Guest opinion: Dr.Tim Ball
The improver of natural knowledge absolutely refuses to acknowledge authority, as such. For him, skepticism is the highest of duties; blind faith the one unpardonable sin. Thomas Huxley
This comment describes the career of John L. Daly (March 1943-January 2004). John lived on the beautiful island of Tasmania, where he became a climate devil gaining global attention in 1995 when he started the most successful early skeptics webpage “Still Waiting for Greenhouse.” He was an innovator in the climate area of using the internet to establish himself. He became a new type of investigator despised by the arrogant, heavily funded, academic elites who control world thought on so many issues. In climate, this was primarily the hacks who took over the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) at East Anglia after its founder, Hubert Lamb, stepped down. They proceeded to control the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Proof of how much he annoyed them came as a back-handed compliment in one of those infamous leaked emails by Phil Jones. He was Director of the CRU at the time of John’s death in 2004 and wrote, “in an odd way this is cheering news.” This disgusting, inhuman comment is not unique in the anthropogenic global warming (AGW) climate science community because William Connolley (Stoat) commented on the passing of Bob Carter, that “Science advances one funeral at a time.”
Perhaps among the best summaries of John Daly’s role was by Professor Emeritus John Brignell, who wrote,
Daly was the epitome of a new phenomenon of the post-scientific age, a lone scholar with all the traditions of meticulous attention to detail and truth that the word implies, with limited means upholding the principles of the scientific method in the face of adversaries with vast resources. He usually won, but the establishment media ensured that the world never got to hear of it. He was the eternal small boy gleefully pointing out that the emperor had no clothes.
John was an advisor to Channel 4’s 1990 production of “The Greenhouse Conspiracy”. Remember, that was the year that the first Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Report appeared. Sadly, much of the information is a revelation to most people even today. Equally sad, the members of the IPCC must have know about the film and its content yet ignored it. If they didn’t know about the content, it is a measure of their incompetence. As I recall, the documentary was generally well received in the UK but was blocked in the US and Canada.
I first saw it 1991 in the boardroom of Manitoba Hydro, a public utility company that controlled all power production in the Province of Manitoba. They obtained a pirated copy and asked me for commentary. They ignored what I told them because most of their power was hydroelectric and so they and the political masters benefited greatly from low CO2 levels. In fact, when the Canadian Federal government moved to ratify the Kyoto Protocol only two of ten Provinces, Manitoba, and Quebec, supported the action because they stood to collect huge carbon credit compensation.
I was privileged to communicate with John and had a couple of articles published along with several other early skeptics. The website is till accessible but is a shadow of its former content. Nonetheless, it provides an insight into how innovative and perceptive the work John and others were doing. In his 1989 book “The Greenhouse Trap – why the greenhouse effect will not end life on earth, he says
“…clearly laid out what would be the crucial arguments later presented by the IPCC. To each and every argument Daly countered with his own arguments, questioning the “orthodox” science.”
I will not repeat any of John’s comments or articles; people can read them for themselves. However, I know John, with his refreshing irreverence and fascination with people’s opinions and the need for accountability, will appreciate a limited update of his article titled “THEY SAID IT.” The subtitle was
A compendium of interesting and illuminating quotes from leading figures in the Greenhouse Industry (exact source references available on request).
With deference to John;
The More Things Change …
“There is a finite possibility that a serious worldwide cooling could befall the Earth within the next 100 years”
– (from a U.S. National Academy of Sciences Report, 1975)
“When I was going to graduate school, it was gospel that the Ice Age was about to start. I had trouble warming up to that one too.This (Greenhouse) is not the first climate apocalypse, but it’s certainly the loudest.”
– (Prof. Patrick Michaels, interview for UK Channel 4, 1990)
“There is no reason not to anticipate the onset of the next cycle of 90 thousand years of glaciation beginning at any time.
In this context, I find it remarkable that one rarely, if ever, hears the suggestion that increased carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is just what is needed to prevent or delay the onset of the next period of glaciation which, if anything, is apparently already overdue, or already in progress.”
– (Dr Hugh Ellsaesser, 13 Feb 1990)
“On the short time scale, if CO2 is augmented by another 10 percent in the next 30 years, the increase in the global temperature may be as small as +0.1 deg.”
(Dr Stephen Schneider, in 1971 paper on the effect of atmospheric aerosols)
“… An increase by a factor of 8 in the amount of CO2 (which is highly unlikely in the next several thousand years), will produce an increase in the surface temperature of less than 2 deg. K.
However, the effect on surface temperature of an increase in the aerosol content of the atmosphere is found to be quite significant.
An increase by a factor of 4 in the equilibrium dust concentration in the global atmosphere, which cannot be ruled out as a possibility within the next century, could decrease the mean surface temperature by as much as 3.5 deg. K.
If sustained over a period of several years, such a temperature decrease could be sufficient to trigger an ice age. ”
(Dr Stephen Schneider, (from a 1971 paper in `Science’ on the effect of atmospheric aerosols)
The Politics of Climate Change Science
(A triple oxymoron?)
I’ve just completed Mike’s Nature trick of adding in the real temperatures to each series for the last 20 years (i.e. from 1981 onwards) and from 1961 for Keoth’s to hide the decline.
Phil Jones email November 16, 1999.
I have just read M&M (McIntyre & McKitrick) stuff critcizing MBH. A lot of it seems valid to me. At the very least MBH is a very sloppy piece of wrok- an opinion I have held for some time.
Tom Wigley email 21 October 2004
Can you delete any emails you may have had with Keith regarding the latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report? Keith will do likewise.
Phil Jones email to Michael Mann May 29 2008.
“I hope there is a major glitch. It might give Mother Earth a rest. I think it would be wonderful if things collapsed for a few days. Chaos would happen … but it would be an amazing opportunity for people to really start thinking about things — and a global collapse would really make people think.”
– David Suzuki, just before Christmas 1999, anticipating a Y2K meltdown
(as quoted by Terence Corcoran of the National Post)
“No matter if the science is all phony, there are collateral environmental benefits….
Climate change [provides] the greatest chance to bring about justice and equality in the world.” Christine Stewart 1998, Canada’s Minister of the Environment as quoted by the Calgary Herald.
