The WUWT Hot Sheet for Thursday August 15th, 2013

WUWT_hot_sheet2

Keith Olbermann: Current TV Co-Founder And Former VP Al Gore Was a ‘Clod’ – TVNewser

“When you’re working for somebody whom you admired politically, who turns out to be a clod,” says Olbermann, referring to Gore, “the scales fall from your eyes. Sorry. Al underdelivered. I mean that’s just simply the case. I don’t want to dwell on it, but it’s true.”

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Speaking of clods, Ahnold channels my own local California haranguer Sherri Quammen

Schwarzenegger got off some good gibes to win the crowd over.

Speaking of greenhouse gas deniers: “Strap some conservative-thinking people to a tailpipe for an hour and then they will agree it’s a pollutant!”

And naturally, there was this quip: “Use your Hummer, but have an electric engine.”

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/william-bradley/national-clean-energy-sum_b_3757805.html

Luboš Motl says it’s a gas chamber analogy: http://motls.blogspot.com/2013/08/arnold-schwarzenegger-orders-gas.html

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More heat than light? Climate catastrophe and the Hiroshima bomb

There has been some discussion on Twitter today (14 August) about the wisdom or otherwise of measuring the heat being retained by the Earth in terms of Hiroshima bombs. The analogy is presented by John Cook and Dana Nuccitelli on their Skeptical Science blog, drawing on an academic paper by Church et al to describe the heat retained as equivalent to four Hiroshima bombs per second.

I have no reason to doubt this. However, choosing the most effective metaphor involves more than simply finding an analogy that accurately conveys a specific energy equivalence.  The very purpose of a metaphor is to help make the incomprehensible familiar in order to make a point. Asking whether it is accurate or not is not enough.

More heat than light? Climate catastrophe and the Hiroshima bomb

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Another Paper Supports Svensmark’s Cosmic Ray Theory

Another Paper Supports Svensmark’s Cosmic Ray Theory

In recent weeks there has been even further developments in support of Svensmark’s Cosmic Ray Theory of cosmoclimatology. Via The Hockey Schtick is this article: …

http://climateobserver.blogspot.com/2013/04/another-paper-supports-svensmarks.html

h/t to Mark Bofill

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Mumble McGuirk says:

Well the American Meteorological Society has posted the slate of candidates for next President and Councilors:

http://www.ametsoc.org/elections/2013candidates.pdf

It may be a Hobson’s Choice, but I urge any AMS members to vote for .NOT. Heidi Cullen.

I don’t disagree. Cullen is not only an activist, but as we saw in her recent congressional testimony, not particularly cognizant. I’d vote for the Air Force guy. – Anthony

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Climate change may be speeding coast redwood, giant sequoia growth.

By Bettina Boxall

Per the article: Finally, some good news about the effects of climate change. It may have triggered a growth spurt in two of California’s iconic tree species: coast redwoods and giant sequoias.

Since the 1970s, some coast redwoods have grown at the fastest rate ever, according to scientists who studied corings from trees more than 1,000 years old.

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-redwoods-climate-20130814,0,3829911.story

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Paging Brad Johnson of ‘Forecast the Facts’. New peer-reviewed paper: “Our findings contradict the view that a warming world will automatically be one of more overall climatic variation.”

No increase in global temperature variability despite changing regional patterns : Nature : Nature Publishing Group

Evidence from Greenland ice cores shows that year-to-year temperature variability was probably higher in some past cold periods…Many climate models predict that total variability will ultimately decrease under high greenhouse gas concentrations, possibly associated with reductions in sea-ice cover. Our findings contradict the view that a warming world will automatically be one of more overall climatic variation.

h/t to Tom Nelson

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Die Klimazwiebel: Science for a good cause?

Imagine the following scenario. An atmospheric scientist makes a discovery that seems to challenge a particular model of sea level increase due to global warming. She expects her discovery will be refined through further research, and that, in the end, it will not refute the mainstream view. In the meantime, she wants to avoid giving ammunition to climate skeptics, so she postpones publication. But an ambitious postdoc surreptitiously informs the media about the discovery. The media accuse the scientist of a cover-up and report that key evidence for anthropogenic climate change has been refuted.

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The Editor, Richmond Times-Dispatch, August 15, 2013.

Sir,

Charles Battig did a great service to your readers by spreading truth about the now-collapsed climate scare. Michael Mann’s criticisms of him (August 5) were ill-founded. Attorney General Cuccinelli investigated Mr Mann under the Fraud Against Taxpayers Act 2000 because of what I shall delicately call the statistical peculiarities evident in Mr Mann’s “hockey stick” graph that had purported to abolish the medieval warm period and to show – falsely – that today’s quite normal global temperatures were unprecedented in 1300 years.

