Drought, Wildfires Haven’t Changed Perry’s Climate-Change Views : It’s All Politics : NPR
Last week, I drove to College Station to talk with Andy Dessler about the renewed firestorm over global warming. This was the week before actual firestorms roared across Central Texas, killing four people, burning 1,000 homes, and forcing thousands to evacuate. The punishing drought played a major role in the wildfire outbreak, the worst in Texas history, and Dessler says there’s an unmistakable connection between the drought and climate change.
“We can’t say climate change is causing the extreme weather Texas is having right now. On the other hand, we can say humans have increased the temperature of the base climate state pretty much everywhere. And what that means is it makes the heat more extreme and increases evaporation from the soil. We can be confident we’ve made this hellish summer worse than it would have been.”
…
Dessler is not surprised anymore by the vehemence of the emails he receives from people who believe he is perpetrating a fraud.
“People who discount the science of climate change don’t do it because they’ve read the science,” he says. “The science of climate change is a proxy for views on the role of government. From what I understand, Perry’s position is that he doesn’t want government to interfere in private lives or industry. That means climate change — which calls for a government solution; there’s no way for the free market to address climate change by itself — that doesn’t fit anywhere with his political values. So he shoots the messenger.”
The messenger is Andy Dessler and the great majority of other climate scientists who believe human activity is warming the planet.
h/t to Tom Nelson
Two things that happen at the same time does not mean one causes the other.
1) people want government to stay out of their lives and stop taxing taxes that are stupidly spent and not reduce their personal freedoms.
2) many people find the evidence that CO2 is not the culprit behind the global rise in temperatures to be unique to CO2 or compelling.
Dressler is a smart man. But he errs in this simple temporal coincidence of a socio-political concern and a practical technical acceptance of worry.
It’s pretty hard to argue with this position.
REPLY: Given some of the comments you make here, I’d say the same applies to you, that you don’t read the science – Anthony
Never interrupt the enemy while he’s making a mistake.
“People who discount the science of climate change don’t do it because they’ve read the science”
No more than people who SUPPORT the science of climate change do it because they have read the science.
The science of climate change is a proxy for views on the role of government.
Yes, but unfortunately that applies to many on BOTH sides of the debate.
I have been doing stats for the last two weeks, when I make a plot I quote the r2, rho and the 95% confidence levels of the slope.
Global warmists think weather and climate history began in 1979. The “wild” weather that they and the MSM use as examples of AGW, has happened in the past, will happen in the future and GHG’s have little to do with it.
Strange, because I’ve said pretty much the same thing about most climate scientists. Very few climate scientists have actually read the relevant model diagnostic literature, or the model independent attempts to estimate climate sensitivity to CO2 forcing. With climate science being a multi-disciplinary field most “climate scientists” are just relying upon and parroting the opinion of a small sub-community of their colleagues. Go to most university earth day forums and the local “experts” will almost always be unfamiliar with and surprised by the magnitude of the correlated model errors.
Poor fella doesn’t understand that the free market is the most efficient mechanism to adapt to climate change. He’s as nitwitty as his naughty null.
===================================
LOL,
He has not read past history of Texas heatwaves and droughts.There a number of them just as bad or worse.
It is not that hard to look it up either.
and a day or so before that, npr had susan solomon on making the same story.
they just provide such a cushy platform for the postnormal.
From my view, Perry is not shooting the messenger, but revealing that CAGW has always been a political tool for international control of the use of fossil fuel. He is banking on the general public to get that message so he will get elected. Defenders of CAGW are on the defensive with messanger attacks and are backed up by those other politicians.
If we are causing significant global warming and then if that marginal warming causes some fantastic level of death and destruction capable of reducing our capacity to emit CO2, some amount of CO2 reduction will be reached to bring the temperature back down and the problem is solved. That obviously isn’t an attractive solution but it nonetheless IS a free market solution.. one with two BIG if’s. I don’t believe there’s evidence of either of them.
I spent a whole lot more time on the science behind “climate science” than I ever wanted to. It doesn’t paint a convincing picture for AGW and the political circus and handwaving AGW proponents create to further their “consensus” leads me to believe that their hypothesis is much weaker than I already think.
I’m not sure how much one has to read to be able to claim they’ve “read the science,” but I’d guess that I’ve read quite a bit more of it than the average American citizen. Given my background in general science and an undergraduate geology degree, I can understand quite a bit of it; but admittedly some of it is beyond my level of expertise.
However, as Tim Allen’s character in the movie “Galaxy Quest” said to the evil alien, “You don’t have to be a great actor to recognize a bad one. And YOU’RE SWEATING!”
Similarly, I don’t have to be a great scientist to see when bad science is being done. When a guy like Dessler will meet with his critics to discuss his paper, I’m encouraged. When I see guys like Jones say he won’t let his critics see his work because… well, because they’ll criticize it, I know there’s bad science involved.
I also know that correlation does not imply causality, that models are not data, and that manipulating raw data to “cleanse” it and then dumping the raw data is also bad science.
Mr. Dessler should perhaps amend that remark as well as his paper.
Weather extremes of any kind, taken individually, do not lend support to, nor “prove”, climate change is happening. Applies to hurricanes, floods, blizzards, droughts, tornadoes, etc.
Trends in all diferent kinds of weather variables are what it takes to determine that climate change is happening. There can be trends in more (or less) extreme events. So I am sick of those who try to use a single prodigous, tragic, catastrophic, headline-grabbing weather event to say one thing or the other about climate change.
Climate change science takes data and time. Lot of data and enouhg time.
Based on my own personal experiences I would have to disagree with Dessler. I have been working in fusion energy sciences for the past 20+ years. I have found that my fellow scientists that take time to do some investigating and study up on global warming all come to the same conclusion…. the majority of the warming that has occurred is more likely the result of natural processes and probably not a result of fossil fuel use. Those that only get their information from stories in the news and accept the 97% of scientists claim are the ones that believe the science is settled and we have to take drastic action.
I think Perry’s strong stance against CAGW is going to be very instrumental in bringing this delusion down. The liberal press will have to put more nuts on the screen or in print. The more these people talk, the worse the public opinionn gets. Plus there will be a few legitimately inquiring journalists that will feel more inclined to actually cover the sceptic science.
A politician couldn’t conceive of making these comments just a few years ago, now they its nearly mainstream opinion. Truth will win.
People who deride climate skeptics don’t do it because they have actually read what the skeptics have to say.
Perhaps Dessler should look at the temp. records for Texes befor he credits climate change for this years weather.
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/temp-and-precip/time-series/index.php?parameter=tmp&month=7&year=2010&filter=12&state=41&div=0
Maybe Texans are doing somthing right.
“People who discount the science of climate change don’t do it because they’ve read the science”
Hugh Pepper says:
September 10, 2011 at 8:56 am
“It’s pretty hard to argue with this position.”
If you’ve ‘read the science’ presented by Trenbreth, Mann, Dressler, etc., it becomes relatively straightforward to discount their needlessly inflammatory assertions, based on their flawed analysis.
When they attempt to discredit and dismiss their opposition by making false statements like Dressler’s quote above, it becomes simplicity itself to refute ‘this position’. They are not being honest. Accepting their inflammatory assertions is a Hugh mistake made by many useful tools, however….
“It’s pretty hard to argue with this position.”
for those with inferior reasoning skills. pretty much why those same folks believe CAGW.
[snip – off topic political baiting- not going there – Anthony]
In my case, being a democrat, I believed in AGW _until_ I finally looked at the science, and was amazed/disgusted at how flimsy it is. But I think Dessler’s mostly right that one’s view of climate change is a proxy for views on the role of government, since most people haven’t looked at the science or don’t understand it, so it’s just a question of whether AGW conforms to their worldview.
Dessler says “People who discount the science of climate change don’t do it because they’ve read the science.”
Really? Andy, you don’t think Roy Spencer is skeptical because he read the science? Or Roger Pielke Sr? Or John Christy? Or Richard Lindzen? Or Nir Shaviv? Or Nicolas Scafetta? You don’t think Steve McIntyre is skeptical of paleoclimate science because he has read the science? Scientists are supposed to be skeptical.
So then, what is motivating the actions of these people, Andy? Are you that good at reading their minds and knowing their motivations? Or perhaps you are saying these people are all ignorant of the science? Is that it?
I am skeptical because i have read the science. I am not paid by Big Oil or Big Coal, and neither are the names above. I will admit that I cannot always follow the math, but I can follow the logical arguments and I can understand the statistics once explained to me. I understand the scientific debate and your side is losing.
Andy, you owe an apology to every skeptical climate scientist.
I posted this on another thread but it might go well here…. OK so like I am listening to peter b collins latest pod cast …it has some very good info about perry and the Koch brothers and a secret meetings where perry and others attended …peace
“Brad Friedman of BradBlog returns with a blockbuster: audio recordings reveal much from top-secret Koch brothers millionaire/billionaire confab held in Vail in June, breaking the news that NJ Gov. Christie snuck in and out to give keynote speech; Will Durst gives a snarky review of the GOP octet as they invoked Reagan as they ignored his invocation not to attack fellow travelers” http://peterbcollins.com/
The fact that Dessler uses weather to push his agenda is more than enough evidence that he is untrustworthy.
People who discount the uncertainly of climate change don’t do it because they’ve read the science. They do it because they have an agenda. Dessler gave aways his agenda. One day he will recognize he was driven more by his politics than he wanted to admit.
kim says:
September 10, 2011 at 9:08 am
Poor fella doesn’t understand that the free market is the most efficient mechanism to adapt to climate change. He’s as nitwitty as his naughty null.
Yes, that is a correct statement about the free market, but the government doesn’t want adapatation. They want mitigation, meaning they will tell us what we must do to “fix” the problem. That gives them more power to control the economy and us.
“The science of climate change is a proxy for views on the role of government.”
Is this an accurate quote?!??? This is a stunning admission and should be the quote of the week. It speaks volumes about the CACC movement and its promoters.
“We can be confident we’ve made this hellish summer worse than it would have been.”
I recommend that Dessler audit the course- “Texas Extreme Weather: 1800-1950”. I think it is a 1 credit freshman class for non-science majors that involves just passively sitting in a lecture room 1 hour per week, listening to meteorologists and historians discuss the extreme weather events that litter Texas history prior to 1950. No equations. No climate models. No hand-waving hypotheses. No ad-hoc explanations.
“…there’s no way for the free market to address climate change by itself…”
Climate is always changing, and the free market worldwide has adapted, century after century, without government intervention. By denying that fact, Dessler does himself little credit.
“That means climate change — which calls for a government solution; there’s no way for the free market to address climate change by itself —”
Scientists shouldn’t call for anything all in the political arena. But “climate scientists” are even getting arrested to call for government action. That is one of the many reasons (in addition to reading the science) why skeptics doubt these “scientists.”
ANthony, you insultingly suggest that I have not read the science. In fact, I have very carefully read everything I can find on climate science and related matters. In fact, reading the “science” coming from outside the mainstream is very easy, because there is so little. Polemics, yes, science, no!