“For those environmentalists who have felt threatened by technological progress and economic growth, the campaign to prevent global warming has become a vehicle for achieving many other goals. (Dr Hugh Ellsaesser – Dec 8 1995)
“Both environmentalist groups, like GCI and Greenpeace, and industry groups like the Global Climate Coalition, are having great difficulty understanding how the IPCC conducts itself with regard to peer review. What is clear, however, is that the UN panel is so thoroughly politicized that its integrity and objectivity cannot be taken for granted” — (James M. Sheehan, 1996)
“We may get to the point where the ONLY WAY of saving the world will be for the industrial civilization to collapse.” (Maurice Strong, Secretary General Rio Summit — 1992)
“The two main tasks for the present are to promote social stress and instability in industrial society and to develop and propagate an ideology that opposes technology and the industrial system. When the system becomes sufficiently stressed and unstable, a revolution against technology may be possible”. – (The Unabomber Manifesto)
“To capture the public imagination, we have to offer up some scary scenarios, make simplified dramatic statements and little mention of any doubts one might have.
Each of us has to decide the right balance between being effective, and being honest.”
(Dr. Stephen Schneider, NCAR, in interview for “Discover” magazine, Oct 1989)
“The rate of change is so fast that I don’t hesitate to call it potentially catastrophic for ecosystems.”
– (Dr Stephen Schneider, UK Channel 4 interview, 1990)
“Looking at every bump and wiggle of the record is a waste of time – it’s like trying to figure out the probability of a pair of dice by looking at the individual rolls.
You’ve got to look at averages. So, I don’t set very much store in looking at the direct evidence.”
– (Dr Stephen Schneider, UK Channel 4 interview, 1990)
“The issue of the ‘greenhouse effect’ has assumed a peculiar life of its own.
Politicians, government officials, and various policy specialists cling with remarkable tenacity to the notion that this is a proven and intolerable danger about which there is scientific unanimity.
At the same time, one has no difficulty hearing the muttering in the corridors of any meteorology department that this is an issue that has gotten out of hand, that the claims are insupportable, that the models are inadequate, and the data contradictory.”
– (Prof. Richard Lindzen (MIT), May 1989)
“Would you walk down the road towards a policy which people have rightly said requires an economic restructuring of the world, knowing that the world was doing the opposite to what the basis for that policy said?”
– Prof Patrick Michaels, University of Virginia, 1991.
“It was not surprising the cold period raised questions over climate change – but the snowy weather should not be used as evidence against it.”
-Stephen Dorling, of the University of East Anglia’s school of environmental sciences. 2010.
“They [the global climate models] are full of fudge factors that are fitted to the existing climate, so the models more or less agree with the observed data. But there is no reason to believe that the same fudge factors would give the right behavior in a world with different chemistry, for example in a world with increased CO2 in the atmosphere.”
Freeman Dyson 2007.
‘Authorities’, ‘disciples’, and ‘schools’ are the curse of science; and do more to interfere with the work of the scientific spirit than all its enemies. Thomas Henry Huxley, (1825-1895)
“It doesn’t matter what is true, it only matters what people believe is true.” — Paul Watson, co-founder of Greenpeace. 1993.
“The only way to get our society to truly change is to frighten people with the possibility of a catastrophe.” –Daniel Botkin, Chairman of Environmental Studies at UCSB 2011.
“Analyses like these by people who don’t know the field are useless. A good example is Naomi Oreskes work.” – Tom Wigley, Former Director, Climatic Research Unit (CRU) 2013.
The only hope for the world is to make sure there is not another United States: We can’t let other countries have the same number of cars, the amount of industrialization, we have in the U.S. We have to stop these Third World countries right where they are. And it is important to the rest of the world to make sure that they don’t suffer economically by virtue of our stopping them.
Michael Oppenheimer, Environmental Defense Fund.
If I were reincarnated, I would wish to be returned to Earth as a killer virus to lower human population levels.
Prince Phillip, World Wildlife Fund 2012.
What we’ve got to do in energy conservation is try to ride the global warming issue. Even if the theory of global warming is wrong, to have approached global warming as if it is real means energy conservation, so we will be doing the right thing anyway in terms of economic policy and environmental policy.
Timothy Wirth, former U.S. Senator (D-Colorado) 1996?
“Only an insignificant fraction of scientists deny the global warming crisis. The time for debate is over. The science is settled.” — Gore (1992):
If you put tomfoolery into a computer, nothing comes out but tomfoolery. But this tomfoolery, having passed through a very expensive machine, is somehow ennobled and no-one dares criticize it.
Pierre Gallois (1911-2010)
“The prospect of domination of the nation’s scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present and is gravely to be regarded.”
Dwight D Eisenhower, Farewell address 1961.
“The improver of natural knowledge absolutely refuses to acknowledge authority, as such. For him, scepticism is the highest of duties; blind faith the one unpardonable sin.”
Thomas H. Huxley
When we allow science to become political then we are lost. We will enter the internet version of the Dark Ages, an era of stifling fears and wild prejudices, transmitted to people who don’t know any better.
Michael Crichton.
“So unfortunately, inside of Washington we’ve still got some climate deniers who shout loud, but they’re wasting everybody’s time on a settled debate,” “Climate change is a fact.”
Barack Obama 2015
“We don’t have time for a meeting anywhere of the Flat Earth Society.” John Kerry 2015
Funding … (Shhhhhhh….)
“The issues arising from the Greenhouse Effect – is the best thing that’s ever happened for us.”
– (Remark by a scientist, overheard at the “Greenhouse ’88” conference,
Hobart, Tasmania, Nov. 1988)
“It’s easier to get funding if you can show some evidence for impending climate disasters. In the late 1970’s it was the coming ice age. Who knows what it will be ten years from now. Sure, science benefits from scary scenarios.”
-Dr Roy Spencer, NASA, 1990 TV Interview
“A lot of people are getting very famous and very well funded as a result of promoting the disastrous scenario of greenhouse warming.”
– Prof. Sherwood Idso, University of Arizona, 1990
“My suspicion is that if you have a crisis like this, it’s easier to gain funds for the profession as a whole”
– Prof Reginald Newell, MIT, 1990
“Using my organization as an example, we have only one permanently-funded university scientist – and that’s me! I have a dozen research workers with Ph.D’s who are working in the Climate Research Unit (CRU) and they are all funded on so-called soft money.Their existence requires me, or us jointly, to get external support.”
– Prof Tom Wigley, CRU, 1990
“I was warned when I wrote my first paper (which discussed the difference between the climate models and some figures I was looking at for the tropics) that it would be very difficult, and my funding would probably be cut. In fact, it has been cut.”
– Prof. Reginald Newell, MIT, 1990
On Climate Models …
“There is no more common error than to assume that, because prolonged and accurate mathematical calculations have been made, the application of the result to some fact of nature is absolutely certain.”
– A.N. Whitehead
“A troubling trend of the “new physics” is that the theories have many arbitrarily adjustable parameters. Although these theories do make predictions, their effectiveness is compromised by excessive flexibility. The strategy (goes) something like this –
Test the predictions, and if they are not borne out experimentally, then achieve agreement, or at least avoid conflict, by twiddling with the adjustable parameters – or switching to a slightly modified version of the theory.”