Mr Mann’s graph relied heavily upon the widths of tree-rings from bristlecone pines as a basis for estimating temperatures before we had thermometers, although these pines are unreliable proxies because the tree-rings widen not only when the weather is warmer but also when it is wetter and when there is more CO2 in the air. That kinda musses things up.

According to real scientists, the graph also gave extreme weighting to datasets that showed unusual 20th-century warming at the expense of those that did not. And the program that Mr Mann created to draw the graph would have shown the 20th century as unusually warm even if random red noise rather than real-world data were fed in. There were numerous other statistical curiosities. Mr Mann’s graph is perhaps the most laughable and widely-discredited object in the history of bad science supporting worse politics.

Most learned papers based on real-world data show that the medieval warm period was real, global, and warmer than the present. A spate of papers by computer modelers apparently confirming Mr Mann’s contrarian conclusion appeared with interesting suddenness after his paper was scientifically discredited. Many of the authors, according to an independent statistical report for the House Energy & Commerce Committee in 2006, were linked to Mr Mann by previous co-authorship. Hmmm.

Mr Battig did not criticize Mr Mann for his bad personality, though Mr Mann’s characteristically malevolent description of his opponents as “deniers” and “denialists” several times in his letter of reply would be illegal in Europe as being anti-Jewish, racialist hate-speech disrespectful of Holocaust victims. Certainly no real scientist would use such language. Mr Battig criticized Mr Mann for his flagrantly bad science, not his flagrantly bad manners. Science is not about personalities. It is about seeking truth. Mr Mann’s graph was not true. It was not science. It deserved criticism. It got it.

Besides, according to the satellites, notwithstanding record increases in CO2 concentration there has been no global warming at all for 16 years 8 months – and counting. That is 200 months without so much as a flicker of global warming. The game is up and the scare is over.

Yours faithfully,

Monckton of Brenchley

http://sppiblog.org/news/monckton-to-mann-forget-personalities-science-is-about-truth

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Editor
August 15, 2013 12:25 am

re: Another Paper Supports Svensmark’s Cosmic Ray Theory: I don’t think it does, other than by finding evidence of an 11-year cycle. When it says the cycles “ suggest a global mechanism probably related to a solar magnetic shielding effect acting on galactic cosmic rays as an explanation for the relationship of thunderstorm and solar activity” it has entered the realm of pure conjecture because AFAICS from the abstract the study itself did not investigate in any way the solar parameters or GCRs. To my mind, it is roughly equivalent to saying that the findings are “consistent with” GCR theory – and we all know how valuable (or not) such arguments can be.

August 15, 2013 12:36 am

You only have watch An Inconvenient Truth to see Gore is a complete moron. Unfortunately, with the ever declining education standards, the moron to moron market is large and growing.

August 15, 2013 12:47 am

Die Klimazwiebel: Science for a good cause?
Very important blog post, this one. If physical evidence is suppressed because it doesn’t support the dominant theory then science cannot progress and it just becomes dogma.
Sadly, the one commenter there doesn’t realise that the scenario is based on real events (Hide the Decline as revealed by Climategate) and thinks that sceptics are making it all up.
Or, at least, he talks as though he doesn’t realise that the scenario is based on real events.

wickerman
August 15, 2013 12:48 am

On Hiroshima bombs….
It is instructive to measure things like the UKs daily consumption of electricity in Hiroshima Bombs.
It is broadly, on average ,about 30GW x 24h = 720GWh
That comes out for crude purposes to 600 Kilotons of atomic bang. Hiroshima is reckoned to have been at most 20 kilotons TNT equivalent.
So Britain consumes the equivalent of 30 Hiroshima bangs of energy every day. JUST as electricity.
Now think about enough electrical energy storage to take Britain through a cold 6 weeks of no wind and no winter sun..and how MUCH energy that would be locked up somewhere…and what would happen if it all let go at once.
And remind the renewable fraternity of those figures.

