Guest post by Thomas Fuller
The past month has been by turns eventful, maddening and hilarious. What it has not been, for 2010, is unusual. This year has been packed with news, opinion and stories regarding climate science, climate politics, climate news, and now thanks to Josh, even climate cartoons. There’s a reason why…
This week we have Steve McIntyre firing back at John Mashey and Raymond Bradley’s attack on Edward Wegman’s report on Mann’s Hockey Stick. Their attack happened last week, and pushed the 10:10 campaign to blow up children out of the climate news. It also pushed aside Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli’s decision to press ahead with subpoenas for Michael Mann’s emails.
You do realise that the whole year has been like this, right?
Hal Lewis, a prestigious physicist, resigned from the APS, citing their position on climate change as basically fraudulent as his reason. William Connelly, a long-standing editor at Wikipedia, was banned from his pet section on climate change after years of sanitizing climate entries to reflect the alarmist position. Rajendra Pachauri will stay on as head of the IPCC, falsifying my prediction some months back that he was for the high jump. Skeptics rejoiced. Pachauri still has not been able to explain why his UK charity suddenly found large amounts of undeclared income when faced with an audit. (Maybe it was hidden under a seat cushion.)
It appears that temperatures in New Zealand do not show a temperature rise until they are adjusted by scientists who trained with Phil Jones. It also appears that California’s restrictive laws on diesel fuel is based on science that got key metrics badly, badly wrong.
And The Royal Society issued a new statement on climate change, acknowledging that ‘the science is not settled.’
That’s just October, and the month is not even finished. People in the mainstream media who wonder why support for action to reverse or halt climate change has disappeared do not seem to understand that an almost daily diet of embarrassment does eventually have an effect. Because the mainstream media chooses not to cover these stories in any detail–often not at all–they forget that more people read this weblog than most newspapers, and they come from all around the world. They forget that every day, Roger Pielke Sr. presents news of scientific publications that challenge the alarmist consensus, and that his son daily tries to put boundaries around what is possible in terms of change. They certainly forget Steve McIntyre’s auditing of lax performance by climate scientists, and I doubt if they ever get past Lucia Liljegren’s haiku.
Every month this year has been like this. Much of the news has been of the climate ‘consensus’ shooting themselves in the foot–remember the Greenpeace blogger boasting that they know where skeptics live? Much of it has been measured responses to wild claims on their part.
There has been no news agenda, no concerted campaign, no oil money going after the climate icons. This year’s news has been largely driven by people with time and energy examining the claims that many used to accept, because they have lost confidence in the establishment and their pronouncements. Trust, once lost, is seldom re-bestowed, and there are now too many people scratching their heads when the CAGW crowd comes out with a new one, saying–‘Waitaminnit–let me see that. Where are the numbers and where did you get them from?’
But hey–it’ll quiet down, now. Right? Nothing ever happens in November…
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That’s where they should look for the hidden heat. (Or is the heat hidden in Pachauri’s literary efforts?)
Something will happen in November, and it has institutions running for cover…. well….the smart ones that is.
Not only do people now eye Warmist claims suspiciously, they also keep an eye on the institutions that generate the numbers.
I predict considerable warming in the UK around the 5th.
Global warming, climate change, climate disruption…
….is so, like, yesterday
(Happy Halloween Tom!)
Thomas,
You know about the November 2nd election, particularly in California. Jerry Brown (former Governor Moonbeam from 30+ years ago (so named by a Chicago press writer)) or Meg Whitman for Governor, choose if you want to, or not, use a pink ballot button to blow up (or suspend for a long time the state’s climate change law) Proposition 23. The state can legalize grass for those over 21, as long as these adults pay tax. And that is just the start of the list. I think you will have plenty to write about in November. Especially in northern California. Add Virginia, a few well placed Senate races around the country, around a 100 House seats potentionaly in contention and you may want to seek a cure for writers cramp or use a very physically friendly keyboard. But nothing happens in November.
Tom,
October has another surprise as well. It appears that a new paper disclosed a large error in moisture feedback in models. I keep reading the CAM model trying to find where it’s included but basically, the pressure drop from condensation isn’t accounted for. Climate models therefore underestimate vertical wind to carry heat to the upper atmosphere.