– (Robert Oldershaw, New Scientist, 22/29-Dec 1990).
“The so-called consensus on greenhouse warming exists only among climate modelers and their associates. The majority of practicing meteorologists have very strong misgivings about the amount of warming predicted for a doubling of CO2, but they are hesitant to speak out for fear of revealing or being accused of ignorance of the principles of radiation transport.”
– (Prof. Hugh Ellsaesser, 13 Feb 1990)
“I don’t think we can speak of these models as being accurate at this point. They are experimental tools. We’re trying to forge these tools. To use them to forecast delicate things like warming is calling for an accuracy these models simply do not have.”
-Prof Richard Lindzen (in interview for UK Channel 4, 1990)
“There has really been no warming in the Polar Regions at all, even though this is where computer models predict warming should be greatest”
– (Dr Phillip Jones, CRU, in New Scientist, 19-Jan-91)
“We have to accept the possibility that the GCM’s will function far less effectively as predictive tools than is presently claimed.”
– CSIRO Report, 5-Feb-90)
“(Of the) fundamental ingredients of radiative convective models, (namely) Radiative Equilibrium, Convective Adjustment to 6.5 K/Km, Absorbing layer Cloud Simulations, and Fixed Relative Humidity – only Radiative Equilibrium has a sound physical basis.
The others are ad hoc characterizations of how the atmosphere works.”
– (Dr Christopher Essex, Univ. of Western Ontario, 1986)
“The observed surface temperatures of Mars,. Earth, and Venus would indeed appear to confirm the existence, nature, and magnitude of the greenhouse effect, … but they yield a result for contemporary Earth, ie. a predicted warming for a 300 to 600 ppm doubling of the air’s CO2 content, which is a full order of magnitude (ie. ten-fold) less than that produced by essentially all state-of-the-art GCM’s.”
– (Prof. Sherwood Idso, Univ. of Arizona, 1989)
The Silver Lining
“Slight changes in cloudiness can drastically influence how the world responds to the trace gases”.
– Prof Patrick Michaels, MIT, 1990
“Cloud albedo causes less warming at the earth’s surface so that the increase in temperature produced by carbon dioxide is reduced by the presence of clouds.”
– Prof Peter Jonas, University of Manchester, 1990
“Additions of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere will certainly cause an increase in the downward flux of energy at the surface, but that will not necessarily change the temperature of the lower layers of the atmosphere. I think it will cause more water to evaporate which will have a lot of ramifications, one of which will be the radiative effects. These will tend to produce more cooling, and also more clouds which will reflect the solar radiation.
So it’s not at all obvious that increasing the carbon dioxide in the system will make the temperature rise.
– Prof Reginald Newell, MIT, 1990
“The presence of cloud cover strongly damps the net effect on planetary albedo of any perturbation in snow-ice extent (an effect that is neglected in simple treatments of the ice-albedo feedback mechanism).”
– Prof Ann Henderson-Sellers, 1984
“When a politician … says “the debate is over,” you can be sure of two things: the debate is raging; and he’s losing it.”
George Will 2015
Peer Review
I can’t see either of these papers being in the next IPCC report. Kevin and I will keep them out somehow – even if we have to redefine what the peer-review literature is!
Phil Jones email to Michael Mann July 8 2004.
Cheers
Dr. Tom Wigley of NCAR, reveals these review comments by those of his `peers’ who reviewed a research paper of his for `Science’.
Referee #1: “Overall evaluation: Excellent and exciting…presents an insightful and deceptively simple analysis…”
Referee #2: “Overall evaluation: excellent and exciting…an exciting paper using an underutilized technique…deserves rapid publication…
Referee #3: “This is an excellent and exciting paper…has some very interesting and important results…a novel, yet simple approach…”
“I hope you will note the uniformity of the referees opinions.”
Wigley’s own self-congratulation of the above referee comments –
————————————————————————
“I have had experiences with editors of more than one journal who have said that my papers have been rejected because they are held to a higher standard of review than others.
I believe this is because what they say is not popular. That’s OK, I’m a big boy. I know that I would have been more successful if I had said the world is coming to an end, but I can’t quite bring myself to do that.”
– Prof Patrick Michaels, University of Virginia, 1990
Times Past …
“We have to be careful when we look at people who say they have detected global warming, because what they may have detected is urban warming.”
– (Dr Robert Balling, Univ. of Arizona, 1990)
“There appears to have been little or no global warming over the past century.”
– (MIT Technology Review, 1989)
“There is no statistically significant evidence of an overall increase in annual temperature or change in annual precipitation for the contiguous U.S.A., 1895 – 1987.”
– (Thomas Karl et al, NOAA, 1989)
“We looked at a thousand stations in the United States that came from very small towns averaging no more than about 5,800 people. We looked at the temperature patterns over this century and found that most of the United States has cooled this century, not warmed.”
– (Dr Robert Balling, Univ. of Arizona, 1990)
“It’s pretty apparent that the lion’s share of the warming ocurred before the lion’s share of the trace gases went in.”
Prof Patrick Michaels
“Yes, – that’s a remarkable puzzle.”
– Prof. Tom Wigley
– (from interviews with UK Channel 4, August 1991)
Hysterical Science
“But just who are the 2,600 scientists proclaiming the certitude of human-caused global warming? One would assume climate experts, but an analysis of the academic backgrounds of the signatories to Vice President Gore’s letter found only one bona fide climatologist.”
Dr Hugh Ellsaesser, 1997
“Warmer temperatures will lead to a more vigorous hydrological cycle; this translates into prospects for more severe droughts and/or floods in some places and less severe droughts and/or floods in other places”.
IPCC 1995 Report Executive Summary
“… the media, because they rely on news impact, have given the greatest weight to the most extreme forecasts, and are not interested in emphasising uncertainty. To compound the difficulty we are greatly outnumbered (and outranked in political terms) by a community of experts in other such disciplines as economics, geography, geology, and social sciences, all of which are pleased to justify their own activity in terms of the consequences of climate change.”
Dr A.D. McEwan, CSIRO Oceanography, 1990
“Some greenhouse scientists have adopted an almost missionary zeal in dealing with their subject…Such uncritical zeal and a constant need for backpedaling on the original doom-laden predictions do little for scientific credibility.
Predictions on climate change have in effect changed from working hypotheses to being dogma central to a large research effort, and are communicated to the media and the general public with much more credibility than they merit.”