REPLY: Your collection of way-out jabs and one-liners here don’t suggest that you have read the science. You’ve offered nothing beyond that in your entire history commenting at WUWT, so please forgive me if I don’t believe you- Anthony
I live in Canada. My first wife and I planned on one child, but ended up with five (this included a set of twins) because apparently even the best birth control methods are not 100% effective. Aside from the cost of raising five children however, we were not burdened with the medical bills associated with either their birth or their later care (our youngest, having Cerebral Palsy, needed a LOT of medical attention).
That’s because of a government solution.
A couple of years ago my appendix decided to blow up and I spent a week in hospital after life-saving surgery. I lost a bit in wages, but the cost of the surgery and extremely effective medical care didn’t bankrupt me.
That’s because of a government solution.
I received 12 years of free education, which (at the time) actually included some real eduaction.
That’s because of a government solution.
In short, I have nothing against government solutions per se.
When AGW first started hitting the news, I was inclined to accept the premise. We’ve done some pretty horrible things to our planet, and on the face of it, the idea that we had also affected its climate seemed reasonable.
Having spent several decades in the writing industry, however, I have a certain sensitivity to words, and even from the beginning the words coming at me from the proponents of this theory bothered me. There seemed to be a lot of weasel phrases, generalities, and ambiguities in what they said. More distressing was the fact that when countering arguments against their theory, they tended to resort either to overly-technical explanations filled with unnecessary jargon designed to dun the reader into submission, or childish attacks on whoever disagreed with them. I compared this to other scientific controversies (such as Moon Hoaxers and Flat Earthers) in which the scientific communities involved had always tried getting their message across as clearly and thoroughly as possible. What I found was that when it came to the language and argumentative style involved, the AGW proponents had far more in common with the madmen trying to prove that we’ve never set foot on the Moon or that the Earth is actually one large disk than they did with scientists trying to stave off the madmen’s attacks.
So then I started looking at the science. I’ll never get it all down, of course, but I’ve looked at, analysed, and written about enough other scientific issues to have confidence in my ability to understand the basics, and to be able to spot obvious displays of bad logic and contradictions — all of which seemed abundant in the AGW “scientific consensus.”
When Climategate hit, it meant little more to me than confirmation of what I (and so many others) had managed to conclude through the already-existing evidence — that AGW was, at best, a seriously flawed theory held together by group-think and self-interest.
And so, Professor Dessler, I completely reject your statements, just as I do so many of your colleagues’ statements. You have once again succeeded in presenting me with an ad hominem attack upon my intellect, and woefully misanalysed my belief system (an analysis that seems to ignore its corollary — that if those opposing your theory do so because of their political beliefs, perhaps you hold to your theory for exactly the same reason. You remind me of nothing more than a belligerent Bart Sibrel yelling at Buzz Aldrin to admit that the Moon landing was a hoax.
When, or rather if, you and the rest of your crowd begin to treat me and other opponents with a modicum of respect (you might pick up some pointers from Judith Curry), stop trying to subvert publications of countering theories, and answer objections directly rather than throwing out a net-full of red herrings, then, perhaps, I’ll start paying some attention to you again.
But until then,[snip] and the government-subsidised horse you rode in on.
Personally, I started out believing the ‘science’ behind AGW but became skeptical the more I learned about the issue. Repeated studies have shown that skeptics tend to know more about climate science than AGW proponents, which suggests my situation may be quite common.
I absolutely GUARANTEE that this in NOT the worst wildfire season in the history of Texas, just the worst since we’ve paid any attention. Which is, at the very most, 150 years….
Oakden Wolf says:
In the mean time, (elections are a little over a year away) and we should expect many more messanger attacks from both sides. I hope the public will be able to see thru the use of subjective science for political purposes.
How utterly ironic that he would accuse skeptics of not reading the science in view of recent events. Let’s just say his recent science has been both read and found wanting.
Back in 1990, I believed the warmists. Then I started reading the science as given by people like Art Robinson and Willie Soon.
I stopped believing after I had read the science, after I’d noticed which variable is leading and which is lagging.
That was enough. Didn’t need to worry about correlations, feedbacks, statistics, and other miscellaneous details, and I think most people who spend time on those matters are wasting their efforts.
Good measurements and one good graph. All you need.
Climate change . . . or just cycles . . . . and how long have we known!
AMS Journals Online – Hydrometeorological Reconstructions for …
journals.ametsoc.org › Journal of Climate › March 2001You +1’d this publicly. Undo
by N Pederson – 2001 – Cited by 73 – Related articles
In 1999 a severe summer drought followed by heavy winter snowfall triggered …. size, exceeds 0.965 for every 30-yr segment over the lengths of record for both …. that has been hypothesized as having influence on drought cycles (Mitchell et al. ….. Schulman, E., 1945: Tree-rings and runoff in the South Platte River basin.
http://www.google.com/#sclient=psy&hl=en&source=hp&q=%2230+yr+%22+drought+cycle+platt+river&pbx=1&oq=%2230+yr+%22+drought+cycle+platt+river&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&gs_sm=e&gs_upl=390l390l1l1297l1l1l0l0l0l0l469l469l4-1l1l0&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.&fp=2ea25270560d40fb&biw=1152&bih=562
The lunar cycle and golden number
http://www.freefictionbooks.org/…/24043-our-calendar-by-george-nichol... – CachedYou +1’d this publicly. Undo
THE LUNAR CYCLE AND GOLDEN NUMBER. In connecting the lunar month with the solar year, the framers of the ecclesiastical calendar adopted the period of Meton …
http://www.google.com/#sclient=psy&hl=en&source=hp&q=golden+number+moon&pbx=1&oq=golden+number+moon&aq=f&aqi=g-v1&aql=1&gs_sm=e&gs_upl=3109l8234l0l8703l18l17l0l0l0l0l922l5596l0.1.0.3.1.4.2l11l0&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.&fp=2ea25270560d40fb&biw=1152&bih=562
I don’t think this is called a science yet! (in my opinion).
Perry has a strong view on the anti-science of climate change, but, in this era of super-heated rhetoric, even that position (especially that position) needs to be substantiated with facts. He seemed ill-prepared during the Reagan Library debates to support his earlier critiques of this as fraudulent science, and “a scam”, terms he has used in his book. In my judgment, he can put the onus back where it belongs – on the cagw promoters – by preparing his talking points to include a little bit of science. The Spencer- Braswell paper might be a good starting point. He should have a solid knowledge of the remote sensing satellites and be able to explain to common Americans why and how both it and the land-based records are susceptible to error. Such errors should be explained in terms of human error, not as a plot.
I’ve read the science and actually studied paleoclimatology fifty years ago as probably all geology students have – before there was any contemporary climatology, except for the geography stuff like coffee grows in Brazil and cocao in West Africa (which geographers glommed onto when they became endangered species after the earth was finally mapped)….but this doesn’t make me an expert. However, the general public all have PhDs in detecting the egregious dishonesty and sleight of hand that was revealed in the climategate emails by the elite guys who have read and, indeed, invented the science. Oh, I know this has all been found to have been misinterpreted by mean-spirited Big Oil and Coal shills, and that a bunch of investigators found the emails to have more benevolent meanings, but the ordinary folk don’t need to read much of the dreck that goes for climate science these days. All they’ve done is ask themselves, if the science is so “robust” and “settled” and doom is at hand, why was it necessary to hide declines, hide data, put graphs upside down, pick and choose a couple of ‘supportive’ trees out of hundreds for proxies, recalculate the 1930s temp records downwards, fill in the Little Ice Age with the MWP, block scientific papers with alternative findings and views, have editors forced out and black-ball publications that did publish critical papers, engage in ad hominem attacks on skeptical scientists who had read the science (Dressler himself resorted to this in the opening of his recent paper, defaming scientists at the top of the field)……The day is coming (lets hope) that scientists themselves won’t even read the “science” as we put this ugly, dark age of science behind us.
Hugh Pepper- “It’s pretty hard to argue with this position.”
There are no facts presented by Dessler with which to argue. Its mostly hyperbole lacking context, perfect for the NPR audience.
You agree with Dessler’s statement that the science of climate change is a proxy for views on the role of government. This is a refreshingly honest admission from the CACA’s.
By the way, this admission should automatically discount any sciencey claims being made by alarmist climate scientists like Dessler, Tobis, Hansen, Rahmstorf, etc etc. Their credibility as unbiased purveyors of science has just been self-immolated.
Another gobsmacking own-goal, as they say.
“People who discount the science of climate change don’t do it because they’ve read the science,”
Given that Dr. Dessler is now convincingly accused of cherry picking data (if all the data had been used the results would negate his ‘proof’), this arrogant assertion is likely to haunt him.
In a recent episode of CSI the lead investigator was showing a police officer how their sophisticated software could track down criminals.
“Take this photograph of a shot-gun blast” the lead investigator started. “We digitize the image, run it through our modeling software and in this case we get a linear trend of 0.92 +/- 0.98 with an R2 of 0.02. I know you don’t know what that means, but it doesn’t matter because those numbers are automatically redirected into an extensive database of shot-gun blast trends and we can tell the make and model of the gun and often who the owner is – all in a matter of seconds”.
The police officer, obviously very impressed replied “Wow. I bet you guys could even predict climate change.”
The lead investigator (laughing) answered “Are you kidding? We don’t have that kind of budget”.
Not sure what it all means though…
People who discount the science of [alarmist] climate change do it BECAUSE they have read the science.
/fixed…
I’ve “read the science” and “done the math” (some of it) myself — as have many here I imagine.
I conclude: Preventing AGW is not something Governments should spend money on — for many reasons.
With me, not a political thing at all. But, I do believe for many in the “public eye”, AGW is political — and nothing but political.
“On the other hand, we can say humans have increased the temperature of the base climate state pretty much everywhere.”
I agree. But it has nothing to do with CO2.
I would suggest that Dr. Dessler read the discussion of his latest paper here at WUWT .
1. The only science done is done by proper skeptics, everything else if gigo.
2. Why would people spend what little time they have to read hippie pseudo-science in the first place?
3. Most people probably don’t read sciencey pages from academic paper mills, however, people rarely need to to spot the doomsday nuts, the basket cases, the snake oil sails people of the year every year, the fanatics, the odd pseudo-scientist that starts to foam at the mouth if they’re not readily believed, in essence common folks don’t need to be rocket scientists to spot fundamentalists out to get their hard earned cash for the cash itself.
Confucius says:
“Study without thought is futile; thought without study is dangerous.”
Why would anyone who hasn’t at least read some of the science would hold any opinion whatsoever on “climate change”? ……. ok….. sarc off.
Dessler admitted that opinions on CAGW are frequently a proxy for political views because he presumes that his political views are unquestionably correct.
Another so-called liberal, living in a bubble.
Hugh Pepper says:
September 10, 2011 at 9:41 am
“I have very carefully read everything I can find on climate science and related matters.”
Maybe the problem is that you are careful to only read Alarmist “Science”, as anything else might threaten your CAGW Beliefs. In any case, since you agree with Dessler that “The science of climate change is a proxy for views on the role of government”, then your Alarmist Beliefs must be driven by your favorable views on Big Government, and can be discounted on that basis alone.