If it’s true, it would mean a rework of climate models in general.
http://noconsensus.wordpress.com/2010/10/19/momentary-lapse-of-reason/
Nature Mag has no shame:
Nature: “By and large, society now accepts that climate change is happening”, (see below). who are the people who don’t believe the climate changes, Nature? this kind of BS needs to stop now.
instead, Nature is publishing another mag entirely devoted to “climate change” “one of the greatest challenges for science and society”! give it up, Nature.
there must be some way to insist the MSM argues its case on what they really mean, namely MMGW. until that happens, the MSM will continue to control the narrative:
19 Oct: Nature: Nature Climate Change
A call to contribute
Next spring will bring a much-awaited and exciting new addition to the family of Nature journals. The newest of Nature’s research journals, Nature Climate Change will dedicate its coverage to one of the greatest challenges for science and society.
By and large, society now accepts that climate change is happening. But the science of global climate change is far from settled — large uncertainties remain regarding the rate of change and the scale and distribution of impacts.
To read this story in full you will need to login or make a payment (see right).
http://www.nature.com/nclimate/2010/101019/full/nclimate1000.html
Nice one Tom. No wonder the MSM is staying clear of this debacle. They don’t have the resources to cover every embarrassing point.. 😉
November, November, a month I remember
Not for wintry snows or rain-sodden gales
but rather for catching some rats by their tales.
Connive as they might, to stay safe and warm,
while all of our wallets became thin and worn.
But thanks to a gift, that came from someone
and lots of hard work by bloggers as one,
the truth of the matter, we have come to know,
inconvenient to them, as temperatures show.
tom, took a bit, but finally dawned on me aboot
november.
Priceless!
“And The Royal Society issued a new statement on climate change, acknowledging that ‘the science is not settled.’”
It does not say that, you are making things up. The word settled does not appear anywhere in the document despite your quotation marks. I hope people will read the RS report for themselves.
http://royalsociety.org/WorkArea/DownloadAsset.aspx?id=4294972963
It does say: “There is strong evidence that the warming of the Earth over the last half-century has been caused largely by human activity, such as the burning of fossil fuels and changes in land use, including agriculture and deforestation. The size of future temperature increases and other aspects of climate change, especially at the regional scale, are still subject to uncertainty. Nevertheless, the risks associated with some of these changes are substantial. It is important that decision makers have access to climate science of the highest quality, and can take account of its findings in formulating appropriate responses.” It goes on to describe those aspects of climate science that are “well established.” Read it for yourself and don’t let the propagandists frame it for you. (Making up quotes qualifies Eschenbach as a propagandist. He’ll claim that since he used single quotes instead of double quotes that he really didn’t mean it to be a literal quote. That just means he’s a clever propagandist who leaves himself room to wiggle in. There was no reason to use quotes at all except to deceive.)
Is evolution settled? There is scientific debate about how certain transitions occurred, but there is no scientific debate that life forms evolve over time primarily through natural selection. It is the same with climate science. We know we are causing potentially dangerous climate change. The only real question is can we change?
Apologies. I meant Fuller not Eschenbach.
A bit off topic, but it is a rather interesting October surprise.
Our esteemed host at WUWT has today published an Opinion piece in the Christian Science Monitor. Its pretty much his piece from here last week on Hal Lewis, so nothing new for regulars, but a great leap for him and for respectability for the skeptic community.
http://www.csmonitor.com/Commentary/Opinion/2010/1019/Climate-change-fraud-letter-a-Martin-Luther-moment-in-science-history
Last month, former Canadian Government Minister of Defense Paul Hillyer said that UFO’s would visit Earth and bring to us the cure for Global Warming because they recognized from afar that we had reached the same tipping point that they had once reached on their own planet.
I am not a kook.
It’s ‘Connolley’, not ‘Connolly’. Better not to give the warmists any chance to nit-pick.
Mike, get your propagandists straight. Quick question: Is quantum physics settled?
pat says:
October 19, 2010 at 6:48 pm
Nature Mag has no shame:
Nature: “By and large, society now accepts that climate change is happening”…
Let me help you, pat, with a modest rephrasing:
Nature: “By and large, society now accepts that climate science change is happening”…
Mike says:
October 19, 2010 at 7:29 pm
“And The Royal Society issued a new statement on climate change, acknowledging that ‘the science is not settled.’”
It does not say that, you are making things up.
