A couple of days ago we reported on the Mainau Nobel Conference, on Friday, 3 July, over 30 Nobel laureates assembled on Mainau Island on Lake Constance signed a declaration on climate change. Problem was, there were 65 attendees, and only 30 36 signed the declaration. As is typical of the suppression of the alternate views on climate, we never heard the opinion of the 35 who were in the [nearly equal] majority. Today, one of the Nobel laureates who was an attendee has spoken out.
From Climate Depot: Nobel Prize-Winning Scientist Who Endorsed Obama Now Says Prez. is ‘Ridiculous’ & ‘Dead Wrong’ on ‘Global Warming’
Nobel Prize Winning Physicist Dr. Ivar Giaever: ‘Global warming is a non-problem’ ‘I say this to Obama: Excuse me, Mr. President, but you’re wrong. Dead wrong.’
Dr. Ivar Giaever, a Nobel Prize-Winner for physics in 1973, declared his dissent on man-made global warming claims at a Nobel forum on July 1, 2015.
“I would say that basically global warming is a non-problem,” Dr. Giaever announced during his speech titled “Global Warming Revisited.”
Giaever, a former professor at the School of Engineering and School of Science Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, received the 1973 physics Nobel for his work on quantum tunneling. Giaever delivered his remarks at the 65th Nobel Laureate Conference in Lindau, Germany, which drew 65 recipients of the prize. Giaever is also featured in the new documentary “Climate Hustle”, set for release in Fall 2015.
Giaever was one of President Obama’s key scientific supporters in 2008 when he joined over 70 Nobel Science Laureates in endorsing Obama in an October 29, 2008 open letter. Giaever signed his name to the letter which read in part: “The country urgently needs a visionary leader…We are convinced that Senator Barack Obama is such a leader, and we urge you to join us in supporting him.”
But seven years after signing the letter, Giaever now mocks President Obama for warning that “no challenge poses a greater threat to future generations than climate change”. Giaever called it a “ridiculous statement.”
“That is what he said. That is a ridiculous statement,” Giaever explained.
“I say this to Obama: Excuse me, Mr. President, but you’re wrong. Dead wrong,” Giaever said. (Watch Giaever’s full 30-minute July 1 speech here.)
“How can he say that? I think Obama is a clever person, but he gets bad advice. Global warming is all wet,” he added.
“Obama said last year that 2014 is hottest year ever. But it’s not true. It’s not the hottest,” Giaever noted. [Note: Other scientists have reversed themselves on climate change. See: Politically Left Scientist Dissents – Calls President Obama ‘delusional’ on global warming]
The Nobel physicist questioned the basis for rising carbon dioxide fears.
“When you have a theory and the theory does not agree with the experiment then you have to cut out the theory. You were wrong with the theory,” Giaever explained.
Global Warming ‘a new religion’
Giaever said his climate research was eye opening. “I was horrified by what I found” after researching the issue in 2012, he noted.
“Global warming really has become a new religion. Because you cannot discuss it. It’s not proper. It is like the Catholic Church.”
Concern Over ‘Successful’ UN Climate Treaty
“I am worried very much about the [UN] conference in Paris in November. I really worry about that. Because the [2009 UN] conference was in Copenhagen and that almost became a disaster but nothing got decided. But now I think that the people who are alarmist are in a very strong position,” Giaever said.
“The facts are that in the last 100 years we have measured the temperatures it has gone up .8 degrees and everything in the world has gotten better. So how can they say it’s going to get worse when we have the evidence? We live longer, better health, and better everything. But if it goes up another .8 degrees we are going to die I guess,” he noted.
…
Silencing Debate
Giaever accused Nature Magazine of “wanting to cash in on the [climate] fad.”
“My friends said I should not make fun of Nature because then they won’t publish my papers,” he explained.
“No one mentions how important CO2 is for plant growth. It’s a wonderful thing. Plants are really starving. They don’t talk about how good it is for agriculture that CO2 is increasing,” he added.
Extreme Weather claims
“The other thing that amazes me is that when you talk about climate change it is always going to be the worst. It’s got to be better someplace for heaven’s sake. It can’t always be to the worse,” he said.
“Then comes the clincher. If climate change does not scare people we can scare people talking about the extreme weather,” Giaever said.
“For the last hundred years, the ocean has risen 20 cm — but for the previous hundred years the ocean also has risen 20 cm and for the last 300 years, the ocean has also risen 20 cm per 100 years. So there is no unusual rise in sea level. And to be sure you understand that I will repeat it. There is no unusual rise in sea level,” Giaever said.
“If anything we have entered period of low hurricanes. These are the facts,” he continued.
“You don’t’ have to even be a scientist to look at these figures and you understand what it says,” he added.
“Same thing is for tornadoes. We are in a low period on in U.S.”
Three cheers for Dr. Ivar Giaever!
I wish it were three major media interviews as well.
What about the other 34? And why did 9 others not appear in the group photo?
His Nobel is from 1973, he is probably at the end of his career, so he doesn’t have to fear getting black listed. It is a lot easier to speak the truth if you have nothing to lose.
Time for the Inquisitor squadron to swoop in and forcefully remove his Nobel Prize and staple his lips together…
I’m surely not the only one to be reminded of Percy French’s poem about the Crimean War, called Abdul Abulbul Amir, for the protagonist in that delightful ditty is called Ivan Skavinsky Skavar – lots of scope for a spoof version there!
Here’s a start:
Barakmar Obama Amir
The sons of AlGoria are sly men and cold
And quite unaccustomed to tears,
But the slyest by far in the climate bizar,
Was Barakmar Obama Amir.
If you wanted a man to encourage the lie,
Or harass little boys from the rear,
Spread fear, lies and doubt, you had only to shout
For Barakmar Obama Amir.
Now the heroes were plenty and well known to fame
In the troops that attacked the bizar,
And the bravest of these was a man by the name
Of Ivar ‘Dead-wrong’ Giaver.
One day this bold Russian, he took up his pen
And donned his most truculent sneer,
Downtown he did go where he trod on the toe
Of Barakmar Obama Amir.
Old man, quoth Barackmar, has life grown so dull
That you wish to end your career?
Vile infidel, know, you have trod on the toe
Of Barakmar Obama Amir.
So take your last look at the sunshine and brook
And submit to the climate bizar
For by this I imply, you are going to die,
Count Ivan ‘Dead-wrong’ Giaver.
Then this sly gene-pool fluke drew his trusty skibouk,
Singing, “Allah! Il Allah! Al-lah!”
And with murderous intent he ferociously went
For Ivan ‘Dead-wrong’ Giaver.
They fought all that night neath the pale yellow moon;
The din, it was heard from afar,
And huge multitudes came, so great was the fame,
Of Barakmar and Ivan Giaver.
As Barackmar’s long knife was extracting the life,
In fact he was shouting, “Huzzah!”
He felt himself struck by that wily Calmuck,
Count Ivar ‘Dead-wrong’ Giaver.
Satan drove by in his red-breasted fly,
Expecting the victor to cheer,
But he only drew nigh to hear the last sigh,
Of Barackmar Obama Amir.
There’s a tomb rises up where the Potomac rolls,
And graved there in characters clear,
Is, “Stranger, when passing, oh curse forth the soul
Of Barackmar Obama Amir.”
[With a thousand apologies to Percy French]
I do, of course mean ‘climate bazaar’ and not ‘climate bizar’, though this is a great example of a Freudian Eggcorn (http://eggcorns.lascribe.net/).
It actually reads even better with
Bizarre rather than Bizar or Bazaar
For the Prognosticators of Modeled Climate truly do present a “Climate Bizarre”
But all in all…Very well done
Like it, but would replace “Russian” with “Norski” or something similar, since he’s Ivar, not Ivan.
There is music to that: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o6vyZ_q-TjA
Al last a scientist talking sense, but it has taken nearly a week for his views to be made public.
I suppose as wll as distorting science the “believers” will distort mathematics and try to tell us that 30/65’s is 97%
andrewmharding July 7, 2015 at 10:36 am
Public? I’ll believe it when it’s on all the TV networks and cable news, the major newspapers, and on the Bing news crawler. That’s public.
I’ve posted this article as a hint on Drudge.
Now that would help, MarkW. Good job. Let’s see what happens, eh?