August 15, 2013 1:02 am

Heeheehee – Lord Christopher Monckton sure shines. I love reading his words. And he’s right! 🙂

Mike McMillan
August 15, 2013 1:10 am

Speaking of greenhouse gas deniers: “Strap some conservative-thinking people to a tailpipe for an hour and then they will agree it’s a pollutant!”
Carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, and easy mixup for an Austrian immigrant body builder. Luboš Motl has the right take on the subject. Fits right in with the ‘denier’ label.
Someone once said he admired the Austrians, for they had convinced the world that Beethoven was Austrian and that Hitler was German.
I recall the chillingly quiet Kenneth Branagh film “Conspiracy,” which was about a meeting of the NSDAP where they were deciding details of the final solution. A report was given at the meeting that said carbon monoxide was effective, but unfortunately it left everyone colored pink.

pat
August 15, 2013 1:12 am

Al’s old buddy:
14 Aug: NYT: NICHOLAS CONFESSORE/AMY CHOZICK: Unease at Clinton Foundation Over Finances and Ambitions
On one occasion, Mr. Magaziner dispatched a team of employees to fly around the world for months gathering ideas for a climate change proposal that never got off the ground. Another time, he ignored a report — which was commissioned at significant expense from the consulting firm McKinsey & Company — on how the foundation could get involved in forestry initiatives…
In March 2012, David Crane, the chief executive of NRG, an energy company, led a widely publicized trip with Mr. Clinton to Haiti, where they toured green energy and solar power projects that NRG finances through a $1 million commitment to the Clinton Global Initiative…
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/14/us/politics/unease-at-clinton-foundation-over-finances-and-ambitions.html?pagewanted=1&_r=0
14 Aug: UK Telegraph: Tim Stanley: The New York Times takes down the Clinton Foundation. This could be devastating for Bill and Hillary
It’s nothing new to report that there’s an unhealthy relationship in America between money and politics, but it’s there all the same. While the little people are getting hit with Obamacare, high taxes and joblessness, a class of businessmen enjoys ready access to politicians of both Left and Right that poses troubling questions for how the republic can continue to call itself a democracy so long as it functions as an aristocracy of the monied…
The reality is that this is a man who – in May 1993 – prevented other planes from landing at LAX for 90 minues while he got a haircut from a Beverley Hills hairdresser aboard Air Force One. The Clintons are populists in the same way that Barack Obama is a Nobel prize winner. Oh, wait…
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/timstanley/100231113/the-new-york-times-takes-down-the-clinton-foundation-this-could-be-devastating-for-bill-and-hillary/

rogerknights
August 15, 2013 1:13 am

Speaking of clods, Ahnold channels my own local California haranguer Sherri Quammen

Schwarzenegger got off some good gibes to win the crowd over.
Speaking of greenhouse gas deniers: “Strap some conservative-thinking people to a tailpipe for an hour and then they will agree it’s a pollutant!”

Or put Arnold in a nuclear sub for three months, harmlessly breathing CO2 levels three times higher than 350. (That’s the relevant analogy, because car exhaust contains toxins in addition to CO2, and a toxic level of CO2 as well.)

Robin Hewitt
August 15, 2013 3:42 am

I have never worked in Hiroshima bombs, but somewhere I have got the notion that there is a rough energy equivalence between 1 kWh, one standard scuba cylinder and one pound of Semtex. It maybe completely wrong but I find it strangely useful when arranging things in my head.

Doug Huffman
August 15, 2013 4:07 am

Robin Hewitt says: August 15, 2013 at 3:42 am “… I have got the notion that there is a rough energy equivalence between 1 kWh, one standard scuba cylinder and one pound of Semtex.”
Semtex’s energetic component PETN’s Explosion energy: 5810 kJ/kg (1390 kcal/kg), so 1 kg of PETN has the energy of 1.24 kg TNT
1 kWh = 3.6 x 10^6 J by definition
Scuba tank, 12 Liters at 230 Bar is 1242 KJoules ~300 Grams TNT

Bob
August 15, 2013 4:07 am

re: Al Gore is a Clod
And how much money has the flim flam made pushing this global warming schtick? The clod has been darned successful. Professor Guy Owens must have had big Al in mind when he wrote the Ballad of the Flim Flam Man.

Txomin
August 15, 2013 4:13 am

Monckton delivers.

Gary Pearse
August 15, 2013 4:15 am

“Our findings contradict the view that a warming world will automatically be one of more overall climatic variation.”
Now, after WUWT and other skeptics have been presenting the issue of reduced tornadoes, hurricanes, droughts, fires for years….. some guys jump up with their E=mc^2 moment. Ya know in the coming months and years, they’ll be wowing the world with “new” findings that things are not worse than we thought and the grants will just keep coming in. “Hey, CO2 has benefits is what we found in our models” and “You don’t have to wear a snorkel to live in Vanuatu or Mauritius”, or “things might get cooler before they get warmer and our models say warmer has been kinder to humans and animals than colder” . I think it’s time that e-articles and blogs were broadly cited. Why must the words have to have come out of the blacksmith Johannes Gensfleisch zur Laden zum Gutenberg’s old technology? Even when they come around they will still be worse frauds than we thought.

