Guest Opinion: Dr. Tim Ball
Emotionally, it is almost impossible to walk a mile in another person’s shoes. It is particularly true when the other person is of a different sex. I say this because I believe a climate science story that must be told is the degree of difference in nastiness directed at those who questioned the prevailing AGW wisdom. People who have not experienced it cannot imagine how vile and intimidating it gets, although there are some hints in the “Comments” section of articles on WUWT. It would be worse without a moderator, but even then, you would not see the type of material sent to an individual. What is more disturbing for me, is that the intensity and nastiness are even higher for some than others.
I think there are ways that a person can get a sense of the experience of another’s shoes, but it is only a sense. For example, as a young boy I delivered newspapers and on one occasion was attacked by a large dog. Since then I have been afraid of large dogs, and that has influenced my life because I walk every day, but avoid areas where I know there are large dogs. The outrage is that the dog owners are influencing my life without even being aware of it. For this reason, whenever women hold a “take back the night” event to protest having their freedom of movement limited by unknowing people I provide complete support. It does not put me in their shoes but does give me a sense of their anger and frustration.
I am explaining this because of the experiences of two women involved in the climate debate, Judith Curry, and Sallie Baliunas. I have not spoken with either woman about this column. I also suspect they would not approve, but in a way that is the problem. They know that complaints are automatically considered self-serving, a sign of weakness, and all the other epithets in our society. Judith Curry wrote about why she abandoned climate science in eloquent words but, in my opinion, because of the societal situation, they were restrained and non-accusatory.
I cannot walk a mile in her shoes as a male climate skeptic of longstanding, but, like my dog experience, I have an awareness. I am writing this column because, as a male I am ashamed of the behaviour of too many other males, but also because most would not even know what was and is going on. I watched from a close and better informed vantage point what these women experienced. What happened to them is symptomized by a man, some argue George Bernard Shaw fits the pattern, who was both a misanthrope and a misogynist. This fascinates me because if you hate everybody doesn’t that include women? Apparently, they hate everyone, but really hate women. It is shameful for society in general, but especially in science, where open, completely unfettered, discourse must occur.
The level of animosity and nastiness in debates and discussions is a symptom of the collapse of civility, and that can presage a collapse of civilization. I watched the level of animosity increase as the level of civility declined at climate conferences. It quickly reached a point where conferences were either AGW or Skeptics conferences and then, because of political interference, there were very few of the latter. Therefore, the first Heartland Climate Conference in New York in 2009 was so significant. It was the first major international skeptics conference and valuable for that, but also underlines a scientific divide that should not exist.
Judith Curry and Sallie Baliunas crossed that divide. Curry was working on the AGW approach as chair of the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at the Georgia Institute of Technology. In the interests of proper, balanced, open, science Curry invited Steve McIntyre to make a presentation explaining his side of the ‘hockey sick’ story. I could have told her what would happen because the nastiest attacks I ever received were from department colleagues: this included a three-page letter that a lawyer deemed libelous. They also deliberately made work and advancement difficult because they controlled promotion, tenure and all aspects of my career. To my knowledge, I remain today the person longest in rank as an Assistant Professor in the history of Canadian universities. My final promotion to full Professor was only achieved after a direct appeal, with evidence, to the University President. Some of this is explained by Sayre’s law that says,
“Academic politics is the most vicious and bitter form of politics, because the stakes are so low.”
I know academic politics are the nastiest because I was in the military, worked in private industry, and worked for a civilian government. What happened to those who were openly climate skeptics reached another level altogether. Curry and Baliunas were two people who experienced this, but from what I observed, at another level again.
Judith Curry provided a very open and reasoned explanation for choosing to step aside from mainstream academia. Here are some quotes;
“A deciding factor was that I no longer know what to say to students and postdocs regarding how to navigate the CRAZINESS in the field of climate science. Research and other professional activities are professionally rewarded only if they are channeled in certain directions approved by a politicized academic establishment — funding, ease of getting your papers published, getting hired in prestigious positions, appointments to prestigious committees and boards, professional recognition, etc.”
“How young scientists are to navigate all this is beyond me, and it often becomes a battle of scientific integrity versus career suicide (I have worked through these issues with a number of skeptical young scientists).”
“At this point, the private sector seems like a more ‘honest’ place for a scientist working in a politicized field than universities or government labs — at least when you are your own boss.”
Based on my experience this was a tempered, reasonable effort that only speaks to the technical and bureaucratic frustrations and shows concern for the students. However, there is a hint of the hurt and anguish about a forced change in career path and a glimmer of the hostile environment in the workplace. The fact that Curry, a clearly private person, decided to ‘retire’ publically speaks volumes. The fact that any academic is forced so far outside their comfort zone speaks volumes about what was going on in climate science and academia should give us all pause, but there is more to it than that,
I don’t think Curry was aware of or could have known, what happened to Sallie Baliunas. The main reason is that Baliunas completely and very quietly withdrew from research and academia and, as I understand, retired to the countryside. I discovered what went on because of our mutual attempts to help people understand the great climate deception. Occasionally over the years, people contacted me after investigating the work of the IPCC. They experience what happened to Klaus-Eckart Puls.
I became outraged when I discovered that much of what the IPCC and the media were telling us was sheer nonsense and was not even supported by any scientific facts and measurements.
These people were so shocked that they sought out someone to confirm that what they found was true. In the case of Albert Jacobs and the people that became the Friends of Science, they approached Sallie Baliunas and me. We both provided as many answers and as much help as possible. One day Albert advised me that they were unable to contact Sallie. I finally contacted Willie Soon, another severely beleaguered skeptic, because he was a colleague who published with Sallie when she worked as an astrophysicist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. Her career also included a period as Deputy Director of the Mount Wilson Observatory. Besides the FOS contacts, I was pleased to work briefly with Sallie on the historical relationships between climate, crops, ergot fungus poisoning and witchcraft. I like to think that Sallie’s study of witchcraft gave her insight into the persecution of people, especially women, through the exploitation of hysteria and false information. Sallie very quietly disappeared into the good night, but what happened before that helps understand why.
One of the biggest challenges to the AGW deception was the Medieval Warm Period (MWP). David Deming testified before Congress on the threat it was to their narrative. Baliunas and Soon produced an excellent paper from a multitude of sources that confirmed the existence of the MWP. Michael Mann got rid of the MWP with his production of the ‘hockey stick,’ but Soon and Baliunas were another problem. What better than to have a powerful placed academic destroy their credibility for you? Sadly, there are always people who will do the dirty work. Here is how I described what went on in my book The Deliberate Corruption of Climate Science.
“A perfect person and opportunity appeared. On 16th October 2003 Michael Mann sent an email to people involved in the CRU scandal;
Dear All,
Thought you would be interested in this exchange, which John Holdren of Harvard has been kind enough to pass along…
At the time, Holdren was Teresa and John Heinz Professor of Environmental Policy & Director, Program in Science, Technology, & Public Policy, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, John F. Kennedy School of Government. Later he became Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, Assistant to the President (Obama) for Science and Technology, and Co-Chair of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology—informally known as the United States Science Czar.
In an email on October 16, 2003, from John Holdren to Michael Mann and Tom Wigley we’re told:
I’m forwarding for your entertainment an exchange that followed from my being quoted in the Harvard Crimson to the effect that you and your colleagues are right and my “Harvard” colleagues Soon and Baliunas are wrong about what the evidence shows concerning surface temperatures over the past millennium. The cover note to faculty and postdocs in a regular Wednesday breakfast discussion group on environmental science and public policy in Harvard’s Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences is more or less self-explanatory.
This is what Holdren sent to the Wednesday Breakfast group:
I append here an e-mail correspondence I have engaged in over the past few days trying to educate a Soon/Baliunas supporter who originally wrote to me asking how I could think that Soon and Baliunas are wrong and Mann et al. are right (a view attributed to me, correctly, in the Harvard Crimson). This individual apparently runs a web site on which he had been touting the Soon/Baliunas position.
The exchange Holdren refers to is a challenge by Nick Schulz editor of Tech Central Station (TCS). On August 9, 2003, Schulz wrote:
In a recent Crimson story on the work of Soon and Baliunas, who have written for my website, you are quoted as saying: My impression is that the critics are right. It is unfortunate that so much attention is paid to a flawed analysis, but that’s what happens when something happens to support the political climate in Washington. Do you feel the same way about the work of Mann et. al.? If not why not?
Holdren provides lengthy responses on October 13, 14, and 16th, but his comments fail to answer Schulz’s questions. After the first response Schulz replies:
I guess my problem concerns what lawyers call the burden of proof. The burden weighs heavily much more heavily, given the claims on Mann et.al. than it does on Soon/Baliunas. Would you agree?
Of course, Holdren doesn’t agree. He replies:
But, in practice, burden of proof is an evolving thing—it evolves as the amount of evidence relevant to a particular proposition grows.
No, it doesn’t evolve; it is either on one side or the other. This argument is in line with what has happened with AGW. He then demonstrates his lack of understanding of science and climate science by opting for Mann and his hockey stick over Soon and Baliunas. His entire defense and position devolve to a political position. His attempt to belittle Soon and Baliunas in front of colleagues is a sad measure of the man’s character.
Schulz provides a solid summary when he writes:
I’ll close by saying I’m willing to admit that, as someone lacking a PhD, I could be punching above my weight. But I will ask you a different but related question. How much hope is there for reaching reasonable public policy decisions that affect the lives of millions if the science upon which those decisions must be made is said to be by definition beyond the reach of those people?
We now know they deliberately placed it beyond the reach of the people and restricted it to the group that he used to ridicule Soon and Baliunas.”
I attended a conference about a controversial issue a few years ago at which the debate became increasingly personal and nasty. The Chairperson acted properly by interrupting and saying; “People, please, we can disagree, but we don’t have to be disagreeable.” The level of debate on the claim of anthropogenic global warming went far beyond being disagreeable, but there was no chairperson to call a halt. Why are personal attacks so vicious when the subject is as innocuous as weather and climate? What do lawsuits have to do with learning, research, or science? Why were the attacks so nasty that they drove two superbly qualified women to the sidelines?
One of many incorrect statements made in the global warming/climate change debate was that the science is settled. Ironically, those who said it did more to be disagreeable than anyone. The nastiness began and increased as evidence continued to emerge showing the science wasn’t settled. In response to the question reportedly posed by John Maynard Keynes,
“When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do sir?
Clearly, if you are unprepared to change your mind, you are forced to increasingly nasty, uncivil behavior. It is a manifestation of the idea that if the end is the sole objective, it justifies any means. It is no coincidence that this is a central theme of Saul Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals.
This sounded so good. A call for compassion in debate.
“We can disagree, but we don’t have to be disagreeable” – Yes!
And then the last line is a political throwaway about Saul Alinsky. Doh!
It’s not easy to be sceptic on newsworthy manmade global warming. But it’s necessary if you want to defend standards in the scientific community. It is a science question, after all.
Why try to attack all those on the political left in an article like this?
We can disagree but, if we aren’t disagreeable, we can also agree about other things.
Because that is where the really nasty stuff I have received comes from. I have been attacked by left and right but without question the worst comes from the left and that is empirical evidence.
To me that is anecdotal evidence. But I do believe that you have been hurt more by unjust attacks from the Left as your reaction indicates that. Which is empirical evidence.
However, to condemn the Left as a whole in its entirety as ‘the enemy’ does not lead to a balanced view. If AGW was the end of the world it wouldn’t matter if the Left or the Right was more active in opposing it. It would not be a political issue if the facts were truly catastrophic. Anyone who didn’t stand with Horace on the bridge would be condemned by history, immediately.
But the facts don’t justify the fear. That’s the real issue.
The fact that the fear is often used by the Left to promote their policies is not significant – irrelevant – if the fear is not justified.
Just as the fact that the fear is often used by the Right to promote their policies (like payments to the landed gentry for windfarms and support for big capitalist enterprises like GE) is also not significant – irrelevant – if the fear is not justified.
An anecdote here, an anecdote there and pretty soon you have evidence.
I sympathize with your plight. You have ideals that you hold dear, and you see others who proclaim the same beliefs acting like hooligans and bullies. It is not easy to reconcile their actions with your beliefs.
Thank you Dr Ball. You are correct, the hate and rancor and screaming and violence invariable starts on the left until it has destroyed the opposition or won the argument with the help of or the lies by a rapacious and horribly biased press.
Keep up your honest efforts for the truth Dr. Ball, you are well respected for being the voice for those who have no power or voice at all.
@M Courtney “However, to condemn the Left as a whole in its entirety as ‘the enemy’ does not lead to a balanced view.”
I have to call you.
Harry Reid as the democrat majority leader stood on the senate floor and lied about Mitt Romney’s not paying taxes, he has since bragged about his lie yet no democrat has called him out for it, they have in fact congratulated him for showing our children what ‘end justifies any means’ results in. To me the democrats are worse that the Muslims that say nothing as children are raped, girls suffer FGM daughters are murdered and ISIS kills more, at least we know where they stand and they don’t wear an American flag. The democrat latest fiasco is demeaning a hero’s wife, why hasn’t every human being told them to shut up? They don’t because they enjoy spitting in the face of anyone that loves America and have been doing it since Vietnam. They have repeated this pattern for years and as long as they own the educational system it will not change.
It should be noted that after twenty five years of the promotion of alinsky radicalism to a new level (with the election of clinton), the end result is a colossal political shift to the right. This in the face of strong demographic headwinds that have immense benefits for the left. Alinsky radicalism has become conservatism’s “best friend forever”…
M Courtney,
I sympathize with your defense of the political left as one of the rational left leaning contributors on this site. That said, the stereotype of climate alarmists as predominately left leaning is certainly justified by the anecdotes of the skeptics. In my case I have become estranged from some long time friends over my skepticism about the CAGW mantra. It is no coincidence that these former friends were left leaning socialist types. It is no secret that the hypothesis of CAGW highly appeals to the left.
I’m not one to put much stock in what Psychologists have to say, but this is rather interesting.
Moral Outrage Is Self-Serving, Say Psychologists
M Courtney,
“It is a science question, after all.”
Among other things, right? I mean, just because some people with degrees in a scientific subject happen to take up a question, the rest of humanity doesn’t just fade into insignificance . . awaiting what the “scientific community” happens to decide, do we?
If I said; “It’s an economic question”, perhaps you’d get the gist of my . . wonderment. Of course it is, but not in any exclusive or proprietorial sense . . such that the rest of humanity is somehow obliged to go along with what the “economist community” happens to agree among themselves to, just because economics are involved, do we?
“If AGW was the end of the world it wouldn’t matter if the Left or the Right was more active in opposing it. It would not be a political issue if the facts were truly catastrophic.”
But sir, that’s what is being claimed . . that the facts are truly catastrophic. I see no point in conjuring up an imaginary world wherein we’re not faced with the very real possibility that it’s a question of conquest, a in Western civilization being conquered, with the help of some (trigger warning ; ) less than objective/honorable people that somehow managed to get science degrees.
I say we the people, get to overrule any “scientific community” anything, because that community is actually just a community of corruptible humans, regardless of how noble and objective science in the abstract might appear . . just as we get to overrule the “legal community” despite their noble and objective potentials, or the “intelligence community”, the “medical community”, or any of the many wonderful human “authorities” . . in the abstract. ‘Cause we don’t live in the abstract.
I suggest you begin to ponder the possibility that the CAGW is actually a vehicle for overthrowing “we the people” . . perpetrated by some who can’t accept our rule.
M Courtney; Wasn’t it Horatius who stood on the bridge and fought off the forces of Lars Porcena of Clusium? Wait, I see that Horace is a British name for the same man. The analogy is good if you consider that Dr. Ball is Horatius and the Etruscan hoards, who are trying to cross the bridge, are corrupt animals who seek to access to, and control of, the halls of science.
Would it not be catastrophic if we didn’t have a handful of Dr. Ball’s to hold the bridge until other means can be found to stop the hoards? We are taking about the mis-expenditure of trillions of dollars (or pounds).
It is my experience that Leftists, almost to a person, resort to shrill, ridicule in any argument they think they are losing. Alinsky says ridicule is man’s greatest weapon but actually reason is. Ridicule is a tool of the weak and stupid.
It’s also Liberals who turned CO2 warming from a curious scientific question (which, honestly fascinates me in it complexity) into a political argument where great certainty is asserted without reason.
The reality is that skeptics have already won the scientific debate. Even after years of trying and billions spent, alarmists have not been able to come up with one shred of credible, scientific evidence that would indicate future warming due to man’s CO2 will be any different from past warming — i.e. very mild and mostly beneficial to the biosphere that we are inextricably linked to.
The left IS the enemy. These are the people for whom their worldview is governed by emotions rather than facts, logic and reason. The prima facie evidence for this is the fact that they support a political ideology which has been proven time and again to result in terrible and catastrophic outcomes for mankind. All of the following monsters were/are of the left:
Stalin
Lenin
Mao
Hitler
Pol Pot
Chavez
Castro
Kim family dynasty
Mugabe
Etc etc
Do you need more evidence?
Also there are two categories of leftist – the evil and the naieve.
The evil tend to the ruling class and exploit the naieve, for whom they secretly harbour great contempt.
Another observation about the Left that I have concluded from close association with relatives (yes, I still dearly love them), and from years in academia is:
The Left tends to be projectionists. (They project negative attributes to others that they themselves are guilty of.)
Of course – of course – in making this statement I could be a projectionist myself. It would require a good study to verify or refute this hypothesis, which would be under the purview of the social sciences – (and person(s) conducting this study would probably suffer the same negative politics as Curry et al.)
There is a reason why the emotion comes from the Left, and that is because to be on the Left is to have already taken a decision to align with an emotional narrative.
Leftism arose, via Karl Marx, with an attempt to redefine am absolute morality after the ‘death of God’. Marxist philosophy is based on the fundamental principle that history can only be understood in terms of a capitalist minority enslaving a noble and oppressed proletariat, aided by the frankly revolting bourgeoisie. The middle classes.