It’s pretty hard to argue that the science behind AGW is settled, being that the state of climate science is much worse than previously imagined. The burden of proof has never been met.
By drawing so much attention to weather, the science behind AGW was opened to public scrutiny, they having read it, and that’s where to rejection began to snowball.
That’s the current state of CO2 warming: snowballing rejection.
What was the key turning off point?
It was the argument that weather is not climate, then pointing to weather as proof of climate change.
Big mistake.
“I received 12 years of free education, which (at the time) actually included some real eduaction.”
The irony here is quite unfortunate. I’m going to claim that “eduaction” is a neologism meaning “of or pertaining to an active involvement in the educational process.”
Funny, I used Dessler’s involvement in the “Google Science Communication Fellows” program to show the irony with the idea that falling poll numbers about AGW reflects public ignorance……… when the opposite situation is more likely true, that the public’s increasing awareness of myriad faults in the issue is what’s causing such declining poll numbers. Please see: “Google to fight global warming ‘ignorance’ ” http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2011/03/google_to_fight_global_warming.html
I’ve read enough to know I’m not skeptical regarding what the IPCC puts forth as “the consensus.” I think it is just plain wrong (or very poorly understood) with respect to its overarching conclusions. Quite frankly, I thought ALL scientists were supposed to be skeptical, even when they are in agreement with that which they are applying their skepticism. We’re still testing relativity, probably one of the most tested theories we have ever had. Not because we don’t agree with its general conclusions, but because that is what we do as scientists and skeptics.
I have to give an h/t to MBH, however, as the reason I really began to doubt. Those guys couldn’t regress their way out of a wet paper bag.
Mark
The bottom line for me is that nobody can state with any degree of certainty what the Earth’s weather/climate would currently be doing had atmospheric levels of CO2 (let’s face it, it ALWAYS comes back to CO2) remained at their pre-industrial levels of 280ppm.
Without this knowledge you simply cannot state what effect, be it negligible, significant or catastrophic, anthropogenic activity is having on the climate today and into the future.
Where climate science in general, and the IPCC in particular, has gone horribly wrong over the last 20 years is in failing to acknowledge this uncertainty. What climate science should be telling policy-makers is : “We honestly don’t know. Go ahead increasing emissions if you must, but be aware that it MAY have serious repercussions in the future. On your heads be it.”
What they have done instead is to sweep all the uncertainties under the carpet. They KNOW anthropogenically-forced global warming is happening, and are seizing on every unusual weather event and promoting it as evidence for : Snow storms or lack of snow. Hurricanes or lack of hurricanes. Heat waves, or cold snaps. Drought or floods. Doesn’t matter. Whatever happens to be in the news this week. Whatever helps the cause. All of these events have happened regularly in the past? That doesn’t matter either. Sweep them under the carpet too. Re-write history, if necessary. What is happening now is UNPRECEDENTED!!!! UNPRECEDENTED I TELL YOU!!!!
And then they wonder why people start becoming sceptical………
<<<<<<>>>>>>>
Not in N Europe it hasn’t, its been f,f,f,f,freezing this summer. Wet, overcasting and windy, with not a sign of AGW in sight.
But in a minor slip of the tongue a BBC news presenter said to the weatherman: “Not much sign of your Global Warming, is there? …….. oh ……. I’m not supposed to say that, am I…” Clearly, employees at the Biased Broadcasting Corporation are being told to stay ‘on message’.
.
“The science of climate change is a proxy for views on the role of government.”
More like a proxy for who does his homework. If you do your homework on CAGW and Big Government, you’ll find neither lives up to its hype.
Judging by Dessler’s comments (and his shipshod paper, which his “daddy” had to correct), Dessler just doesn’t do his homework. Either that or he copied it from Hugh Pepper. 🙂
I hear FEMA is restricting firefighters from fighting the fire. Or at least they were as of a few days ago. http://www.infowars.com/fema-forces-firefighters-to-stand-down-in-texas/
If true, that surely makes it bigger than it otherwise would be. Also I hear a lot of greenies are getting upset at neighbors and such ‘wasting’ water trying to wet down their homes and yards in the hopes of saving them.
Hugh Pepper says:
September 10, 2011 at 8:56 am
It’s pretty hard to argue with this position.
True, if you’re a moron. Dessler, though, is obviously a genius since he manages to argue with his own position in the space of two sentences:
“We can’t say climate change is causing the extreme weather Texas is having right now. On the other hand… we can be confident we’ve made this hellish summer worse than it would have been.”
Dessler spent time in the Clinton/Gore White House as a policy wonk, who wouldn’t believe that he’s a believer in top down trickle down government.
As to what Dessler, er, “says” above – and in another apparently characteristic ipcc-style Climate Science ‘response’ to S&B11 – it would seem that the ipcc Climate Science “CO2=CAGW” Propaganda Operation has reached the necessarily degenerate limit of its repitoire, which has pretty obviously devolved solely into the production of self-contradictory “statements”, unhinged Mantras and “tenets”, lies, and all other manner of irrational, subrational and unscientific sounds and appearances – such as grotesque howls, infantile cries as though being victimized or unfairly attacked when not getting one’s way, vitriolic threats and exhortations to the hoped for “mob”, grunts, pregnant silences, profane exclamations, and so on – attempting to masquerade as sensical, even “scientific” communication, and in order to intentionally try to delude other people into irrational action, as though they are indeed a “mob”. And, strangely, quite often via the very same personalizing and demonizing tactics described by the Communist, Saul Alinsky?
I certainly wouldn’t attrubute such a “language and method” to any theoretical Missing Link, because The LInk so far at least occupies a theoretically necessary place in the Evolutionary events leading to an Enlightened Individual and Civilization – which also includes the development and place of the Scientific Method, which we now see almost exclusively so intimately feared by ipcc Climate Science as to produce its characteristic barrage of retrograde appearances and noises.
On the other hand, as to the “place” of ipcc Climate Scientists and their ‘science’ concerning the progress of the Human Being, theirs doesn’t seem quite so much necessary as the Missing Link’s is conceived to be, at least in terms of promoting a forward moving Evolution of the Human Being and its Institutions.
Except perhaps as an object case of the exact kind of behavior for rational/ethical humans to avoid?
Anything is possible says:
September 10, 2011 at 11:14 am
If, by some wild chance, it should turn out that the global warming tribe turns out to be right and we end up with a planetary disaster in a few years (5? 10? 20? whatever the latest “prediction” is), the blame for this will rest solidly on the AGW crowd themselves for having presented their message in such a convoluted, arrogant, contradictory, and condescending manner as to have turned away everyone who might otherwise have listened.
For the sake of the children, people, it’s Dessler, not Dressler!
Proof of global warming follows this thought progression:
There are more murders in the summer.
More ice cream is consumed in the summer.
Therefore, eating ice cream causes more murders.
There you have it. Proof of global warming.
Funny how Dessler and his gang think of, or try to pass themselves off as simply “the messenger”. It’s as if “the science” is hermetically sealed, untouched, untouchable, and therefore unassailable. I suppose they have to believe that to keep cognitive dissonance at bay.
The mention of the wildfires in Texas brings up a subject that comes around every year, Texas California Spain Australia etc, etc, it is a shame that there is not a will to extinguish these fires, when watching TV news reports all you see is people risking there lives and a couple of puddle jumpers,and a helicopter or 2, not what you could call a serious effort.
When the military has not the means to deliver water to a fire zone then why not rent the Antonov AN225 with a capacity of being able to drop 250 tons or 60,000 gallons of water on a fire, it, I would think solve a lot of problems.
I have long thought that what we’re going to need – have actually needed for some time – is an argument anti-CAGW or anti the case against CO2, call it what you will, that is so framed as to be brief and easily understood by all but the dimmest of the general public,and that can be held up as the High Principle of the sceptic side. This can then be used wherever it can be effective – to feed to politicians, newspapers etc. as a “creeping persuasion” that will eventually “come out” and penetrate the public arena where it will be seen and have the desired effect.
At present the warmists are winning by their wicked ways because all we are seeing in this WUWT item and elsewhere is not getting through to where it will do any good. Here, you who know about these things, are preaching to the converted, whereas, may I respectfully suggest, you need to start openly making a cleverly-framed settled case for public distribution.
If you don’t or can’t, can there be any complaint when the warmists triumph in the end?
@Haberman
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/temp-and-precip/time-series/index.php?parameter=tmp&month=7&year=2011&filter=1&state=&div=0
Sorry, was trying to do southwest:
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/temp-and-precip/time-series/index.php?parameter=tmp&month=7&year=2011&filter=1&state=107&div=0
There filter length changes the results quite a lot. Not sure why. Didn’t not see how to do yearly or sessional temps, only signle months.
Quite mad. As several people have already noted, it’s precisely when you do look at the science that you realise that you’re being sold snake oil. And having once realised that, you notice it in all the AGW fairy stories, in much the same way as the alarmist camp themselves see “CO2-caused” devastation wherever they look.
Fortunately – and despite all the tenets of “post-normal science”, where all views seem equally (in)valid – the real world continues to go its own way, and lets real scientists study it. CO2 never overheated us before, and it doesn’t matter how many people believe that it will now, it won’t. Wonderful thing, real science. Who knows, in a few centuries, it may even get close to understanding how the weather cycles work …
“People who discount the science of climate change don’t do it because they’ve read the science”
I am not a climate scientist, I have never pretended to be but I have a grounding in science, I took 3 A levels in science subjects and have a degree in dentistry. I have contributed to WUWT, because whatever my views are worth, the science behind AGW stinks. I originally believed AGW was happening because of the runaway greenhouse effect on the planet Venus.
We were all told that this could happen to Earth because once the temperature rose sedimentary rocks would break down releasing more CO2 into the atmosphere which would raise temperatures even higher which would cause more CO2 release etc, etc,etc. The thought of our planet turning into a Venus (our twin but with a 400 celsius temperature) filled me with horror.
I then looked into it in further, I learned from this website that mankinds entire CO2 contribution to the atmosphere is 3%, that CO2 concentration was much, much higher in the past implying that there is no +ve feedback loop. I then found out that at ground level, the density of the Venusian atmosphere is 92 times that of Earths and the percentage of CO2 is 96%.
You don’t need to be a climate scientist just a modicum of common sense to realise that man-made CO2 is not going to turn Earth into a Venus.
I also object in the strongest possible terms to being compared with Flat-Earthers, Holocaust Deniers, and the mentally ill.
My retort is: “People who believe in the innocence of the climategate emails have not read the emails” And just as obviously, the panels and committees that exonerated the writers either have not read them or are whitewashing them. Easy to verify, unlike Mr Dessler’s assertion.
Actually the free Market and freedom of speech have the perfect solution.
Freedom of choice allows people to CHOOSE to take the actions people like he recommend.
His problem is that he can’t convince enough people that he’s correct. Like any totalitarian, his solution is for government to force people to do what he wants them to do.
