There’s lots of hype flying around the newly released report by the Obama administration.
I didn’t comment much yesterday, I decided to read the report and consider it. Having done that, I’ll throw in my two cents with this statement.
To me, this looks more like a glossy sales pitch from a company that is pushing a product they know people may not need, but if marketed just right, it would be something they’d buy. It reminds me of some insurance commercials I’ve seen in the past, where the commercial portrays all the bad things that could happen to you if you don’t get covered. Basically, they are trying to make people afraid of the weather, and then they pitch a solution to that fear in a way that’s right up there with the best traditions of salesmanship:
Who wouldn’t want better weather? Just buy our product.
The marketing and hype is right up there with the “Affordable Care Act”and makes me wonder how much they spent on this somewhat dysfunctional website http://nca2014.globalchange.gov/ pushing the report, which crashes my browser due to all the flash video content they built into it. Swirling cloud backgrounds and multi-level forced web wading to get the basics don’t do anything for getting your information across.
Below is some commentary from others on the report, including Judith Curry and Roy Spencer.
Dr. Judith Curry writes:
While there is some useful analysis in the report, it is hidden behind a false premise that any change in the 20th century has been caused by AGW. Worse yet is the spin being put on this by the Obama administration. The Washington Post asks the following question: Does National Climate Assessment lack necessary nuance? In a word, YES.
The failure to imagine future extreme events and climate scenarios, other than those that are driven by CO2 emissions and simulated by deficient climate models, has the potential to increase our vulnerability to future climate surprises (see my recent presentation on this Generating possibility distributions of scenarios for regional climate change). As an example, the Report highlights the shrinking of winter ice in the Great Lakes: presently, in May, Lake Superior is 30% cover by ice, which is apparently unprecedented in the historical record.
The big question is whether the big push by the White House on climate change will be able to compete with this new interview with Monica Lewinsky 🙂
See her complete point by point breakdown here: http://judithcurry.com/2014/05/06/u-s-national-climate-assessment-report/
Dr. Roger Pielke Sr. writes in a comment to Dr. Curry’s essay:
Hi Judy Excellent analysis of the NCA. Your text
“The report effectively implies that there is no climate change other than what is caused by humans, and that extreme weather events are equivalent to climate change”
“The failure to imagine future extreme events and climate scenarios, other than those that are driven by CO2 emissions and simulated by deficient climate models, has the potential to increase our vulnerability to future climate surprises”
succinctly shows the major failure of their report.
With respect to their equivalence of climate change to just that driven by CO2 emissions, this issue was clearly refuted in
National Research Council, 2005: Radiative forcing of climate change: Expanding the concept and addressing uncertainties. Committee on Radiative Forcing Effects on Climate Change, Climate Research Committee, Board on Atmospheric Sciences and Climate, Division on Earth and Life Studies, The National Academies Press, Washington, D.C., 208 pp. http://www.nap.edu/openbook/0309095069/html/
and
Pielke Sr., R., K. Beven, G. Brasseur, J. Calvert, M. Chahine, R. Dickerson, D. Entekhabi, E. Foufoula-Georgiou, H. Gupta, V. Gupta, W. Krajewski, E. Philip Krider, W. K.M. Lau, J. McDonnell, W. Rossow, J. Schaake, J. Smith, S. Sorooshian, and E. Wood, 2009: Climate change: The need to consider human forcings besides greenhouse gases. Eos, Vol. 90, No. 45, 10 November 2009, 413. Copyright (2009) American Geophysical Union.
http://pielkeclimatesci.files.wordpress.com/2009/12/r-354.pdf
The failings of the models with respect to multi-decadal climate predictions (projections) is documented, for example, in
Pielke Sr., R.A., and R.L. Wilby, 2012: Regional climate downscaling – what’s the point? Eos Forum, 93, No. 5, 52-53, doi:10.1029/2012EO050008. http://pielkeclimatesci.files.wordpress.com/2012/02/r-361.pdf
and the Preface to
Pielke Sr, R.A., Editor in Chief., 2013: Climate Vulnerability, Understanding and Addressing Threats to Essential Resources, 1st Edition. J. Adegoke, F. Hossain, G. Kallos, D. Niyoki, T. Seastedt, K. Suding, C. Wright, Eds., Academic Press, 1570 pp. http://pielkeclimatesci.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/b-18preface.pdf
That much of the media accepted the NCA without questioning its findings and conclusions either indicates they are naive or they have chosen to promote a particular agenda and this report fits their goal.
Dr. Roy Spencer has also made a point by point rebuttal:
Follow the money, folks. This glitzy, 840-page report took a lot of your tax dollars to generate, and involved only those “experts” who are willing to play the game. It is difficult to answer in its entirety because government has billions of dollars to invest in this, while most of us who try to bring some sanity to the issue must do it in our spare time, because we aren’t paid to do it. It is nowhere near balanced regarding science, costs-versus-benefits, or implied policy outcomes. Like the previous two National Assessment reports, it takes global climate models which cannot even hindcast what has happened before, which over-forecast global average warming, which are known to have essentially zero skill for regional (e.g. U.S.) predictions, and uses them anyway to instill fear into the masses, so that we might be led to safety by politicians.
Caveat emptor.
(Oh, and if you are tempted to say, “What about all the Big Oil money involved in our need for energy?” Well, that money was willingly given to Big Oil by all of us for a useful product that makes our lives better. Government money is taken from you (I’m not anti-taxation, just pointing out a distinction) that they then use to perpetuate the perceived need for more government control. If “Big Oil” could make a profit by becoming “Big Solar”, or “Big Wind”, they would.)
His initial thoughts on the 12 major findings from the latest National Climate Assessment are here: http://www.drroyspencer.com/2014/05/my-initial-comments-on-the-national-climate-assessment/
And, John Coleman, founder of the Weather Channel, writes on Facebook:
The sky is falling. “Climate Change” is running wild and disaster is certain unless we immediately stop burning coal and oil and move quickly to “green energy” to eliminate use of fossil fuels. Heat waves, huge floods, powerful storms, droughts and rising seas are on the verge of killing millions of us and destroying our civilization. That is my summary of the new Federal Assessment of Climate Change issued by a Obama administration team of more than 300 specialists guided by a 60-member federal advisory committee produced the report. It was reviewed by federal agencies and a panel of the National Academy of Sciences.
This 600 page litany of doom and gloom has received extensive coverage by the panting anchors of the national media who feel important when tell their audience that “the sky is falling.” Horrible pictures of storms, floods, drought and heat waves leaped out of the TV sets as the New York and Washington DC headquartered media was particularly excited to tell us how the huge increases in floods and storms was the worst in that part of the nation.
If you accept the picture painted by this report, the weather was just right, steady and nice in the historic past but because our industrialized society has powered its heating and air conditioning, its transportation by train, plane, cars and trucks, generated it’s electric power to run our lights, computers, television and smart phones with fossil fuels it has triggered this nightmare of awful storms, droughts and heat waves.
I am deeply disturbed to have to suffer through this total distortion of the data and agenda driven, destructive episode of bad science gone berserk. The only good news is that I least where I am and on the channels and websites I saw I was not further insulted by fawning TV Weathercasters visiting the White House and interviewing the President. I best I can tell, on a national level, that turned out to be a non-event (thank goodness).
Please allow me to hold your attention for a few minutes to explain why I don’t buy into this Climate Change alarmism. The climate of Earth has never been “normal” or stable. It has continuously changed through this planet’s 4.5 billion year history. Powerful storms, floods, droughts, heat waves and ice and snow storms have come and gone as long as Earth has existed.
The current bad science is all based on a theory that the increase in the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere from the exhaust of the burning of fossil fuels leads to a dramatic increase in “the greenhouse effect” causing temperatures to skyrocket uncontrollably. This theory has failed to verify and is obviously dead wrong. But the politically funded and agenda driven scientists who have built their careers on this theory and live well on the 2.6 billion dollars of year of Federal grants for global warming/climate change research cling to this theory and bend the data spread to support the glorified claims in their reports and papers.
