Kid blogger Chris Mooney (at left) often writes fascinating articles for their sheer single mindedness of purpose – making anyone who doubts AGW in even the slightest look like fools. I’ve been on the receiving end a few times but generally never bother to respond. I do however, find it interesting that he gets to blog at Discover magazine, while at the same time writing hit pieces for Jim Hoggan’s paid public relations inflamers over at DeSmog Blog. Science and paid PR don’t mix.
But back to our story, Chris must have never been to Missouri, or taken a course where science is taught to be tested by replication and verification. Otherwise, he wouldn’t get so upset when the aptly named commenter “Nullius in Verba” (Take nobody’s word for it) asked to see the calcs behind what Mooney was writing about. It starts out innocently enough:
In the article is this passage about Kerry Emanuel’s “back of the envelope” calcs that prove the issue:
And then comes the obvious question, since the calcs were not included in the article, nor by any link nor citation. The response however, is the surprise:
See the comments yourself here
Hectoring? Wow! So much for the “discovery” in Discover magazine. Change the name to “Don’t Ask Magazine” perhaps?
I guess that makes anyone who asks to see proof of BOE calculations either from Missouri, a denier, or both:
OK I’ve had my chuckle and made my point. Ribbing aside, Chris Mooney really could do everyone a great service by simply answering the question, or writing to Dr. Emanuel and having him show it for him if he doesn’t know what those calcs are. Either way, next time Chris writes about how we all just need better communications, using trusted messengers, remind him of this over the top response.
h/t to Tom Nelson
UPDATE: After only 5 comments, comments for the article were closed. No discussion allowed. That’s really lame Chris.
Chris Mooney is first and foremost a BS artist. His job is not to actually prove, but convince the fence sitters and belittle the oposition.
It’s simple:
1) double CO2
2) ???
3) we burn in the fires of a planetary catastrophe!
When I tried to post:
Whats wrong with wanting to see the calculations? Isn’t not being able to see (thus not able to replicate) part of this annoying divide?
Trusting facts and figures is one thing, seeing raw data and results re-creation should be solid gold.
I got:
Sorry, comments are closed for this item.
It isn’t so much they don’t want dissent, as much as the debate must already be settled…
Of course, the comments are closed now. That was fast.
I suppose that Mr. Mooney’s Discover online forum is yet another one of those virtual venues in which questioning the religious beliefs of the proprietor will get you bounced out of the bar.
But I do like that “hectoring” comeback. Damned thin skin under Mr. Mooney’s coat of weasel fur.
Facts, they do not need facts, they have grants.
Grants outweight Facts.
An English Major, no less. Leave the kid alone, blame instead the fools listening to his empty pomposity.
He already shut down comments. Freakin coward.
[snip – over the top personal attack against Mr. Mooney]
“3) neither Democrats nor Republicans are inherently anti-science ” says the author of The Republican War on Science.
Which is it?
Hmmm, comments closed. Looks like Mooney is a moonbat that can’t take any questioning of his beliefs…
Silence to all the “hector(ers)?” Those who doubt shall be smitten, or is it kitten?
Richard Black, Damian Carrington, and now Mooney. It’s the #leftwingwaroncomments I tell ya!
Another good one for not allowing debate is Greg Laden.
http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2011/05/are_all_these_tornadoes_being.php
Apparently using references and logic is not allowed; at least if you are not on the AGW side.
Greg has a thin skin too, you will note. He didn’t like that I questioned why he would believe models over data. In e-mail communication, he also didn’t like my use of the term “warmist”. I used quotations marks, and in the same sentence as “skeptic” and “lukewarmer”. This, from a blog owner that does not allow “deniers”, as he calls them.
Greg, hypocrisy. Hypocrisy, Greg.
Lets be honest here, none of this stuff has been about science or facts anyways. Its about a fight for power of determining the future direction of the country or countries involved in this nonsense.
Well, he does say that you have to be a MIT science student to do it – which he isn’t. So I guess that’s why he regards the request as “hectoring”.
I was unaware of Emmanuel saying any such thing, but I find it highly amusing. He really said that to Congress? They just don’t get any respect at all. If it really is that easy, perhaps he will spare us five minutes of his time and show us that BOE. Who knew it was so simple?
I asked Chris to explain why the comment by Nullius was “heckoring” and my comment was deleted. I then said: “I was mistaken that this was a science blog but I see its just a warmists propaganda blog. No wonder there are very few comments”.
Within a few minutes the comments were closed.
That seems to be a basic ploy: Add “Everybody knows” or “It’s easy to calculate” in front of a statement then become affronted when anyone asks for proof.
Hey, I thought the Science was settled, way back when Chris was still in diapers. Are we now hiding the decline of used envelopes for the sake of the grand children ?
Any real science enjoys having a lively debate on its basic premises. Any real science is more than happy to publish it’s theory, results, raw data and assumptions in the hope of eliciting information that will improve it’s understanding of nature. But AGW is not a science, so much as it is a religion.
Could he stand a day at a farm? Or would even that be too much for his physic?
English Major eh? Then I guess he understands the term “buffoon.”
Maybe someone should do him a favor and point him toward the article on a “simple” sensitivity calculation on Judith Curry’s blog. http://judithcurry.com/2010/12/14/co2-no-feedback-sensitivity-part-ii/
This may disabuse him of ‘back of the envelope’ excursions.
In the first comment we have a please and a thanks. That’s the kind of over the top rhetoric that leads to hectoring dontchaknow.
Loved the “noted” bit too
Chris Mooney has form in the atheist community as well, being one of the most prominent voices for ‘accommodationism’; essentially the view that we should be nice to believers even if they are talking complete nonsense, supporting violent extremists and spending our taxes on it because… because…
Well, he hasn’t quite got to that bit yet, but no doubt he will some day.
The ONE thing you can depend on from these so-called authors: NO ACTIVE EXPERIENCE in ATMOSPHERIC ELECTROMAGNETIC RADIATION TRANSMISSION, CAPTURE, and ANALYSIS.
Mr. Watts,
Roger Williams who is running for U.S. Senate to replace Kay Baily Hutchison has your blog link now.
you may want to make contact with them. He most likely will win the thing.
He understands the risk of the AGW hockey puck slap stick facts.
http://www.rogerforsenate.com
That and he is a nice guy too.
Svante Arrhenius used the equivalent of an envelope in 1908 when he said doubling of CO2 would cause a 1.6 degree C rise.
It is a pretty simple calculation. If you assume everything else to be uniform.
Unfortunately for Mooney, there are lots of other variables in the system – most of which are unaccounted for at this time in any model.
Fundamentally, the Earth is a huge heat engine. Any sophomore taking Engineering Thermodynamics can tell you what happens when you circulate the working fluid faster or slower in a Heat Engine. What drives the working fluid in the Earth’s heat engine? Mooney does not know.
Other than supporting plant life, its not clear that CO2 is important at all in regulating climate. And a doubling of CO2 appears to be good for life on the planet in general.
“Democrats have vastly more PHDs and experts, and seem to be factually correct on contested issues.” Do Democrats have more than the 9,100 PHDs signed on to the Petition Project, which says agw is a crock? Much of the research on agw is conducted by professors and experts in socialist academia and government institutions. To say a lot of Democrats are involved here is to state the obvious.
Right-leaning Republicans or Conservatives are more mature, having seen too many fads come and go before that turned out to be nothing, like the previous two global cooling and global warming periods in the last 110 years, and would rather accept factual, verifiable historical data spanning millenia or millions of years as “proof”. Left-leaning Democrats and Progressives are guided by “beliefs”, by daily anecdotes as “proof”, by studies conducted over a few years or decades as “proof”, by computer projections based on woefully inadequate modelling using dubious initial conditions as “proof”, by FrankenGraphs like the Hockey Stick cobbled together using two unconnected proxies as “proof”, all for the real reason of having this supposed “crisis” always on the front page: redistributing the world’s wealth.
To put this issue to rest once and for all, perhaps Mr. Mooney would be willing to address just one question: why do ice core data show the CO2 increases coming about 800 years AFTER the temperature increases? Here’s the answer, Mr. Mooney: Rising temperatures drive CO2 out of solution from the world’s oceans. CO2 is the drive-ee, not the driver! Game. Set. Match.
Of course you are hectoring if you ask an English major to do calculations! Who doesn’t understand that?
The guy has not responded much differently from that other great public face of the warmists, Al Gore. The science is settled, the debate is over, stop hectoring me. “Lame” doesn’t begin to describe it.
I think this is the new reality. A similar thing is happening in the UK at the moment; AGW Propaganda bloggers, sorry “Environment Correspondents” over at the bbc do not invite comments on the articles they write anymore. I assume, it’s because what they write cannot be defended a.k.a beyond any empirical reasoning (they think it anyway).
