.

Not necessarily in that order, but they all appear.

Pathetic distractive red herrings those discrete packets. No doubt you two and Richard Simons have X-ray vision as well....Super Ignoramuses.

No, they're not distractive red herrings.

So we have a discrete packet of energy as a photon with an energy of, say, 20meV approaches an object that absorbs photons at that energy.

Is this impossible if that object is at, say, 20C?

Looks as though the Boy-Named-Karen's last neurone just apoptosed.

He won't notice the difference.

What's that got to do with the electromagnetic spectrum and Richard Simons uncanny ability to see outside the visible range wow?
Old Lino, That song must really resonate with you eh.

But how can it exist if you can't see it, Karenmackspot?

So you don't know the answer, Mack?

Or know that it proves you wrong, therefore avoid it?

And Richard isn't talking about seeing beyond the visible spectrum, but being able to see something that is cooler than his body temperature.

Whatadoofusyouarekarenmackspot.

Heh heh.

I addressed the Karensock, and the Macksock replies.

The fool just can't help himself.

When I made my comment, I fully realized that there would be idiots who would see the stupidity of it, but fail to understand that it follows naturally from the argument some clowns make, that radiation cannot transfer energy from a cooler object to a warmer one. I've no idea why Mack is bleating about IR radiation and I don't imagine he could explain just what he is jeering about.

Mack: are you claiming that there are no people who claim that a cooler object cannot radiate energy to a warmer one because of the 2nd Law?
Or are you claiming that, even if the 2nd Law meant no radiation goes from a cooler body to a warmer one, we would still be able to see cold objects? If so, how?

Face it, Mack, you didn't get beyond 'That's stupid' before mocking.

Mack seems to think that the 2LOT prevents IR from radiating from hot to cold bodies but that visible light operates under completely different physical laws ... if he thinks at all. It is of course quite ironic that someone as deeply stupid as Mack denigrates the intelligence of others, but it's inevitable that people like Mack exist, and really not worth bothering with them.

I addressed the Karensock, and the Macksock replies.

Don't be as stupid as Mack ... he responded to Lionel.

Er, actually, he responded to both wow and Lionel ... but not to Bernard.

To Mikem, @8:39...you said, "But let’s face it……we all knew he was full of crap and there was absolutely no way he was ever going to accept any scientific evidence of a warming planet due to greenhouse gas emissions, even if he ends up the last man standing."

As a practicing earth scientist, I'll go on record as predicting...

He will be. With his *staunch* buttbuddy, Jim Inhofe, by his side....

Well, at least we've established why people like 'Mack' can't see melting glaciers... ;-)

Richard Simmons trys to worm his way out of claiming that he can't see anything at a higher temp. than his eyeballs. Richard I recommend sticking your head in a bucket of ice once a day to improve your quality of life.

Hmmm.

Indeed, KMSPPMM has exchanged musical criticism with Lionel. My screen must be colder than body temperature.

Either that, or Stupid is contagious. Perhaps I'm overdue for an immunisation and an eye test. Moneypenny, book an appoinment with Dr Inferno.

Mack tried to claim (wrongly) that Richard said he couldn't see anything colder than his eyeballs. Now he tries to claim (wrongly) that Richard said he couldn't see anything warmer than his eyeballs.

Consistency is not the strong suit of the denialtariat...

Mack: take a step or two back, take a deep breath and try to untangle yourself.

Well Richard you have Frank D( above you) willing to argue about the temp. of your eyeballs so that must be of comfort. He's obviously even a bigger fool than you.

He’s obviously even a bigger fool than you.

Oh, Teh Irony.

No, wait - Oh, Teh Complete Lack Of Self Awareness...

...coupled with Epic Comprehension Fail.

Ho Ho: Mack not the real smartist? That's unpossible! Him ever in clever things more than you are much all of you, ha ha!

Karen, being as you're so clever, you can tellus if the absorption of a photon depends on the temperature of the absorber.

Or are you too dumb to know the answer?

I'll ask Mack a simple question:

What is the difference between heat and temperature?

Well we may as well start with the basics.

Nah, it's already said it knows how light is absorbed. The question I asked is pretty basic: does the absorption of a photon depend on the temperature of the absorber?

At first there was Mackook fluffing and now there are farting trees.

And if that isn't bad enough here we have a compilation of Arctic woes .

Little wonder that the KrakenSpotDuffs are lying low.

Far from being interested in the temperature of Richards eyeballs, I'm only pointing out Macks feeble attempts to distract from her own epic stupidity. But if she insists on displaying it, far be it from me to stop the lulz...

Mack shows that he can't even comprehend two simple english declarative sentences. Therefore, I marvel that others even entertain the notion he's capable even of misunderstanding thermodynamics.

I don't know about how big a fool he is, but his reading age appears to be on a par with that of my cat.

Yes FrankD but I'll bet your cat is cute.

In other news, a journalist graduate from Melbourne University, tells a sad tale of watt it is like, to work for the Murdoch Media Propaganda Machine.

In her own words:

"But as an aspiring student journalist it
would be wrong of me to not bring light to
scenarios I believe demean us all.
I’ll never be employed by 'The Hun', but
that’s not something I mourn. I usually feel
sad when poring over decreasing readerships
and closed mastheads. But any force—
declining revenue, ethical maelstroms, online
competition—that can injure this publication,
should be met with party poppers, streamers and
a piñata of a certain “climate skeptic’s” head.
If Australia’s big mastheads all function
like this then I say bring on their decline.
Rip down the banners that have led to media
exclusivity and elitism. Huzzah to the future
of online, diverse reporting.
Even if it fucks up, at least it’s not as bad
as 'The Hun'."

Article link ; http://printgraphics.net.au/myfiles/Farrago_5_2012/files/assets/basic-h…

Melbourne Age Link: http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/article-pits-hun-against-student-inte…

Cheers ;)

The collapse of the Goddawful Murdoch Empire should indeed be celebrated.

It's strident, cynical, pseudo-'populist' amalgamation of the worldviews of the yobbo thug and the boardroom headkicker are a manifestation of everything that's repulsive in contemporary 'conservatism'.

The thought of a genuine news empire - Fairfax - becoming a channel for the political ambitions - and the court - of yet another billionaire is genuinely tragic, however.

Michael Mann lists "8 Fibs" by Muller on "Democracy Now" (the show was linked to by bill above, and commented on in this thread).

Let's just say they don't make Muller look good.

Thanks Lotharson - I'm glad he took the time to do that!

I was just over at Eli's and realised I've dropped the second 's' above - apologies!

I am confused.

The Mann responses to the eight fibs of Muller, linked by Lotharsson, does not seem to follow the dialogue in that August 2nd 2012 Democracy Now piece 'Climate Skeptic, Koch-Funded Scientist Richard Muller Admits Global Warming Real & Humans The Cause', linked by Bill.

What have I missed?

Whatever, Muller is still confusing some issues and his suggestion of pushing China to a natural gas economy indicates that he may have connections with that industry. Either that or he is still playing catch up on the reality outside of fossil funded academia.

Muller still wants to be liked by the denialists.

I lost internet before getting to the end of that August 2 2012 DN broadcast but have now had an opportunity to follow through all makes sense now.

Natural gas and energy conservation is what he is pushing, apart from his new, and previous books, which I intend avoiding. I am not about to add to this creatures pension fund.

Muller also produces a quick whitewash of the Koch Brothers, where's my bucket, hughie.....!

Richard Muller: “Okay, let me give you a little background on that. The NOAA announced that this is the warmest year on record for the United States – that immediately surprised me because I’ve been looking at the world record, and I’d seen that the temperature had actually gone down, compared to the last five years.

So I looked it up, and sure enough, the 2% of the world that happens to be the United States is a record warm, the 98% of the world, the rest of it, was actually cool.

Okay, we’re having a heat spell. To call that “global warming” – and the globe isn’t warming - is just an attempt to grab headlines .. to get the public interested in this important issue.”
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/08/09/a-fascinating-new-interview-with-…

LOL

.......and what Roy says about the US temperatures.

"As far as daily HIGH temperatures go, 1936 was the clear winner. But because daily LOW temperatures have risen so much, the daily AVERAGE July temperature in 2012 barely edged out 1936.

Now, of course, we have that nagging issue of just how much urban heat island (UHI) effect remains in the data. The NCDC “homogenization” procedures are not really meant to handle long-term UHI warming, which has probably occurred at most of the 1218 stations used in the above plot.

Also, minimum temperatures are much more influenced by wind conditions and other factors near the surface…Max temperatures give a much better idea of how warm an air mass is over a deep layer.

Also, I thought one month doesn’t make a climate trend? If we look at the 5-year running mean of the daily averages for July’s over the last 100 years, we see that while recent Julys have indeed been warm, it is questionable whether they rival the 1930s:"

LOL, still no globull warming :)

Here is a clip from the camera on the sea ice near the North Pole, it clearly demonstrates how the storms in the Arctic smash the sea ice to smithereens and the numpties then wave their little arms around and scream the arctic is on fire.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=s4f2YhGnRwQ

Kraken sucking on the poison from WUWT probably based on Muller's obfuscation during a Democracy Now interview.

Meanwhile in the real world we see this

August 9 News: Drought Across Three Continents Drops Crop Stockpiles, Raises Import Costs To $1.24 Trillion

this:

2012 Has Already Set More Daily Heat Records Than All Of 2011, And More Are On The Way

and this:

Is Greenland close to a climate tipping point?

So, having got your head out off '7th rock from the sun' go look up on these headings:

Arctic Death Spiral Continues: Record Low Sea Ice Volume Appears Likely

How Much Water Debt Are We Taking On? This Scary Map Shows How Much

James Hansen On The New Climate Dice And Public Perception Of Climate Change

and on the reliability, or more like unreliability of Watts check out the Watts/BEST/Christy circus.

OK Kraken, if you can, take in the full implications of what is happening in north polar regions and why this storm is damaging. Hint, it is because the storm is not alone in the destruction of the ice.

Read this Massive Arctic storm batters sea ice.

I find it astonishing that your be so flippant about such events. Are you that ignorant or simply insane. BTW if you live in Texas a low IQ will not save you from the death penalty it would seem.

"... that immediately surprised me because I’ve been looking at the world record, and I’d seen that the temperature had actually gone down, compared to the last five years."

That's not true. This year is warmer than 2008 and 2011 already, and will continue to be at the end of the year.

Remember, Robert, deniers don't actually do what they say they do.

This ensures they don't have to know they're lying about *what* they saw. They just have to convince themselves that what they think they'll see is what would be seen if they'd bothered to look.

"it clearly demonstrates how the storms in the Arctic smash the sea ice to smithereens"

There are no storms seen in that webcam. Over the month, the ice just gently melts and the pool slightly to the left just gradually grows. Nothing gets "smashed to smithereens". But I do note that it rains 14 times in that months - not snows, not sleets, but rains. Rain at the North Pole, even in July-August, should be a very rare occurrence. Snow flurries? Sure. But liquid rain? Sounds like something we would see if that Arctic was warming.

But if Karen is talking about storms smashing ice to pieces, I assume it is referring to what has been dubbed the Great Arctic Cyclone of 2012, a recent storm that basically stripped the Chukchi Sea bare of ice. The storm that was described by one meteorologist as "remarkable for winter, but unhead of for summer." The warm-core low that could only form due to high sea surface temperatures and low ice coverage? That storm?

Hows that Arctic sea ice area working for it? Karen was keen to talk about it in April, how about now?

http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/arctic.sea.ice.interactive.html

Should reach a new record low in about four days, with a month left in the melt season.

Einstein once defined stupidity as doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. Karen continues to try to hold up the Arctic as an example of climate change not happening, when it is, in fact, the best example of where it is happening fastest. Yet being repeated shot down does not stop Karen from trying, after the minimum interval, from repeating its pathetic attempt to use Arctic Sea Ice to deny climate change. Seems to fit Einsteins definition very nicely.

Einstein once defined stupidity as doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.

No, that's how he defined insanity. I think you got confused because GW denial is insane but Karen is, beyond that, so incredibly stupid.

Muller: "The NOAA announced that this is the warmest year on record for the United States – that immediately surprised me because I’ve been looking at the world record"

Doesn't know much about climatology.

Watts on The Great 2012 Summer Polar Storm: - Look, squirrels!
et al: - Yes, and some are riding antelopes!
Karen - Yes, and unicorns too! They feed on virgin ice crystals from all that smashed to smithereens ice you know, because it definitely couldn't have disappeared because it melted.

FrankD - re WUWT, I like this quote from the book Idiot America
"Fact is merely what enough people believe, and truth lies only in how fervently they believe it."

The 'it was only the Ice Storm' farrago is clearly a pre-emptive strategy to enable dismissal of the imminent new record sea-ice low.

The Wattsian hardcore and devout acolytes of the Sticky Bishop may well manage to whip themselves into a fervour over this, but it really only serves to both restrict and define the event horizon of Epistemic Closure.

As their bubble seals-off forever we see a pitiable gaggle of strident and self-deluding numpties lost beyond the reach of mere evidence and reason on the inside, with the rest of us stuck looking on in wonder that they were ever listened to in the first place and wondering what the hell to do about the mess they've left behind...

I haven't predicted a minimum this year in any of the sea ice extent polls that various blogs are running, but I did predict (on day two of the storm, at Neven's Arctic Sea Ice Blog) that the "reality reluctant" would use this storm as a get-out-of-jail-free card to handwave away a new record low area. Could have knocked me down with a feather when the obviously-insane (thanks for the correction) Karen made such a predictable ploy. Watts and the Bishop beaters do the same? Colour me unsurprised...

In fact a new record was virtually guaranteed long before the storm coalesced, only needing 2012's relatively uneventful but brutally warm conditions to continue - exactly the sort of in situ melting that Karens video link showed. Different groups measure ice at different concentrations, and while the storm caused some of those datasets to nosedive, for others (like the University of Illinois' Cryosphere Today), the trajectory barely changed at all.

2007 set a record in part because of persistant wind patterns that pushed a lot of ice out of the Arctic to melt in the North Atlantic. We saw no exceptional conditions this year, yet we are almost certain to smash 2007, such is the shitty state of what is left of the Arctic ice cap.

98 percent of the world was cool? Beyond the warmth in the USA, NOAA also said that this is the the 11th warmest year globally so far at 0.52 degrees Celsius above the 20th century average. Not sure how being above normal translates into cool.
I'll post this link again.
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/global/2012/6

Not sure how being above normal translates into cool.

Your link also reports the NOAA says it was (globally) the 4th warmest June since records began in 1880.

Muller seems to be trying to deceive on that point - or incompetent. Or perhaps Muller was using a post-normal relativistic definition of "cool" approved by denialists, that being cool = "not quite as warm as that place that's really really hot right now". (Which tends to suggest "trying to deceive"...)

Muller, the BisHillers, the WWWTians, et al are all evidence in their own ways that one can lead the herd of asses to water, but one cannot make them drink, no matter how withered is their collective grasps on reason.

As ever a valuable contribution from Tamino on Arctic sea ice.

Take home point near the end:

At this point, I think my prediction that this year’s minimum would be close to, but wouldn’t break, the record will turn out wrong. I expect we’ll set a new record low for sea ice extent, area, and volume.

If you believe that we can do this to the earth and not have consequences, you’re a fool.

So there we have it KrakenMackDuffSpot fools all as are the cheerleaders at WUWT and Cardinal Puff. On which Tamino rounds out his article with this:

I can’t help but wonder how Anthony Watts and other fake skeptics will spin this. I can’t wait to see his next “Sea Ice Update.” I wonder what WUWT reader “Smokey” will have to say.

Indeed. interesting times ahead but I doubt any of us will be cheering as Watts sinks in his own hubris for we all will have more important concerns on our minds. The roller coaster of climate and weather is about to get very hairy indeed for 'we ain't seen nothing yet'.

Two questions .....

First)

Does anyone know how to get the rest of this into print? Listening and typing is hard for me.

"But I do believe it's important to keep some distance between the science and policy advice if you like because while certain types of damaging weather events may be getting more likely as a result of global warming other types of extreme weather events may be becoming less likely so it's important not to jump to the conclusion that just because something's changing it's automatically bad."

Myles Allen talking to Richard Black on the BBC's Science in Action: http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p00wbjp5/Science_In_Action_10_08_2…

I have had it on good authority that Myles is someone the UK Government take seriously.

Myles on sea ice found here: http://www.brusselsblog.co.uk/fast-and-super-fast-the-disappearance-of-…

Second)

Posted this on Neven's excellent today. No problem with instant response. So I thought I'd try a couple more. Tamino allowed it. Revkin's dot earth blog seemed to take it but I can't find it. Joe Romm's Climate Progress hasn't let it through moderation but later one's have been passed.

Any explanations?

I seem to recall that at 4:17 pm on 13 June I asked USKMS to give his best estimates for the 2012 minimum Arctic ice parameters, and that FrankD pre-empted even my questioning.

I also have this nagging doubt that anything resembling a sensible reply was provided, but perhaps now the Scandinavian Troll Collective, USKMS, Betulant, Duff, and sundry other denialati might like to consider offering an eleventh hour estimate, supported with testable reasoning ...

My posting (see above) is on the Dot Earth Blog but I find moderation fails for me on Joe Romms Cimate Progress quite often.

Sierra Club Statement on Paul Ryan

Washington, DC – Today, Republican Presidential candidate Mitt Romney announced that Wisconsin Congressman Paul Ryan would be his running mate in the 2012 election.

Sierra Club Executive Director Michael Brune Released the Following Statement in Response:

“There is a reason big polluters have given Paul Ryan hundreds of thousands of dollars and why the Koch Brothers are one of his top donors – he’s tried to turn their wildest fantasies into law. From rejecting the reality of climate disruption to attacking good-paying clean energy jobs to trying to gut the EPA’s ability to protect our air, our water, and the health of our families, Ryan operates out of the dirty energy playbook.

Big polluters have been financing Mitt Romney’s campaign, calling the shots on his energy policy, and even serving as his debate surrogates. Of course, Mitt Romney could not add a Big Oil or Big Coal executive to his ticket, but by picking Paul Ryan, he’s done the next closest thing.”

Charles Pierce on Paul Ryan's nomination as VP candidate (although he tends to focus on political issues other than climate science and Big Carbon).

Ryan has featured regularly on Pierce's blog - it's worth reading some of the older articles (e.g. see the list at the end of the link above, starting with the first one).

This puts a damper on the dodgy global warming theory, http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/images/s_plot_hires.png

The warming was supposed to be the greatest at the pole"S" wasn't it ?

The CO2 greenhouse theory seems to be far from proven, a reoccurrence of melting in the Arctic is normal and the ice cores moraines ect tell you that.

History repeats :)

[shudder]

suddenly it does seem cooler...

And, Karen, who do you imagine you're impressing or convincing? Yourself, even? No amount of shouting 'squirrel' can save you from what's going on in the arctic.

Further, for the grown-ups.

Sunspot in his guise as Karen is still burning rubber on the line where he started years ago. Some people just can't learn.

Heads up Spotty, even the Koch-sponsored denialist Muller concedes that the concensus science is bang on the money. Warming is happening, and it's us. Saying otherwise only serves to cement your reputation for utter stupidity.

You're eating the world's dust.

The warming was supposed to be the greatest at the pole”S” wasn’t it ?

Apart from the fact that the north and south poles are expected to respond quite differently to increased CO2 forcing initially, at least for a number of decades, for reasons far more complex than you appear to be capable of grasping...

...your graph does not even show temperature, therefore it can't demonstrate whether it is or is not warming as expected.

Epic Evidence Fail.

Not only does the graph The Spot posted not show temps, it only shows SH sea ice. Overall, Antarctica is losing ice. Both poles are. Own goal, Spotty.

Lotharsson.

…your graph does not even show temperature, therefore it can’t demonstrate whether it is or is not warming as expected.

Kraken is intellectually or morally bankrupt, probably both as the first can lead to the second.

When spouting about, or ignoring temperatures, it (Kraken and ilk) has no clue about the concepts of heat capacity and latent heat.

Here Kraken, given that a one degree rise in temperature of one gram of pure water at ISA conditions, is the result of the input of one calory of heat energy how much heat energy, in calories, is required to change one gram of ice at freezing point into water?