When the temperature data could no longer be bent to support global warming, they switched to climate change and now blame every weather and climate event on CO2 despite the hard, cold fact that the “radiative forcing” theory they built their claims on has totally failed to verify.
They call people such as me who debunk their non-scientific silliness as “deniers” and claim we are flat-earthers and shills for “big oil”. It is insulting and maddening. But I will not be silenced. And neither will the thousand others, many of them with Ph.D.’s and on the faculties of major universities who are working to stop this bad science that labels CO2 as a pollutant and blames it for every shift in the weather.
We will be gathering, we global warming skeptics, at Heartland Institutes 9th International Conference on Climate Change, July 7 – 9, 2014 in Las Vegas. You can learn about that conference at http://climateconference.heartland.org/. I will be one of the speakers at the breakfast session on Tuesday July 8th. Look at the list of speakers on the website and you will see an impressive group. A group of the powerful Ph.D.’s in the group have recently published a complete scientific document that totaling destroys the climate change alarmism of the US Democrat Party and the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. You can find that publication on line at http://climatechangereconsidered.org/.
Investors Business Daily Newspaper says:
‘It has nothing to do with climate, everything to do with power. It’s a green coup’
Obama using report to ‘simply declare an emergency and wield power without consent or involvement from Congress’ -‘It asserts as fact, for instance, the unknowable and unprovable: That the climate’s many effects are “expected to become increasingly disruptive across the nation throughout this century and beyond.’ – ‘It’s not the disruption of the climate that we should be worried about; it’s the disruption of our economy and constitutional rights.’
Delingpole in Brietbart London says: Obama’s Last Shot – Climate Change – And Why It’s Doomed To Fail
‘Fortunately, there’s some good news too: you don’t need to believe a word because, just like the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s reports, this document is much more a political one than a scientific one.’
“Sometimes people hold a core belief that is very strong. When they are presented with evidence that works against that belief, the new evidence cannot be accepted. It would create a feeling that is extremely uncomfortable, called cognitive dissonance. And because it is so important to protect the core belief, they will rationalize, ignore and even deny anything that doesn’t fit in with the core belief.”
— Frantz Fanon
This explains why global warming goes no where – it is pure politics without verifiable facts.
“You are neither right nor wrong because the crowd disagrees with you.
You are right because your data and reasoning are right.”
— Benjamin Graham
Take away the money and power in DC ans shut down EPA, IRS, BLM and offending agencies.
http://articlevprojecttorestoreliberty.com/article-v—group-overview-and-proposal.html
I think this pretty much nails it.
Mark Bofill says:
May 7, 2014 at 8:58 am
Obama using report to ‘simply declare an emergency and wield power without consent or involvement from Congress’
I think this pretty much nails it.
Well, Obama and a good portion of the Democrats.
Lewinsky, Lewandowsky. Hard choice.
Mike Bromley the Kurd says:
May 7, 2014 at 9:07 am
Lewinsky, Lewandowsky. Hard choice.
Lewinsky for hands on,
Lewandowsky for hands up.
The political spin of the new report IS hard to swallow. I jumped to the “Climate Science Supplement” to see if there was any new, hard science to support the political posturing, but couldn’t get past the first talking point, aka “Supplemental Message,” which said, “Although climate changes in the past have been caused by natural factors, human activities are now the dominant agents of change.”
The 12 “Supplemental Messages” reminded me a lot of the Benghazi memo’s talking points.
To me, consensus seems to be the process of abandoning all beliefs, principles, values and policies. So it is something in which no one believes and to which no one objects.
Margaret Thatcher
This Pres is like a shooting star that came from nowhere. On appearance there were many Oohs and Aahs (Awes ?). Nothing good has happened. Liberty, the very heart of the American dream, has been battered. Read George Will. On Natural Liberty.
However, the Man needs a legacy. He is doing a lot of damage and will be so remembered. Unlike a shooting star – gone but not forgotten.
I was saddened to see a stock photo of lightning in the WSJ story covering the report release. Is increased lightning in the report–no?
Sorry about the link — need to get the ” ” signes replaced:
Read George Will. On Natural Liberty.
Insurance companies learned long ago the fear does not do a good job at selling insurance; people tend to tune out. Look at the GEICO TV commercials to see if you can find fear in their ads. I recall the book the Hidden Persuaders covered the motivational psychology topic. Obviously, the folks at the White House haven’t consulted with competent sales people.
Given their failure with Obamacare and that “glitzy brochure”, this one is destined to fail as well. But I will give them credit for doing a little better the second time around. However the errors are just too gross for even all but the most mind-closed alarmists to sign on to.
The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.
H. L. Mencken
We need some Edward Snowdens of climate science and policy to come forward with info, data, and true intent from behind the curtains. But there are few places on the planet to use as exile with UN redistribution of wealth in the wings.
Reblogged this on Sierra Foothill Commentary and commented:
This is information you need to know when the MSM starts spouting the gloom and some of climate change. A few facts will sooth your concerns.
The skepticism needs to be a little more directed as we reach the extremes of Voodoo climate extremism as more policy. It isn’t enough to comment that the report is “political” when in fact it’s prototypical “Left-wing, greenshirt political”. Call it for what it is, if a few liberal (or hypersensitive “about science” doctrinaires) skeptics can’t handle it that is the cost of victory.
Skeptics who are squeamish of the actual political narrative in play should grow a spine and stop worrying about offended liberal skeptics or peers if they happen to be left-wing skeptics. Dr. Curry does this disservice all the time. Why should greenshirt politicization, core to the AGW movement for over 40 years, be left unspoken and indirectly referenced?
Most understand the driver yet the discussion gets cowed into abstractions and false equivalences. Only one side has a real greed agenda and has being willing to drag “science” into the gutter to achieve it. During a power grab acceleration like this you realize, or should, that the core effort was never based on sound science to begin with. Warming Hoi Polloi in fact understand this while skeptics are delusional about what the agenda really is and play this game endlessly. Curry and Pielke in particular are frustrating in their obtuse political connections and acknowledgements.
I’m sick of skeptics willing to play the role of Belgium in the First World War.
…..”I am deeply disturbed to have to suffer through this total distortion of the data and agenda driven, destructive episode of bad science gone berserk.”
You and me both, John.
I could be wrong, but doesn’t the Weather Channel promote this climate farce? I stopped watching it because they were still harping on Hurricane Sandy. I know I’ve seen their weather casters pitching this “scary” change before.
IBD has it generally right but in fact this will all go away after the crushing defeat come November mid-terms is finally at hand. Then the hand waving exercise will end, XL pipeline will get approval and Obama will triangulate the carbon boom which is going on in North America.
Greens will eat their “Che” Tee-shirts in the endgame.
They have zero congressional gravitas and that explains why the farm is being remortgaged on regulatory strong arming to file up the base. So it’s class war, race baiting and green daydreaming until November.
Victoria says:
May 7, 2014 at 9:56 am
All the rationalist were forced out of the Weather Channel years ago. Some have started new competing ventures to weed out the propaganda aspects of the current Weather Channel.
The Weather Channel now a powerful member of the global warming alarmist team. Any Meteorologist who works there either supports the “sky is falling” scenario or has to be very, very quiet. I know there are skeptics on the staff but I understand that keeping ones job and feeding the family is a basic requirement of life. So we unencumbered skeptics have to fight the battle in their behalf.
Resourceguy says:
May 7, 2014 at 9:46 am
You are assuming politics are rationally based when in fact it’s 95% emotions 100% of the time.
Green politics make zero rational sense but solve so many emotional needs. It permits the affluent to feel victims, the evil to perceive themselves “doing good” and justify their totalitarian desires with moral authority. AGW in-capsules all of these emotions.
Anthony. I think you just called them used car salesmen
Who would have thought that O’Bama’s legacy will to be remembered as being more destructive and divisive than his predecessor? Hopefully the people who choose the Nobel peace prize laureates will learn a lesson from this.