Of course now, the Bourgeoisie are so guilty about this, and the proletariat having all but disappeared, that Leftism has become about white middle class guilt, and little else.
My thesis is simple – I tried to express it before, but wasn’t entirely successful – and it is this: We can only understand someone else’s point of view if we can transcend our own. Willis Eschenbach made a serious and valuable point as a comment, that I dont think he realised the implications of at the time. He said that for him, it was simply about ‘good science’.
But what IS ‘good science’ ? To many on the Left, good science is science that follows the precautionary principle, is socially liberal and advances the cause of the great social revolution towards a more virtuous society under the benign control of the only people you can trust. The modern liberal socialists.
You see, we are stumped for an objective definition of good and evil, in a moral sense. No rational argument has ever actually defined what is good and what is evil in rational terms. And that leaves the rationalist unable to compete with the emotionalist who screams ‘think of the children’. Marxism and the Left is an appeal to emotion, it explains why life is crap, not because you haven’t worked hard enough but because you are oppressed by THEM. The EVIL ONES. The capitalist illuminati enshrined in Big Business etc etc. Leftism means never having to do anything about your situation, except support the Left, who will do it all for you.
Is there a rational answer to the emotional narratives of the Left?
This has been a huge study for me, taking everything back to first principles, and all I have arrived at, is the same defence as is used for ‘good science’ and that is nothing more nor less than ‘good, is what works’. In the case of science, to predict the future, and in the case of morality, that which perpetuates itself and the people who ascribe to it.
Take Xenophobia and Racism. Two big bogey men of the Left. We can ask why they still exist in society after thousands of years. Could it simply be that societies with a healthy distrust of strangers survived, whilst those with open hearts and welcome did not?
Does this make them morally right? Well, in the absence of a God to tell us what the heck the Meaning Of Life is, who knows? But we can say that they seem to have been useful in the past, and perhaps we shouldn’t knock them as much as we do.
That’s just an example. The Left mind says ‘how immoral’, with a sort of pale imitation of Christian brotherhood of man, the right mind says ‘maybe, but it works’.
And that in a nutshell is my rational answer to the emotional narratives of the left. To Believe in Utopia and to strive towards it is all very noble, to be sure, but some commonsense prejudice that can distinguish between stuff that hurts and stuff that doesn’t is necessary if you want to survive long enough to make the attempt.
I used to run a business that employed bright young idealists:
“Why are you spending all your time trying to make money: Shouldn’t you be spending the money on socially useful things?”
“In order to survive to do socially useful things, first of all I have to make a profit, and the most socially useful way to do that is to employ you: You are then free to spend your wages on the poor if you like”.
The Left is where people who cannot survive without someone telling them what is good, what is bad, and how to behave, inevitably end up.
The tragedy of the Enlightenment is that in order to make scientific progress the idea of God was rendered irrelevant. This left a huge moral vacuum. People no longer knew right from wrong, good from evil or how to behave.
And I am afraid that into that moral and cultural vacuum, Marx poured his ridiculous theories, and the rest is as we say history.
Today, Wahhabi Islam is being poured into that vacuum as well (oddly enough, actually genuinely funded by Big Saudi Arabian Oil:-)). That’s an aside. It’s for you to ponder the implications.
I dont have the answers, the way to win this war, against unreasonable need for a paternalistic moral code, but I think I can at least clarify the nature of the conflict. It is between people who believe, because they have to believe, and people who have transcended the need to believe, in an emotional sense.
What should they believe in? How should they behave? Well the answer is fairly simple. In the ways that have worked well for millennia. The West is a culture and civilization based on Christian principles, but not entirely peaceful ones. Internally we are nice to each other. Externally we were as nakedly aggressive as we had to be.
(Radical Islam is, and Nazism was, as nakedly aggressive as it is/was able to be, but otherwise similar).
Where I have decided to stand is very simple. I am Agnostic. I would say Atheist, but I can’t deny possibilities. I do not believe in the Christian God at all, BUT I acknowledge wholeheartedly that of all the places I have been and societies I have lived in, to live as if a Christian style God existed, to be humble, yet to strive for excellence, to try and tolerate the fellow man, yet back that tolerance up with a steely intolerance of other peoples intolerance…is the best way. These are things that work.
And above all to insist that the Left’s view, that the world doesn’t change but people can, is exactly wrong.
The world changes, but people do not. Not overnight, not in a lifetime. It takes generations to effect changes in the human psyche.
It is not in the end a question of what is real, or what is right, or what its good, or what is evil.
The terrifying (to the left) prospect is that in a Godless world, we can only say what works, to perpetuate itself, and what ends in the death of cultures and civilisations. Without a God to set the standards, there can be no objective Good or Evil. Political correctness is in the end mere emotional mumbo jumbo – an attempt to capture the hearts and minds of those who still hanker for a Christianity that they no longer believe in.
And Leftism is ultimately socially morally and culturally destructive. That is hardly surprising since Marx designed it that way out of hatred and resentment of a social order he felt excluded from. His thesis was that violent revolution would sweep away the old order and a more natural, freer and more harmonious brotherhood of comrades would replace it. The experiment has been tried several times, and always failed.
The reality is that hierarchies work and hierarchical cultures with more-or-less slaves at the bottom and priests thinkers warriors judges and planners at the top outperform random collections of individuals. All the Left has done is replaced the old elites with arguably even less pleasant ones. Utopia has never arrived
Does this clarify why the Left are the most vitriolic? The most hate filled? Their whole world-view is based on emotional propositions. Exploitation. Comradeship. The words in their vocabulary are not system theory, calculus, game theory…they are racism, xenophobia, misogyny, holocaust denier, bloated plutocrat/capitalist…
Every one is a pejorative term in an emotional narrative, not an emotionally neutral term in a rational narrative.
The Left teaches its adherents the language, structure, and world view, of conflict.
Well, so what?
In the end, which view will prevail, is all, and why. Will rationalism commonsense and an acknowledgement that to survive societies need to have common sets of standards, even if they aren’t written in stone by some God, that allow people to act in some sense beyond individual selfishness an in a more socially useful way, prevail over a view that anything goes, and that ultimately if we destroy all culture and rationalism, and disbelieve all science, what will emerge will be a brighter happier world without borders or wars or capitalism or proletariats or bourgeoisie – just a happy natural society of equals?
Forgive me for laughing.
Marx was a lapsed Jew. His philosophy is no more than a childhood dream of a return to the Garden of Eden.
Like all the left, he talks the intellectual nonsense well: with the smoke and mirrors he pulls one specious intellectual rabbit out of a hat after another. But what, really, is it all about? It’s about a childlike desire to return to a pre-intellectual state, a childlike Garden of Eden where people don’t know enough to be nasty.
We are dealing with children here, children who want father figures and mother figures projected into government, children who desire, but cannot achieve, and whose frustrations are encapsulated in hatred against all those who can.
What more natural than for someone who has failed utterly to understand basic science and mathematics, to reject them totally as ‘geeky’ and only useful as tools to make my social dreams come true’ and who will disbelieve them if they dont give the ‘right’ answer?
Climate alarmists are second rate brains full of resentment. First rate brains are busy doing better science.
Climate alarmists are children, lost in some moral maze, inhabiting an emotional and moral landscape of shadowy scary ideas like nuclear radiation, carbon pollution, racism, holocaust denial, misogyny and the like. They dont understand these ideas. They are simply taboos. Shibboleths. Virtue signalling phrases that are no more than badges saying ‘I am one of the good guys’.
If they dont grow up, they will probably die.
The challenge is not to die with them
Leo Smith March 5, 2017 at 12:50 am
Thank you!
@ Leo Smith – March 5, 2017 at 12:50 am
A truly great commentary that expertly defined most all aspects of why the Left’s declared “social/cultural war” will utterly destroy 200+ years of America’s greatness far, far quicker than any Muslim declared “religious war” to destroy America could ever hope to achieve.
The “warmongering” radical Muslim religious fanatics are, in fact, highly supportive of the actions and deeds of America’s “lefty” liberals simply because of the Muslim’s ancient pronouncement of ….. to wit:
“My enemy’s enemy is my friend.”
Left vs Right have become vacuous terms thanks to the Socialist desire to corrupt language and lie about their past. Similarly “Liberal” originally meant what is now roughly called Libertarian in America (though retains the conservative meaning in UK derived cultures) as the Socialisms of Europe brought on W.W. I & II with both the German National SOCIALISTS and the Italian Fascists rooted fiirmly in Socialist doctrin. They were only “right wing” because Stalin called them that (he wanted global international Socialism, aka communism, so only wanting it at the national level was “left” of him).
One can cry about that all they want, the facts remain. None of them were free market Classical Liberal societies. The wars so tainted the words Socialism and Progressive in America that they hid in shame by stealing the name Liberal from the conservative libertarians of that day. Now it, too, is sullied and Hillary briefly tried to undo history and claim “I am not a liberal, I am a progressive” while Bill C. said he was in favor of “3rd Way” economics – a term coined by Musolini for his flavor of National State Socialism, btw. Aka fascism, as he termed it. Don’t believe that? Read history from the period …
Per condeming the Left for the AWG hysteria:
Unfortunately, it is true at the leadership level. It was created out of whole cloth (with a few tatters from early physics that were not quite right…). The root is The Club Of Rome ( who also started the whole “running out” scare in the ’70s (with The Limits To Growth by Meadows at al – using horrible computer models to “project” that we have run out of most natural resources by now… sound familiar?). This was picked up and promoted by the left leadership to push forward their goal of Central Control of the economy.
And it has worked. The EPA determines what you can do, where, and with what resources. (Don’t think so? Ask the coal miners and users…) Medical care, something like 1/6 the economy, is now easily 80% directed from government. Rince and repeat… slow walking to “3rd Way National Socialism”. ?
Global Warming was to be the final step. International treaties to “bind” the global economy to an unelected cabal. But it seems to have been Trumped… for now, if he survives the assaults…
To not think it Left Wing Political is to miss the whole history and scope of it.
BTW, I came to this understanding slowly, and late, as I could not believe it…until I searched out the whole of it myself.
It is firmly codified in the UN Agenda 21 and all the Local 21s trying to “fundamentally transform” the global economy, nations, and all of your lives. What I once thought “crazy talk”, on close inspection, was found to be actual agencies, plans, and actions. They expect $200 Billion PER YEAR from the USA and EU to fund their global takeover of the economy via climate dues to them at the UN. That is not a fantasy, Obamma gifted them such a chunk on his way out the door. Paris must die or that become law on the next Democrat president and Congress.
If that isn’t political, I don’t know what is.
CAGW “science” is merely the dog’s tail. It wags only upon instructions from the dog. The dog itself is actually what the Chinese consider the lowest form of life, a” Zou Gou” or “running dog” that mindlessly attacks the social order in order to please its malevolent master. The dog is the press and useful idiot politicians.The Master is the worldwide cabal of Marxist/ Malthusian “intellectuals” who have caused so much misery and premature death over the past 150 years.
Attacking the tail is not sufficient. The dog and ultimately the master must be dealt with.
“Adolph was not leftist, he sent communists to the concentration camps”
What a pile of nonesnse.
Of course Hitler was a Socialist.
The Nazis were National Socialists whereas the Communists were Internaitonal Socialists.
To say he wasn’t is akin to saying Catholics aren’t Christians because they burned Protestants at the stake, or that Sunnis aren’t Muslims because they kill Shi’ites – and vice versa in both cases.
“Aand Lenin never had power.”
Of course he did, he was the leader of the Bolshevik party which ruled Russia after WWI and the Revolution. Google is your friend, and can save you from embarrassing yourself.
You appear to profoundly of absolutely everything you rant about.
As a matter of interest, how old are you?
Have you left school yet, it doesn’t seem like it.
Thomas:
You assert
NO! Margaret Thatcher did that and she was not a “Liberal”.
Richard
Yes, and GW Bush also sucked up to the green blob. Politically, any politician who is not actively opposed to the green agenda is tacit ally. BTW, I seem to recall Thatcher regretting her earlier support for global warming.
energia, as you well know, language evolves.
Trying to defend yourself by pointing out what a term meant 300 years ago is ludicrous.
Competitors for the same base. Read their party platform.
Climate is a political issue. Many people pushing climate alarmism regard it as some kind of existential planetary survival issue, or something like that: “you can’t have exponential growth on a finite planet”, and other such blah. At least that’s what they tell me. They’ve entwined a tangle of issues in climate. I sometimes wonder whether climate is just their stalking house to defy capitalism with. An issue that arrived on the historical scene at the right time, when the left had given up on any project for serious change. When they’d admitted they had no alternative to capitalism. Climate allows them to re-demonize capitalism as the enemy of environment, and humanity. Political issues are usually fought viciously when so much is at stake. Tim Ball never instigated this. The left, who took over the Green movement, did. You really think you can have a “scientific debate” with the likes of Joe Romm, John Holdren, Dana Nuccitelli, John Abraham, Michael Mann, Naomi Oreskes …? Never going to happen.
” They’ve entwined a tangle of issues in climate. I sometimes wonder whether climate is just their stalking house to defy capitalism with. An issue that arrived on the historical scene at the right time, when the left had given up on any project for serious change. When they’d admitted they had no alternative to capitalism.”
They did the same thing with health insurance in the US.
They want single payer / single provider period … nothing else is acceptable.
Obamacare is about paying for insurance and nothing to do with delivering healthcare.
The Democrats knotted their law up so it couldn’t be fixed.
Now Congress is trying to repeal it and get some sort of acceptable law in place before the only choice is government health care.
mark4asp…….Two things:
1. Regular people line up on the side of their politics; The Registered Dems take the Party line and each item is a ‘religious belief’, as most of the time they have little knowledge of a specific subject.
2. Caught something yesterday about the Pope which agrees with your view. I previously couldn’t understand how he took the position he did, but it is now clear. He blames Capitalism for the gross inequality of wealth (concern for the poor). He is wrong – it is crony capitalism and political corruption that is the problem, IMO.
And what do you suppose is the optimal, natural, “sustainable” human population is ? Might I suggest it is a very, very, small number. A number very similar to the range and equilibrium population of large predatory mammals. Certainly no more than 50 million humans across the entire planet. At those numbers, every human could be in equilibrium with the environment … everyone with a ZERO carbon footprint, taking no more from the planet (vegan only) than nature can replace without any assistance from man. Mankind becomes a passive passenger on a “healthy” planet. Man will excercise discretion in eschewing all technology and industry that could be used to extend lifespans, quality of life, or expand the population. Consumerism would be a thing of the past, as man uses only what he can gather from an unaltered nature. Capitalism and competition will be outlawed by the eco-State. No animal husbandry, caged chickens, genetic modifications. No medicine, that cannot be distilled by soaking tree bark in water. An imagined blissful return to a simpler life.
And the only way to achieve these numbers, this Nirvana, is mass-extermination of humans … something that that leftists are very good at. Mao and Stalin were quite expert at it. No need to let the planet …let nature … rid itself of the “infection” of mankind by the “natural” forces of global warming, and species extinction. Nope. Just … fire up the ovens. Reopen the gas chambers. Dig mass graves and shoot hundreds to death 💀
That is the end game for the anti-capitalist leftists who use Co2 as a proxy against capitalism. As a proxy against modernity. As a proxy against industrialization. A proxy against humans.
Communism is ultimately not Left. In every single communistic or near communism state, it is the “Right” that supports communism.
Every.
Single.
One.
Generally, right is status quo – a little more fearful of differences, unknowns we can see, a little less so or not caring about the ones we can’t or that are more imprecise/abstract but might actually be greater (which are often the more threatening ones, aka health risks, etc) – while left is being willing to embrace change, and less reactionary, a little more prone to differences, often a belief others of different “view” nevertheless filter things similarly, though today some on the left are going further, while much of the right has already done so.
Understanding climate change is understanding change and what change is productive in our interests (including most consistent with liberty- all liberty and not just a limited, homogeneous market view alone of it) and what is not. Which is why what is rational on climate change is assessing the risk and focusing on solutions and arguing against those you don’t support, not demonizing climate science while claiming climate science of doing the very same to any who don’t accept it, and coming up with every type of theory imaginable to call climate science and concern over it anything other than what it is:
For instance, just see the comments on this thread alone, 2/3 call climate change concern an excuse for this or that ignoble end, which helps anchor in the here heavily desired, even fervent belief [or desire] that basic climate science – big risk range of large, geologically rappid, and thus counterproductive, larger droughts, heavier precip, more volatile, bigger regional shifting, accelerating ice sheet melt, etc – isn’t real or correct.
There may also be a generalized modern tendency for the more liberal leaning to accept the notion that man can unduly affect the world around us (to our detriment) and less adherence to a certain “right to pollute” (or cause counterproductive ecological change), again recognizing this change may be somewhat more of a modern left leaning tendency, and which originally was just as much a Republican observation as Democrat (and in some ways most strongly championed early on by Teddy R), but which has changed in the last 40 years. And rather than sticking with more archaic notion bc they once seemed sensible. (“Burn fossil fuels the energy is great! Man needs this to be industrious – its not that man is industrious, its just by pollution that he is so much!” Speaking of which, fossil fuels put out a lot of pollution, so the comments on here saying that climate change concern ignores pollution is more than misplaced.)
Half the people on that list above were not Left. And the rest were so far left as to be virtually the same as radical right, as it’s a circle. Confusing Liberals in Western societies with this is like calling basic, reasonable conservatives Nazis – (Not the far right which some conservatism in the West, under an age of increasing false claim, accusation, made up news and ideology posing as news sites, and no real check on any of it but more claim, and more inflaming of passions and fervent belief-often itself intense exaggeration and misinformation driven – is starting to morph into.)
“Communism is ultimately not Left. In every single communistic or near communism state, it is the “Right” that supports communism.”
Absolute drivel.
You know nothing of either politics or science.
Prat.
I am very similar of opinion. Of course you can’t have exponential growth on a finite planet forever but that doesn’t mean the CO2 and renewable energy are a solution.