First rule of Climate Science, “Don’t let the facts get in the way of good story!”
If Chris Mooney reads this, maybe he will reopen the comments – then again, probably best to just stay quiet 😉
The alleged envelope has probably accidentally been dropped into the shredder by now! Gee – all that good scientific ‘proof’ lost forever for the benefit of all mankind…………..Still, if it’s so elementary, I’m sure it won’t take long for it to be replicated?
I’d better add the ‘/sarc’ just in case he reads this! (You know the type – attention, self gratification seeking, look how clever I am for poking a stick at the hornets nest, then complaining how hard done-by they are when they get stung! Kinda sad really…….)
he didn’t say how large the envelope was…
I was able to leave a comment here…
http://prospect.org/cs/articles?article=the_reality_gap
Go for it.
The more Mother Nature refuses to go along with their models and fear predictions, the more these AGW Belied Peddlers will go over the top in their unsubstantiated claims, stories of ever greater disasters and enviro-radical interpretations of the reasons why their religious like beliefs need to be adhered to – OR ELSE!.
A shameful, pathetic little man, so unable to handle reality.
Anybody got a back of the envelope calculation that explains how positive feedback could be causing the near record heat here in lower Alabama when the humidity for this time of year is running way lower than I’ve ever seen it?
Isn’t this all supposed to be due to positive feedback? Slight heating -> more humidity -> higher temps due to more humidity?
What I’m seeing right now, in the middle of a massive heat wave with record, or near record temperatures many days in the past three weeks, is a heat index lower than the actual temperature. Here in the deep, deep south, it is usually the humidity that makes the heat so unbearable. We’ve never been able to say, “yeah, but it’s a dry heat,” until now, that is! I’m used to 103F days with a heat index of 112F. Now, were having 103F days with heat index around 99F.
Chris
This is the land of the free and the home of the brave. There’s no room for communist like you who restrict the free speech and scientific analysis of an opposing view. Your time wanes and your rhetoric is doomed to the grave. Our forefathers shed thier fortune and thier blood to forge a free life away from the likes of you. Pray God we don’t meet on some fateful day for that same purpose because freedom will win when we do.
Mike clark
Anthony don’t forget he was added to the board of the AGU for his ability to “communicate” science. You even had a post at the time on it:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/12/13/time-to-end-your-membership-with-the-american-geophysical-union/
REPLY: So much here at WUWT, sometimes I forget. Thanks for the reminder. – Anthony
“Right-leaning Republicans or Conservatives are more mature, having seen too many fads come and go before that turned out to be nothing”
It must be “Sweeping Statements Week” on WUWT. I must try to forget all of the liberal professors and Democratic supporters who have suffered in their work situations because of left wing demagoguery from people like Chris Mooney. They clearly existed only in my fertile imagination.
I also tried to get a comment posted there. I merely noted that I was not surprised that the simplistic arguments of those alarmed about CO2 could fit on the back of an envelope, but that I was surprised that they would want this to be more widely known. But perhaps it was my suggestion that the comment about ‘hectoring’ was some fast-response damage limitation that was the last straw for the clearly highly-sensitive, or perhaps merely highly-strung, souls protecting Discovery’s ramparts from those interesting in discovery.
Charles S. Opalek, PE says:
June 13, 2011 at 2:33 pm
“CO2 is the drive-ee, not the driver! Game. Set. Match.”
CO2 can also be a driver.
http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/faq-2-1.html
Hey Chris, I’d love to see how your mate Kerry can prove that 1 + 1 = 4.5 to 7.
What advanced maths does he and his students use?
I know that Einstein once did stuff like this on the back of envelopes.
I have a simple rule: Never do math in public–it only leads to embarrassment. Of course, I’m not a scientist. Maybe Mooney feels the same way.
FWIW
http://science.house.gov/sites/republicans.science.house.gov/files/documents/hearings/Emanuel%20testimony.pdf
Already in 1897 the Swedish chemist Svante Arrhenius predicted that industrial activity would increase carbon dioxide concentrations and calculated (by hand) that doubling the concentration would cause global surface temperatures to rise by 5-6 degrees centigrade. Modern science projects somewhat lower temperature increases, but Arrhenius’s estimate is remarkably close to modern estimates considering the information and techniques at his disposal. Today, students at MIT and elsewhere can do hand calculations or use simple models of radiative and convective heat transfer to explore climate physics, and they find climate sensitivities in the same range as those reported in the first National Academy of Sciences report on anthropogenic climate change in 1979.
My initial impression of Mooney’s response to Nullius’ query was that it was a bit of a piss take of the whole situation we find ourselves in regarding the ‘debate’. But then I remembered that AGW proponents don’t have a sense of humour…
Here, I finished Mooney’s sentence for him…
“Nullius, this is a warning. Your comments are verging on hectoring at this point. Hectoring is what I do daily. I am paid well for my professional hectoring. Your amateur hectoring is not up to my high standards. Additionally, you frighten me. I am running away now.”
Sometimes one has to bring the obvious to the fore: whether a result is obtained via a simple BOE calculation or a complex one, involving hours of computation in the fastest machines available, is no guarantee that it will reflect what happens in Nature. Only comparison of the implications of said results with observations can do that… And it is in that realm that CAGW fails miserably.
Another wannabe enlightened scientific thinker of the so called “Left’
Dear Chris,
Thanks for providing me with today’s see?-now-that’s-why-I’m-convinced-AGW’s-a-crock moment. Weak bud. Really weak.
Apparently, ‘the “Enlightenment Ethic” of using science and reason to forge a better society’ is the excuse Chris uses to justify his propaganda. In other words, it’s ok to deceive the public for a good cause because the ends justify the means. The problem is that his idea of a “better society” is not the same as mine. “Using science and reason” by distorting it to achieve a political goal never ends well.
The Fabian Socialist Society created a stained glass window showing a heated earth being forged by hammers into a “better” world — a new world of scientific socialism where individualism must be relinquished for the betterment of the state. Its similarity to Chris Mooney’s idea of using the Enlightenment Ethic to “forge” a better society is quite a coincidence, don’t you think? You can see the Fabian Window here:
http://www.canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/13959
For the hard core AGW faithful has it is a self evident truth is simply no way to questioning it , that is not itself intrinsically wrong . Don’t think science, think hard core religion and they you will get how people like Mooney think about ‘deniers’ or those that question the fatih.
I stopped reading Discover 4 years ago after reading how some climate investigators used weather balloon data from the 1940 -1960’s to show an increase in average temperature. When the data showed no increase they introduced a fudge factor to adjust for faulty calibrated equipment backing the raw data, and low and behold there was a rising in average temperature. I could not believe my eyes. If I had ever produced a science paper like that back when I did my undergrad, they would have tossed me out on my ear. The editors at Discover called it a “breakthrough study”, I called it fraud. I don’t buy that mag anymore.
I note from his bio that his blog won the prestigious (Un)Scientific American best-blog award…
He`s found his cash cow,now he`s gonna jerk on those teats `till they burn.
Perhaps we can all blog bollocks for a wage when industry rolls on its back and dies.
Thanks for the reminder bob.
The board of AGU believes that the debate is over and all we need is to have better communicators to nail that fact home.
Seems though that the first thing Chris needs to do is establish a small amount of trust with the public (and policy makers too).
Perhaps he’s been in the echo chamber a bit too long and has forgotten the basics of establishing trust – Like answering the easy questions.
It took me a simple web search to find that Kerry Emanuel did not provide this:
So, Kerry Emanuel did not in fact provide a back of the envelope calculation in his congressional testimony – he alluded to something similar, but that is not quite the same flavor of “truthiness” that Mooney hoped to “communicate”.
Emanuels testimony is here: http://science.house.gov/sites/republicans.science.house.gov/files/documents/hearings/Emanuel%20testimony.pdf
So there are more Democrat PhDs than Republican? I’m not sure what that statement really means. It’s rare these days to get through a place like UC Berkeley today and not be a Democrat. There is tremendous pressure to conform and join the masses, and little refuge. And of course, if you are not a Democrat (or other stronger flavor of socialist), you are less likely to be published, obtain grants, and get tenure..
Are we now voting on science? Consensus is after all group-think. We certainly are passing legislation based on what must be Democratic consensus science. Next, we have judges ruling on science. For example, EPA regulation of CO2. How are they qualified to make that ruling? As if testimony of expert witnesses and precedent are sufficient to discover truth. Legality isn’t the same as reality.
Well now, Hectoring isn’t all that bad 🙂
“Arrhenius estimated that halving of CO2 would decrease temperatures by 4–5 °C (Celsius) and a doubling of CO2 would cause a temperature rise of 5–6 °C. In his 1906 publication, Arrhenius adjusted the value downwards to 1.6 °C.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Svante_Arrhenius
Weather = AGW. Simple.