Dr Richard Hobbs, CSIRO, 1990
“Panic statements about impending climatic disasters and rising sea levels because of increased carbon dioxide or other greenhouse gases may be distracting our attention from the real reasons for existing climatic change. Given the present state of knowledge, the publicity on sensational but very improbable aspects of the greenhouse scenario are actually counter-productive and irresponsible.”
Prof. Edward Bryant, University of Wollongong, 1988
“The signal that the atmosphere is warming or that the sea level is rising is scarcely greater than the `noise’ level, and requires the eye of faith”
Dr A.D. McEwan, CSIRO Oceanography, 1990
“In my experience, global warming freezing is already a bit of a public relations problem with the media.”
2004 leaked email from Nick at the Minns/Tyndall Centre.
“I agree with Nick that climate change might be a better labelling than global warming.”
Response from Bo Kjellen Swedish Chief Climate Negotiator
Discussion
I know many have their favorite comments, and the list will grow as the deception that John anticipated is exposed.
The final comment must go to Ray Evans and Rachel Daly who knew John better than anyone and who wrote in an obituary,
His life is testimony to the fact that one person, if armed with intelligence, energy, perseverance and a commitment to the truth, can change events. John Daly was above all valiant for truth and his memory will long endure.
Diderot said, “Skepticism is the first step toward truth.” John took that first step, and we must continue to follow in his footsteps.
“At the very least MBH is a very sloppy piece of wrok- an opinion I have held for some time.”
Work ?
Maybe he meant to say “grok”.
I don’t think so……
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grok
That was a great story by Heinlein, one of my favorites. It made a strong impression on me as a teenager, because I was involved in an deep inner search at the time.
I used “grok” just yesterday with my 13 year old. He thought I had belched.
Here’s Channel 4’s 1990 production of “The Greenhouse Conspiracy”
50mins
I can’t believe CAGW has been going on for more than 26 years !!!
Strangely reassuring! Watched the whole thing….
Amen….
That was very informative. I like this quote, in particular, as I have had similar thoughts in the last several days when thinking of responses to one particular jerk at Accuweather…” “There is no more common error than to assume that, because prolonged and accurate mathematical calculations have been made, the application of the result to some fact of nature is absolutely certain.”
– A.N. Whitehead=====================================================================
Good post….🌷
Best post of the year to date!
By the way, the The Politics of Climate Change Science section was the longest
And my favorite:
“The prospect of domination of the nation’s scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present and is gravely to be regarded.”
Dwight D Eisenhower, Farewell address 1961.
Steve,
I agree with you with regards to the quote by Eisenhower and note it was made 55 years ago. It has proven to be true in the so-called world of “climate science”.
Almost every good political leftist and Progressive can quote from the “military-industrial complex” portion of this Eisenhower speech, but almost none of them has even heard of “academic-bureaucratic” complex portion of it.
John Daly’s site was my first exposure to credible “skepticism”. Compared to all of the slick, heavily financed propaganda sites, his stood out as a beacon of reason and science (even as an example of 90s web design). It only took a brief time for me to realize what was going on.
Yes, me too. I was searching for more info when I cam across his site in 1998 I believe. His report on the siting of a weather station in Death Valley (I believe) and ocean levels in Tasmania are two excellent examples.
John Daly’s site was also my first exposure- I especially liked the article on the Stefan-Boltzmann law. Ultimately, it was a series of links from Daly’s site that led me to “Watts Up With That” and related sites.
I and my wife had just gone online. I had just spent a summer as a Airtanker co-pilot and
The following happened- Sect. of Interior Bruce Babbitt had held two “photo ops” in Northern
Az. and New Mexico. to be on “Action News” bravely swinging a Pulaski fighting against
Demonic forces of Global warming. Both times the fires were near out, and aircrew
of both Helicopter and fixed wing were mad to do what has since become known as
“The CNN drop.” Later, Babbitt was at Glacier Park with signs with years 1911, 1928, 1988,
etc. showing the retreat of a certain glacier over last 100 years (not noting that where he
stood pontificating, was under ice not 10 years before due to the many runs the Glacier
had made.. We were told to be ashamed of having SUV’s, modern conveniences, etc.
Of course the “Photo OPs” burned more carbon than a small city, and were totally
wasteful..That started me looking- i found John Daly and Watt’supwiththat..
I found I wasn’t alone…
Me too – I was saddened to learn of his untimely passing. The info on his site at its’ peak, very slow going for me initially (several hundred hours with Wiki and science dictionary close at hand), eventually led me to a comprehensive lay understanding of the real drivers of weather and ‘climate’ in our world (to the degree we understand presently). I credit his work in saving me from being swept up in the CAGW propaganda of that decade (90’s).
Since then it’s all been rinse and repeat, of course, and what was once amenable at least somewhat to debate, has become for most CAGW acolytes, vicious fanaticism.
Eventually I found WUWT, and seeing the elegant, balanced and disciplined analysis, the academic norm here, thought ‘finally, the light of reason and sanity will return to this issue’. LOL! NOT.
Because then of course, the ramifications of political control began to be elucidated, in at first obscure quarters, always in face of a relentless barrage of the Big Climate Lie.
And then (for me at least), I discovered the explorations of the Electric Universe community, shifting fundamental ‘understandings’ I had since elementary school as to the nature of that so-called ‘nuclear furnace’ we see each day in the sky, and hence to greater (IMHO) appreciation of what we really DO NOT understand or are only now beginning to know we don’t know….
CAGW is obscene idol worship, nihilistic disaster porn, and murderous (genocidal, directly-speaking) hubris.
And ultimately, Orwell’s fascist boot pressing down on the face of humanity, forever.
“Nature” herself might have a little surprise or two in store for us, however. Like a Dalton (or as likely, Maunder) Minimum, starting now. Pretty tragic that we’ve squandered precious time and resources on fighting the ghost warming, because a 20-30 yr spell of chilly needs major preparation, and we as a ‘global community’ have done zilch, nada, nothin’.
Anyway, great post about a great hero of the Climate Wars – John Daly RIP. Thank you Dr Ball.
Daly’s site is still there, and has the best account of the history of the global warming scare that I have ever come across.
http://www.john-daly.com/history.htm
“Skepticism is the first step toward truth.” Indeed it is.
I was a skeptic before I ever found John Daly’s site, but his site was wonderful to find as I was beginning to think the whole world had lost its mind and I was alone.
This post is a wonderful tribute to a great man of science. Thanks for the effort in producing this post.
I resemble that remark.
R.I.P. John Daly.
yes Thank You for keeping his memory alive..newer wakeups to the climate chicanery may not know of John Daly and his work
and they should.
“The Greenhouse Conspiracy” ~ 52 minutes
Fantabulous !!!!
★★★★★
What a useful and enlightening memorial and compendium.