If you read my rather longer post elsewhere, what I think we are seeing is a process of evolution of – well not consciousness, so much as a world-view – that begins with a Christian pre-industrial and pre-enlightenment society, and Marxism was in a sense an inevitable part of that evolution, along with Romanticism and Atheism and the like, until today we have political correctness and what the US calls ‘Liberalism’ or what we Europeans call ‘Socialism’.
These are memes that exist because they can: Because people are slightly more aware than they used to be but still cant think. In my day of a formal classical education you learnt why all this idealistic cockwomble hadn’t worked in history and grew up to understand that there are are no easy idealistic answers.
Postwar education for the masses left all that out. So we have generations of people who are bright, but cant actually THINK. Yeah even unto Sartre et al.
Kenji:
You say
OK. If you do believe that then please do what you say is the responsible thing by reducing human population by the one person you have both the right and the ability to kill.
However, that improvement to human stock is not needed because the notion of sustainability is daft and the foreseeable problem of population change is falling (n.b. falling, not rising) human population.
I recently explained these matters on WUWT here. Please read it so you will stop wasting space on the web with nonsensical twaddle about population size and sustainability.
Richard
Courtney, there has been no scientific debate. Those advocating AGW have refused to debate. Heck, Michael Mann, who is currently suing Dr. Ball and Mark Steyn, refuses to answer the legal interrogatories of those two gentlemen. As for attacks, you are either completely naive or purposely ignoring the vicious attacks the political left have made, and continue to make, on scientists and everyone else who do not buy into the “man made global warming/ climate change / climate disruption” hoax. The political left brooks no disagreement. It has to be their way, and no other.
That’s why we need to clean up science. Climatology departments are committed to a teleological approach to their subject. They view everything in terms of how it leads to disaster.
This is not science.
They rule out causes leading to conditions indistinguishable from normal weather. They rule out adapting to observations.
But this is not a political failing. Both Left and Right can benefit from this error.
Power and Money are not only of use to the Left.
I’m afraid I have to agree, Jayhd. Not only has the left’s insistence become equivalent to tyranny, the side-effects are thus: that when someone legitimately attempts debate from either side, it quickly deteriorates to ad hominem/appeals to authority, neither of which advance the quest for knowledge, nor bolster any theoretical direction. And look at how they are going after Mr. Pruitt of the EPA. See Bill Nye, the paragon of snarky junk science and alarmism, impugning the lack of virtue. Dr. Tim is suffering from attack fatigue akin to shell shock, from this cabal of literally nasty people. A fatigue perceived by the attackers as a sign of weakness and intellectual inefficacy. They press forward, like wolves culling the sick from the herd…a singularly ungraceful expression of inhumanity.
It is disgusting. A fusilade of irritable snark, sodden with false hubris, hammering the thoughtful into submission.
@M Courtney
Power and Money are not only of use to the Left.
While the statement is theoretically true, it’s implied equivocating is appalling, unsupported, and entirely unjustified.
Follow the Money. Follow the Power. And open your eyes as to who is using both.
Hypothetically, suppose there a political groups, the Alpha, and the Not-Alpha. The Alpha’s believe in the coordinated use of political power and money for the benefit of society, to which the individual citizen’s liberty and fortune must be sacrificed. The non-Alpha’s believe in the contrary – that individual liberty is important and government exists primarily to preserve those liberties. In such a system, the value of governmental power is far more valuable to the Alphas than it is the non-Alphas. It will be natural for power to accumulate in the hands of the Alphas and for the Alphas to congregate in the governments that wield such power.
Stephen Rasey, as a Lefty I would like to agree with the idea that we are Alphas, natural leaders.
But it’s not true. Sadly.
Some who are politically different to me are also able to put coherent arguments for their position. And have the strength to make them practical. Sadly.
Left / Right… It doesn’t swing the power their way.
Political mass is not defined by position on the scale; if ‘political gravity’ existed then the debate would be ended already. And debate would be sought by the Left if they were more ‘politically massive’.
clean up science
===============
science ended the day PC overruled freedom of expression. As soon as you allow politics to determine what is acceptable speech, truth is doomed.
consider racism. racism exists whenever someone is granted rights of privileges based on their color. we all talk about racism being wrong, but our governments, society and legal system have enshrined racism.
the law should be color blind. but it isn’t. instead it argues that to correct racism, we have to practice racism.
So, if it OK for the legal system to practice racism, why is it wrong for scientists to use dirty politics to create whatever truth they desire?
Because in science and in politics, isn’t truth what people believe to be true, rather than what is actually true?
for example, gravity: aristotle, newton, einstein they all have a different theory of gravity. yet in their day each was considered “the truth”. So why should AGW be any different. It is true because people believe it is true.
And will remain so until a better explanation comes along, where “better” is simply a measure of how “believable” the new explanation is at explaining observations. which in science means that someone will have to come up with a “better” (even more believable) way of predicting the future climate.
Right now computer models are “believable” because billions of dollars have been spent on they. And with that amount of money invested no one involved with the decision making process is going to admit they are anything less than a HUGE SUCCESS.
ferdberple, Truth is a value judgement. It is believed. It is believed to be the closest approximation to reality that the believer can express, sincerely.
But it is not reality. Reality exists whether it believed or not.
Political correctness, or any other restriction on free speech which doesn’t regard ‘the closest approximation to reality that the believer can express, sincerely’, will delay any closer approximations to reality being expressed. They are anti-science.
That is what I meant by “clean up science”.
How can politicising the debate about reality help solve this?
M Courtney
March 4, 2017 at 3:25 pm
In science, truth is not supposed to be a value judgement. To count as a scientific hypothesis, its validity needs to be testable by falsifiable predictions. CACA is an epic fail on this basis, ie by the scientific method.
The CACA hypothesis is thus “not true”, ie it has never been confirmed by experiment, observation of even computer model, but has been repeatedly shown false.
Gloateus Maximus, you are correct.
Truth is not a value judgement. it is a justifiable value judgement.
The scientific method provides justification for accepting evidence. Repeatability and reproducibility are good justification for accepting that opinion to be close to reality. Reality being constant regardless of opinion.
In my opinion newsworthy AGW is not true.
And reality (as investigated by the scientific method) has not contradicted my opinion.
This debate is becoming in my view dangerous. When people lose friends over this and when I as a renter have to be careful what I say to my landlord, who is a warmist ( we have been tenants for over 25 years). Then things are getting out of control. When this is becoming a problem at those levels things are way out of whack.
I can only have an inkling of what scientists like Dr Ball, Dr. Soon and Dr Curry are facing but Dr Curry’s statement left me wondering what this is coming to. When SHE could not even advise her students about their future I was appalled, I can deal with my landlord or even friends or family that have a difference of opinion but these attacks on them are totally unjustified and no matter what Mr Courtney uses as a defence he is wrong. This has nothing to do with being Left, Right or indifferent, it is morally abhorrent!
I love post that include ‘we need to…we must, what should be’..
(a) who are ‘we’?
(b) Who will bell the cat?
I am not a scientist, but a few glances to some graphics of ice core temperatures and other graphics made easy for an aficionado to understand that AGW was a hoax. But I am sort of liberal (a little), not conservative. In any case, science is science, and it should not be soiled with politics. Other aspect of the question is the stupid graphic presenting the different results of computer simulations predicting of future warming. How can this people pretend that this blatant differences mean 95% confidence? It is totally stupid. Then, I am siding with the deniers myself, even if am nothing but an aficionado in science.
I’ll tell you what courtney, you find a nice, reasonable, verifiable “skeptical” idea…like the fact that no measurements show there is currently an increase in the rate of sea level rise. Point people to the numerous tide gages, none of which show acceleration https://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/sltrends/sltrends.html
Point them to the various satellites, none of which show acceleration.
And you go do that very politely…in a predominantly left leaning forum. You will be treated like the lowest of the low. If you persist over time you will likely even be censored/banned by moderators for daring to say something so evil, and clearly wrong…even though there is literally no evidence that sea level is rising any faster than it was over 100 years ago.
poitsplace March 4, 2017 at 2:26 pm
… no measurements show there is currently an increase in the rate of sea level rise. Point people to the numerous tide gages, none of which show acceleration …
Point them to the various satellites, none of which show acceleration … there is literally no evidence that sea level is rising any faster than it was over 100 years ago.
As it turns out, Colorado University’s Sea Level Research Group
http://sealevel.colorado.edu/
is over due for their first data release of 2017. When it comes out, it will no doubt include data from the recently launched Jason3 satellite. It will be interesting to see how much correction and adjustment is done to the historical data. Besides that the CU Crew put out paper last summer with the curious title:
“Is the detection of accelerated sea level rise imminent?”
http://sealevel.colorado.edu/content/new-group-publication-detection-accelerated-sea-level-rise-imminent-fasullo-et-al
Well really, are they telegraphing to God and everybody what they intend to do or what?
Courtney,
For my part I used to be a former full-on lefty (quite “radical” in fact and even voted SWP for my sins) until the scales fell from my eyes (really quite ashamed/embarrassed by it now in truth) and my “anecdotal” experience is the left is far far more vicious and less trustworthy. The left WILL both stick the knife in your back then once you’re on the ground give you good kicking just to make sure. No honour at all. The “disagreeable” has its genesis somewhere and the left nurture it with gusto.
All “anecdotal” of course. But then again Courtney that is also part of the tactics of the debate along with “out of context” etc etc… One always has “racist” and “Nazi” to throw around if gentler means fail to shut the debate down. But beware, those terms have been overused to the point where they are beginning to hold lesser value than they should.
I know I know, there’s nowt more devout than a convert…. So be it.
If a man isn’t a socialist before he is 25 there is something wrong with his heart.
If he is still a socialist after the age of 25 there is something wrong with his head.
M Courtney: AGW continually couches this issue as Left versus Right, the Right being the ones who are wrong. AGW injects political allegiances all the time. It is not condemning the Left to say they are the ones pushing the political good/bad dichotomy.
If that is how you see it… OK.
But why accept that dichotomy?
What else do you accept without question?
As a Lefty Sceptic I don’t accept this.
I don’t think this is a left vs right thing. I think it is a sanity vs insanity issue. Skeptics have a broad diversity of world views. That is our strength.
It may not be in essence a left versus right thing, but the Left couches it in those terms. But that says nothing, the Left couch EVERYTHING in left/right terms. That was the genius of Marx.
One can conceptualize the extreme Left and Right (or Communism and Nazism/fascism) by looking at a tangent or cotangent graph and imagining it drawn on a cylinder laid on its side. One extreme goes over the top and the other extreme goes off the bottom. Drawn on a cylinder, the lines meet on the far side of the cylinder in an area one can call Totalitarianism. Not much difference between the two for ordinary people.
Hitler joined the Communist Party for awhile during Germany’s chaos after the Great War, but became disenchanted and turned to National Socialism for catharsis.
M Courtney March 4, 2017 at 12:09 pm
Hi, M Courtney , I have read what you and others have written and tend to agree with you.
Now the fun part. there are very few real Socialist/Communists. You are an endangered species. 🙂
I say this because most people are very quick to define the concepts but have never studied the theory.
I will state now I am a Capitalist. I don’t think Socialist/Communists can work, people simple don’t think that way.
As for Saul Alinsky I think most do not under stand that Товарищ Stalin would have had him counting trees in one of those rest camps east of the Urals.
The dream of Marxism died with Lenin- with the assassination attempt, the stroke. It descended into barbarism.
This is the legacy we deal with. A demand for social justice without an acknowledgement of social responsibility.
M Courtney you are an honorable person, but you would not have survived 1922 CCCP.
You can’t make people be good.
Perhaps we have become to “sophisticated” that when vermin treat women as Dr. Tim Ball state the response is not gauntlet across the face and pistols at thirty paces. Perhaps if we returned to that manners would improve
Off my soap box
michael
“Perhaps we have become too “sophisticated” that when vermin treat women as Dr. Tim Ball state the response is not gauntlet across the face and pistols at thirty paces. Perhaps if we returned to that manners would improve”
That paragraph neatly encapsulates the predicament of Western culture, Mike. To lance the boil of socialism, which is rapidly expanding to destroy us, we must get down & dirty. No one wants to emulate Pol Pot, but the downward spiral we are currently trapped in is, one by one, eliminating the available reasonable options to correct the course of our culture.
I will stand with my pistol against Michael Mann any day. Consider this a challenge Mann, you lying scumbag. There is the insult required for a challenge.
Game theory.
Man A is kind, peace loving and wants to achieve compromise.
Woman B is calculating, greedy, psycopathic and sees A’s reluctance to engage in conflict as a weakness to be exploited.
Who is going to win?
O/T Sorry to post this here but just a heads up for anyone that watched the great Danish green corruption series Follow The Money series 2 is back on the BBC
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b089xq1y/follow-the-money-series-2-episode-1
Mads and Alf at the fraud squad have not forgotten the crimes committed by Energreen and are still looking for a chance to arrest the CEO, Sander, who is missing. When a desperate man complains that his small carpentry business was forced into bankruptcy, the fraud squad delve into the practices of a major bank and uncover more than they expected. Claudia, a young lawyer, paid dearly for her involvement in Energreen. After serving 18 months in prison she’s finally released – but to what? Ex-convict-turned-mechanic Nicky and his hapless friend Bimse now run their own garage, but Nicky has also been taken under the wing of the Swedish fixer, which comes at a high price.
You, not Dr Ball, is the one that is making the claim of Alinsky representing all of the left. Nice try at employing Alinsky tactics 😉
M Courtney
Why is it that socialist have such a strong need to convert everyone to there view? You can be a socialist, you can find like minded people and live in socialist community. But that is never enough socialist are always converting, indoctrinating and politicizing. It never stops, my children in our schools are constantly being bombard with socialistic ideas, every time you turn on the news your being bombard with socialistic views, union, buricrates, politicians. It’s a religion, there is no evidence that it works there is just a belief in its power of humanistic perfection. You profess to be a socialist, go live as one, find like minded people a create and live the perfect socialist life and show us all how well in works. Until you are willing to do this stop trying to shape everyone else’s life to your ideal through the power of government. Each have different views on how the world should be but only socialism, Islam and communism force everyone to conform. You can be a socialist in my world but I can not be an individualist in yours.
Bob boder:
You ask
WE DON’T.
We defend ourselves against insults, defamations, misrepresentations and falsehoods such as your claim that we have “a strong need to convert everyone to (our) view”.
Conversely, as this thread demonstrates, right-wingers attempt to impose their views on everybody and they attack, defame and misrepresent any (e.g. socialists) who reject their views.
Richard
If socialists would refrain from their desire to live off what I have made, I would refrain from insulting socialists.
richardscourtney,
“We defend ourselves against insults, defamations, misrepresentations and falsehoods such as your claim that we have “a strong need to convert everyone to (our) view”.”
Where? I see no defense here . . defensiveness, yeah, but no defense.
“Extreme claims require extreme proof.” Richard Feynman. CAGW still hasn’t met that standard.
Neither has socialism.
Before having an argument with someone, first walk a mile in their shoes. Then you’ll be a mile away and have their shoes.
Nice, + a dozen
me2+
Jack Handey. Hilarious guy.
Sorry, I didn’t see your post. Yes, hilarious!
Bloke Thanks for that. I was in dire need of a laugh after reading Dr Ball’s statements about his friends in science..
Great, had to steal it.
I like Handey’s original wording better, I think it makes more sense: before criticizing someone, first walk a mile in their shoes. Then, if they don’t like it, you’re a mile away, and you have their shoes!
Thank you Dr. Ball
I have little doubt that Judith Curry and Sallie Baliunas were viciously and unjustifiably attacked. From other sources I have read much information at least regarding the treatment meeted out to Judith Curry (I had not previosuly heard about Sallie Baliunas) however I find it disappointing that in the above essay there is no clear statement of exactly what was done to the two women. There is a repeated claim that they were unfairly targetted but I could not find any description of any actual examples. Please give some examples of what was done especially to Sallie Baliunas.
I will not add to the anguish by citing what was said and done. It is bad enough that it even appeared in the first place. Look at the toll it took on Willie Soon’s health.
Dr. Willie manages to maintain his kindness and humanity…and courtesy. If I were him I’d have lost it a long time ago.
Thank you Tim for this article.
In 2002 at the request of my association, the Association of Profession Engineers and Geoscientists of Alberta (APEGA), Astrophysicist Dr. Sallie Baliunas, Paleoclimatologist Dr. Tim Patterson and I co-authored a debate with the leftist Pembina Institute, against and for the Kyoto Protocol, respectively. Our article is now located at http://www.friendsofscience.org/assets/documents/KyotoAPEGA2002REV1.pdf
It is notable that every scary claim by the Pembina uber-warmists (actually the IPCC’s false nonsense) has failed to materialize, whereas every one of the eight predictions in our Rebuttal has proven correct, especially in those political venues that accepted the full catastrophic humanmade global warming scam.
Pembina and the IPCC both have negative scientific credibility – one could make a lot of money by simply betting against them, if that were possible.
It was a tragedy that Sallie was forced out of Harvard-Smithsonian. She is one of the most intelligent and articulate people I have ever met, and her departure was an enormous loss to academia. The scoundrels and imbeciles who drove her out should, at a minimum, be fired for cause; some of them belong in jail. Sallie was not only attacked, she was reportedly terrorized, and I will never forgive or forget these thugs.
You are correct that Sallie does not want to be talked about. She has retired to the countryside and her other great passion, the raising and training of herding dogs. To my knowledge, she is happy and that is very good; she truly deserves it.
Regards, Allan
Re-posting, as my previous post is hung up in moderation.
Hope I zapped all the “verbotene worte.”
Thank you Tim for this article.
In 2002 at the request of my association, the Association of Profession Engineers and Geoscientists of Alberta (APEGA), Astrophysicist Dr. Sallie Baliunas, Paleoclimatologist Dr. Tim Patterson and I co-authored a debate with the leftist Pembina Institute, against and for the Kyoto Protocol, respectively. Our article is now located at http://www.friendsofscience.org/assets/documents/KyotoAPEGA2002REV1.pdf
It is notable that every scary claim by the Pembina uber-warmists (actually the IPCC’s false nonsense) has failed to materialize, whereas every one of the eight predictions in our Rebuttal has proven correct, especially in those political venues that accepted the full catastrophic humanmade global warming sc@m.