If the temperature of the atmosphere at the surface is 288 K, to raise it 1 K by heating from CO2 (one molecule in 2,500 of air), the CO2 would need kinetic energy 2,500/288 = 8.7x the kinetic energy of the other 2,499 molecules. Where does it get said energy? 15-micron OLWIR is generated from the surface when it is like -70C, rather anemic source of heat.
Somebody help me out here?
Charles Krauthammer and George Will unloaded on the Climate Assessment report on Special Report ( FoxNews, 6 pm, May 6, 2014). You can find some clips, and summaries, but I cannot find the transcripts. So I am taking the time to create them myself.
Part 1: Charles Kruthammer ( FoxNews, Special Report, May 6, 2014 )
video clip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FGfeVs77H3I&feature=player_embedded#t=0
(39:10 of original broadcast )
What they tell you is that you should be scared of what is happening today;. Of course if it is very cold in the winter, they blame it here in the North East, they blame it on Global Warming. And that the report it says is that the summers are hotter and the winters are generally shorter and warmer.
Any scientific theory that explains everything explains nothing. And no matter what happens, in climate that is unpleasant, the word is WEATHER, it is attributed to Global Warming. If we continue with Global Warming in the in the North east, we are going to freeze to death.
The most important element is what McConnell is talking about. The negligible gain. Assume they are right about global Warming. Assume that it is all caused by man. The United States has reduced carbon emissions since 2006 more than any other country on earth. We are right now at 1992 levels according to the International Energy Agency. And yet carbon emissions have gone up globally. Why? We don’t control the carbon emissions of the other 96% of humanity. Especially China and India. As we dismantle the coal plants in our country, China and India together are adding one coal plant A WEEK. The net effect is to ship US coal energy generating industry from here to India and China. It will have Zero Effect.
If we could have a pact with other countries in which everybody would reduce their emissions I would sign on. In the absence of it, all we are doing is to committing Economic suicide in the name of do-good-ism that will not do an iota of good. (41:00)
Another clip: transcript to come:
“I’m not impressed by numbers”
http://mediamatters.org/video/2014/05/06/foxs-krauthammer-on-climate-change-im-not-impre/199196
It is much worse than that. What they are marketing is akin to a slow-acting poison, put in a fancy bottle and marketed as an elixir which will ward off climate evils. The poison is a triple-whammy; it robs us of economic strength and vitality, it places unconstitutional powers in government and their lackeys greedy grubby hands, and it threatens the very foundation of science and education itself.
Hey Bloke-down-the-pub. That is our sentiment here in the States as well. Even hard core Republicans came to dislike GW Bush and I think the hope was that this current cretin would end up being no more destructive than his democratic predecessor in the Oval Office whose White House years we can safely characterize in retrospect as benign buffoonery. But alas…. the history of civilization is littered with incorrect hopes.
“Basically, they are trying to make people afraid of the weather, and then they pitch a solution to that fear in a way that’s right up there with the best traditions of salesmanship”-WUWT
“RICO (ˈri koʊ)
n.
Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act: a U.S. law, enacted in 1970, allowing victims of organized crime to sue those responsible for punitive damages.
Random House Kernerman Webster’s College Dictionary, © 2010 K Dictionaries Ltd. Copyright 2005, 1997, 1991 by Random House, Inc. All rights reserved.”
“A racket is a service that is fraudulently offered to solve a problem, such as for a problem that does not actually exist, will not be affected, or would not otherwise exist. Conducting a racket is racketeering.[1] Particularly, the potential problem may be caused by the same party that offers to solve it, although that fact may be concealed, with the specific intent to engender continual patronage for this party.”(WIKI)
Hoe much do oil companies make off of a gallon of gas? How much do all levels of government together make off of a gallon of gas? Who is “Big Oil?”
I like the way Judy Curry opened her post: “My main conclusion from reading the report is this: the phrase ‘climate change’ is now officially meaningless.”
Mods, I don’t want to cause any trouble for anybody, so I’d like to request if the following is ok.
Ok, I feel a little bit mischievous. How about, as a mass token of displeasure with this report, everybody call our public employees to, shall I say, demand our money back. At the bottom of this report is a contact number: 1-(202)-223-6262.
I’d say call that number. All at once. Everybody. Every single one of you out there. Pick a time. Compensate for your time zone. Synchronize watches. And call them. Ask for the operator. Line’s busy? Too many calls? Well, call again. Still no answer? Call again. Keep calling. Can’t get through? Leave a message in voicemail: a long descriptive message about how you don’t like your tax money used for nonsense. And call again. Load up that voicemail. All together now: one; two; three – call. Tell them they’re not going to do this to us. Tell them over. And over. And over again. Let’s pick a time.
Continuation of the transcript of Special Report, May 6, 2014, Part 2.
(41:35) Mara Liasson (National Public Radio) : …. Eventually this problem has to be dealt with. I think the science is pretty overwhelming now. It is real. It is Climate CHANGE, not just Global Warming. It is extreme weather all over the place. And it is costing a lot of money and making a lot of changes and we have to decide whether we are going to mitigate it or try to adapt to and live with it.
(41:55) George Will: There is, however, NO EVIDENCE for the increase in extreme weather.
I own a home on an island in South Carolina looking SOUTH in the direction of hurricanes. And after Katrina, I was REALLY INTERESTED when they said this was a harbinger of increased hurricane activity. Which since then HAS PLUMMETED.
Now Mr. Holdren, who introduced this report, has his on record of very interesting failed forecasts. Not to mention Al Gore, who in 2008 said, by 2013, (for those of you keeping score at home, that was LAST YEAR) the ice cap at the North Pole would be gone. It’s NOT!
Now, there is, as Charles said, the policy question is “How much wealth do we want to spend directly or in lost production in order to have no discernible measurable effect on the climate?”
People say, “Well what about this report?”
There is a sociology of science. Scientists are not saints in white laboratory smocks. They have INTERESTS like everybody else. If you want a tenure track position in academia, don’t question the reigning orthodoxy on Climate Change. If you want money from the biggest source of direct research in this country, the federal government, don’t question ITS orthodoxy. If you want to get along with your peers, conform to peer pressure. This is what’s happening.
Brett Bier: So you don’t buy ” the 97% of scientists who study the issue…”
George Will: Who counted them? Who measured? Where did that figure come from? They pluck these things from the ether. I DO NOT!
The New Yorker Magazine, which is impeccably… upset about Climate Change recently spoke of the report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change as THE LAST WORD on Climate Change. Now, try that phrase, “The last word” on microbiology, quantum mechanics, physics, chemistry…. Since when does science come to the end? The New Yorker has discovered the end of this. Who else has? (43:47)
cwon14:
At May 7, 2014 at 9:51 am in your post at here you attack and denigrate Curry and Pielke because they have made stalwart defence of science against the misuse of climate science for political ends. You want them to promote your political falsehood instead.
They have the courage of their convictions and deserve respect. You insult them for their courage while you hide behind the cowardly shield of anonymity which deserves contempt.
And your political assertion is a distraction because it is a falsehood. The reality is as Richard G says at May 7, 2014 at 11:22 am here.
Richard
No professional scientist or engineer taught standard physics accepts the IPPC ‘consensus’. Ultimately, it’s a failure of science teaching from mistakes made by Carl Sagan. He messed up aerosol optical physics which led him to conclude the surface of a planet emits net IR to the atmosphere as if to a sink at absolute zero and that lapse rate warming is a GHG effect; it’s not.
This mistake, to confuse a Thermal Radiation Field with a real net energy flux, has been taught to Atmospheric Scientists for about 40 years, and has crept into mainstream Physics. However, real heat transfer science has lived on in engineering, which has to get the right answer.
The best Physics’ institutions, e.g. Brookhaven, are busily throwing Engineering Thermodynamics at problems to solve mainstream science failure. The Earth’s surface emits net IR at c. 0.16 black body level, most directly to space; there is near zero CO2-AGW, no ‘extended GHE’.
The real GHE is from clouds; AGW was from a decrease of cloud albedo due to Asian industrialisation. What we see with the Obama administration is a last ditch effort to survive by those most deeply compromised by Green corruption.