If I “accidentally” add a 0 to 65 and divide 650 by 30 and then invert I get 0.04. That’s pretty close to 3%, which is the balance remaining from 97%. When do I get my climate science math grant?
There you have it, the science is now settled! That should shtick it to them, eh? (Dr Mann, is that you?)
Piper
Get it in cash, and, I suggest, not in Euros . . .
Not – Timeo danaos et dona ferentes, but rather the reverse, perhaps:
Say – beware of Greeks bearing sickles and big knives, and maybe knuckle-dusters, heading for Brussels.
Maybe.
Auto
There are easier ways ways to do this – I simply borrowed John Cook’s calculator and 30/65 converted instantly to 97%.
In fact, any fraction I put into the calculator gave the answer 97%
Nonagintaseptemology (n) The art of achieving the answer 97% to any given question. From the latin “nonaginat septem” meaning ninety seven.
Nonagintaseptemologist (n) A person skilled in the art of nonagintaseptemology.
Are you sure you didn’t mean “justifiable adjustment” with the “0”?
This is refreshing more than half of Nobel Prize laureates declined to sign a contrived watermelon document based on a gigantic lie, that is more than half rotten. There’s hope!
Ok then.
We Roman Catholics do have our problems, but we are much more open to discussion inside the church on important issues than are the alarmists on “the team” — now they are dogmatic! We are much more likely to interpret a biblical story as allegory than a climate “scientist” is to even look at the possibility that they are wrong on 33C warming via “back radiation”.
So there! :-p
Large part of Christianity doesn’t take much notice of the Vatican pronouncements. In my Orthodox branch (to which I was born in) there is no consensus on much, each country has its patriarch, and there is kind of ‘supreme commander’ the Patriarch of Constantinople. I have no idea what his views are on anything, I had to google to find his name; he is 269th since year 39 AD and is called Bartholomew I (1991–present).
Pay attention, as the patriarchs have been in the process of reconciliation with Catholicism since the 1960s. Within our lifetime, full communion might be restored. It’s quite possible that the Vatican is actually taking some environmentalist cues from Bartholomew, who has been called the Green Patriarch.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/04/science/bartholomew-i-of-constantinoples-bold-green-stance.html?_r=0
TMLutas
Thanks for the link, I’ve read the article. With the respect to the old Bartholomew, he can pursue his ‘encyclical’ on the climate change; I will pursue the natural ‘cyclical’ events in the climate change.
Many years ago I listened to my late grandfather (born in1878) asking his equally aging friend, neighbour and distant relative, the local ‘pop’ (= vicar) by profession, did he believe in existence of god. After bit of a mumble, he said he wasn’t sure. This true anecdote shows how ‘strong’ is embrace of the Orthodox Christianity on the people of my fatherland. Of course as everywhere else, there are exceptions in both directions from the ‘near atheists’ to the fervent believers.
“…You do know, don’t you, that there isn’t even any credible evidence for Jesus having ever existed? And yes, I did all my research years ago on this. It still comes as a shock to many Christians…”
You’ve got this research published or compiled somewhere besides your attic, right? This person did his research as recently as 2012 and seems to find plenty of credible evidence http://www.abc.net.au/religion/articles/2012/12/24/3660194.htm . Interesting mention here:
‘…. In the library of Macquarie University, home to the largest Ancient History Department in Australia, students will probably find as many historical tomes on Jesus of Nazareth as on Julius Caesar and Alexander the Great combined…’
But I’m sure you can do research that shows there’s no credible evidence for Julius Caesar and Alexander the Great having lived, either, lol.
Now if you want to argue that Jesus wasn’t “the Messiah,” wasn’t “the Son of God,” or wasn’t even a “Prophet,” then ok. If you want to argue that all religions are a hoax, then fine. But somehow in all of your research, you overlooked the fact that Christian and non-Christian historians seem to overwhelmingly agree that there’s much more than “credible evidence for Jesus having ever existed.”
@ Michael Jankowski
There are no historical records ….. that were authored pre-70 AD …. that makes mention of any person named Jesus Christ affiliated with the Christian Religion.
Flavius Josephus (37- 100 AD) made no mention of a Jesus Christ in his written record of Jewish history, with special emphasis on the first century AD and the First Jewish–Roman War.
Thus, as the presently known historical evidence confirms, …. any written documents pertaining to the Biblical Jesus Christ has to be consider “hearsay evidence”, …. the product of creative imaginations …… and/or Religious Fiction.
Christianity was just one (1) of many minor religious beliefs until Emperor Constantine mandated it to be the “Empire’s Religion” in 325 AD.
Cheers
Michael Jankowski
Not sure where your Quote is from
“…You do know, don’t you, that there isn’t even any credible evidence for Jesus having ever existed? And yes, I did all my research years ago on this. It still comes as a shock to many Christians…”
but
Problem with stating Jesus might not have existed due to a lack of Physical Evidence after 2000 years, I must ask… In 2000 years hence, how much Proof will there be that You or any other physical entity ever truly existed? Time has a way of equalizing everything.
Bryan,
I happen to think that an itinerant, reformist, Essene preacher named Isho (Aramaic) or Yeshua (Hebrew) did wander Galilee in the 1st century and probably was executed in Jerusalem under Pontius Pilatus, prefect of the Roman province of Judaea, AD 26–36.
But there is little to no historical evidence for his existence, as there is for many other 1st century subjects of the Roman Empire.
Some find it suspicious that Tacitus’ description of Jerusalem in AD 70 is lost, while the chapters of his work just before and after the city’s destruction survive. Chapter 13 of Book Five of his Histories has (future emperor) Titus ready to attack Jerusalem, then Chapter 14 suddenly finds the reader in Germany.
Jesus would have died more than 34 years earlier, but if the NT book of Acts be accurate, there should have been Jewish Christians in Jerusalem, led by Peter and Jesus’ brother James. Any failure by Tacitus to mention them might have been regarded as problematical by monkish scribes.
Religion is nonsense. Catholicism is abject nonsense.
Religion doesn’t impede good science. Isaac Newton, Michael Faraday, Johannes Kepler, Blase Pascal, Max Planck, William Kelvin, Copernicus, Galileo, Bacon… Its a long list. They did a lot of science. How ’bout you Big Jim? …or are you just denouncing something you can’t make any sense of?
Isaac Newton wrote more about religion than he did about physics.
Christianity is founded upon the eye-witness testimony of people who recorded their experiences in words. You may call that nonsense if you wish, but then you have to provide reasons why they would lie, and then why they would voluntarily leave their homes and give up their lives if – as you say – it were nonsense. It is much easier and much more cowardly by far to simply type out statements you can’t defend and probably haven’t thought much about. Then again, I am not impressed with the reasoning skills of most atheists, who spend their time angry at someone they claim does not exist – angry enough to make fun of people and shut down discussion wherever and whenever they can.
I only mock my own religion.
Religion isn’t something to be made sense of, willy. Religion is a search for comfort, for a form of understanding; it isn’t a search for truth like science is. For ‘truth’ read ‘best explanation’. Reeling off a list of names of scientists who may or may not have had a religious belief is pointless. I could equally give you a list of eminent scientists today who have no religious belief – equally pointless, willy, so not quite sure why you did that. As an atheist, I have studied religion and religious belief. I had to know what exactly I was rebelling against! Oh, and by the way, I never said religion impedes good science (please don’t suggest that I said something that I did not), I said it was nonsense. It makes no sense, it is nonsensical…other than to offer comfort to those who cannot face the realities of our existence and the existence of the Universe. It is the only ‘purpose’ it serves. My personal thought is that religious belief is mental illness. I find Catholicism immensely amusing, I really do.
My apologoes to Mark Stoval for this thread getting deeper than his light-hearted piece.
Poster,
The only gospel possibly written from eye witness testimony is John. Matthew (so-called) was not written by an apostle of Jesus, nor of course were Mark or Luke.
Much of the material in Matthew was added to the oldest gospel, Mark, in order to make the story more appealing to prospective Christians, in competition with other, originally more popular cults, such as Mithras for men and Isis for women.
Poster, if you’re writing of Christianity, then you have some reading to do. It’s obvious from what you’ve just said that you haven’t read the foundations of Christianity, or much about the Middle East of 2,000 years ago. Seriously, Life Of Brian is actually educational.