Dittos; a man after my own sentiments.
.
“Science and paid PR don’t mix.”
Amen! All it takes is a quick history lesson to back that up. That was definitely some sketchy behavior from Mooney, now I have to take Discovery with a grain salt… or are some of the other writers more trustworthy?
frank-So, how correct something is in science is defined by it’s stagnation and lack of progress? Arrhenius being brought up as showing that these estimates are well established is funny, given that the basis for his calculation “agreeing” with modern computer models is pure coincidence, since the basis for his numbers later turned out to be wrong. A bunch of people doing the same flawed calculations over and over, that are so simple a monkey could do them (apparently) not trying to actually improve the calculations at all! That’s not merely not impressive, it’s depressingly discouraging for the ability of this field to advance at all, since the current generation is being trained to simply regurgitate dusty old ideas and not think at all.
How would they know if there is positive or negative feedback by doing a simple BOE? I haven´’t seen 100% proof in any direction, but the long term records make me believe it is negative. By the way the way he handled that comment was pathetic.
Let them (including this Mooney fellow) continue to dis scientists and scientific discovery. Let them show their shallow and unprofessional response to real inquiry. And let them offer twaddle instead of real insight–It simply serves to destroy what little credibility they have left regarding the subject.
Have no idea why anyone would give any credence to anything C. Mooney says. He was in Australia, some months ago and (for reasons that defy understanding) given a national platform, addressing the National Press Club. It was, to anyone with a scientific education and half a brain generally, perurile rubbish. I mean, the guy really sucks. Wet behind the ears know-nothing, is how he came across.
I’m confused. How would Lindzen and Emanuel both being MIT professors have such different views on climate sensitivity. In looking at their CVs Lindzen was a professor at MIT in 1975 and Emanuel got his undergrad in 76 and his Phd in 78 at MIT.
Was Emanuel ever a student of Lindzen?
Is Frank (at #:03 pm) aware of what has become known as “Arrhenius’s Error”? By the 1920s, it was determined Arrhenius was wrong and the influence of CO2 on the atmosphere was over-emphasized. Sure, NAS and MIT students could do the same calculations, but they’d be wrong just as Arrhenius was. That entire topic has entered the realm of Logical Fallacies (i.e. a propaganda tool). Logical fallacies are, like Arrhenius’s handmade calculations, logical, but false.
Yeah, stop hectoring!
Chris Mooney stand tough, you’re not alone.
We’ve paid billions/trillions for something anyone with a science degree from MIT can do on the back of an envelope………..
Anyone want to buy a million dollar super computer?
Here’s what he saw on that envelope:
MIT
77 Massachusetts Avenue
Cambridge, MA 02139
Joke is on him, he wasn’t looking at the back.
Where is W.C. Fields when we need him?
Go away kid, you bother me.
Hoser says: June 13, 2011 at 3:40 pm
[Next, we have judges ruling on science.]
[How are they qualified to make that ruling?]
Judges have for a long time made rulings on science in the context of admission of evidence.
-Finger prints
-Toxicology
-Pathology
-Ballistics
-Accelerants
-DNA
None of these were accepted by the court until after a rigorous examination of the science from which the evidence was derived.
We have not yet seen a judge that knows enough about the history of law to not simply accept new scientific evidence uncritically; we await a skeptical disinterested judge.
At 3:40 PM on 13 June, Hoser writes:
Friend, why do you think that people like this Mooney git object so strongly to having their doctrines characterized as Liberal Fascism?
Accurate perception of their malevolence and hostility toward individual human rights puts a real crimp in the activities of a “communicator” of fascist propaganda like Mr. Mooney.
Before I read this article, I had never heard of Chris Mooney. Apparently, he’s no one of any importance…
The Merriam-Webster dictionary of american English defines a hector as a person who is a “bully” and a “braggart.” It further defines a bully as “a blustering browbeating person; especially : one habitually cruel to others who are weaker.”
It appears that Chris Mooney owes apologies to the target of his ad hominem and smear attack and to the general audience for bullying them with the abrupt closure of comments after only five comments in response to his own bullying accusations. The public can draw its own conclusions about who is and is not “hectoring” in this debate.
Not surprising coming from Mooney. I’ve been following the discover blogs for a few years now and his always follows the same pattern of left-wing propaganda – Republicans being anti-science, anything from a right wing politician that can be distorted or belittled to show how they’re such anti-science “deniers”, dumb, racist, etc. I was actually put on a permanent screening (awaiting moderation…) list for my “anti-science” comments that (gasp) challenged the troubled logic of AGW supporters.
Is asking for the back of the envelope calculation hectoring? I can hardly see where that is bullying anyone.
Hectoring?
Honestly, I don’t think I’ve ever heard that term before. Now not only do I know it, but I have doubts Mooney knows what it exactly means as it sure doesn’t fit the circumstances.
Is Mooney becoming Moonbat II, The Sequel (neither as good nor as inspired as the original)?
Frank,
Arrhenius did a very meticulous job proving that a doubling of CO2 leads to a 5-6 degrees C of warming and was responsible for changing the world from a glacial period thousands of year long to our current inter-glacial period. Unfortunately for Arrhenius, it appears CO2 doubling was not the cause of the current inter-glacial. When challenged by Angstrom, incorrectly BTW, Arrhenius is purported to have revisited his calculations, changing the result for a doubling to 1.6 (2.1 with water vapor feedback) degrees C in 1906. It would be interesting to see a translation of that paper.
As it stands, Arrhenius’ most recent BTE calculation is 1.6 degrees, which is remarkable close to many estimates by today’s scientists and surprisingly, the temperature record.
sad. i found nullius’ reponses over at climate etc clear and helpdful
“UPDATE: After only 5 comments, comments for the article were closed. No discussion allowed. That’s really lame Chris.”
No, that’s just really Chris.
Better lodge an FOIA request for the back of that envelope, before it disappears. After all, this is only 2011 and our storage of envelope backs is limited!
Is Mooney becoming Moody? I have submitted far more challenging comments than Nullius and never got censored and never got a warning. Maybe it was his blog seperation from Sheril Kirshenbaum or his NEW direction that has made him testy.
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/intersection/2011/06/02/new-directions-at-the-intersection/
I am very worried about Mooney’s shift to psychology. I can see the day when Mooney turns into Nurse Ratched and starts claiming that people who ask for calculations on the atmospheric sensitivity to CO2 doubling are hectoring crazies that should be admitted to special climate change reorientation centers where frontal lobes can be replaced with global warming “belief chips”.
Come on guys,
Didn’t Willis E do some back of the envelope calculations (in Excel) and show us the global warming equation?
Discover the decline.I read only one of his Discover comments. He was writing that viewers of Fox News were clearly less informed than most people about global warming. To be ‘less informed’ you apparently had only to be sceptical, which, to my mind, seemed more scientific. Chris Mooney is a sad example of the failure of liberal arts education in America’s universities–neither liberal, nor art, nor much in the way of science either.
I wonder what Richard Lindzen would say about all of this….
If the calculation is so simple why are the IPCC’s predictions so inaccurate?
Before we condemn Mooney too strongly for over-reacting, let’s keep in mind the possibility that Nullius had been on his case in prior threads.
Why would anyone bother to read a blog that doesn’t allow spirited comments? Most of the fun in WUWT is in the comments.
Waste of time, but I sent a compaint to editorial@discovermagazine.com
Calculations??? I don’t have to show you no stinking calculations!!!!
As they say, “That was then, this is now.” Mooney’s response is so out of left field, no reasonable person could view this exchange without viewing Mooney as petulant, at the very least.
Laying Out a Comments Policy
by Chris Mooney
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/intersection/2009/06/04/laying-out-a-comments-policy/
“Our general rule is that comments must be substantive and on topic, and must avoid profanity, personal attacks, and hectoring.”
Roger Knights says:
June 13, 2011 at 5:32 pm
Before we condemn Mooney too strongly for over-reacting, let’s keep in mind the possibility that Nullius had been on his case in prior threads.
=====================================================================================
So he closed all comments because of one poster, Nullius?
…….all the more reason to condemn (your word) him
( I would have used “make fun of”)
He closed the comments because he’s lame and can’t answer questions………………
We’re way far past the benefit of the doubt phase, and well into the Chris Mooney is an overt propogandist engaged in political warfare within the natural sciences profession phase.
At 5:32 PM on 13 June, Roger Knights had written:
Yes, doubtless asking politely – but persistently – that Mr. Mooney support his assertions with reasoned argument and factual proof.
That’s sure as hell “hectoring in the eyes of any “Liberal’ fascist.