Sometimes when I see strong negative statements directed at climate skepticism, I think of this quote by the late philosopher and mathematician Bertrand Russell:
“The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt.”
After examining much of the actual science, pouring over the analysis of the science on sites like this and as a scientist myself for over 25 years, I have my doubts. I have doubts as to the magnitude of the warming over the last century and the slope of the trend. I have doubts about how much of that warming can be attributed to humans. I have to wonder why 20 different models are still required to describe our climate system (and poorly at that). I found the climategate emails regarding the conduct of the core climate community particularly egregious and damning. I think the accusations of “Big Oil” this and “97% of scientists” that, are red herrings – distractions by stupid people, for stupid people.
I
I thought “hellish summers” with drought in Texas were normal in La Niña years? Isn’t Dessler ignoring some very basic science on ENSO?
Many of us skeptics have read a great deal of the science and we do our best to weigh the arguments on their seeming merits. What I have not read, not been privy to, not been favoured with, is the math upon which the ‘models’ depend. This seems to be guarded even more jealously than much of the data. This is a pity because although all of us are not scientists, very many of us are quite capable of checking the mathematical validity of the assumptions that go into the equations. Where would we be if Newton or Einstein had simply said “Well, the model says so”.
In addition to that objection there is the matter of the programming of the models, which requires an entirely different area of expertise to ensure that the equations are being manipulated in precisely the manner that was intended. There is a yawning black hole in climate science.
To a limited degree Dessler is right in saying that opposition to big government and climate scepticism go together. However, his implication that the one determines the other is incorrect. As Melanie Phillips points out in her book “The World Turned Upside Down”, the liberal left mindset predisposes to a set of values that is in favour of AGW, “green” issues and big government. They tend also to be anti-Israel, anti-Christian and pro-Islam. The left-liberal mindset cannot conceive that it is possible for a rational being to hold contrary views, hence their use of terms like “deniers” and implying that views contrary to their own must be a consequence of mental imbalance. Because their world view is largely a set of beliefs rather than a logical construct it is often difficult to change those views and they can hold mutually incompatible facts as being true.
In contrast, those on the right tend to be more pragmatic and look at what works and consider the evidence. As a consequence, AGW scepticism and opposition to the current US government, which many observers reckon to be one of the most leftwing in the country’s history, will go together without one “causing” the other.
Interesting post and interesting thread. This fellow says the we should be worried about CAGW (now called God knows what) because a small trace gas needed for life on this planet can burn us all to death — but only some time in the future. (after the predictor has retired and is collecting his pension loot)
They say that even though all evidence points to the big ball of fire in the sky being the climate driver on this planet; it is not. No, it is a trace gas — a magic gas. (reminds one of the magic bullet that killed a president)
Dessler’s projections are very telling. He’d basically admitting that those *supporting* “the science of climate change” haven’t read it.
The other argument is even flimsier. That argument implicitly is: “Because anthropogenic CO2 is in-arguably increasing temperature to some degree, it’s making high-temperature events more common and more extreme”. Unfortunately for Dessler, the converse would be equally true: “Anthropogenic CO2 is making low temperature events less common and less extreme.” The important next question is which is worse, and even more crucially, is the effect of anthro-CO2 enough to matter either way.
People who discount the claims of climatology don’t do it because they have read the science supporting Athropogenic Global Warming. There fixed Mr Desslers statement. Which is factually correct as there is no science supporting AWG. Climatology is not science. I see the science done by some climate scientists but none to support the alarmism, Perhaps science and the vital importance of the scientific method, full reporting of data, methods and sceptism of ones own bias need to be taught in schools once more.Making extraordinary claims as the team has done followed by “Trust me I’m a scientist ,”does not cut it.Claims of evidence are just noise, evidence speaks for itself.The sciency nonsense of theCACAs has done more to discredit their agenda than any other single event, Climategate ,while far worse than I expected, merely confirmed the smell of bovine excretions already implicit in the Gorites blather. After having these righteous idiots saturating the airways for the last decade I take great pleasure in observing their self destruct.But I feel no mercy.Should I?.
“We can’t say climate change is causing the extreme weather Texas is having right now.”
“People who discount the science of climate change don’t do it because they’ve read the science,” he says.
=========================================================
And obviously Dessler is one of those that has not read the science.
Texas summers have not changed in over a century………..
http://www.real-science.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/ScreenHunter_22-Sep.-08-21.11.gif
MattN says:
September 10, 2011 at 9:47 am
I absolutely GUARANTEE that this in NOT the worst wildfire season in the history of Texas, just the worst since we’ve paid any attention. Which is, at the very most, 150 years….
Yep … this is much like the comment I heard the other day about hurricanes … we do not, as warmists like to pontificate, have a hurricane outbreak … we have a “naming” outbreak ….
As technology has advanced and we can see more, earlier … many storms are being “named” that never would have in past …. then there is the hype factor – Irene was not even a hurricane if I recall when it made final landfall … but judging by the breathless media reporting for a week leading up to it you would have thought it was Katrina II
Stop trying to “sell” the agenda and clean up the remaining black marks (stains) on Climatology, too much has already been said in selling CAGW to promote further funding. If asked to make statements about extreme weather, what is wrong with admitting you don’t know, without the warming tag line, as that is just rank opportunism.
Leave that rubbish for the politicians, at least we can chuck them out of office for their mistakes.
Too much hype and suggestion rather than solid science has lead us to the low point of climate science – even an “its weather and we don’t know enough about it” answer is preferable if asked.
Spinifers says:
September 10, 2011 at 11:20 am
I hear FEMA is restricting firefighters from fighting the fire. Or at least they were as of a few days ago. http://www.infowars.com/fema-forces-firefighters-to-stand-down-in-texas/
Worse than that even:
Contract Dispute Grounds Firefighting Planes
http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=46009
The stupidity of government often knows no bounds …
Dessler: “People who discount the science of climate change don’t do it because they’ve read the science”
“READ” the science? The sentence is heretical and anti-science. The scientific outlook is based on the premise that thee is NO authority, and you should even check experts’ work to see that they haven’ screwed up. Those of us who are cynical have not only “READ” the science but checked the figures- they don’t add up.
Christopher Simpson says:
September 10, 2011 at 11:33 am
If, by some wild chance, it should turn out that the global warming tribe turns out to be right and we end up with a planetary disaster in a few years (5? 10? 20? whatever the latest “prediction” is)
The current predictions (and previously on Lost predictions) are -envelope please- Ahem! :
-90, -60, -40, -30, -20, -10, -5, 0, 5, 10, 20, 40, 100 years.
As you can see, they have been nominated before, on both sides of the fence.
It’s the overacting that undoes them.
I’m constantly puzzled by people like Andy Dessler who claim that “…humans have increased the temperature of the base climate state…”, thus leading to the Texas drought and wild fires.When? How? Where? It’s my understanding that global temperature hasn’t risen for ten years or more! Or is it due to the rise in temperature from 1950 till 2000, all of 0.6 degrees? Sorry, I also can’t accept that trivial warming that ended in 2000 led to extreme events in 2011.
There is an awful lot of careful thought in this thread defining the attitude of the common man to the AGW controversy. ( I would prefer to use, “scam” , but I’m trying to be objective.). Kudos in particular to Bill Simpson and G Pierce, who articulated my own take on the present contremps with great accuracy. I picked up on the controversy about 2004, when I became semi-retired and started to fill in the gaps in my world -view. The great thing about studying academic subjects in one’s 7th decile is that instead of being bright but clueless, and sucking up any old horsefeathers presented in a plausible manner, one tends to weigh information against a lifetime of being taken for a ride by a variety of protagonists who have their own agendas firmly in the centre of their activities. Truly, age and cynicism will triumph over youth and enthusiasm. Thus I don’t deify our host and his major contributors as demi-Gods, neither do I demonise AGW proponents – though there is a special place in my heart for Pope Al and The Mann. Being something of a dilletante in the history of mankind, The attitude of the CAGW lobby is to me remarkably consistent with the attacks of the Catholic Church on the scientists of the 16th and 17th Centuries, both by political methodology and by the enforcing of a wholly spurious,”scientific consensus”, forged in the fire of ideology and maintained by a political power brutally deployed which denies any alternative theory. The Church of Climate has it’s own Jesuits, and some of this blogs contributors can bare the scars of their pursuit of the truth of the matter. CAGW is not a scientific debate, where alternative theories are discussed and analysed until a factual solution is reached. It is in fact an almost wholly political debate, where blogs like Climate Etc apart, the concentration is more on the politics than the science.
It is unfair to expect politicians to speak in the minutia or in the manner of a scientific argument. That is neither their job or their skill set. Read the great political speeches of our joint culture – Lincoln,Churchill, Kennedy, Martin Luther King. These men had the ability to seize on what was important to the people and articulate their desires and goals. We don’t expect scientists to do that, and we should not expect politicians to explain science. We have Al Gore, who has a better than average skillset as a politician, proven over 2 decades as a total numpty when it comes to scientific explanation.
At the moment, Dessler has opened the Pandora’s Box of the Warmists. It will be interesting to see what is eventually released.
For a Dessler, who was science adviser to Gore and played a large role in turning Climate Science into the charlie foxtrot it has become, to whine about a governor who disagrees with his political demands raises the question of how smart Dessler really is.
After watching and reading Dessler for awhile, I have a good idea of what that answer is.
According to the scientific method, a properly formed hypothesis must be falsifiable by experiment or observation.
Since Climate Change is consistent with all observed events it cannot be falsified.
Therefore Climate Change qualifies as a religion, with no place in the field of science.
The argument for the Texas wild fires being caused by Climate Change stands equal to the Texas wild fires being caused by the hand of God.
Perhaps Andy Dessler is thinking about CO2 forced global warming which was a properly formulated hypothesis, that was falsified a decade ago.
Maybe the falsification of global warming is why the CAGW believers are now proselytizing Climate Change.
This implies that the opposition to catastrophic warmism is all politically motivated (selfish or blinded by doctrine). That can be easily refuted by citing the number of apostates from warmism, and the significant number of Democrats who don’t buy into it. Also counting against it is the sophistication of the many criticisms put forth by NIPCC and other scorcher-scoffers. Those critics have read the science.
These are aircraft desperately needed – that HAVE current legal airworthiness certificates … are completely legal to fly
“People who discount the science of climate change don’t do it because they’ve read the science…”
I think this comment is overly generalised. However, it probably is the case that many people who discount climate change do so for reasons other than because they have a good knowledge and understanding of the science.
On the other hand, it’s likely that the same would apply to many people who accept climate change, so the point is moot.
That said, Dessler’s comment is placed within the context of people who claim that he is perpetrating a fraud. These claims come from one side of the debate and are often associated with claims about the political intentions of climate scientists, so in that sense Dessler’s comments are justified.
“The science of climate change is a proxy for views on the role of government.”
I think he means that attitudes to climate science are a proxy for views on the role of government. Dessler is on firmer grounds here, given the way attitudes to climate science divide along political lines.
None of this has much to do with the science per se, although a lot to do with the way attitudes to the science may influence future political action.