Pembina and the IPCC both have negative scientific credibility – one could make a lot of money by simply betting against them, if that were possible.
It was a tragedy that Sallie was forced out of Harvard-Smithsonian. She is one of the most intelligent and articulate people I have ever met, and her departure was an enormous loss to academia. The $coundrels and imbeci(es who drove her out should, at a minimum, be fired for cause; some of them belong in jail. Sallie was not only attacked, she was reportedly terrorized, and I will never forgive or forget these thuugs.
Tim, you are correct that Sallie does not want to be talked about. She has retired to the countryside and her other great passion, the raising and training of herding dogs. To my knowledge, she is happy and that is very good; she truly deserves it.
Regards, Allan
That’s crap. So I’m supposed to get all excited about something you won’t ell me about? Like I said, that’s crap.
If you don’t have the balls to tell the whole story, don’r even bother to go just half way.
Javert Chip – that’s not crap. You are.
Sallie Baliunas, Judith Curry, and others testified in Congress hearings. What was done to them is called tampering with a witness (18 U.S. Code § 1512). If their their health was harmed, even in the slightest and temporary way, that was also retaliation against a witness. Other laws might have been broken as well.
I recommend them to lawyer up and to file criminal complaints, first.
Just watch Dr Baliunas in this presentation to the Independent Institute about the history of accusing women of “weather cooking”, witchcraft, and the like during the Little Ice Age. You cannot fail to appreciate that she was also addressing contemporaneous ad hominem attacks against skeptical scientists, and especially against female scientists
She was extremely courageous to make this presentation, knowing that even addressing a friendly audience with it would probably end her scientific career
I certainly hope she is enjoying a fulfilling retirement somewhere far from the “Burn the Witches” crowd of imbiciles
“I know a bit about what Sallie went through,it is not worth bringing it up here”
I’m sorry, but the state of mud slinging using the internet is way out of hand. Charges of harassment have to be brought against every web page owner that lists names, photographs and bio’s of either “denier” or “warmist” scientists. That is hate speech.
As a society, a stand must be taken against thuggery, no matter which side the thugs supposedly speak for. IMO, To not do so will discredit civil discourse and lead to violence.
The next science advisor to the President has to come to grips with what I see as abusive behavior. That can only be done by the President speaking up and honoring those that honor the scientific method in a civil and disciplined way. Anything less will leave the ground poisoned for generations.
Thank you GeologyJIm for this post.
Regarding witchcraft during the Little Ice Age:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/12/30/study-hyperbole-is-increasing-in-science/comment-page-1/#comment-2110143
Thank you for this post about the Malleus Maleficarum, aka the “Witch Hammer”, first published in 1486 and used by the Roman Catholic Church as a tool of the Inquisition, to torture and murder hundreds of thousands of innocents.
Nowadays, we have the modern equivalent of the Witch Hammer: the phrase “The science is settled”.
“The science is settled” is used by scoundrels and imbeciles to dismiss scientific reality – that we still do not know enough about climate science to even agree on what drives what (for example, warmists “KNOW” that atmospheric CO2 primarily drives global temperatures, but the data shows that atmospheric CO2 LAGS temperatures at all measured time scales – the warmists are in effect alleging that the future is primarily driving the past).
For clarity in this context, scoundrels are warmists who know that global warming alarmism is a fraud, and imbeciles believe it is real.
The list of academics dismissed from their posts for speaking out against the falsehoods of global warming alarmism is growing, and the people compromised by this new Witch Hammer number in the millions.
Global warming alarmist mania will run its course, but it will take years to do so, and society will continue to squander trillions of dollars in scarce global resources in this new false alarm of alleged catastrophic manmade global warming, in a cooling world.
Regards and Happy New Year, Allan
http://www.malleusmaleficarum.org/downloads/MalleusAcrobat.pdf
[excerpts]
THE
MALLEUS MALEFICARUM
of Heinrich Kramer and James Sprenger
Unabridged online republication of the 1928 edition. Introduction to the 1948 edition is also included.
Translation, notes, and two introductions by The Reverend Montague Summers. A Bull of Innocent VIII.
The Malleus Maleficarum (The Witch Hammer), first published in 1486, is arguably one of the most infamous books ever written, due primarily to its position and regard during the Middle Ages. It served as a guidebook for Inquisitors during the Inquisition, and was designed to aid them in the identification, prosecution, and dispatching of Witches.
…
At the time of the writing of The Malleus Maleficarum, there were many voices within the Christian community (scholars and theologians) who doubted the existence of witches and largely regarded such belief as mere superstition. The authors of the
Malleus addressed those voices in no uncertain terms, stating: “Whether the Belief that there are such Beings as Witches is so Essential a Part of the Catholic Faith that Obstinacy to maintain the Opposite Opinion manifestly savours of Heresy.” The immediate, and lasting, popularity of the Malleus essentially silenced those voices. It made very real the threat of one being branded a heretic, simply by virtue of one’s questioning of the existence of witches and, thus, the validity of the Inquisition.
…
It must be noted that during the Inquisition, few, if any, real, verifiable, witches were ever discovered or tried. Often the very accusation was enough to see one branded a witch, tried by the Inquisitors’ Court, and burned alive at the stake. Estimates of the death toll during the Inquisition worldwide range from 600,000 to as high as 9,000,000 (over its 250 year long course); either is a
chilling number when one realizes that nearly all of the accused were women, and consisted primarily of outcasts and other suspicious persons. Old women. Midwives. Jews. Poets. Gypsies. Anyone who did not fit within the contemporary view of pious Christians were suspect, and easily branded “Witch”. Usually to devastating effect.
It must also be noted that the crime of Witchcraft was not the only crime of which one could be accused during the Inquisition. By questioning any part of Catholic belief, one could be branded a heretic. Scientists were branded heretics by virtue of repudiating certain tenets of Christian belief (most notably Galileo, whose theories on the nature of planets and gravitational fields was initially
branded heretical). Writers who challenged the Church were arrested for heresy (sometimes formerly accepted writers whose works had become unpopular). Anyone who questioned the validity of any part of Catholic belief did so at their own risk. The Malleus Maleficarum played an important role in bringing such Canonical law into being, as often the charge of heresy carried
along with it suspicions of witchcraft.
[end of excerpt]
I know a bit about what Sallie went through,it is not worth bringing it up here, as she make clear by desiring privacy and shelter from it.
Let her have her peace.
+1000
Of course. But dont bring gender politics into it. Plenty of other people have been ruthlessly attacked who were not of the female persuasion.
Leo, objectively, you are correct. It is not about gender politics, it IS about academic freedom vs. doctrinaire oppression.
Doctrinaire oppression is a favorite tactic of the far-left, and it is a cancer that has infected campuses across North America. Suppression of free speech is rampant, and no lie is too big, as long as it helps to achieve its objective.
Global warming alarmism has always been a false crisis, fabricated by scoundrels and adopted by activists and imbeciles as a cause célèbre. Financially, it is the greatest scientific fraud in the history of mankind. Tens of trillions of dollars have been squandered on destructive green-energy schemes that are not green and produce little useful energy.
Below is a partial list of those forced from their institutions by global warming thugs, and they are, with the exception of Sallie Baliunas, all male.
It is an old list, and Judith Curry’s departure from Georgia Institute of Technology is more recent. Also, Dr. Curry voluntarily left academia after enduring considerable abuse – but the others had no choice.
Tim has also endured much abuse, including death threats, yet he carries on.
Regards, Allan
_____________________________________
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/11/27/a-big-goose-step-backwards/#comment-1800850
Here is a list of those forced from their institutions by global warming thugs:
George Taylor – Oregon State Climatologist
Sallie Baliunas – Harvard University
Pat Michaels – University of Virginia
Murry Salby – Macquarie University, Australia
Caleb Rossiter – Institute for Policy Studies
Nickolas Drapela, PhD – Oregon State University
Henrik Møller – Aalborg University, Denmark
Bob Carter, James Cook University, Australia
Agree! Gender cannot be brought into the discussion on the face of it because there is no trend one can measure from two anecdotal instances, agregious though they are.
Those of us who benefit from your wisdom, and that of Curry and Baliunas are very appreciative of your work and efforts to keep science alive. As you said, we cannot “know”, but we can empathize.
Thank you for your work, and also for your tribute to 2 excellent scientists.
“Why were the attacks so nasty that they drove two superbly qualified women to the sidelines?”
Because, if you oppose in even a small way the impoverishment all mankind, both now and in the future, so as to utterly destroy capitalist society, you are an enemy of Gaia and deserve far, far worse than that which you have already received as far as ‘they’ are concerned.
Great article as usual Tim. Thank you for your constant outing of the demagogues and death worshiping morons.
+100
Mike, you cheap. How about +1000
stan stendera
Agree with your rating.
Mike may have his own scale.
Henry – Certainly +SHED LOADS!!
Auto, continuing to be appalled at folks’ incivility to other folk.
Disagree – fine; but respect the right of the other side to have an opinion [even if you or I think it is totally wrong . . . .].
But that is seen as weakness by some of the watermelon liberation front; the Citrullus meme.
stan stendera….maybe lazy. I shoulda pressed the zero key a buncha times. Dr. Tim is an inspiration to us all.
Shaw was the biggest advocate of the Fabian Society, a left wing organisation that wants to destroy all and rebuild it in their own image. These are hateful people and anyone associated with them should not be allowed near your children or public society. Sadly that’s precisely the world they infest.
If you believe in something so much, like saving the world from burning up from too much CO2, then you tend to get quite emotional when someone or something gets in the way. People who think they are saving the world are already at a high level of self-generated desperation, so they fly off the handle at the slightest disagreement with their version of reality.
From the article: “What happened to them is symptomized by a man, some argue George Bernard Shaw fits the pattern, who was both a misanthrope and a misogynist. This fascinates me because if you hate everybody doesn’t that include women? Apparently, they hate everyone, but really hate women.”
I can’t imagine that kind of mindset. And thank God for that. People who look at the world, and other people that way, have a brain than is not working properly.
“If you believe in something so much, like saving the world from burning up from too much CO2, then you tend to get quite emotional when someone or something gets in the way. People who think they are saving the world are already at a high level of self-generated desperation, so they fly off the handle at the slightest disagreement with their version of reality.”
TA, that may do to explain the actions of brainwashed high school and college kids, but it won’t do for the AGW promoters in government and science. Their agenda is power and control, nothing else. They are quite contented to do anything, including lying, cheating, and slander to achieve their goal.
Good point jayhd, thank you.
Don’t forget there is an enormous amount of money and prestige on the table as well. We have spent tens of billions on so called research on AGW. Honesty can cause everyone’s funds to dry up. The fanatics in academia have a powerful financial interest in promoting ongoing fear. It’s mighty hard to maintain strict scientific integrity when it can cost your livelihood and it’s mighty easy to convince yourself of something if doing so means you keep your home and career.
“TA, that may do to explain the actions of brainwashed high school and college kids, but it won’t do for the AGW promoters in government and science.”
Yeah, I was referring to the young, unsophisticated ones.
TA…there are sophisticated ones?
The sophisticated ones use bigger words.
“TA…there are sophisticated ones?”
Yeah, the sophisticated ones are the connivers who are deliberately selling the CAGW lie. The are sophisticated at lying and propaganda.
Well, we all get it. Our society is brainwashed. It’s as if we were all North Koreans and climate dissenters were going against the Dear Leader himself; it’s just propaganda. It’s not really about science; it’s about a massive PR campaign, financed by God-knows-who and reinforced by governments, designed to convince us that catastrophic warming is here, there, and everywhere. Facts and evidence no longer matter when huge sums are going to persuade us of the “truth.” Trump has thrown a wrench in the works– Hillary was supposed to win– but we’ll see if he really can push anything through regarding climate change. I suspect he’ll be outmaneuvered on that one.
I really do hope Trump clears out the backyard. The brainwashing you mention is quite likely causing more environmental harm than good. The fundamental principles of being able to scientifically assess your environmental ‘footprint’ has become obsessed with Co2, in a very bogus way. Valid issues around environmental degradation and actual real pollution are somewhere down the mental list with flossing the cat.
Case to point the so called ‘recyclable coffee cup’ – the only thing truly recyclable is often the paper holder with the recycle symbol printed on it… Its all become a marketing exercise and has very little to do with really caring about the environment.
BTW if you really do want to make a difference, instead of just looking like you are, read the articles at:
https://www.ecowho.com/articles/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soon_and_Baliunas_controversy :
“The Soon and Baliunas controversy involved the publication in 2003 of a review study written by aerospace engineer Willie Soon and astronomer Sallie Baliunas in the journal Climate Research,[1] which was quickly taken up by the G.W. Bush administration as a basis for amending the first Environmental Protection Agency Report on the Environment.
The paper was strongly criticized by numerous scientists for its methodology and for its misuse of data from previously published studies, prompting concerns about the peer review process of the paper. The controversy resulted in the resignation of half of the editors of the journal and in the admission by its publisher Otto Kinne that the paper should not have been published as it was.”
“for its methodology and for its misuse of data from previously published studies”
Are those claims of significance or just nit picking? Does anyone have an understanding?
Criticizing a paper is standard fare.
Criticizing papers is a part of the science process. Trashing scientists is not
Criticizing a paper does not involve destroying the credibility of the authors.
If the critique is valid and seriously enough, the credibility of the authors naturally suffers. This is how it should be.
Better put than my comment.
Was the critique valid? Were there serious mistakes in the paper? Or did the publisher cave to threats? If there were proven mistakes uncovered in the paper, shouldn’t authors be allowed to revise their work before being personally attacked and driven out of their profession?
Nit picking when the claims don’t support what you want to believe. Claims of significant otherwise.
I’ve read Soon’s papers. They are monstrously flawed. That is not nitpicking. If one knows the relevant facts to the issue and understands it well and has no desire for X or Y conclusion to be true, its hard to fathom they are not ideologically driven by a fierce desire to advocate a desired outcome.
A..
Can you give me a link to the paper and its critique? I find your claim a little credulous.
A,
I certainly find your comment interesting.
Did Soon do those things?
A link would be welcome, if you can, please.
Thanks for this.
Auto
Was that a conclusion or a concession?
As the link says [not me] that was the opinion of the Journal and some of the editors.
Interestingly the paper says “Past researchers implied that unusual 20th century warming means a global human impact. However, the proxies show that the 20th century is not unusually warm or extreme”
Soon later changed his mind and blamed an unusually active sun for an unusually warm 20th century…
Quoting Wikipedia, Leif? The one with 5000 slanted articles written or edited by William Connelly?
In this case, the entry is factual, so what is your problem? Do you have direct evidence that Connelly monkeyed with this entry? And what he edited? Quote please.
Wiki History certainly shows Connelly monkeyed with something on the page:
(cur | prev) 20:53, 4 April 2015 William M. Connolley (talk | contribs) . . (47,507 bytes) (-26) . . (Undid revision 654957685 by Cali11298 (talk) this isn’t needed) (undo)
(cur | prev) 19:46, 30 August 2010 William M. Connolley (talk | contribs) . . (14,958 bytes) (-705) . . (in fact, don’t need a seciton at all. just fold into the history) (undo)
(cur | prev) 19:43, 30 August 2010 William M. Connolley (talk | contribs) . . (15,663 bytes) (-1,449) . . (→Email controversy: this para is only about a false claim by michaels. it should go on his page, if anywhere) (undo)
(cur | prev) 19:39, 30 August 2010 William M. Connolley (talk | contribs) . . (17,112 bytes) (-1,969) . . (→Email controversy: rm non-RS; rm NN para) (undo)
(cur | prev) 14:59, 25 August 2010 William M. Connolley (talk | contribs) . . (13,795 bytes) (-44) . . (rv. Yes, this is indeed silly. Like I say, it is a duplicate. Please see the “Impact of the criticisms” section. We don’t need to say this twice.) (undo)
(cur | prev) 12:37, 25 August 2010 William M. Connolley (talk | contribs) . . (13,795 bytes) (+7) . . (→Impact of the criticisms: cn) (undo)
(cur | prev) 12:37, 25 August 2010 William M. Connolley (talk | contribs) . . (13,788 bytes) (-236) . . (→Publication: rm dupl) (undo)
(cur | prev) 07:44, 5 August 2010 William M. Connolley (talk | contribs) m . . (12,548 bytes) (-28) . . (Reverted edits by Phannus (talk) to last version by Smartse) (undo)
none of this changes the story in any substantial way. I followed the story way back in 2003 and the narrative matches what was my impression at the time.
Your challenge was to show that Connolley had monkeyed with the article. it was proven so. You could be correct. However without a better source, your argument is no better than the meddling of Connolley.
Provide another source that does not have an axe to grind.
[you are hardly in a position to make demands -mod]
I know both of them and followed the paper story back in 2003, and to my satisfaction the Wikipedia article is good enough, regardless of what edits were made. I don’t care about what you think about this. For me this is not a game, but a real-life travesty.
This has nothing to do with what I think. You used a tainted source. You were challenged on it. You challenged the challengers to prove the source was tainted. That was done. It does not matter whether your story is true or not. You now have no source other than a “trust me, would I lie?” defense. So once your challenge was met, it is up to you to come up with an untainted source to advance your narrative.
Otherwise, the only course for the rest is to dismiss your story as either a vendetta or sour grapes. Personally I do not care who shot Sam. I am merely pointing out that right now, you are flailing in the wind until you come up with an untainted source.
So you agree Isvalgaard, that when Michael Mann et al are clearly demonstrated to have been not just possibly mistaken but in fact completely wrong and to have cooked the figures to make their case, they should be given full coverage, hounded out of their careers and jobs and essentially demonised to the point of near suicide?
Just checking, you understand…
What kind of nonsense is that?