The problem is that the earth system is NOT made up of simply Radiation and CO2. There are other complications that make a mockery of these back of the envelope experts. You know, like clouds and precipitation and other messy stuff they have not successfully modelled on the back of an envelope or otherwise.
Sorry Moon boy, you only prove your and Climate Scientists ignorance with such a puff piece.
In all fairness, I know that there are people who become pests on a forum (we have our own here). Since I never go follow the proceedings at places like Discover or Scientific American (far too biased away from Science, ironically), I don’t know if the poster was hectoring or being a pest.
In common parlance, “hectoring” is what a comedian would say the guy in the third row that keeps hollering insults at his jokes is doing. Perhaps Chris sees this poster as that, in which case fine.
However, a very valid question was raised, and for him to simply ignore it and close comments is a sign that he has no answer. After all, very simple back-of-the-envelope calculations have also shown that people who go by the name of “Chris” tend to be loudmouthed, opinionated, and arrogant. And don’t bother asking me to see those calculations, any second year phrenologist or astrologist or numerologist could easily demonstrate it.
Yeah, I consider AGW believers to be in the same general category…
clearly he’s taking lessons in how to destroy a blog from charles johnson of little green footballs.
JohnA says:
“It must be “Sweeping Statements Week” on WUWT. I must try to forget all of the liberal professors and Democratic supporters who have suffered in their work situations because of left wing demagoguery from people like Chris Mooney. They clearly existed only in my fertile imagination.”
Agreed if you use the term “Democratic supporter.” Don’t agree if you include “progressive socialists” as an element of “Democratic Supporter.” There is a VERY BIG difference…. What I’m worried about is that the “Democratic supporter” may not realize that s(he) has been “sucked into” a whirlpool of doom.
Lots of “Democrats” simply have not awaken. And NONE of those who are feasting on the public teat ever will, and you know it!
Free the envelope!!!
I find interest in that long “Liberal” fascist rant of Mr. Mooney’s that he specifically mentions how:
…without once considering how many of the members of the AAAS surveyed were actually educated and experienced in any of the hard sciences. The Association states that it is “Open to all,” and membership comes automatically with a subscription to their magazine, Science.
So what Mr. Mooney’s cited 2009 survey indicates is that the overwhelming majority of Science subscribers responding were “Liberal” fascists.
Think we wouldn’t get the same kind of response from the subscribers to Discover or The American Prospect?
Let’s give a little thought to the kinds of response one would get if one were to undertake a similar survey of the subscribers to Reason or to Liberty magazine.
Probing Mr. Moody’s cited bolus of arrogant bullpuckey is entirely too much like that stint in the pathology lab back in medical school, checking samples of excrement for ova and parasites. No matter where you poke it, or how you parse it, it’s still…er, feces.
At 3:00 PM on 13 June, John A had written:
Inasmuch as the twittering Weiner has become the public face of the National Socialist Democrat American Party (NSDAP, because they quit being “Democratic” when they enacted Obamacare over the howling rage of their own core constituencies in 2010), I would think that the expression “Democratic supporters” has an – er, athletic connotation we should take pains to avoid.
Please, no more jockstrap jokes.
“Your comments are verging on heresy at this point.”
There. Fixed that for the kid.
Frank says: “Today, students at MIT and elsewhere can do hand calculations or use simple models of radiative and convective heat transfer to explore climate physics, and they find climate sensitivities in the same range as those reported in the first National Academy of Sciences report on anthropogenic climate change in 1979.”
Maybe the students can, but a really top genius of a Heat Transfer Expert is Dr Adrian Bejan – he who writes the heat transfer textbooks they use at MIT. He can show you on the back of an envelope that the atmosphere works like an enormous heat engine that very effectvely self-stabilises, dumping any additional heat out into space, or retaining it if it is not so hot. In fact as a heat calculation problem, it was so uninteresting to the famous man that he ignored it for years, then stepped in, made a few quick calculations of the correct type and quickly showed the AGW idea was completely off-base using just a few basic principles of convective heat transfer.
Don’t ask the vacuous students, ask the professor. I can recommend highly his recent book “Convective Heat Transfer” to anyone who wants to understand how Nature actually works.
http://www.amazon.com/Convection-Heat-Transfer-Adrian-Bejan/dp/0471271500
AGU Release No. 10–39
15 November 2010
For Immediate Release
WASHINGTON—The American Geophysical Union’s board of directors has approved two new members who will bring expertise in science policy and communication: policy advisor Floyd DesChamps and author Chris Mooney.
Hmmn – “communication” ? “expertise” ? no wonder the “superiors of science policy” are in trouble, or is the message, threaten those who dare to ask for facts, information, rather than spin, thus the REAL agenda. Is this where they got (and lost) that scientific consensus they tried to foist on the world. Deny or threaten the right to ask polite questions and what does that make one?
@roger Knight
“Before we condemn Mooney too strongly for over-reacting, let’s keep in mind the possibility that Nullius had been on his case in prior threads.”.
I think you’re being overly generous, Roger. I tried a very polite enquiry on another thread, pointing out that commenting had been switched off, and was moderated out of existence. It’s the first time I have ever been on his blog. He clearly does not want to go near the issue because he know he doesn’t have a leg to stand on. It was a wild assertion that could not be substantiated. Someone spotted it. Oops.
@CodeTech
“In common parlance, “hectoring” is what a comedian would say the guy in the third row that keeps hollering insults at his jokes is doing.”
No, that’s ‘heckling’. We English Majors do know some things.
He’s a protege of the late climate change propagandist, Stephen H. Schneider. I saw an interview with Mooney during the COP15 debacle. It was very revealing. He mentions Joe Romm as a “climate expert”. Wow.
Back of the envelope calculation? All you need to scribble is Figure 1 from this publication.
http://www.worldclimatereport.com/index.php/2011/04/14/biggest-drop-in-us-greenhouse-gas-emissions/
He’s a child……. nothing more needs said.
One would think that MIT Professor Richard Lindzen’s students have an entirely different point of view.
Anthony, Thanks for the support! (Which I must emphasise I didn’t ask for, and comes as a great surprise to me.)
In fairness to Chris, I ought to say that while we’ve rarely agreed on much, he has in the past been very open about allowing contrary views on the blog, and this event is quite uncharacteristic. It may be that several recent discussions have upset him, somehow – he’s said more daft things than usual recently and I’ve been bored enough to spend the time pointing it out (e.g. the ‘Democrat War on Science’ thread) – but I’m still trying to find out from him what’s up. Recent traffic wasn’t particularly heavy, compared to other times in the past.
I’m pretty sure the comments got closed when he saw that he had attracted WUWT’s attention.
My sincere thanks to all.
CodeTech @ June 13, 2011 at 6:48 pm
It’s true that Nullius is a regular at Discovery, as well as other climate blogs. However, from what I’ve read, he is unfailingly polite, calm and rational. Did you catch his rejoinder after Mooney’s hectoring charge? One word and a period: “Noted.” That’s class.
Nullius is deadly at spotting holes in arguments and concisely exposing them. I consider Nullius one of the most skillful writers I’ve seen in online debate. I’ve no doubt that his consistent effectiveness is the source of Mooney’s complaint and inability to follow up. Mooney is embarrassed and he should be.
Why would anybody so much as discuss Arrhenius any more if t has been shown time and again that CO2 concentration changes follow temperature changes, not the other way around?
P.S. Take a look at Chris Mooney’s photo. Would you give this guy your car keys for a minute? Case closed.
Reminds me of when I first started infoming myself about this topic (I was a warmist at the time), I was at Gavin Henson’s place and asked a question, in all innocence. I had no idea it wasn’t allowed. My comment was censored. I don’t even remember the question. I think I got the answer here …
jonjermey says:
June 13, 2011 at 2:26 pm
Chris Mooney has form in the atheist community as well, being one of the most prominent voices for ‘accommodationism’; essentially the view that we should be nice to believers even if they are talking complete nonsense, supporting violent extremists and spending our taxes on it because… because…
I know that no one else has commented on this, but may I make the comment that some reject accomodationism because they see no good reason to be nice to “believers” and I reject it because not all “believers” believe the same thing!! Let’s not fall into the trap of lumping all “believers” in the same boat – remember, many terrorists think they are doing the right thing for their belief system by targeting “believers” of other belief systems. I also would like to say that it is possible to be a sceptic about AGW and not a sceptic about other things, such as moon landings and even religious beliefs.
Meanwhile, back at the climate conversation….
What amazes me the most about writers like this one is how they start out with a paragraph or two to show how unbiased they are. A few fair mined statements that neither Democrats nor Republicans, blah, blah, blah. Then just as your settling in for some actual fair minded comparisons, you get, well, Democrats have “vastly more PhD’s and experts”
OK, I know how to count PhD’s. How does one count “experts”? Does he know the definition of “expert”? I believe it is “anyone from out of town”?