They’ve jumped the shark with this. (I hope.) May it live in infamy.
Well, I called this number 1-(202)-223-6262. And I got: “Sorry, that mailbox is full…”
Sigmund Freud once said, sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. But, as Monica Lewinsky is well aware, sometimes a cigar is not.
The actual “product” being marketed is politicians or probably a bit more precisely, rent seeking.
Anthony,
I posted this at Dr. Spencer’s place and hope you don’t mind it copied here also.
Dr. Spencer,
Extremely well stated and debunked using KNOWN science.
As a tv meteorologist for 11 years(been trading commodities using the influence of the weather on crops and energies the past 21 years) I took special interest in reading this yesterday:
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/may/06/barack-obama-climate-change-us-weather-forecasters
“Barack Obama to make climate change case to weather forecasters”
“A 2010 study by George Mason University’s centre for climate change communications found that only 19% of TV weather forecasters accepted that human activity was the main driver of climate change.
“Many TV meteorologists remain climate change sceptics, in part because they are skilled at forecasting weather over short time periods, which can make them doubt long-range projections from climate science computer models,” wrote Andrew Freedman, who covers climate change for Mashable. “Many TV meteorologists also lack specific training in climate science.”
My thoughts were: TV meteorologist’s actually use atmospheric(weather) models every day. They forecast using real world empirical data and must be accountable when their forecast busts……….which it does often enough to give them the humility to recognize limitations in forecasting ability based purely on mathematical equations that represent the physical laws of the atmosphere fed into a computer.
Many meteorologists don’t have PHD’s but we studied the same atmospheric principles that drive the atmosphere as did climate scientists and took the same classes.
Jeff Masters was a friend in college and in many of my classes at the University of Michigan(Dr. Spencer got his undergraduate degree in meteorology taking those same classes).
How does one account for people with similar educational backgrounds having such different views on science in their area of expertise?
“Specific lack of training” is clearly not the case(but is sited often by those wanting to discredit the great number of meteorologists that are skeptics.
Climate scientists and global climate models that project 50 or absurdly 100 years out are not held accountable because we will all be dead when the true skill level can be assessed………at the end of that forecast.
Currently, this is causing an increasing denial(ok, let’s use lack of acknowledgment) on the part of those using theory to project global temperatures. The divergence between the real world, that meteorologists must acknowledge every day on the job, and the forecast is not there.
15 years of the climate models busting the forecast is being explained away by half a dozen possible, temporary factors but not one of them is that the global climate models need some adjustments.
BTW, those weather forecasters that Obama was supposedly making the climate change case to, were all hand picked.
“The meteorologists interviewing Obama on Tuesday include: Al Roker, co-anchor of NBC’s Today Show; Ginger Zee, meteorologist on ABC’s Good Morning America; John Morales, chief meteorologist of NBC 6 in Miami, Florida, and Jim Gandy, meteorologist of WLTX-TV in Columbia, South Carolina.”
Why not take his case to John Coleman, Anthony Watts, Roy Spencer or Judith Curry?
This would be like the pope, having a press conference and announcing that he will be taking his case, about why the Catholic faith is the true religion, to pastors and leaders of all faiths by inviting a group of his bishops over.
[snip -over the top – Anthony]
“Obama using report to ‘simply declare an emergency and wield power without consent or involvement from Congress”
and
“Who would have thought that O’Bama’s legacy will to be remembered as being more destructive and divisive than his predecessor?”
It appears to me that the “Global Warming Emergency” is very very similar to a certain controversy about whether there were “weapons of mass destruction” in Iraq. Get the Congressional Hearings underway.
Cold in Wisconsin says:
May 7, 2014 at 12:22 pm
It appears to me that the “Global Warming Emergency” is very very similar to a certain controversy about whether there were “weapons of mass destruction” in Iraq. Get the Congressional Hearings underway.
Well, except that at one time there actually were WMDs in Iraq while there hasn’t been a “Global Warming Emergency”.
Otherwise, “very similar”.
🙂
“Currently, this is causing an increasing denial(ok, let’s use lack of acknowledgment) on the part of those using theory to project global temperatures. The divergence between the real world, that meteorologists must acknowledge every day on the job, and the forecast is not there.”
Should be RECOGNITION of the divergence between the real world, that meteorologists must acknowledge every day on the job, and the forecast is not there.
cwon14 says:
May 7, 2014 at 12:19 pm
Weak and probably understated.
“cwon14 says:
May 7, 2014 at 9:51 am
The skepticism needs to be a little more directed as we reach the extremes of Voodoo climate extremism as more policy. It isn’t enough to comment that the report is “political” when in fact it’s prototypical “Left-wing, greenshirt political”. Call it for what it is, if a few liberal (or hypersensitive “about science” doctrinaires) skeptics can’t handle it that is the cost of victory.”
You are absolutely right, but much of the “greenshirt” impulse is a reaction to the fear of discovery that large business entities are manipulating and managing the game. Basically, the psychological nuttiness of the American right-wing scream machine.
But if I was to choose target, the first would be Appendix 3, the “science”. The scam-scientists are trying to deal with the “pause” as something that does NOT harm IPCC like science, “The pause, “appears to be related to cyclical in the oceans and in the sun’s energy output,” quite a concession, eh? Target one would be what is the basis of THIS report’s cyclical argument. What studies support their graphs?
Also, the modeling bit about “averaging” models as a scientific pursuit. Funny.
My Lord, Anthony. You actually READ the report? You are NOT supposed to do that, you of the Great Unwashed. You are supposed to (if I may paraphrase a Great Mind) wait until they implement it to find out what is in it. You spoiled the surprise.
Cheater.
Cwon says:
“…Skeptics who are squeamish of the actual political narrative in play should grow a spine and stop worrying about offended liberal skeptics or peers if they happen to be left-wing skeptics. Dr. Curry does this disservice all the time…”
Your post really bothers me. Dr Curry deserves immense credit for living and working in what has become a deeply toxic academic environment and, despite that, still speaking out, to the very possible detriment of her career. She is a hero. Most of us can speak our minds with no repercussions whatsoever. It’s easy to do if there is nothing to lose. She has everything to lose, and speaks out – and in a way that some fellow scientists – at least those with any integrity and credibility left – just might accept and appreciate. You rarely change minds be being nasty all the time.
When this CAGW charade finally runs its course, I believe many who supported this farce will be greatly rewarded, and, unfortunately, those like Dr Curry who refused to fall in line might get hurt, despite being 100% correct. That, unfortunately, is the way things often work in this broken world. Dr Curry probably knows this better than we do, and still pursues truth, in a way that just might convert some others.
Well done, Dr, Judith Curry!
Hansen on a hot day with AC sabotaged.
Al Gore and “An Inconvenient Goof”.
Obama and the National Assessment Report.
If at first you don’t succeed, lie, lie again.
Gunga Din,
I’m surprised and somewhat pleased you are on this site. I would have rather guessed you would be ensconced on a CAGW site complaining about irrigation issues in the American Southwest; or perhaps on another quasi-academic site carrying water for Michael Mann, Al Gore and the IPCC.
Yeap! The so called climate communication is all about marketing and branding an environmental construct which is feeding on scientific ignorance and emotions. Always has and always will.
Roy Spencer is right in saying , follow the money . If you follow the money , you also should follow the politics of the money This report has been timed to buy the support of environmentalists and to support democrats preparing for the fall US election. However no rational politician democrat or otherwise will go out among the public selling measures to fight a non existent global warming threat after a record cold winter and 17 years of past cooling winters and declining annual temperatures . There are much bigger issues where the money is needed
Yes the money flows form the many many many Agencies of the Federal government – some States are even flowing money to the AGW CO2 researchers in the Universities. There is a big number of so called scientists that are used to make speeches in front of many industry groups after which they demand GREEN MAIL or suffer the wrath of the agencies.
Globally there has been several trillion funneled into the GRANT SCIENCE – result purchased or no more grants/jobs.