Similarly how much heat energy is required to turn one gram of pure water into one gram of vapour?

A man walks 5 miles due South, turns and walks 5 miles due East, turns again and walks 5 miles due North arriving back at the place where he started. What colour was the bear that he spied on the way?

Lotharsson on Ryan

Brad Johnson has a piece about this enemy of the people here

"The warming was supposed to be the greatest at the pole”S” wasn’t it ?"

Er, no.

“The warming was supposed to be the greatest at the pole”S” wasn’t it ?”

Where did you hear that from?

From a denier? They were lying to you.

...has no clue about the concepts of heat capacity and latent heat.

Indeed, but I didn't want to confuse them with slightly more advanced concepts.

(Speaking of which, Muller doesn't seem to have noticed the research on ocean heat content trends when he claims that the rest of the planet is cool whilst the US broils.)

Indeed, increased energy in the atmosphere means that the circumpolar westerlies, which only occur in Antarctica, are expected to increase in speed. This further isolates Antarctica from the rest of the planet and a local decrease in temperatures in the Arntarctic interior might be expected.

The increased winds are also expected to spread out sea ice more widely, thus contributing to a temporary increase sea ice extent.

Meanwhile, warmer water underneath glacier tongues and ice shelves is increasing the rate of iceberg calving, which would also contribute to increased sea ice extent (at the expense of mass loss from the Antarctic icecap).

Even if Arctic and Antarctic Sea ice were related (ie that SH ice gain counterbalances NH ice loss), Karen neglects to note the order of magnitude of that scale. A 1% per decade increase of Antarctic Sea Ice cannot counterbalance a 10% per decade loss of Arctic Sea Ice.

And even if all those things were set aside, how can the environmental impact of ice free conditions in the Arctic Ocean, which will happen on a years to decades timescale, be balanced out by ANY amount of sea ice gain in Antarctica.

We don't need to worry about droughts here, because we are getting floods there is "logical" only to the insane...

Triple fail with two-and-a-half twists...

And speaking earlier of Charles Pierce's blog, he has a daily (US) drought report post (e.g. this) during the week discussing the Great Climate Change Hoax invented by Lamborghini-driving scientists of various descriptions and its relation to various concerning observations. (Snark alert!)

In addition John H. Richardson has been guest posting a series about Keystone XL (e.g. part 3):

Disaster is our only hope for a cool planet, says [former President of Shell Oil] John Hofmeister.

He also wants to rebrand "global warming" and "...get more practical and talk about waste management..." (via some sort of powerful fairly independent regulatory agency) in order to "...provide for a sustainable planet".

And from the magazine (rather than the blog), John H. Richardson's feature report on Keystone.

Brad Johnson has a piece about this enemy of the people here

More permanent link to the article.

Oops yes, I thought I had selected the exact topic at CP/TP, thanks for the correction, you got there first.

Sauron's dark wizard Saruman revisited Flashback: Paul Ryan’s Big Oil Budget Halts Clean Energy Innovation

It's all there.... the tin foil, the conspiracies, the hatred, the intolerance, the violent thoughts.

I'll just call it "Typical" and post it for your enjoyment:

http://www.breitbart.com/Breitbart-TV/2012/08/13/Romney-Protester-9-11-…

It’s all there…. the tin foil, the conspiracies, the hatred, the intolerance, the violent thoughts.

Yeah, Breitbart.com does have a reputation for most of that, doesn't it...

For your amusement:
http://www.quadrant.org.au/blogs/doomed-planet/2012/08/queen-of-consens…

Anybody know this guy Michael Kile?

On a side note, if anyone is further interested in the current media fluffing of the aforementioned US Republican VP candidate Paul Ryan, Charles Pierce is currently pointing out a few things that don't mesh with the carefully constructed media narrative - or Ryan's own political positions. (And peruse the blog for even more...)

Thank you for the link to that wonderful article John, yes Oreskes really is amusing :)

John Mashey.

It's official. Quadrant makes Mein Kampf look like Dialogues with the Dalai Lama.

Daily Mean Temperatures in the Arctic 1958 - 2012

http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/meant80n.uk.php

Amazing, the charts go back to 1958 and every summer the the temperature follows exactly smack on the same curve, amazing.

So if the summer temperature in the Arctic is the same every year, including this year, then one could easily conclude that storms smash the ice to bits.

So, Karen, we must then conclude that storms have been increasing in the arctic? Right? How else explain that the ice extent is getting less and less and less?

(don't worry, guys, I do not expect a coherent answer from Karen)

I had wondered whether you were merely playing a retard.

But no, it seems it is genuine.

The link given shows one year. It shows that that one year was areond 7C warmer. And there's no sun to cause that warming over thst period in the year.

You have proven AGW in your haste to say it isn't.

What is it with deniers and their inability to understand the simplest aspects of thermodynamics? Anyone who thinks Karen has raised any sort of point should consider the meaning of the terms "latent heat" and "sensible heat".

Here's the Cliff notes - As long as there is ice to melt at 80N even at summer minimum, the temperature there cannot rise substantially above freezing. That is a fundamental principle of thermodynamics, and Karens failure to understand it shows the towering heights of ignorance.

Once the ice around 80N is gone - which is likely within the next few years, summer temps at that location will be unconstrained by latent heat issues.

And as Wow mentions - the winter temperature - well above average - is more revealing. Unlike Karen, that's all sensible.

Most revealing is Karen's continued (insane) belief that she can disprove AGW by talking about the Arctic.

Here is the "basic" explanation from SKS for Karen who as others have noted continues to score own goals.

"If we look at the entire official daily DMI data set, we can quickly see that the Summer temperatures do not vary much over the entire record but the Winter temperatures have significantly increased..."

 "As each summer advances, the ice surface temperature rises, until the melting point of ice is reached. At this point any further thermal energy is used to melt the ice, and the surface temperature (and the air just above it) can not increase while any significant amount of ice remains.  At present there are still significant amounts of sea ice above 80 degrees North through the Summer melt season."
http://www.skepticalscience.com/DMI-cooling-Arctic-basic.htm

And this is from the front page of the DMI web site that Karen linked to.
"Since the 1970s the extent of sea ice has been measured from satellites. From these measurements we know that the sea ice extent today is significantly smaller than 30 years ago. During the past 10 years the melting of sea ice has accelerated, and especially during the ice extent minimum in September large changes are observed. The sea ice in the northern hemisphere have never been thinner and more vulnerable. "

Gee Karen, that went well.
Maybe you should now show us the evidence that proves the carbon price has ruined Australia's economy.

USKMS.

Check the time stamp "August 11, 2:31 pm" above.

There's questioning awaiting answering, and the ice is still melting...

Readers of Merchants of Doubt or Robert Proctor's Golden Holocaust have learned about some the weird connections between tobacco and climate anti-science, but they just scratched the surface. I was up at UC San Francisco last month (home if the Legacy Tobacco Documents Library) to give a tobacco/climate talk and got to compare notes with some if their researchers.

But , I see plain-packaging law was upheld! Good on Australia!

I’ll just call it “Typical”

Of course you will; nothing less dishonest is expected of you (or Breitbart, who died of misdirected anger, or any of his followers).

@John Mashey

We have our own climate/tobacco deniers. These zombies were featured on last night's ABC news report on the High Court judgment as "the other point of view".

http://ipa.org.au/publications/1797/plain-packaging-may-require-up-to-3…

http://www.ipa.org.au/sectors/climate-change

MikeH: yep, IPA is on my usual lists.
Still, credit is due Oz for the plain-paper.
You're doing better than most of the US.

hahaha you don't smoke so no one should ?

Why not have a look around and see what else kills people and ban those things as well, eg doctors, pharmaceuticals (they kill more people than illicit drugs) , breast X rays, cars, the armed forces, cops, some scientists,
ticks, mosquitoes, GMO's, sunscreen, fluoride, religion, USA, ect.................

What happened to freedom of choice ?

Why are dangerous chemicals added to tobacco ? And why is it that these chemicals are not banned ?

Trying to connect the tobacco industry and climate science skepticism is a specious argument, trying to connect the two demonstrates that the CO2 hypothesis is extremely week.

Your a bunch of control freaks.

hahaha you don’t smoke so no one should ?

Another ECF (Epic Comprehension Fail) from Karen et al. followed by an epically misguided detour based on the faulty premises derived from miscomprehension.

Trying to connect the tobacco industry and climate science skepticism is a specious argument...

More epic. Denying the well-established connections doesn't make them go away.

...trying to connect the two demonstrates that the CO2 hypothesis is extremely week.

There is no universe in which this "logic" holds, even allowing for spelling corrections. Methinks you need to look at your own arguments to find the weakness - but history demonstrates that you won't.

'Karen', your arguments are so 'week' they're virtually 'month', and 'your' the fool for being unaware of the well-established links / overlapping of the various facets of science denial. Tobacco lies at its core, and we use the word advisedly.

Seriously, anybody reading this who's on the same side as this sub-literate serial buffoon - don't you feel degraded?

PS: 'ect......' you should probably receive some! ;-) And by all means, smoke - but take out private health cover first, eh? We wouldn't want the Gubmint to be forking-out for the consequences of your chosen 'liberties', would we?...

Also, John M - a quick visit to John Q's gives a bit more background on the court case - and the fact that the Legalised Drug Industry has already embarked on another court action, with the help of some compliant small nations and our friends at the WTO.

birdbrain bill, I don't smoke and never have.

Four of my friends have been killed by cancer, 2 smoked and 2 never smoked.

My neighbor is 92 and has been smoking now for 80yrs, he always smoked roll your own.

I don't think there has been a study into effects of naturally grown tobacco vs chemically modified tobacco ?

Anyway I'm not one to tell people what they can or can't do with their lives, I'll leave that up to the control freak nerds in here.

ps Lothy, hahaha, jeez your a good teezer !!! Got a word wong did eye. LOL

I don’t think there has been a study into effects of naturally grown tobacco vs chemically modified tobacco ?

I believe it's all grown naturally. There have been studies on the health consequences of the various methods of curing the tobacco. (Hint: tobacco is always bad for your health)
I'm sure a genius like you could find these studies without our help. And besides, I'm too busy working towards world domination.

hi zoot,

I was just having a bit of a look around with the help of goog's re natural vs chemical tobacco and was reading this http://www.naturalnews.com/032795_tobacco_warning_labels.html when I seen your post.

You obviously know nothing about tobacco to think that it is grown naturally, I suppose that you also think that GM corn is natural and Mc Donalds fry's are healthy because they are made from potatoe's.

How old are you zoot ? You seem very naive and may learn something from that link.

According to Ms Oreske we are all just chain-smoking denialists who should know better.and then with some brilliant,deductive,insightful thinking the stupid cow provides us with the climate science spectre of the atmosphere huffing away on smokestack fags.
According to Slothy 11.46am there's "well established connections" Yeah but your synaptic connections are not so hot eh Slothy.

Mack shows up right after Karen with a very similar style of "argument" - all hat assertion and redirection, no cattle evidence or logic.

Wow, Karen, you do know how to find your information.

Let's take some of the popular stories on naturalnews:
On number 1, and by a fair margin "Colorado Batman shooting shows obvious signs of being staged".
Yup, it really says what the title says.

Number 2, trailing significantly behind number 1, but still: "Obama seizes control over all food, farms, livestock, farm equipment, fertilizer and food production across America"
Waaaaaaaaa! Waaaaaaaaa! Put on your aluminum hats now! The government is coming!

Also quite popular: "Vaccines have been based on medical fraud for over a hundred years".
and another story on vaccine and supposed links to autism.

Karen really knows how to pick her supporting evidence: yet another conspiracy nutwebsite!

Vaccination! Huh?! Fluoride? Really? X-rays? Double huh! Along with doctors and Big Pharma! Yah boo hiss.

My bingo card is full. What's today's prize?

Who said there was no such thing as crank magnetism.

bill, thanks for the reminder to visit JQ.
As noted in Fake science,..., Appendices F and G, there is lots of documentation of the climate/tobacco connection.

More importantly, p.38, 30 years ago, the typical starting age for smoking was 15-16. By now, it's down to 13-14. Very few people start after 18, and if they do, they find it much easier to stop. Setting nicotine addiction properly requires it to happen while brains are developing.

Cigarette company business model =
a) Addict children by 18
b) Kill them as slowly as possible.

As usual, I strongly recommend Bob Proctor's book, Golden Holocaust ... The cigarette companies hate this book so much they try to stop its name from even being mentioned in court.

Karen you really should sign up for a remedial reading course. Your comprehension skills are abysmal.

On 'Golden Holocaust' shame the cover price is over £30 UK.

I don't do Kindle, I fear for when we no longer have a choice on this. But I suppose how many dead trees am I consuming with my library. The way I look at it this is a carbon store. Maybe I am wrong about that, maybe the 'KarenMackSpotBetDuff' club can help here. ;-)

Cigarettes are the only mass-produced product that will probably kill you or harm your health if you use it the way the manufacturer intends.

Lionel: yes, it's expensive, but it is long, with huge amount of information and I'm not really sure how well it work on Kindle.
First approach would be to see if accessible library has one or can be urged to get one. Taht's probably good enouhg unless one is actively researching this turf, i.e., my copy has dozens of stickies and many highlights.

Meanwhile back to the paranoid ravings of Ms Oreske with smoking Lindzens under her bed?

No, "Mack" - 'paranoid ravings' are what you and your fellow zoo inmates do - it being all you have. Dr. Oreskes on the other hand presents evidenced research, which is a concept you can't seem to grasp nor dare to.

The links between tobacco science denial and climate science denial - and, for that matter ozone science denial and acid-rain science denial, etc. - are extensively documented and irrefutable.

These mutts not only don't have a counter argument beyond 'it's not truuuueee!' but 'both' 'Karen' and 'Mack' are both inadvertently proving the point by spouting the tobaccos arm of science denial's very own memes and rationalizations.

The reason why you're vacantly mouthing this is the same reason the ventriloquists with their hands up your backsides do. Tobacco realised that it had lost the debate to science, and so it set out to discredit the scientific method itself. I'm no great believer in 'evil' as a phenomenon, but this is as close to it as you're ever likely to get.

They also found an audience of far-too-many self-deluding rubes only-too-willing to slowly kill themselves - and others - for the sake of the corporate bottom-line. Just like climate science denial. Can't win the science debate? Attack science itself! And get a pack of jackasses to bray along with you...

(This you dignify as 'liberty'?! Phhhhttt!)

And 'Natural News'? Where the venal Hippoisie meets the bug-eyed Tin-Foil-Hatters? Give me a break...

Also, for a broad overview of the science denial industry - there is one - and it's too-many successes, you can't go past David Michaels' 'Doubt is Their Product.' He's a former Clinton-era DoE Assistant Secretary and is currently an Assistant Secretary for Labor in the OSHA.

My hard-copy of his book has several dings in it from being hurled across the room in disgust. It's almost as infuriating as Bolt's blog. This is not Michaels' fault: he's just telling an awful tale no-one should have to hear...

Marco,

For mine, you missed the best of the frootloopery Karen linked to: "Fukushima reactor No. 4 vulnerable to catastrophic collapse; could unleash 85 times Cesium-137 radiation of Chernobyl; human civilization on the brink"

Human civilisation on the brink? Why, anyone would think Karen was going all alarmist on us... ;-)

Sorry I missed that one, Frank!

Not surprised that stuff is there, too, though...

Actually, folks, it gets better. If you look at Peter Sinclair's last piece for the Yale Forum 'This is Not Cool' series, at 1' 31" and 3'14" you'll see Mr. Natural News himself - Mike Adams - appear in his role as 'The Health Ranger' for the egregious Infowars.

He's rambling about the Gubmint bringing about 'weather-radicalization' and 'chem-trails' and 'ionization' being responsible for the US' extreme weather. Certainly not AGW. Oh, and he's not impressed by Al Gore. Methinks this guy's position is absolutely invulnerable to satire.

(And please do note the absolutely extraordinary graphic he chooses to stand in front of!)

And if you check out the link our 'learned' friend provided, you'll see several more examples of the explicit link between this hippie/alternative/new age conspiracy-peddling and the nominally 'conservative' Tea-Partyite conspiracy-nuttery of Alex Jones.

In the main far-Rightist hippies appears to have been chiefly a US phenomenon, though I suppose we have to consider David Icke!

Bugger: wrong link above due to uncleared clip-board - This is the link to Sinclair's video - the other was for Gareth R's new book!

Pointing to another blog where a post of mine may have some resonance here.

Also, this may be of interest:

Earthquakes, Volcanoes and Climate Change. The pdfs behind the two 'Source' links can be readily downloaded.

the stupid cow

Along with all the other negative traits that garbage like Mack displays is misogyny.

Tim, where are you?

Oh yeah, hahahaha

This is from birdbrain bill's link at August 17, 6:17 am ,

"Flying around a world battered by rapid climate change and struggling with economic collapse in a hi-tech airship, Lemmy encounters the remnants of our civilisation – the artificial intelligences searching for the singularity, a rocking bishop in his flying cathedral, the last climate sceptics, the technovegans and deep green terrorists, billionaire libertarians in their bubble, and much, much more. Not to mention the goats, the girlfriend with bots in her head and the elixir of life (which is cheese).

"Part dystopian tome a la ‘Mad Max’ meets ‘Waterworld’, part stinging indictment of the mendacious ongoing campaign to deny the threats of human-caused climate change, The Aviator delivers a winning combination of wit and insight as it depicts the perils we may bestow upon future generations if we choose not to act on the greatest threat human civilization has ever faced."

No wonder you are so twisted bill :)

You should submit that to the IPCC, I'm sure that they would like to use it in their next CO2 canard.

I'm here, but cubital tunnel is limiting my computer usage.

It's called a 'novel', 'Karen'. I know you find it hard to distinguish between stories and real life - not to mention between blog drivel and scientific papers - but for some of us they're considered a pleasure.

That really is an eye opening insight into the pee brain of an alarmist, lol

Lemmy Bill, climate crusader, hahaha, once again demonstrates his gullible addiction to climate conspiracies. DOUBLE ROFL, tehehe

ianam,
...."Mack displays is misogyny" yeah ianam that is a bit of misogyny for you...my heart bleeds.. "paranoid ravings of a stupid cow" read it again...and as Chopper Reid says "harden the fuck up" :)

Karen, you are the one who cites, in evidence, websites that are filled with conspiracy nuttery. You must be projecting when you accuse others of a conspiracy.

USKMS.

I asked a psychologist friend of mine to spend a few minutes to read your posts, to see what he thought about your state of mind. I won't bother with the rather colourful commentary, but others reading this thread might be unsurprised to hear that he estimated your IQ to lie somewhere between 85 and 95, and likely not much over 90 at best.

Rather says it all, really.

Talk about dreck and drecker...

You stick with your psychologist friend in the meantime Bernie baby but for your sake I recommend moving in higher social circles and get really friendly with a lot of psychiatrists.

barnturd I doubt that you have any friends, I would assume that your therapist felt that you needed some sort of ego boost, I do hope it helps to alleviate your melancholia and dysphoria,

I have a question for you barnturd, how much firewood do you burn through the winter and have you worked out your carbon footprint ?

Mack, do you habe no thoughts of your own?

It hardly bears commenting on...

"Karen" said: "how much firewood do you burn "

We can also add the carbon cycle and the impact of fossil fuels on it to the list of things "Karen" doesn't understand before spouting off..

how much firewood do you burn through the winter...

Firewood is a renewable energy source.

Kraken bubkas:

...how much firewood do you burn through the winter...

That depends on how many splinters fly out of your head when you scratch it.

Cubital tunnel - ouch, been there and carpal tunnel too (all those screws on Phantom F4k panels with one outer wing panel having 948 screws with each aircraft having two such panels one to port and another to starboard).

Article on the Drum of possible interest here :

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-08-15/phillips-climate-sceptic-reborn-a…

My apologies if I'm too late with this and been beaten to it.

*he estimated your [Karen, Mack et al] IQ to lie somewhere between 85 and 95, and likely not much over 90 at best.*

That high? For these twits that's Mensa level... My estimation is that their arguments are generally at kindergarten level. I browse here now and again these days and frankly I can't understand why these clowns persist. This summer has been intellectually devastating to the climate change deniers at it so happens anyway, what with events unfolding in North American and the Arctic. As their arguments continue to melt, their voices become increasingly shrill.