Every case should be judged on its own merit. Soon and Baliunas said in their 2003 paper:
“Overall, the 20th century does not contain the warmest anomaly of the past millennium in most of the proxy records, which have been sampled world-wide. Past researchers implied that unusual 20th century warming means a global human impact. However, the proxies show that the 20th century is not unusually warm or extreme.”
Nothing wrong with that.
Did you even read that paper?
Leo said:
“So you agree Isvalgaard, that when Michael Mann et al are clearly demonstrated to have been not just possibly mistaken but in fact completely wrong and to have cooked the figures to make their case, they should be given full coverage, hounded out of their careers and jobs and essentially demonised to the point of near suicide?”.
No, I do not agree with your eloquently stated opinion on that. In particular, I do not agree with you that Soon and Baliunas have cooked their figures to make their case. Their paper was simply a survey of the literature at the time.
A bit of context (i.e., Dr. Soon’s perspective) —
A Conversation on Climate Intimidation — Dr. Soon
(youtube)
Note: SKIP THE FIRST 6 BORING, NON-ESSENTIAL, MINUTES
(from my notes on the above video)
***
{Notes with Edits (direct quotes of Dr. Soon are usually in italics, minor editing within those, too) …}
***
8:41 – Slide: Three incidents of academic intimidation of Dr. Soon:
1. 2003 — Climate Research and its Editor Hans von Storch ***
10:05 — First case: In 2003, I published a paper on climate history of about the past 1,000 years by examining all the “indirect” measurements of climate. I examined archived data of such things as tree rings and lake sediments. ***
11:15 – Five {Climate Research} editors resigned.
11:18 – If this were an isolated case, just one guy, Aaa, who is Willie Soon?, who cares…. but, it happened to quite a few people. The first guy is Dr. Roy Spencer … there were people who resigned over his paper, so it is not only me who is “bad.”
11:32 – Then, there was Syun-Ichi Akasofu
{See WUWT article about Akasofu here: https://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/09/01/dr-syun-akasofu-20-points-of-context-on-global-warming-politics-and-the-economy-of-the-world/ (“…the IPCC regards those who criticize them as “skeptics”, or “deniers”, etc., and brought this newborn and immature science to the international stage. They stated in 2007 that scientists have done all they can and that the science is settled, and the rest of the task should be in the hands of policy makers. Such a statement is very irresponsible. … We should bring back the science of climate change to a basic science, avoiding interferences by policy makers …” )}
11:40 – Dr. Akasofu worked with Al Gore to create the National Arctic Research Center (University of Alaska, Fairbanks). At UA Fairbanks, there is a Syun-Ichi Akasofu building. He mastered the science of aurora. He is a highly regarded scientist.
12:12 – Yet, when Dr. Akasofu wrote a paper explaining that the climate varies naturally – the editor resigned! This is the kind of treatment you get.
12:22 – About my own paper. Here is a slide of an e mail from the publisher of Climate Research about my paper. It says:
1) the reviewer was consulted about my paper;
(By the way, in terms of the peer review system, this is really unprecedented … it was very bad form; they never informed me that they would look at this background stuff. … This is just not done.)
2) that the reviewer had a detailed discussion;
3) the editing was properly done;
4) the author has revised the manuscript accordingly; and
5) therefore, it was subsequently published.
13:05 – 48 co-editors were cc’d — Who will stand up and tell the truth?
13:15 – Quote from Hans von Storch, Editor, Climate Research (see slide) on July 24, 2003 – accusing Dr. Soon of violating CR’s rules of publication by publishing in another publication, EE (Energy and Environment) I will explain that of course, in a minute.
14:00 (you can find this in the 2009 Climategate e mails) Von Storch was under pressure from the late Senator Jeffords of Vermont to clarify the stuff on publication and review …
14:18 – So, von Storch wrote an editorial to denounce/explain how Soon’s paper got slipped through the process …. Von Storch asserted that Soon’s paper had no scientific value …
14:35 – Here is my 2003 paper. Yes, I also published it in EE. I will say something now which I have never before said in public,
14:50 — The version published in Climate Research was a h0ax. … To get published, CR demanded Soon remove all direct criticism of MBH{M. Mann, Bradley, and Hughes}99; CR removed about 40 pages of text.
***
The Hockey Stick graph was a political instrument from the start intended to ‘get the ball rolling’ (no pun intended) and it worked brilliantly:
(Jones, P.D., Briffa, K.R., Osborn, T.J., Mann, M.E., Bradley, R.S., Hughes, M.K., Cover Figure for World Meteorological Organization (WMO) 50th Year Anniversary Publication: Temperature changes over the last Millennium, 2000).
If you were able to search into the brains of most dedicated alarmists and even moderately informed persons that image would be indelibly imprinted there.
Forget the later iterations:
I may be wrong but I believe even the IPCC has dropped any reference to it in AR5 and why not it’s done its job.
This is so absolutely unprecedented when we have contemplated previous huge blunders like the cold fusion paper in Science, and the water memory paper in Nature, that clearly suggests political motivations, rather than scientific ones.
I don’t accept that explanation, because it does not fit the evidence provided by previous similar cases.
I agree Javier. These attacks on Baliunas and Soon were not science, just dirty politics.
A similar paper by Baliunas and Soon was published in E&E in 2003. What happened in these instances was a politically-motivated lynching of several honest scientists including Sallie and Willie and several others, by the scum of academia.
My thoughts below date back to 2005.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/12/06/manns-tree-ring-proxy-train-wreck/#comment-1808672
We knew that Piltdown was wrong at the time his papers were published (MBH98, etc.).
I published the following article in E&E in early 2005, in defence of several legitimate climate scientists.
“Mann eliminated from the climate record both the Medieval Warm Period, a period from about 900 to 1500 AD when global temperatures were generally warmer than today, and also the Little Ice Age from about 1500 to 1800 AD, when temperatures were colder. Mann’s conclusion contradicted hundreds of previous studies on this subject, but was adopted without question by Kyoto advocates.”
Regards to all, Allan
Full article at http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/11/28/the-team-trying-to-get-direct-action-on-soon-and-baliunas-at-harvard/#comment-811913
Drive-by shootings in Kyotoville
The global warming debate heats up
Energy & Environment 2005
by Allan M.R. MacRae
[Excerpt]
But such bullying is not unique, as other researchers who challenged the scientific basis of Kyoto have learned.
Of particular sensitivity to the pro-Kyoto gang is the “hockey stick” temperature curve of 1000 to 2000 AD, as proposed by Michael Mann of University of Virginia and co-authors in Nature.
Mann’s hockey stick indicates that temperatures fell only slightly from 1000 to 1900 AD, after which temperatures increased sharply as a result of humanmade increases in atmospheric CO2. Mann concluded: “Our results suggest that the latter 20th century is anomalous in the context of at least the past millennium. The 1990s was the warmest decade, and 1998 the warmest year, at moderately high levels of confidence.”
Mann’s conclusion is the cornerstone of the scientific case supporting Kyoto. However, Mann is incorrect.
Mann eliminated from the climate record both the Medieval Warm Period, a period from about 900 to 1500 AD when global temperatures were generally warmer than today, and also the Little Ice Age from about 1500 to 1800 AD, when temperatures were colder. Mann’s conclusion contradicted hundreds of previous studies on this subject, but was adopted without question by Kyoto advocates.
In the April 2003 issue of Energy and Environment, Willie Soon and Sallie Baliunas of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and co-authors wrote a review of over 250 research papers that concluded that the Medieval Warm Period and Little Ice Age were true climatic anomalies with world-wide imprints – contradicting Mann’s hockey stick and undermining the basis of Kyoto. Soon et al were then attacked in EOS, the journal of the American Geophysical Union.
In the July 2003 issue of GSA Today, University of Ottawa geology professor Jan Veizer and Israeli astrophysicist Nir Shaviv concluded that temperatures over the past 500 million years correlate with changes in cosmic ray intensity as Earth moves in and out of the spiral arms of the Milky Way. The geologic record showed no correlation between atmospheric CO2 concentrations and temperatures, even though prehistoric CO2 levels were often many times today’s levels. Veizer and Shaviv also received “special attention” from EOS.
In both cases, the attacks were unprofessional – first, these critiques should have been launched in the journals that published the original papers, not in EOS. Also, the victims of these attacks were not given advanced notice, nor were they were given the opportunity to respond in the same issue. In both cases the victims had to wait months for their rebuttals to be published, while the specious attacks were circulated by the pro-Kyoto camp.
*************
This video by Willie Soon, posted by Janice Moore (thank you Janice) on this page, is well worth watching – skip the first ~6 minutes of introduction. https://youtu.be/Tp_nJgkjzJA
Climate intimidation as practiced by the usual suspects is certainly not “science as usual” – it is simply corruption, much of it for personal gain.
Willie’s Conclusion at 28:58 of the video is worthy of note. Willie wrote:
“A Conversation on Climate Intimidation – Dr. Soon”
Conclusion:
The dark cloud of censorship and intimidation has inundated climate science. Climate science, as we know it, has been dangerously corrupted by scientism. The big bad bullies of censorship- those scientists. scientific institutions and funding agencies – continue to hijack science for their own personal gain. They must be stopped!
________________________________________
Hi Allan,
I saw the video some time ago. It is interesting, but there is really nothing new into all this, and you are mistaken that this is not part of science as usual. Georges Cuvier was a dominant force in early 19th century science in the natural sciences. He was a strong opponent of evolutionary theories, and single handedly created a gap between the early evolutionists, Lamarck, Geoffroy, and the late ones, by ridiculing and damaging the reputation and career of anybody that dared to publicly dissent with his views. Despite being a superb scientist, Cuvier was a negative force to the advancement of evolutionary thought because he was so influential.
Science has always been like this, because it is conducted by humans. What makes science the best human endeavor is that in the end truth and reason always win, but that end can be decades away.
And every good scientist entertains the idea that one can actually be wrong. And looks for ways to prove that he is wrong, because failing at that is reassuring. So yes, we skeptics could be wrong. I have already changed my mind once on this issue and if the evidence would support that most of the warming is due to us, I would change it again. One has to be prepared to go where the evidence takes us, wherever that might be.
Hello Javier,
Coincidentally, a friend (PhD, Oxford) emailed me today as follows:
“She {Sallie Baliunas} joins a long list of excellent people who have been forced out of academia. It has been a constant theme since Oxford University was founded in 1096.”
I understand your point. We are all aware of fraud and misconduct in science. For example, one of our favorite warmists is nicknamed “Piltdown”.
Dirty politics has always been a part of academia. However, such misconduct has no place within the beauty of true science and the discipline of the scientific method.
Dirty politics and true science are like oil and water – they do not mix, and when they forced to, corruption prevails.
Best personal regards, Allan
Moderator:
If you have time, please correct my above post to Javier, March 5, 2017 at 11:35 am:
Discipline NOT disciple
Thank you.
[Two days later? . . mod]
[Two days later? . . mod]
Thank you mod for your correction to my post – it si much appreciated.
Apologies for my lateness – I blame global warming… 🙂
No mention in Wikipedia of “hide the decline.”
Steve McIntyre:
Steve McIntyre:
Briffa:
Steve McIntyre:
Please read all of Steve McIntyre’s posts on the subject.
Tim,
This is a fine beginning on exposing one of the key behind-the-scenes manipulators and his methods. Referring to John Holdren of course. The public actors in the climate scam have been familiar faces: Mann, Jones, Karl, Slingo Hanson, Schmidt, Santer, Trenberth, and a few others from their IPCC WG roles. But Holdren has been more the director, working off-stage to put key players in certain positions over the last 17 years, both from his academic position, and then even more so as head of OSTP for 8 years.
From those positions Holdren knew he could be the puppetmaster on their strings, and it appears he has done so with zeal. His motivations certainly can not be that of an honest scientific inquiry and discussion into changing global climates. As the head of the WH OSTP, a simple phone call or DC office visit (no emails or written correspondence) to any of a number of directors at NSF, NOAA, NASA, and DOE who control extramural and intramural granting decisions could easily be swayed toward or away from researchers in and outside government. Powerful influence. The same can happen at prestigious science academies and publications. A simple phone call or visit when knowing a research manuscript is about to be submitted could easily ensure a favorable editorial review (or not, depending on the authors and their status as either alarmists or skeptics). From such a position, quid pro quo favors would be easy, in exchange for pal reviews of favored manuscripts.
Cronyism, grant funding (or loss thereof), phone calls for favorable career promotions and positions, … all tools a scientifically corrupt OSTP could use and in the process do immense damage to true scientific inquiry and destroy many careers along the way. But of one thing we can be reasonably certain. That is History and time eventually have a sunshine and disinfectant effect on such intellectual corruption.
Dr. Ball your position is winning but unfortunately the damage to science and in fact all of academia that those who you are writing about have incurred by their uncivility will linger for a very long time. The problem of intolerance of opposing views in academia goes far beyond climate science and actually far beyond higher education right into lower levels education.
Allow me to tell you a story of my own experience dating back to 1982. As a relatively newly minted US Army special forces soldier I was ordered to volunteer to be part of an Army recruitment effort. One SF soldier of each specialty in SF job, or IOW four of us, all junior, were required to assist in recruitment efforts in a recruiting district centered around Pittsburg, PA that included the northern spike of West Virginia and the SE corner of Ohio.
We visited two High Schools a day. The format of our presentations varied from one place to another depending on what the local recruiter had arranged. As a rule at the first HS we would visit in the morning we would eat lunch in the school cafeteria with the kids.
We had been told to wear our Green Berets inside as a PR gimmick I guess. So standing in line with the kids waiting to go into the cafeteria a teacher comes by and says abruptly “Take your hat off”! I asked him to identify himself and he said as he reached to snatch my beret from my head “I’m the assistant principle”. I blocked his hand and started to do a wrist lock on him to put him to his knees but thought better of it and released his hand but it got the message across. Then I said “Is this how you treat guests to your school? I am wearing this beret because I was told to.”. He said “no one wears hats inside this school”. My response “Then ask me to remove it in a civil manner and I will”! He walked off without a word.
His intent was obviously to embarrass me, denigrate the service in front of the kids, and perhaps to enhance his own prestige with the kids. They will do anything to win and make their point and one just has to understand that and deal with it on their terms or your lost.
No hats in schools because weapons can be hidden under hats.
However, a U.S. military person is very unlikely to have a weapon under a hat in a school. So this assistant principal was wrong.
Not much room to hide a weapon under a beret and before lunch our presentation was in the form of a layout which included all kinds of weapons including sub machine guns. The weapons were functional but not loaded. The only loaded weapon was the M-1911A1 side arm the weapons man carried as required when transporting functional weapons.
I laid out my medical equipment, the commo man laid out communications equipment, the demo man laid out engineering equipment and inert demolitions, and the weapons man laid out weapons. Classes of kids would walk through and ask us questions. I remember one of the teachers at the school asked me to take his BP. After I did I asked him if he was a marathon runner or triathlete because his pulse and BP were right down at the low limit of what is considered the normal range. He was a marathon runner in training. I think it surprised him that I nailed it but it shouldn’t have since I took the vitals of men in exceptional physical condition all the time.
You realize when you stopped him, this was most entertaining for the students who probably laughed at the Assistant Principal.
You cherry pick an example of someone behaving like a jerk. Back from 1982. And that has some larger meaning about a group of hundreds of millions of people who ostensibly have some varying political views from yours? You also don’t know why the person did it, and even if you did, so what it’s one person. But these kinds of incidents and stories (and presumptions) on here get taken into some larger caricature of “false truth” to further reinforce the often extreme (and often extremely mistaken) views so righteously expressed on here, such as by the commenter above who knows earth’s prior temperatures going back 1000 years better than the world’s leading climate scientists who study it (but yet who thinks it’s Manns hockey stick that is the basis for Kyoto, not just something which helped a public ‘see’ the issue for a moment in a different way)… and who, like several comments on here, decides that strong critiques of papers is “bullying,” yet the constant flood of allegations and even outrageous (and often outrageously false) claims coming from here and elsewhere, that’s all dandy. Never mind that most of those critiques were reasonably valid.
Here’s the second cherry to pick from a loaded cherry tree:
Barbara Boxer, California Democrat senator, gave an Army brigadier general, who called her “ma’am,” an order during a June 2009 committee hearing: Call me “senator!”
As a “senator” is a member of a senate, from Old French senator (Modern French sénateur), from Latin senator “member of the senate,” from senex “old; old man”, I’m surprised Ms Boxer hasn’t called for the word to be replaced by something more gender-neutral, such as “upper house member”.
Since when is relating a personal experience picking a cherry? It was what it was, and it was obvious to me the intent of the vice principle treating a guest, and another adult that way was not spontaneous but intended to embarrass me from the beginning. You weren’t there.
Here are a couple of other examples of what you call a “cherry”. In January of 1983 the SF A team I was on conducted Alpine and cold weather operations training for a Battalion of the now deactivated 11th Reserve Special Forces group at what was then Camp McCoy and now Fort McCoy, WI. A reporter and photographer from a local paper (my memory is a bit fuzzy but I think it was the paper in Madison, WI) was authorized to do a story on the training. It was made clear to them that they could take no pictures of the faces of any member of our team. They did and we caught them, exposed their film and they were escorted off the post.
In January 1984 my team was part of the two team MTT (Mobile Training Team) deployed to the vicinity of Beirut, Lebanon to train the best unit in the LDF (Lebanese Defense Force) in LRRP (Long Range Reconnaissance Patrolling) operations. It was a very dangerous time in Lebanon and especially around Beirut. While we were there CIA station chief Bill Buckley was kidnapped, tortured, and murdered. (A real unsung hero).
The US media kept trying to find out where we were working out of. This was in the days before the rise of cable news so it was the major networks of NBC, CBS, and ABC that had people on the ground there trying to do a story on us. We avoided them and when they caught up with us when we were out and about we ran them off. We and others from the US military mission misled them as to where we were operating from and sure enough on national news CBS ran a story on national news complete with pictures of the building they had been told we were operating from. My wife taped it for me.