The title of this online columns says it all:
Government Will Control You Before It Controls Climate
http://townhall.com/columnists/terryjeffrey/2014/05/07/government-will-control-you-before-it-controls-climate-n1834503/page/full
Climate Change is Ruining the Nation.
Not because of the CLIMATE, but because of the CHANGE,
& changes being made by and to these departments:
This is the real “Climate Change” happening:
1. EPA: over-regulation on just about every energy source except Wind & Solar, ie., destruction of the coal industry for one.
2. Department of Education: “Climate change adaptation plan,” US Department of Education (on their website) – Agenda 21 anyone – Common Core??
3. Department of Energy: Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz: “Climate Change Is ‘Not Debatable”, What have they done to increase cheap, reliable energy – nada (nothing)?
4. Department of Agriculture: (“Ethanol is a renewable fuel made from corn and other plant materials”) they are pushing this and it is raising the cost of food worldwide – great for starving people in the 3rd world…
5. Department of treasury: (“stop using U.S. funding for overseas coal projects”) – quote on their website.
6. State Department: Secretary Kerry: “No single country causes climate change, and no one country can stop it. But we need to match the urgency of our response with the scale of the science. … The clock is ticking.” They are all in on it…
7. HUD: “U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development:
“Climate Change Adaptation Plan” –many pages, it’s on their website.
8. Department of Labor: Has a 2013 “sustainability and energy performance scorecard.” Also union laborers in energy – coal and fossil fuels are losing jobs. No jobs have been created by the Keystone pipeline project.
9. Department of Interior: “Climate change is affecting every corner of the American continent. It is making droughts drier and longer, floods more dangerous and hurricanes more severe.” quote on their website…
10. BOM Bureau of Land Management: “Climate change is influencing western lands and resources in many ways. As average temperatures rise, droughts are increasing, snowpack is declining, and water supplies are diminishing in key areas. Arctic permafrost is thawing. Wildfires have become larger and more frequent.” They should check the data. And I thought they were just trying to increase the government land acreage.
11. NASA: where do I start, heavily involved in Climate Change, as opposed to Space Exploration. Climate change satellites: AcrimSat, Aqua, Aquarius, Aura, Calipso, CloudSat and many others.
12. DOJ: “Department of Justice Climate Change Adaptation Plan”, I kid you not, check their website…
13. Executive branch – where do I start – forget it – in bed with the CAGW crowd, have installed all CAGW drinkers.
14. The Supreme Court – de facto labeled CO_2 as a pollutant by allowing the EPA to do so.
I could go on, but check all these USA departments under their Climate Change headline and they are all drinking the Kool-Aid I’m sad to say.
Even the National Park Service has drunk the Kool-Aid. Just look at climate change on any of their websites. The Congress and the Senate haven’t done any better and how about the “Main Stream Media”???
I notice that the similar government agencies from other important nations are all singing the same tune…Maybe Australia isn’t ( I hope).
Frodo says:
May 7, 2014 at 1:20 pm
“Your post really bothers me. Dr Curry deserves immense credit for living and working in what has become a deeply toxic academic environment and, despite that, still speaking out, to the very possible detriment of her career. ”
If only you had tagged violin music to your text I might have enjoyed it more. This is exactly the sort of polemic I live to debunk. Dr. Curry is 25 years behind the truth curve and still can’t acknowledge the basics of AGW political motivation directly. Yes, the slow tortured and nuanced journey from consensus supporter to vague skeptic continues, day after day year after year. Somewhere in her sock draw remain the “Che” tie-dye tee-shirt and all the culture she just can’t acknowledge that drives the nucleus of warming activism. She could certainly name names but doesn’t. So the dissent on technical “it’s about science” grounds is as genuine as a $3 bill, it’s a false framing of the debate carried to the extreme presented. So rather then be grateful to this sort of “skepticism” that is dishonestly incomplete and will never reach the goal line in the real world I choose to illustrate her inadequate disclosure regarding greenshirt climate extremism directly in the form of criticism. I’ve been on her case for about 7 years more or less, she’s improved the whole time and I’m certainly not alone so I’m not taking credit.
Regardless, the entire idea that AGW Greens are going to moderate into rational give and take on “science” that is largely irrelevant to their policy motives is one of the largest farces that Dr. Curry enables in her form of dissent. Every-time you see it you should dissent also, it’s a road to a green reeducation camp for your children or grandchildren. As NPR/NYTimes defines David Brooks as “conservative” Dr. Curry is all the consensus is willing to accept at the table as “skeptic” because she continues to permit the absurd framing of the actual debate talking points. I welcome and acknowledge her improvements but any person without ideological baggage realized more than 30 years ago about the diabolic nature of the warming agenda and in far more direct terms. Those people such as Dr. Lindzen, Spencer etc. are non-persons essentially in the consensus talking points to be smeared and mocked daily. Those are the true heroes who should be remembered in the age of Green Fascism. Dr. Curry is a mollifier of skepticism, it’s where skeptics go to placate and appease abhorrent warming agendas as if they were remotely rational. So to me she is a lightning rod of weak-kneed skeptics found everywhere. Something that has to be purged if skeptical progress is to continue.
While I don’t consider it very much at all, I highly doubt her career has suffered while carving out this niche of “moderate” in the climate wars. She has achieved near rock star status among many skeptics as they imagine themselves as one example. She is probably one of the best known and trusted in the low information casual inquirer market on the climate debate.
In the end “stealth” statism, expert authority even if it appears more reasonably packaged may in the end prove more destructive and dangerous then the sort of full-moon insanity of a Michael Mann, Al Gore or any of the other fanatics associated to the AGW cause. Go to her site, study her nuances and see what she is validating as well as what might be featured in dissenting statements. For example, today we have snark and admittedly humorous reference to Monica Lewinsky. Where though are the simple acknowledgements of the left-wing credentials all over the NCA report itself? Those will never come from her even if she links others who will list them. That line she will never cross, or hasn’t in all the years of following her comments so in fact the debate dissent remains half-baked and obfuscated. So much for honesty which old fashioned as it may seem isn’t a commodity to measured and spoon fed for effect. I have no doubt Dr. Curry knows which way the wind is blowing and to a degree this isn’t at all flattering to her acknowledgements either. Real courage was shown by people 20-40 years ago, who did stand up and object to AGW fanaticism and greater green as well, called it what it was and yet to this day Dr. Curry remains indirect to the most basic working parts of the political core AGW consensus. This isn’t courage at all.
Choose “heroes” wisely. While you might not get the reference Dr. Curry is no Whittaker Chambers who really was a reformed hero in the end. No Elia Kazan who did the right thing and did name names. Dr. Curry is still owned by the consensus and plays the game within those rules regardless of apparent improving public positions. I can only wonder if the wind was blowing the other way on trivial short-term data and the political frenzy where her talking points might be. If you can’t own-up to what core green agenda values and practices are in plain English then you are a secondary in moral and intellectual value.
More on alarmists of AGW . .
“Sometimes people hold a core belief that is very strong. When they are presented with evidence that works against that belief, the new evidence cannot be accepted. It would create a feeling that is extremely uncomfortable, called cognitive dissonance. And because it is so important to protect the core belief, they will rationalize, ignore and even deny anything that doesn’t fit in with the core belief.”
— Frantz Fanon
Close the EPA, NOAA. NASA. University Grant Science business by doing this single project
http://articlevprojecttorestoreliberty.com/the-28th-amendment.html
Bill Nye was out promoting the National Climate Assessment and got stomped on twice by Nick Loris of the Heritage Foundation during a Crossfire segment on CNN, i.e.;
http://www.cnn.com/video/?/video/bestoftv/2014/05/06/crossfire-bill-nye-says-we-dont-agree-on-the-facts.cnn
and
http://www.cnn.com/video/data/2.0/video/bestoftv/2014/05/06/crossfire-bill-nye-science-guy-on-climate-change-debate.cnn.html
When the best retort you’ve got is “hurricane shmurricane” you’ve clearly lost the debate…
Investors Business Daily Newspaper says:
‘It has nothing to do with climate, everything to do with power.