@Andrew Harding says:
“I originally believed AGW was happening because of the runaway greenhouse effect on the planet Venus. We were all told that this could happen to Earth …”
I don’t recall climate scientists making such a claim. Nothing in the IPCC reports suggests that as far as I know. Venus was sometimes used to illustrate the concept – but to claim anything like that was instore for Earth. It looks like you jumped from one extreme to another. Try reading Science News or SkepticalScience.
George Tetley says:
September 10, 2011 at 11:50 am
The mention of the wildfires in Texas brings up a subject that comes around every year, Texas California Spain Australia etc, etc, it is a shame that there is not a will to extinguish these fires, when watching TV news reports all you see is people risking there lives and a couple of puddle jumpers,and a helicopter or 2, not what you could call a serious effort.
When the military has not the means to deliver water to a fire zone then why not rent the Antonov AN225 with a capacity of being able to drop 250 tons or 60,000 gallons of water on a fire, it, I would think solve a lot of problems.
George … there are at least 3 VLAT’s (very large air tankers) available … However, the Forest Service – who, through IMO their gross incompetence, have already gutted the fleet (from 40+ in 2002 to 11 air tankers today) – will not provide a contract to the operators with enough committed hours to maintain them in operational ready reserve status. There is a 747 and 2 DC10’s available. Because of the refusal to provide at least a minimum amount of contracted hours they are largely sitting unused.
Apparently one DC 10 is now in Texas – but is grounded for long periods because there is only a single flight crew certified as current, due to the US Forest Service actions.
… there are only 11 large air tankers left in the United States that are on exclusive use contracts, contrasted with the 44 we had in 2002. Aero Union has closed its doors and shut down their P3 air tankers due to [USFS contract issues], and the U. S. Forest Service is not interested in awarding exclusive use contracts for Very Large Air Tankers (VLAT) like Evergreen’s 747 or 10 Tanker Air Carrier’s DC-10s.
Both Evergreen and 10 Tanker were only offered Call When Needed (CWN) contracts by the USFS this year for their VLATs. The proposed contracts did not even have a minimum number of days that they would be used on each activation, such as the 5 days that are stipulated in CAL FIRE’s current DC-10 CWN contract. Evergreen told the agency that they could not maintain their 747 in response-ready condition, with crews, without any guaranteed income. 10 Tanker reluctantly signed the CWN contract.
10 Tanker has two DC-10 air tankers, but at this time they only have one DC-10 air tanker crew, so they can only operate one aircraft at a time. When mandatory days off are required, they have to shut the aircraft down rather than bring in a relief crew. With no guaranteed contract, they can barely keep one crew available for CWN use.
We are the government, and we’re here to help you … whether its AGW or fire fighting – the incompetence is largely the same
I looked at regional temp and precip data for the different regions in Texas since 1895. There is a lot of variation across the ten regions. It seems the west is warmer and drier. But I can see people cherry picking so as to support or refute Dressler’s statement. As you look at smaller regions there is a lower single to noise ratio. So, I don’t know what conclusions can be drawn.
But wasn’t there a thread or comment here recently showing that 30% of global temperature stations show a cooling trend? (Someone please provide a link to it.)
Mike says:
September 10, 2011 at 2:15 pm
I remember the same thing Andrew does. Not all the information the public was getting came from IPCC reports. We’ve been treated to some pretty spectacular claims over the years, and the dangers of a Venus-like Earth was definitely among them — perhaps not “officially,” but then Al Gore isn’t official either, but his Photoshopped images have certainly had a large effect.
Not everyone poured over IPCC missives — nor should we have to. The public relied on “experts,” and many of those experts have been bizarre in the extreme.l
rbateman says:
September 10, 2011 at 1:47 pm
They say a stopped clock is right at least twice a day; but these predictions are like a stopped clock showing dozens of different times all at once, and still managing to be wrong every single time.
I recall reading a comment, years ago, by a physicist joking about a “particle fairy” who granted wishes, because it seemed like every time they decided to search for a particle, they found it. The fairy overseeing climatology appears far less benevolent.
“…which calls for a government solution…”
And that solution would be what?
Just look how good the government is at solving things. Why just recently they solved unemployment, solved the debt problem, solved nuclear waste disposal, solved the housing crisis, solved guns getting into Mexico, etc.
Anthony — Thanks again for 2 years of enjoyment, as a bilogical scientist and amateur radio operator/mathmetician!
Since we have an actual discourse between Dressler and Spencer: Why not have Spencer raise the white flag of surrender, and request from Dressler of what humankind of all races can do to to try to turn the tide of our demise, in light of politics worldwide?
Dressler appears to be pretty smart and elite enough to give us scientific advice!
Dr. Dressler: How do you propose the Politico’s and lites advise we ‘unknowing mortals’ Grsave ourselves?
Should we build an Arc? Pray? Sell all our wealth, and vest our grandchildren so they can pay for this costly failure/spoof!
BTW I watched my granddson play soccor today. I think he can ‘adapt’ and profit from AGW in the FUTURE!
Mike @ 2:41 pm ,
You can’t really draw any conclusions about Texas .
Mike says:
September 10, 2011 at 2:15 pm
“@Andrew Harding says:
“I originally believed AGW was happening because of the runaway greenhouse effect on the planet Venus. We were all told that this could happen to Earth …”
I don’t recall climate scientists making such a claim. Nothing in the IPCC reports suggests that as far as I know. Venus was sometimes used to illustrate the concept – but to claim anything like that was instore for Earth.”
What is it with you? Alarmist Amnesia? Never heard the name Hansen?
http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2011/04/22/hansen-venus-syndrome-is-a-dead-certainty/
“Dessler says there’s an unmistakable connection between the drought and climate change.”
Did he give any stats showing a correlation between temperatures and drought conditions, or is this just anecdotal evidence? According to “World Climate Report” there has actually been a negative correlation between temperature and drought- more El Ninos, warmer and wetter, more La Ninas, cooler and drier.
http://www.worldclimatereport.com/index.php/2010/08/25/southwest-drought/
– A. McIntire
Texas has been warming and drying out since before the white men came. I visited the forts among which was the Alamo and they were surrounded by huts for Indians who were victims of CLIMATE CHANGE.
The timber lands had turned to grass lands and the game they depended on were less plentiful so they congregated around the forts and farmed.
No sane person could claim that CO2 caused this since it was 1744.
I am reminded of a very religious person who sees everything as the work of GOD !
The deception cannot stand now that they know they are being watched. Gatekeeping will not go unnoticed thanks to critical thinkers everywhere. Perhaps climate science can now be more about science than controlling the science. Gatekeeping has made Peppers comment about “cannot find any literature on it” true but hilarious. He does not think very much of us, yet he continues his efforts, nonetheless, ……… hmmmmmm,………….
Mike says:
September 10, 2011 at 2:15 pm
James Hansen makes that very claim. Try again.
Well Dr Dessler needs another correction to his hypothesis.
I discount climate science (of his variety) precisely BECAUSE I read the science. And being a scientist I went to the data, did my own analysis and that only firmed my understanding.
He needs to get away from his models more often. Try explaining the pSCL-temperature correlation Dr Dessler, for a start.
The only evidence I’ve ever seen about climate change is CO2 is a greenhouse gas, burning fossil fuels release CO2 and therefore humans are causing climate change.
Which is to say, no real evidence at all. Computer models are not evidence as computer models to not output facts. Expert testimony is not evidence. A measured (more accurately, estimated increase in atmospheric CO2 is not evidence of climate change. (You see the circular argument — CO2 causes global warming and we know global warming is happening because CO2 is going up.) The ice core data shows CO2 follows warming, so not only is the ice core data not evidence of climate change but it’s actually evidence against CO2 being the cause. Observations of climate change aren’t evidence of anything except the natural state of affairs, that is, the climate changes.
Mike says of the Venus syndrome on Earth-
“I don’t recall climate scientists making such a claim.”
I agree that no scientists have made this claim, because scientists know that lapse rates on Venus and Earth are almost the same.
However, science fiction novelist and television personality Carl Sagan felt it was very possible back in 1960.
More recently, James Hansen, coal mine protester and science advisor to Hollywood movie stars, says it is *DEAD CERTAIN* in his book “Storms of my Grandchildren”.
“After the ice is gone, would Earth proceed to the Venus syndrome, a runaway greenhouse effect that would destroy all life on the planet, perhaps permanently? While that is difficult to say based on present information, I’ve come to conclude that if we burn all reserves of oil, gas, and coal, there is a substantial chance we will initiate the runaway greenhouse. If we also burn the tar sands and tar shale, I believe the Venus syndrome is a dead certainty.”
Anthony
We had the same sort of rubbish espoused by the green ecotards here in Australia as we endured 7 years of drought. Then, guess what, half the continent got flooded. Ain’t Mother Nature grand!
BTW it is already Sept 11 on our side of the dateline, our thoughts are with you guys 😉
It should have been easy for the other candidates to come up with a few facts in response to Huntsman’s snooty and snarky comments. Each just needed a few simple talking points about uncertainty, about the unverifiable computer models, about the failure of the models to make accurate predictions, about the ice core data showing CO2 follows warming, etc.
Just a simple statement about skepticism being one of the cornerstones of science would have gone a long way.
“People who discount the science of climate change don’t do it because they’ve read the science…”
I think this comment is overly generalised. However, it probably is the case that many people who discount climate change do so for reasons other than because they have a good knowledge and understanding of the science.
On the other hand, it’s likely that the same would apply to many people who accept climate change, so the point is moot.
That said, Dessler’s comment is placed within the context of people who claim that he is perpetrating a fraud. These claims come from one side of the debate and are often associated with claims about the political intentions of climate scientists, so in that sense Dessler’s comments are justified.
“The science of climate change is a proxy for views on the role of government.”
He probaby means that attitudes to climate science are a proxy for views on the role of government. Dessler is on firmer grounds here, given the way attitudes to climate science divide along political lines.
None of this has much to do with the science per se, although a lot to do with the way attitudes to the science may influence future political action.
Dessler says “People who discount the science of climate change don’t do it because they’ve read the science.”
I’m not a scientist, I’m an accountant. But I did take chemistry and biology in college, and history. In college I don’t think I would have gotten away with the sloppiness that’s evident in some of the “science” I have read concerning global warming. Apparently Dessler, and all the other AGW “scientists” think what they publish is incontrovertible fact. But these “scientists” can’t even do decent historical research, so how can anyone believe anything they write?
I know you will never get the alarmists to read real science; but just maybe we could get them to read history. The planet has been much warmer than now in the past (and colder as well I guess), we have had worse droughts, we have had worse hurricane seasons (had real ones hit the USA), worse flooding, and so on.
How can these shameless charlatans face their classes? (do they really teach?)
Roger Knights says:
September 10, 2011 at 2:38 pm
I picked up on the same point, Roger. What’s more, I seem to recall a map of warming vs cooling stations showing a “patchwork”. Odd behavior for a well-mixed trace gas, no?