I don’t know any angry atheists. I know lots of ones shaking their heads in disbelief though – disbelief that people can be so gullible as to believe something for which there is zero evidence. You do know, don’t you, that there isn’t even any credible evidence for Jesus having ever existed? And yes, I did all my research years ago on this. It still comes as a shock to many Christians.
And it’s not that we want to shut down discussion. I myself was on forums 12 years ago arguing about this. My name has been in newspapers and respected science magazines. I have argued it from all sides and know all the angles religious believers use to twist themselves and their beliefs. The Holy Trinity is by far the funniest. I’m done with it, to be honest, and now rarely bother to respond, sorry. So excuse me if I leave this discussion here, for others to add their little bit. I have come to the conclusion that religious belief is mental illness. It displays many of the facets of it, and because of that, is actually interesting – in psychological terms. It saddens me that faith is causing a plague of terrible suffering on people of the world, and for that reason alone I would ban religious belief if I had the power.
My apologioes, again, to Mark Stoval.
Dear Ghost,
This is not a forum on religion. Take your nonsense and personal opinions regarding religion somewhere more appropriate. There is no need to insult people’s religious beliefs.
Anthony, please consider deleting his comments per violation of WUWT blog policy.
Bigots are always convinced of the rightness of their cause.
SkepticGoneWild: Like many atheists, Ghost has to work hard to convince himself he is in the right.
If he were half as convinced as he portrays himself to be, he wouldn’t feel the need to make an a$$ out of himself so frequently.
I would wager that 97% of Catholics believe in god. And relax SGW, I don’t think Big Jim gives a ……poop.
Only incompetent thinkers can’t find room for other people’s thought processes. You call it a search for comfort. I call it a search for a reason to think we are better than rocks. When there is no reason to think you are better than a rock, than being an atheist makes sense. But if you are an atheist and believe in following the civil rules of civilization, than you are by far the greatest mystery on Earth. Someone that claims that this is their one and only time to shine, and refuses to do so because of the laws of society which, for the most part, are the laws of religion. And your last thought will be, as you expel your last breath, “my God, what if I was wrong.” Don’t worry, Big Jim’s ghost, God loves all his children, even the rocks.
@ The Ghost Of Big Jim Cooley July 7, 2015 at 2:08 pm
“… It saddens me that faith is causing a plague of terrible suffering on people of the world, and for that reason alone I would ban religious belief if I had the power.
My apologioes, again, to Mark Stoval.”
No need to apologize. Nothing you have said has upset me in the least, well other than the non-libertarian idea of banning a thought or belief.
I dare say, if we had the time and energy to discuss it you would find me to be something outside your past experiences. (a little arrogant of me perhaps — sorry don’t mean to sound arrogant; but I am a heretic)
Anyway, not to worry — I won’t tell the Pope on you! 🙂
The fool says in his heart, “There is no God.”
The fool says in his heart, “There is no God.”
The wise man says it out loud.
“The Ghost” doesn’t believe in spiritual things. Kind of ironic.
Wherever religion has been banned, government becomes the religion. Would you prefer that, Ghost?
First of all, you might read “Misquoting Jesus” by biblical scholar Bart Ehrman:
http://www.amazon.com/Misquoting-Jesus-Story-Behind-Changed/dp/0060859512
before asserting that Christianity is founded on “eye-witness testimony”. It is not. Second, you might want to read Leon Festinger’s book on cognitive dissonance as a measured/observed phenomenon even in our own times, even among people with educations that are hundreds of times better than those available 20 centuries ago.:
http://www.amazon.com/Theory-Cognitive-Dissonance-Leon-Festinger/dp/0804709114
By your standard of truth being determined by the willingness of a very few people to “voluntarily leave their homes and give up their lives”, we can go down a list of cults and world religions that have proposed the most arrant nonsense and yet succeeded in attracting large numbers of people — there are quite a number of would-be-messiahs with followers who have done just that active at this very moment. Should we take their claims seriously? Or is it only the heavily redacted claims made in copies of copies of copies of manuscript copies of documents written decades to centuries after the supposed facts that they relate that we should trust?
I’m tempted to pop Acts 5:1 to 5:10 in here — it neatly refutes your assertion that this was really “voluntary”. Indeed, you might think about what any state district attorney would think if you visited a cult meeting that required you to give up all your possessions and join, but (not being a complete idiot) you thought you might hold onto a few at least for a while to make sure that you were doing the right thing, only the first time you went into a closed room with the cult leader they brought you out dead and buried you straightaway and took your wealth anyway, and later in the day when your wife went in she was brought out dead and buried right next to you. Is there one single person alive dumb enough to think that these two people were “struck down by the lord” as opposed to, say, by Peter and the other “young men” who ran the cult? If so, Scientology has a real deal for you…
Finally — and there is no easy way to say this — accepting this sort of thing as evidence requires a willful failure of common sense. To quote Paine (again — it should be required reading in every science class ever taught and would be if not for the stranglehold religion has on education):
rgb
Willybamboo:
You neglected to add cosmologist Father Georges Lemaitre, who developed the big bang theory.
And your environment may have nurtured you to be:
1) a passionate believer in/of the Catholic Religion.
2) a passionate believer in/of the Christian Religion.
3) a passionate believer in/of the Islamic Religion.
4) a passionate believer in/of the Anthropogenic Global Warming Religion.
5) a passionate believer in/of questioning everything that you are told to believe and reasoning out the truth or falsity of said in order to make your own personal “judgment calls” of what is most probably ….. “the truth of the matter” …. relative to the information you currently have available.
The nurturing of young children to be “passionate believers” in/of a specific Religious doctrine …. is no different than ……. the nurturing of young children to be fluent in the native language of their parent(s) or guardians. The person knows for a fact which Religious doctrine they ascribe to ….. and which language they read, write and speak, ….. but most persons really have no conscious memories of being nurtured to do so.
Remember, …… a person’s “conscious mind” ….. is subserviant to whatever their “subconscious mind” was nurtured with via the environmental stimuli their sense organs were subjected to.
RGB,
I wouldn’t put it beyond Peter to bump off Ananias and Sapphira, since he cut off the right ear of Malchus, servant of the high priest Caiaphas, as reported by John.
Claim was that historian Joes F never mentioned Christ. This statement is false. please read his history before misquoting it.
If it took him until recently to check out the science, is it fair to speculate that many of the “supporters” still have not done equivalent homework?
If they had bothered to do the homework, they wouldn’t be supporters.
Being able to read a teleprompter qualifies you to do the local TV news. It doesn’t make you a visionary leader.
Oh. Bama.
Auto
Mind, – in the UK we have had Tony B.Liar, and the ineffable Gordon Brown, so, as confirmed glass-house denizens, maybe we shouldn’t start heaving big rocks at other folks’ similar dwellings. . . . . . .
So – where can we heave big rocks without pranging some other chaps’ glass-houses.
In 2015 – difficult.
Possibly Australia – and the Ashes Series starts tomorrow, but in Cardiff – great little city, but negligible cricket history: even sobers’ 36 in an over was in Swansea. Sorry – off thread.
Very good obsevation EC. I hope the homework angle is the case for most scientist that support CAGW theory. I think that some are going with the noble lie.
I thought exactly the same thing. It’s well past time for true scientists to speak up.
Giaever is already on the record as a sceptic. He quit the APS a few years ago, and made a public statement about it. (I’m pretty sure there was a posting on WUWT.)
So the interesting question is, what about the other 34 non-signers? Are they undecided, or don’t they have the balls to say anything publicly? Or are they in self-protective mode?
Sadly, he’ll be dismissed as an “old crank” as Freeman Dyson has been.
True, but his points were simple and modest, still robust and undeniable. He didn’t deny warming, just told there is no reason to panic.
Freeman Dyson has not been dismissed buy anyone who is worth listening to.
He’s quite exceptional.
Other people’s ‘judgements’ won’t matter in the long run.
Indeed, the NY times called him infinitely smart.
You can’t hide the truth. You can try, but eventually you will be caught in your lies and you can’t go back and change them. As AGW unravels there will be many people who’s credibility will be forever lost.
So, you’ve never heard of the Clintons, eh?
There’s a very funny poster of Monica wishing Hillary the best of luck but don’t … that I won’t finish and post here, but it is easy to find
Funny, first thing I thought of after seeing “Clintons” was the Whitewater scandal they were involved in.