Always. Mind you, as Pontiac used to say, power is nothing without control. That’s why it had to be CO2. Who could you control with water vapor?
cwon14 says:
May 7, 2014 at 3:49 pm
Good luck running the inquisition there, cwon14. I share some of your political views but purges? For skeptical progress to continue huh. Is that like forming the Anti-Team?
No thanks.
I think we’re missing the most wonderful gift that science has given us. The human race has it in its power to eliminate the natural disasters that have afflicted mankind. Scientist now know how to control the climate that causes those horrible disasters such as floods, droughts, hurricanes, fires, heat waves, extreme cold waves. the list goes on and on. What a wonderful world we could all live in if we would just follow their advice and stop burning oil and gas. No more hurricanes, no more tornadoes, no more floods, no more droughts, science has truly blessed us. Please follow their advice so thousands can be saved from dying in these awful natural disasters.
So really, what is this debate really about?
Does it relate to control of energy distribution in the end?
What part of the economy in the US does that equate too?
Healthcare was what, nearly 20%?
Do some math folks
Just sayin……. Math is Math…….
Pitiful, I thought the left could do better.
Seems to me the White House got exactly what they paid for.
Any possibility of an FOIA to discover how much the White House paid and to whom?
John F. Hultquist says:
May 7, 2014 at 9:23 am
‘This Pres is like a shooting star’
Should that be tsar?
IBD says: “It has nothing to do with climate, everything to do with power. It’s a green coup. . .”
Which is exactly what I have been saying now for the last ten years or so.
Larry in Texas:
At May 8, 2014 at 1:14 am you say
Then you are ‘late to the party’. I have been pointing out this truth for the last 34 years.
The issue is about obtaining and increasing political power and money by all who desire power and/or money.
It is corruption and needs to be opposed by all who value freedom and justice whatever their situation or personal politics.
Unfortunately, whenever this truth is pointed out then ‘false flag’ trolls try to obscure it with the falsehoods promulgated in this thread by cwon14.
Richard
I wasn’t too keen on the snarky posts by cwon 14. Who is this person?
wasn’t it Kevin Trenberth in October 2009 – climategate time – that he pronounced on good foot-stomping fashion against the cold fall in Colorado, that the thing to do was to begin with the premise that AGW wasn’t a contingent theory but a PROVEN FACT?
And didn’t we skeptics back then think [can anyone cite a name? an online source?] that if the ‘pause’ continued, that collectively STOMPING THEIR FEET AGAINST REALITY by collectively asserting anything, the slimmest, slimiest bit of ‘evidence’ as proof of AGW/CAGW?
And lo and behold – what we thought way back then has indeed come true!
Something has been bothering me for a long time. In most cases where a disaster is predicted, the failure of it to occur is greeted with relief. In this case we have 17 years of no warming, and it seems to have been greeted by doubling down on the previous predictions. This new report is an example of that. Though I would say this report is more of a quadrupling down.
Continuation of the transcript of George Will and Charles Krauthammer, Special Report, May 6, 2014 on the National Climate Assessment report.
Part 3 of 3. (Part 1 here. Part 2 here.)
(43:47) BRET BAIER: The Climate Assessment today said this:
Now this White House put out a statement just a week and a half ago, last week, saying about the GDP,
Jay Carney was asked about all this. Here is what he said:
Charles.
KRAUTHAMMER (45:10): 99% of physicists were convinced that space and time were fixed until Einstein working at a patent office wrote a paper in which he showed that they are NOT. I’m not impressed by numbers. I’m not impressed by consensus. I, when I was a psychiatrist I participated in consensus conferences on how to define depression and mania. These are things that people negotiate in the way you negotiate a bill. Because the science is UNSTABLE. Because, in the case of climate, the models of changeable. And because climate is so complicated, the idea that we, who have trouble forecasting what is going to happen on Saturday in the climate, could pretend to be predicting what is going to happen in 30 and 40 years is absurd.
And you always see, that no matter what happens, whether it is a flood or a drought, whether its warming or cooling, it is always a result of…what it is ultimately what we are talking about here is Human Sin with the pollution of carbon. It is the oldest superstition around. It was in the Old Testament. It’s in the rain dance of Native Americans. If you sin, the skies will not cooperate. This is quite superstitious and I am waiting for science which doesn’t declare itself definitive, but is otherwise convincing. (46:30)
]There followed a discussion of the politics. Push the report, but approve Keystone XL because the WH felt it has always been a “side show”. Obama will concentrate on what he thinks is important in Climate Change. ]
GEORGE WILL (47:05): A moment ago we had a report here on our “Crumbling Infrastructure”. Gave it a “D”. Emergency! Who wrote it? As we said on there it was written by CIVIL ENGINEERS, who said: “By Golly, we need more of what civil engineers do and are PAID to do. Again, there is a sociology of science. And a sociology in all of this. And in gauging the politics of this we have to understand the enormous interests now invested in Climate Change.
LIASON (to Will): On both sides.
WILL: Sure
LIASON: The fossil fuel industry has a big interest. And you say the environmentalists has an interest.
WILL: PALES compared to the money flowing from the federal Government. [end of segment] (47:45)
Mark Bofill says:
May 7, 2014 at 7:40 pm
I acknowledge it is…..politics first. A more honest understanding of the actual debate. The spaghetti chart people will go on for decades more with no resolution and your local public school is already a reeducation camp that Mao would be proud of.
cwon14,
Can’t argue with that.
I appreciate your thoughtful response.
‘repeating an action with expectation of different results is the definition of insanity’ goes the quote attributed to einstein. while it’s not a definition, it is a description of a behavior that demonstrates insanity, which is the belief in something which is not true.
a more apt analog of the relationship of the taxpayer to the politician is the codependent abused spouse who believes her abuser really loves her and who is certain he will change. at least, she hopes he will and will suffer his abuse rather than dash her insane hope.
when finally convinced- and it will take some broken bones or missing teeth to become convinced – she will immediately turn to a fresh abuser to replace the hole in her life where a disciplinary authoritarian belongs.
this is the root of the insanity – the belief that a disciplinary authority is the same as a lover; that an owner is a mate; that a master is a friend; that slavery is freedom.
it’s the lesson she will never learn and will die trying to evade. it will likely kill her. when her resources have been drained and all hope is gone – what’s left of her?
the last rock she ever has to hide behind is ‘i have to do this for the kids’. whatever it is she has to do, she can never allow her own self to be the value she protects – but then, she’s already proven to herself, with the abundant and enthusiastic help of her abuser, that she is worthless and deserving of nothing but abuse; that this is her place in nature.
and so it must likewise be the position she trains her children to occupy as well.
by submitting to abuse, she sets the example for her kids. she teaches them what is normal and what is to be accepted without question. she raises a flock of little abusers and abusees who will perpetuate her morality; her insanity infects them and they become the next generation of insane and vectors who will infect the generation that follows.
she will teach them to whine and return for more. they will. they always do.
pay your taxes. vote. he really loves you. you know you believe it. that’s why this will end here:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-05-07/venezuela-to-ration-electricity-after-colombia-cuts-gas.html
Annie says:
May 8, 2014 at 4:44 am
What I find “snarky” are skeptics who refuse to connect some rather simple political dots when the entire world is having them shoved down their throats through drooling and oozing propaganda like the NCA. Rather then comment directly on the left-wing associated groups;
Union of Concerned Scientists, Planet Forward, The Nature Conservancy, and Second Nature for example who put the bundle of nonsense together get and will get even more technocrats who are going to validate the composition by taking it technically serious when privately most know it’s twaddle from the start. Why many skeptics can’t accept the political truth (first) and the priority of the NCA document and would rather attack skeptics who do is worth discussion.
Of course Dr. Curry isn’t even a “skeptic” but many imagined skeptics here embarrass themselves by the continued meme of “it’s a science debate”. Why is the NCA afforded this gravitas and only mocked indirectly? Why not discuss who wrote it and the snarling political motivations which are clear as day?
J. Philip Peterson says:
May 7, 2014 at 3:35 pm
Climate Change is Ruining the Nation.