Sorry to hear about the cubital tunnel, Tim ... get well soon, mate!

See See No Evil, Speak Little Truth, Break Rules, Blame Others.

The GMU mess was even worse than we thought.

USKMS, Betula, Duff, et al.

Where's the cooling that you each seem to be anticipating?

http://tamino.wordpress.com/2012/08/20/one-down/

John

I have just returned here after reading through that Desmog article to give others the heads up. No need as I see. I have downloaded the PDF (something of a collection building here) to study - take some time that will.

Well done for all that work.

However, I feel powerless despite having all this info by not being in the US. Although I could probably do an Assange and get extradited extraordinarily rendered, and I used to think that had something to do with meat processing (well I suppose it does in a macabre way).

It is clear that across the world democracy, or what passes for democracy and Noam Chomsky can put people straight on that score, also John Pilger, is under attack from all quarters.

Bernard and One Down,

its a waste of time for the troll collective is in this body politic.

Argh! it should have been this body politic, although not much to choose between.

The Deniosphere has never been so sullen and silent.

All but the most strident idiots have retreated to huddle their confirmation enclaves in the face of the extraordinary melt events in the Northern Hemisphere.

God knows what they're jabbering to each other about - Climategate, probably. But, seriously; who cares?

I don't doubt that no small number are, like formerly ardent fans when the once-triumphant team is now just wooden-spooning, slipping quietly away. Soon they'll deny Denial...

The Most Stupid People in History. Who'd be 'em?

Australians here might be very interested to hear that John Ralston Saul is conducting a speaking tour here over the next few weeks:

http://www.johnralstonsaul.com/eng/speaking.php

Hop to it, ladies and gentlemen - he's a very good speaker.

Oh...... there is Jeff, nice to see that they have let you out :) Lets hope your medication is right this time.

http://www.natice.noaa.gov/ims/images/sea_ice_only.jpg

http://www.natice.noaa.gov/ims/images/ims_data.jpg

http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/meant80n.uk.php

http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/seaice.anomaly.antarctic…

Aha - so the beanie-heads are now being told by their handlers that the antarctic "balances" the arctic. And yea so verily they believe in it fervently and mightily with all their hearts.

Tell us "Karen", how does that work.
In both cases.

'Karen', is this really how you lot are consoling yourselves? If only the icepack was as dense as you are!

First, try here.

And then: we explained the DMI thing to you before. Try looking at the red lines in the early data away from the peak of the curve and then compare them to recent years. Then click on a few of the middle years. Notice any, um, trends? Funny how the little red line always traces roughly the same arc above the mysterious horizontal blue line, isn't it? What do you think is happening?

Karenmackspot believes that his graphs are the exact opposite of the arctic ice loss.

The exact opposite.

Karenmackspot believes they cancel each other out.

lololololol

anyway I thought NOAA was lying about the data karenmackspot, or is that only when it's inconvenient to you?

There there Bill, I know I know the sky is really going to fall. tch tch tch.

Have you bought your floaties yet Bill ? I'm sure that the climate refugees will start looking for higher ground soon.

Hang on wasn't that supposed to start 5 or 6 years ago ? You know, about the time when it was never going to rain again !

Or was it when the Himalayas were melting before they were found not to be ?

or or was it when they thought (hoping) that the Antarctic was melting.

So many climate fails, enough to fill a book, but by all means if your into self flagellation whip away fella. LoL

"Or was it when the Himalayas were melting before they were found not to be ?"

Huh? What's so special about Himalayan snow that stops it melting in summer???

Why is this happening ?

http://www.snowatch.com.au/long-range-snow-forecast.php

In the alarmist mind it's not

Uhm, go look at an atlas.

Australia: South Pole.

"or or was it when they thought (hoping) that the Antarctic was melting."

Antarctica *is* losing ice.

"Why is this happening ?"

Because it's winter in Australia?

Karen is so good at digging holes perhaps she could apply for a job in mining. No not with Gina 'No heart' Rinehart but over in South Africa.

Or was it when the Himalayas were melting before they were found not to be ?

Oh Really! A quick fact check for the bozo.

Oh. And another thing. None of us wish all this ice melt, drought, increase on tornadoes, floods and rising sea level rise (all leading to massive crop loss) etc to be actually happening just to prove us right. We wish to stop it for we have the intelligence to see where this is all leading.

Karen is a disgrace to the human race being so ignorant and stupid she/he/whatever may qualify for a Darwin Award before much longer.

More for numbskull Karen to take in Nine Ways Climate Change Is Throwing Animal Populations ‘Out Of Kilter’.

And that is only a few examples of the ways by which the ecosystem is becoming disconnected. Many species are out of kilter with key life and breading stages - we will soon be made painfully aware of what is lost - when it is too late to do anything about it.

And then there is this: In The American West, The Hottest Year On Record Forces Us To See Things As They Are. Perhaps Tillerson should be parachuted out into that country with instructions to 'Adapt'. stuck to his chest.

And don't forget to follow the links in and at the foot of those articles, if you can recognise them that is.

Frankly I think the notion of an IQ of 90 is a distinct overestimate.

Further on out of kilter.

Lionel,

While in other respects she may be able to qualify, Karen cannot be awarded a Darwin due to the following criterion: "...the candidate is disqualified if "innocent bystanders", who might have contributed positively to the gene pool, are killed in the process."

I don't personally expect to die as a consequence of climate change, being lucky enough to have been born in a nice rich first world country, but some already have, and many more will. Her stupidity is fatal to others.

Let me out? Sadly, unlike you, 'Karen', I am a busy scientist who has been doing field work in the UK; I have 5 papers to review; three articles to complete; 4 students to supervise; and two experiments in progress.

The thrust of this is that I don't spend too much of my valuable time replying here to complete idiots like you. Your links say nothing about the vast and growing evidence for AGW, and especially the extreme events that have characterized this over the past decade or so. Your grasp of science is so utterly limited that you think that one anomaly somehow brings down a vast array of data and evidence. Let us be honest here: you are a moron who makes themselves look ever more insidiously stupid with every posting on Deltoid. That you can't see that is further evidence that your IQ is situated somehwere in the benthos.

Think is Karen et al would PREFER death and destruction from AGW catastrophes than having to change their lifestyle or have government do something.

Question of the day:
Who dresses Karen/Mack/Spot each morning?

Yeah busy busy busy Jeff ...so much fearmongering AGW crap to purvey so little time. And those poor 4 students you supervise, are they also dispairing of the "overwhelming evidence" . because I tell ya Jeff baby I ain't overwhelmed, in fact I'm distinctly underwhelmed.

You're distinctly underendowed, more like.

You’re distinctly underendowed, more like.

Is that microcephaly, or microfallacy?

Is there somebody constantly pulling your chain Brainwash Bill?

Mack, could you please take that cock out of your mouth when you're typing.

Hmmm.............The Southern Oceans are losing heat,

The Southern Ocean is a key component of the global climate system: insulating the Antarctic polar region from the subtropics, transferring climate signals throughout the world's oceans and forming the southern component of the global overturning circulation. However, the air-sea fluxes that drive these processes are severely under-observed due to the harsh and remote location. This paucity of reference observations has resulted in large uncertainties in ship-based, numerical weather prediction, satellite and derived flux products. Here, we report observations from the Southern Ocean Flux Station (SOFS); the first successful air-sea flux mooring deployment in this ocean. The mooring was deployed at 47°S, 142°E for March 2010 to March 2011 and returned measurements of near surface meteorological variables and radiative components of the heat exchange. These observations enable the first accurate quantification of the annual cycle of net air-sea heat exchange and wind stress from a Southern Ocean location. They reveal a high degree of variability in the net heat flux with extreme turbulent heat loss events, reaching −470 Wm−2 in the daily mean, associated with cold air flowing from higher southern latitudes. The observed annual mean net air-sea heat flux is a small net ocean heat loss of −10 Wm−2, with seasonal extrema of 139 Wm−2 in January and −79 Wm−2 in July. The novel observations made with the SOFS mooring provide a key point of reference for addressing the high level of uncertainty that currently exists in Southern Ocean air-sea flux datasets.

http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2012/2012GL052290.shtml

No wonder it's so cold and snowing right around the the Southern Hemisphere, so where is Trenbarffffss missing heat ?

Sheeez, and that mooring is about 500 klms South West of barnturds CO2 belching chimney !!

ps. Jeff I did find it extremely amusing that you told me to go away, but you did :)

you can stay away too, LoL

Karen, don't put your cock in Mack's mouth when he's typing.

here's a global sea ice chart, the trend seems to be flat.

http://www.climate4you.com/images/NSIDC%20GlobalSeaIceAreaSince2000.gif

wow you give me the impression that you are a bald pale skinny man with one large muscular arm.

Oh... and I am wiggling my little pinky at you :)

Good sound scientific reasoning there Wow ...you truely are an asset to the Cause. .

Mack,

Like Karen, take your kindergarten level understanding of science to one of the comic-book levels blogs .My scientific record speaks for itself. I have repeatedly asked the witless deniers here what they do for a living, and the general response has been silence. What's your big contribution to any scientific field, Mack? Same question to Karen? My guess is nix and nix. At least Betula told us what he does for a living (tree pruning business), and GSW is some third-rate chemist, but most of the big-mouthed deniers here consistenly avoid the question. Jonas did. PentaxZ and Olaus did. At the same time, the deniers all write here as if somehow lacking any relevant education is unimpotant when challenging the broad scientific evidence for AGW. By now, most of the scientific community has moved on, save for a few dead enders. And they are dragging their army of right wing idiots along with them.

Turth is Mack and Karen, neither of you could debate your way out of a sodden wet paper bag. If I was so inclined, I could throw so much empirical evidence from natural communities that it is warming that even you two morons would have to shut up. Its all there in the empirical literature were you to get off of your sorry asses and go to a library that has the access to the Web of Science.

Karen

Hmmm………….The Southern Oceans are losing heat,

So, where do you think that heat is going. You do realise that this does not imply a net heat loss to the Earth's systems don't you? We are not talking about a net heat loss in this context.

And are you aware of the meaning and implications of 'uncertainties'?

Hey Mack did you hear a little whining noise ?

"Ice cores from Summit show that melting events of this type occur about once every 150 years on average. With the last one happening in 1889, this event is right on time," says Lora Koenig, a Goddard glaciologist and a member of the research team analyzing the satellite data. "But if we continue to observe melting events like this in upcoming years, it will be worrisome."

http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/greenland-melt.html

Even NASA knows that there is a little melting in the Arctic every 150 yrs or so.

Kraken

climate4you is 'a bait-trap for the unwary' as Daniel Bailey puts it here with other comments there revealing more.

And here is another example.

A Google reveals that Jennifer Marohasy likes to reference climate4you allot - so the rat do smellith.

Sorry Lionel, the likes desmog thinkprogress and scepticalscumbags are religious propagandists for the climate cultists, extremely biased and scientifically unreliable.

http://www.climate4you.com/images/AllCompared%20GlobalMonthlyTempSince1…

So where is the heat hiding, poor Kev can't find it ?

Bugger, Lionel beat me to it on the "heat loss" meme.

Well in other "Karens an idiot" news, that graph (10:59 post) "seems to be flat" because the trend line has been put in the wrong place. Its a bit like put a trend line through a multiyear series that starts in summer and ends in winter and saying "Look! Cooling!"

Deniers trying to put trends through cycles and getting it wrong? Thats olds, not news. But Karen laps it up like a good doggie, because she thinks it says what she wants to hear...

USKMS.

You persist in posting coincidentally, and apparently expecting that there are still some who wil assume that you are two (or more) separate people.

You're not fooling the regulars though. Just yourself, it would seem.

And for the hundredth time, think about working on your punctuation.

Poor Frank,

I didn't have a post at 10.59 Frank.

2 of my posts had links to graphs, but the graphs didn't even have trend lines.

barnturd has your shrink discussed "major affective disorder" with you ?

Bernard J.
August 18, 10:25 am

"I asked a psychologist friend of mine to spend a few minutes to read your posts,"

I think it's cute how people with mental health issues think that their psychologist is their friend, I suppose that it helps to build trust.

No, Karen, swapping "Donor" and recipient with Mack isn't acceptable either.

I think it’s cute how people with mental health issues think that carbon doixide is not a greenhouse gas.

I think it’s cute how people with mental health issues think that the planet is not warming.

I think it’s cute how people with mental health issues think that they know that the world's best scientists are simultaneously imcompetent and engaged in a collective fraud involving tens of thousands of people, and for which there is not a shred of evidence.

"here’s a global sea ice chart, the trend seems to be flat."

It isn't when you actually look at the original:
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/global.daily.ice.area.wi…

There's been a clear decline in global sea ice area, even using the shortened period that Climate4you provides. In the years around 2000 - the start of the Climate4you graph- , the global sea ice area was concentrated on the 30 year average; in the last 5 years global sea ice area has been below the 30 year average, and noticeably so. It is right now in fact. Your eyecrometer has failed you.

Thanks again for another graph that shows the temperature increasing since 1979 even by the denialist sites.

http://www.climate4you.com/images/AllCompared%20GlobalMonthlyTempSince1…

starts at 0, ends on +.35

Wouldn't that make it +.35C over 33 years, about +.1C per decade?

Wouldn't that also mean that the sensitivity for a doubling of CO2 would HAVE to be over 1C per doubling, since we've only got an increase of 40% so far?

And as was pointed out above, the Climate4you graph has fudged the data. In the original, here:
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/global.daily.ice.area.wi…

global sea ice just barely goes about 23 million km^2 on 3 occasions, and is otherwise well below that level throughout the 30+ years. It regularly reaches or goes below 15 million km^2 now. In the doctored graph from Climate4you, the data has been shifted up about 4 million km^2, making the average global sea ice appear to be about 23 million km^2. The data also continues through July 2012, but the smoothed line (also doctored to appear about 4 km ^2 higher than it is) ends in March, hiding the decline during this NH summer.

The Climate4you graph is a lie, and plainly intended to deceive. Is that why you used it?

Beranrd,

You are correct, but these idiots are anything but cute. They are right-wing politically indoctrinated charlatans. Of course the planet is warming: there are many thousands of biotic indicators for that. I am planning to study some insects that are expanding their distributions from the south: processionary caterpillars. The oak processionary was restricted to southern and central Europe until the late 1980s, when it began expanding its range to the north. It established itself in Holland in 1989 and now is abundant throughout the eastern part of the country. Cold winters used to keep this species well to the south, but mild winters have allowed it to overwinter here successfully. Third to fifth instar larvae produce thousands of toxic urticating hairs, which can persist in the environment for several years. A major problem with this species is that its natural enemies - especially parasitic wasps - have not tracked it northwards for some reason. The pine processionary moth, which has a natural range that is even more southerly, is now expanding northwards through France. At current rates it will arrive here in a few years, and is similarly toxic.

If one loosk at the distribution patterns for many ectotherms (and some endotherms) they can see clear evidence for polewards movement since the 1980s and 1990s, as well as movements to higher elevations. There is no doubt whatsoever that the planet is warming quite rapidly. NONE whatsoever. Of the few remaining scientific deniers there are out there, evenmost of these do not deny this. Their tactic has been to claim that the recent warming is due to natural causes (in the old days it was a doomsday myth, but they've since moved on as the evidence piled up). That the idiot brigade who spew their nonsense on Deltoid don't appear to recognize this shows you how dumbed-down they really are.

"Karen
10:59 am

here’s a global sea ice chart, the trend seems to be flat."

"Karen
12:08 pm

Poor Frank,

I didn’t have a post at 10.59 Frank."

Poor Karen,

So entrenched in denial that she has to deny her denial. I think recent events have pushed her over the edge into psychosis...

http://www.climate4you.com/images/AllCompared%20GlobalMonthlyTempSince1…

The anomalies given on this graph for the various data sets make no sense. According to Climate4you, since 1979 the "net change relative to the average from 1979-1988" (an odd baseline, though it should make much of a difference) is the following:

UAH: +.51C
RSS: +.40C
GISS: +.38C
NCDC: + .43C
HadCrut3:+.40C (I note they don't use the updated HadCrut4)

So, according to them there has been between .4C and .5C of warming from the '79-'88 baseline, and the biggest warming was seen with the satellite data, the smallest with GISS. That's ass-backwards. They appear to just take the start number and find the difference with end point and ignore the data in the middle. All of their numbers are hogwash.

Another way that Climate4you doctored the data:
http://www.climate4you.com/images/NSIDC%20GlobalSeaIceAreaSince2000.gif

If you look you'll see that the range for the year 2000 say is from about 18 million km^2 to a little above 27 million km^2 on their graph - a range of about 9 million km^2. The actual range for that year was from about 15 million km^2 to a little over 22 million kn^2 - about 7 million km^2. The whole graph's shape is distorted because of the sloppy doctoring that was done. Again, I'm sure there was a reason Karen posted this crap...

RobertMurphy.

I’m sure there was a reason Karen posted this crap…

There is, it is because she/he/they/whatever were brought up on Turds-Are-Us. Now they cannot recognise one when they step in it.

I just looked at the Climate4you website and found the chart in question (the one labelled global sea ice area), and I think I know what the problem is: it's mislabeled. It says "Global Sea Ice Area", but below it it says:
"Graph showing monthly global sea ice extent since January 2000. The area covered by sea ice is defined as having at least 15% sea ice cover. The blue line shows monthly values, and the red line shows the simple running 13 month average. Data kindly provided by the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC). Last month shown: July 2012. Latest diagram update: 5 August 2012."
http://www.climate4you.com/

The numbers may very well be correct for Global Sea Ice Extent, but that is not what the graph says, it says area. Of course, the Arctic is losing sea ice about 3 times faster than Antarctica is gaining sea ice, so global sea ice extent is still going down as well.

Very sloppy website. It's hard to tell what it's saying when it carelessly mislabels its graphs. And there is still no explanation for the incorrect warming trends given on its temperature graph above. Big waste of time.

FrankD
2:57 pm (about Karen &10:59am)

Dates and times are not universal, but this does illustrate yet another pain point. Do people recall when ScienceBlogs *numbered* posts so there was a clear, simple reference?

Do people recall when ScienceBlogs *numbered* posts so there was a clear, simple reference?

Even better - they used to provide a URL per comment so that one could provide a stable reference, even if comments were renumbered (as happened occasionally, e.g. if the moderator removed an earlier comment). And one could also use this to link to a specific comment from another thread or website.

Yet again, the only real debate is whether the 'evidence' provided by the residual Dimwit Duo is flawed as a result of intention or incompetence.

And, yeah, Scienceblogs under NG have screwed up in a big way. You used to see comments in threads here referenced externally, not just locally.

This could be fixed. The numbers are still there. Here - for instance - is 127162, the comment 'Karen' didn't make at 10.59 am. Here's 127063, an imbecility from the 16th.

It could still work, and we could still be referencing valid opinions from competent people.

In case anyone hasn't twigged, the 'Recent Comments' list in the upper right of the page has hot-linked comment references. One can copy the comment URLs from there, if one is quick...

Ah, but I deliberately chose two not from the recent comments list.

Say we wanted to go back and point out that some people don't understand the most basic things about the Greenhouse Effect, the 'recent comments' list ain't going to be of much help!

My point being there's no reason for us not to have unique URLs for comments across the entire blog. Why the hell haven't NG/SciBlogs done this?

And, fer chrissakes - no preview? Or, at least, review? This ought to be standard across the blogosphere.

Ironically, if it wasn't for all the 'helpful' multiple pages of comments that the new setup has afforded us all the old links to comments on the site would still work!

Why the hell haven’t NG/SciBlogs done this?

Well, as someone said about something else recently: intention or incompetence?

To be clear - I'm not going to some cache of comment URL's I've happened to keep lying around - that wouldn't work pre-NGswitch, anyway, at least beyond a certain depth in a comment thread.

It's still entirely possible to provide a link to any comment on the entire blog - say, randomly, Bernard dealing with a concern troll in the discussion over Tim's debate with Monckton.

What we've actually lost is the automatically generated linky that lets us do it easily... This is very annoying!

http://joannenova.com.au/2012/08/thompsons-update-looking-for-work-in-t…

"Thompsons Update – looking for work in the US..."