But look at exactly what Dr. Dessler says:
“On the other hand, we can say humans have increased the temperature of the base climate state pretty much everywhere.”
Yup, “we can say” that. Dr. Dessler, and other “warmists” do say that… regularly. So his statement is correct. What science should I read to prove the “humans have increased” part, Dr. Dessler?
What science should I read to convince me that a 0.6C or 0.7C increase, not “pretty much everywhere”, but “on average” will cause tragic fires to occur where they otherwise would not?
It is worth reading the entire NPR piece just for the last paragraph. It’s a hoot! I won’t copy it here, go read it. I’m not a scientist – trust me! 🙂
Best,
Frank
@ Nuke Nemesis, September 10, 2011 at 3:44 pm
I agree. Nobody expects them to be scientists. But even a personal opinion supported by some facts and historical references would earn my respect.
The Texas drought should be kept in historical and geographical perspective. It’s unfortunate, but as several readers here point out, there have been other Texas droughts, some no doubt worse. A lot of the moisture that would have fallen in Texas over the winter and spring wound up adding to Colorado’s amazing central and northern mountain snowpack, which was nearly 150% of normal by early summer.
Unless Texans’ evil ways caused shifts in the jetstream, or new ENSO patterns to develop, then even a hundred-year drought can be explained without recourse to hyperventillated catastrophism.
In 120 years the earth has experienced .7 ° C of warming.
If a man [or woman] retires and moves to Florida from Michigan he experiences 8 ° C of personal [global] warming and yet he doesn’t develop all of the crazy symptoms we are told to expect from Global Warming. At the present rate it would take the earth 1370 years to warm that much.
Each day we experience the same equivalent “Climate change” and nothing bad happens.
The wild exaggerations of the alarmists just reinforces my skepticism.
Acne, aged deaths, poppies more potent, aggressive weeds, Air France crash, air pockets, air pressure changes, airport farewells virtual, airport malaria, Agulhas current, Alaskan towns slowly destroyed, Al Qaeda and Taliban Being Helped, allergy increase, allergy season longer, alligators in the Thames, Alps melting, Amazon a desert, American dream end, amphibians breeding earlier (or not), anaphylactic reactions to bee stings, ancient forests dramatically changed, animals head for the hills, animals shrink, Antarctic grass flourishes, Antarctic ice grows, Antarctic ice shrinks, Antarctic sea life at risk, anxiety treatment, algal blooms, archaeological sites threatened, Arctic bogs melt, Arctic in bloom, Arctic ice free, Arctic ice melt faster, Arctic lakes disappear, Arctic tundra lost, Arctic warming (not), a rose by any other name smells of nothing, asteroid strike risk
joseph says:
September 10, 2011 at 4:03 pm
[…]
How can these shameless charlatans face their classes? (do they really teach?)
They face their classes the same as the rest of us in the profession do: with the assurance that whatever we tell them, our students will believe us.
This is why, partway through every semester, I tell my class that I’m going to break with the regular curriculum to speak about a subject I feel very strongly about — the increasing environmental pollution of dihydrogen monoxide. (If one of my friends is available, I’ll bring him or her in as a “guest speaker.”) At the end, I pass around a petition calling for the Toronto mayor to ban from all municipal property the sale of any food or food products which contain dihydrogen monoxide, or which have used dihyrogen monoxide at any point in their preparation.
After getting back the petition (almost invariably signed by every student*), I then tell them they have just taken upon themselves the authority to ban water, based solely upon a single presentation by an “authority” figure.
When that class is finished, they come away with a more profound understanding that when I tell them not to trust anyone, and to always check sources and facts for themselves, I actually mean it.
Those who teach have captive, and extremely naive audiences — made even more so by the education system’s diminishing importance placed upon real critical thinking and analysis. (I’ve sat in on a number of college level “critical thinking” classes, and the main thrust appears to be teaching students that advertisements often lie.)
And coupled with the decrease in critical thinking skills is an increasing stress upon the importance of relying on experts and authorities.
So Dessler and pals probably have no qualms about stepping in front of their respective classes; they know it’s the one place they’re assured of total and unthinking acceptance.
——-
* Over the course of five years I’ve had two students not sign the petition. One didn’t sign because she felt that there was so much pollution and corruption that it wouldn’t make a difference, and the other didn’t sign because she didn’t think I was the kind of person who would allow a petition in my class. (I was proud of her — she was absolutely right.)
If climate science was so good, we wouldn’t have missing energy and no clue about clouds (along with no clue about 40 other variables).
NOBODY understands the climate.
When the first person that does finally understand it comes forward and says “I’ve figured it out” and the rest of us say “well, that works” and then it continues working, then we will have a field called climate science.
Okay, Mr. Dessler. You’ve got me. I haven’t read the science enough to be an expert on the subject. However, my disbelief in AGW is based on two things: the scientific method and the fallacy of the crowd mentality.
One of the tenants of the scientific method is verifiability. As an example, consider cold fusion. Martin Fleischmann and Stanley Pons claimed to have created cold fusion. People were hopeful, that is until scientists started trying to verify the experiment. Since cold fusion could not be verified, it is therefore pseudo-science. By the same way, AGW scientists do everything in their power to avoid verification by everyone except those who will confirm what they believe. If something fails to follow the scientific method, it is not science but belief. There is a place for belief in life, but not in science.
The movie Men In Black had a profound truth in it. When Will Smith (“J”) asked Tommy Lee Jones (“K”) why they didn’t just tell people about aliens, the response was, in short, that a person is rational and sensible but people are not. Science is supposed to be about concrete proof, not about what the crowd says is true. Problems arise when the crowd actively suppress those who dare to not believe what they believe. Sadly, such suppression is nothing new and is worse than ever. It was really bad when people killed or persecuted people of other religions in medieval times. It is still bad when people’s livelihood is threatened for believing differently. Today, scientists must believe in AGW and evolution or they won’t be employed much longer. It takes a brave scientist to speak out against AGW or to believe in a divine being. Suppression is not rational.
So Mr. Dessler, I do not believe in AGW because I studied science. I do not believe in AGW because (1) it does not follow the scientific method and therefore, by definition, is not science and (2) because AGW true believers do not behave like scientists should behave, which is to prefer the truth rather than what your peers say is true.
Roger Knights says:
September 10, 2011 at 2:38 pm
[smip]
But wasn’t there a thread or comment here recently showing that 30% of global temperature stations show a cooling trend? (Someone please provide a link to it.)
============
It was most likely I who’s comment you read, here it is again:
http://motls.blogspot.com/2011/07/hadcrut3-30-of-stations-recorded.html
and:
http://motls.blogspot.com/2011/08/hadcrut3-31-of-stations-saw-cooling.html
…may I respectfully suggest, you need to start openly making a cleverly-framed settled case for public distribution.
If you don’t or can’t, can there be any complaint when the warmists triumph in the end?
Ok, here goes, at least as to what I think is the sufficient, settled substance of my case:
1] “CO2 = CAGW” Climate Science is not real science.
Proof: none of its critical, unique predictions has ever occurred in the real world, whose empirical nature now includes even many opposites of its predictions, which have instead subsequently occurred in the real world, thereby solidly unhinging the practice of “CO2 = CAGW” Climate Science from the real world, and from the practice of real science – which otherwise necessarily includes the principle of the possible falsifiability of its therefore meaningful hypotheses.
2] Instead, “CO2 = CAGW” Climate Science is merely a gigantic Propaganda Operation which intentionally ignores the practice of real science.
Proof: Again contrary to the practice of real science, “CO2 = CAGW’s” Climate Scientists simply don’t care that none of their critical, unique predictions has ever occurred in the real world, whose empirical nature now includes even many opposites of their predictions, which have instead subsequently occurred in the real world. As proven by the way they behave, these kind of “Climate Scientists” persist unperturbed by empirical reality and therefore by the principles necessary to the practice of real science, which they willfully ignore.
3] Therefore, contrary to their implied claims as to practicing real science for the benefit of Humanity, and thus by way of an obvious pseudo-scientific subterfuge, “CO2 = CAGW” Climate Science and its Climate Scientists, enc., are trying to achieve something other than a truly scientifically based end or goal which is dedicated towards the benefit of the rest of us humans.
4] To find the main answer as to what this goal is, simply follow the attending money and power redistributions as Climate “Science” practices its manifestly unscientific, therefore exclusively propagandistic “method”.
5] Basically as practiced, “CO2 = CAGW” Climate Science’s main ends are manifestly the same as its well-demonstrated means or “methods” = propagandistic thought control, from which much and even all other control of people can then follow.
I was in College Station during the peak of what is still “the worst drought in the history of Texas.” What we have now would only be a preamble, like in 1950 or so. There I learned enough meteorology and oceanography to make me think I understand this stuff, especially since our professors understood the difference between science and advocacy.
Predicted warming then suggested northward spread of tropicals, but it got wetter and cooler enough to help cover much of Texas with trees, some of which are now burning. A botanist studying a fire in Big Bend National Park once told us that it takes rain and production to have fire. Deserts don’t normally burn.
We had an impressive west Texas dust storm blow in, circa 1955, but the Brazos River Valley flooded in 1957. Drought was an interesting, if severe, event, but fortunately, since only the athletic dorms had air conditioning, I spent summers on the coast where ponds were dry, some salt encrusted, and many tropicals did invade the bays.
Just for a hypothetical moment lets assume that the planet is warming and it is human caused. The next question would “how much warming?” and the answer (for Texas) would be less than 0.5°C.
Exactly how much affect on wildfires would a 0.5°C temperature change have?
I kinda suspect “not much”.
On the other hand, we can say humans have increased the temperature of the base climate state pretty much everywhere. And what that means is it makes the heat more extreme and increases evaporation from the soil. We can be confident we’ve made this hellish summer worse than it would have been.”
Seriously? By raising the base state by half a degree? Can humans even distinguish half a degree difference in temperature? I really doubt it.
These are not serious claims.
“That means climate change — which calls for a government solution; there’s no way for the free market to address climate change by itself ”
And therein lies a sorry tale of scientific political activism and some of the lunar policy outcomes we’ve had to endure as a result, whatever the veracity of the underlying science. All we ever heard from Team Climate was how as a result of their Govt funded consensus science there was a necessary logical consensus on Govt controls, albeit such Govts often lauded a ‘market based’ mechanism with thin air trading among putting the world’s food in our tanks and the like. Did you ever hear them advocate a simple hands off approach to their CO2 bogeyman? ie you want to raise the private cost of fossil fuels to better reflect their perceived view of its truer social cost and how most could they do that? By simply advocating a global move to complete reliance on CO2E taxing as a means of raising the desired quantum of tax revenue and abandoning all other forms of revenue raising as a result. Did they advocate that at Copenhagen, or did they simply want more taxes for more Govt control? After all the developed West raises more tax revenue and presumably it would have a higher CO2e tax base and price as a result, so what’s to complain about?