Not because of the CLIMATE, but because of the CHANGE,
& changes being made by and to these departments:
This is the real “Climate Change” happening:
Exactamundo. But we are still winning, right? In the end the truth will out, right?
Climate is what we expect, weather is what we get.
Mark Twain
In the Spring, I have counted 136 different kinds of weather inside of 24 hours.
Mark Twain
Friends:
At May 8, 2014 at 9:53 am cwon14 says
Nobody knows the identity (or identities?) of the troll posting as cwon14, so it is not possible to discuss his/her/their snarling political motivations which are clear as day. His/her/their blatant attempt to set AGW-sceptics against each other is a very nasty political ploy.
However, all true AGW-sceptics have the courage of their convictions and use their own names to speak out against AGW; for example, Judith Curry is one such.
And if people want to know how and why scientific institutions have been usurped by green activists then this paper by Richard Lindzen ‘names names’ in a shocking, informative and entertaining read.
Richard
” It reminds me of some insurance commercials I’ve seen in the past, where the commercial portrays all the bad things that could happen to you if you don’t get covered. ”
It is a good comparision, because an insurance dont prevent any mishappen, but just pay some compensation when it happens.
The climate insurance is a bit worse, because you are not even compensated when it happens.
richardscourtney says:
May 8, 2014 at 11:48 am
Yes, Dr. Lindzen is a hero in stark contrast to the middle road statist mush of Dr. Curry when you consider a broad sample of her positions in context.
I don’t know why you whine so about me? My points are valid, the initial talking points of many “skeptics” issued regarding the NCA are inadequate and incomplete. The very first, middle and last thing to be discussed is the partisan (left-wing) facilitators “science” all over the document and the usual parroting process of the various professional groups that have followed that path.
Instead we get insider mockery and abstractions as we are asked to take the document as a serious science claim that it in fact isn’t. Dressed as science it’s another climate change polemic and op-ed piece suitable for Mother Jones magazine.
It’s your brand of over-the-top “it’s about science” nuance that is the distraction and weak link in the public debate. The NCA document is political rubbish from sources that should be laughed off the stage from the start. It’s the sicking politics of AGW advocacy, when confronted directly, that is breaking down on the margins.
Keep in mind this comes from a left-wing organ-grinder, the The Washington Post;
“3. The global warming cause fits too nicely with the president’s left-wing political agenda. The prescriptions for dealing with climate change are the same policy objectives the left has promoted for other reasons for at least the past 25 years. That is, redistribution of wealth, higher taxes, anti-growth, anti-development regulations, etc. Because they don’t have much support from voters, the left has to advance its cause through surreptitious maneuvering rather than forthright advocacy of its specific global warming policies. The left never answers the questions of who pays, how much and for what result.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-partisan/wp/2014/05/08/the-insiders-five-reasons-voters-dont-believe-the-white-house-about-global-warming/
So in this, pardon the pun, “climate” you want to fall back and first address point by point all the crap stats, graphs and spaghetti charts line by line? Make shallow innuendo/mocking comments rather than direct observations of obvious political shill nature of the authors and contributors? The sad sack leftist agenda of AGW policy itself?
Skeptics such as yourself need to set better priorities, you’re a waste of space and energy in the current form. Dr. Curry is a footdragger and a skeptical malingerer, again look at the totality of her views not a quote mined of recent days. The very idea that broad AGW debate isn’t political at the core is beyond reason or logic. The idea there is middle, precautionary policy or an apolitical segment to emerge is appeasement of the very worst elements of AGW movement itself. Those that can’t identify the leftist principals that have driven the AGW movement are neither contrite, rational or honest regarding the actual historical context of the past 35 years in particular. Bemoaning “politics” in an equalized fashion is absurd, only one ideology has benefited from the prostitution of science in AGW advocacy. If that isn’t acknowledge directly the skeptical affirmation is questionable, it reflects an unreasoned conclusion likely for deeper cultural associations that trump logic. For example your stated hatred of “right-wing” parties simply overwhelms your broader conclusions of AGW political motivations.
cwon14:
At May 8, 2014 at 8:24 pm you ask me
Do not misrepresent me, and please refrain from pretending to be more stupid than you are.
I do not “whine” about you or any other troll.
I make clear objections to trolls including you promoting falsehoods in furtherance of a warmunist agenda.
In this thread you have consistently attempted to set AGW-sceptics against each other as a method to deflect AGW-sceptics from opposing pro-AGW propaganda. I object to your unpleasant, dishonest and dirty tactics which are typical of anonymous pro-AGW trolls such as yourself.
Richard
http://www.breitbart.com/Breitbart-London/2014/05/08/Leading-climate-scientist-defects-no-longer-believes-in-the-consensus
You’ve lost the argument, been exposed as another of a long list of people with embarrassing personal political views that can only be exist in conjunction with AGW rationalism without elaborate Sophistry of the “it’s all about science”. It’s a commonality with every “defector” as such mentioned on the link; Dr. Curry, Lennart Bengtsson, James Lovelock, Fritz Vahrenholt, George Monbiot. In varying degrees EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM obfuscates their political culture that drove their AGW advocacy. They sit and lament “politics” and “politicization” as if they weren’t on board with the core of the AGW Greenshirt movement, even if some later grew bored and tired of the agenda. It’s all referred to as if they were always above such crass motivations. Perhaps they only defected in the face of stark defeat and humiliating exposure as GREEN HACKS that fills their resumes.
So keep name calling Richard, you’ve been exposed as the disinformation skeptic who can’t handle or admit the most basic truth of the AGW canard, it’s a leftist/green extreme narrative for political control. We’re forced in your explanation to pretend it isn’t politics first and likely personal politics all along, which is dishonesty of the worst order. While it’s a positive sign that ideologues fracture as the article reports it isn’t rational to accept their feeble accounting of their prior political philosophy as if it were absent from their AGW advocacy or the totality of the current dispute as it remains. It’s a total falsehood. It is no more “about science” now then before. It’s disinformation about the very basic nature of AGW advocacy motivations. So even as “skeptics” these people are STILL DOING HARM and often are living in a world of insincere recanting for the terrible culture they might still support in a broader sense.
Let’s just think about where they (or perhaps you) would be if the wind was blowing the other way and the world was even closer to the brink of the sort of World Government authoritarian that remains a dream come true for millions of like minded people and many skeptic “defectors”. Babbling, endlessly about “it’s a science debate” and “right wing extremism” are usually two indicators of the sort of incoherent skepticism that guarantee another generation of AGW prattle.
I acknowledge there are left-wing rationalist of climate from the very beginning, Dr. Lindzen being something of an example. That all people are idiosyncratic, no doubt. Regardless the phenomena of skeptic orthodox that demands it be politically obfuscated (it’s about science) to conform to prior or existing personal views is destructive and dishonest in the broader debate. You’re counter productive Richard Courtney, as are the list provided in the article because the overall debate can’t afford basic distortions of motives. That this offends liberal (socialist) political correctness can’t be helped. So as long as Dr. Curry, for example, lament “politics” as if this was an equalized travesty instead of a blood lust leftist fanatic movement at the core and from the darkest outgrowth of 60’s and 70’s academic radicalism I can never assume she is clean in the forum. A million euphemisms and allusions to this reality can’t cut it, defectors especially shouldn’t support the meme, “it was and is about science” publicly when almost everyone at an academic cocktail party (liberal or conservative) knows that is total garbage in private. It doesn’t pass the laugh test, I feel your embarrassment Richard Courtney but I simply don’t care in fact. As for Dr. Curry, she just needs to cross the Rubicon and come clean directly. It will be 20+ years late of course but that’s how Whittaker Chambers status is achieved.
cwon14:
I see that at May 9, 2014 at 5:57 am you continue your trolling to promote the AGW-scare in a silly post which begins
Your link has no relevance unless it is intended to imply that I am somebody other than myself.
You claim that I have “lost the argument”. At their request I helped the Chinese to win the argument which defeated attempt to replace the Kyoto Protocol at the Copenhagen CoP. That seems like I helped in winning the argument to begin the end of the AGW-scare.
