The answer to your question is in your article.
Guest opinion by David Hoffer
Carol, in your recent CNN opinion piece, the headline was “Why are we still debating climate change?”. The very first statement in the article that followed was “There is no debate”.
The answer to your question is actually right in your own article. I’ll get to that in a bit, please bear with me. I wanted to touch on your claim that there is no debate first. I’d like you to consider the following statement, which I provide with no intent of malice whatsoever, only as a means of making a point.
Carol Costello is stupid. There is no debate.
Now what would you think if you saw this in print, followed by a long explanation as to what is wrong with people who don’t agree, and a refusal to examine any facts related to the accusation? I imagine you’d be miffed. I imagine also that any examination of the facts would prove me wrong, I seriously doubt that such a statement would stand up to any fair debate of the matter. Which brings me to a question Carol:
If the facts supporting Climate Change are so obvious, should not debating the facts of the matter strengthen those facts? Just as you would be eager to prove that you are not, in fact, stupid, should you not be equally as eager to prove your opinion by engaging in factual debate?
While you ponder that, and keeping in mind that I did say the answer to your question is in your article and I would get to that, let’s examine the only fact upon which your argument rests, which is that there is a consensus among 97% of scientists. Well Carol, I read that study. Did you? I’m guessing not.
Carol, that study was done by Margaret Zimerman, who sent the survey to 10,257 Earth Scientists. Of those, 3,146 responded. Of those, Ms. Zimmerman excluded all but 77. That fact alone should have your journalistic instincts on high alert. But it gets worse. The two questions which lead to the 97% finding were:
Q1: “When compared with pre-1800s levels, do you think that mean global temperatures have generally risen, fallen, or remained relatively constant?” 76 of 79 (96.2%) answered “risen.”
Q2: “Do you think human activity is a significant contributing factor in changing mean global temperatures?” 75 of 77 (97.4%) answered “yes.”
The problem here Carol is that they should have gotten 100% to both questions. The earth has been warming since the Little Ice Age which was 400 years ago. So obviously the answer to the first question would be “risen” even if human influence was zero. As for the second question, you may be surprised to learn that all but a tiny fraction of skeptics agree that rising temperatures are, in part, due to human activity. You see Carol, the debate about climate change is not a simple matter of “yes” or “no”. It is much more nuanced than that. There are questions relating to order of magnitude of change, endangerment related to any change that does occur, and in regard to strategies of mitigation versus adaptation. That study did nothing to determine consensus opinion on any of the central matters of the climate debate. It is not only contrived, but nearly meaningless. But I digress.
You go on to quote studies categorizing the population. I said I’d show you the answer to your headline question in your own article. Well, here it is. Your article goes on to quote results from Anthony Leiserowitz, who categorizes the population as follows:
- Alarmed (16%)
- Concerned (27%)
- Cautious (23%)
- Disengaged (5%)
- Doubtful (12%)
- Dismissive (15%)
Well that hardly seems like a consensus. In fact you go on to claim that the Dismissives are a powerful, well funded, well organized lobby group who are muddying the debate. Well Carol, if the facts are so powerfully on one side of the debate, why begin your opinion piece by categorically insisting that there is no debate? If there is no debate, how is it that only 16% of the citizenry are alarmed? Why, by the definitions in your own article, do 82% of the people think that climate change is something that won’t, for various reasons, have a direct effect on their lives?
But most importantly Carol, if you want to change their minds, would not an open and honest debate of the facts be your most powerful weapon? Are you going to let me accuse you of being stupid, or would you like to prove me wrong?
Lastly Carol, you sum up your article on this statement:
“The good news is, those uninformed minority voices are being quieted by nature and by those who have powerful voices.”
Well Carol, on that second point, I will allow that you are correct. Powerful voices (like yours) are eager to stifle the debate. Oddly, your own article points out the importance of having one if you want the facts as you see them to prevail. Will you use your powerful voice to that end? Or shall we call you stupid, insist there is no debating the matter, and call it a day?
But more importantly Carol, the first part of your statement is wrong. It is a simple matter to see that when one looks at the data, all the predictions of the “consensus” science have failed. Arctic ice retreat has stopped, and Antarctic ice has hit record levels. On a global basis, hurricanes and tornadoes have declined in both frequency and severity. According to the temperature records kept by the “consensus” scientist themselves, the earth hasn’t warmed in close to two decades, despite ever rising levels of CO2. Nature in fact is taking sides in this debate, and not the side you seem to think.
Even the United Nations IPCC, which is consensus climate science central for the world, now admits in their recent report (IPCC AR5) that the climate models themselves are wrong. It is their expert opinion that sensitivity to CO2 lies well below the model estimates. What are the models based upon Carol, if not the science? And if the best scientists in the world, in their capacity as advisors to the United Nations and world governments alike, are collectively stating that the models and the science the models are built on are in doubt, does that not deserve public debate?
Even among the “consensus” scientists themselves Carol, there is now considerable doubt about the science. Does that not give you pause to reconsider your position?
I will take odds she does not reconsider her position!
Hoff, well constructed letter. The New York Times ought to publish it. Oh, wait a minute…
The merchants of ‘debate is over’ are not rationalists. They are authoritarians. They appeal to the authority of specious arguments, and demand you accept them.
How many fingers am I holding up Ms Costello?
That’s right.
Two.
It’s obvious the climate is changing. Plant growth is up, hurricanes & tornadoes are down, fewer people will die of cold. What’s not to like?
We’ve had Global Cooling, Global Warming and now Climate Change. I suggest we call it ‘Climate Improvement’ and stop trying to prevent it.
An excellent, clear, concise and polite piece, Mr Hoffer. I only wish there was some way to get such clarity a wider audience in the MSM. Many thanks!
The answer to the last question is simply: no.
Not because she is stupid, but because she is a coward. Answering: yes would imply that everything she believed in for the past decades could have been wrong.
And she doesn’t dare to contemplate that possibility.
If the debate were over CNN would not host a debate to debate how the debate is over.
If the debate were over CNN would host a debate on what to do about the problem Mitigation, adaptation, how much of each, at what costs, where, how etc etc.
But that would expose unavoidable rifts and perhaps incompatible opinions – much easier to rally the inevitably little-informed greeenie troops against evil skeptics. Even if that contributes zero to a problem about which, after all, they think the debate is over.
Wasting time on the biggest threat humanity has ever faced? This is criminal behavior.
Ms. Costello,
I am dismayed by your opinion piece, linked above, and could not finish reading it. If you are interested in creating and maintaining a reputation for veracity and an unflinching dedication to the pursuit of truth, then you just suffered a setback.
Does anyone still watch CNN ?
Well perhaps. if you want to test your TV’s volume, when that loudspeaker guy shouts again without modulation, or if you want to learn a new foreign accent from one of the other presenters, or just get an impression, how the US oligarchs justify the next intervention in support of Al Kaida linked freedom fighters….
Nice post, David!
Having read Carol Costellos opinion piece on CNN yesterday it makes one sad about where we are today – not enough to have all science courses forgotten, but the proudness to share the lack of understanding on CNN with the world is something special. The term “Global Warming” seems to disppear for “Climate Change” – easier to say that cold, warm, rain, lack of rain, wind, flood etc can all be attributed to that Change.
Nice also to see her funny explanation that the earth is continuing to warm, but recorded temperatures couldn’t show that for some 16 years now, because the heat is going straight into the oceans, as a kind of independent/educated decision by mother earth to fool mankind. The 97% bogus claim – thanks also for that, so there were 2,5 pct of the answers selected, and only those “suitable” were than taken into acct. That’s outright funny and worth telling.
Again thanks for that nice answer – on the other one has to admit, that she offered a lot of easy wins for you.
“Just as you would be eager to prove that you are not, in fact, stupid,”
That’s beautiful Anthony.LOL
she is told what to say and think so there will be no debate.
A fine article. DH writes:
Nature in fact is taking sides in this debate, and not the side you seem to think.
That’s the bottom line, isn’t it? Planet Earth — the ultimate Authority — stopped warming more than 17 years ago. That’s a long time to keep a Chicken Little scare alive.
Mother Nature trumps all the opinions of wannabe experts, and that is who we will listen to in the end, not Carol Costello, who is only parotting the bogus “carbon” scare narrative.
Well written piece. Ms Costello will not doubt push it aside.
Read this recently:
If someone says the debate is over, then you can be certain it is not, and they are losing.
Carol Costello is stupid. There is no debate.
Now what would you think if you saw this in print, followed by a long explanation as to what is wrong with people who don’t agree, and a refusal to examine any facts related to the accusation? I imagine you’d be miffed. …
Actually, it’s a bit worse than that. To be more accurate, the example given would have to read:
Carol Costello is stupid. There is no debate. If you try to start one, or if I believe that you do not subscribe to this position, I will get you banned from publishing, thrown out of your job, and threatened with violence…
The whole idea of the 97% concensus is just propaganda and stupidity. There is more disagreement about what causes climate change than there is in cancer research or how to prevent heart disease with better diet.
It is time the authoritarians who want to shut down all debate to show some backbone and really debate the matter. Could we get Dr. M. Mann and Dr. Tim Ball on a stage and let them debate the issue? I would pay to see that. Of course others could think of many such pairings that would be fun and informative to watch. How about Watts and Gavin?
The “shut down the debate” crowd are just admitting that the fact are against them.
Carol and her producers know full well that climate alarmism is a political position, a left position. And I’ll wager this article was posted in anticipation of the upcoming mid-term elections. CNN is announcing their Democrat credentials, they are taking sides.
I regularly visit alarmist websites and recently I have noticed I’m getting banned from sites that I have had no issues with for at least the last 8 months. It looks like the alarmist sites are starting to gird themselves and they seem to be clearing their sites of any right wing pests.
I might be wrong about this, but I think the mid-terms are a motivation for this behavior and Carol’s article.
Manfred says:
February 26, 2014 at 1:57 am
Does anyone still watch CNN ?
Well perhaps. if you want to test your TV’s volume, when that loudspeaker guy shouts again without modulation, or if you want to learn a new foreign accent from one of the other presenters, or just get an impression, how the US oligarchs justify the next intervention in support of Al Kaida linked freedom fighters….
————————————————————————
Al Kaida…….no way. Freedom fighters fight for Freedom!
Forgot to add:
Nice post Anthony. You’re absolutely right.
cn
Not only is a brain not a necessary requirement to be a politician, you don’t need one to be a TV ‘personality’ either.
Lol indeed. Hard question for you: who actually wrote this post? Hint: not Anth_ny.
David Hoffer says:
“While you ponder that, and keeping in mind that I did say the answer to your question is in your article and I would get to that, let’s examine the only fact upon which your argument rests, which is that there is a consensus among 97% of scientists. Well Carol, I read that study. Did you? I’m guessing not.”
Unfortunately for David he then said “Carol, that study was done by Margaret Zimerman” when in fact the study that Carol linked to was the recent SKS one below, not the 2008 Doran/Zimmerman one.
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2013/may/16/climate-change-scienceofclimatechange
Ed Zuiderwijk says:
February 26, 2014 at 1:52 am
“The answer to the last question is simply: no. Not because she is stupid, but because she is a coward. Answering: yes would imply that everything she believed in for the past decades could have been wrong. And she doesn’t dare to contemplate that possibility.”
Great comment, Ed, right on the bulls eye.
AGW advocates cannot face the truth as it dawns that their theory is grossly exaggerated, if not entirely bogus. Not because of the policies they’ve enacted, or the absurd costs of those policies, either. No, the single biggest obstacle here is pride & the trashing of their reputation.
Imagine; you’re a high profile climate advocate / commentator / politico and EVERYTHNG you ever oh-so-assertively stated about ‘global warming’ for the last 20 years was suddenly demonstrated to be completely incorrect. Your career, your reputation, your legacy, your credibility, everything you’ve ever worked for, has just gone ‘pop’.