I’ve no doubt that the Democrats have vastly more degrees than the Republicans.
How many philosophy degrees does it take to balance one engineer anyway?
At my favourite local watering hole, there is a stellar serving staff who almost all have degrees. Three in fine arts, at least two in philosophy, a couple of political science majors. All except one vote left of centre.
Gosh, I wish I’d gotten a degree. I could have been a server, a profession in which it appears the vast number of people are highly educated left of centre and…. what? they make HOW much?
Changed my mind, don’t want that highly educated degree job thing after all.
One thing that seems to happening with more frequency and intensity is the over the top reactions in the AGW community to reasonable questions. As a professional working in the field of mental health, this idea of people responding with high expressed emotion to any query which they view as not being “approved” is interesting. It suggests a firm denial of the nature of humanity and it’s inherent curiosity. Most sites ( including this one) will get pretty contentious sometimes, but it’s the immediate anger on a consistent basis which I find worrying in the pro-warming sites. It appears that unless you are 100% in support you must be a denier. No individuality, no interpretation, no doubt. There is a great PhD here for someone one looking at high expressed emotion in the AGW community. Even for myself as someone who believes the climate is warming and that we have something to do with it, this situation looks more like Scientific McCarthyism than true debate to improve our understanding of what is occurring. Such behaviours are commonly related to those who have some doubt as to their beliefs, but cannot for some reason recognise or accept those doubts for fear of devaluing themselves as a person.
From Alexander Feht on June 13, 2011 at 10:48 pm:
Because the (C)AGW alarmist rant against that is: This time around it is something new and different, Something UNPRECEDENTED! This dramatic rise in CO2 concentrations that humans are causing is UNPRECEDENTED! Therefore CO2 MUST BE DRIVING THE TEMPERATURES UP, just as Arrhenius PROVED would happen!
Yeah, it doesn’t make sense to me either.
Only if he’s wearing his parking attendant uniform.
The On-line version of today’s Guardian (UK) has a headline that shouts ‘Why Extreme Weather is the New Normal’ but no comments are allowed. The same issue also repeats the (wildly inaccurate) story from the Telegraph by the incredible Louise Gray about Australian climate scientists suffering deatjh threats and their university moving them to a secure location – No comments.
Just love the debating tactics of eco-Marxist pseudo-journalists!
A few weeks ago I likened the global warming debate to a “war” in that we would likely see a very rapid “turning point” not due to any significant change in strength of either side, but as a sudden realisation by the hoards on the global warming side that they were loosing, leading to an awful lot of “bandwagon” hitch hikers jumping off the global warming side.
With the comments on this blog and the BBC, what we are beginning to see is the “bunker” mentality of those warmists with secure positions who seeing their forces routing have decided to bolt the doors to keep out the sceptics who now dominate the battle field.
“UPDATE: After only 5 comments, comments for the article were closed. No discussion allowed. That’s really lame Chris.”
Well that is bizarre, as the article was written from the standpoint of debate rather than of exposition. The “hectoring” wasn’t even a provocation, but a fairly straightforward request based on the article itself.
to issue a warning is logically a warning against himself thus.
Let’s hope this is Mooney’s last theorem
Gareth Phillips says: June 14, 2011 at 12:08 am
this idea of people responding with high expressed emotion to any query which they view as not being “approved” is interesting. It suggests a firm denial of the nature of humanity and it’s inherent curiosity. Most sites ( including this one) will get pretty contentious sometimes, but it’s the immediate anger on a consistent basis which I find worrying in the pro-warming sites. It appears that unless you are 100% in support you must be a denier. No individuality, no interpretation, no doubt. There is a great PhD here
Very shrewd observation! I personally think “global warming” is largely a battle of two ideologies, or two different world perspectives: each of which forces us to view the “evidence” of global warming differently.
On the one side we have a group who whenever asked a question … will refer to someone else … someone they perceive as having authority on the subject. On the other hand, we see a group who almost invariably ignore the authority of those speaking and express the facts and argue from the facts.
At a deeper level, this “argument for authority” vs. “the evidence” causes one side to look at a graph and say: “something must be causing this behaviour and as we have no other ‘authority’ for the cause, that ‘authority’ must be the cause”. On the other hand we have a group saying: “what are the facts. Where is the evidence that anything is happening. Is there a need to incite some ‘authority’ as the cause?”
So, there is the one side that almost views the world as an “interlink hierarchy of authorities”, their world view is a society in which information flows from the highest possible authority downward to themselves, on the other side are people whose view is that “we are all able to view the evidence and given enough time and a good enough education we should all be equally able to interpret the evidence and determine what it means”.
One is a “social perspective” a hierarchical society in which we all respect the “authority” of the experts or the “authority” of mankind, versus a “egalitarian science”: using science both in the original Greek of “knowledge” so equity of knowledge (for those who seek it) and science in the modern senses of “evidence” a concept that we are all equal before the evidence, that indeed, the evidence is superior to all other authority. (the meaning of NULLIUS IN VERBA” (shortened from Nullius addictus iurare in verba magistri – be sceptical of the experts)
I suppose from the above “verba” some psychiatrist could stigmatise either group as “anally obsessed introverted ID deficient mother lovers” or whatever, but as I think that’s all nonsense I won’t demean myself to attempt such even if it would prove humorous!
Chris Mooney should get a life, a proper one, blogging shouldn’t be allowed to annoying idiotic kids like him.
If that was ‘mild but firm’, perhaps Chris should try ‘harsh but squoooshy’.
=================
Addendum to above post. I implied one side saw their role as being merely a channel for information and the other saw their role as being very much a “questioner” of the information. Which leads onto a very neat analogy. The world of electronic is full of two big things: switches and gates and connective pathways (I’m ignoring R, C & L). You can’t create a circuit without both. Too many switches and the information just gets blocked, too many connections and it just leaks away (shorts).
A healthy society, a healthy debate, is a balance between a healthy respect for authority and a healthy level of challenge of the evidence.
Global warming is the result of a huge imbalance in this healthy equilibrium. Too many people who simply “pass on the information”, who see their way forward in life as being “better channels to inform everyone else” have got into positions of power preventing the “sceptics” that any society needs to function effectively. From the banking crisis where a healthy dose of scepticism was clearly needed, to the Swine flu “epidemic” to Global warming, it seems that modern society no longer has a place for the sceptic. We are instead to simple “take the word of the experts”
Obviously a government full of dour sceptics would be a pretty awful affair, but a government full of gullible “spin doctors” or “alarmists” or “information channels with no personal knowledge of anything except how to spin information”, is just as bad!
The reason Mr Mooney made this response is that he has no idea what he is talking about. Like many people in that position the answer is to get aggressive, rather pathetic for someone who is supposed to writing about something that in theory at least can be determined by mathematics.
As a person who studied Geology, Biology and Geography through A level in the 60’s in the UK the figures which are being bandied about as “true” and “cataclysmic” are nonsense so the AGW brigade resort to BS in a big way and their defense is to put up the shutters. I am so pleased these guys do not work in medical areas, we would have bodies everywhere.
BarryW says:
June 13, 2011 at 2:15 pm
That seems to be a basic ploy: Add “Everybody knows” or “It’s easy to calculate” in front of a statement then become affronted when anyone asks for proof.
I remember the Jesuit father head of mathematics department with 2 math phd’s going over proof in text when the “It’s easy to calculate” came up and he just stopped and stared at black board for rest of class – and came in next class with 5 pages of proof to get to next line of the text
I took the time to skim-read Mooney’s article in American Spectator and was quite concerned at the level of irrationality displayed in it. Something very childish was evident in the counting of the numbers of qualified scientists etc on each side of the political divide, rather like the infantile threats small boys make, such as ‘My father’s a policeman and he’s bigger’n your father too, so there!’
I have little idea of how the party politics of individual Americans affect their thought processes and behaviour, but articles such as this indicate a deep and worrying level of infantilsm is abroad in America if a significant number of people take Mooney and his writing seriously.
He looks aged 12. Who in their right mind listens to and believes a 12 year old.
Oh, this one is easy! I can provide it for you.
Because trillions of climate scientists all over the galaxy has found C02 to be the primary driver of global temperature changes and all other factors have been proven to be normally distributed and insignificant of influence, the following is sufficient.
Temperatures (T) is a function of an average (a), Co2 (C) and an error term e.
T = a + bC + e
When minimizing square errors
e^2 = (T – a – bC)^2
This gives an estimated temperature effect of Co2
b = cov(T,C)/var(C) >0
Because b>0 and Co2 is found by the US government to be a dangerous pollutant who’s levels is close to set the earth on fire, any activity X that leads to an increase in Co2 should be ceases immediately!
See, the science is settled.
Now please stop breathing and whatever else you are currently doing. It’s for your own good!