*bookmarked*
This is an excellent compilation of quotes!
Good post.
Reblogged this on Climate Collections and commented:
Excellent collection of quotes.
Here’s Eisenhower’s prescient warning from 1961:
“The prospect of domination of the nation’s scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present and is gravely to be regarded.”
“We have to be careful when we look at people who say they have detected global warming, because what they may have detected is urban warming.” – Or perhaps: Global warming has not been detected, but Brain Warming has…
I found his book in the school library back in about 1989. I borrowed it, and read it cover to cover. That was when I became a skeptic, and I have been a skeptic ever since!
Many of the quotes are from the early 1990s when it was much easier to adopt a fully sceptical stance on global warming. The evidence for AGW was virtually non-existent. I’m not sure that’s the case now 25 years on. While,, not on the catastrophic scale, we have had warming which cannot be easily explained and I don’t think we can dismiss the idea that increased concentrations of ghgs have contributed to that warming.
The AGW-ers said they’d be warming and there has been warming. They’ve been right about that – unlike some of the solar based predictions that have been made over the years (e.g. Archibald).
we have had warming which cannot be easily explained….
think about that
We have quantum physics…which can’t be easily explained. Don’t mean to say that we can assume what’s going on, and that’s why we don’t. Physicists offer up differing interpretations of what they THINK is going on. Yet when it comes to climate change, some scientist aren’t at all shy.
Which we had in the thirties, the MWP, the RMP and periods before that. But the gods were responsible for that so they sacrificed a goat. Now they want to sacrifice all our industry and our future and the lives of millions of people in poor countries. It’s evil ignorance!
+100
A few years ago we had disco music followed by Punk Rock. There is no explanation for either but we managed to get as far as Thriller.
we have had warming which cannot be easily explained
===========================
Therefore it must be caused by humans. Or witches. Or god, as punishment for our wickedness.
I never said that. The warmers made predictions which were largely correct in the sense that sign of the temperature trend was positive.
But the warmers never did that. They didn’t offer predictions of warming, cooling and no change. They went solely on warming and – whether by good luck or judgement – they were correct. John Daly’s site would have been fine if he had not indulged some of the “cranks” . Some of the predictions made by, e.g. Landscheidt, now look frankly ludicrous.
Perhaps it’s time some of these predictions were held to account. Hansen gets pilloried because the warming is less than he said it would be whereas John Day and WUWT have published essays by those who have asserted with great confidence that the next mini ice age is imminent.
What in the frick have been smoking, John Finn? Since when does a serious science site ban alternative hypothesis? Your’e a total nutcase as far as I can tell . .
This is the insanity I see you as accepting/hawking in that comment, John;
*Mr. Daly (and Mr. Watt) should have jumped into a time machine, and traveled to a still future date when it will be clear that the next mini ice age was not imminent, and refused to allow anyone proposing such a thing to publish on his site.*
John,
Most skeptics acknowledged there has been warming since the late 1600’s,since it is a long slow climb out of the LIA low temperature well.
The problem warmists have is that they now blithely ignore the published temperature projection failures by the IPCC such as this one,where they say that the first two decades of this century it was to warm at least .30C per decade,yet we get less than half that.
From the 2007 IPCC report,
“For the next two decades, a warming of about 0.2°C per decade is projected for a range of SRES emission scenarios. Even if the concentrations of all greenhouse gases and aerosols had been kept constant at year 2000 levels, a further warming of about 0.1°C per decade would be expected.”
https://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/spmsspm-projections-of.html
The UAH satellite data from 1979 on wards show only a .12C per decade warming rate,far less than the 1990 then PREDICTED warming rate of at least .15 to .30C per decade warming rate.Every subsequent IPCC report say at least .20C per decade rate……
Please don’t try to deceive people anymore with your slippery words,Mr. Finn
There’s no evidence of a sustained continuing 300 year recovery. There were some regional lows across Europe but the CET record shows 18th and 19th century broadly similar.
So you’re not objecting to the fact that we’ve had warming – just not at the rate claimed. That’s nothing to do with anything I said. We’ve had warming which is likely due to increased CO2. That’s convinced a lot of scientists who in 1990 didn’t wholly buy into the theory. Most of the serious sceptical scientists are not sceptical of AGW they are sceptical of CAGW.
John Finn,
The warming 1910-1945 was as high and fast as the warming 1976-2000. In between there was a slight cooling and since 2000 no warming at all, except the temporarely warming caused by El Niño.
If you can’t explain the 1910-1945 warming from natural causes, you can’t blame humans for the 1976-2000 warming, as you don’t know the influence of natural causes. The more that there is no warming past 2000, while CO2 increased every year more and more up to unprecedented levels…
Ha ha,
this is why you are being exposed at being slippery with words as I clearly pointed out the point that CO2 is clearly a minor player as there is nothing unusual going on in the long term.
I stated the undeniable warming per decade rate since from 1979 is only .12 C per decade,which is well below the previous warming phases since the 1800’s. Here is what, uber Wamist Dr. Jones said about the previous warm phases in a BBC interview:
He was asked a Question:
“A – Do you agree that according to the global temperature record used by the IPCC, the rates of global warming from 1860-1880, 1910-1940 and 1975-1998 were identical?”
A selected part of his answer:
“So, in answer to the question, the warming rates for all 4 periods are similar and not statistically significantly different from each other.
Here are the trends and significances for each period:”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8511670.stm
Today’s current per decade warming rate since 1979 is well below previous warming phases going back to the mid 1880’s. There is no clear AGW signal in it, Johnny.
Please stop deceiving people with your slippers misleading words, since most skeptics does not agree that AGW is VISIBLY causing the small current warming trend since 1979, since it is far less than PREVIOUS warming trends, which are NOT being attributed to AGW conjecture at all.
Here is an indication of you being slippery with words,you wrote:
“There’s no evidence of a sustained continuing 300 year recovery. There were some regional lows across Europe but the CET record shows 18th and 19th century broadly similar.”
I said nothing about SUSTAINED warming trend,I said this:
“Most skeptics acknowledged there has been warming since the late 1600’s,since it is a long slow climb out of the LIA low temperature well.”
I clearly stated ” it is a long slow climb out of the LIA low temperature well” ,which is not the same thing as sustained at all.
Your use of the word Sustained is an example of your dishonest attempt to change the meaning of what I said which you didn’t counter at all.I also didn’t mention regional changed either,you made that up while I made it clear I was talking about the entire planet.
The late 1600’s is generally regarded as the low point in the LIA temperature level that then started going back up over time in erratic stages.
CO2 warm forcing effect is very small and you deep down know it. Stop pushing the warmist pseudoscience babble. Stop twisting my words into a different meaning.