Robin Hewitt
August 15, 2013 4:39 am

Doug Huffman says: Scuba tank, 12 Liters at 230 Bar is 1242 KJoules
Did you get that off my brother’s scuba site? I only ask because it would amuse him.

Doug Huffman
August 15, 2013 4:39 am

The diversion into energy equivalents illustrates the tautology of a true statement, and how little information is conveyed by a tautology and its verification. Its hypothetical falsification is a swan of a different color.

August 15, 2013 4:42 am

I feel honored that Lord Monckton would grace my own local paper with his wisdom. But fear he is titling at windmills since it is a renowned rag that is not even worthy of the bottom of a bird cage.
Never the less, thank you Lord Monckton for putting the series of letters to the editor in proper perspective, and bringing truth to my small corner of the globe.

Doug Huffman
August 15, 2013 4:51 am

Robin Hewitt says: August 15, 2013 at 4:39 am “Did you get that off my brother’s scuba site? I only ask because it would amuse him.”
I verified my faint recollection at http://biobug.org/scuba/scubatank/
In my career I yield tested large air bottles on submarines by pressurizing them to rated pressure with calibrated water volume and ensuring a linear stress/strain = change in pressure/change in volume. As I recall, the stresses were on the order of 10K psi.
In one instance the ship was at environmental temperature – full of holes with a freezing wind blowing through it. I refused to test without assurance that the bottles were above Reference Transition Temperature from elastic to brittle fracture. I delayed until I was ordered to test.

kevinm
August 15, 2013 5:27 am

I was upset that An Inconvenient Truth was pushed on elementary school kids when it came out. But if it had not been so, and the film were allowed to pass quietly, they would have missed what my liberal friends call “a teachable moment”. I hate that turn of phrase, but it perfectly captures what becomes more obvious daily. Don’t pin your credibility to a bad guess with long odds.

Gail Combs
August 15, 2013 5:35 am

rogerknights says:
August 15, 2013 at 1:13 am
…..Or put Arnold in a nuclear sub for three months, harmlessly breathing CO2 levels three times higher than 350. (That’s the relevant analogy, because car exhaust contains toxins in addition to CO2, and a toxic level of CO2 as well.)
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Actually it is the Carbon MONOXIDE that is the killer in car exhaust. The Author of the Huff n Puff article is trying to say it was a joke.

Don’t be disingenuous.
One is a joke in passing. The other is not a joke but a cheap attempt to call somebody — actually, a whole lot of somebodies — a Nazi.
…….
What has escaped your attention is that it’s a joke.

cba
August 15, 2013 5:50 am

Anthony,
You can keep your ahnold. A few years ago I saw some boring 1970s documentary on body builders that featured a very young ahnold, a struggling body builder immigrant who shared his life long dreams of his future. These included moving to America, becoming famous and wealthy along with marrying a kennedy and becoming president. Check, check, check, check, ??? (to be determined). he is obviously goal oriented and very ambitious but the plan part about marrying into a particular political klan is more than a little bit over the top.

MattN
August 15, 2013 5:51 am

I just LOVE IT when people who allegedly “know the science” don’t know the difference between cabon DIoxide and carbon MONoxide. Makes me giggle uncontrollably.

lurker, passing through laughing
August 15, 2013 5:53 am

Arnold who? And for the verbal knives getting turned on Gore by his own- never get in the way of one’s opponents attacking each other.

Robin Hewitt
August 15, 2013 5:55 am

Doug Huffman says: I verified my faint recollection at http://biobug.org/scuba/scubatank/
Yes, that’s him, you’ll find his name at the end of the calculation. I didn’t think that anyone else on the planet actually cared what energy was stored in a scuba tank. I found it strangely useful for robotics because you can save a lot of energy with very little weight, but I don’t explain things very well, I have a mild autism, gets me in to trouble.

eyesonu
August 15, 2013 5:55 am

Monckton makes a mockery of Mann’s hot hockey stick.
Mann it burns. One can just feel the heat.

Gail Combs
August 15, 2013 6:02 am

MattN says:
August 15, 2013 at 5:51 am
I just LOVE IT when people who allegedly “know the science” don’t know the difference between carbon DIoxide and carbon MONoxide. Makes me giggle uncontrollably.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
YUP,
(Crystalline) CARBON is a girl’s best friend and carbon DIOXIDE is a tree’s best friend.
The ‘Contains no Chemicals’ Label on items also has me run screaming.