"Matt and Janet are in Texas and looking for work..."

"They are people who get-things-done...."
er, except for being able to successfully run a business in compliance with all the relevant regulations, that is....

"For those who wonder why we keep track of these excellent people, read all about how they were running a business so profitable they were turning away customers until they spoke out against carbon legislation. I would not have believed what happened to them could occur in Australia. Their determination to get justice and stoic good humour are inspiring."

Yes, you heard it from Joanne Codling/Nova - anybody spruiking anti-science gibberish is promptly destroyed by a sinister cabal of global-warming mafia.......

Karen Aug 22 11.41am,
Yes, To a certain extent I think NASA looks as if it's cleaning up it's act.....
1) Petitions from astronauts
2) Realising nutty fraudster Hanson in their midst.
3) Suddenly getting the message from "Death of the Greenhouse Gas Theory"

Well, you can always get the comment reference from "view page source", but its hard to be arsed when dealing with weapons-grade stupidity.

With regard to Jeff's observations, we are all on "blogtime", are we not? Even if we weren't I'm on the same timezone that Karen has previously claimed to be on, so we would see the same local time. Even if the time reference was utterly wrong, I quoted the relevant bit of text. An actual link to a comment made less than an hour up thread seemed to be unnecessary, though I concede it gave Karen the chance to avoid reflecting on the fact that her link was, yet again, an epic fail.

But then, I'm not really posting for Karens benefit. If other's understood the degree of fail, then I'm comfortable regarding Karens continued ignorance is simply fuel for further hilarity.

Yeah, sure 'Mack'. It's telling that you can't even spell 'Hansen' after all this time.

Mack, you're mumbling again.

STOP typing with your mouth full.

Hey, guys, I think I know why the denialbots aren't here in anything like their usual numbers.

Not because of the weather that has made it untenable for any USian to proclaim there is no such thing as Global Warming but because Julian Assange is not being extradited.

They're all busy railing their Faux News Outrage (patent pending) at anyone posting about this and INSISTING that JA is a sexual threat to every man, woman and child because his socks have rolled down a bit.

Seriously. Go have a look at the Guardian Comment Is Free section. Several thousand-plus threads on JA.

Squirrels? I'll give you squirrels ... several thousand plus ...

No, we have plenty.

You're nuts.

Bill, I feel your pain.

FrankD, thanks for the heads up - obvious once one thinks about it.

USKMS, it's just plain weird when you have conversations with yourself.

Yes Bill and Boydnerd.....incorrect spelling of Hansen. Oh dear, I should have gone over to Desmogblog to get it right, because sure enough he's there...."an expose of planetary scale" What a weight to carry for your whole life...notice the bags under his eyes lately....maybe not sleeping too well.

Wow,

I have seen the comment-is-free section in the Assange-hating Grauniad in response to Glenn Greenwald's outstanding article (he's the only one in that rag standing up to the cacophony of hatred and ridicule aimed at JA). It seems like the so-called "liberal intelligentsia" - those who claim to be on the left but support US-UK imperial wars, drone attacks, extrajudicial assassinations and defer to our war-criminal leaders in the west - are frothing at the mouth over Ecuador's decision to grant Assange asylum there. As for the right-wing nuts, they are even more rabid. But I agree with you - the denialists here are down to K-M-SS and I suppose the others are elsewhere spewing out their vitriol against Assange in various 'liberal' media outlets. But let's face it, this sordid bunch of idiots don't have science on their side and recent climate-related events have further isolated them. In a few years thios lot will disappear altogether, but what right wing/pro-corporate/deregulatory horse they will start backing is anyone's guess.

Yeah you join the squirrels Jeff and keep nibbling on "right-wing nuts"

Seriously. Go have a look at the Guardian Comment Is Free section. Several thousand-plus threads on JA.

Greenwald has also just moved from Slate to The Guardian and has a couple of articles up on Assange.

Mack,

I find they have an awful taste - much like you.

"Glenn Greenwald’s outstanding article"

Well, not the *only* one there.

Women Against Rape have a column as does Seumas Milne who works there.

Despite none of them saying that Assange shouldn't face rape charges (and despite also giving out ground that is not required: i.e. saying that Sweden "may not be able to" give a guarantee not to extradite to the USA when this isn't the case, but IS the insistence of the howling mob out for JA's blood or other body parts).

You may want to give Seumas's thread a look since it gives one set of reasons why ALL media (pretty much) is howling for his blood:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/aug/22/julian-assange-medi…

Wow,

I read Milne's yesterday. Excellent as well. I think that Greenwald's pushes the level of dissent to the edge: hacks at the Graun and Observer were tweeting today back and forth in apparent mockery. You ought to check out the web site Media Lens. Run by Davids Cromwell and Edwards, it constantly exposes the myth that the so-called 'left-wing' papers in Britain are anything other than state-corporate establishment supporting rags. Note that the deck is heavily stacked in in favor of scribes who laud the likes of Tony Blair, supported the Iraq War and invasion of Afghanistan, routinely explain systematic abuses of power and international law by Britain and the US as 'mistakes' in pursuit of 'noble' agendas, and forever bury a litany of western crimes. The system ensures that the voices of Milne, Greenwald, Mark Weisbrot John Pilger, and to a lesser extend Robert Fisk are drowned out by many, many more towing the party line. Its the same in the US, and perhaps even worse.

The wall-to-wall trolling and zombie 'arguments' being deployed by the obviously well-motivated and co-ordinated anti-Assange commenters (both those employed to write and those responding to this week's hate-fest) are all too familiar with the same tactics also used by AGW-deniers. All the more depressing of course for being echoed wholeheartedly in the Nu-left(ish) UK Guardian, Observer and Independent broadsheet newspapers.

Whether it's focus on (alleged 1984-style sex crimer) Assange and not what Wkileaks has revealed, or focus on (alleged data fiddler) Phil Jones and not what the temperature record has revealed, the similarities are disturbingly familiar.

Reassuringly however there are a substantial number of commenters able to stand up against and expose the BS with relevant information, providing the reader is interested enough to stick with the threads long enough.

What amazes me is that those who are actually sane about the whole thing are explicitly saying "I think that Assange has been a snake" and "He must go to Sweden to face charges" yet EVERY SINGLE NUTJOB ***insists*** this isn't happening and that EVERY Assagne supporter (even if all they support is the rule of law and don't actually support either Assange or WL) are saying Julian is their hero and can do no wrong.

Makes me wonder what these idiots are doing and why the others are still bothering to say anything against Assange at all. It's not like it's changing anything, is it.

And how many are there yelling "If the USA wanted him, where is the request from the USA to get him?!?!?!".

EVERY SINGLE TIME getting cart WELL before horse.

If a Grand Jury is meeting and sign a secret document on Assange, NOBODY is allowed to know the contents and linking or exposing it is a federal crime (much like the one Bradley is languishing for 800 days in a concentration camp for).

And everyone going on:

"Since when do suspects start dictating to investigative agencies how an investigation is to be conducted?"

NOBODY has seemed to ask where, precisely, there is a need to ask Assange ANYTHING.

Surely the only reason to answer questioning is to clear your name, right? That means they already have evidence of your guilt, or enough to go to court with, but wish to see if there's an innocent explanation or alibi involved.

So WHY, exactly, does Assange need to go to be questioned AT ALL?

They already have all the evidence they ought to need to prosecute.

So just go with it.

And people have been tried in absentia lots of times. Is Sweden unique in not allowing a party absent to be charged and proclaimed guilty? If so, that's a pretty good loophole to avoid being a criminal, isn't it?

...it constantly exposes the myth that the so-called ‘left-wing’ papers in Britain are anything other than state-corporate establishment supporting rags.

And one can find similar analysis of the media outlets in the US that are routinely derided by Republicans as "left wing" - even if you ignore Greenwald's extensive body of work on the subject.

Slight correction - Greenwald was at Salon, not Slate.

And how many are there yelling “If the USA wanted him, where is the request from the USA to get him?!?!?!”.

Because we all know that the country that engages in extraordinary renditions, feels no compunction at killing people via sky robots at the President's due-process-free say-so and violates international law and treaties when it feels like it...

...would feel the need to make formal and public legal requests to 3rd parties for someone it "wanted".

Greenwald was at Salon, not Slate

Doh!

Thanks.

I wonder how many of the wing-nuts who are conveniently claiming Assange is a monster also think Todd Akin has a point?

The Guardian has always defined the limits of 'acceptable' dissent. Read any of their reviews of anything Chomsky ever wrote, for instance. It's not too much to say that they despised him as much as the Right do (perhaps more), though they have, interestingly, been running several of his pieces as Op Eds of late.

And their pollyanna-ish lack of skepticism of Pentagon claims of Iranian WMD's etc. is truly horrifying, and can really only be deliberate policy given the fiasco that was the lead-up to the Iraq War. They're also way too easy on Israel - one of the big focuses of their founder - but this has improved.

That being said, it and it's sister publications are still waaaaaaay better than anything that hails from the dismal Murdoch Empire or generic tabloidia, which are both hateful and hate-filled. And CiF is brimming with people who see the world the way I do - as with Labour/Labor voters, the readership is generally well to the Left of the publication.

No-one could accuse Amy Goodman of being anti-feminist or some species of rape-enabler. Thus it's interesting to see DN!'s coverage of the current Assange crisis.

What I find most intriguing is that Sweden laid and then dropped the rape charges in 2010, but continued investigating the molestation charges. You wouldn't know it from the current carry-on. How many of the people righteously howling for blood have any idea what he's actually wanted for? How many have similar 'skeletons' in their own closets?

What I think is certain is that if he wasn't the founder of Wikileaks none of this would be happening, and that if the US weren't looking to extraordinarily render him, none of this would be happening. I also think that given its previous collaboration in renditions Sweden would certainly surrender Assange to the US, and has probably already arranged to do so sub rosa.

Another supine government - our own - in both its Liberal and Labor marketing manifestations, has given us three very instructive lessons in what Australian citizens in the US Imperial gunsights can expect. They'll certainly ask if they should gift-wrap you...

"How many of the people righteously howling for blood have any idea what he’s actually wanted for"

Hell, they don't even know it's merely for questioning.

For which you have NO LEGAL OBLIGATION to go where they demand. They can only cart you off if they charge you and this EAW (which should never have been written: it's an ARREST WARRANT, which means you have to have been charged at the very least, not merely accused) explicitly says it's merely and solely for questioning. If they wanted to arrest him with it, even after questioning, then they would be breaking EU law.

It would be like charging someone with the offence of squirrel baiting. No such law exists and although the arrest may have been carried out with the correct procedures, the arrest itself is unlawful because no such offence exists.

"Because we all know that the country that engages in extraordinary renditions..."

Heck, not even that.

Is there ANY reason why the USA would not be allowed to issue a warrant for his arrest when he's in Sweden because they haven't issued one for him in Englant?

Really? Is there a statute of limitations on this and it will run out in a couple of days? Or can warrants only be issued to the UK? What?

Meanwhile the BBC sweeps the gutter for 'Opinion'. propaganda.. It is easy for the discerning reader to figure where the hypocrisy really lies especially those familiar with the work of Noam Chomsky or John Pilger. PJ Crowley (former US Assistant Secretary of State or not) is full of it.

Whilst few recognise that this is a trumped up situation dreamed up by the US, with Assange, to my knowledge not having been charged with any offence. How much cash is now changing hands in, or other incentives offered to, Sweden.

If it smells like a rat then Assange has just reason for not returning to Sweden which country only has to send lawyers to the embassy if there is a case to answer. Tellingly they are avoiding this. Perhaps Uncle Sam has made it known that they will take care of it by foul means as fair will not stand a chance.

I suspect William Hague's foot is sore, he having 'shot' it, with him now busy sucking it.

"How much cash is now changing hands in, or other incentives offered to, Sweden. "

A swedish ex MP with designs on becoming boss lives in the USA at the moment and looking for something to display as chops. They are also one half of the legal team that is persuing this case.

NOTE: its unlikely for an Swede who has moved nationality to become the Prime minister. You need serious backing to manage to get that going...

On the push back against the deniers and their apologists Peter Sinclair has an article up on Michael Mann filing a law suit against National Review with a hint that more could be in the works:

The legal dismemberment of the Denial machine has begun. In a conversation thursday with a very senior scientist, I was updated on a number of actions slowly encircling the Denial industry. Think, - Tobacco lawsuits on stereo steroids, with extra secret sauce.

Meanwhile elsewhere there is news that the Daily Kos is rallying the troops. This needs watching and supporting.

Picking up on the Mann v National Review thing here is the letter from Baker Hostetler (lawyers for National Review at a guess) where they invoke Andrew Montford and James Delingpole (the Page 3 guys - they having been revealed as snappy dressing emperors ). You just cannot make this stuff up. But that's 'interpreters of interpretations' lawyers for you.

Lionel A.

I hope that Michael Mann makes the National Review bleed hæmorrhage.

Someone more knowledgable about US litigation than I would be able to clarify the matter of 'damages', but I imagine that if Mann had recourse to such he'd have a Bag of Infinite Holding into which to delve, once not only is his personal reputation taken into account, but his is capacity to operate effectively in his professional role in communicating the import of his work.

No doubt you will all be delighted that Steyn's and NRO's lawyers will have the legal right to inspect *every single document* written by Mann pertaining to his 'research' including those that hitherto he has refused to release on grounds of confidentiality. The words "No hiding place" come to mind.

Such fun!

Yup, we're delighted. Since it is accurate and has been scrutinised for any errors like no other document in history, there's nothing to feat for Mann.

Those lying scumbag deniers, however, have to hope like hell this stalls.

Here's another of the hundreds of "Hockey Sticks" http://www.skepticalscience.com/pics/1-kinnard2011.jpg

No, no, Wow, I am referring to all those documents Mann has so far *refused* to release. And they will include, no doubt, a host of fascinating e-mails to his co-consp - ooops, sorry - co-confidants.

Can't wait!

Duff

Your declared location suits your persona.

Time for FOI moves on Delingtroll and Cardinal Puff perhaps, now that would be interesting. MacIntyre too would probably yield enough to incarcerate quite a few given his involvement in the so called climategate - there are your real criminals. In a real investigation into that hacking MacIntyre would have been hauled in for questioning. After all, even if he did not do the hack himself he probably knows those who did.

"I am referring to all those documents Mann has so far *refused* to release."

So you're up with Bradley Manning who released documents that the US government refused to release? You think he should be set free, because the US government REFUSED to release classified documents?

No, Wow, because Manning is a serving soldier who released classified documents against the orders of his superiors.

Prof. Mann is a civilian 'scientist' who is perfectly entitled to keep his documents secret, and I and others are perfectly free to speculate as to why. Now however, he has taken a step which means that he must allow NRO/Steyn (and the rest of us) total access.

Well, you're in support of open acces, I'm sure, Wow, so you must be pleased.

Except that isnt a refutation that the USA *refused* to release that information.

That's the only reason you've given for Mann's release of every scrap of information, so therefore you HAVE to be insisting that the only reason something MUST be released is because it has been *refused*.

Except it seems you don't.

This is because you want to hound Mann and have a raging hard-on about AGW.

"Well, you’re in support of open acces, I’m sure, Wow, so you must be pleased."

You, however, aren't.

Unless it's to harrass someone who says something you find politically and ideologically dangerous. Rather stalinist of you, really.

"which means that he must allow NRO/Steyn (and the rest of us) total access."

No it doesn't.

Wow, the law, along with climate 'science', is obviously not your strong point. Allow me to help you.

1: Manning is a serving soldier who took an oath part of which implies that he must obey any legal order from his government.

2: He disobeyed a legal order and therefore he must answer for it.

3: Mann, a civilan, has consistently refused to disclose a host of documents **which he is perfectly within his rights so to do**.

4: However, he has now decided to sue NRO/Steyn and the law states quite clearly that they and their lawyers are entitled to look at every single document Mann has in his possession dealing with the subject of the case.

Presumably, Prof. Mann was so advised and presumably he has nothing to hide and nothing to worry about - er, has he?

re:1: The FIRST OBLIGATION of a soldier is to protect the constitution from enemies both foreign and domestic.

The NDA is very far down the list from that.

re:2: No, he didn't. He wasn't ordered to cover up the crimes and if he had been, these would have beein illegal orders.

re:3: The president of the USA is a civilian.

re:4: Yes, but the court can only request access to documents relevant to the case.

Duff, I am a bit slow. Which documents are you referring to? How did the National Review know what is contained in these alleged, but as yet unnamed, documents before they defamed Mann?

One would have to be remarkably thick to make a libellious accusation and hope it will be backed up by unseen "documents", documents that deniers are unwilling or unable to name. As seen with the latest Watts lets-suspend-my-blog-so-I-can-make-shit-up debacle, all the deniers really want is a chance to trawl through Mann's email. Apparently the first trawl wasn't enough to prove what they claim.

Moreover, their claim that the term "fraud" is merely "rhetorical hyperbole" is delightfully stupid. To claim that their accusation of criminal behaviour was a bit of eccentric wordplay will be exploded in court, along with any notion that Mann has committed any of the malfeasance the deniers squeal he has.

Cue the coming shrieks of "WHITEWASH" as a gaggle of sad old men discover the US court system is just another cog in Al Gore's green machine.

"Presumably, Prof. Mann was so advised and presumably he has nothing to hide and nothing to worry about – er, has he?"

He has nothing to hide and nothing to fear from a court case. Which is why he brought it up.

And I guess the USA government and military have something to hide here, right:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/24/bradley-manning-challenge_n_15…

So why the worry? Why the fear?

NEWS FLASH ----

Today, accusations have arisen that Anthony Watts has a secret horde of kiddie porn stashed away in a secret location on a computer system he has access to.

Tales of four month old babies bleeding from the abuse being photographed have been made.

Anthony Watts, REFUSES to let courts release all the information on all his computer systems to discover any other co-conspirators in this kiddie-porn ring, contended to be international in scope, whilst forensics teams work to find out if he has used encryption programs to hide his secret shame.

I'm beginning to worry about you, Wow, I think perhaps you should go and lie down in a dark room until your fever subsides!

Now come along, John, you're usually a bit quicker than poor old Wow. The NRO has no idea what documents Mann is holding and which he has hitherto refused to yield up, but now they have a full legal right to demand everything and that means everything in the slightest way connected to his scientific work. Of course, between me and you, not a word to Wow, he might come over all peculiar - again, but I suspect that an awful lot of people with very detailed knowledge will be pointing them in the right direction.

It's a cruel world!

Oh,almost forgot my manners - thanks, Wow, for your joke of the week - the Huffpo - Oh my giddy aunt, it's the way you tell 'em!

David Duff.

How's that "record cold" northern hemisphere summer of yours progressing?

http://neven1.typepad.com/blog/2012/08/asi-2012-update-10-at-a-loss.html

Hey, how come you're not screaming for access to all Anthony Watts' stuff because of the accusation of being in an international kiddie porn ring?

He gets financing from HI remember. You know, that charity organisation that hides where they get their money from? It's from the selling of KP.

Duff, I don't think that you get it... if the NRO defamation of Mann was true, then they must already have had the proof, otherwise they were not acting in good faith and so have no defense. If they demand to see all Mann's documents so that they can hunt for stuff to prove their case it shows that they were being malicious.

"but now they have a full legal right to demand everything "

No they don't. Lunatic.

(PS is this why Whacko Lord Munchkin, despite copious claims of suing people has not once tried? Because he, like you, thinks that this means "full legal right to demand everything"?)

"the Huffpo"

So the USA isn't keeping Bradley Manning in secret trials because the HuffPo carried the story too?

I guess this is how you believe all the other crap too.

Wow, it is *Mann* who is suing *NRO*, not the other way round. As defendents they have the right to view to view all pertinent documents.

And Turbocock, it's only defamation if it turns out their statements were untrue. That is why they will be going through Mann's papers determined to find evidence that what they apparently suggested is true.

And Bernard, I don't give a flying fig for the Northern Hemisphere, in England it has been the coolest, wettest non-summer for ages - and despite the previous three not being much better. I keep telling you guys, send me some of that global warming!

As reported by John Russell over at SkS Jonathan Leake, Sunday Times (paywall alert), strikes again WRT Arctic Ice loss and quotes John Christy.