It has nothing to do with evidence, as that is falling against the theory in spades. It’s their reputation. That’s why they won’t change their minds, or even be open to allowing a debate. As Ed said, cowards.
Well said.
Can I have that with Cheese and Some Green frye (com).
One way to look at this is the Christian Crusades. Centuries of stupid. You can’t fix stupid.
Paul
I think you’re being a bit hard on Carol here folks,how is she expected to do her homework when she’s got her nails and her hair and her shoes and a visit to the panelbeaters to worry about.
Carol Costello fulfils both ‘Lindzen’s Law’ : Scientists will not supply an answer as to do so would lose them their funding; and ‘Sinclair’s law’: It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his job depends on not understanding it.
She would feel stupid answering the points made, yet undoubtedly so not to!
None so blind as those who will not see, none so deaf as those who will not listen, none so thick as those who will not think..
>As for the second question, you may be surprised to learn that all but a tiny fraction of skeptics agree that rising temperatures are, in part, due to human activity.
David, what rising temperatures? The land based data show rising temp.’s from the mid 70’s which stopped in 1998. Of the two satellite data sets, RSS shows a minimal temp rise to 1997 while the UAH data is flat for the period. All 4 data sets show no rising temperatures since 1998, a period of 16 years. The satellites only show a global temp spike since the 1998 El Nino, since which there has been a temp plateau, but no sign of rising.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1975/mean:12/plot/uah/from:1975/mean:12/plot/rss/from:1975/mean:12/plot/gistemp/from:1975/mean:12/plot/hadsst2gl/from:1975/mean:12
Rising temperatures should only be used in the past tense. It’s something that happened a very long time ago. And during the past 16 years man has emitted about 30% of their all time emissions with absolutely no effect on global temperature. And is it just a co-incidence that the reported temp rise shown by land based data from 1977 coincide with the preponderance of El Nino’s during that period?
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/enso/mei/
For the AGW believer the goal is stifling the debate, not the science. They do not want a discussion, they want silence.
Sadly this is one of the best post pointing out the dysfunction of AGW yet written. But the extremists are far past the point where they can appreciate the plain facts of the issue.
Excellent letter. I doubt she reads it.
I enjoyed (and agreed with) the article; however, one English error cropped up so often and consistently that it was very distracting. In calling Ms. Costello “Carol,” the author neglected to place a comma before, as well as after, the noun of direct address. Uses of her name should have looked more like this: “You do realize, Carol, that what you write reveals more about you than merely your beliefs. It would do much more good than harm, Carol, if you were actually to check facts and data before publishing. We wish you the best, Carol, but your current stance is like that of the blind man unknowingly awaiting the avalanche.”
Interesting piece but, God, do I hate the ‘open letter’ as a narrative device. It is, outside very specific circumstances, so daggy.
I still like Morano’s question: What are you going to do to stop the end of the Holocene or, at best, delay the start of the next glaciation? Why not ask CNN folks what measures must be taken to delay or avoid it if we concede kill SUV’s, closing power plants, etc., works for stopping warming the issue can then move to the debate of how to re-warm the Earth.
Reminds me of Python’s Argument Clinic: ‘There’s no debate!’. “Yes, there is!’, ad infinitum.
Oh well, most of us are arguing in our spare time anyway.
The question that I would like to see scientists answer is; “Over the past twenty years, how accurate have the predictions of warming made by climate scientists been?”
The test of any theory is its ability to make accurate predictions. That’s why science fair projects are made from those three-fold standups– first you say what you expect to see, then you say what actually happened, and then you compare the expected result to the observed result.
Or maybe “science” doesn’t mean what it used to mean.
She is paid for maintaining a specific position, not for reconsidering anything. It is simply not in her job description. All a transgression like that would earn her is getting fired and replaced by another will-o’-the-wisp, so what’s the point? These petty characters are completely interchangeable.
Chuck Nolan says:
February 26, 2014 at 2:25 am
“Al Kaida…….no way. Freedom fighters fight for Freedom!”
Ah. Nitpicker. Okay, submission fighters. Kay?
hunter says:
February 26, 2014 at 2:51 am
For the AGW believer the goal is stifling the debate, not the science. They do not want a discussion, they want silence.
===================================================================
To be clear, science is the debate Carol wants to stifle. Along with observation and reality. Then it’s just “do this because we say so.”
“As for the second question, you may be surprised to learn that all but a tiny fraction of skeptics agree that rising temperatures are, in part, due to human activity.”
Um, no. That is a statement of belief, not fact. There is no evidence that “human activity” is in any way responsible for the some 20-year warming period from the late 70’s to the late 90’s. The phrase “human activity” itself is a waffle phrase. Obviously, humans can affect temperatures locally, due to UHI and other ways, but that is separate from the issue of “global warming”. The phrase “in part” is also waffling. If one were to spit in the ocean, one could truthfully say that one was “in part” responsible for warming the ocean.
C’mon, folks … have a heart.
CC is just another workin’ stiff doin’ her job … sayin’ what the boss expects her to say. After all, there’s another payday comin’, just around the corner.
The poor thing needs the income, ya know?
Give her a break, and just ignore the Crazy News Network. Sooner or later, they’ll go away.
As one truth seeking American once said, “You can fool some of the people all of the time, and you can fool all of the people some of the time, but you can’t fool all of the people all of the time.” (Thanks to Honest Abe, we have wise guidance.)
Therein lies the reason CNN is way down the Nielsen Ratings totem pole … If it wasn’t for MSNBC scraping bottom, CNN management might even be embarrassed.
Great post, thanks David Hoffer, very neatly put.
& thanks as always to the tireless Anthony.
& thank you commenters, great stuff as always on this quality site.
An interesting parallel can be drawn with the stupidity of the Crusades, in that back then the Catholic Church had their world in thrall through fear of Hell, they were the only ones able to read & write, & were thus effectively in charge of the Media, & their ultimate goal was World Domination.
Ring any bells?
Yes, I get the point that those dependent on the scam will hang onto the scam for reasons of reputation, salaries, speech fees, stock market profiteering,grants or political ideology. There are also some totally genuine Chicken Littles out there. 🙂
But the big point, surely is that so few see the 1%s end plan.
More Lord Monckton please Anthony.
Cheers,
JD.
Martin said at 2:40 am:
Unfortunately for David he then said “Carol, that study was done by Margaret Zimerman” when in fact the study that Carol linked to was the recent SKS one below, not the 2008 Doran/Zimmerman one.
Oops!
Dr. John M. Ware said
[T]he author neglected to place a comma before, as well as after, the noun of direct address.
Besides it’s really condescending.
glenncz said at 2:48 am:
Rising temperatures should only be used in the past tense.
That and people should stop calling the last nearly 20 years or so of no real temperature change a pause. It could go down you know.
TBear said at 3:06 am
Interesting piece but, God, do I hate the ‘open letter’ as a narrative device. It is, outside very specific circumstances, so daggy.
Daggy or goofy, I’ve seen better ones that’s for sure.
Debate is over? When exactly *was* there a debate? Seems to me the conclusion was decided in advance without a debate at all.
Someone ought to inform Ms Costello that if she wants to write a critical piece about denying a voice to problematic climate realists, she needs to apply a soupcon of critical thought otherwise she risks looking rather…erm…stupid when she discovers every word she has written is discredited, warmist black artistry from which some of the main proponents are now backtracking.
Oh, too late…
A review button would be nice.
Meh. I meant to mention the original 97% paper and then close that section by referring to the SKS paper as similarly contrived, and forgot. Apologies.
Well done! If she is half the journalist she thinks she is, this will spark her doubt and suspicion of the AGW claims. But I think it is more likely that your statement needs to be modified. She isn’t stupid, her brain had been disengaged.
Bill
Is CNN even relevant? I’d post more but need to check WeatherNation (the hotel has directTV). Not that other reality-tv-alarmist channel that occasionally gives a report or forecast.
Or worse, she might be proving a stereotypical correlation. Dumb. Woman. Blond. Where’s Ann Coulter when you need her? Oh, one outlier doesn’t prove anything.
I would have used the word ignorance instead of stupid.
Occasionally when I’m bored, I blurt or roll out my standard couple of paragraphs of stuff with a couple technical queues and almost universally if there is a response it is a social response. There is no debate on either side … I think everyone on the skeptic side is just letting the next 30 years play out and lob a few intellectual barbs in for fun when circumstances ask for it. The warmists seem to be stuck in the rut of commenting on every event where it gets a bit more comfortable outside or change reference and context when it is uncomfortable.
If you ignore the warmists there is an interesting dynamic and scientific debate about the direct influence of the sun on the short term variation of climate. Maybe we should just have formal skeptic debates on that topic and let the warmists own the political and social sphere … which they do. Climate change is the god in the temple and politicians just talk over each other heads about how urgent it is and how practical certain actions are.
Excellent, David. The only problem is that open letters very often don’t get read by the very person the letter is aimed at. But I hope it does.
Maybe the coffee hasn’t kicked, maybe the problem is I don’t think I’ve heard of that Costello before, maybe it’s the trial insult, but I have trouble warming up to this post.
I even tried reading Costello’s OpEd piece, but didn’t make it past “97%.”
Okay, she is stupid, but it’s more important to read posts about people like Michael Mann who at least is more dangerous.
Maybe we need a one-size-fits-all response to send to the 97%-ers. They don’t deserve much more.
So, UK Skeptic are you saying she opened her mouth and removed all doubt to to her lack of intelligence?
There is an error in the article. Scientists should answer no to question 2 as humans demonstrably do NOT have a SIGNIFICANT effect on climate.
len at 4:51 am:
“let the warmists own the political and social sphere … which they do”
That would be fine if they didn’t have their hand in my wallet (and worse). The warmist agenda is not benign.
Erm, she’s a journalist, and this was almost certainly a put-up job by our favourite fuzzy-faced, sueball-lobbing Climate Scientist™ and his cohorts. It’s the next goalpost move for when the extreme weather event attribution meme is debunked. It’s also classic marketing behaviour mixed in with the old boxing technique of keeping your opponent on the back foot… never let your opponent regain their balance and concentrate on one spot.
I’m not saying don’t tell her she’s clearly full of it, but I am saying these are tactics, and they’ve worked very well so far. Sceptics need to be more like Steve McIntyre, and concentrate on pecking away at one spot, not being distracted by shiny things.
why on earth are some sceptics still trying to frame CAGW as a “left” thing? no wonder we can’t make headway against this scam.
yes, you could call the crazy Readfearn & The Guardian “leftist” but what was Readfearn when he pushed the same badly-written alarmist rubbish for the Murdoch press in Australia?
25 Feb: Guardian: Graham Readfearn: Australia’s renewables adviser scrapes the bottom of the climate denialist barrel
Dick Warburton cites a long-debunked petition to argue climate scientists are split on the causes of global warming
IF you look down there at the bottom of the barrel and see the deep gouge marks in the oak, you might find a trace of DNA left by the scraping fingers of Dick Warburton.
That’s the place where Warburton found his “evidence” that the world’s scientists are split on whether or not climate change is being caused by humans.
The evidence in question is known as the Oregon Petition – one of the feeblest factoids in the climate science denial hymnbook that’s cited almost as often as it has been debunked…
Once those people with no studied expertise in areas of climate were removed, the number fell to just 0.1 per cent of US graduates – and this was being generous. Skeptical Science found there were likely only 39 people classed as climatologists who signed…
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/planet-oz/2014/feb/24/climate-change-dick-warburton-sceptic-australia-renewable-energy-target-review
You have convinced me. The debate is over, Carol Costello is stupid.
But then most of the media mouthpieces of the Alarmists can be categorized that way. They are willing sheep that bleat out the narrative without question – in direct contradiction to their very job description.
People don’t call CNN “Constant Negative News” or “Communist News Network” for nothing. You have a better chance of reasoning with the wall.