SJWhiteley
August 15, 2013 6:07 am

With regards to equivalencies, I wrote a letter to the local paper admonishing the outrageous statements that an offshore wind farm could easily double the energy requirement for South Carolina. I used the equivalency of a typical household energy consumption with AA batteries (I think it was several million a month).
A Clemson University bod (graduate?professor?postgrad? not sure, but they were involved in wind farm studies and advocacy) was a bit miffed at such a ‘ludicrous’ statement. The irony amused me for several months and does so to this day.

wws
August 15, 2013 6:12 am

I tried to figure out how much energy was released due to the end products of eating one of my favorite local burrito’s, and I think if I totaled those effects up over the course of an average lifetime, the total energy released would be roughly the equivalent of the Hiroshima bomb.
WELL THAT’S WHAT MY WIFE SAID!

Greg
August 15, 2013 6:16 am

Tie Schwartzenegger to a tail pipe for an hour and maybe he’ll understand the difference between TOXIC carbon monoixde and harmless CO2.

restlessoutlaw
August 15, 2013 6:24 am

Didn’t know we thought CO wasn’t dangerous.
At this rate, I’ll never keep up with what I supposedly believe. :/

eyesonu
August 15, 2013 6:31 am

Thanks to all commenters above with regards to scuba tanks. In the past I have been rather haphazard with regards to pressurized vessels. I may have been lucky back in the 1980’s scuba diving forays using outdated tanks/inspections
That freon tank I have been using for portable air will be retired today..

Justa Joe
August 15, 2013 6:31 am

I’m glad Arnie distinguished himself from conservative-thinking people.

DirkH
August 15, 2013 6:35 am

Mike McMillan says:
August 15, 2013 at 1:10 am
“Someone once said he admired the Austrians, for they had convinced the world that Beethoven was Austrian and that Hitler was German.”
To their honour, von Mises WAS an Austrian and Karl Marx WAS a German.

MarkW
August 15, 2013 6:43 am

Looks like Arnie doesn’t understand that concentration makes the poison.
I could repeat his example by comparing being in a room with humid air, vs. being underwater.

Doug Huffman
August 15, 2013 6:44 am

My guess is that most technically minded males fall on the Autist spectrum. Now-a-days we’re politically correct to correlate IQ.

Gail Combs
August 15, 2013 6:45 am

Justa Joe says:
August 15, 2013 at 6:31 am
I’m glad Arnie distinguished himself from conservative-thinking people.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>..
Yes and the Huff n’ Puff made it very clear they are only interested in being an echo chamber.
4 comments and only the last one pointing out Bush got Maurice Strong the Chairmanship at Kyoto made it through. (Normally my comments are even handed and factual enough to pass monitoring.)
Guess William Bradley, the author, didn’t like it pointed out that the Nazi comparison started with ‘Deniers’ and the comment politicians should not make ‘Jokes’ about killing the rank and file of the ‘Opposition’

Doug Huffman
August 15, 2013 6:45 am

That should, of course, include a big NOT!

Gail Combs
August 15, 2013 6:52 am

eyesonu says:
August 15, 2013 at 6:31 am
Thanks to all commenters above with regards to scuba tanks….
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
I jump all over stores who do not have their helium tanks properly secured to a wall. (I have see what a tank can do when it blows)

Dr. Lurtz
August 15, 2013 6:53 am

“restlessoutlaw says:
August 15, 2013 at 6:24 am
Didn’t know we thought CO wasn’t dangerous.
At this rate, I’ll never keep up with what I supposedly believe. :/”
Because of the AGW scam, I was forced to reevaluate everything that I was taught. Since history is written by the winners, and even written in stone can be altered [note the Egyptian removal/overwriting of the stone hieroglyphs], I found it was easier to assume everything that I was taught was WRONG. I was forced to research and relearn everything about history, science, medicine, foods, etc.
My latest analysis is simple: it is easier to start over than to try to make sense of the chaos.
One more example, for at least 40 years the astronomers/physicists have suppressed that fact the galaxies don’t have enough mass for the observed rotational speed of the spiral arms. There is a conflict between Newton’s Law of Gravity and reality. They don’t know the answer, but we now have “dark mass/dark energy”.
One must learn enough to find his/her own truth! And, I suppose, make a consensus and vote for what is “true”. Curiously, the internet has made the “secret cover-ups” open information; without it, we would all be in the dark.