"Wow, it is *Mann* who is suing *NRO*, not the other way round"

I know.

YOU seem to think, though, that Mann is the one facing an accusation. It is YOU who thinks that NRO is suing Mann.

" in England it has been the coolest, wettest non-summer for age"

And in the USA, the hottest summer for recorded history.

And for the Arctic, the hottest summer for recorded history.

What a rube you are, duffski.

..going through Mann’s papers determined to find evidence that what they apparently suggested is true.

Duff - you are proof that hanging out at denier sites rots the brain. They didn't 'apparently' 'suggest', they explicitly stated. As has already been pointed out, they have to provide the evidence to support those explicit statements. All Mann has to do is respond to the (doubtless flimsy) evidence they provide.

"it’s only defamation if it turns out their statements were untrue."

Incorrect.

If you have no evidence for your statement, then you will lose your case.

NRO have to prove themselves innocent.

They don't get to ask Mann to prove them innocent.

Wow, they have evidence which no doubt will be contested by Mann which is precisely why, if Mann is to substantiate his accusation of defamation he must give the defence lawyers access to all relevant docs. So you are wrong, in a sense, they do ask Mann to prove them innocent - delicious irony, isn't it?

However, so far, I believe, Mann has only asked for a retraction and *threatened* to sue. Soon we shall see whether or not he does, or instead perhaps, does a 'Lance Armstrong'.

Duff-the-Dope let out more rope
that will surely hang him
he hast not a hope:

in England it has been the coolest, wettest non-summer for ages

Meanwhile you twerp here is what you are avoiding.

"they have evidence which no doubt will be contested by Mann"

1) Well, they don't need Mann's stuff, then.

2) Well, what do you expect to happen? It's a court case and you presume that the accused is ALWAYS innocent?

"I believe, Mann has only asked for a retraction and *threatened* to sue"

You seem to be unable to know what you believe. 9:57 am you believed that there was a genuine lawsuit. A belief you maintained up to 5:10 pm. Yet, at 6:59pm you suddenly believe that there is no lawsuit.

You're certainly part of an "MTV generation"....

Duff sticks his finger to the wind, gets a chill, and then proclaims an entire field of science to be bunk. That's about the long and short of it. How much of the planet's land mass does the UK constitute? Yet here we have him arguing that if its cool and wet in the UK, then climate warming is not happening. That's a bit like saying (for argument's sake) that tropical deforestation rates aren't a concern because forest area in in Benin was relatively constant this year. It doesn't matter that the total area of tropical wet forests in Benin make up <1% of the world's total rainforests by area, if they had a stable year then there is no need to fuss over the remaining 99% and their destruction; after all, if the forests weren't doing so badly in Benin this year, then they can't have been doing badly elsewhere. Yup, this is old Duffer's logic.

Sheesh. Is it no wonder that the denier ranks are made up largely of nincompoops who spew out this kind of logic? Over the past decade there are hundreds of examples of extreme climate-change related events - large scale heat waves, unprecedented floods and the like - that far exceed the rate of the same events over similar time scales in previous years. By now the evidence for AGW is huge and still growing. And yet the stick-your-finger-to-the-wind brigade persists.

http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/news/releases/archive/2012/typical-british-…

Too early to say what this year's Summer was like as it hasn't yet finished. However the Mat Office describe it as having had some disappointing spells.

BTW Duff, I think my post above was the first time that I have ever replied to you (unless you've posted under another name). I note that your reply insulted me: this does not inspire confidence in your rationality.

Yeah, "large scale heat waves" as distinct from small scale heatwaves ; "unprecedented floods" as distinct from your common or garden floods occuring naturally all over the world all the time. It's all unprecedented and just hotting up , the "evidence for AGW is huge and still growing" It's either your dick or your head which is hot and huge Jeff . My guess the latter,. but then again you're just a combination of both.

Mack,

You have your simple head stuck up you-know-where. Science has left you politically indoctrinated illiterates behind. The fact that you rely on non-pub;ished crap by Nahle and web sites run by denilaists to soothe your ignorance says it all. Its amazing how many of the deniers who parade their ignorance on the web - you are one of them - have never been near a science lecture in a university in their entire lives. Yet, like you, they think that reading a few blogs or right wing rags somehow is all that is necessary to become an expert. I saw it with GSW and his kindergarten level understanding of ecology, as well as with Jonas and his various acolytes. The less one knows, the more they think they know. There are so many Dunning-Kruger afflicted people out there spewign out there penny's worth of nonsense on a range of scientific and environmental issues. What's odd is that they thin, by virtue of their massive intellectual limitations and the fact that most haven't been anywhere near a university lecture theater that science is on therir side. I speak with more scientists in a week than people like you Mack willdo in a lifetime. And the vast majority of us have moved on. Humans are forcing climate. Get over it.

And you haven't answered my question: what is your background in any scientific field? We all know the answer. You just know that telling us all here will pile on further humiliation.

"non-published crap by Nahle"

who, remember, couldn't even get his equation to work on dimensional analysis terms.

But idiots are all these denier idiots have left to play with, so they play.

There's a simple solution for you to satisfy your intellectual snobbery Jeff (Bernerd and anybody else ) to determine one of my academic qualifications and that is to READ all the comments at Nasif Nahle. It is there in the comments. So that is tough nuts for you. You are going to have to bugger off and read them. And I've got news for you Jeff baby. Humans are not "forcing the climate" . Get over it.

Duff keeps bitching about how cold it is, but the facts say that the average temp for the UK for the year to date (January to July data, since August hasn't finished) is 0.14 degrees above the already high 1980-2010 average.

Duff worldview is limited to what he can see out his window.

Given his "view out his window" is factually incorrect, I don't think he's looking.

This Septic Isle

I prefer rhymes like:

"This Denial Isle"

USKMS.

I'm not sure why you feel it necessary to direct me to the crankery of Nassif Nahle in order to establish any qualifications you might have... do I really get under your skin that much?

I will simply conclude from your demonstrated low standard of literacy - both regular and scientific - that you have completed nothing that puts letters after your name.

Not that there's anything wrong with that, but by the evidence of your commentary you're certainly not qualified to speak with any authority on anything even vaguely resembling science.

Sorry Mack, but you are about as dense as a Mack truck. I won't waste my time as a scientist going through some third rate blog with a bunch of unpublished crapola. I'll stick to the scientific literature thank you very much. If you are afraid to tell us all here what your qualifications are, then this suggests that they aren't much. As I told Jonas, I tend to defer to the views of the vast majority of climate scientists, many of whom I know personally or have met at conferences and workshops. Their opinion is that the humans are the main drivers behind the recent warming. It is warming, of that there is no doubt, based on innumerable biotic/ecological proxies. That humans are the primary culprit is pretty well a sealed deal. What we still don't know with any defined clarity is how the effects are likely to play out on complex adaptive systems, and how this will rebound on humanity, but the prognosis is not good. Like a spolied child you can whine all day that '"it ain't so!!!', but don't expect the scientific community by-and-large to join your whinging. I've done the mileage as far as science is concerned, and I am not arrogant enough - as you and your sad lot are - to think that my opinions trump the vast majority of experts in the field. If anyone is a snob its you and those who rotuinely deride real experts like Mann, Santer, Trenbert, Schmidt, Jones et al. - people who have bothered to have studied the field for much of their lives. The armchair brigade - you included - don't reach up to their shoelaces.

I am sick of having to listen to a bunch of pseudo-intellectual morons who think that by reading a few blogs that they become instant experts in fields well outside of their competence. The vast majority of scientists have moved on, Mack. You may not think so, but that's because you're apparently stuck behind your friggin' keyboard.

Stick with Nahle and the hoards of keyboard-experts who haven't been to a university lecture in their lives.

Mackthetwat, Massive Nail was here some years ago. We've already read his crapola.

There was an extreme amount of ass-handing-over to Nail and he just insisted that his "unique" view of physics was the only true one, and that any examples proving it wrong were either ignored or rejected.

The NRO has no idea what documents Mann is holding

Then perhaps they shouldn't have accused him of scientific fraud and general malfeasance based on documents they do not possess nor know the contents of. Because this is the crux of their claim - that a trawl through these alleged documents will prove everything.

If Mann had so obviously committed the scientific fraud they claim, why can't they simply procure one of his many published papers, articles, books or speeches? Surely all the evidence is right there, not in some magical and non-existent documents.

Even funnier - the response invokes Hustler Magazine vs. Falwell - that is, "the statement [that Mann committed fraud] was so obviously ridiculous that it was clearly not true".

What the letter really amounts to is a whinge that they really didn't mean what they said but they fully intend to waste the court's time snuffling through Mann's private documents like the pigs they are in order to smear him further.

If you want to swallow whatever codswallop the National Review is serving up in a lame attempt to save their own arse, go ahead. Don't expect this to resolve in your favour, though, if the best argument you have is "They have the evidence! They just need access to it!"

Because they got nada.

Nowt.

Nothing.

As it's another dreary, overcast, wet, Bank Holiday Monday, Mr Duff is correct, where have the BBQ summers of our youth gone? Anyway found this on the Washington Post site, about your lots level I would have thought.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/when-is-it-too-hot-to-kill-above…

Even more reason for you to be hiding under the stairs, enjoy!

So what number of decades and when was EVERY YEAR in the UK a barbecue summer?

GSW.

So if it's cloudy when you stick your head out the window there's no global climate change? What's happening in the Arctic right now? In Europe? In the USA?

Hmmm?

Just been over to Jo Nova's merry band of retards.

Apparently they are very sensitive about Julia Gillard's "nutjobs on the internet", for some reason.....

The desperately stupid Nova attacks Dr Peter Doherty for deferring to identified expertise and 'arguing from authority',then proceeds to argue from authority in the very next paragraph...helpless and hopeless.

Nova looks like Australia's answer to Ann Coulter except Coulter, arguably, has more nous, still scary though.

Jeff Harvey Aug 27th 9.54am.
"And the vast majority of us have moved on"
Jeff Harvey Aug 27th 1.02pm.
"The vast majority of scientists have moved on"
Stuck in a groove of verbal dross are we Harvewit? You and your scientists have ,yes, moved on but just left the science.behind. You can keep up with them ..licking their "shoelaces"

Mack,

For the umpteeth time you clown, go away. Most scientists - myself included - take AGW for granted. In virtually every conference and workshop I attend, the potential consequences of warming are discussed and debated. That humans are the primary driver is not discussed any more. This is taken for granted. I have yet to see a lecture presented when discussing warming-related effects debate this issue, or for any of those attending to dispute the causes. We are. End of story.

Furthermore, how the hell would a know-nothing like you who clearly has no scientific qualifications and who never ever goes to a conference or even a university lecture know good science from bad science? If anyone is a pompous know-it-all on the basis of possessing no formal qualifications in any relavtns fields, it speople like you Mack. Dunning-Kruger through and through. Textbook cases of the affliction.

When you refer to 'science' you obviously mean the think-tank or right wing web log variety. Certainly not that in peer-reviewed journals, because pretty well all of it bolsters the anthropogenic angle. I think that it takes remarkable hubris for laym,en like yourself to claim that science is on your 'side'. What science? Certainly not that doen by the trained experts in said universities.

To retierate: go away. Every posting on Deltoid makes you look more idiotic than you already are. To claim that a bunch of right wing idealogues with no formal training know climate science better than climate scientists is the final straw as far as I am concerned.

Let's compare arguments - verified record Arctic ice melt vs anecdotes about alleged BBQ summers of yore (evidence provided - none) and alleged current cool weather (when the temperature has been above average).

Try harder. Watts has expounded the latest scandal - Antarctic warming caused by the body heat of two men in an unheated station a long way from the nearest thermometer used for climate measurements. Throw us that one!

Throw us that one!

Our resident trolls are becoming slow...

...er.

So Jeff, conferences and university lectures are the only way to do science, eh? That's a remarkably self-serving and narrow minded view.

I've been involved in the peer review process on both sides, as a reviewer and as a submitter, and it sure isn't the panacea of science you want it to be. I'm not even involved in a controversial field of science and I've seen all sorts of nasty politics play out in the peer review process.

At this point the word 'science' in your posts is beginning to grate. Science this and science that, blah blah blah science science science. Argh.

"At this point the word ‘science’ in your posts is beginning to grate. Science this and science that, blah blah blah science science science. Argh."

Translation: Science is Hard!!!

Ben(der of logic)

So Jeff, conferences and university lectures are the only way to do science, eh?

What a presumptuous, narrow minded driven statement that is. Where do you think the data that supports said lectures and conferences comes from?

Working in the field of course.

Where did you see Jeff implying that he doesn't do, or has not done, field work?

You didn't.

End of!

1) "I’ve been involved in the peer review process on both sides, as a reviewer and as a submitter"

2) "and it sure isn’t the panacea of science you want it to be."

These two things are not unconnected, Ben.

ben, everything you have ever posted here is immensely stupid and dishonest -- like that total misrepresentation of what Jeff wrote -- and you complain about grating? Yeah, too much mention of science in connection with AGW -- better to just pull it out of you ass, like you deniers do. How stupid can you possibly be? Always more stupid than anyone imagined.

Ben,

Trust you to wade in here with your five cent's worth. You, who once claimed that Obama was a left wing socialist. You are in over your head, pal. Way over.

Nowhere did I say that the peer-review process is perfect - but its all we have to keep science safe. Otherwise we'd see flat Earth theories and the like taken seriously by pundits, the media and the general public. The fact is that the vast majority of scientists think that the empirical evidence supports the hypothesis of an indelible human fingerprint on the recent climate warming. If Mack's view is to be taken seriously, then we might as well ditch degree and graduate programs and education in the climate, Earth and environmental sciences and let the corporate-funded think tanks and politically motivated hacks with blogs run the show.

I am sure that you wouldn't go to a garage mechanic to explain some medical problem you are having, and similarly I think it takes extreme arrogance for people with no relevant scientific pedigree whatsoever to be able to claim, as Mack does, that anthropogenic climate change is bunk. I see warning signs flashing whenever people with no expertise start mouthing about about areas of science in which they are neophytes (or less). These people write as if no training is required to master complex fields, and do not hesitate to ridicule scientists with whom they disagree. I've seen it here on Deltoid innumerable times.

I seriously couldn't give a rat's ass if you've been a peer reviewer. I have been a reviewer for over 70 journals in my scientific career, and I would not be the first to admit that the system is leaky. But its not THAT leaky: the overwhelming support for AGW across the spectrum of science journals is, or should be, taken seriously. Its not like there is some huge controversy with scientific opinion split down the middle. The number of so-called sceptics with professional qualifications in a related field is small, and shrinking. As I said above, at conferences and workshops I attend, AGW is taken for granted. The discussions now focus on mitigation versus adaptation and effects on natural and managed ecosystems.

Bill Nye on evolution:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=gHbYJfwFgOU

"At conferences and workshops I attend, AGW is taken for granted" Yes, a bunch of ostriches standing around with their heads stuck firmly in the sand. You are no scientist Jeff Harvey, You are not even worthy of being called a scientist.

So I take it your clique is all busy discussing whether water is wet as stated or whether it's in fact strawberry.

Right?

I mean, there's no way you could be taking things for granted, that would mean you'd consider yourself an ostrich with its head in the sand.

Right?

Or should I say rightwingnut?

'Mack'; what is the point of you?

I’ve been involved in the peer review process on both sides, as a reviewer and as a submitter, and it sure isn’t the panacea of science you want it to be.

Ben appears to be (a) presuming pre-publication peer review must be perfect for science to be effective, and (b) ignoring the effect of post-publication peer review in weeding out unsupportable claims.

It almost seems like Ben has a very limited understanding of how science comes to draw strong explanatory inferences from the data.

It's notable that the front 2 pages over at both Jo Nova's League for the Preservation of Vital Bodily Fluids and the Bishop's Stick-y Mess feature no mention of the Arctic sea-ice collapse, or Greenland, for that matter.

(Well, except for the Bishop doing some bashing of Monbiot via one of those hilarious 'Josh' cartoons that those who miss Pravda should rush over and read. There's no content involved.)

These clowns really don't know what to do about this, so they're just going to ignore the thawing mammoth in the room!

On the other hand, dear old Anthony has cleverly decided to divert attention to the other pole - and didn't that work well? - as well as working up some other diversionary comedy material.

Frankly, I think the stress of realising he's going to be remembered as one of the greatest berks in history is getting to him...

Mack claims that i am not a scientist. Many hundreds or even thousands of my peers disagree. The journals where I publish my research, ask me to be a peer-reviewer, or where I am an Associate Editor disagree. The conferences where I present lectures and the universities that invite me as a speaker disagree. My employer disagrees. Need I go on?

Mack, who apparently hasn't been near a university science lecture hall in his life, and who does none of the above, feels he possesses the innate ability to be able to separate a bonafide scientist (one who agrees with him with respect to denying AGW) from an imposter. What I said in my earlier posting stands: most scientists take AGW as a given. I can say this with the authority of being an 'insider'. Mack gleans his opinion from perusing right wing blogs - WUWT, BH, Nova's et al. set up and run by non-scientists for the deniers to chew their bit of fat.

My question to Mack is this: given that you aren't a scientist and don't do what scientists do, what special gift do you possess that enables you to be able to measure the opinion of scientists working on climate change or its effects? Or is that, like Jonas, a bonafide scientist in your non-expert opinion is a climate change denier whereas the rest of us - meaning the majority - aren't?

ben, everything you have ever posted here is immensely stupid and dishonest...

If you can get Tim to agree with you then we'll discuss further, otherwise not.

Where did you see Jeff implying that he doesn’t do, or has not done, field work?

WTF? How does that have anything to do with what I wrote?

Translation: Science is Hard!!!

Thppppt! My point is that the WORD science is being used like it's on a broken record. Very irritating. Like the guy my sister sat across from on a flight who couldn't stop saying "wireless." Wireless, wireless wireless, blah blah wireless. Same thing. Argh.

While Jeff certainly is a scientist, I think the tax money that is collected could definitely be better spent on something more useful to humanity, like engineers. Or baristas. You know, people who produce something that is actually valuable to other people.

Collected to pay for his university position, flights to various conferences and gatherings, computer bandwidth, grad students, etc. that is.

Shorter Ben - Jeff Harvey is much more successful than I am. Waaah.

Ben is also ignorant of the astounding cost-benefit ratio for science - and communicates this via a computer that would not exist but for investment into numerous areas of science, over a network that would not exist without similar scientific investments.

Heck, Ben doesn't seem to know much about science at all, other than he doesn't want to hear about it too much.

"If you can get Tim to agree with you then we’ll discuss further, otherwise not. "

Why is that a requirement? Is Tim the only and sole arbiter of stupidity?

Or was that yet another stupid post?

Ben also seems stunningly aware that science is the study of phenomena that may or may not yield a benefit or even mature into a technology several decades (or even centuries) later. Ben's misunderstanding leads him to believe that applying blinkers is the sensible, hard-headed way forward.

Those who don't have more than a few years' history here probably don't know that Ben is an engineer - hence his fawning enthusiasm for the profession.

The comparison of engineering with science, with respect to which is 'better', is a spurious one. They 'do' different things, and each has its own inherent worth. Although without science, there'd likely be very little engineering indeed...

I see the Australian's war on science is continuing down under with the newspaper making its one and only dedicated science writer - Leigh Dayton - redundant:

http://blogs.unimelb.edu.au/sciencecommunication/2012/08/28/a-bad-day-f…

I shouldn't always respond to the stupid baiting tactics of clowns like Ben and Mack. Still, their comments reek of both ignorance and envy.

I don't know how many times I have had to defend the science of ecology from self-righteous types like Ben who have not an inkling of the importance of applied versus funademantal science and where they intersect. Chek sums it up well. Whereas the molecular sciences are evolving so quickly that new discoveries often become obsolete a few years later, our understanding of the factors that regulate the assembly and functioning of ecosystems across the biosphere has been gleaned from research conducted over very many years. Without ecology, we would not understand the importance of complex adaptive systems in maintaining a wide array of supporting services upon which human civilization depends. Studies conducted over decades are also putting many of the pieces into a massive picture in explaining the importance of individuals, communities, ecosystems and food webs. By combining thousands of data sets via met- analysis and that have been collected by different researchers over many years, we are beginning to unraval ecological complexity and to better understand how these systems function. These studies cover vastly different scales of space and time. Most importantly, we are beginning to elucidate the effects of anthropogenic stresses on the stability and resilience of these systems, how much they can be simplified before they break down, and what the potential consequences are for the material economy.