—-
Which leads to a quote from Shakespeare:
“Methinks the lady doth protest too much”
Is this where we’re at?
2010 and the best you can muster is an ad hominen attack? You are better than that dude.
Heres what you could of done:
Question:
Willis, I can’t see the specific use of ‘the science is not settled.’ within the Royal Society report.
Can you direct me to the page/line.
If not why have you quoted it as an element of content within the report?
Thanks Willis,
Mike.
—-
See Mike, thats what we call being both polite and credible.
Coming from your angle, seems a bit too menacing, a bit too much vested interest.
I’d even say sinister.
Cheers,
Nothing-But-Love-For-You-Brother.
Alan Clark: Just how long has he been a ‘former’ Defense Minister? (Although what we have in the White House …)
Tom–
You’ve hit it hard right square on the head!
Mike (October 19, 2010 at 7:29 pm) –
What does “the science is settled” mean to you? And do you think the revised Royal Society statement backs that?
I’ll go first. To me, “the science is settled” means that evidence for the following statements goes beyond circumstantial, to the level of scientific certainty:
The emission of greenhouse gases (GHG) by human activities is the dominant factor in the rise of global temperature, and this rise will result in significant detrimental (or even catastrophic) effects on a widespread scale, in the foreseeable future. Eliminating, or significantly reducing, said GHG emissions will avert said negative effects.
By “scientific certainty”, I mean that the evidence in hand now, for and against the proposition, is conclusive. It does not (and can not) preclude the logical possibility that further evidence might arise to contradict the proposition.
I base this interpretation of the statement on, among other things, Gore’s film, which is, I should guess, the most widely-distributed expression on the subject. NPR describes Gore as saying the science is settled at http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=9047642 , although perhaps the phrase pre-dates that.
And no, I don’t think that the revised R.S. statement supports this interpretation. It (the R.S. statement) describes significant uncertainty in attribution to GHGs vs. other causes, and significant uncertainty in projecting the future effects. Hence, not settled.
Your turn.
Please to remember
The 19th of November …
Say, wouldn’t it be a gas if The Leaker released Round 2 of the e-mails on the anniversary date?
Rhoda R says:
October 19, 2010 at 8:30 pm
Alan Clark: Just how long has he been a ‘former’ Defense Minister? (Although what we have in the White House …)
Rhoda: Paul Hillyer was actually our top soldier and then was appointed in the Liberal government of Paul Martin as Defense Minister. Old brain not working goodly now… but it wasn’t 10 years ago! I made fun of Hillyer on my Facebook status something to the effect that “its fortunate that he waited until he was out of government to go nuts”. Or did he? Now I’m starting to wonder. (cues theme from x-files)
Thomas,
In your list of things packed into the year you left out weather news. There were (and are still) lots of those. Here is something happening in October — a weather/grape/wine story. Has references to brix, TA, pH and famous grape varieties for those that care about such things.
Covey Run winemaker copes with challenges of 2010 vintage
http://www.winepressnw.com/2010/10/18/5669/covey-run-winemaker-copes-with.html?mi_email=Tri-City%20Herald_Northwest+Wine+of+the+Week
Tom? Is that you? If you’re not careful, you’ll be classified as a full blown skeptic!(You already are.) I wonder, do you carry that as a badge of honor? Or do you deny your skepticism and still consider yourself as a “lukewarmer”.
You see, it doesn’t matter to the alarmists if you’re simply asking questions that need to be asked. The simple fact that you’re asking them at all, defines you as a skeptic. Not by skeptics, btw, but by the alarmists. More importantly, do you regard this as a defining question?
It seems to me, we are at a defining point in the history of mankind. We can choose to accept the dire prognostications of others, or we can demand they prove their predictions to be reasonable and the sacrifice to be just as reasonable.
Have others before been as just as dire? Of course, we see it every day. Have others been as demanding? Yes, we’ve seen it throughout history. Has the alarmism been so comprehensive? Never! When the Kyoto pact was signed, how many signed it?
187 states have signed and ratified the Kyoto Protocol to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change! Go here. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Kyoto_Protocol_signatories#Signed_and_ratified
BTW, to the rest of the world, on behalf of the U.S. (while I don’t have permission to speak for US) YW! (Thanks to a previous thread here I felt compelled to add.)
The issues raised, “just in October”, show…………………………..they show plenty.