A
For years before and when I was in a standard assignment for a newly minted Sergeant Major in Army Special Forces was to be assigned as the Sr. NCO at University ROTC programs. To repeat the stuff they told me would be hear-say but lets just say I heard plenty of tales about the active and passive resistance, some of it pretty disgusting stuff, they encountered at those institutions.
It has been that way because the pyramid in Army SF and all other special operations for that matter has a very narrow base. Promotions come far quicker than average in that system for enlisted men. For example after 11 years of Active duty service I was an E-7 promotable. I would have made E-9 Sergeant Major with 15 years time in service. So there has to be a place for those higher ranking NCOs to go as they await an opportunity for a line assignment as the Sr. NCO of an SF Company or in one of the relatively few staff positions available to them.
On the bright side, our new President may change the course of this climate change fascism, and return it to science.
See Curry’s amicus brief in the appeal of CEI and NR v. Mann if you what to know specifically what she has endured. CEI.org has it posted on line. Google can rapidly take you there. Cliscep blog also has a good post on it by Prof. paul Matthews with a link to the document.
I understand that you are trying to keep things low-level.
If you decide to go on the offensive, we’ve got your back.
Just say the word, you might be surprised by the size of the cavalry that shows up.
Is there no organization or credible agency or whatever…that can once and for all fix this issue of what is the science, and suggest the public policy priority ?
Translation into the public after 20 years of partial truth and outright deceit seems too much without some honest, strong group.
Where is the honest broker?
Ahem. God, they say is dead.
There isn’t one.
Now, in all seriousness, what are you going to do about it?
Thanks for the insight, Dr. Ball.
By the way, a trick I found useful when delivering papers as a kid was to carry a small water pistol filled with ammonia solution. One squirt in the face and they (or the ghetto kids) quit chasing.
Of course I carried dog biscuits for the good dogs (with pretty owners) who greeted me daily.
Pop
Dog are great manipulators. When we arrived to move into a new house there was a dog on our deck exhibiting unsocial behavior. My wife is afraid of dogs and backed away to the safety of the car.
I assumed a passive position and let him sniff the back of my hand. This wonderful dog resumed his defense of his territory that included our deck and most of the rest of the neighborhood. We maintained a water dish on the deck and treat jar.
Every morning Cinnamon would set out to ‘work’ the neighborhood for treats. People out for a walk would comment that we had such nice dog. Not our dog, just lives here part time.
The sad part was the neglectful and mean owners. They finally agreed to let us and another neighbor pay the vet bills.
The poor thing was over weight. Go figure!
Maybe all the dogs followed you because they could smell the dog biscuits in your pockets?
As a paperboy for one summer I carried rocks in my pockets for loose, mean dogs when on my bicycle.
One day I threw a flat rock at one mean dog coming after me (as usual) — it caught the wind and smashed the owners’ large living room window … and they saw me (or claimed to have seen me).
What I have noted as typical behavior by the True Believers in climate change is reliance on two classical fallacies–Ad Hominem and appeal to authority.
Anyone who disagrees with the premises of AGW is a sellout to start with, and further attacks on the person follow.
The science is settled because we good people have decided it is so, and trying to doubt any of the major premises reverts back to use of an ad hominem.
Thank you Dr. Ball for another important essay.
I agree with you in the comments section on the nastiness coming from the left-wing of politics. Decades of interacting with and observing leftists has taught me that they think that the ends do justify the means. They think they are going to “save the world” and that means they walk on the side of angels even as they commit the most heinous of moral crimes. We saw some of that in the infamous climate-gate e-mails episode.
I have even noticed that those of us who believe that CO2 can not warm the planet get attacked from both the right and the left — but the really nasty stuff is from the left just as you pointed out.
I have always believed that the biggest issue is always war. I have been anti-war all my life and believe that mankind must find some way to stop fighting wars. But the climate wars take a close second — as the left is trying to use climate fears to dismantle the industrialized west. They want a return to a primitive state for mankind that would mean a population reduction on the order of several Billions of souls. They are truly vicious. There is nothing they would not do to further their agenda. This fight will remain very nasty.
Nearly all the sciences have had these battles. It is common, not rare. Some battles like inside the issue of evolution, rage for over 100 years. Astronomy has this feature, too, by the way.
My major at the university, was German and my minor was music, I played medieval instruments and the cello. And…I fought furiously and very loudly (hahaha) with the ‘Schönberg 12 Tone System’ believers. I hated 12 tone ‘music’ it makes me literally ill.
These battles were significant, a tug of war of us traditionalists and the modernists and continues to this very day. And the emotions are just as high, even murderously high. Oh, what fun. Then I had to get a real job!
Well, people are like this, all the time, all over the place.
Emsnews, my former wife majored in music theory at Wellesly and played the tenor viola da gamba. Later two year president of Chicago Symphony Orchestra Womens Association. While we lived in Munich we did a weekly quartet with downstairs neighbors (both MDs. Klaus played violin, Lioba played flute. i hacked along on our new Sperrhake harpsichord from Passau, spinnet variant). The harpsicord now sits in my Chicago foenhome. And I have learned to play Scott Joplin rags on it. But not as good as Scott Joplin. Far from it.
Emsnews: Take heart – in Schoenberg’s 12-Tone System, there is only 12 factorial (=479,001,600) tone rows that can be chosen as the basis of a piece. It is doomed finitude!
The difference is these other scientific battles were never about stripping people of their money and freedom for the sake of “saving the planet” from a non-existent crisis. If all this vitriol was just about a bunch of scientists arguing with one another, I wouldn’t care. When they try to use their turd-fashioned-as-science to cram their political agenda down my throat, that’s a whole different thing.
Dear Mark Stoval –
I appreciate your earnest conviction in opposition to war, but – – – –
Every time I see a bumper sticker that states “WAR IS NOT THE ANSWER”, I have to ask “Well, what is the question?”
The Revolutionary War was the right answer to the despotic policies of King George III, and thank God we had incredibly courageous men and women in the “colonies” to fight that war, and to pledge their fortunes, sacred honor, and lives to the cause.
The USA currently faces an invasion (not an “immigration”) that requires a similar measure of devotion and commitment to secure our republic for the future. America has an indigenous culture that is based on honesty, personal responsibility, personal property, Christian morality, rule of law, personal rights (life, liberty, property) endowed by our Creator (that is, not by government), and secured by a representative republican government (not by mob democracy). The Constitution and the Bill of Rights were written to limit the scope of government’s interference in the private affairs of American citizens.
We Americans are currently being invaded and under assault by foreign nationals, foreign values, and international cabals that seek to destroy the American virtues and principles listed above. Worse, they seek to replace our indigenous American culture and values with politically-correct internationalist moral relativism.
We need to fight this, and if that means war, count me in.
I’ve lived in the Middle East and I know (more than most) what Islamic society involves and what it demands when it invades other societies. Islam is absolutely antithetical to our venerated Constitutional principles of personal freedom and individual liberty. American culture and Islam can never co-exist in “peace” because Islam is completely dedicated to conquering and subjugation.
Muslims are extremely patient and willing to wait decades/centuries for Progressives to give them license to rule by Sharia.
Do not doubt me on this.
As a Conscientious Objector during the Viet Nam War, I had (and still have) the following moral conundrum:
I see the need for local protection (policeman) and global protection (standing armies) – but I myself am not willing to pull a trigger. I even see the need for executing prisoners (legally & justifiably condemned to death). I just want others to do the dirty work. Now is that moral?
GeoJim ( my name for you), I do not doubt you for a second, the sad thing is that in North America they only have history that is a few hundred years old and very few get taught the history of where they actually came from previous to that. I my view it is because US history lessons refuse to go beyond past the year 1776. ( and thanks for the video earlier with Dr Baliunas)
@GeologyJim
The USA has been at war continually for my whole lifetime. (long lifetime at that) We have fought aggressive wars against people who had done us no harm and did not have the capacity to do us any harm anyway.
These wars have made us hated, cost us unimaginable treasure, cost many lives, and ruined many lives. We became the destroyer of civilizations.
Strongman Saddam was keeping the crazies under control and we killed him. Now the crazies of Islam are here among us.
You mention the present problem we have being invaded by the Islamists — and we need to defend against that threat. But we caused that threat initially. There was no damn reason to have an interventionist policy in the middle east. My own uncle helped train the Shaw of Iran’s army to control the Iran population. Other relatives helped destroy Saddam’s Iraq.
As you sow, so shall you reap.
For people who aren’t capable of hurting us, they have done a lot of damage to us.
Some people insist on believing that unless the other side has a million men under arms and air craft carrier groups, then they don’t pose a threat and should be ignored.
Reality isn’t as simple as what you wish to believe.
Re: “War is not the Answer”
My response is – tell that to ISIS.
Sadly I have come to the conclusion that war is a natural and necessary part of the human experience. Wars,. although they are about resources usually, actually establish which culture will dominate. To want to win, rape pillage and acquire is universal. What strategy works is what is tested.
The triumph of technology has been to make it even more chancy than hitherto to the extent that a ‘conventional’ war of armies on the grounds is now unthinkable.
The attack on Gaddafi that killed his son achieved far far more than any armed conflict involving boots and tanks and Libya ever did.
We are fighting a war here today. The war as it happens of rationalism, and self determinism against sheeplike devotion to emotional causes. Our battleground is the blog, and the prize is the hearts and minds of our civilisation. And the power to exploit it for gain and wealth. ‘Climate change’ is a small battle in a larger operation.
People are getting hurt and killed just the same though. High stakes and high risk. So far the Left has had the winning strategy. Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt.
But will it be a Pyrrhic victory?
If the Left conquers the world, all the evidence is that they will not have the competence to run it, and it will collapse.
To my knowledge, I remain today the person longest in rank as an Assistant Professor in the history of Canadian universities.
This is significant because (at least in the US) Assistant Professors do not have tenure.
EJ,
This may vary with the institution. I received tenure as an associate professor at Foothill College (CA) in 1973.
Viciousness in science is not unique to climate, Vincent Courtillot gets a lot of grief for not falling into line with the notion that meteorite impacts explain all extinctions not attributed to Man and/or CO2, and paleontology is rife with my bones being the only significant ones.
Maybe part of the problem is that it is a game without a referee, but there does seem to be an amazing lack of sympathy for the contrarians, who should always be encouraged, just in case they are right.
I agree there should be sympathy. One critique I share is that many can’t fathom how wrong so many skeptics can be. So they reinforce that skepticism by condemning it as greed or lying or some sort of desire to flood earth, rather than seeing people have beliefs, there’s a lot of rhetoric and cherry picked “information” and claims – a lot of it actually sounding very logical – and its okay, even important, to recognize people’s right to be wrong or even (and more importantly) have different views on what is known. But ideologues – of whom this site is filled, and as the comments (to an outsider) make plain – seem to think that means the ideologues errors of logic – or perceived errors of logic – can’t be strongly critiqued without it being some sort of vile attack, while their actual vile attacks (of which there are some in these comments alone, though largely to an agreeing audience so it goes largely unseen) are just “debate.”
You still talk as if “climate science” that asserts CAGW has some validity, when the real world shows (despite the continuing efforts to change history to prop up the story line) that it does not. There is nothing remarkable about the current state of the Earth’s climate, the rate of warming that has been incorrectly blamed on CO2 levels generally and humanity’s minuscule contribution thereto, or weather “events.”
The burden of proof is on those predicting catastrophe and demanding economically ruinous policy to avert the alleged catastrophe, not on those who dispute the catastrophe’s existence. When you have some actual evidence, let us know.
“Sayre’s Law” is actually a direct quote from Henry Kissinger.
If you really want to know what is driving the nastiness in the widening chasm between AGWers and ‘skeptics’, follow the money. ALWAYS FOLLOW THE MONEY.
If you haven’t been aware of Jagadish Shukla’s petition to the US AG Lynch last year to prosecute ‘climate deniers’ under the RICO Act, a petition which he conned 19 other colleagues into signing, you haven’t been paying attention. His grants for research were bountiful, as are the grants to people like Michael Mann. If their research is actually shown to be incorrect, all those people lose their generous grants.
Politicizing science is/was the bastion of the Medieval government, the Church of Rome, which controlled everything, including exploration, discovery and innovation. The idiocy of turning science into an ideology poisons the entire process, but that is exactly what is going on now. When science, which is discovery, innovation and exploration, is compromised and forced into this mold, it is no longer science. It is twaddle, junk science, and Lysenkoism at its worst.
The perceived threats coming from Soon, Bauliunas and Curry meant that if they were right and the AGWers were wrong, the loss of income from grant money would be enormous, especially since the universities employing the AGWers get 50% of the cash as ‘overhead’, or some such definition. Michael Mann alone has brought millions of grant dollars to Penn State. The University doesn’t give a flying frack in space whether he’s right or wrong. They only care about the cash.
Follow the money. ALWAYS FOLLOW THE MONEY.
Thank you for a very good article Dr Ball. The worst of the hatred, rancour and outright violence comes from the Left of politics. The MSM is wholly on the side of the Left and defends its violence and irrational rage as fiercely as its own honour. I hope that you will continue the struggle for truth in the face of the Left’s vitriol. You are highly respected by us all for all your past efforts.
Just for the record: I did not mean to have the 1st comment on this thread. It was an accident.
Yes, I wanted to make my point. And I stand by my point.
But I did not intend to threadjack the article.
My respect for Baliunas and Curry is great. And justified.
Thanks for this article. It is eye opening.
Problems. Call.
https://youtu.be/StKVS0eI85I
@M Courtney March 4, 2017 at 1:09 pm: MC, Tim has it to rights. Having had to train to fight the ‘left’, I had reason to learn fast about them. They are relatively few, the serious ones, but have placed themselves well. Lies are their first recourse. Alinsky, oh yes indeed. Thankyou Dr Tim and friends, we have reason to be very grateful. Still much to do though….
You trained to fight the ‘left’?
I am the ‘left’.
And I’ve trained myself to talk to you and to share ideas with you.
Assuming you are not also the ‘left’.
You should be careful, the Left has a habit of eating their own if they show signs of drifting from the Mantra.
Heretics they consider dangerous, but an Apostate will be burned at the stake.
The first to be eliminated under Pol Pot were those that brought him to power.
Dr. Ball,
Spot on as usual.
Please update us on your unfortunate law suit by the “political scientists” in Canada.
They used to burn witches. The world is far more civilised now but the mechanism of the brain that prioritises in favour of righteous religious zeal over scepticism still operates in the same way.
Science is the opposite of religion. It is the pursuit of physical objective truth. If have an issue with a scientific conclusion show why it is wrong.
What is done here is religious like zeal of the refutation of an idea which people seem to not want to fully understand or accept, with, as part of that pattern, includes the projection of that “religion’ onto science itself under the flimsy cherry picking of a couple of people who sound alarmist rather than reasoned in their frustrated expressions of climate change concern.
And even if the do sound alarmist, so what. They have a right to be concerned, over concerned, etc. If it’s bad communication, tell them. Instead it’s used as justification for the made up but belief reinforcing idea that therefore climate science itself is largely hooey, rather than simply like all science advancement a process of sifting, correcting adjusting with the basic (very conservative) notion that capturing a lot more energy is and will substantially change climate from what it would otherwise be, has been fairly well established; and more importantly there’s nothing in support of any conclusion to the contrary but misconstructions, cherry picked slivers, and irrelevancies pushed as some sort of great insight (and fraudulent claims about made up frauds or in most cases the simple act, and sometimes mistakes, of science); all of which more strongly support the idea that skepticism is a very strongly pushed and reinforced belief system under clever chosen wording of “debate” than even the basic facts of the issue itself.
And that gets just as much in the way of rational conversation on the issue (which many “skeptics” want to achieve because they don’t want to discuss the best ways of dealing with what the issue actually is) as do alarmists that seem to come across as telling people what to think bc they think everyone thinks similarly and gets the same so called “news” and “information” (both of which are flagrantly wrong), so they must know the same stuff.
“Science is the opposite of religion” is correct in the same way that “Any sufficiently advance technology appears to be magic”, as Arthur C. Clarke once observed. I’ll pick just one other line from your comment
” with the basic (very conservative) notion that capturing a lot more energy is and will substantially change climate from what it would otherwise be, has been fairly well established”.
You show me the theory of clouds that predicts that they don’t act as a significant negative feedback by growing and reflecting more insolation as the planet warms, thus significantly reducing the sensitivity to growing CO2.
And there we have the replacement of one dogma by another.
Dude. Let me let you into a deep philosophical Truth. There is no way we can get to the objective truth, physical or otherwise. That’s the terrifying results of years of philosophical investigation, and the statement by scientists who should know better that because some scientific description works in a given context it means that there is ‘strong evidence’ that the description is true.
IN isolation, I could develop a hypothesis that because using the remote on the TV to select certain channels that seem to show pictures of people having sex, that in fact there are miniature people inside the TV having sex and what the control does is open a window into their bedrooms.
It is reasonable, it has predictive power, and its predictions are not falsified by experiment. In the absence of further data it also meets Occam’s criterion, Its very simple. Why introduce electronics and integrated circuits when you don’t need to?…
…Until you take the back off the set, and instead of little people, there are loads of electronics of unfathomable purpose…which is about where quantum physics is today.
Science is not a pursuit for truth, that was the realms of philosophy until it was concluded that the whole idea of truth was anthropic and relative to cultural values anyway, or perhaps to the language in which the philosophy was trying to be expressed. Suffice to say no one goes looking for truth, either in philosophy or in science.
It’s a post truth world mate. Opinion is divided between the left, who think that because truth is relative to language and culture, by changing the language you can change the truth, and a few small voices on the right of philosophy who say that just because the truth is unknowable, doesn’t mean there isn’t an objective truth, though we can’t ever know what it really is, so it does mean that some stuff works and some stuff doesn’t, which is as near as science and rational thinking will ever get.
Science may arrive at a truth relative to some model of how it assumes the world to be But it cannot prove that the model itself is true. That’s where Turing, Gödel, Hofstatder and others came in to basically say ‘you can’t get to the truth of a thing using the just the thing itself’.