That is the common skeptic point,Mr. Engelbeen that there is no clear AGW signal in the current warming trend which are currently running BELOW previous trends going by Satellite data,even though there is a theoretical small warm forcing effect being generally accepted by most skeptics.
How can we know if it is all natural,50% natural or what? That is where the warmist camp has utterly failed in their campaign to convince others. Their numerous short tern temperature projections have been wrong and the current warming trend per decade is LESS than the other warm trend since the 1800’s which are NOT being attributed to the AGW conjecture.
Ferdinand
I’m fully aware of the temperature fluctuations throughout the 20th century. They are even more evident in the longer CET record.
There is a saw tooth effect in earlier records whereby warming is effectively cancelled by cooling. I am happy to accept that is caused by natural cycles. That doesn’t appear to be happening now.
You say there is no warming since 2000 – possibly but this is the downside of the cycle when there should really be cooling.
@ John Finn…imo, the shift from a 30+ year warm trend to a cool trend took place in 2006/07. The first stages of any shift almost always lead to a gradual warming or cooling, which may then lead into a moderate or greater rate of change as the base build itself for the trend which is in place. We should now see a greater rate of change to the cooling trend. At the same time the overall long term trend is still one of a Warm Period. So that will modulate any shorter term cooling trend. An example of that would be the slight cooling from 1946/47 to 1976/77, and also the cooling between 1885/86 to 1915/16. The cool trends in those time periods were modulated by the overarching long term Warm Period trend.
John,
The IPCC acknowledges that in the period 1910-1945, the human influence (of CO2) was minimal. If we may assume that both the warming and subsequent small cooling / flat episodes were almost all natural, then the main difference is the cooling 1945-1975 and the flat level of 2000-current.
For the warming periods, that is zero difference in temperature increase for 10 ppmv CO2 increase in the first period against 50 ppmv in the second period. Zero difference for 5 times more CO2 increase? Doesn’t look good for much CO2 influence…
For the cooling periods: a difference of a change in 15 ppmv CO2 over a period of 30 years is accompanied with a cooling of 0.2°C. For the second period, an increase of 20 ppmv in only 15 years is accompanied with a flat period in temperature. Maybe some influence is visible, but even then: The total increase in CO2 for the warming period (with zero difference) and the cooling/flat period with 0.2°C difference is 25 ppmv CO2 increase for the first period, 70 ppmv for the second period. Near three times more CO2, 0.2°C temperature increase.
Linear that gives that a CO2 doubling is good for about 0.8°C maximum warming (that is about at the year 2000). In fact less, as the influence is logarithmic… Doesn’t sound good for much influence of CO2…
The AGW-ers said they’d be warming and there has been warming
==========================
Every year thousands of mutual funds open up. 1/3 of those lose money, 1/3 make money, and 1/3 do nothing. Companies that are in the mutual fund business close the funds that didn’t perform, while bragging about the ones that did, how smart their managers were.
Over time this results in many mutual funds have a long history of successfully predicting the market, which the companies that own these funds tout as evidence of how well they will do in the future. How smart their fund managers must be.
However, when you look at these mutual funds with a long history of successful prediction, next year 1/3 of them will make money, 1/3 will lose money, and 1/3 will do nothing. Because their long record of success is simply a result of chance and large numbers of mutual funds.
100 scientists predict the next solar cycle. 1 gets it right. Is it because he is smarter than all the rest, or is it because of all 100 guesses, 1 of them has to be closest to the what will actually happen?
100 economic advisers predict the next stock market cycle. 1 gets it right. Is it because he is smarter than all the rest, or is it because of all 100 guesses, 1 of them has to be closest to the what will actually happen?.
Not relevant. Those advocating AGW didn’t make some predictions of warming, some of cooling and some of “no change”. They all predicted warming. Some predicted more warming than others but the general message was the same – a positive temperature trend.
Any chance one solar-based prediction might turn out correct – or even near correct?
You mean like this?
Oops.
Not sure what I’m doing wrong to embed. Haven’t had a problem before.
http://www.drroyspencer.com/wp-content/uploads/CMIP5-73-models-vs-obs-20N-20S-MT-5-yr-means1.png
Bruce Cobb July 3, 2016 at 10:03 am
Are you trying to make some sort of point? If so I don’t see it.
You might need to take off your Warmist gogles first, then look, then use your brain. Or what’s left of it from years of koolade-guzzling.
Johnny,
you can’t see the obvious point Bruce is making….????
Gargle..it is obvious to me.
Then why have they had to play with the temperature data six ways till Sunday? I think you’ve got a case of advocate’s evasion. (Also, note the quote above about finding a cooling trend through 1990 – why the discrepancy with what’s being said now?)
John Finn…you state “Not relevant. Those advocating AGW didn’t make some predictions of warming, some of cooling and some of “no change”. “.
The different mutual funds all went into business to make money. None of them went into lose or break even. That is where your explanation for his analogy fails.
Dr. Ball,
I am so happy you wrote this warm remembrance of John,who did a fine job showing the Polar region temperature data and that discussion on a 1841 Sea Level mark showing that there was ZERO sea level Rise since 1841 in that region was an exciting read.
His death depressed me because I was habitually going there for skeptical news which was rare in those early 1990 days.Thankfully other fine websites such as this one came along to help people see beyond the disinformation and lies that are common today.
Thank you Mr. Daly for your effort,may you rest well in peace.
Yes, I was shocked by his untimely death too and depressed also. Now that you mention it I can see it for what it was.
I remember Mann’s sneering non-response to John’s reasoned questioning on the hockey stick. We were all rather shocked that a scientist would behave this way wondering why a researcher would not embrace the opportunity to discuss their work and inform people of its validity. It turned out Mann wasn’t a scientist after all.
I was struggling as a skeptic until I read John Daly’s website. He gave me the information I need to bolster my confidence that I was on not alone in questioning anthropogenic global warming. I became one of Anthony Watts volunteers supporting his surface station project and started blogging on climate science, specifically the Next Grand Minimum.
John Daly’s site had some fine contributors. Jack Barrett, Heinz Hug and Peter Dietze among them. Too often, though, he indulged the cranks and that left him open to ridicule.
What about cranks such as Dr. Mann ,Johhny?
What about him?
Incidentally if you click on this line and scroll down to the first paragraph
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/11/20/mikes-nature-trick/
You’ll note that, in 2004, I was challenging Michael Mann on the “hide the decline trick” long before the Climategate revelations.
What were you doing at that time, Tommy boy.
I am glad you jumped on the Hide the Decline trick crap from unethical and poor scientist Dr. Mann.