Of course the likes of Ben, Mack, Karen et al. are profoundly ignornat of all of this. They do not understand how nature sustains human civilization, except in the context of providing resources for them to live relatively affluent lives. They take for granted the ridiculous notion that humans are largely exempt from natural laws, and that the continued assault on nature will have few or no consequences for future generations. They blindly assume that, through technology, there are no limits to material growth, and that ecologists are a waste of time because they think, as Ben hinted above, that the study of nature has no benefits for society. This mindset is made, as I said, on the basis of complete and utter ignorance as to the dependence on Homo sapiens on a wide range of servcies that emerge from natural systems. In their ignorance, a la Dunning-Kruger, they are able to blandly dismiss and/or to ridicule what they do not understand.

Ignoranced sure is bliss. Ben and his ilk prove it.

"The comparison of engineering with science, with respect to which is ‘better’"

Only because it doesn't challenge his faith.

If you are a scientist Jeff Harvey what exactly are you trying to achieve here? You;re some sort of blog scientist but of course not interested in any science presented on a blog. A scientist is one who is openminded, ; receptive to science presented by others especially if it pertains to the field they study, which is the anthropogenic effects on the climate isn;t it Jeff? Are you interested in knowledge? Nah you're just a closed-minded clod following Al Gore.

Looks like I went just in time for the apotheose. My, oh my. What Mack said is so magnificent on so many levels.
Tears actually come from my eyes.

"If you are a scientist Jeff Harvey what exactly are you trying to achieve here?"

What, precisely, demands that there be no scientists with a personal life?

If you're not a scientist, MackSpotKaren, what exactly are you trying to achieve here?

...probably don’t know that Ben is an engineer...

That's no excuse for horribly misunderstanding science and its demonstrated value. I'm an engineer too ;-)

And I seem to recall the first 1.5 years of my Bachelors degree was spent mostly studying science (and maths) - without which we couldn't even start most of the engineering subjects.

Ben(der), shape-shifter.

I asked:

Where did you see Jeff implying that he doesn’t do, or has not done, field work?

to which you replied:

WTF? How does that have anything to do with what I wrote?

Now here is the statement of yours that prompted my question to you:

So Jeff, conferences and university lectures are the only way to do science, eh?

Did you, or did you not, write that?

Wriggle worm, wriggle.

"Thppppt! My point is that the WORD science is being used like it’s on a broken record. Very irritating. Like the guy my sister sat across from on a flight who couldn’t stop saying “wireless.” Wireless, wireless wireless, blah blah wireless. Same thing. Argh."

Sounds like a science allergy. This obviously isn't the forum for you; there's an easy way to fix that, too. :)

Eli reports that Anthony Watts Is Sad.

Must-read comic relief if you haven't yet come across the saga of Watt's Antarctic urban heat island effect. And there's a nice Aussie connection.

Lotharsson snap,

although I was an engineer, aviation, before embarking on, and completing, my Maths and Science based bachelors degree which latter involved rerunning some, but not all, of the subjects I had grounded on during a long aircraft apprenticeship.

That latter included, Applied Mechanics Aircraft, Aeronautical Engineering Science, Mathematics and Engineering Drawing besides practical aspects of looking after aircraft and proficiency in metal fitting, welding, brazing, sheet metal work in and GRP systems and aircraft finishes. Flying control, fuel (airframe and engine), haydraulic and pneumatic systems were also paer for the course as was a ground in electricity and applications of. All of which I had to study or practice and pass before being let lose on real aircraft that could crash and kill people.

Thermodynamics and the behaviour of gases in the atmosphere were all par for the course being directly applicable to the safe performance of aero-engines and the ability of aircraft to fly and navigate safely.

Unlike some engineers I didn't stop at engineering but explored wider aspects of science and thus endorse what Jeff wrote in his 9:34 am above and others having maintained my interest in biological, chemical, geographical and geological aspects over the years.

It is as plane as a pikestaff that we have just about FUBARed this planet beyond hope of reclamation but that does not mean that we should blindly continue BAU as your shoulder devils wish you to believe.

To use an aeronautical analogy about the latest at WUWT on Antarctic UHI effect it is clear that Anthony is now in a flat spin and furthermore I can see no evidence of a tail shute that could deploy to stop his crash and burn.

Mack, I am interested in peer-reviewed science published in scientific journals that is discussed on a few good web sites. Deltoid is one. Real Climate is another. Sites by Tamino, Crooked Timber, John Quiggen Eli Rabett are also good venues. Each of these discusses the significance of published research findings in the most rigid journals.

By contrast,I am not interested in the non-published whingings of a coterie of right wing ideologues - few of whom have any pedigree in any scientific field - who attack reputable scientists and their findings distorting science as a tool to promote a pre-determined world view. Some of my research involves the effects of short-term climate changes on the phenology of species interactions, as well as on range-expansions in plants and insects. In the latter I am also interested in studying genetic variation in the invading population as it relates to various traits. There are numerous biotic proxies across temperate regions with proof positive that it has warmed significantly since the 1980s. The effects of these short-term changes and their effects on biodiversity and ecosystem functioning are of profound interest and importance. I leave it up to the experts in climate science to evaluate the extent of the human fingerprint, and these people by-and-large have spoken. They affirm the significant human influence. The views of Watts, Nova, McItyre, McKitrick, Morano, Milloy et al. ad nauseum are irrelevant. If this sordid lot has half a dozen scientific papers to their name I would be quite surprised. The fact is that the deniers are made up largely of mediocrity in terms of the qualifications of the few bonafide scientists in their ranks. I am doing reasonably well in my field: 122 publications on the WoS since 1993 with 2625 citations of my work and an h-factor on 30. Still, many peers are way ahead of this. I do my best. However, if I was a climate change denier I'd be in the upper echelons with my 'stats'. This should be evidence of the lack of real pedigreed researchers amongst them.

I trust the scientists with the expertise who have concluded that humans are forcing climate, and not a bunch on the veritable academic fringe who dispute it and more often than who not cannot hide their political affiliations. As I said, you and your type want to drag the debate into the mud and to keep it stuck there so that nothing is ever concluded and thus mitigation is driven from the agenda. By the time enough evidence is in (and from what I see nothing will satisfy many on the hard right in this respect) it will be far too late: we are almost at the tipping point now, if not having passed certain critical thresholds.

Ultimately, you impugn my qualifications yet you wouldn't last 5 minutes in a room with me or most of my peers. How many conferences or workshops have you attended where climate change and its causes and effects have been discussed and debated? My guess is nil. Prove me wrong. Until then, you, of all people, have no claims to the intellectual high ground.

Ben is also ignorant of the astounding cost-benefit ratio for science – and communicates this via a computer that would not exist but for investment into numerous areas of science, over a network that would not exist without similar scientific investments.

This statement is certainly not true. I was only referring to Jeff's science. Humanity could get along just fine even if Jeff never published another paper or flew to another conference.

By contrast,I am not interested in the non-published whinings of a coterie of right wing ideologues – few of whom have any pedigree in any scientific field

Right, so you waste your time arguing with them anyway. Why not spend your time arguing with the folks who disagree with you who do possess the requisit scientific pedigree? Like Lindzen, Baliunas, Spencer, Christy, etc?

Like Lindzen, Baliunas, Spencer, Christy, etc?

Guffaw! Guffaw! Guffaw!

Stop it! You're killing me!

None of those above would wan't to debate with climate scientists capable of stringing arguments together in a debate which ruled out Gish Gallops.

They saw how Pat MIchaels came off against Ben Santer.

Case in point.

If John Christy had been stopped to explain his every twisting of the facts during his recent Congressional Testimony he would have been too embarrassed to get to the end of his silliness.

And the silliest silliness was his citing of the recent non-paper from a certain Anthony Watts and you only have to look at how much of the scientific world is now laughing at Watts and his increasing crack-pottery. See posts above for hints.

They saw how Pat MIchaels came off against Ben Santer.

You might notice that Michaels was not on my list. Anyway, scientific pedigree they possess, whether you like it or not.

If John Christy had been stopped to explain his every twisting of the facts during his recent Congressional Testimony he would have been too embarrassed to get to the end of his silliness.

Says you. Who are you? What's your scientific pedigree? Lindzen is a professor at MIT. You are nobody.

I know a man, his name is ben.
He's got an arse that smells like ten.

Bennie, do you have any reason for posting the crap you're peddling?

Wow, that is the best rhyme ever, even better than your climate science. Way to go!

Well, ben, what's the difference between your response to my insult and Jeff's response to yours?

And what's the difference between my insult and yours?

It seems like you're very thin skinned but jut *love* to deal it out.

There's a term for blokes like that: cowards.

Shorter Ben – Jeff Harvey is much more successful than I am. Waaah

I wouldn't care if I was a second rate garbage man and Jeff or anyone else was the king of Spain. Status has nothing to do with anything.

Testing bold... blah blah blah

That's some of your best work there. Way to go to promote engineering!

Whereas the molecular sciences are evolving so quickly that new discoveries often become obsolete a few years later, our understanding of the factors that regulate the assembly and functioning of ecosystems across the biosphere has been gleaned from research conducted over very many years.

This sentence makes no sense. I know what you are trying to get at.

Without ecology, we would not understand the importance of complex adaptive systems in maintaining a wide array of supporting services upon which human civilization depends.

Tell that to the average passer-by on the street. Count the number of eye-rolls that you get.

Studies conducted over decades are also putting many of the pieces into a massive picture in explaining the importance of individuals, communities, ecosystems and food webs. By combining thousands of data sets via met- analysis and that have been collected by different researchers over many years, we are beginning to unraval ecological complexity and to better understand how these systems function. These studies cover vastly different scales of space and time. Most importantly, we are beginning to elucidate the effects of anthropogenic stresses on the stability and resilience of these systems, how much they can be simplified before they break down, and what the potential consequences are for the material economy.

I understand you. Tell this to a random person anywhere on the planet and 999 times out of 1000 they'll tell you they don't know what you are blathering about and don't give a fuck. Tell some jerk-weed in a mud hut somewhere how much you get paid to study ecology and they'll tell you to fuck off. You might think you are doing God's work but nobody cares.

Of course the likes of Ben, Mack, Karen et al. are profoundly ignornat of all of this.

The vast majority of humanity is ignorant of your bunk.

They do not understand how nature sustains human civilization, except in the context of providing resources for them to live relatively affluent lives.

No shit. They aren't motivated by whatever it is that motivates you, they are motivated primarily by pleasure and comfort. What did you expect?

They take for granted the ridiculous notion that humans are largely exempt from natural laws, and that the continued assault on nature will have few or no consequences for future generations.

As long as they can have an iPhone. You weren't typing you screed on a Mac were you?

They blindly assume that, through technology, there are no limits to material growth, and that ecologists are a waste of time because they think, as Ben hinted above, that the study of nature has no benefits for society.

I wouldn't say it has no benefits, but I'd argue that from a cost/benefit analysis point of view the money could probably be better spent. Your claimed understanding of the ecosystem has translated into what material benefit exactly? We don't need you and your jargon to tell us that poluting is bad and trees are good, and that less of the one and more of the other will be beneficial to us and our progeny.

This mindset is made, as I said, on the basis of complete and utter ignorance as to the dependence on Homo sapiens on a wide range of servcies that emerge from natural systems.

More like complete and utter lack of caring about the papers you write.

In their ignorance, a la Dunning-Kruger, they are able to blandly dismiss and/or to ridicule what they do not understand.

Ridicule is fun. Your writing is not.

"This sentence makes no sense *to me*. I *don't* know what you are trying to get at. "

FTFY.

PS given how few people know or care how even common household goods work, I think you'll find fewer people give a monkeys about what engineers do.

PS what does all that shite have to do with climate science?

Ben, you are arguing from a point of rank stupidity. Just because you haven't got a f****** clue how your liver functions or exactly why your pancreas is there doesn't mean that you could live without them. I am sure that most people don't know a bloody thing about open heart or brain surgery, or any other area of medicine until it affects them. But this does not mean that these fields are expendable.

The fact is that you are a vacuous hole - a moron who, because he doesn't know a thing about the natural economy, blithely dismisses it. You'll be surprised how many average Joe's aren't as ignorant as you. You make a claim about cost/benefit analysis without having the slightest clue about systems ecology, ecosystem services and the link with economics and human welfare. So, predictably, you make a complete ass of yourself on the basis of using your profound stupidity to what you think is an intellectual advantage.

You aren't ridiculing me, Ben - in your witless posts you are actually ridiculing yourself. You are just too dumb to realize it. As for your list of 'luminaries', as Lionel said, 'guffaw, guffaw, guffaw'. These are the same people that the denial lobby has relied on for years and years. In 1998 a leaked memo from the American Petroleum Institute expressed concerned that the climate change denial lobby might lose credibility by relying on the same bunch of scientists (i.e. all of those you listed) and stated that they need to recruit new scientists. Here we are 14 years alter and you dredge up the same bunch of old farts. Predictable. Lindzen and Baliunas both have had or continue to maintain links with right wing think tanks where a primary focus is climate change denial. What this demonstrates is that the number of climate scientists questioning the human fingerprint on the current warming is extremely small. You just proved it, dumb-ass.

Ben, you couldn't debate your way out of a dripping wet paper bag. You are clueless when it comes to placing the value of nature into the material economy, hence you take the D-K route to oblivion. The field of economics is increasingly beginning to understand that the value of the material economy is <2% of the natural economy. The seminal Costanza et al. paper in Nature, which has been cited more than 1,000 times, made this point clear. Ecological economics has become a major discipline in the field of economics as a whole and many of the world's leading economists have singed up to it. Even neoclassical economist Willaiiam Nordhaus has come to realize how much the natural economy sustains humanity. You are just pig-ignorant. That's your problem.

PS given how few people know or care how even common household goods work, I think you’ll find fewer people give a monkeys about what engineers do.

Yes, but people pay money willingly for the products that come from engineers. Not so much with the products of 'climate science.' That's the difference.

Ben(der)

They saw how Pat MIchaels came off against Ben Santer.

You might notice that Michaels was not on my list. Anyway, scientific pedigree they possess, whether you like it or not.

Of course I noticed that Michaels was not on your list but I was using his exchange with Santer as an example of your how your 'pedigrees' (FF lap dogs mostly) would come off.

Context not your strong point is it. That is why you don't get the purpose of those involved in the many, many fields that impinge on climate science.

As for Lindzen see how tricksie he can be:

If Richard Lindzen shows up at your door, slam it.

and that is just for starters and I will be only to happy to line up those other ducks if needs be.

What's up? WUWT getting to silly even for you or maybe you are one of Anthony's foot-twerps.

Jeff, you were the one who mentioned scientific pedigree, so I simply hauled out tenured faculty from MIT, the University of Alabama, and the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. You're the one who griped about the importance of pedigree, so that's your problem.

For the record, I don't care if they belong to right wing think tanks, what's that got to do with science? And sure the number of skeptical climate scientists is small, they'd all have their funding yanked if they didn't toe the line.
In 2001 a leaked memo from the lefty institute of left leaning insufferable a-holes expressed concern that the heads of left-leaning climate scientists were getting to big to be supported by the local ecology. I have the memo right here, you can trust it!

Note that I don't give a rats ass what any economist thinks. A larger group of self deluded fools does not exist this side of climate science. Cited a thousand times, a thousand times! Slow down Nelly, I'm really geeking out on that one!

However, I'm bookmarking this thread. You are obviously skilled in the way of insults and I'll be sure to make use of your posts should I need to offend a person or persons in possession of sensitive temperament.

Alright Jeff, that's it, I'm bringing it...

You mustard spreading ecological paper weight. You couldn't argue your way out of a nano-tube. Your mind is like a bowl of kibble and your arguments fall apart like cat chow in a digestive tract.

I laugh at your PhD from Liverpool University. You obviously didn't have the chops to get accepted to a real school. Your list of publications is almost as long as my last excrement. I clubbed a baby seal in your name last week as well, you simpering chimp-minded intellectual pansy.

Your dog probably does all your work, and it shows, but luckily for you it could be worse. Saying the name "Jefferey Harvey" in the presence of infants makes them cry. My milk man has better scientific pedigree than you do, you oafish Canadian yak milker. You've probably been neglecting your yaks in order to conduct your research.

Your research is second rate when rated relative to third rate work. If you were any less intelligent you'd make my dead cat look like a genius. Real scientists take affront to your small brain. You obviously suffer from sub Kelpern-Flitzbin syndrome. Bwa ha ha, I've never seen such a bad case, to be sure!

Forsooth! Bugs Bunny would slander you and get away with it. A warm bubble bath is more interesting than your dissertation. And my dog's bark has more insight and better breath.

Well, I posted under the wrong name again and it awaits moderation whatever the hell that is worth here. But, not surprisingly, what I said came true! Jeff went with Big Oil and "right wing think tanks". Double whammy. I really feel that left wing think tanks don't get nearly enough credit frankly, nor the scientists working for them. Too righteous I suppose.

The same ten people who regularly inhabit this space need to get out more. Wow--and a few others--can't seem to grasp the concept of US law to save their lives, and Jeff, well he seems to have a lot more time on his hands than he leads on, what with the 1000+ word responses to the same 3-4 people he has already decided are well beneath his level intellectually and professionally. I can see why you bother.

Jeff, hate to tell you, but you are the exact type of scientist who helps to actually get people to listen LESS to your message. So full of condescending arrogance and vitriol are your words that all I can think is thank god I don't have to actually work or spend time with you. I know you aren't American, but we have a term for people like you--tool. Bet you're a ton of fun at parties.

Same could be said for many others, but at least they don't tell the blogosphere how fucking great and smart they are--over and over. And over.

I have said it a hundred times--for the most part, I agree with the message, but you and others like you are really, really shitty messengers. Frustrating because you fail to see it and don't realize the consequences. You might be educated, but you don't seem that smart.

that’s it, I’m bringing it

Those science denialists must really be feeling the heat.

Science denialist, eh? Thpppppt! Look Mom! I'm denying science!

'I'm bringing it'? Must have been in mid-stroke there.

Another pointless one-handed-typist. Who cares? Next.

Tell that to the average passer-by on the street. Count the number of eye-rolls that you get.

Ah, we have a new winner in the ongoing quest for stupidest definition of "value to humanity"!

Of course it helps to be able to say:

...your bunk.

...based on having no idea of your own (in-)competence to judge whether work in another field is "bunk" or not.

You aren’t ridiculing me, Ben – in your witless posts you are actually ridiculing yourself. You are just too dumb to realize it.

Indeed. And what an impressive job of it he does too.

Son of Lothar, thank you for your contribution to humanity.

Ben said:"Thpppppt! "

And that's about as much cogency and rationality as can be expected. Anything but the banana-Republican meltdown of Tony "Antarctic UHI" Watts, U.S. fuckwit-in-excelsis of the week.

Deep Climate reports: "Interest in 2012′s record Arctic sea ice melt has reached the mainstream press both here in Canada (CBC, PostMedia) and abroad (New York Times, Associated Press and the Guardian (http://deepclimate.org/2012/08/29/2012-arctic-sea-ice-minimum-part-2-se…)

Blimey - that should keep the bots even busier than in 'trash Assange' week.

"You've played professional hockey for 20 years? Wow, you must be good!"
"You've been a professional scientist for 20 years? You must be arrogant to think you know more than I learned in Grade 8."

Those science denialists must really be feeling the heat.

Confirmed.

Ben,

You are bringing 'it'? What is 'it'? 'It' must refer to your willful ignorance. Again, your starting point for debates is rank stupidity. That's not good. Not good at all from your perspective. I might as well be discussing the relevant science with a kindergarten student. Using ignorance as an intellectual starting ground is something climate change deniers and anti-environmenalists in general have a habit of doing. The thrust of it is that if one knows nothing about a field, then its not important; alternatively, without 100% proof of a process, then there is no proof at all. As one scientists once told me, debating people like you is like trying to win a pissing match with a skunk.