Oh, and by the way, to those DENIERS out there who doubt that there are trillions of climate scientists out there in the galaxy, I just wanted to inform you that this number is derived on sound scientific methods often used to calculate the extinction rates.
Hence, you take the number of climate scientists Y and divide it on the total area of the earth.
By then extrapolating this “believer per feet” measurement on the estimated total area of the galaxy, this gives you a number of, not millions, not billions but trillions of scientists supporting AGW.
How you deniers can ignore such massive numbers is beyond me!
This is their back-of-the-envelope calculation.
Temp rise = GHG forcing w/m2 X Response rate C/w/m2
3.0C = 4.0 w/m2 X 0.75C/w/m2
(Note GHGs are 4.0 when you add in the other GHGs besides CO2 which is 3.71 by itself)
Everything in climate science is designed to protect and conform with this back-of-the-envelope calculation. Even the 0.75C/w/m2 was “picked” so that it came up with 3.0C per doubling. All the climate models are programmed to produce a response similar to the equation. The radiative transfer calculations are adjusted to meet the 4.0 w/m2. 5.35 ln(C/Co) was derived to match the equation. Empirical data is ignored or adjusted to match the equation. It is an icon.
My impression of pro-AGW bloggers discussing their Back Of Envelope science:
Very convincing arguments..
Regards..
The first clue that the calculation was “crap” was the precision of the temperature increases- 2.7 F to 8,1 F.
Considering the wide range in possible temperatures, this was bogus precision- a more sensible range, giving only 1 significant digit, would be 3 to 8 degrees Farenheit. Obviously Mooney’s source took the original
1.5C to 4.5 C, multiplied by the 9/5 C to F conversion factor, to get the false precision of 2.7F to 8.1 F. Presumably the MIT students coming up with such figures are not “hard science” majors familiar with false precision, but economics and political science majors.
Hi Chris;
I once studied English Literature and Journalism. That was several years before I taught graduate-level research in another field. Perhaps you could define the word “callow” for me. Discover magazine might also wish to define that word.
I’ve had more than my fair share of encounters with Chris Mooney due to his fanatic areligious belief that the the universe is just one big purposeless accident. That may be the case but the scientific evidence argues strongly against it. The so-called “illusion of design” has not been dispelled as we investigate nature at ever larger and smaller scales. Illusions have a characteristic of disappearing on closer examination but as we examine nature closer and closer the “illusion” of design just gets stronger and stronger. Any rational objective person armed with the facts is compelled to abandon the illusion and accept the appearance of design at face value – if it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck it’s probably a duck. Chris is ideologically incapable of acknowledging evidence that goes against his personal beliefs. Catastrophic anthropogenic global warming is no exception. Chris accepts it as a matter of faith in the same manner that religious folk accept the existence of a personal God by faith alone. Science is evidentiary in nature. Faith is for religion. When Chris encounters a rational informed person the only one Chris makes a fool out of is himself.
From Alexander Feht on June 13, 2011 at 10:48 pm:
“Why would anybody so much as discuss Arrhenius any more if t has been shown time and again that CO2 concentration changes follow temperature changes, not the other way around?”
Because of the proven potential for it to work the other way around. A temperature rise, especially during an ice age, gets both the water and carbon cycles moving faster. The atmosphere is part of the water and carbon loop pipelines so in good times for the biosphere there is more of both in the atmosphere. What’s different now than any time in the past is human industry pumping carbon out of ancient long term storage reservoirs and releasing it into the atmosphere. On the face of it this appears to be a good thing, especially in an ice age, because it speeds up the water and carbon cycles in a situation where nature alone wouldn’t have done so and where the starting speed was historically very low due to being in an ice age. Ice ages are not the norm for the earth when viewed against geological stretches of time.
Crispin in Waterloo says:
June 13, 2011 at 8:16 pm
“Maybe the students can, but a really top genius of a Heat Transfer Expert is Dr Adrian Bejan – he who writes the heat transfer textbooks they use at MIT. He can show you on the back of an envelope that the atmosphere works like an enormous heat engine that very effectvely self-stabilises, dumping any additional heat out into space, or retaining it if it is not so hot.”
No, that’s not the whole story. The ocean/atmosphere coupled system works that way and it only works so long as the surface of the ocean is mostly free of ice. If for any reason surface conditions foster expansion of ice the system heads towards a new self-stabilizing state where everything is frozen, the heat engine shuts down because its working fluid (water vapor) is frozen out of the atmosphere, and most of the warming sunlight gets reflected straight back into space by snow and ice instead of being the fuel the drives the heat engine.
Perhaps the back of the envelop calcs were something like this.
(Indoctrination + gullibility) x (Big Government Dollars)2 x (Banksta Trading Profits)2 = Alarmist Rants
The “2” is a squaring factor, and Alarmist Rants are measured in “Rantabels” similar to decibels.
Dave Springer says:
June 14, 2011 at 7:19 am
. Ice ages are not the norm for the earth when viewed against geological stretches of time.
===========================================================================
But Dave, wouldn’t you say that it’s a lot harder for the earth to stay warm………
1. Declare yourself on the side of the “Enlightenment ethic of using science and reason to forge a better society”
2. Demand people stop using science and reason to examine your claims
Speaking of heat engines there is less potential for work to be accomplished as the temperature difference between the hot and cold sides diminishes. There are three differentials at work. One is the differential between tropics and poles which gets a horizontal engine in motion from tropics to poles. Another is between surface and atmosphere above it getting a vertical engine in motion between surface and (usually) somewhere below the stratosphere. A third is the uneven heating/cooling of land surfaces compared to ocean which gets reversible engines going horizontally between oceans and continents. Then the earth’s rotation adds coriolis forces and makes things even more twisty.
Tapping the motion in the heat engines is a significant source of energy for us. Every hydroelectric power plant is pulling motive power from a natural heat engine. In fact when we dam it we have created storage battery of gravitational energy and the gravitational energy was added by the sun evaporating water at a lower altitude. Every wind turbine is likewise driven by a natural heat engine.
An interesting thing about extra global warming from CO2 is the effect exists primarily over land surfaces which is why the southern hemisphere as a whole is less effected than the northern. The land effect is because the ocean can’t absorb downwelling infrared except in a thin film at the surface just a few microns in depth. It increases the evaporation rate which speeds up the vertical heat engines. It self stabilizes because this increases the number of clouds which in turn decrease the amount of heat energy at the surface driving the engine. Clouds are a speed governor.
Another interesting thing about the northern hemisphere is there’s no continent at the pole. In the horizontal heat engine from tropic to poles the north pole is much more effective as a cold side for the heat engine. Warm water moving up from the tropics along the oceanic conveyor belt can dump heat fast when the water isn’t covered by ice so we get to a point where when the water gets warmer there is less ice and the water can cool much faster. Arctic sea ice is another governor. It’s sort of like the electric radiator fans on automobiles which increase the cooling capacity of the radiator on demand.
It’s time to take on this [snip] clown and put him in his place. I’ll keep my eye out for him!
Latitude says:
June 14, 2011 at 8:08 am
Dave Springer says:
June 14, 2011 at 7:19 am
. Ice ages are not the norm for the earth when viewed against geological stretches of time.
===========================================================================
“But Dave, wouldn’t you say that it’s a lot harder for the earth to stay warm………”
Demonstrably not. Ice ages would the norm instead of the exception. This is where CO2 takes on its most important climate regulating job. When snow and ice take over it brings the carbon and water cycles to a screeching halt. At the same time vulcanism doesn’t stop adding CO2 to the atmosphere so over millions of years it builds up enough to start melting some ice and once the ice starts melting the water cycle kicks back into gear and accelerates the melt. Then the thermostat kicks in and end result of all that CO2 and no more ice anywhere is an earth that’s green from pole to pole. Tropical, sub-tropical, and temperate zones all get wider and we have temperate conditions all the way to the poles. This is a stable state that persists for tens and hundreds of millions of years at a stretch. The current ice age, which isn’t a bad one, is due to the arrangement of the continents and possibly the sun’s position in the galaxy relative to the plane and spiral arms if Svensmark is right about cosmic rays throttling cloud formation. Ice ages should and are growing more rare because over geologic time the sun has steadily increased in brightness at a rate of about 10% every 1.5 billion years. There’s been a liquid ocean and temperature poles most of the time even when the sun was only 70% its current brightness. We’d be cooking in our own juices today if there wasn’t a thermostat that limits the earth’s maximum surface temperature. It’s quite a remarkable machine at work that has kept the earth in a temperature regime suitable for life as we know it for billions of years. There’s at least an illusion of design in it.
Prospect.org erased all the commennts from yesterday. So I helped refresh their memories…
http://prospect.org/cs/articles?article=reality_bites
Oh, and yes they retitled the article and moved it. New link above.