My political views are sound. And your assertion (at May 8, 2014 at 8:24 pm) that I have “stated hatred of “right-wing” parties” is merely another of your lies. I abhor neo-naz1s but not all right wingers. Indeed, on separate occasions I have mounted platforms to oppose AGW together with right-wing Lords Monckton and Lawson. Also I support the right-wing US Heartland Institute and at its first climate conference I provided two presentations and chaired one of its sessions. And I have assisted US Republican Senator Inhoffe who has spoken of me and my support in the US Senate.
Your claim that I refuse to accept the AGW-scare is a political issue is a ridiculous lie: I pointed out that Margaret Thatcher intended to start the AGW-scare before she started it. She pushed it while it was politically useful to her and dropped it when it ceased to be politically useful (see here).
All in all, your attempt to cause internal dissent among AGW-sceptics is a failure. And the main reason it is a failure is because your assertions are not only offensive and untrue, but they are also daft.
Richard
cwon14,
You write,
Richard says,
You are not communicating. Richard does not say ‘it’s all about the science.’
Listen, it’s always tempting to characterize the psychopathology of the lust for power as an attribute of the opposing side, but that’s naive in my view. Those who are determined to obtain power need not be constrained by a specific ideology. It’s an attribute of some humans, not liberals exclusively.
That said, in the United States right now, CAGW alarmism is being championed by our political left, obviously. I don’t think anyone is disputing that.
Sorry, psychopathology of the lust for power.
[Reply: Fixed. -ModE]
Mark Bofill says:
May 9, 2014 at 8:36 am
The continued ancient distraction of Margaret Thatcher speaks volumes. RC is incoherent and malevolent character at that.
I’ve made my point about false apolitical renderings in the debate in particular to fifth column “skeptics”, I’ll just move on from here and RC
[snip -OK you’re done on this thread – Anthony]
This is just FUD marketing. Fear Uncertainty and Doubt.
That is a useful acronym / concept. The term was used in the ’80s (and perhaps eariler) with respect to IBM Mainframe sales. They used the FUD that ‘nobody ever lost their job for buying IBM’ and related.
Unfortunately, it works very very well. And yes, Insurance comanies use it too. Who else? Lots of folks…. especially local government and State Government when budgets are being threatened…
USAToday Editorial: <a href=Climate change vs. GOP: Our view, May 9, 2014.
[Reformated and annotated by me for rebuttal. ]
As a way of getting back to where it was a few years ago, the Republican Party might want to start with three basic questions:
[U1] Is the globe warming?
[U2] Is the change primarily caused by human activity?
[U3] And, if so, what can and should be done about it?
[U1a] The first question ought to be beyond dispute at this point.
[U1b]The new climate assessment found that U.S. temperatures have warmed (link) 1.3 to 1.9 degrees since 1895, with most of the increase coming since 1970.
{U1c] Sea levels have risen a foot or more in some U.S. cities,
[U1d] flooding rainstorms have increased in the Northeast and
[U1e] droughts have worsened in the West.
[U2a] The second question is a bit more complicated.
[U2b] The climate is always changing
[U2c] because of natural variability and
{U2d] factors such as volcanic activity and
[U2e] solar radiation.
[U2f] Even so, 97% of climate scientists agree that the burning of fossil fuels is the primary driver of the warming observed in recent decades.
[U2g] Should policy really be based on the minuscule chance that they’re wrong?
[U3a] The third question, though, is far more difficult to answer.
[U3b] New limits on emissions of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide and methane,
[U3c] needed to prevent global warming from getting totally out of hand,
[U3d] would likely have a dampening effect on the economy,
[U3e] at least in the near term.
[U3f] It’s not an appealing prospect for voters, who’ve shown little willingness to
[U3g] sacrifice now to protect future generations.
[U3h] What’s more, unilateral U.S. action would have little effect if reluctant industrializing countries, particularly China, cannot be persuaded to act as well.
[U3i]In that context, what to do — and at what cost — is a debate worth having.
My, my. Such a target rich environment.
But let’s focus on the whoppers, first.
U2f: (link) “97% of climate scientists agree that the burning of fossil fuels is the primary driver of the warming observed in recent decades.”
USAToday’s own link says nothing of the sort!
In that case, Put me in that 97% camp, too. Global warming is happening —- without linkage to humans or fossil fuels, much less as the primary drivers over past decades.
U1: Global Warming is happening. Yep. <a href=Global Cooling is happening, too. it depends upon the time scale. It is a lot warmer today than when Chicago was under two miles of ice 18,000 years ago. It is cooler today than when the Vikings farmed Greenland.
(Continuaiton of 1:45 pm above: Rebuttal to USAToday Editorial)
U1: Global Warming is happening. Yep. Global Cooling is happening, too. it depends upon the time scale. It is a lot warmer today than when Chicago was under two miles of ice 18,000 years ago. It is cooler today than when the Vikings farmed Greenland.
On U1b: 1.3 to 1.9 degrees since 1895, Deg C or F? Even if deg F, we have this problem of apparent bias in the adjustment of historical temperatures, an adjustment that has itself added 1.5 to 1.8 deg F ( 0.8 to 1.0 deg C) of warming over the historical recorded temperatures from 1888. Coincidently, most of the adjustment occurs after 1970, too. Which begs the question, how can it be that our most recent records have the greatest increase in the trend of adjustments. How can our measurement taking be so bad these last 40 years?
U1c: …in some cities. That word “some” is key. The some cities are subsiding, the ground is sinking tectonically, like some cities in California, eustatic rebound like in New York City, or by compaction, like in New Orleans. These are not Global sea level problems. Over what time frame? Global sea level rise is less than one foot in 100 years.
U1d: flooding increased in Northeast Like changes in urban landscapes are not the cause? The Northeast is not very Global.
U1e: droughts in the West . Droughts in the west have a long history. They come and go whether or not man burns coal. And again, the West is not very Global.
Speaking of droughts, rate of major hurricane landfalls in the US has PLUMETTED. The most recent Cat 3+ storm was Wilma in Oct. 2005. We are in a record drought of Cat3+ Hurricane Landfalls. Even the Global hurricane rate is down. Not all droughts are bad, eh?
In any score of years, you will find some places in the country that are wetter than before and others that are drier than before. That is natural Climate Change (see U2). Tying that to Global Warming, much less man caused through fossil fuels, is an enormous leap of illogic.
It has all the hallmarks of superstition. “The sky is falling!: Break out the dunking chair! Warm up the rain dances! Round up virgins to sacrifice to the Gods!” Those ill-conceived reactions are likely to have just as much effect on Climate as shutting down coal fired and scrubbed electrical generation plants.
CO2 is a “trace gas” in air, insignificant by definition. It absorbs 1/7th as much IR, heat energy, from sunlight as water vapor which has 188 times as many molecules capturing 1200 times as much heat making 99.9% of all “global warming.” CO2 does only 0.1% of it. For this we should destroy our economy?
The Medieval Warming from 800 AD to 1300 AD Micheal Mann erased to make his “hockey stick” was several degrees warmer than anything “global warmers” fear. It was 500 years of great abundance and peace for the world.
The Vostock Ice Core data analysis show CO2 increases follow temperature increases by 800 years 19 times in 450,000 years. That makes temperature change cause and CO2 change effect; not the other way around. This alone dashes the anthropogenic global warming argument.
Carbon combustion generates 80% of our energy. Control and taxing of carbon would give the elected ruling class more power and money than anything since the Magna Carta of 1215 AD.
Most scientists and science educators work for tax supported institutions eager to help government raise more money for them. And, they love being seen as “saving the planet.”
Google “Two Minute Conservative,” http://adrianvance.blogspot.com and When you speak fine ladies will swoon and liberal gentlemen will weep.
” Mike Bromley the Kurd says:
May 7, 2014 at 9:07 am
Lewinsky, Lewandowsky. Hard choice.
Not for me, Mike. The cigar definitely goes to Monica.
😉
(Sorry)