There's tons of evidence - let's start at the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment and go from there - that natural systems generate conditions that permit our species to exist and persist. This goes back well before Robert Costanza's seminal1997 Nature paper, in which he estimated the value of indirect ecosystem services at between 18 and 33 trillion dollars - more than twice the aggregate total of GDPs of all nations on Earth. His argument, and once that has become increasingly acknowledged, is that nature is worth more than the sum of its parts. The problem for nincompoops like you is that you don't understand anything about functional aspects of biodiversity, so you ignore it, or even worse, you ridicule it and the messenger. Without a vast diversity of organisms involved in pollination, nutrient cycling, the breakdown of wastes, seed dispersal, water purification and climate control he planet would be uninhabitable for much of extant biodiversity, most notably Homo sapiens. The crux of the matter is that supporting ecosystem services are externalized in price/cost economic scenarios. Because of this, we are unable to value their decline until they are lost altogether, or unable to function effectively. In lectures on the subject, I present four examples of ecosystem services that have been valued: the Catskill Mountain Watershed and drinking water in New York City; Pest control in the Caribbean; Pollination of oil palms in SE Asia; and forest products in a Peruvian rainforest. Rest assured that Ben doesn't know any of these examples (or many more that are in the empirical literature). And also rest assured that he, and probably the other small bunch of clowns that post on Deltoid, will attempt to deride these examples. Par for the course. Economists like Geoffrey Heal, Tom Bultman, John Gowdy, Stefan Viedermann and many others are beginning to appreciate the value of nature is sustaining our material economy and are arguing that it is necessary to internalize ecosystem services into our economic systems.

Its also ironic that BPW wades in here with bis five cents worth. Where are you when the deniers are slandering the reputations of Ben Santer, Michael Mann and James Hansen? The internet is full of frothy vitriol in which these reputable and experienced researchers become veritable punching bags for the political right. I don't have to defend myself against the likes of you, who keep their mouths shut at the massive assault on science currently underway but then come on all preachy and philosophical when scientists like those above and myself fight back. Frankly, you and your like are the tools, people who claim to agree with those arguing that humanity's impact on nature is likely to have serious consequences down the road, but only wading into debates to attack those making these arguments, whilst keeping a firm zip on your mouth when it comes to the vicious attacks coming from the other side. Moreover, you have not got a clue who I am or what my fiends and colleagues think of me. I post in here to defend science from the likes of the idiot brigade who appear to think they hold some kind of intellectual authority in areas they have never studied. Most contributors here know a lot ore about climate science than I do, and I appreciate reading what they all say because I learn from them: Wow, Chek, Lotharsson, Bill, Bernard, Chris, Richard, Lionel A. and others. I really appreciate what they say and how much they know., I find my niche here is to expand upon the ecological effects of global change and climate warming. I won't back down on the basis of vile remarks from the likes of you, or Ben, Karen/Mack/Sunspot/Duff etc. As for left wing think tanks, the problem is that there are very few if any of them. That is because they rely upon external funding, and for think tanks a significant amount of that comes from corporate 'donations'. These same corporations loathe regulations that limit their profit making potential, so its hardly surprising that they would invest in think tanks that aim to eviscerate public constraints in the pursuit of private profit. For this reason 99% of them are either far to the right or essentially libertarian. As for Ben's remark that the political affiliations of scientists are irrelevant, well thats pure and utter b*. If I am a lawyer, and a client pays me a million dollars, then I am working for that client. It does not matter if I am aware or not of the client's guilt, I am working for them. End of story. The fact that many of the so-called prominent AGW deniers are 'scholars' or 'fellows' with right wing think tanks funded by industries suggests strongly that they are hardly 'objective' scientists. Otherwise, they'd be dumped pronto.

Back to Ben. Where do I begin? Well for starters, how low do you have to stoop to attack the universities where I studied did my research? Liverpool ranks at about 125 in the world as far as universities are concerned; Wageningen, to which I have close links now, is ranked at 77. Certainly both are far ahead of most US universities. For the record, Mann went to Yale and many of the most esteemed climate and environmental scientists are from the Ivy League universities. I've also been invited to give lectures at universities around the world, including Princeton, so your feeble attempt at 'bringing it on' is already starting to wither.

"You are bringing ‘it’?"

He's being quiet and leaving out the "sh".

"Yes, but people pay money willingly for the products that come from engineers."

THIS PROVES ENGINEERING IS A SCAM!!!!!

You're JUST in it for the money, making up all this so-called "science" to peddle your woo!

YOU HAVE JUST PROVEN THE HOAX EXISTS!!!!

ben, everything you have ever posted here is immensely stupid and dishonest…

If you can get Tim to agree with you then we’ll discuss further, otherwise not.

Another immensely stupid and dishonest comment.

Where did you see Jeff implying that he doesn’t do, or has not done, field work?

WTF? How does that have anything to do with what I wrote?

And another. And your sequelae are even more so. You're quite the grating imbecile. Why are you here ... for Mack and Karen to admire you for being marginally less stupid than they are?

One final point here.

I am in a situation where you are damned if you do and damned if you don't. Most climate change deniers here - Mack, Karen, Jonas, Olaus, Ben et al. - responded to my posts by saying that "You're not a real scientist" and stuff like that. I respond by providing evidence that I am, and their response is effectively, "You're an arrogant s.o.b. who waves his CV around!" and similar verbiage.

When Chek defended my scientific background on the infamous Jonas thread, Olaus accused him of being one of my slavish supporters - and worse. Yet note how this bunch of hypocrites see nothing wrong in telling everyone how esteemed a few scientists in the contrarian camp are. I've seen the qualifications of Lindzen, Soon, Baliunas, Singer, Christy, Spencer and others described in the most glowing terms by many of those belittling me as well as Mann, Trenberth, Santer, Hansen, Schmidt and others.

As i said, damned if you do and damned if you don't. And then BPW wades in here and calls me a 'tool' whilst giving the deniers a free pass. Go figure.

Just released from the American Meteorological Society:

http://www.ametsoc.org/policy/2012climatechange.html

There conclusions support all of my recent posts. But I suppose the many scientists involved in the preparation of this document will be attacked now by the D-K mob.

"Without ecology, we would not understand the importance of complex adaptive systems in maintaining a wide array of supporting services upon which human civilization depends."

Tell that to the average passer-by on the street.

Like ben!

Count the number of eye-rolls that you get.

From ben!

Ben, you are so fucking stupid and vilely dishonest.

"Without ecology, we would not understand the importance of complex adaptive systems in maintaining a wide array of supporting services upon which human civilization depends."

Tell that to the average passer-by on the street.

Like ben!

Alright Jeff, that’s it, I’m bringing it…

You're not even competent at insulting people, you stupid fuck. Jeff is spot on that you are ridiculing yourself.

I have said it a hundred times–for the most part, I agree with the message

The tone patrol has arrived.

You might be educated, but you don’t seem that smart.

How would a cretin like you know smart, BPW? You apparently don't even know your own name.

Ben(der) again threw up with:

...in 2001 a leaked memo from the lefty institute of left leaning insufferable a-holes expressed concern that the heads of left-leaning climate scientists were getting to big to be supported by the local ecology. I have the memo right here, you can trust it!

So you have the memo. Citation and link please.

Whatever, which of these is not a past Republican voter, Richard Alley, James Hansen, Michael Mann.

Over at the Guardian Arctic Ice thread, the deniers are now going on about how it's the scientists fault nobody is doing anything about the climate because they've been saying it's going to happen for too long.

THIS PROVES ENGINEERING IS A SCAM!!!!!</blockquote.

FTW!

Jeff Harvey
7:02 am

"Moreover, you have not got a clue who I am or what my "FIENDS" and colleagues think of me."

LOL.......LOL............LOL...........

Jeff your such a nuffy, they all think the same about you as we do, hehehe

You have been given many many links to peer reviewed papers that debate the CO2 hypothesis as the sole contributor of any piddly bit of warming the planet may have had, from respectable journal's I might add.

But you ignore them, and this is one of the reason's that you are not a scientist's anal sphincter muscle, you are a follower, a devotee, an IPCC groupie and you are a fund sucking leach.

You don't know why there is a small change in the globull climate, so in reality all your paper's that blame AGW for any changes in the biosphere are a fiction, a guess, bunk !!!

You're really proving your case there, KMS.

Karen, if you are correct, then every National Academy of Science as well as large scientific body on Earth that endorses the IPCC findings (e.g. The American Meteorlogical Society) and the human effect on climate must be involved in some massive global scientific conspiracy. Moreover, the scientific papers you allude to in no way downplay the role of CO2. Pretty well every author on every paper you've ever cited here (and that ain't much) agrees that the human contribution to global warming is the primary factor. You write as if the scientific community is split down the middle, and as if the empircal literature is too. Wrong.

As for 'piddly', on what temporal/spatial scale do you draw this conclusion? A 10C rise in much of the Arctic over the past century is hardly 'piddly'. Nor is the 2-3 C change in central Europe since the 1970s. You comment has not a shred of scientific fact. Since when have you possessed the ability to determine what is signifcant in terms of climate-warming related effects on nature and what isn't? Have you tested this empirically? No.. like other deniers, you are speaking off the top of your head.

As for fiends, glad you spotted that one. It pretty well sums you up.

From Sharon Beder regaring the API:

http://herinst.org/sbeder/PR/ecologist2.html

Pretty well crushes Ben's farcical response.

Ben(der)

Further to Jeff's 2:11 pm, if you wish to see where many of these hang out have a lookee here.

Well, well. Whadayouknow.?

And note the presence of GMU which John Mashey and DeepClimate have done so much to expose, look for Wegman Report. Look up See No Evil, Speak Little Truth, Break Rules, Blame Others for one which leads you into much of the skulduggery originating from that sinking seat of academe.

Ben, you are too easy. Next troll please.

'Trolls ain't what they used to be....tra-la-la.'

Back to Ben. Where do I begin? Well for starters, how low do you have to stoop to attack the universities where I studied did my research?

Dude, it was a joke. I don't know anything about your university. Lighten up Jeff.

These same corporations loathe regulations that limit their profit making potential, so its hardly surprising that they would invest in think tanks that aim to eviscerate public constraints in the pursuit of private profit.

And I loathe the regulations that increase prices on the goods and services that I want and need. I don't give a flying fuck how much profit the booga booga corporations make. I also loathe the regulations that make it more difficult and expensive for small businesses to hire employees.

Ben(der)

And I loathe the regulations that increase prices on the goods and services that I want...

So you don't wan't to pay a fair price for anything which includes covering the costs of externalities like the impoverished ecosystems and dreadful working conditions of those in sweat slave shops and plantations who are forced to endure short and brutal lives, at home and abroad, wherever that first may be.

Unless of course that is another joke of yours.

I don’t know anything about your university.

Fixed it for you.

And I loathe the regulations that increase prices on the goods and services that I want and need.

Oh, spare us your right-wing economic extremism.

If you want a world where you also have the right to a clean and reasonably intact environment, your production of goods and services needs to stop swinging its fist where the noses of others begins. No profiteer is going to stop of his own volition bopping everything on the nose to shake out the coinage - the global financial crisis demonstrated that quite plainly.

I'd bet that you're all for having a fire-arm or several in your house to 'protect' yourself, and to make any 'offender' pay: it's no different to having laws to making profiteering offenders pay who would otherwise harm the beings and the environments that they exploit.

Typical of the right-wing nut: protect your own interests where the interests of others might conflict with yours, but scream and shout when others' interests are protected where your interests might conflict with theirs.

What the word that I'm looking for...?

And speaking of right wing hypocrites, Gina Rinehart is making the Kims of North Korea look like Ghandis:

http://www.abc.net.au/local/audio/2012/08/30/3579469.htm

Beaten to the punch by Lionel...

"And I loathe the regulations that increase prices on the goods and services that I want…"

So you want and insist on slave labour?

More on Richard Siegmund Lindzen.

Before I weigh in, look what turns up when I search on Richard Lindzen. Gee look who's pictures pop up in the sidebar at right. Yes, Spencer and Christy, along with Singer and Happer, white men who speak with forked-tongue all.

Now earlier this year Lindzen spoke to a group of invitees, amongst them whack job Piers Corbin (hey Google on him and Christy and Spencer pop up again along with Joe Bastardi - now we know that we are cooking on gas - Joe Bastardi FFS!), in a room in the House of Commons, also he made similar misrepresentations in Australia.

Much has been written about this exposing Lindzen for the serial deceiver that he is. Lindzen may well now believe what he says for he has been coming out with the same ol' same ol' for some time now - look out 'Merchant's of Doubt' for one.

I offer this piece by Doug Bostrom where Doug rounds off with this:

We may see that punctilious observation by professional societies of the line between doing science and interaction with the public is outmoded and in any case no longer is in practice. AGU has emphatically pronounced on the requirement for members to behave well as public citizens. Taking into account his track record of advice to lawmakers and the general public it’s been amply demonstrated that regardless of his reputation as an arguably brilliant scientific researcher Lindzen nonetheless serves as an archetypal example of a scientist who feels no compunction against trading on his reputation and associations as a researcher to foster malformed thinking in the mind of the public. We in the general public very much need the help of professional societies in picking where to obtain the least slanted and most useful information required for solving what we’re told by the same societies is an absolutely dire problem.

Now in case you missed the link in the first line of that article here it is Misrepresentation from Lindzen which article only takes Lindzen to task for one of his misdemeanour's although in the comments some others are touched on. Look out 'Lack of Environment' for more. I will not link as I will run over the limit and get held in moderation (I think).

Lindzen has a pedigree all right but it ain't what you thought.

So you want and insist on slave labour?

I don't recall writing anything of the sort. For my part I run two small businesses with no employees. My business partner and I do all the work. I would love to hire employees and I would if it was as simple as "would you like a job doing X for Y compensation on Z terms?" If the prospective employee finds the terms satisfactory then I'd hire the person.

Lionel A, I was merely pointing out persons in possession of Jeff's requisite "scientific pedigree," as that was the bar he established.

ben: obbleflobbleobble

""So you want and insist on slave labour?"

I don’t recall writing anything of the sort."

Of course not. Because you avoided writing it. But emancipation laws increase the cost of production of a good and therefore is something you abhor.

You just know you'd be justifiably crucified for doing it.

PS "I run two small businesses"

MORE PROOF ENGINEERING IS A SCAM!!!!

Of course not. Because you avoided writing it. But emancipation laws increase the cost of production of a good and therefore is something you abhor.

Increases in the cost of production = increases in prices and decreases in productivity. The increase in prices is born by everyone. The workers have to pay for things too, and its not like they get the regulated work environment for free.

I've been there done that as an employee and I found the regulations to be more cumbersome then helpful. The union regulations were always the worst, most idiotic hindrance to getting a job done.

"Increases in the cost of production = increases in prices and decreases in productivity"

WRONG.

Increases in the cost of production = incrases in prices.

FULL STOP.

"The increase in prices is born by everyone."

Only in a free market with no barriers to entry and a fully informed consumer.

But, as can be seen with the regional pricing of anything from DVDs to software to Jeans and TVs, the pricing has ALMOST NOTHING to do with the cost of production but what the market will bear.

Not to mention that all the libertards who prattle on about how the free market will save us all (tm), go completely APESHIT about removing restrictions on all those things needed for a free market. Because without a corporate class with rights and powers that the lower classes cannot beat, the corporate class cannot ream the customer and give you your stock dividends.

And Ben unwittingly argues from a return to slavery!

"Increases in the cost of production = incrases in prices.

FULL STOP."

I'm sorry that you are so stupid.

I'm sorry that you think that someone who doesn't believe your lies is stupid.

Why does Ben imagine anybody is interested in his primary school lemonade stand level of economic theory? Two clicks can take anyone genuinely curious to an article by for instance Paul Krugman who shits Ben and his proterozoic antisocial ilk before breakfast.

Two clicks can take anyone genuinely curious to an article by for instance Paul Krugman who shits Ben and his proterozoic antisocial ilk before breakfast.

Bwa ha ha ha ha! Krugman isn't fit to run a lemonade stand. Look, nitwit, there's are costs associated with freaking regulation besides simple up front capital costs. Some reasons regulation detracts from productivity are:

1. Reduction in available capital = fewer parts in stock, less investment, etc

2. Increased cost of compliance = time wasted pushing freaking papers around that could be used to produce products. Either existing workers have to take up the burden, or new workers must be hired to push the papers. Either way, the time is taken away from time that could have been put to better use.

Paul Krugman indeed.

WOW at 5.09 Would WEEEEED be an appropriate response?

Ben said: "there’s are (sic) costs associated with freaking regulation

Yes Ben, just as there are costs associated with no regulation. In the main those unledgered costs are externalised to be paid for by others rather than your putative profiteer. CO2 is a very good example.

Yes Ben, just as there are costs associated with no regulation. In the main those unledgered costs are externalised to be paid for by others rather than your putative profiteer.

In the end, all the costs are born by the consumer.

CO2 is a very good example.

Ungh.

Wow:

the deniers are now going on about how it’s the scientists fault nobody is doing anything about the climate because they’ve been saying it’s going to happen for too long.

Indeed, such people are entering the final stages of denial.

"In the end, all the costs are born by the consumer."

Except it isn't.

The cost is taken from the PROFITS.

If that isn't enough, then either the company folds (90% of new ventures do so even if the ebil gubmint has nothing to do with it) or it charges the customers more.

It is idiotic to insist that any cost is passed on to the customer anyway, since those customers have to be paid by another company and, to employ them, that company will have to increase pay, therefore you can just as validly say "the costs are passed on to the company".

But thought was never a libertard's strong point. Reality doesn't conform to your ideologies, therefore must be ignored.

Turbobloke, I think ben Weeed himself.

Ben, when your worker is killed by a worplace accident, you now have to pay to get him replaced and have lost ALL the investment in their abilities to do their job.

That is a cost to no regulation that you ignore.

And without regulation, there's nothing to stop someone walking into your office, taking your ideas and walking out with them.

Another cost to no regulation.

This one stands out as moronic, even in the field. Reinforcing the message of Lewandowsky's recently published research - Deniers are Libtards and/or conspiracy nutters.

How many of these buffoons cannot learn to master something as simple as

a blockquote?

We are frequently bombarded by these economic and scientific geniuses who can't master HTML...

The GFC finished this Thatcherite crap for ever, though shambling armies of the dreary Zombies are still abroad, particularly at the RNC. The undead survival of a multiply-disproven doctrine is an issue of class power: Aspergersy muppets like Ben are merely doing the lumpenintellectual dirty work of the plutocrats they slavishly adore.

Downfall videos are pretty old-hat, but I got several genuine laughs out of this one!

Don't worry about it, Ben - you can just play at claiming Medicare with your Ayn Rand dolls...

In the end, all the costs are born by the consumer.

And all profits are ultimately provided by consumers who prove both willing and able to pay.

Which rather suggests you might want to get past simplistic first-order thinking and consider the factors that lead to consumers having sufficient money to buy your products and services after they buy other things they deem even more essential.

Like (say) having a decent paying job. Like living in a society where the costs of protecting oneself from both physical and financial marauders is not a significant burden on the average consumer - due in large part to freakin' regulations and enforcement thereof. Like having a decent semblance of job security (through regulations, no less!) thereby increasing confidence about one's financial position and willingness to go into debt for various things, or make purchases that are not strictly necessary for survival. Like living in an environment where food security is not a prime daily concern and major health hazards are relatively rare.

If you only look at one side of the ledger you will mislead yourself. And an awful lot of corporate political propaganda these days (Hi Mr. Abbott! Hi Mr. Romney!) is based on loudly pointing people at one side of the ledger and quietly ignoring the other.

I would love to hire employees and I would if it was as simple as “would you like a job doing X for Y compensation on Z terms?”

This could be interesting. Ben has found a regulation that stops him hiring someone and paying them a fair wage for a fair day's work.

Artic Sea Ice Downfall

Arctic

Ben's problem is that he confabulates the existence of unnecessary regulation with the need for no regulation at all.

It's the "all men are rapists" argument.

It's worth noting that POIMAS usually posts in October its monthly-updated ice volume graph showing the (record) minimum for the latest season's melt.