Pamela Gray
August 15, 2013 7:15 am

I respond to Philip Bradley, re “declining education standards”:
I think not. The new Common Core State Standards are far from being a decline in standards. They are a reversal of declining standards. So too are the many states who have changed from a seat-time high school diploma to a tested-out high school diploma. Yes there are some loopholes in the diploma change, but the CCSS are very rigorous and require a demanding and sustained performance of those standards. Many elementary teachers will have to up their game in the classroom setting, adopting methods of teaching that are no where near the set-n-get of yesterday’s classroom. They (as well as administrators who are currently insisting on fidelity to curriculum protocols) will also eventually come to the understanding that the scripted recipe approach found in old and new curriculum will not suffice to get these students to a passing level under the new standards.
I for one, am excited about these new standards. As written, they could result in students who are able to observe an every-day condition, describe a problem, develop its parameters and missing links, persevere to close the missing link gaps, and solve the problem in several ways. A process that could take days to complete. And this is at the elementary level folks! That is a sea-change from the current kind of (yawn) problem solving tasks students are given on a 30-minute end-of-chapter test.
So please, before we follow the crowd and ascribe every ill of the global warming scare to “declining education standards”, take a look at what is actually happening in education. Me thinks the scare has way more to do with adults wanting cold hard cash and power, than it is due to being stupid.

Rick Mitchell
August 15, 2013 7:18 am

Keith Olbermann complaining that someone underdelivered is like the Pope complaining someone is too Catholic.

August 15, 2013 7:19 am

Gail Combs says:
August 15, 2013 at 6:02 am
“The ‘Contains no Chemicals’ Label on items also has me run screaming.”
Too funny! What exactly are you selling me? A vacume?

Richard M
August 15, 2013 7:22 am

Maybe we should suggest Arne’s head be stuffed into a bucket of water for an hour and see how he likes it. Based on his silly analogy that must mean H2O is a dangerous element and should be banned by governments around the world.

Pamela Gray
August 15, 2013 7:27 am

This will separate the idiots from thinking people. During a panic attack when rapid breathing results in lack of oxygen, what does one do to bring the respiratory system back into balance? Give more oxygen or give more CO2?

Reply to  Pamela Gray
August 15, 2013 8:18 am

@Pamela – the correct answer is give more Co2 (hence why they have you breathe into a paper bag). Which sounds counter intuitive, so I have to ask how that separates people? Unless you know, the logical response would be to give more oxygen to someone who is oxygen starved.

Latitude
August 15, 2013 7:35 am

Per the article: Finally, some good news about the effects of climate change. It may have triggered a growth spurt in two of California’s iconic tree species: coast redwoods and giant sequoias.
=====
News Flash…..in spite of overwhelming evidence to the contrary…….global warming believers insist that CO2 is a poison and 250-280 ppm is “normal”

John R T
August 15, 2013 7:43 am

philjourdan says:
August 15, 2013 at 4:42 am
Two OT:
Bart Hinkle and I have exchanged emails re climate change. [He is on RT-D editorial staff.] I, also, am glad to see my hometown paper accept Monckton’s thoughts.
I clicked on your name: check with WordPress – your blog may be up for sale.
Warmest regards, from 2020 carbon-neutral Costa Rica, John

Reply to  John R T
August 15, 2013 8:22 am

R T
Thanks for the information. But my blog is over at a place called joeuser.com. I guess I should watch what the automatic entries are when I post. I will have to change that.

kadaka (KD Knoebel)
August 15, 2013 7:51 am

Except, it’s much harder nowadays to get killed by carbon monoxide in auto exhaust. Note the date:

Health Check: Why suicide rates in men are dropping
Jeremy Laurance | Tuesday 10 November 1998
(…) A 26-year-old man had written a suicide note and sat for an hour in his car with a hosepipe funnelling the exhaust fumes into the passenger compartment. He failed to end it all because his car was fitted with a catalytic converter. Apparently unaware of this technological advance in pollution control, he was rescued and taken to the accident and emergency department of the Royal London Hospital, where he made a complete recovery.
In a second case, a 43-year-old man recovered after five hours of breathing in exhaust fumes in a car fitted with a converter. Carbon monoxide poisoning normally causes loss of consciousness within a few minutes, and death within half an hour, but catalytic converters cut emissions by 90 per cent. In this case, the carbon monoxide level in the man’s blood was only just above the level that would be normal for an urban smoker.

I will freely assume subsequent efficiency improvements, resulting in less partially burned fuel, have likely reduced CO emissions even further.
But while those most likely to be quickly rehabilitated back to hardworking taxpayer status are being saved, the other end is also being attended to. This popped up as a “Related article”:

Carbon monoxide poisoning deaths treble in a year
By Tim Moynihan | Tuesday 11 October 2011
Deaths from carbon monoxide (CO) poisoning have trebled in the last year, according to a report published today.
In the 12-month period to June 30, there were 50 recorded incidents involving CO poisoning in the UK, the Gas Safety Trust said.
Of the 105 people involved, there were 25 fatalities and 80 injuries without fatal consequences – more than three times as many as the seven deaths reported in 2010, the Trust said.