That and thinking the US founding fathers would be spinnng in their graves if they could see what passes for “Leadership” now.
Is the dam about to burst ?
People in the world at large must be realising that there are far more pressing issues to resolve if mankind is to prosper and care for the environment.
Everything the alarmists propose is horrendously irrational and counterproductive even if they were right yet it is increasingly clear that they are not.
We need to use fossil fuels freely so as to make all nations richer as quickly as possible so as to voluntarily limit breeding to or below replacement (as always happens in prosperous free societies) and to provide the research funds to get to a long term solution to our energy needs.
Our current level of expertise in renewable energy technology is hopelessly primitive and arguably more damaging to society and the planet than use of fossil fuels.
Our leaders are suffering from collective madness.
More like collectively blindered by the propagandizing Left.
Our leaders are not suffering from collective madness. They understand that they can raise money through taxes based on climate change. The British government raises £1,500,000,000 through the ‘Climate Change Levy’ ALONE! Never mind CO2 tax on cars, additional value added tax and assorted taxes. If the climate nonsense bubbles bursts, the British government will have to find that money from somewhere else. From 2005 all gas boilers sold here have had to be of the ‘condensing’ type, to ensure efficency and therefore lower emissions. These boilers have been less reliable and cost consumers more. What government didn’t foresee is the way it affects policies.
I think Obama is a clever person..
…good description
Our President is in search of his legacy. To date he doesn’t have one. That he has decided “climate change” is going to be his focus argues against his being clever.
The unintended consequence of Obama’s actions will be the legacy of allowing politics to dictate science to the detriment of civilization.
His legacy will be one that he has no control over: the 1st Black President of the US. That’s it.
I thought Bill Clinton had already been proclaimed the first black president?
He just pushes everything else with ease, perhaps he should declare US metric and finally be done with this stupid system. That would live on as good work. Myanmar and Liberia; good company.
I worry that Obama’s legacy will be a nuclear war in the middle east.
The fact that over 70 Nobel winning scientists endorsed Obama as “visionary” is rather disturbing and draws into question their analytical skills. I’m beginning to think the Nobel is just another prog group hug.
ditto
“Men, it has been well said, think in herds; it will be seen that they go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, one by one.”
― Charles Mackay, Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds
Attended and did not Sign:
Werner Arber
Françoise Barré-Sinoussi
Eric Betzig
Bruce A. Beutler
Aaron Ciechanover
François Englert
Albert Fert
Ivar Giaever
Theodor W. Hänsch
Avram Hershko
Robert Huber
Brian D. Josephson
Jean-Marie Pierre Lehn
Rudolph A. Marcus
Hartmut Michel
Luc Montagnier
Erwin Neher
Ryoji Noyori
Venkatraman Ramakrishnan
Carlo Rubbia
Bert Sakmann
Dan Shechtman
Oliver Smithies
Wole Soyinka
Susumu Tonegawa
Martinus J. G. Veltman
Klaus von Klitzing
Kurt Wüthrich
Ada E. Yonath
Harald zur Hausen
Pope Benedict appointed microbiologist Arber, a Swiss Protestant, as President of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences in 2011.
That list of names sounds very undiverse thus can be dismissed out of hand
Huh? Now you’re dismissing folks because of how their names ‘sound’?
Pretty sure Robert meant that sarcastically.
Less than half of obviously the female gender – Ada and Françoise, and . . . . . . .
Probably – not certainly, I do not know the individuals – no Lesbian, nor Trans-sexual, in their number.
Many of above average income, I suggest.
So un-diverse they probably should be treated with the contempt that a certain European organisation treats democratic votes that do not agree with their outcomes.
Indeed at the next European elections [If voting could change anything, would they let us do it?] it is likely that the European Commission will declare the population void, and elect a new population.
Auto
I’m beginning to think that to be recognized as a smart feller that you first have to have a smart feller sounding name. You hardly ever see Billy Bob Jones, Sam Smith or Jimmy Johnson up there. As that 60 minutes guy, Andy Rooney, would ponder… Why is that?
Well, smart feller names are, let’s face it, usually funny-sounding. So, a kid gets picked on ’cause his name is funny and starts to thinkin’, “I’ll show you, I’ll show you all, just see if I don’t”, and viola! a Nobel prize winner!
Actually the best chemist that works for me goes by Bubba. Hard working, extremely intelligent, and a master of both plastics and water compliance. A lot of people would have abandoned the nickname a long time before, but he keeps it out of pride.
To compare, I know a “Billy Bob” that has gone by “William” since college because he thinks it sounds smarter.
Thank you Vukcevic, old chap. Good information. One thing is clear…we have a new hero today, Dr Ivar Giaever. The truth will out.
What shirts were they wearing?
Do you have a list of those that did sign?
This list, as well as their accomplishments, and a similar list of signers, should be part of the article.
There are still 30 on your list – after you removed Brian Schmidt.
Could there be another one who does not deserve to have his name among these noble scientists?
Klaus von Klitzing did sign the declaration
He does not deserve to be on this list.
As with most engineers, which apparently to some have no credence in this debate because its applied science, there is little belief in the warmist theories of impending doom. If you read the actual science, as opposed to the Encyclical or watch a movie, and have an engineering background (I still hold a P.Eng. but it’s in ergonomics and I specialised in computer controlled equipment) it is hard not to be skeptical of the CO2 cabal. All I know is my farm friends use high concentrations of the stuff in the green houses to give nature a boost in the cold spring we get in Canada.
“When you have a theory and the theory does not agree with the experiment then you have to cut out the theory. You were wrong with the theory,” Giaever explained.
————-
Ahem, says the ghost of Richard Feynman.
Eh… just because Feynman articulated it pretty well doesn’t mean it’s not a universal truth.
Galileo, at the end of the Middle Ages, solidified this principle, though it goes back at least as far as Roger Bacon in the 1200s.
As usually understood, the Middle Ages ended in 1492 (variously 1453 or 1485, depending upon scholar and country). Galileo was born in 1564, same year as Shakespeare, and died in 1642. He was an Early Modern figure, not Medieval.
Sturgis
I think you hit the nail on the head with
– depending on scholar and country.
And for ‘non-scholars’ of Medieval/Middle Ages/les Moyen Ages, all that stuff back then is so Middle Aged . . .
Bacon, Galileo, Feynman, Giaever. The name doesn’t matter. As LeeH indicates – it is true.
Auto
History started in 1979. The 1990’s are the middle ages.
1642 was the year that Abel Tasman discovered New Zealand.
But some Maori residents had some of his crewmen over for dinner, and he decided the place was too hostile.
g
“As usually understood, the Middle Ages ended in 1492”
On a Wednesday, wasn’t it?
History ended in 1946 (which, coincidentally, is the year RoHa was born). Everything since then is current affairs.
RoHa,
The last Muslim stronghold in Spain surrendered to Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castille on Monday, January 2, 1492. Later that year, they paid for Columbus to sail the ocean blue. He came back with news of having reached what he imagined were the Indies in 1493.
The first battle won with firearms occurred at Cerignola in 1503, where the Spanish under the Great Captain Gonzalo de Cordoba defeated the French during the Italian Wars.
Whenever you date the end of the Middle Ages, it doesn’t extend into the 17th century. To historians, that’s the Early Modern period.
Are pebbles moving near the top of the scree? My sense is that when this global warming catastrophism nonsense starts coming down, its going to come down hard and fast and take a lot of people and institutions down with it.
You mean like this:
https://youtu.be/ZVjr4mii3cE
[snip – off topic, unneeded imagery here -mod]
Climate change strikes again!
Yes, Notanist, people like me won’t let The Royal Society gloss over it.
I imagine that intense pressure is being exerted upon the non-signers to convince them to sign. Very intense.
No. No way. Those guys are all Nobel Laureates. Secure positions. They last thing the Believer crowd wants is to piss them off and make them vocal. From the Scammers view point, its best to let them go away quietly. Dr Giaever didn’t, but the MSM can simply ignore just one voice.
Jorge, I don’t doubt that that these Nobel Prize winners are facing a lot of pressure. Dr. Giaever said as much: ““Global warming really has become a new religion. Because you cannot discuss it. It’s not proper.”
Even so, Nobel Winners have a lot more latitude to say what they think as compared to young people just beginning their careers. Graduate students and assistant professors down to the last man are well advised keep their heads down. It WILL cost them their careers if they oppose the politically dictated narrative.