There is a troubling trend in the 4th estate, from 60 Minutes, the LA Times, CNN etc., to engage in censorship in the name of the warmist ’cause’. They need to be called out and embarrassed for this dangerous practice. If they end up being successful, this tactic will simply be added to their playbook for other ’causes’.
The believers need the sceptics. We are the fuel for the engine that drives their need for more research. Discuss.
is it “left” when the rightwing UK govt hands out 100 million pounds sterling of taxpayer money in the name of CAGW to Shell & Drax? tellingly, the Tele & most other MSM which reported this funding didn’t even mention the amount!
24 Feb: UK Telegraph: Emily Gosden: Funding boost for Shell and SSE’s gas carbon capture plan
Energy firms win state funding as Energy Secretary warns going green will be more expensive without embryonic technology
“Without CCS on fossil fuels, achieving our decarbonisation targets and fighting climate change will be much, much more difficult and more expensive,” Mr Davey says.
The funding, for engineering and planning work, follows the announcement of a similar award last year to Drax’s White Rose project in Yorkshire, which plans to build a coal-burning CCS plant…
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/energy/10656942/Funding-boost-for-Shell-and-SSEs-gas-carbon-capture-plan.html
Osborne has just been in Australia & has repeated his argument for nuclear/frakking as GREEN energy that is necessary to combat CAGW, yet our most CAGW-infested media – ABC & Fairfax, won’t even report what he has said. u can check online for “George Osborne unveils ‘most generous tax breaks in world’ for fracking” and articles on the incredibly generous deal (at the expense of the taxpayers) that he’s given the French/Chinese nuclear consortium who will build the new reactors:
21 Feb: Guardian: Nicholas Watt: George Osborne wants climate change tackled as cheaply as possible
Chancellor calls on environmentalists to drop opposition to nuclear power and shale gas as they can be inexpensive
In a question and answer after a speech to business leaders in Hong Kong, the chancellor firmly rejected arguments posed by some Tory climate change sceptics when he said man is to blame for global warming. The chancellor said: “I’m someone who believes climate change is happening, that it’s caused by human beings. We should do what we can to prevent it and if we can’t prevent then mitigate against it for example by building flood defences.”…
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/feb/20/george-osborne-climate-change-cheaply
how like a pollie – left or right – to throw in the “flood defences” bit.
Well constructed letter. But I doubt it will do any good. Those immersed in agressive cultural entities, as Carol is within CAGW, are unable to perceive the outside world accurately, unable to percieve inconsistencies between CAGW narratives and reality (or even between some sub-narratives of CAGW where these clash). This is because memes within the entity penetrate the psyche, pushing emotional hot buttons that selectively suppress reason and cause alignment to, plus re-transmission of, said memes. One such meme is the demonisation of skeptics, which likely means your letter would be dismissed out of hand, or possibly without reading more than the first line or two. Appeals to logic, consistency and facts are likely only to hit home if there is some way of shocking the target temporarily out of their immersed state first, then presenting one’s argument while the window of opportunity is still open. See The CAGW Memeplex for much more on the memetic angle.
The most amazing example of this culturally induiced blindness is (as you point out) the fact that nature is currently working to erode the main strength of CO2 theory, yet after a 17 year ‘hiatus’, the cultural phenomenon of CAGW seems to have suffered remarkably little damage.
Well constructed letter. But I doubt it will do any good. Those immersed in agressive cultural entities, as Carol is within CAGW, are unable to perceive the outside world accurately, unable to percieve inconsistencies between CAGW narratives and reality (or even between some sub-narratives of CAGW where these clash). This is because memes within the entity penetrate the psyche, pushing emotional hot buttons that selectively suppress reason and cause alignment to, plus re-transmission of, said memes. One such meme is the demonisation of skeptics, which likely means your letter would be dismissed out of hand, or possibly without reading more than the first line or two. Appeals to logic, consistency and facts are likely only to hit home if there is some way of shocking the target temporarily out of their immersed state first, then presenting one’s argument while the window of opportunity is still open. See The CAGW Memeplex for much more on the memetic angle.
The most amazing example of this culturally induiced blindness is (as you point out) the fact that nature is currently working to erode the main strength of CO2 theory, yet after a 17 year ‘hiatus’, the cultural phenomenon of CAGW seems to have suffered remarkably little damage.
(apologies if this appears multiple times, not getting acknowledgment of posting…)
“Antarctic ice has hit record levels” — Should have said “record high levels”, as alarmists are likely to assume low levels unless told otherwise.
Well written, easy to understand, plainly stated facts.
Nope, not dumbed down enough for Costello.
◾Alarmed (16%)
◾Concerned (27%)
No doubt thanks to puff pieces written, narrated or perpetuated by people like Costello.
From Carol Costello’s piece:
Two things wrong with this kind of “journalism”: 1) the actual facts of the Drexel study say otherwise, 2) it’s presented out of context with the Billions spent by government, liberal foundations, and industry promoting climate alarmism.
So the conclusion is that Costello is either sloppy, stupid, or sold out.
The climate debate was always on and the debate is not over. [I am working on a longer list from the newspaper archives].
[1903] THE ENGLISH CLIMATE. IS IT CHANGING? [..we hardly ever have a real old- fashioned, snow-clad Christmas in these times..]
[1906] IS THE EARTH GETTING WARMER?
[1923] TEMPERATE ARCTIC [..some parts of the Polar basin no ice has been seen less than 9 degrees from the North Pole,.]
[1926] CHANGING CLIMATE. AMERICAN EXPERIENCE. RECORDED FACTS
[1934] WORLD’S CHANGING CLIMATE Unsafe To Generalise
[1935] CLIMATIC ECCENTRICITIES [… more or less off what is regarded as the normal…]
[1935] PLAN TO MELT THE NORTH POLE. AND IMPROVE THE WORLD’S CLIMATE. DAM 200 MILES LONG.
[1937] THE WARM ARCTIC!
[1939] WORLD CLIMATE CHANGING Scientists Puzzled
[1941] Impending Climatic Change.
[1951] WEATHER REALLY IS CHANGING […cooler summers and colder win- ters during the next 15 years,…]
[1951] World of Science CYCLE OF COLDER WEATHER
Did we ever need more proof than we have right here in this woman that the strategies put forth decades ago have worked to convince through fearful emotions and rigor-less exaggerations in order to bring about an enforced “utopia”?
Not a single person here, nor a seasoned and honored panel of climate experts who think the cause is otherwise regarding atmospheric and oceanic warming or cooling would be able to change this woman’s mind. Belief trumps data. And yes, powerful voices, more powerful than ours, can make it stick, though simple observation, raw data, fact, and scientific rigor say otherwise.
I’ve seen it. And been on the receiving end of it. Belief in one’s power, belief in one’s position as being indicative of an all-knowing and therefor infallible self, infests many an administrative conclave.
So it is the nature of the beast that the world is tossed and turned by powerful hubris only Mother Nature can outwit now and then. The outcome of this current matchup is still up in the air.
She’s a pretty face hired to read the teleprompter. For some reason humans see handsome folk as smarter and truthful. People like Carol remind me of Oddball speaking of his Sherman tank. “I just drive them. I don’t know what makes them go.”
Why waste your time.
The fact that AGW ‘believer’ positions are hardening is good. They are less capable of evasion and redefinition (climate change for global warming, projections not predictions). Makes it easier for Mother Nature to finish the debunking, and easier to heap ridicule deservingly high upon them. As here. Nice essay. Go for wider distribution.
Carol Costello must have forgotten she said this: “President Obama’s people can be quite nasty. They don’t like you to say anything bad about their boss, and they’re not afraid to use whatever means they have at hand to stop you from doing that, including threatening your job,”
It could just as easily have been: “CAGW believers can be quite nasty. They don’t like you to say anything bad about CAGW, and they’re not afraid to use whatever means they have at hand to stop you from doing that, including threatening your job.”
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Journalism/2013/10/23/CNN-s-Carol-Costello-Obama-s-People-Are-Nasty-Willing-to-Threaten-Journalist-s-Jobs
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ygKhnbq1z8A)
Those who dispute the GHE are stupid. There is no debate.
We should embrace her position, and then ask her to start a campaign in these hard times to stop funding research into climate science. The science is settled, thus no more research is needed.
Manfred says:
February 26, 2014 at 1:57 am
“Does anyone still watch CNN ?”
No.
“February cable ratings are in – Piers Morgan may be out at CNN, but what about the rest of the network’s primetime, which looked none too good for the month, all losing around half their audience compared to same month last year? ”
http://www.deadline.com/2014/02/february-cable-news-numbers-fnc-logs-146th-consecutive-win-cnn-tumbles-msnbc-hangs-on/
MishaBurnett, why limit to predictions in the last twenty years, has there been a single correct prediction from climate science related to AGW?
Well, at least Ms. Costello presents as ‘weird’…as opposed to that breathless egomaniac Wolf Spritzer, or his recently down-dressed colleague Piers Moregoon. Most trusted name in news? News has a name?
CNN is a joke. People don’t work there unless their IQ is below normal. Don’t expect her or anyone else at CNN to change their progressive little minds.
The evidence does appear overwhelming. Based on the video and on her opinion piece, Carol Costello is an idiot.
David Hoffer,
Excellent essay/open letter.
“Does that not give you pause to reconsider your position?”
That’s not how TV news or opinion works. The pretty faces are given the script from above.
Just as you would be eager to prove that you are not, in fact, stupid,
Well, that assumes that, at least in some areas, she isn’t stupid, in which case she probably wouldn’t be smart enough to want to prove that she isn’t.
Hey, “stupid is as stupid does”, you know.
Much of her article is parroting http://environment.yale.edu/climate-communication/article/Six-Americas-September-2012 (Global Warming’s Six Americas).
Although she does quote Sen. Ted Cruz:
“And just last week, tea party favorite Sen. Ted Cruz told CNN’s Dana Bash, “Climate change, as they have defined it, can never be disproved, because whether it gets hotter or whether it gets colder, whatever happens, they’ll say, well, it’s changing, so it proves our theory.””
Uh, yep, Cruz is correct. Perhaps if she actually read what Cruz said, she might have taken a different look at the non-existent debate. Although I suspect she never really pays attention to anyone who she terms a “tea party favorite”. Not American political left enough for her.
Oh Carol you are but a fool
I’ll always debate with you
Though you treat me cruel
D: Mommy, do you work for CNN?
M: Yes daughter, I do.
D: Is the Earth warming because of people?
M: Yes daughter, it is.
D: Why?
M: Because 97% of scientists say it is.
D: Mommy, why do 97% of scientists say it is?
M: Because it’s warming.
D: Why’s it warming?
M: Because 97% of scientists said so.
D: Mommy, why do 97%…
M: Because I said so.
D: Mommy, why did you…
M: Go to your room and quit arguing with your mother.
And thus was born the consensus of what 97% of scientists used to call global warming until 97% of scientists said the argument was over and that it’s now called climate change.
climatebeagle 6:30am
Very clever! Funny! What’s not to like!
Eugene WR Gallun
That is yet another example of no-cost positioning at CNN. Next up, Barney says the debate has ended and so do the Muppets and Ellen.
Another great post! Fun to read and accurate! Keep up the good work!
Eugene WR Gallun
Here are my two centavos. First off, a bit of history. The AGW hoax’s begun in early ’70s as Global Cooling (by 2000 we’ll freeze & starve to death, was the claim), mostly by Swedish socialists. Since it didn’t happen, the AGW popped up & now the clever & unprovable ‘Climate Change.’
It’s been the agenda of the limo-libs & assorted Lefties & pinkoes for over 40 years. They’re all control freaks; the Elites are also greedy, on top of it. The ‘high-priest’ & mega-hypocrite, Algore’s made a cool-few-hundred0mio-$$$ on this hoax.