John Daly’s site was one of the first I discovered that was entirely skeptic as I like it: looking behind the curtains of the establishment. I was shocked by his untimely death, fortunately he had good successors like Climate Audit and this site and many others…
Only because – typically – you’ve chosen to compare a 35 year period with several much shorter periods. If normal variability is the dominant factor then there would be a return to the temperature prior to the warming phase. That didn’t quite happen post 1910-40 and hasn’t happened at all since 1975.
We have had decreasing solar activity since 1991 and a cool PDO cycle but no cooling.
Anyway if you want to compare previous warming phases then make them of comparable length.
I see you had no comment on the model misses graph, John. Do you have a system when you go to the casino?
Mr. Harmsworth,
he is too busy digging a hole for himself. Notice that he fails to address Mr. Engelbeen’s main point completely:
“The warming 1910-1945 was as high and fast as the warming 1976-2000. In between there was a slight cooling and since 2000 no warming at all, except the temporarely warming caused by El Niño.
If you can’t explain the 1910-1945 warming from natural causes, you can’t blame humans for the 1976-2000 warming, as you don’t know the influence of natural causes. The more that there is no warming past 2000, while CO2 increased every year more and more up to unprecedented levels…”
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/07/03/john-l-daly-a-giant-of-early-climate-skepticism/comment-page-1/#comment-2250893
Notice what Johnny omits to what Ferdinand stated?
Come on Johnny,
We know you are a smart man,who make a silly complaint that somehow a 35 year period is too long thus can’t compare with shorter periods.While Tommy was smart enough to point out what Dr. Jones stated which as Per decade trends are nearly identical across all of the warming trends back to the 1800’s and that if you bothered to notice that Dr. Jones has a 31 year period listed as well showing nearly identical per decade warming trend with the 35 year period.
Surely you can’t be that dishonest and blind,Johnny since I was pointing out the PER DECADE TREND of all those short warming trends to show that the latest warming trend is virtually the same as all the other ones,making it impossible to to say that it is CO2 causing it when there is no difference from older warming trends that are NOT being attributed to CO2 warm forcing effect.
I post this from Dr. Jones Interview to show to the public the dishonesty of Mr. Flynn by showing all the Per decade rates of all the warming periods since the 1800’s:
Period Length Per decade trend Significance
1860-1880 21 0.163 Yes
1910-1940 31 0.15 Yes
1975-1998 24 0.166 Yes
1975-2009 35 0.161 Yes
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8511670.stm
Dr. Jones states “So, in answer to the question, the warming rates for all 4 periods are similar and not statistically significantly different from each other.”
You need to stop digging a hole,Johnny.
Have you seen the “sceptics view of global warming”? It’s one thing on which I agree with the warmers.
John Daly’s site was also one of my first exposures to skeptical views. He managed to convey information in a manner most average people could follow.
His “hockey stick” and his CO2 page (along with Junk Science), were the basis for my skeptic beliefs.
http://www.john-daly.com/hockey/hockey.htm
It would be cool if perhaps we, as the skeptic community, undertook a project to mirror his site – rebuild it with modern methods, navigation, etc. …. to both preserve it, and make his wealth of information more accessible to the general public.
Well, yes and no.
One thing we loose in our current “three ring binder” source material is the opportunity to see what the author’s point of view or society’s understanding of events at some point in time.
We nearly lost http://john-daly.com/ a few years ago when the account lapsed after the site’s caretaker died. After a few days panic by some of us, I talked with the web hosting provider who reenabled the account and later transferred a copy of it to me, what we see now is one of my web sites. I don’t have control of the domain, but can renew it readily.
I’ve done essentially nothing with the site, which is slightly less than I wish to do with it. I really, really want to keep it mostly frozen in time, a snapshot of a period where the issues were simpler, and when the politicization of the subject was less. Adding updates, unless done very carefully, will make it be less than John’s web site.
I’m even reluctant to provide web pages that document changes in thinking over time, as those invariably have a personal bias and almost always are out of date.
As time goes on, the value of contrasting our current state of affairs with 2004 will only become more interesting.
As for me, I held off joining this fray until 2008, with end of Solar cycle 24 and the flip to the negative PDO. Therefore, I was never able to see John Daly’s work while he was alive. Soon after the Climategate Emails came out, I realized this could be a good chance to see John in action. Unfortunately, the most memorable Email showed Phil Jones in action.
I remain awed by the dedication and abuse suffered by skeptics back in those days when the plant was truly warming, and warming quickly. They remained true to the scientific method despite natural forces giving them little to point to that showed their understanding.
Thanks for that, Ric. As I’ve pointed out before, it was REALLY easy to believe in AGW in 1998/1999… before knowledge of el Nino was common, while an uncommonly warm year seemed to turn weather upside down.
Oddly, one of my strongest memories of the era was skepticism by David Letterman, who used to do his “looking into the camera” thing and mock the attribution of every weather event as “global warming”, which would always get the audience laughing. Especially when mentioning al-Gore. But we don’t talk about Letterman much anymore, since he was seduced by the easy money of alarmism.
BRAVO!
Thank you very much, Ric Werme.
+1 on preserving this for us all. Like many here, John L. Daly was the first “confirmation” I found of my natural lay skepticism. Bravo.
OT Iceland – small island brave hearts!
Quotapalooza!
Thank you Tim.
John Daly was a gem!
Best, Allan
I am proud to have sought and received a grant from my university (Colorado School of Mines) to bring John to Houston during his USA trip in 2003. I enjoyed a great dinner with him and his travelling companion, and then he held a small symposium and question/answer session at Rice University. He was affable and informative – and knowledgable. As Allan said above, he was gem.
Sorry, trip was in 2002.
Thank you Dr. Ball, your a great man yourself, I often hear you on Coast to Coast radio and it’s always enlightening.
I have followed WUWT for several years and find it a great source of current climate science. Several weeks ago I wrote a tongue in cheek remark about state record high temps. Someone immediately wrote “look a Squirrel!” I admit that it was but it was and still is a large one. The PhD level skeptical climate scientists are missing an important point. You are losing the skeptic argument at a much lower level than you know. One of the subjects that I taught was geography at the middle school level, basically 6,7,and 8th grade levels. The students are taught the alarmist view as sacred science with few contradicting it. I did bring up the skeptical arguments as often as I could as I believe both views must receive equal time and also because I am a politically incorrect denier myself based upon the science that I read. The students tend to accept the alarmist views with little doubt in their minds as that is what is generally taught in the science departments. At least the ones I was familiar with. This continues on through their education to include the college years if they go that route. By the time they reach voting age most are convinced that the world is about to combust and only the government can save them. I used the high/low temperature records as one of the easy to see and understand examples for someone their age showing that just maybe there is room for some doubt. I would love to see a similar site as WUWT that is written for the younger students at a level that helps them understand the skeptic view. As wonderful as this site is, it is not an easy read for middle school and even for most high school age students.