As is usually the case, the highest numbers of incidents were experienced between November and February (58% of total incidents). However, there were also cases in the summer when camping equipment and fires are used more.
The Trust warned that the real figures could actually be much higher.

Costs of safer energy have soared, and with less funds available there is naturally less preventative maintenance of heating equipment, burners and chimneys cleaned less often, etc. Fireplaces are used, for the first time in decades, with no money available for an expert to check them first. In summer, people may be cooking with a charcoal grill, in the attached garage, with the doors closed as it’s raining, etc.
Of course people that poor must be getting some sort of government assistance. They’re taking from, not willfully donating to, the general welfare through their democratic government. So, eh, who cares?

RockyRoad
August 15, 2013 7:58 am

Monckton mocks and rocks!
Mann?–not so much.

Craig
August 15, 2013 8:12 am

If you admire Al Gore for anything other than being a charlatan, eventual disappointment seems rather certain.

JEM
August 15, 2013 8:15 am

Is Arnold really that stupid?
Was his support and advocacy for the authoritarian social-engineering exercise known as AB32 and other climate-nonsense based on his inability to comprehend the difference between CO and CO2?
Or is this a ‘let them eat cake’ sort of remark from a guy who’s given up any pretense at intellectual honesty and will tell any crowd he’s facing what they want to hear?
Either way, it’s just embarrassing.

Anthony Scalzi
August 15, 2013 8:16 am

Regarding the Redwoods and Sequoias article, I did find it amusing that the researchers considered everything EXCEPT the direct CO2 fertilization effect.

August 15, 2013 8:17 am

Couple of comments. First, we should start a petition on Huff to make it illegal for any entity to emit more than 30,000 ppm of the poisonous gas carbon dioxide, and to classify any attempt to force someone to breath over 30,000 ppm of the gas as attempted murder. Let’s see how many people are sufficiently ignorant as to make breathing illegal (we exhale 40,000 – 50,0000 ppm CO2), and to charge anyone giving CPR with attempted murder. Now that would be fun to see.
Secondly, we really need to do more tweaking of the models wrt climate sensitivity. Clearly, we have underestimated how sensitive the climate is to the Gore effect. Here it is, the midde of August, and today’s high temperature in Atlanta, yes the Deep South Atlanta, is expected to be 72 degrees F. We need to reduce his emissions before we have a run-away ice age. The future of Mankind is at stake!

John R T
August 15, 2013 8:19 am

Up-date on RT-D / Monckton:
“Hi, John – I dunno when Monckton’s letter will run. We paste up Letters a couple days in advance, to leave the copy desk free to work on late-breaking box scores, etc. right before presstime.
A. Barton Hinkle
Editorial Department
Richmond Times-Dispatch
300 E. Franklin St., Richmond, VA 23219
PO Box 85333, Richmond, VA 23293
Office phone: 804.649.6627
bhinkle@timesdispatch.com
Twitter: @ABartonHinkle”

August 15, 2013 8:20 am

Correction: 40,000 – 50,000 obviously. Still learning how to ‘type’ on an iPad.

FrankK
August 15, 2013 8:55 am

Arny lets face it your just a big “PARDY POOPER”.

eyesonu
August 15, 2013 9:01 am

John R T says:
August 15, 2013 at 8:19 am
=================
John,
Thank you for the update/heads up.

August 15, 2013 9:54 am

I would say Kieth Olberman resents Al Gore becouse Gore is not enough of a zealot on CAGW.
This says more about Olby than it does Al.

mwhite
August 15, 2013 10:47 am

“Speaking of greenhouse gas deniers: “Strap some conservative-thinking people to a tailpipe for an hour and then they will agree it’s a pollutant!””
Speaking of WATER: “Strap some conservative-thinking people to THE BOTTOM OF A SWIMMING POOL for an hour and then they will agree it’s a pollutant!”

Gail Combs
August 15, 2013 10:51 am

Pamela Gray says:
August 15, 2013 at 7:27 am
This will separate the idiots from thinking people. During a panic attack when rapid breathing results in lack of oxygen, what does one do to bring the respiratory system back into balance? Give more oxygen or give more CO2?
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Since no one else answered I will. The recommendation is (was?) to breath into a paper bag if you start hyperventilating to increase your CO2 levels. Mom had the problem after University of Rochester fried her with radiation as part of the US human radiation exposure experiments 40 – 50 years ago. (Direct exposure mess-up her brain)

kadaka (KD Knoebel)
August 15, 2013 10:53 am

From Pamela Gray on August 15, 2013 at 7:15 am:

(…) The new Common Core State Standards are far from being a decline in standards. They are a reversal of declining standards. (…)

I for one, am excited about these new standards. As written, they could result in students who are able to observe an every-day condition, describe a problem, develop its parameters and missing links, persevere to close the missing link gaps, and solve the problem in several ways. (…)

Others are also very excited about CCSS. Bold beyond title added:

Climate Change and Why We Need Common Core State Standards
Posted on August 8, 2013
Why do we need the Common Core Standards for Literacy? Simple. Because our global community requires citizens who will be able to make decisions based on research and data, not on sound bites and opinions from various special interest groups and political circles. Pulling from the Common Core Instructional Shifts, we desperately need to develop students’ capacity to write from various sources and use text-based evidence to support opinions. (…)

Wow, who do you believe, Rep King or the American Geophysical Union, and how do you take a position? According to the Common Core Instructional Shifts, you look for the evidence to support whichever position you prefer to take. In the two articles quoted above, one could argue there isn’t enough information to make a position, and that’s a lukewarm, possibly fair statement. However, when applying the Common Core Instructional Shifts to the climate change scenario, students would be required to go beyond the news to the data. They’d need to access unbiased, valid, and reliable studies that present the facts and not the opinions so often expressed through the media. As many people know, in the case of climate change, there is unequivocal evidence that the earth’s climate is warming up, and primarily due to anthropogenic forces. In fact, just yesterday NOAA released their State of the Climate in 2012 report which details how rapidly our climate is changing. Regardless of one’s own opinion, we must have individuals who regularly use facts to support their points.

Per CCSS, you look for evidence to support the position you prefer to take? What happened to science and logic being about the unbiased examination of the evidence, preferably ALL the evidence? Per CCSS, if a student prefers to believe pink unicorns are prettier, they should seek out the evidence that confirms their belief, not that which could falsify their position, such as the vast reams of published reports proving pale blue unicorns ranked highest.
BTW, it was noted here on WUWT how the “just released” totally shocking “State of the Climate 2012” report was actually a compilation of re-issued stuff, that individually were discussed, discounted, and/or debunked. The writer of that piece should have better info. But as CCSS promotes looking for evidence supporting your preferred position, he most likely didn’t see that on WUWT.
From the Albuquerque Public Schools, Power Point Presentation in pdf packaging:
http://www.aps.edu/academics/common-core-state-standards/documents/CGCS%20and%20Diversity.pdf
Transcribed from slide 45:

We still have time for a few short clips to show how teachers have made it work for students.

In the second, you will see a middle school class working on a social studies unit on the changes that global warming had on the food supply and life in many parts of the world, and the role human activities play in creating those changes.

Somehow I don’t think they’ll be learning about the general increase in food crops from the increased atmospheric CO₂.
Yup, many people are eagerly awaiting CCSS, when they can clearly lead the students into supporting the scientific consensus, the position the teachers prefer thus so should the students, and they can teach how to weed out the obviously-unscientific internet chaff that disagrees with the consensus. Fun times ahead for the little kiddies.

August 15, 2013 11:21 am

Does anyone have a link to the Monckton letter at the Richmond Times-Dispatch, http://www.timesdispatch.com, website?

John R T
Reply to  Jabba Le Chat (@JabbaLeChat)
August 15, 2013 2:03 pm

August 15, 2013 at 8:19 am —–
Bart Hinkle, RT-D editorial dept, noted above:
Uncertain when Monckton’s letter will run.

August 15, 2013 12:13 pm

Pamela Gray, I can’t speak to the US educational system.
But there is good evidence that basic scientific knowledge is in steep decline among the young.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jul/17/australians-scientific-facts-knowledge-report

PaulH
August 15, 2013 1:52 pm

For a clod, Al Gore has managed to turn himself into a multimillionaire via the CAGW scheme. That counts for something, I guess.
/snark

Tom Harley
August 15, 2013 4:17 pm
kim
August 16, 2013 4:09 am

Perhaps PG prefers to believe that there is a lack of oxygen in panic hyperventilation.
===========

kim
August 16, 2013 4:11 am

There’s a nice metaphor in there somewhere about panic and CAGW and Common Core, but I’m undereducated and can’t find it.
===================

kim
August 16, 2013 4:30 am

Conan, the Barbarian. What is the best thing in life? Why gassing conservatives, who needs to ask?
===============

milodonharlani
August 21, 2013 10:41 am

Latest Quinnipiac poll has Mann-backing McAuliffe up by six points, 48 to 42%, in VA guv’s race vs. Cuccinelli:
http://www.quinnipiac.edu/institutes-and-centers/polling-institute/virginia/release-detail?ReleaseID=1939