BTW, no one here mentioned the frozen Great Lakes & record deep freeze/snow in the NE. Nature does what & when it will. We, puny humans cannot change the weather/climate either way.
There are two main factors effecting climate. The solar flares ~11 y cycle, currently quiet.
This latter one is rarely mentioned. The precession & nutation of the Earth’s axis (full cone circumference in ~26000 years) is the cause of last Ice Age & all long term real climate swings.
5000 years ago, Sahara was a lush garden, I rest my case.
I am a geologist/geophysicist from a family of generations of exact science people.
[Bruce Cobb says:
February 26, 2014 at 4:01 am
“As for the second question, you may be surprised to learn that all but a tiny fraction of skeptics agree that rising temperatures are, in part, due to human activity.”
Um, no. That is a statement of belief, not fact. There is no evidence that “human activity” is in any way responsible for the some 20-year warming period from the late 70′s to the late 90′s. The phrase “human activity” itself is a waffle phrase. Obviously, humans can affect temperatures locally, due to UHI and other ways, but that is separate from the issue of “global warming”. The phrase “in part” is also waffling. If one were to spit in the ocean, one could truthfully say that one was “in part” responsible for warming the ocean.]
This is nuanced, because it’s about the incremental warming not the net warming. The logic statements would be:
(1) Humans are adding to C02 concentrations in the atmosphere and
(2) Higher incremental C02 concentrations cause incremental warming trhough the GHG effect
Note that this can be true even if the NET C02 levels are falling and if the NET temperatures are falling. The logic being that that C02 levels are not falling AS MUCH as they would have and/or that the Temps are not falling AS MUCH as they would have, and so as long as one believes the two statements above (which I think are pretty valid) one would have to believe that we are adding a non-zero amount of warming (or at least reducing the amount of cooling). I personally don’t think we are affecting it that much, but to argue that we have zero effect would be to disagree with one of the two statements above I believe.
Does Ms. Costello believe the climate shouldn’t change and remain static? Does she believe it can be controlled? Does she mean global warming and is misusing the term climate change?
She is only guilty of thinking the way people she respects told her to think. I don’t fault her at all. I would have asked her to look at some actual vs predicted temperatures.
I’d argue this is a waste of time.
Has anyone checked on the course load of uyour average journalism major? If one were to wager on the most recent date Carol had her butt seated in a class covering math, engineering or the hard sciences, my pick would be high school.
What is CNN?
How would Carol Costello face all her friends at those cocktail parties and dinner parties if she re-examined the facts and changed her position? Why, she’d be shunned. You don’t want her to be shunned, do you? It’s not fair that she wouldn’t be able to enjoy the company of the other beautiful, right-thinking people just on the principle that opinion and beliefs are subject to arbitrary facts.
Don’t be shunned, Carol!
Dan Tauke says:
February 26, 2014 at 7:22 am
I never said the effect was zero, just that the evidence for a human effect or the “human fingerprint” simply isn’t there. In other words if it does exist, it is too small to matter. One can talk about how there “should” be an effect all one wants to. But, if you can’t point to it, then it is simply conjecture.
This is the most disturbing quote:
“The good news is, those uninformed minority voices are being quieted by nature and by those who have powerful voices.”
Why is it “good” to quiet a minority?
Why is it “good” to have powerful voices?
Why is a minority being demonized as “uninformed?”
The answers have already been stated. MSM is an arm of the new world order. Absolute power with absolute authority. Is it no different that Stalin making a proclamation prior to a “minority” being “dispatched.” ???
CNN is another MSNBC agency to the elitist greed coming from those in power. The above quote is the future cast for humanity, regardless of climate.
Reading the comments following her article its easy to see how many people thought, as I did, how stupid the article was. All her article did was to lose even more viewers for CNN.
highflight56433 says:
February 26, 2014 at 8:05 am
“This is the most disturbing quote:
“The good news is, those uninformed minority voices are being quieted by nature and by those who have powerful voices.””
The powerful voice of CNN, that is.
Reminds one of that immortal quote, What have you done, you cursed brat. I’m melting, melting!
Can someone comment on the validity of the SKS survey of scientists?
How much money went to all of those peer reviewed studies mentioned and where did the bulk of the funding come from?
What is the real story behind the Drexel study?
Nice rebuttal , shame the gal lacks the attention span to read it.
Maybe the tech crew at the station, assuming CNN still has any, could post your letter on the teleprompter.
Only way she will ever read it.
The Catastrophe theory or Doom by weather caused by the actions of evil men, is an old meme.
A tired scam, that has lost the attention of normal taxpayers.
The IPCC team “Communication failure”, is now to be compounded by banning dissent.
CAGW is an intelligence test.
Simple effective test.
The parasites who glom onto this bait, are now fully exposed.
Our governments are clearly full of fools and bandits.
Remember 50% of us are below average intelligence.
50% are more gullible than average.
50% are lazier than average.
Who staffs your government?
There should be a term for the easy media and political targets in society. It would include the easy targets like non-minorities of a certain gender and predominant religion, especially those with money and assets. But also extend to include other progressive and unverifiable positive claims as offsets like world peace and pollution free world as goals. Oh wait, this was a Sandra Bullock movie about likable airheads.
Marty;
Can someone comment on the validity of the SKS survey of scientists?
>>>>>>>>>>>>>
It is just as contrived as the first survey. Actually worse, since they didn’t use responses from scientists, they read the scientists papers and deduced their opinions from there, frequently on very vague basis. All you need to is put terms like “SKS 97%” into the WUWT search boc and you’ll come up with a bunch of articles such as this one:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/11/20/the-97-consensus-myth-busted-by-a-real-survey/
Carol is a major reason why CNN numbers are tanking. Seems to be a nice person but has simply lost the plot when it comes to journalistic objectivity. Somewhere along the slippery slope of CNN style Scare Journalism, she has come to believe her personal beliefs and opinions trump facts.
She is well suited to such a trashy news organization as CNN. Because it is good journalism to go into “Hurricane Watch” each and every time there are back to back puffs of wind in the Atlantic ocean or report about the worst forest fires ever in the year that forest fires were at record lows.
Fear mongering . . . the new journalism.
That 97% explanation/summary is easy for a anyone to understand. Why can’t everyone else get it?
[snip – off topic, stupid, disruptive – Anthony]
Nice read! Thanks Hoff!!
For those suggesting that Carol Costello won’t respond, or even read this letter, I agree. That wasn’t its purpose, though if she does read and respond I’d be happy to engage in a dialogue with her.
The real purpose of the letter is to provide a counterpoint in a forum where it may get wider exposure. That forum is the internet. There would be no value in posting at CNN, it would be snipped or buried in thousands of responses that amount to nothing more than name calling rather than reasoned debate.
I just googled “Carol Costello Climate Chage”. Carol’s article is, unsurprisingly, number 1.
Guess what’s number 2?
@davidmhoffer – on Bing, you only come in at number 5. However she is only #3. The top 2 are Internet news sites laughing at her.
If Carol had read the latest IPCC report she would also know that there is no debate. The IPCC tells us in three separate sentences that that all its models and prognostications are rubbish. It seems strange to me that no one appears to have picked up on this.
The three sentences are: (not actual wording but meaning is the same)
1. That they cannot determine a value for the sensitivity of the climate to CO2 due to a disagreement among the scientists.
2. That this disagreement arises from the role of clouds.
3. That it is not possible to determine either the sign or the magnitude of cloud response to warming.
In other words they have no bloody idea what the climate will do and all their models are so much junk, – but then we all know that – the difference is that now it is the IPCC that is saying it
change not chage. My fingers hate me.
An excellent article! She should be asked if she wants CNN to be the last major network to grudgingly admit they were wrong 10 years from now, rather than being one of the first to see the light.
If there is no debate, how is it that only 16% of the citizenry are alarmed? Why, by the definitions in your own article, do 82% of
Did you mean 84%?
She has a B.A. in journalism and knows nothing about science. It’s a wonder to me that this country gives any credibility to anything these professional mouths without brains have to say.
wbrozek;
Did you mean 84%?
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Yeah, spotted that one right after it went up. With all the nitpicking about things like comma placement, I would have thought someone would have picked it up sooner. 10 points for Werner!
…The point is the control of censorship coming from MSM with the ultimate result. 🙂
[Bruce Cobb says:
I never said the effect was zero, just that the evidence for a human effect or the “human fingerprint” simply isn’t there. In other words if it does exist, it is too small to matter. One can talk about how there “should” be an effect all one wants to. But, if you can’t point to it, then it is simply conjecture.]
Understood, thanks. However, back to my two logic statements – wouldn’t someone have to either believe that:
1) Humans are not adding incremental C02 to the atmosphere
or
2) The greenhouse gas effect theory is wrong
to not believe humars are contributing incremental warmth?
That may be a more theoretical point. You are pointing to observational data and saying that if you can’t find an obvious human fingerprint during a certain time period of data then the human effect is trivial (which I don’t disagree with, just saying that our effect is non-zero but that can still be trivial).
Has this been discussed?
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2027390
“If there is no debate…”
What about a simple question: Where has the climate changed?
Is the desert not a desert anymore? are the tropics not the tropics?Is record heat in the desert or record cold at the pole considered change.What climate has changed ,other than the social/political climate?IMHO,Maybe i’m wrong but a few degrees here and there is weather not climate change.
Thanks for the interesting opinions/articles and comments.
Carol has over 14,000 comments but they seem to come from a couple of hundred people.
Very nasty verbal intercourse.
Lots of propaganda very few references.
Very different from WUWT.
cn
Fred . . . says:
February 26, 2014 at 8:46 am
“Carol is a major reason why CNN numbers are tanking. Seems to be a nice person but has simply lost the plot when it comes to journalistic objectivity. Somewhere along the slippery slope of CNN style Scare Journalism, she has come to believe her personal beliefs and opinions trump facts.”
Quite the contrary, all the above would put her right in sinc with all the other propagandists on CNN so one cannot blame her for them tanking any more than all the others.
1. jdseanjd says: February 26, 2014 at 4:06 am
“…… An interesting parallel can be drawn with the stupidity of the Crusades,….”
*************************
A comment on the Crusades (I am not commenting on what you imply as the autocratic nature of the Catholic Church or, the venality and stupidity of Catholics).
After Muhammad came out of the desert (570 to 632 AD) his adherents invaded and crushed Christian countries all along North Africa (Byzantine Empire) and what we call Spain, Portugal, Greece, and all of the Slavic states. They also invaded Sicily and were as far north as Tours, France (732 AD) and Vienna, Austria (1529 through 1699).
A bit of trivia: Legends have it that the French Croissant (crescent) was developed to celebrate the victory of Christian forces over Islamic invaders at either the Battle of Tours in 732 or the siege of Vienna in 1683. It is banned today by some Islamic fundamentalists. More trivia: The Muslims invaded and crushed the last of the Christian Byzantine Empire, which included Greece, in 1453. The Acropolis in Athens was badly damaged in 1687 during a siege by the Christian Venetians when munitions storage blew up. Finally the Greeks, with support from other Christian countries, rebelled and took their country back in 1821-1832. The hatred that the Greeks still hold for the Turks is a residual from those years of oppression.
In addition, the Muslims were and still are the premier slave traders. They had a practice of “harvesting” Christian pilgrims as slaves, while on their way to Jerusalem. More trivia: The word slave also has as its root the word Slav, i.e. Christians from the Balkans. Same for the word for slave in Arabic. Also, the last Muslim slave harvesting trip to what is now Great Britain was in the 1600’s.)
Most people just don’t know much about history; it’s really not their fault. By way of illustration, there is more to the Crusades than what you will learn in public school or from CNN or from the History Channel (America: The Story of US). It was not unreasonable for Christians to call the crusades out of self-defense. You just have to wonder why nobody ever told you that stuff. By the way, I got the above from Wikipedia if you would like to check.