It should be no surprise that Skepticism is strongest among that group of scientists that are not beholden to academic fads and government grants.
Dare I write that Prof. Giaever et al. will not be receiving the special embroidered satin invitation and all expense payed UN cheque (underwritten by the International Monetary Fund and the European Central Bank in Deutschmarks) from Messier Hollande, Der Merkel and Arc Pope for the party in Paris to celebrate the return of the Prime Meridian to Paris after being in the Pagan lands of England.
Ha ha
Global warming is all wet,
How true.
I was wishing he had a more emphatic denouncement, actually.
It says volumes that some low level flash in the pan researcher hasbeen like me can arm-chair figure out the issues that negate the theory of catastrophic global warming due to rising anthropogenic CO2, along side such luminous brains. At the very least, it calls into question whether or not high level thinking went into the theory in the first place.
High level money and political support went into the theory, and that was all it needed. Welcome to post-rational science.
Post rational? Surely a better label is Lysenkoism 2.0.
Whether it was Mead or Thatcher, it was high level thinking, just not high level science.
How on earth they could think it was simple physics is mind-boggling, but yet there are still people (on here even) who still chant that mantra.
In the words of my old high school physics teacher…
“If it is colourful , it is chemistry.”
“If it moves,it is biology.”
“If it doesn’t work, it is physics.”
People don’t understand the limitations of raw physics unless they have actually done any work in the field. They think “OK, spherical cow means you can model anything”, without thinking that their ideas of a “simple model” would require a Matrix (that is, the fictional movie) to compute, and that small discrepancies would easily push it out of whack.
Chemical Engineers I think get the best whack in the head when we learn about reactors and uncertainties, and how the best method of controlling a complex system is not theoretical rigor, but emperical testing.
Amusingly, the number of Chemical Engineers at the TCEQ makes them an extremely anti-AGW group, further distancing the state and federal regulatory agencies.
Ben of Houston,
Many Electrical Engineers are also skeptics. One reason is that EE’s often have an intuitive understanding of feedback control systems and the claims made by the consensus about feedback don’t even pass the smoke test.
That implies to me that around 35 out of 65 Nobel prizes are given for the quality of science and 30/65 are given because those involved know how to Brown nose the committee.
They gave one to Obama just on the hope that he will do something helpful. How tough can it be to get one now days?
“Problem was, there were 65 attendees, and only 30 signed the declaration.”
Correction: 36 attendees signed the declaration:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/07/03/oddly-nobel-prize-winner-michael-mann-was-not-invited-to-sign-the-mainau-declaration-for-climate-protection/#comment-1978406
That’s still short of the 97% claimed “consensus” (to be fair, the alleged 97% are supposedly “climate scientists”), but as we all know, scientific truth is determined by majority vote! (/sarc for the humor-impaired)
I noticed that one of the signers, Kailash Satyarthi, is a non-scientist (Peace laureate), but so is one of the non-signers, Wole Soyinka, (Literature). I didn’t find any signers who were not listed as attendees.
Do you remember that lesson at School where they told us “the basis of science …. is that we all vote for the theories we like”?
One thought
I’d be very interested to know how the sceptics and alarmists break down by subject, I suspect that most sceptics will be for the “hard” sciences like physics and chemistry whereas most of the alarmists will be soft scie….
… just realised I was assuming that they are Nobels for science but I don’t see that in the article.
Only a matter of time before it becomes Anthropogenic Bad Weather.
At least one Peace (signer) and one Literature (non-signer). Others for Chemistry, Phys/Med and Physics.
philincalifornia
That’s what I’m calling it from now on. Thanks for a late evening laugh.
You’re welcome, and laugh as loud as you want, you’re just about far enough away from mediaeval heretic witch burning territory.
Finally somebody with authority says what I have been saying for a long time: You just cannot measure the Earth’s temperature!
I will go even further and say the term “global temperature” is simply meaningless.
There is no way to attach a number to the Earth.
Not any number we can measure, anyway.
This is how CAGW will eventually crash and burn.
More and more renowned scientists outside the field of climatology will evaluate the physics, empirical evidence, and CAGW’s hypothetical projections, and conclude CAGW doesn’t meet the Scientific Method’s criteria for confirmation.
Once this rare 3-year El Niño cycle ends and is followed by a La Niña cycle, the “hiatus” will exceed 20 years, despite 30%+ of all manmade CO2 emissions since 1750 being made over the last 20 years…
Once that sinks in, brilliant minds around the world will shake their heads, mumble their favorite curse word, and then say, ‘how can this hypothesis still be taken seriously?’, and that will be all she wrote…
File this under: Another piece of news that will never see the light of day on NBC, CBS, ABC, etc., etc.
Well, Dr. Ivar Giaever, like me you are now a denier and a heretic.
Dr. Ivar Giaever resigned as a Fellow from the American Physical Society (APS) on September 13, 2011 in disgust over the group’s promotion of man-made global warming fears.
‘Giaever announced his resignation from APS was due to the group’s belief in man-made global warming fears. Giaever explained in his email to APS: “In the APS it is ok to discuss whether the mass of the proton changes over time and how a multi-universe behaves, but the evidence of global warming is incontrovertible? The claim (how can you measure the average temperature of the whole earth for a whole year?) is that the temperature has changed from ~288.0 to ~288.8 degree Kelvin in about 150 years, which (if true) means to me is that the temperature has been amazingly stable, and both human health and happiness have definitely improved in this ‘warming’ period.”
Giaever was one of President Obama’s key scientific supporters in 2008.’
http://www.climatedepot.com/2011/09/14/exclusive-nobel-prizewinning-physicist-who-endorsed-obama-dissents-resigns-from-american-physical-society-over-groups-promotion-of-manmade-global-warming/
And covered here at http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/09/14/nobel-laureate-resigns-from-american-physical-society-to-protest-the-organizations-stance-on-global-warming/
thanks (from Vermont) for the link – I’m still catching up on my back-reading here
Observation: A left wing Nobel prize winner who supported the Democrat candidate (Obama) can see that the science of AGW is unsound. And says so.
That’s because AGW is not a political issue.
It’s an issue of corruption in science – venality and insecurity.
The internet has transformed many information handling industries. Why expect Academia to be different?
But it has been so far.
And the tensions caused by holding back the tide of history is warping the practice of the scientific method.
It’s a corruption of science, but it was done for political reasons.
And the fact still remains that the vast majority of those, both scientific and otherwise, who are pushing this nonsense are from the left side of the political spectrum.
Mark, M Courtney is from the left side of the political spectrum. I know you didn’t know.
Yes, The Ghost Of Big Jim Cooley, I am from the left side of the political spectrum. And sceptical of dangerous AGW. So I am keen to highlight that a left wing Nobel Prize Winner is also sceptical of dangerous AGW.
Either science will self-correct and we can kick this dodgy science out while still disagreeing politically.
Or politics – sophism – will rule and truth will lose (neither of the political spectrum wants that). But that takes physical science being equated with political opinion.
Or we recognise that we should all work to help science correct itself. Recognising that the self-correction mechanism is imperfect.
Ghost, I was well aware of Dr. Courtney’s political proclivities. I am also aware of his many attempts to hide from the attempts of so many on his side of the line to push the AGW meme, by going on and on about ;how there is nothing political about science.
MarkW:
My son disagrees with me on many things and does not need my support, but in this case I write to make a general point by opposing an untrue attack of him.
You say of him
I suspect I am more aware of my son’s activities than you but I don’t know of his making any “attempts to hide” from anything.
And it is a truth that science is NOT political.
However, some people from all parts of the political spectrum attempt to corrupt science for political purposes. In extremis this becomes Lysenkoism whereby science is subservient to political policies. And it is a mild form of Lysenkoism to claim it is acceptable to ‘push’ or (as e.g. you do) to ‘oppose’ a scientific idea for reasons of politics.
Richard
MarkW, for clarity – I am not a Doctor.
But that doesn’t mean I’m so scientifically illiterate as to think the physical world alters to match one’s political opinion.
There is a difference between ‘not having the qualification’ and ‘believing in magic’.
I think the corruption of science is a consequence of political agendas interfering in science, specifically the green agenda, so it is very much political. However, scientific truth will eventually transcend politics and we are starting to see this happen. Eventually, the MSM might notice, but I’m not going to hold my breath.