Well if there was no consensus even advocated on that at Copenhagen and we are left to wonder why not, there was certainly a consensus achieved on all the lunar direct intervention policies arising out of Team Green Climate science. Basically they were soundly rejected by consensus and if you believe in consensus science, etc, you logically have to defer to the lofty decision of the consensus umpire. We skeptics that the science on AGW is settled are happy for some peer review of consensus umpiring if that’s what’s being advocated now.
Thank you for the link to what Hansen said DirkH.
Who peer reviewed these two paragraphs:
“Venus has a temperature of 450°C (842°F), hot enough to melt lead. It once held water but the runaway greenhouse effect heated the planet so much that the water molecules were destroyed.
The sun’s energy hitting Earth is slightly more than half that of Venus. Burning the tar sands and tar shale could, over time, put Earth’s temperature to around 225°C (437°F).”
First of all, any gas laws need to work with absolute temperatures. So while 225 C is half of 450 C, when converted to K, the 450 C on Venus becomes 723 K. Half of 723 is 361.5 K, or 88.5 degrees C.
But of far greater concern is that we will never have close to the concentration of CO2 that Venus has. In my analysis below, I will just do an order of magnitude calculation and for simplicity assume that for each molecule of CO2 that forms, one molecule of O2 is used up. I will also assume that half of all CO2 that man produces ends up in the atmosphere and half in the ocean. (So for the moment, I will ignore the extra amount that will get used in photosynthesis.) I will also assume that when oxygen gets below 15%, then combustion is no longer possible. Since oxygen is about 21% now, it would then drop to 15% if the CO2 increases from essentially 0% to 3% using round numbers.
Considering Venus’ high pressure and CO2 concentration, and IF we assume that Earth’s CO2 concentration did reach 3%, then there would still be about 3000 times as much CO2 in Venus’ atmosphere than on Earth. So I do not see how Earth’s temperature could be anywhere close to 225 C at any time.
Furthermore, if we did burn so much fossil fuel to raise the CO2 concentration to 3%, and thereby lowering oxygen’s concentration to 15%, then cars would stop running and the Texas fires would never get going!
Hate to tell Dessler this but a government solution cannot stop climate change. A government solution will kill more people by making them poorer and less able to deal with climate change.
Look at what is said here. This is *all* politics and powerplay. AGW/climate change, whatever you want to call it. It is all about politics and power. Not one of these people give a damn about saving the planet or anything else. They only care about their on power and influence.
@Wade;
Good post, but this line is a calumny: “Martin Fleischmann and Stanley Pons claimed to have created cold fusion.” They did not invent the term, and didn’t like it. They had generated unexplained heat (sufficient, when the innocuous rig was first left running overnight, to explode and demolish and burn most of their lab) that they thought, by process of elimination, must involve some nuclear process.
“Things aren’t always what they seem.
Skim milk masquerades as cream.”
G&S
To Christopher Simpson :: We’re on the same side of this AGW nonsense but please forgive me for not being able to resist this slow hanging softball …
Unless all your doctors and associated medical personnel and all your teachers (not to mention the equipment, medication, buildings, electricity, etc) [a] are slaves, or [b] work for free like pro bono lawyers, then they *did* get paid, just not by you. So who paid your bills? I assure you, someone did.
So it was not a government solution, it was the government simply sending your bills to someone else. Governments do not have money, if they give money to someone and this ‘money’ has actual value (not to be confused with printing money which simply devalues existing wealth), then this real money came from someone.
Nothing is free because someone else pays. Certainly it is possible to envision a system where things appear free, but unfortunately it would involve doctors that are slaves (they do not receive payment) or perhaps are independently wealthy and care for patients out of benevolence 🙂
More likely this is a system where people kick in some money into a fund or insurance from taxes and such. However, at the end of the day the patient either [a] is red ink on the ledger (didn’t kick in enough money and winds up passing the bills to others), or [b] is black ink on the ledger (kicked in a lot of money, more than enough to cover all the bills he rang up and thus didn’t really ‘need’ the system in the first place). When there is more black ink than red ink you have a solvent insurance system. Reverse that and you have a quasi-Ponzi scheme like Social Security that will eventually collapse leaving lots of people unable to collect. A kind of musical chairs. Or more accurately, Russian Roulette, since lives are at stake.
So the question really becomes, are you red ink or black ink?
Oh brother. In the past week I’ve given kudos to Dessler both here and at Climate Audit for advancing cooperation between the camps.
However, after reading his remarks in the NPR piece, I take it all back.
Werner, there is the little hitch of proving that Co2 actually causes warming. Sorry.
I’d been tempted to tell you you were being suckered, but I see you’ve reached the same conclusion yourself. “Compromise” to a CAGW-thinker means “Agree with me.”
Christopher Simpson, your dihydrogen monoxide petition made me smile. Christopher you are right, I brought my three children up from a very young age to question authority, including mine. Every so often I would make some deliberately absurd statement which I would prompt them to question, if they initially accepted it as true. Authority is not always correct and I wanted them to question those in charge of them at school and later at the workplace, so if they were ever told to do something that might endanger them, they would question it.
They are all AGW sceptics, but I cannot persuade them to log in to WUWT.
>>
Gary Hladik says:
September 10, 2011 at 11:19 am
. . . Dessler just doesn’t do his homework. Either that or he copied it from Hugh Pepper.
<<
This was the funniest comment in the whole thread. Thanks for the laugh.
Jim
Texas is currently in the grip of a very severe drought… US Drought Monitor. It does appear that Texas will set a record low for summer precipitation this year; although there is no statistically meaningful trend.
The lack of a trend in the precipitation data made me wonder… Just how often should we be setting precipitation records if the annual variation is random?
The record only goes back to 1895. Does anyone know how often record highs and record lows should be broken in such a short time series?
Since the formula calculates “the probability, pn(1), that the nth observation of a series xm= x1, x2, … xn has a higher value than the previous observations,” I’ll have to convert all of the records to highs by using the absolute value of the anomaly.
In order to analyze the frequency of record excursions, I plotted the absolute value of the annual summer precipitation anomaly along with an “expected records” curve.
At a record length of 117 years, there was a 1% chance of setting a new record high in the 117th year. However, the record excursion occurred four years ago in 2007 – Our record high summer precipitation.
There have been 5 record excursions from the average annual summer precipitation – Exactly what there should have been in a random series of numbers. And the records have occurred with the expected frequency of a random series of numbers. The fifth record excursion should have occurred between 1945 and 2030 – It occurred in 2007.
It’s funny how so many new weather records break old records that had stood for 60-80 years… And that a random time series should be breaking 60-80 year old records in its 120th year.
Is Dr. Dessler unaware of these facts? Or Is he politicizing the weather? Or scare-mongering up another $150k research grant from the NSF?
Once an ardent supporter of the idea of AGW. Then I started reading the literature. The more I read, the more I realized that the “science” of AGW was weak at best.
The misuse of stats, the misuse of uncertainty as certain, the ability of AGW supporters to ignore, or if not ignore, attack contrasting positions without understanding the basic uncertainties has proved that they read selectively.
The AGW believers are being used as a tool by the fossil fuel and banking industries. By the promotion of AGW, they encourage subsidies, carbon taxes etc. These are not productive solutions, only solutions to provide wealth transfer.
It is intersting to observe how truely gulible, uninformed in economics, supply and demand these folks are. I shake my head in amazement at how they can ignore this.
I think this is rather funny. I started following GW in 1988 after the famous speech before congress. I did a paper on it the following year in HS. It wasn’t until 2000 or so, after college, that I actually started reading the science, and that’s what changed my mind to believe that AGW is just nature.
What’s funny to me, though, is that the AGW folks don’t hype on something quite obvious to me. I unfortunately have a touch of asthma. Carbon fuels do put more stuff in the air that makes it tougher to breathe. Oil mostly comes from places that don’t use the majority of it. (The USA produces quite a bit, but imports quite a bit more.) For those like the USA, that’s a big economic cost. Regardless of whether or not CO2 is warming the atmosphere, which again I think is not true, using less carbon fuels would be a good thing economically and environmentally. That statement has a huge caviot, though. That presupposes that we have cheaper means for obtaining and storing energy.
So, what’s my point. Why bother arguing about it? Cheaper energy is something that everyone can get behind, and cleaner energy(soot, mining tailings etc) is something that everyone can support. Why put money into researching climate change, when those same research dollars could be put to new energy storage and new energy collection/production methods that are better than our current ones? It seems to me that we’d be a lot closer to the goals of the AGW folks if we didn’t spend the money on them trying to prove their case, and instead spent it on the solution they they claim to want in the first place. It makes it hard not to think that their goal is not cheaper and cleaner energy. If it’s not that, then what is their goal?
Joe Haberman says:
September 10, 2011 at 9:29 am
Perhaps Dessler should look at the temp. records for Texes befor he credits climate change for this years weather.
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/temp-and-precip/time-series/index.php?parameter=tmp&month=7&year=2010&filter=12&state=41&div=0
—————————————-
I don’t understand your point. I went to the chart and corrected what you did so it made sense.
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/temp-and-precip/time-series/index.php?parameter=tmp&month=7&year=2011&filter=1&state=41&div=0
That shows 2011 was the hottest July on record for Texas. Isn’t that proving Dessler correct?
Richard Lindzen has a nice long term plot showing that temperature and drought have NOT shown any correlation in the US.
I’ve read so many articles I can’t remember which one to find it in off hand. It is probably in the comments above, but I haven’t read all of them. Too busy reading about the science of climate.
Bill Illis said:
“When the first person that does finally understand it comes forward and says “I’ve figured it out” and the rest of us say “well, that works” and then it continues working, then we will have a field called climate science.”
I think I have figured it out. Some say ‘well,that works’ and I am just waiting to see whether it continues working.
See here:
http://www.irishweatheronline.com/news/environment/climate-news/wilde-weather/feature-how-the-sun-could-control-earths-temperature/290.html
and:
http://www.irishweatheronline.com/news/environment/climate-news/wilde-weather/setting-and-maintaining-of-earth%e2%80%99s-equilibrium-temperature/18931.html
“David Ball says:
September 10, 2011 at 10:07 pm
Werner, there is the little hitch of proving that Co2 actually causes warming. Sorry.”
No argument there! I was being generous to Hansen and assuming for argument sake that it was. However I am well aware of the fact that according to the Hadcrut3 data set at
http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/data/temperature/hadcrut3gl.txt
that 1998 was the hottest year in the modern record. And not only is the 1998 mark not beaten yet, but you have to go back to the 1940s before you find an earlier time when the high temperature mark was not beaten in 10 years or less. Every year that passes when the 1998 mark is not beaten is another nail in the coffin of CAGW.
Dessler ““People who discount the science of climate change don’t do it because they’ve read the science”
Hansen and friends have stated that increasing atmospheric CO2 from 280 ppm to 560 ppm will initiate a tipping point. That is ludicrous. There is no scientific basis for that statement. Facts are facts. Propaganda is propaganda.
Hansen and friends are advocating spending trillions of dollars on boondoggle carbon trading schemes, on carbon sequestration schemes, on wind “farms” in regions where there is no wind. These boondoggle schemes will not significantly reduce CO2 emissions but will waste trillions of dollars of taxpayer dollars.