Regards,
Steamboat Jack (Jon Jewett’s evil twin)
I don’t think that Carol is stupid as such, she says what she is told to say. Her employers clearly favor this line of thinking and she happens to be the mouthpiece. Who knows what she really thinks, one thing is for sure she can never go public with her real opinion if that is any different.
In the end politicians, media presenters and the public at large will wash their hands off the whole issue with statements along the lines of “I trusted the scientists, we went on their advise”, “we always knew that human influence was minimal but better to be cautious just in case” and so on.
Science as a whole will be left to pick up the pieces and to rebuild public trust. A fair number of them will make statements like ” my line of study was more on the sidelines of it all, I trusted the work of my colleagues”. Sadly I can see it having a major negative impact on the number of people wanting to study those kind of subjects.
Politicians will do what they always do: find an excuse. In this case science. For most of them their political life is short anyway and their skin thick.
Media presenters will do as they are told and move on to the next calamity.
The rest of us will go on with our lives although the hard core warming activists will be public laughing stock for a while, the memory span of the population in general is fairly short.
There are many thoughts as to the origins of this whole issue and perhaps one day the real truth comes out as to how and why this all started. It has certainly gone on to live a life of its own now and I am not sure that that was the intention at the beginning, but that is democracy once a suitably scared cat is out of the bag it is hard to get it back in as too many interested parties start using the cat for their own purpose.
What I can’t get is that so many “scientists” sell themselves in favor of, what is now, an emotional cause. The very people that are trained to look at data only to verify a hypothesis.
We are all concerned about the planet and its wellbeing and no doubt certain disciplines see more of the effects of human activity then others but is that a reason to discard all principles science stands for and on which basis they earned their degree?
The longer this goes on the bigger the hole being dug by the “majority” of scientists.
( I do realize that money can buy just about everything, but still )
That’s a diversion–it in no way addresses the claim that “all but a tiny fraction of skeptics agree that rising temperatures are, in part, due to human activity.”
This (bold statement) is a sweeping over-generalization which skeptics should avoid. I don’t believe that human activity has affected modern temperatures. .
We have watched progressives misuse “pollution” enough to actually change its meaning to include CO2. Doesn’t make it true. Humans may have contributed significantly to pollution in various local ecosystems, but I doubt that we’ve changed temperatures one whit.
I hate to say this, but your systematic, factual destruction of her argument exposes her ignorance and gives rise to your first premise actually being something that cant be dismissed. Now I don’t wish to say it, but Forrest Gump did say Stupid is as Stupid does. And whether it was your intention or not, by laying out how shallow her position is…you then would conclude that Ms. Costello, on this matter is…..
Debate among yourselves
Let me be clear.. I am not saying she is stupid. I have done many stupid things, and while not the brightest bulb in the room, I dont think I am stupid. I am merely commenting that in the spirit of Marc Antony speech in Julius Caesar, ( one of my favorite passages of all time) you appear to have a carrot for MS Carrol, which then turns into a stick that whether by design or accident, does leave the reader a reason to debate at the very least, that the article was stupid ( I think ignorant.. as in ignorant of facts is better..one can be ignorant, without being stupid)
But it was a great piece.
Dan Tauke says:
February 26, 2014 at 9:31 am
“Understood, thanks. However, back to my two logic statements – wouldn’t someone have to either believe that:
1) Humans are not adding incremental C02 to the atmosphere
or
2) The greenhouse gas effect theory is wrong
to not believe humars are contributing incremental warmth?”
CO2 does intercept and re-radiate LWIR photons. More CO2 increases this effect very slightly, due to an effect called pressure broadening. Whether or not and to what degree this results in atmospheric warming is not a trivial question because of the many possible feedbacks.
If it were a trivial question, climate models would not be necessary to attempt to answer it; nor would supercomputers be necessary to run them.
And what we have seen is that all the models failed to predict the “pause” (or stop) of global warming since 1997.
So, climate science loses its credibility when claiming they can tell us about the future.
Which makes CNN and climate science the perfect match in credibility.
Is she wearing a Brownshirt?
Just curious.
Outtheback: “What I can’t get is that so many “scientists” sell themselves in favor of, what is now, an emotional cause. The very people that are trained to look at data only to verify a hypothesis.”
There is plenty of legislation born from emotional cause. Get the public fired up…pass legislation at the top of the hype. Emotionalize climate….
Dan Tauke,
You make a good point. Most folks here don’t claim that there is no greenhouse effect, or that humans are not adding CO2 to the atmosphere. What we are pointing out is that neither of those things matter in the slightest.
The net effect of more CO2 is beneficial. Despite asking numerous times, no one has ever been able to identify any global damage or harm due to the rise in CO2. Therefore, CO2 is ipso facto ‘harmless’.
It is also beneficial. The rise in CO2 has brought about a very measurable greening of the planet. More food is being produced [which the “greens” do not like; they would clearly prefer mass starvation in order to ‘save the planet’.]
Carol Costello has no scientific background. None at all. Her only degree is a BA in journalism. There are a lot of entries found in a search of her name that refer to “her stunning legs and feet.” Apparently she crosses her legs a lot on camera. It is her trademark.
If Carol Costello understood the least bit about science, she would know that the effect of CO2 is logarithmic. That means there is a diminishing effect as CO2 rises. That is where the analogy of ‘adding more coats of paint to a window’ comes from: after the first coat [≈20 ppm CO2], subsequent coats do not cause any noticeable warming.
The whole “carbon” scare is built upon the false notion that a rise in CO2 is linear. But Carol does not understand the concept of a diminishing effect. She is one of countless journalists completely ignorant of basic science. Really, Carol Costello is simply a propagandist for those who are sounding a false alarm about “carbon” for their own self-serving reasons.
Max Hugoson says:
February 26, 2014 at 9:55 am
Is she wearing a Brownshirt?
Just curious.
…you probably don’t want to go there. 🙂
I believe that this linked interview shows precisely how to deal with idiot journalists and ignorant overpaid, teleprompt reading “newsreaders” who have bought into the climate alarmist hype 100% and who have shown themselves incapable of having any sort of sceptical or inquiring mind…
It is Richard Delingpole schooling Richard Bacon and it is very interesting indeed.
Smashing! Excellent letter. Hats off to you, David Hoffer.
You are in desperate need of a history lesson. The Crusades were about global domination? No, Christian pilgrims really were being killed in the Holy Land. Christendom really was under full scale military assault. Were there horrors as a result of the Crusades? Of course there were. But your narrative is false. The first Crusade in particular was a response to aggression.
dbstealey: “Really, Carol Costello is simply a propagandist for those who are sounding a false alarm about “carbon” for their own self-serving reasons.”
Heavy on the propaganda machine … divide and conquer.
I don’t usually post on these matters, but good grief…who or what contributed to the granddaddy of all climate variations that brought the last ice age to an end? Mastodon flatulence? Or might it be it was natural and normal climate fluctuation on a geologic scale? On balance the earth has been warming for 20,000 years or so, complete with peaks and valleys of warming and cooling. Cycles within cycles and most if not all without human contributions. What is so hard for the warmers to understand?
If the planet has stopped warming for the last 17 years, then glaciers and the ice caps, and all the other natural things like birds and polar bears would show signs of recovery. Having lived in Churchill, MB for two years (2010-2012) listening to the canadian scientists who are studying the polar bears in Hudson Bay. I can add that the bears are losing weight, the ice is getting thinner in the bay, it is freezing later and melting sooner. Killer whales now are spotted in the summer in Hudson Bay because there is no ice in Hudson Straight to stop them from getting into the bay. While that might be nice for the future tourist industry, the private rail company that owes the railway to Churchill is planning on shipping oil through the port because of the longer shipping season, and the lack of ice in Hudson Strait.
The only thing I would like to point out about the 17 years of no more warming statement is that if the planet is still warmer then the 20th average, everything will continue to melt and retreat, sea ocean levels will continue to rise. The only thing that is happening is that the changes are not speeding up. Which would be a good thing if we were developing strategies to deal with the changes that provided new jobs instead of another Mcdonalds, Wal-Mart, or Tim Hortons.
Now what would have to change for the planet to cool or return to the 20th century normal?
and
and
What was the reason for this discrepancy, again? I forgot.
policycritic;
What was the reason for this discrepancy, again? I forgot.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
The second question wasn’t considered if a particular answer was given. Since two of the 79 gave that answer, they were excluded from the next question. There’s a full write up on it in WUWT, I just don’t have the link handy.
Gerry,
Your link says: We find that the information manipulation has an instrumental value, as it ex post induces more countries to participate in an IEA, which eventually enhances global welfare.
In other words: propaganda is good!
No, propaganda is bad, because propaganda does not allow for other points of view. How can people make good decisions if they cannot hear the whole issue?
And of course, the question must be asked: what are they afraid of? That people might intelligently make up their minds, based on all available information?
Yes, that is exactly what they are afraid of.
Who was doing the killing?
The open letter is well written, but Joe Bastardi’s point is true. She may be more a pawn than stupid. As with Bob Costas, whose net worth is maybe around $45 M. He knows who butters his bread. His ignorance is not in in the area of how to bolster his wealth. The greed might drive the apparent stupidity, less any moral conviction. Why learn anything outside the his journalistic comfort zone?
Ms. Castello is being paid to preach the MSM mime. She in her mind is “I made it to a big network.” …with the pay check to match. She will protect that. That is good for her career as a TV journalist. Many are alarmed by the MSM machinery and where it takes the public.
Look what happened to Scientific American. Once I respected…but not for 15 years now. The advent of the world wide web provides opportunity to speak outside the established brick and mortar paper journals (now too on the internet). This blog is an example. Choosing wisely is the goal.
Joe Bastardi says:
February 26, 2014 at 9:43 am
I hate to say this
>>>>>>>>>>>>
Oh come on. you were itching to 😉
Big fan of yours BTW, thanks for the positive remarks.
Thanks, davidmhoffer. (February 26, 2014 at 10:40 am). So does that mean Ms. Zimmerman excluded all but 79, not 77? Yeah, I remember that WUWT post on it, but can’t find it.
j.jewett said ” Same for the word for slave in Arabic. ”
the word for slave, in arabic, is ‘abu’. it’s the same word for the color ‘black’.
davidmhoffer, I’m just trying to clear this up because I’ve printed it out to distribute at the Oscar party this Sunday–it’s so damn polite and incisive, it will work on this crowd–and it will be a party with nitpick types.
Pretty amazing that out of more than 12,000 papers that explicitly included the words global warming or climate change more than 2/3 had nothing to add to the discussion of global warming or climate change. From 1991 to 2011…over 8,000 papers and no opinion… that’s odd?
Real scientists then confirmed their work in less than 20% of the more than 12,000 papers.
Sounds like scientists getting behind their work of discovering the ins and outs of our climate or maybe that’s The Guardian and Dana for ya.
The sky is falling.
cn
I would love to hear a response from her, but I doubt we will see one.
brian vhoptain, February 26, 2014 at 10:21 am
What happened during the summer of 2013 when the ice increased by 50% over 2012? http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/icecover.uk.php
David,
Thanks for the post, and for your gumption in writing to the journalist.
World CO2 levels are at an all-time high for the modern era – nearly 400 ppm. Greenhouse theory long ago predicted that we would be sizzling by this point. Across a variety of metrics, it’s been the coldest winter on record for much of the Midwest, at the same time that ‘None of us alive have ever seen such a weak cycle (of the sun)’ (Leif Svalgaard at AGU on the Current Solar Cycle) Weak Sun Is it not strange that we are conceding points to the warmists about mankind’s incremental temperature contributions via CO2, and (as some do) dismissing the influence of the sun?
More on the Doran Zimmerman and the other 97% survey Anderegge at;
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/07/18/what-else-did-the-97-of-scientists-say/.