If you like the true position is we know nothing for sure and science won’t change that. However we do have ideas that work and ideas that don’t, and so we can probably say that ideas that don’t work are certainly pretty useless apart from occasionally being pretty in a fluffy bunny sort of way and that probably means they are certainly NOT a true picture of the world.
All ideas are false, but some are more false than others.
Science is not about arriving at the objective truth, its about eliminating the ideas that are more false than the others.
Cultural cohesion demands emotional adherence to shared standards. That is good survival stuff. What is bad is when the elites – scientists law makers clerics and warriors, are forced to bow down to it as well. They should be independent and free to set new standards if these are appropriate.
To say we should have no emotional narrative is as dangerous as saying we must all share the same one.
A note here: all great civilizations rise on warm cycles and collapse on cold cycles. So knowing the future is highly important for all of us who don’t want to go into a literal Dark Age.
Secondly: the persecution of anyone who slightly deviates from ANY set position of a group of people and this includes people here at this site, leads to harsh language, insults and open hatred when debating science, of all things.
No one is immune to this, passions rise and rise and people are increasingly unable to debate unless one has the hide of a rhino, which I happen to have.
All of science has had these divisive debates periodically. When evolution came along, it caused debates that rage to this day. That is one prime example. Retreating from these debates happens frequently, too.
I knew, way back in the 1950’s, published evolutionary scientists who ended up being virtual hermits due to bruising battles in the past and was quite fortunate to have them as childhood teachers. But this is a characteristic of science, look at the debates about vaccinations or what to eat to live long lives (my old teachers would say, ‘Pick better parents for better genes’).
We understand why some people have to retreat to protect their health and sanity! It is OK to retire, I am retired and living on a mountain I happen to own. Peace and quiet except for hooting owls, gobbling turkeys or the howl of wild beasts at night. It is so much nicer than fighting battles at work.
Sounds like a great spot..for a windfarm
I have been following this argument since the late 1990’s after following a link from Junkscience.com.
From the beginning, I never thought the climate could be controlled by limiting combustion, as if we agreed not to build fires. Baliunas and Soon were reasonable.
I just had a comment disappear in nirvana, possibly in the moderation queue. On many blogs, one receives a message like “your comment is awaiting moderation” when that happens. Would it be possible to add this feature to WUWT? Thanks for consideration, M.
I had a post disappear completely yesterday. That’s the first time that has happened to me. I notice others have complained of the same thing lately.
Some of my posts will disappear for a while and then show up, but the one yesterday seems to be gone. And yes, usually when you are in moderation, there will be a little message saying as much, but that doesn’t happen when the posts just disapppear into the ether.
Michael Palmer: I have OFTEN had comments go both into “the spam bin” and into the moderation queue. When they go into the MQ, I get the “Your comment is awaiting moderation” message (this happened just today with my 1:54pm comment — I think it was that I forgot to misspell “den1err” (Grr!)).
When they just *poof* disappear, into “the spam bin,” (Anthony has mentioned that purgatorial place before), apparently, no one, not even our host knows for certain why. Anthony has guessed (or, maybe he knows??) that it is due to too many links per comment. Even when I break my multi-link comments up, though, sometimes only part of the comment gets through — or none. And sometimes, even WITH multiple links, the entire comment is immediately published. And I test and test and test all the potential “bad” words sometimes and still just end up with WHO KNOWS WHY! for an answer.
And ONE time (oh, brother), my cursor had slipped into the contact info. part of the reply box, and I had inadvertently typed a 6 or something, so, I was tagged as a “unknown commenter — no e mail on file” type person (or something like that) and auto-moderated.
WordPress is a giant PAIN, but, it’s the best WUWT can do without (IIRC) BIG BUCK (and, perhaps, also a ton of time Anthony does not have to implement a change over).
Caveat: If you use the name of a WUWTer who is currently in auto moderation, your comment goes into either (I can’t remember which — and who knows!! It could be BOTH!) moderation (with the courtesy of an explanatory message) or into the spam bin (rudely — by WordPress, not Anthony — just DUMPED into it!).
Tip: ALWAYS COPY YOUR COMMENT INTO A WORD (or other) DOC so you can later attempt to post it again. I’ve seen some people ask Anthony to find their spammed comment and he can’t find it. It is just GONE.
HOW TO CALL FOR HELP (when you fall into the spam bin): Write a comment in which you spell out moder@t0r in full and correctly — hopefully, there will be one on duty…..
Finally: Please accept my heartfelt sympathy. It is always a bit shocking and frustrating and VERY disappointing to be put into the spam bin (and the MQ, for me, too — ugh, makes me want to take a break from WUWT for a day or two or a week — and sometimes, I do! 🙂 ).
Correction: not BOTH into the MQ and SB, rather, either into….. or
about 50% of my posts say “your comment is awaiting moderation”. Not sure whether they are Too Long, or use Rude Words, or whether I am on some blacklist.
Sometimes they pop up later. Sometimes they dont.
The WUWT uncertainty principle, no doubt.
Yeah, the owner of the site actually claims to still believe ”the basic science is sound” about the fraud and maintains a long list of ”bad words you can’t say about criminals” or he claims his heart will be hurt.
He’s an alternative energy electric car salesman whose income drops off precipitously if the fraud gets solved and people start using real science sites instead of his cloaked ”AGW is real” website.
He’s tried to ingratiate himself into the scientific community but the real scientific community thinks a lukewarmer who says AGW is possible, to be the same thing as any other fraud promoter, won’t have anything to do with him.
He’s running the clock out on his career trying to profit from the fraud while seeming like a crusader against it.
Janice and Leo, thanks for explaining the mysteries of WUWT comment processing. I had already adopted the practice of typing up the comments in a separate editor first, so that they would not be lost in the ether. However, on this occasion, I had not used that precaution.
I am explaining this because of the experiences of two women involved in the climate debate….
I am sure you could add others. Susan Crockford comes to mind.
Is the most egregious statement in the whole article.
Why ‘women’?
Why not ‘scientists’?
To use a clearly gender specific term is to bring into play an unconscious sexism that really says more about Mr Ball than it does about the scientists involved.
We don’t do virtue signalling playing the gender card here do we?
Judith Curry is a damned fine scientist, of honour and integrity and courage whom I very much admire, but not because she is a woman, or despite her being a woman.
Oddly enough what she has to say is gender independent. I have a similar respect for Dr Robert Brown who occasionally enters the fray.
To play the gender card is to fall into the trap of putting on politically correct spectacles and viewing the world as yet another Marxist conflict – this time between the Dominant Male and the Exploited Female.
What utter cobblers.
The hand that rocks the cradle rules the world.
All the evil in the world is down to women, who make men what they are. If you want to play games with emotions and semantics.
Or:
http://vps.templar.co.uk/Cartoons%20and%20Politics/funny-baby-picture-control.jpg
You mentioned Alinsky’s book fascinating piece of work, I read it in college because I was attracted to a statement Alinsky made when debating William F Buckley. Buckley became a hero of mine after the 70s as I delved into finding out why Ronald Reagan was going to blow up the world, as he was portrayed in the late 70s, and my old Democratic roots. I used to watch firing line and Alinskly said something that appealed to me.. there is no progress without conflict. However that was step one, Alinsky’s idea was to create conflict, but once you are in the position of power, shut it down, And so it is here, We are all deceived into thinking this is about science, Why , we love it, If we could look at weather and climate 24/7 without getting paid, we would. This is light years different from the other side, There are no weather nut cases there. No one that cried when it didnt snow or ( sad to admit) a hurricane recurved. There are a weird blend of people jumping on board, for what ever reason, saving the planet, saving others, saving themselves ( they have no life if they dont get their way) or actually wishing to control others, For me its a spiritual problem, I believe in Gods absolute truth, but man has relative truth and ego and narcissism elevates one to a level higher than God. Okay you dont believe in God, fine, but man is not God and anyone wishing to control another for his purpose is in effect, playing God. But do you understand why I am bringing this up? not to make mad those that dont believe in God, but to say you are DEALING WITH PEOPLE WHO IN A SENSE DO BELIEVE THEY ARE GOD-LIKE IN THIS MATTER . And there is nothing absolute about their truths unless it directly involves what they want, Years from now, when objective historians look back at this, they will understand that this ruse is exactly what Alinsky preached, Conflict until you are in control then eliminate and distract people with small issues from your big one, A perfect storm of disinformation and relativism in a time where truth is needed. Peace to all
” A perfect storm of disinformation and relativism in a time where truth is needed.”
That applies to climate science and our current political situation. Who is spreading this disinformation? The Left and the MSM.
Sure, and there’s a cat I need to bell somewhere too…:-)
Two millenia or more of philosophy and we STILL dont know what truth is….
Hi Dr Ball, I tried to contact you through your website. I’ve sent an email to an old email address. If that does not get through the short message is that the answer to “Why are personal attacks so vicious when the subject is as innocuous as weather and climate?” can be found in The Academic Ape: Instinctive aggression and boundary enforcing behaviour in academia
(Note the date of publication does not necessarily imply what it may appear to imply).
Interesting article, have watched this for decades. The now supposedly civilized academic apes, instead of exterminating non-genetic offspring and other morbid primate actions, rely on administrative missives. Without analysis, and to the extent possible, these often replace, modify or damage existing competent programs established by others. I saw this first decades ago when I went back to graduate school and my replacement said he wanted my job to be able to administer, not mentioning the remarkable opportunity offered. I still regret leaving. There is the lack of appreciation, as Bastardi considered above, to be paid for something that you would do for free, if you could. There are several reasons why it has gotten worse, but one difficult solution is to significantly reduce administration and pay academics less but get rid of the hassle. Our founders studied history and realized it, but we may lose it.
I used to think that as a reasonably well qualified sceptic working in the subject for free that my efforts would be appreciated. It finally dawned on me that the more qualified I became the more I was seen as “treading on ‘their’ patch” and working for free was like a red rag to a bull – because if politicians realised that they could get as good (or better) information for free – why pay all these academic researchers?
The fighting within academia, when ideas are challenged is bitter enough, but when academia began to see it’s status as “experts” on so many subject being challenged on the internet – it reacted like any closed shop union.
The fundamental problem is that academia sees “climate” as a subject where it and only it, must be listened to. And we sceptics are treated with the contempt a householder would have for a group of unknown and uninvited students holding a party in their garden. Of course the fact that “climate” is public knowledge, that if anything the academics are holding a party in our garden being paid for by us … doesn’t mean anything to them.
Given the context is attacks on an academic – I should explain, that using the analogy of the party in “their” garden – Dr Ball is a little like a friend of the garden “owner” who said it was OK to party there.
Dr Ball is someone who they think should be on their side – but (quite properly) he is saying that climate is an area which the public are right to have a say about and that views other than the academic “mainstream” should be heard. This in effect makes him a “traitor” in the eyes of other academics. He and others like him become seen as the ones who invited in the unwanted party goers.
Thus we sceptics are contemptible – academics who support us and undermine the legitimacy of academic control over “truth” in climate are seen as despicable traitors.
Scottish Sceptic. I have found your link very interesting. I was wondering if we would still be waiting for some academics to invent an airplane instead we got one from a couple of bicycle mechanics.
When I first started in this debate, it wasn’t really a Left versus Right debate.
It was an exaggerated science versus it sounds probable debate.
But then the Left embraced it because they like to control things and it was a semi-anti-capitalist agenda. Then the environmentalists joined in on the pro-warming side because … well it raised lots of money.
The Right has always been skeptical because it is unproven science and the Right is mainly about prove that it actually works and I’m there to support it. But it has to actually work. Lots of things sound good on paper but they just backfire in the real world.
And now, it is emotional versus logical thinking debate. Left versus the logical thinkers. If you are an emotional person, you want Baliunas fired because it makes you “feel better” about the choice you have already made. Originally, it was strictly Michael Mann trying to preserve his hockey stick and the power that came with it. It was all about Power.
So that squares the circle now. It is still all about Power and Influence now. Whether that translates into $funding or votes or emotional reinforcement or who is controlling Congress. It is NOT about what is really going to happen.
Let us speak openly and clearly to each other. Climate Science is for Ball, Lindzen, Steele, et al to fight. The nastiness is political and must be fought on that field. How do you deal with fanatics? In the words of General Sherman “War is the remedy that our enemies have chosen. I say lets give them all they want”
Yup.
Who said this was a just world? the majority always tries to oppress the minority. But as soon as the tables turn the oppressed become oppressors.
Scientists are neither better nor worse than the rest of the people.
Strange how you viewed this Javier. This isn’t about majority/minority or oppressors/oppressed. It’s about right and wrong. I’m not a critic of AGW because I’m dense. I oppose CAGW because it’s wrong scientifically and the solutions are 1) political 2) draconian 3) inhuman. Most of us have no desire to live under the same sky as the little captain Kim and yet that is the type of government CAGW champions.
Everybody sees him or herself at the correct side of the issue. So it is not about being right or wrong.
Very few people can understand the science behind climate change with enough depth, so almost everybody takes a position and then justifies it. And even those that understand the science behind climate change can get it wrong. It happens all the time. So it is not a question of being scientifically right or wrong either.
So yes, it is a question of a divisive issue with the majority trying to drive the minority into irrelevance, and some people not doing it nicely.
I disagree, being right about the climate issue isn’t about concensus. Being right isn’t about belief. Being right is about being able to predict not make a projection. Being right is about defining the the true nature of things as they are and not as you wish them to be.
If the current CAGW mantra were correct, If, IF, I would support it. I would however, not support the solutions that they are pushing.
This argument in its form will destroy the leadership of the west in science. Whatever the outcome. If the mantra were correct, it’d destroy the fundamental government’s of the west via the solutions to the problem. Wrong, and it destroys the west via the same argument that established communism in Russia. A phantom 97 % concensus. A phantom 95% certainty that temperatures will reach a certain temperature by a certain date.
The laws of gravity aren’t subject to majority laws. Unless or until someone has evidence that our current understanding is wrong, they will stand. That does not mean however, that the laws which I currently hold cannot be changed. In my lifetime I haven’t seen where the number 9.8 m/sec^2 ,changed. Unlike the carbon record or the temperature. I can accurately predict the stopping distance of a huge jest linear flying at a given speed. I can accurately predict chemical reaction. I can predict traits in animals bred a certain way. The current climate science is not only useless in that it can’t predict anything, it is in fact harmful. And that not the majority, determines whether it’s right or wrong. And some people did very nicely during the Age of Faith too, and a lot didn’t.
If tomorrow I drive my car and the brakes fail, will the argument be any less relevant? If they pass laws declaring any skeptic as an enemy of the state, a criminal against humanity, will that diminish the argument ? The only example of someone so enlightened that he doesn’t need to go poo is the little captain. I guess because a majority believe it, it must be so. Is that what you’re saying ?
Yeah, that’s what the alarmists say too.
Of course the great thing about human ‘rights’ is that there are so many to choose from. You cant let the so called scientific truth stand in the way of a morally right theory now can you?
It is about oppressors/oppressed, because Marxism says it is. It is about majority/minority, because that’s how ideas get enforced.
It is about Bandar Log politics: We all say it, so it must be true.
Have you seen a prediction made by CAGW that has been right ? Other than bending the warmest ever out of context, and no where near the models they trotted out.
It is not a matter of consensus. The science of climate is so complex and so new that nobody can claim to understand it. Nobody has a clue about the role clouds play in climate change, to put a simple example. Therefore no side can claim to be right except by chance. It is very common in science that several competing hypotheses can explain most of the evidence. Scientists will then choose one of the hypotheses and each will have its supporters. As knowledge advances some of the hypotheses will be discarded, and other modified. In the end some scientists might have been correct, or perhaps they were all wrong and a non considered possibility turned out to be the right one. It doesn’t really matter.
You believe that you are right, but so do others with the opposite view. What you or they believe is irrelevant. The only thing that matters is the continue accumulation of knowledge and evidence, because that’s how science advances and self corrects. The disputes between earthcentrics and heliocentrics are interesting, but irrelevant. What it is important is that we know solar system mechanics well enough to put satellites in orbit, and send probes to other planets.
Climate scientist can’t even get it right by chance. The odds of being 100% wrong are astronomical.
It’s worse than that. I keep meaning to do a piece on where science and maths are at these days and it ain’t pretty,
Not only do we not understand it, but its highly likely that even if we did, we wouldn’t be able to use that knowledge to make accurate predictions anyway. What people don’t seem to get about chaos is that knowing the right formula is one thing, being able to integrate it reliably over time is an impossibly huge task that is subject to errors due to our inability to measure everything accurately enough, and our inability to have adequate computing power or adequate time, to get close enough to a right answer to be useful.
In short the tools both scientific, IT, and mathematical, at our disposal are not adequate to the task of predicting the climate and there are no lines of research that suggest they ever will be .
The massive advances that happened in theoretical science all hinged on a new maths that had never been thought of – Newton’s and Leibniz’ Calculus. OK there were some other things in new maths as well, but this was the key breakthrough that allowed a small subset of natural phenomena to be specified as soluble equations.
Leaving the vast majority of them as insoluble equations.
The advent of the digital computer has meant that a few more that are relatively simple can be solved by methods that would be impossibly long winded otherwise, but the bulk are still insoluble.
And that is why they picked climate. You can’t prove they are wrong, except by waiting over time. You can’t come up with a better model because none of them work at all.
Climate is inherently unpredictable. We have wasted trillions on a problem that can’t be solved, not now, and possibly not ever.
Anyone who claims they can is a fraud and a liar.
“It is not a matter of consensus. The science of climate is so complex and so new that nobody can claim to understand it. Nobody has a clue about the role clouds play in climate change, to put a simple example. Therefore no side can claim to be right except by chance.”
I can claim that there is no evidence available today which shows that humans are causing a net increase of heat in the Earth’s atmosphere by burning fossil fuels.
Alarmists can’t prove me wrong.
Skepticism isn’t all that complex. One doesn’t have to know every nuance of the climate to know alarmists don’t have any evidence that CAGW is real.