When the scientists start saying things that politicians do not like to hear, they will simply stop asking scientists for their opinion.
Does anyone ask scientists to decide when an incipient person becomes a human being?
And the satellites will not show a record in 2015 either.
After 6 months on RSS, the average is 0.304, and this would rank in 6th place if it stayed this way. However it will probably go up to third place before the end of the year. But a new record is virtually ruled out since the anomalies for the rest of the year would then need to average 0.796. This was only beaten once and that was in April 1998 when it was 0.857. It cannot be ruled out that the June anomaly of 0.391 may rise to 0.796 by December, but there is no way that 2015 could end up in first or even in second place on RSS.
UAH6.0 is in a very similar situation.
Joseph Stalin said that it does not matter who votes; what matters is who counts the votes.
The data sets will say whatever their masters deem that they should say. After all, this is not science!
It appears that there is another vote against the consensus of “settled science.
““The country urgently needs a visionary leader…We are convinced that Senator Barack Obama is such a leader, and we urge you to join us in supporting him.”
Well, seriously, he is a visionary leader. The problem is: his vision is not the same one he articulated when Dr. Ivar Giaever et al signed that letter.
Those folks who supported/voted for an “honest politician” were clearly misled. That he was re-elected simply shows the power of a supporting main stream media.
and watch out for the plastic lady as well as get Bernie started on saving us
Visionary? If you count the view through coke bottle glasses, maybe.
Well Obama’s history as a disciple of Saul Alinski, should have alerted any thinking person to what a scoundrel he was (and still is).
But this is the age when everybody wants to claim that they also attended Woodstock.
How can a person be so hollow, as to vote for a candidate, simply to make him(er) the first black President..
His history traced back through his Mau mau terrorist grandfather seems to show that is was his ancestors who enslaved the ancestors of America’s black population/ That’s the degree of his empathy with them.
“How can a person be so hollow, as to vote for a candidate, simply to make him(er) the first black President.”
When I was young and stupid I voted for Carter. At the time I was largely ignorant of the differences between political parties and since I was studying engineering at Cornell and he was an engineer, he had to be reasonably intelligent, right? That’s when I learned that for intelligence to be a useful trait, it must be backed up with sound judgement.
If only comrade
StalinObama knew what was going on, he would fix it!When Giaever says:
he is dead on the money.
I have NEVER heard a believer say that AGW is anything but a disaster. These people are Voltaire’s anti-Panglossians: All is for the worst in this worst of possible worlds: They are excessively pessimistic.
Good observation! And why do they think the mild and beneficial warming we had so far is bad? Because they are convinced it is man-made. That’s the core of Green religion: All changes on our planet originating from mankind must be evil…
I would bet a significant amount of money that not a single person on Earth would even dream to claim that some climate warming and an increase of atmospheric CO2 (which is essential plant-food btw !) were dangerous, if it were clear that these changes had natural causes…
My viewpoint on AGW changed many years ago when I asked a speaker at a local lecture on the topic where the points in the world are that are going to be improved by climate change. His response was that there aren’t any. I asked then “Is AGW some kind of sentient being that knows exactly what makes any particular place better or worse from a human viewpoint and then does whatever it takes to make it worse?” He refused to answer my question. I knew then that it was all just a ruse based on guilt over fossil fuels.
Vukcevic, Thank you for a list of those who did not sign.
Could you please provide a list of those who did sign, so that we can be suitably cautious of their future pronouncements, and attack their views where relevant.
Idiots, especially idiots, need to be clearly identified, especially if they are Nobel Laureates.
John K. Sutherland.
They should have to wear a sign that says “I’m stupid” that way you wouldn’t ask them anything—Bill Engvall
“Could you please provide a list of those who did sign”
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/07/03/oddly-nobel-prize-winner-michael-mann-was-not-invited-to-sign-the-mainau-declaration-for-climate-protection/#comment-1978406
36 signatures.
It was published here
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/07/03/oddly-nobel-prize-winner-michael-mann-was-not-invited-to-sign-the-mainau-declaration-for-climate-protection/#comment-1978406
Peter Agre
Michael Bishop
Elizabeth Blackburn
Martin Chalfie
Claude Cohen-Tannoudji
Steven Chu
James Cronin
Peter Doherty
Gerhard Ertl
Edmond Fischer
Walter Gilbert
Roy Glauber
David Gross
John Hall
Stefan Hell
Serge Haroche
Jules Hoffmann
Klaus von Klitzing
Harold Kroto
William Moerner
Ferid Murad
Ei-Ichi Negishi
Saul Perlmutter
William Phillips
Richard Roberts
Kailash Satyarthi
Brian Schmidt
Hamilton Smith
George Smoot
Jack Szostak
Roger Tsien
Harold Varmus
Robin Warren
Arieh Warshel
Robert Wilson
Torsten Wiesel
Trenberth’s bio still claims that he was the recipient of a Noble prize. How come he didn’t get to vote?
http://www.cgd.ucar.edu/staff/trenbert/
Dr. Giaever just demonstrated that he puts science and honesty over being a member in good standing of the Intelligentsia.
It’s important that experienced scientists speak up, yet unsurprising that some only do so late in their careers. Better late than never. Well done and thank you!
Just look to the story of Willie Soon to see why that is.
No one wants to step in front of a freight train if they do not have to.
What is amazing is how few have decided they have to.
Was Gore invited to the conference? He is the only individual actually named on the Noble Peace Prize for fear mongering about climate change. If he was, his vote can be easily dismissed as anyone who’s seen his movie will know that his grasp of climate science is limited to a few buzz words and some empty rhetoric.
Sorry about cross posting this in the wrong thread.
I wonder whether the good doctor is prepared to circulate his views to all his laureate colleagues who signed, and ask them for their reaction to his comments.
Well, he is a Norwegian, he’s smarter than the average bear. 🙂
Interesting parallels: Ivar Giaever was born in the Bergen area, and graduated from NTNU in 1952, emigrated to Canada, worked for GE, then to Schenectady, earning a PhD from RPI in 1964. Research into Superconductivity.
My father was born in the Bergen area and graduated from NTNU, went to Seattle area for Masters, returned to Norway, earned a PhD from NTNU in 1958. Emigrated to the US with job offers from GE – Schenectady and GE – Erie. He has 11 patents.
They could have known each other.
I don’t think this will be a problem for the warmists. 30 out of 65 is a 46 percent consensus. NOAA should be able to get that to 97 percent with a few adjustments.
The numbers (>30 signed and 36 non-signed) do not agree with previous reports (36 signed)?????
Right or wrong, “peer reviewed” or not, one of the 3% are to be ignored. /sarc
Those 36 Nobel Laureates who signed a specific statement re: CO2CAGW’s alleged danger probably don’t know that no one else who espouses this fantasy has actually signed a specific statement…at least I am unaware of any other such signings by individuals on their own behalf, except for the 10,000 the Oregon Petition has on its specific declaration against the idea that increasing atmospheric CO2 is in any way dangerous, and is in fact beneficial.
So imo the CO2CAGW Believers don’t have the Consensus either, the evil Skeptics do.
Refreshing to see an honest scientist for a change.
The Ghost of Big Jim Cooley said…..I have come to the conclusion that religious belief is mental illness. It displays many of the facets of it, and because of that, is actually interesting – in psychological terms. It saddens me that faith is causing a plague of terrible suffering on people of the world, and for that reason alone I would ban religious belief if I had the power.
Ghost you are either practicing willful ignorance or intellectual dishonesty. A few bullet points… If there is no God (religious belief) then life itself has no meaning beyond that of the physical world. Further we are not free at all. We are bound by the laws of science (physics, etc.). Everything we do is a result of chemical reactions, physics…nothing more. If we are bound by the laws of science there is no such thing as free will. No original thought…nothing. So to talk about mental illness is meaningless. Mental illness is just a series of nerve synapses firing in the brain based on influences of various stimulus. There is no morality, no concepts such as justice, peace, love, hate, worry, etc. Killing another human being is not a willful act, but again chemical and physical reactions base in science. The death of a human is no more significant than me slapping a mosquito on my arm. Further, if we are bound by the laws of science only…where do the thoughts of a god come from? Where do the concepts of justice, peace, love, etc. come from? In addition there is no “plague of terrible suffering on the people of the world…it is just science, chemistry, physics. Finally….why do you care about the people suffering…there is no god, no meaning (period). Where did your sense of “caring” come from? Remember we our bound by the laws of science…suffering people is not a problem to be solved, it is just another act of natural selection…or scientific processes….it just is what it is. We have no control, no freedom to act, we just come and go.
mptc
Human moral instincts are as much a product of evolution as mosquito’s blood-sucking instinct. Yes, down to the molecular level, everything is physics, though much of this physics is unknown (and, the more we know, the more will always be unknown).