[dbstealey says:
February 26, 2014 at 9:57 am
Dan Tauke,
You make a good point. Most folks here don’t claim that there is no greenhouse effect, or that humans are not adding CO2 to the atmosphere. What we are pointing out is that neither of those things matter in the slightest.
The net effect of more CO2 is beneficial. Despite asking numerous times, no one has ever been able to identify any global damage or harm due to the rise in CO2. Therefore, CO2 is ipso facto ‘harmless’.
It is also beneficial. The rise in CO2 has brought about a very measurable greening of the planet. More food is being produced [which the “greens” do not like; they would clearly prefer mass starvation in order to ‘save the planet’.]
If Carol Costello understood the least bit about science, she would know that the effect of CO2 is logarithmic. That means there is a diminishing effect as CO2 rises. That is where the analogy of ‘adding more coats of paint to a window’ comes from: after the first coat [≈20 ppm CO2], subsequent coats do not cause any noticeable warming.
The whole “carbon” scare is built upon the false notion that a rise in CO2 is linear. ]
Thanks for reminding me of the diminishing returns on C02 (and the subsequent feedbacks), it is easy to forget. Do the models include this or not? Diminishing returns are very frequent in business predictive models so it would be hard to believe they wouldn’t exist in climate models for many variables. Or do they assume that for the first 100-200 years (maybe 500ppm to 2000ppm?) it is relatively linear?
Great article by the author, btw, if I didn’t mention. Well done.
This letter should be in the CNN opinion section! To get it there, you would first need to dumb it down to their level, though.
Re: brian choptain, February 26, 2014 at 10:21 am
1) Polar bears; not in danger. That is a myth. Regardless of Churchill population conditions, the 25 separate populations of polar bears are, by and large, on the increase and have been for 30 years.
2) Science makes no judgement on the value of jobs mitigating warming vs. working at McDonalds. That is an economic judgement. Remove it from the discussion of GW or forfeit the argument entirely.
3) Continued same global temperature = permanent continued melting = you really really really need to learn some science before you begin having these discussions. For a hint; look up “equilibrium” and see how that might apply to a massive system in permanent cyclical flux.
4) How do you reconcile minimum ice extent in ’12 with 50% recovery in ’13 and increasing trend in antarctic sea ice?
Don’t make it so easy.
policycritic
Try these:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/12/10/an-oopsie-in-the-doranzimmerman-97-consensus-claim/
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/11/20/the-97-consensus-myth-busted-by-a-real-survey/
she looks pretty – ’nuff said – don’t waste time with mindless talking heads – simplify and listen to our Warrior President and national cognoscenti for truth.
Thanks, davidmhoffer.
Carol also needs to take a lesson in logic.
“Trust certainly plays a part.
According to Gordon Gauchat, an associate professor of sociology from the University of Wisconsin, just 42% of adults in the U.S. have a great deal of confidence (PDF) in the scientific community.
It’s easy to understand why. Most Americans can’t even name a living scientist.
So if 40% of U.S. adults have no confidence in the scientific community because they cannot “even” name one, does the fact that Gallop said in 2012, “Americans’ confidence in television news is at a new low by one percentage point, with 21% of adults expressing a great deal or quite a lot of confidence in it. ”
Your field has half the confidence of the scientists, because we cannot even name a living TV talking head?
The lady, bless her little heart, is from Minerva, Ohio where the low temperature is about to go into the low single digits (F) or even to minus 1. (about -17 degrees C). I wonder if she still has relatives in the region? I wonder if the homes are heated with wind and solar power?
Reply to policycritic
http://www.polarbearsinternational.org/news-room/scientists-and-explorers-blog/watching-sea-ice
There is a graph showing the amount of ice in Hudson bay in July. You can note the wild swings in ice conditions each year. But one thing to see is the year Mt. Pinatubo erupted in 1991 which resulted in cooling the earth. The bears born that year were called Pinatubo bears because more of them survived and were heavier. Each year polar bears that go into Churchill and do not leave are driven out by natural resource officers are put in polar bear jail outside town and are not given food or they are taken by helicopter further north. When captured they are weighed and checked for age and health.
As a skeptic, I, like most, accept IN PRINCIPLE, THEORETICALLY, that human activity can affect climate. The question is, how much – and how? Is it only CO2 emissions, or things like land use (which has been shown to have local effects – planting trees can increase precipitation locally, as the Israelis have found)?
My observation, from everything I have read here at WUWT, CFACT, Cimate Depot, Bishop Hill, JoNova, Tim Ball, and books on the subject by people ranging from A.W. Montford to Vaclav Klaus to Roy Spencer to . . . (well, I could list dozens more sources I’ve consulted) is that whatever effect there is, is nugatory, inseparable from the variation and noise in other factors affecting climate, i.e., statistically indistinguishable from zero. When the greenhouse effect of water vapor varies from tens to hundreds of times that of carbon dioxide, how can one say with eny certainty what the effect of the CO2 is? It’s a mathematical impossibility.
So one is ultimately forced to the historical and archeological records. Working backwards, there has been cooling since 2002 and no warming since. 1996, despite a 15 percent increase in atmospheric CO2 since 1996. The peak of temps in the 1990s was considerably less than the peek in the 1930s even with 30 percent more CO2 in the air – in other words, we have 80 years of net cooling (after the minor ups and downs since then) while CO2 increased by 40 percent. And this is before we consider prior warming periods with low CO2 and cold periods with high CO2.
Therefore, since statistical insignificance is for practical purposes equivalence to zero, and since the historical and archeological records demonstrate a convincing lack of both correlation and causation between them, I do not accept that man’s activities or CO2 have any recognizable effect on climate, and I am quite firm in that conclusion. Therefore,I think a hard line against assertions of human-caused climate change is warranted, and I will not give ground to the notion that man is disrupting or changing climate at all, unless and until someone comes forth with solid empirical proof of it.
Well said, David Hoffer.
Stupid is as stupid does…
This entire thread is silly. . . who cares what Carol Costello thinks . . . and no matter how thoroughly we debunk her argument, it won’t make any difference to anyone! Really do you care what she thinks?
As I see it, skeptics debating within any blog, such as WUWT, are debating (more likely agreeing) amongst themselves. . . literally in a vacuum. WUWT bloggers become a mutual admiration society whose voice is unheard and has zero impact. The debate is not happening here! So what to do?
Let’s get proactive on the actual battleground. . . take our objections into the foreground. Here are some suggestions involving what I’ll call “WUWT action teams”.
(1) Advocate the adoption of Model Verification and Validation standards like those currently in place within the AIAA computation fluids mechanics (CFD) and the ASM computational solid mechanics (CSM) communities. Advocate for standards that impose uncertainty quantification methods for determining model parameter uncertainty , and a output prediction uncertainty.
(2) Establish data standards for both land and ocean based temperature measurements. (Note: Anthony has identified systematic problems with land measurement. . . but WUWT should establish a study committee to design measurement protocols that better fit the need for global temperature measurement . . . i.e. answer the question of what should be measured and HOW).
(3) WUWT has many energetic members who seemingly succeed in critiquing papers written by Climate alarmists. . . but these members need to be cogent, intellectually clear, and resolute in presenting their theories and analysis within the scientific literature. Whether we like it or not. . . the debate exists within the scientific literature. . . . not CNN and not WUWT!!
Dan Backman
WOW, David!
Best piece of writing I’ve read here at WUWT or anywhere in a long time.
To the point, lighthearted, … And ABSOLUTELY true.
THANKS.
Ira Glickstein
gnomish says: February 26, 2014 at 10:47 am
j.jewett said ” Same for the word for slave in Arabic. ”
the word for slave, in arabic, is ‘abu’. it’s the same word for the color ‘black’.
******************
Thanks for the correction. Read what I said in two places so I quoted it.
Steamboat Jack
Ms Carol is apparently a feminist, so there are only 3 possible outcomes:
– David Hoffer will be prepared for a public lynch as a misogynist and a kitten eater
– David Hoffer will be accused for spreading hate and rape culture
– the whole WUWT, women included, will be recognised as a patriarchy hub and bickered by truly stupid feminist wannabes from now on
I liked the Carol Costello is stupid argument for it’s brevity and straight to the point approach.
I’ve noted some incredible similarities between feminism and a climate hoax. They both flourish in reality-free environments, and they both suck at statistics.
I happen to think Carol is stupid given what she has written, but if I may paraphrase Willis in another open letter here, she is so damned attractive men will lie to her. Maybe that is her problem.
I can think of 6 million reasons.
“Misogynist: A man who hates women as much as women hate one another.” ― H.L. Mencken.
To paraphrase Groucho Marx, ” She may look like an idiot and talk like an idiot, but don’t let that fool you. She really is an idiot”.
DanMet’al says:
February 26, 2014 at 12:25 pm
A whole bunch of people who never post come here to read the posts. Mr. Hoffer has given them an excellent opportunity to educate themselves.
Joe Bastardi says:
February 26, 2014 at 9:50 am
Respectively, Sir, I would like to say that your style is unique. That is a good thing. Your posts are always worth reading. I look forward to the day that you comment on one of my posts.
To Marty:
You asked about the Drexel study. A thread on WUWT that
dealt with this is:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/12/23/claim-dark-money-conspiracy-star-deniers-are-scripted-performers/
Enjoy reading!
One thing these people have been incredibly successful at is convincing the sheeple that there is this “well funded effort from big oil” that backs the dissent.
Forget the debate about climate, CO2, and everything else.
Challenge these people to prove that one statement. My friends have given me that same line…and when I ask them to back it up, they never can, and they never do.
Every single article I see mentions this well-funded effort. We joke about it here, asking where the checks are, but seriously, this is something that instantly proves to someone that they are simply parroting what they’ve heard that helps to reinforce their ill-formed beliefs.
It’s a question that you don’t have to be a scientist to answer, and it pulls the first peg out of the tower that everything else they parrot is built on. Challenge them to show you the funding.
I think two of the most well known “skeptics” are probably Anthony and McIntyre. If there was even a wisp of smoke from a dollar bill in either of their pockets, you can bet your ass that would be front page news on every pro-warming piece of media out there.
Jim
Theo Goodwin says:
February 26, 2014 at 2:22 pm
Point well taken; I for one have learned a lot about climate issues from WUWT and its many fine contributors, including yourself. However, my intended point was not to dismiss Mr. Hoffer but rather to attempt to initiate a WUWT dialog about how to gain greater traction in the climate debate. . . in which I dare say we are woefully inadequate! I would appreciate any comments you might have regarding my three enumerated points.
Best regards
Dan Backman
Ira Glickstein, PhD says:
February 26, 2014 at 1:17 pm
>>>>>>>>>>>>
Great to hear from you Ira! How’s Florida?
Appreciate the compliment, but I’m just not in the same league as you or Christopher Monkton or Willis. FYI, I’ve taken to keeping links to all of your articles in a text file. When someone disputes the greenhouse effect, I just say “here, read these” and paste the links in.
dmh
Ms Costello says that 97 % of all scentists agree, so be quiet, you stupids. Even the pope, He Who Know All, will eventually come out of the closet and tell us the Truth.
/sarc off.
It is obvious that (even?) Ms Costello sees the AGW as a religious matter.
Theo Goodwin says:
February 26, 2014 at 2:22 pm
One of the key strategies of the ASM V&V guidelines and those that we are adopting within the computational materials community is that verification and validation needs to be carried out hierarchically. This means that for a mechanical system V&V is starts at the lowest level of mechanical system; then builds towards subassemblies, and then finally to the full system. For materials systems (that I specialize in), one starts with fundamental processing physics models, towards microstructural evolution, and then finally towards models of properties, service performance and component life/reliabilitiy. The argument is that you can not reliably V&V a system without full understanding of V&V and uncertainty propagation among and between subelements of the system.
This is now becoming standard practice for engineering systems. Why don’t we ask/demand that climate modeling adhere to these burgeoning standards? And why are NASA and other agencies allowed to modify/manipulate data without oversight or governance by community accepted standards.