Chris has also gotten a bad reputation amongst many scientists for his book ‘Unscientific America’ and various other antics. This latest episode doesn’t surprise me in the least.
Regarding these so-called ‘back of the envelope’ calculations, I am reminded of a quote that goes something like:
“For every problem there is a solution which is simple, clean and wrong.”
Pinning hopes on a trace gas? Di-hydrogen monoxide, by many accounts, would seem to be the real workhorse; Simply witness from a meteor perspective the cooling in the evening on a humid night vs a ‘dry’ night …
Experimental Evaluation of the NightCool Nocturnal Radiation Cooling Concept
DOE Award No. DE-FC26-06NT42767
UCF/DSEC Contract No. 20126034
ENDS 233 – ENVIRONMENTAL SYSTEMS I slide set
.
Sorry, Dave, but you’re talking a lot of nonsense. Ice ages are the norm and have been the norm for the past 2.5 million years. There have been approximately 18 major ice advances over that time, separated by brief interglacials. The generation of ice ages comes from a combination of changes to the earth’s axial tilt, continental drift, the growth over time in the size of continents, and alterations in the earth’s orbit. In the latter case, at this time the earth’s northern hemisphere has its summer and the southern its winter when the earth is at aphelion, or furthest from the sun. 11,000 years from now this will be reversed with a dramatic effect on the chilling of the earth’s continents and consequent buildup of ice.
Ice ages are caused by accumulation of more snow during winter than is melted off during summer. The factors above are all much larger factors in determining ice advances and retreats than the tiny incremental warming of the sun that will occur over this time period. By following through the Milankovich cycles, it can readily be shown that the current ice ages will extend for another 2-10 million years. Your tropics from pole to pole is a wonderful fantasy, but it cannot happen. The current interglacial is unlikely to last more than another two thousand years. And then we’re back in the deep freeze for another 100,000 years or so.
Dave Springer says:
June 14, 2011 at 7:19 am
Demonstrably not. Ice ages would the norm instead of the exception. This is where CO2 takes on its most important climate regulating job
===========================================================================
That explains why no matter how high CO2 levels are, temperatures fall first and drag CO2 levels down second.
Who would have thought that something that is only ~0,04% of the atmosphere would be so potent.
….but like Gates likes to say, there’s been a 40% increase!
Shame we can’t blame the past decade of static and cooling on something else………
Thirty years of screaming, and one third of that (10 years) did not cooperate.
Note to Frank.
You are quoting the original Arrhenius analysis. I understand he revised his calculations of the CO2 sensitivity to 1.2deg rise a few years later. Oh and by the way, he thought the sun’s heat was generated by burning coal!
Absence of the calculation is evidence that there is no calcuation.
1) re: ““Democrats have vastly more PHDs and experts” – the reason the ph’ds and experts are
in different groups is that the ph’ds studied political “science” and the experts practice it.
2) the reason he can’t show the “back of the envelope” calcs in the comments is that the methodology involves waving the envelope (not writing on it) between stating the problem and announcing the solution.
Mooney is correct. Stop hectoring him.
I did a back of the envelope calculation myself and it is all true. As you can see,
2 + 2 + CO2 = Anthropogenic Global Warming Catastrophe
Simple physics and mathematics! Science 1 Anti-Science 0.
Okay, here’s a back of the envelope calculation for Mr Mooney:
Suppose you have quantities A and B, and suppose they are equal. That is,
A = B
Muliply both sides by A:
A^2 = AB
Subtract B^2 from both sides:
A^2-B^2 = AB-B^2
Factor both sides:
(A+B)(A-B) = B(A-B)
Cancel the common factor A-B:
A+B = B
Now, remembering that A=B, we have
B+B=B, or 2B=B
Cancel B:
2=1.
The sky is falling! RUN!
Every notice the predominance of “Moon”-named folks in the AGW crowd. Mooney, Mo(o)nbiot, and other Moonbats … I’m just sayin’ …
The quote dates back to March 31st, 2011 and is contained in Emanuel’s testimony file:
http://science.house.gov/sites/republicans.science.house.gov/files/documents/hearings/Emanuel%20testimony.pdf
Here is the full quote: “Today, students at MIT and elsewhere can do hand calculations or use simple models of radiative and convective heat transfer to explore climate physics, and they find climate sensitivities in the same range as those reported in the first National Academy of Sciences report on anthropogenic climate change in 1979”
I doubt that Chris understands what a sensitivity analysis is and what it’s limitations are, either.
According to Steve McIntyre, in that same Emanuel statement to Congress, Emanuel made untrue statements about “hide the decline” – see ClimateAudit – http://climateaudit.org/2011/03/31/disinformation-from-kerry-emanuel/
I saw the video of Chris and couldn’t tell what his background is. Gut instinct, from his tone and rather vacuous delivery, told me that he must be some kind of journalist, but from the video I thought I heard “night science” fellow from m.i.t. What the hell is “night science”? I went to m.i.t. and I never heard of such a thing. Then I looked it up — “Knight Science Journalism Fellow.” Oh, that explains he is, a journalist. In the general purvue of the field, it’s always the people who have the least capability to actually do science who have the strongest, most inapprpropraitely sanctimonious and wrong-headed opinions about it. It’s painful reading magazines like Scientific American and Discover these days. You can alays tell the articles written by journalists from the ones written by real scientists. If it’s overly simplified, ignores important qualifictations on results, and is seemingly chosen for some rather lame political purpose rather than general scientific interest, it’s written by a journalist. The quality of those magazines has been on a downward trajectory for at least a decade and a half. I let my subscriptions lapse years ago. Every onc ein a while I try them out again only to be sorely disappointed. If they would only permit those guys to copy edit and correct grammar which is about what they are good for, those magazines might be half decent.
Re: his video. Why the eff should the public look to the MEDIA of all places for information on science? Learn about science from a bunch of humanities specialists? What in tarnation?….
Simplified Back of the Envelope Calculations
Assume doubling CO2 concentration will raise global temps from 3 to 8 degrees C
Then, if the CO2 concentration doubles the global temp will raise 5.5 degress +/- 2.5 degrees C
Hectoring: to intimidate or harass by bluster or personal pressure
Knowing as I do that one of the key tactics that the left uses to push their agenda is to always accuse the other side of doing what they themselves are actually doing; every time the left makes an accusation I am immediately suspicious. Chris Mooney accuses “Nullius in Verba” of hectoring when all he did was to ask a very simple and straightforward question. Most observers of Mooney’s reply would say, “What, are you kidding me? How can that possibly be hectoring?” But Mooney is just using the Saul Alinsky like tactics he has been taught by other members of the left. However since I know the playbook of the left then I can deduce that the left uses “hectoring” to achieve their political agenda, and as I reflect on the “debate” about AGW I can see that is exactly what the left is doing. Remember that every time the left makes an accusation, especially one that makes you scratch you head and say “what?” you can be sure that the left is doing that exact thing.
Help requested: I have updated Chris Mooney’s wikipedia entry to include a Controversy section detailing this incident. Any improvements would be much appreciated.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Mooney_%28journalist%29
MJDrabik says:
June 15, 2011 at 12:21 pm
gone – as if it never happened.
Consistent aren’t they. Well, some word beginning with c anyway.
Many excellent comments on this thread, and I’m only partway through them…. but defaulting to a quick easy reply for me that came to mind when reading:
In grad school when writing my thesis I confess to one little bit of harmless fun general ‘revenge’ that I was just unable to resist – in laying out a sequence of equations that wasn’t simple (not horribly difficult either, but still, not simple), I omitted one chunk consisting of a good number of steps, jumping from directly from one step to the next by inserting only the ubiquitous (in academia/textbooks etc) and all too often horribly frustrating phrase “thus it is intuitively obvious that….” Not one prof on my board, including the dean, mentioned it. I got a good giggle tho – evil and wicked of me, I know! {VBG} Heck, maybe the prof’s didn’t call me on it because they figured a touch of ‘turn about is fair play’ was ok and got a little giggle out of it too, who knows. Of course, being the boy scout that I am (figuratively speaking), had it been a real textbook or somewhere that it mattered, I’d’ve been unable to inflict that one on other poor souls – at least not without inserting several more of the intermediate steps to help ’em out a little!
LarryT’s math prof who actually came back to class with the 5 pages to actually TEACH his students, rather than just skipping over it and continuing as all too many would, gets 5 gold stars. We certainly need more like that in our universities!!
As to the “enlightenment ethic” – while I would dearly love to see more solid science used to base policy, anyone who believes that just having PhD’s and allowing those so ‘enlightened’ to reign over all will create a ‘better society’ really ought to watch the series “Firefly” http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0303461/ all the way through to the end, including the follow-on movie “Serenity.” http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0379786/ Just be sure to watch it in the order originally intended (as on the DVD’s) and NOT according to the original air dates.