The level of complexity of the biological physics is such that we are still incapable of making a virus, leave alone a mosquito, while individual human evolutionary moral instincts and their cultural derivatives (commandments, rules, laws, taboos) are so diverse even within local populations as to be incompatible and antagonistic.
Religious faith is simply a projection of self onto the blank screen of the unknown, a short-circuit in the brain — akin to mental illness but, probably, a selectively produced trait that helps to keep the population of slaves in the most malleable condition.
Religious fanatics are usually the bloodiest of killers, because they don’t need to stop and think, they know what’s right and wrong, they must believe what they are told — otherwise, their suspenders from Heaven won’t hold, their pants would drop, and only a naked, thoughtless, disoriented, trembling ape would remain.
Human moral instincts are as much a product of evolution as mosquito’s blood-sucking instinct.
Prove it….saying does not make it true. Please cite some of the moral instincts of elk or grizzly bears, or walleye or yes…even mosquitoes.
Religious fanatics are usually the bloodiest of killers.
Oh really….I will put up your Stalins, Maos, Pol Pots, Hitlers, and Sangers up against any religious fanatic. The atheists have killed many more people, many times over than any religious “fanatic”.
And if there is no god, then what is “bloodiest of killers” mean? There is no morals, there is no right or wrong just science and physics and the laws of nature acting out in its amoral design.
Nice try.
Alexander Feht: ..only a naked, thoughtless, disoriented, trembling ape would remain.
Exactly the result of strict materialism. Mother Theresa and Adolf Hitler are merely interesting examples of the deterministic working out of the laws of chemistry and physics.
But we are a bit OT, are we not?
“If we are bound by the laws of science there is no such thing as free will.”
I’m no expert, but if I understand correctly, quantum mechanics suggests that the laws of nature may not be entirely deterministic. Unfortunately that’s not necessarily good news for the concept of “free will”, which may reduce simply to random quantum fluctuations and not “real” choice. 🙁
I’m not sure how it’s helpful to add a divinity or three to the mix: we’re still bound by the laws of nature except where these laws are altered by, for example, a supernatural flying spaghetti monster (FSM). In that case our behavior is determined by the laws of nature plus the FSM, all of which are outside our control, therefore still no “free will”. 🙁
[shrug] Oh well, I won’t off myself just because “free will” is off the table, at least not until I’ve caught up on season 8 of “The Big Bang Theory”. 🙂
If no God no free will…no meaning, we are just random acts of physics. So you are not even free to choose to watch “The Big Bang Theory”, which by the way is a complete contradiction of a life dictated by science. What would be the point of entertainment, comedy…quantum mechanics and evolution cannot begin to explain this. Unless elk, or grizzly bears or fish or mosquitoes have their own network television. What would that be like?
“If no God no free will…”
And, as I pointed out above, if God, still no free will. 🙁
“Unless elk, or grizzly bears or fish or mosquitoes have their own network television.”
They don’t (well, perhaps if they’re household pets), which is one reason I prefer being a deterministic human rather than a deterministic mosquito. 🙂
And of course I screwed up the italics. *sigh* In my defense, I can only plead that I had no free will to get it right. 🙁
http://ecowatch.com/2015/07/07/country-most-climate-deniers/
So how long before SPLC lists “deniers” as a hate group?
I will see those 30 and raise you another 31,000.
http://www.experienceproject.com/question-answer/Should-The-Southern-Poverty-Law-Center-List-Global-Warming-Deniers-As-A-Hate-Group/3719605
I guess im way behind on this type of thinking
thank you Dr. Giaver. it takes courage to say what you said.
this needs to be spread far and wide. the MSM must report it or be further exposed for their irrational, unquestioning demonisation of CO2.
I’m sorry, the media are quite rational. They don’t question because it is against their interests. They are interested in advancing their agenda, not science. I think they will be sorry when the government control they espouse is applied to them, and they are told what they may or may not print. When the media are exposed, they’ll just say oops and move on as if nothing happened.
The only people with the power to change the liberal media are its stockholders. If you want to change it, you need a majority in your faction to do so. And to get that you need to buy the stock of those firms. If more than 50% is owned by a single group, or individual, even that method won’t work. Otherwise you have to have a competing product that sucks all their customers away and their business will collapse. I think it is already happening, which is a reason NOT to buy their stock.
A new ideology is rising, and finds resonance in a variety of venues including the global warming advocacy. The ideology is fundamentally opposed to reason and fact. A hint of the ideology was recently voiced by John Caputo, professor of philosophy at Syracuse, “I think that what modern philosophers call “pure” reason — the Cartesian ego cogito and Kant’s transcendental consciousness — is a white male Euro-Christian construction.” (http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/07/02/looking-white-in-the-face/) Couple this with the emerging philosophy involving race voiced by Zandria Hurston, professor of sociology now at Rhodes College, “Whiteness is most certainly and inevitably terror.” http://www.mrctv.org/blog/whiteness-terror-university-memphis-professor-preaches#.ytriya:ctB0 and one comes to an ideology propounded as follows: reason is white European male, whiteness is bad, therefore reason is bad. The racial narrative, while an important issue, is subsidiary to the larger issue, that reason itself is to be overthrown. The trend in the AGW advocacy seems to follow this tenet, namely that individual reason is to be distrusted and ridiculed, contrary evidence is to be denied, mass political consensus is more important than considerations of evidence and reason, and of course, anyone attempting to make an appeal to reason is viciously and personally attacked and neutralized.
The AGW debate may just be a microcosm of the impending end of the Age of Reason. Reason itself, and by extension the scientific method, sown by the ancients and brought to fruition in the Age of Enlightenment, to which we owe most modern science and mathematics is under attack. The world seems to be descending into an Age of Anti-reason, in which reason and fact are trumped by group allegiance, racial division, and animosities based on religious affiliations. Chaos and darkness await.
FAH commented : “… Chaos and darkness await.”
If enough of us donate money can we make it go away?
FAH,
The reason anti-reason arises is political correctness run amok which leads to lies and twisted facts to obfuscate inconvenient truths (i.e. Gore’s movie). One such truth is that while prejudices driven by race, sex, sexual orientation and religion can never be completely eliminated, all are at historic lows. Another is that while CO2 emissions have a finite effect on the climate, this effect is demonstrably small and without massive effects, the IPCC has no reason to exist.
The U.S Justice Department statistics on hate crimes do not support the contention that such prejudices are at historic lows. The number of reported hate crimes in the U.S. has oscillated between 0.8 and 1.0 (per 1000 persons over age 12) since statistics have been reported (2004). It was 0.8 in 2005, rose to just over 1.0 in 2009, decreased back to 0.8 in 2011, then rose back to 1.0 in 2012. The yearly statistics for 2012 and 2013 show an increase in 2013 over 2012. That is as far as the statistics are reported. It is harder to get statistics for world race, ethnic, religious and gender related animosities, but there are many anecdotal examples ranging from ISIS in the middle east, draw Mohamed contests, Hebdo shootings, increasing anti-semitism in Europe and the like. The point is not that such things are or have been endemic, but rather they are being exploited and connected to political ends more readily by various parties and are now aided by internet connectivity and social media.
We are a far more tolerant society than ever before, although I do see some of those gains being eroded by those who exploit differences to gain support for agendas. Statistics are a funny thing. The evolving definition of what’s a hate crime, increasing hypersensitivity leading to higher reporting rates and an administration engaged in perpetual hate mongering has skewed the statistics. None the less, bouncing between 0.8 and 1 per 1000 seems low and stable relative to what it would have been a 100 years ago, given the same reporting criteria, when racial discrimination was rampant and women were second class citizens who couldn’t even vote. BTW, I don’t consider freedom of expression to be a hate crime (i.e. cartoons disparaging terrorism, religion, warmists, etc.), no matter how politically incorrect that expression is. However, anyone harming someone because they didn’t like what was freely expressed is committing a hate crime, independent of the race, sex or creed of the parties involved, and if any category of hate crime is on the rise, its this one.