This year the breaking of the record minimum was demonstrated in an August release, and there's still some loss to go before the season's end:

http://i46.tinypic.com/21entrs.jpg

I wonder where Jonas N and his Scandinavian Troll Collective are? I'd really like to know what odds it would take for him to accept any of my wager alternatives as detailed in his eponymous thread.

"Ben has found a regulation that stops him hiring someone and paying them a fair wage for a fair day’s work."

Ah, you think that Ben wants to pay someone a fair wage? I don't think so. His role is "job creation", you don't want him to PAY for the work too, do you?!?!?

Another of Ben's problems is that he does not understand the basics of how the natural economy underpins the material economy. The examples I present in my lectures are quite appropriate. People in NYC took for granted that they had about the purest drinking water of any large city in the industrilized world. What they didn't know is that the water came from a large watershed in the Catskill Mountains that was naturally purified by the forests there as well as their associated micro-organisms in the soil. This is one example of a natural subsidy that was not captured in economic price-cost scenarios. During the 1980s and into the 1990s, developers moved into the Catskills and began to replace the forests with golf courses, luxury homes and other forms of development, At the same time, farms expanded, leading to more forest loss. Unbeknownst at the time, the loss of the forests threatened the water purification services and thus the clean water supply to NYC. When this was finally realized, city planners were faced with a dilemma"chlorinate the water, build a massive water purification plant (costing 3 billion dollars with 300 million dollar-per-year maintenace costs) or cease development in the Catskills and replant the forests (cost a one-off 6 billion dollars). The planners opted for the last option, ensuring for the time being at least NYCs clean water.

This si but one small example of an ecosystem service in which the costs were (eventually) internalized. But, as Wow has said, the vast majority of critical ecosystem services are externalized, hence we have no idea how important and valuable they are until they are added or (more usually) lost. Most of these services do not have technological substitutes, and even where they do, they are prohibitively expensive.

Our economies are loittered with perverse subsidies that are reducing the capacity of nature to support man. People like Ben may take fro granted that our crops will always be pollinated, that the groundwater supplies will always be ample and pure, that the soils will always be fertile, that the wastes we produce will always be reassimilated, but the scientific community is well aware that this is not a 'given'. We already know that many critical services are being degraded at clearly unsustainable rates. Moreover, the price of many commodities does not incorporate ecological damage. The price we pay for gasoline does not incorporate the effects of extraction, refining, transport and use on the planet's climate-control system. We know that in Chesapeake Bay in Delaware the entire water column was once recycled in a week through filtration by the bay's bivalve fauna; now this takes many months, and as the bivalves continue to be overharvested we can expect water quality to decline there.New technologies often mask underlying declines: sonar- and drag nets anble us to catch more fish than was possible using old technologies 50 years and more ago, but this is concomoitant with a decimation of populations of many marine fish species. We were once constrained by technology in terms of how far afield we could exploit food and other resources; now, thanks to the global technology and nakedly predatory economic policies, we can plunder and deplete local resources and not worry about the immediate consequences because we can plunder and deplete resources in some other part of the planet. More than 90% of top-level predators in coastal marine ecosystems (the 'green seas') are gone: these have been replaced in some areas by jellyfish at the terminal end of the food chain. We've seriously f*****-up the way these systems function, with who-knows what consequences for their functioning and stability in the short- to-medium term.

Effectively, humans are living off of a one-time inheritance of capital rather than income. We are spending it like there is no tomorrow. People like Ben wearing their blindfolds might think that everything is hunky-dory but the reality is that we are headed for a wall.

Bernard : I could use the same ad absurdum argument as follows: many criminals are never caught, and miscarriages of justice occur far-too frequently - therefore we should simply get rid of the police and courts.

Isn't it interesting, while we're on the topic, that subsequent to the Reaganite 'Libuurty' revolution America has become the most incarcerating state on Earth - far more so than even Putin's Russia and Communist China.

Of course, their prisoners are rebellious heroes striking against the yoke of oppression, whereas 'ours' are shiftless moochers who couldn't cut it and fully deserve their fate.

One thing you'd have to concede is that when you've incarcerated fully one quarter of the world's prison population your crackpot system clearly ain't working.

Well, you would know it if you weren't a socially lobectomised propagandabot in the mould of Paul Ryan.

Incidentally, Genius, how much friggin' money does this over-regulation cost?

Given the Arctic sea ice decline that Moron Marano and failed meteorologist Watts are trying to hand wave away see recent ice related threads at Tamino's the true cause of one must consider the impact on the already invigorated hydrological cycle which is also showing signs of geographical instability.

This together with the fact that higher latitudes are warming faster than equatorial should lead to concerns about the increasing instability of mountain areas, many like the Cascades of volcanic-subduction zone type, origin.

The warming of mountain areas from the Himalayas to the Andes, from the Cascades to Iceland and on to the French/Swiss/Italian/Austrian Alps is causing the ice bonded rock to fracture and result in increased incidences of rock falls and mudslides. Some of these result in the formation of debris dams across narrow ravines which then burst with further and more catastrophic consequences often to settlement far downstream.

Also the removal of ice cover, weight, and rising sea levels are shifting the loading on the Earth's crust and mantle provoking an increased tectonic response - volcanism and fault release.

Increased rainfall also has another deleterious effect by increasing the pore pressure in the material covering mountains and volcanoes. This can cause the sudden collapse of the whole side of a volcano promoting a sudden release of pent up magma - Mount St Helens type.

Check out Bill McGuire's book 'Waking the Giant'. I am slowly gather more background on this aspect of climate change as I follow reference's.

As the globe warms be prepared for a bumpy ride the likes of which the Romneys and Ryans of the world are totally oblivious to. Load the main Thinkprogress page and see that Gina 'noheart' Rinehart' has a slot and much else.

If these goons are elected then it is essentially game over for the US as far as science is concerned. After all what is better than having to shoot the messenger? Don't create messengers in the first place.

I don't know what businesses that Ben has going but will they survive what's coming and coming sooner than most expected. Another Ben, Franklin this time, is now rolling in his grave at the GOP antics.

Lighten up Jeff.

Your list of publications is almost as long as my last excrement. I clubbed a baby seal in your name last week as well, you simpering chimp-minded intellectual pansy.

Your dog probably does all your work, and it shows, but luckily for you it could be worse. Saying the name “Jefferey Harvey” in the presence of infants makes them cry. My milk man has better scientific pedigree than you do, you oafish Canadian yak milker. You’ve probably been neglecting your yaks in order to conduct your research.

Yeah that's light. Just making a joke. Har, har.

Thanks for the laughs Ben.

Well, Ben is misanthropic self-obsessed and ignorant. What do you expect? If he can't come up with a reason for being an arsehole and the evidence is shoved in his face, he'll just go "Oh, I was kidding". But note how he would NEVER accept that response himself, would he.

That's because he's "special".

BEN: Ook! Hurr hurr! [grunts]

MACK: 'Ook! Hurr hurr?' Hurr hurr hurr! [grunts]

The Simian Mutual Appreciation Society in action. Fun-nee stuff...

*Lighten up Jeff*

I do actually - by listening to Over Kill, Onslaught, Destruction, Testament and other thrash metal bands, and by playing my BC Rich Warlock guitar. I also like to go on long-distance cycling tours (will do from Saturday to next Wednesday).

BTW, much of your excrement originates from your mouth...
Just an observation.

Gina Rinehart at ThinkProgress as cited by Lionel A above.

falo posted from ThinkProgress Economy on Aug 30, 2012 at 5:45 pm

Gina Rinehart, the world's richest woman.
According to the world’s richest woman, low-income people are only poor because they don’t work hard enough, and because the government has coddled them with a minimum wage that is too high.

The article goes on to wryly note (my emphasis):

Australian Gina Rinehart, who inherited her $30 billion fortune,...

Sorry, slight cut-n-paste fail there.

On Gina Rinehart, why do I think 'Muppets' when looking at pictures of this insult to humanity.

Ben,
"you simpering chimp-minded intellectual pansey" :) Jeff fancies himself in lycra too.

Trim taut and terrific are you Jeff?

And I loathe the regulations that increase prices on the goods and services that I want and need. I don’t give a flying fuck how much profit the booga booga corporations make. I also loathe the regulations that make it more difficult and expensive for small businesses to hire employees.

be, you're a fucking ignorant cretin ... go live in Somalia.

I don’t recall writing anything of the sort.

You are not only too fucking stupid to comprehend the implications of your views, you are even too fucking stupid to understand that there's a difference between what one says and what is implied by what one says.

“The increase in prices is born [sic] by everyone

And you are too fucking stupid to mention or even consider any benefits that might derive from that cost ... or the costs saved by incurring such costs. Dead, sick, suffering people aren't as productive, just to name the financial consequences ... of course we can ignore any effect on the quality of living, because you're too fucking stupid to grasp that there is such a thing.

Paul Krugman indeed.

Paul Krugman: Nobel Prize in Economics

ben: ignorant imbecile

In the end, all the costs are born by the consumer.

Non fucking sequitur. You referred to costs for regulation. It was pointed out that there are also costs for non-regulation, so accounting sheet is unbalanced, stupid, inept, and dishonest. Your response is no response -- the subject was the costs of regulation, not who bears the cost. The costs of non-regulation have to be subtracted from the costs of regulation, you stupid fucking piece of shit. And the result is negative ... arguing for regulation, you dumb liberfuck.

Mack's only salient feature is that he's dumber than ben.

Jeff fancies himself in lycra too.

I cycle 140 miles a week, in lycra. That's why I'm not an obese sack of shit like you probably are.

Nice to see the same 10 people wailing away. Better trolls? You need better commenters. Might want to get out a bit more too.

ianam, contrary to your moniker, it seems you do possess some moronic qualities. Calling people you disagree with cretins, stupid and trolls is boring and not very intellectually creative. Some might say it's moronic. And it seems to be the entire basis of your argumentative powers. Then you go with "you're fat"? Brilliant.

Here's a question. Do you think, just maybe, that when discussing a topic, especially one deemed as important as AGW, that the tone of your argument might matter? That it might be a problem if you act like a dick? I think so. And I think it is a rather large part of the overall problem. People don't usually pay much attention to those they feel are talking down to them or selling them a bill of goods. Never mind, better to just call anyone you don't agree with stupid. 20 years of that seems to have been very effective.

Jeff, I called you a tool because you come off as one. Doesn't mean you are one. Just my opinion based on your screeds. You may well be a great guy. No doubt you are a fine ecologist. Who am I to say you aren't? That said, I don't much care. What does grate is your use the word "science" as if it has magical powers or is some sort of pure entity not to be sullied. Do nuclear weapons scientists, for instance, get the same status under the purity of science?

I am also curious, why do you waste so much time arguing with people you obviously have no respect for? What are you trying to prove? The other 15 people who comment on this blog already agree with you. Every time I read what you write, I cringe, because I know that, to someone who is perhaps actually looking for information, it has the opposite effect you are shooting for. So many appeals to authority, so few substantive points.

As for a free pass for "deniers", where do you get that? If you deny that humans negatively affect the workings of the planet, or if you want to spin the laws of physics to suit your view, you are an idiot. No pass for that. Any other use of that term is far too black and white for my taste. As is the entire issue as it is framed by many like yourself.

Sorry I can't spend more time. I know you are all disappointed. Especially ianam. I'll come back later in the weekend to see how many different ways he's found to call me stupid. Do be careful on that bike i--you too Jeff--I took a nasty spill a few weeks back on mine and the road rash has not been pleasant.

"Your response is no response — the subject was the costs of regulation, not who bears the cost"

It's a shibboleth to tell you why you should FEAR regulation.

Because irrational fear of it is the only thing that libertarians have. By any rational assessment, there's no need to fear regulation. Hence you have to be told why it is to be feared, even though it is unsupported.

blockquote>And it seems to be the entire basis of your argumentative powers.

Sheesh, you missed a lot of...you know, actual argumentation which tends to undermine your position.

Then you go on to call deniers "idiots" and Jeff "a tool" - in the comment where you denounce someone else calling others cretins, stupid and trolls - which tends to undermine your high horse.

Ugh, another blockquote fail. Need more sleep ;-)

BPW writes,

*so few substantive points*

Then you haven't been digesting what I say. My aim is to reach those who don't understand the importance of natural systems in providing services that sustain the global economy but which (1) are externalized in price-cost scenarios, and (2) are under threat due to the combined effects of a range of anthropogenic stresses - climate change included. I've detailed what these services are and what they mean - you apparently think this is unimportant, even if people like Ben flippantly dismiss them entirely. In my experience, I have met many people who literally do not have one iota of understanding of what is at stake as humans continue their global assault against nature. Many cling to the flimsy hope that technology - i.e. through scientific innovation - will save the day. Many others don't give a hoot and don't spend any time thinking about what is happening. They may be dumbed down by the corporate media, and are content to live their lives insulated from ecological and environmental realities. Or, like the optimists, they innately are programmed to think that everything will continue as it is - business as usual - forever. They are insulated against reality, a point Derrick Jensen makes in his quite excellent books, 'Endgame Vo.s 1 and 2'. Jensen spells out the problem with civilization quite well in the beginning of his book. Some may think his anarchistic view of society is extreme; I personally do not. Civilization is like a city state that is clearly unsustainable as currently defined. People may not like to hear this but let us be honest: since when have many people wanted to face up to the ugly truth that they are part of a culture that depends on violence of all kinds to maintain its prosperity, and to know that this cannot last for much longer? So they bury it into the recesses of their mind.

As for deniers, look all around you BPW: they are everywhere. They deny Jensen's conclusions, they deny that natural systems are in decline, they deny that the developed world fosters an immense ecological deficit to sustain its affluence, they deny that climate change is down to us, they deny that humans are undermining the ability of nature to sustain us in a way that we habitually take fro granted, they deny the extinction crisis, they deny, deny, deny, deny, deny.

What strikes me is that people like you, who claim to be enlightened in these issues, do not hesitate to attack members of your 'own team' for alleged misbehavior, but I rarely if ever see you attacking those on the other side who are defending people and systems that are intent in taking our planet to hell in a hand basket. Why aren't you lambasting the vacuous arguments of Mack? Karen? Ben? Jonas? Olaus? ... and co? All you do by coming in here to criticize me is open yourself to the apparent truth that, deep down, you loathe the science that supports my arguments, as well as the scientists who collect, analyze and publish the data. For some strange reason, you claim to agree with many of my points, but then use that as a platform for a vitriolic personal attack. Ultimately, your posts shed more light on your mind set than on mine.

As for lycra, I am not into it... I prefer denim and leather when I am cranking up my guitar. Or listening to any of the aforementioned band.

That it might be a problem if you act like a dick? I think so. And I think it is a rather large part of the overall problem. People don’t usually pay much attention to those they feel are talking down to them or selling them a bill of goods. Never mind, better to just call anyone you don’t agree with stupid. 20 years of that seems to have been very effective

...

Jeff, I called you a tool because you come off as one.

A hypocritical tone troll. I am simply shocked!

Jeff,
Settle down and peace man. Take a look at this and ask yourself is there a " global assault against nature"? It may gladden your Cannuk heart. (I hope it works)http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I1ctz2jT8l8&feature=related

Mack: if you loved me, Ben, you'd swallow it.

You're a foulmouthed juvenile imbecile Wow.

If there was any doubt that the "Galileo Movement" was confused about who were the dogmatists and who were the empiricists:

http://twitter.com/Gdfollow/status/241840693721591808
ppl forget,whole scientific community had concensus the world was flat

Followed up by the 'Movement':

http://twitter.com/GalileoMovement/status/241843362422996992
And the sun revolved around the earth

"ppl forget,whole scientific community had concensus the world was flat"

Scientific community knew the world wasn't. Heck, even the priests knew it wasn't, it was the unlettered who were told by the church that the world was flat because the bible said so. Gallileo got into trouble for putting the evidence in Spanish which the common man could read rather than in Latin which only the educated could read.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spherical_Earth

Seems ppl think that ppl are stupid.

Mack, coming from you, that's practically a professional endorsement!

BEN:

the lefty institute of left leaning insufferable a-holes

You mustard spreading ecological paper weight.

your arguments fall apart like cat chow in a digestive tract.

Your list of publications is almost as long as my last excrement

I clubbed a baby seal in your name last week as well, you simpering chimp-minded intellectual pansy.

you oafish Canadian yak milker.

MACK: [to Ben] Thanks for the laughs Ben. I wish to carry your babies.
[to Wow] You’re a foulmouthed juvenile imbecile Wow.

I notice your new featherweight hero has flitted away, incidentally.

For some strange reason, you claim to agree with many of my points, but then use that as a platform for a vitriolic personal attack.

That's the classic hallmark of a concern troll - claiming to agree, and then using that agreement as a platform to attack or mislead those in agreement by expressing concern about their methods and advocating changes they (covertly) prefer.

I'm not asserting that BPW is a concern troll - but I'm (ahem) concerned that (s)he's giving off that odour which seems to reduce the effectiveness of BPW's overt goals ;-)

so few substantive points

I noticed this on the ABC news website:

A 1997 study put the global economic value of soil biodiversity - thanks to often scorned creatures such as worms, woodlice and beetles - at $US1.5 trillion a year.

$US1.5 trillion a year. Yeah that's insubstantial.

BPW is als completely unconcerned about MackKarenSunspot's posts.

@ Wow
“ppl forget,whole scientific community had concensus the world was flat”
Scientific community knew the world wasn’t. Heck, even the priests knew it wasn’t, it was the unlettered who were told by the church that the world was flat because the bible said so. Gallileo got into trouble for putting the evidence in Spanish which the common man could read rather than in Latin which only the educated could read.

Err you might want to check that a bit more. The flat earth myth seems to have been part of the reformation propaganda, later expanded on by various factions in the 19th Century. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myth_of_the_Flat_Earth. It was no part of Medaeval or Early Modern Church dogma.

Gallileo did not write in Spanish—I don't know but I doubt that he spoke or wrote the lanaguage. He wrote in Italian although he was perfectly fluent in Latin [Drake, Stillman, Galileo, Past Masters (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1980)]

Writing in Italian was a bit daring as it limited the availability of his writings to those who read Italian. Most or all educated men (and women?) in Europe in Gallileo's time read and wrote Latin (it was a bit like English today, the scientific and policital lingua franca). Remember Newton wrote "Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica" not "Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy" which was published 45 years after Gallileo's death.

And Gallileo did not get into trouble for puttng something in the vernacular, whether Spanish or Italian--I think he did get some snide comments from the "learned" Aristotilean _scientists_ of his day. He got into trouble for a) advancing the heliocentric model without quite enought proof to convince a somewhat stacked jury of almost peers and b) publishing something that a paranoid pope thought was a deliberate personal attack on him. Well a bit over simplified but it covers some or most of the issues See the Trial of Galileo Galilei - where is that ref?

Again the imbecile BPW tone trolls ... what a bore.

Well a bit over simplified

Yes, quite a bit: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galileo_affair

What strikes me is that people like you, who claim to be enlightened in these issues, do not hesitate to attack members of your ‘own team’ for alleged misbehavior

I don't see any evidence in BPW's posts that s/h is enlightened, or a member of "our team". The turd has nothing of substance to say and has nothing to say about the large amount of substance we post. I just posted a series of substantive comments about economics, and all the imbecile can see is that I said "fuck".

Well, you did say it quite a few times.

But don't you realise? BPW is the one and sole arbiter of how you should live your life. Just bow down to him and he'll bless you.

"What strikes me is that people like you, who claim to be enlightened in these issues, do not hesitate to attack members of your ‘own team’ for alleged misbehavior"

Well, apart from being rather hypocritical, are the right arguments and the truth more important than maintaining a clique?

"Err you might want to check that a bit more. The flat earth myth seems to have been part of the reformation propaganda, "

Err, you may just want to correct me.

After posting I'd realised I'd put spanish in instead of italian. But couldn't be arsed over it.

Well, you did say it quite a few times.

Gee, really? You're so sharp. Now excuse me as I go back to ignoring you.

Did you ever stop?

Oh, you did. Just so you could be an arsehole.

That makes two of us. Now fuck off.

Nope, you're the only arsehole here, inane.

Unlike you I'm honest, asshole.

I decline the request to enter into your alternative universe, inane.

Children, children, get a room!

Eeeeew!

Off to get some brain bleach. And just before teatime, too!