Btw, the wind has been blowing awfully hard here in Eastern Oklahoma all day. Folks to the east of us should keep their weather eyes open because it’s headed your way.
It’s been blowing here on the east slope in Colorado. Very unpleasant. Cold I might add.
The treatment of Curry has been horrible. And instead of speaking-out about it, alleged fellow climate scientists like Michael Mann encourage it.
Yes. See my reference to her resulting amicus brief in comment above. Includes legal specifics.
The treatment of Curry has been no more horrible than many others. She has had to be destroyed as many others have been before her.
Its just your innate sentimentality about women making it seem that way 🙂
It’s about money and power. Without the money, the power wanes. And without these two, only the science is left. We shall see.
Dr Tim Ball – thoughtful, dignified, insightful – I like your style!
deanfromohio,
You said, “Atheists often have a problem with their relationship with their fathers, and perhaps this is the reason why they never learned to treat women with respect.” Do you have a creditable citation for that claim, or is it just your personal opinion?
A Jewish woman I knew a long time ago dismissed the whole of Christianity in three words:
“Pah! Child psychology”!
Another Jewish woman I knew years ago said the “the problem today is no one knows how they ought to behave”
What is the Christian God but the ultimate father figure anyway?
It’s the Christians who have problems with the relationship with their fathers, surely ? :-0)
“Another Jewish woman I knew years ago said the “the problem today is no one knows how they ought to behave”
I think if you followed the teachings of Jesus, you would be behaving in the proper manner.
If you follow the “Golden Rule”, you will also be behaving in the proper manner. Golden Rule: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”
Well that was my point. Christian morality works. That says nothing about the actual existence of God though. Which was my other point.
That’s all well and good, but sometimes it needs to become “do unto others what they have done to you already”.#
If someone has stolen from me, I feel no compunction about stealing back.
Leo and deanfromohio, you both make good points.
“If someone has stolen from me, I feel no compunction about stealing back.”
If someone steals from me, I have no compunction with putting them in jail. 🙂 As far as I’m concerned, they brought that on themselves, and deserve to be punished. This should of course, all be done within a legal framework, if we want our society to function properly.
The most intense and persistent attacks are often reserved for people who are perceived to present the greatest threat to the narrative. For today’s progressive left, that often means people who they think and expect should be on their side: women, “minority” groups of various descriptions, everybody knows the lists these days.
Thus when you look at the names of, say, Soon, Baliunas, Curry, Lindzen, and also people like Bjørn Lomborg, they are all people who the progressives arrogantly expect to be “one of us”. Thus their punishment is often greater.
“Another story that requires exposing is the damage, chaos, and death caused by the push for ethanol as an alternative fuel to replace the evil CO2-producing fossil fuels.”
Here is an example of Timmy boy being civil.
What I learned from Timmy boy’s essay is that his time spend on science has not prepared him for living in the real world or to comment outside of his narrow field of study.
For example, for many years I was afraid of dogs. One of my earliest memories is being pinned to the ground by a large dog after getting off the school bus. This fear was reinforced because dogs would attack me because they sensed fear.
I think it was a book by Jack London where I learned dogs were instinctively afraid on men with sticks and how to kill a dog. With this knowledge, I am no longer afraid of dogs nor have I had to be mean to one.
Knowledge overcomes fear.
The second life lesson Timmy does not get is ‘turn the other cheek’. This lesson is at least 2000 years but is not understood very well. Life is full of insults. Sometimes because because stupid is not something we like to hear, we take it as an insult.
It is how we handle our emotions.
When Dr Ball calls American farmers killers I am wondering why he is not worried about their feelings.
“The second life lesson Timmy does not get is ‘turn the other cheek’. This lesson is at least 2000 years but is not understood very well.”
I wonder if you do, Kit. It sure looks to me like you’re intent on striking Mr. Ball’s cheek, so to speak, in response to feeling insulted by him . .
iYe have heard that it hath been said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth:
But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also.
You sure you’ve got the right idea there?
Sadly the instruction to ‘turn the other cheek’ only applies in civilised societies bound by common agreement that stability and peace are more mutually profitable than confrontation.
When you meet someone who is not bound by such common conventions game theory shows the correct response is to kick him in the nuts till he has learnt and agreed to abide by the conventions.
wishy washy politically correct ‘dont abuse children’ has removed this from our culture, leaving it ripe for takeover by anyone with the selfishness and discipline to form a group of people who say ‘strike first kill and rape and pillage’
“With guns in their hands and God on their side” may have been a wry comment on the hypocrisy of the West, but it was an effective way of proceeding for all that.
John
You are a little confused. It could be my writing skills or your reading skills.
Timmy boy did not insult me. I pointed out the ball is not very civil.
John do you think calling people killers is civil?
Then I provided suggestions of better ways of handling problems. When I read timmy’s essay I come to the conclusion that he is not very good at that.
With respect to the bible verse, turning the other cheek does not mean you do not stand in the way of evil. It how you go about standing in the way of evil. As Leo suggested below, there are some societal issues. There are some that hold a grudge that justifies beheading me for something that happened 700 years before I was born.
On the issue of nasty people in the work place or school, I have saved two young men from suicide. One young father in my division missed his family and was not handling deployment very well. He was not handling being picked on. Life is hard on a ship especially for lost lambs. Fortunately, on his way to jump overboard after getting off watch our paths crossed on the way for me to take the mid watch. He was obviously distressed. I shared that I prepared for not getting any sleep and dealing with a**holes, by keeping a picture of the family in my bible and reading a few passages. Find a way to get mentally off the ship. Please do not mention that I read the bible. Being a harda** MF was good defense to dealing with back stabbers.
The second occurrence was many years later dealing with the things parents deal with. A 7th grade boy gave me a prized possession at a Sunday picnic. I did not know the boy or parents well enough to have a serious discussion not that a picnic is a good place to discuss red flag behavior. I called that evening and finally convinced his mom to find counselling for him instead of going to work. She called the next day. He had a rope in his back pack and a pretty good plan to off himself. Apparently he was being picked on at school. I think there was more to it than that but it was not my business.
Sometimes life is not easy.
Leo,
“Sadly the instruction to ‘turn the other cheek’ only applies in civilised societies bound by common agreement that stability and peace are more mutually profitable than confrontation.”
I believe the verses speak of confrontation . . To strike one on the right cheek, meant to backhand them with the right hand, a demonstration of power over the person struck rather than an attack. To turn the other cheek meant to continue the confrontation . . but non violently.
The people he was addressing were going to confront the Jewish establishment, and then the Romans, as he did. He was instructing them on how to win. They did, eventually, and hence we discuss the matter in a society bound by common agreement . . that confrontation is manageable, and does not call for trading blows.
Once you say something that Kit disagrees with, you are forever on his sh$t list.
My admiration never wavers for those that continue to fight the good fight for what we were trained on as empirical, reproducible, classic science in the toughest forums and for the long-haul. Being silenced is not a longterm option for any of us. That doesn’t mean, of course, that people can’t take turns on the front lines to catch their breath. Thank you for hanging there.
When you cannot change the facts to fit your narrative you destroy those that disagree with you. This is a classic strategy of totalitarian politics.
Kit, you managed to take Tim Ball’s words, “Another story that requires exposing is the damage, chaos, and death caused by the push for ethanol as an alternative fuel to replace the evil CO2-producing fossil fuels.” and produce tabloid headline “Dr Ball calls American farmers killers.”
You certainly have a talent for interpretation. But when you use it for character assassination, I can’t help but think that it’s wasted on you.
“The Renewable Fuel Standard, because it is currently dominated by corn grain ethanol, is responsible for reduced air quality over much of the U.S., which leads to increased mortality,” Dr. Jason Hill, an associate professor of bioproducts and biosystems engineering, told House lawmakers in a hearing on the federal ethanol mandate.
http://thelibertarianrepublic.com/scientist-the-ethanol-mandate-is-killing-people/
another stupid Tim
I am afraid this Tim is just as serious and dr tim.
I skeptical of the science of AGW because it is a weak theory and bad modeling. However, it seems like many here are not equally skeptical or other science based weak theory and bad modeling.
“leading to more deaths from poor air quality in the Midwest and along the East Coast”
This not true. No one is dying from poor air quality in the US. It simple our air quality is good. Not even close to the threshold of harm.
If you tell lies, calling you a liar is not ‘character assassination’.
I’m wondering how much money Kit’s family makes from farming corn.
He’s certainly willing to make all kinds of outrageous claims to attack anyone who dares to disagree with him on the subject.
Reblogged this on Climatism and commented:
“The level of animosity and nastiness in debates and discussions is a symptom of the collapse of civility, and that can presage a collapse of civilization.”
““A deciding factor was that I no longer know what to say to students and postdocs regarding how to navigate the CRAZINESS in the field of climate science. Research and other professional activities are professionally rewarded only if they are channeled in certain directions approved by a politicized academic establishment — funding, ease of getting your papers published, getting hired in prestigious positions, appointments to prestigious committees and boards, professional recognition, etc.” – Judith Curry
“I became outraged when I discovered that much of what the IPCC and the media were telling us was sheer nonsense and was not even supported by any scientific facts and measurements.”
An important and must read…
George Bernard Shaw was also key in founding Fabian socialism. A true wolf in sheep’s clothing. CAGW acolytes adhere to Fabianism as their constructed model is too complex for lay persons to understand. Almost a caste society..like Aldus Huxley penned in Brave, New World.
Yes, national socialism was leftist. To think otherwise shows the fault of linear thought.
George Bernard Shaw was not a founder of the Fabians. Although he was instrumental in using its funds to found the London School of economics, a stronghold of Marxist theory to this day.
“But, in practice, burden of proof is an evolving thing—it evolves as the amount of evidence relevant to a particular proposition grows.”
The beguiling pseudo-intellectual velvet glove covering the emotional iron fist of ‘the science is settled’ and cop that Holocaust deniers. I’ll keep my distance thanks.
On the contrary, I think you have almost hit the nail on the head.
You have I feel correctly identified that it is into the space left when ‘God Died’ that a lot of nonsense has been poured.
However that doesn’t mean in my book we should resurrect God. We need something to fill that space and political correctness ain’t it, but no more is e.g. Radical Islam or fundamental Christianity.
My question to you, which was an answer to devout friend of mine who said that ‘prayer worked’, was :
“Sure, but isn’t the point really that prayer works and society works if one behaves AS IF God existed without it actually being in any way necessary that He does?”
Wasn’t it the left which coined the terms ‘denier’ to describe rational people, ‘carbon’ to describe carbon dioxide, ‘climate change’ to describe global warming …. and proudly uses them all?
I was left wondering what happened to Sallie Baliunas having been prepared for something that apparently wasn’t known. Did I miss something?
I do not understand your post.
Courtney: But it is NOT a “science question” any longer. Reputable science has demonstrated that CAGW is a failed hypothesis. It is now a POLITICAL question, and has been for some time.
Ask the warmers if they have ever considered that they might be wrong, even for a second.
Where is the proof that climate “science” is based on science? It’s not based on thermodynamics which should be a natural base for it. Rather it is based on dubious statistics and even more dubious computer models which are then used as inputs in even more dubious statistical models.
True scientists argue by running experiments with clearly defined rules about how to replicate those experiments to either prove or disprove the results. Climate “science” relies on consensus, bullying, data manipulation, extreme efforts to deny replication, vanishing data and self destructing computers.
Nothing in climate “science” will ever approach what Maxwell and Hertz did for electromagnetism or the modern day discovery of gravitational waves.
Maxwell used pure mathematics to formulate the laws of electromagnetism. Hertz used these laws to create physical experiments to demonstrate their truth. Every time you use a cell phone, you demonstrate the truth behind the science.
Every single part of the cell phone including the software follows either well proven mathematical principles or well established physical facts supported by numerous, replicable experiments.
Nothing in climate science is supported by mathematics, results are not reproducible or robust. Science can send a probe on a years long voyage to a tiny rock in the vastness of space. Climate science can might be able to predict weather two or three days in advance, but not with any real precision.
There are a multitude of religions and endless, often violent arguments about which, if any, religion is correct. Since there is no rigorous proof that any religion is correct, the endless arguments will continue forever.
It’s the same with climate “science”. Without a basis in mathematics and no basis in established scientific facts like the laws of thermodynamics, just like religion there will be endless, violent arguments with no possibility of ever discovering the truth.
There aren’t two sides to the argument, there are three. True believers, deniers and the third who are wondering what the hell everybody is arguing about.
Use caution and a [big] grain of salt when it comes to describing hate and politics/ideology. A significant platform of the Left is that of victim-hood and blame-throwing. There are elements of the Left that feel that it is their duty (to the ’cause’ or whatever) to promote this platform at all costs. Even if that means attacking their fellow Leftists anonymously. As it has been demonstrated again and again, the perpetrators of the worst attacks have overwhelmingly been peoples of their own ilk. The benefits being to smear the opposition and elevate the platform of victim-hood.
At least so far, heretics are burned at the stake today in a different fashion. Some of have called for heretics to be jailed, and considering the 20th century record of the left re-education labour camps could also be on the menu.
As far as AGW / Climate Change / Warming-Cooling-name-du-jour is concerned, it’s always BEEN about the money and it will always BE about the money.
The worst part about this is that governments, who don’t give a rat’s behind whether Climate Change proponents are correct or not, have found a cash cow in Climate Change and they are not about to give that up.
To justify those added taxes – such as the “carbon” tax – those governments will keep on pounding the message that “Oh, yes, those scientists know what they’re talking about” and give those scientists more money, who, of course, are quite happy to get that money and then give the governments the answer the governments are looking for.
As was commented earlier here, FOLLOW THE MONEY.
The average temperature of the Earth is 22.34567890123 degrees. Prove me wrong.
You forgot to mention +/- 1.0 degrees
I never criticize a man until I’ve walked a mile in his shoes. That way, when I do criticize him, I’m a mile away, and I’ve got his shoes.
— Jack Handey
A full Sunday of thought provoking reading thanks to Dr. Ball’s post and all the excellent comments. My heart bleeds for Judith Curry, Sallie Baliunas, Willie Soon and so many others whose lives have been adversely impacted because their science has been hi-jacked by politics and the quest for a biased system of granting billions of research dollars. The Republican/Trump control of the U.S. Federal Government for the next four years hopefully will be much to take the science back from the politicians and the huge research grants they control. Cross your fingers.
“Why are personal attacks so vicious when the subject is as innocuous as weather and climate?” Because the topic isn’t really the weather and climate, it’s CO2 emissions. If the anti CO2 emissions gang left the room climate science could become a helpful scientific discipline like it should be.
The topic is actually something else altogether. Its about a whole structure and systems of belief about humanity, society, politics and man’s relationship, or lack of it, with the world and with a God who no longer seems feasible.
Climate change is just a way of creating a useful superstition about mankind’s Fall from Eden-like innocence into the guilty sin of destroying Paradise with Science, Thinking, Technology and Intelligence.
It is part of the parable written by the Left for people who never grew up.
Well, try commenting on a skeptic website in support of climate science.
I find that of the ones which don’t automatically censor non-skeptic views (Breitbart, Paul Homewood) I get only abuse in return for posting a link to a piece of science which contradicts the commenter.
This site is a general exception to that rule, I should add, but a rare one.
Remove the beam from your own eyes…
When you re-post the same disproven lies over and over again, you can expect abuse.
So lying MarkW should expect this.
Griff and MarkW are different sides of the same fake news coin. They believe that it must be true if they read it internet. The truth is not an a matter of opinion.
Making electricity with nuclear reactors put me in the category of those who can do. How do I know what is true? Truth is based on measurements with calibrated instruments providing evidence. When someone is killed, there is an investigation and evidence is collected. Those who ‘can’ mist attend safety meeting. For example, a worker fell to his death because an engineer made a mistake on a calculation for a temporary work platform.
If you are a college professor you can claim people are killed based on a weak theory and model. I look for the evidence, there is no evidence.
I know some here think I am unfair to college professors. I hold them to a higher standard. If you have demonstrated the intelligence to get an advance degree, you should be smart enough to tell the truth.
I could be wrong. Maybe the advance degree only shows you know how to be politically correct and tell your committee what they want to hear.
“…on one occasion was attacked by a large dog. Since then I have been afraid of large dogs…”
Depends on how you deal with it. I carry a canister of pepper spray. Used it, once, against an aggressive pit bull. Works quite well.
I love dogs. Dogs are good people. Although, like people, some dogs can be mentally disturbed.
I had four pitbull dogs once, two females and two males, inside a six-foot-tall chainlink fence all around my house. One night the two males got into a fight (a father and his son) over the females, and I went out and tried to separate them. The two females had started fighting each other too, when the males started in.
I have my yard sectioned off into several separate areas, and I managed to drag both females, while they are fighting, over to the gate, and managed to get them separated long enough to shove one through the gate and shut it, which stopped the females from fighting.
And then I went to separate the males and you talk about a wrestling match! I had one pitbull in one hand and the other in my other hand and I could manage to get them separated about a foot or so, but then they would lunge back together and continue fighting. So after doing this about five times, I decided I had to change my method and I went and got some chain and I fastened it around one of the males neck and dragged both of them over by the fence post and tied the one dog to the post, and then I was able to use both hands to pull the big male off the other one and drag him across the yard far enough away where I could chain him down safely, too.
What I found notable was that none of the four pitbulls attempted to bite me at any time during all this vicious biting and fighting, which probably lasted at least ten minutes, and it was scary, but no bites to me. I even stuck my entire forearm in my big pitbull dog’s mouth at one time and he would not bite down on it.
I had to separate the four dogs after that and kept one male and one female in the backyard, and one male and one female in the front yard. They got along that way, but it was sad to me that they had to be separated for the rest of their lives like that. They were good dogs.
I only have two now, neither of which are pits.
And the reason they didn’t bite me is probably because I raised them all from pups. It’s not a good idea to jump in the middle of dog fights. Even those you know. 🙂 But everything worked out.