What concerns me going forward is terrorism and increased violence from environmental groups (hate crimes) who will become disenfranchised when the truth about CO2 is finally accepted. We can see the seeds of this in how skeptics are treated when they comment on a warmist blog.
I decided a while back to spare myself the pointless hand wringing that results from even reading warmist blogs, much less commenting on them.
Those people love it when realists comment.
Why give them the satisfaction?
Might as well hand out Wiccan literature at Easter Mass.
I occasionally like to poke the beast, for no other reason than identifying the logic behind their insanity so I can better deconstruct it. There’s a lot of anger there and it will get much worse when the truth is eventually accepted. It’s not a matter of if, but when, since in the final analysis, scientific truth always prevails and the skeptics will not go away until it does.
What took him so long? it me 20 minutes once I looked . Better late than never.
yes!…Yes!!…YES!!!
(oui too)
I’m sure you will soon see Dr. Ivar Giaever on “60 Minutes”.
/sarc
I can’t seem to get the video of his speech to play and I’ve tried everything. (well maybe not everything).
http://www.mediatheque.lindau-nobel.org/videos/34729/ivar-giaever-global-warming-revisited/laureate-giaever
obviously this Video has been removed from the Lindau page …
I got it with this link:
http://www.mediatheque.lindau-nobel.org/abstracts/34535/ivar-giaever-global-warming-revisited/laureate-giaever
Jürgen Michele
Covered by MSM here: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/jul/7/nobel-physicist-obama-dead-wrong-global-warming/ (2nd most popular)
Google shows several reports from Germany, didn’t try translating.
This was robably missed because as usual skeptical sites XXXXX it up. The clue was “Nobel PHYSICIST” prize winner, (not nobel prize winner, could have been for making bread), which was not mentioned on any headline
Should have been “Probably”. The video does not work for me as I have been trying to view it the whole day. Its either blocked or not viewable. Not on U tube either. Does not surprise me. Paranoia yours truly LOL
I would suggest that the root cause of this controversy is not religion or policy.
I would suggest the root cause is lack of scientific integrity:
To many endorse the Baconian method of science. A method which largely rely on induction.
To few endorse the empirical method as formulated by Karl Popper. A method which largely rely on attempts of falsification.
Maybe it is time to revive Karl Popper and his empirical method
The first part of his book “The logic of scientific discovery” is easy reading and quite refreshing:
http://strangebeautiful.com/other-texts/popper-logic-scientific-discovery.pdf
Is there any way I can correct my silly misspellings?
Anthony- can you clarify if it was 30 or 36 that signed the declaration? I’ve been referencing this article all over the place, and I’m getting conflicting numbers- their website says 36- just wondering where the number 30 came from?
As far as I know
36 signed the declaration
29 did not sign the declaration
(This does not mean that I think the exact numbers really matters.)
30 probably comes from an early statement that more than 30 signed.
You will find a list over those who signed here:
http://www.lindau-nobel.org/ (Home/Maineau declaration/Signatories)
Here is an unofficial list over those who did not sign (There must be a few errors on the list):
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/07/03/oddly-nobel-prize-winner-michael-mann-was-not-invited-to-sign-the-mainau-declaration-for-climate-protection/#comment-1978750
It would be interesting to know what the subjects were of the Nobel Laureates who signed and of those who did not. Any link to that information?
arnoarrak did a tedious job on that here:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/07/03/oddly-nobel-prize-winner-michael-mann-was-not-invited-to-sign-the-mainau-declaration-for-climate-protection/#comment-1979322
Exactly my question as well.
It is an ideological trigger warning when all solutions to a perceived problem converge towards the same socialist and statist ends. That being less personal liberty, bigger government, more restrictions, less choice, increased regulation and mandates like how many gallons a toilet uses to flush or what kind of light bulbs are sold to consumers.
Maybe Dr. Ivar Giaever would like to circulate a petition among like-minded scientists based upon his own resignation letter or an updated version of the Oregon Petition, among the signers of which is Dr. Freeman Dyson.
The latter reads:
“We urge the United States government to reject the global warming agreement that was written in Kyoto, Japan in December, 1997, and any other similar proposals. The proposed limits on greenhouse gases would harm the environment, hinder the advance of science and technology, and damage the health and welfare of mankind.
“There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gases is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth’s atmosphere and disruption of the Earth’s climate. Moreover, there is substantial scientific evidence that increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide produce many beneficial effects upon the natural plant and animal environments of the Earth.”
Could take it further and state that a doubling of CO2 from 280 to 560 ppm would be likely to raise GASTA only 0-2 degrees C at equilibrium, rather than the 2.1-4.5 degrees derived from the IPCC’s GIGO, falsified models, and that at this point science cannot even say if the net effect of human activity on global temperature is to warm or cool the planet, but in any case is not significant.
Now Trending in Politics #1 on Fox News:
Nobel Prize-winning scientist says Obama is ‘dead wrong’ on global warming
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2015/07/08/nobel-prize-winning-scientist-says-obama-is-dead-wrong-on-global-warming/?intcmp=latestnews
One of the great misconceptions of the scientifically-illiterate is the assumption that every scientist is an expert in all areas of science, somewhat akin to the Professor on Gilligan’s Island.
The “expert” opinions of scientists who study quantum mechanics, or astrophysics, or nuclear chemistry, or plate tectonics are not going to have the same gravitas as the conclusions of scientists who actually have spent their careers studying atmospheric chemistry or climatology.
It would be no different than if you had been diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor, and so you sought out the expertise of several oncologists and neurosurgeons to discuss your options … but then a couple of proctologists overhearing the conversations gave their two cents and insisted that their opinions carried as much weight as those of the consulted doctors.
It would make no sense to give much credence to the advise given by the proctologists … unless your head was lodged up your ass.
Except for the fact that the ones who have spent their careers doing climatology are the ones with their heads firmly wedged in the asses of those handing out the money for politically correct answers. No other branch of science has been so extremely compromised by the almighty dollar.
If a plumber managed to fix my car while the Ph.D. in Auto Mechanic Science stripped the gears, I would think again.
The infamous climate alarmist in Australia is Tim Flannery. His first degree level qualification is English literature. Ross Garnout, the “architect” of the “proice ohn cahbon”, Gillard said would not happen, is an economist. So, based on this, I can be a “climate scientist” because I passed home economics and English GSE “O” levels while in school.
Patrick.
Tim Flannery also has a Master of Science degree in Earth Science and a Doctorate in Palaeontology.
Not the usual curriculum for a high school in Australia.
I said his FIRST degree level qualification.
BTW, I have studied earth science too, but I didn’t get a 3 day per week job paying AU$180k/pa.
Dr. Ivar Giaever is entitled to his opinion of course. What is missing is a study in the scientific literature of why he thinks Global Warming is a hoax.
““Global warming really has become a new religion. Because you cannot discuss it. It’s not proper. It is like the Catholic Church.””
Really? I see people discussing Global Warming all the time.
harrytwinotter commented : “…Really? I see people discussing Global Warming all the time.”
You must be a lip reader. Any ‘discussion’ going on in the MSM is one way witch hunting, shaming, and personal attacks against skeptics. There has been no, none, nada scientific “discussion”. Even the so called “debate” that was supposed to “settle” the ‘science’ never happened. People who are on the fence about AGW are wondering why the skeptics’ voices have been silenced and you should be wondering too.
The Time article from July 3, 2015 (http://time.com/3945630/lindau-nobel-laureates-meetings/) says that 36 of them signed. Your article says only 30. Can you clarify. I just want to make sure I have it right because I’m sure I’ll get challenged.
[that typo is corrected in the article, please refresh -mod]
This man sounds like a fool. He endorsed Obama, a young man with no experience who has hidden his academic record from view, because he wanted a “visionary” president.
What are these people smoking?
Idiots, all of them. Perfect examples of why we should reject central planning. The planners are idiots.
The second the scientist used the words global warming I stopped listening. Climate change is real, it is happening, and anyone who says otherwise is a stupid ignorant ostrich with their head in the sand. Wonder how hot it’s going to be in Australia this year?