Or heck, be sure to watch it if you just like Sci-Fi or Space Westerns – it was a great/fun series canceled far far too soon, and it speaks very very clearly on just how ‘enlightened’ things can be if left in the hands of folks of Mooney’s ilk. Right now I believe it’s something like 5th highest drama TV series ever with >1000 votes, above even shows like The Soprano’s, even tho Firefly only had 14 episodes and the one movie (the network did everything possible to ‘kill’ it, airing the series out of order with time gaps between episodes, etc). Current rating from over 45,600+ folks is 9.4 (out of 10 max).
Or heck, wrt the ‘enlightenment ethic’ Mooney apparently needs to study a bit of our own history here on Earth, beginning with Eugenics and Hitler. What really gets me is just how much I’d apply some of Mooney’s own statements wrt to skeptics and Republicans etc. to Mooney’s OWN beliefs – its as if in accusing others he’s clearly describing himself instead. Something that seems far far too prevalent within the “AGW warmist/believers” camp. Sigh.
Mooney doesn’t want to think about the reason no instrument on earth can show any sign of A.N.Y.
Greenhouse
Gas
Effect
At ALL. He’s STUPIFIED at how the optical telescopy and infra-red telescopy fields have had YEARS to come out SCREAMING BLOODY MURDER about all the ADDED HEAT DISTORTION from all the HEAT in the atmosphere making OPTICAL TELESCOPY MORE DIFFICULT even with ASSEMBLIES to FLEX the MIRRORS to OFFSET the EFFECT called ATMOSPHERIC SCINTILLATION: the STARS twinkling over his ill-educated head.
Not a word.
For SCORES of years.
The INFRA RED telescopy field: SCREAMING BLOODY MURDER about the G.H.G. EFFECT … and all that RISING I.R. that’s -oh I’m sorry FALLING – a RISING quantity of I.R. FALLING on their instruments, making the viewing nearly impossible, or substantially or even SIGNIFICANTLY more difficult?
oH, DARNIT JIM, THIS ONE’s DEAD, TOO! the AMOUNT of I.R. COMING DOWN has D.E.C.R.E.A.S.E.D.
Aw man… there HAS to be a GREENHOUSE GAS EFFECT, you can SEE it in the DISTORTION GROWING in ALLLLL those night time pictures of parts of the sky through the ATMOSPHERE!
Oh that’s right,
LoL @ any moron who believes there’s a G.H.G. EFFECT of A.N.Y. K.I.N.D:
but that MICROSCOPES PEERING THRU the atmosphere CAN’T DETECT A.N.Y. measurable difference in the ATMOSPHERE’S BEHAVIOR except a – WHAAAAAT??? a REDUCTION of I.R. FROM ABOVE???
LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL!
The miles deep, turbulent, heat conductive, compressed fluid FRIGID IMMERSION BATH that HEATED the WARM ROCK dropped into it, has anOTHER MAGICAL EFFECT:
HEAT: on gas – defined by MOTION – that CREATES NO ADDITIONAL MOTION of the GAS it’s ON, rendering even TELESCOPY UNABLE to TRACK that MAGICAL
MYSTERIOUSLY
MISSING
G.H.G. Effect.
And all that HEAT? .
That alcoholic Mooney sits out under the stars at night STUNNED at the MAGICAL HEAT in the ATMOSPHERE that CAN’T EVEN BE PICKED UP using a TELESCOPE multiplying distortion THOUSANDS of TIMES,
NOR, even an INFRA-RED TELESCOPE.
NOPE: CAIN’T BE DUN.
Mooney’s the kind of vapid intellectual invalid who thinks WIKIPEDIA is real sients.
LoL.. You’ve just gotta laugh…
Wow I see I deserve to be snipped, I forgot it’s improper to call a posing fake, a posing fake, and point out the stars twinkling over his head prove he’s one.
If he’s not a posing fake, WHY AREN’T THOSE STARS TWINKLING MORE WITH PASSING DECADES,
AND WHY ISN’T THERE MORE I.R. COMING DOWN from the SKY where the CO2 EMMISSIONS, and the ACTUAL LEVELS, have been RAGING ?
Why is there LESS if there is A.N.Y. KIND of G.H.G. Effect at ALL?
NONE of them can answer that because the ANSWER’S AS EASY as GETTING the RECORDS of the ASSEMBLIES which FLEX MIRRORS on TELESCOPES to OFFSET the HEAT DISTORTION that is MANDATORY with existence of HEAT,
in atmospheric GAS.
_Jim says:
June 14, 2011 at 11:42 am
Latitude says June 14, 2011 at 8:08 am:
“But Dave, wouldn’t you say that it’s a lot harder for the earth to stay warm………”
Dave Springer says on June 14, 2011 at 9:48 am:
“Demonstrably not. Ice ages would the norm instead of the exception. This is where CO2 takes on its most important climate regulating job. ”
_Jim replies: “Pinning hopes on a trace gas? Di-hydrogen monoxide, by many accounts, would seem to be the real workhorse;”
I agree and you’d have known that I agree if you actually read what I wrote. Go back and find where I said that CO2 doesn’t have a large role so long as the surface of the ocean is mostly free of ice. The water cycle gets shut down when the surface is covered by ice and air temperature is sub-freezing. Antarctica is the dryest place on the earth with interior getting 2″ annually. The Sahara desert gets 3″. Even water vapor as a GHG is not significant over the ocean because the ocean doesn’t absorb downwelling infrared which is the mode of operation for the greenhouse effect. When downwelling infrared hits the ocean surface it is absorbed in the first few microns where it only serves to raise the evaporation rate. The absorbed energy is then carried aloft in latent heat of vaporization not become sensible heat again until the vapor condenses. The GHG effect is significant only over solid surfaces. The first 30 meters of liquid ocean does far more than greenhouse gases. Almost all incident energy from sunlight is absorbed by the ocean and serves to warm the water. The energy cannot escape by the same mechanism (radiative) because water is nearly impervious to infrared. So the energy absorbed at depth as sunlight must make its way to the surface by convection and conduction and even then only about 20% escapes radiatively, 10% conductively, and a whopping 70% by evaporation. Liquid water is like water vapor on steroids when it comes to greenhouse effect.
Infrared absorption by snow is different than water. It acts more like a land surface and in particular it gets dark on top as it ages from accumulation of soot. Soot floats so even if there’s a partial melt it just concentrates the soot on top. Soot absorbs downwelling infrared quite well. Anyone who’s ever seen snowdrifts alongside a highway with lots of 18 wheelers going by melt in the spring knows they can get almost black on top.
IAmDigitap:
I strongly recommend you read: http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/tips-for-not-appearing-crazy-on-the-internet/
Because I think you just broke most of those tips.
At 10:42 AM on 16 June, Another Anon recommends to IAmDigitap Frank J. Fleming’s “Tips for Not Appearing Crazy on the Internet” (12 June 2011), Because I think you just broke most of those tips.
I would agree with most of those tips, but I have to take issue with the admonition to avoid all nonstandard grammar (some such usage can be interpolated to good effect), and the bit about “No Long Screeds is just plain stupid.
Some of the best material I’ve ever read on the subject of the great AGW bogosity have been the “Long Screeds” comments of Dr. Jeff Glassman. Dr. Glassman’s own Web log is primarily a venue for the public dissemination of his own highly technical research papers, and the commentary exchanges appended to these items tend to run at levels far beyond my own knowledge of physics and mathematics; I’m a country GP whose undergraduate degree was in Biology, and my only research experience has been clinical.
Dr. Glassman’s “Long Screeds” are so thoroughgoing and – more importantly to me – so accessible that I’ve wound up saving some whole pages of comments on various other people’s blog sites just to retain Dr. Glassman’s contributions for later reference.
In an area as complex as climate change, and with particular attention paid to the fallacious conjecture regarding adverse anthropogenic global warming (AGW), the thirty-year accumulation of “the consensus” has created a deadly log jam in the stream of Western scientific thought, and untangling that obstruction impairing honest and effective inquiry before the back-up floods out and destroys the economies of these United States and the rest of the developed world is a necessity.
When it is possible to post briefly and still blow away the bafflegab of the warmist con artists, that’s to be desired. But taking their “cork-screwing, back-stabbing, and dirty-dealing” to bits, piece by piece, is commonly quite necessary. Think of it as the excision of a cancer. You’ve gotta get it all when you take your crack at it. We’re talking real human beings out there upon whom the warmists are malevolently preying.
Real morbidity, real mortality.
Reason sufficient for conscientious conduct in these blog comments.
We have a name for guys like Mooney, but they would be quickly stricken.