I am very aware of this and have worked with teachers for 40+ years to offset the bias. I produced a Teachers Manual through the Frontier Centre for Public Policy on the skeptical side so they could at least provide balance. I have an updated version in progress that I hope to have available in a few weeks. I know what teachers need because I was a rare professor who was President of a K-12 teachers association. I also edited their journal for 10 years and organized teachers conferences. I am very familiar with the term “hands on” that speaks to the teachers need to be able to get material they can take almost directly to the classroom.
Thank you for keeping daly’s memory fresh
2005
Time of Observation Bias
(14 Nov 05)
When using a pair of min/max thermometers for daily temperature observations, the time of day at which the readings for the previous 24 hours are observed, and the thermometers are reset, will often cause a time of observation bias (TOB). If readings are taken near the times of daily highs, or daily lows, those highs, and lows, often affect the readings of two days.
For those who may have some interest in such phenomena, an introductory review is available here.
Back in 2007 when I first heard about the TOB adjustment I thought..
WHAT A CROCK !
I was convinced that it had to be wrong. they had to be fiddling the data.
Then JerryB pointed me to the work he did for skeptic John Daly
Yup
Skeptic John Daly… he knew that TOB mattered.
he’d roll over in his grave if he heard skeptics challenging the necessity of a correction
so there you have it. 2005
over 10 years ago, but the zombie argument lives on…
While working on my 1816 Year without a Summer post, I was intrigued that before max/min thermometers were invented that people typically tracked temperatures sampled three times a day. E.g. the data I was using were sampled at 0700, 1300, and 2100. To come up with the daily average, a paper from 1922 used the average of those three and counted 2100 twice, presumably because it was the furthest from the extremes.
It’s notable that John Kerry, climate change authority and prime mover behind the troubles in Ukraine, is currently a keen advocate of overturning the democratic vote in the UK to leave the EU.
Quite how he can keep a straight face being a member of the ‘Democratic Party’ in the USA is beyond me.
I guess there is always a time in one’s life when the concept of personal shame is deemed ‘surplus to requirements’…….
RADAR50 says:
You are losing the skeptic argument at a much lower level than you know. One of the subjects that I taught was geography at the middle school level, basically 6,7,and 8th grade levels. The students are taught the alarmist view as sacred science with few contradicting it.
The problem you described is because critical thinking is no longer taught in our schools. You don’t have to teach kids a point of view contradicting the government’s non-stop demonization of ‘carbon’. If you teach them to question assumptions, and provide them with all available evidence, measurements, past parameters, observations, and any other relevant information, that is sufficient. They will make up their own minds based on that, and they will come to the correct conclusions. All you have to teach them is to be skeptical of all hypotheses, and to do their best to deconstruct all hypotheses. After the smoke clears, what’s left standing is as close as they can come to scientific truth as it is currently understood. And thanks to critical thinking, they will know the reasons they’ve come to that understanding.
When a student arrives at a conclusion based on his/her deductions, that conclusion stays with them. It is more real than something they’re simply told to believe. Today’s students are not trained to question those beliefs, but to incorporate them into their world view. Schools have failed to teach students the critical skill of thinking through a problem based on verifiable evidence, measurements, and observations.
Students in the 6th – 8th grades are fully capable of understanding the Scientific Method. They can be taught to see the difference between a trend chart, and a zero baseline chart — and which one more accurately describes reality, and why. Students can be taught what to look for, and how easy it is to lie with charts; they should discuss the difference between a chart showing cause and effect, and an overlay chart that simply shows two independent, coincidental variables that do not show causation, but only seem to.
When they’re taught to think for themselves, students can easily understand Occam’s Razor, and the climate Null Hypothesis versus its Alternative Hypothesis. They are comfortable with the concept explained by a famous Nobel Prize winner in Physics, who stated that if your theory (hypothesis) is contradicted by observations, then your hypothesis is “wrong”. Either the hypothesis is wrong, or the real world is wrong; they cannot both be right.
But instead of teaching critical thinking, schools now teach rote belief; the Party line. That path leads to Lysenkoism, where deviating from the state’s official Belief results in punsihment and retribution for scientists skeptical of the official narrative.
We see that happening more and more, for example $1 billion+ in government grants are handed out annually to ‘study climate change’ — and those studies had best conclude, or at least strongly suggest, that human emissions are the primary cause of Polar bears declining, sea level rise accelerating, more extreme weather events, Arctic ice vanishing, runaway global warming, etc. All those beliefs and predictions have been falsified, but they are still taught as the official narrative, and government grants are given almost exclusively to scientists and universities that promote and teach that repeatedly falsified view.
There is no rigorous deconstruction of the cAGW hypothesis from a skeptical point of view, because skepticism is no longer taught as a basic requirements of science. Scientific skepticicsm of the official ‘dangerous AGW’ narrative is not even tolerated in many colleges and universities; government grant money trumps the questioning of anthropogenic climate change.
Without skeptics questioning hypotheses like ‘dangerous man-made global warming’, schools are left with the modern equivalent of witch doctors — who always worked for the tribe’s Chief.
The basic problem isn’t in teaching any particular point of view. The problem is in the failure to teach students critical thinking, based on the maximum available information. Even those 6th, 7th, and 8th grade students will come to very different conclusions regarding ‘carbon’ and ‘dangerous AGW’ when they’re provided with sufficient information and encouraged to question the government’s ‘man-made climate change’ teaching.
Unfortunately many, if not most schools only teach the official belief system, because part of their income depends on parroting the government’s narrative. Thus, scientific veracity takes a back seat to payola. As usual, government grants are a corrupting influence.
Finally, thanks to Dr. Ball for the John Daly article. Here is a short and very interesting email exchange between John Daly and Phil Jones. Readers can decide who won that debate:
http://www.john-daly.com/cru/emails.htm
I never realised John Daly was Australian? I remember looking at one of his specific experiments which also made me skeptical of man made global warming. I recognized then that you really cannot “prove ” man made global warming in a closed box experiment, like Tyndall and Arrhenius did.
I’m late to comment here, but feel I must. I loved the John Daly website. He was ahead of his time. Every week or so he would put up a graph for a rural town, somewhere in the world that showed the temps of the past 75-150 years, depending on the length of the record. Daly essentially proved that away from the urban heat island, there had been little to no warming in the past 125 years. I live near St. Cloud, MN and we were included in his list of rural towns. Our local records show that the most recent 25 years were one tenth of a degree COLDER than 1900-1924. Daly’s graph echoed that.