An increase in CO2 from 280 ppm to 560 ppm will result in beneficial warming (most of the warming will be at higher latitudes where the growing season is limited by frost free days, there is increased precipitation with a warmer planet, and the intensity of storms are less as there is less temperature differential from high and low latitudes).
Atmospheric CO2 on the earth is at its lowest level in 500 million years. 0.039% or 390 parts per million. CO2 on the Venus is 230,000 times greater than on the earth.
We are carbon based life forms. Plants eat CO2. Life would not exist on this planet without CO2. Greenhouses inject CO2 into the “greenhouse” to increase yield and reduce growing times. As CO2 levels increase plants reduce the number of stomata on their leaves to reduce water loss due to evaporation. As CO2 levels rise there is a significant reduction in desertification. This phenomena has already started to occur and is significant. The average atmospheric CO2 level for most of the period life has been on this planet has been around 1000 ppm to 1500 ppm.
CO2 will under business as usual increase from 390 part per million today to around 560 ppm by the end of this century. If there is no feedback to amplify the CO2 warming the planet will warm around 0.7C due to the doubling of CO2.
The warmest period of this current interglacial period was roughly 2C warmer than today. The Greenland ice sheet did not melt, the antarctic ice sheet did not melt. The planet needs to be roughly 5C warmer to melt the greenland ice sheet and 8C warmer to melt the Antarctic Ice sheet.
Mike (NYC Resident) says:September 11, 2011 at 7:11 am
What’s funny to me, though, is that the AGW folks don’t hype on something quite obvious to me. I unfortunately havee a bit, but imports quite a bit more.) For those like the USA, that’s a big economic cost. Regardless of whether or not CO2 is warming the atmosphere, which again I think is not true, using less carbon fuels would be a good thing economically and environmentally. That statement has a huge caviot, though. That presupposes that we have cheaper means for obtaining and storing energy.
So, what’s my point. Why bother arguing about it? Cheaper energy is something that everyone can get behind
———————————————————————————-
Rational, thoughtful people who understand basically how things work will strongly agree with this. There’s hidden cost of energy buried in the cost of everything, and wealth requires energy. But the following statement was made by US presidential candidate B. Obama in 2008:
“…under my plan of a cap and trade system, electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket”
No wonder the pseudo science of climatology is politicised.
reference from:: http://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/kerry-picket/2008/11/02/obama-energy-prices-will-skyrocket#ixzz1Xf9FQb4Z
As the official documented ‘Global Warming’ since 1850 based on (HadCRUT3) data published by the University of East Anglia’s Climate Research Unit is at most, beginning from the 1910 low-point, about one deg C (or about 0.8 °C from 1850) it seems to me that it is rather hard to attribute extreme weather to anthropogenic climate disruption. These things happen. I believe the ‘Cliff Dwellers’ of Colorado are supposed to have been forced out by the ‘great’ drought from 1276 to 1299.
Global Temperature Record – Phil Jones
http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/info/warming/
Colorado Early History – First Early Inhabitants of Colorado
http://www.e-referencedesk.com/resources/state-early-history/colorado.html
Blade says:
September 10, 2011 at 10:05 pm
Yeah, I was trying to short-form that stuff to get on to the meat of the matter, which was that the reasons I’d stopped believing in AGW had nothing to do with my feelings about “government solutions.”
Fact is, we used to have a very effective health plan in Ontario (OHIP) in which employees paid a certain (small) amount, the employer paid a certain (small) amount, and the government made up the rest (from taxes, of course). The plan covered all essentials, and could be boosted by extra payments from the individual. Nobody was left behind, and if anyone wanted more, they could get it by putting in some extra money. The plan didn’t cover “alternative” medicine (a term meaning “medicine that has not been proven to work).
And then we decided that it was wrong for employees to put any money into the system, and that the plan should include more and more therapies and medicines. Now we have a bloated, hugely expensive health plan that is constantly on the brink of teetering over.
Government solutions will always involve tax money — it’s just a matter of (1) is there too much tax money being taken from the working populace, (2) is the tax money being well-spent, and (3) is the government solution interfering with the people’s rights (such as making trans-fats illegal because they cause health problems and the government is paying the medical bills)?
That said, I still appreciate not having to worry about losing my apartment because my appendix decided to blow up. I just wish we could get back to the sensible method we previously had.
Andrew Harding says:
September 11, 2011 at 2:30 am
You sound like a good parent. I’d always had a tendency to question authority, even as a small child, but often felt that I was wrong in doing so. Then in grade 11 I had a teacher who made it a priority. At the beginning of the year he told us, “I’m going to lie to you three times this semester, and if any of those lies end up in an essay or exam it will mean double marks off.”
I think he is probably the teacher who had the greatest influence over me during my entire time in the public school system.
@Blade and @Andrew Harding
Oops. The Frank Lee posts are me. I’d logged into my other WordPress account and hadn’t noticed. (Actually, the mistake came in my original comments — I try not to post anything critical about climate change under my real name out of fear that it could turn against me in my work. Cowardly? Yes, but I do like bringing home a pay cheque — however feeble it may be at times.)
Observa:
Several times you use the adjective ‘lunar’, seemingly to designate ridiculous insanity,
although the word merely designates the physical Moon.
Actually, the word you should be using is ‘loonie’,
which aptly describes AGW (and for that matter, every other idea of the Left).
ENSO.
I suppose there are people afflicted with an obsessive compulsion to keep themselves and their environment clean and natural and thus they are very sensitive to claims that we are despoiling the Earth. As far as their own lives go, this obsession may even be beneficial.
Anyone who can read, can read the science. It’s another thing entirely to properly understand it, determine whether the science is valid, make coherent comments about it, and to come to the right conclusions.
I’d give Hugh the benefit of the doubt about whether he has read the science.
Werner Brozek says:
September 11, 2011 at 8:51 am
Thanks for clearing that up for me. Much appreciated. I must say I am glad that all views are allowed to be posted here. Many view Co2 as having some effect, which is a view I respect but disagree with.
Maybe more people should consider the Law of “it”
If it is settled it is not science.
If it is science it is not settled.
Therefore IPCC Climate Science is not Science it is HIWTYL BS.
HIWTYL…..Heads I Win Tails You Lose.
BS…………..Bureaucratic Science or what a bull makes.
And remember Dihydrogen Monoxide (Water) kills more people every year than Carbon Dioxide (Plant Food)
Some people who discount “Climate Science” don’t do that because they have read the science.
They do that because they have done the science themselves, correctly this time, and found “Climate Science” wanting.
I believed in AGW theory way back when I was busy with the family and job while getting inundated with the MSM’s brainwashing, even though i was feeling skeptical all the way, knowing that a percentage change in a gas that exists only as 0.038% of the atmosphere, cannot change the climate. Then, when Al Gore told me that my grandsons would not have a planet where to live on, it got me into getting into the science that I read at university and I discovered that AGW was all a big mistake at best, if not the greatest scam ever perpetrated.
My bottom line is: It’s people who do not read the science who mostly believe in AGW, Climate Change, CAGW, or whatever acronym the alarmists use from time to time. Those who read and understand the science are skeptical about it.
No. The fact that this is the hottest and driest summer in Texas’ 117-year climate record is totally irrelevant to Dessler’s assertions…
“On the other hand, we can say humans have increased the temperature of the base climate state pretty much everywhere”… If Dessler had bothered to look at the actual data, he might have noticed that Texas did not participate in the 20th century global warming…
Texas Temperatures 1885-2011
2011 blew away the previous summer high temperature record for Texas and will probably set an new record high annual average temperature – But there is no warming trend in the 117-yr long Texas temperature record. There no annual, summer or year-to-date trend. Nothing but red noise and the ENSO signal.
“We can’t say climate change is causing the extreme weather Texas is having right now. On the other hand, we can say humans have increased the temperature of the base climate state pretty much everywhere. And what that means is it makes the heat more extreme and increases evaporation from the soil. We can be confident we’ve made this hellish summer worse than it would have been.”
This is so weasely. How much worse? 5% worse? 5.0%? 5.00%? How many significant digits big D? Let’s see the math, how did you calculate the number?
Of course there are no answers to these questions, Dessler’s claim is just a form of lying with statistics, or rather lyinig by being incredibly vague.
David Middleton says:
September 12, 2011 at 6:44 am
The assertion is that there is an average temperature increase. There is provided models which correlate with the temperature stations and to a large degree other observations of natural weather formations so as to retain some identity of natural cycles. So that’s the math provided. Dessler then makes the logical assertion that given there is a new record temperature and heat waves that this is in line with the expectation. That there is no identifiable signal with pure math doesn’t negate that at least “something” is happening. If you believe that CO2 does cause a 1 deg C warming per doubling of CO2, then you believe that it is contributing. Whether its actionable, is something else entirely. I’m interested, do you give any credence at all to what is said, or do you believe it to be propaganda and deliberately misleading?
I think there’s no trend in the Texas data… Neither precipitation nor temperature data exhibit a trend for the State of Texas. Therefore, there is no reason to think that 2011 is anything other than a random outlier.
I don’t think that a doubling of pre-industrial CO2 will yield a 1°C increase in “the temperature of the base climate.” I think that the most accurate climate reconstructions (e.g. Moberg) support a climate sensitivity of no more than 0.5°C and I think that the plant stomata data clearly show that mankind is responsible for half (or less) of the rise in atmospheric CO2 since the late 1800’s. So, I think our anthropogenic CO2 emissions have increased the” temperature of the base climate” by about 0.125°C over the last 150 years and will probably increase it by another 0.125°C over the next 100 years. I don’t think that is enough of an anthropogenic effect to make a measureable difference… And when we hit the peak of the ~1,000-yr cycle somewhere around the end of this century, our puny real AGW effect will make the next Little Ice Age slightly (very slightly) more tolerable than the last Little Ice Age.
I don’t necessarily think that Dr. Dessler is being “deliberately misleading. I think he is “tunnel visioned” in on the current paradigm and to all other working hypotheses. I don’t think he bothered to check the data because his model was so righteous that it was inconceivable to him that it might be unsupported by the real data.
David Middleton says:
September 12, 2011 at 1:15 pm
Thankyou David, You have provided me with some reading to do for sure — Some interesting information and explained convincingly. It’s my misfortune that I’m in a quandary. I’ve been a skeptic for 10 years, but just recently I’ve been thinking that its possible I was fooled by bad science to derail the climate debate. Especially when it comes to practicality of alternative energy. I was given this paper by an alarmist and it has all sorts of high profile individuals attaching credibility to the paper, and it is positively gigantic to read — I haven’t read it yet. http://media.beyondzeroemissions.org/ZCA2020_Stationary_Energy_Synopsis_v1.pdf
That’s just for your interest, I’m not misdirecting the conversation. Thanks again for the thoughtful responses.
Fairly well thought out, but with a few caveats. 😉 ;p
Aside from spelling — cheaper energy is NOT the goal of the AGW crowd. They want pricier energy, and drastically reduced industrial society and population. They are prepared to sacrifice as many of us as necessary.