I don’t know the answers; but would like to think that a community such as WUWT might have some thoughts and thereby normalize our community into the mainstream
Best Regards
Dan
My biggest gripe with WUWT is that the majority of these posts do not contain links to claims being made. Often when I link posts from here to friends that are advocates of CAGW-Climate Change, their most often response is: “Why should I believe some blog post over peer reviewed literature? They don’t even cite their claims.” … or something like that.
For example, in David Hoffer’s piece here there is a link to Carol Costello’s CNN article, but…
1) Why not provide a link to Margaret Zimerman’s survey?
2) Why not provide a link showing the data in support of “Arctic ice retreat has stopped, and Antarctic ice has hit record levels. ”
3) Why not provide a link showing the data in support of “On a global basis, hurricanes and tornadoes have declined in both frequency and severity.”
4) Why not provide a ink showing the data in support of “According to the temperature records kept by the “consensus” scientist themselves, the earth hasn’t warmed in close to two decades, despite ever rising levels of CO2.”
5) Why not provide a link showing the data (or transcripts) in support of “Even the United Nations IPCC, which is consensus climate science central for the world, now admits in their recent report (IPCC AR5) that the climate models themselves are wrong. It is their expert opinion that sensitivity to CO2 lies well below the model estimates.”
I don’t mind investigating these things on my own time. But we’re engaged in an intellectual battle. I wish WUWT posters would take the time to include appropriate links. If they did, then these blogs posts would be much more persuasive to those people not already skeptical of CAGW-Climate Change.
Any thoughts?
DanMet’al says:
February 26, 2014 at 2:45 pm
Thanks for your very helpful response. I doubt that the readership of WUWT is in a position to undertake political action. From my point of view, the first thing that the readership should do is something that lightens the burdens of Watts, Eschenbach, Tisdale, and others. But I am a very practical type.
DanMet’al says:
February 26, 2014 at 3:07 pm
They seem to revel in their lack of standards. Those that you suggest might work fine. Some standards are desperately needed.
SDB says:
February 26, 2014 at 3:08 pm
…
Any thoughts?
Reasonable point. Most of the answers to your questions are probably in some other WUWT thread that has been discussed many times.
If you ever would like a specific link to something mentioned here, I suggest asking. There are great folks here and someone might be able to help.
For the Doran/Zimmerman survey, you might start here:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/12/10/an-oopsie-in-the-doranzimmerman-97-consensus-claim/
Theo Goodwin says:
February 26, 2014 at 3:11 pm
Theo – I truly thank you for your kind response(s). Maybe I’m overwrought. . . and maybe I’ve been fighting this battle (successfully I might add) for too long in my own discipline to have forgotten all the hurdles!
I hope we can leave it at that. . . but do recognize that V&V is not political it is technical and mathematical.
Best regards . . . no need to respond
Dan
SDB;
1) Why not provide a link to Margaret Zimerman’s survey?
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/12/10/an-oopsie-in-the-doranzimmerman-97-consensus-claim/
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/11/20/the-97-consensus-myth-busted-by-a-real-survey/
2) Why not provide a link showing the data in support of “Arctic ice retreat has stopped, and Antarctic ice has hit record levels. ”
http://wattsupwiththat.com/reference-pages/sea-ice-page/
3) Why not provide a link showing the data in support of “On a global basis, hurricanes and tornadoes have declined in both frequency and severity.”
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/05/04/tornadoes-drop-to-new-record-alltime-low/
(also see IPCC AR5 Ch11 which declares that hurricane activity will be flat or in decline at least until 2100AD)
4) Why not provide a ink showing the data in support of “According to the temperature records kept by the “consensus” scientist themselves, the earth hasn’t warmed in close to two decades, despite ever rising levels of CO2.”
Many articles on this site
5) Why not provide a link showing the data (or transcripts) in support of “Even the United Nations IPCC, which is consensus climate science central for the world, now admits in their recent report (IPCC AR5) that the climate models themselves are wrong. It is their expert opinion that sensitivity to CO2 lies well below the model estimates.”
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/01/01/ipcc-silently-slashes-its-global-warming-predictions-in-the-ar5-final-draft/
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/11/05/climate-models-worse-than-we-thought/
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/02/10/95-of-climate-models-agree-the-observations-must-be-wrong/
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/02/03/new-paper-arctic-amplification-of-temperature-not-primarily-due-to-albedo-changes-climate-models-need-to-be-reworked/
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/01/20/our-climate-models-are-aglow-with-whirling-transient-nodes-of-thought-careening-through-a-cosmic-vapor-of-invention/
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/01/09/now-its-the-fungi-carbon-footprint-that-isnt-in-climate-models/
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/11/29/study-lack-of-cloud-physics-biased-climate-models-high/
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/11/28/new-paper-climate-models-short-on-physics-required-for-realistic-simulation-of-the-earth-system/
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/09/13/national-academy-of-sciences-climate-models-still-decades-away-from-being-useful/
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/07/24/quote-of-the-week-on-the-usefulness-of-models/
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/07/11/quote-of-the-week-nature-on-the-failure-of-climate-models/
Hope those are helpful.
JohnWho,
Thanks for the reply. I don’t need help finding in other WUWT posts the material I mentioned in my comment above. Finding that material on my own is not difficult. And it’s beside the point…
My comment above is specifically about trying to get people, who are not already skeptics, to engage skeptical material. Consider my comment above constructive criticism toward WUWT and those who post here.
Global warming is a no-brainer for scientists and reporters.
Being a proponent means you get grants from the government to “study” the issue if you are a scientist, and a raise from the rich network owners if you are a reporter. All you have to worry about is criticism from the relatively small blogosphere.
Being a critic means you get no funding, loss of income, and other reporters and media types will trip over each other to attack and denounce you simultaneously on all other networks.
4. Many articles on this site, also check out http://www.woodfortrees.org/ where you can plot any of the major temperature records on any time frame you wish against various parameters like co2 concentration. Werner Brozek reports regularly using those tools in articles like:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/01/25/another-year-another-nail-in-the-cagw-coffin-now-includes-december-data/
Let me elaborate on why the point I’m emphasizing is so important…
Most of my friends are liberal-progressives who faithfully believe in CAGW-Climate Change. I’ve shared WUWT links with them before and like i said above, they usually immediately dimiss it on grounds that it’s just a blog post and there are no citations to the claims.
Now, even if they decide to investigate some of the claims, the general psychological nature of humans is to engage in confirmation bias. If they read ““On a global basis, hurricanes and tornadoes have declined in both frequency and severity.” …. what they’re likely to do is google it and go looking for evidence that supports their already held beliefs. If they share that evidence with me, then I need to go find coutner evidence, and this back and forth usually ends quickly as they get tired with it.
My point about including links to all claims is strageic and tactical. The goal should be to MAKE IT EASY for advocates of CAGW-Climate Change to reconsider their belief. The best way to do that is to hold their hand, so to speak -> provide the links within the post.
DavidHoffer,
Thank you very much for the reply. I will document those links for future reference. But my point was broader (it’s elaborated on in my comment just above this).
SDB;
My comment above is specifically about trying to get people, who are not already skeptics, to engage skeptical material.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Apologies, I misunderstood your comment. The answer is that there are a plethora of articles already on WUWT with detailed explanations and references. The references pages itself has dozens of links to raw data directly from the data sources themselves. The idea of a forum like WUWT is to carry a variety of article types and styles. Different approaches appeal to different people. This was an opinion piece. Well, it was also bait, though I doubt that CNN or Carol Costello are likely to take the bait.
But bottom line is that if you want technical articles they are here. This was an opinion piece, and was written accordingly. In the happy event that it sparks engagement from the other side, demanding proof of my assertions, I’ll be happy to oblige. In the same vein, if someone is new to the debate, and says really? IPCC AR5 says that? Then I am also happy to oblige. But first you have to write an engaging article that gets enough attention that people want to know more, and that is all this particular article was intended to do.
Also, linking to actual articles like Zimmerman’s is not always practical. Many of them are behind pay walls for example.
what they’re likely to do is google it and go looking for evidence that supports their already held beliefs.
>>>>>>>>>>>
If you are having that type of discussion, my recommendation is to pre-empt them by providing links to source material. IPCC AR5 is on line. My system is to find on article on WUWT by searching for the issue at hand and then adding “AR5” to the search. Bingo, I get an article discussing that issue and how it is presented in AR5. But that’s now what i send to my friends. I use that article to find the relevant quote in AR5, find it in their documentation, and then send a link to THAT. Now they skip google and see if your claim about what AR5 actually says is true or not.
I do the same with the references page. All the links to the source material are there. WUWT is just a quick way to get to what I am looking for. If sea ice for example, I’ll go to the sea ice page, find one graph for Arctic, one for Antarctic, and send the links to the source material which is usually some prestigious government science body displaying graphs drawn directly from the satellite data. If they’re not prepared to accept what the actual data from the official sources says, then let them google to their heart’s content, there’s no persuading them.
davidmhoffer,
Point taken that this is an opinion piece and not a technical article. All I’m suggesting is at minimum footnotes or endnotes, with links to claims that are substantial. And this isn’t directed soley at you, but at WUWT in general.
From my experience dealing with friends – again mostly liberal-progressive advocates of CAGW-Climate Change – the biggest barrier I run into when sharing links from WUWT is a lack of directly linkable supporting evidence on claims being made. It’s important to keep in mind many of these people live in an echo chamber that constantly resonates fearmongering on this issue. Even a hint of skepticism is met with violent accusations back at me and the material I’m linking to.
How do we better spread the truth? Think strategically. Think tactically.
Keep up the good work.
SDB – here’s an example, took me 3 mins.
Arctic sea ice no longer in decline
U of Illinois, Arctic Climate Research Center
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/seaice.anomaly.arctic.png
Antarctic setting new records, same source:
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/seaice.anomaly.antarctic.png
davidmhoffer,
I appreciate the time your taking to respond. Again my point isn’t about how easy or difficult it is to find mainstream sources to back up claims being made. My point is about first impressions. I’m saying posts at WUWT would give a much more credible first impression to newcomers, especially those concerned about CAGW-Climate Change, if some form of links was offered within or at the end of posts for all the substantial claims being made. Take from this what you will. No big deal if you disagree or it’s not worth your time. It’s just my two cents.
The 97% consensus is that she is stupid. Would do well as a Greens politician in Australia.
EPIC smackdown!!!
your systematic, factual destruction of her argument exposes her ignorance and gives rise to your first premise actually being something that cant be dismissed.
+++++++++++++++
Pretty funny actually, well said
I agree completely with SDB about links. The majority of commenters here are scientists or engineers who know this stuff cold, but newbies, non-scientists, will engage and read further if the links and citations are there. And it has more heft if and when we forward these main articles to others to have the links in place. The main article then becomes “well-sourced.”
My wish is that someone would shut down Al Gore as effectively as this writer has caused Carol to be banished into the closet of irrevelavence. Mr. Gore makes money from his stupidity, poor Carol, hopefully will just stay in her closet, and shut up.
klem says: @ February 26, 2014 at 2:13 am
Carol and her producers know full well that climate alarmism is a political position, a left position….
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
How about we leave out the left/right crap and say it like it really is.
“climate alarmism is a political position, a
leftTOTALITARIAN position.”The totalitarians do not care what route they take to power as long as it gets them what they want POWER and MONEY.
Ask yourself this – How many laws have the Republicans or the Democrats repealed?
Carol Costello naively wonders “Why are we still debating climate change “ If she had done her proper research before writing her article she would have found :
The global annual temperature anomalies have not risen now for some 17 years. The Northern Hemisphere temperature anomalies [ hadcrut 4nh] have declined since 2004 [ 10 years]. The annual temperature anomaly for United States has been declining for 1 5 years. Winters have been getting colder for 15 years now in North America. Winters like we used to have 30 years ago are returning as we have seen with the current severe winter. This colder winter weather spills over into a colder spring in Canada and colder spring in United States . Fall is also getting colder in United States. In summary the weather is getting colder for 7 months of the year, flat for another two and only slightly warming during three months. The same climate is being predicted to 2020 and possibly the next 2-3 decades .
Yet the opposite was supposed to be happening . We were supposed to get unprecedented warming and warmer winters .
The questions that she should be asking is: why is the debate not more open and widely discussed? why are these global warming scientists so far off in their science ?why are we spending so much money to chase a problem that does not even exist.when we have all these financial restraints?
David Hoffer,
I suggest you read the comments make corrections as needed and polish up this letter then send it to Fox News, or the Wall Street Journal or possibly Delingpole at Breitbart.
btw, policycritic… are you the one that left insightful comments on economics and money over at Real Science? I’m glad to see there is at least one other person in this world besides me that understands “modern money” AND is skeptical of AGW-Climate Change. Most of my friends and associates that understand the money system well are politcal progressives in academia and believe in CAGW-Climate Change.
Consensus is not science. There was once a consensus that the world was flat.
If anyone else is curious, I’m referring to the comments section here:
http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2014/02/21/obama-hoping-to-double-the-national-debt-before-he-is-impeached/#comments
Yeah, that was me. Your friends and associates in academia aren’t applying the same operational clarity to AGW-Climate Change that they apply (accurately in my view) to actual federal government monetary/currency operations, which are Byzantine at best because of all the left-over laws from the gold standard days gumming up the works. I would suggest the reverse is often true here, but this is a smarter crowd, especially the ones who have hard science as a background. Tough to convince–not that I’m peddling–but willing to listen to a cogent argument when the subject comes up occasionally.
I’m not proud of it but I hijacked a thread here about three weeks ago with long explanations you might enjoy (note rgbatduke’s praise of Keynes statistical skill). It’s taken an hour to locate it. My regret at disrupting the thread involves Dr. Svalgaard who was leading most of the commentary that was the topic of the post, and at which he’s an expert. I mention this because a few months ago I asked Svalgaard why if a particular chart he referenced showed 400 years of correlation between sun spots and earth’s climate, why wouldn’t he say sun spots were a cause. (I’m paraphrasing badly, but it was something like that.) He answered because we don’t know the physics, if you don’t know the physics, you can’t say it’s the cause. Correlation doesn’t count. It was just the knock on the head I needed to apply the same thinking I use with modern money operations: you better know how it works. Not supposition. Not politics mixed in with what you want it to be. Not wishful thinking, or fear mongering. How it works. The dreary 1-2-3.
“Your friends and associates in academia aren’t applying the same operational clarity to AGW-Climate Change that they apply (accurately in my view) to actual federal government monetary/currency operations…”
That is exactly what I’ve tried to tell them.
IMO, the people who best understand the monetary system are the Post Keyneisans, and from my experience they tend to be political ‘progressives’. On the other hand, the people who best understand the climate system, or best understand how little we understand about it, from my experience they tend to be political ‘conservatives’.
It’s a bizarre world I try to straddle.
“Why are we still having a debate about climate change” ?[ really global warming the way the alarmist really define it]
Here is why. Winnipeg, Manitoba is experiencing the third coldest winter in more than a century. You say one local winter does not make a trend . Yes it does when the trend of the winters has been getting colder since 1998 or 16 years and colder winters are happening over entire North America and the Northern Hemisphere as well
Yet winters were supposed to get warmer. The debate should be active and vocal because what was predicted is not happening and many parts of the country will not be prepared for the floods that will come from the spring melt or the tornadose that could arise soon because of the cooler than normal spring temperatures that will collide with the warm moist gulf air. Articles like Carol’s do not help as they give the public a false sense of what to expect , namely global warming induced climate change .
http://www.winnipegsun.com/2014/02/26/winnipeg-experiences-third-coldest-winter-in-more-than-a-century
If you’re in academia, I feel for you in that regard. Look what herkimer wrote just after you: “The debate should be active and vocal because what was predicted is not happening.” The Met Office didn’t warn the Brits that they would be flooded this winter. It told the Brits it would be clear sailing. Four feet of water is clear sailing? The Toronto climate modelers didn’t warn Manitoba that it would be frozen stiff. Who pays for their farming costs as a result of a lack of preparation? There are real costs to this.
Did you read the infrared astronomer on Real Science?
policycritic,
No need to hijack this thread too! 🙂 but maybe I’m about too … Just wanted to say that I read through your entire exchange that you linked me to. You’ve got an exceptional grasp of monetary operations. I agree with 99% of what you said. The 1% is just minor quibbles that’d we probably agree on if given the chance to elaborate. Here are the minor quibbles if you’re curious:
1) You said: “Inflation is caused when there is full employment, everyone has money in their bank accounts, and there aren’t enough goods and services produced in the economy to meet the need. The classic definition. Or it’s caused by cost or supply shocks, like a rapid rise in the price of oil…”
Those are definitely the two traditional terms of inflation; a.k.a demand-pull and cost-push. My quibble is that inflationary pressure can also build up prior to full employment: as we *approach* full utilization of resources, a) some bottlenecking can have inflationary effects, and b) upward wage-price ratcheting becomes more prominent.
2) You said: “what really brought down inflation and improved the economy was not Volker but Reagan’s massive deficit spending”
My understanding is that deregulation of natural gas was an important component that ‘broke the back of opec’ … I think you even mentioned this in an earlier comment.
3) You said: “There are five countries in the world that are 100% monetarily sovereign.”
This one I’m confused about. Besdies Eurozone countries, aren’t (almost) all other countries Monetarily Sovereign? What I suspect you’re implcitly saying is that a country is not Monetarily Sovereign if they are maintaining a pegged exchange rate, e.g. China. I suppose in a truely technical sense you’re correct, but so long as that countrt runs a trade surplus then they are – for all intents and purposes – Monetarily Sovereign. My reasoning here is that a trade surplus leading to an inflow of foreign currency (particularly USD) far exceeding outflow permits the public policy space to both maintain the peg AND conduct any appropriate expansionary fiscal policy in their sovereign currency. i.e. China has an unlimited ability to utilize it’s Yuan. The only constraint would be a FOREX attack on their peg, but so long as they have a sufficiently large inflow of USD, they can easily maintain the peg.
“Did you read the infrared astronomer on Real Science?”
I don’t know what this is.
Btw, how do you quote someone else’s text in this forum? Thanks!
SBD,
If you want to quote someone this way, you have to do it the old-fashioned way, via html tags.
Select the type you want to quote. Copy it. Then type the following at the beginning of a new line without the spaces I had to add to avoid block-quoting here!
Put your cursor between the >< and paste.
Otherwise, you can quote them with "".
Let’s see if this works:
>Put your cursor between the<
Any thoughts on 3) above, regarding Monetary Sovereignty?
SDB (sorry I transposed your initials in previous post)
Oh-oh. The html didn’t copy. Okay. I’ll try it this way. Look at this site: http://www.bignosebird.com/docs/h31.shtml
It explains the blockquote tag. You type: <no spaceblockquoteno space> then add your quoted text. At the end, you complete it with: </no spaceblockquoteno space>
Let’s see if that works.
maybe this will work:
Ok, this should work…
Got it 🙂 Thanks!
SDB,
The Real Science article is IR Expert Speaks Out After 40 Years Of Silence : “IT’S THE WATER VAPOR STUPID and not the CO2″
Also scroll down for additional remarks by Sanicola. You can show that to your academics. 😉
SDB,
Now to the meat. Of course I agree 100% with your quibbles. I was trying to write one paragraph and found myself pounding the keys into paragraphs and paragraphs. I didn’t want to get into the weeds. Although I think people should know that it was Jimmy Carter who deregulated natural gas in 1978 that broke the back of OPEC. Warren Mosler jokes that he probably didn’t know what he was doing. Carter did. As Walter Cronkite said in 2003, of all the presidents he covered–google it–Carter was the only president that he had to take two days to prepare to interview. Cronkite said Carter was without doubt the smartest president he ever interviewed of the seven he covered. Cronkite said Carter’s grasp of the issues, both macro and micro, was prodigious, and he had to study to keep up. Natural gas was $0.30 before it was deregulated. It soared to $2.70 or something after deregulation, which was an embarrassment, but it was 10X less than the cost of oil. Power plants retooled. Carter lost the election. Reagan got the praise.
And yes, I am saying that a monetarily sovereign country does not maintain “a pegged exchange rate, e.g. China.” As you write: “China has an unlimited ability to utilize it’s Yuan. The only constraint would be a FOREX attack on their peg, but so long as they have a sufficiently large inflow of USD, they can easily maintain the peg.” Which they do when they purchase treasury securities.
policycritic,
Thanks for the link. I found the IR expert piece a little bit ago and read through it and all the comments. I found it interesting but honestly it’s too deep into the weeds for me. I can’t judge the point-counterpoints… I’m merely an M.A. Economics student who probably spends too much time reading about climate science.
Very interesting stuff on Jimmy Carter. Now I want to learn more about him. Cue some violent reactions from the political-Right 🙂
SDB,
I’m still at the stupid stage. I am completely agnostic politically. I’m still at the stage of wanting to understand how things work. Four years ago I believed we borrowed from China (as if there were a factory in downtown China manufacturing dollar bills that we borrow) and I swallowed all the other nonsense the idiots who pass for financial geniuses on TV were selling me. Now I have to contend with people who understand the monetary system thinking that translates into intimate knowledge of the infrared where CO2 absorbs earth’s radiated heat and causes the greenhouse effect they are basing their conclusions on. Except they are scientifically ignorant, do not understand how gases work, and couldn’t explain the processes (like the greenhouse effect) if their lives depended upon it.
BTW, you won’t find anything useful or significant on Carter. He was maligned because of the Camp David Accord. That’s why he lost the election at the time. Menachem Begin was pissed.
Do you actually deal with many people of this sort?
What I was referring to above in my comments with David Hoffer is my casual interactions with classmates, professors, friends, etc. … I don’t think any of them actually believe they have intimate knowledge of whats going on in climate science. Rather, they accept the mainstream CAGW narrative without much critical thought.
OP Quote:
“Q1: “When compared with pre-1800s levels, do you think that mean global temperatures have generally risen, fallen, or remained relatively constant?” 76 of 79 (96.2%) answered “risen.”
Q2: “Do you think human activity is a significant contributing factor in changing mean global temperatures?” 75 of 77 (97.4%) answered “yes.”
The problem here Carol is that they should have gotten 100% to both questions. The earth has been warming since the Little Ice Age which was 400 years ago. So obviously the answer to the first question would be “risen” even if human influence was zero.”
Actually the question isn’t explicit enough to come to this conclusion as pre-1800s levels could mean any time between the formation of the earth and 1800.
Obviously the earth has been much colder and much warmer within this time frame but on average much warmer so the answer i would give would be “fallen”.
“People only insist that a debate stop when they are afraid of what might be learned if it continues.”
– George Will
Sure. In private conversations as I’ve tried to educate myself about federal accounting/monetary operations over the past four years.
The Hadley Climate Unit caught lying their ass off and talking about killing ppl who
were shining too much light on their manipulations was the Coup de Grat for me.
The film “The Great Global Warming Swindle” also showed that the main factor
in warming had been the sun.
I do believe HORRIFIC pollution of the planet has happened, who the hell can deny that ?
I do believe HORRIFIC die off of coral and marine species due to the giant endocrine
disrupting trash vortexes in multiple oceans powered by the horrid BPA leeching plastic.
I believe the fake green movement was called spot on by Gore Vidal in his book
The decline and fall of the american empire, he saw it coming, warned everyone,
and most ppl didn’t bother to read it or talk about it.
So here we are…